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Show Carlson Ferguson Lives 15 furnace room. "It's him!" Butch cries. "Ferguson!" There is more scampering against the lumber pile and past the fruit jars. "That's him, Fenn! That is Ferguson!" But Fenn is gone, scared up the stairs, outside facing Tiny by now. "You think it is, Butch?" "Oh, yeah!" He is triumphant. "That's him. I'll show you; come here." I move back to the former television set. There is more noise behind us on the floor, and Butch laughs aloud he is so happy. "Now look." We lean into the back of the old cooked t.v. and Butch scratches a match. In the flare, I see the washpan Ferguson was wired into. "See this," Butch points to a tiny claw print on the side of the dish in soot. It is above the edge of the dish, as if something had crawled out. "This is what we know about death, right here! And that is all we know except for old Ferguson living it up behind us. " His match burns out, but Butch finishes: "All that we know about being dead. The rest is a bunch of fucking hearsay!" Outside, Butch asks: "How's your head?" "Fine. I'm fine." And I am fine. I feel the place and it's swollen and sore, but fine. "Good. We've got one more thing." He clips his sleeping bag onto my bike, and we lay the bicycles in the weeds by the alley, out of sight. Fenn and I are so used to doing things before we know what they mean that all of these activities go smoothly even |