then added: "And most of them leave the same scummy residue behind."
"Jesus," Ralph said. "That is cynical."
McGovern shrugged. "Most retired teachers are cynical, Ralph.
We see them come in, so young and so strong, SO convinced that it's going to be different for them, and we see them make their messes and then paddle around in them, just as their parents and grandparents did.
What I think is that Helen will go back to him, and Ed will do okay for awhile, and then he'll beat her up again and she'll leave again. It's like one of those sappy country-western songs they have on the juke out at Nicky's Lunch, and some people have to listen to that song a long, long time before they decide they don't want to hear it anymore. Helen's a bright young woman, though. I think one more verse is all she'll need."
"One more verse might be all she'll ever get," Ralph said quietly.
"We're not talking about some drunk husband coming home on Friday night and beating his wife up because he lost his paycheck in a poker game and she dared to bitch about it."
"I know," McGovern said, "but you asked for my opinion and I gave it to you. I think Helen's going to need one more go-round before she can bring herself to call it off.
And even then they're apt to keep on bumping up against each other.
It's still a pretty small town." He paused, squinting down the street.
"Oh, look", he said, hoisting his left brow. "Our Lois. She walks in beauty, like the night.
Ralph gave him an impatient look, which McGovern ether did not see or pretended not to. He got up, once again touching the tips of his fingers to the place where the Panama wasn't, and then went down the steps to meet her on the walk.
"Lois!" McGovern cried, dropping to one knee before her and extending his hands theatrically. "Would that our lives might be united by the starry bonds of love! Wed your fate to mine and let me whirl you away to climes various in the golden car of my affections!"
"Gee, are you talking about a honeymoon or a one-night stand?"
Lois asked, smiling uncertainly.
Ralph poked McGovern in the back. "Get up, fool," he said, and took the small bag Lois was carrying. He looked inside and saw three cans of beer.
McGovern got to his feet. "Sorry, Lois," he said. "It was a combination of summer twilight and your beauty. I plead temporary insanity, in other words."
Lois smiled at him, then turned to Ralph. "I just heard what happened," she said, "and I hurried over as fast as I could. I was in Ludlow all afternoon, playing nickel-dime poker with the girls."
Ralph didn't have to look at McGovern to know his left eyebrow-the one that said Poker with the girls! How wonderfully, perfectIT Our Lois." would be hoisted to its maximum altitude. "Is Helen all right?"
"Yes," Ralph said. "Well, maybe not exactly all right-they're keeping her in the hospital overnight-but she's not in any danger."
"And the baby?"
"Fine. Staying with a friend of Helen's."
"Well, come on up on the porch, you two, and tell me all about it." She linked one arm through McGovern's, the other through Ralph's, and led them back up the walk. They mounted the porch steps that way, like two elderly musketeers with the woman whose affections they had vied for in the days of their youth held safe v between them, and as Lois sat down in her rocking chair, the streetlights went on along Harris Avenue, glimmering in the dusk like a double rope of pearls.
Ralph fell asleep that night bare instants after his head hit the pillow, and came wide awake again at 3:30 a.m. an Friday morning, The knew immediately there was no question of going back to sleep; he might as well proceed directly to the wing-chair in the living room.
He lay there a moment longer anyway, looking up into the dark and trying to catch the tail of the dream he'd been having. but couldn't do it. He could only remember that Ed had been in it... and Helen... and Rosalie, the dog he sometimes saw limping up or down Harris Avenue before Pete the paperboy showed up.
Dorrance was in it, too. Don't forget him.
Yes, right. And as if a key had turned in a lock, Ralph suddenly remembered the strange thing Dorrance had said during the confrontation between Ed and the heavyset man last year... the thing Ralph hadn't