In 'Lard', Duane's virginity is getting to be a problem. Not so much for Duane as it is for his friends and his father-whose workmates rib him mercilessly about his son's frigidity. Deciding that his friends' regular outlets are not to his taste, Duane sets about fabricating an encounter.
In 'Schott's Bridge', Todd has 'too much sugar in him' for Knockemstiff. Even so, he ignores his grandmother's dying wish that he use the two thousand dollars she'd bequeathed him in a coffee jar to get himself out of town. Kicked out of the house by his uncle, he takes to living by the creek with Frankie Johnson and a daunting supply of hallucinogenic drugs.
Part of the Storycuts series, these two short stories were previously published in the collection Knockemstiff.