Cone got nervous. He always got nervous when this time was at hand, when she would get out her hammer and chisel and start to chip away at the precious bricks and mortar he had spent years shaping into the perfect personal fortress. The wall that warded off the slings and arrows, kept the spilled hot coffee from reaching the delicate wiring underneath, kept all his demons (friends of his now, he'd known them so long) in chaotic control, prevented the detonator from reaching the plutonium. "What are you thinking about?" The hammer hit the chisel. "Nothing." "You always say that. You've got to be thinking of something." Cone scratched his knee to stall her. His ears were ringing. Did that just start, or was it there all along and did he just then notice it? Goddamn, he didn't feel normal, again. What was all this hammering shit, especially while he was hung over? She sure as hell liked to ask questions. Still, he felt guilty for that fraction of a split-second when he'd think of running away. Like now. But he wasn't supposed to run anymore. "Where are you goin'?" A chip or mortar flew across the room. "Gotta go to work, baby." He pulled on his pants, rubbed his chin and decided against shaving. "Jack?" "Yeah?" Cone liked to hear her say his name. She shifted in bed, half sat up, and leaned her head back against the wall. Cone focused on her left breast, which the sheet had fallen down to reveal. "I love you." Did she mean it? She had meant it, he knew, once. She smiled. "No you don't." Cone got to the worksite 12 minutes late. He pulled out his orange vest, his orange flag and orange hat. "You're 12 minutes late," the foreman grunted, "Go stand over there." Cone stood over there, at the side of the freeway, facing the traffic and holding up his orange flag so the oncoming cars would know not to swerve into the foreman and his crew of work-release trash picker-uppers, maybe severing a head or two, mangling a few limbs and breaking all the bones in that sonofabitch boss of his. To pass the hours, as he did every day, Cone made out the individual letters on the license plates of the cars and trucks zooming by, humanity in small packets, racing to nowhere on two, four, or eighteen wheels. Making words by taking one letter from each plate he was able to get a lock on, Cone had, by the time his shift ended, spelled out all but the last four stanzas of "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock." One line, "I have measured out my life with coffee spoons," took longer than it should have, for some reason.