He started to drink from the nozzle and instantly filled his mouth, throat, sinuses, aural cavity, and chest hair with foam.

“Use a glass,” Jenny would say. “What are you, an animal?” He must call Jenny and apologize as soon as the thirst was gone.

First, a glass. Dirty dishes were strewn across every horizontal surface in the kitchen: the counter, stove, table, breakfast bar, and the top of the refrigerator. The oven was filled with dirty dishes.

Nobody lives like this. He spotted a glass among the miasma. The Holy Grail. He grabbed it and filled it with beer. Mold floated on the settling foam. He threw the glass into the oven and slammed the door before an avalanche could gain momentum.

A clean glass, perhaps. He checked the cupboard where the dishes had once been kept. A single cereal bowl stared out at him. From the bottom of the bowl Fred Flintstone congratulated him, “Good kid! You’re a clean-plater!” Robert filled the bowl and sat cross-legged on the floor amid the broken dishes while he drank.

Fred Flintstone congratulated him three times before his thirst abated. Good old Fred. The man’s a saint. Saint Fred of Bedrock.

“Fred, how could she do this to me? Nobody can live like this.”

“Good kid! You’re a clean-plater!” Fred said.

“Call Jenny,” Robert said, reminding himself. He stood and staggered through the offal toward the phone. Nausea swept over him and he bounced back through the trailer’s narrow hallway and fell into the bathroom, where he retched into the toilet until he passed out. The Breeze called it “talking to Ralph on the Big White Phone.” This one was a toll call.

Five minutes later he came to and found the phone. It seemed a superhuman effort to hit the right buttons. Why did they have to keep moving? At last he connected and someone answered on the first ring. “Jenny, honey, I’m sorry. Can I—”

“Thank you for calling Pizza on Wheels. We will open at eleven A.M. and deliveries begin at four P.M. Why cook when—”

Robert hung up. He’d dialed the number written on the phone’s emergency numbers sticker instead of his home. Again he chased down the buttons and pegged them one by one. It was like shooting skeet, you had to lead them a little.

“Hello.” Jenny sounded sleepy.

“Honey, I’m sorry. I’ll never do it again. Can I come home?”

“Robert? What time is it?”

He thought for a moment then guessed, “Noon?”

“It’s five in the morning, Robert. I’ve been asleep about an hour, Robert. There were dogs barking in the neighborhood all night long, Robert. I’m not ready for this. Good-bye, Robert.”

“But Jenny, how could you do it? You don’t even like the desert. And you know how I hate saltines.”

“You’re drunk, Robert.”