JESSIE: Hmmmm. Never felt better in her life. How sad. Now Bella, there’s no way you can conceal this from Cornelius. So my advice is to let him handle it his way. Bella, don’t interfere. Just resign yourself to it. That girl is better off right where she is than that notorious Pizza King on the highway. Board of Health discovered the whole kitchen infested with vermin and half the staff was infected with V.D. “Can’t wait to get her back?” Bella, that girl is in a much better place so don’t be upset about it. Now. I will try to get through to Emerson at the Moose Lodge. Phone’s off the hook. [She replaces it. Then lifts to dial.] Operator?— [To Bella.] A death in the family is always upsetting. —Oh, operator, connect me with the Moose Lodge, please. —Ringing . . .

BELLA: —Chips—gone.

JESSIE: Did you say something, Bella?

BELLA: GONE, FIRS’ BAWN.

JESSIE: Whom I speakin’ to? Aw. Mrs. Emerson Sykes would like a word with her husband if you’d be so kind as to call him to the phone.

BELLA: Know what happened on the street, Jessie?

JESSIE: Yais, Charlie attacked Cornelius and a hysterical woman was involved in the—Em? Jessie! What’s the disturbance I hear? Find out. I’ll hold on.

BELLA: Yesterday like today. Same as—and tomorrow? Tomorrow? Years and years of it gone by.

JESSIE [attention on phone]: Yais, Bella, time is like that. [Pause. Then impatiently.] Oh, pshaw. Just a loud confusion of voices, you’d think the whole Lodge was in session.

BELLA: Moose Lodge? In session? This late?

JESSIE: No. I meant the noise, the confusion. Stag movies, Saturday nights, disgustin’. Emerson pretends to go ’possum hunting.

BELLA: Aw. The confusion in session . . .

JESSIE: Yes.

[Bella starts to rise from sofa, topples back on it.]

Take it easy, Bella. You seem unstrung.

BELLA: —Can I get you something to eat?

JESSIE: What, Bella?

BELLA: Want a bite of something? From the ice-box?

JESSIE: Oh—no, I—we had a late dinner, barbecue ribs at the Hickory Hollow on the highway. Emerson’s mad about barbecue but it’s too spicy for me the way that they prepare it. Doc Crane sent me to this proctologist in New Awleuns who advised me to avoid all strong-seasoned things. —My hemorrhoids are acting up again. I wonder if you could hand me over a cushion off the sofa. You know, at our time of life, so many afflictions come on us. Have you noticed?

BELLA: —Did you ask me something?

JESSIE: Have you ever had hemorrhoids? Well, I want to tell you, that’s an embarrassing affliction if ever there was one. I mean when they’re internal and severe. Inclined to get worse, not better. At first I got relief from an application.

BELLA [senselessly repeating]: Application. . . .

JESSIE: What, Bella?

BELLA: Soon’s I recover my strength, I’ll—