The loose ceiling fixture—
He ran his eyes over the hall, waiting for sounds of occupancy.
The crayoning on the dirty wall—
He had the oddest feeling. 'Anybody home?'
'Well, if they are,' Copperhead said, 'they can damn well get ready to move the fuck out. 'Cause we come to pay a long visit, right?' Others laughed. Copperhead called up: 'Does it look okay?'
'Yeah. It looks pretty…'
'Should we come on up?'
'Yeah, come on.'
At the end of the hall the bathroom door was open. Footsteps behind him passed around him; and somebody carrying the chained mannequin pushed by.
The house came alive with scorpions.
With a feeling of suspended confusion, he wandered through the front room into the kitchen.
Copperhead was looking in the cabinets above the sink. 'Whole lot of canned stuff. That's pretty good. Too bad they left all their garbage though.' A bag had broken under the table. The table was piled with garbage. The sink and the counter were heaped with dishes.
Kid decided he didn't like it here.
Outside the screen door, the sky heaved and twisted like a chained thing.
He turned abruptly into the living room.
The blond girl in the pea jacket sat on the couch, fists between her knees, watching two scorpions lay out a mattress on the floor. She looked at Kid, hunched her shoulders, and looked back at the scorpions. She seemed very tired.
'Hey,man,' Dollar said behind his shoulder, 'this is a really fine place.' Clutching his lion, he shouldered open a door across the hall. Several guys were inside, straightening out mattresses and sleeping bags. Dollar pushed his way among them to set the lion in the window. He turned, silhouetted before the torn window shade. The brass beast peered by his hip from the sill. 'Hey, man. You shouldn't have brought that old burned-up mattress with us. It's gonna smell up the whole fuckin' place.' On the ticking was a charred halo around a crater two feet across of ashes and burned cotton.
'It's the only one I had,' the scorpion (another white guy named California) said, and yanked it across the floor. He dropped the corner to overlap another.
Newspaper and magazine pictures had been at one time pasted over the wall; then some of them ripped off.
A black scorpion Kid didn't know stood up and grinned. 'This sure beats the place were we staying, hey, Kid?' Squinting, he looked around. 'Yeah, this is pretty nice.'
I prefer, Kid thought, the red eyes, God damn it!
Across the hall, the door to the service porch was open. He started in, and stopped, one hand on the jamb. There was neither glass nor screening in the windows. Siam sat on a crate. 'Hey…' He pulled the newspaper into his lap, and looked at Kid with growing confusion. 'I was… was reading the paper.' Siam offered a smile, thought better, and took it back. 'Just reading the paper.' He stood; the paper fell on the floor. The boards had once been painted maroon. 'Is there something you want me to do…? I was gonna help out with the moving, but my hand…' He gestured with his bandaged arm. At the place where the bandage wrapped his hand, the flesh was scaling. 'I guess I can help set up some stuff,' Siam said, looking at his grimy fingers. 'If you want…?'
'Naw,' Kid said. 'Naw, that's all right.'
The verdigrised spigot on the wall splashed on the muddy drain.
Something clanked and ground behind him.
Kid turned.
The Ripper and Devastation wheeled the Harley up the hall:
'I don't see why you wanted to bring this piece of junk along. You can't get no gas for it, and you say the motor's all shot any way.'
'Well, it's a good bike, if I could get it fixed.'
'You want to put it in the bathroom like last time?'
'Shit, these cocksuckers get drunk and don't aim at all. And you know one of 'em's gonna piss on it just to see it rust.'
'Aw, come on, motherfucker—'
'No, man! Hey, Denny, can I put it in there?'
'I guess so.' Denny stood by a doorway, both arms full of paperbags.
Kid walked up to him, took his shoulder. 'She go?'
Lips pursed, Denny nodded, looking from one bag to the other.
Inside, someone leaned the shovels against the wall beside an ironing board.
They backed up the Harley to wheel it in.
'Hey, is this gonna be your room, Kid?'.
Kid said, 'Probably.'
'It ain't gonna take up too much space. Later I can maybe find some place else for it, you know?'
'If it's in the Kid's room, nobody's gonna bother it.'
'That's okay.'
Kid squeezed Denny's shoulder. They stepped inside.
'Hey,' Denny said. 'It's got a loft!'
Kid's spine chilled. He stood very still. 'Denny?'
'What?'
'Did the place where we came from have a loft?'
Denny looked puzzled. 'Sure it did. But it wasn't as nice as this one.'
'It wasn't?'
'This one's a lot bigger,' Denny said. 'And it's got a mattress on it.'
'What was the place like we were living before?'
'Huh?'
'Describe it to me. I can't remember it. I can't… remember anything about it.'
'What do you mean?'
'What color were the walls painted?'
'White weren't they?'
Frowning, Kid nodded. The walls about them were green.
'You really don't remember where we lived before?'
Kid shook his head.
'We had,' Denny began, prompting, 'a bunch of spades across the street from us? It was down about eight or nine streets from here. And over a little.'
'How did it compare to here?'
'What… do you mean?' Denny asked again.
'How is this place different?'
'Shit,' Denny said. 'This place is about twice as big! Don't you remember how cracked the walls and everything were? This place is in pretty good condition.' After a moment, Denny asked: 'Is this gonna be your place?'
'I guess so,' Kid said.
'Can I put some of my shit up there? These cocksuckers will walk off with anything you just leave around.'
'Sure. Go ahead.'
Denny flung up one of the bags, then the other. 'I sure wish this one had a ladder. You're supposed to really climb up and down this thing?' The supporting beam had triangular notches cut into the side. Denny climbed up two, and looked back. 'Hey, it ain't that hard… you really don't remember where we were before?'
'I guess… no.'
'Wow,' Denny said and pulled himself up onto the mattress. 'You lived there an awful fucking long time.' He
