Robert Coover - Pricksongs & Descants

But now — oh my god! — as a mere few paces separate us, our point of origin — and end! — just visible before us, the brute reality slams through the barriers of our senses: the encounter is now imminent! Absorbed in our visual registrations, our meaningless mathematics, our hedonistic pleasure in mere action and its power-how could we have wasted it all! — we had forgot what was to come at the end! had we thought, only thought , we could have drawn two circles, or ten circles, postponed this ultimate experience, could have, but the choice was ours just once, our impulsive first action has become — alas! — a given, the inexorable governor of all that remains — or has the leper had us all along? did his pace allow two circles? and does it matter? for the encounter must come, mustn’t it? whether after one circle, two circles, or ten.

It is of no consequence. There is in us that conditions acceptance. We turn to greet the leper.

Our hands, my hands, appear before us, ruddy, hairy, thickwristed, muscular, fine rich blood pounding through them, extended now for the embrace. They do not tremble. The leper, tongue dangling— god! nearly black! — frothing pitifully at the mouth, eyes blank, whole wretched body oozing a kind of milky sweat, hurls himself into our arms, smothering us, pitching us to the red clay, his sticky cold flesh fastening to us, me, his black tongue licking my face, blind eyes, that whine! his odors choking us, we lie, I lie helpless under the sickening weight of his perishing flesh. Then, in die same instant, it is over. Purged of all revulsions, we free ourselves from him, lay him gently on the red earth, dry his final ecstatic tears. At first, we make an effort to claw the earth with our fingers, dig a hole large enough to conceal the blight of his gathering decay. But we weary of it: the earth is hard, burial an, old reflex. We leave him lie and sit beside to wait Under the desert sun. We wait, as he waited for us, for you. Desperate in need, yet with terror. What terrible game will you play with us? me.

Paul stepped off the curb and got hit by a truck. He didn’t know what it was that hit him at first, but now, here on his back, under the truck, there could be no doubt. Is it me? he wondered. Have I walked the earth and come here?

Just as he was struck, and while still tumbling in front of the truck and then under the wheels, in a kind of funhouse gambado of pain and terror, he had thought: this has happened before. His neck had sprung, there was a sudden flash of light and a blaze roaring up in the back of his head. The hot — almost fragrant — pain: that was new. It was the place he felt he’d returned to.

He lay perpendicular to the length of the truck, under the trailer, just to the rear of the truck’s second of three sets of wheels.

All of him was under the truck but his head and shoulders. Maybe I’m being born again, he reasoned. He stared straight up, past the side of the truck, toward the sky, pale blue and cloudless. The tops of skyscrapers closed toward the center of his vision; now that he thought about it, he realized it was the first time in years he had looked up at them, and they seemed inclined to fell. The old illusion; one of them anyway. The truck was red with white letters, but his severe angle of vision up the side kept him from being able to read the letters. A capital “K,” he could see that — and a number, yes, it seemed to be a “14.” He smiled inwardly at the irony, for he had a private fascination with numbers: fourteen! He thought he remembered having had a green light, but it didn’t really matter. No way to prove it. It would have changed by now, in any case. The thought, obscurely, troubled him.

“Crazy goddamn fool he just walk right out in fronta me no respect just burstin for a bustin!”

The voice, familiar somehow, guttural, yet falsetto, came from above and to his right People were gathering to stare down at him, shaking their heads. He felt like one chosen. He tried to turn his head toward the voice, but his neck flashed hot again. Things were bad. Better just to lie still, take no chances. Anyway, he saw now, just in the corner of his eye, the cab of the truck, red like the trailer, and poking out its window, the large head of the truckdriyer, wagging in the sunshine. The driver wore a small tweed cap — too small, in fact: it sat just on top of his head.

“Boy I seen punchies in my sweet time but this cookie takes the cake God bless the laboring classes I say and preserve us from the humble freak!”

The truckdriver spoke with broad gestures, bulbous eyes rolling, runty body thrusting itself in and out of the cab window, little hands flying wildly about Paul worried still about the light It was important, yet how could he ever know? The world was an ephemeral place, it could get away from you in a minute. The driver had a bent red nose and coarse reddish hair that stuck out like straw. A Bard shiny chin, too, like a mirror image of the hooked nose. Paul’s eyes wearied of the strain, and he had to stop looking.

“Listen lays and gentmens I’m a good Christian by Judy a decent hardworkin fambly man earnin a honest wage and got a dear little woman and seven yearnin younguns all my own seed a responsible man and goddamn that boy what he do but walk right into me and my poor ole truck!”

On some faces Paul saw compassion, or at least a neutral curiosity, an idle amusement, but on most he saw reproach. There were those who winced on witnessing his state and seemed to understand, but there were others — a majority — who jeered.

“He asked for it if you ask me!”

“It’s the idler plays the fool and the workingman’s to hang for it!”

“Shouldn’t allow his kind out to walk the streets!”

“What is the use of running when you are on the wrong road?” It worsened. Their shouts grew louder and ran together. There were orations and the waving of flags. Paul was wondering: had he been carrying anything? No, no. He had only— wait! a book? Very likely, but… ah well Perhaps he was carrying it still. There was no feeling in his fingers.

The people were around him like flies, grievances were being aired, sides taken, and there might have been a brawl, but a police man arrived and broke it up. “All right, everybody! Stand back, please!” he shouted. “Give this man some air! Can’t you see he’s been injured?”

At last, Paul thought He relaxed. For a moment, he’d felt himself in a strange and hostile country, but now he felt at home again. He even began to believe he might survive. Though really: had he ever doubted it?

“Everybody back , back!” The policeman was effective. The crowd grew quiet, and by die sound of their sullen shuffling, Paul guessed they were backing off. Not that he got more or less air by it, but he felt relieved just the same. “Now,” said the policeman, gently but firmly, “what has happened here?”

And with that it all started up again, same as before, die clamor, the outrage, the arguments, the learned quotations, but louder and more discordant than ever. I’m hurt, Paul said. No one heard. The policeman cried out for order, and slowly, with his shouts, with his nightstick, with his threats, he reduced diem again to silence.

One lone voice hung at the end: “—for the last time, Mister, stop goosing me!” Everybody laughed, released. “Stop goosing her, sir!” the policeman commanded with his chin thrust firmly forward and everybody laughed again.

Paul almost laughed, but he couldn’t, quite. Besides, he’d just, with that, got the picture, and given his condition, it was not a funny one. He opened his eyes and there was the policeman bent down over him. He had a notebook in his hand.