Once upon a time on that one week in July when the sun makes some nice visits on the earth, a rotten little kid was up too damned late when he saw his uncle carrying along home, and what he was carrying along with him was a bottle with not one drop left in it. He was singing loud enough to make a frog swallow its eyes and making the most disreputable faces.
“Hey,” said the rotten little kid. “Hey uncle. What’s with all that noise?”
“I won, I won, I won!” chanted the uncle, waving his bottle like a magic wand. “I won it and I won again, it’s mine, it is – I have the secret and I won! Yes I did!”
“What secret?” asked the rotten little kid. “Go on, tell me. C’mon, tell me. Pleeease tell me. Tell me. Tell me tell me tellmetellmetelmetelmitlmitlmi.”
“The secret,” proclaimed the uncle in sonorous tones, “is ugh.”
“Ugh?” asked the rotten little kid.
The uncle fell to the ground, and so did the two perfectly-broken halves of the rotten little kid’s mother’s biggest bowl. And they both stayed there ‘till morning, when the uncle’s brother-in-law dragged him in and berated him and threw some soup at him until he went away.
“Tell meee,” said the rotten little kid, as he left.
“Tell you what?” asked the uncle. “No sir no nothing, nothing to tell you, not at all. You’re imagining things in your rotten little head. Now bug off and stay bugged you bugger.” And he stumped away down the road whistling.
The rotten little kid was true to himself and true to his nature, and so he ditched his chores and his parents and spent the perfectly nice sunny day sneaking after his uncle, who took every backroad, overgrown path, and lost trail in the whole damned world until he finally stopped on a warm, sunny hill without a speck of shade for as far as the eye could see. If you stuck your tongue out, you could hear the saliva sizzle.
“Hey,” said the uncle up at the sky. “Hey you. Big guy. C’mon. Listen up. I’m down here, you’re up there, c’mon, be sociable. You gonna get lonely up there. Stick your face down here near my face and let’s be friendly-like.”
Nothing happened. The rotten little kid wondered if his uncle was a little crazier than he thought. That could be troublesome. He already had one crazy uncle, and keeping two of them straight would be a real pain.
“And hey,” said the uncle, “you’d get a chance at winning back your losings, you big fat stupid loser.”
Woosh – thump. Down came the sun, the whole sun. There was no mistaking it; the whole sun dropped out of the sky like a cat from a windowsill and sat there on the driest patch on the highest point of that little hill, glowering and glaring at the rotten little kid’s uncle like he’d peed on its doorstep.
“You’re a sore winner,” said the sun.
“Best way to fix it is to make me a sore loser,” said the uncle. “Now g’won. Pick a cup.”
The sun picked one of the cups the uncle was holding out, and they both cast them to the hilltop.
“Beetles,” said the sun.
“Scorpions,” said the uncle.
They picked up the cups.
“One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, NINE scorpions!” shouted the uncle triumphantly. “How many beetles you see, nee? Count ‘em or I’ll count ‘em for you and then count ‘em again, just to rub it in. G’won, count ‘em!”
“Three,” said the sun sulkily. “Fine. Double or nothing.”
The uncle grinned with all eight of his teeth and three of his nostrils. “Fine, fine. More fun for free! Here, you pick a cup. Loser picks, right?”
The sun spat on the hill – burnt some grass real good, no wonder it was so bare – and on they played, all day until the wee evening, when the sun lost a triple-or-nothing and they folded for the day.
“I’ll take a bottle,” said the uncle. “Gimme a bottle. The good stuff, the right stuff, the real stuff. Gimme now, gimme fast, before I lose my mind and bash my brains.”
“Shut up,” said the sun. “You cheat.”
“Cheaters never prosper cognito ergo sum,” said the uncle. “Look at my prosper. No way a cheater’d have that much of it.” He took the long, shining bottle the sun gave to him and he tipped it way way back and swigged a third in one go, then let out a belch that painted a rainbow.
“S’nice,” he said. “S’nice. Same time tomorrow?”
“Go away.”
The uncle waved amicably and wandered off home. He got there six minutes behind the rotten little kid and that saved him from getting anything thrown at him on account of the rotten little kid’s mother being busy spanking him. So! He had a pretty good day.
Next day, the rotten little kid was all knowing. Giving his uncle the knowing-eye. You know, that one.
“I know that one,” said the uncle to the rotten little kid. “It’s that eye, the knowing-eye. Keep that thing offa me. Get it away with you and get gone. What’s your problem, anyways?”
“I know a secret,” said the rotten little kid with the ineffable smugness of youth and age.
“No you don’t,” said the uncle. “You’re a rotten little kid. You don’t know a damned thing and I feel just fine about that.”
“Do too,” said the rotten little kid.
“Do you? You know? You know about your secret auntie who lives down the well who I keep fed on old stray dogs?”
“Nah,” said the rotten little kid. “Don’t know about that.”
The uncle’s eyes narrowed. This was serious. “You know about the giant fly I raised from hand at your age, that lives in the old rotten tree in the dead thicket in the dark woods and eats a whole sheep every other month that I blame on the dropples?”
“Nope,” said the rotten little kid. “Got no clue about that.”
The uncle’s eyes widened and his nose narrowed. This was really real. This was big bad. “You know,” he whispered, “you know about the way I REALLY lost my sixth toe? About how I got in an argument with your momma and kicked a wall and a rat came out and ran off with it, then I told gramma it was her fault and she spanked your momma black and blue?”
“Nu-uh,” said the rotten little kid. “No idea about any of that old nonsense.”
The uncle’s eyes oscillated and his ears twitched and his tongue bounced in and out of his throat like a gopher from its hole. “YOU KNOW ABOUT MY CHEATING THE SUN AT GAMBLING?!” he shrieked loud enough to deafen grown mothers two villages over.
“Sure!” said the rotten little kid. “Dead simple. I knew that one good.”
The uncle slumped soundly. “God you’re a rotten little kid,” he said admiringly. “Reminds me of me except smaller and dumber.”
“And you remind me of me, except bigger and smellier,” said the rotten little kid with a smile that lit the whole world. “Tell me how you’re cheating. Let me in on the cut. I want a cut of the cut. So I have a cut. Cut. Cut.”
“Quit saying cut and you’ve got a deal,” said the uncle.
“Cuuuuttt,” sang the rotten little kid. “Cut cut a cut cut cut cutcut cut cut cut cot coop cut cang clurg-”
There was a pause while the uncle extracted the rotten little kid from his palm tooth-by-tooth.
“Awright,” he said. “Truce. Lemme explain. See, you take two cups like this, y’see?”
“I see.”
“And then you take a hill like this one,” said the uncle, squatting down in the dirt, “all jumping with bugs. Or crawling. Or squirming. Whatever, see?”
“I see.”
“And then you drop your cups on them – wham!” said the uncle. The shells went thunk, not wham. “Hard and fast and no aiming allowed, see?”
“I see.”
“Then you sit there and you guesstimate and calculjecture yourself up a bug, see,” whispered the uncle.
“I see.”
“Then you whip off the cups and count up all the bugs you both got and BAM WHAM BAM you got a WINNER!” sang the uncle.
“I see.” The rotten little kid scratched his nose. “One thing that gets me: how’re you cheating?”
“Oh, that!” said the uncle. “Sun doesn’t know what the hell ants are. Must be near-sighted. Just play on top of that one hill I use – all covered in anthills – and say your ants are scorpions or camel spiders or moths or centipedes or octopuses or what-have-you. He can’t tell ants from your gramma’s behind or your momma’s breakfast.”
“Gross,” said the rotten little kid. “I want to go cheat now.”
“Shoot,” said the uncle. “We’d better hurry or we’ll be late.”
So they went down and they were just a little bit late. “Hey sun,” said the uncle. “Hey you up there. C’mon. Win back your losses. C’mon. C’moooon. C’mon.”
The sun waited.
“You got a third player now,” said the rotten little kid.
The sun popped onto the hill like a bad cork. “Here’s a cup, get rolling, call it fast, go.”
“Owls,” said the kid.
“Dang,” said the sun. “I swear I saw those.”
So by day’s end the sun owed two people, and they took two bottles because why the hell not.
“This tastes lousy,” said the rotten little kid.
“It’s a song for your tastebuds and cancer on your skin,” said the uncle. “It’s ultraviolet and it tastes ultra vibrant and it makes my heart sing like a horny canary. Try it, it’s good stuff. It’ll put hair wherever the hell you want hair. Maybe places you don’t, too. It’s that good.”
The rotten little kid sniffed his bottle of liquid sunshine dubiously. “No thanks,” he said. And he chucked it in the river and went home early so he wouldn’t get yelled at.
The uncle, by contrast, slept in a ditch. And so when he wandered in the next morning, he was awful surprised at all the ruckus that was afoot. People were running around and yelling at each other and the sky and the rocks and just about anything they could yell at because hey who wouldn’t want to have a good yell to fit in like then. The uncle respected that sort of thing.
That said, it was a little noisy. He sidled up to his brother-in-law and asked him what was going on.
“Stream’s gone funny,” said his brother-in-law. “It’s all rainbows and blue skies.”
“Pretty,” admired the uncle.
“I tried to have a drink this morning and a bluebird stuck its head in my mouth,” said his brother-in-law. “It stuck its head right in there. Then it thought my tongue was a worm or something. It bit my tongue. I am not a very artistic man but I do not like having my tongue bitten. So yes, maybe that stream is pretty, but it is also a very big pain in my ass. You should fix that.”
“Who told you?” asked the uncle.
“Lucky guess,” said his brother-in-law.
So the uncle went over and bugged the rotten little kid, who was sitting by the stream fishing for blackbirds with a worm on a hook.
“Hey kid,” said the uncle.
“Hey ugly,” said the rotten little kid. “Whatcha need?”
“You to fix your big stupid mess you no-good little horrible rotten thing on a stump with a wart sticking out of its backside and a blister in its eyeball with three noses,” said the uncle.
“Jeez,” said the rotten little kid. “Jeez.”
“G’won,” said the uncle. “G’won, fix it. Fix it now. Fix it or your mamma’ll get on my case and wear it down to a broken bit of baggage. Fix it now or be uncleless and have no-one to pick on in your old, stupid age that is older and stupider than you. Fix it or I’ll call you a chicken. Fix it. Fix it.”
“Go get mamma to fix it,’ said the rotten little kid. And he laid down with his hat over his eyes which was how the uncle knew the conversation was over, so he gave up and got his sister, which is what most people learn to do when they want to get something done.
“Brother,” said his sister, “you are the dumbest man ever to be a member of my family, at least until this little guy gets bigger. Why in the big blue stupid world would you go making bets with the sun? It could snuff you out before I could say appaloosa or chloroform.”
“Don’t worry,” said the uncle, “I’m real careful to always cheat like crazy. I’ve ripped off that sun more than your son’s ripped off bandages. I’ve given it the gift o’ grift. If I’ve said one honest word to that big old set of hot balls I’ll eat my pants.”
“See now brother,” said his sister, “if you were just a little bit smarter you’d realize why this isn’t making me much happier when I hear you saying it.”
“Fair enough,” said the uncle. “Look, here’s how you cheat the sun.” And he told her.
“Hey,” said the sun. “Three again?”
“Keeps things lively,” said the uncle. “This is my sister. She has a beautiful vermillion dress and she loves to own old, tired-out dogs that don’t give a hoot about anything anymore, and her children are the worst little people in this worst little world of ours, times five. And she has a very painful kick. Ow. Ow. Ow.”
“Hey,” said his sister.
“Hey,” said the sun. “Throw ‘em.”
They threw ‘em.
“Hippopotami,” said his sister.
“Oh goddamnit,” said the sun.
So his sister came back with a big sponge that was still warm from the sun’s soft, baby-smooth hands and stuck it in the stream, gluck, glurck glop, and it sucked up all that sunshine inside itself. Then it exploded and it rained sponge for three hours on the weekend.
“That sort of worked out,” everybody agreed. “Kind of.”
“Let’s not mess with the sun again,” they all suggested.
“Great!” everyone concurred. “Let’s do it.”
“One, two, three, four, five, six, seven. Seven hundred. Huh,” said the sun. “Huh huh. That’s a bit more. A bit more than last time.”
“Afraid to lose?” asked the uncle.
“Put ‘em up, throw ‘em down,” said the sun.
“Rats” said everybody.
“Rats,’ said the sun. “No, not what you guys said. I mean literally rats. Literally figuratively ‘rats.’ Oh hell you know what I mean.”
Now things started to get a little crazy. See, everybody spent half the day out of their mind on liquid sunshine, and half the day was a long, long, LONG time because the other half the day they spent pouring liquid sunshine on everything, which made the day half again as long. That’s three half a days for every day, you understand. That’s pretty hard math.
Lucky, everyone was too busy with sunshine to care. Everybody except for the uncle, his sister, his brother-in-law, and the rotten little kid.
“This was more fun when I was the only one doing it,” complained the uncle. “Now everybody’s doing it and it’s no fun anymore. Nobody understands me, but that’s how I feel and it’s a proper way to feel.”
“Birds,” said his brother-in-law grimly. “Birds. Peacocks in the pantry. Whip-poor-wills in the walls. A large, angry male ostrich in my bedroom, preventing me from sleep and ruining my capacity for alliteration. I cannot take this much longer.”
“I don’t like this,” said his sister. “There’s too many happy people around. They’re a bad influence. I saw what started all this, and it was you being happy. People are happy enough on their own damned selves, you’ve got no right to be showing off and making them all miserable with it. I’ve half a mind to smack you and the other half to sock you.”
“I’m bored now let’s do something else,” said the rotten little kid.
The uncle looked upon his relatives with graven graveness. “For once,” he said, “I almost don’t quite not agree with all of you absolutely. Let’s go fix this up.”
So they made the walk down to the sun’s hill, which was really easy nowadays because there’d been seven hundred and something people making the trip every day for like a month. Three half months and a month, for a month. Or something.
“How long have we been walking?” asked the rotten little kid. “My feet hurt. My legs hurt. My nose hurts. My brain hurts. Carry me or I won’t stop talking until you fall over.”
“Adversity builds not caring,” said the uncle.
“You carry him,” said his sister.
“Fine,” said the uncle. “But I’m going to complain about it.”
“Watch me care,” said the sister.
The uncle watched her very closely the whole rest of the walk but he was unable to watch her care, and this explained why he was in such a bad mood when they stood on the sun’s hill and it asked “Hey, where’s everybody?”
“What’s it to you?” asked the uncle.
“What’s it to YOU?” asked the sun.
“What’s it TO YOU?” asked the uncle.
“Go away,” said the sun, loftily. “I’m popular now. Everybody likes me and they all come over to gamble every single day. I’ve double or nothing so many times that I’m up to nine trillion seven zillion and three-half doubles, and all I need to do is win once to win big. It’s going to be amazing and you’re too stupid to care so go away.”
“YOU go away,” said the uncle, pissily. “Nobody likes you. They just like your liquid sunshine and they all come over to get it off you every single day. And you’ll never ever win a single bet because you’re a big dumb baby that I’ve been cheating out the wazoo since I was smart enough to tell the difference between an ant and literally any other animal on the face of the planet. You are the stupidest solar body ever to exist and I hope you blow up in a really disappoint and silly manner because you are also disappointing and silly, which must disappoint YOUR MOTHER very much every day of her sad, miserable, abandoned life, because you abandoned her and left her all alone out of ingratitude you shiftless, shitless, pantless, gutless, yellow-bellied, red-faced, orange-cheeked, wall-eyed MORON who isn’t fit to fry a fat beetle let alone heat an entire planetary system for billions of years, which you are trying to do, which you are failing to do, because you aren’t fit to do it on account of being a knock-kneed gullible so-and-so with peameal bacon for brains and cornmeal muffins for common sense with gravy between the ears.”
There was a nice long slow moment while the sun digested this.
“What.” It said.
There was a really short and awkward moment while everyone indigested THAT.
“What,” repeated the sun, “is a wazoo?”
“Nothing,” said the rotten little kid.
“Oh,” said the sun.
“It means a big gullible GOB OF GIT!” hollered the uncle, who was subdued most unkindly by his sister.
“He called me gullible, and many other things!” said the sun.
“Nah,” said the rotten little kid.
“Oh. Okay. So, want to play?”
“No,” said the rotten little kid. “No. Nobody wants to play.”
“Well then I’ll play by MYSELF!” roared the sun, and it zipped off far away into the highest part of the sky to sulk.
And that’s where it’s stayed.
Except in July. It makes visits in July.