F. Paul Wilson - Reborn

His good eye blazing, he pushed the accelerator to the floor.

7

The Back Fence, Greenwich Village

Carol watched with relief as Jim returned from a quick trip to the rest room. She and Bill had had the table to themselves for a few moments and the atmosphere had become strained. Bill seemed so uptight when he was alone with her.

"How about another round?" Jim said.

Carol didn't want another drink—she had switched to Pepsi a while ago—and she didn't want Jim to have another, either. She wanted to say something, but not in front of Bill— anything not to sound like a nagging wife in front of Bill. So she held off.

Besides, he hadn't mentioned warts yet.

"One more," Bill said. "Then it's time to go."

They've both got hollow legs ! she thought. Where were they putting it all?

"Carol?" Jim said, pointing at her glass.

She glanced down at the flat brown liquid that was nearing room temperature now, at the thin oily scum on its surface— Who's their dishwasher ?—and decided to stick with what she had.

"I'm fine. And so are the two of you, I'd think."

"Nah!" Jim said with a laugh. "We're just getting started!"

He ordered two more beers, then turned back to Bill, pointing a finger at him.

"Quick! 'Theology is anthropology.' "

"Uh…" Bill squeezed his eyes shut. "Feuerbach, I think."

"Right. How about, 'We are proceeding toward a time of no religion at all.' "

"Bonhoeffer."

"I'm impressed!" Jim said.

"Do I detect a common thread in those quotes? Is the Village Atheist trying to make a point?"

Carol let her mind drift off. She might as well have been home in Monroe for all the attention they were paying her. It was quieter here in the Back Fence, at the corner of Bleecker and something. No live music, just records. "Boogaloo Down Broadway" was thumping softly in the background at the moment. The relative quiet had got Bill and Jim talking and they'd been going at it like two college freshmen debating the meaning of life, of everything !

Maybe it was a male thing. Male bonding—wasn't that what they called it?

Bill looked at her and smiled beatifically, obviously more comfortable with her now that Jim was here. He seemed to be at peace with himself. A man who knew himself, an idealist who was sure that he was doing exactly what he wanted with his life. She was certain there were ambitions and dissatisfactions bubbling under the surface there, but she detected none of the wild turmoil she knew to be raging within her husband, James the Skeptic, skewerer—was there such a word?—of Current Wisdom and Common Knowledge.

Oddly enough she found both extremes appealing.

She said, "I'm just glad to hear the two of you stop arguing for ten consecutive seconds."

"Didn't you know, Carol?" Bill said, poising the mouth of his Budweiser an inch from his lips. "Jim and I agreed long ago to disagree on everything."

"The hell we did!" Jim cried, and the two of them cracked up like schoolboys.

Jim suddenly stopped laughing. His face grew stern. "Wart's so funny about that?"

"Wart?" Carol said, immediately alert. "Did he say 'wart'?"

"Of course," Bill said. "Haven't you been listening? We've been talking about the wart in Vietnam all night."

"I'm thinking of going to business school," Jim said. "I wonder if War ton will accept me?"

"A good place to make love, not wart," Bill replied, nodding vigorously.

"That does it!" Carol said. Two of them ! "No more for either of you. The bar is closed as far as you two are concerned. It's late and we're going home as soon as you finish those! And I'm driving!"

8

Carol clutched Jim's arm as they walked into the icy wind on their way to the car, which he had parked somewhere east of Washington Square. Suddenly he broke away and left her with Bill as he darted into an all-night deli. In a moment he was out again, carrying three oranges.

He began juggling them as he returned to the sidewalk. From there he led them along like a circus act, pausing under each streetlamp to show off in its cone of light, then moving on. He dropped them at least once between each lamp.

"Where'd you learn to do that?" she asked, amazed that he could juggle.

"In the living room," Jim said as he somehow managed to keep the oranges aloft in the dark.

"When?"

"I practice while I'm writing."

"How can you do that?"

"Not all writing is done at the typewriter. A lot of it's done in the head before you start hitting the keys."

Carol was suddenly uneasy. She didn't remember it being so dark and deserted-looking along this stretch earlier in the evening. It had seemed safer then.

"You know something, Jim?" Bill said. "I've always wanted to juggle. In fact, I'd give my right arm to juggle like that."

Jim burst out laughing and the oranges went rolling into the street. Carol began to laugh too.

A strange, whiny voice cut her off.

"Hey, you laughin' a' me, man?"

She looked around and saw a half dozen or more figures huddled at the edge of a vacant lot to their left.

"No," Jim said, good-naturedly. He pointed at Bill. "I'm laughing at him. He's crazy."

"Yeah, man? Well, I don' tink so. I tink you wuz laughin a' me!"

Carol felt Bill grip her upper arm.

"Let's head for the car, Jim," he said.

"Right."

Jim fell in on her other side and the three of them started up the street. But they didn't get far before they were surrounded by the gang. If that's what they were. All were a little underdressed for the weather, Carol noted, all on the thin side, all smaller than Jim or Bill, the ex-football players. But there were six of them.

"Look," Jim said, "we don't want any trouble."

She heard a tremor in his voice. She knew someone else might mistake it for fear, but Carol recognized it as anger. Jim had good control over his temper, but when he lost it, he lost it.

"Yeah?" said that same whiny voice. "Well, maybe we do!"

Carol watched the speaker. His hair was long and matted; a wispy attempt at a beard dirtied his cheeks. He couldn't seem to stand still. His arms were jerking, his body twitching this way and that, his feet scuffing back and forth. She glanced around. They were all alike.

They're on speed!

Carol's mind suddenly flashed to an article she had read in Time about mainlining methamphetamine as the latest thing in the Village. She hadn't given it much thought then. Now she was facing the result.

"All right," Jim said, stepping away from her. "If you've got a problem with me, we'll talk about it. Just let them go on their way."

Carol opened her mouth to say something but was cut off by a sudden tightening of Bill's grip on her arm.

"No way," the lead speed freak said, smiling as he stepped forward and pointed at Carol. "She's what we want."

Carol felt her stomach constrict around the flat Pepsi. And then, as if watching in slow motion, she saw Jim smile back at the leader and kick him full-force in the groin. As the speed freak screamed in agony, all hell broke loose.

9

The effects of the night's beers had been evaporating steadily in the tension of his encounter with these punks. As he punted their grinning spokesman in the balls, Jim's head cleared completely. He had expected to get some of the old pleasure out of that kick, but it wasn't there. Concern for Carol overrode everything.

In the darkness he dimly saw the guy to his left pull something from his pocket. When it snapped out to a slim, silvery length of about three feet, he knew it was a car antenna, one hell of a wicked weapon with the knob pulled off the end. Had to get in close now—no hesitation or he'd whip that thing across his eyes.