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He understood that the ghost existed first and foremost within his own head. That maybe ghosts always haunted minds, not places. If he wanted to take a shot at it, he’d have to turn the barrel against his own temple.
That was one thing you found out when you were stoned, or wasted, or feverish: that the world was always turning and that only a healthy mind could block out the sickening whirl of it.
“I have to go, Danny.” Still Danny said nothing. Jude listened to the faint crackle on the line for a moment, sensing that Danny was waiting for something, some final word, and at last he added, “You keep walking, boy. That road must go somewhere.” Danny laughed. “You aren’t as bad as you think, Jude. You know that?” “Yeah. Don’t tell.” “Your secret is safe,” Danny said. “Good-bye.” “Good-bye, Danny.”
He said, “I don’t know. If I knew what to do, I’d be doing it already, Florida. You and your questions. Lay off a minute, why don’t you?”
If he ever wants to get rid of someone he doesn’t want around me, he drives them off by tellin’ ’em the truth. The truth is usually enough.
“I’m disgusted with the both of us. You for bein’ who you are and me for lettin’ you stay that way.
At last she said, “How do you see all this endin’?” Jude didn’t have an answer for that. Angus replied instead—a soft, miserable whine.
Jude held up a hand to shield his eyes from the worst of the glare, but the light was everywhere, and there was no blocking it out. He could see the bones in his hand, the skin over them the color and clarity of honey. His wounds, the slash in his face, the stump of his index finger, throbbed with a pain that was both profound and exhilarating, and he thought he might cry out, in fear, in joy, in shock, in all those things, in what was more than those things. In rapture.
Later Angus wandered through the room and disappeared under the bed. Jude called to him, but Angus never came out, just stayed under the cot, thumping his tail on the floor, a steady beat that kept time with Jude’s heart.
