Read Online The Port-Wine Stain by Norman Lock - Free Book Online Page A

well?
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â  B ONES : No, suh. The new man was gnashin’ his teeth all night.
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â  I NTERLOCUTOR : Did you have a nightmare, Brother Tambo?
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â  T AMBO : Yessuh. I dreamt I was once a man and had come to grief and dust.
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â  I NTERLOCUTOR : AS do we all—correct, Brother Bones?
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â  B ONES : Ain’t that the truth!
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â  T AMBO (anguished): I can’t feel my face!
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â  I NTERLOCUTOR : There’s nothing anymore to feel.
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â  T AMBO : I wisht I had a mirror to see myself in!
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â  I NTERLOCUTOR : There’s nothing more to see, Tambo. Isn’t that right, Bones?
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â  B ONES (to Tambo): Not in Mr. Mütter’s charnel house, there ain’t.
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â  T AMBO (wistfully): I can almost remember the world. . . . (Bones laughs.) What’s to be done, suhs?
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â  B ONES : Nothin’ to be done. We is all past doin’.
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â  T AMBO (whispering): I sees a bloody knife and the hangman’s rope.
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â  B ONES: Don’t distress yourself, Brother Tambo. They’s just figments of the Interlocutor’s mind. He’s a writer man. He makes things up in his head.
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â  T AMBO : Am I only a thought in his mind, then?
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â  B ONES : We boff is. (Shakes his head sadly.) No happy endings here. (Tambo weeps.) He’s cryin’ again, Mr. Interlocutor, even though he ain’t got no eyes or tears.
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â  I NTERLOCUTOR (brightly): Cheer up, Brother Tambo! Mr. Bones.
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â  B ONES : Yessuh?
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â  I NTERLOCUTOR : Let’s sing Tambo one of our humorous songs.
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â  B ONES: Tha’s a good idea, Mr. Interlocutor!
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â  B ONES and M R . I NTERLOCUTOR (singing together):
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â  Love, sweet love, is the poet’s theme—
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â  Love, sweet love, is the poet’s dream;
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â  But all of this of which they sing
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â  Is only a nightmare, a dreadful dream.
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â  (Tambo weeps all the more.)
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â  B ONES : He didn’t like that song much, Mr. Interlocutor, suh.
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â  I NTERLOCUTOR : Then I’ll sing him another one.
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â  (Singing, while Bones accompanies him with the bone “clackers.”)
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â  Now the tambo and the bones are forever laid away,
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â  The fiddle and the banjo are unstrung;
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â  But I often heave a sigh for the happy days gone by,
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â  And the times I used to have when I was young.
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â  (Tambo weeps some more.)
    The wind had emptied its cheeks with a sigh that blew flakes of snow against my own. It had begun to snow again. Turning from the iron door opening onto the street to take a last look at the place where we had stood—a threshold between life and its dismal opposite—I saw how the sunken footsteps in