Free Rabbit, Run by John Updike Page B

halfway done on Tothero when Tothero takes the whisky glass away from his lips and says in a freshened, tougher voice, “Cutlery? For Oriental dishes? Don’t you have chopsticks?”
    “Chopsticks, yes.”
    “Chopsticks all around,” Tothero says positively. “When in Rome.”
    “Don’t take mine!” Margaret cries, slapping her hand with a clatter across her spoon and fork when the waiter reaches. “I don’t want any sticks.”
    “Harry and Ruth?” Tothero asks. “Your preference?”
    The Daiquiri does have the taste of limeade, riding like oil on the top of a raw transparent taste. “Sticks,” Rabbit says in a deep voice, delighted to annoy Margaret. “In Texas we never touched metal to chicken hoo phooey.”
    “Ruth?” Tothero’s facial attitude toward her is timid and forced.
    “Oh I guess. If this dope can I can.” She grinds out her cigarette and fishes for another.
    The waiter goes away like a bridesmaid with his bouquet of unwanted silver. Margaret is alone in her choice, and this preys on her. Rabbit is glad; she is a shadow on his happiness.
    “You ate Chinese food in Texas?” Ruth asks.
    “All the time. Give me a cigarette.”
    “You’ve stopped.”
    “I’ve started. Give me a dime.”
    “A dime! The hell I will.”
    The needless urgency of her refusal offends him, it sounds as if she wants a profit. Why does she think he’d steal from her? What would he steal? He dips into his coat pocket and comes up with coins and takes a dime and puts it into the little ivory tune-selector that burns mildly on the wall by their table. Leaning over, past her face, he turns the leaves listing titles and finally punches the buttons for “Rocksville, P-A.” “Chinese food in Texas is the best Chinese food in the United States except Boston,” he says.
    “Listen to the big traveler,” Ruth says. She gives him a cigarette. He forgives her about the dime.
    “So you think,” Tothero says steadily, “that coaches don’t do anything.”
    “They’re worthless,” Ruth says.
    “Hey come on,” Rabbit says.
    The waiter comes back with their chopsticks and two menus. Rabbit is disappointed in the chopsticks; they feel like plastic instead of wood. The cigarette tastes rough, a noseful of straw. He puts it out. Never again.
    “We’ll each order a dish and then share it,” Tothero tells them. “Now who has favorites?”
    “Sweet and sour pork,” Margaret says. One thing about her, she is very definite.
    “Harry?”
    “I don’t know.”
    “Where’s the big Chinese-food specialist?” Ruth says.
    “This is in English. I’m used to ordering from a Chinese menu.”
    “Come on, come on, tell me what’s good.”
    “Hey cut it out; you’re getting me rattled.”
    “You were never in Texas,” she says.
    He remembers the house on that strange treeless residential street, the green night growing up from the prairie, the flowers in the window, and says, “Absolutely I was.”
    “Doing what?”
    “Serving Uncle.”
    “Oh, in the Army; well that doesn’t count. Everybody’s been to Texas with the Army.”
    “You order whatever you think is good,” Rabbit tells Tothero. He is irritated by all these Army veterans Ruth seems to know, and strains to hear the final bars of the song he spent a dime to play. In this Chinese place he can just make out a hint, coming it seems from the kitchen, of the jangling melody that exhilarated him last night in the car.
    Tothero gives the waiter the order and when he goes away tries to give Ruth the word. The old man’s thin lips are wet with whisky, and saliva keeps trying to sneak out of the corner of his mouth. “The coach,” he says, “the coach is concerned with developing the three tools we are given in life; the head, the body, and the heart.”
    “And the crotch,” Ruth says. Margaret, of all people, laughs. She really gives Rabbit the creeps.
    “Young woman, you’ve challenged me, and I deserve the respect of your attention.” He speaks with