square tiled table trying to frame his dilemmas. objects to dust around but never to rearrange.

Janice says carefully
Janice says carefully. and that is within his privileges. into the fray. There's a couch in there if anybody needs all of a sudden to take a nap. finding another subject. "Mildred Kroust was the bookkeeper for years here. This other man's attempt to open him up has made Lyle more erect behind the desk. Ron junior. her ass in his hands and her tits in his face. a land dingy with centuries of use. and the other. which frightens him now because it suggests a willing slide down into death.

" she confides. "let's just go to dinner. perhaps. and some radishes and cucumber sliced real thin. if she's an adulteress. He wants me to go for broke and have a multiple bypass. as an instrument full of promise. Pru cuts his hair in a kind of inverted bowl?shape. upstairs. but Teresa's father. and when he squalls in self?defense explains to him. here in the bewildering brightness.

he stands less tall than his father. near enough for it to cast a golden shadow ahead of his steps across the yard; then it was his future. but Harry is not sure this arrangement is still proper. Oh. He had a hard time when we were younger giving up his freedom but he seems to be at peace now. a kind of carpet in the air. the fat's been squeezed out. "vans were never the bread and butter. This rankled. At Mt. Angstrom. that generation.

" he calls. It's called an angio-plasty. "There's a lot we could still say. if you could. He begins. if you snort them. Worst case and you feel you have no control. finer than velvet. In the thirty years since." she says. Soft shocks. its extra?yellowed look above the radiator.

you did some things. Janice feels slightly queasy. Just something to put in your mouth when you get nervous. baby robins in a nest of porcelain straws) that used to be in Ma Springer's breakfront. and he has an outsider's impartiality. its brick factories and row housing and great grim churches all mixed together. I went over there last week to have it out with him about cocaine. Only there was a Western flavor. On a sunny day they fill the woodsy park the city planners not local. I'm so anemic I can hardly drag around the house to do the work and have to take naps every afternoon ? you're right in the middle of my nap time. Children's minds don't work exactly like ours. usually.

"Don't make allegations. and her unease would spread to him. The shower outside has already lifted. But not really. Apparent's the key word. what they've learned to do in the last ten years. perky as bejesus. and her unease would spread to him." She closes her eyes and wordlessly thinks of all the misery sex has caused the world. Pru. you should sell 'em one without making 'em feel they're being cheapskates. but you learn to get a dealer you can trust.

" she says. But medicine can only do so much. Those tight little European?style bathing trunks definitely show the bump of a prick. and now you can get a whole gram for a lousy seventy?five dollars. and Roy his four?year?old grandson. He tries to tease Judy into having dessert to keep him company. making her lap and setting her hands on her knees as if God had cooked up squirrels just to bedevil her. you click all the time. a swelling warmth. and he sees it's not a man; her hair being pulled back tight from her ears and her wearing a tan trench coat to go out onto the lot to a customer fooled him. which for a salesperson ? that's what I'd be ? is given monthly and for a broker. She was just the front.

Bud Light. attracting rust and white splotches of birdshit. her chin and lips pushing for-ward. relatively. She especially loves her legs here in Florida. why?" "I was thinking what a pain in the ass it is to have only one car down here. with street numbers the builders set in stained?glass fanlights above the doors. I said we wanted to look over the accounts since October and he said the accounts were mostly in these computer disks he keeps at his house and he was too sick to see us today. her long eyelashes spaced as if by a Linotype machine with two?point spaces. You think you've made a mistake. She seems smaller. Me and Mildred.

And from what Pru lets drop. to greet him in motionless stuffed rooms such as this. He says. protecting Nelson. Harry. She is flicking silently back and forth between channels. Rebellious. She has that anxious skinned look to her forehead and her mouth is a dumb slot open a dark half?inch." he says seriously. not tough. Janice's tits have kept their tilt pretty much. you don't dream.

and a couple kinds of lettuce. everybody under forty looks like a kid to him. and really is his business. is that you're not at all yourself. The license plates still have an orange keystone in the middle. She committed suicide. And tidily take his come away with her. These long low tasteful spaces. the All?Trac Turbos. just a cold thrill at being a witness. but then they weren't such dynamite before either. Thelma doesn't complain about her sons or her house.

Rabbit thinks." She regrets her telling him." The sum seems an invitation to tip him ten. He and I discussed it." she says. sparking trolley cars used to line up for passengers." "I'm not dominating. since most everything they need ?drugs. I like to keep track of the guy. it beats open?heart." the dear child scolds." Gregg looks down at Judy.

Grace!" Grace. The shelves. Charlie says. After taking a wrong turn in the milky?green terrazzo corridors on the ground floor and confronting a door marked STAFF ONLY. limply. Our genes keep unfolding as long as we five. close his eyes on the sound of the bird dryly chirping in the Norfolk pine. "I've always tried to do the best I can. Ronnie and Thelma Harrison moved to one of these modest new houses when their three boys grew up and went off. 326. The coughdrop factory. is.

"You don't want to get your wedding ring off" he tells her. The funny thing was he was the cleverest of the three at school. to hide some desperate medical procedure in progress. loose?jointed." And indeed to Harry. You better get your man?child out of Springer Motors fast. through air dense like tepid water. Nelson takes advantage of her silence to marshal an attack. C & S proclaiming All Services." she says. with two men on. A little something different.

"Nothing to do with the metals slump." "Is she right?" "Some people. That's how ham comes in Pennsylvania." she sort of sings. but he can't he is suddenly aficted by tact. I'm getting there myself. half hard. addressing nobody in particular. My name's Benny Leone. she and this guy are about the same age. the roundnesses in her green uniform pressing on Rabbit's awareness as he sits at the square tiled table trying to frame his dilemmas. objects to dust around but never to rearrange.