Dreams of a Robot Dancing Bee by James Tate Page B

this sad loser. She was already planning her escape and how she woulddistance herself now. She might have to quit the job at the nursing home. She didn’t need it really. It was just something she did so her family would say what a hard worker she was. She could find something else to satisfy those purposes.
    Diane looked at her watch and sipped the horribly sweet drink. Miriam was thumbing through one of the magazines. Occasionally she traced the outline of a centerfold’s breast. Just as Diane was working up an excuse to leave, there was a sound in the other room. Miriam looked at Diane and put her finger to her lips, “Shhh.” Miriam slipped off her shoes and tiptoed over to turn off the light-switch. Diane had no idea what was going on, but she was uneasy and regretted she had not made her move to leave.
    Miriam was asking her to play along in this private game of hers. She scooted across the floor and pressed her ear against the closed door separating her bedroom from the living room, quietly insisting that Diane do the same. She was smiling gleefully. Diane could barely make out the voices in the living room, but she assumed one of them to be Miriam’s mother, Greta. What she heard mostly were grunts and snorts. The man wanted more whiskey. Greta was knocking about in the kitchen, coughing and spitting.
    The girls sat like this in the darkness for what felt like fifteen or twenty more minutes, until Miriam finally stood up and flung open the door. Diane was never so embarrassed in her life. The two old people were sitting on the edge of Greta’s hide-a-bed. Greta had on only her panties and garter-belt and her nylons rolled down to her ankles, and the old man too still had on his baggy boxer shorts and black socks.
    â€œWhat the hell is going on here?” the old man asked. “What kind of goddamned deal is this?”
    â€œGotcha, didn’t I, you old whore,” Miriam said with delight.
    â€œI’m sorry, I didn’t know,” Diane said, imploring forgiveness and glancing at the door. “I really must . . .”
    â€œYou filthy cunt,” the mother said.

LITTLE MAN, WHAT NOW?
    A t daybreak, I couldn’t stand it anymore, and snuck out of bed as quietly as I could without disturbing my wife, Louise. I had been lying awake in there for at least two hours wondering who had won the fight. I had dozed off around six the night before, just as it was heating up. Jeez, how could I doze off like that when I had been waiting for this one so long. It wasn’t even a big fight, but I’d had my eye on this kid from Tennessee, Bobby “The Duster” Smith—mean, wiry kid from the hills, probably illiterate, belligerent little bum always says things like, “The pansy will explode when I hit him, they won’t be able to find his petals . . .” I like that, I like that kid. He’s only had five professional fights, all KO’s, but he had another 65 amateur fights, Golden Gloves, and he never lost one of them. Then there’s this other guy from Newark, a black, calls himself Leroy “The Blender” Saxon. Very mean, himself. He has done time in prison, says he will make hillbilly soup out of Smith. I don’t know how I get so fascinated by these guys. My life, or most of our lives, just seem so ordinary, somebody calling himself “The Duster” or “The Blender” brightens my day. But then I had to go and fall asleep just as it looked like these guys were going to hurt each other seriously, you know what I mean?
    So I’d been lying there in bed counting Louise’s revolutions per hour—she was averaging about 12 per last night, a slow onefor her—and wondering just which one of these boys had it in him to do some serious damage to the other. I was also thinking about how selling real estate isn’t a proper job for a man, and how I’ve given twelve of the best years of my life to it, and I feel