Eccles doesn't laugh as he had hoped; he seems to dismiss the remark as impudence, a little over the line. But it was the truth. "It's the truth. It just felt like the whole business was fetching and hauling, all the time trying to hold this mess together she was making all the time. I don't know, it seemed like I was glued in with a lot of busted toys and empty glasses and the television going and meals late or never and no way of getting out. Then all of a sudden it hit me how easy it was to get out, just walk out, and by damn it was easy."
"For less than two days, it's been."
"It's been not only easy. It's been strange, too." Rather than try to describe the strangeness, he asks, "What's Janice going to do, do you think?"
"She doesn't know. Your wife seems almost paralyzed; she doesn't want anyone to do anything."
"Poor kid. She's such a mutt."
"Why are you here?"
" 'Cause you caught me."
"I mean why were you in front of your home?"
"I came back to get clean clothes."
"Do clean clothes mean so much to you? Why cling to that decency if trampling on the others is so easy?"
Rabbit feels now the danger of talking; his words are coming back to him, little hooks and snares are being fashioned. "Also I was leaving her the car."
"Why? Don't you need it, to explore your freedom in?"
"I just thought she should have it. Her father sold it to us cheap. Anyway it didn't do me any good."
"No?" Eccles stubs his cigarette out in the car ashtray and goes to his coat pocket for another. They are rounding the mountain, at the highest stretch of road, where the hill rises too steeply on one side and falls too steeply on the other to give space to a house or gasoline station. The river darkly shines down below. "Now if 1 were to leave my wife," he says, "I'd get into a car and drive a thousand miles." It almost seems like advice, coming calmly from above the white collar.
"That's what I did!" Rabbit cries, delighted by how much they have in common. "I drove as far as West Virginia. Then I thought the hell with it and came back." He must try to stop swearing; he wonders why he's doing it. To keep them apart, maybe; he feels a dangerous tug drawing him toward this man.
"Should I ask why?"
"Oh I don't know. A combination of things. It seemed safer to be in a place I know."
"You didn't come back to protect your wife?"
Rabbit is wordless at the idea.
Eccles continues, "You speak of this feeling of muddle. What do you think it's like for other young couples? In what way do you think you're exceptional?"
"You don't think there's any answer to that but there is. I once did something right. I played first—rate basketball. I really did. And after you're first—rate at something, no matter what, it kind of takes the kick out of being second—rate. And that little thing Janice and I had going, boy, it was really second—rate."
The dashboard lighter pops. Eccles uses it and quickly returns his eyes to his driving. They've come down into the outskirts of Brewer. He asks, "Do you believe in God?"
Having rehearsed that this morning, Rabbit answers without hesitation, "Yes."
Eccles blinks in surprise. The furry lid in his one—eyed profile shutters, but his face does not turn. "Do you think, then, that God wants you to make your wife suffer?"
"Let me ask you. Do you think God wants a waterfall to be a tree?" This question of Jimmies sounds, Rabbit realizes, ridiculous; he is annoyed that Eccles simply takes it in, with a sad drag of smoke. He realizes that no matter what he says, Eccles will take it in with the same weary smoke; he is a listener by trade. His big fair head must be stuffed with a gray mash of everybody's precious secrets and passionate questions, a mash that nothing, young as he is, can color. For the first time, Rabbit dislikes him.
"No," Eccles says after thought. "But I think He wants a little tree to become a big tree."
"If you're telling me I'm not mature, that's one thing I don't cry over since as far as I can make out it's the same thing as being dead."
"I'm immature myself," Eccles offers.
It's not enough of an offering. Rabbit tells him off. "Well, I'm not going back to that little soppy dope no matter how sorry you feel for her. I don't know what she feels. I haven't known for years. All I know is what's inside me. That's all I have. Do you know what I was doing to support that bunch? I was demonstrating a penny's worth of tin called a frigging MagiPeeler in McCrory's five and dime!"
Eccles looks at him wide—eyed. "Well that explains your oratorical gifts," he says.
This aristocratic sneer rings true; puts them both in place. Rabbit feels less at sea. "Hey, I wish you'd let me out," he says. They're on Weiser Street, heading toward the great sunflower, dead in day.
"Won't you let me take you to where you're staying?"
"I'm not staying anywhere."
"All right." With a trace ofboyish bad temper Eccles pulls over and stops in front of a fire hydrant. As he brakes racily, something clatters in the trunk.
"You're coming apart," Rabbit tells him.
"Just my golf clubs."
"You play?"
"Badly. Do you?" He seems animated; the cigarette bums forgotten in his fingers.
"I used to caddy."
"Could I invite you for a game?" Ali. Here's the hook.
Rabbit gets out hugging his great ball of clothes and stands on the curb and sidesteps, clowning in his freedom. "I don't have clubs."
"They're easy to rent. Please. I mean it." Eccles leans far over, to speak through the door. "It's hard for me to find partners. Everybody works except me." He laughs.
Rabbit knows he should run, but the thought of a game, and an idea that it's safest to see the hunter, make resistance.
Eccles presses. "I'm afraid you'll go back to demonstrating peelers if I don't catch you soon. Tuesday? Tuesday at two? Shall I pick you up?"
"No; I'll come to your house."
"Promise?"
"Yeah. But don't trust a promise from me."
"I have to." Eccles names an address in Mt. Judge and they call goodbye at the curb. An old cop walks with a wise squint along the pavement beside the shut, stunned Sunday storefronts. To him it must look like a priest parting from the president of his Youth Group, who is carrying a bundle of clothes for the poor. Harry grins at this cop, and walks along the sparkling pavement with his stomach singing. Funny, the world just can't touch you once you follow your instincts.
Ruth lets him in, a pocket mystery in one hand. Her eyes look sleepy from reading. She has changed into another sweater. Her hair is loose and seems darker. He dumps the clothes on her bed. "Do you have hangers?"