- •Is at least negatively reassuring; because here, this morning, is where it has
- •Into the low damp dark living room, they agreed how cozy it would be at
- •Indifferent to him ex-cept as a character in their myths. It is only George
- •Vacant lot with a tray of bottles and a shaker, announces joyfully, in Marine
- •It would be amusing, George thinks, to sneak into that apartment
- •Impenetrable forest of cars abandoned in despair by the students during the
- •Intonation which his public demands of him, speaks his opening line: "Good
- •Irritation" in blandese. The mountains of the San Gabriel Range — which still
- •Is nearly always about what they have failed to do, what they fear the
- •Virile informality of the young male students. Most of these wear sneakers
- •If for a highly respectable party.
- •In the class. The fanny thing is that Dreyer, with the clear conscience of
- •It's George and the entire Anglo-American world who have been
- •In a cellar — "
- •Imaginary. And no threat is ever quite imaginary. Anyone here disagree with
- •Village in mind as the original of his Gonister. George is unable to answer
- •I mean, you seem to see what each one is about, and it's very crude and
- •Involvement. They simply wish each other well. Again, as by the tennis
- •Veteran addict, has already noted that the morning's pair has left and that
- •Indeed. But now, grounded, unsparkling, unfollowed by spotlights, yet
- •It should ever he brought here — stupefied by their drugs, pricked by their
- •Very last traces of the Doris who tried to take Jim from him have vanished
- •I am alive, he says to himself, I am alive! And life- energy surges
- •In the locker room, George takes off his clothes, gets into his sweat socks,
- •Idiot. He clowns for them and does magic tricks and tells them stories,
- •It? Today George feels more than usually unwilling to leave the gym. He
- •Instances does George notice the omission which makes it meaningless.
- •Is a contraption like a gallows, with a net for basketball attached to it.
- •It's a delicious smell and that it makes him hungry.
- •Violet, with the sleeves rolled up to the elbows; a gipsyish Mexican skirt
- •Is not unmoved. He is truly sorry for Charley and this mess — and yet — la
- •In Buddy's blood — though it certainly can't be any longer. Debbie would
- •Is still filthy with trash; high-school gangs still daub huge scandalous words
- •Into a cow-daze, watching it. This is what most of the customers are doing,
- •In your car?"
- •Impersonal. It's a symbolic encounter. It doesn't involve either party
- •Impersonal. It's a symbolic encounter. It doesn't involve either party
- •Is was" — he downs the rest of his drink in one long swallow — "it's about
- •Intent upon his own rites of purification, George staggers out once more,
- •It's rather a slow process, I'm afraid, but that's the best we can do."
- •Important and corny, like some big sin or something. And the way they look
- •I keep it made up with clean sheets on it, just on the once-in-a-blue moon
- •Its consciousness — so to speak — are swarming with hunted anxieties, grimjawed
Instances does George notice the omission which makes it meaningless.
What is left out of the picture is Jim, lying opposite him at the other end of
the couch, also reading; the two of them absorbed in their books yet so
completely aware of each other's presence.
BACK at home, he changes out of his suit into an army-surplus store khaki
shirt, faded blue denims, moccasins, a sweater. (He has doubts from time to
time about this kind of costume: Doesn't it give the impression that he's
trying to dress young? But Jim used to tell him, No, it was just right for him
– it made him look like Rommel in civilian clothes. George loved that.)
Just when he's ready to leave the house again, there is a ring at his
doorbell. Who can it be at this hour? Mrs. Strunk!
(What have I done that she can have come to complain about?)
"Oh, good evening — " (Obviously she's nervous, self-conscious; very
much aware, no doubt, of having crossed the frontier-bridge and being on
enemy territory.) "I know this is terribly short notice. I — we've meant to ask
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you so many times — I know how busy you are — but we haven't gotten
together in such a long while — and we were wondering — would you possibly
have time to come over for a drink?"
"You mean, right now?"
"Why, yes. There's just the two of us at home."
"I'm most terribly sorry. I'm afraid I have to go out, right away."
"Oh. Well. I was afraid you wouldn't have time. But — "
"No, listen," says George, and he means it; he is extremely surprised
and pleased and touched. "I really would like to. Very much indeed. Do you
suppose I could take a rain check?"
"Well, yes, of course." But Mrs. Strunk doesn't believe him. She
smiles sadly. Suddenly it seems all-important to George to convince her.
"I would love to come. How about tomorrow?"
Her face falls. "Oh well, tomorrow. Tomorrow wouldn't be so good,
I'm afraid. You see, tomorrow we have some friends coming over from the
Valley, and..."
And they might notice something queer about me, and you'd feel
ashamed, George thinks, okay, okay.
"I understand, of course," he says. "But let's make it very soon, shall
we?"
"Oh yes," she agrees fervently, "very soon...."
CHARLOTTE lives on Soledad Way, a narrow uphill street which at night is
packed so tight with cars parked on both sides of it that two drivers can
scarcely squeeze past each other. If you arrive after its residents have
returned home from their jobs, you will probably have to leave your car
several blocks away, at the bottom of the hill. But this is no problem for
George, because he can walk over to Charley's from his house in less than
five minutes.
Her house is high up on the hillside, at the top of three flights of
lopsided rustic wooden steps, seventy-live of them in all. Down on the street
level there is a tumbledown shack intended for a garage. She keeps it
crammed to the ceiling with battered trunks and crates full of unwanted junk. Jim used to say that she kept the garage blocked in order not to be able to
own a car. In any case, she absolutely refuses to learn to drive. If she needs
to go someplace and no one offers to give her a ride, well then, that's too
bad, she can't go. But the neighbors nearly always do help her; she has them
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utterly intimidated and bewitched by this Britishness which George himself
knows so well how to em-ploy, though with a different approach.
The house next to Charlotte's is on the street level. As you begin to
climb her steps, you get an intimate glimpse of domestic squalor through its
bathroom window (it must be frankly admitted that Soledad is one whole
degree socially inferior to Camphor Tree Lane): a tub hung with panties and
diapers, a douche bag slung over the shower pipe, a plumber's snake on the
floor. None of the neighbors' kids are visible now, but you can see how the
hillside above their home has been trampled into a brick-hard slippery
surface with nothing alive on it but some cactus. At the top of the slope there