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'I don't care what he or any of those shitters do,' Arnie said, and then, in a strangely offhand voice he added, 'It doesn't matter anymore anyhow.'

Dennis said, 'Arnie, are you all right?'

And for a moment a look of desperate sadness passed over Arnie's face - more than sadness. He looked harried and haunted. It was the face, Dennis thought later (it is so easy to see these things later; too much later) of someone so bewildered and entangled and weary of struggling that he hardly knows anymore what it is he is doing.

Then that expression, like that other look of dark suspicion, was gone.

'Sure,' he said. 'I'm great. Except that you're not the only one with a hurt back. You remember when I strained it at Philly Plains?'

Dennis nodded.

'Check this out.' He stood up and pulled his shirt out of his pants. Something seemed to dance in his eyes. Something flipping and turning at a black depth.

He lifted his shirt. It wasn't old-fashioned like LeBay's; it was cleaner, too - a neat, seemingly unbroken band of Lycra about twelve inches across. But, Dennis thought, a brace was a brace. It was too close to LeBay for comfort.

'I put another hurt on it getting Christine back to Will's,' Arnie said. 'I don't even remember how I did it, that's how upset I was. Hooking her up to the wrecker, I guess, but I don't know for sure. At first it wasn't too bad, then it got worse. Dr Mascia prescribed - Dennis, are you okay?'

With what felt like a fantastic effort, Dennis kept his voice even. He moved his features around into an expression which felt at least faintly like pleasant interest and still there was that something dancing in Arnie's eyes, dancing and dancing.

'You'll shake it off,' Dennis said

'Sure, I imagine,' Arnie said, tucking his shirt back in around the back brace. 'I'm just supposed to watch what I lift so I don't do it again.'

He smiled at Dennis.

'If there was stilt a draft, it would keep me out of the Army,' he said.

Once again Dennis restrained himself from any movement that could be interpreted as surprise, but he put his arms under the bed's top sheet. At the sight of that back brace, so like LeBay's, they had broken out in gooseflesh.

Arnie's eyes - like black water under thin grey March ice. Black water and glee dancing far down within them like the twisting, decomposing body of a drowned man. 'Listen,' Arnie said briskly. 'I gotta move. Hope you didn't think I could hang around a lousy place like this all night.'

'That's you, always in demand,' Dennis said. 'Seriously, man, thanks. You cheered up a grim day.'

For one strange instant, he thought Arnie was going to weep. That dancing thing down deep in his eyes was gone and his friend was there - really there. Then Arnie smiled sincerely. 'Just remember one thing, Dennis: nobody misses you. Nobody at all.'

'Eat me raw through a Flavour Straw,' Dennis said solemnly.

Arnie gave him the finger

The formalities were now complete; Arnie could leave He gathered up his brown shopping bag, considerably deflated, candle-holders and empty beer bottles clinking inside.

Dennis had a sudden inspiration. He rapped his knuckles on his leg cast. 'Sign this, Arnie, would you?'

'I already did, didn't I?'

'Yeah, but it wore off. Sign it again?'

Arnie shrugged. 'If you've got a pen.'

Dennis gave him one from the drawer of the night-table. Grinning, Arnie bent over the cast, which was hoisted to an angle over the bed with a series of weights and pulleys, found white space in the intaglio of names and mottoes, and scribbled:

He patted the cast when he was done and handed the pen back to Dennis. 'Okay?'

'Yeah,' Dennis said. 'Thanks. Stay loose, Arnie.'

'You know it. Happy Thanksgiving.'

'Same to you.'

Arnie left. Later on, Dennis's mother and father came in; Ellie, apparently exhausted by the day's hilarity, had gone home to bed, On their way home, the Guilders commented to each other on how withdrawn Dennis had seemed.

'He was in a blue study, all right,' Guilder