Read Motorman for Free Online Page A

to sweep down and pick the bones, show the coyote how soft your belly is. I'll just staple your folder shut and file it away. So long, Dink. Requiescat and so on.”
    “No, Burnheart. Don't hang up.”
    “Would you be kind enough to leave me your brain, assuming Bunce doesn't get ahold of it? I have an empty jar on the shelf. A memento mori, a first degree relic of the late-—”
    “Stop! Burnheart, don't say those things. The hearts are beating funny. I feel cramps.”
    “Maybe you'll have a successful dump after all. Why not stop this exchange of jumbo? Are you ready to leave that room? Or shall I tell Eagleman we' re dealing with a weak sister?”
    “It hurts when you say that.”
    “Oh, Moldenke. I pity you. Cry me an orangeade tear.”
    “Don't bother to pity me. I'll get by.”
    “Thank you for saying that. You think we take no risks in helping you? You think this call isn't being monitored? What do you think Eagleman is putting on the line for you? What are we, a pair of cluck hens? Open your eye. See us as we are. Don't give yourself to Bunce. Give yourself to us, to science, as it were. We have a fireplace, a continuing fire, and a pile of mock wood. Come and sit with us by the fire, eat some of our popcorn. There's an extra laboratory. It's yours when you come. Drink some tea with us. We'll talk about this and that, things. If you get to feeling tight, you can bounce around in the latex room. Everything we have is yours. But our patience is not interminable. Eagleman is not as placid as I am. He's a very busy man, tempered in fire. One day it's the rubber tomato, the next day it's the mystery of autotomy. The man lives always on the rim of a volcano. Be cautious with him. Moldenke? Are you with me?”
    “You say I should ignore the jelly in the hall? Is that right?”
    “Right. It must be total, though. Out of mind, out of sight. If you think of him even a bit, he'll be on you. You may have to force yourself to think about something else. Get together now.”
    “What about the weather? I'd like to get a report.”
    “Once you're in it you'll know. Goodbye. See you in three days or not at all.”
     
    29]
     
    During the year previous to the mock War Moldenke was employed at the Tropical Garden as a banana man.
     
    30]
     
    He pulled on his trenchpants and rooted in his closet for Burnheart's old trenchcoat. He stuffed all pockets with .00 gauze pads and cigars, strapped on his sidepack and dropped in flints, a can of k-fuel, a tin of crickets, a handful of prune wafers, and a packet of stonepicks. He buttoned up the trenchcoat. Burnheart had worn the coat in an earlier war and had been wounded in it below the frontal buckle.
    In his backpack he loaded old Burnheart letters, blank paper, pens, pencils, and two copies of Burnheart's book, Ways & Means.
    He gathered his hair and tied it in the back. Still, several moons were up.
    He waited in the chair.
    The phone rang:
    “Hello? Burnheart?”
    “No, jock. I think that nothing measures equal to the Moldenke innocence except the Moldenke presumption. No, this is not Burnheart.”
    “Bunce?”
    “Yes, this is Bunce.”
    “I have nothing to say, Bunce. I'm under different instructions now.”
    “Moldenke, are you aware of the hazards in the bottoms? You won't make it. Believe me. Consider the odds. Burnheart is far from perfect.”
    “I'm ignoring you, Bunce. You're wasting time.”
    “I've been ignored before. I can live with it.”
    “I'm going to hang up. I have nothing to say.”
    “Fine, we're even again. I have nothing to hear. But let me say a few things before you set the speaker down. Will you grant me thirty seconds? Moldenke, I can build a wall around you with the details of your life. I know all your secrets. One of your nose hairs is deviant, isn't it? It grows away from the others, doesn't it, toward the brain? There, that explains your snorts. Can you see what I'm getting at, jock? I not only know that you snort, but why. That’s the