The fairy tales distract for a while, and then I start fretting again. What’s Noble to Ralph? Nothing. Especially now. Would R One agree to bother looking for him only because we’d like him to? And if he would, would he then let us know if Noble is not doing well wherever he is now? I keep asking myself these questions, more often out loud than not, so by the time Blind finally comes back, everyone is already prepared for the worst. No small feat on my part.
“No dice,” Blind says, leaning against the headboard. “I got no reaction from him at all.”
And that’s it. We are left with the soothing option of observing Blind, who spreads his elbows and stares into the sightless void, and Smoker, who keeps creeping farther and farther from him—imperceptibly, as he imagines. Blind’s reticence sometimes verges on pathological. We all wait with bated breath, and he’s just hanging there draped over the headboard, as if that was the full extent of the information he has to impart.
We all look at Sphinx. Sphinx gets the message.
“What did you talk about?” he asks.
“That’s right. Pliers,” I whisper to him. “And hooks.”
Blind shakes his bangs over his eyes and separates himself from the world.
“Wolf,” comes the indistinct reply from behind the curtain.
“And what else?”
“Only Wolf.”
This, I’ll have you know, is a man who is capable of recalling any conversation word-for-word, and acting it out doing voices. Regardless of how long ago it happened.
“What about Noble?”
“I mentioned Noble at the very end, when he told me to go away.”
“And?”
“And I got squat.” Blind hunches still further. Now we have a perfect opportunity to study the back of his head. “It’s like he didn’t hear me.”
“That’s a good sign,” Sphinx enthuses.
I exchange looks with Humpback. Lary’s eyes converge on the bridge of his nose, which for him signifies an increase in brain activity. Even Alexander looks puzzled.
Sphinx sighs.
“It’s never the case with Ralph that he didn’t hear when someone said something,” he explains. “Therefore, he mustn’t have liked what Blind was saying. And why would that be? There was nothing out of the ordinary in what he asked for. But to actually find out how Noble is doing, it’s necessary to get to him first. That is, travel somewhere and then argue with someone to get permission for a visit. I don’t think any counselor would undertake a thing like this happily. But on the other hand, if he knew that he wouldn’t be doing any of that, he would’ve just said so. Ralph is perfectly capable of saying no. So it’s a good sign that he didn’t.”
We exchange looks again, smug ones this time.
Lary scratches his chin and says, “There’s only one thing I don’t understand . . .”
But what that thing is remains shrouded in mystery. We dutifully wait for about three minutes, but Lary only scratches himself and sighs, so we finally lose interest and return to the daily grind.
For some completely unknown reason, or for no reason at all, Black chooses this particular day to get drunk. When he appears in the room he’s already made good on this decision, that is, he’s totally plastered, so any objections are completely useless. Different people behave differently when drunk. Black becomes unpleasant. It’s not that he’s a picture of friendliness even when sober, but when he drinks he gets aggressive. So he shuffles around the room in circles, like a Terminator that’s blown a fuse, and tries to pick a fight. He tries and he tries, never quite losing hope, right until the dinner bell. He even continues his pointless efforts at the table, so clumsily it pains me to look at him. His disgusting behavior finds any sympathy only from Smoker. Why—beats me.
SMOKER
ON APHIDS AND UNTAMED BULL TERRIERS
