Manx- Laughing

 Bing’s face wrinkled. His eyes shut. He began, hideously, to cry. “I could just shoot myself!” he cried.

  “Oh, that is a lot of foolishness,” Manx said. “Anyway, you would most likely miss and put the bullet in me.”

  Wayne laughed.

  He surprised all of them, including himself. It had been like sneezing, a completely involuntary reaction. Manx and Bing looked into the backseat at him. Bing’s eyes streamed, his fat, ugly face distorted with misery. Manx, though—Manx watched Wayne with a kind of wondering amusement.

  “You shut up!” Bing screamed. “Don’t you laugh at me! I’ll cut your face off! I’ll get my scissors and cut you all to pieces!”

  Manx had the silver hammer in his hand, and he thumped it into Bing’s chest, pushing him back at his door.

  “Hush,” Manx said. “Any child will laugh at the antics of a clown. It is perfectly natural.”

  For a moment it flashed into Wayne’s mind how funny it would be if Manx had poked the hammer into Bing’s face and busted his nose. In his mind Bing’s nose popped like a water balloon filled with red Kool-Aid, an image so hilarious he almost laughed again.

  A part of Wayne, a very distant, quiet part, wondered how he could find anything funny. Maybe he was still muddled up from the gas that Bing Partridge had sprayed at him. He had slept all night but did not feel rested. He felt ill and drained and warm. Warm most of all: He was boiling in his own skin, wished for a cool shower, a cool dip in the lake, a cool mouthful of snow.

- Search Engine: The House of Sleep