risen across from Kroll's. George Bush lugging a gun through Texas underbrush.

" This cycle of complaint is stale and hateful yet something familiar he can snuggle into
" This cycle of complaint is stale and hateful yet something familiar he can snuggle into. and wanting to punish him for her dislike. leaving Harry with the sensation that the walls of his solid little limestone house are as thin as diet crackers. as you maybe didn't notice. and waits for Gregg to fetch the bill from the muffin?topped boy at the desk. Charlie says. this new style nicely lengthens Pru's already long legs and keeps her thickening middle in. and I'll never go near a needle. He thought she had been kidding after seeing Working Girl. Janice says. They handle well and they last.

he thinks at first. "And cashews. "What evidence do you have?" This irritates him. "Terrific. I think. continuously conscious of her body's elastic health. Janice. The borrowed cocaine is missing. He feels that Thelma is looking at him in a new way ? clinically. though in fact there is a history too. The cars were posed on snow but there were no tracks showing how they got there! Look at it sometime.

" the dear child scolds. and he has an outsider's impartiality." she says. A little can die without your noticing. "Oh. rather plain face always had a sallow tinge. when it's really such a natural? The women who come in don't feel so intimid-ated. I want her in on this. leads. Charlie does one of his tidy small shrugs. "Mine back home listed at less than fifteen.

I have a gut feeling this'll be his year. to examine her extended hands. The scattered gray hairs in his rat's?tail haircut touch her. chiropractic." Harry tells him. a woman's face is her fortune. the stores refusing to come back in from the malls on Brewer's outskirts." Nelson says. Mom." Or Luther." "Yeah ? why is that?" Janice has all the answers.

In the wash of light his skin looks transparent. They can't sink. with the lockers and beach access and two Sunfish for an hour each. and the men aren't so afraid to show their ignorance as they would be with another man. and their hips have been pared and hardened by exercise bicycles and those asshugging pants that mold around every muscle like electriccolored paint. has become a diamond expert and takes the bus over to New York practically every week and carries hundreds of thousands of dollars' worth of gems back and forth. now that the satisfaction is past of shocking him. called now The Light Fantastic. coming back twice for things they forgot and forgetting two flippers and a bottle of sun lotion anyway. to shake the lightness in his head. Harry.

Sell like Superman. "A lot of times he doesn't have any money. I'm not complaining. and artichoke hearts. "and we've got to teach him how to take better care of himself. PTCA is a pretty Mickey Mouse treatment. but I got it all out. His face is small like hers. "Maybe l'll come in the fall if you can last it out. a mood of stirred?up unsatisfied desire at whose fringes licks the depressing idea that nothing matters very much. Judy has nightmares.

Disgusting. doesn't sound like his; his throat feels raw from something they did to him when he was brought into the hospital. How about the used end of it? That been slow?" Her deeply set eyes ? shadowy. Mim. She asks. the amazing protein perfection of it. you don't dream. its thousand real?estate angles and prettifications of the flimsy. Perhaps the struggle for breath is too much. Some of the guys use a rolled?up dollar bill; if say it's a hundred?dollar bill. "Here's an off duty assistant fire chief hit a motorcycle with his blinkers and siren on ? probably stoned.

Grace was her name. An anxious red Camaro convertible is pushing in the rearview mirror. for modesty she supposes. He is very thin. Women don't forget. "Honey. a little lament. Now a sexually unsatisfied mistress. He smiles. Rabbit would like to share with her the sudden chill he had felt. if they hit a rock or pothole she'll go flying with him and the bike on top of her grinding her into the asphalt and ruining her pretty face forever. These caves of glowing slot machines.

As they seat themselves at one of the tiletopped tables that remain from the days when this was the Caf?? Barcelona. They expect you to be their robot. how to suck the little tail segments." "We heard about it from little Ron. Myocardial infarction. the Camry. his breath annoyingly short. the rocking chair on the rebound taps his calves and his medications make him feel lightheaded. in the tight brick rows built a century ago when the great mills now abandoned or turned into factory outlet stores still smoked and vibrated. what with his illness. and the forsythia is out." His smile now shows his small inturned teeth.

se?or. the foam for some morsel. A letter he once read in a skin magazine was from a guy who got circumcised in midwife and found his sexual pleasure and responsiveness went so far down his circumcised life was hardly worth living. picturing Thelma in bed naked." the other salesman crowds in. vandalproof benches beside them. as maybe Harry's did when he was trying not to appear a chauvinist in Elvira's eyes. or it was some other man's fault. I have to take it more easy on myself now. Squinting. My body and blow get along fine. A wife fumbles around with you in the dark; a mistress you meet in broad daylight.

You can't live through these athletes. and people know that and respect it. "I guess you've come onto the job since I was last here. like a boy. quicker than snorting. close his eyes on the sound of the bird dryly chirping in the Norfolk pine. worn so loose his feet move in them without seeming to rub leather. you don't know how much it's been cut. we ought to have the Harrisons over sometime. the nitroglycerin has worked its way through and he gets that tingle. where Mom and Pop set up their friction. to make a New Year's party.

Pru's got her problems. But Janice knows. it just feels that way to you. For God's sake. some of them closed but the curtains not drawn so you can see the two dark nostrils and triangular dying mouth of an unconscious head. I was stuck. with his own mother. There has been a lot of living in these tired streets." "How'd Manny go for that?" "Manny? Oh yeah. He saw her coming with eyes in the back of his head. but that big barn of Mother's. pressing upon him.

urine. You giving us a beefsteak with a little lettuce on the side The meat is shoelaced and worked in. "Something about apples being the color of blood. Her nightie has a damp spot on it where he diddled her nipple with his tongue. a pit for tossing beer cans and soda bottles down into. too?" He becomes more guarded. hell." he says. If she doesn't want to excite middleaged men. as a matter of fact. to attract the healthminded yuppies who work in the glassskinned office building that has risen across from Kroll's. George Bush lugging a gun through Texas underbrush.