see if she is still on his side. With dismay he sees that the second Daiquiri is on its way and the first has been delivered. She titters. “The awful thing about them,” she says, “was that they did it in the car. Here was poor Ronnie, trying to drive through all this Sundaynight traffic, and I looked back at a stoplight and Betsy’s dress was up around her neck.”
“I didn’t drive all the way,” Harrison tells her. “Remember we finally got him to drive.” His head tips toward her for confirmation and his pink scalp glints.
“Yeah.” Ruth looks into her glass and titters again, maybe at the thought of Betsy naked.
Harrison watches narrowly the effect of this on Rabbit. “This guy,” he says, in the pushy-quiet voice of offering a deal, “had an interesting theory. He thought”—Harrison’s hands grip air—“that right at the crucial, how shall I say?—development, you should slap your partner, as hard as you can, right in the face. If you’re in a position to. Otherwise slap what you can.”
Rabbit blinks; he really doesn’t know what to do about this awful guy. And just there, in the space of blinking, with the alcohol vaporizing under his ribs, he feels himself pass over. He laughs, really laughs. They can all go to Hell. “Well what did he think about biting?”
Harrison’s I’ve-got-your-number-buddy grin grows fixed; his reflexes aren’t quick enough to take this sudden turn. “Biting? I don’t know.”
“Well he couldn’t have given it much thought. A good big bloody bite: nothing better. Of course I can see how you’re handicapped, with those two false teeth.”
“Do you have false teeth, Ronnie?” Margaret cries. “How exciting! You’ve never told.”
“Of course he does,” Rabbit tells her. “You didn’t think those two piano keys were his, did you? They don’t even come close to matching.”
Harrison presses his lips together but he can’t afford to give up that forced grin and it sharply strains his face. His talking is hampered too.
“Now there was this place we used to go to in Texas,” Rabbit says, “where there was this girl whose backside had been bitten so often it looked like a piece of old cardboard. You know, after it’s been out in the rain. It’s all she did. She was a virgin otherwise.” He looks around at his audience and Ruth shakes her head minutely, one brief shake, as if to say, “No, Rabbit,” and it seems extremely sad, so sad a film of grit descends on his spirit and muffles him.
Harrison says, “It’s like that story about this whore that had the biggest—ah—you don’t want to hear it, do you?”
“Sure. Go ahead,” Ruth says.
“Well, this guy, see, was making out and he loses his, ahem, device.” Harrison’s face bobbles in the unsteady light. His hands start explaining. Rabbit thinks the poor guy must have to make a pitch five times a day or so. He wonders what he sells; ideas, he guesses; nothing as tangible as the MagiPeel Peeler. “… up to his elbow, up to his shoulder, then he gets his whole head in, and his chest, and starts crawling along this tunnel …” Good old MagiPeel, Rabbit thinks, he can almost feel one in his hand. Its handle came in three colors, turquoise, scarlet, and gold. The funny thing about it, it really did what they said, really took the skin off turnips and stuff as neat and quick—“… sees this other guy and says, ‘Hey, have you seen …’ ” Ruth sits there resigned and with horror be believes it’s all the same to her in her mind there’s no difference between Harrison and him and for that matter is there a difference? The whole interior of the place muddles and runs together red like the inside of a stomach in which they’re all being digested “… and the other guy says, ‘Stripper, hell. I’ve been in here three weeks looking for my motorcycle!’ ”
Harrison, waiting to join the laughter, looks up in silence. He’s failed to sell it. “That’s too fantastic,” Margaret says.
Rabbit’s skin is clammy under his clothes; this makes the breeze from the door opening behind him chilling. Harrison says, “Hey, isn’t that your sister?”
Ruth looks up from her drink. “Is it?” He makes no sign and she says, “They have the same horsy look.”
One glance told Rabbit. Miriam and her escort luckily walk a little into the place, past their table, and wait there to see an empty booth. The place is shaped like a