Alongside 41, between the banks and stores and pet suppliers and sprinkler installers, miles of low homes are roofed with fat white cooling tile. A block or two back from the highway in the carbon?monoxide haze21 tall pink condos like Spanish castles or Chinese pagodas22 spread sideways like banyan23 trees. Banyan trees fascinate Harry down here, the way they spread by dropping down vines that take root; they look to him like enormous chewing gum on your shoe. Easy Drugs. Nu?VIEW. Ameri?Life and Health. Starlite Motel. JESUS CHRIST Is LORD. His carful of family grows silent and dazed as he drives the miles, stopping now and then at the overhead lights that signal an intersecting road, a secondary road heading west to beaches and what mangrove24 swamps survive and east to the scruffy25 prairie being skinned in great square tracts26 for yet more development. Development! We're being developed to death. Each turning off of Route 41 takes some people home, to their little niche27 in the maze28, their own parking spot and hard?bought place in the sun. The sun is low enough over the Gulf29 now to tinge30 everything pink, the red of the stoplights almost invisible. At the Angstroms' own turnoff, two more miles of streets unfold, some straight and some curving, through blocks of single?family houses with half?dead little front yards ornamented31 by plumes33 of pampas grass and flowering bushes on vacation from flowering in this dry butt34?end of the year. Janice and Harry at first thought they might purchase one of these pale one?story houses lurking35 behind their tropical bushes and orange trees, caves of coolness and dark, with their secret pools out back behind the garages with their automatic doors, but such houses reminded them unhappily of the house they had in Penn Villas36 that saw so much marital37 misery38 and strangeness before it burned down, half of it, so they settled for a two?bedroom condominium up high in the air, on the fourth floor, overlooking a golf course from a narrow balcony screened by the top branches of Norfolk pines. Of all the addresses where Harry has lived in his life ? 303 Jackson Road; Btry A, 66th FA Bn, Fort Larson, Texas; 447 Wilbur Street, Apt. #5; whatever the number on Summer Street was where he parked himself with Ruth Leonard that spring long ago; 26 Vista39 Crescent; 89 Joseph Street for ten years, courtesy of Ma Springer; 14%2 Franklin Drive ? this is the highest number by far: 59600 Pindo Palm Boulevard, Building B, #413. He hadn't been crazy about the thirteen, in fact he thought builders didn't put that number in things, but maybe people are less superstitious41 than they used to be. When he was a kid there was all sorts of worry, not altogether playful, about black cats and spilled salt and opening umbrellas in the house and kicking buckets and walking under ladders. The air was thought then to have eyes and ears and to need placating42.
VALHALLA VILLAGE: a big grouted sign, the two words curved around a gold ring of actual brass43, inlaid and epoxied?over to discourage vandalous thieves. You turn in at the security booth, get recognized by the guard there, park in one of two spaces with your condo number stencilled44 right on the asphalt, use your key on the outer door of Building B, punch out the code number to open the inner door, take the elevator, and walk to your left. The corridor is floored in peach?colored carpet and smells of air freshener, to mask the mildew45 that creeps into every closed space in Florida. A crew comes through three times a week vacuuming and the rug gets lathered46 and the walls worked once a month, and there are plastic bouquets47 in little things like basketball hoops48 next to every numbered door and a mirror across from the elevator plus a big runny?colored green and golden vase on a table shaped like a marble half?moon, but it is still not a space in which you want to linger.
With their suitcases bumping the walls of silver and peach and Janice and Pru still gamely gabbing50 and little Roy being made to walk on his own two feet now that he's awake for once and crying about it at every step, Harry feels they are disturbing a mortuary calm, though in fact most everybody behind these doors has contrived51 something to do in the afternoon, golf or tennis or a beauty?parlor52 appointment or a bus trip to the Everglades. You live life here as if your condo is just home base, a sort of airconditioned anteroom to the sunny mansion53 of all outdoors. Stay inside, you might start to mildew. Around five?thirty, an eerie54 silence of many simultaneous naps descends55, but at four o'clock it's too early for that.
The door to 413 has a double lock operated with two keys, one of which also opens the outer door downstairs. With the impatient mass of his entire family and its baggage pressing behind him, Harry fumbles56 a bit, his hand jumping the way it does when he's feeling crowded in the chest, his notched57 key scratching at the wiggly small slot, but then it fits and turns and clicks and the door swings open and he is home. This place could belong to one of millions of part?time Floridians but in fact is his, his and Janice's. You enter in a kind of foyer, a closet door to the left and on the right see?through shelves of stained wood Janice has loaded with birds and flowers she made out of shells in a class she took that first year down here, when she was still enthusiastic about shells. Enthusiasm about shells doesn't last, nor does taking Spanish lessons so you can talk to the help. It's a phase the greenhorns, the fresh snowbirds, must go through. Baby scallops make feathers and petals58, augurs59 do as bird beaks60, slipper61 shells are like little boats. The shelves, which also hold a few of Ma Springer's knickknacks, including a big green glass egg with a bubble inside it, separate the foyer from the kitchen, with the dining room beyond it; straight ahead lies the living?room area, where they have the TV and the comfortable wicker chairs and a low round glass table they often eat dinner from, if a show they care about is on. To the left, a square?armed blond sofa can be folded out for a bed and a hollow door leads to the master bedroom, which has a bathroom and a storage area where Janice keeps an ironing board she never uses and an exercise bicycle she rides when she thinks she's getting overweight, to Nelson's old tapes of the Bee Gees62 that he outgrew63 long ago. The guest bedroom is entered off the living room, to the right, and has its own bathroom that backs up to the kitchen plumbing64. The arrangement other years has been that Nelson and Pru take this room with a cot for the baby and Judith sleeps on the foldout sofa, but Harry is not sure this arrangement is still proper. The little ones have grown: Roy perhaps is too big and observant to share a bedroom with his parents and the girl is getting to be enough of a lady to deserve a little privacy.
He explains his plan: "This year I thought we might put the cot in the storage room for Judy, she can use our bathroom and then shut the door, and give Roy the living?room sofa."
The small boy gazes upward at his grandfather while his thumb sneaks65 toward his mouth. He has a flubby sort of mouth that Rabbit associates with the Lubells; neither the Angstroms nor the Springers have bunched?up fat lips like that, like a row of plump berries run together, but Teresa's father, in the one time Harry met him, visiting Akron because he went to Cleveland for a dealer66 conference anyway, did, if you could see around the two days' beard and the cigarette always in the guy's fat mouth. It's as if Pru's worthless creep of a father has been disguised as a child and sent to spy on them all. The kid takes in everything and says nothing. Harry speaks down to him roughly: "Yeah, what's the matter with that?"
The thumb roots in deeper and the child's eyes, darker even than Nelson's and Janice's, shine with distrust. Judy offers to explain: "He's scared to be alone in this room all by himself, the baby."
Pru tries to help. "Sweetie, Mommy and Daddy would be right in that other room, where you used to sleep before you became so grown up."
Nelson says, "You might have discussed it first with us, Dad, before you switched everything around."
"Discuss it, when is there a chance to discuss anything with you? Every time I call the lot you're not there, or the line is busy. I used to get Jake or Rudy at least, now all I get is some fruityvoiced pal8 of yours you've hired."
"Yeah, Lyle tells me how you grill67 him about everything."
"I don't grill him, I'm just trying to act interested. I still have an interest up there, even if you do think you're running it half the year."
"Ha f the year! All the year, from what Mom says."
Janice intervenes: "What Mom says is her legs hurt after all that sitting in the car and she's thinking of moving the cocktail68 hour ahead if this is how we're all going to talk for five days. Nelson, your father was trying to be considerate about the sleeping arrangements. He and I discussed it. Judy, which would you rather, the sofa or the ironing room?"
"I didn't mind the old way," she says.
Little Roy is trying to follow the drift of this discussion and removes his thumb enough for his flubby lips to mouth something Rabbit does not understand. Whatever he's saying, it makes Roy's eyes water to think of it. "Eeeeee" is all Harry hears, at the end of the sentence.
Pru translates: "He says she gets to watch TV."
"What a disgusting baby tattletale," says Judy, and quick as a dragonfly darting69 over water she skims across the carpet and with an open hand whacks71 her little brother on the side of his spherical72 head. Pru cuts his hair in a kind of inverted73 bowl?shape. As when a faucet74 gasps75 emptily for a second after being turned on, his outrage76 silences him a moment, though his mouth is open. His yell when it comes arrives at full volume; against its sonic background Judy explains to them all, with a certain condescending77 air, "Just Johnny Carson sometimes when everybody else was asleep, and Saturday Night Live once that I can remember."
Harry asks her, "So you'd rather stay in here with the lousy TV than have a little cozy78 room of your own?"
"It doesn't have any windows," she points out shyly, not wanting to hurt his feelings.
"Fine, fine," Harry says. "I don't give a fuck where anybody sleeps," and in demonstration79 of his indifference80 strides into his own bedroom, past the king?size bed they bought down here, with its padded headboard covered in quilted satin and a matching jade81?green coverlet that is as hard to fold up as the ones in hotels, into the little windowless room and picks up the folding cot, with its sheets and baby?blue Orlon blanket on it, and lugs82 it through the doorways83, banging the frames and one of the wicker armchairs in the living room, into the guest bedroom. He is embarrassed: he overestimated84 how fast Judy was growing, he had wanted to embower her as his princess, he doesn't know little girls, his one daughter died and his other is not his.
Janice says, "Harry, you mustn't overexert yourself, the doctor said."
"The doctor said," he mocks. "All he ever sees is people over seventy?five and he says to me just what he says to them."
But he is breathing hard, and Pru hastens after him to spare him the effort of straightening the folding leg, a U?shape of metal tubing, that has come unclicked and folded underneath85, and pulls taut86 the sheets and blanket. Back in the living room, Harry says to Nelson, who is holding little Roy in his arms again, "Now are you and the brat87 happy?"
For answer Nelson turns to Janice and says, "Jesus, Mom, I don't know as I can stand five days of this."
But then when they all get settled ? the suitcases unpacked88 into bureaus, Judy and Roy fed milk and cookies and changed into bathing suits and taken to the heated Valhalla Village pool by their mother and Janice, who has to sign them in ? Harry and Nelson sit each with a beer at the round glass table and try to be friends. "So," Harry says, "how's the car business?"
"You know as well as I do," Nelson says. "You see the stat sheets every month." He has developed a nervous irritable89 habit of grimacing90 and hunching92 his shoulders, as though somebody behind him might be about to knock him on the head. He smokes a cigarette as if he's feeding himself something through a tube, constantly fiddling93 with the shape of the ash on the edge of a white clamshell he has borrowed from Janice's collection.
"How do you like the '89s?" Harry asks, determined94 not to put it off, now that he and the boy are alone. "I haven't seen the actual cars yet, just the brochures. Beautiful brochures. How many millions you think those ad agencies get for making up those brochures? I was looking at the Corolla one trying to figure out if they really had driven that sedan and that wagon95 up into the mountains or were just faking it, and I had to laugh. The cars were posed on snow but there were no tracks showing how they got there! Look at it sometime."
Nelson is not much amused. He shapes his ash into a perfect cone96 and then suddenly stabs it out, twisting the butt vehemently97. His hands shake more than a young man's should. He sips98 his beer, leaving shreds99 of foam100 on his tufty mustache, and, looking level at his father, says, "You asked me what I thought of the '89s. The same thing I thought about the '88s. Dull, Dad. Boxy. They're still giving us cars that look like gas?misers101 when there's been a gas glut102 for ten years. Americans want to go back to fins103 and convertibles104 and the limo look and these Japs are still trying to sell these tidy little boxes. And not cheap, either. That's what hurts. The lousy dollar against the yen105. Why should people pay seventeen grand for a GTS when in the same range you can get a Mustang or Beretta GT or Mazda MX?6?"
"A Celica doesn't cost seventeen grand," Harry says. "Mine back home listed at less than fifteen."
"Get a few options and it does."
"Don't push the options at people ? you get a name in the county for loading. People come in determined to have a stripped model, you should sell 'em one without making 'em feel they're being cheapskates."
"Tell it to California," Nelson says. "Practically all they want to part with are loaded models. The automatic notchbacks, the All?Trac Turbos. You want a basic ST or GT, it takes months for the order to come through. Luxury is where the bigger profit is, all the way up the line back to Tokyo. You have to try to sell what they send us ? the one machine they make that's really moving, the Camry, you can't wheedle106 enough out of the bastards107. They treat us like dirt, Dad. They see us as soft. Soft lazy Americans, over the hill. Ten more years, they'll have bought the whole country. Some television show I was watching, they already own all of Hawaii and half of L.A. and Nevada. They're buying up thousands of acres of desert in Nevada! What're they going to do with it? Set off Japanese atom bombs?"
"Don't get down on the Japanese like that, Nelson. We've done fine riding along with the Japanese."
"Riding along, you said it. Like riding along in the back seat of a Tercel. You always talk of them with such awe108, like they're supermen. They're not. Some of their design, you get away from the little safe dependable cheapie family car, is a disaster. The Land Cruiser is a dog, it doesn't begin to compete with the Cherokee, and neither does the 4?Runner, it was so underpowered they had to come with a V?6 engine that turns out to be a guzzler109 ? fourteen miles to the gallon, I was reading in Consumer Reports. And that van! It's ridiculous. Where the engine is, up between the front seats, the only way to get to the front from the back is get all the way out and climb back in. In the winter in Pennsylvania, people don't like to do that. So many customers have been complaining, I drove one myself the other day just to see, and even though I'm no giant, boy, did I feel squeezed in ? no foot room to speak of, and no place to put your elbow. And zilch acceleration110: pull into a fast?moving highway you'll get rear?ended. The wind pushed me all over 422, the damn thing is so tall ? I could hardly step up into it."
That's right, Harry is thinking, you're no giant. Nelson seems to him strangely precise and indignant and agitated111, like a nicely made watch with one tooth off a cogwheel or a gummy spot in the lubrication. The kid keeps sniffing112, and lights another cigarette, after not enjoying the one he just snuffed out. He keeps touching113 his nose, as if his mustache hurts. "Well," Harry says, taking a relaxed tone to try to relax his son, "vans were never the bread and butter, and Toyota knows they have a lemon. They're getting a total revamp out by '91. How do you like the new Cressida?"
"It stinks114, in my humble115. There's nothing new about it. Oh, it's bigger, a bit, and the engine is up from two point eight to three point oh, and twenty?four valves instead of twelve, so you get more oomph, but for a basic twenty?one K you expect a little oomph ? my God. The dashboard is a disaster. The climatecontrol panel slides out like a drawer and won't budge116 unless the ignition's on, which is ridiculous, number one, and two, they kept from last year's model their crazy idea of two sets of audio controls so you have all these extra buttons when already there's enough for an airplane cockpit. It costs luxury, Dad, and it drives luxury you could say, but it looks cheap inside and pseudo?Audi outside. Toyota, let's face it, has about the styling imagination of a gerbil. Their cars don't express anything. Good cars, classic cars ? the Thirties Packards, the little Jags with the long hood117 and spoked118 wheels, the Fifties finned119 jobbies, even the VW bug120 expressed something, made a statement. Toyotas don't express anything but playing it safe and stealing other people's ideas. Look at their pickup121. The pickup used to be hot, but now they've let Ford122 and GM right back into the market. Look at the MR?2. It doesn't sell for shit now."
Harry argues, "High insurance is hurting everybody's twoseaters. Toyota puts out a good solid machine. They handle well and they last, and people know that and respect it."
Nelson cuts him short. "And they're so damn dictatorial123 ? they tell you exactly what to charge, what to put in the windows, what your salespeople124 should wear, how many square feet of this and that you have to have to be good enough to lick their bazoo. When I took over I was surprised at all the crap you and Charlie had been swallowing all those years. They expect you to be their robot."
Now Rabbit is fully125 offended. "Welcome to the real world, kid. You're going to be part of some organization or other in this life. Toyota's been good to us and good to your grandfather and don't you forget it. I can remember Fred Springer when he first got the Toyota franchise6 saying he felt like a kid at Christmas all year round." The women in the family are always saying Nelson is a throwback to his grandfather and Harry hopes by mentioning dead Fred to bring the boy back into line. All this blaspheming Toyota makes Harry uneasy.
But Nelson goes on, "Grandpa was a dealer, Dad. He loved to make deals. He used to tell about it: you came up short on some and made out like a bandit on others and it was fun. There was some play in the situation, some space for creativity. Unloading the trade?ins is about the only spontaneous creative thing left in the business now, and Toyota tells you they don't want a bunch of ugly American junk up front on the lot, you almost have to sell the used cars on the sly. At least you can cut an extra grand or so if you get a dummy126; selling new is just running the cash register. I don't call that selling, just standing127 at the checkout128 counter."
"Not bad for forty?five thou plus benefits." What Nelson makes a year now. Harry and Janice quarrel about it; he says it's too much, she says he has a family to support. "When I was your age," he tells the boy, perhaps not for the first time, "I was pulling down? thirteen five a year as a Linotyper and came home dirty every night. The job gave me headaches and ruined my eyes. I used to have perfect eyes."
"That was then, Dad, this is now. You were still in the indus-trial era. You were a blue?collar slave. People don't make money an hour at a time any more; you just get yourself in the right pos-ition and it comes. I know guys, lawyers, guys in real estate, no older than me and not as smart who pull in two, three hundred K on a single transaction. You must know a lot of retired129 money down here. It's easy to be rich, that's what this country is all about."
"These must be the guys doing all that selling?off of Nevada to the Japanese you're so upset about. What're you so hungry for money for anyway? You live mortgage?free in that house your mother gives you, you must be saving a bundle. Speaking of used cars ? '
"Dad, I hate to break the news to you, but forty thousand just isn't a fuck of a lot if you want to live with any style."
"Jesus, how much style do you and Pru need? Your house is free, all you do is cover heat and taxes ?"
"The taxes on that barn have crept up to over four grand. Mt. Judge real estate is way up since the new baby boom, even a semi-detached over toward that slummy end of Jackson Road where you used to live goes for six figures. Also the federal tax reform didn't do a thing for my bracket, you got to be rich to get the benefits. Lyle was showing me on a spread sheet ? "
"That's something else I wanted to ask you about. Whose idea was it to replace Mildred Kroust with this guy?"
"Dad, she'd been with Springer Motors forever ? "
"I know, that was the point. She could do it all in her sleep."
"She couldn't, actually, though she was asleep a lot of the time. She never could handle computers, for one thing. Oh sure, she tried, but one little scramble130 or error message'd show up on the screen she'd blame the machine and call up the company to send a repairman over at a hundred twenty an hour when all that was wrong was she couldn't read the manual and had hit the wrong key. She was ancient. You should have let her go when she reached retirement132 age."
The apartment door furtively134 clicks open. "Just me," Janice's voice calls. "Pru and the babies wanted to stay at the pool a little longer and I thought I'd come back and start dinner. I thought we'd just have odds135 and ends tonight; I'll see if there's any soup to warm up. Keep talking, boys." She doesn't intrude136 upon them; her footsteps head into the kitchen. She must imagine they are having a healing talk, father to son. In fact Harry is looking at Nelson as if the boy is a computer. There is a glitch137, a secret. He talks too much, too rapidly. Nellie used to be taciturn and sullen138 and now he keeps spilling out words, giving more answer than there was question. Something is revving139 him up, something is wrong. Harry says, of Mildred Kroust, "She wasn't that old, actu-ally, was she? Sixty?eight? Sixty?nine?"
"Dad, she was in her seventies and counting. Lyle does all she ever used to do and comes in only two or three days a week."
"He's doing it all different, I can see on the stat sheets. That was the thing I wanted to ask you about, the figures on the used in the November set."
For some reason, the kid has gone white around the gills again. He pokes140 his cigarette through the hole at the beer pull?tab and then crushes the can in one hand, no big trick now that they're made of paper?thin aluminum141. He rises from his chair and seems to be heading toward his mother, who has been knocking things around in the kitchen.
'Janice! " Harry shouts, turning his head with difficulty, his neck stiff with fat.
She stands in the kitchen entryway in a wet black bathing suit and a purple wraparound skirt, to make herself decent for the elevator. She looks a touch foozled: she cracked open the Campari bottle before leading the others down to the pool and must have hurried back to give herself another slug. Her skimpy hair is wet and stringy. "What?" she says, responding guiltily to the urgent sound of Harry's voice.
"Where did that latest batch142 of sheets from the lot go? Weren't they sitting over on the desk?"
This desk is one they bought cheap down here, in a hurry to furnish their place, in the same style as the end tables flanking the blond fold?out sofa and their bedroom bureaus ? white?painted wood with the legs slashed143 at intervals144 with gold paint to imitate bamboo joints145. It has only three shallow drawers that stick in the humidity and some cubby holes up top where bills and invitations get lost. The desktop146, of some glazed147 marmoreal stuff like petrified148 honey?vanilla149 ice cream, is generally covered by a drift of unanswered letters and bank statements and statements from their stockbrokers150 and money management fund and golf scorecards and Xeroxed announcements from the Village Activities Committee, called VAC since life down here is supposedly a perpetual vacation. Also Janice has a way of tearing out clippings from health magazines and The National Enquirer151 and the Fort Myers News?Press and then forgetting who she meant to send them to. She looks frightened.
"Were they?" she asks. "Maybe I threw them out. Your idea, Harry, is just pile everything on it and it'll still be there next year when you want it."
"These just came in last week. They were November's financial summaries."
Her mouth pinches in and her face seems to click shut on a decision she will stick to blindly no matter what happens, the way women will. "I don't know where they went to. What I especially hate are your old golf cards drifting around. Why do you keep them?"
"I write tips to myself on them, what I learned on that round. Don't change the subject, Janice. I want those Goddamn stat sheets."
Nelson stands beside his mother at the mouth of the kitchen, the crushed can in his hand. Without the denim152 jacket his shirt looks even more sissified, with its delicate pink stripes and white French cuffs154 and round?pointed155 white collar. The boy and Janice are near the same height, with tense small cloudy faces. Both look furtive133. "No big deal, Dad," Nelson says in a dry?mouthed voice. "You'll be getting the December summaries in a couple of weeks." When he turns toward the refrigerator, to get himself another beer, he gives Rabbit a heartbreaking view of the back of his head ? the careful rat's tail, the curved sliver156 of earring157, the growing bald spot.
And when Pru comes back from the pool with the children, all of them in rubber flipflops and hugging towels around their shoulders and their hair pasted flat against their skulls159, the two small children shivering gleefully, their lips bluish, their miniature fingers white and wrinkled from the water, Harry sees Pru in a new way, as the weakest link in a conspiracy160 against him. That cushiony frontal kiss she gave him at the airport. The pelvis that in her high?cut but otherwise demure161 white bathing suit looks so gently pried162 wider by the passing years.
Their fifth winter down here, this is, and Harry still wakes amazed to find himself actually in Florida, beside the Gulf of Mexico. If not exactly beside it, within sight of it, at least he was until that new row of six?story condos with ornamental163 turrets164 and Spanish?tile roofs shut out the last distant wink165 of watery166 horizon. When he and Janice bought the place in 1984 you could still see from their balcony snatches of the Gulf, a dead?level edge to the world over the rooftops and broken between the raw new towers like the dots and dashes of Morse code, and in their excitement they bought a telescope and tripod at a nautical167 shop at the mall a mile down Pindo Palm Boulevard. In its trembling little circle of vision, that first winter, they would catch a sailboat with its striped spinnaker bellying168 out or a luxury yacht with tall white sides peeling back the waves silently or a fishing charter with its winglike gaffing platforms or, farthest out, a world unto itself, a rusty170 gray oil freighter headed motionlessly toward Mobile or New Orleans or back toward Panama or Venezuela. In the years since, their view of the water has been built shut, skyscraper171 hotels arising along the shore, constructions the color of oatmeal or raspberry whip or else sheer glass like vertical173 distillations, cold and pure, of the Gulf's blue?green.
Where these towers arise had once been nothing but sand and mangrove swamp and snaky tidal inlets slipping among the nets of roots and dimpling where an alligator174 or a water moccasin glided175; and then a scattering176 of white?painted houses and unpainted shacks177 in feeble imitation of the South to the north, scratching out some cotton and grazing some cattle on the sandy soil, sending north shuffling178 herds179 of beef on the hoof180 to the starving rebel troops in the Civil War; and then houses closer together, some of brick and wrought181 iron and of limestone182 and granite183 barged in from Alabama quarries184. Then, in the era after Reconstruction185, to this appendage186 of the South came the railroads and the rich and the sick and the hopeful misfits, this being frontier in an unexpected direction. Busts187 followed booms; optimism kept washing in. Now, with the jets and Social Security and the national sunworship, they can't build onto it fast enough, this city called Deleon, named after some Spanish explorer killed for all his shining black breastplate by the poisoned arrow of a Seminole in 1521 near here or a place like it, and pronounced Deelyun by the locals, as if they are offering to deal you in. The past glimmers188 like a dream at the back of Harry's mind as he awakes; in his semiretirement he has taken to reading history. It has always vaguely189 interested him, that sinister190 mulch of facts our little lives grow out of before joining the mulch themselves, the fragile brown rotting layers of previous deaths, layers that if deep enough and squeezed hard enough make coal as in Pennsylvania. On quiet evenings, while Janice sits on the sofa sipping191 herself into stupidity with some lamebrain TV show, he lies on the bed leaning back against its padded satiny headboard with a book, staring dizzily down into the past as if high in a jade?green treehouse.
The sound that breaks into his dreams and dispels192 them is the rasp of golf greens being mowed193, and then the scarcely less mechanical weeping noise of the seagulls gathering194 on the freshly watered fairways, where the earthworms are surfacing to drink. The head of their bed is by the big glass sliding doors, left open a crack to take in the winter?morning cool, in these few months when the air?conditioner is non?essential; so the cool salt air, sweetened with the scent40 of fresh fairways, reminds his face of where he is, this mass?produced paradise where Janice's money has taken him. She is not in the bed, though her warmth still greets his knee as he spreadeagles into her space. In deference195 to his height of six three, they have at last bought a king?size bed, so for the first time in his life his feet do not hang over the bottom and force him to sleep on his belly169 like a dead man floating. It took him a long time to get used to it, his feet not hooking onto the mattress196 this way but instead being forced to bend at the ankle or else point sideways. He gets foot cramps197. He tries to sleep on his side, slightly curled up; it gives his mouth space to breathe and his belly room to slop into, and it frightens his frail198 heart less than hanging face down over the thickness of the mattress. But his arms don't know where to go. A hand crooked200 under his head loses circulation at the wrist and its numbness201 awakes him, tingling202 as if with an electric shock. If he lies on his back, Janice says, he snores. She snores herself now, now that they are approaching elderly, but he tries not to blame her for it: poor mutt, she can't help what she does when asleep, snoring and sometimes farting so bad he has to bury his nose in the pillow and remind himself she's only human. Poor women: they have a lot of leaks down there, their bodies are too complicated. He hears her now in the kitchen, talking in an unreal high needling sort of voice, the way we talk to children.
Rabbit listens for the lower younger voice of the children's mother to chime in but instead hears, close to his head, a bird cheeping in the Norfolk pine whose branches can be touched from their balcony. He still can't get over Norfolk pines, the way they look like the plastic trees you buy for Christmas, the branches spaced like slats and each one of them a plume32 perfect as a bird's feather and the whole tree absolutely conical in shape. The bird's cheeping sounds like a piece of moist wood being rhythmically203 made to squeak204 against another. Most nature in Florida has a manufactured quality. Wall?to?wall carpet, green outdoor carpeting on the cement walks, crunchy St. Augustine grass in the space between the walks, all of it imposed on top of the sand, the dirty?gray sand that sprays over your shoes when you take a divot down here.
Today is Wednesday, he has a golf date, his usual foursome, tee?off time at nine?forty: the thought gives him a reason to get out of bed and not just lie there forever, trying to remember his dream. In his dream he had been reaching out toward something his sleeping eyes didn't let him see through his lids, something round and shadowy and sad, big?bellied205 with the vague doom206 he tries to suppress during the daytime.
Up, Rabbit examines the phony?looking branches of the Norfolk pine to see if he can see the noisy bird. He expects from the self?importance of the sound a cockatoo or toucan207 at least, a squawky tropical something with foot?long tailfeathers hanging down, but all he sees is a small brown bird such as flicker208 all around in Pennsylvania. Maybe it is a Pennsylvania bird, a migrant down here just like him. A snowbird.
He goes into the bathroom and brushes his teeth and urinates. Funny, it used to make a throaty splash in the toilet bowl, now a kind of grudging209 uncertain stream comes out, he has to rise once and sometimes even twice in the night, sitting on the toilet like a woman; what with the foreskin folded over sleepily he can never be sure which direction it will come out in, bad as a woman, they can't aim either. He shaves and weighs himself. He's gained a pound. Those Planter's Peanut Bars. He moves to leave the bedroom and realizes he can't. In Florida he sleeps in his underwear; pajamas210 get twisted around him and around two in the morning feel so hot they wake him up, along with the pressure in his bladder. With Pru and the kids here he can't just wander into the kitchen in his underwear. He hears them out there, bumping into things. He either should put on his golf pants and a polo shirt or find his bathrobe. He decides on the bathrobe, a burgundy red with gray lapels, as being more ?what's that word that keeps coming up in medieval history? ? seigneurial. Hostly. Grandpatemal. It makes a statement, as Nelson would say.
By the time Rabbit opens the door, the first fight of the day has begun in the kitchen. Precious little Judy is unhappy; salt tears redden the rims211 of her lids though she is trying, shaky?voiced, not to cry. "But half the kids in my school have been. Some of them have even been twice, and they don't even have grandparents living in Florida!" She can't reach Disney World.
Janice is explaining, "It's really a whole separate trip, sweetheart. You should fly to Orlando if you want to go. To go from here ?"
"'d be like driving to Pittsburgh," Harry finishes for her.
"Daddy promised!" the child protests, with such passion that her four?year?old brother, holding a spoon suspended in his fist above a bowl of Total he is mushing without eating, sobs212 in sympathy. Two drops of milk fall from his slack lower lip.
"Dull driving, too," Harry continues. "Stoplights all down Route 27. We come that way sometimes, driving down."
Pru says, "Daddy didn't mean this time, he meant some other time when we have more days."
"He said this time," the child insists. "He's always breaking promises."
"Daddy's very busy earning money so you can have all the things you want," Pru tells her, taking the prim213 tone of one woman losing patience with another. She too is wearing a bathrobe, a little quilted shorty patterned with violet morning glories and their vines. Her freckled214 thighs216 have that broad bland217 smoothness of car fenders. Her feet are long and bony, pink in their toe joints and papery?white on top, in cork218?soled lipstickred clogs219. Her toenail polish is chipped, and Rabbit finds that pretty sexy too.
"Oh, yeahhh," the child replies, with a furious sarcastic220 emphasis Harry doesn't understand. Family life, life with children, is something out of his past, that he has not been sorry to leave behind; it was for him like a bush in some neglected corner of the back yard that gets overgrown, a lilac bush or privet some bindweed has invaded from underneath with leaves so similar and tendrils so tightly entwining it gives the gardener a headache in the sun to try to separate bad growth from good. Anyway he basically had but the one child, Nelson, one lousy child, though he was reading somewhere the other day that a human male produces enough sperm221 to populate not just the planet Earth but Mars and Venus as well, if they could support life. It's a depressing thought, too planetary, like that unreachable round object in his dream, that the whole point of his earthly existence has been to produce little Nellie Angstrom, so he in turn could produce Judy and Roy, and so on until the sun burns out.
Now Nelson is stirred up and sucked into the kitchen by the fuss. He must have heard himself being talked about, and comes in from the guest bedroom, barechested and unshaven in rumpled222 smoky?blue pajama bottoms that look expensive. Unease infiltrates223 Harry's abdomen224 with this observation of Nelson's expensive tastes, something he is trying to remember about numbers, something he can't reach. Janice said the boy looked exhausted225 and he does look thin, with faint shadows flickering226 between his ribs227. There is a touch of aggression229 about the bare chest, something territorial230, taken with Pru's shorty robe. The pajama game. Dons Day and, who was it, John Raitt? Despite the quality of his pajamas, Nelson looks haggard and scruffy and mean, with the unshaven whiskers and that tufty little mustache like what dead Fred Springer used to wear and his thinning hair standing up in damp spikes231. Rabbit remembers how deeply Nelson used to sleep as a child, how hot and moist his skull158 on the pillow would feel. "What's this about promises?" the boy asks angrily, staring at a space between Judy and Pru. "I never promised to go up to Orlando this trip."
"Daddy, there's nothing to do in this dumb part of Florida. I hated that circus museum last year, and then on the way back the traffic was so miserable232 Roy threw up in the Kentucky Fried Chicken parking lot!"
"Route 41 does a job on you," Harry admits.
"There's tons to do," Nelson says. "Go swim in the pool. Go play shuffleboard." He runs dry almost immediately and looks in panic at his mother.
Janice says to Judy, "The Village has tennis courts where you and I can go and hit balls."
"Roy'll have to come and he always spoils it," the little girl complains, the vision of it freshening her tears again.
"? and there's the beach ? " Janice goes on.
Judy replies, just making objections now, "Our teacher says the sun gives you skin damage and the earlier you get it the more cancer you'll get later on."
"Don't be such a fucking smart?ass18," Nelson says to her. "Your grandmother's trying to be nice."
His remark makes the child's tears spill, out through the curved lashes233 onto her cheeks like the silvery jerking tracks rain makes on windowpanes. "I wasn't being -" she tries to get out.
At her age, this girl should be happier than she is, Harry thinks. "Sure you were," he tells her. "And why not? It's boring, going somewhere with family, away from your friends. We all remember what it's like, we used to drag your daddy to the Jersey234 Shore, and then make him go up to the Poconos and have hay?fever up in those Godawful dark pines. Torture! The things we do to each other in the name of fun! O.K. Here's my plan. Anybody want to hear my plan?"
The little girl nods. The others, even Roy who's been carefully shaping his Total mush into a kind of pyramid with the back of his spoon, watch him as if he is a conjurer. It's not so hard, to get back into the swing of family life. You just have to come out of yourself a little. It's like basketball was, those first two or three minutes, when amid the jamming and yelling and body heat and crowd noise you realized that you were going to have to do it yourself, nobody was going to do it for you. "Today I got to play golf," he begins.
"Great," Nelson says. "That's a big help. You're not going to make Judy caddy, if that's your plan. You'll bend her spine235 out of shape."
"Nellie, you're getting paranoid," Harry tells him. The boy's been trying ever since that business with Jill twenty years ago to protect women against his father. His son is the only person in the world who sees him as dangerous. Harry feels the day's first twinge in the chest, a little playful burning like a child flirting236 with a lit match. "That wasn't my plan, no, but why not sometime? She could carry my lightweight bag, I'd take out two of the woods and one of the wedges and she and I could walk a couple holes some late afternoon when the tee times are over. I could show her the swing. But in the foursome, actually, we ride carts. I'd rather we walked, for the exercise, but the other bozos insist. Actually, they're great guys, they all have grandchildren, they'd love Judy. She could ride in my place." He can picture it, her sitting there like a slim little princess, Bernie Drechsel with his cigar in his mouth at the wheel of the electric cart.
He is losing his conjurer's audience, thinking out loud this way. Roy drops his spoon and Pru squats237 down to pick it up, her shorty robe flaring238 out over one thigh215. A lacy peep of jet?black bikini underpants. A slightly shiny vaccination239 oval high up. Nelson groans240. "Out with it, Dad. I got to go to the bathroom." He blows his nose on a paper towel. Why is his nose always running? Harry has read somewhere, maybe People on the death of Rock Hudson, that that's one of the first signs of AIDS.
Harry says, "No more circus museum. Actually, they've closed it. For renovations." He had noticed a story about it in the Sarasota paper a week or so ago, headlined Circus Redux. He hates that word, you see it everywhere, and he doesn't know how to pronounce it. Like arbitrageur and perestroika. "My plan was this. Today, I got to play golf but tonight there's Bingo in the dining hall and I thought the kids or at least Judy would enjoy that, and we could all use a real meal for a change. Tomorrow, we could either go to this Lionel Train and Seashell Museum that Joe Gold says is just terrific, or in the other direction, south, there's the Edison house. I've always been kind of curious about it but it may be a little advanced for the kids, I don't know. Maybe the invention of the telephone and the phonograph doesn't seem too exciting to kids raised on all this computerized crap they have now."
"Dad," Nelson says in his pained voice, sniffing, "it's not even that exciting to me. Isn't there someplace out on Route 41 where they could go play video games? Or miniature golf. Or the beach and swimming pool, Jesus. I thought we came down here to relax, and you're making some kind of educational ordeal241 of it. Come on. Lay off."
Rabbit is hurt. "Lay off, I was just trying to create a little structure," he says.
Pru intervenes in his defense242. "Nelson, the children can't spend all day in the pool, they'll get too much ultraviolet."
Janice says, "This hot weather is bound to turn cool this time of year. It's flukey."
"It's the greenhouse effect," Nelson says, turning to go to the bathroom, showing that disgusting rat's tail at the back of his head, the glint of earring. How queer is the kid? "The greedy consumer society has wrecked243 the ozone244 and we'll all be fried by the year 2000," Nelson says. "Look!" He points to the Fort Myers News?Press someone has laid on the kitchen table. The main headline is 1988: the dry look, and a cartoon shows a crazed?looking yellow sun wringing245 out some clouds for a single drop of water. Janice must have brought the paper in from the corridor, though all she cares about is the Lifestyles section. Who's fucking who, who's divorcing who. Normally she stays in bed and lets her husband be the one to bring the paper in from the corridor. Lifestyles keeps.
Pru hands back Roy's spoon to him and takes away his dreadful little bowl of Total mush, congealed246 like dogfood left out overnight. "Want a 'nana?" she asks in a cooing coaxing247 sexy voice: "A nice 'nana if Mommy peeled and sliced it?"
Janice confesses, "Teresa, I'm not sure we have any bananas. In fact I know we don't. Harry hates fruit though he should eat it and I meant to do a big shopping yesterday for you and Nelson but the tennis game I was in went to the third set and then it was time to go to the airport." She brightens; her voice goes up in volume; she tries to become another conjurer. "That's what we can do this morning while Grandpa plays his golf! We can all go to Winn Dixie and do an enormous shopping!"
"Count me out," Nelson yells from the bathroom. "I'd like to borrow the car sometime, though."
What does he want a car for, the little big shot?
Judy's tears have dried and she has snuck into the living room, where the Today show is doing its last recap of the news and weather. Willard Scott, beamed in from Nome, Alaska, has Jane and Bryant in stitches.
Pru is looking into the cupboards and begging Roy, "How about some Sugar Pops, honey? Grandpa and Grandma have lots of Sugar Pops. And jars of dry?roasted peanuts and cashews. Harry, do you know that nuts are loaded with cholesterol248?"
"Yeah, people keep telling me that. But then I read some article said the body needs cholesterol and the whole scare's been engineered by the chicken lobby." Janice, in a pink alligator shirt and a pair of magenta249 slacks like the women wear down here to go shopping in, has wedged herself in at the kitchen table with the News?Press and a sliced?open bagel and plastic container of cream cheese. In her Florida phase she has taken to bagels. Lox, too. She has pulled out the Lifestyles section of the newspaper and Harry, still able to read type in any direction from his days as a Linotyper, sees sideways the headline (they use a "down" style and lots of USA Today?style color graphics)
Manwatchers
name the men
with the most
and in caps at the top HUGE LOSS and `WORKING' ON ANOTHER WEDDING. He cranks his head to look at the page the right way and sees that they mean Working Girl star Melanie Griffith and the survivors250 of the Armenian tragedy and their "unique type of grief." Funny how your wife reading the newspaper makes every item in it look fascinating, and then when you look yourself it all turns dull. The Braun Aromaster percolator, with a little sludgy coffee lukewarm in its glass half, sits at the end of the counter, past where Pru is still standing trying to find something Roy might eat. To let Harry ease his belly by, she goes up on her toes and with a little soft grunt251 under her breath presses her thighs tight against the counter edge. All this family closeness is almost like an African but where everybody sleeps and screws in full view of everybody else. But, then, Harry asks himself, what has Western man done with all his precious privacy anyway? To judge from the history books, nothing much except invent the gun and psychoanalysis.
Down here it's necessary to keep bread and cookies in a drawer holding a big tin box to keep out ants, even up on the fourth floor. It's awkward to pull the drawer out and then lift the lid but he does, finding a couple of empty cookie bags, one for Double?Stuf Oreos and one for Fruit Newtons, which his grandchildren left with nothing but crumbs252 inside, and one and a half stale sugar doughnuts that even they disdained253 to consume. Rabbit takes them and his mug full of sludgy coffee and squeezes back past Pru, concentrating on the sensation in his groin as her shorty robe grazes it, and with a wicked impulse gives the kitchen table a nudge with the back of his thighs to get Janice's full cup of coffee rocking so it will slosh and spill. "Harry," she says, quickly lifting the newspaper. "Shit."
The sound ofthe shower running leaks into the kitchen. "Why the hell's Nelson so jittery254?" he asks the women aloud.
Pru, who must know the answer, doesn't give it, and Janice says, mopping with a Scott Towel Pru hands her, "He's under stress. It's a much more competitive car world than it was ten years ago and Nelson's doing it all himself, he doesn't have Charlie to hide behind like you did."
"He could have kept Charlie on but he didn't want to, Charlie was willing to stay part?time," he says, but nobody answers him except Roy, who looks at him and says, "Grampa looks ridiculous."
"Quite a vocabulary," Harry compliments Pru.
"He doesn't know what he's saying, he hears these expressions on television," she says, brushing back hair from her forehead with a touching two?handed gesture she has developed to go with the hairdo.
The theme of the kitchen decor is aqua, a creamy frigid255 color that looked a little subtler in the paint chart Janice and he consulted four years ago, when they had the place repainted. He wondered at the time how it would wear but Janice thought it would be lighthearted and slightly daring, like their buying a condominium at all. Even the refrigerator and the Formica countertops are aqua, and looking at it all, with the creatures and flowers of seashells Janice has loaded the open shelves toward the foyer with, makes him feel panicky, shortens his breath. Being underwater is one ofhis nightmares. A simple off?white like the Golds next door have would have been less oppressive. He takes his mug and the doughnut?and?a?half and the rest of the News?Press into the living room and settles on the sofa side of the round glass table, since Judy occupies the wicker armchair that faces the television set. The pictures on the front page are of Donald Trump256 (Male call: the year's hottest), the grimacing sun wringing the clouds (Rainfall 33% off average; year is driest since 1927), and Fort Myers' mayor Wilbur Smith, looking like a long?haired kid younger even than Nelson, quoted saying that football star Deion Sanders' recent arrest for assault and battery on a police officer could be partially257 blamed upon the unruly crowd that had gathered to watch the incident. There is a story about an annual government book?length report on automobiles258 and consumer complaints: in a gray box highlighting The best by the book, under all four categories, subcompacts, compacts, intermediate, and minivans, there isn't a Toyota listed. He feels a small pained slipping in his stomach.
"Harry, you must eat a solid breakfast," Janice calls, "if you're going to play golf right through lunch. Dr. Morris told you coffee on an empty stomach is about the worst thing you can do for hypertension."
"If there's anything makes me hypertense," he calls back, "it's women telling me all the time what to eat." As he bites into the stale doughnut the sugar patters down on the paper and dusts the crimson259 lapels of his seigneurial bathrobe.
Janice continues to Pru, "Have you been giving any thought to Nelson's diet? He doesn't look like he's eating anything."
"He never did eat much," Pru says. "He must be where Roy gets his pickiness from."
Judy has found among all the channels of network and cable an old Lassie movie; Harry moves to the end of the sofa to get an angle on it. The collie nudges awake the lost boy asleep in the haystack and leads him home, down a dirt road toward a purple Scottish sunset. The music swells260 like an ache in the throat; Harry smiles sheepishly at Judy through his tears. Her eyes, that did their crying earlier, are dry. Lassie is not part of her childhood past, lost forever.
He tells her when the frog leaves his throat, "I got to go play golf, Judy. Think you can manage here today with these rude folks?"
She studies him seriously, not quite sure of the joke. "I guess so."
"They're good people," he says, not sure this is true. "How would you like to go Sunfishing some time?"
"What's Sunfishing?"
"It's sailing in a little boat. We'd go off one of the hotel beaches in Deleon. They're supposed to be just for the guests but I know the guy who runs the concession261. I play golf with his father."
Her eyes don't leave his face. "Have you ever done it, Grandpa? Sunfishing."
"Sure. A coupla times." Once, actually; but it was a vivid lesson. With Cindy Murkett in her black bikini.that showed the hairs in her crotch. Her breasts slipsloppy in their little black sling262. The wind tugging263, the water slapping, the sun wielding264 its silent white hammer on their skins, the two of them alone and nearly naked.
"Sounds neat," Judy ventures, adding, "I got a prize in my camp swimming class for staying underwater the longest." She returns her gaze to the television, rapidly flicking265 through the channels with the hand control ?channel?surfing, kids call it.
Harry tries to imagine the world seen through her clear green eyes, every little thing vivid and sharp and new, packed full of itself like a satin valentine. His own vision feels fogged no matter which glasses he puts on, for reading or far vision. He wears the latter only for movies and night driving, and refuses to get bifocals; glasses worn for more than an hour at a time hurt his ears. And the lenses are always dusty and the things he looks at all seem tired; he's seen them too many times before. A kind of drought has settled over the world, a bleaching266 such as overtakes old color prints, even the ones kept in a drawer.
Except, strangely, the first fairway of a golf course before his first swing. This vista is ever fresh. There, on the tee's earth platform, standing in his large white spiked267 Footjoys and blue sweat socks, drawing the long tapered268 steel wand of his Lynx Predator269 driver from the bag, he feels tall again, tall the way he used to on a hardwood basketball floor when after those first minutes his growing momentum270 and lengthening271 bounds and leaps reduced the court to childlike dimensions, to the size of a tennis court and then a Ping?Pong table, his legs unthinkingly eating the distances up, back and forth272, and the hoop49 with its dainty skirtlike net dipping down to be there on the layups. So, in golf, the distances, the hundreds of yards, dissolve to a few effortless swings if you find the inner magic, the key. Always, golf for him holds out the hope ofperfection, of a perfect weightlessness and consummate273 ease, for now and again it does happen, happens in three dimensions, shot after shot. But then he gets human and tries to force it, to make it happen, to get ten extra yards, to steer274 it, and it goes away, grace you could call it, the feeling of collaboration275, of being bigger than he really is. When you stand up on the first tee it is there, it comes back from wherever it lives during the rest of your life, endless possibility, the possibility of a flawless round, and a round without a speck276 of bad in it, without a missed two?footer or a flying right elbow, without a pushed wood or pulled iron; the first fairway is in front ofyou, palm trees on the left and water on the right, flat as a picture. All you have to do is take a simple pure swing and puncture277 the picture in the middle with a ball that shrinks in a second to the size of a needle?prick278, a tiny tunnel into the absolute. That would be it.
But on his practice swing his chest gives a twang of pain and this makes him think for some reason of Nelson. The kid jangles in his mind. As he stands up to the ball he feels crowded but is impatient and hits it outside in, trying too hard with his right hand. The ball starts out promisingly279 but leaks more and more to the right and disappears too close to the edge of the long scummy pond of water.
" 'Fraid that's alligator territory," Berme says sadly. Berme is his partner for the round.
"Mulligan?" Harry asks.
There is a pause. Ed Silberstein asks Joe Gold, "What do you think?"
Joe tells Harry, "I didn't notice that we took any mulligans."
Harry says, "You cripples don't hit it far enough to get into trouble. We always give mulligans on the first drive. That's been our tradition."
Ed says, "Angstrom, how're you ever going to live up to your potential if we keep babying you with mulligans?"
Joe says, "How much potential you think a guy with a gut280 like that still has? I think his potential has all gone to his colon281."
While they are thus ribbing him Rabbit takes another ball from his pocket and tees it up and, with a stiff half?swing, sends it safely but ingloriously down the left side of the fairway. Perhaps not quite safely: it seems to hit a hard spot and keeps bouncing toward a palm tree. "Sorry, Bernie," he says. "I'll loosen up."
"Am I worried?" Bernie asks, putting his foot to the electric?cart pedal a split?second before Harry has settled into the seat beside him. "With your brawn282 and my brains, we'll cream these oafs."
Bernie Drechsel, Ed Silberstein, and Joe Gold are all older than Harry, and shorter, and usually make him feel good about himself. With them, he is a big Swede, they call him Angstrom, a comical pet gentile, a big pale uncircumcised hunk of American white bread. He in turn treasures their perspective; it seems more manly283 than his, sadder and wiser and less shaky. Their long history has put all that suffering in its pocket and strides on. Harry asks Bernie, as the cart rolls over the tamped284 and glistening285 grass toward their balls, "Whaddeya think about all this fuss about this Deion Sanders? In the paper this morning he even has the mayor of Fort Myers making excuses for him."
Bernie shifts the cigar in his mouth an inch and says, "It's cruel, you know, to take these black kids out of nowhere and give 'em all this publicity286 and turn them into millionaires. No wonder they go crazy."
"The paper says the crowd kept the cops from giving him room: He had flipped287 out at some salesclerk who said he had stolen a pair of earrings288. He even took a pop at her."
"I don't know about Sanders," Bernie says, "but a lot of it's drugs. Cocaine289. The stuff is everywhere."
"You wonder what people see in it," Rabbit says.
"What they see in it," Bernie says, stopping the cart and resting his cigar on the edge of the plastic ledge290 for holding drinks or beer cans, "is instant happiness." He squares up to his second shot with that awful stance of his, his feet too close together, his bald head dipping down in a reverse weight?shift, and punches the ball with a four?iron: all arms and wrists. It stays straight, though, and winds up within an easy chip in front of the elevated green. "There are two routes to happiness," he continues, back at the wheel of the cart. "Work for it, day after day, like you and I did, or take a chemical shortcut291. With the world the way it is, these kids take the shortcut. The long way looks too long."
"Yeah, well, it is long. And then when you've gone the distance, where's the happiness?"
"Behind you," the other man admits.
"What interests me about Sanders and kids like that," Rabbit says, as Ben?lie speeds along down the sun?baked fairway, dodging292 fallen brown fronds293 and coconuts294, "is I had a little taste of it once. Athletics296. Everybody cheering, loving you. Wanting a piece."
"Sure you did. It sticks out all over. Just the way you waggle the club. 'Fraid you made the palm tree, though. You're stymied297, my friend." Bernie stops the cart, a little close to the ball for Harry's comfort.
"I think I can hook it around."
"Don't try it. Chip it out. You know what Tommy Armour298 says: take your stroke in a situation like this, and go for the green on the next one. Don't attempt a miracle."
"Well, you're already up there for a sure bogey299. Let me try to bend it on." The palm tree is one of those whose trunk looks like a giant braid. It breathes on him, with its faint rustle300, its dim smell like that of a friendly attic301 full of dried?out old school papers and love letters. There's a lot of death in Florida, if you look. The palms grow by the lower branches dying and dropping off. The hot sun hurries the life cycles along. Harry takes his stance with his hip172 almost touching the jagged rough trunk, hoods302 the fiveiron, and imagines the curving arc of the miracle shot and Bernie's glad cry of congratulation.
But in fact the closeness of the tree and maybe of Bernie in the cart inhibits303 his swing and he pulls the ball with the hooded304 club, so it hits the top of the next palm along the fairway and drops straight down into the short rough. The rough, though, in Florida isn't like the rough up north; it's just spongy pale grass a half?inch longer than fairway. They tailor these courses for the elderly and lame131. They baby you down here.
Bernie sighs. "Stubborn," he says as Harry gets back in. "You guys think the world will melt if you whistle." Harry knows that "guys" is polite for "goys." The thought that he might be wrong, that obstacles won't melt if he whistles, renews that dull internal ache of doom he felt in the airport. As he stands up to his third shot with an eight?iron, Bernie's disapproval305 weighs on his arms and causes him to hit a bit fat, enough to take the click out of the ball and leave it ten yards short.
"Sorry, Bernie. Chip up close and get your par14." But Bernie fluffs the chip ?all wrists again, and too quick ? and they both get sixes, losing the hole to Ed Silberstein's routine bogey. Ed is a wiry retired accountant from Toledo, with dark upright hair and a slender thrusting jaw307 that makes him look as if he's about to smile all the time; he never seems to get the ball more than ten feet off the ground, but he keeps it moving toward the hole.
"You guys looked like Dukakis on that one," he crows. "Blowing it."
"Don't knock the Duke," Joe says. "He gave us honest government for a change. The Boston pols can't forgive him for it." Joe Gold owns a couple of liquor stores in some city in Massachusetts called Framingham. He is stocky and sandy and wears glasses so thick they make his eyes look like they're trying to escape from two little fishbowls, jumping from side to side. He and his wife, Beu, Ben for Beulah, are very quiet condo neighbors next door; you wonder what they do all the time in there, that never makes any noise.
Ed says, "He wimped out when it counted. He should have stood up and said, `Sure, I'm a liberal, and damn proud of it."'
"Yeah, how would that have played in the South and the Midwest?"Joe asks. "In California and Florida for that matter with all these old farts who all they want to hear is `No more taxes'?"
"Lousy," Ed admits. "But he wasn't going to get their votes anyway. His only hope was to get the poor excited. Knock away that three?footer, Angstrom. I've already written down your six."
"I need the practice," Harry says, and strokes it, and watches it rim91 out on the left edge. Not his day. Will he ever have a day again? Fifty?five and fading. His own son can't stand to be in the same room with him. Ruth once called him Mr. Death.
"He was going for those Reagan Democrats308," Joe continues explaining. "Except there aren't any Reagan Democrats, there're just cut?and?dried rednecks. Now that I'm down south here, I understand better what it's all about. It's all about blacks. One hundred thirty years after Abe Lincoln, the Republicans have got the anti?black vote and it's bigger than any Democratic Presidential candidate can cope with, barring a massive depression or a boo?boo the size of Watergate. Ollie North doesn't do it. Reagan being an airhead didn't do it. Face it: the bulk of this country is scared to death of the blacks. That's the one gut issue we've got."
After that episode with Skeeter twenty years ago Rabbit has had mixed feelings about blacks and whenever the subject comes up he tends to hold his tongue lest he betray himself one way or another. "Bernie, what do you think?" Harry asks while they're watching the two others hit from the second tee, a 136?yard parthree over that same scummy pond. He finds Bernie the wisest of the three, the most phlegmatic309 and slowest to speak. He never came back totally from some open?heart surgery he had a few years ago. He moves cumbersomely310, has emphysema and a bit of a hump back and the slack look of a plump man who lost weight because his doctor told him to. His color isn't good, his lower lip in profile looks loose.
"I think," he says, "Dukakis tried to talk intelligently to the American people and we aren't ready for it. Bush talked to us like we were a bunch of morons311 and we ate it up. Can you imagine, the Pledge of Allegiance, read my lips ?can you imagine such crap in this day and age? Ailes and those others, they made him into a beer commercial ? head for the mountains." Bernie sang this last phrase, his voice quavery but touchingly312 true. Rabbit is impressed by this ability Jews seem to have, to sing and to dance, to give themselves to the moment. They sing at seder, he knows, because Bernie and Fern had them to a seder one April just before heading north. Passover. The angel of death passed over. Harry had never understood the word before. Let this cup pass from me. Bernie concludes, "To my mind there are two possibilities about Bush ? he believed what he was saying, or he didn't. I don't know which is more terrifying. He's what we call a pisher."
"Dukakis always looked like he was sore about something," Rabbit offers. This is as close as he can bring himself to admit that, alone in this foursome, he voted for Bush.
Bernie maybe guesses it. He says, "After eight years of Reagan I would have thought more people would have been sore than were. Ifyou could ever get the poor to vote in this country, you'd have socialism. But people want to think rich. That's the genius of the capitalist system: either you're rich, or you want to be, or you think you ought to be."
Rabbit Eked313 Reagan. He liked the foggy voice, the smile, the big shoulders, the way his head kept wagging during the long pauses, the way he floated above the facts, knowing there was more to government than facts, and the way he could change direction while saying he was going straight ahead, pulling out of Beirut, getting cozy with Gorby, running up the national debt. The strange thing was, except for the hopeless down?and?outers, the world became a better place under him. The Communists fell apart, except for in Nicaragua, and even there he put them on the defensive314. The guy had a magic touch. He was a dream man. Harry dares say, "Under Reagan, you know, it was like anesthesia."
"Ever had an operation? A real operation."
"Not really. Tonsils when I was a kid. Appendix when I was in the Army. They took it out in case I was sent to Korea. Then I was never sent."
"I had a quadruple bypass three years ago."
"I know, Bern. I remember your telling me. But you look great now."
"When you come out of anesthesia, it hurts like hell. You can't believe you can live with such pain. To get at your heart, they split your whole rib228 cage open. They crack you open like a coconut295. And they pull the best veins315 they can find out of your upper leg. So when you come out of it your groin's killing316 you as well as your chest."
"Wow." Harry inappropriately laughs, since while Bernie is talking to him on the cart, Ed, with that pompous317 fussy318 setup he has, laying his hands on the club finger by finger like he's doing flower arrangement, and then peeking319 toward the hole five or six times before swinging, as if he's trying to shake loose cobwebs or a tick in his collar, looked up during the swing so the topped ball scuttered into the water, skipping three times before sinking, leaving three expanding, interlocking sets of rings on the water. Alligator food.
"Six hours I was on the table," Bernie is urging into his ear. "I woke up and I couldn't move. I couldn't even open my eyelids320. They freeze you, so your blood flow is down to almost nothing. I was like locked into a black coffin321. No. It's like I was the coffin. And then out of this blackness I hear this weird322 voice, with a thick Indian accent, the Pakistani anesthetist."
Joe Gold, with his partner's ball in the water, tries to hit it too quick, to get a ball in play, jerking the club back in two stages like he does and then roundhousing with that flat swing stocky guys tend to have. He pushes the shot off so he catches the pot bunker on the right.
Bernie is doing a high, spacy, Pakistani voice. " 'Ber?nie, Bernie,' this voice says, so honest to God I think maybe it's the voice of God, `oper?ation a suc?cess!' "
Harry has heard the story before but laughs anyway. It's a good, scary story about the edge of death.
" 'Ber?nie, Ber?nie,' " Bernie repeats, "like it came out of the clouds to Abraham, to go cut Isaac's throat."
Harry asks, "Shall we keep the same order?" He feels he disgraced himself on the previous hole.
"You go first, Angstrom. I think it shakes you up too much to hit last. Go for it. Show these nudniks how it's done."
This is what Rabbit hoped to hear. He takes a seven?iron and tries to think of five things: keeping his head down, keeping his backswing from being too long, moving his hip while the club is still at the top, keeping his downswing smooth, and keeping the clubface square on the ball, at that point on the sphere where a clockface says 3:15. From the whistly magic way the ball vanishes from the center of his held?down vision he knows the hit is sweet; they all together watch the dark dot rise, hover323 that little ghostly extra bit that gives the distance, and then drop straight down on the green, a hair to the left but what looks pin high, the ball bouncing right with the slant324 of the bowl?shaped green.
"Beauty," Ed has to admit.
"How about a mulligan?" Joe asks. "We'll give you one this time."
Bernie asks, pushing himself out of the cart, "What iron was that?"
"Seven."
"Gonna hit 'em like that, my friend, you should use an eight."
"Think I'm past the hole?"
"Way past. You're on the back edge."
Some partner. There's no satisfying him. Like Marty Tothero nearly forty years ago. Get twenty?five points a game, Marty wanted thirty?five and would talk about a missed layup. The soldier in Harry, the masochistic Christian325, respects men like this. It's total uncritical love, such as women provide, that makes you soft and does you in.
"For me, I think a choked?up six," Bernie says.
But in trying to take something off the shot he takes off too much and leaves it short, over the water but on the bank where it's hard to take a stance. "Tough chip from there," Harry says, unable to resist a gentle needle. He still blames Bernie for parking the cart so close on that attempted deliberate hook.
Bernie accepts the needle. "Especially after that last shitty chip of mine, huh?" he says, pushing his cut?up, deflated326, humpbacked old body into the cart, Harry having slid over into the driver's seat. The guy who's on the green has earned the right to drive. Harry feels momentum building, they're going to cream these oafs. He glides327 over the water on an arched wooden bridge with red rubber treads laid over the planks328. "From where you are," Bernie tells him as they get out, "the green slopes down. Hit your putt too hard, you'll slide miles beyond."
Ed with a ball in the water is out of it. Bernie's stance on the steep bank is so awkward he whiffs the ball once, shanks it sideways on his next swing, and picks up. But sandy Joe Gold, in his element, waggles his feet to plant himself and manages a good blast shot out of the pot bunker. With Bernie's advice preying329 on his mind, interfering330 with his own instincts, Harry strokes his long approach putt tentatively and leaves it four feet short. He marks it with a Valhalla Village marker while Joe two?putts for his bogey. Joe takes his time and gives Harry too long to study his four?footer. He sees a break, then doesn't see it. In trying to avoid upping out on the left like he did on the last hole, he loses his par putt, very makable, an inch to the right. "Son of a son of a bitch," he says, frustration331 pressing from behind his eyes so hard he thinks he might burst into tears. "On in one, and a fucking three?putt."
"It happens," Ed says, writing down the 4 with his trained accountant's primness332. "Tie hole."
"Sorry, Bern," Harry says, climbing back into the cart, on the passenger side.
"I screwed you up," his partner says. "Should have kept my yap shut about the green being downhill." He unwraps another cigar and, pushing the pedal, leans back into a long day.
Not Harry's day. The Florida sun seems not so much a single thing overhead but a set of klieg lights that pursue you everywhere with an even white illumination. Even directly under palm trees and right up against the twelve?foot pine fences that separate the Village from the rest of the world, the sun fords you, reddening the tip of Rabbit's nose and baking his forearms and the back of his non?gloved hand, which is already dotted with little white bumps of keratosis. He carries a tube of number?15 sunscreen in his golf bag and is always dabbing333 it on but the ultraviolet gets through anyway, cooking his squamous cells into skin cancer. The three men he plays with never use anything and just get a comfortable tan, even the bald top of Bernie's head, as smooth as an ostrich334 egg with only a few small specks335 on it as he bends over his shots with that awful reverse?shift, squeezed?feet stance of his. Harry feels Bernie's steady, mechanically repeating ineptitude336 short shots, chunked chips ? a burden today, since he can't quite carry him, and wonders why somebody who exudes337 suffering wisdom the way Bernie does never learns a thing about golf or even seems to try. To him, Harry supposes, it's just a game, a way of killing time in the sun at this stage of his life. Bernie was a boy once and then a man making money and children (a carpet business in Queens; two daughters who married nice solid guys and a son who went to Princeton and the Wharton School in Philadelphia and became a hostile?takeover specialist on Wall Street) and now he's at the other end of life's rainbow, and this is what you do: Bernie endures retirement fun in Florida the way he's endured his entire life, sucking that same acrid338 wet?cigar taste out of it. He doesn't see what Harry sees in the game infinity339, an opportunity for infinite improvement. Rabbit doesn't see it himself today. Around the eleventh hole ? a dogleg parfive that he butchers, slicing his second shot, a four?wood, so wildly it winds up in a condo's side yard, between some plastic trash cans and a concrete slab340 with some rusting306 steel clothesline poles sunk in it (a German shepherd chained to the clothesline barks at him, lunging toward him so the taut wire sings, and Gold and Silberstein loafing in their cart cackle, and Bernie chomps341 deeper and looks morose), taking the out?of?bounds drop for a four while the dog keeps barking and barking, trying to hit a three?iron so hard he digs six inches behind and sprays sand all over his shoes and into the tops of his socks, pulling the next iron to the left into a bed of parched342 and shedding azaleas beside the twelfth tee, taking a drop for another stroke, skulling343 the chip clear across over the green (all three playing partners keeping a ghastly silence now, shocked, mourning for him, or is it holding in their glee?), plunking the next sand shot against the trap lip so it dribbles344 back, and picking up in disgust, and even hitting himself on the knee when after raking he flips345 the sand rake to one side ? after this hole, the game and day begin to eat him into a state of depression. The grass looks greasy346 and unreal, every other palm tree is dying from the drought and dropping stiff brown fronds, the condos line every fairway like tall stucco outhouses, and even the sky, where your eyes can usually find relief, is dirtied by jet trails that spread and wander until they are indistinguishable from God's pure clouds.
The hours pile on, noon comes and goes, the klieg lights begin to dim but the heat is turned up higher. They finish at quarter to three, Harry and Bernie twenty dollars down?both sides of a fivedollar nassau plus the eighteen and a press on the second nine that they lost. "We'll get 'em next time," Harry promises his partner, not really believing it.
"You weren't quite yourself today, my friend," Bernie admits. "You got girlftiend trouble or something?"
Horny, Jews are: he once read a history of Hollywood about their womanizing. Harry Cohn, Groucho Marx, the Warner Brothers, they went crazy out there with the sunshine and swimming pools and all the Midwestern shiksas who'd do anything to be movie stars ? participate in orgies, blow a mogul while he was talking on the telephone ? yet his golf partners are all married to the same women, forty, fifty years, women with big dyed hair and thick bangles and fat brown upper arms who can't stop talking when you see them all dolled up at dinner, Bernie and Ed and Joe ?sitting smilingly silent beside them as if all this talking their women do is sex, which it must be ? pep, life. How do they do it? Wear life like a ready?made suit that fits exactly. "I guess I told you," Harry tells Bernie, "my son and his family are visiting."
"There's your problem, Angstrom: you felt guilty horsing around with us. You should have been entertaining your loved ones."
"Yeah, entertain 'em. They just got here yesterday and are acting347 bored already. They want us to live next door to Disney World."
"Take 'em to jungle Gardens. Up in Sarasota, down 41 from the Ringling Museum. Fern and I go there two, three times a winter and never get bored. I could watch those flamingos348 sleep for hours ? how do they do it? Balanced on one leg two feet long and thinner than my finger." He holds up a finger and it seems thick. "Thinner than that," he swears.
"I don't know, Bernie. When I'm around, my kid acts like he doesn't want my own grandchildren to have anything much to do with me. The little boy, he's four, is pretty much a stranger, but the girl and I could get along. She's almost nine. I was even thinking I should bring her out in a cart sometime and let her try to hit the ball. Or maybe rent a Sunfish, Ed, if your son over at the Bayview could write me up as a guest."
The foursome is having beers and free munchies in Club Nineteen, next to the pro12 shop, on the bottom floor of Building A of Valhalla Village. The darkness inside ? the dark panels and beams in the style of an English pub ? is intensified349 by the subtropical brightness outside, at the round white tables under umbrellas saying Coors. You can hear the splashing from the pool, between Buildings A and B, and the throbbing350 of a generator351 housed on the other side of the wall, beyond the rest rooms and dart70 boards and video games. At night sometimes Harry imagines he can hear the generator throbbing through all the intervening apartments, carpets, air?conditioners, conversations, mattresses352, and peach?colored hall wallpaper. Somehow the noise curves around and clings to the walls and comes in his big sliding window, the crack that's left open to the Gulf air.
"No problem," Ed says, as he totals their scores. "Just show up at the front desk and ask for Gregg Silvers. That's what he calls himself, don't ask me why. They'll let you walk through the lobby and downstairs to the changing rooms. I don't advise wearing bathing suits into the lobby; they try to discourage that. Do you have a day I can tell him to expect you?"
Harry gets the impression this may be a realer favor than he thought, a bigger deal than it's worth. "Friday, if ever," he says.
"Does Gregg have to know for sure? Tomorrow I thought we'd head up Sarasota way."
"Jungle Gardens," Bernie insists.
"Lionel Train Museum," Joe Gold contributes. "And right across from the Ringling Museum there's Bellm's Cars and Music of Yesterday, is I think what they call it. Over a thousand music machines, can you imagine? Antique cars from 1897, I never knew there were cars then. You're in the car business, aren't you, Angstrom? You and your boy. You'll both go ape in there."
"I don't know," Harry begins, groping to express the curious cloud that Nelson carries with him, that dampens any outing.
"Harry, this is interesting," Ed says. "Giving you a seven, two over par for handicap purposes, on the eleventh where you picked up, and a courtesy six on the sixteenth where you put two balls in the water, you scored an even ninety even so. You weren't playing as bad as it looked. Waste a few less drives and long irons, and you'll be in the eighties every time."
"I couldn't get my ass into it, I couldn't release," Harry says. "I couldn't let go." He has an unaskable question for these three wise Jewish men: how about death? He asks them, "Hey, how about that Pan Am jet?"
There is a pause. "It has to be a bomb," Ed says. "When you've got splinters of steel driven right through leather luggage and wreckage353 strewn across fifty miles of Scotland, it has to be a bomb."
Bernie sighs, "It's them again. The Shiiteheads."
"Arabs," Joe Gold says. A patriotic354 glee lights his wobbling eyes. "Once we got proof, the F?111s'll be flying into Libya again. What we ought to do is keep going right into Eye?ran and stick it to the old Ayatollah."
But their tongues are less quick than usual; Harry has made them uneasy, with what he hadn't meant to be so much a political question. With Jews, everything in the papers comes back to Israel.
"I mean," he says, "how the hell do you think it feels? Sitting there and having the plane explode?"
"Well, I bet it wakes you up," Ed says.
"They didn't feel a thing," Bernie says, considerately, sensing Harry's personal worry. "Zero. It was over that quick."
Joe says to Harry, "You know what the Israelis say, don't you, Angstrom? `If we got to have enemies, thank God they're Arabs.' "
Harry has heard this before but tries to laugh. Bernie says, "I think Angstrom could use a new partner. I depress him."
"It wasn't you, Bernie. I came depressed355."
Club Nineteen puts out a wonderful array of nibbles356, in little china bowls monogrammed with Valhalla Village's logo, two seablue intertwined V's. Not just dry?roasted peanuts and almonds and hazelnuts but tiny pretzel sticks and salted pumpkin357 seeds and tight curls resembling Corn Chips, only finer and sharper in the mouth in that blissful instant while the tongue works one around to be crunched358 between the molars. The other men take only a pinch of this starchy salty salad now and then but soon the bowl is empty, Rabbit doing eighty per cent of the eating.
"That crap's loaded with sodium359," Bernie warns him.
"Yeah, but it's good for the soul," Harry says, about as religious a remark as he dares put forth. "Who else is ready for another beer?" he asks. "Losers buy this round."
He is beginning to feel expansive: his dark mood is thinning like a squirt of ink in alcohol's gentle solvent360. He waves for the waiter and asks him to bring along with four more beers another bowl of munchies. The waiter, a faunlike young Hispanic with an earring bigger than Nelson's and gold chains on both wrists, nods in a timid way; Harry must seem enormous to him, menacingly white and pink and sodden361 with sodium?retained water. The whole quartet must seem loud and potentially unruly: ugly old gringos. Another squirt of ink. Harry feels heavy again. Good times in Florida are never as good as those boozy late afternoons at his old club back in Diamond County, the Flying Eagle, before Buddy362 Inglefinger married that lanky363 crazy hippie Valerie and moved to Royersford and Thelma Harrison got too sick with lupus ever to show up and they dropped their membership and Cindy Murkett got fat and Webb divorced her so you never saw anybody any more. In Florida the people are so cautious, as if on two beers they might fall down and break a hip. The whole state is brittle364.
"Your boy play golf?" Joe is asking him.
"Not really. He's never had the temperament365. Or the time, he says." And, Rabbit might have added, he never really invited him.
"What does he do, for fun?" Ed asks. These men, it dawns on Harry, are being polite. By ordering another round of beers he has stretched the nineteenth?hole camaraderie366 beyond where it's effortless. These guys' sexy elderly wives are waiting. Gossip to catch up on. Letters from dutiful, prospering367 children to read. Interest to add up. Torah to study.
"Beats me," Harry says. "Hangs around with a bunch of Brewer368 creeps, swinging singles sort of. I never see him having much fun. He never went in for sports."
"The way you talk about him," Bernie said, "he could be the father and you the son."
Rabbit agrees enthusiastically; with a boost from the second beer he almost has a vision. "Yeah, and a delinquent369 son at that. That's how he sees me, an old juvenile370 delinquent. His wife looks miserable." Where did that come from? Was it true? Help me, guys. Tell me how you've got on top of sex and death so they don't bother you. He goes on, "The whole family, the two kids too, seem on edge. I don't know what's up."
"Your wife, does she know what's up?"
That mutt. Harry ignores the question. "Just last night I tried to talk to the kid in a friendly fashion and all he did was bitch about Toyotas. The company that feeds us, that saved him and his old man and his shady little crook199 of a grandfather from being bums371, and all he does is complain about how Toyotas aren't Lamborghinis! Jesus, that beer went down fast. It felt like the Gobi Desert out there."
"Harry, you don't want another beer."
"You want to get home and tell your family about Bellm's. B, E, L, L, M, apostrophe, S. I know it sounds like I can't spell. Every old car you could imagine. From before steering372 wheels. Before gears, even."
"To be honest, guys, I've never been that much into cars. I drive 'em, I sell 'em, but I've never really understood the damn things. To me they're all alike. Great if they go, lousy if they don't." The other men are standing up.
"I want to see you out here tomorrow afternoon with your little granddaughter. Teach her the basics. Head down, slow takeaway.
That was Bernie talking; Ed Silberstein tells him:
"Work on shortening that backswing, Harry. You don't need all that above the shoulders. The hit is right in here, right by your pecker. Best advice I ever had from a golf pro was, Imagine you're hitting it with your pecker."
They have sensed his silent cry for help, for consolation373, and are becoming more Jewish on Harry's behalf, it seems to him as he sits there.
Bernie has pushed up from the table and towers over Harry with his gray skin, his loose dewlaps full of shadows. "We have an expression," he says downward. "Tsuris. Sounds to me, my friend, like you got some tsuris. Not full?grown yet, not gehoketh tsuris, but tsuris."
Pleasantly dazed with alcohol, his chest distantly stinging, the tip of his nose beginning to feel sunburn, Harry has no inclination374 to move, though the world around him is in motion. Two young college?kid hotshots who were pressing them from behind all afternoon have finished and are making the video games over by the rest rooms warble, zing, whistle, and bleat375. Animated376 automatons377 in many colors appear and disappear on the screen. He sees his white fingers, with the big moons on their fingernails, absentmindedly dabble378 at the bottom of the bowl of munchies, as if he is trying to pick up the intertwined V's. The junk food has been consumed. He cannot be absolutely sure, in memory, if the waiter ever brought a new bowl.
Joe Gold, his hair a sandy mane, his magnified eyes surging back and forth within his squarish spectacles, bends down a bit, as if rooting his feet again in a trap, and says, "Here's a Jewish joke for you. Abe meets Izzy after a long time no see. He asks, `How many children do you have?' Izzy says, `None.' Abe says, `None! So what do you do for aggravation379?"'
Their laughter seems speeded?up, like the action in a beer commercial; their mockery in its unnatural380 unison381 holds a premonition for Harry, that he has wasted the day, that now he must hurry, hurry to catch up, like when he used. to run late to school with a watery flutter in his stomach. The three other men, returning to their solid domestic arrangements, in farewell cuff153 at him, even pinch the nape of his neck, as if to rouse him from a spiritual torpor382. In Florida, he thinks, even friendship has a thin, provisional quality, since people might at any minute buy another condominium and move to it, or else up and die.
点击收听单词发音
1 harry | |
vt.掠夺,蹂躏,使苦恼 | |
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2 steadily | |
adv.稳定地;不变地;持续地 | |
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3 unlimited | |
adj.无限的,不受控制的,无条件的 | |
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4 plaza | |
n.广场,市场 | |
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5 franchises | |
n.(尤指选举议员的)选举权( franchise的名词复数 );参政权;获特许权的商业机构(或服务);(公司授予的)特许经销权v.给…以特许权,出售特许权( franchise的第三人称单数 ) | |
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6 franchise | |
n.特许,特权,专营权,特许权 | |
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7 peculiar | |
adj.古怪的,异常的;特殊的,特有的 | |
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8 pal | |
n.朋友,伙伴,同志;vi.结为友 | |
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9 cater | |
vi.(for/to)满足,迎合;(for)提供饮食及服务 | |
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10 arthritic | |
adj.关节炎的 | |
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11 rehabilitation | |
n.康复,悔过自新,修复,复兴,复职,复位 | |
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12 pro | |
n.赞成,赞成的意见,赞成者 | |
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13 cremation | |
n.火葬,火化 | |
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14 par | |
n.标准,票面价值,平均数量;adj.票面的,平常的,标准的 | |
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15 lone | |
adj.孤寂的,单独的;唯一的 | |
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16 hawks | |
鹰( hawk的名词复数 ); 鹰派人物,主战派人物 | |
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17 stylish | |
adj.流行的,时髦的;漂亮的,气派的 | |
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18 ass | |
n.驴;傻瓜,蠢笨的人 | |
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19 glossy | |
adj.平滑的;有光泽的 | |
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20 decrepit | |
adj.衰老的,破旧的 | |
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21 haze | |
n.霾,烟雾;懵懂,迷糊;vi.(over)变模糊 | |
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22 pagodas | |
塔,宝塔( pagoda的名词复数 ) | |
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23 banyan | |
n.菩提树,榕树 | |
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24 mangrove | |
n.(植物)红树,红树林 | |
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25 scruffy | |
adj.肮脏的,不洁的 | |
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26 tracts | |
大片土地( tract的名词复数 ); 地带; (体内的)道; (尤指宣扬宗教、伦理或政治的)短文 | |
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27 niche | |
n.壁龛;合适的职务(环境、位置等) | |
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28 maze | |
n.迷宫,八阵图,混乱,迷惑 | |
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29 gulf | |
n.海湾;深渊,鸿沟;分歧,隔阂 | |
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30 tinge | |
vt.(较淡)着色于,染色;使带有…气息;n.淡淡色彩,些微的气息 | |
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31 ornamented | |
adj.花式字体的v.装饰,点缀,美化( ornament的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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32 plume | |
n.羽毛;v.整理羽毛,骚首弄姿,用羽毛装饰 | |
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33 plumes | |
羽毛( plume的名词复数 ); 羽毛饰; 羽毛状物; 升上空中的羽状物 | |
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34 butt | |
n.笑柄;烟蒂;枪托;臀部;v.用头撞或顶 | |
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35 lurking | |
潜在 | |
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36 villas | |
别墅,公馆( villa的名词复数 ); (城郊)住宅 | |
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37 marital | |
adj.婚姻的,夫妻的 | |
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38 misery | |
n.痛苦,苦恼,苦难;悲惨的境遇,贫苦 | |
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39 vista | |
n.远景,深景,展望,回想 | |
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40 scent | |
n.气味,香味,香水,线索,嗅觉;v.嗅,发觉 | |
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41 superstitious | |
adj.迷信的 | |
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42 placating | |
v.安抚,抚慰,使平静( placate的现在分词 ) | |
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43 brass | |
n.黄铜;黄铜器,铜管乐器 | |
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44 stencilled | |
v.用模板印(文字或图案)( stencil的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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45 mildew | |
n.发霉;v.(使)发霉 | |
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46 lathered | |
v.(指肥皂)形成泡沫( lather的过去式和过去分词 );用皂沫覆盖;狠狠地打 | |
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47 bouquets | |
n.花束( bouquet的名词复数 );(酒的)芳香 | |
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48 hoops | |
n.箍( hoop的名词复数 );(篮球)篮圈;(旧时儿童玩的)大环子;(两端埋在地里的)小铁弓 | |
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49 hoop | |
n.(篮球)篮圈,篮 | |
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50 gabbing | |
v.空谈,唠叨,瞎扯( gab的现在分词 ) | |
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51 contrived | |
adj.不自然的,做作的;虚构的 | |
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52 parlor | |
n.店铺,营业室;会客室,客厅 | |
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53 mansion | |
n.大厦,大楼;宅第 | |
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54 eerie | |
adj.怪诞的;奇异的;可怕的;胆怯的 | |
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55 descends | |
v.下来( descend的第三人称单数 );下去;下降;下斜 | |
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56 fumbles | |
摸索,笨拙的处理( fumble的名词复数 ) | |
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57 notched | |
a.有凹口的,有缺口的 | |
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58 petals | |
n.花瓣( petal的名词复数 ) | |
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59 augurs | |
n.(古罗马的)占兆官( augur的名词复数 );占卜师,预言者v.预示,预兆,预言( augur的第三人称单数 );成为预兆;占卜 | |
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60 beaks | |
n.鸟嘴( beak的名词复数 );鹰钩嘴;尖鼻子;掌权者 | |
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61 slipper | |
n.拖鞋 | |
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62 gees | |
n.(美俚)一千元(gee的复数形式)v.驭马快走或向右(gee的第三人称单数形式) | |
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63 outgrew | |
长[发展] 得超过(某物)的范围( outgrow的过去式 ); 长[发展]得不能再要(某物); 长得比…快; 生长速度超过 | |
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64 plumbing | |
n.水管装置;水暖工的工作;管道工程v.用铅锤测量(plumb的现在分词);探究 | |
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65 sneaks | |
abbr.sneakers (tennis shoes) 胶底运动鞋(网球鞋)v.潜行( sneak的第三人称单数 );偷偷溜走;(儿童向成人)打小报告;告状 | |
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66 dealer | |
n.商人,贩子 | |
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67 grill | |
n.烤架,铁格子,烤肉;v.烧,烤,严加盘问 | |
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68 cocktail | |
n.鸡尾酒;餐前开胃小吃;混合物 | |
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69 darting | |
v.投掷,投射( dart的现在分词 );向前冲,飞奔 | |
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70 dart | |
v.猛冲,投掷;n.飞镖,猛冲 | |
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71 whacks | |
n.重击声( whack的名词复数 );不正常;有毛病v.重击,使劲打( whack的第三人称单数 ) | |
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72 spherical | |
adj.球形的;球面的 | |
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73 inverted | |
adj.反向的,倒转的v.使倒置,使反转( invert的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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74 faucet | |
n.水龙头 | |
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75 gasps | |
v.喘气( gasp的第三人称单数 );喘息;倒抽气;很想要 | |
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76 outrage | |
n.暴行,侮辱,愤怒;vt.凌辱,激怒 | |
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77 condescending | |
adj.谦逊的,故意屈尊的 | |
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78 cozy | |
adj.亲如手足的,密切的,暖和舒服的 | |
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79 demonstration | |
n.表明,示范,论证,示威 | |
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80 indifference | |
n.不感兴趣,不关心,冷淡,不在乎 | |
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81 jade | |
n.玉石;碧玉;翡翠 | |
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82 lugs | |
钎柄 | |
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83 doorways | |
n.门口,门道( doorway的名词复数 ) | |
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84 overestimated | |
对(数量)估计过高,对…作过高的评价( overestimate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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85 underneath | |
adj.在...下面,在...底下;adv.在下面 | |
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86 taut | |
adj.拉紧的,绷紧的,紧张的 | |
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87 brat | |
n.孩子;顽童 | |
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88 unpacked | |
v.从(包裹等)中取出(所装的东西),打开行李取出( unpack的过去式和过去分词 );拆包;解除…的负担;吐露(心事等) | |
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89 irritable | |
adj.急躁的;过敏的;易怒的 | |
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90 grimacing | |
v.扮鬼相,做鬼脸( grimace的现在分词 ) | |
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91 rim | |
n.(圆物的)边,轮缘;边界 | |
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92 hunching | |
隆起(hunch的现在分词形式) | |
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93 fiddling | |
微小的 | |
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94 determined | |
adj.坚定的;有决心的 | |
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95 wagon | |
n.四轮马车,手推车,面包车;无盖运货列车 | |
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96 cone | |
n.圆锥体,圆锥形东西,球果 | |
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97 vehemently | |
adv. 热烈地 | |
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98 sips | |
n.小口喝,一小口的量( sip的名词复数 )v.小口喝,呷,抿( sip的第三人称单数 ) | |
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99 shreds | |
v.撕碎,切碎( shred的第三人称单数 );用撕毁机撕毁(文件) | |
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100 foam | |
v./n.泡沫,起泡沫 | |
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101 misers | |
守财奴,吝啬鬼( miser的名词复数 ) | |
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102 glut | |
n.存货过多,供过于求;v.狼吞虎咽 | |
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103 fins | |
[医]散热片;鱼鳍;飞边;鸭掌 | |
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104 convertibles | |
n.可改变性,可变化性( convertible的名词复数 );活动顶篷式汽车 | |
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105 yen | |
n. 日元;热望 | |
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106 wheedle | |
v.劝诱,哄骗 | |
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107 bastards | |
私生子( bastard的名词复数 ); 坏蛋; 讨厌的事物; 麻烦事 (认为别人走运或不幸时说)家伙 | |
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108 awe | |
n.敬畏,惊惧;vt.使敬畏,使惊惧 | |
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109 guzzler | |
n.酒鬼,酒量大的人 | |
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110 acceleration | |
n.加速,加速度 | |
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111 agitated | |
adj.被鼓动的,不安的 | |
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112 sniffing | |
n.探查法v.以鼻吸气,嗅,闻( sniff的现在分词 );抽鼻子(尤指哭泣、患感冒等时出声地用鼻子吸气);抱怨,不以为然地说 | |
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113 touching | |
adj.动人的,使人感伤的 | |
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114 stinks | |
v.散发出恶臭( stink的第三人称单数 );发臭味;名声臭;糟透 | |
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115 humble | |
adj.谦卑的,恭顺的;地位低下的;v.降低,贬低 | |
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116 budge | |
v.移动一点儿;改变立场 | |
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117 hood | |
n.头巾,兜帽,覆盖;v.罩上,以头巾覆盖 | |
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118 spoked | |
辐条 | |
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119 finned | |
adj.有鳍的,有鳍状物的 | |
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120 bug | |
n.虫子;故障;窃听器;vt.纠缠;装窃听器 | |
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121 pickup | |
n.拾起,获得 | |
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122 Ford | |
n.浅滩,水浅可涉处;v.涉水,涉过 | |
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123 dictatorial | |
adj. 独裁的,专断的 | |
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124 salespeople | |
n.售货员,店员;售货员( salesperson的名词复数 ) | |
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125 fully | |
adv.完全地,全部地,彻底地;充分地 | |
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126 dummy | |
n.假的东西;(哄婴儿的)橡皮奶头 | |
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127 standing | |
n.持续,地位;adj.永久的,不动的,直立的,不流动的 | |
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128 checkout | |
n.(超市等)收银台,付款处 | |
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129 retired | |
adj.隐退的,退休的,退役的 | |
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130 scramble | |
v.爬行,攀爬,杂乱蔓延,碎片,片段,废料 | |
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131 lame | |
adj.跛的,(辩解、论据等)无说服力的 | |
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132 retirement | |
n.退休,退职 | |
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133 furtive | |
adj.鬼鬼崇崇的,偷偷摸摸的 | |
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134 furtively | |
adv. 偷偷地, 暗中地 | |
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135 odds | |
n.让步,机率,可能性,比率;胜败优劣之别 | |
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136 intrude | |
vi.闯入;侵入;打扰,侵扰 | |
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137 glitch | |
n.干扰;误操作,小故障 | |
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138 sullen | |
adj.愠怒的,闷闷不乐的,(天气等)阴沉的 | |
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139 revving | |
v.(使)加速( rev的现在分词 );(数量、活动等)激增;(使发动机)快速旋转;(使)活跃起来 | |
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140 pokes | |
v.伸出( poke的第三人称单数 );戳出;拨弄;与(某人)性交 | |
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141 aluminum | |
n.(aluminium)铝 | |
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142 batch | |
n.一批(组,群);一批生产量 | |
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143 slashed | |
v.挥砍( slash的过去式和过去分词 );鞭打;割破;削减 | |
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144 intervals | |
n.[军事]间隔( interval的名词复数 );间隔时间;[数学]区间;(戏剧、电影或音乐会的)幕间休息 | |
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145 joints | |
接头( joint的名词复数 ); 关节; 公共场所(尤指价格低廉的饮食和娱乐场所) (非正式); 一块烤肉 (英式英语) | |
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146 desktop | |
n.桌面管理系统程序;台式 | |
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147 glazed | |
adj.光滑的,像玻璃的;上过釉的;呆滞无神的v.装玻璃( glaze的过去式);上釉于,上光;(目光)变得呆滞无神 | |
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148 petrified | |
adj.惊呆的;目瞪口呆的v.使吓呆,使惊呆;变僵硬;使石化(petrify的过去式和过去分词) | |
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149 vanilla | |
n.香子兰,香草 | |
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150 stockbrokers | |
n.股票经纪人( stockbroker的名词复数 ) | |
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151 enquirer | |
寻问者,追究者 | |
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152 denim | |
n.斜纹棉布;斜纹棉布裤,牛仔裤 | |
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153 cuff | |
n.袖口;手铐;护腕;vt.用手铐铐;上袖口 | |
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154 cuffs | |
n.袖口( cuff的名词复数 )v.掌打,拳打( cuff的第三人称单数 ) | |
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155 pointed | |
adj.尖的,直截了当的 | |
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156 sliver | |
n.裂片,细片,梳毛;v.纵切,切成长片,剖开 | |
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157 earring | |
n.耳环,耳饰 | |
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158 skull | |
n.头骨;颅骨 | |
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159 skulls | |
颅骨( skull的名词复数 ); 脑袋; 脑子; 脑瓜 | |
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160 conspiracy | |
n.阴谋,密谋,共谋 | |
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161 demure | |
adj.严肃的;端庄的 | |
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162 pried | |
v.打听,刺探(他人的私事)( pry的过去式和过去分词 );撬开 | |
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163 ornamental | |
adj.装饰的;作装饰用的;n.装饰品;观赏植物 | |
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164 turrets | |
(六角)转台( turret的名词复数 ); (战舰和坦克等上的)转动炮塔; (摄影机等上的)镜头转台; (旧时攻城用的)塔车 | |
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165 wink | |
n.眨眼,使眼色,瞬间;v.眨眼,使眼色,闪烁 | |
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166 watery | |
adj.有水的,水汪汪的;湿的,湿润的 | |
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167 nautical | |
adj.海上的,航海的,船员的 | |
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168 bellying | |
鼓出部;鼓鼓囊囊 | |
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169 belly | |
n.肚子,腹部;(像肚子一样)鼓起的部分,膛 | |
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170 rusty | |
adj.生锈的;锈色的;荒废了的 | |
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171 skyscraper | |
n.摩天大楼 | |
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172 hip | |
n.臀部,髋;屋脊 | |
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173 vertical | |
adj.垂直的,顶点的,纵向的;n.垂直物,垂直的位置 | |
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174 alligator | |
n.短吻鳄(一种鳄鱼) | |
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175 glided | |
v.滑动( glide的过去式和过去分词 );掠过;(鸟或飞机 ) 滑翔 | |
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176 scattering | |
n.[物]散射;散乱,分散;在媒介质中的散播adj.散乱的;分散在不同范围的;广泛扩散的;(选票)数量分散的v.散射(scatter的ing形式);散布;驱散 | |
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177 shacks | |
n.窝棚,简陋的小屋( shack的名词复数 ) | |
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178 shuffling | |
adj. 慢慢移动的, 滑移的 动词shuffle的现在分词形式 | |
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179 herds | |
兽群( herd的名词复数 ); 牧群; 人群; 群众 | |
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180 hoof | |
n.(马,牛等的)蹄 | |
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181 wrought | |
v.引起;以…原料制作;运转;adj.制造的 | |
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182 limestone | |
n.石灰石 | |
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183 granite | |
adj.花岗岩,花岗石 | |
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184 quarries | |
n.(采)石场( quarry的名词复数 );猎物(指鸟,兽等);方形石;(格窗等的)方形玻璃v.从采石场采得( quarry的第三人称单数 );从(书本等中)努力发掘(资料等);在采石场采石 | |
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185 reconstruction | |
n.重建,再现,复原 | |
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186 appendage | |
n.附加物 | |
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187 busts | |
半身雕塑像( bust的名词复数 ); 妇女的胸部; 胸围; 突击搜捕 | |
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188 glimmers | |
n.微光,闪光( glimmer的名词复数 )v.发闪光,发微光( glimmer的第三人称单数 ) | |
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189 vaguely | |
adv.含糊地,暖昧地 | |
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190 sinister | |
adj.不吉利的,凶恶的,左边的 | |
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191 sipping | |
v.小口喝,呷,抿( sip的现在分词 ) | |
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192 dispels | |
v.驱散,赶跑( dispel的第三人称单数 ) | |
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193 mowed | |
v.刈,割( mow的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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194 gathering | |
n.集会,聚会,聚集 | |
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195 deference | |
n.尊重,顺从;敬意 | |
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196 mattress | |
n.床垫,床褥 | |
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197 cramps | |
n. 抽筋, 腹部绞痛, 铁箍 adj. 狭窄的, 难解的 v. 使...抽筋, 以铁箍扣紧, 束缚 | |
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198 frail | |
adj.身体虚弱的;易损坏的 | |
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199 crook | |
v.使弯曲;n.小偷,骗子,贼;弯曲(处) | |
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200 crooked | |
adj.弯曲的;不诚实的,狡猾的,不正当的 | |
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201 numbness | |
n.无感觉,麻木,惊呆 | |
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202 tingling | |
v.有刺痛感( tingle的现在分词 ) | |
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203 rhythmically | |
adv.有节奏地 | |
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204 squeak | |
n.吱吱声,逃脱;v.(发出)吱吱叫,侥幸通过;(俚)告密 | |
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205 bellied | |
adj.有腹的,大肚子的 | |
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206 doom | |
n.厄运,劫数;v.注定,命定 | |
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207 toucan | |
n.巨嘴鸟,犀鸟 | |
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208 flicker | |
vi./n.闪烁,摇曳,闪现 | |
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209 grudging | |
adj.勉强的,吝啬的 | |
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210 pajamas | |
n.睡衣裤 | |
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211 rims | |
n.(圆形物体的)边( rim的名词复数 );缘;轮辋;轮圈 | |
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212 sobs | |
啜泣(声),呜咽(声)( sob的名词复数 ) | |
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213 prim | |
adj.拘泥形式的,一本正经的;n.循规蹈矩,整洁;adv.循规蹈矩地,整洁地 | |
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214 freckled | |
adj.雀斑;斑点;晒斑;(使)生雀斑v.雀斑,斑点( freckle的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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215 thigh | |
n.大腿;股骨 | |
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216 thighs | |
n.股,大腿( thigh的名词复数 );食用的鸡(等的)腿 | |
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217 bland | |
adj.淡而无味的,温和的,无刺激性的 | |
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218 cork | |
n.软木,软木塞 | |
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219 clogs | |
木屐; 木底鞋,木屐( clog的名词复数 ) | |
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220 sarcastic | |
adj.讥讽的,讽刺的,嘲弄的 | |
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221 sperm | |
n.精子,精液 | |
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222 rumpled | |
v.弄皱,使凌乱( rumple的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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223 infiltrates | |
n.(使)渗透,(指思想)渗入人的心中( infiltrate的名词复数 )v.(使)渗透,(指思想)渗入人的心中( infiltrate的第三人称单数 ) | |
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224 abdomen | |
n.腹,下腹(胸部到腿部的部分) | |
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225 exhausted | |
adj.极其疲惫的,精疲力尽的 | |
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226 flickering | |
adj.闪烁的,摇曳的,一闪一闪的 | |
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227 ribs | |
n.肋骨( rib的名词复数 );(船或屋顶等的)肋拱;肋骨状的东西;(织物的)凸条花纹 | |
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228 rib | |
n.肋骨,肋状物 | |
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229 aggression | |
n.进攻,侵略,侵犯,侵害 | |
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230 territorial | |
adj.领土的,领地的 | |
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231 spikes | |
n.穗( spike的名词复数 );跑鞋;(防滑)鞋钉;尖状物v.加烈酒于( spike的第三人称单数 );偷偷地给某人的饮料加入(更多)酒精( 或药物);把尖状物钉入;打乱某人的计划 | |
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232 miserable | |
adj.悲惨的,痛苦的;可怜的,糟糕的 | |
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233 lashes | |
n.鞭挞( lash的名词复数 );鞭子;突然猛烈的一击;急速挥动v.鞭打( lash的第三人称单数 );煽动;紧系;怒斥 | |
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234 jersey | |
n.运动衫 | |
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235 spine | |
n.脊柱,脊椎;(动植物的)刺;书脊 | |
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236 flirting | |
v.调情,打情骂俏( flirt的现在分词 ) | |
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237 squats | |
n.蹲坐,蹲姿( squat的名词复数 );被擅自占用的建筑物v.像动物一样蹲下( squat的第三人称单数 );非法擅自占用(土地或房屋);为获得其所有权;而占用某片公共用地。 | |
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238 flaring | |
a.火焰摇曳的,过份艳丽的 | |
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239 vaccination | |
n.接种疫苗,种痘 | |
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240 groans | |
n.呻吟,叹息( groan的名词复数 );呻吟般的声音v.呻吟( groan的第三人称单数 );发牢骚;抱怨;受苦 | |
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241 ordeal | |
n.苦难经历,(尤指对品格、耐力的)严峻考验 | |
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242 defense | |
n.防御,保卫;[pl.]防务工事;辩护,答辩 | |
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243 wrecked | |
adj.失事的,遇难的 | |
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244 ozone | |
n.臭氧,新鲜空气 | |
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245 wringing | |
淋湿的,湿透的 | |
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246 congealed | |
v.使凝结,冻结( congeal的过去式和过去分词 );(指血)凝结 | |
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247 coaxing | |
v.哄,用好话劝说( coax的现在分词 );巧言骗取;哄劝,劝诱;“锻炼”效应 | |
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248 cholesterol | |
n.(U)胆固醇 | |
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249 magenta | |
n..紫红色(的染料);adj.紫红色的 | |
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250 survivors | |
幸存者,残存者,生还者( survivor的名词复数 ) | |
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251 grunt | |
v.嘟哝;作呼噜声;n.呼噜声,嘟哝 | |
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252 crumbs | |
int. (表示惊讶)哎呀 n. 碎屑 名词crumb的复数形式 | |
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253 disdained | |
鄙视( disdain的过去式和过去分词 ); 不屑于做,不愿意做 | |
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254 jittery | |
adj. 神经过敏的, 战战兢兢的 | |
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255 frigid | |
adj.寒冷的,凛冽的;冷淡的;拘禁的 | |
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256 trump | |
n.王牌,法宝;v.打出王牌,吹喇叭 | |
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257 partially | |
adv.部分地,从某些方面讲 | |
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258 automobiles | |
n.汽车( automobile的名词复数 ) | |
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259 crimson | |
n./adj.深(绯)红色(的);vi.脸变绯红色 | |
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260 swells | |
增强( swell的第三人称单数 ); 肿胀; (使)凸出; 充满(激情) | |
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261 concession | |
n.让步,妥协;特许(权) | |
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262 sling | |
vt.扔;悬挂;n.挂带;吊索,吊兜;弹弓 | |
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263 tugging | |
n.牵引感v.用力拉,使劲拉,猛扯( tug的现在分词 ) | |
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264 wielding | |
手持着使用(武器、工具等)( wield的现在分词 ); 具有; 运用(权力); 施加(影响) | |
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265 flicking | |
(尤指用手指或手快速地)轻击( flick的现在分词 ); (用…)轻挥; (快速地)按开关; 向…笑了一下(或瞥了一眼等) | |
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266 bleaching | |
漂白法,漂白 | |
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267 spiked | |
adj.有穗的;成锥形的;有尖顶的 | |
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268 tapered | |
adj. 锥形的,尖削的,楔形的,渐缩的,斜的 动词taper的过去式和过去分词 | |
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269 predator | |
n.捕食其它动物的动物;捕食者 | |
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270 momentum | |
n.动力,冲力,势头;动量 | |
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271 lengthening | |
(时间或空间)延长,伸长( lengthen的现在分词 ); 加长 | |
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272 forth | |
adv.向前;向外,往外 | |
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273 consummate | |
adj.完美的;v.成婚;使完美 [反]baffle | |
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274 steer | |
vt.驾驶,为…操舵;引导;vi.驾驶 | |
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275 collaboration | |
n.合作,协作;勾结 | |
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276 speck | |
n.微粒,小污点,小斑点 | |
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277 puncture | |
n.刺孔,穿孔;v.刺穿,刺破 | |
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278 prick | |
v.刺伤,刺痛,刺孔;n.刺伤,刺痛 | |
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279 promisingly | |
(通常只是开头)给人以希望地,良好地 | |
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280 gut | |
n.[pl.]胆量;内脏;adj.本能的;vt.取出内脏 | |
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281 colon | |
n.冒号,结肠,直肠 | |
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282 brawn | |
n.体力 | |
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283 manly | |
adj.有男子气概的;adv.男子般地,果断地 | |
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284 tamped | |
v.捣固( tamp的过去式和过去分词 );填充;(用炮泥)封炮眼口;夯实 | |
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285 glistening | |
adj.闪耀的,反光的v.湿物闪耀,闪亮( glisten的现在分词 ) | |
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286 publicity | |
n.众所周知,闻名;宣传,广告 | |
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287 flipped | |
轻弹( flip的过去式和过去分词 ); 按(开关); 快速翻转; 急挥 | |
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288 earrings | |
n.耳环( earring的名词复数 );耳坠子 | |
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289 cocaine | |
n.可卡因,古柯碱(用作局部麻醉剂) | |
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290 ledge | |
n.壁架,架状突出物;岩架,岩礁 | |
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291 shortcut | |
n.近路,捷径 | |
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292 dodging | |
n.避开,闪过,音调改变v.闪躲( dodge的现在分词 );回避 | |
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293 fronds | |
n.蕨类或棕榈类植物的叶子( frond的名词复数 ) | |
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294 coconuts | |
n.椰子( coconut的名词复数 );椰肉,椰果 | |
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295 coconut | |
n.椰子 | |
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296 athletics | |
n.运动,体育,田径运动 | |
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297 stymied | |
n.被侵袭的v.妨碍,阻挠( stymie的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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298 armour | |
(=armor)n.盔甲;装甲部队 | |
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299 bogey | |
n.令人谈之变色之物;妖怪,幽灵 | |
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300 rustle | |
v.沙沙作响;偷盗(牛、马等);n.沙沙声声 | |
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301 attic | |
n.顶楼,屋顶室 | |
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302 hoods | |
n.兜帽( hood的名词复数 );头巾;(汽车、童车等的)折合式车篷;汽车发动机罩v.兜帽( hood的第三人称单数 );头巾;(汽车、童车等的)折合式车篷;汽车发动机罩 | |
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303 inhibits | |
阻止,抑制( inhibit的第三人称单数 ); 使拘束,使尴尬 | |
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304 hooded | |
adj.戴头巾的;有罩盖的;颈部因肋骨运动而膨胀的 | |
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305 disapproval | |
n.反对,不赞成 | |
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306 rusting | |
n.生锈v.(使)生锈( rust的现在分词 ) | |
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307 jaw | |
n.颚,颌,说教,流言蜚语;v.喋喋不休,教训 | |
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308 democrats | |
n.民主主义者,民主人士( democrat的名词复数 ) | |
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309 phlegmatic | |
adj.冷静的,冷淡的,冷漠的,无活力的 | |
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310 cumbersomely | |
笨重的; 累赘的,难以携带的; 缓慢复杂的,冗长的; 麻烦的 | |
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311 morons | |
傻子( moron的名词复数 ); 痴愚者(指心理年龄在8至12岁的成年人) | |
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312 touchingly | |
adv.令人同情地,感人地,动人地 | |
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313 eked | |
v.(靠节省用量)使…的供应持久( eke的过去式和过去分词 );节约使用;竭力维持生计;勉强度日 | |
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314 defensive | |
adj.防御的;防卫的;防守的 | |
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315 veins | |
n.纹理;矿脉( vein的名词复数 );静脉;叶脉;纹理 | |
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316 killing | |
n.巨额利润;突然赚大钱,发大财 | |
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317 pompous | |
adj.傲慢的,自大的;夸大的;豪华的 | |
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318 fussy | |
adj.为琐事担忧的,过分装饰的,爱挑剔的 | |
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319 peeking | |
v.很快地看( peek的现在分词 );偷看;窥视;微露出 | |
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320 eyelids | |
n.眼睑( eyelid的名词复数 );眼睛也不眨一下;不露声色;面不改色 | |
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321 coffin | |
n.棺材,灵柩 | |
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322 weird | |
adj.古怪的,离奇的;怪诞的,神秘而可怕的 | |
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323 hover | |
vi.翱翔,盘旋;徘徊;彷徨,犹豫 | |
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324 slant | |
v.倾斜,倾向性地编写或报道;n.斜面,倾向 | |
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325 Christian | |
adj.基督教徒的;n.基督教徒 | |
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326 deflated | |
adj. 灰心丧气的 | |
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327 glides | |
n.滑行( glide的名词复数 );滑音;音渡;过渡音v.滑动( glide的第三人称单数 );掠过;(鸟或飞机 ) 滑翔 | |
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328 planks | |
(厚)木板( plank的名词复数 ); 政纲条目,政策要点 | |
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329 preying | |
v.掠食( prey的现在分词 );掠食;折磨;(人)靠欺诈为生 | |
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330 interfering | |
adj. 妨碍的 动词interfere的现在分词 | |
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331 frustration | |
n.挫折,失败,失效,落空 | |
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332 primness | |
n.循规蹈矩,整洁 | |
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333 dabbing | |
石面凿毛,灰泥抛毛 | |
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334 ostrich | |
n.鸵鸟 | |
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335 specks | |
n.眼镜;斑点,微粒,污点( speck的名词复数 ) | |
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336 ineptitude | |
n.不适当;愚笨,愚昧的言行 | |
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337 exudes | |
v.缓慢流出,渗出,分泌出( exude的第三人称单数 );流露出对(某物)的神态或感情 | |
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338 acrid | |
adj.辛辣的,尖刻的,刻薄的 | |
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339 infinity | |
n.无限,无穷,大量 | |
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340 slab | |
n.平板,厚的切片;v.切成厚板,以平板盖上 | |
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341 chomps | |
v.切齿,格格地咬牙,咬响牙齿( chomp的第三人称单数 ) | |
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342 parched | |
adj.焦干的;极渴的;v.(使)焦干 | |
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343 skulling | |
v.使惨败,使得零分( skunk的现在分词 );烂醉如泥 | |
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344 dribbles | |
n.涓滴( dribble的名词复数 );细滴;少量(液体)v.流口水( dribble的第三人称单数 );(使液体)滴下或作细流;运球,带球 | |
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345 flips | |
轻弹( flip的第三人称单数 ); 按(开关); 快速翻转; 急挥 | |
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346 greasy | |
adj. 多脂的,油脂的 | |
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347 acting | |
n.演戏,行为,假装;adj.代理的,临时的,演出用的 | |
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348 flamingos | |
n.红鹳,火烈鸟(羽毛粉红、长颈的大涉禽)( flamingo的名词复数 ) | |
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349 intensified | |
v.(使)增强, (使)加剧( intensify的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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350 throbbing | |
a. 跳动的,悸动的 | |
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351 generator | |
n.发电机,发生器 | |
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352 mattresses | |
褥垫,床垫( mattress的名词复数 ) | |
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353 wreckage | |
n.(失事飞机等的)残骸,破坏,毁坏 | |
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354 patriotic | |
adj.爱国的,有爱国心的 | |
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355 depressed | |
adj.沮丧的,抑郁的,不景气的,萧条的 | |
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356 nibbles | |
vt.& vi.啃,一点一点地咬(nibble的第三人称单数形式) | |
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357 pumpkin | |
n.南瓜 | |
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358 crunched | |
v.嘎吱嘎吱地咬嚼( crunch的过去式和过去分词 );嘎吱作响;(快速大量地)处理信息;数字捣弄 | |
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359 sodium | |
n.(化)钠 | |
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360 solvent | |
n.溶剂;adj.有偿付能力的 | |
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361 sodden | |
adj.浑身湿透的;v.使浸透;使呆头呆脑 | |
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362 buddy | |
n.(美口)密友,伙伴 | |
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363 lanky | |
adj.瘦长的 | |
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364 brittle | |
adj.易碎的;脆弱的;冷淡的;(声音)尖利的 | |
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365 temperament | |
n.气质,性格,性情 | |
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366 camaraderie | |
n.同志之爱,友情 | |
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367 prospering | |
成功,兴旺( prosper的现在分词 ) | |
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368 brewer | |
n. 啤酒制造者 | |
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369 delinquent | |
adj.犯法的,有过失的;n.违法者 | |
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370 juvenile | |
n.青少年,少年读物;adj.青少年的,幼稚的 | |
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371 bums | |
n. 游荡者,流浪汉,懒鬼,闹饮,屁股 adj. 没有价值的,不灵光的,不合理的 vt. 令人失望,乞讨 vi. 混日子,以乞讨为生 | |
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372 steering | |
n.操舵装置 | |
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373 consolation | |
n.安慰,慰问 | |
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374 inclination | |
n.倾斜;点头;弯腰;斜坡;倾度;倾向;爱好 | |
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375 bleat | |
v.咩咩叫,(讲)废话,哭诉;n.咩咩叫,废话,哭诉 | |
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376 animated | |
adj.生气勃勃的,活跃的,愉快的 | |
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377 automatons | |
n.自动机,机器人( automaton的名词复数 ) | |
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378 dabble | |
v.涉足,浅赏 | |
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379 aggravation | |
n.烦恼,恼火 | |
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380 unnatural | |
adj.不自然的;反常的 | |
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381 unison | |
n.步调一致,行动一致 | |
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382 torpor | |
n.迟钝;麻木;(动物的)冬眠 | |
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