This was his "laugh" laugh – when he wasn't really laughing.
The orgone accumulator is an ordinary box big enough for a man to sit inside on a chair: a layer of wood, a layer of metal, and another layer of wood gather in orgones from the atmosphere and hold them captive long enough for the human body to absorb more than a usual share.
According to Reich, orgones are vibratory atmospheric atoms of the life-principle.
People get cancer because they run out of orgones.
Old Bull thought his orgone accumulator would be improved if the wood he used was as organic as possible, so he tied bushy bayou leaves and twigs to his mystical outhouse.
It stood there in the hot, flat yard, an exfoliate machine clustered and bedecked with maniacal contrivances.
Old Bull slipped off his clothes and went in to sit and moon over his navel.
"Say, Sal, after lunch let's you and me go play the horses over to the bookie joint in Graetna."
He was magnificent.
He took a nap after lunch in his chair, the air gun on his lap and little Ray curled around his neck, sleeping.
It was a pretty sight, father and son, a father who would certainly never bore his son when it came to finding things to do and talk about.
He woke up with a start and stared at me.
It took him a minute to recognize who I was.
"What are you going to the Coast for, Sal?" he asked, and went back to sleep in a moment.
In the afternoon we went to Graetna, just Bull and me.
We drove in his old Chevy.
Dean's Hudson was low and sleek; Bull's Chevy was high and rattly.
It was just like 1910.
The bookie joint was located near the waterfront in a big chromium-leather bar that opened up in the back to a tremendous hall where entries and numbers were posted on the wall.
Louisiana characters lounged around with Racing Forms.
Bull and I had a beer, and casually Bull went over to the slot| machine and threw a half-dollar piece in.
The counters I clicked
"Jackpot" –
"Jackpot" –
"Jackpot" – and the last!
"Jackpot" hung for just a moment and slipped back to
"Cherry."
He had lost a hundred dollars or more just by a hair.
"Damn!" yelled Bull.
"They got these things adjusted.
You could see it right then.
I had the jackpot and the mechanism clicked it back.
Well, what you gonna do."
We examined the Racing Form.
I hadn't played the horses in years and was bemused with all the new names.
There was one horse called Big Pop that sent me into a temporary trance thinking of my father, who used to play the horses with me.
I was just about to mention it to Old Bull when he said,
"Well I think I'll try this Ebony Corsair here."
Then I finally said it.
"Big Pop reminds me of my father."
He mused for just a second, his clear blue eyes fixed on mine hypnotically so that I couldn't tell what he was thinking or where he was.
Then he went over and bet on Ebony Corsair.
Big Pop won and paid fifty to one.
"Damn!" said Bull.
"I should have known better, I've had experience with this before.
Oh, when will we ever learn?"
"What do you mean?"
"Big Pop is what I mean.
You had a vision, boy, a vision.
Only damn fools pay no attention to visions.