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Dorothy was terrified. She had expected any reaction but this. If he had suffered a heart attack, it would, she thought, be her fault.
Fortunately, Old Man had only fainted. However, when he regained consciousness, he did not go into ecstasies as she had expected. Instead, he looked at her, his face gray and said, “It kin’t be! It must be a trick The Old Woman In The Earth’s playing on me so she kin have the last laugh on me. How could it be the hat a Old King Paley’s? Woun’t the G’yaga that been keepin it in their famley all these years know what it is?”
“Probably not,” said Dorothy. “After all, the G’yaga, as you call them, don’t believe in magic anymore. Or it might be that the present owner doesn’t even know what it is.”
“Maybe. More likely it was thrown out by accident durin housecleanin. You know how stupid them wimmen are. Anyway, let’s take it and get goin. The Old Guy In The Sky might a had a hand in fixin up this deal for me, and if he did, it’s better not to ask questions. Let’s go.”
Finding it had given him a tremendous optimism, a belief he could do anything. He sang and laughed even more than he had before, and he was even able to venture out onto the streets for several hours at a time before the sweat and shakings began.
Gummy, seeing the hat, merely grunted and made a lewd remark about its appearance. Deena smiled grimly and said, “Why haven’t the horsehide and bones rotted away long ago?”
“That’s just the kind a question a G’yaga dummy like you’d ask,” said Old Man, snorting. “How kin the hat rot when there’s a million Paley souls crowded into it, standin room only? There ain’t even elbow room for germs. Besides, the horsehide and the bones’re jampacked with the power and the glory a all the Paleys that died before our battle with Raw Boy, and all the souls that died since. It’s seethin with soul-energy, the lid held on it by the magic a the G’yaga.”
“Better watch out it don’t blow up ‘n wipe us all out,” said Gummy, sniggering.
“Now you have the hat, what are you going to do with it?” asked Deena.
“I don’t know. I’ll have to sit down with a beer and study the situation.”
Suddenly, Deena began laughing shrilly.
“My God, you’ve been thinking for fifty thousand years about this hat, and now you’ve got it, you don’t know what to do about it! Well, I’ll tell you what you’ll do about it! You’ll get to thinking big, all right! You’ll conquer the world, rid it of all False Folk, all right! You fool! Even if your story isn’t the raving of a lunatic, it would still be too late for you! You’re alone! The last! One against two billion! Don’t worry, World, this ragpicking Rameses, this alley Alexander, this junkyard Julius Caesar, he isn’t going to conquer you! No, he’s going to put on his hat, and he’s going forth! To do what?
“To become a wrestler on TV, that’s what! That’s the height of his halfwit ambition—to be billed as the One-Armed Neanderthal, the Awful Apeman. That is the culmination of fifty thousand years ha, ha, ha!”
The others looked apprehensively at Old Man, expecting him to strike Deena. Instead, he removed the hat from the cage, put it on, and sat down at the table with a quart of beer in his hand.
“Quit your cacklin, you old hen,” he said. “I got my thinkin cap on!”
The next day Paley, despite a hangover, was in a very good mood. He chattered all the way to the west bluff and once stopped the truck so he could walk back and forth on the street and show Dorothy he wasn’t afraid.
Then, boasting he could lick the world, he drove the truck up an alley and halted it by the backyard of a huge but somewhat rundown mansion. Dorothy looked at him curiously. He pointed to the jungle-thick shrubbery that filled a corner of the yard.
“Looks like a rabbit coun’t get in there, huh? But Old Man knows thins the rabbits don’t. Folly me.”
Carrying the caged hat, he went to the shrubbery, dropped to all threes, and began inching his way through a very narrow passage. Dorothy stood looking dubiously into the tangle until a hoarse growl came from its depths.
“I’ll try anything once,” she a
She sucked in her breath. “Roses! Peonies! Violets!”
“Sure, Dor’thy,” he said, swelling out his chest. “Paley’s Garden a Eden, his secret hothouse. I found this place a couple a years ago, when I was lookin for a place to hide if the cops was lookin for me or I just wanted a place to be alone from everybody, including myself.
“I planted these rosebushes in here and these other flowers. I come here every now and then to check on em, spray em, prune em. I never take any home, even though I’d like to give Deena some. But Deena ain’t no dummy, she’d know I was gettin em out a a garbage pail. And I just din’t want to tell her about this place. Or anybody.”
He looked directly at her as if to catch every twitch of a muscle in her face, every repressed emotion.
“You’re the only person besides myself knows about this place.” He held out the rose to her. “Here. It’s yours.”
“Thank you. I am proud, really proud, that you’ve shown this place to me.”
“Really are? That makes me feel good. In fact, great.”
“It’s amazing. This, this spot of beauty. And… and…”
‘Til finish it for you. You never thought the ugliest man in the world, a dumpheaper, a man that ain’t even a man or a human bein, a—I hate the word—a Neanderthal, could appreciate the beauty of a rose. Right? Well, I growed these because I love em.
“Look, Dor’thy. Look at this rose. It’s round, not like a ball but a flattened roundness…”
“Oval.”
“Sure. And look at the petals. How they fold in on one another, how they’re arranged. Like one ring a red towers protectin the next ring a red towers. Protectin the gold cup on the inside, the precious source a life, the treasure. Or maybe that’s the golden hair a the princess a the castle. Maybe. And look at the bright green leaves under the rose. Beautiful, huh? The Old Guy knew what he was doin when he made these. He was an artist then.
“But he must a been sufferin from a hangover when he shaped me, huh? His hands was shaky that day. And he gave up after a while and never bothered to finish me but went on down to the corner for some a the hair a the dog that bit him.”
Suddenly, tears filled Dorothys eyes.
“You shouldn’t feel that way. You’ve got beauty, sensitivity, a genuine feeling, under…”
“Under this?” he said, pointing his finger at his face. “Sure. Forget it. Anyway, look at these green buds on these baby roses. Pretty, huh? Fresh with promise a the beauty to come. They’re shaped like the breasts a young virgins.” He look a step toward her and put his arm around her shoulders.
She put her hands on his chest and gently tried to shove herself away.
“Please,” she whispered, “please, don’t. Not after you’ve shown me how fine you really can be.”
“What do you mean?” he said, not releasing her. “Ain’t what I want to do with you just as fine and beautiful a thin as this rose here? And if you really feel for me, you’d want to let your flesh say what your mind thinks. Like the flowers when they open up for the sun.”
She shook her head. “No. It can’t be. Please. I feel terrible because I can’t say yes. But I can’t. I—you—there’s too much diff—”
“Sure, we’re diff’runt. Coin in diff’runt directions and then, comin roun the corner—bam!—we run into each other, and we wrap ours arms aroun each other to keep from fallin.”
He pulled her to him so her face was pressed against his chest.
“See!” he rumbled. “Like this. Now, breathe deep. Don’t turn your head. Sniff away. Lock yourself to me, like we was glued and nothin could pull us apart. Breathe deep. I got my arm aroun you, like these trees roun these flowers. I’m not hurtin you: I’m givin you life and protectin you. Right? Breathe deep.”