“Me? Ohio.”
“Oh, were you in college?”
“Nope. Quit.”
“Oh, were you in the Army?”
“Nope.” With his cigarette hand, Selena’s brother tapped the left side of his chest. “Ticker,” he said.
“Your heart, ya mean?” Ginnie said. “What’s the matter with it?”
“I don’t know what the hell’s the matter with it. I had rheumatic fever when I was a kid. Goddam pain in the—”
“Well, aren’t you supposed to stop smoking? I mean aren’t you supposed to not smoke and all? The doctor told my—”
“Aah, they tellya a lotta stuff,” he said.
Ginnie briefly held her fire. Very briefly. “What were you doing in Ohio?” she asked.
“Me? Working in a goddam airplane factory.”
“You were?” said Ginnie. “Did you like it?”
“ ‘Did you like it?’ ” he mimicked. “I loved it. I just adore airplanes. They’re so cute.”
Ginnie was much too involved now to feel affronted. “How long did you work there? In the airplane factory.”
“I don’t know, for Chrissake. Thirty-seven months.” He stood up and walked over to the window. He looked down at the street, scratching his spine with his thumb. “Look at ’em,” he said. “Goddam fools.”
“Who?” said Ginnie.
“I don’t know. Anybody.”
“Your finger’ll start bleeding more if you hold it down that way,” Ginnie said.
He heard her. He put his left foot up on the window seat and rested his injured hand on the horizontal thigh. He continued to look down at the street. “They’re all goin’ over to the goddam draft board,” he said. “We’re gonna fight the Eskimos next. Know that?”
“The who?” said Ginnie.
“The Eskimos. . . . Open your ears, for Chrissake.”
“Why the Eskimos?”
“I don’t know why. How the hell should I know why? This time all the old guys’re gonna go. Guys around sixty. Nobody can go unless they’re around sixty,” he said. “Just give ’em shorter hours is all. . . . Big deal.”
“You wouldn’t have to go, anyway,” Ginnie said, without meaning anything but the truth, yet knowing before the statement was completely out that she was saying the wrong thing.
“I know,” he said quickly, and took his foot down from the window seat. He raised the window slightly and snapped his cigarette streetward. Then he turned, finished at the window. “Hey. Do me a favor. When this guy comes, willya tell him I’ll be ready in a coupla seconds? I just gotta shave is all. O.K.?”
Ginnie nodded.
“Ya want me to hurry Selena up or anything? She know you’re here?”
“Oh, she knows I’m here,” Ginnie said. “I’m in no hurry. Thank you.”
Selena’s brother nodded. Then he took a last, long look at his injured finger, as if to see whether it was in condition to make the trip back to his room.
“Why don’t you put a Band-Aid on it? Don’t you have any Band-Aid or anything?”