“Harry here,” Buchanan explains, “had a nasty shock the other day. His wife for no good reason upped and left him.”

“No reason at all?” Jill asks. Her mouth pouts forward, vexed and aggressive, yet her spark of interest dies before her breath is finished with the question.

Rabbit thinks. “I think I bored her. Also, we didn’t agree politically.”

“What about?”

“The Vietnam war. I’m all for it.”

Jill snatches in her breath.

Babe says, “I knew those knuckles looked bad.”

Buchanan offers to smooth it over. “Everybody at the plant is for it. We think, you don’t hold ’em over there, you’ll have those black-pajama fellas on the streets over here.”

Jill says to Rabbit seriously, “You should talk to Skeeter about it. He says it was a fabulous trip. He loved it.”

“I wouldn’t know about that. I’m not saying it’s pleasant to fight in or be caught in. I just don’t like the kids making the criticisms. People say it’s a mess so we should get out. If you stayed out of every mess you’d never get into anything.”

“Amen,” Babe says. “Life is generally shit.”

Rabbit goes on, feeling himself get rabid, “I guess I don’t much believe in college kids or the Viet Cong. I don’t think they have any answers. I think they’re minorities trying to bring down everything that halfway works. Halfway isn’t all the way but it’s better than no way.”

Buchanan smooths on frantically. His upper lip is bubbling with sweat under his slit of a mustache. “I agree ninety-nine per cent. Enlightened self-interest is the phrase I like. The way I see, enlightened self-interest’s the best deal we’re likely to get down here. I don’t buy pie in the sky whoever is slicing it. These young ones like Skeeter, they say All power to the people, you look around for the people, the only people around is them.”

“Because of Toms like you,” Jill says.

Buchanan blinks. His voice goes deeper, hurt. “I ain’t no Tom, girl. That kind of talk doesn’t help any of us. That kind of talk just shows how young you are. What I am is a man trying to get from Point A to Point B, from the cradle to the grave hurting the fewest people I can. Just like Harry here, if you’d ask him. Just like your late daddy, God rest his soul.”

Babe says, hugging the stubbornly limp girl, “I just likes Jilly’s spunk, she’s less afraid what to do with her life than fat old smelly you, sittin’ there lickin’ yourself like an old cigar end.” But while talking she keeps her eyes on Buchanan as if his concurrence is to be desired. Mothers and fathers, they turn up everywhere.

Buchanan explains to Jill with a nice levelness, “So that is the problem. Young Harry here lives in this fancy big house over in the fanciest part of West Brewer, all by himself, and never gets any tail.”

Harry protests. “I’m not that alone. I have a kid with me.”