The Only Words That Are Worth Remembering Read Free Page B

same as the boy that had eaten one of their kin. “Don’t dwell on it,” said Faron, advice he gave me often, though it never stuck.
    At the third floor we hopped over the windowsill and onto the overpass. We took the Dixie Hiway till we reached the deco gate of the Ruins. A fat boy with cornrows tried to shake us down for five hundred dollars each, but he didn’t force the issue. Soon as Faron touched his shoulder, we were let inside free of charge.
    While we waited at the bus kiosk, my brother’s attitude softened. He sprung for sno-cones. I got grape and though the syrup tasted like a tin spoon, I sucked the ice till it turned brittle and white.
    The bus, when it came, was done up like an old-time trolley. The paint job was flamingo pink. Said FLAMINGO FLYER on both sides.
    â€œGoddamn ’mingos,” said Faron. He was racist about birds. Meaning his contempt for birds was disordered and based on ignorance. I thought there were good species and bad. Even turkey vultures have their virtues if you are looking for a dead body.
    I recognized the bus driver. Ross Carnation was one of my favorite guides. He was a star because he put a little music in his voice, like he was singing quietly to the passengers. He sang about arrogance, about collapse and decay, without cruelty. Ross lived a few floors below us in Tower C, and was a revival dancer of some note. Saturday nights he’d gather in the courtyard with a bunch of guys to dance to trad music like Miamy bass and salser. Sometimes they put on a floor show for the whole Gables, which was a pleasure to attend. I always thought Pop would have liked to sit in with his Roland AX and make them dance to some of those gloomy sweet songs from his Texas forebear, but he never got the chance.
    We climbed on through the back of the bus like I always did. I never wanted to be a nuisance. But Faron pushed his way to the front and I followed through a gauntlet of varicose knees. Thursdays was for geriatrics, come down in their Vansters from Hiya City.
    Ross reached for the mic to announce our next stop. It would be the zoo, one of my favorites. Faron was quicker than the dancer. He snagged the handset and passed it to me. “Do your thing, brother,” he said. “If you want it so bad.” Ross gave me a pointy look and said something that had no trace of music in it.
    I could have made the announcement easy; I knew all my lines, but why make trouble? Ross was all right; he could dance.
    â€œStart talking,” said Faron.
    The geriatrics were getting impatient, too. It started up like gas, a rumble in the springs of their seats. The Hiya City crowd came here on a weekly basis. They were old and had no trouble doing the same thing over and over again. At the ends of their lives they had a vested interest in maintaining the status quo. Patterns were life itself to them. When a pattern changed, they were forced to consider broader shifts in being.
    â€œI’m dying,” somebody moaned. “Just do the god-durned speech!” She was joined by several of her peers: “Let’s hear some talking points!” an old frog hollered. A girly voice kept saying, “Make it talk, make it talk, make it talk.”
    Ross grabbed at the mic, but Faron intervened. He yanked open Ross’s waistband and dropped the sno-cone inside his gym shorts. Ross hopped into the well shaking ice out of his crotch like a snow turd. Faron yanked the lever that made the door open, and we watched Ross bounce off toward the front gate.
    â€œOh man,” I said. “He’s going to tell.”
    Faron sucked his teeth and swung into the driver’s seat. “This is your big shot,” he said. “If you want to be a tour guide so damn bad, brother, start talking and see how much you like it.”
    I don’t know how I felt, only that I didn’t want to be a tour guide quite so badly anymore. If Faron was trying to kill my dream, it was