Part 1 Chapter 2

Of all the roads Harry¹ has seen in his life, Route 41, the old Tamiami Trail, is the most steadily² depressing. It is wider than commercial?use, unlimited³?access highways tend to be up north, and somehow the competitive roadside enterprise looks worse in constant sunlight, as if like plastic garbage bags it will never rot away. WINN DIXIE. PUBLIX. Eckerd Drugs. K Mart. Wal?Mart. TACO BELL. ARK PLAZA⁴. Joy Food Store. Starvin' Marvin Discount Food Wine and Beer. Among the repeating franchises⁵ selling gasoline and groceries and liquor and drugs all mixed together in that peculiar⁷ lawless way they have down here, low ?pale buildings cater⁹ especially to illness and age. Arthritic¹⁰ Rehabilitation¹¹ Center. Nursefinder, Inc. Cardiac Rehabilitation Center. Chiropractix. Legal Offices ? Medicare and Malpractice Cases a Speciality. Hearing Aids and Contact Lenses. West Coast Knee Center. Universal Prosthetics. National Cremation¹³ Society. On the telephone wires, instead of the sparrows and starlings you see in Pennsylvania, lone¹⁵ hawks¹⁶ and buzzards sit. Banks, stylish¹⁷ big structures in smoked glass, rise higher than the wires with their glossy¹⁹ self?advertisements. First Federal. Southeast. Barnett Bank with its Superteller. C & S proclaiming All Services, servicing the millions and billions in money people bring down here along with their decrepit²⁰ bodies, the loot of all those lifetimes flooding the sandy low land, floating these big smoked?glass superliners.

 

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.

1 harry   

vt.掠夺，蹂躏，使苦恼

参考例句：

• Today,people feel more hurried and harried.今天，人们感到更加忙碌和苦恼。
• Obama harried business by Healthcare Reform plan.奥巴马用医改掠夺了商界。

2 steadily   

adv.稳定地；不变地；持续地

参考例句：

• The scope of man's use of natural resources will steadily grow.人类利用自然资源的广度将日益扩大。
• Our educational reform was steadily led onto the correct path.我们的教学改革慢慢上轨道了。

3 unlimited   

adj.无限的，不受控制的，无条件的

参考例句：

• They flew over the unlimited reaches of the Arctic.他们飞过了茫茫无边的北极上空。
• There is no safety in unlimited technological hubris.在技术方面自以为是会很危险。

4 plaza   

n.广场，市场

参考例句：

• They designated the new shopping centre York Plaza.他们给这个新购物中心定名为约克购物中心。
• The plaza is teeming with undercover policemen.这个广场上布满了便衣警察。

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 )

参考例句：

• TV franchises will be auctioned to the highest bidder. 电视特许经营权将拍卖给出价最高的投标人。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Ford dealerships operated as independent franchises. 福特汽车公司的代销商都是独立的联营商。 来自辞典例句

6 franchise   

n.特许，特权，专营权，特许权

参考例句：

• Catering in the schools is run on a franchise basis.学校餐饮服务以特许权经营。
• The United States granted the franchise to women in 1920.美国于1920年给妇女以参政权。

7 peculiar   

adj.古怪的，异常的；特殊的，特有的

参考例句：

• He walks in a peculiar fashion.他走路的样子很奇特。
• He looked at me with a very peculiar expression.他用一种很奇怪的表情看着我。

8 pal   

n.朋友，伙伴，同志；vi.结为友

参考例句：

• He is a pal of mine.他是我的一个朋友。
• Listen,pal,I don't want you talking to my sister any more.听着，小子，我不让你再和我妹妹说话了。

9 cater   

vi.(for/to)满足，迎合；(for)提供饮食及服务

参考例句：

• I expect he will be able to cater for your particular needs.我预计他能满足你的特殊需要。
• Most schools cater for children of different abilities.大多数学校能够满足具有不同天资的儿童的需要。

10 arthritic   

adj.关节炎的

参考例句：

• Somehow the geriatric Voyager 2, arthritic and partially deaf, managed to reach Neptune. 得了关节炎而且局部变聋、衰老的“旅行者2号”最后总算抵达海王星。 来自百科语句
• Femoral head ostectomy is a surgery performed on severely arthritic dogs. 股骨断截骨术’都是针对关节炎严重的狗狗的手术。 来自互联网

11 rehabilitation   

n.康复，悔过自新，修复，复兴，复职，复位

参考例句：

• He's booked himself into a rehabilitation clinic.他自己联系了一家康复诊所。
• No one can really make me rehabilitation of injuries.已经没有人可以真正令我的伤康复了。

12 pro   

n.赞成，赞成的意见，赞成者

参考例句：

• The two debating teams argued the question pro and con.辩论的两组从赞成与反对两方面辩这一问题。
• Are you pro or con nuclear disarmament?你是赞成还是反对核裁军？

13 cremation   

n.火葬，火化

参考例句：

• Cremation is more common than burial in some countries. 在一些国家，火葬比土葬普遍。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Garbage cremation can greatly reduce the occupancy of land. 垃圾焚烧可以大大减少占用土地。 来自互联网

14 par   

n.标准，票面价值，平均数量；adj.票面的，平常的，标准的

参考例句：

• Sales of nylon have been below par in recent years.近年来尼龙织品的销售额一直不及以往。
• I don't think his ability is on a par with yours.我认为他的能力不能与你的能力相媲美。

15 lone   

adj.孤寂的，单独的；唯一的

参考例句：

• A lone sea gull flew across the sky.一只孤独的海鸥在空中飞过。
• She could see a lone figure on the deserted beach.她在空旷的海滩上能看到一个孤独的身影。

16 hawks   

鹰( hawk的名词复数 )； 鹰派人物，主战派人物

参考例句：

• Two hawks were hover ing overhead. 两只鹰在头顶盘旋。
• Both hawks and doves have expanded their conditions for ending the war. 鹰派和鸽派都充分阐明了各自的停战条件。

17 stylish   

adj.流行的，时髦的；漂亮的，气派的

参考例句：

• He's a stylish dresser.他是个穿着很有格调的人。
• What stylish women are wearing in Paris will be worn by women all over the world.巴黎女性时装往往会引导世界时装潮流。

18 ass   

n.驴；傻瓜，蠢笨的人

参考例句：

• He is not an ass as they make him.他不象大家猜想的那样笨。
• An ass endures his burden but not more than his burden.驴能负重但不能超过它能力所负担的。

19 glossy   

adj.平滑的；有光泽的

参考例句：

• I like these glossy spots.我喜欢这些闪闪发光的花点。
• She had glossy black hair.她长着乌黑发亮的头发。

20 decrepit   

adj.衰老的，破旧的

参考例句：

• The film had been shot in a decrepit old police station.该影片是在一所破旧不堪的警察局里拍摄的。
• A decrepit old man sat on a park bench.一个衰弱的老人坐在公园的长凳上。

21 haze   

n.霾，烟雾；懵懂，迷糊；vi.(over)变模糊

参考例句：

• I couldn't see her through the haze of smoke.在烟雾弥漫中，我看不见她。
• He often lives in a haze of whisky.他常常是在威士忌的懵懂醉意中度过的。

22 pagodas   

塔，宝塔( pagoda的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• A dream is more romantic than scarlet pagodas by a silver sea. 梦中的风光比银白海洋旁边绯红的宝塔更加旖旎艳丽。
• Tabinshwehti placed new spires on the chief Mon pagodas. 莽瑞体在孟人的主要佛塔上加建了新的塔顶。

23 banyan   

n.菩提树，榕树

参考例句：

• This huge banyan tree has a history of more than 400 years.这棵大榕树已经有四百多年的历史了。
• A large banyan tree may look like a forest.大型的榕树看起来象一片树林。

24 mangrove   

n.(植物)红树，红树林

参考例句：

• It is the world's largest tidal mangrove forest.它是世界上最大的红树林沼泽地。
• Many consider this the most beautiful mangrove forest in all Thailand.许多人认为这里是全泰国最美丽的红树林了。

25 scruffy   

adj.肮脏的，不洁的

参考例句：

• Despite her scruffy clothes,there was an air of sophistication about her.尽管她衣衫褴褛，但神态老练世故。
• His scruffy appearance does not reflect his character.他邋遢的外表并不反映他的性格。

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

参考例句：

• vast tracts of forest 大片大片的森林
• There are tracts of desert in Australia. 澳大利亚有大片沙漠。

27 niche   

n.壁龛；合适的职务(环境、位置等)

参考例句：

• Madeleine placed it carefully in the rocky niche. 玛德琳小心翼翼地把它放在岩石壁龛里。
• The really talented among women would always make their own niche.妇女中真正有才能的人总是各得其所。

28 maze   

n.迷宫，八阵图，混乱，迷惑

参考例句：

• He found his way through the complex maze of corridors.他穿过了迷宮一样的走廊。
• She was lost in the maze for several hours.一连几小时，她的头脑处于一片糊涂状态。

29 gulf   

n.海湾；深渊，鸿沟；分歧，隔阂

参考例句：

• The gulf between the two leaders cannot be bridged.两位领导人之间的鸿沟难以跨越。
• There is a gulf between the two cities.这两座城市间有个海湾。

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

参考例句：

• The maple leaves are tinge with autumn red.枫叶染上了秋天的红色。
• There was a tinge of sadness in her voice.她声音中流露出一丝忧伤。

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 )

参考例句：

• The desk was ornamented with many carvings. 这桌子装饰有很多雕刻物。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• She ornamented her dress with lace. 她用花边装饰衣服。 来自《简明英汉词典》

32 plume   

n.羽毛；v.整理羽毛，骚首弄姿，用羽毛装饰

参考例句：

• Her hat was adorned with a plume.她帽子上饰着羽毛。
• He does not plume himself on these achievements.他并不因这些成就而自夸。

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

参考例句：

• The dancer wore a headdress of pink ostrich plumes. 那位舞蹈演员戴着粉色鸵鸟毛制作的头饰。
• The plumes on her bonnet barely moved as she nodded. 她点点头，那帽子的羽毛在一个劲儿颤动。

34 butt   

n.笑柄；烟蒂；枪托；臀部；v.用头撞或顶

参考例句：

• The water butt catches the overflow from this pipe.大水桶盛接管子里流出的东西。
• He was the butt of their jokes.他是他们的笑柄。

35 lurking   

潜在

参考例句：

• Why are you lurking around outside my house? 你在我房子外面鬼鬼祟祟的，想干什么？
• There is a suspicious man lurking in the shadows. 有一可疑的人躲在阴暗中。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》

36 villas   

别墅，公馆( villa的名词复数 )； （城郊）住宅

参考例句：

• Magnificent villas are found throughout Italy. 在意大利到处可看到豪华的别墅。
• Rich men came down from wealthy Rome to build sea-side villas. 有钱人从富有的罗马来到这儿建造海滨别墅。

37 marital   

adj.婚姻的，夫妻的

参考例句：

• Her son had no marital problems.她的儿子没有婚姻问题。
• I regret getting involved with my daughter's marital problems;all its done is to bring trouble about my ears.我后悔干涉我女儿的婚姻问题, 现在我所做的一切将给我带来无穷的烦恼。

38 misery   

n.痛苦，苦恼，苦难；悲惨的境遇，贫苦

参考例句：

• Business depression usually causes misery among the working class.商业不景气常使工薪阶层受苦。
• He has rescued me from the mire of misery.他把我从苦海里救了出来。

39 vista   

n.远景，深景，展望，回想

参考例句：

• From my bedroom window I looked out on a crowded vista of hills and rooftops.我从卧室窗口望去，远处尽是连绵的山峦和屋顶。
• These uprisings come from desperation and a vista of a future without hope.发生这些暴动是因为人们被逼上了绝路，未来看不到一点儿希望。

40 scent   

n.气味，香味，香水，线索，嗅觉；v.嗅，发觉

参考例句：

• The air was filled with the scent of lilac.空气中弥漫着丁香花的芬芳。
• The flowers give off a heady scent at night.这些花晚上散发出醉人的芳香。

41 superstitious   

adj.迷信的

参考例句：

• They aim to deliver the people who are in bondage to superstitious belief.他们的目的在于解脱那些受迷信束缚的人。
• These superstitious practices should be abolished as soon as possible.这些迷信做法应尽早取消。

42 placating   

v.安抚，抚慰，使平静( placate的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• She pulled her face into a placating and childlike expression. 于是她装出一副稚气的想要和解的样子来。 来自飘（部分）
• Uncle Peter's voice came as from a far distance, plaintive, placating. 彼得大叔这时说话了，他的声音犹如自一个遥远的地方起来，既带有哀愁又给人以安慰。 来自飘（部分）

43 brass   

n.黄铜；黄铜器，铜管乐器

参考例句：

• Many of the workers play in the factory's brass band.许多工人都在工厂铜管乐队中演奏。
• Brass is formed by the fusion of copper and zinc.黄铜是通过铜和锌的熔合而成的。

44 stencilled   

v.用模板印（文字或图案）( stencil的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• He then stencilled the ceiling with a moon and stars motif. 他随后用模版在天花板上印上了月亮和繁星图案。 来自辞典例句
• Each cage was stencilled with the name and the brand of the bull-breeder. 每只笼子上都印有公牛饲养人的姓名和商标。 来自辞典例句

45 mildew   

n.发霉；v.（使）发霉

参考例句：

• The interior was dark and smelled of mildew.里面光线很暗，霉味扑鼻。
• Mildew may form in this weather.这种天气有可能发霉。

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

参考例句：

• I lathered my face and started to shave. 我往脸上涂了皂沫，然后开始刮胡子。
• He's all lathered up about something. 他为某事而兴奋得不得了。 来自辞典例句

47 bouquets   

n.花束( bouquet的名词复数 )；（酒的）芳香

参考例句：

• The welcoming crowd waved their bouquets. 欢迎的群众摇动着花束。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
• As the hero stepped off the platform, he was surrounded by several children with bouquets. 当英雄走下讲台时，已被几名手持花束的儿童围住了。 来自《简明英汉词典》

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

参考例句：

• a barrel bound with iron hoops 用铁箍箍紧的桶
• Hoops in Paris were wider this season and skirts were shorter. 在巴黎，这个季节的裙圈比较宽大，裙裾却短一些。 来自飘（部分）

49 hoop   

n.（篮球）篮圈，篮

参考例句：

• The child was rolling a hoop.那个孩子在滚铁环。
• The wooden tub is fitted with the iron hoop.木盆都用铁箍箍紧。

50 gabbing   

v.空谈，唠叨，瞎扯( gab的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• I can hear the ragheads when you're not gabbing. 你们不饶舌的时候，我听到有动静。 来自电影对白
• I can hear the ragheads moving, as soon as you girls stop gabbing. 你们女人不说话时，我能听到脚步声。 来自电影对白

51 contrived   

adj.不自然的，做作的；虚构的

参考例句：

• There was nothing contrived or calculated about what he said.他说的话里没有任何蓄意捏造的成分。
• The plot seems contrived.情节看起来不真实。

52 parlor   

n.店铺，营业室；会客室，客厅

参考例句：

• She was lying on a small settee in the parlor.她躺在客厅的一张小长椅上。
• Is there a pizza parlor in the neighborhood?附近有没有比萨店？

53 mansion   

n.大厦，大楼；宅第

参考例句：

• The old mansion was built in 1850.这座古宅建于1850年。
• The mansion has extensive grounds.这大厦四周的庭园广阔。

54 eerie   

adj.怪诞的；奇异的；可怕的；胆怯的

参考例句：

• It's eerie to walk through a dark wood at night.夜晚在漆黑的森林中行走很是恐怖。
• I walked down the eerie dark path.我走在那条漆黑恐怖的小路上。

55 descends   

v.下来( descend的第三人称单数 )；下去；下降；下斜

参考例句：

• This festival descends from a religious rite. 这个节日起源于宗教仪式。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The path descends steeply to the village. 小路陡直而下直到村子。 来自《简明英汉词典》

56 fumbles   

摸索，笨拙的处理( fumble的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Van der Meyde boots the ball to safety after Toldo fumbles a right cross. 因为托尔多在右侧漏球，范得美德把球护到安全的地方。
• The placement shot fumbles the primary cause which into this competition Chinese army loses the game. 定位球失球成为本场比赛汉军输球的主要原因。

57 notched   

a.有凹口的，有缺口的

参考例句：

• Torino notched up a 2-1 win at Lazio. 都灵队以2 比1 赢了拉齐奧队。
• He notched up ten points in the first five minutes of the game. 他在比赛开始后的五分钟里得了十分。

58 petals   

n.花瓣( petal的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• white petals tinged with blue 略带蓝色的白花瓣
• The petals of many flowers expand in the sunshine. 许多花瓣在阳光下开放。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》

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

参考例句：

• This augurs well for the harvest. 这是丰收的好兆头。 来自辞典例句
• Higher pay augurs a better future. 工资高了，前程会更美好。 来自辞典例句

60 beaks   

n.鸟嘴( beak的名词复数 )；鹰钩嘴；尖鼻子；掌权者

参考例句：

• Baby cockatoos will have black eyes and soft, almost flexible beaks. 雏鸟凤头鹦鹉黑色的眼睛是柔和的，嘴几乎是灵活的。 来自互联网
• Squid beaks are often found in the stomachs of sperm whales. 经常能在抹香鲸的胃里发现鱿鱼的嘴。 来自互联网

61 slipper   

n.拖鞋

参考例句：

• I rescued the remains of my slipper from the dog.我从那狗的口中夺回了我拖鞋的残留部分。
• The puppy chewed a hole in the slipper.小狗在拖鞋上啃了一个洞。

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）

参考例句：

• When the lunch bell rang, she peeled the gees and ate them. 中午吃饭铃响时她就剥开鸡蛋吃起来。 来自互联网
• How do you want you gees? 你要怎么样的蛋呢？ 来自互联网

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

参考例句：

• She outgrew the company she worked for and found a better job somewhere else. 她进步很快，不再满足于她所在工作的公司，于是又在别处找到一份更好的工作。
• It'soon outgrew Carthage and became the largest city of the western world. 它很快取代了迦太基成为西方的第一大城市。 来自英汉非文学 - 文明史

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

参考例句：

• She spent her life plumbing the mysteries of the human psyche. 她毕生探索人类心灵的奥秘。
• They're going to have to put in new plumbing. 他们将需要安装新的水管。 来自《简明英汉词典》

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

参考例句：

• Typhoid fever sneaks in when sanitation fails. 环境卫生搞不好，伤寒就会乘虚而入。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Honest boys scorn sneaks and liars. 诚实的人看不起狡诈和撒谎的人。 来自辞典例句

66 dealer   

n.商人，贩子

参考例句：

• The dealer spent hours bargaining for the painting.那个商人为购买那幅画花了几个小时讨价还价。
• The dealer reduced the price for cash down.这家商店对付现金的人减价优惠。

67 grill   

n.烤架，铁格子，烤肉；v.烧，烤，严加盘问

参考例句：

• Put it under the grill for a minute to brown the top.放在烤架下烤一分钟把上面烤成金黄色。
• I'll grill you some mutton.我来给你烤一些羊肉吃。

68 cocktail   

n.鸡尾酒；餐前开胃小吃；混合物

参考例句：

• We invited some foreign friends for a cocktail party.我们邀请了一些外国朋友参加鸡尾酒会。
• At a cocktail party in Hollywood,I was introduced to Charlie Chaplin.在好莱坞的一次鸡尾酒会上，人家把我介绍给查理·卓别林。

69 darting   

v.投掷，投射( dart的现在分词 )；向前冲，飞奔

参考例句：

• Swallows were darting through the clouds. 燕子穿云急飞。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》
• Swallows were darting through the air. 燕子在空中掠过。 来自辞典例句

70 dart   

v.猛冲，投掷；n.飞镖，猛冲

参考例句：

• The child made a sudden dart across the road.那小孩突然冲过马路。
• Markov died after being struck by a poison dart.马尔科夫身中毒镖而亡。

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 )

参考例句：

• Lizzie Borden took an axe, Hit her father forty whacks. 丽兹玻顿拿起斧头，砍了爸爸四十下。 来自互联网
• Grizzly bear paw whacks camera out of position and jettisons it downstream. 大灰熊的爪子把摄像机移出了固定的位置并且把它扔到了下游。 来自互联网

72 spherical   

adj.球形的；球面的

参考例句：

• The Earth is a nearly spherical planet.地球是一个近似球体的行星。
• Many engineers shy away from spherical projection methods.许多工程师对球面投影法有畏难情绪。

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 )

参考例句：

• Only direct speech should go inside inverted commas. 只有直接引语应放在引号内。
• Inverted flight is an acrobatic manoeuvre of the plane. 倒飞是飞机的一种特技动作。 来自《简明英汉词典》

74 faucet   

n.水龙头

参考例句：

• The faucet has developed a drip.那个水龙头已经开始滴水了。
• She turned off the faucet and dried her hands.她关掉水龙头，把手擦干。

75 gasps   

v.喘气( gasp的第三人称单数 )；喘息；倒抽气；很想要

参考例句：

• He leant against the railing, his breath coming in short gasps. 他倚着栏杆，急促地喘气。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• My breaths were coming in gasps. 我急促地喘起气来。 来自《简明英汉词典》

76 outrage   

n.暴行，侮辱，愤怒；vt.凌辱，激怒

参考例句：

• When he heard the news he reacted with a sense of outrage.他得悉此事时义愤填膺。
• We should never forget the outrage committed by the Japanese invaders.我们永远都不应该忘记日本侵略者犯下的暴行。

77 condescending   

adj.谦逊的,故意屈尊的

参考例句：

• He has a condescending attitude towards women. 他对女性总是居高临下。
• He tends to adopt a condescending manner when talking to young women. 和年轻女子说话时，他喜欢摆出一副高高在上的姿态。

78 cozy   

adj.亲如手足的，密切的，暖和舒服的

参考例句：

• I like blankets because they are cozy.我喜欢毛毯，因为他们是舒适的。
• We spent a cozy evening chatting by the fire.我们在炉火旁聊天度过了一个舒适的晚上。

79 demonstration   

n.表明，示范，论证，示威

参考例句：

• His new book is a demonstration of his patriotism.他写的新书是他的爱国精神的证明。
• He gave a demonstration of the new technique then and there.他当场表演了这种新的操作方法。

80 indifference   

n.不感兴趣，不关心，冷淡，不在乎

参考例句：

• I was disappointed by his indifference more than somewhat.他的漠不关心使我很失望。
• He feigned indifference to criticism of his work.他假装毫不在意别人批评他的作品。

81 jade   

n.玉石；碧玉；翡翠

参考例句：

• The statue was carved out of jade.这座塑像是玉雕的。
• He presented us with a couple of jade lions.他送给我们一对玉狮子。

82 lugs   

钎柄

参考例句：

• "They put on a lot of lugs here, don't they?" “这里的人的架子可不小，是不是？ 来自英汉文学 - 嘉莉妹妹
• In this department, hydro-set plates are assembled and joined together at the plate lugs. 在这个工段，组装脱水固化的极板并通过极板耳连在一起。 来自辞典例句

83 doorways   

n.门口，门道( doorway的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The houses belched people; the doorways spewed out children. 从各家茅屋里涌出一堆一堆的人群，从门口蹦出一群一群小孩。 来自辞典例句
• He rambled under the walls and doorways. 他就顺着墙根和门楼遛跶。 来自辞典例句

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 )

参考例句：

• They overestimated his ability when they promoted him. 他们提拔他的时候高估了他的能力。
• The Ministry of Finance consistently overestimated its budget deficits. 财政部一贯高估预算赤字。

85 underneath   

adj.在...下面，在...底下；adv.在下面

参考例句：

• Working underneath the car is always a messy job.在汽车底下工作是件脏活。
• She wore a coat with a dress underneath.她穿着一件大衣，里面套着一条连衣裙。

86 taut   

adj.拉紧的，绷紧的，紧张的

参考例句：

• The bowstring is stretched taut.弓弦绷得很紧。
• Scarlett's taut nerves almost cracked as a sudden noise sounded in the underbrush near them. 思嘉紧张的神经几乎一下绷裂了，因为她听见附近灌木丛中突然冒出的一个声音。

87 brat   

n.孩子；顽童

参考例句：

• He's a spoilt brat.他是一个被宠坏了的调皮孩子。
• The brat sicked his dog on the passer-by.那个顽童纵狗去咬过路人。

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）

参考例句：

• I unpacked my bags as soon as I arrived. 我一到达就打开行李，整理衣物。
• Our guide unpacked a picnic of ham sandwiches and offered us tea. 我们的导游打开装着火腿三明治的野餐盒，并给我们倒了些茶水。 来自辞典例句

89 irritable   

adj.急躁的；过敏的；易怒的

参考例句：

• He gets irritable when he's got toothache.他牙一疼就很容易发脾气。
• Our teacher is an irritable old lady.She gets angry easily.我们的老师是位脾气急躁的老太太。她很容易生气。

90 grimacing   

v.扮鬼相，做鬼脸( grimace的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• But then Boozer drove past Gasol for a rattling, grimacing slam dunk. 可布泽尔单吃家嫂，以一记强有力的扣篮将比分超出。 来自互联网
• The martyrdom of Archbishop Cranmer, said the don at last, grimacing with embarrassment. 最后那位老师尴尬地做个鬼脸，说，这是大主教克莱默的殉道士。 来自互联网

91 rim   

n.(圆物的)边，轮缘；边界

参考例句：

• The water was even with the rim of the basin.盆里的水与盆边平齐了。
• She looked at him over the rim of her glass.她的目光越过玻璃杯的边沿看着他。

92 hunching   

隆起（hunch的现在分词形式）

参考例句：

• She leaned forward, hunching over the desk. 她身体前倾，伏在写字台上。

93 fiddling   

微小的

参考例句：

• He was fiddling with his keys while he talked to me. 和我谈话时他不停地摆弄钥匙。
• All you're going to see is a lot of fiddling around. 你今天要看到的只是大量的胡摆乱弄。 来自英汉文学 - 廊桥遗梦

94 determined   

adj.坚定的；有决心的

参考例句：

• I have determined on going to Tibet after graduation.我已决定毕业后去西藏。
• He determined to view the rooms behind the office.他决定查看一下办公室后面的房间。

95 wagon   

n.四轮马车，手推车，面包车；无盖运货列车

参考例句：

• We have to fork the hay into the wagon.我们得把干草用叉子挑进马车里去。
• The muddy road bemired the wagon.马车陷入了泥泞的道路。

96 cone   

n.圆锥体，圆锥形东西，球果

参考例句：

• Saw-dust piled up in a great cone.锯屑堆积如山。
• The police have sectioned off part of the road with traffic cone.警察用锥形路标把部分路面分隔开来。

97 vehemently   

adv. 热烈地

参考例句：

• He argued with his wife so vehemently that he talked himself hoarse. 他和妻子争论得很激烈，以致讲话的声音都嘶哑了。
• Both women vehemently deny the charges against them. 两名妇女都激烈地否认了对她们的指控。

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 )

参考例句：

• You must administer them slowly, allowing the child to swallow between sips. 你应慢慢给药，使小儿在吸吮之间有充分的时间吞咽。 来自辞典例句
• Emission standards applicable to preexisting stationary sources appear in state implementation plans (SIPs). 在《州实施计划》中出现了固定污染的排放标准。 来自英汉非文学 - 环境法 - 环境法

99 shreds   

v.撕碎，切碎( shred的第三人称单数 )；用撕毁机撕毁（文件）

参考例句：

• Peel the carrots and cut them into shreds. 将胡罗卜削皮，切成丝。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• I want to take this diary and rip it into shreds. 我真想一赌气扯了这日记。 来自汉英文学 - 中国现代小说

100 foam   

v./n.泡沫，起泡沫

参考例句：

• The glass of beer was mostly foam.这杯啤酒大部分是泡沫。
• The surface of the water is full of foam.水面都是泡沫。

101 misers   

守财奴，吝啬鬼( miser的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Misers put their back and their belly into their pockets. 守财奴爱财如命， 宁可饿肚皮，没衣穿。
• Misers put their back and belly into their pockets. 守财奴宁肯挨饿受冻也舍不得花钱。

102 glut   

n.存货过多，供过于求；v.狼吞虎咽

参考例句：

• The glut of coffee led to a sharp drop in prices.咖啡供过于求道致价格急剧下跌。
• There's a glut of agricultural products in Western Europe.西欧的农产品供过于求。

103 fins   

[医]散热片；鱼鳍；飞边；鸭掌

参考例句：

• The level of TNF-α positively correlated with BMI,FPG,HbA1C,TG,FINS and IRI,but not with SBP and DBP. TNF-α水平与BMI、FPG、HbA1C、TG、FINS和IRI呈显著正相关，与SBP、DBP无相关。 来自互联网
• Fins are a feature specific to fish. 鱼鳍是鱼类特有的特征。 来自辞典例句

104 convertibles   

n.可改变性，可变化性( convertible的名词复数 )；活动顶篷式汽车

参考例句：

• In Washington, the regulators did make a push to ban the manufacturing of convertibles. 华盛顿的各个管制机构曾经推动禁止敝篷车的制造。 来自辞典例句
• That's why they drive around in half-million-dollar convertibles? 因此他们就不惜花几千万美元来这里居住？ 来自电影对白

105 yen   

n. 日元；热望

参考例句：

• He wanted to convert his dollars into Japanese yen.他想将美元换成日币。
• He has a yen to be alone in a boat.他渴望独自呆在一条船上。

106 wheedle   

v.劝诱，哄骗

参考例句：

• I knew he was trying to wheedle me into being at his beck and call.我知道这是他拉拢我，好让我俯首贴耳地为他效劳。
• They tried to wheedle her into leaving the house.他们想哄骗她离开这屋子。

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

参考例句：

• Those bastards don't care a damn about the welfare of the factory! 这批狗养的，不顾大局！ 来自子夜部分
• Let the first bastards to find out be the goddam Germans. 就让那些混账的德国佬去做最先发现的倒霉鬼吧。 来自演讲部分

108 awe   

n.敬畏，惊惧；vt.使敬畏，使惊惧

参考例句：

• The sight filled us with awe.这景色使我们大为惊叹。
• The approaching tornado struck awe in our hearts.正在逼近的龙卷风使我们惊恐万分。

109 guzzler   

n.酒鬼，酒量大的人

参考例句：

• I hope he has not told you I'm a Maotai guzzler. 伯恩：我希望他没告诉你我是喝茅台酒的大王吧。 来自互联网
• When are you gonna get rid of that gas guzzler? 你准备什么时候处理掉那辆“吃”油的大卡车？ 来自互联网

110 acceleration   

n.加速，加速度

参考例句：

• All spacemen must be able to bear acceleration.所有太空人都应能承受加速度。
• He has also called for an acceleration of political reforms.他同时呼吁加快政治改革的步伐。

111 agitated   

adj.被鼓动的，不安的

参考例句：

• His answers were all mixed up,so agitated was he.他是那样心神不定，回答全乱了。
• She was agitated because her train was an hour late.她乘坐的火车晚点一个小时，她十分焦虑。

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

参考例句：

• We all had colds and couldn't stop sniffing and sneezing. 我们都感冒了，一个劲地抽鼻子，打喷嚏。
• They all had colds and were sniffing and sneezing. 他们都伤风了，呼呼喘气而且打喷嚏。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》

113 touching   

adj.动人的，使人感伤的

参考例句：

• It was a touching sight.这是一幅动人的景象。
• His letter was touching.他的信很感人。

114 stinks   

v.散发出恶臭( stink的第三人称单数 )；发臭味；名声臭；糟透

参考例句：

• The whole scheme stinks to high heaven—don't get involved in it. 整件事十分卑鄙龌龊——可别陷了进去。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The soup stinks of garlic. 这汤有大蒜气味。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》

115 humble   

adj.谦卑的，恭顺的；地位低下的；v.降低，贬低

参考例句：

• In my humble opinion,he will win the election.依我拙见，他将在选举中获胜。
• Defeat and failure make people humble.挫折与失败会使人谦卑。

116 budge   

v.移动一点儿；改变立场

参考例句：

• We tried to lift the rock but it wouldn't budge.我们试图把大石头抬起来，但它连动都没动一下。
• She wouldn't budge on the issue.她在这个问题上不肯让步。

117 hood   

n.头巾，兜帽，覆盖；v.罩上，以头巾覆盖

参考例句：

• She is wearing a red cloak with a hood.她穿着一件红色带兜帽的披风。
• The car hood was dented in.汽车的发动机罩已凹了进去。

118 spoked   

辐条

参考例句：

• I spoked to her management, discussed terms, agreed a deal. 我和她经纪人谈过合同条款，已经达成协议。
• The sky overhead is an eight-spoked prayer wheel and the ground below an eight-petalled lotus. 天如八幅轮，地如八瓣莲，吉祥无比。

119 finned   

adj.有鳍的，有鳍状物的

参考例句：

• The cylinder head is heavily finned for strength. 汽缸头附有许多突片以增加强度。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》
• Auth imagines that not all the lobe-finned fish were pleased. 奥斯想象那时并非所有的总鳍鱼在水里都很快活。 来自互联网

120 bug   

n.虫子；故障；窃听器；vt.纠缠；装窃听器

参考例句：

• There is a bug in the system.系统出了故障。
• The bird caught a bug on the fly.那鸟在飞行中捉住了一只昆虫。

121 pickup   

n.拾起，获得

参考例句：

• I would love to trade this car for a pickup truck.我愿意用这辆汽车换一辆小型轻便卡车。||The luck guy is a choice pickup for the girls.那位幸运的男孩是女孩子们想勾搭上的人。

122 Ford   

n.浅滩，水浅可涉处；v.涉水，涉过

参考例句：

• They were guarding the bridge,so we forded the river.他们驻守在那座桥上，所以我们只能涉水过河。
• If you decide to ford a stream,be extremely careful.如果已决定要涉过小溪，必须极度小心。

123 dictatorial   

adj. 独裁的，专断的

参考例句：

• Her father is very dictatorial.她父亲很专横。
• For years the nation had been under the heel of a dictatorial regime.多年来这个国家一直在独裁政权的铁蹄下。

124 salespeople   

n.售货员，店员；售货员( salesperson的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The shop usually employs additional salespeople for the Christmas toy trade. 这家商店通常雇一些临时售货员来做圣诞节玩具生意。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
• Under our new system, salespeople sit down with each of our dealers. 根据新的制度，销售人员应逐个地同承销商洽商。 来自辞典例句

125 fully   

adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地

参考例句：

• The doctor asked me to breathe in,then to breathe out fully.医生让我先吸气，然后全部呼出。
• They soon became fully integrated into the local community.他们很快就完全融入了当地人的圈子。

126 dummy   

n.假的东西；(哄婴儿的)橡皮奶头

参考例句：

• The police suspect that the device is not a real bomb but a dummy.警方怀疑那个装置不是真炸弹，只是一个假货。
• The boys played soldier with dummy swords made of wood.男孩们用木头做的假木剑玩打仗游戏。

127 standing   

n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的

参考例句：

• After the earthquake only a few houses were left standing.地震过后只有几幢房屋还立着。
• They're standing out against any change in the law.他们坚决反对对法律做任何修改。

128 checkout   

n.（超市等）收银台，付款处

参考例句：

• Could you pay at the checkout.你能在结帐处付款吗。
• A man was wheeling his shopping trolley to the checkout.一个男人正推着购物车向付款台走去。

129 retired   

adj.隐退的，退休的，退役的

参考例句：

• The old man retired to the country for rest.这位老人下乡休息去了。
• Many retired people take up gardening as a hobby.许多退休的人都以从事园艺为嗜好。

130 scramble   

v.爬行，攀爬，杂乱蔓延，碎片，片段，废料

参考例句：

• He broke his leg in his scramble down the wall.他爬墙摔断了腿。
• It was a long scramble to the top of the hill.到山顶须要爬登一段长路。

131 lame   

adj.跛的，(辩解、论据等)无说服力的

参考例句：

• The lame man needs a stick when he walks.那跛脚男子走路时需借助拐棍。
• I don't believe his story.It'sounds a bit lame.我不信他讲的那一套。他的话听起来有些靠不住。

132 retirement   

n.退休，退职

参考例句：

• She wanted to enjoy her retirement without being beset by financial worries.她想享受退休生活而不必为金钱担忧。
• I have to put everything away for my retirement.我必须把一切都积蓄起来以便退休后用。

133 furtive   

adj.鬼鬼崇崇的，偷偷摸摸的

参考例句：

• The teacher was suspicious of the student's furtive behaviour during the exam.老师怀疑这个学生在考试时有偷偷摸摸的行为。
• His furtive behaviour aroused our suspicion.他鬼鬼祟祟的行为引起了我们的怀疑。

134 furtively   

adv. 偷偷地, 暗中地

参考例句：

• At this some of the others furtively exchanged significant glances. 听他这样说，有几个人心照不宣地彼此对望了一眼。
• Remembering my presence, he furtively dropped it under his chair. 后来想起我在，他便偷偷地把书丢在椅子下。

135 odds   

n.让步，机率，可能性，比率；胜败优劣之别

参考例句：

• The odds are 5 to 1 that she will win.她获胜的机会是五比一。
• Do you know the odds of winning the lottery once?你知道赢得一次彩票的几率多大吗？

136 intrude   

vi.闯入；侵入；打扰，侵扰

参考例句：

• I do not want to intrude if you are busy.如果你忙我就不打扰你了。
• I don't want to intrude on your meeting.我不想打扰你们的会议。

137 glitch   

n.干扰；误操作，小故障

参考例句：

• There is a glitch in the computer program somewhere.这个计算机程序中的某个部分有点小问题。
• It could just be a random glitch that can be solved by restarting the machine.可能只是一个小故障，重新启动主机就能解决了。

138 sullen   

adj.愠怒的，闷闷不乐的，(天气等)阴沉的

参考例句：

• He looked up at the sullen sky.他抬头看了一眼阴沉的天空。
• Susan was sullen in the morning because she hadn't slept well.苏珊今天早上郁闷不乐，因为昨晚没睡好。

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

参考例句：

• The team are revving up for next week's game. 这个队伍对下周的比赛跃跃欲试。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Since the introduction of new techniques, the production has been revving up. 自从新技术的引进，产量一直都在增加。 来自互联网

140 pokes   

v.伸出( poke的第三人称单数 )；戳出；拨弄；与（某人）性交

参考例句：

• He pokes his nose into everything. 他这人好管闲事。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
• Only the tip of an iceberg pokes up above water. 只有冰山的尖端突出于水面。 来自辞典例句

141 aluminum   

n.(aluminium)铝

参考例句：

• The aluminum sheets cannot be too much thicker than 0.04 inches.铝板厚度不能超过0.04英寸。
• During the launch phase,it would ride in a protective aluminum shell.在发射阶段，它盛在一只保护的铝壳里。

142 batch   

n.一批(组，群)；一批生产量

参考例句：

• The first batch of cakes was burnt.第一炉蛋糕烤焦了。
• I have a batch of letters to answer.我有一批信要回复。

143 slashed   

v.挥砍( slash的过去式和过去分词 )；鞭打；割破；削减

参考例句：

• Someone had slashed the tyres on my car. 有人把我的汽车轮胎割破了。
• He slashed the bark off the tree with his knife. 他用刀把树皮从树上砍下。 来自《简明英汉词典》

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

参考例句：

• The forecast said there would be sunny intervals and showers. 预报间晴，有阵雨。
• Meetings take place at fortnightly intervals. 每两周开一次会。

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）

参考例句：

• Expansion joints of various kinds are fitted on gas mains. 各种各样的伸缩接头被安装在煤气的总管道上了。
• Expansion joints of various kinds are fitted on steam pipes. 各种各样的伸缩接头被安装在蒸气管道上了。

146 desktop   

n.桌面管理系统程序；台式

参考例句：

• My computer is a desktop computer of excellent quality.我的计算机是品质卓越的台式计算机。
• Do you know which one is better,a laptop or a desktop?你知道哪一种更好，笔记本还是台式机？

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

参考例句：

• eyes glazed with boredom 厌倦无神的眼睛
• His eyes glazed over at the sight of her. 看到她时，他的目光就变得呆滞。 来自《简明英汉词典》

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)

参考例句：

• I'm petrified of snakes. 我特别怕蛇。
• The poor child was petrified with fear. 这可怜的孩子被吓呆了。 来自《简明英汉词典》

149 vanilla   

n.香子兰，香草

参考例句：

• He used to love milk flavoured with vanilla.他过去常爱喝带香草味的牛奶。
• I added a dollop of vanilla ice-cream to the pie.我在馅饼里加了一块香草冰激凌。

150 stockbrokers   

n.股票经纪人( stockbroker的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Stockbrokers never more than now lack enthusiasm for the small client. 证券经济人在面对那些小客户时从未像现在这样缺乏激情。 来自互联网
• Today, I have expensive attorneys, accountants, real estate brokers and stockbrokers. 今天，我雇有身价昂贵的律师、会计师、房地产经纪人以及股票经纪人。 来自互联网

151 enquirer   

寻问者，追究者

参考例句：

• The "National Enquirer" blazoned forth that we astronomers had really discovered another civilization. 《国民询问者》甚至宣称，我们天文学家已真正发现了其它星球上的文明。
• Should we believe a publication like the national enquirer? 我们要相信像《国家探秘者》之类的出版物吗？

152 denim   

n.斜纹棉布；斜纹棉布裤，牛仔裤

参考例句：

• She wore pale blue denim shorts and a white denim work shirt.她穿着一条淡蓝色的斜纹粗棉布短裤，一件白粗布工作服上衣。
• Dennis was dressed in denim jeans.丹尼斯穿了一条牛仔裤。

153 cuff   

n.袖口；手铐；护腕；vt.用手铐铐；上袖口

参考例句：

• She hoped they wouldn't cuff her hands behind her back.她希望他们不要把她反铐起来。
• Would you please draw together the snag in my cuff?请你把我袖口上的裂口缝上好吗？

154 cuffs   

n.袖口( cuff的名词复数 )v.掌打，拳打( cuff的第三人称单数 )

参考例句：

• a collar and cuffs of white lace 带白色蕾丝花边的衣领和袖口
• The cuffs of his shirt were fraying. 他衬衣的袖口磨破了。

155 pointed   

adj.尖的，直截了当的

参考例句：

• He gave me a very sharp pointed pencil.他给我一支削得非常尖的铅笔。
• She wished to show Mrs.John Dashwood by this pointed invitation to her brother.她想通过对达茨伍德夫人提出直截了当的邀请向她的哥哥表示出来。

156 sliver   

n.裂片，细片，梳毛；v.纵切，切成长片，剖开

参考例句：

• There was only one sliver of light in the darkness.黑暗中只有一点零星的光亮。
• Then,one night,Monica saw a thin sliver of the moon reappear.之后的一天晚上，莫尼卡看到了一个月牙。

157 earring   

n.耳环，耳饰

参考例句：

• How long have you worn that earring?你戴那个耳环多久了？
• I have an earring but can't find its companion.我现在只有一只耳环,找不到另一只了。

158 skull   

n.头骨；颅骨

参考例句：

• The skull bones fuse between the ages of fifteen and twenty-five.头骨在15至25岁之间长合。
• He fell out of the window and cracked his skull.他从窗子摔了出去，跌裂了颅骨。

159 skulls   

颅骨( skull的名词复数 )； 脑袋； 脑子； 脑瓜

参考例句：

• One of the women's skulls found exceeds in capacity that of the average man of today. 现已发现的女性颅骨中，其中有一个的脑容量超过了今天的普通男子。
• We could make a whole plain white with skulls in the moonlight! 我们便能令月光下的平原变白，遍布白色的骷髅！

160 conspiracy   

n.阴谋，密谋，共谋

参考例句：

• The men were found guilty of conspiracy to murder.这些人被裁决犯有阴谋杀人罪。
• He claimed that it was all a conspiracy against him.他声称这一切都是一场针对他的阴谋。

161 demure   

adj.严肃的；端庄的

参考例句：

• She's very demure and sweet.她非常娴静可爱。
• The luscious Miss Wharton gave me a demure but knowing smile.性感迷人的沃顿小姐对我羞涩地会心一笑。

162 pried   

v.打听，刺探（他人的私事）( pry的过去式和过去分词 )；撬开

参考例句：

• We pried open the locked door with an iron bar. 我们用铁棍把锁着的门撬开。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• So Tom pried his mouth open and poured down the Pain-killer. 因此汤姆撬开它的嘴，把止痛药灌下去。 来自英汉文学 - 汤姆历险

163 ornamental   

adj.装饰的；作装饰用的；n.装饰品；观赏植物

参考例句：

• The stream was dammed up to form ornamental lakes.溪流用水坝拦挡起来,形成了装饰性的湖泊。
• The ornamental ironwork lends a touch of elegance to the house.铁艺饰件为房子略添雅致。

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

参考例句：

• The Northampton's three turrets thundered out white smoke and pale fire. “诺思安普敦号”三座炮塔轰隆隆地冒出白烟和淡淡的火光。
• If I can get to the gun turrets, I'll have a chance. 如果我能走到炮塔那里，我就会赢得脱险的机会。

165 wink   

n.眨眼，使眼色，瞬间；v.眨眼，使眼色，闪烁

参考例句：

• He tipped me the wink not to buy at that price.他眨眼暗示我按那个价格就不要买。
• The satellite disappeared in a wink.瞬息之间，那颗卫星就消失了。

166 watery   

adj.有水的，水汪汪的；湿的，湿润的

参考例句：

• In his watery eyes there is an expression of distrust.他那含泪的眼睛流露出惊惶失措的神情。
• Her eyes became watery because of the smoke.因为烟熏，她的双眼变得泪汪汪的。

167 nautical   

adj.海上的，航海的，船员的

参考例句：

• A nautical mile is 1,852 meters.一海里等于1852米。
• It is 206 nautical miles from our present location.距离我们现在的位置有206海里。

168 bellying   

鼓出部；鼓鼓囊囊

参考例句：

169 belly   

n.肚子，腹部；(像肚子一样)鼓起的部分，膛

参考例句：

• The boss has a large belly.老板大腹便便。
• His eyes are bigger than his belly.他眼馋肚饱。

170 rusty   

adj.生锈的；锈色的；荒废了的

参考例句：

• The lock on the door is rusty and won't open.门上的锁锈住了。
• I haven't practiced my French for months and it's getting rusty.几个月不用，我的法语又荒疏了。

171 skyscraper   

n.摩天大楼

参考例句：

• The skyscraper towers into the clouds.那幢摩天大楼高耸入云。
• The skyscraper was wrapped in fog.摩天楼为雾所笼罩。

172 hip   

n.臀部，髋；屋脊

参考例句：

• The thigh bone is connected to the hip bone.股骨连着髋骨。
• The new coats blouse gracefully above the hip line.新外套在臀围线上优美地打着褶皱。

173 vertical   

adj.垂直的，顶点的，纵向的；n.垂直物，垂直的位置

参考例句：

• The northern side of the mountain is almost vertical.这座山的北坡几乎是垂直的。
• Vertical air motions are not measured by this system.垂直气流的运动不用这种系统来测量。

174 alligator   

n.短吻鳄(一种鳄鱼)

参考例句：

• She wandered off to play with her toy alligator.她开始玩鳄鱼玩具。
• Alligator skin is five times more costlier than leather.鳄鱼皮比通常的皮革要贵5倍。

175 glided   

v.滑动( glide的过去式和过去分词 )；掠过；（鸟或飞机 ） 滑翔

参考例句：

• The President's motorcade glided by. 总统的车队一溜烟开了过去。
• They glided along the wall until they were out of sight. 他们沿着墙壁溜得无影无踪。 来自《简明英汉词典》

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

参考例句：

• The child felle into a rage and began scattering its toys about. 这孩子突发狂怒，把玩具扔得满地都是。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The farmers are scattering seed. 农夫们在播种。 来自《简明英汉词典》

177 shacks   

n.窝棚，简陋的小屋( shack的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• They live in shacks which they made out of wood. 他们住在用木头搭成的简陋的小屋里。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Most people in Port au-Prince live in tin shacks. 太子港的大多数居民居住在铁皮棚里。 来自互联网

178 shuffling   

adj. 慢慢移动的, 滑移的 动词shuffle的现在分词形式

参考例句：

• Don't go shuffling along as if you were dead. 别像个死人似地拖着脚走。 来自英汉文学 - 嘉莉妹妹
• Some one was shuffling by on the sidewalk. 外面的人行道上有人拖着脚走过。 来自英汉文学 - 嘉莉妹妹

179 herds   

兽群( herd的名词复数 )； 牧群； 人群； 群众

参考例句：

• Regularly at daybreak they drive their herds to the pasture. 每天天一亮他们就把牲畜赶到草场上去。
• There we saw herds of cows grazing on the pasture. 我们在那里看到一群群的牛在草地上吃草。

180 hoof   

n.(马，牛等的)蹄

参考例句：

• Suddenly he heard the quick,short click of a horse's hoof behind him.突然间，他听见背后响起一阵急骤的马蹄的得得声。
• I was kicked by a hoof.我被一只蹄子踢到了。

181 wrought   

v.引起；以…原料制作；运转；adj.制造的

参考例句：

• Events in Paris wrought a change in British opinion towards France and Germany.巴黎发生的事件改变了英国对法国和德国的看法。
• It's a walking stick with a gold head wrought in the form of a flower.那是一个金质花形包头的拐杖。

182 limestone   

n.石灰石

参考例句：

• Limestone is often used in building construction.石灰岩常用于建筑。
• Cement is made from limestone.水泥是由石灰石制成的。

183 granite   

adj.花岗岩，花岗石

参考例句：

• They squared a block of granite.他们把一块花岗岩加工成四方形。
• The granite overlies the older rocks.花岗岩躺在磨损的岩石上面。

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

参考例句：

• This window was filled with old painted glass in quarries. 这窗户是由旧日的彩色菱形玻璃装配的。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• They hewed out the stones for the building from nearby quarries. 他们从邻近的采石场开凿出石头供建造那栋房子用。 来自辞典例句

185 reconstruction   

n.重建，再现，复原

参考例句：

• The country faces a huge task of national reconstruction following the war.战后，该国面临着重建家园的艰巨任务。
• In the period of reconstruction,technique decides everything.在重建时期，技术决定一切。

186 appendage   

n.附加物

参考例句：

• After their work,the calculus was no longer an appendage and extension of Greek geometry.经过他们的工作，微积分不再是古希腊几何的附庸和延展。
• Macmillan must have loathed being judged as a mere appendage to domestic politics.麦克米伦肯定极不喜欢只被当成国内政治的附属品。

187 busts   

半身雕塑像( bust的名词复数 )； 妇女的胸部； 胸围； 突击搜捕

参考例句：

• Dey bags swells up and busts. 那奶袋快胀破了。
• Marble busts all looked like a cemetery. 大理石的半身象，简直就象是坟山。

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 )

参考例句：

• A faint lamp glimmers at the end of the passage. 一盏昏暗的灯在走廊尽头发出微弱的光线。 来自互联网
• The first glimmers of an export-led revival are apparent. 拉动出库复苏的第一缕曙光正出现。 来自互联网

189 vaguely   

adv.含糊地，暖昧地

参考例句：

• He had talked vaguely of going to work abroad.他含糊其词地说了到国外工作的事。
• He looked vaguely before him with unseeing eyes.他迷迷糊糊的望着前面，对一切都视而不见。

190 sinister   

adj.不吉利的，凶恶的，左边的

参考例句：

• There is something sinister at the back of that series of crimes.在这一系列罪行背后有险恶的阴谋。
• Their proposals are all worthless and designed out of sinister motives.他们的建议不仅一钱不值，而且包藏祸心。

191 sipping   

v.小口喝，呷，抿( sip的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• She sat in the sun, idly sipping a cool drink. 她坐在阳光下懒洋洋地抿着冷饮。
• She sat there, sipping at her tea. 她坐在那儿抿着茶。

192 dispels   

v.驱散，赶跑( dispel的第三人称单数 )

参考例句：

• This landmark case dispels the absolute finality of this dreaded disease. 这个划时代的病例终于改观了这可怕疾病的绝对结局。 来自辞典例句
• Charles's experience--and that of all other researchers I have met--dispels many myths about water buffaloes. 查尔斯以及我所见到的其他研究人员的经验破除了关于水牛的许多奇谈。 来自辞典例句

193 mowed   

v.刈，割( mow的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• The enemy were mowed down with machine-gun fire. 敌人被机枪的火力扫倒。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》
• Men mowed the wide lawns and seeded them. 人们割了大片草地的草，然后在上面播种。 来自辞典例句

194 gathering   

n.集会，聚会，聚集

参考例句：

• He called on Mr. White to speak at the gathering.他请怀特先生在集会上讲话。
• He is on the wing gathering material for his novels.他正忙于为他的小说收集资料。

195 deference   

n.尊重，顺从；敬意

参考例句：

• Do you treat your parents and teachers with deference?你对父母师长尊敬吗？
• The major defect of their work was deference to authority.他们的主要缺陷是趋从权威。

196 mattress   

n.床垫，床褥

参考例句：

• The straw mattress needs to be aired.草垫子该晾一晾了。
• The new mattress I bought sags in the middle.我买的新床垫中间陷了下去。

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

参考例句：

• If he cramps again let the line cut him off. 要是它再抽筋，就让这钓索把它勒断吧。
• "I have no cramps." he said. “我没抽筋，"他说。

198 frail   

adj.身体虚弱的；易损坏的

参考例句：

• Mrs. Warner is already 96 and too frail to live by herself.华纳太太已经九十六岁了，身体虚弱，不便独居。
• She lay in bed looking particularly frail.她躺在床上，看上去特别虚弱。

199 crook   

v.使弯曲；n.小偷，骗子，贼；弯曲(处)

参考例句：

• He demanded an apology from me for calling him a crook.我骂他骗子，他要我向他认错。
• She was cradling a small parcel in the crook of her elbow.她用手臂挎着一个小包裹。

200 crooked   

adj.弯曲的；不诚实的，狡猾的，不正当的

参考例句：

• He crooked a finger to tell us to go over to him.他弯了弯手指，示意我们到他那儿去。
• You have to drive slowly on these crooked country roads.在这些弯弯曲曲的乡间小路上你得慢慢开车。

201 numbness   

n.无感觉，麻木，惊呆

参考例句：

• She was fighting off the numbness of frostbite. 她在竭力摆脱冻僵的感觉。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Sometimes they stay dead, causing' only numbness. 有时，它们没有任何反应，只会造成麻木。 来自时文部分

202 tingling   

v.有刺痛感( tingle的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• My ears are tingling [humming; ringing; singing]. 我耳鸣。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
• My tongue is tingling. 舌头发麻。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

203 rhythmically   

adv.有节奏地

参考例句：

• A pigeon strutted along the roof, cooing rhythmically. 一只鸽子沿着屋顶大摇大摆地走，有节奏地咕咕叫。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Exposures of rhythmically banded protore are common in the workings. 在工作面中常见有韵律条带“原矿石”。 来自辞典例句

204 squeak   

n.吱吱声，逃脱；v.（发出）吱吱叫，侥幸通过；（俚）告密

参考例句：

• I don't want to hear another squeak out of you!我不想再听到你出声！
• We won the game,but it was a narrow squeak.我们打赢了这场球赛，不过是侥幸取胜。

205 bellied   

adj.有腹的，大肚子的

参考例句：

• That big-bellied fellow was very cruel and greedy. 那个大腹便便的家伙既贪婪又残恶。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
• The ship's sails bellied in the wind. 船帆在风中鼓得大大的。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

206 doom   

n.厄运，劫数；v.注定，命定

参考例句：

• The report on our economic situation is full of doom and gloom.这份关于我们经济状况的报告充满了令人绝望和沮丧的调子。
• The dictator met his doom after ten years of rule.独裁者统治了十年终于完蛋了。

207 toucan   

n.巨嘴鸟，犀鸟

参考例句：

• A toucan is a South American bird.巨嘴鸟是北美的一种鸟。
• There is a toucan in this zoo.这个动物园有一只巨嘴鸟。

208 flicker   

vi./n.闪烁，摇曳，闪现

参考例句：

• There was a flicker of lights coming from the abandoned house.这所废弃的房屋中有灯光闪烁。
• At first,the flame may be a small flicker,barely shining.开始时，光辉可能是微弱地忽隐忽现，几乎并不灿烂。

209 grudging   

adj.勉强的，吝啬的

参考例句：

• He felt a grudging respect for her talents as an organizer.他勉强地对她的组织才能表示尊重。
• After a pause he added"sir."in a dilatory,grudging way.停了一会他才慢吞吞地、勉勉强强地加了一声“先生”。

210 pajamas   

n.睡衣裤

参考例句：

• At bedtime,I take off my clothes and put on my pajamas.睡觉时，我脱去衣服，换上睡衣。
• He was wearing striped pajamas.他穿着带条纹的睡衣裤。

211 rims   

n.（圆形物体的）边( rim的名词复数 )；缘；轮辋；轮圈

参考例句：

• As she spoke, the rims of her eyes reddened a little. 说时，眼圈微红。 来自汉英文学 - 围城
• Her eyes were a little hollow, and reddish about the rims. 她的眼睛微微凹陷，眼眶有些发红。 来自辞典例句

212 sobs   

啜泣（声），呜咽（声）( sob的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• She was struggling to suppress her sobs. 她拼命不让自己哭出来。
• She burst into a convulsive sobs. 她突然抽泣起来。

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

参考例句：

• She's too prim to enjoy rude jokes!她太古板，不喜欢听粗野的笑话！
• He is prim and precise in manner.他的态度一本正经而严谨

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 )

参考例句：

• Her face was freckled all over. 她的脸长满雀斑。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》
• Her freckled skin glowed with health again. 她长有雀斑的皮肤又泛出了健康的红光。 来自辞典例句

215 thigh   

n.大腿；股骨

参考例句：

• He is suffering from a strained thigh muscle.他的大腿肌肉拉伤了，疼得很。
• The thigh bone is connected to the hip bone.股骨连着髋骨。

216 thighs   

n.股，大腿( thigh的名词复数 )；食用的鸡（等的）腿

参考例句：

• He's gone to London for skin grafts on his thighs. 他去伦敦做大腿植皮手术了。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The water came up to the fisherman's thighs. 水没到了渔夫的大腿。 来自《简明英汉词典》

217 bland   

adj.淡而无味的，温和的，无刺激性的

参考例句：

• He eats bland food because of his stomach trouble.他因胃病而吃清淡的食物。
• This soup is too bland for me.这汤我喝起来偏淡。

218 cork   

n.软木，软木塞

参考例句：

• We heard the pop of a cork.我们听见瓶塞砰的一声打开。
• Cork is a very buoyant material.软木是极易浮起的材料。

219 clogs   

木屐； 木底鞋，木屐( clog的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Clogs are part of the Netherlands national costume. 木屐是荷兰民族服装的一部分。
• Clogs are part of the Dutch traditional costume. 木屐是荷兰传统装束的一部分。

220 sarcastic   

adj.讥讽的，讽刺的，嘲弄的

参考例句：

• I squashed him with a sarcastic remark.我说了一句讽刺的话把他给镇住了。
• She poked fun at people's shortcomings with sarcastic remarks.她冷嘲热讽地拿别人的缺点开玩笑。

221 sperm   

n.精子，精液

参考例句：

• Only one sperm fertilises an egg.只有一个精子使卵子受精。
• In human reproduction,one female egg is usually fertilized by one sperm.在人体生殖过程中，一个精子使一个卵子受精。

222 rumpled   

v.弄皱，使凌乱( rumple的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• She rumpled his hair playfully. 她顽皮地弄乱他的头发。
• The bed was rumpled and strewn with phonograph records. 那张床上凌乱不堪，散放着一些唱片。 来自辞典例句

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 )

参考例句：

• Caves form when water infiltrates limestone. 水渗透石灰石则形成洞穴。 来自辞典例句
• The tumor encircles the colon and infiltrates into the wall. 肿瘤环绕结肠四周浸润肠壁。 来自互联网

224 abdomen   

n.腹，下腹(胸部到腿部的部分)

参考例句：

• How to know to there is ascarid inside abdomen?怎样知道肚子里面有蛔虫？
• He was anxious about an off-and-on pain the abdomen.他因时隐时现的腹痛而焦虑。

225 exhausted   

adj.极其疲惫的，精疲力尽的

参考例句：

• It was a long haul home and we arrived exhausted.搬运回家的这段路程特别长，到家时我们已筋疲力尽。
• Jenny was exhausted by the hustle of city life.珍妮被城市生活的忙乱弄得筋疲力尽。

226 flickering   

adj.闪烁的，摇曳的，一闪一闪的

参考例句：

• The crisp autumn wind is flickering away. 清爽的秋风正在吹拂。
• The lights keep flickering. 灯光忽明忽暗。

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

参考例句：

• He suffered cracked ribs and bruising. 他断了肋骨还有挫伤。
• Make a small incision below the ribs. 在肋骨下方切开一个小口。

228 rib   

n.肋骨，肋状物

参考例句：

• He broke a rib when he fell off his horse.他从马上摔下来折断了一根肋骨。
• He has broken a rib and the doctor has strapped it up.他断了一根肋骨，医生已包扎好了。

229 aggression   

n.进攻，侵略，侵犯，侵害

参考例句：

• So long as we are firmly united, we need fear no aggression.只要我们紧密地团结，就不必惧怕外来侵略。
• Her view is that aggression is part of human nature.她认为攻击性是人类本性的一部份。

230 territorial   

adj.领土的，领地的

参考例句：

• The country is fighting to preserve its territorial integrity.该国在为保持领土的完整而进行斗争。
• They were not allowed to fish in our territorial waters.不允许他们在我国领海捕鱼。

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

参考例句：

• a row of iron spikes on a wall 墙头的一排尖铁
• There is a row of spikes on top of the prison wall to prevent the prisoners escaping. 监狱墙头装有一排尖钉，以防犯人逃跑。 来自《简明英汉词典》

232 miserable   

adj.悲惨的，痛苦的；可怜的，糟糕的

参考例句：

• It was miserable of you to make fun of him.你取笑他，这是可耻的。
• Her past life was miserable.她过去的生活很苦。

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

参考例句：

• Mother always lashes out food for the children's party. 孩子们聚会时，母亲总是给他们许多吃的。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Never walk behind a horse in case it lashes out. 绝对不要跟在马后面，以防它突然猛踢。 来自《简明英汉词典》

234 jersey   

n.运动衫

参考例句：

• He wears a cotton jersey when he plays football.他穿运动衫踢足球。
• They were dressed alike in blue jersey and knickers.他们穿着一致，都是蓝色的运动衫和灯笼短裤。

235 spine   

n.脊柱，脊椎；(动植物的)刺；书脊

参考例句：

• He broke his spine in a fall from a horse.他从马上跌下摔断了脊梁骨。
• His spine developed a slight curve.他的脊柱有点弯曲。

236 flirting   

v.调情，打情骂俏( flirt的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• Don't take her too seriously; she's only flirting with you. 别把她太当真，她只不过是在和你调情罢了。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
• 'she's always flirting with that new fellow Tseng!" “她还同新来厂里那个姓曾的吊膀子！ 来自子夜部分

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。

参考例句：

• The square squats in the centre of the city. 广场位于市中心。 来自互联网
• Various squats, lunges, jumps and sprints are incorporated for the humans. 主人们还要进行下蹲、弓步、跳跃和短跑等各项训练。 来自互联网

238 flaring   

a.火焰摇曳的，过份艳丽的

参考例句：

• A vulgar flaring paper adorned the walls. 墙壁上装饰着廉价的花纸。
• Goebbels was flaring up at me. 戈塔尔当时已对我面呈愠色。

239 vaccination   

n.接种疫苗，种痘

参考例句：

• Vaccination is a preventive against smallpox.种痘是预防天花的方法。
• Doctors suggest getting a tetanus vaccination every ten years.医生建议每十年注射一次破伤风疫苗。

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

参考例句：

• There were loud groans when he started to sing. 他刚开始歌唱时有人发出了很大的嘘声。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• It was a weird old house, full of creaks and groans. 这是所神秘而可怕的旧宅，到处嘎吱嘎吱作响。 来自《简明英汉词典》

241 ordeal   

n.苦难经历，（尤指对品格、耐力的）严峻考验

参考例句：

• She managed to keep her sanity throughout the ordeal.在那场磨难中她始终保持神志正常。
• Being lost in the wilderness for a week was an ordeal for me.在荒野里迷路一星期对我来说真是一场磨难。

242 defense   

n.防御，保卫；[pl.]防务工事；辩护，答辩

参考例句：

• The accused has the right to defense.被告人有权获得辩护。
• The war has impacted the area with military and defense workers.战争使那个地区挤满了军队和防御工程人员。

243 wrecked   

adj.失事的，遇难的

参考例句：

• the hulk of a wrecked ship 遇难轮船的残骸
• the salvage of the wrecked tanker 对失事油轮的打捞

244 ozone   

n.臭氧，新鲜空气

参考例句：

• The ozone layer is a protective layer around the planet Earth.臭氧层是地球的保护层。
• The capacity of ozone can adjust according of requirement.臭氧的产量可根据需要或调节。

245 wringing   

淋湿的，湿透的

参考例句：

• He was wringing wet after working in the field in the hot sun. 烈日下在田里干活使他汗流满面。
• He is wringing out the water from his swimming trunks. 他正在把游泳裤中的水绞出来。

246 congealed   

v.使凝结，冻结( congeal的过去式和过去分词 )；（指血）凝结

参考例句：

• The cold remains of supper had congealed on the plate. 晚餐剩下的冷饭菜已经凝结在盘子上了。
• The oil at last is congealed into a white fat. 那油最终凝结成了一种白色的油脂。 来自《简明英汉词典》

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

参考例句：

• No amount of coaxing will make me change my mind. 任你费尽口舌也不会说服我改变主意。
• It took a lot of coaxing before he agreed. 劝说了很久他才同意。 来自辞典例句

248 cholesterol   

n.（U）胆固醇

参考例句：

• There is cholesterol in the cell of body.人体细胞里有胆固醇。
• They are determining the serum-protein and cholesterol levels.他们正在测定血清蛋白和胆固醇的浓度。

249 magenta   

n..紫红色（的染料）；adj.紫红色的

参考例句：

• In the one photo in which she appeared, Hillary Clinton wore a magenta gown.在其中一张照片中，希拉里身着一件紫红色礼服。
• For the same reason air information is printed in magenta.出于同样的原因，航空资料采用品红色印刷。

250 survivors   

幸存者，残存者，生还者( survivor的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The survivors were adrift in a lifeboat for six days. 幸存者在救生艇上漂流了六天。
• survivors clinging to a raft 紧紧抓住救生筏的幸存者

251 grunt   

v.嘟哝；作呼噜声；n.呼噜声，嘟哝

参考例句：

• He lifted the heavy suitcase with a grunt.他咕噜着把沉重的提箱拎了起来。
• I ask him what he think,but he just grunt.我问他在想什麽，他只哼了一声。

252 crumbs   

int. (表示惊讶)哎呀 n. 碎屑 名词crumb的复数形式

参考例句：

• She stood up and brushed the crumbs from her sweater. 她站起身掸掉了毛衣上的面包屑。
• Oh crumbs! Is that the time? 啊，天哪！都这会儿啦？

253 disdained   

鄙视( disdain的过去式和过去分词 )； 不屑于做，不愿意做

参考例句：

• I disdained to answer his rude remarks. 我不屑回答他的粗话。
• Jackie disdained the servants that her millions could buy. 杰姬鄙视那些她用钱就可以收买的奴仆。

254 jittery   

adj. 神经过敏的, 战战兢兢的

参考例句：

• However, nothing happened though he continued to feel jittery. 可是，自从拉上这辆车，并没有出什么错儿，虽然他心中嘀嘀咕咕的不安。 来自汉英文学 - 骆驼祥子
• The thirty-six Enterprise divebombers were being squandered in a jittery shot from the hip. 这三十六架“企业号”上的俯冲轰炸机正被孤注一掷。

255 frigid   

adj.寒冷的，凛冽的；冷淡的；拘禁的

参考例句：

• The water was too frigid to allow him to remain submerged for long.水冰冷彻骨，他在下面呆不了太长时间。
• She returned his smile with a frigid glance.对他的微笑她报以冷冷的一瞥。

256 trump   

n.王牌，法宝；v.打出王牌，吹喇叭

参考例句：

• He was never able to trump up the courage to have a showdown.他始终鼓不起勇气摊牌。
• The coach saved his star player for a trump card.教练保留他的明星选手，作为他的王牌。

257 partially   

adv.部分地，从某些方面讲

参考例句：

• The door was partially concealed by the drapes.门有一部分被门帘遮住了。
• The police managed to restore calm and the curfew was partially lifted.警方设法恢复了平静，宵禁部分解除。

258 automobiles   

n.汽车( automobile的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• When automobiles become popular,the use of the horse and buggy passed away. 汽车普及后，就不再使用马和马车了。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Automobiles speed in an endless stream along the boulevard. 宽阔的林荫道上，汽车川流不息。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

259 crimson   

n./adj.深(绯)红色(的)；vi.脸变绯红色

参考例句：

• She went crimson with embarrassment.她羞得满脸通红。
• Maple leaves have turned crimson.枫叶已经红了。

260 swells   

增强( swell的第三人称单数 )； 肿胀； （使）凸出； 充满（激情）

参考例句：

• The waters were heaving up in great swells. 河水正在急剧上升。
• A barrel swells in the middle. 水桶中部隆起。

261 concession   

n.让步，妥协；特许(权)

参考例句：

• We can not make heavy concession to the matter.我们在这个问题上不能过于让步。
• That is a great concession.这是很大的让步。

262 sling   

vt.扔；悬挂；n.挂带；吊索，吊兜；弹弓

参考例句：

• The boy discharged a stone from a sling.这个男孩用弹弓射石头。
• By using a hoist the movers were able to sling the piano to the third floor.搬运工人用吊车才把钢琴吊到3楼。

263 tugging   

n.牵引感v.用力拉，使劲拉，猛扯( tug的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• Tom was tugging at a button-hole and looking sheepish. 汤姆捏住一个钮扣眼使劲地拉，样子显得很害羞。 来自英汉文学 - 汤姆历险
• She kicked him, tugging his thick hair. 她一边踢他，一边扯着他那浓密的头发。 来自辞典例句

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）

参考例句：

• The rebels were wielding sticks of dynamite. 叛乱分子舞动着棒状炸药。
• He is wielding a knife. 他在挥舞着一把刀。

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）

参考例句：

• He helped her up before flicking the reins. 他帮她上马，之后挥动了缰绳。
• There's something flicking around my toes. 有什么东西老在叮我的脚指头。

266 bleaching   

漂白法，漂白

参考例句：

• Moderately weathered rock showed more intense bleaching and fissuring in the feldspars. 中等风化岩石则是指长石有更为强烈的变白现象和裂纹现象。
• Bleaching effects are very strong and show on air photos. 退色效应非常强烈，并且反映在航空象片上。

267 spiked   

adj.有穗的；成锥形的；有尖顶的

参考例句：

• The editor spiked the story. 编辑删去了这篇报道。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• They wondered whether their drinks had been spiked. 他们有些疑惑自己的饮料里是否被偷偷搀了烈性酒。 来自辞典例句

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

参考例句：

• The tail tapered to a rounded tip. 尾部越来越细，最后成了个圆尖。
• The organization tapered off in about half a year. 那个组织大约半年内就逐渐消失了。

269 predator   

n.捕食其它动物的动物；捕食者

参考例句：

• The final part of this chapter was devoted to a brief summary of predator species.本章最后部分简要总结了食肉动物。
• Komodo dragon is the largest living lizard and a fearsome predator.科摩多龙是目前存在的最大蜥蜴，它是一种令人恐惧的捕食性动物。

270 momentum   

n.动力，冲力，势头；动量

参考例句：

• We exploit the energy and momentum conservation laws in this way.我们就是这样利用能量和动量守恒定律的。
• The law of momentum conservation could supplant Newton's third law.动量守恒定律可以取代牛顿第三定律。

271 lengthening   

（时间或空间）延长，伸长( lengthen的现在分词 )； 加长

参考例句：

• The evening shadows were lengthening. 残阳下的影子越拉越长。
• The shadows are lengthening for me. 我的影子越来越长了。 来自演讲部分

272 forth   

adv.向前；向外，往外

参考例句：

• The wind moved the trees gently back and forth.风吹得树轻轻地来回摇晃。
• He gave forth a series of works in rapid succession.他很快连续发表了一系列的作品。

273 consummate   

adj.完美的；v.成婚；使完美 [反]baffle

参考例句：

• The restored jade burial suit fully reveals the consummate skill of the labouring people of ancient China.复原后的金缕玉衣充分显示出中国古代劳动人民的精湛工艺。
• The actor's acting is consummate and he is loved by the audience.这位演员技艺精湛，深受观众喜爱。

274 steer   

vt.驾驶，为…操舵；引导；vi.驾驶

参考例句：

• If you push the car, I'll steer it.如果你来推车，我就来驾车。
• It's no use trying to steer the boy into a course of action that suits you.想说服这孩子按你的方式行事是徒劳的。

275 collaboration   

n.合作，协作；勾结

参考例句：

• The two companies are working in close collaboration each other.这两家公司密切合作。
• He was shot for collaboration with the enemy.他因通敌而被枪毙了。

276 speck   

n.微粒，小污点，小斑点

参考例句：

• I have not a speck of interest in it.我对它没有任何兴趣。
• The sky is clear and bright without a speck of cloud.天空晴朗，一星星云彩也没有。

277 puncture   

n.刺孔，穿孔；v.刺穿，刺破

参考例句：

• Failure did not puncture my confidence.失败并没有挫伤我的信心。
• My bicycle had a puncture and needed patching up.我的自行车胎扎了个洞，需要修补。

278 prick   

v.刺伤，刺痛，刺孔；n.刺伤，刺痛

参考例句：

• He felt a sharp prick when he stepped on an upturned nail.当他踩在一个尖朝上的钉子上时，他感到剧烈的疼痛。
• He burst the balloon with a prick of the pin.他用针一戳，气球就爆了。

279 promisingly   

（通常只是开头）给人以希望地，良好地

参考例句：

• The afternoon had begun so promisingly. 下午一开始就很顺利，就预示着成功。
• The first batch of wheat is growing promisingly! 头茬小麦的长势喜人呀！

280 gut   

n.[pl.]胆量；内脏；adj.本能的；vt.取出内脏

参考例句：

• It is not always necessary to gut the fish prior to freezing.冷冻鱼之前并不总是需要先把内脏掏空。
• My immediate gut feeling was to refuse.我本能的直接反应是拒绝。

281 colon   

n.冒号，结肠，直肠

参考例句：

• Here,too,the colon must be followed by a dash.这里也是一样，应当在冒号后加破折号。
• The colon is the locus of a large concentration of bacteria.结肠是大浓度的细菌所在地。

282 brawn   

n.体力

参考例句：

• In this job you need both brains and brawn.做这份工作既劳神又费力。
• They relied on brains rather than brawn.他们靠的是脑力，而不是体力。

283 manly   

adj.有男子气概的；adv.男子般地，果断地

参考例句：

• The boy walked with a confident manly stride.这男孩以自信的男人步伐行走。
• He set himself manly tasks and expected others to follow his example.他给自己定下了男子汉的任务，并希望别人效之。

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

参考例句：

• The poets, once so praised, are tamped unceremoniously together in our textbooks, in one curt chapter. 那些名噪一时的诗人，在今天的教科书里，已被毫不客气地挤在一起，列为短短的一章。 来自辞典例句
• They tamped down the earth around the apple tree. 他们把苹果树周围的泥土夯实。 来自互联网

285 glistening   

adj.闪耀的，反光的v.湿物闪耀，闪亮( glisten的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• Her eyes were glistening with tears. 她眼里闪着晶莹的泪花。
• Her eyes were glistening with tears. 她眼睛中的泪水闪着柔和的光。 来自《用法词典》

286 publicity   

n.众所周知，闻名；宣传，广告

参考例句：

• The singer star's marriage got a lot of publicity.这位歌星的婚事引起了公众的关注。
• He dismissed the event as just a publicity gimmick.他不理会这件事，只当它是一种宣传手法。

287 flipped   

轻弹( flip的过去式和过去分词 )； 按（开关）； 快速翻转； 急挥

参考例句：

• The plane flipped and crashed. 飞机猛地翻转，撞毁了。
• The carter flipped at the horse with his whip. 赶大车的人扬鞭朝着马轻轻地抽打。

288 earrings   

n.耳环( earring的名词复数 )；耳坠子

参考例句：

• a pair of earrings 一对耳环
• These earrings snap on with special fastener. 这付耳环是用特制的按扣扣上去的。 来自《简明英汉词典》

289 cocaine   

n.可卡因，古柯碱（用作局部麻醉剂）

参考例句：

• That young man is a cocaine addict.那个年轻人吸食可卡因成瘾。
• Don't have cocaine abusively.不可滥服古柯碱。

290 ledge   

n.壁架，架状突出物；岩架，岩礁

参考例句：

• They paid out the line to lower him to the ledge.他们放出绳子使他降到那块岩石的突出部分。
• Suddenly he struck his toe on a rocky ledge and fell.突然他的脚趾绊在一块突出的岩石上，摔倒了。

291 shortcut   

n.近路，捷径

参考例句：

• He was always looking for a shortcut to fame and fortune.他总是在找成名发财的捷径。
• If you take the shortcut,it will be two li closer.走抄道去要近2里路。

292 dodging   

n.避开，闪过，音调改变v.闪躲( dodge的现在分词 )；回避

参考例句：

• He ran across the road, dodging the traffic. 他躲开来往的车辆跑过马路。
• I crossed the highway, dodging the traffic. 我避开车流穿过了公路。 来自辞典例句

293 fronds   

n.蕨类或棕榈类植物的叶子( frond的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• You can pleat palm fronds to make huts, umbrellas and baskets. 人们可以把棕榈叶折叠起来盖棚屋，制伞，编篮子。 来自百科语句
• When these breezes reached the platform the palm-fronds would whisper. 微风吹到平台时，棕榈叶片发出簌簌的低吟。 来自辞典例句

294 coconuts   

n.椰子( coconut的名词复数 )；椰肉，椰果

参考例句：

• We found a bountiful supply of coconuts on the island. 我们发现岛上有充足的椰子供应。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Coconuts provide "meat", drink, oil, soap and fiber for fishing line. 椰子提供“肉类”，饮料、油脂、肥皂和做钓（鱼）丝的纤维。 来自百科语句

295 coconut   

n.椰子

参考例句：

• The husk of this coconut is particularly strong.椰子的外壳很明显非常坚固。
• The falling coconut gave him a terrific bang on the head.那只掉下的椰子砰地击中他的脑袋。

296 athletics   

n.运动，体育，田径运动

参考例句：

• When I was at school I was always hopeless at athletics.我上学的时候体育十分糟糕。
• Our team tied with theirs in athletics.在田径比赛中，我们队与他们队旗鼓相当。

297 stymied   

n.被侵袭的v.妨碍，阻挠( stymie的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• Relief efforts have been stymied in recent weeks by armed gunmen. 最近几周的救援工作一直受到武装分子的阻挠。 来自辞典例句
• I was completely stymied by her refusal to help. 由于她拒不相助， 我完全陷入了困境。 来自互联网

298 armour   

（=armor）n.盔甲；装甲部队

参考例句：

• His body was encased in shining armour.他全身披着明晃晃的甲胄。
• Bulletproof cars sheathed in armour.防弹车护有装甲。

299 bogey   

n.令人谈之变色之物；妖怪，幽灵

参考例句：

• The universal bogey is AIDS.艾滋病是所有人唯恐避之不及的东西。
• Age is another bogey for actresses.年龄是另一个让女演员头疼的问题。

300 rustle   

v.沙沙作响；偷盗(牛、马等)；n.沙沙声声

参考例句：

• She heard a rustle in the bushes.她听到灌木丛中一阵沙沙声。
• He heard a rustle of leaves in the breeze.他听到树叶在微风中发出的沙沙声。

301 attic   

n.顶楼，屋顶室

参考例句：

• Leakiness in the roof caused a damp attic.屋漏使顶楼潮湿。
• What's to be done with all this stuff in the attic?顶楼上的材料怎么处理？

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

参考例句：

• Michael looked at the four hoods sitting in the kitchen. 迈克尔瞅了瞅坐在厨房里的四条汉子。 来自教父部分
• Eskimos wear hoods to keep their heads warm. 爱斯基摩人戴兜帽使头暖和。 来自辞典例句

303 inhibits   

阻止，抑制( inhibit的第三人称单数 )； 使拘束，使尴尬

参考例句：

• A small manufacturing sector inhibits growth in the economy. 制造业规模太小有碍经济增长。
• His bad English inhibits him from speaking freely. 他英语学得不好，这使他不能表达自如。

304 hooded   

adj.戴头巾的；有罩盖的；颈部因肋骨运动而膨胀的

参考例句：

• A hooded figure waited in the doorway. 一个戴兜帽的人在门口等候。
• Black-eyed gipsy girls, hooded in showy handkerchiefs, sallied forth to tell fortunes. 黑眼睛的吉卜赛姑娘，用华丽的手巾包着头，突然地闯了进来替人算命。 来自辞典例句

305 disapproval   

n.反对，不赞成

参考例句：

• The teacher made an outward show of disapproval.老师表面上表示不同意。
• They shouted their disapproval.他们喊叫表示反对。

306 rusting   

n.生锈v.（使）生锈( rust的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• There was an old rusting bolt on the door. 门上有一个生锈的旧门闩。 来自辞典例句
• Zinc can be used to cover other metals to stop them rusting. 锌可用来涂在其他金属表面以防锈。 来自辞典例句

307 jaw   

n.颚，颌，说教，流言蜚语；v.喋喋不休，教训

参考例句：

• He delivered a right hook to his opponent's jaw.他给了对方下巴一记右钩拳。
• A strong square jaw is a sign of firm character.强健的方下巴是刚毅性格的标志。

308 democrats   

n.民主主义者，民主人士( democrat的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The Democrats held a pep rally on Capitol Hill yesterday. 民主党昨天在国会山召开了竞选誓师大会。
• The democrats organize a filibuster in the senate. 民主党党员组织了阻挠议事。 来自《简明英汉词典》

309 phlegmatic   

adj.冷静的，冷淡的，冷漠的，无活力的

参考例句：

• Commuting in the rush-hour requires a phlegmatic temperament.在上下班交通高峰期间乘坐通勤车要有安之若素的心境。
• The british character is often said to be phlegmatic.英国人的性格常说成是冷漠的。

310 cumbersomely   

笨重的； 累赘的，难以携带的； 缓慢复杂的，冗长的； 麻烦的

参考例句：

• The organization changed its cumbersome title to something easier to remember. 这家机构把它那复杂累赘的名称改得好记一些了。
• It's rather cumbersome having to carry all these cases around. 把这些箱子都带着走动是件相当麻烦的事。

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）

参考例句：

• They're a bunch of morons. 他们是一群蠢货。
• They're a load of morons. 他们是一群笨蛋。

312 touchingly   

adv.令人同情地，感人地，动人地

参考例句：

• Aunt Polly knelt down and prayed for Tom so touchingly. 波莉姨妈跪下来，为汤姆祈祷，很令人感动。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Rather touchingly, he suggested the names of some professors who had known him at Duke University. 他还相当令人感动地提出了公爵大学里对他有了解的几个教授的名字。 来自辞典例句

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

参考例句：

• She eked out the stew to make another meal. 她省出一些钝菜再做一顿饭。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• She eked out her small income by washing clothes for other people. 她替人洗衣以贴补微薄的收入。 来自辞典例句

314 defensive   

adj.防御的；防卫的；防守的

参考例句：

• Their questions about the money put her on the defensive.他们问到钱的问题，使她警觉起来。
• The Government hastily organized defensive measures against the raids.政府急忙布置了防卫措施抵御空袭。

315 veins   

n.纹理；矿脉( vein的名词复数 )；静脉；叶脉；纹理

参考例句：

• The blood flows from the capillaries back into the veins. 血从毛细血管流回静脉。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• I felt a pleasant glow in all my veins from the wine. 喝过酒后我浑身的血都热烘烘的，感到很舒服。 来自《简明英汉词典》

316 killing   

n.巨额利润；突然赚大钱，发大财

参考例句：

• Investors are set to make a killing from the sell-off.投资者准备清仓以便大赚一笔。
• Last week my brother made a killing on Wall Street.上个周我兄弟在华尔街赚了一大笔。

317 pompous   

adj.傲慢的，自大的；夸大的；豪华的

参考例句：

• He was somewhat pompous and had a high opinion of his own capabilities.他有点自大，自视甚高。
• He is a good man underneath his pompous appearance. 他的外表虽傲慢，其实是个好人。

318 fussy   

adj.为琐事担忧的，过分装饰的，爱挑剔的

参考例句：

• He is fussy about the way his food's cooked.他过分计较食物的烹调。
• The little girl dislikes her fussy parents.小女孩讨厌她那过分操心的父母。

319 peeking   

v.很快地看( peek的现在分词 )；偷看；窥视；微露出

参考例句：

• I couldn't resist peeking in the drawer. 我不由得偷看了一下抽屉里面。
• They caught him peeking in through the keyhole. 他们发现他从钥匙孔里向里窥视。 来自辞典例句

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

参考例句：

• She was so tired, her eyelids were beginning to droop. 她太疲倦了，眼睑开始往下垂。
• Her eyelids drooped as if she were on the verge of sleep. 她眼睑低垂好像快要睡着的样子。 来自《简明英汉词典》

321 coffin   

n.棺材，灵柩

参考例句：

• When one's coffin is covered,all discussion about him can be settled.盖棺论定。
• The coffin was placed in the grave.那口棺材已安放到坟墓里去了。

322 weird   

adj.古怪的，离奇的；怪诞的，神秘而可怕的

参考例句：

• From his weird behaviour,he seems a bit of an oddity.从他不寻常的行为看来，他好像有点怪。
• His weird clothes really gas me.他的怪衣裳简直笑死人。

323 hover   

vi.翱翔，盘旋；徘徊；彷徨，犹豫

参考例句：

• You don't hover round the table.你不要围着桌子走来走去。
• A plane is hover on our house.有一架飞机在我们的房子上盘旋。

324 slant   

v.倾斜，倾向性地编写或报道；n.斜面，倾向

参考例句：

• The lines are drawn on a slant.这些线条被画成斜线。
• The editorial had an antiunion slant.这篇社论有一种反工会的倾向。

325 Christian   

adj.基督教徒的；n.基督教徒

参考例句：

• They always addressed each other by their Christian name.他们总是以教名互相称呼。
• His mother is a sincere Christian.他母亲是个虔诚的基督教徒。

326 deflated   

adj. 灰心丧气的

参考例句：

• I was quite deflated by her lack of interest in my suggestions.他对我的建议兴趣不大，令我感到十分气馁。
• He was deflated by the news.这消息令他泄气。

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

参考例句：

• The new dance consists of a series of glides. 这种新舞蹈中有一连串的滑步。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The stately swan glides gracefully on the pond. 天鹅在池面上优美地游动。 来自《简明英汉词典》

328 planks   

（厚）木板( plank的名词复数 )； 政纲条目，政策要点

参考例句：

• The house was built solidly of rough wooden planks. 这房子是用粗木板牢固地建造的。
• We sawed the log into planks. 我们把木头锯成了木板。

329 preying   

v.掠食( prey的现在分词 )；掠食；折磨；（人）靠欺诈为生

参考例句：

• This problem has been preying on my mind all day. 这个问题让我伤了整整一天脑筋。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• For a while he let his eyes idly follow the preying bird. 他自己的眼睛随着寻食的鸟毫无目的地看了一会儿。 来自辞典例句

330 interfering   

adj. 妨碍的 动词interfere的现在分词

参考例句：

• He's an interfering old busybody! 他老爱管闲事！
• I wish my mother would stop interfering and let me make my own decisions. 我希望我母亲不再干预，让我自己拿主意。

331 frustration   

n.挫折，失败，失效，落空

参考例句：

• He had to fight back tears of frustration.他不得不强忍住失意的泪水。
• He beat his hands on the steering wheel in frustration.他沮丧地用手打了几下方向盘。

332 primness   

n.循规蹈矩，整洁

参考例句：

333 dabbing   

石面凿毛，灰泥抛毛

参考例句：

• She was crying and dabbing at her eyes with a handkerchief. 她一边哭一边用手绢轻按眼睛。
• Huei-fang was leaning against a willow, dabbing her eyes with a handkerchief. 四小姐蕙芳正靠在一棵杨柳树上用手帕揉眼睛。 来自子夜部分

334 ostrich   

n.鸵鸟

参考例句：

• Ostrich is the fastest animal on two legs.驼鸟是双腿跑得最快的动物。
• The ostrich indeed inhabits continents.鸵鸟确实是生活在大陆上的。

335 specks   

n.眼镜；斑点，微粒，污点( speck的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Minutes later Brown spotted two specks in the ocean. 几分钟后布朗发现海洋中有两个小点。 来自英汉非文学 - 百科语料821
• Do you ever seem to see specks in front of your eyes? 你眼睛前面曾似乎看见过小点吗？ 来自辞典例句

336 ineptitude   

n.不适当；愚笨，愚昧的言行

参考例句：

• History testifies to the ineptitude of coalitions in waging war.历史昭示我们，多数国家联合作战，其进行甚为困难。
• They joked about his ineptitude.他们取笑他的笨拙。

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

参考例句：

• The plant exudes a sticky fluid. 这种植物分泌出一种黏液。
• She exudes sexual magnetism. 她洋溢着女性的魅力。

338 acrid   

adj.辛辣的，尖刻的，刻薄的

参考例句：

• There is an acrid tone to your remarks.你说这些话的口气带有讥刺意味。
• The room was filled with acrid smoke.房里充满刺鼻的烟。

339 infinity   

n.无限，无穷，大量

参考例句：

• It is impossible to count up to infinity.不可能数到无穷大。
• Theoretically,a line can extend into infinity.从理论上来说直线可以无限地延伸。

340 slab   

n.平板，厚的切片；v.切成厚板，以平板盖上

参考例句：

• This heavy slab of oak now stood between the bomb and Hitler.这时笨重的橡木厚板就横在炸弹和希特勒之间了。
• The monument consists of two vertical pillars supporting a horizontal slab.这座纪念碑由两根垂直的柱体构成，它们共同支撑着一块平板。

341 chomps   

v.切齿，格格地咬牙，咬响牙齿( chomp的第三人称单数 )

参考例句：

• If you notice, she TOTALLY sides with Mark as she chomps on her bacon. 如果你留心，就会发现Cristina完全同意Mark的观点，因为她非常使劲儿地咬她嘴里的培根。 来自互联网

342 parched   

adj.焦干的；极渴的；v.（使）焦干

参考例句：

• Hot winds parched the crops.热风使庄稼干透了。
• The land in this region is rather dry and parched.这片土地十分干燥。

343 skulling   

v.使惨败，使得零分( skunk的现在分词 )；烂醉如泥

参考例句：

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

参考例句：

• That faucet dribbles badly. 那个水龙头漏水严重。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》
• Question: How do you make the dribbles like you always do them? 就像你经常做的，你怎么盘带？（估计也是个踢球的）。 来自互联网

345 flips   

轻弹( flip的第三人称单数 )； 按（开关）； 快速翻转； 急挥

参考例句：

• Larry flips on the TV while he is on vacation in Budapest. 赖瑞在布达佩斯渡假时，打开电视收看节目。
• He flips through a book before making a decision. 他在决定买下一本书前总要先草草翻阅一下。

346 greasy   

adj. 多脂的，油脂的

参考例句：

• He bought a heavy-duty cleanser to clean his greasy oven.昨天他买了强力清洁剂来清洗油污的炉子。
• You loathe the smell of greasy food when you are seasick.当你晕船时，你会厌恶油腻的气味。

347 acting   

n.演戏，行为，假装；adj.代理的，临时的，演出用的

参考例句：

• Ignore her,she's just acting.别理她，她只是假装的。
• During the seventies,her acting career was in eclipse.在七十年代，她的表演生涯黯然失色。

348 flamingos   

n.红鹳，火烈鸟（羽毛粉红、长颈的大涉禽）( flamingo的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Flamingos stand in a salt lake in Larnaca, Cyprus. 塞浦路斯的拉纳卡市一个盐湖中的火烈鸟。 来自互联网
• The research started researchers studied greater flamingos and in a bird sanctuary in southern Spain. 研究人员在西班牙南部的一个鸟类保护区对大型火烈鸟进行研究。 来自互联网

349 intensified   

v.（使）增强， （使）加剧( intensify的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• Violence intensified during the night. 在夜间暴力活动加剧了。
• The drought has intensified. 旱情加剧了。 来自《简明英汉词典》

350 throbbing   

a. 跳动的,悸动的

参考例句：

• My heart is throbbing and I'm shaking. 我的心在猛烈跳动，身子在不住颤抖。
• There was a throbbing in her temples. 她的太阳穴直跳。

351 generator   

n.发电机，发生器

参考例句：

• All the while the giant generator poured out its power.巨大的发电机一刻不停地发出电力。
• This is an alternating current generator.这是一台交流发电机。

352 mattresses   

褥垫，床垫( mattress的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The straw mattresses are airing there. 草垫子正在那里晾着。
• The researchers tested more than 20 mattresses of various materials. 研究人员试验了二十多个不同材料的床垫。

353 wreckage   

n.（失事飞机等的）残骸，破坏，毁坏

参考例句：

• They hauled him clear of the wreckage.他们把他从形骸中拖出来。
• New states were born out of the wreckage of old colonial empires.新生国家从老殖民帝国的废墟中诞生。

354 patriotic   

adj.爱国的，有爱国心的

参考例句：

• His speech was full of patriotic sentiments.他的演说充满了爱国之情。
• The old man is a patriotic overseas Chinese.这位老人是一位爱国华侨。

355 depressed   

adj.沮丧的，抑郁的，不景气的，萧条的

参考例句：

• When he was depressed,he felt utterly divorced from reality.他心情沮丧时就感到完全脱离了现实。
• His mother was depressed by the sad news.这个坏消息使他的母亲意志消沉。

356 nibbles   

vt.& vi.啃，一点一点地咬（nibble的第三人称单数形式）

参考例句：

• A fish nibbles at the bait. 一条鱼在轻轻地啃鱼饵。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
• Units of four bits are sometimes referred to as nibbles. 有时将四位数字组成的单元叫做半字节。 来自辞典例句

357 pumpkin   

n.南瓜

参考例句：

• They ate turkey and pumpkin pie.他们吃了火鸡和南瓜馅饼。
• It looks like there is a person looking out of the pumpkin!看起来就像南瓜里有人在看着你！

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

参考例句：

• Our feet crunched on the frozen snow. 我们的脚嘎吱嘎吱地踩在冻雪上。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• He closed his jaws on the bones and crunched. 他咬紧骨头，使劲地嚼。 来自英汉文学 - 热爱生命

359 sodium   

n.（化）钠

参考例句：

• Out over the town the sodium lights were lit.在外面，全城的钠光灯都亮了。
• Common salt is a compound of sodium and chlorine.食盐是钠和氯的复合物。

360 solvent   

n.溶剂；adj.有偿付能力的

参考例句：

• Gasoline is a solvent liquid which removes grease spots.汽油是一种能去掉油污的有溶解力的液体。
• A bankrupt company is not solvent.一个破产的公司是没有偿还债务的能力的。

361 sodden   

adj.浑身湿透的；v.使浸透；使呆头呆脑

参考例句：

• We stripped off our sodden clothes.我们扒下了湿透的衣服。
• The cardboard was sodden and fell apart in his hands.纸板潮得都发酥了，手一捏就碎。

362 buddy   

n.（美口）密友，伙伴

参考例句：

• Calm down,buddy.What's the trouble?压压气，老兄。有什么麻烦吗？
• Get out of my way,buddy!别挡道了，你这家伙！

363 lanky   

adj.瘦长的

参考例句：

• He was six feet four,all lanky and leggy.他身高6英尺4英寸，瘦高个儿，大长腿。
• Tom was a lanky boy with long skinny legs.汤姆是一个腿很细的瘦高个儿。

364 brittle   

adj.易碎的；脆弱的；冷淡的；(声音)尖利的

参考例句：

• The pond was covered in a brittle layer of ice.池塘覆盖了一层易碎的冰。
• She gave a brittle laugh.她冷淡地笑了笑。

365 temperament   

n.气质，性格，性情

参考例句：

• The analysis of what kind of temperament you possess is vital.分析一下你有什么样的气质是十分重要的。
• Success often depends on temperament.成功常常取决于一个人的性格。

366 camaraderie   

n.同志之爱，友情

参考例句：

• The camaraderie among fellow employees made the tedious work just bearable.同事之间的情谊使枯燥乏味的工作变得还能忍受。
• Some bosses are formal and have occasional interactions,while others prefer continual camaraderie.有些老板很刻板，偶尔才和下属互动一下；有些则喜欢和下属打成一片。

367 prospering   

成功，兴旺( prosper的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• Our country is thriving and prospering day by day. 祖国日益繁荣昌盛。
• His business is prospering. 他生意兴隆。

368 brewer   

n. 啤酒制造者

参考例句：

• Brewer is a very interesting man. 布鲁尔是一个很有趣的人。
• I decided to quit my job to become a brewer. 我决定辞职，做一名酿酒人。

369 delinquent   

adj.犯法的，有过失的；n.违法者

参考例句：

• Most delinquent children have deprived backgrounds.多数少年犯都有未受教育的背景。
• He is delinquent in paying his rent.他拖欠房租。

370 juvenile   

n.青少年，少年读物；adj.青少年的，幼稚的

参考例句：

• For a grown man he acted in a very juvenile manner.身为成年人，他的行为举止显得十分幼稚。
• Juvenile crime is increasing at a terrifying rate.青少年犯罪正在以惊人的速度增长。

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

参考例句：

• The other guys are considered'sick" or "bums". 其他的人则被看成是“病态”或“废物”。
• You'll never amount to anything, you good-for-nothing bums! 这班没出息的东西，一辈子也不会成器。

372 steering   

n.操舵装置

参考例句：

• He beat his hands on the steering wheel in frustration. 他沮丧地用手打了几下方向盘。
• Steering according to the wind, he also framed his words more amicably. 他真会看风使舵，口吻也马上变得温和了。

373 consolation   

n.安慰，慰问

参考例句：

• The children were a great consolation to me at that time.那时孩子们成了我的莫大安慰。
• This news was of little consolation to us.这个消息对我们来说没有什么安慰。

374 inclination   

n.倾斜；点头；弯腰；斜坡；倾度；倾向；爱好

参考例句：

• She greeted us with a slight inclination of the head.她微微点头向我们致意。
• I did not feel the slightest inclination to hurry.我没有丝毫着急的意思。

375 bleat   

v.咩咩叫，(讲)废话，哭诉；n.咩咩叫，废话，哭诉

参考例句：

• He heard the bleat of a lamb.他听到小羊的叫声。
• They bleat about how miserable they are.他们诉说他们的生活是多么悲惨。

376 animated   

adj.生气勃勃的，活跃的，愉快的

参考例句：

• His observations gave rise to an animated and lively discussion.他的言论引起了一场气氛热烈而活跃的讨论。
• We had an animated discussion over current events last evening.昨天晚上我们热烈地讨论时事。

377 automatons   

n.自动机，机器人( automaton的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• These docile lunatic automatons are no more trouble to their guards than cattle. 对警卫来说，这些驯良的，机器人般的疯子和家畜一样不会带来多大的麻烦。 来自辞典例句
• For the most part, automatons are improved while they are off. 对大多数移动机器来讲，它们是在关机状态下得以改良的。 来自互联网

378 dabble   

v.涉足，浅赏

参考例句：

• They dabble in the stock market.他们少量投资于股市。
• Never dabble with things of which you have no knowledge.绝不要插手你不了解的事物。

379 aggravation   

n.烦恼，恼火

参考例句：

• She stirred in aggravation as she said this. 她说这句话，激动得过分。
• Can't stand the aggravation, all day I get aggravation. You know how it is." 我整天都碰到令人发火的事，你可想而知这是什么滋味。” 来自教父部分

380 unnatural   

adj.不自然的；反常的

参考例句：

• Did her behaviour seem unnatural in any way?她有任何反常表现吗？
• She has an unnatural smile on her face.她脸上挂着做作的微笑。

381 unison   

n.步调一致，行动一致

参考例句：

• The governments acted in unison to combat terrorism.这些国家的政府一致行动对付恐怖主义。
• My feelings are in unison with yours.我的感情与你的感情是一致的。

382 torpor   

n.迟钝；麻木；（动物的）冬眠

参考例句：

• The sick person gradually falls into a torpor.病人逐渐变得迟钝。
• He fell into a deep torpor.他一下子进入了深度麻痹状态。