The Bighead by Edward Lee Page A

worry
about it. Be patient. You’ll meet the right guy
eventually.”
    Charity nodded, trying not
to appear the sad sack, and failing. It’s
that ’eventually’ part that bothers me, her
thoughts went on moping.
    The keep brought two more beers, then
emptied Jerrica’s ashtray which, by now, sat clogged with butts. As
he did so though, Jerrica leaned forward, squinting. “What the hell
is—”
    “ What?” Charity
asked.
    Jerrica’s finger touched the bartop,
the space the ashtray had been sitting on. “What is
this?”
    Now Charity
squinted. Writing, she realized. Etched vaguely in the varnished wood, by a knife
no doubt, were words, like a graffito. “I can’t make it out,”
Charity admitted.
    Jerrica squinted harder. “It says,
’The Bighead was here.’ And that’s weird. Somebody wrote something
similar in the bathroom, on the stall door. Who the hell is The
Bighead?”
    The Bighead? Charity’s eyes narrowed,
and she remembered as vaguely as the words had been scrawled. The
memory seemed a million miles away. “Its like a local legend, I
guess.”
    “ What, you mean like
’Kilroy was here’?”
    “ No, more like a resident
bogeyman. I remember hearing the stories from when I was
little.”
    Jerrica’s eyes seemed suddenly
enthused. “Tell me the stories. I can use them in my
article.”
    Charity half-shrugged, numb now from
beer and self-reflection. “I can barely remember, it was so long
ago. Just some story about a monster-child who lived in the woods.
He had a giant bald head and crooked teeth, and supposedly was a
cannibal. It’s just a story parents made up to scare their kids,
you know, ’Be good or The Bighead’ll get you.’ Over time it sort of
developed into a backwoods myth.”
    “ Ain’t no myth, girl, I’se
kin tell ya.” The rube barkeep’s face hovered closed as he replaced
the emptied ashtray.
    “ Oh yeah?” Jerrica said.
“Tell us about this Bighead.”
    The old face hardened, an eye cocked.
“Ain’t a purdy story. Might git you city gals all upset were I ta
tell ya.”
    Jerrica challenged him with a sly
smile. “Try us.”
    A pause, a hand sliding against
whiskers, then the barkeep began, “This were long ago, mind ya, but
it was outa the woods he came. No one knowed who his parents was,
and no one’d wanna know, ’cos The Bighead were about the ugliest
kid you could ever ’magine. I seed him once myself, matter’a
fact.”
    Jerrica, obviously, was
getting a kick out of this. “You saw him? You saw The
Bighead?”
    “ That I did, girl, and I’se
wish I hadn’t. Wearin’ old scrap fer clothes, he was, an’ ya coulds
smell him a hunnert yards off, I swear. You coulds always tell when
he was around too, ’cos the woods’d get real quiet. Any ways, they
called this kid The Bighead on account of he hadda real big head,
like twice the size’a normal, an’ there weren’t a single hair on
it, an’ his eyes—Jimminy Christmas! The Bighead’s eyes were big an’
crooked, they was, an’ reals close together, looked like a coupla
hard-boiled eggs pushed inta his face, only one were big an’ one
were little. An’ his teeth? He hadda mouthful’a teeth on him that
looked like dog teeth, he did, an’ I’se know it’s true ’cos, like I
said, I seed him myself. I seed him eatin’ deerguts in one’a the
soybean fields by Luce Creek.”
    “ Gross,” Jerrica remarked,
paling. “Deerguts?”
    “ Shore,” the old man
bantered on. “The Bighead like guts, an’ brains too. Liked ’em
raw.”
    “ Come on,” Jerrica
said.
    “‘ S’true, I’se swear.” The
keep, then, poured himself a shot of whiskey, fired it back neat.
“An’ it were more’n just animals he et—it were people too. See, it
weren’t fer but a week ’er so that The Bighead went on his rant.
Alls of a sudden lotta folks started findin’ their livestock kilt,
gutted. We’se all figgured it was a timber wolf ’er somethin’, even
though there ain’t been a wolf in these here