Goodbye, Alfreth. Think of me a last time, if you will. I should be evacuating your memory anyway; everything else does—your memory and mine. You hit road and you be a good man, you hear me? Don’t get vex with nobody and nobody get vex with you. I don’t want to see you here. Best wishes for the future.
The letter is not signed.
Two.
Dizzy and sprite-like, I chase the ambulance down the hills, away from the prison; I’m a supersonic moth, in flight to touch the pimple-shaped light that crowns the ambulances roof. The siren has been silenced; the illumination has not been dimmed—casting pockets of shadow like bats’ wings from left to right, hurling darkness like sheets of soot. I catch hold. Hills banking to either side of the otherwise unoccupied road: they could, in the darkness, be sand dunes. This could be a desert. The prison, an oasis of life—still life, at least for the time being. Inside my skull I repeat, again, every word I can recall Dott using—every example, every bookish reference, every scintilla of sarcasm. Thinking harder—and how the wind punishes my sweat at this moment!—I am able to climb inside the vehicle. Dott is lying down on a gurney. Though I can’t see the condition of his body, that of his face is indication enough of the savagery of the hiding he’s received. A newly plump face, in hues of grey and cerise. I ask him if he’s all right but he decides not to answer. I repeat the question—subconscious to subconscious, like twins—and he tells me:
I’ll live.
The words take on ugly connotations, given Dott’s resolution to die.
Why do you need the hospital? I ask him.
I don’t. This is all superficial; I’ll be right as rain in a couple of weeks, he tells me. Just thought, better be out of Dellacotte when the shit descends.
What shit?
You’ll see. Tonight’s the night, Alfreth.
And silent he goes once again. No amount of geeing him up can fire further discourse. He’s saving—he’s saving his energy. But I’m still there, I think. I’m still in my cell.
Don’t worry, Billy-Boy, Dott whispers to me; you’re asleep. I’ll take this time away from you. You won’t need to see a thing.
I want to see a thing! I complained. I’ve waited so long, Dott!
As you like it. Dott waves wearily at the air.