“Then shot in the belly.”
“The first time,” he said. “That has only happened once.”
“I tire you talking?” Mr. Frazer suggested.
“No,” he said. “I must tire you.”
“And the leg?”
“I have no great use for the leg. I am all right with the leg or not. I will be able to circulate.”
“I wish you luck, truly, and with all my heart,” Mr. Frazer said.
“Equally,” he said. “And that the pain stops.”
“It will not last, certainly. It is passing. It is of no importance.”
“That it passes quickly.”
“Equally.”
That night the Mexicans played the accordion and other instruments in the ward and it was cheerful and the noise of the inhalations and exhalations of the accordion, and of the bells, the traps, and the drum came down the corridor. In that ward there was a rodeo rider who had come out of the chutes on Midnight on a hot dusty afternoon with the big crowd watching, and now, with a broken back, was going to learn to work in leather and to cane chairs when he got well enough to leave the hospital.
There was a carpenter who had fallen with a scaffolding and broken both ankles and both wrists. He had lit like a cat but without a cat’s resiliency. They could fix him up so that he could work again but it would take a long time.
There was a boy from a farm, about sixteen years old, with a broken leg that had been badly set and was to be rebroken. There was Cayetano Ruiz, a small-town gambler with a paralyzed leg. Down the corridor Mr. Frazer could hear them all laughing and merry with the music made by the Mexicans who had been sent by the police.
The Mexicans were having a good time. They came in, very excited, to see Mr. Frazer and wanted to know if there was anything he wanted them to play, and they came twice more to play at night of their own accord.
The last time they played Mr. Frazer lay in his room with the door open and listened to the noisy, bad music and could not keep from thinking. When they wanted to know what he wished played, he asked for the Cucaracha, which has the sinister lightness and deftness of so many of the tunes men have gone to die to. They played noisily and with emotion. The tune was better than most of such tunes, to Mr. Frazer’s mind, but the effect was all the same.
In spite of this introduction of emotion, Mr. Frazer went on thinking. Usually he avoided thinking all he could, except when he was writing, but now he was thinking about those who were playing and what the little one had said.
Religion is the opium of the people. He believed that, that dyspeptic little joint-keeper. Yes, and music is the opium of the people. Old mount-to-the-head hadn’t thought of that. And now economics is the opium of the people; along with patriotism the opium of the people in Italy and Germany. What about sexual intercourse; was that an opium of the people? Of some of the people. Of some of the best of the people. But drink was a sovereign opium of the people, oh, an excellent opium.
Although some prefer the radio, another opium of the people, a cheap one he had just been using. Along with these went gambling, an opium of the people if there ever was one, one of the oldest. Ambition was another, an opium of the people, along with a belief in any new form of government.
What you wanted was the minimum of government, always less government. Liberty, what we believed in, now the name of a MacFadden publication. We believed in that although they had not found a new name for it yet.
But what was the real one? What was the real, the actual, opium of the people? He knew it very well. It was gone just a little way around the corner in that well-lighted part of his mind that was there after two or more drinks in the evening; that he knew was there (it was not really there of course). What was it? He knew very well. What was it? Of course; bread was the opium of the people. Would he remember that and would it make sense in the daylight? Bread is the opium of the people.
“Listen,” Mr. Frazer said to the nurse when she came. “Get that little thin Mexican in here, will you, please?”
“How do you like it?” the Mexican said at the door.
“Very much.”
“It is a historic tune,” the Mexican said. “It is the tune of the real revolution.”
“Listen,” said Mr. Frazer. “Why should the people be operated on without an anæsthetic?”
“I do not understand.”
“Why are not all the opiums of the people good? What do you want to do with the people?”
“They should be rescued from ignorance.”
“Don’t talk nonsense. Education is an opium of the people. You ought to know that. You’ve had a little.”
“You do not believe in education?”
“No,” said Mr. Frazer. “In knowledge, yes.”
“I do not follow you.”
“Many times I do not follow myself with pleasure.”
“You want to hear the Cucaracha another time?” asked the Mexican worriedly.
“Yes,” said Mr. Frazer. “Play the Cucaracha another time. It’s better than the radio.”
Revolution, Mr. Frazer thought, is no opium. Revolution is a catharsis; an ecstasy which can only be prolonged by tyranny. The opiums are for before and for after. He was thinking well, a little too well.
They would go now in a little while, he thought, and they would take the Cucaracha with them. Then he would have a little spot of the giant killer and play the radio, you could play the radio so that you could hardly hear it.
The End
