starving?" "We bought you lots of healthy snacks. Harold. "Nelson looks exhausted.

which takes them above the parking?garage ticket booths and a breadth ofbusy asphalt and a hexagonal?tiled patio with arcs of oleander hedge and of convalescents in glinting steel wheelchairs
which takes them above the parking?garage ticket booths and a breadth ofbusy asphalt and a hexagonal?tiled patio with arcs of oleander hedge and of convalescents in glinting steel wheelchairs. fringed runners and semi?precious glass and porcelain elves and parrots and framed photographs of babies and graduating sons and small plates and kettles of hammered copper and pewter. two hundred thirty pounds the kindest scales say. the birds. She hesitates. He wakes around six with a little start and ever since his heart attack there is a gnawing in his stomach whose cause he can't locate until he realizes it is the terror of being trapped inside his perishing body. Charlie says. as it goes on has become dimmer and dimmer. Americans want to go back to fins and convertibles and the limo look and these Japs are still trying to sell these tidy little boxes. While we're in there we might want to look at that leaky aortic valve and think about a pacemaker. but cannot quite suppress his little smile of pride. Their whispers merge with a dream.

terrorizing the JVs. a boyish lightness. "I am regretful to bother you. more boring than anything else. into distance and estrange-ment. A distance down the beach." "Then it can't be such a very little deal. precise way of speaking."' Breit looks up through his furry eyelashes for the expected laugh. His collapse twenty?six hours ago did have its blissful aspect: his sense. There was a man who used to do it." on another.

which became the Caf?? Barcelona in the Seventies and then the Cr??pe House later in the decade and now has changed hands again and calls itself Salad Binge.A. The door to 413 has a double lock operated with two keys. Life moves through us family after family. "You aren't going to get rid of big brother so easy. that is. She is already in one of her nighties. it's still Johnny Frye's Chophouse. He really knows how to live. a proud gilded downtown hotel now a Ramada Motor Inn. "But if you say another single word about Nelson. Around five?thirty.

glittering procedures. when is there a chance to discuss anything with you? Every time I call the lot you're not there. and her face has taken on that melting crazy look women get at the decision to go with it. or never had people near to me die. his outrage silences him a moment. leaving Harry with the sensation that the walls of his solid little limestone house are as thin as diet crackers. and then brings the other parallel. He puts himself on the line. To the left. says. Tall isn't bad. before Nelson went off to Sunday school.

making the bicycle ride more dangerous still.cocoa?brown black chick in a gray felt stewardess's cap at the wheel. She is a bit breathless. objects to dust around but never to rearrange. "You just tell him Julius called." They are hiding something from him. you must tell me about cocaine. Winter. After taking a wrong turn in the milky?green terrazzo corridors on the ground floor and confronting a door marked STAFF ONLY. though they seem like toys. letting his moccasins fall from his feet onto the floor over the edge of the bed. "Sure.

Her voice asks.During those spring months with Ruth on Summer Street. You park at a lot only a few steps away from the door of sliding brown glass: the whole state babies you. you know. During the commercial. Men have this territorial thing. to keep the courtesies between them. Did you lose?" "How'd you guess?" "You always lose. Rabbit thinks. Harry. At the water's slapping. "Hey.

I like to keep track of the guy. Harry. They can't sink. Toxic waste. aligning his knife and fork on the edge of his empty plate. into his jockey shorts." but it is clear to both of them that they must talk really. the texture; he wants old?fashioned Day?Glo kapok from Thomas Edison's kapok trees. smack." "We'll see. "The worst of it is. actually.

" "Weirder. Children. I guess that means I feel pain the rest of the time. His son is carrying his own son on his left arm." His voice stays low. say nothing; but the shuffle of their sandals slows and hushes. slick?looking in a three?piece gray suit. "Why no. My dad loved cars and I guess I take after him." he says.cocoa?brown black chick in a gray felt stewardess's cap at the wheel. Miller.

The smell of lotion rises to intertwine with the odor of salt air. Where is everybody?" "Grandma went to her women's group. who was flipping out. Is this grimace a communication to him. top hats and white ties. Whaddeyou think Charlie shrugs unhelpfully. The smell of lotion rises to intertwine with the odor of salt air. their four eyes shiningly reflecting the electronic jiggle and their two mouths both open to make identical slots of darkness. and that is within his privileges. and her tired eyes look focused elsewhere. He is playing with fire. says.

of "love" as something that is all over the map. How about Schmidt last night Against the Pirates in Three Rivers Stadium. further along Central. "They stuck a balloon up through my leg into my heart and pumped it full of saltwater to open up an artery that was plugged up with old grease I've been eating. She was determined not to get fat like her mother but age catches you anyway. now all I get is some fruityvoiced pal of yours you've hired. really. with Mom grabbing the car as soon as you got back. he dimly recognizes. "Another Coke?" He has drunk it all. "There's something going wrong over at the lot. There his class.

Remembering. stirred up by seeing Thelma and Lyle. so if there's a crash everybody can feast upon it with their own eyes. You're just toying with your life otherwise. "Sure. What nobody seems to understand is. though usually over the years she opened the garage for him and closed the door electronically from within the kitchen." "Why have I never seen them before?" "You have." She stops rubbing the back of one hand with the fingers of the other and moves back toward him. She looks up at him with that presumptuous solemnity of women you have fucked. but for the television set hulking in its walnut cabinet with its powdery gray?green face wearing a toupee of doilies and doodads. Judge's slanting streets busy and innocent below.

and how weird golf seemed. "I'm not sure I totally understand it. He switches off the set and goes looking for her. It's more a matter of internal balance. has become a patchwork of rubble and parking lots and a few new glass?skinned buildings." since it began as a used?car lot owned and run by Fred Springer. Ass. "Jesus. She is getting out of Florida. The shelves. He reaches once more. like the Arab terrorists.

"A couple of the mechanics quit when Nelson brought him in as accountant in his condition." he offers. this immensity of water. Nelson may have his weaknesses but her sense of him is that he has never been crazy about sex like his father ? that his generation got enough of it early enough for the magic to wear off. leaving a trickle in the gutters. flop and then flop. darker even than Nelson's and Janice's. it's still Johnny Frye's Chophouse." "We heard about it from little Ron. sort of starving?" "We bought you lots of healthy snacks. Harold. "Nelson looks exhausted.