Barry Hannah - Ray

“There’s not much here at the hospital.”

“There’s the Freon tube.”

“They won’t let us use it yet.”

“I have a key that’s copper-colored in the far right drawer of the front desk in the office. There is a forty-five pistol right next to it. Put it, the key, in that little safe. If you can’t open it, get a pillow from one of the chairs, push it over the muzzle of the gun, and shoot out the lock. I’ll meet you at the hospital.”

“The FDA won’t …”

“Do it, bitch. Move it quick.”

It worked. Then I sent him over to plastic surgery.

I BROUGHT a new Goliath harmonica made by Hohner into J. Hooch’s room. By then he weighed a hundred and thirty and was looking fairly decent.

“Gimme that son of a bitch. Whose is that?”

“Yours.”

A month later he was back at the Hooch house. I would put the MG on neutral to hear the strains coming from Sister’s studio. His bed was there. He’s moved to it, all the guitars, the stereo around him. The old boy was playing the hell out of the harmonica. He was at a hundred and fifty and going normal.

“I’ll be what my daughter was trying to be!”

“What?”

“Already got myself recorded. All I need is a drum. I read Sister’s diary! Goddamn it, I’m a great old son of a bitch!”

The dirty dog was playing the harmonica every time I came by the house. I’d just shut the car down and listen to the tender sorrow coming through the forty-eight reeds.

Then with duty on my mind, I go by the emergency room. Nothing. The usual hurt niggers, but all’s in control.

I am late coming home and Westy is pissed off. Yes, I had some bourbons, and I guess I just sort of threw her nightgown up and tried to.

Women enjoy conversation.

Lube does not come in before talk.

I got up to brush my teeth and prove I’m not drunk.

All right.

Afterward, I ate her slowly. I hadn’t eaten much all day.

ERD. #92. #Doe4. Utap. At 40–50. Range. In Clear. Solid. Ventro.

THE other night one of the deranged creeps got out of his car at the emergency room, swinging a Magnum in his hand. He had already swatted his granddaughter in the head with it, plus shot his regular daughter in the tit.

I had been shooting the.30/30 with my boy Barry that day.

I asked him to ride into the back lot with me, because I was a doctor who understood him. Something about my stern eyes that calms even wild men down. He gave me the gun. We got way out there where nobody could hear. I played some country music for him while I pulled a towel over the barrel of the.30/30 and rested it into his ribs.

“What was you going to say?”

“Light up a cigarette for me,” I said.

While he did, I let one go through him.

“What’d you do?”

“Let out some of your spleen and piss,” I said. He fainted, of course.

I took him back to the main entrance and kicked him out.

Now he’ll live but be warned. I’ve still got his Magnum.

Now I guess I should give you swaying trees and the rare geometry of cows in the meadow or the like — to break it up. But, sorry, me and this one are over.

I GOT audited by the IRS because I hadn’t filed in four years.

So I went up there to the Federal house. They had called me over the phone and finally got rude. I tend to procrastinate on business like this because I feel I don’t owe anything and already fought for the country. I’m for the straight ten percent. I’d file before anybody then.

She was not so stern when she met me. I had all my forms. She went off in the room and talked to her boyfriend for thirty minutes. I went down to the first floor and got some coffee. Saw a nigger in a Federal suit and asked him if I could try out his gun. There was nothing else to do. Then I got some Nabs. Those are fun. I ate two and spat out the third. Welfare niggers who don’t work for a living are all over the place.

Finally she got back to the desk. She had to make another call or receive one.

This was enough. I went back in the other room, raised up her skirt, and stuck the meat in her. She was talking to her boyfriend and moaning.

Now I am clean with the IRS.

ELEMENTS of protein float in. B-12 for sanity, vegetables, and Oscar, the mysterious warrior that sails in the bloodstream. Can be cancer or the warrior against cancer. I’m dreaming of this. I’m dreaming of the day when the Big C will be blown away. I’m dreaming of a world where men and women have stopped the war and where we will stroll as naked excellent couples under the eye of the sweet Lord again. I’m dreaming of the children whom I have hurt from being hurt and the hurt they learn, the cynicism, the precocious wit, the poo-poo, the slanted mouth, the supercilious eyebrow.

Then I wake up and I’m smiling. Westy asks me what’s wrong.

“Christ, darling, I just had a good dream, is all.”

“I’ll bet it was some patient you screwed. You rotten bastard.”

She hits me over the head with a pillow.

Violence.

Some days even a cup of coffee is violence.

When I can find my peace, I take a ladder to the hot attic and get out the whole plays of Shakespeare.

Okay, old boy. Let’s hear it again. Sweat’s popping out of my eyes, forehead.

Let’s hear it again. Between the lines I’m looking for the cure for cancer.

LET’S get hot and cold, because, darling new thing, we’re going through the weeds and the woods and just the sliver of the moon comes in through the dead branches, and the running rabbits and squirrels are underneath and above. Henry David Thoreau is out there thinking, loping around. Louis Pasteur is out there racing with the bacteria.

We went to the planetarium in Jackson, Mississippi, my hometown. Elizabeth, Ray, Lee, and Teddy. Elizabeth is on the couch with her crocheting. Lee is reading her new bible, Proverbs. It’s raining out. We’ve cut the yard in the front, and the train whistle is hooting.

“A gentle answer quiets anger, but a harsh one stirs it up.”

“It is foolish to ignore what your father taught you. It is wise to accept correction.”

They say, “Dad, take it easy. Quit going so fast.”

My daughter has a secret friend named Fred, and my son Teddy has a secret friend named Jim.

We all sleep together in the big wooden four-poster where I grew up, tiny innocent arms and legs and imaginary friends on top.

Ike, Ken, Carol, and Ginger are at my ex-brother-in-law’s place, and I join them to fish at the wide kidney-shaped lake at the bottom of their rolling lawn. Dr. John and Dr. Ray trade a few compliments. John would give you the shirt off his back. It’s a shame my sister, Dot, isn’t with him anymore. There were differences. His wife, Mindy, is sweet and has Buffy and Moffit. I forgot to mention my beautiful nieces, Hannah Lynn and Maribeth. Everybody’s around and we are flying kites over the tall oaks, the Black Angus cattle are roaming comfortably in the taller weeds, and the geese control their placid squadrons.

Ike is a playwright and Ginger has just come back from Europe with her Gitanes, one of the essential deeds of young females. Looking back at the house, it’s a low wooden castle.

THEY asked me where I wanted to go to graduate school and I said Tulane, for medicine. Finished in three years. Or maybe it was four.