[...] Buddy’s mother, during one of Zane’s visits, had said something about how wonderful it was that Zane was helping preserve the balance of nature, and Zane had made a face and said the balance of nature was a dead dodo.

“Nothing is really balanced. Try to think of it as an ongoing poker game, say five-card draw, but everything constantly changes—the money, the card suits, the players, even the table, and every ante is affected by the weather, and you’re playing in a room where the house around you is being demolished.”

Buddy and his father, in sympathy for once, exchanged glances.

“Truth is,” said Zane, “most of the time we don’t know what we’re doing. Just tinkering, is one view, another view—”

“Quit while you’re ahead,” said Buddy’s father and silence fell on the table.

His “area of specialty,” as he called it in a supercilious tone, was wolves

Cheri pointed at Rase. “It’s important a me. This is just the worse place I ever lived.” She glared at him and he fired up.

“Worse place? How about that dump you was brought up in? And I’d like to see how you save up enough money for a house in town by passin out hot dogs at a school cafeteria one day a week. You think you got it bad, but this is the best I can do. I been workin since I was seventeen, supportin this family. You’re dissatisfied with everthing, but you ever think a that, ever think I might a want a go into a different line a work than what I do? I wanted a be a high-school coach, but you got a go to college for that and I been hustlin miserable jobs for years so I could afford a buy this goddamn trailer you piss on, support you and all these goddamn kids. You don’t get it that the bad comes with the good. You don’t take notice that there’s a lot a guys would a walked, you bein so fuckin fat and always knocked up.”

“You don’t like your kids you shouldn’t a made so many a them. Use a rubber once in a while and you’d have the money— and no family.”

“Whyn’t you get on the pill? You take the fuckin housekeepin money and buy them goddamn dumb magazines you always get. You could get birth-control pills instead and not jump on me about kids.”