the sweet-smelling shadows under the trees in case the old lady is waiting inside the darkened living-room to tell him what she thinks. He crosses around in front of the car, the ‘55 Ford that old man Springer with his little yellow Hitler mustache sold him for an even thousand in 1957 because the scared bastard was ashamed, cars being his business he was ashamed of his daughter marrying somebody who had nothing but a ‘36 Buick he bought for $125 in the Army in Texas in 1953. Made him cough up a thousand he didn’t have when the Buick had just had eighty dollars’ worth of work. That was the kind of thing. They deserve everything they get. He opens the car from the passenger side, wincing at the pung of the brittle door spring and quickly ducking his head into the car. Thank God. Beneath the knobs for lights and wipers the octagon of the ignition key tells in silhouette. Bless that dope. Rabbit slithers in, closing the side door until metal touches metal but not slamming it. The front of the stucco Springer house is still unlit. It reminds him for some reason of an abandoned ice-cream stand. He turns the key through On into Start and the motor churns and catches. In his anxiety to be secret he is delicate on the accelerator and the motor, idle for hours in the air of an early spring day, is cold, sticks, and stalls. Rabbit’s heart rises and a taste of straw comes into his throat. But of course what the hell if she does come out? The only thing suspicious is that he doesn’t have the kid and he can say he’s on his way to pick him up. That would have been the logical way to do it anyway. Nevertheless he doesn’t want to be put to the inconvenience of lying, however plausibly. He pulls the hand choke out a fraction, just enough to pinch his fingertips, and starts the motor again. He pumps once, and glances aside to see the Springers’ living-room light flash on, and lets the clutch out, and the Ford bucks away from the curb.
He drives too fast down Joseph Street, and turns left, ignoring the sign saying STOP. He heads down Jackson to where it runs obliquely into Central, which is also 422 to Philadelphia. STOP. He doesn’t want to go to Philadelphia but the road broadens on the edge of town beyond the electric-power station and the only other choice is to go back through Mt. Judge around the mountain into the thick of Brewer and the suppertime traffic. He doesn’t intend ever to see Brewer again, that flowerpot city. The highway turns from three-lane to four-lane and there is no danger of hitting another car; they all run along together like sticks on a stream. Rabbit turns on the radio. After a hum a beautiful Negress sings, “Without a song, the dahay would nehever end, without a song.” Rabbit wishes for a cigarette to go with the washed feeling inside and remembers he gave up smoking and feels cleaner still. He slumps down and puts one arm up on the back of the seat and glides down the twilight pike left-handed. “A field of corn” the Negress’s voice bending dark and warm like the inside of a cello “the grasses grow” the countryside dipping around the road like a continuous dark bird “it makes no mind no how” his scalp contracts ecstatically “wihithout a.” The smell of parched rubber says the heater has come on and he turns the little lever to MOD.
“Secret Love,” “Autumn Leaves,” and something whose title he missed. Supper music. Music to cook by. His mind nervously shifts away from the involuntary vision of Janice’s meal sizzling in the pan, chops probably, the grease-tinted water bubbling disconsolately, the unfrozen peas steaming away their vitamins. He tries to think of something pleasant. He imagines himself about to shoot a long one-hander; but he feels he’s on a cliff, there is an abyss he will fall into when the ball leaves his hands. He tries to repicture his mother and sister feeding his son, but the boy is crying in backward vision, his forehead red and his mouth stretched wide and his helpless breath hot. There must be something: the water from the ice plant running in the gutter, yellowish, the way it curled on stones and ran in diagonal wrinkles, waving the pretty threads of slime