Chapter XXV
XXV
and this means Popkin hasn’t imitated Goodspeed by taking the angel off to barter, what he’s done is strip the angel of her red dress and blue cape inside a truck stinking of coagulated blood, putrid bandages, and the sweat of the doomed, with Popkin’s sweaty drabs next to be stripped, why not, no one was around to intervene but a couple of elderly mice-eaters,
and though Bagger has known Popkin as a beast for months, this turn makes Bagger’s hindbrain throb, lusting for the angel is sick, worse than pedophilia, Bagger’s never even thought of the angel as having genitals, though she must, she has nipples, she has pubic hair, and Bagger’s anger at Popkin fireworks into sputtering fury,
and so he strides at Popkin, his lack of hesitation catching the lummox off guard, and though the angel weighs little, rebalancing her in one arm is tricky, she’s rolling shoulders, rolling hips, flopping arms, flopping legs, and in two seconds Bagger has closed to ten feet so Popkin simply drops the angel, who hits the ambulance floor like a sack of potatoes,
and up comes the Springfield on its leather sling, carving through rain, and though Bagger’s had guns pointed at him before, this is the first time in France, where he’s seen what a .
30 caliber can do at close range, the barrel’s foresight like the steel-rivet eyes of the snake he once bumped into at Lake Zabriskie, and Bagger halts on wet cobblestone, arms to his sides in the universal plea for dispassion,
and Popkin’s eyes have the greasy sheen of a dead fish as he bellows over the rain, “None of your business, Bagger,” and the part of Bagger forever allegiant to his own welfare agrees, all he’s got to do is hump back to the 43rd, dig more latrines, bury a few thousand more corpses, and get back to fleecing fools along the Mississippi,
and he’s ready to do just that when he thinks of Tarzan again, maybe it’s the junglelike deluge or maybe it’s Popkin’s great-ape size, and if Bagger’s learned one thing about Tarzan, it’s that he never turns away, never abandons a weaker party, and if Bagger wants to give Lewis Arno the send-off he deserves, this is how, be Tarzan to the kid’s Korak just this once,
and so Bagger shouts, “Do this and you’ll regret it,” and a smile as miserable as a broken twig surfaces from the chub of Popkin’s cheeks, gums as red as clown noses, gray teeth draining caramel drool, and he angles his face so rain strikes it straight on and washes mud down his neck, and closes his eyes like he’s luxuriating in a bath, and says, “No one tells the rain it’ll regret falling.
I’m gonna be the rain, Bagger. I’m gonna be the storm,”
and Popkin’s never talked like this, to say the fucking least, so Bagger squints through the downpour to see if the lummox has suffered a head injury, but instead Popkin has a look Bagger recognizes from his father’s congregation, he looks goddamn empowered, and Bagger’s gut constricts with the notion that Popkin, otherwise destined for a life of hillbilly irrelevance, believes intercourse with an angel will elevate him to godlike status,
and Bagger thinks mad thoughts, what happens when an angel is infected with the clap, do the heavens rain fire, do flowers release poison pollen, fantastical terrors already indigenous to the Great War, which makes Bagger wonder if a whole brigade of angels has fallen to Europe’s battlefronts, loaded with sicknesses holy enough to bring down the human hellions,
and Bagger shouts, “You’re not the fucking rain, you fucking jackass, you’re a shitty fucking private who doesn’t know his rifle from his pus-oozing dick,” and the single wrinkle that clefts Popkin’s forehead tells Bagger the jab has landed, the lummox’s eyes clear a bit and he says, “You want her too. But she’s mine,”
and because the rain’s so thick, Bagger can fake a stumble to get closer, eight feet away now, and he distracts from his advance by saying, “Stealing her doesn’t make her yours, you dumb side of beef.
If she belongs to anyone, it’s me and Arno.
We found her. We rescued her. And she rescued us, remember? She doesn’t give a shit about you,”
and Popkin’s forehead goes into full furrow, and here comes the toddler frown, and he simpers like a boy whose birthday party is being ruined, and he says, “She let me hold her hand. She let me touch her hair. She loves me, Bagger. You don’t know.
Just because she don’t put it in her letters don’t mean it’s not true,”
and Bagger’s really fucking confused until a needle of clarity slivers in, and Bagger slops rain from his face and shouts, “Effie? You think she’s Effie Weffie?
,” and Popkin goes pink, and he gets that snorting-bull look, and he cries, “She’s mine, Bagger!
Stay away!,” and Bagger laughs, he can’t help it, he can’t believe what he’s hearing, “Popkin! You fuckwit! That’s not Effie,”
and Popkin’s pink goes red, and the Springfield’s bolt action rattles back, and he spits, “Get her name outta your mouth!,” and Bagger recoils, doesn’t like the gun’s snake-eye trained on him, so he holds out hands to ward off any rash triggering and yells, “Popkin! Fucking listen! Effie’s back home!
Back in whatever shitheel town you come from! ,”
and Popkin bellows, “This is the last time I’m warning you, Bagger!
All you ever do is trick me! But this ain’t no blackjack!
This is my girl. She came all the way to France to see me.
That’s love is what that is! You can’t tell me it’s not!
,” as the rifle butt lodges harder into his shoulder, he’s really going to goddamn shoot,
and it shouldn’t surprise Bagger, the lummox already mortally wounded Arno, Bagger only regrets he didn’t move fast enough to stop him either time, there’s no point even trying to hide from the bullets, not in this mud-and-rubble slurry, all he can do is lock his jaws and wait to learn what millions of soldiers already know, how it feels when your innards meet iron,