moon? I know how you are, Lucy. Hang the cost! Shit . You care so much for Dinky you just sent him into a hurricane for a bag of ice.â
Basil rose. âI should cave your skull in right fucking now.â
My hands flipped up to frame my face with a set of waggling fingers. Somewhere in my heart Iâd hoped to look like Munchâs screaming man. âIâm sooooo fwightened,â I said. And then I snarled. âYou cock head. If you had anything in your skull to make it worthwhile, Iâd have done you a lifetime back.â
Basil stood there in his suit of mud. He still had that blackface, and the hat besides, perched on his head like an ugly bird.
âIâm your boss ,â he said. âRemember that? In fact, now that I think about it, Iâm your former boss.â
âI never worked for you.â
âI suppose Iâm not the one whoâs been signing your checks these last eight years then.â
âYou jerk. Everyone here knows your grandma owns the buildings. That she got from your grandpa no less. All of which makes you nothing but a trust-fund piece of crap with insurance and fancy clothes.â
My friend was fazed, I could see, but that didnât keep him from shooting back. âItâs a hell of a lot better than being a talent-lacking toilet-scrubber,â he said.
â Dinkyâs sick, he must dieâLord, have mercy on us! â
Hickory had stayed by Dinky throughout, hand-in-hand,passing the rag along his brow. Now she turned our way with liquid eyes.
âPlease, you guys,â she said. âStop.â
â Dinkyâs sick, he must dieâ â
âShut up!â Basil said.
âDinky,â Lucille said, âweâre going to get you out of here.â
âAfter Pac Bell comes in to fix the phone we might,â I said.
â Dinkyâs sick, he mustâ â
âDinky,â Lucille said.
â He must dieâLord, have mercy on us !â
âHe doesnât even know what heâs saying anymore,â Hickory said.
âMaybe Superâs still around,â I said.
âWhat?â said Lucille.
â Fuck that guy,â said Basil.
âNo,â I said. âI mean, if heâs around, soâs his truck. He had to get here somehow, didnât he?â
â If we can find him,â Hickory said.
âMaybe we can. Me and Basil, I mean. At least we can try.â
âThe hell I am. After what he did to me?â
âWhat he did to you ?â said Lucille. âI thought you said he was just some old nut.â
âBut you donât know. The guyâs a freak, as in for real. Itâs like heâs the actual devil or something.â
âThat doesnât mean he wonât help us,â I said.
âIâm not going anywhere.â
Another fit had settled over Dinky, the coughing again, the same spewing again of blood and phlegm. I smoothed his blanket and dabbed his mouth. Hickory told me to kill my smoke, so I got up and took about fourteen slugs of bourbon. Then I went into the storm, hollering out for some wild old man, with his wasted monkey and bed of dolls and dog standing quietly by.An emptiness had opened up inside me. The night was wet and black and empty and cold, and I was scared, more so than Iâd ever been. Maybe this is it , I thought, maybe this is where Iâll see the face no one but the dead have ever seen. But maybe I wonât be dead, just almost-dead, just passed out kind of in a forest of mud, curled up like some little bald worm in the mud.
Â
THERE ARE TIMES YOU SEE THE ROT YOUâVE always been. My days were a trail of liquor-store bumblings and sunrise guilt, and every penny Iâd earned these years had come to rest in a dirty glass. Iâd ceased caring for others, and definitely for myself. The only things that mattered were booze and books. Scrubbing toiletsâthe very ones Iâd puked into so