Lary only realized that he was thinking aloud when Horse respectfully coughed behind him—“Wow, that’s some heavy stuff, man!”—and that upset him even more.
“Hey, that’s not true.” Horse caught up with him. “We’re not that small fry. So we don’t have the heavy fists, but we know everything about everyone. He who possesses the knowledge, remember?”
Of course Lary remembered. Those were the very words he, as the head of the Bandar-Logs, had used to cheer up his compatriots. Before everything started falling apart. Before he felt the need for some cheering up himself. Then it turned out that those words were not as cheerful as they seemed. It was nice of Horse. But the worn-out words had lost their magic.
Lary kicked the trash can standing in his way. An empty sardine tin on top of it that served as an improvised ashtray flew off and clattered on the floor. He stepped into the gunk and continued on his way, scraping his heel against the wood to get off an errant piece of gum.
“I don’t think we should’ve left just like that,” Horse kept mumbling. “They’ll all go to the dorms now. We’ll have to pry them out of there if we want to find out anything.”
“What for?” said Lary distractedly. “We know already. All the really important news. You don’t have to be a Log to keep up with it.”
They passed the First, slowing down as usual, but suddenly Lary felt riled up again and went into a gallop. Horse jumped and raced alongside him.
“Hey, cool it down! What’s the matter?”
Lary put on the brakes so suddenly that Horse crashed into him, almost sending both of them tumbling.
“I’ve got my very own personal Pheasant now,” Lary explained with visible disgust. “Why would I want to look at more of them? Anytime you come into the room—he’s there. Wheeling around like he owns the place. Enough to drive a man bonkers.”
Horse assumed a somber expression.
“Yeah, I can see that.”
At the Crossroads, Lary flopped on the sofa and finally pried the gum off his heel. Horse positioned himself next to him and spread out his spindly, spidery legs. Lary shot him a sideways glance. Am I also that skinny? Like a rake? he thought, appalled.
Not privy to the dark musings of his friend, Horse made himself comfortable.
“He crawls like a piece of shit,” Lary complained. “Like he can’t do it at all. Makes me sick. Here’s the question: Why do I have to look at it and suffer?”
“You had it easy,” Horse sighed. “Your wheelers have always been these demons, you know. Try living in the Nesting for a while.”
Lary couldn’t care less about the Nesting problems. What bothered him was Horse’s unwillingness to understand simple concepts and to commiserate.
“Horse,” he said. “This is really easy to understand. Make an effort. See, Lary’s prey can’t wheel around Lary’s lair.”
But having said that, he started to doubt himself. Lary’s lair? Logs were not supposed to have lairs. Because when a Log was in his lair he was no longer a Log.
“Even my zits are something special lately,” Lary said, shaking his head. “Vicious buggers. All because of him. It’s all nerves.”
Horse grunted reverently. Lary’s zits had always been special. Explosions and craters. Erupting volcanoes and smoldering calderas. Anything but regular zits. Horse was a connoisseur, he had some of his own. Alcohol pads helped a bit, lotions helped not at all, and nothing ever helped Lary because there was no remedy against direct blasts to the face. Horse eyed the calderas closest to him, did not notice any change for the worse, and decided to keep it to himself.
“Broke his face today,” Lary said gloomily. “This morning.”
Horse shifted expectantly.
“And?”
“And nothing.” Lary shuddered with disgust. “He just took it.”
“And the others?”
“Also nothing,” Lary said in a markedly different tone of voice.
“And the reason?”
“He is the reason all by himself.”
They fell silent. Two tall stick figures in black leather, legs crossed. The sharp toes of the boots rocking in the air. It would be difficult to tell them apart from behind if not for Horse’s blond mane done in a ponytail.
“Pompey said . . . ,” Horse began cautiously.
“Please don’t.” Lary grimaced. “Whatever it is he said, I don’t want to know. We have plenty of time ahead of us to listen to it, anyway.”
“What do you mean? You think he’s going to pull it off? That’s not certain.”
Lary sighed.
“Don’t try to console me. I’m already resigned to everything.”
Horse pulled at his lip a couple of times.
“Damn it, Lary,” he said angrily, “you have no right to think that way! How can you be so . . . unpatriotic? If I were you I would never allow myself to do that.”
Lary stared at Horse.
“Are you serious? What’s patriotism got to do with it? There’re ten of us and more than twenty of them. Can you, like, count?”
“Sometimes one warrior is worth ten,” Horse said loftily.
Lary looked at him pityingly.
“Can you count?” he asked again.
Horse didn’t answer. He dug in his pockets, produced a piece of candy, and handed it to Lary. A gust of wind threw a handful of dry leaves through the open window. Horse picked up one and examined it, scratching his nose.
“Autumn,” he declared, scrunching the leaf. “It’s a long way until next summer. Pompey may not be one of the old ones, but you and I both know—”
“That nothing really scary can happen before the last summer,” finished Lary with a faint smile. “Well, Horse, that’s about the only thing keeping me afloat. Or I would’ve gone crazy by now.”
Horse brushed the remains of the leaf off his palm.
“So hold on to that,” he said plaintively.
SMOKER
OF CONCRETE AND THE INEFFABLE PROPERTIES OF MIRRORS
The Fourth does not have a TV, starched doilies, white towels, numbered cups, watches, wall calendars, painted slogans, or any space on the walls. The walls are decorated from top to bottom with murals, shelves, and cubbyholes, and hung with bags and backpacks, pictures and posters, clothes, pans, light fixtures, and strings of garlic, chili peppers, and dried mushrooms and berries. It resembles a landfill that is trying to climb up to the ceiling. Some of its tendrils already have gained purchase there and now flutter in the drafts, rustling and clanking softly, or just hang out.
The dump is mirrored on the bottom by the giant bed, assembled from four regular ones. It is, at the same time, sleeping area, common room, and continuation of the floor for anyone who would like to cut through. I am assigned a personal zone on its surface. The other occupants are Noble, Tabaqui, Sphinx, and sometimes Blind, so my spot is tiny. To actually sleep on it requires special skills that I have not yet acquired. Those sleeping in the Fourth are routinely stepped or crawled over, or used as flat surfaces for cups and ashtrays or as convenient props for reading materials. The boombox and three lightbulbs out of a dozen are on continuously, and at any time of night someone is smoking, reading, drinking tea or coffee, taking a shower, looking for clean underwear, listening to music, or just prowling around the room. After the Pheasant “lights out” at twenty-two hundred exactly, this kind of daily routine is quite an adjustment, but I am trying to fit in. Life in the Fourth is worth any discomfort. Here everyone does whatever he wants whenever he wants, and for exactly however long he needs. There is, in fact, no counselor here. The inhabitants of the Fourth are living in a fairy tale. But it takes coming in from the First to appreciate that.