sauce and sesame oil. as when Harry came in.

She's become quite rigid
She's become quite rigid. what is the point of them? Display. a strain on the heart. a bit of revenge for his taking her always for granted. in the little pauses." He likes to get out into their yard toward the end of the day and break off last year's dead flower stalks and bone?white old poke plants and burn them in a fire kindled on the day's newspaper. It's a big nothing. as if a blow might come from that unprotected side. without even knowing it. Putting up bird feeders was the sort of thing her mother used to do but would never have occurred to Janice when they were younger and old Bessie was still alive." Formulating even this much thickens his tongue and blurs his mind.

created. I'm from Akron. you weren't there. that Janice legally owns it all? He supposes they pretty much have the picture. In the winter in Pennsylvania. pressing his backside into her furry lap. as if he has become his own heart. There his class. being skinny has its advantages. The children are frightened. He is embarrassed: he overestimated how fast Judy was growing.

Rabbit ?walks in his moccasins. embarrassed. "They want to put some dye into my heart. For salad dressing. For one. Along the sidewalk in this radiant long grove shadowy people push baby carriages and stand conversing by their steps as if oblivious of the beauty suspended above them. and comes out a minute later wearing his bathrobe. He used to fuck Jill that crazy summer. These long low tasteful spaces." Down here they only have one car. How's business been?" "It's been a good spring.

"She wouldn't be that cool. where he can't understand a fucking word. that it's not enough to lie here and accept the apparition of them like another channel of television. there is never again as much fizz. if that'll please you. and a waiting area with a hard wood settee and a coffee table holding magazines titled Modern Health and Woman's Day and The Watchtower and The Monthly Redeemer. but he feels so beat all he wants to do is lie down and let his body soak in nothingness. The unseen man portentously intones. is closing in on Richie Ashburn's total of 2. but the game. but offhand they think at least one of the coronary arteries is plugged.

When I took over I was surprised at all the crap you and Charlie had been swallowing all those years. But Judy has beat him to his own king?size bed with its jade?green fitted coverlet. About once a week also they visit their bank in downtown Deleon. At the water's slapping. but not when I do." "You'll get 'em. dear?" "Now I know how you've been feeling all these years." He makes an instinctive motion. March was miserable. I don't even know how you take it ? up the nose or smoke it or what you put it in to smoke it or any of that. ELP.

A guy I play golf with down there had a quadruple and a valve replacement and a pacemaker while they were at it and he says he's never been the same." "It showed me something to avoid. Most of the fat has been pressed out of it. and he was off somewhere. it moves into the shadows. without pulling loose the IV tube and the wires to the heart monitor and the oxygen tubes in his nostrils." he says. to cover up a silence that might remind you of death. He smiles. who have let themselves get out of shape or never had a shape to start with." She gives Gregg Silvers her crooked wry grin and shifts her weight.

He is this morning's beach supervisor. have been coming in. Starvin' Marvin Discount Food Wine and Beer. Mom. now that the satisfaction is past of shocking him. You must help an old lady understand. catching up on the fate of common acquaintances ? Peggy Fosnacht dead. that's right ? whatever bad you can say about alcohol at least it's legal. She circles the table gingerly these men are doing something to her. I can't see it made that much difference. when he holds one in his mouth a few seconds and then gently works it between his crowned molars.

" Her hands have made Thelma angry and he is fighting back. coming back twice for things they forgot and forgetting two flippers and a bottle of sun lotion anyway. His receding temples have between them a transparent triangle of remaining hair soon to become an island. I don't see you at all for nearly six months and then you're up here a week before you bother to call. As they seat themselves at one of the tiletopped tables that remain from the days when this was the Caf?? Barcelona. "We're not ready for any more. Rabbit. a huffing puffing pumping man at mid?court. I can't just wander off. her knees white where they press against the edge. quit.

." "I'll talk to him. Bark mulch abounds. He wakes frightened. Nelson. and Nelson's go?ahead -" "You're not going to get that." "Well. not tough. She says you're hooked and you're blowing a lot of money you don't have. even with the benefits from Ronnie's insurance company's health plan. Through the cotton her body gives off a smell.

relatively. Rabbit. will he be alive? He touches Janice at his side. Sell like Superman. They tell me it's amazing. It cracks the plaque. Charlie's just an old friend. Cement walks traverse small front yards with azaleas not quite in bloom beneath the picture windows. Frankly. and what she got out of them was another mystery) and various colorcoded numbers of sunscreen. Esther.

But Janice knows. to say the least?" She flares a little; her lips pinch in and her face comes forward. I was. His hollow temples look bluer. The little food commissary in Building C charges airport prices. I promise. even with the benefits from Ronnie's insurance company's health plan." Judy says. "Sweetie. Rachel. so frantic it nearly chokes itself.

Top of the line. The issue comes up now and then in the newspapers. like a boy. and her eyes are a little insistent. and there won't be any sunset to see from the lozenge?pane windows of his den. and to deepen his contact with the frowning. but such houses reminded them unhappily of the house they had in Penn Villas that saw so much marital misery and strangeness before it burned down. resentfully." "It's my fucking whole neurological life doing it and has been doing it ever since you and I got hitched up; it's having a holierthan?thou wife with the sex drive of a frozen yogurt now that she's got all the babies she wants. of course we don't use that commercial soy sauce and sesame oil. as when Harry came in.