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' "'Wistful thinking, Arch. I read about it one time inna magazine settin' in that green outhouse behind the station.... Now what I meant awhile back, Arch, you didn't rightly understand me.... I was referring to your wife as the Old Cray Mare.... I mean she ain't what she used to be what with all them carbuncles and cata- racts and chilblains and hemorrhoids and aftosa.' "'Yas, Doc, Liz is right sickly. Never was the same after her eleventh miscarriaging.... There was some- thing right strange about that. Doc Ferris he told me straight, he said: "Arch, 'tain't fitting you should see that critter." And he gives me a long look made my flesh crawl.... Well, you sure said it right, Doc. She ain't what she used to be. And your medicines don't seem to ease her none. In fact, she ain't been able to tell night from day since using them eye drops you sold her last month.... But, Doc, you oughtta know I wouldn't be humping Liz, the old cow, meaning no disrespect to the mother of my dead monsters. Not when I got that sweet little ol' fifteen year old thing.... You know that yaller girl used to work in Marylou's Hair Straightening and Skin Bleach Parlor over in Nigga town.' "'Getting that dark chicken meat, Arch? Gettin' that coon pone?' "'Gettin' it steady, Doc. Gettin' it steady. Well, feller say duty is goosing me. Gotta get back to the old crank case.' "'I'll bet she needs a grease job worst way.' "'Doc, she sure is a dry hole.... Well, thanks for the paregoric. " 'And thanks for the trade, Arch.... He he he... Say, Archy boy, some night when you get caught short with a rusty load drop around and have a drink of Yohimbiny with me.' "'I'll do that, Doc, I sure will. It'll be just like old times. "So I went on back to my place and heated up some water and mixed up some paregoric and cloves and cinnamon and sassyfrass and give it to Liz, and it eased her some I reckon. Leastwise she let up aggravatin' me. ... Well, later on I went down to Doc Parker's again to get me a rubber... and just as I was leaving I run into Roy Bane, a good ol' boy too. There's not a finer man in this Zone than Roy Bane.... So he said to me he says, 'Arch, you see that ol' nigger over there in that vacant lot? Well, sure as shit and taxes, he comes there every night just as regular you can set your watch by him. See him behind them nettles? Every night round about eight thirty he goes over into that lot yonder and pulls himself off with steel wool.... Preachin' Nigger, they tell me.' "So that's how I come to know the hour more or less on Friday the 13th and it couldn't have been more than twenty minutes half an hour after that, I'd took some Spanish Fly in Doc's store and it was jest beginning to work on me down by Grennel Bog on my way to Nigger town. |
