“I hear,” Walt was drawling, with a chewing-movement of his jaw, as if he were masticating the question before answering, “that there’s a LOL in Boise, Idaho who’s worried about me.” He glanced up, as someone in the rear of the room asked something. “A LOL?” Walt said, “Well, —that was the great now-departed Herb Caen’s term for Little Old Ladies… there’s always one of them, everywhere. Probably there’s one on Mars already, and we’ll be living down the street from her. Anyhow, this one in Boise, or so I understand, is a little nervous about Lydia and myself, afraid something might happen to us. So she’s sent us a good luck charm.” He displayed it, holding it clumsily with the big gloved fingers of his suit. The reporters all murmured with amusement. “Nice, isn’t it?” Dangerfield said. “I’ll tell you what it does; it’s good for rheumatism.” The reporters laughted. “In case we get rheumatism while we’re on Mars. Or is it gout? I think it’s gout, she said in her letter.” He glanced at his wife. “Gout, was it?”

I guess, Bonny thought, they don’t make charms to ward off meteors or radiation. She felt sad, as if a premonition had come over her. Or was it just because this was Bruno Bluthgeld’s day at the psychiatrist’s? Sorrowful thoughts emanating from that fact, thoughts about death and radiation and miscalculation and terrible, unending illness.

I don’t believe Bruno has become a paranoid schizophrenic, she said to herself. This is only a situation deterioration, and with the proper psychiatric help—a few pills here and there—he’ll be okay. It’s an endocrine disturbance manifesting itself psychically, and they can do wonders with that; it’s not a character defect, a psychotic constitution, unfolding itself in the face of stress.

But what do I know, she thought glqomily. Bruno had to practically sit there and tell us “they” were poisoning his drinking water before either George or I grasped how ill he was… he merely seemed depressed.