Michael Malone - Weebly

and stews had often made him queasy. Now Abernathy
imagined the sum total of cartons and cans, quarters of
cows and lambs and pigs, mounds of vegetables,
everything stacked in heaps up the walls of his office.
Then he imagined all of it, all ten thousand eggs and
the rest, mingled in a slimy pulp inside his body. Then all
the food he had ever eaten in his life pressed against his
bones and organs. Bloody meat shoved in front of him
by a grinning navy cook. He wrapped up his uneaten
sandwich. He put it in the wastebasket.
The lawyer was awaiting Judith Haig's arrival. Had
he not spoken to Mrs. Haig on Monday at Dr. Scaper's
(when they had shared, by proximity, the vulnerability of
an examining room with all it implied of helpless flesh
probed for any unfortunate secrets), then he might have
told his secretary to postpone her until next week. But
he had not done so, and now the door was opened and
Mrs. Haig was ushered in. Could it be a divorce? he
wondered. He knew John Haig had his own lawyer, a
blustery Argyle youth who clearly hoped to slide into
the district attorney's job on the trombone of his own
self-esteem. Why should she want a lawyer of her own?