Being shot at close range by double-ought buckshot fired from a. 12-gauge shotgun is like being hit by about eighteen. 32 caliber bullets, all within a few inches of each other and hitting at the same time, except that I don’t know of any. 32 that will shoot with as much force as a shotgun has. The blast picked me up and carried me into the door with enough force that the impact of my body caused the wood to splinter behind me, so that for a moment I had the sensation of being embedded in the door, before my knees crumbled and I fell in a little heap in front of it. Of course, the wood wasn’t the best.
I wish I could remember those next few seconds, because I’ll bet they were interesting, but, while I have a clear memory of the feel of the door splintering behind me, the next thing I can remember is Young Don saying something I couldn’t make out over the ringing in my ears, and I know that some time passed while I wasn’t looking, so to speak.
I was trying to focus on what he was saying while something in my head said, “Stand up, stand up, stand up.” I braced myself against the shattered door, tried to rise, failed, and tried again. I made some progress.
I heard Don say, “Jill said you’d be here.”
I didn’t try to speak at first; my lungs had been ruptured, and speech requires passing air in and out. I made it to a standing position, leaning against the door. Don’s eyes widened. I took a ragged, experimental breath, and it seemed to work. I said, “I shall draw forth thy bones one by one ere I send thee to the Devil, that for all time thy shapeless body shall serve as a carpet for the minions of Hell.”
For just a second he could only stare at me. In that time, I heard sirens approaching, and knew they were heading for us. Then Young Don worked the pump on the shotgun and pointed it at my chest again.
I laughed in his face. “You told Jill, and even told her what to do with her room, but you didn’t believe it yourself, did you?”
He gave an inarticulate cry and squeezed the trigger again, but this time I was ready; I can move very fast indeed when I have to. The blast of the shotgun faded into the approaching siren, which melted into the cry, which went on in my ears long after it had stopped in his throat.
SIX
re?per?cus?sion n. 1. The indirect effect, influence, or result produced by an event or action. 2. A recoil, rebounding, or reciprocal motion after impact.
Several days have passed since I was last in front of my typewriting machine, and I’m finally beginning to feel a little better. The trauma didn’t hit until I tried to get up again the day after I was shot; I collapsed, and lay like a corpse until I fell asleep again several hours later. The next day, when Jim looked in on me, I was hardly able to respond to him. He seemed worried, but what could he do? More days passed in this way, though I’m not certain how many. Yesterday I felt that I might be starting to recover but I didn’t want to press my luck. Today I managed to rise and, after a moment or two, stumble up to my typing room. I need to at least be doing something or I shall go mad.
I am feeling weak and lethargic, but not too bad other than that.
I think I will rest some more now, and tomorrow, or the next day at the latest, I will be about my business. Seeing Jill I must put off for another day or two, but it is high on my list, and then-
Jim and I have had a pleasant enough chat. I told him what had happened with Jill and Don, and he has told me some of his own history, which I’d set down here but I don’t remember enough of the details to make it worthwhile; it is detail that makes a story interesting.
He asked me of my own history, and I told some of it, though in no particular order; because the recollections that come bubbling forth from my memory like water from a fountain don’t seem to want to emerge in any recognizable pattern; although, now that I think of it, I’ve been relating the day-to-day events of these past weeks very much in order; but that’s merely a matter of setting down what has just happened and isn’t at all the same.
For example, when I think of Laura Kellem, what I get are images of her face, or pieces of conversation that might have happened any time during the years we’ve known each other, or parts of the strange dreams I used to have after we’d first met. That was, I believe, while I was in my third year at University. A friend-his name escapes me-had invited me out to a tavern, and, as was our custom, after a few pints we went stalking through those areas that the painted ladies, as we called them, were known to frequent. Now, in all honesty, neither of us had ever indulged ourselves in spending time or money on these ladies. I don’t know why we never did, whether it was fear of some blot that would follow us around, fear of certain diseases that clergymen and professors would hint at but never name, or merely want of courage, but it is nevertheless the case; on the other hand we both took a strange thrill in passing them by and hearing them speak to us in the cadences of their profession, voices both hard and soft, forbidding and promising.
At first, I thought Kellem was such a one, as I recall seeing her leaning with ease and confidence against the filthy wall of a boarding house in an area where no lady would venture alone; yet I realized that her ankles were decently covered, and she wore a hat, and her dress, though hanging much straighter than was fashionable (most ladies were wearing hoops), was not such as one of the painted ladies would wear, being made of some fabric of dark green with flounces, a bright yellow ribbon hanging down the front, and a small bit of white lace about the collar and the sleeves.
I was intrigued at once by the character shown on her face. I can still remember the way she appeared as if she were in command of the street, as if no one could possibly question her right to be there or make any insinuations about her, much less accost her unpleasantly; and there was, at the same time, a glint of humor in her eyes as if all she saw amused her. I did not then understand it, though I do now.
My first thought was that she had a far more interesting face than Prudence, to whom I had recently become engaged; my second was to reproach myself for thinking such things. It was because of that, no doubt, that, as we walked by, I sent her a look of scorn, as if she were, indeed, what I had first taken her for. To this day I don’t know if that look annoyed her or amused her, but, at all events, she called out to me as I went by.
“Young man,” she said, in a voice at once melodious and sharp, like the timbre of a flute without the breathiness.
We stopped, my friend and I (his name was Richard, I now recall), stopped and looked at each other, then at her. I bowed slightly and said, “Yes, madam?”
For a moment she just stared at me, smiling a secret smile, and the moment grew to the point where I became uncomfortable, although I found her eyes fascinating, as if they had a mysterious pull that promised rapture beyond the limitations of earthly lust or heavenly love. At last she said, “I have become lost, I’m afraid. Would you mind escorting me home?”
Richard and I looked at each other once more, but, after all, she was clearly a lady; how could we refuse? We placed her between us, and she took my arm and we began walking in I know not what direction. Nor, now that I think of it, do I know what became of Richard that night; I do not believe it has ever occurred to me until now to wonder how she managed to get me to her rooms alone without giving either Richard or me any suspicion that anything out of the ordinary was happening. I don’t believe that Richard ever even spoke of the event; it was as if he’d forgotten it had happened; and I certainly never brought it up. But Richard, and, for that matter, Prudence, all begin to fade from memory at about that same time, so I cannot be certain.
All in all, it was a simple and elegant seduction. I’ve done it many times, and perhaps as well, though certainly never better.