Mom has the phone by her bed; downstairs Rabbit hears it ring, then hears it stop, but some time passes before she makes him understand it is for him. She cannot raise her voice above a kind of whimper now, but she has a cane2, an intimidating3 knobby briar Pop brought home one day from the Brewer4 Salvation5 Army store. She taps on the floor with it until attention comes up the stairs. She is quite funny with it, waving it around, thumping6. "All my life," she says. "What I wanted. A cane."
He hears the phone ring twice and then only slowly the tapping of the cane sinks in; he is vacuuming the living?room rug, trying to get some of the fustiness up. In Mom's room, the smell is more powerful, the perverse7 vitality8 of rot. He has read somewhere that what we smell are just tiny fragments of the thing itself tickling9 a plate in our nose, a subtler smoke. Everything has its cloud, a flower's bigger than a rock's, a dying person's bigger than ours. Mom says, "For you." The pillows she is propped11 on have slipped so she sits at a slant12. He straightens her and, since the word ` Janice" begins with a sound difficult for her throat muscles to form, she is slow to make him understand who it is.
He freezes, reaching for the phone. "I don't want to talk to her."
"Why. Not."
"O.K., O.K." It is confusing, having to talk here, Janice's voice filling his ear while Mom and her rumpled13 bed fill his vision. Her blue?knuckled14 hands clasp and unclasp; her eyes, open too wide, rest on him in a helpless stare, the blue irises15 ringed with a thin white circle like a sucked Life Saver. "Now what?" he says to Janice.
"You could at least not be rude right away," she says.
"O.K., I'll be rude later. Let me guess. You're calling to tell me you've finally gotten around to getting a lawyer."
Janice laughs. It's been long since he heard it, a shy noise that tries to catch itself halfway16 out, like a snagged yo?yo. "No," she says, "I haven17't gotten around to that yet. Is that what you're waiting for?" She is harder to bully18 now.
"I don't know what I'm waiting for."
"Is your mother there? Or are you downstairs?"
"Yes. Up."
"You sound that way. Harry19 ? Harry, are you there?"
"Sure. Where else?"
"Would you like to meet me anyplace?" She hurries on, to make it business. "The insurance men keep calling me at work, they say you haven't filled out any of the forms. They say we ought to be making some decisions. I mean about the house. Daddy already is trying to sell it for us."
"Typical."
"And then there's Nelson."
"You don't have room for him. You and your greaseball."
His mother looks away, shocked; studies her hands, and by an effort of will stops their idle waggling. Janice has taken a quick high breath. He cannot bump her off the line today. "Harry, that's another thing. I've moved out. It's all decided20, everything's fine. I mean, that way. With Charlie and me. I'm calling from Joseph Street, I've spent the last two nights here. Harry?"
"I'm listening. I'm right here. Whatcha think ? I'm going to run away?"
"You have before. I was talking to Peggy yesterday on the phone, she and Ollie are back together, and he had heard you had gone off to some other state, a newspaper in Baltimore had given you a job."
"Fat chance."
"And Peggy said she hadn't heard from you at all. I think she's hurt."
"Why should she be hurt?"
"She told me why."
"Yeah. She would. Hey. This is a lot of fun chatting, but did you have anything definite you want to say? You want Nelson to come live with the Springers, is that it? I suppose he might as well, he's -" He is going to confess that the boy is unhappy, but his mother is listening and it would hurt her feelings. Considering her condition, she has really put herself out for Nelson this time.
Janice asks, "Would you like to see me? I mean, would it make you too mad, looking at me?"
And he laughs; his own laugh is unfamiliar21 in his ears. "It might," he says, meaning it might not.
"Oh, let's," she says. "You want to come here? Or shall I come there?" She understands his silence, and confirms, "We need a third place. Maybe this is stupid, but what about the Penn Villas22 house? We can't go in, but we need to look at it and decide what to do; I mean somebody's offering to buy it, the bank talked to Daddy the other day."
"O.K. I got to make Mom lunch now. How about two?"
"And I want to give you something," Janice is going on, while Mom is signalling her need to be helped to the commode; her blue hand tightens23 white around the gnarled handle of the cane.
"Don't let her wriggle," is her advice, when he hangs up, "her way. Around you." Sitting on the edge of the bed, Mom thumps24 the floor with her cane for emphasis, drawing an arc with the tip as illustration.
After putting the lunch dishes in the drainer Harry prepares for a journey. For clothes, he decides on the suntans he is wearing and has worn for two weeks straight, and a fresh white shirt as in his working days, and an old jacket he found in a chest in the attic25: his high school athletic26 jacket. It carries MJ in pistachio green on an ivory shield on the back, and green sleeves emerge from V?striped shoulders. The front zips. Zipped, it binds28 across his chest and belly29, but he begins that way, walking down Jackson Road under the chill maples30; when the 12 bus lets him out at Emberly, the warmer air of this lower land lets him unzip, and he walks jauntily31 flapping along the curving street where the little ranch32 houses have pumpkins34 on their porchlets and Indian corn on their doors.
His own house sticks out from way down Vista35 Crescent: black coal in a row of candies. His station wagon36 is parked there. The American flag decal is still on the back window. It looks aggressive, fading.
Janice gets out of the driver's seat and stands beside the car looking lumpy and stubborn in a camel?colored loden coat he remembers from winters past. He had forgotten how short she is, how the dark hair has thinned back from the tight forehead, with that oily shine that puts little bumps along the hairline. She has abandoned the madonna hairdo, wears her hair parted way over on one side, unflatteringly. But her mouth seems less tight; her lips have lost the crimp in the corners and seem much readier to laugh, with less to lose, than before. His instinct, crazy, is to reach out and pet her ? do something, like tickle37 behind her ear, that you would do to a dog; but they do nothing. They do not kiss. They do not shake hands. "Where'd you resurrect that corny old jacket? I'd forgotten what awful school colors we had. Ick. Like one of those fake ice creams."
"I found it in an old trunk in my parents' attic. They've kept all that stuff. It still fits."
"Fits who?"
"A lot of my clothes got burned up." This note of apology because he sees she is right, it was an ice?cream world he made his mark in. Yet she too is wearing something too young for her, with a hairdo reverting38 to adolescence39, parted way over like those South American flames of the Forties. Chachacha.
She digs into a side pocket of the loden coat awkwardly. "I said I had a present for you. Here." What she hands him twinkles and dangles40. The car keys.
"Don't you need it?"
"Not really. I can drive one of Daddy's. I don't know why I ever thought I did need it, I guess at first I thought we might escape to somewhere. California. Canada. I don't know. We never even considered it."
He asks, "You're gonna stay at your parents'?"
Janice looks up past the jacket to him, seeking his face. "I can't stand it, really. Mother nags41 so. You can see she's been primed not to say anything to me, but it keeps coming out, she keeps using the phrase `public opinion.' As if she's a Gallup poll. And Daddy. For the first time, he seems pathetic to me. Somebody is opening a Datsun agency in one of the shopping centers and he feels really personally threatened. I thought," Janice says, her dark eyes resting on his face lightly, ready to fly if what she sees there displeases42 her, "I might get an apartment somewhere. Maybe in Peggy's building. So Nelson could walk to school in West Brewer again. I'd have Nelson, of course." Her eyes dart43 away.
Rabbit says, "So the car is sort of a swap44."
"More of a peace offering."
He makes the peace sign, then transfers it to his head, as horns. She is too dumb to get it. He tells her, "The kid is pretty miserable45, maybe you ought to take him. Assuming you're through with Whatsisname."
"We're through."
"Why? "
Her tongue flicks46 between her lips, a mannerism47 that once struck him as falsely sensual but seems inoffensive now, like licking a pencil. "Oh," Janice says. "We'd done all we could together. He was beginning to get jittery48. Your sweet sister didn't help, either."
"Yeah. I guess we did a number on him." The "we" ? him, her, Mim, Mom; ties of blood, of time and guilt49, family ties. He does not ask her for more description. He has never understood exactly about women, why they have to menstruate for instance, or why they feel hot some times and not others, and how close the tip of your prick50 comes to their womb or whether the womb is a hollow place without a baby in it or what, and instinct disposes him to consign51 Stavros to that same large area of feminine mystery. He doesn't want to bring back any lovelight into her eyes, that are nice and quick and hard on him, the prey52.
Perhaps she had prepared to tell him more, how great her love was and how pure it will remain, for she frowns as if checked by his silence. She says, "You must help me with Nelson. All he'll talk to me about is this terrible mini?bike your sister bought him."
He gestures at the burned green shell. "My clothes weren't the only thing went up in that."
"The girl. Were she and Nelson close?"
"She was sort of a sister. He keeps losing sisters."
"Poor baby boy."
Janice turns and they look together at where they lived. Some agency, the bank or the police or the insurance company, has put up a loose fence of posts and wire around it, but children have freely approached, picking the insides clean, smashing the windows, storm windows and all, in the half that still stands. Some person has taken the trouble to bring a spray can of yellow paint and has hugely written NIGGER on the side. Also the word KILL. The two words don't go together, so it is hard to tell which side the spray can had been on. Maybe there had been two spray cans. Demanding equal time. On the broad stretch of aluminum53 clapboards below the windows, where in spring daffodils come up and in summer phlox goes wild, yellow letters spell in half?script, Pig Power = Clean Power. Also there is a peace sign and a swastika, apparently54 from the same can. And other people, borrowing charred55 sticks from the rubble56, have come along and tried to edit and add to these slogans and symbols, making Pig into Black and Clean into Cong. It all adds up no better than the cluster of commercials TV stations squeeze into the chinks between programs. A clown with a red spray can has scrawled57 between two windows TRICK OR TREAT.
Janice asks, "Where was she sleeping?"
"Upstairs. Where we did."
"Did you love her?" For this her eyes leave his face and contemplate58 the trampled59 lawn. He remembers that this camel coat has a detachable hood60 for winter, that snaps on.
He confesses to her, "Not like I should have. She was sort of out of my class." Saying this makes him feel guilty, he imagines how hurt Jill would be hearing it, so to right himself he accuses Janice: "If you'd stayed in there, she'd still be alive somewhere."
Her eyes lift quickly. "No you don't. Don't try to pin that rap on me, Harry Angstrom. Whatever happened in there was your trip." Her trip drowns babies; his burns girls. They were made for each other. She offers to bring the truth into neutral. "Peggy says the Negro was doping her, that's what Billy says Nelson told him."
"She wanted it, he said. The Negro."
"Strange he got away."
"Underground Railroad."
"Did you help him? Did you see him after the fire?"
"Slightly. Who says I did?"
"Nelson."
"How did he know?"
"He guessed."
"I drove him south into the county and let him off in a cornfield."
"I hope he's not ever going to come back. I'd call the police, I mean, I would if-" Janice lets the thought die, premature61.
Rabbit feels heightened and frozen by this giant need for tact62; he and she seem to be slowly revolving63, afraid of jarring one another away. "He promised he won't." Only in glory.
Relieved, Janice gestures toward the half?burned house. "It's worth a lot of money," she says. "The insurance company wants to settle for eleven thousand. Some man talked to Daddy and offered nineteen?five as is. I guess the lot is worth eight or nine by itself, this is becoming such a fashionable area."
"I thought Brewer was dying."
"Only in the middle."
"I tell you what. Let's sell the bastard64."
"Let's."
They shake hands. He twirls the car keys in front of her face. "Lemme drive you back to your parents'."
"Do we have to go there?"
"You could come to my place and visit Mom. She'd love to see you. She can hardly talk now."
"Let's save that," Janice says. "Couldn't we just drive around?"
"Drive around? I'm not sure I still know how to drive."
"Peggy says you drove her Chrysler."
"Gee65. A person doesn't have many secrets in this county."
As they drive east on Weiser toward the city, she asks, "Can your mother manage the afternoon alone?"
"Sure. She's managed a lot of them."
"I'm beginning to like your mother, she's quite nice to me, over the phone, when I can understand what she's saying."
"She's mellowing66. Dying I guess does that to you." They cross the bridge and drive up Weiser in the heart of Brewer, past the Wallpaper Boutique, the roasted peanut newsstand, the expanded funeral home, the great stores with the facades68 where the pale shadow of the neon sign for the last owner underlies69 the hopeful bright sign the new owners have put up, the new trash disposal cans with tops like flying saucers, the blank marquees of the deserted70 movie palaces. They pass Pine Street and the Phoenix71 Bar. He announces, "I ought to be out scouting72 printshops for a job, maybe move to another city. Baltimore might be a good idea."
Janice says, "You look better since you stopped work. Your color is better. Wouldn't you be happier in an outdoor job?"
"They don't pay. Only morons73 work outdoors anymore."
"I would keep working at Daddy's. I think I should."
"What does that have to do with me? You're going to get an apartment, remember?"
She doesn't answer again. Weiser is climbing too close to the mountain, to Mt. Judge and their old homes. He turns left on Summer Street. Brick three?stories with fanlights; optometrists74' and chiropractors' signs. A limestone75 church with a round window. He announces, "We could buy a farm."
She makes the connection. "Because Ruth did."
"That's right, I'd forgotten," he lies, "this was her street." Once he ran along this street toward the end and never got there. He ran out of steam after a few blocks and turned around. "Remember Reverend Eccles?" he asks Janice. "I saw him this summer. The Sixties did a number on him, too."
Janice says, "And speaking of Ruth, how did you enjoy Peggy?"
"Yeah, how about that? She's gotten to be quite a girl about town."
"But you didn't go back."
"Couldn't stomach it, frankly76. It wasn't her, she was great. But all this fucking, everybody fucking, I don't know, it just makes me too sad. It's what makes everything so hard to run."
"You don't think it's what makes things run? Human things."
"There must be something else."
She doesn't answer.
"No? Nothing else?"
Instead of answering, she says, "Ollie is back with her now, but she doesn't seem especially happy."
It is easy in a car; the STOP signs and corner groceries flicker77 by, brick and sandstone merge27 into a running screen. At the end of Summer Street he thinks there will be a brook78, and then a dirt road and open pastures; but instead the city street broadens into a highway lined with hamburger diners, and drive?in sub shops, and a miniature golf course with big plaster dinosaurs79, and food?stamp stores and motels and gas stations that are changing their names, Humble80 to Getty, Atlantic to Arco. He has been here before.
Janice says, "Want to stop?"
"I ate lunch. Didn't you?"
"Stop at a motel," she says.
"You and me?"
"You don't have to do anything, it's just we're wasting gas this way."
"Cheaper to waste gas than pay a motel, for Chrissake. Anyway don't they like you to have luggage?"
"They don't care. Anyway I think I did put a suitcase in the back, just in case."
He turns and looks and there it is, the tatty81 old brown one still with the hotel label on from the time they went to the Shore, Wildwood Cabins. The same suitcase she must have packed to run to Stavros with. "Say," he says. "You're full of sexy tricks now, aren't you?"
"Forget it, Harry. Take me home. I'd forgotten about you."
"These guys who run motels, don't they think it's fishy82 if you check in before suppertime? What time is it, two?thirty."
"Fishy? What's fishy, Harry? God, you're a prude. Everybody knows people screw. It's how we all got here. When're you going to grow up, even a little bit?"
"Still, to march right in with the sun pounding down -"
"Tell him I'm your wife. Tell him we're exhausted83. It's the truth, actually. I didn't sleep two hours last night."
"Wouldn't you rather go to my parents' place? Nelson'll be home in an hour."
"Exactly. Who matters more to you, me or Nelson?"
"Nelson."
"Nelson or your mother?"
"My mother."
"You are a sick man."
"There's a place. Like it?"
Safe Haven Motel the sign says, with slats strung below it claiming
QUEEN SIZE BEDS
ALL COLOR TVS
SHOWER & BATH
TELEPHONES
"MAGIC FINGERS"
A neon VACANCY84 sign buzzes dull red. The office is a little brick tollbooth; there is a drained swimming pool with a green tarpaulin85 over it. At the long brick facade67 bleakly86 broken by doorways88 several cars already park; they seem to be feeding, metal cattle at a trough. Janice says, "It looks crummy."
"That's what I like about it," Rabbit says. "They might take us."
But as he says this, they have driven past. Janice asks, "Seriously, haven't you ever done this before?"
He tells her, "I guess I've led a kind of sheltered life."
"Well, it's by now," she says, of the motel.
"I could turn around."
"Then it'd be on the wrong side of the highway."
"Scared?"
"Of what?"
"Me." Racily Rabbit swings into a Garden Supplies parking lot, spewing gravel89, brakes just enough to avoid a collision with oncoming traffic, crosses the doubled line, and heads back the way they came. Janice says, "If you want to kill yourself, go ahead, but don't kill me; I'm just getting to like being alive."
"It's too late," he tells her. "You'll be a grandmother in a couple more years."
"Not with you at the wheel."
But they cross the double line again and pull in safely. The VACANCY sign still buzzes. Ignition off. Lever at P. The sun shimmers90 on the halted asphalt. "You can't just sit here," Janice hisses91. He gets out of the car. Air. Globes of ether, pure nervousness, slide down his legs. There is a man in the little tollbooth, along with a candy bar machine and a rack of black?tagged keys. He has wetcombed silver hair, a string tie with a horseshoe clasp, and a cold. Placing the registration92 card in front of Harry, he pats his chafed93 nostrils94 with a blue bandana. "Name and address and license95 plate number," he says. He speaks with a Western twang.
"My wife and I are really bushed," Rabbit volunteers. His ears are burning; the blush spreads downward, his undershirt feels damp, his heart jars his hand as it tries to write, Mr. and Mrs. Harold Angstrom. Address? Of course, he must lie. He writes unsteadily, 26 Vista Crescent, Penn Villas, Pa. Junk mail and bills are being forwarded to him from that address. Wonderful service, the postal96. Put yourself in one of those boxes, sorted from sack to sack, finally there you go, plop, through the right slot out of millions. A miracle that it works. Young punk revolutionaries, let them try to get the mail through, through rain and sleet97 and dark of night. The man with the string tie patiently leans on his Formica desk while Rabbit's thoughts race and his hand jerks. "License plate number, that's the one that counts," he peaceably drawls. "Show me a suitcase or pay in advance."
"No kidding, she is my wife."
"Must be on honeymoon98 straight from haah school."
"Oh, this." Rabbit looks down at his peppermint99?and?cream Mt. Judge athletic jacket, and fights the creeping return of his blush. "I haven't worn this for I don't know how many years."
"Looks to almost fit," the man says, tapping the blank space for the plate number. "Ah'm in no hurry if you're not," he says.
Harry goes to the show window of the little house and studies the license plate and signals for Janice to show the suitcase. He lifts an imaginary suitcase up and down by the handle and she doesn't understand. Janice sits in their Falcon100, mottled and dimmed by window reflections. He pantomimes unpacking101; he draws a rectangle in the air; he exclaims, "God, she's dumb!" and she belatedly understands, reaching back and lifting the bag into view through the layers of glass between them. The man nods; Harry writes his plate number (U20?692) on the card and is given a numbered key (17). "Toward the back," the man says, "more quaat away from the road."
"I don't care if it's quiet, we're just going to sleep," Rabbit says; key in hand, he bursts into friendliness102. "Where're you from, Texas? I was stationed there with the Army once, Fort Larson, near Lubbock."
The man inserts the card into a rack, looking through the lower half of his bifocals, and clucks his tongue. "You ever get up around Santa Fe?"
"Nope. Never. Sorry I didn't."
"That's my idea of a goood place," the man tells him.
"I'd like to go someday. I really would. Probably never will, though."
"Don't say that, young buck103 like you, and your cute little lady."
"I'm not so young."
"You're yungg," the man absentmindedly insists, and this is so nice of him, this and handing over the key, people are so nice generally, that Janice asks Harry as he gets back into the car what he's grinning about. "And what took so long?"
"We were talking about Santa Fe. He advised us to go."
The door numbered 17 gives on a room surprisingly long, narrow but long. The carpet is purple, and bits of backlit cardboard here and there undercut the sense ofsubstance, as in a movie lobby. A fantasy world. The bathroom is at the far end, the walls are of cement?block painted rose, imitation oils of the ocean are trying to adom them, two queen?sized beds look across the narrow room at a television set. Rabbit takes off his shoes and turns on the set and gets on one bed. A band of light appears, expands, jogs itself out of diagonal twitching104 stripes into The Dating Game. A colored girl from Philly is trying to decide which of three men to take her out on a date; one man is black, another is white, the third is yellow. The color is such that the Chinese man is orange and the colored girl looks bluish. The reception has a ghost so that when she laughs there are many, many teeth. Janice turns it off. Like him she is in stocking feet. They are burglars. He protests, "Hey. That was interesting. She couldn't see them behind that screen so she'd have to tell from their voices what color they were. If she cared."
"You have your date," Janice tells him.
"We ought to get a color television, the pro10 football is a lot better."
"Who's this we?"
"Oh ? me and Pop and Nelson and Mom. And Mim."
"Why don't you move over on that bed?"
"You have your bed. Over there."
She stands there, firm?footed on the wall?to?wall carpet without stockings, nice?ankled. Her dull wool skirt is just short enough to show her knees. They have boxy edges. Nice. She asks, "What is this, a put?down?"
"Who am I to put you down? The swingingest broad on Eisenhower Avenue."
"I'm not so sure I like you anymore."
"I didn't know I had that much to lose."
"Come on. Shove over."
She throws the old camel loden coat over the plastic chair beneath the motel regulations and the fire inspector's certificate. Being puzzled darkens her eyes on him. She pulls off her sweater and as she bends to undo105 her skirt the bones of her shoulders ripple106 in long quick glints like a stack of coins being spilled. She hesitates in her slip. "Are you going to get under the covers?"
"We could," Rabbit says, yet his body is as when a fever leaves and the nerves sink down like veins107 of water into sand. He cannot begin to execute the energetic transitions contemplated108: taking off his clothes, walking that long way to the bathroom. He should probably wash in case she wants to go down on him. Then suppose he comes too soon and they are back where they've always been. Much safer to lie here enjoying the sight of her in her slip; he had been lucky to choose a little woman, they keep their shape better than big ones. She looked older than twenty at twenty but doesn't look that much older now, at least angry as she is, black alive in her eyes. "You can get in but don't expect anything, I'm still pretty screwed up." Lately he has lost the ability to masturbate; nothing brings him up, not even the image of a Negress with nipples like dowel?ends and a Hallowe'en pumpkin33 instead of a head.
"I'll say," Janice says. "Don't expect anything from me either. I just don't want to have to shout between the beds."
With heroic effort Rabbit pushes himself up and walks the length of the rug to the bathroom. Returning naked, he holds his clothes in front of him and ducks into the bed as if into a burrow109, being chased. He feels particles of some sort bombarding him. Janice feels skinny, strange, snaky?cool, the way she shivers tight against him immediately; the shock on his skin makes him want to sneeze. She apologizes: "They don't heat these places very well."
"Be November pretty soon."
"Isn't there a thermostat110?"
"Yeah. I see it. Way over in the corner. You can go turn it up if you want."
"Thanks. The man should do that."
Neither moves. Harry says, "Hey. Does this remind you of Linda Hammacher's bed?" She was the girl who when they were all working at Kroll's had an apartment in Brewer she let Harry and Janice use.
"Not much. That had a view."
They try to talk, but out of sleepiness and strangeness it only comes in spurts111. "So," Janice says after a silence wherein nothing happens. "Who do you think you are?"
"Nobody," he answers. He snuggles down as if to kiss her breasts but doesn't; their presence near his lips drugs him. All sorts of winged presences exert themselves in the air above their covers.
Silence resumes and stretches, a ballerina in the red beneath his eyelids112. He abruptly113 asserts, "The kid really hates me now."
Janice says, "No he doesn't." She contradicts herself promptly114, by adding, "He'll get over it." Feminine logic115: smother116 and out-last what won't be wished away. Maybe the only way. He touches her low and there is moss117, it doesn't excite him, but it is re-assuring, to have that patch there, something to hide in.
Her body irritably118 shifts; him not kissing her breasts or any-thing, she puts the cold soles of her feet on the tops of his. He sneezes. The bed heaves. She laughs. To rebuke119 her, he asks inno-cently, "You always came with Stavros?"
"Not always."
"You miss him now?"
"No."
"Why not?"
"You're here."
"But don't I seem sad, sort of?"
"You're making me pay, a little. That's all right."
He protests, "I'm a mess," meaning he is sincere: which per-haps is not a meaningful adjustment over what she had said. He feels they are still adjusting in space, slowly twirling in some gor-geous ink that filters through his lids as red. In a space of silence, he can't gauge120 how much, he feels them drift along sideways deeper into being married, so much that he abruptly volunteers, "We must have Peggy and Ollie over sometime."
"Like hell," she says, jarring him, but softly, an unexpected joggle in space. "You stay away from her now, you had your crack at it."
After a while he asks her ? she knows everything, he realizes ?"Do you think Vietnam will ever be over?"
"Charlie thought it would, just as soon as the big industrial interests saw that it was unprofitable."
"God, these foreigners are dumb," Rabbit murmurs121.
"Meaning Charlie?"
"All ofyou." He feels, gropingly, he should elaborate. "Skeeter thought it was the doorway87 into utter confusion. There would be this terrible period, of utter confusion, and then there would be a wonderful stretch of perfect calm, with him ruling, or somebody exactly like him."
"Did you believe it?"
"I would have liked to, but I'm too rational. Confusion is just a local view of things working out in general. That make sense?"
"I'm not sure," Janice says.
"You think Mom ever had any lovers?"
"Ask her."
"I don't dare."
After another while, Janice announces, "If you're not going to make love, I might as well turn my back and get some sleep. I was up almost all night worrying about this ? reunion."
"How do you think it's going?"
"Fair."
The slither of sheets as she rotates her body is a silver music, sheets of pale noise extending outward unresisted by space. There was a grip he used to have on her, his right hand cupping her skull122 through her hair and his left hand on her breasts gathering123 them together, so the nipples were an inch apart. The grip is still there. Her ass1 and legs float away. He asks her, "How do we get out of here?"
"We put on our clothes and walk out the door. But let's have a nap first. You're talking nonsense already."
"It'll be so embarrassing. The guy at the desk'll think we've been up to no good."
"He doesn't care."
"He does, he does care. We could stay all night to make him feel better, but nobody else knows where we are. They'll worry."
"Stop it, Harry. We'll go in an hour. Just shut up."
"I feel so guilty."
"About what?"
"About everything."
"Relax. Not everything is your fault."
"I can't accept that."
He lets her breasts go, lets them float away, radiant debris124. The space they are in, the motel room long and secret as a burrow, becomes all interior space. He slides down an inch on the cool sheet and fits his microcosmic self limp into the curved crevice125 between the polleny offered nestling orbs126 of her ass; he would stiffen127 but his hand having let her breasts go comes upon the familiar dip of her waist, ribs128 to hip129 bone, where no bones are, soft as flight, fat's inward curve, slack, his babies from her belly. He finds this inward curve and slips along it, sleeps. He. She. Sleeps. O.K.?
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| n.驴；傻瓜，蠢笨的人 | |
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2
cane
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| n.手杖，细长的茎，藤条；v.以杖击，以藤编制的 | |
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3
intimidating
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| vt.恐吓，威胁( intimidate的现在分词) | |
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4
brewer
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| n. 啤酒制造者 | |
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5
salvation
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| n.（尤指基督）救世，超度，拯救，解困 | |
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thumping
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| adj.重大的，巨大的；重击的；尺码大的；极好的adv.极端地；非常地v.重击(thump的现在分词)；狠打；怦怦地跳；全力支持 | |
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perverse
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| adj.刚愎的；坚持错误的，行为反常的 | |
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8
vitality
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| n.活力，生命力，效力 | |
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tickling
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| 反馈，回授，自旋挠痒法 | |
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pro
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| n.赞成，赞成的意见，赞成者 | |
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propped
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| 支撑，支持，维持( prop的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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slant
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| v.倾斜，倾向性地编写或报道；n.斜面，倾向 | |
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13
rumpled
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| v.弄皱，使凌乱( rumple的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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14
knuckled
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| v.（指人）指关节( knuckle的过去式和过去分词 )；（指动物）膝关节，踝 | |
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15
irises
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| n.虹( iris的名词复数 )；虹膜；虹彩；鸢尾（花） | |
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16
halfway
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| adj.中途的，不彻底的，部分的；adv.半路地，在中途，在半途 | |
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17
haven
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| n.安全的地方，避难所，庇护所 | |
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18
bully
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| n.恃强欺弱者，小流氓；vt.威胁，欺侮 | |
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19
harry
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| vt.掠夺，蹂躏，使苦恼 | |
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20
decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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21
unfamiliar
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| adj.陌生的，不熟悉的 | |
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22
villas
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| 别墅，公馆( villa的名词复数 )； （城郊）住宅 | |
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23
tightens
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| 收紧( tighten的第三人称单数 )； （使）变紧； （使）绷紧； 加紧 | |
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24
thumps
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| n.猪肺病；砰的重击声( thump的名词复数 )v.重击， （指心脏）急速跳动( thump的第三人称单数 ) | |
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25
attic
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| n.顶楼，屋顶室 | |
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26
athletic
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| adj.擅长运动的，强健的；活跃的，体格健壮的 | |
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27
merge
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| v.(使)结合，(使)合并，(使)合为一体 | |
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28
binds
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| v.约束( bind的第三人称单数 )；装订；捆绑；（用长布条）缠绕 | |
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29
belly
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| n.肚子，腹部；(像肚子一样)鼓起的部分，膛 | |
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30
maples
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| 槭树，枫树( maple的名词复数 )； 槭木 | |
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jauntily
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| adv.心满意足地；洋洋得意地；高兴地；活泼地 | |
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32
ranch
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| n.大牧场，大农场 | |
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33
pumpkin
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| n.南瓜 | |
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34
pumpkins
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| n.南瓜( pumpkin的名词复数 )；南瓜的果肉，南瓜囊 | |
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35
vista
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| n.远景，深景，展望，回想 | |
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36
wagon
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| n.四轮马车，手推车，面包车；无盖运货列车 | |
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37
tickle
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| v.搔痒，胳肢；使高兴；发痒；n.搔痒，发痒 | |
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38
reverting
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| 恢复( revert的现在分词 )； 重提； 回到…上； 归还 | |
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39
adolescence
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| n.青春期，青少年 | |
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40
dangles
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| 悬吊着( dangle的第三人称单数 )； 摆动不定； 用某事物诱惑…； 吊胃口 | |
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41
nags
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| n.不断地挑剔或批评（某人）( nag的名词复数 )；不断地烦扰或伤害（某人）；无休止地抱怨；不断指责v.不断地挑剔或批评（某人）( nag的第三人称单数 )；不断地烦扰或伤害（某人）；无休止地抱怨；不断指责 | |
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42
displeases
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| 冒犯，使生气，使不愉快( displease的第三人称单数 ) | |
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43
dart
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| v.猛冲，投掷；n.飞镖，猛冲 | |
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44
swap
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| n.交换；vt.交换，用...作交易 | |
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45
miserable
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| adj.悲惨的，痛苦的；可怜的，糟糕的 | |
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46
flicks
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| （尤指用手指或手快速地）轻击( flick的第三人称单数 )； （用…）轻挥； （快速地）按开关； 向…笑了一下（或瞥了一眼等） | |
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47
mannerism
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| n.特殊习惯，怪癖 | |
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48
jittery
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| adj. 神经过敏的, 战战兢兢的 | |
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49
guilt
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| n.犯罪；内疚；过失，罪责 | |
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50
prick
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| v.刺伤，刺痛，刺孔；n.刺伤，刺痛 | |
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51
consign
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| vt.寄售（货品），托运，交托，委托 | |
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52
prey
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| n.被掠食者，牺牲者，掠食；v.捕食，掠夺，折磨 | |
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53
aluminum
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| n.(aluminium)铝 | |
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54
apparently
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| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
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55
charred
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| v.把…烧成炭( char的过去式)；烧焦 | |
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56
rubble
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| n.（一堆）碎石，瓦砾 | |
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57
scrawled
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| 乱涂，潦草地写( scrawl的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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58
contemplate
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| vt.盘算，计议；周密考虑；注视，凝视 | |
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59
trampled
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| 踩( trample的过去式和过去分词 )； 践踏； 无视； 侵犯 | |
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60
hood
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| n.头巾，兜帽，覆盖；v.罩上，以头巾覆盖 | |
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61
premature
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| adj.比预期时间早的；不成熟的，仓促的 | |
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62
tact
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| n.机敏，圆滑，得体 | |
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63
revolving
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| adj.旋转的，轮转式的；循环的v.（使）旋转( revolve的现在分词 )；细想 | |
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64
bastard
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| n.坏蛋，混蛋；私生子 | |
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65
gee
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| n.马；int.向右！前进！，惊讶时所发声音；v.向右转 | |
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66
mellowing
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| 软化，醇化 | |
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67
facade
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| n.(建筑物的)正面，临街正面；外表 | |
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68
facades
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| n.（房屋的）正面( facade的名词复数 )；假象，外观 | |
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69
underlies
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| v.位于或存在于（某物）之下( underlie的第三人称单数 )；构成…的基础（或起因），引起 | |
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70
deserted
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| adj.荒芜的，荒废的，无人的，被遗弃的 | |
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71
phoenix
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| n.凤凰，长生(不死)鸟；引申为重生 | |
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72
scouting
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| 守候活动，童子军的活动 | |
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73
morons
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| 傻子( moron的名词复数 )； 痴愚者（指心理年龄在8至12岁的成年人） | |
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74
optometrists
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| n.验光师，视力测定者( optometrist的名词复数 ) | |
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75
limestone
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| n.石灰石 | |
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76
frankly
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| adv.坦白地，直率地；坦率地说 | |
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77
flicker
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| vi./n.闪烁，摇曳，闪现 | |
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78
brook
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| n.小河，溪；v.忍受，容让 | |
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79
dinosaurs
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| n.恐龙( dinosaur的名词复数 )；守旧落伍的人，过时落后的东西 | |
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80
humble
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| adj.谦卑的，恭顺的；地位低下的；v.降低，贬低 | |
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81
tatty
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| adj.不整洁的，简陋的 | |
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82
fishy
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| adj. 值得怀疑的 | |
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83
exhausted
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| adj.极其疲惫的，精疲力尽的 | |
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84
vacancy
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| n.（旅馆的）空位，空房，（职务的）空缺 | |
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85
tarpaulin
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| n.涂油防水布，防水衣，防水帽 | |
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86
bleakly
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| 无望地，阴郁地，苍凉地 | |
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87
doorway
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| n.门口，(喻)入门；门路，途径 | |
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88
doorways
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| n.门口，门道( doorway的名词复数 ) | |
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89
gravel
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| n.砂跞；砂砾层；结石 | |
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90
shimmers
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| n.闪闪发光，发微光( shimmer的名词复数 )v.闪闪发光，发微光( shimmer的第三人称单数 ) | |
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91
hisses
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| 嘶嘶声( hiss的名词复数 ) | |
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92
registration
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| n.登记，注册，挂号 | |
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93
chafed
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| v.擦热（尤指皮肤）( chafe的过去式 )；擦痛；发怒；惹怒 | |
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94
nostrils
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| 鼻孔( nostril的名词复数 ) | |
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95
license
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| n.执照，许可证，特许；v.许可，特许 | |
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96
postal
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| adj.邮政的，邮局的 | |
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97
sleet
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| n.雨雪；v.下雨雪，下冰雹 | |
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98
honeymoon
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| n.蜜月（假期）；vi.度蜜月 | |
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99
peppermint
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| n.薄荷，薄荷油，薄荷糖 | |
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100
falcon
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| n.隼，猎鹰 | |
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101
unpacking
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| n.取出货物，拆包[箱]v.从（包裹等）中取出（所装的东西），打开行李取出( unpack的现在分词 )；拆包；解除…的负担；吐露（心事等） | |
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102
friendliness
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| n.友谊，亲切，亲密 | |
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103
buck
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| n.雄鹿，雄兔；v.马离地跳跃 | |
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104
twitching
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| n.颤搐 | |
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105
undo
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| vt.解开，松开；取消，撤销 | |
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106
ripple
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| n.涟波，涟漪，波纹，粗钢梳；vt.使...起涟漪，使起波纹； vi.呈波浪状，起伏前进 | |
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107
veins
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| n.纹理；矿脉( vein的名词复数 )；静脉；叶脉；纹理 | |
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108
contemplated
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| adj. 预期的 动词contemplate的过去分词形式 | |
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109
burrow
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| vt.挖掘(洞穴)；钻进；vi.挖洞；翻寻；n.地洞 | |
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110
thermostat
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| n.恒温器 | |
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111
spurts
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| 短暂而突然的活动或努力( spurt的名词复数 )； 突然奋起 | |
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112
eyelids
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| n.眼睑( eyelid的名词复数 )；眼睛也不眨一下；不露声色；面不改色 | |
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113
abruptly
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| adv.突然地，出其不意地 | |
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114
promptly
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| adv.及时地，敏捷地 | |
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115
logic
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| n.逻辑(学)；逻辑性 | |
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116
smother
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| vt./vi.使窒息；抑制；闷死；n.浓烟；窒息 | |
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117
moss
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| n.苔，藓，地衣 | |
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118
irritably
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| ad.易生气地 | |
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119
rebuke
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| v.指责，非难，斥责 [反]praise | |
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120
gauge
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| v.精确计量；估计；n.标准度量；计量器 | |
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121
murmurs
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| n.低沉、连续而不清的声音( murmur的名词复数 )；低语声；怨言；嘀咕 | |
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122
skull
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| n.头骨；颅骨 | |
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123
gathering
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| n.集会，聚会，聚集 | |
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124
debris
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| n.瓦砾堆，废墟，碎片 | |
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125
crevice
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| n.(岩石、墙等)裂缝；缺口 | |
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126
orbs
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| abbr.off-reservation boarding school 在校寄宿学校n.球，天体，圆形物( orb的名词复数 ) | |
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127
stiffen
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| v.(使)硬，(使)变挺，(使)变僵硬 | |
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128
ribs
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| n.肋骨( rib的名词复数 )；（船或屋顶等的）肋拱；肋骨状的东西；（织物的）凸条花纹 | |
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hip
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| n.臀部，髋；屋脊 | |
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