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Show •61 "We had some good times when you were still here " Jacob said. He laid his head on the table and closed his eyes. "I saw this morning morning's minion," Carlo said suddenly in a high sing-song voice. "Kingdom of daylight's dauphin, dapple, dawn-drawn Falcon." Jacob sat up with a jerk. "Wait a minute, wait a minute. Don't tell me.... Hopkins. Is that right, Carlo? Hopkins?" "What the hell are you two doing now?" I said. "We used to play quotations when we were kids. Don't you remember, Buck? Oh didn't we have some good times! Tell me, 3uck, don't you sometimes wish you'd never had to grow up?" "I don't need to wish," I said. "And now I'm going to bed. You coming, Morgan? Goodnight all." Upstairs I buried myself nose down in the lumpy feather pillow and let one arm dangle over the edge of the bed, my favorite sleeping position. Smells assailed me. Down in dry smoggy Los Angeles nothing smelled much at all, but here in Oregon, in my father's damp musty house, odors lay in wait everywhere like bad Indians in the old movies, ready to jump up and shoot me full of memory's arrows. Not all the wounds were painful. One afternoon in the sixth grade I choked Louis Gagliardo, wrestled him into the playground dirt and made him say uncle. Louis was a fat strong unpleasant boy, the son of the high-school football coach; he liked to practice judo holds on the smaller or more |