shelter. Judy offers to explain: "He's scared to be alone in this room all by himself. Gregg turns to Pru and asks. I hate the way he's going bald. his offhand style.

" "That's not quite enough
" "That's not quite enough. an IBM. "Wow." "And you don't do it. Harry pulls at the nylon painter attached to the bow and the hull is heavier than he thought; by the time he's dragged it forty feet through the sand his breathing feels shallow and that annoy-ing binding pain has begun to flicker on the left side of his ribs. all these details inside him." "Thanks but no thanks. you said it. or do people talk a little differently. Chief Sales Representative for over ten years. a touch gangsterish.

he doesn't want to become an addict. Women don't forget. She stays a time within his embrace. and Saturday Night Live once that I can remember. The shelves." he says. that figures here and there in the decor when the interior decorator remembered it. in about eighty per cent of the cases." "Jesus." He and Judy play another hand of Rummy while Pru gently clatters in the kitchen and then coos to Roy. That was a simpler world.

only a brunette." Elvira adds. And then to send Melanie back home to Brewer with me to keep putting out ass so I wouldn't run away somehow. when in their excitement at being here they bought a telescope for the balcony and three or four times a week would drive the two miles to the Deleon public beach for a walk and picnic supper if not a swim. so he stops working at a jagged bit of corn?syrup sweetness stuck behind an eye tooth. "let's just go to dinner. He reverts: "I don't know what the real story is. It's charming. and we're saved. and wow. and there won't be any sunset to see from the lozenge?pane windows of his den.

in Nelson. in a voice that sounds like her mother's. And you don't know now what the real story is." He expects sympathy. The movie palaces of his boyhood." "Well." With merciful disdain she directs them across the lobby. and to place his shameful burden on her." "I would have got him out. It blossoms but doesn't bear any fruit. like being dead.

Perhaps the struggle for breath is too much. Harry looks in vain into this fearful brown?eyed face for a trace of his blue?eyed own. along with serving you whenever it suited. the lid seeming to quiver." She is busy re?establishing them in the Penn Park house. somebody's been poisoning your mind against Nelson. They don't know what they're doing fourfifths of the time." In recent years he and Janice have seen less and less of the Harrisons. You're absolutely alive and when you're not you'll be absolutely something else. of a manatee being implanted with an electronic tracking device by a male pony?tailed manatee?conservation freak. called now The Light Fantastic.

The movie palaces of his boyhood. His voice is a bit squeaky. Rabbit tries to hide his revulsion. one of them lost twenty dollars with me. As he tries with his tongue to clean the sticky brittle stuff. The salt attracts water. I think Nelson takes cocaine. WINN DIXIE. His face yellowed like a dried apricot at the end. Harry can hear his intakes of breath. compared to what we hear from other dealers.

a little lament. Their laughter brings Pru out of her bedroom. I crashed because my father suddenly near?died and it's damn depressing. Sounds great. He sits erect. A Hispanic girl in the late?afternoon slant of sun steps out of her narrow slice of a house in high silk heels and a lilac?colored party dress and a diagonal purple sash and at her waist a great cloth rose: she is a flower. though the development is skimpy on trees. He sips his beer."Strange phone calls have been coming through. That gesture of Nelson's. Pru and Roy.

Her parents must have put a lot of protein. just don't give me their diseases. he usually is. I haven't fought it." The voice seemed to be drawing closer to the telephone mouthpiece. to sit in. "Your little girl can swim?" "Oh. flop?flop. Or maybe not. Where were you?" "Nowhere. "The bastard.

Bark mulch abounds. blood?thinner. that Lyle is dying. as if he has become his own heart. Gregg Silvers turns to him and says. he switches off the set. she might well be his. a leggy colt of a girl dying to break out of Brewer. She has a superstitious fear of cracking the glass with heat. I hope. Once you break the cap on a ginger?ale bottle.

closer to Harry's ear. someone is flying a kite ?a linked pair of box kites that dip and dive and climb again in unison. You her age. We all have that to worry us now. you can get AIDS that way. You know the drill. He doesn't like the kind of beer you buy. Silvers. as if negotiations for now have gone as far as they can go. their four eyes shiningly reflecting the electronic jiggle and their two mouths both open to make identical slots of darkness. dark and plain ? pulls her toward her man.

Judge Evangelical Lutheran. the animal way it fluffs out her hair. "I can only show the books to authorized persons. All you have to do is call up this Lyle. on his lap. Pru explains. Roquefort. Nelson seems to him strangely precise and indignant and agitated. so we don't hear the squawking. I told him he was fired and he said you can't fire somebody with AIDS. at least not the spicy pork sausage he was raised on.

Charlie is frowning down into the menu. If you wish to consult a lawyer -" His breathing is becoming difficult; it is almost a mercy for Harry to interrupt. and says to her. the texture; he wants old?fashioned Day?Glo kapok from Thomas Edison's kapok trees. a bit perkily Harry thinks. and Nelson's right eye squints. And the Pennsylvania row houses take a simple square approach to shelter. Judy offers to explain: "He's scared to be alone in this room all by himself. Gregg turns to Pru and asks. I hate the way he's going bald. his offhand style.