She turns her head, gives him that long-chinned profile, a dime’s worth. “I was stupid,” she says, “to think you might trust me. You shouldn’t have said you loved me.”

Skeeter hums “True Love,” the old Crosby–Grace Kelly single.

Rabbit re-asks, “Why?”

Skeeter rises from the chair. “Jesus deliver me from puking uptight honky lovers. She’s doing it because I been screwing her all afternoon, right? If I go, she comes with me, hey Jill honey, right?”

She says, again thin-lipped, “Right.”

Skeeter tells her, “I wouldn’t take you on a bet, you poor cock-happy bitch. Skeeter splits alone.” To Rabbit he says, “Toodle-oo, Chuck. Goddam green pickles, but it’s been fun to watch you squirm.” Standing, Skeeter seems frail, shabby in blue Levis and a colorless little Army windbreaker from which the insignia have been unstitched. His ball of hair has shrunk his face.

“Toodle-oo,” Rabbit agrees, with relief in his bowels, and turns his back.

Skeeter declines to go so simply. He steps closer, he smells spicy. He says, “Throw me out. I want you to touch me.”

“I don’t want to.”

“Do it.”

“I don’t want to fight you.”

“I screwed your bitch.”

“Her decision.”

“And a lousy little cunt she was, too. Like putting your prick in a vise.”

“Hear him, Jill?”

“Hey. Rabbit. That’s what they used to call you, right? Your mamma’s a whore, right? She goes down on old black winos behind the railroad station for fifty cents, right? If they don’t have fifty cents she does it free because she likes it, right?”

Remote Mom. The quilty scent of her room, medicine, bedwarmth. Of all those years when she was well he can only remember her big bones bent above the kitchen table with its four worn places; she is not sitting down, she has already eaten, she is feeding him supper, he has come home from practice late, it is after dark, the windows are glazed from within.

“Your daddy’s a queer, right? You must be too to take all this shit. Your wife couldn’t stand living with a queer, it was like being balled by a mouse, right? You’re a mouse down there, hey, ain’t that right, gimme a feel.” He reaches and Rabbit bats his hand away. Skeeter dances, delighted. “Nothin’ there, right? Hey. Rabbit. Jill says you believe in God. I got news for you. Your God’s a pansy. Your white God’s queerer than the Queen of Spades. He sucks off the Holy Ghost and makes his son watch. Hey. Chuck. Another thing. Ain’t no Jesus. He was a faggot crook, right? They bribed the Romans to get his carcass out of the tomb ’cause it smelled so bad, right?”

“All you’re showing me,” Rabbit says, “is how crazy you are.” But a creeping sweetness, rage, is filling him solid. Sunday school images—a dead man whiter than lilies, the lavender rocks where he was betrayed by a kiss—are being revived in him.

Skeeter dances on, he is wearing big creased Army boots. He bumps Harry’s shoulder, tugs the sleeve of his white shirt. “Hey. Wanna know how I know? Wanna know? Hey. I’m the real Jesus. I am the black Jesus, right? There is none other, no. When I fart, lightning flashes, right? Angels scoop it up in shovels of zillion-carat gold. Right? Kneel down, Chuck. Worship me. I am Jesus. Kiss my balls—they are the sun and the moon, and my pecker’s a comet whose head is the white-hot heart of the glory that never does fail!” And, his head rolling like a puppet’s, Skeeter unzips his fly and prepares to display this wonder.