A: Invariably.
"You mean like real life."
"You dont have to tell me."
A: Not a note.
"How old is he actually?"
"Where does this word jump come from?"
"Oh, come on."
Rob removed himself into the felon-thick night, Carol gave the babysitter twelve dollars, and Simon looked in on the sleeping Sarah. She had kicked the covers off and he replaced them. "Do you think he was on duty?" Carol asked, re-doing the covers.
"Not a perfect deal hes an animate wreck."
"I dont think so I read about this guy who was ninety-three and still was fathering children when he was ninety-three."
"You mean the photographs would be more arousing than we are?"
"Well if you want simple frottage."
"Ive noticed youve been buying a lot of Lubri?derm."
"HES not potent more than forty-two per?cent of the time."
Q: Its possible.
"I saw." She led the way to the kitchen. "I guess thats Sarah eleven years from now."
"I dont think you can give somebody too much of any particular vitamin. The body takes what it needs and rejects the rest I read about it."
She gives him a quick kiss and starts to leave, then pauses.
"He shows no signs of going mad."
Q: No special interests?
"See what Im saying?"
"Whos that?"
"You mean cash? In the house?"
"I think he works quite hard at it, spends hours and hours."
He switches on the bedside lamp.
"It needs changing."
"Beats me I wouldnt take it if he did."
Q: Let me play this track here for you, its by Echo and the Bunnymen --
"A ripe fifteen."
"He does appreciate what hes given."
"Let me look."
"Well Ill tell you Ive never had that many orgasms with anybody else to give the devil his due."
"Fully fifteen."
"See what Im saying?"
"Maybe we should offer stimulating photographs."
"You want to jump the babysitter."
A: Yes. Sleeping９9ｌｉｂ.ｎｅt with people although legally bound to someone else.
"Maybe we should offer him potentially arousing scenes that are not photographs."
"Youre dumb. Youre just dumb, Simon."
A: Well, adultery. I would say thats how I spent most of my free time. In adultery.
"See what Im saying?"
"They say that vitamin E is good for that."
"Do you have any money?"
Q: You regard yourself as prudent.
A: Just ordinary things.
"You worry about the way I say things but you dont worry about what I mean."
"The phrase is a bit total. As in, I totaled the Buick. "
"Whats your wifes name, Simon?"
A: I was very interested in bow-hunting. These new bows they have now, what they call a compound bow -- Also, Im a member of the Galapagos Society, we work for the environment, its really a very effective --
Q: And so thats what you did, in the evenings or on weekends. . .
"I just think that means he doesnt have very good clothes. His clothes have a lot of loose ends and its nat?ural, I think, when you see a loose end to pluck at it."
Q: Did the conductor resemble anyone you know?
A: Nonsense. The prudent man guards his eardrums. The prudent man avoids anomalous circumstances.
"I didnt think it was necessary. She was blushing all over. Never seen a stomach blush like that."
"Hes raveling his clothes. Plucking at threads."
ONCE when he had come home with Carol early from a concert a police car was parked outside the house, so they hurried. Inside on the couch with the babysitter there was a half-naked policeman. He had retained his uniform trousers. His gunbelt was on the coffee table and the babysitters blouse on the coffee table, a bottle of Dewars there as well, "This is Rob," the babysitter said, and they said, "Hi, Rob." What breasts, Simon thought. He went into the kitchen and mixed himself a Gelusil and Carol went searching for a faraway closet to hang her black-beaded jacket in.
Q: Does your father play? www.99lib.netIn actuality?
Q: These were women.
Q: Your guilt. I recognize it. Clearly, guilt.
"Well I dont know how their minds work."
"Has he made a will?"
"Where are we?"
"What if we give him too much vitamin E and it poisons him?"
Q: And what else?
"Whats my wifes name?"
"I didnt hire the babysitter."
"Its my bad brother," Dore says. "Hes downstairs. He always arrives without warning. One of his endear?ing traits. Thanks. Ill pay you back."
Q: What did you do, after work, in the evenings or on weekends, in Philadelphia?
A: Ill pass.
"Had this guy today tell me he was the fourth gen?eration of his family to lose money in the cattle busi?ness. A client. What he was really saying was that he was cattle aristocracy and he made enough from his oil leases so that he could run two thousand head of cattle as a hobby. Thats known as self-deprecating humor."
"I dont know Id have to look in some books."
"Thats what I mean."
Simon gets out of bed and opens a book, On Adams House in Paradise. He takes out a stack of bills and counts out two hundred in twenties.
A: I regard myself as asleep. I go along, things hap?pen to me, there are disturbances, one copes, thinking of the golden pillow, I dont mean literally golden but golden in my esteem --
"I dont think Ive ever said that to anybody. I know you. "
A: In the dream, my father was playing the piano, a Beethoven something, in a large concert hall which was filled with people. I was in the audience and I was reading a book. I suddenly realized that this was the wrong thing to do when my father was per?forming, so I sat up and paid attention. He was playing very well, I thought. Suddenly the conductor stopped the performance and began to sing a passage for my fa?ther, a passage that my father had evidently botched. My father listened attentively, smiling at the conduc?tor.
"Yes," Simon said. "Did you say anything to her?"
A: Stabs me in the ea九九藏书r with the scissors in an excess of rage?
"Did he leave the bottle?"
"Right now?"
"Thats your opinion."
"I use Lubriderm on him sometimes, that helps."
"Its because hes so old."
"I know you."
"Were in some sort of waiting room. Waiting."
"What is she, fifteen?"
"Right now. Two hundred, if you have it."
"Well were mature women we should be able to cope with this."
Q: I also have a video of the Tet offensive with Walter Cronkite. . .
"Its me. Dore."
"He says hes fifty-three."
"You would if you could."
A: I had this strange experience. Today is Saturday, right? I called up this haircutter I go to, her name is Ruth, and asked her for an appointment. I needed a haircut. So she said she had openings at ten, ten-thirty, eleven, eleven-thirty, twelve, twelve-thirty -- on a Satur?day. Do you think the world knows something I dont know?
"Youre too wrapped up in your own stuff even to try. To know someone."
A: No.
"I saw this guy in a movie once I couldnt believe it."
"Maybe in a state of nature. Philadelphia is not a state of nature."
He attempts generalizations. Dore is crusty, Veron?ica is volatile, Anne is a worrier. The generalizations are banal but comforting, like others hes been faithful to over many years, architecture is frozen music and art is a source of life.
"No, took it."
"I just think weve gotten ourselves into a funda?mentally false position here, I dont blame the poor bastard its just more than the male mechanism is equipped to do."
Dore is brusque upon awakening, Anne cheerful as a zinnia. Veronica frequently comes to the breakfast table (hardly a table, a slab of butcher block on top of some cabinets with four stools around it) pale with de?spair, then is overtaken with great gusts of enthusiasm, for Lohengrin or oyster mushrooms or Pierre Trudeau. Theyre so lovely that his head whips around when one of them enters the room, exactly 九-九-藏-书-网in the way one notices a strange woman in a crowd and cant avoid, cant phys?ically avoid, loud and outrageous staring. My senses are being systematically dérégled, he thinks, forgive me, Rimbaud. Dore is relatively tall, Anne not so tall (but they are all tall), Veronica again the middle term. Breasts waver and dip and sway from side to side under t-shirts with messages so much of the moment that Simon doesnt understand a tenth of them: ALLY SHEEDY LIVES! Who is Ally Sheedy? In what sense does she live, and why is the fact worthy of comment? They know, he doesnt. Simon has actually met Pierre Tru?deau (at a three-day city-planning conference in Ot?tawa) and found him a charming and thoughtful man. This earns him about a crayons worth of credit with his guests.
In the middle of the night he senses someone stand?ing over his bed.
"I share it what are you getting so het up about?"
"I havent heard that expression since I was a child. Het up."
"As well he should hes in hog heaven, objectively speaking."
"Thats what I hear too."
"Maybe we could feed him nourishing broths."
"Potentially arousing scenes."
"Hes doing the best he can."
"Thats an evil thought, has he anything to will?"
"Oh misery me."
"I think Ill call the chief. Fill him in on this matter."
"She was highly recommended."
"Of what?"
"Sure you would."
A: What if she stabs me in the ear with the scissors?
"Perhaps at long intervals after he had been carefully fed with vitamin E and nourishing broths."
"I need a couple of hundred."
"Youre changing the subject."
In bed, he was almost asleep. She came in and threw four quarts of icewater at him.
"Consisting of what?"
"Carol."
"Pretty name."
"We dont want to stress him beyond his capacity or have him go mad or something."
Q: Unlikely, I would think.
Q: You mean regular adultery.
"Whats up?"
"They have these speci藏书网al guys they use for those movies theyre not what you usually run into. Theyre specialists."
SIMON is amazed by what he doesnt care about. Hes bought nothing but a couple of new shirts and a few books. Hes thought of no new projects. He reads Progressive Architecture and critiques what he sees there in a mood of amiable colleagueship. Hed done a building in 1981 that had pleased him, a Cath?olic church in a not-good area near Temple University, where the liquor stores gave you your bottle by request over a formidable counter, no browsing in the stacks. The parish was so poor that hed cut his fee to almost nothing; the other partners were not happy about it but had accommodated him. The church was a bare-bones steel building with insets of glass block as its only de?sign flourish, these however stacked eighteen feet high in twelve bays on either side of the sanctuary -- the glass block was the light-giving element, and resisted thiev?ery, too. It had been popular in the 30s, considered a design cliche in the 40s, 50s, 60s and 70s, and pre?sented itself again in the 80s, fresh as new dung. Some?thing to be said for being fifty-three, you could enjoy the turning of the wheel. He feels every additional day a great boon. He doesnt understand people who have futures, palpable futures. He takes an interest in the obituary pages of the newspapers, the summations, tidy packages, So-and-so gets three inches whereas Tra-la-la got seven. He has a pain where his liver is presumed to be and is vomiting rather too much. Hes paid $35,107 in Federal taxes for last year and has before him a re?quest from the IRS for an additional $41.09. These people are wonderful, he thinks, they want the last forty-one bucks and nine cents. Youd think with the thirty-five thou theyd say lets have a beer and forget about it.
"He could be more tan his red color is from drinking Ill bet a nickel."
"Thats not so. Anyhow, I dont want to screw the babysitter."
They say, repeatedly:
Shes wearing a white lace peignoir with long filigree sleeves.