Thousand: Four Hundred Twelve

guess he’s sure.” Bernie reaches up, he can’t see anything up there, so he flails a bit, and panics, and finds the next rung, and feels how sweaty his hand’s gotten, he lets go the rung and wipes his hand on his shirt, and thinks he’s probably getting a big smudge of rust on his shirt, and he reaches up again and there’s the rung where he left it, no problem, and he raises a foot and puts it on a higher rung and pushes himself up. “Well, Bernie, here we go. Here we go to hell, all expenses paid,