"She's a piece of shit."

"By chance do you know what happened to the fiberoptic cable?" I asked him.

"I had it in my hand;" he replied.

I found it where he had fallen and knocked over cartons.

"What if he's got AIDS?" He started in on that again.

"If you're determined to worry about something, try gram-negative bacterias. Or gram-positive bacterias. Clostridia. Strep. If you have an open wound, which you don't as best I know."

I attached one end of the cable to the wand, the other to the assembly, tightening thumbscrews. He wasn't listening.

"No way anybody's saying that about me! That I'm a goddamn fairy! I'll eat my gun, don't think I won't."

"You're not going to get AIDS, Marino;" I repeated myself.

I turned on the source lamp again. It would have to run at least four minutes before I could turn on the power.

"I picked a hangnail yesterday and it bled! That's an open wound!"

"You have on gloves, don't you?"

"If I get some bad disease, I'm going to kill that fucking little lazy snitch."

I assumed he meant Anderson.

"Bray's gonna get hers, too. I'll find a way!"

"Marino, be quiet," I said.

"How would you like it if it was you?"

"I can't tell you how many times it's been me. What do you think I do every day?"

"You sure as hell don't slop around in dead juice!"

"Dead juice?" - "We don't know a thing about this guy. What if they got some weird diseases in Belgium that we can't treat here' "Marino, be quiet," I said again.

"No!"

"Marino.. "

"I got a right to be upset!"

"All right then, leave." My patience had walked off. "You're interfering with my concentration. You're interfering with everything. Go take a shower and throw back a few shots of bourbon."

The Luma-Lite was ready and I put on the protective glasses. Marino was quiet.

"I'm not leaving," he finally said.