Nightwoods - Charles Frazier [74]
—It’s Johnson, Luce said to Stubblefield.
Bud squared his shoulders against Stubblefield and studied him and said, So you’re the asswipe asking about me?
Stubblefield said, I was checking rumors.
Bud shook his head sorrowfully. Fuck me twice, he said. Makes me feel dirty that my business is anything of yours.
Stubblefield said, I wanted to know what you’re doing here.
—Well, as the philosophers say, everybody’s got to be somewhere. And even Sister Luce agrees I’m free to live wherever I want to.
—What is it you’re after? Luce said.
—I don’t guess you happen to have any money squirreled away in a clever place? Bud said. You don’t live like you do. But I heard your boyfriend might have some.
—So is that it?
—Be way simpler if it was. I’m just after what’s mine.
—The children, then? Luce said.
Bud made an incredulous expression. He turned to Stubblefield and said, She’s sure pretty, but if she’s as big a whore and pain in the ass as her sister, and even half as ignorant, you have my tenderest sympathies.
Stubblefield swung a misconceived roundhouse toward Bud’s mouth. It took a great deal of time to come around, plenty enough for Bud to cock his head to the side so that Stubblefield’s fist barely glanced off the brow and dwindled most of its energy into nothing.
By the time Stubblefield collected himself, Bud had reached into the cuff of his railroad boot. He came out flashing a black-and-silver switchblade with little imitation quillons like on a sword. He tripped the button, and the blade sprang from the handle into life. It had a blood gutter running partway down its cheap chrome length, and it cast jagged reflections from its angled faces.
Bud sank into a knife-fighter crouch and his eyes got all concentrated. He said, Legal tip. Looks bad in court when you throw the first fist. Way it stands, you brought on what happens next.
Stubblefield raised his arms to shoulder level and pushed out flat palms in a gesture like a traffic cop whoaing up approaching cars. Bud flicked the blade and cut the palm of the left hand into the meat.
Bud danced in place, three little steps like a boxer, and watched Stubblefield’s face blanch and his hand start bleeding down his arm. Luce had never screamed in her life, and she didn’t scream now.
Dark blood splattered on the dingy white linoleum near the base of the white toilet. Stubblefield tried to swing another blow, but Bud smacked it away with his empty hand. Stubblefield bent double and grabbed his cut hand with his good hand and pressed them both between his knees. His face was turning the color of the linoleum.
Bud stood straight and dismissed Stubblefield without further comment, like his pain and fear didn’t factor at all. He looked at Luce and slowly wiped the blade’s two faces on the thigh of his jeans and pressed the button with his thumb to release the spring and folded the blade slowly back into place with the forefinger of his left hand. Very fast he said, You better figure this out before somebody gets hurt. I don’t give two shits about your whore sister’s bastards. I’m glad to be shut of them. All they ever did was gag up dinner or crap their britches at bad times and keep me from getting up on her whenever I wanted, which was all she was good for.
—You asshole, she kept you in groceries, Luce said.
—Stupid bitch thinks I won’t cut her too, Bud said, in the direction of Stubblefield. Y’all need to go on about your own lives and leave me alone. And if you take this to the law, I’m really going to bear down on you heavy. This right here is nothing. I wasn’t trying to go deep. He’ll heal.
—But why are you here? Luce said to his back as he went out the door.
Bud turned back around. He said, We were talking about facts and opinions. Here comes another one. Way I see it, up there by the lake, if somebody was to holler, nobody would hear it.
It took a pretty major effort not to look off, but Luce kept her eyes straight at Bud’s and said all in a rush, You ever come around my place and those kids, I will