In the delicatessen they make sandwiches, though very few of had cheese. They sell Snickers and go in and out the back door to Aunt Nora's apartment where Pinky is clicking around. The South River is tidal, subject to the phases of the moon, it's salty and winding through miles of cattails to where it meets the Raritan. Nora’s grave marker is set in sandy soil, she's a mother whose husband ran his truck into a ditch making her a widow, and she had a son who was in the Navy, but he's out now. Julius wore glasses and an apron was balding and skinny and always wore a white shirt. Julius had a crush on Nora. Pinkie's claws go tick-tick-tick across the kitchen floor. Cute, He has a pink belly pink claws brown eyes a whippy tail and a jewelled collar. Cute. He died of an unknown cause. Cute. Grit advertisements in the back of comic books read in the sunlight on the deli steps, make you want to rip out the coupon, and decide it wouldn't be so bad to make deliveries door to door. Sitting on the front steps in the summer reading comic books, watching the older girls go by on the sidewalk, you sit, and bake, and watch. Basketball shoes squeak on the court floor as the tall men run and pass the ball and shoot the baskets with a jump and a sweat, while you're outside wrestling. A bus ran over Marcia, on a grey day. The tires were all worn out on the bus, and the door opened and the driver came down the bus steps to see who he killed this noontime. The movie drew a crowd downtown in the afternoon, a crowd of teenagers surrounding a younger boy there all by himself, who'd seen the movie advertised in the newspaper. The river salt and river scum rot the steel river bridges, the rust begins crumbling making the roads above dangerous, the roads that pass through the marsh, by the tall grass. On the jug-handle sat the car dealership, which had its own hot rod in the garage behind the showroom, in the building near the abandoned concrete ramp covered with weeds, a hundred yards from the building. The furniture store has couches brought up in trailers from the Carolinas and is on the back street in the old section. The telephone of white plastic in the house in the cosey upstairs behind the deli could be a bomb, plus; in the room, on the television, are zombies. The big kitchen with the white floor shed its table & chairs years after the deli man said - -How old is he--ten years old? Twelve years old? The couch covered with newspapers sat pushed up against the wall, he sat on the couch looking for movies to go see while the relatives sat nearby muttering, with highball glasses in their hands.
The meat slicer went zzing, the white towel was draped over Nora’s arm as she stood slicing the cold cuts. The slicer had a porcelain base and a super sharp blade. The fingertip was sewn back on, covering the bone. Bloodless was the finger getting stitches while smoking a cigarette gotten from Dr. Morehead. South River High School has wire mesh glass in the door windows on the way into the basketball hoop. Teenage Frankenstein played on the movie screen before the screaming teenagers. The Tingler starred Vincent Price, it clutched your backbone, it was a crawler and a squeezer and a killer if you can't scream to make it shrink away. In Summer the boy bounced the basketball in the concrete driveway in front of the garage surrounded by the chain link fences ringing the spotlessly clean back yard that sat there all alone. In Winter the boy played darts in the cellar, near the low deep dark space in the brick walls, under the bare bulb, alone. On the television in the upstairs cosey room, the white gorilla crashed through the tall weeds. The gorilla's big hands waved on the black and white TV, which also showed movies about the abominable snowman. A phone set on the table by the TV. The boy tried making a crank call to the white house from the phone, but an operator cut him off. He hung up but the operator called right back to find out who had done it. Nora took the call downstairs, and came up and asked the boy if he had made any calls. Of course not. No. They looked at each other. No not, no. Nora nodded. The boy turned to the TV. The soundtrack swelled low over an abominable snowman lying dead on the screen, and the music said the movie was over now. No, of course not, thought Nora. Turning away, she headed back downstairs. The credits rolled. Looks like they got him, thought the boy. They always get them. Let’s see what’s on now. He switched the channel, cutting off the credits. Who ever cares what they say. You know? Who ever watches them all the way to the end? They’re just lists of people good at playing pretend. That’s all they are, you know. Yes you know.
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