Read Online Town Burning by Thomas Williams - Free Book Online

ignored him and turned to John.
    “I suppose this is your chance to go whoring around in my car.” But he began to look perplexed again, and John saw, amazed, that this time Bruce tried to grin and make a joke out of it. As he spoke he became more and more unsure of himself. “I’d give you a list, but I haven’t had time.” He turned his face away and reached for the ash tray on his bedside table, then turned back. “Well, we’ve decided to drill a hole in my head tomorrow.”
    “Bruce!” Gladys Cotter said. She could barely speak, and came toward him, her face in fragments. She made a sound like escaping steam and her teeth clicked together several times.
    “For God’s sake, Bruce!” John said. Bruce reached out and grabbed his coat, a quick, vicious jerk that turned him around.
    “What do you care?” Bruce said. “It’s not your head they’re going to shave. They save the hair, did you know that? Then the undertaker can stick it back on again, did you know that? What did you do? What did I do to get this? You bastard! You son of a bitch!”
    “Bruce, I never hurt you.” He pulled away and went to the window. His eyes began to stream tears. Outside, across the green lawn, a woman walked with a little girl who limped. The sun shone on the little girl’s brown hair as she pointed to a gray squirrel. She and the woman spoke to each other, their faces serious and serene.
    The room behind him was silent. An English sparrow landed on the windowsill and flew away. John blinked away the tears, precariously balancing them on the edges of his eyes, hoping none would run down his face. The sparrow darted back, saw him and veered away jerkily on short wings.
    Bruce, he knew, could not take it any more than he—take the fact of metal in his head, of cutting tools working at his own dear skin and skull. Bruce, who possibly with good reason never trusted anyone, had now to let himself be drugged and hacked. What would he do in Bruce’s place? Call for help? There was no one to call. He might say to the doctors: “Well, thanks for everything. Thanks for your trouble and all, but I guess I won’t have it just now.” No, he must wait while the minutes go by, smoke another cigarette, think about the sound a saw makes on bone. (And what corruption will they find inside? Something is wrong and working in there.)
    His father mumbled in the corner. My father, he thought, our father who sits afraid in the shadow, cuddling his hat and coat, his two passports to the freedom of outside. Our mother, whom for some odd reason we despise and love, who can help us? Love we cannot use at the moment. We’re overstocked on it at the moment.
    They were talking in the room behind him, and he knew he must turn around.
    “Oh, Johnny will help you,” his mother said. He turned, hoping his tears were dry.
    “Sure,” he said.
    “He doesn’t like to have the nurse,” Gladys Cotter said.
    “I would in other circumstances,” Bruce said.
    “Oh, Bruce!” she said coyly, happy at once.
    Bruce slowly swung his legs over the side of the bed, then pulled his bathrobe around after.
    “Here goes,” he said, and stood unsteadily, holding the edge of the table. He arranged his slippers with an uncertain toe, then sighed as he worked his feet into them. He had gained weight, a soft white babyish padding. In spite of the dark blue shadow of his beard and the wiry hair on his chest and shoulders, he seemed too clean to be a man.
    “One of my few remaining pleasures is my bath.” He put his arm out and John took it, hardly able to believe this gesture of need. They had never touched each other except, as children, with the cruel hardness of fists, elbows and knees. And now his hand circled Bruce’s arm above the elbow and found weakness in the soft flesh. The idea of touching Bruce had been to poke a snake with a stick to see the fearful, fascinating coil and strike, or even more to see in Bruce’s eyes the same simple hatred he had seen