Surfing the Gnarl Read Free Page B

waited, their edges twitching ever so slightly. Ragland reappeared, still naked. He fetched the skins one by one, clattering and splashing in the next room. Each time they saw Ragland, there was one less smeel tornado following him. Evidently he was stashing the mibracc and their smeel inside the golf bags.
    Next Ragland took a long, soapy shower. Then came the rustling of him getting dressed, followed by the unlocking and locking of the outer door. All was silent.
    Danny lifted loose the grate and the boys dropped down onto the tiled shower room floor. Jack happened to know that under his counter Ragland had a thing like a monster Swiss knife of plastic thumbs, one thumb for each club member—in case someone died of old age, which happened often enough to matter. Jack fetched the master thumbs and opened up Mr. Cuthbert’s locker. They peered into the golf bag.
    Something twitched in the golden liquid, making a tiny splash. Yes. Mr. Cuthbert was in there, rolled up like a pickled squid. The preservative fluid was just level with the golf bag’s top edge.
    Danny leaned over and sucked up some of it.
    â€œYaaar,” he said, wiping his lips. “Good.”
    The stuff seemed to hit him right away, and very hard. When he unsteadily ducked down to drink some more, his chin banged into the bag and, oh God, the bag fell over. Although the glass in the bag didn’t shatter, the liquid slopped across the floor.
    Mr. Cuthbert slid right out the bag, looking like a wet burrito. Tonel yanked the golf bag upright, but Mr. Cuthbert remained on the tiles.
    The spilled liquor and smeel puddled around the mibracc. Slowly the fluid began eddying again, bulging itself into a mound. The stuff had shed its excremental odors in the showers. The room filled with the heady fruitcake-and-eggnog perfume of bourbon. Crazy Danny found an empty glass and dipped it into the vortex.
    â€œNaw, naw,” said Tonel, still holding the golf bag. “Don’t be drinkin’ that mess!”
    â€œâ€˜S good,” repeated Danny, gesturing with his glass. His pupils were crazed pinpoints. There was no reasoning with him. His Adam’s apple pumped up and down as he drank.
    Jack found a mop and nudged the weirdly animated smeel-bourbon into a bucket that he poured back into the golf bag. All the while the coiled skin of Mr. Cuthbert was slowly twisting around, making a peevish hissing noise.
    â€œHelp me jam him back in and let’s get out of here,” Jack told Tonel.
    â€œYou be touchin’ him,” said Tonel. “Not me.”
    Jack hunkered down and took hold of Mr. Cuthbert. The mibracc felt like incompletely cured food, like a half-dried apricot: leathery on the outside, wet and squishy in the middle. He was hissing louder than before. A little more smeel trickled from the bunghole in his belly-button.
    Gritting his teeth, Jack rerolled Mr. Cuthbert and slid him into his golf bag. The skin twitched and splashed. A drop of the bourbon-smeel landed on Jack’s lower lip. Reflexively he licked it off. Error. The room began ever so slowly to spin.
    While Jack paused, assessing the damages, crazy Danny reached past him to scoop out one last glassful of the poison bourbon. Mr. Cuthbert’s golf bag rocked andclattered; bubbles rose to the surface. The noises echoed back from the other mibracc. All five lockers were shaking.
    â€œLet’s bounce,” urged Tonel, over by the locker room door. He already had it open, he’d unlocked the doorknob lock. And they’d left the outside dead bolt open.
    â€œThere you are, Danny,” came the voice of Les Trucklee as they stepped out onto the floodlit terrace. He was out there checking over the barbeque wagon and smoking a cigarette. “I hope I’m not seeing what I think I’m seeing in your hand.”
    Jack quickly closed the locker room door behind them. He didn’t bother fastening the manual bolt. Surely the mibracc couldn’t