come to say all is forgiven She has faith in Brad and  wants to set him up in a studio. Of course, he will have  to move to the East Sixties. . . . ‘This place is impossible,  dahling; and your friend . . .’ And a safe mob wants Jim  back to drive a car. This is a step up, you dig? Offer from citizens hardly see him before.
“Will Jim go back to crime? Will Brad succumb to  the blandishments of an aging vampire, a ravening  Maw? . . . Needless to say, the forces of evil are routed and exit with ominous snarls and mutterings.
“ ‘The Boss isn’t going to like this.’
“ ‘I don’t know why I ever wasted mv time with you, you cheap, vulgar little fairy.’
“The boys stand at the tenement window, their arms  around each other, looking at the Brooklyn Bridge. A warm spring wind ruffles Jim’s black curls and the fine  hennaed hair of Brad.
“ ‘Well, Brad, what’s for supper?’
“ ‘You just go in the other room and wait.’ Playfully he shoos Jim out of the kitchen, and puts on his apron. :
“Dinner is Lucy Bradshinkel’s cunt saignant cooked
in kotex papillon. The boys eat happily looking into each other’s eyes. Blood runs down their chins.”
Let the dawn blue as a flame cross the city. . . . The backyards are clean of fruit, and the ash pits give up their hooded dead… .
“Could you show me the way to Tipperary, lady?”
Over the hills and far away to Blue Grass. . . . Across the bone meal of lawn to the frozen pond where suspended goldfish wait for the spring Squaw Man.
The screaming skull rolls up the back stairs to bite