“What do you think, Sam?” Tobe asked hesitantly.
“I don’t know,” Sam said, still looking at the bottle. “Maybe one won’t hurt.”
“I’ll get some glasses.” Tobe got up quickly.
In a fury, almost sick with rage, Raphael stood up, took his crutches, and stumped out of the house. Blindly, he went down the steps, jabbing down hard with the tips of his crutches. For a moment he actually hated Flood.
On the corner, in the pale glow of the streetlight, Patch stood watching him as he came out of the house. Then, after a moment when they had looked wordlessly at each other, he turned and went on silent feet out of the light and into the darkness, and then he was gone.
iii
Flood was in a foul humor when he came by a few days later, and he’d only been at Raphael’s apartment for a few minutes before they were snapping at each other.
“Maybe!” Flood said. “Don’t be so goddamn wishy-washy. Give me a date-some kind of approximation.”
“I don’t know. I told you before I’m just not ready for that kind of change yet. If this place bothers you so much, go ahead and take off.”
“How can you stand this town? There’s absolutely nothing to do here.”
“All right.” Raphael said it flatly. “I’m going to explain this once more. Maybe you’ll listen this time. I’ve got some pretty damned big adjustments to make, and this is a good place to make them. The fact that there’s nothing to do makes it all the better.”
“Come on. You’re fine. You’re not going to adjust by just sitting still.”
“I’m not sitting still. I’m in therapy. I’m still learning how to walk, and you want to drag me off to a town that’s wall-to-wall hills. Have you got any idea how far I’d bounce if I happened to fall down in San Francisco?” It was the first time either of them had directly mentioned Raphael’s injury, and it made him uncomfortable. It also made him angry that it was finally necessary. It was because of the anger that he went on. “That’s the one thing you just can’t understand, Damon-falling down. If you trip or stumble, you can catch yourself. I can’t. And even if you do happen to fall, you can get up again. I can’t. Once I’m down, I’m down, baby-until somebody comes along and helps me get back up again. I can’t even bend over to pick up my crutches. I have nightmares about it. I fall down in the street, and people just keep on walking around me. Have you got the faintest idea how degrading it is to have to ask somebody to help you get up? I have to lie there and beg strangers for help.”
Flood’s face was sober. “I didn’t realize. I’m sorry, Raphael. I guess I wasn’t thinking. You have, I suppose?”
“Have what?”
“Fallen.”
“What the hell do you think I’ve been talking about? Christ, yes, I’ve fallen-a dozen times. I’ve fallen in the street, I’ve fallen in hallways, I’ve fallen down stairs. Once I fell down in a men’s room and had to lie there for a half hour before some guy came in and helped me up. Don’t beat me over the head about moving until I get to the point where I can get back on my feet without help. Then we’ll talk about it. Until then I’m going to stay right where I am, and no amount of badgering is going to move me. Now, can we talk about something else?”
“Sure. Sorry I brought it up.”
They talked for a while longer, but Raphael’s mood had turned as sour as Flood’s, and both of them were unnecessarily curt with each other.
“I’ll catch you later,” Flood said finally, standing up. “All we’re going to do is snipe at each other today.”
“All right.” Raphael also got up and crutched out onto the roof behind Flood.
At the railing he looked down into the street and watched Flood come out at the bottom of the stairs.
Next door Crazy Charlie was furtively putting out his garbage. His face brightened when he saw Flood. “Hi, Jake,” he offered timidly.
Flood turned, changing direction in midstride without changing his pace. He bore down on Crazy Charlie and stopped only a few inches from the nervously quailing man. “Henry,” he said, his voice harsh, “I’ve been meaning to talk to you-for your own good.”
Charlie’s head swiveled this way and that, his eyes darting, looking for a way to escape.
“How come you shave your head like that, Henry?” Flood demanded. “It looks silly as hell, you know. And you missed a place-just over your left ear.”
Horror-stricken, Charlie reached up and felt his head.
“And why don’t you take a bath? You stink like cat piss all the time. If you can’t keep the cats from pissing on your clothes, get rid of the goddamn things. And just who the hell are you talking to all the time? I’ve seen you talk for hours when there’s nobody there. Do you know what they call you around here? Crazy Charlie, that’s what they call you. They watch you through the windows and laugh at you because you’re so crazy. You’d better straighten up, Henry, or they’re going to come after you with the butterfly net and lock you up in the crazy house.” Flood’s voice was ruthless, and he kept advancing on the helpless man in front of him.
Quite suddenly Charlie broke and ran, stumbling up the stairs, almost falling.
“Nice talking to you, Henry,” Flood called after him, and then he laughed mockingly.
Charlie’s door slammed, and Flood, still laughing, went to his car.
Upstairs, Raphael caught one quick glimpse of Crazy Charlie’s haunted face before the shades came down.
They did not go up again.
iv
Several afternoons later they were in the tavern again. Some need drove Flood to such places occasionally. They hadn’t spoken of the incident with Crazy Charlie, nor had Flood raised again the issue of leaving Spokane.
The tavern was quieter this time and less crowded. The orgy of drunken conviviality that always accompanied Mother’s Day had passed when the money ran out, and the losers had settled down to the grim business of grinding out the days until the next check came. The ones in the tavern spaced their drinks, making them last.
The only exception was the large table where Heck’s Angels sat in full regalia-creaking leather and greasy denim. They drank boisterously with much raucous laughter and bellowed obscene jests. They all tried, with varying degrees of success, to look burly and dangerous.
Big Heintz, his purple helmet pulled low over his eyes, bulked large and surly at the head of the table like some medieval warlord surrounded by his soldiers, and drank and glowered around the tavern, looking for some real or imagined slight-some excuse to start a brawl. The others-Marvin, Jimmy, Little Hitler, and two or three more Raphael had seen but never bothered to put names to-glanced quickly at him after each joke or remark, looking for some hint of a laugh or expression of approval, but Big Heintz remained morose and pugnacious.
“Hey Jake,” Marvin said to Flood, “why don’t you two join us?”
Flood raised his glass in mock salute, but made no move to shift around from the table at which he and Raphael sat.
“Maybe he don’t want to,” Big Heintz rumbled, staring hard at Flood. Suddenly he turned irritably on Little Hitler, who had just punched the same song on the jukebox that he had already played three times in succession. “For Chrissake, Lonnie, ain’t there no other fuckin’ songs on that sumbitch?”
“I like it,” Little Hitler said defensively.
The song was a maudlin lament by some half-wilted cracker over his recently deceased girlfriend. Little Hitler sat misty-eyed, his thin, pimply face mournful as the lugubrious caterwauling continued.
“Shit!” Heintz snorted contemptuously when the song ended.
“I think he left out the last verse,” Flood said, grinning.
“I never heard no other verses.” Little Hitler sounded a bit truculent.
“I thought everybody knew the last verse. It’s the point of the whole song.”
“Well, I never heard it. How does it go?”
Flood looked up at the ceiling. “Let’s see if I can remember it.” And then he started to sing in his rich voice. The impromptu verse he added was cynical and grossly obscene. There was an almost shocked silence when he finished.
“Hey, man!” Little Hitler said in the almost strangled tone of someone mortally offended.
Suddenly Heintz burst out with a roar of laughter, pounding on the table with glee.
The other Angels, always quick to follow, also began to laugh.
Big Heintz’s laughter was gargantuan. He kept pounding on the table and stomping his feet, his beefy face red and contorted. “You slay me, Jake,” he finally gasped, wiping at his eyes. “You absolutely fuckin’ slay me.” And he roared off into another peal of laughter.