Did you hear what happened to Ol' Morlane? Word got around, I mean, I heard it from Skeets who heard it from Fuller but I checked around with some other people and they all heard the same so it's true I guess. You didn't hear this? I mean, I don't know where you been you didn't hear this. Once Skeets told me I musta heard it nine-ten-twenty times in the past few or four days. You been out somewhere? Somewhere secret? Rustlin' up something good for the rest of us? Don't worry about it. Anyway, before you go in there you gotta hear this on account of it's all anybody's talking about and you go in there not knowing the story people are liable to joke on you. Even more than they already do, I mean. You know. Kidding and all. What? Right, so Morlane, you know Morlane? Skinny kid with the freckles. The shorter one of them not the big dopey one what's his name, O'Brien or something. The small one, Morlane, PFC, skinny kid, from some hick nowheres town middle of Alatucky or West Sucktown Georgia, some farm kid who never seen a city block 'til last Tuesday is being woken up twelve minutes before Reveille every morning by that big fuckin' rooster they got over there that lives by C-Company. Anyway four mornings ago that damn cock blew his head off again, right at the same time, twelve minutes to wake up and here comes Morlane in nothing but what his mother birthed him in and strangled that rooster to death without so much as a how-do-you-do.