of us greasy with blood. I passed out. Came to in the emergency room with a sweet slant-eyed nurse stitching my head up.”
Everywhere Mahoney had gone left a mark on him. The most crucial testament of his perfection—the fact that he’d come fromoutside of Cataract City, the great unknown where perfection was still a possibility—was the very thing that had ruined him.
Dunk said: “Did your dad teach you to wrestle?”
“My dad was a great man,” Mahoney said. “A
beast
! When I was a boy he’d pinch my shoulders and say, ‘Look at those tiny trapezius muscles of yours—they’re mousetraps! You should have bear traps like mine! And your neck’s thin as a stack of dimes—what use is a man who can’t even support the weight of his own skull?’ I was a small boy. Sickly. Born premature. Not much bigger than a kaiser roll, my mother said. She hardly realized I’d come out.
“I got picked on as a boy. Yes! After school I’d make it home a few steps ahead of my tormentors and hide. Then my dad would come home. He was a butcher. His days spent quartering hogs. He’d drag me outside to face the other boys. But before that he’d wad up his apron, still wet with pig blood, and stuff it in my face. ‘Smell it!’ he’d say. ‘It should make you
crazy
! A mad
dog
!’ And so I went out with my face smeared with blood and I’d fight. It made me a better man, and I think every boy should … Did you … Did you …?”
Mahoney was peering into the trees. He closed one eye like he was peering through a magnifying glass, then reared back as if he’d sniffed something foul.
“Did you
see
that?”
Dunk looked. I looked. There was nothing.
“What is it?” said Dunk.
“I … I can’t quite say. But do you know who’s out there?” He screwed his palms into his eye sockets and blinked furiously. “Every manner of psycho and degenerate. Where do you go when polite society rejects you?
The woods
. Eating skunks, biding your time, waiting for your opportunity.”
Mahoney worked his jaw. The interlocking bones clicked beneath his ear. He scrounged the gun out of his jacket pocket. A log crackedin the fire. He wheeled about in a crazy circle, strafing the trees with the barrel.
“Who is it? Rotten-ass bastard, show yourself! I’ll plug one between your eyes!”
We cowered as the pistol swung on wild orbits. Mahoney drank and wiped his lips with the back of the hand gripping the gun.
“There’s no need for this.” His voice took on a pleading note. “Come sit by the fire. We can—”
A rustling arose beyond the trees and for an instant I swore a face materialized. White as milk apart from the lips, which were as red as blood from a freshly torn vein. Teeth filed to crude points. A ravenous ghoul stalking us from the darkness past the fire.
Mahoney howled—“
Reeeeaaaggh!
”—and fired. Flame spat from the gun to illuminate the fear-twisted contours of his face.
“Weasels,” he snarled. “Cowardly punks.” He raked his fingernails down his cheeks. “Think they can dog me out like that? You let a man dog you even once and he’ll dog you until your last breath! Come on, boys.”
“Where?” said Dunk.
Mahoney pointed to the trees.
Years later I’d wonder if it could possibly have happened as I remembered it.
The woods were black and cold, but not as cold as they would become later. I recall a lack of friction between my body and the things surrounding it—the trees, the spongelike quality of the topsoil—as if I was floating. I remember thinking I was in a place where none of my daily habits carried any impact. I tried to picture my bedroom with the wallpaper my father had put up: a panorama of the earth, small and bright and blue-white as photographed from the moon.
I slipped my finger through Dunk’s belt loop, anchoring him to me. The long muscle that ran up Dunk’s shoulder and neck to his hairline quivered with a nervous, tentative strength. Prickberry bushes tore
Everywhere Mahoney had gone left a mark on him. The most crucial testament of his perfection—the fact that he’d come fromoutside of Cataract City, the great unknown where perfection was still a possibility—was the very thing that had ruined him.
Dunk said: “Did your dad teach you to wrestle?”
“My dad was a great man,” Mahoney said. “A
beast
! When I was a boy he’d pinch my shoulders and say, ‘Look at those tiny trapezius muscles of yours—they’re mousetraps! You should have bear traps like mine! And your neck’s thin as a stack of dimes—what use is a man who can’t even support the weight of his own skull?’ I was a small boy. Sickly. Born premature. Not much bigger than a kaiser roll, my mother said. She hardly realized I’d come out.
“I got picked on as a boy. Yes! After school I’d make it home a few steps ahead of my tormentors and hide. Then my dad would come home. He was a butcher. His days spent quartering hogs. He’d drag me outside to face the other boys. But before that he’d wad up his apron, still wet with pig blood, and stuff it in my face. ‘Smell it!’ he’d say. ‘It should make you
crazy
! A mad
dog
!’ And so I went out with my face smeared with blood and I’d fight. It made me a better man, and I think every boy should … Did you … Did you …?”
Mahoney was peering into the trees. He closed one eye like he was peering through a magnifying glass, then reared back as if he’d sniffed something foul.
“Did you
see
that?”
Dunk looked. I looked. There was nothing.
“What is it?” said Dunk.
“I … I can’t quite say. But do you know who’s out there?” He screwed his palms into his eye sockets and blinked furiously. “Every manner of psycho and degenerate. Where do you go when polite society rejects you?
The woods
. Eating skunks, biding your time, waiting for your opportunity.”
Mahoney worked his jaw. The interlocking bones clicked beneath his ear. He scrounged the gun out of his jacket pocket. A log crackedin the fire. He wheeled about in a crazy circle, strafing the trees with the barrel.
“Who is it? Rotten-ass bastard, show yourself! I’ll plug one between your eyes!”
We cowered as the pistol swung on wild orbits. Mahoney drank and wiped his lips with the back of the hand gripping the gun.
“There’s no need for this.” His voice took on a pleading note. “Come sit by the fire. We can—”
A rustling arose beyond the trees and for an instant I swore a face materialized. White as milk apart from the lips, which were as red as blood from a freshly torn vein. Teeth filed to crude points. A ravenous ghoul stalking us from the darkness past the fire.
Mahoney howled—“
Reeeeaaaggh!
”—and fired. Flame spat from the gun to illuminate the fear-twisted contours of his face.
“Weasels,” he snarled. “Cowardly punks.” He raked his fingernails down his cheeks. “Think they can dog me out like that? You let a man dog you even once and he’ll dog you until your last breath! Come on, boys.”
“Where?” said Dunk.
Mahoney pointed to the trees.
Years later I’d wonder if it could possibly have happened as I remembered it.
The woods were black and cold, but not as cold as they would become later. I recall a lack of friction between my body and the things surrounding it—the trees, the spongelike quality of the topsoil—as if I was floating. I remember thinking I was in a place where none of my daily habits carried any impact. I tried to picture my bedroom with the wallpaper my father had put up: a panorama of the earth, small and bright and blue-white as photographed from the moon.
I slipped my finger through Dunk’s belt loop, anchoring him to me. The long muscle that ran up Dunk’s shoulder and neck to his hairline quivered with a nervous, tentative strength. Prickberry bushes tore
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