Distortions

Fancy Flights

Silas is afraid of the vacuum cleaner. He stands, looking out the bedroom door, growling at it. He also growls when small children are around. The dog is afraid of them, and they are afraid of him because he growls. His growling always gets him in trouble; nobody thinks he is entitled to growl. The dog is also afraid of a lot of music. “One Little Story that the Crow Told Me” by the New Lost City Ramblers raises his hackles. Bob Dylan’s “Positively Fourth Street” brings bared teeth and a drooping tail. Sometimes he keeps his teeth bared even through the quiet intervals. If the dog had his way, all small children would disappear, and a lot of musicians would sound their last notes. If the dog had his way, he would get Dylan by the leg in a dark alley. Maybe they could take a trip — Michael and the dog — to a recording studio or a concert hall, wherever Dylan was playing, and wait for him to come out. Then Silas could get him. Thoughts like these (“fancy flights,” his foreman called them) were responsible for Michael’s no longer having a job.

He had worked in a furniture factory in Ashford, Connecticut. Sometimes when his lathe was churning and grinding, he would start laughing. Everyone was aware of his laughter, but nobody did anything about it. He smoked hash in the parking lot in back of the factory during his break. Toward the end of his shift, he often had to choke back hysteria. One night, the foreman told him a Little Moron joke that was so funny Michael almost fell down laughing. After that, several people who worked there stopped by to tell him jokes, and every time he nearly laughed himself sick. Anybody there who spoke to him made him beam, and if they told a joke, or even if they said they had “a good one,” he began to laugh right away. Every day he smoked as much hash as he could stand. He wore a hairnet — everyone had to wear a hairnet, after a woman had her face yanked down to within a fraction of an inch of a blade when a machine caught her hair — and half the time he forgot to take it off after he finished work. He’d find out he was still wearing it in the morning when he woke up. He thought that was pretty funny; he might be somebody’s wife, with pink curlers under the net and a cigarette dangling out of his mouth.

He had already been somebody’s husband, but he and his wife were separated. He was also separated from his daughter, but she looked so much like his wife that he thought of them as one. Toward the end, he had sometimes got confused and talked baby talk to his wife and complained about his life to his four-and-a-half-year-old daughter. His wife wrote to his grandmother about the way he was acting, and the old woman sent him a hundred dollars and told him to “buy a psychiatrist,” as if they were shirts. Instead, he bought his daughter a pink plastic bunny that held a bar of soap and floated in the bath. The bunny had blue eyebrows and a blue nose and an amazed look, probably because its stomach was soap. He had bought her the bunny because he was not ungenerous, and he spent the rest on fontina cheese for his wife and hash for himself. They had a nice family gathering — his daughter nose-to-nose with the bunny, his wife eating the cheese, he smoking hash. His wife said that his smoking had killed her red-veined maranta. “How can you keep smoking something that killed a plant?” she kept asking. Actually, he was glad to see the maranta dead. It was a creepy plant. It looked as if its veins had blood in them. Smoke hadn’t killed the plant, though. A curse that his friend Carlos put on it at his request did it. It died in six days: the leaves turned brown at the tips and barely unfolded in the daytime, and soon it fell over the rim of the pot, where it hung until it turned completely brown.

Plant dead, wife gone, Michael still has his dog and his grandmother, and she can be counted on for words of encouragement, mail-order delicacies, and money. Now that they are alone together, he devotes most of his time to Silas, and takes better care of him than ever before. He gives Silas Milk-Bones so that his teeth will be clean. He always has good intentions, but before he knows it he has smoked some hash and put on “One Little Story that the Crow Told Me,” and there is Silas listening to the music, with his clean, white teeth bared.

Michael is living in a house that belongs to some friends named Prudence and Richard. They have gone to Manila. Michael doesn’t have to pay any rent — just the heat and electricity bills. Since he never turns a light on, the bill will be small. And on nights when he smokes hash he turns the heat down to fifty-five. He does this gradually — smoke for an hour, turn it from seventy to sixty-five; smoke another hour and put it down to fifty-five. Prudence, he discovers, is interested in acupuncture. There is a picture in one of her books of a man with his face contorted with agony, with a long, thin spike in his back. No. He must be imagining that. Usually Michael doesn’t look at the books that are lying around. He goes through Prudence’s and Richard’s bureau drawers. Richard wears size thirty-two Jockey shorts. Prudence has a little blue barrette for her hair. Michael has even unwrapped some of the food in the freezer. Fish. He thinks about defrosting it and eating it, but then he forgets. He usually eats two cans of Campbell’s Vegetarian Vegetable soup for lunch and four Chunky Pecan candy bars for dinner. If he is awake in time for breakfast, he smokes hash.

One evening, the phone rings. Silas gets there first, as usual, but he can’t answer it. Poor old Silas. Michael lets him out the door before he answers the phone. He notices that Ray has come calling. Ray is a female German shepherd, named by the next-door neighbor’s children. Silas tries to mount Ray.

“Richard?” says the voice on the telephone.

“Yeah. Hi,” Michael says.

“Is this Richard?”

“Right.”

“It doesn’t sound like you, Richard.”

“You sound funny, too. What’s new?”

“What? You really sound screwed up tonight, Richard.”

“Are you in a bad mood or something?” Michael counters.

“Well, I might be surprised that we haven’t talked for months, and I call and you just mutter.”

“It’s the connection.”

“Richard, this doesn’t sound like you.”

“This is Richard’s mother. I forgot to say that.”

“What are you so hostile about, Richard? Are you all right?”

“Of course I am.”

“O.K. This is weird. I called to find out what Prudence was going to do about California.”

“She’s going to go,” Michael says.

“You’re kidding me.”

“No.”

“Oh — I guess I picked the wrong time to call. Why don’t I call you back tomorrow?”

“O.K.,” Michael says. “Bye.”

Prudence left exact directions about how to take care of her plants. Michael has it down pretty well by now, but sometimes he just splashes some water on them. These plants moderately damp, those quite damp, some every third day — what does it matter? A few have died, but a few have new leaves. Sometimes Michael feels guilty and he hovers over them, wondering what you do for a plant that is supposed to be moderately dry but is soaking wet. In addition to watering the plants, he tries to do a few other things that will be appreciated. He has rubbed some oil into Prudence’s big iron frying pan and has let it sit on the stove. Once, Silas went out and rolled in cow dung and then came in and rolled on the kitchen floor, and Michael was very conscientious about washing that. The same day, he found some chalk in the kitchen cabinet and drew a hopscotch court on the floor and jumped around a little bit. Sometimes he squirts Silas with some of Prudence’s Réplique, just to make Silas mad. Silas is the kind of dog who would be offended if a homosexual approached him. Michael thinks of the dog as a displaced person. He is aware that he and the dog get into a lot of clichéd situations — man with dog curled at his side, sitting by fire; dog accepts food from man’s hand, licks hand when food is gone. Prudence was reluctant to let the big dog stay in the house. Silas won her over, though. Making fine use of another cliché at the time, Silas curled around her feet and beat his tail on the rug.

“Where’s Richard?” Sam asks.

“Richard and Prudence went to Manila.”

“Manila? Who are you?”

“I lost my job. I’m watching the house for them.”

“Lost your job—”

“Yeah. I don’t mind. Who wants to spend his life watching out that his machine doesn’t get him?”

“Where were you working?”

“Factory.”

Sam doesn’t have anything else to say. He was the man on the telephone, and he would like to know why Michael pretended to be Richard on the phone, but he sort of likes Michael and sees that it was a joke.

“That was pretty funny when we talked on the phone,” he says. “At least I’m glad to hear she’s not in California.”

“It’s not a bad place,” Michael says.

“She has a husband in California. She’s better off with Richard.”

“I see.”

“What do you do here?” Sam asks. “Just watch out for burglars?”

“Water the plants. Stuff like that.”

“You really got me good on the phone,” Sam says.

“Yeah. Not many people have called.”

“You have anything to drink here?” Sam asks.

“I drank all their liquor.”

“Like to go out for a beer?” Sam asks.

“Sure.”

Sam and Michael go to a bar Michael knows called Happy Jack’s. It’s a strange place, with “Heat Wave” on the jukebox, along with Tammy Wynette’s “Too Far Gone.”

“I wouldn’t mind passing an evening in the sweet arms of Tammy Wynette, even if she is a redneck,” Sam says.

The barmaid puts their empty beer bottles on her tray and walks away.

“She’s got big legs,” Michael says.

“But she’s got nice soft arms,” Sam says. “Like Tammy Wynette.”

As they talk, Tammy is singing about love and barrooms.

“What do you do?” Michael asks Sam.

“I’m a shoe salesman.”

“That doesn’t sound like much fun.”

“You didn’t ask me what I did for fun. You asked me what my job was.”

“What do you do for fun?” Michael asks.

“Listen to Tammy Wynette records,” Sam says.

“You think about Tammy Wynette a lot.”

“I once went out with a girl who looked like Tammy Wynette,” Sam says. “She wore a nice low-cut blouse, with white ruffles, and black high-heel shoes.”

Michael rubs his hand across his mouth.

“She had downy arms. You know what I mean. They weren’t really hairy,” Sam says.

“Excuse me,” Michael says.

In the bathroom, Michael hopes that Happy Jack isn’t drunk anywhere in the bar. When he gets drunk he likes to go into the bathroom and start fights. After a customer has had his face bashed in by Happy Jack, his partners usually explain to the customer that he is crazy. Today, nobody is in the bathroom except an old guy at the washbasin, who isn’t washing, though. He is standing there looking in the mirror. Then he sighs deeply.

Michael returns to their table. “What do you say we go back to the house?” he says to Sam.

“Have they got any Tammy Wynette records?”

“I don’t know. They might,” Michael says.

“O.K.,” Sam says.

“How come you wanted to be a shoe salesman?” Michael asks him in the car.

“Are you out of your mind?” Sam says. “I didn’t want to be a shoe salesman.”

Michael calls his wife — a mistake. Mary Anne is having trouble in the day-care center. The child wants to quit and stay home and watch television. Since Michael isn’t doing anything, his wife says, maybe he could stay home while she works and let Mary Anne have her way, since her maladjustment is obviously caused by Michael’s walking out on them when he knew the child adored him.

“You just want me to move back,” Michael says. “You still like me.”

“I don’t like you at all. I never make any attempt to get in touch with you, but if you call you’ll have to hear what I have to say.”

“I just called to say hello, and you started in.”

“Well, what did you call for, Michael?”

“I was lonesome.”

“I see. You walk out on your wife and daughter, then call because you’re lonesome.”

“Silas ran away.”

“I certainly hope he comes back, since he means so much to you.”

“He does,” Michael says. “I really love that dog.”

“What about Mary Anne?”

“I don’t know. I’d like to care, but what you just said didn’t make any impression on me.”

“Are you in some sensitivity group, or something?”

“No.”

“Well, before you hang up, could you think about the situation for a minute and advise me about how to handle it? If I leave her at the day-care center, she has a fit and I have to leave work and get her.”

“If I had a car I could go get her.”

“That isn’t very practical, is it? You don’t have a car.”

“You wouldn’t have one if your father hadn’t given it to you.”

“That seems a bit off the subject.”

“I wouldn’t drive a car if I had one. I’m through with machines.”

“Michael, I guess I really don’t feel like talking to you tonight.”

“One thing you could do would be to give her calcium. It’s a natural tranquilizer.”

“O.K. Thanks very much for the advice. I hope it didn’t tax you too much.”

“You’re very sarcastic to me. How do you expect me to be understanding when all I get is sarcasm?”

“I don’t really expect it.”

“You punch words when you talk.”

“Are you stoned, Michael?”

“No, I’m just lonesome. Just sitting around.”

“Where are you living?”

“In a house.”

“How can you afford that? Your grandmother?”

“I don’t want to talk about how I live. Can we change the subject?”

“Can we hang up instead, Michael?”

“Sure,” Michael says. “Good-night, baby.”

Sam and Carlos are visiting Michael. Carlos’s father owns a plastics plant in Bridgeport. Carlos can roll a joint in fifteen seconds, which is admirable to Michael’s way of thinking. But Carlos can be a drag, too. Right now he is talking to Michael about a job Michael could have in his father’s plant.

“No more factories, Carlos,” Michael says. “If everybody stopped working, the machines would stop, too.”

“I don’t see what’s so bad about it,” Carlos says. “You work the machines for a few hours, then you leave with your money.”

“If I ask my grandmother for money she sends it.”

“But will she keep sending money?” Sam asks.

“You think I’m going to ask her?”

“I’ll bet you wouldn’t mind working someplace in the South, where the women look like Tammy Wynette.”

“North, South — what’s the difference?”

“What do you mean, ‘What’s the difference?’ Women in the South must look something like Tammy Wynette, and women up North look like mill rats.”

Carlos always has very powerful grass, which Michael enjoys. Carlos claims that he puts a spell on the grass to make it stronger.

“Why don’t you put a curse on your father’s machines?” Michael says now.

“What for?” Carlos asks.

“Why don’t you change all the machines into Tammy Wynettes?” Sam asks. “Everybody would wake up in the morning and there would be a hundred Tammy Wynettes.”

Sam realizes that he has smoked too much. The next step, he thinks now, is to stop smoking.

“What do you do?” Carlos asks Sam.

“I sell shoes.” Sam notices that he has answered very sanely. “Before that, I was a math major at Antioch.”

“Put a curse on that factory, Carlos,” Michael says.

Carlos sighs. Everybody smokes his grass and pays no attention to what he says and then they want him to put curses on things all the time.

“What if I put a curse on you?” Carlos asks.

“I’m already cursed,” Michael says. “That’s what my grandmother says in her letters — that I was such a blessing to the family, but I myself am cursed with ill luck.”

“Change me into George Jones,” Sam says.

Carlos stares at them as he rolls a joint. He isn’t putting a curse on them, but he is considering it. He firmly believes that he is responsible for his godfather’s getting intestinal cancer. But he isn’t really a magician. He would like his curses to be reliable and perfect, like a machine.

Michael’s grandmother has sent him a present — five pounds of shelled pecans. A booklet included with the package says that they are “Burstin’ with wholesome Southern goodness.” They’re the first thing he has eaten for a day and a half, so he eats a lot of them. He thinks that he is eating in too much of a hurry, and he smokes some hash to calm down. Then he eats some more pecans. He listens to Albinoni. He picks out a seed from a pouch of grass that is lying under the couch and buries it in one of Prudence’s plants. He will have to remember to have Carlos say a few words over it; Carlos is just humble when he says he can’t bless things. He rummages through the grass and finds another seed, plants it in another pot. They’ll never grow, he thinks sadly. Albinoni always depresses him. He turns the record off and then is depressed that there is no music playing. He looks over the records, trying to decide. It is hard to decide. He lights his pipe again. Finally, he decides — not on a record but what to eat: Chunky Pecans. He has no Chunky Pecans, but he can just walk down the road to the store and buy some. He counts his change: eighty cents, including the dime he found in Prudence’s underwear drawer. He can buy five Chunky Pecans for that. He feels better when he realizes he can have the Chunky Pecans and he relaxes, lighting his pipe. All his clothes are dirty, so he has begun wearing things that Richard left behind. Today he has on a black shirt that is too tight for him, with a rhinestone-studded peacock on the front. He looks at his sparkling chest and dozes off. When he awakens, he decides to go look for Silas. He sprays deodorant under his arms without taking off the shirt and walks outside, carrying his pipe. A big mistake. If the police stopped to question him and found him with that … He goes back to the house, puts the pipe on a table, and goes out again. Thinking about Silas being lost makes him very sad. He knows it’s not a good idea to go marching around town in a peacock shirt weeping, but he can’t help it. He sees an old lady walking her dog.

“Hello, little dog,” he says, stopping to stroke it.

“It’s female,” the old woman says. The old woman has on an incredible amount of makeup; her eyes are circled with blue-bright blue under the eyes, as well as on top.

“Hello, girl,” he says, stroking the dog. “She’s thirteen,” the old woman says. “The vet says she won’t live to see fourteen.”

Michael thinks of Silas, who is four.

“He’s right, I know,” the old woman says.

Michael walks back around the corner and sees Silas on the front lawn. Silas charges him, jumps all over him, barking and running in circles. “Where have you been?” Michael asks the dog. Silas barks. “Hello, Silas. Where have you been?” Michael asks. Silas squirms on his back, panting. When Michael stoops to pat him, Silas lunges, pawing the rhinestone-studded shirt and breaking the threads. Rhinestones fall all over the lawn.

Inside, Silas sniffs the rug, runs in and out of rooms. “You old dog,” Michael says. He feeds Silas a pecan. Panting, Silas curls up at his feet. Michael pulls the pouch of grass out from under the couch and stuffs a big wad in his pipe. “Good old Silas,” Michael says, lighting his pipe. He gets happier and happier as he smokes, but at the height of his happiness he falls asleep. He sleeps until Silas’s barking awakens him. Someone is at the door. His wife is standing there.

“Hello, Elsa,” he says. She can’t possibly hear him above Silas’s barking. Michael leads the barking dog into the bedroom and closes the door. He walks back to the door. Elsa has come into the house and shut the door behind her.

“Hi, Elsa,” he says.

“Hi. I’ve come for you.”

“What do you mean?”

“May I come in? Is this your house? This can’t be your house. Where did you get all the furniture?”

“I’m staying here while some friends are out of town.”

“Did you break into somebody’s house?”

“I’m watching the place for my friends.”

“What’s the matter with you? You look horrible.”

“I’m not too clean. I forgot to take a shower.”

“I don’t mean that. I mean your face. What’s wrong with you?”

“How did you find me?”

“Carlos.”

“Carlos wouldn’t talk.”

“He did, Michael. But let’s argue at home. I’ve come to get you and make you come home and share the responsibility for Mary Anne.”

“I don’t want to come home.”

“I don’t care. If you don’t come home, we’ll move in here.”

“Silas will kill you.”

“I know the dog doesn’t like me, but he certainly won’t kill me.”

“I’m supposed to watch these people’s house.”

“You can come back and check on it.”

“I don’t want to come with you.”

“You look sick, Michael. Have you been sick?”

“I’m not leaving with you, Elsa.”

“O.K. We’ll come back.”

“What do you want me back for?”

“To help me take care of that child. She drives me crazy. Get the dog and come on.”

Michael lets Silas out of the bedroom. He picks up his bag of grass and his pipe and what’s left of the bag of pecans, and follows Elsa to the door.

“Pecans?” Elsa asks.

“My grandmother sent them to me.”

“Isn’t that nice. You don’t look well, Michael. Do you have a job?”

“No. I don’t have a job.”

“Carlos can get you a job, you know.”

“I’m not working in any factory.”

“I’m not asking you to work right away. I just want you in the house during the day with Mary Anne.”

“I don’t want to hang around with her.”

“Well, you can fake it. She’s your daughter.”

“I know. That doesn’t make any impression on me.”

“I realize that.”

“Maybe she isn’t mine,” Michael says.

“Do you want to drive, or shall I?” Elsa asks.

Elsa drives. She turns on the radio.

“If you don’t love me, why do you want me back?” Michael asks.

“Why do you keep talking about love? I explained to you that I couldn’t take care of that child alone any more.”

“You want me back because you love me. Mary Anne isn’t that much trouble to you.”

“I don’t care what you think as long as you’re there.”

“I can just walk out again, you know.”

“You’ve only walked out twice in seven years.”

“The next time, I won’t get in touch with Carlos.”

“Carlos was trying to help.”

“Carlos is evil. He goes around putting curses on things.”

“Well, he’s your friend, not mine.”

“Then why did he talk?”

“I asked him where you were.”

“I was on the verge of picking up a barmaid,” Michael says.

“I don’t know how I could help loving you,” Elsa says.

“Where are we going, Daddy?”

“To water plants.”

“Where are the plants?”

“Not far from here.”

“Where’s Mommy?”

“Getting her hair cut. She told you that.”

“Why does she want her hair cut?”

“I can’t figure her out. I don’t understand your mother.”

Elsa has gone with a friend to get her hair done. Michael has the car. He is tired of being cooped up watching daytime television with Mary Anne, so he’s going to Prudence and Richard’s even though he just watered the plants yesterday. Silas is with them, in the back seat. Michael looks at him lovingly in the rear-view mirror.

“Where are we going?”

“We just started the ride. Try to enjoy it.”

Mary Anne must have heard Elsa tell him not to take the car; she doesn’t seem to be enjoying herself.

“What time is it?” Mary Anne asks.

“Three o’clock.”

“That’s what time school lets out.”

“What about it?” Michael asks.

He shouldn’t have snapped at her. She was just talking to talk. Since all talk is just a lot of garbage anyway, he shouldn’t have discouraged her. He reaches over and pats her knee. She doesn’t smile, as he hoped she would. She is sort of like her mother.

“Are you going to get a haircut, too?” she asks.

“Daddy doesn’t have to get a haircut, because he isn’t trying to get a job.”

Mary Anne looks out the window.

“Your great-grandma sends Daddy enough money for him to stay alive. Daddy doesn’t want to work.”

“Mommy has a job,” Mary Anne says. His wife is an apprentice bookbinder.

“And you don’t have to get your hair cut, either,” he says.

“I want it cut.”

He reaches over to pat her knee again. “Don’t you want long hair, like Daddy?”

“Yes,” she says.

“You just said you wanted it cut.”

Mary Anne looks out the window.

“Can you see all the plants through that window?” Michael says, pulling up in front of the house.

He is surprised when he opens the door to see Richard there.

“Richard! What are you doing here?”

“I’m so sick from the plane that I can’t talk, man. Sit down. Who’s this?”

“Did you and Prudence have a good time?”

“Prudence is still in Manila. She wouldn’t come back. I just had enough of Manila, you know? But I don’t know if the flight back was worth it. The flight back was really awful. Who’s this?”

“This is my daughter, Mary Anne. I’m back with my wife now. I’ve been coming to water the plants.”

“Jesus, am I sick,” Richard says. “Do you know why I’d feel sick after I’ve been off the plane for half a day?”

“I want to water the plants,” Mary Anne says.

“Go ahead, sweetheart,” Richard says. “Jesus — all those damn plants. Manila is a jungle, did you know that? That’s what she wants. She wants to be in the jungle. I don’t know. I’m too sick to think.”

“What can I do for you?”

“Is there any coffee?”

“I drank it all. I drank all your liquor, too.”

“That’s all right,” Richard says. “Prudence thought you’d do worse than that. She thought you’d sell the furniture or burn the place down. She’s crazy, over there in that rain jungle.”

“His girlfriend is in Manila,” Michael says to his daughter. “That’s far away.”

Mary Anne walks off to sniff a philodendron leaf.

Michael is watching a soap opera. A woman is weeping to another woman that when her gallbladder was taken out Tom was her doctor, and the nurse, who loved Tom, spread rumors, and …

Mary Anne and a friend are pouring water out of a teapot into little plastic cups. They sip delicately.

“Daddy,” Mary Anne says, “can’t you make us real tea?”

“Your mother would get mad at me.”

“She’s not here.”

“You’d tell her.”

“No, we wouldn’t.”

“O.K. I’ll make it if you promise not to drink it.”

Michael goes into the kitchen. The girls are squealing delightedly and the woman on television is weeping hysterically. “Tom was in line for chief of surgery once Dr. Stan retired, but Rita said that he …”

The phone rings. “Hello?” Michael says.

“Hi,” Carlos says. “Still mad?”

“Hi, Carlos,” Michael says.

“Still mad?” Carlos asks.

“No.”

“What have you been doing?”

“Nothing.”

“That’s what I figured. Interested in a job?”

“No.”

“You mean you’re just sitting around there all day?”

“At the moment, I’m giving a tea party.”

“Sure,” Carlos says. “Would you like to go out for a beer? I could come over after work.”

“I don’t care,” Michael says.

“You sound pretty depressed.”

“Why don’t you cast a spell and make things better?” Michael says. “There goes the water. Maybe I’ll see you later.”

“You’re not really drinking tea, are you?”

“Yes,” Michael says. “Good-bye.”

He takes the water into the living room and pours it into Mary Anne’s teapot.

“Don’t scald yourself,” he says, “or we’re both screwed.”

“Where’s the tea bag, Daddy?”

“Oh, yeah.” He gets a tea bag from the kitchen and drops it into the pot. “You’re young, you’re supposed to use your imagination,” he says. “But here it is.”

“We need something to go with our tea, Daddy.”

“You won’t eat your dinner.”

“Yes, I will.”

He goes to the kitchen and gets a bag of M&Ms. “Don’t eat too many of these,” he says.

“I’ve got to get out of this town,” the woman on television is saying. “You know I’ve got to go now, because of Tom’s dependency on Rita.”

Mary Anne carefully pours two tiny cups full of tea.

“We can drink this, can’t we, Daddy?”

“I guess so. If it doesn’t make you sick.”

Michael looks at his daughter and her friend enjoying their tea party. He goes into the bathroom and takes his pipe off the window ledge, closes the door and opens the window, and lights it. He sits on the bathroom floor with his legs crossed, listening to the woman weeping on television. He notices Mary Anne’s bunny. Its eyebrows are raised with amazement at him. It is ridiculous to be sitting in the bathroom getting stoned while a tea party is going on and a woman shrieks in the background. “What else can I do?” he whispers to the bunny. He envies the bunny — the way it clutches the bar of soap to its chest When he hears Elsa come in, he leaves the bathroom and goes into the hall and puts his arms around her, thinking about the bunny and the soap. Mick Jagger sings to him: “All the dreams we held so close seemed to all go up in smoke …”

“Elsa,” he says, “what are your dreams?”

“That your dealer will die,” she says.

“He won’t. He’s only twenty years old.”

“Maybe Carlos will put a curse on him. Carlos killed his godfather, you know.”

“Be serious. Tell me one real dream,” Michael says.

“I told you.”

Michael lets her go and walks into the living room. He looks out the window and sees Carlos’s car pull up in front of the walk. He goes out and gets into Carlos’s car. He stares down the street.

“Don’t feel like saying hello, I take it,” Carlos says.

Michael shakes his head.

“Hell,” Carlos says, “I don’t know what I keep coming around for you for.”

Michael’s mood is contagious. Carlos starts the car angrily and roars away, throwing a curse on a boxwood at the edge of the lawn.