“I’m afraid I’m gonna crush you.”
“You been afraid you’re gonna crush me for fifty years, and you ain’t never done it yet.”
“It’s more like twenty-five or thirty. It’s just since your arthritis — ”
“Hey, you know — that’s right. You used to live on top me, and I loved it. Come on, now. Get up on me again. I been takin’ my pills. I like it. You practically lived on top of me for the first twenty years. I miss it, you know?”
“Okay.” Eric rolled. “But if I hurt you, you squeak or somethin’—”
Shit grunted. “Oh, yeah — that feels good, now.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah I’m sure.”
Eric took in a deep breath. “Hey, Shit…?”
“What?”
“Did we go visit the school yesterday?”
It felt like Shit was half-buried in the mattress. Eric moved his head over on a pillow. “I’m doin’ that so you can breathe.”
“I don’t wanna breathe. I wanna die under here, where I belong. The school? Yesterday? Naw — that was three days ago.”
“Oh.”
“We went with Ann Lee right after lunch in that social history class and the kids asked us all them questions about how long we been together and what it was like around here a hun’rd years ago and all that stuff. Smart little fuckers, too — some of ’em. And you got to talkin’ about Mex and sign language and tryin’ to teach them some of the letters, and I didn’t think you was ever gonna shut up. I mean, that’s just a kind of reading. That still makes me uncomfortable. I don’t mind your doin’ it. But I think sometimes you talk about it just to rile me up.”
“Ah, no, Shit. No, I don’t.”
“Yeah, well that’s what you always say.”
“Hey, it’s comin’ back to me. In pieces. Yeah, when we went to the school. On Tuesday. I was dreamin’ about that — but in the dream we were in a schoolroom. They were in a circle and we sat on the desk in the front. In the dream, they were all wearin’ their hair like they did when we was young. In little pointy stacks on the top — you remember?”
“Most of the ones in the class had their heads shaved,” Shit said.
“Yeah,” Eric said. “Hey, did they ask us any questions about your daddy?”
“Huh?” Shit chuckled. “Naw. You know as well as I do, as far as them kids is concerned, we’re too old to have no daddies — or mamas either. We just walked up out of the sea, out of the stones, the trees — all old and wrinkled like we are, like we been the same and ain’t changed forever and ever.”
“Yeah,” Eric said. “I guess so.” He rolled to the side.
“Hey, don’t get off me, yet!”
“Don’t worry. We can still hold each other. Come on here and get your arm around my shoulder.”
That’s funny, Eric thought. Dynamite gave me so much pleasure, security, learned me so much — and I’m still nervous about people finding out that Shit’s father was once my fuck buddy and his fuck buddy both. Maybe that’s something I’m still supposed to be workin’ on. Or is that something gay guys just have to learn how to live with — I mean, always havin’ someone important in your life who’s a little further out than most people would be comfortable with — for whatever reason. Maybe that’s how we grow — if we ever do.
Soon as he let Shit get a real breath, Eric could tell…from the change in his breathing rhythm, Shit was already back asleep.
Once more, outside the cabin window, summer lightning sizzled on the sky. The storm’s rumble rose and settled over Gilead.
[111] “YOU COULD GET me a little money, if you wanted,” which was about all Shit would say on finances these days, once every couple or three weeks.
“Sure,” Eric said. “Hold on a second.” They walked slowly along the market’s edge for two, three, four steps. “Okay,” Eric said. “There you go. Your chip’s all filled up now. I got you your regular amount.”
“Okay,” Shit said. “Thank you.”
Eric thought: How long ago was it that I swore before I died I was gonna teach him to do that? But finally, it got so easy — since all you had to do was think through what you wanted — I gave up and just been doin’ it for ’im…how long now? And the standard way to describe it was: “Try to think at the front and top of your head, where in your mind you read at”—but that wasn’t goin’ over with Shit. Ten years? Twenty? It doesn’t feel more than three, four months. But I know it’s closer to a couple of decades.
I used to worry: what was gonna happen if I died first — and Shit was left high and dry? But now it’s easier to do it for him — like it’s always been.
How fast are we moving through this stuff called time, anyway…?
[112] EVENTUALLY, THOUGH, THERE’D been those six awful weeks, when Shit started throwing up every other day, then twice a day, then five and six times a day — and the stuff comin’ out didn’t look like puke no more — and Eric’d clean it up, while, drained, Shit would sit or lie down.
Toward the beginning of that, there’d been the morning, when it was still dark, that he woke to see Shit’s bony back and buttocks swaying in the doorway (they still slept naked), then he was gone!
There was an immense farting, and Eric realized Shit had fallen. As he pushed from the bed himself, the smell came to him. “Dear God…What happened? You slipped?” Awkwardly, he rushed into the doorway after him, and his heel slid on something so that he almost lost his own balance. “You okay?” He hadn’t realized what he’d slipped in, yet.
“No — I ain’t okay!” Shit said, on the floor, face to the side. “I think I broke my damn hip! I got dizzy — and there was all this buzzin’. I can still hear it, some…”
He’d also lost control of his bowels.
“Here, lemme get you cleaned off…! What are you doin’? Playin’ in it?”
“I’m tryin’ to wipe it off!”
“Well, lemme get some rags and some paper towels — come on! Be still, will you? Keep your hands out of it.”
“You be fuckin’ still in a puddle of goddam shit!”
They managed to clean him up, get him into the bathroom, and gave him a good sponge down. The hip was not broken, just badly sprained.
It happened again that evening.
And three times the next day. You almost didn’t notice the throwing up, since most of the time Shit could get that in a pail they set out for him, with some Pine-Sol in the bottom.
Then Ed and Holly both came by and said the same thing. This was serious. They said it when they came back two weeks later. And two weeks after that —
Eric was sleeping on his forearms, his head on the kitchen table.
Shit was on the kitchen floor and filthy. Had anyone compared, he probably weighed ten pounds less than Barbara had at the time of her death. “No, don’t wake ’im up! Don’t do it!” Shit protested from the floor near the table leg. His voice was hoarse, almost inaudible. “He ain’t slept at all in four, five days! I can stay down here for another couple of hours, till he gets some sleep. I’m okay — I don’t hardly feel nothin’ in my legs no more.” One of three puke pails to make it more convenient for Shit to get to had somehow overturned. “Hey, I’m okay! Please! Please! Leave ’im alone…” He was crying. “Really…come on. Leave ’im alone! Please let ’im get some rest. . He been up takin’ care of me for the whole week without no sleepin’…”