"What"s that noise?"

It is Nelson crying, outside the door, afraid to come in. It had been the same way with him and Janice, their fights: just when they were getting something out of them, the kid would beg them to stop. Maybe he imagined that Becky had been killed in just such a quarrel, that this one would kill him. Rabbit lets him in and explains, "We were talking politics."

Nelson squeezes out in the s.p.a.ces between his sobs. "Daddy, why do you disagree with everybody?"

"Because I love my country and can"t stand to have it knocked."

"If you loved it you"d want it better," Jill says.

"If it was better I"d have to be better," he says seriously, and they all laugh, he last.

Thus, through lame laughter - she still rubs her wrists, the hand he hit her with begins to hurt - they seek to reconst.i.tute their family. For supper Jill cooks a filet of sole, lemony, light, simmered in sunshine, skin flaky brown; Nelson gets a hamburger with wheatgerm sprinkled on it to remind him of a Nutburger. Wheatgerm, zucchini, water chestnuts, celery salt, Familia: these are some of the exotic items Jill"s shopping brings into the house. Her cooking tastes to him of things he never had: candlelight, salt.w.a.ter, health fads, wealth, cla.s.s. Jill"s family had a servant, and it takes her some nights to understand that dirtied dishes do not clear and clean themselves by magic, but have to be carried and washed. Rabbit, still, Sat.u.r.day mornings, is the one to vacuum the rooms, to bundle his shirts and the sheets for the laundry, to sort out Nelson"s socks and underwear for the washer in the bas.e.m.e.nt. He can see, what these children cannot, dust acc.u.mulate, deterioration advance, chaos seep in, time conquer. But for her cooking he is willing to be her servant, part-time. Her cooking has renewed his taste for life. They have wine now with supper, a California white in a half-gallon jug. And always a salad: salad in Diamond County cuisine tends to be a brother of sauerkraut, fat with creamy dressing, but Jill"s hands serve lettuce in an oily film invisible as health. Where Janice would for dessert offer some doughy goodie from the Half-A-Loaf, Jill concocts designs of fruit. And her coffee is black nectar compared to the watery tar Janice used to serve. Contentment makes Harry motionless; he watches the dishes be skimmed from the table, and resettles expansively in the living room. When the dishwashing machine is fed and chugging contentedly, Jill comes into the living room, sits on the tacky carpet, and plays the guitar. What does she play? "Farewell, Angelina, the sky is on fire," and a few others she can get through a stanza of. She has maybe six chords. Her fingers on the frets often tighten on strands of her hanging hair; it must hurt. Her voice is a thin instrument that quickly cracks. "All my tri-als, Lord, soon be o-over," she sings, quitting, looking up for applause.

Nelson applauds. Small hands.

"Great," Rabbit tells her and, mellow on wine, goes on, in apology for his life, "No kidding, I once took that inner light trip and all I did was bruise my surroundings. Revolution, or whatever, is just a way of saying a mess is fun. Well, it is fun, for a while, as long as somebody else has laid in the supplies. A mess is a luxury, is all I mean."

Jill has been strumming for him, between sentences, part helping him along, part poking fun. He turns on her. "Now you tell us something. You tell us the story of your life."

"I"ve had no life," she says, and strums. "No man"s daughter, and no man"s wife."

"Tell us a story," Nelson begs. From the way she laughs, showing her roundish teeth and letting her thin cheeks go dimply, they see she will comply.

"This is the story of Jill and her lover who was ill," she announces, and releases a chord. It"s as if, Rabbit thinks, studying the woman-shape of the guitar, the notes are in there already, waiting to fly from the dovecote of that round hole. "Now Jill," Jill goes on, "was a comely la.s.s, raised in the bosom of the middle cla.s.s. Her dad and mother each owned a car, and on the hood of one was a Mercedes star. I don"t know how much longer I can go on rhyming." She strums quizzically.

"Don"t try it," Rabbit advises.

"Her upbringing" - emphasis on the "ging" - "was orthodox enough - sailing and dancing cla.s.ses and francais and all that stuff."

"Keep rhyming, Jill," Nelson begs.

"Menstruation set in at age fourteen, but even with her braces off Jill was no queen. Her knowledge of boys was confined to boys who played tennis and whose parents with her parents dined. Which suited her perfectly well, since having observed her parents drinking and chatting and getting and spending she was in no great hurry to become old and fat and swell. Ooh, that was a stretch."

"Don"t rhyme on my account," Rabbit says. "I"m getting a beer, anybody else want one?"

Nelson calls, "I"ll share yours, Dad."

"Get your own. I"ll get it for you."

Jill strums to reclaim their attention. "Well, to make a boring story short, one summer" - she searches ahead for a rhyme, then adds, "after her daddy died."

"Uh-oh," Rabbit says, tiptoeing back with two beers.

"She met a boy who became her psycho-physical guide."

Rabbit pulls his tab and tries to hush the pff.

"His name was Freddy -"

He sees there is nothing to do but yank it, which he does so quickly the beer foams through the keyhole.

"And the nicest thing about him was that she was ready." Strum. "He had nice brown shoulders from being a lifeguard, and his bathing suit held something sometimes soft and sometimes hard. He came from far away, from romantic Rhode Island across Narragansett Bay."

"Hey," Rabbit oles.

"The only bad thing was, inside, the nice brown lifeguard had already died. Inside there was an old man with a dreadful need, for pot and hash and LSD and speed." Now her strumming takes a different rhythm, breaking into the middle on the offbeat.

"He was a born loser, though his race was white, and he f.u.c.ked sweet virgin Jill throughout one sandy night. She fell for him" strum - "and got deep into his bag of being stoned: she freaked out nearly every time the b.a.s.t.a.r.d telephoned. She went from popping pills to dropping acid, then" - she halts and leans forward staring at Nelson so hard the boy softly cries, "Yes?"

"He lovingly suggested shooting heroin."

Nelson looks as if he will cry: the way his eyes sink in and his chin develops another b.u.mp. He looks, Rabbit thinks, like a sulky girl. He can"t see much of himself in the boy, beyond the small straight nose.

The music runs on.

"Poor Jill got scared; the other kids at school would tell her not to be a self-destructive fool. Her mother, still in mourning, was being kept bus-ee, by a divorced tax lawyer from nearby Westerlee. Bad Freddy was promising her Heaven above, when all Jill wanted was his mundane love. She wanted the feel of his p.r.i.c.k, not the p.r.i.c.k of the needle; but Freddy would beg her, and stroke her, and sweet-talk and wheedle."

And Rabbit begins to wonder if she has done this before, that rhyme was so slick. What hasn"t this kid done before?

"She was afraid to die" - strum, strum, pale orange hair thrashing - "he asked her why. He said the world was rotten and insane; she said she had no cause to complain. He said racism was rampant, hold out your arm; she said no white man but him had ever done her any harm. He said the first shot will just be beneath the skin; she said okay, lover, put that s.h.i.t right in." Strum strum strum. Face lifted toward them, she is a banshee, totally bled. She speaks the next line. "It was h.e.l.l."

St-r-r-um. "He kept holding her head and patting her a.s.s, and saying relax, he"d been to life-saving cla.s.s. He asked her, hadn"t he shown her the face of G.o.d? She said, Yes, thank you, but she would have been happy to settle for less. She saw that her lover with his tan skin and white smile was death; she feared him and loved him with every frightened breath. So what did Jill do?"

Silence hangs on the upbeat.

Nelson blurts, "What?"

Jill smiles. "She ran to the Stonington savings bank and generously withdrew. She hopped inside her Porsche and drove away, and that is how come she is living with you two creeps today."

Both father and son applaud. Jill drinks deep of the beer as a reward to herself. In their bedroom, she is still in the mood, artistic elation, to be rewarded. Rabbit says to her, "Great song. But you know what I didn"t like about it?"

"What?"

"Nostalgia. You miss it. Getting stoned with Freddy."

"At least," she says, "I wasn"t just playing, what did you call it, happy c.u.n.t?"

"Sorry I blew my stack."

"Still want me to go?"

Rabbit, having sensed this would come, hangs up his pants, his shirt, puts his underclothes in the hamper. The dress she has dropped on the floor he drapes on a hook in her half of the closet, her dirty panties he puts in the hamper. "No. Stay."

"Beg me."

He turns, a big tired man, slack-muscled, who has to rise and set type in eight hours. "I beg you to stay."

"Take back those slaps."

"How can I?"

"Kiss my feet."

He kneels to comply. Annoyed at such ready compliance, which implies pleasure, she stiffens her feet and kicks so her toenails stab his cheek, dangerously near his eyes. He pins her ankles to continue his kissing. Slightly doughy, matronly ankles. Green veins on her insteps. Nice remembered locker room taste. Vanilla going rancid.

"Your tongue between my toes," she says; her voice cracks timidly, issuing the command. When again he complies, she edges forward on the bed and spreads her legs. "Now here." She knows he enjoys this, but asks it anyway, to see what she can make of him, this alien man. His head, with its stubborn old-fashioned short haircut - the enemy"s uniform, athlete and soldier; bone above the ears, dingy blond silk thinning on top - feels large as a boulder between her thighs. The excitement of singing her song, ebbing, unites with the insistent warmth of his tongue lapping. A spark kindles, a green sprig lengthens in the barren s.p.a.ce between her legs. "A little higher," Jill says, then, her voice quite softened and crumbling, "Faster. Lovely. Lovely."

One day after work as he and his father are walking down Pine Street toward their before-bus drink at the Phoenix Bar, a dapper thickset man with sideburns and hornrims intercepts them. "Hey, Angstrom." Both father and son halt, blink. In the tunnel of sunshine, after their day of work, they generally feel hidden.

Harry recognizes Stavros. He is wearing a suit of little beige checks on a ground of greenish threads. He looks a touch thinner, more brittle, his composure more of an effort. Maybe he is just tense for this encounter. Harry says, "Dad, I"d like you to meet a friend of mine. Charlie Stavros, Earl Angstrom."

"Pleased to meet you, Earl."

The old man ignores the extended square hand and speaks to Harry. "Not the same that"s ruined my daughter-in-law?"

Stavros tries for a quick sale. "Ruined. That"s pretty strong. Humored is more how I"d put it." His try for a smile ignored, Stavros turns to Harry. "Can we talk a minute? Maybe have a drink down at the corner. Sorry to b.u.t.t in like this, Mr. Angstrom."

"Harry, what is your preference? You want to be left alone with this sc.u.m or shall we brush him off?"

"Come on, Dad, what"s the point?"

"You young people may have your own ways of working things out, but I"m too old to change. I"ll get on the next bus. Don"t let yourself be talked into anything. This son of a b.i.t.c.h looks slick."

"Give my love to Mom. I"ll try to get over this weekend."

"If you can, you can. She keeps dreaming about you and Mim."

"Yeah, some time could you give me Mim"s address?"

"She doesn"t have an address, just care of some agent in Los Angeles, that"s the way they do it now. You were thinking of writing her?"

"Maybe send her a postcard. See you tomorrow."

"Terrible dreams," the old man says, and slopes to the curb to wait for the 16A bus, cheated of his beer, the thin disappointed back of his neck reminding Harry of Nelson.

Inside the Phoenix it is dark and cold; Rabbit feels a sneeze gathering between his eyes. Stavros leads the way to a booth and folds his hands on the Formica tabletop. Hairy hands that have held her b.r.e.a.s.t.s. Harry asks, "How is she?"

"She? Oh h.e.l.l, in fine form."

Rabbit wonders if this means what it seems. The tip of his tongue freezes on his palate, unable to think of a delicate way to probe. He says, "They don"t have a waitress in the afternoon. I"ll get a Daiquiri for myself, what for you?"

"Just soda water. Lots of ice."

"No hootch?"

"Never touch it." Stavros clears his throat, smooths back the hair above his sideburns with a flat hand that is, nevertheless, slightly trembling. He explains, "The medicos tell me it"s a no-no."

Coming back with their drinks, Rabbit asks, "You sick?"

Stavros says, "Nothing new, the same old ticker. Janice must have told you, heart murmur since I was a kid."

What does this guy think, he and Janice sat around discussing him like he was their favorite child? He does remember Janice crying out he couldn"t marry, expecting him, Harry, her husband, to sympathize. Oddly, he had. "She mentioned something."

"Rheumatic fever. Thank G.o.d they"ve got those things licked now, when I was a kid I caught every bug they made." Stavros shrugs. "They tell me I can live to be a hundred, if I take care of the physical plant. You know," he says, "these doctors. There"s still a lot they don"t know."

"I know. They"re putting my mother through the wringer right now."

"Jesus, you ought to hear Janice go on about your mother."

"Not so enthusiastic, huh?"

"Not so at all. She needs some gripe, though, to keep herself justified. She"s all torn up about the kid."

"She left him with me and there he stays."

"In court, you know, you"d lose him."

"We"d see."

Stavros makes a small chopping motion around his gla.s.s full of soda bubbles (poor Peggy Fosnacht; Rabbit should call her) to indicate a new angle in their conversation. "h.e.l.l," he says, "I can"t take him in. I don"t have the room. As it is now, I have to send Janice out to the movies or over to her parents when my family visits. You know I just don"t have a mother, I have a grandmother. She"s ninety-three, speaking of living forever."

Rabbit tries to imagine Stavros"s room, which Janice described as full of tinted photographs, and instead imagines Janice nude, tinted, Playmate of the month, posed on a nappy Greek sofa olive green in color, with scrolling arms, her body twisted at the hips just enough to hide her gorgeous big black bush. The crease of the centerfold cuts across her navel and one hand dangles a rose. The vision makes Rabbit for the first time hostile. He asks Stavros, "How do you see this all coming out?"

"That"s what I wanted to ask you."

Rabbit asks, "She going sour on you?"

"No, Jesus, au contraire. She"s balling me ragged."

Rabbit sips, swallows that, probes for another nerve. "She miss the kid?"

"Nelson, he comes over to the lot some days and she sees him weekends anyhow, I don"t know that she saw much more of him before. I don"t know as how motherhood is Janice"s best bag anyway. What she doesn"t much care for is the idea of her baby just out of diapers shacking up with this hippie."

"She"s not a hippie, especially; unless everybody that age is. And I"m the one shacking up."

"How is she at it?"

"She"s balling me ragged," Rabbit tells him. He is beginning to get Stavros"s measure. At first, meeting him on the street so suddenly, he felt toward him like a friend, met through Janice"s body. Then first coming into the Phoenix he felt him as a sick man, a man holding himself together against odds. Now he sees him as a compet.i.tor, one of those brainy cute close-set little playmakers. O.K. So Rabbit is competing again. What he has to do is hang loose and let Stavros make the move.

Stavros hunches his square shoulders infinitesimally, has some soda, and asks, "What do you see yourself doing with this hippie?"

"She has a name. Jill."

"What"s Jill"s big picture, do you know?"

"No. She has a dead father and a mother she doesn"t like, I guess she"ll go back to Connecticut when her luck runs thin."

"Aren"t you being, so to speak, her luck?"