Barnes goes up to see Mary in her house which is two rooms of multi-colored silk much of it printed with commercial slogans or else of a horse racing theme, souvenirs of Harvey's travels, and a semi-glassed garden porch between. Mary is listening to Rachmaninoff on a victrola that runs fast. Charles furiously colors in the blank spaces of a 1937 Calendar from Strawn Feedmart and Seeds. Mary is reading an Emerson poem to an aloe vera plant but she stops when Barnes pounds on the frame of an open door.
"You don't like poetry, Barnes?" Mary asks, taking off her spectacles. Barnes lets the question go. Of course he doesn't. She knows he doesn't. Mary Caldwell Stimpson was a superior, sneering sort of woman even when you had your dick up her butt.
"Mary, if I get Harvey to seduce my wife so she forgets about this damned divorce which is gonna cost me too much money right now, what with the Pig Stop and the war breaking out and all, is it gonna be o.k. with you 'cos Harvey said I had to ask."
"I wouldn't mince my words in front of the boy," says Mary, indicating Charles, who, without moving his head or stopping his coloring, has begun to flick his eyes violently in Barnes' direction.
"This boy is clearly kin of yours Mary, because he's gaga and he seems to be drawing peepees and woowoos."
Mary grins. "Ain't he a card? That other child of Claire's appears to be just purely miserable, but this one totally over the edge. Like me. Blood will tell. You can come into the house, Barnes, I promise I won't bite you today."
"As I remember that's what you said last time you bit me." But Barnes moves into the doorway some and hunkers down on his haunches. "C'mon Mary, I'm in a bind. Let Harvey help me. Or maybe you can do something."
"What would I be able to do?"
"Well whatever a crazy witch woman can do I'm guessing you could do. You're the craziest witch I ever met."
Mary Stimpson searches in her pockets and comes up with a pipe. "Gimme matches, dumb child. " Simultaneously Barnes stands upright to search his pockets and Charles quits coloring and when Barnes has discovered matches and is beginning to hold them out he sees that Charles is already beside Mary Stimpson's chair and she is lighting her pipe from a book of matches from Dersher's Truckstop Memphis.
Mary shrugs at Barnes, "Truly it was you I meant. Apparently some lttle children's ears are curiously tuned." Mary pats Charles' shoulder and he stands somberly beside her. She puffs at her pipe and when it is fiery huffs and blows out a roiling cloud of smoke. The smoke is greenly sweet. Mary watches the cloud dissipate.
"I told you not to marry that girl. You and Harvey seem to think ruffles on the panties make the pussy sweeter the pitiful part being that y'all aspire to what only no account country church women would be caught dead in. I can't imagine what it is about Baptist underdrawers twist you cracker boys up so."
3:19:57 PM 
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