At a derelict Mobil station, a relic from the dark ages of his own boyhood, he turned past blocks of rowhouses unspruced through all the years since then.

Dena's at the grocery store, he says. Do I want pancakes with fresh-picked blueberries? He holds up a bowl of blueberried batter.

He let the Kaiser blade slip down into his palm. It felt good there, the well worn handle intimately comfortable in his calloused hand. His blood tricked down the haft and flowed across the slightly curved, upturned blade.

The historical record before the war and after shows a tendency toward independent political action in the recurrent sproutings of numerous Labor Reform and Workingmen's parties […]