Club Castanet was named during the war when the South American craze was on and occupies a triangular1 building where Warren Avenue crosses Running Horse Street at an acute angle. It's in the south side of Brewer2, the Italian?Negro?Polish side, and Rabbit distrusts it. With its glass?brick windows grinning back from the ridge3 of its face it looks like a fortress5 of death; the interior is furnished in the glossy6 low?lit style of an up?to?date funeral parlor7, potted green plants here and there, music piped soothingly8, and the same smell of strip rugs and fluorescent9 tubes and Venetian?blind slats and, the most inner secretive smell, of alcohol. You drink it and then you're embalmed10 in it. Ever since a man down from them on Jackson Road lost his job as an undertaker's assistant and became a bartender, Rabbit thinks of the two professions as related; men in both talk softly and are always seen standing12 up. He and Ruth sit at a booth near the front, where they get through the window a faint fluctuation13 of red light as the neon castanet on the sign outside flickers14 back and forth16 between its two positions, that imitate clicking.
This pink tremor17 takes the weight off Ruth's face. She sits across from him. He tries to picture the kind of life she was leading; a creepy place like this probably seems as friendly to her as a locker18 room would to him. But just the thought of it that way makes him nervous; her sloppy19 life, like his having a family, is something he's tried to keep behind them. He was happy just hanging around her place at night, her reading mysteries and him running down to the delicatessen for ginger20 ale and some nights going to a movie but nothing like this. That first night he really used that Daiquiri but since then he didn't care if he ever had another and hoped she was the same way. For a while she was but lately something's been eating her; she's heavy in bed and once in a while looks at him as if he's some sort of pig. He doesn't know what he's doing different but knows that somehow the ease has gone out of it. Tonight her so?called friend Margaret called up. It scared him out of his skin when the phone rang. He has the idea lately it's going to be the cops or his mother or somebody; he has the feeling of something growing on the other side of the mountain. A couple times after he first moved in, the phone rang and it was some thick?voiced man saying "Ruthie?" or just hanging up at Rabbit's voice answering. When they hung on, Ruth just said a lot of "No's" into the receiver and that seemed to settle it. She knew how to handle them, and anyway there were only about five that ever called; the past was a vine hanging on by just these five tendrils and it tore away easily, leaving her clean and blue and blank. But tonight it was Margaret out of this past and she wanted them to come down to the Castanet and Ruth wanted to and Rabbit went along. Anything for a little change. He's bored.
He asks her, "What do you want?"
"A Daiquiri."
"You're sure? You're sure now it won't make you sick?" He's noticed that, that she seems a little sick sometimes, and won't eat, and sometimes eats the house down.
"No, I'm not sure but why the hell shouldn't I be sick?"
"Well I don't know why you shouldn't. Why shouldn't anybody?"
"Look, let's not be a philosopher for once. Just get me the drink."
A colored girl in an orange uniform that he guesses from the frills is supposed to look South American comes and he tells her two Daiquiris. She flips21 shut her pad and walks off and he sees her back is open halfway22 down her spine23, so a bit of black bra shows. Compared with this her skin isn't black at all. Soft purple shadows flitter on the flats of her back where the light hits. She has a pigeon?toed way of sauntering, swinging those orange frills. She doesn't care about him; he likes that, that she doesn't care. The thing about Ruth is lately she's been trying to make him feel guilty about something.
She asks him, "What are you looking at?"
"I'm not looking at anything."
"You can't have it, Rabbit. You're too white."
"Say you really are in a sweet mood."
She smiles defiantly24. "I'm just myself."
"God I hope not."
The Negress returns and sets the Daiquiris between them as they sit there silently. The door behind them opens and Margaret comes in with the chill. On top of everything, the guy with her is, he isn't very happy to see, Ronnie Harrison. Margaret says to Rabbit, "Hello, you. You still hanging on?"
"Hell," Harrison says, "it's the great Angstrom," as if he's trying to take Tothero's place in every way. "I've been hearing about you," he adds slimily.
"Hearing what?"
"Oh. The word."
Harrison was never one of Rabbit's favorites and has not improved. In the locker room he was always talking about making out and playing with himself under his little hairy pot of a belly25 and that pot has really grown. Harrison is fat. Fat and half bald. His kinky brass26?colored hair has thinned and the skin of his scalp shows, depending on how he tilts27 his head. This pink showing through disgusts Rabbit, like the one bald idea that is always showing through Harrison's talk. Still, he remembers one night when Harrison came back into the game after losing two teeth to somebody's elbow and tries to be glad to see him. There were just five of you out there at a time and the other four for that time were unique in the world.
But it seems long ago, and every second Harrison stands there smirking28 it seems longer. He is wearing a narrow?shouldered seersucker suit and its cool air of business success annoys Rabbit. He feels hemmed30 in. The problem is, who shall sit where? He and Ruth have gotten on opposite sides of the table, which was the mistake. Harrison decides, and ducks down to sit beside Ruth, with a little catch in the movement that betrays the old limp from his football injury. Rabbit becomes obsessed31 by Harrison's imperfections. He's ruined the effect of his Ivy32 League suit by wearing a white tie like a wop. When he opens his mouth the two false teeth don't quite match the others.
"Well, how's life treating the old Master?" he says. "The word is you got it made." His eyes make his meaning by flicking33 sideways to Ruth, who sits there like a lump, her hands folded around the Daiquiri. Her knuckles34 are red from washing dishes for him. When she lifts the glass to drink, her chin shows through distorted.
"He made me," she says, setting it down.
"He and who else?" asks Harrison.
Margaret wriggles35 at Rabbit's side. She feels somehow like Janice: jumpy. Her presence in the left corner of his vision feels like a dark damp cloth approaching that side of his face.
"Where's Tothero?" he asks her.
"Totherwho?"
Ruth giggles36, damn her. Harrison bends his head toward Ruth's, pink showing, and whispers a remark. Her lips tuck up in a smile; it's just like that night in the Chinese place, anything he says will please her, except that tonight he is Harrison and Rabbit sits across from them married to this girl he hates. He's sure what Harrison whispers is about him, "the old Master." From the second there were four of them it was clear he was going to be the goat. Like Tothero that night.
"You know damn well who," he tells Margaret. "Marty Tothero."
"Our old coach, Harry37!" Harrison cries, and reaches across the table to touch Rabbit's fingertips. "The man who made us immortal38!"
Rabbit curls his fingers an inch beyond Harrison's reach and Harrison, with a satisfied smirk29, draws back, pulling his palms along the slick table?top so they make a slippery screech39 of friction40.
"Me, you mean," Rabbit says. "You were nothing."
?"Nothing. That seems a little stern. That seems a little stern, Harry old bunny. Let's cast our minds back. When Tothero wanted a guy roughed up, who did he send in to do it? When he wanted a hot shot like you guarded nice and close, who was his boy?" He pats his own. chest. "You were too much of a star to dirty your hands. No, you never fouled41 anybody, did you? You didn't play football either, and get your knee scrambled42, either, did you? No sir, not Harry the bird; he was on wings. Feed him the ball and watch it go in."
"It went in, you noticed."
"Sometimes. Sometimes it did. Harry now don't wrinkle your nose. Don't think we all don't appreciate your ability." From the way he's using his hands, chopping and lifting in a practiced way, Rabbit thinks he must do a lot of talking around a table. Yet there's a tremor; and in seeing that Harrison is afraid of him, Rabbit loses interest. The waitress comes ? Harrison orders vodka?and?tonics43 for himself and Margaret and another Daiquiri for Ruth ?and Rabbit watches her back recede44 as if it is the one real thing in the world: the little triangle of black bra under the two blue?brown pillows of muscle. He wants Ruth to see him looking.
Harrison is losing his salesman's composure. "Did I ever tell you what Tothero once said to me about you? Ace4, are you listening?"
"What did Tothero say?" God, this guy is a middle?aged45 bore and he's not even thirty.
"He said to me, `This is in confidence, Ronnie, but I depend on you to spark the team. Harry is not a team player."'
Rabbit looks down at Margaret and over at Ruth. "Now I'll tell ya what really happened," he says to them. "Old Harrison here went in to Tothero and he said, `Hey, I'm a real spark plug, ain't I, coach? A real play?maker46, huh? Not like that lousy showboat Angstrom, huh?' And Tothero was probably asleep and didn't answer, so Harrison goes through the rest of his life thinking, `Gee, I'm a real hero. A real play?maker.' On a basketball team, you see, whenever you have a little runty clumsy guy that can't do anything he's called the play?maker. I don't know where he's supposed to be making all these plays. In his bedroom I guess." Ruth laughs; he's not sure he wanted her to.
"That's not true." Harrison's practiced palms flicker15 more hastily. "He volunteered it to me. Not that it was anything I didn't know; the whole school knew it."
Did it? Nobody ever told him.
Ruth says, "God, let's not talk basketball. Every time I go out with this bastard47 we talk nothing but."
He wonders, Did doubt show on his face and she say that to reassure48 him? Does she in any part of her feel sorry for him?
Harrison perhaps thinks he's been uglier than befits his salesconference suavity49. He takes out a cigarette and a lizard50?skin Ronson. They can't help but watch him while he snaps a shapely flame into being.
Rabbit turns to Margaret. Something in the way this arranges the nerves in his neck rings a bell, makes him think he turned to her exactly like this a million years ago. He says, "You never answered me."
"Nuts, I don't know where he is. I guess he went home. He was sick."
"Just sick, or" ? Harrison's mouth does a funny thing, smiling and pursing both, as if he is introducing, with deference51, this bit of Manhattan cleverness to his rural friends for the first time, tapping his head to make sure they will "get it" ? "sick, sick, sick?"
"All ways," Margaret says. A serious shadow crosses her face that seems to remove her and Harry, who sees it, from the others. Ruth and Harrison across from them, touched by staccato red light, seem to smile from the furnace of damnation.
"Dear Ruth," Harrison says, "how have you been? I often worry about you."
"Don't worry about me," she says, yet seems pleased.
"I just wonder," he goes on, "about the ability of our mutual52 friend to support you in the style to which you are accustomed."
The Negress brings their drinks and Harrison, as if flashing a badge, shows her the lizard?skin Ronson in his hand. "Real skin," he says.
"Mmm," the waitress says, with lots of throat. "Your own?"
Rabbit laughs. He loves that black chick.
When she goes, Harrison leans forward with the sweet smile you use on children. "Did you know," he asks Harry, "that Ruth and I once went to Atlantic City together?"
"There was another couple," she hastily tells Harry.
"A disgusting pair," Harrison says, "who preferred the shabby privacy of their own bungalow53 to the golden sunshine outdoors. The male of this twosome later confided54 to me, with ill?concealed55 pride, that he had enjoyed the orgasmatic climax56 eleven times in the all?too?short period of thirty?six hours."
Margaret laughs. "Honestly, Ronnie, to hear you talk sometimes you'd think you went to Harvard."
"Princeton," he corrects. "Princeton is the effect I want to give. Harvard is suspect around here."
Rabbit looks toward Ruth and sees that the second Daiquiri is on its way and the first has been delivered. She titters. "The awful thing about them," she says, "was that they did it in the car. Here was poor Ronnie, trying to drive through all this Sunday?night traffic, and I looked back at a stoplight and Betsy's dress was up around her neck."
"I didn't drive all the way," Harrison tells her. "Remember we finally got him to drive." His head tips toward her for confirmation57 and his pink scalp glints.
"Yeah." Ruth looks into her glass and titters again, maybe at the image of Betsy naked.
Harrison watches narrowly the effect of this on Rabbit. "This guy," he says, in the pushy58?quiet voice of offering a deal, "had an interesting theory. He thought" ? Harrison's hands grip air ? "that right at the crucial, how shall I say? ? development, you should slap your partner, as hard as you can, right in the face. If you're in a position to. Otherwise slap what you can."
Rabbit blinks; he really doesn't know what to do about this awful guy. And just there, in the space of blinking, with the alcohol vaporizing under his ribs59, he feels himself pass over. He laughs, really laughs. They can all go to Hell. "Well what did he think about biting?"
Harrison's I've?got?your?number?buddy60 grin grows fixed61; his reflexes aren't quick enough to take this sudden turn. "Biting? I don't know."
"Well he couldn't have given it much thought. A good big bloody62 bite: nothing better. Of course I can see how you're handicapped, with those two false teeth."
"Do you have false teeth, Ronnie?" Margaret cries. "How exciting! You've never told."
"Of course he does," Rabbit tells her. "You didn't think those two piano keys were his, did you? They don't even come close to matching."
Harrison presses his lips together but he can't afford to give up that forced grin and it sharply strains his face. His talking is hampered63 too.
"Now there was this place we used to go to in Texas," Rabbit says, "where there was this girl whose backside had been bitten so often it looked like a piece of old cardboard. You know, after it's been out in the rain. It's all she did. She was a virgin64 otherwise." He looks around at his audience and Ruth shakes her head minutely, one brief shake, as if to say, No, Rabbit, and it seems extremely sad, so sad a film of grit65 descends66 on his spirit and muffles67 him.
Hamson says, "It's like that story about this whore that had the biggest ? ah ?you don't want to hear it, do you?"
"Sure. Go ahead," Ruth says. "I might learn something."
"Well, this guy, see, was making out and he loses his, ahem, device." Harrison's face bobbles in the unsteady light. His hands start explaining. Rabbit thinks the poor guy must have to make a pitch five times a day or so. He wonders what he sells; some sort of deal it must be, nothing as definite as the MagiPeel Peeler. . . . up to his elbow, up to his shoulder, then he gets his whole head in, and his chest, and starts crawling along this tunnel . . ." Good old MagiPeel, Rabbit thinks: he can almost feel one in his hand. Its handle came in three colors, which the company called turquoise68, scarlet69, and gold. The funny thing about it, it really did what they said, really took the skin off turnips70, carrots, potatoes, radishes, neat, quick; it had a long sort of slot with razor?sharp edges. ". . . sees this other guy and says, `Hey, have you seen . . ."' Ruth sits there resigned and with horror he believes it's all the same to her in her mind, there's no difference between Harrison and him, and for that matter is there a difference? The whole interior of the place muddles71 and runs together red like the inside of a stomach in which they're all being digested. ". . . and the other guy says, `Stripper, hell. I've been in here three weeks looking for my motorcycle!' "
Harrison, waiting to join the laughter, looks up in silence. He's failed to sell it. "That's too fantastic," Margaret says.
Rabbit's skin is clammy under his clothes; this makes the draft from the door opening behind him sharp. Harrison says, "Hey, isn't that your sister?"
Ruth looks up from her drink. "Is it?" He makes no sign and she says, "They have the same horsy look."
One glance told Rabbit. Miriam and her escort luckily walk a little into the place, past their table, and wait there to spot an empty booth. The place is shaped like a wedge and widens out from the entrance. The bar is in the center, and on either side there is an aisle72 ofbooths. The young couple heads for the opposite aisle. Mim wears bright white shoes with very high heels. The boy with her has woolly blond hair cut just long enough to comb and one of those smooth caramel tans people who play but don't work outdoors in summer get.
"Is that your sister?" Margaret says. "She's attractive. You and her must take after different parents."
"How do you know her?" Rabbit asks Harrison.
"Oh-" His hand flicks73 diffidently, as if his fingertips slide across a streak74 of grease in the air. "You see her around."
Rabbit's instinct was to freeze at first but this suggestion of Harrison's that she's a tramp makes him get up and walk across the orange tile floor and around the bar.
"Mim."
"Well, hi."
"What are you doing here?"
She tells the boy with her, "This is my brother. He's back from the dead."
"Hi, big brother." Rabbit doesn't like the boy's saying this and he doesn't like the way the kid is sitting on the inside of the booth with Mim on the outside in the man's place. He doesn't like the whole feel of the thing, that Mim is showing him around. The kid is wearing a blue blazer and a narrow tie and looks, in a smirched prep?school way, too young and too old. His lips are too thick. Mim doesn't give his name.
"Harry, Pop and Mom fight all the time about you."
"Well if they knew you were in a dump like this they'd have something else to talk about."
"It's not so bad, for this section of town."
"It stinks76. Why don't you and Junior get out?"
"Say. Who's in charge here?" the kid asks, drawing his shoulders up and making his lips thicker.
Harry reaches over, hooks his finger around the kid's striped necktie, and snaps it out. It flies up and hits his thick mouth and makes his manicured face go slightly fuzzy. He starts to rise and Rabbit puts his hand on top of his tidy haircut and pushes him down again and walks away, with the hardness of the kid's brushcut head still tingling77 in his fingertips. At his back his sister halfcalls, "Harry!"
His ears are so good he hears, as he rounds the bar, junior explain to her, in a voice husky with cowardice78, "He's in love with you."
To his own table he says, "Come on, Ruth. Get on your motorcycle."
She protests, "I'm happy."
"Come on."
She moves to collect her things and Harrison, after looking around in doubt, gets out of the booth to let her up. He stands there beside Rabbit and Rabbit on an impulse puts his hand on Ronnie's unpadded would?be?Princeton shoulder. In comparison with Mim's kid he likes him. "You're right, Ronnie," he tells him, "you were a real play?maker." It comes out nasty but he meant it well, for the sake of the old team.
Harrison, too slow to feel that he means it, knocks his hand away and says, "When are you gonna grow up?" It's telling that lousy story that has rattled79 him.
Outside on the red?painted steps of the place Rabbit starts laughing. "Looking for my motorcycle," he says, and lets go, "Hwah hwah hyaaa," under the castanet neon light.
Ruth is in no humor to see it. "Well you are a nut," she says.
It annoys him that she is too dumb to see that he is really sore. The way she shook her head "No" at him when he was gagging it up annoys him; his mind goes back over the minute again and again and every time snags on it. He is angry about so many things he doesn't know where to begin; the only thing clear is he's going to give her hell.
"So you and that bastard went to Atlantic City together."
"Why is he a bastard?"
"Oh. He's not and I am."
"I didn't say you were."
"You did too. Right back in there you did."
"It was just an expression. A fond expression, though I don't know why."
"You don't."
"No I don't. You see your sister come in with some boyfriend and practically pee in your pants."
"Did you see the punk she was with?"
"What was the matter with him?" Ruth asks. "He looked all right."
"Just about everybody looks all right to you, don't they?"
"Well I don't see what you're doing going around like some almighty80 judge."
"Yes sir, just about anything with a pecker looks all right to you."
They are walking up Warren Avenue. Their place is seven blocks away. People are sitting out on their steps in the late spring air; their conversation is in this sense public and they fight to keep their voices low.
"Boy, if this is what seeing your sister does to you I'm glad we're not married."
"What brought that up?"
"What brought what up?"
"Marriage."
"You did, don't you remember, the first night, you kept talking about it, and kissed my ring finger."
"That was a nice night."
"All right then."
"All right then nothing." Rabbit feels he's been worked into a corner where he can't give her hell without giving her up entirely81, without obliterating82 the sweet things. But then she did that by taking him to that stinking83 place. "You've laid for Harrison, haven't you?"
"I guess. Sure."
"You guess. You don't know?"
"I said sure."
"And how many others?"
"I don't know."
"A hundred?"
"It's a pointless question."
"Why is it pointless?"
"It's like asking how many times you've taken a crap. O.K. I've taken a crap."
"They're about the same to you, is that it?"
"No they're not the same but I don't see what the count matters. You knew what I was."
"I'm not sure I did. You were a real hooer?"
"I took some money. I've told you. There were boyfriends when I was working as a stenographer84 and they had friends and I lost my job because of the talk maybe I don't know and some older men got my number I guess through Margaret, I don't know. Look. It's by. If it's a question of being dirty or something a lot of married women have had to take it more often than I have."
"Did you pose for pictures?"
"You mean like for dirty books? No."
"Did you blow guys?"
"Look, maybe we should say bye?bye." At the thought of that her chin softens85 and eyes burn and she hates him too much to think of sharing her secret with him. Her secret inside her seems to have no relation to him, this big body loping along with her under the streetlamps, hungry as a ghost, wanting to hear the words to whip himself up. That was the thing about men, the importance they put on the mouth. Rabbit seems like another man to her, with this difference: in ignorance he has welded her to him and she can't let go.
With degrading gratitude86 she hears him say, "No I don't want to say bye?bye. I just want an answer to my question."
"The answer to your question is yes."
"Harrison?"
"Why does Harrison mean so much to you?"
"Because he stinks. And if Harrison is the same to you as me then I stink75."
They are, for that moment, the same to her ? in fact she would prefer Harrison, just for the change, just because he doesn't insist on being the greatest thing that ever was ? but she lies. "You're not at all the same. You're not in the same league."
"Well I got a pretty funny feeling sitting across from you two in that restaurant. What all did you do with him?"
"Oh, I don't know, what do you do? You make love, you try to get close to somebody."
"Well, would you do everything to me that you did to him?"
This stuns87 her skin in a curious way, makes it contract so that her body feels squeezed and sickened inside it. " Sure. Ifyou want me tó." After being a wife a whore's skin feels tight.
His relief is boyish; his front teeth flash happily. "Just once," he promises, "honest. I'll never ask you again." He tries to put his arm around her but she pulls away.
Up in the apartment he asks plaintively88, "Are you going to?" She is struck by the helplessness in his posture89; in the interior darkness, to which her eyes have not adjusted, he seems a suit of clothes hung from the broad white knob of his face.
She asks, "Are you sure we're talking about the same thing?"
"What do you think we're talking about?" He's too fastidious to mouth the words.
She says, "Sucking you off."
"Right," he says.
"In cold blood. You just want it."
"Uh?huh. Is it so awful for you?"
This glimmer90 of her gentle rabbit emboldens91 her. "It's not so bad. May I ask what I've done?"
"I didn't like the way you acted tonight."
"How did I act?"
"Like what you were."
"I didn't mean to."
"Even so. I saw you that way tonight and it put a wall between us and this is the one way through it."
"That's pretty cute. You just want it, really." She yearns92 to hit out at him, to tell him to go. But that time is past.
He repeats, "Is it so awful for you?"
"Well it is because you think it is."
"Maybe I don't. Maybe I think it'd be nice."
"Look, I've loved you."
"Well I've loved you."
"And now?"
"I don't know. I want to still."
Now those damn tears again. She tries to hurry the words out before her voice crumbles93. "That's good of you. That's heroic."
"Don't be smart. Listen. Tonight you turned against me. I need to see you on your knees. I need you to" ? he still can't say it "do it."
The two tall drinks have been a poor experiment; she wants to go to sleep and her tongue tastes sour. She feels in her queasy94 stomach her need to keep him and wonders, Will this frighten him? Will this kill her in him?
"If I did it what would it prove?"
"It'd prove you're mine."
"Shall I take my clothes off?"
"Sure." He takes his off quickly and neatly95 and stands by the dull wall in his brilliant body. He leans awkwardly and brings one hand up and hangs it on his shoulder not knowing what to do with it. His whole shy pose has these wings of tension, like he's an angel waiting for a word. Sliding her last clothes off, her arms feel cold touching96 her sides. This last month she's felt cold all the time; her temperature being divided or something. In the growing light he shifts slightly. She closes her eyes and tells herself, they're not ugly. Not.
Mrs. Springer called the rectory a little after eight. Mrs. Eccles told her Jack11 had taken the young people's softball team to a game fifteen miles away and she didn't know when he'd be home. Mrs. Springer's panic carried over the wire and Lucy spent nearly two hours calling numbers in an attempt to reach him. It grew dark. She finally reached the minister of the church whose softball team they were playing and he told her the game had been over for an hour. The darkness thickened outside; the window whose sill held the phone became a waxy97 streaked98 mirror in which she could see herself, hair unpinning, slump99 back and forth between the address book and the phone. Joyce, hearing the constant ticking of the dial, came downstairs and leaned on her mother. Three times Lucy took her up to the bed and twice the child came down again and leaned her damp weight against her mother's legs in frightened silence. The whole house, room beyond room surrounding with darkness the little island of light around the telephone, filled with menace and when, the third time, Joyce failed to come down from her bed, Lucy felt guilty and forsaken100 both, as if she had sold her only ally to the shadows. She dialed the number of every problem case in the parish she could think of, tried the vestrymen, the church secretary, the three co?chairmen of the fund?raising drive, Angus the old deaf sexton, and even the organist, a piano-teaching professional who lived in Brewer.
The hour hand has moved past ten; it's getting embarrassing. It's sounding as if she's been deserted101. And in fact it frightens her, that her husband seems to be nowhere in the world. She makes coffee and weeps weakly, in her own kitchen. How did she get into this? What drew her in? His gaiety, he was always so gay. To know him back in seminary you would never think he would take all this so seriously; he and his friends sitting in their bare old rooms lined with handsome blue exegetical102 works made it all seem an elegant joke. She remembers playing with them in a softball game that was the Athanasians against the Arians. And now she never saw his gaiety, it was all spent on other people, on this grim in-tangible parish, her enemy. She hates them, all those clinging quaint103 quavering widows and Young People for Christ ? the one good thing if the Russians take over is they'll make religion go extinct. It should have gone extinct a hundred years ago. Maybe it shouldn't have, maybe our weakness needs it, but let somebody else carry it on. On Jack it was so dreary104. Sometimes she feels sorry for him and, abruptly105, this is one of the times.
When he does come in, at quarter of eleven, it turns out he's been sitting in a drugstore gossiping with some of his teenagers; the idiotic106 kids tell him everything, all smoking like chimneys, so he comes home titillated107 silly with "how far" you can "go" on dates and still love Jesus.
Eccles sees at once she is furious. He had been having far too happy a time in the drugstore. He loves kids; their belief is so real to them and sits so light.
Lucy delivers her message as sufficient rebuke108, but it fails as that; for, with hardly a backward glance at the horrid109 evening she has, implicitly110, spent, he rushes to the phone.
He takes his wallet out and between his driver's license111 and his public?library card finds the telephone number he has been saving, the key that could be turned in the lock just once. He wonders, dialing it, if it will fit, if he was a fool to lean the entire weight of the case on the word of young Mrs. Fosnacht, with her mirroring, brittle112, vacant sunglasses. The distant phone rings often: it is as if electricity, that amazingly trained mouse, has scur-ried through miles of wire only to gnaw113 at the end of its errand on an impenetrable plate of metal. He prays, but it is a bad prayer, a doubting prayer; he fails to superimpose God upon the complexities114 of electricity. He concedes them their inviolable laws. Hope has vanished, he is hanging on out of despair, when the gnawing115 ringing stops, the metal is lifted, and openness, an impression of light and air, washes back through the wires to Eccles' ear.
"Hello." A man's voice, but not Harry's. It is more sluggish116 and brutal117 than that of his friend.
"Is Harry Angstrom there?" Sunglasses mock his sunk heart; this is not the number.
"Who's this?"
"My name is Jack Eccles."
"Oh. Hi."
"Is that you, Harry? It didn't sound like you. Were you asleep?"
"In a way."
"Harry, your wife has started to have the baby. Her mother called here around eight and I just got in." Eccles closes his eyes; in the dark tipping silence he feels his ministry118, sum and substance, being judged.
"Yeah," the other breathes in the far corner of the darkness. "I guess I ought to go to her."
"I wish you would."
"I guess I should. It's mine I mean too."
"Exactly. I'll meet you there. It's St. Joseph's in Brewer. You know where that is?"
"Yeah, sure. I can walk it in ten minutes."
"You want me to pick you up in the car?"
"No, I'll walk it."
"All right. If you prefer. Harry?"
"Huh?"
"I'm very proud of you."
"Yeah. O.K. I'll see you."
收听单词发音 |
1
triangular
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| adj.三角（形）的，三者间的 | |
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brewer
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| n. 啤酒制造者 | |
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ridge
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| n.山脊；鼻梁；分水岭 | |
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ace
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| n.A牌；发球得分；佼佼者；adj.杰出的 | |
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fortress
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| n.堡垒，防御工事 | |
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glossy
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| adj.平滑的；有光泽的 | |
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parlor
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| n.店铺，营业室；会客室，客厅 | |
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soothingly
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| adv.抚慰地，安慰地；镇痛地 | |
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fluorescent
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| adj.荧光的，发出荧光的 | |
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embalmed
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| adj.用防腐药物保存（尸体）的v.保存（尸体）不腐( embalm的过去式和过去分词 )；使不被遗忘；使充满香气 | |
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jack
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| n.插座，千斤顶，男人；v.抬起，提醒，扛举；n.（Jake）杰克 | |
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12
standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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fluctuation
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| n.(物价的)波动，涨落；周期性变动；脉动 | |
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flickers
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| 电影制片业； （通常指灯光）闪烁，摇曳( flicker的名词复数 ) | |
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flicker
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| vi./n.闪烁，摇曳，闪现 | |
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forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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tremor
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| n.震动，颤动，战栗，兴奋，地震 | |
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locker
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| n.更衣箱，储物柜，冷藏室，上锁的人 | |
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sloppy
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| adj.邋遢的，不整洁的 | |
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20
ginger
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| n.姜，精力，淡赤黄色；adj.淡赤黄色的；vt.使活泼，使有生气 | |
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21
flips
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| 轻弹( flip的第三人称单数 )； 按（开关）； 快速翻转； 急挥 | |
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22
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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23
spine
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| n.脊柱，脊椎；(动植物的)刺；书脊 | |
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24
defiantly
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| adv.挑战地，大胆对抗地 | |
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25
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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26
brass
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| n.黄铜；黄铜器，铜管乐器 | |
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tilts
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| （意欲赢得某物或战胜某人的）企图，尝试( tilt的名词复数 ) | |
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28
smirking
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| v.傻笑( smirk的现在分词 ) | |
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29
smirk
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| n.得意地笑；v.傻笑；假笑着说 | |
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30
hemmed
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| 缝…的褶边( hem的过去式和过去分词 )； 包围 | |
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31
obsessed
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| adj.心神不宁的,鬼迷心窍的,沉迷的 | |
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32
ivy
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| n.常青藤，常春藤 | |
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33
flicking
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| （尤指用手指或手快速地）轻击( flick的现在分词 )； （用…）轻挥； （快速地）按开关； 向…笑了一下（或瞥了一眼等） | |
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34
knuckles
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| n.（指人）指关节( knuckle的名词复数 )；（指动物）膝关节，踝v.（指人）指关节( knuckle的第三人称单数 )；（指动物）膝关节，踝 | |
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35
wriggles
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| n.蠕动，扭动( wriggle的名词复数 )v.扭动，蠕动，蜿蜒行进( wriggle的第三人称单数 )；（使身体某一部位）扭动；耍滑不做，逃避（应做的事等） | |
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36
giggles
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| n.咯咯的笑( giggle的名词复数 )；傻笑；玩笑；the giggles 止不住的格格笑v.咯咯地笑( giggle的第三人称单数 ) | |
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37
harry
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| vt.掠夺，蹂躏，使苦恼 | |
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38
immortal
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| adj.不朽的；永生的，不死的；神的 | |
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39
screech
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| n./v.尖叫；(发出)刺耳的声音 | |
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40
friction
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| n.摩擦，摩擦力 | |
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41
fouled
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| v.使污秽( foul的过去式和过去分词 )；弄脏；击球出界；（通常用废物）弄脏 | |
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42
scrambled
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| v.快速爬行( scramble的过去式和过去分词 )；攀登；争夺；（军事飞机）紧急起飞 | |
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43
tonics
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| n.滋补品( tonic的名词复数 )；主音；奎宁水；浊音 | |
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44
recede
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| vi.退(去)，渐渐远去；向后倾斜，缩进 | |
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45
aged
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| adj.年老的，陈年的 | |
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46
maker
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| n.制造者，制造商 | |
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47
bastard
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| n.坏蛋，混蛋；私生子 | |
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48
reassure
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| v.使放心，使消除疑虑 | |
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49
suavity
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| n.温和；殷勤 | |
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50
lizard
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| n.蜥蜴，壁虎 | |
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51
deference
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| n.尊重，顺从；敬意 | |
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52
mutual
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| adj.相互的，彼此的；共同的，共有的 | |
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53
bungalow
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| n.平房，周围有阳台的木造小平房 | |
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54
confided
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| v.吐露（秘密，心事等）( confide的过去式和过去分词 )；（向某人）吐露（隐私、秘密等） | |
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55
concealed
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| a.隐藏的，隐蔽的 | |
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56
climax
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| n.顶点；高潮；v.(使)达到顶点 | |
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57
confirmation
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| n.证实，确认，批准 | |
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58
pushy
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| adj.固执己见的，一意孤行的 | |
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59
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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60
buddy
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| n.（美口）密友，伙伴 | |
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61
fixed
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| adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的 | |
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62
bloody
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| adj.非常的的；流血的；残忍的；adv.很；vt.血染 | |
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63
hampered
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| 妨碍，束缚，限制( hamper的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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64
virgin
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| n.处女，未婚女子；adj.未经使用的；未经开发的 | |
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65
grit
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| n.沙粒，决心，勇气；v.下定决心，咬紧牙关 | |
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66
descends
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| v.下来( descend的第三人称单数 )；下去；下降；下斜 | |
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67
muffles
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| v.压抑，捂住( muffle的第三人称单数 )；用厚厚的衣帽包着（自己） | |
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68
turquoise
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| n.绿宝石；adj.蓝绿色的 | |
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69
scarlet
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| n.深红色，绯红色，红衣；adj.绯红色的 | |
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70
turnips
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| 芜青( turnip的名词复数 )； 芜菁块根； 芜菁甘蓝块根； 怀表 | |
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71
muddles
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| v.弄乱，弄糟( muddle的第三人称单数 )；使糊涂；对付，混日子 | |
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72
aisle
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| n.（教堂、教室、戏院等里的）过道，通道 | |
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73
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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74
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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75
stink
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| vi.发出恶臭；糟透，招人厌恶；n.恶臭 | |
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76
stinks
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| v.散发出恶臭( stink的第三人称单数 )；发臭味；名声臭；糟透 | |
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77
tingling
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| v.有刺痛感( tingle的现在分词 ) | |
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78
cowardice
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| n.胆小，怯懦 | |
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79
rattled
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| 慌乱的，恼火的 | |
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80
almighty
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| adj.全能的，万能的；很大的，很强的 | |
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81
entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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82
obliterating
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| v.除去( obliterate的现在分词 )；涂去；擦掉；彻底破坏或毁灭 | |
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83
stinking
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| adj.臭的，烂醉的，讨厌的v.散发出恶臭( stink的现在分词 )；发臭味；名声臭；糟透 | |
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84
stenographer
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| n.速记员 | |
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85
softens
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| （使）变软( soften的第三人称单数 )； 缓解打击； 缓和； 安慰 | |
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86
gratitude
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| adj.感激，感谢 | |
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87
stuns
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| v.击晕( stun的第三人称单数 )；使大吃一惊；给（某人）以深刻印象；使深深感动 | |
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88
plaintively
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| adv.悲哀地，哀怨地 | |
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89
posture
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| n.姿势，姿态，心态，态度；v.作出某种姿势 | |
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90
glimmer
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| v.发出闪烁的微光；n.微光，微弱的闪光 | |
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91
emboldens
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| v.鼓励，使有胆量( embolden的第三人称单数 ) | |
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92
yearns
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| 渴望，切盼，向往( yearn的第三人称单数 ) | |
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93
crumbles
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| 酥皮水果甜点( crumble的名词复数 ) | |
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94
queasy
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| adj.易呕的 | |
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95
neatly
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| adv.整洁地，干净地，灵巧地，熟练地 | |
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96
touching
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| adj.动人的，使人感伤的 | |
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97
waxy
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| adj.苍白的；光滑的 | |
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98
streaked
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| adj.有条斑纹的，不安的v.快速移动( streak的过去式和过去分词 )；使布满条纹 | |
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99
slump
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| n.暴跌，意气消沉，（土地）下沉；vi.猛然掉落，坍塌，大幅度下跌 | |
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100
Forsaken
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| adj. 被遗忘的, 被抛弃的 动词forsake的过去分词 | |
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101
deserted
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| adj.荒芜的，荒废的，无人的，被遗弃的 | |
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102
exegetical
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| adj.评释的，解经的 | |
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103
quaint
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| adj.古雅的，离奇有趣的，奇怪的 | |
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104
dreary
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| adj.令人沮丧的，沉闷的，单调乏味的 | |
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105
abruptly
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| adv.突然地，出其不意地 | |
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106
idiotic
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| adj.白痴的 | |
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107
titillated
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| v.使觉得痒( titillate的过去式和过去分词 )；逗引；激发；使高兴 | |
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108
rebuke
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| v.指责，非难，斥责 [反]praise | |
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109
horrid
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| adj.可怕的；令人惊恐的；恐怖的；极讨厌的 | |
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110
implicitly
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| adv. 含蓄地, 暗中地, 毫不保留地 | |
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111
license
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| n.执照，许可证，特许；v.许可，特许 | |
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112
brittle
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| adj.易碎的；脆弱的；冷淡的；(声音)尖利的 | |
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113
gnaw
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| v.不断地啃、咬；使苦恼，折磨 | |
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114
complexities
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| 复杂性(complexity的名词复数)； 复杂的事物 | |
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115
gnawing
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| a.痛苦的，折磨人的 | |
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116
sluggish
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| adj.懒惰的，迟钝的，无精打采的 | |
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117
brutal
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| adj.残忍的，野蛮的，不讲理的 | |
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118
ministry
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| n.(政府的)部；牧师 | |
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