Some Days You Get the Bear by Lawrence Block

Author:Lawrence Block [Block, Lawrence]
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Published: 2011-11-04T00:11:54+00:00

Lawrence Block / 161

“And?”

“She told me to let go, to give it all up, to just let go and go to the light. And I said—this is strange, you know?”

“What did you say, Bobby?”

“I said I couldn’t see the light and I wasn’t ready to go to it.

And she said that was all right, that when I was ready the light would be there to guide me. She said I would know how to do it when the time came. And she talked about how to do it.”

“How?”

“By letting go. By going to the light. I don’t remember everything she said. I don’t even know for sure if all of it happened, or if I dreamed part of it. I never know anymore.

Sometimes I have dreams and later they feel like part of my personal history. And sometimes I look back at my life and most of it has a veil over it, as if I never lived it at all, as if it were nothing but a dream.”

Back in his office Carl picked up another pipe and brought its blackened bowl to his nose. He said, “You asked why I called you instead of the police. Can you imagine putting Bobby through an official interrogation?”

“He seems to go in and out of lucidity.” He nodded. “The virus penetrates the blood-brain barrier. If you survive the K-S and the opportunistic infections, the reward is dementia. Bobby is mostly clear, but some of his mental cir-cuits are beginning to burn out. Or rust out, or clog up, or whatever it is that they do.”

“There are cops who know how to take testimony from people like that.”

“Even so. Can you see the tabloid headlines? MERCY KILLER

STRIKES AIDS HOSPICE. We have a hard enough time getting by as it is. You know, whenever the press happens to mention how many dogs and cats the SPCA puts to sleep, donations drop to a trickle. Imagine what would happen to us.”

“Some people would give you more.”

He laughed. “‘Here’s a thousand dollars—kill ten of ’em for me.’ You could be right.”

He sniffed at the pipe again. I said, “You know, as far as I’m concerned you can go ahead and smoke that thing.” He stared at me, then at the pipe, as if surprised to find 162 / Some Days You Get the Bear

it in his hand. “There’s no smoking anywhere in the building,” he said. “Anyway, I don’t smoke.”

“The pipes came with the office?”

He colored. “They were John’s,” he said. “We lived together.

He died…God, it’ll be two years in November. It doesn’t seem that long.”

“I’m sorry, Carl.”

“I used to smoke cigarettes, Marlboros, but I quit ages ago.

But I never minded his pipe smoke, though. I always liked the aroma. And now I’d rather smell one of his pipes than the AIDS

smell. Do you know the smell I mean?”

“Yes.”

“Not everyone with AIDS has it but a lot of them do, and most sickrooms reek of it. You must have smelled it in Bobby’s room. It’s an unholy musty smell, a smell like rotted leather.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.