"Maybe it won't be too bad," George said. "Lot of women in there."
"All very well for you, George. I am a man with responsibilities."
"I see them going in. They look like they're going to jail. I want to save them, carry them away on a white horse." George shook his head sadly. "I can't afford a horse."
"There aren't any white horses left," Oliver said. "Silver was it." He raised his glass to the impossibility of it all. "How's the painting?"
"I'm taking a break from painting, working on a sculpture. I'm doing a golden cockroach." George's face changed when he talked about his projects. His big smile and round eyes were upstaged by his prominent forehead and the bones in his cheeks. His mouth went from boyish to disciplined. "Intelligent," he said. "Indomitable. King of the cockroaches."
"Too much. What's the King doing?"
"He's poised, feeling with his antennae, sensing his direction."
"I like it," Oliver said.
"Yeah, come over and see it."
"We talked about Friendship sloops," Oliver said, after a swallow of
Guinness. "They're big on boats at Pilgrim Atlantic."