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'Yeah, that's it, I guess,' Sylvia will say; or Betsy, or Patricia, Columbine, Sally, Alice, Constance, or Hope will say. 'It gets it all out of me, somehow, but not by force,' they'll say.

'No, never by force, my dear,' Father will agree. 'A good hotel forces nothing. I like to call it just a sympathy space,' Father will say, never acknowledging his debt to Schraubenschlussel and his sympathy bomb.

'And,' Sylvia will say, 'everyone's nice here.'

'Yes, that's what I like about a good hotel!' Father will say, excitedly. 'Everyone is nice. In a great hotel,' he'll tell Sylvia, or anybody who'll listen to him, 'you have a right to expect that niceness. You come to us, my dear -- and please forgive me for saying so -- like someone who's been maimed, and we're your doctors and your nurses.'

'Yes, that's right,' Sylvia will say.

'If you come to a great hotel in parts, in broken pieces,' my father will go on and on, 'when you leave the great hotel, you'll leave it whole again. We simply put you back together again, but this is almost mystically accomplished -- his is the sympathy space I'm talking about -- because you can't force anyone back together again; they have to grow their own way. We provide space,' Father will say, the baseball bat blessing the rape victim like a magic wand. 'The space and the light,' my father will say, as if he were a holy man blessing some other holy person.

And that's how you should treat a rape victim, Susie says; they are holy, and you treat them as a great hotel treats every guest. Every guest at a great hotel is an honored guest, and every rape victim at the Hotel New Hampshire is an honored guest -- and holy.

'It's actually a good name for a rape crisis center,' Susie agrees. 'The Hotel New Hampshire -- that's got a little class to it.'

And with the support of the county authorities, and a wonderful organization of women doctors called the Kennebec Women's Medical Associates, we run a real rape crisis center in our unreal hotel. Susie sometimes tells me that Father is the best counselor she's got.

'When someone's really fucked up,' Susie confides to me, 'I send them down to the docks to see the blind man and Seeing Eye Dog Number Four. Whatever he tells them must be working,' Susie concludes. 'At least, so far, nobody's jumped off.'

'Keep passing the open windows, my dear,' my father will tell just about anyone. 'That's the important thing, dear,' he adds. No doubt it is Lilly who lends such authority to my father's advice. He was always good at advising us children -- even when he knew absolutely nothing about what was wrong. 'Maybe especially when he knows absolutely nothing,' Frank says. 'I mean, he still doesn't know I'm queer and he gives me good advice all the time.' What a knack!

'Okay, okay,' Franny said to me on the phone, just last winter, just after the big snow. 'I didn't call you to hear the ins and outs of every rape in Maine -- not this time, kid,' Franny told me. 'Do you still want a baby?'

'Of course I do,' I told her. 'I'm trying to convince Susie of it, every day.'

'Well,' Franny said, 'how'd you like a baby of mine?'

'But you don't want a baby, Franny,' I reminded her. 'What do you mean?'

'I mean Junior and I got a little sloppy,' Franny said. 'And rather than do the modern thing, we thought we knew the perfect mother and father for a baby.'

'Especially these days, man,' Junior said, on his end of the phone. 'I mean, Maine may be the last hideout.'

'Every kid should grow up in a weird hotel, don't you agree?' Franny asked.

'What I thought, man,' said Junior Jones, 'was that every kid should have at least one parent who does nothing. I don't mean to insult you, man,' Junior said to me, 'but you're just a perfect sort of caretaker. You know what I mean?'

'He means, you look after everybody,' Franny said, sweetly. 'He means, it's kind of like your role. You're a perfect father.'

'Or a mother, man,' Junior added.

'And when Susie's got a baby around, perhaps she'll see the light,' Franny said.

'Maybe she'll get brave enough to give it a shot, man,' said Junior Jones. 'So to speak,' he added, and Franny howled on her end of the phone. They'd obviously been cooking this phone call up together, for quite some time.

'Hey!' Franny said on the phone. 'Cat got your tongue? Are you there? Hello, hello!'

'Hey, man,' said Junior Jones. 'Y

ou passed out or something?'

'Has a bear got your balls?' Franny asked me. 'I'm asking you, do you want my baby?'

'That's not a frivolous question, man,' said Junior Jones.

'Yes or no, kid?' Franny said. 'I love you, you know,' she added. 'I wouldn't have a baby for just anybody, you know, kid.' But I couldn't speak, I was so happy.

'I'm offering you nine fucking months of my life! I'm offering you nine months of my beautiful body, kid!' Franny teased me. 'Take it or leave it!'