Pool_2

I like him not at all." "Hey. I like him not at all, also too!" Doctor Ivory laughed from two tables away prodding at Farr's English, to which he got a giggled retort in Arabic over a raised middle finger. Gentle jabbing and counter jabbing went on until, finally, Yount recounted the actual events, exactly, to everyone's disappointment, still with pamphlets in hand to his own. No. Fishbein wasn't bloodied. And yes, certain of Fischbein's buddies in administration were going to do, according to Fishbein, real damage to Macaluso. Tawny's role, as complainer, was a really sore point to Denise Mason who was incredulous, "That prefuckingtentious cunt has a mouth on her worse than mine! Hypocrit!" Others were chiming in with every name for liar they could muster, montebank, pecksniff, dissembler, liar, and so on. Now, even with all this, the Table was comparitively cool compared to the last gathering. Today there was merely vigor in agreement. Agreement does not last the way argument does. Yesterday, table talk had been flat out combative - and deep, way deep. For one thing, yesterday, Mac wasn't there to throw his brooding ice water on the philosophical cross-fire that erupted regularly at the table. Maybe it was the moon. Whatever. Osten, way too invested, protested apothegms and bellowed over Belachnik's loudly assertive but meandering rantings lacking any anchoring philosophical relevance. The only uncontended surviving exposition, and it was brief, was a plea on behalf of Jeffersonian practicality of faith in balance of power rather than faith in people or, worse, faith in faith. "Faith kills," was to become a classic Farr-ism. The civilized poetic contributions of Gibran with its religious overtones contrasted with religious disillusionment and the call to the collective modern psyche topped it off. Farr couldn't