Been Down So Long It Looks Like Up to Me by Richard Farina Page B

overdose on horse or something.”
    “Will you
stop
being a mother! Jesus, man, there’s a growth in my frontal lobe. Oooo.”
    “Have it cut out.”
    Not a bad idea. Be a vegetable, no emotional response. “Why am I on the floor?”
    “You wanted to be. You were worried about low-flying planes. You even called Monsignor Putti, he’ll be here any minute. You need something to eat?”
    “Jesus, no. You wouldn’t have a strawberry frosted? What’s Putti coming for?”
    “You wanted Extreme Unction. Come on, try getting up, we’ll find something in the Plato Pit.”
    “Ooooohhh—”
    “It’s not that far, man—”
    “Those Red Caps, that’s where it started.”
    “How’d it go at the fraternity?”
    “Ohhhhhhh.”
    “We figured. They might bid you just the same, make you the house maniac,” swilling a can of Donald Duck orange juice. “Let’s go, don’t you have to register?”
    “Hey, how about a little orange juice? That British chic said I’d be fined, registration takes bread, I’m nearly clean.”
    “No citric acid on a twisted stomach.”
    “Mother Heffalump.”
    “Your rucksack is full of silver, anyway.”
    “From what, man, green stamps?”
    “The wheel, Jesus, you don’t remember?”
    A smoky recollection. “What wheel?”
    “You won over a hundred bucks. Proctor Slug’s probably got a warrant out.”
    “You’re not serious? Roulette? From who?”
    “What does it matter who? Some spic in a cowboy suit and a guy from the Mentor
Daily Sun
. Now try getting up, man, you look like spoonfuls of warmed-over death.”
    “Hundred bucks? Ohhhh.”
    “Now what?”
    “That woman at the checkout.”
    “Hey, all this expiation is a drag,” Heff pulling on a pair of stiffened socks from his laundry bag. “Why don’t you go to Confession or something.”
    “Penance the wrong sacrament, baby, only add to the pain. Need myrrh for the injured cells. You’re putting me on about Monsignor Putti, right? I mean, what would I do that for?”
    “You even left an instruction note. You want to see it?”
    “Prayer is all. Fasting, Satyagraha. Out of the depths I cry unto thee, O Lord—”
    “Look man, would you please get up, I want to find out if I’m still in school.”
    “De Profundis, semper hangovum—”
    “Oh shit,” Heff dropping into a rocking chair, socks collapsing on his ankles. Long bone of a quadroon body gangling with the remnants of Watusi blood, almost close enough to pass, not quite. But blue eyes, unlikely, gets the girls.
    “You’re beautiful, Heffalump, I ought to marry you.”
    “Ugh.”
    “Ohhhh, my neck. Always worst in the neck, have you noticed? And the left eye.”
    Heff flipping idly through the
Anatomy of Melancholy
, whistling some Randy Weston, asking casually:
    “You going to make Cuba with me over spring vacation?”
    “Please no mother-organizing. You should have grown out of that adventure syndrome, anyway. This is ’58, not 1922.”
    “At least things are happening down there; talk about a revolution, getting rid of this Batista maniac.”
    “You couldn’t grow a beard, where’s the percentage? Ohh, this is all too much for the head. Will you play a little Miles? You got any Miles? Something to mollify my bruised cortex? Oof.” He scrambled to a sitting position and found his swollen reflection in a cracked mirror on the other sideof the smelly room. Don’t look. Mortality. Mornings always hardest. Heff was dutifully settling a record on the spindle of his borrowed turntable, fondling the Heathkit preamp knobs with a free hand. Next to the lamp which had been used to dry the previous night’s joints were a half-empty vial of paregoric and the eye dropper.
    Gnossos stood unsteadily and aired his tongue. He removed the slovenly remains of the lint-coated suit he’d slept in, then shuffled naked across the room to the sink, scratching his scrotum. He flicked some cold water from his fingernails to his eyes, blinked painfully, and set about