or tulip bed. you'll never guess who's back on the scene squiring Janice around while I'm laid up.

Being queer isn't all roses
Being queer isn't all roses. she couldn't have been more than fifteen. the Fifties finned jobbies. at other agencies. to Brewer's northwestern edge and beyond." "Yeah. becomes murky and fluid and useless. A flight of downward stairs is marked To POOL AND BEACH in solemn letters such as you see on post?office facades. Harry says. You're absolutely alive and when you're not you'll be absolutely something else. settling in his rocker opposite the one person who for these last ten years has given him nothing but what he needed. actually. If I'm wrong and it's all on the up and up.

a secondary road heading west to beaches and what mangrove swamps survive and east to the scruffy prairie being skinned in great square tracts for yet more development. He has a flubby sort of mouth that Rabbit associates with the Lubells; neither the Angstroms nor the Springers have bunched?up fat lips like that." His voice goes huskier. He kept trying to make jokes and get us to laugh. and what she got out of them was another mystery) and various colorcoded numbers of sunscreen." "Not so hot. and she is moving him out. a little rounded dark girl in a sweatshirt sits in the lap of a boy already barechested though the spring air is still chilly. Old smoothies already the color of leather are rubbing oil into their bald heads. For a woman it's power." "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." He hears in her chest a curious stillness. Another option is.

do it if you're going to do it. Charlie agrees. like state cops with speeding tickets? "I haven't been that impressed by our dealings with Deleon. It got cold. tell him toward the end of his life." "I would have got him out. The classes meet three hours a week for ten weeks. a closet door to the left and on the right see?through shelves of stained wood Janice has loaded with birds and flowers she made out of shells in a class she took that first year down here. it's not kidding. running up debt. Like go to Portugal. Pru says it's cocaine. It's just dumb luck the house didn't bum down with Nelson in it too.

champ. white in Family Ties. Angstrom. speaks to him of himself." Harry lies. "He probably was tired. this health stuff. remembering these crisp. These women seem visitors from a slimmeddown future where sex is just another exercise and we all live in sealed cubicles and communicate through computers. "So tell me about it." he lies. your tummy say "howdy!" And then she would do a thing with her eyes that would make the whole rest of the family laugh. you don't dream.

on the edge of developments old and new. You could call our lawyer for who he'd recommend." he tells her. It wants it all. as simple as plumbing with plastic pipe. No more rain forests. and the LAD depending on the restenosis. you know. and we're saved. "Maybe l'll come in the fall if you can last it out. I can remember Fred Springer when he first got the Toyota franchise saying he felt like a kid at Christmas all year round. the bank bams put together with pegs and beams and the farmhouses built square to the compass with walls two feet thick. A little Apple that does everything.

" "Goddamn it. why?" "I was thinking what a pain in the ass it is to have only one car down here. The vaulted lobby holds two murals ? at one end. That was one of the songs she used to sing around the house." "Didn't you hate her?" She removes her face from her folded arms and stares up at him with rubbed?looking green eyes. They all greet Harry as if he's going to rescue them from death by boredom. "would you know enough to understand them?" He flicks her nipple with his tongue through the cotton. this immensity of water. you know. She seemed to sense what he was doing. You park it close by I tried and couldn't." "What makes it so special?"Of all the roads Harry has seen in his life." "Physical harm to Nelson?" "Or even to certain of his near and dear.

"Like women are always the stingiest tippers. "Hey." he croons to her. Judy shrugs and finishes the sentence. and unzips his fly. and now she owns a Laundromat as well as the hairdresser's. "Ronnie buys them. painted black with stencilled red designs and a red?and?yellow flat pillow tied in place. of hidden meetings. "I believe it. just to sell papers." "Would you like to leave a message?" A pause. pause.

Her feet are long and bare. and a rug?cleaning business his nephew started up with another boy and they needed backers." "You know why. He reverts: "I don't know what the real story is. Harry had liked Bessie. Everything goes from black and white to color. My dad loved cars and I guess I take after him. which has a bathroom and a storage area where Janice keeps an ironing board she never uses and an exercise bicycle she rides when she thinks she's getting overweight. They are flat and seem very distant from where Harry and Roy stand on the beach wall. Pru looks away. it is she who loops her arm. Nuggets. who looked ancient.

Lyle. a tall grinning woman. and lifesavers are compulsory. Route 41. Roy and Judy don't know what they will see in this visit. is an electronics engineer somewhere south of San Francisco; the middle boy. Rabbit can't believe he's as faithful as Thelma thinks he is. "let's just go to dinner. She's furious because I and my computer can do in a few hours what took her all week.K. Dull. People know more than they let on. as a part?time construction worker.

his voice high and precise." "Hey! You'll never guess where I was raised ? Toledo!" The boats are up on the dry sand in a line. I could ask in the kitchen if you really care." Just the syllable makes him smile. Wal?Mart. no clocks anywhere. bearded Spaniards in armor woodenly exchange obscure gifts with nearly naked Indians. like an overheated thermometer. "The second?worst thing for me. "Harry." Elvira says. rise and fall: the well?worn wheels of nature that in Florida impinge where beach meets sea are in Pennsylvania mufed. But for Harry.

it was like a truck ran over him and then backed up. I'll watch the game and Judy'll watch my heart monitor. they kept from last year's model their crazy idea of two sets of audio controls so you have all these extra buttons when already there's enough for an airplane cockpit." But she keeps moving around the room with her little stacks. and the tallest of the rhododendrons by the palisade fence you see from the kitchen window. "You must know about Nelson. 66th FA Bn. but can't see that being specific would do any harm at this point. She was determined not to get fat like her mother but age catches you anyway. rather than stress his heart with a laugh. and eased back into the right lane and let the speedometer needle quiver back below sixty?five. with a repair?free longevity that's absolutely un-believable. Roy has a rash from leaving his wet bathing suit on after swimming in all that chlorine; isn't there some ointment I could get him?" "You wouldn't be going back to the people you were with in the fish restaurant the night before last? People who can sell you some lines.

" "Yes. Her face has taken wrinkles from the pillow. so whisky?and?cigarette?cracked. in her dress and tan. narrowing his scope of breath. She settles firmly on the fold?out sofa next to the wicker armchair Nelson is in. trying to assimilate the philosophy that gives them such a grip on the world. They keep wondering aloud why the officials don't call off the game. Did you lose?" "How'd you guess?" "You always lose. Terry Bradshaw as a matter of fact. You lie over there and I'll lie here and we'll see who can fall asleep soonest. As she stands in the kitchen waiting for the coffee to heat. 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 want her in on this. "Everybody's tired and cranky. Bud. where he can't understand a fucking word. Enthusiasm about shells doesn't last. lone hawks and buzzards sit. A crowd of welcomers has collected this Tuesday after Christmas in this last year of Ronald Reagan's reign. Easy Drugs. "My son." "How is Ronnie. just a perpetual two o'clock in the morning. she and this guy are about the same age. that Nelson and his family get to live in just for covering the upkeep and taxes.

" he lies. with a Spanish?tile roof and curved grillework at the windows." Nelson in exasperation slaps his body back into the chair. She knocks the glass 'table with her shin. "I used to work in Fiscal Alternatives on Weiser Street when you and your wife would come and trade gold and silver. "Toyota doesn't get many of those. "Gate A5. the hard way. which is ridiculous. her skin mixed of Negro and Indian or Oriental tints and stretched tight over her cheekbones and nosebone; her eyelids have been painted a metallic green and her earlobes covered by ribbed shells of gold. and likes him for it. The worst thing of it. I ought to do something about my heart.

But he wants to talk. it's just you see differently now. Harry has a sudden hankering for pecan pie. I don't know what that jerk was in such a hurry about. he would lie on this bed." Thelma says. you know. "God. and because her body is there puts his arms around her hips. and Nelson's right eye squints. and now the sugar. the spiky retaining walls and sharp slopes crowned by a barberry hedge or tulip bed. you'll never guess who's back on the scene squiring Janice around while I'm laid up.