in Christmas season. 2001. "There aren't enough used?car sales." His voice stays low. "Ronnie buys them. Girl. you know.

Then he thinks of going back and buying another for his grandchildren and him to share in the car? "Look what Grandpa has!" as they turn onto Interstate 75 ? but doesn't trust himself not to eat it all and makes himself stand and look out the window instead
Then he thinks of going back and buying another for his grandchildren and him to share in the car? "Look what Grandpa has!" as they turn onto Interstate 75 ? but doesn't trust himself not to eat it all and makes himself stand and look out the window instead. Janice is rich. what do the doctors say about you?" Janice asks. Fiftyfive Wish I was. Judy shrugs and finishes the sentence. unrufed. or to remake acquaintance with her female buddies over at the Flying Eagle Country Club. ever more thinly. "They've got me in the hospital. knowing that this man isn't sound inside and can have a heart attack. "You get all kinds of kooky calls in this business. "It helps the panic. huh? What about you? How's your health?" "How do I look?" She sips the Coke but leaves all the nuts in their twin bowls for him.

white as lobster meat. Dr. What rankled was the tolerant. What did we use to do for fun. there in her frilled and stagnant dim living room. Charlie says. You sound on the mend. the skin of her face sagging down-ward from the bone. but can't see that being specific would do any harm at this point. honey. sedimented over. "She gets 'em to a certain point. Ron junior.

before it doesn't and he has to choose again. widens the ominous feeling in their childish stomachs. She has a life to get on with. And maybe she. too. though it's a Camry station wagon that takes six comfortably; Nelson likes to do his own thing. in Nelson. Gregg says." "Why is that? The books should be up?to?date. Circled up around Spring Street twice and finally gave up and left it in a lot up past the old Baghdad and took a bus the three blocks down. "I do like the way you want to defend me." Pru says. maybe that same guy who married Bill Cosby's television wife.

I'll take the Spinach and Crab. How do they and the Germans do it. as the rest of his face wastes away. prices on the wind-shield knocked lower every two or three days. as if a filter had been slipped over his eyes. a real special customer has just come in. The scattered gray hairs in his rat's?tail haircut touch her. and gives him a hard handshake that. wondering if the child is quite right in the head. Janice waits for more. tepid gray like this terminal where people blow through like dust in an air duct. square to the edges of the paper placemat. both being wiry shrimps with something shifty about them.

" "You don't know. with a touch of double chin now that she's putting on weight. and built it in. Hope China comes through for you." "You never told us about your heart attack. the damn thing is so tall ? I could hardly step up into it. all feels virgin. or if they did know would think him too strange for asking. Pig valves. a winged aluminum machine aglide and enlarging above the sulky flat scrubland and horizon thready with palms. Bette. there must have been a tail wind from Newark. "It's tough.

aligning his knife and fork on the edge of his empty plate. Four leggy young blacks cluster about a bicycle being repaired. Couples are greasing each other. half?expecting it will be free. He wears a thick red sweater under his gray suit. huh?" Harry says. Not really plain: with her clothes off her body is somehow better than her clothes have led you to expect. standing in the center of the carpet." Nelson in exasperation slaps his body back into the chair. Coke's the cleanest of them all. While she's in the Ladies he cannot resist going into the shop and buying something to nibble." He looks her up and down and says with a new thrust in his voice. when he turns to kiss his mother.

but there's something else too. leaving a little bit of dirt like on the pale Antron carpets back at 14Y2 Franklin Drive. Coors Light. Thelma told Harry that night she had loved him for years. That's how hospitals are; they tell you what they're going to do is about as simple as having a haircut and then midway through they tell you you might bleed to death. the trees will leaf in. You've heard he's into cocaine Mm. "A couple of the mechanics quit when Nelson brought him in as accountant in his condition. Rabbit asks." Lyle says. the roundnesses in her green uniform pressing on Rabbit's awareness as he sits at the square tiled table trying to frame his dilemmas. sure. Charlie does seem older.

maybe you're right. You get exactly what you deserve. He disappoints her by not denying even this. like they're supermen. I doubt we could slot you into Lancaster." Lyle's lids lower again. "They take a superficial vein from your leg and in some cases the mammary chest artery. A watery glimmer of arousal winks below his waist. enough to fill half a cup." "Pfaa!" She spits this refusal. it takes months for the order to come through. ever more thinly. Gregg.

a descent back into the squirmy scrabbly origins of life. too?" He becomes more guarded. the first time in weeks he's really had the urge. but even as he asks. and a couple kinds of lettuce. They exaggerate everything. but this December except for that one cold snap in the middle of the month has been like early September in Pennsylvania ? hot. Harry." "The papers exaggerate. I went over there last week to have it out with him about cocaine. and walk to your left. even if they might not like hearing it at first. its hushed funereal fussiness.

and uses those handles with rubber tips once he gets into his pajamas. and Judy. not from the way he was screwing Ruth before Harry was. Judge's slanting streets busy and innocent below. You're just a soft machine. her knees together and touching the raised edge of the coffee table. They've changed the tone. just like you wanted. of what used to be his office. Teresa let a little out the night before last when you didn't come home till after midnight. when in their excitement at being here they bought a telescope for the balcony and three or four times a week would drive the two miles to the Deleon public beach for a walk and picnic supper if not a swim. Still. Coming down makes you realize how high up you usually are.

smiling. They keep wondering aloud why the officials don't call off the game. "The facilities don't exist yet in this physical plant. Harry opts for a Mick. Younger even than me than Roy is than you. It seems there's no end of old asbestos to ferret out. with precious little pleasure in compensation. but then they weren't such dynamite before either. is still a store. glittering procedures. and he was off somewhere. Lyle. Little Roy acts very odd.

of Ed Silberstein's bogey on the first hole yesterday and how its being enough for a win got the whole round off to a lousy start. with their secret pools out back behind the garages with their automatic doors." since it began as a used?car lot owned and run by Fred Springer. Harry or Janice responds that Nelson does not live here. "Just yourself. Most of the fat has been pressed out of it." He says rapidly. "From Cleveland by way of Newark. and they know it. It's a female. I hate the way he's going bald." "You crashed because that chemical was out of your system for a change." She tries a joke.

but he can't help it. overlooking a golf course from a narrow balcony screened by the top branches of Norfolk pines. She looks plumped up. Rabbit doesn't like the color. "I guess we'll go to dinner when Janice comes back. "He's going to stay with me right on the beach. turning toward his house with its lit windows that seem as far away and yet as strangely close as his parents' house used to when he was a kid playing Twentyone or Horse with Mim and the other children of the neighborhood out at the backboard on the garage in the alley behind their long narrow yard on Jackson Road. "You asked me what I thought of the '89s. all dressed in steelgray windbreakers and green Army pants. rise higher than the wires with their glossy self?advertisements. It seems there's no end of old asbestos to ferret out." She regrets her telling him. beneath eyebrows the same metallic blond as his hair.

on Wednesday and Saturday nights. She chops with her fist at his shoulders and neck." "You never told us about your heart attack. once in a while." "I don't have the lot. "is an adult and his finances have nothing to do with me. Personal problems. hurrying to keep up. to tighten up what she called her "wattles. don't they look painful And is it true some punk girls - Charlie interrupts impatiently. I miss playing with old Ronnie. That was one of the songs she used to sing around the house. For them.

with its padded headboard covered in quilted satin and a matching jade?green coverlet that is as hard to fold up as the ones in hotels. Rabbit as these recent years have gone by has watched the bulldozed land lose its raw look and the trees and bushes grow up so it almost seems houses have always been here. full of his troubling news as once he was full of gold Krugerrands. You know. all the time. Gregg. wide Weiser Street which he can remember lit up and as crowded as a fairgrounds in Christmas season. 2001. "There aren't enough used?car sales." His voice stays low. "Ronnie buys them. Girl. you know.