“Capital!” the doctor snorted. “Figure that out by yourself, or somebody help you?”
“You’re making fun,” whimpered the officer.
“And you’re murdering this man!” bellowed the doctor.
The police officer uttered a short anxious cry, then raced to the front of die truck again. Hostility welling in the crowd, Paul could hear it “Okay, okay!” cried the officer. “Back up or go forward, please, I don’t care, but hurry! Hurry!”
The motor started up again, there was a jarring grind of gears abrading, then slowly slowly slowly the middle set of wheels backed down off Paul’s body. There was a brief tense interim before the next set climbed up on him, hesitated as a ferris wheel hesitates at the top of its ambit, then sank down off him.
Some time passed.
He opened his eyes.
The truck had backed away, out of sight, out of Paul’s limited range of sight anyway. His eyelids weighed closed. He remembered the doctor being huddled over him, shreds of his clothing being peeled away.
Much later, or perhaps not, he opened his eyes once more. The doctor and the policeman were standing over him, some other people too, people he didn’t recognize, though he felt somehow he ought to know them. Mrs. Grundy, she was there; in fact, it looked for all the world as though she had set up a ticket booth and was charging admission. Some of the people were holding little children up to see, warm faces, tender, compassionate; more or less. News men were taking his picture. “You’ll be famous,” one of them said.
“His goddamn body is like a mulligan stew,” the doctor was telling a reporter. The policeman shook his head. He was a bit green. “Do you think—?”
“Do I think what?” the doctor asked. Then he laughed, a thin raking old man’s laugh. “You mean, do I think he’s going to die?” He laughed again. “Good God, man, you can see for yourself! There’s nothing left of him, he’s a goddamn gallimaufry, and hardly an appetizing one at that!” He dipped his fingers into Paul, licked them, grimaced. “Foo!”
“I think we should get a blanket for him,” the policeman said weakly.
“Of course you should!” snapped the doctor, wiping his stained hands on a small white towel he had brought out of his black bag. He peered down through his rimless spectacles at Paul, smiled. “Still there, eh?” He squatted beside him. ‘I’m sorry, son. There’s not a damn thing I can do. Well, yes, I suppose I can take this penny off your lip. You’ve little use for it, eh?” He laughed softly. “Now, let’s see, there’s no function for it, is there? No, no, there it is.” The doctor started to pitch it away, then pocketed it instead The eyes, don’t they use them for the eyes? “Well, that’s better, I’m sure. But let’s be honest: it doesn’t get to the real problem, does it?” Paul’s lip tickled where die penny had been. “No, I’m of all too little use to you there, boy. I can’t even prescribe a soporific platitude. Leave that to the goddamn priests, eh? Hee hee hee! Oops, sorry, son! Would you like a priest?”
No thanks, said Paul.
“Can’t get it out, eh?” The doctor probed Paul’s neck. “Hmmm. No, obviously not” He shrugged. “Just as well. What could you possibly have to say, eh?” He chuckled drily, then looked up at the policeman who still had not left to search out a blanket “Don’t just stand there, man! Get this lad a priest!” The police officer, clutching his mouth, hurried away, out of Paul’s eye-reach. “I know it’s not easy to accept death,” the doctor was saying. He finished wiping his hands, tossed the towel into his black bag, snapped the bag shut. “We all struggle against it, boy, it’s part and parcel of being alive, this brawl, this meaningless gutterfight with death. In fact, let me tell you, son, it’s all there is to life.” He wagged his finger in punctuation, and ended by pressing the tip of it to Paul’s nose. “That’s the secret, that’s my happy paregoric! Hee hee hee!”
KI, thought Paul KI and 14. What could it have been? Never know now. One of those things.
“But death begets life, there’s that, my boy, and don’t you ever forget it! Survival and murder are synonyms, son, first flaw of the universe! Hee hee h — oh! Sorry, son! No time for puns! Forget I said it!”
It’s okay, said Paul. Listening to the doctor had at least made him forget the tickle on his lip and it was gone.
“New life burgeons out of rot, new mouths consume old organisms, father dies at orgasm, mother dies at birth, only old Dame Mass with her twin dugs of Stuff and Tickle persists, suffering her long slow split into pure light and pure carbon! Hee hee hee! A tender thought! Don’t you agree, lad?” The doctor gazed off into space, happily contemplating the process.
I tell you what, said Paul. Let’s forget it.
Just then, the policeman returned with a big quilted comforter, and he and the doctor spread it gently over Paul’s body, leaving only his face exposed. The people pressed closer to watch.
“Back! Back!” shouted the policeman. “Have you no respect for the dying? Back, I say!”
“Oh, come now,” chided the doctor. “Let them watch if they want to. It hardly matters to this poor fellow, and even if it does, it can’t matter for much longer. And it will help keep the flies off him.”
“Well, doctor, if you think…” His voice faded away. Paul closed his eyes.
As he lay there among die curious, several odd questions plagued Paul’s mind. He knew there was no point to them, but he couldn’t rid himself of them. The book, for example: did he have a book? And if he did, what book, and what had happened to it? And what about the stoplight, that lost increment of what men call history, why had no one brought up the matter of the stoplight? And pure carbon he could understand, but as for light: what could its purity consist of? KI. 14. That impression that it had happened before. Yes, these were mysteries, all right. His head ached from them.
People approached Paul from time to time to look under the blanket Some only peeked, then turned away, while others stayed to poke around, dip their hands in the mutilations. There seemed to be more interest in them now that they were covered. There were some arguments and some occasional horseplay, but the doctor and police man kept things from getting out of hand. If someone arrogantly ventured a Latin phrase, the doctor always put him down with some toilet-wall barbarism; on die other hand, he reserved his purest, most mellifluous toponymy for small children and young girls. He made several medical appointments with the latter. The police officer, though queasy, stayed nearby. Once, when Paul happened to open his eyes after having had them closed some while, the policeman smiled warmly down on him and said: “Don’t worry, good fellow. I’m still here. Take it as easy as you can. I’ll be here to the very end. You can count on me.” Bullshit, thought Paul, though not ungratefully, and he thought he remembered hearing the doctor echo him as he fell off to sleep.
When he awoke, the streets were empty. They had all wearied of it, as he had known they would. It had clouded over, the sky had darkened, it was probably night, and it had begun to rain lightly. He could now see the truck clearly, off to his left. Must have been people in the way before.
MAGIC KISS LIPSTICK
IN
14
DIFFERENT SHADES
Never would have guessed. Only in true life could such things happen.
When he glanced to his right, he was surprised to find an old man sitting near him. Priest, no doubt He had come after all… black hat, long grayish beard, sitting in the puddles now forming in the street, legs crossed. Go on, said Paul, don’t suffer on my account, don’t wait for me, but the old man remained, silent, drawn, rain glistening on his hat, face, beard, clothes: prosopopoeia of patience. The priest Yet, something about the clothes: well, they were in rags. Pieced together and hanging in tatters. The hat, too, now that he noticed. At short intervals, the old man’s head would nod, his eyes would cross, his body would tip, he would catch himself with a start, grunt, glance suspiciously about him, then back down at Paul, would finally relax again and recommence the cycle.