WEBVTT

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A story called "The Book,"
and it is the same characters.

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He was bringing the book
in a gesture of final hope,

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something he had
found in a bookstore

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just after leaving her
on bright and sunny day.

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And words to an old
English time and tune,

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measure of clear voice and air.

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She liked to sing in
a high clear voice,

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a little thick at times,
chirp, like a secure bird.

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The book was a
paperback collection

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of English airs and folk songs
edited by authentic people

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she would be careful to see.

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Down the street,
walking heavily along,

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it was time to be not
drunk, but the afternoon

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was heavy and slow.

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He was drunk with
beer and dirtiness

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all over his body,
sluggish, sweaty clothing.

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Under the dusty sun, walking
more than he was used to.

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The streets were
hard and barren.

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She had a number of
songs she would sing.

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At one time, it is possible
that she might have been

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trained to sing professionally.

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It was a leftover
hope in that sense,

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a little of an ability
put to fond memories' sake

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and crusted to reappear always.

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They do not forget
what they meant to do

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but just don't do it.

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She sang not happily altogether,
not wildly certainly,

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nor loudly, sadly,
strongly, lonely,

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just enough to be the memory.

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Turn on the radio, the
Victrola, and listen.

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Concerts and early training
were the strengths she had.

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She had painted also.

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She had been trained in that
in a large, gray building

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along a dark avenue of the city.

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It was a timorous
place yet aggressive

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with age and authority
of that kind.

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He once rented a
room on that street.

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He had to go through the
living room of the owners

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to get to his own room
through theirs to the back.

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He moved his things in, sat on
the bed for only a few minutes,

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and then apologized
and moved out.

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Had he apologized the sins of
walking or the sins of memory,

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and she was not in that at all.

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He lit a cigarette and
considered his direction.

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A drugstore lay on his
left at some distance,

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a flat square with a few trees
and the triangle beyond it.

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Then across, a row
of usual businesses

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along the same avenue.

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She was there
somewhere in that maze,

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at another crossing of a
street, a hotel for women, YWCA,

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kindest of all refuges,
heaps of people

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who must be secured for a
moment against sex, age,

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and other identity.

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Earlier, "I didn't
expect you so quickly.

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I had just come down."

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He had called her at the desk.

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A woman watching
him in dull glasses,

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piled hair, but prim
and not friendly.

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"Who came here?

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Ask for your wife,
mother, sister.

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The girlfriend, is she here?"

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Like a morgue of women
that sex all of them,

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beds and beds and beds of them.

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Think of the sound-- snoring,
wheezing, blowing, puffing,

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breathing in beds and sleep.

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"Not about that,"
he wanted to say.

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"Don't," she was saying,
and she was crying.

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"I don't want to go
through it all again.

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I can't tell you more.

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I don't know more.

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There isn't any more to tell."

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"Explain."

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"I was raped on the boat,
not raped, but like that.

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I lost $1,000 in a
purse on the train.

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I bought a lot of
Italian blouses.

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I do what I want to now."

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What is the English song?

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Something like, "I want
to go where the birds go."

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Not quite, but that
flavor of old softness,

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a deep blanket of
cold, clear warmth.

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"Hush, they are singing,
'Down in old Bethlehem,

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the lights are low.'" "No.

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But carefully, you can't
get it right all the time.

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The note goes up
there, then one, two,

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down it goes, lightly.

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'They came upon not so common it
is a statue weeping at grief."

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It was a brutal dullness
that he felt walking.

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Having intended to
do it, he wanted

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to do it and with the
book in his hand wet

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with the sweat of his
hand from walking.

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It was not new.

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It was a dirty old
plan with the walking.

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The old book worn with
the intention of taking it

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to her as though next week he
had remembered a plan, which

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he had thought of and
done, accomplished,

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paid bill of something or other.

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No history in that.

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Nothing solved.

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No answer because he
was being overcome

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by the action of
walking toward her

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but time climbing up on him
as though it were a weight he

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accumulated step by step.

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"Can't you sing too?"

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"No.

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I don't feel easy doing it.

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I try too hard enough.

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Try too hard enough."

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"No."

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"But I can't."

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"Can't you?"

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"No."

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Will he ever see her again
in this life, he thought.

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This day, perhaps, again.

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Talking at lunch with food
he did not like, want to eat,

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a failure in that so reminiscent
of his meals with her.

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And for years to
come, quite the same.

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Oh, he wouldn't change.

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That was the song.

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He had meant everything
he had ever done,

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not to do many things,
to do a few also.

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Well, where do the birds go
when the summer sun is through?

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No, but closer, a
little closer each time.

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The words go along a line
in movement with the song.

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The song isn't that way, a
song of words, that tell what?

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Oh, common things
of women and men

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lads and lasses hay, corn
fields, horses, old roads,

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stones and crows,
roses and one begins.

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I remember, I
remember the house.

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Not so common, but later,
earlier into some practice

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of air and voice he knew
nothing of, say it slowly.

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Waly, waly, oh, love is bonny a
little while while it is new."

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That was the true one,
the right one, sing it.

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It was in the book which he
held in his hand, a documented

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pair who had done this election
assured her, would assure her,

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they were all there.

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"Sing."

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"The street is the book
is in the garden, sitting

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on your knee, my
dear old England."

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Sing of her that is
the garden's insolence

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that bent the seat she sat and
broke the thorn to get a better

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hold to stick it in the
face of winter's thorn,

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bleak wind, and cutting frost,
aghast upon the frozen pain.

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The wind doth drive upon
fast night, fast moon,

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stuck fast in ice today.

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English songs are
pretty little songs

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with the right, bright
tune which follow it.

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The book in his hand
had a slight weight,

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but the heat of the hand
is pressed against it.

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Holding it was the bother of it.

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He had no idea as to which
street would most quickly get

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him there.

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He wandered, a
little drunk still,

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hence walking head
forward steadily.

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People he's supposed to be
looking at him or after,

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but he could not
change his eyes.

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They went forward as his feet.

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He listened slowly,
closely to all

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that she played him
on the phonograph.

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He had burnt out the fuses
on two floors of the building

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in which they lived,
fixing it better,

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more volume, more sound to it.

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The bump and grind of
Calypso, Charlie Parker.

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Listened to it.

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The song is, "Oh,
where do the birds go?

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You don't see them anymore now."

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"No.

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But you can't hear it enough
so sweetly, so lightly hear it.

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Listen closely then
pick up the instrument

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and play it, blow
this way across,

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making the sound lift
out of the long wood.

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Hold it firmly but
do not over press.

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A sound as in woods hollow
from furtive shadow and water

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the reeds and
willows of the wood.

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Not to be learned in an instant.

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Listen in the game.

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Listen.

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We sang with a
sharp, [INAUDIBLE]

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shut the door behind you."

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She was always not
shutting the bathroom door.

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In a maze of people
streets then brought

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to doors one after
another of them of parks

00:07:35.830 --> 00:07:38.440 align:middle line:84%
like deserted,
contaminated areas,

00:07:38.440 --> 00:07:43.180 align:middle line:84%
as if cut out of the activity,
as if to be rebuilt as parks

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one day-- woods, hollows, water.

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A pipe dripped water
into a stone basin.

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He wet his hands and then
wiped them on his pants.

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He sat down to think
of his direction.

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"Not ever again," she said.

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"No, but one last time, say."

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This was outside
the call of duty.

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One last look, book like not
forever, but one last time.

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"Hey, it's you.

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My God, it's you.

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I never expected to find
you here like this."

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"Oh, say, what a happy day.

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You came my way.

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And that was a song.

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Sing it."

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He got up, no longer
knowing where he was.

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He asked the men passing where
it was and got a vague answer.

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The drunk with the book.

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"Look, the drunk's got
a book, a new book."

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They wouldn't answer him
but went past quickly,

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smiling, frowning.

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Perhaps he would try to
sell the book to them.

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He wasn't that drunk.

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He was heartbroken.

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He was hot, tired with
walking, wanted to drink

00:08:39.760 --> 00:08:43.549 align:middle line:84%
beer, wanted friends, a home,
wife, and friends and beer.

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He sang a song for that sound.

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He kept on walking, but
it wasn't fair anymore.

00:08:48.760 --> 00:08:50.410 align:middle line:90%
"You're not listening."

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"Yes," but he couldn't
get the words.

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"Like this, and one and
two, like this, and there

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you hear it now.

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And one and two."

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The boy stood in the burning
bush, his hair was all on fire.

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He thought that he would burn
to death and very soon expire.

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Yes, but not like this.

00:09:10.240 --> 00:09:12.340 align:middle line:90%
Song it is, wrong it is.

00:09:12.340 --> 00:09:16.120 align:middle line:84%
He kept walking because the plan
had been made no longer to be

00:09:16.120 --> 00:09:17.980 align:middle line:90%
thought of as anything else--

00:09:17.980 --> 00:09:21.130 align:middle line:84%
get the book to her, get
the goddamn book to her,

00:09:21.130 --> 00:09:25.180 align:middle line:84%
show her what you can do,
the book with the songs.

00:09:25.180 --> 00:09:26.635 align:middle line:90%
Thank you very much.

00:09:26.635 --> 00:09:28.148 align:middle line:90%
I [INAUDIBLE]

00:09:28.148 --> 00:09:31.142 align:middle line:90%
[CLAPPING]

00:09:31.142 --> 00:09:47.130 align:middle line:90%


00:09:47.130 --> 00:09:47.700 align:middle line:90%
That's all.

00:09:47.700 --> 00:09:49.402 align:middle line:84%
If any of you are
interested in talking

00:09:49.402 --> 00:09:50.860 align:middle line:84%
with Mr. Creeley
for a few minutes,

00:09:50.860 --> 00:09:52.730 align:middle line:84%
he'll be around
for 15, 20 minutes.

00:09:52.730 --> 00:09:55.500 align:middle line:90%
So come on right up.

00:09:55.500 --> 00:09:56.000 align:middle line:90%