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%u00a9Jack Fritscher, Ph.D., All Rights ReservedHOW TO LEGALLY QUOTE FROM THIS BOOK198 Jack Fritschersaid. Good people, his folks, but not too cognizant,%u201d he lingered over the word, %u201c...cognizant...of what goes on in modern kids%u2019 modern-day heads. We wrote it up and called it %u2018Teenage Doldrums.%u2019 Of course, we never said in the article that Jimmy shot himself for sure; said it could have been an accident, like the coroner told his folks. It could have been an accident.%u201d%u201cYou always leave room for hope,%u201d Mauve said. %u201cI certainly wouldn%u2019t want it on my mind if one of my boys, or Edith there, went off and shot their heads off on my account. Edith won%u2019t have to shoot her head off. Edith smokes cigarettes. Edith is my daughter-in-law, Chuckie%u2019s wife.%u201d%u201cThat poor man and woman have never been the same,%u201d Walter said.%u201cThat%u2019s sad,%u201d I said. %u201cThere certainly is a great opportunity to express social responsibility in the Catholic press.%u201d%u201cYes,%u201d Lock said. %u201cOur Misericordia Review has a circulation of 20,000 souls.%u201d%u201cThink of that,%u201d Mauve said.%u201cJimmy%u2019s parents never will be the same either,%u201d Walt said. %u201cAlways thinking they might have caused him to do it. Skippy here don%u2019t know why he did it.%u201d%u201cHe certainly doesn%u2019t.%u201d Edith said her first words.They looked at her. A kind of fear flushed suddenly in their faces. Chuckie, the man with the yellow skin, shifted slightly, touched her arm, and said, %u201cNow, Edie, honey.%u201d%u201cChristamighty,%u201d Edith said, %u201cthe Catholic press stinks.%u201dThey stood in silence before her. Lock and I said nothing.%u201cEdith, please,%u201d Mauve said, her white hands fluttering to her powdered head. %u201cI%u2019ll have an attack.%u201d%u201cJesus will cure you and make you well.%u201d She mocked the older woman.The two men, father and son, moved, each to his own wife.%u201cWe%u2019d best be going,%u201d Lock said. %u201cWe%u2019ve some things to do for Rector Karg.%u201d%u201cHe%u2019s such a lovely man,%u201d Mauve said. %u201cOrdination Day is a busy day today.%u201d I moved back, smiling. %u201cNice to have met you.%u201d Liar.The five of them stood there, Walter and Mauve and Skippy and Chuckie and Edith, caricatures of themselves, glaring. Skippy, the boy with acne, turned rosy red. Only he nodded good-bye.%u201cDamn you,%u201d I said to Lock, %u201cthey were finally getting like interesting. Whose guests are they?%u201d%u201cSomebody%u2019s aunt and uncle, I think. How about that Edith.%u201d%u201cSome witch.%u201d