name from somewhere, maybe a friend of a friend. It was easy enough to pull the lamination off; whoever Reggie was, the chair was Chubby’s now.
He plopped himself into the chair, the adequate overhead light telling him that it wouldn’t be all that tight a squeeze. Hell, he could breathe, and the fact that his thighs were glued to the arms like Dentu-Grip to false teeth meant that he needn’t worry about buckling up.
Something was sticking to his right foot. Gum, maybe. He hoped that the guy in the suit hadn’t pissed him. He looked down, picking up his right foot best he could.
There was a single playing card on the footrest. A red queen, folded in the corner.
Chubby tossed it to the rats and wheeled back to the street.
* * *
Haid woke up to find himself feeling much better. He also found himself still on the pot.
Dr. Broonioge often had told him that dreams were symbolic. He had learned quite a bit from this last dream. With the rapture must first come the pain. And with Father’s hand guiding him, he would learn to heal without getting sick. Father had told him that the only way to do that would be to find more willing souls.
Tomorrow, he would search for the black-haired man that he saw wheeling away from the strip joint.
Chapter Five
“Anybody see Reg, yet?” Colin Nutman looked up from the registration information desk. “His rent’s coming up due, and I see from his box that he hasn’t picked up his mail in at least two days.”
“You know how he be,” Mike Surfer said with a gravelly voice. Even with two fingers pressed up against his shunt, some days his words came out in a way that made Nutman think of gargling marbles.
“Yea,” Glowworm Willie echoed from behind a pool table with shortened legs. “He stay out sometimes three, four days. Just when you think he be disappeared into the earif, he come poppin’ back in.”
Surfer rolled over to one of the lobby’s three color televisions. Two other Marclinn residents, a bearded writer named Etch, because of how he always scribbled notes on a pad of paper tied to his walker, and Wilma Jerrickson, a grey-haired, tiny woman that most everyone called Grandmother.
“If either of you see him...” Colin called in Surfer’s direction.
“I’ll tell him,” Surfer said, over his shoulder.
“Me, too.” Willie said, as he racked up the pool balls, hoping for a partner.
Etch and Grandmother were intent on watching an episode of Cheers and so offered no response at all.
* * *
Vic Tremble’s War Journal:
11/15/88—Time, see what’s become of me, the song went. Paul Simon was right. It is a hazy shade of winter. Ask my fucking body. Christ on a fucking dogwood it hurts. I used to laugh at the tin man when he pled with Dorothy for the oil can. That’s how my motherless shoulders feel now, like they are a solid strip of metal and just why the fuck do I try to move them anymore in the first place?
Nobility? At what? Who am I trying to impress?
Walking past the Midland Building on Adams I saw a policeman directing traffic in the shadows of the Board of Trade. Probably got caught with his hands in the graft cookie jar and got put on detail for a few months.
I envy cops. I’d love to be healthy enough to wear the uniform, the badge. Not as a glory hound. Never that. I guess it’s because the cops operate on the street level, and that is where I am at my best. Where I blend in the easiest. If I lived on the street, I would finally be able to live with myself.
I put Mineral Ice on my back. Doesn’t smell like Ben-Gay. Couple weeks ago, this Hispanic guy sniffs the air like somebody stuck a dog turd under his Duncan Rinaldo pencil-moustache. He said to me, buddy, joo smell bad, joo know joo stink dat way?
I wished I could’ve drooled over his work shirt, the cock-knocker.
More than cops, I envy the men in their wheelchairs on the street corners. Guys like John and Slappy, I’ll give them a quarter if I have it. Because they are
He plopped himself into the chair, the adequate overhead light telling him that it wouldn’t be all that tight a squeeze. Hell, he could breathe, and the fact that his thighs were glued to the arms like Dentu-Grip to false teeth meant that he needn’t worry about buckling up.
Something was sticking to his right foot. Gum, maybe. He hoped that the guy in the suit hadn’t pissed him. He looked down, picking up his right foot best he could.
There was a single playing card on the footrest. A red queen, folded in the corner.
Chubby tossed it to the rats and wheeled back to the street.
* * *
Haid woke up to find himself feeling much better. He also found himself still on the pot.
Dr. Broonioge often had told him that dreams were symbolic. He had learned quite a bit from this last dream. With the rapture must first come the pain. And with Father’s hand guiding him, he would learn to heal without getting sick. Father had told him that the only way to do that would be to find more willing souls.
Tomorrow, he would search for the black-haired man that he saw wheeling away from the strip joint.
Chapter Five
“Anybody see Reg, yet?” Colin Nutman looked up from the registration information desk. “His rent’s coming up due, and I see from his box that he hasn’t picked up his mail in at least two days.”
“You know how he be,” Mike Surfer said with a gravelly voice. Even with two fingers pressed up against his shunt, some days his words came out in a way that made Nutman think of gargling marbles.
“Yea,” Glowworm Willie echoed from behind a pool table with shortened legs. “He stay out sometimes three, four days. Just when you think he be disappeared into the earif, he come poppin’ back in.”
Surfer rolled over to one of the lobby’s three color televisions. Two other Marclinn residents, a bearded writer named Etch, because of how he always scribbled notes on a pad of paper tied to his walker, and Wilma Jerrickson, a grey-haired, tiny woman that most everyone called Grandmother.
“If either of you see him...” Colin called in Surfer’s direction.
“I’ll tell him,” Surfer said, over his shoulder.
“Me, too.” Willie said, as he racked up the pool balls, hoping for a partner.
Etch and Grandmother were intent on watching an episode of Cheers and so offered no response at all.
* * *
Vic Tremble’s War Journal:
11/15/88—Time, see what’s become of me, the song went. Paul Simon was right. It is a hazy shade of winter. Ask my fucking body. Christ on a fucking dogwood it hurts. I used to laugh at the tin man when he pled with Dorothy for the oil can. That’s how my motherless shoulders feel now, like they are a solid strip of metal and just why the fuck do I try to move them anymore in the first place?
Nobility? At what? Who am I trying to impress?
Walking past the Midland Building on Adams I saw a policeman directing traffic in the shadows of the Board of Trade. Probably got caught with his hands in the graft cookie jar and got put on detail for a few months.
I envy cops. I’d love to be healthy enough to wear the uniform, the badge. Not as a glory hound. Never that. I guess it’s because the cops operate on the street level, and that is where I am at my best. Where I blend in the easiest. If I lived on the street, I would finally be able to live with myself.
I put Mineral Ice on my back. Doesn’t smell like Ben-Gay. Couple weeks ago, this Hispanic guy sniffs the air like somebody stuck a dog turd under his Duncan Rinaldo pencil-moustache. He said to me, buddy, joo smell bad, joo know joo stink dat way?
I wished I could’ve drooled over his work shirt, the cock-knocker.
More than cops, I envy the men in their wheelchairs on the street corners. Guys like John and Slappy, I’ll give them a quarter if I have it. Because they are
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