The Stain

by Patrick King (fiction)

VII
And then on the loudspeaker: "All Crawlworms with any stains on their formal dinner jackets must exit the Cathedral at once, through or not through the sliding glass doors."

I waited for any sign. The corridors of the Cathedral were long and winding. To see these things! Strange wormish creatures known only in the Cathedral corridors. To mine eyes be seen only that I might see......and throughout.

VIII

Hickle accompanies me again. True, the bastard doesn't like it. The trick is to make him think he's getting something out of it. But Nick Greek is out running about the town looking for acid and Hickle and I sit outside his apartments digging on the craziness. What does Hickle think he's getting out of this? The stupid redneck thinks there's going to be women and a party and a whole big deal going on at Nick's apartment when he comes back with the acid. Me: Just in need of company. Any will do, Hickle, any will do.

Lorna Road. Hoover. They call the place Little Mexico. Good reason for it. Great truckloads of Mexicans laboring for the day and coming back to their apartment for some tequila and beer and a joint and coke. Not my scene, man, though I used to live in the very same apartment complex as Nick Greek.

And the pebble being thrown at my head.

"When's this dude coming back?" Hickle says.

"Hickle," I say, "fuck you. And fuck you. And by the way, fuck you."

"Fuck you," he says.

I can feel a doomsday cloud. The panic is coming.