Or—was I even afraid? Shocked, rather?
Work.
There's the drug you need, boy.
I lay back on the divan, smoking.
George T. Death. I knew him of old.
In several guises.
I remembered the year I was ten, the year I had appendicitis, then peritonitis, then general blood poisoning. Sometimes, at night, the pain of my body, the pain of my tube-filled, pus-lathered guts will come back to me. And the smell. The fever. The thirst. They didn't believe in giving you liquids, then—not any—and I know what it's like to be on the Sahara without a drop to drink—and your viscera opened up, in the bargain.
I know.
Father came to the hospital during one of the spells of consciousness. His eyes were desperately gentle. "How's the fight, son?"