Players

again.”

'I want to drink something classic,' Ethan said. 'None of this tequila business. What is that, tequila? I've decided to live after all. No more poison pinwheels.”

'A bit of poetry, that,' Pammy said. 'Here, somebody serve. Give me a small piece. Are we eating or drinking? I'm confused and we're just getting started.”

'What's that?' Jack said. 'Is that the Municipal Building? Is that, what, the Woolworth Building? You can't see that far from here, can you?”

'If you'd brought wine I could give you something classic. I could give you wine.”

'We brought meat loaf. Who else brings meat loaf?”

'You left the wine in the cab, I take it, from past experience.”

'We had this cabdriver coming up here,' Jack said. 'No spikka da English too good. Tried to come up here via Chinatown.”

'Ah so.”

'Threats of bodily harm,' Ethan said.

'Who's what here? I'd like some bread with this. No, I wouldn't. Forget that. Cancel that order, waiter. I'm a dancer now. Austerity is my life. What's it called-an austere regimen. I will accept a drink, however, if one of you turdnagels will pass me a glass, being careful at all times, these being new and extremely high-priced drinking vessels.”

'This salad's fabulous.”

'Thank you, Jack.”

'A salad among salads,' Ethan said.

'Lyle tossed it.”

'Loud and prolonged applause.”

'I tossed it.”

'Meaning to ask, Lyle, what's happening on the street?”

'The street of streets.”

'Have you been declared officially antiquated or what? Are you viable, Lyle? We all want to know. Will there be a floor to trade on in the near future? Or does it all pass into the mists of history, ladies and gentlemen, and you are there.”

'I vote for the mists of history. But who knows, really? There's an awful strong argument for the membership's point of view. But the current's the other way.”

'Really, you'd haul it all down?”

'It's not hauling it down. It's opening it up. Of course you don't know exactly what it is you're opening up. That's the trouble with currents.”

'They can take you right over the falls.”

'Right over the falls and your barrel too.”

'Should we be worried?' Ethan said.

'Pick an opening and move right in. That's the only, you know, method of, whatever-maintaining some kind of self-determination, a specific presence. Out into the streets, clerks of history, package-wrappers. Freedom, freedom.”

'You've learned your lesson well, Spartacus.”

It was nearly dark. Lyle went down for more liquor and ice. He dialed Rosemary's number. No one answered. In the kitchen he moved past a glass cabinet and realized there was a flaw in his likeness. Something unfamiliar in the middle of his face. At the same time he felt dampness there. He went into the bathroom. It was his nose, bleeding. He held some tissue there until the flow diminished. Then he put a box of Kleenex on the tray, along with tequila, vodka, bitter lemon and ice, and went back up to the roof. Someone was at one of the other tables. It was a small boy wearing a straw fedora. He stood against the chair, eyes averted. Lyle sensed that the others were watching him to measure the comic dimensions of his reaction to the boy. He walked toward them, looking out over the umbrella that was set into the table. Deliberately he placed the tray down, moving objects out of the way with calculated disdain. They waited for him to say something. He sat, moving slowly as possible. His nose started bleeding again. This became the joke, of course. It was funnier than anything he could have said. He inserted a tissue in his nostril and let it hang there, his expression one of weary forbearance.

'His mother left him,' Jack said. 'She'd come right back. You leave kids on roofs?”

'He's a forties kid,' Pammy said.

'But that hat, I can't believe.”

'He's a forties kid. He's got a two-toned little suit. I bet he never grows up. He'll stay three feet something. He'll smoke a little pipe and never go anywhere without that hat and two-toned suit. His name will be Bert Follett and I'd like to marry him. I'd also like a white wine with club soda please.”

'Where am I supposed to get it?”

'Wherever it is. It exists, that's all. Existentially you should be able to get it.”

'She's such a snarly nymphet,' Ethan said. 'Isn't she at times? In the office they fear her on sight.”

'Oh, she's a proper moll, she is.”

'Take the Kleenex out of your nose.”

'Nose, what, who… he trailed off.”

They finished the meat loaf. Pammy went over to talk to the boy. They had a pleasant conversation about dogs in the neighborhood. Her attentions made him glow a little. She felt he was aware of the whole scene, not just their talk. He was enjoying himself as part of it. Child among adults. Cute suit. The ambiance. His mother came to take him away and Pammy rejoined the others.

'I'm saying this is it,' Lyle said, 'and we don't know what it means. It's collapsed right in on us. It's ahead of schedule. Look who's back looking a little sick about something. It's backed into us. It's here.”

'Vales of time and space.”

'If I had a mother like that,' Jack said, 'I'd hang around on rooftops too. I do anyway, hubba hubba.”

'What is this, tequila?' Ethan said. 'I don't want this. Take it away, someone. If this is tequila and if I'm drinking it, there's something seriously amiss.”

'That plane looks like it's going to hit.”

'I think I'm sick, guys,”

'I wanted so very much for us to be brilliant together this evening.”

'I think I may blow my cookies any minute.”

'I was sure it would hit,' Jack said.

'I don't want to blame the meat loaf but there's something happening in my stomach that's not supposed to.”

'She's going to blow her cookies, Lyle. Get her out of here.”

'If we had something brilliant to drink perhaps. Too long I've accepted second best.”

'Lyle, you smoke? I didn't know you smoked. When did you start smoking?”

In the bathroom mirror he watched the blood seep out. It was pretty in a way. It came so slowly, an idealized flow, no sense at all of some impelling force. He watched it fill the indentation above his lip. The color of his blood intrigued him, its meaty bloom, a near sheen of the gayest sap imaginable. He held his head back, finally, until the bleeding stopped, then went into the kitchen, where Pammy stood before the steaming basin. He opened the refrigerator, pressing her against the sink as he did so, an offhand attempt to annoy, not even mildly riling, and lifted out a jar of olives.

'How come no dishwasher?”

'I want these glasses to know what it feels like to be washed by human hands,' she said. 'I don't want them to grow up thinking everything's done the easy way, by machine, with impersonal detergent.”

'It's broke again?”

'You call.”

'You, for once.”

I called the other.

'I'm not calling. I don't care. Let it be broke.”

'Don't call. We won't call. I don't care.”