SEVENTEEN
My, he was a handsome one, tall and fine-boned, and he moved with a silent grace that reminded her of Red.
She had awakened out of sorts when the telephone rang, feeling slightly dyspeptic, her forehead sweaty, her hair out of place.
Despite the flush about her brow, the house had a chill in it, the uneasiness of shifting weather.
"Hello Bertie, are Jack and Molly there?"
Bertie poured a tumbler of water from the jug in the icebox, and lit herself a Virginia Slim, liking the contrast of the ice water and the dry smoke.
"I don't think so, darling. Would you like me to look? I've been napping."
He was in the doorway.
"Oh my!" she said, frighted.
"What is it Bertie?" Emma asked.
"I'm sorry to alarm you, Miss Alberta, my name is Romulus Hunt."
He bowed like a gentleman and extended his hand to grip hers. She felt herself redden, embarassed that she had called out. She had pressed the phone against her shoulder while she took his hand, and she could hear Emma chattering in the receiver.
"I'm sorry, I..." she gestured to the phone.
Hunt made a sweeping gesture of acquiescence.
"Please..." he said, then "May I?" pointing to the jug of water.
"Jackie's not here?" she asked, and Hunt shook his head.
"Sorry, Emma, they're not here," she said into the receiver, "Is something wrong?"
"God, Bertie, is something wrong there?"
"It's only Willard," Bertie said, "scaring me half to death, creeping around."
Now why would she lie, she asked herself. Hunt did not seem to notice, or, if he did, he was too polite to show it.
"If he calls tell him I'm heading back there," Emma said.
"Is something wrong, dear?"
Emma hesitated a moment. "No," she said, "no, it's only a mix-up about who should be where."
Isn't it all, Bertie thought, isn't it all a mix-up about who should be where?
Just then Willard swung around the doorway and posted himself between the black man and her, his long arms swimming before him exactly like the spider Molly claimed he was.
"This here's the fellow named Wolfman, Bert," Willard blurted, thumbing toward Mr. Hunt over his shoulder.
And who did he think she thought he was, she wondered. Just a passing troubador? A tradesman come in for a drink? Yet she couldn't fault Willard his solicitousness. He was all a frazzle, the worst she had seen him since he arrived. The pollen mask was pushed up over his head and crushed, stray hairs fell frantic over his brow, his eyes were crusted with sleep, and his complexion flushed from the rush to protect her.
She and he both noticed simultaneously that his bedroom slipper was half off, and Willard commenced to speaking again while he hopped about on one foot, frantically trying to stuff the bony, pale-blue foot into the loose slipper. Mr. Hunt observed this circus with some curiosity but without laughter.
Whatever must he think of us, Bert thought.
"He's the one what clubbed Jack," Willard said, hopping still, "But it weren't exactly his fault entirely... That is, if you want to believe him..."
"Are you defending him or interrogating him, Mr. Walker?"
Willard still hopped, the ankle eluding his attempts to stuff the bony foot in.
"Dad-gum boosh-wah, goddamn thumb!" he said.
It was a fine effort at sparing her sensibilities in the way she had insisted upon since his arrival, but you honestly could not help laughing. It was as if the foot itself went mad on him and would not settle, squirming out in front of him while he chased it down with the high-backed slipper.
But it was "thumb" that got her giggling, and, when she saw the slow, sweet smile unwinding on Mr. Hunt's face, and saw the merriment in his eyes, she began to laugh so hard she couldn't catch her breath. A neat little crease of pain in her diaphragm bent her over, and her eyes clouded, and she kept thinking thumb, thumb, each time the wave subsided, thumb. A blue foot all thumbs, by gum. Thum dum da dum, as the dam let loose, and all the foolish tension of the days and weeks past washed over her in a fit of laughing.
The great, strong arms gathered her up before she fell, his hand rubbing down along the backbone between her shoulder blades, smoothing out the crease of pain, putting the laughing fit to rest.
"There, mum," he said, "There, mum, it's okay, there, mum..."
"Dang dum loonybird!" Willard complained.
Thumb, mum, dum, she felt faint, the kitchen lights bright and the ceiling spinning. Mr. Hunt led her to her recliner, still holding her in his strong arms.
The room was dim in the gathering evening, only the flicker and flare of the color from the silent television washing over the walls. Richard Dawson was kissing the women of the Drum family on the Family Feud and Bertie felt a little bubble of laughter rise and break at the coincidental rhyme of the name. But everyone on the screen was laughing too, and so she felt it ease.
Mr. Hunt stood in the shadows of the screen, the flaring light playing against his dark green suit like the aurora borealis. Willard again stationed himself between them --whether linking himself to Hunt or holding him off Bertie could not tell -- the slipper in the hand at his side, the blue foot pale against the dark carpet, the mask now down over his ear.
"Well..." she said and waited as another little bubble of laughter passed, "Well... I must say I am sorry, Willard, and apologize also to you Mr. Hunt."
"Don't trouble yourself, woman," Willard muttered, Mr. Hunt merely smiled.
"We have been under some tension here, haven't we, Willard?"
Willard agreed glumly, working his jaws.
The room smelled of tobacco and normally she would have said something, but she did not want to put Mr. Hunt in any further discomfort. The Drums won the game's first round and Richard Dawson hugged the young Drum woman as her brother or someone went off behind the curtain while she played the money round. Mr. Hunt wore a scent that mixed with the tobacco in a pleasant fashion, it reminded her of small white flowers she couldn't give a name.
"Well..." she said again, "I should be thinking of feeding you gentlemen, and Emma's on her way..."
"Ah, La Chaise..." Mr. Hunt said, pronouncing the syllables in a real French way.
Bertie felt a pang of jealous sadness for a lost past.
"La Chance," she said, meeting his white eyes in the dimness.
"Of course," he said, "It has been some time. I flew up here with Flynn then... for the boat he gave his father. I met her then with her husband. It was my last time here, except of course the ceremonies."
The ceremonies, Bertie thought with an awful sadness. It is why he is here now, why Jack has asked him. She remembered the scent of the flowers now, why she had thought it. Mr. Hunt all in white with a great white bouquet, he gave Joey that walking stick when Nell died.
"Wait," she said, and let the chair down and fled from the room. She found the stick in the umbrella stand in the front hall and brought it back, extending it to him with both hands, an offering.
"Well, hot damn," he said. He placed his two hands under hers on the stick and she let it roll to his palms.
"She don't like that talk none," Willard said quietly.
"Mr. Walker--" she said.
"No," Hunt protested, "I entirely agree. I'm your guest, Miss Alberta, and he is right to point it out." He winked at her then, "Especially after such a magnificent effort to avoid such talk on his part, don't you agree?"
Richard Dawson was holding the Drum girl with their backs to the camera as he pointed up to the talley board with the two sets of words. She had one hundred and sixty points on her responses alone, her brother only had to come up with forty and they would win.
"Yes," Bertie said, "yes."
"But I am afraid I cannot accept this," Hunt said, extending it to her again, "It was a gift to your brother, Miss Alberta, and it should as like remain with you. Consider it a gesture of support to your family in this difficult time..."
"Thank you," she whispered.
"Pshaw shit!" Willard muttered.
They neither looked at him, which was just as well, since his protest had only been half-hearted. Even Willard recognized a noble gesture.
"Ought to give him his dadgum bat if we're tradin' wampum," Willard grumbled, trying to work up a genuine complaint after failing to find real fault with Hunt's gesture.
"Jack had it made up of ironwood, Buck. But he never give it to you when you went and clubbed him."
"Willard!" she said sharply.
"We have an understanding, mum," Hunt said, "I know his kind."
"And I know your'n..."
Bertie chose to ignore this tussle and sat back down, the Drums were hanging on to each other and jumping up and down, turning round like a maypole or a carousel. They had won.
Willard sat himself down, Hunt stayed standing.
"There was more than one gift never given," Bertie said. Something in seeing the Drum family celebrate so made her sad, although she knew that it might only have been the lowering evening. It was a sad time for a woman alone, twilight.
"How's that?" Hunt asked.
"Hmmm?"
She was distracted by the beauty, by the scent of flowers, a cloud slipping in above the tobacco smell and the white-blossom cologne of Mr. Hunt, by the whole room blue-silver with the television light, and Willard stuffing his foot carefully into the old fashioned slipper. Crickets rising, river in the air, Emma heading home without Jack and the child.
"You said something about a gift."
"The boat," she said, then, "Please make yourself comfortable, Mr. Hunt, please..."
He crouched way low on his haunches, steadying himself with a hand against the coffee table, and then slowly stretched out on the floor, first one long leg then the other, extending himself on the carpet and lying on his side. It was the most curious way to recline, as if he favored an injury, and yet he accomplished it with an unmistakable grace, stretching as comfortably as a great black cat, propping his head up with an elbow on the carpet, looking up at her from across the room.
She prayed it wasn't wrong to think of him as a cat, prayed it wasn't something he would mind her thinking.
"Jack never really had a chance to make the gift of the boat to my brother," she said, "Joey really wasn't the sort of man to go slowly into anything he'd begun, and when he faded it was swift. I don't know what the trouble was. Whether the carpenter wasn't ready yet, or Jackie didn't know quite what to do..."
"It was painful, was it, Mum?"
She nodded in the silver light, watching Richard Dawson wave goodbye in silence.
Willard finally had the foot in and he stood to test it, scuffing about.
"Twisted the dadgum thing breaking up a double play a half century ago," he explained to no one in particular, "Acts up in the weather like the bursitey in my thumb. Can't pull the heel back proper..."
He scuffed again, a little two-step.
"Right as rain, boys, right as rain..."
She would sail off to sleep again if she didn't take care. She pulled the Lay-Z-Boy upright again, ejecting herself with a pop.
"Land's sakes," she said, "I ought to fix us supper."
I sound like the Waltons, she thought, talking like that. She twisted her hands together, feeling foolish.
Mr. Hunt started to rise again, unfolding the same way he had stretched down. Willard leaned back into the morris chair with a satisfied huff.
He liked his supper, she thought with a quiet laugh, all my gentlemen callers like their supper. It was a good joke on herself, worthy of Richard Dawson.
Hunt was crouching again, watching her.
"Please..." she said again the the same voice she had used with him before, "please..."
"But I insist," he said gently.
"Me too," Willard added, "Go on and fetch it if you're goin ter..."
and he made that cackling laugh.
"We could have roast," she said, "that is if you... do you eat roast, Mr. Hunt?"
"She means do you fancy anything but poke chops," Willard explained.
"I don't at all," she said but she did she supposed.
Wolfman was back to his full height again.
"Don't stretch me, old man," he said quietly,"Get yo bony butt off that chair, chump, we gonna get this lady some fancy steak!"
"No..." she said, extending her hand.
"I insist," he said, and took her hand in his. "You do eat steak, don't you, Miss Alberta?"
"Why yes..." she said before she saw the joke, and he broke into a broad laugh and squeezed her hand.
Willard scooted up and headed after them into the kitchen as fast as you can.
"Don't do to argue with no buck when he got his mind set woman!"
"Don't do to stretch yo luck, chump," Hunt said, "You got yo kite stretched high, old man, best be careful don't no one clip yo line on you..."
And he smiled at her, so sweet, like Willard was some joke between them. Going to take you flying, mum, sometime when this be over. Take you high above them clouds to where the world stretch far and wide and birds slide beneath you. You ever looked out on the ocean an seen the world tuck itself down on the edge uh the h'rizon? I take you so you see where the curve come down, where you see the actual shape uh the worl...
"Now mind you go to the Grand Union," she said, "It's open all night and they've got those aisles of generic things. Black and yellow labels, as you first come in... get some steak sauce!"
An some wheat thins an cracklins an Willard chaw an hog maw.
Violet candies for my lady Emma.
Haagen Daaz for the girl, raspberry whirl.
Pickled clam fo' Flynn.
Jamaica pepper in a bottle.
Chinese hot oil.
Blue cheese an Pep'rich Farm cookies.
"An... mos'supr-i-i-i-i-i-sin' of all...yaas!"
Hunt paused, nearly whispering, he had them all laughing, even Willard, even Emma, making that raspy Muhammad Ali voice.
"Yasssuh!" he grunted, "Su-prize-in!"
He jumped up from the table and shadowboxed his way into the kitchen, dancing back out with the plate held high above him, a white towel over his arm.
"Shabazz sweet po-tay-toe pah! Ri'cheer in honkie heaven! Grand Union indeed! Can you believe, Mama, can you be-lieve!"
You see, it really had been quite a gay evening despite all. Emma had come along not long after the men left for the store, and though she was plainly distressed at whatever Jackie was up to, she had worked hard not to show it.
"They'll call," she said.
"Yes," Bertie said, "They'll call."
"It's an adventure," Emma said, "She probably put him up to it. Or maybe he was upset when I wasn't there when they got back..."
"Can't go wrong on dry land," Bertie said.
"If they're not here by midnight, Wolfman and I can drive along the highway."
"There you are," Bertie said, and hugged her, "There you are."
They both knew it was something to do with Esther, but they hadn't let themselves say it. An adventure was best, and meanwhile they had work to do, hauling the table out on the screen porch to get them out of the now muggy air, putting candles on, cutting roses in the night for the vase in the center.
The ceremonies, Bertie thought, we are making a funeral breakfast.
What Emma thought wasn't clear. She went into a fog for the most of the evening, smiling faintly whenever she caught Bertie studying her.
Though she had brightened when Hunt and Willard returned, after being gone the better part of two hours. The black man greeted her with a mighty whoop, setting the groceries down on the porch while he spun her round in his arms.
"Lookin' good, Frenchy Mama, look-in good...!"
"Been a long time, Wolfman," Emma said, her head down on his shoulder and a sad smile on her lips.
"You know each other then," Bertie said.
"Spent a whole life talking one night, didn't we Mama?"
Wolfman set her down and touched her cheek, the dark finger lovely against the pale.
"Didn't we Mama?" he said.
It was incredibly sad to Bertie, how he asked it. He knows, she thought. He knows why he is here. Jackie's gathered us all here, but the ceremonies belong to Mr. Hunt.
He looked into Emma's eyes a moment more, then jumped down from the porch as if he suddenly remembered something.
"Y'all wait right here," Wolfman said and trotted back to the car. It was the first Bertie had noticed that Willard hadn't appeared as yet.
He emerged from the car dressed as a spaceman, an astronaut, all in white from hood to booted feet, the paper jumpsuit scratching as he walked across the lawn, leaning on the arm of Mr. Hunt with white gloved fingers against the green arm. Only the dark canvas trunk of the gasmask broke the whiteness of the slowly moving apparition, and Hunt laughed with delight at the sight of their reaction to this walking cumulus. He freed his arm from Willard's grasp, and stood back to present him, his voice filling the night with gentle laughter, and yet somehow not just making fun.
"Here he be, ladies, the ultimate whitey! Free from stain and relieved of pain, unsullied as the lamb, the original white man, breathing sweet and ready to eat, gift wrapped and close yapped..."
Willard waddled on before him toward the porch, his eyes bright behind the transparent plastic visor, looking like nothing less than a blessed fool, a kid with candy.
"Oh Restless..." Emma muttered like a prayer, and went down the stairs to help him. "Whatever has he done to you?"
Willard grunted an answer through the filtered snout, Wolfman interpreting for him.
"Done saved his life, Mama, what he said. Done saved his bony life..."
"Got ridda poison," Willard said, his voice sounding slightly amplified yet distant, like it was coming through a kazoo.
Emma had to laugh.
"You see," Hunt said and squeezed her arm, "Man knows I saved him. Got to running his mouth at me all the way to the store, telling me how I poisoned him out on the porch, how he could feel himself failing."
"Wuz!" Willard grunted, breathy behind the mask.
"Had to buy him a half dozen plastic jugs uh spring water so's he could clear his system. Even then he still be complaining, pushin' that damn ole cart on rattly wheels through the store and chugging on that water. So I remember me a army surplus store I seen on the way in from the airport up to Ogdensburg. We run down the highway but got there when they closed. Had to raise holy hell to rouse the man where he live upstairs, then tole him how as Willard here be allergic to everything. I'll be damned if he don't scout up these here zootsuits, say they use em in aerospace and that be good enough for Willard, right, old man?"
Willard nodded. "Got me a pair," he rasped, as he moved into the house, "Never knew damn things existed. Could a saved me long ago..."
It had been very gay, though Willard chewed tobacco behind his mask, though they each of them watched each hour pass as if noting how many hours it had been without Jackie calling, though Emma sank slowly into a worried and motionless fuss, her eyes staring out as if from underwater.
We are all waiting for Esther to die, Bertie thought, and it made her panic briefly, though she had to laugh when Mr. Hunt carried on, had to admit that the unaccustomed wine made her happier and less sleepy than her usual screwdriver nightcap.
And the candles burned down into slumping piles on the holders, and the junebugs vibrated against the screens of the porch, and the locusts began their long song, while Willard slept behind the mask, his paper suit rustling, and still Jack did not call, and Emma's eyes turned sadder each time Wolfman poured more of the champagne, until there were only her eyes and his in the dying light of the candles, Bertie watching them from far away and as if in a dream, her own eyes aching and occasionally dropping closed, dreaming of flying and of roses, not knowing what was said and what dreamed.
"Tell me, girl," he said to Emma, looking first at Bertie as if he did not see her.
It was as if hours had passed and morning was coming, Bertie thought, a gaining light in the east as the candles faded. She had eaten almonds and plums and thin, minted cookies from the sack of things he had brought along with the steaks from the store. She was slightly upset and very tired and unwilling to sleep, and yet unsure of things on account of the cold champagne. She could not be certain if what she heard at one moment followed upon what she thought she had heard at another.
It did not matter, they were all in a dream, waiting for a phone to ring. Red had gone out walking; she wondered if Mr. Hunt had brought any baseballs with him. She thought of their leather covers, smooth and tightly stitched in red, white as Willard's spacesuit.
"Bertie?" Emma whispered, but she wouldn't answer.
"I think he wants us to decide for him," Emma answered.
The black man started singing a hymn that began uh-hum.
They were sailing, leeward of the looming islands.
"That be about right for Bush..." Wolfman said, "That be about his style, Mama."
She knew he was talking about Jackie, and she thought it was a good name for him. There was something thin about him, something thorny. Bush seemed right and she tried to tell them, her tongue too thick to form the words. They looked toward her, looked away again toward the gaining light.
Why do you say that?
It happen with pitchers, Mama, it happen to them. They be different than other men, used to sitting three days with no worry on they mine, happy as ole boney ass over here in he paper cacoon. Forf day they rule the worl', like some upsidedown god, don't you know, work one day and three they rested. It go to you head, girl, it go to you head. Don't be used to knowing what it is when you spen the wrong side uh yore life throwin no ball, don't be used to knowin...
What it is, Mama, what it is.
A chump's choice, you dig, ain't no choice at all.
Whether that sister be rigged to some machine, or whether she be free of it and hardly breathing, you dig? Ain't no percentage to that bet. You tell me how you gonna vote Mama do it come to that?
Tell me.
Bertie watched slow birds settle, coming across the sky in a slow glide, their feet reaching for water, skidding to a glide on folding wings afloat rippling water.
"Tell me."
"For life," she said.
"Ain' no life, bitch! Ain no life... Not in the general sense, only the particulars we call existence, you dig? Up high rocking on the edge of the cloudbank, wings flashing, aint noIlifeJ! Only you, sweet Emma, you and the engine and the titanium skin, you dig? Rare metals and gases, oxygenlessness, blessed space, amazing grace..."
You think you vote on it up there? On top of the air?
Emma shook her head, again and again, her hair slashing like whips, stirring the candlelight.
No, she moaned, no, I don' know, and he moaned with her. The light swirled in the eddying air, shot off like silver moths.
I vote, Bertie thought, the words coming slow. I vote... to keep her, as Nell did, holding the moon in her arms. Let her sail on, like the Quinlin girl, watch eternity pass.
They watched her. They did not seem to hear. I am not the one who is dying, Bertie thought. The light was thin milk now, dazzling to one who has stayed up all night. Mr. Walker's suit was startling bright as the light gained, white as bone, and, as if it were a memory buried in light, she unaccountably recalled the bullhead fishing, the late March hunts from years past. The water would crawl with boats, flat punts, jonboats, smooth sailing things moving slow through the night. All the men with bamboo poles slung over their shoulders, arms wrapped round them like the crucified Christ, the air yellow with the lanterns flare across the swamps and inlets, a low murmur on the water, the croak of awakening frogs, the rubber hips boots squeaking as they adjusted their weight, occasional drum beats as a punt pole struck a wooden hull.
The night smelled of life, of moss and worms and water and air, of cattail shoots, lily pads and the first exhalations of the fermenting muck of the shallows, a low mist rising from the swamp surface like the fog upon ice under the sour packing straw in the ice shed, and the fish down there somewhere dark and cold, iron-skinned and sweet-fleshed and medusa-snouted.
Someone, for a lark, had thrown a phosphor flare out on the water where it hissed and sputtered and then sank slowly, sending the yellow light pooling from it, turning the water green, outlining the dark, slow shadows of the bullheads.
You could feel the fever rise in the men, even a little girl bundled in the center and looking out could feel it. They seemed to laugh all at once across the whole dark swamp. Bullheads there to harvest, a fry to come, the flare finally snuffing itself and the water dark again.
"Count 'em up, Emma, count em up. One vote already for the machine, and you know ole Restless, he gonna vote for the paraphernalia.
"That leave me and you. Two and two, am I right?"
She nodded.
Two and two.
But you're forgetting Molly, she'll vote too, Emma thought. Though she fears so much, you could never be sure, never know what she was learning this long night on the water. No matter what Bertie thought, Emma knew they were on the water.
"They be some things in every life don't be no one can know, Mama. Everybody got at least one time in they life be unique, you dig, if it only be dyin... Havin babies, hit your first home run and see it rising, ride all night back an forf across a cold channel a million miles away from home, something be something...
"No telling for Flynn how he feel now, no telling for Bush. I remember exactly that last day myself, you dig. Once they pull me off and push me away and somebody got my arms pinned behind me, could feel that violence subsiding, you dig, like the taste of blood in your mouth when you bash you lip, flooding you like the taste of pennies all warm in you mouth and then fading away as she dries up. Violence be like that, rush at you head, press against you skull and forehead, makin' you eyes flare, then suddenly leavin you weary. Jus starin out there at the circle, a whole pack of guys standing there over him, watching the blood flow down, watching the trainer press the towel against his head, watching you and the shadows falling... You mind?"
What.
You mind if I do some?
A gold lozenge in his pale palm, exactly like a compact, the lid flipped up, a mirror, a pale light flitting over his face as he emptied the snuff out on the tablecloth, twisted the bottom section, unscrewing it.
"No." She shook her head. "I mind nothing this morning."
"Finally," he said, "the saps let me go, you dig, give me a last push like they been waiting to do that for a time. Push me off to where this constable waiting to escort me into the clubhouse. Khaki shirt and blue pants with a stripe down the side, blue hat also with gold braid, patent leather Sam Brown belt. These Canadian boys they like to do it up, look more like a zoo guard, you dig, not no cop. Shy-town got cops, white shirts and blue lights making the street crazy..."
He sprinkled the powder carefully from the unfolded, waxy envelope, putting a little pile of white on the mirror lid. Took a steak knife from the table, wiped it with the napkin, then spread the powder carefully, marshalling it into a thin line with the tip of the blade. From his shirt pocket he took a small silver straw, covered a nostril, ran the straw along the thin line, snuffing it up, leaned back and sighed.
"Didn't do no nose until after then, if you believe me. Didn't need none of them, you dig..."
His voice was hollow now, the sinuses running, his eyes two silver disks in the gaining dawn.
"Life had its satisfaction, Mama, I'm telling you. You want to know the truth? Truth is I think I got to Flynn because I knew it was over, cause I knew he would let me go that way. I remember the constable's hand holding my arm, guiding me off, real careful and considerate like they do all up there in Can'da, but firm about it, you dig, no question we goin..."
He made another little line and took it up the other side.
"But I make him stop, you dig. Not make him, but sort of indicate it's what I want to do, and he looks in my eye to let me know no more shit, then leaves the hand go. I look back at Flynn. He's up now, holding the towel over his head and eye like he just had a hangover. We meet just once then, you understand, our eyes just meeting for an instant. Twenty thousand people out there and no one seeing this instant.
"Asshole, I think. I love you, Bush. I owe you one.
"Then the constable's arm touches mine again and we start walking, Bush and me, walking in time with each other to different places. Skipper comes down the runway to the clubhouse. I can hear his cleats along the wood from far away, and I'm already showered, already packing my bag from the locker.
"You're gone, fuckhead, he says. You're gone from baseball, gone from earth. And he spits on the floor and walks back to the dugout before I can give him no static.
"I dress alone, answer the questions for the constable, promise I won't leave the Province of Ontario for the following twenty-four hours, tip the old fart clubhouse boy three twenties in Eskimo money to get rid of the stuff before I go off, then walk through the writers and the teevee people without saying nothing, drive out to the airport and get on my plane, fly away home.
"It was the end of the world for me, Emma, do you understand? Even under my circumstances, the end of the world. Had my leg shot up in '70 and played ball in six months, but when I had to quit playin, you understand, took me three full years to function again. You can't expect less of Bush, Mama, can't expect a whole lot less considering the troubles he's seen."
He had the gold lozenge together again, the sun in his hand, turning it to catch the light, holding it tightly in his palm when the phone rang.
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