because it feels better is my theory. Fuck my theories though.?
Looking back through the observation window, I watched as Toy suddenly jumped up in the air. He floated on his back, then drop-kicked the screen window with his bare feet. He repeated this stunt several times, his back
the narrow mattress on each fall.
?It won?t hurt him,? Asher said without looking in. ?I think it calms him down. Like the way little kids rock in their beds.?
The young nurse looked at me and shrugged.
?My daughter does that,? I said. ?Rocks in her bed, I mean ??
The nurse asked me how old she was. We went back to the glass-encased station and joked our way back toward normalcy. The girl had never had a needle broken off on her before.
I?d walked to the hospital, and I walked back, cutting a diagonal across the grounds, then going into some woods.
I climbed a tall, forbidding fence at the end of the woods. Darted and stalked across the Long Island Expressway. Made private discoveries in the face of speeding headlights.
Back at the motel, I drew myself a steamy, hot bath. I climbed in and things slowly began to come back into perspective.
I remembered another mad scene I?d witnessed. It was in a snooker hall and gin mill in Frankfurt, Kentucky. (At that time, in ?62 I think, I was carrying a small pistol myself, so I was no great judge of madness.)
What happened was this.
A scarecrow-looking farmboy in the bar had decided he was going to sneak a dance with this other boy?s girl. They started dancing to this slow Elvis Presley song that was popular back then, ?One Night? I think it was, and when the other boy saw what was happening, he walked up to the dancing couple, spit in the scarecrow?s face, and then stabbed him in the crotch area. Just that quick.
Everybody in the bar immediately crowded around the crumpled clothes and body on the dance floor, and with hot eyes and crying, and low whispers, they kept repeating around the circle that
had been
If you had taken that word?s meaning from its tone, you?d have guessed that the pleasures of dance and whiskey had been too much for Bean, and that he?d passed out.
Pistol on and all, I?d nearly thrown up on the spot.
The news about the Harley Wynn photograph came while I was up to my neck in hot bathwater and suds. I was reading single pages out of Jeb Magruder?s book on his life & Watergate, then putting it to rest on the lip of the tub. I found it infuriating that he?d had the cunning to churn out the book so quickly.
The news came when I was melancholy, sentimental as country music, missing Nan and Cat and Janie Bug like close friends moved out of town.
It couldn?t have come at a better time if I?d been in charge of planning my own life.
The phone rang in the bedroom and I just let it ring. I thought it was Asher or that nurse checking on me.
It kept right on ringing, a little red light buzzing with it.
?Terrell,? I heard when I finally picked it up. ?That shitheel, cocksucker Terrell.?
The distant voice on the phone was Lewis Rosten?s. It wasn?t Rosten?s normal speaking voice, though. Rosten was rarely if ever vulgar.
I tried to knock a cigarette out of a pack and four or five tumbled out.
?What about Terrell??
?Ochs,
He?s his lawyer. He?s from Houston is the reason nobody knew him.?
Rosten had started to shout. He was very happy. I was nervously lighting up one of the cigarettes.
?You did it this time, you smart bastard,? I heard. ?Reed says he could and will kiss your ass on television. Your sweet ass.?
Somebody else was on the line. Happy rebel yells was who it was.
I was holding the receiver away from my ear, starting to giggle like the big fucking village idiot.
More people came on the line with congratulations.
?How did it break?? I kept asking each new voice. ?How did it break??
?Complicated.? I eventually got Lewis back. ?Some friend of Reed?s is from Houston. Who cares!?
I was just beginning to figure out the ramifications and I couldn?t believe it. It seemed so perfectly right and logical.
?Let me have some damn enthusiasm,? quiet little Rosten yelled over the phone.
I obliged him. I went partially, happily berserk at Hojo?s in West Hampton, Long Island.
I gave out some rebel hoots and howls that had people knocking at me through the motel walls. I
