The Cider House Rules

"Why you repeat every single thing?" Mr. Rose asked him.

"I don't know," Homer said. "I'm happy, sometimes,

" he said cautiously.

"That good," said Mr. Rose. "And Mistuh and Missus Worthington--are they happy?"

"I think they're pretty happy, most of the time," Homer told him.

"That good," said Mr. Rose.

Peaches, who'd had a few beers, approached Angel's bicycle warily, as if the machine were dangerous even when it was lying on the ground.

"Careful it don't bite you," Muddy warned him. Peaches mounted the bike and grinned at the men.

"How do it start?" he asked them, and they all laughed.

Muddy got up from against the wall and went over to Candy's bicycle.

"I have you a race," he said to Peaches.

"Yeah," said Black Pan, in the cider house door. "We see which one of you falls down first."

"Mine ain't got no middle," Muddy observed of Candy's bike.

"That make it go faster," Peaches said. He tried to move Angel's bike forward, as if his feet were paddles.

"You ain't ridin' that thing, you fuckin' it," one of the men said, and everyone laughed. Black Pan ran up behind Peaches and started pushing him faster.

"Cut that shit out!" Peaches cried, but Black Pan got the bike rolling so fast that he couldn't keep up with it.

"I can't be in no race if someone don't push me, too," Muddy said, and two of the men got him rolling faster than Peaches, who had disappeared over a hill into the next field (from which the men could hear him screaming).

"Holy shit!" said Muddy, when he was under way. He pedaled so hard that the front wheel rose off the ground, and then the bicycle rode right out from under him. The men were howling now, and Black Pan picked up Muddy's fallen bicycle; he was the next to try it.

"You gonna try it, too?" Mr. Rose asked Homer.

As long as Angel and Candy weren't around to watch him, Homer thought he would. "Sure," Homer said. "I'm next!" he yelled at Black Pan, who was balancing the bicycle in place, his feet slipping off the pedals; he fell over on his side before he could get moving.

"That was no real turn!" Black Pan said. "I get another try."

"Are you going to try it?" Homer asked Mr. Rose.

"Not me," said Mr. Rose.

"The baby's cryin'," someone said.

"Go pick her up," said someone else.

"I'll take care of that," said Mr. Rose to all of them. "I'll watch the baby--you all play."

Peaches appeared over the hill; he was walking the bicycle beside him, and he was limping.

"It hit a tree," he explained. "It went right at the tree like the tree was its enemy."

"You supposed to steer it," Muddy told him.

"It steer itself," Peaches said. "It don't listen to me."