Stephen King - The Dark Tower

“Can you not bring back a box of tins yourself?” he asked, taking his own step forward; now they were nearly nose-to-nose, and although the woman was large and the young man was willowy, the Master’s houseboy showed no sign of fear. Tammy blinked, and for the first time since Tassa had shuffled into the kitchen — wanting no more than a cup of coffee, say thanks — an expression that was not irritation crossed her face. It might have been nervousness; it might even have been fear. “Are you so weak in the arms, Tammy of wherever — you- grew, that you can’t carry a box of soup-tins out of Stores?”

She drew herself up to her full height, stung. Her jowls (greasy and a-glow with some sort of night-cream) quivered with self-righteousness. “Fetching pantry supplies has ever been the houseboy’s job! And thee knows it very well!”

“That don’t make it a law that you can’t help out. I was mowing his lawn yest’y, as surely you know; I spied you sitting a-kitchen with a glass of cold tea, didn’t I, just as comfortable as old Ellie in your favorite chair.”

She bristled, losing any fear she might have had in her outrage. “I have as much right to rest as anyone else! I’d just warshed the floor—”

“Looked to me like Dobbie was doing it,” he said. Dobbie was the sort of domestic robot known as a “house-elf,” old but still quite efficient.

Tammy grew hotter still. “What would you know about house chores, you mincy little queer?”

Color flushed Tassa’s normally pale cheeks. He was aware that his hands had rolled themselves into fists, but only because he could feel his carefully cared-for nails biting into his palms. It occurred to him that this sort of petty bitch-and-whistle was downright ludicrous, coming as it did with the end of everything stretching black just beyond them; they were two fools sparring and catcalling on the very lip of the abyss, but he didn’t care. Fat old sow had been sniping at him for years, and now here was the real reason. Here it was, finally naked and out in the open.

“Is that what bothers thee about me, sai?” he enquired sweetly. “That I kiss the pole instead of plug the hole, no more than that?”

Now there were torches instead of roses flaring in Tammy Kelly’s cheeks. She’d not meant to go so far, but now that she had — that they had, for if there was to be a fight, it was his fault as much as hers — she wouldn’t back away. Was damned if she would.

“Master’s Bible says queerin be a sin,” she told him righteously. “I’ve read it myself, so I have. Book of Leviticracks, Chapter Three, Verse—”

“And what do Leviticracks say about the sin of gluttony?” he enquired. “What do it say about a woman with tits as big as bolsters and an ass as big as a kitchen ta—”

“Never mind the size o’ my ass, you little cocksucker! ”

“At least I can get a man,” he said sweetly, “and don’t have to lie abed with a dustclout—”

“Don’t you dare!” she cried shrilly. “Shut your foul mouth before I shut it for you!”

“—to get rid of the cobwebs in my cunny so I can—”

“I’ll knock thy teeth out if thee doesn’t—”

“—finger my tired old pokeberry pie.” Then something which would offend her even more deeply occurred to him. “My tired, dirty old pokeberry pie!”

She balled her own fists, which were considerably bigger than his. “At least I’ve never—”

“Go no further, sai, I beg you.”

“—never had some man’s nasty old…nasty…old…”

She trailed off, looking puzzled, and sniffed the air. He sniffed it himself, and realized the aroma he was getting wasn’t new. He’d been smelling it almost since the argument started, but now it was stronger.

Tammy said, “Do you smell—”

“—smoke!” he finished, and they looked at each other with alarm, their argument forgotten perhaps only five seconds before it would have come to blows. Tammy’s eyes fixed on the sampler hung beside the stove. There were similar ones all over Algul Siento, because most of the buildings which made up the compound were wood. Old wood. WE ALL MUST WORK TOGETHER TO CREATE A FIRE-FREE ENVIRONMENT, it said.

Somewhere close by — in the back hallway — one of the still-working smoke detectors went off with a loud and frightening bray. Tammy hurried into the pantry to grab the fire-extinguisher in there.

“Get the one in the library!” she shouted, and Tassa ran to do it without a word of protest. Fire was the one thing they all feared.

Gaskie o’ Tego, the Deputy Security Chief, was standing in the foyer of Feveral Hall, the dormitory directly behind Damli House, talking with James Cagney. Cagney was a redhaired can-toi who favored Western-style shirts and boots that added three inches to his actual five-foot-five. Both had clipboards and were discussing certain necessary changes in the following week’s Damli security. Six of the guards who’d been assigned to the second shift had come down with what Gangli, the compound doctor, said was a hume disease called “momps.” Sickness was common enough in Thunderclap — it was the air, as everyone knew, and the poisoned leavings of the old people — but it was ever inconvenient. Gangli said they were lucky there had never been an actual plague, like the Black Death or the Hot Shivers.

Beyond them, on the paved court behind Damli House, an early-morning basketball game was going on, several taheen and can-toi guards (who would be officially on duty as soon as the horn blew) against a ragtag team of Breakers. Gaskie watched Joey Rastosovich take a shot from way downtown— swish . Trampas snared the ball and took it out of bounds, briefly lifting his cap to scratch beneath it. Gaskie didn’t care much for Trampas, who had an entirely inappropriate liking for the talented animals who were his charges. Closer by, sitting on the dorm’s steps and also watching the game, was Ted Brautigan. As always, he was sipping at a can of Nozz-A-La.

“Well fuggit,” James Cagney said, speaking in the tones of a man who wants to be finished with a boring discussion. “If you don’t mind taking a couple of humies off the fence-walk for a day or two—”

“What’s Brautigan doing up so early?” Gaskie interrupted. “He almost never rolls out until noon. That kid he pals around with is the same way. What’s his name?”

“Earnshaw?” Brautigan also palled around with that half-bright Ruiz, but Ruiz was no kid.

Gaskie nodded. “Aye, Earnshaw, that’s the one. He’s on duty this morning. I saw him earlier in The Study.”

Cag (as his friends called him) didn’t give a shit why Brautigan was up with the birdies (not that there were many birdies left, at least in Thunderclap); he only wanted to get this roster business settled so he could stroll across to Damli and get a plate of scrambled eggs. One of the Rods had found fresh chives somewhere, or so he’d heard, and—

“Do’ee smell something, Cag?” Gaskie o’ Tego asked suddenly.

The can-toi who fancied himself James Cagney started to enquire if Gaskie had farted, then rethought this humorous riposte. For in fact he did smell something. Was it smoke?

Cag thought it was.

Ted sat on the cold steps of Feveral Hall, breathing the bad-smelling air and listening to the humes and the taheen trash-talk each other from the basketball court. (Not the can-toi; they refused to indulge in such vulgarity.) His heart was beating hard but not fast. If there was a Rubicon that needed crossing, he realized, he’d crossed it some time ago. Maybe on the night the low men had hauled him back from Connecticut, more likely on the day he’d approached Dinky with the idea of reaching out to the gunslingers that Sheemie Ruiz insisted were nearby. Now he was wound up (to the max, Dinky would have said), but nervous? No. Nerves, he thought, were for people who still hadn’t entirely made up their minds.