guthdru0308

@@@@@On the highways the headlights lance a silver tunnel through the foliage overhead And he has a girl friend, a great catch, the young beauty at this summer colonyMiss Sally Tendecker of Lake Shore Drive, and the inescapable connotations to come of Christmas holidays, and fur coats, perfume, and college dances in the hue-titled rooms of the big hotels Bob, you drive faster than anybody I know, you're going to kill yourself one of these daysHe's slow at speech with women yet, absorbed for the instant in negotiating the turnHis Buick swings out wide to the left, resists, struggles against going to the right, and then straightens from the turnThere had been panic for a second, and then relief, exultation as he goes streaming down the straightaway I declare you're a wild man, Bob Hearn What goes on in your head, Bob? He parks the car off the highway, turns to her with a sudden abrupt outpouring of speechI don't know, Sally, sometimes I thinkbut that isn't true, I just get all worked up, and I stew around, and I don't want to do anything, I'm going to Harvard just 'cause my father said something about Yale, and I don't know, there's things, there's something else, I can't put my finger on it, I don't want to be pushed, I don't knowOh, you're a crazy boy, Bob, I guess that's why all we girls love you You love me? Just listen to him talkWhy, of course I do, BobbyAcross from him on the leather seat cushions, her perfume is a little too strong, a little too mature for a girl of seventeenAnd he senses the truth beneath her banter, moves over to kiss her with his heart beatingOnly back of it is the forecast of dates at all the holidays, of college weekends, and the identification with this summer resort, and the green lawns in the suburbs, and the conversations with his father's friends, the big wedding You know I can't plan on anything if I'm going to be a doctor, because you know eight years, ten years, it's a long time Bob Hearn, you're conceitedWhat do you think I care? You're too conceited, that's all Now, son, now that you're going away to college, there's some things I want to be talking to you about, we don't get much of a chance to say much to each other but, what the hell, we're pretty good buddies I always like to think, and now that you're going to college, just remember that you can always depend on meThere's gonna be some women, what the hell, you wouldn't be my son if there weren't, not since I been married of course -- a patent lie which both of them ignore -- but if you get in any trouble you can always depend on me, what the hell, my old man used to tell me you get in any trouble with any of the mill girls, you just let me know -- the embarrassing ambiguity of the grandfather who has been sometimes a farmer, sometimes a factory owner -- so that goes for you too, Bob, and remember it's always easier, always more natural to buy a woman off than to get in any alliances with her, so you just let me know, letter marked personal is okay And as for being a doctor, well, that's okay, we got lots of friends here, we can set you up in a decent practice, buy into some old quack who's ready to retire I want to do researchListen, Bobbo, there isn't a man you know, not one of our acquaintances who can't buy and sell a carload of research men, that's just some damn fool idea you picked up somewhere, and you're gonna change your mind, I can tell you that right no