Characters in Herman Wouk Is Still Alive

In a low voice she says, “When I was five, I believed in unicorns.” “So did I,” Brenda says. “I wonder how fast this fucker goes.” Jasmine looks at the road ahead. They flash past a blue sign that says REST AREA 1 MI.

… In her lap, baby Delight sleeps on, sucking one of her fingers. It’s her comfort finger, and all blistered down the inside. Once Jaz slapped her good and hard when she saw Dee sticking it in her mouth, but what good is slapping a kid that’s only six months old?

Shrek is over and all the kids are asleep, even Eddie. Rose Ellen’s head is once more on Eddie’s shoulder. She’s snoring like an old woman. She has red marks on her arms, because sometimes she can’t stop scratching herself.

“Did you pay off the credit card online? How’d you do that?” Freddy and Glory got fighting last month and knocked Brenda’s laptop off the bed. It fell on the floor and broke. “I used the one at the library.”

… Either that or Freedom has messed in her diapers and awakened herself. Freedom always messes in her diapers. To Brenda it seems like manufacturing poop is Free’s life’s work. Takes after her father that way.

“Did you pay off the credit card online? How’d you do that?” Freddy and Glory got fighting last month and knocked Brenda’s laptop off the bed. It fell on the floor and broke. “I used the one at the library.”

“Jazzy, no!” “Jazzy yes.” She stares straight ahead at the unrolling road. “Jack finally went broke. The writing’s been on the wall since last year. So there goes that ninety a week.” She drinks.

The van, now doing almost a hundred miles an hour, begins to drift. Jasmine gives a small nod and then lifts Dee, cradling the baby against her big breasts. Dee’s still got her comfort finger in her mouth.

Brenda thinks, How did we end up with all these kids? Wasn’t I letting Mike Higgins cop a feel on me out behind the metal shop just yesterday? “Bully for you,” Jasmine says, and snorks back tears.

Jaz married Mitch Robicheau to get away from them, and now, three men, four kids, and eight years later, she’s on her own.

A man and a woman rush up. The woman raises her own cell phone and takes a picture with it. Pauline Enslin observes this without much surprise. She supposes the woman will show it to friends later.

SO THESE TWO OLD POETS WHO WERE ONCE LOVERS IN PARIS HAVE A PICNIC NEAR THE BATHROOMS. Phil Henreid is seventy-eight now, and Pauline Enslin is seventy-five. They’re both skinny. They both wear spectacles.

… Press-Herald, September 19, 2010: 9 DIE IN HORRIFIC I-95 CRASH Spontaneous Mourning at Scene By Ray Dugan Less than six hours after a one-vehicle accident in the town of Fairfield took the lives of two adults and seven children, all under the …

They yuk at this one, an oldie but a goodie. “So what do you think?” “I’ll have to take Eddie and Rose Ellen out of school . . .” “BFD,” Brenda says. “So what do you think, girl?” After a long pause on the other end, Jasmine says, “Road trip!”

Here they are in a three-room third-floor apartment, no guy in the picture (Tim, the latest in her life, took off six months ago), living pretty much on noodles and Pepsi and that cheap ice cream they sell at Walmart, …

Her brother Tommy died the year before, in Afghanistan. It was an IED that took him. Her ma and dad got eighty thousand out of it.

Delight sleeps in the office and Truth, her three-year-old, wanders around in the arcade hitching at his diapers. He doesn’t get into too much trouble, although last year he got headlice and the two women had to shave all his hair off.