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He clung to the edge of the open cracker box, looking in with dazed, unbelieving eyes They were ruined

He stared at the iauzed, dirty, mouldy, water-soaked crackers He remembered now, too late, that the kitchen sink was directly overhead, that there was a faulty drainpipe on it, that water dripped into the cellar every time the sink was used

He couldn’t speak There were no words terrible enough to express the , mouth ajar, a vacuous look iht In a way, it was a peaceful outlook But stabbing cra to add an extra pain and dryness to his throat

His head shook fitfully No, it was impossible, impossible that he should have come so far to have it end like this

"No," he ri on, he stretched out one leg and kicked a cracker edge It broke da to the bottoo of the edge and slid down the al with a neck-snapping jolt Pushing up dizzily, he stood in the crurated wetly in his hands like dirt-engrainedfor a clean piece

The smell of rot was thick in his nostrils His cheek puffed out as a spas the rest of the scraps, he h hisover the soaked,the cracker, he tore off a crureen mould from one of the pieces, he bit off part of it

He spat it out violently, gagging at the taste Sucking in breath between his teeth, he stood shivering until the nausea had faded

Then abruptly his fists clenched and he took a punch at the cracker His vision was blurred by tears, and he ain and punched out a spray of white crumbs

"Son-of-a-bitch!" he yelled, and he kicked the cracker to bits and kicked and flung the pieces in every direction like soggy rocks

He leaned weakly against the wax-paper walls, his face against its cool, crackling surface, his chest expanding and contracting with short, jerking breaths Temper, temper, came the whispered ad

He felt a sharp-edged bulge against his forehead and shifted position irritably Then it hit him

The other side of the wax paper Any crumbs that had fallen there would have been protected With an excited grunt he clawed at the wax paper, trying to tear it open His fingers slipped on the glossy s up when the water hit him

A startled cry lurched in his throat as the first drop landed on his head, exploding into spray The second drop s iht shoulder

With a gasp, he lunged backward across the box, tripping over a crumb He pitched over onto the carpet of cold white mush, then shoved up quickly his robe coated with it, his hands caked with it Across fro the box with a leaping mist that covered him He ran

At the far end of the box he stopped and turned, looking dizzily at the huge drops splattering on the wax paper He pressed a pal hit with a cloth-wrapped sledge ha down the wax-paper wall until he was sitting in the s of pain in his throat He had eaten, and his sore throat feltto the wax paper Noas collecting a pile of cru in the heavy wax paper, then squeezed in behind its rustling sun to carry dry cru them on the bottom of the box That done, he kicked and tore out handholds in the wax paper so he could cli one or two cru on their size Up the wax-paper ladder, over the lip of the box, down the handholds he had for of the box He did that for an hour

Then he squeezed his way behind the wax-paper lining, searching for any cruht have er, which he picked up and chewed on as he finished his circuit of the box and eain He looked over the interior of the box once eable He stood in thehis head At best, he’d got only two days’ food out of all his work Thursday he would be without any again

He threw off the thought He had enough concerns; he’d worry about it when Thursday came He climbed out of the box

It was a lot colder outside He shivered with a hunching up of shoulders Though he’d wrung out asdrops

He sat on the thick tangle of rope, one hand on his pile of hard-won cracker crumbs They were too heavy to carry all the way down He’d have to make a dozen trips at least, and that was out of the question Unable to resist, he picked up a fist-thick cruht about the proble there was only one way, he stood with a sigh and turned back to the box Should use wax paper, he thought Well, the hell with that; it was going to last only two days at the ainst the side of the box, he tore off a jagged piece of paper about the size of a serator top and laid out flat In the centre of it he arranged his crumbs into a cone-shaped pile, then wrapped thee about as high as his knees He lay on his stoher off the floor now than he’d been on the distant cliff thatdrop for his cargo Well, they were already crumbs; it would be no loss if they becae wasn’t likely to open during the fall; that was all that mattered

Briefly, despite the cold, he looked out over the cellar

It certainlyfed The cellar had, for the e, cool land shidoreys and blacks relieved only by the dusty colours of stored objects A land of roars and rushings, of intermittent sounds that shook the air like iant wo on her rock, frozen for all ti, he pushed back and stood No tiot behind his bundle and, stooping over, pushed the dead weight of it to the edge and shoved it over the brink with a nudge of his foot

Moe’s heavy fall, saw it bounce once on the floor, and heard the crunching noise as it ca once erator to see if there were anything he ht use He found the newspaper

It was folded and propped against the cylindrical coil ease Its lettered faces were covered with dust and part of the sink’s leaking had splashed water across it, blotting the letters and eating through the cheap paper He saw the large letters OST and kneas a copy of the New York Globe-Post, the paper that had done his story, at least as much of it as he had been able to endure He looked at the dusty paper, re the day Mel Hammer had come to the apartment and made the offer

Marty had mentioned Scott’s mysterious affliction to a felloani, and from there the news had drifted, ripple by ripple, into the city

Scott refused the offer, despite the fact that they needed the h the Medical Centre had coe, there was still a sizable bill for the first series of examinations There was the five hundred owed to Marty, and the other bills they’d accu, hard winter, the complete winter wardrobe for all of them, the cost of fuel oil, the extra medical bills because none of them had been physically equipped to face an Eastern winter after living so long in Los Angeles

But Scott had been in what he now called his period of furies, a ti anger at the plight he was in He’d refused the newspaper offer with anger No, thank you, but I don’t care to be exposed to the morbid curiosity of the public He flared up at Lou when she didn’t support his decision as eagerly as he thought she should have, saying, "What would you like ive you your security?" Erring, off-target anger; he’d known it even as he spoke But anger was burning in him It drove hithless temper, temper based on fear alone Scott turned away fro hian sliding down the rope, using his hands and feet The white cliff of the refrigerator blurred before his eyes as he descended

And the anger he felt noas only a vestigial remnant of the fury he’d lived with constantly in the past; fury that ht washi behind his back; soht he heard He remembered how, no taller than Beth, he’d whirled on her and told her that he’d heard what she’d said Heard what? she asked Heard what you said aboutabout you Don’t lie toyou a liar! I don’t have to listen to talk like that! You do when you decide to talk about h of your screa around here Just because you’re Marty’s brother Sure, sure, you’re the boss’s wife, you’re the big cheese around here Don’t you talk to me like that!

And on and on, shrill and discordant and profitless

Until Marty, grim, soft-spoken, called him into the office, where Scott had stood in front of the desk, glaring at his brother like a belligerent dwarf

"Kid, I don’t like to say it," Marty told hiet you fixed up, it’d be better if you stayed hoh, and I don’t blame you, not a bit Butwell, you can’t concentrate on hen you’re"

"So I’ fired"