Din Andrew
1965
If I had to summarize Big Orvie, I'd say it's a bit like Of Mice and Men, just way sleazier and without the mouse petting. Big Orvie snags you with the sleaze hook from the get-go, as the town floozy is hanging around a gas station, rubbing all over one of the (married) attendants. She moves over to Orvie, who is described as slow and essentially retarded, and sticks her hands down his pants to discover that while he's lacking in the brains department, he certainly isn't in another.
And so begins this odd soap opera in this podunk town. Everyone sleeps around and is generally scum in their own way. The main setting, the gas station, is co-operated by Rad and his partner Flotsky, while Orvie helps out as he can with supervision from Rad, who has watched over him through their entire life from childhood to present.
Unlike Steinbeck's Lennie, Orvie doesn't mean well. He steals from the cash register, manipulates Rad, and even tries to kill Flotsky; yet, somehow Orvie is considered the slow one here. Wife Jo isn't getting any from Flotsky since he's already getting his elsewhere, so she remembers Orvie's massive package and invites him over. They screw for hours, Orvie's endurance seemingly endless. Flotsky comes home to witness this and attacks Orvie, beating him into a corner. Then he goes for his wife, still stuck in sexual nirvana, and beats her with his belt. She's so sexed-up that she gets off on this and they rekindle their relationship. Briefly. Orvie gets fired and heads out to his zealot mother's house, while Flotsky skips town with the aforementioned floozy, leaving his perpetually horney wife and two children at home without any money or food and Rad to man the station -- and eventually his wife.
But Rad has a girlfriend. She's a great gal, a nurse and all, but she just won't put out for Rad, despite his frequent advances. She also quashes his dreams of grandeur of running a chicken farm with Orvie, and instead implores him to become a TV repairman. She promises to remain prude until marriage, and only a TV repairman will do! One night this is too much, so remembering the advances of Jo, he drives over to her house in the middle of the night, thus beginning their sex-fueled fling.
In the meantime, in one of the only genuinely disturbing scenes of the book, Orvie molests an eleven year-old neighbor and is subsequently arrested. Rad bails him out of jail and sends him out of town to start working on the chicken farm. Rad's girlfriend finds out about his affair and they eventually rekindle the relationship, leaving Jo utterly alone without anyone to quench her sexual desires.
So, with no options, it's back to Orvie she goes. She somehow knows where this old farm is and arrives to find Orvie living in squalor, the kitchen covered in trash and dirty dishes full of half-eaten food. Orvie's onto her games and knows what she wants, and Jo is practically begging him to take her to bed. Sensing the desperation, Orvie forces her to drink a murky bowel of leftover food, which is an odd mix of cereal and milk and ketchup and something else. She gags on the filth but keeps it down, winning Orvie over. Again they screw all night, her desires finally fulfilled. But Orvie knows that now that she's satiated she won't return. But he remembers how desperate she was and how he commanded her to drink the bowl of garbage in the kitchen, and soon he realizes what power he has over her and has other ideas, leading to the scene on the cover...
Despite the generally nasty premise, Big Orvie never gets overly graphic. It's all pretty tame compared to what you'd read in an action book from the 70s or 80s, but boooooy is it sleazy. I love these sort of backwoods sexcapades and small-town tomfoolery, so this was naturally a hit with me. Poor Orvie just didn't know any better!
