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in his crib but has to come trotting out and watch us make love on the bed but Billie says “That’s good, hell learn, what other way will he ever learn?”—I feel ashamed but because Billie is there and she’s the mother I must go along and not worry—Another sinister fact—At one point the poor child is drooling long slavers of spit from his lips watching, I cry “Billie, look at him, it’s not good for him” but she says again “Anything he wants he can have, even us.”

“But kid it’s not fair, why doesnt he just sleep?”—“He doesnt wanta sleep, he wants to be with us”—“Ooh,” and I realize Billie is insane and I’m not as insane as I thought and there’s something wrong—I feel myself skidding: also because during the following week I keep sitting in that same chair by the goldfish bowl drinking bottle after bottle of port like an automaton, worrying about something, Monsanto comes to visit, McLear, Fagan, everybody, they call to me dashing up the stairs and we have long drunken days talking but I never seem to get out of that chair and never even take another delightful warm bath reading books—And at night Billie comes home and we pitch into love again like monsters who dont know what else to do and by now I’m too blurry to know what’s going on anyway tho she reassures me everything is alright, and meanwhile Cody has completely disappeared—In fact I call him up and say “Are you gonna come back and get me here?”—“Yes yes yes in a few days, stay there” as tho maybe he wants me to learn what’s happening like putting me throu 128