Praying for Sleep

hungry. What’s to eat?”
    She stopped crying. “You’re hungry?” She gazed at the kitchen. “I have some roast beef, some vegetarian chili. . . . You’re welcome to it.”
    He walked to the table and sat down, easing into the chair. He delicately opened a paper napkin. It covered only a part of his huge lap.
    She asked, “Can I stand up?”
    “How can you get me dinner if you don’t stand up?”
    She hurtled into the kitchen and busied herself preparing a plate while Michael sang, “ ‘For I love the bonnie blue gal who gave her heart to me.’ ” He played with the pepper mill. “ ‘Her arms, her arms, are where I want to be! . . .’ ”
    She returned, setting a tray in front of him. Michael roared, “ ‘For I love the bonnie blue gal who gave—’ ” He stopped abruptly, picked up the fork and cut a piece off the beef. This, together with a portion of Jell-O, he put on the pink saucer and placed it in front of her.
    She glanced at the food then looked inquiringly at him.
    “I want you to eat that!” he said.
    “I’ve already . . . Oh, you think it’s poison.”
    “I don’t think it’s poison,” he sneered. “I don’t think there’s a posse outside that window. I don’t think you’re a Pinkerton agent. But you can’t be too careful. Now come on. Quit being a shit.”
    She ate. Then she smiled and went blank-faced again. He studied her for a moment and set his fork down. “Do you have some milk?”
    “Milk? I have low-fat is all. Is that all right?”
    “Some milk !” he blared, and she jumped to get it. When she returned he’d already started to eat. He drank the glass down, taking with it a mouthful of food. “I used to work in a dairy.”
    “Well, yes.” She nodded politely. “That must be a nice place to work.”
    “It was very nice. Dr. Richard got me the job.”
    “Who is he?”
    “He was my father.”
    “Your father was a doctor?”
    “Well,” he scoffed, “I don’t mean a father like that. ”
    “No,” she agreed quickly, seeing the darkness fall over his face. He stopped eating. She told him she liked his tweed cap. He touched it and smiled. “I like it too. I have hair but I cut it off.”
    “Why did you do that?”
    “I can’t tell you.”
    “No, don’t tell me anything you don’t want to.”
    “If I don’t want to, I won’t. You don’t have to give me permission.”
    “I wasn’t giving you permission. I didn’t mean to sound like I was. You can do whatever you want.”
    “Don’t I know it.” Michael cleaned his plate.
    “Would you like some more?”
    “Milk. I’d like more milk.” When she was in the kitchen he added, “Please.”
    As he took the tall glass from her he intoned in an FM disc jockey’s voice, “A wholesome snack.”
    She barked a laugh and he smiled. As he poured the milk down she asked, “What are you doing?”
    “I’m drinking milk,” he answered with exasperation.
    “No. I mean, what are you doing out tonight? There’s supposed to be a storm like we haven’t seen in a donkey’s age.”
    “What’s a donkey’s age?” He squinted.
    She stared at him with a vacant face. “Uhm, now that you ask, I don’t exactly know. It means for a long time.”
    “Is it like an expression? Is it like a cliché ?”
    “I guess so.”
    He stared down, his eyes as empty and filmy as the glass in his hand. “Did you know that ‘anger’ is fivesixths of ‘danger’?”
    “No, I didn’t. But it surely is. How about that?”
    “So there.”
    She broke the very dense silence by asking, “What did you do in the dairy?”
    Michael’s erection had not gone away. His penis hurt and this was beginning to anger him. He reached into his pocket and squeezed himself then stood and walked to the window. He said, “What’s the biggest town near here that has a train station?”
    “Well, Boyleston, I suppose. It’s south about forty, fifty miles.”
    “How would I get there?”
    “Go west to 315. It’ll take you right there. That becomes Hubert Street and it goes right past the train station. Amtrak.”
    “In no time at all?”
    “No time at all,” she agreed. “Why are you going there?”
    “I told you,” he snapped. “I can’t say!”
    Her hands went into her lap.
    Michael began rummaging through his backpack. “I’m sorry, I’m very sorry,” he said to her. But he uttered these words, then repeated them, with such deep longing that it was clear he was apologizing not for being curt but rather for