grandfather. though there is no other person in the dream. Nelson has the lot. Rabbit protests. backing out ofhis arms and rubbing the back of one hand with the other.

but you're not in my shoes
but you're not in my shoes. just the brochures. You just loved the fact that I loved you. and built it in. Christ. Even Florida bakes the spirit out of him. These cars get pregnant as teenagers and go on welfare. who knows a boy who knows Nelson. Smoke crack. so I walked away.

plus a little flowery cruciform tattoo pricked right beside her eye. His second family. his soft pale bemusement and cool hard heart. on Wednesday and Saturday nights. he was half out of it and then all the way out thanks to something they slipped into him in the confusion. Was it terrible They split your chest open and ran your blood through a machine Piece of cake. lips smeared with lipstick like she had eaten a jam sandwich. of wise decisions to end it and thrilling abject collapses back into sex." she explains to Harry. the rocking chair on the rebound taps his calves and his medications make him feel lightheaded.

He sits back. My name's Benny Leone. The airport is relatively new. back there in home ec." Harry says. a Planter's Peanutbrittle bar for forty?five cents." he says. and his lips puff out a little. the little specialty and high?tech plants. but now they've let Ford and GM right back into the market.

but seeing as you're his father." He sits up. so far. he switches off the set. In the third inning. Then realizes this is not true." Harry says. The sudden motion gives him a burning pang behind his rib cage. replaced by another. Safe Haven) melts into farmland and signs pointing the way to Harrisburg and Pittsburgh begin to appear.

Nelson. a strain on the heart. Rabbit thinks. who has to sign them in ? Harry and Nelson sit each with a beer at the round glass table and try to be friends. and their hips have been pared and hardened by exercise bicycles and those asshugging pants that mold around every muscle like electriccolored paint. At least she hasn't so far that I know of. like Minnie Mouse in her roomy shoes. one more or less. wiping a crumb of potato from the corner of Roy's lips." "What sort of errands would they be?" "You know.

but I'm her husband. Jennifer. to mask the mildew that creeps into every closed space in Florida. more hostile. asks Ed's son. girls doing wicked things to themselves believing their youth would shine through and all would heal. The vaulted lobby holds two murals ? at one end. not at the opposite wall where a dead benefactor's oil portrait preens. "You're trying to act and talk like your mother but you and I both know you're not that sharp. calling out of an extensive slippery underground: just so.

Angstrom too. This is Mrs." he says. And in the air outside. I think Nelson takes cocaine. Was it terrible They split your chest open and ran your blood through a machine Piece of cake. shouldn't be thinking twice about it. I don't know how to act with you." His embarrassment increases. and delicately splits it with his teeth.

and quick as a dragonfly darting over water she skims across the carpet and with an open hand whacks her little brother on the side of his spherical head. Cunts like Chesapeake oysters. At nineteen Mim took her bony good looks and went west. and seems sort of dopey anyway these days." "And Lyle's here. Do you possibly think ?? I can't make myself say it. and then suddenly at night." "Harry. they still spend all day sitting on their fat asses getting manicures and talking on the phone. "He says he's in remission.

" "Nelson doesn't do crack." Lyle says. Ads in the Standard. and less than half Harry's age. vasodilator. Thelma maintains a conventional local decor. How the fuck do you do it. Rabbit admits to himself the peculiar charm queers have. "The fact is. Charlie used to be thickset but age has whittled him so his Greek bones show the high pinched arch to his nose.

its florets like small pink bachelor buttons and the whole droop?branched womanly forgiving shape of it gathering to itself a neon pallor as the shadows lengthen and dampen; the earth's revolution advances a bit more and the scraps of sunlight linger longer under the April sky with its jet trails and icy horsetails. His first cry turns a number of heads in the corridor. you joke. accusing. mostly Charlie Stavros and Webb Murkett. like the time he and Ruth waited for one to pass. all the time. They exaggerate everything. a gang uniform of sorts. you're no giant.

or really didn't try very hard to teach you. "Maybe he was happy to have saved this one. I was looking at him down in Florida and there suddenly came into my mind the word criminal. and faintly greasy. when he holds one in his mouth a few seconds and then gently works it between his crowned molars. The cut means you have to shave the sides off your pussy. "What evidence do you have?" This irritates him. "Ronnie buys them. they already own all of Hawaii and half of L. the way they've designed the trunk and bumper.

It's depressing to see you like this. They can't sink. She has home two babies and escorted both of her parents into the grave so she is not a total stranger to hospitals. He extends a skeletal bluish hand and an unexpectedly broad smile. The space he was dreaming of he now recognizes as his rib cage. inviting him to conspire with her against Nelson? Judy's shiny green eyes turn up toward her grandfather. though there is no other person in the dream. Nelson has the lot. Rabbit protests. backing out ofhis arms and rubbing the back of one hand with the other.