— Jack don’t say things like that! she was up and past him, bare time for him to get in to fill his glass and come back to find her there, sheet drawn up and a gaze fixed on the ceiling that took life brought down to him with — I wished you’d been able to wear that suit out of the store, it makes you look awfully distinguished Jack I can’t wait till you have it.
— I can’t either, he said unfastening his waist, undoing buttons, down beside her dislodging the sheet.
— At least you got shirts but why you didn’t simply get a dozen, didn’t you oh! Jack that’s not… she’d grabbed for the glass rested on the white rise under his hand, — not friendly to bellies…! and the ice cubes rattled with its toss.
— Not what?
— It’s just something silly, some sort of newsletter a boy in my class had about commodity futures I just thought of it. We are friendly to bellies in the long term it said, isn’t that…
— Show you I can be as friendly to bellies as…
— No please… she caught his forehead as his lips caught its rise, tongue sought water welled there from the glass, — if we can get in these here bellies he said and I asked him what on earth he was talking about, that bleak little Vansant boy and it’s not funny, really. He’s so earnest so, he thinks there’s a millionaire behind everything he sees and that’s all he does see, it’s just all so sad really.
— Know what you mean, I owe him a dollar.
— Do you I owe him eighty cents, if he were, if only he weren’t so eager about all the wrong things, they’re not bad things really just, things…
— What do you mean not bad things, ever seen him in the Post Office with that kid with the head like a toothbrush? that Hyde kid? See them in there together getting their mail you suddenly know what the industrial military complex is all about.
She drew his head up. — I guess I just don’t want to think about it. It was awfully selfish of me to do it in the first place really, taking that job, I simply had to change things for a little, she said against his shoulder where her nails traced down, — and I think at first I really thought I could help but, oh it all seems so long ago that dreadful Mister Whiteback, that poor little Mister diCephalis and his ghastly wife… her hand measured ribs, moved on to twine a finger into hair.
— Create a second class profession you fill it with second class people, there’s no…
— And that poor Mister Glancy and even that poor creature Mister Vogel…
— No well Vogel was, tell you the truth I couldn’t have held out as long as I did without Vogel. He’d get me aside for discussions on things like the feasibility of sending people by telegraph and…
— Jack he was crazy wasn’t he? Her hand’s inquiry paused, found shapes changing dimension in its warmth, — really quite insane?
— Probably still is… he came on his side, closer, — really just a question of technical difficulties though, run into problems of preserving life in the tissue when you lower the organism’s degree of activity to keep it stable while part of it’s being broken down to be recreated somewhere else but…
— No Jack honestly… her hand, stilled, moved again, filling.
— Had some interesting theories on the genesis of the steam engine too, he said hand running down her side to descend the slope turned from him, seeking warmth, — great admirer of yours…
— Oh I know that’s what was so sad but, but it wasn’t even that Jack how can children grow up thinking things like, that same boy J R he thought a museum exhibit he’d seen pictures of Jack he thought the Eskimos in it were stuffed oh it’s not funny… her fingers closed abruptly in their rise, — and when things happened like that poor boy Buzzie and that tragic accident that child who was actually shot I’ve kept myself even from thinking about it…
— Look it would have been an accident if it hadn’t happened, point everything’s reached Amy it God damned near couldn’t not have happened…
— No I don’t want to talk about it it’s all the same thing, that and stuffed Eskimos and sending people by wire and I don’t…
But he’d come up on one elbow against her, — there’s one thing though listen I don’t want you to think I’m, in the elevator today that I think being retarded or simple minded is…
— Jack I don’t want to talk about it… her hand resumed its flow, — I’m not brave really…
— But if you thought I think it’s funny because I, because a boy I knew in boarding school family so God damned wealthy all they exchanged at Christmas were three percent municipals I used to try to help him with his stamp collection, they probably could have bought him the British Guiana two cents rose if they’d ever thought of him as anything but retarded luggage but the Minuet in G you’d look at him and know he was hearing things you didn’t, knew things nobody else did my throat still closes when I hear that, sweetest lonely God damned person I ever… she pulled him down silenced against her, his face held close as though to free her own for some expression, or for none, fixed on the ceiling as her fingers rose and fell and her free hand came to stroke his temple, — because Amy I wouldn’t want you to think I… and she pulled him over lips gone in the curve of her throat, her knees reared till ankle caught ankle at his back, nails bit his shoulders raking down and her head slipped from the edge and then her shoulders all rise and fall as they came off together to the floor between the beds where her feet rose wide, found purchase to bring her weight up disputing the plunge of his, to still dispute it when it was destroyed until her nails relented at his neck, allowed a gasp that almost shaped her name.
— Jack. You’re heavy.
He helped her up, got a knee behind her sitting back on the welter of sheets, reaching his glass. — Always afraid the damned telephone’s going to go off the minute we…
— Jack please that’s not fair you, I told you at supper there are just things, some family things I have to straighten out I’m just waiting for Daddy to call and…
— Sounds like somebody I’d hate to meet in a dark alley, he…
— No don’t be silly he’s not like that he’s just, remote, I’d talk to him and he’d always seem to listen so attentively… she sank back there against his knee, — standing there listening and shaping his nose, he’d broken it in college football and they injected it with something that softens in hot weather oh I know it sounds awful but it’s not, really… She ran a nail along the leg he’d brought up across hers, — so attentive but I finally realized he was always attentive to something else, it was all still like coming to tell him something when I was small and he was watching people play football on television… She parted hair still caught with perspiration to her face, — Mama always said he only watched because he liked to see someone lose… and then, as though suddenly aware how she was sitting, scissored there, — Jack I’ve never done things like, like we’ve done I, I think we need air could you open the… but his leg behind brought her close where he caught away a last strand clinging to her lips to bring his there, slip them away along her hair, along a collarbone and off her shoulder coming on his back and staring up as though such things had never happened anywhere all hair and airless rutting shrunk myriad crease and fold hid in the simple parting of her breasts. — Jack…?