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won't we?” And she goes and gets something and then Mommy does an unspeakable thing to her trusting baby boy as Chaingang's eye opens wide in horror at the sight of his mother coming to him and plunging something sharp some awful stabbing sharp silver thing into his face. Oh don't, Mommy, I'll be good I swear I promise I won't ohhhhhhhhh nooooooooooooo, and the woman hears the thing grunt “NNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN” as she takes the huge needle and begins sewing the side of the man's wounded face together with sailcloth thread she retrieved from a garbage dump.
    He begins to wonder if he has hallucinated the injury to himself as he once dreamed that he might have hallucinated the rape and murder of an exquisitely beautiful woman. He was not given to many hallucinations. But trauma, pain, illness, some powerful disease, had shaken his iron resolve. Was he alive? Yes. Was he dead? No. Was he a dying man? Perhaps. He ran it through his malfunctioning computer. He smelled—no, that isn't the right word—tasted a foulness that permeated every waking breath he took. At first his computer told him it must be coming up from diseased lungs. He thought he had lung cancer. He wondered how long he would live and what he should do next.
    “Waaaaaaahhhhhhh.” He coughed and spit the foul taste out in a hawking effort that racked him with a convulsive pain spasm and a woman's, voice said, “Bad Big Boy.” Which made no sense to him whatsoever. He knew he was alone. He tried to open his eye wider but the light was so bright and he shuddered with chill and yet he was soaked in sweat, and the side of his face felt pinched shut.
    “Bad, bad doggie,” the old witch cackled, but Chaingang Bunkowski did not hear the voice and he was taken down again into trauma and unconsciousness. He did not hear her say “Bad, naughty puppy dog. Bad boy spit and make him face bleed for pretty Pip. BAD boy.” The crazy old bag lady watching him as he passed out again.
    Much later he awoke and it was all black and he thought the cancer had killed him and he assumed he was dead, but the thought was but a fleeting awareness as he was sucked back down into sleep and then the bright light and the noise, and he made an effort to open his eyes but one seemed swollen shut and something was wrong with his face and it was the old woman saying something: “You was never gonna get up, boy. Are we hungry?"
    He tried to nod his huge head and the massive effort almost took him down. He tasted feces, coal oil, death, stale fish, an awful stench beyond the worst halitosis from acute gingivitis becoming the worst peritonitis and then the ultimate case of death breath on record. He tried to spit and could not, and then tried to swallow and the voice said, “Here, open wide for Mommy."
    “Mmm.” It was his mommy? He tried to assimilate the information.
    “Eat."
    “Nnnnnn.” He agreed to eat. He was ravenously hungry.
    “There.” It tasted like hot water but he was able to swallow the liquid and for the second it took to swallow it the awful taste in his mouth was gone.
    “MORE,” he rumbled, and the old woman dropped her spoon, then laughed.
    “Baby boy can TALK. Boy's first word to Mommy: MORE. All righty, we've got plenty of good, nourishing soup here. Yes indeed, pretty puppy, Pipkin has plenty of good soup.” And she fed him another spoonful of hot water.
    “More,” he said.
    “Yes. You'll get more now. You can talk. What is Big Boy's name?” He said nothing and she got another spoonful down him. “My name is Pippa. Do you think Mommy is pretty?"
    “More."
    She obliged him. “Feeling our old selves now, are we?” He blinked. “Is Peppy's big doggie going to be up and wagging his tail soon, eh?” She cackled madly.
    “Mmmm.” He tried to make her give him more again but it was just too much work to get the word out. Fortunately she understood and nodded and dipped the soup spoon back in to the can.
    “MMM-ummm, good,” she sang tunelessly, and