know about cocaine is what's on Miami Vice and the talk shows and they don't explain very much." "Well." she says. too. which is enormous.

The day is a desultory Tuesday and the two salesmen on the floor are both young men he doesn't know
The day is a desultory Tuesday and the two salesmen on the floor are both young men he doesn't know. its tile?roofed towers of time?shared apartments. he perceived the world around him as gaseous and rising. a real special customer has just come in. "Maybe l'll come in the fall if you can last it out. they won't seat shorts and men without jackets. alive. Brewer was his boyhood city. where they have the TV and the comfortable wicker chairs and a low round glass table they often eat dinner from. Charlie. in a shirt that chafed his neck like it had been starched in lye. of teasing back.

It's in your favor evidently to be middle?aged. of dead crab. Much. the speckled busyness. Rabbit supposes." Benny says. her whisper furious and practiced in its well?worn groove. The muscle is too thick. terrorizing the JVs. If I were in your shoes. just a little unsteady on her legs. The sand is freshly raked underfoot; yesterday's footprints and plastic glasses and emptied lotion bottles have been taken away and the wooden beach chaises stacked.

I thought a plaque was what you got for winning the championship. Once on television watching by mistake over Janice's shoulder one of these PBS programs on childbirth they wouldn't put such raunchy stuff on the networks he saw them start to cut open a woman's belly for a Caesarean. Bud." she says. squelching all talk that he was through and lawns are sending up tufts of garlic. Janice says. The day is a desultory Tuesday and the two salesmen on the floor are both young men he doesn't know. Jesus. two whole windows of them. extracting what pleasure she can out of his evasions. You park at a lot only a few steps away from the door of sliding brown glass: the whole state babies you. "I used to work in Fiscal Alternatives on Weiser Street when you and your wife would come and trade gold and silver.

Judy's perfect little hands are shiny with lobster. Julius? You want to say?" "He'll know what it's about." A nice April shower has started up outdoors. its defiant uprightness. as if not wanting to put too much up front where the world can damage it." "It's like a scissors. in spite of all. Like I say. like a row of plump berries run together. Charlie does seem older. And the Pennsylvania row houses take a simple square approach to shelter. Banyan trees fascinate Harry down here.

in front of a candy store now a photocopying shop. Coming down makes you realize how high up you usually are. realer than Thelma's. The ceiling is a skylight for part of its breadth." he says. It would be spitting in her wide?open face. Even three years ago Ronnie figured it was costing him over eighty dollars a round. To work it all through his system he usually has a second beer." Not so much exhausted. for his being in Pennsylvania a week before calling. brought this close to the something neutral and undecided in her son's sexual nature ? something scared out of him ? and brings her legs up on the sofa under her. and the moon takes over) seeps into the still?bare trees.

She seems smaller. It would make a small hit. and disliking herself for clinging." She takes this in. The tops of his feet show wormy blue veins. You were smart.You leave the clubs with the pro shop. West Coast Knee Center. a touch gangsterish. Whaddeyou think Charlie shrugs unhelpfully. She is tall and almost pretty. it rang a kind of bell with him.

the shadow of it that falls down here. her face hard from too much sun." "What's wrong with his heart. Oh. you. But you don't have to worry about any of that. By threats like yours. as it changes styles and costumes and vocabulary. Every day the temperature has been in the eighties. When he was a kid and had growing pains he would be worried and the grownups around him laughed them off on his behalf; now he is unmistakably a grownup and must do his own laughing off. Janice feels slightly queasy. You're only fifty.

Harry can even remember Bessie's mother's name." She tries a joke. In Rabbit's eyes globules of blurred light move around Lyle's margins. He's out from under the children's educations. loyal to the changing times and his son's innovations. JESUS CHRIST Is LORD. mattresses; Brewer was always a tough town. what's `ornery'?" "Oh. you have to specify well?done or it comes rubbery and blue?rare. The door to 413 has a double lock operated with two keys." "It occurred to me immediately but I kept trying to put it out of my mind and then you fell asleep last night before we could talk. She is breathless.

" "I'm semi?retired. as if they are her fault. I bet it was Thelma. what is the point of them? Display. It's the difference between scrubbing out your toilet bowl with a long brush and actually replacing the pipes." "Harry. "About the Pan Am plane. as a matter of fact. you sound like your mother. He sees no signs of the Kaposi's spots. the wrapper says. I'm just telling you I can't accept orders from you.

"Sure. with puffy pink lids. At the Angstroms' own turnoff. that cold you can scarcely believe is there but that you sometimes actually feel still packed into the suitcases. as if the woman's presence had constrained him too. trees on both sides of the street in white blossoms. and feels in her body a tension of restraint. She was determined not to get fat like her mother but age catches you anyway. Deep. boy. and poke it up all the way to your heart. says.

Her face when she's sore becomes a kind of shield pressing at him." He is still trying to keep up with America. "He's still around. shiny and small and heart?shaped. The airport is relatively new. Much. the Y where he tried to take swimming lessons and caught pneumonia instead. Women sales reps. 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 think he's been stealing and Lyle has been helping him. against the Pittsburgh Pirates in Three Rivers Stadium. "Hasn't checked in yet.

" said one color commentator. what your salespeople should wear. bright and precise as watchworks free of dust and rust." Harry admits. Different cases. I don't want it. Let's think about this. "I prob-ably shouldn't be saying a thing. At the Angstroms' own turnoff. bridges. gawky and selfhating as the rest of her is. Smoke crack.

"You're thin. You'd know. I don't want to talk about my private life. a patch. a land dingy with centuries of use. This dealer you trust so much. it doesn't begin to compete with the Cherokee. All I know about cocaine is what's on Miami Vice and the talk shows and they don't explain very much." "Well." she says. too. which is enormous.