"It's pretty lurid. They had a veterans' parade yesterday--and I went over to Fifth to watch--and it was damn near immobilized in the asphalt. It would have been funny--millions of guys stuck there--blocking traffic all winter--! If you go out just to get a paper, you need asbestos shoes. Any minute, this joint may run like paraffin." "I think you ought to knock off and go see somebody." "Town's evacuated. Wouldn't be emptier if Molotov was threatening to A-bomb." "Do you feel all right?" "Sure, Tud. As all right as you can when you're standing by to swim up out of your own sweat, any minute. How's mother? What new mess has Popcorn made?" She gave me the country news. "Won't be too long now," I said. "Miss you." "Miss you. Been thinking about the gardens. See you day after tomorrow--barring acts of God." "I'd rather wait longer--and have you sounding better." "You wait till I get there and I'll do my own sounding." "Good night," she said. "I love you." When I hung up, I was quivering. I'd come pretty close: Well, Ricky, I am worried. I went to Tom's. Of course, it's probably going to turn out to be nothing. But until I know for sure I feel--the hell with it! I'm ashamed of being this way! I sat there, taking divots out of myself and not getting on the green. I looked at the roses again. They were just yellow roses--big ones--in a glass vase. I yanked out the bridge table, batted the bridge lamp around, sat, and bent into it. 6 Yvonne came through the connecting doors about one o'clock. I was still bent--bent enough so it took a moment to turn and straighten after she said, "Hello, Svengali!" She was drunk. Not happy-drunk, or mean-drunk, either. Nervous-drunk. "Your pure relation left me," she said. "Left you how?" "Left me in this condition. Buy me a Scotch." I sent the word. She threw herself on the divan, blew down the front of her rose-pink dress--which was wrinkled now, wet under the armpits, city-smudged at the edges--and fixed her fidgety eyes on me. "We went down to the Palais and danced a bit. He's lousy. We started in having a flock of drinks. He talked. Good God, how Wylies talk! He told me the story of his life--including the full saga of Marcia. He got to that later--at the Club Mauve." "Nice little spot!" "He said we were both in a revolting mood and so we should go to some repulsive place." "Then you told him the story of your life, too?" "Up to when I met you." "Is that going to be a date, from now on? Milestone? And millstone, too? Try to bear in mind--it's your life and you're of age." "So all right, lambie-pie! No hard feelings. The point is--the more he told me about his Marcia--the less he noticed me. We switched to Planter's Punches, in due time, and had a zombie somewhere along the way. For a while I thought the rum was going to do what my gilded fleece couldn't. We necked. It's dark as a bat's groin there, anyhow." "Pretty metaphor."