— I’m not Jack I’m not here to meet you, I just came for the next train to town and when I heard this one I thought…
— Train run both ways told me that yourself remember? Ride you right back in Amy listen…
— Back into town? Don’t be silly… She turned past him after the receding lights already losing distinction in the aimless spread of evening, — you just got out here.
— Quick trip to settle things Amy pick up a few books, tell Backbite shove the job in his proscribed opening get a fresh start listen…
— Jack I don’t want to listen! She’d reached the billboard, sheltered there from the wind against a breadloaf inscribed Father Haigt eat’s it. — Here comes the train now please…
— Pope says to get away remember? told me that yourself…
— Jack be careful!
The platform shuddered and he flattened up against We kick ass yours too, — to get away…
— No please don’t get on Jack please…!
— To get away…
— No no don’t don’t be careful don’t…! Jack you, here, here hold on here…
— Got your ticket?
— You can’t sit there Jack your foot’s Jack your foot!
The bridge abutment passed in a roar. — Tell you about Hardy Suggs sometime wrong God damn foot though listen…
— Here can you, can you, help me with the door I can’t…
— Kick it always helps, here… It came back with a crash, — window seat, seat by the window watch the natural beauties rush past the what’s the matter.
— What do you think’s the, you frightened me! She sat fingertips pressed to her eyes.
— Got beautiful hands Amy listen…
— And please… she dropped them to open the bag on her lap, find her handkerchief — your knee can you move your knee, Jack can’t you just sit…
— Trying to pay the fare damn it… one foot twisted into the hinge ahead, — reach my pocket… the newspapers went to the floor and his hand came up crumpling bills.
— Jack what, where did all that…
— Told you won the double Amy get a fresh start, Raindance and Mister paid a hundred twelve forty Mister Fred only six to one, here, here you are my good man.
— Jack stop it you, he can’t change a hundred dollars, you…
— Not my good man then God damn it find him something bigger, here…
— Here stop it here’s a five, put the rest away you shouldn’t be carrying it all around like that.
— Think you’re mad cause I won the double aren’t you, thought you’d be…
— Don’t be silly it’s just, it shouldn’t be that easy that’s all.
— Said that when I found a nickel once Amy not so God damned easy, chance favors the prepared mind sorry… he’d plunged after the papers, — Protestant ethic, he said from down there and then, coming upright abruptly — beautiful knees though… trying to cross his own and spread the papers up against them, giving that up.
— And what’s happened to your throat, you sound like you…
— Little bronchitis get some penicillin get a fresh start, newspaper’s full of opportunities. Here. Monogrammed doormat sixteen ninety-five how’s that, he brandished the page as the train shuddered in to a platform. — Earn your respect making monogrammed doormats how’s that.
— Jack honestly if you can’t simply…
— No no listen look, first time in history so many opportunities to do so God damned many things not worth doing, problem’s they start with the sixteen ninety-five have to start with the doormat, went to the woods to live deliberately Thoreau says couldn’t escape from the Protestant ethic, be the first ones to redeem it Amy make monogrammed doormats deliberately, sorry… Her knees drew away tight. — Beautiful knees I ever saw why, rather watch the natural wonders rush past the windows?
— I think I would yes, she said turning to where laundry strung behind row houses passed the dirty pane, gave way to a store, stores.
— Might open a dry cleaning establishment… he slumped, tried to get both knees up against the seat ahead, gave up and got both feet out in the aisle, — get a fresh start…
— Even dry cleaning can’t give you a fresh start Jack that suit is really the most appall…
— I mean be the dry cleaner Amy… he was back to turning pages, — watch you teach sometimes problem your kiddies think grownups do what they always wanted to do when they grew up, God damned Protestant ethic can’t escape it have to redeem it, have a kid right from the start wants to be a dry cleaner when he grows up how’s that… They heaved into another platform where the train gasped, failed to a stop. — He grows up gets married has kids want to make monogram…
— I have no idea what you’re talking about honestly Jack if you can’t simply…
— Try again then look, Protestant ethic have to justify your own existence be a Chinaman like Lin Yutang and make a million dollars, problem now’s to justify the Protestant ethic grow up want to be a dry clean…
She cleared her throat without turning from the dirty pane. — What did you want to be when you grew up.
— A little boy.
— I said when you grew up!
— Can’t remember Amy, told you once I never really expected to… and the pages started again, — find something else here maybe… pounding them down in rumpled creases against his leg extended in the aisle where his foot kicked a passing trouserleg black serge all the way up to the round collar, easing into the empty seat ahead. — Well Christ.
— Jack get your feet in, people can’t…
— New shoes like them?
— Yes but get them out of the aisle people can’t…
— Can’t be alone like a God damned lunchroom, sit down at the empty counter he comes in sits right down beside you, twenty empty God damned stook comes in sits on the stool right beside you… A train passed from the other direction with an enveloping shock and was gone, and the door up ahead banged half opened, half closed to the sway of the car past billboards, finished apartments Now Renting, diaper service trucks marshaled against the day to come. — Might start a diaper…
— Jack if you say another…
— Whole life waiting for this chance favors the prepared mind Pasteur says spend all my God damned time preparing never quite ready when the…
— And if you can’t simply sit up I think I’d…
— Get a black suit and just freeload, problem it’s too God damned late now even to be any of the things I never wanted to be. He swayed forward, caught the seat ahead as she stood. — Redeem the Protestant epic have a kid wants to be a dry cleaner instant he’s conceived, little conditioning Stella both think dry cleaning next time we climb in concentrate on dry cleaning feel it slip in dry cleaning dry cleaning what… She’d already got one knee past him, squeezed the other past his rising knotted up now against the seat ahead where he unfurled the paper full fanning the wisps trailing over the round collar there, folding the pages back and battering them flat without a look across the aisle to where her profile rose beside her in that dirty pane, eyes fixed ahead where slow as though endemic there tears welled, that nearest the glass seized a course down and dropped and she snapped her bag open, pulled dark glasses from the handkerchief tangle and put them on, reflecting the train’s shuddering stops and starts as the aisle generated shopping bags, umbrellas, newspapers neatly creased pausing occasionally at the welter gone silent across the way until, beyond it through the dirty pane, buildings aswarm with fire escapes rose from sight as they dropped in a culvert, dropped back as they rose, the tunnel enclosed them like a blow and she waited, joined the end of the line shuffling toward the door, through it, and then a minute later back, pulling the newspapers aside.