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at the ear inside. It sat on a bed of cotton. It looked like a dried mushroom. But it was a real ear, and it was hooked up to a key chain.
    “Jesus,” said Donna. “Yuck.”
    “Ain’t that something?” Nelson said. He was watching Donna.
    “No way. Fuck off,” Donna said.
    “Girl,” Nelson said.
    “Nelson,” I said. And then Nelson fixed his red eyes on me. He pushed the hat and wallet and cigarette case out of his way.
    “What do you want?” Nelson said. “I give you what you want.”
    Khaki had a hand on my shoulder and the other one on Benny’s shoulder. He leaned over the table, his head shining under the lights. “How you folks? You all having fun?”
    “Everything all right, Khaki,” Benny said. “Everything A-okay. These people here was just fixing to leave. Me and Nelson going to sit and listen to the music.”
    “That’s good,” Khaki said. “Folks be happy is my motto.”
    He looked around the booth. He looked at Nelson’s wallet on the table and at the open cigarette case next to the wallet. He saw the ear.
    “That a real ear?” Khaki said.
    Benny said, “It is. Show him that ear, Nelson. Nelson just stepped off the plane from Nam with this ear. This ear has traveled halfway around the world to be on this table tonight. Nelson, show him,” Benny said.
    Nelson picked up the case and handed it to Khaki.
    Khaki examined the ear. He took up the chain and dangled the ear in front of his face. He looked at it. He let it swing back and forth on the chain. “I heard about these dried-up ears and dicks and such.”
    “I took it off one of them gooks,” Nelson said. “He couldn’t hear nothing with it no more. I wanted me a keepsake.”
    Khaki turned the ear on its chain.
    Donna and I began getting out of the booth.
    “Girl, don’t go,” Nelson said.
    “Nelson,” Benny said.
    Khaki was watching Nelson now. I stood beside the booth with Donna’s coat. My legs were crazy.
    Nelson raised his voice. He said, “You go with this mother here, you let him put his face in your sweets, you both going to have to deal with me.”
    We started to move away from the booth. People were looking.
    “Nelson just got off the plane from Nam this morning,” I heard Benny say. “We been drinking all day. This been the longest day on record. But me and him, we going to be fine, Khaki.”
    Nelson yelled something over the music. He yelled, “It ain’t going to do no good! Whatever you do, it ain’t going to help none!” I heard him say that, and then I couldn’t hear anymore. The music stopped, and then it started again. We didn’t look back. We kept going. We got out to the sidewalk.
    I opened the door for her. I started us back to the hospital. Donna stayed over on her side. She’d used the lighter on a cigarette, but she wouldn’t talk.
    I tried to say something. I said, “Look, Donna, don’t get on a downer because of this. I’m sorry it happened,” I said.
    “I could of used the money,” Donna said. “That’s what I was thinking.”
    I kept driving and didn’t look at her.
    “It’s true,” she said. “I could of used the money.” She shook her head. “I don’t know,” she said. She put her chin down and cried.
    “Don’t cry,” I said.
    “I’m not going in to work tomorrow, today, whenever it is the alarm goes off,” she said. “I’m not going in. I’m leaving town. I take what happened back there as a sign.” She pushed in the lighter and waited for it to pop out.
    I pulled in beside my car and killed the engine. I looked in the rearview, half thinking I’d see that old Chrysler drive into the lot behind me with Nelson in the seat. I kept my hands on the wheel for a minute, and then dropped them to my lap. I didn’t want to touch Donna. The hug we’d given each other in my kitchen that night, the kissing we’d done at the Off-Broadway, that was all over.
    I said, “What are you going to do?” But I didn’t care. Right then she could have died of a heart attack