VITTORIO PROVENZANO:

HOLYHOLY IN YELLOW LIGHT

NARRATOR 1:

The rain stopped on a hot July noon and rad ruts cf dirt were sodden.

The rude little kingpin picked up the end of a wood beam with a spike in it and set out like a half wild cur for the bank of a pond

If you hid there a while, soft as death, you'd hear the wood rats sobbing in the mud.

Just as soon as he heard the foot and saw the spangleg fur of a rat, he lept out and beat it with the spike.-It let out a guggle and a mute sob and kicked over rad and soundless.

He was cock sure. It was numb, dead.

Time and the Rock. Time and the Rock. I got a sweet bitten angel and a rock. I lock myself up with this thought. The dark. I am frightened. I cut a slot in my head and let out a shape. There is a line of gray on the hear of a small child. A hard blow to the head. A cold, cold, cold, cold hand. The band is mine. It sweats. The line of gray is a line of water, cold and bright and ccld and bright. A cold hand on'the line of gray, it sweats. I have water and not blond. I have notblood. I cut a hole in the dark and let the water run out in the ...what is the shape of the sea? Why am I cruel like he is ? I cut a hole in the dark and let the water rein out.

THE RUNT:

And Pig Mitchell went down on his knees by the wood rat and run his hand on the wound, cold and curious, as if he longed for something in it, like it was a mouth about to say blood of a lamb, lamb's blond, and me looking at him like it was my blond on his hand. He threw the pair back from his cold gummy eye and took the rat by the neck ( t w e a k ) and humming, tapped the chin with a hand flick. Now, he was sucking his gums as he took out a knife. On one slow dig, he went in the belly, and cut on up to the jaw, as the blond spot warm on his hand. The knife sank out of his hand and stuck in the worn sod. Scooping the air , he got 3

of his fingers on the neck bone, like he was takin' a sunny by the gills and throwin' it slow, into the hot wind. It went down fath.ulllrrrrrrchsrolp. The gut smoking hissssssssssssssssss out of the land. The flopping of the blood and bile. He looking at it with is cold eye sucking the wind. He did it. H i s c o 1 d g u m m y e y e .

- Stop, 0 stop it, S T 0 P ! !! !!!!!

!    !   ***

And he whipped it above his head by the thin tail. A cold ooze on me myyyyyy-yyy shock cold shock. He beat me with a rat gut.

I'd like to say na way to the whole thing. stick a pin into time like it was a soft spotted moth with a blue rod coming out of its head. Hold it will ya! They said I was a good kid at one time, I stayed away from the wild boys, the hot rods and mean kids, the blue bulls in rut, the cocks, the ratsoes, the nerds, the albinoes and black shirts, I looked up to the good ol' boys. Hey, Ace, how ya doin! Beat it, runt! Yyyyyuuuuuuuuuup, they'd always look after you. They was good. The others were bad, bad to worse, and baddest, in this eighth circle in hell.

(Extraits d'un roman en cours)