the last book I ever read (Angel Down: A Novel by Daniel Kraus, excerpt seven)

from Angel Down: A Novel by Daniel Kraus:

and Veck licks cracked lips and says, “She’s granting wishes,” and Bagger flips the bird, thinking of those porterhouse steaks she didn’t deliver, but Veck says, “You’re telling me you didn’t wish to be saved when that minnie dropped, you and the boy?,” to which Bagger only stares because he can’t remember, and Veck says, “And Goodspeed. She took care of Goodspeed, right? You saying none of us didn’t wish Goodspeed gone?,” and Bagger keeps staring, for as little as he cares about unity, it still feels dicey to admit you wished a fellow soldier dead,

the last book I ever read (Angel Down: A Novel by Daniel Kraus, excerpt six)

from Angel Down: A Novel by Daniel Kraus:

and the dream is punctured by Popkin, “What are we supposed to do with her?,” Bagger’s back to the distasteful present, where he’s unable to cloak his hatred for Popkin, forget French, conflict’s the only language the lummox ever mastered, but Popkin answers his own question, “Reis said take care of her,” and the rain goes twice as cold as Bagger feels the need for a long, heavy axe to plant in the bastard’s face, he could warm his palms in the hot, spurting blood,

and before he can find an axe-like object, Veck drops to his knees, the P3 slugging noisily on his back, a pose of prayer, and whispers, “You all know what this is,” audible despite the shrill of German arms, and Bagger feels that he does know, yet still wants to be told, and Veck grimaces, pained by their ignorance, and says, “Hasn’t any of you heard of the Angel of Mons?,”

the last book I ever read (Angel Down: A Novel by Daniel Kraus, excerpt five)

from Angel Down: A Novel by Daniel Kraus:

and it’s a household he didn’t need anymore, after the Lusitania came the best part of Private Bagger Goes to War, all obligations to his father released, allowing him to barnstorm the Mississippi with impunity, imbibing wine, check, women, check, and song, check, and once President Wilson, reelected on the slogan of He Kept Us Out of the War, declared war, Bagger made paper airplanes of the loyalty leaflets that littered the streets, and enjoyed many a hearty guffaw at the suckers who rushed to enlist,

the last book I ever read (Angel Down: A Novel by Daniel Kraus, excerpt four)

from Angel Down: A Novel by Daniel Kraus:

and her eyes are brown, no surprise, because he knows her, and while he’s transfixed, the whole pile of wire rollicks, it’s Arno blundering into the thorny mesh, wire cutters abandoned, and the kid grabs the woman’s ankles, the light from her skin so intense it functions like Röntgen’s X-ray machine, Arno’s hand flesh bright pink, each finger bone defined,

and the kid’s weeping, which makes Bagger realize his eyes are leaking, too, and it’s not like getting gassed or getting soot in his eyes, it’s like the tears of the devout he used to see at his father’s church, moved by some vision incomprehensible yet gorgeous,

the last book I ever read (Angel Down: A Novel by Daniel Kraus, excerpt three)

from Angel Down: A Novel by Daniel Kraus:

and Popkin, fully roused from Bagger’s spell, points a finger at him and says, “No straws. Not with him. He cheats,” and Bagger laughs, “How do you cheat at straws?,” even though he knows exactly how to cheat at straws, but Veck interjects, “Something you can’t fake. Flip a coin,” and Bagger’s gut tightens, rigging coin flips takes goddamn time, so he bluffs, “No one’s got any coins,” and it’s Arno who fucks him over again, gesturing at Goodspeed and saying, “He does,”

the last book I ever read (Angel Down: A Novel by Daniel Kraus, excerpt two)

from Angel Down: A Novel by Daniel Kraus:

and you get one guess which soldier Arno chose to confess his shame of illiteracy, fuck the luck, and before long the kid was begging Bagger to read him The Prisoner of Zenda, and though Bagger initially told the kid to scram, war is a slog even when you’re not warring, and at last came the day Bagger was too pooped to resist the kid’s begging and ripped the book from Arno’s hand and began reading aloud with plans to insert passages of sickening violence and shocking pornography, only to find himself engaged by the plot,

and it’s bar none the biggest mistake Bagger’s made in the Army, and worse still, he keeps making it, King Solomon’s Mines, The Count of Monte Cristo, Treasure Island, and now The Son of Tarzan, a tale in which, so far anyway, Tarzan barely appears, the stage ceded to the ape-man’s civilized son, who follows his daddy’s footsteps to become Korak the Killer, an idiotic coincidence, but diverting enough as Bagger, of course, inserts explicit content, Tarzan revised to be a randy sodomite and Lady Greystoke a nudist cannibal, to which Arno only nods along, suggesting there’s no atrocity Bagger can concoct the Great War hasn’t reduced to believability,

the last book I ever read (Angel Down: A Novel by Daniel Kraus, excerpt one)

from Angel Down: A Novel by Daniel Kraus:

and what impresses him about Lewis Arno, from a con man’s perspective, is that the kid’s not easily bluffed, Arno points at him and says, “You got face on your face,” a statement that, at any other time and place would be gibberish, but there’s only one interpretation here, a real unfortunate one, and Bagger gingerly touches his own face, cracking the blood glaze into fragile plates, and Arno grimaces, and Bagger traces the grimace to his own right jaw, where something dangles, slight and flexible like a human ear,

and Bagger peels it off his face and holds it before him, and that’s exactly what it is, a human ear, clotted with clay and matted with a tuft of blond hair,