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to be nice.”
    “People in hell want ice water.”
    Now more petulant sobbing. “I
am
in hell. My whole life is hell. I don’t want to
be
in hell anymore.”
    “People in hell want ice water.”
    “Stop saying that! Stop being mean.” More kissing. “Why does everybody have to be so mean?”
    “People in hell—”
    “Stop! I swear, if you say it again—”
    “Come here.”
    Then the sound of a zipper and much fumbling. “I can’t see you.” The woman giggled.
    “So what? You forget what I look like?”
    “I want to look at you. Don’t you want to look at me?”
    “Not particularly.”
    “You’re so mean.”
    Clothes were then tossed onto the trunk.
    “Come here,” the man repeated.
    “
You
come here,” the woman said, then immediately she yelped. “That’s my hair, you son of a bitch. Don’t yank my hair.”
    “Then do as you’re told. Lie down on the blanket.”
    “You don’t boss me. You’re not my husband.”
    “Thank God for small favors.”
    “I shouldn’t even let you fuck me, you bastard.”
    “Too late,” the man said, and I heard the woman draw in her breath, then for a while there were just grunting, animal sounds. After that came a quiet so deep I wondered if they could hear me breathing.
    “Why does everything have to be so horrible?” the woman finally said. When the man didn’t respond, she added, “I hate him.”
    “He’s not such a bad egg,” the man offered.
    “You’re not married to him.”
    “Try not being such a cunt every minute of the day and night. Maybe he’ll be nicer to you.”
    “You men always stick together.”
    I heard her rise, come back over to the trunk again and start getting dressed. Over in the direction of the man, there was the sound of a cap screwing off a bottle.
    “I thought you said it was all gone,” the woman said.
    “It was. This is a new one.”
    She sat down on the trunk hard. “You should’ve taken me to a motel. What kind of man takes a lady to a place like this?”
    Apparently the man didn’t feel it necessary to answer this particular question, and in the silence that ensued I must have made a small noise, because suddenly the lid of the trunk was thrown open and the woman was looking in at me. Backlit, her face was little more than shadow, but even in the poor light I could see her darkly nippled breasts. She’d managed to pull her skirt on, though she was bare from the waist up. It took a moment for me to fully register with her.
    Finally she looked back over her shoulder at the man and pointed down at me.
    “There’s a little boy in this trunk,” she said.
    “Right,” the man said. “Tell me another one.”
    “A little boy,” she said again, as if surprised that what she’d said before turned out to be true. She reached in and touched my cheek. “A real little boy.”
    “You’re drunk,” the man informed her.
    While I watched, she put her brassiere on and buttoned her blouse over it. Then she leaned down into the trunk, so close that I could smell her breath and body. “He’s mean,” she confided, then lowered the lid of the trunk, surprising me almost as much as she had when she opened it.
    “Where’s my purse?”
    “The hell should I know?” I could hear the man pulling on his pants and zipping his fly.
    A moan now. “It fell,” she blubbered.
    “Fell where?”
    “Down there.”
    Down between the ties was what she meant.
    “Get it for me?”
    “That’s hilarious,” the man said.
    “I hate you,” she said. “I hate you worse than my husband.”
    “Getting laid doesn’t improve your disposition much, does it.”
    The voices were receding now. After a pause I heard the woman say, “There was too a little boy in that trunk.” And then I didn’t hear anything more.
             
     
    I HAVE SCANT MEMORY of the journey home. My vague conviction that I now lived in some kind of dream was borne out by the nightscape. The Cayoga, which had run clear that afternoon, was scarlet now,