Black Friday by David Goodis Read Free Book Online

can't carry him down by myself."
"All right," Hart said. He got out of bed. Charley came off the window sill and looked at the pajamas and grinned.
"My best silk pajamas," Charley said.
They were pale green pajamas, and Hart was thinking dizzily of pale green background and dark bright red.

5
They went into the back room. Paul was naked on the bed and his eyes were half-closed and didn't seem like part of his face.
"Take his legs," Charley said.
They carried Paul downstairs. Hart was shivering. He was telling himself it was because the house was cold. They carried Paul down the cellar steps. They had Paul in the cellar and they put him on the floor near the furnace. Charley told Hart to stay with Paul, then Charley went upstairs and he was up there for a full five minutes, and Hart heard clanking around, as if Charley was looking for something. Then Charley came down the steps and in one hand he had a hack-saw and in the other hand he had a large knife.
Charley said, "Get some newspapers."
The front of the cellar was divided into two sections, one for coal, the other for old things that didn't matter too much. There was a pile of newspapers. Hart lifted half the pile and carried it toward the furnace.
"Get out of the way," Charley said. "I'm going to take his head off."
Hart stepped away, then went walking away as he heard the swish, the crunch, the grinding, the resistance, more grinding, the heavy breathing of Charley. Then the rustle of paper, the sound of paper getting wrapped around something. Then the furnace door opening. The sound of paper around something going into the fire. Then the furnace door closing.
"All right," Charley said. "I'll need you now."
Hart turned and came walking back. The light from a single bulb hanging from a long cord gave the cellar pure white light getting grey as it came toward the furnace. Under the grey light the headless body of Paul was greypurple. Hart wondered if he could go through with this.
"Hold the legs tight," Charley said. "Hold them tight."
Hart took hold of the legs and closed his eyes. The sounds of the hack-saw and the knife were great big bunches of dreadful gooey stuff hitting him and going into him and he was getting sick and he tried to get his mind on something else, and he came to painting and started to concentrate on the landscapes of Corot, then got away from Corot although remaining in the same period as he thought of Courbet, then knowing Courbet was an exponent of realism and trying to get away from Courbet, unable to get away because he was thinking of the way Gustave Courbet showed Cato tearing out his own entrails and showed "Quarry," in which the stag under the tree was getting torn to bits by yowling hounds, and he tried to come back to Corot, past Corot to the gentle English school of laced garments and graceful posture and the delicacy and all that, and Courbet dragged him back.
And Charley said, "Hold him higher up."
With his eyes shut tightly, Hart said, "Tell me, Charley, did you ever do this before?"
"No," Charley said.
Hart opened his eyes and he saw the blood and he closed his eyes again. Charley was telling him to do things and he had to open his eyes to keep at it, but it was as if his eyes were closed, because he was gazing past the activity, and he was listening past the sounds of steel and flesh and paper. Now the work was going faster, the furnace door was opening and shutting in speedier rhythm, and yet time was bouncing all around the cellar, going so fast and melting as it went, so that finally time was all melted and there was no measuring it, and no measuring the smell of blood.
Then there was nothing on the floor but blood and newspapers. Charley went to the rear of the cellar, came back with a can of household cleanser. He ripped off the top of the can, threw the cleanser on top of the blood. Then he went away and came back with a bucket of hot water and a mop, and went to work. Hart took the unused newspapers back to the front of the