A group of senior citizens on a ben Washington Square Park in New York City. There were two female senior citizens and two male senior citizens.
"Rabbit, rabbit, rabbit, rabbit," one of the women said suddenly. She turned her head to each of the four ers of an imaginary room as she did so.
The other senior citizens stared at her.
"Why did you do that?" one of the men asked.
"Its the first of the month. If you say rabbit four times, oo each er of the room, or the space that you are in, on the first of the month before you eat lunch, then you will be loved in that month."
Some angry black people walked by carrying steel-band instruments and bunches of flowers.
"I dont think thats true," the sed woman senior citizen said. "I never heard it before and Ive heard everything."
"I think its probably just an old wives tale," one of the men said. The other male senior citizen cracked up.
"Shall we discuss old men?" the first woman asked the sed woman.
The two men looked at the sky to make sure all of our trys satellites were in the right places.
"What about your daughter the nun?" the sed woman, whose name was Elise, asked the first, whose name was Kate. "You havent heard from her?"
"My daughter the nun," Kate said, "you wouldnt believe."
"Where is she?" Elise asked. "Geia or somewhere, you told me but I fot. Going to school you said."
"Shes getting her masters," Kate said, "they send them. Shes a rambling wreck from Geia Tech. I was going down to visit at Thanksgiving."
"But you didnt."
"I called her and said I was ing and she said but Thanksgiving Day is the game. So I said the game, the game, O.K. Ill go to the game, I dont mind going to the game, get me a ticket. And she said but Mother Im in the flash card sey daughter the nun."
"Theyre different now," Elise said, "youre lucky shes not keeping pany with one of those priests with his hair in a pigtail."
"Who tell?" said Kate. "Id be the last to know."
One of the men leaned around his partner and asked: "Well, is it w? Are you loved?"
"There was ahing we used to do," Kate said calmly. "You and yirl friend each wrote the names of three boys on three slips of paper, on the first day of the month. The names of three boys you wao ask you to go out with them. Then yirl friehe three slips of paper in her cupped hands and you closed your eyes and picked --"
"I dont believe it," said the seale senior citizen, whose name was Jerome.
"You closed your eyes and picked one and put it in your shoe. And you did the same for her. And then that boy would e around. It always worked. Invariably."
"I dont believe it," Jerome said again. "I dont believe in things like that and never have. I dont believe in magid I dont believe in superstition. I dont believe in Judaism, Christianity, or Eastern thought. None of em. I didnt believe in the First World War even though I was a child in the First World War and youll go a long way before you find somebody who didnt believe in the First World War. That was a very popular war, where I lived. I didnt believe in the Sed World War either and I was in it."
"How could you be in it if you didnt believe in it?" Elise asked.
"My views were not sulted," Jerome said. "They didnt ask me, they told me. But I still had my inner belief, which was that I didnt believe in it. I was in the MPs. I rose through the ranks. I rovost marshal, at t