"HARRY & IVORY" – Chapter 17

"Harry & Ivory"

A love story you have not heard before.

   Chapter Seventeen

    "And Then You're Dead"

    When Harry got back from work the next day he fixed them a late lunch, with which Ivory made no attempt to help. It was a warm afternoon so Harry pulled down the little fold-away table attached to the outside wall on the balcony. Ivory sat right down without offering to help carry. Just the opposite of Annie. Thinking of her, Harry remembered that he hadn't sent any money yet.
    He sat down opposite Ivory and studied her lovely face. "When you were out here sweeping the balcony when I came home, I was hoping the neighbors were watching. I'm so proud of you."
    "Mmmm - hmmmm."
    "I'm worried about my job. New owners. My replacement's a Cuban, a young guy, real nice but...."
    Ivory's hand suddenly reached across the table and she flicked a bug off Harry's wrist without even grazing his skin.
    "He's sharp, too, and fast. I couldn't believe it. The most I did this morning was get in his way."
    Don't tell her this shit! She needs to respect you, your control of your life, your earning power!
    Ivory did not seem to want to talk, so they finished eating in silence. Harry was now convinced she was some kind of genetic throw-back, "close to the 'riginal" as she had said. Rare. And he found it difficult, as usual, to keep his eyes off her. The graceful flow of every motion – even the way she would bring her sandwich to her mouth, look at it, and then take a purposeful bite, kept Harry in a perpetual state of rapture.
    "You're my fantasy and now you're here."
    Ivory seemed surprised after his long silence. She looked into his eyes with that slow, deep search that cut cleanly to the back of his head. Then she went back to her lunch.
    "You day-dream a lot, don't you?"
    Ivory smiled.
    "Yeah – I thought so. And I can tell by the way you dress – and the clothes you picked out – and the clothes you brought along from home – the way you dress – kind of gypsy-like. Yeah. You have a way of seeing yourself."
    "Mmmm - hmmmm." Ivory stopped eating. Both of them reached across the table at exactly the same time and they held hands, Ivory's eyes going into him again.
    Suddenly Ivory looked down and pulled her hand away, and went back to her sandwich.
    "It's real," Harry said.
    "You have your family."
    "It's still real. Ivory, nothing is more important to me than you. Otherwise I wouldn't be here. I'd be there."
    "For now."
    For now.... Is that true? Harry searched his mind.
    "It's true," Ivory said.
    A chill ran up Harry's spine and raised the hair on his arms. Her eyes caught his again and he had to rip his gaze away from them. He turned and looked down the staircase and the narrow view to the street. Jeanie's bicycle was padlocked to her fence. Jeanie always looked so happy and she always waved when she saw Harry. Pretty. Coffee-and-cream. Freckled face. Fourteen years old.
    Fourteen....
    Just going-on fourteen, Harry. I'm really still thirteen.
    Thirteen....
    Mean, straight-edge razor.
    Harry shivered and pulled out the shopping list he had put in his shirt pocket while he was making the sandwiches. He handed it to Ivory along with a pen. He was trying to get rid of the movie in his head, the video of little Jeanie standing in the middle of his bathtub, the water draining away around her chocolatey feet and toes, Harry taking the towel and rubbing her dry while she giggled and squirmed.
    "See if there's anything we need to add to the list."
    He watched Ivory read it, and he watched her write down, in a careful, feminine hand: beer
    "Oh," Harry said, "put down cashew nuts. I always forget those. They make good TV snacks."
    Ivory smiled and wrote down cashew nuts. "I know you checkin' on me to see if I can spell. But I like cashew nuts, too. My Daddy, he always say they too 'spensive an' he always buy peanuts."
    "If I was checking on your spelling, I'd ask for pistachios."
    Ivory wrote down: pistachio nuts.
    "Ha! No, Baby, I don't eat those. But leave it on there if you do."
    "Nooo...." Ivory crossed out the two words by making a series of small crosses, and out of each cross she doodled a flower, a daisy, each with seven petals. Ivory smiled when she was finished. "He loves me, he loves me not," she said. "But this one here in the middle, it got eight petals, an' I think this las' one here – it got eight, too."
    "No," Harry said, looking closely. "It has seven!"
    "Mmmm - hmmmm."
    When they were ready to check out the few items in their basket, at the Winn-Dixie, Sandra had only one customer.
    "You could've used the speed lane," Sandra purred. She had such a sultry, deep voice. "Ten items or less."
    Harry was slapping their stuff onto the conveyor. He turned to Ivory. "We forgot the cashews! After all that talk."
    "I seen 'em but when we went pas' I thought you change your mind." Ivory disappeared down one of the aisles but she did not return in time to beat Sandra checking out the other things. There was an electric pause while Harry stood there alone – Sandra coolly looking him in the eye, so brazen, tapping her long, crimson nails gently on the rubber mat, her mouth ever-so-slightly curling into her Mona Lisa smile.
    "I love her," Harry said.
    "It's okay."
    "She's a dream come true."
    "I can see it in your eyes," Sandra said quietly, still looking into him.
    "I had eyes for you, too," Harry said. "For a long time."
    "You still do."
    Harry swallowed. His head shook involuntarily, but he managed a smile. "You're not afraid, are you. That you might be wrong. To say.... Shit, you know what I mean."
    "I can tell. No, I'm not afraid. I used to watch you when you came in. I could feel when you were around."
    "Oh, Sandra.... You are so beautiful. So wonderful."
    "Thank you."
    "Did I have a chance?"
    "Well – I would say to myself: He's white, he's so cocky, so full of himself. He's too old for me.... You know, all that stuff. But then when you'd come up, I'd think: This time he's going to ask me out, or say something I can't resist. But you never did."
    Harry sucked in a breath. "Oh, Baby...."
    He felt a shopping cart nudge the back of his legs. It was an old Cuban man who had been waiting behind him. "Hey! You want to marry her? Okay! But I wait for long time now!"
    Ivory squeezed past him with the cashews. Two cans.
    Sandra caught Ivory's eyes and Ivory looked away, down at her feet. Harry took Ivory's hand and kissed it, and Ivory straightened up and smiled.
    "When we leave here," Harry said, "we'll go to a place where you can have your beer in a frosted glass and where you can watch the boats sailing up the Intracoastal Waterway and where they have a jukebox that'll send us both straight to Heaven."
    Ivory looked embarrassed. She glanced at Sandra.
    "They're not all bad, sister," Sandra said. "They're not all bad."
    Out in the lot, Harry turned his back on Ivory and wiped the tears from his eyes. It took all he had to keep from crying audibly.

* * *

    Harry was finishing up in the bathroom and checking himself in the big mirror, vowing he would go back to a daily workout. Starting tomorrow.
    Ivory peered in. "Telephone for you."
    "Okay. Let me get my new pajamas on first." He pulled on the bottoms and checked himself in the mirror again. Much better! The kitchen phone was still on the hook and he went to the living-room. Bo was the only one who ever called him in the evening.
     He picked up the phone. "Yeah?"
    "Well excuse me!"
    "Who is this?"
    "Annie, you bastard! You forgot what I sound like, too?"
    "Annie?" Harry's heart pounded up.
    "Your wife!"
    "Wife. Yeah, well, you sound different. Are you okay? Is anything wrong up there?"
    "You mean, wrong besides the way your computer answers the phone?"
    "Computer?"
    "It's okay, Harry. Your girlfriend sounds so dumb. So dumb, Harry. Poor fella!"
    "Girlfriend?"
    "Sorry I called, husband!"
    "Come on, wait! Why did you call?"
    "Oh, just to tell you I love you. So you don't lie awake at night worrying about us. Your family. Your son, your daughter, your wife."
    "Well I do. I miss you, Annie, and that woman who answered the phone is not a girlfriend."
    "Then why did you just lower your voice? Asshole!"
    "And I miss Janey and Perry, too. Are they home? Let me talk to..."
    click
    Harry looked at the dead phone and hung up. He found Ivory out on the balcony with her Walkman, the headset tucked under her bandanna, a smile on her face as she looked out at the red blooms of the poinciana tree.

* * *

    The next morning, when he heard the phone, Harry nailed it on the second ring. He had gotten out of bed early having spent a sleepless night – alternating between the ache of lying so close to Ivory and the hurt he sensed Annie was feeling.
    "Annie?"
    "No! Danny!" Danny explained. They didn't need Harry any longer at the boat-yard but he could come in if he wanted to. Around ten. Talk to the boss. The big boss. An Anglo they had been selling to got busted and was rolling over on them. "Right now, Harry! They watch the yard. They watch the whole family! Be cool, Harry! Your telephone, be careful, men! Be cool!" Danny hung up.
    The phone rang again. It was Annie. "I forgot to remind you last night that we need money. If your little think-tank hasn't already got it all!"
    "That was Daisy," Harry said. "She lives across the street and she's not my girlfriend, in fact she calls me honky when she's drunk, and the reason she was over here at all..."
    "Harry!" Annie screamed. "Shut up! I mean, why are you talking so soft – she's there right now!"
    "Oh, bullshit!" Harry said, louder. "That's dumb!"
    "Well...."
    "Yeah!"
    "Can you send us some money today?"
    "Yeah. I forgot about it. A lot of bad shit came up. I'll go to the post office this morning. Do you realize what time it is?"
    "I wanted to catch you before you went to work. The phone was busy, anyway, so don't act like I woke you up."
    "I was talking to my boss. I just got laid off."
    "The Cubans, huh? Well, we knew that was coming."
    "I didn't."
    "Oh, Harry, you know they're only going to hire other Cubans! Or you'd know it if you didn't have your head up some hooker's ass!"
    "Sure, with AIDS all over the place. I'm glad you think I'm so stupid."
    "So does this mean you're coming home? How much money?"
    "I'm sending you a thousand dollars. Be careful with it. If I can't find another job here, well, I'll be broke when I get home," Harry lied. "So be careful with the money."
    "A thousand? Maybe you should keep some for the trip back. What about the truck-driving job? What about all those weekends you're telling me you have truck-driving school? Was that bullshit, too?"
    "No, Annie, I'm upset, okay? I've been working at the boat-yard for years. I love it there. I like this flat. I'm trying to get my head together, okay? And the truck company isn't all lined up yet. Once I sign up with them, I'll never get home!"
    "You want to come home first?"
    "Damn right I do!"
    "So when are you coming?"
    "I don't know!"
    "Can you do it?"
    "Do what?"
    "Drive one of those things."
    "Yeah, well, I'm working on it. It's harder than I thought. Than it looks."
    "Well, they still need an EMT on the ambulance crew, and there's a night-shift job open at the gas station on I-10."
    "Yeah. Minimum wage."
    "You wouldn't have any expenses. You could move out of that flat down there. You could grow more reefer here."
    "Annie – this phone's not cool anymore."
    "Oh. Okay. What did you do?"
    "I found this DEA officer asleep on a park bench and I pissed in his jacket pocket and he woke up."
    "Say hello to Miss Sporty Black for me. I've got to go. Don't forget the money, Harry. Oh, and pick up some rubbers before you get home in case you ever get lonesome for some good, old-fashioned white meat."
    "Uh-huh. Funny."
    "Goodbye, Mister mid-life crisis."
    Harry looked around. "I love you!"
    Annie burped a wet one and hung up.
    In the bedroom, Ivory was still sleeping. Early morning light filtered in through the gauze curtains, and Ivory's ebony beauty was the dark center of the big, brass bed. Harry touched her shoulder and she sat straight up, eyes wide open without a hint of sleepiness in them. She adjusted the covers around herself.
    "Here's your coffee, Ivory," Harry said, setting the cup down on the little table beside her.
    Nipples like lug-nuts....
    At home, it was Annie. She would say, "Here's your coffee, Harry!"

* * *

    Harry had the chopped bacon and the onions already simmering for some time (plus a third of a stick of real butter) when he dumped in a little chopped, green, bell-pepper. He poured a can of pork & beans on top of everything and partially stirred it in. It was the Cubans who had shown him how to convert a can of pork & beans into a feast.
    It was all simmering down dark when Ivory glided in. Harry kissed her cheek and headed for the door. "Baby, I'm going outside to lock up everything. There's some brown sugar in the cabinet over the stove. How about sprinkling a little bit over the beans and turn the flame down as low as it will go, okay?"
    "Mmmm - hmmmm."
    While Harry was rolling up the windows in the pickup – it was getting dark – Jeanie rode up to him on her bicycle.
    "Jeanie fourteen!" Harry said.
    "Harry forty!"
    "Thirty-eight – give me a break!"
    "And you're still alive!"
    "Hey! Come on, Jeanie, I'm not that old!"
    "No, I mean still alive after your other girlfriend came over this morning, ha ha!"
    "While I was at work?"
    "Do you work? ha ha! Yeah. The one with the big T-bird. The Jesus freak."
    "Sunday...."
    "Yeah. You didn't know? She got all snotty with me when she left. I heard some yelling so I came over but I didn't go up, you know, and then the bitch comes back down the stairs with her jugs bouncing all over the place and she looks at me and she spits! Then she goes: 'Jesus loves you anyway!' For no damn reason!"
    Harry looked up at his place. The lights were switching on all over, one-by one. "Did you whip out your razor?"
    "I should've!"
    "She went up, huh? Inside?"
    "Yeah. She walked right in. You should tell your girlfriend to keep the door locked. She didn't tell you about it?"
    "No! I better go back up there. I'll see you, little fox. You're beautiful!"
    "Okay, Harry. Good luck!"
    Jeanie rode off and Harry locked Love Jones' doors. He headed for the stairs but Jeanie was circling back. "You're new girlfriend's nice, Harry!"
    "Thanks, Jeanie! I love her!"
    Harry smelled the smoke before he got inside and he dashed to the stove. The burner under the beans had been turned up. Ivory was sitting calmly at the kitchen table rolling a cold can of Busch beer around in her hands. She peered into the little opening as it rotated around.
    "Ivory!"
    "Mmmm - hmmmm."
    "You couldn't smell the beans burning?" Harry took the spatula and checked them. "Well, the stuff on top is okay I guess." He got out the brown sugar.
    "I already put the sugar on."
    Harry looked. "Oh, yeah, okay.... You were supposed to turn the flame down. You couldn't smell them burning?"
    No answer.
    "Ivory!"
    "Well – I turn the flame down but it go out. So I turn it back up to make up for it."
    "Oh. Okay.... It's okay, Ivory."
    "Mmmm - hmmmm."
    "Do you know how to cook? Do they let you cook at home?"
    "No. I think I need to be goin' home now." Ivory got up from the table while Harry was tasting the beans with a spoon.
    "These are good! Sit down! We'll be going back home soon. Now sit! When was the last time you ate?"
    "Breakfas'." Ivory sat back down. "I don' need to eat!"
    "And finish that beer because we're having coffee with supper."
    Ivory chug-a-lugged the rest of her beer like a pro and tossed the empty at the garbage can. It bounced off the lid with a clang and rolled toward Harry's feet. Harry went for it and slung it past her head into the wall.
    "Put it where it belongs."
    Ivory saw the fire in his eyes and got up and mashed the pedal on the garbage can with a bare foot. When the lid popped up, Harry saw several other cans in there which he hadn't paid any attention to when he was peeling the onion. Ivory dropped the can in.
    "No more beer for you today."
    "An' you ain' gonna fuck me no more, neither!"
    "What? I'll fuck you when I want to. Anytime I want to!"
    Ivory sat back down at the table, her long legs at the side. She reached up under her skirt and raised up off the chair.
    Harry lashed out and grabbed her arm. "What are you doing?" He remembered Jeanie's razor, appearing out of nowhere. Ivory snatched her arm away.
    "Stand up," Harry said.
    Ivory stood, her eyes boring into his.
    "What's under your skirt?" Harry lifted her skirt up high. Ivory was wearing a lacy, white G-string. "Damn! Oh, Ivory! You are so beautiful! I'm sorry." He let the skirt drop. Ivory folded her arms across her chest, her eyes accusing him, holding onto him.
    "What are you hiding under that blouse?" Harry had to struggle with her to force her arms away. Buttons popped. Ivory was wearing a matching, lacy-white bra with cut-outs for the nipples. "Ivory! Where in hell...?"
    "My sister, Connie, she mail-order it for me. An' the catalog say it make a man crazy in love."
    "Oh, Ivory, you are so precious! And I am, crazy in love."
    "Oh, well, this lady come today an' she say you in love wif' her, so.... An' she say you give her that Thunderbird, an' so I know you can' give me no car like that, no Thunderbird, so..."
    "Danny gave her that car. A guy from work. She's lying! That bitch! Why did you let her in? Why wasn't the door locked?" Harry was trying to button Ivory's blouse back up with the buttons that were left, but his hands had a mind of their own.
    "She say she your fren', so I thought it be okay."
    "What if a thief or a mugger said he was my friend?"
    "I don' know!" Ivory slapped Harry's hands away.
    "You put this stuff on for me?"
    "Yes!"
    Harry picked her up and carried her into the bedroom, and slapped her down onto his big, brass bed. When he was finished with her, the beans were cold.

* * *

    After Harry re-heated their supper they sat there in the kitchen and ate, Ivory in her new bathrobe: long, elegant, and purple, and Harry in his new pajamas: white with vertical blue stripes. Harry had not worn pajamas since he was a little boy.
    "I like these beans, Ivory said. "You cook jus' like my Daddy."
    "Yeah? Good!"
    Ivory was alternating between the beans and a slice of buttered granola bread, her long slender arms bringing the food to her mouth with such poetry – Harry could not remember ever enjoying the watching of somebody eat before. But whenever he could catch her eyes there was nothing there now. He had killed the light in them.
    He would have to find a way to bring some joy. And then there was Sunday's impromptu visit, which had destroyed what little safety Ivory felt at his place. Piss on Sunday. She could install the other, extra set of stereo speakers he bought for the T-bird herself. No, he'd give them to Annie – install them in her little mini-truck, her trucklet, when he got home. She'd like that. And Annie deserved them.
    Harry pictured himself lying on his back in the big trunk of Sunday's Thunderbird, drilling holes through the rear deck for the speakers, and Sunday going down on him as he lay there....
    Harry slammed his fist down on the table to drive out the vision, the temptation, the demon.
    Ivory looked up.
    "I'm sorry, Ivory, I was thinking about something – daydreaming – and I forgot it wasn't real."
    Ivory smiled.
    "Tomorrow when I go to work... Shit! I forgot! I don't work there anymore! Damn!" He looked at Ivory, who seemed to be happier suddenly. "Well, you don't seem to be worried about that."
    "I know you figure somethin' out."
    "Yeah.... I asked the big boss – he turned out to be a real interesting old dude, looked like that grandpa-type guy that hawks Quaker Oats on TV – only tough – I asked him if he had any more runs for me to make, you know, up to Atlanta or wherever Shut up, Harry! No need to tell her the details! and he said Miami was dry right now. 'No reefer in Miami!' is exactly the way he said it, like it's something that should never happen. Anyway, I rolled him a joint of my stuff just to show off a little and he loved it! He wanted to buy like five-hundred pounds! I couldn't believe it! Hell, I don't even have a pound left I don't think, until the new shit comes in next fall, and that's personal stuff, for you and me and Annie and my friends." Harry immediately regretted mentioning Annie. "Does your father have any left we could bring down here to sell? We could get good money for it right now."
    "Daddy, he don' tell me 'bout it. He tell Connie but she ain' spose talk about it."
    "Well, I need to run up there and see him, if he'll still talk to me. He's a neat guy and I fucked up good with him, sneaking you off. I know I should've tried to talk with him about it first."
    Ivory looked away. "He be glad when you bring me back safe an' soun'."
    "You really think so?"
    "Can we go home tomorrow?"
    "That bad, huh? Well, I can't blame you. Not tomorrow, but maybe in a couple days.... You hate it here that bad?"
    "Oh, no, I like Miami. An' I like this place."
    "It's me."
    "Mmmm - hmmmm."
    "I'm sorry, Ivory. I really am. I love you so much."
    "Mmmm - hmmmm.... You be a nice man, but...."
    ...a nice man....
    Then why did she dress up in that sexy G-string – that peek-a-boo bra? She said it would make a man crazy in love!
    "When you drop me off at home I give Connie a note an' she can give it to Janey an' you can fin' out if Daddy still be mad. An' then you can come an' visit."
    Harry sighed.
    "Will you stay at home? Be a good girl? Wait for me?"
    "Mmmm - hmmmm. If we be goin' steady an' you be my boyfren'."
    "No letters to Harold? No trips to Apalachicola?"
    "Nooo.... If you give me your necklace to wear. To show I'm your girlfren'...."
    ...necklace....
    Harry reached for the crystal star which hung from the gold chain around his neck. It was his most prized possession. He had even refused Annie permission just to borrow it one night. He pulled it out from under his pajama shirt and slipped the heavy, gold chain over his head. With a corner of the shirt he polished the sharp points of the star, and checked it for smudges. He dangled the star in the light which hung over the kitchen table. "In the sun it flashes with just the hint of purple, but I see it now, I guess from your bathrobe." The star was just a little over an inch across, and fat in the middle. "Pure crystal, whatever that is." He laughed, and got up, and gently lowered the chain over Ivory's neck. He saw the happiness on her face. "I have a habit of keeping it under my shirt so that when I'm working and stuff it doesn't dangle out and get caught in something. And people will rip the necklace right off your neck if they think it's solid gold, too. You need to keep that in mind."
    Ivory looked down at the chain, holding it out. "Solid gold?"
    "That's why it's so heavy and soft. There's a couple thousand dollars worth of gold in it!"
    Ivory's smile returned. She got up and headed to the bathroom and the big, well-lighted mirror. Harry watched her open the top of her robe so she could see how it looked against her glossy-blackness with an open neckline.
    "Baby, you are so beautiful."
    Ivory turned toward him and put her arms around him and hugged him, touching her cheek to his. Then she gave him a quick kiss, and Harry could see her blush in the bright, bathroom light. She turned back to the mirror, hands on her hips now, striking poses. The rosy blush still brightening her ebony face. Harry backed away with the feel of her arms around him burning into his memory forever.
    The kitchen was a mess. He sat at the table for a few minutes, then felt for the missing chain around his neck. He went back to the bathroom. Ivory had removed her robe and was standing there in a pair of leopard-print bikini panties Harry had not seen before. She was inserting her large, gold, hoop earrings. Harry smelled whiskey and had to tear his eyes away from his necklace hanging between her naked, pointy breasts. The whiskey was in a paper cup sitting on the edge of the sink.
    "I be queen of the jungle now."
    Harry took a swallow of the shine and was about to pour the rest out into the sink but changed his mind. So what was wrong with her wanting to play Queen of the Jungle?
    But he said, "That's enough booze for tonight. You have to be off this stuff before I take you back to your father."
    "Mmmm - hmmmm. I quit when we get there." She turned and posed for him.
    "Oh, Ivory, stop it! No, don't stop it!" He moved up and pulled her to him but she broke away and snatched up the ankle bracelet she had draped over the towel rack.
    "This slave bracelet be solid gold, too, an' these earrings." She put a leg up on the side of the bathtub and snapped the tiny bracelet around her ankle. When Harry was able to look up she was downing the rest of the whiskey. He wondered how she had snuck the whiskey into that paper cup without his seeing it. He laughed, his arms out to receive her, her smile so bright and her gold cap with the star cut-out in it flashing in her teeth. She dodged him and flopped down onto the bed, on her back, her arms outstretched to Harry as he tore off his pajamas.
    Harry loved on her for the longest time.
    When he awoke and glanced at the clock, Harry was surprised to see that it was only ten PM. Lights were switching out in the flat and Ivory returned wearing her robe.
    "Front door locked?"
    "Mmmm - hmmmm."
    Harry watched her slip out of the robe. She was still wearing the jewelry and she did not look the least bit tired. It was his habit to go to bed early and get up at first light, but.... He watched her stop and look at herself in the mirror over her dresser.
    "Have you been into the whiskey again? I can smell it."
    "Mmmm - hmmmm." Ivory leapt into the bed and landed beside him so softly, like a cat. "You be my slave, now," she said.
    "Ha! Maybe, but you're still my slave!"
    "I ain' nobody's slave!"
    "Except mine!"
    "Mmmm - hmmmm. Maybe after I get my new car."
    "Ivory! You are the most mercenary... Well, that means..."
    "I know what mercenary mean."
    "I'm sorry."
    "It be okay."
    Harry put an arm around her after she pulled up the sheet. "Baby – before – when we were making love, I..."
    "You were making love."
    "Yeah, well, what I was trying to say was (but Harry had already forgotten), I was going to say that I tried to fix it so you could come this time, too, but, well..."
    "I know it be my fault. I have this book...."
    "Well, maybe tomorrow, with a little more whiskey...."
    "Mmmm - hmmmm. An' if I can come, then maybe my period come, too, an' then we can have my baby."
    "Our baby."
    "Oh, it be my baby but it be my baby from my blue-eyed man, see, now I have my steady boyfren' an' you say I have a car now, so now I be ready."
    Harry thought about it, but not too hard because he was so happy. He sat up and stretched. "You're not tired?"
    "Nooo...."
    "Did you do the dishes while I was asleep?"
    silence....
    "Ivory!"
    "I lef' the light on in the kitchen."
    Harry sighed and got up. Everything in the kitchen was exactly as they had left it. He cut back trough the bathroom. "I'll do the dishes! Again! One more time! Okay?"
    "Mmmm - hmmmm."
    Harry lowered his voice. "I guess a jungle princess doesn't do dishes, huh?"
    "We eat off leaves in the jungle. Big ol' banana leaves. Then we throws 'em away!"
    "Yeah...."
    Back in the kitchen it took Harry less than fifteen minutes. Perry and Janey had a thing about dishes, too. He would tell them: Once you get started, one thing leads to another and, then the dishes are done." And they would laugh, and they would shout together: "One day leads to another day and, then you're dead!"

     <end chapter-17>

Humanism with attitude! Rev: 10 April 2005