The boundaries of our country, sir? Why sir, on the north we are bounded by the Aurora1 Borealis, on the east we are bounded by the rising sun, on the south we are bounded by the procession of the Equinoxes, and on the west by the Day of Judgment2.
-The American Joe Miller's Jest Book.
Shadow had done three years in prison. He was big enough and looked don't-fuck-with-me enough that his biggest problem was killing3 time. So he kept himself in shape, and taught himself coin tricks, and thought a lot about how much he loved his wife.
The best thing-in Shadow's opinion, perhaps the only good thing-about being in prison was a feeling of relief. The feeling that he'd plunged4 as low as he could plunge5 and he'd hit bottom. He didn't worry that the man was going to get him, because the man had got him. He was no longer scared of what tomorrow might bring, because yesterday had brought it.
It did not matter, Shadow decided6, if you had done what you had been convicted of or not. In his experience everyone he met in prison was aggrieved7 about something: there was always something the authorities had got wrong, something they said you did when you didn't-or you didn't do quite like they said you did. What was important was that they had gotten you.
He had noticed it in the first few days, when everything, from the slang to the bad food, was new. Despite the misery8 and the utter skin-crawling horror of incarceration9, he was breathing relief.
Shadow tried not to talk too much. Somewhere around the middle of year two he mentioned his theory to Low Key Lyesmith, his cellmate.
Low Key, who was a grifter from Minnesota, smiled his scarred smile. "Yeah," he said. "That's true. It's even better when you've been sentenced to death. That's when you remember the jokes about the guys who kicked their boots off as the noose10 flipped11 around their necks, because their friends always told them they'd die with their boots on."
"Is that a joke?" asked Shadow.
"Damn right. Gallows12 humor. Best kind there is."
"When did they last hang a man in this state?" asked Shadow.
"How the hell should I know?" Lyesmith kept his orange-blond hair pretty much shaved. You could see the lines of his skull13. "Tell you what, though. This country started going to hell when they stopped hanging folks. No gallows dirt. No gallows deals."
Shadow shrugged14. He could see nothing romantic in a death sentence.
If you didn't have a death sentence, he decided, then prison was, at best, only a temporary reprieve15 from life, for two reasons. First, life creeps back into prison. There are always places to go further down. Life goes on. And second, if you just hang in there, someday they're going to have to let you out.
In the beginning it was too far away for Shadow to focus on. Then it became a distant beam of hope, and he learned how to tell himself "this too shall pass" when the prison shit went down, as prison shit always did. One day the magic door would open and he'd walk through it. So he marked off the days on his Songbirds of North America calendar, which was the only calendar they sold in the prison commissary, and the sun went down and he didn't see it and the sun came up and he didn't see it. He practiced coin tricks from a book he found in the wasteland of the prison library; and he worked out; and he made lists in his head of what he'd do when he got out of prison.
Shadow's lists got shorter and shorter. After two years he had it down to three things.
First, he was going to take a bath. A real, long, serious soak, in a tub with bubbles. Maybe read the paper, maybe not. Some days he thought one way, some days the other.
Second, he was going to towel himself off, put on a robe. Maybe slippers17. He liked the idea of slippers. If he smoked he would be smoking a pipe about now, but he didn't smoke. He would pick up his wife in his arms ("Puppy," she would squeal18 in mock horror and real delight, "what are you doing?). He would carry her into the bedroom, and close the door. They'd call out for pizzas if they got hungry.
Third, after he and Laura had come out of the bedroom, maybe a couple of days later, he was going to keep his head down and stay out of trouble for the rest of his life.
"And then you'll be happy?" asked Low Key Lyesmith. That day they were working in the prison shop, assembling bird feeders, which was barely more interesting than stamping out license19 plates.
"Call no man happy," said Shadow, "until he is dead."
"Herodotus," said Low Key. "Hey. You're learning."
"Who the fuck's Herodotus?" asked the Iceman, slotting together the sides of a bird feeder and passing it to Shadow, who bolted and screwed it tight.
"Dead Greek," said Shadow.
"My last girlfriend was Greek," said the Iceman. "The shit her family ate. You would not believe. Like rice wrapped in leaves. Shit like that."
The Iceman was the same size and shape as a Coke machine, with blue eyes and hair so blond it was almost white. He had beaten the crap out of some guy who had made the mistake of copping a feel off his girlfriend in the bar where she danced and the Iceman bounced. The guy's friends had called the police, who arrested the Iceman and ran a check on him which revealed that the Iceman had walked from a work-release program eighteen months earlier.
"So what was I supposed to do?" asked the Iceman, aggrieved, when he had told Shadow the whole sad tale. "I'd told him she was my girlfriend. Was I supposed to let him disrespect me like that? Was I? I mean, he had his hands all over her."
Shadow had said, "You tell 'em," and left it at that. One thing he had learned early, you do your own time in prison. You don't do anyone else's time for them.
Keep your head down. Do your own time.
Lyesmith had loaned Shadow a battered20 paperback21 copy of Herodotus's Histories several months earlier. "It's not boring. It's cool," he said, when Shadow protested that he didn't read books. "Read it first, then tell me it's cool."
Shadow had made a face, but he had started to read, and had found himself hooked against his will.
"Greeks," said the Iceman, with disgust. "And it ain't true what they say about them, neither. I tried giving it to my girlfriend in the ass16, she almost clawed my eyes out."
Lyesmith was transferred one day, without warning. He left Shadow his copy of Herodotus. There was a nickel hidden in the pages. Coins were contraband23: you can sharpen the edges against a stone, slice open someone's face in a fight. Shadow didn't want a weapon; Shadow just wanted something to do with his hands.
Shadow was not superstitious24. He did not believe in anything he could not see. Still, he could feel disaster hovering25 above the prison in those final weeks, just as he had felt it in the days before the robbery. There was a hollowness in the pit of his stomach that he told himself was simply a fear of going back to the world on the outside. But he could not be sure. He was more paranoid than usual, and in prison usual is very, and is a survival skill. Shadow became more quiet, more shadowy, than ever. He found himself watching the body language of the guards, of the other inmates27, searching for a clue to the bad thing that was going to happen, as he was certain that it would.
A month before he was due to be released. Shadow sat in a chilly28 office, facing a short man with a port-wine birthmark on his forehead. They sat across a desk from each other; the man had Shadow's file open in front of him, and was holding a ballpoint pen. The end of the pen was badly chewed.
"You cold, Shadow?"
"Yes," said Shadow. "A little."
The man shrugged. "That's the system," he said. "Furnaces don't go on until December the first. Then they go off March the first. I don't make the rules." He ran his forefinger30 down the sheet of paper stapled31 to the inside left of the folder32. "You're thirty-two years old?"
"Yes, sir."
"You look younger."
"Clean living."
"Says here you've been a model inmate26."
"I learned my lesson, sir."
"Did you really?" He looked at Shadow intently, the birthmark on his forehead lowering. Shadow thought about telling the man some of his theories about prison, but he said nothing. He nodded instead, and concentrated on appearing properly remorseful33.
"Says here you've got a wife, Shadow."
"Her name's Laura."
"How's everything there?"
"Pretty good. She's come down to see me as much as she could-it's a long way to travel. We write and I call her when I can."
"What does your wife do?"
"She's a travel agent. Sends people all over the world."
"How'd you meet her?"
Shadow could not decide why the man was asking. He considered telling him it was none of his business, then said, "She was my best buddy34's wife's best friend. They set us up on a blind date. We hit it off."
"And you've got a job waiting for you?"
"Yessir. My buddy, Robbie, the one I just told you about, he owns the Muscle Farm, the place I used to train. He says my old job is waiting for me."
An eyebrow35 raised. "Really?"
"Says he figures I'll be a big draw. Bring back some old-timers, and pull in the tough crowd who want to be tougher."
The man seemed satisfied. He chewed the end of his ballpoint pen, then turned over the sheet of paper.
"How do you feel about your offense36?"
Shadow shrugged. "I was stupid," he said, and meant it.
The man with the birthmark sighed. He ticked off a number of items on a checklist. Then he riffled through the papers in Shadow's file. "How're you getting home from here?" he asked. "Greyhound?"
"Flying home. It's good to have a wife who's a travel agent." The man frowned, and the birthmark creased37. "She sent you a ticket?"
"Didn't need to. Just sent me a confirmation38 number. Electronic ticket. All I have to do is turn up at the airport in a month and show 'em my ID, and I'm outta here."
The man nodded, scribbled39 one final note, then he closed the file and put down the ballpoint pen. Two pale hands rested on the gray desk like pink animals. He brought his hands close together, made a steeple of his forefingers40, and stared at Shadow with watery41 hazel eyes.
"You're lucky," he said. "You have someone to go back to, you got a job waiting. You can put all this behind you. You got a second chance. Make the most of it."
The man did not offer to shake Shadow's hand as he rose to leave, nor did Shadow expect him to.
The last week was the worst. In some ways it was worse than the whole three years put together. Shadow wondered if it was the weather: oppressive, still, and cold. It felt as if a storm was on the way, but the storm never came. He had the jitters42 and the heebie-jeebies, a feeling deep in his stomach that something was entirely43 wrong. In the exercise yard the wind gusted44. Shadow imagined that he could smell snow on the air.
He called his wife collect. Shadow knew that the phone companies whacked45 a three-dollar surcharge on every call made from a prison phone. That was why operators are always real polite to people calling from prisons, Shadow had decided: they knew that he paid their wages.
"Something feels weird46," he told Laura. That wasn't the first thing he said to her. The first thing was "I love you," because it's a good thing to say if you can mean it, and Shadow did.
"Hello," said Laura. "I love you too. What feels weird?"
"I don't know," he said. "Maybe the weather. It feels like if we could only get a storm, everything would be okay."
"It's nice here," she said. "The last of the leaves haven't quite fallen. If we don't get a storm, you'll be able to see them when you get home."
"Five days," said Shadow.
"A hundred and twenty hours, and then you come home," she said.
"Everything okay there? Nothing wrong?"
"Everything's fine. I'm seeing Robbie tonight. We're planning your surprise welcome-home party."
"Surprise party?"
"Of course. You don't know anything about it, do you?"
"Not a thing."
"That's my husband," she said. Shadow realized that he was smiling. He had been inside for three years, but she could still make him smile.
"Love you, babes," said Shadow.
"Love you, puppy," said Laura.
Shadow put down the phone.
When they got married Laura told Shadow that she wanted a puppy, but their landlord had pointed47 out they weren't allowed pets under the terms of their lease. "Hey," Shadow had said, "I'll be your puppy. What do you want me to do? Chew your slippers? Piss on the kitchen floor? Lick your nose? Sniff48 your crotch? I bet there's nothing a puppy can do I can't do!" And he picked her up as if she weighed nothing at all and began to lick her nose while she giggled49 and shrieked50, and then he carried her to the bed.
In the food hall Sam Fetisher sidled over to Shadow and smiled, showing his old teeth. He sat down beside Shadow and began to eat his macaroni and cheese.
"We got to talk," said Sam Fetisher.
Sam Fetisher was one of the blackest men that Shadow had ever seen. He might have been sixty. He might have been eighty. Then again, Shadow had met thirty-year-old crackheads who looked older than Sam Fetisher.
"Mm?" said Shadow.
"Storm's on the way," said Sam.
"Feels like it," said Shadow. "Maybe it'll snow soon."
"Not that kind of storm. Bigger storm than that coming. I tell you, boy, you're better off in here than out on the street when the big storm comes."
"Done my time," said Shadow. "Friday, I'm gone."
Sam Fetisher stared at Shadow. "Where you from?" he asked.
"Eagle Point. Indiana."
"You're a lying fuck," said Sam Fetisher. "I mean originally. Where are your folks from?"
"Chicago," said Shadow. His mother had lived in Chicago as a girl, and she had died there, half a lifetime ago.
"Like I said. Big storm coming. Keep your head down, Shadow-boy. It's like...what do they call those things continents ride around on? Some kind of plates?"
"Tectonic plates?" Shadow hazarded.
"That's it. Tectonic plates. It's like when they go riding, when North America goes skidding51 into South America, you don't want to be in the middle. You dig me?"
"Not even a little."
One brown eye closed in a slow wink52. "Hell, don't say I didn't warn you," said Sam Fetisher, and he spooned a trembling lump of orange Jell-O into his mouth.
"I won't."
Shadow spent the night half-awake, drifting in and out of sleep, listening to his new cellmate grunt53 and snore in the bunk54 below him. Several cells away a man whined55 and howled and sobbed56 like an animal, and from time to time someone would scream at him to shut the fuck up. Shadow tried not to hear. He let the empty minutes wash over him, lonely and slow.
Two days to go. Forty-eight hours, starting with oatmeal and prison coffee, and a guard named Wilson who tapped Shadow harder than he had to on the shoulder and said, "Shadow? This way."
Shadow checked his conscience. It was quiet, which did not, he had observed, in a prison, mean that he was not in deep shit. The two men walked more or less side by side, feet echoing on metal and concrete.
Shadow tasted fear in the back of his throat, bitter as old coffee. The bad thing was happening....
There was a voice in the back of his head whispering that they were going to slap another year onto his sentence, drop him into solitary57, cut off his hands, cut off his head. He told himself he was being stupid, but his heart was pounding fit to burst out of his chest.
"I don't get you, Shadow," said Wilson, as they walked.
"What's not to get, sir?"
"You. You're too fucking quiet. Too polite. You wait like the old guys, but you're what? Twenty-five? Twenty-eight?"
"Thirty-two, sir."
"And what are you? A spic? A gypsy?"
"Not that I know of, sir. Maybe."
"Maybe you got nigger blood in you. You got nigger blood in you, Shadow?"
"Could be, sir." Shadow stood tall and looked straight ahead, and concentrated on not allowing himself to be riled by this man.
"Yeah? Well, all I know is, you fucking spook me." Wilson had sandy blond hair and a sandy blond face and a sandy blond smile. "You leaving us soon."
"Hope so, sir."
They walked through a couple of checkpoints. Wilson showed his ID each time. Up a set of stairs, and they were standing58 outside the prison warden59's office. It had the prison warden's name-G. Patterson-on the door in black letters, and beside the door, a miniature traffic light.
The top light burned red.
Wilson pressed a button below the traffic light.
They stood there in silence for a couple of minutes. Shadow tried to tell himself that everything was all right, that on Friday morning he'd be on the plane up to Eagle Point, but he did not believe it himself.
The red light went out and the green light went on, and Wilson opened the door. They went inside.
Shadow had seen the warden a handful of times in the last three years. Once he had been showing a politician around. Once, during a lockdown, the warden had spoken to them in groups of a hundred, telling them that the prison was overcrowded, and that, since it would remain overcrowded, they had better get used to it.
Up close, Patterson looked worse. His face was oblong, with gray hair cut into a military bristle60 cut. He smelled of Old Spice. Behind him was a shelf of books, each with the word Prison in the title; his desk was perfectly61 clean, empty but for a telephone and a tear-off-the-pages Far Side calendar. He had a hearing aid in his right ear.
"Please, sit down."
Shadow sat down. Wilson stood behind him.
The warden opened a desk drawer and took out a file, placed it on his desk.
"Says here you were sentenced to six years for aggravated62 assault and battery. You've served three years. You were due to be released on Friday."
Were? Shadow felt his stomach lurch63 inside him. He wondered how much longer he was going to have to serve-another year? Two years? All three? All he said was "Yes, sir."
The warden licked his lips. "What did you say?"
"I said, 'Yes, sir.' "
"Shadow, we're going to be releasing you later this afternoon. You'll be getting out a couple of days early." Shadow nodded, and he waited for the other shoe to drop. The warden looked down at the paper on his desk. "This came from the Johnson Memorial Hospital in Eagle Point...Your wife. She died in the early hours of this morning. It was an automobile64 accident. I'm sorry."
Shadow nodded once more.
Wilson walked him back to his cell, not saying anything. He unlocked the cell door and let Shadow in. Then he said, "It's like one of them good news, bad news jokes, isn't it? Good news, we're letting you out early, bad news, your wife is dead." He laughed, as if it were genuinely funny.
Shadow said nothing at all.
***
Numbly65, he packed up his possessions, gave most of them away. He left behind Low Key's Herodotus and the book of coin tricks, and, with a momentary66 pang67, he abandoned the blank metal disks be had smuggled68 out of the workshop, which had served him for coins. There would be coins, real coins, on the outside. He shaved. He dressed in civilian69 clothes. He walked through door after door, knowing that he would never walk back through them again, feeling empty inside.
The rain had started to gust22 from the gray sky, a freezing rain. Pellets of ice stung Shadow's face, while the rain soaked the thin overcoat and they walked toward the yellow ex-school bus that would take them to the nearest city.
By the time they got to the bus they were soaked. Eight of them were leaving. Fifteen hundred still inside. Shadow sat on the bus and shivered until the heaters started working, wondering what he was doing, where he would go now.
Ghost images filled his head, unbidden. In his imagination he was leaving another prison, long ago.
He had been imprisoned70 in a lightless room for far too long: his beard was wild and his hair was a tangle71. The guards had walked him down a gray stone stairway and out into a plaza72 filled with brightly colored things, with people and with objects. It was a market day and he was dazzled by the noise and the color, squinting73 at the sunlight that filled the square, smelling the salt-wet air and all the good things of the market, and on his left the sun glittered from the water...
The bus shuddered74 to a halt at a red light.
The wind howled about the bus, and the wipers slooshed heavily back and forth75 across the windshield, smearing76 the city into a red and yellow neon wetness. It was early afternoon, but it looked like night through the glass.
"Shit," said the man in the seat behind Shadow, rubbing the condensation77 from the window with his hand, staring at a wet figure hurrying down the sidewalk. "There's pussy78 out there."
Shadow swallowed. It occurred to him that he had not cried yet-had in fact felt nothing at all. No tears. No sorrow. Nothing.
He found himself thinking about a guy named Johnnie Larch79 he'd shared a cell with when he'd first been put inside, who told Shadow how he'd once got out after five years behind bars with one hundred dollars and a ticket to Seattle, where his sister lived.
Johnnie Larch had got to the airport, and he handed his ticket to the woman on the counter, and she asked to see his driver's license.
He showed it to her. It had expired a couple of years earlier. She told him it was not valid80 as ID. He told her it might not be valid as a driver's license, but it sure as hell was fine identification, and damn it, who else did she think he was, if he wasn't him?
She said she'd thank him to keep his voice down.
He told her to give him a fucking boarding pass, or she was going to regret it, and that he wasn't going to be disrespected. You don't let people disrespect you in prison.
Then she pressed a button, and a few moments later the airport security showed up, and they tried to persuade Johnnie Larch to leave the airport quietly, and he did not wish to leave, and there was something of an altercation81.
The upshot of it all was that Johnnie Larch never actually made it to Seattle, and he spent the next couple of days in town in bars, and when his one hundred dollars was gone he held up a gas station with a toy gun for money to keep drinking, and the police finally picked him up for pissing in the street. Pretty soon he was back inside serving the rest of his sentence and a little extra for the gas station job.
And the moral of this story, according to Johnnie Larch, was this: don't piss off people who work in airports.
"Are you sure it's not something like 'The kind of behavior that works in a specialized82 environment, such as prison, can fail to work and in fact become harmful when used outside such an environment'?" said Shadow, when Johnnie Larch told him the story.
"No, listen to me, I'm telling you, man," said Johnnie Larch, "don't piss off those bitches in airports."
Shadow half smiled at the memory. His own driver's license had several months still to go before it expired.
"Bus station! Everybody out!"
The building stank83 of piss and sour beer. Shadow climbed into a taxi and told the driver to take him to the airport. He told him that there was an extra five dollars if he could do it in silence. They made it in twenty minutes and the driver never said a word.
Then Shadow was stumbling through the brightly lit airport terminal. Shadow worried about the whole e-ticket business. He knew he had a ticket for a flight on Friday, but he didn't know if it would work today. Anything electronic seemed fundamentally magical to Shadow, and liable to evaporate at any moment.
Still, he had his wallet, back in his possession for the first time in three years, containing several expired credit cards and one Visa card, which, he was pleasantly surprised to discover, didn't expire until the end of January. He had a reservation number. And, he realized, he had the certainty that once he got home everything would, somehow, be okay. Laura would be fine again. Maybe it was some kind of scam to spring him a few days early. Or perhaps it was a simple mix-up: some other Laura Moon's body had been dragged from the highway wreckage84.
Lightning flickered85 outside the airport, through the windows-walls. Shadow realized he was holding his breath, waiting for something. A distant boom of thunder. He exhaled86.
A tired white woman stared at him from behind the counter.
"Hello," said Shadow. You're the first strange woman I've spoken to, in the flesh, in three years. "I've got an e-ticket number. I was supposed to be traveling on Friday but I have to go today. There was a death in my family."
"Mm. I'm sorry to hear that." She tapped at the keyboard, stared at the screen, tapped again. "No problem. I've put you on the three-thirty. It may be delayed because of the storm, so keep an eye on the screens. Checking any baggage?"
He held up a shoulder bag. "I don't need to check this, do I?"
"No," she said. "It's fine. Do you have any picture ID?"
Shadow showed her his driver's license.
It was not a big airport, but the number of people wandering, just wandering, amazed him. He watched people put down bags casually87, observed wallets stuffed into back pockets, saw purses put down, unwatched, under chairs. That was when he realized he was no longer in prison.
Thirty minutes to wait until boarding. Shadow bought a slice of pizza and burned his lip on the hot cheese. He took his change and went to the phones. Called Robbie at the Muscle Farm, but the machine picked up.
"Hey Robbie," said Shadow. "They tell me that Laura's dead. They let me out early. I'm coming home."
Then, because people do make mistakes, he'd seen it happen, he called home, and listened to Laura's voice.
"Hi," she said. "I'm not here or I can't come to the phone. Leave a message and I'll get back to you. And have a good day."
Shadow couldn't bring himself to leave a message.
He sat in a plastic chair by the gate, and held his bag so tight he hurt his hand.
He was thinking about the first time he had ever seen Laura. He hadn't even known her name then. She was Audrey Burton's friend. He had been sitting with Robbie in a booth at Chi-Chi's when Laura had walked in a pace or so behind Audrey, and Shadow had found himself staring. She had long, chestnut88 hair and eyes so blue Shadow mistakenly thought she was wearing tinted89 contact lenses. She had ordered a strawberry daiquiri, and insisted that Shadow taste it, and laughed delightedly when he did.
Laura loved people to taste what she tasted.
He had kissed her good night that night, and she had tasted like strawberry daiquiris, and he had never wanted to kiss anyone else again.
A woman announced that his plane was boarding, and Shadow's row was the first to be called. He was in the very back, an empty seat beside him. The rain pattered continually against the side of the plane: he imagined small children tossing down dried peas by the handful from the skies.
As the plane took off he fell asleep.
Shadow was in a dark place, and the thing staring at him wore a buffalo90's head, rank and furry91 with huge wet eyes. Its body was a man's body, oiled and slick.
"Changes are coming," said the buffalo without moving its lips. "There are certain decisions that will have to be made."
Firelight flickered from wet cave walls.
"Where am I?" Shadow asked.
"In the earth and under the earth," said the buffalo man. "You are where the forgotten wait." His eyes were liquid black marbles, and his voice was a rumble92 from beneath the world. He smelled like wet cow. "Believe," said the rumbling93 voice. "If you are to survive, you must believe."
"Believe what?" asked Shadow. "What should I believe?"
He stared at Shadow, the buffalo man, and he drew himself up huge, and his eyes filled with fire. He opened his spit-flecked buffalo mouth and it was red inside with the flames that burned inside him, under the earth.
"Everything," roared the buffalo man.
The world tipped and spun94, and Shadow was on the plane once more; but the tipping continued. In the front of the plane a woman screamed halfheartedly.
Lightning burst in blinding flashes around the plane. The captain came on the intercom to tell them that he was going to try and gain some altitude, to get away from the storm.
The plane shook and shuddered, and Shadow wondered, coldly and idly, if he was going to die. It seemed possible, he decided, but unlikely. He stared out of the window and watched the lightning illuminate95 the horizon.
Then he dozed96 once more, and dreamed he was back in prison and that Low Key had whispered to him in the food line that someone had put out a contract on his life, but that Shadow could not find out who or why; and when he woke up they were coming in for a landing.
He stumbled off the plane, blinking into wakefulness.
All airports, he thought, look very much the same. It doesn't actually matter where you are, you are in an airport: tiles and walkways and restrooms, gates and newsstands and fluorescent97 lights. This airport looked like an airport. The trouble is, this wasn't the airport he was going to. This was a big airport, with way too many people, and way too many gates.
"Excuse me, ma'am?"
The woman looked at him over the clipboard. "Yes?"
"What airport is this?"
She looked at him, puzzled, trying to decide whether or not he was joking, then she said, "St. Louis."
"I thought this was the plane to Eagle Point."
"It was. They redirected it here because of the storms. Didn't they make an announcement?"
"Probably. I fell asleep."
"You'll need to talk to that man over there, in the red coat."
The man was almost as tall as Shadow: he looked like the father from a seventies sitcom98, and he tapped something into a computer and told Shadow to run-run!-to a gate on the far side of the terminal.
Shadow ran through the airport, but the doors were already closed when he got to the gate. He watched the plane pull away from the gate, through the plate glass.
The woman at the passenger assistance desk (short and brown, with a mole99 on the side of her nose) consulted with another woman and made a phone call ("Nope, that one's out. They've just cancelled it."), then she printed out another boarding card. "This will get you there," she told him. "We'll call ahead to the gate and tell them you're coming."
Shadow felt like a pea being flicked100 between three cups, or a card being shuffled101 through a deck. Again he ran through the airport, ending up near where he had gotten off originally.
A small man at the gate took his boarding pass. "We've been waiting for you," he confided102, tearing off the stub of the boarding pass, with Shadow's seat assignment-17D-on it. Shadow hurried onto the plane, and they closed the door behind him.
He walked through first class-there were only four first-class seats, three of which were occupied. The bearded man in a pale suit seated next to the unoccupied seat at the very front grinned at Shadow as he got onto the plane, then raised his wrist and tapped his watch as Shadow walked past.
Yeah, yeah, I'm making you late, thought Shadow. Let that be the worst of your worries.
The plane seemed pretty full, as he made his way down toward the back. Actually, Shadow found, it was completely full, and there was a middle-aged103 woman sitting in seat 17D. Shadow showed her his boarding card stub, and she showed him hers: they matched.
"Can you take your seat, please?" asked the flight attendant.
"No," he said, "I'm afraid I can't."
She clicked her tongue and checked their boarding cards, then she led him back up to the front of the plane and pointed him to the empty seat in first class. "Looks like it's your lucky day," she told him. "Can I bring you something to drink? We'll just have time before we take off. And I'm sure you need one after that."
"I'd like a beer, please," said Shadow. "Whatever you've got."
The flight attendant went away.
The man in the pale suit in the seat beside Shadow tapped his watch with his fingernail. It was a black Rolex. "You're late," said the man, and he grinned a huge grin with no warmth in it at all.
"Sorry?"
"I said, you're late."
The flight attendant handed Shadow a glass of beer.
For one moment, he wondered if the man was crazy, and then he decided he must have been referring to the plane, waiting for one last passenger. "Sorry if I held you up," he said, politely. "You in a hurry?"
The plane backed away from the gate. The flight attendant came back and took away Shadow's beer. The man in the pale suit grinned at her and said, "Don't worry, I'll hold onto this tightly," and she let him keep his glass of Jack104 Daniel's, while protesting, weakly, that it violated airline regulations. ("Let me be the judge of that, m'dear.")
"Time is certainly of the essence," said the man. "But no. I was merely concerned that you would not make the plane."
"That was kind of you."
The plane sat restlessly on the ground, engines throbbing105, aching to be off.
"Kind my ass," said the man in the pale suit. "I've got a job for you, Shadow."
A roar of engines. The little plane jerked forward, pushing Shadow back into his seat. Then they were airborne, and the airport lights were falling away below them. Shadow looked at the man in the seat next to him.
His hair was a reddish gray; his beard, little more than stubble, was grayish red. A craggy, square face with pale gray eyes. The suit looked expensive, and was the color of melted vanilla106 ice cream. His tie was dark gray silk, and the tie pin was a tree, worked in silver: trunk, branches, and deep roots.
He held his glass of Jack Daniel's as they took off, and did not spill a drop.
"Aren't you going to ask me what kind of job?" he asked.
"How do you know who I am?"
The man chuckled107. "Oh, it's the easiest thing in the world to know what people call themselves. A little thought, a little luck, a little memory. Ask me what kind of job."
"No," said Shadow. The attendant brought him another glass of beer, and he sipped108 at it.
"Why not?"
"I'm going home. I've got a job waiting for me there. I don't want any other job."
The man's craggy smile did not change, outwardly, but now he seemed, actually, amused. "You don't have a job waiting for you at home," he said. "You have nothing waiting for you there. Meanwhile, I am offering you a perfectly legal job-good money, limited security, remarkable109 fringe benefits. Hell, if you live that long, I could throw in a pension plan. You think maybe you'd like one of them?"
Shadow said, "You must have seen my name on the side of my bag."
The man said nothing.
"Whoever you are," said Shadow, "you couldn't have known I was going to be on this plane. I didn't know I was going to be on this plane, and if my plane hadn't been diverted to St. Louis, I wouldn't have been. My guess is you're a practical joker. Maybe you're hustling110 something. But I think maybe we'll have a better time if we end this conversation here."
The man shrugged.
Shadow picked up the in-flight magazine. The little plane jerked and bumped through the sky, making it harder to concentrate. The words floated through his mind like soap bubbles, there as he read them, gone completely a moment later.
The man sat quietly in the seat beside him, sipping111 his Jack Daniel's. His eyes were closed.
Shadow read the list of in-flight music channels available on transatlantic flights, and then he was looking at the map of the world with red lines on it that showed where the airline flew. Then he had finished reading the magazine, and, reluctantly, he closed the cover and slipped it into the pocket.
The man opened his eyes. There was something strange about his eyes, Shadow thought. One of them was a darker gray than the other. He looked at Shadow. "By the way," he said, "I was sorry to hear about your wife, Shadow. A great loss."
Shadow nearly hit the man, then. Instead he took a deep breath. ("Like I said, don't piss off those bitches in airports," said Johnnie Larch, in the back of his mind, "or they'll haul your sorry ass back here before you can spit.") He counted to five.
"So was I," he said.
The man shook his head. "If it could but have been any other way," he said, and sighed.
"She died in a car crash," said Shadow. "There are worse ways to die."
The man shook his head, slowly. For a moment it seemed to Shadow as if the man was insubstantial; as if the plane had suddenly become more real, while his neighbor had become less so.
"Shadow," he said. "It's not a joke. It's not a trick. I can pay you better than any other job you find will pay you. You're an ex-con. There won't be a long line of people elbowing each other out of the way to hire you."
"Mister whoever-the-fuck you are," said Shadow, just loud enough to be heard over the din29 of the engines, "there isn't enough money in the world."
The grin got bigger. Shadow found himself remembering a PBS show about chimpanzees. The show claimed that when apes and chimps113 smile it's only to bare their teeth in a grimace114 of hate or aggression115 or terror. When a chimp112 grins, it's a threat.
"Work for me. There may be a little risk, of course, but if you survive you can have whatever your heart desires. You could be the next king of America. Now," said the man, "who else is going to pay you that well? Hmm?"
"Who are you?" asked Shadow.
"Ah, yes. The age of information-young lady, could you pour me another glass of Jack Daniel's? Easy on the ice-not, of course, that there has ever been any other kind of age. Information and knowledge: two currencies that have never gone out of style."
"I said, who are you?"
"Let's see. Well, seeing that today certainly is my day-why don't you call me Wednesday? Mister Wednesday. Although given the weather, it might as well be Thursday, eh?"
"What's your real name?"
"Work for me long enough and well enough," said the man in the pale suit, "and I may even tell you that. There. Job offer. Think about it. No one expects you to say yes immediately, not knowing whether you're leaping into a piranha tank or a pit of bears. Take your time." He closed his eyes and leaned back in his seat.
"I don't think so," said Shadow. "I don't like you. I don't want to work with you."
"Like I say," said the man, without opening his eyes, "don't rush into it. Take your time."
The plane landed with a bump, and a few passengers got off. Shadow looked out of the window: it was a little airport in the middle of nowhere, and there were still two little airports to go before Eagle Point. Shadow transferred his glance to the man in the pale suit-Mr. Wednesday? He seemed to be asleep.
Impulsively116, Shadow stood up, grabbed his bag, and stepped off the plane, down the steps onto the slick, wet tarmac, walking at an even pace toward the lights of the terminal. A light rain spattered his face.
Before he went inside the airport building, he stopped, and turned, and watched. No one else got off the plane. The ground crew rolled the steps away, the door was closed, and it took off. Shadow walked inside and he rented what turned out, when he got to the parking lot, to be a small red Toyota.
Shadow unfolded the map they'd given him. He spread it out on the passenger's seat. Eagle Point was about 250 miles away.
The storms had passed, if they had come this far. It was cold and clear. Clouds scudded117 in front of the moon, and for a moment Shadow could not be certain whether it was the clouds or the moon that were moving.
He drove north for an hour and a half.
It was getting late. He was hungry, and when he realized how hungry he really was, he pulled off at the next exit and drove into the town of Nottamun (pop. 1301). He filled the gas tank at the Amoco and asked the bored woman at the cash register where he could get something to eat.
"Jack's Crocodile Bar," she told him. "It's west on County Road N."
"Crocodile Bar?"
"Yeah. Jack says they add character." She drew him a map on the back of a mauve flyer, which advertised a chicken roast for the benefit of a young girl who needed a new kidney. "He's got a couple of crocodiles, a snake, one a them big lizard118 things."
"That's him."
Through the town, over a bridge, on for a couple of miles, and he stopped at a low, rectangular building with an illuminated120 Pabst sign.
The parking lot was half empty.
Inside the air was thick with smoke and "Walking After Midnight" was playing on the jukebox. Shadow looked around for the crocodiles, but could not see them. He wondered if the woman in the gas station had been pulling his leg.
"What'll it be?" asked the bartender.
"House beer, and a hamburger with all the trimmings. Fries."
"Bowl of chili121 to start? Best chili in the state."
"Sounds good," said Shadow. "Where's the rest room?"
The man pointed to a door in the corner of the bar. There was a stuffed alligator122 head mounted on the door. Shadow went through the door.
It was a clean, well-lit rest room. Shadow looked around the room first; force of habit. ("Remember, Shadow, you can't fight back when you're pissing," Low Key said, low key as always, in the back of his head.) He took the urinal stall on the left. Then he unzipped his fly and pissed for an age, feeling relief. He read the yellowing press clipping framed at eye level, with a photo of Jack and two alligators123.
There was a polite grunt from the urinal immediately to his right, although he had heard nobody come in.
The man in the pale suit was bigger standing than he had seemed sitting on the plane beside Shadow. He was almost Shadow's height, and Shadow was a big man. He was staring ahead of him. He finished pissing, shook off the last few drops, and zipped himself up.
Then he grinned, like a fox eating shit from a barbed wire fence. "So," said Mr. Wednesday, "you've had time to think, Shadow. Do you want a job?"
***
SOMEWHERE IN AMERICA
Los Angeles. 11:26 p.m.
In a dark red room-the color of the walls is close to that of raw liver-is a tall woman dressed cartoonishly in too-tight silk shorts, her breasts pulled up and pushed forward by the yellow blouse tied beneath them. Her black hair is piled high and knotted on top of her head. Standing beside her is a short man wearing an olive T-shirt and expensive blue jeans. He is holding, in his right hand, a wallet and a Nokia mobile phone with a red-white-and-blue faceplate.
The red room contains a bed, upon which are white satin-style sheets and an oxblood bedspread. At the foot of the bed is a small wooden table, upon which is a small stone statue of a woman with enormous hips124, and a candleholder. The woman hands the man a small red candle. "Here," she says. "Light it."
"Me?"
"Yes," she says. "If you want to have me."
"I shoulda just got you to suck me off in the car."
"Perhaps," she says. "Don't you want me?" Her hand runs up her body from thigh125 to breast, a gesture of presentation, as if she were demonstrating a new product.
Red silk scarves over the lamp in the corner of the room make the light red.
The man looks at her hungrily, then he takes the candle from her and pushes it into the candleholder. "You got a light?"
She passes him a book of matches. He tears off a match, lights the wick: it flickers126 and then burns with a steady flame, which gives the illusion of motion to the faceless statue beside it, all hips and breasts.
"Put the money beneath the statue."
"Yes," she says. "Now, come love me."
He unbuttons his blue jeans and removes his olive T-shirt. She massages128 his white shoulders with her brown fingers; then she turns him over and begins to make love to him with her hands, and her fingers, and her tongue.
It seems to him that the lights in the red room have been dimmed, and the sole illumination comes from the candle, which burns with a bright flame.
"What's your name?" he asks her.
"Bilquis," she tells him, raising her head. "With a Q."
"A what?"
"Never mind."
He is gasping129 now. "Let me fuck you," he says. "I have to fuck you."
"Okay, hon," she says. "We'll do it. But will you do something for me, while you're doing it?"
"Hey," he says, suddenly tetchy, "I'm paying you, you know."
She straddles him, in one smooth movement, whispering, "I know, honey, I know, you're paying me, and I mean, look at you, I should be paying you, I'm so lucky..."
He purses his lips, trying to show that her hooker talk is having no effect on him, he can't be taken; that she's a street whore, for Chrissakes, while he's practically a producer, and he knows all about last-minute ripoffs, but she doesn't ask for money. Instead she says, "Honey, while you're giving it to me, while you're pushing that big hard thing inside of me, will you worship me?"
"Will I what?"
She is rocking back and forth on him: the engorged head of his penis is being rubbed against the wet lips of her vulva.
"Will you call me goddess? Will you pray to me? Will you worship me with your body?"
He smiles. Is that all she wants? We've all got our kinks, at the end of the day. "Sure," he says. She reaches her hand between her legs and slips him inside her.
"Is that good, is it, goddess?" he asks, gasping.
"Worship me, honey," says Bilquis, the hooker.
"Yes," he says. "I worship your breasts and your hair and your cunt. I worship your thighs130 and your eyes and your cherry-red lips..."
"Yes..." she croons, riding him.
"I worship your nipples, from which the milk of life flows. Your kiss is honey and your touch scorches131 like fire, and I worship it." His words are becoming more rhythmic132 now, keeping pace with the thrust and roll of their bodies. "Bring me your lust133 in the morning, and bring me relief and your blessing134 in the evening. Let me walk in dark places unharmed and let me come to you once more and sleep beside you and make love with you again. I worship you with everything that is within me, and everything inside my mind, with everywhere I've been and my dreams and my..." he breaks off, panting for breath. "What are you doing? That feels amazing. So amazing..." and he looks down at his hips, at the place where the two of them conjoin, but her forefinger touches his chin and pushes his head back, so he is looking only at her face and at the ceiling once again.
"Keep talking, honey," she says. "Don't stop. Doesn't it feel good?"
"It feels better than anything has ever felt," he tells her, meaning it as he says it. "Your eyes are stars, burning in the, shit, the firmament135, and your lips are gentle waves that lick the sand, and I worship them," and now he's thrusting deeper and deeper inside her: he feels electric, as if his whole lower body has become sexually charged: priapic, engorged, blissful.
"Bring me your gift," he mutters, no longer knowing what he is saying, "your one true gift, and make me always this...always so...I pray...I..."
And then the pleasure crests136 into orgasm, blasting his mind into void, his head and self and entire being a perfect blank as he thrusts deeper into her and deeper still....
Eyes closed, spasming, he luxuriates in the moment; and then he feels a lurch, and it seems to him that he is hanging, head down, although the pleasure continues.
He opens his eyes.
He thinks, grasping for thought and reason again, of birth, and wonders, without fear, in a moment of perfect postcoital clarity, whether what he sees is some kind of illusion.
This is what he sees:
He is inside her to the chest, and as he stares at this in disbelief and wonder she rests both hands upon his shoulders and puts gentle pressure on his body.
He slipslides further inside her.
"How are you doing this to me?" he asks, or he thinks he asks, but perhaps it is only in his head.
"You're doing it, honey," she whispers. He feels the lips of her vulva tight around his upper chest and back, constricting137 and enveloping138 him. He wonders what this would look like to somebody watching them. He wonders why he is not scared. And then he knows.
"I worship you with my body," he whispers, as she pushes him inside her. Her labia pull slickly across his face, and his eyes slip into darkness.
She stretches on the bed, like a huge cat, and then she yawns. "Yes," she says. "You do."
The Nokia phone plays a high, electrical transposition of the "Ode to Joy." She picks it up, and thumbs a key, and puts the telephone to her ear.
Her belly139 is flat, her labia small and closed. A sheen of sweat glistens140 on her forehead and on her upper lip.
"Yeah?" she says. And then she says, "No, honey, he's not here. He's gone away."
She turns the telephone off before she flops141 out on the bed in the dark red room, then she stretches once more and she closes her eyes, and she sleeps.
收听单词发音 |
1
aurora
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| n.极光 | |
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judgment
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| n.审判；判断力，识别力，看法，意见 | |
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killing
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| n.巨额利润；突然赚大钱，发大财 | |
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plunged
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| v.颠簸( plunge的过去式和过去分词 )；暴跌；骤降；突降 | |
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plunge
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| v.跳入，(使)投入，(使)陷入；猛冲 | |
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decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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aggrieved
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| adj.愤愤不平的，受委屈的；悲痛的；（在合法权利方面）受侵害的v.令委屈，令苦恼，侵害( aggrieve的过去式)；令委屈，令苦恼，侵害( aggrieve的过去式和过去分词) | |
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misery
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| n.痛苦，苦恼，苦难；悲惨的境遇，贫苦 | |
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incarceration
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| n.监禁，禁闭；钳闭 | |
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noose
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| n.绳套，绞索（刑）；v.用套索捉；使落入圈套；处以绞刑 | |
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flipped
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| 轻弹( flip的过去式和过去分词 )； 按（开关）； 快速翻转； 急挥 | |
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gallows
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| n.绞刑架，绞台 | |
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skull
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| n.头骨；颅骨 | |
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shrugged
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| vt.耸肩（shrug的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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reprieve
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| n.暂缓执行（死刑）；v.缓期执行；给…带来缓解 | |
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ass
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| n.驴；傻瓜，蠢笨的人 | |
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slippers
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| n. 拖鞋 | |
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squeal
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| v.发出长而尖的声音；n.长而尖的声音 | |
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license
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| n.执照，许可证，特许；v.许可，特许 | |
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battered
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| adj.磨损的；v.连续猛击；磨损 | |
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paperback
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| n.平装本，简装本 | |
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gust
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| n.阵风，突然一阵（雨、烟等），（感情的）迸发 | |
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contraband
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| n.违禁品，走私品 | |
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superstitious
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| adj.迷信的 | |
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hovering
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| 鸟( hover的现在分词 )； 靠近（某事物）； （人）徘徊； 犹豫 | |
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inmate
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| n.被收容者；(房屋等的)居住人；住院人 | |
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inmates
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| n.囚犯( inmate的名词复数 ) | |
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chilly
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| adj.凉快的，寒冷的 | |
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din
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| n.喧闹声，嘈杂声 | |
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forefinger
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| n.食指 | |
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stapled
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| v.用钉书钉钉住( staple的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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folder
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| n.纸夹，文件夹 | |
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remorseful
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| adj.悔恨的 | |
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buddy
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| n.（美口）密友，伙伴 | |
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eyebrow
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| n.眉毛，眉 | |
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offense
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| n.犯规，违法行为；冒犯，得罪 | |
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creased
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| （使…）起折痕，弄皱( crease的过去式和过去分词 )； （皮肤）皱起，使起皱纹； 皱皱巴巴 | |
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confirmation
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| n.证实，确认，批准 | |
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scribbled
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| v.潦草的书写( scribble的过去式和过去分词 )；乱画；草草地写；匆匆记下 | |
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forefingers
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| n.食指( forefinger的名词复数 ) | |
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watery
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| adj.有水的，水汪汪的；湿的，湿润的 | |
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jitters
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| n.pl.紧张(通常前面要有the) | |
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entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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gusted
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| n. 突然一阵 n. 风味 vi. 猛吹 | |
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whacked
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| a.精疲力尽的 | |
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weird
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| adj.古怪的，离奇的；怪诞的，神秘而可怕的 | |
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pointed
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| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
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sniff
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| vi.嗅…味道；抽鼻涕；对嗤之以鼻，蔑视 | |
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giggled
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| v.咯咯地笑( giggle的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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shrieked
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| v.尖叫( shriek的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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skidding
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| n.曳出，集材v.（通常指车辆） 侧滑( skid的现在分词 )；打滑；滑行；（住在）贫民区 | |
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wink
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| n.眨眼，使眼色，瞬间；v.眨眼，使眼色，闪烁 | |
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53
grunt
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| v.嘟哝；作呼噜声；n.呼噜声，嘟哝 | |
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bunk
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| n.(车、船等倚壁而设的)铺位；废话 | |
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55
whined
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| v.哀号( whine的过去式和过去分词 )；哀诉，诉怨 | |
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sobbed
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| 哭泣，啜泣( sob的过去式和过去分词 )； 哭诉，呜咽地说 | |
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57
solitary
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| adj.孤独的，独立的，荒凉的；n.隐士 | |
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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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warden
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| n.监察员，监狱长，看守人，监护人 | |
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bristle
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| v.（毛发）直立，气势汹汹，发怒；n.硬毛发 | |
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61
perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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62
aggravated
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| 使恶化( aggravate的过去式和过去分词 )； 使更严重； 激怒； 使恼火 | |
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63
lurch
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| n.突然向前或旁边倒；v.蹒跚而行 | |
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64
automobile
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| n.汽车，机动车 | |
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65
numbly
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| adv.失去知觉，麻木 | |
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66
momentary
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| adj.片刻的，瞬息的；短暂的 | |
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67
pang
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| n.剧痛，悲痛，苦闷 | |
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68
smuggled
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| 水货 | |
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69
civilian
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| adj.平民的，民用的，民众的 | |
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70
imprisoned
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| 下狱，监禁( imprison的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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71
tangle
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| n.纠缠；缠结；混乱；v.(使)缠绕；变乱 | |
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72
plaza
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| n.广场，市场 | |
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73
squinting
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| 斜视( squint的现在分词 )； 眯着眼睛； 瞟； 从小孔或缝隙里看 | |
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74
shuddered
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| v.战栗( shudder的过去式和过去分词 )；发抖；（机器、车辆等）突然震动；颤动 | |
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75
forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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76
smearing
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| 污点，拖尾效应 | |
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77
condensation
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| n.压缩，浓缩；凝结的水珠 | |
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78
pussy
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| n.(儿语)小猫，猫咪 | |
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79
larch
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| n.落叶松 | |
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80
valid
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| adj.有确实根据的；有效的；正当的，合法的 | |
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81
altercation
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| n.争吵，争论 | |
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82
specialized
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| adj.专门的，专业化的 | |
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83
stank
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| n. (英)坝，堰，池塘 动词stink的过去式 | |
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84
wreckage
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| n.（失事飞机等的）残骸，破坏，毁坏 | |
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85
flickered
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| （通常指灯光）闪烁，摇曳( flicker的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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86
exhaled
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| v.呼出，发散出( exhale的过去式和过去分词 )；吐出（肺中的空气、烟等），呼气 | |
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87
casually
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| adv.漠不关心地，无动于衷地，不负责任地 | |
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88
chestnut
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| n.栗树，栗子 | |
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89
tinted
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| adj. 带色彩的 动词tint的过去式和过去分词 | |
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90
buffalo
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| n.(北美)野牛；(亚洲)水牛 | |
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91
furry
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| adj.毛皮的；似毛皮的；毛皮制的 | |
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92
rumble
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| n.隆隆声；吵嚷；v.隆隆响；低沉地说 | |
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93
rumbling
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| n. 隆隆声, 辘辘声 adj. 隆隆响的 动词rumble的现在分词 | |
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94
spun
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| v.纺，杜撰，急转身 | |
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95
illuminate
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| vt.照亮，照明；用灯光装饰；说明，阐释 | |
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96
dozed
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| v.打盹儿，打瞌睡( doze的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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97
fluorescent
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| adj.荧光的，发出荧光的 | |
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98
sitcom
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| n.情景喜剧，（广播、电视的）系列幽默剧 | |
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99
mole
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| n.胎块；痣；克分子 | |
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100
flicked
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| （尤指用手指或手快速地）轻击( flick的过去式和过去分词 )； （用…）轻挥； （快速地）按开关； 向…笑了一下（或瞥了一眼等） | |
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101
shuffled
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| v.洗（纸牌）( shuffle的过去式和过去分词 )；拖着脚步走；粗心地做；摆脱尘世的烦恼 | |
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102
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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103
middle-aged
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| adj.中年的 | |
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104
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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105
throbbing
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| a. 跳动的,悸动的 | |
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106
vanilla
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| n.香子兰，香草 | |
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107
chuckled
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| 轻声地笑( chuckle的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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108
sipped
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| v.小口喝，呷，抿( sip的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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109
remarkable
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| adj.显著的，异常的，非凡的，值得注意的 | |
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110
hustling
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| 催促（hustle的现在分词形式） | |
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111
sipping
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| v.小口喝，呷，抿( sip的现在分词 ) | |
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112
chimp
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| n.黑猩猩 | |
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113
chimps
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| （非洲）黑猩猩( chimp的名词复数 ) | |
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114
grimace
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| v.做鬼脸，面部歪扭 | |
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115
aggression
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| n.进攻，侵略，侵犯，侵害 | |
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116
impulsively
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| adv.冲动地 | |
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117
scudded
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| v.（尤指船、舰或云彩）笔直、高速而平稳地移动( scud的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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118
lizard
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| n.蜥蜴，壁虎 | |
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119
iguana
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| n.美洲大蜥蜴，鬣鳞蜥 | |
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120
illuminated
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| adj.被照明的；受启迪的 | |
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121
chili
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| n.辣椒 | |
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122
alligator
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| n.短吻鳄(一种鳄鱼) | |
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123
alligators
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| n.短吻鳄( alligator的名词复数 ) | |
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124
hips
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| abbr.high impact polystyrene 高冲击强度聚苯乙烯，耐冲性聚苯乙烯n.臀部( hip的名词复数 )；[建筑学]屋脊；臀围（尺寸）；臀部…的 | |
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125
thigh
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| n.大腿；股骨 | |
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126
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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127
bucks
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| n.雄鹿( buck的名词复数 )；钱；（英国十九世纪初的）花花公子；（用于某些表达方式）责任v.（马等）猛然弓背跃起( buck的第三人称单数 )；抵制；猛然震荡；马等尥起后蹄跳跃 | |
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128
massages
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| 按摩，推拿( massage的名词复数 ) | |
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129
gasping
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| adj. 气喘的, 痉挛的 动词gasp的现在分词 | |
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130
thighs
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| n.股，大腿( thigh的名词复数 )；食用的鸡（等的）腿 | |
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131
scorches
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| 烧焦，烤焦( scorch的第三人称单数 )； 使（植物）枯萎，把…晒枯； 高速行驶 | |
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132
rhythmic
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| adj.有节奏的，有韵律的 | |
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133
lust
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| n.性(淫)欲；渴(欲)望；vi.对…有强烈的欲望 | |
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134
blessing
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| n.祈神赐福；祷告；祝福，祝愿 | |
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135
firmament
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| n.苍穹；最高层 | |
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136
crests
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| v.到达山顶（或浪峰）( crest的第三人称单数 )；到达洪峰，达到顶点 | |
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137
constricting
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| 压缩，压紧，使收缩( constrict的现在分词 ) | |
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138
enveloping
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| v.包围，笼罩，包住( envelop的现在分词 ) | |
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139
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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140
glistens
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| v.湿物闪耀，闪亮( glisten的第三人称单数 ) | |
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141
flops
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| n.失败( flop的名词复数 )v.（指书、戏剧等）彻底失败( flop的第三人称单数 )；（因疲惫而）猛然坐下；（笨拙地、不由自主地或松弛地）移动或落下；砸锅 | |
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