Barry Hannah - Geronimo Rex

“We have two choices,” I said. “We can take you to the hospital, which will bring about an investigation. Or we can wake up Fleece and see if he can’t clean it out for you so you won’t get gangrene. You see it’s not even bleeding much. It looks like more of a burn.”

Silas had taken off his pants and sat there holding the underside of his thigh. It is my guess he wasn’t too, too unhappy to be doing this. Bet looked straight down the stairs, sitting on the step below him with her hands in her lap.

“Of course, we don’t go to the hospital. But can we count on Bobby Dove?”

Bet’s eyes enlarged and she pointed behind me to Bobby. Fleece was crawling across the floor toward my bed. He achieved the bed and picked up the pistol lying on the covers. Silas got up and Bet screeched.

“That one isn’t loaded,” I said.

“Don’t, please don’t shoot me!” cried Silas. He gimped down the stairs and dropped into Fleece’s room. Fleece staggered away from us to my bathroom.

“He’s going to kill himself,” said Bet.

As I got to the bathroom the door whammed to. There was no lock on the inside. I called him. I heard him heaving away inside. When I opened the door I saw him holding himself up with his hands spread out on the bare pot, the top of his head just showing over the rim. “HaarrfffI”

“Where’s the gun?”

He rolled over on his side, pink-faced, tears rolling. “Did you drop your glasses in the commode?” He held up the glasses. But in the commode I noticed the barrel of the pistol sticking out of the barf and water.

“Flush it,” he told me.

“You know this pistol isn’t going to flush.”

“Flush it.”

I hit the handle. The pistol didn’t go down. All that happened was the barrel moved across and lay on the other side.

“Try it again.”

“Be sane, damn yon .”

“I shot two people now. I haven’t missed yet. What am I doing with guns ?” He was crying. His tie was wet from the bowl water.

“You can throw yours in the river any day you want to.”

“Throw yours in too?”

“Nope. I like mine,” I said.

Bet and Silas came to the door quietly.

“This man has been shot, you remember,” I said.

“What do I need, Bob? A tetanus shot? Can you get me one?”

“Turn around,” said Fleece. Silas did. “You. Big useless thing. You get out of his light.” He waved Bet over. “Well, look at that. Couldn’t you get this girl to even wash it out for you? That would’ve been hunky-dory for him, in his Tarzan underwear. I don’t remember blowing his pants off. Course if I’d hit him in the ear, he’d probably have them off to make a tourniquet or something.”

Silas went upstairs to get some more pants. Fleece picked himself up off the floor. “Yes sir, it’s old Doctor Fleece. Y’all come into the right place. I know ever’ truth of the human body.” He shuffled like an old man. He stopped and reached back for the gun in the commode, yanked it up dripping. “And I brought this from the water baptized, ‘cause I live by this now. The die is cast. What you say, podnah? It puts a fine edge on things of the future? Put a little edge on Silas, didn’t it?”

“Bobby, you’re so hard !” said Bet.

Silas and Fleece left for the med center together. Fleece had said he could purloin a tetanus shot and phenol. Bet stayed in the room with me. She took a seat in the wire drugstore chair beside my desk. Actually, she didn’t seem so huge when she sat down. She was put together well. Her face was that of a child actress whose looks might soon change to ugly. She had on a short skirt. One toe had plunged out the end of her left stocking; she put the shoes on.

“I saw you carrying your shoes in your hand. You realize how pretty that looked to Fleece.”

She made poo-pooing kisses toward me with her mouth.

“What are you, a whore ?

“Could I see that?” she asked me. She wanted the wet pistol I’d gotten from Fleece when he left. I was still holding it.

“My mercy!” she sighed, turning the gun around naively. “Pow! Why didn’t Bobby use this one? It’s more cute.”

“He was sitting with me right here, hearing the two of you going at it on the bed up there. You knew I was here, anyway.”

“Oh, he did not. Jerry just took off his shirt and told me he wanted me to see this thing, that he was going to stand on the bed so that the street light caught his image in silhouette on the window. He wanted me to see if this was classic, as a pose. It seemed to be classic to me, so he jumped off the bed and was so relieved and happy. He put his shirt back on, and that was all that happened.”

“That wasn’t queer to you?”

“Well, you can tell whose side you’re on. Wasn’t it a tiny bit queer when Bobby shot Jerry?”

“Well—”

“But I love this place, this inside of an old tower. I love you boys in it. You could’ve called me. I would’ve gone out with you. Would you have had a gun too tonight?”

“I know some other guys I could call up. You could love them too. I’d tell them to bring over some firearms; we could have the Millsaps football team pose in silhouette on the bed up there.”

“What you mean?”

“I think you liked it.” She made those poo-pooing kisses again.

“I didn’t like it when it happened. I might like it a little now. Nobody was really hurt. I feel all drained, but it feels like I had fun. It does.”

“Look,” I said. I reached in the drawer and got the little automatic out. I came back and sat on the bed and knocked the safety back. “This is the really cute one.”

I shot it a couple of times at the stair wall. “Now how ‘bout a old kissy-kissy!” I came toward her all smoochy-mouthed. I really was interested in seeing how much gun-fire excited her.

“Harry!” She stood up.

“What? The thrill is gone, huh?”

“Yes. The thrill is gone. Stop.”

“When they get back I’ll take them both on. We’ll bust up the lamps and make awful hooks and preens out of them and hack at each other in the dark. The winner will climb up into the light of Silas’s room, and there you’ll be waiting for him. Would that get the thrill back?”

“No …” she was pouting. “Oh, Bobby Dove! I’ve lost him!” She put her hands to her face and really broke down, bawling.

For a week both Silas and Fleece spent the night some-where else. Then I got a phone call. Silas wanted to know if Fleece was there, and I told him no, and hadn’t been. He said he was coming over to pick up his stuff. When he got to the house, he was a very wary man; and a very sweet man.

“Bet and I are getting married,” he whispered. “Tonight I’m taking her up to Yazoo to meet the folks. They’re going to love her!”

“Speak out. Nobody’s here, not even Mother Rooney.”

“The night I hooked up with you, remember the night I had that cello and you on trumpet? I knew I was being led to a beautiful life. Thank you. Just thank you.” He wanted to shake hands.

“You are in love. Are you sure you want to marry Bet after Fleece has banged it going on six years?”

“Don’t… please.” He still looked at me sweetly, humbly, though he was making a sort of curled club with his hand. I followed him up and watched him pack the foot-lockers. Suddenly he nudged me.

“What?”

“London. The honeymoon. Then all the rest of Europe, with Bet this time.” He opened his jacket, revealing the ticket packet. I saw his wallet also.

“Silas. Could you give me some money?”

“For what?”

“For I don’t have any and I’m hungry. And me telling Fleece about this ought to be worth something.”