Удушье (Choke)

To Denny, I say, 'So how many days you got so far?'

'One hundred and twenty-seven rocks' worth,' Denny says. He comes around the table next to me, looking at the birthday cards, looking at the checks, and says, 'So where's your mom's fa­mous diary?'

He picks up a birthday card.

'You can't read it,' I say.

Denny says, 'Sorry, dude,' and starts to put the card down.

No, I tell him. The diary. It's written in some foreign lan­guage. That's why he can't read it. I can't read it. How my mom thinks is she probably wrote it that way so I'd never sneak through it when I was a kid. 'Dude,' I say, 'I think it's Italian.'

And Denny goes, 'Italian?'

'Yeah,' I go, 'you know, like spaghetti?'

Still with his big plaid coat on, Denny says, 'You eat yet?'

Not yet. I seal the deposit envelope.

Denny says, 'You think they're going to banish me tomorrow?'

Yes, no, probably. Ursula saw him with the newspaper.

The deposit slip is ready for the bank tomorrow. All the thank-you letters, the underdog letters, are signed and stamped and ready to mail. I get my coat from the sofa. Next to it, Denny's rock is squashing the springs down.

'So what's with these rocks,' I say.

Denny's opened the front door, and he's standing there while I turn off some lights. In the doorway, he says, 'I don't know. But rocks are like, you know, land. It's like these rocks are a kit. It's land, but with some assembly required. You know, landowner-ship, but for right now it's indoors.'

I say, 'For sure.'

We go out and I lock the door behind us. The night sky is all fuzzy with stars. All out of focus. There's no moon.

Outside on the sidewalk, Denny looks up at the mess and says, 'What I think happened is when God wanted to make the earth out of chaos, the first thing he did was just get a lot of rocks together.'

While we walk, his new obsessive compulsion has my eyes al­ready scanning vacant lots and places for rocks we can pick up.

Walking down to the bus stop with me, still with the pink baby blanket folded over his shoulder, Denny says, 'I only take the rocks nobody wants.' He says, 'I'll just get one rock every night. Then I figure I'll figure out the next part, you know— next.'

It's such a creepy idea. Us taking home rocks. We're collecting land.

'You know that girl, Daiquiri?' Denny says. 'The dancer with the cancery mole.' He says, 'You didn't sleep with her, did you? 'We're shoplifting real property. Burgling terra firma.

And I say, 'Why not?'

We're just an outlaw couple of land rustlers.

And Denny says, 'Her real name is Beth.'

The way Denny thinks, he's probably got plans to start his own planet.

Chapter 22