Now I had the shakes so bad my teeth locked. I ripped the card in half, squared the halves, ripped them into quarters.

From the back door I flung the pieces at Raf’s garden.

I fetched the pieces and began taping them together, but they were damp, limp.

This seemed an idle rain, although another storm was tearing up from the tropics—this time, a hurricane named Hilda—the radio warned.

A silhouette appeared at the screen door. Dark-shadowed, Raymond looked hard-carved and hungry.

“You gonna let me in, Paige? Lemme in,” he said.

“I don’t know. Are you alone?”

“I’m alone,” he said. “Open it.”

“You brought the devil with you, didn’t you? I hear him snapping at your heels.”

I tucked Raf’s postcard away, deciding.

“What’ll happen if I do?” I asked. “Bad, bad, bad?”

“Wouldn’t be, unless you wanna put that construction on it.” He glanced down at his wristwatch. “We got until seven forty-five, a.m. Then I’d have to shower and get out of here and drive to work.”

“The door isn’t locked,” I said.

In the Cyclotron

THE KNEES WERE BLOWN out of my Levi’s and the shoelaces missewn through the eyelets of my boots. In Baton Rouge I’d bought the boots and a cold-weather canvas anorak.

Flooding storms had hit here and a watch for Hurricane Hilda was on.

Lawns were ponds; highways were rivers.

My motel stood on high ground in McComb, Mississippi. The room had a scarlet bed quilt, globe lamps, a lizard on the glass door; a Bible subtitled Revised Standard Version. The walls were like wet taffy, high-glossed an ivory white.

On the color TV now, a hurricane expert answered viewer calls.

People were giddy. Rules had been suspended. Maids and their children frolicked clothed in the pool.

I lay in bed. On the night table were a bottle of Grey Riesling, and the Good Book, and my ticking timepiece.

The flood’s noise thrashed on the roof—more wind and water.

The TV man switched to talking about light. He said the waves reaching us had traveled all the way from galaxies in Andromeda Nebula or they’d come from Hydra, two thousand million light-years off.

Through the one front window, I saw low violet clouds, black pines, a slip of freeway.

I read from Ecclesiastes:

Emptiness, emptiness . . . everything is empty. All things are wearisome, more than one can say.

I had bought the boots, whenever that was. Now I dragged from bed and, crouching on the tufted carpeting, put a fist into each. That cheered me up for a few sweeps of the second hand. I stayed on the carpet, holding the boots and staring at them.

I waited to phone Raymond until I thought Pru was on shift at her job. But I got that wrong. Pru answered.

“You cunt! You fucked Raymond!” she said.

“I know,” I said.

“You whoring cunt. . . !”