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 Shut up, Carpet Dick . . .
John. Good old John. Nobody, other than me, had ever treated him with any
respect. Not his family. Not his teachers. Not the other kids. How many times
had he been called stupid in his life? Way too many to count. But that s
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because he really was stupid. I ve known John most of my life, and I ve never
known him to be clever. When we were kids, I was always bailing him out of
trouble. Like the time he threw rocks at Mr. Nelson s trailer, breaking all of
the windows in the front. I confessed to it and took the rap just to keep him
out of trouble, and Old Man Nelson marched over to my house, foaming at the
mouth, and demanded that my mother pay for the damage. She just laughed and,
after he stormed away, she beat the shit out of me. Later, when I could sit
down again without wincing, I asked John why he did it.
I don t know, Tommy. I guess I just like the sound of breaking glass . . .
That was John in a nutshell. Old Man Nelson hadn t done anything to him. He
hadn t done it to be malicious. He just liked the sound of breaking glass. He
didn t know why he did things he just did them. But I loved him anyway.
Sherm, crazy enough to drink gasoline and piss on a fire; and John, dumb as a
fucking fencepost. I loved them both, though I would have never told them
that.
But I would have to tell them about the cancer. I had to tell somebody. Both
the secret and the disease were eating me up inside.
I took a sip of beer and my nose started running. I wiped at it and my index
finger came away glistening and red. John and Sherm both got quiet and I
looked up to find them staring at me.
 Yo man, Sherm pointed,  your nose is bleeding and shit.
 Fuck! Okay, I ll be right back. Don t either of you drink my beer.
I shoved a soggy napkin up my nostrils to stop the flow, got up from the
table, and weaved toward the bathroom. Juan caught me, wrapped an arm around
my shoulder and slurred out a drunken half-English, half-Spanish apology. I
told him that it was okay, peeled him off of me, and waited in line for the
bathroom. Eventually, the door banged open and a fat, drunken redneck in a
beer-stained flannel shirt stumbled out. I slipped inside, carefully avoiding
stepping in the puddle of piss on the floor.
I stared into the mirror and what I saw didn t look good.
 Son of a bitch . . .
I ran some paper towels under the cold water, then wadded them up and held
them to my nose. I leaned my head backward, giving me an unobstructed view of
the dingy bathroom ceiling. Somebody had managed to scrawl graffiti up there,
between the dim lightbulb and the spiderwebs; SUICIDE RUN KICKS ASS and NUKE
GUMBY and that popular old standby EVELYN IS A HO, along with the phone number
where you could supposedly reach her for a good time.
After a few minutes, the bleeding slowed to a trickle and stopped completely.
I cleaned my face and washed my hands, then wiped the droplets of blood from
the sink and garbage can. Considering the bathroom s filthy condition, it was
useless, but I did it anyway.
The nausea hit me with no warning just as I was finishing. I bolted for the
stall and the hot bile erupted, spraying through my fingers, spattering the
walls and running down my forearms. Something hard pushed itself up through my
throat. I fell to my knees, and the stench from the toilet made me puke more.
The bowl was caked with brown and yellow stains and I noticed that I was
kneeling in something wet. But what I threw up was even grosser.
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Unless I was mistaken, I d just thrown up my own feces. It seemed impossible,
but that s what it looked and smelled like.
Just the sight of it the very thought made me puke a third time. There was
enough force this time to cause a splash-back effect, and brackish toilet
water hit my face, dripping from my nose and eyes and cheeks. I stayed there, [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]