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.This involved sharing a pot of tea.Mannie always brewed it for Orr, since Orr had neversmoked and couldn't inhale without coughing.They discussed world affairs a little.Mannie hated theSports Shows; he stayed home and watched the WPC educational shows for pre-Child Center childrenevery afternoon."The alligator puppet, Dooby Doo, he's a real cool cat," he said.There were long gapsin the conversation, reflections of the large holes in the fabric of Mannie's mind, worn thin by theapplication of innumerable chemicals over the years.But there was peace and privacy in his grubbybasement, and weak cannabis tea had a mildly relaxing effect on Orr.At last he lugged the phonographupstairs, and plugged it into a wall-socket in his bare living room.He put the record on, and then held theneedle-arm suspended over the turning disk.What did he want?He didn't know.Help, he supposed.Well, what came would be acceptable, as Tiua'k Ennbe Ennbe hadsaid.Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.htmlHe set the needle carefully on the outer groove, and lay down beside the phonograph on the dusty floor.Do you need anybody? I need somebody to love.The machine was automatic; when it had played the record it grumbled softly a moment, clicked itsinnards, and returned the needle to the first groove.Iget by, with a little help,With a little help from my friends.During the eleventh replay Orr fell sound asleep.Awakening in the high, bare, twilit room, Heather was disconcerted.Where on earth?She had been asleep.Gone to sleep sitting on the floor with her legs stretched out and her back againstthe piano.Marijuana always made her sleepy, and stupid, too, but you couldn't hurt Mannie's feelingsand refuse it, the poor old pothead.George lay flat as a skinned cat on the floor, right by thephonograph, which was slowly eating its way through "With a Little Help" right down to the turntable.She cut the volume down slowly, then stopped the machine.George never stirred; his lips were slightlyparted, his eyes firmly closed.How funny that they had both gone to sleep listening to the music.She gotup off her knees and went out to the kitchen to see what was for dinner.Oh for Christsake, pig liver.It was nourishing and the best value you could get for three meat-rationstamps by weight.She had picked it up at the Mart yesterday.Well, cut real thin, and fried with salt porkand onions.yecchh.Oh well, she was hungry enough to eat pig liver, and George wasn't a picky man.Ifit was decent food he ate and enjoyed it and if it was lousy pig liver he ate it.Praise God from whom allblessings flow, including good-natured men.As she set the kitchen table and put two potatoes and half a cabbage on to cook, she paused from timeto time: she did feel odd.Disoriented.From the damn pot, and going to sleep on the floor at all hours, nodoubt.George came in, disheveled and dusty-shirted.He stared at her.She said, "Well.Good morning!"He stood looking at her and smiling, a broad radiant smile of pure joy.She had never received so greata compliment in her life; she was abashed by that joy, which she had caused."My dear wife," he said,taking her hands.He looked at them, palms and backs, and put them up against his face."You should bebrown," he said, and to her dismay she saw tears in his eyes.For a moment, just that moment, she had anotion of what was going on; she recalled being brown, and remembered the silence in the cabin at night,and the sound of the creek, and many other things, all in a flash.But George was a more urgentconsideration.She was holding him, as he held her."You're worn out," she said, "you're upset, you fellasleep on the floor.It's that bastard Haber.Don't go back to him.Just don't.I don't care what he does,we'll take it to court, we'll appeal it, even if he slaps a Constraint injunction on you and sticks you inLinnton we'll get you a different shrink and get you out again.You can't go on with him, he's destroyingyou.""Nobody can destroy me," he said, and laughed a little, deep in his chest, almost a sob, "not so long as Ihave a little help from my friends.I'll go back, it's not going to last much longer.It's not me I'm worriedabout, any more.But don't worry." They hung on to each other, in touch at all available surfaces,Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.htmlabsolutely unified, while the liver and onions sizzled in the pan."I fell asleep too," she said into his neck, "Igot so groggy typing up old Rutti's dumb letters.But that's a good record you bought.I loved the Beatleswhen I was a kid but the Government stations never play them any more.""It was a present," George said, but the liver popped in the pan, and she had to disengage herself andsee to it.At dinner George watched her; she watched him a good bit, too.They had been married sevenmonths.They said nothing of any importance.They washed up the dishes and went to bed.In bed, theymade love.Love doesn't just sit there, like a stone, it has to be made, like bread; re-made all the time,made new.When it was made, they lay in each other's arms, holding love, asleep.In her sleep Heatherheard the roaring of a creek full of the voices of unborn children singing.In his sleep George saw the depths of the open sea.Heather was the secretary of an aged and otiose legal partnership, Ponder and Rutti
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