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“Even the cross isn’t safe, even the cross isn’t safe, any town, his eyes fixed to his wounded wrists as if he couldn’t believe they were attached to his ar to?” J C peered out the cabat the flowing houses

“Was Christ manic-depressive? Like me?”

“No,” I said lamely, “not nuts But you’re in the boith the alo there?”

“I was being chased They’re after ht of the World” But he said this last with heavy irony “Christ, I wish I didn’t know so much”

“Tell me Fess up”

“Then they’d chase you, too! Clarence,” he h, either, did he?”

“I knew Clarence, too,” I said “Years ago …”

That scared J C even more “Don’t tell anyone! They won’t hear it from me”

J C drank half the wine bottle at a chug, then winked and said, “Mum’s the word”

“No, sir, J C! You got to tell me, just in case—”

“—I don’t live beyond tonight? I won’t! But I don’t want both of us dead You’re a sweet jerkoff Come unto me, little chil

dren, and, by God, you show up!”

He drank and wiped the smile off his face

We stopped along the way J C fought to leap out to buy gin I threatened to hit hiht it myself

The taxi sailed into the studio and slowed near randparents’ house