A life knows few revelations; these must be followed when they come. Rabbit sees clearly what to do. His acts take on a decisive haste. He goes upstairs and packs. The brown canvas suit bag. The big yellow rigid¹ Tourister with the dent² in one corner where an airline handler slung⁴ it. Jockey shorts, T?shirts, socks, polo shirts in their pastel tints⁶, dress shirts in their plastic envelopes, golf slacks, Bermuda shorts. A few ties though he has never liked ties. All his clothes are summer clothes these days; the wool suits and sweaters wait in mothproof bags for fall days, October into November, that will not come this year, for him. He takes four lightweight sports coats and two suits, one a putty?colored and the other the shiny gray like armor. In case there's a wedding or a funeral. A raincoat, a couple of sweaters. A pair of black laced shoes tucks into two pockets of his folding suit bag and blue?and?white Nikes into the sides of the suitcase. He should start jogging again. His toothbrush and shaving stuff. His pills, buckets of them. What else? Oh yes. He grabs The First Salute⁷ from his bedside table and tucks it in, he'll finish it if it kills him. He leaves a light burning in the upstairs hall to discourage burglars, and the carriage lamp beside the front door numbered 14 1/2. He loads the car in two trips, feeling the weight of the suitcases in his chest. He looks around the bare hall. He goes into the den³, his feet silent on the Antron wall?to?wall carpeting, and looks out the lozenge panes⁸ at the glowing night?time silhouette⁹ of the weeping cherry. He plumps the pillow and straightens the arm guards on the wing chair he fell asleep in, not long ago but on the far side of a gulf¹⁰: The he who fell asleep was somebody else, a pathetic somebody. At the front door again, he feels a night breeze on his face, hears the

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