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television. He had a young woman in a trance and she was very calmly giving him facts and figures about her former life in Nuremburg in the 1830s.
      At first I'd been glued to the chair, absolutely spellbound. The woman talked fluent German even though she was American for four generations back; she described buildings and people; she gave dates, addresses, names.
      Then, as I watched, the little realities began to impinge. I felt the bump in the chair cushion I was sitting on. My head itched. I was thirsty and I took a sip of Coca-Cola from the glass on the magazine-strewn coffee table in front of me. I heard the rustle of Anne's clothes as she shifted her weight beside me on the sofa. I became aware of the smallness of the television tube in relation to the room. I heard an airplane pass overhead and noted the books in the bookcase. And this woman went on talking and talking and gradually this incredible thing became ordinary and dull. I sank back against the sofa back and watched without too much interest. I even changed to another channel before it was over.
      It was the same way now. Feeling the hard seat under me, the steering wheel in my hands, the sound of the Ford's engine in my ears, seeing, from the corner of my eye, Frank sitting there glumly, seeing the lights flashing by-it was all too real; too matter-of-fact. Everything else seemed unacceptable. The woman was, once again, a dream. And all the rest- even to the sensing of Frank's and Elizabeth's thoughts seemed imaginative fancy. Something to be explained away.
      After driving about twenty minutes we stopped at a bar in Redondo Beach and sat in a back booth, drinking beer. Frank drained three glasses quickly before dawdling over the fourth. He rubbed the ice-sweated bottom of the glass over the smooth table top and stared at it.
      "What's the use?" he said, without looking at me.
      "Use of what?" I asked.
      "Use of everything," he said. "Marriage and kids and all the rest of it." His cheeks puffed out with held breath, then he expelled it noisily. "I suppose you want a baby," he said.
      "Sure."
      "You would." He drank a little beer.
      "I take it you don't," I said.
      "You take it right, buddy boy," he said bitterly. "Sometimes I’d like to kick her right in the goddamn belly just so she'd… uh -" He squeezed the glass in his hand as if he wanted to splinter it. "What good is a baby to me?" he asked. "What the hell do I want with one?"
      "They're pretty nice," I said.
      He fell back against the booth wall. "Sure," he said, "sure. So's a little money in the bank. So's a little security."
      "They don't eat money, Frank," I said, "just a little mush and milk."
      "They eat money," he said, "just like wives eat money. Just like houses and furniture and goddamn curtains."
      "Man, you sound like a frustrated bachelor," I told him.
      "A frustrated husband," he said. "I wish to hell I was a bachelor. Them, buddy, was the goddamn days."
      "They were all right," I said, "but I'll take these."
      "You can have 'em," he growled. He blew out disgusted breath again and played with his glass. "Isn't bad enough," he muttered, "I have to practically beg her for some when she's normal. Now she's got a whole goddamn bag full of tricks she uses to kick me out of bed."
      I guess I laughed. "Is that what's bothering you?" I asked. I didn't feel very telepathic at that moment. It caught me by surprise.
      "You bet your goddamn life it bothers me," Frank said. "She has the sex drive of a goddamn butterfly. Even when she's normal. Now…"
      "Frank," I said, "believe me, pregnancy is not abnormal."
      "The hell it isn't," he said. "It's a waste of flesh." He leaned forward and his face was hard and intent. "Well, buddy boy," he said, "I'm not taking it lying down." He snickered. "To use the vernacular." He looked around in the way men do to indicate that their next remarks are going to be shattering