"Verbatim"
by Acey
He throws another joke in Garraty's general direction, and poor Garraty just stares for a second before he shakes his head. Pete is sure that yesterday—hell, three hours ago—Garraty might have laughed. Or mumbled something, or walked faster. But no, Garraty shakes his head, and that's all.
"I lied. About Pris, you know," Pete tells him, because he doesn't have anything to lose by not telling him, and he's never been so tired in his life, and Garraty had better win this damn thing, "about it not hurting to... tell that stupid story."
There is a long pause.
"Sorry," Garraty says. He's drowsy, just putting one foot in front of the other. "I shouldn't have kept pushing it—"
"Did I tell you I'd memorize those love poems?" Pete knows he hasn't. "No? Well, I would. Wish I had Harkness's notebook right about now, because they've been in my head for the past half hour. I could write them down, get them the hell out of my head—"
He can barely keep his canteen in his hands long enough to gulp the water down. He doubts he could even hold the pencil in his hand.
"You could say them," Garraty says, and glances at him. "Only me and you and—Stebbins back there." He cranes his neck. "Stebbins—hey, Stebbins—"
"Oh, don't call him," Pete snaps. "You really want to hear the poems, don't you? Wish it were better circumstances, don't you?" and he tries for that grin and he wishes Garraty would wince and (walk) go away and let him die the hell alone.
"Sure." Garraty still doesn't know whether Pete means half of what he says, and Pete prefers it that way (because he doesn't mean it, but the fact is part of him even now wants to see Garraty bothered and tripped up and broken, Peter McVries's own trademarked psy-war against him—you think it was just Stebbins, Ray? Hell, no, it wasn't just Stebbins). But Garraty's not innocent anymore. The Walk has beaten that much out of him.
"All right. Waste another, what? Hour of my life? And I'm walking on two warnings already. I must really love you, Ray. I swear, I'll never be this coherent again for what little remains of my life."
"The poems."
"One-track mind. The poems. The poems I'd recite to darling Priscilla, may she rest in peace and may she sew buttons until her soft white hands fall off from leprosy. Or whatever makes the most poetic justice. I don't know. Told you already, math was my subject in school, and really—well, fine, Garraty. The poems."
He says them in a whisper, so that Garraty has to occasionally mutter "what?" and he has to repeat a line, a stanza. "To Althea from Prison." "if feeling is first." A sonnet from Shakespeare. Two poems by Keats (but the titles escape him so he makes something up—Garraty can't tell the difference). Garraty listens, or at least Pete thinks he's listening. Maybe he's pretending it's his girlfriend mumbling them, that she's saying them in his ear as they screw each other in his head. Pete almost isn't sure he cares anymore.
The Walk continues, and by the time he's finished, he's erased one of the warnings.
"There. That's it. 'Conserve wind,' my ass."
Garraty forces out a chuckle as he reaches for his food belt.
"It help any?"
"No, but telling them to a fellow—Musketeer like you—beats saying them in my head." He coughs between pauses, and Garraty looks at him in concern.
"You... you okay?"
"I'm dying, Garraty, how the hell I can be okay is—"
"You know what I mean."
"Sure I do. Sure I am." He bites back the next cough with a deliberate swallow from one of his tubes of beef concentrate. Timed wrong and it could send him into a choking spasm and get his head blown off (you want your brains on his shoes, Pete? Right, right, not even shoes anymore—on his socks? I tell you, if that's what you want, then—), timed right and it could (did) keep the cough at bay. "Hey. Garraty."
Pete looks at the crowd and for a horrifying moment he imagines he sees Priscilla standing there, Paddington Bear letter opener in her left hand, needles and buttons in her right. Like that statue of Michael the Archangel on top of—what was it? The Notre Dame over in Paris? She was like that, something like that, delivering justice to poor Pete McVries, to her pathetic (sap idiot lover) waste of an ex-boyfriend.
(you're killing me Pris more than I am more than I ever did you're killing me and you're glad)
But it's not quite Pris. Pris is the excuse, the damn good excuse for everything Pete's done since then (stitches straight in the cheek and you throw away your life, like hell you throw away your life). Pris is his excuse, like the Major is Stebbins's, like—like the money was for Baker.
(Garraty, what's your excuse? this late in the game, I want to know—I want to ask you—was it that kid, was it Jimmy—was it—)
Garraty's eyes are wisely on the road. Pete wonders if he's thinking of his girl or if he's even thinking of anything at all. But Garraty responds, telling Pete that his mind isn't gone yet.
"Yeah?"
(Pris sweetheart angel God damned buttons)
(all my life is buttons on a road straight to hell)
Like bread crumbs from Hansel and Gretel. Would the crowd pick up the buttons like the crows got the bread, or would it be Priscilla after all, back to collect what was left like carrion?
Pete forces the old grin, wide on his pale, beaten face.
"Call back Stebbins after all. That sorry bastard might as well get to hear a couple love poems before he croaks off, win or lose."
finis