Harry loiters beside the Land Cruiser, contemplating the fact that the ground and the sky are two distinct entities that appear to touch each other, here in a neurotically straight Iowan line.

Loudermilk is making signs that they must progress toward the social scene. But Harry is no longer capable of comprehending his friend’s suggestions. Harry hears only a high-pitched hum he assumes must be the abstract music of his own blood. Ages pass, Paleolithic eons, fossils form whitely on Harry’s lips and drop softly to the earth, his eyes dry up and blow away, yet at last Harry is moving beside Loudermilk, is somehow walking.

Loudermilk has pretty much been keeping up his end of the bargain. So far, basically, so good. Few questions have been asked, and only Evelyn, their new landlord, whoever she is, native Cretan, serial monogamist, hovel mogul, has even come close to confronting Harry’s odd lot. What’s unusual is that Evelyn’s query happened at such an early point in their acquaintance, and early on it’s very much Loudermilk’s responsibility to ensure that dialogue of this nature is kept to a minimum. If the person behaving in an inquisitive fashion isn’t really going to become a major part of their lives, what’s the point? Harry’s situation is on a need-to-know.

When Harry was younger, he read the word agoraphobe somewhere. It, as they say, resonated with him. But Harry’s not afraid of open spaces or large groups of people, at least not chiefly. He does not suffer from an overdeveloped sensitivity to human cruelty, nor does he live in constant fear of persecution by his fellow man. Rather, his sensitivity is carefully calibrated, his fear intermittent if pretty pronounced. He respects the possibility of cruelty; he largely accepts that he’s destined to be persecuted by individuals bigger, richer, and stupider than he is. Agoraphobia was mainly of interest to Harry, when he first came across the term, in an existential sense, since it seemed antithetical to the very project of enduring a human life span. It was an incorrect way of thinking and feeling that was not just a mistaken opinion or species of hate. Rather, in Harry’s estimation, it was a general disposition toward the future, a mode of mentally assessing what was to come that significantly limited one’s prospects, which is to say, one’s ability to exit a room or, maybe, bed.

Harry thinks about himself in these terms. But his problem is not, again, primarily with other people. Yes, Harry dislikes and fears most other men and women, but the central and insoluble problem for Harry is that he, in a nonmetaphorical sense, hates the sound of his own voice.

It rises in him. It enters his own ears, and after this Harry will “hear” how it sounds to others.

It’s not that he can’t speak. It’s that he doesn’t want to.