— Hey, peckerhead? Told you I'd get you some good names didn't I? He squared the bill round in front of him, — Kissinger, he's… straight on, he's going to be out of the country, paper says he's going over to ream out the Pope tear him out a new… get you that in a minute here's another one, Orsini, Jack Orsini… he went on, buttoning his wilted shirt, names, numbers, up jamming it into his trousers — God damn nightmare, I'll tell you one thing Chick one, just one thing, what really happened in that BOQ God damn glad she never knew about that she, she wouldn't have… didn't know about that either no, letter from some refugee camp in Thailand finally got to me here but nobody did. Nobody knew till those God damn pictures in the paper, some dogood agency spotted me on television just got to me here and laid it on, would I put up their passage money guarantee their entry into the US her and the boy, it was a boy, try and make you pay with the rest of your God damn life for every mistake those mothers handed you over there? God damn VA sees that picture in the paper cuts off my disability? you see yesterday's papers? Same shit all over again, same mothers pissing up everything this time it's blacks instead of gooks, waste their hootches burn out their crops whore up their girls blow your gut I'll talk to you pecker-head, get your shit together I'll talk to you… and he'd barely hung it up when it rang.
— Hello…? Hey Bobbie Joe, what's the… hey now slow down Bobbie Joe, just slow down, now why would I want to go doing a thing like that look. Now this old senator he denied it now didn't he? before he went down? You saw that in the paper now didn't you Bobbie Joe? and maybe I just kep it for my own use? Now why would I want to go and get your daddy shot over a thing like that, why he's… Well now I wouldn't go making accusations like that in public if I was you Bobbie Joe, say maybe the Roman Catholics was behind it because he was in there harvesting their flock that could get you in a lawsuit where you'd… no I know all about your juries down there but that's not the… No now listen here Bobbie Joe, you just listen here. Your daddy's all right now isn't he? took one in the shoulder I've put men right back in combat with worse than that. Now this black boy they brought in that he says he did it? made up that story somebody gave him a hundred dollars that said they were a friend of your daddy's and your old daddy he wanted to be this old martyr for the blood of the church and all? Now here's what your daddy's going to do Bobbie Joe and you tell him, hear? This little old boy he's going to get twenty years consider where it happened and what your daddy's going to do, he's going to forgive him, just like he did when Earl Fickert came after him with that ax? But he's not going to plead mercy for him either, he's going to go right ahead with these charges just to show the liberal press he don't make exceptions for a man's skin. He don't press charges that sounds like he thinks all the blacks will go do a thing like that where a white man would go to jail shooting another white man and he just wants this boy to be treated fair like anybody else, go do his twenty years and your daddy will pray for him? Now one more thing here, you know Billye called me up here? Billye Fickert? thought I'd gone down living in Haiti because some check she wrote me came back cashed in some bank down there in Haiti and my name signed on the back of it looked real funny? Now you just tell her that's true, I've gone to living down there in Haiti and I won't get to see her for a while because… well I'll just do that Bobbie Joe, see how many of them down there's been harvested I'll just do that you tell your daddy now I've got to hang up, car just pulled up outside I've got to go, somebody at the door…
Someone standing out there looking down the black stream of the road, looking down where no flashes of colour, of those reds and bright yellows were left to break the still light on the river below and he got to the dining room to pull his jacket off the back of a chair, to snap the suitcase closed and get through the front door with — you didn't need to get out, Edie… pulling it closed behind him for the snap of the lock, taking her arm by the mailbox there in the sudden chill, holding open the door of the dark limousine until she was in and settling in beside her as it moved almost silently down the road scattering boys on both sides into the banks of dead leaves, his arm resting across the back of the seat behind her turned looking away from him out the tinted window when he said — got plenty of time… and then, — you know? settled closer, — I've always been crazy about the back of your neck