Harry brushes froth from his lips and wishes she would come away from the window so he could see all of the sky. “I guess they figure they might be dead at eighteen.”

“Janice says you like the war.”

“I don’t like it; I defend it. I wasn’t thinking of that, they have a lot of ways to die now we didn’t have. Anyway, it’s nice about you and Ollie, if it works out. A little sad, too.”

“Why sad?”

“Sad for me. I mean, I guess I blew my chance, to—”

“To what?”

“To cash you in.”

Bad phrase, too harsh, though it had been an apology. He has lived with Skeeter too long. But her blankness, the blankness of her silhouette as Peggy stands in her habitual pose against the windows, suggested it. A blank check. A woman is blank until you fuck her. Everything is blank until you fuck it. Us and Vietnam, fucking and being fucked, blood is wisdom. Must be some better way but it’s not in nature. His silence is leaden with regret. She remains blank some seconds, says nothing. Then she moves into the space around him, turns on lamps, lifts a pillow into place, plumps it, stoops and straightens, turns, takes light upon her sides, is rounded into shape. A lumpy big woman but not a fat one, clumsy but not gross, sad with evening, with Ollie or not Ollie, with having a lengthening past and less and less future. Three classes behind his, Peggy Gring had gone to high school with Rabbit and had seen him when he was good, had sat in those hot bleachers screaming, when he was a hero, naked and swift and lean. She has seen him come to nothing. She plumps down in the chair beside his and says, “I’ve been cashed in a lot lately.”

“You mean with Ollie?”

“Others. Guys I meet at work. Ollie minds. That may be why he wants back in.”

“If Ollie minds, you must be telling him. So you must want him back in too.”

She looks into the bottom of her glass; there is nothing there but ice. “And how about you and Janice?”

“Janice who? Let me get you another drink.”

“Wow. You’ve become a gentleman.”

“Slightly.”

As he puts her gin-and-tonic into her hand, he says, “Tell me about those other guys.”

“They’re O.K. I’m not that proud of them. They’re human. I’m human.”

“You do it but don’t fall in love?”

“Apparently. Is that terrible?”

“No,” he says. “I think it’s nice.”

“You think a lot of things are nice lately.”

“Yeah. I’m not so uptight. Sistah Peggeh, I’se seen de light.”

The boys come back upstairs. They complain the new headlight they bought doesn’t fit. Peggy feeds them, a casserole of chicken legs and breasts, poor dismembered creatures simmering. Rabbit wonders how many animals have died to keep his life going, how many more will die. A barnyard full, a farmful of thumping hearts, seeing eyes, racing legs, all stuffed squawking into him as into a black sack. No avoiding it: life does want death. To be alive is to kill. Dinner inside them, they stuff themselves on television: Jackie Gleason, My Three Sons, Hogan’s Heroes, Petticoat Junction, Mannix. An orgy. Nelson is asleep on the floor, radioactive light beating on his closed lids and open mouth. Rabbit carries him into Billy’s room, while Peggy tucks her own son in. “Mom, I’m not sleepy.” “It’s past bedtime.” “It’s Saturday night.” “You have a big day tomorrow.” “When is he going home?” He must think Harry has no ears. “When he wants to.” “What are you going to do?” “Nothing that’s any of your business.” “Mom.” “Shall I listen to your prayers?” “When he’s not listening.” “Then you say them to yourself tonight.”