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appetizin' than a cold horse turd.'

'Well, all right, then,' Ken said, easing up on him and turning to me. 'Nick, I reckon you didn't come all the way up here to hear me an' old stupid Buck jibberjabberin' at each other. 'Pears to me like you got plenty of troubles of your own.'

'Well, sir, you're sure right about that, Ken,'! said. 'You purely are, an' that's a fact.'

'And you're wantin' my advice, right? You ain't like some smart-alecks that think they already know everthing.'

'Yes, sir,' I said. 'I sure do want your advice, Ken.'

'Uh-hah?' he nodded. 'Uh-hah. Go right ahead, Nick.'

'Well, it's like this,' I said. 'I got this here problem that's been driving me plumb out of my mind. Couldn't hardly sleep nor eat it's been pesterin' me so much. So I fretted and studied an' I thought and I thought, and finally I came to a decision.'

'Uh-huh?'

'I decided I didn't know what to do,' I said.

'Uh-huh,' Ken said. 'Well, now, don't you go rushin' into it. Me an' old Buck here has got plenty on our minds, but we always got time to consult with a friend. Right, Buck?'

'Kee-reck! You're a thousand per cent right, Ken. Like always.'

'So you just take your time an' tell us about it, Nick,' Ken said. 'I'm always willin' to lay aside the cares of my great office when a friend's in trouble.'

I hesitated, wanting to tell him about Myra and her half-wit brother. But all of a sudden, it seemed too personal. I mean, how can you discuss your wife with another fella, even a good friend like Ken was. And what the heck could he do about her, even if I did tell him?

So I reckoned I'd better leave her out of it, and take up this other big problem I had. I figured it was one problem he could handle just fine. In fact, now that I'd kind of had a chance to get reacquainted with him, and I'd seen how he handled Buck, I knew he was just the man to take care of it.

5

'Well, sir, Ken,' I said. 'You know that whorehouse there in Pottsville. Place over on the river bank, just a whoop an' a holler from town…'

Ken looked up at the ceiling and scratched his head. He allowed that he couldn't say that he did know about it, but he figured naturally that Pottsville had a whorehouse.

'Can't very well run a town without one, right, Buck?'

'Right! Why if they wasn't any whores, the decent ladies wouldn't be safe on the streets.'

'Kee-reck!' Ken nodded. 'Fellas would get all full of piss an' high spirits and take right off after 'em.'

'Well, that's the way! look at it,' I said. 'But now I got this trouble. Y'see, there's these six whores, all nice friendly girls and just as accommodatin' as you could ask for. I really can't make no complaint about these girls. But along with them is these two pimps- one pimp for three girls, I guess-and those pimps are giving me trouble, Ken. They been sassin' me somethin' awful.'

'Now, you don't mean that!' Ken said. 'You don't mean t'tell me that these pimps has actually been sassin' the high sheriff of Potts County!'

'Yes, sir,' I said, 'that's exactly what they've been doin'. An' the bad part about it is, they sometimes done it in front of other people, and a thing like that, Ken, it just don't do a sheriff no good. The word gets around that you've been told off by pimps, and it don't do you no good a'tall!'

'Do tell!' Ken said. 'You spoke the God's truth there, Nick! But I reckon you don't just let 'em get away with it? You taken some action against 'em?'

'Well,' I said, 'I've been sassin' 'em back. I can't say that it's stopped 'em, but I sure been sassin' 'em back, Ken.'

'Sassin' 'em back! Why for did you do that?'

'Well, it seemed about right,' I said. 'A fella sasses you, why you just pay him off by sassin' back.'

Ken sort of drew his mouth in, and shook his head. He asked Buck if he'd ever heard such a thing in his life, and Buck said he purely hadn't. Not in all his borned days.

'I'll tell you what you got to do, Nick,' Ken said. 'No, sir, I'll show you what to do. You just stand up and turn your back to me, an' I'll give you an illusstrated lesson.'

I did what he told me to. He got up out of his chair, and hauled off and kicked me. He kicked me so hard that I went plumb out the door and half-ways across the hall.

'Now, you come back in here,' he said, crocking a finger at me. 'You just sit down there like you was, so's I can ask you some questions.'

I said I guessed I'd better stand up for a minute, and he said all right, have my own way about it. 'You know why I kicked you, Nick?'

'Well,' I said, 'I guess you probably had a good reason. You were trying to teach me something.'

'Right! So here's what I want to ask you. Say a fella kicks you in the ass like! just did, why what do you do about it?'

'I don't rightly know,' I said. 'No one ever kicked me in the ass before, saving my daddy, God rest his soul, and there wasn't much I could do about it with him.'

'But suppose someone did. Let's just say we got a hypocritical case where someone kicks you in the ass. What would you do about it?'

'Well,' I said. 'I guess I'd kick him in the ass. I guess that'd be about right.'

'Turn around,' Ken said. 'You turn right back around again. You ain't learned your lesson yet.'

'Well, looky,' I said. 'Maybe if you could just explain a little more-'

'You turnin' ongrateful?' Ken frowned. 'You tryin' to give orders to a fella when he's trying to help you?'

'No, no, I ain't trying to do that,' I said. 'But-'

'Well,! should hope not! Now, you just turn around like I told you to.'

I turned my back to him again; there just wasn't anything else I could do, it looked like. He and Buck both got up, and they both kicked me at the same time.

They kicked me so hard that I went practically straight up instead of forward. I came down kind of crooked on my left arm, and it hurt so bad that I almost forgot who I was for a moment.

I picked myself up, trying to rub my ass and my arm at the same time. Which just can't be done, in case you're thinking about doing it. I sat down, sore as! was, because I was just too dizzy to stand.

'Hurt your arm?' Ken said. 'Whereabouts?'

'I'm not positive,' I said. 'It could be either the radius or the ulna.'

Buck gave me a sudden sharp look out from under his hatbrim. Sort of like I'd just walked into the room and he was seeing me for the first time. But of course Ken didn't notice anything. Ken had so much on his mind, I reckon, helping poor stupid fellas like me, that he maybe didn't notice a lot of things.

'Now, I guess you learned your lesson, right, Nick?' he said. 'You see the futility of not givin' back no more hurt than what you get?'

'Well, I sure learned some kind of lesson,' I said. 'So if that's the one you was teaching me, I guess that was it.'

'Y'see, maybe the other fella can kick harder'n you can. Or maybe he's got a tougher ass an' it don't hurt him as much as it does you. Or say you got a situation like me an' Buck just demonstrated. Two fellas start kicking you in the ass, so's you get two kicks for every one you give. You get a situation like that, which is just