Read Online Ray by Barry Hannah - Free Book Online Page B

FDA won’t …”
    â€œDo it, bitch. Move it quick.”
    It worked. Then I sent him over to plastic surgery.

XXVIII
    I BROUGHT a new Goliath harmonica made by Hohner into J. Hooch’s room. By then he weighed a hundred and thirty and was looking fairly decent.
    â€œGimme that son of a bitch. Whose is that?”
    â€œYours.”
    A month later he was back at the Hooch house. I would put the MG on neutral to hear the strainscoming from Sister’s studio. His bed was there. He’s moved to it, all the guitars, the stereo around him. The old boy was playing the hell out of the harmonica. He was at a hundred and fifty and going normal.
    â€œI’ll be what my daughter was trying to be!”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œAlready got myself recorded. All I need is a drum. I read Sister’s diary! Goddamn it, I’m a great old son of a bitch!”
    The dirty dog was playing the harmonica every time I came by the house. I’d just shut the car down and listen to the tender sorrow coming through the forty-eight reeds.
    Then with duty on my mind, I go by the emergency room. Nothing. The usual hurt niggers, but all’s in control.
    I am late coming home and Westy is pissed off. Yes, I had some bourbons, and I guess I just sort of threw her nightgown up and tried to.
    Women enjoy conversation.
    Lube does not come in before talk.
    I got up to brush my teeth and prove I’m not drunk.
    All right.
    Afterward, I ate her slowly. I hadn’t eaten much all day.

XXIX
    ERD. #92. #Doe4. Utap. At 40-50. Range. In Clear. Solid. Ventro.

XXX
    T HE other night one of the deranged creeps got out of his car at the emergency room, swinging a Magnum in his hand. He had already swatted his granddaughter in the head with it, plus shot his regular daughter in the tit.
    I had been shooting the .30/30 with my boy Barry that day.
    I asked him to ride into the back lot with me, because I was a doctor who understood him. Something about my stern eyes that calms even wild men down. He gave me the gun. We got way out there where nobody could hear. I played some country music for him while I pulled a towel over the barrel of the .30/30 and rested it into his ribs.
    â€œWhat was you going to say?”
    â€œLight up a cigarette for me,” I said.
    While he did, I let one go through him.
    â€œWhat’d you do?”
    â€œLet out some of your spleen and piss,” I said. He fainted, of course.
    I took him back to the main entrance and kicked him out.
    Now he’ll live but be warned. I’ve still got his Magnum.

XXXI
    Now I guess I should give you swaying trees and the rare geometry of cows in the meadow or the like—to break it up. But, sorry, me and this one are over.

XXXII
    I G OT audited by the IRS because I hadn’t filed in four years.
    So I went up there to the Federal house. They had called me over the phone and finally got rude. I tend to procrastinate on business like this because I feel I don’t owe anything and already fought for the country. I’m for the straight ten percent. I’d file before anybody then.
    She was not so stern when she met me. I had all my forms. She went off in the room and talked to her boyfriend for thirty minutes. I went down to the first floor and got some coffee. Saw a nigger in a Federal suit and asked him if I could try out his gun. There was nothing else to do. Then I gotsome Nabs. Those are fun. I ate two and spat out the third. Welfare niggers who don’t work for a living are all over the place.
    Finally she got back to the desk. She had to make another call or receive one.
    This was enough. I went back in the other room, raised up her skirt, and stuck the meat in her. She was talking to her boyfriend and moaning.
    Now I am clean with the IRS.

XXXIII
    E LEMENTS of protein float in. B-12 for sanity, vegetables, and Oscar, the mysterious warrior that sails in the bloodstream. Can be cancer or the warrior
against
cancer. I’m