I'd-"
"You'd what, Daddy?"
"I was going to say... I'd-"
"You'd what, Daddy?"
"I was going to say I'd cut my own arm off first,
but all at once that seemed like a really bad idea
I'd never do it, Illy
"Then why is she still afraid of you?"
"I think
She hurled herself into my arms so hard she almost
knocked us both onto the sofa"Oh, Daddy, I'm so
sorryAll of this is just so sucky
I stroked her hair a little"I know, but remember
this - it's as bad as it's going to get That
wasn't the truth, but if I was careful, Ilse would
never know it had been an outright lie
A horn honked from the driveway
"Go on," I said, and kissed her wet cheek"Your
sister's impatient
25
She wrinkled her nose"So what else is new?
You're not
omega deville watch overdoing the pain meds, are you?"
"No
"Call if you need me, DaddyI'll catch the very
next planeWhich was why I wouldn't I put a kiss on her other cheek"Give
that to your sister
She nodded and went outI sat down on the couch
and closed my eyesBehind them, the clocks were
striking and striking and striking
v
My next visitor was DrKamen, the psychologist
who gave me RebaI had Kathi,
my rehabilitation dominatrix, to thank for that
Although surely no more than forty, Kamen walked
like a much older man and wheezed even when he sat,
peering at the world through enormous horn-rimmed
spectacles and over an enormous pear of a belly
He was a very tall, very black black man, with
features
black gucci bags carved so large they seemed unrealHis
great staring eyeballs, ship's figurehead of a
26
nose, and totemic lips were awe-inspiringXander
Kamen looked like a minor god in a suit from Men's
WarehouseHe also looked like a prime candidate
for a fatal heart attack or stroke before his
fiftieth birthday
He refused my offer of refreshment, said he
couldn't stay, then put his briefcase aside on the
couch as if to contradict thatHe sank full
fathom five beside the couch's armrest (and going
deeper all the time - I feared for the thing's
springs), looking at me and wheezing benignly
"What brings you out this way?" I asked him
"Oh, Kathi tells me you're planning to bump
yourself off,"
chloe white he saidIt was the tone he might
have used to say Kathi tells me you're having a
lawn party and there are fresh Krispy Kremes on
offer"Any truth to that rumor?"
I opened my mouth, then closed it againOnce,
when I was ten and growing up in Eau Claire, I
took a comic book from a drugstore spin-around,
put it down the front of my jeans, then dropped my
tee-shirt over itAs I was strolling out the door,
feeling jacked up and very clever, a clerk grabbed
me by the armShe lifted my shirt with her other
27
hand and exposed my ill-gotten treasure"How did
that get there?" she asked meNot in the forty
years since that day had I been so completely
stuck for an answer to a simple
louis vuitton duffle bag question
Finally - long after such a response could have
any weight - I said, "That's ridiculousI don't
know where she could have gotten such an ideaSure you don't want a Coke?"
"Thanks, but I'll pass
I got up and got a Coke from the kitchen fridgeI
tucked the bottle firmly between my stump and my
chest-wall - possible but painful, I don't know
what you may have seen in the movies, but broken
ribs hurt for a long time - and spun off the cap
with my left handCaught a break
there, muchacho, as Wireman says
"I'm surprised you'd take her seriously in any
case," I said as I came back in"Kathi's a hell
of a physical therapist, but a headshrinker she's
not I paused before sitting
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