Page 171 - Rainbow County and Other Stories

Rainbow County 159

“Ways to keep me out of hell. Ways to get me into heaven.”
“What ways?”
“Ways you could sell like Salvation Coupons the night before
Judgment Day. Ways those men and boys down in the street prob-
ably know. Old ways. Ancient ways. Ways so secret only a few
men, and maybe a few women, know them. But there’s more of
them out here that know than back home, or anywhere else ever
before in one place on this whole earth, right here, I figure, in
your Rainbow County. They know the ways. I know they know
the ways.”
“You mean sex,” Lloyd said.
“Sex?” Robert said. “Sure, why not? Sex must be one of the
saving ways, but the way has to be right. Just right. Or else sex is
just like everyone says, the way to damnation.” He bored his stare
hard through Lloyd’s thick glasses. “And guess what else?”
Lloyd guessed what else was he had himself another one of
those religious sex nuts trying to break out of his shell. He wanted
to take a step back, but he was too proud to show Robert any fear;
he remembered Robert bragging that terror was the only thing
most people respected once it got their attention.
“Besides sex,” Robert said, “guess what else.”
“I can’t guess.”
“Damage.”
“Damage?”
“Just a little damage.”
“Why damage?” Lloyd said. “What damage? What to? Who
to?”
“To you,” Robert said. “To me. To everybody.”
“What kind of damage?”
“Big damages,” Robert said, “and little damages.”
“I could call the police.”
“By the time they got here, my razor blade could cut your
face. I could make you blind so you could go on TV. By the
time they got here, I could cut my throat. Slice right through my
jugular. None of it would make any difference to anybody but
you. I don’t care. I might die or I might go to jail, but you’d still
be blind, trying to cut hair and play your pianos.”
“I get the picture,” Lloyd said.

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