Chapter 29: Nadia and Clarence Interfere with Stoney’s Hangover

The next day when I woke up I could see through the window that it was overcast
but not raining, although it looked like it might. I did my morning ablutions then went to
the kitchen, where Mrs. W was having a cigarette and a cup of coffee and reading the
Chattanooga Times. It was a little after seven. I’m not an early bird.

“Morning, Henry. Where’s your running mate? He usually beats you down,” she
asked, taking a drag from her Benson & Hedges. If Stoney wasn’t up yet, I had a chance
to do the Times crossword.

“He may be a little late today. He had a few drinks last night.”

“I’ve seen him have a few before lunch,” she said.

“There were these girls,” said.

“Stoney likes girls?” she asked, as though this were something of a surprise. “I
had assumed that Stoney was interested in …” she took a drag off of her cigarette, then
took a sip of her coffee. “Well, never mind. So you boys found some girls you like?
Where was this?”

“At that bar over on Frazier down from the Odd Fellows Hall.” She thought.

“Down near the Little Theater?” she asked.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Can’t remember what that place is called. Anyhow, who were the girls?”

“Nadia and Kiki, and no, we won’t be double-dating. Stoney is very taken with
Nadia, a Bulgarian émigré and former gymnast who now resides in Colquitt. Kiki, her
foster sister, is very, very focused on her church.”

“Which flavor?” she asked.

“Baptist.” I filled a coffee cup for myself and topped off Mrs. W.’s.

“Big church or hard shell?” she asked.

“I’d guess big church.”

“Since Stoney’s running late, why don’t you make breakfast this morning?” said
Mrs. W. “My civics class is getting off to a slow start anyway. Not much world news
today.”
 “I have no idea how to cook,” I said. “Kind of like I hear that dirt and seeds and
rain turn into beans, somehow stuff in a kitchen turns into food. Farmers and cooks
amaze me.”

“Your ignorance is highly descriptive, Henry. Take a Biology course and all that
would be answered. But you don’t have to know how to cook to make oatmeal.”

“I really have no idea how to make oatmeal, Mrs. W.,” I said.

“Henry, you poor pitiful foundling, the instructions are on the box. Look for
something with a picture of a Quaker on it.”

“Where?” I asked.

“In such a place as food may be found,” she said, without looking up. “You’re in
a kitchen, which is generally a good place to start.”

Okay. I looked through her cupboards, got a sense of how they were organized,
and finally found a cylindrical cardboard container of Quaker Oats. The instructions
were, indeed, on the box, if “box” is the right word for a cardboard cylinder. The
instructions suggested that I would need a device for measuring the volume of water and
a cooking vessel. I kept looking and found a measuring cup and a pot.

“Make enough to feed six,” she said. “You boys eat a lot.” I multiplied out the
number of cups of water from the portions given on the label and poured that number of
cups of water into the pot, which almost filled it. I turned on the heat. After a few
minutes the water started to boil and I added the appropriate volume of rolled oats. The
results of the experiment deteriorated from this point onward. As soon as I stirred in the
oats, carefully following the instructions, the pot foamed up and boiled over. This aspect
of cooking oatmeal was not mentioned in the instructions at all. Mrs. W was focused on
her paper. I kept turning down the heat and stirring and it kept boiling over. Mrs.
Wertheimer didn’t look up. After a more than a few minutes of stirring and turning the
heat down, eventually as low as it would go, the oatmeal began to thicken. At this point
Stoney showed up, wearing a purple silk bathrobe over jeans and a Ziggie Stardust tee-
shirt and, in an unusual sartorial touch, his Ray-Ban Aviator shades, with a cigarette
dangling from his lip. He poured himself a cup of coffee and trudged into the kitchen, in
apparent pain, to look at what I was doing. He shook his head.

“Use a bigger pot next time,” he said. “Oatmeal boils up. When it looks almost
done, stir some milk and butter in and let it reduce. Did you add any salt to the water?”

“No.”

“It needs just a pinch.” I looked down and saw that he was wearing cheap blue
rubber flip-flops like you buy on the street in Panama City.1 He sat down and smiled
1
The one in Florida. I have no idea what they sell on the street in Central America.
blearily at Mrs. W. She looked up at him, then without saying anything, she got up and
disappeared for a few seconds, then returned with two packets of BC powder. Stoney got
up and poured himself a glass of orange juice from the refrigerator and returned to the
kitchen table, then emptied the two BC Powders®2 into his orange juice, stirring the mix
with his index finger. He then drained the glass in a few continuous swallows. Mrs. W
took no notice.

“You’re a godsend, Dr. W.”

“Stoney you’re lucky the news is light today,” she said, after a few seconds.
Stoney was straining, extending his tongue to its limit, to lick the BC residue from the
bottom of his juice glass. After a minute of watching this spectacle I felt compelled to
comment.

“Your tongue is like a prehensile tail,” I said.

“Impressive, no?” he asked.

“It’s grotesque,” I answered.

“Tigers?” he asked Mrs. W., putting his orange juice glass aside and taking a sip
of his coffee.

“They lost to the A’s, I’m afraid. They only had three hits, and Oakland had four.
The Giants beat the Cards and Gibson was pitching, and if they can hit Gibson that’s a
good sign. Henry, your Dodgers clobbered the Pirates,” she said, disapprovingly.

“Pirates will bounce back,” Stoney said, lighting a cigarette. “They look bad now,
but with Stargell and Parker they’re going to get some hits, even though their pitching is
pretty lame. Who was pitching?” he asked, taking a drag.

“For whom?” Mrs. W. asked.

“Motown,3” Stoney answered. He frowned and adjusted his sunglasses.

“Mickey Lolich,” she answered. “Don’t know him.”

“You National League people. He’s been around forever. Past his prime, like
most of the Tigers’ rotation.” The oatmeal looked done, to me, so I found an
appropriately-sized spoon and dipped out a bowl for Mrs. W. and put it in front of her.
Stoney looked at it and took off his sunglasses, making a noncommittal back and forth
wag of his head.

2
BC Powder is an analgesic that is especially popular in the South.
3
“Motown” was a contraction, of sorts, of “Motor City,” a nickname Detroit gained when most American
automobiles were manufactured there.
 “She needs butter, milk, sugar, salt, a spoon, and a napkin,” said Stoney. I
collected those things, thinking ahead and getting him a glass of milk, spoon, and napkin,
too. When I put a steaming bowl of very pretty oatmeal in front of him, he thought about
it and asked for some of the reduced maple syrup and if there were any blueberries left. I
found some, rinsed them again, and gave them to him in a small Pyrex ramekin. He
mixed them all together and it looked so good I followed suit, as did Mrs. W. A good
breakfast.

When we were done I cleaned up while they smoked and drank coffee and passed
the paper back and forth.

“So who is Nadia?” Mrs. W asked him.

“The most beautiful woman in the word,” he answered, earnestly, but without
looking up from the sports pages.

“Where’s she from?” she asked. “He took off his sunglasses and cleaned them
with the hem of his purple silk bathrobe.

“Can’t remember. Henry will know,” he said. “Someplace swampy in south

Georgia.”

“Colquitt,” I said.

“Where’s that?” she asked.

“Nearest big town is Albany. It’s in Georgia. Near Florida and Alabama both,” I
said.

“Is there a pool hall there, or something?” she asked me.

“No, ma’am. Closest pool hall I know is in Donaldsonville. They’re good farm
people in Colquitt. They have a nice-looking high school. But town-wise, not much
more than a post office.”

“And you met a teenaged girl from there?” she asked Stoney.

“No, ma’am. A hard-drinking, hard-partying grown-up of a woman from the

People’s Republic of Bulgaria.” Mrs. W. frowned slightly and returned her attention to
the newspaper. Stoney finished with the sports section and finished his oatmeal. As each
of them finished with a dish I took it away and put it in the sink. It seemed more efficient
to wash them all at once, so I was waiting. Stoney suddenly looked up at me with a cross
expression.

“Hey. Last night. What were you thinking?” he asked, indignantly.

 “About what?” I asked, refilling his coffee cup. All of us took our coffee black.

“Making me drink all that vodka,” he said.

“Nadia drank the vodka. You were drinking Jack green,” I answered. He thought
about this for a few seconds.

“Well why did you let me drink so much Jack Daniels, then? Where were your
manners?” he demanded.

“Am I my brother’s keeper?” I asked, and immediately regretted it.

“Your friend Ed Bork would say yes, I’m guessing,” he said. Mrs. W. looked up
and cocked an eyebrow at me.

“Ed was there, yes, ma’am,” I said. She took a long drag from her cigarette.

“And?” she asked.

“Ed’s found Jesus,” I said. “Pretty thoroughly.” She nodded and smiled to
herself.

“I’ll be damned,” she said. “Good for him.”

“I was surprised,” I said.

“Why?”

“Because he tried to hex you into a heart attack,” I said.

“Yeah, sure. So praising Jesus is going to be less obnoxious than that. And lots
of the people who focus on Jesus do good in the world. I know a woman, Gini, who runs
a camp for kids who wouldn’t be able to go to camp if she wasn’t there. And a man,
Paul, who’s the chairman of the board of this abused women’s shelter. He also works
with handicapped kids. He’s an asshole, and I can’t tell that he actually believes in God,
but he’s a good Christian who’s doing his best to work out the Jesus deal.”

“Any more coffee?” asked Stoney. He had folded the paper over to the crossword
puzzle. I refilled his coffee cup. “And I’m feeling better after the oatmeal, but how
about a gallon of ice water?” he asked. I found the largest glass and filled it with ice and
water. The front doorbell rang. Stoney and I looked at Mrs. W in confusion. This had
never happened before. Stoney pulled his pack of Winstons from the pocket of his robe
and shook out a new cigarette.
 “You boys can stay put,” she said. “That’s my sister dropping off Clarence. I’ll
be back in a second.” She got up. Stoney looked at me, expecting me to explain. He had
the crossword puzzle in hand.

“Mrs. W. has a nephew named Clarence,” I said. “Twelve, maybe? Thirteen?”

“And?” he asked.

“Weird kid with eccentric interests and keenly in search of a friend. Projects
himself into others a lot. Fixated on Carlos Castaneda. After the cool kids shun him in
high school he may develop into an asshole.” Stoney nodded contemplatively, sipped his
coffee, and looked down and completed the crossword. Damn. It took him two, maybe
three minutes.

“Boys, this is my nephew, Clarence McColl,” said Mrs. W, entering with an

obnoxious-looking and obviously unhappy pre-adolescent. She was happier about, and
prouder of, him than appearances warranted. Clarence looked at Stoney and me seriously.
Stoney extended his hand and Clarence shook it morosely.

Clarence turned to me and said, quite intensely, “Has your Datura root seeded?”

“Excuse me?” I said.

“Please tell me you have not abandoned the Yaqui way of knowledge,” he said.

“You’re into Carlos Castaneda?” Stoney asked me.

“No, of course not,” I answered.

“Who?” Mrs. W. asked.

“Later,” Stoney said.

“You?” Stoney asked Clarence.

“Yes, I pursue the Yaqui way of knowledge,” said Clarence.

“And you’ve found mushrooms?” asked Stoney.

“Henry, what’s he talking about?” Mrs. W. asked.

“Stoney, knock it off. He’s like eleven,” I said.

“Thirteen. No mushrooms here,” said Clarence. “The Datura, though, is

plentiful, if you know where to look.”
 “Little buddy, you may have just solved a problem for me, so let’s talk later.”

“You are on the Yaqui path of knowledge?” Clarence asked.

“No, but I’m willing to learn. Tell you what. I’ll give Henry my Kuhn and you
give me your Carlos Castaneda, and what will we give you?”

“Sports Illustrated?” asked Clarence.

“Can do,” said Stoney. “Who’s your team?”

“Braves, of course,” said Clarence, as though this point, at least should be

obvious.

“Sorry, little buddy,” said Stoney. “I’m from Michigan and not yet acclimated to
the local customs. Of course you’re a Braves fan. We’ll get you an SI next time we go
out.”

“Okay. I’m going to assume some generational communication deal is going on

here that I don’t understand so I’m going to go look at the blackboard, boys,” said Mrs.
W. She got up and moved towards the dining room. I gathered my coffee cup and
followed, feeling slightly guilty because I still hadn’t finished washing the dishes, which
Stoney would have done by this time. Stoney refreshed his coffee and shepherded
Clarence into the dining room, where Clarence looked around at the different blackboards
in disapproving bewilderment. Stoney, apparently refreshed by breakfast and BC,
explained to Mrs. W. how we’d formulated the problem we’d abandoned the previous
day. She nodded, Clarence frowned.

“Hey, little buddy, later today, I’ll explain some things about this to you. What
we’re doing is called calculus, which is a slightly more complicated form of something
called algebra. You’ll learn all about it in high school. This symbol here just means
‘change,’ and this symbol here just means ‘function,’ and all ‘function’ means is ‘were
gonna treat all of the numbers over here in this same particular way.’” Mrs. W. smiled
one of her broadest smiles at this, but Clarence frowned and Stoney didn’t see it.

So now we all looked at the problem Stoney and I had written on the blackboard
before we’d abandoned it to go to the bar the preceding evening. We’d been able to
express it, but had no idea how to solve it. After looking at the way we’d formulated it
for a few minutes, Mrs. W. lit a cigarette and looked at us, frowning. I got the feeling
that she wasn’t keen on the way we’d expressed it, but even still she explained how to
deal with this particular kind of multi-variable equation, covering most of one
blackboard. At one point Stoney jumped up and took the chalk and worked out the
solution himself. Stoney really liked performing calculations.4Working through the
problem, she decided we needed more work on the existence and uniqueness of the

4
Stoney liked to calculate square roots longhand, like we learned in eighth grade.
solutions to n-th order equations. After she showed us how to solve it, she flipped one of
the blackboards over and cleared what little was written on it.

“Stoney, I know you’re not as keen on physics as Henry is, but let’s look at our
friend y′ = f ( x, y ) , which you’ve worked with many times, where f is some continuous
function, and it’s hard to find an exact answer, and Henry noted the special case of
y′ = g ( x ) y + h( x ) where g and h are continuous on some interval. Remember this?”

x
“ Q( x) = ∫x g (t ) dt ” I said.
0

“Exactly!” she looked at Stoney, and he nodded, lighting a cigarette. He and

Clarence were playing Thumb War. “So jump forward, and assume there are some
theorems for this that I could provide that prove it’s true, so that you have a system of
these equations such that y1′ = f1 ( x, y1  yn ) and y2′ = f 2 ( x, y2  yn ) and so on.”

“Fuckadoodledoo,” said Stoney, at which Clarence’s face lit up in delight.

“Language, Stoney,” she said. “You know Newton’s second law?”

“Yes ma’am.”

“Say it,” she said.

“Verbally or in math?” he asked.

“We’re doing math, here, Stoney,” she said, perhaps a touch exasperated.

x y
Stoney thought a minute, then said “ mx′′ = F (r ) , then mx′′ = F (r ) where,
r r
oh, something about r. Maybe r = x 2 + y 2 . And I guess F (r ) is the force on the
mass.” I’d just finished a course called “Physics for Physics Majors,” and I’m not sure I
could have dialed that up. Stoney was calling it in from high school.

“Right!” said Mrs. W. After reminding us about ellipses and their relation to the
(h 2 / k )
other conic functions she eventually got to r = .
1 + e cos( θ −ω)
“I’ll be damned,” said Stoney, taking a drag from his Winston. Then he smacked
me across the backside of my head, not hard, but it was still startling.

“What’s that for?” I asked.

“Remember how I tried to talk the Math Club into analyzing Tycho Brahe’s
observations?”

“Sure. Mrs. W told me it would be boring,” I said.

 “Doing it the way Kepler did it would be boring,” he answered. “But Mrs. W has
just shown us the music of the spheres.” The doorbell rang. Mrs. W., Stoney, and I all
looked at each other in confusion. The doorbell had never before rung in the morning
and here it was ringing a second time before lunch. Mrs. W got up to answer the bell,
and while she was gone, Stoney explained, bewilderingly quickly, how what she’d just
taught us overlapped with planetary mechanics.5 I tried to follow but he was moving too
fast for me to follow.

5
He was interrupted, but here’s what he told me later that day:

“All right. Dr. W. told us that

1
v (θ(t )) =
r (t )
so
1  dv  dv
r ′(t ) = −  (θ (t )) θ′(t ) = −h (θ (t ))
v (θ (t ))  dθ
2
 dθ
and you can see that
d 2v d 2v
r ′′(t ) = −h (θ (t ))θ ′(t ) = −h 2 2
v (θ 9t ) (θ (t ))
dθ 2 dθ
Right? So really it boils down to
1
F( )
d 2v v
+v =−
dθ 2 mh 2v 2
if I have it right. If you assume, as Newton tells us, that the force is inversely proportional to radial length
squared, and you ignore for now the fact that mass isn’t concentrated in points at the centers of spherical
objects, you end up at
km
F (r ) = − , or F (1 / v ) = −kmv 2

r2
right? And that long fucker we did before lunch becomes
d 2v k
+v = 2 .
dθ 2
h
Simpler, no? And Dr. W. would tell you that linear equations that look like that one have solutions in the
form
k
v(θ ) = + B cos(θ − ω) , where B and ω are constants.” It was about this point that I began to think
h2
that I was more of a Physics major than a Math major. I still planned to double major, but still and all.

“So,” Stoney continued, if you drop back four or five steps, the elegant simplicity of
1
v (θ(t )) =
r (t )
remains reliable, and if you think about it, t is related to θ as
(h 2 / k )
r= , as long as e = Bh2/k.”
1 + e cos( θ −ω)

“Stoney, are you doing all of this in your head?” I asked.

 Mrs. W. appeared a few seconds later with Nadia in tow. “She says she met
someone who lives here named Stono in a bar and that he was generous enough to buy
her lots of vodka,” said Mrs. W., with a slight frown. Nadia was wearing a semi-
translucent tee shirt and not much else. It was possible that she was wearing the bottom
part of a two-piece bathing suit under her tee shirt but it was clear to all present that she
was not wearing the top. Far too much of her was available for view for a bra of any sort
to have been involved. Clarence sat up alertly, smiling, eyes the size of cue-balls, like
Christmas at the orphanage.

“Hello, Nadia,” said Stoney, smiling and taking a drag from his cigarette.
Clarence and I stood, and when Stoney didn’t, I grabbed the back of his collar and pulled
it up, encouraging him to stand. He did, but looked at me in some irritation as soon as he
did so. “What the fuck?” he asked me, in a stage whisper.

“Local custom,” I said.

“Miss Nadia, I think the only gentleman present you don’t know is Clarence,”
said Mrs. W. Clarence, delighted, extended his hand.

“Wow,” he said, shaking her hand. She smiled sweetly. She seemed slightly
bashful, or at least as bashful as a woman whose nipples are plainly discernable can
seem.

“Yeah, but I dealt with these equations a lot in high school, and I still think about them a lot.
You’d see it if you wrote it down. This is as close as I come to being interested in physics. It’s also why
I’m interested in Kepler and Brahae. But most of the unsolved Math problems are lots more fun. Don’t
interrupt. If you make h2/k greater than zero and e greater than or equal to zero then I think that last fucker
describes a conic with the focus at the origin and with eccentricity equal to e. What kind of conic depends
on whether e is lesser than, greater than, or equal to one. For an orbit in stasis, it’s going to solve for an
ellipse. Well, for planets it will.”

“I can’t possibly follow this,” I said.

“You could on paper. This isn’t my first time through this.” He lit a cigarette.

“Where does this string end?” I asked.

“I’d want a blackboard to show the next few steps, anyway,” he said, but if Kepler’s right it ends
4π 2 3
at T 2 = a . But Kepler’s third law is ‘the squares of the periods are proportional to the cubes of the
k
major axes of the ellipses,” and that just makes no sense whatsoever. I mean, it’s possible, but I don’t know
why that would be so.” It was silent for a few seconds while he smoked his Winston. “So what do you
think?” he asked.

“I understand why you have good grades, but I no longer understand why I have good grades,” I
said.

There are different forms of intelligence. I think I’m pretty good at recognizing patterns. I have a
spatial ability. But I would never in a million years be able to run with Stoney in terms of “If A+B=C, let’s
deduce the values of D, E, and F.”
 “We were just going over the rules of orbital mechanics,” said Mrs. W. “How’s
your math?” I looked over at Stoney, who seemed surprisingly nonchalant, with his
Winston 100, and Clarence, whose eyes had not left Nadia’s breasts since she entered the
room. “Wow,” he said, every thirty seconds or so.

“No Sanka,” she said. “Simple drooped by to say hello to handsome Stono.”
Mrs. W. cocked an eyebrow at Stoney, who paid no attention.

“My might own cigarette?” she asked.

“Sure,” said Stoney, shaking her out a Winston.

“Gracisas,” she said. Stoney gave her a light from a paper book of matches with
the logo of the Black Angus, something of a mystery since we hadn’t been there since
we’d been in town. Mrs. W. frowned. Perhaps she disapproved of high school students
smoking. Nadia took a deep drag from of her cigarette the way people do when they
haven’t had one for what they think is a long time. “Отлично. Спасибо,6” she said. She
smiled shyly at Stoney. Clarence continued his study of her breasts.

“Meet Stono and гей Хенри at tinny bar at river,” she said. “Much fun.”

What time is it?” Stoney asked. I’d never noticed before, but he didn’t wear a
watch.

“A quarter to noon,” said Mrs. W. “Nadia, would you like to have lunch with
us?”

“Oh, Да,” she said, smiling and nodding vigorously in a way that caused abundant
movement inside her tee shirt. Clarence looked as though he might faint. “Wouldst be
much nice,” said Nadia.

“What are we having?” Mrs. W. asked Stoney.

“I was thinking B.L.T.s and the rest of the vichyssoise,” said Stoney. “There’s
not a lot of the soup, but we can make plenty of sandwiches.”

“Sounds good to me,” said Mrs. Wertheimer, looking at Clarence. He nodded at

Nadia’s tee shirt, captivated.

“I think Nadia and I can take care of this,” said Stoney, and led Nadia into the
kitchen as though he were leading a debutante to her presentation. Mrs. W. cocked an
eyebrow at me as she lit a Benson & Hedges.

6
“Excellent. Thanks,” in Russian. But a Russian would never say “Отлично” here, he or she would say
“Xорошо” (‘good!”) or maybe “Oчень хорошо” (“very good!”). Nadia knows four languages but can’t
really speak anything but Bulgarian. Even so, she is waaaay ahead of most Americans.
 “She’s awesome!” said Clarence.

“He insists she’s enrolled in a junior college down in Georgia,” I said.

“Henry,” she said, after a pause, taking a drag off of her cigarette, “you know
what the worst thing about being a teacher is?”

“No, ma’am,” I answered.

“So often you have to wait on students to think for themselves. They have to get
hit over the head with a club of some kind and before the light goes on.”

“I told him not to believe everything he hears in bars,” I said, after thinking a few
seconds. She shook her head and took another drag. The smell of bacon started to
overpower the smell of cigarette smoke.

“So you two met her last night at a bar?” asked Clarence.

“Yep,” I answered.

“Can you guys take me to that bar sometime?” he asked.

“No,” said Mrs. W. and I simultaneously.

“He’s a smart young man,” said Mrs. W.

“Yes,” ma’am.”

“He’s awesome,” said Clarence.

“Well, he’s a good cook,” said Mrs. W.

“Yes, ma’am,” I said.

“Well, so far as I know, he’s observing the rules of the house,” she said.

“Yes, ma’am, he is. I understand we are privileged to be guests here, and have
stressed this to him. He understands.” She nodded, then looked at one of the
blackboards. After a few minutes she got up and changed a symbol that she didn’t think
was right.

“How much Relativity do you have?” she asked, without looking at me.

Clarence, bored, looked up, with a frowning, snarky expression. “Eight pounds,”
he said.
 “Clarence, go figure out how to convert eight pounds into kilograms,” said Mrs.
W., without looking at him.

“How?” he asked, with a scowl.

“There are lots of books in this house. You’re smart. Henry?” Clarence left,
sullenly.

“Not much Relativity, no ma’am. General principles, but no math,” I said.

“Well, I want you to have more than that when you go back to school.”

Lunch was good. Stoney’s vichyssoise was wonderful. Clarence didn’t want his,
so I ate it, and the B.L.T.s were excellent. The tomatoes were not quite as sweet and ripe
as they’d be in the hottest part of the summer, but they were tasty, and Stoney had used
his home-made mayo. Excellent sandwiches. At the end of the meal, I grabbed Stoney’s
collar again and pulled him over. “Mrs. W. will expect you to walk Nadia home,” I said.

“No shit?” he looked at me, surprised.

“None.”

“Okey-doke. Nadia, can I walk you home?” he asked, when he returned to the
room.

“That was be much happy make,” she said, smiling shyly. She stood and turned,
and her tee shirt bunched at her back a bit, so that it almost, but not quite, covered her
bottom. Stoney stood.

“Take off your bathrobe, Stoney,” said Mrs. W., shaking out a cigarette. He
reacted as though startled, then removed his robe and draped it over his chair, and smiled
at Nadia through his sunglasses. They left, Clarence staring intently. Mrs. W. lit her
cigarette and looked at me disapprovingly, as though this were my fault.

“God Almighty,” said Clarence.

“Knock it off, Clarence. You boys clean up,” she said. We got to work.
Apparently cleaning up was a new chore for Clarence. He didn’t mind, but he didn’t
know what he was doing.