Franklin said, “Go to hell,” into my ear, but I think he meant it for Folsom.
“Let’s see how that cut is healing, huh? Before we change all that again.” And he ripped off the patch.
I don’t know what he saw. I could only see his face. Close and pale, with hard lines.
The lines seemed to get soggy and his skin changed a queer yellow, and liquor had never affected me like this. But it wasn’t the liquor.
“Whassamatter?” said Franklin.
“Shut up-”
“You gonna be sick or something, Folsom?”
“Just shut up-”
He stepped away and looked somewhere else. He was breathing deeply to get himself back in hand.
“I mean, you don’t look right,” said Franklin.
“Goddammit, you never heard of nobody can’t stand the sight of blood? Some people just can’t stand the sight of blood and it’s got nothing to do with anything!” His voice wasn’t strong, but high and insistent. “Some’s born that way and it don’t mean nothing at all! You understand that, Franklin?”
“No.”
“Whadda ya mean, no!”
Franklin bent around to look at the side of my face and then he straightened up again.
“I don’t see no blood. Mostly healed there, anyways.”
“But it’s gonna bust open!”
This was almost a scream, as if about some great injustice. And then he screamed more, loud and obscene, and he started hitting my middle.
Wild, though. It must have been wild because he let it go almost anywhere. Cursing and screaming all the time, at the big man, too.
“Hold him, damn you, hold him! You made me hurt my wrist!”
“To hell with-” or something like that from Franklin, and I felt him let go of me.
For the rest of it, I seemed to fly all over the room. Drunks land easily. I wasn’t that drunk, but I played it up. It helped with his wild swings, with the sound when I hit the wall, with the business of spending his rage.
How it really happened, I don’t know.
There was much less light in the room, but more heat. The sun was lower. I couldn’t see if the patterns were still on the ceiling because I was lying down on the rug. There was chintz next to my face, from an easy chair, and I didn’t move my head because it felt fairly comfortable. I could see less that way, but he couldn’t see me too well from that angle, either.
The sky was reddish outside, over the lake, and Folsom, in a chair by the window, looked hunched and dark.
I lay still because it felt pretty good that way. It felt like after a sleep, nothing worse, and if I had fainted before it had not been for very long. I had come out of the faint and then had gone back to sleep. This hurt and that hurt, but the rest wasn’t bad.
And Folsom was so sure, he sat reading at the other side of the room. Or maybe I was too sure about being all in one piece.
When I moved I found out about our arrangement. For lack of a weightier word, it was ridiculous.
When I moved, my leg went just so far and then jerked. And Folsom jerked because his chair jerked. Which was because of this line. He had it tied to my ankle and to the leg of his chair.
“If you got any funny ideas because Frank isn’t here, then I’ll…” And blah, blah, blah, more of the same.
He gave an experimental yank to the line, he held on to his chair, he straightened up to get the gloves off the window sill.
I went gaw, or gawk, or something stagey like that, and it meant that I had passed out again. He thought that was best and believed it. He sat down again, and I was glad for the time. I had no idea when the big guy would come back, but before then I wanted to think this through in peace. Think, while the big one was down at the club. Beating Lippit? Killing him?
I hadn’t thought about Lippit at all. I had thought about getting drunk, passing out, rolling away from the punches, all that. Busy with details. No time for any grand concept of Lippit. About how much of a bastard he was, or a fool. Was this thing his idea, was it Folsom’s-
He was getting his at the club. I didn’t mind the thought.
Then I had busy thoughts about the rope, Folsom and me. I was getting stiff. I had a buzzing in my ear, the smell of dust in my nose. The buzz was something else. I knew that when it stopped. When it slammed the door, when the feet were coming.
If you want to get killed, St. Louis, then move now.
“Franklin? That you, Franklin?”
“Yeah, it’s me,” said Franklin.
He came into the room and when he passed me he must have looked down.
“Still out?”
It sounded as if he thought I might answer. Then he kicked my foot.
“He’s fainted again. How was yours?” said Folsom.
“That’s a shame. That’s a damn shame,” said Franklin. He sounded much meaner than when he had left.
“I had to beat him down again,” said Folsom. “How was yours?”
“It stunk.”
He said it so hard, each letter came out all by itself. Then he went to the couch and sat down.
“He been out long?”
“What’s the matter with you?” Folsom asked him. He sounded mean too, like a rat without teeth.
I could have told him what was the matter with Franklin. He had missed feeding time. Lippit hadn’t been there. Like a baby dracula running short on gore he felt edgy and uncomfortable and would get worse in time.
“He wasn’t there, huh?” said Folsom.
Franklin was cracking his knuckles.
“What a lousy place, anyways. Was I supposed to get something done there?”
“What’s the matter? All the athletes make you feel like a twirp?”
Folsom shouldn’t have asked that. Not that he would get it in the neck for that crack, but I would, in a while. The big one was cracking his knuckles.
“Don’t you got to go?” he asked Folsom.
“Yeah. Soon. Soon’s I finish this cigarette.”
I was hoping it was king-size.
“You don’t know where he is?” Folsom asked.
“No.”
“They didn’t know at the club?”
“How would they know.” He spat on the floor, worked his foot over it “You know what they know?”
“Who?”
“You know what clomps is?”
“Which?”
“Forget it.”
Franklin, I saw, was looking out of the window, and Folsom was smoking.
“Didn’t you talk to anybody?” he asked a while later.
“Yeah. One guy says to me, ‘You wanna give somebody athlete’s foot?’ and the…”
“Which?”
“Athlete’s foot! Don’t you know from athlete’s foot?”
“You mean you got that?”
“Go to hell, will ya?”
There was smoking and the knuckles cracked once.
“You were saying,” said Folsom.
“That’s all there was. Then the other one, he wants to know do I want to crush somebody’s toes.”
