• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

By Root 455 0

the heavy staff of Grossman’s body over my head and—like Aaron, the silver-tongued shadow of Moses—hurled it at him. It struck him squarely in the face, with a loud crack, and he fell backward. The nine flew out of his hand and went clattering like an old roller skate across the parking lot. I ran down the alley, kicking through drifting strands of debris, swinging the tuba out ahead of me, the jacket tucked under my arm. I had my eyes fixed on the rickety knees of Booger, who was up again and hobbling after the Le Car—rather halfheartedly, it seemed to me. He probably had no idea whom he was chasing, or why. As for Crabtree, he could easily have outpaced Booger but he was still crawling along the alleyway at two miles per, with the passenger door hanging open, waiting for me. As soon as I drew even with the unfortunate Booger I brought the tuba around, aiming cruelly for his kneecaps. My aim was a little off, though, and I hit him in the belly instead, knocking the breath from his lungs in a single gust. He stumbled for a couple of steps before toppling over. A filthy tangle of packing tape and newspaper came rolling at him along the alley like a tumbleweed and adhered momentarily to the side of his head before blowing on past.

“You hit me with a tuba,” he said, looking at me with an air of hurt surprise.

“I know,” I said. “I’m sorry.”

A sheet of paper came whistling up and flattened itself against my face. I peeled it away. It was a piece of twenty-pound bond and glancing at it I found that it described the most awful moment of an inglorious chapter in the medical career of Culloden Wonder, chief scoundrel and patriarch of that inglorious clan. I looked over at the Le Car, and saw that Crabtree had been driving so slowly not because he was waiting for me but because he was engaged in an ongoing battle with the open door of the car, trying, all at the same time, to close it, to flee the alley, and, if possible, to prevent the wind from carrying off every last page of my novel. The air was filled with Wonder Boys; I saw now that its pages made up a fair portion of the trash that was blowing through the alleyway and across the parking lot. Pages were settling like fat snowflakes on Booger, and brushing up like kittens against my legs.

“Jesus,” I said. “Crabtree, stop the car!”

Crabtree stopped and climbed out, and together we started to try to save what we could, plucking sheets of paper from the air, raking them like leaves from the pavement.

“I’m so sorry, man” he said. He made a leaping grab for one high-flying page but missed by an inch, and it sailed away. “I didn’t notice.”

“How many pages did you lose?”

“Not too many.”

“Are you sure?” I said. “Crabtree, it looks like a fucking blizzard out here.”

There was a small explosion behind us. We turned and saw Walker crouching on one knee by the white van, the nine held out at the end of a wavering arm.

“Shit!” said Booger, clutching at the sudden bright blossom on the sleeve of his right arm.

“Jesus Christ,” said Crabtree, grabbing hold of me, dragging me toward the car. “Come on!”

I threw the tuba into the backseat, handed Crabtree Marilyn’s jacket, and climbed in beside him, and then we abandoned my novel to the parking lot of Kravnik’s Sporting Goods, leaving it to stream out behind us like the foamy white wake of a boat.

BREATHLESS WITH SUCCESS, Crabtree immediately set about recapitulating the events of the last twenty minutes, fixing the least details of our escapade in place with the narrative equivalent of watchmaker’s tweezers and embellishing the overall contours of the plot with the rhetorical equivalent of a fire hose.

“Did you see that Booger’s tattoo? On the back of his hand? It was the ace of hearts, but the heart was black. I could smell his breath, Tripp, he’d been drinking a Yoo-Hoo, I swear to God. I thought he was going to kiss me. Christ, he was ugly. Both of them were. How about that gun, huh? Was that a nine millimeter? It was, wasn’t it? Jesus. Those bullets sounded like fucking hummingbirds.”

There was already a short chapter