R01   1 <#FROWN:R01\><h|>Cars
R01   2 WHEN I TURNED SIXTEEN, the age where I qualified for a driver's 
R01   3 license, driving a car became by obsession. My dad had a Kaiser 
R01   4 Traveler which he used for the family business and religiously kept 
R01   5 away from me. A car for any sixteen-year-old, I guess, was so rare 
R01   6 that those few among us who had access became almost magical folk 
R01   7 heroes. Happily my close friend Jack Krongold had a red convertible 
R01   8 of his own, so at least I was a backseat guy for my key teenage 
R01   9 years.<p/>
R01  10 <p_>When I reached twenty, I moved to New York, where owning a car 
R01  11 completely disappeared from my mind for several reasons; mainly I 
R01  12 couldn't afford to park it, let alone buy it.<p/>
R01  13 <p_>Fifteen years later I arrived in Los Angeles to be on a soap 
R01  14 opera for six months. Since it was Los Angeles, I had to have a 
R01  15 car, and since it was the first time I'd really be making any 
R01  16 money, I wanted to buy a Cadillac. When I was a boy growing up, 
R01  17 only very successful people drove Cadillacs, and even though I 
R01  18 wasn't very successful, I thought I had reached sufficient success 
R01  19 to buy a Cadillac - a used one. Besides, I probably wanted to 
R01  20 really make up in a big way for all my carless years.<p/>
R01  21 <p_>A friend of a friend had a used-car lot, with all kinds of 
R01  22 cars, and I went over there right away, looking for my Cadillac. It 
R01  23 was a huge place - row after row of cars covering two city blocks. 
R01  24 I was wandering around for about ten minutes before I saw it - the 
R01  25 most beautiful car I had ever seen in my life: a 1958 white 
R01  26 Cadillac convertible with red leather seats. I went to the friend's 
R01  27 friend, and he followed me out onto the lot to see what I was so 
R01  28 excited about. As we approached the car, he began to shake his 
R01  29 head. <quote_>"You don't want that car,"<quote/> he said. Not 
R01  30 exactly what we're supposed to hear from used-car salesmen, but he 
R01  31 was a friend's friend, and I was young, without much money.<p/>
R01  32 <p_><quote_>"Why not?"<quote/> I asked him as I climbed in and 
R01  33 started to press buttons that made the seat move back and forth. 
R01  34 <quote_>"She's a femme fatale,"<quote/> he said, <quote_>"a siren, 
R01  35 a looker who will break your heart."<quote/> This guy was obviously 
R01  36 not your average used-car salesman. He went on: <quote_>"There's a 
R01  37 blue Chevy over here I can really recommend."<quote/><p/>
R01  38 <p_><quote_>"Wait a minute,"<quote/> I said, now hitting the button 
R01  39 that made the seat go up and down. <quote_>"What's the problem 
R01  40 right here?"<quote/><p/>
R01  41 <p_>He said, <quote_>"I've seen it happen a million times. A kid 
R01  42 like you buys a car like that and tries to make a new car out of 
R01  43 it. It won't work, and it will end up costing you more money than 
R01  44 you can think of."<quote/><p/>
R01  45 <p_>Hitting the button that made the top go up and down, I said, 
R01  46 <quote_>"How much do you want for it?"<quote/><p/>
R01  47 <p_>He said, <quote_>"I'll give it to you for seven hundred 
R01  48 dollars, no guarantees, and I'm telling you again not to take 
R01  49 it."<quote/><p/>
R01  50 <p_><quote|>"Sold," I said. I wrote him a check and drove it right 
R01  51 off the lot, as he stood there shaking his head.<p/>
R01  52 <p_>I loved it! I got myself a fancy hat and drove it all over 
R01  53 Hollywood with the top down. I had more fun with it than anything I 
R01  54 can remember ... for about two weeks. Slowly, the problems started. 
R01  55 I didn't take particular notice because I was making some money. 
R01  56 The repair bills were dollar25 here, dollar50 there, dollar70 
R01  57 there. After a few more weeks it was dollar125 here, dollar175 
R01  58 there. Each time I was convinced that that would take care of that 
R01  59 leak or that veering of the wheels or that fairly loud rattle. It 
R01  60 didn't. I was doing exactly what the friend's friend had told me 
R01  61 not to: trying to make a new car out of it. I couldn't seem to help 
R01  62 myself. It always seemed like it was one repair job away from being 
R01  63 perfect. Three thousand dollars' worth of repairs later, I was 
R01  64 convinced I now had it all under control.<p/>
R01  65 <p_>That afternoon the brakes failed, and I ran into the car in 
R01  66 front of me. Nobody was hurt, thankfully. I had them fixed, and a 
R01  67 week later they failed again, and I knocked down a telephone pole 
R01  68 to avoid hurting anyone. I had them fixed again, but now I was 
R01  69 starting to get a little wary. And poor.<p/>
R01  70 <p_>One day, coming out of the place where I was staying, I noticed 
R01  71 a large puddle of fluid under the car. I got in with my friend, 
R01  72 another guy who wasn't going to win any prizes for brains about 
R01  73 cars, and we headed down a steep hill, looking for a garage. 
R01  74 Halfway down the hill the brakes failed again. We were about fifty 
R01  75 yards away from Sunset Boulevard at rush hour. I jumped the curb, 
R01  76 grazed a tree, and went right through a brick wall of a garage and 
R01  77 stopped. Because the 1958 Cadillac was the most powerful thing 
R01  78 around next to a Sherman tank, no one was hurt. I had it towed 
R01  79 away, repaired, and the brakes fixed for the third time. After that 
R01  80 I decided enough was enough. Fearful that the car would eventually 
R01  81 kill someone, I decided to junk it, not sell it.<p/>
R01  82 <p_>I drove it over to a junkyard and, after they promised me they 
R01  83 would make scrap out of it, made a deal to sell my 
R01  84 forty-five-hundred-dollar Cadillac for eight dollars.<p/>
R01  85 <p_>It was a femme fatale, a siren, a looker that could break your 
R01  86 heart - and everything else.<p/>
R01  87 <h|>Judging
R01  88 <p_>I'M NOT TOO BIG on judging. Every time someone starts talking 
R01  89 about what's wrong with somebody I wonder and often say, 
R01  90 <quote_>"Why don't we criticize you or me or any of us 
R01  91 here?"<quote/> Obviously none of us is perfect, so why sit and 
R01  92 judge others? I mean, really extreme bad stuff I can judge as much 
R01  93 as the next guy, but on garden variety faults I'm not much of a 
R01  94 judger.<p/>
R01  95 <p_>There is one exception to all of this. There is one type I'm 
R01  96 constantly judging because they drive me nuts. It's the 
R01  97 authoritarian know-it-all, lots-of-rules kind of person.<p/>
R01  98 <p_>I first ran into one early on in school. If ever someone like 
R01  99 this belongs anywhere, it would be as a teacher in school, but I 
R01 100 couldn't handle him there either. I was regularly thrown out of 
R01 101 various classes for clashes with these control freaks.<p/>
R01 102 <p_>My parents weren't like that, so maybe I was just shocked 
R01 103 shortly after kindergarten that it felt like I had unwittingly 
R01 104 entered the military. In fact, later <tf|>in the military it didn't 
R01 105 bother me at all. It was so extreme there I secretly thought it was 
R01 106 funny. Of course, this was peacetime.<p/>
R01 107 <p_>In my adult life these authoritarians have been my curse. I've 
R01 108 done everything possible to avoid them. Sometimes it's impossible 
R01 109 if they're in your family or you encounter them at work.<p/>
R01 110 <p_>Work is the one place I've taken these people on. Most recently 
R01 111 there was a producer working on a movie I did. The first time I saw 
R01 112 this guy he was fairly quiet. It was a big meeting, so I didn't 
R01 113 immediately spot what was in store.<p/>
R01 114 <p_>One of the main characteristics of these people is their need 
R01 115 to be right. I'm sure it's because they were once made to feel so 
R01 116 wrong, so impotent, probably in childhood. I'm sympathetic to that, 
R01 117 but <tf|>I don't want to get beat up because they were subjected to 
R01 118 childhood villains.<p/>
R01 119 <p_>This particular producer, because of his need to win every 
R01 120 point about anything, had alienated about fifty-eight people by the 
R01 121 time the movie was over. He made haters out of some of the nicest 
R01 122 people I've ever met in my life. His first direct assault on me 
R01 123 came one morning, when we were shooting a huge train scene with a 
R01 124 lot of extras. When I walked on the set, this guy looked at his 
R01 125 watch, then at me, then announced, <quote_>"I've been ready to 
R01 126 shoot since eight-thirty."<quote/> It was now nine, which was when 
R01 127 I had been asked to arrive. I looked at him as though he were 
R01 128 speaking Swahili to someone else and went about my business. There 
R01 129 were other instances of this treatment toward me and everyone else 
R01 130 on the picture. Eventually he was discreetly asked to be around 
R01 131 less. That's usually what happens to these control freaks. They win 
R01 132 some battles and then lose the war. The problem is they never seem 
R01 133 to see the ultimate effect of what they're doing.<p/>
R01 134 <p_>Sometimes I can feel sorrow and not anger toward them if I 
R01 135 think deeply. Sadly I'm seldom that deep a thinker.<p/>
R01 136 <p_>The best thing about animals is that they don't talk much.<p/>
R01 137 <p_>- THORNTON WILDER<p/>
R01 138 <h|>Animals
R01 139 <p_>I HAVEN'T DONE AS well with animals as most people. On the 
R01 140 positive side I find most dogs enormously touching and sweet. On 
R01 141 the other hand, one of these sweet guys who actually was in my 
R01 142 family once joined a dog pack and came after me snarling a long 
R01 143 time ago. Our relationship was never the same. I'd still consider a 
R01 144 dog in my life if it weren't for pooper-scoopers and shedding.<p/>
R01 145 <p_>Cats are out. I'm allergic - heavily. They have their moments, 
R01 146 but I've never quite settled in with all that back arching and 
R01 147 hissing. The big cats - a lion, anyway - I can't even watch on 
R01 148 television. Someone once said if something extremely strange for 
R01 149 which there is no logical explanation is going on in your life, 
R01 150 it's probably evidence of a previous existence. Judging by how 
R01 151 quickly I change the channel when one of those lions comes on, I 
R01 152 was once eaten by one; nothing less explains it. And if a lion 
R01 153 comes out of a subway as it used to on those commercials - forget 
R01 154 about it. I'm pretty quiet for a long time after that.<p/>
R01 155 <p_>Oddly enough, my most memorable experience with animals was 
R01 156 with, of all things, buffalo.<p/>
R01 157 <p_>Very late one night I was walking home from filming a movie, 
R01 158 and a herd of buffalo blocked my path. I was filming on the island 
R01 159 of Catalina, which is some twenty-five miles off the coast of San 
R01 160 Pedro, California. In the 1920s a movie company had gone over there 
R01 161 to film a western and taken some buffalo with them. When they left, 
R01 162 they left the buffalo.<p/>
R01 163 <p_>I was staying a ten-minute boat ride from the main location. It 
R01 164 was the only place near where we were filming that there were any 
R01 165 kind of accommodations a city guy like me would be happy. The main 
R01 166 location mostly offered tents and rooms with no roofs; the facility 
R01 167 there was a boys' camp out of season. And while there were some 
R01 168 rooms with roofs, all in all I said I'd take the ten-minute boat 
R01 169 ride to the citylike accommodations. When I said that, I didn't 
R01 170 know the buffalo herd lived over near my place.<p/>
R01 171 <p_>A day's filming on a movie is generally at least twelve hours 
R01 172 long. By the end of the day, and especially after a bumpy motorboat 
R01 173 ride in the sea in total darkness (the driver held a spotlight in 
R01 174 his hand), I was truly ready to go home. Once disembarked from the 
R01 175 boat, I had a walk of about two hundred yards up a hill. I was 
R01 176 always hungry and tired.<p/>
R01 177 <p_>Prior to this I had seen a buffalo here and there on the 
R01 178 island, always a fair distance away. I'd eyed them warily and kept 
R01 179 going. I was told not to walk up and pet them or taunt them, which 
R01 180 I hadn't planned to do anyway. I vaguely had heard stories of 
R01 181 people who had tried stuff and were sorry, but I didn't know what 
R01 182 they'd tried or how sorry they were. That was the extent of my 
R01 183 information that night when I encountered the herd.<p/>
R01 184 
R02   1 <#FROWN:R02\><p_><quote_>"No, that'll be fine, thanks,"<quote/> 
R02   2 said Tricia. <quote_>"I can handle it now."<quote/><p/>
R02   3 <p_><quote_>"I can call this room number here for you if that'll 
R02   4 help,"<quote/> said the receptionist, peering at the note again.<p/>
R02   5 <p_><quote_>"No, that won't be necessary, thanks,"<quote/> said 
R02   6 Tricia. <quote_>"That's my own room number. I'm the one the message 
R02   7 was for. I think we've sorted this out now."<quote/><p/>
R02   8 <p_><quote_>"You have a nice day now,"<quote/> said the 
R02   9 receptionist.<p/>
R02  10 <p_>Tricia didn't particularly want to have a nice day. She was 
R02  11 busy.<p/>
R02  12 <p_>She also didn't want to talk to Gail Andrews. She had a very 
R02  13 strict cut-off point as far as fraternizing with the Christians was 
R02  14 concerned. Her colleagues called her interview subjects Christians 
R02  15 and would often cross themselves when they saw one walking 
R02  16 innocently into the studio to face Tricia, particularly if Tricia 
R02  17 was smiling warmly and showing her teeth.<p/>
R02  18 <p_>She turned and smiled frostily, wondering what to do.<p/>
R02  19 <p_>Gail Andrews was a well-groomed woman in her mid-forties. Her 
R02  20 clothes fell within the boundaries defined by expensive good taste, 
R02  21 but were definitely huddled up at the floatier end of those 
R02  22 boundaries. She was an astrologer - a famous and, if rumor were 
R02  23 true, influential astrologer, having allegedly influenced a number 
R02  24 of decisions made by the late President Hudson, including 
R02  25 everything from which flavor of Cool Whip to have on which day of 
R02  26 the week to whether or not to bomb Damascus.<p/>
R02  27 <p_>Tricia had savaged her more than somewhat. Not on the grounds 
R02  28 of whether or not the stories about the president were true, that 
R02  29 was old hat now. At time Ms. Andrews had emphatically denied 
R02  30 advising President Hudson on anything other than personal, 
R02  31 spiritual or dietary matters, which did not, apparently, include 
R02  32 the bombing of Damascus. (NOTHING PERSONAL, DAMASCUS! the tabloids 
R02  33 had hooted at the time.)<p/>
R02  34 <p_>No, this was a neat topical little angle that Tricia had come 
R02  35 up with about the whole issue of astrology itself. Ms. Andrews had 
R02  36 not been entirely ready for it. Tricia, on the other hand, was not 
R02  37 entirely ready for a rematch in the hotel lobby. What to do?<p/>
R02  38 <p_><quote_>"I can wait for you in the bar, if you need a few 
R02  39 minutes,"<quote/> said Gail Andrews. <quote_>"But I would like to 
R02  40 talk to you, and I'm leaving the city tonight."<quote/><p/>
R02  41 <p_>She seemed to be slightly anxious about something rather than 
R02  42 aggrieved or irate.<p/>
R02  43 <p_><quote|>"Okay," said Tricia. <quote_>"Give me ten 
R02  44 minutes."<quote/><p/>
R02  45 <p_>She went up to her room. Apart from anything else, she had so 
R02  46 little faith in the ability of the guy on the message desk at 
R02  47 reception to deal with anything so complicated as a message that 
R02  48 she wanted to be doubly certain that there wasn't a note under the 
R02  49 door. It wouldn't be the first time that messages at the desk and 
R02  50 messages under the door had been completely at odds with each 
R02  51 other.<p/>
R02  52 <p_>There wasn't one.<p/>
R02  53 <p_>The message light on the phone was flashing, though.<p/>
R02  54 <p_>She hit the message button and got the hotel operator.<p/>
R02  55 <p_><quote_>"You have a message from Gary Andress,"<quote/> said 
R02  56 the operator.<p/>
R02  57 <p_><quote|>"Yes?" said Tricia. An unfamiliar name. <quote_>"What 
R02  58 does it say."<quote/><p/>
R02  59 <p_><quote_>"Not hippy,"<quote/> said the operator.<p/>
R02  60 <p_><quote_>"Not <tf|>what?"<quote/> said Tricia.<p/>
R02  61 <p_><quote_>"<tf|>Hippy. What it says. Guy says he's not a hippy. I 
R02  62 guess he wanted you to know that. You want the number?"<quote/><p/>
R02  63 <p_>As she started to dictate the number Tricia suddenly realized 
R02  64 that this was just a garbled version of the message she had already 
R02  65 had.<p/>
R02  66 <p_><quote_>"Okay, okay,"<quote/> she said. <quote_>"Are there any 
R02  67 other messages for me?"<quote/><p/>
R02  68 <p_><quote_>"Room number?"<quote/><p/>
R02  69 <p_>Tricia couldn't work out why the operator should suddenly ask 
R02  70 for her number this late in the conversation, but gave it to her 
R02  71 anyway.<p/>
R02  72 <p_><quote|>"Name?"<p/>
R02  73 <p_><quote_>"McMillan, Tricia McMillan."<quote/> Tricia spelled it, 
R02  74 patiently.<p/>
R02  75 <p_><quote_>"Not Mr. MacManus?"<quote/><p/>
R02  76 <p_><quote|>"No."<p/>
R02  77 <p_><quote_>"No more messages for you."<quote/> Click.<p/>
R02  78 <p_>Tricia sighed and dialed again. This time she gave her name and 
R02  79 room number all over again, up front. The operator showed not the 
R02  80 slightest glimmer of recognition that they had been speaking less 
R02  81 than ten seconds ago.<p/>
R02  82 <p_><quote_>"I'm going to be in the bar,"<quote/> Tricia explained. 
R02  83 <quote_>"In the bar. If a phone call comes through for me, please 
R02  84 would you put it through to me in the bar?"<quote/><p/>
R02  85 <p_><quote|>"Name?"<p/>
R02  86 <p_>They went through it all a couple more times till Tricia was 
R02  87 certain that everything that possibly could be clear was as clear 
R02  88 as it possibly could be.<p/>
R02  89 <p_>She showered, put on fresh clothes and retouched her makeup 
R02  90 with the speed of a professional and, looking at her bed with a 
R02  91 sigh, left the room again.<p/>
R02  92 <p_>She had half a mind just to sneak off and hide.<p/>
R02  93 <p_>No. Not really.<p/>
R02  94 <p_>She had a look at herself in the mirror in the elevator lobby 
R02  95 while she was waiting. She looked cool and in charge, and if she 
R02  96 could fool herself she could fool anybody.<p/>
R02  97 <p_>She was just going to have to tough it out with Gail Andrews. 
R02  98 Okay, she had given her a hard time. Sorry, but that's the game 
R02  99 we're all in - that sort of thing. Ms. Andrews had agreed to do the 
R02 100 interview because she had a new book out and TV exposure was free 
R02 101 publicity. But there's no such thing as a free launch. No, she 
R02 102 edited that line out again.<p/>
R02 103 <p_>What had happened was this:<p/>
R02 104 <p_>Last week astronomers had announced that they had at last 
R02 105 discovered a tenth planet, out beyond the orbit of Pluto. They had 
R02 106 been searching for it for years, guided by certain orbital 
R02 107 anomalies in the outer planets, and now they'd found it and they 
R02 108 were all terribly pleased, and everyone was terribly happy for them 
R02 109 and so on. The planet was named Persephone, but rapidly nicknamed 
R02 110 Rupert after some astronomer's parrot - there was some tediously 
R02 111 heartwarming story attached to this - and that was all very 
R02 112 wonderful and lovely.<p/>
R02 113 <p_>Tricia had followed the story with, for various reasons, 
R02 114 considerable interest.<p/>
R02 115 <p_>Then, while she had been casting around for a good excuse to go 
R02 116 to New York at her TV company's expense, she had happened to notice 
R02 117 a press release about Gail Andrews and her new book, <tf_>You and 
R02 118 Your Planets<tf/>.<p/>
R02 119 <p_>Gail Andrews was not exactly a household name, but the moment 
R02 120 you mentioned President Hudson, Cool Whip and the amputation of 
R02 121 Damascus (the world had moved on from surgical strikes - the 
R02 122 official term had in fact been 'Damascectomy,' meaning the 'taking 
R02 123 out' of Damascus), everyone remembered who you meant.<p/>
R02 124 <p_>Tricia saw an angle here which she quickly sold to her 
R02 125 producer.<p/>
R02 126 <p_>Surely the notion that great lumps of rock whirling in space 
R02 127 knew something about your day that you didn't must take a bit of a 
R02 128 knock from the fact that there was suddenly a new lump of rock out 
R02 129 there that nobody had known about before.<p/>
R02 130 <p_>That must throw a few calculations out, mustn't it?<p/>
R02 131 <p_>What about all those star charts and planetary motions and so 
R02 132 on? We all knew (apparently) what happened when Neptune was in 
R02 133 Virgo, and so on, but what about when Rupert was rising? Wouldn't 
R02 134 the whole of astrology have to be re<?_>-<?/>thought? Wouldn't now 
R02 135 perhaps be a good time to own up that it was all just a load of 
R02 136 hogwash and instead take up pig farming, the principles of which 
R02 137 were founded on some kind of rational basis? If we'd known about 
R02 138 Rupert three years ago, might President Hudson have been eating the 
R02 139 chocolate flavor on Thursday rather than Friday? Might Damascus 
R02 140 still be standing? That sort of thing.<p/>
R02 141 <p_>Gail Andrews had taken it all reasonably well. She was just 
R02 142 starting to recover from the initial onslaught, when she made the 
R02 143 rather serious mistake of trying to shake Tricia off by talking 
R02 144 smoothly about diurnal arcs, right ascensions and some of the more 
R02 145 abstruse areas of three-dimensional trigonometry.<p/>
R02 146 <p_>To her shock she discovered that everything she delivered to 
R02 147 Tricia came right back at her with more spin on it than she could 
R02 148 cope with. Nobody had warned Gail that being a TV bimbo was, for 
R02 149 Tricia, her second stab at a role in life. Behind her Chanel lip 
R02 150 gloss, her coupe sauvage and her crystal blue contact lenses lay a 
R02 151 brain that had acquired for itself, in an earlier, abandoned phase 
R02 152 of her life, a first-class degree in mathematics and a doctorate in 
R02 153 astrophysics.<p/>
R02 154 <p_>As she was getting into the elevator, Tricia, slightly 
R02 155 preoccupied, realized she had left her bag in her room and wondered 
R02 156 whether to duck back out and get it. No. It was probably safer 
R02 157 where it was and there wasn't anything she particularly needed in 
R02 158 it. She let the door close behind her.<p/>
R02 159 <p_>Besides, she told herself, taking a deep breath, if life had 
R02 160 taught her anything it was this: <tf|>Never go back for your 
R02 161 bag.<p/>
R02 162 <p_>As the elevator went down she stared at the ceiling in a rather 
R02 163 intent way. Anyone who didn't know Tricia McMillan better would 
R02 164 have said that that was exactly the way people sometimes stared 
R02 165 upward when they were trying to hold back tears. She must have been 
R02 166 staring at the tiny security video camera mounted up in the corner. 
R02 167 She marched rather briskly out of the elevator a minute later, and 
R02 168 went up to the reception desk again.<p/>
R02 169 <p_><quote_>"Now, I'm going to write this out,"<quote/> she said, 
R02 170 <quote_>"because I don't want anything to go wrong."<quote/><p/>
R02 171 <p_>She wrote her name in large letters on a piece of paper, then 
R02 172 her room number, then IN THE BAR and gave it to the receptionist, 
R02 173 who looked at it.<p/>
R02 174 <p_><quote_>"That's in case there's a message for me. 
R02 175 Okay?"<quote/><p/>
R02 176 <p_>The receptionist continued to look at it.<p/>
R02 177 <p_><quote_>"You want me to see if she's in her room?"<quote/> he 
R02 178 said.<p/>
R02 179 <p_>Two minutes later, Tricia swiveled into the bar seat next to 
R02 180 Gail Andrews, who was sitting in front of a glass of white wine.<p/>
R02 181 <p_><quote_>"You struck me as the sort of person who preferred to 
R02 182 sit up at the bar rather than demurely at a table,"<quote/> she 
R02 183 said.<p/>
R02 184 <p_>This was true, and caught Tricia a little by surprise.<p/>
R02 185 <p_><quote|>"Vodka?" said Gail.<p/>
R02 186 <p_><quote|>"Yes," said Tricia, suspiciously. She just stopped 
R02 187 herself from asking, How did you know? but Gail answered anyway.<p/>
R02 188 <p_><quote_>"I asked the barman,"<quote/> she said, with a kindly 
R02 189 smile.<p/>
R02 190 <p_>The barman had her vodka ready for her and slid it charmingly 
R02 191 across the glossy mahogany.<p/>
R02 192 <p_><quote_>"Thank you,"<quote/> said Tricia, stirring it 
R02 193 sharply.<p/>
R02 194 <p_>She didn't know quite what to make out of all this sudden 
R02 195 niceness and was determined not to be wrong-footed by it. People in 
R02 196 New York were not nice to each other without reason.<p/>
R02 197 <p_><quote_>"Ms. Andrews,"<quote/> she said, firmly, <quote_>"I'm 
R02 198 sorry that you're not happy. I know you probably feel I was a bit 
R02 199 rough with you this morning, but astrology is, after all, just 
R02 200 popular entertainment, which is fine. It's part of showbiz and it's 
R02 201 a part that you have done well out of and good luck to you. It's 
R02 202 fun. It's not a science though, and it shouldn't be mistaken for 
R02 203 one. I think that 's something we both managed to demonstrate very 
R02 204 successfully together this morning, while at the same time 
R02 205 generating some popular entertainment, which is what we both do for 
R02 206 a living. I'm sorry if you have a problem with that."<quote/><p/>
R02 207 <p_><quote_>"I'm perfectly happy,"<quote/> said Gail Andrews.<p/>
R02 208 <p_><quote|>"Oh," said Tricia, not quite certain what to make of 
R02 209 this. <quote_>"It said in your message that you were not 
R02 210 happy."<quote/><p/>
R02 211 <p_><quote|>"No," said Gail Andrews. <quote_>"I said in my message 
R02 212 that I thought <tf|>you were not happy, and I was just wondering 
R02 213 why."<quote/><p/>
R02 214 <p_>Tricia felt as if she had been kicked in the back of the head. 
R02 215 She blinked.<p/>
R02 216 <p_><quote_>"<tf|>What?" she said quietly.<p/>
R02 217 <p_><quote_>"To do with the stars. You seemed very angry and 
R02 218 unhappy about something to do with stars and planets when we were 
R02 219 having our discussion, and it's been bothering me, which is why I 
R02 220 came to see if you were all right."<quote/><p/>
R02 221 <p_>Tricia stared at her. <quote_>"Ms. Andrews -"<quote/> she 
R02 222 started, and then realized that the way she had said it sounded 
R02 223 exactly angry and unhappy and rather undermined the protest she had 
R02 224 been trying to make.<p/>
R02 225 <p_><quote_>"Please call me Gail, if that's okay."<quote/><p/>
R02 226 
R03   1 <#FROWN:R03\>For one thing, it consists almost entirely of Japanese 
R03   2 people. For another thing, they don't shake hands. They bow. 
R03   3 They're not big on physical contact, especially with strangers. 
R03   4 They'd be uncomfortable at a typical American social gathering, 
R03   5 where people who barely know each other will often kiss and hug, 
R03   6 and people who are <tf|>really close will sometimes have sexual 
R03   7 relations right in the foyer.<p/>
R03   8 <p_>The Japanese are also formal about names, generally addressing 
R03   9 each other with the honorary title 'san', as in 'Osaka-san', which 
R03  10 is like saying 'Mr.Osaka'. I understand that, even if two Japanese 
R03  11 have worked together for many years, neither would dream of using 
R03  12 the other's first name. Whereas Americans are on a first-name basis 
R03  13 immediately, and by the end of the first day have generally 
R03  14 graduated to 'Yo, Butthead!'<p/>
R03  15 <p_>One night in Tokyo we watched two Japanese businessmen saying 
R03  16 good-night to each other after what had clearly been a long night 
R03  17 of drinking, a major participant sport in Japan. These men were 
R03  18 totally snockered, having reached the stage of inebriation wherein 
R03  19 every air molecule that struck caused them to wobble slightly, but 
R03  20 they still managed to behave more formally than Americans do at 
R03  21 funerals. They faced each other and bowed deeply, which caused both 
R03  22 of them to momentarily lose their balance and start to pitch 
R03  23 face-first to the sidewalk. Trying to recover their balance, they 
R03  24 both stepped forward, almost banging heads. They managed to get 
R03  25 themselves upright again and, with great dignity, weaved off in 
R03  26 opposite directions. If both of them wound up barfing into the 
R03  27 shrubbery, I bet they did it like Alfonse and Gaston, in a formal 
R03  28 manner.<p/>
R03  29 <p_>I never really did get accustomed to all the bowing. According 
R03  30 to the guidebooks, there's an elaborate set of rules governing 
R03  31 exactly how you bow, and who bows the lowest, and when, and for how 
R03  32 long, and how many times, all of this depending on the situation 
R03  33 and the statuses of the various bowers involved. Naturally, my 
R03  34 family and I, being large, ignorant foreign water buffalos, were 
R03  35 not expected by the Japanese to know these rules. Nevertheless we 
R03  36 did feel obligated to attempt to return bows when we got them.<p/>
R03  37 <p_>This happened quite often. It started when we arrived at our 
R03  38 hotel in Tokyo. As I was descending the steps of the airport bus, 
R03  39 two uniformed bellmen came rushing up and bowed to me. Trying to 
R03  40 look casual but feeling like an idiot, I bowed back. I probably did 
R03  41 it wrong, because then <tf|>they bowed back. So <tf|>I bowed back. 
R03  42 The three of us sort of bowed our way over to where the luggage was 
R03  43 being unloaded, and I bowed to our suitcases, and the bellmen, 
R03  44 bowing, picked them up and rushed into the hotel. We followed them 
R03  45 past a bowing doorman into the hotel, where we were 
R03  46 gang<?_>-<?/>bowed by hotel employees. No matter which direction we 
R03  47 turned, they were aiming bows at us, sometimes from as far as 
R03  48 twenty-five yards away.<p/>
R03  49 <p_>Bobbing like drinking-bird toys, we bowed our way to the 
R03  50 reception desk, where a bowing clerk checked us in. Then we bowed 
R03  51 our way over to the elevators, where we encountered our first 
R03  52 Elevator Ladies. These are young, uniformed, relentlessly smiling 
R03  53 women who stand by the elevators in hotels and stores all day. 
R03  54 Their function is to press the elevator button for you. Then, when 
R03  55 the elevator comes, they show you where it is by gesturing 
R03  56 enthusiastically toward it, similar to the way that models gesture 
R03  57 on TV game shows when they are showing some lucky contestant the 
R03  58 seventeen-piece dinette set that he has just won.<p/>
R03  59 <p_><quote_>"Here's your elevator!"<quote/> is the message of this 
R03  60 gesture. <quote_>"Isn't it a beauty?"<quote/><p/>
R03  61 <p_>Throughout our stay in Japan, every Elevator Lady managed to 
R03  62 give the impression that she was genuinely thrilled that I had 
R03  63 chosen to ride her elevators, as opposed to some other form of 
R03  64 vertical transportation. I never saw one who seemed to resent the 
R03  65 fact that she was stuck in, let's face it, a real armpit of a job. 
R03  66 If I did their work, it would turn me into a stark raving lunatic. 
R03  67 Within days I'd be deliberately ushering people into open elevator 
R03  68 shafts.<p/>
R03  69 <p_>Anyway, we got into our hotel elevator, and the E.L. stood 
R03  70 outside and bowed deeply as the doors closed. I bowed back, but not 
R03  71 too low, for fear of getting my head caught in the doors. Alone in 
R03  72 the elevator, I wondered if maybe all the bowing had been some kind 
R03  73 of elaborate prank on us, and if at that very moment the hotel 
R03  74 employees were all giving each other high-five handslaps and 
R03  75 laughing so hard that they drooled on their uniforms.<p/>
R03  76 <p_>We got to our room and seconds later the bellmen knocked at the 
R03  77 door, bowed their way inside, laid out our luggage, and checked to 
R03  78 make sure that the room was O.K. Then - this was an amazing event 
R03  79 to witness - they <tf|>left. They just <tf_>walked out of the 
R03  80 room<tf/>.<p/>
R03  81 <p_>An American bellman, of course, stands around in a congenial 
R03  82 yet determined manner, waiting for you to figure out that you had 
R03  83 not tipped him yet. If it doesn't dawn on you right away, he'll 
R03  84 start telling you about some of the hotel's available special guest 
R03  85 services, such as breakfast; or start demonstrating various deluxe 
R03  86 features of the room, such as that it has electric lights, which 
R03  87 you can operate via switches. If necessary he will stay in your 
R03  88 room all night. You get up at 3:00 A.M. to go to the bathroom, and 
R03  89 there is your bellman, showing you where the flush handle is and 
R03  90 just generally continuing to be helpful until spontaneously decide 
R03  91 to give him a token of your gratitude.<p/>
R03  92 <p_>But there's no tipping in Japan. You just don't do it. Even in 
R03  93 restaurants. When people serve you in some manner, you simply say 
R03  94 'Thank you,' and they don't get angry or anything. In fact, they 
R03  95 often seem happy to have had the opportunity to serve you, if you 
R03  96 can imagine. This was quite a shock for me, coming from a country 
R03  97 where you regularly find yourself tipping people just so they won't 
R03  98 spit on you.<p/>
R03  99 <p_>The mysterious thing about all this is that Japan - ask anybody 
R03 100 who has been there - has superb service. And not just in nice 
R03 101 hotels. Everywhere. You walk into any store, any restaurant, no 
R03 102 matter how low-rent it looks, and I bet you that somebody will 
R03 103 immediately call out to you in a cheerful manner. This happened to 
R03 104 us all over. I never understood what the people were <tf|>saying, 
R03 105 of course. They could have been saying: <quote_>"Hah! Americans! We 
R03 106 will eventually purchase your entire nation and use the Lincoln 
R03 107 Memorial for tofu storage!"<quote/> But they always <tf|>sounded 
R03 108 friendly and welcoming. And they were always eager to wait on us. I 
R03 109 couldn't help but think of the many times I've been in American 
R03 110 stores, especially large ones, attempting to give somebody some 
R03 111 money in exchange for merchandise - which I always thought was the 
R03 112 whole <tf|>point of stores - but was unable to do so because the 
R03 113 store employees were too busy with other, higher-priority 
R03 114 activities, such as talking or staring into space. More than once, 
R03 115 in America's stores, I have felt like an intruder for trying to 
R03 116 give money to clerks. <quote_>"Oh great"<quote/> is their unspoken 
R03 117 but extremely clear attitude. <quote_>"Here we had everything going 
R03 118 nice and smooth, and along comes this <tf|>doofus who wants - of 
R03 119 all things! - to make a <tf|>purchase. In a <tf|>store, for God's 
R03 120 sake."<quote/><p/>
R03 121 <p_>I'll give you another example of what I'm talking about. We've 
R03 122 traveled extensively in the United States, and often our son 
R03 123 travels with us, and when he does we always try to arrange to have 
R03 124 one of those folding beds for him in our hotel room. Beth always 
R03 125 calls the hotel in advance and asks them to please write down that 
R03 126 we want a folding bed. She calls later to confirm that there will 
R03 127 be a folding bed. When we check in, we always remind them that we 
R03 128 need a folding bed.<p/>
R03 129 <p_>So needless to say, there has never - not <tf|>once, in ten 
R03 130 years, in dozens and dozens of hotels - been an actual folding bed 
R03 131 in our room when we got there. We <tf|>always have to call 
R03 132 Housekeeping to ask for it, and nothing happens, so we call again, 
R03 133 and maybe again, and of course Housekeeping is not happy about this 
R03 134 - <quote_>"These damned guests! Always calling Housekeeping and 
R03 135 requesting Housekeeping services!"<quote/> - and then finally, 
R03 136 often late at night, our folding bed will be brought to us by a 
R03 137 person who is obviously annoyed about having to deliver beds in the 
R03 138 middle of the night to people who should have thought to arrange 
R03 139 this earlier. Naturally, I always give this person a tip.<p/>
R03 140 <p_>In Japan, the bed was always there, at every hotel, when we 
R03 141 checked in. This may seem minor to you, but to us it was a miracle, 
R03 142 comparable in scope to having a total stranger hold a door open for 
R03 143 you in New York City.<p/>
R03 144 <p_>I'll give you another minor but typical hotel example. When we 
R03 145 checked into our hotel in Hiroshima, I noticed that our bathtub 
R03 146 faucet would not produce hot water, so I called the front desk. In 
R03 147 America, the front desk would have told me that somebody would be 
R03 148 up to take a look at it, and eventually somebody would, but not 
R03 149 necessarily during my current lifetime.<p/>
R03 150 <p_>In Hiroshima, a bellman arrived at our room within, literally, 
R03 151 one minute. He had obviously been sprinting, and he looked 
R03 152 concerned. He checked the faucet, found that it was, indeed, 
R03 153 malfunctioning, and - now looking <tf|>extremely concerned - 
R03 154 sprinted from the room. In no more than three minutes he was back 
R03 155 with two more men, one of whom immediately went to work on the 
R03 156 bathtub. The sole function of the other one, as far as we could 
R03 157 tell, was to apologize to us on behalf of the hotel for having 
R03 158 committed this monumentally embarrassing and totally unforgivable 
R03 159 blunder.<p/>
R03 160 <p_><quote_>"We are very sorry,"<quote/> he kept saying, looking as 
R03 161 though near tears. <quote_>"<tf|>Very sorry."<quote/><p/>
R03 162 <p_><quote_>"It's OK!"<quote/> I kept saying. <quote|>"Really!" But 
R03 163 it did no good. The man was <tf|>grieving.<p/>
R03 164 <p_>The bathtub was fixed in under ten minutes, after which all 
R03 165 three men apologized extravagantly in various languages one last 
R03 166 time, after which they left, after which I imagine that the hotel's 
R03 167 Vice President for Faucet Operations was taken outside and shot.<p/>
R03 168 <p_>No, just kidding. He probably took his own life. That's how 
R03 169 seriously they take their jobs over there.<p/>
R03 170 <p_>I keep reading that American businesses have figured out that 
R03 171 they need to focus more attention on customer service, but I'm 
R03 172 afraid we have a long way to go before we catch up to the Japanese. 
R03 173 As I write these words, Beth and I are in a state of seething 
R03 174 semihomicidal rage resulting from our repeated unsuccessful 
R03 175 attempts to give money to Sears in exchange for fixing some 
R03 176 problems with our refrigerator. Beth called the Sears Service 
R03 177 Department two weeks ago and spoke to a Customer Service 
R03 178 Representative who agreed to schedule a Repair Technician to come 
R03 179 out. The Customer Service Representative was willing to tell Beth 
R03 180 the <tf|>day this would happen, but - you appliance-owners out 
R03 181 there know how this works - she refused to reveal the <tf|>time 
R03 182 that the technician would be here.<p/>
R03 183 <p_>This is because of National Security. If we knew the exact time 
R03 184 that our appliance was being repaired, there is the danger that we 
R03 185 might blurt this information out in public. We'd be in a 
R03 186 restaurant, for example, and we'd have a few too many glasses of 
R03 187 wine, and one of us would say, <quote_>"Well, the Sears 
R03 188 Refrigerator Repair Technician is coming to our house at two-thirty 
R03 189 P.M. on Wednesday."<quote/> We wouldn't even consider the 
R03 190 possibility that the bus<?_>-<?/>boy lurking just a few feet away 
R03 191 might be an enemy agent, and that we had blown the entire 
R03 192 operation.<p/>
R03 193 <p_>So when the day came, Beth stayed home all day, waiting for the 
R03 194 Repair Technician, who of course did not show up.
R03 195 
R04   1 <#FROWN:R04\>She'd hook that little old crooked-legged mule up to 
R04   2 the wagon and go down and cut a load of wood like a man. Could ride 
R04   3 a horse, bareback, like nothing you ever seen. Shoot a gun. Had her 
R04   4 own rabbit gums. That's right.<p/>
R04   5 <p_>I've forgotten what that little crooked-legged mule's name 
R04   6 was.<p/>
R04   7 <p_>She got whipped too. For all the normal things. She got where 
R04   8 she'd sit around behind the store and smoke cigarettes. That store 
R04   9 had been there since way before cars, and there was a hitching post 
R04  10 out in front of it. So ... see, girls didn't smoke back then, 
R04  11 nowhere, but she was going out behind the store and smoking with 
R04  12 the store<?_>-<?/>owner's daughter, who was mean. Somebody told 
R04  13 Papa, and he made her stand at the hitching post and smoke five 
R04  14 cigarettes in a row for five days in a row. Every day the crowd got 
R04  15 a little bigger and a little bigger. She stopped smoking, too.<p/>
R04  16 <p_>I imagine of all the people in the family, me and her was the 
R04  17 closest. She'd go hunting with me, and we had fights. She never 
R04  18 forgot some of the things that happened. One time I held up a 
R04  19 rabbit from one of my gums to show her, cause she didn't get any 
R04  20 that morning, and that rabbit jerked loose and went running off and 
R04  21 she fell on the ground laughing. She told about that over and over. 
R04  22 She could actually skin a rabbit faster than I could. That's no 
R04  23 lie. She was quicker than me in some ways, once she growed up a 
R04  24 little bit. I'm talking about when she was around thirteen, 
R04  25 fourteen, and I was eighteen or nineteen, before I stopped living 
R04  26 up there and then run off after Mama married old man Harper.<p/>
R04  27 <p_>Aw, there's a lot of different things that I could tell, you 
R04  28 know, about the whole entire country around in there and everywhere 
R04  29 from Bethel all the way back to the old mill place and down below 
R04  30 up the old ah, ah penitentiary place and all the way coming back 
R04  31 into Summerlin, where we used to go and what we used to do, but 
R04  32 it's hard to remember a lot of that stuff. And, that was before 
R04  33 World War I.<p/>
R04  34 <p_>And now here I am with my groin getting eat out. Looks like I 
R04  35 would be allowed to go out peaceable. They say He works in 
R04  36 mysterious ways. Well, I do too.<p/>
R04  37 <h|>Faison
R04  38 <p_>Tate keeps his place pretty nice. I been aiming to put up some 
R04  39 kind of blinds, shades, in mine, something on my windows. What's 
R04  40 hanging in my bedroom is a poncho, and when I got back from Tate's, 
R04  41 I looked through the head hole to see if I could see that dog out 
R04  42 back that had been barking for the last two days solid. But there's 
R04  43 a row of bushes at the back end of the yard that hides him.<p/>
R04  44 <p_>At least I never had this problem living at the motel. Didn't 
R04  45 have to worry about no curtains either.<p/>
R04  46 <p_>I headed for the kitchen, got a beer.<p/>
R04  47 <p_>I was thinking.<p/>
R04  48 <p_>Few minutes later, I stood on their porch and knocked on their 
R04  49 screen door. I saw them moving in a couple of weeks ago.<p/>
R04  50 <p_>One window on each side of the front door. The window shades 
R04  51 were pulled down - gold colored. A TV was on somewhere in there. I 
R04  52 opened the screen door and knocked. The door come open on its 
R04  53 own.<p/>
R04  54 <p_>I stuck my head in. TV noises from in there in that first room 
R04  55 on the left. Fishing gear was on the floor of a hall that ran front 
R04  56 to back. I closed the door behind me, tried to see what make the 
R04  57 fishing reels were - one was a Penn. I knocked on the door to the 
R04  58 room.<p/>
R04  59 <p_>This voice from inside: <quote|>"Yeah?"<p/>
R04  60 <p_><quote_>"I need to talk to somebody."<quote/><p/>
R04  61 <p_><quote_>"Just a minute."<quote/> The door opened. Short, stocky 
R04  62 man, reddish hair, scrawny mustache - little clusters of red hairs 
R04  63 like. <quote_>"What do you want?"<quote/> he says.<p/>
R04  64 <p_><quote_>"I got a complaint. That dog out back's about to drive 
R04  65 me crazy. He's been barking for -"<quote/><p/>
R04  66 <p_><quote_>"It's my brother's, but he's asleep. He'll be leaving 
R04  67 in a week or so, and he'll take the dog with him. So you don't have 
R04  68 nothing to worry about."<quote/><p/>
R04  69 <p_>The guy was acting like, hey, no big deal. But for <tf|>me it 
R04  70 <tf|>was. So I said, <quote_>"Well, you go wake him up, because 
R04  71 something's got to give here. That dog's driving me crazy."<quote/> 
R04  72 He had already started shutting the door.<p/>
R04  73 <p_><quote|>"Hey," he said, opening the door again. <quote_>"He's 
R04  74 got a nerve problem. I can't bother him right now."<quote/><p/>
R04  75 <p_><quote_>"Can't <tf|>bother -"<quote/><p/>
R04  76 <p_><quote_>"You live around here?"<quote/> He looked over his 
R04  77 shoulder at the TV.<p/>
R04  78 <p_><quote_>"Yeah. I live right out there."<quote/><p/>
R04  79 <p_><quote_>"Well, he's asleep now, and I ain't waking him up. He's 
R04  80 pretty nervous."<quote/><p/>
R04  81 <p_><quote_>"Look, man, either somebody shuts up the dog, or I shut 
R04  82 up the dog. I don't have to sit in my own house and be disturbed by 
R04  83 some dog after I give a warning. This is a warning. Okay? I mean 
R04  84 this has been going on two whole days and nights. It's driving me 
R04  85 crazy."<quote/><p/>
R04  86 <p_>This is the kind of situation where Uncle Grove would kick ass. 
R04  87 I been with him when he did.<p/>
R04  88 <p_><quote_>"Give me your phone number,"<quote/> he says. He could 
R04  89 see I was serious. He writes down my phone number on a 
R04  90 newspaper.<p/>
R04  91 <p_><quote_>"If I ain't heard from him by five o'clock,"<quote/> I 
R04  92 say, <quote_>"I'll figure nothing ain't going to be 
R04  93 done."<quote/><p/>
R04  94 <p_><quote_>"I'll give him the number,"<quote/> he says. 
R04  95 <quote_>"He'll call."<quote/><p/>
R04  96 <p_>So I come on back home and I'm thinking: I go out and talk to 
R04  97 this guy. Right? He acts like I'm the one bothering <tf|>him. He's 
R04  98 mouthing off at <tf|>me. Now ain't this something? This is the guy 
R04  99 with the barking dog. And who's mouthing off at who? There's people 
R04 100 like this all over the world. They don't think about nothing but 
R04 101 theirselves. They're everywhere, and when you bring it to their 
R04 102 attention, they go all to pieces. And a bigger problem is the 
R04 103 people that let them get by with it. You got jerks all over the 
R04 104 place that won't say nothing to these kind of assholes. They'd 
R04 105 rather get run all over. They'd rather avoid a little trouble. 
R04 106 They're what's wrong with this country.<p/>
R04 107 <p_>I got my twelve-gauge Remington automatic out of the closet, 
R04 108 found a box of shells, buckshot, in the top dresser drawer, got out 
R04 109 seven, dropped them on the bed. By god, if I did end up shooting 
R04 110 this dog, the dog wouldn't just be dead. He'd be dead dead. I 
R04 111 wouldn't do nothing like this half-ass.<p/>
R04 112 <p_>The Remington is my daddy's. Was my daddy's. He probably didn't 
R04 113 use it no more than eight or ten times in his life. He gave it to 
R04 114 me after he got sick this last time. Last long time. He took me 
R04 115 quail hunting a few times when I was little, but hell, I did more 
R04 116 stuff like that with Uncle Grove in the six months I stayed with 
R04 117 him than I did with my daddy all my life. Hunting, fishing, stuff 
R04 118 like that.<p/>
R04 119 <p_>Uncle Grove used to have a bunch of guns. He's still got that 
R04 120 one that was handed down - the double-barrel with the old-fashioned 
R04 121 hammers, handed down from his daddy, my mama's daddy - the gun that 
R04 122 was in a fight at a liquor still, got hit with buckshot. Uncle 
R04 123 Grove told me that story a bunch of times. His daddy had to pick 
R04 124 buckshot out of this nigger's head. Black man.<p/>
R04 125 <p_>Mama told me some stuff, too. I remember her letting me sew one 
R04 126 time - stick a needle with a white thread through a button hole. 
R04 127 And I remember her chasing me around the house one time, and 
R04 128 driving me to town in a car. She was pretty.<p/>
R04 129 <p_>Phone rang. <quote|>"Hello." It was the guy with the dog. Okay, 
R04 130 I thought, let's see what's coming down here.<p/>
R04 131 <p_><quote_>"You the one wanted me to call you?"<quote/><p/>
R04 132 <p_><quote_>"Yeah. That dog has been barking for two solid days and 
R04 133 nights, and it's driving me crazy."<quote/><p/>
R04 134 <p_><quote_>"I think I can get him quiet,"<quote/> he says.<p/>
R04 135 <p_><quote_>"That's good,"<quote/> I said. <quote_>"You want to 
R04 136 take him in the house, fine. It ain't my problem. But if I have to, 
R04 137 I'll - "<quote/><p/>
R04 138 <p_><quote_>"Where you located?"<quote/><p/>
R04 139 <p_><quote_>"Out your back door and to the left. That's my 
R04 140 house."<quote/> No way to meet this kind of thing but head-on, so I 
R04 141 said, <quote_>"I'll meet you out at the bushes there if you want 
R04 142 to."<quote/><p/>
R04 143 <p_>So I go on out there and when I <tf|>see this guy, I say, 
R04 144 <quote_>"You're the same guy!"<quote/><p/>
R04 145 <p_><quote|>"Nah," he says. <quote_>"He's my twin 
R04 146 brother."<quote/><p/>
R04 147 <p_><quote_>"You ain't the same one?"<quote/> They looked exactly 
R04 148 alike.<p/>
R04 149 <p_><quote_>"No way. Now look here,"<quote/> he says, <quote_>"the 
R04 150 dog was just barking, that's all."<quote/><p/>
R04 151 <p_><quote_>"I know he was just barking. That's what he's been 
R04 152 doing for two days and nights. That's the problem."<quote/><p/>
R04 153 <p_>The dog starts yelping. Right then and there. So the guy acts a 
R04 154 little nervous.<p/>
R04 155 <p_>I yell, <quote_>"Shut up!"<quote/><p/>
R04 156 <p_>The dog stops barking. The guy looks at me, at the dog. 
R04 157 <quote_>"Good boy,"<quote/> he says to the dog.<p/>
R04 158 <p_>There was a break in the bushes - a path. <quote_>"Let me see 
R04 159 the dog,"<quote/> I said. <quote_>"I know something about 
R04 160 dogs."<quote/> I do, too. I walked on through.<p/>
R04 161 <p_>The dog was in one side of a double garage. A motorboat was in 
R04 162 the other side, where the sun shined in, propped up on a little 
R04 163 refrigerator. The dog was standing in the shady part, breathing 
R04 164 vapor, chain running from his collar through a hole in the back of 
R04 165 the garage and all these cages the size of suitcases laying around 
R04 166 in there.<p/>
R04 167 <p_>Dog wagged his tail, pranced on his front paws. I put out my 
R04 168 fist. The dog licked it. <quote_>"It's a Doberman,"<quote/> I said, 
R04 169 squatting down. <quote_>"Or mostly Doberman."<quote/><p/>
R04 170 <p_><tf|>Another dog, a pointer - liver and white - stood up from 
R04 171 behind the boat. He stretched and shook off all over. 
R04 172 <quote_>"Whose pointer?"<quote/> I said. <quote_>"He's right 
R04 173 pretty."<quote/><p/>
R04 174 <p_><quote_>"Jimmy's. I bought them both, gave Jimmy the bird dog. 
R04 175 He <tf|>is pretty."<quote/><p/>
R04 176 <p_><quote_>"Looks like a bird dog I used to have. I was going to 
R04 177 give my boy a bird dog."<quote><p/>
R04 178 <p_><quote_>"What happened?"<quote/><p/>
R04 179 <p_><quote_>"He died,"<quote/> I said.<p/>
R04 180 <p_><quote_>"I had a pit bull die on me three, four years ago. But 
R04 181 he'd been eat up pretty good before I bought him."<quote/><p/>
R04 182 <p_><quote_>"My boy died,"<quote/> I said.<p/>
R04 183 <p_><quote_>"Damn. I'm sorry. What happened? Or ... you 
R04 184 know."<quote/><p/>
R04 185 <p_><quote_>"Car wreck."<quote/> I didn't want to go into all that. 
R04 186 <quote_>"You hunt any?"<quote/><p/>
R04 187 <p_><quote_>"Used to. But I quit shooting the birds. What's your 
R04 188 name?"<quote/><p/>
R04 189 <p_><quote|>"Faison."<p/>
R04 190 <p_><quote_>"I quit shooting the birds, Faison. You know, got tired 
R04 191 of it. But Jimmy still hunts. Goes all the time."<quote/><p/>
R04 192 <p_>Right here I thought, man. Here's a bird dog - 
R04 193 good<?_>-<?/>looking bird dog. Here's somebody at my back door that 
R04 194 likes to hunt birds. I hadn't been hunting in a long, long time. 
R04 195 <quote_>"What are all those cages for?"<quote/> I couldn't figure 
R04 196 that one out.<p/<
R04 197 <p_><quote_>"Snakes. Jimmy's a snake handler. Does shows for 
R04 198 schools and stuff."<quote/><p/>
R04 199 <p_><quote_>"Has he got any in there? Maybe that's why 
R04 200 -"<quote/><p/>
R04 201 <p_><quote_>"Naw, he's out of snakes right now. He lets them out 
R04 202 under the neighbors' houses."<quote/><p/>
R04 203 <p_><quote_>"What? He <tf|>what?"<quote/><p/>
R04 204 <p_><quote_>"Just kidding. He sells them, lets them out in the 
R04 205 woods, different stuff. He's supposed to be getting some new ones. 
R04 206 Jimmy don't stay out of snakes long."<quote/> He patted the bird 
R04 207 dog's head, looked at me. <quote_>"He says he's going bird hunting 
R04 208 in the morning. Try out that dog. Dog's been broke. Think you might 
R04 209 want to go?"<quote/><p/>
R04 210 <p_><quote_>"Well. Yeah, I'll go bird hunting. I'll go bird 
R04 211 hunting."<quote/><p/>
R04 212 <p_>The pointer had good blood. You could tell. A beautiful dog. 
R04 213 <quote_>"But we got to do something about this other one's 
R04 214 barking,"<quote/> I said.<p/>
R04 215 <p_><quote_>"We'll work something out. We'll bring him inside if he 
R04 216 keeps it up. His name is Cactus. Hey, <tf|>Jimmy,"<quote/> he 
R04 217 yelled.<p/>
R04 218 
R04 219 
R05   1 <#FROWN:R05\><h_><p_>'I CAN'T GO ON'<p/>
R05   2 <p_>WRITER'S BLOCK<p/>
R05   3 <p_><quote_><tf_>"Yes for the last two weeks I have written 
R05   4 scarcely anything. I have been idle; I have 
R05   5 failed."<tf/><quote/><p/>
R05   6 <p_>- KATHERINE MANSFIELD<p/>
R05   7 <p_><quote_><tf_>"When I see a barrier I cry and curse, and then I 
R05   8 get a ladder and climb over it."<tf/><quote/><p/>
R05   9 <p_>- JOHN H. JOHNSON, JOHNSON PUBLISHING CO.<p/><h/>
R05  10 <p_>WHAT more can afflict the unfortunate wretches who pursue the 
R05  11 literary dream? So much struggeling to be a writer, croaking to 
R05  12 sound like one, straining to soar above the crowd! And just when 
R05  13 lift-off seems imminent - the ground turns to quicksand. The writer 
R05  14 sinks up to the nostrils in muck. Crawling things awaken. The 
R05  15 silent screams begin. This is the nightmare they call ... 
R05  16 <tf|>block.<p/>
R05  17 <p_><tf|>Block. What a nasty word, this combination of <tf|>blah 
R05  18 and <tf|>blechh, this icky reminder of blocked bowels. The 
R05  19 eversuggestible writer has only to hear the word to crumple like 
R05  20 Woody Allen when someone says <quote|>"castration."<p/>
R05  21 <h_><p_>WORD BLOCK<p/><h/>
R05  22 <p_>Discussions of writer's block usually concern the flow of words 
R05  23 and how to get words flowing again when the brain seems to shut 
R05  24 down. As if a writer's brain could ever shut down or up for more 
R05  25 than five seconds. What the brain does is slip away from drudgery 
R05  26 and into the writer's preferred pastime, daydreaming. Daydreaming 
R05  27 inspires a literary effort and previews its glorious rewards, but 
R05  28 it doesn't do the coal-faced labor of research, organization, 
R05  29 drafting, and revising. No writer descends willingly to those 
R05  30 mines, where words are hacked one by one from the blackness. Facing 
R05  31 that dusty pit feels very much like block, whatever else it might 
R05  32 be.<p/>
R05  33 <p_>Maddening and debilitating, the condition strikes even the most 
R05  34 prolific writers. Charles Dickens described his block in terms of 
R05  35 <quote_>"prowling about the rooms, sitting down, getting up, 
R05  36 stirring the fire, looking out of the window, tearing my hair, 
R05  37 sitting down to write, writing nothing, writing something and 
R05  38 tearing it up ...."<quote/> But Dickens, if only to pay his debts, 
R05  39 got himself going again. So do most blocked writers, some by riding 
R05  40 it out, others by heeding the advice of others. Author Barry Hannah 
R05  41 views the condition simply as one more experience to file away. 
R05  42 <quote_>"I had a terrible block against writing this 
R05  43 summer,"<quote/> he said in an interview, <quote_>"and even that 
R05  44 I'll look at as subject matter."<quote/><p/>
R05  45 <p_>Every communications pundit can tell others how to beat word 
R05  46 block: Just get <tf|>something down, anything the brain spews out. 
R05  47 You can shape and prune later, in revisions and rewrites. Passion 
R05  48 first, control second. Shout first, write second. Henriette Anne 
R05  49 Klauser splits the artist's mind in <tf_>Writing on Both Sides of 
R05  50 the Brain: Breakthrough Techniques for People Who Write<tf/>. The 
R05  51 brain's right hemisphere creates, the left one edits. Play first, 
R05  52 then work, she advises; blockage comes from trying to do both at 
R05  53 once. (And from thinking about cerebral hemispheres at war.)<p/>
R05  54 <p_>FLEDGLING writers want to pump greatness from the moment they 
R05  55 have a title in mind. They center that glorious title -<p/>
R05  56 <p_><tf_>Coming of Age in Kankakee<tf/><p/>
R05  57 <p_>- skip a space, and enter their byline. They wrestle with an 
R05  58 opening line. <quote_>"This is the untold story of ..."<quote/> 
R05  59 They watch the blinking cursor. The story dissolves into scenarios 
R05  60 of their own fame. Soon they can hear the echos from posterity - 
R05  61 <quote_><tf_>"It was to be her greatest work"<tf/><quote/> - when 
R05  62 in truth it was to be her biggest block until she gave up writing 
R05  63 and went into real estate. Indeed, William Zinsser describes how 
R05  64 aspiring writers set out <quote_>"to commit an act of 
R05  65 literature,"<quote/> an impossible task. Journalism<?_>-<?/>trained 
R05  66 authors like Isabel Allende know better. <quote_>"I don't think of 
R05  67 literature as an end in itself,"<quote/> she says. <quote_>"It's 
R05  68 just a way of communicating something."<quote/><p/>
R05  69 <p_>Reckless bravado may work for some in launching a project, 
R05  70 particularly dramatists who thrive on the theatrical flourish. 
R05  71 Lanford Wilson, after winning the Pulitzer, is said to have begun a 
R05  72 subsequent work with the heading: <quote_>"THIS IS THE NEXT PLAY BY 
R05  73 LAST YEAR'S PULITZER PRIZE-WINNING LANFORD WILSON."<quote/> Most 
R05  74 writers would rise to this challenge with about nine years of 
R05  75 creative paralysis.<p/>
R05  76 <p_>For the average writer facing a slow start or a temporary 
R05  77 block, here are the more conventional approaches to making the 
R05  78 words flow again:<p/>
R05  79 <p_><*_>black-square<*/>Do a 'freewrite' of unedited, unpublishable 
R05  80 banter on your topic. Write fast. Try not to stop. Get it down.<p/>
R05  81 <p_><*_>black-square<*/>Write yourself a newsy letter or telegram 
R05  82 covering the high points; don't bother with beginnings, 
R05  83 transitions, or endings but just write chunks that turn you on.<p/>
R05  84 <p_><*_>black-square<*/>Begin thusly: <quote_>"What I really want 
R05  85 to say is ..."<quote/> or <quote_>"I would like to write about 
R05  86 ..."<quote/><p/>
R05  87 <p_><*_>black-square<*/>Begin a difficult passage with a question 
R05  88 you want it to answer. Answer the question. Then delete the 
R05  89 question itself.<p/>
R05  90 <p_><*_>black-square<*/>End the day's writing in midstream, with a 
R05  91 passage that's easy to continue rather with a sealed-off unit.<p/>
R05  92 <p_><*_>black-square<*/>Don't get hung up on a word. Write a 
R05  93 strings<&|>sic! of x's and finish the sentence. Later, perhaps as 
R05  94 you walk around the block, the xxxxx word will come to you.<p/>
R05  95 <p_><*_>black-square<*/>You're blocked because you're tired and 
R05  96 benumbed. Get away from your desk. Get some rest. Shorten your 
R05  97 writing sessions.<p/>
R05  98 <p_><*_>black-square<*/>You're blocked because you hate the 
R05  99 particular project. Cut your losses by backing out. Spend the time 
R05 100 you've gained on jobs you can live with.<p/>
R05 101 <p_><*_>black-square<*/>You're blocked because you're disgusted 
R05 102 with the pages you've written thus far. Don't look at them. Brian 
R05 103 Aldiss, who writes a novel and several short stories each year, 
R05 104 says he places completed pages face down and won't backtrack until 
R05 105 the first draft is completed. This way he sustains the necessary 
R05 106 <quote|>"vision" and <quote_>"creative glow."<quote/> Later, 
R05 107 <quote_>"creative hope mixed with critical discontent"<quote/> 
R05 108 carries him through the rewrites.<p/>
R05 109 <p_><*_>black-square<*/>You're blocked because you're distracted. 
R05 110 Clear your desk of clutter. Write early in the morning, before the 
R05 111 world's distractions begin. Or get out of the house altogether if 
R05 112 you can find a work space elsewhere. For San Francisco writer Diane 
R05 113 Johnson, <quote_>"home is home and writing is work."<quote/> 
R05 114 (Better-heeled than most, Johnson chose as her workplace Villa 
R05 115 Serbelloni, a historic mansion overlooking Lake Como in Northern 
R05 116 Italy.)<p/>
R05 117 <p_><*_>black-square<*/>You're blocked not because your mind is 
R05 118 blank, but because it's overloaded with all the good ideas that 
R05 119 have percolated during the day. Now, as you start to write, they 
R05 120 want to pour out all at once and seem to evaporate. If you've 
R05 121 written them down, as you must, take one idea at a time and work it 
R05 122 through. Keep a notepad handy (on or off screen) even as you write; 
R05 123 record the new ideas that shoot by and tend to derail you and deal 
R05 124 with them later.<p/>
R05 125 <p_><*_>black-square<*/>You are blocked because it's getting you 
R05 126 some attention; because you (or someone close to you) romanticize 
R05 127 artistic failure and self-destruction. You and your enablers must 
R05 128 grow up. Kate Braverman recalls a time when, <quote_>"for me, art 
R05 129 required certain elements of self-destruction. Becoming a mother 
R05 130 was the turning point. Then health and sanity began to have the 
R05 131 allure that sickness had had."<quote/><p/>
R05 132 <p_><*_>black-square<*/>You're blocked because you've discovered a 
R05 133 problem in premise or structure or some other fundamental aspect 
R05 134 that can't be resolved. Annie Dillard's advice: <quote_>"Every book 
R05 135 has an intrinsic impossibility, which its writer discovers as soon 
R05 136 as his first excitement dwindles."<quote/> Accept it and keep 
R05 137 writing, she says. Like with a dying friend, you sit up with your 
R05 138 book and hold its hand and hope it gets better. Braverman agrees. 
R05 139 <quote_>"Always finish the failure - you'll never know when there's 
R05 140 going to be a mutation."<quote/><p/>
R05 141 <h_><p_>AN IDEA FROM THE BUSINESS WORLD<p/><h/>
R05 142 <p_>The business world hates leaving anything to chance, including 
R05 143 creativity. Blocked creativity is money lost. So enter Edward de 
R05 144 Bono, a learned Brit who turned a technique he calls 
R05 145 <quote_>"lateral thinking"<quote/> into a worldwide 
R05 146 management-training industry. In <tf_>Lateral Thinking for 
R05 147 Management,<tf/> one of his avalanche of books, de Bono offers a 
R05 148 process of breaking away from the cognitive patterns 
R05 149 (<quote_>"vertical thinking"<quote/>) people tend to use in solving 
R05 150 problems. Such patterns produce blah solutions or dead ends. 
R05 151 Lateral thinking gets away from <tf|>choosing the next logical 
R05 152 step; it invites completely irrelevant ideas to <quote|>"intrude" 
R05 153 on the continuity of patterned thinking. From these instrusions 
R05 154 come disconnected, off-the-wall ideas that seem unrelated to the 
R05 155 problem until - bong! - they generate creative and exceptional 
R05 156 solutions. Lateral thinking is akin to what writers call intuitive 
R05 157 flashes and insights, but more systematic.<p/>
R05 158 <p_>For example, de Bono uses the <quote_>"random word"<quote/> 
R05 159 exercise to introduce discontinuity into patterned thinking. You 
R05 160 are blocked. Every idea follows trite patterns. Now, open a 
R05 161 dictionary anywhere; the first noun defined on the page (no 
R05 162 cheating!) is your unblocking word. Play with all its meanings for 
R05 163 about three minutes and see what wild, unchosen connections they 
R05 164 might have to your original problem. In de Bono's example, the 
R05 165 problem is finding better incentives for a sales force, and the 
R05 166 word <tf|>gong pops up. Instead of the traditional incentives, he 
R05 167 begins thinking of gonglike proclamations of top performances, loud 
R05 168 and brief incentives such as short-term cash prizes, and so on. If 
R05 169 de Bono were struggling to create a fictional salesman, the process 
R05 170 might be something like: <tf|>Gong - Short, punchy. A son named 
R05 171 Bong ... Bing ... Biff! <tf|>Gong - Percussion ... crash ... car 
R05 172 crash ... suicide ... car crash suicide and insurance for the 
R05 173 family!<p/>
R05 174 <p_>THERE are whole treatises on writer's block, including one from 
R05 175 the never-blocked advice factory called Writer's Digest. A 
R05 176 Wisconsin workshop offers <quote_>"Twelve Ways to Smash 
R05 177 Block"<quote/> with the cheesy promise, <quote_>"You never need 
R05 178 suffer from writer's block or writer's blank again."<quote/><p/>
R05 179 <p_>Advice is always easy to give. Jay Parini's essay, <quote_>"The 
R05 180 More They Write, the More They Write,"<quote/> quotes Iris Murdoch 
R05 181 and Stephen King, who knock out about a half million words a year 
R05 182 between them. <quote_>"I just keep writing,"<quote/> says Murdoch 
R05 183 when asked about being stuck. <quote_>"I just flail away at the 
R05 184 thing,"<quote/> says King. One's own block, however, feels less 
R05 185 like being <quote|>"stuck" than like clinical depression, which it 
R05 186 sometimes is. This is the true quicksand, and the harder one tries 
R05 187 to climb out the deeper one sinks. Advising severely blocked 
R05 188 writers to <quote_>"write themselves a letter"<quote/> is like 
R05 189 telling depressives to cheer up by joining clubs.<p/>
R05 190 <p_>For the big blocks, each writer must find a way to reverse the 
R05 191 negative psychic energy that has built up. For Carson McCullers, 
R05 192 blocking on <tf_>A Member of the Wedding<tf/> at the Yaddo writer's 
R05 193 retreat, it was lying stomach-down on the ground and beating her 
R05 194 fists on the manuscript and calling <quote_>"Mother! 
R05 195 Mother!"<quote/> Cry and curse, then find the ladder that John H. 
R05 196 Johnson talks about (see head of chapter). Use no polite method; 
R05 197 borrow the techniques of sports and combat heroes. Pro football 
R05 198 coach Mike Ditka developed a unique method of clearing his mind on 
R05 199 the sidelines. As sportscaster John Madden described it: 
R05 200 <quote_>"Now you see, you bend over. You put both hands on your 
R05 201 knees. And you spit. And good ideas come."<quote/><p/>
R05 202 <p_>SPITTING won't be necessary in most situations. Ordinary word 
R05 203 blockage is the very toil of writing. Some of it results from the 
R05 204 contradictions of creating literature, what Harold Bloom calls 
R05 205 <quote_>"achieved anxiety"<quote/> and what Plotnikov has described 
R05 206 as <quote_>"controlled crying."<quote/> Always the questions, Is it 
R05 207 too much? Not enough? Everything must be in balance, in harmony, 
R05 208 but something must tip the scale. The whole writing business is a 
R05 209 pretzel of paradoxes, from the philosophical to the technical 
R05 210 levels. These are some of the mixed messages that tie writers in 
R05 211 knots:<p/>
R05 212 <p_><*_>black-square<*/>Just write for yourself; <tf|>but write to 
R05 213 sell.<p/>
R05 214 <p_><*_>black-square<*/>Just get it down, even if it stinks; 
R05 215 <tf|>but don't settle for anything that displeases you.<p/>
R05 216 <p_><*_>black-square<*/>Be clever and brilliant; <tf|>but don't 
R05 217 show off.<p/>
R05 218 <p_><*_>black-square<*/>Avoid big words; <tf|>but don't use too 
R05 219 many little words.<p/>
R05 220 <p_><*_>black-square<*/>Write with style; <tf|>but don't let style 
R05 221 call attention to itself.<p/>
R05 222 <p_><*_>black-square<*/>Write something fresh and surprising; 
R05 223 <tf|>but don't go off the deep end.<p/>
R05 224 <p_><*_>black-square<*/>Tell it as it is; <tf|>but don't offend the 
R05 225 wrong people or expose yourself to libel, invasion of privacy, or 
R05 226 obscenity.<p/>
R05 227 <p_><*_>black-square<*/>Know your subject, write about what you 
R05 228 know; <tf|>but don't overwhelm the reader with detail.<p/>
R05 229 <p_><*_>black-square<*/>Use forceful words; <tf|>but not too 
R05 230 forceful for the thoughts delivered.<p/>
R05 231 <p_><*_>black-square<*/>Be sincere; <tf|>but remember Oscar Wilde's 
R05 232 admonition that all bad poetry is sincere.<p/>
R05 233 
R05 234 
R06   1 <#FROWN:R06\><h_><p_>THE PROFESSOR<p/>
R06   2 <p_>By Lydia Davis<p/><h/>
R06   3 <p_>A few years ago I used to tell myself I wanted to marry a 
R06   4 cowboy. Why shouldn't an English professor say this to herself - 
R06   5 living alone, fascinated by a brown landscape, spotting a cowboy in 
R06   6 a pickup truck sometimes in her rearview mirror as she drives on 
R06   7 the broad highways of the West Coast? In fact, I realize I would 
R06   8 still like to marry a cowboy, though by now I'm living in the East 
R06   9 and married already to someone who is not a cowboy.<p/>
R06  10 <p_>But what would a cowboy want with a woman like me - not very 
R06  11 easy-going, an English professor, the daughter of another English 
R06  12 professor? If I have a drink or two, I'm more easy-going than if I 
R06  13 don't, but I still speak correctly and don't know how to joke with 
R06  14 people unless I know them well, and often these are university 
R06  15 people or the people they live with, who also speak correctly.  
R06  16 Although I don't mind them, I feel cut off from all the other 
R06  17 people in this country - to mention only this country.<p/>
R06  18 <p_>I told myself I liked the way cowboys dressed, starting with 
R06  19 the hat, and how comfortable they were in their clothes, so 
R06  20 practical, having to do with their work. Many professors seem to 
R06  21 dress the way they think a professor should dress, without any real 
R06  22 interest or love. Their clothes are too tight or else a few years 
R06  23 out of style and just add to the awkwardness of their bodies.<p/>
R06  24 <p_>After I was hired to teach for the first time I bought a 
R06  25 briefcase, and then after I started teaching I carried it through 
R06  26 the halls like the other professors. I could see that the older 
R06  27 professors, mostly men but also some women, were no longer aware of 
R06  28 the importance of their briefcases and that the younger women 
R06  29 pretended they weren't aware of it, but the younger men carried 
R06  30 their briefcases like trophies.<p/>
R06  31 <p_>At that same time my father began sending me thick envelopes 
R06  32 containing material he thought would help me in my classes, 
R06  33 including exercises to assign and quotes to use. I didn't read more 
R06  34 than a few pages sometimes when I was feeling strong. How could an 
R06  35 old professor try to teach a young professor? Didn't he know I 
R06  36 wouldn't be able to carry my briefcase through the halls and say 
R06  37 hello to my colleagues and students and then go home and read the 
R06  38 instructions of the old professor?<p/>
R06  39 <p_>In fact, I liked teaching because I liked telling other people 
R06  40 what to do. In those days it seemed clearer to me than it does now: 
R06  41 If I did something a certain way, it had to be right for other 
R06  42 people too. I was so convinced of it that my students were 
R06  43 convinced too. Still, though I was a good teacher, I was something 
R06  44 else inside. Some of the old professors were also old professors 
R06  45 inside, but inside I wasn't even a young professor. I looked like a 
R06  46 woman in glasses, but I had dreams of leading a very different kind 
R06  47 of life, the life of a woman who would not wear glasses, the kind 
R06  48 of woman I saw from a distance now and then in a bar.<p/>
R06  49 <p_>More important than the clothes a cowboy wore, and the way he 
R06  50 wore them, was the fact that a cowboy probably wouldn't know much 
R06  51 more than he had to. He would think about his work, and about his 
R06  52 family, if he had one, and about having a good time, and not much 
R06  53 else. I was tired of so much thinking, which was what I did most in 
R06  54 those days. I did other things, but I went on thinking while I did 
R06  55 them. I might feel something, but I would think about what I was 
R06  56 feeling at the same time. I even had to think about what I was 
R06  57 thinking and wonder why I was thinking it. When I had the idea of 
R06  58 marrying a cowboy I imagined that maybe a cowboy would help me stop 
R06  59 thinking so much.<p/>
R06  60 <p_>I also imagined, though I was probably wrong about this too, 
R06  61 that a cowboy wouldn't be like anyone I knew - like an old 
R06  62 communist, or a member of a steering committee, a writer of letters 
R06  63 to the newspaper, a faculty wife serving at a student tea, a 
R06  64 professor reading proofs with a sharp pencil and asking everyone to 
R06  65 be quiet. I thought that when my mind - always so busy, always 
R06  66 going around in circles, always having an idea and then an idea 
R06  67 about an idea - reached out to his mind, it would meet something 
R06  68 quieter, that there would be more blanks, more open spaces; that 
R06  69 some of what he had in his mind might be the sky, clouds, hilltops, 
R06  70 and then concrete things like ropes, saddles, horsehair, the smell 
R06  71 of horses and cattle, motor oil, calluses, grease, fences, gullies, 
R06  72 dry streambeds, lame cows, still-born calves, freak calves, 
R06  73 veterinarians' visits, treatments, inoculations. I imagined this 
R06  74 even though I knew that some of the things I liked that might be in 
R06  75 his mind, like the saddles, the saddle sores, the horsehair, and 
R06  76 the horses themselves, weren't often a part of the life of a cowboy 
R06  77 anymore. As for what I would do in my life with this cowboy, I 
R06  78 sometimes imagined myself reading quietly in clean  clothes in a 
R06  79 nice study, but at other times I imagined myself oiling tack or 
R06  80 cooking large quantities of plain food or helping out in the barn 
R06  81 in the early morning while the cowboy had both arms inside a cow to 
R06  82 turn a calf so it would present properly. Problems and chores like 
R06  83 these would be clear and I would be able to handle them in a clear 
R06  84 way. I wouldn't stop reading and thinking, but I wouldn't know very 
R06  85 many people who did a lot of that, so I would have more privacy in 
R06  86 it, because the cowboy, though so close to me all the time, 
R06  87 wouldn't try to understand but would leave me alone with it. I 
R06  88 would not be an embarrassment anymore.<p/>
R06  89 <p_>I thought if I married a cowboy I wouldn't have to leave the 
R06  90 West. I liked the West for its difficulties. I liked the difficulty 
R06  91 of telling when one season was over and another had begun, and I 
R06  92 liked the difficulty of finding any beauty in the landscape. To 
R06  93 begin with, I had gotten used to its own kind of ugliness: all 
R06  94 those broad highways laid down in the valleys and the new 
R06  95 constructions placed up on the bare hillsides. Then I began to find 
R06  96 beauty in it, and liked the bareness and the plain brown of the 
R06  97 hills in the dry season, and the way the folds in the hills where 
R06  98 some dampness tended to linger would fill up with grasses and 
R06  99 shrubs and other flowering plants. I liked the plainness of the 
R06 100 ocean and the emptiness when I looked out over it. And then, 
R06 101 especially since it had been so hard for me to find this beauty, I 
R06 102 didn't want to leave it.<p/>
R06 103 <p_>I might have gotten the idea of marrying a cowboy from a movie 
R06 104 I saw one night in the springtime with a friend of mine who is also 
R06 105 a professor - a handsome and intelligent man, kinder than I am but 
R06 106 even more awkward around people, forgetting even the names of old 
R06 107 friends in his sudden attacks of shyness. He seemed to enjoy the 
R06 108 movie, though I have no idea what was going through his mind. Maybe 
R06 109 he was imagining a life with the woman in the movie, who was so 
R06 110 different from his thin, nervous, and beautiful wife. As we drove 
R06 111 away from the movie theater, on one of those broad highways with 
R06 112 nothing ahead or behind but taillights and headlights and nothing 
R06 113 on either side but darkness, all I wanted to do was go out into the 
R06 114 middle of the desert, as far away as possible from everything I had 
R06 115 known all my life, from the university where I was teaching and the 
R06 116 towns and the city near it with all the intelligent people who 
R06 117 lived and worked in them, writing down their ideas in notebooks and 
R06 118 on computers in their offices and their studies at home and taking 
R06 119 notes from difficult books. I wanted to leave all this and go out 
R06 120 into the middle of the desert and run a motel by myself with a 
R06 121 little boy, and have a worn-out cowboy come along, a worn-out 
R06 122 middle-aged cowboy, alcoholic if necessary, and marry him. I 
R06 123 thought I knew of a little boy I could take with me. Then all I 
R06 124 would need would be the aging cowboy and the motel. I would make it 
R06 125 a good motel. I would look after it and I would solve any problems 
R06 126 sensibly and right away as they came along. I thought I could be a 
R06 127 good, tough businesswoman just because I had seen this movie 
R06 128 showing this good, tough businesswoman. This woman also had a 
R06 129 loving heart and a capacity to understand another fallible human 
R06 130 being. The fact is that if an alcoholic cowboy came into my life in 
R06 131 any important way I would probably criticize him to death for his 
R06 132 drinking until he walked out on me. But at the time, I had that 
R06 133 strange confidence, born of watching a good movie, that I could be 
R06 134 something different from what I was, and I started listening to 
R06 135 country-western music on the car radio, though I knew it wasn't 
R06 136 written for me.<p/>
R06 137 <p_>At that point I met a man in one of my classes who seemed 
R06 138 reasonably close to my idea of a cowboy, though now I can't tell 
R06 139 exactly why I thought so. He wasn't really like a cowboy, or what I 
R06 140 thought a cowboy might be like, so what I wanted must have been 
R06 141 something else, and the idea of a cowboy just came up in my mind 
R06 142 for the sake of convenience. The facts weren't right. He didn't 
R06 143 work as a cowboy but at some kind of job where he glued the bones 
R06 144 of chimpanzees together. He played jazz trombone, and on the days 
R06 145 when he had a lesson he wore a dark suit to class and carried a 
R06 146 black case. He just missed being good-looking, with his square, 
R06 147 fleshy, pale face, his dark hair, mustache, dark eyes; just missed 
R06 148 being good-looking, not because of his rough cheeks - scarred from 
R06 149 shrapnel - but because of a loose or wild look about him, his eyes 
R06 150 wide open all the time, even when he smiled, and his body very 
R06 151 still, only his eyes moving, watching everything, missing nothing. 
R06 152 Wary, he was ready to defend himself as though every conversation 
R06 153 might also be something of a fight.<p/>
R06 154 <p_>One day when a group of us were having a beer together after 
R06 155 class, he was quiet, seemed very low, and finally said to us, 
R06 156 without raising his eyes, that he thought he might be going to move 
R06 157 in with his father and send his little girl back  to her mother. He 
R06 158 said he didn't think it was fair to keep her because sometimes he 
R06 159 would just sit in a chair without speaking - she would try to talk 
R06 160 to him and he wouldn't be able to open his mouth, she would keep on 
R06 161 trying and he would sit there knowing he had to answer her but 
R06 162 unable to.<p/>
R06 163 <p_>His rudeness and wildness were comfortable to me at that point, 
R06 164 and because he would tease me now and then, I thought he liked me 
R06 165 enough so that I could ask him to go out to dinner with me, and 
R06 166 finally I did, just to see what would happen. He seemed startled, 
R06 167 then pleased to accept, sobered and flattered at this attention 
R06 168 from his professor.<p/>
R06 169 <p_>The date didn't turn out to be something that would change the 
R06 170 direction of my life, though that's not what I was expecting then, 
R06 171 only what I thought about later.
R06 172 
R07   1 <#FROWN:R07\><h_><p_>THE WHOLE TRUTH<p/>
R07   2 <p_>By Stephen McCauley<p/><h/>
R07   3 <p_>She told her psychiatrist she was happily married and had taken 
R07   4 a lover only because she was afraid of being too close to her 
R07   5 husband, whom she'd wed six years earlier. If she'd been more 
R07   6 truthful, she'd have confessed that she'd begun her affair with the 
R07   7 dentist, whose office was in the same medical building as her own, 
R07   8 because she was bored with her husband, and that fear of intimacy 
R07   9 with her lover had driven her to sleep with the carpenter who'd 
R07  10 come to work on the front steps of the house late in the summer. 
R07  11 But she hadn't told her psychiatrist about the carpenter at all, 
R07  12 because her indiscretion with him struck her as slightly sordid, 
R07  13 and her psychiatrist was a gentle, bald man who sucked on sour 
R07  14 balls and nodded eagerly as she spoke and reminded her too much of 
R07  15 her father. She thought he might be upset to hear she'd fallen into 
R07  16 bed with a relative stranger. Mentioning her ongoing affair with 
R07  17 the dentist was surely enough. Besides, the steps were long 
R07  18 finished, and she was quite certain she'd never see the carpenter 
R07  19 again, let alone sleep with him, even though, in truth, she still 
R07  20 thought of him often.<p/>
R07  21 <p_>To compensate for her omissions, she transposed her feelings as 
R07  22 she spoke. Thus, whenever she wished to talk about her fear of 
R07  23 getting too close to her lover, she pretended she was talking about 
R07  24 her husband. And when she talked about the sexual excitement of her 
R07  25 affair with the dentist, she was really describing her fantasies 
R07  26 about the carpenter. If she wanted to discuss the exasperating 
R07  27 boredom of her marriage, she talked about a brief, boring first 
R07  28 marriage, which she'd invented during her second week of analysis. 
R07  29 It wasn't hard to keep track once she had it all down. And, she 
R07  30 assured herself, the essence of what she was saying was true; she 
R07  31 simply toyed with the names. As long as she was able to keep it all 
R07  32 straight in her mind, her analysis would have some value.<p/>
R07  33 <p_>It was her husband, who was kind and bald and reminded her a 
R07  34 little of her father - and now her psychiatrist - who'd first 
R07  35 suggested she seek treatment. She'd confessed to him that she was 
R07  36 unhappy, although she'd told him it was because, after all the 
R07  37 years of school and training, she was bored with dentistry. She'd 
R07  38 hinted, too, but only in the most gentle way, that she was having 
R07  39 doubts about their marriage, which, in fact, she was not. She knew 
R07  40 she was bored and that the marriage was simply a matter of 
R07  41 convenience for her and dependency for her husband. What she was 
R07  42 having doubts about was her affair. When her husband asked her, as 
R07  43 he did from time to time, what she'd told her psychiatrist about 
R07  44 their relationship, she'd report some of the things she'd actually 
R07  45 said about him, even though they were, of course, things she really 
R07  46 felt about her lover.<p/>
R07  47 <p_>Despite what she'd told her husband, she enjoyed her profession 
R07  48 and, after four years, had established a successful practice. She 
R07  49 and her husband lived in a university town, and many of her 
R07  50 patients were young professionals and academic wives, the kinds of 
R07  51 people who usually didn't need major dental work but who came 
R07  52 dutifully three times a year for a cleaning and a checkup. To 
R07  53 please them, she'd decorated her waiting room with old 
R07  54 black-and-white photographs she'd bought at antique stores and easy 
R07  55 chairs draped with printed cloth imported from India. The decor had 
R07  56 first struck her as homey, if a bit cluttered. Now, however, her 
R07  57 waiting room had begun to look to her like a psychiatrist's office. 
R07  58 She avoided subscribing to the predictable dentist-office 
R07  59 publications and instead kept recent copies of literary journals on 
R07  60 the table by the door. She'd bought a narrow pine bookcase in which 
R07  61 she kept story collections by contemporary writers whom she 
R07  62 admired, even though she didn't care much for short stories.<p/>
R07  63 <p_>Most of her patients called her by her first name, and many 
R07  64 felt to her like casual friends. A number of women always asked her 
R07  65 about her husband, and as she worked on their teeth she'd talk 
R07  66 about him amiably, describing a man made up of equal parts of her 
R07  67 spouse, her lover, and her fantasies about the carpenter.<p/>
R07  68 <p_>Her mother lived in Kentucky and was proud of her achievements. 
R07  69 The only regret her mother ever expressed was that her husband had 
R07  70 not lived to see their daughter graduate from dental school. She 
R07  71 was close to her mother, and they talked on the phone once a week 
R07  72 for at least an hour. Wanting desperately to tell her about her 
R07  73 psychiatrist, but not wanting to alarm her, she told her mother 
R07  74 that her husband, who was twelve years older than she was, had 
R07  75 started seeing a therapist three times a week. Therapist sounded 
R07  76 more benign than psychiatrist. She told her mother her husband was 
R07  77 having a mid-life career crisis. Feeling daring, she hinted at 
R07  78 suspicions that he was also having an affair. Her mother listened 
R07  79 sympathetically and suggested that perhaps she and her husband 
R07  80 should go to Bermuda together for a week and try to work things 
R07  81 out. She reminded her mother that her husband's therapy 
R07  82 appointments made such a vacation impossible. After she'd hung up, 
R07  83 she went to her husband and told him she thought he should take a 
R07  84 vacation, even though she wouldn't be able to go along.<p/>
R07  85 <p_>Her lover was also married. He was severe and serious and 
R07  86 driven by nervous intensity. He bit his fingernails and sometimes, 
R07  87 after they'd made love, would take her in his arms and weep. He 
R07  88 would divorce his wife if she would divorce her husband. The two of 
R07  89 them would go off together, set up a practice in a different city, 
R07  90 and start life all over. She explained to him that she was tempted, 
R07  91 but could not make any moves until she had resolved some things in 
R07  92 analysis. When her lover asked her if she was telling her 
R07  93 psychiatrist how much they loved each other and the passionate 
R07  94 nature of their sexual relationship, she told him that she was, 
R07  95 even though when she described to her psychiatrist her longing for 
R07  96 the dentist, she was thinking of the carpenter. And when she told 
R07  97 her psychiatrist about her desire to leave her husband, she was 
R07  98 really describing her desire to break off her affair with the 
R07  99 dentist.<p/>
R07 100 <p_>She feared that if she confessed to her psychiatrist that she'd 
R07 101 been unable to tell her mother about him, his feelings would be 
R07 102 hurt, and he would think she was resisting treatment. So instead 
R07 103 she told him that she'd told her mother, and that her mother had 
R07 104 been understanding and helpful. While she was on the subject, she 
R07 105 told her psychiatrist that it was her mother who'd suggested her 
R07 106 husband take a week in Bermuda on his own. She didn't want to sound 
R07 107 manipulative by admitting she'd suggested it to her husband 
R07 108 herself, and her mother had, after all, been the one to bring up 
R07 109 the subject of a vacation.<p/>
R07 110 <p_>In the middle of November her husband noticed that the floor of 
R07 111 the porch on the back of the house was beginning to rot, and he 
R07 112 called the carpenter. He told her this one night over dinner, and 
R07 113 she felt her heart race and sink and race and sink in a peculiar 
R07 114 way, almost as if she were running a fever. He told her that the 
R07 115 carpenter would begin work in the middle of the next week, the very 
R07 116 Wednesday, in fact, he was leaving for Bermuda. He apologized that 
R07 117 he would not be there to oversee the job. She told him that the 
R07 118 carpenter had impressed her as reliable and would probably need 
R07 119 very little supervision, and she finished her dinner hastily.<p/>
R07 120 <p_>The Monday before her husband left on his trip, she decided to 
R07 121 test the waters. She told her psychiatrist that a young man would 
R07 122 be working on their house that week, that she had met him when he'd 
R07 123 come to estimate the cost of the job, and that she had found him 
R07 124 attractive. She told him he was a craftsman who painted walls with 
R07 125 sponges so the finished surface looked like fine wallpaper. This 
R07 126 skill, she felt, made the carpenter sound as sensitive and refined 
R07 127 as she was certain he really must be. Her psychiatrist raised one 
R07 128 eyebrow inquisitively when she told him this, a gesture that she 
R07 129 took as a sign of disapproval. So she dropped the subject of the 
R07 130 carpenter quickly, and told him, as if confessing it, that she was 
R07 131 looking forward to her husband's departure so that she could spend 
R07 132 more time with her lover, the dentist.<p/>
R07 133 <p_>She canceled her appointments for Wednesday, drove her husband 
R07 134 to the airport, and sped home in a state of confused anticipation. 
R07 135 It was an oddly warm day, nearly eighty, and the November sky was 
R07 136 blank and murky in the Indian-summer heat. She waited for the 
R07 137 carpenter on the front steps of the house, dressed in a long skirt 
R07 138 made of thin cotton and a baggy blouse, trying to read a collection 
R07 139 of stories recommended to her by a patient.<p/>
R07 140 <p_>When he finally arrived, she felt embarrassed, certain that he 
R07 141 could read her anxiety and its source on the brow. She was only 
R07 142 somewhat relieved to notice that he, too, seemed uncomfortable.<p/>
R07 143 <p_>She stayed in the house all day, cleaning and arranging drawers 
R07 144 and cautiously looking out the kitchen window to the porch where 
R07 145 the carpenter was working. It wasn't until late in the afternoon, 
R07 146 when he was sweeping up for the day, that she asked him inside and 
R07 147 offered him a drink.<p/>
R07 148 <p_>She called her receptionist the next morning and canceled her 
R07 149 patients for the rest of the week. Then she called her lover and 
R07 150 told him she'd decided to take advantage of her husband's absence 
R07 151 by visiting her mother in Kentucky for a few days. She left a 
R07 152 message on her psychiatrist's answering machine, explaining that 
R07 153 she'd decided to go to Bermuda with her husband after all and would 
R07 154 therefore miss her next two appointments.<p/>
R07 155 <p_>The carpenter was five years younger than she was, dark-eyed 
R07 156 and appealingly stocky. He wore blue jeans and a red T-shirt. He 
R07 157 worked diligently on the porch for the next two days. Now and again 
R07 158 he'd enter the house, and kiss her teasingly and tell her she was 
R07 159 beautiful. When he finished work for the afternoon, he'd come 
R07 160 inside, sweaty and exhausted, and they'd make love, though never, 
R07 161 he insisted, in the bed she shared with her husband.<p/>
R07 162 <p_>On Saturday night she prepared him an enormous, complicated 
R07 163 dinner. After the meal, they lay together on the sofa in the living 
R07 164 room with the curtains drawn and a light sheet pulled over their 
R07 165 bodies. There had been a rainstorm that afternoon, and the weather 
R07 166 had turned seasonably cool, though the rooms of the house were 
R07 167 still warm. He told her he loved her, and she kissed him 
R07 168 thankfully, even though she wasn't young or sentimental enough to 
R07 169 believe he meant it.<p/>
R07 170 <p_>He told her he was moving to Texas for the winter. He had 
R07 171 friends there who had offered him a job for a few months; he'd put 
R07 172 his books and his furniture into storage and drive south. He didn't 
R07 173 really know how long he'd stay away. She was struck all at once by 
R07 174 how wonderfully simple it sounded, by how unentangled and 
R07 175 uncomplicated his life was compared with her own. It seemed pure, 
R07 176 clean, and enviable. Jokingly, he asked her if she'd like to go 
R07 177 with him She told him she would in a soft, choking voice. She 
R07 178 buried her face in his broad chest and began to laugh at the idea. 
R07 179 Her laughter fed on itself until she lost control completely and 
R07 180 discovered that she was weeping.<p/>
R07 181 <p_>She rarely cried. She had cried only once in front of her 
R07 182 psychiatrist.
R07 183 
R08   1 <#FROWN:R08\><h_><p_>Selling Whiskers<p/><h/>
R08   2 <p_>One day Edna Sarah's mother sent her out to sell the dog. He 
R08   3 was not an ordinary dog, and certainly it was not ordinary in her 
R08   4 neighborhood to try and sell a dog by going from house to house, 
R08   5 but Edna Sarah, who was ten, did not have much choice; or so she 
R08   6 felt.<p/>
R08   7 <p_>When her mother told her what she was thinking, it was during 
R08   8 supper, a rather measly supper, but that was her mother's excuse 
R08   9 for selling the dog, which Edna Sarah knew was completely false. 
R08  10 The house was stuffed with food. The cabinets in the kitchen were 
R08  11 overflowing. The refrigerator was threatening to burst. If Edna 
R08  12 Sarah opened the door to the pantry, a can from the highest shelf 
R08  13 always fell out, so she had given up trying. Besides, her mother 
R08  14 had a nose that could sniff out the smallest crack in a bag of 
R08  15 raisins, a food Edna Sarah had not thought of as particularly 
R08  16 aromatic, crouched last week in the linen closet, the door suddenly 
R08  17 flung open, her mother there, her hand quick, no food between 
R08  18 meals, she snapped, the bag of raisins gone, the door slammed 
R08  19 shut.<p/>
R08  20 <p_>In fact, Edna Sarah had begun to think of the food in the house 
R08  21 as not food at all but artifacts. She knew that her mother kept 
R08  22 boxes of Girl Scout cookies stacked in her closet, and the big 
R08  23 chocolate candy bars that kids sold to make money for organizations 
R08  24 stuffed in her drawers, six-packs of small green Coca-Cola bottles 
R08  25 under her bed, and lots and lots of bags of oyster crackers strewn 
R08  26 around the room as though they were decorator pillows. Everything 
R08  27 was well-packaged and well-sealed and had a long shelf life.<p/>
R08  28 <p_><quote_>"I think we should sell Whiskers,"<quote/> her mother 
R08  29 said. They were seated at the table in the kitchen, which was bare 
R08  30 except for their plates and utensils. Edna Sarah was picking at a 
R08  31 Vienna sausage. She had two on her plate. Of course, Whiskers had 
R08  32 few whiskers, but her mother had wanted a cat to keep the mice 
R08  33 population down. They had no mice and they had no cat, but they did 
R08  34 have a purebred West Highland terrier with one eye; and they did 
R08  35 have food but it was inaccessible, a word that hit Edna Sarah in 
R08  36 her gut and her soul the first time her teacher defined it.<p/>
R08  37 <p_><quote_>"I don't want to sell Whiskers,"<quote/> she said. <p/>
R08  38 <p_><quote_>"I know you don't want to,"<quote/> answered her 
R08  39 mother. She ran her noticeably thin fingers through her sheer blond 
R08  40 bangs. <quote_>"Who ever wants to sell their pet? Their trusty and 
R08  41 beloved pet."<quote/><p/>
R08  42 <p_><quote_>"Somebody, maybe,"<quote/> said Edna Sarah, looking 
R08  43 down, <quote_>"but not I."<quote/><p/>
R08  44 <p_><quote_>"Why can't you say 'me'?"<quote/> Her mother pierced 
R08  45 the remaining Vienna sausage on her plate with a fork. 
R08  46 <quote_>"It's not normal."<quote/><p/>
R08  47 <p_><quote_>"Not me,"<quote/> she answered, twisting the end of her 
R08  48 long blond braid. <quote_>"I'm not going to sell him."<quote/><p/>
R08  49 <p_><quote_>"But, dear,"<quote/> her mother leaned forward, the 
R08  50 Vienna sausage clinging to her fork, <quote_>"can't you see how 
R08  51 we've been brought to this?"<quote/><p/>
R08  52 <p_><quote_>"I guess so,"<quote/> said Edna Sarah. She tapped her 
R08  53 roll. It made a hollow sound. She could actually remember a Sunday 
R08  54 morning last fall when her mother had made pancakes, the warm, 
R08  55 buttery smell rising into Edna Sarah's bedroom and her father 
R08  56 calling out for her to come. The night before, they had stayed up 
R08  57 late, all three of them, lying on a quilt in the grass to watch for 
R08  58 falling stars. But even then there were signs: three pancakes each, 
R08  59 no more, the rest of the batter scraped into a clean mayonnaise jar 
R08  60 to grow mold in the back of the refrigerator. <quote_>"I haven't 
R08  61 lost my commission yet,"<quote/> her father laughed. Her mother 
R08  62 tightened the lid on the jar and looked at Edna Sarah. There are 
R08  63 never any guarantees, baby. Her father rose from the table, the 
R08  64 crossword puzzle in his hand. After the holidays he was gone, a 
R08  65 Lieutenant Commander in the Navy, away on his ship for another six 
R08  66 months.<p/>
R08  67 <p_>But they were fine, her mother said when the ombudsman called; 
R08  68 and yes, she would be at the meeting, to the Commander's wife; and 
R08  69 of course Edna Sarah could go to the movie with Adrienne (even as 
R08  70 the food disappeared from their plates, a little here and a little 
R08  71 there). These days Edna Sarah ate every bite of her hot lunch at 
R08  72 school, paid for with her allowance, and put the non-perishables in 
R08  73 her backpack for the weekends. To anyone who asked, she said she 
R08  74 was having a growth spurt, but it set her apart, the care she took, 
R08  75 even from her friends. She guessed she understood how she and her 
R08  76 mother had come to this.<p/>
R08  77 <p_><quote_>"I guess so?"<quote/> Her mother's voice rose. 
R08  78 <quote_>"I guess so? The evidence is everywhere."<quote/> And she 
R08  79 swept her arm around the room, across the 
R08  80 <}_><-|>overstufffed<+|>overstuffed<}/> pantry, the burgeoning 
R08  81 refrigerator, and the cabinets that would not close. 
R08  82 <quote|>"Whiskers," she called, <quote_>"come here,"<quote/> and he 
R08  83 dutifully came, his ears up, his tail wagging, his nose poised, the 
R08  84 one good eye wide and open, the other gone, its eyelid sunken and 
R08  85 shriveled. He was a good dog. <quote|>"Whiskers," she said, 
R08  86 <quote_>"you are eating us out of house and home,"<quote/> and she 
R08  87 gave him the Vienna sausage off her fork. He smacked and chewed and 
R08  88 licked his lips, and then he came over to Edna Sarah's chair. She 
R08  89 looked at her mother's plate and the empty fork. Yes, her mother 
R08  90 had given Whiskers a Vienna sausage, although it broke all the 
R08  91 rules. So Edna Sarah took one of hers and gave it to Whiskers and 
R08  92 stroked him on the head.<p/>
R08  93 <p_><quote_>"Good God!"<quote/> her mother yelled. <quote_>"You 
R08  94 have given the dog the last bite of food in the house!"<quote/><p/>
R08  95 <p_>It was useless for Edna Sarah to point out the remaining 
R08  96 sausage on her plate, let alone the roll. They no longer existed. 
R08  97 She stood up from the table and pushed back her chair. <quote_>"How 
R08  98 much do you want me to sell him for?"<quote/><p/>
R08  99 <p_><quote_>"Two hundred dollars,"<quote/> her mother answered. 
R08 100 <quote_>"It's the least we can ask for such a fine animal."<quote/> 
R08 101 Then she rose from the table and took her plate to the sink and 
R08 102 carefully scraped what was not there into the disposal. 
R08 103 <quote_>"And, dear,"<quote/> she turned back, <quote_>"please don't 
R08 104 come home until you've sold him. It's a terrible thing to ask, I 
R08 105 know, but we are simply that desperate."<quote/> Edna Sarah looked 
R08 106 at her mother and saw that she believed every word she was 
R08 107 saying.<p/>
R08 108 <p_>So Edna Sarah went to the closet and got the new retractable 
R08 109 leash her mother had bought only recently and put it on Whiskers - 
R08 110 he wagged his tail and grinned - then together they walked several 
R08 111 blocks to a part of the neighborhood where nobody knew her. The 
R08 112 evening was warm. The light was soft. The day lilies were blooming. 
R08 113 She started to whistle, <quote_>"She'll Be Coming Round the 
R08 114 Mountain When She Comes,"<quote/> Whiskers sniffing here and there 
R08 115 and lifting his leg to pee a little.<p/>
R08 116 <p_>The first house she decided to try was on Maplewood, a white 
R08 117 house with a red tile roof and a big yard edged with flowers. There 
R08 118 was a sliding board and a sandbox and a long swing hanging from a 
R08 119 tall tree. She imagined the lift she could get out of that swing, 
R08 120 especially with a decent push. In fact, she remembered having once 
R08 121 seen a man on his knees at the front flower bed. She rang the 
R08 122 doorbell. The man came to the door.<p/>
R08 123 <p_><quote|>"Yes?" he said, and smiled. He was tall and slender and 
R08 124 was wearing a white T-shirt and khaki shorts and looked to Edna 
R08 125 Sarah like someone who might like to wrestle with his children on 
R08 126 the floor. She had seen some fathers do this. She smiled at the man 
R08 127 and picked up Whiskers and held him in her arms.<p/>
R08 128 <p_><quote_>"Would you like to buy my dog?"<quote/> she asked. 
R08 129 <quote_>"There's nothing wrong with him, except one of his eyes is 
R08 130 missing."<quote/> Whiskers was quiet in her arms.<p/>
R08 131 <p_>The man came out onto the porch. <quote_>"My mother has a 
R08 132 Westie named Duffy,"<quote/> he said and reached out and stroked 
R08 133 the dog's head. <quote_>"What's his name?"<quote/><p/>
R08 134 <p_><quote|>"Whiskers," she answered.<p/>
R08 135 <p_><quote_>"Hello, Whiskers,"<quote/> he said. Whiskers' shriveled 
R08 136 eyelid twitched and he wagged his tail against her arm. She heard 
R08 137 the voice of a child inside and what must have been the voice of 
R08 138 the mother. She strained her ears. <quote_>"Why are you selling 
R08 139 him?"<quote/> the man asked.<p/>
R08 140 <p_><quote_>"Oh, you know,"<quote/> she said, stroking Whiskers' 
R08 141 back, <quote_>"sometimes people get tired of their dogs." Just then 
R08 142 a little girl pushed open the storm door and ran up beside the man. 
R08 143 She was fair and slender and had a headful of thick dark hair and 
R08 144 was wearing a dress.<p/>
R08 145 <p_><quote|>"Doggie!" she said. <quote_>"Beautiful doggie!"<quote/> 
R08 146 The man reached down and picked her up and showed her how to touch 
R08 147 the dog. Edna Sarah was ecstatic. They would buy Whiskers and she 
R08 148 would come back to visit him and they would all wrestle on the 
R08 149 carpet and push each other on the swing and she would stay to help 
R08 150 the mother fix dinner and eat it.<p/>
R08 151 <p_><quote|>"Look," laughed the little girl. <quote_>"He's kissing 
R08 152 my hand."<quote/><p/>
R08 153 <p_><quote_>"I know,"<quote/> said Edna Sarah. <quote_>"He likes 
R08 154 you."<quote/> And she stroked Whiskers' back and smiled.<p/>
R08 155 <p_><quote_>"How much are you selling him for?"<quote/> the man 
R08 156 wanted to know.<p/>
R08 157 <p_><quote_>"Two hundred dollars,"<quote/> she told him. 
R08 158 <quote_>"It's the least we can ask for such a fine dog."<quote/><p/>
R08 159 <p_><quote_>"He is a fine dog."<quote/> Then the man put the little 
R08 160 girl down and told her to run inside and ask her mother to help her 
R08 161 put on her pajamas; she stared at Edna Sarah.<p/>
R08 162 <p_><quote_>"I have a boo-boo,"<quote/> she said, <quote_>"a very 
R08 163 bad boo-boo."<quote/> She pointed to a Band-Aid on the side of her 
R08 164 knee, just below the hem of her dress.<p/>
R08 165 <p_><quote_>"My goodness,"<quote/> said Edna Sarah.<p/>
R08 166 <p_><quote_>"Do you want to see it?"<quote/> she asked, and reached 
R08 167 for the Band-Aid, just as the mother came out onto the porch, tall 
R08 168 and slender with short dark hair. She smiled at Edna Sarah, scooped 
R08 169 up the little girl, and they disappeared into the house. Edna Sarah 
R08 170 heard the child say, <quote_>"I was talking to that 
R08 171 girl."<quote/><p/>
R08 172 <p_><quote_>"I know,"<quote/> the mother answered. <quote_>"You're 
R08 173 very precocious."<quote/><p/>
R08 174 <p_>Edna Sarah smiled at the man. <quote|>"So", she said, 
R08 175 <quote_>"would you like to buy my dog?"<quote/><p/>
R08 176 <p_>He smiled back but his eyes were tired. <quote_>"I guess not. 
R08 177 The yard isn't fenced in. The house is small. My daughter is 
R08 178 unpredictable."<quote/> He touched Whiskers' nose.<p/>
R08 179 <p_>Edna Sarah put Whiskers on the porch and straightened his 
R08 180 leash. <quote_>"I have to be going,"<quote/> she said, then, 
R08 181 <quote_>"come on, buddy,"<quote/> and down the steps they went.<p/>
R08 182 <p_><quote_>"Good luck,"<quote/> the man called.<p/>
R08 183 <p_><quote_>"Thank-you,"<quote/> she answered, but did not turn 
R08 184 around. She walked straight across the street to the house on the 
R08 185 other side, a tall yellow house with dark green shutters and an 
R08 186 overgrown sort of yard. Someone had left a wagon with a high, 
R08 187 straight handle on the front walk. Edna Sarah rang the doorbell and 
R08 188 a black woman opened the door. She was tall and robust and said, 
R08 189 <quote|>"Hi," just as a little boy about the size of the little 
R08 190 girl across the street pushed himself around the woman's legs and 
R08 191 stood poised on the threshold. Edna Sarah could see that he was not 
R08 192 her son, his hair blond and wavy, but he was sturdy, a very sturdy 
R08 193 little boy.<p/>
R08 194 <p_><quote_>"Das a dog,"<quote/> he said.<p/>
R08 195 <p_><quote_>"Would you like to buy him?"<quote/> Edna Sarah asked. 
R08 196 She picked up Whiskers and looked at the woman. <quote_>"He's a 
R08 197 purebred West Highland terrier with a missing eye, but you would 
R08 198 never know it from the way he acts, and he loves children."<quote/> 
R08 199 Whiskers' shriveled eyelid twitched.<p/>
R08 200 <p_><quote_>"I want to touch dat dog,"<quote/> the little boy 
R08 201 said.<p/>
R08 202 <p_><quote_>"Why are you selling him?"<quote/> the woman asked, and 
R08 203 she picked up the little boy, who stretched his hand toward 
R08 204 Whiskers.
R08 205 
R09   1 <#FROWN:R09\><h|>8
R09   2 <p_>In a few days' time, my handcuffs won me an acceptance by the 
R09   3 villagers I never would have earned had I simply stayed in the 
R09   4 village, even for the rest of my life. The handcuffs gave me a 
R09   5 logical occupation, that of prisoner, and a reason for not simply 
R09   6 spending my money and leaving. The children who kept trying to sell 
R09   7 me Chiclets now desisted. Now, as I stood on the riverbank, they 
R09   8 would come up to stand beside me and slip their slim wrists through 
R09   9 my free handcuff. Some would solemnly march around the village with 
R09  10 me as if they were doing penance. Others thought it was funny to 
R09  11 slip a hand into the cuff and hang from it as if unconscious. They 
R09  12 loved being dragged by me across the village square.<p/>
R09  13 <p_>I almost came to like the handcuffs. I found I could use them 
R09  14 to open bottles of beer. The drinking club found this amusing; they 
R09  15 made up sayings about the uses of bondage, and their discussions of 
R09  16 freedom became humorous and speculative. Some of them could not 
R09  17 look at me while they discussed my situation. They spoke to me in 
R09  18 the third person. <quote_>"How is the prisoner today?"<quote/> they 
R09  19 asked. For a while they called me <tf_>el simbolito<tf/>, the 
R09  20 symbol, and I got a good feeling of how totally abstract their 
R09  21 notion of freedom was. One night, Santiago gave the Thinkery a 
R09  22 beautiful twist on an old Greek myth. He asked whether the reason 
R09  23 the man kept wrestling with the boulder, and never quit trying to 
R09  24 roll it to the top of the mountain, was that the boulder was too 
R09  25 beautiful for him to leave it alone.<p/>
R09  26 <p_><quote_>"I have felt such stones,"<quote/> Blind Jorge said, 
R09  27 <quote_>"and I know what you are talking about. They are weighted 
R09  28 inside with something significant. They have a heavy coolness about 
R09  29 them that becomes an obsession. We must be careful to choose our 
R09  30 obsessions wisely."<quote/><p/>
R09  31 <p_><quote_>"Our obsessions should be women,"<quote/> said Jesus. 
R09  32 <quote_>"Women or nothing at all."<quote/><p/>
R09  33 <p_>This discussion reduced the drinking club to drunkenness and 
R09  34 tears. <quote_>"Pure obsessions purify,"<quote/> Lieutenant Hugo 
R09  35 sobbed. <quote_>"I know this because I am pure."<quote/> Hugo was 
R09  36 wearing a T-shirt that said <quote_>"Don't ask me. I just work 
R09  37 here."<quote/><p/>
R09  38 <p_>After the eruption of the volcano and the first-ever showing of 
R09  39 a movie in the village, the mood of the villagers had been high. 
R09  40 They expected good things: some sort of divine good luck from the 
R09  41 volcano's blessing and economic progress now that civilization in 
R09  42 the form of a Rambo movie had reached the little river's shores. 
R09  43 But when nothing obvious happened, they began to suspect a trick. 
R09  44 Three rumors came to town that week.<p/>
R09  45 <p_>Old man Wilson picked up on Blind Jorge's radio a report that a 
R09  46 massive earthquake was predicted for the capital at three that same 
R09  47 afternoon.<p/>
R09  48 <p_><quote_>"Who predicted the earthquake?"<quote/> I asked.<p/>
R09  49 <p_><quote_>"The Star Wars people at NASA, in the United 
R09  50 States."<quote/><p/>
R09  51 <p_><quote|>"Impossible", I said.<p/>
R09  52 <p_><quote_>"That's what Hector says. That's what Lieutenant Hugo 
R09  53 says. But tell us, why then are all the schools closed in the 
R09  54 capital, and why is everyone sitting outside in the capital city's 
R09  55 parks?"<quote/><p/>
R09  56 <p_><quote_>"Because they are ignorant."<quote/><p/>
R09  57 <p_><quote_>"That's what Hector says. But tonight in the capital, 
R09  58 the people will all camp outdoors. And so shall we."<quote/><p/>
R09  59 <p_>And they did. They brought out their babies and blankets to the 
R09  60 center of the soccer field and they set up a camp. They had a 
R09  61 wonderful time. They danced and played volleyball, and the young 
R09  62 lovers were able to promenade for a while and then sneak back up to 
R09  63 their parents' empty houses. That evening the villagers lit cooking 
R09  64 fires. Somebody butchered a pig and soon an aroma of roast pork 
R09  65 filled the air. Some young American tourists joined the fiesta and 
R09  66 sang folk songs, which pleased the villagers immensely.<p/>
R09  67 <p_>Hector, Santiago, Hugo, and I stayed in the cantina, drinking 
R09  68 beer and watching the festivities in the field.<p/>
R09  69 <p_><quote_>"They are fools,"<quote/> Hector said. <quote_>"I'll 
R09  70 tell them when they can have an earthquake."<quote/><p/>
R09  71 <p_><quote_>"They are having more fun than you are,"<quote/> I 
R09  72 said.<p/>
R09  73 <p_>Hector turned his big, slow eyes to me and shook his head. 
R09  74 <quote_>"I'll show them fun. I've got plans for these 
R09  75 monkeys."<quote/><p/>
R09  76 <p_>Santiago said, <quote_>"I hope we don't have an earthquake 
R09  77 tonight. It would mean years of enlightenment down the drain. Such 
R09  78 setbacks to civilization have happened before."<quote/><p/>
R09  79 <p_><quote_>"Don't worry,"<quote/> said Hugo. <quote_>"I'll be in 
R09  80 charge."<quote/><p/>
R09  81 <p_>Hector belched and walked to the steps. He inhaled, filling his 
R09  82 huge rib cage with the savory air. Then he laughed an enormous, 
R09  83 evil, low-throated laugh and aimed it at the people in the 
R09  84 square.<p/>
R09  85 <p_>There was no earthquake that night. About midnight, it began to 
R09  86 rain.<p/>
R09  87 <p_>The second rumor came the next day, when some Swedish tourists 
R09  88 brought in the news that President Reagan was dying. He had a 
R09  89 cancer on his nose and it had spread to his brain.<p/>
R09  90 <p_><quote_>"My God,"<quote/> said Consuelo, <quote_>"he must look 
R09  91 like those poor miscreants in the penny newspapers."<quote/><p/>
R09  92 <p_>The Swedes had read the story in a capital city tabloid.<p/>
R09  93 <p_><quote_>"You're sure of this?"<quote/> I asked them.<p/>
R09  94 <p_>They shrugged their shoulders and nodded. They had read it. 
R09  95 Reagan had resigned and George Bush was now President.<p/>
R09  96 <p_>That evening I ate dinner at Mama Cuchara's and pumped the 
R09  97 tourists for information. They asked me what kind of president 
R09  98 George Bush would be.<p/>
R09  99 <p_><quote|>"Better," I said, but I had no idea.<p/>
R09 100 <p_>Two days later, Wilson picked up another report on the radio. A 
R09 101 four-engine airliner had left the capital and disappeared. On a 
R09 102 clear blue afternoon, it had taken off to fly down the Valley of 
R09 103 the Volcanoes and then had disappeared with fifty<?_>-<?/>four 
R09 104 people on board. The next day, the radio supplied three new rumors. 
R09 105 The first was that the plane had fallen into the caldera of a 
R09 106 volcano and the people were all alive but trapped in a land that 
R09 107 time had forgotten, a land complete with dinosaurs. The radio 
R09 108 announcer interviewed a university professor about dinosaurs. 
R09 109 Another rumor was that the plane had been caught in the ray of a 
R09 110 UFO and the passengers were all alive but trapped on another 
R09 111 planet. The announcer interviewed a psychic medium who had 
R09 112 contacted the pilot. The third rumor was that the plane had been 
R09 113 hijacked by Colombian drug runners and made to fly to Colombia. It 
R09 114 was being used to fly cocaine into the United States and the 
R09 115 passengers were all alive but being turned into slaves to labor on 
R09 116 a marijuana plantation.<p/>
R09 117 <p_>The villagers believed all three of these rumors.<p/>
R09 118 <p_><quote_>"This same thing happened before,"<quote/> they said, 
R09 119 <quote_>"three years ago. And those fifty-four passengers are still 
R09 120 gone too."<quote/><p/>
R09 121 <p_>That precipitated a thinking club discussion on the consequence 
R09 122 of numbers.<p/>
R09 123 <p_><quote_>"Why did both planes have fifty-four 
R09 124 passengers?"<quote/><p/>
R09 125 <p_><quote_>"Maybe that is the number of seats,"<quote/> I said.<p/>
R09 126 <p_><quote_>"And what is the significance of that number equaling 
R09 127 the number of weeks in a year?"<quote/><p/>
R09 128 <p_><quote_>"There are fifty-two weeks in a year,"<quote/> I 
R09 129 said.<p/>
R09 130 <p_><quote_>"So far,"<quote/> they acknowledged, <quote_>"that has 
R09 131 been the case, but that figure is arbitrary, is it not? And numbers 
R09 132 are arbitrary and, thus, capricious. Just look at the 
R09 133 lottery."<quote/><p/>
R09 134 <p_><quote_>"The lottery is random,"<quote/> I said. <quote_>"It 
R09 135 has nothing to do with anything human. Arbitrary, capricious, or 
R09 136 personal."<quote/><p/>
R09 137 <p_><quote_>"Tell that to the fifty-two people on that 
R09 138 airplane,"<quote/> they said. <quote_>"Tell that to the devil on 
R09 139 the day you die."<quote/><p/>
R09 140 <p_><quote_>"People who die on Sunday,"<quote/> Jesus politely 
R09 141 warned me, <quote_>"do not always go to heaven."<quote/><p/>
R09 142 <p_>The next day the radio announced that the United States Air 
R09 143 Force had sent an aircraft to assist in the search for the missing 
R09 144 airliner. The plane was equipped with sophisticated sensors which 
R09 145 could detect the wreckage of the plane beneath the snow on a 
R09 146 volcano summit or beneath the canopies of the jungle trees.<p/>
R09 147 <p_>This was the report that really disturbed the villagers. 
R09 148 <quote_>"Is this so?"<quote/> they asked me. <quote_>"Can this 
R09 149 plane see through the trees? With what? With secret 
R09 150 rays?"<quote/><p/>
R09 151 <p_>This time the villagers took refuge indoors, inside the few 
R09 152 buildings with tin roofs, which they hoped would shield them from 
R09 153 the rays. They kept Jorge's radio on a cardboard box just outside 
R09 154 the cantina, and the cantina became the scene of a Drinking and 
R09 155 Thinking Club marathon, a forty-eight-hour symposium which 
R09 156 discussed and dismissed as hopeless although interesting almost 
R09 157 every problem known to man. Santiago assured me he did not believe 
R09 158 in any danger, but he said the situation had its good aspect, the 
R09 159 gathering of so many fine minds for such an extended time.<p/>
R09 160 <p_>Wilson had been hurt on his motorcycle, which Hector had 
R09 161 mysteriously gotten back from the soldiers. Now Wilson wanted to 
R09 162 sue the Army for damaging his motorcycle, which had led to his 
R09 163 accident, which had led to his swollen ankle.<p/>
R09 164 <p_><quote_>"You need a lawyer for that,"<quote/> Jesus told him. 
R09 165 <quote_>"And all the real lawyers are in the capital 
R09 166 city."<quote/><p/>
R09 167 <p_><quote_>"Fine. He'll go,"<quote/> Napoleon said. 
R09 168 <quote_>"Wilson will press for his rights."<quote/><p/>
R09 169 <p_><quote_>"He will need proof he was hurt,"<quote/> Blind Jorge 
R09 170 pointed out.<p/>
R09 171 <p_><quote_>"I have my ankle,"<quote/> said Wilson, and he took off 
R09 172 a black rubber boot and displayed his injury. His ankle was black 
R09 173 and green.<p/>
R09 174 <p_><quote_>"Such evidence is circumstantial. You need an affidavit 
R09 175 from a certifiable physician. And for that you will need an 
R09 176 autopsy."<quote/><p/>
R09 177 <p_><quote_>"How much does that cost?"<quote/> Wilson asked. 
R09 178 <quote_>"Can I get it free from the Peace Corps lady at Huasipungo 
R09 179 Pass?"<quote/><p/>
R09 180 <p_><quote_>"Autopsies are never free,"<quote/> Wilson was told. 
R09 181 <quote_>"Otherwise, they wouldn't stand up in court. The widow 
R09 182 Palos has an autopsy for her dead husband, Pedro. It is framed on 
R09 183 the wall of her house. It has more government stamps than a letter 
R09 184 to Lima."<quote/><p/>
R09 185 <p_><quote_>"Perhaps I could use her autopsy,"<quote/> Wilson 
R09 186 said.<p/>
R09 187 <p_><quote_>"Not a chance, dear Wilson. The widow does not know 
R09 188 what an autopsy is. She thinks it is a letter of condolence and 
R09 189 honor from the erstwhile President of the Republic, who is now 
R09 190 under the government's convenience of a house arrest. She would 
R09 191 never part with it."<quote/><p/>
R09 192 <p_>I told them that autopsies were performed on dead people, to 
R09 193 determine what had killed them. They looked at me as if I had 
R09 194 missed the whole point of the discussion.<p/>
R09 195 <p_><quote_>"Thank you for the clarification,"<quote/> they said 
R09 196 politely.<p/>
R09 197 <p_>Santiago interceded and guided the discussion toward 
R09 198 philosophy. <quote_>"If autopsies are performed on dead people, we 
R09 199 must ask, Why?"<quote/> he said. <quote_>"And why aren't they more 
R09 200 logically performed on living people, to determine what is keeping 
R09 201 them alive?"<quote/><p/>
R09 202 <p_><quote_>"It is hope,"<quote/> Jesus said. <quote_>"They say 
R09 203 that hope cannot be found with a surgeon's knife. A dead person has 
R09 204 sometimes died through the process of releasing hope, albeit 
R09 205 involuntarily. People have seen this hope releasing. It is colored 
R09 206 blue."<quote/><p/>
R09 207 <p_><quote_>"Why blue?"<quote/> Blind Jorge asked.<p/>
R09 208 <p_>On the second day of the death rays, Napoleon left the cantina 
R09 209 to help Angelina provision her canoe. She drifted away on another 
R09 210 scientific expedition, with a group of British scientists who 
R09 211 looked at us as if we were fools.<p/>
R09 212 <p_><quote|>"Santiago," said El Brinco, <quote_>"your daughter is 
R09 213 extraordinarily brave."<quote/><p/>
R09 214 <p_>At this, Lieutenant Hugo stood up. <quote|>"Gentlemen," he 
R09 215 said. <quote_>"The time for defense is past. The first barrage of 
R09 216 killer rays is over. It is time now to leave our bunker and find 
R09 217 our airliner ourselves. Our country for our countrymen. Our dead 
R09 218 for likewise. Our duty for the love of our mothers. Now, who 
R09 219 volunteers to join in the official search and rescue?"<quote/><p/>
R09 220 <p_>Everyone looked straight at Hugo and no one said a word. Hugo 
R09 221 took this as if he had expected it. He turned to me. <quote_>"You. 
R09 222 I want to believe I can trust you."<quote/><p/>
R09 223 <p_>I jangled my handcuffs. <quote_>"Go ahead,"<quote/> I said. 
R09 224 <quote_>"Trust me."<quote/><p/>
R09 225 <p_><quote_>"It is accepted military procedure to allow prisoners 
R09 226 to regain their honor on dangerous missions. We march at 
R09 227 dawn."<quote/><p/>
R09 228 <p_>They all looked at one another and then cheered and called for 
R09 229 beer. El Brinco ran out of beer that night, and we left the next 
R09 230 day in the late afternoon to an absolute absence of fanfare.
R09 231 
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