That gloom was not just a matter of light, of course-at times it was entirely too brightly lighted inside. It was a matter of internal vision. If one's eyes could see no farther than the nearest wall, it was not long before the mind could not think past it either. The romantic notion that confinement would release the imagination to soar was nonsense, Swann thought. It cramped and stifled the mind just as it did the body. Most of the men in prison could not hold a sustained thought about anything outside the walls; their minds were mired in the quotidian concerns of survival, cellblock politics, manipulation, fear.
Television and radio were not links with the outside world, they were artifacts from a civilization light-years away, one that died when the prisoner entered the walls. Books, with their visions of alternate universes, were as alien as Runic tablets. Decipherable, but irrelevant to the life of those who read them. Life in prison was the prison and the role that a man had to play to survive became the man, the man became the role. After a time there was no difference.
Now, however, Swann could shed his role at last. As he walked to the car he realized that he felt truly himself for the first time since getting out. He was no longer anybody's punk, whore, and wife. He was no longer servant, slave, craven. He was in control, he was in control. There was no limit to what he could do now, provided he exercised reasonable caution. His only limit was his imagination, and in the real world his imagination flourished.
He knew that he was unique in the thoughts that possessed him, he always had been, since childhood, and he had learned early to keep them to himself. They were his treasures that no one else could understand, even though they coveted them. That was the ironic part: they did not approve of his thoughts, he knew that, they thought they were ugly, nasty, shameful, yet they all wanted to take his treasures away. Swann would not let them have his treasures. He clung to them, nurtured them, and kept them carefully hidden from view.
It was at times a burden never to be able to speak of his most prized possessions. There were occasions when he was tempted to share them, when a fantasy had been so real, so enticing, so filled with excitement and pleasure that he wanted to grab a stranger, anyone, and tell them what a joy he had in his own mind. He could not, of course. That is, he could not unless he had a confidant whom he could really trust. The only such people were his girls. He told them all about his thoughts, told them even as he demonstrated to them. He knew they would never betray him. They would never tell another living soul.
Swann drove to town, feeling at last fully and completely himself again.
He felt the beast that lived within him stir and stretch its tentacles to clutch his heart and stomach and groin. It tugged, voracious, yearning to be fed, and Swann felt the old excitement build, the old irresistible joy.
He drove with the window down, smelling the air, loving the scents of the countryside where he had grown up.
Everything seemed new again, yet comfortingly familiar.
He could not recall ever feeling better. He was in charge, everything was under control and perfectly planned, and there was at least a week's worth of great pleasure ahead of him, perhaps more if she could take it.
This one seemed strong and she had a great mental outlook. He liked her spirit, it would help her to stay alive longer.
Swann could not remember when he had ever felt better. After a time he began to sing.
The Reverend Tommy R. Walker met Harold Kershaw in Elmore at a coffee shop named Chat 'n Nibble, where the other customers downed noonday meals of chickenfried steaks with biscuits and brown gravy. Tommy drank coffee and kept a nervous eye on the front door. He didn't expect anyone from the show to come this far afieldthere were several fast-food restaurants between here and the campsite-but it wouldn't hurt to be careful. He sat beside Kershaw at the counter rather than in a booth so that he could disassociate himself from the other man in the unlikely event that Rae or a member of the Apostolics should wander in.
'She didn't have no friends outside the show, not that I was aware of,'
Tommy said.
'Some sumbitch was driving the car,' Harold said.
'Well, I can't figure out who it could have been.'
'Girl like Aural's got no problem finding friends. Just walk past a bar and get about a dozen sniffing after her.'
'I realize that… still, I would have heard if it was anybody local.
Rae would have told me. Besides, how could she know you were coming? I didn't tell anybody.'
'Uh-huh.'
'I didn't. You think I'm crazy? I want to get everybody back on my side, not turn them against me by doing anything against their little darling.'
'Your little darling is a dangerous woman.'
Tommy glanced at the door, then took in Harold Kershaw's hands and face.
He saw no trace of skinning.
'Bitch tried to kill me more than once,' Kershaw continued. 'Tried to bounce me out the back of my pickup one time. Took a knife to me once.'
'I thought she burned you,' Tommy said.
'Burned me?'
'That's what she told everybody.'
'Oh, yeah. It wasn't me she burned, it was the damned trailer. I was in the pot and she jammed the door shut and packed a bunch of stuff down at the bottom and set them on fire. Mostly my clothes. Bitch burned my favorite boots.'
'She didn't burn you, though?'
'I got out the window. Hell, the door was metal, metal don't burn that well.'
'Goddamn,' said Tommy, feeling strangely disappointed that Aural hadn't actually set the man aflame.
'Watch your language there, preacher,' said Kershaw, grinning. 'You got to set a good example for the young'uns. Can't go round saying shit and damn. Next thing you know, everybody be talking like that.'
'I'm a healer,' Tommy said, not knowing exactly what distinction he was trying to draw. He wanted to tell Kershaw to keep his opinions to himself, but the man looked so rawboned and mean that he decided not to.
He looked like the kind of man who would hurt you just for practice. It was hard to see how a tiny thing like Aural could have managed to handle a man like that. Or why.
For just a moment, Tommy had a flash of understanding that led to an even briefer feeling of sympathy for the plight of women, but it all faded immediately.
Kershaw stripped the cellophane from a toothpick and pushed the tip through a gap between his two lower incisors. He wiggled it up and down with his tongue so that it looked to Tommy like the jerky, exploratory motion of the antenna of an insect. As if Kershaw had just popped a giant bug into his mouth and not yet swallowed it all.
Feeling disgusted, Tommy turned to look through the plate-glass window at the street. A man was passing by with a large bag of groceries on one arm, a pair of nylon blankets still in their plastic wrappings on the other.
'So what's your bright idea, preach?' Kershaw asked but then he stopped so abruptly that Tommy turned back to look at him.
Kershaw was staring at the window, his mouth open, the toothpick drooping. 'Fuck me,' he said and ran for the door.
Swann heard the runnin footsteps behind him and was half turned backwards to look when he saw the first blow coming at his head. He ducked enough to take it on the shoulder, but it was still hard enough to knock him off balance and Swann stumbled as the second blow hit him in the chest. The third blow caught him grazingly on the top of his head as he was falling. He landed so hard the wind was knocked out of him and he lay on the ground, gasping for air that he could not seem to capture in his lungs.
A man loomed over him, fists clenched, face in a snarl, but Swann couldn't concentrate on anything else until he finally caught a breath.
When he realized he would live, he made no effort to get up. He lay where he had fallen on the sidewalk, canned goods and candles spewed out around his head, the blankets covering his feet as if someone had taken the trouble to tuck him in.
'You don't have to get up,' Kershaw said. 'I can stomp you even easier laying there.'
