“Well,” sez Spyder, breakin’ the silence, “the way I see it, we can’t mess up every shipment or the army will just jerk us out of here. We’d better hold it down to one in five for a while.”
“One in ten would be better,” Junebug sez. “Otherwise …”
“Wait a minute! Stop the music!” Nunzio explodes, interruptin’ the conversation. “Are you guys sayin’ you’re willin’ to help us screw things up?”
“Sure. Why not?” Shu Flie sez, puttin’ a hand on my shoulder. “You and the Swatter here have been lookin’ out for us since Basic. It’s about time we did something for you for a change.”
“Besides,” his brother chimes in, “it’s not like you’re trying to bring down the kingdom or destroy the army. You’re just out to slow things up a little … and that’s fine by us.”
“What it boils down to,” Spyder smiles, “is that after working with you two all this time, we know you well enough to trust you to not hurt us … or anyone else for that matter … unless it’s absolutely necessary. I think I speak for all of us when I say we’ve got no problem putting our support behind any plan you think is right. Am I right, guys?”
There is a round of nods and affirmative grunts, but I am only half payin’ attention. It is occurrin’ to me that I am buildin’ a better understandin’ of what the Boss means when he sez he’s nervous about commandin’ more loyalty than he deserves. While the crew is sayin’ they don’t believe we would do anythin’ to hurt them, I am thinkin’ about how we set them up for the barroom fight in Twixt … a detail I omitted when I was testifyin’ about our recent activities. This makes me feel a little low, and while I am not about to refuse their help, I find it strengthens my resolve to avoid such leadership and decision makin’ positions in the future.