The Water-Method Man

Along the riverbank, several cold strollers watched with alarm the giddy flight of this enormous leaking pillow careening into town.

When we had passed the park, all the streetlights came on and Eddy slowed down, gazing at the row of lamps lit all the way up Clinton Street as if he'd witnessed a miracle. 'Did you see?' he asked, like a child.

Embedded in his duck Harry hadn't seen anything, but I told Eddy, 'Yes, they all came on at once.'

Turning to look at me, Eddy choked, opening his mouth, gagging and shouting, 'You've got feathers in your mustache!' Reaching across and grabbing Harry's knee, he shrieked, 'Christ, would you look at his mustache!'

The duck a near-pulp in his lap, Harry stared at me with hostility before seeming to remember who I was and how I'd got there. Not giving him time to respond with what I feared might be a pawful of feathers crammed down my throat, I turned back to Eddy, and in a small voice, very faint, asked, 'Would you mind letting me out here? This is fine.'

Eddy slammed on the brakes with a great grinching noise and a jolt that lurched busy Harry head-first into the dash. 'Christ!' he shouted, holding the duck like a bandage against his forehead.

'Thank you very much,' I said to Eddy, and waited for Harry to slide out of the seat. Sliding after him, I caught a brief vision of my feathered mustache in the rear-view mirror.

Standing on the running board, Harry offered me the duck. 'Go on, take it,' he begged. 'We got a shitload.'

'Christ, yes,' Eddy said. 'And better luck next time.'

'Yeah, fella,' Harry said.

'Thank you very much,' I said, and not knowing exactly where to hold the sorry duck, I gingerly took it by its rubbery neck. Harry had plucked it quite cleanly, though it seemed to be internally crushed. Only the wing tips and head were still feathered: a lovely wood duck with a multicolored face. There weren't more than three or four pellet wounds in it; the ugliest wound was the naked slit where it had been dressed out. His great feet felt like armchair leather. And there was a dried, see-through bead of blood, like a small dull marble, on the tip of his beak.

On the curb, along the riverbank sidewalk, I waved to those generous hunters. And heard, just before the slamming of the door. Harry saying, 'Jesus, Eddy, did you smell the cunt on him?'

'Shit, yes,' said Eddy.

Then the door slammed, and I was stung with sand spray from the pickup's whining tires.

All down Clinton Street, the dust of their leaving rises and billows under the hoods of the streetlights, while across the river, on the bank that looks like an Army barracks - stacked with the war-built Quonset huts, now called Married Student Housing - two neighborly wives snap their sheets off a shared clothesline.

Slowly, I get my bearings and decide which way home lies. But when I take my first step I totter off the sidewalk and howl. It's my feet, they've thawed. Now I can feel each gash from the underwater barbwire, each shard of corn stubble in my soles. Trying to stand, I feel a pellet-like object under the arch of my right foot; I suspect that it's one of my severed toes, rolling loose in my blood-warm boot. I scream again, provoking mute stares from the two women across the river.

More people scuttle from the Quonset huts, like bomb survivors; student fathers with books in hand or children riding on their wife-sized hips. Someone from this tribe yells over to me, 'What the hell's the matta, fella?'

But I can think of nothing that would pinpoint it. Let them guess: A man who's been ravaged by the ravaged duck he holds.

'What are you screaming for?' cries one Mrs Sheet, veering about on the riverbank like a ship tipped by her sail.

I search their gathering for the most likely Samaritan. Scanning beyond them, I spot a friend weaving between the Quonset huts on his racing bicycle: Ralph Packer, frequent, illicit visitor to these depressed areas of Married Student Housing. Smooth-pedaling Ralph on his racer, stealthily gliding among the harried wives.

'Ralph!' I hoot, and see his front wheel wobble, watch him flatten himself over the handlebars and dig for cover, darting out of sight behind a hut. I shriek, Ralph Paaacker!' The racer is propelled like a shot; Ralph runs a slalom course between the clothesline posts. But this time, he looks across the river, trying to identify his would-be assailant; no doubt, he is forever imagining student husbands with dueling pistols. But he sees me! Why, it's just Bogus Trumper, out walking his duck.

Ralph weaves among the onlookers, haughtily pedaling down to the shore. 'Hello!' he calls. 'What are you doing?'

'The most awful screaming,' says the woman under sail.

'Thump-Thump?' Ralph calls.

But all I can say is 'Ralph!' I detect a witless sort of ecstasy in my voice.

Ralph balances, back-pedals, then lunges forward, raising his front wheel off the bank and slithering ahead. 'Up, Fang!' he commands. If there's a man who can leave rubber smoldering with a bicycle, it's philandering Ralph Packer.

The bridge rails cut him up and paste him together, a collage of feet and spokes crossing the river to me. Oh, help is here. I put my weight on one knee, and gently wobble to my feet, but I don't dare take a step. I hold my duck up.

Staring at the plucked bird and at my feathered mustache, Ralph says, 'Jesus, was it a fair fight? From here it looks like a draw.'

'Ralph, help,' I say. 'It's my feet.'

'Your feet?' he says, and rests the racer against the curb. As he tries to steady me someone across the river starts hollering, 'What's the matta with him?'