"AHA!" Simon says.
"Not too bad," says Veronica.
"Ill have another," Ralph says. He puts a ten on the bar.
"Me too," says Veronica.
"Ill go along," Simon says.
"You two getting it on, or what?" Ralph asks.
"Just acquaintances," Veronica says. "Mere ac?quaintances."
"Dont look like mere acquaintao me," Ralph says. "I have a feel for that sort of thing. Theres a eople look. They kind of lean toward each other."
"This music is a little muddy," Simon says. The jukebox is playing a Madonna number, "Into the Groove".
"You mean ceptually?" Veronica asks.
"I mean the sound."
"I dont care," Ralph says. "If you twetting it on. Im just an old friend. If you twetting it on, Im happy for you. This kid is not my type, actually. I love her, but shes not my type. We spent the night to?gether once, and it was a damp, damp evening. Many, many tears. You remember?"
"Dont remind me. I remember."
"The Brown Palace," Ralph says. "Denvers fi."
"You were trying very hard," Veronica says.
"I always try very hard. One of the hings about me. But you just sat there a, all night long. First I said to myself, Ralph, what is this? Is this a tactic? Is this a maneuver? If its a tactic, whats the objective? I couldnt see an objective. So I decided it was grief, real grief."
"It was grief."
"So I said to myself, how am I to deal with this real, genuine grief? Room service? Booze? What?"
"Booze we already had."
"Stuff a cold, starve a fever," Ralph says. "I decided this was more in the cold area. We had their twenty-two dollar prime rib, if you remember."
"I had just busted up with Jack."
"So were sitting there tearing up this twenty-two-dollar prime rib in the Brown Palace at four oclo the m and she tells me I have a relentlessly pedestrian mind. Remember that?"
"I guess I was in a bad mood or something."
"I was not unaware of that," Ralph says. "he?less it hurt me, at the time. Now I laugh about it."
"I robably too drunk to be as sensitive as I am when Im not drunk," she says.
"You were pretty unhappy. You were probably thinking, what am I doing in this hotel room with this bozo?"
"I hought of you that way. I always thought of you as kind of a friend."
"I just bought a new Mazda, gold in color," Ralph says. "People who are referred to as kind of a frieo buy cars that are gold in color."
"Now youre feeling sorry for yourself," Veronica says. "Stop it."
"Back to Denver," Ralph says. "Denver and my gold Mazda."
"This rounds on me," Simon says. "The same again? Everybody?"
IN the first dream he was grabbed by three or four cops for firing a e-plated .45 randomly ireet. He had no idea where he had gotten the .45 or why it was e-plated. In the sed dream he awoke sitting on a lounge in a hotel lobby wearing pants and shoes but bare-chested. "Ive got to find a shirt," he thought. Then he was in an apartment, which he reized, trying to find a shirt. People were sleeping in the apartment and he kept banging into cymbals on stands placed here and there. He couldnt find a shirt. His mother came out of a closet and asked him to be a little quieter.
A sober versation with Aim asked Dore to e to work for Medlapse," she says. "Hell make her a vice-president. To begin with, though, shell have to be the secretary."
"Its got crash-and-burn written all over it."
"Shell be a vice-pres