“Good. Honky fuzz jus be lettin him off anyway. I be gittin him. I be cuttin his cock off. Sumbitch! I tell you what I goan do t’dat sumbitch! I tell you one thing, you sumbitch honky! I goan tell you . . . tell . . .”

Her eyes fluttered again and George had thought Yes, go to sleep, please go to sleep, I don’t get paid for this, I don’t understand this, they told us about shock but nobody mentioned schizophrenia as one of the—

The eyes opened. The first woman was there.

“What sort of accident was it?” she asked. “I remember coming out of the I—”

“Eye?” he said stupidly.

She smiled a little. It was a painful smile. “The Hungry I. It’s a coffee house.”

“Oh. Yeah. Right.”

The other one, hurt or not, had made him feel dirty and a little ill. This one made him feel like a knight in an Arthurian tale, a knight who has successfully rescued the Lady Fair from the jaws of the dragon.

“I remember walking down the stairs to the platform, and after that—”

“Someone pushed you.” It sounded stupid, but what was wrong with that? It was stupid.

“Pushed me in front of the train?”

“Yes.”

“Have I lost my legs?”

George tried to swallow and couldn’t. There seemed to be nothing in his throat to grease the machinery.

“Not all of them,” he said inanely, and her eyes closed.

Let it be a faint, he thought then, please let it be a f—

They opened, blazing. One hand came up and slashed five slits through the air within an inch of his face—any closer and he would have been in the E.R. getting his cheek stitched up instead of smoking Chesties with Julio Estavez.

“YOU AIN’T NUTHIN BUT A BUNCHA HONKY SONSA BITCHES!” she screamed. Her face was monstrous, her eyes full of hell’s own light. It wasn’t even the face of a human being. “GOAN KILL EVERY MAHFAHIN HONKY I SEE! GOAN GELD EM FUST! GOAN CUT OFF THEIR BALLS AND SPIT EM IN THEY FACES! GOAN—”

It was crazy. She talked like a cartoon black woman, Butterfly McQueen gone Loony Tunes. She—or it—also seemed superhuman. This screaming, writhing thing could not have just undergone impromptu surgery by subway train half an hour ago. She bit. She clawed out at him again and again. Snot spat from her nose. Spit flew from her lips. Filth poured from her mouth.

“Shoot her up, doc!” one of the paras yelled. His face was pale. “Fa crissakes shoot her up!” The para reached toward the supply case. George shoved his hand aside.

“Fuck off, chickenshit.”

George looked back at his patient and saw the calm, cultured eyes of the other one looking at him.

“Will I live?” she asked in a conversational tearoom voice. He thought, She is unaware of her lapses. Totally unaware. And, after a moment: So is the other one, for that matter.

“I—” He gulped, rubbed at his galloping heart through his tunic, and then ordered himself to get control of this. He had saved her life. Her mental problems were not his concern.