As she rides by

back, daydreaming more than listening.
    Daydreaming isn’t quite the right term—more like running down the list again of things I might have tried but didn’t—although realistically I don’t know what more I could have done except maybe swooped down like Batman out of the night and picked him up and deposited him none too gently somewhere like a leper colony in the Congo run by missionaries or a kibbutz up in Galilee where if he didn’t make himself useful planting yams or picking bananas he wouldn’t get to eat. But how much responsibility can you take for someone else, anyway, when they don’t want it taken? If Benny really started losing it via drugs or booze or whatever else, I’d soon swoop down on him like an overlarge avenging angel who lost his golden locks somewhere along the way, but the wayward son of a part-time friend? Where do you draw the line?
    The casket was open; I shuffled along with the other mourners, then took a look at the boy, then wished I hadn’t. Then a lad in a white surplice in the choir stepped forward a couple of paces and sang:

    “Christian! Seek not yet repose,
    Hear thy guardian angel say;
    Thou art in the midst of foes —
    Watch and pray.”

    Then, feeling in the midst of foes myself not for the first time, I drove back to the office. I don’t know why I felt so tired, maybe I was just weary of fighting the same old wars against the same old creeps— the greasy porno merchants and the hired heavies, the scared and the slimes and the amoral. Or maybe there was only one war, the one called us against them.
    As I might have mentioned, I read somewhere—at the dentist’s, I think—that for a few grand down it’s possible to buy your own island, so maybe that’s what I’ll do. To hell with Paris by night and Venice by day, you can keep your bullfights in Seville and cherry blossom festivals in Yokohama and carnivals in Rio, one of these fine days I will be but a fading memory, gone, departed, out of here, vamoosed to my isle where the sweet winds blow and the lapping of the gentle tides wash my troubles away and I am young again and lean again and I await for nothing but the monthly visit of the copra boat bringing my my sparse necessities—brownie mix and Stove-Top dressing. And that’s a promise, amigos.
    The rest of the day passed, as did Friday. I dealt with what had to be dealt with, including two passing Mormons, and didn’t deal with what I didn’t have to. Friday evening, as I chanced to be dateless, I had Benny over to the house and made us some supper and then let him beat me at chess for the 1,231st time in a row. I beat him at Chinese checkers, though. We were also watching the ball game on TV—Reds, 6, Dodgers, 2, bottom of the seventh—which was coming from Dodger stadium over in Chavez Ravine. I love going there. Soon as you get near your seat, a peroxide blond, heavy on the lac, minces up in his custom-tailored outfit and says, “Well, hi! Lovely to see you! I’m Kenneth and I’m your usher for the evening.”
    During the chess game, I asked Benny if he knew any kids.
    “What kind of kids?” he said.
    “How many kinds are there?” I said. “Kids as in children.”
    “What age?”
    “Oh, nine, ten, eleven, in there somewhere.”
    “No,” he said. “Look out, your queen’s in check.”
    I moved the queen. “Know anyone who does know any kids?”
    “Yes,” he said. “Evonne.”
    “Forget it,” I said. “Anyone else?”
    “No. Your queen’s in check again.”
    “Something’s always in fucking check,” I said, “playing with you. Be right back. And keep your hands off the board while I’m away, please.” I crossed to the table with the phone on it and called up the twerp. After some small talk with her pop, she came on the line.
    “Ah, Sara,” I said. “Good evening. Staying in tonight, are we, no heavy date?”
    “What’s it to you?” she said. “And where are you calling from, one of those shitty bars you like so much?”
    “I happen to be engaged in intellectual pursuits with a close friend of mine,” I said. “And in the comfort of my own home.”
    “You’re watchin’ TV,” she said. “I can hear it. I guess that’s intellectual for you.”
    “Some of us can do two things at the same time,” I said. “Aside from that, know any kids?”
    “Why?”
    “Because I want to take you and a kid for a drive tomorrow.”
    “Why?”
    “Because I want to see where some other folks go when they take a