'That's what I thought,' she said, pleased enough so far. 'So someone else shot this duck and gave it to you?'
'Right!' I said. 'But it was hell on the feet. Big. I was retrieving them in the marshes. Didn't want to get my boots wet, but I didn't know there'd be so much stuff on the bottom.'
'What are boots for?' said Biggie as she started to draw a bath for me. I sat on the toilet, and remembered that I had to go. 'Your pants didn't get wet, either,' she remarked.
'Well, I took them off too. There were just those guys there, and I couldn't see getting all messed up.'
Testing the water, Biggie pondered this. Colm crept to the bathroom door and peered down the length of the hall at the peculiar bird.
Then I had my fly open, and my feet painfully spread to straddle the hopper. I fumbled myself out and commenced to pee, while Biggie stared grimly at my pecker and watched me fill up the condom. Until the pressure and lack of noise was suddenly, awfully, apparent to me and I gazed down to see my growing balloon.
'And just who went on this little hunting party, Bogus?' Biggie yelled. 'You and Ralph Packer and a pair he picked up?'
'Scissors!' I screamed. 'For God's sake, Big. Please. This could make an awful mess ...'
'You shit!' she screamed, and Colm fled down the hall to his friend the peaceful duck.
I feared Biggie would start stomping on my bleeding feet - as soon as she was logical again - so I struggled out of the bathroom, first on my heels, then more comfortably banging along on my knees, cradling the bulbous rubber in one hand. Colm clutched the duck, determined not to let his charging father take it away.
As I was only a few feet from the kitchen door, midhall, someone knocked on the front door at the hall's end and called, 'Special Delivery! Special Handling!'
'Come in!' Biggie screamed from the bathroom.
The mailman entered, waving a letter. It happened so suddenly that he startled Colm, who shrieked back down the hall, dragging the duck after him. I waddled three more painful knee steps to the kitchen door, still clutching my balloon, and rolled out of sight into the kitchen.
'Special Delivery! Special Handling!' the mailman announced again flatly - not having been forewarned of the possibility that he might ever be in need of a more appropriate remark.
I peeked out of the kitchen. Obviously the mailman was pretending to be totally blind. Biggie, now at the end of the hall, appeared to have forgotten that she'd told anyone to enter, and was glowering at the mailman; in her mind, he was in some way connected with my hunting trip.
Bless his poor brains, the mailman shouted once more, 'Special Delivery! Special Handling!' then dropped the letter in the hall and ran.
*
Skidding the duck along in front of him, Colm edged toward the letter. Another surprise! And Biggie, thinking that I too might have escaped, hollered, 'Bogus!'
'Here, Big,' I said, ducki
ng back into the kitchen. 'Oh, please just tell me where the scissors are.'
'On a hook under the sink,' she said mechanically, then added, 'I hope you cut the whole thing off.'
But I didn't. As I snipped in terror over the sink, I saw Colm crawl past the door, shoveling the duck and the letter down the hall.
'There's a letter, Big,' I said weakly.
'Special Delivery, Special Handling,' Biggie mumbled, the dullness heavy in her voice.
I flooded the nasty thing down the drain. In the hall Colm squawked as Biggie took his duck, or the letter. I looked at the bruised toes on one foot and thought, At least it wasn't your neck, Risky Mouse. Now Colm was garbling affectionately, talking to what must have been the duck. I heard Biggie ripping the letter. Without the slightest change in her flat voice, she said, 'It's from your father, the prick ...'
Oh, where have you gone, Harry Petz? After your splendid attempt, do they keep you in a nailed-down chair? Would you mind, Harry, if I borrowed your track-tested racing seat? Would you think me plagiaristic if I took a turn on your well-oiled casters and had a go at that fourth-floor window and that parking lot below?
19
Axelrulf Among the Greths
THERE IS A moment in Akthelt and Gunnel when the subtle depths of a mother's priorities are probed. Akthelt wishes to take his young son Axelrulf along with him on his newest campaign against the warring Greths. The lad is only six at the time, and Gunnel is distraught that her husband could conceive of such heartlessness. 'Da blott pattebarn!' she exclaims. 'The mere baby!'
Patiently Akthelt asks her what, precisely, she is afraid of. That Axelrulf will be slain by the Greths? If so, she should remember that the Greths always lose. Or is it that the talk and habits of the soldiers are too coarse for the boy? Because she should at least respect her husband's taste; the boy will be well protected from such excesses. 'Dar ok ikke tu frygte!' ('There is nothing to fear!'), Akthelt insists.