Rabbit Redux

"Mom?"

"On the phone."

"Skeeter. Something's gone wrong at the house."

"Should I come?"

They are in the living room, Rabbit stooping to gather his clothes scattered over the floor, hopping to get into his underpants, his suit pants. The puppy, awake again, dances and nips at him.

"Better stay."

"What can it be, Dad?"

"No idea. Maybe the cops. Maybe Jill getting sicker."

"Why didn't he talk longer?"

"His voice sounded fu

"I'm coming with you."

"I told you to stay here."

"I must, Dad."

Rabbit looks at him and agrees, "O.K. I guess you must."

Peggy in blue bathrobe is in the hall; more lights are on. Billy is up. His pajamas are stained yellow at the fly, he is pimply and tall. Peggy says, "Shall I get dressed?"

"No. You're great the way you are." Rabbit is having trouble with his tie: his shirt collar has a button in the back that has to be undone to get the tie under. He puts on his coat and stuffs the tie into his pocket. His skin is tingling with the start of sweat and his penis murmuringly aches. He has forgotten to do the laces of his shoes and as he kneels to do them his stomach jams into his throat.

"How will you get there?" Peggy asks.

"Run," Rabbit answers.

"Don't be fu

She must be told she is not his wife. "I don't want you to come. Whatever it is, I don't want you and Billy to get involved."

"Mo-om," Billy protests from the doorway. But he is still in stained pajamas whereas Nelson is dressed, but for bare feet. His sneakers are in his hand.

Peggy yields. "I'll get you my car keys. It's the blue Fury, the fourth slot in the line against the wall. Nelson knows. No, Billy. You and I will stay here." Her voice is factual, secretarial.

Rabbit takes the keys, which come into his hand as cold as if they have been in the refrigerator. "Thanks a lot. Or have I said that before? Sorry about this. Great di

"Glad you liked it."

"We'll let you know what's what. It's probably nothing, the son of a bitch is probably just stoned out of his mind."

Nelson has put his socks and sneakers on. "Let's go, Dad. Thank you very much, Mrs. Fosnacht."

"You're both very welcome."

"Thank Mr. Fosnacht in case I can't go on the boat tomorrow."

Billy is still trying. "Mo-om, let me." No."

"Mom, you're a bitch."

Peggy slaps her son: pink leaps up on his cheek in stripes like fingers, and the child's face hardens beyond further controlling. "Mom, you're a whore. That's what the bridge kids say. You'll lay anybody."

Rabbit says, "You two take it easy," and turns; they flee, father and son, down the hall, down the steel stairwell, not waiting for an elevator, to a basement ofparked cars, a polychrome lake caught in a low illumined grotto. Rabbit blinks to realize that even while he and Peggy were heating their little mutual darkness a cold fluorescent world surrounded them in hallways and down stairwells and amid unsleeping pillars upholding their vast building. The universe is unsleeping, neither ants nor stars sleep, to die will be to be forever wide awake. Nelson finds the blue car for him. Its dashlights glow green at ignition. Almost silently the engine comes to life, backs them out, sneaks them along past the stained grotto walls. In a corner by the brickwork of a stairwell the all-chrome mini-bike waits to be repaired. An asphalt exitway becomes a parking lot, becomes a street lined with narrow houses and great green signs bearing numbers, keystones, shields, the names of unattainable cities. They come onto Weiser; the traffic is thin, sinister. The stoplights no longer regulate but merely wink. Burger Bliss is closed, though its purple oven glows within, plus a sallow residue of ceiling tubes to discourage thieves and vandals. A police car nips by, bleating. The Acme lot at this hour has no horizon. Are the few cars still parked on it abandoned? Or lovers? Or ghosts in a world so thick with cars their shadows like leaves settle everywhere? A whirling light, insulting in its brilliance, materializes in Rabbit's rear-view mirror and as it swells acquires the overpowering grief of a siren. The red bulk of a fire engine plunges by, sucking the Fury toward the center of the street, where the trolley-track bed used to be. Nelson cries, "Dad!"

"Dad what?"

"Nothing, I thought you lost control."

"Never. Not your Dad."

The movie marquee, unlit and stubby, is a

"Dad, there's a glow in the sky."

"Where?"

"Off to the right."

He says, "That can't be us. Pe

But Emberly Avenue turns right more acutely than he had ever noticed, and the curving streets of Pe

There is space around him. The spectators, the neighbors, in honor of his role, have backed off. Months ago Rabbit had seen that bright island of moviemakers and now he is at the center of this bright island and still feels peripheral, removed, nostalgic, numb. He scans the firelit faces and does not see Showalter or Brumbach. He sees no one he knows.