Free We Are Pirates: A Novel by Daniel Handler

years after. Nobody likes to hear bad things. It was about a year. Can’t hoit , she said. Do you know that joke? Those were her last words. We were joking when we met. We laughed like you wouldn’t believe. Can’t hoit! Those were her last words. They sent this lady at the hospital. Vera put her trust in her. Did I tell you this?”
    “No.”
    “Dying in the hospital, so much pain. You wouldn’t believe it. Like a dam breaking. They gave her everything. Can’t hoit! she always said. And then this lady . . . ”
    This lady, as far as Gwen could tell, came to the hospital and sat at Vera’s side. “Picture a trampoline,” this lady said, holding the hand of Errol’s wife, Vera. “Imagine that you’re on a trampoline, up and down, up and down, up and down.” The woman’s voice was a traffic drone, lulling in its irritating pitch. Vera had been in pain for a long time. “You’re jumping up and down on this trampoline, up and down, up and down. And now, Vera, now why don’t you get off the trampoline? Why don’t you get off for a while?” This lady worked for the hospital. They paid her to do this, to walk into people’s rooms and talk them off the grit and jar of staying alive, the pain with each bounce. “Why don’t you get off for a while?” She died just hours later. They killed her, those murderers, those terrible people with their smiling ladies.
    “If any man dared that,” Errol said, with a bit of froth, “I’d smite him by thunder, all right. By thunder I would. So they sent a woman to kill her, while the doctors went about their business as usual. Can’t hoit! It is an insult.”
    “I know.”
    “We were joking when we met.”
    “You said. What was the joke?”
    Errol wasn’t listening. His eyes were very clear, very direct, completely focused on some lost punch line that nonetheless made him grin. Gwen waited in the nice space that had suddenly arrived.
    “Thank you,” Errol said quietly. “A nice memory is a nice thing.”
    “Sure,” Gwen said.
    “I don’t like it here,” he said, and then with both hands fished into one pocket. His fingers fought for a while and then handed Gwen something.
    “Can you,” he said, “please, mail this for me?”
    The envelope had SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE written on it, nothing more. “Sure, of course,” Gwen said. “That’s easy.” She could mail these every day. There was a mailbox right in front of the drugstore. They had a sign near the register about Lucky Seniors. Lucky Seniors receive our Lucky Senior discount. Let us know if you are a Lucky Senior. The awful words they throw at you. Gwen wanted to snarl at them; her hands itched to take whatever things they didn’t want you to have.
    “Did you really steal things?” Errol said. “Did I ask you that already, or somebody else?”
    “No, I stole things,” Gwen said.
    Errol laughed. “Tell me all of it,” he said. “I want a complete account of all the treasure.”
    “Really?”
    “I’d be most happy.”
    “It was mostly candy.”
    “That’s just what I’d steal. You want to read to me?”
    “Sure, okay.”
    Errol pointed to a saggy shelf near where the bowl had fallen. Each step Gwen took toward it was a crunch of cereal. Treasure Island. Marauders. The Dark Schooner. Mutiny! Piracy! The Aquarians. The Sea-Wolf. Captain Blood. Captain Black. Captain of the Black Flag. Seaward Sinister. Mardi. The Darkest Wind. Treasure Seekers. The Raid upon the Waves. White-Jacket. The Tempest. The Sea Witch. She had never heard of any of them. There were lots more. Gwen dubiously took out a book of poetry; old people probably liked poetry.
    “I don’t like it here,” he said when she stood up again.
    “I’m mailing your letter,” Gwen said. “I’m going to mail that letter to the paper, Errol.”
    “It’s not a big problem. I worry about it, though. What’s that river?”
    “Senile,” Gwen said very quietly, but Errol drooped even at the whisper of it. The sun seethed