property was just across the blacktop driveway on the west, had, for the excitement of it or perhaps even a fee, admitted some members of the electronic press to their side yard, and there was nothing the detectives could do about the cameras that were trained on them and their charge from close range. To the shouted questions, though, they could and did remain silent, and Moody advised Howland, his face swathed in the coat, not to be provoked by the raucous cries, âDidja kill your wife and child?â
Lloyd was awakened by the urgent need to urinate. In the aftermath of his monumental drinking spree of the day beforeâat least he assumed it was only one day earlierâhe carried on his shoulders a head that felt as though encased in one of those old-fashioned diving helmets, the kind with a window behind a cage, offering only remote and fragmented visibility. He felt so dizzy that he had to take another few minutes of sleep, and it was during this period that he pissed the bed. After the briefest instant of wet warmth, he understood what was happening but went ahead anyway and emptied his bladder. Any attempt at self-discipline would have been useless at this point. It was not the first time, nor the tenth, that the malodorous, stained old mattress had been urinated on by someone, though he had never done so before. He would not anyway be sleeping on it again.
Lloydâs intent, when he could finally extricate himself from the slough of standing urine (which for some reason was not being absorbed), was to clean himself up soon as possible, leave town, and keep on going. It had been a mistake to come here in the first place. He had put himself under too much pressure while at the same time having no clear aim. How could anything good come of that combination?
Once he got to his feet he was not quite as weak of leg as he had anticipated, but his head throbbed with an aggressive pain, and his tongue was so sour that his teeth tingled from contact with it. At the corroded tap of the stained sink he made a drinking fountain of his hand, childhood-fashion, and swallowed water, which no matter how long it ran remained at the same tepid temperature as that from the hot-water faucet.
Had he single-handedly drunk the entire half gallon of scotch? But where was the empty bottle? And where had he emptied it? Instead of a memory of places and events, he retained only impressions, shadows, fragments of sound, textures, sensations, some unpleasant but not all.
Having gulped his fill of the water, rinsing with and spitting out the last mouthful, he raised his head to the mirror and saw the scabbed wound that extended on a long diagonal from the cheekbone to the edge of his upper lip. He had no immediate memory of its origin, but examining the nearby skin by eye and then by touch and, detecting only a faint shadow of beard, he supposed that at some time since the ruining of his electric shaver the morning before, he had found an edged razor somewhere and, using it, cut himself.
The matter sent him on a search of the medicine cabinet, some of the items in which had been left behind by former tenants. And there the implement lay, between an empty bottle that had once held rubbing alcohol and a plastic jar a quarter full of Vaseline. It was one of those disposable razors. Had he found it and used it before going to work, the day might have turned out differently.
If the water in the washstand was always warm, that which emerged from the showerhead, in the curtainless rusty-metal stall, was habitually unheated. Today it was as cold as ever, but in his current condition, with a body temperature that felt feverish, he derived some strength from the icy gush. In turning to clean his back, he encountered underfoot a soaked grayish cloth which when eventually retrieved and examined proved to be a T-shirt, presumably his own. The water had smudged but not washed away the streaks of red in its weave. He had apparently bled more from
Lloyd was awakened by the urgent need to urinate. In the aftermath of his monumental drinking spree of the day beforeâat least he assumed it was only one day earlierâhe carried on his shoulders a head that felt as though encased in one of those old-fashioned diving helmets, the kind with a window behind a cage, offering only remote and fragmented visibility. He felt so dizzy that he had to take another few minutes of sleep, and it was during this period that he pissed the bed. After the briefest instant of wet warmth, he understood what was happening but went ahead anyway and emptied his bladder. Any attempt at self-discipline would have been useless at this point. It was not the first time, nor the tenth, that the malodorous, stained old mattress had been urinated on by someone, though he had never done so before. He would not anyway be sleeping on it again.
Lloydâs intent, when he could finally extricate himself from the slough of standing urine (which for some reason was not being absorbed), was to clean himself up soon as possible, leave town, and keep on going. It had been a mistake to come here in the first place. He had put himself under too much pressure while at the same time having no clear aim. How could anything good come of that combination?
Once he got to his feet he was not quite as weak of leg as he had anticipated, but his head throbbed with an aggressive pain, and his tongue was so sour that his teeth tingled from contact with it. At the corroded tap of the stained sink he made a drinking fountain of his hand, childhood-fashion, and swallowed water, which no matter how long it ran remained at the same tepid temperature as that from the hot-water faucet.
Had he single-handedly drunk the entire half gallon of scotch? But where was the empty bottle? And where had he emptied it? Instead of a memory of places and events, he retained only impressions, shadows, fragments of sound, textures, sensations, some unpleasant but not all.
Having gulped his fill of the water, rinsing with and spitting out the last mouthful, he raised his head to the mirror and saw the scabbed wound that extended on a long diagonal from the cheekbone to the edge of his upper lip. He had no immediate memory of its origin, but examining the nearby skin by eye and then by touch and, detecting only a faint shadow of beard, he supposed that at some time since the ruining of his electric shaver the morning before, he had found an edged razor somewhere and, using it, cut himself.
The matter sent him on a search of the medicine cabinet, some of the items in which had been left behind by former tenants. And there the implement lay, between an empty bottle that had once held rubbing alcohol and a plastic jar a quarter full of Vaseline. It was one of those disposable razors. Had he found it and used it before going to work, the day might have turned out differently.
If the water in the washstand was always warm, that which emerged from the showerhead, in the curtainless rusty-metal stall, was habitually unheated. Today it was as cold as ever, but in his current condition, with a body temperature that felt feverish, he derived some strength from the icy gush. In turning to clean his back, he encountered underfoot a soaked grayish cloth which when eventually retrieved and examined proved to be a T-shirt, presumably his own. The water had smudged but not washed away the streaks of red in its weave. He had apparently bled more from
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