Charles Conner, Lieutenant Conner, laughed a little.
It was good to be home, good to listen to the gentle reprimands that spelled home and were nothing like military correction. After dinner he would get out of uniform, enjoy the comfort of slacks and a sports coat. He would go next door and see if Lenore Bailey would like to take in a movie.
The siren gathered strength and volume. Its initial growl and its first crescendo had seemed far away; soon its slow rise and fall became pervasive and penetrating; when it slurred into each high warble, the human head was invaded not just by noise, but by what seemed a tangible substance. Nora reflected the fact. “This new one,” she yelled above it, “sure is a lulu!”
“They must have hung it on a tree in our back yard,” Charles replied loudly.
His mother shook her head. “It’s on the new TV tower, out on Sunset Parkway by the reservoir.”
Henry Conner came down the stairs two at a time. “Where the hell are my car keys, Beth?”
“Right on your dresser.”
“ I looked there—!”
“Behind Charles’s photograph.”
“Oh!” He bounded up the stairs, hurried back, opened the front door and yelled from the porch, “Ted, that moron, has left his jalopy in the drive! How many times do I have to…?”