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Show Helen was in the corner of the potato cellar with her hands over her ears. She had Andrew and Joseph with her, but when they saw me they ran back H?ss±a±xsx upstairs to see the show, though I knew they weren't going to get past Red. Helen had her knees tucked up to her chin, shaking. "He's going to blow us all up, Jarvis. He'll kill us all." "Now Mom," I said. "If anybody gets hurt it'll probably be somebody between here and the Bay." "I pleaded with Red to do something about him long ago, but you know your father, he doesn't do anything till there's a crisis and then he still might not do anything." "Well Karl's our neighbor," I said to her. I went up and stooped in front of her and touched her knees. She had a Rosary and her statue of the Infant of Prague rcxaiapaet all cuddled in by her stomach. I patted the statue on its little crown. "Think he'll come through?" I said. "Now don't get sacrilegious, Jarvis." She clutched the statue to her breast. "Though you're right, he's on his last legs. He didn't do a thing for Neda's scholarship." Helen lit a candle every night when Neda applied to art school in Cleveland. The night before Neda got rejected, Helen fell asleep in front of the Infant and damn near burned the house down. Red didn't say a thing about it, though he was the one who smelled the smoke and put*the fire,aorife Helen made the Infant stand m the corner for a month after that one, facing in, and she didn't change any of hisAlittle coats or slips.BxxsxcgcfciQ±JO®« He was a naked statue for a month. Helen touched my hand. "Oh Jarvis, why xkaxhaix don't we move out of here. We should have moved out of here years ago." "I'm going to try and talk to Karl," I told her. Upstairs, Red had everybody in the living room. Neda was wringing her hands, like Helen, and Joseph and Andrew were hitting each^ther on the couch. Red had gone back to pretending to read the paper. In the back yard, Karl's dog and our dog waSaxxaxlaxkidgxai each other through the fence and Karl's kids ran around a in the weeds knocking into each other like the Three Stooges. Knock. Bop. They were goofy kids. Then Karl came out of his basement carrying a lead ball a little bigger than a grapefruit. "Thought it'd be bigger than that," I shouted. ,.^?uhTir |