playing without a full deck–any of those
ring a bell? And before you answer, just let me inform you that if you shake me one more time, even a little shake, my
guts are going to explode straight out through my chest, and not even dry-cleaning will get that mess off your suit.”
He pulled away before I could do it again even if I’d wanted to and started down the hall with the seat of his pants
hanging somewhere down around the level of his knees, as per usual. He glanced back just once, while Vernon was
sliding the brass gate across. “You need to take some time off, Clyde. Starting last week.”
“What’s gotten into you?’ I shouted at him. “What’s gotten into all of you?’ But by then the inner door was closed
and we were headed up again–this time to Seven. My little slice of heaven. Vern
dropped his cigarette butt into the
bucket of sand that squats in the corner, and immediately stuck a fresh one in his kisser. He popped a wooden match
alight with his thumbnail, set the fag on fire, and immediately started coughing
again. Now I could see fine drops of
blood misting out from between his cracked lips. It was a gruesome sight. His eyes had dropped; they stared vacantly
into the far corner, seeing nothing, hoping for nothing. Bill Tuggle’s B.O. hung between us like the Ghost of Binges
Past.
`Òkay, Vern,” I said. “What is it and where are you going?’
Vernon had never been one to wear out the English language, and that at least hadn’t changed. `Ìt’s Big C,” he said.
`Òn Saturday I catch the Desert Blossom to Arizona. I’m going to live with my sister.
I don’t expect to wear out my
welcome, though. She might have to change the bed twice.” He brought the elevator to a stop and rattled the gate back.
“Seven, Mr. Umney. Your little slice of heaven.” He smiled at that just as he always did, but this time it looked like the
kind of smile you see on the candy skulls down in Tijuana, on the Day of the Dead.
Now that the elevator door was open, I smelled something up here in my little slice of heaven that was so out of place it
took a moment for me to recognize it: fresh paint. Once it was noted, I filed it. I had other fish to fry.
“This isn’t right,” I said. “You know it isn’t, Vern.”
He turned his frightening vacant eyes on me. Death in them, a black shape flapping and beckoning just beyond the faded
blue. “What isn’t right, Mr. Umney?”
“You’re supposed to be here, damn it! Right here! Sitting on your stool with Jesus and your wife over your head. Not
this!” I reached up, grabbed the card with the picture of the man fishing on the lake, tore it in two, put the pieces
together, tore it in four, and then gave them the toss. They fluttered to the faded red rug on the floor of the elevator car
like confetti.
“S’posed to be right here,” he repeated, those terrible eyes of his never leaving mine. Beyond us, two men in
paint-splattered coveralls had turned to look in our direction.
“That’s right.”
“For how long, Mr. Umney? Since you know everything else, you can probably tell me that, can’tcha? How long am I
supposed to keep drivin this damned car?”
“Well . . . forever,” I said, and the word hung between us, another ghost in the cigarette-smokey elevator car. Given a
choice of ghosts, I guess I would have picked Bill Tuggle’s B.O. . . . but I wasn’t given a choice. Instead, I said it again.
“Forever, Vern.”
He dragged on his Camel, coughed out smoke and a fine spray of blood, and went on looking at me. `Ìt ain’t my place
to give the tenants advice, Mr. Umney, but I guess I’ll give you some, anyway–it being my last week and all. You
might consider seeing a doctor. The kind that shows you ink-pitchers and you say what they look like.”
“You can’t retire, Vern.” My heart was beating harder than ever, but I managed to keep my voice level. “You just