"My whole life been Hell, boy, now you tell me honest - I ain't standin' for much more, you see," says my ol' pap, and I'm listenin' afore I know I am.
"A govment what'll confuscate a man's own son, I never heard somthin' so obscure'n all my life. An' you don' wanna go, do ya? Not back t'all that starchy clothes business, not when you can be here with your old pap, an' go huntin' and fishin' like in the old times, 'member them good times, Huck?"
Well, I hain't said nothin', hain't looked at him, hain't budged from my place on my cot, and somewhy or 'nuther he were right mad then. He got right up, knockin' over his chair, and he got to gestatin' all wild and a'preachin' like ol' Robespeer in that time of Louis XVI what's-his-name, Whiskey-Gin-Bourbon, that ol' Frenchie me and ol' Tom Sawyer have a laugh about sometimes.
"No goddamn govment gonna take my son from me," he says, "not when e's more mine'n theirs! An' I'll make you git it, Huckleberry, reckon I'll take you down a peg afore I'm finisht!"
Then he done come at me, pressed me down into the mattress with his knee 'a diggin' into my ribs and I couldn' move worth nothin'. Even when he's real drunk, pap's bigger 'n stronger'n I am. He used to be real good with a knife, reckon he still is, he learnt in prison and he learnt it to me a bit but I hadn't a knife on me an' so I was right skeered then an' reckoned I was really gone. I opened my mouth to beg, to tell 'im I'd stay even if the judge says I got to go, which were the truth I could tell you on the Bible like they do in the courthouse, but instead 'a words comin' up it was whiskey going down, down, glass hard 'gainst my teeth and fire on my tongue like nothin' I never known previous. Pap was laughin' all the while, 'n he says somethin' unto, "Reckon you's cured 'a your airs now, boy, you's cured 'a everythin' now!" But really I weren't cured 'a nothin', I was really worse. I couldn' breathe for what airs it put in my lungs, 'n I'd 'a took my starchy clothes n' sivility o'er pap's whiskey any day. I was 'a drowndin' e'en in my own bed, was all 'a gaspin' an' 'a writhin' an' still he was laughin', an' then I felt his whiskers 'gainst my cheek, his tongue a-lickin' up all the whiskey I done coughed back up. I reckon he caught ever' drop what didn' go down, with me 'a coughin' all o'er him, but he didn't seem to mind none.
"Goddamned fancy-britches biscuit-eatin' hifalut'n slackjaw bastardy snake-bit govment no-names!" He finally grumplt, and he get up offa me, an' I was blamed glad of it since it meant I could get to breathin' agin. Above my heart 'a goin' an' me chokin' I heard the ol' man get to cussin' in earnest, but it were a terrible sad type'a cussin', like to make a body hate everything just like I reckon pap do, not like nothin' I ever like to hear agin. He done cussed the government, 'a course, an' then he got down on the entire town 'a St. Petersburg, an' then he took to his own pap, and his pappy afore him, and he sure cussed them foundin' pappies something right inspirin', them ones they tried 'a teach me about in the schoolhouse but Tom an' me was too busy talking gang business to listen, and I told you I don't take no stock in dead folk anyhow.
Still, when he got to cussin' mam, I got right mad somehow. Don't know why, don't r'member her much, but I'd of fought him then, even with me hardly breathin' and him bein' bigger than me and everythin'. I'd 'a done it too, but then I heard Miss Watson in my head with her 'Honor thy Father and Mother,' like she done been tellin' me since I come to live with her and the Widow Douglas, and since I hain't got no mother, I reckoned maybe I ought to respect Pap extra.
"Goddammit I hear what they call me," says pap all a-staggerin', pointin' his bony ol' finger at my chest. "an' I know derned good what they tell you 'bout me. 'Huckleberry Finn, do you wanna grow up to be a loafer like your pap? Warn't never good for nothin' in his life, but you still got a chance, so you learn your letters real good, 'n practice your mortification tables, and don' you listen to a word your pappy says, an', an' - ' Well, ain't you just something, with your frills and thinkin' you's better than your ol' father, a'cause he never had the opportunes you got all handed to ya real nice? Look at you, I ne'er see such a boy. Hucklefuckingberry Finn, the fine young dandy of St. Petersburg, the town drunk's son! All the bother and tarnation you cause your poor ol' pap, livin' like the goddamned president an' congress when he's livin' downriver, sleepin' in the goddamn tanyard. I never shoulda made you, what trouble you cause me, well-heeled sonbitch. But I'll take them airs offa you, boy, I'll take 'em straight off with a goddamn cowhide." He staggered a bit an' then said real soft, "You'n this bottl'a hellfire, Huck, you's all I got in this convalut'n world, when that House of Repreventatives got a whole damn town."
By an' by I got up an' helped him to sit on my cot – he was wobbly pretty bad, and he cussed somethin' wonderful when he nearly dropped his whiskey, but I'd 'a been powerful glad if the bottle'd 'a broke and spilt that hellfire all o'er the both 'a us. It burns right bad, but it sure don't burn so awful as your lungs when pap's got his hands 'round your throat.
As it were I only got a few drips on my face, but I were right glad 'a that since, honest, I was cryin' a little. I didn't want pap to see. He'd 'a got right up'n tanned me real good if he'd 'a seen.
'Fore I could move he done collapsed all atop 'a me, his bones a-diggin' into my bones an' his whiskey breath chokin' me half ta death an' his skin so cold I couldn' nearly stand how sick it done me.
And he says all soft against my neck, "Don't 'member me like this, Huck," and I know the ol' man, could recite his excuses for everythin' like I practice my alphabet, and well, a'course I'd 'a known better than to take any stock in a word the feller says, but his whole voice went hushed and rattlin', like a snake that's dyin' slow, like the wind in the cemetery trees that night me and Tom see Injun Joe do what he done, and I went cold as the ol' man when he says, "Them devils is in me, boy. Them devils them old ladies tell you 'bout."
I cain't rightly said I ain't believed him, but when he drinks he always gets this glassy look to him like he don't got an earthly idea of nothin', but even lookin' at him real good I didn't know if it were the spirits or the spirits swimmin' 'round in there, if you get me.
"Hain't so, pap," I finally says, hating how my voice was shakin' so bad but wasn't nothing I could do about it, "You're jus' drunk –"
And he shakes his head into my shoulder, an' then he said, "I ain' always been like this, son, you gotta believe me. I's a victim of the govment, goddamn bastards're killin' me, I'm dyin', Huck."
"I know, Pap. I know." I says, and my throat got all tight just then a'cause I knew it. "But don' you worry none," I tells him, "jus' sleep some and you'll be right as rain in the mornin', I reckon."
He murmured something I don' even pretend to know what he meant at all, an' I didn't even bother moving for fear of a cow-hidin', so I just stayed there even with my arms and legs goin' all numb. I jus' layed there and waited, didn' know what else I could do for 'im but if'n I coulda thought 'a something I'd a done it for sure.
I laid there all a-shivery since his breathin' o'er my cheek warn't the breathin' of my ol' pap, but the breathin' of a dead man who, for the life 'a him, doesn' know he's dead. An' if'n that thought didn't get somethin' in my chest hurtin' me a blamed sort of awful, and so I closed my eyes and counted sheep as high as I can count and then agin 'cause honest injun, for my life I couldn't 'a looked at the ol' man no more.