THE TRIP TO GALENA
787
to the Adamite, from the pretty woman to woman, and from woman
to person."
Low and level as he made this sound,
his
control was not sure,
and Scampi for whom this privilege of a primitive, root occasion was
also something awful, watched it come and go, deliberately, heavily,
like a heron visiting a pond, until all at once it seemed to fly power–
fully away and leave a space that anything might occupy. Nothing
whatever limited him now; he might say anything.
He went on with apparently the same calm.
"Finally, because I began to see how much I had set her back
with the Neffs, I said-never mind the Sheridan Road whores or
what she tried to prick me with-I said, 'I'm sorry, Fanny. That's
the truth. I'm very sorry about this.' I was thinking that the least
I could do was help her, if I couldn't look for any good out of myself.
'I'll come with you again and be perfect. I can't today. Today I feel
too touchy and hair-trigger.' Then she saw it wasn't simple contrari–
ness that made me beat it out of Galena, or a reprisal for her idea
of marrying me to this beauty-soap smelling kid with healthy feet
and clean panties. Something more serious. I wasn't doing anything
I could prevent. Another man might as well have been labeled 'pin–
wheel' or 'Roman candle,' but with me it's not always easy to tell."
And
it
wasn't, Scampi reflected,
it
was far from easy.
"Then when she believed me she began to change toward me.
Naturally, I wasn't going to tell her that I had a pain in my lung,
but she caught on that I was sick. I've always had the habit of saying
when it was over, 'You know, I was in a bad way yesterday.' I took
good care not to show it when it was on me. I used to give myself
extra credit for this talent, but it's probably only perverse to do it
when the wisest thing and the kindest would be to let yourself natural–
ly go. Anyhow, my craft let me down a little. I may have been too
sick to practice it, or getting too old. But when she saw something
was wrong, she did an about-face from her own disappointment. For
she's generous, Fanny. Sensual people are bound to be, and she's
sensual, or there wouldn't have been that black bookie's clerk or pin–
ball syndicate man. Well, here was my beautiful sister. Her haugh–
tiness had taken a bad crack because of this sharper. What did she
do, get herself a little used or disgraced to keep up with the world
that wasn't going to have her as she had been bred to expect? You'll
