The Ninth Configuration Read Online Free PDF

softly.
    “He’s got a tipped uterus.”
    “I see.”
    “Tell that to Nammack and see if it comforts him in his agony. What shall I tell him? ‘Listen, Nammack, take it easy? I’ve talked to Colonel Kane and while he sympathizes with you, he says to stuff your fucking uterus with suicide pills and aspirin, seeing as Fell is erratic but fair’? And that he also said, ‘I see’?” The astronaut switched to a whining tone. “Let’s go to the beach,” he repeated. “Come on!” He attempted to stamp his foot in pout and the rubber flipper cracked like a whip against the floor.
    “It’s dark and it’s raining,” Kane replied.
    Cutshaw’s face contorted into rage. He picked up the beach-pail shovel from the desk and broke it in two with a splintery snap. “There! I break the arrow of peace!” He flung away the pieces. “Son of a bitch! Listen, who the hell are you? I’m starting to think that you’re Fairbanks in some fucking new weirdo disguise. He came around once in the skin of a caribou, but we recognized him, the jerk. Do you know what we did to him then? We gave him the silent treatment! Hell, we didn’t even nod to him, that insolent, antlered schmuck. Finally he split.” The astronaut’s eyes narrowed as he scrutinized Kane. “Are you really a Catholic?” he asked.
    “Yes.”
    “Tough shit. I’m a Flaming Knight Rampant of the Christian Hussars.
    Would you like to ask me what we believe in?”
    “What do you believe in?”
    “That colonels consort with elks. Now get out of here, Hud! I’m losing patience with you swiftly!”
    “You want me to leave?” Kane asked him.
    Cutshaw lunged over the desk and seized Kane’s wrist. “Are you mad?” His eyes bulged wide in fear. “And lose the only friend I’ve got?” he cried. “Oh, God, don’t do it, Hud, please! Don’t go away! Don’t leave me alone in this house of horrors!”
    The colonel’s eyes welled up with pity. “No, I won’t go away, I promise.
    Sit down. Sit down and we’ll talk,” he said soothingly.
    “Yes!” shrieked Cutshaw. “I want to talk! I want therapy!” He released Kane’s wrist and was instantly calm again. He flapped his way to the couch against the wall, where he flung himself down and stretched out on his back, staring up at the ceiling. “God, where do I begin?”
    “Free-associate,” Kane suggested.
    Cutshaw turned and eyed him severely. He got up off the couch, thumped over to the desk and recovered his medal, then returned to the couch and lay supine. “And now a few words about my
    childhood. I was born in North Dakota in a tiny—”
    “Your records say Brooklyn,” said Kane.
    “Listen, I’ll come over there-okay?-and you come lie down here and we’ll see how well you do! Whose therapy is this?”
    “Yours,” said Kane.
    “Can’t I ask a rhetorical question without some asshole trying to answer it? Be quiet!” Cutshaw shouted. He flipped over on his belly. “I had three maiden aunts,” he recited calmly. “Their names were Ugly, Vulgar and Tawdry, and every Christmas they’d buy me a Monopoly game from a thrift shop, except that the board was always missing: I never had a fucking board. Sure, I finally made one, but how does it sound: ‘Go directly to jack-knife and do not pass frog’? Hell, I never even saw a proper board until I was almost twenty, and I had to put ice on the back of my neck to stop trembling! Ah, well, screw it; so I never had a board. But I’d never use that as a cop-out, Hud, that Jack the Ripper bullshit. Yeah, sure: Jack the Ripper was misunderstood. At the age of six he had a lucky knife called ‘Rosebud’ and somebody stole it, so Jack spent the rest of his lifetime looking for it, but Jack had this silly idea that the knife had been hidden in someone’s throat. Now, do you buy that crap? You can answer.”
    “No,” said Kane.
    “You’re funny that way. There were kids on my block who tortured caterpillars; they’d cut them up and burn them.