Lincoln in the Bardo(25)
hans vollman
Mr. Collier, said Mr. Vollman.
Mr. Vollman, said Mr. Collier.
roger bevins iii
A new property-worry then crossing his mind, he was thrown violently forward, stomach down, and, with a grunt of dread, spun to face north.
hans vollman
XXXIX.
Next we must short-cut through that swampy little section populated by our very lowest.
hans vollman
They sought the damp and moonless feeling here.
roger bevins iii
Here stood Mr. Randall and Mr. Twood, in perpetual conversation.
hans vollman
Rendered mutually inarticulate by we knew not what misfortune.
roger bevins iii
Faces reduced to gauzy unreadable smudges.
hans vollman
Torsos gray and shapeless but for the slightest torpedo-shaped suggestion of arms and legs.
roger bevins iii
Indistinguishable except that Mr. Twood’s movements retained a touch more vitality. Every now and then, as if making an attempt at persuasion, one of his arm-like appendages would pop up, as if to indicate, on a shelf, something to which he wished to call Mr. Randall’s attention.
hans vollman
Mr. Twood having been, we believed, in the retail line.
roger bevins iii
Drag out the big signage Immediately put it away again Drag it out again Not let slip from grasp Significantly reduced women’s.
mr. benjamin twood
In response, the gray faceless wedge that had been Mr. Randall would sometimes enact a little dance.
roger bevins iii
Yield the seat Here’s a fellow who can really Tinkle the twinklers And the blokeat the piano would proffer his Then it was all me.
jasper randall
Sometimes, near sunrise, when all of the other swamp denizens were weary and depleted and had self-stacked and gone mute near the lightning-blasted black oak, Mr. Randall could be found bowing over and over again, as if to an imagined audience.
roger bevins iii
Leading us to surmise that he must have been a performer of some type.
hans vollman
Thank you thank you thank you!
jasper randall
EXTRAORDINARY VALUE WITHIN: Only recall your thin weary mother who mightyet be saved By the auto-iron, the cranking grater, the cold-box, the auto-salter, her once-fine posture revived, her winsome kindsmile revived, as of yore, when, in shortknees, you sported a branchsaber among the general pie-odor.
mr. benjamin twood
Slam, arpeggio, pause for smokedrink When I slammed a good one, small ripples would appear in the golden drink set before.
jasper randall
Any admiration we might once have felt for their endurance had long since devolved into revulsion.
roger bevins iii
Were we destined for a similar fate?
hans vollman
We thought not.
roger bevins iii
(Regularly scanned each other’s features for any indication of facial-smudging.) hans vollman
(Continually monitored ourselves for the slightest degradation in diction.) roger bevins iii
And they were far from the worst.
hans vollman
Consider Mr. Papers.
roger bevins iii
Essentially a cringing gray supine line.
hans vollman
Of whom one would only become aware once one had stumbled over him.
roger bevins iii
Cannery anyhelpmate? Come. To. Heap me? Cannery help? Can any wonder? Help. Conneg ayone heap? Unclog? May?
Place hepMay.
l. b. papers
We had no idea what Mr. Papers might previously have been.
roger bevins iii
There being so little of him remaining.
hans vollman
Go on Move along Else receive an unglad message in your bentover I’ll come right up under and ventilate your undertenting.
flanders quinn
Flanders Quinn.
hans vollman
Former robber.
roger bevins iii
Bevins, I’ll piss a line of toxic in yr wretched twin wristcuts Gropping you by yr clubdick, Vollman, I’ll slang you into the blackfence.
flanders quinn
I, for one, was afraid of him.
roger bevins iii
I was not afraid of him.
Exactly.
But we had urgent business. Must not linger.
hans vollman
And trot-skimmed off along the swamp-margin, Quinn cursing us, then reversing himself and supplicating us to return, as he was frightened to stay in that place, and yet more frightened to leave it (and go), since what must become of a sinner who had slit the throats of a merchant and his daughter beside a broken-wheeled Fredericksburg cariole (plucked the pearls from her very neck and wiped them blood-free with her own silk wrap)?
roger bevins iii
Regaining higher ground we put on the speed, passed through the leaning toolshed, crossed the gravel road, and made good time along the old carriage path, which still retained, to my nostrils, some faint mysterious scent of newsprint.
hans vollman
XL.
Just ahead now, past the slightly left-leaning Cafferty obelisk, a crowd had gathered around a freshly filled sick-hole.
hans vollman
Mr. Vollman approached the group.
Is the new arrival still…with us? he delicately inquired.
He is, yes, replied Tobin “Badger” Muller, bent, as always, nearly double with toil.