was becoming (Ralph, mercifully, did not know this) his dominant expression.
When the teakettle shrieked, he put it on one of the rear burners and went back to staring into the cupboard. It dawned on him very, very slowly-that he must have drunk his last packet of CupA-Soup yesterday or the day before, although he could not for the life of him remember doing so.
"That's a surprise?" he asked the boxes and bottles in the open cupboard. "I'm so tired I can't remember my own name."
Yes, I can, he thought. It's Leon Redbone. So there It wasn't much of a joke, but he felt a small smile-it felt as light as a feather-touch his lips. He stepped into the bathroom, combed his hair, and then went downstairs. Here's Audie Murphy, heading out into enemy territory in search of supplies, he thought. Primary target: one box of Lipton Chicken and Rice Cup-A-Soup packets. If locating and securing this target should prove impossible, I'll divert to my secondary: Noodles in Beef I know this is a risky mission, but-"but I work best alone," he finished as he came out on the porch.
Old Mrs. Perrine happened to be passing, and she favored Ralph with a sharp look but said nothing. He waited for her to get a little way up the sidewalk-he did not feel capable of conversation with anyone this afternoon, least of all Mrs. Perrine, who at eighty-two could still have found stimulating and useful work among the Marines at Parris Island. He pretended to he examining the spider-plant which hung from the hook under the porch eave until she had reached what he deemed a safe distance, then crossed Harris Avenue to the Red Apple.
Which was where the day's real troubles began.
He entered the convenience store once again mulling over the spectacular failure of the delayed-sleep experiment and wondering if the advice in the library texts was no more than an uptown version of the folk remedies his acquaintances seemed so eager to press upon him.
It was an unpleasant idea, but he, thought his mind (Or the force below his mind which was actually in charge of this slow torture) had sent him a message which was even more unpleasant: You have a sleep-window, Ralph. It's not as big as it once was, and it seems to be getting smaller with every passing week, but you better be grateful for what you've get, because a small window is better than no windou) at all.
You see that now, don't you?
"Yes," Ralph mumbled as he walked down the center aisle to the bright red Cup-A-Soup boxes, "I see that very well."
Sue, the afternoon counter-girl, laughed cheerfully. "You must have money in the bank, Ralph," she said.
"Beg pardon?" Ralph didn't turn; he was inventorying the red boxes. Here was onion... split pea... the beef-and-noodles combo... but where the hell was the Chicken and Rice?
"My mom always said people who talk to themselves have Oh my God." For a moment Ralph thought she had simply made a statement a little too complex for his tired mind to immediately grasp, something about how people who talked to themselves had found God, and then she screamed. He had hunkered down to check the boxes on the bottom shelf, and the scream shot him to his feet so hard and fast that his knees popped. He wheeled toward the front of the store, bumping the top shelf of the soup display with his elbow and knocking half a dozen red boxes into the aisle.
"Sue? What's wrong?"
Sue paid no attention. She was looking out through the door with her fisted hands pressed against her lips and her brown eyes huge above them. "God, look at the blood!" she cried in a choked voice.
Ralph turned farther, knocking a few more Lipton boxes into the aisle, and looked through the Red Apple's dirty show window. What he saw drew a gasp from him, and it took him a space of seconds-five, maybe-to realize that the bloody, beaten woman staggering toward the Red Apple was Helen Deepneau. Ralph had always thought Helen the prettiest woman on the west side of town, but there was nothing pretty about her today. One of her eyes was puffed shut; there was a gash at her left temple that was soon going to he lost in the gaudy swelling of a fresh bruise; her puffy lips and her cheeks were covered with blood.
The blood had come from her nose, which was still leaking. She wove through