"Tell me the truth now. These ten years, haven"t you had any other women?"

He runs his mind backward, encounters a few dark places, a room in a Polish-American Club where Verity was having its annual blast, a skinny flat-chested girl with a cold, she had kept her bra and sweater on; and then a weird episode at the Jersey sh.o.r.e, Janice and Nelson off at the amus.e.m.e.nt park, him back from the beach in his trunks, a knock at the door of the cabin, a chunky colored girl, two skinny boys escorting her, offering herself for five or seven dollars, depending what he wanted done. He had had trouble understanding her accent, had made her repeat -with downcast eyes, as the boys with her sn.i.g.g.e.red- "screwin","

"suck-off." Frightened, he had quickly shut the flimsy door on them, locked it as if they had threatened to harm him, and jerked off facing the wall; the wall smelled of damp and salt. He tells Janice, "You know, ever since that happened to Becky, I haven"t been that much for s.e.x. It comes on, wanting it, and then something turns it of"

"Let me up."

Janice stands in front of the television set, the screen green ashes, a dead fire. Efficiently she undresses herself. Her dark-tipped b.r.e.a.s.t.s droop tubular and sway as she disengages her pantyhose. Her tan stops below her throat. Other summers they used to go to the West Brewer pool some Sundays but the kid became too big to go with his parents so none go now. They haven"t gone to the Sh.o.r.e since the Springers discovered the Poconos. Buggy brown lakes imprisoned among dark green trees: Rabbit hates it there and never goes, never goes anywhere, takes his vacation around the house. He used to daydream about going South, Florida or Alabama, to see the cotton fields and the alligators, but that was a boy"s dream and died with the baby. He once saw Texas and that has to be enough. Tongue pinched between her lips, naked Janice unb.u.t.tons his shirt, fumbling. Numbly he takes over, completes the job. The pants, the shoes last. Socks. Air knows him, air of day still lingering, summer air tingling along the skin that never knows the light. He and Janice have not made love in the light for years. She asks him in the middle of it, "Don"t you love seeing? I used to be so embarra.s.sed."

In twilight they eat, still naked, salami sandwiches she makes, and drink whisky. Their house stays dark, though the others around them, that mirror it, turn on their lights. These neighboring lights, and the cars that pa.s.s along Vista Crescent, throw sliding soft witnesses into their room: the open shelves lunge like parallel swords, the driftwood lamp throws a rhinoceros-shadow, the school portrait of Nelson, in its cardboard frame on the mantel, from beneath the embalming tints ofits color wash, smiles. To help them see when darkness comes, Janice turns on the television set without sound, and by the bluish flicker of module models pantomiming flight, of riot troops standing before smashed supermarkets, of a rowboat landing in Florida having crossed the Atlantic, of situation comedies and western melodramas, of great gray momentary faces unstable as quicksilver, they make love again, her body a stretch of powdery sand, her mouth a loose black hole, her eyes holes with sparks in them, his own body a barren landscape lit by bombardment, silently exploding images no gentler than Janice"s playful expert touches, that pa.s.s through him and do him no harm. She inverts herself and pours out upon him the months of her new knowledge; her appet.i.te frightens him, knowing he cannot fill it, any more than Earth"s appet.i.te for death can be satisfied. Her guilt became love; her love becomes rage. The first time was too quick but the second was sweet, with work and sweat in it, and the third time strainingly sweet, a work of the spirit almost purely, and the fourth time, because there was no fourth time, sad; straddling his thighs, her c.u.n.t revealed by the flickering touch of the television to be lopsidedly agape, she bows her head, her hair tickling his belly, and drops cold tears, starp.r.i.c.ks, upon the slack flesh that has failed her.

"Jesus," he says, "I forgot. We were supposed to go over to Mom"s tonight!"

He dreams of driving north with Charlie Stavros, in a little scarlet Toyota. The gear shift is very thin, a mere pencil, and he is afraid of breaking it as he shifts. Also, he is wearing golf shoes, which makes operating the pedals awkward. Stavros sits in the driver"s seat and, with that stolid way of muttering, his square ringed hands masterfully gesturing, discusses his problem: Lyndon Johnson has asked him to be his Vice-President. They need a Greek. He would like to accept, but doesn"t want to leave Brewer. So they are negotiating to have at least the summer White House moved to Brewer. They have lots of vacant lots they could build it on, Charlie explains. Rabbit is thinking maybe this is his chance to get out of the printing plant and into a white-collar job. Services and software are where the future lies. He tells Stavros hopefully, "I can lick stamps." He shows him his tongue. They are on a superhighway heading north, into the deserted coal regions and, beyond that, the wilds of northern Pennsylvania. Yet here, in this region of woods and lakes, a strange white city materializes beside the highway; hill after hill of tall row houses white as bedsheets, crowding to the horizon, an enormous city, strange it seems to have no name. They part in a suburban region beside a drugstore and Stavros hands him a map; with difficulty Rabbit locates on it where they are. The metropolis, marked with a bull"s-eye, is named, simply, The Rise.

The Rise, The Rise... the dream is so unpleasant he awakes, with a headache and an erection. His p.r.i.c.k feels gla.s.sily thin and aches from all that work with Janice. The bed is empty beside him. He remembers they went to bed after two, when the television screen became a buzzing test-signal. He hears the sound of the vacuum cleaner downstairs. She is up.

He dresses in his Sat.u.r.day clothes, patched chinos and apricot polo shirt, and goes downstairs. Janice is in the living room sweeping, pushing the silver tube back and forth. She glances over at him, looking old. s.e.x ages us. Priests are boyish, spinsters stay black-haired until after fifty. We others, the demon rots us out. She says, "There"s orange juice on the table, and an egg in the pan. Let me finish this room."

From the breakfast table he surveys his house. The kitchen on one side, the living room on the other are visible. The furniture that frames his life looks Martian in the morning light: an armchair covered in synthetic fabric enlivened by a silver thread, a sofa of airfoam slabs, a low table hacked to imitate an antique cobbler"s bench, a piece of driftwood that is a lamp, nothing shaped directly for its purpose, gadgets designed to repel repair, nothing straight from a human hand, furniture Rabbit has lived among but has never known, made of substances he cannot name, that has aged as in a department store window, worn out without once conforming to his body. The orange juice tastes acid; it is not even frozen orange juice but some chemical mix tinted orange.

He breaks his egg into the pan, sets the flame low, thinks guiltily of his mother. Janice turns off the vacuum, comes over, pours herself some coffee to sit opposite him with as he eats. Lack of sleep has left purple dents beneath her eyes. He asks her, "Are you going to tell him?"

"I suppose I must."

"Why? Wouldn"t you like to keep him?"

"What are you saying, Harry?"

"Keep him, if he makes you happy. I don"t seem to, so go ahead, until you"ve had your fill at least."

"Suppose I never have my fill?"

"Then I guess you should marry him."

"Charlie can never marry anybody."

"Who says?"

"He did once. I asked him why not and he wouldn"t say. Maybe it has to do with his heart murmur. That was the only time we ever discussed it."

"What do you and he discuss? Except which way to do it next." She might have risen to this taunt but doesn"t. She is very flat, very honest and dry this morning, and this pleases him. A graver woman than he has known reveals herself. We contain chords someone else must strike. "We don"t say much. We talk about funny little things, things we see from his windows, things we did as children. He loves to listen to me; when he was a boy they lived in the worst part of Brewer, a town like Mt. Judge looked marvellous to him. He calls me a rich b.i.t.c.h."

"The boss"s daughter."

"Don"t, Harry. You said that last night. You can"t understand. It would sound silly, the things we talk about. He has a gift, Charlie does, of making everything exciting - the way food tastes, the way the sky looks, the customers that come in. Once you get past that defensiveness, that tough guy act, he"s quite quick and, loving, in what he sees. He felt awful last night, after you left, that he had made you say more than you meant to. He hates to argue. He loves life. He really does, Harry. He loves life."

"We all do."

"Not really. I think our generation, the way we were raised, makes it hard for us to love life. Charlie does. It"s like - daylight. . You want to know something?"

He agrees, "Sure," knowing it will hurt.

"Daylight love - it"s the best."

"O.K. Relax. I said, keep the son of a b.i.t.c.h."

"I don"t believe you."

"Only one thing. Try to keep the kid from knowing. My mother already knows, the people who visit her tell her. It"s all over town. Talk about daylight."

"Let it be," Janice says. She rises. "G.o.ddam your mother, Harry. The only thing she"s ever done for us is try to poison our marriage. Now she"s drowning in the poison of her life. She"s dying and I"m glad."

"Jesus, don"t say that."

"Why not? She would, if it were me. Who did she want you to marry? Tell me, who would have been wonderful enough for you? Who?"

"My sister," he suggests.

"Let me tell you something else. At first with Charlie, whenever I"d feel guilty, so I couldn"t relax, I"d just think ofyour mother, how she"s not only treated me but treated Nelson, her own grandson, and I"d say to myself, O.K., fella, sock it to me, and I"d just come."

"O.K., O.K. Spare me the fine print."

"I"m sick, so sick, of sparing you things. There"ve been a lot of days" - and this makes her too sad to confess, so that a constraint slips like a net over her face, which goes ugly under the pull "when I was sorry you came back that time. You were a beautiful brainless guy and I"ve had to watch that guy die day by day."

"It wasn"t so bad last night, was it?"

"No. It was so good I"m angry. I"m all confused."

"You"ve been confused from birth, kid." He adds, "Any dying I"ve been doing around here, you"ve been helping it right along." At the same time, he wants to f.u.c.k her again, to see if she can turn inside out again. For some minutes last night she turned all tongue and his mouth was glued to hers as if in an embryo the first cell division had not yet occurred.

The phone rings. Janice plucks it from its carriage on the kitchen wall and says, "Hi, Daddy. How was the Poconos? Good. I knew she would. She just needed to feel appreciated. Of course he"s here. Here he is." She holds it out to Rabbit. "For you."

Old man Springer"s voice is reedy, coaxing, deferential. "Harry, how"s everything?"

"Not bad."

"You still game for the ball game? Janice mentioned you asked about the tickets to the Blasts today. They"re in my hand, three right behind first base. The manager"s been a client of mine for twenty years."

"Yeah, great. The kid spent the night at the Fosnachts, but I"ll get him back. You want to meet at the stadium?"

"Let me pick you up, Harry. I"ll be happy to pick you up in my car. That way we"ll leave Janice yours." A note in his voice that didn"t used to be there, gentle, faintly wheedling: nursing along an invalid. He knows too. The world knows. It"ll be in the halt next week. LINOTYPER"S WIFE LAYS LOCAL SALES REP. Greek Takes Strong Anti- Viet Stand.

"Tell me, Harry," Springer wheedles on, "how is your mother"s health? Rebecca and I are naturally very concerned. Very concerned."

"My father says it"s about the same. It"s a slow process, you know. They have drugs now that make it even slower. I"ve been meaning this week to get up to Mt. Judge to see her but we haven"t managed."

"When you do, Harry, give her our love. Give her our love."

Saying everything twice: he probably swung the Toyota franchise because the j.a.ps could understand him second time around.

"O.K., sure enough. Want Janice back?"

"No, Harry, you can keep her." A joke. "I"ll be by twelvetwenty, twelve-thirty."

He hangs up. Janice is gone from the kitchen. He finds her in the living room crying. He goes and kneels beside the sofa and puts his arms around her but these actions feel like stage directions followed woodenly. A b.u.t.ton is off on her blouse and the sallow curve of breast into the bra mixes with her hot breath in his ear. She says, "You can"t understand, how good he was. Not s.e.xy or funny or anything, just good."

"Sure I can. I"ve known some good people. They make you. feel good."

"They make you feel everything you do and are is good. He never told me how dumb I am, every hour on the hour like you do, even though he"s much smarter than you could ever imagine. He would have gone to college, if he hadn"t been a Greek."

"Oh. Don"t they let Greeks in now? The n.i.g.g.e.r quota too big?"

"You say such sick things, Harry."

"It"s because n.o.body tells me how good I am," he says, and stands. The back of her neck is vulnerable beneath him. One good karate chop would do it.

The driveway crackles outside; it"s much too early for Springer. He goes to the window. A teal-blue Fury. The pa.s.senger door swings open and Nelson gets out. On the other side appears Peggy Gring, wearing sungla.s.ses and a miniskirt that flashes her big thighs like a card dealer"s thumbs. Unhappiness -being deserted - has made her brisk, professional. She gives Rabbit hardly a h.e.l.lo and her sungla.s.ses hide the eyes that he knows from school days look northeast and northwest. The two women go into the kitchen. From the sound of Janice snuffling he guesses a confession is in progress. He goes outside to finish the yard work he began last night. All around him, in the back yards of Vista Crescent, to the horizons of Penn Villas with their barbecue chimneys and aluminum wash trees, other men are out in their yards; the sound of his mower is echoed from house to house, his motions of bending and pushing are carried outwards as if in fragments of mirror suspended from the hot blank sky. These his neighbors, they come with their furniture in vans and leave with the vans. They get together to sign futile pet.i.tions for better sewers and quicker fire protection but otherwise do not connect. Nelson comes out and asks him, "What"s the matter with Mommy?"

He shuts off the mower. "What"s she doing?"

"She"s sitting at the table with Mrs. Fosnacht crying her eyes out."

"Still? I don"t know, kid; she"s upset. One thing you must learn about women, their chemistries are different from ours."

"Mommy almost never cries."

"So maybe it"s good for her. Get lots of sleep last night?"

"Some. We watched an old movie about torpedo boats."

"Looking forward to the Blasts game?"

"Sure."

"But not much, huh?"

"I don"t like sports as much as you do, Dad. It"s all so compet.i.tive."

"That"s life. Dog eat dog."

"You think? Why can"t things just be nice? There"s enough stuff for everybody to share."

"You think there is? Why don"t you start then by sharing this lawnmowing? You push it for a while."

"You owe me my allowance." As Rabbit hands him a dollar bill and two quarters, the boy says, "I"m saving for a mini-bike."

"Good luck."

"Also, Dad -?"

"Yeah?"

"I think I should get a dollar twenty-five an hour for work. That"s still under the federal minimum wage."

"See?" Rabbit tells him. "Dog eat dog."

As he washes up inside, pulling gra.s.s bits out of his cuffs and putting a Band-aid on the ball of his thumb (tender place; in high school they used to say you could tell how s.e.xy a girl was by how fat she was here), Janice comes into the bathroom, shuts the door, and says, "I"ve decided to tell him. While you"re at the ball game I"ll tell him." Her face looks taut but pretty dried-out; patches of moisture glisten beside her nose. The tile walls amplify her sniffs. Peggy Gring"s car roars outside in leaving.

"Tell who what?"

"Tell Charlie. That it"s all over. That you know."

"I said, keep him. Don"t do anything for today at least. Calm down. Have a drink. See a movie. See that s.p.a.ce movie again, you slept through the best parts."

"That"s cowardly. No. He and I have always been honest with each other, I must tell him the truth."

"I think you"re just looking for an excuse to see him while I"m tucked away at the ball park."

"You would think that."

"Suppose he asks you to sleep with him?"

"He wouldn"t."

"Suppose he does, as a graduation present?"

She stares at him boldly: dark gaze tempered in the furnace of betrayal. It comes to him: growth is betrayal. There is no other route. There is no arriving somewhere without leaving somewhere. "I would," she says.

"Where are you going to find him?"

"At the lot. He stays on until six summer Sat.u.r.days."

"What reason are you going to give him? For breaking it off"

"Why, the fact that you know."

"Suppose he asks you why you told?"

"It"s obvious why I told. I told because I"m your wife."

Tears belly out between her lids and the tension of her face breaks like Nelson"s when a hidden anxiety, a D or a petty theft or a headache, is confessed. Harry denies his impulse to put his arm around her; he does not want to feel wooden again. She teeters, keeping her balance while sobbing, sitting on the edge of the bathtub, while the plastic shower curtain rustles at her shoulder.

"Aren"t you going to stop me?" she brings out at last.

"Stop you from what?"