Sirens of Titan - Kurt Vonnegut [66]
Boaz, like Unk, was naked. But he still had shoes. His genuine leather shoes had held up gorgeously. True—Unk had walked fifty miles to every mile walked by Boaz, but Boaz’s shoes had not merely held up. They looked as good as new.
Boaz wiped, waxed, and shined them regularly.
He was shining them now.
The door of his vault was blocked by the boulder. Only four favored harmoniums were inside with him. Two were wrapped about his upper arms. One was stuck to his thigh. The fourth, an immature harmonium only three inches long, clung to the inside of his left wrist, feeding on Boaz’s pulse.
When Boaz found a harmonium he loved more than all the rest, that was what he did—let the creature feed on his pulse.
"You like that?" he said in his thoughts to the lucky harmonium. "Ain’t that nice?"
He had never felt better physically, had never felt better mentally, had never felt better spiritually. He was glad he and Unk had separated, because Unk liked to twist things around to where it seemed that anybody who was happy was dumb or crazy.
"What makes a man be like that?" Boaz asked the little harmonium in his thoughts. "What’s he think he’s gaining compared to what he’s throwing away? No wonder he looks sick."
Boaz shook his head. "I kept trying to interest him in you fellers, and he just got madder. Never helps to get mad.
"I don’t know what’s going on," said Boaz in his thoughts, "and I’m probably not smart enough to understand if somebody was to explain it to me. All I know is we’re being tested somehow, by somebody or some thing a whole lot smarter than us, and all I can do is be friendly and keep calm and try and have a nice time till it’s over."
Boaz nodded. "That’s my philosophy, friends," he said to the harmoniums stuck to him. "And if I’m not mistaken, that’s yours, too. I reckon that’s how come we hit it off so good."
The genuine leather toe of the shoe that Boaz was shining glowed like a ruby.
"Men—awww now, men, men, men," said Boaz to himself, staring into the ruby. When he shined his shoes, he imagined that he could see many things in the rubies of the toes.
Right now, Boaz was looking into a ruby and seeing Unk strangling poor old Stony Stevenson at the stone stake on the iron parade ground back on Mars. The horrible image wasn’t a random recollection. It was dead center in Boaz’s relationship with Unk.
"Don’t truth me," said Boaz in his thoughts, "and I won’t truth you." It was a plea he had made several times to Unk.
Boaz had invented the plea, and its meaning was this: Unk was to stop telling Boaz truths about the harmoniums, because Boaz loved the harmoniums, and because Boaz was nice enough not to bring up truths that would make Unk unhappy.
Unk didn’t know that he had strangled his friend Stony Stevenson. Unk thought Stony was still marvelously alive somewhere in the Universe. Unk was living on dreams of a reunion with Stony.
Boaz was nice enough to withhold the truth from Unk, no matter how great the provocation had been to club Unk between the eyes with it.
The horrible image in the ruby dissolved.
"Yes, Lord," said Boaz in his thoughts.
The adult harmonium on Boaz’s upper left arm stirred.
"You asking old Boaz for a concert?" Boaz asked the creature in his thoughts. "That what you trying to say? You trying to say, ’Ol’ Boaz, I don’t want to sound ungrateful, on account of I know it’s a great honor to get to be right here close to your heart. Only I keep thinking about all my friends outside, and I keep wishing they could have something good, too.’ That what you trying to say?" said Boaz in his thoughts. "You trying to say, ’Please, Papa Boaz—put on a concert for all the poor friends outside’? That what you trying to say?"
Boaz smiled. "You don’t have to flatter me," he said to the harmonium.
The small harmonium on his wrist doubled up, extended itself again. "What you trying to tell me?" he asked it. "You trying to say