A Couple of Fops
“What’s happening now?”
“They’re thinking it over.”
“Thinking what over?”
“Whether to tear us new assholes.”
“We’ll need them if the bad water and rancid food keep using the old ones at peak capacity. Speaking of which, do you have any extra bottled water?
“Are you kidding me?”
“That brackish water the Indians gave us in exchange for that non-working motorcycle is not agreeing with me and it might be nice to clean this infected arrow wound in the thing that was my hand before this big and purple and amorphous mass replaced it. Not that one can blame the Indians. Imagine how sore we’d be if they were to arrive unannounced in New York in a large armored vehicle and park it at 42nd and Broadway.”
“My wounded knee sympathizes with your wounded hand.”
“Yes, I’ve seen your knee. Dreadful.”
“COULD ANYONE SPARE ANY CLEAN WATER? DON’T FORGET US SICKIES, WE’RE HUMAN TOO!”
“That was decent of you. I’ve always liked you.”
“Same.”
“Same.”
“Same.”
“Where did Jack Smith go? I feel better when he’s around, not that I think he can save us but he seems less likely to get us all killed than the other gentlemen in whose hands our fate rests.”
“He left on an expedition of trading and reconnaissance, as he said, after giving John Ratcliffe crap vis-à-vis building our fort here on this swamp and, in fact, starting to build it at all, since, as he said, if we were to wait a few days for the Indians to give us permission to build, it would then appear as if we were building because they’d permitted it rather than simply because we wanted to, which is the real reason we’re building it, but perception is reality, as he says, or some other boldly pragmatic catch phrase, I do like his phraseology and bearded grin. I wish he were here too. He went off with, among others, the communications officer, Johnny Rolfe. Not that Rolfe’s not a decent-enough fellow, but one doesn’t ever know what he’s really thinking despite the sort of earnest face he presents to the world; it’s the communications officer aspect of Rolfe I find comical I guess I mean to say. In any case, he and Smith and three others have assembled our remaining all-terrain vehicles and have gone off to investigate the area and its impact on our options or some other admirably utilitarian phrase from the mouth of Smith, whom I trust and will trust a whole lot more if he comes back with clean water.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Would you repeat what you just said?”
“Which part?”
“The whole thing.”
“Dude, my mouth was next to your head when I said it. Where were you?”
“Oh dude, I must have faded out.”
“That’s all right, I don’t feel in tip-top shape myself. At this point I wouldn’t mind if someone were to come and move us out of the sun. I feel my skin is melting off.”
“WOULD SOMEONE MIND MOVING US OUT OF THE SUN? OUR SKIN IS MELTING OFF!”
“Very kind but I’m not sure anyone heard you. I barely heard you myself.”
“And yet it sounded so loud inside my head.”
“I’m angry, I confess.”
“About what?”
“Dying here.”
“I got an awful feeling in my stomach when you said that.”
“How can you distinguish between that awful feeling and the awful feeling given to your stomach by the rancid food and water, or any of the terrible events that have happened since we left New York?”
“I don’t know.”
“I know it does no good to repeat it but I’m pretty angry about dying here.”
“Would dying elsewhere be better?”
“Yes!”
“Where?”
“New York.”
“Why?”
“My mother.”
“She’s alive?”
“Yes.”
“Is she nice?”
“She would kill for me.”
“That is nice.”
“Did kill.”
“Who?”
“A few fellows.”
“What for?”
“Meaning me harm.”
“Meaning or doing?”
“Meaning with intent to do. Mother. Mother, though, has not lost her softness in hard times. She would treat you nice.”
“Would treat me nice?”
“Would treat you very nice.”
“I’d love to meet her.”
“She’s an excellent cook, can do a lot with a little in the kitchen. I’d love for you to meet her. You and I eating a meal with Mother that she had just prepared. It makes me angry to think it won’t happen.”
“Don’t dwell on the anger.”
“Hard not to.”
“Hard not to.”