Beggars and Choosers Read Online Free PDF

funeral machinery,
like so much other more important machinery lately, had apparently
broken down.
    The Livers stood staring at it, bewildered and helpless.
    I walked with Colin inside Building G-14 looking dizzy, as a victim
of Gravison’s disease occasionally should.
----
Two
    BILLY WASHINGTON: EAST OLEANTA, NEW YORK
    When I found out, me, about the rabid raccoon, first thing I did was
run straight down to the cafe to tell Annie Francy. I ran all the way,
me. That ain’t so easy no more. All I could think was maybe
Lizzie
was already safe, her, with Annie in the kitchen, maybe
Lizzie
wasn’t in the woods. Maybe.
    “Run, old man! Run, old fuck!” a kid yelled from the alley between
the hotel and the warehouse. They stood there, the stomps, when the
weather was nice. The weather was nice. I forgot, me, that they’d be
there, or I’d of gone around the long way, by the river. But this
afternoon they was too lazy, them, or too splintered, to chase me. I
didn’t tell them shit about the raccoon.
    At the servoentrance to the cafe, where only ‘bots supposed to go, I
pounded, me, as hard as I could and the hell with who heard. “Annie
Francy! Let me in!”
    The bushes to my right rustled and I almost keeled over, me. The
coons come there for the stuff that drops off the delivery ‘bots. But
it was only a snake. “Annie! It’s me—Billy! Let me in!”
    The low door swung open. I crawled through on hands and knees. It
was
Lizzie
, her, who figured out how to get the servoentrance
to open without no ‘bot signal. Annie could no more do that than grow
leaves.
    They were both there. Annie was peeling apples and
Lizzie
was tinkering with the ‘bot that was supposed to peel apples. Which
ain’t worked in a month. Not that
Lizzie
could fix it. She
was smart, her, but she was still only eleven years old.
    “Billy Washington!” Annie said. “You’re shaking, you! What happened?”
    “Rabid raccoons,” I gasped. My heart was going, it, like a
waterfall. “Four of them. Reported on the area monitor. By the river,
where Lizzie…
Lizzie
goes to play…”
    “Ssshhhh,” Annie said. “SSShhhh, dear heart. Lizzie’s here now.
She’s safe, her.”
    Annie put her arms around me where I sat panting on the floor like
some humping bear.
Lizzie
watched, her, with her big black
eyes wide and sparkly. She probably thought a rabid raccoon was
interesting. She ain’t never seen one, her. I have.
    Annie was big and soft, a chocolate-colored woman with breasts like
pillows. She wouldn’t tell me, her, how old she was, but of course all
I had to do was ask the terminals at the cafe or the hotel. She was
thirty-five. Lizzie didn’t look nothing like her mother. She was
light-skinned and skinny, her, with reddish hair in tight braids. She
didn’t have no hips or breasts yet. What she had was brains. Annie
worried about that a lot. She couldn’t remember, her, a time when we
was just people, not Livers. I could remember, me. At sixty-eight, you
can remember a lot. I could remember, me, a time when Annie might of
been proud of Lizzie’s brains.
    I could remember a time when being held by a woman like Annie would
of meant more than panting from a bad heart.
    “You all right, dear heart?” Annie said. She took her arms away and
right away I missed them. I’m an old fool, me. “Now tell us again, real
slow.”
    I had my breath back. “Four rabid raccoons. The area monitor was
wailing like death. They must of come down, them, from the mountains.
The monitor showed them by the river, moving toward town. The
biowarnings was flashing deep red. Then the monitor quit again and this
time nothing couldn’t get it started again. Jack Sawicki kicked it,
him, and so did I. Them coons could be anywhere.”
    “Did the warden ‘bot get sent to kill them, it, before the monitor
quit?”
    “The warden ‘bot’s broke too.”
    “Shit.” Annie made a face. “Next time I’m voting, me, against
Samuelson.”
    “You think it’ll make any