“And he died, you said. My mother—she has Parkinson’s Disease.”

“Look, do you like to talk this much? Why don’t we just walk? I’ve never been in West Brewer before. It’s nice.”

“What’s nice about it?”

“Everything. It doesn’t have a past like the city does. So it’s not so disappointed. Look at that, Burger Bliss. Isn’t it beautiful, all goldy and plasticky with that purple fire inside?”

“That’s where I ate tonight.”

“How was the food?”

“Awful. Maybe I taste everything too much, I should start smoking again. My kid loves the place.”

“How old did you say he was?”

“Twelve. Thirteen this October. He’s small for his age.”

“You shouldn’t tell him that.”

“Yeah. I try not to ride him.”

“What would you ride him about?”

“Oh. He’s bored by things I used to love. I don’t think he’s having much fun. He never goes outdoors.”

“Hey. What’s your name?”

“Harry.”

“Hey, big Harry. Would you mind feeding me?”

“Sure, I mean No. At home? I don’t know what we have in the icebox. Refrigerator.”

“I mean over there, at the burger place.”

“Oh, sure. Terrific. I’m sorry. I assumed you ate.”

“Maybe I did, I tend to forget material details like that. But I don’t think so. All I feel inside is lemonade.”

She selects a Cashewburger for 85¢ and a strawberry milkshake. In the withering light she devours the burger, and he orders her another. She smiles apologetically. She has small inturned teeth, roundish and with tiny gaps between them like a printer’s hairline spaces. Nice. “Usually I try to rise above eating.”

“Why?”

“It’s so ugly. Don’t you think, it’s one of the uglier things we do?”

“It has to be done.”

“That’s your philosophy, isn’t it?” Even in this garishly lit place her face has about it something shadowy and elusive, something that’s skipped a stage. Finished, she wipes her fingers one by one on a paper napkin and says decisively, “Thank you very much.” He pays. She clutches the purse, but what is in it? Credit cards? Diagrams for the revolution?

He has had coffee, to keep himself awake. Be up all night fucking this poor kid. Upholding the honor of middle-aged squares. Different races. In China, they used to tell you in the Army, the women put razor blades in their cunts in case the Japanese tried rape. Rabbit’s scrotum shrivels at the thought. Enjoy the walk. They march down Weiser, the store windows dark but for burglar lights, the Acme parking lot empty but for scattered neckers, the movie marquee changed from 2001 to TRUE GRIT. Short enough to get it all on. They cross the street at a blinking yellow to Emberly Avenue, which then becomes Emberly Drive, which becomes Vista Crescent. The development is dark. “Talk about spooky,” she says.

“I think it’s the flatness,” he says. “The town I grew up in, no two houses were on the same level.”

“There’s such a smell of plumbing somehow.”

“Actually, the plumbing is none too good.”