Dawn ebony
I was staring numbly across the acres of brown earth when Frenchys hand clenched painfully on mine. Dont. Never had a call for it. Dr. Olies hand was shaking as he put down the stethoscope. Let me see another chest film first, he said. “And don’t worry about the cost—this one’s on the house.” "There better be a story," Harriet was saying. "This is my bridge night and I gave it up for you." Someone whispered briefly and Miss Hutton silenced the offender with a look. She opened her mouth to speak, thought better of it and nodded briskly as if the subject was closed. Then she had returned the book to Susan, still open, and Susan looked at it as it lay on the desk and at the top of the page were the wordsPersons Represented. Tommy, beautiful Tommy Fango, the others paled to nothing next to him. Everybody heard him in those days; they played him two or three times an hour but you never knew when it would be so you were plugged in and listening hard every living moment; you ate, you slept, you drew breath for the moment when they would put on one of Tommys records, you waited for his voice to fill the room. Cold cuts and cupcakes and game hens came and went during that period in my life, but one thing was constant; I always had a cream pie thawing and when they played the first bars of "When a Widow" and Tommys voice first flexed and uncurled, I was ready, I would eat the cream pie during Tommy's midnight show. The whole world waited in those days; we waited through endless sunlight, through nights of drumbeats and monotony, we all waited for Tommy Fango's records, and we waited for that whole unbroken hour of Tommy, his midnight show. He came on live at midnight in those days; he sang, broadcasting from the Hotel Riverside, and that was beautiful, but more important, he talked, and while he was talking he made everything all right. Nobody was lonely when Tommy talked; he brought us all together on that midnight show, he talked and made us powerful, he talked and finally he sang. You have to imagine what it was like, me in the night, Tommy, the pie. In a while I would go to a place where I had to live on Tommy and only Tommy, to a time when hearing Tommy would bring back the pie, all the poor lost pies ... At first she wasnt sure it was right, but I asked Dr. Strauss and he said it was okay. Dr. Strauss and Dr. Nemur don’t seem to be getting along so well. They’re arguing all the time. This evening when I came in to ask Dr. Strauss about having dinner with Miss Kinnian, I heard them shouting. Dr. Nemur was saying that it washisexperiment andhisresearch, and Dr. Strauss was shouting back that he contributed just as much, because he found me through Miss Kinnian and he performed the operation. Dr. Strauss said that someday thousands of neurosurgeons might be using his technique all over the world. Calculi, hand and machine pankration. J. G. said he certainly appreciated her thoughtfulness and ate the bananas. "Dont I have that too?" Jay said. "The women plus the queers." "Youre going anyway. Im sure as hell not going to leave you alone." Temporary temperance house. Phooey. Dana moved away from the buffet, then stopped abruptly to give Quincannon a closer one-eyed scrutiny. You a Johnny Reb?” Sure He would pose, said the druggist. He would love it. He could look on himself and feel impressed. Take Him a picture, Oliver. Be a sport. It would do us all good. Probably nobody asked Him. Maybe He has a shyness.” Later she said,Will you come back? Its time for the truth, Kamiko, the whole truth, Sabina said. No more secrets.” Kamiko opened the door to Sabinas ring, Elizabeth hovering close behind her. Good morning, Mrs. Carpenter, the girl said, bowing but unsmiling. On the dais, the Leader lay, twisting and uttering guttural moans. The pack was at frenzied war. Those who had considered the Leader immortal— and many had — were bewildered, terrified. Those who had planned to succeed him now hardly knew what to do. Several of them shot themselves there and then..
