"
Peter leaned over the table, following Byron's finger. He shook
his head. "No."
"No? No what?"
Peter roughly took Byron's hand in his. "This!" he said,
encircling the entire drawing with the other man's finger and, in
doing so, pulling Byron from his stool and practically stretching
him across the table.
"Hey!" Byron yelled. "If you want to dance, just say so, but be
careful, boy, I prefer the floor to tables!"
"I'm sorry," Peter said. He let go of Byron's hand, and gently
patted it.
Byron tugged at his sweater sleeve and flexed his arm.
"But look at this," Peter said. "All of this!" he continued,
gesturing in a frenzy now with both hands at the entire table,
the scattered parts, the room.
Byron casually fished his tobacco pouch from his shirt pocket.
"Don't you see what's wrong with all this stuff you're talking
about?"
"Why don't you tell me," Byron said. He crossed his legs and
began packing his pipe.
"First, with all respect to your history," Peter started, "it's
too complicated."
Byron took a few glowing tokes from his pipe than shook out the
wooden match. His motions were slow, unruffled. He exhaled a
plume of smoke, then strolled slowly around the table, eyeing the
diagram from over the rim of his glasses. "Well, now that you
mention it, she is kind of a little monster, ain't she?"
"Little? Hah! If we were to code this thing as it is we'd need an
army of programmers.
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