would claw down to get out because the sky had been flipped over. The world was upside down. The dead animals would rain from the sky, howling, speaking to me in human language. They would have red pinpoint eyes, too, and tell me ancient secrets. But they could see through the cloud. It was their home. Oil and silver were their skin, and their skin was hard. My skin was soft and pink. They chewed through it. With every bite I grew older, weaker, an old man with stick-thin arms and a shiny bald head. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t move. The silver was too hot. The oil was too thick.
I came out of the cloud. It was very dark in the room. A nurse stood over the bed, wiping the sweat from my face and neck and chest. She asked me if I would like some ice chips. She placed them in my mouth. They tasted like the autumn sky.
“Your fever’s broken,” she whispered to me, then gave me a shot. I closed my eyes. The cloud did not return. I was safe.
Safe enough.
My third day in the hospital, Beth came to see me, wearing the same outfit she’d worn the day she’d picked me up from the hospital when I was nine. Not the same style of outfit, mind you-the same outfit. Same halter top, same jeans, same belt, same everything. Yeah, the pants were a bit shorter around the ankles and the halter was a little tight here and there and might be showing some age but, damn, she still wore it well.
“I thought you might appreciate a little trip down memory lane.”
“More like a face-first fall in the middle of amnesia boulevard. Why do you still have those things?”
“Because you said I was the most beautiful thing you’d ever seen that day.”
“I was recovering from a gunshot wound. You could have been dressed like Minnie Pearl and I would have thought you were the hottest chick on Earth.”
“‘Chick.’ Wow. Has a nostalgic ring to it. You’re such a romantic.”
“I love you.”
“You’d better-do you know I can’t feel the blood circulating in my waist because of these damn jeans? Who the fuck ever thought hip-huggers were sexy?”
“Guys who get to slide them off the hips of girls who wear them.”
“You’re one sick puppy. Speaking of puppies-” She sat on the edge of the bed and took one of my hands in hers. “Mabel told me about what happened. But it’s okay, we found a place that will take them.”
“Have you picked out who’s going to go?”
“Not yet. We still have a week before we have to do the deed. We decided you have a say in this, too, you know.”
“I don’t want to have to-”
“Each of us picks one to stay.”
“But that leaves one-”
“Mabel picks the fourth. In fact, she promised me that she’d have it picked by the time I get home today.”
“The rest go the Humane Society?”
“No. A place called… oh, what was it? Hang on.” She dug into one of her pockets and removed a piece of wadded paper. Unfolding it, she smiled a “Meand-My-Scattered-Brains” smile, then read: “ ‘Keepers.’ It’s a private organization, funded by donations and animal-loving rich people, I guess. They take your animals and care for them until a new home can be found. They don’t put them to sleep, ever, even if they never find a new home.”
“Just take them in and let them live out their lives naturally, huh?”
“Right.”
“How’d you find out about them?”
“Someone who works at the nursing home with Mabel. She didn’t find out all that much, but this is enough.” She grabbed my hand and leaned in, smiling. “Isn’t this great? I mean, don’t get me wrong-I cried like hell when Mabel told me, and I’ll cry like hell when we have to leave them, and I’ll miss them… but it doesn’t seem like it’ll be so hard to live with afterward, y’know? Because I know they’re going to be happy, they’re going to be taken care of and loved and kept safe.”
“There ought to be a place,” I whispered.
“Huh?”
“Nothing. ‘Keepers,’ huh?”
“Yeah. Something about that name seemed familiar to me. How about you?”
I thought about it for a few seconds, then shook my head. “No. Yes. Maybe. I’m not sure.”
Beth cocked her head. “Yeah, me too. It seems like it should ring a bell, but it doesn’t, y’know?”
“Yeah, yeah I do.” For some reason the color blue flashed through my mind, but its meaning-if indeed it even had any-was lost on me.
“Thanks for bringing me over to the emergency room,” I said.
“You had a temperature of a hundred and four! We thought about turning off the stove and just using your forehead to heat the stew, but Mabel likes having you around. You scared us, you idiot! Did you know they put you on ice after you got here? I mean, they actually stripped off your clothes and put you in a tub full of ice to bring down your temperature. You were in brain-damage territory.”
“That could explain a lot.”
“I said were. You’re safe now, so you can’t use it as an excuse.”
“Damn. It would’ve been a good one, too.”
“Is that the resplendent Beth I see?” came a voice from the doorway. Low in the doorway. We looked over and down just as Marty Weis wheeled himself into the room. “A-ha! I’ve caught you in the act. Trying to thaw out Frosty the Snowman, I take it?”
“‘Frosty’?” I said.
“Word of your icy exploits have traveled all the way across the parking lot to our side of the tracks, Captain Spalding. I heard you awoke screaming for Larry, Moe, and Curly to stop dancing on your pants, as you were still wearing them at the time.”
“How did you get out?” said Beth between laughs.
“Yadda-yadda, Warden, as the late-great Lenny Bruce once said. Shhh -your aunt had a hand in my escape. Yadda-yadda. And if either of you tell me you don’t know who Lenny Bruce was, I’ll-”
“-weep openly?” I asked.
“‘Scowl meaningfully,’ was the phrase I’d meant to employ but-oh, all right, I was going to say ‘weep openly.’ ”
“‘A pro never forgets his good lines.’ ”
“ Magic -you’re quoting William Goldman again.”
“May twenty-third.”
Weis stared at me. “What?”
“My parents’ anniversary. May twenty-third.” I tapped my head; it still felt hot to me. “I can remember Goldman dialogue and important dates.”
“The miracles I’ve witnessed in this lifetime. It humbles me. Truly. Or maybe it’s only a hemorrhoid flare-up. Either way, it makes a definite impression.” He rolled over to the bed and pulled a small box from under the blanket covering his legs. “A token of my esteem.” He tossed it up into my lap.
I was about half afraid of the thing. “You’re giving me a present?”
“I just paid for the gift-wrapping, but it’s the thought that counts so let’s not get all emotional-however if someone named ‘Rico the Blade’ comes looking for his ‘lid,’ say nothing of this conversation. I am a mule on the run.”
“The considerate felon.”
Beth shook her head. “You two ought to take this act on the road.”
“Oh, my days on the road are long gone, Beautiful Bethany. Unless of course you’re driving, then it’s Easy Rider time.”
“They both get blown away at the end of that movie.”
“Yes, but it’s to a Bob Dylan song, so that makes it symbolic and culturally significant. Perhaps Yukon Cornelius here could hum a few bars of ‘Lay Lady, Lay’ and we’ll feel terribly important and meaningful as we pull into the Dairy Queen drive-thru. Lacks the sociological pathos of Fonda and Hopper biting the big one, but I always
