Read Online Blameless in Abaddon by James Morrow - Free Book Online Page B

adding cold water from the faucet. The concoction tasted astoundingly foul.
    Later that morning his big-boned sister appeared, each arm wrapped around a paper bag stuffed with groceries.
    â€œI inventoried your kitchen yesterday,” said Jenny, setting the groceries on the counter. “You were out of everything, so I went to Super Fresh. How’re you feeling?”
    â€œIt hurts to pee—the prostatitis must be back. My right hip aches. Do me a favor?”
    â€œYou bet.”
    â€œThose animals of Corinne’s, armadillo, tarantula, there’s also an iguana—think you could find homes for ’em?”
    â€œI’ll take out an ad in the
Sentinel.
”
    â€œI don’t want any money, but their new owners must be responsible people. No sadistic schoolboys. No flighty teenagers.”
    â€œRight.”
    â€œGood homes, Jenny.”
    â€œYou got it.” She unbagged a half gallon of skim milk, two grapefruits, and a cantaloupe. “I’m sorry about your pains. I’m sorry about . . . everything.”
    â€œDo me another favor? I’d like a ride to Perkinsville Station. I’ve got a three o’clock with Blumenberg at Sloan-Kettering. There’s a new drug he wants me to try.”
    â€œOh, Marty, this is all so
unfair
.”
    â€œUnfair,” he echoed.
    â€œDid you know Mom’s coming to the funeral?”
    â€œShe can’t. It’s too far away.”
    â€œI’m giving her a lift.”
    â€œShe can’t drive that far.”
    â€œ
I’m
driving her. Aren’t you listening? I’ll pick
you
up too. Nine-thirty, okay?”
    â€œI want to go alone.”
    â€œI don’t understand.”
    â€œIt feels right.”
    â€œAlone?”
    â€œAlone.”
    He caught the 11:45 out of Perkinsville.
    Just as he feared, the new drug Dr. Blumenberg wanted him to try wasn’t new at all. It was Feminone, the synthetic hormone that threatened to turn him into a woman.
    â€œI’m not going to take it,” he informed the urologist.
    â€œIt’s our best hope for a remission,” said Blumenberg, fingering Martin’s inflamed gland.
    â€œI don’t want a remission.”
    â€œNonsense.”
    â€œIt still hurts to pee. The discharges have started again.”
    â€œBactrim ought to clear that up. Any pelvic pain?”
    â€œQuite a bit.”
    â€œWhere exactly?”
    â€œRight hip.”
    â€œLet’s put you on a maintenance dose of Roxanol: first cousin to morphine—it’ll give you substantial relief. Today we’ll draw blood for another acid-phosphatase check.”
    Dusk found Martin standing outside Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, raindrops bouncing off his cheeks and beading the lenses of his bifocals. As the Manhattan traffic rumbled down First Avenue, spouting black exhaust and invisible toxins, he drew the Feminone prescription from his pocket and methodically crumpled it up. He stared at the wad of paper, watching it grow soggy in his hand, then tossed it into a wire mesh receptacle. If I must die, he told himself, I shall do so in the gender to which I am accustomed.
    Â 
    On the morning of Corinne’s funeral, the skies over Abaddon Township bloomed sunny and clear, heralding a day more suited to tending roses or playing badminton than to burying one’s wife. “Just show up,” Vaughn had said. And so, at 9:45 A.M. , Martin got into his car and, like a man transporting himself to his own hanging, set off for Hillcrest Cemetery.
    He hadn’t seen the place in years—not since he’d gone gravestone rubbing with a dozen other kids in his father’s Sunday school class. Driving along the maze of narrow roads, he half expected to glimpse Walter Candle’s ghost moving among the markers, paper and charcoal in hand, preserving names and epitaphs.
    Although Vaughn had implied the lawnmower shed was conspicuous, Martin