was only a matter of when sentence would be passed.
Before we filed in there, Shacks pulled me aside and said, “I keep thinking about the things you’re saying, Tommy…I mean, really thinking about them. Maybe I never did before. Maybe I never wanted to. But…but to be tied up out there, alive, while those things feed on you…Jesus.”
And that’s exactly what needed to happen: every one these goddamn scared rabbits in Doc’s personal warren needed to do some thinking. Some real thinking. They just couldn’t go on like this, hiding behind a crumbling wall of denial that it would never happen to them while their odds dwindled and dwindled.
I sat by Maria and stared at Doc. “Well, let’s get going, Doc. Let’s find out whose ass is raw meat.”
“ Tommy-”
“ Why don’t you shut up?” Sonny said.
“ You think they start with your throat or your balls?” I asked him. “Which do they bite into first?”
Ape glared at me with full menace and I smiled at him. “You better cold-cock me, asshole, because I won’t shut up. But don’t damage me…Dragna likes his cold cuts fresh and chewy.”
An elderly woman named Peggy began to sob and her husband made a low wailing sound that put chills up everyone’s spine: it was the sound of bitter, broken finality, of life accepting death and it was eerie.
“ Please everyone,” Doc said. He cast me a look that tried unbelievably hard to be tolerant and sage, but it was wearing thin and Doc was getting very fucking sick of me and my mouth. I think as far as he was concerned, I was guilty of treason and sedition. He was probably hoping that I’d draw the X and he’d be rid of me.
The cigar box made the rounds.
People either tore them open with a mad, suicidal glee or held them out in trembling fingers like they were poisonous spiders.
“ Hallelujah!” Sonny cried out in the giddy voice of a nine year old on Christmas morning, born again on the spot. “It’s not me! It’s not me!”
“ Me either!”
“ My skin is saved! Ha! I’m staying!”
I can’t say that they were all as piggish, crude, and insensitive. Many just took the verdict quietly and calmly with a modicum of self-respect. But others jumped for joy, pigs wallowing in the full glory of their filth.
One by one by one, people held out empty pieces of paper. There were only two that had not had been checked and those belonged to Maria and I. The knowledge of that nearly suffocated me. I felt sweat break open on my face, the neurons of my brain ready to overload and burn out.
All eyes were on us…there was pity in them and guilt. But in some there was a twisted, vicious euphoria. It wasn’t them so now it was a game to see who went on the spit, high drama and nail-biting suspense.
Maria and I looked at each other and the others pressed in, all of them now, eyes wide and shining, licking their lips, some of them nearly drooling. They were eager for it, I tell you. Hungry for it. Like crazed villagers filled with manic glee at the idea of burning one of their own as a witch. I saw the innate brutality and bestiality of the human race at that moment.
And I hated.
God, how I hated.
I swore to myself then and there that I would kill each and everyone of them if I got the chance. I prayed it would be me. I really did. But even before I opened my slip I knew it would be blank. And it was. Maria opened hers, smiled thinly, held up her slip with the X on it. “It’s me,” she said quite calmly. “I’m the one. I’m chosen.”
Everyone sighed…that unbroken circuit of tension died.
They were all safe and the fun was over.
But, without knowing it, they had just signed their own death warrants.
10
Doc decided to soften the rules.
Maybe after the Murph thing he saw that he had to and I guess I looked on him a little more compassionately because he did so. He did not cull Maria off. He did not lock her in a cell or put her into isolation. He let her and the other five have twenty-four hours in which to come to terms with themselves and their maker. Nobody guarded the doors during that time. If you were chosen and you decided to run, take your chances with the hordes of Wormboys, nobody would stop you. Dragna would have his six either way. But the most amazing and frightening thing of all was how many didn’t. How many just accepted it and walked willingly out into the killing fields.
I guess that says something about the human condition I don’t even want to contemplate.
Later, I was alone with Maria in her room. I don’t think she was ever lovelier than that night…her long black hair, her big dark eyes, her smooth olive skin. I told her we would run together. We would fight our way out and make a life for ourselves somewhere, somehow.
But she simply shook her head. “No, Tommy. What is done is done.”
I wanted to slap her, to beat her unconscious and steal away with her while there was still time. But mostly I wanted to hold her and never let go. The tears came. I hadn’t cried in a long time, but I did then.
Maria looked at me and owned me with her eyes. “You can do one thing for me, Tommy,” she said, as strong and persevering as only those of Latin blood can possibly be.
“Anything,” I said, still trying hard not to sob and failing miserably.
She touched my cheek, tracing the track of a tear from my eye to the corner of my lips with one long finger. “You can spend the night with me. You can make me feel like a real woman one last time, like a human being.”
She fell into my arms and I melted into her as quick.
11
The next morning I found Doc in his little office. He looked surprised to see me. He knew I had something to say and he kept quiet, waited until I worked it out and laid it at his feet.
“I want to be part of it,” I said.
“Part of what, Tommy?”
“You know. The lottery.”
“You were.”
I shook my head. “You don’t understand. I want to go with Sonny and Conroy and Ape when they march them out tonight. I want to be part of that.”
“Tommy-”
“No, listen, Doc. Maria is my friend. I love her. I think she loves me. I don’t want her going out there alone without a friend. She needs me to be there. To…to see her off. She needs it. So do I. I don’t think I can ever be part of this unless you let me.”
He sighed. “Tommy, I don’t think it’s a good idea.”
Before he spent twenty minutes trying to steer me around to his way of thinking, I said, “I know I’ve been a pain in the ass, Doc. I know I’ve been nothing but trouble…but this isn’t easy. You gotta understand how hard all this is for me. For all of us. Just let me do this. This is something I need.”
Doc just stared at me for a time like he was trying to read what was in my mind, but I had it locked up tight as a vault. He was not getting in there. I emoted sincerity mixed with pain and confusion, grief and loss. But certainly nothing rebellious.
Doc started to shake his head, then he just sighed. “Are you sure, Tommy? Are you sure this is what you want?”
I nodded. “More than anything.”
Poor Doc. He was such a fucking fool. Always in charge. Always having to deal with it all. I almost felt sorry
