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%u00a9Jack Fritscher, Ph.D., All Rights ReservedHOW TO LEGALLY QUOTE FROM THIS BOOK238 Jack Fritscher%u201cGet those big old things away from me,%u201d she said to him. %u201cHaven%u2019t you caused enough trouble?%u201d%u201cListen here, Queenie, lay off the beer. That%u2019s the sixth one since supper.%u201d They often quarreled openly for sport. Joe could only beat Louisa by silence. Too often he forgot to use his best weapon.%u201cJoe Blow, do you have to watch everything I do?%u201dThey both acted like I was an invisible audience invited into their house. The twenty bucks for my room was the price of admission to their floorshow. %u201cWho earns the money that buys your beer?%u201d%u201cDo me a big favor, Joey. Take the money. Run off to Florida.%u201d%u201cDon%u2019t tempt me twice.%u201d%u201cTake the money and run off.%u201d She taunted him beyond belief. Her body had given out before his, earning him her undying resentment.%u201cMoney I don%u2019t need,%u201d Joe said. %u201cI can go out and earn it.%u201d%u201cTake it anyway. Go ahead.%u201d Louisa became grand. %u201cI%u2019ll get a room by myself.%u201d%u201cKid, are you looking for women?%u201d Joe said to me. %u201cForget it. Queenie%u2019s worse than when she was sixteen. She was frustrated then.%u201d%u201cI should have gone out and had some drinks by myself tonight.%u201d%u201cOh mother, you talk like a lady with a paper nose.%u201d%u201cOh you, you%u2019re so funny.%u201d Louisa turned, her face flushed under the thick permanent swirls of her very fixed black hair. From her depths she shot tremendous strength to her middle finger, thrusting it manfully in Joe%u2019s face. %u201cTake that,%u201d she said and turned to her beer.Joe reeled. %u201cWomen don%u2019t give men the finger.%u201d%u201cWhat planet are you on?%u201d Louisa said.Joe fell into a kitchen chair and put his head in his big arms on the table. I sat quietly across from them, sorry for him at the mercy of her change-of-life. She had taken away his part. She had gestured like a man. He was a handsome middle-aged man with big-nosed Balkan features and a drayman%u2019s pride in his body. It had given him three sons and he knew how to strut. His hard high chest had not softened over his strong belly, and Louisa maybe shunned him, but he had heat, he jibed at her, at the house where the girls knew all the tricks. He was a proud man. He worked. They owned a brick house. They had cars. He was not falling apart. She was enjoying falling apart. She had gestured like a man, not graciously like the nice old lady, refinished with a doll-face of her choice, that his old age had envisioned for itself.