I went back and moaned and bitched under the skylight all night. I took a bath the next morning. Washed my hair. Put on the gold hoops and a gaudy splash of cheap cologne. Thought I’d play hard-nosed madam of the fun house for a fresh string of teachers. Rennel was smoking a new pipe in my first class when I swayed in. It took the wind out, as they say. I slouched over and dumped myself into a chair beside him. He was playing mature, sophisticated, man of the world. He took his pipe out of his mouth, exhaled smoke gracefully, and sniffed at me with raised eyebrows.

“It’s called Tiger Piss.”

“Pretty accurate. Have you heard anything about Sam?”

“No. What’s he up to now?”

“Don’t you know they left?”

“For where?”

“The cabin in Montana with Lichtenstein.”

“Shit.”

I broke a cigarette jamming it into the stupid holder.

“They came by my place to say goodbye. They said they were on their way over to you. They must have missed you and gone on.”

“When was this?”

“A week or so ago. Thursday, maybe. Pretty early in the morning. I was still in bed.”

“Where could I have been?”

“Out buying soda pop? Maybe they decided there wasn’t time to wait.”

“Who was driving?”

“Sam. Carlotta was holding the kid on the passenger side and Lichtenstein was straddling the gear shift. I think that bus of theirs needs a valve job. I’m going to do one on the Rambler. Spike’s showing me how.”

“When’s your last class? Will you drive me out to their place?”

“You mean in the country? There’s nothing left out there. I went out to get their old car. It was in the brush at the end of the driveway. Had to get a tow truck, which cost me ten dollars even with my Automobile Club card. Then the scrap metal place only gave me ten bucks for it.”

“Mr. Jones.”

“All I got out of that car was a red candle they had stuck up on the dashboard. The lights never did work on that thing. What a piece of junk.”

“What about the animals?”

“They took them all. You should have seen the bus! They took out the rest of the seats. The goat was roped at the back, and they had three chickens, two dogs, and all their clothes and pans and stuff piled in the middle.”

“Two dogs?”

“Some friend of Angelina’s.” Rennel smirked around his pipe, remembering. The highly advertised small class had assembled. The professor entered.