don't know what the hell's going on. when play ? the last round of Horse at the basket out by the garage in the alley ? used to be most intense. Pig valves.

what's the matter with that?" The thumb roots in deeper and the child's eyes
what's the matter with that?" The thumb roots in deeper and the child's eyes." "That's nice. You're thinking of something else every minute and I can only think from what I read and see on television that it's drugs. Max Robinson the nation's first and only black national anchorman and Roy Orbison who always wore black and black sunglasses and sang "Pretty Woman" in that voice that could go high as a woman's and then before Christmas that Pan Am Flight 103 ripping open like a rotten melon five miles above Scotland and dropping all these bodies and flaming wreckage all over the golf course and the streets of this little town like Glockamorra. the physical exertion. "You too. If Thelma had been healthy. conjured up because his stomach wanted food? Rabbit feels like Marty Tothero. I haven't seen you walk further than to the car and back. more hostile. a reddening the disease has placed like a soreness across her nose and beneath her eyes. even though as I say this procedure appears to have produced good results for the time being. have not disrupted the fundamental pattern of her giving and his taking.

a downy arm oflong loving bones. pained. Judy. and rice vinegar." Now Rabbit is fully offended. leaving a little bit of dirt like on the pale Antron carpets back at 14Y2 Franklin Drive. Some of their design. The poster of sunshine and palm tops and distant pink red?roofed buildings pasted on the outer skin of the sliding windows has dulled in tint." "Yeah. And then a soda at the Pensupreme. or never had people near to me die. Oregon. of a polished expensive trap whose doors and valves only open one way.

floating these big smoked?glass superliners. I couldn't quite follow it." She tries a joke. all business again. and succumb to the great heaviness of being. in the evening as the gradual Northern dusk (in Florida the sun just suddenly shuts down. coming out into the winter streets with wet hair. He picks up the fork he's just aligned and reaches over with it toward Harry's big breast of bacongarnished greenery. Peanut in spats and top hat brandishing his stick in neon. a Hispanic boy carrying a clinking tray of vials. how close I came. back in Mill Valley. the recuperation took forever.

Their whispers merge with a dream. bearded Spaniards in armor woodenly exchange obscure gifts with nearly naked Indians. their four eyes shiningly reflecting the electronic jiggle and their two mouths both open to make identical slots of darkness. its glad cool yellow calling from every yard like a sudden declaration of the secret sap that runs through everybody's lives. A red haze of budding fills the maples along the curbs and runs through the woods that still exist. Charlie points out. eight years under Reagan of nobody minding the store. Judy's perfect little hands are shiny with lobster. it's work to stay alive. what's float-ing in unseen about to land. and I want to ask 'em. He tries another topic. "Well you see how stupid I am.

I'm sorry I told you half of what I did. and if she's too far gone ? he said she's senile and over at Dengler's ? I think we should hire somebody. All I need is to have my wife call you and tell you to show me the books. which began at twelve?thirty. they listening with half an ear each to this newest little thing he feels very strongly about. and the affair has enriched her transactions with God. You sound on the mend. a proud gilded downtown hotel now a Ramada Motor Inn." It is hard to carry on a conversation with the numbers blaring from the loudspeakers. "I can only show the books to authorized persons. Tall as she is. and their hips have been pared and hardened by exercise bicycles and those asshugging pants that mold around every muscle like electriccolored paint. "Judy.

and Nelson's right eye squints. Or to delete from the universe whatever it was that exploded that Pan Am 747 over Scotland." "Sorry to hear it. you must have noticed. as if standing has been too much effort. They don't give a damn. and yet the melody recognizable. thinking instead. just don't give me their diseases. "The Laws of Real Property and Conveyancing" for three hours one night. "The Laws of Real Property and Conveyancing" for three hours one night. reading her name stitched onto the bodice of the limegreen jumper they wear for a uniform at Salad Binge. but offhand they think at least one of the coronary arteries is plugged.

let's have a contest. and flosses. and Ronnie sweet Cindy. her deeply known presence stirs him. which is what he usually orders. The government exaggerates. "You aren't going to get rid of big brother so easy. Corona. "People need things. He wondered if a man ever got his neck broken that way. as he knows because he is moved enough to pull the Celica to the curb and park and get out and pull off a single leaf to study. They found there was a call for these. he comes closer still.

Judy says. "Advising me is all he's doing and he's doing that because you asked him to. And those running tights the young women wear now. without something of scorn. Harry tastes in his teeth a sourness that offended him on his father's breath. while your father was walking ahead with the children. He has spells of feeling short of breath and mysteriously full in the chest. where the railroad had sold off an old freight yard. Harry? Have you become a devotee of his? Is that why you don't go to church?" He stands. That's my picture all over the walls. There's no cockpit. she adds six inches with that hairdo. I was reading in Consumer Reports.

" Janice explains. One of her gangster pals with a sentimental streak set her up with a beauty parlor when her looks began to go. somehow.. That's the first good night's sleep I've had in weeks. demoralized like." Harry tells him. How do you stay so skinny So what shall I do Maybe Janice should talk to Nelson. How do you stay so skinny So what shall I do Maybe Janice should talk to Nelson. He doubts that Breit knows more than The National Enquirer. Charlie used to be thickset but age has whittled him so his Greek bones show the high pinched arch to his nose. An anxious red Camaro convertible is pushing in the rearview mirror. He shouldn't still be horsing around on the 'beach.

you should sell 'em one without making 'em feel they're being cheapskates. mine and your father's. 1 was taking care of him. but Janice's getup is no more absurd than many in this crowd of greeters: men with bankers' trim white haircuts and bankers' long grave withholding faces wearing Day?Glo yellow?green tank tops stencilled CORAL POINT or CAPTIVA ISLAND and tomato?red bicycle shorts and Bermudas patterned with like fried eggs and their permed and thick?middled women in these ridiculous one?piece exercise outfits like long flannel underwear in pink or blue. you're my husband. back there in that church basement buried deeper in his mind than an airraid shelter. "Why no. One of the things maybe that had made Florida seem attractive. has less of a dip. As she stands in the kitchen waiting for the coffee to heat. 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. What women go through. Teresa let a little out the night before last when you didn't come home till after midnight.

He tries to tease Judy into having dessert to keep him company. Also. So what were you starting to say?" "About what?" "What you were going to tell me but couldn't because I fell asleep because according to you I wasn't as wired as usual. sedimented over." "Here's a question for you." Now Rabbit is fully offended. and a lesion at a bifurcation is tougher to treat with angioplasty. "What's going to happen?" She sits in a chair near his bed. But for Harry. have you noticed?" "I can't notice everything at once." he says. which she never wears on the street around here. hopping zigzag through the padded pedestal chairs so he won't be beaten out at the arrival gate.

My boys say he's a cocaine addict. "There's been something bothering me." That's right. The streets where he was a kid are still there. for the time being. Then as now. and wow. Judy has nightmares. All you can deal for around Valhalla Village is Geritol. And zilch acceleration: pull into a fast?moving highway you'll get rear?ended. pink stripes with white collar and cuffs. Harry. through blocks of single?family houses with half?dead little front yards ornamented by plumes of pampas grass and flowering bushes on vacation from flowering in this dry butt?end of the year.

Perhaps the struggle for breath is too much. When I took over I was surprised at all the crap you and Charlie had been swallowing all those years. his life set at an irresistible forward slant. I'm trying to read the paper. His mother keeps her eyes on his face.. The tall awkward girl with her strange white roostercomb trembling in the air still hovers." "That's not quite enough. I don't like what these queers have done to Nelson. He says. but now he works mostly at home. Ronnie and Thelma Harrison moved to one of these modest new houses when their three boys grew up and went off. things wearing thin so you sort of look right through them.

"No thanks." Janice intervenes: "What Mom says is her legs hurt after all that sitting in the car and she's thinking of moving the cocktail hour ahead if this is how we're all going to talk for five days. "No. like all the others. Judge boys together and played on the high?school basketball varsities that. Harry and Janice after their first year or two in Florida. a long light?blocking green shade pulled down over its central pane of bevelled glass. on this little girl's body ? that Mr. is the most steadily depressing. But he can't tell Thelma that. she believes you've stayed clear of heroin. This may be more male bonding than Rabbit needs. "Everybody's snorting and stealing down here.

that is." "I didn't mean that unkindly. like that black chick in the red Camaro coming in off 75. you forget if you did or didn't. Max Robinson the nation's first and only black national anchorman and Roy Orbison who always wore black and black sunglasses and sang "Pretty Woman" in that voice that could go high as a woman's and then before Christmas that Pan Am Flight 103 ripping open like a rotten melon five miles above Scotland and dropping all these bodies and flaming wreckage all over the golf course and the streets of this little town like Glockamorra. Curt Simmons. "Well I don't know what the hell's going on. when play ? the last round of Horse at the basket out by the garage in the alley ? used to be most intense. Pig valves.