Some angry black people walked by carrying steel-band instruments and bunches of flowers.

"But your father bounded out from behind the bar and got you the butter meanwhile looking sternly at all the other people in the bar to keep them from looking at you," Elise suggested.

"Its religious."

"My views were not consulted," Jerome said. "They didnt ask me, they told me. But I still had my inner belief, which was that I didnt believe in it. I was in the MPs. I rose through the ranks. I was a provost marshal, at the end. I once shook down an entire battalion of Seabees, six hundred men."

"Yes," Jerome said, with a startled look. "Of course. Why?"

"Shall we discuss old men?" the first woman asked the second woman.

"What?"

"No," Kate said. "Its good." She gazed about her at the new life sprouting in sandboxes and jungle gyms. "Wish I had some kids to yell at."

"When I was a girl, a little girl, I had to go into my fathers bar to get the butter," Kate said. "My father had a bar in Brooklyn. The icebox was in the bar. The only icebox. My mother sent me downstairs to get the butter. All the men turned and looked at me as I entered the bar."

The two men looked at the sky to make sure all of our countrys satellites were in the r

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ight places.

"I dont believe it," said the second male senior citizen, whose name was Jerome.

"Theyre different now," Elise said, "youre lucky shes not keeping company with one of those priests with his hair in a pigtail."

"Where is she?" Elise asked. "Georgia or somewhere, you told me but I forgot. Going to school you said."

"I dont believe it," Jerome said again. "I dont believe in things like that and never have. I dont believe in magic and I dont believe in superstition. I dont believe in Judaism, Christianity, or Eastern thought. None of em. I didnt believe in the First World War even though I was a child in the First World War and youll go a long way before you find somebody who didnt believe in the First World War. That was a very popular war, where I lived. I didnt believe in the Second World War either and I was in it."

"Rabbit, rabbit, rabbit, rabbit," one of the women said suddenly. She turned her head to each of the four corners of an imaginary room as she did so.

"So?" said Elise. "So, so, so?"

"Whats to think about?" Frank asked. "There was Czechoslovakia. Czechoslovakia says it all."

"My pal the rabbi told me, hes dead now; He said it was a Hasidic writing."

"There was another

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thing we used to do," Kate said calmly. "You and your girl friend each wrote the names of three boys on three slips of paper, on the first day of the month. The names of three boys you wanted to ask you to go out with them. Then your girl friend held the three slips of paper in her cupped hands and you closed your eyes and picked --"

"Maybe its not so good?" Jerome asked. "What do you think?"

"Maybe."

"Who can tell?" said Kate. "Id be the last to know."

"How could you be in it if you didnt believe in it?" Elise asked.

"It is forbidden to grow old."

"What is shook down?"

"What is it?"

"I think its probably just an old wives tale," one of the men said. The other male senior citizen cracked up.

"Its the first of the month. If you say rabbit four times, once to each corner of the room, or the space that you are in, on the first of the month before you eat lunch, then you will be loved in that month."

"I didnt believe in the unions and I didnt believe in the government whether Republican or Democrat," Jerome said. "And I didnt believe in --"

"You were wrong about that too," said the other man, Frank. "I was a linotype operator when I was nineteen and I was a linotype operator un

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til I was sixty and let me tell you, mister, if we hadnt had the union all we would have got was nickels and dimes. Nickels and dimes. Period. So dont say anything against the trade union movement while Im sitting here, because I know what Im talking about. You dont."

"Black market stuff. Booze. Dope. Government property. Unauthorized weapons." He paused. "What else didnt I believe in? I didnt believe in the atom bomb but I was wrong about that. The unions."

"I dont think thats true," the second woman senior citizen said. "I never heard it before and Ive heard everything."

"Thats when you and your people go through their foot lockers and sea bags and personal belongings looking for stuff they shouldnt have."

"Did you believe in the international Communist conspiracy?" Frank asked Jerome.

"Good," Kate said. "I dont believe in prostate trouble. I dont believe there is such a thing as a prostate."

"No," Kate said. "He was on his ass most of the time. What they say about bartenders not drinking is not true."

"I called her and said I was coming and she said but Thanksgiving Day is the game. So I said the game, the game, O.K. Ill go to the game, I dont mind going to the game, get me a ticket. And she said but Mother Im in the flash card section.藏书网 My daughter the nun."

"My daughter the nun," Kate said, "you wouldnt believe."

"Why did you do that?" one of the men asked.

"The I.T.U. is considered a very good union," Elise said. "I once went with a man in the I.T.U. He was a composing-room foreman and his name was Harry Foreman, that was a coincidence, and he made very good money. We went to Luchows a lot. He liked German food."

"Also I didnt believe in the United Nations and before that I didnt believe in the League of Nations," Jerome said. "Furthermore," he said, giving Kate a meaningful glance, "I didnt believe women should be given the vote."

"I havent decided about whether there is an international Communist conspiracy," Elise said. "Im still thinking about it."

Some street people walked past the group of senior citizens but decided that the senior citizens werent worth asking for small change. The decision was plain on their faces.

"Shes getting her masters," Kate said, "they send them. Shes a rambling wreck from Georgia Tech. I was going down to visit at Thanksgiving."

"You closed your eyes and picked one and put it in your shoe. And you did the same for her. And then that boy would come around. It always worked. Invariably."

The other senior citizens stared at 九-九-藏-书-网her.

Kate gazed at Jeromes coat, which was old, at his shirt, old, then at his pants, which were quite old, and at his shoes, which were new.

"Do you have prostate trouble?" she asked.

The old people thought about this for a while, on the bench.

"Goddamn," Elise said. "Wish Id known that."

She gave him a generous and loving smile.

"Invariably," Kate said. "Without fail. Worked every time."

"You cant read," Frank said, "youre blind."

"Nope."

"What shouldnt they have?"

A group of senior citizens on a bench in Washington Square Park in New York City. There were two female senior citizens and two male senior citizens.

"Me too," Elise said. "I could do without the irony."

One of the men leaned around his partner and asked: "Well, is it working? Are you loved?"

"But you didnt."

"You mean to tell me that if you put the piece of paper with the boys name on it in your shoe on the first day of the month he invariably came around?" Elise asked Kate.

"What about your daughter the nun?" the second woman, whose name was Elise, asked the first, whose name was Kate. "You havent heard from her?"

"Its good," Kate said. "I could do without the irony."

"There was one thing I believed," Jerome said.