A change of gravity

He told Merrion that he'd asked for time. "I've seen what all that medical business does to a guy. It slows the dying down, I guess, lets him live a little longer. I don't argue with none of that. But what they do to you guarantees you're not gonna enjoy any life you get afterwards. If they'd drug you enough -morphine, maybe some of that heroin the cops've got in their evidence locker make you happy no matter how shitty you felt or how much of you's even left, well then, that'd be a whole different thing. Something like that I might go for.

But this other shit? I don't want it. When I go, what goes will be me. Me, pissin' and moanin' like always, not some dim bulb that finally burned out. That's all I was asking them for, time to die my own way."

Describing the outrage to Merrion had made Lane indignant again, and therefore very emphatic. "Not more time to live, you understand. I wasn't asking for that. Not looking for miracles here. Not from that bunch, at least, fuckin' damned ingrates they are. Just some time to think. Seemed reasonable to me. After all, I've supported the whole fuckin' raft of 'em," Larry had eight children, 'all of these fuckin' years. Roof over their heads; warm dry place to sleep; pretty good food, by and large. Didn't cook it, no, but I paid for it oughta get some credit for that. Court's indulgence, as we say? Couple of days, over the weekend, decide which life I'd like better, little short one I've got left. I needed some time to think. "Sunday night be all right, say? After the Celtics game? I'll give you my answer then."

"They were pissed off. "In other words, Dad, you're gonna drink your way through another weekend, right? Just like you always've done. And then come Sunday night, when you're totally shit-faced, will've been for two whole days, that's when you make up your mind? Like your head'll be clearer then?"

"They actually had that much fucking nerve. "You bastards," I thought.

"You bastards," I said, "you fuckin' bastards. So this then is what it comes down to. Forty-two fuckin' years I've been working, counting the service and all, and now I finally retire, don't have to work anymore.

And what do I find out that makes me? Your prisoner. I gotta do what you say.

What an honor. Takes my breath away. Gimme the whiskey instead."

"Then I stomp out and go back down the courthouse. Gonna change my pension plan. None of them get any of it, all my years of damned hard work. Started six years before any of them came along. Eight of 'em didn't even exist. I created my own enemies. Am I feelin' sorry for myself, at this point? You bet cher your ass I am, Amby.

"Now this stuff in here," he'd gestured around, his one-bedroom apartment number 11 at the rear, on the second floor, with its dreary-brown, early-winter view of Ransom's Brook flowing down the cement trench 'this is what I've got left. But it's pretty grand, don't you think?"

Larry was beginning slyly to explain. The wind eddied groaning around the already-pitting aluminum sashes of the cheap double-glazed windows, ill-fitted into the brickwork, from the maker of the windows in the almost-new courthouse, the lower corners of the double glass already fogged in white crescent shapes with moisture condensed from vapor penetrating the thin rubber sealant. Merrion'd tried to look favorably impressed, but he wasn't. He thought it didn't look like much.

Larry hadn't been fooled. He'd grinned like a Doberman. "Yeah, right, I know. It isn't. It's cheap shit, built to a price, all right?

Building-to-price's the way you make money on an investment property like this. Cheap buildings bring in a real profit, even if they do look ten years old from the day when you first turn the key. It's a fat little pot fulla gold at the end of a rainbow; every month it gets fuller."

"They don't know," Larry said to Merrion. "Not one of my family's got a clue. Never told Richie either. Decided a long time ago I don't like the guy. Chassy appointed him, favor to Roy Carnes, but Chassy never made me think I oughta trust the guy, or that he did, either. And anyway, the fewer people that know what you're really up to, better off everyone is.

"You get a family yourself some day? This dame of yours ever gets her thinking straight, two of you settle down an' have kids? Beautiful, good for you. Good health and prosperity; may there be many days in their lives, and the sun shine on every damned one. I hope they treat you lots better'n mine treated me. But the same advice holds, either way. Tell 'em nothin' beyond what they need to know, case tomorrow you're hit by a bus. The rest let 'em find out after you're dead, you're still on speaking terms then.