Angels Read Free Page A

and Roberts number two, but when it comes to number one, honey, I ain’t nothing, and next day she filed. Just all of a sudden like that. I says hey! you’re number one! you’re number one! But she just went on ahead and filed. Very weird lady.”
    Jamie said, “You in a band someplace?”
    â€œMe? In a music band, you mean?” He took a pull of his beer, and Jamie fingered the shiny material of his jacket on the seat between them.
    â€œTruth is, I got it at a second-hand type thrift shop,” he said. “I must’ve been under the weather or something. Anyway, what the hell. It don’t fit too bad. You know any jokes?”
    â€œJokes,” Jamie said, trying out the word as if for the first time ever.
    â€œYeah, you know. Like ho ho ho.”
    â€œRight,” Jamie said.
    A spell of dizziness stabbed her head and then passed away. She sensed how the dead smoke of ten thousand cigarets caked the air. Out there in the blinding day the winter would sting your lungs, but here they carried with them a perpetual stifled twilight and a private exhaustion. She didn’t know if she was coming awake or going crazy.
    And Bill Houston said, “How come they ran out of ice cubes in Poland?”
    â€œThis a joke now?” she said.
    He was irritated. “ Yeah. ”
    â€œOkay—how come they ran out of ice cubes in Poland?”
    â€œWait a minute. Wait a minute. Are you asking me?”
    â€œI must be. Because I sure as hell don’t know the answer. You know what we need?” she said. “Ice cubes.” She had a feeling she might be laughing a little too loudly.
    â€œHey, I’m really getting off on this whole conversation,” he said with fervor. Good-fellowship thickened his voice. “Now listen: how come there’s no ice cubes in Poland?”
    â€œBecause they ran out. We just went through all that.”
    He shook his head. “I can see you’re a hard one to deal with,” he said with some respect.
    â€œNo, I’m not, really.” She let her gaze drift out into Ohio. Her mood went blank. “It’s just that I’m going to be into some of that divorce stuff pretty soon myself.”
    â€œDon’t let it get to you. You just stand there, and everything they say, you say yes. Pretty soon you’ll be divorced. It don’t feel no different.”
    â€œI think it might probably feel different,” she said.
    â€œI don’t know,” he said. “Never felt a bit different to me. Course, pretty soon, being married was the difference, and getting divorced was the usual.”
    â€œThat ain’t going to be my way. I’m single from here on out.”
    â€œYou just keep saying that, like I did.”
    â€œYou just watch. Once is enough, brother. I had a man running around on me once—that’s all, that’s it. Not no more. Thanks anyway.”
    â€œWell. Takes a lot of will power, stick to the same brand all the time with no variety.”
    â€œ I stuck to the same brand! Wasn’t no trouble to me! He only had to stay out three nights, and I said that’s that. Three nights is just about three nights too many, I says to him. Wasn’t long before I found out who it was, and how many times, and ever-thing. I told him, I’m hard to fool. And I am. Hey.” She stared minutely forward, scrutinizing the nearer distances. “Do I look like I’m loaded?”
    Bill Houston said he’d been working some place for the last few months, but she didn’t believe it. He’d had something to do with oil rigging, she wasn’t paying much attention. He’d saved up some money, perhaps a good deal of money, and he was lonesome. Cleveland went by like a collection of billboards.
    Without actually deciding yes or no, she found she’d agreed to stay over a day in Pittsburgh and see the town with Bill Houston before travelling on to Hershey, where she