20
Daddy stands at the foot of the stairs with his deer-gun, his .30-06, in his hands. Scott stands beside him, looking at the thing chained to the metal post and the printing-press table, trying not to tremble. In his righthand pocket is the slim instrument Daddy has given him, a hypodermic with a plastic cap on the needle-tip. Scott doesn't need his Daddy to tell him it's a fragile mechanism. If there's a struggle, it may break. Daddy offered to put it in a little white cardboard box that once held a fountain pen, but getting the hypo out of the box would take an extra couple of seconds - at least - and that might mean the difference between life and death if he succeeds in getting the thing chained to the post over to Boo'ya Moon. In Boo'ya Moon there will be no Daddy with a .30-06 deer-gun. In Boo'ya Moon there will just be him and the thing that slipped into Paul like a hand into a stolen glove. Just the two of them on top of Sweetheart Hill. The thing that used to be his brother lies sprawled with its back against the center-post and its legs splayed. It's naked except for Paul's undershirt. Its legs and feet are dirty. Its flanks are caked with shit. The pie-plate, licked clean even of grease, lies by one grimy hand. The extra-large hamburger that was on it disappeared down the Paul-thing's gullet in a matter of seconds, but Andrew Landon agonized over the patty's creation for almost half an hour, chucking his first effort out into the night after deciding he loaded too much of "the stuff" into it. "The stuff" is white pills that look almost exactly like the Tums and Rolaids Daddy sometimes takes. The one time Scott asked Daddy where they came from, Daddy said - Why don't you shut your goddam mouth, Curious George, before I shut it for you and when Daddy says something like that you take the hint if you've got any sense. Daddy ground the pills up with the bottom of a waterglass. He talked as he worked, maybe to himself, maybe to Scott, while below them the thing chained to the printing-press roared monotonously for its supper. - Easy enough to figure when you want to knock him out, Daddy said, looking from the pile of white powder to the ground meat. - Be easier still if I wanted to kill the troublesome motherfucker, ay? But no, I don't want to do that, I just want to give him a chance to kill the one that's still all right, more fool am I. Well smog it and smuck it, God hates a coward. He used the side of his pinky with surprising delicacy to separate a little line of white powder from the pile. He pinched some up, sprinkled it onto the meat like salt, kneaded it in, then pinched up a tiny bit more and kneaded that in, too. He didn't bother much with what he called hot coozine when it came to the thing downstairs, said it would be happy to eat its dinner raw - still warm and shaking on the bone, for that matter.
Now Scott stands beside his Daddy, hypo in pocket, watching the dangerous thing loll against its post, snoring with its upper lip pulled back. It's grizzling from the corners of its mouth. The eyes are half-open but there's no sign of its irises; Scott can see only the gleaming, glabrous whites... Only the whites aint white anymore, he thinks.
- Go on, goddam you, Daddy says, giving him a thump on the shoulder. If you're gonna do it, then go on before I lose my nerve or drop with a sweetmother heart-attack... or do you think he's shammin? Only pretendin to be out?
Scott shakes his head. The thing's not trying to fool them, he would feel that - and then looks at his father wonderingly.
- What? Daddy asks irritably. What's on your mind besides your smuckin hair?
- Are you really - ?
- Am I really scared? That what you want to know?
Scott nods, suddenly shy.
- Yeah, to f**kin death. Did you think you 'us the only one? Now close your mouth and do it if you're gonna. Let's have an end to this.