“Goddam it, okay.”
She faced him again, the napkin over one arm, and he beckoned her to him. He said: “I told you, get on the floor.”
“And I told you, I won’t.”
Then, in a saucy, come-get-me way, she sashayed up to him. But to grab her he had to put down the gun, which he did, once more, in the chair. She said: “You poor cripple, you had to have help before, two people to hold me for you, do you think you can rape me now, with no one to help you at all? Oh boy, is that a joke.”
It seemed funny, after saying that, that she didn’t duck to make him catch her. However, she didn’t. She just stood there, smiling to show her teeth, and then came marching to him, both her hands held out, the napkin flapping in one. He grabbed at her, and she slapped with her free hand, fired one right at his face. He grabbed it with both hands. Then began a waltz that made no sense, with him staggering around, his hands gripping his side, and her staggering with him, beating with her fist at something inside the napkin. It went on a long time, or what seemed a long time to me, with each lurch and jerk and stomp shaking the floor under my head. But then, just for a glimpse I saw red under the napkin, but not the red of blood. It was the red of the ice-pick butt, and I knew then what she had done — chocked that ice pick into him, that she’d got when she got the napkin, and hidden inside its folds when she turned away from the table. She was hammering the butt into him, while he fought to pull it out. Then suddenly he gasped, went straight up in the air, and came down in a heap on the floor.
My head almost split, and red flame shot in front of my eyes.
Chapter 24
Next, I didn’t know where I was, or when it was, or who I was, or anything, except that I was awake, and was somewhere. When I opened my eyes I seemed to be in a bed, though in what bed I had no idea, as it looked quite strange to me. Then I caught sight of a tube that ran down to my arm from a bottle up above me somewhere. Then, in a chair a few feet away, I could see Sonya, in a blue gingham dress looking very sloppy, the upper part unbuttoned, head twisted around and her mouth open. If I made some noise I don’t know, but suddenly her eyes opened and she looked at me, apparently in surprise. Then she got up and came over, staring down at me. Then she started to cry and picked up my hand, kissing it over and over. Then she knelt beside me, putting her face in the covers and starting to whisper, I thought in prayer.
And not to string it out, what she was praying about, she was offering thanks to God, that at last I’d come to, that I could look at her and know her. Because I’d been in a coma for days, from that crack on the head Burl gave me with the butt of his gun, so nobody really knew, not even the doctors, if I’d come out of it or not. When I did was when she cracked up, and took it out praying. Except for that, the whispering she did to God, I don’t remember anything said.
Next thing I knew it was night, with a dim light somewhere, and Sonya still there, though not in a different dress. But also with her was Mother, in a black instead of her usual red, holding her hand. Pretty soon her eye caught mine and she waved, twinkling her fingers at me. I twinkled my fingers back. It seemed to startle Sonya, and she gripped Mother’s arm. “Hey!” I said. “That’s my mother — can’t I wave at her?”
“Honey,” she whispered, coming close to the bed. “Of course you can wave at her — that you can wave’s the wonderful part — no one was sure that you would, never. That you wouldn’t be paralyzed.”
“Yes, Gramie, I’m shook,” said Mother.
“Then I’ll make it unanimous.”
I laughed, but then suddenly sobs were shaking me, and Mother said: “He’s weak, that’s all. Gramie, take it easy, don’t try to talk.”
“It’s not weakness, it’s her.” I pointed at Sonya. “She got burned, where that rat set her on fire. What about that?” I asked her.
“Second degree, is all. I’m blistered but won’t be scarred.” Then she lifted a ribbon she had on her hair, to show me her neck, which was red with white blisters on it, and then hiked up her dress, to show me her bottom, which was also blistered. I said: “It’s still the prettiest backside that ever was on this earth.”
“They don’t bandage a burn inny more,” said Sonya. “They leave it so the air can get in. They put stuff on it, though.”
Then it was morning, and a nurse was there, a girl in green uniform, with a glass of orange juice. “What?” I said. “No eggs? No bacon? No toast? What is this, Starvation Hall?”
“You think you can eat all that?”
“Try me.”
She went back, then came in with a full tray, and I started wolfing it down. An intern came in and watched me. Then: “I don’t see any need for more intravenous feeding,” he said. “I think he can do without this.” He pulled a glass pin from my arm, that the tube was connected to, and took the bottle down. About that time Sonya came in, saw the tube in his hand, and the breakfast tray. Right away she started to cry.
Then the girl washed me and bathed me and changed me, and I was alone once more with Sonya, but for the first time I was myself and not just talking along but not knowing right from left. I asked: “Honey, where am I?”
“Prince Georges General.”
“And how long have I been here?”
“Six days.”
“...Six days?”
“Gramie, the longest days of my life — they didn’t have inny end, because none of these doctors knew if you were going to live. Once you did die — your heart stopped, right there on the bed, and hadn’t been for that doctor, the one who took your tube, you’d have been carried out feet first. I saw your jaw drop and called him, and he massaged your chest. I thought he’d rub all the skin off, but at last your face twitched, and you breathed. That was after they operated — you’ve been trepanned and I don’t know what-all, they took five ounces of blood off your brain. It was an awful thing that Burl did to you, banging you with the gun.”
“Oh yeah. What happened to him?”
“Got cremated, was all.”
“You mean he’s dead?”
“I mean I killed him.”
“You had the ice pick under that napkin?”
“I did, and I stuck him with it, but only got it half in. I was beating on it, to hammer it the rest of the way, and he was battling me, trying to pull it out. I won, though. The autopsy showed it entered his heart. And your mother, she ordered the cremation job, ashes to be scattered, ‘so no trace of him remains on the face of this earth,’ as she said.”
“He’s no loss.”
“You can say that again.”
We spent the morning checking things back, so I got kind of caught up — beginning with the wire, that came to where she was staying, at the Truckee Motel in Reno, that Burl got the address of by pretending to be the Post Office, calling her mother to ask. “Like I said,” she explained, “left me all jittered and shook, but instantly, when I saw him dead on the floor, I knew we’d made our fresh start, so don’t worry about that inny more.”
I said I wouldn’t, and she told how she called the police, “knowing the number, thanks to you.” She said I was still tied when they got there, “as I couldn’t loosen the knots in the towels he’d tied you up with, on account of how he had wet them.” It seemed she’d been held, a few minutes, till they checked her story out, but then they hustled her off to the hospital, in the same ambulance they called for me.
But in the middle of her telling about it, the door opened and there were the Langs, both on their lunch hour. And Mr. Lang you would hardly have known. From the meek, hangdog guy of the last few weeks, he was completely different, with his shoulders thrown back, his head up, and a smiling look in his eye.