“Yes.” She’s still upset, throwing dishes into the dishwasher almost blindly. Jim doesn’t want to ask her why, she’ll start crying and he doesn’t want to deal with it. He ignores the signs and tells her cheerily of his week, his classes and what he’s been reading, while she pulls it together. Is she angry at Dennis about something? he wonders. He can’t tell; there’s lots he doesn’t know or understand about his parents’ relationship. He’s more comfortable with it that way.

Dishes finished, the talk continues desultorily. Jim’s mind wanders to his various problems and he doesn’t catch one of his mom’s questions. “What’s that?”

“Jim. You don’t listen.” A cardinal sin, in this household where it happens so often.…

“Sorry.” But at the same time he’s glancing at a newsheet headline that’s grabbed his eye. “I can’t believe this famine in India.”

“Why, what’s it say?”

“Same old thing. Third major famine of the year in Asia, kills another million. And look at this! Fight in Mozambique killed a hundred!” From their kitchen window they can see the two giant hangars down at El Toro Marine Base, the helicopters rising and dropping like bees around a hive.

“They should learn to talk.”

Jim nods, absorbed in the details of the second article. When he’s done he says, “I’m off. Gotta go teach my class.”

“Good. Don’t forget about visiting Tom more often, now.” She is serious, scolding, insistent: still upset about something.

“I won’t, but remember I just saw him today. I’ll go again next Thursday.”

“Tuesday would be better.”

Jim goes out to the garage. He doesn’t notice the intensity of Dennis’s silence, hasn’t noticed the tension in him all evening long. Dennis is quiet a lot; and Jim hasn’t really been paying attention.

He clears his throat; Dennis looks up from a bundle of colored wires running over the motor block of his car. “Um, Dad, my car’s having some power troubles going uptrack.”

Dennis pokes his glasses up his nose, glares at Jim. “How does it start?” he asks after a long pause.

“Not so well.”

“Have you cleaned the track contacts lately?”

“Um…”

Angrily Dennis grabs up some tools, rags, leads Jim out to his car. It looks shabby and unkempt under the streetlight. Dennis pulls up the hood wordlessly, reaches down to shift the contact rod up into maintenance position. His back says he’s sick of doing work on Jim’s car.

“Look at these brushes, they’re caked!” A black paste of oily scum adheres to the contacts where they come closest to the road and the track. “Here, you clean them.”

Jim starts on it, fumbles with a screwdriver, gouges the side of one brush, propels a gob of the pasty black goo right past Dennis’s eye.