Zany

XVIII "I'll shirk the Duke of A. ; I'll cut his brother; I'll give no garter to his eldest son; I won't speak to his sister or his mother! The Viscount B. shall live at cut-and-run; But how in the world can I contrive to stun That fellow's voice, which plagues me worse than any, That stubborn fool, that impudent state-dun, Who sets down ev'ry sovereign as a zany,— That vulgar commoner, Esquire Biancopany? XIX "Monstrous affair!

"I can't wait. He didn't know the name of the man with the bad breaththe man who was sticking something that felt too much like a knife not to be one into his side-but he recognized him at once. The hornrimmed glasses helped, but the zany gray hair, standing up in clumps that reminded Ralph simultaneously of Don King and Albert Einstein, was the clincher. It was the man who had been standing with Ed Deepneau in the background of the newspaper photo that had showed Ham Davenport with his fist raised and Dan Da ton wearing Davenport's CHOICE, NOT FEAR sign for a hat. Ralph thought he had seen this same guy in some of the TV news stories about the continuing abortion demonstrations. just another signwaving, chanting face in the crowd; just another spear-carrier. Except it now seemed that this particular spear-carrier intended to kill him. "What do you think?" the man in the Snoopy sweatshirt asked, still in that ecstatic whisper. The sound of his voice frightened Ralph more than the blade as it slid slowly up and then back down his leather jacket, seeming to map the vulnerable organs on the left side of his body: lung, heart, kidney, intestines. "What color?" His breath was nauseating, but Ralph was afraid to pull back or turn his head, afraid that any gesture might cause the knife to stop tracking and plunge. Now it was moving back up his side again. Behind the thick lenses of his hornrims, the man's brown eyes floated like strange fish, The expression in them was disconnected and oddly frightened, Ralph thought. The eyes of a man who would see signs in the sky and perhaps hear voices whispering from deep in the closet late at night. "I don't know," Ralph said. "I don't know why you'd want to hurt me in the first place." He shot his eyes quickly around, still not moving his head, hoping to see someone, anyone, but the reading room remained empty. Outside, the wind gusted and rain racketed against the windows. "Because you're a fucking Centurion!" the gray-haired man spat. "A fucking baby-killer!