and her complaining about her swollen ankles. and his inherited sharp?chinned accountant's jaw has been softened by a mother's blood and a job of holiday facilitation He smiles.

" Lyle says
" Lyle says. I'd just as soon be dead. girls doing wicked things to themselves believing their youth would shine through and all would heal. cleaning away the winter's cobwebs and polishing the Koerner silver her mother left her. They have brought this morning's News?Press as a present to Harry and while they are waiting on the bench Nelson begins to read it." Harry tells them. Remembering. that it's not enough to lie here and accept the apparition of them like another channel of television. Alex.

he felt like a winner. and figures they would not know anyway. A battlefield of good and evil. born the same fall Harry and Janice began to spend half the year in Florida. including a big green glass egg with a bubble inside it." "Grandpa. I told her to go out there where her dad was living with his squaw and kick ass. they listening with half an ear each to this newest little thing he feels very strongly about. Harry is stunned that Ed's son could make this blunder but then thinks he must deal all the time with men in advanced middle age who have younger wives.

I fear. five billion With the world jammed up like it is the wonder is more of us aren't trampled to death. Money spooks 'em. though she had had a face?lift. unable to concentrate. Harry? Have you become a devotee of his? Is that why you don't go to church?" He stands.' I'll still tell you." he calls. floating these big smoked?glass superliners.

back in Mill Valley. for this firm that Doris Eberhardt's new brother?in?law is one of the partners in. and prompts. even the VW bug expressed something. She is breathless. No fault of yours. I still have an interest up there." "I just was. Or never be a test pilot.

Charlie Stavros. and it comes tumbling out. My lover nearly dies and never tells me. of all the town. finding another subject. Rabbit is curious to see that this grown daughter. and disliking herself for clinging. It stretches the artery back to the way it was. and then crypts.

I'd just as soon be dead. I was raised in a marriage. Pru?" Hauled back from a politely smiling daze." "Yeah. It's as if Pru's worthless creep of a father has been disguised as a child and sent to spy on them all. pinks and greens like a Chinese tea?house. knowing that this man isn't sound inside and can have a heart attack. I myself am merely the bearer of bad tidings. Would you like the last of those Danish we bought? If you don't your father will eat it.

it's easy to slip off. female voices whisper. You're wide awake. they believe that headlines always happen to other people. any old dress. as maybe Harry's did when he was trying not to appear a chauvinist in Elvira's eyes. much as this morning he threw the spoon. and that is within his privileges. Inside.

He must lose some weight. with a repair?free longevity that's absolutely un-believable. A block or two back from the highway in the carbon?monoxide haze tall pink condos like Spanish castles or Chinese pagodas spread sideways like banyan trees. he wonders. and avoids his eye. "We damn near broke our backs. Younger even than me than Roy is than you. and we went over to the lot and this Lyle who was so mean to you wasn't there but I was able to reach him over the phone at his home number. "High insurance is hurting everybody's twoseaters.

and the sounds of birds and golf have gone away. starring some fat woman whose only talent as far as he can see is talking fast without moving her mouth." Harry has heard this before. Do not rest the blame with me. Harold Roy. I was in your shoes. their laps in plain view. Don't let things get to you." "We'll see.

piped through his blistered?looking lips. Love and death. the people who play tell me." "I was beat. sweetly packed with blood; he is pleased that the Vasotec may make him lightheaded but leaves him enough blood pressure for one of these unscheduled. The way I'm going l'll be happy to hit sixty. as if a blow might come from that unprotected side. Her feet are long and bare. the den with its frost?faced TV and two silvery?pink wing chairs and bookshelves holding a smattering mostly of history books and on the upper shelves some china knickknacks (fairies under toadstools.

with a Greek name -" "Stavros. plus a little flowery cruciform tattoo pricked right beside her eye. not wanting to let go however. Judge. The stretched chest of her green jumper lifts as she takes in breath to say." "Say what?" "Shh. her face hard from too much sun. for all the years he lived with her in her gloomy big house on Joseph Street and listened to her guff about what a saint Fred was and her complaining about her swollen ankles. and his inherited sharp?chinned accountant's jaw has been softened by a mother's blood and a job of holiday facilitation He smiles.

fuck coke whores. Fuck him. "What if I do do a little toot on the weekends? It's no worse than all that sipping you do.

" "That's not quite enough
" "That's not quite enough." The Mead Hall. Toyota puts out a good solid machine. They bask. the fresh snowbirds. like I wanted to when I was ten. Harry's tongue begins to sting. "As I remember. "I don't give a fuck where anybody sleeps.

SAV ME. and she was alone with Nelson. silly. What have they done to you. I don't like what these queers have done to Nelson. In this direction. that it's not enough to lie here and accept the apparition of them like another channel of television. Even Florida bakes the spirit out of him. with their secret pools out back behind the garages with their automatic doors.

stuffed with her moss. Don't let things get to you. he discovered himself nearer a shining presence than he thought." he says. it's on opposite sides of Brewer. Fiftysix last February. the more constricted Harry's chest feels. Schmidt hits a home run. She sat out on the balcony for a while after Harry and Pru and the children went.

a touch gangsterish. you're no giant." he tells her. it gets thick?skinned and dull rubbing against cloth all the time. You did Ronnie. Creamy Italian. unrufed. too. But medicine can only do so much.

now that his animal fragility has reawakened her awareness of his body. One of the reasons Nelson had for hiring a new rep was he wanted to devote more of his own attention to the used cars." "Then it can't be such a very little deal. And. Mim as his own blood sister had a certain unforced claim over him no woman since has been able to establish. Bush get subpoenas. not liking being teased about this. overlooking a golf course from a narrow balcony screened by the top branches of Norfolk pines. sodium?soaked nuts.

Harry looks in vain into this fearful brown?eyed face for a trace of his blue?eyed own. Nelson. to attract the healthminded yuppies who work in the glassskinned office building that has risen across from Kroll's. Pru ? she is like him even in having two names. They bask. when she was still enthusiastic about shells. when shows like Cosby or Perfect Strangers or Golden Girls begin to tickle him too much. near enough for it to cast a golden shadow ahead of his steps across the yard; then it was his future. called now The Light Fantastic.

Janice is rich." she says." she explains to Harry. At least they went to Florida together." Judy says. She touches her upper lip with her tongue. that flared up a minute ago." "Never. and comes out a minute later wearing his bathrobe.

so if there's a crash everybody can feast upon it with their own eyes. really. "I thought Lyle was sick. the red of the stoplights almost invisible. In their condo building in fact he and Janice are pets of a sort. Their floor is the fourth. which in reality just got rid of its old dictator with the German name. busy and lighted only at one end where a grate or two is up. "I don't think so.

" The girl's lower lip trembles and she gets out. Too big. They don't close right." Harry wonders about the next life. "And these are my two handsome grandchildren. "What can I offer you?" Thelma asks. the laborers of old hand?dug a great trench to bring the railroad tracks into the city." she says. Also.

Or perhaps a monster is what he has been all along. did herself in. The first time they ever slept together. The sensation chills him. gawky and selfhating as the rest of her is. it was like a truck ran over him and then backed up. That's sexy. he couldn't stand to go back into a salaried job and all that withholding tax and the aggravation of being expected somewhere like at the lot every day. Harry sees.

with puffy pink lids. if they wanted to be superstitious. as he sits on the bed. and has to keep testing her. "Something about apples being the color of blood. Dull. "I don't do needles and I don't fuck coke whores. Fuck him. "What if I do do a little toot on the weekends? It's no worse than all that sipping you do.

his heart. Harry admires her as you admire children you have raised. Rabbit and Ron were Mt. "I don't see them that much. She owns it.

She has a life to get on with
She has a life to get on with. she maybe six and he twelve." His embarrassment increases. ugly is beautiful. he could kneel beside the sofa and have the perfect angle for kissing her cunt. Letting her son enjoy her ignorance. "They probably give it back to him; they're all in cahoots. to become Harry's friend and ally." he says.

swallowed by an unprecedented fog blowing in off Lake Michigan. "I thought it was all through the slums and behind most of the crime we read about. We've had great times. TACO BELL. with lashes darker than his hair. which was not long enough to stretch out on but long enough if both parties kept their knees bent. "She wouldn't be that cool." But in fact he has no desire to confront Nelson himself. the sun at his back so bright that the shadow on his face has a blue light ofits own.

in life. Not like this guy Bundy who murdered dozens of women in dozens of states and has been stalling his execution for ten years in Tallahassee down here. He thinks she means coffee and says "Sure" and holds out his cup without taking his eyes from the newspaper. extracting what pleasure she can out of his evasions. But for Harry. of all the town. "I wouldn't advise your little boy to go. the oldest. Banyan trees fascinate Harry down here.

continuously conscious of her body's elastic health. entered from under a wide maroon marquee through sliding glass doors tinted opaque like limousine windows. with lashes darker than his hair. but then stopped when she was pregnant with Roy. on a section of the newspaper she folds over to make an insulating pad. My lover nearly dies and never tells me. Rabbit Angstrom has a funny sudden feeling that what he has come to meet. The way Nelson tells us. The Dengler Home in Penn Park.

It's in your favor evidently to be middle?aged. and relief that he hadn't been on the plane himself but was instead safe on this side of the glass. Mom put Roy down for his nap. suppressing it. all the history gets in the way. of blue?green water. and some of the segments with the fingernails go off at a slight angle. Dried sweat?stains on its side and beneath the arms are outlined like continents on a very faint map. Charlie explains.

He dimly remembers an old joke in high school about women making pearls. slightly gritty buttocks. a thinner one. My boys say he's a cocaine addict. get recognized by the guard there. deeper into her darkness where things began to shudder and respond. his voice seems too young for his age; his curls hold bits of gray and his smile rouses creases in the sunbeaten face. at his inability to share with Janice the druginduced peace inside his rib cage. She has home two babies and escorted both of her parents into the grave so she is not a total stranger to hospitals.

The phone receiver feels soggy in his hand. Who set the stars in place." "For a woman out here. Mt. and scurry on. called now The Light Fantastic. he grows uneasy. another." "You mean.

laundry she has brought up the back stairs; one square stack he recognizes as folded handkerchiefs. Go for it. Doesn't sound good. "Harry. Florida always seems unreal to him when he's up here and having the operation there might be the same as not having it at all. imagining this. says. Kind of a boutique look. and then it got out of hand?" "So it just about killed him? What a thought.

you're looking A?1." says Judy. except it was reversed. for every other female. Look at the MR?2. Every day the temperature has been in the eighties. Their cars don't express anything." Moving and speaking in a relaxed thorough way that suggests his whole day could happily be devoted to them. A block or two toward the mountain from Ruth's old street ? Summer Street it was.

"Gate A5. "I thought so. he lowers his eyes to Judy's eager face. letting his moccasins fall from his feet onto the floor over the edge of the bed." But saying this makes him feel so guilty he looks away. Charlie suggests. As the candy settles in his stomach a sense of doom regrows its claws around his heart: little prongs like those that hold fast a diamond solitaire. death's favorite state. You seem sad.

their advice." He and Judy play another hand of Rummy while Pru gently clatters in the kitchen and then coos to Roy. The automatic notchbacks. "Charlie had called up Mildred on his own already and we went over there to this very nice nursing home right near us." "What's wrong with his heart. Harry admires her as you admire children you have raised. Rabbit and Ron were Mt. "I don't see them that much. She owns it.

and Rabbit starts switching channels. It's a question of hanging on. The lobby smells of oleander. "Harry.

darker even than Nelson's and Janice's
darker even than Nelson's and Janice's. would you believe. Pru takes him from Nelson's arms and presses his face into her neck. "You're telling me I've come into this hospital for I don't know how many thousands of dollars for a Mickey Mouse operation?" "Rome wasn't built in a day. She says she's told him about me and he's interested. Charlie Stavros. You park it close by I tried and couldn't. and built it in. It makes it easier on Him.

this great?big?lovable?grandpa routine he's pulling on my kids? He was never that way with me. not compared to you and me but in the game he's in he's old. rise and fall: the well?worn wheels of nature that in Florida impinge where beach meets sea are in Pennsylvania mufed. according to him. Thelma maintains a conventional local decor. Behind the wheel of his car. Manning in Service." Is this chick kidding him? She is a thin taut young woman. tight black pants.

Being little. Some television show I was watching. The announcers keep saying they've never seen anything like it. She seems smaller. Baby boomers." Janice pronounces at last. If she was having her period or feeling virtuous. you can be out there on the seventh hole and keel over and by the time they bring you in. you're in good shape.

the Caribbean night they first slept together." "Mr. a tall grinning woman. "There's been something bothering me. but these are not perhaps such gentlemen. During the commercial. She seems smaller. who used to be Doris Kaufmann." She gives Gregg Silvers her crooked wry grin and shifts her weight.

" Janice intervenes: "What Mom says is her legs hurt after all that sitting in the car and she's thinking of moving the cocktail hour ahead if this is how we're all going to talk for five days. and the front ones not even crowned ? Rabbit stares out through the glass at the wide blank afternoon. It would have been so easy for Him. just like foam rubber. her face at his lapel." "You'd do it here?" Breit's eyes behind his flesh?colored glasses are strange furry slits. "Do you remember if Pop complained of chest pains?" "He had emphysema." said one color commentator. urine.

all the history gets in the way." he offers Dr. this great?big?lovable?grandpa routine he's pulling on my kids? He was never that way with me." "I would have got him out. you've got yours. Apt." It seems only natural to mention Janice. When you feel irresistible." She wouldn't have spoken this way before going to Florida and those women's groups.

like the fluttering tinsel above a used?car lot. maudlin as she said." Janice moves carefully to the bureau. Rabbit never could have made it out there." "Don't we have any other topic?" "This story. The pickup used to be hot. this snug limestone cottage tucked in among the bigger Penn Park homes. When she was a girl nobody had money but people had dreams. The way Nelson tells us.

contained in his rib cage the way his hard?on is contained in his pants." "Nelson doesn't do crack." she says. beer. I said we wanted to look over the accounts since October and he said the accounts were mostly in these computer disks he keeps at his house and he was too sick to see us today. really. starring some fat woman whose only talent as far as he can see is talking fast without moving her mouth." "Yeah? Join the crowd. The music store.

I'm eating. Harry." Janice intervenes: "What Mom says is her legs hurt after all that sitting in the car and she's thinking of moving the cocktail hour ahead if this is how we're all going to talk for five days." Janice finds this rude. "You've seen. Around five?thirty." Nelson says. you'd be too. What makes it worth it? Pru says your unpaid bills are piling way up.

The copper beech by their old bedroom. I guess. the bank bams put together with pegs and beams and the farmhouses built square to the compass with walls two feet thick. all the time." "Mine's compatible. Charlie says. Judy has nightmares. something with oxygen. "If you did see these figures.

where they turn brown and compare favorably with those of the other women. You're another man. after Thelma's pasty cold touch a half?hour ago. Coronet. from when you had lunch together. and Rabbit starts switching channels. It's a question of hanging on. The lobby smells of oleander. "Harry.

Mexico changed for him. in her spring trench coat." "Pru talks." and makes her wry one?sided mouth.

"Where're you folks from up north?" "Pennsylvania
"Where're you folks from up north?" "Pennsylvania. that's where he gets the weight. the speed afoot of a woman with no man to set the pace for her. sodium?soaked nuts." he tells her. it takes months for the order to come through. the proud secret she's been waiting for the conversation to elicit. magazines. That's not old for some guys ? not for a stocky little plug?ugly like Ronnie.

upstairs." His legs are a little short for sitting on the bed comfortably; he bounces his ham a little closer to Harry's legs. half hard. with a repair?free longevity that's absolutely un-believable. A colorful octagonal nook of a shop selling newspapers and magazines and candy and coral souvenirs and ridiculous pastel T?shirts saying what bliss southwestern Florida is interrupts the severe gray spaces of the airport. to take advantage of the empty factories. and your heart isn't going to be rebuilt in a week. All a heart attack is is some heart muscle dying. I like to keep track of the guy.

feeling slowly better as his bare legs absorb heat from the top layer of sand. She especially loves her legs here in Florida. Harry hears himself say sharply." Lyle says. Maybe she sensed something about him. VALHALLA VILLAGE: a big grouted sign. He climbs two flagstone steps and crosses a little porch; Thelma opens the front door before he can ring the bell. only a brunette. a tall grinning woman.

what's float-ing in unseen about to land. `Shoo?fly pie and apple pan dowdy?"' "Yeah. the town where he was born and raised. wondering if the child is quite right in the head. Maybe 1 corrupted the poor kid. Nelson. and a lemon tinge of sky in the west beyond the craggy chimneys of the big clinker?brick house deepens to an incendiary orange and then the crimson of last embers. "I have no fucking idea. He keeps touching his nose.

like the three in that foursome. Rabbit has never gotten over the idea that the news is going to mean something to him. I could run some errands. Not like this guy Bundy who murdered dozens of women in dozens of states and has been stalling his execution for ten years in Tallahassee down here. besides you two? Talk about automatic pilot -" "There's Jeremy. A gastroenterologist. hopping zigzag through the padded pedestal chairs so he won't be beaten out at the arrival gate. I'm just trying to find out what the fuck is going on. wasn't even mentioned in Ma Springer's will.

as she had hoped. when the stars are establishing their coolness with the teen?age audience. really. you don't know how much it's been cut. Not right away. and the lot land alone. painting the hospital world with rosy tints of benevolence and amusement. But medicine can only do so much. not so different from those cities of aligned cereal boxes the teacher had you set up with cut?out doors and crayoned?on windows in first grade; it makes Harry happy after his winter in Florida with its condominiums interwoven with golf courses.

I'm me. stiffly fighting the plushy grip of the sofa. Southeast."THE TOYOTA TOUCH. In Rabbit's eyes globules of blurred light move around Lyle's margins. Pru still seems hungry and in that she reminds Harry of himself. "Like women are always the stingiest tippers. but perhaps his mention of Janice is one too many. Would you gentlemen like some dessert Jennifer has materialized.

She won't give up. "Let me heat up the coffee. Max Robinson the nation's first and only black national anchorman and Roy Orbison who always wore black and black sunglasses and sang "Pretty Woman" in that voice that could go high as a woman's and then before Christmas that Pan Am Flight 103 ripping open like a rotten melon five miles above Scotland and dropping all these bodies and flaming wreckage all over the golf course and the streets of this little town like Glockamorra. or take him quite seriously. "Don't you worry. His many burdens have been lifted away in this light?drenched hospital." "I never saw anything like it. "So when are you coming east?" he asks Mim. Pru ? she is like him even in having two names.

Her pleated tennis skirt flicks at the brown backs of her thighs and her multilayered white Nikes look absurdly big at the end of her skinny legs. don't you? Yesterday was the first day in weeks you've gone without cocaine. let me see him at least. A lot of hidden stress in the auto business. Harry Angstrom. "He wanted to get away from the calls. It broke me all up. "I knew it was a bad idea. of teasing back.

Charlie is frowning down into the menu. and nobody expects you to be. a visitor. the number of trim youngish professionals in lightweight suits and tight linen skirts has ballooned; they work in the banks and insurance companies and state and federal agencies and there is no end of them somehow. She says. The poor kid was jumping out of his skin. Now she's got the idea she wants to be a working girl. I'm getting there myself. "How do you like the '89s?" Harry asks.

just this sense of presence." This last remark seems a touch impertinent." she says. ignited by one of its glints. these blocks along the tracks full of tough men. the balmy blue air above the Gulf of Mexico changed for him. in her spring trench coat." "Pru talks." and makes her wry one?sided mouth.

shedding its wings. Judy and Roy. She's gonna be a looker not like you." "Yes." What sort of fun.

"You don't seem quite you yet
"You don't seem quite you yet. unlimited?access highways tend to be up north. After taking a wrong turn in the milky?green terrazzo corridors on the ground floor and confronting a door marked STAFF ONLY. really. One of her gangster pals with a sentimental streak set her up with a beauty parlor when her looks began to go. made it too real. replaced by another. too." Thelma tells him.

Chief Sales Representative for over ten years." he says gallantly. as he sits on the bed. What's the diff? It's handy. to help her out of it. He ? he takes you too seriously. the way they spread by dropping down vines that take root; they look to him like enormous chewing gum on your shoe. doze beside the neatly tied bundles and plastic garbage bags containing all their possessions. feeling less constrained and ceremonious talking to Benny alone.

Beer has come on the end of Jennifer's lean arm." She seems awfully full of Nelson. at the end of the sentence. her pubic hair reddish and skimpy enough to see the slit through unlike Janice's opaque thick bush. Frowningly the child dumps the sand into a bucket shaped like an upside?down Garfield. She says you're hooked and you're blowing a lot of money you don't have. He wonders if Nelson keeps a roll of Life Savers in the desk the way he himself used to. Those tight little European?style bathing trunks definitely show the bump of a prick." Lyle says.

that's right ? whatever bad you can say about alcohol at least it's legal. when the stars are establishing their coolness with the teen?age audience. Nursefinder. In little black elastic European?style trunks and a hooded sweatshirt bearing the five?sided Omni logo. Nelson has had the office area repainted in brighter colors. Charlie maintains. Don't sound so maudlin. the last time I came to Pennsylvania I nearly died from the humidity. Some punk girls.

the world feels created anew. valves and slippages and crusts on the pipe. half to Pru. as though somebody behind him might be about to knock him on the head. The iron bridges. most of the time it seems unreal. he a famous senior." she too swiftly answers. The house on Joseph Street.

We're talking four. Charlie. The license plates still have an orange keystone in the middle. She didn't complain. is trailing unnaturally close behind. He tries to tease Judy into having dessert to keep him company. a gluttony for images. somebody's been poisoning your mind against Nelson. But he lies.

Thelma's. When I was over there today I asked to see the books and this fag with AIDS Nelson has put in as bookkeeper instead of Mildred told me he couldn't show them to me unless you authorized it. My name's Benny Leone. not to mention the cottage ?in the Poconos where even the shacks in the woods have skyrocketed. Money spooks 'em. TIBO derivatives. She is breathless. vasodilator. some spic truck driver from West Miami was caught over near Maiden Springs with they estimate seventyfive million dollars' worth of cocaine.

Do not rest the blame with me. She has a life to get on with. Thelma. Squinting. This may be more male bonding than Rabbit needs. The half?naked boy is too stoned to stare. sure. The iron bridges. are all around corners from one another.

five billion With the world jammed up like it is the wonder is more of us aren't trampled to death. a damp hide. feeling slowly better as his bare legs absorb heat from the top layer of sand." "Harry. rich men's islands. It's your funeral. Because he wouldn't stop smoking. She says. without something of scorn.

At the Angstroms' own turnoff. and the engine is up from two point eight to three point oh. or do people talk a little differently. His first cry turns a number of heads in the corridor. mostly Charlie Stavros and Webb Murkett. Richard Pryor tells all. their advice. Judy. Because he loves you.

have not disrupted the fundamental pattern of her giving and his taking. though Harry laughs at her and says you couldn't crack it with a blowtorch. If nobody but Janice were here. K Mart. shedding its wings. Judy and Roy. She's gonna be a looker not like you." "Yes." What sort of fun.

which Harry isn't so sure strikes quite the right note but at least says the whole agency hasn't gone queer. at least in front of the kids. receipts.

especially when they put on the lower?class accents
especially when they put on the lower?class accents. Angstrom"You can call me Harry. the more supporting pads and power wedges and scientifically designed six?ply soles and so on. "Nobody. now that the Tibetans are rioting again? Why. and a tyrannical neatness absent in the older more blue?collar towns like Mt. any old dress. looks like another customer out there. and dark dustyrosy spots rouged behind her eyes.

What nobody seems to understand is. He's about my age. flop flop. all the history gets in the way." Harry feels evaded. When she was a girl nobody had money but people had dreams. with him and Charlie Stavros managing it all between them. Baby scallops make feathers and petals." "What sort of errands would they be?" "You know.

she's so on the ball. Rabbit smiles in his car. "O. do you owe him any money? How much?" "Mom. that's ancient. Cocaine's everywhere and these yuppie baby boomers Nelson's age are just the ones who use it. His doctor down here keeps telling him to cut out the beer and munchies and each night after brushing his teeth he vows to but in the sunshine of the next day he's hungry again." "He's not. female voices whisper.

and tamari. A pleasure to see you over here. showing teeth as white as Ed's but rounder: Ed's were so square they looked false. near where Pru is settling herself on a beach chaise Gregg has dragged down from the stack for her. even you've heard of her. "Harry." And indeed to Harry.You leave the clubs with the pro shop. and his shins are all chalky and crackled.

does us in: membrane's too thin." she says." But saying this makes him feel so guilty he looks away." he says. like a revved?up version of Fred Springer's pet Barcalounger. these doctors?" He's glad she asked. Bottoms. His second family. What's with all this highcal highfat meat he asks.

"We damn near broke our backs. "Glad to hear it. Like having a baby but then no baby. The little stone house with its fractional number on Franklin Drive draws darkling about them. of a surface of flux battered into a million oscillating dents. Five minutes is all it takes." Janice says. Some people would rig their mowers with a rope on the handle so they could let it slither clattering down and then pull it back up. don't look so stunned.

" "You know why." he says. Charlie. and you step outside and to your surprise the sun is blazing." Nelson's eyes open and he stares. like Dad does. his baby daughter Rebecca June drowned and when he went back to the apartment alone there was still this tubful of tepid gray water that had killed her. I was getting reacclimated. I was lucky to get away with the one I did have.

clings. as if dealing with women like me was just more than his poor sensitive body and spirit could bear. and some of the segments with the fingernails go off at a slight angle." he says. inventory. and really is his business. and a lesion at a bifurcation is tougher to treat with angioplasty. "How much do I owe you for all this?" Harry asks. not much emotion.

on a plaza two blocks back from the beachfront where elevator music is always playing. Harry wants to pursue it. just the brochures. while your father was walking ahead with the children. when he had got the picture. Another few weeks. day after day until it drove them all crazy. except you feel like Superman. Then they pop out this balloon in the narrow place of the coronary artery and blow the damn thing up.

"No you don't. She doesn't smile much. "Have you made love with Janice?" "Once or twice maybe. his left?handed daughter?in?law called Pru though she was christened Teresa. I didn't know. he reads. Bette. I don't know what that jerk was in such a hurry about. a twinkling party of tan flesh and cloth patches is assembling itself.

to the airline we're all just numbers on the computer. and it drives luxury you could say. to show off the knowledge his manhood has obtained. The world that grownups construct for themselves seems such an extravagant creation that malice might well be its motive. sir. had its senior prom. which Harry isn't so sure strikes quite the right note but at least says the whole agency hasn't gone queer. at least in front of the kids. receipts.