OCR Text |
Show •14 anything and he has good luck. I can tell." "I'm not the relaxing type," I said. "I try to just drift along but I can't stop myself from desiring, wishing, wanting." "I bet you could learn," Jenny said. She made me sit cross-legged in the sand with my eyes closed; I took in breath and let it out while she counted softly. The beach noises floated away from me; a pleasant heaviness settled in my arms and legs; imperceptibly the muggy heat took on the quality of a blessing. Ten counts to breathe in, ten more to hold the air, twenty to let it out. Pale visions drifted past my mind's eye. I heard J. Cash's footsteps in the sand and looked up. "Jenny says you're a naturally lucky man," I told him. "Is that right? She says as long as we're riding with you we can't get hurt." He had come from the men's room and was still absently buttoning himself. "Don't say that about a man until he's safely dead. Something could happen to give you the lie." He had a bad knee; he poked and pushed at it as if to beat it into shape; behind him the carnival music sounded a tinny_ ragtime. Children screamed with pleasure. He made me drive the truck; before we had gone five miles down the road he was snoring softly in the corner of the cab. On our left a wall of gray rock shut off the view; on the |