'What? In the Home? Uh. Okay.' Muffy looked to Carol, signaling: This is none of my doing.
'Give you a call,' said Bill Davison. A football star, interested in me? Muffy maintained her quizzical expression.
'See ya, Muffy,' said Carol, pulling at Bill's sleeve. She even gave her a dinky little wave with the tips of her fingers. Muffy gave her a dinky wave back. It's not you, Muff. It's that old woman he cares about. How strange.
People, Muffy decided. They really do grow up sometimes.
And, she thought, he really is sweet. Not to mention rather toothsome.
And sometime about mid-December, before Bill had a chance to call on Muffy, it snowed. A good hefty Kansas snowfall, in time for Christmas. It started about lunchtime. Bill was cleaning the tables and fixing trays. Some of the patients needed feeding. Dotty came running in. Her feet couldn't leave the ground, but she made a hurried, hopping motion with her hands and head.
'Billy. Billy,' she said. 'Come and see the snow.'
She pulled him to the window. Great fat lumps of snow were falling like flakes of lard.
'God's dandruff,' she announced.
Bill laughed out loud.
'Angel feathers. They're cleaning out the roost upstairs, making room for a few more.'
'Dotty…' he said, shaking his head. He was going to say, You are out of your mind. It was what he said to anyone who made him laugh out loud.
'The snow's warm,' she said. 'The Eskimos make their houses out of it. They live in great snow cities, with snow skyscrapers, but nobody can see them because they mix right in with everything else. So the airplanes go over, and never notice. So it's all right. The Eskimos are safe. Nobody's going to touch them.' She gave her head a determined nod. 'Ride around on polar bears,' she told him.
'Hell,' she said, her voice suddenly different. 'I used to sleep under snow six months out of every year. Snow's always been good to me. Let's go out.'
'Can't, Dotty.'
'Why not?'
'Rules,' he said. 'Besides, you haven't got a coat.'
'You don't need a coat in the snow. I told you, the snow is warm!'
'Dotty. I can't let you out in it.'
Her face went small and mean. She looked at him accusingly. 'You're one of them,' she said. 'You're one of them!'
'Come on, Dotty, it's lunchtime. Let's have some food.'
She snarled at him and threw off his hand.
'I'm not your servant,' she growled. 'I don't have to kowtow to the likes of you.'
She held out her hand flat. 'You can't do anything to me,' she said. 'Go on. Hit me! Hit me! You think that will stop me!' Her voice went down into a whisper. 'I am the Happy One,' she told him. 'I come to avenge murder.'
She walked away, flinging her hands around her head. 'Hit me! Come on! Hit me! Doesn't hurt. Doesn't hurt. They make us tough. They make us tough in Kansas.' She walked toward the doors shouting, outraged.
'They sport us till we're as tough as old boots. They'd stick their things up Jesus Christ Himself and make their wives lick off the holy blessed shit from Jesus's holy, blessed asshole.'
The doors swung shut behind her. The tirade went on, echoing, horrible, down the corridor. Was it okay just to let her go?
'Then they stick their knives up our sweet little dewlaps and rip them open and hang them from hooks until we dry in the sun and then they call us beef jerky and we clack and clatter when we walk, gutless, flies in the intestines. Oh, no! It's not just enough to kill us! No! Never enough just to make us die.'
It was the worst it had ever been. Behind the doors, a man shouted. Bill decided he better go see. He had to put down the trays first. He swung open the doors, following her into the corridor.
Dotty was in a fight with Tom Heritage. She was punching him in the face as he hugged her. The Angel had fallen.
Heritage seemed to have forgotten all his training. Don't come at them from the front, don't try to hit them, get them from behind and make them go still. Billy saw why he had forgotten. Tom Heritage was angry. He was trying to get a good enough hold with one hand, so that he could hit her with his right.
Bill slipped up from behind and got Old Dynamite in a headlock. He pulled back tighter, and she squawked and howled, her arms hoisted helplessly over her head. They waved in the air. She tried to kick backward, but her legs were feeble. Bill held off as long as he could and then swept her feet out from under her.
'Calm down!' he shouted at Heritage. Heritage swallowed blood and wiped his face. 'Come on, Dotty, let's go sit down.'
She howled in nameless rage and slapped the air and tried to kick. Heritage also slipped in behind, twisting one of her legs in front of the other so she couldn't kick. They lifted her up like a sack of potatoes. Both of them had been hired for their muscles.
Dotty began to sob 'No, no, no,' over and over. The Graveyard was near. Jackson the janitor saw them and pushed open the swinging doors and flipped down the side of her cot. By the time they had loaded her onto the mattress she had gone quiet. She shivered.
