The Blue Hammer Read Online Free PDF Page A

streamed over her eyes and mouth. She flung it back in an angry two-handed movement, like someone peeling off a rubber mask.
    “I don’t want her kind of help. She wants to take away my freedom—lock me up in a nursing home and throw away the key.” She got up clumsily onto her knees, so that her blue eyes were on a level with mine. “Are you a shrink?”
    “Not me.”
    “Are you sure? She threatened to turn the shrinks loose on me. I almost wish she would—I could tell them a thing or two.” She nodded vengefully, chopping at the air with her soft chin.
    “Like what?”
    “Like the only thing they ever did in their lives was fight and argue. They built themselves that great big hideous house and all they ever did was fight in it. When they weren’t giving each other the silent treatment.”
    “What were they fighting about?”
    “A woman named Mildred—that was one of the things. But the basic thing was they didn’t—they don’t love each other, and they blamed each other for that. Also they blamed me, at least they acted that way. I don’t remember much of what happened when I was a little girl. But one of the things I do remember is their yelling at each other over my head—yelling like crazy giants without any clothes on, with me in between them. And he was sticking out about a foot. She picked me up and took me into the bathroom and locked the door. He broke the door down with his shoulder. He went around with his arm in a sling for a long time after that. And,” she added softly, “I’ve been going around with my mind in a sling.”
    “Downers won’t cure that.”
    She narrowed her eyes and stuck out her lower lip like a stubborn child on the verge of tears. “Nobody asked you for your advice. You are a shrink, aren’t you?” She sniffed. “I can smell the dirt on you, from people’s dirty secrets.”
    I produced what felt from the inside like a lopsided smile. The girl was young and foolish, perhaps a little addled, by her own admission drugged. But she was young, and had clean hair. I hated to smell dirty to her.
    I stood up and lightly hit my head on the paper butterfly. I went to the screen door and looked out across the balcony. Through the narrow gap between two apartment buildings I could see a strip of bright sea. A trimaran crossed it, running before a light wind.
    The room seemed dim when I turned back to it, a transparent cube of shadow full of obscure life. The paper butterfly seemed to move in some sort of actual flight. The girl rose and stood swaying under it.
    “Did my mother send you here?”
    “Not exactly. I’ve talked to your mother.”
    “And I suppose she told you all the terrible things I’ve done. What a rotten egg I am. What a rotten ego.” She giggled nervously.
    “No. She is worried about you, though.”
    “About me and Fred?”
    “I think so.”
    She nodded, and her head stayed down. “I’m worried about us, too, but not for the same reason. She thinks that Fred and I are lovers or something. But I don’t seem to be able to relate to people. The closer I get to them, the colder I feel.”
    “Why?”
    “They scare me. When he—when my father broke down the bathroom door, I climbed into the laundry hamper and pulled the lid down on top of me. I’ll never forget the feeling it gave me, like I was dead and buried and safe forever.”
    “Safe?”
    “They can’t kill you after you’re dead.”
    “What are you so afraid of, Doris?”
    She looked up at me from under her light brows. “People.”
    “Do you feel that way about Fred?”
    “No, I’m not afraid of him. He makes me terribly mad sometimes. He makes me want to—” She bit off the sentence. I could hear her teeth grind together.
    “Makes you want to what?”
    She hesitated, her face taut, listening to the secret life behind it. “Kill him, I was going to say. But I didn’t really mean it. Anyway, what would be the use? Poor old Fred is dead and buried already, the way I am.”
    I felt