Like People in History by Felice Picano Read Free Book Online Page A

from lack of blood and oxygen, he spoke in the quietest and nastiest voice I'd ever heard out of a human.
    "I really thought I'd taught you a lesson back there, Cuz. But you just won't learn, will you?"
    His face was mine, but distorted dreadfully.
    I got a grip on the bat and tried to push it away.
    "You think just because you stuck up for that poor, stupid, fat boy that you're some sort of hero, don't you?"
    I'd gotten a grip on each of his hands, but he had the angle and leverage on me.
    "Well, just remember this, Cuz. Schmucks like that will come and go in your life. They don't mean a thing. I'm the one who counts. I'm the one you're going to have to face and deal with. Because I'm the one who's going to be around for a long, long time.
    "You got that?" he emphasized with another burst of pressure, as I began to see spots in front of my face and black out.
    "Good!" he said. "Don't ever forget it!"
     

     
    "Missing him already?"
    I snapped to attention. Alistair was leaning into the little cul-de-sac behind the enormous fake columns he'd had installed and painted faux marble a year ago by a former trick, now part of some rehab program funded by Afghan or Moroccan millionaires to "Aid the Arts" and help some of their best former customers recover from decades of drug abuse.
    "Him who?" I asked.
    "Who else? Wallace the Red. I saw him vanish into the crowd and out the door like a sword through hot butter."
    "He was hungry for Szechuan food." "Bless his metabolism," Alistair said, with less irony than usual. "Indeed. Bless anyone for still having a metabolism! I was thinking of installing paramecia or something prevertebrate like that into my intestine so I might once again recognize what used to be called an appetite."
    "You don't look that bad," I lied.
    "You mean I don't look like 'Gee, guys, I've been in Auschwitz and I managed to get out' yet?" Alistair asked. "The Duchess of Windsor was wrong: You can be too thin. Give me a hand," he added, literally dropping a nearly fleshless and thus lightweight and fragile arm onto my shoulder.
    "Where we going?"
    "The loo."
    "What happened to what's-his-name?" I asked as I steered Alistair into the hallway. "The star?"
    "He left."
    "How was he?"
    "Flawless. He didn't once mention It" Alistair said.
    "Is that good or bad?" I asked; these days one could never be certain whether one should or shouldn't The epidemic seems to have developed an ever-metamorphosing construct of etiquette. I sometimes think there should be an Illness Manners Crisis Hotline you can phone to get the latest subtle twist.
    "Good for him," Alistair explained. "He'd only say the wrong thing."
    We'd gotten to the john, and I knocked hard enough to awaken anyone catnapping within.
    "It's all yours," I declared, opening the door.
    "Come in with me."
    "It hasn't come to that, has it?"
    "No, silly. I want you to fix my face."
    Alistair's bathroom was large, but when he'd redone the apartment a year ago during a burst of unexpected energy, he'd enlarged it further by absorbing two closets, then he'd followed through the postmodern architectural theme of the building to what I considered illegal lengths. If the large living-dining area was post-Pompeii, the bathroom was late Dark Ages. The stall shower—big enough to hold a medium-sized dyers' guild—was in the color of, and with that puddinglike texture of, alabaster you see only at the Cloisters. The floorboards had come from a twelfth-century Norman mill. The sliding doors were artfully mosaicked chunks of stained glass of the same period, but from a Silesian monastery. The rest of the large room followed the motif: the fixtures looked like baptismal fonts, the walls were scattered with sour-faced Madonnas holding goggle-eyed infants against fields of ancient gold leaf, each set within its own little house—a frame resembling nothing more than a cowshed, behind which lurked a cabinet for toiletries. Next to the Madonnas floated several antique mirrors of varying