who work in the glassskinned office building that has risen across from Kroll's.

" he weakly agrees
" he weakly agrees. "Well you see how stupid I am. conjured up because his stomach wanted food? Rabbit feels like Marty Tothero. Everything went to Janice. They use their bodies up neatly. Some of the guys use a rolled?up dollar bill; if say it's a hundred?dollar bill. Imagine sitting there in your seat being lulled by the hum of the big Rolls?Royce engines and the stewardesses bringing the clinking drinks caddy and the feeling of having caught the plane and nothing to do now but relax and then with a roar and giant ripping noise and scattered screams this whole cozy world dropping away and nothing under you but black space and your chest squeezed by the terrible unbreathable cold. And a year later you're back in the same boat. She became a doctor.

Naked. but I'm her husband. made it too real. or when he can't hear her knocking around in the kitchen or upstairs above his head. the hollow purposeful sound their own crowd of feet makes on the linoleum floors. She asks. I'm thirty?two years old. I just complain a lot. The children are frightened.

and momentarily closes his eyes. lowering. like the Arab terrorists. There was Jill. it is she who loops her arm. She is still at heart too much a schoolteacher; she enjoys administering a lesson. the more constricted Harry's chest feels." "Mildred's senile. I'm getting there myself.

and Mrs. I remember it. and she is moving him out. "She's worried about Daddy not getting anything to eat. the topmost." It turns out she already knows how to play Rummy." Life is a hill that gets steeper the more you climb. Even three years ago Ronnie figured it was costing him over eighty dollars a round. That's how hospitals are; they tell you what they're going to do is about as simple as having a haircut and then midway through they tell you you might bleed to death.

and the sounds of birds and golf have gone away. one of which also opens the outer door downstairs. enough to fill half a cup. prices on the wind-shield knocked lower every two or three days. its tile?roofed towers of time?shared apartments. The announcers keep saying they've never seen anything like it. for every other female. in the movie. after Thelma's pasty cold touch a half?hour ago.

too. And he has never forgot how. Mom died because of her Parkinson's. But. There are these scientific studies that show coke is much less harmful to the body than booze. But he can't tell Thelma that. "The worst of it is." That plane he had mentally exploded hadn't been their plane at all. look at the odds.

Her tongue has some trouble in her mouth and it's cute." "Oh Harry. someone is flying a kite ?a linked pair of box kites that dip and dive and climb again in unison. Nelson has inherited Janice's tense neatness of feature. a footstool on which an old watermill is depicted." Harry admits. "You got out in time. His first cry turns a number of heads in the corridor. painted black with stencilled red designs and a red?and?yellow flat pillow tied in place.

there in her frilled and stagnant dim living room." As he stands there. not much emotion. The day is a desultory Tuesday and the two salesmen on the floor are both young men he doesn't know. She sets the tray down on a glass?topped coffee table like an empty long picture frame. getting tan again. He has trouble at first realizing he must perform for his visitors. He and I discussed it." "Thanks but no thanks.

just a cold thrill at being a witness. flowing white gowns if you were Ginger Rogers. like one of those old?fashioned dolls that would say a little speech when you pulled a string that came out of their backs. says." "Not in the long run. he doesn't want to become an addict." "You said it. What I do notice about you. It's just dumb luck the house didn't bum down with Nelson in it too.

He says. her inside warm and wet and softly grainy like a silk slipper. There is a certain habitu-ated daintiness in the gesture. mine and your father's. "Ronnie buys them. "I knew it was a bad idea. That's where her father wound up. "You always minded that. to attract the healthminded yuppies who work in the glassskinned office building that has risen across from Kroll's.