The Wicked Avon Lady of the West End of Town

Author's Note: This chapter is told from a second-person perspective by Oobu. Every once in a while there will be an interjection by Juline, Arden, or the third-person narrator that tells the rest of the story. When that happens, whatever said person(s) are saying will be in italics.

Old Gerty was the local Avon representative for Ginny McLean Township, and she was damn good at what she did. However, she was a bitter, hateful old bitch who never married and thus took her anger and resentment out on the entire town. She lived in a little shack on the western end of town, where all manner of strange noises and other unpleasantries came from at all hours of the night. She was a witch: all of Ginny McLean Township was sure of it, and so they feared her. Therefore, every woman in town bought make-up from her in order to appease the lady. Old Gerty had never failed to make a sale in all the years she'd been an Avon rep. ... Until the day she dropped by the Adderly household... looking for new clients.

"Hello, I'm Gertrude, your local Avon representative. If you have a few moments, I'd like to talk to you about our new spring line."

Jules had answered the door, unfortunately. He lives in the middle of town in a trailer with his father and two older brothers... Actually, it's not just a trailer; it's a tubular-shaped, aluminum artifact left over from the 1950's. His mother's a drunk that lives in Megalopolis and works as a stripper. It's also worth mentioning that she's missing a leg, but I digress. All you need to know is that the Adderly household is void of women.

So Jules decided to fuck with her head a little bit.

'Because he's a dumbass.' Arden said.

Right, because he's a dumbass.

"Oh sure, I was thinking of making that kind of drastic lifestyle change anyway." He remarked.

"Slendid! Let's get started!" Old Gerty exclaimed, taking him seriously and stepping towards the doorway; Jules stopped her immediately.

"What are you, senile? I was being sarcastic!" He told her. "Listen lady, four grown men live here; we don't need any make-up."

"No one's ever refused my service!" She exclaimed.

"Yeah, yeah, I know, you've got the whole town scared shitless into buyin' your crap because you're crazy or whatever, but you're not gonna pull that crap with me."

Old Gerty was fuming. She turned several different shades of red, screamed several lines of inaudibility (punctuated by fits of profanity), made all sorts of violent hand motions and then stormed off. Jules thought it was hilarious, of course, and went on to tell everyone he knew about how he sent the crazy Avon lady into a tirade and lived to tell the story. And we all thought that was gonna be the end of it... but we were wrong about that.

All the reprecussions hit one night when the four of us (me, Jules, Arden, and Hacher--he's a senior this year) were egging Mr. Hickson's house. Ya see, I work part-time at a grocery store and every Friday we've gotta get rid of all the expired products. It just so happened that that week we had a bunch of old eggs (I don't know why there were so many eggs that week, there just were). So when nobody was looking, Hacher dropped by and we loaded all the eggs into his car instead of throwing them into the dumpster. Oobu sighed. Those were the days... I don't think Hacher would get too excited about an egging these days.

'Oobu, you're veering off topic again.' Arden told her. 'Try and hurry this along, we've got like thirty seconds 'til we're late for fifth period.'

Oh! Shit! Right! Okay, yeah, Jules causing Armageddon, yeah...

That night, we all egged the vice-principal's house and we just had a wonderful, glorious time, but eventually he realized he was being bombed and came running out into the yard in his underpants. Me, Arden, and Hacher all did the smart thing and took off, but Jules decided to stand his ground and began egging Mr. Hickson himself. Jules alleges that Mr. Hickson tried to murder him that night and I wouldn't doubt it, but he does have a tendency to stretch the truth a bit. Regardless, Old Gerty had been watching from the shadows--because she's a creepy old woman and does things like that--and just as Jules had lost Mr. Hickson (who had been chasing him all over town for a number of hours), she confronted him.

I don't know exactly what went on--I wasn't there--but Jules alleges that Old Gerty spattered goats blood and cat urine on him and spoke in tongues, and when she was done she told him the details of the curse... But like I said, he has a tendency to exaggerate, so you can do with that blood-and-urine bit what you will.

'... Is that the end?' Juline asked.

Pretty much.

'... And he's just been running around here, jumping out of forth-floor windows in order to avoid the vice-principal ever since?'

Yep.

'You don't think the old woman could've just been bullshitting him? ... Or crazy?'

We didn't want to take a chance.

'... Then why didn't he just go appologize and ask her to "lift the curse" then?'

We suggested that, but Old Gerty died a couple weeks later. Turns out she was running a meth lab out of her basement, and that's what all strange stuff coming from her house was with. The place she blew sky high; the only thing that's left there is a big pit.

'Hmm... Well... I'm late for algebra.' And with that, Juline was off to class; puzzled by the strange characters