Lost Boys

Of Hillbillies and Half-Truths

Flashback flashback flashback

This idea was crazy.

There was no way Stan wasn't jumping to absolutely enormous conclusions right now.

He stood uncertainly at the edge of the junkyard, Journal 3 clenched in his hands and tapping his thumbs on it in his agitation.

Inside he could hear someone whooping and yodelling to himself, while strumming out some crazy tune on a banjo.

This can't be right...but what if it is?

Because who else in this nutty town had the brains to build giant robots using only whatever scraps he could dig out of the dump? Who else played banjo, and talked with a Southern accent (unless you counted that dopey Durland kid, who wasn't even the right age)?

It was kind of a long shot, but sometimes-very rarely sometimes-one of Stan's hunches would turn out right.

He exhaled long and deep, and then climbed through the gap in the fence.

Crazy McGucket, as everyone called him, was sitting in the shelter of a pile of cars as he played, more concerned about enthusiasm than tune or tempo. Surrounding him in a semicircle were a possum, a raccoon, and a set of tin cans that had stuffed animal heads placed on top of them. It shouldn't be possible to blend sad, funny and disturbing together all at once, but somehow he was managing it with this little concert.

Stan cleared his throat.

"Hey, McGucket?"

The sentient members of the little group all startled at the sound of his voice; the animals fled into the dump, and McGucket grabbed his banjo up by the neck, turning it into a makeshift club. But after a second his skewed eyes kind of focused in on Stan, and his face split into a wide, gap-toothed grin.

"Well, howdy!" he chirped, setting down the instrument and bounding to his feet. "C'mon in, feller-I was jes thinkin' it'd be nice ta have company! Care fer half a possum shishky-bob?"

A skewer holding a chunk of slightly charred meat was thrust under his nose.

Stan blinked, and then, with a small shrug, he accepted the skewer. "Sure, thanks." Without even asking which half of the possum it was, he took a bite.

It was probably very sad that he could say, in all honesty, that he'd had worse.

McGucket looked oddly poleaxed. "Ain't nobody who's visited me ever accepted food I tried ta offer 'em before."

Stan swallowed the mouthful. "I've learned not ta be a picky eater." Without quite meaning to, he found himself taking another bite (and deciding it could use a little salt, or maybe some hot sauce) as he followed the hillbilly into his...house in only the loosest sense of the word.

Stan had to crouch a little to avoid smacking his head against the ceiling; he practically had to sit down in the name of self-preservation.

McGucket's body was in such a naturally hunched position that he had no such trouble; he just perched himself on an overturned washtub, swinging his legs like someone much younger than he looked and babbling on about something before Stan interrupted him.

"Is your name Fiddleford?"

It was kind of abrupt, yes; but he didn't have time to waste dodging around the issue, he needed to know now.

McGucket started. "How-how'd ya know that?"

Stan felt his pulse race; he had been right, he was sure of it now. It had been just one little entry, but he doubted there was anyone else around here with that name.