The Butterfly Plague Read Online Free Page A

and feet that always menaced him wherever he went. Myra climbed up beside him.
    “You O.K. here?” she asked, setting aside her chewing gum.
    “Yes, thank you—and don’t put it there” said Dolly.
    “Everybody puts it there,” said Myra.
    “Well, for once,” said Dolly, “behave as though you weren’t everybody.”
    “What’ll I do? Put it in my purse?”
    “Don’t shilly-shally, Myra. Just wrap it in a piece of paper, and later you can drop it in an ash can.”
    Dolly was watching Bully Moxon, dancing still at the edge of the platform.
    “I haven’t got a piece of paper,” said Myra.
    “Then swallow it.”
    Myra obliged.
    “I can see smoke,” she said, gulping her gum. “Here it comes!”
    Everybody began to wave. Bully went right on dancing.
    “Oh! Isn’t it lovely to be at Culver City Railroad Station like this when the train comes in!” said Myra.
    “Yes,” said Dolly apprehensively. “Lovely.”
    Bully Moxon had now made his way very close to the spot where the Super Chiefs engine would screech to a halt not fifteen seconds later. His Bully-bous, ginny nose was displaying a light of warning, but he paid no attention. His little eyes did not seem to focus on the present. His mouth twisted down and sideways with concentration. “How did it go?” he seemed to be saying. “Like this? Like that? One-two? Or one-two-three?”
    He danced on.
    “Lovely Bully. Dear, darling, wonderful sweet old lovely Bully,” said Myra. “Dancing.
    The tune appeared to be a song so long forgotten that even Bully himself was having trouble recalling it.
    “He wants to hear the music,” said Myra, not knowing how right she was but only sensing something sad about the dancer.
    “He’s going down onto the track,” she said.
    The crowd leaned forward, swaying in toward him. It was all very matter-of-fact.
    “Look at that,” said Myra. “He’s waving to us. Smiling.”
    “Wave back.”
    They did.
    The rhythm began to uncloud. The crowd gave a sigh. How wonderful he was.
    “He’s got his cane up. Lovely Bully.”
    On came the Santa Fe Super Chief.
    “Bully.”
    Dancing.
    “Listen. The train…”
    Wailing.
    “Bully.”
    “Bully! Dance this way…”
    “That way…”
    “Back.”
    “Dance up.”
    “Here! Hold up the dancing. Stop.”
    “Bully.”
    Smiling.
    “Bully.”
    Waving.
    “ Bully .”
    Dancing.
    “The train. The train, Bully. TRAIN!”
    The train.
    “ Bully!! ”
    Bully in the cinders. Down. Decapitated. His last step upward…
    Dead.
    The crowd gave a kind of roar.

    The band was playing and the cheering had started farther down the platform and the loved ones were arriving and there wasn’t much you could do except imagine nothing had happened. Particularly if you hadn’t really seen it happen. As Dolly hadn’t, for at that very instant he had fallen carefully to the floor. Myra couldn’t see it because she was crying. In the crowd, there were few who could have realized what had happened—because they cheered. And there were some who had been blinded, who—being blinded—had laughed, thinking someone had played them a trick-death until they wiped their eyes and saw the blood on their fingers and until the engine lurched and all the brown and yellow cars rattled against each other and the wheels screeched and women screamed “God help us all!” and there began to be panic because all at once the accident was everywhere and it seemed for one incredible instant they would all be down beneath the wheels with Bully and, like him, suddenly severed from life forever.

    2:21 p.m.

    Ruth’s bags came down on top of her head.
    Everything exploded and ceased. Was still.
    She came to, lying on the floor. It was barely long enough to contain her.
    Several people gave off screams.
    The engine bellowed like a killer.
    Bully Moxon’s head rolled down the track.
    Ruth struggled upward through her own arms and legs.
    In the corridors the passengers ran in every conceivable direction,