himself, most notably in The Departing, his haunted train station
novel.
'Yes, indeed,' he said. 'Bum, baby, bum.'
He thought about getting the drink he'd promised himself, then
remembered the spilled bottle of vinegar (which by now would
probably be soaking into the spilled oatmeal-what a thought). He
decided he would simply go on upstairs instead. In a book-one by
Richard Kinnell, for instance - sleep would be out of the question
after the sort of thing which had just happened to him.
In real life, he thought he might sleep just fine.
He actually dozed off in the shower, leaning against the back wall
with his hair full of shampoo and the water beating on his chest.
He was at the yard sale again, and the TV standing on the paper
ashtrays was broadcasting Judy Diment. Her head was back on, but
Kinnell could see the medical examiner's primitive industrial stitch
work; it circled her throat like a grisly necklace. 'Now this New
England Newswire update,' she said, and Kinnell, who had always
been a vivid dreamer, could actually see the stitches on her neck
stretch and relax as she spoke. 'Bobby Hastings took all his
paintings and burned them, including yours, Mr. Kinnell ... and it
is yours, as I'm sure you know. All sales are final, you saw the
sign. Why, you just ought to be glad I took your check.'
Burned all his paintings, yes, of course he did, Kinnell thought in
his watery dream. He couldn't stand what was happening to him,
that's what the note said, and when you get to that point in the
festivities, you don't pause to see if you want to except one special
piece of work from the bonfire. It's just that you got something
special into The Road Virus Heads North, didn't you, Bobby? And
probably completely by accident. You were talented, I could see
that right away, but talent has nothing to do with what's going on
in that picture.
'Some things are just good at survival,' Judy Diment said on the
TV. 'They keep coming back no matter how hard you try to get rid
of them. They keep coming back like viruses.'
Kinnell reached out and changed the channel, but apparently there
was nothing on all the way around the dial except for The Judy
Diment Show.
' You might say he opened a hole into the basement of the
universe,' she was saying now. 'Bobby Hastings, I mean. And this
is what drove out. Nice, isn't it?'
Kinnell's feet slid then, not enough to go out from under him
completely, but enough to snap him to.
He opened his eyes, winced at the immediate sting of the soap
(Prell had run down his face in thick white rivulets while he had
been dozing), and cupped his hands under the shower-spray to
splash it away. He did this once and was reaching out to do it again
when he heard something. A ragged rumbling sound.
Don't be stupid, he told himself. All you hear is the shower. The
rest is only imagination.
Except it wasn't.
