He took it from her.

"Taking the labels off," she explained to his questioning expression, "is one minor way to discourage pilfering. I don't like to put locks on things. Snoopers look in on shelves full of blank cans, and don't know whether it's rat poison, motor oil, or green peas, I just have to remember what's where." She tried to look sly. "I have my own system. You must know how these camp stoves work if you've been here any length of time…?"

"Yeah," wondering whether he should explain that he'd learned, however, on a camping trip when he was twelve.

"The urn there is hot. I keep it going all day. I'm sure I'm drinking too much coffee. Can I more or less leave you on your own? I've got to get back to my notes."

"Sure. Thank you, ma'am."

"Wash things up; and let me know when you leave?"

He nodded.

At the kitchen door, she frowned, dark and broad. "You're sure you didn't have some sort of accident? I mean, you're all smudged up there on the side."

"Huh? … oh, I'm all right now. Really."

Setting her lips at a blunt, black roundness, she nodded curtly, and left.

Looking over the pans and pots, he thought: No can-opener, and panicked.

It lay beside the stove.

He twisted and twisted till the last metal scollop popped, and the can-top, lapped with gravy, began to sink. He looked at the stove, at the can; then something happened in his gut. He went in with fingers, shoved grease, meat, and vegetable chunks into his mouth, licked cold gravy from his hand, wiped what ran on his chin with his forefinger and sucked that.

His stomach bubbled, clamped twice, hard, and he had a mouthful of gas still tasting of Bunny's wine. Anticipating nausea, he stopped, for several deep breaths. Then he took the can out, sat on the sagging sofa, and pushed his hand back into the ragged ring.

He chewed and licked and swallowed and sucked and licked.

When the coppered inside was clean except for the bottom corner for which his middle finger had been too thick, he returned to the kitchen, rinsed the can, and let black coffee steam into it from the urn's plastic spigot. Hot tin between his hands made him aware of his dry left, his sticky right.

Back on the couch, holding it between his knees, he watched the steam and grew sleepy, tasted (hot, bitter) some, decided he didn't want it, and let his eyes close…

"Yes, he's right here," Reverend Tayler was saying.

Kid blinked awake. He had put the coffee on the arm of the sofa before he drifted off.

"I don't think he's feeling too — oh."

Kid took the can in his fist to hide behind sipping — tepid.

"Ah," said Mr Newboy. "Thank you."

Kid set the coffee on the arm again.

"Ah," Reverend Tayler repeated, but in such a different tone Kid only identified the similarity seconds later, "you got yourself something to eat?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"Good." Reverend Tayler beamed at Newboy, swept around him, and said, disappearing, "You'll excuse me. I must get back."

"I'm terribly glad I found you!" Mr Newboy carried a briefcase before him, with naked eagerness on his face.

"What'd you want?" Kid's body still tingled from sleep. "How did you know I was here?"

Newboy hesitated before the couch (Kid glanced at the plush and thought: It is pretty dusty), sat. "Just another evidence of the smallness of the city. Your friend in the bar — the big, blond man—"

"Tak?"

"— Yes, that's him. He saw you getting off a bus and coming in this direction. He thought you'd eventually get to Teddy's. When you didn't, I decided to wander over here in case you were still around. I'd never seen this place. And I'm going to be leaving Bellona, soon. Tomorrow morning, actually."

"Oh," Kid said. "He just saw me?… and you're leaving? Hey, that's too bad." Fighting the tingling and the sluggishness, he pushed himself up and started toward the kitchen. "You want some coffee, Mr Newboy?"

"Thank you," Newboy said, and called, "Yes."

"What—" through the doorway—"did you want to see me about?"

In the white crock, the coffee ploshed and plopped. Outside Mr Newboy was unsnapping his case.

"I don't know where the milk and sugar is."

"I take it black."

Kid released the plastic spigot, moved a second cup under for himself, (the stuff in the can: cold) and carried them, out to the couch, the foreknuckles of both hands burning.

"Oh, thank you."

"What—" sitting next to Newboy—"did you want to see me about?"

"Well. I thought you'd like to take a look at these." Wide ribbons of paper came up from the plaid lining. "And these." Now a sheaf of black paper. "And this. This is the cover."

On thick, textured paper, were the centered letters:

He took the—"Oh, my hands aren't too clean…"

"Go on, this is just a sample."

— took the cover which suddenly curved down as he held it by the corner, propped it with his other hand and read again:

"And those are the galleys, which you have to look over." Mr Newboy indicated the papers lying now across Kid's knee. "Fortunately, it isn't too long. Thirty-six pages, I believe. Counting cover. There may be some awful mistakes. It'll be printed on slightly better paper than that. I'd argued for a larger typeface—"

"— but Roger explained, something I suppose we're all aware of, that here in Bellona we often have to make do."

"Oh, yeah." Kid looked up and let the title of his book embed that part of his consciousness reserved for reality, while he expunged it from the part called dream. The transition came easy, but with a firmness and inevitability he associated with comprehending violence. He was joyous, and upset, but could just distinguish that the reactions were contiguous, not consequent.

"These are the illustrations. Again, we have Roger's sense of theatricality to contend with. I'm not at all sure they're in good taste. Frankly, I don't think poetry needs illustration. But he asked me to show them to you: the decision is yours, ultimately."

He was about to say, They're all black, when he caught glintings in the matt stock.

"They're black ink on black paper," Mr Newboy explained. "The only way you can really see them is to hold them up to the light and look at them from the side. Then the light catches on the ink. Roger feels that since the poems take so much of their imagery from the city, he's used some of what he feels are the most striking pictures from his newspaper. But he's printed them this way — I don't believe there's been any effort to correlate particular pictures with particular poems."

Kid nodded. "That's a good idea." He tilted another picture to catch, in sudden silverpoint, burning buildings, people gaping, and one child, in the foreground, leering into the camera. "Oh, yeah!" He laughed, and looked through the others.

"Have you any idea when you'll be able to look over the proofs? The Times is notorious for typos. Your book was set on the same machinery."

"I could do it now." Kid put down the pictures and picked up the galleys. "How many pages did you say it was?"

"Thirty-six. I went over it once myself against your notebook — we'd rather hoped for a typescript; and when you pushed that into my hands, that evening, I was a bit worried. But your fair copies are very neat. You know, you have at least four completely distinct handwritings?"