Writers, Pulp Noir

2009-11-14T15:11:00.000-08:00

Check out Cleveland's newest serial killer, Anthony Sowell. The pointy head killed them and then kept them close, in the walls, the basement, the crawl space, the backyard. If there's one thing Ohio has, it's plenty of psychopaths. Can I get an amen? http://lfugett.com/ClevelandTorsoMurders.html

2009-07-08T14:01:00.000-07:00

Have a manuscript lying around, a short story, noirish in theme? Run it by my web site. It just might be publishable. Check out Writers' forum at lfugett.com

2009-05-29T08:40:00.000-07:00

Arrrg! Is anyone out there? Or are they all on the porn sites?

2009-05-07T08:49:00.000-07:00

I have a new book out on the market from Tainted Coffee Press, entitled Hollywood Iliad, a Tincture of Red. It's all about the aftermath of Senator Joseph McCarthy and the Commie Inquisition of the 1950s, Murder and Mayhem. If you're a Geezer, as I am, and you like the old Hollywood Movies, this book is for you. Check-out the video at the bottom of this blog. Better Yet, check out my website. Some of the last century's more bloodthirsty live there.

http://www.lfugett.com/ Please post a link to my website and I'll return the favor. Thank you

2008-04-21T14:20:00.000-07:00

I haven't abandoned this blog. It's very important for authors to realize what they're getting into when they sign on with Publish America. I'm leaving it up for a while longer, so please feel free to comment.

LW Fugett 4-21-08

2007-07-30T08:57:00.000-07:00

7-10-2010 Take another look at Publish America: as predicted, they have lowered their prices on all books. A hardcopy can now be purchased for less than $15 bucks and a paperback for less than $9. Kentucky Justice is now competitive. Go for it!

The following was posted several years ago

So many of the authors on the public message boards at PA have been debating the issue of whether Publish America is a vanity press that I decided to give them the benefit of my publishing knowledge. I posted, knowing that I would be censored as soon as the administrators saw the post. They wasted no time. One person got to read it, and zapow it was gone. So here it is again.

Hello out there, I say with cupped hand to ear. Haven’t you figured it out yet? Why do you suppose our books are so overpriced? (I’ll probably get blacklisted for this—but truth will out.) Publish America is most certainly a vanity press, but with a Madison Avenue twist: a dollar advance and a contract. A contract and a binding advance, huh? That signals non-vanity press, right? Ok, the dollar didn’t send you into orbit but the contract was an immediate ego massage.

PA has invested in that very word, VANITY. It counts on you, your family, and your circle of friends buying the book at the exorbitant price. Any further sales is just gravy. When your book came out, do you remember how excited you were? Of course, you do. You were ecstatic. So, how many of you rushed to order 10, 20, 50, even 100 copies? Most of you, right? I don’t know what PA’s break even number is, but it’s not very high, because it costs them very little to produce a book.

Push the ego aside and look at the situation objectively—then get on with promoting your book.

1) PA has very little invested in your book, since you did all the work in writing it and, yes, even editing it. If it needed heavy editing, it wouldn’t have been accepted in the first place. (Bubba and his treatise on night crawler ‘ketchin’ is just too costly to unsnarfle. It’s a sale lost but a major embarrassment and bad pub avoided.) They may scan your book for typos and misspellings but there are no major artistic changes made. In many cases, you even designed the cover. (A book cover can be designed and laid out ready for print by a professional in a couple of hours or less, even I can do it.) For the entire book, we’re only talking about a few hours work for PA since everything is done digitally on the computer. Ok, the book is formatted and the cover is ready.

2) The book goes to a print-on-demand digital press where any number can be printed on the cheap, from one to the max. (This is another economy factor. There does not have to be a thousand-book press-run with hopes that the book sells, perhaps be left with a printing bill and 998 pads of toilet paper.) One hundred pound cover stock is less than ten cents per, and sixty pound bond paper & ink is less than, or right at two cents per page. A 300-page book will cost less than $4.50 to produce in materials and ink. If you have your calculator out, a 300-page book has only 150 actual sheets of paper since the print is on both sides.

My point: nobody has given you anything, big break or otherwise. You deserve to be in print. You wrote the book; you did the WORK, and I’ll say it again YOU did the WORK, no matter what PA is. Don’t spend one more moment debating being worthy. You’ve shown determination and spirit in getting this far—and I am amazed at the resourcefulness in promotion found here. So, go kick ass and fugitabout it.

Direct all hate mail to yours truly, LW Fugett. I can handle it****

PS. (If you want a better alternative to Publish America for your next book, drop me a note and I'll show you the way. The means are right here on the net, and you can control everything, especially price.)

Question: Hi there, Just read your spill om Publish America. What is your opinion on Outskirts Press? Tell me more about what I can find on the internet. Where did you get most of your work published and were you satisfied. Curious to know, (Name withheld as a courtesy to author.)

Answer: Hi H-----, sorry for the delay. Outskirts Press is as good as any on the net if one wants to pay to be published. And there's absolutely nothing wrong with paying except the stigma, not of being ripped off by a publisher or anything so nefarious, but of having to pay to get one's work into print. Actually there's nothing wrong with Publish America but the contract and the outrageous retail price demanded. (I have a main line publisher who wants my book, Kentucky Justice, and it's locked up with PA for 7 years. I screwed up, big time.) A first time author trying to promote a 20-dollar book is probably going nowhere except to friends and relatives. Even if the book were to magically make it to the bookstores, no one is going to take a 20-dollar chance on an unknown and buy it. They may if it were half that price and it was a good book, properly promoted, but even then, it would be doubtful. The best option is Lulu publishing. It's free and you get the same promotion on Amazon, Barnes & Nobles, and others on the net. You will have to do all of the work, formatting, editing, book cover, etc., but those things are simple to do with their instructions. Best of all, you are in control--and you get to set the retail price, above cost, of course. There's no contract. You can have an audio made if you wish, an e-book, promote Look Inside on Amazon or anything you choose. By the way, the latter two are not permitted with PA. I am currently with Tainted Coffee Press, a new company, with which my company, Noir Publishing is an affiliate. Take a look at the price of Murder in the Bluegrass on AD. It’s the right price. I just got the book placed with a few bookstores, and it’s moving at 11-dollars per. If you decide to go with Lulu for your next book and need any help, give me a yell. I’ll help you with any stumbling blocks—even the cover. Thanks for the note and don’t be a stranger** LW Fugett

Question/ Statement: If PublishAmerica is running such a good racket as you imply, where are all the me toos? I guess the vast majority of PODs must be uninformed or unconvinced because the PA model is almost never copied. The way to get rich with a POD is not by giving something for nothing! My contract doesn't bind me to anything except that they have the rights to a book nobody wants. They get nickels and dimes compared to the gold mine in pay up front publishing. Also not mentioned in your article is that some PA authors can sell movie rights without giving anything back. (Name withheld)

Answer: Hi E-----. Thank you for the rebuttal. I would have expected as much from PA when I posted rather than to have been censored. However, the point to my article was not to expose PA as a “racket”, but to inform its authors of the misnomer they were marching to. The controversy at PA among the authors (because PA’s design was to intentionally promote an impression and set PA apart) was, is, and always will be whether the potential buyers of their books consider PA a vanity press, especially the book store owners who do not want to stock PA’s books, number one, because they are so over priced, and number two, because they are non-returnable (except for a select few that do sell). Let’s be realistic. Like any other vanity press out here, PA has some real dogs in print that are nothing more than drivel. Bookstores are in business to make money, not to stroke our egos.

As far as the seven-year contract is concerned, consider it a seven-year annuity for PA. If only four books per year are sold per author at twenty dollars a book, (this is a conservative estimate with 20, 000 authors under contract, and PA states up front that they fully expect you to promote your book for the entire seven years) Pa will gross 11, 200,000 dollars. For those four books, what will the author receive? A few dollars and an ego massage. Of course, that may well be payment enough.

A movie deal? Another come-on. It’s only mentioned to implant the notion of possibility. The odds are astronomical.

FYI, there is a better alternative here on the net, and it’s free, but, sad to say, it’s also a vanity press.

E-----, I’m only the messenger and I fully expect to be shot. Thank you.

LW Fugett

Question: Hi L Fugett: Please tell me what is the internet alternative to PublishAmerica? If you mean Lulu.Com its a total rip off. I dont understand why a publisher doesn't charge $ is a Vanity Press. (Name withheld)

Answer: Hey, E-----,** Publish America is a vanity press simply because the powers in charge play to our vanity, our ego, the burning desire to be a published author, willing to sign away our book rights and huckster our brains out for only a remote or a non-existent chance at the brass ring, not because of monies being or not being exchanged from author to publisher. (The contract replaces the up-front money, guaranteeing payback and profit.) The hallmark of a main-line publisher is quality of writing and editing, of sales, of competitive pricing and promotion. Our books were not accepted because our work is stellar compared to “up-front” vanity presses. For the most part, they are not superior. Bookstores want quality and value—books they can move—and they picked up on the big lie immediately.

PA’s publishing model is nothing short of brilliant, counting on our egos to make the suggestion that non-payment equals mainline publisher. (The contract is a part of this, and parcel to the lie.) “We don’t want your money, just your work.” The “payment” comes in on the backside, not the front. At least, the up-front presses are truthful about it, and one understands what’s coming about. The “touch” of sinister is the false dream promoted and the letdown when we hit the brick wall after we’ve bought our books and try to promote an overpriced, sometimes poorly written, under edited, vanity press production. Lulu is also a vanity press, but it is free and one does have some latitude with the price—and no binding contract.

Since the author is doing all of the promotion anyway, one would be better off going to a digital press that specializes in the printing end and having his/her book printed and then consigning the book to bookstores. It’s an option, but a lot of work. (Bookstores will do this most readily if the procedure is handled right and the marketing is acceptable, e.g. graphics display box.) At least the retail price would be more competitive. Of course, one can do this with Lulu or Publish America, (buy the book and consign it.) but the retail price would be prohibitive, especially with PA’s books. Who knows, after PA gets its digital press up to speed and their annuities in overdrive, perhaps they’ll lower the price of their books and give us a better shot.

LW Fugett

2007-04-12T17:27:00.000-07:00

I haven't posted in a month, but Imus(t). The man has been an idiot all his life and the network just got a clue. How freaking lame is that!!!!

2007-03-08T17:57:00.000-08:00

Mustard Gas

Ye shan't taste it
Nor shall ye pass it
Get a snout-full
Ye a dead piece of asset.

Author unknown

2007-03-04T20:35:00.000-08:00

Murder in the Bluegrass may be purchased at http://www.lfugett.com for $7.95 including shipping and tax. (Retails for $11.00.)

2007-03-01T09:48:00.000-08:00

If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, and has feathers, it just might be Hortense the hooker.

Author unknown.

2007-01-30T18:08:00.000-08:00

My new book will be for sale on Publish America in two weeks.

2006-11-22T10:25:00.000-08:00

Unpublished writers: Noir Publishing, a brand new company, is now accepting short stories to be included in our March issue of Pulp Noir at lfugett.com

Chop, chop! Your resume starts here!

PS. I just saw the movie Black Dahlia, based on the book by James Ellroy. The sets and cinematography will time-machine you back to Los Angeles, 1947.

2006-11-21T07:25:00.000-08:00

2006-08-08T21:57:00.000-07:00

Hey, y'all, would you please get up 'offen' Mel Gibson's ass? It's a free country if one can exclude that simple minded BS called political correctness. Who among us has not gotten Sh--t faced at one time or another and said things we didn't mean? Jessie Jackson with "Hymie town?" And Jessie wasn't even drunk, and I'm sure what he said was simply BS among friends.

Lord, hand me down a biscuit!!!

2006-05-18T16:17:00.000-07:00

Hey. I just thought a post was in order after six months.So what's going on out there besides the war and taxes?

2005-11-08T04:53:00.000-08:00

2005-11-05T08:40:00.000-08:00

Nice to see France getting the soufflé squeezed out of it!

2005-10-30T08:50:00.000-08:00

Who am I?

Words to scribble on the outhouse wall.

We have enough youth; how about a fountain of smart?

Artificial intelligence usually beats real stupidity.

Learn from your parent's mistakes...use birth control!

The gene pool could use a little chlorine.

2005-10-04T10:21:00.000-07:00

Any Existentialists surfing around? Give us your take on the philosophy.

Sartre was the only self-declared existentialist among the major thinkers. For him the central idea of all existential thought is that existence precedes essence. For Sartre there is no God and therefore no fixed human nature that forces one to act. Man is totally free and entirely responsible for what he makes of himself. It is this freedom and responsibility that is the source of man's dread.

2005-08-06T12:49:00.000-07:00

SEVERED, John Gilmore’s account of the Black Dahlia Murder is the most plausible of the four books that I have now read, not that any of them actually came up with irrefutable evidence.

Gilmore’s culprit is a despicable character who had a rap sheet five pages long, entailing everything from drunkenness to theft to sodomy. The culprit was a 6 foot 4 inch cross dresser who looked more like the bride of Frankenstein than one of the boy/girls out on the Sunset Strip.

The big pause to Gilmore’s flow is the fact that this individual died in a hotel fire before LA detectives could put a loop on him. But, of course, “chit” like that sometimes happens.

A very intriguing fact about this individual is that he was born in Canton, Ohio, and he was in Cleveland, Ohio during some of the infamous Torso Murders. Could he have served an apprenticeship, learned the ways of the butcher knife? A butcher by the same name was on Eliot Ness’ cuddle list.

SEVERED is a good read. I give it four stars for Gilmore’s work and three stars for a plausible suspect.

2005-08-04T15:42:00.000-07:00

Does anyone out there in Blogersville have any information on one deceased male known as Jack Anderson Wilson, born in Canton, Ohio 8-5-1920. He was AKA Grover Loving Jr. along with about 12 other aliases. The latter part of his life was spent in Los Angeles Ca.

2005-08-02T22:26:00.000-07:00

Hello! Larry W. here again, your Pulp Noir book reviewer. I'm going to review the following books in the coming weeks written about the Black Dahlia murder that occured in Los Angeles in 1947, Elizabeth Short's ghoulish bisection.

The first group of books were purportedly written as True Crime exposés, claiming to name the killer. We shall see who is truly full of Penn and Teller's Bullshit and who has the plausible solution--if any.

The second group contains Novels with the Black Dahlia murder as the basis on which each book's story turns.

(1) Severed: The True Story Of The Black Dahlia Murder by John Gilmore.
(2) Childhood Shadows: The Hidden Story of the Black Dahlia Murder by Mary Pacios.
(3) Daddy Was the Black Dahlia Killer by Janice Knowlton with Michael Newton.
(4) Black Dahlia Avenger, The True Story by Steve Hodel.

(1) Black Dahlia by James Ellroy.
(2) Angel In Black by Max Allan Collins.

If you have a suggestion for additions to group two, let me hear it*

The rating system will be simple, one to four stars with a summary as to why the book is worth the price, or why the book should remain in the warehouse.

2005-08-02T20:40:00.000-07:00

Daddy Was The Black Dahlia Killer by Janice Knowlton.
The basis for this book is Ms. Knowlton's repressed memories of having seen her Father kill Elizabeth Short, among others. According to her recovered memories, her father's libido was gargantuan. He raped it if it moved and killed it if it wouldn't, male and female.

She readily admits to major emotional problems after her Dr. performed an unneeded hysterectomy, which she purports to be the catalyst for recovering her lost memory years after her father's death. I know nothing of her medical history nor of the veracity of her claims about memory loss. I do know, however, that she presents no facts to substantiate her claim that George Knowlton killed the Black Dahlia.

I would suggest that her repressed memories are more commonly called Imagination
The book gets one star for that Imagination and two stars for Michael Newton's writing ability.

2005-08-02T08:29:00.000-07:00

Childhood Shadows: The Hidden Story of the Black Dahlia Murder.
Mary Pacios, the author, was a childhood friend of Elizabeth Short, though Mary was many years younger. Throughout the book, one gets the feeling that Mary idolized Elizabeth, much as a younger sibling would idolize an older brother or sister who was held in high esteem for an admirable characteristic or other. In this case it was Elizabeth’s grace and beauty and, of course, her kindness toward Mary.

Mary repays that kindness with loving remembrances of Elizabeth.

However, Mary does not have a clue as to who killed her childhood friend. She points toward a well-known movie actor/director with the flimsiest of circumstance as nexus.

Mary gets two stars for a well-written book, and one star for having the audacity to imply that this great actor/director was possibly the killer. After all, this implication did sell her book. I bought it.****

2005-07-13T18:04:00.000-07:00

Five Stars

Fear & Loathing in the Blue-Grass State!, July 13, 2005
Reviewer: Zygote in my Coffee.com - See all my reviews
"Butcher Holler" is a high-octane, neo-noir mystery that keeps the reader guessing until the very end. The novel is filled to the brim with a cast of unforgettable characters, ranging form a perverted, God-fearing sociopatch to a gun toting Vietnam vet and everything in between. Fugett's debut novel will undoubtedly establish him as the Mickey Spillane of Appalachia! I highly recommend picking this book up!

2005-07-06T23:08:00.000-07:00

Press Release: Have you read the new book, Butcher Holler, by LW Fugett? If not you should. It's a gas. It’s redneck funny with suspense and drama. The characters are straight out of the cast of Deliverance, but on steroids. You’ll never again look at Jeff Foxworthy without thinking of Cockeyed Ezra and old Cousin Willard, double first cousins who immortalize their standing as rednecks by owning a “Queer” donkey. (July 6, 2005 )

2005-06-19T07:50:00.000-07:00

My name is Larry Fugett and I am the author of Butcher Holler.The book may be purchased at Amazon, Barnes & Noble and others. Please read the following excerpt from my book. You may like it.

Book Preview:Butcher Holler is about a man, John Drues, and a woman, Jessica Lowery, each from different backgrounds, he an ex-convict, and she, a Cincinnati newspaper reporter, who find themselves inadvertently involved in the murder of a young girl in a small village in the backwoods of Kentucky. The two quickly find themselves on the run from a maniac who wields his power and a hawk-billed roofer’s knife to silence those who threaten him.

A despotic TV evangelist, Jimmy Foulwell, runs the village of five thousand, and he will do anything, lie, cheat and steal to keep the village’s dark secrets from coming to light. He’ll even suborn murder and sexual perversion.

Cockeyed Ezra and his double first cousin Willard are two of the perverted denizens of the Village of Foulwell. Each man has his own sexual bent, but together, they re-define sexual perversion.

Then there’s Virgil, Sutter, Doctor Elizabeth Pritchard and Harold Jenkins, who discover things about themselves along the way that will reshape their futures.

Come meet them all in Butcher Holler:

Harold Jenkins slept the sleep of the blissfully ignorant. He had committed nothing to Jessica’s adventurous trek to break into the church vault with that John what’s-his-name, and he was not going to worry about her. Old Harold was not going to stick his neck out for anybody. He wanted nothing more than a good night’s sleep. So, He brushed his teeth, put the cap back on the Colgate, jumped into his jammies and slid into bed, fast asleep before the first little lamb could be counted. He awoke, however, fully committed to saving his ass.

The first slap did not wake him, but it did ready him for the second. He felt it clear down to his sphincter. His eyes snapped open to the presence of two huge men standing in front of him in, what appeared to be, a show horse arena. He was tied to a chair with duct tape across his mouth.

‘I reckon you’re still alive, huh, picture man?’ said the larger of the two men in a slow country drawl so deep that it sounded like a bass fiddle. ‘Just so’s you know, we took you out of the boardin’ house with chloroform. We coulda killed you right there in your purty little jammies.’

The larger man was a brute, over six feet tall, two hundred and fifty pounds, brown, wiry hair, bushed almost into an Afro. His head sort of blended in from an oversized neck. If it weren’t for the bushy hair, he’d be all neck, no head. Harold thought he looked like a smaller version of the wrestler, Andre The Giant, but with a nasty odor and a much uglier face.

The smaller man was smaller by only and inch or two in height and perhaps thirty pounds in weight. He had a gap-toothed grin and one cocked eye with a droopy eyelid. He looked sleepy, but happy about it. The man kept playing with his overalls’ buckle at the shoulder. He already had one strap down and looked as if he couldn’t wait to drop the other. Harold took one look at the inbreeds and knew he was in deep dog shit.

‘You one of them Jew-boys?’ asked Cockeye, as he walked around the chair eyeballing Harold in the middle of the show ring. ‘You look like one of them Jews.’
Harold shook his head vigorously and grunted through his nose, ‘No, no.’

‘Now, that ain’t good, kosher cheeks,’ said Cockeye. ‘I bet Cousin Willard here a quart of shine that you was a Jew boy. We coulda been friends, me and you, real good friends.’

‘He’s a Negro,’ said Willard through a wide, brown-toothed grin, his bass-fiddle voice vibrating the air. ‘See them big, purty brown eyes.’ He fluttered his eyelids as he walked over and stuck his finger in Harold’s nose. ‘And this here wide nose is fer smellin’ mammy’s chitlin’s and corn pone.’

‘He ain’t no Negro,’ grinned Cockeye, with one eye on Harold, and the other scanning the dirt floor. ‘I’m a Negro, and it takes a darkie to know one. He’s just down here passin’ hisself off as a brother, pissin’ on the plantation, tryin’ to steal our grits.’

Willard scratched his head in mock befuddlement for a moment then turned away and looked upward, pretending to be in deep thought. Suddenly he snapped back around and pressed his face inches from Harold’s.‘You a Negro, Mr. picture man?’ asked Willard.

Harold frantically weighed his options, which one not to piss-off, big man or smaller man. The big one seemed smarter, but the smaller one was meaner. Smarter won out. He sided with the big man and ‘outted’ himself as a Negro, nodding in the affirmative."…

——————————————————————
" ‘Yeah, and we corn-hole liars,’ guffawed Cockeye, unhooking the other strap to his overalls, dropping them to his ankles and exposing a massive penis. ‘You gonna like this, you big ole liar, liar asshole’s on fire,’ he said hefting his member and letting it drop back against his leg with a loud smack.

Harold’s eyes rolled back in his head as he strained against the ropes and began bouncing the chair wildly, trying to move away from the two congenital morons.

‘Now, lookie what ye’ve done, Cousin Ezra. He’s worked hisself into a lather, all hot and bothered and such.’
Harold, his eyes bulging, facial veins popping, was trying to speak, but it came out as a loud hum.

‘Why, he’s tryin’ to tell us sumpthin," said Willard in mock amazement, cupping his hand to his ear as he turned his head toward Harold. He bent down and placed his ear next to Harold’s mouth and pretended to interpret Harold’s hum.

‘He says he’s one a them Scotch men.’ Willard looked up at Cockeye with a burlesqued sincerity. ‘Says he wears one a them purty little skirts over there in Scotch land.’

‘Well, ask him how come they wear them sissy little skirts,’ said Cockeye, gap-toothing a big grin, his good eye twitching.
Willard put his ear back to Harold’s taped mouth. ‘He says they have to wear’em er they’d never get any poon tang. Says them pesky ole sheep can hear a zipper a mile away.’

Cockeye flopped down in the dirt and howled, broke wind so hard he blew up a dust devil.

Willard moved out of sight for a couple of minutes then came back pulling a teaser mare, a fake horse used to collect semen from a stud. They untied Harold, stripped him of his pajamas and hoisted him onto the rear of the mare with his buttocks exposed, then retied his hands with rope from beneath the belly of the faux horse.

‘Now, we gonna take the tape off your mouth and ask you some questions, and you’re gonna tell us what we want to know. If you lie, cousin Ezra here will know and…well, you know what he does to liars—oh, and if you get gas from layin’ on your belly like that, don’t fart. It gives Ezra a hard-on when he gets a whiff.’

With hysteria rising, Harold told them everything he knew and lots he didn’t, but he included the conversation that was held at the boarding house after John found Cindy Morgan’s body, the plan to break into the vault. He was perfectly willing to start with his first birthday in order not to leave anything out, but Willard had an agenda.

Willard bent low and placed his mouth close to Harold’s ear. ‘Picture man, you been doin’ very tolerable so far, but you ain’t told us why that John guy is down here with y’all. Now why is that?’ asked Willard.

‘I swear I don’t know why he’s here. Me and that bitch Jessica came down together, and he was here when we got in.’

‘You expect us to believe that cockamammy sheep dip?’ asked Willard, stroking the mare’s fake mane.

‘I swear on my mother’s grave. It’s the truth,’ sobbed Harold.’
Willard eye-motioned Cockeye to follow him off to the side, out of earshot, away from Harold. He pulled a pint of shine from his rear pocket, took a long draught and offered the bottle to Cousin Cockeye. Cockeye held up a pouch of Red Man, indicating a pause as he balled a large wad of dark brown tobacco and stuffed it into his cheek. He then took the bottle and swigged down two large gulps, letting the brown mixture dribble from the corners of his mouth and run down his chin as he drank. He lowered the pint and swiped at his mouth with a shirtsleeve already brown-stained from previous napkin duty.

‘What do you figure?" whispered Willard.

‘I think he’s a lying fart smeller,’ said cockeyed Ezra.

‘You wanta fuck him to make shore, er do ya wanna kill him?’

‘Well, Cousin Julian said we was to make shore he never told nobody about this here. We could kill him, shorenuff, but maybe Cousin Julian didn’t mean fer us to do that, and there goes our hundert dollars. When ye dead, ye can’t lie, ner swear, ner nothin’. If we fuck him, he shore ain’t gonna tell it to nobody.’

Both men smiled and walked back toward Harold, Willard to the front of the horse and cockeyed Ezra to the back. Ezra slapped a half jar of Vaseline into Harold’s crack, spat in a goober of Red Man for good measure, and smacked both butt cheeks."…
——————————————————————

Over the edge now, Harold could no longer contain himself. The gas-ball had been building for a half hour, gaining size and velocity with each aborted trip toward freedom. This time it restarted somewhere around Maine, picked up speed in Maryland, was running flat out through Georgia, and by the time it hit his colon, it was a runaway freight train. He broke wind with grandeur, a rafter rattler.

‘Now, you’ve gone and done it,’ said Willard, finally getting to his feet.

Just as Willard spoke, there came a long, lonesome bray from one of the stalls in the back, a new element that jolted Harold one more time. His nerves ragged and raging, he was about to break his neck frantically turning this way and that trying to see what was behind him. ‘Help, somebody help me!’ he screamed.

Willard pulled the roll of duct tape from his overalls, ripped off a piece and slapped it over Harold’s mouth.

‘You gonna hurt yourself doing that, picture man. Just stop it, now. I told ye not to fart. You’ve woke old Gaylord, our 'quare' donkey. And when he smells ass, he gets frisky. Now, he wants some too.’

Harold’s body went limp. He was out."

Here's a great site for film lovers. She's a Film fan.

http://tampafilmfan.blogspot.com