The group milled toward me; some dodged forward.
One front figure supported another, who seemed hurt. I got it in my head it was the commune: John and Mildred leading, and something had happened to John. A brightening among the clouds—
They were thirty feet nearer than I'd thought:
George, looking around at the sky, big lips a wet cave around his teeth's glimmer, his pupils underringed with white, and glare flaking on his wet,
days and she calls one ('You come in the evening, spent the night and the next day, then left the following morning! That's one full day, with tag ends.' 'That should at least count for two,' I said. 'It seemed like a long time…') Which wasn't so bad but… I don't know.
The first night Madame Brown put supper together out of cans with Denny saying all through: 'You wanna let me do something…? Are you sure I can't do nothin'…? Here, I'll do…' and finally did wash some pans and dishes.
I asked, 'What are you making?' but they didn't hear so I sat in the chair by the table alternately tapping the chair-back on the wall and the front legs on the floor; and drank two glasses of wine.
Lanya came in and asked why I was so quiet.
I said: 'Mulling.'
'On a poem?' Madame Brown asked.
We ate. After dinner we all sat around and drank more, me a little more than the others, but Madame Brown and I actually talked about some things: her work, what went on in a scorpion run ('You make it sound so healthy, I mean like a class trip, I'm not so sure that I like the idea as much now. It sounded very exciting before you told me anything about it.'), the problems of doctors in the city, George. I like her. And she's smart as hell.
Back in Lanya's room, I sat at the desk In the bay window, looking at my notebook. Lanya and Denny went to bed ('No, the light won't bother us.'), and after about fifteen minutes, I joined them and we made cramped, langerous love which had this odd, let's-take-turns thing about it; but it was a trip. I nearly knocked over the big plant pot by the bed four times.
I woke before the window had lightened, got up and prowled the house. In the kitchen, considered getting drunk. Made myself a cup of instant coffee instead, drank half, and prowled some more. Looked back into Lanya's room: Denny was asleep against the wall. Lanya was on her back, eyes opened. She smiled at me.
veined temples, supporting Reverend Tayler; she leaned forward (crying? laughing? cringing from the light? searching the ground?), her hair rough as shale, her knuckles and the backs of her nails darker than the skin between.
The freckled, brick-haired Negress, among darker faces, walked behind them; with the blind-mute; and the blond Mexican.
Someone was shouting, among others shouting: 'You hear them planes? You hear all them planes?' (It couldn't have been planes.) 'Them planes are awfully low! They gonna crash! You hear—' at which point the building face across the street cracked, all up and down, and bellied out so slow I wondered how. Cornices, coping stones, window
I was naked. 'Restless?'
'Yeah.' I came over, squatted by the bed, hugged her.
'Go ahead. Pace some more. I need another couple of hours.' She turned over. I took up the old notebook here, sat around cross-legged on the floor, contemplating writing down what had happened till then.
Or a poem.
Did neither.
Looked in the top desk drawer — the wood looks like paper had been glued all over it and then as much pulled off as possible. She said some friends lugged it from a burned-out windshield warehouse a few blocks down the hill.
I took out the poems she'd saved, spread them on the gritty wood, on every kind of paper, creased this way and that (red-tufted begonia stalks doffed), and tried to read them.
Couldn't.
Thought seriously of tearing them up.
Didn't.
But understood much about people who have.
Looked back at Lanya; bare shoulders, the back of her neck, a fist sticking from under the pillow.
Prowled some more.
Got back into bed.
Denny jerked his head up, blinking. He didn't know where he was. I rubbed the back of his neck and whispered, 'It's okay, boy…' He settled back down, nuzzling into Lanya's armpit. She turned away from him toward me.
I woke alone.
Leaves arched over me. I looked up through them. Blew once to see if they'd move, but they were too far. Closed my eyes.
'Hey,' Denny said. 'You still asleep?'
I opened my eyes. 'Fuck you if I was.'
'I just walked Lanya over to school.' He leaned against the edge of the doorway, holding his chains. 'It's nice around here, huh?'
I sat up on the side of the bed.
'But there ain't too much to do … it's nice of her to have us over here, I mean to stay a while, huh?'
I nodded.
frames, glass and brick hurled across the street.
They screamed — I could hear it over the explosion because some were right around me — and ran against the near wall, taking me with them and I crashed into the people in front of me, wind knocked out of me by the people behind, screaming; someone reached over my shoulder for support, right by my ear, and nearly tore it off. More people (or something?) hit the people behind me, hard.
Coughing and scrambling, I turned to push someone from behind me. Across the street, girders, scabby with brick and plaster, tesselated luminous dust. I staggered from the wall among the staggering crowd and stumbled into a big woman on her hands and knees, shaking her head.
About two hours later he told me he was going out. I spent the rest of the morning staring at blank paper or prowling.
Madame Brown, coming out of her office, saw me once and said: 'You look strange. Is anything the matter?'
'No.'
'Are you just bored?'
'No,' I said. 'I'm not bored at all. I'm thinking a lot.'
'Can you leave off long enough for a lunch break?'
'Sure.' I hadn't had breakfast.
Tunafish salad.
Canned pears.
We both had a couple of glasses of wine. She asked me for my character impressions of: Tak, Lanya, Denny, one of her patients I had met at the bar once; I told her and she thought what I said was interesting;
