It's Hard To Be Holy

EP. 58: Chapter VIII (Cont'd)

Coarse and Offensive Language. Reader Discretion Advised.

'GOD!—FUCK!' shrieked Vera, jarred from sleep on the couch as the door came rollicking off the wall, and a gangling figure stepped across the hearth. 'FUCK! ED! DO YOU KNOW WHAT TIME IT IS?!'

'Yeah,' said Ed, breathless and flushed. 'It's...' but he caught sight of Bud running out of his bedroom and cried: 'You!'

'What the fuck?!'

But Edward Towne had no time to stand on ceremony. He dashed across the room, grabbed his friend by the arm and pulled him back into the hot bedroom. 'I need you!'

'It's a door, Ed. A door. You and my mother—'

'Tonight's the night!' declared Edward Towne, not caring at all about the style of his entrance—Niamh would have been proud—and giddily paced the length of the bedroom.

'Huh?'

'Cambridge! Tonight!'

'Oh. Ohhhh...' said Bud, trying to keep his tone neutral. How could he have forgotten? Ever since that day in the hospital, all summer long, Edward Joseph Towne had talked and worried about nothing else.

Always The Woman.

He'll get over it.

Everything The Woman!

He was obsessed—more than that! He was consumed by the thought of her. Haunted and hounded, and yet—

'Is it Wednesday already?' Bud wondered aloud and immediately wished he'd kept the question to himself. 

Ed stopped his stride and stared at his friend in disbelief. 'Why are you sayin' it like that?!'

'I—'

'Don't say it like that!'

'I didn't say it like—'

'I'm gonna do it, Bud. Don't rush me. I'm gonna do it tonight! I'm ready.'

It had been the same thing every Wednesday since he'd met The Woman. Every Wednesday was the day. For nearly two months, Ed would come storming into Apt. 33 with grand notions of romping off to Cambridge. The only difference on this The Day of Understanding was that Bud found himself pants-less. But—

But Edward Towne had proven himself a coward—

—Edward Towne had never been ready. There had always been some excuse not to go. Having spent many of the weeks so lost in turgid warfare with his Creature, Bud had found it easy enough to sow doubt in his friend's—

I didn't sow nothing. That wasn't my fault. That was Alan, and I'm done with him now!

Look at you shirking responsibility!

I'm not shirking nothing!

Admit it—

Don't engage with traces! He's gone. Don't respond to a memory. Hear the truth. Hear the silence. It's good. It's happy. It's free, as are you—

'Tonight's the night! I'm ready!'

Always the same thing!

Ever since Claire Towne's discharge from the hospital at the end of July—she had not died!—the excuses and many implications of what venturing to Cambridge would entail that Bud—

Alan!

—had used to poison Edward's nerve had grown harder and harder to maintain—

But he'll get over it. I know he'll get over it! Obsessions never last. It's the law of nature. Doubt and fear of embarrassment always wins tout. Today is not the day. I'll make sure of it!