The Whip Read Free Page B

Francisco, have it inserted in the windpipe below the cancer, so you can breathe during the operation.”
    “Fucking tube stuck in my throat? You know what Doc? I sure as hell ain’t doing that. It’s liable to kill me anyways, so what the hell. Pray for me that my heart stops before this fucking cancer suffocates me to death.”
    “You’re wrong Charley. I advise that you have this operation. Your neck is swollen pretty bad on both sides now and your heartbeat is erratic.”
    “How long do I have if I don’t do it?”
    “If you’re lucky, about four or five months. If you insist on not having the procedure, I’d say that you better put your affairs in order. I’ll give you some opium tablets for the pain. You’ll need to find a doctor closer to you in Watsonville, who can give you more as you need them and take care of you. And when the time comes and it gets bad, you’ll want some morphine. Come and see me whenever you need to.”
    There was a long silence as Charley stared out the doctor’s window.
    “Are you okay Charley? What can I do for you? You want a whiskey?”
    “Shit, no. I’m not okay…But hell, I’ve had much worse things happen to me. Maybe I’ll survive this too. Never gave up in my life. I’m just gonna continue down the road I’ve been living. And if and when it’s time to go, it’s goddamned time to go. Nothing I can do about it. Nothing any of us can do about it. Just do what you have to do to survive. Give me the goddamn fucking opium tablets and let me pay my bill. You’re a good guy Doc. I appreciate your offer of the operation and the silver tube and all. But I want to go all in one piece…no holes, no parts missing.”
    Charley tried to laugh but then the tears came.
    ***
    It’s true that we’re all children disguised as adults…When age and illness embrace our body…when disease and pain overcome, our eternal youth within begins raging, stamping, praying. Please dear God who lays me down to sleep…an awful mistake has been made…I was just now learning to feel safe beneath this fragile skin, trust within this prison cell. Just now my eyes are open to the world…Just now I feel the earth beneath my feet.

Four
    I n God we trust. All others pay cash. Two youngboyshad positioned themselves under the sign beside the doorway to Tiny’s Grand Central Saloon. They darted round and craned their heads inside with longing and inquisitiveness each time anyone came in or out of the swinging door. Bright lights and glassware, shouting and spitting and music. Little tables and rich spilling aromatics. And, most curious, were the women. Women of a new sort, women with pillows of soft dimpling flesh quivering out of the tops of their tight, low-cut bodices. The children saw a man with his face buried in the cushiony breast of a woman, and the woman’s face looking straight towards the door when they peeked in. She was smirking and grinning and most unlike any mother either of them had ever seen. It was thrilling. It was bewildering. It was wonderful.
    Then out of the darkness, Charley appeared. “Lester…hey, Weldon. You boys still around? I told you to go home to dinner. Nothing in here for you…not yet anyways. Now get going.”
    Charley put out his right hand to enter—with his left hand he carried the covered plate of biscuits. But at that very moment the door swung outward with a shock wave of brilliance and loudness exploding towards him, and a flood of liquid pouring over his boots. He jumped back. “What the hell—”
    The barkeeper was advancing with vigor, wielding a large jug before him, sloshing beer over the floorboards at the saloon entrance. He looked up.
    “Oh shit, sorry about that, Charley. Have one on me. It’s just them goddamned Daughters of Temperance females. Won’t none of them be kneeling in prayer or song out here again tonight. Worth the damn beer not to have them disrupting business and the good times.”
    Inside, the long mahogany bar was lined