Evil Jester Digest, Vol.1 Read Online Free Page A

hate regular raspberry,” he says, nails scritch-scritching through white stubble, “but that blue raspberry is something else. Is it raspberry, even? I don’t suppose you’d know, miss?”
    She doesn’t register the question. Heather, her nametag says. He wonders if she even knows that. Combat shock, he thinks to himself. Well, he sees his flavor’s fixed anyway. He gets himself a jumbo size. That first long pull on the straw is always the best.
     
    *****
     
    Sharpe’s been around a long time, not entirely by choice. Act of God here and there. He’s worn a few different hats in that stretch. Used to fancy himself a cowboy, but there ain’t outlaws in big black dusters and serpent-skin boots anymore. Outlaws nowadays drive SUVs to Jimmy Buffet concerts and smoke bad weed. He doesn’t have an MBA to take the place of his ol’ ten-gallon hat so he just kills people. There’s a simple honesty in it that never goes out of style.
    God is waiting in the store parking lot; just standing, to most, loitering maybe, but for Sharpe he’s always waiting. The old man wiggles a couple of fingers at the sweating cup in Sharpe’s hand and asks the flavor.
    “Don’t know why you bother asking,” Sharpe replies. “You can’t tell the color, let alone the taste.”
    “I suppose I needed to be reminded,” is the response, a salvo of brittle contempt that moves at the speed of drying paint. God has a sarcastic butler’s accent and that only grates more on Sharpe’s nerves. Of all the places to hang out and all the people to gripe on with his Eeyore shit, why does God have to trouble Sharpe while he’s tucking into his Slurpee?
    Sometimes, though, Sharpe thinks maybe the old man just likes to watch him do his killin’ thang.
    Sharpe swishes the cup’s already-melting contents. “Blue kind.”
    “What’s it taste like?”
    “Heaven. No offense.”
    None taken. Sharpe supposes God looks at Heaven the same way a McDonald’s manager looks at the playland. A place where smelly shoeless runts crap in the ball pit. Sharpe takes an icy gulp. A cold little knot gathers between his eyes. That’s a new pain.
    “I see you’ve got yourself a cock and some balls,” Heavenly Father observes. Sharpe glances down, but there’s nothing visible in the drapery of his sweatpants.
    “You been watching me at home? I don’t like that.”
    “No, no,” God says, “I just know.”
    They head down the sidewalk, and God adds, “I also know you’ve been spending more and more time cooped up in that motel room, though no, I don’t look in.”
    “I got internet now.”
    “Mmm. A new computer and genitals. Are you starting a small business?”
    “I ain’t jackin’ off if that’s what you’re asking. Haven’t gotten onto that yet. Don’t see much need for it, frankly. I get mine.”
    “I don’t know if I care for these changes, Emil.”
    “I didn’t ask.”
    “Of course. You’re a true artist and a maven at that. You don’t answer to any critic. But,” and God stops and turns to face Sharpe, “now you’re giving me reason to doubt that.”
    “How so?”
    Sharpe is mid-gulp when God reaches out and taps his scrotum through his sweats. Sharpe hacks up a glob of blue ice. “The hell!”
    “Adam begged for them,” the old man says. “At first he busied himself making men out of clay—and he did, ugly little things, and never allowed one to draw its first breath before crushing it beneath his fist—and then he begged me for that and those .” God points at Sharpe’s crotch like it’s a condemned lot. “Then he wanted woman.”
    Sharpe lowers his eyes and takes another drink. He didn’t ask for the things, they just appeared. Just like the coarse white hairs on his legs and back and like the throbbing ache in his head—his first brain freeze, he figures. Digs a knuckle into his brow and stares at the sun.
    “My pulp is turning to flesh. I can feel blood wormin’ through it, carving veins. I can feel hair