Pricksongs & Descants

A PEDESTRIAN ACCIDENT

Paul stepped off the curb and got hit by a truck. He didn’t know what it was that hit him at first, but now, here on his back, under the truck, there could be no doubt. Is it me? he wondered. Have I walked the earth and come here?

Just as he was struck, and while still tumbling in front of the truck and then under the wheels, in a kind of funhouse gambado of pain and terror, he had thought: this has happened before. His neck had sprung, there was a sudden flash of light and a blaze roaring up in the back of his head. The hot — almost fragrant — pain: that was new. It was the place he felt he’d returned to.

He lay perpendicular to the length of the truck, under the trailer, just to the rear of the truck’s second of three sets of wheels.

All of him was under the truck but his head and shoulders. Maybe I’m being born again, he reasoned. He stared straight up, past the side of the truck, toward the sky, pale blue and cloudless. The tops of skyscrapers closed toward the center of his vision; now that he thought about it, he realized it was the first time in years he had looked up at them, and they seemed inclined to fell. The old illusion; one of them anyway. The truck was red with white letters, but his severe angle of vision up the side kept him from being able to read the letters. A capital “K,” he could see that — and a number, yes, it seemed to be a “14.” He smiled inwardly at the irony, for he had a private fascination with numbers: fourteen! He thought he remembered having had a green light, but it didn’t really matter. No way to prove it. It would have changed by now, in any case. The thought, obscurely, troubled him.

“Crazy goddamn fool he just walk right out in fronta me no respect just burstin for a bustin!”

The voice, familiar somehow, guttural, yet falsetto, came from above and to his right People were gathering to stare down at him, shaking their heads. He felt like one chosen. He tried to turn his head toward the voice, but his neck flashed hot again. Things were bad. Better just to lie still, take no chances. Anyway, he saw now, just in the corner of his eye, the cab of the truck, red like the trailer, and poking out its window, the large head of the truckdriyer, wagging in the sunshine. The driver wore a small tweed cap — too small, in fact: it sat just on top of his head.

“Boy I seen punchies in my sweet time but this cookie takes the cake God bless the laboring classes I say and preserve us from the humble freak!”

The truckdriver spoke with broad gestures, bulbous eyes rolling, runty body thrusting itself in and out of the cab window, little hands flying wildly about Paul worried still about the light It was important, yet how could he ever know? The world was an ephemeral place, it could get away from you in a minute. The driver had a bent red nose and coarse reddish hair that stuck out like straw. A Bard shiny chin, too, like a mirror image of the hooked nose. Paul’s eyes wearied of the strain, and he had to stop looking.

“Listen lays and gentmens I’m a good Christian by Judy a decent hardworkin fambly man earnin a honest wage and got a dear little woman and seven yearnin younguns all my own seed a responsible man and goddamn that boy what he do but walk right into me and my poor ole truck!”

On some faces Paul saw compassion, or at least a neutral curiosity, an idle amusement, but on most he saw reproach. There were those who winced on witnessing his state and seemed to understand, but there were others — a majority — who jeered.

“He asked for it if you ask me!”

“It’s the idler plays the fool and the workingman’s to hang for it!”

“Shouldn’t allow his kind out to walk the streets!”

“What is the use of running when you are on the wrong road?” It worsened. Their shouts grew louder and ran together. There were orations and the waving of flags. Paul was wondering: had he been carrying anything? No, no. He had only—wait! a book? Very likely, but… ah well Perhaps he was carrying it still. There was no feeling in his fingers.

The people were around him like flies, grievances were being aired, sides taken, and there might have been a brawl, but a police man arrived and broke it up. “All right, everybody! Stand back, please!” he shouted. “Give this man some air! Can’t you see he’s been injured?”

At last, Paul thought He relaxed. For a moment, he’d felt himself in a strange and hostile country, but now he felt at home again. He even began to believe he might survive. Though really: had he ever doubted it?

“Everybody back, back!” The policeman was effective. The crowd grew quiet, and by die sound of their sullen shuffling, Paul guessed they were backing off. Not that he got more or less air by it, but he felt relieved just the same. “Now,” said the policeman, gently but firmly, “what has happened here?”

And with that it all started up again, same as before, die clamor, the outrage, the arguments, the learned quotations, but louder and more discordant than ever. I’m hurt, Paul said. No one heard. The policeman cried out for order, and slowly, with his shouts, with his nightstick, with his threats, he reduced diem again to silence.

One lone voice hung at the end: “—for the last time, Mister, stop goosing me!” Everybody laughed, released. “Stop goosing her, sir!” the policeman commanded with his chin thrust firmly forward and everybody laughed again.

Paul almost laughed, but he couldn’t, quite. Besides, he’d just, with that, got the picture, and given his condition, it was not a funny one. He opened his eyes and there was the policeman bent down over him. He had a notebook in his hand.

“Now, tell me, son, what happened here?” The policeman’s face was thin and pale, like a student’s, and he wore a trim little tuft of black moustache under the pinched peak of his nose.

I’ve just been hit, Paul explained, by this truck, and then he realized that he probably didn’t say it at all, that speech was an art no longer his. He cast his eyes indicatively toward the cab of the truck.

“Listen, I asked you what happened here! Cat got your tongue, young man?” “Crazy goddam fool he just walk right out in fronta me no respect just burstin for a bustin!”

The policeman remained crouched over Paul, but turned his head up to look at the truckdriver. The policeman wore a brilliant blue uniform with large brass buttons. And gold epaulettes.

“Boy I seen punchies in my sweet time but this cookie takes the cake God bless die laboring classes I say and preserve us from the humble freak!”

The policeman looked down at Paul, then back at the truck-driver. “I know about truckdrivers,” Paul heard him say.

“Listen lays and gentmens I’m a good Christian by Judy a decent hardworkin fambly man earnin a honest wage and got a dear little woman and seven yearnin younguns all my own seed a responsible man and goddamn that boy what he do but walk right into me and my poor oletrike. Track, I mean.”

There was a loose tittering from the crowd, but the policeman’s frown and raised stick contained it “What’s your name, lad?” he asked, turning back to Paul. At first, the policeman smiled, he knew who truckdrivers were and he knew who Pauls were, and there was a salvation of sorts in that smile, but gradually it faded. “Come, come, boy! Don’t be afraid!” He winked, nudged him gently. “We’re here to help you.”

Paul, Paul replied. But, no, no doubt about it, it was jammed up in there and he wasn’t getting it out.

“Well, if you won’t help me, I can’t help you,” the policeman said pettishly and tilted his nose up. “Anybody here know this man?” he called out to the crowd.

Again a roar, a threatening tumult of words and sounds, shouts back and forth. It was hard to know if none knew him or if they all did. But men one voice, belted out above the others, came through: “O God in heaven! It’s Amory! Amory Westerman!” The voice, a woman’s, hysterical by the sound of it, drew near. “Amory! What… what have they done to you?”

Paul understood. It was not a mistake. He was astonished by his own acumen.

“Do you know this young man?” the policeman asked, lifting his notebook. “What? Know him? Did Sarah know Abraham? Did Eve know Cain?” The policeman cleared his throat uneasily. “Adam,” he corrected softly.

“You know who you know, I know who I know,” the woman said, and let fly with a low throaty snigger. The crowd responded with a belly laugh.

“But this young man—!” the policeman insisted, flustered.

“Who, you and Amory?” the woman cried. ‘”ican’t believe it!”

The crowd laughed and the policeman bit his lip. “Amory! What New persecutions are these?” She billowed out above him: old, maybe even seventy, fat and bosomy, pasty-faced with thick red rouges, head haloed by ringlets of sparse orangish hair. “My poor Amory!” And down she came on him. Paul tried to duck, got only a hot flash in his neck for it. Her breath reeked of cheap gin. Help, said Paul.

“Hold, madame! Stop!” the policeman cried, tugging at the woman’s sleeve. She stood, threw up her arms before her face, staggered backwards. What more she did, Paul couldn’t see, for his view of her face was largely blocked by the bulge of her breasts and belly. There were laughs, though. “Everything in order here,” grumped the policeman, tapping his notebook. “Now, what’s your name, please… uh… miss, madame?”

“My name?” She twirled gracelessly on one dropsied ankle and cried to the crowd: “Shall I tell?”

Tell! Tell! Tell!” shouted the spectators, clapping rhythmically. Paul let himself be absorbed by it; there was, after all, nothing else to do.

The policeman, rapping a pencil against his blue notebook to the rhythm of the chant, leaned down over Paul and whispered: (“I think we’ve got them on our side now!”)

Paul, his gaze floating giddily up past the thin white face of the police officer and the red side of the truck into the horizonless blue haze above, wondered if alliance were really the key to it all. What am I without them? Could I even die? Suddenly, the whole world seemed to tip: his feet dropped and his head rose. Beneath him the red machine shot grease and muck, the host rioted above his head, the earth pushed him from behind, and out front the skyscrapers pointed, like so many insensate fingers, the path he must walk to oblivion. He squeezed shut his eyes to set right the world again — he was afraid he would slide down beneath the truck to disappear from sight forever.

“My name—!” bellowed the woman, and the crowd hushed, tittering softly. Paul opened his eyes. He was on his back again. The policeman stood over him, mouth agape, pencil poised. The woman’s puffy face was sequined with sweat Paul wondered what she’d been doing while he wasn’t watching. “My name, officer, is Grundy.”

“I beg your pardon?” The policeman, when nervous, had a way of nibbling his moustache with his lowers.

“Mrs. Grundy, dear boy, who did you think I was?” She patted the policeman’s thin cheek, tweaked his nose. “But you can call me Charity, handsome!” The policeman blushed. She twiddled her index finger in his little moustache. “Kootchy-kootchy-koo!” There was a roar of laughter from the crowd.

The policeman sneezed. “Please!” he protested. Mrs. Grundy curtsied and stooped to unzip the officer’s fly. “Hello! Anybody home!”

“Stop that!” squeaked the policeman through the thunderous laughter and applause. Strange, thought Paul, how much I’m enjoying this.

“Come out, come out, wherever you are!”

“The story!” the policeman insisted through the tumult

“Story? What—?”

“This young fellow,” said the policeman, pointing with his pencil. He zipped up, blew his nose. “Mr, uh, Mr. Westerman… you said—”

“Mr. Who?” The woman shook her jowls, perplexed. She frowned down at Paul, then brightened. “Oh yes! Amory!” She paled, seemed to sicken. Paul, if he could’ve, would’ve smiled.

“Good God!” she rasped, as though appalled at what she saw. Then, once more, she took an operatic grip on her breasts and staggered back a step. “O mortality! O fatal mischief! Done in! A noble man lies stark and stiff! Delenda est Carthago! Sic transit glans mundi!”

Gloria, corrected Paul. No, leave it.

“Squashed like a lousy bug!” she cried. “And at the height of his potency!”

“Now, wait a minute!” the policeman protested.

“The final curtain! The last farewell! The journey’s end! Over the hill! The last muster!” Each phrase was answered by a happy shout from the mob. “Across the river! The way of all flesh! The last roundup!” She sobbed, then ballooned down on him again, tweaked his ear and whispered: (“How’s Charity’s weetsie snotkins, enh? Him fall down and bump his little putsy? Mumsy kiss and make well!”) And she let him have it on the — well, sort of on the left side of his nose, left cheek, and part of his left eye: one wet enveloping sour blubbering kiss, and this time, sorrily, the police man did not intervene. He was busy taking notes. Officer, said Paul.

“Hmmm,” the policeman muttered, and wrote. “G-R-U-N-ah, ahem, Grundig, Grundig — D, yes, D-I-G. Now what did you—?”

The woman labored clumsily to her feet, plodded over behind the policeman, and squinted over his shoulder at the notes he was taking. “That’s a ‘Y’ there, buster, a ‘Y.’” She jabbed a stubby ruby-tipped finger at the notebook.

“Grundigy?” asked the policeman in disbelief. “What kind of a name is that?”

“No, no!” the old woman whined, her grand manner flung to the winds. “Grundy! Grundy! Without the ‘-ig,’ don’t you see? You take off your—”

“Oh, Grundy! Now I have it!” The policeman scrubbed the back end of his pencil in the notebook. “Darned eraser. About shot.” The paper tore. He looked up irritably. “Can’t we just make it Grundig?”

“Grundy,” said the woman coldly.

The policeman ripped the page out of his notebook, rumpled it up angrily, and hurled it to the street. “All right, gosh damn it all!” he cried in a rage, scribbling: “Grundy. I have it. Now get on with it, lady!”

“Officer!” sniffed Mrs. Grundy, clasping a handkerchief to her throat “Remember your place, or I shall have to speak to your superior!”

The policeman shrank, blanched, nibbled his lip.

Paul knew what would come. He could read these two like a book. I’m the strange one, he thought He wanted to watch their faces, but his streetlevel view gave him at best a perspective on their underchins. It was their crotches that were prominent. Butts and bellies: the squashed bug’s-eye view. And that was strange, too: that he wanted to watch their faces.

The policeman was begging for mercy, wringing his pale hands. There were faint hissing sounds, wriggling out of the crowd like serpents. “Cut the shit, mac,” Charity Grundy said finally, “you’re overdoing it.” The officer chewed his moustache, stared down at his notebook, abashed. “You wanna know who this poor clown is, right?” The policeman nodded. “Okay, are you ready?” She clasped her bosom again and the crowd grew silent. The police officer held his notebook up, the pencil poised. Mrs. Grundy snuffled, looked down at Paul, winced, turned away and wept “Officer!” she gasped. “He was my lover!”

Halloos and cheers from the crowd, passing to laughter. The policeman started to smile, blinking down at Mrs. Grundy’s body, but with a twitch of his moustache, he suppressed it.

“We met…just one year ago today. O fateful hour!” She smiled bravely, brushing back a tear, her lower lip quivering. Once, her hands clenched woefully before her face, she winked down at Paul. The wink nearly convinced him. Maybe I’m him after all. Why not? “He was selling sea-chests, door to door. I can see him now as he was then—” She paused to look down at him as he was now, and wrinkles of revulsion swept over her face. Somehow this brought laughter. She looked away, puckered her mouth and bugged her eyes, shook one hand limply from the wrist. The crowd was really with her.

“Mrs. Grundy,” the officer whispered, “please…”

“Yes, there he was, chapfallen and misused, orphaned by the rapacious world, yet pure and undefiled, there: there at my door!” With her baggy arm, flung out, quavering, she indicated die door. “Bent nearly double under his impossible sea-chest, perspiration illuminating his manly brow, wounding his eyes, wrinkling his undershirt—”

“Careful,” cautioned die policeman nervously, glancing up from his notes. He must have filled twenty or thirty pages by now.

“In short, my heart went out to him!” Gesture of heart going out. “And though — alas I — my need for sea-chests was limited—”

The spectators somehow discovered something amusing in this and tittered knowingly. Mainly in the way she said it, he supposed. Her story in truth did not bother Paul so much as his own fascination with it. He knew where it would lead, but it didn’t matter. In fact, maybe that was what fascinated him.

“—I invited him in. Put down that horrid sea-chest, dear boy, and come in here, I cried, come in to your warm and obedient Charity, love, come in for a cup of tea, come in and rest, rest your pretty little shoulders, your pretty little back, your pretty little…” Mrs. Grundy paused, smiled with a faint arch of one eyebrow, and the crowd responded with another burst of laughter. “And it was pretty little, okay,” she grumbled, and again they whooped, while she sniggered throatily.

How was it now? he wondered. In fact, he’d been wondering all along.

“And, well, officer, that’s what he did, he did put down his sea-chest — alas! sad to tell, right on my unfortunate cat Rasputin, dozing there in the day’s brief sun, God rest his soul, his (again, alas!) somewhat homaloidal soul!”

She had a great audience. They never failed her, nor did they now.

The policeman, who had finally squatted down to write on his knee, now stood and shouted for order. “Quiet! Quiet!” His moustache twitched. “Can’t you see this is a serious matter?” He’s the funny one, thought Paul. The crowd thought so, too, for the laughter mounted, then finally died away. “And… and then what happened?” the policeman whispered. But they heard him anyway and screamed with delight, throwing up a new clamor in which could be distinguished several coarse paraphrases of the policeman’s question. The officer’s pale face flushed. He looked down at Paul with a brief commiserating smile, shrugged his shoulders, fluttering the epaulettes. Paul made a try at a never-mind kind of gesture, but, he supposed, without bringing it off.

“What happened next, you ask, you naughty boy?” Mrs. Grundy shook and wriggled. Cheers and whistles. She cupped her plump hands under her breasts and hitched her abundant hips heavily to one side. “You don’t understand,” she told the crowd. “I only wished to be a mother to the lad.” Hoohahs and catcalls. “But I had failed to realize, in that fleeting tragic moment when he un burdened himself upon poor Rasputin, how I was wrenching his young and unsullied heart asunder! Oh yes, I know, I know—”

“This is the dumbest story I ever heard,” interrupted the policeman finally, but Mrs. Grundy paid him no heed.

“I know I’m old and fat, that I’ve crossed the Grand Climacteric!” She winked at the crowd’s yowls of laughter. “I know the fragrant flush of first flower is gone forever!” she cried, not letting a good thing go, pressing her wrinkled palms down over the soft swoop of her blimp-sized hips, peeking coyly over one plump shoulder at the shrieking crowd. The policeman stamped his foot, but no one noticed except Paul. “I know, I know — yet: somehow, face to face with little Charity, a primitive unnameable urgency welled up in his untaught loins, his pretty little—”

“Stop it!” cried the policeman, right on cue. “This has gone far enough!”

“And you ask what happened next? I shall tell you, officer! For why conceal the truth… from you of all people?” Though uneasy, the policeman seemed frankly pleased that she had put it this way. “Yes, without further discourse, he buried his pretty little head in my bosom—” (Paul felt a distressing sense of suffocation, though perhaps it had been with him all the while) “—and he tumbled me there, yes he did, there on the front porch alongside his sea-chest and my dying Rasputin, there in the sunlight, before God, before the neighbors, before Mr. Dunlevy the mailman who is hard of hearing, before the children from down the block passing on their shiny little—”

“Crazy goddamn fool he just walk right out in fronta me no respect just burstin for a bustin!” said a familiar voice.

Mrs. Grundy’s broad face, now streaked with tears and mottled with a tense pink flush, glowered. There was a long and difficult silence. Then she narrowed her eyes, smiled faintly, squared her shoulders, touched a handkerchief to her eye, plunged the handkerchief back down her bosom, and resumed: “—Before, in short, the whole itchy eyes-agog world, a coupling unequaled in the history of Western concupiscence!” Some vigorous applause, which she acknowledged. “Assaulted, but — yes, I confess it — assaulted, but aglow, I reminded him of—”

“Boy I seen punchies in my sweet time but this cookie takes the cake God bless the laboring classes I say and preserve us from the humble freak!”

Swiveling his wearying gaze hard right, Paul could see the truckdriver waggling his huge head at the crowd. Mrs. Grundy padded heavily over to him, die back of her thick neck reddening, swung her purse in a great swift arc, but the truckdriver recoiled into his cab, laughing with a taunting cackle. Then, almost in the same instant, he poked his red-beaked head out again, and rolling his eyes, said: “Listen lays and gentmens Fm a good Christian by Judy a decent hardworkin fambly man earnin a honest wage and got a dear little woman and seven yearnin younguns all my own seed a responsible—”

“I’ll responsible your ass!” hollered Charity Grundy and let fly with her purse again, but once more the driver ducked nimbly inside, cackling obscenely. The crowd, taking sides, was more hysterical than ever. Cheers were raised and bets taken.

Again the driver’s waggling head popped out: “—man and god—” he began, but this time Mrs. Grundy was waiting for him. Her great lumpish purse caught him square on his bent red nose—ka-raackk! — and the truckdriver slumped lifelessly over the door of his cab, his stubby little arms dangling limp, reaching just below the top of his head. As best Paul could tell, the tweed cap did not drop off, but since his eyes were cramped with fatigue, he had to stop looking before the truckdriver’s head ceased bobbing against the door.

Man and god! he thought. Of course! terrific! What did it mean? Nothing.

The policeman made futile little gestures of interference, but apparently had too much respect for Mrs. Grundy’s purse to carry them out That purse was big enough to hold a bowling ball, and maybe it did.

Mrs. Grundy, tongue dangling and panting furiously, clapped one hand over her heart and, with the handkerchief, fanned herself with the other. Paul saw sweat dripping down her legs. “And so—foo! — I… I—puf! — I reminded him of… of the—whee! — the cup of tea!” she gasped. She paused, swallowed, mopped her brow, sucked in a deep lungful of air, and exhaled it slowly. She cleared her throat. “And so I reminded him of the cup of tea!” she roared with a grand sweep of one powerful arm, the old style recovered. There was a general smattering of complimentary applause, which Mrs. Grundy acknowledged with a short nod of her head. “We went inside. The air was heavy with expectation and the unmistakable aroma of catshit. One might almost be pleased that Rasputin had yielded up the spirit—”

“Now just stop it!” cried the policeman. “This is—!”

“I poured some tea, we sang the now famous duet, ‘¡Ciérrate la bragueta! ¡La bragueta está cerrada!’ I danced for him, he—”

“Enough, I said!” screamed the policeman, his little moustache quivering with indignation. “This is absurd!”

You’re warm, said Paul. But that’s not quite it

“Absurd?” cried Charity Grundy, aghast “Absurd? You call my dancing absurd?”

“I… I didn’t say—”

“Grotesque, perhaps, and yes, a bit awesome — but absurd!” She grabbed him by the lapels, lifting him off the ground. “What do you have against dancing, you worm? What do you have against grace?”

“P-please! Put.me down!”

“Or is it, you don’t believe I can dance?” She dropped him.

“N-no!w he squeaked, brushing himself off, straightening his epaulettes. “No! I—”

“Show him! Show him!” chanted the crowd.

The policeman spun on them. “Stop! In the name of the law!”

They obeyed. “This man is injured. He may die. He needs help. It’s no joking matter. I ask for your cooperation.” He paused for effect “That’s better.” The policeman stroked his moustache, preening a bit. “Now, ahem, is there a doctor present? A doctor, please?”

“Oh, officer, you’re cute! You’re very cute!” said Mrs. Grundy on a new tack. The crowd snickered. “Is there a doctor present?” she mimicked, “a doctor, please?”

“Now just cut it out!” the policeman ordered, glaring angrily across Paul’s chest at Mrs. Grundy. “Gosh damn it now, you stop it this instant, or … or you’ll see what’ll happen!”

“Aww, you’re jealous!” cried Mrs. Grundy. “And of poor little supine Rasputin! Amory, I mean.” The spectators were in great spirits again, total rebellion threatening, and the police officer was at die end of his rope. “Well, don’t be jealous, dear boy!” cooed Mrs. Grundy. “Charity tell you a weetsie bitty secret”

“Stop!” sobbed the policeman. Be careful where you step, said Paul below.

Mrs. Grundy leaned perilously out over Paul and got a grip on the policeman’s ear. He winced, but no longer attempted escape. “That boy,” she said, “he humps terrible!”

It carried out to the crowd and broke it up. It was her big line and she wambled about gloriously, her rouged mouth stretched in a flabby toothless grin, retrieving the pennies that people were pitch ing (Paul knew about them from being hit by them; one landed on his upper lip, stayed there, emitting that familiar dead smell common to pennies the world over), thrusting her chest forward to catch them in the cleft of her bosom. She shook and, shaking, jangled. She grabbed the policeman’s hand and pulled him forward to share a bow with her. The policeman smiled awkwardly, twitching his moustache.

“You asked for a doctor,” said an old but gentle voice.

The crowd noises subsided Paul opened his eyes and discovered above him a stooped old man in a rumpled gray suit. His hair was shaggy and white, his face dry, lined with age. He wore rimless glasses, carried a black leather bag. He smiled down at Paul, that easy smile of a man who comprehends and assuages pain, then looked back at the policeman. Inexplicably, a wave of terror shook Paul.

“You wanted a doctor,” the old man repeated.

“Yes! Yes!” cried the policeman, almost in tears. “Oh, thank God!”

“I’d rather you thanked the profession,” the doctor said. “Now what seems to be the problem?”

“Oh, doctor, it’s awful!” The policeman twisted the notebook in his hands, fairly destroying it “This man has been struck by this truck, or so it would appear, no one seems to know, it’s all a terrible mystery, and there is a woman, but now I don’t see—? and I’m not even sure of his name—”

“No matter,” interrupted the doctor with a kindly nod of his old head, “who he is. He is a man and that, I assure you, is enough for me.”

“Doctor, that’s so good of you to say so!” wept the policeman.

I’m in trouble, thought Paul. Oh boy, I’m really in trouble.

“Well, now, let us just see,” said the doctor, crouching down over Paul. He lifted Paul’s eyelids with his thumb and peered intently at Paul’s eyes; Paul, anxious to assist, rolled them from side to side. “Just relax, son,” the doctor said. He opened his black bag, rummaged about in it, withdrew a flashlight Paul was not sure exactly what the doctor did after that, but he seemed to be looking in his ears. I can’t move my head, Paul told him, but the doctor only asked: “Why does he have a penny under his nose?” His manner was not such as to insist upon an answer, and he got none. Gently, expertly, he pried Paul’s teeth apart, pinned his tongue down with a wooden depresser, and scrutinized his throat Paul’s head was on fire with pain. “Ahh, yes,” he mumbled. “Hum, hum.”

“How … how is he, Doctor?” stammered the policeman, his voice muted with dread and respect “Will… will he…?”

The doctor glared scornfully at the officer, then withdrew a stethoscope from his bag. He hooked it in his ears, slipped the disc inside Paul’s shirt and listened intently, his old head inclined to one side like a bird listening for worms. Absolute silence now. Paul could hear the doctor breathing, the policeman whimpering softly. He had the vague impression that the doctor tapped his chest a time or two, but if so, he didn’t feel it His head felt better with his mouth dosed. “Hmmm,” said the doctor gravely, “yes…”

“Oh, please! What is it, Doctor?” the policeman cried.

“What is it? What is it?” shouted the doctor in a sudden burst of rage. “I’ll tell you what is it!” He sprang to his feet, nimble for an old man. “I cannot examine this patient while you’re hovering over my shoulder and mewling like a goddamn schoolboy, that’s what is it!”

“B-but I only—” stammered the officer, staggering backwards.

“And how do you expect me to examine a man half buried under a damned truck?” The doctor was in a terrible temper.

“But I—”

“Damn it! I’ll but-I you, you idiot, if you don’t remove this truck from the scene so that I can determine the true gravity of this man’s injuries! Have I made myself clear?”

“Y-yes! But… but wh-what am I to do?” wept the police officer, hands clenched before his mouth. I’m only a simple police man, Doctor, doing my duty before God and count—”

“Simple, you said it!” barked the doctor. “I told you what to do, you God-and-cunt simpleton—now get moving!”

God and cunt! Did it again, thought Paul. Now what?

The policeman, chewing wretchedly on the corners of his note book, stared first at Paul, then at the truck, at the crowd, back at the truck. Paul felt fairly certain now that the letter following the “K” on the truck’s side was an “I.” “Shall I… shall I pull him out from under—?” the officer began tentatively, thin chin aquiver.

“Good God, no!” stormed the doctor, stamping his foot “This man may have a broken neck! Moving him would kill him, don’t you see that, you sniveling birdbrain? Now, goddamn it, wipe your wretched nose and go wake up your — your accomplice up there, and I mean right now! Tell him to back his truck off this poor devil!”

“B-back it off—! But… but he’d have to run over him again! He—”

“Don’t by God run-over-him-again me, you blackshirt hireling, or I’ll have your Badge!” screamed the doctor, brandishing his stethoscope.

The policeman hesitated but a moment to glance down at Paul’s body, then turned and ran to the front of the truck. “Hey! Come on, you!” He whacked the driver on the head with his nightstick. Hollow thunk! “Up and at ‘em!”

“—dam that boy what,” cried the truckdriver, rearing up wildly and fluttering his head as though lost, “HE DO BUT WALK RIGHT INTO ME AND MY POOR OLE TRICK! TRUCK, I MEAN!” The crowd laughed again, first time in a long time, but the doctor stamped his foot and they quieted right down.

“Now, start up that engine, you, right now! I mean it!” ordered die policeman, stroking his moustache. He was getting a little of his old spit and polish back. He slapped the nightstick in his palm two or three times.

Paul felt the pavement under his back quake as the truckdriver started the motor. The white letters above him joggled in their red fields like butterflies. Beyond, the sky’s blue had deepened, but white clouds now flowered in it The skyscrapers had grayed, as though withdrawing information.

The truck’s noise smothered the voices, but Paul did overhear die doctor and the policeman occasionally, the doctor ranting, the policeman imploring, something about mass and weight and vectors and direction. It was finally decided to go forward, since there were two sets of wheels up front and only one to the rear (a decent kind of humanism maintaining, after all, thought Paul), but the truck-driver apparently misunderstood, because lie backed up anyway, and the middle set of wheels rolled up on top of Paul.

“Stop! Stop!”.shrieked the police officer, and the truck motor coughed and died. “I ordered you to go forward, you pighead, not backward!”

The driver popped his head out the window, bulged his ping-pong-ball eyes at the policeman, then waggled his tiny hands in his ears and brayed. The officer took a fast practiced swing at die driver’s big head (epaulettes, or no, he had a skill or two), but the driver deftly dodged it He dapped his runty hands and bobbed back inside the cab.

“What oh what shall we ever do now?” wailed the officer. The doctor scowled at him with undisguised disgust. Paul felt like he was strangling, but he could locate no specific pain past his neck. “Dear lord above! There’s wheels on each side of him and wheels in the middle!”

“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.

Paul’s eyes wearied, especially with the rain splashing into them, so he let them fall closed once more. But he began suffering discomforting visions of the old priest, so he opened them again, squinted off to the left, toward the truck. A small dog, wiry and yellow, padded along in the puddles, hair drooping and bunching up with the rain. It sniffed at the tires of the truck, lifted its legs by one of them, sniffed again, padded on. It circled around Paul, apparently not noticing him, but poking its nose at every object, narrowing the distance between them with every circle. It passed close by the old man, snarled, completed another half-circle, and approached

Paul from the left. It stopped near Paul’s head — the wet-dog odor was suffocating — and whimpered, licking Paul’s face. The old man did nothing, just sat, legs crossed, and passively watched. Of course… not a priest at all: an old beggar. Waiting for the clothes when he died. If he still had any. Go ahead and take them now, Paul told him, I don’t care. But the beggar only sat and stared. Paul felt a tugging sensation from below, heard the dog growl. His whole body seemed to jerk upwards, sending another hot flash through his neck. The dog’s hind feet were planted alongside Paul’s head, and now and again the right paw would lose its footing, kick nervously at Paul’s face, a buffeting counterpoint to the waves of hot pain behind his throat and eyes. Finally, something gave way. The dog shook water out of its yellow coat, and padded away, a fresh piece of flesh between its jaws. The beggar’s eyes crossed, his head dipped to his chest, and he started to topple forward, but again he caught himself, took a deep breath, uncrossed his legs, crossed them again, but the opposite way, reached in his pocket and pulled out an old cigarette butt, molded it between his yellow fingers, put it in his mouth, but did not light it. For an instant, the earth upended again, and Paul found himself hung on the street, a target for the millions of raindarts somebody out in the night was throwing at him. There’s nobody out there, he reminded himself, and that set the earth right again. The beggar spat. Paul shielded his eyes from the rain with his lids. He thought he heard other dogs. How much longer must this go on? he wondered. How much longer?