"I don"t want to talk to your little answering service. Just the thought of her voice makes me go cold all over."

"Nelson usually answers the phone. She never answers it."

"I don"t want to hear her, or see her, or hear about her. I can"t describe to you, Harry, the disgust I feel at just the thought of that person."

"Have you been on the bottle again? You sound screwed-up."

"I am sober and sane. And satisfied, thank you. I want to know what you"re doing about Nelson"s back-to-school clothes. You realize he"s grown three inches this summer and nothing will fit."

"Did he, that"s terrific. Maybe he won"t be such a shrimp after all."

"He will be as big as my father and my father is no shrimp."

"Sorry, I always thought he was."

"Do you want me to hang up right now? Is that what you want?"

"No, I just want you to call me someplace else than at work."

She hangs up. He waits in Pajasek"s wooden swivel chair, looking at the calendar, which hasn"t been fumed yet though this is September, and the August calendar girl, who is holding two icecream cones so the scoops cover just where her nipples would be, one strawberry and one chocolate, Double Dips! being the caption, until the phone rings.

"What were we saying?" he asks.

"I must take Nelson shopping for school clothes."

"O.K., come around and pick him up any time. Set a day."

"I will not come near that house, Harry, as long as that girl is in it. I won"t even go near Penn Villas. I"m sorry, it"s an uncontrollable physical revulsion."

"Maybe you"re pregnant, if you"re so queasy. Have you and Chas been taking precautions?"

"Harry, I don"t know you any more. I said to Charlie, I can"t believe I lived thirteen years with that man, it"s as if it never happened.".

"Which reminds me, what shall we get Nelson for his birthday? He"s going to be thirteen next month."

She begins to cry. "You never forgave me for that, did you? For getting pregnant."

"I did, I did. Relax. It worked out great. I"ll send Nelson over to your love nest to go shopping. Name the day."

"Send him to the lot Sat.u.r.day morning. I don"t like him coming to the apartment, it seems too terrible when he leaves."

"Does it have to be Sat.u.r.day? There was some talk of Jill driving us both down to Valley Forge; the kid and I"ve never seen it.

"Are you poking fun of me? Why do you think this is all so funny, Harry? This is life."

"I"m not, we were. Seriously."

"Well, tell her you can"t. You two send Nelson over. Only send him with some money, I don"t see why I should pay for his clothes."

"Buy everything at Kroll"s and charge it."

"Knoll"s has gone terribly downhill, you know it has. There"s a nice little new shop now up near Perley, past that submarine place that used to be Chinese."

"Open another charge account. Tell him you"re Springer Motors and offer a Toyota for security."

"Harry, you mustn"t be so hostile. You sent me off myself. You said, that night, I"ll never forget it, it was the shock of my life, "See him if you want to, just so I don"t have to see the b.a.s.t.a.r.d." Those were your words."

"Hey, that reminds me, I did see him the other day."

"Who?"

"Chas. Your dark and swarthy lover."

"How?"

"He ambushed me after work. Waiting in the alley with a dagger. Oog, I said, you got me, you Commie rat."

"What did he want?"

"Oh, to talk about you."

"What about me? Harry, are you lying, I can"t tell any more. What about me?"

"Whether or not you were happy."

She makes no comeback, so he goes on, "We concluded you were."

"Right," Janice says, and hangs up. the days before the Bessemer furnace. Old faded photographs of Weiser Street show a prosperous-appearing avenue of tasteful, low brick buildings with horsedrawn trolly tracks promiwith horse-drown trolley traks prami-with horsed-raven trolleyyyfff etaoin etaoinshrdlu etaoinshrdlucmfwpvbgkqjet * * *

He asks her, "What did you and the kid do today?"

"Oh, nothing much. Hung around the house in the morning, took a drive in the afternoon."

"Where to?"

"Up to Mt. Judge."

"The town?"

"The mountain. We had a c.o.ke in the Pinnacle Hotel and watched a softball game in the park for a while."

"Tell me the truth. Do you have the kid smoking pot?"

"Whatever gave you that idea?"

"He"s awfully fascinated with you, and I figure it"s either pot or s.e.x."

"Or the car. Or the fact that I treat him like a human being instead of a failed little athlete because he"s not six feet six. Nelson is a very intelligent sensitive child who is very upset by his mother leaving."

"I know he"s intelligent, thanks, I"ve known the kid for years."

"Harry, do you want me to leave, is that it? I will if that"s what you want. I could go back to Babe except she"s having a rough time."

"What kind of rough time?"

"She"s been busted for possession. The pigs came into the Jimbo the other night and took about ten away, including her and Skeeter. She says they asked for a bigger payoff and the owner balked. The owner is white, by the way."

"So you"re still in touch with that crowd."

"You don"t want me to be?"

"Suit yourself. It"s your life to f.u.c.k up."

"Somebody"s been bugging you, haven"t they?"

"Several people."

"Do whatever you want to with me, Harry. I can"t be anything in your real life."

She is standing before him in the living room, in her cutoff jeans and peasant blouse, her hands held at her sides slightly lifted and open, like a servant waiting for a tray. Her fingers are red from washing his dishes. Moved to gallantry, he confesses, "I need your sweet mouth and your pearly a.s.s."

"I think they"re beginning to bore you."

He reads this in reverse: he bores her. Always did. He attacks: "O.K., what about s.e.x, with you and the kid?"

She looks away. She has a long nose and long chin, and that dry moth mouth that he feels, seeing it in repose, when she is not watching him, as absentmindedly disdainful, as above him and wanting to flutter still higher. Summer has put only a few freckles on her, and these mostly on her forehead, which bulges gently as a milk pitcher. Her hair is twisty from being so much in those little tiny braids hippies make. "He likes me," she answers, except it is no answer.

He tells her. "We can"t do that trip to Valley Forge tomorrow. Janice wants Nelson to go shopping with her for school clothes, -and I should go see my mother. You can drive me if you want, or I can take the bus."

He thinks he is being obliging, but she gives him her rich-girl sneer and says, "You remind me of my mother sometimes. She thought she owned me too."

Sat.u.r.day morning, she is gone. But her clothes still hang like rags in the closet. Downstairs on the kitchen table lies a note in green magic marker: Out all day. Will drop Nelson at the lot. (heart & peace symbols), So he takes the two bus rides all the way across Brewer. The lawns in Mt. Judge, patches of gra.s.s between cement walks, are burned; spatterings of leaves here and there in the maples are already turned gold. There is that scent in the air, of going back to school, of beginning again and reconfirming the order that exists. He wants to feel good, he always used to feel good at every turning of the year, every vacation or end of vacation, every new sheet on the calendar: but his adult life has proved to have no seasons, only changes of weather, and the older he gets, the less weather interests him.

The house next to his old house still has the FOR SALE sign up. He tries his front door but it is locked; he rings, and after a prolonged shuffle and rumble within Pop comes to the door. Rabbit asks, "What"s this locked door business?"

"Sorry, Harry, there"ve been so many burglaries in town lately. We had no idea you were coming."

"Didn"t I promise?"

"You"ve promised before. Not that your mother and I can blame you, we know your life is difficult these days."

"It"s not so difficult. In some ways it"s easier. She upstairs?"

Pop nods. "She"s rarely down anymore."

"I thought this new stuff was working."

"It does in a way, but she"s so depressed she lacks the will. Nine-tenths of life is will, my father used to say it, and the longer I live the more I see how right he was."

The disinfected scent of the house is still oppressive, but Harry goes up the stairs two at a time; Jill"s disappearance has left him vigorous with anger. He bursts into the sickroom, saying, "Mom, tell me your dreams."

She has lost weight. The bones have shed all but the minimum connective tissue; her face is strained over the bones with an expression of far-seeing, expectant sweetness. Her voice emerges from this apparition more strongly than before, with less hesitation between words.

"I"m tormented something cruel at night, Harry. Did Earl tell you?"

"He mentioned bad dreams."

"Yes, bad, but not so bad as not being able to sleep at all. I know this room so well now, every object. At night even that innocent old bureau and that -poor shapeless armchair they."

They what?" He sits on the bed to take her hand, and fears the swaying under his weight will jostle and break her bones.

She says, "They want. To suffocate me."

"Those things do?"

"All things - do. They crowd in, in the queerest way, these simple homely bits of furniture I"ve. Lived with all my life. Dad"s asleep in the next room, I can hear him snore. No cars go by. It"s just me and the streetlamp. It"s like being -under water. I count the seconds I have breath left for. I figure I can go forty, thirty, then it gets down to ten."

"I didn"t know breathing was affected by this."

"It isn"t. It"s all my mind. The things I have in my mind, Ha.s.sy, it reminds me of when they clean out a drain. All that hair and sludge mixed up with a rubber comb somebody went and dropped down years ago. Sixty years ago in my case."

"You don"t feel that about your life, do you? I think you did a good job."

"A good job at what? You don"t even know what you"re trying to do, is the humor of it."

"Have a few laughs," he offers. "Have a few babies."

She takes him up on that. "I keep dreaming about you and Mim. Always together. When you haven"t been together since you got out of school."

"What do Mim and I do, in these dreams?"

"You look up at me. Sometimes you want to be fed and I can"t find the food. Once I remember looking into the icebox and. A man was in it frozen. A man I never knew, just one. Of those total strangers dreams have. Or else the stove won"t light. Or I can"t locate where Earl put the food when he came home from shopping, I know he. Put it somewhere. Silly things. But they become so important. I wake up screaming at Earl."

"Do Mim and I say anything?"

"No, you just look up like children do. Slightly frightened but sure I"ll save. The situation. This is how you look. Even when I can see you"re dead."

"Dead?"

"Yes. All powdered and set out in coffins. Only still standing up, still waiting for something from me. You"ve died because I couldn"t get the food on the table. A strange thing about these dreams, come to think of it. Though you look up at me from a child"s height. You look the way you do now. Mim all full of lipstick, with one of those shiny miniskirts and boots zippered up to her knee."

"Is that how she looks now?"

"Yes, she sent us a publicity picture."

"Publicity for what?"

"Oh, you know. For herself. You know how they do things now. I didn"t understand it myself. It"s on the bureau."