He pushes his chair away from the table, takes his cigarettes and goes out to the patio with a can of beer. "God Almighty, I got me a woman with expensive tastes." Later, I put the dentures in my coat pocket and drove them down in a rental car and gave them to somebody at the funeral home. Fred. She moved the hair away from Sarah's face. "How the hell was I to know anything like that would happen?" "Downtown someplace," she says. It was only late at night, on the nights he was not with Carol, that he wished for an end to the love he still had for Eileen and felt tormented as to why all of this had happened. I just have to take up the gravy. "You can pay me off like five dollars a week." They might have thought something like that. His tongue rested on his lower lip, and he began working his foot into the dirt. Tell me." Hey, I'm sorry they've done this to you. Did you ever think of that, Olla?" It was resting in a shadow under a limb that hung over the water. A couple of days ago, when I couldn't sit still, I raked our yard-- Vicky's and mine. The fish changed Dummy's whole personality. "I'm sorry, brother. She opened the bathroom door. And I'm not. But if I told you otherwise I'd be lying to you, right?" She was a woman years younger and said to go around with Mexicans. Then I heard the receiver being replaced. I could see her moving behind the lighted windows, and something came to me then. I'm serious. Roger sobbed once, and Hamilton put his arm around the boy's shoulders. "A while back." "Just a minute, you two," mrs Webster said as she got to her feet. "Honey," I said. What do you care? Right this minute they were drawing pictures of the swing sets and swimming pool at the motel I'd stayed in when I'd visited a year ago. When she stopped talking, he didn't ask her what it was she'd said. "Cathedrals," the blind man said. She could hear faintly a radio playing inside and something creak--an oven door as it was pulled down? I'll see you, Carl, he said. All he had to do was fill his lungs with air, close his mouth, and clamp down on his nose. She penciled them on a piece of notebook paper. She looks at me and waits to be reassured. The next thing, there's a letter from the management people. Who I am afraid of is him. I feel better than I have all summer." There was an ice bucket on the table. Please, Claire. She said if this weather didn't improve she was going to kill herself. It was run by a spade named Khaki. "Let's get him this time," the boy said, a terrible look of cold in his face. Get up now. She took her glass from Bud and said, "Thanks." I got up from the table and went to Dean's room. Reading those letters of hers, the hair on the back of my neck would tingle. I was out of breath. I wish you wouldn't pursue this." There was a slender red vase into which somebody had stuck a few garden daisies. "How was your day today?" It pushed its beak in under the baby's pajama top and shook its stiff head back and forth. Maybe we'll just go eat. Tomorrow somebody they owe might slap a lien on the car. He went through another riffle, his big tail sticking out of the water. He heard a car pass on the street outside the house and, at the back of the house, down below his kitchen window, the clear snick-snick of pruning shears. "You little fellas had a car now, I might catch a ride with you." They say he was just standing and watching. Is that fair?" You bastard," she said. Dr Francis was shaken. The next day he was gone for most of the afternoon on an interview. Where do they go, these bits and pieces of ourselves? "How was Germany?" Helen said. "Hey, I want to carry him," the kid said. Somebody has to get up and start the coffee and put a can of frozen juice in the blender. Hamilton had loved his father and could recall many things about him. The man came down the sidewalk with a sack from the market. Hamilton watched them go. I'm glad you're leaving! But I know it's where I ought to be, and I'm there on my knees holding on to the hem of her dress. She was gone for a time. I can't say something without thinking about what I'm saying, about consequences, about what she's going to feel when I say it-­ whatever it is I say. In the purse was Edgar's monthly check from home that had come the day before and a hundred and twenty dollars cash that I was going to deposit along with the check. I took a flight out there to make the arrangements. I started cutting down into him. He put his heavy arms around me and rubbed his hands up and down my back, the same hands he'd left with two days before, I thought. Then the baker sat down at the table with them. "No more now, honey. She thought she might even have danced with him. But let me say this. The man inclined his head at Hamilton but did not offer his hand. I took out the knife. He opened the door for her and then went around to the passenger's side. I began to see his name in the paper. He is nice. It's everywhere. he says, and laughs. The group moved on down the walk, flashlights bobbing, and stopped in front of another house. The eyes stared straight ahead for a minute, then moved slowly in his head until they rested on Howard and Ann, then traveled away again. It wouldn't be the same, anyway. If you had, I'd never have come. Nelson was still feeling in his pockets. "Tell him it's all in his head. I found out his address and wrote to him, I wrote a letter every few months, there never was an answer. That was another monthly payment. We paid the gas and light and shopped for specials at the Safeway. Robert was left with a small insurance policy and half of a twenty-peso Mexican coin. "But just barely." He noted the time, scribbled something on the chart, and then looked at Howard and Ann. Fine, he said, he had gotten a raise. In his chair on the front porch, J.P. keeps his hands in his lap. Hold on to my check for two months, that's all I'm asking. I'd be lucky if he wasn't shot or sent to prison. They stared at each other. Then he locked the door and went downstairs. "I mean, it was killing the old fart just because he couldn't look at the fucking woman." Think how she must feel." Out to Fisherman's Wharf and to see the Giants play. His days and nights were passed in the company of his children. Then something comes into her eyes, and I believe she is thinking about the highway and how far she is going to have to drive that day. Oliver has given Amanda that ultimatum. We waited and sipped our drinks. "Why didn't you tell me?" Then the line tightened and the current carried the egg into sight at the end of the pool. "Mr. Myers. And then you can draw your own conclusions." Vicky's alarm will go off before much longer. she said. I keep slowing at the wrong times, hoping it will pass, and then increasing my speed, again at the wrong times. "Same here," she said. But it did surprise me to see he still hadn't unloaded it. "Mike?" He closed his eyes and opened them. And I don't, I guess. He stopped to wipe his forehead. "Colette," Eileen answered. Troilus and Cressida. "Look," Mary said. When she saw him, Maxine put her arm around Rae's shoulders. "Going on a year and a half," Laura said, flushed and smiling. They're both the same, right?" "Then we'll go to that new place, okay?" "Doing fine," the blind man said. He was buttoning his shirt. Don't move," she said again. She says, "It was a dream, honey." He had a girl and was saving his money. "I've gone belly up," he said. But, of course, I couldn't know that then. After a while she came to call us for school. She was quick and had excelled at things in school. She has this blond hair that hangs down her back. Well, then, are you Mr. Slater? Well," she said, "isn't that some baby." J.P. says it nearly drove him nuts to look at her. "I'm starting to remember," Iris says. Then she says, "Other women my age can be happy. All the windows in both rooms stood open, but there was no sign of a breeze. People kept sitting down and getting up at the counter. "Right? It's fine, she said. Yes, I guess he was," Hamilton said. They said it was about Scotty. He stacked them in his arms, all six, one for every ten times she had ever betrayed him. This is the sofa. He put his foot up on the stool and let the clerk unlace his work boot. I suggested once that she go to a psychiatrist. He closed his eyes and shook his head. "It's in your head." Afterward, they went back to camp and drank more whiskey. she called. "I just know," she says. "Quiet down!" "It was just a body, and that's all there is to it." You're always busy. Well. He'd get out of my hair, he said, if he could just borrow enough from me, this one last time, to buy a ticket to Germany. As I am writing the note I realize I don't know whether back yard is one word or two. "There now," I hear mrs Baxter say. the boy said. I knew it was a mistake to let my brother have the money. Tell them I love them. They were still in their pajamas. He fastened the suitcase, put on his coat, looked around the bedroom before turning off the light. Quietly, in a churchly voice, he said, Do you know what this is? I was looking around the room for clues. It had a darkish look to it. "Say again," he said. "It sounds like it's just a childish argument, and the boy's mother is getting herself involved." "I'm ready to go," she said. "Let them watch," the girl said. But he didn't tell her that then. He leaned back. Jill is at the table with the catalogue, listening. Bright sunlight flooded through the open windows. Shouldn't you be somewhere far from here at this very minute? We haven't been this close in a long time. "So long," Jim Webster said. I move over to the window and look out from behind the curtain. "That's all right, bub," the blind man said. But she's Olla's mother." And when the record was over, they did it again, and when that one ended, the boy said, "I'm drunk." I said, "Here's bread and butter for you." The man she was going to marry at the end of the summer was in officers' training school. That's what he said. He put the water pipe on the coffee table. They pleaded fatigue, the late hour, the fact that the girl "wasn't going anywhere." But she had to buy the boots and clothes for the work, and that's where I could help. Vera was in her bathrobe. She puts her arms around me and holds me and lets her head rest on my shoulder. "I don't know what you'd call it, but I sure know you wouldn't call it love." His eyes were closed, but his legs moved back and forth as if he were trying to climb over something. You know what I mean? I think my heart slows way down, I think. "It doesn't need cutting," she says. I drank a bottle of wine with the soup. All she had was Donna and Pam, a semi-new girl who was a klepto. He didn't sleep at home last night. Then he pulled down into the bed again and extended his foot until it touched against hers. I'll never forgive you for this, you crazy bitch." He said something to that effect. Pay me back when you get it. I had the feeling she didn't like what she saw. "It's my yard. Myers could see the faces at the window across the way--the Ardreys--and when the carolers had finished, Jack Ardrey came to the door and gave something to the older boy. Carl said, letting out a thin stream of smoke and passing the tube to Jack. They drank a lot of whiskey and when the moon came up they talked about the girl. Just as I was going to unzip, I heard a plop in the creek. "Hey, Dummy!" I tell you, there were complaints, and sometimes there were words. "Ouch!" You don't have to decide anything right now," he said. Larry pushes his mower past the window. "You'll set an example for your husband." "Bud this, Bud that. Gone and never coming back. Nelson looked across the booth to Donna. We had plans. The man was moving a toothpick around in his mouth, a heavyset man, short wavy hair. And my grandpa," she says. "She was drunk. But she and the baby live in Denver. Ann said. I must have been out of my mind. I was holding down another job nights, and we were getting ahead. He was just bringing a thermos cup to his lips. The kitchen window gave no light. Or a club?" "Now I can't smell anything, either," he said. She moves past him and onto the porch. Sometimes mail of some kind or other shows up for him or his wife or for the both of them. his son said. I picked up my lunch pail and went over to the car. And I did. He put his hands behind his head and stared at the ceiling. I'll remember you with gratitude. She waited a minute and then she said something else. Little eye-holes and nose-holes and mouth-holes. 'Night, Donna," I said. The boy took out the checkbook and held it to his lips as if thinking. You know Rudy. All this, all of this love we're talking about, it would just be a memory. With a fire, he can dry his socks and things and warm himself. I lick the frosting off my finger. "I don't like it." "Albert, I've been cutting Charles's head of hair, and his boy's too, for years now. Tooted. Helen said, They listened. He held it. I watch her get out, and I see them hug each other. She stumbles as she heads for the bedroom. He said Scotty's going to be all right. I didn't know his wife and he didn't know Fran. "Richard says hello." Patti said, "Vitamins." The young man (his name hasn't survived, and it's likely he perished in the Great War) said he would be happy to bring up a tray. The baby started up once more. That and the fact he's loosened his tie. she said. Please, honey, sit down for another minute." "Where was what's-his-name when this happened?" Then he went back to his coloring. We haven't seen each other in four years. Now and then, as her fingers pressed the side of his head, he could feel the warm oil she'd poured in there wash back and forth in the canals inside his ear. She was a young girl and it's a shame, and I'm sorry, as sorry as anyone else, but she was dead, Claire, dead. "If you were a real writer, as you say you are, Mr. Myers, you would not laugh," Morgan said as he got to his feet. mrs Webster said. "Grow pumpkins." "Like what?" "Stop that now. "Then what?" After a few minutes had passed and the baby had not cried, the girl put the baby down again. He said he'd pay me back. "Luck," he says. She stayed seated. Did his eyelid twitch? I felt lousy to have come this far up for nothing. They were gone now, but the chairs were scattered in such a way that it looked as if people had just jumped up from them the minute before. He thought Eileen must be losing her mind to talk like that. Then he felt himself drift back into sleep. I shook my head. If it won't take long, I said. "But it'll be somebody just like him," Jill says. He examined the ends of the cord. Lately, she'd gotten into the routine of making their dinner and keeping it in the oven, warming, until his arrival home from school. You guys, you've heard us on the subject of Marjorie? It is August. Do you hear me? But nothing happened. She wet her lips with a sticking sound and got down on her knees. Admit it!" He'd been living on his unemployment since then, but now the unemployment was gone, and his savings were gone, too. You see, I love everything there is about geese. He could feel air from the hole in the window on his face. She put her arm over his ribs and her fingers crept across his chest. I was on the tape, she said. "You're going to put that in my ear?" Mrs Slater filled out a card. She said she needed to see a doctor. "What? he asked, and he sipped from his drink. I tried to think of something to say. "I heard something the other day that might interest you," Edgar Morgan said. When I was growing up, my two sisters had a total of six babies. "God, we been over there to eat two or three times in this last month alone. A few days before he had to be at the high school for meetings and registration, he called again and was told there'd be somebody at his house first thing the next morning. She shook her head. She nodded. He'd suffered all kinds of terror in that well, hollering for help, waiting, and then hollering some more. She went to the front door, which was unlocked. "Yes, a chimney," she says. Mr. Chekhov was enormously happy. The boy waited a minute longer then went to the kitchen and put on water for coffee. "Think of the story you'd have if you could get inside that man's head." The next time I saw Bud at work I sure as hell didn't tell him I'd called. She kept talking. Shush!’ ‘Woof! She ran cold water on her finger. "But I worry anyway. I opened the trunk. And soon he stopped feeling awkward and forgot how he was supposed to feel. "And maybe we can go to sleep then." She took the nail file out of his ear and moved back a step. But he wouldn't take no for an answer. I don't want to argue with you, lady. "Get those seatbelts on. "You didn't leave her there like that?" But after a while, hands still in his pockets, he returned to the apartment. They are people who look uncomfortable in their suits and ties, sport coats and slacks, their dark dresses and leather gloves. Bud said, "Well, what else is new?" There must be that between them, she thought. What do you mean you don't know him? The boy pulled into the driveway and stopped in front of the kitchen table. "They might have rice pudding. She lay there for a time huddled against his body, trying to sleep. Why don't you folks go out and sit down at the table? Lord, he said. At eleven o'clock that night, when the boy seemed to be resting comfortably enough after the many X-rays and the lab work, and it was just a matter of his waking up and coming around, Howard left the hospital. She heard two people coming, up the stairs to the apartment next door. Myers?" "To love," we said. You weren't anywhere around. Dummy took off his hat and, with the same hand, he wiped his wrist over his head. "Wait, wait a minute, for Christ's sake," he says. He looked out the window. "Dick just this minute said get that old man of yours on the phone. "What about it?" "It was a gut shot. Period. To help hold them up, so to speak. I feel like hell, I really do, he went on. Mrs Morgan waved, and then she and Edgar Morgan went back inside and shut the door. "Mrs Myers?" But what she does instead is slide down in the bed until she's sitting somewhere in the middle. But I see a little later that he is still wearing his coat. mrs Webster continued. It had a little peaked roof and the paint was gone and there were these weeds growing up over the steps. They said it cost him all his savings for that fence. She didn't answer. He stretches, wipes his face. Then we each took an end and started back, watching the fish as he swung on the stick. Never seen a buck with so much blood. Sunlight filled the kitchen from the big window behind the sink. I feel like I know you." He posed with it like a man preparing to hurl the discus. He trembles all over. You eat this, and then you can sleep all you want." "Now listen," she said. He felt as if he were in mourning. But he didn't drink anything from his glass. 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