WEBVTT

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OK, I'm the last one.

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So earlier today I actually--
can you hear me and all that?

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Earlier today, I hacked
this story into bits,

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so that I could read you
a butchered version, which

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would not take up as much time.

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But I now notice that what
I have is still too long.

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So I think that I'm going
to lop the legs off.

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So that we'll have a sort
of rendered creature.

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I hope it's not too
ugly, in the end.

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This is called "Snow White Rose
Red," the abridged version.

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"I met the girls and
instantly liked the girls.

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Of course, I liked the girls.

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A girl is better than a feast.

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This was before the arrest,
before the indictment.

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The girls were
sisters and lived,

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during the summer, in one of
those upstate mansions built

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by robber barons who made
their fortunes off railroads,

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and steel, and unfair
business practices.

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It was in the lower
peaks of the Adirondacks,

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the southern part
with glassy lakes

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and green slopes and
white-spotted fonds.

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The girls called
their summer house

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the cottage to distinguish
it from the apartment, which

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was a 10,000 square foot
penthouse on Fifth Avenue

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near Washington Square Park.

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Their father was in real
estate, but no one ever saw him.

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Correction, from time to time
we caught sight of him briefly,

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the girls and I, getting in
or out of a long gleaming car.

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Once from the woods, I
spotted him walking down

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to the dock in a pale gray
suit his phone held to his ear.

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He looked like a groom
doll on a wedding cake.

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I wanted to tear his legs off.

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Their mother, a former
ballerina from Madrid,

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was both anorexic
and mentally slow.

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At twilight on the grounds of
the massive yet log cabin style

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robber baron mansion,
dozens of deer stood around,

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their graceful necks
lowered eating the grass.

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There's an abundance
of deer up there

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due to the hunters
who've killed off

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the animals that were supposed
to be preying on them so

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the deer.

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And the girls, equally graceful,
with their light carrying

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laughter and long limbs, spun
glow in the dark hula hoops

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or played croquet with
ancient peeling mallets

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as the purple dusk fell.

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We only met because I came
out of the woods, one night.

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I came out of the
woods and walked

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right across the rolling
lawn scattering the Bambis.

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The sun was setting over
the lake and a slight breeze

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rippled the water.

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I admit the girls
appeared frightened.

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What Rose told me later was
this, that first few seconds

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they actually mistook
me for a bear.

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They'd never seen a
homeless guy before.

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They were that sheltered,
even though they

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lived in downtown Manhattan.

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Trust me, it can be done.

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And though I wasn't
technically homeless,

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I had that same
dirty hirsute aspect.

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I'm not a small man but
tall and barrel chested.

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And that June evening, I wore
filthy clothes and a long beard

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and needed badly to
bathe in the lake.

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I had a home, an abandoned
airplane hangar in the woods.

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But to girls that
pampered and young,

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there's no perceptible
difference between an aging

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hippie and a transient.

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So they were
frightened at first,

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but I held up my hands as
I walked up to the porch.

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I held up my hands like a
man who was surrendering.

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Those girls were good.

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Plenty of rich girls aren't.

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We all know that.

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But those two girls
were innocent.

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I don't know how they
turned out that way

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with the mother who
wasn't all there,

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and the father who
wasn't there at all.

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That goodness came from
them like milk from a rock.

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Often at dawn or dusk when the
deer and the girls were out,

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I was the only company they had.

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I kept a low profile and
didn't throw the Frisbee

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back and forth with
them in case someone

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could see us from the house.

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Usually we stood
together, and we

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talked a little out of sight.

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Once or twice they sat
on the end of the dock

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and trailed their feet
through the water,

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and I swam only my head
above the darkening surface.

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From the high bedroom windows
of the cottage's second floor,

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that wouldn't have
looked like anything.

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The girls let me use the
canoes in the boathouse, even

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encouraged me.

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And some mornings I would
row out into a hidden bay

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and sit and drift
trying idly to fish

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in the shade of a red pine.

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Snow would leave me sandwiches.

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Rose offered small
hotel bottles of shampoo

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and told me to use them.

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These girls were both honest.

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Once Snow said to me, 'you smell
not too good, did you know'?

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I told her that I washed my
clothes whenever I could.

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I tried to swim and
use soap on myself.

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But now and then, I lost
track and missed a day or two.

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'I wish you wouldn't,'
said Snow, wistfully.

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My back hurt from sleeping on
the cement floor of the hangar,

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and I ended up asking
the sisters for aspirin.

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Then, Rose said I should
sleep in the cottage, which

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had more bedrooms than
could easily be counted.

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There was a servant's entrance
and none of the help used it.

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I could sneak in
at night and sleep

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in a comfortable bed, which had
down pillows and high thread

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count sheets.

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I protested at first.

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I feared the other
members of the household.

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But it was silent when I
snuck in there at night

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after the girls had gone to bed.

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It was so quiet that it almost
seemed to me they lived there

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by themselves and food
and water were furnished

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to them by invisible hands.

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So I often slipped in by
the servants narrow stairs

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and slept in my private room,
tucked up under the roof.

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I set my wristwatch alarm and
crept out at the crack of dawn.

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The cottage doors
were never locked

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during the summer months.

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The family was always there.

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The family or the staff.

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The Mexican groundskeeper rode
around on his lawn tractor

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uselessly mowing nothing,
happy to sit aloft.

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The live-in maid smoked
cigarettes near the garden

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shed and slipped away to have
sex with him in the bushes.

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One day, the mother had
a brief flash of life

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and donned her
sparkling tennis whites.

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She ran outside and hit a
few balls feebly with Rose

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on the clay tennis court.

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Meanwhile, Snow
on the sidelines,

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took snapshots for
the family album.

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It was a rare occasion to see
the mother outside in the sun

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acting alive, like that.

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But only 15 minutes
passed before the mother

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went inside again.

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She threw her racket down
and blurted something

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I couldn't quite make out.

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I saw the girl's faces
as they watched her go.

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Their faces were
both sad and calm.

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The girls were resigned to this
beautiful semi-retarded mother

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with her spidery limbs
and odd tantrums.

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Perhaps she was never a
ballerina, I thought to myself.

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There aren't too many retarded
ballerinas in this world

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is my perception of the thing.

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Although there certainly are
a few who, like the mother,

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starve themselves.

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That evening around
dusk, the girls

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came swimming with
me in the lake.

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Rose lathered my
hair up with shampoo

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and ducked my head
under laughing.

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When I came up spluttering
and trying to catch my breath,

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Snow pushed my
head under, again.

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So both of them were
playfully drowning me.

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Rose said, 'what would he
look like with no beard'?

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Snow looked at me
too, considering,

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and then, climbed up onto the
dock and ran into the house.

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She came back in a minute
with shaving equipment

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and cut off the part
of my beard that hung.

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Then they watched while I sat
in the shallows, and with Rose

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holding up the mirror, shaved
off the stubble that was left.

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'He's not that bad,' she
said when I was done.

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I dipped my face under
and came up again

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wiping the water away from my
eyes the flecks of girl scented

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shaving foam floating.

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'He looks like that actor,'
said Snow cocking her head,

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'you know that big French
one with the crooked nose'?

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You look like that actor
concurred Rose, nodding.

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'He's sort of ugly,' said Snow,
'and you have to like him.'

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'Exactly,' said Rose,
'ugly like you.'

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'But also likeable,'
said her older sister.

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'Girls,' I said, ruefully,
'you're going to have to find

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a way to tell the truth
a little less often.'

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'Why'?

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asked Snow.

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'Well, for one thing, it
hurts people's feelings.'

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'We're sorry, said Rose,
'we didn't mean to.'

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'I know,' I said,
'I know, and B,

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If you get in this habit
of telling men the truth,

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you'll never find
love and get married.'

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'I won't get married
anyway,' said Rose.

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'I won't either,' said Snow.

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'How do you know'?

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I asked.

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'It seems really
stupid,' said Snow.

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'Like cutting off
your leg' said Rose.

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'Every marriage is
different,' I said.

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'Get out,' said Snow.

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'Well, you're supposed to be
married,' said Rose 'but now

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your wife likes
someone else better,

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so you won't be anymore.'

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'More or less
accurate,' I conceded.

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'Then why are you
defending it'? asked Snow.

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'Once you were practically
normal,' added Rose 'but now

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you carry a roll of toilet
paper around in a greasy,

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disgusting backpack.'

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And she shuddered visibly.

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It was then that we
heard a rare sound.

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At least rare to us in the
tranquility of those summer

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evenings, car tires crunching
on gravel in front of the house.

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'No way,' breathes Snow.

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'Daddy,' said Rose.

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'It's the third time
this summer,' said Snow.

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'The first time lasted for
an hour,' Rose told me.

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'The second was on my
birthday,' said Snow,

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'he stayed 15 minutes.

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He brought me a
gift certificate.'

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I tensed up worried I'd
get caught with them.

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My clothes were
heaped on the bank

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except for the
boxer shorts I wore.

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There was a clean line of sight
if he came around the corner.

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But I had other
clothes in the hanger.

00:09:15.220 --> 00:09:17.538 align:middle line:84%
So all I had to do was
swim away swim across

00:09:17.538 --> 00:09:19.830 align:middle line:84%
to the part of the shore that
was hidden from the house

00:09:19.830 --> 00:09:23.190 align:middle line:84%
by trees, and from there
retreat to my hanger.

00:09:23.190 --> 00:09:24.550 align:middle line:90%
'I should go,' I said.

00:09:24.550 --> 00:09:27.600 align:middle line:84%
'Don't worry, we'll totally
distract him,' said Rose.

00:09:27.600 --> 00:09:29.912 align:middle line:84%
They climbed up onto
the dock, legs dripping,

00:09:29.912 --> 00:09:31.620 align:middle line:84%
towels swirled up
around their shoulders,

00:09:31.620 --> 00:09:33.420 align:middle line:84%
feet left wet prints
on the dry wood

00:09:33.420 --> 00:09:35.453 align:middle line:84%
before they slipped
into flip-flops.

00:09:35.453 --> 00:09:37.620 align:middle line:84%
And then, the girls were
headed up the grassy slope,

00:09:37.620 --> 00:09:41.250 align:middle line:84%
not running, not
eager, just dutiful.

00:09:41.250 --> 00:09:43.320 align:middle line:84%
I felt a rush of
thankfulness that I'd never

00:09:43.320 --> 00:09:45.000 align:middle line:90%
had children to disappoint.

00:09:45.000 --> 00:09:47.280 align:middle line:84%
Though I wished the girls
were my own daughters.

00:09:47.280 --> 00:09:51.578 align:middle line:84%
Even I would have shone in
comparison with the gray doll.

00:09:51.578 --> 00:09:53.370 align:middle line:84%
I sank down in the
water and spied on them.

00:09:53.370 --> 00:09:54.750 align:middle line:90%
The waterline beneath my nose.

00:09:54.750 --> 00:09:57.300 align:middle line:90%
I kept my mouth clamped shut.

00:09:57.300 --> 00:09:59.550 align:middle line:84%
The suit was undertaker
black, this time,

00:09:59.550 --> 00:10:02.070 align:middle line:84%
and I could just make out
a silver colored headset.

00:10:02.070 --> 00:10:04.320 align:middle line:84%
He talked into that headset
as the girls went up

00:10:04.320 --> 00:10:05.790 align:middle line:90%
the hill to meet him.

00:10:05.790 --> 00:10:07.950 align:middle line:84%
Rose stepped up
toward him awkwardly

00:10:07.950 --> 00:10:10.440 align:middle line:84%
as though she wanted to embrace,
but he held up his hand,

00:10:10.440 --> 00:10:12.810 align:middle line:84%
and shook his head, and
kept talking, turning around

00:10:12.810 --> 00:10:14.250 align:middle line:90%
as he paced.

00:10:14.250 --> 00:10:16.110 align:middle line:90%
She stepped back.

00:10:16.110 --> 00:10:19.020 align:middle line:84%
It occurred to me that they
would be better off if he died.

00:10:19.020 --> 00:10:21.450 align:middle line:84%
But it was an academic,
impersonal thought.

00:10:21.450 --> 00:10:23.767 align:middle line:90%
It had nothing to do with me.

00:10:23.767 --> 00:10:25.350 align:middle line:84%
A second later, it
also occurred to me

00:10:25.350 --> 00:10:27.507 align:middle line:84%
that if someone tore
the groom in half,

00:10:27.507 --> 00:10:29.340 align:middle line:84%
the girls would still
have his money but not

00:10:29.340 --> 00:10:32.340 align:middle line:84%
his cold and
persistent disregard.

00:10:32.340 --> 00:10:35.677 align:middle line:84%
It was painful on the other
hand, the loss of a father.

00:10:35.677 --> 00:10:38.010 align:middle line:84%
And with the semi-retarded
mother on the brink of death,

00:10:38.010 --> 00:10:40.500 align:middle line:84%
surprisingly often,
due to the repeated

00:10:40.500 --> 00:10:43.140 align:middle line:84%
self-starving activities,
which made her subject

00:10:43.140 --> 00:10:45.750 align:middle line:84%
to sudden hospital
visits, the poor girls

00:10:45.750 --> 00:10:49.470 align:middle line:84%
might be farmed out to
relatives, separated.

00:10:49.470 --> 00:10:51.450 align:middle line:84%
So as quickly as I
had it, I gave up

00:10:51.450 --> 00:10:53.760 align:middle line:90%
the idea of murdering him.

00:10:53.760 --> 00:10:56.018 align:middle line:84%
You know, murder goes
through your head, sometimes

00:10:56.018 --> 00:10:57.060 align:middle line:90%
and then, goes out again.

00:10:57.060 --> 00:10:59.610 align:middle line:90%
It's normal, in my opinion.

00:10:59.610 --> 00:11:04.520 align:middle line:84%
Anyway, the thought had no
bearing on subsequent events."

00:11:04.520 --> 00:11:07.250 align:middle line:90%
I think I'll stop there.

00:11:07.250 --> 00:11:10.300 align:middle line:90%
[APPLAUSE]

00:11:10.300 --> 00:11:20.000 align:middle line:90%