“A few times. I was in Texas in the Army, actually.”

“Did you get to fight?” Jill asks. Something scratchy here, but maybe like a kitten it’s the way of making contact.

“I was all set to go to Korea,” he says. “But they never sent me.” Though at the time he was grateful, it has since eaten at him, become the shame of his life. He had never been a fighter but now there is enough death in him so that in a way he wants to kill.

“Now Skeeter,” Buchanan is saying, “he’s just back from Vietnam.”

“That’s why he so rude,” Babe offers.

“I couldn’t tell if he was rude or not,” Rabbit confesses.

“That’s nice,” Buchanan says.

“He was rude,” Babe says.

Jill’s lemonade arrives. She is still girl enough to look happy when it is set before her: cakes at the teaparty. Her face lights up. A crescent of lime clings to the edge of the glass; she takes it off and sucks and makes a sour face. A child’s plumpness has been drained from her before a woman’s bones could grow and harden. She is the reddish type of fair; her hair hangs dull, without fire, almost flesh-color, or the color of the flesh of certain soft trees, yews or cedars. Harry feels protective, timidly. In her tension of small bones she reminds him of Nelson. He asks her, “What do you do, Jill?”

“Nothing much,” she says. “Hang around.” It had been square of him to ask, pushing. The blacks fit around her like shadows.

“Jilly’s a poor soul,” Babe volunteers, stirring within her buzz. “She’s fallen on evil ways.” And she pats Rabbit’s hand as if to say, Don’t you fall upon these ways.

“Young Jill,” Buchanan clarifies, “has run away from her home up there in Connec-ticut.”

Rabbit asks her, “Why would you do that?”

“Why not? Let freedom ring.”

“Can I ask how old you are?”

“You can ask.”

“I’m asking.”

Babe hasn’t let go of Rabbit’s hand; with the fingernail of her index finger she is toying with the hairs on the back of his fist. It makes his teeth go cold, for her to do that. “Not so old you couldn’t be her daddy,” Babe says.

He is beginning to get the drift. They are presenting him with this problem. He is the consultant honky. The girl, too, unwilling as she is, is submitting to the interview. She inquires of him, only partly parrying, “How old are you?”

“Thirty-six.”

“Divide by two.”

“Eighteen, huh? How long’ve you been on the run? Away from your parents.”

“Her daddy dead,” Buchanan interposes softly.

“Long enough, thank you.” Her face pales, her freckles stand out sharply: blood-dots that have dried brown. Her dry little lips tighten; her chin drifts toward him. She is pulling rank. He is Penn Villas, she is Penn Park. Rich kids make all the trouble.

“Long enough for what?”

“Long enough to do some sick things.”

“Are you sick?”