Part 56 (1/2)
”Rick, you just take it easy.”
”The climax consists of McTeague, the dentist, handcuffed to the corpse of his malevolent foe, Marcus Schouler, in the middle of a desert.”
”Desert? Handcuffs? Corpses? Oh s.h.i.+t. Andy! Andy!” Andy!”
”Andy? No, Schouler.” Schouler.”
”Rick ...”
”And as she taps it, ever so gently, taking care not to hurt him any more than she has already, she looks at the dentist's motionless face and sees a single tear emerge from one partly sedated eye and course down his cheek until it is silently absorbed by a cotton bandage. She, too, weeps, with no sound.... And she produces a pair of handcuffs, which she had gone to enormous expense and embarra.s.sment to buy ... and ... joins herself ... to the wrist of the theoretical dentist, his inefficacious wrist ...”
”What are you doing? Let me go go!”
”... with the deep oiled ... click click of the handcuffs.” of the handcuffs.”
”Jesus, Rick. This is it. You get these off right now. You get me out. I've told you I hate this torture and pain stuff, and you just don't care! You're a sick man!”
”Torture and pain? Lenore, I forgive you.”
”Forgive what, for Christ's sake? Help! Andy! Neil!”
”Lenore!”
”G.o.d d.a.m.n it, Rick, this is it. No talking, even. I wanted to talk, I said let's talk Rick, but no, so now forget it, I'm sorry but that's it.”
”We are now joined, my center and reference! In negation and discipline! Our bodies are husks!”
”You just better have the key. G.o.d, Andy, see if he's got the key. ”
”What the f.u.c.k's going on here?”
”Can't you see? He's locked locked us together!” us together!”
”Look you little wiener, cough up the key to these things or your a.s.s is gra.s.s.”
”You are fired, fired, Lang! You are Lang! You are dismissed!” dismissed!”
”f.u.c.k being dismissed. dismissed. You let this little lady go.” You let this little lady go.”
”Lenore, we will shrink into husks together. We will bleed in the sky. See it?”
”w.a.n.ger, is he crying? Is the little sucker crying?”
”Shut up, Neil.”
”Rick, please don't. Let's just talk about it. Don't sit in the sand and cry. Everybody can see. Let's stand up.”
”We'll be joined in the light of the sky, Lenore. See the light of the sky? The dawn and sunset will be fed from our veins. We'll be spread all over. We'll be everything. We'll be gigantic.”
”How f.u.c.king pathetic.”
”Shut up, Neil.”
”Larger than life.”
”Look here, R.V., let's just stand on up and talk this over, and unlock all this s.h.i.+t.”
”She is handcuffed. to a corpse, in the Desert. Don't you see the ... irony?”
”Want me to just get a cop, here, w.a.n.ger?”
”If she weren't three-dimensional, she wouldn't be caught! Don't you see? A three-dimensional husk!”
”I think old R.V.'s just lost a few cards out of a certain deck, Lenore. ”
”Rick.”
”That's where we'll be. We'll be prodigious enough to feed the whole sky! Don't you see? And whose fault is it, after all?”
”Aw, Rick, don't you see? Fault just doesn't enter into it at all.”
”Exactly. Exactly. It's no one's fault. We all agree.”
”Rick ...”
”Lenore sugar doll I care about you. I do. I don't care who knows it. I care about you as a person. R. V. can put all the s.h.i.+t on you he wants. You're mine now. I don't care if the whole world knows it. Hey y'all! I care about this little lady right here!”
”We're in the sky. We can't hear you.”
”f.u.c.k off, R. V. Look, Lenore, I'm gonna go ahead and just break the chain on these things. OK? I think I can break 'em. I've broke s.h.i.+t like this before.”
”Go ahead and try, Lang. You just go ahead and try it, and see what happens!”
”Is that OK, Lenore?”
”You ready?”
19.
1990.
The time last night when Lenore Beadsman cried in front of Andrew Sealander Lang was the first time she had ever cried in front of anybody else, at all.