The Dark Tower

He has no doubt that some would feel the word is too harsh, but he will be the judge of that in this particular case, thank you oh so very much, and he thinks the word is apt. It’s Akron and it’s a blue summer dusk and kids are playing kick-the-can at one end of Stossy Avenue and stickball at the other and Brautigan stands on the corner in a summerweight suit, stands by the pole with the white stripe painted on it, the white stripe that means the bus stops here. Behind him is a deserted candystore with a blue NRA eagle in one window and a whitewashed message in the other that says THEIR KILLING THE LITTLE MAN. Ted is just standing there with his scuffed cordovan briefcase and a brown sack — a pork chop for his supper, he got it at Mr. Dale’s Fancy Butcher Shop — when all at once somebody runs into him from behind and he’s driven into the telephone pole with the white stripe on it. He connects nose-first. His nose breaks. It sprays blood. Then his mouth connects, and he feels his teeth cut into the soft lining of his lips, and all at once his mouth is filled with a salty taste like hot tomato juice. There’s a thud in the small of his back and a ripping sound. His trousers are pulled halfway down over his ass by the force of the hit, hanging crooked and twisted, like the pants of a clown, and all at once a guy in a tee-shirt and gabardine slacks with a shiny seat is running off down Stossy Avenue toward the stickball game and that thing flapping in his right hand, flapping like a brown leather tongue, why, that thing is Ted Brautigan’s wallet. He has just been mugged out of his wallet, by God!