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'Don't show me,' I said. 'Surprise me.'

'Don't worry,' he said. 'You won't recognize him.'

That is precisely what worried me -- that no one would recognize poor Sorrow. Least of all Franny. I think Frank had forgotten the purpose of what he was doing -- he was so carried away with the project of it; he was getting three credits of independent study in biology for the task, and Sorrow had taken on the proportions of a term paper for a course. I could not imagine Sorrow, ever, in an 'attack' pose.

'Why not just curl Sorrow up in a ball, the way he used to sleep,' I said, 'with his tail over his face and his nose in his asshole?'

Frank looked disgusted, as usual, and I was tired of running in place; I did a few more wind sprints across Elliot Park.

I heard Max Urick yell at me from his fourth-floor window in the Hotel New Hampshire. 'You goddamn fool!' Max cried across the frozen ground, the dead leaves, and startled squirrels in the park. Off the fire escape, at her end of the second floor, a pale green nightgown waved in the grey air: Ronda Ray must have been sleeping in the blue one this morning, or in the black one -- or in the shocking-orange one. The pale green one flapped at me like a flag, and I ran a few more wind sprints.

When I went to 3F, Iowa Bob was already up; he was doing his neck bridge routine, down on his back on the oriental rug, a pillow under his head. He was into a high neck bridge -- with the barbell, at about 150 pounds, held straight over his head. Old Bob had a neck as big as my thigh.

'Good morning,' I whispered, and his eyes rolled back, and the barbell tilted, and he hadn't screwed the little things that hold the weights on tight enough, so that a few of the weights rolled off one end, and then the other, and Coach Bob shut his eyes and cringed as the weights dropped on either side of his head and went rolling off everywhere. I stopped a couple with my feet, but one of them rolled into the closet door, and it opened, of course, and out came a few things; a broom, a sweat shirt, Bob's running shoes, and a tennis racquet with his sweatband wrapped around the handle.

'Jesus God,' said Father, from downstairs in our family's kitchen.

'Good morning,' Bob said to me.

'Do you think Ronda Ray is attractive?' I asked him.

'Oh boy,' said Coach Bob.

'No, really,' I said.

'Really?' he said. 'Go ask your father. I'm too old. I haven't looked at girls since I broke my nose -- the last time.'

That must have been in the line, at Iowa, I knew, because old Bob's nose had quite a number of wrinkles in it. He never put his teeth in until breakfast, too, so that his head in the early mornings looked astonishingly bald -- like some strange, featherless bird, his empty mouth gaping like the lower half of a bill under his bent nose. Iowa Bob had the head of a gargoyle on the body of a lion.

'Well, do you think she's "pretty," ' I asked him.

'I don't think about it,' he said.

'Well, think about it now!' I said.

'Not exactly "pretty," ' said Iowa Bob. 'But she's sort of appealing.'

'Appealing?' I asked.

'Sexy!' said a voice over Bob's intercom -- Franny's voice, of course; she had been listening to the squawk boxes at the switchboard, as usual.

'Damn kids,' said Iowa Bob.

'Damn it, Franny!' I said.

'You should ask me,' Franny said.

'Oh boy,' said Iowa Bob.

So it was that I came to tell Franny the story of Ronda Ray's apparent offer on the stairwell, her interest in my hard breathing, and in my beating heart -- and the plan for a rainy day.

'So? Do it,' said Franny. 'But why wait for the rain?'

'Do you think she's a whore?' I asked Franny.

'You mean, do I think she charges money?' Franny said.

That thought had not occurred to me -- 'whore' being a word that was used all too loosely at the Dairy School.