Read Online All True Not a Lie in It by Alix Hawley - Free Book Online
Authors: Alix Hawley
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The Indian Queen tavern, a man pukes neatly and then deposits a backgammon piece in the puddle. A horse nips my hair and its drunken rider brushes my neck with dry fingers. I slide my own finger up my knife again and it seems a lonely flat thing.
I close my eyes to the streets. A sniff of green wood burning, a sniff of pickle, a sniff of deep armpit. I sit inside the doorway of a shut bakery, which has a cindery smell and gives me a sad thought of hunting, my campfire sinking to ash and the owls going about their night business. I pull myself up, I feel the cool of the step under my backside and my feet. I force my eyes open to watch the people come and go. People like this life. People like this city, they live in it all the time. But the bells here have a tired sound.
I begin the walk southward back to my inn. Two lights in another tavern burn upon parts of women as they move past the door, lighting their faces when they pause against the wall. One of the women yawns hugely, showing her wide throat. A pair stands blowing smoke into the air and another drags her gown about. When they look at men their faces turn to wood, with carved wooden smiles. Whores. I think of the story of Gulliver, the best story. Israel’s wife did not read all of it aloud, not about the whores, but I read it myself. O Gulliver, you did not know what to do with them either.
—The boy! The boy himself, the very boy!
I catch a lick of his smell on the boarded walk. Smells do not disappear from memory, as I find. His broad face and the slope of his shoulders remain the same. As do his voice and his iron breath.
My thoughts of the past seem to have conjured him out of old darkness. William Hill. Perhaps he is what has been coming for me. Not Israel. I am somewhat relieved, I will admit. And he is very pleased at any rate and clutches at my hand:
—Always a pleasure and a delight to see an old friend, friendship is a gift! How do, Boone?
—I do all right.
Hill hardly hears me, so glad is he to be pumping my hand up and down in muscular fashion and crying:
—What brings you here?
I do not tell him that I am looking for my dead brother. He is still gripping my hand and talking:
—The companion of my youth! Happy days, happy days. Though you seem to be in search of other happiness this evening, ha!
He eyes one of the larger whores up the street, and I think of him in youth cheerfully singing under the bridge with the rest:
Your sister is a whore
. Perhaps it was with hope that he used to say it. He puts his arm about my shoulders and presses me forward. Nodding towards the capacious woman, he says:
—We might go in together, have a share. She has plenty to go around, look! Here, let it be my gift. What else is there to do in this city?
He jangles coins about in his palm. He smiles me up and down with his old pointed curiosity mixed with affection. His eyes are clear, his offer is quite sincere. His belief seems to be that we have always been great friends. He makes no mention of the fact that I stole his gun, or that my family was cast out, and I do not wish to bring it up. I suppose it is better to be friends after all. It is better to forget bad times. Hill seems entirely able to do it. And still he has money, which he is used to having, and it seems better than my own money, which at once seems miserable.
He begins to sing “The Green Fields of Home,” opening his arms to the lady and the whole night.
I feel sick as a pig. But interested also. I go with him.
We feel our way up the tilted steps to get to her room. It is at the top of the house, and is dim and smells of cold tallow. She settlesherself upon her bed, which creaks as if afraid of what is coming for it. We can hear her hard breathing there, we see her broad outlines. She says that she will save her candle, but Hill cajoles her to light it, saying that he wishes to inspect all of her charms closely, and that he will buy her all the candles she wants. And so she lights it
I close my eyes to the streets. A sniff of green wood burning, a sniff of pickle, a sniff of deep armpit. I sit inside the doorway of a shut bakery, which has a cindery smell and gives me a sad thought of hunting, my campfire sinking to ash and the owls going about their night business. I pull myself up, I feel the cool of the step under my backside and my feet. I force my eyes open to watch the people come and go. People like this life. People like this city, they live in it all the time. But the bells here have a tired sound.
I begin the walk southward back to my inn. Two lights in another tavern burn upon parts of women as they move past the door, lighting their faces when they pause against the wall. One of the women yawns hugely, showing her wide throat. A pair stands blowing smoke into the air and another drags her gown about. When they look at men their faces turn to wood, with carved wooden smiles. Whores. I think of the story of Gulliver, the best story. Israel’s wife did not read all of it aloud, not about the whores, but I read it myself. O Gulliver, you did not know what to do with them either.
—The boy! The boy himself, the very boy!
I catch a lick of his smell on the boarded walk. Smells do not disappear from memory, as I find. His broad face and the slope of his shoulders remain the same. As do his voice and his iron breath.
My thoughts of the past seem to have conjured him out of old darkness. William Hill. Perhaps he is what has been coming for me. Not Israel. I am somewhat relieved, I will admit. And he is very pleased at any rate and clutches at my hand:
—Always a pleasure and a delight to see an old friend, friendship is a gift! How do, Boone?
—I do all right.
Hill hardly hears me, so glad is he to be pumping my hand up and down in muscular fashion and crying:
—What brings you here?
I do not tell him that I am looking for my dead brother. He is still gripping my hand and talking:
—The companion of my youth! Happy days, happy days. Though you seem to be in search of other happiness this evening, ha!
He eyes one of the larger whores up the street, and I think of him in youth cheerfully singing under the bridge with the rest:
Your sister is a whore
. Perhaps it was with hope that he used to say it. He puts his arm about my shoulders and presses me forward. Nodding towards the capacious woman, he says:
—We might go in together, have a share. She has plenty to go around, look! Here, let it be my gift. What else is there to do in this city?
He jangles coins about in his palm. He smiles me up and down with his old pointed curiosity mixed with affection. His eyes are clear, his offer is quite sincere. His belief seems to be that we have always been great friends. He makes no mention of the fact that I stole his gun, or that my family was cast out, and I do not wish to bring it up. I suppose it is better to be friends after all. It is better to forget bad times. Hill seems entirely able to do it. And still he has money, which he is used to having, and it seems better than my own money, which at once seems miserable.
He begins to sing “The Green Fields of Home,” opening his arms to the lady and the whole night.
I feel sick as a pig. But interested also. I go with him.
We feel our way up the tilted steps to get to her room. It is at the top of the house, and is dim and smells of cold tallow. She settlesherself upon her bed, which creaks as if afraid of what is coming for it. We can hear her hard breathing there, we see her broad outlines. She says that she will save her candle, but Hill cajoles her to light it, saying that he wishes to inspect all of her charms closely, and that he will buy her all the candles she wants. And so she lights it
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