warm-up trills, she sank into a chair and said, "Sing for me, darling. It'll make us all feel better."

"I'm not singing anything," Stern said.

"All right, don't sing for me, sing for your Uncle Babe," she said. "He's never heard your voice, and he's come all the way out here. He'll faint when he hears you."

"Jesus," Stern said. "I'm thirty-four." But when his father played an old ballad, he began to come in with the words.

"That voice," his mother said. "The same voice. I could die."

When he reached the bridge of the song, Stern said, "I'm not doing any more of this. I told you about my stomach. Doesn't anybody realize my stomach hurts? I've got a goddamned ulcer. I have to go away to a home."

"Don't sing," said Stern's mother. "What am I going to do—put a bullet through my head? I only had an idea. I thought it would be good for everybody." Stern's father continued through the song, as though respecting a show-[Pg 108]business tradition that no matter how adverse the circumstances, all numbers are to be completed. Uncle Babe leaned across to Stern's mother and said, "Listen, did you take a look at my shirt? I don't like the feel of it. It doesn't feel good on my skin."

[Pg 108]

"The crazy bastard doesn't even hear the music," said Stern's mother. "He's in a world of his own."

Stern's father wound up the ballad with an elaborate trilling effect, and then Stern's mother said, "Isn't your wife home when you have an ulcer?"

"She doesn't know about it yet," said Stern.

"She ought to be home if you're not feeling well," said Stern's father.

"I said she doesn't know. Listen, none of this is doing me any good. I'm going upstairs on the bed. I'm going to a home in a few days, and I've got to stay quiet until then. Nobody upset me about anything."

He went upstairs, and when his stomach touched the bed, it seemed to puff up with pain like great baby cheeks and he had to roll over on his back to be comfortable. A car moved into the driveway and he went to the window and saw his wife hop out, come around and kiss a man through the driver's window, and then run into the 

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