Kid shook his head. They want us to fall out and fight right here, he thought.
Nightmare's laugh started wide, then pulled into gruff, belligerent, good nature.
Somebody else raised his head from a pile of blankets, blinked sleepily, then grinned—'Hey!' — and stood, clumsily, scratching first at the sweaty hair across his forehead, then at the belly of his undershirt. His other arm was bandaged to the shoulder. 'Hey, it's the Kid! You come on back here for a while?'
'How you doing, Siam?' Kid hazarded. The brown, agonized face rocking back and forth on the bus floor had been… different? No, not that different…
'Fine!' Siam ducked his head, grinning hugely. 'I'm okay. I'm fine!' His good hand touched the bandage; the finger bounced down dirty cloth (Nightmare still kneaded the multiple-headed bulge of a shoulder that spoke of weightlifting sessions). Siam glanced at the others, got an uneasy look, grinned through the uneasiness, and squatted too, aping Kid.
Dragon Lady called, 'I want some God-damned coffee!'
'They ain't got very many cups.' The guy had two in each hand and three in his arms. His hair was a jangle of scrap gold; chest, chin and buttocks were all blebs and pustules, his toenails and fingernails filthy, and he was naked. 'I don't think they got enough for everybody.' He looked around.
'Give one to Nightmare, Baby.' Dragon Lady took one for herself.
Denny walked in. He sat next to Kid, quietly, and leaned on his crossed legs: the knee of his jeans brushed the shin of Kid's.
Nightmare took a cup and motioned Baby to give one to Denny. 'And give the Kid one—'
'— As long as there's one for me.' Copperhead got on his second boot and stamped twice. He looked at Kid.
'I guess Adam and me can share one.' Baby frowned at the cups clutched to his chest.
Kid took his cup and thought: if there weren't enough, I suppose we would have to fight.
Copperhead got one. So did Siam.
'Adam!' Dragon Lady called. 'Baby done passed out the glasses. What you doin' with the brew?'
Adam came in, brown face veiled by steam. Steam rolled down over the chains on his chest. He had lots of thick, dark hair. 'Here you go.' He poured for Dragon Lady, and went on to Nightmare. His pants were too big, bunched under, or just sagging from the chain he used for a belt.
Kid held his cup with both hands, feeling its heat.
In the middle of the room, Baby was examining the last cup to see if a crack went all the way through.
'A whole warehouse,' Dragon Lady reiterated. 'You can go down and get it yourself when you run out of what we brought you.'
'Shit.' Adam squinted through the steam. 'We got 'em a whole carton.' He rubbed his chest; chains growled.
'I don't make no food runs.' Nightmare blew steam down over his hands. 'You know I don't make no fuckin' food runs.'
'We got so many free loaders,' Copperhead said at the coffee cup he held on his right knee, 'you just may have to.' Head still low, he looked at Kid again. 'We get more of 'em every day.'
'You got some in there for you?' Dragon Lady finished saying to Adam, who checked the fuming pot and nodded. Then she looked at Copperhead and hooted: 'You really down on the Kid, hey? Why you so down on him?'
'Cause Copperhead's big and dumb,' Nightmare said.
'Now I like Copperhead. He's big, dumb, and mean. The Kid's small and smart. But I bet he's just as mean as Copperhead.'
'When I got shot,' Siam said, 'the Kid pulled me onto the bus. Kid ain't mean—'
'Aw, fuck you!' Nightmare bellowed, and rolled sharply to his knees.
Siam spilled coffee over his hand.
Nightmare didn't.
Siam put his cup down, shook his fingers, sucked at his knuckles.
Nightmare guffawed, sipped and guffawed again.
Copperhead blinked, rubbed his beard against his freckled wrist, and retreated even farther between his shoulders.
Kid gripped his cup; his palm was uncomfortably hot. 'Hey, Copperhead?' He flexed his nubs on burning porcelain. 'Hey, Copperhead, why you think they're so anxious to get us after each other?'
The redhead glowered from the couch.
'I'm half Indian,' Kid said. 'And you're about… what? Half nigger?' He glanced at Dragon Lady, who looked back and forth between them, black eyes a glint in her dark face, as though she were holding a snicker. Nightmare, his skin, for all his muscles, translucent white, peered over his cup, and actually looked surprised.
'So I guess they just figure it'll be easy, huh?'
Copperhead's glower turned to puzzlement. Then suddenly it broke out in a laugh.
'Yeah,' Copperhead said. 'Yeah, only—' He pointed a thumb at Nightmare, at Dragon Lady. 'Easy, sure. Only half an Indian's a halfbreed or something, right? Half a nigger, anywhere around this part of the world, is still just plain old nigger.' This laugh was a bark that threw back his head. But the building anger was loosed in contempt about the room.
Dragon Lady's laugh got drowned in coffee, which chattered loudly below her lowered eyes.
'Copperhead and me—' Kid jutted his arm forward for balance and rocked to standing—'we're on the same side, aren't we?' He stepped over someone asleep. 'We better be, with you bastards around.'
'Man, he got your number, white boy,' Dragon Lady said to Nightmare, chuckling.
'Aw, shut up,' Nightmare said.
'He got both your numbers,' Copperhead said, 'Jesus Christ—' He began to dig his hand under the girl on the couch, pulled out his vest.
Kid was about to look at Denny; but Denny's girl stepped into the far doorway.
She looked very surprised.
Kid walked across the room. He saw Copperhead shrugging into his vest, watched him. So did Dragon Lady and Nightmare, each with differing smiles.
'You want some coffee?' Kid asked.
The girl took the cup he thrust and looked even more surprised. He pushed past, through the door.
The sink and counter were heaped with dishes. The table was piled with garbage. A garbage bag underneath had broken.
Outside the screen door, the sky heaved and twisted like a thing chained.
Kid stopped on the littered linoleum and raised his hands to his face—
He'd forgotten the blades.
He pressed the heel of his other hand against one eye. Clean metal and dirty flesh — he brought his armed hand closer, till metal tickled his cheek.
Beyond metal and skin and screening, and wooden roofs across the street, the sky ran and blistered and dribbled on itself.
I will play, he thought, this game another hour. One more hour. Then I will go do something else. I'm tired. That's not complicated. I'm just tired.
He ground one eye, till light spots superimposed blades, hand and sky.
They were laughing in the other room.
What do I want here?
The boy? he thought to see it fall. I still like him, don't I? He bores me already (thinking: All that guarantees is that he still likes me).
Lanya, Kid thought angrily, has gone away. Why. Because I'm impossible. And realized, astonished, what he wanted was her.
Double laughter separated into a boy's and a girl's. When they stepped around him, hand in hand, she looked quickly away. Denny didn't.
Kid felt his expression change, not sure to what. But it made Denny stop.
'Get out of here,' Denny said to the girl.
