THE STOKER AND THE STARS
When you’ve had your ears pinned back in a bowknot, it’s sometimes hard to remember that an intelligent people has no respect for a whipped enemy ... but does for a fairly beaten enemy.
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KNOW HIM? YES, I KNOW him—knew him. That was twenty years ago.
Everybody knows him now. Everybody who passed him on the street knows him. Everybody who went to the same schools, or even to different schools in different towns, knows him now. Ask them. But I knew him. I lived three feet away from him for a month and a half. I shipped with him and called him by his first name.
What was he like? What was he thinking, sitting on the edge of his bunk with his jaw in his palm and his eyes on the stars? What did he think he was after?
Well ... Well, I think he— You k
