“Fishy? What’s fishy, Harry? God, you’re a prude. Everybody knows people screw. It’s how we all got here. When’re you going to grow up, even a little bit?”

“Still, to march right in with the sun pounding down—”

“Tell him I’m your wife. Tell him we’re exhausted. It’s the truth, actually. I didn’t sleep two hours last night.”

“Wouldn’t you rather go to my parents’ place? Nelson’ll be home in an hour.”

“Exactly. Who matters more to you, me or Nelson?”

“Nelson.”

“Nelson or your mother?”

“My mother.”

“You are a sick man.”

“There’s a place. Like it?”

Safe Haven Motel the sign says, with slats strung below it claiming

QUEEN SIZE BEDS

ALL COLOR TVS

SHOWER & BATH

TELEPHONES

“MAGIC FINGERS”

A neon VACANCY sign buzzes dull red. The office is a little brick tollbooth; there is a drained swimming pool with a green tarpaulin over it. At the long brick façade bleakly broken by doorways several cars already park; they seem to be feeding, metal cattle at a trough. Janice says, “It looks crummy.”

“That’s what I like about it,” Rabbit says. “They might take us.”

But as he says this, they have driven past. Janice asks, “Seriously, haven’t you ever done this before?”

He tells her, “I guess I’ve led a kind of sheltered life.”

“Well, it’s by now,” she says, of the motel.

“I could turn around.”

“Then it’d be on the wrong side of the highway.”

“Scared?”

“Of what?”

“Me.” Racily Rabbit swings into a Garden Supplies parking lot, spewing gravel, brakes just enough to avoid a collision with oncoming traffic, crosses the doubled line, and heads back the way they came. Janice says, “If you want to kill yourself, go ahead, but don’t kill me; I’m just getting to like being alive.”

“It’s too late,” he tells her. “You’ll be a grandmother in a couple more years.”

“Not with you at the wheel.”

But they cross the double line again and pull in safely. The VACANCY sign still buzzes. Ignition off. Lever at P. The sun shimmers on the halted asphalt. “You can’t just sit here,” Janice hisses. He gets out of the car. Air. Globes of ether, pure nervousness, slide down his legs. There is a man in the little tollbooth, along with a candy bar machine and a rack of black-tagged keys. He has wet-combed silver hair, a string tie with a horseshoe clasp, and a cold. Placing the registration card in front of Harry, he pats his chafed nostrils with a blue bandana. “Name and address and license plate number,” he says. He speaks with a Western twang.

“My wife and I are really bushed,” Rabbit volunteers. His ears are burning; the blush spreads downward, his undershirt feels damp, his heart jars his hand as it tries to write, Mr. and Mrs. Harold Angstrom. Address? Of course, he must lie. He writes unsteadily, 26 Vista Crescent, Penn Villas, Pa. Junk mail and bills are being forwarded to him from that address. Wonderful service, the postal. Put yourself in one of those boxes, sorted from sack to sack, finally there you go, plop, through the right slot out of millions. A miracle that it works. Young punk revolutionaries, let them try to get the mail through, through rain and sleet and dark of night. The man with the string tie patiently leans on his Formica desk while Rabbit’s thoughts race and his hand jerks. “License plate number, that’s the one that counts,” he peaceably drawls. “Show me a suitcase or pay in advance.”