Somewhere a crow cawed. To Curtis, in his hot little box, it sounded like laughter.
"Did you think I was joking when I called you a g*y witch? I was not. Does that mean you know you're a, well, a malevolent supernatural force sent to try me and test me? I don't know. I don't. I've spent many a sleepless night since my wife took her jewelry and left thinking about this question-among others-and I still don't. You probably don't."
"Grunwald, I assure you I'm not-"
"Shut up. I'm talking here. And of course, that's what you'd say, isn't it? Regardless of whether you knew or not, it's what you'd say. Look at the testimonies of various witches in Salem. Go on, look. I have. It's all on the Internet. They swore they weren't witches, and when they thought it would get them out of death's receiving room they swore they were, but very few of them actually knew for sure themselves! That becomes clear when you look at it with your enlightened...you know, enlightened...your enlightened whatever. Mind or whatever. Hey neighbor, how is it when I do this?"
Suddenly The Motherfucker-sick but apparently still quite strong-began to rock the Port-O-San. Curtis was almost thrown against the door, which would have resulted in disaster for sure.
"Stop it!" he roared. "Stop doing that!"
Grunwald laughed indulgently. The Port-O-San stopped rocking. But Curtis thought the angle of the floor was steeper than it had been. "What a baby you are. It's as solid as the stock market, I tell you!"
A pause.
"Of course...there is this: all faggots are liars, but not all liars are faggots. It's not a balancing equation, if you see what I mean. I'm as straight as an arrow, always have been, I'd f**k the Virgin Mary and then go to a barn dance, but I lied to get you out here, I freely admit it, and I might be lying now."
That cough again-deep and dark and almost certainly painful.
"Let me out, Grunwald. I beg you. I am begging you."
A long pause, as if The Motherfucker were considering this. Then he resumed his previous scripture.
"In the end-when it comes to witches-we can't rely on confessions," he said. "We can't even rely on testimony, because it might be cocked. When you're dealing with witches, the subjective gets all...it gets all...you know. We can only rely on the evidence. So I considered the evidence in my case. Let's look at the facts. First, you f**ked me on the Vinton Lot. That was the first thing."
"Grunwald, I never-"
"Shut up, neighbor. Unless you want me to tip over your happy little home, that is. In that case, you can talk all you want. Is that what you want?"
"No!"
"Good call. I don't know exactly why you f**ked me, but I believe you did it because you were afraid I meant to stick a couple of condos out there on Turtle Point. In any case, the evidence-namely, your ridiculous so-called bill of sale-indicates that f**kery was what it was, pure and simple. You claim that Ricky Vinton meant to sell you that lot for one million, five hundred thousand dollars. Now, neighbor, I ask you. Would any judge and jury in the world believe that?"
Curtis didn't reply. He was afraid to even clear his throat now, and not just because it might set The Motherfucker off; it might tip the precariously balanced Port-O-San over. He was afraid it might go over if he so much as lifted a little finger from the back wall. Probably that was stupid, but maybe it wasn't.
"Then the relatives swooped in, complicating a situation that was already complicated enough-by your g*yboy meddling! And you were the one who called them. You or your lawyer. That's obvious, a, you know, QED type of situation. Because you like things just the way they are."
Curtis remained silent, letting this go unchallenged.
"That's when you threw your curse. Must have been. Because the evidence bears it out. 'You don't need to see Pluto to deduce Pluto is there.' Some scientist said that. He figured out Pluto existed by observing the irregularities in some other planet's orbit, did you know that? Deducing witchcraft is like that, Johnson. You have to check the evidence and look for irregularities in the orbit of your, you know, your whatever. Life. Plus, your spirit darkens. It darkens. I felt that happening. Like an eclipse. It-"
He coughed some more. Curtis stood in the ready-to-be-frisked position, butt out, stomach arched over the toilet where Grunwald's carpenters had once sat down to take care of business after their morning coffee kicked in.