She looks over at the back of Pumpkinhead and thinks: Pumpkin*ass* is more like it, pleased that she doesn’t have such a big rump. She turns her attention back to Tammy, focuses in on the information she is blabbering on and on about. Brownsvile. Cleveland. Steamboat. Marsha gathered she’d heard or learned something in childhood that didn’t hold a bit of water when she grew up, except for the fact there was a Steamboat Springs in Colorado in the same state as a conjunction of Leroy and Kelly, albeit in a county pretty far away in a pretty big state still. Tiny places, perhaps extinct. Couldn’t have been a factor in the mistake. Not *consciously*. “Tell me more about the Browns in Maps,” she decides to say in a pause. “How about that place called Brown’s Bench you mentioned earlier,” she starts her out on about the spot she lost the train of thought — started thinking about rumps. Rumpus Ridge, big ball of twine — LOST. What did it all mean? Oh, shoot, there she goes again. “I’m sorry, Tammy, I was blanking out again — nothing to do with your *excellent* subject. It’s just…,” and here Tammy begins again without warning, without waiting for an explanation from Marsha Pink Krakow on what she was thinking in her own head. Tammy was talking hers out loud per usual. She: more internal, thoughtful. She heard Bench and then Rose. “Biding his time, hmm,” she says about what she thought she just heard.
Leroy Kelly was a star running back for the Cleveland Browns in the late 60s and early 70s. But he had to wait for the retirement of Cleveland’s greatest star ever before he too could shine — not as brightly of course, because we’re talking about the one and only *Jim* Brown, perhaps the greatest football player of all time never mind greatest runner. Certainly most Ohioans would agree to this, Clevelanders or otherwise. Leroy had to sit on the bench, bide his time until the greater star’s early retirement at the age of 30, shocking the sports world, since he was still on top of his game, it seemed.
I’m going to find them, he thought outside, not being able to see thru walls yet. He *senses* them, and they probably do him as well, at least Marsha does, being more open to those kind of things. If they per chance lock eyes it could be over. Safe at home for now, though.
