Chapter Six: The Hair
Asher gave him the key to her parents' rooms, though she refused to go into them herself. He couldn't blame her. There wasn't much to see, besides too much paisley and a gigantic bed that, by rights, should have been impossible to get up to the second floor. That thing needed a crane to move.
The only personal effects were in the wardrobes. No photos, no diaries, no letters hidden away in a locked drawer addressed to their daughter with the words in case of our disappearance written on the envelope. Just two wardrobes, filled with out-of-date clothing that had somehow avoided being moth food.
Billy took the black merino turtleneck and the navy coat and the old jeans that were just a smidge too long and had to be rolled at the cuff. He found that Mr Strange and he shared a shoe size, and thus could share the pair of brown leather winter boots that were almost a perfect fit. They were a sight better than his black ones for the acres of snow stretching across the prairie that morning.
Seeing the white upon waking had been a surprise. The storm blew out during the night and left a uniformly grey and dismal day in its wake. Twilight hangs in the air, making the drifting snow all but invisible as it falls and deepens on the roads and makes driving the Camaro that much harder.
Snow, real snow. Temperatures so cold that frozen water can linger on the ground without melting.
Midwesterners are mad.
At least Asher had oatmeal waiting for him when he went downstairs. A smile, a good morning, a crackling fire. It was so different to his normal life that he didn't speak for most of breakfast, too afraid to break the spell. He still hasn't come to terms with the fact that his 'normal' is gone forever. In fact, he's on edge. He woke up that dreary morning with the feeling of it all being too good to be true. Of his mother's memory not being enough to outweigh his father's influence and that sooner or later he's going to fall off this tightrope and everyone will say ah well, what could we expect with a father like that? He was a lost cause from the beginning and that's that. He's in jail. His life is the same cycle of simple anarchy and no one will ever smile at him and spoon oatmeal into his bowl again.
How cruel, the universe, to show him the possibility of peace, while hanging the guillotine over his head – and it's his twitch that will send the blade falling.
Asher didn't say a word on the ride to school. She is too smart to not notice how he chain-smoked, fingers smacking against the wheel, biting back curses as the Camaro fishtailed. "I'll see you after school," she said in the parking lot, still smiling, and she left him to himself.
So he gathered himself and went to Shop class.
Ah, Shop class. At least some things never change.
Billy hangs up the coat amongst puffer vests and plaid jackets, then strips off the turtleneck too. Underneath, he has his wifebeater from Saturday that Asher washed. He takes down the last set of overalls, the ones hanging on the peg with his name above it.
Shop at Hawkins High is well known to be the home of the academically untalented and the delinquents. Ruled by Mr Shapiro, shop class isn't a seething hotbed of misbehaviour and goofing off. In fact, for the students who work here, it's a relief from the pain of sitting at a desk for hour after hour. Here, amongst the heavy machinery and the half-built cars with parts rescued from the dump and the concrete floors covered in sawdust and shards of metal, boys get to work. Sparks fly, drills shriek. After four years, you could have made a car with five others, built a desk or a wardrobe or any number of small-scale household items. Bookshelves, coatracks, knife blocks, bedframes. Anything you wanted, so long as there was the wood and the tools. Hawkins, being rural and inhabited by either farmers, farmers' kids, or people who sell things to farmers, has plenty of wood to go around and a lot of incentive to instil the DIY spirit in its teenagers.
Mr Shapiro, an ex-drill sergeant serving during the Vietnam war, took one look at Billy Hargrove on the day he arrived and sent him to work with a group of four who were rebuilding a 1971 'Cuda. Hot red with chrome accents, the thing was going to be a beaut. It just needed a working engine and this year the boys working on it were finally getting around the fixing the defunct one the chassis had come with.
"Get on and help them out," said Mr Shapiro to Billy that first day. "You west coast boys know 'bout cars, don't cha?" It wasn't a question. Billy has been working on dismantling the eight-cylinder engine that should have fired at three-hundred and thirty horsepower. Currently, it choked and sputtered and refused to work.
The further Billy got into the engine, the more work he realised it needed. Whoever owned it was a moron. The whole thing was covered in old, oily gunk and full of random, off-brand parts that fit badly and damaged the rest of the components. It needed love, care, and an experienced hand. Billy joined the four boys – a jock, a basketballer, a stoner kid with permanently bloodshot eyes, and some smartass in glasses – and decided he was the man for the job. He didn't trust any of them not to screw this up.
And so Billy became the official engine repair guy of the crew and organised the others into cleaning components and running around town to find replacements and the specialty tools required to fix it. Any major hurdles he takes to Mr Shapiro, gets a quick answer, and he's on his way again. His time in Cali, working on his Camaro and stripping cars down for parts to sell in backlots and friends' garages, is priceless in all this.
The class is held in what was the school's swimming pool. It's since been converted, the pool itself filled in, and turned into a large, airy space with plenty of light from the high windows and a roller door at one end to bring cars in and out. The class is right at the back of the school, near the gym and on the opposite side of campus to the library. He is supposed to be down at the far end, by the roller door, resurfacing the cylinder head today.
His crew and Mr Shapiro are already there, glimpsed through the maze of heavy machinery and flying sparks and sawdust. Billy takes two steps towards them, when there's a crash and Mr Shapiro bursts into a frenzy of Spanish expletives. The stoner kid is wide eyed and terrified. He managed to brain Mr Shapiro with a wrench. Mr Shapiro grabs the stoner kid by the ear and hauls him along the side of the room, stopping only once when he sees Billy. Blood runs down the side of his face.
"You're helping Harrington today," he grunts. "You're not doing anything to that head without me supervising, you hear?" And they're gone.
Damn, damn, damn, is everythinggoing to be different today? He can't deal with this. He prides himself on being adaptable but there's a tension in his chest that is getting tighter and tighter the longer this goes on. Making his mother proud sounds good in theory. Doing it might just be impossible.
If Harrington says the wrong thing, that tension's going to snap. He can feel it.
Billy enters the woodwork section, under the pale white through the skylights and the glaring fluorescent tubing handing on chains. The twenty other senior boys are setting up their stations, getting to work sanding and carving and sawing their desks and wardrobes. They're all grey ghosts moving about in the harsh lighting, washed out and concentrating. No one talks. Here is a place where boys have freedom to focus and create and not fail. Shop class is a religion to these kids.
Harrington and his fluffy head is at one of the benches. In front of him is a large wooden crate with a lid and multiple drawers, some the entire width of the box, others half and half again. Harrington lifts the lid and reveals that the top third of the box is segmented into three dozen compartments, with a slot at the back to hold what Billy can only guess would be a game board.
He knows what this is.
The D&D badly carved into the top of the lid kind of gives it away.
"Morning," says Billy, affecting ease.
Harrington looks up and stares, incredulous. "What do you want?"
Here is someone who expects the worst from him. There's no tightrope with Harrington. There's nothing to lose. Even being slightly less of a bastard to Steve Harrington will be a victory. This is brilliant. The tension vanishes, as if it had never been there to begin with.
Billy can't help grinning and it freaks Harrington out.
"I'm helping you today."
"You're what?"
"What's this ugly thing for, anyway?"
Harrington grabs the lid and slams it on, hand covering the mangled D&D badly carved with a chisel. "It's for a kid I know," he snaps. "What do you want, Hargrove?"
"I'm just following orders, bud." Billy ignores Harrington and his disbelief and not unexpected bitterness and yanks the box towards himself.
"Hey!"
Billy notes that Harrington's got three sets of gold hinges on the bench, along with a hand drill and screws. No ruler or pencils. Moron. You don't do something freehand if you can measure it first. "Don't you want this varnished?" he asks.
"Uhh," says Harrington.
"You've sanded it, right?" Billy smooths a hand over the surface, then checks the interior. He's done a good job of it so far. There are a few nicks here and there, a few rough patches, and one of the drawers has a thinner internal wall than it should. Otherwise it's not bad. Billy points out the areas that need attention in the base, shoves it back over to Harrington, and takes the lid for himself. Maybe he can salvage the D&D with enough care. Maybe.
"What is wrong with you?" says Harrington.
"Testing a new bullying technique," says Billy. He smirks up at Harrington, quick and sharp. "Is it working?"
Harrington glares – it's unintimidating, the dude's about as scary as a poodle, and fights as well as one too. "Asshole. So that it? Your dad's arrested and suddenly you're nice?"
He has a brief vision of smashing Harrington over the head with the lid. It comes and goes like a breath of wind.
Instead, Billy shrugs and keeps chiselling. He focuses on smoothing the line of the first D. The ampersand symbol is going to be hell to fix. What did Harrington doto it? Use a hammer?
And Harrington, moron, keeps digging.
"Or is it because of that girl, what's-her-name, Asher Strange?"
"Get to work," Billy orders. "Before I stop being nice to you."
"Oh, scary," Harrington mumbles, but at least he starts sanding the bottom drawer. After twenty minutes of blissful silence and blatantly ignoring each other, Harrington speaks up, haltingly, too quiet for the others around to hear – not that they would over the grinding and shearing metal.
"You know," he says, "my old man's a piece of work too."
Billy almost leaves then and there. He's on the second D. So close to escape.
"It could be worse. He and Mom are never home. I think he can't stand me as much as I can't stand him."
Was the guy rehearsing this while they were quiet? The words trot out at a rapid clip like he might lose momentum if he's interrupted and he might not complete whatever pity-driven inspirational speech he's cooked up for Billy's ears only.
"I mean it's not bad. He doesn't hit me or anything. He just doesn't care about me. At all. It's like not having a father in the first place. Never taught me to ride a bike or anything. He and Mom spend most of their life on the other side of the country while I'm stuck here in Hawkins."
Billy's seen Harrington's house. A big two-storey modern place with a pool dwelling amongst the trees on the other side of the tracks. What's the bastard got to complain about? It's not a black mansion in the middle of nowhere and there's no one inside waiting to flay the backs of his legs with a belt buckle.
Then Harrington says, "I get it. You and your dad. I get why you're so –"
Billy interrupts him – by stabbing the chisel into the workbench half an inch from Harrington's hand. "Be careful, Stevie. You don't want to go saying things that get you into trouble."
Old habits die hard, thinks Billy.
Harrington gapes at him, then his expression goes hard and he slams both hands on the bench, looming towards Billy. His prepared speech gets tossed out the window. "You know what? Fine. Keep being a bastard for all I care. Hang out with douchebags who drive you into the dirt, drink to solve your problems, screw up every relationship you ever have. The rest of us are gonna get on with our lives and have proper friends."
"Is that what you're offering right now? Friendship?"
"What, no!" Harrington is positively horrified. "Who would be friends with a violent Rob Lowe wannabe?"
"You're not so flash yourself, sunshine," Billy shoots back. "Ever since Nancy dumped your ass, your only friends are a bunch of middle schoolers, am I right?"
"One of them is your sister, who likes me more than she likes you. Do you even have any friends?"
"Step-sister. Friends are for suckers. Learn to live on your own two feet, Harrington."
"Ain't that depressing," Harrington mutters. He goes back to sanding the bottom of the third drawer. Billy scowls and tries to yank the chisel out of the bench. It doesn't budge. Harrington snickers. Billy backhands him in the temple. Harrington smacks him right back.
A minute later, Billy has freed the chisel and is ripping into Harrington for his terrible woodworking abilities, while Harrington gives it right back with pointed comments on how Billy's bad attitude scares away anyone half decent, which isn't true, considering he's managed to scare away Tommy H and Carol, and Asher Strange made him oatmeal for breakfast, but he's not about to admit that to Harrington.
Somewhere over the next three hours of their extended Shop class, Billy and Harrington reach an understanding. All their anger at the injustice of their lives is poured out on each other with the knowledge that no matter what they say, it won't change the other's opinion. They already hate each other. Might as well make use of it.
Symbiotic antagonists is one description of their budding relationship. Friends is another.
Martin, one of the bad academics and an aspiring actor and occupying an adjacent bench, keeps an open air to the constant vitriol. He's impressed. He didn't know it was possible to find so many faults in another person.
When the bell rings for lunch, Martin has a new vocabulary of inventive slurs and swear words for his improv club. That upstart Drew won't know what hit him.
He has also learned that there are three topics that are off-limits; mothers, girls, and The Hair.
.
Today I am not distracted by Morell or the pool, thank the Lord. My mind lingers on The Investigation, focusing on its strangeness, the mystery that has to be solved, the small steps taken on an unlit path with a dodgy torch in order to find the truth, whatever that may be. I plan on finding Troy Baker during the middle school's lunch period, which starts half an hour after ours. That will give me fifteen minutes to hunt him down and interrogate. If that fails, I'll find Mike Wheeler, though knowing him he'll be with his little gang which now includes Maxine and won't that be interesting, finally meeting the renowned step-sister. I wonder how she's taking Neil's arrest. How's her mother doing? Susan must have had a reason to marry Neil and I hope it wasn't for financial reasons because that line of income has just dried up and she's got two teenagers living under her roof.
Well. Kind of. Billy seems to have taken over Kato's room as of this morning. The room certainly smells like Billy, of sweat and musk and cigarette smoke. The smell of that comes with a person never featured in my fantasies of not living alone, rather like Billy himself. Of all people who could become someone important to me, of all people, and that's including Carol and Tommy H, Billy Hargrove was the last one on my list.
Can I be blamed? If the rumours are true, Billy is a sex-driven, alcohol-fuelled maniac, cruising from one fight to another in his beast of a car, expletives and innuendo dripping from his lips until the havoc begins.
But he's not. And that worries me.
I heard his heart through that piano. It was riotous and uncontrolled and mesmerising. It was glorious. I want to hear it again. I want to wake up and have to make oatmeal for two again. I want – I want – Oh, dear Lord, I want him to stay, even more than I did last night when he left. I am beginning to hope, beginning to dream, and that's dangerous because dreaming for people to stay never goes well for me.
Please, Lord, let Your will be done. Protect my heart. Save me from myself, I pray, over and over, through AP English and Chemistry and AP World History.
I know well the damage toxic hope can cause. It's what twisted my heart in knots for years, dreaming about my parents coming back, about Kato coming back, to the point where every phone call might have been them telling me they're sorry they every left and when I picked up, heart racing, and it wasn't them . . . I broke a little more, cracked a little further, and just to escape those desolate evenings when my hopeless hoping was more burden than I could bear, I went to Jermaine and allowed him to control me. I clung to that boy like a lifeline. Poor, hurting Asher. Looking for satisfaction in others to the point where you compromised yourself for the dream of not being alone. What were you thinking? Idiot.
That grey ocean ripples, threatening to swallow me whole.
Without warning, the sheer exhaustion of trying to exist alone, of holding up reality with hopes and dreams that are as solid as the wind, of simply taking care of myself, of this nightmare weekend, heaps itself on my shoulders and I slump forward on my desk. I'm tired. You take over. You're God of literally everything, you can do a much better job of curating my life than I can. I'm done trying and failing and feeling anxious all the time. Have at it, Father, because I've got nothing.
Strangely, a song that came out two years ago starts playing in my head. A bright, peppy disco number mainly about some guy trying to get a girl to spend the night with him. The chorus starts playing on repeat.
Na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, now
Baby give it up, give it up, Baby give it up!
I giggle despite myself and am covered for by the ringing of the lunch bell. The formidable Mr Ross's tirade on the evils of Nazi Germany for the third year running is cut off. He claps his hands. "Right, you lot, off to the gym!"
What?I sit up and watch my classmates collect their things and file out and all turn towards the gym. Bemused, KC and the Sunshine Band still repeating in my head, I follow them through the chilly cinderblock halls. Other seniors join our stream, brightly coloured fish in striped jerseys and puffer jackets and knitted scarves. We pare a path through the younger years who flit around us, clinging to the beige lockers and the club posters and the occasional bench that are normally occupied by us. There's a lot of talking, a lot of staring, and a lot of glances at me.
For the first time that morning, I pay attention to student conversation. It goes something like this:
"Gosh, another memorial already? Isn't this all too depressing? All that stuff with Barb and Will and now Joe and Mikey and Tyler and Strange. Our town is supposed to be boring! Why does scary stuff keep happening in Hawkins? That Morell guy better be rotting in jail somewhere. Oh, and about jail, did you hear what happened to Billy's dad? Turns out he used to beat the guy black and blue and he killed Billy's mom and that's why Billy's such a psycho; Carol told me, that's how I know. Apparently, he freaked out at her and Tommy H yesterday, went completely psycho at them, like Steve did last year. Oh! And did you hear that, like, the day after Asher was attacked in her house, Clutha dumped her because she didn't give him the story straight away? He even evicted her from the newspaper club. Well, it didn't take her long to move on, did it? Saw her getting out of Hargrove's car this morning. The loner and the psycho. It's like something from a movie. Hey, hey, shut up! She's right there!"
I could care less about their schoolyard suppositions. I'm stuck on the first sentence.
A memorial. Of Joe and Mikey. Who are a pair of corpses in a gelatinous cesspool that is yet to be drained and their killer's bruises ring my neck and we're all going to file into the frigid gym to hear Mrs Murphy, our principal, talk about their loss? And I'm going to be expected to just sit there and listen?
Right. Ha-ha, nope, not happening. I'm off to find Troy Baker, even if it means huddling outside the middle school building in the snow, waiting for the kids to come out and avoiding being seen by any high school teachers.
I make a break for it, pushing through vests and plaid jackets and darting down the science corridor. Juniors, held back to tidy up their experiments, spill out now and I bump into the famous Best Friend of Barb.
Nancy Wheeler: journalist; all of them . . . except Mr Mundy's math class; searching for the truth.
Well. The Lord certainly does move in mysterious ways.
"Nancy!" I cry.
"Hi," she says, a little wary. She clutches her schoolbooks to her chest like a shield. "Asher, right? Asher Strange?"
We're eye to eye and twenty pounds different in weight which isn't demoralising or anything. I bike to and from school more days than not, scurry around town following up stories for Jermaine, chop wood, fix plumbing, live on the third floor of my house, and still the idea of being as skinny as Nancy Wheeler is a far-off fantasy.
Stop complaining. Your body is perfectly functional. What's the problem?
Right, right, no time for that. Keyed up and not caring about niceties and the fact that this might be rather insensitive if Benny's deathis related to Barb's death in any way – oh dear, this might be a tactical error – I start digging around in my satchel while saying, "Would you mind helping me with something, since you're going to be a journalist and all?" I find the item in question. It's the photo of Troy Baker, Mike Wheeler, and that girl. I pass it to Nancy. "Do you think you can help me find out who this girl is? I've been looking into Benny Hammond's death and I think this girl might be involved somehow."
I pause. Nancy's gone white as a sheet, hand claw-like as it clutches the floppy print. Gosh, the girl mustbe related to Barbara's death then. Which is, well, awful, but very, very interesting, and being with Jermaine has really screwed with my empathy. "Nancy? What's wrong?"
She rallies in a second, pasting on polite confusion. "Sorry, no. Do you want me to hold on to this and ask some people?" She checks her watch. "Oh, I have to go. I'll let you know if I find anything. Bye, Asher!"
I start to go after her. "Hey, wait-"
A mountain in a polo shirt suddenly blocks my path.
"Strange? Why aren't you at the memorial?" says Mr Clayton, my six-foot-six chemistry teacher, who used to be a bouncer, is a black belt in taekwondo, and only took the job because Hawkins' single club closed down last year and a bouncer's wage doesn't make enough to escape this backwater town.
"I was talking to Nancy Wheeler."
He jerks his head in the direction of the gymnasium. "Come along. I'm heading there now." He whistles for me to follow, like I'm a dog, which he does to everyone when he wants a class's attention.
I sigh internally. So much for mysterious ways. Now Nancy has my only copy of the photo with the girl and my escape plan has failed.
I trudge along behind Mr Clayton to the interior gymnasium entrance. There are four more ways to get inside – through the locker rooms, or the two external accesses, one from the field side, the other from the courtyard.
The courtyard is a narrow space sandwiched between the gym and one side of the high school building, a strip of concrete and planter boxes and tables that gets a single shaft of sunlight. I've never known whether it was planned or an architectural mishap. It's since become the retreat of seniors when it's warm enough to get off the corridor benches and brave the outside. An alley skirting the back of the gym connects the courtyard to the field. Besides the external gym doors there is only one other access to the courtyard. Through a door, fifteen feet down the hallway from the interior gym doors. We pass it and I look through the glass at the snow-covered picnic tables and the small shrubs that bend under their dustings of white and its almost pretty, a small patch of tranquil solitude in the middle of the rush and tumble. I toy with diving through the doors and hoping Mr Clayton won't notice.
He would though. The guy's got eyes in the back of his head. He once spun and tossed a blackboard duster with such accuracy it knocked the spitball straw out of Marlon Kay's mouth without touching the boy's nose. Mr Clayton then asked Sidney to pick up the duster and return it and went back to writing on the chalkboard.
That was our introduction to Mr Clayton in August.
Miss Davidson is loitering beside the gym doors, hustling the stragglers inside. She sees Mr Clayton and lights up, red lipstick smile dazzling in its welcome. "Afternoon, Adrian," she greets.
"Afternoon, Julie," he replies, in a voice that has softened to warm butter. No dog whistle for her, I note. Miss Davidson opens her mouth to respond, sees me, and exclaims, "Oh, good, you found her."
"That I did. I'll see you in there?"
"I'll only be a moment. I need to talk to Asher first."
I need to remind everyone that there is a memorial for two dead boys happening on the other side of the swinging gym doors.
"Save you a seat?"
"Please."
And Miss Davidson's smile becomes bashful as she watches Mr Clayton's muscled back until the swinging doors hide it from view.
"Miss Davidson?"
My favourite teacher blinks and returns to the mundanity of an Adrian Clayton-free corridor. "Yes, Asher, Mrs Murphy wanted to tell you that because the memorial might bring up some difficult memories, you and Tyler Matheson and Billy Hargrove don't have to attend. You are fully excused."
Hallelujah!
"Now, I've talked to Tyler already and he's decided to spend lunch on the field. Do you know where Billy could be?" She spies something over my shoulder and pure amazement washes over her face. "Will wonders never cease."
I turn.
It takes a moment to compute what I'm seeing.
It's Billy. And Steve. Walking. Together. Striding shoulder to shoulder down the corridor towards us, Billy dapper in my father's coat and turtleneck and boots, Steve the quintessential 80s teen in his puffer vest and fluffy hair. He must use product, that sort of volume isn't natural, just like Billy must shape his eyebrows because no way that level of thick black brow grows so uniformly. I'm sure he used my tweezers this morning.
They slouch along, studied in their casualness, sending barbs back and forth about basketball techniques, occasionally smirking and looking so much like friends that I'm not sure I trust my eyes. The shiner Billy gave Steve has yet to fade completely. They catch us watching them. Billy winks at me.
"Is this your influence?" Miss Davidson whispers to me.
"Doubt it," I reply. This is on the level of divine intervention.
The two of them amble up. Steve is tall and gangly, Billy is short and muscled. Steve likes stupid humour. Billy likes beating others at their own games. Steve is pasty from the unseasonably overcast Hawkins autumn. Billy retains his Cali tan.
And for all that, I'm struck by a similarity close to brotherhood. There's something shared between them, a fact of their lives, that makes them alike where the superficial doesn't. It's deeper than preferences and hometowns and if I was pushed to guess I'd say it's to do with bad fathers and high school hierarchies and not quite fitting anywhere.
Now one of the bad fathers is gone and the other is hardly around, the hierarchy is turned against them by Carol and Tommy H, and it seems the not quite fitting anywhere has changed to not quite fitting anywhere with each other.
Mysterious ways indeed.
"Afternoon, Miss," Steve greets, all ease and good humour. "'Sup, Strange."
"Hi, Steve. How are you?"
Steve shrugs. "I'd be better if it wasn't for this ass- . . ." He bites his lip and glances at Miss Davidson. Billy raises his perfect eyebrows, a cat sighting its canary.
"Wanna finish your sentence, Harrington?" he drawls.
"Nah, you know what, I'm good. Life's great right now. No problems here."
"Glad to hear it," Miss Davidson says drily, and she relays Mrs Murphy's courtesy to Billy.
"Wait, what?" Steve protests. "He wasn't even therewhen Joe and Mikey got, you know – uh – why does he get to skip it?"
"You don't want to mourn the loss of your two classmates who you've known your whole life?" Billy asks, apparently upset by Steve's lack of compassion. He has the most innocent expression I have ever seen in my life and I doubt one of us believes it.
Steve gapes, glares, snaps his mouth shut and shoves through the gym doors, grumbling under his breath all the while. Miss Davidson, lips pursed over her amusement, winks at us. "Stay out of trouble, you two," she says.
"Will do." I salute and walk away with a deep sigh of release. The vice around my chest unwinds, letting air into my lungs. I'm almost light headed. I didn't realise how afraid I was to be forced to sit in that assembly and listen and try not to remember, knowing that I would, knowing that the eyes of every senior student would be on me while I slipped further and further into panic and the pool.
Thank you, Lord, for thou art good to me.
