“When? When did you go down there?”

“Oh, it was about the time Ralph got that wire, I think. Yeah, it must’ve been along about then, I guess.”

“Why didn’t you say you were comin’ down? I’d’ve waited!”

“I just figured, if you were there, okay, and otherwise, what the hell.” Clinton drew in a breath and held it for a moment. “Then I—uh—shacked up with this broad for a while and . . .”

Berry-berry said, “You did!” And then he started to laugh. He put both hands on the wheel, looked straight ahead, and laughed for a long time. Clinton looked at him carefully, trying to judge the meaning of this behavior. Then his brother reached over to him, as if to encourage him, and squeezed his shoulder. “Go on, tell me what else, you little bastard. Oh, you kill me, goddam you, you little cocksman you, you really do! You know you’re the only one I missed in this entire miserable hell hole of a town? That’s the truth! You know what you are? You’re just like me. We’re neither one of us any different.” Then he laughed some more.

Clinton was deeply pleased with this impression he was making. Through some divine inspiration he had struck just the right attitude with which to win Berry-berry’s interest and respect. He was not yet at his ease in this wild world of a speeding truck headed for no place special, but the brandy helped him some. He wanted to get the feeling that this ride was really taking place, but there was something disturbingly false in the core of it. It was as if he had forced it to happen by the strength of imagination and desire; it was an event of the will, without his flesh being involved in it, without truth.

“You know what I get the feeling of sometimes?” he said aloud. “It’s like we’re not really here.”

“That’s where you’re wrong, Clint. We are. And that’s all we are. We’re just here.” Then he laughed again.

Clinton said: “I guess you’re right about that. We’re just here.” But he no longer knew what they were talking about. Clinton wanted to be agreeable. Anyway, maybe it was not important.

Then Berry-berry said, “I suppose you know I hate her guts.”

“Who’s guts?”

“Annabel’s.”

Clinton had not known this. He listened in amazement, as Berry-berry went on:

“It’s true, and I can’t help it. She makes my flesh creep. That’s mainly why I don’t like to come around. I’m always afraid I’ll do something rotten. But I don’t want to, so I keep the hell away.”

“What d’you mean, something rotten?”

“I don’t know even. I’m half nuts, you know. I am, I’m a mess. What about you? Are you a mess?”

“Yeah,” Clinton said, “but not like that. Course me and Annabel don’t have much in common. But I don’t feel like that about her.”

“But you’re a mess; aren’t you?”