Elephant Bangs Train

Elephant Bangs Train by William Kotzwinkle

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Authors: William Kotzwinkle
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pulsed dangerously. Nurse drew her hand away stopping us on the edge of explosion and Mickey fell backwards on my stomach, descending from his dizzy climb.
    Is this it? Do they just test it out to see if it's still working, and you crawl home on your hands and knees?
    'Would you help me off with my jacket, please?' asked the nurse. I pulled her jacket off obediently, touching the soft shoulders beneath her blouse. 'I don't want to get any cream on it,' she said, and then, with a smile, dipped her fingers back into the jar.
    She fed Mickey Finn some more cream and instantly he grew fat and happy again, dancing in in the half-light, a whipped-cream hat cocked over one eye.
    Her legs were crossed, the knees bare behind sheer stockings. We were sunk together in the soft leather couch with hips full against each other. The window was burning, four propellers were turning in space, her entire hand was closing around Mickey and I was taking off.
    She stopped us on the edge. 'You'd better roll your shirt,' she said.
    I tucked it quickly up around my neck, and Nurse closed her hand around Mickey again, pumping him up and down, faster and more forceful, her fingers slithering with cream, driving Mickey to maddening heights.
    Up came the naked photographic ladies, laughing uncontrollably. Mickey ticked, going nuts, and then, as so often happened to my Irish grandfather's still during prohibition, there came an eruption from the cellar. Mickey's head blew off, and a white jet of homemade brew flew through the air, splashing down on my bare chest.
    She pumped Mickey again and again, until the last drop was out, and my childhood was gone. Then she stood, and opening the cabinet, took out a glass slide. She ran it up my chest, scooping off the sperm for the celebrated test, enclosing it efficiently inside another slide. Then she washed Mickey Finn and tenderly dried him.
    'You can get dressed now,' she said, and handed me the tube of cocoa butter. 'Don't forget to rub this in every day,' she said with a smile, and left me.
    I left the Medical Arts Building, weak in the knees, but wonderfully wiser. In a single afternoon, I had shot past all my friends into a new and exciting world, and the whole deal only cost my father seven hundred dollars.
     

 
    The Trap
    O UT OF THE WHIRLING SNOW came a man wrapped so deep in fur he resembled a bear. He moved slowly along, stepping grotesquely, leaving the print of snowshoes behind him.
    Pushing against the wind, he marched towards log cabin set in a grove of frozen hemlock. Smoke rose from the cabin's chimney and its frostbitten windows were bright. He walked to the door, opened it, and plunged into the warm firelight.
    'So you made it,' said a man in uniform, seated at a rough oak desk.
    'Yes sir,' said the man in fur, saluting. 'Constable Turner reporting.'
    'I'm Lieutenant Belfast. Make yourself at home, Constable.'
    Constable Turner removed his coat and hat, revealing the red jacket of the Northwest Mounted Police. Stepping to the stove, he struggled to remove his boots.
    The cabin door opened again and a short potbellied man with an armload of wood stepped in. 'Cook,' said the Lieutenant, 'meet Constable Turner.'
    'Howdy,' said Cook, setting down the wood' and extending his hand. 'You're new to the Mounties?'
    'Yes,' said Turner.
    'You'll like it,' said Cook. 'Good clean work.'
    In the following weeks, Constable Turner was worked into the routine of the post. Assigned to counting caribou droppings, he prowled the snow fields each day with his notebook, determining the size of the herd. He slipped through the trees, and dreaming of gunrunners and fur smugglers, took careful measure of the steaming pellet.
    At night, the glow from the cabin was the only light on Red Deer Hill. Inside a card game of quiet bids and swearing filled the evenings for Belfast and Cook, while Constable Turner lay on his bunk studying the Criminal Code.
    After the other men went to sleep, he continue reading ensnarement

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