"Where is she?" Elise asked. "Georgia or somewhere, you told me but I forgot. Going to school you said."

"Why did you do that?" one of the men asked.

The other senior citizens stared at her.

"Who can tell?" said Kate. "Id be the last to know."

"Its religious."

The two men looked at the sky to make sure all of our countrys satellites were in the right places.

"Maybe its not so good?" Jerome asked. "What do you think?"

"There was another thing we used to do," Kate said calmly. "You and your girl friend each wrote the names of three boys on three slips of paper, on the first day of the month. The names of three boys you wanted to ask you to go out with them. Then your girl friend held the three slips of paper in her cupped hands and you closed your eyes and picked --"

"Its the first of the month. If you say rabbit four times, once to each corner of the room, or the space that you are in, on the first of the month before you eat lunch, then you will be loved in that month."

"You cant read," Frank said, "youre blind."

"What about your daughter the nun?" the second woman, whose name was Elise, asked the first, whose name was Kate. "You havent heard from her?"

One of the men leaned around his partner and九九藏書 asked: "Well, is it working? Are you loved?"

"I think its probably just an old wives tale," one of the men said. The other male senior citizen cracked up.

"Shes getting her masters," Kate said, "they send them. Shes a rambling wreck from Georgia Tech. I was going down to visit at Thanksgiving."

"Maybe."

"What is shook down?"

A group of senior citizens on a bench in Washington Square Park in New York City. There were two female senior citizens and two male senior citizens.

"My daughter the nun," Kate said, "you wouldnt believe."

She gave him a generous and loving smile.

"Invariably," Kate said. "Without fail. Worked every time."

"The I.T.U. is considered a very good union," Elise said. "I once went with a man in the I.T.U. He was a composing-room foreman and his name was Harry Foreman, that was a coincidence, and he made very good money. We went to Luchows a lot. He liked German food."

"When I was a girl, a little girl, I had to go into my fathers bar to get the butter," Kate said. "My father had a bar in Brooklyn. The icebox was in the bar. The only icebox. My mother sent me downstairs to get the butter. All the men turned and looked at me as I entered the bar."

"Whats to think about?" Fread.99csw.comrank asked. "There was Czechoslovakia. Czechoslovakia says it all."

"Nope."

"No," Kate said. "Its good." She gazed about her at the new life sprouting in sandboxes and jungle gyms. "Wish I had some kids to yell at."

"So?" said Elise. "So, so, so?"

Kate gazed at Jeromes coat, which was old, at his shirt, old, then at his pants, which were quite old, and at his shoes, which were new.

"Its good," Kate said. "I could do without the irony."

"What shouldnt they have?"

"How could you be in it if you didnt believe in it?" Elise asked.

"My views were not consulted," Jerome said. "They didnt ask me, they told me. But I still had my inner belief, which was that I didnt believe in it. I was in the MPs. I rose through the ranks. I was a provost marshal, at the end. I once shook down an entire battalion of Seabees, six hundred men."

"I didnt believe in the unions and I didnt believe in the government whether Republican or Democrat," Jerome said. "And I didnt believe in --"

"I dont believe it," Jerome said again. "I dont believe in things like that and never have. I dont believe in magic and I dont believe in superstition. I dont believe in Judaism, Christianity, or Eastern thought. Nonread.99csw.come of em. I didnt believe in the First World War even though I was a child in the First World War and youll go a long way before you find somebody who didnt believe in the First World War. That was a very popular war, where I lived. I didnt believe in the Second World War either and I was in it."

"Yes," Jerome said, with a startled look. "Of course. Why?"

"Do you have prostate trouble?" she asked.

"Me too," Elise said. "I could do without the irony."

"You closed your eyes and picked one and put it in your shoe. And you did the same for her. And then that boy would come around. It always worked. Invariably."

"Did you believe in the international Communist conspiracy?" Frank asked Jerome.

"Also I didnt believe in the United Nations and before that I didnt believe in the League of Nations," Jerome said. "Furthermore," he said, giving Kate a meaningful glance, "I didnt believe women should be given the vote."

"Good," Kate said. "I dont believe in prostate trouble. I dont believe there is such a thing as a prostate."

"Goddamn," Elise said. "Wish Id known that."

"But your father bounded out from behind the bar and got you the butter meanwhile looking sternly at all the other people in the bar to keep th九九藏書em from looking at you," Elise suggested.

"Black market stuff. Booze. Dope. Government property. Unauthorized weapons." He paused. "What else didnt I believe in? I didnt believe in the atom bomb but I was wrong about that. The unions."

"I dont believe it," said the second male senior citizen, whose name was Jerome.

"No," Kate said. "He was on his ass most of the time. What they say about bartenders not drinking is not true."

"What?"

"I called her and said I was coming and she said but Thanksgiving Day is the game. So I said the game, the game, O.K. Ill go to the game, I dont mind going to the game, get me a ticket. And she said but Mother Im in the flash card section. My daughter the nun."

"I havent decided about whether there is an international Communist conspiracy," Elise said. "Im still thinking about it."

"Thats when you and your people go through their foot lockers and sea bags and personal belongings looking for stuff they shouldnt have."

Some angry black people walked by carrying steel-band instruments and bunches of flowers.

"What is it?"

"My pal the rabbi told me, hes dead now; He said it was a Hasidic writing."

Some street people walked past the group of senior citizens but decided that the senior citizens werent worth ahttps://read.99csw.comsking for small change. The decision was plain on their faces.

"Shall we discuss old men?" the first woman asked the second woman.

"Theyre different now," Elise said, "youre lucky shes not keeping company with one of those priests with his hair in a pigtail."

"There was one thing I believed," Jerome said.

"You mean to tell me that if you put the piece of paper with the boys name on it in your shoe on the first day of the month he invariably came around?" Elise asked Kate.

"It is forbidden to grow old."

"But you didnt."

"Rabbit, rabbit, rabbit, rabbit," one of the women said suddenly. She turned her head to each of the four corners of an imaginary room as she did so.

"I dont think thats true," the second woman senior citizen said. "I never heard it before and Ive heard everything."

The old people thought about this for a while, on the bench.

"You were wrong about that too," said the other man, Frank. "I was a linotype operator when I was nineteen and I was a linotype operator until I was sixty and let me tell you, mister, if we hadnt had the union all we would have got was nickels and dimes. Nickels and dimes. Period. So dont say anything against the trade union movement while Im sitting here, because I know what Im talking about. You dont."