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'You have a natural respect for youth,' he said.
'When's leaving day, Sig?'
'Ah, the tearful departure! When can you whip yourself away?'
'You can be a prodding frotter, Siggy. I'd like to have some sleep now.'
'So Graff would like to sleep!' he yelled, and he sat up with his pillow. 'Sleep then,' he said.
'Sleep yourself,' I said.
'Like a volcano, Graff. This old Siggy sleeps like a volcano.'
'I don't care how you sleep,' I said.
'No, it's true you don't, Graff. You don't care a sweet frot!'
'Oh, Christ!' I said.
'He's in the bathroom, Graff,' said Siggy, 'cooking up what's next for you and me.'
What Christ Cooked Up in the Bathroom
THE LIGHT WAS early in our room, even though the rain still puddled the courtyard; I could hear the fat drops ping on the pipes of the motorcycle. I propped myself up on my elbows and peered out the window through the grating; the wet cobblestones of the drive looked like a cluster of egg shapes, and I could see Auntie Tratt preparing for the milkman.
She seemed to come into the courtyard from under the castle; she rolled two milkcans in front of her, prodding them with her floppy galoshes. The pink hem of her robe showed under her sacklike raingear; her hairnet slipped down to her eyebrows and made her forehead look like some puffy thing caught from the sea. The short shocks of her calves peeked between her clog tops and the hem of her robe; her flesh was as white as lard.
She set the milkcans on the cobblestones, just in front of the castle door; then she hurried down to the courtyard gate and opened it for the milkman. Only the milkman wasn't there yet; Auntie Tratt looked both ways on the street, and then she pelted back to the castle - flying her soggy hem, leaving the gateway clear.
The rain now drummed on the milkcans; it ponged a deeper sound than it made off the motorcycle pipes.
In a sudden, mad flurry, as doomed as dancing on ice, the
milkman arrived.
I saw the crooked-faced horse lurch into the gateway, tilting his blinders against all the possible momentum of the rickety cart and his own swaying body; the hitchmast shunted up along his sagging spine, and the mass of leathery harness and trappings leaned out against the corner this fool horse tried to cut. Then I saw the driver rein and crank up the horse's maw; and the whole cart pick itself up and skitter after the horse, wrenching on the hitchmast and slinging its awkward weight to one side of the animal's rump - as if a rider had flung himself off the horse's back at full gallop, keeping the reins in hand, and weighing as much as the horse.
The driver cried, 'Jeee-sus!' and the cart hopped sideways on its two wheels, which locked and wouldn't spin.
The horse was waiting for all his legs to come down, and for the cart to follow him. And I waited for the fool driver to stop reining his poor horse's head so high up that the animal saw only the tops of the forsythia bushes, and not his own hooves landing on edge on the wet, egg-smooth cobblestones.
The horse came down on his side, with the hitchmast sliding along his spine and conking him in the ear; the little cart stopped high up on his rump. When his spongy ribs whomped the cobbles, the horse said, 'Gnif!'
The fool driver pitched out of his seat and landed on all fours on the horse's neck, in a tangle of leather hitchings and the jingling iron rings. The milkcans made a terrible clamor in the slat-sided cart. The breeching slid up and lifted the horse's tail like a banner.
'What was that?' said Siggy.
And the milkman squatted on the horse's neck, jouncing like a spring just burst through an old bed.
'Jeee-sus! Horse!' he cried.
'God, Graff!' said Siggy. 'What's going on?'
The milkman grabbed the sprawled horse by the ears and lifted the animal's head to his lap. He cradled the head and rocked back and forth on his haunches. 'Oh, sweet mother Jeee-sus, horse!' he cried.
Then he pounded the horse's head on the cobblestones; he just tugged it up by the ears and flung it down again, leaning his weight after it. The horse's forehooves began to flay through the rain.
All the milkcan covers were tipped forward in the cart, and seemed like round, wet faces peering over the slatted sides. Auntie Tratt was stomping on the stoop to the main door, pushing her heels into her galoshes. She slopped crooked-footed along the drive to the milkman.
