They keep him in the hospital for five nights. Janice visits him Saturday. She is very busy on the outside; the classes she has to take to be a real?estate salesman have begun to meet, "The Laws of Real Property and Conveyancing" for three hours one night, and the other, "Procedures of Mortgages and Financing," on another. Also, she has been spending a lot of daytime hours with Pru and the grandchildren, and Charlie Stavros called her up and took her out to lunch.
Rabbit protests, "The bastard1, he did? I'm not even dead yet."
"Of course not, darling, and nobody expects you to be. He said it was your idea, from when you had lunch together. Charlie's concerned about us, is all. He thinks I shouldn't just be letting things slide but should get an outside accountant and our lawyer and look at the books over at the lot, just like you wanted."
"You believe it when Charlie tells you, but not when I do."
"Honey, you're my husband, and husbands get wives all confused. Charlie's just an old friend, and he has an outsider's impartiality2. Also, he loved my father, and feels protective toward the firm."
Harry3 has to chuckle4, though he doesn't like to laugh now or do anything that might joggle his heart, that delicate web of jump-ing shadow he saw on the radiograph monitor during his opera-tion. Sometimes, when shows like Cosby or Perfect Strangers or Golden Girls begin to tickle5 him too much, he switches off the set, rather than stress his heart with a laugh. These shows are all idiotic6 but not as totally stupid as this new one everybody raves7 about, Roseanne, starring some fat woman whose only talent as far as he can see is talking fast without moving her mouth. "Janice," he says seriously, "I think the only person who ever loved your father was you. And maybe your mother, at the beginning. Though it's hard to picture."
"Don't be rude to the dead," she tells him, unrufed. She looks plumped up, somehow; without that steady diet of tennis and swimming Valhalla Village provides she is maybe gaining weight. They are still members up at the Flying Eagle, but haven't made it out that way as much as in past springs. They had enjoyed good friendly times up there without realizing they would end. And, with his heart, Harry doesn't quite know how much to get into golf again. Even with a cart, you can be out there on the seventh hole and keel over and by the time they bring you in, through the other foursomes, there's been no oxygen to the brain for ten min-utes. Five minutes is all it takes, and you're a vegetable.
"Well, are you going to do it? Call in another accountant."?
"I've done it already" she announces, the proud secret she's been waiting for the conversation to elicit8. "Charlie had called up Mildred on his own already and we went over there to this very nice nursing home right near us, she's perfectly9 sensible and com-petent, just a little unsteady on her legs, and we went over to the lot and this Lyle who was so mean to you wasn't there but I was able to reach him over the phone at his home number. I said we wanted to look over the accounts since October and he said the accounts were mostly in these computer disks he keeps at his house and he was too sick to see us today, so I said maybe he was too sick to be our accountant then."
"You said that?"
"Yes I did. The first thing they teach you in this class on con-veyancing is never to pussy10?foot around, you do somebody and a potential sale more harm by not being clear than by speaking right out, even if they might not like hearing it at first. I told him he was fired and he said you can't fire somebody with AIDS, it's dis-crimination, and I said he should bring in his books and disks tomorrow or a policeman would be out to get them."
"You said all that?" Her eyes are bright and her hair bushes out from her little nut of a face, getting tan again, with a touch of double chin now that she's putting on weight. Harry admires her as you admire children you have raised, whose very success pulls them away, into the world's workings, into distance and estrange-ment.
"Maybe not as smoothly11 as I'm saying it to you, but I got it all out. Ask Charlie, he was right there. I don't like what these queers have done to Nelson. They've corrupted12 him."
"Gay," Harry says wearily. "We call them gay now." He is still trying to keep up with America, as it changes styles and costumes and vocabulary, as it dances ahead ever young, ever younger. "And what did Lyle say then?"
"He said we shall see. He asked whether I'd consulted with Nelson about all this. I said no but I wasn't sure Nelson was fit to consult with these days. I said in my opinion he and his friends were milking Nelson for all he was worth and had turned him into a human wreck13 and a dope addict14 and Charlie wrote on a pad of paper for me to see, `Cool it.' Elvira and Benny were out in the showroom all ears even though the office door was closed. Oh, but that fairy got me mad," Janice explains, "he sounded so above-it?all and bored on the phone, as if dealing15 with women like me was just more than his poor sensitive body and spirit could bear."
Rabbit is beginning to know how Lyle felt. "He probably was tired," he says in his defense16. "That disease he has does an awful job on you. Your lungs fill up."
"Well, he should have kept his penis out of other men's bot-toms then," Janice says, lowering her voice though, so the nurses and orderlies in the hall don't hear.
Bottoms. Thelma. That casket of nothingness. Probing the void. "And I don't know," Rabbit wearily pursues, "in a situation like Nelson's, who corrupts17 who. Maybe 1 corrupted the poor kid, twenty years ago."
"Oh Harry, don't be so hard on yourself. It's depressing to see you like this. You've changed so. What have they done to you, these doctors?"
He's glad she asked. He tells her, "They stuck a long thin thing into me and I could see it on television in my heart. Right on the screen, my own poor heart, while it was pumping to keep me alive. They shouldn't be allowed to go into your heart like that. They should just let people die."
"Darling, what a stupid way to talk. It's modern science, you should be grateful. You're going to be fine. Mim called all wor-ried and I told her how minor18 it was and gave her your number here."
"Mim." Just the syllable19 makes him smile. His sister. The one other survivor20 of that house on Jackson Road, where Mom and Pop set up their friction21, their heat, their comedy, their parade of days. At nineteen Mim took her bony good looks and went west, to Las Vegas. One of her gangster22 pals23 with a sentimental24 streak25 set her up with a beauty parlor26 when her looks began to go, and now she owns a Laundromat as well as the hairdresser's. Vegas must be a great town for Laundromats. Nobody lives there, everybody is just passing through, leaving a little bit of dirt like on the pale Antron carpets back at 14Y2 Franklin Drive. Harry and Janice visited Mim once, seven or eight years ago. These caves of glowing slot machines, no clocks anywhere, just a perpetual two o'clock in the morning, and you step outside and to your surprise the sun is blazing, and the sidewalks so hot a dog couldn't walk on them. What with Sinatra and Wayne Newton, he expected a lot of glitz, but in fact the gambling27 addicts28 were no classier than the types you see pulling at the one?armed bandits down in Atlantic City. Only there was a Western flavor, their voices and faces lined with little tiny cracks. Mim's face and voice had those tiny cracks too, though she had had a face?lift, to tighten29 up what she called her "wattles." Life is a hill that gets steeper the more you climb.
"Harry." Janice has been telling him something. "What did I just say?"
"I have no idea." Irritably30 he adds, "Why bother to talk to me when you've got Charlie back advising you, to say the least?"
She flares31 a little; her lips pinch in and her face comes forward. "Advising me is all he's doing and he's doing that because you asked him to. Because he loves you."
She wouldn't have spoken this way before going to Florida and those women's groups, of "love" as something that is all over the map, like oil drips from speeding automobiles32. She is trying to stir him, he dimly recognizes, back into life, into the fray33. He tries to play along. "Me?"
"Yes, you, Harry Angstrom."
"Why would he, for Chrissake?"
"I have no idea," Janice says. "I've never understood what men see in each other." She tries a joke. "Maybe he's gone gay in his old age."
"He's never married," Harry admits. "You think he'd be interested in coming back to work for Springer Motors?"
She is gathering34 up her things ? a black leather pocketbook packed like a bomb, the old?fashioned round kind people used to throw and not the flattened35 Semtex that terrorists smuggle36 into suitcases in airplanes, and her real?estate textbook and photocopied37 sample documents stapled38 together, for her class tonight, and a new spring coat she's got herself, a kind of jonquil?yellow gabardine with a broad belt and wide shoulders. She looks girlish, fluffyhaired, putting it on. "I asked him," she says, "and he says absolutely not. He says he's into these partnerships39 with his cousins, rental40 properties in the north end of the city and over toward the old fairgrounds, and a rug?cleaning business his nephew started up with another boy and they needed backers, and Charlie says that's enough for him, he couldn't stand to go back into a salaried job and all that withholding41 tax and the aggravation42 of being expected somewhere like at the lot every day. He likes his freedom."
"We all do," sighs Rabbit. "Hey, Janice. I was thinking just the other day we ought to get the wall?to?wall carpets in our house cleaned. No fault of yours, but they're filthy43, honey."
收听单词发音 |
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bastard
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| n.坏蛋，混蛋；私生子 | |
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impartiality
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| n. 公平, 无私, 不偏 | |
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harry
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| vt.掠夺，蹂躏，使苦恼 | |
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chuckle
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| vi.／n.轻声笑，咯咯笑 | |
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tickle
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| v.搔痒，胳肢；使高兴；发痒；n.搔痒，发痒 | |
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idiotic
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| adj.白痴的 | |
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raves
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| n.狂欢晚会( rave的名词复数 )v.胡言乱语( rave的第三人称单数 )；愤怒地说；咆哮；痴心地说 | |
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elicit
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| v.引出,抽出,引起 | |
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perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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pussy
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| n.(儿语)小猫，猫咪 | |
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smoothly
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| adv.平滑地，顺利地，流利地，流畅地 | |
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corrupted
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| （使）败坏( corrupt的过去式和过去分词 )； （使）腐化； 引起（计算机文件等的）错误； 破坏 | |
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wreck
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| n.失事，遇难；沉船；vt.(船等)失事，遇难 | |
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addict
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| v.使沉溺；使上瘾；n.沉溺于不良嗜好的人 | |
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dealing
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| n.经商方法，待人态度 | |
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defense
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| n.防御，保卫；[pl.]防务工事；辩护，答辩 | |
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corrupts
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| （使）败坏( corrupt的第三人称单数 )； （使）腐化； 引起（计算机文件等的）错误； 破坏 | |
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minor
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| adj.较小(少)的，较次要的；n.辅修学科；vi.辅修 | |
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syllable
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| n.音节；vt.分音节 | |
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survivor
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| n.生存者，残存者，幸存者 | |
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friction
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| n.摩擦，摩擦力 | |
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gangster
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| n.匪徒，歹徒，暴徒 | |
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pals
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| n.朋友( pal的名词复数 )；老兄；小子；（对男子的不友好的称呼）家伙 | |
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sentimental
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| adj.多愁善感的，感伤的 | |
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streak
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| n.条理，斑纹，倾向，少许，痕迹；v.加条纹，变成条纹，奔驰，快速移动 | |
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parlor
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| n.店铺，营业室；会客室，客厅 | |
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gambling
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| n.赌博；投机 | |
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addicts
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| 有…瘾的人( addict的名词复数 )； 入迷的人 | |
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tighten
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| v.(使)变紧；(使)绷紧 | |
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irritably
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| ad.易生气地 | |
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flares
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| n.喇叭裤v.（使）闪耀( flare的第三人称单数 )；（使）（船舷）外倾；（使）鼻孔张大；（使）（衣裙、酒杯等）呈喇叭形展开 | |
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automobiles
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| n.汽车( automobile的名词复数 ) | |
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fray
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| v.争吵；打斗；磨损，磨破；n.吵架；打斗 | |
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gathering
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| n.集会，聚会，聚集 | |
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flattened
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| [医]（水）平扁的，弄平的 | |
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smuggle
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| vt.私运；vi.走私 | |
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photocopied
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| v.影印，照相复制（photocopy的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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stapled
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| v.用钉书钉钉住( staple的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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partnerships
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| n.伙伴关系( partnership的名词复数 )；合伙人身份；合作关系 | |
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rental
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| n.租赁，出租，出租业 | |
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withholding
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| 扣缴税款 | |
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aggravation
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| n.烦恼，恼火 | |
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filthy
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| adj.卑劣的；恶劣的，肮脏的 | |
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