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Show •220 of nearly that many years. As the time-to leave got near the. city grew stranger and stranger in my sight, as if my emotional connections with it were snapping loose one by one. The less involved with the place I became, the better I began to like it; the sidewalk thrummed with the underground power of the subway trains, the air quivered with the dangerous smell of ozone rising from grilles in the pavement, the whole town ticked like a bomb, promising a magnificent explosion of art, philosophy, business, the passions. When I opened the door I saw Fancy standing in the middle of our little room with a queer expression on her face. "What is it?" I said. She wrinkled her forehead and looked puzzled; suddenly she sobbed. "Cecil," she said. "Come on over here." I took her hand and led her to the hammock. "Lie down. Close your eyes. There, now tell me." "It was in the paper-Juan and Estrellita showed it to me. He's dead. He jumped in front of a subway train. The story said on purpose. Oh Buck." Her eyes stayed closed; tears rolled out slowly from under the lids. "It's this place, Buck. This damn town. Take me away." I lay down beside her. "Do you remember what he told me the first time I asked you out and you said no? 'You don't even know the beginnings-not even the little baby-blue |