his hands, apparently trying to come into some sort of mystical contact with himself. He reminded me of a coke junkie on the downside. Over in a corner, near a barren steam-heat register, sat Anne Stewart and Keech watching the man in the center of the room. They seemed as fascinated as the ex-cons by whatever process was going on.
Abruptly, the tall guy threw his head back and screamed. For the first time I saw his face full on. His black hair needed cutting and his lantern jaw needed a shave, but what he seemed to need most right then was some kind of medical help to calm him down. His scream lingered in the damp, dusty air. It wasn't a theatrical scream, not at all. There was real frenzy and horror in it, as he proved by grabbing one of the empty cane chairs and smashing it against the register near where Anne and Keech stood. There was something orgiastic about the way he beat the chair into splinters. His dark eyes looked psychotic. Rheumy spittle shone on the edges of his mouth. He grunted in rhythm to his violence, and his grunts were far more obscene than any words he could utter. Donna put her face into my arm to hide her eyes. The poor bastard was coming undone. I looked around the room. In their way, the audience was just as spooky as the guy. They watched him with glazed fascination. They seemed to be in the same sort of psychosis that he was. One guy writhed in his chair. He appeared to be caught up in some kind of sexual rhythm. I glanced over at Anne and Keech. Their spell seemed broken now. Anne was putting out a hand to the crazy guy, muttering reassurances. Keech just looked scared. But the guy had found a new way to dazzle himself. He started pounding his fists against the register. He didn't seem to notice the blood that smeared his knuckles almost immediately or the bones that made cracking sounds like dry twigs snapping.
I crossed the room and got him under the shoulders and threw him into the wall, not hard enough to hurt him but hard enough to break his eerie concentration.
A couple of the cons started to get up from their chairs and make menacing motions toward me, but they knew betterâI had rage and animal fear on my side at the moment, and they sensed this and stayed where they were.
Not that the dark-haired guy was completely free of his frenzy. He took a good punch at me, a roundhouse right that he delivered with some expertise, and knocked me into the wall. The next one I saw coming and moved in time. I threw a block into him and slammed him back against the wall again.
Anne came up. "Karl, calm down, calm down! He's just trying to help you! All he wants to do is help you!"
At the last, Karl looked like Ahab. There was madness in his gaunt face and a crazed strength that scared me. I knew I wouldn't be able to withstand him for long.
Keech came up then. "Karl, were you taking the mescaline tonight?" In his yellow pullover sweater and designer jeans, Keech still looked the part of the perfect little man. But now he was frightened like the rest of us, and with Keech, fear spoiled the whole act. "Were you taking mescaline?" Keech was screeching.
One of the cons came up, a jittery man with bad teeth and a busted nose and brown eyes, like someone out of a Russian novel. "Keech, we was all takin' it. Shit, man, that's what Michael wanted us to do."
Anne said, "Byrnes, Keech and I told you last night that the class would be different from now on. We told you that." She sounded as if she were going to cry.
Byrnes shrugged. "It's like Michael always said, man, it's the one way to connect with the truth."
Anne nodded to Karl. "It seems to be an expensive price to pay." She looked at two other cons who'd come over. "Can you take Karl downstairs to the men's room and wash his face and see if that helps?"
They shrugged, mumbled. They were shabby, shambling men, and from the little I'd heard from Byrnes they sounded like jail house intellectuals, filled with half-baked ideas expressed with a
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