Tanith Lee by 'The Beautiful & Damned' By F. Scott Fitzgerald

Author:'The Beautiful & Damned' By F. Scott Fitzgerald [Beautiful, 'The & Fitzgerald, Damned' By F. Scott]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2011-12-12T02:16:47+00:00

Who wants to get old?

Who’ll buy? Anyone?

None of us?

It’s in the smallprint when we’re born. When we’re struggling through the challenged incapacity of infancy and childhood and the teenage years. It’s the monster behind the glittering door.

Eighteen, twenty-one, twenty-five: the staircase top. Then down.

Nobody wants it, but nobody wants to die either. Unless you make them want it. No one.

Ed called me at a quarter to four in the morning, when outside, despite the noise-resistance of the hotel, I could just dimly hear the crash of music and of breaking things, and see, through a nip in the dark blind, a ripple of red light that was a burning car.

“Have to speak soft, Jack. I’m in the downstairs john with the CP. Sorry, sorry to wake you.”

“Was awake, Ed.” I didn’t mention the noises had woken me, the flames. “Working.”

“Sure. Sorry, pal.”

“What is it? Is it the tooth?”

“Oh boy. If only. It’s—it’s my frigging hair, Jack.” He says it on a screaming whisper. “All over my head, growing back. Thought this morning—shaved it. Just tidy up the wisps. But tonight—it itches me. And I can feel it now, like—it’s like thick felt, a nap, all over my scalp.”

“Okay, okay, Ed.”

“But I was just normal yesterday. I’d gained weight. The weight-winner the doc gave me showed it. But tonight I ate, deliberately, I ate like a hog. And I’ve lost six pounds, Jack.”

We stay in silence. A silence rimmed, like the camp in the jungle, by watching unseen sounds and eyes of flame.

“Do you want me to fast-track you into Corp medicare, Ed? Get you a proper check? This may only be—”

“Jack, I can see it. My face. It’s different. And Marianna—she can see it too, I can tell.”

“Is she—”

“She doesn’t say a word.”

“But how is she?”

“Oh—no, she’s—I think she’s fine, Jack. Only. Only. We.” He falters. The longest pause of all. “We had relations yesterday. We do, Jack, y’know. She and I.”

“Listen. We both know this fucking shit gets passed by anything. By a sneeze in a crowded room. By a patch of damp from a sweaty palm on a handrail. A sobbed out tear. Even contact with a piece of clothing like a dry clean scarf. You pick it up—”

“I know. I know. I just—”

“I know, Ed. It’s okay.”

“Christ, it isn’t. I put the light on in here, Jackie, and I can see my face. Even in four more hours it’s firming up. It’s smoothing off. I always have to stop on the twenty-fifth stair at work, just a quick breath. Only today … I didn’t have to stop.”

“Let me help. What can I do?”

“How do I know?”

“Come into the medicare. Wilson’s outfit is able—”

“It’s all right.” He sounds deadly calm now. “I’ve booked a session with the doc, did it earlier … thought he might reassure me. Tomorrow at five PM. Only appointment he has left. Decent guy. He’s just thirty. The other feller—the one Mari and I knew. The arthritis in his knee went, scan showed the bone had straightened, gone back into shape.

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