Cujo

game that apparently had Ponch and John from CHiPS pitted against Darth Vader.

'Drink your iced tea before it melts,' Donna told Vic.

'Uh-huh.' The glass was on the side of the engine compartment. Vic had a couple of swallows, put it back without looking, and it tumbled off - into his wife's hand.

'Hey,' he said. 'Nice catch.'

She smiled. 'I just know you when your mind's somewhere else, that's all. Look. Didn't spill a drop.'

They smiled into each other's eyes for a moment - a good moment, Vic thought. Maybe it was just his imagination, or wishful thinking, but lately it seemed there were more of the good small moments. Less of the sharp words. Fewer silences which were cold, or -maybe this was worse ~ just indifferent. He didn't know what the cause was, but he was grateful.

'Strictly Triple-A farm club,' he said. 'You got a ways to go before you make the bigs, kid.'

'So what's wrong with my car, coach?'

He had the air cleaner off; it was sitting in the driveway. 'Never saw a Frisbee like that before,' Tad had said matter-of-factly a few moments ago, swerving his trike around it. Vic leaned back in and poked aimlessly at the carburetor with the head of his screwdriver.

'It's in the carb. I think the needle valve's sticking.'

'That's bad?'

'Not too bad,' he said, 'but it can stop you cold if it decides to stick shut. The needle valve controls the flow of gas into the carb, and without gas you don't go. It's like a national law, babe.'

'Daddy, will you push me on the swing?'

'Yeah, in a minute.'

'Good! I'll be in the back!'

Tad started round the house toward the swing-and-gym set Vic had built last summer, while lubricating himself wed with gin and tonics, working from a set of plans, doing it after supper on week nights and on weekends with the voices of the Boston Red Sox announcers blaring from the transistor radio beside him. Tad, then three, sat solemnly on the cellar bulkhead or on the back steps, chin cupped in his hands, fetching things sometimes, mostly watching silently. Last summer. A good summer, not as beastly hot as this one. It had seemed then that Donna had finally adjusted and was seeing that Maine, Castle Rock, Ad Worx - those things could be good for all of them.

Then the mystifying bad patch, the worst of it being that nagging, almost psychic feeling that things were even more wrong than he wanted to think about. Things in the house began to seem subtly out of place, as if unfamiliar hands had been moving them around. He had gotten the crazy idea - was it crazy? - that Donna was changing the sheets too often. They were always clean, and one night that old fairy-tale question had popped into his mind, echoing unpleasantly: Who's been sleeping in my bed?

Now things had loosened up, it seemed. If not for the crazy Razberry Zingers business and the rotten trip hanging over his head, he would feel that this could be a pretty good summer too. It might even rum out that way. You won, sometimes. Not all hopes were vain. He believed that, although his belief had never been seriously tested.

'Tad!' Donna yelled, bringing the boy to a screeching halt. 'Put your trike in the garage.'

'Mom-mee!'

'Now, please, monsieur.'

'Monsewer,' Tad said, and laughed into his hands. 'You didn't put your car away, Mom.'

'Daddy is working on my car.'

'Yeah, but-'

'Mind your mom, Tadder,' Vic said, picking up the air cleaner. 'I'll be around shortly.'

Tad mounted his trike and drove it into the garage, accompanying himself with a loud, ululating ambulance wail.

'Why are you putting it back on?' Donna asked. 'Aren't you going to fix it?'

'It's a precision job,' Vic said. 'I don't have the tools. Even if I did, I'd probably make it worse instead of better.'

'Damn,' she said morosely, and kicked a tire. 'These things never happen until after the warranty runs out, do they?' The Pinto had just over 20,000 miles on it, and was still six months from being theirs, free and dear.

'That's like a national law too,' Vic said. He put the air cleaner back on its post and tightened the butterfly nut.

'I guess I can run it over to South Paris while Tad's in his daycamp. I'll have to get a loaner, though, with you being gone. Will it get me to South Paris, Vic?'

'Sure. But you don't have to do that. Take it out to Joe Camber's place. That's only seven miles, and he does good work. Remember when that wheel bearing went on the jag? He took it out with a chainfall made out of old lengths of telephone pole and charged ten bucks. Man, if I'd gone to that place in Portland, they would have mounted my checkbook like a moosehead.'

'That guy made me nervous,' Donna said. 'Aside from the fact that he was about two and a half sheets to the wind, I mean.'

'How did he make you nervous?'

'Busy eyes.'

Vic laughed. 'Honey, with you, there's a lot to be busy about.'

'Thank you,' she said, 'A woman doesn't necessarily mind being looked at. It's being mentally undressed that makes you nervous.' She paused, strangely, he thought, looking away at the grim red light in the west. Then she looked back at him. 'Some men give you the feeling that there's a little movie called The Rape of the Sabine Women going on in their heads all the time and you just got the ... the starring role.'

He had that curious, unpleasant feeling that she was talking about several things at once - again. But he didn't want to get into that tonight, not when he was finally crawling out from under a shitheap of a month.

'Babe, he's probably completely harmless. He's got a wife, a kid -~

'Yes, probably he is.' But she crossed her arms over her breasts and cupped her elbows in her palms, a characteristic gesture of nervousness with her.

'Look,' he said. 'I'll run your Pinto up there this Saturday and leave it if I have to, okay? More likely he'll be able to get right to it. I'll have a couple of beers with him and pat his dog. You remember that Saint Bernard?'

Donna grinned. 'I even remember his name. He practically knocked Tad over licking him. You remember?'

Vic nodded. 'The rest of the afternoon Tad goes around after him saying 'Cooojo ... heere, Cooojo.''

They laughed together.

'I feel so damn stupid sometimes,' Donna said. 'If I could use a standard shift, I could just run the jag while you're gone.'

'You're just as well off. The jag's eccentric. You gotta talk to it.' He slammed the hood of the Pinto back down.

'Ooooh, you DUMMY!' she moaned. 'Your iced tea glass was in there!'