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completely unreasonable:
`No! I got no news at all.'
She declares, `The only news
anybody has got is on
their selves, so no news gets out.'
And he: `By God, only news
I have is on my own self.
And I ain't letting it out.'
Other talk in the background
of a gas leak in a house,
then a young woman standing
at the end of the counter,
a baby on her hip: `He
didn't care. He was thinkin'
about what other people
would think. I said, after I
got a few under my belt,
"What do I care?"' She says this
serenely, the baby sleeps,
and the motherly waitress
she talks to smiles musingly.
Meanwhile, I notice, Meeker
has never been so weakly
present as he is in here.
He looks dim and recessive,
not at all inclined to speak.
And that night at the cafe
while I eat at the counter
he watches the wet spring snow
that came on with the darkness,
falling outside the windows,
in wide, shaggy fl akes. They stick
and slide down the glass; and I
watching them during a lull
in the talk, can hear them rap