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Show S/5" "I'll go for more coke," Brian offered. "We can't - we've already gone way over our budget. It isn't easy to feed and entertain all those extra people." Brian's face went cold and hard. "You want us to go somewhere else?" "I didn't say that," I said hastily. I didn't want him hanging around in bars or at the rooms of the single men who showed up in the evening and let me wait on them while they swapped tall tales of their exploits in the military or with women. None of them but Brian had been to Vietnam and they discouraged him from talking about it. He was mostly silent, anyway, playing the grand host to my grand hostess. They had no compunction about taking advantage of the hospitable attitude I had inherited from my parents' home where the guests were frequent: a relative from the ranch or a patient from out of town, or someone who had traveled long distances to talk with my father about the Gospel. But in my mother's house, no one smoked or brought beer to the refIterator or took the Lord's name in vain. Everyone knew what my parents stood for. No one seemed to know what I stood for - least of all, me. "I'm going for more coke," Brian said, starting out. "Don't you have to get back to work?" He shrugged. "I'm not going back today." "Take Becky with you, then, will you?" I sighed. There was no use arguing with him about money or grass or friends. He was determined to do whatever he wanted to do - even if it cost him his job. Even if it cost him his wife and child. |