Chapter Seventy

Eddie, the restaurant server with the super-numeral teeth was kneeling on the chest of my brain surgeon, Dr. Granger, pressing the barrel of an antique colt .45 revolver into his widely flared left nostril.

My ex-wife Carol was blithering hysterically.

"You wanna tell your white bitch to shut the fuck up?" Eddie pushed the gun even further into Granger's nose.

"Where are you from? I think I recognize that accent." Granger's voice sounding like he had a cold. "You're a Yella Hammer, aren't cha?"

"Shut UP porch monkey! I should kill you right now!" Eddie's face, already full of broken blood vessels turned even redder. "I hate you racist Niggers."

"Yellow Hammer." Granger was defiant.

Eddie pulled back the black hammer of the pistol and the revolving chamber, full of bullets, rotated one click. His index finger squeezed the trigger, moving it a millimeter towards blowing Granger's brains out.

"You don't know shit! Just cos I'm from Alabama don't make me a Yellow Hammer. That kind of name calling is just totally uncalled for you stupid Jungle Bunny." Eddie's hand was quivering.

"Honey, stop making him angry." Carol screeched from across the room.

"Yea BOY! Maybe you shouldn't make the Yellow Hammer angrier than he already is!"

"I could fix that face of yours you know. I have a Dentist friend that could work on that God-awful mouth. By the time I'm finished with you, people would never guess that your sister is your mother." Granger was fearless.

Eddie tried to speak but instead of words, spit came flying from his mouth and dribbled down his chin. He pulled the gun out of Granger's nose and put it back in, he pulled it out and put it back in, he pulled it out and shoved it in hard again. He was trying to scare the Doctor as much as he could but Granger wasn't playing the game.

"You wanna die Nigger!"

"You're either going to shoot me or you gonna let me live. I have the feeling that if you were going to kill me you would've pulled the trigger by now. You want something from me and it's my guess that you want it enough to let me live. Am I right?" Granger's voice never wavered.

"Honey. what's a Yellow Hammer?" Carol was a little calmer thanks to her lover's confidence. Her sense of well-being was short lived when Eddie pulled the gun out of Granger's nose and pointed it at her.

"I don't need you bitch. I could kill you right now and not blink a fucking eye." As he pointed the gun at Carol he tried to stare directly into her eyes in order to make his point. Sadly his eyes didn't always work in concert and she wasn't sure exactly where he was looking. She quickly glanced over her shoulder to see if someone was standing behind her.

Eddie was very angry and starting to hiccup wildly. That was a good way to spot a Yellow Hammer. Some distinct, hereditary flaw not only left their skin jaundiced, but it made them unable to encounter stress without the little, involuntary spasms called hiccups. That's how they got their nickname.

In the region of Eddie's upbringing, the land of the suspected parent, there was a bird that was prevalent in the forests and garbage dumps. It was the yellow headed woodpecker. It banged it's head wildly against trees and pipes and anything it believed held the nectar of the burrowing insect. The noise it made echoed through the hills both day and night. Sometimes it would drive it's beak into the tin covered roofs of the hill people. The occupants would get so upset that they would begin to hiccup. The ensuing concert of banging and burping mutants became known as the Yellow Hammer Concerto.

The nickname of the bird became the nickname of the mutants. The Yellow Hammer.

The jerking reaction of the hiccuping caused Eddie's colt pistol to fire. The bullet went through the door of Dr. Granger's suite. They all paused and stared at the door as they heard the sound of a body dropping to the floor in the hall outside.

The silence in the room lasted for a short time, all eyes flashing to one another.

Eddie was angry and frightened. "See what you made me AYYYEEECK do!"