He gets up. “Hey, man,” George says. Beaver went to Westbrook junior College with George, and then he seemed cool enough, but juco was many long beers ago. “Where you goin?” “Take a leak,” Beaver says, rolling his toothpick from one side of his mouth to the other.

“Well, you want to hurry your bad ass back, I’m just getting to the good part,” George says, and Beaver thinks crotchless panties. Oh boy, today that old weird vibe is strong, maybe it’s the barometer or something.

Lowering his voice, George says, “When I got her skirt up-” “I know, she was wearin crotchless panties,” Beaver says. He registers the look of surprise-alnost shock-in George’s eyes but pays no attention. “I sure want to hear that part.”

He walks away, walks toward the men’s room with its yellow-pink smell of piss and disinfectant, walks past it, walks past the women’s, walks past the door with OFFICE on it, and escapes into the alley. The sky overhead is white and rainy, but the air is good. So good. He breathes it in deep and thinks again. No bounce no play. He grins a little.

He walks for ten minutes, just chewing toothpicks and clearing his head. At some point, he can’t remember exactly when, he tosses away the joint that has been in his pocket. And then he calls Henry from the pay phone in Joe’s Smoke Shop, up by Monument Square. He’s expecting the answering machine-Henry is still in school-but Henry is actually there, he picks up on the second ring.

“How you doing, man?” Beaver asks. “Oh, you know,” Henry says. “Same shit, different day. How about you, Beav?” Beav closes his eyes. For a moment everything is all right again; as right as it can be in such a piss-ache world, anyway. “About the same, buddy,” he replies. “Just about the same.”