"Heh heh" he says to the naked woman in the magazine. Thirty years worth of Hustler and Penthouse and crazy bondage glossy pictures under his bed, women and dogs, women dismembered, women with black skin in white lace on shiny satin sheets, open window blowing light ruffling the crocheted pillowcases. Scott in his sagging chair with the yellow-brown whiskey and a magazine on his lap, saying "Heh heh" over his red beard, those big bones with their heavy red-haired flesh resting against the chair arms. He says "Hey little girl, you seen Joey? He back from work yet?" Joe and Scott on Sunday afternoons watching Kung Fu movies, talking about Friday night, Joe says "that new place, Cellblock West, they got these moving stairs going up to the second floor." "Oh they got moving stairs, do they Joey?"
"Yeah, there's one set going up and one going down."
{In the background A stream of grunts ... is coming from the television set two figures with arms and legs flying towards each other like Oriental scarecrow parodies of doomsday machines. Scott says after consideration, "moving stairs, ho-de-do!" Joe nods with dignity but Scott slaps his knee, eyes sparkling "how about that, eh, Joey, moving stairs, a real first-class joint, I'll have to go there and check it out, that's really somethin'."}
Scott leans back, his eyebrows raised in mock admiration, the beer rocking against his stomach. "Well, ho-de-do, they got moving stairs, going up and going down!"
Joe brings out the white Hi-Flyer frisbee upturned with a quarter ounce of leafy brown shake in it, sits and runs the front flap of a Zig Zag pack through the leafy brown frisbee holding the frisbee slanted so the round shiny seeds roll to the curved bottom. "Only one paper can be pulled at a time - no waste" the pack says. "Qualitie Superieur". On the front a man who looks like a pirate is smoking a rolled cigarette. His eyes disappear in black ink.
In August Joe brings home boxes of free tomatoes' we have tomato sauce, tomato sandwiches, and tomato salad. Scott slices the red round fruit and places mushy flesh between brown bread: no butter, no mayo, just bread and tomato sandwiches. "Heh heh" he says to me raising his thick red eyebrows. I live on frozen peas and tomatoes. I can't remember eating anything else or wanting anything else.
Except Though once I bought an ice cream cone and chased Scott around the house with it, finally mashing it into his ear, at which point he turned and went for me. I slipped on the stairs and turned to see the big bull strength of Scott standing over me. I was laughing, there was ice cream dripping from his ear, and yet I was afraid. I stuck fingers into his eyes. He didn't flinch, just bent down with my fingers pressing his eyeballs into his skull, and growled.
Nights and days in the attic, breathless heat, hot wood dry smell of hot wood, Scott and I and down in the dank mouldy enclosure of Scotts room, Scott and I, putting holes in our arms. He says, "Davey and me, we used to hang out by Bushnell park, over by the fence where theres these bushes, every time we see a cop car we'd hop the fence and hide ... Dave got sent to the State in '79." I ask him "State Prison or Crazy House?" "Don't matter, same thing." and his eyes close.
A year later and two thousand miles away, I heard that Scott had trashed the house before and been evicted; he hadn't paid rent for three months. Joe had moved out long before, saying Scott was a drug addict and stealing all his things. Scott on One night, crossing the street, Scott was hit by a drunk in an automobile. and he is now lying between hospital sheets He was in a coma and they kept him alive by machines while his brain died, his muscles warped and drew into themselves, his face turned old.
His eyes are bright blue liquid glass set between red cheeks.
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