

Gabriello "the Beau-est Hooter" Sancto

**Caza "Buckets or Bust" Zooweiler**

** **

**Saragina "Love me Like a Rock" DeSoto**

Four drawings – one for each of the Four Fiends. I mean, Friends!

Artie "Artemis the Blendman" Blend

**The** **Rain** **bow** **Hori** **zon** **–** **A**

**Tale** **of** **Goofy** **Chaos**

By Karen S. Cole

Ghost Writer, Inc. | Rainbow Writing, Inc.

Copyright © 2015

**Ebook and print editions, License Notes**

My book is licensed for your personal enjoyment. This book may be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this ebook with another person, please obtain an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favorite retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

# Under the _Retro_ Table of Contents

Imaginary Preface

Imaginary Foreword

Acknowledgements Page

Imaginary Introduction

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

#  Imaginary Preface: Five Minutes to Midnight

Welcome...to the fleeting realm of the mystic, sexy, insatiably wired coffee-esque post Vietnam War... _Eighties!_ When long hairs vanished, replaced by helmet heads, colorful mousses and gels, beginner punks and pattern baldness. Where people hoping for change in the world began to freely assemble, and cause...it, or sometimes them. While organic vanilla stick, or real chocolate cacao flavored Haagen Daaz meltin' in the sky made the green Starbucks symbol spread her Vulcan tail fan. Wild mermaids swam Puget Sound, as Seafair pirates lustfully waded into warmer-growing summers. Watchin' Seattle Videos...fading into obscure adulthood, containing hidden gay bars and downtown's "seedy" porno.

All the DisAbled physically challenged people haunt this book, using wheelchairs, canes and highly technical equipment for the Blind. The Deaf provide signage for those who can afford to pay them. They work in the backdrop as support services; many have jobs – eatin' inexpensive Chinese food. _Honestly!_

Well, take it for granted there is still ten cents of welfare. Back in the 80s in the Seattle region, there was a lot of hope for independent living. Nowadays, due to the economy, it can be touch and go for the poorer, less thriving ABs...Able-Bodied. As in able-bodied _Seamen,_ originally worshippers of the Goddess Oceana, then of the God Poseidon. I was a third-class such seaman, of the "local" US Navy, in 1987, one year after I helped save King County, Capitol Hill and the Arboretum from a fire, one which would have spread from someone's house after she died. Of being brutally raped and killed, indecent fare for a middle-aged Black lady.

I used to be a nurse aide, home health personal care attendant, live-in for the denizens of Center Park, first apartment building in the country (maybe, the entire world) made specifically for those who inhabit Wheelchairs. Everywhere you can think, there is a _screaming_ need for accessible (WA) housing... _listen,_ they hire "you folks" as helpers! You may work live-in, staying with someone who needs you, in a wheelchair accessible unit that could be yours someday. You _think_ you're healthy now, but down the line you will require some medical assistance.

Accidents happen, y'know...signed, "M."

WHO's the _Mystery Lady_ of the Night?

Every Zircus Krone needs a

Tri-Nightie, Betimes.

Four CIRCUS CLOWNS saw...

Is that a weird Period, _si?_ *

**T'WAS 8 PM ONE BREEZY,** sultry Sunday evening, '70's "Yes" style _(_ I'll be the Roundabout, the words will make you out 'n out, I'll spend the day your way, call it morning driving through the sound and in and out the valley! _)_ Early in August, midst vintage 'n recent dry year 1986, Saragina DeSoto and Caza Zooweiler met to kibbitz at the peeling pastel yellow-walled, well-worn, and bedust-bunnied achoo-lintied Late Night Laundry. Said establishment nestled fortuitously near homes. So's to blaringly spark its fluorescent brilliance, greater than any inn, within the Spartan outer circle of the tiny, spired-in-chunks by apartments and offices, laid-back, and balefully moonlit night-time farm town of Rama, WA. Whilst their second-hand or so solid, drenched and important clothes slushed and gyrated, our duo of demi-dames mournfully attempted a serious intellectual discussion. Of their '80's atavistic, highly complex, delectable and moralistically socialistic Dilemma.

They did this to best beside enjoy their maximum peace, security and conversation, and caffeine-free soda pop, in feminine alone company without violence. Without fear, even sans smiling. Never-ever. Ever. It'd probably use up water.

Well, 'twere an in-depth, unextremist, politicized and mysteriously relaxing (those two icy-cold bottles of soda being clearly involved) supranatch'ral lady talk. If'n that ain't right, what is, while so abstractedly, discolorlessly and thornily, and lecherously but significantly wearing wheat-toast brown, beltless, seatless, fathomless malaise and whalebone-wired disintegrating in sweat French Medievalist—or is its Latin Chic? —red, blue and green-lace panty hose. Hidden under their summer clothes, flat and motionless as the sky in thunder, and worn only in their hastily wildest backyard dreams... captivity is bad. You get the hint, you _do!_ For they were but merely visiting, and with a well-defined purpose, involving the singular atmospheric Force called Water. Namely, laundry. In machines that churn it, like smelly corn-chip butter...

* From a Tale of Two Cities, by Charles Dickens. "It was the best of times; it was the worst of times..." Anyway, what time _is_ it? Is it time yet? Too soon, too late, or _some other time_ beyond human knowledge, such as Daylight Savings Time?

...an expensive pursuit, that. For they are you, _je!_ Le Français je for I, not _you_ Jew! If anyone here has a religion, they are welcome to stay awhile. Until then, welcome to be our friend. But water is still Cheap. Listen to it, rising and falling in the faithful old machines like the breathing of organic life itself. Its timing and symmetry are pricelessly necessary. Prayer to the gods is called on in the event of the most unspeakable tragic loss. Water is. Listen to its ever-present, logical pull, and to the argument surrounding a day's useful and anticipated calling.

"I think it's ME," spake the Lady Saragina (or Sarafina), a thin but hugely feminine voice invading the quietly monotonous slushing. Darkly. "I...am your Heroine, or at least I don't take black tar, seriously...I don't. I AM the Night. I'm the Opus of Space, Magnum Champion, half a dozen feet of brown glass bottle and a premier recyclable, hey; the Original and Final Place, AfriHello, Owner-Managee'd, Humously Cool Calm and a nice little Collective, if you'll believe in one; the Sweetest Archery of Darkness, a Bacchanalian overtone of Yeast, not mine but His on the Cross, your own Absorber de la Lighte. I am...six foot three inches tall. Sometimes. Retro is a sign. It can make me shorter, taller, and goofily chaotic, too. So, I'm good...

"The Beast! What are you, or could you possibly ever be, next to ME, my dearie-dear?" Sara sniffled, pretending to cry vast streams, losing the lost blue tears of cavernous, sunless dried-up underground rivers, in these other words none. Blue signaling Male, symbolically stiff and exasperating Tall. Shorty?

"Exactly! Next to you, I am the Truth, and the Way, and most especially the Light. See how they're always putting the Great Me, who ARE, on the Yeehaw's Witlesses pamphlet covers? See how they put us on, like we really were our flimsy, spinning clothes?"

Caza sighed in two poofs, quite knowingly. She was the dyingest, er, dryingest Lady. She had three loads in tonight, having to pick through them carefully as they twisted and turned. Lightly, she brushed lint off a skirt with the back of her southpaw, coffee-colored hand, almost snagging, dreaming of further flatter silver mail-order rings she should buy. That nicely tan hand was loaded for bear already.

"IF...your blasted bad, sad, plaid, dead, fed, unrelated to Ned and instead unknown family of the boonies is out to kill you, how about handling the next one right off, hmmmm?" She looked down. She...she...he...they.

"Ah, the foolish ones, they do not know how. They do not know why. They do not know...scuse me, Truthway." said Sara to Caza, "you Lightweight. I have got to go get my washing into that their grocery-money eater." And so Sarra-roginno did. It cost them a whole dollar, four quarters. Five or six, soon! A dollar for each stinking, piled-up laaoo-ooaad, saving for several smelly weeks, only to become sufficiently smelly for the smelly old water shortage...

...she'd been unrudely interpreted. "Maybe," Caza whispered, "they mean the other mystery Lady of the night, who is Not Never Us, but who is them of, u Around, Ussens. Or, perhaps, they're simple mean. Or, maybe it's not too meaningful. Say, o dietary aide person, what's the best stuff to take for severe leg cramps?"

"Very short hikes."

"Lately," she continued, "if i so much as hikes to the grocery store, I get Charlie Hosses. These colors of calves don't win sure. Of course, this is usual for Truly Yours, here. But I hate Charlie the Horsie. What do I do?"

Sara-genie, normally a happy, peppy and reflective sort of person, put her chin, genius superfluous as was the rest of her, which was pointy to the point of Duchess Jabberwocky, and thinly muscular besides, on her 35% milky-choc hand. She was glancing productively inwards. "Calcium is...an asylum. Iron. Take a lot more of those tablets I gave you. You know it was ME, and that you are whole. And...

"Take 'em with meals, two or three times a day. And keep going for walks, OK? Also, eat some more red meat, roasted, for animality or something. Or take those B-vitamin supplements and magnesium a 'that I stole from the Ridge for you. Don't OD on calcium, but you can't. And, maybe you should think about less coffee in your life, decaf maybe, and drinking more water. I see you've heard it all before."

"Yep," said Caza the fair, Lady of the Limp, who coincidentally walks gently and gingerly and cinnamonfully in the eleven half-tone autumn limnear twilights. But none of her relatives do.... fresh from the funnies. You hear. Caza has a congenital (born to be wahhahaha-hald) heart problem and albuminuria**—so thus is overall the Frail of this hyar modern booque. Caza in the soft diffuse twilight or pastellar, woad, exeestahnce. Sara on t'other hand was most hearty and hale, a tower of strength, full of good advice...

At that tertiary unsung moment, boldly, another Mystery Lady of the Night walked by the churning and laugh-singing laundromat, a nightless blur passing along the window on the outside sidewalk. She seemed anxious to be home, but was scarcely fearful in her well-kept, deeply composed, and quasi-elegant stride. There were no clicking noises from her pointy shoes, only a lingering brief swipe of shine against glass of billowing, unfaltering silent motion.

Caza, unwithstood, saw this, noting the triadic presense, the Hermes Trismagestus reference docking into reality. Nothing Cirrus nor Sirius, only a fave hobby offers this solace. It lives, it breathes, and it...perks. What _were_ 80's "perks?" Oblique daily forms of the Trinity, watching the spin cycle kaleidoscope clothes—the Tri-Nightie. Is that what I really _wanted_ to think, she moozled, 'bout job perks?

And so, the Mystery Ladies of the Night, those two anyway, in an ordinary small-town laundromat and by divine Rule, momentarily became Three: virgin-mother-crone, father-son-and-Old-Man-Spook. A weird age, 'tis...what IS the third one, really? Lasting, or only futile? And do local nursing homes have anything normal to do with rational sex...? The outside Dark Lady was Gone.

After Sara finished her two bloomin' loads, and Caza her reduced last (sans bras), after they swiftly folded into wicker baskets Sara's filmy crepe dresses and sturdy polyesters, and Caza's floor-sweeping aquamarine mail-order dresses with the matching blue-green front-hook bras, and half-slips, and after all their towels and sheets and almost matching artificial satin pillowcases were carefully placed on top, they ambled discretely home. Nothing but Stars witnessed their walk. Best friends forever, BFFs or something heartless with no name...'cept sharks.

And now, for something completely deferent: Caza is happily, passionately in love, living with a Blonde, one Artie Blend, man. He's a roaring lion in an alcohol cage. Picture him knowing how to help her, but never quite Being Able to do so. Picture her finally deciding to go ahead and lose some weight. Through Prayer, the simple, powerful act of asking for what you can't do on your own.

** Presence of serum protein indicated in Caza's urine, a sign of renal (no kidneyin') impairment. Meaning, she must pee. _Buckets,_ _please!!_

Imaginary Foreword – Four Minutes to Midnight

By those who _rewrote_ the Bible, including her main author – otherwise known as "What's His Name," or YHVH; sometimes, "M."

Or...by Ghostwriters, Editors, Publishers, Salesmen and Marketers.

THE HOLY DYE-BULL, Containing the OLD and the NEW Testaments, translated out of the Original Hair Coloring; and with the Former Translations Diligently Compared (but not Reviled), by His Majesty's Special CHICANERY.

To: His Most High and Mighty Prince, or Princess, THE PUBLISHER'S ASSISTANT, by the Grace of God, King or Queen of Great Britain, France, Ireland, and all other Such Countries, Defender of the Faith, &c. The Authors of This Document wish Grace, Mercy, and Peace, through the Wonderful Name of Our Lord, THE PUBLISHER, the MOST Dread of ALL Sovereigns.

Great and exhausted Manifold were the Blessings, Most Dread Sovereign, which Almighty God, the Maker of All Book Contracts, bestowed upon us the Fiction Novelists of the Americas, when first He sent Your Majesty's Royal Person to Rule and Reign all for us, the Authors.

For Whereas it was the Expectation of Many, who wished not well on to our Scions Manuscript, that upon the Setting of that Bright Occidental Star, Elizabeth "Joan Calling" Trailer I of Happiest Memory, some Thick and Palpable Clouds of Darkness would so have Overshadowed the Heads of Madonna and Others, were it Not for the Miracles of Science and this Land, that Men should have been in Doubt Which Way they were to Walk.

I Say, Walk This Way, Talk This Way, and Gimmee a Kiss; and that It should hardly be known, were it not for Close-Ups, who was to Direct the Unsettled State; the Appearance of Your Majesty, which may be Uncombed while Reading this, as of the Sun in His Strength, instantly Dispelled Those Supposed and Surmised Hair-Mists, and gave unto All That Were Well-Affected Exceeding Cause Of Comfort.

But among All our Joys, there were none that more Filled our Hearts, than the Blessed Continuance of the Writing in this Book, which will be revealed unto You, ah, Shortly. Which is that inestiMabel Treasure, which Excelleth All the Riches of the Earth; because the Fruit Thereof extendeth Itself, not only to the Time spent in this transitory World, but Directeth and Disposeth of even Swarthier Men and Women unto that Eternal Happiness which is Above, in being Stone Blondes.

Then Not to suffer this to Fall to the Neck, but Rather to Put the Hair Up, and to Continue It in that State; nay, to go Forward with the Confidence and Resolution of a Girl who is Maintaining the Truth of Marilyn, and Not Exactly Propagating it Far and Near, but Sometimes is That which hath Bound and Firmly Knit the Hearts of All Your Majesty's Loyal and religious Hairdressers unto You, that Your very Name is Precious and easy to reprint on a Computer Screen, mailed to You Tomorrow, stating that "You, Shirley Mailer, have won a Million!!!"

There are infinite Arguments of this White Christmas and religious Affiliation and Your Majesty; but none is more forcible to Declare it to Others than the Vehement and Perpetuated Desire of Accomplishing and Publishing of this Work, which Now with All Humility we present unto Your Majesty.

By the Mercy of God, and the Continuance of our Labor's, it being Brought unto such a conclusion... we hold it our Duty to offer it to Your Majesty, not only as to our Emperor and Sovereign, but as to the Principle Mover and Author of this Work; humbly Craving of Your Most Sacred Majesty, that since Things of this Quality have ever been Subject to the Censures of the ill-meaning discontented Persons.

It may receive Approbation and Patronage from so Learned and Judicious a Publisher as Your Highness is, whose high Allowance and Acceptance of our Labours shall more Honour and Encourage us, than all the Calumniations and Hard Interpretations of other Writers Shall Dismay us...Sustained without by the powerful Protection of Your Majesty's Grace and Favor, which will ever give Countenance to Honest and Vari-Haired Endeavors against Bitter Censures and uncharitable Imputations. The Lord of Heaven and Earth Bless Your Majesty with Many and Happy Days... so that you may be the Wonder of the world.

_With a dash of Eternal Now "blonde sugar." What began in the Roaring Twenties and next ending in Millenials is nowadays called_ Retro. _Go buy the most expensive old clothes you can, in antique shops lining your coat and their way._ Radioactive, retroactive and Retro period – era timeframe. "There's more snakes than ladders, at this point in time." _– Captain Sensible, '80s hyperbole. That's Life..._ I'm gonna ball myself and die, my my. _Uh, two sets of parts? Both working, could make myself pregnant? Wouldn't need God, religion, or my friends to loan beaucoup bucks._ Jail reference, My Lai Massacre. Whose lie?

Acknowledgements Page – Three Minutes to Midnight

DEDICATION: In a Bun Dance (mostly, for Angela, both husbands, Mom and Dad.) In addition, to Christy, Connie, their respective families, the P./Forbes clan, the Schwarz's Trudy and Alex, and the Cole/Schuldt/Fee families, plus every worker and each client who went through Rainbow Writing or Ghost Writer, Inc. Hello, all "my" colleges, including those in Ohio and Washington. You rode a bicycle through your worst deserts, the ones with the truck-generated shimmering oilslick mirages. Finally, hi, Poland, Austria, Germany, Jews, Russia, Czecholslovakia, the Ukraine, and the whole continent of Europa, including China. And Hong Kong.

This book was entirely influenced by: M*A*S*H, Whose Line is it Anyway, Toni Morrison, Mark Twain, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and Nabisco. You'll find Quality in our Oreo, whether chocolate or vanilla. I'm double stuffed! Oh, and Mad Magazine. Also, Rosie O'Donnell, Ellen "DeGenerette" (hey, I'm _way_ more degenerated), Neil Patrick Harris and one Timothy MacKenzie Gunn, leader of men, wolfmen too. Tears for Fears turned out to be from Neon, a sign of the times.

And to Jesse Jackson, who's Protestant but thinks he's President. Deep inside, or not. This book is sorta named after The Rainbow Coalition, not Gay Comics; but it has one "screaming fag" in it. He doesn't holler, he acts in gay porno flicks. Screams of ecstacy! Plus, this is dedicated to an alleged murderer ( _not_ the Green River killer) who just wants to bake a life, and a gaggle of flaming queens winning a half-naked baseball game. Also, to the entire Gay Community of Seattle, WA. And to Orlando, Florida and a Day which will Live in Infamy Forever – not funny. This mostly heterosexual book is dedicated to LGBTQs everywhere, their families, friends, coworkers, and overly friendly nemeses. Long live the Gay 80s!

TO: "M," Search Engine Robots (HAL), Edgar Allen Poe, Nicole C. Kear, Carmen Berry, Helene Vece, Sallie Goetsch, Stan Lee, Angela C. P., Betty Smith, Betty MacDonald, Claudia San Luis, Boccaccio, Erma Bombeck, Peg Bracken, Judith Crist, Richard Armour, Alex Haley, Vicky Judah, Ben D. Kennedy, Robert Louis Stevenson, Paul Rudnick, Toni Morrison, Alpha the Moon Unit Ollie, P. J. O'Rourke, Richard Corbett, Phillip Roth, Amy Tan, Leo Rosten, James Thurber, E. B. White, Maxine Hong Kingston, Andreas Dudas, Jorge Luis Borges, Joe Olvera, Lucille Iverson, Peter "Razor" Slade, God, Fu, Ruth, Job, St. Francis, Al Emid, Sarah, Shirley Jackson, Johnnie Carson, Stephen King, Sylvia Plath, Sherry L. Granader, Larry Leichman, Cormac McCarthy, Denny O'Neil, Harry A. Thompson, Scott Hastie, Luther Seahand, Roxana Jones, Bruce Brager, Linda Leon, Debbie Davis, George Bernard Shaw, George MacDonald Fraser, David Johnston, Donald Westlake, Kurt Vonnegut, Ralph Ellison, Morgan Rose, Sue Townsend, William H. Shakespeare, Albert Einstein, James Baldwin, Jean Kerr, Alice Walker, Peg Bracken, Sabine Shah, Lori Suthar, Susan Sontag, Laura Sherman, Dorothy Parker, Robert Benchley, Lewis Carroll, L. Frank Baum, C. S. Lewis, Charles Dickens, Cloise Orand II, P. L. Ryan, Simon Lewenberg, Susan Ferritto, Justine Mbabzazi, Farid Hotaki, Harlan and Ralph Ellison, Ray Bradbury, Kurt Vonnegut, Vin Lunney, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, H. P. Lovecraft, me...and the "Keep "Em Flying" lady, Erica Jong. Possibly, maybe, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe? Dr. and Mrs. King, wrote love letters to each other? Based on a pair who wrote to the depth, breadth and heighth their Soul could reach? Elizabeth Barrett Browning and her hubbie, "How do I love thee? Let me count the ways..." Well, Percy Byshe Shelley and his wife were no slouchers.

PLUS, TO: the erstwhile creators of the Amerikanski Sherlock Holmes (namely Ellery Queen), the "timeless" duo of Frederic Dannay and Manfred B. Lee, Firsts Publishers. Celebrating all Mystery Zones _everywhere,_ including Alfred Hitchcock's and Rod Serling's, and once or twice Phyllis Diller's too...Mary Higgins Clark, Agatha Christie (Mostly competed with _her,_ one way or another), Dorothy Parker and Robert Benchley, Sylvia Plath and Woody Allen. Mostly, Heywood Konigsberg, otherwise known as Stewart Little Rock.

ALSO TO: Mel Brooks, Supreme Genius, immoralist and Raisinette Lover. AND/OR FINALLY TO: My Heroine, Seattle's own Linda Barry, and her High-School Chum, Matt "The Simpsons" Groening! May they Rest in Peace, infinitesimally.

AND _(oddly enough)_ TO: Muhammad, who tells a Genie _when_ to have sex, and...not _exactly_ to the former man of the century, Hitler, whose works I tragically read and argued with, whom "Time" replaced as MOTC with Einstein. _Such_ a wise choice, as his loveable math work on the A-Bomb...forget it, Germany and Britannia.

Or England...and then I met Albion Pendragon after 55 years of waiting for him to show up. He used to be on TV as a subhuman constant, being a main "Elvis" impressionist painter, and I cover him in another book you could read. It's my autobiography called _The Invisible Mitzvah._

I wish old men weren't gay. Period.
Imaginary Introduction – Two Minutes to Midnight

THE DISCREPUTABLY FETCHIN' CHARMS OF GABRIELLO "BEAU HOOTER" SANCTO – WITH A NOSE MAYBE ONLY EBONY MAGAZINE COULD LOVE, ABOVE A BODY CRAVING MERELY THE ONE MOST NON-ARCANE FORM OF HUMAN SEXUAL REPRODUCTION:

"MY ENCHANTINGLY PRE-AQUILINE proboscis emanates from the central hill country of South (in autumn) Carolina, which is deep-most emerald green, dankly lush, and rapturously beautiful in huggable feels. And it's cleverly marked along windy roads with little white crosses, along subhumanly narrow, shadowy twisting back roads, crosses that indicate 1,113 deathly auto wrecks.

"Isn't that screamingly humorous? As you are already well aware, it's heavy, humid and stifling there, least wise in mid-summertime. Makes you want to die on those gorgeous tinker-toy hills.

"An odd place to find either localistic Indians or Hispanics (she's calm), yet a few are still there, still...si, I know Eros if Eros. And my very real grandmother lives in an isolated, indisposed tiny coastal Spanish town laughingly called Iberia, a quaint cool blue-green back water eerily hidden under barrowing gray-white clouds weeps in a tragically when-swept series of dried-out mounds, dying rushes, and awesome lonesome blousy beaches, sharp on the feet, with the brisk, goals-crying suctioning and stinking salt sea ocean.

"It's God in paradise as usual. Clear, fetid, misty and terrible. Especially in early spring. It smells. Reeks of tourists, acid rain, messed up silent living.

"That's why I reside, currently, in the Pacific Northwest, in a hidden-'way farmland buried, lurking, sanely. Unbelievably, it's far nicer here than I've ever experienced it anywhere in the heartland Carolinas. Better, bigger and realer mountains too, that occasionally actually contained snow on 'em for runoff. We're luckier'n we know right now. Gulp. Yeah.

"My turgid and dinkus name is unknown, torpidly kinda, but they say I went by "Beau" for several long, nasty, altruistic, and eventually individuated lily-lazy yars. My father's name is Sancto. Never for me. He doesn't warrant it. And it's thought my truer moniker "es" circa Gabriello or Gabriella, but nobody's sure, Somebody, 'cause I'm missing my state-ordered birth certificate. Reet! I'm certifiably Unknown. It's Gabe. I like "Beau," though. Maybe.

"Colloquially, it means 'fop' as in Beau Brummel. Or it means, well, 'good.' Beau the Bum? I work. Sort of a harmless ne'er-do-well, a chap 'bout town, a modern-day Gatsby, non-extant seeker of nonessential truths. I'm not a psycho, a thief, or a homicidal maniac. I don't bite, smoke, or play twenty questions or Trivial Purse-Snatching.

"I'm built, happy, modest...you are now stuck with me."

The Halcion Times of Gabe "Beau" Sancto and his Townie Crowd

THE _Who Are Sent Forth_ character list:

Gabe "Beauest" Huter: 5'7", 24, Latinofine | Chicanoesque | Hispaniman, collects insects, sci-fi blobs and condoms; laborer

Sarafina DeSorto: 6'3", 22, Hispana and Afribibble, often wears last year's cornrows; nutritionist

Artie Blender: 6'1", possibly taller as he slouches, 42 white "MF" years of age, a worrisome drunk; multi-skilled laborer

Casaesque Zoowailer: Caza, the Unknown and unknowable, 36, "like Babylon," hippie; bookskeeping seamstress who's certainly dying without really trying

(Correct spellings now. The people in this book are all Philippino-American and blend into each other. They are also all secretly Black and Armenian. However, they are anything you want them to be, within Dire Wolf limits.)

Robert Goneschlaw: he's not deaf, he's Jew Polish; "maybe a bit dumb—you'll see"; mouthless Ameslan-wielding bartender, excellent with a sword

Ned England: The Queen is dead—no, it's his mum; black, 17, looks it; prep waiter, watches horror movies, Mom was one herself

Jeannie Ontermeyer: an adult of the café; teenaged, redheaded, an able waitress

Cloadia Tager: wears cowboy boots daily, plays "helicopter pool," 31, strawberry dishwater happiness, prays to Poseidon; waitress from out of town and cocktails

Sharone Bitters: has an important parent, is black-thin, 5'6", "a slip of monetary poetry"; registered nurse with non-imaginary brothers and sisters

Harmin Boole: 79 and looks that, widower, owns several local children; retired

A plethora of non-human animals will be groovy in this book too.

There are also appearances by: Gabe's divorced parents; Artie's Montana relatives; the mental patient Gabe rescues; Suzette, a fairy child; Phoebe Sommers, an earlier elder passionfruit of Gabe's; the so-called Mr. Jones, a man in an address with a deadly story to tell; Chandover, a French composerary of Beethoven's; Emilia Bitters, Sharone's mom and a Krakatoan on weekends, bartending; Ed Bitters, a litigant itinerant for a hopeful cause; and the other weekend 'tender, a young man named Dan Nuts who thinks he's gay.

In addition there are: Gramma HeLouise, "Beau's" gramma; Dame Gretchley, a character/minister with brown hair, blue eyes, a Viet/Korean face, and a bulldog mentaility; Thomas DaLieken, an Italian, sympatico to the severely impressed and OTHERS; Mabel "School" Jones, a nice middle-aged plump auteuse who writes history novels "pretty good, for a boat-owner," also tending bar: Dave Velasquez Velasquez, a handsome young Latino man, "dead" at 29, temporary Prince of the Air; and one Fred, of Wabash, WA, whose major life's goals are to walk and drive fast again without another accident—and to eat Rocky Road.

He's a drinker, like Artie he needs a good woman to date, and better housing. Habitat for Humanity has nothing on Fred and his dark-hued designs, which will all be fulfilled someday, if things go naturally right and not infernally wrong.

Fred is the heart of this Entire Matter...him and his Manual Wheels.
Chapter One – Minute to Midnight

_INTERLOCUTION_ FOR THE FOUR MAIN CHARACTERS INHABITING THE UNLIMITED HEAVENLY BODIES AND BOONIES OF _RAMA,_ A GROWING FARM TOWN LOCATED SOMEWHERE IN NORTH-CENTRAL WASHINGTON _STATE:_

It's your basic countryside plotisimo, the small, isolated locale hosting a quartet of primary types, especialmente dos guys; over time, it is discovered that drinking destroys - but marriage saves. In essencia, it _succeedes_ with our fair young, modern, but 1980s oriented protagonists.

MEN—one's short and dark and stocky, the other, tall and blonde and WASTIN'! They each have a girl-fiend--both are gals of color and mystery light. They are all drinking buddies, borderline broke on the barricades of daily trades. Gabe tipples. Saragina is Gabe's career-minded lady, Caza is Artie's hippie soulmate. Sarah is serious and surging forward, while Caza is playing it slow, living life for itself, for art and for Artie. But not for drink. She pees too much to bother with it.

They all live very near each other, in three separate homes—a cognomen for tidy one-bedroom apartments. They are, shall we say, "getting by"?

Saragina DeSoto is bright, charming and maturely beautiful for her age. Her parents are deceased. No one knows why yet. She loves to "wake people up" by smiling in their faces, up close, and she likes to buy folks a drink--if they promise to drink only two. The one she buys and the one they buy. If they drink more after that it's their problem. "How can I stop you?" She sighs, and moves on. She also likes to hang out at the Krakatoa, chewing the gum, and is on the bar's bowling team, The Crackling Roses.

Artie Blend is a Genuine Drunk, "sailed wi 'approval," many years long-standing and often found sitting. "Burrup! is a not infrequent, comment on his lanky-tanker part. He don't hold reg'lar work but keeps "afloat". "Been drankin' since height, wan' be strai-yate!!!" Gabe is younger, less stuporous and has worked only three low-skills jobs. He just doesn't wanta fit into "society as it stands" yet. It's "more fun" to hang-out, be selfish and sit down to shallowly vegetate and wait for work with Artie. For a while...

Single, Latinate, currently making friends with Norwegian Artie, he's a loner with and an Indian grandma who loves him dearly thousands of miles away. She may need his help someday. Gabe's parents are divorced and live back east too. So true. It's note. Who're you?

Artie's galfiend Caza Zoo drinks a bit, not near so much as Art. She's got an illness. Art's still "good" physically, not too desiccated, but he's starting to hurt. An alkie's alkie who puts two down "fust thang in the moanin" and whose long stringy yellow hippie hair matching scraggly beard makes him resemble a Scandie Christos. Throws his head back, and laughs explosively. This fascinates the heck out of Gabe, who for some reason can barely manage a slight snicker.

"Beau" is quiet and reclusive. Reads a lot. Works out. Saragina loves books; she reads mostly women's lit, black lit, anything lit, etc., and books on nutrition. A lot! Ask her what's good to eat nowadays. SHE knows.

Caza the Zoo is indescribable. She dresses as filmily as her health is frail. Her face is lovely, unpeaceable in time or space excepting the indefatigable brown of her barely beginning to wrinkle countenance. She has a very few spotty freckles until you look closely, and in addition should be leading a much more sedate life. But she's fine now, except she's dying. That's what they say.

She loves to sew, especially stuffed toys for kids.

Artie seems to be having max fun roaring around, but at 42 he's burning out from years of yeast abuse and internal neglect. Heck. He's worse off than Gab, which they both know, and are currently learning. It's mostly Artie's fault. He had some good chances but let them slip through his macro digital fingers. Life, could You e'er have held Your cares heartmost for this world?

Gabe is smarter than that or thinks he is, like Artie once was. Art is almost just a bright and shining example of how not to live your life. Somehow he's not dead yet. Meanwhile, Gabe is starting to imitate him. This'll have to stop, and soon.

"Beau" reads fluently in Spanish, English, and Algonquin, which he's studying enter interminably with Sarah. He rents a one-bed apartment he can almost keep clean, and it is daily strewn about with paperbacks, ten years work. There's a soda and wine bottle collection, plus a knife collection begun by his Spanish father Donio. He also speaks a few hundred words from each of the Algonquin dialects, descending into e'en a little New Yorker Round-Tablease when Sarah and he get together, making it up. Lo tocas por oldos.

Ademas, he has an option against "retail" society; he contains enough recently poetically numerical heritage to qualify for permanent residency on a 950-acre native "scion" reservation. With option to buy future acreage. But he'd still need to seek trouble, he thinks, and the dang thing might get sold to instantaneous developers. He wants to make it, by and by, on his own, albeit under duress. Right. So far, he rents, owns a $5000 and dollars security bond, and keeps an antique book his grandma "gifted" him as when he was a lad. He has time on his side and his hands... for now.

"Happy to harpy, Harpo to Oprah for you. Hap-hap- _HAPPY_ _!"_

ON SUNDAY NIGHT, early "Beau" buys a half-pint of cherry marble ice cream and a long-necked bottle of brut Chablis. A half-week worth. He takes it up to his flat and sticks it in the screeching frig, which seems to want defrosting. Several inches worth. In little while later, as the sun is goldenly and ruddily setting, Saragina DeSoto arrives. The banking sun reflects off the nappies ends of her auburn hair. Gab smiles at her in sweetly happy appreciation.

They end up strolling through the park, named Shell Park due to the remarkable lake-front beach. There are curious small seashells that mysteriously wash up, multi-colored and conspicuously patterned, on the moistened shore. Even more colorful quartz rocks are sparkling visibly, embedded deeply in the wet sand. The jagged shells appear as many tiny open mouths, infinite and black, myriad as chaotic broadcoat buttonholes. They perceptually echo with unfrozen talk...walk...

...echo with talk. It rambles ahead of them, this talk, as it lightly alternates feeds itself with soft, lilting, rushes-stirring phrases. There shell-reflected words, as below, assented with Sara's mildly tempered southern tones and Gabe's mellifluous east-central citified patois, suddenly grow decisive.

"Gabe," inquires Sarabelle, as "Beau" has at times called her, "when are you going to cease this parading futile nonsense and settle down?" She models him a smoldering look.

"With you, my lady?" Gabe blinks. His heart jumps, barely touching his upper ribs, probably skipping that perennial beat.

"Who said with me?" And so the stroll continues.

For some reason, or so Gabs surmises, Sarah keeps glancing over at the parks emerald and dew-outlined grassy lawn. Does she want to go sit down on the cool, welcoming grass over there? No, not at all, not all...

"I think we should go back in soon. I forgot my jacket and it's very chilly out. Don't you think," exclaims Sara, abruptly grabbing Gabe's left elbow and crossing his arms over his chest, as though to protect herself from him, "that it's more appropriate to be indoors on such a cool night?" Sara works as a dietary aide at Ridgeview Hospital and is forever worried about given a cold to her elderly charges.

"Sure, if you want. I wished but merely to catch the furtive dregs of the warming sunset with you and tow, my sweet, though I sense a feminine need for warmth going on here. Want me to walk you home?

"Mmmmm, yes. I have got to be up by five-thirty in the blessed a.m. May I have your arm, silly Sir Ius, and wrapped loosely around my waist? Why, thanks be to you, very very much." The shells are casually left with hollow silence as the young couple departs the park arm-in-arm.

They stroll to her place, another walk-up, three blocks away. He kisses her good night and ambles on home. Along the way he runs halting smack dab into Artie Blend.

"I thought you was goin' ta meet me at th' Krakie las' emptier naht, yoo Artless rube. No such luck!

"Ah, don' know what do be doin' wichoo, ma Mayan! Or wichout! Ah don' got nobody to TALK to wichoo not 'roun'. Nobody t'play pool wit' neether 'cep' ol' Hah-min an' he warn't thar, NUH-UH, mayan. Whar yoo bin, hout wit' th' gayal?" Artie is a "gen-u-wine" Montanan, y'better stand back listen and watch, mostly or duck. For six feet around him. Gabe is learning, dementedly, daily, practicing, how to imitate a decent mallard-head duck. Artie, at this point in time at least, isn't very loaded, so's it's easy, altogether, easy as sin, pumpkin pie or a Bud pitcher-binge on Sunday.

"Yep, I went for a wild walk with her in the park, Art. So, are you presently game for a session of rack 'em up?

"Rarin'! Howza bo?" Artie slaps Gabe on the back, not too hard. He follows the younger man, waving his arms and talking loudly all the while, into the Krakatoa. They are met therein with shafts of light.

At home, "Beau" reads a book that overviews quantum physics, non-linear thinking, and all the summarized finer points of unified field theory. This is very relaxing as very little of it relates in the slightest to reality, especially Gabe's surrounding one. Therein, Gabe is flanked out on his unmade, inviting and lumpy bed.

He never does "get" the part about "black holes," fearing it's a weird bogus anal reference at worst 'bout a dead zone topic anyway..."black holes are what my money keeps disappearing into." Nearly through with the book, he puts it down and falls into perplexed dozing.

On the way into scintillating dreamland, he recalls his original name... It means something like "Angel"... once more he frets, worries and stews, having nothing better to do then sleep, while feeling lazy and unused for doing so. But sleep he does.

Caza Zoo enigmatically crops up in his dreams, whispery lady, gypsy tramp, wise-woman earth-mother, larger than the world. She IS the created super-image of Babylon the Fallen, live from the Yee-haw's Witlesses pamphlet covers. It's obviously Mary Todd Lincoln's fault. But she isn't in the slightest that demented, tortured madam, no; she has a joke and a smile that makes her least her own worries fade, and Gabe's were definitely being rendered more pastel. Her pain, in Gabe's dreams, was being knocked aside, without meds, by magic dancing, by singing and love from her friends.

"Beau" could see her dancing on clouds, trailing blue velvet strips of light. Perhaps a silver surface would catch her, stranded in the middle of the air. Would it be he? Was that surfboard still stored away in the back of his closet?

Sadly, Caza has chronic health problems, and will probably die rather young. Is that why she and Artie are an item, peacefully content with sex and love? She's a pert pretty li'l brown gal, ethereal and wispy, visually awash in a moving cloudsea of hazy perfume, with touches of elliptic swallowing night-light.

Doesn't seem to have long for this world, she; but she exudes energy. She likes green and brilliant sapphire-blue filmy chiffon dresses that lightly touch the floor, and quaintly mismatched scarves and socks. She politely yawns, most delicately, if you become dull too fast. Please buy her a drink, small, one finger of vodka or a gin and tonic, if you see her. _Hokay?_ She'll also do your books at a reasonably nice low price.

Caza eventually drifts out of Gabe's head, right before she has any real effect on any other of his parts. But he is very content, see, in his particular state of sadness waiting existence, save for the lack of a particular... wife. Drifting, dreaming, on the narrowest edge of sleep... occasionally, when Gabe's eyes get tired from reading, or when the very thought of women pulls his soul too hard, he lets loneliness overtake him, and he reaches down to his groin... cupping his hand over his maleness. He gently strokes it momentarily, reflectively, feeling a deep, phantasmagoric sense of isolated... mourning.

He has plenty of nobly faltering books to read, crazy twisted pulsing music to listen to, the scarlet-hued Krakatoa to visit and dwell within, and the park. Best is the park, best on beautiful, clear days.

On those kinds of days, he goals to watch the Frisbee People near the water, throwing their toys all the way across the tepid lake. Mostly fellows seem to be in on the throwing, although they are blessed with the efforts of some of the happier gals, usually. They all tend to go for distance, and wind conditions in the park are excellent for that there discoid high-flying fun.

Monday. Gabe and Artie and Thom "Stallin" DaLieken go to pick up their checks, paid out to them once weekly. Their boss, Workers of the World Industrial, Inc., housed for now in the Guild Street Mission, had originally paid their workers on Fridays. They discovered an attrition rate too high for their tastes come Monday. Drinking did it. WWII began to pay on Monday and found it worked. The money doesn't vanish, and the workers come back on Tuesday. Only the liquor market suffers.

Gabe, who feels out of place sometimes, gets his sizeable but meager check and takes off to be by himself for a while. He's signed on for the next two weeks, digging potatoes out in the unplanned country surrounding Unionville. He heads for the beach, sitting and viewing the gulls, the gals, the Frisbees, and the swift-flowing bejeweled waters lapping over his aching sneakered feet like so many friendly crystalline puppies. His sneakers are old and don't matter. He's precariously seated on an emerald green, fair-smelling as sweet grass, rotten, and partially submerged willow log.

"Potatoes," he mutters, stoically trying to cause his heated words to blend heavily with the water. "I gotta go dig up some potatoes. Bushels. Food, hungry, eat; potatoes."

GABE SANCTO AND ARTHUR BLEND, among others, work for a job service agency operating out of a local mission. The mission began the service but is now no longer involved. The mission operates a food bank and provides shelter for homeless people. There are a few such characters in Rama. You might say, they have a mission.

Also, the mission is where Dame Gretchley holds her "Altogether a Good Time Sunday Service," in the basement. It's called the Guild Street Mission. Enough about the mission. The job service agency is run by Workers of the World Industrial, Inc., WWII for short. It's called The Guild Street Service Group. They'll get work for 'most anyone willin' and average pay is $7.50 an hour, depending on your skills and experience. Gabe started off at $6.25 – hitting a Topeka of $15.

"Beau" formerly worked for a mental health institution, actually a psychiatric ward in a hospital. Before that he worked for a grocery, and then a bookstore, discovering life's intrinsic and belittling limitations along the way. He had previously taken care of his beloved ailing grandfather, now deceased, for about two years. That helped him get the hospital job. He then lost it by helping a female patient to escape.

Artie has skills in outdoor and indoor construction, carpentry, forestry, and mid-scale assembly work. Plus he used to do a lot of carnival jobs, clear-cutting logging jobs in Montana whenever work was available, and indoor painting. Gabe wants to learn how to paint the inside and outside of homes, and how to install the wiring, plumbing, and basic structural support et al in new homes.

Saragina has a more regular line of work. She's a dietary aide at Ridgeview Hospital, Rama's largest employer, where she's a plate-pusher, a spoon-lifter, a face-feeder. It's a position she attained through an associate's degree, gained in a neighboring state, and much applying around. She loves her job, which mostly involves helping the elderly, and she wants to work up to Dietician and Diet Management. She can do this by going to the local community college, unfortunately about 100 miles out of town.

Ridgeview is willing to help her pay for her education, and she's also saving for it. She even makes good money from a novel she writes, later on in here. She's worried about leaving Gabe behind, though. Because he cares about her, but she doesn't want to believe in that, yet. Or something.

Caza is an independent contractor bookkeeper, part-time. She does the books for many small local companies which don't have in-house accountants or bookkeepers. She makes more than enough to get by this way. Also, sometimes she sells the teddy bears and other stuffed animals she makes.

Sara's first "god-awful" poem, at the tender age of ten years old:

THE ROLES AROUND me tell me what to teach.

I love to skate on frozen lakes, I feel at HOME thereon,

Snowflakes DRIFTING off the pond and melting all over my coat.

The Being is a human ice-cream...float. Of this I'm fond.

Everywhere I go, I can do anything but rhyme;

Coocoo clock? Time payments? Time enough to pay;

I can leave all those darned places behind some other way.

My living is the congenial sin, sacred but neon-violet. I can't

Be a garden nun. S'I'll be it, no.

I touch the dial, I call Brazil...on a kiddy phone!

The Dead Made the Internet

Awakening of National Pride:

Saragina Buys a Motorcycle

"SARAGORGEOUS!" arc-yelled Gabe "Hooter" Sancto, her Beau. "What are you doing? I can't believe you!!"

With a screech and a squeal, ending with an appropriately loud curb bump, the pretty black lady pulled up to where Gabe stood. These sounds came from her new vehicle and a toy, a Katsumano Eurocycle, American-made, brilliant silver with gold trim and a massive front carapace. Sarah also sported the popular Ido Helmet, which guaranteed protection from all crashes up to 180 mph--both vehicles.

She reved the engine for Gabe three times, then shut it off neatly. "Well, whadaya think, dear gent, you in the back or me up front?

"No contest! You like holding me around the waist too much." Gabe got aboard, Saragina slid back, and they spun forth for a ride around town.

"It's not all mine yet--do be careful. I'm paying $155.34 per month for it, the next four years. That was a deal, oh nellie, they charge for these darned thangs. My cousin paid almost twice as much for a Mahayana with the juiced-up American engine. He ripped it up anyway, said it needed work. Now it goes 300 mph and uses twice the gas. Why don't we go to Florida?"

Gabe was very quiet throughout the ride. "This is really all yours?"

Saragina was silent, letting Gabe direct the new machine. She drove so slick she veritably purred. He eventually pulled into a garage 50 feet from her front door.

"Well... it doesn't have to be mine. My cousin would assume the payments. So would you. Sara eased her deep brown hand, with its glowing pink palm, along Gabe's warm and stubbly cheek. Gabe gazed lovingly at Saragina, kissed her hand, and then broke into a big smile.

"WOW. Yes, I would. But... I can't really use it. Can... can you use it?" Sara smiled, the smile that had attracted Gabe to begin with. Drawn and puckerable, yet subdued and charming.

"Noooo...not really. Not here. Well. Impressive wasn't it? Rides like a good motorboater should. Like it?" She gracefully turned the key. Folding her hands in her lap, she sanged, "and if I ever do go back away-away-away...

"NO way," flatly announced "Beau," who took her in his arms and kissed her for about five minutes. "I love you. Tell you what," he breathed, après this most tender osculatory contract. "I'll take it back for you, tomorrow if you want. Only if. Want to keep it, my darling?" She gazed at him meltingly.

"In a town this size? My legs will atrophy into snappable twigs. No. They'll refund the down. Please do."

LA KRAKATOA...ON THE corner of Guild Street and 31rst. Dustily reminiscent of Mt. St. Helen's. No, it's more of a Saturday night slowly drawn, bubbling with crowd laughter, a band or music canned humming in the background while you and yours self-sedate...last week they proffered Herman and the Mell-Tones at 'em, next week they'll play all-day only country mucous on station WIMS.

Bar's twenty years auld, gives off all the appearance of total dive from the outside street venue. It's clean on the inside, but dark. There is, however, a ten-foot-high fully-erupting plastic orange volcano flaring up fireplace-style special effects, including sparks. It sits in the north-east corner of the main hall, with the KRAKATOA painted in bold black letters above it, in livid yellow, directly beneath the ceiling. Which is painted a screaming fire-engine red. You can see it "purtah wail" when they lower the lights. It warms the eyes and encourages the wallet.

The walls are lined with bookcases that are heavily infested with books. Many of these tomes, lovingly filed away alphabetically and by category, have never suffered from a reader's criticisms. In shorts, the most "read" they usually get involves reflections from the ceiling lights. But, then there's Gabe "Beau Hooter" Sancto. He pulls them out and reads 'em.

"Last week," aid Mabel, the lead tender on weekdays, "he came in and asked for a certain book. When he couldn't find it, he looked through all the shelves. He finally went out, came back an hour later with a copy. It was thin, something by Marx, I guess. I don't read those. And he put it up in one of the lower shelves, next to a thicker book. To the left. I think hardly nobody but him reads 'em, though, 'cept that tall black girl, and yours truly, 'course. I write 'em."

The Krakatoa serves excellent margaritas, daiquiris, and Shirley Temples with a dash of club soda for the driving parties. Big huge platters of cheesy besalsa'd nachos, free with a pitcher on Friday nights. Bring a nice crowd.

Gabe is a Saturday night regular and always spot-checks to see if anyone new is there, which the case is ofttimes. It not, he plays pool with Thomas DaLieken, Artie, or occasionally Harmin Boole. On Sunday he attends Dame Gretchley's "Altogether a Good Time Sunday Service." If he can get up before 2 pm.

Dame Gretchley cheerleads the service, and she has a wonderful, natural, spirit-of-the-times exuberance, wacky and infectious. "You are the greatest person in the world! Never ever forget it!" she loudly chants to any audience. She's very open, like Thomas DaLieken, although she tends to be bossier; sometimes she and Thom are the only people Gabe can manage to talk to. He thinks that. Mr. Boole is a little too self-impressed.

One time, Artie was playing pool, fast like usual, and while roaring drunk. Artie attempts to make that into a literal truth. "RRRAAARRR!!!" he'd yell, filling the bar to burstin' with volcanic sound. If he did it twice, he was asked to leave.

Anyway, while maneuvering for a drunken fast jab across the table, Artie swept his stick in a wide outer arc and knocked off an entire shelf of historical romances behind him. The resulting crescendo so startled Mabel (who had written twelve of them) that she dropped a fifth of good Scots whiskey as a peculiarly answering crash. At that very moment, Harmin closed the men's restroom door and broke the spring.

That was really Krakatoa night.

ONE FRIDAY AFTERNOON a small, disheveled, sad-looking female child in a cute lacy dress and shiny black shoes toddled into the Krakatoa Bar & Grill of Rama, WA, through the fire exit door downstairs. Someone had left it open for smoking air.

"I'm LOST!" she cried, almost exultantly. She stared hard at the bartender, who was Robert Goneschlaw, the weekend alternate with Dan Nuts.

Mr. Goneschlaw was rather pressed as to how to respond to this. He was a literally dumb person, having developed a form of mouth cancer from excessive pipe smoking that had destroyed 78% of his upper palate and his tongue. "Nnnggnngg," he stated, trying to make it sound negative. This won't do, he thought to himself. Normally, he would write messages on a piece of paper for non-sign language people, or he's use sign. But this little girl probably didn't read yet.

He finally came out from the bar, closed the door behind the tiny child, and took her hand. He guided her over to a chair and motioned for her to sit.

"Gogh," he moaned, trying to appear as sympathetic as possible. Fortunately, the bar was kept well-lit in the afternoons. Sunlight streamed in though ceiling windows, too. He opened his mouth slightly so the girl could see his tonguelessness. Her eyes opened wide. Then Mr. Goneschlaw smiled at her to show friendliness. He was a very friendly, outgoing person.

In case the girl could read, Mr. Goneschlaw pointed to the bar. Over it, a large sign was posted. It was placed there during every shift he worked. It said, in English, "I have no ability to speak. I am not being impolite to you. I simply can't talk. Please ask me to get your drink. That's what I'm here for. My name is Robert Goneschlaw." He had put that last, having heard that people tend to recall what they hear or read last. It worked swell. He got people drinks, no problems happened.

Mr. Goneschlaw went behind the bar and took a phone out. It had an unusually long cord. This was for a certain customer, Mike "Dortmunder" Loughlin, so's he could use it at his usual table way over in the bar's farthest corner, due to his "extremely great difficulty in walking." Mike had a bad tendency to stay on the phone for extremely great lengths of time, but he was allowed to here, as he was charged $25.00 a month for the privilege. Paid the Krak's basis rate for the bar. Every month, on the fifth.

The barkeep handed the phone to the little girl, who suddenly told him, out of nowhere as kids are known to do, "My name is, ah, Suzette," Her fluffy hair framed an angelic, and somewhat apologetic, small face. She hasn't really understood the sign. But as she took the phone, her look altered from confusion to determination. She called.

"Mommy," she said, "I'm right here at the Krakabar—Karakato—the bar. I'm with the man who's a dummy." Then she looked up at Mr. Goneschlaw in a way that said she felt innocent, but she knew this was wrong, and she didn't like it. "Mommy said to come wait here but I was scared to go in because I don't know you and it's a bar and Daddy said you were a dummy and didn't care. I don't get it." Then she started crying, not much; after a little time she tried to smile.

Mr. Goneschlaw, who was beginning to lose his patience excepting he always tried to have gobs of it to lose, reasoned something despicable was happening. It was bothersome, but he'd handle it. He touched the child very gently on her shoulder, patting it, in an attempt to reassure. She did not look reassured. He sat back in his chair and they both waited.

Sure enough, soon, a man, disheveled something fierce, came down the wooden stairs into the bar. _"There_ she is!" he loudly announced, as though to a particularized audience. He came over to the seated man and child. Mr. Goneschlaw gestured, waving his open right palm at the girl as though to indicate a happy acceptance of her.

However, as the man helped her down from the chair, Mr. Goneschlaw's left hand rose up to point at the other man, indicating a need for attention. "What...what do you want?" asked the child's father. He looked very defensive.

Mr. Goneschlaw took out his wallet and withdrew a folded piece of paper that was wrinkled, aged and yellowing. It crinkled in the strange man's hand as Mr. Goneschlaw handed it to him. Then the father and child headed for the stairway, with her thudding merrily up the steps.

Once outside, the scruffy man avidly opened the note...it was quite old and it simply read, "Please remember that 'dumb' means unable to talk, not stupid. That's all I can say to you." No one at the Krakatoa saw them, ever again.

Was this too _corny?_ Gets cornier later, with a Blob of ribald butter.

SARAGINA AND CAZA ended up returning the Eurocycle. Caza got a ride around town, first.

The dealer was inquisitive and concerned about the return.

"Was there a problem? We can fix it. You have a five-year warrantee on parts and labor, and it's a really great bike, you'll use it every day to go places..." "Noooo...my man doesn't want it, and I can't use it. I can walk to everywhere. I thought my niece might like it, but she went ahead and bought one herself. A Yamaha. I love the bike, but if I'm saving for school, I can't afford it nowadays."

The dealer offered to work out lower payments, but Sara was opposed.

Eventually they left, hoffing it. Severely, Sara wore silver sequined fast-soled running shoes. Caza wore ancient green beater tennis shoes. "It always helps to wear shoes when one is walking, doesn't it?" "Amen." "Hotep! Watchya step." They silently rambled forward in the brisk light of Midsummer Day.

"Why'd you buy the bike?" Caza inquired of her dearest friend. "Oh, for sheer lark, I guess. I really thought I would keep it, but it doesn't make proper sense. I even budgeted the payments over a year. But if I save the money, I'll have what I need for college, with costs rising and all."

Sara was saving to finish her four-year degree. She'd probably have to leave town for school, unless she commuted. She worked full-time at Ridgeview; the climate there seemed okay for a shift upwards, but who knows where she'd get a job. She might stay on there, because Gabe was in town....

"Gabe's m'bow. I wish I knew what to do, how to go. I think I could handle being away from him for a while, but I'd love to work it out where we could stay together. I would really hate to lose him." "Right," said Caza. "He's a fine man. He could get ahead, too, if he wanted." "Sure. I love that crazy hipster, I do. He's only dragon his tail. Say, how do you feel about hanging out at the lake for a while? It's one of those days, guaranteed, birds galore to feed." They wound up at the park, strolling down the beach.

"Sure," Sara continued. "I love him a lot. With luck, we won't drift. I never feel bad when I'm by him."

"Double same here!" cried Caza, sprightly poking Sara in the chest. "Better snap him up quick, before I get ideas." "Girl, you girl, you!"

They made it to Shell Lake. Some kids, those kids that Harmin Boole had a sway over, were feeding bread to a flock of ducks that were visiting the lake on their southeast flight. These kids always seemed to have bread. Sara wondered who was baking it. An endless supply, and it didn't look like ordinary supermarket bread. As Sara and Caza approached, the kids seemed to look down and back off. But a couple of girls looked at them friendlily. "You wan' he'p us feed ducks?"

Hamm. "Well, what d'ya think, Mystery Lady? Shall we feed the birdies?"

A couple boys threw bread hard, past the girls and the ducks. Then one small boy fell down on his rear end. He broke up laughing, openly guffawing as children tend to do.

Another kid gave him a big chunk of bread, which he ate with relish.

Caza hunkered down and two girls gave her bread. Her plastic bead necklaces clattered together and brushed her knobby knees. There was sand on 'em. They she handed bread to the honking, quacking waterfowl. Noise!!! Out of this world, the clamor.

They were pigeons, crows, ducks, Canadian geese and the other kind on the lake and shore, a D-Day of ducks, gliding wetly in and stomping madly about. Chickadees clustered and gibbered. They were so bitty they bounced.

Saragina began heaving clots of bread at the geese. She stopped to hand pieces to the seagulls. Their piercing, raucous cries struck, symphonic chords in her soul. Birds are the ones with blue and green eyes...ever-and-always jet black crows picked at the remains. Then Caza fed bread directly to the crows, who gobbled it down fitfully.

One of the kids burst off, wild as loose feathers, running noisily up the beach. Another followed him, dropping his bread. He made tiny sidelong golden mountainous spurts of sand from his sneakers. Another followed him, dropping his crest of bread and losing a sandy sneaker. The birds scarcely cared. Ducks and geese warred over tidbits.

"Where are you guises' parents?" Saragina asked. "Look yonder across the lake," said a dark-haired freckly girl. Her dress was sand-decorated.

There they were. Indistinct, colorful blobs in pastels. Men and women having a sunny picnic at shelters on the opposite side. A barbecue. They had sent the kids over here to get them away. You could see the men sitting on lawn chairs, downing all the beer. They didn't want to watch the kids up close. But they were watching from over there. It was kinda spooky. But very peaceful.

Sara smiled to herself, lightly pursing her lips. Well, this little people game had gone far enough. Time to head home and study. "Caza, let's went. I have to read and digest some food magazines."

"Dine and Fanima. I need to go say 'hi' to Artie at the Krak. It's Beer, Nuts and Darts Galore Night. Then, I have to put in four hours figuring out the books for the Grant London Art Gallery. Last three years of their accounting papers, worksheeted, tabulated, debited, credited, emancipated, abolitioned, and abortioned. Then, I have to so splorg craggle the noogie-woogie."

"Do tell. That sounds nice. Run along, now sweet Caza, before your papa walks across the lake and paddles your sandy behind. Liberty, the Eagles, and fratricide to you, too." And so, home they wented...wending their weary way.

LAYOUT OF THE MISSION IN RAMA, WASHINGTON:

Gabe's walk-up, a fifth-story, one-bed room with a view of rusty wires

Artie's pad, a large studio, ofttimes shared with Caza; both Gabe's and Arties' places face Rudnick Street, but are on opposite sides

The Krakatoa, a bar with a grill, corner of Guild Street and 31st; has a ten-foot back-lit plastic volcano that erupts, and red ceilings, honey-comb shelves stuffed with books, and four regular barkeep: Mr. Goneschlaw; Dan Nuts; Mabel "School" Jones; and Mrs. Emilia Bitters, Sharone's mom

The Guild Street Mission, corner of Guild Street and 25th; a former church, now fallen to disrepair; mission is on top floor, church held in basement

"Workers of the World Industrial, Inc.," a job service agency, housed in the Guild Street Mission, top floor, in the back entrance on Rudnick Street; a collection of small office spaces separated by standing partitions (these are called 'cubicles')

Shell Park, an inland pond mysteriously full of small sea shells; it has a loverly beach, fine sand consisting of ground-up jewelry, mostly on the eastern side; many picnic tables, shelters, places to explore, etc.

Evergreen Park, a small children's park west of town, south of the freeway, built recently, home of an over-evolved slime mold that eat birds

The freeway, nearby to the north, running east to west

The town, Rama, WA, 85 miles from Hillbright College, isolated, rural, almost once industrial, major employer is Ridgeview Hospital; has everything needed

The neighborhood, for which I'll set boundaries: opposite side of Shell Park is Tomato Street, where the beach is (east); west side of the park is Rudnick Street, where the job service agency is on 25th; the Krakatoa is south of Shell Park, at Guild and 31st. The streets run north to south. The "Krak" is down six blocks from the mission. The area is bound to the south roughly by Tennessee Way and to the north by Honolulu Avenue, to the west by California Place Way (which stops at 20th) and to the east by Tomato Street, which runs to the freeway. Llewellyn turns west and runs to Evergreen Park

Saragina's space, the Desoto Africa-Spano Realm of Rugs, on Llewellyn St. between 24th and 25th; it's another walk up, on the third floor, full of treasures (presumably from local close-out sales), prints softique, hokums and sculptures by Mexico

Cloadia Tager and Sharone Bitter's locale, a two-bed with a large closet facing Silverdale, which is split in two by the lake; this place lies between Boyer Ave. and 20th, on the opposite side of the lake from the cemetery.

Hawthorne Cemetery, on Tomato east of Silverdale, between 22nd and 23rd where Harmin Boole's wife is buried, and where a garden grows

The Late Night Laundromat, two blocks from Artie's apartment, down three blocks from the mission, on Guild Street; open until 11 p.m., seven days a week

Ridgeview Hospital, the public health hospital, "for your pubic health," located on Llewellyn Street above 23rd Ave.; to the west is a high cliff; this is Sara's contemporary workplace

Hillbright College is about 85 miles north-west of town

There's a mental institution in a hospital in another town, where Gabe once worked; also a supermarket and a bookstore

The Tomatoe Street Library, facing Tomatoe between 27th and 28th; a locally-owned version of a coastal giant chain with many inland stores; takes up a whole block

The Hatchet Check, a hairdresser's that once did only men now unisex, between Silverdale and Tomatoe on Tennessee Way

The Fantastic Café, the lengthy lunch counter for the employees that never were employed at the manufacturing plant that ne'er was op'ed in the house of Jack's guilt; getcha dead momma's donuts rat-cheer

The Tomatoe Grocery, facing Tomatoe Street between 27th and 28th. The other source for food in Rama, a locally-owned outlet of a coastal chain with many inland stores, takes up an entire block, replacing an earlier, sorely missed blackberry patch. As new places are built slowly, berry bushes disappear overnight.

ONE CHICANO/HISPANO/LATINO/INDIO/ANYTHING AT ALL KINDA DUDE, previously usable happy guy summer solstice, Gabe "Beau" Hooter Sancto, Esquire, had read 258 books (in English and Spanish) in his brief short lifetime of 24 boring but brainy years. He managed to peruse twelve of these during his job clerking in a small, wayward, eclectic and local new and used bookstore. Not in Rama, WA, but Elsewhere.

Five of the twelve, and another 35 besides, he had gradually smuggled home with him by tearing off the covers and telling the remote and harsh and permanently situated bookstore manager that they all had arrived in that same condition. This enabled Gabe to buy them from the store at half the cover price.

"Beau" did feel a little guilty. Not very...it had taken him some time to discover the assumed permanency of the bookstore manager.

Naturally, said manager caught him tearing the 39th book. He was summarily, and uxoriously, fired. Romans a cleft. The manager could be heard next door. Before Gabe left, he tore open Don Quixote and rang it up for half.

"They only cost $5 to $15, paperback. I don't know why I did that. Literal cheap thrills? I guess so."

And so he ended up being a ward aide at Endeavor Specialty Hospital instead.

He didn't need a stringent prior job recommendation. He had worked previously as a grocery checker, and that gave him the needed good references. He was hired based mostly on his burly frame and musculature; to the ward nurses he seemed an affable enough chap. "We like men for this job," they said. He quickly learned how to hold patients down and give them injections. Most of the time he simply talked them into taking their pills. Bureaucratized cruelty was the order of the day.

"I'm sorry, Mrs. Bronstein, but if you don't take your Femoral and your lithium voluntarily, we don't have a choice. We will have to forcibly inject you with them." Here, you may freely picture Mrs. Bronstein, who is 62, breaking down crying. After all, this is illegal under local statues, and she is aware of that, being a reader. She used to have a lot to say about how they were getting away with murder.

But they were clearly getting away with it. Gabe himself didn't know the laws as yet, only what he was in the process of being told. He had to do as he was told, like it or not. _Woa-oahh..._

"You have to take them." Gabe stentoriously sighed, looking away. A lot. "It's only an IM (intro-muscular) injection, if you want. Or you may take it in pill form. That's really all there is to it, that's what your doctor says." That was policy. All the patients had to take their medications, no exceptions allowed.

Pills. Tiny, sweetened, easy to swallow. Buttons like candy. What did they have in 'em, with a power to ruin lives, turn kids' minds into mush, make tons of money for big pharmaceuticals...is _that_ what they're there for?

Every single day, Gabe would return home from work mentally and physically exhausted, and of course emotionally depressed. He couldn't bring himself to admit it; after seeing once more what the way of the world was, it was obviously advisable to never be anything even remotely resembling "depressed." In a few months he had gone through all his bookstore plunder. It didn't help.

At least he was a male. There, he was quite a bit lucky, he figured. Sometimes at night, he would lay awake, muttering to himself, very softly, so the neighbors couldn't hear. As he drifted into sleep one night, he dreamed he was cursing. He feared being overheard by his parents, who weren't there. "Seven different ones," he found himself mumbling, that night. And coffee...

Every so often, at work, there was a young female patient who attracted Gabe's attention. He thought, if I'm not an absolute blackguard, maybe I have a secret fantasy of rescuing one. He father, who lived back east, divorced from Gabe's mother was an overbearing, snappish sort who cheerily put on another face and demeanor to work for a scheduling office that handled public relations transactions. Then he'd come home and not give anyone the time of day, except to snap orders. His mother, tired of this phony military existence, eventually left. She said she was sick of weeping.

She was.

"Beau" had taken off in disgust, even sooner than his mom, to go looking for that special something, somewhere, which was obviously living and loving on another planet. He thought he'd found it at times. It didn't make the hospital any better; he needed to either fail or succeed at accepting that. And so he tried. Until one day, when he developed a most strange urge.

There was a female patient with whom he'd shared short discussions, off and on, whenever she came up to him, and when his schedule allowed. The staff was supposed to talk to the patients if they could, and sound out what was happening inside of them.

The office listed a specific series of questions the attendants, nurses, and orderlies were allowed to ask. Certain topics were to be avoided to protect the patient's legal rights to privacy. Anyone in staff could be suspended for going beyond these questions. It seldom happened.

"Nah, it's okay to talk to the patients," RN (Registered Nurse) Flo Hermberkin told him about two weeks into the job. "It cheers 'em up. Just watch that the DNS (Director of Nursing Services) doesn't catch you asking her anything funny. Know what I mean?" Flo looked at Gabe with an attitude of absolute surrender combined with the fullest knowledge of the human capacity to love.

She succeeded in conveying an attitude both studied and forced, leaving Gabe room for his own personal response. He just smiled. Then she smiled, not without charm or alacrity. Her eyes gleamed, almost with tears. "'Course you do. Just be a friend." Gabe decided it must be a difficult enterprise indeed, after watching Flo's face; but he felt confident he would manage the trick eventually.

The previously mentioned female patient would occasionally approach Gabe and shyly say "hi." He began walking over to her lounge for coffee, for something to do, but it also began to occur to him that it might be best to spend more time with other patients, or else... but, or else what? What? _What?_

Only the patient got coffee--Gabe wasn't allowed until break. The patient often said she didn't think coffee was any good for her, but it was a decent walk to go get it, and it was always sitting there, brewed, in an industrial urn. There was a second urn, but usually there was not decaf made. Gabe didn't feel up to making a whole lot of it. Waste. Besides, it was such a joke... he'd draw her a cup. Her hands were shaking too much from the four different interactive meds she was on to draw one herself without potentially spilling.

There was a little tea available, black tea, the kind with caffeine. And creamers in little plastic cups. Very unrecyclable little plastic cups. You could of course bring in your own herbal tea, but it was supposed to be for you alone. Gabe would take her back to the ward. She began to lean on his arm.

She was rational, all right; sometimes she'd dissolve into tears, or half a mild screaming fit, but she wasn't violent at all, and everything she said made normal sense. Inevitably, Gabe thought, she was probably screaming from hellish invisible pain. She had a mouth, and occasionally screamed. Rarely, and each time like she was hiding something hideous. The doctors, according to the nurses Gabe spoke with, didn't necessarily know what those pains were.

"Probably not," Flo, brushing her blonde-going-grey hair out of her eyes, told him. "They're not God, there's no way to know everything. Some of these ladies could have underlying physical illnesses that are going undiagnosed and untreated. What if they developed symptoms post-diagnosis? We're giving them chemicular derivatives of animal tranquilizers, largely. Doesn't cure anything. They keep the patients calm, from hurting themselves, from harmfully acting out. That don't fix things."

Gabe wondered, nonetheless, why this one patient was so fussy. "You gotta learn ta be macho like me, lady!" he would kid her. "Control you, don't cry...much."

"I don't have any choice," she'd gulp. "I can't stop," she explained. "They took my _children_ away! I tried so hard, husband left anyway, couldn't get a decent job. I'm mildly dyslexic, they think. It's hard for me to keep life structured. I was real stubborn," she started to tell him one time, leaning on his arm, but "Beau" had to split and go help with the patient who was throwing feces.

Later, she continued: "I was too stubborn to go on welfare. I kept trying to work. We ran out of food. Went to the food bank. It worked out okay, but my husband's parents--that's who it was, I think—called CPS (Child Protective Services). They said I couldn't properly handle the kids. They hauled me to court and, I, uh, didn't take it well. Big deal swaggering cruelty throws me (chuckle.) I never can understand what it's for.

"They stuck their meaty fingers in my face, repeatedly, and mumbled "bitch" under their breaths, harsh as they could. They _really_ did it! I broke down and cried and yelled at them, which lost my case. They laughed and took my kids away. That's my story."

She stopped talking, pointing at a written notice on a nearby wall. "Oh look, there's gonna be group singing in the downstairs rec room. Wish I go." She looked up at Gabe with deeply tired eyes. She didn't sound overly enthused.

"I can get you signed out at the desk."

Gabe couldn't figure out whatever had happened, but she didn't sound "insane" to him. He spent a couple of evenings looking up meds he'd handled and their usual side effects in an old PDR (Physician's Desk Reference) that he checked out from the hospital library. All the men he'd already seen had horrible side effects that were frightening, disabling, and downright weird.

They were largely derivatives of animal tranquilizers, as Flo had said, but they were swiftly becoming more sophisticated. Meaning, possibly, that their origins were becoming more and more obscure, in the sense of the reasons for using them at all? So it would seem. In Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's literature, it turned out they were probably all coal-tar derivatives, used as sedatives that put people into Hell.

Gabe cautiously asked some of the staff why this was so and was told that meds were "getting better, thanks to recent developments," and that "many new medications don't have significant side effects." Then he'd go back to work changing beds, and would see the usual drool on the sheets. And smelly shit, pee, throw-up, and wrinkles in something starting to tear apart.

"It really is better than it was. Honest," NA (Nurse's Aide) Matt Stevens, who was 46, told him. "We used to pretty much, well, rape 'em. Always in the arm. You know how you hardly ever have to do that? It's not so bad now, they don't fight back as much. They used to get rowdier, and it was either that or zone 'em out. I had patients who did virtually nothing but snooze all day in their rooms and moan like ghosts all night long."

Most of the patients were female. The staff joked about having a permanent harem. A lot of the staff felt superior to the patients and looked down on them. Maybe that was their version of "professional distance." There were occasional patients who "got physical," "acted out" and tried to hurt people. You had to watch them; fortunately, they were relatively easy to punish through confinement to their rooms. It almost seemed to be a way of securing your very own private room. If a violent patient was in a two- or four-bed room, the other patients couldn't go in for naps or to watch television. So these patients get the single rooms until they cease being "rowdy."

"The average day here is only three months, usually less. It's not as bad as it looks, but a lot of these folks are told to stay on their meds for life. I sure hope we aren't principally doing drug experiments with them," Flo admitted to Gabe on its lunch break during a quiet night shift. No listening authorities were nearby. "I'm sure it was the violent patients who brought on the drug stuff, but if they were not hurting themselves or others, they wouldn't be here, right? Right.

"The doctors nowadays all go on about "chemical imbalances" and "amazing new breakthroughs for schizophrenia," etc. I think these folks can't always take the push and shove of this life, that's all." Flo, who was a portly 60 pounds overweight and pushing 48, but who was nearly 5'10" and a halfway decent tackle, sighed and tapped the fiberglass coffee-room table with her plastic fork.

"You have to learn to deal with people as they are. Some people never do. Life often is unfair, and you must learn to accept it and deal with it." Gabe bit his apple, which was red and which he'd purchased from a machine, and he found himself grimacing at the refrigerated stale taste of it. He ate the fruit slowly, trying to imagine how it would feel to be eating it while on Placidyl or Dalmane, and he didn't notice any improvement in happy apple taste. Sandy.

Gabe went back to work, allowing himself modest luxury of thought; he didn't have time to reflect, as there were three patients to bathe, two of which stubbornly fought it. All three were able-bodied, presumably.

Gabe thought: this place is a joint. He'd heard about other hospitals that only hired staff with degrees, even at his level (things have now changed to the point where all hospitals must use trained, licensed nurses to give meds), but he wondered if they were really any better than Endeavor.

On the way past the game room, he ran into "his" patient again. She surprised him by grabbing his arm. She was shaking all over, like leaves in the storm.

"My baby, my daughter, she's got pneumonitis! It might be fatal! I've got to see her! She's only three years old. Oh, God!" They were standing in a fluorescently lit hallway. The corridor led to one electronically locked door, which Gabe could buzz to enter and exit. So could the patients, but they knew they'd be stopped if they tried to leave? This worked astonishingly well, considering.

The familiar patient, dressed in street clothes that were communally share--a blue and white rayon top, a striped polyester trousers--was clearly distressed.

"Today the letter came. She's in Felkirk Clinic, it's about 45 miles from here. In Chippada. Have you ever heard of Chippada?" she implored, hollowly peering at. Gabe through obviously bloodshot eyes, hopelessly straining to maintain her dignity. More a human cartoon than a person, a hollowed out shell, one with scraggly hair and an upbeat attitude that was no longer soul.

"Uh, yeah. I knew a garage mechanic, hails from there, Japanese guy. He showed me how to fix engines, no problem. Know this guy? His name's Hal Yemana." Gabe prepared himself for another coffee klatch, walk-and-talk, unless he had to get her something to calm down.

"I...I need...to...I have to _leave!_ I have to go see my daughter, _she may die!_ _Please_ help me, please!" She looked strongly and imploringly at Gabe, but lightly held the arm she'd already grasped. "You're the only one here I can trust. They want to keep me here 'cause I threatened the authorities. I have to leave. Please?"

A feeling of intense weakness fell on Gabe's shoulders; it sunk all the way into his chest and arms, spreading in poisoned ways. He thought: you have this problem, my dear, and it's nothing I can help you with. As he spoke he visibly sagged. 'I'm sorry, Therese, but I haven't the authority to secure you an early release.

"However, if you put a request slip in at the office first thing tomorrow morning, I'll bet your doctor would seriously consider allowing you to visit..."

"No, no, you don't understand. I've been rated too defensive to be released right now. Two days ago, before this phone call, I yelled at that other aid, the guy who's so pushy I told you about. I thought I heard him call me a name. It felt like the millionth time. I yelled at him to stop."

"You've got to stop doing that, they'll never see you as a responsible adult if you don't." Gabe was pleading in a dead voice.

"I know, nowadays I have a hard time believing in other people. But that's not what's important. My daughter is probably dying of pneumonia, and I only have today or the next few days to make it out there to see her. It's in her lungs, and she's four years old," she finished, slowing down in her speech. The drugs were catching up, or the effects with those of utter despair.

Therese knew it was a hopeless cause. Gabe was "one of them." What else could he be? It was his job. As she tried to politely say that to herself, Gave also inwardly thought it: yes, this is my job, my all-important job... A job...

"Come with me," said "Beau", taking her by the elbow. Therese gave him a look that was arrested, in a clouded blur, on the way to being rank forgiveness. She was being rudely interrupted. Gabe was headed out the door with her.

They ended up in the coffee lounge again. Suddenly, Therese held a coffee cup in her pale white hands.

"Drink it," said the attendant. "Drink. It will help you, I hope."

She swallowed it so fast it burned her tongue.

After a moment's pause, as though to aid digestion, they headed back.

Halfway, Gabe took off and left her. Therese almost collapsed, but the Benzedrine she was taking, unbeknownst to her, for the sake of the learning disorder she was diagnosed as having, helped her to nervously stand. (How in the heck do drugs make you learn? Through punishment alone. Period...) the coffee was also kicking in. Without the Benzedrine, the other meds would've caused extreme drowsiness; she wasn't getting any exercise in this hospital. Not a thorough effort, ongoing, was being made to get patients to walk. Until now!

Gabe returned in a moment, bearing brightly-colored, aging casual clothes. They were all old stuff from the bin. They take everything you own away when you get there, but they do give some of it back in time.

"I'm gonna help you. Come with me." She followed, lost in a definite haze, but able to totter after. She was wearing a white patient's gown, dotted with blue figures and tied loosely in the back, but worn over similar pants. And then they were facing, he in his uniform and her in light cotton, a conveniently-placed side exit door. She didn't have any idea where it led, but Gabe did. It opened out to a grassy lawn area, ahead of the outside road.

"Here's fifty dollars. It's enough for bus fare. There's a Greyhound every hour, 'bout thirty-seven bucks to Chippada. Extra for dinner. You're her mom and they'll let you in to see her. Don't tell them about your commitment; they probably don't even know. With luck. You still friends with your sister?"

"Yup. And, yeah, maybe she will let me stay with her for a while. I stayed with her before." She acted dazed, groggy, but awakening as if intrigued by this.

"Okay, the city bus is right outside, but you gonna have to walk up the street a couple blocks. So they don't spot you sitting outside. I grabbed these ladies' clothes, so when they saw me disappear they thought I was changing you. Want 'em?"\

"Nnnn, no I don't. I don't want them to see me leave."

" _Great!"_ Gabe almost laughed aloud. He stuffed the fifty bucks, two twenties and a fiver, a gift of love and hatred, into her pocket. "Maybe you can tie this shirt around you, act like a good person, and look spiffy. Wear it if you are cold. It'll be cold tonight. Here." Gabe reached up and pressed a secret button that turned off the alarm to the door. He opened the door, and punched in a four digit code that deactivated the alarm from outside. Then he gestured at all the freedom "out there." For a second to Gabe, it appeared invitingly appealing for once.

"Your choice. Finally, for a change after me lying about how you had a choice all along. Now you have one." There was a long moment of silence and furtive breathing. Gabe was starting to count to a high number, wondering how many he was going to end up having to take himself. Don't you think so?

She glanced at him blearily, kissed him quickly on the cheek, and then, grabbing the clothes, strode determinedly, noiselessly, and not a little shakily, straight to the nearby across the way bus stop, searching to her left and looking straight back at Gabe over her right shoulder. She entered the shelter. Perhaps, Gabe decided with a heavy sigh, she felt too drugged to walk on to the more hidden next stop down. Or she didn't want to risk being seen walking. _Good strategy!_ He made sure she was safely seated, then closed the door, reactivating the alarm by punching in the code. Nothing to do but go back to the ward and chart, do rounds, and bide his time.

He heard nothing from no one. All went well, and that night he wished the staff goodbye, going home from evening shift at about 11:25 p.m. He had reported that Therese was in her room, watching TV, and dutifully charted it.

The next day, Gabe was off from work, sheer coincidence. But he was called at home about the "news."

"You'll never _guess,_ Gabe!" came Sally's familiar voice over the phone. She was an LPN (Licensed Practical Nurse) and had been that night's charge nurse. "A patient _escaped!_ We don't know how. It's that gal you used to walk over for coffee so much, Therese Nathaniel. What do aye _make_ of that?"

There was a pause as Gabe registered the charge nurse's potential legal culpability. Well, I don't make a doctor's income. Neither does she, but she does make a lot more than I do, I think. I believe I make poop myself, mainly. He sighed again, sort of obviously into the phone, without mercy.

"WOW. I don't know what to say." More silence occurred. "Say, are you coming to work tomorrow, as scheduled?" There was not a trace of accusation in her voice, which was what "Beau" expected. They would want him there. It was very hard to find a last-minute replacement at Endeavor.

Perhaps the axe will fall eventually, but for now, "I'll see you Tuesday, Sal. Got over that bad head cold, yet?"

#  Chapter Two – MIDNIGHT at last!

VENERATION AN ODE FROM THE BORDER BARD

Adoration

POME

My Lady

If I can be your sticking-point,

May I take my Self to you?

And softly breasts would billow me,

Like clouds, your calves hold firm my neck,

As we'd last, would live, until the sticking-point

Undoes. The all-desired pain?

To meet as one again...

So in these, our circles

Round us love-wards

By the old-school book

We'd bundle in each other's arms

Every good at the same time; my temple is you.

We/they'd breathe each other's breaths

While sailing on our summer sheets

And we'd taste our mouths (will taste)

And we'd chew our lips (will kiss, high bliss)

And we'd be each other's will (will be, still)

Because I am here solely...to love you.

\--Ante-Shakespearean sonnet, from Gabriello "Beau" Sancto to Lady Saragina DeSoto, his second true love – post Himself.

AN HISTORIC MOMENT fit fer a Glass Teat Documentary, havin' a toothless mouth producin' no dreams or screams, merely ice cream by Lithuanistic Dwarf Carla...or, a semi-brief flashback to the nearest possible past:

Gabe was, naturally, fired from his job at Endeavor Specialty Hospital. The authorities never proved anything, but they could've slowly pieced it together and implicated him. He was the only person seen on a regular basis walking with the patient. They wrote him down as a "quit." He was left unable to collect unemployment that way, but had a touch of cash saved up.

A newspaper advertisement for manual laborers through the Catholic mission in Rama, WA, caught Gabe's attention. They promised steady work at decent pay. Gabe received one good recommendation, from Flo Herberkin, RN; she said he was an excellent character. " _Good luck,_ you rube!"

Quietly the old apartment was emptied, cleaned, dumped into the back of a rented pick-up truck. It served for two full loads. A new apartment in Rama awaited "Beau," thanks to his infrequent girlfriend, Saragina DeSoto. She vouched for him with the manager and helped him with the paperwork. Gabe had just enough set aside for the deposit and first and last month's rent, and he moved in the same day he left. Lead-pipe cinch, it was magically delicious.

A new town, and a new life, and the same old story it was for him now. Lack of education, out of work. He'd been seeing Sarah on and off anyway for the last three years, having met her at a New Year's Eve party in Unionville. It was almost an aptly-named town...

Rama was scarcely larger than any of the rest of those outback, regional townships making up this overall farming community, this open, low-horizon, grandly verdant portion of rains wept pastoral space. With cows. Artie also was in Rama. Trees were off in the distance, towering like true angels of mercy. Maybe she is out there, Gabe thought, dying in the cold and happy as a lark for a change. He did try the Demoral at last, and had found everything out.

Sarah took handsome Gabe, for the first time ever, to the Krakatoa. "You'll love the crazy giant volcano! I jus' _love_ our local volcanoes, I toured Mt. St. Helens once with my high school class – we all had enough class to march straight towards it, chattering like insects!" she tittered, bell-like, as they approached the glass front doors. It was dark in there. Gabe suddenly about-faced and swung hard astern, staring awake and thunder stricken at Sara's lovely face.

"Why are you lookin' at me so funny, sweet sugar-man?" inquired Herself. "What is giving you such a naked pause?"

"Don't know," said being unhurriedly whispered, with a minor hint of malevolence. Gee, wasn't he responsible for what happened now to other her? "Dunno. I just have a feeling something unholy is going to happen. Either that, or it's simply that I should be the one holding the door open, for you, my sweet."

Stolidly, Gabe went ahead and opened it first, and was immediately hit hard by one terrifically solid pool ball. It was the orange number five. It HURT, but badly, for approximately ten minutes. The ball had struck his abdomen and would have wedged tightly in his naval, 'cept it was too big.

It was a verifiable "uff-da, * and she gestured wildly at the ball-thrower to stop. At least her fella wasn't gonna get pregnant ever, but gee, he sure could have problems in life now after that, couldn't he?

"We're _friends!_ We're friends! _Werefriends!"_ Sara's purse hit the ground, splat, and spilled as she took a defensive carrot-tay stance, looking for all the world like a black Emma Peel, but sans the phony imitative leather "skin" or the three-inch spike heels. But as for her purse, what a MESS!! Brown creamy foundation puddled wetly on the firmament oozing into floor cracks. Tissue stuck to it, and a brilliant yellow hair pick added its misplaced charms to floor decor.

"GODDAMMNNITT!!! Whay don' does suckahs steh park' hon th' tay-bull whar dey bee-langs! Oh, garsh," and through blurs, mists and shadows there was this image of a fuzzy green pool table way over there; a gigantic blonde hippie was swiftly throwing his pool cue down, clatter, running madly towards them in hair-flipping leaps, and finally with towering and looming him talents ferociously and menacingly over both "Beau" and Sara. But whoever-it-was, the guy was apologetically passing both his lengthy hands over Gabe like a doctoring old-timey minstrel performer. He looked sorry as he should, and he was.

* Uff-da is Seattle Norwegian for well, something like: "This is my _Loki_ Day!"

"GOD, _Mayan,_ ah'm sorreh, ah was't eben aya-min'! Le' me bah ya ha drank!" He looked awfully damn frightened and altogether genuinely concerned - for a vicious lunatic creep. Was he a creep, or just something that crept?

It turned out Artie had pitched the ball because he honestly believed Gabe was a very, very nasty Hispanic chap of Artie and Sara's mutual acquaintance named Miguel Shuba, whom Artie owed several many hundreds of dollars. Artie explained that Shuba had pledged to kill if Artie "din' hev no money read' fo' him, raht thar hon saht." It was rumored that Shuba ALWAYS carted a good-sized holstered revolver, and had used it on muy people several times. Legal weapon.

"An' guest WHUT? Ah don' got twenty bucks hon may! Demn, ah'm sorreh, may Mayan! Ah'm sorrah, Lady Sara! Ah'll pay his med'cal bills, ah got summat. Hanny dranks ya wants, wunner two on may. Ah gots a piesa dough!"

Starbuck's Master Blend seemed genuinely sincere, but who knows. Gabe sibilantly hissed through lessening pain. "Sss...Sara says she knows you."

"Beau" was slowly but surely recuperating. Meanwhile he was absolutely entranced by Artie, who sported over three-and-a half feet of thickly golden hair while being one exotically-clad and WILD-looking hippie. Sarah grinned awkwardly, sheepishly fluttering her long-fingered hands.

"Yeah, I know ol' Artie from 'way back. He's from Montanner, he's a dranker, got mah accent wussin' me, an' he's loud as a rampagin' elephant. Maybe he owes that Shuba money, yah; but I seriously thought you were _harmless,_ Artster! You helped us rebuild Dame Gretchley's church for weeks all through February when the basement was leaking and falling apart in need of remodeling. Nice work. You did all that for free! I honestly believed you to be a nice guy..."

It hurt Drama Artie so much that Sara was angry. The Blendman looked terribly sorry, he was starting to break down and cry. His eyes were moistening. His hands gestured wildly. He mouthed his humble apologies, spreading his hands out as if to marry the couple of young people. He stopped.

"Ah dunno whyah ah did thet, 'cep' ah waz ascareda Shuba. Ah'll lets 'im kail meh naix' tahm soonah'n ah huhts sum in' sent par-sun 'gin. Mebbe ah kin git hup th' dough." Artie was hanging his shaggy head pretty low.

Raising his left hand to signal that all was okay, Gabe told Artie not to worry. "If this Miguel Shuba ever really shows, I'll help you pay him. C'mon, long as we're here, let's kick back and soak up the beer. We might as well. I got to finish what you bought me, Artworld. Tell you what." "WHAT?"

"I'll stand you pool, three games of four, or best two of three, Artworks." "Beau" flipped him a peace sign. He was straight-up now. "Yee-HAOUWW!" Artie laughed uproariously, relieved, throwing his long head of mane back. You could hear it land. He echoed off of every wall.

Artie gave Sara and Gabe some basic details on how good the peculiarly intimidating Shuba are, were or was likely to be.

"Ah owes 'im fum sum bed rail hestait 'ves'ments, dails. Ah stan's ta inher't a li'l lan' frum m'famileh hin Montanner," he elaborated, in an inches thick, southern-styled northwestern drawl. "L'il fahm, prahm ache-ridge. An' we wuz gonna dayal aroun' wit' hit. Use hit as c'latt'ral. Git sum mo' lan' hyar in Wash'ton State, gitit? But, he gyve may sinkin' monah t'woads th' day-yan pie-me't, an' ah losted hit on booze, 'cause ah dranks, an' ah wen' KRAYZAH when ah foun's hout th' lan' we wuz gunna tek ha lone hou'ton wuz NAHN TAHMS mo' then whut way culd puts a shore day-yan pie-me't hon, ev'n too-gethah ovah tahm. An' whut WERE we gon' doo thar, too, wit' nah wimmins eben 'tween hus? No WIMM-mens!!! SHAYATT!!! Fre-gitt hit. Fool'sh no-shun. "Carse, naw-ha-daze ah gots mah _Caza,_ shore.

"Ev'r sainse, Shuba's bin piss'd'r 'n Hayell hat may. Ah'm sorrah, ah sez. Ah kapes fergittin' thar's a ladah presen'! H'it's so pow'full dahk hin hyar wit' may loaded fer mestadon. Ah won' swayus hennymo', Ladeh Sareh." Sara pouted, jabbing Artie in the arm with a red swizzle stick, playfully-interrupting.

"You know I've heard all those words, Artie. You just shouldn't drank so damned much. It's only hurtin' you. We worry about you, sometimes."

"Thanks, bless ya, you his wun sway-yut lay-deh. You," Artie roared, turning to Gabriello, "gotta good wun hyar, Mistuh Gabe. Latch hon taht tuh her," he slurred, happily advice-laden. "B' foaw henny-wun helse duz!"

The beer was gradually soothing Gabe's intestines, washing away the throbbing pain, and the alcohol was dulling the injury. Thank God, he surmised; if that had hit Sarah, she wouldn't take off so soon with someone else, I guess, but this means war of some kind. Maybe, with Miguel Shuba.

Nothing serious. He nodded, in time to internal music, hoping that Artie the Hippie was really a friend, and eventually he inquired what loose and sporadic jobs were available in Rama. Artie scrunched his forehead.

Most of the people in Rama were, probably, white. But, what did it _mean?_ Were the people of color elsewhere, mounting a giant conspiracy to set major downtown fires? Or were they just getting drunk elsewhere?

"Loose jobs! Whah, way gots th' par-fec' dayal fer yooo, m'mayan, rat cheer. Comes t'morrow moain', ah'll takes ya ovah mahseff ta sahn hup hat th' mission jahb centah. They'll pays ya upta tayan bucks 'n hower. Ha ha HA!! Ah meks det, ea-SHE!

"AH"LL larn ya th' ropes. Wanna play some groobeh pool?" Artie loudly incanted this last question aloud, indicating with one broad sweep the entire interior of "his" bar, the volcano of which illuminated his lantern-like face in torridly flickering reds. Male customers stirred, seemed to listen expectantly – couldn't help that.

"Ah'm good hon th' tables whayan ah'm not mistakin' hit fer base-ball!!!"

They all three rose, moving silently and gracefully like fish through a small pond's water, flowing freely, following Sara's lead.

GABE "BEAU" HOOTER spins an Artistic tale of Charity tall (most things are taller than him, except those that crawled under the table sooner):

We'd been dropped off in town by our vunderbar work crew ride, having Finished a three-day strenuous and exhausting construction job, and we were walking the incredibly short distance home together. Artie was telling me all about an unusual Life Experience he'd enjoyed, and was incapable of ever forgetting. I simply must suffer in silence through his Story.

"Der wuz dis guy, see, an' he waz conver' wid frackles. Head ta toes. Musta ben ha Germ-man, he waz a petch-wuk man. Frackles hall hover! He waz baldin' an' his haid had nuthin' but frackles. Piled hon top 'o hother frackles. On top 'o MORE fuckin' FRACKLES!!! Sisteen diff'ernt shadsa 'n KAHNDS a'frackles. An' hon top o' thet, he were missin' his laig. Raht laig.

"So's ah sez to dis guy, see, ah, sez, 'Say, mistuh, yoo gotta quartah fer a foney cull?' an' he pahps raht hup wid 'No.' An', ah sez, ah duz, 'But hit's fer on'y wun low-cal call--ah'm not heskin' fer lang dis-tahnce.' An' he sez 'NO' strongah.

"So's ah dee-sahds he's mah fren', anyhoo, an' ah meks 'im mah buddeh. An' ah walks wid 'im lahk ah'm wid yoo, nawah. Saynce 'e's hin sech dahr needa dough, himself. Ah kin tells, so ah sticks bah."

Artie, whose voice was deep with baritone qualities, and whiskey-husky besides, gratingly breathed out each slurry word from a phlegmy, damp, musty gravel throat. He goofily harrumphed five or six times during his tale. It was fixin' to rain some more, which was why. Whoever was out there was being rained upon. Somewhere, maybe someone was shivering, plodding in the cold. The clouds were gathering fast.

"Den, we be headin' hup th'sahdwalks, an' we done run hinto four beefry football plahrs, tuff-kindsa guys. An' dey sorta hailed us'n halted us'n sez dayar collectin' fer a hos'pi-tal drahve, fer Raydge-voo er summairs, an' waoncha plaise givvus yer dough. An', you know WHUT?" Artie, not a handsome man at that, but more than serviceably charming, smiled his big and toothy, fairly glowing at Gabriello, fave merilly-heartily gin-splashed grin, the one he usually saved for the womenfolks.

"No, what-what-what, Art Linknumbers?"

"Thet duders hed ha FIFTEH an' he gayve hit to 'em flet hout. Muy pronto! An' dey thanked 'im. Didn' eben chenge hit!" Here, Artie stopped walking completely, head lifted, in an attitude resembling prayer, searching the horizon for some evidence of GOD and/or meaning. None was forthcoming.

"Alls ah could cough hup was a lousy seventain sense. An' ah dug in eber' pockit. Whoopeh shayet!"

Gabe could almost swear Artie was crying. But it didn't really matter. He checked his own pockets. They turned out to contain tissue, written directions, two wrapped-up chocolate-chip cookies (both dry as bones), and precisely $23.87. And the browning, torn photo of a middle-aged white lady from some forgotten years ago, black-and-white - _burnt_ amber-yellow at its fatefully ripped edges.

WHEN GABE HOOTER WAS growin' up, in outlying boonies of the frontiers of the USA's Midwest (partly Ohio and other places), he decided to look for work a'summer during his slower high school daze. He peered in various eating establishments that hired kids his age with no restaurant experiences. There were several. But they all featured alarm buzzers that rang without knowing how to talk.

These restaurants had been slowly moving in to all the small towns and outlying areas. They were often modeled after McD's and entailed working behind a protective fiberglass counter, a lot of standing and burger-wrapping performed to the tune of beepers and modernized cash registers, and scaled-down cars thinning out during the gas crises, but lining up by the dozens at the drive-through windows all day. It looked boring, but lucrative. Better than a paper route.

He applied at a sit-down restaurant and, while waiting for the manager to interview him, got a sweeping glance in at all the pretty waitresses...bookin'!

Every single one of them was wearing a very short skirt. The Forest of Beautiful Brown and White Calves. You could see their legs; you could almost see everything necessary above them. But not quite.

The manager seemed bored, but happy that Gabe was applying. Gabe was as enthused as it was possible to show, thinking to himself, the girls help, I guess. But he didn't say anything much, for fear of...what? Well, the manager right-off told him he preferred Gabe to work in the kitchen, doing prep. With the boys.

"Do you have any previous prep experience?" he sighed, obviously not expecting any. He was white, not much older than Gabe (who was sixteen) and was definitely an already adept and almost too self-confident paper shuffler, dog napper and back-tapper.

"No, just what I've put together in the kitchen when Mom let me fix us dinner. I took Home Ec last year and received an A." "Pretty good! Pretty good! That's exactly what we like to see around here..." This was happening during a time when there was no known trouble about hiring brown people or high-school girls--perhaps especially for this kind of work. Menial, drudgery? Well, at least it was a step towards self-sufficiency.

"...we like to have our guys work in the kitchen, I'll bet you can guess why. The girls are a big draw for the customers, you know, they look really cute in those uniforms. By the way, we're not allowed to interact with each other a lot, you know, but the girls...are a big asset for the customers out front. At this point the manager's tone was less than artless. He had dropped down to a kind of whispery voice, trying not to attract others' attention to what he was saying. Not that it was anything secretive. He must not have wanted to disturb the nearby customers.

"It's not a policy I established, of course, it's always been that way, and nobody's complained yet. Ha ha, why would they? So. I think we could really use you as a prep chef in the kitchen. It's a fun job. You'll really love it.

"You'll come in a 5 a.m., help us open, clean up last night's various messes—if night crew starts leaving too many, let me or Steven know, we'll talk at 'em, the guys in that bunch are pretty nice and don't leave you a lot to do. No problems for ya! You refill anything that needs refilled, clean anything dirty...

...and, if we like your style you can work up to Manager. Manager makes $7.50 an hour, plus perks and bevies. One guy did it in less than a year, the last one before the current one, Steve. No kidding!" He softly chuckled to himself, like he was keeping a special, indoctrinaire secret. Gabe suddenly woke up and realized that this chap was the assistant manager, and that Steve McGee was the actual manager. Gabe knew Steve from school. He was a sandy-haired, short, kinda quiet introverted type. Introverted? Then Gabe—felt odd, inside, not for the first time, and not sure why—and this fellow, Drake, continued.

"...as many hours as you want, almost, we can getcha hours ANY time! You can bus in the a.m. if you want to, but, you don't have to; we pay you time-and-a-half if you can work more than forty hours, fit extra bussing in around your schedule. It's not easy but that's one of the things that makes a potential, effective future manager. Might help you work your way up!

"Call us when you decide on a shift you'd like. You wrote down that you'll take either, let me see (shuffle), a morning or an afternoon shift. Either's good." Gabe was exploring his limited possibilities of summer work. His parents, though looming steadily on the verge of divorce, were good providers, and "Beau" only needed money for clothes or movies or what-you-will. No car yet. And he'd never make enough for college. But he'd gain valuable work experience and good references.

Because...? "You could take either. I'd recommend starting with morning shift, 'cause you look sharp. You'll pick up on it. Why don't you think about it as you're applying around at other places? I think, though, we have the very best to offer you right here at Sambo's!"

At this point, so did Gabe. But he remained silent, not knowing exactly why. He looked out the door, then smiled at Drake. Drake had straight, smooth, shadow-deep chestnut hair, and was altogether the ghost of a pudgy Don Adams.

On the way out the front, Drake ran into Steve, gabbing at him a mile a minute, and "Beau" got a chance to see him before he disappeared into the kitchen. He looked roughly the same as Drake, but lighter, older, and more pretentiously rushed. He was wearing a plain business suit and a tie. Drake and all the rest wore brown, yellow and white uniforms, with nametags pinned over there right or left the lapels.

"Beau" turned, looking at a collection of youthful servers standing and talking near the front cash registers. Their higher voices were sweet to his ears.

He closed the glass doors, turning away to head home. They had all been pretty, the girls, gorgeously coiffured, and only three of them were not white. There was but one black person in the kitchen.

_This side of the coast?_ Astonishing. I didn't see them all, I am sure!

Gabe walked home, something familiar tugging at him between his thighs, happily keeping him occupied much of the way. But on that their way, he dreamed darkly about the probable place of safety for all the probable ugly girls, unemployed, or wherever they were, wondering what it was, where unbelievably it was in a sanctified and cleansed, purified and holy. Perhaps it was to be found within the ranks of the armed services, or perhaps it was called something like "welfare." Or perhaps such beings had unknown and highly specialized tricks up their sleeves... Gabe didn't really care. But he never did take the job.

ARTIE SINCERELY ACHED to know what was on his Caza's mind. She rarely told him, especially nowadays. "She's not mah Caza, b'tahms. She's sumun hailse's." Like Shakespeare Artie assumed his partner to be entangled in relationships beyond his own design.

Artie was in his/their apartment, a space resounding with hippie mystique. Unbelievably, they both cleaned it. There was beer smell, but the sandalwood incense meshed was it pulling and stretching the aroma to a clearer zone.

The extra-large studio apartment contained a kitchen nook, an unusually comfortable bath, and a walk-in closet that easily held a gopher colony. Caza kept all the books she was currently doing for companies in systematic files, and therein was a regular gopher. Artie's contributions within ran to sweaters, dark gray overcoats, two dozen outdated men's ties, and muddy pub. His field keel was in storage, but was easily assessable. Three tool chests, one of which held unused art equipment, were shared betwixt the twosome.

Artie was lonely, unhappily missing his Caza. They had been making love, again. It was okay, especially when Artie didn't drink beforehand. Caza had a salutary effect on him, he knew, but she was gone quite a lot. Sometimes Artie, growing brave, pulled himself together enough to abstain when he was alone but he seldom managed a dry state for long. Instead he lost his troubles quietly in vino, TV, and sleep.

Artie was not a calm man, nor a reader like Gabe, and without the presence of his friends he tended to climb the walls. "Mah bodeh is made fer the phys-i-cal plane/Let's get loaded or WALK outsahd/Ah gotta go day-yun so's ah kin git hup agin/Mah bodeh sez sum thangs will NOT stay dee-nied." That sonnet he once wrote on the bedroom wall of a previous apartment, elsewhere, elsewhen and elsewhy-else, in green and blue dayglo. Accent an' all. Rumors had it his thick drawl originated from several years spent as a steelworker in Georgia or Alabama in the '70's. Ain't not Montanan-true.

"Whar's mah _Caza?_ O whar o whar hez she gawwn. Ah wan' hol' mah li'l gel lawng. Ik, wha's dis on da floor? Artie stumbled; his big toe, peeking through a left foot two-dollar used Birkenstock, poked a book. Caza's dairy. It said so on the cover.

Artie carefully reached down, experiencing slight internal trembling while doing so. He was handsome as he straightened up, blond hair falling back, shoulders elaborately moving into erect place. But he slumped, drunk... his lips stumbled over the words on the cover, and he vaguely promised himself not to grab another beer ere nightfall, 'less he got real thirsty. He did...

Caza Zooweiler's Journalized Diary System

Artie, on the futon he purchased last year from a newspaper ad, thirty bucks, lying on the cord of white wood, too hot for covers, read the entire writ below, not caring so much about the meaning of the words as his sense of Caza's hand in writing them. Also he had occasional spider running through his pile to upset him.

She'd said she was returning within the week. Prob'ly. "Tops!"

The page he opened to, near the beginning, read:

On another lonely road to nowhere – Juneteenth, 1986

I must continue to create meaning and purpose to my existence, or others either will not get around to it or will do a phony, selfish version of it, for them and not for me. But the insides and outside of my head won't mesh. My life feels like silly putty, like a tape recording that skips, like a broken rubber band. It never snaps back, it never unwinds, it seldom regains its true shape. See? It's not sex alone that eludes me, always.

The elusive is like a good soul for the world. It has one or two, but it never seems to hum a few bars and get with it. Back when I was a child, one all-best day, and that great day, I was told I would perceivably own nearly the abruptest grandeur of the universe. And then I would be dead. Finito.

If I worked unseeingly harsh, and cast much fishline, though I haven't caught a single fish as of yesterday... on my cycle peddling in the countree, on the same blissful summer's day, in a park the size of wheatfields, billowing cattails in the sun, without the traffic of people, before I began hiking a vast and mystic nature trail, a virtual slave to natural beauty as I stood at the trailhead, a feeling was present, filling all that was deep within me.

It began me, sick, as I was without mercy, all gone, sanity smote me. I woke to it. The wind cooled all fevers. The trees sang as I waltzed down the trail, weaving everywhere on my bike, a happy, an incomplete but touchable joy lifting me beyond my pains. I walked with my bicycle, the ground under my feet was moist and earthen.

The trees live in the absolutely solid heart of the earth, mutely and effortlessly beautiful. I still get to visit them, in their manner, even today, if I'm awake and most of the cars are often the distance.

That day made me into me. Without any solid or prolonged contact with nature in this life, I'm a quasisonic ghost, wandering greatly with the merest spark of helpless life, breathing in dust and feeling naught but slivers of potential pain and fear. (Here, Artie signed deeply, and almost sniffled.) I love Artie very much. (Here, Artie heaved a great sigh of joy, gratitude, regret, and bitter feelings of empathy combined with abject failure pangs.) I wish he'd stop drinking. (And here, Artie emitted a terrific belch.)

I try and try to make him stop, but he doesn't, and in a way it's okay because when he drinks he can't get a complete erection. Makes it less and less likely that I'll unever become pregnant... (Now Artie felt joyous. He felt all confirmed as Caza's true sweetheart, and a grip, perhaps physically real, grabbed the inside of his chest. He shifted his legs, felt the blood drain, and read on)... fortunately, I guess, as I'm weak, but I would have loved a little child.

I would have (should have) taken my (my!) baby out to listen to the wind (the WINE) moving through the treetops, looking at roofs on houses. Houses!!! And sung my baby a lullaby (houses, houses, houses, yeah) while Artie and I kissed. We kiss and hug and feel tremendous affection for each other, and we have great sex when he's well. But this is all I ever needed, except for what's beyond... my present grasp.

Later? Don't know. If ever. Today I have moments of natural solicitude, boon traveling companions (for now), and shoes to match my new gold, purple and peach half-length paisley chemise (is anything more really necessary, wondered Artie, as he faded away to nirvana...)

Alcohol will take her toll, _over_ 'n above mah slumbering soul.

The angels, the angels, the angels do roll

As a floatin' cloud rollin' round to me, oh, ah, believes

In the towering majesty of earthly smoke-dash sandalwood

Wrapping angel feet incense to write the smoky words

Rumbling in smokay boards whazzat you say, you? Boards?

Too bored for words, too bored for wars. Angels' makin' money, makin' dough

Angels often make the big-time, doncha know.

Ah don't know from that clean show cuz earth's the only place ah goes

Ah do roll, ah do roll, ah do roll into the a floatin' cloud of

Alcohol that owes no toll over and above mah slumberin' soul.

MABEL'S LIFE WAS THAT OF a highly literate (and relatively cosmetically appropriate) middle-aged woman who "happened to be crowd-avoidant enough" to take up bartending in a small town, primarily because her husband Bill and her life "tended towards a country setting." On the other hand, she'd been born there and had lived there all her life.

She was more like Harmin Boole and his eerie little crowd of townie geezers than she ever felt brave enough to admit. Or believe. But, she'd spent a qualifying fifteen years in New York City, six of them in college, getting a master's degree in teaching English. She says she taught at Hillbright College for "a good long time," and had loved it.

Bill and Mabel square-danced, round-danced, and folk-circle danced their legs off regularly, a tad bit late in life to save either one from varicose veins, but far too early to keep Bill from losing weight and regaining some of his former excellent shape.

"I'll be livin' as long as May (Mabel was his "May") if'n we keep up, how 'bout that?" he crowed. He was one to love potato chips too much. He wore a string tie most days and looked "'way like an Indian, if'n I had my eye." Bill kept part-native and was also born missing his right eyeball, having received surgery to sew the lid shut as a boy.

He was a handsome cuss, anyways, with one bright green eye piercing straight into your soul. Mabel was German-Irish, and everything else, with flamingly curly red hair she'd re-dyed back to snuff, and to match Bill's good eye. "One shade brighter'n I was born."

Mabel set in the bars back office, quickly leaping up to serve a customer out front. Her jumps were seldom spectacular, but on warm days she wore a country gingham-checked medium-length skirt with three petticoats, from their dance class, that blossomed fantastically each time she'd deserted her seat, reminding the customer cum audience of a mushroom with scalloped edges billowing out in all directions.

There was this mini-explosion of colorful posterior puffball, then the words "What'll you have to quench your desire for liquid poison, pardner?" materialized from a friendly visage of loveliness landing directly in front of the customer, who often made a face before responding. She had either picked up this habit from, or taught it to, Saragina.

They also both helped out at the Dame's Sunday Services. But Mabel, in her ordinary layman's role there, would become peculiarly straight-forward in a most oblique way doing the serious prayers for assistance to the suffering--when the Dame held them. "On this day," Mabel would pray, "I want to pray for...Artie Blend."

Long, slow dissolve. Switch to camera in Bar. Dissolve into interior of Bar, Camera Two.

At the bar, one slightly sultry afternoon, Mabel presided over the becigaretted, ectoplasmic Church of Alcohol that was the Krakatoa: three pool tables, four video machines, three pinballs, two phones, and eight customers. "May" was watching TV in the back room. It was a documentary about alcoholism and its signs and symptoms, and while viewing it Mabel seriously woke up to the evil thing that was a-happening to Artie. Misuse of medicine. By watching an alcoholic, one just like Artie, walking the crooked lane.

He has so much to look forward to, Mabel mulled: his lady Caza, his good new friend Gabe, his career in building and construction, his own general sound health. Why why is another pretty guy tearing himself apart with booze?

She'd been dreaming up an idea for a book during the show, and in a portion involving a male character similar to Ulysses S. Grant, who drank like a fish, she was going to have him say:

"The Presidency is beyond me because I booze around! A fish needs to drink too much muddy water. I was willing to risk all I possessed as a general, but when it comes to peacetime, I'm sunk. Whenever I sit down, I perch upon a bar stool!"

Mabel left the back to help customers entering the bar. She drew two beers from the tap, sold 'em a bag of potato chips, and went back to begin jotting down notes. She could still feel the wet glasses in her cool hands.

Mabel saw the ultimate psyches of women and men as being vastly different from each other. Well, typically, but not necessarily universally. This was real to her. Being a grandma at heart second nature, giving her bones and calcium over to her inborn children...Mabel couldn't help but mother Artie.

She saw the Artster as a man who, in her own light, like Grant, was antsy and needed action to continue forward and grow in his life. Unfortunately, she couldn't see the chaos and overwhelming terrors of the early stages of Artie's life that led him to his currently decaying existence.

She had suffered her own hard times and difficulties; or, had she? Well, she had. Her father, dead when she was one, her mother too weak to help her, she had bounced in and out of foster homes until they found her a good family.

No.

I've lived here all my life, and all I've ever been is bored. Much kept from me, much given to me, much lost of how I must make my way. And the money I've gleaned from my books helped us to buy our new house, make the payments, and purchase a luxury sail-boat outright. But my father did die when I was pretty small, when I was a baby and accepted everything, of course. I do remember some of my mother's crying fits. She was so good to me.

I didn't know better, then. How to miss people. I still don't, really. When they're gone, they're gone. Nothing will ever bring them back.

Perhaps Artie was merely young and handsome, thus attractive, but Mabel didn't think that was the real reason she cared. There was something congenial about him that caused her to fret over him, like a silly old mother hen. And Caza, too, his other half, had her woes. She was dying of "bad blood." Her father was inappropriate to her mother, with the devil to pay for it.

The impotency of her worries did not escape Mabel; she felt an idiotic urge to put what she was doing completely behind her and to take up a volunteer rescuing operation for alcoholics. Perhaps start a branch of AA (Alcoholics Anonymous) in Rama? Who would she get, besides herself and her husband, to fund it?

Making money from her writing would help her leave bartending, this selling of poisons in legal doses to people who can't necessarily handle consuming it in larger ones. She thought, we really don't need the money, but you never know...she liked generating a regular income. She bit her pencil, fearing it might splinter, or it might as well be her finger. They had laid off Ed Bitters from his job, pre-retirement, and if it got into "their" money-makin' heads, as it easily might, they could lay off her man before he and she took the rewards of his company retirement benefits. She'd been threatened many times in her life by such things, and Bill had assured her that such things could bloody well happen to them. What price her books?

Those dogs. But, concluded Mabel, with a sigh, here I am at the Krakatoa for now, and in my heart what am I doing? Here in former Indian town, full of ghosts. Make a buck, ski downhill. Bugs me, it does, though, about Artie. I just know Saragina will choose to go away to school, and what'll "Beau" do then but have to choose between the two of them, as it were? He's best go be with Sara, I bet, but what if she wants to get through school first, and drops him...he's not so ambitious as she is. I'll bet he goes. Then Artie will be in here all the time, anyway, like he already is.

Oh, well. All the time? Sweet little Caza should talk him into marriage, as if it would do those two any good...

" _Mabel!_ Mabel Jones!! May— _BellLLLL!_ I need a pitcher, rye-cheer!" Thus sang out the infrequent local who had gone to school with both the Joneses way back when it looked like heavy industry was going to hit the town in a big way. It never had, never really went ahead and did...no extra pollution that way, clear big beautiful skies...except for over the concrete plant.

Someday, Mabel told herself, on the way out front, we'll convert this building to an AA meeting hall. Nothing but fruit juice and seltzer water will be served. Not even coffee. It's addictive, too.

"I'm comin', tartan Tom, keep your bloomin' shirtie on, I'm coming..."

ONCE UPON a lily pad...lived a Frog. She was a nice-looking frog, had terrific gams. They were commented on, especially by other frogs.

She used to stretch out and lie in the sun. Soakin' up the rays.

Once or twice her skin dried out and she'd splash around in the pond to remoisten. It worked. Her crystal-clear surface, translucent in the sun, bubbled no more.

The frog knew no civilization. However, one day she developed an urge to go to town and become a celebrity. Or, to eat some celery. She went.

When she came to town, the first place of interest was a showy restaurant.

She entered via the front door. Immediately there was screaming and chaos.

People dashed about, yelling "Frog! Frog!" She ignored them and hopped over to a table. "What is dis joint?" she said. "I want to eat!" And she stuck her tongue out, way out, twelve inches, hoping someone would understand.

A waiter led the frog back to the kitchen, where he pointed to a refrigerator.

"Get in and take a look around. We keep all our food in there to keep it cold."

He indicated that the frog should go inside. "You could help us keep an eye on things."

She agreed, and hopped inside. The waiter smiled, calmly closing the refrigerator door. Then he turned the temperature in the grig way down, in order to give the frog a quicker death, or something.

Several hours later, the chef cooked up for the waiter a terrific pair of frog legs, free of charge. Breaded lightly and served with a side of tartar sauce.

"The Moral of the story," Saragina whispered to Gabe, tickling over his ear with his hair, "is frogs should avoid cold storage units and smart-ass waiters."

"Awww, does the froggy have to die in the story? I liked her. She had a lot of spirit. Know who she reminds me of?"

"No, sweet face, the frog I'm thinking of is from a galaxy far, far away..."

"Next time, make the boy frog eat a lot of fruit flies."

_Please Give to Amnesty International! –_ Fake Ad, Real Cause

"AND SO IT shall be..."

And it _was!_

For starters, Dame "Boat Person" Gretchley didn't necessarily preach from the Bible. This was largely because she really HAD been a boat person, and was sick to death of all the violence.

"Too many stonings, too much death. You make too much fuss over one dead body." Instead, one Sunday, she had a few choice things to discuss about the local phone books. It seems there was more to life than how skinny and unpopulous they were.

For example, she wondered why "for years, goods and services have been advertised through a suspiciously uniform color of paper, considering this is the free market.

What does it mean? Does it refer to the Jews, symbolically? Is Authority attempting to further denigrate them, to put them down? Remember the phrases 'yellow journalism'—the bald Yellow Kid—and the 'Yellow Peril'? Remember the Beatles' "Yellow Submarine" and "Old Yaller"? Remember Steinbeck's The Pearl? Remember Berkowitz's 'Son of Sam'? Perhaps it is not a good thing, to advertise goods on yellow paper only."

"But Dame, there's a white pages nowadays that lists company names, and there are blue and green pages..."

"But it doesn't feature slews of ads; does it? That's only in the yellow-pages style of book. I think its anti-semi-truck, or something. Like saying all Jews ever do is own everything we already own, and sell it back to us in packages. Weird little paper packages, when you can buy everything on the Internet and get much better shipping rates and a paid group fee on Amazon without trying.

"I say that's Unreal, by necessity. This old world needs more and more actual Reality in it!" At this emotive statement, Mabel "School" Jones, who wrote a lot of overtly prosaic historical fiction whenever she could, warmly disconcerted.

With mild hesitation but obvious bemusement, Mabel pointed out during a dull moment (which was easily generated) that during the European Middle Ages, which Dame Gretchley, being South-East Asian, might not be so familiar with, Christians had "taken over," or established, many trades and enterprises previously begun and run by Jews. They competed, perhaps unfairly, and eventually the "Christian" enterprises dominated. That was the start of the Medieval guilds that later led to the establishment of unions.

"Maybe that explains the new, streamlined, business-listing white pages," offered Mabel; "it's largely derivative. White maybe symbolizes plainness, simplicity, or Christianity. Or it's cheaper...? The yellow pages are still the major resource material, I think, with the ads and all. But the newer white pages are a quicker source for phone numbers and addresses. Maybe it's just a joking historical reference to change..."

"Okay. But, is that the rightest thing to do? Jokes aren't always fun when they are intentionally destructive. What's wrong with the past clearly being the past?" The Dame's own past was not an especially good one. She was happy to put it as far behind her as humanly possible.

In answer, Mabel stuttered, _"nothing._ I...I don't know why not." Mabel prided herself on her lack of ability to stretch the truth very far before it broke. The Dame would sometimes break up laughing at her for that.

Other neat-stuff topics would, intermittently, float up in the Dame's church. Anything at all was discussed, often to accompanying instrumental music. But everybody sang, in lilting feminine voices maturely nauseating.

The Dame had a backlog band of local characters who showed up most Sundays, dressed in ragged costumes, sporting a variety of high school band implements of audial destruction or enjoyment, depending on the musician's level of practical abilities. Tuning them all up was an event in itself. The Dame played at least three, the flute, the clarinet, and the viola. Mabel was learning the sax and percussion. Dan Nuts played solid bass, and an elderly couple named the Bitters performed a peculiarly gothic singing loquation called 'quaritalto' where they interchanged voices, with their daughter Sharone dipping low with them at four-stroke intervals.

This familiar trio was stoutly performing rousingly early madrigals to wake 'em up one sunny Sunday in November, crisp and clear outside, when Caza finally showed her blue-green skirts at church.

First thing she did after doffing her mostly brown Navajo or Dine jacket was to wander over so's to jaw with the elder Mr. Bitters. He quit, after a moment's pause, "being ever so willing to salute a lady conversationally," and knowing Caza was probably hoping for news on his impending legal action. He'd lost his old job as a higher-up at Ridgeview, and recently had started a new one.

"How's it goin' with the new job, Ed?" inquired Caza, there for a rare Sunday appearance before she went out to sun on Artie's concrete "patio" and do bookkeeping.

"It fares well enough, Caza m'dear, well enough. But I'd rather the environment at my new work was much less informal. You know what I'm referring to, perhaps." Ed, an old trouper when it came to civil rights, wondered if really she did.

Caza smiled glowingly at the old gentleman, with genuine interest and with an unforced, and previously unforeseen, natural affection. She was waiting for him to become more definite, so she would understand him better. He continued. "I think that's what cost me the last job. Getting settled into the new one, though, and retirement's creepin' up. On little cat feet." Mr. Bitters sighed, off-handedly.

" _Little cat feet!"_ sang out Dame Gretchley. "Little CAT feet! Why, I can hear that darn cat thumping in my attic all the way out to Stanislawskia!" She pulled her considerably bulky frame over to dead in front of Ed. He grimaced a grin. The Dame might decide to bend his ear with her own harrowing misadventures.

"In THIS small town? Why, this is America, or something. You have a memory, I think, dear lady, but on the other hand, I have found that these, uh, hospitals end up with an, ah, nasty tendency to become owned by larger cartels than I and what little is mine can easily relate to."

The Dame bounced up and down on her feet, peering at Edward with a clownish, pulled-in, non-plussed kind of expression, as though she were sucking on a lemon too quickly. But she laughed, and said, quoth she, with a punch-inspired burp, that she had been in the same boat.

"I'll bet it was an even leakier one. Good luck to you during this hard time, Ed." She danced away, in the general direction of the kitchen, to start laying things out for the buffet.

"Not to sound like I'm giving up on the situation," Ed continued, to Caza. "I simply don't believe I enjoy working for that particular gang of thieves anymore. Sour grapes, I suppose. Well and good. Believe it or not, budget cuts are fashioned, nowadays...and that's probably all they ever were is fashionable. What are we still doing with an economy that seems to be forever based upon dead trees? It's been far worse, at least. I still think we're running, anymore, on a Paper Standard.

"But I believe they let me go too early on purpose. THAT way they withheld my retirement benefits." Ed grinned, stoically, at an obscure and distant trap. He did not look sad. More like an undefeated human blank, who didn't particularly care about his own peculiar circumstances...because nothing was really hurting him. He was almost sexy, for an old grey dude with jowls.

"Guess so," quoth the Dame, who'd come back from the kitchen with intent to visit. She had a hot dish or two and was fixing to split. And just as she began to leave, grabbing Emilia Bitter's arm and telling her about a marvelous desert she'd made,

"Won't you try some, and here, have the recipe, and since you've got your car would you take it over to Mr. Goneschlaw's, he's slightly ill, and he needs a visitor with food, there's a dear," a bunch of mangy-looking people from further east burst in through the stainless-steel basement doors. One young man separated himself out, actually wringing his hat in his fat hands, fancy that, and approached Caza, who was standing there apparently looking available!

"It's Yuana Oosalamano's birthday tonight, and we signed for this space last month. Reserved it for six o'clock in the evening. She's in her 80s and we're gonna have 39 people in here, 56 tops. Can _you-all_ help us set up?"

"Shore!" called out Mabel, the Dame, and Caza, as one. Caza grabbed the nearest church-stormer and pointed at several already established small green hooks on the ceiling, explaining how to hang the birthday streamers.

"We have lotsa boitdays here. There's a written guide on setting them up in the back office. Who's in charge, you geese?" The group and Caza and Mabel started putting their heads together, planning the elaborately party.

Meanwhile, Mrs. Bitters gathered various tasty leftovers, ably assisted by Sharone, and headed with alacrity out to Goneschlaws's. Rob was very fond of her alacrity, though he always respected her integrity, which was gritty. Mr. Bitters stuck around to help the instantaneous, uproarious invading crowd.

None of them looked quite British as Mr. Bitters. He was pretty tall, could reach high up to hang the streamers - the kind of man who "did things." Edward was highly useful, and was locally considered to be indispensable. Local is always what you make of it! Left? What is left, after a lifetime of overly hard work? In factories, plants, on assembly lines, or in other places where you are a cipher?

Various fancy versions of "Happy Birthday" began to be repractised, so the ever-present Dan Nuts, gracing all with his sainted mysterious loner presence (bet you'll never guess how he was doing that), leaped in to jovially contribute:

"Just a snatch of a song, not a short one nor too long, right to celebrate the gladsome tidin's of a lie-dee reaching the austere autumnal auge of? _23!_

"Happy birthday to YOU,

Hope you don't go BOO-HOO.

Happy Birthday, Dear Yuana,

How o-o-old are You?

"Nope, we don't have a SINGLE clue,

Yes, you ARE so youthfulistically-looking,

We just cannot tell...can YOU?

Everything broke up laughing. Meanwhile Ed Bitters assumed a most careful, masked with years and polished with tears worried look as Caza, with the assistance of the invisible last but expected late arrival of Artie, got out sparkly birthday streamers, dozens upon dozens, from the upper shelves of the church back closet. They seemed to run to gold, blue and green, metallic, resembling tiered tinsel. There was additional digging around in there for table cards, party hats and noise-whistles. Others were setting up the card tables, unfolding chairs, getting tablecloths, and prepping in the kitchen, while Ed and Dan faded away to check out the lighting system. It didn't work well at night, sometimes.

"Little cat feet," muttered Mabel to herself, handing a streamer up to a young lady perched, somewhat precariously, on the gardening ladder. "I must use that line in a book, someday."

SARAGINA WAS NO waitress. She had friends who waited on tables. But she could wait, wait, wait until hell freezes over, before she climbed into bed again with the only unknown comic she preferred to have unprotected, inferior-positioned, mutually-orgasmic sex, with. Her, underneath.

Yes, children'r involved...if someone doesn't fox up now and then, no kids.

She liked to have him as no stranger, on top of, beneath, all around her. She wanted to own and to use his last name. Copyrighted and serialized. She liked him to be in control. If they weren't married, if she didn't share his name and a goodly private portion of his soul, including living with him, that meant he was not in sufficient control of himself, or their marriage.

She didn't even remotely want to be his actual, spiritual, or physiological superior. And if that was the case, then she wasn't, either. Excepting one Danny Devito, who charmed her occasionally with his dwarfism. She met him a few days ago, at a party in Unionville, with celebrities abounding. All, all is out of...sorties.

No matter how Gabe, or anyone else, pressed her she would not give in. Such was her ingenuous concept of marital happiness, to save herself and her Man for the potential of the All-Important Thing – called Children. Babies, infants, rug rats, so-called floor monkeys, happy peppy little ones. _That_ sort of thing! Marriage and a regal church wedding, how you start an American family...not as hipsters, but as two souls in love who respect something beyond their material lives.

A BITE OF SEATTLE-STYLE BACKGROUND ON "OUR LADY SARA," WOMAN OF A _THOUSAND ROLES_ AND BLACKLY SUBTLE NUANCES, WHO MAYBE HATES POLITICS – BUT LOOKS INTO THEM AND BRIEFLY SHRUGS:

The radically-oriented first man she'd married, an apparently worthy, dark-hued-as-she and permanently-stamped-as-Nigerian-though-Spanish-surnamed chap, Alexander "the Great" DeSoto, a seemingly happy and hospitable soul, had come to her neatly hidden away under the peaceful Black American out-spreading protective umbrella of the Original State of Islam, charmingly claiming it to be a Muslim harbinger of future good times and classier fates for their Worldwide Race. Perhaps that superstitious word "fates" was the signal cue of some kind of male wrongness, a red flag, meaning lack of humanistic faith in her talents, hard working soul, and progressing capaabilities over the fortunes of Socialism and the ever-shifting political tides of so-called progress. Saragina wasn't half as communist or radical as her hubbie; she merely wanted to grow closer to him. So she attended their meetings, studied Islam with her own gentle enthusiasm, mingling with the radical crowd; but her heart, Black as it was, couldn't see the point in such politics. What kept her out of things was the hopeless taking of sides.

Sara wasn't the type to lay it on thick with, for or against white people. Nor was she the sort who found herself wishing for _violent_ radical change, thinking like Dr. King that such events come in increments, a step at a time, and might take years to actively commence. Patient and forbearing, she enjoyed dealing with people exactly as she found them every day, letting them believe whatever pleased them – as long as it didn't threaten her inmost sense of self. She stood up against racism, but kinda quietly, without being arrogant. Yet this Mary Poppins approach wasn't her entire being – she just didn't care to be rude, or use her height to be intimidating. Coming from a family of Tall Black People, Sara was too Mom-oriented for that, never acting like her fellow adults were somehow children. She merely desired to settle down, preferable permanently, with a nice, friendly, decent man, one who would not back down readily in a quarrel, a Man that at least stood up for himself. Perhaps this was a girlish and Romantic fantasy, or her surely meant-to-be realistic part. But it seemed to be such an attainable one...or was it?

...she remembered her Father as the awful sort more likely to take things out on women, much more than to understand himself; but this was a submerged memory with her. Her layers of self that covered this imaginatively supplied the black soul that was her father with reasons, _reasons_ pertaining to his own personal ancestry and additionally to Evil White Society, reasons that caused him to not always interact positively with Sara, her mother, and Sara's brothers. For reasons she never understood, he was pleasant to her sisters. But oh, seldom to her! Rarely, if ever was he pleasant enough to her. But, why? She did not know. Why. Staying up late at night on the couch, she mooned incessantly about men.

She was catching herself thinking about it, wishing she could shut the bad memories out and keep only the good ones. The pleasant thud of bare feet in the hallways, the sound of laughter in her backyard, half of phone conversations and music by Earth, Wind and Fire, Stevie Wonder, and the major parts of Rap, elementally grasping some obscure anti-authority truths...playing off in the distance. Dr. Dre, songs about killing cops, music about how her People are dying somewhere else...drugs and prostitution, horrible things Sara wanted nothing to do with. Maybe substance abuse caused most of the Black and Brown problems in the United States. Or maybe it was that attitude that caters to white male authority; which one was it, historically the wrong type of thinking, or something along the lines of _sheer greed?_

It made her feel so creepily judgmental, which she wanted to get away from. What was a real solution to this, other than working and getting ahead? Surely a Black Revolution would only mean idiocy, or extremes. "I just want to fit in, not be labelled a man or a lesbian or a Red Commie," she reasoned. Some of her folks, churchy and Christian as they were, seemed too far away or too stuck-up and showily sophisticated for her tastes. But they all were hard-driving, liberal or conservative, they were mostly school and work-habituates.

At least it caused her family of origin to take some chances in performing their minor act of Diaspora, one which was already thriving in her thronging kin through their Old World Heritage, one potentially Moorish as well, that pushed their set of fledgling blackbirds into the general or perhaps the less restricted sky of an expanding outer reality. She never found out if it was part of the Northward pull on Blacks or not. But eventually she ended up in the Pacific Northwest, after a short lifetime of travels similar to both Gabe's and Artie's.

Somehow, as though on planned schedule, they all moved out young and dispersed across the country, quickly, Sara had thought, too quickly for a "typical" Black family. Typical or whom? Or what? Of Why? Because, of course!!!

She heartily missed her brother Phillip, her sisters Rae and Glinda, whenever she longed for the joyous shout of familiar chaos ringing in unison throughout the narrow hallways of a large and thickly carpeted well-kept house. Often she found herself missing the daytime sounds of a large, happy family, groceries shuffled while being put away, bags upon bags...nowadays, she could carry all the groceries she bought once every two weeks in one trip, the few blocks home to her walk-up. Oh, where was Phil's ball glove, Rae's bike, John's tennis stuff?

She felt lucky to have landed her Raman job. But it was such a rinky-tink place in which to have to eke out a lonesome existence. Her ex-husband, the wretched cad, had lost them their original new home through his violence and his angry temperament. She was not sure she'd ever get over the disappointment. Otherwise, she would be happy as could be, and in fact was managing beautifully, until...

He was just immature, Sara decided one day, laying two logs, aged maple, in her brick fireplace just to make it look less empty, less full of singed and destroyed memories, less tempting as a final resting place for the bigotry-laden books she was occasionally forced to peruse, forced by her intrinsic researcher tendencies and her resolute female curiosity. Books such as Idiotic Cherokee Scumbags, Sands of Harlem's Supernatural and/or Rise and Fall of the Saturday Matinee.

And also the Koran, which she liked to glance through, poring through its slim, leafy pages for the source of the violence that had disturbed her ex-spouse. She occasionally found the potentially few, or actually many, places in those religious volumes that could have impelled only a soulless being into touching her with such violent lust instead of what she knew to be natural, peaceful, uplifting love (with strings attached and a playin'), or in other words the right way for a husband to treat his wife, or his wife to treat him.

Sooner she would attempt at being a Christian, wearing the cloak of a gentler pretension to belonging, before she again became involved with Islam. No! Respect that church! What is the difference twixt a church, a temple or a _mosque?_ Nonesuch to the above! But she did not really believe her religious preference was to blame, although she was definitely supposed to. She, having more than a little touch of brains, thought it was a combination of her own desires for individual freedom in the face of Black imperiousness, which she could neither argue with nor accept, and the reality of Islam being a fantasy game for nothingness' sake, when it came to accepting anonymity in the New World, in itself an ode to being black: _Amfrica._

But, who cared? It was the late '80s, not fair nor foul nor good red herring. The Muslims or Moslems primarily operated in the Middle East, opposing Israel and being under CIA rule due to the major oil interests in America and Europe. In Sara's readings, the original Muslim Empire may have been the driving forces behind Spanish slavery and the European Inquisition. But taking sides wasn't her approach; she knew all kinds of people were to blame for worldwide political domination and the subordination of the human spirit. Greed, she always figured. The need for money is the root of most evil, not religions or even politics.

The couch, her aging support from Joseph "Joe" Alexander DeSoto and hers past, was sinking in the middle, rolled-up and torn obsequiously in the side corner. Stuffing was present. It poked out in various white clumps, marking the age of a beautiful but spent piece of furniture, cheaply and doggedly falling apart beneath her reclining body. Stretching out her great length. What money is useful for, she sighed, why people fight _incessantly_ so they can buy a better style of success.

Sighing responsibly, Sara got up, built a fire, piled candy wrappers and newspaper supplements on it, and sat back down again.

She wondered sometimes, however, if under better conditions it (Islam, or the rival empire or whatever it was) would have opposed Catholicism, stopping or slowing the New World's violent fevers of expansion. But she could never see how much another fantasy trip as that, being the ghost of its own supermarket past that it was, really meant anything honest or good or real for...for...them. It was too weird, too hate-ridden, and too graphically redundant.

Well, actually, it was largely pro-slavery. Yup. _Vomit._ So were the Christian and even the Jewish Bibles, so was the world...maybe the Universe. Joe, working hard every single day at his beleaguered job, spending most nights at those radical Islamic meetings, leaving her to read the Koran instead of spending enough time with her to get to know each other. Night by night, they drifted apart.

One day she questioned this, and violence struck with its feet of clay, same as with Ike and Tina Turner: HE PINCHED HER CHEEK, _ON THE REAR END!_ Well, it meant something. He'd used THREE fingers, at least! And those were strong Black men's fingers. She had to _leave_ him behind, or she would've knocked him senseless to the ground! The brutal, overpowering "snatch" of her unwilling buttocks by the loving but often distant and away from her Joe, resounded forever in her feverishly hot brain, a symbolic act of ultimate marital betrayal. To put it bluntly, Saragina had acquired some serious trust issues involving sitting down.

A peaceful, normal life, one where Sara was free to oppose her enemies and to support her friends, without being hassled needlessly, was surely all she ever had wanted and was still her heartmost desire. Can people make this into that farfetched of an ideal? Perhaps so, but...bony frame. Funny. Islam-dominated man, staring down her record-a-phone. Waiting to trick or please someone. Waiting, anew and afresh, for WHAT, she did not apprehend, nor did she feel entirely capable of grasping or gathering it all up into her reality; an absurdist compartmentalized zone, which was the audible gentle soul of a seeming "Christian" man who would sooner be hurt—or who was simply normal, with luck—for or even by her than to ever dream of purposefully, while looking the other way, while covering it over, hurting her. Never ever.

You know, one that WOULD'T hurt her. Sniff.

And a certaine-most American Indian | Mexican | Italian | Jewish/Arab and who knows what, does it even matter, fellow at that! Good old Watson. I think I could be his Sherlock, for sheer "playing dumb" luck. The gatepost to Real Life at last. A genuine American Native, Indigenous, Brown person and probably Christian soul. Well, anything but a black or white silly old GIRL. _NOTTT!!!_

As though dreaming while asleep, the isolated tigress that was she, with athletic listlessness, unbending and tiredly crossing her long straightened legs, scarcely knowing anymore as to why, curved her supple back more fully turned to the meaninglessly filled empty space below the red false-brick Santa Claus chimney. She had once coveted a similar Chimney from Afar, when as a Child she first suffered Winter's biting Chills. Then, she'd been looking ahead to inhospitably coldish weather in the Americans that, YAHHHHH, never really Arrived, as in her worst Naïve expectations. Now, It had instead remotely vanished, as though unwilling to do or haunt a simply black girl's comely and homely Graces.

Well, into the "superior" nether realms of Canada, or something. Saragina gracefully sat, but shakily, listless as flat brown leaves floating in layers upon the clutching glassy surface of a crystalline pond, unrippled by wind or tide or story-book water creatures, silently hoping for a loud and ringing break in the heated, untroubled serenity, of her smoky surroundings, the enchanted, womblike smoggy choking Hades—omigod, I forget to re-open the flue! Phewww. Night-time. No wonder my Mind wandered so fitfully...charging over to the nearest wall!

She breathed in relief, leaning out of a fortuitously open window. Was it ope' before, is that why I'm still _alive?_ Wow, this room is _loaded_ with smoke! Gee, that city below me is rapturously growing in loveliness and buildings, out there, she realized as she took in gulps of clean, cooling, pure air. But, where...?

Once more, that break, a summer breeze longed for, expected and indecipherable, did not arrive, ringing, choking, or otherwise.

She HAD done that Drug.

Stupid her. That cocaine. _Two lines._ No more!!! It made her into a big, fat, intolerable unprepared Turkey. Never again! Partying was the worst thing ever. What was she doing, looking around for another man? Stupid, _stupid_ she! I'm too smart, too mature and together for this, and if not, there will be Hell to pay. Mom was right, drugs take away your ability to think straight, like with our Artie.

She HAD spaced out on setting the fire by herself...alone. WHY? Clearly, she needed a man, or Someone Else...sombody absurdly _rhetorical..._

...WHO USED TO play pool; he was a decent-enough player

At playing the fool, nor good as God's slayer.

He could get all balls down in twelve sets--or ten;

Perhaps fourteen was the minimum, hum.

Well, he was a pretty fair ball-pusher-inner.

He smoked a special kind of 'baccy called Havana Gold,

The cigs were self-rolled, he smoked 'em controlled,

Never more than half-a-pack-a-day, and never over Christmas.

It was too late to know an old man, his wife dead ten long years

He never did talk about THAT

What hanging around really is. _Remarriage?_

I visit my woman's grave, snarls he. Because I recall that...

...Harmin Boole's secret, unknown, unspeakably unknowable wife lay sleeping, or possibly otherwise, in the cemetery on the other side of the lake, diagonal from Shell Park, facing Tomato. The town authorities, through local ordinance said not to drink the water from Shell Lake. Nobody ever did. It was green and infectious at shoreline, smelling of algae, which was pretty smelly. However, koi, big goldfish the size of small salmon, swum in the lake, and the kids caught 'em.

And measured them for length. The longest fish, caught on a certain day, determined what kid got to skip school, covered by (usually) his classmates, every summer on that Glogger's Day. Said kid got to ride with the Helgramont family on the ferry out to Harver Point. The Feast of Summer Wealth was held on the ferry. At the feast, this kid traditionally stole a loaf of bread. It had to be a whole loaf.

"Harmin," said Gabe Hooter one day, when he caught the old man heading for the bar for a glass of beer.

"What d'ya want," asked the old man. He always acted mildly suspicious of Gabe, though no one knew why. "D'ya want to buy me a beer?"

"There's a space opened up in the town pea patch, I heard. If you want it, you can go sign up for it at Town Hall." Gabe said this without much hope.

"You know, I been waitin' fer that fer 'least six years or seven more. But I own my own gravesite, free an' clear, and guess what, youngun'? Town law says I can do whatever I want with it 'cuz thet piece of land is my property. 'Long as I don't put toxic wastes there or try to live there. No animals either. But that's all they wrote.

"And I can see my wife as often as I damned well please. Now, Gabe, tell me the size of this piece of pea patch they're sellin' to folks."

Gabe smiled at Harmin, offering no comment. He looked sideways over the bar at the five long rows of colorful hard liquor. For sale, displayed and made for consumption.

"It's about the size of both your grave plots. Not really any bigger."

On the word "bigger" Gabe struck thirst for an amaretto and cream.

Harmin Boole smiled to himself, but Gabe saw. He too looked down. Then Harmin looked at "Beau," a tad bit too triumphantly. "Well, aren't we populous, eh, youngun Hooter. Aren't we though!" And the old man walked away, picking up his pool cue as he went, back over the pool table.

"Rack 'em up fer me, boy, and we'll have a game if you like that. You know who's th' likeliest t' get beat." Gabe stayed over at the bar, hands in his pockets. "Okay," he said, and ended up beating Harmin two out of three.

#  Chapter Three

ANY SIZE WE PLEASE

Comfort and Joy – Words of _brief_ lasting Hope

No one was looking at his lonely case;

So, like a half-mad outpost sentinel,

Indulging an absurd dramatic spell,

(Albeit not without some shame of face),

He stretched his arms out to the dark of space

And held them absolutely parallel

In infinite appeal. Then saying "Hell,"

He drew them in for warmth of self-embrace.

\--Robert Frost

The Sun is coming. I'm goin'...wacka _wacka..._ quietly crazy.

"IN FRENCH, MA petite Cheri, the word 'grandmother' is said as, 'la grandmere.' Which is a lot like saying she's a big horse. Or she's little and big. What do you think, do I eat that much?"

The above ascerbic question was being posed to "Beau" by his beloved maternal grandmother, HeLouise, on the occasion of his "managing a visit" out east to see her and his parents. He hadn't been out there for over four years.

"I'd never pick for you having a weight problem," claimed "Beau," in their special "family talk" lexicon. Gramma was a tricky eccentric and liked to "jaw funny, shake the heads" when she took the time. Gabe used to feel close to being a backcountry hick because of her, but he accepted Gramma's personal jests about being Indian, early Dutch New England stock ('casionally in 'em), and Spanish –thanks to Gabe's father Donio.

They were comfortably, albeit temporarily, ensconced in her warm and bright kitchen, in a "fairly" large house on the coast of North Carolina, in the small, isolated series of docks and beachfronts knows as Iberia. Gramma possessed many wise investments, leftovers from familial inheritances from her Dutch. This may have been what attracted Gabe's father, who was Spanish, white, and at that time terribly charming, to Gabe's quiet, introverted and Algonquin mother. No one knows why they fell apart, but now "Beau's" parents live two states' distance.

Gramma HeLouise, a widow, was "the longer and the livelier, by gar. I h'ain't going under the table soon." He apparently ceased waiting around for manna, or love, well over ten years ago. Gramma was no spender. Due to ritually desired pretensions on Gabe's part against his upwardly-mobile, con-the-system father, he and Donio didn't "match opinions." Mostly, Donio was "a screamie-meamer." Gramma hated loud talk. "Ya don't argoo with 'em, they are allus right." Gramma always did "settle" Gabe, and make him feel welcome at her home.

Drinking "coffee with the fangs pulled" in the bright, roomy home of a loveable, rare native grandkin with the good fortune to have one and know it –she had even recently won a local lottery—was "plain real good." Gabe used to want to live with her, as she's need help someday; in that, "Beau" couldn't fault his father. He was very helpful to the elderly, including Gabe's grandfather. But things didn't so connect as yet. Gramma lived "all by her lonesome."

"Yoo-er not escared of the world, are yer, honey? I know you younguns got it tough. It was tough when I was growin' but we always did have a little penny to our names. Very lucky, out here, extremely, lots of east coast Indians died out. Brief exceptions or not. You, on the other hand, got to have heart and go take on the planet. Can you still rassle? Used to be you did that good."

Gramma liked to affect a detached air of yokel anti-sophistication, perhaps due to her desire to catch people off-guard about her being Native. She never enjoyed being chased. Their family situation had been unique. Gabe's mother's half had practically rebuilt themselves, in place, in New York. Mostly Indian, they had moved south after having sold several tracts of land within the last forty years, "very quietly," and after buying up land on the coastal Carolinas. Myriad green-strip plots along beachfronts, choice and secluded.

The well-lit kitchen dispersed light evenly; it streamed in from overhead flat, multi-sectioned, cleverly gabled ceiling windows. Sparks kept reflecting off Gabe's candy-stripped coffee mug, sufficient glare to make his squint. He moved the mug. This house had been one of five Gramma owned, but she'd sold them and was currently living on the income. They were smaller houses, but some had commanded decent rent. Gramma was "flush." She sent money to her other family, helped sustain what was left of several local Indian tribes, and even helped out on the local political scene as a kind of secret "mover and shaker."

Gabe enjoyed her fighting spirit and wanted to emulate her, and not his father, who, he felt was reciprocal polite bearskins, mas o menos.

"I'm doin' okay, grams. I got mine, I got time. My best friend has a pretty bad drinking problem, and I feel grateful that I'm okay. Yet, if I don't watch myself, you know, like a hawk..."

"You should talk, kiddo. I am goin' on another diet, starting next week, and nothing can stop me."

"Yuh huh. Well, I found this lady who is truly swell, and I want to marry her, ah, but she's sorta hesitant because her previous marriage was 'rocky heck' and she'll take a while to see me as a nice guy for her."

Gabe hadn't informed his family of Saragina's "racial preference," although he wasn't afraid of rejection or sanction at all, especially from his mom and gramma. Gram was locquacious and unlikely to keep that, or any kind, or information secret. Or so Gabe thought. But, from whom? Who cared?

"That's the gumption, Binks. Maintain that drive. You'll need 'er. Yoooooo got the charm to pull that there lady in. I can't wait to meet her!"

"I'd really love to come live out here," Gabe unexpectedly interposed. For as the sun always rises in the east and sets forever in the west, Gramma was becoming the results of years of smoking and being overweight. She was herself, peppy yet, but she'd need help, come her old age. "You're welcome here anytime, you want, kiddo!" Gramma flung her arms wide open. She was probably looking for some company.

But the sea air didn't appeal to Gabe, and neither did "leaching." It was nice to know he was allowed, though. What a fabulous way to raise kids...but Gramma might be bought out, eventually, by the banks. Did he live only to move in on her first?

She lifted her hefty 185 pounds onto a dining-nook stool. She reclined graciously, dragging on a Winston. She wore soft pastels, muted yellow on green taffeta, with a Victorian lace crinkly, ruffled collar. It didn't quite give her a clownlike appearance; in fact it was refreshing and startling and cute. Most Elizabethan, and tonally brown. Her face, rumpled with supernal happiness, easily brought to glower whenever her authority was deeply questioned, was pulled back into pocket dimples and submerged in a speckled tan. She was every inch a lady and every foot a beach bunny. She breathed big sighs of vast relief at being off her feet, blowing smoke from the Winston to create a progression of cheery white halos.

She coughed, turning her head away from her company. "And I just gotta quit on these coffinnails. Playing with fire is getting me down, it's outa control. Ha ha ha ha!! My friend wants me to take up jogging with him. We'd run along the beach together." She'd been quitting off and on for years, which staved off more potentially sophisticated lung problems. So far, so-so good...

Gabe coughed politely into his hand, and snuffled. He didn't understand smoking at all, nuh uh. And he needed a Kleenecks.

HeLouise was particularly good at making a single cigarette last.

As "Beau" sipped his creole coffee, decaf of course, even de-acidified (what else was left to do it?), HeLouise swung her legs forward contentedly, then cringed. But just once. It was the phone.

"Gabriello, sweetie, can you get that fer me? Lack of exercise has me slaggin' around. Or is it fate? I'm gonna replace everybody with me. I swear, I'm gonna start a weight loss plan next month, or I'll sink waist deep into the shifting Carolina sands. So salty, with quarrelsome breezes. Quick, get it! Go!!!"

She never did understand why he always took his time answering the phone. He must usu-ally be expecting bad news. Cough!

BACK FROM THE EAST, Gabe relaxed assiduously at home.

He never did make it out to see his parents. Too hard, two trips, too many memories. Philosophizing, Gabe thought to himself, was altogether the thing he did best. It was the only way to explain away all his problems, short of drowning in drinking or drugs. Or sex, or work, or gossip. Or watching football, or TV. Or the radio, which squealed. Or his recently acquired compact, disc player, coming from which at present were the muted, lilting sounds of Chandover, a little-known and French composerary of Beethoven's. Chandover tended to overuse horns and symphonic fading, almost every five minutes and especially during this particular piece.

Gabe had on big, chunky headphones, well-padded, and was leaning back in a $7 beach chair from Sears that needed restrung. As he began to drift away during a gentle, woodsy interlude, with flutes warbling in a background of tubas and trumpets, four major straps in the chair gave way. With a loud SNAP, Gabe was an entire foot closer to the floor. Frozen solid. Gabe grabbed the chair arms and, while heaving upwards in order to effect escape, felt the front bar of the chair punch a certain well-known portion of his anatomy.

He was frozen solid as a Minnesota duck pond in early January. He was Louisa May All-caught.

Time to become philosophical, he mused. It's good for the ol' blood pressure. The music continued into one of those lengthy trumpet moans that signal an upcoming change in tempo and atmosphere. Gabe wincingly attempted a parallel, easy-going upwards press on the plastic arms, but they were soft and flexed outwards, hopelessly unstable. With vast hopes of facilitating quick release, "Beau" flung his $28.99 stereo headphones away. Amazingly, this action caused him to notice his feet and how to lean forward over them. Gabe simply bent his back, yanking the chair harshly off his burning – but newly free and happy – rear end.

Later, at the Krakatoa, one hour before Artie and he had to leave for a job involving pouring concrete in a vacant lot to convert it into parking spaces, Gabe and "Norworgeo" were sitting at the bar. Gabe said, "You can have your CD player back. I almost wrecked it today because of a cheap beach chair."

"What war ya list 'nen to, man 'cuz ah thought tha' t'were a mahty fahn CD machine? Ah paid this gah $125 cash, an' he wuz frum th' ol' neigh-bor-HUD. Know whut ah mayans?" Artie put forth a hang-dog expression at Gabe.

"Whatever, but apparently, Artie, I can't seem to properly handle modern stereo equipment without being enabled by the proper entertainment-center seating hardware. In brief, I need a new chair. Do you know where they're selling fine, sturdy, stable chairs, perhaps a nice director's chair, nowadays?" Gabe put a similar, but friendlier, hang-dog expression back at Artie.

"No, 'Beau Hooter' man but if'n you'll bah thet CDer Offa me, ah'll glance aroun'."

"Then many thanks, Artie, but I think I'll sell you the headphones I purchases recently instead. Yours still in the shop?"

After work, Gabe walked back up to his place, passing Mrs. Stigowitalia on the stairway and noticing her limp was turning ever and ever more pronounced. Her walking was very slow; she exhibited sings of festination (from Parkinson's disease.) It hurts to watch her, he thought. He didn't feel like it was his business to ask her about her problems. It felt like prying, Gramma is heading thataways, too...it's so sad. I need to write her a letter or call her. No, I just saw her.

Once inside, Gabe, or "Beau" as he was sometimes called, packed the stereo equipment into a box and marked it "Artie" with a calligraphy pen. Very gothic. Then he ate half a sandwich and took the box over to the Krakatoa, where he dropped it off. On the way back home, Gabe watched beautiful giant cloud formations, stratified layers of fluffy condensation that he could almost remember the names of, breezily waxing and waning in majestic state across the sky. It was easy to walk along, so, towards the horizon, towards any horizon. He wore a peaceful smile.

Before going to bed, he made a decaf mocha in the microwave, with an ounce of crème de cacoa, and he sat up for two hours reading a newly strange book by Garcia Marquez, glancing occasionally out the window to relieve his eyes. He had a wonderful city view; it's only flaw was several bulky telephone wires leading across to the next building. He was five stories from the ground. Not high enough to jump out of.

Perhaps I can buy an expensive manual wheelchair and a twenty-year old eight-track system, like the one I saw at Farmera's Junction, and try it the other way around...might be safer.

CAZA. THE MYSTERIOUS ZOOWEILER. Who's "Zoie"? Was he _dead?_

Both Caza and Saragina were previously married. Caza's hubbie, Austrian-Czechoslovakian-Polish, with a Pole-sounding surname, died while impersonating an Italian elevator-repair maintenance man, a friend of his who made $35 an hour. He let him fill in for him one day on a job - because said amigo came down with wretched influenza from China. Mr. Zooweiler, known and beloved as a sweet little man named Zoie, who was trying to tell people about how Hitler had practically wiped out the entirety of Poland during WWII and the Holocaust...that sweet, ungainly small man, with a heart of pure European gold, swiftly fell sixteen floors. He hadn't looked behind, and plopped over backwards. For some reason, no screams reverberated.

It may've been premeditated murder. That's what she told everybody, Caza, that she figured somebody had been deliberate. But nobody knows.

Artie knew, for sure, that her father Andrzej had legally married one of his apple-orchard pickers, a very fast _chica_ named Novena, while in season; she was one of the red delicious variety, but efficient and serious-minded as well. And he was an immigrant himself. Why not? She was in town long enough, and so, Caza. Caza's disease may have been inherited from her stay-by-day father, or picked up from polluted water conditions current to that area at that time.

Where Caza went, no one knew, when she was gone from Artie's. Outa town. There was an abiding suspicion buried deep in the hearts of many of the snippity gossip beer-mongering denizens of Rama, WA, among whom Artie was fully at home, that she was goin' to the same places over 'n over again, like in farmworking.

Turned out she had brothers and sisters farmworking in a couple nearby states, circling around and about getting seasonal work in orchards and acreage when-all they could. She visited at least monthly, those people, as often as once a week and for days at a time, and was known to come back with money.

Everyone in Rama knew how unwell she was, and Artie had to slug only the one guy for talking. Artie was always glad when she returned, 'cause his work schedule was normally too tight for him to join her on limited excursions. On trips out he managed to take with her, he grew worries about some of those Hispanic males who she visited with regular, the ones that weren't close relatives.

But he wasn't really worried, as Caza was too weak to pick fruit or to be picked up by other men. She never stayed "out there" for long. She merely parlied with any old family she could find in the fields, and caught up on their news. 'Times she stayed with Artie, especially over winter, for months, and exchanged "les lettros" with everybody else. She wrote and spoke fluent Espanol.

Not everyone in Rama liked the farm workers. Dan Nuts had before, when he wasn't drinking. Then he started getting drunk; being full of horseplay, as is his wont, he began making disparaging references to the profession in general, and to the involved people in particular. "How can you trust southerners that come and go like that?" he moaningly inquired. None offered reply. Dan continued:

"They never do settle down and beef up our school enrollment. Do their poor kids even go to school regularly? Who checks? Who even CARES?" Dan, feeling he had made a point, stumbled off to a video game, leaving behind a trail of local people who mumbled slurrily into their beers that kids in general could take a very lengthy hike as far as Rama was concerned. There just wasn't a school. Not for twenty miles.

Whoever originally planned the town forgot to set aside a block or two of space to set a school and grounds upon. Like the ghostly manufacturing plant, this dream never materialized. The nearest elementary and secondary schools were in Unionville and Sasquatch, many long miles on dirt roads out of town. At least there was an uncrowded freeway to Unionville.

A local lawyer who frequented the Krakatoa said this was technically illegal due to a local ordinance stating there must be a primary school, a secondary school and a community college, all funded through county and city taxes with help from state revenues, within every mapped area of forty-nine square miles in the county. There also legally had to be a primary school within every mapped twenty-four square-mile area. There wasn't anything like that. Several nearby zones were barren of schools. Local parents were forced to farm their kids out to nearby relatives or to take them back and forth each day, hours of back-roads driving.

These parents formed up a group called the 'Forty-Niners for Minors" and even wrote up a charter, but they fell apart when they could only find thirty interested families in the area. Somehow it wasn't enough. Rama etc. was largely full of retirees, old folks with decent pensions and full-size RV's, and it was all pretty much quiet as Hell.

Swell.

Caza's friends and relatives had more kids than you could get away with shaking Moses' staff at. They were crawlin' with 'em.

Caza said they all did attend school, in varying counties at varying times. Nobody wanted to doubt Caza's word, but everyone knew the crop-picking was accomplished primarily during the day, as was the planting and the weeding, and, pay being by the bushel of picked crop, the more kids out there playin' hooky, the more money their folks got to raise 'em on. They hardly got anything anyway. It was an automatic assumption on the part of the drunks at the Krakatoa that field bosses were turning the other way.

This was largely because Caza and Artie were just about the only "townies" who ever went out to visit and talk with the farmworkers. Many such assumptions were made every Friday and Saturday night at the Krakie, especially towards closing. 'Twas vunderbar.

Still, there was plenty of hope for building up the town. At least, the Krakatoa crowd thought so. Gabe, Artie, and Thom all knew of jobs coming up, in early planning stages, involving laying foundations for shopping malls, restaurants, plaza centers and other such commercial enterprises that were springing up with great rapidity. Sooner or later there'd be plans for a local school. People would move in, there'd be housing starts, the banks would do plenty of business loans like they like, and the wildly needed manufacturing plant(s) might yet make a way back from the Third World...

..."izzat Mercury or Jupiter?" asked Liona Bluitt of Billie Montparten, over beers-on-tap on Extra Sharp Darts Night, as they nestled snug and quiet among four ex-coal miners, all old guys who lived off social security and disability payments. A few received private pensions too. They piped right up.

"Japan! They got all our shit:" burped one.

"Korea and Taiwan makin' all our machine parts an' dies, an' half our wool clothes now, I hears," volunteered Ned England's great-grandfather, Lupo Jay Charles, who was alive beyond all human reckoning. He looked just like Ray Charles, his name-sake, and they said he was much blinder. "They makin' mo' profit on a lowah pay mah-jin fo' the workers, ah hears." This ancient wizened black man was once a wheel-wright, a farrier (horse-shoer), and a cooper (barrel-maker) who currently owned a 10-acre garlic farm and who also had made illegal whisky and carefully distributed to three dry states for nearly twenty years. Never was caught.

"They makin' eighty billion horse manure dollars per cold season offa us. Dumb us!"

Liona wailed out, deliberately short of a high-pitched whine, pleasant really, quite attention-getting: "Lupo, 't'ain't your fault, but we got nothin' lef' but farms! Farms! I never owned one. What the heck will we live on? We gotta make them their tractors!" She laughed her fool head off, neatly.

"What'll we eat, already," she squeaked, "food? Not FOOD! Surely, we won't be stuck with farms, farm-workers, farm equipment, farm owners, and nearly unlimited food? Food...

"Oh no, WHAT an awful Fate. To be stuck on a pension in a country that only raises taxes and tons and tons and more tons of god-awful food. Whatever won't exactly happen to us, then, or something?" Liona, a real expert at milking attention, and an unconfused former owners of quite a goodly head of cattle, spread her fat arms and took up a womanly chunk of the bar. Billie sighed blissfully aloud, neatly following Liona's train of obvious thought.

"Huh! Would somebody care to watch another TV special on Ethiopia, or Bangladesh, or even Russia, land of Czars, y'know, and come on and tell me we gotta roll over and play dead from the eee-con-o-mee, or what? HAR!!" General raucous, ribald and unsophisticated laughter filled the Krakatoa, spreading to, then emanating from, the smoke-stained dining tables, reaching to the reverberating glass doors and growing like a mushroom soup cloud, spilling out onto the naked street outside the lusty tavern riotously and persistently blossoming into and FILLING the night sky, traveling up to the distant friendly stars...

...a small, built like a brown brick walkup "pecia" of the Third World, three from the sun, still dusty with his travels or somethin' like, ambled by on Rudnick Street. Trying to keep warm in the icy night air, Gabe felt the explosion of merry cherry-bomb love wrap around and engulf him like a lasting, living eternal flame of devotion. To _what?_ What felt so good? It meant his own personal, undamaged, permanent sanity, for reasons not entirely beyond him.

For a long and happy moment, he was exactly where he wanted to be, and for a change nowhere else.

\--dedicated to Snoqualmie/North Bend and STEHEKIN, WA

BUT NOT ENOUGH...it _didn't_ make them move inland, where they didn't drown. Nope. Nor did it make burning alive any easier or less putrid.

Beauty contests. Sheesh...Gabe was strolling casually up LLewellyn, heading for Saragina's, thinking about job searches. Artie had taken him out to the mission and gotten him signed up with WWII. But he should be looking around for a real job, doing it himself.

Old people, dying of heart attacks, like usual. I love myself, if the world can't stand me, I'm already standing. Such was Manhattan, a giant, sprawling, concentrated circle-bureau. Hope it stops, hope it all works out. There's something more to life than hanging out and collecting money. I hate most street bums! They're a spook of my future. But I give 'em quarters when they're polite.

What those people want is their non-existant godhead, which strangely enough we will never achieve. On the other hand, there is what's called "getting ahead." There is, in fact, working for a living. Very few persons can, without proper education and training. At least a few days' worth...

But is only happens if I can get a job. A job. In this town, here, with Saragina in it. Or elsewhere near. If I go to school, the longer I go to school, the more money it will cost me. The free university might be a dying concept by now. After all, why not pay as you go. On grant or under loan. You know, work sixteen-hour days, or so. In a daze, or something. Work work work work. And work some more.

But I wish I could keep having my senses clear and sharp. I enjoy that. Booze kills it, my me, the one that can take in all the transiently fuzzy details and extract a cogent ongoing reality from them, the one that's not all ritual or aspersion, the one that comes in shapes and colors and pretty girls and funny guys and idiots who make me think about the right way to do things.

You can always do it better than they can, that's my motto. It's because I forgot to try it the last time, the very latest time, when I didn't realize that art isn't good when it doesn't include reality, no, that's not it, that it isn't good art unless there's enough work and effort and reality and hours put into it.

I want to live in a house. Manhattan is an Indian, maybe I'm a descendant. I read somewhere recently that if I have any Indian in me at all, any type, I can now apply for benefits, if I check in at the Indian affairs office. Okay, I'll gamble when I get loose, but I don't want to jump out of the boat yet.

Bastards. I'm not one. I am one. Uh, no, I'm me. Okay, I need a fair crack at being an anthropology major, and a social engineer, and an engineer of the more stolid kinds, such as electrical, mechanical, computer, or commercial, it's all so commercial, because that way I can make money and get married and go live in a house and ultimately, to fantastically create lotsa children. In short, I need to become an engineer.

But, what if?

What if, I'm holding this wire and I suddenly forget where to put it. And I stick it up my ass. And then, this other guy I'm working with throws the switch, because I loved him so much and wanted to be his sweet little friend. But, He actually planned it that way. To show us all how not to do things right. In short, it's better to not do that, sticking a wire up my ass.

Manhattan. This here is a li'l small town and two of it could easily fit into any single New York borough. Much more happening there. This town is, however, sweeter in harmony and closeness to nature. But not for me.

The bluest skies above, but not for me, deee deee deee DEEE. I haven't done anything like that, studying electronics. It would be like going home without a house waiting there...it...you can't go home again, not without rent money, and a readily available job.

I hate, really hate, backing down on a project once I start it. You see, you can begin something, and everything is incredibly easy to stop, except your life. So you can grind away for eight years and quit tomorrow. It's end insane.

The Dream Thing. My favorite dream is, no one ever sticks his or her finger in my face again. I don't like the oral rape reference. For that matter, no one ever sticks it in any child's face ever again. That's why I think we should all evolve flippers.

Money, other hand, needs to be made by me. Other than counterfeiting, and I'm okay at conundrums, not being humdrum, I need a steady job. My own business would be great, maybe I could open up a job-finding bureau like the one I'm working for. Thom DaLieken keeps talking 'bout doin' that. "We could get together," Gabe found himself muttering, humming to himself, strolling along; yeah, like hell we would. Like hell on...wheels? Do I hear wheels? Lots and lots and lots of wheels?"

Gabe had been walking down the street, not noticing or appreciating the general quiet until it was soundly disturbed. By the weirdest grinding noise. He began to notice the bicycling group. The noise drew his attention down the street. The group was huge, startling, and sorta far away. A humming sound, similar to distant honeybees, was rapidly building in intensity. What th--?

Racks and racks of moving bicyclists. The lead cyclists, all men—no, there's several dozen womenfolk—all wearing fancy colors on top, shirts and hats in brilliant neons, pants all black and shiny, but striped with neon colors, in symbolic cadre, skin-tight, circus-costume-sticking-like-paint outfits, all flashing noisily in the daylight, all advancing in a voluminous pack, towards him, taking up all of Llewellyn, at least six abreast, row upon endless row. A giant, bulky, and strangely individuated crowd on bikes. But they all wore white or blue helmets, or black and yellow hats with the bills turned up. Their heads bobbed like white pills on short stalks, a cascading river full to brimming of oceanic whitecaps. Wow.

They were a good half-mile distant, inching towards him but headed north to the freeway. He craned up and saw what he unbelievingly thought were two or three hundred people, perched atop twice as many bicycle wheels, all grinding away to produce the same noise. It was unreal. Like the New York City Marathon, an annual event he'd always wanted to enter, his original family having fled New York on foot long ago. With suitcases of money and tentative contacts to buy land in the Carolinas.

It was great. They were going to plunge straight through the heart of downtown Rama. Town had better wake up in time to see it! They'd be past in twelve minutes, Max. Can you see it? I give you, ladies and Germans, the Fairy Marathon. Beats the Long March and the Internment any old time.

The bulk of the group was pressed tightly together, tagging along immejitly after the leaders. Gabe recalled a few cyclists he'd seen earlier that day, flashing neatly past at twenty MPH when he'd been coming back from the library with about ten books on agricultural zones. These were all located within the U.S. and Canada, where you could still buy land cheap and homestead. But one of the books was something humorous about Groucho Marx taking acid and travelling into the future.

Those other, faster, lonelier cyclists had already gone. There had been no further indication of anything to explain the magic appearance of a group this size, nor had "Beau" heard a word about a race. Well, here it comes...

Gabe stood on the corner of 22cnd and Guild, near Ridgeview Hospital across the shiny glass doors at the front entrance, and watched the massive pack begin to shoot and filter past. They were moving, true, but the size of the group, combined with their frequent and clearly blatant attempts to showboat, Being...more or less definable as backlash movements that caused the showoffs to quit and keep together, slowed them all down sufficiently for Gabe to see everything's weird little symbol draped over their oncoming shirtfronts and retreating backsides. Nothing else clearly indicated the meaning of this symbol. But underneath each sign read the words: Lovelorn Pilots. Nothing else at all. A few riders seemed to sport a cola symbol on their helmets.

Gabe couldn't see anything but tallish young people on bikes, and there was little other than that for a very long time. The whirring sound, a kind of grinding chains noises, vastly deepened and strengthened, growing in volume and expanding as the mass of colorful fronts and sides and backs horizontally churned by.

Perhaps I could stop one of them, mused Gabe, towards the end, and ask exactly what it is this mob is doing. But I think I already know. They're having fun. So I'll stand quietly and watch them; nah, I'll yell. Hey! Muchachas! CARAMBA!!! VERFLUCHT! Already. YEOOOWWW! HaLOHA!!!

That didn't seem to do much but they sort of sped up. It was thinning out towards the rear and the whirring stragglers were straining to keep up with the almighty Joneses ahead of them. Gabe saw old men, women, teenagers, and what must have been three whole families struggling to maintain a steady pace, children standing on their toe-plates as though heading uphill, and all pumping hard just to stay upright and together. Gabe could swear he saw a five-year-old on a bike. Nahhh.

"Beau" halfway expected, almost hoping for it, a crash. He didn't know why.

He caught himself wishing manfully for the mournful sound of a train whistle, hidden within the background behind the gradually fading noise of the crunching, grinding, greased and sandy chains.

A ropy, wired, sweaty old guy zoomed by on a filthy, beaten-up old English bike festooned with red, blue, and green ribbons, white-painted bells, and shiny metal boxes wrapped with foil and carrying peculiar moving toys on springs that the cyclist made jump out at Gabe as the mechanical crowd whizzed madly past.

Truly it was salutary, the end part being more varied, faster and more intricate than the curt beginnings. THOSE cyclists were already up the road further along, west above the freeway.

The original few he'd seen earlier were winning the race, so this bunch merely imitated them, caught in their mammoth wake, a wake that outstripped the winners and ennobled the losers, awarding them poetry in place of speed. It created a newer, a bigger ONE, the craziest and most colorful thing Gabe Hooter of the pecker fixation troubles had yet to see in his tepid part of Rama, WA.

The last of the this all-time three-ring fantastic rolling straggler bunch, the misfitiest of the psychedelic losers, were peddling merrily along, happy as an unsteamed variable clam. A couple college boys from the main pack circled around and came backwards for to check out the ending parties; Gabe saw a twelve-year-old sweaty fat girl, who showed main game strength but looked hot, get handed a water bottle by a tight-looking, tights-wearing neon-colored thin white man who checked to be sure she was OK (not falling off the bike now, are we, dear?) before he whizzed off ahead again, bobbing and weaving through the crowd, a faster-than- usual cyclist with the power to come and go as pleased, expertly. Whatta showoff.

Almost some of the cyclists had not been white people. A few were otherwise. Gabe's gaze lingered on the better and more Spandex-clad females of the beauties.

When the last of them had gone awa', he signed, and, placing both hands in his pockets, he leaned way over Llewellyn while standing on one leg. He stayed balanced and tried to look sophisticated. No one looked back. He held his nose.

Someday, he promised himself, I'm gonna purchase me a ten-speed.

He waved goodbye at two more cyclists who buzzed him on the street, saw a few more headed up further down the way, and wished he could sell them lemonade. He turned south to head home. How bizarre, it was growing dark.

But first, he needed to drop in on Sararogino, see how she was. Was she still an undying fox? Yep...and Gabe gave her awe-inspiring, jaw-dropping details about the bikers' amazin' invasion. Meanwhile, the next section following this missive is due to a dying white hillbilly US Marine name Richard Hamm. With a brother whose "blond" leg got caught in a manure spreader, signed onto the Marines anyway, begging them to take him. Richard and his bro served in Nam a couple tours; one of them scouted underground VC mazes as a tunnel rat, due to his being of short height and extreme courage. They served their country, and their reward is to have died slowly of Agent Orange and cigarettes... _phew!_

EVERY SMASHING, PULVERIZING, forceful blow told. His rotten paw crunched into my vulnerable, pitiful face like a gloved slash from a mailed Greeco-Roman fist, a silver glove studded with hideous three-inch silver spikes. Cut after gouge after fata rip. My face exploded in splintered, ultimate agonies of ecstatic pain, sickening borealan psychedelic lights dancing deep within my damaged, exploding brain. My useless arms swung weakly out into space, futile, destroyed. I could do nothing—I couldn't even see. The PAIN!

I finally crashed, piteously smashing into the gritty pavement, soggy and slippery with my innocent blood, scraping half my pulpy face away. This broke my exposed collarbone. Still, his sneering, blood-hungry voice, bestial and wheezing, carried into my torn, bruised and battered ears. I thought, if I was a man named George, this wouldn't be happening to me...I'd hit him, I'd show no fear.

"YOU GODDAMN SPACE SHIT, I couldn't trust you with ten cents, let alone five hundred dollars! Well, nobody pulls a stunt like _that_ on Miguel Shuba and exits scot-free!" He leered, gloating evilly, hovering over me. I courageously strained to reach up to him, but could not lift either arm. He meanly, coldly, cruelly reared back to resoundingly leg-kick my stomach in. THANK God I had time to brace my abdomen. Usedta have six-pack abs, lotsa push-ups, pull-ups, crunches, sit-ups, all from the US Navy Training Manual, used the eight-eight-eight Three method divvying up my day, you allus have a third of the day you can use. One third fer work, one third fer sleep, one third for training your body and mind; in my case, too often, one third drunk away in dribbles, swallowing up beer after raw, home-brewed beer in Viet Cong bars. They lemma come in, drunker'n a man wi' yallow feet. Bar's for the enemy, yet the Krakatoa are an old friend...GOD, my STOMACH!

Red stringy worms, like red scarlet hair, racing across exploding eye sockets. Damn you Scarlet, I do not give a damn...Hell is a Mexican plantation, not a black one, I think, but who knows. They all own they own, creeps with money, who build it up slowly and end up hiring those who buy sexual slaves...girls.

The kick destroyed the universe as I had thoughtlessly lived in it, forever, locking me into a forced rebirth; the original fetal position was instantly assumed by my jerking, shocked, earthly remains. Torrents of hot blood gushed out from between my broken teeth. I unlovingly gasped for air, unable to concentrate and get my lungs to work. I am done for, oh God. Please end it.

Shuba, of course, loves Caza, thinks he owns where Artie slept for fifteen years, has _worms._ Tropical helminthes, the critters both round and flat. Who reproduce infamously, with and without sex, in the thousands? Ova ovum, enter the feet and legs, _eggs._ One quarter of the human world, hidden as parasites in digestive tracts, intestines upper and lower, traveling through blood, lungs, and their brains...the popular myths being, white people do not have them, while Jewish people don't eat pork. Some do, some do not. True, trichinosis comes from uncooked hog meat...hawk maws, chitins, simple port chops, hunks of pig flesh...but hunnerds of types of helminthes, trichinas trichinous only one manifestation of Hell.

Caza had a white Dad, "maestro" of the conditions of the plantations of Eastern Washington...slavery. Enforced, small, flooded, often jerrybuilt buildings...poor sanitation, overflowing toilets, why genius brown girl fled to white Artie, wishing to avoid what cannot be done. As a bookkeeper, she could dream, leaving Mexican intestinal worms behind, the million varieties of vermin. Vermicelli, spaghetti and meatballs, glimpsed up like a fist smashing through glass.

Hel...a Nordic goddess, one who finds blonde hair cunningly free of trichinosis... _all_ flat, curly or kinky hair resembles Medusa, Goddess of Snakes, li'l "britches" swimming in the waters of North America, infest your leg and crotch skin with swimmer's itch, die as you heal and go away, leaving you high and dry. What if Miguel "delivers" butt worms to Artie, holding a gun to his mind, considering they infest the lower portions anus, swimming in a well of bile and bitter fluids – pooling and reinvested down there? What if he DOESN'T?

"Don't, Shuba, I only owe you pocket change. Conchae _forgive?"_

Is ARTIE accidental Hope for Mankind? Because he is Nordic, or doesn't eat pork and isn't subject to Tropical Helminthes _and the Wyrm?_ Nah. Dragons, a mean thing smaller than their reputation allows. A red giant, pulled from a little boy, His dying _nose,_ strung out over two feet long. Well, he has a Scandinavian cyclic goddess, as I said. He is already in a kind of _hell,_ from Vietnam, strolling through rice paddies flooded of human urine, blood and feces. His fate should have been to serve as a foot soldier in the American USA Army, in Southeast Asia.

The Blend-man's feuding hillbilly relatives, murdering friendly neighbors' shotgunning neighbors, turned him off War. In 1963, or was it 64, C'mon Penh, running away from the Red Chinese, lifting my legs up with Agent Orange dripping sides of green khaki-colored helmets, greener'n trees in the Pacific Northwest, fringed all around me as jungle foliage – the enemy hides in to kill me ever day, killing us over and over and over, firin' at will with a jamming rifle that misfires every other round. One long tour was mah goal, sole year's duration; it made sense decades ago, abbreviated by the logic of heavy sporadic drink. There but for the grace of God, I go sipping, imbibing and teetotalling...but I hafta drink nearly ever day. They peeing on the streets of Rama, into the streams of South East Asia...clear, fluid, Black Saki wine, laced with cocaine and blotter acid LSD began anew fetal alcoholism, outa my drinker scummy parents, outside Ho Chi Minh City...eight months spent furtively in Nam.

As a US Marine, two months on Parris Island, "WE OWN YOU NOW, BOY", broke in spirit unescapable...his own stalwart soul, undeniably mature and overly _superior_...a fluke in itself, _taller_ 6' 1" means only superior to the worm. Beaten, yellow, longhaired, shaven off, wading rice paddies with an AK47 or an M16 that jams, a "failure to extract" worms and women cannot cure. The bullets fly out, shrapnel wounds you, but somehow the cartridge jams in the muzzle, failing to eject. Shot in the right leg by the enemy, one bullet grazing main artery, he founded an easy ticket home, no completing marine training. No hope for the VA hospital, mental retard rights, no actual health benefits..."you're a hippie, you cut me no breaks," my Negro gunnery sergeant mouthed, he said it to _ever'body._ "I'm God. You are a drunk. Get outa here, you're no Jarhead, YOU'RE _NOT_ A US MARINE ANYMORE, and YOU AIN'T GOT ANY GUTS..." Hit's not cuz he is black, it is cuz I'm so stupid...cuz he is stupid... _we're_ stupid...American jerks kill native Asians for _lunch_...money...then they strap TNT bombs to babies. Every 'body has guts, worms an' all.

You only complete the life cycle of Hell-menthes by eating people. The wendigo is a Native American myth, the white thing with freckles on the Wendy's sign is a _wendigo,_ they eat human flesh to assist their mater the Worm, without mercy...no Mary and only Jesus means that. Only one death, _not two sexes._ My Mayan, I am Cherokee, Artie sighs...LACK of worms here, and then things went south. In the South, blacks and Mexicans knew lies. Infested waters, broken legs again, breathing in the dust of ages, full of feces, things that crawl and slither. The Garden of Eden, a fake tree with his RED apple propped up in a pig's mouth, meanders a snake for Adam and Eve. A snake called Lies; worms only infest living red, raw meat, not decent fruit in decent trees.

Miguel...dare you say it...money isn't the reason why, _is_ it?

"You deserve another nice little kick just for daring to go on BREATHING, you goddamn hippie, in my PRESENCE," keened the freakish, boiling, sneering Spanish voice of my compassionless tormentor. Once he had been his good friend and business partner. Now he was a horribly confident and totally vengeance-ridden murderer. Certainly, I was gonna be beaten to death. _Too bad_...I did not kill my hundredth petty Asian...Dame Prettily, what if it was YOU. Gretchly, you fled, cuz it Taws over-pops in South Vietnam, by _me,_ long the Maginot Line of the DMZ, gunnin' for the Chinese gunning for Thee. "Nuff said!

Overpopulation: people are just rats, eating their own filth and each other. Blond, dark, kids, saw somebody in his 80s eating his own hand. Nah, nibbling on his fingernails...long, scrawny nails, like a woman's. If you get another opening in your male body, they might stick a dynamite in it and blow up. OUCH.

The next kick brought me to full consciousness of an altogether welcome, but still fearsome, imminent death from internal punctures and collapse. Subsequently I blacked out, unknowingly spewing vomit all over Shuba's largesse in a last miraculous attempt to so much as touch him in return. I did. I let him walk all over me, for fear of harming another innocent person. He did. I was to pay dearly for this act of idiotic saintliness. One must stay alive, it has seams.

Days later, awoke in a clean, secure hospital bed, one giant unwound ball of pain with bruises on the breaks. The doctor said I had sustained serious internal injuries. They'd pumped my stomach and were currently discussing the need for major colon surgery, but the family jewels were all intact, and my head and face were starting to heal. I could still see out of one black eye, through the bandages. Caza had written "Get Well Soon!" on my bandaged for forehead.

I breathed, haltingly, in relief, thanking God daily, joking with the pretty, vivacious nurses. The hospital food was nutritious and good. My appetite improved. Joy! The doctors said I would be out in two weeks, maybe less. My collarbone was healing, slowly but surely. Meanwhile I luxuriated in my soft bed, relaxing between full body spasms within cool, gentle sheets. But the abdominal spasming --though infrequent--left me sweaty and gasping for air. Gee, the nurses were swell...

But one fine hospital morning, my window left open to let in the cooling summer breeze, I was forced to receive an unwelcome visitor. Miguel de las Siegas Del Shuba, alias "Injun Joseph," the inhumane monster who had all but taken my worthless hippie blond and blue-eyed life, had stolen silently into my room. I'd forgotten to warn the hospital personnel in advance, and they had allowed him entrance. He said he was my best friend, and waved a get-well card. Unsigned, of course! The imposter. Why hadn't the police arrested him? _Why?_

He stood glaring at me, looming over the foot of my bed, his face contorted into a grotesque leer. His deep-brown, wolvish face registered a hate-ridden and grievously sociopathic lack of concern for my sanity or continued healing. A starkly depraved judgment was being made towards my violent defeat. He bitterly snarled. I spasmodically clutched my sheets. Inwardly, I gave my soul over to whatever gods may be in charge of men like me. Outwardly, I fought back against the starkly outlined fears that must have been written all over my nearly bloodless face.

Slowly licking his full, sensuous pink lips and cruelly atavistic sickening anticipation, Shuba adroitly reached into his unzipped jacket with his right hand. There was a rush of dire feelings of terror in my bruised and battered guts, despair at my sheer helplessness combined with a perverse longing to talk Shuba out of it. I even attempted to do so.

"NO! They'll catch you! You'll go to jail, you might be executed, you FOOL... please, put it away, oh God, please..." I was the veriest picture of a damned wretched soul lost to the bottomless pit, about to moderately sink still further.

"TOO late, you repulsive and cowardly clown," he chanted harshly with heated breath. "Here is your long overdue reward for deliberately cheating me." He drew the silver Luger out, aimed point-blank straight at my face, and FIRED. FLASH!!! Oblivion...

The instant before he pulled the trigger, all my fears drained away, turning to vast relief. I thanked, silently, inwardly, all those whom I had ever liked the loved. I even blessed Shuba, the poor, demented maniac. He'd surely fry for doing this. As the bullets (he fired five times, emptying the magazine) shattered my head to bits and clove my poor chest in three places, I opened from within like a flower, not even feeling the shock of battering pain. I was transmuting rapidly into pure elemental joy. My immortal soul burst out of my obscenely destroyed body, happily and swiftly winging ecstatically upwards and outwards to greet all the blessedly merciful angels. They beautiously congregated to meet me, shimmering, and mid-care!

Every dead and lovely person I had ever known was with me now, dwelling in beauty, awaiting the blissful, peaceful formation of my angelic self. There was nothing but the purest wild abandon to the supremest-highest-godliest love. One poor pitiful bodies were gone forever. We all embraced, the teeming millions of the forever and grateful dead, intertwined souls lost in immortal, complete eternal happiness. Oh, what utter ecstasy, joy and good-will! At last, I truly was free. Or, they won the stupid social game, which is indefinitely the likelier of the two. Following THAT premise.

"So, what do ya think of that?" asked Gabe "Beau" Hooter Sancto of his amigo, Mr. the tall Norwegian, Artie Blend. "I was just elaborating an idea about what might befall you if a very self-righteous Miguel Shuba caught up with you, wanted his half-a-grand in-cash, and you didn't cough it up." Gabe snickered evilly, not without insidious charm. He poked Artie in the stomach with his elbow.

The Artful Dodger silently mused: Yah _, swell, tha's jus' wha' might happen. Ah here's Shuba gots a tempeh biggah'n Dollah Partn'n's bra, head, an' dat he pecks a hos piss-tal. Or_ _sumpin_ _'. Whoooo! But ah ain' too escared, nah..._

"Ah'll do lahk you sez, buddeh, lahk in th' storeh—an we be hin a stir raht nayaw, hey--an' gayev mahseff to God if'n thet water-back buffalo evah ketches may. 'Cept ah guarantees ah'll put up more uv a tussle, put thet galloot in th' hospital steadah ME. Y'copy?"

"Si. No, actually I made the story up all by myself."

"You shor do kills a fella hoff easeh with yer storyin', Gabie-mah-mayan! Hee hee hee hee." Artie winked slyly at "Beau," who tried to live up to his angelic and saintly name, on the spot. For a change... He spread his hand, innocently, fingers splayed open on his chest, stepping back in fake surprise.

"I had to do SOMETHING to getcha back for that pool ball in the belly routine. Even if only on paper. I hope there's no hard feelings." Gabe grinned sheepishly.

"Say," he piped up joyfully, "it's clearing to dry outside." They were temporarily stopped in at the Tomato Grocery, the local eating establishment for the responsibly-minded, due to a sudden thunderstorm's lively lashing downpour, and the rain had finally let up sufficiently for leaving purposes. So they left.

Gabe had been reading Artie a stretch of his daily journal. Artie admired that perseverant, ritualistic sort of thing. Caza too kept a similar book. You've seen some of it earlier. "You Spanish folks sure lahk to log yer sea-voyages," noted the Blendman. They strolled along a shady, tree-lined stretch of Tomato Street. Gabe was obviously happy to have gotten this gripe off his troubled but cheerful mind.

"I guess we'd think someone else, or at least God, simply must know our measly little life histories. Why not, it beats paying off a psychiatrist. Helps me to sleep at night." "Someday ah'll do th' lahk. Brush hup on mah writin'."

Artie thought to himself, Gabe should send his story to a magazine or write a book using the story, but come to think, he himself was scared of the publicity it would bring. Shuba might get ideas. If Artie merely laid low for good long while, maybe Shuba'd never pester him again. And Artie would never again hurt Gabe, his new friend, out of frustration or mistake or whatever reason he'd hurt him before (like he said) ever again. He hit "Beau" with a pool ball? Wow. Musta been drankin' too much, Artie thought; I forgot!

As they walked down the street, Gabe dreamed remotely of buying a bicycle, or of perhaps investing in a used car. It was about time he arranged his own transportation. He was taking too many rides at work. And the groceries he semi-weekly carried home were getting to be pretty heavy in his arms.

"Say Art, you know something about a used-car lot somewhere in these parts?"

"Shore, up noath pest Onionville dey got 'un, with'n mahl uv Harpers' Point whar th' ferrah his. Ah heahs dey gots rail low, low prahces. Or you culd trah down southeas', dey got dailershits hall 'Lang th' road, nex't' th' ray-pair shops. Ah heahs dey sells cars cheapah, but hit hain' no dail, cuz dey breaks dayown an' th' dail his you gets 'em fix' at th' ray-pair shops. In th' self-same ay-re-ah. Sortuva Bleck neigh-bor-hood 'roun' there, ah wouldn' trus' 'em, they rippin' hoff all da cull-herds dere."

They continued in silence. Gabe checked his watch; he had four hours before the next jobsite preparedness meeting. He was going to go home, cook dinner, watch the TV news and research leaflets from a technical college in another state, nearby but necessitating relocation. There was also a similar college in North Carolina; both of these schools offer degrees in land management for zoning and building sites. You were almost a guaranteed hire if you passed, barring government-sponsored hiring freezes. But the cost of each school was in the five-figure range for two semesters, and his writing was beginning to look vaguely appealing to him again. Yeah, it kept sitting up and barking at him in that endearing way... like it would be worthwhile to pursue it, attempting publication of his short stories, and perhaps trying a novel further down the road. Barring his laziness. It was the Conqueror Worm, his laziness. Mythical, but real.

For now, he fixed dinner in the comfort and privacy of his own rooms. He watched flood, fire and famine on the news. And he called Sarah after work, to see how she was, and to hear that incredibly pleasant lilt of her birdsong voice, so neatly tickling his eardrums.

She wouldn't let him read her the story--" You won't let me do anything!"--asking him to either mail it or deliver her a copy. "How's 'bout I lip-sync it at you over an elegant lunch, instead?" he begged of her, pausing dramatically. "Okay," she warmly sighed.

They agreed to jointly purchase coffee at the Fantastic Café, therein to discuss fine literary trends, namely theirs, in sharper depth and with greater focus.

Sarah had fourteen thick, soft-bound volumes of timely poetry she'd composed over an arduous, growth-ridden decade, and two feminist-oriented novels she'd started and unhappily left undone, occasionally going back to them to have minor ideational fun – while begrudgingly pushing them along a little further.

"You wait," she melodically promised, "This time, next year, Saragina D. DeSoto's gonna be a famous name on the New York Times Bestseller List. You'll have to sit back an' watch me joke 'roun' with Hair-aldoo an' Okra, an' Morrish, an' Pill, an' Dinasaur an' Dave an' Johnny an'/or Lantern-Jaw, an' what's-his-name, Arsenic, poison or some-thin'...the cute guy. You know. Looks like me."

"I should?" incredulously inquired "Beau," who only watched TV for the news and sports programs, important football games, etc., whenever he did.

"Nah. But you'll have to watch Atomic Number 33 then, I'll be there, woooooo, I'll be there, pluggin' mah two books. The twin Aspirin Tabs. Which will be published by the same house, Acetaminnie-often Press, concommitantly. Detective novels, spy thrillers, featuring several baffling plot-thickening murders and Black flashily-smart guntotin' methodical PIs and daft well-dressed swashbuckling criminals that throw the greasiest possible acrylic wool over your smolderin' wide-open eyes, concomitantly knitting it into a fluffy pastel winter hat with matching mittens. With a ball-yarn tassel on top!"

Saragina was good as her word, but after receiving thirty-three rejection notices for her first book, she set it aside for a prolonged re-write. Gabe, who had plenty of extra time, rode on his imaginary shining bright rainbow unicorn silver-and-blue charger stallion with a curlicue horn and a loaded eight-cylinder engine, to her rescue, encouraging her, helping her to edit and tighten up some of the feebler points of her Great Amerafrican Novel (Gam for short, silken-smooth and showing only millimeters below the calf), and nimbly adding some of his own Plot Devices in select spine-chilling sequences. This is a real book.

He gave terrific neck and shoulder massages while she pounded out her well-polished final draft. That extra bone in Sara's neck quit giving her trouble, then, especially when she...sneezed. ACHOOOOO!!!!!!

This time, the third contacted east-coast publisher took it, like a man. Perhaps the New York agent helped, or perhaps it had been the Seattle one. The readers loved it! It was the latest Thing! Statewide, in Washington and _not_ DC. Sara got a $15,000 advance based on projected sales, and signed a fair-handed contract granting her all original rights, copyrights, reproduction rights, abortion rights, worldwide rights and serial rights, but not _really_ her American Civil Rights...that British clone flag went up and down the goalpost, once again...and 25% of the net sales of the book after printing and distribution costs were subtracted. She _immediately_ began socking it away for school.

"This ain't goin' to stop me from becoming a dietitian, like I like. That is my most thoroughly chosen career. I've only now got one other book in me at this time. But out churn THAT one out too, someday, know I will." She gave Gabe a soft, tiny peck on the cheek and treated him to a stage show in Unionville out of the advance money.

They enjoyed themselves from third-row seats, orchestra, front and center. It was "A Khoros Line," the New York group having packed it all the way out to southern Washington to do the geometric version, with an all-Greek cast. It was, shall we say, highly mathematical.

"Beau" returned Sara's fatuous distant peck with a monster infatuated warming hug during that famous showbiz belt-out tune, "Azte...ei...nai!"* The applause for the New York Greek cast was deafening, leaving the weekend audience in stitches.

Gabe himself, in the midst of two a.m. and comfortably ensconsed in his cozy apartment, went to sleep during the sixteenth paragraph of a twenty-seven page love sonnet to Lady Sara.

He had put pen to page at eleven p.m., not lifting it up once. Made some fascinating squiggles. It read floridly-impressionistic OK. He began snoring melodiously, with no one there to hear and enjoy.

"Beau" decided he liked the Shuba vs. Artie story better than his poetry, during that brief period of time he methodically stayed lying there when his alarm went off at six-forty-five a.m. But he couldn't figure out how to work it into a novel.

Artie had died in the story, after all, and how then would he continue to appear as a character? Sorta _green?_ Shuba himself would have to show up someday and help Gabe to settle that.

Naturally, he did.

*Otherwise known as "She's That One, That One over _There!"_

ONCE OR TWICE or so in my life, as I spend a lot of time to myself, I have experienced a rather pretentious daydream. Sometimes I dreamed it while on a short stroll out of doors. It's sort of goes like this: I wonder if humanity was meant to evolve any further. If there could be any more developments along the same, oh quite a different, line.

Actually, being Latino, Hispanic or "el muy Chicano" – and being an "Indian" – has been around for quite a while, comparatively speaking. This is what I'm wondering: what if we, or some other creature (here in this daydream I have oft looked about at the scenery I was passing and as I walked) will ever evolve into something much further deranged and even weirder than being human. And then at times I would, if near a park or a green patch, stray off the sidewalk. Especially if no one else was close. And I'd begin to look more closely at the plant life.

Chamomile was always easy to spot, growing low to the ground, inhabiting many sidewalk cracks. "I'd walk a mile for chamomile! " Sometimes I'd collect it; this yellow herb is mildly sedative, and much warmer than beer for an at-night aperitif. Teeny tiny little golden flowers that smell nice. If people were nowhere nearby I'd poke around in the shrubbery. And I squatted down to search through it, even getting down on my hands and knees. One time I shot to my feet, screaming, hurriedly brushing off two dozen army ants.

Almost every time I'd spot some new entity, a plant I've never encountered anywhere else, an insect having no pictorial representative I'd ever seen before. Once I thought I saw a severed human foot in deep bushes, but it turned out to be an old shoe with a filthy, sandy sock stuffed into it. I couldn't find the other shoe. They were three sizes too big. Gave 'em to Artie.

In my rooms I kept several botanical encyclopedias and insect collection kits left over from my boyhood, and occasionally I would carefully garner a specimen, hustle it jealously home, and waste time comparing it to hazy, freakish, colorful pictures. I needed new eyeglasses, and promised myself I'd buy some.

On those happy occasions when I had Saragina over for afternoon British "high tea," your interloping is most welcome, about thrice monthly, I'd haul out the latest formerly irate centipede and proudly display the prize catch, often to minor protestations from my affectatedly cynical lady love.

She seldom deigned to go out collecting with me. I couldn't fool her! "We can't coerce you into silly pasttimes, you a-dult, you, and none of us can talk Artie out of 'em," I pettishly bemused aloud. She agreed, demure and piquant, coquettishly, to the occasion.

Or is it, crumpettishly? Crumble always go the crumbs. Almost always. I spilled my tea. Another day. Another hard-on. A beautiful, rare, sunny September afternoon that drove me out of the old neighborhood and into the deeper, more hidden recesses of a small child's park north-west of "town," proper. It'd been placed aside and planted and named only recently, about seven years ago, when the freeway was being built north of that area. A major road ran alongside it, heading south/north.

I walked the five miles to the park, collection kit in hand. No one was there as I strolled into the only visible picnic site, bordered by twin your pits with charcoal grills. In between them was a house-sized wooden picnic shelter. Three or four crows were hanging around the shelter, interloping six pigeons as well, and quite the flock of chickadees, cute small brown-patterned birdies the hop and skip overmore than flying. They're super-friendly, and don't mind hopping right up to strangers.

Some a' the li'l peepers bounced up to say hi as a strolled past the shelter, glaring up at me beseechingly for food. I scattered about a half cup of birdseed I'd carried with me, stuffed into my right-hand jacket pocket. The birds began to eat it.

Meanwhile I continued around the shelter. Heading for a bank of trees, I intended to locate a picnic table to rest my weary bones upon. LONG walk, pheww.

And so, there I was in a small, secluded park, alone except for birds, out of town for the day, with no one to bother me, no need for human speech, and most importantly, no beer. And no...what's this?

I looked down, and below me was a wide slime trail, glistening on the grass directly underfoot, as though it had been painted in a two-foot wide path with something viscous and clear. The trail arced around to the other side of the picnic shelter, where the undergrowth had retaken much of its place. There was a steady, growing feeling of damp chill as I moved forwards to the shelter, back behind it, where the plants out what was left of the late afternoon sun.

I felt as an explorer must feel, perhaps one who had gone a bit too far. I lifted some overhanging lime-green brush, feeling it bristly and wet in my left hand, and peered in...

...there it was... a slime mold. Hidden in the depths of the cool green shade.

Oh, God, what an _unbelievable monstrosity!_ No, it can't be that, because that does not move there, _behind_ the shelter, keeping in the shade. It was out front...it locomoted to _here,_ to be in the moist coolness during the heat of the day. I tried to get a good look, hesitantly pulling back, as though to avoid touching anything. It was an oozing thing, _slimy,_ a spongy big mass of grainy, porous flabbiness, not of God's Brazen Earth...or, I sensed an eery friendliness to it. Was it trying to _tell me_ something? I've always been a Scientist, wanting to study entomology in College.

Whatever it was had been moving around, rippling on its outer surface like water, or perhaps it was rustling leaves. Or cattle. I began to brush aside the low overhanging branches from an evergreen tree, on my left, when the shrill screams came. Pivoting towards it, I saw the chickadees devoured by another slime mold, one just the same as the hidden mass I'd discovered. It had stuck up on five of them, and had trapped them, amoeboid. Three obscene feet of slimy shapeless limb visible.

The little tiny birds screamed hideously. The arm was drawing them in, across the front of the shelter on the other side. I lurched out of the tangled bank and began to grab at this squacking chickadees, bravely attempting rescue, when I accidentally saw around to the front side of the picnic shelter...

Hours later, Saragina handed me a warm cup of tea. It didn't slow my shuddering; I was still chilly, very cold, inside and out. So very cold and wet and miserable. "It's not THAT cold outside t'day." Sara-genie soothed my furrowed brow. "QUIT all that shaking!" I turned my melancholiest eyes up at m'lady love, burying my nuzzling browner nose in the teacup. I jaggedly smiled.

"It's colder than you think, my sweet Britannia darling." Oh, their Kingdom for an economy car and some cigarettes, or some Mary Jane and a Bic. "I have boiled eggs in the kitchen, deviled eggs; you don't need the Devil for those, dear!"

My Spidie Sense was tingling. What if _my_ face was under that _white man's_ Peter Parker red and blue superhero mask? Would...could...should _we_ then feel fulfilled, swinging on the right kind of rope for a change?

#  Chapter Four

"Blazing Saddles:"

FEAR OF OBSCURITY—the Moon

USE OF NAKED FORCE—the Stars

SLACKERS—the Mountain

WOUNDED—the Wind

How "As You like It" became As I Look Back

\-- By the obsequious Blarney Stone. You have to be able-bodied to kiss it. Then you have to avoid the wildly flashing light, and do stupidity politics. Life as usual in the Western Void. I think I'd rather have my eyesight. But, what is there to _watch on TV?_ I like the scenery around here, but it's mostly evergreen trees. They're green. Emerald green, you never get tired of them - except sometimes. I knew a Black boy baby in a stroller, hated trees, wanted to see 'em rot. Housing those decaydent meaty wooden bug eaters, loin' on their indolent piney sides, stretched out moss-smelling corpses fulfilling their final forest mushroom purposes.

Harmin was researching a book he planned on writing "sum-day."

"For th' sake of th' local Histerical So-ciety, heh." He thought he'd compete a little with Mabel "School" Jones, poke and prod and get her to do better.

Mr. Boole meant to be thumbing through several Western novellas and local historical records, groping around for material he could turn and twist into a book of his own. "Like a rope, hee, Gabie my Mexican gaucho. You like th' Old West, cowboys, sheep ranching?" "Yup. My grandpa taught me to twirl a lariat and butt-rope a steer." "Ya don't say. Me too; ma dad showed me how."

Harmin waved a leather-covered tome. "Got a book here by a very fine Western writer, no money-makin' perfessional like Mabel Jones, but a hell of an author nonetheless. From Boulder, Colorado, named Mr. David Johnston."

"Never heard of him."

"He wrote beautifully about his own early times as an actual range hand in the turn-of-the-century western states. I'll read ya some if'n ya like."

"Hokay. Shoot with both barrells, because I do, and aim it straight, Harmin."

Harmin Boole began to read Gabe a piece of the past, all about the personal experiences of a lonesome teenage boy and his brother Gordon at the truly colossal Wyoming State Fair of Nineteen-oughty-two.

Editor's note: there really was a David Johnston, who in 1980, at the probable age of ninety-something gave me verbal permission to use this portion of his book, As I Look Back, howsoever I pleased. It pleases me to try and expose as many persons as possible to this lovely, homespun, and colorful work of Mr. Johnston's, who is now deceased and desist. I think.

Soon after we arrived in Douglas we learned that the fourth annual Wyoming State Fair was about to begin. Exhibits from the various counties were arriving Although Wyoming was not considered much of a farming state, many fine entries from Torrington, Big Horn Basin, Star Valley and various other smaller areas were coming.

In 1905 the Wyoming Legislature passed a bill to make the fair an annual event.

Bills would be voted on annually to supply the funds, since at that time, the failure had improved greatly. By the first day of the fair rooming houses, restaurants, livery barns and salloons were crowded. We had but one hotel, the Platte Valley, which had to be moved to allow the Burlington trains to come through.

The sidewalks were busy too, where old friends were meeting old friends not seen since the last fair or longer. Along the sidewalk on Second Street was a string of saddle horses in front of Abe Daniel's. John McDermott's, Pringle's saloon, and Fatty Hardenbrook's barber shop.

Fatty's place of business was well known by the range boys who wanted to clean up after a long dusty ride, before a date with a sweet little country girl.

I think of Fatty's shop as very similar to the modern-day chain store. A boy could take a bath, wash his head, get a haircut and shave all at the same place. Some of the people from far out were in early to engage in rooms for the week's celebration and to arrange for feed and shelter for the horses.

This was the one great event of the year. Those who did not arrive on horseback came by buckboard or wagon. Even the small boys and girls rode their horses or ponies to take part in the parades.

You could spot the old-time cowboy quite easily. A few still wore the red bandanas in the leather cuffs. But most could be identified by the big Stetson hat, cowboy boots with spurs that jingle and a pair of cute bowed legs. In the arena they used their angora or leather chaps...

"Beau" interrupted Harmin's laborious reading. "Who _was_ David Johnston, anyway? This stuff's much better than Louis L'Amour's. This Johnston bloke reads more like real history. Lamour writes fiction, I think."

Boole sighed and wheezed to himself, putting hand over his mouth. "My son met him in Boulder in 1980. He was goin' door-to-door to raise money for some poly-tickle group. When Mr. Johnston invited him in, he stayed long enough to look at his book, which was in the works at that time, My boy Garrett thought it was "just great, you should see it, Dad!" And since his b'lieved it was so great, he conned that nice old man, a widower, into letting him walk out of his only known copy of the book. That he was still working on! I thought that was fer fun, shore, but my boy said Johnston let him. My son wanted to copy down part of the book manuscript, I don't know why.

"I believe he was thinkin' Mr. Johnston was never gonna take th' book anywhere for real. He was planning on giving it all to the Boulder Historical Society. My boy wanted to promote his work, get it some pop'lar attention. It was that good, 'cordin' t' Garrett. So he kept the manuscript copy for several years, setting it aside and forgetting it. He goofed, he said, unthinkingly. He finally mailed it back to Mr. Johnston, who wrote him right back and said it was alright, he had t'other copy all along. So." Mr. Boole tried to glare small holes into the wooden tabletop, grinding his teeth and muttering to himself.

"That's how he is, he puts off work forever, any kind. That's my boy Garrett."

"Huh," spoke Gabe, who tended to keep to himself a lot when the person he was with became that gregarious, or that overtly hostile.

"Want me ta read ya sum parts about those Mexies? It's right good."

"Sure!" said "Beau," who liked to hear stuff about semi-fellow Mexicans, at times. If it didn't remind him of Donio, his absent father the college deserter.

More of Mr. David Johnston's "As I Look Back"

About two days before fair, a Calvary drill team and a military band arrived from Fort D.A. Russell, at Cheyenne. They pitched their tents and cared for their horses at the fairgrounds. The drill team and band did much towards the success of the fair.

In the old days away back when there were no chutes in which to saddle up and mount those wild critters, it required to man to saddle up in the open arena. Often, some funny things happened. I attended one day when three broncos and their riders crashed the racetrack fence and finished their bucking in front of the grandstands. The men used a gunny sack over the bronco's eyes and held him partly by the ears. The partner did the saddling up, which was quite a job.

The local bronco busters in that day where Sam Corington, Carl Hildelbrund, Jim Patterson, Gus Nylen, Dick Hornbuckle, Robbins Bays and Webb, to name a few. Pax Irvine, Peach Shaw and Bill Eastman were other contestants. Each day as the program ended the crowd headed back up town to eat, drink and be merry, visit the exhibits, or rest for the dance later. The most popular event in country life was a good old country hoe-down in the school house or an empty hayloft. Many of those folks were good dancers and did they love to dance! For six days and nights the show continued. The crowd was happy but beginning to show the wear and tear. Sunday most of them headed back to their homes, bunkhouses, cabins or sheep wagons.

Now that the fair was over, Douglas settled back to its old quiet self once more. My brother Gordon and I were concerned about getting some kind of a job. We helped Mr. Chapin, surveyor, do a little chain work but that was very short-lived. Since we had nothing else in view, we decided to try Wheatland and Cheyenne.

So off we went again westward. This time we hopped a freight. We found Casper very quiet. It was about the same size as Douglas and just as quiet. It was several years before the Tea Pot boom in the first refinery in Casper.

At Casper the crew going West was making up the train. We found another box car door open in a car carrying a little freight, so in we crawled. Pretty soon the breakman made us a visit asking for money. Money was one thing we didn't possess much of. We talked to him like a long lost brother and finally he went about his business. We had onboard a new crew, a new division in the new oil-powered engine. When we stopped at Waltman, a section house, the train crew got off and headed to the section house. We were getting hungry so we figured they were going in for dinner. We jumped off and got in line. For 35cents it was a real home-cooked meal; think of that.

As the train took off again we could tell the engineer was testing his new oil-burning engine. I was standing close to a large metal drum full of oil and hanging onto the rim. All of a sudden the man at the throttle opened up and away we went, hell-bent! The old box car was swaying and jumping like it might leave the rails and go loping across the prairie. And then it happened.

The engineer slapped on the brakes, the drum raised up and my big toe slipped under the drum. Oh migosh! I cussed the engineer to no avail. Guess he didn't hear me and still he might have. He slowed down. Boy, that I have a beautiful black big toe for about two months.

From the box car door we watched for anything that looked new and unusual to us. There was something; looked like buildings. Sure enough, as we got closer we made out some buildings and pens with light-colored animals in them; shearing pens and sheep. We decided to look it over so we tumbled off and found a Mexican crew, cook and wool tramper at work. For a little while we helped fill the painting and counting chute.

We soon learned that the crew was just finishing shearing the tail end of the last band of sheep to be sheared that year. There was no job there so we meandered over to the small store. As we neared the store we could see in the window afar some wild, wild women. Moneta was its name; just a store, girls and a bar.

Gordon asked the store keeper, a man named White, if he knew of any jobs around here. "Yes," he said. "Ed Merriam at the Buck Camp needed some help." We left at once checked in at Buck Camp.

At the camp we met the boss, Ed Merriam, a chunky, rough sort of man. Of course he sized us up as tender feet, which we were, but said he could use us.

My job was to feed corn in a trough night and morning and take my 120 yearling Merino books out to graze during the day. Gordon was helping with the band of ewes. Help those young bucks loved the Wyoming sagebrush. They took to their brush like a little boy to his first all-day sucker.

One morning as I gazed at the horizon I noticed a coyote limping on three legs. I figured he was dragging a trap or had been in a trap.

Our job only lasted a few days when the boss turned the 120 bucks I had in with the band of ewes, so they would begin lambing early in May the next year.

My last day I moved the sheep wagon to a new bed ground. The trails, or roads as they called them, were dim wagon tracks that led to some bed ground or in search of wood or water. Much of the land was free government grazing land. In some cases the owner of the sheep lived in Shoshoni with his family and the herder took care of the sheep. The owner had to keep the herder in supplies and move the sheep wagon from one bed ground to another.

That was our last day. As we were about to leave, Ed Merriam asked us to come back in May to help lamb his ewes. We agreed to do that and left for Shoshoni to see if we can find another job.

Shoshoni was much like a village. Some of the sheep men had homes there. There were a few stores, several saloons and sporting houses like most western villages and towns had. It rated one doctor. It was pretty much a wide-open place. A Mr. King who owned the main mercantile store was a relative of ex-president Jerry Ford. For medical operations, a good many people took the train to see Douglas Hospital.

Gordon told me later that he had worked for King some. He told me he was on the street one day when he heard a gunshot in a saloon across the street in an open-front building. A Mexican had bought a drink.

"Listen up, "Beau!" Harmin shouted, excitedly. "This is the Mexican part comin' up!" Well, it did later, thanks to dirty laundry...or mayhaps Caza's dreams.

AN OLD GIRL-FIEND of "Beau's" writes him unexpectedly. How Jarring! He almost missed his lunch...

Once, he was madly, passionately, enthusiastically in love with Phoebe Sommers. But she gave him the empty air, whisked away his cane chair, and showed him the hollow door. After two solid and semi-precious years that glowed like amber heathfire gemstones......

Phebous Appolonius. City Kid Blonde. Queen of sky-blue clouds. Shortie. They were one for two years. No, they were two, occasionally one, when it was good, for two-and-a-half years. Then she broke it up to into tiny little pieces by telling Gabe she "always falls out of love after the first two years."

"You've lasted longer than any other men have, yet!" she exultantly squealed into the phone. She had a moment-by-moment consciousness of events. Out of dire necessity, Gabe was usually the one who remembered to use condoms.

For the moment, something was presently especially pleasant. Thus the excited Squeal. It was a noise Gabe naturally liked; she was part Swiss, strikingly lovely and capable of a still higher-pitched modular tone that took him all the way back to third-grade and his introduction to fingernails on a black board. He was the kid who ran right up front and dragged his short, stubby nails down the board, inching along cruelly, doing his greatest to offend the uncringing girls. Nasty he was, Then's only way available to try to touch souls. He was a ho-lee terror as well as the Spitballer until somebody shot him full of hard tacks. Twelve stitches.

Phoebe Sommers was a Dear, Doo-Dah all the Day

The Phoebe Squeal never bothered him, not the once. But she leaned to leavin' permanently, saying she couldn't see him anymore because his hair "doesn't feel right after a certain age, when it gets older, believe me!" And also because "I have to move to Arizona when the job I applied for sends the acceptance letter. When it comes through." That meant The End. Gabe didn't want to move to Maryzoneout. He had said so, repeatedly. WELL, twice!

The latter reason being surely the reasonablest one, Gabe having given quaint Reply, a little sarcastically she began telling him that...

"...my old boyfriend says he can no longer sit indoors without my illustrious presence, so I must calm him down. He might need me, I mean meet me, in Tucson. I need time, is what I'm trying to say, through all the Movementese, for my life without you." Yeah, well, what could young Gabe say?

Three years later came the letter. Pasted hearts on the envelope, pink paper splashed with rose perfume, trademark Pheobe schmaltz. Inside, soft pink stationary with a fuzzy white kitten. Yarn ball, string leading to the words "Dear Friend:"

"I'm so miserable since we broke up that I can't blue-and-white bear to go on living. Why, why, why did we always learn to go apart? What are we? All I do is cry my eyes out, every day. Gabe, I miss you, forever and for internity!

"Gabie! My sweet crumbly brownie _baby!_ Where are you gone? I'm in living hell without your hourly insane magic spell. 'Thout enfolding you in my...I mean your loving arms, mere declassified life has lost all its lucky charms..."

There are no worse words of similar rank sentiment, sweetly expressed in line after dripping, gooey, sugar-coated line, than those further. It seemed she'd gotten most of the phrases from the insides of rapidly thumbed-through Hallmick's Greeting Cards. You could clearly smell the Limburger.

"Beau" idly threw the letter away, not pausing for a moment to consider if what he was tossing aside so falsely-casually represented a wasted meaning, an irresponsibly wonderful period of his life that could perforce decimate, involving a vivacious, snow-skinned, ski-sloped and well-worth-it beauty of a lover. He only cared that she no longer stacked up to his newfound lady love, or his newest life. Thus, he never did notice the coincident proximity of his old girl's current address to his new locale in Rama.

The ending of the letter had contained a succinctly tearful plea for reunion "or at least a doomsday letter of rejection." Of course he never wrote her. Forget it! It was all her fault. He'd been willing to continue.

Base Medley in a Weak Cuppa Green Tea

Roughly one month later, on a Monday, Gabe was hiking down Guild Street to the mission for to pick up his weekly paycheck when he heard what he could've sweared sounded exactly like a very loud gunshot. BANGG!! It was behind his head, a zingy buzz, like a fast fly, zipping by and in the next moment, his lower right arm stung bitterly. His heart pounded a jackrabbit THUMP and rocketed into his mouth. There had been a second close gunshot. The bullet that hit him also struck a newspaper stand, ringing the metal. Loudly, was a TING?

Gabe froze, catching himself blessing something, something, but far too much for a presumably self-satisfied young man, and he gave the sniper a fitting length of time, by standing stock still, to make a good piece of work of him. He twitched not a muscle, looking straight ahead, imitating a patient statute. What if he simply stood there, exposed and motionless, while nothing more happened?

He was exposed 180 degrees on his right side, a sitting duck from any building, being as there were only for such buildings within any possible sweep. He turned his head towards the right, in a most dilatory manner, but defined visually every possible place the sniper wasn't shooting from. He felt a nervously obscene sense of misplaced, mounting physical pleasure. Then he determined to be fearless.

As he turned, his tightening heart was beating faster than the plastic toy drum he'd beaten for a year as a quietivorius, omnivorous eight-year-old boy the only toy, the funniest toy his father had stingily indulged him in that Christmas. His mother professed to several better purchases, but only after he prodded her. But that one.

For a Spanish dancer long moment he ached, absolutely, to know the certainty of the distant lifeless future descending, now, this very second, into his present. Swift, sweet death, perhaps, at long last! How 'bout that. It done shot well.

He was almost turned completely in the general direction of the shots. Then he ached again, thinking longingly of all memories of the beloved Saragina. How odd. He even had a brief, fleeting thought of Artie. They'd miss him.

And his grandmother, too, crossed against his mind; but, as he could not so much as register noticeable surprise at this point, last night having been draggy and himself draggy with sleep, he decided to simply keep his wits and idlest dignity of a passerby about him. Instead of dodging and running, he slung his arms and strode forward quite composedly in the direction he was originally headed, to the mission.

As he strutted, he felt more excited and alive than he'd been in these last several boring, loathsome years... mayhaps my tinny blood was splash and lace the local papers... by next week. First it'll splash them, right there in the newsbox! THOSE inky people! What's black and white and "read" all over? _Huh?_

His feet padded along as though cushioned by thick form, swathed in alcohol-soaked cotton with his mind, his head loosely floated into the clouds. Merciless to the sniper, which seemed to be his swinging arm. I don't even feel you. But once again he was growing an inexplicable enjoyable hard-on, an erection from nowhere embraceable...he was tempted to run headlong in the face of the shots, crossing the street, locating directly to his farthest right. After striding willfully ahead about thirty-five feet or so, he finally gave in to the latter wise-guy suicidal notion. His arm hurt too much. He waved his right arm angrily at the sniper, drawing his furtive attention. "See me! Here I am! "But he wouldn't cross the street.

Guessing which building whoever-it-was had fired at him from, he turned half-way towards it. He waved his right arm over his head, curving it towards him, the patsy target, inviting the shots, insulting the sniper. To wit:

"GO ON!" he, ah, shouted hoarsely. "Shoot me! I'm utterly helpless, I can't stop you! You want me? SHOOT IT! What IS it? Here I am!' He childishly ran back over to where he'd been when the shots were originally fired, as though he were the lust-crazed madman that he really was. Well, that he really was...

This was exceeding helpful. Another shot was fired. Gabe lusted. Such luck. It missed, just barely. Gabe thought, irrationally, that it made a musical noissome love song, a twirping pinging brilliant little ditty, a form of delayed, reluctant applause for his lovely act of brave defiance. And it missed him.

He now blatantly shook his fist at the tallest building, guessing it as the probable sniper's nest. Couldn't see the roof. "Go ON, go ahead! Kill the stupid bastard! You got me, you bastard! You're a stinking cocksucker! What's your retarded problem? How'd you guess I ain't important? Shoot it dead! I'm WILLING! Get it over with, you slow-life stinkin' SCUMSHIT!"

There was another gunshot, but it was much more half-ass. The bullet hit the sidewalk about ten feet away, bouncing off the brick wall behind him. It made a snowball-sized puff of brick dust. Then there was this long pause, and it filled to overflow with echoing silence.

He laughed, harshly...with a totally dry throat.

Gabe stood, arms akimbo, relishing the sniper's confusion. Nothing more was happening, likely. He raised both fists skywards, so, and bellowed his happy proud rage.

"Well, there you are, you spineless coward! WORM! You can't hit a lousy _Spic!_ You FUCKING queer! What are you, a stinking girl? Huh? Izzat what you are, a lesbo, you goddamn _Sunday shooter?"_ More silence followed.

But not so black a silence. Slowly, ghastily building in the atmosphere was this gentle, unexpected sobbing.

It emanated, hauntingly stark, from the alleyway across the old and familiar section of Guild he'd taken his Last Stand upon. Soul-rending, repetitive, slightly alluring sobbing. Female.

Growing recognizable. Caught and pushed to the nth limit, sub-human, wrenched weeping. It was both touching and awful, the wail of an abysmally lost, invisible Irish banshee, calling to "Beau" from an unholy netherworld reality.

Sobbbbb... _sobbbbbbbbb...._ a man gets tied up to the ground, he gives the world its saddest sound, its saddest sound.

\--Simon and Garfunkel, _El Condor Pasa,_ 1970

Gabe's angry raised fist began to droop. His arm unmuscled his shoulders sagged like sacks. A memory he'd shut out before came roaring forth to his heavy, clouded mind like a ponderously loaded incoming freight train...long ago, Phoebe had mentioned believing that she was pregnant, and how she was sorry she'd been coerced (by Gabe) into having premarital sex one more time. Only because he'd insisted that, she said.

Obviously there was one thing, at least, Gabe could not seem to push her into, in spite of trying. He knew she was a good shot; they used to practice at a shooting range together, regularly, for the sake of her self-protection. For later's sake, as Gabe could not always be ever-present...

Abruptly, the sobbing stopped, tapering off; there was another odd sound, the scraping of a wooden board against a smooth floor. No more gunshots. Silence for the sake of peace.

Gabe felt his insides, momentarily expanded with presumptive masculine courage, collapse into fatuity. Mustering all his fading and deeply depressed energy, he exploded out into the street, racing over to the alleyway. Nothing and no one was there. Gabe's phony attack of guts dribbled away, a trickle of so much urine, of so much blood. His right arm was bleeding where the second bullet had grazed him. It didn't begin to hurt enough!

He stood, ambling stopping, but trash can, fighting a mammoth nervous urge to crash-hop in and stay there. What an utter slob? What a mutter... It could easily become his latest "permanent residence." There was definitely room.

So this is where sleeping around had led Gabriello. He was trash, miserable sucking hippy trash. The word "abortion" rattled around in his fevered head--did Phoebe ever say "abortion?" Oh, God. Oh no. But... but it's not that serious, is it? God, I'm not a man! Or something. Ohhh, my arm.

From a swiftly proud being with thunder and lightning in his breast, Gabe has fallen to dust, becoming a pitiful, wicked, slumped-over spic villain, facing the probable insane truth of a hurt, scared victim he had summarily fucked and shucked heartlessly away. His heart was beating nonetheless, still in his throat, all but permanently shuttered and lodged. Said throat was hastily preparing a six-month lease and was getting ready to charge first months rent. Perhaps it would provide room and board, for a fee. Did his heart have the proper currency?

Look, down there—the gun!

He has spotted the weapon, flung down to the ground at the alley entryway, hidden in some McDonald's trash. He picked it up, of course. It was blazing hot, burning in his hand.

The name of "Prinze" spoke several gold-leafed volumes in his mind. He cradled the smoking gun, defeated, abject, almost lovingly caressing the deadly object, as though it were his tragically-comic dead, dark, terribly heavy stillborn child. All, all was his fault. He dreamed of swiftly taking his own worthless life. It might be orgasmic. If I were truly a man, or perhaps a god...

He raised the gun to his chest. A most precious look of elation filled his face, a sudden belief in the universal nature of humor shook his form as he realized that the warm gun was inevitably creating a spontaneous illusion of "loving" him. It was small and comforting in his hand, resembling a fuzzy black kitten. He inanely felt an enormous answering love, or perhaps it was only lust.

He stood silently forever. No, _really!_

He stands there, lost like a turtle dove, to this very day. No, Camera Two cuts to behind him. It's growing darker, it's hard to see Gabe's back. BLAM!!! Oh, no, that was definitely a gunshot... _he's dead!_ Shoot, Gabe. What a redundant way to go, when you had your whole life ahead of...there's a third long pause, as we sadly wait for the shuddering results. But he doesn't fall. The "Beau" twitches a shrug, lifelessly but nonchalantly your standing engagement.

With a motion of a sleeved arm, Gabe tosses the gun from his right to his left brown hand. Then he turns the trash can, to his left, and throws it in. Paper rustles. What, he grits his little toofies?

The bullet had left a powder burn on his chest, mostly affecting his shirt-front. It had cut a thin line across his left breast. Now he had dual wounds.

He'd simply held the gun as though gently cradling a baby, and fired. Hey presto. The resulting wound was no more than a cat scratch, but felt reasonably, purgative painful, and incidentally made a realistically dramatic Zorro swath.

Gabe angelically smiled, soft diffused greys and half-tones surrounding his head with a symmetric halo from the streetlamp, framed in the limited twilight of the alley combined with the beckoning night. The picture was that of a lone wounded gangster who had won an excruciatingly tiring battle, and who would pick up his check tomorrow, at this rate.

Camera fades back to the sidewalk where "Beau" was first shot. An orange tabby cat skittles past the camera. All the noise woke him up, the poor thing.

Gabe, stepping forward, waltzed into the alley, shoes thudding and faintly echoing, step for borrowed step. Sounds that swiftly dismissed to nothing as he moved out of sight...Saragina DeSoto, mild-mannered dietician, 'most fainted. However, she gamely dressed both wounds, the actual gunshot and the mythological one, the _other_ inflicted and the self-inflected one. What if, she mused, _less_ drugs used? Dappling with hydrogen peroxide, applying bandages, massaging muscles...studiously...taking her time, as Beau sighed in her lengthy dark-brown, supple arms. Drugs, Sara thought, stupid drugs are behind this again.

Great American Ditty - for Lovers who make Imaginary Children:

"...and if you _go,_ I'll understand

For something in _dreams_

Keeps holding my hand...

If you go away, if you go away, if you go away...

...please, don't go a— _way—aayy—aaayyyyyy..."_

Gee, d'ye think it be a reference to Dying Young?

\--If You Go Away, by an Unknown Songwriter

#  Chapter Five

The Fig, the Bee, the Elephant

And the Cow...who is now a Bull. How about that; fascinating gayville.

Maybe _we_ will go to Heaven when _you_ die. All y'all. _Maybe not?_

\--Quote from the Fruitarian Readers Digest

Selected Output From

"The Beau Hooter," wrote books with Artie, duh and Sara-genie

Caza _does_ books, remember? Income|expenses. Taxation _without_ reparation...

WHEN GABE RETURNED Home, he shakily composed his reply letter, trying to put all his fear, hatred and longing into squeamish written words on a page. He finished Phoebe's address out of the Trash eroded on and Envelope. He said from the Floor, a not Unfitting position for his temporary state of sexless Misery. For otherwise he would have had to sit on his Bed. All of his Chairs were full of Magazines.

What would Phoebe want to Hear? He Began to Write:

"Anybody remember the Queen Mary's "Crumpets are delicious" ad promo campaign? They used this jingle that went, "Let's all go, hand-in-hand, on the Queen Mary out to the delicious crumpets land," etc. Reflecting inwardly about it now, I am filled with a profound sense of Timeless nausea as I picture a fat lot of neighborhood kids, all grinning like overwrought, unknown Morons, all from my old suburban neighborhood, charging like Crack-the-Whip across a sunset plain... as in the end of "Seventh Seal," where they head into and antidisestablishmentarianistic valley (you understand) from which there is No Return... I'm digressing wildly from the subject at hand, because it's a difficult subject to deal with.

First off, thanks for your Letter; it puts everything into perspective. Meaning, is certainly opened my eyes. Yeah. Saragina was over a few days after your letter arrived, and me being me I had to ask her to read it. Spent the rest of our time together figuring I had to apologize, and picking out nice apology gifts to give you when I did apologize. Perhaps a nice subpoena? Nah, I'm only kidding. I never showed her your letter. She can't read!

I don't deserve any friends, but I still have a few left. And right. There's some bitterness loose in my head, the memory of resentment, from the days when I went around cursing myself because I was DAMNED to always be a loner, always the outcast pariah... always insecure... figures that when I do manage to succeed a little, I go and sabotage it... perhaps I'm secretly a heartless, vicious all-white creep... people would KILL to have the pals I have, and I go back and fuck it all up...

...I start to have to tell myself, "Shut up! Stop! Put a sock in that there dryer!"

Remember, you once told me he was discovering how much you didn't know about yourself?

I recall, at the time, thinking "knowing your very own mind, it's not that hard."

I lied to myself. I don't know!

When I do something, it's impulsive, which is why I'm so broke all the time. I can't visualize the future: I don't have any solid hopes for it. I don't know if I'll even finish this letter; the written notes just gave out, with so much left unsaid.

Was it something you put in your letter... a week ago... if I could think of it now, I'd have the solution to this whole muddle. I could say the right thing, and all the typing would come straight of errors. I can go to sleep without the goddamned "guilts" keeping me awake... for now I risk saying the wrong thing.

I don't think I'm the one you need, the one you're looking for. Don't hate me completely yet. I don't like the looks of your letter; it reads like a suicide note, and one for me, yet. Please, don't take things too seriously. It's useless. I'd only come to resent you after a while.

Please keep the lines open..."

Writing the letter got the "Beau" going on a writing stint. He grabbed up all the spare paper he had and, after dropping the stamped letter in a mailbox located on the same street he was shot at on, Guild Street, he wrote up a Blue Streak.

Following shortly are some representative samples of this and other productivity spates, reaching into the foreseeable Past, altering the invisible Present and encapsulating the improbable Future; and Endless, limitless Future made entirely by crushing exquisite, priceless, oceanic shoreline gemstones, pulverizing them into bits of colored broken glass, turning them into billions of grains of ordinary brown beach sand, but never around when seen close-up, filtered through your hands. Hold it in those hands. They're full of tiny miraculous gemstones, separate beauties, together a whole. Look at them.

Your future...is not in your past, Mentos. _Manana._ Mexican for tomorrow, which for "morons" meant putting stuff off, and for _campesinos_ means pacing yourselves in order to conserve energy in bright sunlight. _Gotcha?_ Global warming in the American Southwest, so you better eat that juicy cactus. And join the Mexican Olympics, climbing over a barbed wire fence and exhaling.

The workers of Rama keep entering town, with the air of superiority underpriced young people sport when they are looking for work and will do anything.

"The People of the Book ask you to bring down for them...a book from heaven."

\--The Koran, translated by N. J. Dawood

"Those that devour the property of orphans unjustly, swallow fire into their bellies; they shall burn in the flames of Hell...you are also forbidden to take in marriage married women, except captives whom you own as slaves... but if they said, "We hear and obey: and undhurna," it would be better and more proper for them...if you avoid the enormities you are forbidden."

\--"Women," same source, Dawood

YES, I'VE ALWAYS been a great one for undhurnaing. It's not dissimilar to hulaing. It will drive you insane! "For, "they have no faith, except a few of them." Ibid. You get the idea.

Every day, Gabe promised, he was gonna read a snippet of the Koran (and practise his undhurnaing, spearmint variety) until he was finished. That's how he got through the Bhagavad-Gita, the Talmud, and Hawaii by Michener. When he was done, he planned on plowing through all of his accumulated "Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine" "Alfred Hitchcock Presents." His room was buried a goodly foot deep in dime magazines and fifty-cent paperbacks. They all had garish, yellowing, torn and/or lost covers. But were still quite readable.

Quoth he: "I read everything, by ever jinee I can find, and perhaps I should try my unfair young hand at writing, but I've ne'er been published, nor ne'er have tried. EQMM takes first stories, or they used to. I'd write a short story and send it in to EQMM (plug, plug, and plug) but..." Gabe is in his filthy room.

"Sweater!" His lady love calls, as she sweepingly sweeps into his one-bed coffin, withall an Egyptian tomb, carrying a complex broom, a long white straw dustburp with a most elegant, 14K silver handle, hand-carven by Marvin, which she carted with a snow-white candle to light her way by night and day candle on th' handle on th' top o th' dry mop. Which was wet.

"I've come to deliver all scum from the dust, as I must, you trust. I charge over twenty kisses an hour, satisfying and miring the highest power, screwing roses and straws for your funeral bower, an' après I ski your sloping furniture, you'll take me out to a coffee ballgame and crumpets befitting a lady of my immense and concrete statue, which is Three Miles of Island heatwave smiles, and still, Lust in Space, you are tryin' cryin' and smilin'. Alors, Lars! And upon completion of that most arduous of tasks, namely housekeeping, they didst set oudt, storming down the street, screaming "Ivan the Terrible, Ivan the Ho, Ivan the Ho! In a most bloodcurdling way.

No, actually they placidly and yawningly and serenely began the next story. For you! Here it is, freely translated from the original Algonguin:

An Obscene, Hideous, Pathetic, Twisted Fantasy Invoking Hillbillies

By "Crazy" Eddie Hoffstrauss, Carmen Glonk, Janet / Bob Wibble, and the students of Mrs. Fender's ninth grade class, Horlock Junior High, Autism, Texas

I WAS AN intruder in a vast, yet nevertheless hideously small territory, in which the denizens of that place all remotely resembled cloisonné pinbacks of Daffy Duck. I often glimpsed them quacking on the horizon, just out of sharp focus, as they carried their foul-smelling sides of beef to the unendingly deep wishing-well, which had a cute little bucket. The pinbacks tried to wedge several of the beef sides in at once, but they wouldn't all fit. So they roasted them and ate them ON THE SPOT.

However, suddenly gushing out of the deep well was zwiebeck... a solid wall of it, gnashing and rattling. Within minutes the pinbacks were inundated by layers of the bland, soggy crackers; they lay in sad heaps around the well, sobbing to themselves. This happened twice a day.

I never went near enough to see it, but I heard of a giant song of desolation, consisting of old Marilyn Monroe movies which have been cut and pasted back together to form a tower which cast a 667-foot shadow over the land and dashed all hopes of sunning oneself anywhere near the beached whales, which roared in rage as they righteously blew spumes of four-leafed clovers. These planted themselves in fields where they lay, play keeping their sheep, on a cold winter's night that--I forget the rest, I talked to a lot of people who said they'd gone there, but I never went.

My time was taken up chiefly with the misery goats. Communist frogs, varicolored but smoky, mostly, in humongous leaps froze solid over broiling Dick's burgers, landed on them, ate down, threw them up again. This delicious portion of your order comes with the torso of Larry Flynt attached to a staple-gun and served on a bed overhung with exquisite Middle Eastern tapeworms which fall off of trees and eat away your face. Extinguish all smoking materials when the "No Smoking" light is on. Stuffing instead of potatoes? Any time!

What? Yes...that's right. The goats...hey, heh, the goats...the goats stood on the burning deck, whence all about had fled...treacherous Maori...big double handfuls of coins, living, breathing coins, dancing around like they ruled the world. Suddenly, a giant foot came down--too Python--a giant python came down, it had lips, it kissed all over the coins (they stood in line) and left the abortion story seal of approval on each one. But! From out of nowhere there came a battalion of, of, of CHAIRS, these big wicker CHAIRS my God, striding across the bleeding landscape like the fucking furniture of the Apocalypse! CHAIRS! And END TABLES! And...God preserve us...THE CHROME DINETTE!

Another coffee? Yes, that would be nice.

Anyway. We were both wearing lobster claws--I recall Arlene had hers clipped to her left ear. Then across the beach I saw one of the tortoises of Heil! He lumbered menacingly instantly across the horizon--no, it was the ground. And its shell spread softly over us, becoming the sky.

The cracks in the shell allowed starlight to beam through, caressing us as we stood there on the manta ray, which swooped up into the sky, I mean the tortoise shell, no, I mean the crescent hot rolls from Pittsburgh which devoured us in our sleep. And then they shat us into reality, which had assumed the appearance of Sluggo's house--you remember! There were always cracks in the walls, big ones you could see the support beams through. Only in the mountains.

So Arlene then had to put her hand in the holes, just to see what would happen. I caution her, but she did it... just then the mountain spoke. "Are you of such a doubtful nature that you do not believe what you see with your own eyes?" It rumbled.

Arleen said, "Yup. Well, they done tol' me all my friggin' life thet alls ah kin see yout of is ma ass an' I got so snickered thet ah caved into mah own haid. So here ah sit, twidlin' mah Hostess Cupcakes aroun' an' aroun'...besides hit keep switchin' on me. Does hit switch on you too?" And then the crack closed up and Arlene's arm was stuck. She said, "Ouch."

Riding through the woods, galumph, galumph, galumph, came the Rescue Rangers, signifying nothing. NOTHING. They were too late. Arlene's arm was permanently severed. She had to go see Doc Severinson.

Eventually, our story, which we alternated writing between the two of them, chronicling the cloisonné pinbacks of Daffy Duck, the hideously small territory, the foul-smelling sides of beef, the wishing well with the cute little bucket, the zwieback, the giant zone of desolation, the unhappy homeless presidents, the mincemeat homosexuals, the cold winters night, the misery goats and all Communist frogs, the bravest of all rape victims, the broiling Dick's burgers, the torso of Larry Flynt, the whining Tigers, the bed overhung with nude portraits of Dolly Parton, the giant trees, your ugly face, the legal smoking materials, the Holocaust, the burning deck, treacherous Maoris, the double handfuls of living breathing coins, the shadow of your smile, the giant fart, the abortion story seal of approval, nowhere, the battalion of wicker woven BASKETS thrown at you, the bleeding landscape, the MATH TABLES, the CHROME DINETTE, the second coffee, your aging urine, the lobster claws, Arlene's left ear, the H-Bomb, one of the scarlet tortoises of Hell, nobody's Fool, the cracks in its shell, the starlight, us, the white manta ray, the crescent hot rolls from Pittsburgh, our sleep, reality, Sluggo's house, Jews, the cracks in every wall, God, the support beams, the mountains, Arlene's doubtful nature, her own eyes, her ass, her haid, her cream-filled Hostess Cupcakes, "hit," Arlene's arm, the woods, the Rescue Rangers, nothing, and Doc Severinson all inspired other useless, narcissistic and boring cribbage stories. So, _we quit!_

Fantasy:

HAIKU

THE

Moment

After the Moment came, it was followed by a long silence.

Then, another Moment came and went;

It too was followed by a long silence.

And then, another Moment came, more than two and so,

It exploded and split into six short TV commercials

About electric razors that shave close to your face.

GABE'S POETRY RAN to the realm of non-traditional haiku, sonneteering, and suchlike; an attempt to capture a quick, short image in a few Romantic lines, with or without rhyme or mitre Involved. He possessed a Blank Book with approximately 200 poems filling it, pieces he'd written over the course of fourteen years. He wrote whenever he spent substantive time alone, hiding away during his parents more obnoxious and irrelevant superiority quarrels, when he'd slither under his bed, having shut his bedroom door (even back then he had his own little and already messy room), and compose the most beautiful poetry and prose that he himself had ever seen, bar None.

His. Hers. Ours, no theirs. Well, some of it had to be _Saragina's!_

RULE OF ORDER #11, United States Naval Regulations, Blue Rule Book:

"Be especially watchful at night; during the time for challenging, challenge all persons on or near your post, and allow no one to pass without proper authority."

I Blew Off Hitler's Face (he Went Tee-Hoe) _and we Threw Up!_

That's what the little square mustache was for; it was something to aim at. It was solely to match his polished teeth, and the pouting lips. They lined up perfectly. This way, the guy had hair on five separate sections of his body. No kidding; that wildlife looked too rotten on camera. When he was brave, he was senseless. When he was earnest and angry, he was from the planet Pluto. I never could kiss without crossing my eyes. _Open wide!_

What – there are no People left on Earth, only Martians?

And they don't say so. Truth is fiction, fiction is truth. Go sit in a booth with Babe Ruth. They all throw way too slow. Like in the movies? The New York Marathon says it's open to everyone. But, who wants one? There's no competition for Space. "They" already own the place.

Bill Clinton and Joan Rivers would win the election if Liz Taylor started chasing about with the desired chunky peanut butter meat and potato cleavers. Primitive Nike shoes, we ALL want to see Chopped! Everybody wins on _that_ modern reality TV show, but this book is set in the rather belated 1980s. So what? Yeah, I'm a tired radio receiver. Madonna should marry Steve Martian. They could compare lymph gland high notes. They could! _YOU_ would. Dye, you hugs!

Motorcycles 'r okay, but Boy George is gettin' far verse. Did jay notice he wasn't gay? A tall drink of water, with chicks on either arm, but where else did he get the idea from? A lesbo, _that's it,_ and now there is one in the book. Nobody else is her...she's...not your mother, is a Mom, and can't begin to understand how to snore properly. No lesbians, except for whoever's reading this and every other female character who isn't married.

How to Note Urban Surroundings with Me

In the future I should:

a) become a rich black or white baseball players; b) catch as only 10 can; c) slink lonely in defeat through the woods; d) eliminate all lethargy in my life; e) spin spurious webs of black deceit; f) comfort some other people in troublesome times; g) ignore certain kinds of requests, and certain people who make them; h) rip the bill off and wear my hat on backwards; i) take an interest in welding and soldering; j) ride high, ride low; k) be reasonably dumbbell chaotic; l) storm thru the murkiness; m) learn to be a leader all by myself; n) find out who Iggy Pop is; o) turn the tables on you; p) release the latch and let fly; q) become someone's permanent toy; r) relay messages back and forth; s) be a huge, overwhelming success; t) turn a rinky-tink profit; u) dispose of vast sums of money; v) recycle all cowardly waste materials; w) await her with inhuman patients, but not forever; x) pull the plug on the radio; y) be young at heart, and socially immature; z) stop making so many lists

_Can Y, the woman from the organization department - she sent an email to stop that one issue revealed to the end for 90 day supply which was supposed to, does it show the 90 day supply processed -_ Take It Some More? _Do you tell the customer to take it every day, day in and day out? For life?_

TECHNICAL CONFUSION POETRY – Sara and Gabe's doodle-bugs:

If I Was Not Really Here

...then, I would be over there unless I can love thoroughly.

In the chair, Acting Square Here's a penny for your thoughts;

Never-ever drinking beer do you have a matching penny?

Never-ever thinking queer If so, I've hidden nickels, dimes and

I'd be climbing rational stairs quarters

With penetrating, vacant airs in my shoebox, where I keep the shoes

Banking on my being the peer I'll buy,

(Counting on His drinking the beer) when I trade in for some dollars

If I was not really here they'll be made of patent leather,

24 an absurd and strange invention.

...I was, this year, and so I swore it is No Secret

There's likely to be 25, when I find you, if I find you

And very little more I will love you for ever and ever and

For me, unless I see that 25 ever and ever and ever and ever and

Is one long year past 24, ever, because?

As I'm still poor, I am a dog and nothing else

Yet, thrive. What, do you love me? (Until I make a book that sells)

Can You Take It? So I'm loyal to you forever. And ever.

I love, but I don't love

Jumbo Realty

I think that I shall never see the end of this reality;

Indeed, unless reality fails I'll think I'm merely trading jails

UPBEAT

Phooey! What care mere I for an endless life

Of book-marks midst our painless misery, and strife?

When, by acting madly slowness, solely on my own behest,

I can grab up several hours, taking money for the rest.

As the clock ticks time's passage gone by, my sole solution

To ambition is to count all of my days of restitution

For the fun I have begun having when I turn my back to college

And absconded from the mighty swells of trivial useless knowledge.

For the dawn of each new day brings second chances at adventure;

My youth continues forward, waiting, disallowed to wrench her.

I had not time to queue to pay too dear for tiny chances

For classes, textbooks, tickets, pens, and overcrowded dances.

Instead, I've got fair work, straight daily manual page labor,

Involving soil, asphalt, concrete, wood, plastic, and water vapor.

With hardy invention, with lines of work that deliver me to the right reason,

When entering open air, I'll tend to soak up rain, in season.

I'm usually paid by the hour, an honest and rising rate's too preferable;

Puts heat in my hearth, your roof over my head, breakfast food upon my table.

Though someday I might take on a more occupational true profession,

This life is certainly not bad. That's my teacher's true confession!

A Later Second Thought He Didn't Know

Eight hundred dollars I once read how Childe Harolde

Is all I made to the Dark Tower came. I guess he had a

Last month. Girlfriend enough to grant my Thing

I made one thousand in September, a name. That's what she did, told him

One thousand three hundred in true, I am the one who knew

November. The terrible Dark Tower

But in December Of me and you.

I only made

Enough for frozen lemonade!

Good Question

If I couldn't tolerate another day of being

Late, say, if I accidentally shouldst happen

To Hire myself, and myself was late for

The job, being a good fellow, but weary, and not regular yet,

Would I become a one-man advice squad?

Or would I myself take their rancid opportunity?

Often this came to him as he'd forgotten

The invisible future, help pitiless it was, even next

To the regrettable past it resembled, to the ideas that he'd bend;

When I hired myself, how I virtually trembled! Yes,

To open and run your own business, what you need Is

A License, a shop and an Attitude

Of exhibiting to your customers unadulterated Gratitude.

Well, let that be the Last Word in this here Omnipotent Platitude.

Mary Later

I'll never get to give birth out by a thinly wooded, fern-shaded

And I might get to cause death area of this city, they found the rotting

But, for as long body of a boy...and I found several

As I'm on this Earth... praying mantises, hopping grasshoppers,

I AM two butterflies, some sparkly rocks a nest

I host every show that of angered Scarlet Tanagers, and a cute

I've seen on TV, little green toad, when we went Exploring

And I wrote every line in there.

Ever written I've read.

I came to a Sign, there

On the road, by a tree;

Read the sign Once Again--

It was written for me.

There were always two of us

There were always two of you

I always wanted to be alone

I always needed to be with you

"I didn't," said to police at a party

Alright, weed WAS involved, you too.

There were three of us, two of them,

One of her.

The police came;

I became a fancier.

She hid in a room. She talked to me, later.

She must have said my thing contained a most peculiar power.

But later, as I reposed asleep in my lovely quiet bower,

I dream-recalled the original poem, after a late and tiring hour,

As writ, by the perversely original lovely author-fellow, who

Must actually have been pretty virginal in figuring out what he know, about

My type of thing, as opposing his own, regarding

How it normally grew. Oh, how madly I love you!

I'm getting fat, it is wet outside

My need for exertion can't be easily denied.

But while I am stuck indoors, swallowing my glass of beer,

I believe I'll research prospects for advancing my career.

And while I'm at it, tragic-stricken, bereft, 'tis possible I

Will phone up Saragina, and break down at 'er an' cry.

Is not that Jesu wept one time that's causing me to weep?

It is just that, without her, I cannot seem to go to sleep.

Siiigghhhhh!

And so I will her phone, feeling thus much less alone,

And I'll hold back all the moan; I will ever try to close

My long, deep-seated groan, drowning out all of my morose,

And await the blessed day she marries me, and we are betrothed.

Then, she'll be my Prose.

AT THE NORTH Hall bus stop in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, across from The Doughnut Shoppe, on a pleasantly unhurried but messed-up morning--due to my poor but honest scheduling--I was able to observe a group of pigeons feeding on a bunch of grain someone had casually bestowed on the oily rainbow pavement near a small car.

Fascinating. As I watched them pecking, I began to attempt to tell them apart and to recognize individual pigeons. Nothin' better ta do. I was also mildly nervous, as were others at the stop, from the traffic noise and pollution.

Duration-wise, I was in town for the week. I was scouting future possibilities for a Career in the Field of Lithographic. Didn't pan out for Pan, here.

Watching the birdies, I saw one pigeon suddenly, for no reason I could see, attack another pigeon, one that resembled it strongly in its intricate markings, patterns and colorations. The other pigeon seemed to be bodily larger, but was being sharply attacked. It tried to stay there but was driven away several times by the smaller pigeon, which seemed to be getting steadily angrier each time the other bird (whom I nicknamed Walter) closely resembling it stood up for itself. Finally, Walter fled with a companion of the same identical pattern and design. The mean bird had one. Walter was gone.

After that, there were more little outbreaks of erratic violence. The one dominant pigeon, the small and aggressive one, fluffed up all over and strutted, boldly, but didn't protest at all when a small flock of chickadees momentarily joined the pidgies and ate with them.

They ate lots of the food up. Mr. Aggressive really didn't care. They eventually left, completely unmolested.

Then I noticed there were two kinds of pigeons. The dominant one and his two fellows were the same--dark grey backs--but there were three others with lighter grey backs and less markings. More solid-shaped patterns to 'em. The three lighter ones were attacked by the dominant one, and they amassed as a group, but only vaguely, and attacked him back. This time they held their own against him. Eventually they drove them off, and eerily left right after him. Why? To take revenge? Pigeon vengeance?

Next, a Story Gabe wrote while killing time in a motel room in New Orleans, taking a break while looking for work. The desk had a nice Bible on top.

The Rebel Lion

A love craft's a story in itself...

I WAS WALKING the parapet wall, where the sides rise up and you can see over them. There is a stepladder going down on one side, and there is a single way up, on the other side, but no one ever takes them... that I saw.

And so I tread the wall back and forth for years, lonely, as though on a paid guard, but I was no use as a guard. For although I thought there was something to watch, after much walking to and fro, up and down, back and forth, this delirium naturally occurred.

And this delirium seemed to settle on those below me, below the wall, especially on one side of the wall. And the people there called our deprecations on me. As I looked over to the other side of the wall, the deprecations were being called out.

After many years of walking the wall, back-and-forth, I climbed down the stepladder and descended to one side of the wall. There I was much reviled... and then I was much loved. And then, I rescinded and went back to walking back and forth along the wall, in my lofty way.

Eventually, feeling an odd, almost unspeakable (for I cannot put it into words) physical pull, I glanced to the wall's other side from whence I had not recently come, and hearing the same deprecation's, descended down the step ladder on the opposing side of the wall. There I was much beloved, and then I was much abuse, once more. And so I had to once again the pitiless wall.

As I walked the wall, left and right, back-and-forth, too and fro, as I looked down to either side there were the same deprecations being hurled up, but now they were very loud, near twice as loud as they had ever been. And now I knew my life as utter nonsense and stark raving madness. Finally I awoke to the others on the wall with me... saw their hollow eyes open, the tears flowing as would the sea in sunlight; the shaggy and darkened in remorseless heads raised, their bulbous arms shooting like erupting seaweed into the night air as bitterly they threatened to HURL ME DOWN, to where I HAD ALREADY BEEN...but NONE moved to withdraw the fateful stepladders. I was left to choose my immediate fate.

This was the absolute soul of madness. I was surrounded by descending arms, ready to lift me up, willing to cast me down to either side. Why? Nearby, suddenly, I saw that there was a guard on the wall, a real one after all, and yet this I could not flee, as the wall is very narrow and I could not pass...I saw that the guard was out of his place. And I despaired, for I was not good, neither were they, and wall seemed to be dissolving.

Yet I sensed a firmness to the wall that went beyond madness and dissolution, even as they raised me to cast me down. I knew the wall was not good, yet I was sensing goodness in it, the goodness of a confirmed place.

And... There was a...wideness to the wall that went beyond even the two sides of it... stretching beyond all the boundaries of infinity. And all was embraced within the boundaries of the wall. I was even embraced deeply within the horrible arms of my strange, haunted tormentors. And this did calm me in part...

With no warning, I was free once more. As I once again walked the wall, I felt a presence and new I was not alone. I welcome the presence which informed me that it is freed me from the strangers. But still there was the wall, so meaningless and dear, and the two opposing sides. It was trying to take one other forms, dissolving and rearranging. The presence vanished. An even more frightening and silent aspect of Ground, with equal value and chilling horror to the last, filled the useless space fled by the wall... and I was bitterly clothed in total emptiness, save for my own naked body, which was all I had left.

All of a sudden, I was again on the parapet, knowing that I have paced around a genuine medieval castle, the stony outer wall of which I recently had been condemned to walking. Owning inmostly a spirit of Rejection and complete Rebellion against this reality, I had been caused to mentally translate the castle into a purest separation, a partition instead of a building. For I was not truly on a solid wall, even in my deepest madness, but was enclosed sans escape within the tighter boundaries of a belovedly builded fortressed castle...I was WITHIN this castle... it was over a mile long, and equally wide, and the stepladders were still in their place. But they both descended now into an UNKNOWN, fathomless, boundaryless coldness and Darkness, having no visible Bottom... and fed with an infinitude of rank, bilious, grey, streaming cloudy mists that issued from yawning caverns, canyon-sized open pits looming scarce visible in they are Vast unplummability, filling the miles and miles of space Below, and softly illuminated with nothing more than flickering, intangible, vulnerable dots of suspended candlelight, hovering starkly above my insanity-clouded.

The reassuring but threatening Presence returned, abiding with me, though I was blankly naked and all alone. And the Presence made there two of us, I and It.

Unnatural cacophony resulted. I could not stand the noise, nor comprehend its deafening message. Then a Sign of Horrifying obscenity and terrifying, blasted make appeared, hovering perversely in the middle of the air, white as frozen snow and equally as bitterly cold, was indiscernible fiendish Writing back BLACKLY presaged my Unceasing psychotic, monstrous, Hellish DOOM, writ in unspeakable runes seemingly sketched in blood, blood from my own newly opened veins outlined upon it. Indeed, the blood was flowing in torrential streaks down my violated arms! I unknowingly have a hideous razor, and had wielded it!

The sign was undeniably of my own generation, I unbelievingly Saw, so it claimed, and so I reached up to DESTROY it with my pitifully bare, burned, torn, screaming and bloody Broken hands. My bones and sinews were bursting to the surface.

RAUCOUS, LIVEROUS _CROWS!!!_

I am my _own_ life and death, I cried, _leave me now!_

Straining beyond all conceivable limits, I reached upwards to obliterate the Sign, but as I touched it, it began to burn, rushing into my hands and face; and so I desperately Grasped it, and all its meanings, screaming with a ripped-opened and dying bloody torn throat, the unwithstandable PAIN taking me completely out of human consciousness but leaving me there with no possible human relief, and at last in undying gratitude I was cast down to my death, screaming and screaming in all parts of Me, through billowing oceanic rivers of pure whooshing air and bottomless reeking Nothingness, for a suspended infinitude of catastrophic time, before their limitless, unyielding cruel ROCK that was the coldly remorseless flattened plate of impossible solid Ground rushed up, slamming my entire soul hard AGAINST it, breaking Me, mercilessly smashing Me bodily oblivious, or making me grotesquely forever broken in unamendable shrieking pieces, only in order to be placed trapped for always on the most remote BOTTOM of one of the two sides of the unholy, blessed, trandsgressably immortal wall...

\--Thanks to H. P. Lovecraft

Batman's the Joker's Arkham Asylum is from mythical Arkham, New England, invented by H Poo Feedcraft. You should swim in the ocean there, where you meet the ugly ol' Ancient Ones and go C'thonian. _Seriously!_

The Reasons Why Orthodox Jews Dress Like That

In their black frock coats, stove-pipe flat hats, and lengthy braided dreadlocks, with uncut beards....does that Talmud tell them to overdress? It's kinda of hot in Israel for all those clothes.

Methinks they are exhibiting a group apology for a death. No, no, not THAT death. Another one. (Failing back, they are simply being rather conservative. See "the Amish," "the Quakers," "the Marines," etc.)

In the Old Testament, otherwise known as the Torah, there's a little story having to do with the ancient Judaic (other tribes back then also so indulged, but the Jews are the tribe most associated with it), now-outlawed practise of stoning people to death. For sex crimes. With big rocks. Boulders.

In this story, a Jewish widow is caught selling her body to make ends meet. This is illegal under Judaic laws, and the death sentence for anyone female and also otherwise rendered unimportant by law having unusual sex is immediately carried out, on the spot. No trial or anything. She mounts no legal defense, feels her only soul getting battered to death by big rocks, and dies very horribly. At least she is counted as having died.

It was done, in this cited case, to a poor, starving, broke, (apparently!) and otherwise respectable Jewish lady, a grass widow who might not have survived without selling herself. This was of course very unfair and happened an extremely long time ago. Such rotten people...dear, dear.

So the real reason, I feel, that Orthodox Jews (isn't the very thought scary, after that? They seem to be rather big on executions) are dressed in permanent mourning coats like that, there, is because earlier Jews heartlessly, according to the Torah, slew that nice lady in a macabre and painful manner. So that they are stuck mourning her death, even though they don't do that anymore.

And what a hideous death it was. First, to be a widow, full of despair over her husband's loss, then to have been forced to commit obtuse sexual acts with peculiar male strippers (who presumably were never-ever punished) in order to save her nearly expended life, the only one she had left and which she was responsible for the upkeep of, and finally, to be stoned to death by a bunch of idiotic, morally self-righteous, strange Jewish men who were supposed to be her kindred and help her, or something, sheesh! With luck, they killed her all the way.

Apparently those guys were so paranoid about social diseases, stoning people right and left as in other accounts, and weeding every potential victim of leprosy out of their population, or driving people with freckles insane, that none of them would even have considered marrying her to save her from the shameful blasphemy of prostitution. Maybe she had no other way. What a weird story! S'pose it didn't happen? That'd be nice.

No wonder that Jewish widow was turned into Mary, the virtuous, virginal Mother God in the New Testament. They also kept her hooker self around as Mary Magdalene, and had Jesus stop the stoning and rescue her, from death and hooking. Such a guy. That way it turned into a much nicer story. But, who was God, her "Son," originally?

Well, in a later story relating a similar stoning, also found in the Torah/Old Testament, it seems there was this Egyptian (not a Jew) who was in on a tribal council of the Jews. They must have had some respect for his opinions, or he wouldn't have been allowed in on it. They must have had respect for his opinions, or he wouldn't have been allowed in on it. They never let women into those meetings at all, I guess. That's what it seems to say, in the King James OT. Perhaps he was really there on trial for a crime; it doesn't say.

They (the Jewish tribune) were discussing an important matter, and this Egyptian fellow simply had to speak up and discussed some other matter, that counted to him alone. Kinda like Daedulus; he spoke out of turn. For simply being brave enough to try and get his two cents in, according to the story, they took him outside and gave him the same heart-luck treatment they'd given the poor Jewish widow.

These two stories, which of the widow and the Egyptian are treated as unrelated and are spaced well apart in the OT. They stand out like the proverbial sore thumb, however.

It would be illogical to fail to conclude that those two Torah-based characters were transmogrified into the Christ and Mary of the New Testament, at least as a partial source for the newer stories. That way they both got names and became relatives, in a much clearer manner of relatedness than forcing the readers to put one and one together. The NT's book authors split the widow into her "good" and "bad" self, but revealed the trick by giving her the same name in both cases.

The Egyptian, separated out from the rest of his "fellows," was changed into the non-Jewish, sacred entity known as Jesus Christ, and was assigned the Jewish widow as a mother.

That way, she had a son. Or two. Or three, or four, or more. Good mornin'...

That made her real important.

God only knows what they used to do to lepers. Well, it's not important now, nahhhh...not anymore.

Because they are leaving. But, who are they? Canadians?

New York City? Nahhhh.

GIROLAMO FRASCASTORO, OR Hieronymous Fracastorius—Bosch? Do wash!

He was a physician, astronomer, and a poet of Verona, as well as the infamous author of the famous "medical poem" entitled:

"Syphilis Sive Morbus Gallicus," or in English, "The French Disease"; or, as it's loosely referred to, again in English, at times, "Syphilis the Shepherd." It's about a young and handsome shepherd named Syphilis, who spurns the love of a comely fair rustic girl.

The poem's name freely translate to: Syphilis gave (us) syphilis. It purports to assign the origin of the disease to that particular French shepherd. If so, as he must have gotten it from somewhere, he is implied to have been with, well uh,... you know. Sheep? He's strictly a fictional character.

Morbus gallicus is the original Latin name for the disease called syphilis in the poem. Syphilis is merely a term popularized by Fracastoro, otherwise known as Fracastorius, as in the poem. The disease's name was markedly changed by the popularity of this point. This was in the 16th century, the year 1530.

Francastoro recommended treatment of this disease with mercurials. These are still around and are used for other illnesses currently. He also was one of the people who suggested the germ theory regarding infection, and is considered to be a founder of scientific epidemiology--the study of skin conditions.

There's an English translation of "Syphilis," done in 1686 by Nahume Tate, with the title: "Syphilis: Or a Poetical History of the French Disease," also translated by Wynne-Finch in1935. The Library of Congress call letters are 616.951, F841sEW1530.

Syphilis is purportedly caused by a specific bacterium called 'treponema pallidum. The tertiary, or final, stage of the disease is rather fearsome, and the patient can seem to be rotting as though dead while still alive.

Traditionally, of late, syphilis has been treated with penicillin, the tetracyclines class of drugs, or erythromycin, especially in cases where the patient has been found to be allergic to penicillin.

Syphilis is called "the Great Imitator" because it shares symptoms with many other illnesses, ranging from simple acne to "full-blown AIDS"—whatever that is. In fact, many people diagnosed with HIV may actually have undiagnosed syphilis, also or instead of AIDS. What's in a name? Almost all of the treatments for this class of illness destroy the human immune system anyway. The term "AIDS" is a reference in itself to this effect, meaning "acquired immune deficiency syndrome."" The treatment for syphilis is sometimes a means for acquiring an immune deficiency, after several re-treatments or even only a few.

Some medical journals say that people often last longer without treatment of syphilis than with. People have lived for thirty or forty years before definite signs of tertiary (full-blown) syphilis have occurred. Milder symptoms were suffered by untreated people until the tertiary stage was reached.

Loss of vision, and insanity from the disease between the brain and spinal column, are major symptoms of tertiary syphilis, along with the usual minor and major skin breakdowns. And eventual sign of the illness in the skin is tiny "gummas"—small sores that resemble scabbed-over pimples and which are often "benign," meaning that the disease is not presently severe. They are potentially contagious. The open sores spread the disease through physical contact. The disease can be acquired through the hands, and care should be exercised in treating or touching the patients.

A piece of advice: if you suspect you're a victim of "the Shepherd," and that you've had a bite of his "pie," don't have a spinal tap done. It might be recommended, but it hurts like the dickens, and it can expose your spinal fluid to the illness, making matters worse. Try not to rub your eyes, pick your nose, or pick at any scabs on your body. That spreads it, too.

I submit humbly that alternative medicine is a good use, rather than the usual radical drug treatments that are typical of modern medicine. Those kinds of treatments can break down and destroy the patient's immune system, leaving the patient vulnerable to any opportunistic infections whatsoever. That's why many treated people have been saying to die faster. But you should shop around for desirable treatments. Exercise is the greatest thing you can do. Go for the Olympics! Or, barring that, walk around the block as frequently as you think of it.

Do not get pregnant if you think _you've_ got syphilis, if you don't think there's a major risk. It is kind of impossible to tell, sometimes. It is because you may have to be treated while pregnant, as the doctors at the hospital will possibly cause you to treat the infant. Maybe, maybe not. It comes like a shepherd herding sheep. Babies get angry if our enemies die quickly. You could get checked for syphilis, but watch out for being over-tested or pushed around by know-it-alls.

Read about "the Great Imitator" and see what you think. I feel like I've discovered the secret origins of AIDS. Nevertheless, I'm not happy. For after all, does it even begin to _matter?_ Probably not. As of this date, "they" list syphilis in medical journals as treatable, incurable, rare, and monetizable.

Do not die _trying!_

\--Gabrielloa Hooter, Class of 1979

Chthonian Lake High School, Gahanna, Ohio

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This symbol is the sign of studied chaos.

You need to learn to appreciate it.

If you don't, you get one of those mass mailings

Where you have to send a copy each to ten friends;

In other words, avoid a subhuman nightmare,

And believe in wisdom. Instead,

Write your Mother _right now,_ every day,

Letting her know where you are.

Why there's a _Jesus Christ_ \--the fictional character—Daedalus Myth version (the old Man, the One and Only Savior, the Hebrew Name of...Seattle)

O HAPPINESS, WHOSE heartless pain to which my soul is ever-turning. Somebody once said that there is no such thing as a patient explanation.

I was shifttlessly leafing through miles and miles of piles _de coleccions del historias_ I'd salvaged, most of which I'd saved from childhood days, some of which were maybe worth many Desdemona coleccionistas. Helter-skelter I came across an ancient Greek myth I could barely remember, but had scance forgotten in its substancia's. There's a whole important literary magazine named after it. "Daedalus."

It was in a fifty-year-old, dog-eared libro des moldy old stories I'd first read in junior high, when my World History class had briefly studied ancient Greece. There was a goodly amount of delving into the lituratura's, some of which stuck with me as well, as in may also have with you. The stories, translated into English, were very Latinate, and completamente Latin Great. I reread a bit. To wit:

One early short Greek story, enclosed in the midst of scenes pertaining to the major Greco-Roman deity Poseidon (Neptune), one of the Trinity of top Divinities, also called Triton, concerned the exploits of a noted "Greek" teacher and former Roman senator named Daedalus. "Us" was a common name-ending in ancient Greece.

It seems that Daedalus was standing on a beach (as in On the Beach), and was arguing with a Roman general of an army from some city or another about something to do with troop movements, when, according to an earlier part of the story, Poseidon (Roman god as well as Greek) magically appeared in the waters off the beach. This was due to Daedalus' breaking a promise he'd made to the deity concerning his not telling the general about certain information he wasn't supposed to give out to him. Mostly hanging around there listening, that angered Poseidon, Neptune for short, overheard Daedalus tell the general what he wasn't s'posed to, and, taking the form of a giant sea serpent, the God scooped the teacher up from his position in his massive, dripping, gruesome jaws and ate him, CRUNCH, in true MGM dinosaurian people-eating Style. Godzilla, they say, owes loads to his story. Daedalus on the other hand is recorded as having screamed a lot.

This is one of the few Greek myths to relate the tale of a single person choosing, on his own alone and unassisted, to stand up to one of the three major Greek deities of those times. Daedalus, says the myths, chose to do what he thought of as the Right Thing and paid no Heed to Poseidon's warnings that trouble would come and his death would result if he was so reckless as to act on his own, disobeying the See God. Well, he just went ahead and did and got himself killed for his efforts!

Daedalus was an old man, after all, and part of his decision was that he was already physically unwell, therefore not having a whole lot to lose. He also was not the most populous sort of ex-senator, being kind of blasé and ordinary; his acquaintances roundly encouraged him against this presumptuous act of defiance because they thought it would be selfish of him. Ancient Greeks considered such an attitude as Daedalus chose to exhibit to be morbid and suicidal, not at all the admirable thing to do. But he was a respected ex-senator and a well-known and beloved teacher, and so felt capable of acting at his own behest.

Back then such teachers were often called "sophists," which is why you became "sophisticated" by being taught your lessons. IF they were yours! Only male people, and freeborn Greek and Roman (maybe a few other places) citizens were allowed such sophistication at that time, that is, school attendance. Ever 'body else hadda suffer.

Defying the gods was not a happy pastime in these ancient south-western European cuentos. It usually resulted in muerto or Worse, such as Animal Transmogrification, severe loss of personal power, or loneliest utter banishment excile. Daedalus is in fact one of the truly rare cases of a nearly instantaneous Demise.

Other similar cases of Greek tragedy resulting from brave gods defiance include: being turned into a deer and getting eaten alive by dogs, being turned into pigs and slaughtered, having to wear a skin-eating shirt and getting burned up alive by fire, and of course the one where you're still being given very lengthy prayers and Latin to chant, some lasting All Day. You're not, are you?

Anyway. I dreamily recalled the jovenes in weird old escuela, when I'd spaced out some and while reading this cuento slowly realized it was one of the probable origins of the Christ fabula. I didn't care much for Daedulus or his futile act of empty bravado, for at the time it seemed to play a larger uncaring, faceless muchedumbre. However, I caught myself slipping over, for half-a second, into feeling a case of Poseidon worship, or defiance, an either direction sort of thing, as though I were submitting to or fighting with the watery deity instead of enjoying or memorizing the story for school. Perhaps I was dreaming of the birth of, ah Venus. Poseidon "took" a like all over 80 nymph in a similar manner to the way he "took" Daedulus; that act generated Aphrodite, who is, in Latin, Venus, and the Love Goddess.

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

It came to me this all had an awful lot to do with the same internal, ongoing, and overtly unhealthy orientation of the alcoholic thirst building secret momentum down deep in my dry throat. I was disconsolately dreaming of believing in bravely withstanding such unmitigated Coercion. It felt like I "gotta go out 'n hava coupla beers," as ol' Artie would put it; if I leafed through a few more magazines instead, that'd put me down for the night just as santo y muy bueon.

No, I gotta have it. Time to swim on down to the Krakatoa for to bibulously imbibe. Blort. Bloooop.

Can you tell me which letter of the alphabet WON'T appear in the Tale below? I'll give a hint: it's NOT the usual letter "e" or any other ones whatsoever.

HOW TO GIVE AWAY the peanut—a problem that plagued the Elven realm forever...well, for a Long Time. It will be hard to accept the peanut. Not important enough when believed in, and there are mice attached to not relating to it.

Rejecting the peanut commonly worked; however, another whole Way of Life can be redeveloped for the Faire folk who are involved. The appearance of Dwarf folk enable the peanut-rejector to get by without a weapon, but it will become a knotty problem for their Tribe. Eventually.

The Elven magically influence the available people--nearly all feel their eerie Power. The importance of clothing the body and acting in a manner peculiar to the Elven became picked up on and an attempted imitation of Elfdom followed. It led to feeling part of the "in" crowd. Once again the Fairie Tribe crowd could tell they had been taken from the Elven. It hurt! The Elven had a reputation for thievery, but it made them be taken from, by and large. That gave the Fairie Tribe a kind of Revenge.

Elven imitation will ever be done in order to get involved with what will inevitably never be out of Fairie, alone. To handle that imitation, the Fairie make like and Admirer, but truly, that became totally unreal long ago. It would never be true that it can be in order for fair weather to be both permanent and changeable, the attempt to replace the Elven with Fairie. There will not be the ongoing attempt to replace the Dryadae, not for long! They appear to be weak but aren't, and though appearing expendable are badly needed. The Elven appear weak like the Dryad folk, but not very. Too much were not enough. How will the peanut ever even begin to Fit In?

Fairie are really Elven yet, and not yet, but the rule that got rid of the Body of Elven countree except for certain procedural coding cannot be ended. That will not be done in order to keep a form of complex propriety going....it will be difficult to fathom, later. It may well have to do with the fairitization of the Entire Kingdom, which it may have cannibalized. Altogether the Elven will not be completely Fairie.

It will have been done the One Time Alone, and never again, except for the very next Friday.

And--how to take on the Word. Peanut. It were a problem. There can be an over-emphatic manner to it: the other Elven are not yet participating in the game in quite the identical way. Indeed, including them in the Peanut Ceremony would change the manner of carrying on and partying that mainly charted the road for the privately-mentioned Elven. Indeed, it would change the entirety of the Peanut Ceremony. No more partying forever. No more unreality Game without meaning could take place.

New torture device-idea-mice could be executed; the Elven/Fairie/Dwarf civilization would unmantle it then; if fun did that it would improve. A Good Thing? If the Elven world war no fuller to including the peanut (indeed they have plenty of trouble with the djinn and the genae...The Fairie Tribe, being imitative ever, would follow it when told.

But the argument involved meant a need for Power over and above and in reality.

The only way to Obtain it--and to leave Fairyland for good--would be to have Power in the real, living World. Whither THAT, for nay folk (oh, what you will!), and becoming real time and again... when reality may have no Elf, it may be time to Be. Until there be no Elf, there will be...peanuts.

In this paper I will discuss the effects of alcohol during pregnancy:

Fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS) describes the effect of alcohol on the fetus. It is a preventable disorder and the overwhelming pain and guilt faced by the prospective mother can be eliminated from the beginning if she does not consume alcohol during her entire pregnancy.

In spite of the known effects on the developing embryo, our society, sadly, socially accepts and tolerates the drug substance known as alcohol.

Is our social tolerance to blame, or is it our own neglect of personal responsibility? Could it be that child neglect doesn't begin after birth, but rather starts from the very beginning of pregnancy?

Everyone should know by now that drinking alcohol during pregnancy can create serious problems, causing physical and mental disabilities in the newborn child. More than 40,000 babies are born in the U.S. each year with fetal alcohol-related defects.

If a mother-to-be consumes one or two drinks a day during the first two months of pregnancy, she will probably have a baby would slow reaction time and difficulty paying attention. Once the damages are done the effects are long term and won't go away.

The real damage is devastating and in most cases the malformation can be very traumatic for both parents to experience. Effects are: stunted growth, microcephalus, poor eyesight, learning disabilities and hyperactivity.

There is a real message. Fetal alcohol injury shows a very specific recognizable pattern of malformation in all aspects of human development, because alcohol can virtually attack any of the body cells. Fetal alcohol syndrome is not just a childhood disorder, but also it is a long term progression of the disorder into adulthood. It poses a greater challenge to families and is harder for them to manage.

Studies conducted at the Child Development Mental Retardation Center and the Alcoholism Dog Abuse Institute of the University of Washington Medical School, Seattle, conclude:

"Fetal Alcohol Syndrome is recognized as the leading known effect of mental retardation in the U.S., surpassing Downe's Syndrome and spina bifada." Journal of the American Medical Association, April 17, 1991. Also, "Alcohol is a teratogenic drug capable of producing life-long disabilities after uterine exposure." JAMA, Ibid.

"Fetal injury associated and maternal ethanol ingestion is a major effect of congenital anomalies and disabilities in the newborn." Science Journal, Oct. 14, 1988, p. 273.

The U.S. Surgeon General cites this advice: "The Surgeon General advises women who are pregnant (or considering pregnancy) not to drink alcoholic beverages and to be aware of the alcohol content of food and drugs." FDA Bulletin, July, 1981. This was mailed to over one million physicians and health care professionals in the United States. "Just So It's Healthy," Lucy Barry Rake, 1982, p. 43.

At this point in time, we are witnessing on TV commercials a depiction of alcohol usage that provides beer, as a product, commercial support for casual attitudes among the general population towards its consumption. Also, our healthcare professionals, physicians, and other related professions must escape this trap first so that they can lead their patients to more realistic understanding of the substance and its effect.

At present time, there is no known treatment for FAS, and so health officials can only send their messages that FAS is highly preventable through education.

Many physicians who were trained years ago and have not kept up with research are still telling their patients that it's all right to have a drink or two each night. In November of 1989, a federal law was passed requiring all alcoholic beverages to carry warnings about birth defects and other hazards of drinking. But still too many prospective parents are not getting the message.

If a woman, even when alcoholic, stops drinking before she tries to become pregnant, her fetus will not develop FAS or any alcohol-related defects.

But pregnancies are not always planned. So if a woman doesn't realize for several weeks that she is pregnant, she might not stop drinking in time to prevent permanent harm to the fetus.

Good quality prenatal care (including screening for alcohol use) throughout pregnancy is also an important factor in preventing FAS, and if treatment is needed, it can be started immediately. Progress can be monitored by the attending physician throughout the prenatal period.

"The AMA has issued a scientific report and developed public education brochures clearly supporting the position that all women who are or who plan to become pregnant should be counseled and assisted in abstaining from any use of beverage alcohol." JAMA, Oct. 21, 1988, "Alcohol Abuse Patients." Bowen and Sammons.

It is possible that many intelligent mothers will respond to this compelling message, but it is still up to physicians to go ahead and tell prospective mothers to abstain from alcoholic beverages. It is important information, which patients and professionals need to ensure healthy pregnancies.

\--Writer Reggie P., Edited by Ghost Writer, Inc.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Journal of the American Medical Association, April 17, 1990

Science Journal, Oct. 14, 1988, p. 273

FDA Bulletin, July, 1981

"Just So It's Healthy," Lucy Barry Rake, 1982, p. 43

JAMA, Oct. 21, 1988, "Alcohol Abuse Patients," Bowen and Sammons

PATIENCE...

...if you should wait...but one more hour...

How I greet you softly,

After all these years;

I could...spare...the _tears_...tomorrow,

So softly...

As I greet you there...

As I greet you there...

As I...greet...you...there.

"Softly"—again, by an Unknown Songster

Gabe Pens a _Murder Mystery_ , Featuring the Alluring Amateuse _Sybil Smythe:_

HANG-MAN or The Sign Points Left, a One-Bedroom Story Done In the Manner (my house hath many) of Ellery Queen | Agatha Christie, God's authors.

SHE PULLED a piece of typing paper out of the manuscript pile she was currently working on, and carefully went over her hastily penciled notes.

"At first I thought the new little sign in the garden read 'O space space O space.' Then, I timidly ventured down into the garden to get a closer look at the distant, unfamiliar, obscure, and threatening sign. It was newly, peculiarly there...

"A few days ago, a young man committed suicide, or so the authorities and the newspapers claimed. He apparently jumped off the freeway overpass a few blocks from our apartment building. I and my husband, Walter, passed by there in our car and saw the tiny crowd gathered at the railing. They were all young, dressed as gay partiers out for a night of fun. We lived mid-city, near an area famed for attracting variable wildlife. But suicide was something new. This group looked worried, nervously peering down at the traffic below. No view of the body was possible from our angle; nothing could be seen. For all we knew, nothing had really happened.

"About a week later, we passed by the same area, about 30 feet or so east, further up the bridge overpass. We saw the police covering over the possibly still-living body of a young Black man. He may have been shot, and a newer group of "admirers," including police, was hovering around near the bus stop. We cruised by just as they began covering him over, which was quite a coincidence. To say the least!

"Back at our apartment building, I suddenly noticed a peculiar new object in our apartment's surrounding garden. I felt as though it had been there for a while, but I had not noticed it consciously.

"One of the tenants here, Rod something, don't know his last name, works in the garden sometimes for the manager, whose name is John. He gets a little money for this. I also work around here, cleaning the laundry room for $100 a month. Every little bit helps...

"The funny new thing I saw in the garden, sighting down from the seventh floor, was a half-t scaffold. It was a style they used in the past to hang a single person, both in reality and effigy. From upstairs it looked to be about a foot tall from that distance. It was made of rough wood, using a natural tree branch as the main post, and it mostly resembled a game we used to play as children, on paper, called "Hangman's Noose" or HANGMAN.

"In the game, one player draws the scaffold, very simply in stick figures, and put spaces for each letter of a word underneath the sign. It can also be a whole phrase. Then the other players guess letters in the word, or phrase. Each time a player is wrong, a body part is drawn, starting with the head, of the figure supposedly hanging from the scaffold. If a player correctly guesses the word before the figure is completed, the player has won. If not, the figure is "hung" and that player has lost the game.

"I hesitatingly went down to the garden via the west stairwell. The door opens outside and is the only entrance to the large green outdoor area where the new sign was placed. Rod was known to mostly work in the other, larger green strip on the building's opposite side. But he'd said once before that he done some things down here, I recalled, as I walked up a series of stone steps within the garden. They brought me up to a higher level where there was a black garden lantern, and the sign.

"It was rather artistic; I hadn't seen the pretty colors from above. The scaffold's arm pointed from the right to the left. Something seemed to be odd about that. In the kids' game Hangman, the arm of the scaffold usually points the other way. From above, the lettering had appeared spaced in this manner, reading left to right: O dash dash O dash.

"Suspended from the foot-high art sculpture, for that's what it was, were two round, flat, dull, grey-painted metal pieces, approximately four inches in diameter. There were faces cut into them. Two eyes and a nose, apiece. Each face was different, with three openings made in a cookie-cutter shape. I recognized a star, a diamond; and other such designs. In all there were six openings, three on each piece.

"There were only two of these pieces, or circles, from which I had derived, from my viewpoint above, the 'O's of the supposed word. I had certainly interpreted them as symbolic of the letter O, and also as symbolic for each of the men who had died recently, due to the obvious faces cut into them. There also was space for three

'ANG-MAN more such circles, in line with the other two, as there were three wooden posts projecting downwards from the scaffold's arm. There were five such posts and all.

"Reading it the supposedly correct way, which was difficult as it would have to be backwards, right to left, the sign read, 'space O space space O.' I didn't know what to make of that. I thought to myself: if it's a game of Hangman, it's primarily missing the other players, who are supposed to guess or tell me if I'm right in my guesses. Without them, there's no way to play the game. So it appeared to me to be an odd bluff. How can I tell, if there's no way, what the game's word is? Is it a person's name? What does the word mean? Do the three empty spaces presage three more nearby demises? How would the sign maker know that they did, unless he or she were the murderer?

"I began to think in terms of solving the puzzle. I snuck back upstairs, half-heartedly hoping I hadn't been seen. In our apartment, I sat down with pencil and paper. I wrote, if the sign post should point from right to left, instead of from left to right, the sign reads 'O space space O space' as I originally thought. If not, the word should be transposed. I attempted to fill in the word, going in either direction."

She wrote down every candidate that came to mind. Out of the possibilities she could invent, she decided that "Orion," "Romeo," "pollo" (Spanish for 'chicken'), and "Jocko" were the likeliest to have some special meaning. Then again, there was the local, Washington state phenomenon known as the "Lotto," where every few months ticket-holders got a crack at a few million dollars in the state lottery.

"There's no way to confirm what the real answer is, I figure. Also, it could work to switch an "a" for one or two of the "o"s, or other vowels could be substituted, although that might be construable as cheating. But I don't even know that the gray smiley faces are "o"s. Anyway, given that case the word would be "Oprah," after the famous talk-show host. Or it could be "Harpo," the other way around.

"Come to think, perhaps the spacing refers to the locations of the deaths, not to the letter "o." If so, there is a threat of two more deaths on the overpass bridge between the first two locations. And a third new death, on the street corner beyond the bus stop. There is certainly room there, for on the corner is a giant artwork of four Greek colonnades.

"Should I report this to the police?" she asked herself.

SOLUTION TO HANGMAN

She didn't call the police. After poking around mentally some more, she came up with a strong lead towards solution of the mystery mini-artwork.

"Near the street corner beyond the bus stop stand four tall, wide pillars, light grey-colored and Romanesque: I forget what the three major styles of those columns are called...doric is one, Ionic is another, I believe. Each column is like the others, and they stand at least twenty-five feet tall. They're about four feet in diameter, and located about a half mile east of downtown Seattle, situated diagonally to the arterial running past. They're in a line maybe twenty-five feet wide, set far back on a green area with two park benches directly in front of them. They quietly and hugely loom over the landscape, vast and mysterious. There's no earthly reason I can see, after looking them over, for their existence. It's quite eery.

"The columns clearly made an impression on Rod's (or someone's) mind. He's very artistic and has arranged and kept the gardens here almost entirely by himself. The large one is in a curious and unique triangular pattern. He's constantly maintaining it. I see him working there a lot, out of my window.

"The deaths may have inspired what could be Rod's piece of artwork. It's no threat, perhaps. The empty spaces (there's a theater in town called The Empty Space), although there are apparently three of them, actually merely represent the four Greek columns. They're hard to miss, but blend into the background after you've driven past several times. I figured it out after I realized there was a secret fourth bar leading down from the signpost arm, to the far left. It's much shorter than the others. Rod made it very inconspicuous. Rod, by the way, is rather short.

"If I kept trying to make a word out of the signpost, or scaffold, it would now have to include that first, difficult-to-see bar. Then it would read, from left to right or right to left, either one, 'space O space space O space.'

"This is symmetric, and implies the four columns as the inspiration, combined with the two recent deaths, which inspired the artwork in the garden. Perhaps WWII's concept of a Nazi "fifth column" also is involved. But one thing puzzles me...when exactly did whoever-it-was make the two round, grey metal pieces with the cut-out smiles? I don't recall exactly when the sculpture first appeared downstairs, but it must have been nearly simultaneous to the overpass deaths.

"Dear, dear. I can't remember what happened first, or how far it was spaced apart." Well, who can? NOBODY solves these fictional murder mysteries!

Editor's Note: Perhaps the word solution is HOLLOW. "Should I call the police? That's hollow, because they might arrest _me,_ and not the crooks." Other solutions: Moscow, wallet, willow, morrow, cannon, GORDON, JORDON, follow...

#  Chapter Six

NO DUAL _ONIONS!_

Or,

The Writing in the Sky Solemnly Proclaimed Continuance;

But the Strong Man is Mightiest Alone.

WE TOLD YOU SO,

WE TOLD YOU SO,

BUT DANS MIGHT DISAGREE, MAYBE

AFTER SEVERAL MONTHS of mystery, Gabe got a message on his answering machine. It began with some hard-to-hear muttering, which sounded like "give her one injection afternoon and another morning" and then the mightily-missed voice of Flo Hemberkin came on, saying "you gotta hear about this, Gabriel, you'll really jump outa your britches."

"They found Therese Nathaniel! She's okay, we checked her back in here yesterday. She was shaky, but happy, very pleasant to everybody, and the doctor's talking about taking her off of everything, maybe even her LD medications.

"She was staying with her sister, and she started having these dizzy spells, falling down, about two weeks ago. They brought her in to Ridgeview, the ER, and found she had really low blood pressure and low levels of oxygen and iron in her blood. Low hemoglobin. So they put her on a couple meds to raise her pressure and counter-balance the side effects, and had her walking up and down the halls to oxygenate her blood."

At this point the machine tape was full and the recording was cut off. It had been a long message, but the tape section had taken it. Gabe punched the 'rewind' and 'erase' buttons. He called his old workplace and asked for Flo.

She came on. "Hi, big fella! Your tape wouldn't take all of my long-winded message—so you want to hear the rest?" "Yes! Please tell me about Therese."

Flo laughed into the phone. "You wouldn't believe it, she looks so much better than when she left. She's seen her daughter. I hear she's the cutest little kid, has a head full of curls--she was very sick, some kind of swine flu or that, you know. She got better right away after mama went out to see her! Back on her feet in three weeks."

"How long are they going to keep her there?" Gabe thought only of Therese falling back into her old bad patterns and peculiarities. "Not long. Maybe a week, monitor her while they stabilize her meds. We were right, she did turn out to have physical problems. We're going to do our level best to help her. She'll shape up. She's great already.

"Say, you vanishing kid you, what's your new phone number? I can have Therese call you when she's back from dinner, if you want."

"My number is yours, my Royal Nut, with gratitude." He gave it.

Therese called about 8:30, in the middle of a Cross-Fire return. Gabe was glad to shurt it off. What a miserable, violent idea for a TV show. The emcee's head was on straight, but his heart was definitely taking it to hell with him. Gabe thought he knew the reason why, and felt sad for the host.

Therese's enthusiasm and gratitude were as boundless as the open Wyoming prairie. She sounded ten times as alive as he had ever known. She joyously related to Gabe the equally lively nature of her now-well daughter, and blew Gabe a kiss for each year she was old. "Thanks Superbatman, you unmitigate saint in bleached polyester! She was slipping away when I arrived! Maybe I kept her awake for long enough..."

DAN NUTS WAS GOING CASHEW, not working a job anymore. He had all that money saved up from starring in...well, running the camera behind the scenes, and appearing briefly...in a gay porno flick filmed in Unionville. Said town was the local Gay Mecca, the San Francisco of Northern Washington. Dan had $60,000 USD burning yet another hole in his tight, cowboy-fitting jeans. What to do with the money? He couldn't buy love with it, not from anyone. Well, maybe not _just_ anyone! But hey, the streets were crawling with those who could be found, wearing a hanky sticking unobtrusively out of his back pocket...men to die for. To die for, an odd phrase; whatever did it mean? Oh, _that!_

But was Dan really a flagrant fag? A man about town? A person of interest to those who craved divinely angelical white, pale flesh? Or did he seek another goal, once threatened with death – to discover the personhood of a girlfriend, a REAL girl and not a boy in makeup – somebody he could get – gulp- _prego?_ What did Life mean, if he wasn't a Daddy, a father, a progenitor of the Human Race? Or, what if he spent the rest of his life researching Gay Porn, in order to make further movies...it was either that, or wash dishes and hope to be discovered. It was the 80s, the era of Coming Out of the Closet. But, was Danny Boy even _in_ one?

What good is life without money? And what good is money, without life? Could Dan keep up his "nutty" attitude, or would he find out someday that your self is something that cannot be denied altogether that easily? Making fun was his forte, but fortissimo, the day was dawning of the error of his ways.

SHE WAS THE first pretty girlfriend ever, anywhere in the Universe. At fourteen, she looked like she was a gorgeous six-year-old, turning 30 overnight.

He was an Unknown young man, unable to concentrate on his schoolwork.

She was almost blond, but not really, yet charming and sweet. Glistening spun-gold curly locks, a...easy smile? Dunno... she was mostly white, neat-looking, avec the palest of all green eyes. Jade, like what you find on the beach.

...so I was brave. I talked to her at school. I was shudderingly nice. I was SO nice. I wanted to die! No...

"Under any consideration, would you care to let me take your arm as we go out for a milkshake or coffee after this teddibly sophisticated hodge-podge known as school...?"

"No..."

"But, may I ask why not?"

"Nope. I don't like you."

I had to gulp at this point, being a virgin, never knowing whatever else to say. Never.

Then, I tried again the next day (oh God, is she gone? Nope, still there...)

"NO."

Louder. "But, why?" And I tried unsuccessfully to look as disappointed as I possibly could. "Because I'm always..." And I looked at her, with this hopelessly, heartlessly, lost look of totally loyal undying love. I wanted only her. Forever. I would live only for... her. And it filled my entire body, to the point of over-flowing my heart, which was about to jump out of me and into her. She was that absolutely charming and gorgeous. And a blonde. And possessed a vagina, and maybe my...ME.

And she was white. Or not. And, dammit, she claimed and took over everything. My all, as I'd been told. Pitilessly. For always. And my body just cared, or something, and was echoing with ruthless passion for her...

And I kept looking at her like she was My Goddess. Her. La Virgin, de Me.

Finally, as though she knew that, she went ahead and said.

Yes while looking down a lot pretending to comtemplate our likeliest fate and we met and went out for coffee, like adults and the entire time, without staring at her the feeling continued I never stared, or cast her any painful looks but always I was aware of her and that total, overwhelming feeling that I had to barely ride the swelling edge of to keep it from being lust. It really WAS lost, and nothing BUT lust. So that's why my heart thudded...

...and she was supremely beautiful and wonderful. The entire enchanting time.

I heard music constantly, violins, horns, and flutes. I died in her winsome smile. I would not ever leave her, never, unless she told me to. I would die if she did. I would find us a way! If only she would let me take her home with me! To stay...

Then, we went up to somewhere, about, say, well, it was a building. A familiar... church...building...something with a normal Latin cross on it...a gibbet for malefactors...and she meant that...led me clear up to the top of the bell tower...with an inside stairway? No, I led her up there, taking her silky hand.

And, and, and the feeling streamed, as tears do, obliterating all else, and my eyes were begging silently, but to myself, God, let me go...

And her sweetly gulping, well, purity

And holding her hand, it was life itself, but God instead. For always? No...behind us, protecting us, ever failing at guarding our imaginary serenity, security and peace... and I...I gave her this downcast, sorrowful look while I was laughing hollowly down at the hilarious and brilliant green below. Down, below, and at her. I must, somehow, laugh at her. Mustn't I?

"Should I? I timidly cowed at her. "What d'ya think? I was fear itself.

And she locked those tragic eyes with me, emerald green eyes and mind as one with this wild untrammeled stare at sheerest joy. I should jump, now, right now, she seemed to plea, oh please, and the perverted school, the boredom, the insanity, the servitude, the waiting...end it? Be a man? Whatever? "Yes!" she cried, NOW, I thought, and then she was going to spoil it all by telling me she was not a virgin, somehow, but she only tried to touch me before I was over the edge...she was screaming.

How I loved her voice. How I wished she would join me. At least her hands were there again, on my back, like twin anger wings

When I did jump, YES, out the tower, first climbing up the laughable short barrier at impossible speed, her hands claw at my back, and I launched...me. She was all class--beauty incarnate--you know BYUOO-ty, like Buford Pusser...true love personified, never even kissed once. She who was to be mine, simply and forever, without any such thing as a casual divorce.

She would NEVER forget me. So fast, my body didn't fail during the plunge. The wedding plunge! Swan die, arms out spread, a graceful arc and a magnificent site for any unfortunate life-ridden weirdo on the moronic ground as I flew, God, I flew, and the wind almost took me away. The end, arly an' all.

Yawn.

But of course I bounced off the air-conditioning unit I hadn't exactly, kind of, like, you KNOW, maybe previously noticed before, sitting on the ground below the tower, denting it to exactly my inane size as I landed, rolling, oh God what a long smashed falling role, sprawling arms and legs and soul falling off the busted thing, my stupid HEAD

and the sickly grass smelled sweetly emerald green, fresh-mowed, but not yet, as it wasn't even mowed today, I knew, as the cracking, crinkling metal screams yaaaaaaawningly roooooooollllllled the pain off, me landing on something so plushy rotten with caked grass and dirt, and so cushily only spongy that it was warm, with good, no, goo, with my goo, for the most horribly frustrated moment of my life I spurted out my very first orgasm, _har,_ but no such luck. Dead seed. I lay there broken, gashed, spouting, spouting, touching the grass tips in peace like it was her hair...undeceased, undiseased...waiting for death, surcease of the pain. It didn't, li'l dickie sat back down again, waited for nothing. And still there is nothing for one such as me.

"I'M AFRAID TO be homosexual. I aim to be normal. But, do you know what "normal" means, really? It means 'bad north,' in French. Why?" Not bad. British comedy wins another round. Mal de la Norte. The secret ideal of White people is that they are normal, you see, and that everyone else is radically insane.

The above elaboration, and certainly something more, was being told to Thomas DaLieken by a fairly young Dan Nuts. You know him already as a bartender at the Krak. Thom was Italian and was almost stereo-typi-cally gregarious, emotional, and outgoing. Plus, he was handsome, very much so. Not so stereotypically cast was his ability to listen and his willingness to care about others' problems. He was the town "papa bear," providing sad locals with intermittent hugs and unobstructive love, though himself a naïve youngster at 37. He'd acquired a nice reputation as "a shoulder, an ear, and a crying towel. I like being used. Use me." Dan Nuts did.

"Mom, you won't believe this, she used to, well, hurt me. It's real hard to talk about. She just hated me. She wouldn't give me any love at all. They left me alone all the blasted time. I spent a lot of time talking to myself. I'd go to them with a really bad problem, and either one or both would bust up laughing at me. They thought it was cute; they didn't care. Mom slapped me one time, just cuz I complained...Dad was always cold, too. They're Death disguised as a married couple. I couldn't explain them to me, let alone others. Why'd they bother to even have kids? They didn't begin to know how to treat us.

"I used to have these arguments with myself about morality, from what I picked up on ethics in books. Mommy and daddy never taught me any. I'd take one side, argue it, then I'd take the opposing side. Eventually nothing moral made sense anymore. It all died anyway," Dan whispered, drumming his fingers on a polished wooden table.

Thom: "Did you have a big family?"

Dan: "No, it was me and my brother. Yeah. I couldn't get it, why they ever had us, what for. They hated both of us to death, never gave us any love or respect."

Thom: "Ever talk to your brother about your feelings?"

Dan: "Yeah, but he said to hold on and survive it, forget it, grow up and leave. Get some work, get a life."

Dan was 19, recent-turned, and was thinking about doing exactly that. In addition, or perhaps in relationship to permanently leaving home, he also figured he'd be gay. "I seriously believe my family was nuts. God, such a joke. They actually took it seriously. Mom married and became Shari Nuts, and, well, Shari went nuts. Maybe names matter. What can I say?" Dan flashed his all-purpose foolhardy fairytale grin. He was a known rampant clown, a conspicuous brain-teaser, made people laugh at little observable provocation. Also, he was youthfully slim and cute, in an average sort of way.

Thom sighed, wishfully brushing back his chestnut-brown, neck-length barbered hair. He hadn't been in a decent salon since 1988, when he'd moved to Rama from Reno, Nevada. He didn't know what to say to these words of Dan's, although somehow it didn't bother him much that his particular wise-guy kid might happen to become gay. He'd already gone ahead and thought so, but was mildly hoping Dan was becoming more like him, happily male, content with his masculevity, silly, apologetic but aggressive, a funny, outgoing, politely cheerful guy. A bearer of right-sized burdens. Small balls.

"I'm deep, hahaha," quoth Dan. "I'm NOT shallow. I don't want to only sexually reproduce. I need to do something monumental with my Life. Maybe travel down to southern Cal, break into serious acting in artistic films. It takes connections, very elaborate connections. You have to understand; you mustn't let ordinary people get in your talents' way. You're obliged to learn and then to leave the dustier beaten paths alone. Certain kinds of people stop you...."

"Do you want to live near them, I mean, your folks?"

"My brother is in upper Cleveland now. We were pretty close, then he got married. She's nice, but they are so far away, and they hardly write or call me. They both know I'd like to hear from them. Why don't I? Do I have to call?

"It seems like Fate to me. Ohhhh. I'm a flash in the Pan. I was meant to be a peaceful, nasty girl, I mean, boy, oh, man...WOMEN!" Dan laughed, tittering, taking to a higher vocal range than his. Definitely unnatural, but charming.

Thom mulled things over. "It's your choice. You can choose to do whatever you want in this here life. Nobody'll stop you." The younger man frowned, very artificially; if he'd been but five years older, Thom thought, he'd have reminded him of this guy he used to almost know.

"Hey, do you personally, without your group or the mainstream head, I'm all ears on that one, do you think I should be gay?" inquired Dan. His voice was dropping significantly lower. He blinked at Thom, narrowing his eyes.

"Well, I think you should be whatever you really want to be. What makes you happy. You decide. And for that other matter, what do you think is the genuinely right thing to do? It might not go away all by itself. Where do the two conflict, what you want out of life, and what you think is right? Where do they meet?

Pensive is the word for what Dan looked like. Pensive. "Is it dangerous to be gay? I don't believe so. Not if I'm very, very careful. But it might make my life harder, and I hear it's hard to find a good life-long partner. Isn't it, gay or straight? Or do you think it works better if you are straight, that it's easier to find a partner who was loyal?" Dan's parents were still married. "She's nicer now, but they both feel so far away and phony, and they hardly ever talk to me anymore. It's like they don't have human souls. They know I'd like that. Why don't they?"

Thom decided to make like a heterosexual loyalist.

"Yes, I really do think you should take the chance. I don't know what to suggest for you, what you should do, though. It's hard to find the woman of your dreams, and it's harder still to keep together. Even if you feel totally straight. No kidding," Thom said, gesturing at the unreachable past with his hand. He described his single failed marriage. "I loved her. Truly did. Gave it all. I wish she'd come back, gone ahead, but I played my cards fast and loose too many times. She copped to my bad nature, wouldn't conform to it. One day I raised my dumb, flat hand, and whew, Bingo, she were gone city." Thom's maturely ruddy face, deepening gently in the light, took on a greyish and steadfast confidence, sprinkled with a touch of cynical appreciation. He was envisioning old, dead, malingering problems. He couldn't be real, now, could he? Dan tilted a smile of sympathy, a tilt like a fedora hat, that, ah...duh, that certain smile. There was a youthful air of boyish doubt, uncertainty, nearly a look of painful recognition in Dan's as yet unformed smooth face.

"That wasn't the whole thing, was it?"

"No, not at all. We argued at least every other week. Her boss was weird. I wasn't making lots of dough ether. We didn't have any vacation for two years. Then one of our daughters came down with ALS. Amnio-tropic lateral sclerosis! You would not believe the mountain of hospital bills.

"If you don't want children at all, maybe you're better off being gay. But I fear for you, man. What if you ever regret it? World's loneliest future. You'll have to solve all those intrinsic problems. And it's the same chances for failure, maybe, either way, it's not necessarily so different being gay. He might not stick by you. Some folks get too worried...you practically must have a line of snappy patter, sell people on the idea. What about using regular old birth control, with a girl?"

Dan looked down at the floor, several feet's worth, in front of him. Like he was on a car on the freeway, gauging his distance behind another car. One car length ahead, one behind...

"How do you profess to know so much?" Dan suddenly looked arch. He knit two sandy eyebrows. He'd heard Thom'd been in many different world-wide locales in his life; Thom had been in the Navy for twelve years. Thom had literally "been around." That was the largest part of why Dan had chosen him to speak with.

"I'm widely travailed. Since my divorce, I've been all around the big bad globe. Europe, Australia, central Africa. Oh, nelly. There are gay folks almost everywhere. I go. They indeed look silly, but they're there. You don't see them all. Some people groan, to them it's awful, but others think it's lucky. It can be another social club, but it's also a major health and social hazard, I think STDs (sexually-transmitted diseases) abounding. But what can you say, with all the usual drugs around, anyway? Why pick on gays, in particular? So, there.

"You can get STDs heterosexually, too; I dunno. My beef with 'gayness' is that it involves completely giving up on an important part of the human condition, which is, simply, learning to love someone who's radically different from yourself. Like a real, faithful woman. Right?"

"I guess so. Still. I could learn to love women as friends do. What if that made them very happy?" Dan didn't look too interested in being right, as in 'right,' at this moment, somehow. Awwwww.

Finished with his speechifyin', Thom, who had neither wife nor girlfriend at that time, put his considerable chin in his ruddy hand, and dramatically sighed.

"Women are the Greatest. They're my reason for living, my raison d'etre."

Dan mistily gazed off and away, as if searching for a less shallow truth, but not with force or promise, to some middle distance, inclining his head. Out the window was a world..."I agree with you, that hating women is passé, but sometimes I don't have much faith in all people, period! Could be it's me. I can't tell what the big difference is. And both women and men are equally ruled, nice, obnoxious, fascinating, helpful, obsequious, boring, and cruel. And comical.

"Probably it has to do with what you do, yourself, trying and not giving up, to love the other person all you can every day." Dan, leaning against the bar, relaxed.

"I agree completely," said Thomas. But he still hoped Dan was kidding. Dan had always been a well-known kidder. The foregoing conversation wasn't necessarily real.

And, of course, Dan still believed that Thom was kidding. About taking in air? Well...Thom was a well-known kidder, too.

Perhaps neither of them were exactly ready for lambing season.

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AMERICA!

GABE _WOULD_ sell his soul to the Devil to win Sara's lifelong love...if. "If" is a poem by one Rudyard Kipling, in which he praised the dignity of soldiers involved in India and British courage, and mentions what Gandhi was into later on. What Kipling meant is if it ever worked, life would be a precious thing. Peace, love, freedom, something other than the onerous burdens named wretched War. But with what haste meets fate, with Death, the one thing Life depends on?

All they did was to meet and talk on the concrete stairs. There's a series of descending stone steps outside my apartment. I, your friendly neighborhood auteuse, saw them. They were very lively, lost in a rollicking discussion unheard, buzzing away, the topic having to do perhaps with the young "Hooter." From a distance, it almost seemed they were discussing his sex life. Or his career. Or his current suicidal tendencies. There was much rapid gesticulating. The devil was frowning something fierce. He looked sickeningly alike to the normal, off-white guy at the bus stop, the one the police were covering as "Sybil Smyth" silently passed by, on, or gas. Someone you wouldn't look twice at, arrested for breathing. Or someone elser, who controlled your Existence by scratching his damp behind.

Thin and hungry-bearing, he wore scarlet leisure clothes, as is his assumed usual, and while-with-it he maintained a pathetically world-weary expression, downcast about _lies_...neither homeless looking, nor friendly in any way.

He was pasted entirely black, having a lengthy Ethiopian visage, although he didn't resemble the carpetbagger bootblack on the newspaper-top tables at Wanda's New Fangled Chop-chop Burgers. In other words, Wendy's – where the sign is that of a Pickaninee, or a Wendigo. Prithee, 'twere mainly a reg'lar gent, a goodly set of years older than Gabe, and a tad bit short and emaciated, scurvy and scrofulous, the rascal. But he carried himself erect and well enough for an aging man, albeit a twirpy one...his legs were backwards.

His companion was youthful, muscular, and handsome, the kind of chap some women would find attractive. Your woman especially, if you have one.

Possibly. It was "Beau" Hooter –that, or his spittin' image—but the other chappie perhaps wasn't really the devil. I hope so. Nonetheless, I witnessed the both of them doing something rather untoward, reality, which is...they disappeared. After fading in and out of view, shimmering, and glancing all around themselves.

Poof!!!

There one moment, and the next, both were gone, as tho' nonexistent. Were they for real, or had I sneezed and bent down to pick up that banana peel?

I had turned away for but a moment.

Their voices faded, altogether tooooooo swiftly.

They could have run up or down the steps, but if they waltzed thusly, I would have seen them or heard their smacking feet. Welladay, I did not! It was a complete and spontaneous fade from all exeestence in this blessed realm for the both of them. Gone an' all-told and all-at-once. Obvious Martians from Antares.

They faded into nothingness outside the seventh-floor window of my one-bedroom apartment in downtown Seattle in the midday of August, Year of Our Lord 1991. I was working on this book. I could only stare after them, waiting for what I did not know, and to begin with, their wavelike murmering voices reappeared ever so slowly. Then their blurry forms coalesced from the bluer shadows, becoming dark-skinned people again. One of them seemingly was of the same age as the overpass suicide, the one I recounted somewhere deep in this book.

The odd duo came into my sight quite merrily, commenced heading back down the walkway, underneath me, just as though on a larking hike, having ambled blithely up there without my having seen them. The younger man looked happy and satisfied, the older or more pained black chap tired and sad.

I heard "the devil" say, with a kind of bottomless carefree sorrow, and not really aloud but in the back halls containing an underlying suspension of nebular ether being pumped into my unnecessarily besmirched and olive-and-pink frightened mind, "she doesn't really want us back," in then - and I witness them turn and vanish completely before my eyes. Before they left, me thought I heard one of them say, "It doesn't matter, true, she's ever done with living..."

Who was "she?" Me, or that blonde with the huge gazongas? The one hovering in mid-air, with the velvet wings and holding a purring kitten? Nah, which was just a billboard advertising...weird food. Drugs. Something lame.

Mistily I ascertained, in the midst of the incident, that the duo possibly represented something familiar to me. I had called to me, peradventure, they were Hades and Poseidon. Red and Black! Or so. The chthonian elder Greek deities.

Being that it's damnably fiery red underground, and deep, obscurest black under the waves of the hideous, abysmally deep oceans, it could be that, you know, that sort of thing. Really. Or the other way.

But...with that, make Gabe into the devil...and the other chap into Neptune? Or would I be Neptunian? Could it be that I had them reversed? Had I taken too many drugs lately? Should I start drinking decaffeinated coffee more often? Waitaminute, it gives you bladder cancer. So does sitting and typing a lot.

As I type, I feel that weird presence of winter coming, falling, twisting deeper in its roots out of the sky, descending dankly upon us. That chilling panic. There is the bleak, grey, stark, remote darkness, always too early. The feeble death of strengthening light. And that familiar and looming raw white quiet, largely I have resulting from the TV not being turned on. No powder snow, no ice, not as yet.

The outlying two planets did reverse orbits fairly recently, I understand. In my mind, the planets are way the hell too male, anyway, for a bunch of light-colored round objects. There's only two female, and the other seven male, excepting the one that's s'posed to be both. I think. The hot one. Anyway, Hades is the planet Pluto, and Poseidon is Neptune, which were the two furthest out. Now it's Uranus and Pluto, which could lead to some very idiotic sameness jokes about shittim wood, your anus, and the unspeakable depravities of racism and sexism.

Perhaps this far-out pair was castigating me for my furtively brief reference to Gabe's largely futile spate of masturbation, mentioned earlier (he really was only touching it) and although I may be reading something into it, perhaps somebody or other way down there was attempting to utter things untoward about the nature of my hero's sexuality. Which is upfront, not in the nasty back.

Well, _I don't share!_ I think everyone should own every part of their bodies that normally remain attached, provided nothing is ever a bother to certain of any others, especially as it usually isn't. Really. Unless they truly care about women, and are the only ones. And I mean personally. A damn sight more than _I_ do!

Besides, my kitty cat is sitting here purring on my lap, dozing away and being as laid-back as all get-out. That's right, ALL get out. As apparently also did a Gabe simulacron and a being rather than a skinny black homunculous, because they leapt out of my imagination AND SHOWED-OFF ON MY WALKWAY OUTSIDE, in your authoress's ACTUAL REALITY, there. Really...

A "homunculous," by the way, is a wild man with a single behind. Or a dwarf. "A very small human, or a humanoid creature...a fully formed microscopic being, like Woody Allen or me, as a completely formed fetus that a man is supposed to bury into the womb of a woman, alone and by his little sweetheart selfishnessless." We all do those things... _have you got that?_ Everybody does it, now and then. Otherwise, it's a joking reference, to, well, an intensively bad-taste joke about, ah, certain people! At least it applies overall.

Contrariwise...Medieval humor is not my bag, not now, anyway. They haven't caught m'yet! Another way to construe it (I am sure this is too boring to be an advertisement for beer in Ohio, but who knows) is "the man who's behind us a lot," perhaps an awful lot. BEHIND us. It's a reference to my old male grade school teacher(s), I guess. Teutonic state, tha.t O-hi-o. Four kids! 4 Dead Kids in Ohio, 1970, Kent State. They all thought they were NOT Hittling, which must be similar to Kippling. Or at least using red herrings (distractions from _reality_ ) like Gingers, or Blondes, or...blood-covered _rapists,_ getting off many times after committing multiple hideous senseless crimes (I repeat, I request that we all but expend our entire individually worthless lives, except in groups where they are so always right and _oh so_ wonderful, finding a rationic, salt-flavored solution for this, maybe through Saudi Arabia...but, what would _Russia_ say?) Bill Cosby is a comic, so it figures that maybe a ton of multiple women did it to him. Or reverse. Is he a homunculous, or a person...the debate of the Ages, without any mercy or logic to it?

"In Russia, strange man does not sexually assault _you,_ you assault sexually strange man..." NO...it's the peculiar impertinent being without a human soul, like Ra's Al Ghul from Batman Comics, who's behind us, stabbing away. In the dark of the middle of the day. However, if you were a dead prostitute's ghost from 1878, where would _you_ hide? What if you sought revenge? As a protester of sorts, which is an AWFULLY similar name. _Prostrate, protestant, prostitute..._ the Green River Murders, sadly enough, happened in the 1980s in the Seattle area. It took far too long to solve them, and took the lives of 70 young women. Took them... _where?_

No...really. _Rilly?_ Bill O'Reilly! Surely, he's Catholic. Well, _everyone_ is supposedly Catholic, which means we all died in the Holocaust and are not aware of it yet. Actully, most of the people who died outside Death Camps were Catholics. _I_ will be someday. "Catholic" means Universal, which though it's a motion pictures studio, is a theme park. What is the theme? Restless leg syndrome – you _must_ put this book down and go for a walk. I was born into a Protestant family of pseudo-Jews. _Honest!_ I think Woody Allen bat mitzvahed me through a long distance love letter. He wrote it to me in the 1970s. It was book length and totally fascinating.

_There was this SONG,_ _purportedly_ of the American Civil Rights Movement, entitled, "We Shall Overcome." With luck, it's not a reference to burning alive at the stake, which would be bittersweet, repugnant and annoying. Thanks (yuch!) to the relaxing of rape sentencing guidelines, and the definite but possibly, just possibly, inadvertent reference to "being overcome" (not to mention the Koranesque "We") in the song, there was certainly shortly thereafter in the 1960 as an actress, one starring in several Hollywood (holy wood?) B-movies, whose name (?) was...Tuesday Weld.

It has to do with the Ku Klux Klan's Loki worship, Viking warships, Nordic gods being our weekday names' origin, and recent job training innovations for women in the 1980s regarding technical details about being left to hold the road sign – indicating that you should drive around the major, teeming with various equipment being used by the fellas' construction area.

Which can be difficult under Global Warming in the dry or moist heat, sweating while standing there. So nowadays, more women are actually getting trained, instead of being told that after six months to a year of training, standing there is it. Took a long time for this to happen. In the summer down South, it gets so hot, you could fry an egg anywhere, except in a cemetary.

Well, now you know and have been apprised of that Secret Origin story of the, ah, of the Patty Melt.

Which is, thanks to the "We Shall Overcome" there is that Patty Melt, a standard FAST-FOOD restaurant staple, and it is a type of hamburger sandwich (Earl of Sandwich, the Duke of Earl) that something or other successfully began to sell to us hominids several years back when ago. But Sherlock Homes here took a li'l while to figure out that the Patty Melt, good ol' Patty, weren't she sweet, etc., must have been the "daughter" of Tuesday Weld, and, of course, as you aren't following my train of thought, yet, I shall have to remind you that "we shall over-come someday." That day, of course, was settled on finally is being Tuesday.

Some sources get down on their knees, pray and beg and plead that it was Monday, which will work out to be the representational eighth day of the week, from the Beatles' "Eight Days a Week," as the eighth day would be the day after the seventh, which of course would fall on a Sunday. Then again, there was the St. Valentine's Day Massacre. That was when seven people (six Mafia members and one Maggie the Mechanic from "Love and Rockets," the first Hispanic/Latino/Chicano and hardly anybody else comic book, manga or graphic novel) turned into a garage. And parked, permanently. Tuesday Weld was not involved, but the cars were welded together that day...with blood. Mobsters made an ultimate homicide again.

Human sacrifice. Doesn't it just _kill_ ya?

Tuesday Weld was very close to being Tuesday Wednesday. But, if her middle name had actually been Wednesday (named after the Nordic god Wotan, their Chief Cook and Bottle Washer), she could have been Tuesday Wednesday Thursday. Any day now, it's Friday. But, what if you were _raped_ on a Saturday? By being overcome, which is the general manner in which that act is performed?

Then again (again?), there was also, "We Shall Not Be Moved." Are ya feeling that way 'bout by now? Well, bear in mind that those sweet folks were indirectly referring to that aforementioned "We" expressed in the Koran as being Muhammad and his God (who are not _exactly_ our dearest of friends, ratcheer in the US), Rat Racing! Sorta like Moscow of the White Rainbow-Colored Kremlin, which is a strange insistence on round, breastlike architecture. With pointy spires that stab into the sky, unlike _actual_ white female breasts, which are yours. And mine. Squeezably soft, irresistible, not pointed and hard. So why American "enemies" or whoever need round buildings like them...lying? Flat on the back, legs sticking up in the air, feathered canyons everywhere... _prostated_ originally? What if it's all a giant sexual reference, like the North dipping into the South........hee.

And so, consider the Source. Then, recall Abn-al Rahman II, who's sincerely and sinisterly featured in the next oncoming story after this one:

"What if Romeo had Stayed the Morn, and Slept In?"

The End Result Might Be

THE MADCAP OPPORTUNITY—A Sword Story

(Or, the World's Vaguest Possible Explanation for either pro-white racism—does that mean it helps? Or right-horned Unicorns. Take your pick!)

SET IN TOLEDO, but not in Ohio; a city Besieged by bloodthirsty, Allah-fearing Moslems, possibly carrying Tourister luggage, on and of the Iberian peninsula, rudimentary Espana or not, Here We Go, circa 795 A.D.; this lengthsome, toothsy ee-vent occurred approximately 85 years after the commencement of the Very First Moorish Invasion of Southern Europe, said Invasion being accomplished through the Aid of _four small ships...like in The Princess Bride..._

... _I soothed myself...she was Alone..._ truly, Magnificently Alone, beyond Most human reach, bereft but Lovely, loss for All Immortal Time, or at Least for a few Days, in her loftily isolated enclosed Room, one of Many such imprisoning rooms disbursed through out the luxurious interior of the local Enemy Morisco Castle, misplaced by North African Usurpers here in my pastoralan Toledo. Upon the sacred Soil of my Native Espana. For the past half-century.

The local rumors held Aloft Her Gloomy and Sorrowful Tale, listed to by me, as I said impoverished in the tavernas. It set me to dreaming of sword-drinking Moslem blood instead of poisoning myself with Boorish stale beer and flat rancid wine.

"Beer!" I would cry, an' find my pockets emptied at once. Dado a la bebida.

The Lady's Cruel lunk of a Muslim husband, the current bloody Noble, having Beaten her the prescribed ONCE for Family standing up for Herself, he further had Followed the instructions of the Base and dastardly Moldy Quo'ran, those Moorish Dogs' choicest Bible, the one that Loveth Slavery and the Degradation of Women, and indeed did sended her veiled and apart, Angry and Forsworn, to her lofty-heighted, forlorned room, rankly Alone, though she were one of the Loveliest of Spain's Untamed and Blossoming Self-Willed Women.

TheretoFore Was She my Set Life's Goal, Ultimate and remotely Attainable, dreamed on as I drank my life away. Bleeding?

You see I, Too, was Alone in my Unique and tragick situational Life, through the unhappier Contrivances of what was to me a usually loving, compassionate and Mysterious God of Happy Splendour and Lofty Purpose. This My God at last didst Assist me in the Hastening of my Ultimately fulfilled Life's Highest Calling and my Most blessedly Ever-lasting Heart-Won Triumph and Doom.

I could not dwell Forever in peace and safety upon the green Meadows of Espana, my Home. For I was not a bored, callow and tawdry Youth, and very little Else, with Good Reason Being vastly Disenchanted with the Overwhelming Moorish Presence in Spain.

In Spite of its Inexorable, execrable Persistancy, I wished to take my Upmost Ending it, at Whatever the discovered Cost. I care virtually Nothing for my eventual Fate, as is stood in Our Present Hell, or in God's Future Schema.

In fact, I PREFERRED the thought of Dying Nobly in Heroic Attempt to do so. Even while I was Leandering around...

...as I was All Too Aware of my own Unimportance.

As to Actually Doing so, accomplishing this feat, I Contemplatively Sought the impossible Demise of the Ghastly, Monstrous, and Devilishly Treacherous Abd-al-Rahman II, son of Abd-al-Rahman I, son of the Original invader, son of...who Tricked our Toledoan Leaders, through invitation to a supposed welcoming banquet, into Death through Decapitation. His Monstrous soul then ordered Their pitifully bereft Corpses Idly tossed into the fortifications of his newly established beachhead castle-fortress, which appeared to be quite Impregnable.

Why, this Merciless Tyrant thugee had his Moorish men Slaughter Seven Hundred Native Spanish Christians of Toledo! This being nearly its Population at that Time!!!

This Impromptu club of Dead Spanish Goths, a Bloodbath famous throughout Spain as "The Day of the Foss," only led to the Inhuman Demon Rahman's creation of a Second Massacre. That time 'twas of his own kind, though they were presumably Far more Pious and truly Devout Muhammadans than He of the Arabs, Abd-al-Rahman's unscrupulous successor. They were known to be Religious Intellectuals, Frequenters of a certain large Mosque, who seriously opposed and planned to Circumvent his Horrifying social Inequities. This Brave movement lasted Scarce long enough to Record it. Rahman's men took care of that; those wretched...

Rahman II additionally had Seventy-Two of that group's leading citizens, his greatest Moorish opposition, Crucified and Exposed to the general Publick; then he levied Crippling taxes on All he held sway Over and had his Followers Butcher another Three Hundred Toledo citizens through Crucifixion. You Know Fiction?

All were opponent Rebels to his Moorish Reign of Terror. I had heard all this from Local accounts; I have also seen some of the Corpses.

Razing the Original Moslem suburb in Cordoba to the ground, causing 20,000 Moorish Survivors to flee to North Africa (ewwwww), and landless, was another of Rahman's Malefactotums. An' the only good Work he ever Did! But Those had been the mostly Peaceful Moslems of Europa!!! Not Aggressors like he, himself.

He'en tried to Justify himself, proclaiming him as Fair, Honest, Righteous and more than Bountiful to his Women. He were None 'a That, an' were but a Monster worth Destroying, holding sway o'er the Terrified hearts of Christians, Jews, Moslems and –ah—pagans, Alike of southernmost Iberia.

It would be Worth my Whole heart's Destiny to so much as Touch him Once with my Sword. Or so I Dreamed as I plumbed the Depths of my minor individual's soul in the shadows of the Tavernas.

There is No Better place to Realize one's Lack to Power, and one's Transience in this Mortal Coil, than in a Bar. There came I to The Decision. In my Schranks.

I, at Last, on my Knees, begged God, whom I Possessed Not, to Aid me in bringing this Seasonal Opportunity to Pass, ere my own short Season had Ended, and my Life's blood gone scorned and acidly sour. I begged the Heavenly Father to Allow me RESCUE of the trapped Lady and to Kill the Monster and Madman Rahman II.

And so, after a youthful Lifetime too brilliant, brief and Unexampled for love, unexamined as the vast depths of Outer Space, in a World too Great, Immeasurable and Rich for my meager, pitiful Sealfhood to spread out In'l, I had gradually discovered, as in a Foregone conclusion, that my beloved but Futile Life was eventually to be Proven Worthless, anyway; do Not ask How. I do not wish to say.

There was no Greater thing for me to do than this. For I owned no Property and could scrape Nothing together for myself and my Tyrannized Land. And I never founded me a Wife, having Nothing to offer Her but my Lusts, coupled with Our nonexistent future hopes.

Yet it was Not as if t'were Solely brought about under my own malefactor's Duress, Unincarnated Sense of Worthlessness; that Being an illusion I would Most blissfully perpetutate. It was for me Always and Ever Only as Though I were Condemned as victim, Hopelessly Transfixed as a fly in Amber, caught in Time with Many another.

Easily I could do Nothing more than basely fruitful with Either my lowlands villager Lusts or my peasant lights. Such WAS the life of a Landless lowlands pagan with no Important family Connections or Inheritances in Spain. Not E'en simple horse could I afford to Keep or to Own. I had callused, bleeding Feet to Rely upon.

I slept where the morning sun found me, oft throwing me Down on the Ground on a Field, lying Bonily but Gratefully Wrapped in my only Rough Cloak...

...Having Decided to Attack, I was All too Rapturously Willing to Live, Twice or Thrice Wildly, getting in minor Scuffles and Skirmishes of No merit or meaning, and to Suffer or Surfeit, eventually, Moral or Immoral, there Being no Casual Difference for me, and Ultimately to Die, a death Most Merrily welcome. But if only I could Love, and Help, and Another, especially One special Female, Any one Home I could truly Love, especially She of the Putrescent Castle-Fortress, this for Whatever Deeply felt Reason (which is ofttimes, a Most Perilous Undertaking), I would ha' Cheerfully sacrificed Anything! Nonetheless, I knew Enough to Plan on being Definitively, thus e'en Most Briefly... Undertaken.

Yea, Under them I would most Surely Be. An' it Would satiate me Only if Certainly all Such Love were infinitely Deep an' in my Heart. By my Troth!

For, as it Were, I simply Had No Choice Otherwise, save for the Infinitely Cowardly Act of joining with the Moslem oppressors, or fleeing Northwards to Gaul, There to Unite with Native Christians or Others, e'en to be Forced to Unite Them myself. Would my Feeble voice carried that far? I Doubted it very Much. In fact, Laugh! Laugh at Me.

I Being Truthfully and Artless Commoner, having No political connections, this Course of Action, likelier to be Successless and ridding my Native Espana of the Invaders seemed Inevitably Doomed to Apathy and Abject Failure. Naught would be e'er Done 'til It were Too Late to Back out with Grace. None in the distant North were Aware as Yet of the Awful Dangers to their Future Safety, nor probably did they Care (one LONG excuse for Why he just Couldn't flee to La Bella Noche, such as France. Shrug.)

In fact, it Took the Tactical Intervention of the Frankish God, through a Bargain I had Not the Ability to Reveal unto e'en my own Wrackless self, or friendly Others, nor to fully Comprehend, to Bring my Plans to their Eventual Completion. Some would Say I'd done Little but Sleep, and with Drink, but While Residing with Evil, Lost to health and Naturality in the Tavernas, I had also discovered the pow'r of prayer.

My failing strength, alone, Insufficed to Realize my larger Desires, and therefore to bring them to Fruition took a trebled Elan Vital, and a doubled Strength of mine. I searched for Assistance among the people of my country in this Endeavor.

I found no one. God's Supreme Love, added to mine, which clearly be All that helped to Bring these Adventuresome events to Pass. I would Die against them alone.

I Choose to come to my Blessed Lady, Whom I had seen Repeatedly, both in Town and now Betimes Enclosed shadowedly Within a High Window of Her Castle, a blurry Form scarcely Discernible as Female, as a Loving Martyr, cloaked as Handsomely as possible in...the blackest Dead of Gothic Night, though Lighted in my way by Heaven's Golden Stars, having sended a swift-winged Dove--a Creature Made (by my Chanting certain Spells, and offerring up my Life, my Heart and my pitiful Soul) to be under the protection of God for this One occasion Alone--with a simple Letter attached to its Avian leg by Silken Gold ribbon, purchased at Market with my LAST pence. I kissed it scaled leg and Released it. It mattered Not that it wanted my Eyes, or to Lay my hand Open!

The eight-line Note Expressed my Distant mad Affections, making plain my Yearning need for Her Delicate and Dream-laden Love. All my Heart was Enclosed within that Note; but I mentioned Nothing of my other desires towards Her husband.

The little Dove flew far Afield, ahead of my Beleagured hopes and tattered Dreams, which WERE All mostly atrophied to Rot, DEAD from want of Care and the Surfeit of Sorrows. I e'en had stooped to Robberies to procure the Dove at hand.

But, I patiently Endured Life's pitiless Distresse, waiting Calmly and Steadfastly for the Situation I was Contriving, with daily Prayers, to Grow into meaningful Existence. I mentally, emotionally and Spiritually Entered into a braver and more Developed expectancy of vastly luminous Joy, and tremorous, Vital Focusing Masculine Will. At the Night, I Placed my trivial mean fears, ceremonially Invoking both the Goddess and the God, into the GROUND where my body would Probably come to Sojourn.

These fears, so Intended towards Death, were thus to Stay There, to Await my likeliest Bourne Return, if others would be so Kind. This was too Doubtful.

The Task now Being to Risk my own Terrible and Painful Death, and in the process, somehow, plausibly via Stealth, to get at the dog Rahman. I wanted him Not on Top o' me, any a'more. T'would be Thyrlian, my Greatest Act, and the crowning Glory of my otherwise most Trivial existence. I would NOT escape Alive without having Crushed the Monstrous life of the Tyrant Rahman II. I would SEARCH the Castle, once Breached, risk-king Capture and Unspeakable Torture to find him. I would Kill him. I WOULD!!!

I made myself ready as could to Climb the Castle Wall at Night, hoping never to be Spied and Shot Down with arrows. 'Twere a Daring risk, a Harrowing manoeuvre involving Fantastic Potential for falling, as the Brick outer Surface of the Castle was Smooth and slick with Rain...Being CERTAINE ten or Further stories Tall to the Window; thus it were Likelier I was Meant to Break ope' my aching and care-worn body ere I Reached my Lovely Imprisoned object Princess.

Alas! Not that it mattered a whit. I was then merely Lose my pitifully Ignoble, base, Tavernous and relatively Worthless halcion life to the Looming, Darkened and, Blasphemous Steaming wet Ground. I Swore to myself that I would NOT fall until I had 'least Gotten up HIGH Enough for 't...to MATTER, to MATTER, to MATTER, if it Hap'd that my bloodied hands could No Longer Grasp another rarely protruding, Sharp, Reliable and Consecrated-with-my-Extraction Stone. Wide Open was the inner Curtains, drawn WIDE...

But, it WERE a climb Grandly Fun, Glorious and Diverting, I Found as I Arrived, Finally Meeting with My Enchantingly Voluptuous Lady, my hands Torn, my face blushed, my breast Heaving, and my body still Whole, lustful, and Voluntarily BOWED to Her Whimsy.

I would do NOTHING without Her Calm Acceptance of me. Nothing. If She said No, I would Begone, an' not Tarry another Instant, if it meant Leaping. But LO, if 'twere God's Will, I would Touch the Hidden Face of this Goddess, my First, at LAST!!! Oh, Absolutely...a bad marriage is like a car that won't start; it sits there and...

Painting, Gulping in precious Air, I stood Trembling enou' to fall, content but to merely Gaze upon Her Invincible Radiance. Inwards me I Burned in abject Dread of Her, of either Her Approval or Her Rejection. I Awaited Her Commands.

My Wonderful and vastly fortunate Ideal, originally a nueva Christianna from al norte Espana, a former (pre-Castillian?) Native Pagan like myself, as I had Gleaned from village gossip, Reclined luxuriantly upon a richly Tapestried, plush, and Thickly covered Bed, overhung in Rich Gold and Silver weaves of Moorish arcane Craft. It paled unto Death before Her.

This Same Beauty was buried Deeply with a Candlelit, colorfully Feminized room made for her expensive and presumably Delicate sexual natures. Immediate I took it upon me to Wonder who Maintained the Candles. She looked that Frail.

She had only Recently been Reconverted to Muhammadism, Solely for the CURSED Sake of her ENFORCED Wealthy Marriage, Being probably his Two-Dozenth such marriage Captive, to the Fiftyish Abd-al-Rahman II.

Certaine, she was No more than Twenty Years on the Earth!!! An' fresh as Flowers.

And She was No' the Least bit Happy to sit Lost and Alone in Her Isolated chambers. She Freely admitted me with Her gently Pretty Nod. I entered, walking forth with Trepidatious Care towards Her vulnerable Bed, feeling as Though I Glowed within Throughout with the Veriest Internal SUN of hopeless Courage and Reckless, forbidden mortal Love.

Ohhh, how the ACHE Grew, staying with each passing Moment, Slowing my forwards stride, I not Wanting to Close our Distance yet while Feeling SO...SO...

In the Realm of Her. Silent Screams

How I wispishly remember Her, both of them

Shocking, shocking, every shocking, things in Reversal - _NOT_ HOME!!!

Me as the Hellion they were Representing, REPRESSING, regressing;

Neither here nor There, Looking for What I Want from you, NOT _YOU..._

She

Told me that

SHE

Worshipped

Me

As

Her

REAL Lord, Her Peasant Don of Obsequious Purple & Clairvoyant Love,

With Her

Locked and Perfect, _uh,_ Grassy Deadbolt.

I was Completely Enraptured by Her keenly abrupt Loveliness, still Hidden behind Her sylphlike black mesh muslin Veil, and Discovered with deep shock après my Freakish and Death-defying Clamber up the Slippery, treacherous outer Wall. I had anticipated her Not being as Beautiful as my more expectant Hopes; but She far Exceeded All of them, insane and futile as they were. I pantingly entered into the hollow of the Room through the Expenses tinted-glass frames of Her Always-open Window, through which I had Viewed her Veiled Beauty. I had originally viewed Her from afar, with Her Richly bedecked and cushioned, saddled Horse, She Always seated on an Arabian, and Later standing framed within This window. She WAS a mysteriously Lovely being seen in passing as I voyaged on my Eternally quartered space called the solid Ground. Having Not wings, like the Dove, which, released by Her Hand, flew Out behind me, as Upon I entered, I was Ever to be Involved with a stretch of Ground--four Her Sweet Sake, if only to be Near Her, in All Happiness. Anything!

I Hoped to God She had seen me Before, Knowing me Now, when I was Straining to Fly Upwards to Her with Every ounce of my Poverty-stricken Spirits. I was Rather thin. I Had hoped that She'd viewed me with Longing, and artless Solicitiousness. If Not, what Would I do? Peradventure, I will run from my room, Yelling for Discovery by Rahman or his Hundreds of Armed men, and Kill as Many as came within Reach.

"Twas moat Heartliftingly not the Case! Her Loving, Youthful face Shone with soft trust and Ladylike concern...for me! She clearly Recognized me as the Love Letter's real Author, and was Affected by its Obvious Passion for Her.

Her Arms were stretched towards me in a Loving, Joyous and Welcoming Embrace. Tears ran down Her Cheeks, Blessing Them and Lacing Them with Glowing precious Pearls.

I could stand Alone _No Longer!_

Flocking as a Quadrum of docile Sheep to Her Ornately and Sleekly Clothed Side, I Created and manipulated Her steady Relaxation through the Worthiest of the Masculine Charms entrusted me by Sacred God, Ensuring at the least Her Momentary Happiness and at the Most installing my ultimate vindication, the Which I put little hope for, in thrilling Reward and harrowing sterner punishment, mayhaps Suffered with Her, and facing the end Together...

Gabe cuts in on his own fantasy, 'ere

(DOZE..............DOZE..............DOZE..............DOZE.............DOZE

Oh I cannot remember the Inquisition, what it like was, DOZE...DOZE...DOZE.....DOZE

Up Your nose with a rubber hose? Doze...doze...doze...doze....doze

Ghosts of the Past

Freedom at Last

Lashed to the Mast

The Morrow's likeliest Conclusive Expenditure of my meager life. No, I would _NOT_ let them seize me, Alive! I'd rather be unconscious.

They would Surely come, and it would be Muerto Sin Falta to be Found here, Abiding with Her. But that was NOT going to be my chief-most care. I solely Yearned to render any payment that are made for the single heartfelt Noctourne most Happily and joyously Tendered, and still I maintained the Hope of getting within Reach of Rahman and causing his Death and the Last century's Worth of Southern Spanish Tyranny's abruptest possible End. This could Never be called Morally wrong, Nor could it put Anything Already done to right, but my Lover's Heart held No such mortal fears, an' so We Two definitely were to Make Ours into a Most Enchanted Evening.

I smoothed her worried Brow, Worshipped Her cool, soft, Shining tresses, richer and Dearer to me than Any gold, caressed and lightly massaged her Wondrous, Sweet, and Supplely Smooth Body in Every Well-Meant and Gentle manner that I was Able to contrive in the Naked and Trembling soul of my Newly rediscovered masculine Mysteries. Our Universal selves Interlocked, and I Powerfully Brought Her to the Afarthest most Wracking Spasms of Love, eleven or twelve Times at Least over the course of Our brief Spande-temps Together. Yea, She made Noises. I Awaited, but Naught...

Her Lithesome Body Arched in Passion, Her Head, so Gorgeous and Real Beyond All my Wildest Dreams, fell backwards, softly into the palm of my hands, light Sleep Descended Upon Her, light Wakefulness from Lust keeping Her Asking for More. I Gave, WITHOUT ASKING.

For, the most verifiable soul of Wit is in Brevity, as it stands to Reason that brevity is the Better part of Wit.

We lightly Discussed multiple Weighty topics of present-day Concern, and I made some good but simply Rude jests with Her, causing Her such fabulous Attacks of unleashed Glee, that She was Bathed, Uncovered by an obsecuring, unflattering Cloth in the Magic Spill of the luminous Fair Humours of Moonlight. For my Undeserving and Humble soul's insignificant Sake, the Goddess WAS, for just One Night. I WAS the Emperor of All the Universe, and Spain and Unimportant Vertigial act of Tyrannical Lore.

I Listed Close to Each and All flights of fanciful Ideas and fantastical Dreams. She had Ne'er Dared to ever Express, even in Whispers to Her girlfriends, Until this Single Blessed Night, and Me.

O Happiest Hour of my Life! We were as One for What seemed to be the duration of the Most Iotan of eyeblinks. Mind you, We fell Asleep Intertwined, Innocent as Two breathless Children, Locked Together unto Death, Forever Lost to Sanity, and Deeply and Love. I Vowed Aloud, if T'was in my Power I Would Not let Go until I Had Absorbed Her Into me. Yes!!!!

The Next Morning, Which arrived Far too Soon, I lay Glowing with Love upon my back, Reclining in luxuriant Heaven, with Her long, soft Tresses lying Majestically across my Naked, muscular Bosom, Acknowledging All the Joy that Blessed God e'er had to Offer me. After this brief Prayer of Thankfulness, I began tremorously Awaiting the fearfully Repugnant, but Torturously Exciting, secondary phase of This the Very Last Adventure of my Necessarily Limited and Transitory life. In moments, I would have Left to look for Rahman, if not for Fear of Leaving her. I stroked her Hair, Running It through my fingers, an' it Felt so Cool and Heavenly and I stroked Her Sweet Cheek, trying to Make my still Benumbed Senses Alert without Disturbing Her; my One True Love's Sweet Cheek Touched in Undying, Eternal, Immortal fondness. By God, I would hap'ly kill and die for Her, if it meant still just Holding Her!

Midst this dreamy morning Fondness, I began Breathing an internal Stubborn Fire, as would an Overheated Bellows that is by accident Caught in the Flames, the Wood starting to smoke, and the Bellows to Burn. Cheerfully I would ha' Burned for Her; Ha ha! No! Or swung. But Life felt Good.

Darkly, she was quietly Asleep, mercifully Oblivious. I had not Given Her all the Love left In me.

Inside me, and outside As Well as I fell, once Again, into the Habit of talking Aloud, something Mortal Remonstrating 'gainst me. I was Debating the Worth of leaving Her to Live, Returning in Bliss for Her 'gain Later, or No, so as Not to depress the Happiness I desired of my Lady Love, and to Keep Her Safe from the wrath of Her husband and Lord. But I Knew not the Length of Her Stay, Here in This Room

Rather, though, that She were Happy and Safe than that All the Enemy Moslems in Spain were Permanent Buried Alive. I would do Anything to Ensure Her Safety, in Spite of my growing Insecurities concerning our Mutual Fates.

But wait, Something was Altogether WRONG...I reached for Her HAND, but Nothing Alive was anymore Veiled, so Elusively and tantalizingly, within Her Naked, supple, and once passionate Frame. A Coldness filled her once warm form. I Harshly Gasped, a breathless Sob choking my Piteous outcry, just as a muted Pounding began to resound Ominously upon the Locked door of the Cursed Punishment Cuarto de Dormir.

This Awakened me Fully, Piercing the Yellow haze Clouding and Dulling my Sleepy and Thickening-with-Despair, and Puzzled, head. Certaine it Was, WAS, Her Untrue, Madman husband, the Unrighteous, Leperous Murderer, and his Sold-out party of Underlings.

These were Sure to Be a large and highly dangerous number of Supremely fine Swordsmen, at least three or e'en four Unhesitate killers and Tearers of little children's Blessed Throats.

The group Was clearly Attempting a voluntary Entry, Loudly, and WOULD be Breaching the Locked door Much sooner than Later. With unaccustomed Speed, I resolutely donned my Rough cotton village pants and homespun calico Shirt, dwelling for Unknown reasons perhaps, Cowardice winning o'er after All, on the Donning of my brown leather zapatos; they were finally on me at last. And, I belted about me my Good iron Sword.

There was an INFINITE, empty, and nerves-wracking pause of linear Time, wherein I was Gifted, again by the most Merciful and Bountiful Interceptor, God Himself, with the Greatest possible chance...of Leaving, for to 'scape with my Cowardsome meagre Life, and perhaps hers... Life...which I could no Longer highly value...in Hand, through the Same entry I had Previous Taken. There were an Excellent likelihood of my making Rapid Diversion once back, Shod, on my accustomed Spanish soil. But then, I'd not Have me E'en Once Crack at the Wretched, Bigamous thing that was my poor Lady's bombastic, Slavering, thieving (how could I say? I had stol'n his Wife! preposterous "husband," None at All. Never. Well, hardly Ever. Certes.

My soundest heart's Fear, and an Inmost Desire for God's Love, and Acceptance, and...Cried out that to Flee was the very Thing I must in Minutes Do! An' my Heart Pounded fit to burst the Walls of my errant soul, pounding to match the Screaming Door, shaking in the Utter Vulnerablest Castle of its only corpus foundation Home. Could I face my own doom unflinchingly?

The door began to screechingly flex inwar's with the Combined might of its Sonorous Assailants. They only waxed Louder and Stronger with each Infinitely Passing Moment.

However, my Life Highest Love, a Flame incapable of any Extinguishment, yet of Only the one Swift night, was Deadly still; and so Awfully was She Cealed, that in my Firmest Unmoving Mind, there was NO other welcome place I, a Libertinous Gadabout and No-one of Any measurable import could e'er Become truly Responsible enou' two Attempt to Attain. HERE Would I Take Life, Totally Grateful to God for the smallest of chances at Tyranny's Defeat at my hands, having done what I could to Love another, first.

I had forsaken Christian wife and children, as my pockets• were Unsold Surest Always Unlined; and, indeed, what meant Christian wife and children? D'you Recall Christ?

My small leather purse near Always hung Empty. Where was my Own Land, and Mine Home? I was but the poor son of a few Honest but Tradesmen, and their Christian and pagan Wives, merest farmers' Maids. They Sold at the Market, but were Unsold oftener, Better than They Themselves Being Sold. We went thus Unenslaved, and were Proud without Thought. We were once Landed and Farmed, and Twice Extruded, but were Ne'er Well-ensconced enou'; I became a Drinker subsequentially, and an able Gamesman of the tavernas and inns, a Tradesman in small repairs and carpentries, as was Our Lord.

I was no Abject Follower of Him. Not a single one Else of people but SHE had ever said they really Wanted or Needed me. Why not Take, this time for the very Last Time, the Golden, Holy, stranger Madcap Opportunity? It was COMING. It was Mine.

I would Never get another, Ever. I Shouted, loud as Jericho's Trumpet, I WILL!

I Resolved to Die on my feet, as I'd foremost Boldly planned, but now Alongside Her, As I Idiotically had Not foreseen...Her Revealed Death gently and Nobly Made and Absolute of My Upcoming murtherous but Fated Demesne. Here Would I Stand.

It could only be via the Best and Most reasonable will of God, I'm silently Swore, that (say, you are folks beginning to remember that this is secretly only one of Gabe's favorite masturbation fantasies? Yawn? Yup. I thought so. Whooo, has Saragina maybe got a nice surprise, coming...) I would at Last be allowed to Warship, if only in Passing Greeting, the Kings of Kings and the Prince of Princes. I, who was Neither truly Christian, Moslem nor Jew, nor follower of the Nordic Wotan, God of Wisdom and Learning and disability, but possibly an Adherent of the Earth's Mother at that, being that as my Direction, desired Deeply to Meet and converse with this Frankish God of Men's Fortunes, that others claimed they Owned, in their Reckoning, to be as Male, and who Legally Punished the ignorant, through Sundry Wretched human Medium, All who did Not know properly how to Address Him. Him? Him WHOM? A Dress? Again?

Why, I would RUN, Swiftly as a Deer, for to Meet this the Coeur...

...the cur. Let Him disclose my starving Throat. I would Live, Live, to tear open only His. If! If only His heart was set on...no...

And so I took, with a Nobly fierce heart, the Best to stand against the noisome Mob, which I had Prayed would at least Contain the Lady's visiting husband Rahman II, my simple Celtic iron weapon, a jewelless and dull-seeming Blade. This I had two days ago honed Razor-sharp, and It wiped Clean, Fair to Shine in the Sunlight of this Last Morning on My Earth.

I first o'erleaped my dear departed stolen "Wife," now entangled Forever in damned and forgotten bunching bedclothes, and as I reached the Middle of the floor I drew my dull but silvern blade, beaten to sturdiness by Me, on a simple anvil, and More Than a Match for All "better" such Forged Gem-Encrusted Junk, crossing the floor in my powerfullest single stride.

Organized Rage flooded Every fiber, limb and vein of my Being, strengthening me with Awakening, conflicting Not at All within though I meant Likeliest only to Perish, surely. I would Rather Not, yet was Overjoyed.

"Twas the swiftness and Shiningest Walk I had ever taken, as I made One momentous Leap straight for the shuddering, straining, Cracking open wooden Door...

...GOING OUT OF which Gabe was taking off, heading Directly for the Krakatoa, where he didst findeth his favorite Princess, as though at meeting place, the Lady Saragina, wearing a peaky auto de fe witch's hat she had Impishly Purloined from a wandering errant Druidic wizard Klansmen, and which she had dyed a startling shade of Emerald Green, the dyed genuine satin Item to be formally presented as a lovely Gift! For the Lady Caza's upconning birthday. Caza LIKED to spaciously bedeck and present herself, belaborously beladen in decorative, formalized watercolors. She was known by many in her Secret Identity as Aqua Girl. Her entire wardrobe consisted of greens and blues.

"It'll go with anything she has!" She was known by many in her Secret Identity...nuff said. "It'll even make her Taller!" Nuff Already!

Sara was shortly enticed, through begging, to join with Gabe avec the furtherance of the heroically astounding and improbable story he'd written out of his silly fave masturbation fantasy Piece. He said it was only a story, but he got the idea from... Real Life.

"I die Nobly this way," quoth he, "with my Rustickly leather boots on, in Southern Medieval Spain, the Iberian peninsula, under heavy-duty tyrannical Moorish domination (Pre the SAME exact Thing by the Catholic Choich), sword in Hand (Course!), facing down a goodly half a football team--all of them Armed to the Teeth--as an indigent, starving, Native Spanish peasant." He coughed into his little pink palm, politely, having to grab for a KleeNecks.

"Would you care for some tea, laced with honey, m'dear, while you tell me what you think I should do with this, sweet Sarai, my Lady?" Gabe was starting to space out, imagining his amazing tale as a play, or as toilet paper on a worksite. Perhaps hand towels. Perhaps something like a one-act episode of "Lucy Kills Ricky," with the hero having bright red hair. Would it woik? Oink?

Sara guffawed. "The spurting, ah, blood, is my favorite Part." Oh. We think so. "Beau" said he thought so, too, but heated filtered tap water for her, anyway. She sank back sooo comfortably into a cushiony, large-sized, voluminously scratchy and phloomphy with dust from centuries, chaise lounge easy chair, the finest, oui, for her. Gabe found this upholstered Wonder at a Unionville garage sale.

Buddies at work drove it back for him.

The Gestalt of _GEVALDT!_

Making Juliet into Desdemona—it's Easy;

Saragina Adds a Woman's Perspective in Part II of:

The Madcap Opportunity

Dhaba's Story

THE WRETCHED OVERLORD who was my giant husband never once treated me an' as he should ought to treat an human Woman. He but mercilessly took vengeance on me, for so much as casually mispronouncing the overly sacred religious phrases, such as his Stupid Name, the which I never clearly held.

I was only bloodlessly languishing, living for naught, in my echo-ridden mausoleum of a lacy, saucy bedchamber, when the most miraculously sensual lover from my fondest dreams became a Body too warm and Real to his emaginary. God's life-bestowing Breath!

He swept aside the inner curtain, a blindingly Lustrous miracle of Manhood, tall and wrapped about Him in cheapest grey broadcloth, pouring into the darkened punishment bedroom as a Flood of purest light enters an opened, moldy, and Bitter eternal Crypt. With two sure strides He was at my bedside, humbly attending me upon His bended knees.

He was so vastly imperial even this made Him hardly any shorter; He stood as a tall candle stands in its bailiwick. His sheathed sword scraped 'gainst the floor but Once, and His magickal hands gently cradled my face as He gazed wistfully and angelically into my Wondering eyes.

Our Kisses turned all of Realty into the lingering Highest Strata of love.

Then, He boldly asked me where He could find Rahma II, my husband.

"I cannot tell you, for this I do not Know," I replied. He blinked, as if in answer.

I had sat straight up, bolt upright, at His immediate first sign of appearance. That night there had not been any sleep, no, only the slow formation of bottomless sadness, flooding with my tears, that I was no longer capable of crying. I held a swelling inner FRUSTRATION; it filled my childish whole body, which was supple and lean with taught muscle,'til it threatened to freeze my poor neglected heart to my ribs, leaving it Locked in place and frozen. An' it near cracked wide and split in two with the inexpressible anger and unfathoMabel disappointment of life's cofounded impotencies. I felt as all condemned prisoners must feel: abandoned, lost. Dead.

Sans hope, I lay powerlessly abed, thirsting and hungering for the boldness of real love, and for my own promise and nuptialed sexual powers. Someday they would...free me. At last I did not have to work...I could relax.

But all my Minorest problems died merrily away in my newfound Lover's powerful, fearless, gentle-sweet caresses. He held and kissed me, over again. Love became my God and my universe. Feudal stuff, sailed right on past me.

I had known Him never-naught from before, He was not any of my friends, but I slowly recognized Him as a handsome and sturdy Gothic freeman, a raven-haired villager lightly but brassly tanned with the sun whom I'd seen twice from our wealth-laden horses' backs as I an' my husband's magnificent party rode into the raucous and varietous marketplace section of usurped and hapless Spanish Toledo. We hied forth to shop the unnecessary, expensive imported Tangierian and Moroccan gifts that my strange enforced Unnatural mate was quicker and more prone placably gift to his harrowing, always rather than his Unnatural mate was quicker and more prone placably to give to his harem, always rather than his Unfounded true heart's Love. He had no time for it, or for the Likes of helplessly Installed and "schackled" me. I would cheerfully ha' done Anything to experience a Legitimate love, even for one night...it hap'd that I prayed to the One true God for this and so my humblest and profoundest prayers were soon enou' Well-Answered.

And verily, all that night We played sweetly moonlit Lovers' games, warm Our fertile and lushly sex-inspired touches, hushed Our sibilant sighs and whisperings.

Dark and bitter-sweet were Our emagined, melancholy future Partings; upon this We did not really dwell.

Before We fell to sleep, however, He Did vainly promise me, with a Princes' clear and Breaking Voice, that He would never-ever Leave me. Not without the ultimate cost to his life, He softly added, just before I blithely fell back again to sleep. I do not believe that he Meant it. Drowsily I saw Him leaving back Out the window from whence He came.

But, my monstrous proud and Jealous husband--upon discovery of my Lover, what will he DO? I worry, and shiveringly wondered.

I knew my Lover feared nothing evil at all, but I do it. Somewhat...

I would not wake to HIM ever again, to that loathsome Rahman snake, I would NOT! Not for anything, not even for my inclement Life!

In my deepest dreams, I wandered with my brother and lover in a Valley of mountains shaded with my clutching fears, groping Uphill towards my pitiless heartaches, and remotely, when I at last tired of this wandering, I never to attain good Peace or fleeting Rest, at last I came...as though to an Opening deep Within MY...soul, finally Owned, and THUS I stopped all my realistic animate fears, so, idly stroking my cooly smooth and velvet forearm 'gainst my Lover's radiating warm and Noble muscular Side for an honestly final Instant of Beloved time.

He felt as a tropical Ocean breeze must feel, where there are Oceans, when one is surrounded by date palms, by grape vines and fields, by immense olive orchards ripening.

Pain ran out of my suddenly fountainous opening like a running forest stream of gushing water, leaving my best and truest Friend to the base and slavering hellish torturing wolves' misfortunes, as He had promised to stay here and staunchly face them. He would! I would not.

Though I shrinkingly tried to stay, so as to witness the upcoming "lovers' quarrel", my soul unfolding doves' wings hollowing in flickering synchronic time, my happy and sui generis satisfied Mortal being trickled out with surest speed, entering a brand-new undeniably present...WAY, into the Limitless nexter world. A world, perha's, of limbless Sleep, numbing, I nervelessly thought as I fell, unfeelingly, coldly, as I fled without trace or any discernible Impetous or Calling in order to follow God, or Night, or whatever Avenue was being poured out to Freedom from the rushing blood of my lowering Soul...

As though in a dream, hovering o'er my Obscene and richly canopied bed, I awakened slightly, and, hearing in the terrible crash at the door, saw my Courageous Lover arise with Absolutely no fear, the Uncontested progeny of the most ferocious Lion, to meet His long-chosen, well-accepted and painfully unmastered Fate.

I saw Him boldly throw back the Bar and sans-pause gapingly fling WIDE the destroyed and caved-in and splintering wooden door, He having NO desire nor thought of Any safety, and two abhorrent, Instantly oncoming, blunt-ended, unswerving and razor-sharp raised scimitars erupted downwards and mercilessly Split ope' the proferred surface of His too-freely Tendered an unready Breast, twice bloodily rending his shirt and his youthful scan, causing the painfullest fleshly HARM, RIPPING Him exposed in two foot-long places. Even as They All surge bodily forward as a Wave of bristling swords, Bloodily oncoming, He precipitantly sideways turned away and, hurdling backwards, Pivoting in full circle, narrowly escaped Instant Death by merest Inches. For one moment He lost His purchase of flooring and lurched backwards, but instanter recovered.

He'd leapt with Grace and alacritous speed back into the open center of "my" ungodly ruination room. For now, and forever, His splendid and magnificent young Life was all-foresworn, completely Bankrupt and Hellishly lost. He hadn't e'en the merest possible Chance of drawing another Holy breath.

The swordsmen began to follow Him into the room, blocking the doorway and fanning out to either side.

SIX stout Fiends, FIVE with Drawn, well-forged, expensively bejeweled three-foot long Egyptian scimitars, were brutally, entering into my Awful and unnatural room, mercilessly Unchecked. My baleful Lover of but One Eventide, the Holiest of Days, fainted not, nor did He quail. Did not He step back e'en a single Step.

He however palely and thinly smiled at 'em, through His jagged and yellowing Teeth, grit Sound tight through His sparse and furry youthful Beard. His exposed and blooded breasts, cut to the bone, yet strongly Heaved as the cold Winter when does, with a lustful, Empowering and highly Passionate Rage.

Staring All of them down, he gauged his Incredible chances. He had none. He was going to fight to the Death. Otherwise there only would be Torture. And THIS was going to be torture.

As a sturdy unbowed Oak He stood, surrounded, tall, thin and Commanding, Trembling hard thro' All His sinewed and heart-rendingly youthful body. These Demons crept softly about Him, waiting. He was deeply spell-bound, Locked into to His Taken place Forever, spiritually Bound by Death and Lost to the God-fearing anticipation of His horribly Inexorable fate.

With a look of fiercely Ardent savage Pride, He brazenly tore ope' His blood and dirt-stained, sliced to Ribbons white linen peasant's shirt, Full of the Passion of a Raging Wildfire (sound of tearing) with His left. Thus He nobly Requested that His ruthless Enemies brutally Honor Him and take Aim for the fatalest possible lunges.

Reft wide, He thus also Displayed the frightening wounds they had already Bestowed upon Him. Turning in ALL directions, but No, He Cried Aloud, befitting a tragically Mortal and fearlessly condemned, damned and Transported Soul:

"HERE is your lost and found child, your BROTHER and once miserable SLAVE, your basest component YOKEL, spit here WITHOUT your regard as an unyielding MAN upon the SACRED shores of YOUR profoundest MISERIES! Here is BUT ONE MORE, and something as PRODIGIOUSLY like you MOORISH, for you to spit upon your bloody GUILDED precious swords! And with no saying, my childishly helpless but Extremely proud Lover was Hopelessly Doomed to Butcherous cuts of Overwhelmingly unendurable Profoundest Agonies, and the unspeakably Loathsome, bestial Slaughter of His once warm caring, and exquisitely beautiful male form.

To see Him then was to view the Incorruptible final moments of a Compassionate, Majestic, and totally courageous Clear-Hearted incarnated corporeal God of Love. There was Nothing finer standing on the Earth; he was Excellence itself.

Nothing any better than He would save Him. This Being rendered Impossible by His Enemies' numbers. His blood was Going to be Spilled in wretchedly proven Torrents. By the red, the black and the White of His Rivalship in Loyalty, by His unsurptive Murtherers.

In complete Veracity of This, He was instantly set about Him by Three Dogs, of my husband's better-trained swordsmen, sworn in their Rightest and most subserviently Bloated courtlier vassal's duty as the Moslem-Spanish fiefs of their well-appointed and state-approved Arabian Lord of Terror. They were prepared to Slice my Lover into Tatters of screaming, violated bloody flesh. They would manifest Absolutely no Mercy. There was No 'scape.

E'en so, as Neither did my Cruelly Savage Lover guy to mercy's Graces, He was swift indeed to Impale, up to near half the farthest Hilt of his rough-hewn, two-edged self-beaten Celtic broadsword, the closest one of my Cowardly husband's surprised and Bested vicious henchmen. This abruptly miraculous Deed most happily brought Down the sturdy, brawny Semitic mongrel! What a Fool he'd been to step up first!

DOWN fell his worsted Corse, an' Tumbled all at Once! My Lover had drawn dear Payment for His wicked, Lost Life.

My Haughty and untouched macabre husband, Who stood back a-ways, not Any sword At All in his hand, followed his own COWARDSOME, servile course of Basest self-protection. He was being Blindly ignored simply as he Remained obscurely unrecognized. Though he was their Master and Lord! I was too weak to call out and tell my Valiant Lover which one it was, Was he. And the Dog-Beast himself was too far back out of the way, and shrinking too Readily, to be in any way obvious as the castle's All-powerful, Moorish Master. He did nothing to call attention, and thus escaped All Harm.

But, MY Lover, scant seconds before His hideous Death, Outshone Every Star in the Sky! He LAUGHED with Raw, Insanest passion and most Wanton profligate's Lust at Their Buffonish insignificant Lot, a Ludicrous sound fit to shake ALL of my canopied bed flattened down. As they ALL surged forwards to Groove on Him. He turned in Embracement.

That very Moment I Expired where I lay, Unable to look anymore Upon these tragickal Dreadful sights of bloody Murther...I never saw them Kill my Splendid Lord, nor did I Witness his Blessed Fall, but only Knew that He did, while Desiring simply to join in Bliss with me in the immortal Heaven of Love, forever.

_Gabe and Saragina,_ over sips of wanton Starbucks, work hardly together to wrap it up for the kiddies-- with a Red, Green, _and Immaculately_ Pearly White Bow:

Part III \- The Satan before Stalin, the Devil _before Bateman_

HERE, I MUST jump in and admit to My truer perspective in writing this simple tale of Woe--it is both Our baser and Our nobler Nature, as a writer, part and parcel, to perpetuate a feeling of arch-fiend's suspense during the readership of Our tales. A requirance towards easy frivolity, combined with a thorough-going acceptance of the burden of work and creativity, causes Us to re-establish the basic designs of Our plotting even as We carefully sculpt Our Works. On the whole.

In other words, I now must change to the perspective of the most Verifiable Important Personne to remain alive throughout the duration of this heart-bothering, abominably bloody, and abysmally villainous folkish Medieval narrative. That is, speaking off the cuff, the aspect of the Conde Miguel de las Siegas del Shuba, or Morocco, who is playing the Role of Abd-al-Rahman II, ghastly, grim and grizzly abysmal Ruler of Toledo and Cordoba in the late 700s, post-mortem, and scarcely analyzed. Never ever! To wit:

My men had informed Me, awakening Me in the midst of the seemingly darker night, really just before it was to become dawn's lightened early morn, softening with obliquel gentle rose colors, that odd and belaboring Noises could be heard emanating from within the thin walls of the larger of the upstairs Moresque punishment bedrooms. These were the same as the earlier ones I had installed elsewhere, being as I was both a convert and a Blooded, Conscientious Umayyad Moor...where the youngest of my twenty legal wives was supposedly whiling away her Quo'ran-mandated Ills, with no such allotted respite from Me.

I hastily dressed, mightily stomping into My broad black lather fur-lined boots in a manner fit to 'wake My drousing feet. And I strapped on My own best three-foot, gold-trimmed and bejeweled scimitar, Priceless and of a superior Greco-Roman styling and Egyptian forging, with Phoenician inlay. With the aid of several candlelit rushes held overhead by My attendance, My dressing and armament were soon Accomplished.

Our reconnaissance party, five large Rustic noblemen and I, all armed, two with bows and arrows as well as swords, one carrying a lit torch as it was still the darkling hours, took to the castles upper stairwell, finally discovering, through the grand auspices and useless proprieties of lurking about outside the room's wood-chiseled, five-foot-wide and four-inch-think arched and recessive stone umber doorway, that there was indeed a most hideously God-damned lustful idiot plebian in there with My wife. NOOOO!!!

Oh, well. You could hear all the sighs, and the hastened muttering of indecipherable words. In My turn, I whispered at the bowmen to be prepared, anow. The bastards—or lone wretch—might attempt escape out of the window, and we could shoot him then, or them, easily, as he spread crouching against the wall.

Gritting my raggedly wolvine teeth, and reflecting wretchedly upon the monstrous length of harrowing outer climb necessitated by the immense height of the window and the slickened smoothness of the outer escarpmented paradore fortress, I stoutly ordered the men nearest the door to enter – wielding drawn and ready swords.

I left Mine entrusted to Its sheath, keeping to fealty's properest Laws, though I am Myself no coward, in order to clearly research the properest situational turns. It might bubble up to discovery that an entire Hunting party had invaded Us, and not a Suicidal lone Fool.

Finding the door solidly locked, three of My men began to ram it, and I as well, in an attempt to broach an entry. I prepared Myself for battle, knowing that dozens of reinforcements were within immediate reach of My voice, an'a hundred more loyal servants of Islam and Me tarried further away. As it turned, no such were required.

Eerily, the feckless, smallish intruder boldly dared to let us in, the trapped Cheat!!! He waited 'til the last minute, then fearlessly breasted us. Though the window had afforded him an obviously simple exit, he had freely elected to stay and face us down.

We wounded him badly as We shelved Our way in, without half-trying. He was a thoughtless, brainless, and even termably cowardly Suicide. A pity.

There'd than Ample opportunity for Hours of darkened grey early Morn to leave Unobtrusively and in Piece, the obvious way he'd came in. He never took it.

What was this dead zonzo affecting to Be (twinge)? Ta mim, it's would make him Into what he was meant to be, and SOON! My dungeons eagerly awaited their Usual disarmed, Gutless and screaming Occupant! What Fun!! T'would be Rich to RAKE that idiot Thing over HOT coals. What WAS it, a Volunteer? He would soon Learn.

I'faith, t'were nothing better as a Skinny, undernourished, poorly clad little filthy's villageman, one I'd ne'er seen before but from distant wealth-laden horseback. My archers and swordsmen kept all such Scum from Off Our backs; All were cowed so by Us.

He was Rabidly more than accepting of his Tragically Easy and Macabre Death, a bit too sickeningly Much, perhaps. Was our realm growing, anon, in wierd poverty, and Stricken? Certaine, 'twas...but 'twas NOT under My behested Pow'rs to Change things, or to Tax lower in Tribute, as My FAMILY sternly Demanded Toledoan acceptance of ME as Espana's only Divine and Celestial Lord. Anyones who Opposed Me were to pay the Supreme penalty, suffering the Worst of public Torture and the most Painful of Executions, with his or her Life. That is How to RULE!!!

His Pretty and boyish Speech, a Wailing Wall of Sponge par excellence, was for to Throw Us, and unexpectedly Costed Us Dearly. I near gaped My thickly-bearded purple mouth at how Easily his thin form sliced Its way thro' My Loyal, Bravely leading, and unlucky Jewish hireling Reuben. An' he Were a family man, leaving wife an' child...

The stranger 'most fell to his knees in the swift forward Lunge, a most Learned Duck to 'scape with, half so, calling all his lifeless, strident Heathen peasant curses down upon My wealthy Moslem house as Three of My valiant Swordsmen opened the Horish basted where he stubbornly stood. Via coincidence, all three were My Countrymen an' Righteous Muslims.

Rustum, Immanuel, and Saadic, all three Our good and most Unquestioning Muhummedans, EACH swiftly Rived him ASUNDER, Cleaving him Through, Slash after mutilating Slash, in and across of his Torn, Broken, and Bloody narrow back and breast; Lacerated. That is what the Scimitar is For! Is for...this they accomplished Readily, with a Studiously rapid WILL, as he Choicely vulnerable Rose from slaying the Jew Ruben, crumpled and absurdly Fallen.

The stranger's sword arm, attached to a Piddling most feeble homemade iron sword, was all that slowed them, near being hacked off at the shoulder in the Fantastic Press of Three, forwards. AHHHHHH! 'Twas OVER.

I loved it!

Unbending to Me or Allah, the grotesquely lionhearted stranger received (ohhhhhhh) each Solid blow as If it Were his Own True and Rewarding Good LORD'S Dearest loving Embrace. He Acted in Valiant form, disregarding All Needless safety. I Envied his obvious courage. But his intensified Howls of urgent, sheerest, sweetest transcendant Agonies sent Lightning electrical Shivers rattling down All the way past the Base of My unhappy and thunder-struck Immortalized Spine, traveling clear to the Tops of My fur-lined Grenadoan Boots.

I did Naught but hesitantly Look On, in Vast and appreciative stone-weary Anti-climactical, anticipatory Awe, but am not the Same sense...

Strange, mistortured, debauched, unseated, and becursed Hind that It Was, He dauntless Faithfully Long Withstood Us, loudly Declaring his Undying hatred of Our (Naturally!!!!) unsurping Reign. "Bout that I small-cared. I knew how little We were loved in Spain! Why had I twenty Wives?

But in his Devil's faltering Main Strength, and his Evil, dying, Resolute nimble Graces, he nicked with one Manly swipe, casting his own blood as he Swung, the THROAT of Immanuel Open, causing him Just Affect; and after Being LAID Agape once more—straight IN—from Behind, and Underneath, by brave Saadic, who GUTTED him Through him, he near Mortal-Wounded Our important Visitant Arturon al Marcellinus s Well!!!

The austure Roman was merely sharply raising his mailed Arm for a solidly-Aimed Death blow, but My good Immanuel was in his Way. The Heathen peasant took advantage of Arturon's raised arm and puncture-lacerated his side, as It fell dying, Supremely Lost and Victorious, Having Felt the Scourge of Islam Nine Times. ALLAH, Nine times before he fell.

Hideous Sacrifice surely sufficed Allah as my stranger's Payment in Hell, whilst my goodly remaining men Vengefully split his angry, Doomed gullet, brutally lacing themselves to their armpits with the Blackened fountains of the foolish, wiry lordling's Unknown, starved, Bastard and ruddy vino novo. In despite of fixed Statuses, or 'cause of Them, He was held to be Mine! WELL...

His was indubitably one of the smelliest and Impurest an' most Commonest of vintages, of a completely unidentifiable Vintner, nothing from any Good family stock at All. His Ugly and blasphemous paganic corpus, Gaped Wide as a motley Clown's smile, was Thoroughly baptizing us _(uhhhh)_ with Its lust-Heated, Impure, fetidly anathematous Sangria del Morte. Being Once more Valorous than any noble's, It—the Mess that were Peasant—had Now tooken the Form of a Twisted, Exposed, Naked Puppet, Sprawled Obscenely ruptured and Dismembered on the Stone-cold Floor. Oh, how Brave he had Been.

How Unimportant he Was! How swift, how Skillful, how simple was his Demise!!!

He spurted Quite freely, such as he Slimily had when he'd Lain with my Wife.

We were Heartsore GLAD to suffer THIS form of his deabolical Guesthead! The Traitorous, excremental, part-Christian diarrhea-haired Subhuman Demoniac Wretch!!!

How I'd YEARNED from afar to Split 'im OPEN Meself. He was soon as Good as butcher-quartered, as he'd been Quartered in My House, without My LEAVE, despoiling My as Yet still Virginal, Virtuous and fully Comprised Bride!

At Panic's levelled end, there was a Divilish, disemboweled and nonetheless dying BASTARD to contend with, AS HE WERE unapologetically staining the clean-kept floors of Our Imperial Muwullad palace, not forty years Held Fast in Spain as yet. A Weep or two at the straws by the Christian Goth mop-maids would perforce Turn the Trick, an' All would be Well Again. But my GRIEF..It was Everlasting, my Tears Torrential and Overflowing. DEATH...

I slowly turned, with my dear hearts' Brothermen, whom a' Now I last Knew Divinely as Such, to poor Arturon, supporting and Blessing his Loyal and fallen Wounded self with my Own untouched and Deeply Felt as Unworthy body. He'd stood in my Stead, shielding Me! Oh, would that mine own head were on the floor.

I had not E'en left the Stone door frame to enter the Miserable room. Deore Arturon had unluckily landed Not a single Blow 'gainst the Surprisingly intrepid and Adroit Stranger, who had Sliced him one Instead. True interposition!!!

Romans, We found immediately, are Bleeders pas Excellance.

Marcellinus spewed Copious, an' some Retainers in the Hallways, which were Already echoing hollowly with words, Merest Words, ran to Fetch Our medical arts Practionaries, four Local women (oooooooohhhhhhh) Wise in the Ways of Herbic and Canducal mystic Lore. After a time, Arturon was seen to raise his shaggy, sweaty head, and to have but one apunctured side, Not very deep, a Milder yet still Christly Affliction. He Moaned.

The Paganie de'il! May his Soul Seethe, burble, Bulge, corrupt and SPUME in Blackest HELL!!!! My retainers took Arturon out the Cursed Door on the bedeviled Bedchambers; he Swore and screamed Mightily, ferociously tossing up Maximum profanities at the helpful and doctoring Women, who cooed cheeringly and coquettishly to settle him Down.

None could do Aught for precious Reuben the Jew, save Weep; he was known to Us only as a Leading merchant Jew of south Spain, and a political Advisor to Us in the Area.

Meantimes the dying Peasant stranger, without sound, spun in hellish, horrid and Horizontal circles, freely Untamed to the Goal. His pitifully GAPING wounds Yawning Broad-Broken and redly, his torn muscles Thinly showing, he Created a looming chaotic message of nonsense All Over the straw-bestrewed Stone, thickly Gooey with Wet and dangering Us with Slippery-slime.

His END was Minutes close. Yes. Clucking, I straddled his Corpse. I Grimly laughed. "I do sincerely Hope," I thought a' meself, "that This Dumb, Gross, libertinous bastarde passionate ha' been Supremely Happy, on the Now...Having attained ALL his most madcap Desires." If 't...indeed Had.

For it'd ha' been my Life he'd Desired, I would ha' Done over with it to Better his chances at mine, he had Shown himself so Well. This I Never saw again.

Suddenmost I, as though being perpetually Lightening-Struck, sharply and Firmly AWOKE to My Wife's present ungainly State, which had Seemed so sleepily Natural to Us from Our Carefully Assumed Spot within the concealed and Ruined Portico. There were Already the Tragickal dead Reuben to Contend with, and hurt-bested Arturon.

### PAUSE – no hands have meat

Hail Immanuel,

It doesn't matter.

Touched,

Stuck.

Dead,

Full-Bled.

To live for my Master was the finest of rewards. Ah— _my Wife!_

There...were...someone Else hurt as Well.

By upon My swiftly pounding the lengthy space of floor over to the Sumptuous Beside of My sweet-breathed young Endangered wife and newly nuptialed Bride, I found her Dead and colder than a twisted laurel stump. My Jewel...my Juliette... my Child...

Her Immortal Soul perceivably was fled to unreachable, impassionate Heaven! To the Highest of plateaus, where Remorseless I would Never DESERVE to Travel, being Myself a Well-situated, fortunate Landed King, and Prevalent, and so beyond all ordinary Morality but the Allah's. Who indeed WAS this "Allah", and what was He FOR? And When?

THEN...the awful dagger in Her ripped-open Heart was discovered, by Myself, no less, with her bloodless hands wrapped about it, like a peel...stiffened...

...her Innocent's blood on my Guilt-ridden hands, bellowing like a Deranged maniac Bull, I Rahman II, as Vilest Monster and Madman, came ROARING back, in impotent Furious Rage and Titantic Violence (THUD THUD THUNK THUD), to the Hopelessly slaughtered pagan Villanie, swinging my immense Scimatar as if It were an Insect-Clubbing Mace!!! And so did I the poor, shriveled, yet still Accessably dying Idolator, lost and Naked to "Allah" on the strawy cold floor, the VIOLENT Service of My ancient and more than Adequate dispatching Expertise.

I gave him (AHHHHHHHHHHHhhhhhhhhh) the Autochthon, brief Justice he had so Laughably Requested and so brutally Deserved, Un-thin-king-ly giving All his Wasted young gente baja life Towards It, and my lovely young WIFE's as Also! I wielded a shining and razor-edged DEVICE, with the Which I short-shriftedly Hewed what remaining little Intruder was Left into Ground-up Hack-meat left-Over vulture food. WHO had given Me This?

Not altogether very much worth speaking of were Izquierdo; but 'twere Muerto. Of Blasted Course! For THAT, I SCREAMED and SCREECHED Pitch-Siren in Utmost Heart-Rented Disappointment, towering, Surging in RAGGEEEE!!! There was No Way to Torture this twisted Thing instead, for Days on end, relishing his Broken (or Unbroken) Defeat, Solely in order to make a popular, informative, and intimidating, Example of him. No, It had ESCAPED Us there...and So...

...I Doctored him most Throughly in the Perverse direction Least opposite to good Healing, Hitting him every Where not Hurt, Loudly Wailing and Howling My SORROWFUL Hatred of All these Misfortunate Deaths to the Veriest highest SKIES, my Lordly SOUL completely lost in Jealousy from My Nobly acquired (and thus forever Innocent) lust for Pow'r, unable to touch or hurt this young Jackal's proudly fulfilled Serenity, one brought about manifestly Throughout and through my odious and Well-borne illicit greed and Monumental Jealousy.

'Twas I Who Was to Blame, I who should be dungeoned, Garrotted, TORCHED!!! Not these Children.

I finally ceased, panting, My inmost Soul dying and 'most Longing for something—Candy, perhaps—far Painfuller and sweeter than the Respite of Death for My—pointless—and Villainous Self, letting the youth's now Unrecognizable Corse take its Timely and Mortified Rest—It now Being most strictly Terrible and Gruesome, smaller and more brilliantly Scarlet Pieces. Cut into.

Peace. It does Never oft Prevail, and would Not do so for Me.

Only then did I piosly and Humbly drop to my knees, as though in Diabolical Prayer to the dead Passant, obeying the ordained and scared Tenets of Allah, as I had Not been doing of Recent; these Events obviously BEING the Price God was ha' ME pay, I Bowed to the Lowering of My Darkened and Grieving Moslem HEART, which did NOT bounce, and which Seethed in the relentless Perturbations and volcanic Infernos of Licit Bona Fide Noble's implacable hurricane Anger, which had propelled my Vindictive (I have bloody dick, I have a bloody dick) and tumultuous energies; and SO I sorrowfully Bequeathed All further such tragickal (laundry detergent) Vengeances to ALLAH, and, well, also to Our professional Palacial undertakers...who make money off of dying.

Euloge's Eulogy was for his Lady Love, _you logs!_

"WE HAVE CONSIDERED the statements of the accused, Dhaba, and evidence as to her denial of the divinity of Allah; also her affirmation that Jesus is Allah, arising from her denunciation of the Prophet's mission as a lie. It is our opinion that the woman must be condemned to death and sent forthwith to the stake."

\--final verdict of the faquihs (what, fuck hers?) of Cordoba, leading a Christian monk named Euloge, a "fanatical" follower of St. Isadore (well, she sure was already dead, wasn't she?), to denounce Allah (who wasn't round, neither) and the Musselman (my Uncle Arnold DIED!!!) Way of Life.

Abd-al-Rahman II didn't want the death penalty for him, supposedly, but his successor had "fewer scruples" and in 859 Euloge followed Dhaba, martyred citizen (and mystery victim) of Cordoba. I guess!

The above is All from Jan Read's The Moors in Spain and Portugal (your One True Author's real-life Hubby is half-Portuguese), concerning the very firstest major Moorish invasion of the Iberain peninsula of Western Europe, the first landing being placed in roughly 710 A.D. by scholars. Come seven, let's go to the Seven-Eleven? No, come eleven, times? Wow, the Rain in Spain. It lasted to the Start of the Reconquest, in 1017 A.D. That's when "Spain" won. Rocka Gibralter! _Remember?_ Recollect your sevens and tens. Be thar or by squy-yar! Face the plaid monkey tree! I'm for being oval m'self. In plaid. While eating square pancakes. Where that IS a clock that Runs Backwards...a Muslim clock, revolving counter-clockwise.

Marriage, anyone? How 'bout _a War?_ Why? Durst ye have lambs for Children, or would ye prefer some cute li'l Kittens or those barky, cold-nosed, one-breed, pin-striped Mas o Menos Mongoloid Puppsters? How's bout a Pet Rock?

_Anon._ May your Fate be far _braver_...or kinda cool. At least, Negotiable!

#  Chapter Seven

ALL THE FACES _You Was Leaven',_

And I guess that's jus' your stylized pantyhose...

UNCLE SAMENESS IS BALD – with an overtly Roman éclair nose.

\--Canthi Tell from the White Hair 'n _Beard?_

_No,_ I can't forget that evening...

Or your _face_ as you were leaving,

But I guess that's just the way the story goes...

And in your eyes

A certain smile,

Your sorrow shows,

Yes it sho— _ows..._

I can't live, if living is without _yooouuuuu..._

I can't give, I can't _give_ any-more...

I CAN'T _LIVE,_ IF LIVING IS _WITHOUT_ YOOO-OUU-UUU

I CAN'T _GIVE,_ I CAN'T GIVE ANY- _MOOOR_ -orrrrr...orrrrr _rrrrr_

No, I can't forget this evening;

_All those_ _faces you were leaving_ _...were they but one..._ just _one........._

\--another original American Standard

Ode to Tidy, the Ohio kitty cat who saved the planet Earth

"HE WAS SITTING outside the Laundromat on Guild Street when I first discovered him. He was hostile. He was vicious. He went for my throat! _Nahhh..._

"Small money. I had change rattling around in my pocket. Made me sound spooky. Sometimes I figured, if a human bum was encountered, I would hand that bum my pocket change. But Right now it all went for laundry. I had just moved to Rama, one month ago. I had two loads in my dad's old Army duffel and was carrying it into the Late-Night when I tripped on one of those big thick gummy sidewalk cracks (must've been hallucinating I was back east, there aren't any of those out here) and fell forward, flat on my face. No, the clothes cushioned my fall. Phloomph! Ya got me!

"It's because I was day-dreaming about universal inherent justice for all, again, regardless of story, starting next Tuesday. I've never been known to get hurt doing that.

"As I lay there, eating clothes, there was a series of miaows and, miraculously, a furry creation of love was poking my neck and gamboling all over my backside. Yum. My backside appreciated the thank-you.

"It was strange, being in shocked pain from pitching over, startlement, and then instantly being greeted by a hairy furball of affection. I turned my face to the left and received a fluffy muff of side of cat for my troubles. He bit my nose.

"I leaned on my hands and did a push-up, rising to my feet in one easy motion. Do not try this trick at home. The duffel had seriously cushioned my fall. I was looking down at the kitty. He twitched his tail and looked up at me. He winked.

"Suddenly I was full of visions of cat death, of torturous mangling, of terrifying destruction of tails. The name Dave entered my mind. Perhaps he was telepathically wondering if this handsome cat had tripped me. What was Dave, anyway? And why?

"I reached down to pet this elegant, sleek, greyish-white tabby monster from nowhere. He was pretty big, probably at least a year old. Likely he hailed from the bushes near the empty building lot behind the Late Night, where all the lint from the dryers made a soft, kitty-comfort-style home. Somebody must've lost him. Din't have no collar. Neither did Rama's last city-wide square dance. He looked spayed. I can always tell by the ears. No, really.

"I went in and idiomatically began doing my laundry, accidentally letting the cat in as well. No one there but us spring chickens. He leapt into seat next to mine. Settled down into the cracked cheap plastic chair. I patted him and thought of Sara's hair, how I couldn't always feel anything under her hair when I stroked down unless I actually touched her neck, but the cat's flank was immediate as I petted him. Scretched his years. He gave a monster YAWN, showing twin roles of Peter Pan pearliness with points, chomping it shut and falling promptly asleep, accordioning all his bulbous paws out crazily and horizontally first. Well, Lawrence-Welk!! I almost accidentally Lawrence of Arabia'd him when he turned around while I petted him. He had big bingo balls. Fluffy ones.

"I sat there, in a pastelephant mood, ineloquent, gazing out the window, thinking of the phrase 'a blow to my male ego' and trying not to associate it with anything else that sounded similar, feeling scared that whoever came in would freak at my seated kitty. Who cares? I had someone nice to pet, landed gentry.

"When the clothes were finished I gathered up the soap, any leftover change that I found in a machine, and the kitty. I put him in the closed back. He started meowing and wouldn't stop. "Meow" in the bag every five seconds. I timed it. I Thought, maybe he's stuck now, needing to jism. Or eat.

"But when I got outside I opened the bag and let him have a peek. He thought that was swell and looked everywhere, craning his little fuzzy grey head and bugging out his globular, big, glassy green kitty eyes. People stopped to stare and I broke up laughing. He didn't even care, and I met in taffy-pulling.

"I waved him through the air at Stu Telgoquinate and Betty Czamboni, and this hippie guy named ZORNOA wanted the cat. I think he was one to grab people, like Artie; he was a white and grey farmworker, sort of a rare person. He stopped me to talk as I was waiting to cross the street at the chirping light. Somehow the city had voted in plans for the installation of sounding mechanisms at major intersecretions in Rama, for the blind RETIRED wealthy Hmong hussians. They had installed just one of these so far.

He stopped me to talk as I was waiting for the light to chirp. I promised Zorn a kitten if'n ah gots a litter, but I told him "it's a male." He said, give them pups to th' skin-haids. They need Fur in their lives.

I think I understand, now. People who look funny need to feel good.

"At home, I dumped everything on the floor after I carefully put the soap back. Acquirance jumped out of the bag like a fox. Now I was "Lonesome No LONGER."

"So, I had this mewing furball, and he was real fun, and I gotta buy cat food, I figured. Except sometimes I put chicken or turkey in the blender, added an egg and made some. He was eatin' like there's no tomorrow. That's right, there IS no tomorrow...thanks to Jay Leno. Does anybody here know how to solve the problem of bathroom hair? Lantern JAW does!!! Talk! Rat on may.

"I put a bedpan in the toilet, filling it with kitty litter. Only bag of kitty litter I ever had to buy. AcQuirance is now civilized. Cats can squat. How exciting. No more Panbedders!!! I flushed for him, or course. Quail in the Bushes. Next I teach him THAT. It helps, 'cuz we menfolk's callus leave the toilet seat up.

FOUND _AN EXCUSE!!!_

"Saragina wanted that. She said to name him Roscoe. I told her Fine, Dan tried go back to being Lonesome Again. Did the Catholic Church ever tell you, all us human hominid-types are legitimate? That's why yer standard Cat has but one name.

"I told her he's got fleas, but OK, and I'll get the shots. Shots...

"For the cat, I'll get shots for the cat."

THERE WAS AN impromptu gathering one evening late in June at the Krakatoa. The featured topic: making some bucks. How dear is dough?

"We could sell Home Brew, $35 the barrel, an' test fer it were pure."

"Sure. We won't put any MSG in't, no sirree bobbers. Or any of does sulfites thingees."

"What're sull-feets?"

"Cheaper'n day rates. They're ta keep th' booze from fermentin' any further. Otherwise it'd contain only LAHV yeast, an' it'd almos' be GOOD fer ya. It'n ya lahk bein' a yeast host. Y'know, bread is th' Host. Dis way, we're assuring yeast maybe a significant afterlife, unless th' sulfites totally wipe 'em out."

"Do tell! Are ya sure the new stuff isn't to kill any other potential living micro-organisms that're still swimming around in your favorite brew? Maybe them soul-fates really knock 'em cold."

"Nah. It's to make them there groups what really take to carin' 'bout everyone's health so much, while desirin' stonin' people to death, with as-is booze, mebbe they don't care so much. You know, groups that wanta have screwball sex with their best friends and gramma while staying real safe an' healthy. They'll be bound, covenant-like, to kick up a fuss over stuff in the new near-beers an' th' keeno vino."

"Nah, them are yeast soul-mates, not suffragettes."

"Like, it ain't natchral ta mess with good food like dat, dere. Put'n hell-fahr an' brew'mstones in hit. Syulfer, ah say, syulfer-jetties, they threatinin' hus with their hellfahr NOW! Hit's hin all th' grocery wahn 'cept Manaschaw-wits Conquered Grapes—ta getcha ta buy frum dose Hebie stoners, mayun! Peripatetic! They're gonna sell them guys' wine for 'em man! What for?"

It does appear that kosher wine is the only kind left without sulfites in it...

"It's all to prove a major political point. Like, running Lyndon La Rouche for president sells Barbie dolls. Or something like, that women are occasionally anterior to men (or that men are always posterior than women) because they all run shorter on the Equator, gen'rally, an' so they should all be poisoned to death, with sulfites, no less, an' take us with 'em. 'Cuz they're too cute for words. The point is to pickle 'em. Get it?"

"No, I jus' don' wanna. Not to-day. Tomorrow."  
"At sunrise, or do ya wanna wait 'til the A and Poo Feed Store opens up?"

"It ain't neber gonna open again, man. They found out they got bad wine in der. They done closed up shop for good. See ya later, alligator."

"In a while, caiman, I mean, with a smile, crocodile."

Did I ever tell you that I am personally, personally from the Isle of Langerhans?

WE ( _DON'T_ know who) should give Ralph Ellison, author of "Invisible Man," a reward for becoming invisible, but...how do we _find_ him? Do we find him to be peculiar, swarthy skinned...or do we locate him a _wife?_ And in the Sci-Fi car commercial where the young Black man is also his older self, who _is_ his wife – President Grover Cleveland (NOT a Muppet originally), a scrumptious pizza pie, or someone inconsequential who really isn't being paid enough...no, not _slavery,_ not _again,_ just when the economy (in the 80's) isn't _tanking_ yet?

ON ANY SUNNY SUMMER DAY, you find folks brawling themselves around natural, wonderful and shiningly blue Shell Lake. Known for the corpses of ancient mollusks from the Precambrian Period, the lake feeds into the nearby Pacific Ocean; but it's a meaningless trickle by the time it arrives therein.

"I bet I could make a necklace out of three dozen of these li'l shells," said Caza to Artie. "I could make 'em in bunches and sell them. They'd be perfect for children. Need several lengths of strong cotton thread, not nylon, that'd cut their necks."

"Where'd you sell 'em?

"On the lawn at the library, or here at the park, or at the Grory Market out south of town. Shell necklaces, Indian-style, $4 a necklace. Absolutely clear profit cuz I can get some free three at from my sister. She supplies me thread to make my teddy bears."

The above discussion eventually turned to the brilliant idea of opening a natural food cooperative somewhere in town. Artie was ravingly enthused, as he always wanted to really make good dough. Surely it was a grape idea, a honey of a notion.

"Yeah," Artie agreed. "We could like sell some of dat natural wine, der. And non-irradicard fruit, right? Grown without any dirt on it!

"The only grocery store in dis town gets all stuck-up if they ketch ya wit yer hand in da grapes, anyall, an' ah knows a kid lifted a candy bar once, an' you know what-all is in dem candy bars? Yick? An' they practically filleted that kid when they caught her. "Member Belna Ropsberg? She was cryin', man, like they done her wrong. She din't do nothin'!

"Sure, let's show 'em, let's have a hippie feed store for all da natural anymal peoples ta graze in, opening on only da weekends alone. Or da weekdays 'n Sunday. So we kin be a collective an' run on volunteers an' make no-good pay 'til we break even like any usual bizness in drag as somepin' new, sheeee-it, you know wut ah means."

Lady Caza agreed, leaning back under the smilin' sun, and thinking reflectively as she gazed into the azure silvern lake, what an energetic man of affairs Artie would surely turn into, if only they could take out that sizable of a bank loan. Neither of them had any worthwhile credit.

"I can get my sister and brother-in-law to co-sign a bank loan with us, if they like met you, and agreed to a business plan you drew up for us."

"Day after tomorrow, kiddo. After we-all gets back from Harver Point, doin' that boonies log-cuttin', I'll look inta 'rangin' thet, yee-eh." Artie threw a flat rock into the lake, sunny-side up, and it went Splloosh "Yah sure, you betcha. No probellum." He never did. What Artie does when no one is looking is the point.

(I CAIN'T SHOW UP. I'M SENDIN' THE USUAL PROXY. HERE'S THE TELEGRAPHED ENDING _:_ MAIN CHARACTER GITS HISSELF HITCHED.)

So do a bunchy others. Well, y'knew that, _didn't_ you?

NOTES ON ONE Miguel Siega Del Shuba: retired middle-aged combiner, planter and Spanish teacher. Mostly Indio. A friend and mutual acquaintance of both Artie and Caza. Has threatened to kill Artie Blend, who allegedly owes him $487.96, paid to Blend by Shuba in 1990 on a phony real estate deal. No one knows why he trusted Artie with that small an amount of money. It's said Shuba will kill on sight if cheated on. Artie "gen'rally" has twenty or thirty dollars in his pants, "That's all." But he could set something aside from his weekly paycheck.

So anyway, Mr. Blend was scared because everyone in Rama, and some other equally inconspicuous rural places, knew where his favorite hangout is—the Krakatoa. "But comes ah sees Miguel ah'll be ready fo' him. Ah gots a trick up mah sleeve." Artie tapped his forehead, a sound muffled more or less completely by his luxuriant head of thick blonde hair.

"We've already had experience with that trick, 'member, Artie?" griped his good old buddy Gabe with limited gusto. By size? "I still has a dent in my navel the size of your female skull. Have you got the $500? Maybe I could help you out."

Artie decided the only thing to do was to work as many jobs as the WWII people could get him. Workers of the World Ind., Inc. was more than willing to send the many-faceted Blendman out to building jobs, carpentry gigs, and remodeling townsites jobs. Artie thrived on the increased work and managed to put away half as many refilled four-dollar pitchers. On the weekends.

The day he met Miguel Shuba in Rama, he decided to teetotal. Well, _hardly_ any; he put somethin' down and bought a beer. But he was _meaning_ to start saving money, and possibly knock off boozing too. He knew his sperm cell count being alcohol-laden "is prob'ly wah ah cain't make mah Caza prego," and before life was over, Artie meant to make up for this. But after being born with mild Fetal Alcohold Syndrome from both of his parents, and having been a dead drunk off and on for 40+ years...was this even possible? Drunk is my life, he reckoned; but deep down inside, as boozy as his innards must be, he thought it came secondary "to mah Lady Caza, the Mexicana blue-green ocean breeze."

In three-and-a-half months, Artie had saved roughly $600. He told Gabe about it, in loving detail. Now all he needed was to contact Shuba by proxy and let him have this amazingly large sum, there. Of money.

"With interest, man! Ah owes thet dagnabber patseh. He'll be wun happah Span'sh dude if'n ah kicks him sixteh sawbucks. Wun fer ever yar he be ol' bah now, he been patien', he been waitin' ta buy thet fahm fo' six years naw." To Gabe, six years seemed a long time for Shuba to never have bothered Artie.

Caza asked her guy later, whilst he and she relaxed in peace on their phloomfy king-sized gold-threaded mattress pad, wrapped in a giant tie-dyed green and blue striped downy thick comforter, how close he and Shuba had come to the actual down painment on the farmlands, which were actually there, yep, well; there was a deep silence. Toes rippled merrily under covers, surreptitiously meeting and being debriefed.

Artie stayed relatively motionless, staring at the ceiling. He had a moist and dewy beer bottle standing next to him, making the rug wet. The light was low. Caza oft wondered: what's the attraction in trying to poison his blonde, blue-eyed self, so skinny handsome, to death with alcohol? She thought he was misfield trying to join her, to die with her. O signature of sighs! After all, she was sickly, enfirmizo, probably would die in a while, quizas, si, acaso, tal vez, well before this "Shuba" was sesenta; but she was happy enough Artie didn't use las otras drogas. Others had. They hugged and kissed--mucho.

"Th' farmer sellin' th' property tol' th' rail-tor ta tek na less'n thray gran' as a down. Tha's a fab dail! Mos' places takin' ten ta fifty down. Ah thought ah'd get it from mah cuz'n an' ah nevah got him in on th' dail. He copped for Chicago, or somepin'. An....fergits.

"Mah folks in Libbeh Montaner, don' got cash ta bail me out either. They barely survivin' the wintahs thar. So ah tooks Siega's paltreh sum an' tol' him ah could swung a deal. Ah ended up backin' out. Mah fault. Ah thought it would work as c'latt'ral fer a bank loan.

"Ah wuz all washed up han' wen' on a bendah down th' coast, holin' up hin mo-tels. "Mem when we met?" Artie slurrily mooned unheard words lovingly at Caza. He held an unlimited respect for her. He still had a touch of hippie class, even when dead drunk. He never ever touched her funny or threatened her. He didn't even yell at her, either. He just groaned loudly when he got hungry and that got her up to fix them dinner at times. Other times they took long drives (WHUMPH!!!) in Artie's old rusty bomber of a car, the Ford Tempest of 1965, a gas-eating green boat with excellent stammering and mag wheels. He rotated 'em once a year. He forgot to, Caza noticed, last year. She had it done by her farmworker nephew Bizco.

Shuba finally turned up, as bad pennies are wont to do, while he was passing along near Unionville area, close to Riverdale, where Archie and Reggie used to hang tough, trying to sell imported Japanese tractors for a local American outlet. A friend of Caza's arranged a meeting at the Fantastic Café in Rama. "Eat for a change!" she ordered Artie, flashily leaving him there, skirts aswirling. She didn't want to witness any "bloodshed," she told the Press. She was already dying enough. Why Chase rainbows AND rabid dogs?

Artie was par-lexed, and decided that she wuz mad at 'im "'bout somepin'"...shoot.

Oh, he gulped, patiently awaiting his appointment with Destiny, being both nakedly afraid, and not at all scared. "Ventreblue! He fitfully exclaimed, harshly chanting to himself in untranslatable Musketerrian French. The payback dough was stuffed into his tye-dyed hairskirt pocket. Would Shuba shoot me, he cringingly thought, harshly cursing to himself in Ashkenazian Aramaic, proving again that death only comes _once_ for men like Alexander Hamilton (but for men not like him...) as the dough was neither foxy nor in tens, and only once, up and down, back and forth, a million times already...where was he? But then, would Shuba ask questions be later in the unreachable no-smoking section? You don't know. If so, too bad. Artie had paid his life insurance monthly, and up-to-date, in case an evil destiny ruled.

" _Rulez?_ Vince Rulez is gone now, in his Saab, havin' left town in a hurry. They say he made a lady...Prego sauce," which incensed Artie until him jiggered it out. Pregnant, he dreamed about his Caza, but she was too dying.

(D'Artagnan, crushed by this terrible news, remain silent and motionless, while all the demons of rage and jealousy howled in his heart.) Remember that. It's the worst thing that oft happed to him, according to what Artie read. He thought a book where a lady was all cut up and tossed away at the end was _disgusto..._

Artemis's Humble Editor's Note: from this point _on_ unto further instruction, leave the typos ALONE. On the other hand, if you spot any, remain unawares. They flavor _m'book._ Or, when summon else types this, read in Spanish and _eat Algonquin,_ plus Cherokee, Chippewa, _Maya,_ Aztec, Delaware...early Spic 'n Span. Hey, I hafta translate, and m'beer is gettin' cold. Ah earned Spanish in hah school. I'm from the Trail of Tears tribes of th' Nation, and y'know, sow's Gabe. Me, Gabe, Gabe, me. Notice it's like this throughout our book? We're all secretly Injuns. Ever'body. White, black, brown, freckles, invisible, KKK, Irish, Joes, Jills, kitties, dogs, the FBI, Russians, Martians, _you,_ me, and Bobby McGee. Oh _Mayan! I got Gabe drinking, he's mah new drinkin' buddy, nobody kin stop us!_ Oh, mah pumpkin head. "Ouchies."

A small, burly, anticlimactically and balding, yet middling but not terribly handsome arrival was the earthen form taken in seconds by Shuba. Though not in any manner of believable approach that Artie could see. Not handsome, in fact ugly, very, soaked in sweating, badly dressed and hirsute, get to the Point where it was sticking up around his nonexistent shirt collar, to match his untucked white t-shirt, on the Latino, ah, male. Shuba, the. He had shadows bluer underside of beard stubble, eerily appearing middle-Eastern, Arabian descent perhaps, snorting really, as in a shattered blue glass window, steee-reaked with black dots of rain, all on the outside. He took that one look at Artie Blend, comfortably ensconsed in a window seat at a grindingly retroactive (told you this was all about _Retro,_ didn't I?) black-dotted pink fiberglass table for four. Joyfully reading from "The Farmers Almanac" for weather forecasts of the current year. Artie looked up, simple and innocent. Yet, that look mimicked on his face, a comedian's most nightmare darkling grimace, Shuba began to run weirdly berserk amuck in the dusky, musty ristorante.

Soundlessly, sans one Spanish word (you're aware which one, right?) Miguel de las Siegas Del Shuba (there HAD Been More to It, once, but that was several LONG centuries ago) began to make choking motions! Bloating his face brilliant Will Scarlett red-as-beets and pulling roughly, basely and scroungily at his up-to-the minute, currently fashionable shirt-clothes. This was done as though he were drowning, strangling, or poisoned. Or being fired.

Mr. Artie perked up, beginning to be intrigued. Or irritated. Or awakened. But not much better than that. He'd had four to eight beers that morning, dependant on how ya counts th' 32 oz. bottles, and he was getting preeeeeety sleepy. What kinda joke was this? Too much reg'lar coooffffeee? Alumininuminuminuminum from pop cans—PHENYLKETONURICS!!!—'stead of botulism from tins? Myutupill kinds of the same joke?

Whhhhhhhhhaaaaaaat-ttever. Shuba suddenly did whole forward body pitches, swinging insanely, but gorgeously, from side to side, moving every bit as if grieving the imminent death of his entire beloved family.

Perhaps he was, in a way. Or, one single hard-driving dude whose head hurt. Mucho Well. Perhaps he was, in a way. Artie, his raise one eyebrow whistling "Dixie" in hopes for increased green-glass bottle returns (I'll explain later) in appearance, seemingly, recollected AND recalled darned old Mr. Spock (don' chu DARE use the name Daktari!) from You Know Trekville. An' all the Trekvillager Yeah. What WAS Meester SPOCK!! SPOCK!! SPOCK!! Delivery—what was his first name, anyhoo? Right? WHAA-AAT?

Straight-faced Peiping piebald humor. I just don't get it.

Did he even have one, "Bones?" HAH? Of course. On the outside!

Miguel clutched his shirt from near the top; it was a cotton T underneath, and he had what is popularly known as a bull neck. Tough-lookin' dude, if you like them. Wildly staring at Artie with giant saucer-sized popeyes, he wore an almost obscenity, weirdly inappropriate harrowing look for man about to BE SEATED AT A quiet CAFÉ. On the inside, yet. Too much cloud-cover outside. Positive?

TIME FOR THE UNSPEAKABLE OBSCENITY!!!!! _YVHV_ _!_ 'Member? Hits in the Bibles, all 'bout the secret name a God, which isn't really Dog.

Why V (the Spanish "b")—Why Be HIV- _positive?_

In 1980, AIDS began to become a major health concern. Around 1984, that's when the wild rumors and false info about this "new" disease really began to circulate. The author of this book found out that AIDS might be a phony disease, just late stage syphilis really, but nobody knows anything about this for sure.

Some men live alone, do not have sex, and never tell. These are seen as easy to exploit, and thus so are "their" women. _God! What if something else has something in mind, something to do with worms and diseases standard?_

Several odd emotions were distorting his bearded brown face. For example, his vaudevillian deep-socketed tormented eyes, bloodshot, thick with wormlike protuberances (is the Vlad villain the Glad villain? Really? Is Vlad Teepees very happy, or WHAT?!? Huh.), mysteriously were rolled high enough to see only the rhomboid whites; his fashionably thick-lipped, Mr. Big-Lips slivering crimson mouth dropped, weirdly, blackly open. Almost you could see the tonsils. His teeth were remarkably straight, for a cerebral palsy victim's Latter-Day advocate. That's something we all should be doing, right now. Those were probably all edible animals. So, keep reading. We can leave this whole scene out of the picture. Movie!

You could be out there, enjoying the beautiful weather.

Stereotypically, mind-blowing, and in one lambasting seersucker second (in fact, this whole scenario is very, very repetitious), using both his unmitigated hairy hands (which obviously belong to something like Moroni, jes?) he ripped his entire needless, disposable and irrefutable shirtfront off, nothing new and post-superhero life here (which one was Batman, Rudolf Hess?) here, clearly indicating that he was sincerely overheated doncha think? Buttons went instantly pop-flying, everywhere, dozens. More than were on his shirt. In huge rains of multi-colored buttons to either side. Dozens, dozens, and dozens. Virginal and obviously boring men's dress shirt front, with gaposis in the front, unironed and unironic, and in his non-supremacist haste he was also ripping through the underlying normal, ordinary white T-shirt, but it had something on it, rendering it obliviated and manufactured by YOU message obscure, apocryphal, and entirely unreadable.

This malignantly comic-book and artistically typical act revealed a tie-free, hairy expanse (weeeeeell, there were a few nextmost the nipples and in-between some moles) of moderately brown, thickly well-muscled and pocked with an intricate pattern interlay of evenly spaced brown-and-white MOLECULES, sweaty chest. With several dozens of blindingly golden, cheap, flashy herringbone chains gratuitiously dancing madly upon it, like garden elves and fairies never do. And each of those chains dangled a golden hollow or filled Mogen-David instead of the usual and expectable cross, cowboy alchemy symbol, or what-have-they. I'm gettin' TARRED, FEATHERED, AND thin as a rail from typing. Soo...

Zillions and zillions of handfuls of gold, which vastly bedazzled Artie's blue-green eyes, layered in layers upon zillions of thousands of Stars of David, danced insanely about like Yankee Doodle snowflakes that clinked. Exactly 1998 of them. Sure.

There were at least $300 or less worth of these fine, thin, y completely falsified or plated gold chains, coming in several designer styles and vastly differing lengths, swishy leak clattering against their sturdy, smoothly hairfree, pronouncedly normal-looking chest (see me clambering through this barbed-wire fence? Source of idea).

It was however blathering hot and sweaty and made an overdescribably coffeesque background, mocha, Swiss chocolate (through the molecules) –but, what for? Gold chains, what else...

Himself the Drunk remained seated. This was all indeed very strange.

Dramatically reaching deeply into his recessive left jacket pocket, Miguel de laws Sieges Del Shuba pulled out the biggest, longest, bluntest, weirdest MF Bowie knife Artie had occasioned to so much as set pink-rimmed aquamarine eyes upon. "Least a twelve-inch blade, probably thirteen, curved in an odd way but not really, with a carved wooden hilt that was wrapped in black leather strips, and with monumentally huge finger grips. A hunter's dream blade, not too violently perverted-looking but a realistic facsimile, yep. The modren dagger-o-type. It'd work. But, what for?

This silver object was (they analyzed the blood on the alters) a Maxam Five-Hundred Bowie, with a heavily serrated thin cutting edge, forged out of 100% stainless steel, that glowed in the dark, and having a fascinatingly long and deep blood groove. Artie had always wanted one, for fishing purposes. It was quite shiny, very scary, and looked ABSOLUTELY razor-shaped.

How depressing can you get? Would you believe, Shuba beltingly swung (AGAIN???) into a distorted tenor-range version of "Hold Me?" It sudden came to Artie that he'd never ever-ever once seed Miguel with a girlfriend. However, he had seen him walking a dog, once. _Once!_ An Irish setter, that.

The worst of the Part was Shuba's undeniably New York Jewish accent. Totally Semitic. Dripping with New York nasality. Conspicuously like Gabe's but worse.

"KILL ME!!! RIP it open! They used to! My heart is HERS!! She's YOURS!!! It doesn't matter! My life is CRUSHED!! Who cares about me? I am ZILCH!! YOU are the divine Evolvement!!!! Japan says so!! They LISTEN!!

"Plunge it in past the hilt and all the way up to your elbow!! No further!! It's not rubber! Strictly for LAUGHS!! Tear me to mercifully insignificant SHREDS! People were FOOLS!!! POUR every smelly, rancid DROP of, ah rotten putrid sell-out cowardly stinking anti-heretical (and obviously clotting inside) grizzled BLOOD from out of me! Sacrifice this subhuman LIFE of this meaningless, toe-jammy, worthless bum, forever and verdant, and consecrate it, slowly (that word again) to the Blessed TUBER Birdie Quetzalcoatl! Like we USED to! Death is Current! Columbus never stopped US!!! Never!

(This is slightly crucial) "I'M A _MAYAN!!!!!_ A Mayan! Do it to it! Worthless me, I don't help her! She loves YOUR! My life is FEUDAL!!! And while you're at it, MOVE IT AROUND AND AROUND AND AROUND A LOT!!!

"NOWWWWW!" Here, the camera takes a highly libertinous wrench and goes behind the most peculiar Miguel Shuba, who may not even be the least little bitty-bit real, his being a drunken delirium fantasy presentation of bi-color-or-so Artie's, but nevertheless who apparently is brownly and presently crouched down on one knee (you always knew it was so we could have teams), in the perfect descending Colson "Mammy" positioning, his blue-jacketed arms outspread and grabbily slurping up six feet of swallowed air --with his untucked, sloppy cotton shirt playfully blowing in the BREEZE entering from the dusty restaurant's back, behind-the-counter door. Clearly the de-riguer look for the new fall season. And from Our ideal location situated behind him, we...

Artie coughed. But wait-- Miguel has something further to add. Naturally, it's Divisional. But not very diversional.

"SLASH CITY! Make me into a raw stripped STEAK, medium-well done!!! I am NOT the magnificent and sacred HOME that is the ETERNAL rain FOREST!! With the spotted Karen owls in it instead!! Cut ME down, Rather! What's ME? I drink too many Cokes and beers mixed with piña coladas on alternate Fat Tuesdays! I am PURELY INULTIMENTE, GRATIS, YO ME TENGO SOLO LA CULPA DE!!! YOU CAN GET AWAY WITH IT!!!

"END this practically insignificant, twisted, soporific FAILURE'S mockery of your holy, sacred, unpolluted, untwisted avec-mi-homo's LIFE!!! Wash me unto death with my whole heart's RAGING BLOOD (or something) and RESTORE TO ME MY ETERNALLY, INFERNALLY LYNX-EYED BASTARD'S MISBEGOTTEN SOUL! Because they sue from the BEYOND!!! Not yours!!!

"I don't NEED money to go on living! CUT OUT MY HEART _AND GIVE IT TO HER!!!_

"WRAP THE BOX!!! It's FOOD! I don't NEED money to go on living! What's a money economy FOR? MAKE ME INTO AN OVERDONE HUMAN MEATLOAF! I await an earthquake that does not arrive! It will be TOTAL ECTROPY!!!" Here, for no discernible rhyme, Shuba threw his head back and ahhh'd, kind of like Stevie Wonder, but I wouldn't suggest running out and killing him, no. And a very nice brave disAbled guy, nobody famous, I useta work for (they're ALL brave, 'cuz they are STUCK, get it? Good.) And soon after riotously chocked sorta like a drowning brown Santa. "SCHNELLLL, already! Nguyen!!! South _Nam Viet._

I served eight months of Hell forever, this's the thanks I git akin.

"PLEEEEE _EEE_ _EASE!!!_

He was nothin' but dead serious, too soon me to be over. Oh, NO.

(Not again. Kin Hell forgive me, or Heaven take an alkie? I like...tankards. If they serves beer in Heaven, where ah'm goin' ah think, ah need salt. They say if you don't take salt in peanuts when you drank, you dry up an' blow away. Bar peanuts, that is the Peanut, the thing I live off of...no, Shuba, _knife is not peanuts!)_

He RAISED (and from BIRTH!) the awful Knife...is this Poker? Pogram? What (slur) TV _Pogram_ is this? Ah heard a pogrom from Goneschlaw, they say he survived twelve concentration camps in th' Holocaust. Or somepin'. He was shipped roun' to five different countries, and they killed hunnerds of his Polish relatives, makin' 'em slaves 'til they died o' starvation, _bestiality,_ cigs, beau'ful naked hovers, and wildly varying Nazis. Beatin' 'em to death, rumor is Goneschlaw beat one o' them _Nazis_ back up to death.......dude said _he offed_ Bob's mother, his father, 'n raped his two sisters. He stood there unable to cry, like when my Mom...lady...

...mwah mom shot Dad to death in Montana, y'see. She used a two-barrel shotgun and blew him through the jaw, next I knew mwah dad din't have no hair. Red-neck at last, he spiraled down jerkin' to the floor, bouncin' along as I turned away. Bob 'scaped hiss elf to America and settled in Rama in the late '40s. Townies say _He_ couldn't cry anymore, smoked cigars 'til he lost his lower _jaw,_ cuz the Nazis and Ruskies made sure Bob was the loneliest man on Earth. LONELY!!! I fled the backwoods soon I had money saved, age a 14 I hit th' Greyhound Bus. It bounced, while I sat, unable to see through the lack of tears, blurry mind...no more cigs.

Nobody left to hug, ain't we lucky? Luckier, mah family wuz violent losers too...smokers, _drankers_...ain't I a coward, tremblin' here, lettin' Shuba push me? "Hey, Miguel, I love _Caza,_ is this cuz I wanna keep a lady with may _all m'life_? Is it cuz you used to lover her too, is she _seein'_ you when she goes there?"

SSSSLLAAMMM!!! The deafening echoes cryptically reverberated throughout, especially in everything solid within, the café, like a massive stone door slammed shut in an underground Malarkey, moving the glass door several millimeters on its hinges. Inside Artie's drunken head (which was alcohol-drenched and placed past his normally available leg pain), the cheerless cotton wads fuzzily registered an intemperate's surprise disgust. Artie wanted a beer, not blood. There could be HIV one, two, or three in that blood!!!

Miguel had slammed the giant knife down, blade and hilt flat parallel, on the speckly pink table's black Formica edge, jarring an already extant crack. His fiercely trembling, patchy, ropy with blue veins, sweaty as said, stubby-fingered open brown-pink paw still hovered like grey drifting cold clouds over the hideous blade, shakily, but he resolutely forced his ruddy hand down, balling it first into a hairy fist, onto the dirty parquet floor.

No, it was butternut, not parquet, and fairly classy, like the knife. But older. Much wider and wiser than Artie, whose head nodded arch spittoons. He hid a choice smile, of someone normal who usurped what was going on. It was the usual case of the white guy who thinks he's typical, and the not-white guy who spins like an auto-turbine and stands motionless in front of the camera.

Camera two moves to behind Artemis. He's speechless, and starting to shake, possibly with quelled laughter, or otherwise. The sunlight glints wonderfully on his massive Crown-of-Everlasting-Glory, yet still stringy-with-life yellow hair, and also reflects nearly blindingly off the huge, silver-coated, bulky and serrated giant knife. It was BIG, like they claim you like, those khaki-clad white men. You know, in them thar catalogues. In the pictures. In the cottages. Sitting on deck chairs. Good for killing elephants. I felt so inspired by those lying on the beach...but they remind me of those dead Viet Cong...Dame Gretchly says she _was_ one, before she fled th' Red Chinese, came over to Hawaii and this humble, mysteriously beautiful place in Washington State and the Pacific Northwest...cain't hide in America...I din't escape Montany, they returns to perpetually ha'unt me...

WHY IS EVERYONE ON THIS PLANET MY G-DAMNED ENEMY?

Eerily racist, hate-ridden "white" chanting filled Artie's blonde mind; fevered, drenched with sweat and pulling a fast one through the beginnings of Delerium Tremens from not drinking enough: the only good nigger is a dead n-word, the only good gook is a dead red crook, the only good woman is mah dying Caza -- the only good hero is a dead sandwich _.....I'm in bad-ass alkie withdrawal!_

Artie's hairy mouth, which was beginning to drop and hang bottomless open, cautiously began to form carefully enunciated, drunkenly spoken, coolly weighed and well-proportioned English words in talk:

"Ah gots yoo th' money, uh, m'maya, but ah gotcha six hunnerds. Ah'm more than willin' ta pay inter-est. But ah wants ta keep muh Caza, if'n thet's whut yer implyin' it thet's whose yer efter. Summun else in on dis wit yoooo?" Artie squinted at Miguel, with wide-open uncertainty. Did this guy wanna get Artie in trouble, jailed, broken, hurt like a little girl _and dead?_

_You_ may draw your favorite picture here,

But I'll warn _you,_ it will have adverse

Effects upon the resale value of yer copy of

This p'culiar long book. Yes, an ebook joke -

Due to large unexpected white spaces.

No reply? _Oops!_

"Ah'm sorreh, ah kep' ya waitin' fer years. Here ya goo... _Mayan."_

Is there any _reason_ Scarlett gets Rhett? Is't because he's th' butler, and the butler "did it" with Scarlett O'Hara, goin', "Sorry I don't give a damn." Swearing, and the South shall rise up again is not what I _ask for_...so long ago, ah was fantasizin' the weirdo Shuba, an' that he's Jewish...what is the Here and Now?

Editorial Note II: Jew MAY check for typos, forever 'n never, _amen._

Artie jerked the important wad of greenish-rainbow bills, slowly, from out his hippie shirt pocket. Two dog-eared twenties stuck in the flap on their way. "You poor ol' fella, yoo better buy yerseff a nooo shirt. Kin ah getcha a drink? Heah." Shuba tremblingly and falteringly lifted his softly bushy, flat, black head. Nothing altogether human was visible in his tempestuously black eyes. They held death.

Artie painstakingly, slurrily, and histrionically (but without quite the stellar performance exhibited by Miguel S. Shuba, whom the judges awarded an overall eight-point-twenty-five) handed over to Mr. Naked Chain Man all six hundred of his borrowed dollars. In thirty twenties, Artie's usual form of currency; two bunches of fifteen, each held pinched tight together midway with a rust-colored, breaking-in-process rubber band. It came halfway undone during the time-consuming circuit of Artie's drunken hand motions.

Shuba's staring, dead black eyes, pledged to an abyss far deeper than Hell itself, never even registered the transaction.

As though he had, effectively, died. They were limpid, dull, and bottomless, rimmed with flat, translucent crystalline tears and shot with squiggly lines of red. One trickling snail-trace pearl left a line exactly one-sixteenth of an inch in diameter, a vertically crooked nepenthine run down his stubbly brown cheek. But yeah, he took the money. He just wasn't going to run out the door with it. No pressing engagements today for Senor Shuba...

He stuffed it, neatly and hurriedly, albeit ghastily across his disturbed chest, into his left blue-jeans jacket pocket, kissing it first--again, Mr. Hamilton wasn't there to feel it--and, while sustaining his two-point kneeling position, he dramatically allowed his thickly furred head, blacker than night itself, to sink all the way downward again 'til it almost began dropping off.

He then soundly crashed down to the other, hidden knee, although it was surely not the properest time to do so, with an audible thud. Too audible to be natural, real, or otherwise malevolent or nice. His ghastly face was lost symmetrically...forever? In a sea of dark, thick curls and blue-black feathery sweeps, a heart-shape covering his burly naked chest; like a wet dog he shook all over, as...como si...he might be getting rather chilly. Not to anything environmentally cold. He wasn't humanely reacting. Both hands were balled into stubbornly purple fists, grinding fully into the dirty and streaked with mud restaurant floor.

Wow, Artie blurrily mused, he's starting to sob. Might be good for the dude. Too bad he's such a sore loser.

Perhaps this peculiarly-staged manoeuver implied some sort of insanely heroic and tragic defeat. The finalized sting of death? The agony of Heat? It was. Hives? Feet—smelly ones?

Then again, it was indubitably Artie's chance to strike a decent knifely bargain, on his very own behalf and in his best favor.

"Say, Mike, kin ah tek thet Boowie as parta th' bar-gain? Hit ain' wuth too much, his hit? Kin ah hev hit fer th' diff'rance, thar? Ah thanks," he drawled, sneakily placing his hand on the gargantuan but stationary blade, and swiftly scraping it all the way across the table to the window, placing it parallel to the napkin holder and the juke box selection machine, "thet'll keeps this heah fish boner, mahseff, for ya." Artie's face had a drawn, dour, severe cast to it, Grey as ash, fixed as rocky granite. He looked cold serious for a change, in other words, but his hippie clothes remained the same brilliantly clownish attire. After all, it's not that easy to look "for real" in a dayglo orange-and-purple tie-dyed one-pocket shirt.

YES, IT WAS an impressive pudgy and fudgy weapon. Like, killer-Diller. Oh yes, indeedy. "Is yoo gon' be hokay, senior? Kemo sabe? Yo?"

No answer. A tiny, diminutive, loser's symmetrical shoulder shrug, clearly faked in summa toto or in part. After a few whispered words hesitantly escaped Shuba's peeling, ruddy, dried-out flabby lips. A few.

"She's dead," was intoned and that was all, in mutteringly funereal tones. "Would that I were, as well." He didn't intone that; in fact, he sounded oddly familiar.

The complexity of "Latino" stillness malevolently pervaded the generally cheery atmosphere of this otherwise homely small-town café. Stifling agony, dead love, lapized silence, and heat...I eat my peas with honey, I've done it all my life...

Shuba, a foreshortened torrid ghost, had faded out to a minor whisper, and Artie, the drunken hippie, pretending rank disinterest, snuck several lingering casual glances towards and through glass door, indicating an expectancy of something.

Perceiving a romantic, baseless, irresistible and treacherous urge to follow his gaze further up the street, he found that...there did seem to be a wholesome and pretty teenage girl away up 'airs...kinda Messican. She looked faint, ghostly, eerily lovely like his Caza, God his Caza wuz bee-yu-ti-ful, and look, she...but this gal's blurry form was younger somehow, or mebbe she...

...when he turned back, Shuba was GONE. Vanished in a puff of cigarette smoke. Omigod. No Moor _Open Mike!!!!!!!!_ They sure taste kinda funny, but...it keeps them on the knife. Gee I don't like Army life, it doesn't like me. Nor anyone. Gee, I don't like Army life, gee - and I wanna go home...enlisted sucks. They drafted me four short years after I left Montana, cuz I forwarded mah mail. To Unionville, WA. Ah had plenty of _tall_ brothers and sexy sisters, feuding requires _same._ You die, you get "reborn," they used to tell me all the time. "Artie, why doncha like to kill niggers? _Why?"_ They actually _meant_ the white families shootin' and killin' ours; nobody was black. Nobody...so short folks over time got ran down and brutally killed...they turned round to face mah bullets, 'cuz I'm six foot one inches.

Wasn't _That_ a Long Joke?

Blend checked his reeking but clean and languorous self for the money, no, that were gone, too, but he performed his own personal nose test for the DTs and found he still had his balance or whatever 'tis ya lose, those resters an' relaxers. Phewww! He checked out the floor. No ungodly knee imprints. No buttons! No weird blood, not even "vampire" blood. And no golden chains with attached Mogen Davids jangling. If there had ever been one, there was nonetheless currently no Miquel de las Siegas Del Shuba, king for a day and _queen_ of the May. Knifie Wifie Island, not a gun man, ah guess. Neither open nor closed. End of Weirdo _the Rival!_

The waitress, previously occupied in the shadows, came up to the table. She was extremely familiar.

"Y'been sittin' here an hour Art, whaddya havin' from me, _hmmm?"_ Pretty Jeannie Ontermeyer asked of the aging hippie, who was parked all alone. She flourished her blue-lined ticket pad and a good black pen, burnishing and furnishing an expression of mild female sarcasm. She had real class, for a kid at her stage.

Artie rolled his perplexed and watery eyes up at her. He had, thank God, bathed today, blessedly for Caza. And washed all his hairs. He smooth his ashtray but brazen golden head of hair back with one bulky pale hand, running his pink fingers repeatedly through it, almost a task in itself.

Glancing over to his left, he was able to see that the giant knife was still exactly where it belonged. He licked his lips. Grabbing it, quickly, he stuck both his callused hands under the Formica table, concerned lest Jeannie should care too deeply about, uh, things.

"I'll have a soup and salad, ma'am, blue cheese dressin', with crackahs. An' a large Pepsi. Without ice." Jeannie Ontermeyer smiled her smashing, famous award-winning smile. It relieved the tension, unless you were making it, and often then-times as well. She poised her black, sometimes leaky ink pen for business. She spoke, a sustainable but rendered by situation atypical, past-time.

"We got fresh strawberry and peach ice cream, flown in today, too if'n you want some, Art. Jest you ask!" She took down the order. She looked so cute walking away, wiggling her behind accidentally, or incidentally. Artie sighed wistfully, lovingly, happily.

I've gotta thank of mah Caza all th' tahm, or ah'll wandah 'way, an', ah'll sin surest in mah deeper thoughts. But ah truly loves mah li'l gal. Wail, ah gots th' hots, Mahk, an' th' knahf now too. _S'alraht!_

To Continue: Artie put the Bowie in the bag the money'd been in. Jeannie shortly brought his soup and salad. It was very good. He was starved. The salad, however, had brown leaves, wilted edges, and was a teeny bit dry.

Artie simply requested Moor dressing.

Notes from Mein Kampf, a tome artistic types, squirming junior high children and their mysterious bullsnarb teachers might "enjoy" (you bet, if you delight in the deaths of millions.) But if you _read_ it, you know the Holocaust happened. There's pictures of the huge, violently black and ash-coated gas ovens, among other atrocities. And glowing descriptions of the money being made by the crematorium manufacturers. Hitler bragged a lot in it. Of course, those events _have_ been televised, so who needs Nazi literature nowadays?

Hitler delighted in over-using the (German) words "besonders" and "damals," thus explaining the 1980s cigarette ads for "evil camels." These words were used to talk folks into the splendid aberration called cigarettes. Even if you like losing your capacity to breathe, aren't they low-life scum? I thought they were referring to me with lovely phrases like scumbag and dirt bag; but in fact they were referring to my vacuum cleaner, named Snoopy. A filthy rich machine of love.

_Nah,_ I'm gonna write stuff about suburbia of the 1980s-1990s, called The Men's Baby Club. It concerns a white golfing league, starting to see brown and black players, where the men go round to restaurants dressed as naive babies, in diapers etc. in order to order from the children's menu. This is to make them lose weight while under media lights, because they are obese. It's a sad commentary on human existence in that partial Seventh Heaven, the outskirts of middle-class American suburbia.

_SHE_ DIDN'T _WANNA_ be a state worker for the Chinese. North Vietnamese, her name had been Ha'i Phuong. Her missionary teachers gave her a children's book, so simple and beautiful to her, of ancient German Teutonic fairy tales. From patiently reading this book in English, she derived an altogether new name, like her superheroine Sojourner Truth. If anti-Islam, there, would let her, at her proto-advanced age...which was about thirty. I mean, anti-state work. The Russians kept a vigil on her region, turning her into one long desire to escape.

One clear, wild, wet, wind-surf day in Honolulu, the soul-rearing blue tide came in on Waikiki Beach, funny. There was a mawkish and swarming open boat carrying one giant mass of dying Vietnamese boat people, and it screeched up on the lapping shores near a dilapidated, hippiesque t-shirt stand. On Waikiki Beach, the surfer's PARADISE. Eight-ninety-nine a shirt, cotton ts. Tsk.

The majestically native Hawaiian fella running the stand immediately ran to that giant broad canoe out there, carrying eight or twelve t-shirts to heroically cover the boat occupants. He automatically slowed to a standstill in his frantic approach...it looked to be about fifty people, or what remained. They had been, and were being, broiled alive by the red-hot, screaming sun, and most of their laughable clothing was flapping, in destroyed rags and tatters, or gone. There were filthy woolen blankets over some, possibly covering the dead. They smell, mostly like salted meat. Very old, contagious salted meat, eerily not completely infested. A weird communal sound of intense, unholy, unbelievably ultimate pain filled the balmy air. It was indeed a gorgeous day to die on the beach.

Safe at home, cramped but definitively so, Gabe could sure picture that, in his mind; there was the boat, grinding, churning and wedging into the imported sand from Florida, the surfers with their long and short boards gathering around, awe-stricken and the wretched moaning and gasping of the swarming denizens of the beached vessel so earthily human, yet tormented beyond all human recognition. Their wind-lashed faces were heartlessly blotched with virulent flaming pink patches, running-vanishing into bloodlessly white, swollen, sodden faces; their dried-out mouths kept mutely wheezing testimonial series of breaking gasps for precious unattainable water and blessed Hawaiian air. Twenty-eight of them were stinking, damned, fetid corpses. Sri-Hong Fud, standing up with six others in the boat, was not one of them. Not yet.

"Michael rowed the boat ashore,

Hallelu-jah

Michael rowed the boat ashore,

Hallelu-jah.

"Sister knows to set the sails,

Hallelu-jah.

"Sister knows to set the sails,

Hallelu-lu-jah.

"For the river is deep and the river is wide,

Hallelu-lu-jah;

Peace and plenty on the other side,

Halelu-luuuu-jah."

Dame Gretchley truly had a lovely voice when she honestly tried. Gave it her best. Mezzo-soprano, "Beau" guessed.

The woman who later was to become the only major Christian leader, sans all unnecessary competition, in the typical, peaceful, rural small town of Rama, WA, was being covered with an extra-large-sized white T emblazoned with the words "Live Fast, Die YOUNG, Leave a Good-Looking Corpse," delicately outlined in robin's egg blue on the front. The Hawaiian boothier, lost in a personal twilight of unbelief, leaned her dragging, near-lifeless body against his as he pulled her out of the boat. He was joined by other beach hangers-on and a few of the boulder vacationers. They found and pulled the discernible living out of the reeking, infested, stinky and disgusting boat.

Hesitantly, the incredulous and misplacedly sexy bikini'd living people spied and pried at the dying and fighting-for-life South Vietnamese. One magic, gruesome corpse had rotted frozen to his seat. He was repeatedly stared at, as though he would go away if enough people did, also. 'Twas an old man, smelling to the higher skies like something deathly fierce; thankfully, the salty brine had preserved him and the other dead from rotting too remorselessly, sense of smell-wise, for the accidental or Providential sake of the near-depraved Asiatic living and the beach kids, who were losing and gaining several years of time and sanity. "God!" exclaimed a six-foot-two, blonde and male young surfer. "These folks are DEAD!" The boat was VERY full of salty wash, which had nearly rotted out the bottom and the sides. Almost.

A few were gingerly able to walk out of the boat. Three fell.

Pepsis, diet root beers, iced tea and any amount of cold machine water was offered to all victims who could take it. Cool, fresh torture was splashed over first-, second- and third-degree sunburns, filling with agony every salt-eaten crack and causing various happy expressions of surprised pain. Blankets were gently laid upon the sand, the dying and the dead was swiftly and expertly stretched out upon them.

Racism was dynastically non-existent as the mostly white or Asian, some black somewhat, and naturally Japanese or Hawaiian beach funcationers, plus the hotel and stand employees, and those bums, no cops there then, struggled out a handful of words in Vietnamese, Laotian, French and Korean, both superfluous and heard, as the tormented, refugee, formally land-dwelling souls. They universally groaned back. Sri Hong was heard to moan a word very like "Satan." Perhaps not. It might be important.

"Boat people! Genuine boat people! Why didn't a dink from the Coast Guard buzz shore 'bout this, HUH?" frantically sputtered an incredulous, and possibly incredible, square-jawed white male lifeguard. With freckles. He was tanned, tawny, blustering, tough and tall, monstrously Hawaiian, and totally bewildered. He held a multi-band, five-channel hand-held receiver and was frantically attempting to re-establish contact with the Great Out There. Nothing was doing, and it crackled deafening slapstick static at him instead. He calmed down and shut it off.

"They were s'posed to have radio'd this in for us! These folks shouldn't have been allowed to hit our god-damned beach! Dear God, this is Waikiki Beach, for Christ's-sake! The Guard should've stopped 'em MILES or more short of shore. Allah! I think. Nobody's supposed to wash up out of nowhere like this! Half these people are stone-cold the dead. Absolutely dead!" They were definitively not a pretty sight for tourists with stomachs.

What effect such a scene actually ever had on Oahu's tourist trade is impossible to gauge. Bull, Gabe thought to himself, mentally viewing the scene from his privileged afar. There was no other place to go, and he felt his own lack of escape from there, too. There was none for the tourists who worshipped at that particular, easy- and cheap-to-get-to slab of surf and sun and imported sand, stolen straight from the Florida Keys; nor for the boat people, who had their scape-grace amazing unpaid-for crack at it. Except that their swarthy, ruptured skin and lips were all split. Such a payment, for mere old life. Yes...

The Dame's lips were cracked and bloody, and the Coke she sipped hellishly stung them as she dazedly and gratefully slurped from the red-and-white cardboard soda cup. At home snugly in Rama, she still felt the taste and texture of the balled wax on her mouth, remembering when, as a four-year-old girl in her tiny village near the predecessor of PHnom Pen, she had tasted her first Coke and had tried to eat the wax on the cup's edge. Best thing was scraping it with her teeth, because it was all rolled up and sticky and tasted fun. Besides, it wasn't anything worse than the bloody Coke," she laughingly told Gabe. She had magic gemstone eyes, solely hers, beamed straight at Gabe like piercing lances, toothpicks, or arrows. Gabe recalled she had already spun this story for him twice before, spacing it about six months apart, the last year and the proceeding. When he first came to Rama to stay.

"Beau" was able to picture it well by now, the bright cheerless sunlight, the overcrowded wooden boat, the thronging and colorful beach, the noisy grinding of the open boat's prow into the expensive important white Florida sand, the hollow yodels of outlandish acknowledgement from the dying, salt-scarred passengers of an end to the monumental rocking, splashing, stinging, burning, and tidal churning of a seemingly endless open cobalt mothering sea. And perhaps he, traversing his own soul, sensed the lurking presence of the Awesome sea God, though mythical at best, WAVES, the boat riders' miraculous, hallucinogenic deliverer. Gabe had a hard time returning back to real life...aves...have nots...

Perhaps he didn't.

The Sea had impossibly propelled them all the way around Oahu, north to most of the other Hawaiian Islands, and past Honolulu, dumping them neatly on the east side. It had taken them up in a magic and defiant arcane dutifully, as though called upon by God and Mary, and perhaps anything else plunging down to lift them powerfully in its massive slate-blue hands and wisking them, whirling fiendishly as a machine-spun driedel, into the beautiful blue-green paradisal waters surrounding the Hawaiian Islands.

Without sails, motor, or rudder, they had idly floated all the way from Laos, their escape point, being started well on their way by a few well-equipped "Vietnamese" young men with long, heavy, god-sended oars. One of those four saints died swiftly on the water, out in the nowhere, said the Dame, with hushed sadness. She thought he had a long infection.

Listening, day-dreaming, Gabe remembered aloud a scene in a '70s American novel where two little black girls, playing in jest, threw a weakling little black boy into some water, and he accidentally drowned. Sula. "Did you ever throw anybody overboard?"

"Heck, nahhh, by the time we all started dying, nobody had the strength! I thanked God for the salt in the water that filled the cracks in our skin, saving us from more severe infections. It was preserving us, like we were salt pork. I did grow an infection in my right leg, clear above the ankle. They had to incise the muscle. I still limp if I don't think. Wanna see my limp?"

"I'd rather be your occasional crunch."

"Fine! I had to say goodbye to about a dozen friends, including my father, my grand-aunt, my sister's husband and her three sweet children. May God rest them. They were the sweetest little children." The Dame seemed well past her mourning now, and completely healed inside. But something misted behind her wrinkled, crinkly, surprisingly unbrown eyes, taking her away from the meaning of the surrounding silence of the church basement. She was politely sipping at a half-cup of coffee, as rain lashed comfortingly with wind outside the church's basement window. It needed wiped with glass cleaner and paper towels. It was still light outside, but they had best get going...

Gabe wanted to do something for the good Dame after she finished the story, even though it was the third time he heard it; so he swept and mopped the main meeting hall, vacuumed the basement, and rearranged all the kitchen cabinets. He even straightened out all but lumped-together, unpolished silverware, just to save her the trouble, staying for a while even after she left for home. She left him a key.

That made her very happy.

AT NIGHT, SOMETIMES, when Caza would lie awake because her lower back pains amply gave her trouble and she couldn't chase them away, she would drowsily indulge in a limpid pictorial fantasy or three. Usually quite asexual. She called it day-dreaming at night, or Sonar en La Noche Alerta. Selna, for short. Like in Alabaster.

She'd visualize running through fields, madly picking her lightened feet up, whilst she stepped lightly into blooping mud, gradually lifting up both her beautiful and wasting legs, floating, then flying, at first moving suspended in the air, finally transcending all the verdant ground beneath and soaring 'way over the rustic tops of trees enchantingly ringing the field. The mud ha-ha'd, cracking and drying on her feet like shoes as she churned her arms and swimming motions, propelling herself over the beautiful trees. Soon after, too soon, she landed cleverly on the other side. And then she had to take a job working in the masters' fields on that side of the trees! She left!

Another wonderful "fantasy" took place at several old neighborhoods and schools she used to inhabit and attend. She enjoyed walking around, as though scrupulously inspecting every area, in detail, and every old traffic-ridden haunt she used to wander in and wonder about. No berserker riots. It was peaceful and serene, but she was always alone. The Lost Princess, short and brown. She rode a bicycle all over a city intricately reconstructed in her own mind out of scraps of fading memories.

She rode downtown, as though on clouds, dominating Unionville, finding impossibly huge buildings she'd never seen before. That weren't in the real Unionville, que no? She rode back home to the small town of Gahanna, named after either two local "Indian" or after the garbage dump of Jerusalem and the Bible. Lost in her old neighborhoods, tooling around for blocks, then miles, pathetically unable to find home. She stopped and laid the bike down.

To be different, she switched to roller skates, white with silver laces, back AGAIN with her same-age little Italian, German, Jewish and Hispanic friends, skating this time up and down every single concrete driveway in a weird smoothened end mixture of Unionville and Gahanna that she'd produced full-blown from her head, that was wilder and freer and more infinitely open than anyplace she'd ever seen before in her real and limited existence. All the usual people had changed and were normal and friendly to her. Hadn't been exactly that way in real, unadulterated criticizable life, not for her...but the people were new and fascinating. They talked.

And she raced through Empirical dreamscapes of tall houses, entering and leaving them...

...in one she was in, and it was too small, she was alone, and a middle-aged man came in and visited, leaving and forgetting his bowler hat. He came back within a darkening day, it seemed, and gave her a children's music box. Strangely the music box came from out of his hat. It contained a special particular meaning, being constructed on the spot by the man, who had instantly disappeared, most gently, leaving the music box playing in her whitened hands. They look like other than hers. And...

...still later she ran with several hillbillies, with pigtails and torn clothes, and cats, searching from house to house, looking for some other hillbillies forever in, in each, and coming in right after they'd invisibly left. Never did she find the thing they were looking for, nothing but emptiness, drawing her fourth out of her soul. Empty house after empty house after empty house... She cried.

Yet much later, as she drove a car up and down ninety-degree angle hills that slurped hot water off the dark black road, which rawboned off the ground, tossing her up and down, she was safely slurped at once in her car floating back to earth. Her mother and two cousins from Nevada were in the car with her. And she rode in the back; then her mother, riding bravely on a long trip, going nowhere, disappeared from the driver's seat, and Caza had to climb over the seat to take the place. Or no more car! The cousins laughed at her and gave her a beer, in the dream.

They drove, one time, to her ancient wizened grandmother's tiny house, isolated and far away. And she ended up in the half-space attic, after calling her childhood friends, a little right boy and magical known girl, on the living phone to come over. Behind the terrible door, where the statues of Frankenstein, the, Mummy, Dracula, the Wolfman, and other such monsters were kept. Then, she and her faithful school-friends entered the gratelike silver screen hovering inches above the attic floor, with a NASA control panel on the inside, beyond which all in pastoral space of largesse was magic, colorful and full of monstrous dreamscape flora, trees, clouds, bushes, rivers, rainbow flowers and miles of exquisite greening scenery. That she was never allowed to enter...she abruptly woke instead. To pain.

She prayed to God to send her longer dreams.

One miraculous night she was visited by a Mexican ghost. At the very least, it was a distraction from the pain.

It was one of those nights. Artie wasn't home; he was staying overnight on a job out in Cle Ellum, lasting for three days or longer. She expected to be alone at night for quite a while. Apparently, the ghost found out, for he visited almost immediately on the second night. Caza was in terrible lower back pain. She'd always thought her nightly day-dreaming would get out of hand one day. Apparitionally, something in her head was projecting to the outside and being unreasonable. It had taken this new, irrational form, now. Could she be getting tired from staying up 'til dawn, watching the re-runs of old TV shows she'd seen and insipid late-nite comedy movies. Her Indian nature drew magic from the other place that more than met the

TV _shows..._

But, who was this? Somehow, light was involved. Greenish light...the thing, glowing emerald, was giving off enough light to see random details of the sloppier parts of the General Mess in their room. She hadn't bothered to pick up before Artie left. There was a glowing rainbow halo around a four-foot wide pile of laundry that had, as yet, not even been separated into colors. Caza was debating with herself the merits of not using bleach anymore.

The Green Spirit, as Caza termed the apparition, was in outline buffoonish. He came on strongly, resembling Villa Sancho, but being paunchy, clownish and underage like Panza Pancho. Or something. He mildly resembled her third cousin Cosecho in fact, and in earnest, who had wildly frizzy Afro auburn hair. It, or he, glowed a grisly buggerish faded yellow, in bon chance to match the greenish aura he was casting about everywhere like a fly fisherman.

Gunshots sounded, from galaxies far away, echoing all around him. He plainly wore two thin, worn-out and bulleted sparse gunbelts, peeling leather giving off faint aroma of cowhide, in a large X across his barrel of a porker chest. He threw them down, slapp-slapp, to the floor, and they rattled her bed ghostishly. He moved to her bed-side to hover over her, in an unangelic manner. And his gaze was filled with pity over her pain. But the eyes in the face were only a greenish blur.

She was lying on her side, nervously watching. She hoped it would leave, soon.

He gave off sparks of a greyish-blue light, like those revolving lamps that change tonally, tinging himself, as he came into clearer focus, with yellow and red, and emanating brilliantly orange warmth like a wood-burning stove. Caza shrank back, but was entranced with this probable sleepless ecstatic hippie fantasy; she was somehow causing this. In her mind. Memories of drugs. She reached up her right hand to falteringly touch the enigma and met only coolish air. It spoke.

"I was called thence from death," he said, in a dark, hollow and commanding voice in her head. "My name is irrevocably lost, destroyed forever. GOOD RIDDANCE. It does not matter. Yet I was mentioned before by a scholarly another, which disturbed my blessed fateful sleep, and now I am here lingering with you. It's because I wasn't allowed by God to pester that older white man, the one who read my story and care. He is unconscious and could not hear me. Thus he receives no such vision as me.

"No, I must pester you, instead. Ask me not why, my lovely." So saying, he emitted several yellowish ghostly sparks, like a fourth-of-July pinwheel does, and then bent over to presumably kiss you on the lips, my dear," and here he sparkled with a growing profuse menace, "you must come downstairs with me, and then he sparkled with a growing profuse menace, "you must come downstairs with me, and then you must stay there forever! " He began his descent. What a fast mover! Caza turned her face, and the ghostly kiss simply fell upon her shrinking right cheek. She felt the unwelcome memory of what were once human lips, and warm, brush softly against her shadowy face. Sparks hit and singed her pillow, sputtering brightly. "It is because you accidentally overheard my (indiscernible word) of the story..."

"...where you got killed? Because you threatened the bartender with the gun?"

"No, I only threatened to come after him. I was sadly unarmed. Is that unheard of? He did not know that. I never stood a chance. It is too late for me. Even so, as you can see, I am now wearing a useless gunbelt." The sparks subsided. "It is because the old man cared about me." His pinwheel was burning out. "I mustn't forget it when I leave." He reached down, the citrus-fruit arcane glow bending with him, to pick it up.

"Are you sure you're really here with me?" Caza felt mounting fear grip her soundly, and her unstill and troublesome heart skipped three of four beats. Perhaps she would die after all, if she failed to chase away this demon being.

"No. You are imaginativa. I am a vision. You are india, and so are subject to these flights of mental, ah, fantasia. If you want me to stay, ohhhhhhhhhh, I alone will exist for you, only for this moment, buttt if you want me to goooo..." He seemed to be reacting to a force somewhere behind him, drawing him away. He bowed.

Poof! The response was instantaneous. Caza had done nothing but frown.

She was too loyal to Artie to cut out on him with the ghost. Also, what could a ghost, even a Mexican one, do for her in bed? Nothing!

She sighed, algo a su satisfaccion, and drew the covers over her chin. The ghost, se fue. Se acado, acabamiento, ya no hay mas. Se perdido, no more vision. Not without her contacts! She's halluuu-cinated, or dreamed it. A quiet room awaited her further silvestre fantasias, u sueno. Eventually, there was sueno. Burp.

Artie was back home in a week, with over nine hundred dollars, give or take beer money, in his bulging wallet. "Ya shoulda seed th' fat freakin' worksaht. We don' clained hup fortah acres o' stone daid trays. Clared hit all hout fee noo gruth, cuz thar wuz a chem'cal laik thet kilt all th' trays. And then we washed hout th' chem'cals with nitro-gen. We done seltzered everythang. Naw they kin plant.

"Ah wuz escared we wauz bein' expose ta hahm-full chem'cals, but th' bosses slapped these wahld silvah seamless soots on hus, pertectin' hus from th' chem'cals. An ah ain' got no ex-posures. Ah'm a-hokay!" pale but unfrail Artie declared, spreading his huge palms out in glee. "See?" He picked Caza up and spun her around a few times, rousingly fast and carousel-style. She was cheeringly roused.

However, Caza remembered the glowing green man who said he'd been shot. But then, how was he alive? Was he a presage of doom for her Artie? Nothing seemed to be wrong with him, though, as Artie glowed with his usual health, strength and vigor. Or with booze, how can ya tell. Anyway. He told Caza she too probably had a case of the Indian Vapors. "Mah work buddehs gat thet GOOD. Yooo needjer rest, mah dear li'l mama!"

That same night, hours later, Caza shared with big blonde fur-bearing Artie what strange events that happened, that night that week ago, when she lay awake. All about el visitador. He thoughtfully went, "oooooooooOOOOOOOOOlllllll-ooooooooh. You saw an' traw a GHOOOOST? How quixotico! He laughed, kissing her sweet-smelling hair. "I GOT TO do it early," he said. "Now I get to watch everyone saying, 'oh my God.'"

The winner of the contest, Anthony Rodriguez, received a trip for two to Hawaii and four hours of exposure on...local TV, of course.

\--Quote from the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, WA

MR. AND MRS. BITTERS did not necessarily suffer from the unhappiest of marriages. What with one thing and another over years, they did have a leafless tendency to experience a general pulls of marital strife, kind of an "adjustment gestalt." Love saw them deal with such wonderances.

As in church, they mercilessly harmonized, no matter how much they arguably differed or speciously conflicted in opinion.

A mysterious universal power seemed to weld their marriage into a solid piece, supporting perhaps the fact that Mrs. Bitters had forsaken her career in favor of following and depending upon and supporting only Ed's. This didn't sit with her entirely well. Old age was imminent. She never did have to, well, work to get by and all, but now it was nearly too late not to do so. Small town syndrome had set in.

They were a single unlost force, but were not a hurricane, nor a major juggernaut to be reckoned with. They were another lonesome duet, harking free in the boondocks. Sometimes they went bowling, fishing, picnicking in the parks.

The Bitters had a daughter and two sons. All were originally from Chicago. But Sharone had been born healthy in Sandburg, Illinois. There were adoptive children involved, nieces, nephews, nubiles, Nubians, nimble elven 11 devils of the brighter souls who endeavor to win. At all costs, save _DEATH!_ Well, if you _save_ death, it makes it easier to be buried or cremated. However....if you save _souls,_ maybe trading stamps are far better to redeem than people.

Mrs. Bitters, secretly a Minister in the Universal Life Church, which involves partial oversight of the Entire Universe and some of the Cosmiverse when you're "only" a wife, mother and ardent bridge player, enjoyed creating goodies for bake sales and for the church. She used to compete "against" Brenda Boole's cookies with her strawberry pies and spicy meatloaf or fish casseroles.

She often went on ten-mile walks by herself, sometimes with Ed's company. He mercifully shrunk away from "suchlike childish excessive exercise." He said it made them no money, and he'd rather spend the time furthering his career and their mutual life interests, and their children's futures. So usually Emilia walked safely alone. She did get him out on almost Sundays. What a use a small town can be.

Rama was the accredited 1990 Guinness Stat Book "World's Safest Small Town," with virtually no crime rate. Someone robbed the Unionville Hardware Store, fifteen miles straight out of town, well over three or four years ago. No one was injured and the police caught the guy. He was fat, short and sandy-haired, no one anybody knew. He was sent to jail and gone for ages.

Mr. Bitter's suit against the hospital received a lot of public attention. Raman-sized, being one of the few exciting happenstances occurring in this otherwise eventless, small-side-walked rural village. Some even thought it was largely unrelated to racial discrimination, that, Mr. Bitters' being let go. "Maybe they were going to save on paying a pension to a recent hire," speculated Mr. Goneschlaw, rapidly talking in hand signs, Ameslan, to a reporter interviewing local citizens on their differing views of the case. She was from a small regional newspaper and she carefully and pointedly said she "Would be sure not to cause much trouble for the hospital," as the news wasn't going anywhere, "for now." That's what she said. "My editor told me to be honest, but nice."

Perhaps fortunately for Mr. Goneschlaw, the interviewer's Ameslan was somewhat limited, and thus she wasn't able (or didn't care) to overstep the boundaries of taste and reason, either accidentally or on purpose, regarding Ed Bitters' recent work problems. Robert Goneschlaw was disabled, after all, and a war veteran. Why pick on him? He knew Mr. Bitters casually, as a tavern acquaintance.

Ed's employers were clearly the ones to blame, if blame must be laid, on close appraisal of the situation; they had hired him with glad-handed good intentions, then proceeded to stab him in the back, summarily. They dug his job out from under him, slowly undermining it by taking away his hours and limiting his responsibilities and tasks. Definitely no way to go.

One big wide-open morning, ready to be filled will work, Ed found a note on his desk left by someone other than his last-night itself. Really only a memo, announcing that Ed Bitters was being released "due to needed budgetary restraints." It was unsigned, which meant he promptly wadded it up. His salary was clearly budgeted-out each biennium, and reviewed semi-annually, and also was known by him "personally" to be well within the hospital's financial boundaries.

He unwedded the note, flattening it on his desktop. Nothing could be pointed to as a probable act of racial discrimination, but Ed felt he was doing a capable job, accomplishing the task for which he'd been hired, and the sudden diminishment of his jobs and the unexpected firing could only point to something at least as unreasonable.

He was popular in the department and did more than his share of allotted work, regularly.

Ed chanted friendlily with any coworker each morning when the business section of the hospital opened, discovering no problems and locating solutions. He cared deeply about people's personal struggles, and meticulously coordinated the overall supply of hospital resources; he checked frequently to be sure each wing of all the floors was being stocked with each of the necessary linen supplies. He knew every person's full name in the business section and how to counsel each position. He'd even been checking with the department head to coordinate writing a proposal to see if the hospital could afford to put in a hot-air hand dryer, to save paper, in each floors restrooms.

Ed was that bedrock-solid of a department super. Or so he thought. Not the kind of person you'd want to see let go of for no reason. He took care of every person under him. He dreamed up new goals, new tasks to be tackled and accomplished. Far as he could tell, no reason was the reason he was being let go.

"It hurts," he told Emilia over dinner in their two-bedroom home, a white American colonial house with light green and yellow trim. It was dusty and needed repainting; Ed was contemplating hiring Artie and Gabe to do it. Very very quiet little neighborhood, in some beautiful backwoods country. "I haven't done a single bad turn in there that I know of. You know that I may have. But I don't see how. I helped Ridgeview save $400,000 on last year's budget. This is out of the clear blue sky; for the last year or so things were odd, but I thought we'd work things out. At worst I expected some salary cuts. As yet, we have a laugh or two on them, if they're expecting we're ruined.

"We own stocks and bonds, thousands of dollars' worth, and property in three places outside of town. As you know, we're living in the house you bought, m'dear, with our property investments from the fifties, when prices were low. We're fixed great and it's more the thought than the actual petty larceny that's a concern for us. Our kids are grown and our daughter's a highly-paid nurse. They've attacked the wrong people."

Perhaps the employment laws would work, and the legal system would help them stop this obsequious train in its non-productive tracks. But Ed didn't want to hurt Ridgeview too soundly. It was the only local hospital, it was the biggest going concern in their town, and he and the missus liked to hear.

"What can I say, they should fear for themselves? Ridgeview is excellent at treating patients. I'm sure I'm not scared of going there m'self, except for after the fur has been discovered. I wonder how the personnel will react. Anyway, I hate to get people's worst sentiments aroused. Never could understand about weirdo groundless grudges, anyhoo."

"Me, too," histrionically, but meaningfully, sighed Mrs. Bitters. She paused, and took a minute to reflect on the vagaries of life. She began more heavily. Without a single rattle.

"But honey, I have an idea. You won't like it, immerhin."

"I'm always made out of complex moral ears. What, _darling?"_

"What if we become Christian Scientists? They believe in spiritual healing, and don't allow invasive surgical procedures and medications."

Ed appeared very interested. He simply loved sitting back and listening to Emilia' beautiful, still sexy and young voice.

"I know people who lived to be 96 without taking any medications or having any intriguingly invasive surgery—one lady converted after they botched her back surgery and crippled her--or even having so much as chiropracty or herbal therapy done. It's similar to the alternative medical movement. You're forced to exercise and keep physically fit, I guess, until you begin to suffer and die naturally. If you do! A man who's a Christian Scientist told me he doesn't even exercise. He rests, keeps his mind fed spiritually, and eats only healthy foods. He's 74 years old and walking tall. I guess I could still have a chocolate coffee every so often, ja?"

She grinned sinfully behind her hand, like a Japanese lady holding a brown fan.

"You certainly do like your treat, my lady. Do you want me to fetch you the can?" Emilia thought, the only thing I don't want about this sweetheart of mine is he snores and whistles after mid-night sometimes. Watch him spring right upwards to make me a coffee drink! Limber as a mallard.

"We wouldn't ever have to haunt their darned hospital again, and there are statistics the CS people have postulating we might show them and put in another thirty or forty years. Or longer...

"You depend solely on prayer, good thoughts, and ideas about healing, through Christ. It doesn't sound so bad as all that..." She looked at him and tsked, doubtfully. "I'd hate to give up completely on medicine."

"Yes, honey, agreed, but I really don't like what they're doing to me, personally, in this case." Ed almost began drifting away, momentarily, thinking heavily in his own way about Emilia's possible conversion to a CS lifestyle being the motivating, universalized Karmic force behind his job loss. 'Something else, wouldn't it be, if it was really God's will, drawing them to natural healing instead of wasteful expensive surgeries. Who likes getting cut? Not I, nor her. But he still didn't like the unscrupulous actions that had hurt his feelings and his good job standing. He liked to work and to be recognized for the terrific employee that he was. He was very angry.

"Maybe God will draw us there, Emilia, but for now I believe I will fight this case." "Dear Ed, don't think for a moment I was trying to distract you! I never would, ever. You can count on all my support." Mrs. Bitters accepted the proferred cup of instant coffee, her favorite blend. "Tell me what to do, I'll do it immediately!" she cried. "But as I was investigating CS lately, I thought I would offer it up to you as an alternative suggestion against patronizing that businesslike haven of the establishment that is giving you such a hard time. Obviously, they truly are in it solely to make money, especially if they are stealing your benefits, those crooks!"

"No way, highway brigands is more like it."

"Armed robbers is the way I'd say it."

"Indeed! Mercenaries, _all!_ Oh, well."

Mr. Bitters looked at his wife with deep affection, stroking her pretty salted and peppered hair with the backs of his fingers, putting it right, and arose from the table slowly, with a creaky but elegant dignity.

"I have to go to bed within this hour, my sweet. It's growing late, and it's terribly dark outside." He yawned and stretched, a think man, with legs like stilts and long terrible arms that gently fell down to his sides. "Gonna meet the lawyers tomorrow and iron out current technicalities.

"At seven o'clock. They makes you rise an' shine (yawwwwwn), those legal dudes." Emilia too arose, joining her loving husband. They left for bed together, one slowly but surely after another, out of the narrow pantry entryway.

(Fade the kitchen lights, mostly the overhead and two side-lights of a much lower strength, to a single, centered pinpoint of wavering yellow light hovering, middle-of-the-air phosphorescently, emanating from the plastic fixture hanging three feet above and directly over the polished deep brown wooden table. In the air stayed an echo of the scraping of metal chair legs. God made that moment before the light vanishes.

_Thank_ you. Wink it out. _Ping!_

#  Chapter Eight

THE TRADE-UNION QUESTION

Friday, or, the Day of _Chrisgragitations_

Why is it that

Old man Boole

Is always Secretly Right?

Or, is he? And _forever_ left behind?

We are all political too-ools;

We are _doo-_ oomed. _Nuclear power plants are flooding Lower Canada._

Am I a screwdriver? No.

Am I a bolt? No.

I get to be a Nut. Dan Nuts, not Dat Nut. My ovaries descended! No, testicles, not icicles. And, who are you, to realize otherwise?

Whose are the hands that are wielding the tools?

Are they living hands? Are they loving hands?

Are they werewolf hands?

Are they gloved?

Are they proved?

Are they moved?

Are they shoved by others' demands?

It's too romantic

To be your downer

Should always take a chance to

Come back up.

\--found in the men's restroom of the Krakatoa, on a Tuesday...welded to the briar of the toilet, butt hovering above it. A sheet of paper, angelically white, stained with the red russet-smears of time. Buy "The History of Rust," or a Jack the Ripper rippoff book, at your favorite Amazon deity. Or, join the giant book cult, and be sure to sell your favorite story to me. Books are nowadays a valid religion, where those who write them are those who _read_ them...ouch. Authors, check your hearts and minds at the door, then witness the Dawn of Time. Selling work is a job. If you write, you can have your ideas ghost written or copy edited. But.............

.............HOW DO YOU escape from _Redundancy?_ Wherever it may be. West of Harver Point, I guess. Gabe was one to enjoy the concept. He also vaguely enjoyed his notorietylessness, but not much. _Ahu._ He farted. That always shamed him.

Although maybe it meant he could do without fame's empirical rising fortunes, he mused, it might be that it was difficult for him to blend in. He doubted it. After all, look how plain he was!

He never liked standing out of crowds very much. But he affected being a loner. "Most people" preferred that outlook, yes. All of the self-help books he'd read had said so, that people were basically alone deep inside. Except for that, to their authors, he and his "type" were presumably more social, more fully family-oriented, and more prone to make strange jungle noises when given the opportunity. Sometimes he suspicioned (as Gramma would playfully put it) that such things had more to do with the heads of authors than with human nature in general. Writers tend to be loners.

But, u c, Gabe would rather drift into the general electric crowd somehow... but what, which empty grammarian crowd? Am I comforted, being in a protective group, am I happier there, is it like a bulletproof vest or a line of coke, is there such a thing as real friendship, does it keep me healthy and sane? The single life alone can be a lark, singing merrily in the kozy fields. But I need all my dear friends. They're a second family; I badly wish to prepare my way for a real one of those. How torturously I yearn to lovingly generate living, laving progeny that...oh, how it's mythical ( _the progeny_ )...to live and love and die for those kids.

Perhaps I can count on the urge, but when, and can I really count on...her? What do I see, when I look...she's beautiful. She's happy and healthy and highly intelligent. She's rational and sensible. She's got good wit. She has a way about her, an air of vulnerable grace, and she uses that to keep me to her...but she's BLACK. But I lover her, truly. Why, but-she's-black? Why NOT? I'll saver her, ha ha har.

Why this TOWN? Why not THAT town? THAT town, maybe there's a job. THE job. Maybe there is cheap training. And maybe there's another lake, mountains close by, better skiing. Maybe there is the special something I've never seen nor heard of before (like, me going downhill skiing without a life preserver.) Maybe there is NOT. Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.............

I"ve an elemental grasp of my major necessities at this present time. What I'm lacking strongly is a formal education, a noble career interest, and a loverly wife. A WIFE...who's stopping me, God? What's holding me back... I've all of life to explore...impassable vistas to despair and stare at, full of life lunacy, laughter and love. But, my girlfriend is not a Vista (plug, plug) to explore. No, she cannot yet allow me her fair passage. She gathers me in, then bades me to be still. I await her command. Someday, I devour ALL I survey.

It's her ex, y'know. Her own life. She wants what I want, what I have to get, or I'm an automatic feedback in Artie's scramming direction. Down. I feel I could talk Sara into it, into me, settling in with me...but I have this strange reluctance, too.

Am I good enough for her? I, Richard Hispanic, Spic, the wicked hippie hipster hick? Am I good enough for a yippie, I mean a yuppie, chick?

She represents a lifelong trap? No. A completed act. A sense of permanency, with no true permanence entailed, never any such item in Divorceworld, where anything goes wrong. Shit. Damn. Fuck. Yeah. God, in this Hell there's no such thing as such luck...overpopulation, yet. Who, us? No.

AIDS. Isn't it pathetic? I don't have it. There was already gonorrhea and syphilis and chlamydia and etcetera the gods know what else anyway, now that? I hear the treatment might be worse than the "illness." Maybe they are talking people into it for money. So, maybe it is less long slow goodbyes and more quick sharp deaths. Or lives; what's a mere five to seventeen years? The age of the perpetrator. Then again, it always takes a while, they're always trying to cure every available, researchable, financially biased medical illness. What'd befall if they left folks alone, instead? They might just go on living. And then there's cholera.

But there's a cure for it, an outright cure. However, the vaccine has to be readily available. No AIDS vaccine as yet...it isn't really a disease, it's a condition. The condition is that you are a weird freak now. Gay or Black.

...cholera. People of Cholera? Yuckiest. Don't run from me now, world, country, colored, people of color simplicity narcissism and light.

Think again, why not...I believe homos started and starred in this one, whatever a bow in the sky made out of condensed vaporized water means...but who _cares?_ Men!!! I'm sure not gonna get testy about it. Is WHAT a weird joke? On me? On _you?_ Or is it ptoooo? Boo. I HATE MY DAD FOR RUNNIN' AWAY!

My name, Gabe Hooter, bugs me hard from time to time. It came from Gabriella, I think. That's my legal name. Gabriello Bochinche (plug) Sancto. Gramma was a Huter (mention) from North Dakota. Other side, I mean. Italian (eye-talian, are dju rilly new and clear?) For a length of time, I carried weird fears of something macabre and unwholesome sprouting from my name, as if twenty plants were growing from it, the type that sweepingly take over your indoor garden and covers the other green foliage over, choking it. As well as itself. You weed anyway, with meticulous care deftly flowing through your hands, and you go in with shears and spades and poisons, talking to the treacherously innocent plant, chopping up the roots, crying out your hardening lungs, because if you let it go for one moment it dominates and destroys you. But, in my furthest expanded mind, I am not a personally goddamned rotting vegetable. Neither is friend Artie, or Fred. (Who's Fred? You'll know, and soon.)

Sooo...Gabriello. Overtakes me? It's too long so I use Gabe.

But, however...what am I afraid of? Newness? An obliquely hidden reference? Pity? Romance being derivative? Marriage? Bosh?

I'm afraid of LIVING. Yep. But there, my dignity will fail you. It must have happened once before. But I'm not living for me. Why can't I be perfectly happy?

I guess I'll sail on blithely over these limpid local ponds. I'm healthy, fertile, strong, a nice guy, don't do drugs, am heterosexual, and don't mess around too much. Of course, horrible cholera might sweep out our way. This far north? Like a plant. I'll get in its way, with others! I wonder if they keep any such vaccine at Ridgeview Hospital. I'll ask Sara. She knows about that, I think.

I want to get married. Haven't got a steady career. Yet. All's shaky and unsupported. If bunches of people are going to die, I believe we oughta make some babies, not fart around, but people do that...I worry 'bout poor folk, I sort of am one. But I'm gonna get ahead. By and by. Sara has an excellent perspective career, yeah.

Wow, she's a dietitian. She'll cook like a Goddess! She worries about her chances and maybe she'll have to split town. Shall I go with her? I hate to follow her at her heels, like a lost, demented little puppy dog; I need my own shtick. So loser.

But for now, I'm meeting Sara and Artie and Caza to drive out to Arapahoe Lake, way up north, to picnic while viewing the spectacular water shows. Dazzling. Pyramid skiing. By _novices!_ I always did wanna try that. Would they hire me? Those companies always seem to prefer local types, somehow.

Maybe I can talk to the show group leader and sign up for practice. Wonder if Saragina's try 'er. Artie, surely, would rediscover swimming. Caza's of too much of a lady. Funny. It's sort of a weird coincidence...

It turned out later, someone had kidded Gabe. Only professionals may pyramid ski at Arapahoe Lake. Somethin's gotta give, somethin's gotta give, somethin's gotta like medley old music playin' bliss in mah workah's brain, a Broadway show tune, scratchy echoes of Busby Berkely recordin's phantooming in a distorted long hall, the voices said, once again, softly, they disabled, but th' other kind is kep' aroun', too. What, no babies?

Ah, ahm an ol' rad hippy from way back, they didn' get th' lot of us oh good, righteous. Real disabled on welfare, not ME, hit's okay now, to say no, and besahds nothin'll ever mek it okay fer years. Ah been drankin' since mah sisters was raped by my uncle, before then, more'n fifteen years at least...watchin' Dad die from liver, and he always swore he was tamer...Caza still wants her old Artie and ah wanna get her an old age. Life insurance? Ah don't think ah got anything fatal but ah'm an alkie. Do tell. Swell.

Why did daddie want his woman in a bottle...it would be great if he wanted her in bed, yeah, if she did, if he had what ah got, an' that's all, an' he wanted to wife her, he was after his type, yeah, sure, but my uncle, an' ah don't mean mehbe (an' what else ah don't mean in this worl'?) and a' my sis, what was he doin' with her at me fer? An' my mother wouldn't listen ta crazy me an' my father threw me hup 'gainst th' brick wall and knocked me cold, crack mah jaw, when ah said so, from th' word GO man that father was a violent SOB yep. If'n ah stop drankin' ah could write sheet music, make moneh, and set a few radio an' TV words to tunes make dough t'buy a house inna country fer me and Caza and her people have 'em ovah fer coffee an' MOO-VIES, burn incense, eat lutefisk on a rainy day, moom ovah Miami, come Hell of high water.

Bad ol' Goddess Hel would draw back th' curtains ever'day an' in would pour th' ridi-culous sunlaht, fo' rail all day. Ah'm all blahnded with love, an' so ah go puts daw-wan 'nother beer an' crush th' can and go out for a walk to let off steam. We're all in this alone.

Smell the brav'ry, breathe in thet salt sea AY-ER, bah th' oceans, early in th' stoam, no relation to sobriety intended or needed, an' ah kin see th' whole worl' clairly wit' out mah contac's, mah lainses, Mayan, an' thar's whut ah needs, a Panpahps er a git-tar, an' ah go sits in th' fields, palayin'...ah could be Jaysus th' Shep-herd, but ah, ah'm too clean. Clean. Yeah, ah'm clay-in...clean billah health.

Aneh day naw...ah gots th' hair, metal rocks, ah'll get some exposhu on nat'l tayvay, yee-eh. Ah goes on an' plays may bottle, blows hit, like a microphone, phwooo, phwoo-phwoo, that hollow monoto sound. Or ah whips out mah ol' git-tar and plays th' first chord of "Stairway to Heaven," ovah an' ovah an' ovah agin lahk this weird fren' o' mahn used to. Polka hearty down. This beat is gone, tomorrow, man!

On t'other hand, if'n ah stopped drankin' ah might actually see the world for whut it is. Ah lotta hooey! Ah could get it up a whole lot better. However, Caza might get prego, and to hell with what-then-what. I know what. No baby ah'm. Ah meks 'nough dough, me woom-man. Th' circle can hol'. She would, too, fer me, the bas-tarred. Ooooops, ah means me. Ah'm th' bastard. Fer her.

"Cept it's fer her, mah deal, ah guess. That's what they say. Or so. Don't know what she sees in me but ah treats her nice an' ah allus takes her out when ah gots aneh dough hon me at hall whatsoever. Sheee-yit.

Ah a Blen' from Montanner an' ah gots a Hooter fer a fren'

Smell _THET_ day-laight.

DANIEL WILSON NUTS, a happy young lad in his own peculiar way, stopped by to visit the house of a man they'd told him might be gay. Okay! He didn't know what to expect, at first, when newly going in there, but the gentleman of the house, he said to "please pull up a chair." So there.

"Square!" Dan blurbilly guffawed.

"Oh, I'm not all that square," quoth the older gent, who was about fifty. "Fifty-ish," Dan's erstwhile gay friend had told him. Only other well-known gay in Rama. The real crowd inhabited Unionville. "In fact, I'm not even straight." There were these certain streets, see... "But, who IS, nowadays?"

The older gentleman spoke in a barely audible, pondering murmur. "May I get you a beer, I apologize, it's in cans, or a glass of excellent wine? I'm going to have a class myself." He disappeared into the kitchen, presumably to fetch the wine. He wasn't so terribly fetching himself. But he was very nicely dressed.

Dan sat in a chair across from the one Mr. Jones, his host, had been sitting in. It wasn't an orange plastic-covered lounge chair. Dan attempted to admire it, but it was really very obnoxiously loud and ugly. It had a decent back and looked plush.

Mr. Jones came back in with two glasses of a rare vintage burgundy, grown locally and "bottle in 1927, have a sip won't you, I haven't had this fair of youthful company since last year at least." Dam blushed, trying to think of matching the tone and color of then wine (what, flapper liquor?) But it was too deep of a red to get away with it. It was genuinely purple. So Dan tried to elevate his voice an inch, one whole notch higher. Gay men do that, Dan reasoned.

"Its taste is...fruity," he murmured to the soft-spoken older man, who crossed his legs elegantly at the knees. They were long, thin, tapering legs, encased enticingly in thin cotton trousers of a pale robin's egg blue, painted on muscular legs. Jones certainly knew how to dress, Dan reflected, with some degree of jealousy; that's gotta be two or three hundred dollars' worth of houndstooth smoking jacket and another hundred-and-a-half's worth of shiny silver silken shirt under it. How exquisite. He must have quite a piece of money.

"What do y'do for a living, Mr. Jones, if I may make so bold as to ask?"

Mr. Jones put her--his--aristocratically lengthy, pale white hands together, fingertips lightly touching, and seemed to be attempting to affect a desirous, meant-to-be-attained authority. "You wouldn't probably understand what I'm capable of, no. You question, however, pertained to my present career and it's likeliest nature? My chosen, my highly established, ambitious, belaborious work? Yes?

"May I ask you what your fondest hopes and dreams are? Surely, I can help you to fulfill them. Would you care to do more with your spare time than take in the occasional Sunday children's matinee, or cruise in cheap cars?" The old man's eyes glittered with menace, and perhaps with tears beseechingly. "Or would you rather take up the brave struggle of the kings right of fun on your lonely own, hmmm, my boy? That could be awfully dangerous."

Dan put his hand under his chin and his elbow on his leg. He cocked his head over to one side. "I'd rather not drink this wine," he told Mr. Jones, handing him back the glass. A dry smile played over his face. "Do tell," Mr.-Jones airily breathed pinching the breeze succinctly with his bushily mustachiod lips. A very small 'o' was thus pictorially described. "I had thought as much from such a young fellow as..."

"I'd like a crispy clear, blanca, clair de lune wine," Dan gushed, but firmly stated. "A slate-smooth, pristine, dry, touched with the graceful tang of the white grape, dry white wine. And make it another vintage year, NOT the one I was born in, if you so please." Quiet descended, it was stifling. He was mildly a cutesy paranoiac, the only such boy he knew of in a small Northern town. What did this older gent think of a gay with no experience, who just needed a mentor?

Dan sat with the awfulest blank expression on his face, indicating nothing, watching the room pitch and whirl around him. He felt dizzy from drinking coffee earlier that day, the kind you could stand a spoon in and watch it melt. Dan liked his drinks warm mostly, and strong, not too subtle to taste them.

But his eyes seemed to dance merrily, promising Mr. Jones something. They sparkled shining in the interior of a late afternoon gloom. It was wet outside, dampening steadily with yet another soggy rain, very normal for that time of year. Dreadful. What was a poor boy still a virgin to do here?

"You'll be wanting dinner next, I assume. And you'll be giving me careful directions for serving it, and insisting I prepare, personally, a perfectly chilled, or perhaps you'll require heated, heated it is, organically manufactured ice cream dessert? Cough-cough. I'm quite unwell in this weather. All very well, my dear boy. My dearest, dearest boy." Jones got up and once more went into the kitchen, to collect the requested bottle of vintage white wine. "We'll see what else we have, then, we will. Care for some cheese? I have fresh Brie, two pounds. And a few slices of extra-dark pumpernickel to go with." He punched the dark air in front of him, smoothly, lost in the kitchen shadows. Buried in dusky shadows.

Dan demurred, unseen. He loudly stated into the darkness ahead of him, speaking from his chair, that he was "not your 'boy,' not yet, anyway. I'm a man, for a girl, altogether, that is." He stood up and walked in a very few paces into the moody kitchen. "I'm tallish for a tyke and as tall as you, I'd say."

There were two prominent racks of dishes sitting on the counter, one washed and the other dirty and waiting to be washed. Also there was a knife rack to one side, holding four or five good-sized nice. Dan took careful note of this, not really knowing why.

They both returned to the darkening living room. Mr. Jones flicked on a gently fluorescent amber light, a mere 40 watts of soft-glowing incandescence. Orange. Must be his favorite color. It was pretty enough.

Jones thought his age showed more readily in the normal light outside, where a mutual friend had arranged this meeting. That friend already had his lovers all lined up and was rumored to be completely unavailable himself.

"You'll like each other. Age doesn't matter much. I promise!" he had cried, this friend, spiriting away like a fairy sprite. Dan wondered about that. Who was this arcane older dude? He wanted to find out, he figured he would.

Dan liked all people, as a general rule, and always wanted to get to know them better "than I'm ever normally allowed to. I'm attracted to handsome men especially, but I like nobody who'll break down and talk to me." Anyone who knew Dan knew the truth of this.

"Yes," breathed the calm-looking but throaty-voiced Mr. Jones. "I know what you mean. Isn't a good conversation the most charming thing, whenever you should run into someone nice? And set them to talking. People tell you the most fascinating things."

"I love to get in a word edgewise whenever I can. Edgewise...is there a gay joke associated with putting something in, shall we say, edgewise?" Dan tittered impishly, nervously, trying to look charmingly diminutive—which required scrunching down in his chair--but he felt wracked with pangs of embarrassment. He sipped at his glass rapidly, maintaining his cool, and smoothed his brown straight hair back. This vaguely tantalized Mr. Jones, who was reacting. He intentionally teased, he decided, while remaining aloof and distant. He hoped his insides were still his, that he was filling them out with his own spirit, his own motivating forces. It didn't quite feel that way, couldn't force it. Practise makes perfect...

Mr. Jones looked lovingly and appreciatively at Dan, as though examining a grown son who pleased him, finding him whole and sound and good. "Such a charming young man you are. Such decorum you show! I haven't got a lot of time tonight, you know...

"...having to get up in the morning and all, but if you'll be patient with me, I have a story I'd like you to, ah, participate in." He offered Dan a most inviting smile.

"Oh, you do? Offered Dan defensively in the way of simple witticism. He was growing sizable nervous and was severely undecided about what course of action, other than passive, that he could take at this point and still come across as even a remotely dignified human being. Or, he wanted to run screaming out the door, but felt too relaxed to bother. The wine was hitting him. He indicated casual, careless acceptance of the story game. He hoped it wasn't childish. Was he only visiting a new work father?

Mr. Jones leaned back, the orange chair making tasteless squeaking noises under his copious behind. He smelled of expensive cologne, which I should have told you before, but as usual you just weren't listening. _Oooooh!!!!_ Well, he began the story that he wanted Dan to participate in, as follows:

The Boatman

This is a murder mystery where you are supposed to guess who is most responsible for the murder. It isn't necessarily the murderer. Here are the events, as they occurred:

A woman was going out on her husband and seeing a lover. This was because her husband had become very unloving and also because he was sadly and conveniently gone a lot. Other than that he took care of all her usual needs. The lover, on the other hand, gave her love, warmth, and sex, but was very stingy when it came to money. Also, he wouldn't marry her. He didn't have the money to take care of her, he said.

Woman had to cross a river to go see her lover. There was a bridge she could cross on foot, for free, and there was a boat she could take, but the boatman charged a small fee, and she had to wait for the boat.

One night, she and her lover saw her husband coming home across the river. In a few minutes he would discover her absence and become suspicious. She decided to go home, hopefully in time to convince her husband that she had only been out for a short while, not out seeing a lover. It was getting dark, too.

She didn't have enough money on her to take the boat, and she didn't want to cross the bridge on foot in the dark. "There's a murderer on the bridge," she told her lover.

"I KNOW. I read about a murder on the bridge yesterday, in the paper. And, you know, guess what else? These murders always seem to happen at night. And whoever it is took his wallet."

She begged him for enough money to take the boat safely across but he was stingy when it came to such favors. He told her to pay. What a non-supportive fellow, eh?

So she went down to the river's edge, as swiftly as possible, to try and talk the boatman into taking her cross. He wouldn't do it unless she paid him immediately, and she didn't have half the money needed. So she gulped, and decided to cross the bridge. By then it was pretty much nightfall.

The murderer met her on the bridge, killed her, and left her body there. Her husband, the lover and the boatman found out the next day. The murderer wasn't never, ever, ever caught. Never ever, never ever, never ever ever even caught! Nopesies.

Now, you HAVE been given all the pertinent data about the murder. You are requested to choose, in order of importance, the most-to-the-least responsible persons regarding the actual commission of this here crime. Whom do you believe to be the most responsible persons regarding the actual commission of this here crime? Whom do you believe to be most responsible? Who is the Author of the Crime?

Each party involved in this story symbolizes an important matter in our lives. The characters you pick will reveal, in their order of chosen responsibility and importance, what you feel is most important to you in your life.

Now, _who_ is most responsible for the murder? And in _what order?_

"What about her hairdresser?" joked Dan, instantly. "And don't they have any children, what about little ol' them, how'd they cause it, and won't they mourn Our Mama after she's dead and gone?"

"Nope, quoth Jones, "you're supposed to guess the nature of Chief Responsibility, dear dead Indian warrior, for the murder. Who among them all is the guiltiest party, or parties?"

"The dad-blasted murderer, of course. But you clearly wanted me to say something else." Dan's blue eyes twinkled merrily over his fluted aperitif glass.

The older man, whose first name Dan was idly beginning to wonder about, especially as he didn't even know if the name "Jones" was for real, who wore his years athletically and well, who had a goodly three inches (of height, standing with shoes on) on Dan, gazed at the younger and infinitely cuter man with eager expectancy. Of what, we know not for. He seemed to be awaiting a most juicy, wonderful, choice, virtuously—did I say, virtuously?--magnificent reply. Dan blinked at him.

Tired, droozy, Dan finally "gave with the jack, mack."

"Oh, I guess the woman is the most responsible. She messed up, she cut out on her husband, she should've stayed overnight with her lover, she was ugly..."

"Really?" broke in Mr. Jones, licking his lips cattishly, looking for all the world like the Pharaoh's daughter first viewing Moses through the bullrushes. "She should?"

"Yeah, and then I'd put her husband next, because he was such a cad that didn't love her enough, and then, ah, I guess the lover, then the boatman, such a stingy, then the murderer. That's your less obvious assignment-of-blame method, right?"

Jones, the semblance of the look of the true British faggot passing over his features, thanks to lessening light from outside, bobbed his head in a sad little nod.

Then, Jones revealed to Dan what the characters signify, what each one of them means as an ingredient in the game of life's mysterious puzzle:

The lover, obviously, symbolizes sex. The boatman stands for magic--would you have thought capitalism magic? The murderer stands for money, the wife signifies love, and the husband relates to marital fidelity or loyalty. "And the murderer shouldn't really go last..." But Jones didn't want to hear Dan reading his list.

Leaving Dan to ponder his troubles, and to give the order of his choices some more complex thought, Jones got up one more time and vanished into the darkened kitchen. Puttering noises commenced to emanate from thence. Jones was poking about in his refrigerator, searching its depths for newer goodies to tempt Dan's palate and soul with. From the sounds of it he was finding a few such somethings.

How suspenseful can you get, boy.

While he was busy, and pretty much invisible, Dan recalled the list, seeing what his alleged, numbered priorities in life would be if this game were for real: love, fidelity, sex, magic, and, weirdly last, money. Perhaps that figures, as he wasn't planning on raising a family. He was happy to see that fidelity topped the list after sex. But this was funny to him, not funny haha, but funny teehee...he didn't believe in the reality of fairy tales. Fairy that he was, or might be, he'd chosen roles as the most important focus in his blessed, athletic and suddenly purposeful life.

The wife and the husband were most to blame for the murder, he reasoned, because when it came to roles, they had least fulfilled theirs. She was a runaround, and he was a rotter. Then the rest of the characters got the blame. But, murderers don't count? The murderer isn't so very much to blame for the murder? The police wouldn't think so, would they? Dan had heard the authorities didn't like to become involved in domestic violence issues, but they sure didn't pin the crime on the husband or whoever, would they? Wrong? Well...

Dan didn't believe people "got away" with letting role expectations slide. And, as to Dan, the other three characters had sort of fulfilled their friggin' roles...

...but come to think, there is such a thing as a cinnamon roll. Yummy!!!

Mr. Jones called out to Dan from the shadowy kitchen.

"Oh, my dear little chap, I have something special for you in here. I've been preparing this surprise for the last five minutes, at least. Are you finished with my funny little game, The Boatman? I've discovered the very thing, something sure to take your mind off your problems, and your minty breath a-wayyyyy!" Silence answered him. Jones continued, loudly and joyfully:

"Please feel happy to enter and explore. I'm waiting for you...with baited Brie!"

Nothing happened. Why, _how_ odd!

Lomanian Smith, a stranger and a complete one to Dan 'til around noon that very day, came striding out of his darkened kitchen wielding a big, fat, huge, wooden butcher's block. And a shiny flat tableknife. And a huge chunk of Brie in his other fist. While wearing a black eye patch. Like Menachim Begin! He looked all over: No Dan, in or out of wretched old sight. But the back door was sighing, creaking, open and blowing bangingly against the wall, in the gentle and soft-blowing winds...

(Plug in deathly maudlin, what-a-sorry-state-I'm-in music, hereabouts)

...you were SUPPOSED TO HAVE CHOSEN the murderer, first. In spite of ME. But, you really did choose the woman, I think. Do y'know what THAT means? Do you? It's MURDERER, you young fool, and it's ME! I'M the one most responsible! The one who went right ahead and bloody killed HER!! Get it? GET IT??? Get—it—you're gone. Ohhh.

After having waved his arms wildly enough to practically fly, "Smith," alias "Jones," sighing oh no, that CAN'T be right, collapsed into his favorite orange settee, holding the bread-and-butter blade carefully away from him so as not to harm himself. Woe is me, he unmeasurably misthought, I am doomed to CERTAINLY!! I almost taught him the MOROFF, but instead, I've lost another sweet young VICEROY!! The LAST one ran away, too-ttooo. My joke fell through. And through... and through.

How bloody, bloody ODD...the only sweet PEOPLE I've possibly managed to kill, or even to slay, up to this point, is my dear little kittens. And they were certainly not all that willing. To say the least. As is they were really intelligent, but they didn't want to live, not with me around, not anymore. How sad and quaint of me it was!

And, oh, elemental of Her. They were dying, those kittens...fiddling with human tempers. I love them both.

How strange it all is. Oh look, "High Noon" with Gary Cooper is on. Is John Wayne in this one? Dan? Oh, my Daniel. You were older, weren't you?

Dan, through the intercession of a blind Providence most of us suspect and few of us manage actual belief in, had principally romped spontaneously out the back door. He'd speedily left, off in his car, heading for Unionville.

He had a car. It was an old clunker, a '70s orange VW he'd bought with his after-school work money. While saving up for a bright, beet red Ferrari, which he was planning to rent out daily to strangers. Uber of Seattle _plug!_ He drove it to the Big City and purchased two cinnamon rolls at the foreigners' bakery. One for tonight, and one for tomorrow morning. Mmmmmmmm...

I wonder if Mr. Jones likes rancid apple butter. With gummy worms.

Providence had taken a soft-core hand once more. Dan drove home, having lost Mr. Jones' address (it was in Rama and he'd thought he'd remember it, but he didn't) and not having the phone number, as he was unable to call him, he disappointedly (not very?) went home and sat alone with his sweet meats. He went ahead and ate both that same night. With apple butter, home-made by his mother. He caught the tail and of "Midnight's Last Kisses," the ten-o-clock movie, and as he watched he yearned for a romance he had yet to physically experience. There'd been only joys and sorrows. That's why he took off.

I'll hold out for someone younger, more like wonderful me," murmured the cinnamon-smeared tongue of Dan, who'd forgotten to brush his teeth before taking to his bed-chamber, located within the top floor of his parents' humble three-bedroom ranch-style abode. He sprawled, naked and tan, brown from the sun, all over his unmade and crumb-laden bed.

He sort of ate a pillow. Zeus would've thought him a beautiful site.

He rolled onto his back, legs wide apart, his nearly hairless body vainly exposed to the cool, empty air. The ceiling light was brilliantly assaultive, as usual. An arm went over his cool blue eyes. He ran a hand over his youthful, muscular, sleek and sensuous hard breast, up and down his regally muscled right arm. He was lovely, a sight for lovers to enjoy. His open palm felt cool and smooth against his perfect chest, which was fuzzy, covered with light-catching, enticingly downy small hairs, and which ostensibly and intensively burned with an unquenchable inner fire, long untouched by man or woman, and heartily undoused.

Unshared, unshaven, still virginal, yet virtuous, looking for trouble, and tinged tinglingly and tinkingly with guiltless sadness and supernal happiness over the usual and unreal exigencies of existence, plus other such past events, Dan was feeling himself...wanting, needed to be loved. He was proudly rejecting all the heartless goodbyes of the future-past, such as the remorseless call to leave home, and soon. Desire was pulling with deep passion at his hot and vital soul, activating all his fiery, yearning smooth limbs, fleshing with red and heated blood the pale, male, and altogether whitened flesh that no one has found beautiful and delectable and worth hours of hungry love-making, but surely, someday, someone would. Should I give up, though, and ask Chrissy Goneschlaw out? Her old man won't complain! Would anyone even care?!?

He dreamed, lying back with his head on his interlocked hands, of young, virile well-pumping men, of unreachably lovely, virginal young women, of one sweetest girl child pinning for the dreams of remote yesterdays, and of a fairy hand he couldn't quite entirely touch, million and millions of trackless, peakedly candle-lit deep blue redundant miles away...

Next morn, his bore of a brother pulled the myriad wound-up sheets off from Dan's sweaty, smelly, writhing body. "Ewwww, you're such a mess!" he yelled. "You stupid twerp, you!" Dan returned, shout for anger shout.

That brother of his, whose name was, technically, Albert, boxed his ears to "wake" him.

MmmmERRphhh. God, Albert, you're ugghh-lyyy. UGHSS _LL_ _LIIIIEEEESS!!!_

ATHLETICS INTO NARNIA for perpetuity. WHAT CHILDREN? WHO said anything about kids? I never said anything in my LIFE!!!

What the hell IS in the _sou-er,_ spiri-er, on the mind of that, uh, short-necked man in the moldy old cashier? "We all are. You are, too. I can't help myself. You should drop dead, now. Cryin' out loud! C'mere, sport."

But it's never time to go back there, ha-nahp. To that place, and with the best of times...

We'll, I need to run and jump and play and it IS not such a good feeling to beat out the other person. _Since when?_ Several people. True. In fact, I never seldom have managed. But, I have gived my all. Spo-radically. In shorts, exercise and competition are good, as versus evil. So is getting ready for them, apparently. Warm-up! TIME!!! And, in addition to divisiveness, there is also, alSO this weird little old thing called getting ready for the after-life........................

...but, NEVERTHELESS, stiletto true was the baseball game, and Los Angeles brave the crystal-blue day, no other colors, buried in a bright, beautiful, sunny bottomless pit of depression hovering in the green under white located in "Graceland Fields," the series of empty used-car weedy lots nestled 'mongst the "upper Forties" of small and sophicated-with-Bavarian charm Rama-town, WA, USA, West Hemi, Terra Gaia, former Indiaola, in Sasiparolles. It's the Bahamas, here, you geese, on the field, talkin' to y'all, move 'em, le's show 'em some stuff, you things! C'mon people, let's GO! Use that dynamic persuasion that sells encyclopedias door-to-fuckin' –door!

"Whyrya bein' a bunch of glunky unsalted macademian slugs, pupils?" screeched Saragina the D, foremost lunch-eating believer in the sans-forever nature of the earth, largest possible flawed squared-off diamond, as an eternally-lasting art form, even next to Hooperville...and we are all going out there, running, to stande forthe and shewe that we can all run aroun' like liquid crystal light inside of it, revealing every tragically earthen flaw. Our flaws. Their flaws. Dog claws. Santa's comin' up.

And, it just so happens to be a mixed-sex dealiwhompers game, and even numero of boys and girls on t'either sahd. Oh the "field," which is choked full of yaller dandelions. Stomped. Them flahrs are fixin' to pay the price, I know.

Mr. Goneschlaw is the big fat black-clad umpire. He has the very best suit in the universe on. It is per-completely and down-underly padded, and if Douglas Fairbanks, either Junior or Senior, should happen to so much as twitch a pencil-thin mustache anyplace nearby, he has the chest that can stop all the bullets. Okay?

But...Bob Goneschlaw do thumps his muscle-padded, soft foam doll frontispiece, the green smell of red cedar fills the air, and he explicitly does the Tarzan yell anyway, that settled that, well done Bob, in spite of having a WHITE deformity-hiding face mask on. Yesss, DO the "Heaven," deaf knife-welding paid-off plaid girl...the glossy paper marches on. To CANADA!!!

And, a certain loud coach gets as loud as he pleases throughout all the festivities. He frowns big, he throws his striped hat down on th' bad ump and other such miserable calls, an' point at all the bad players' faces an' screeches "yer too GOOD fer me, you Cronies!!" In lower Hungarian. So Harmonious.

But, still, all-energy Cloadia, being a very leggy Amazon, wearing zilch, gets the most "home?" runs in, kicked untowardly by some flabbergasted menfolk, and Suzette is cheering soprana, the most prettily and angelically, with raspberries in a box, from the stands, sans peripathetic her parents. Home is far away. Sharone catches six fly balls, and Gabe takes all the attention awa', Scarlette team pushed madly through the fields Will, from Cloadia by hitting straight nothing but said lengthy, lounging-like-lizards those previously mentioned straight-up pop flies that linger into the perpetuity of the minds of every and each spectator but Ned England, who sacredly? and casually, saunters up to the place each of ivy times, hitting straight outward-bound balls that everyone is running around and pretending are improbable to catch. Sharone gets one. She eats it. "Not bad!" she whines.

But Ned yells the Hawaiian love call, throws the bat down at the ground at that moment, THE Moment, and his spare unknown rapid girlfriend sets off a grotesquely deadly hand siren when the two right, enter and April Handover is bouncing her boobies and pounding a hippie (Artie) whilst standing over second, who ARE children, no, again? May I sew you to a sheet? A dick? When they are about to...oops, it worked. They crashed into each other and dropped it!!! Four players. But then, oh IBM, NOT THE ARM FARTS, NED! Sight of Superman flyin'. Everyone points. Superman pukes. Cut back to Ned. With Clothes From New York on rattlin' racks being pushed madly through the fields. And everyone else does Donald Duck.

Be MEMORABLE. Special orders do. Another shot, long fade-back, of children. Shot of running Ned. Where does Ned run away, to?

Sharone just enjoyed the game for its one snake, close-up on snake, and shopped at most of the appropriate moments. She thought she was the only adult on the field, as you could tell from muscles of her facial expressions. Incidentally, she was VERY pained. But, you know how adults are...they fall right over. While leaning towards a bunt that dribbled over to left field.

LOUD SOUNDS of an ominous floor-powered vacuum cleaner. "Clean it up, le's go!" Much field earthquake motion, medium Richter, a fine cheese indeed. Edam. Yep, FINE.

The Dame, chubby and bouncy every run she hit out, and she got in four...Harmin haunted her, specifically, at every base she got, whispering things in her ear that apparently were so screamingly funny she kept collapsing and had to be poked into running for the next base. Gabe was caught between second and third and stopped the ball with his hat, catchingly it is swift-neatly, like God, instantly pretend-throwing it in a quick lob to first, of course. Vu Den. "YERRR OUTTT!!! Awww.

Oh, shit, WE ALWAYS pee first, experts say. So that's why the Lady Caza Zoo only made it to first, too, and did so, fortunately not being publicly too embarrassed nor embarrassable, and far away from the Porta John. But still-as-a-hundred-pound-note that was a spot of crying as Saragina gently took her over back to the stands. There, she shits.

Saragina got her THE CRYIN' TOWEL, FOR GOOODDAMNFERLUNG GEESE!!! Rofe-shadowing...wedding. Can't understan' it. Never!

We were all overwhelmed, yea verily yea, by the sudden mystical appearance of...Mr. Ellery Queen the Transvestite, wearing a screaming-pink flowery hat, with pin flashing history in-the-making and his-and-hers symmetrically-padded organdy dress suits, a women's shiny black string silk Colonel Sanders chicken tie, a to-the-sixth-knee pleated Amish grice-laced velveteen skirt like in Able Johnson cartoons, with dolphin-bone reinforcements manufactured by hand in Haiti, and chunky Irish-Polynesian native two-inch thick rainbow jewelry genuinely loud enough to acidify the raining boos that right-away died, as soon as he waved to Dan. Plussed, Dan Nuts gave him a happy cherry-blossom wave (new and improved) from shortstop, near the Bus Stop, as soon as he waved to Dan. They only sighed aloud like a girl, once. _Whoosh!!!_ But the regular first-relief pitcher, Artie the B., coughed once and fell down immediately--from accessive drink, natch, that Demon Home Run, so--cobblestone, jerking all his flagella madly. It was up to Thom Da, the Helicopter, who spun aroun' several liberal times fast, to pitch the next ball (sound of "wop-wop-wop-wop-wop wop wop wop" as is the sound of most helicopters. Thom wops those balls right into that there glove.

Before Thom completed his pitchin' game, we were inundated by the flood of over-weight transvestites during the second half of the game, fourteen at least, spilling out of the stands in the gate after the sighting of UFO Jones, posing on a red-white-and-blue children's dirt bike, psychedelic hippie van nobody noticed parked in the Somebody's Otherside Probellum parking lot, very rutted and gravely, located on California Place Way at the edge to the natural divine cliff--very angry Hadean music is bbbbuuubblinggg and blorbllingg up from the cliff, and SOME deadbodies say, it's the disappointed music of the Stages. The STAGES, screams Sara the D, cupping her "hand" over her mouth and spilling all the orange juice. So, there's a limp, ah sez, limp, shot of the Stooges, on the field back-board, for y'all. I don't want. All of you. I do, too, except for the few. Who knew how to screw? Me, in my wazoo.

I must learn to assemble other language structures. Rank memorization! It should be late kindergarten. Yeah. Then I can translate all that running, hitting, fielding, air-whoomphing all three locally-owned bats at once, and giving IT (close-up of "It" Mr. Jones being given everybody's jewelry and wallets cuz he has a Derringer jewel-encrusted...all we had, while hitting the ball funny and standing around continues...) I can translate it all into Transvestese.

Cold birdies jeered, and Chandover was being played screamingly loud in the midst of the second half to drown out the booing for "Thievin' Jonesies"—this song was spilling out of the cliff via speakers somebody planted down there earlier--and that's WHEN the transvestites in their flashy dayglo, mylar and spandex clothes whoopingly, swoopingly swarmed the strawberry fields, stooping so low (and bending over and showing off their slips to do it!) as to punch face to take over the (the only one) the Colored Pristine Children of the Corny Beaux Arts out on the field, yeah. Bats! Man! They were lookin' fer sheer raw recruits and the four urban Popes dressed as television familiars, disguisin all the white peoples, were the only ones the transview didn't mercilessly SLAUGHTER with killin' savage infightin'; using many smaller and foldable knives this time, so that only the disguised white players were left alive. They joined the rest, lying down to get done, those gamins, and stood there twitchin', twitchin' infra-red freckles, until finally all the dead colored people, the BLOODY dead color-fulled people, lovingly and sexily arose, shaking off the grass, rattling silver shames, and--with knives sticking out of 'em—pulled 'em out and killed the Transview BACK. Also, they kicked them, and pulled their rainbow HAIR. Some of whom them-they turned their maxi-length silk vests inside OUT, reflecting gobbets of field sunlight--pause for old game chant:

Great green gobs of greasy grimy gopher guts;

Three BIG pairs of monkey-feet

And chopped-up baby PARAKEET!

"Alright, people, let's get some RUNS in!!!" Sara pounded her glove 'til all the down stuffing came out. The Transview, who had very sexy bodies and FABULOUS torn dee-resses, but who clearly needed to lose weight on dietrim and who were deathly weighty matter, anyhoo, and so were being killed, in their gold and silver lame, and nowadays, dearie, you can get INCREDIBLY cheap pearls that go with anything, reet, and they all died, I swear, you can ask, but good, shot of Jones dumping dye on his head, blonde dye. I WOULD dig.

"Even when they were making voluminous vomiting cat noises and girlishly sophisticated Bronx cheers, before and during and after the air-raid sireen BLASTED to signal the arrival of the imposturing Canadian Mounties on those jury-built reclining bicycles, they WERE the boys next door, number two, and counted, seated securely on the worsted backs of each OTHER, red and black alone, a full 90o angle taken in England, it's melting me, a mountie who's french and against mitterand sticking out of the back of another mountie. In either direction. What you will, _you Kostenvoranschlag!"_

" _Why_ should I give away my best strategies? Is it soup, yet?" Ed Bitters was bitterly vying for a place in the game's conversation.

Emilia Bitters, in the far-right field wearing a feather boa, kept screaming "alRIGHT! Alright! ALRIGHT! But please, could we have a little of the old real Armenian Left? Share and new? Some compassion, SOME humanity, PleaSE have the AUdacity to create the proper manner of rescuing B-girls and B-pictures and the Being, and allow all Halloween CHILDREN ('nother shot of children) wearing snipping blue-and-white beanies (they did it again, ousters) in the living room that can die inadvertently or conspicuously, just twist that TV knob. Nowadays you use the remote. Yet you sit there, unconscious still.

"You may breathe, next," Emilia sighed, twisting her hair. If she died during this baseball game, their insurance was merely enough to bury her, a tiny memorial service, and pay off the remainder of the house annuity equities.

Please. Send no flowers, hers are Black roses!

Artie did get to throw the ball, uh, and other stuff, and obviously to describe the game cancha tell, all the way across the field, like in the Presidential elections (is Dread the same as Quailing?) Quiet, normal shot of his doing so. Twelve times. And Cloadia T. caught it like before Ned had, once or twice. And, Sara the g killed the most transvestites, her knife invisible, shaming you all, flashing, their heels clicking, praying to Sears and Penneys, but the paying audience in the stands were only paying/standing to attention, and they excepted the faked Jackie Robber's Sons of Norway Tons of Phonie Blood that was thrown to the I can't stands-it people up 'airs, in separately-wrapped boring, three-inch plastic tubes, Hollywood-style, so's you could see, in clumped handfuls, dozens, some frozen and blue, tossed by Boole, DaMartain, Sharone, Caza, Artie's sitter and Goneschlaw's Jeannie Ontermeyer (who became one four-armed and six-legged being to do it), and both that ever-popular Alfie Hitchcox and Woods "Himself" Owlienda, painted brilliant green for St. Pat's overshoe spastics, came in with a cameo, like in their own movies but worse, and me, (who can't swap genius or whatever favors Blondes) as ME, showed up unsuffrageably TOO. Honest!!!!!!!!!!!

It was grated orange peels, with sugar on 'em. Baked, not fryed! Also was ther ad certaine Bold Pawn. SPOT AND ROVER!!

Saragina's side, thereto, lost. Caza bought 'er a commisserative Bud and Gabe tossed her paper roses made of kleanex, pink and yellow and blue. Dozens!

Ain't that Auntie-Climactic? What a lousy chemise! Yep, he SHORE IS. Hang on. EVERY YEAR OR so at Christmas, Gabe felt...sad. Purely, intentionally, irrationally sad. Tears were involved. They seldom fell far.

He set aside $25 in October and another $25 or so in November. Then he grabbed whatever extra money he possessed in December (often as much as $100) and bought trinkets, jokes and honest gifte-ware for his family. Shipped it. With love and his heart.

His family sent him nice enough gifts. By January, this year, he'd received a three-volume set of Tendebarger's Heavy Alliance trilogy, a tennis racket with two cans of lime green fuzzy tennis balls, one of which arrived deflated, and a solid fool's gold paperweight weighing 22 kilograms, exactly. Ten pounds of phony gold, shiny rock. What it supposed to represent heavy metal?

It came in a box labeled "Superchap's Real Kryptonight." Every square inch of the outer wrapper was stamps. He cut himself soundly while opening the box. Turned out to be from Gramma HeLouise, who else. She still thinks I'm twelve, mooned Gabe, tying the dayglo shoelaces on his fancy lace-ups with the thirteen pictures of naked well-formed California surfer girls outlined in silhouette running up the sides of his screaming yellow socks. Which glowed in the dark. You put them in the microwave, see, setting it on 'popcorn' and then...

...phone ringing off the hook. Mounds of cat fur on the rug from before, when AcQuirance ruled the roost. Fumble, grope. Whoozat?

"Hi, Gabe Sancto here, what's your personal lifelong difficulty?"

No answer. Only dead silence. Possibly a fart.

"I'm sorry. Who are ya really?" Still no answer. Light breathing "You one of those guys needs a girlfriend? I don't know you. I'm a man."

Clicks, about five, in rapid short duration like gunfire. Then an extremely loud, very obvious gunshot occurred. Might have been a cap gun. There remained a serious echo in Gabe's head. It reverberated.

Gabe blinked, not believing any of this. His ear rang copiously. So that's a men's "ear-rang."

Further deafening silence, some clicks. Then another, more muffled gunshot. After that, Gabe thought aloud. What came immediately to mind, and into the phone.

"Artie! It's you! Stop blowing your head off at me!" Gabe was feeling an obtuse irritation in the manner of hackles furtively sneaking up his brown back. Well, someone was...he chuckled drily at the phone. Ha ha. Ha. Such a humorous phone. Look, it even has a cord...

...there was a very loud thud, as in a large body hitting the floor. Loud, hard thud. Like, THUD!! Gabe became speechless, unsure what to do. He finally decided, clamming up, hanging up and calling the police sound swell. Find out!

The first thing the cop asked was where he was calling from. He refused to say.

"Look, it's not me doing this. I'm not the one. Somebody else is a prankster and is playing funny games with my phone." Gabe's thick chest tightened inside, like an oncoming flu. He thought about taking aspirin. Or poison. A beer--?

"Okay, spare me your Almighty address, but we wanna do what we can to help you. Alright? Alright. Don't get all worried. I'm here.

"If you have one of those three-way caller lines we can tap the other gentleman's line when he's calling you. It's a male, right?" "Yes." "Also, right now we can try to trace your last incoming call. If you'll hang up, we'll do that, and I'll call you back right away with the results. What's your phone number, Mac?"

Gabe had the TV on and was watching the Autodaughter monologue when the phone rescreamed its blare. Same cop as before. He sounded Jewish. Like from New York.

"We got a phone booth for ya, at the corner of 20th Ave. and N Rudnick St. Izzat familiar? Any friendly enemies in that vicinity?" The cop's voice, nasal, urbane, was friendly but absurdly condescending. Gabe feared being mistaken for a pervert. You know how the police are. They think they know it all. What can you tell them?

"No, but if you hum a few bars...nah, it's nowhere I know." Gabe's mind skipped a beat, as though he were lying or knew something unconsciously. What? Where was...near Shell Park. No, he wasn't lying...

"It's not anywhere near the bar. That's down south, around 30th Ave., I think. Hey, Shirl, where's the bar, the tavern in Rama? The one around 30th? You know?" There was loud backgroundish fast whispering, the crackle of static and maybe a normal conversation. Gabe couldn't tell, or say anything either. "Hey, the bar's on 21rst at Guild. You can walk up Guild from the bar, or Rudnick, and walk over. Twelve blocks either way. Pretty far hike. That's what you think? Guy you know from that bar?"

What a spectacularly foolish idea. Believing I know just whom to blame for a change. "Yeah, there is one. I'll take at him later. I can handle it, s'okay. May I call you again if I find out what happened?' Gabe at least couldn't doubt his answer. What else could he say?

"Call us anytime, we're your friendly neighborhood police, we're here to serve and protect you folks. We have to, we get paid with your tax dollars, Mr. Sancto. Izzat s-a-n-c-t-o?" "Right." "What did you say your first name was, again? Could you spell it? And if you could give us your complete home address, we can fill out a report and assign you a case number, start a file for ya, make your life much easier. You can refer back to it all later." Fair enough, Gabe reflected. He gave the cop his name and address. He hung up. TV time.

The monologue was long over. The rock band was garish and mediocre. Gabe felt obligated to turn the sound off. Completely. Mrs. Stigowitalia probably was attempting, without luck, to fight the pain away in sleep. She'd told him the noise didn't bother her, but he thought it did.

Ah, deaf television for another hour, then bed.

Before he turned it off, they advertised a movie featuring African natives with dyed red hair leering fatuously at the camera. As titles flashed, he pushed the button. I'm sorry, but they did not look the least bit fierce. Nope.

Gabe "the Beau" Sancto snores merrily away, assumedly confronting an invincible sniper he can't ever seem to find...not even in his wildest dreams.

"SEE ME! _HERE_ I am!" But, he wouldn't cross the street. There was something _not kosher_ about crossing the street. But what, at his age? At last he admitted, though only to himself, that he was truly afraid for his life.

Guessing which building whoever-it-was had fired at him from, he turned halfaways towards it, slowly lining up with the shots. He waved his right arm over his head, ignoring the pain, curving it towards him, willingly the patsy target. He sported a very bloody sleeve. He invited the shots, he consulted the sniper! He lived, anyway, only to suffer. His legs and arms and soul arched, work-tired, both and all must have ached for the mistake of simple rest. Why not ask for it? And so, to wit, he did:

"GO ON!" Gabe, coughing into his hand, shouted hoarsely. "SHOOT ME! I'm totally defenseless! I can't stop you! You want it? SHOOT IT! What do you WANT? Here I AM, you sadistic weirdo!"

There was a deep, oncoming sense of a head cold. Gabe knew the symptoms. He laughed, hicupping, childishly running back over to the exact spot he'd been at when the shots were originally fired, as though he were the lust-crazed madman he seemed to be.

Well, that he really was.

This was exceeding helpful to the sniper, who didn't need any. Another shot was shortly fire. Gabe stood, unbending to the last, his fists opening and closing at his sides, and he urbanely and inexplicably lusted. After death, perhaps? Or sleep. Maybe death reminded him of Black Saragina keeping him too long at bay. When would their light craft sail, on the choppy Nordic waters?

Such luck he was having. The shot had missed him, just barely. Gabe thought, relief flooding and relieving his heart for only a moment, it had.

IT WAS a chilly January morning in Rama. A cold front had been blowing down from Vancouver for the past week or so, but showed signs of relenting. Meanwhile, I had logs crackling with red, orange and yellow heat in the fireplace. I was safely snuggled into my plush maroon velour couch, which needed vacuuming from Roscoe's fur and the ever-present flea eggs and feces. I was cozily and snuggly wrapped in a boy's brown plush fake fur lion's-figure blanket. And I was dozing off into a gusty dream, my mind barely there, book dropping out of my weakening, sleep-laden hands...

...no, I wasn't dreaming. Perusing the original of the Necronomicon had inspired no fantasies, no illusions of blustering music. The wind was up outside, and the knock on the door was real. I laid the erstwhile Koran down. It didn't bounce. It stayed there. Closed, an object, and harmless.

As I opened the door, light from the hallway did very little to frame Gabe in anything like a "shimmering glow," as I lived in an apartment building. However, his, ah, nicely-heighted, muscular warm body did cast a lengthy shadow across my thickly carpeted floor. He seemed taller without my shoes one. I mean, my shoes, y'know. I wear high-heels. For work.

Without a word, he stepped inside and drew me to him. His leather jacket was open and my shimmering fad-silk, blue and silver silken acrylic nightgown quickly absorbed most of the cold from his shirt. But he stopped me from shaking. "You can't imagine how many times I've wanted to hold you," he gently murmured, squeezing me mother-tight. In that moment, I was back home, for all time.

He buried his newly smooth and chilly brown face in my undone hair, which was an abject mess, and I could feel the touch of his strong, chilled leathery hands on my back. Oooh, I jumped! He's a powerful man, with a gentle touch, but gosh his hands were COLD! I felt an exquisite rush of sheer insipent pneumonia. Feeling that touch was as natural and exciting as it had been for me with my first husband, who turned out to be a wife-beater. Oh, well. I was still trying to figure him out. Even so...

It was five-twenty in the am. I needed to be at work by six-forty-five. But Gabe stood there holding me, like I needed, after a long night spent with the fire and an unreadable book, and all I could do was glow all over until I heated him through. With that, Christian or Moslem love? Then, of all unexpected madnesses, he separated from me, mutteringly indicating the bedroom--I clutched at my throat, but he shook his head No and with a sparkle in his eye, he said aloud that he always accepted my desires.

I took to my bedroom quickly and dressed. We have morning coffee at the Fantastic, scrupulously reading the entire local paper, which was a hundred-page birdcage liner called the Unionville Herald-Gazette. It nonetheless ran a few more local stories than ads, but not quite, and we held hands across the table. This worked wonders for me, but after this morning's charming event, I was forced to tell Gabe to hold off in his imminent expectations towards future blissful couplings. I told him so, and requested that he never ever do that, ever again, even though I loved it. I couldn't believe it, he said _yes!_

A CALMER MOOD

As the air grew neater with the cherished promise of impending spring weather, air heavy with the smell of rain mixed with mud, and all the budding trees shaking off their green outer cases of growing life, the average Raman passerby felt lovingly surrounded by nectarous perfumes and rain-washed breezes. The green, vibrant smell of new growth, brought out by rain. Splatterdashing pearls of spring rain carelessly aimed multiple minor blows all over the above Raman passerby's body. He didn't mind.

Passersby? Que pasa. Time for another long Hail Marriage pass...

The said passerby, a respectable Mr. Gabriello "Beau" Hooter variety of being, jauntily wore, to his own satisfaction, a light brown wind-breaker, one with rubber overshoes -? No, Mac, just a coat and black tennis shoes, with one soggy reddish fedora hat. He was partial badly injured. An aluminum crutch was supporting him, an ablest falling third leg, with genuine rubber shoe. But how odd-fashioned...

Gabe felt that he presented little picture of discomfort or fear to any outside viewer, as his hands were stuffed in his pockets, his head was tipped forward slightly ala the James Dean in-the-rain photography, and he was typically stumping-walking. Except that he was stiffly dragging his left leg with every other step. His brown leather shoe lightly scraped the concrete sidewalk. Inside it, his foot felt warm, disturbed, and jolted.

Aaaar aar Arrr. I'm Long John Slivers. Dey done broke m'wood. My wooden leg, which was under me, they done shot it out from under me for good. The MUD did it, tro'.

We mission workers were on location, at a outdoor worksite, and the truly terrifying violence, routine of a typical gangsta movie matinee--or was it a slapstick farce? \--sprang up around us without so much as a by-your-leave of a What's-Up-Doc. Mr. Herlando Megusky, our current site boss and a tallish chap, was heatedly arguing with the work crew supervisor over whether or not to continue forth into the late afternoon, as it was raining harder and the ground around the cement base of the office building we were constructing the base of was getting too soogy to stand around in without likely repeatedly falling over. Megusky thought that was insane.

"These men are agile-footed as the deer! It's an insult to believe they're gonna be slippin' and slidin' from two inches of mud! Two whole inches? You're nuts."

The on-site supervisor, a greenhorn with two years of experience, not exactly fresh from college, carefully explained to Megusky "the facts of life pertaining to this particular building foundation's concrete support job.

He looked like he knew what he was saying. He spread his hands in apology, and spoke in a low-voiced monotone.

"First, it's newly set, and we need to tarp it over to keep the concrete from leaching into the runoff. We have plenty 'nough tarp. If it rains anymore it'll run.

"Second, if anybody falls and hurts himself, and I can tell you a minute ago my feet went out and I almost did, we owe them. We owe them beaucoupe de benefit bucks."

"We got workman's comp."

"Yeah, but our monthly dues for the private insurance company we signed on with last year shoot up astronomically if we lose somebody to an accident. And what about the poor guy who has one? Don't he get hurt anyway? Don't he count?

"And what about Lorraine, over there?" The on-site supervisor carefully indicated the only female worker on the jobsite. "Would you like to see her flat on her ass? The pratfall might be hilarious to you, but the results are very harmful to our..." His voice was steadily rising in strength and pitch.

At that moment, as though by Zippy's magic command, someone handed Gabe a board from behind him and placed it a little bit too low. Down he went, butt first, in doing so revealing that they were dealing with a definite four inches of mud, and the splash falling on his right leg and revenging himself on the clothes of his work-mate. "HA--aaaaaaallllltt-ttttt!"

Believe it or simples, Gabe's leg wasn't broken. The patella was temporarily popped out of his right knee soundly and he couldn't seem to move or to bend it. The on-site super called a local ER and was told to bring him in. Once he was in ER, they manipulated his kneecap gingerly and only partially back into place, and then they splinted and taped his leg as though it were broken. The job was canceled until next Monday, or whenever the rain slowed. "Me first, quoth the "Beau," and they all laughed quietly.

"Nope, we go home, and you collect all the on-site pay to finish your contract for this job. Then you sign the necessary paperwork ta git-cher midical benies. You will.

"Jus' levitate yourself to the office—nah, we'll drop you off. Then I gotta go get my kid away from his school's chemistry project and get home. You get three different forms to kill time with, Gabe, but I'll help you fill 'em out if you're grimacing too much."

"No sweat, fireman, I get top-notch billing whenever slip-day I do this. We gotta tail Phil to wear his glasses all the time on these muddy outside-jobs." Oddly enough Phil really hadn't been wearing his fairly thick eyewear. Privately, Gabe had to wonder how badly he needed 'em. Perhaps he should buy him a pair. Or slug him one!! He didn't think Phil was trying for him "of a purpose," as Gramma'd say, probably not. No, of course not!

Friendly Phil was a regular, sophisticated, lanky young chap who liked to go to the latest South American releases or science fiction technicalities as fantasies, see all the best of the new endeavors, and offer everyone at work free SRO passes. He got these by trading with some of his Unionville buddies. His best friend's mom and dad ran a theater in town. He instantly began bending over backwards to be friendly after the accident.

Gabe huddled, wrapped in a blanket, in a stove-warmed corner of the site trailer, having a cup of coffee Phil had gotten him unasked. He just got Gabe a cup and apologized. But he prepared that cup of java very carefully, speaking to Gabe for twenty long minutes.

"These things happen. I broke my arm when I fell of a two-story house I was tryin' to shingle last year. In a driving rain, rotted roof giving and creaking and moanin' an' groanin' under me. Broke through the water main, bent it over double, the abruptest event of my life. Arm busted in two places, leg sprained. It'll cost ya precious time for yer leg t'heal. I know." He had a Gabe on the back as he set his coffee cup down on the desk. "God, I'm sorry, Gabe." The super also was commiserative.

"If you need help, I keep a slush fund for equipment and utilities. I'm allowed to borrow from it, but no interest needed from you. Due back anytime!" Gabe thanked the super, whose name was Arnold, and took a cab home after Phil cashed his check for him. Phil was loaded with supplicational apologies. He offered Gabe six movie tickets. Huzzah!

"Beau" took them, and, for his troubles, was able to take Sara, Caza, Artie, Sharone, and even tiny little serif or sans-serif Cloadia to see "Revenge of the Giant Salamanders" for free on Wednesday night that very week. Artie sprang for the hot-buttered popcorn. Sharone bought the drinks.

Gabe's knee took its time in returning to use as he required both Sara and Sharone manipulating it gingerly into position. This was a highly specialized practise taking place over several weeks. He could finally bend it without hearing popping noises.

"I ought to do this more often. Wow, I've got two sensational ladies thronging sexily at my knee level. My poor old leg doesn't hurt so much anymore, never, now." He sighed, tragically, but a touch triumphantly. It was dawning on him.

"How lucky can one ever-lovin' man get in these fourteen or so lifetimes?" whooed Artie. In reply, Saragina kissed Gabe's kneecap, and it slipped silently back into place. With a "click" that Gabe could feel.

Gabe was back at work within eight days. He couldn't miss the four all-day seminars on learning how to wire internal structures without overlapping, causing electrical problems, or putting any of those wrong-cased wires up anybody else's erstwhile anus. Including Artie's – he howled louder than an air raid siren, when Gabe found him behind the outhouse...nah, I'm jus' kiddin', ser'ously.

_Laissez-failure!_ I should tell you, I left the Elimination Process out...removing the drunken, running amock references to Black people having children. When in doubt, throw it out. This book is well-rounded, but anti-racism is its forte. On another hand, sexism can be nice...if it relates to reality. If not, oh well, that bare, barbed wire will have to go up _somebody's_ ass, sooner or later... _kiddin' agin!_

#  Chapter Nine

YE NEW TESTYMINT

Ornaments of Gold,

Revelations Well-Expounded:

THE D*A*V*E CYCLE

8*8*8*8*8*8*8*8*8

That Which Is Coming

\--Armadillios!!!!!!...!!!

And the death of our Civilization,

But only after Christmas.

"...THOUGH BARELY a quarter of a century has passed since man succeeded in making the first powered flight, a man's dream of flying began in the pages of mythology. And, while not wishing to belittle or to stand in the way of progress, it is your pastor's well-considered opinion that it will always remain that--just a dream. Or, in its practical application, a dangerous toy.

"I am inclined to believe, with the leading military and business minds in this country, or airplane as it is more commonly called, the modern-day flying machine will never become sufficiently developed to be of any effective military or commercial use. Let's be reasonable about this thing. If God had meant Man to fly, He would have given him wings..."

\--the veriest Reverend Gardner, at a twenties youth meeting, held inside the First Methodist Church (and not a beer hall), on June 1rst, 1921, in the Newknighted States, Illinois, a place where trains moisten red bandannas. Where a chile lawyer name Lincoln spent not one second lookin' young. He wus born old, mature people have a tendency to do that.

\--I believe I'll have another beer. _Five!_

Remember those two cute little kids in that popular mimegraphed office drawing, both naked from the waist up, peering down into their drawers...diapers, really...to see what the big diff is between their salaries? And not even married yet. They are looking for their wings. Unfortunately, neither one of 'em has a pair. And you can't fly with one wing along, Now, can You? You always Do require two. Somehow or other...brother and mother.

What we need here is a way to combine math with poetry. I think math could be very poetical. Yet algebraic equations don't show up in free-verse poetry a lot.

Why is that?

Hard work and soft plays make Jack a daily lunch? No, no no no, no no no... Madison Avenue is but only a street name, izzat soo? Anymore? Did they overcome Jew when I wasn't looking? Lantern Jaw rules beyond creativity now? I'll give you the outskirts in three words: ET, cigarettes, and Japan. Don't worry, they all get married in this book. But I seem to recall, in my dimmer moments, a book about Mad Ave (ah-vey, not oy-veh) with the word Hiroshima in the title. THAT EMOTION AGAIN.

"The REAL purpose of scientific method is to make sure Nature hasn't misled you into thinking you know something you don't actually know. There's not a mechanic or technician alive who hasn't suffered from that one so much that he's not instinctively on guard. That's the main reason why so much (information) sounds so dull and so cautious. If you get careless or go romanticizing about scientific information, giving it a florist here and there, Nature will soon make a complete fool out of you (so why do I feel like such an incomplete fool?) It does it often enough anyway, even when you don't give it opportunities. One must be extremely careful and rigidly logical when dealing with Nature; one slip, and an entire scientific edifice comes tumbling down. One false deduction about the machine and you can get hung up indefinitely."

\--p. 94 Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance,

Robert M. Pirsig, never strung up _definitely!_

Oh, yeah. To make me into a complete fool, aerobicize Nagasaki. On time. Last time, a mother bathed her disabled cerebral palsied daughter, exposed to nuclear radiation, two Japanese ladies who almost seemed like they usually felt.

It's funny, but everyone is checking to see what flavor the stick up your ass is. Mine is chartreuse. We all have one, that crack in the back, but some of us prefer to clean out our problems. What appears is how it appears, and hopefully it will do so. It's healthier that way. But I don't want to step on anyone's Popsicle toes. _I offend far more easily than anyone else!_ I don't have freckles; you do. I simply don't have an all-white, one color of face.

MY LIFE, THOUGHT Gabe "Beau Hooter, Sancto," is not rotten—yet. However, if I am not too careful, drink too much, hang out in bars too often, swelling with drink, and let too much time slip past me, rot will happen. Look at my friend, Artie Blend.

He's been drinking since he was a kid and just the other day he admitted, "Gabie, I'm an ol' man already, 42, a drunk, those used just fly on by, ain't no stoppin' them. Why'n cha finish mah beer?"

Artie was fun to hang out with. He had one of the last of the great all-time hippies. Like he stepped off the Berkeley campus, after handing out leaflets on peace and love and ending the Vietnam War, or destroying Desert Storm. No, that's not Artie.

Accept it Gabe thought: Artie was really just another drunk, entranced by Bacchus and cohabitating with him on a continuous weekend bender, somehow never quite in touch with overall realities that were seldom his own. Two Gabe, though, he was a good drinkin' buddy. And he did have a little something to say at times.

"They still goin' to war, man. They still doin' it for cheap thrills. Ah tells you, it's for nothin' but that, an' it never will be. So help me, help me and us all, God." Artie would characteristically lean far over to swat the balls hard across the pool table, never looking squarely at Gabe as he spoke.

"Don't you go, man, wouldn' you rather lead your OWN life? Ah think so. Not gonna ever see me in no suit no uneeform no tight parts. Hey. Ah got me a woman; a lady, a job, an' a real home, and tha's all ah needs. Somebody, maybe ah lay off the beer and have no fear."

Gabe would look at Artie walk around the pool table in a single stride, watching him set up the next shot in roughly two seconds and getting it in, often after having drunk an entire six-pack. Many times Gabe never drank anything at all. Artie had learned not to protest Gabe's non-alcoholism during their binges of bar-hanging and pool-playing. Perhaps, Artie reflected, the younger man didn't quite belong there, wastin', with them. "You don' got no hollow leg, man! Gabers wasn't sure.

Artie, spoiling for more active sport, but finding none available, liked to size up nearby available women (those lurking nearest the bar were his fairest game) and then attempt to offhandedly dismiss them, trying to keep any who were within hearing range from actually overhearing him. But, as Gabe noticed, he liked to toss out a woman first name. So she could hear him, but muy just barely. Sometimes he got her name right.

Gabe wasn't very fond of this particular tendency of Artie's. On the other hand, he was certainly known to affect it while pretending Artie had led him into it. Obviously, he hosted such tendencies, too. Probably...one time two ladies named Sharone Bitters and Cloadia Tager, both of which I've introduced to you, went fun-seeking from their neighborhood uptown, which they have recently settled into. This was back-a-ways in time. It had been rumored that they bedded together, as they appeared that way in public, and up close, but this was in doubt, as Cloadia had been seen with a highly visible young man. They were wearing suede shammie jackets, trimmed with red and gold. Cloadia was one describle as stacked, foxie, having a bee waist, sumptuous natural red hair, and a bosom the size of perpetual proportion. Attractive to male attention spans, in dark bars, without even trying, almost incapably so.

The big blonde guy's straining voice drifted their way as they settled into their barstools. Cloadia, easing into a rum-and-Coke, grateful to be resting after a day of Unionville waitressing and back-roads commuting, sat up straighter in perpetually arriving introduction to the concept of non-privacy during leisure time.

"You know, burppp, ah heard someone named Clo gave a hicky to a guy from Pittsburgh who, uh, fropped by to say "thanks and top 'o th' day" to Mr. Goneschlaw for, uh, breathin' right or somethin'..." Artie pretended greater interest in billiards, but directed his patter at the two women, one of whom turned towards him.

"I'm Cloadia," she spaked, teddibly casually and with a bright and cheerful smile. 'That's right." She looked at Artie as if to say, gee, you should know me pretty well by the company I keep. "Yeah, I did what you say. And...

"...afterwards, we sky-dived from two thousand feet from a helicopter. A big mistake. His chute caught in the rotors and ripped it up and sucked him in, and, like, you never saw such a mess in your life. I floated safely to the ground, but..." She smiled and waved her hand in the air.

"Well, gosh, uh, Clo, I never thought...gee, I'm so sorry," stumbled Artie, "about your, uh, boyfriend. Shoot. I'm real sorry."

"Oh, its okay, we didn't know each other real well. We..."

Suddenly, not like usual, Cloadia lost all her composure. She bent over forward hunched, off-base with linear gravity. The bar stool squeaked. Her friend, Sharone, who was lithe and black and well-fitted in tight pants, put her thin left hand on her friend's right shoulder. Cloadia began to shake a little. It played towards laughter, uh, the sound. But THEN she paused momentarily and said, without breathing:

"I'm sorry, but my God, it HAPPENED. It actually happened." And then she broke down into full scale sobbing, and shakily reached for her brandy snifter, with a sniff, a glance over at Artie. The look was filled with lack of understanding, but contained no sadness. She took a drink, setting the glass down lightly, with re-composed grace. Her friend was lightly chuckling to herself.

But they were serious. "It actually happened. Oh God, I can't believe it, it really, _actually_ happened." Finally, she cried. Tears streaked her face, cascading in sheets like chunky rain, magically transporting us to another time and space.

WHAT HAPPENED?

It seems Cloadia and a young man named Dave Velasquez decided, after a date involving minor acts of heavy petting, that something in the realm of a thrilling adventure required to be accomplished. They went skydiving. Dave knew a guy who owned a helicopter, and that very afternoon they went up for a jump. Drunk, taking nothing seriously, and with no previous training. Illegally. This "friend" of theirs arranged for their chutes, packs, everything.

By miracle, Cloadia jumped safely. Her first time. "It feels like the last thing I'll ever really remember is a whipping sound, and how I visually followed it up... and...I tried to grab him in passing, but he slipped through my arms, legs and shoes, I almost grabbed a shoe, then FWWUUUPPPFWWWUUUPPP!!! Just like that. And, instantly there was this horrible grinding noise. LOUD."

People had said, Dave was the sort to do weird things from time to time. "I did not hear him scream. Not even once." She looked away, over towards the pay phone.

That was the last one, Gabe thought, as he and Artie left the Krakatoa.

"Can you imagine," said Gabe to Artie as they walked part way to Artie's apartment, before "Beau" continued home, "I can't believe it. Dave fell..."

Here, Gabe stopped talking and using his hands to illustrate his point for Artie –he thrusted his arms into the air, hands palms up. "He fell...up!"

"Yeah," muttered Artie, disgruntled. "I can imagine."

DAME GRETCHLEY ENVISONED modishly appearing on every US TV channel, an Asian promoting the Christian lord, Christian love, and the idea that viewers should send in money if they want anything like "free" entertainment to stay alive and boring. She sickened, metaphysically speaking.

I'd rather be entertaining to people in person and in the flesh, she reaffirmably reasoned, and every Sunday is sufficient for now. Rather do that than be a money-grubbing Jesus shyster at strangers. She asked for volunteer help at the church and got plenty, and otherwise produced the whole shebang herself.

She rented recent movies, talked on various books, open discussion panels, had a wide variety of guest speakers, and held a potluck every other Thursday night. She even led nature hikes to listen for owls, where participants received the blessing of multiple mosquito bites and occasional chiggers.

She promoted Jesus as being "the reason that you're here, that is, here in the church with the rest of us. Here, you are safe. You're not tempted to smoking, drinking, doing drugs, or making undue love acts happen. Instead there's good honest this conversation, laughs, food, deep philosophical discussion, and group relaxation techniques being taught next Sunday, be there - _Aloha Mubuhay!"_ The Dame didn't always get her own ethnicity right; she was Christian about it.

Weddings, however, were never held in the church. Dan Nuts had spread a story about a local haunted dead couple that was so jealous of their own hot 'n heavy love affair that whenever a wedding was held in the basement of the mission "you could hear Spanish moaning and groaning, to the rhythmic sound of castanets! You don't wanna get married in this church!" The bride was rumored to be a debauched Mormon prostitute from 1877 – secretly the gay man who had begun the practice of traveling in pairs. It may be that the Dame was not legally entitled to perform marriage ceremonies, and was functioning under an assumed identity. Perhaps she was secretly wanted for bank robbery, ghostwriting, or performing abstract higher mathematical functions in a manner too suggestive for external publicity. Incidentally, she owned a grey and white Persian cat, named Thurbernaut. Ever guess what James Thurber died from? His eyesight gradually disappeared, and he died awfully young. During those formidable-individualistic 1960s. Perhaps he died, too quietly, of Thurberism. Or life in stuck-up Ohio, in general.

Mr. DaLieken wanted to open a monastery and become its first inhabitant therein, as he couldn't seem to get a date. He wanted the Dame to finance the project. "Lately, I can't find me a girlfriend to save my soul, lady. But if I were a monk I'd be able to walk with God all day, wandering into da fadder, he'd be wearing this li'l short bishop' hat, black, locus classicus, with the titlike peak, and he'd put his arm around my shoulder, and he'd say, "Son, I can tell something's troubling you, I know you too well not to notice, what can I do to help you..." At this point, Thom had his arm around the Dame's shoulder and was blithely strolling her outside the basement door, into the sunlight, which she became well-lit. The Dame summarily crossed herself, in case she happened to be part-vampire and not know it.

They walked blithely all the way down to the Krakatoa, further than the Dame had gone for awhile—Thom too was huffin' and puffin'—where Dame begged off. She turned, testily remonstrating, on Rudnick Street, laughingly telling Thom "bye-bye" as she jogged, eerily and miraculously fleet of foot, back to the sanctuary. Thom, worried, stood watching her for a brief while. About halfway back she slowed to a reasonable walking pace. Then, this friendliest local example of the average locquacious and moratorily elocutious Italian _goomba,_ strode with confidence into his other public residence and meeting place of note.

MRS. EMILIA BITTERS was quite restless in her new job as the Krakatoa's alternate week-end bartender. It was very boring and largely entailed sitting. When customers arrived she asked them what they wanted, and swiftly got it for them. Then there was nothing to do but to sit, again.

At least Thomas DaLieken, whom she knew from the old Rotary Club, was here tonight. He was good for some words. He was even casually sidling towards the bar, right now.

Emilia , who was elder faded beauty was no longer sufficient to charm the souls of younger men than her husband, counted on a matronly, imperial black attitude of grandmotherly largesse to entice those spectators sophisticated enough to appreciate the elusive, transcendental qualities of...

"HEYYY!! Emily! Can ya grab me a tab pitcher fer a buck-fifty, like on the sign there? I'm run out 'til payday, can ya put it on my tab? I got a thirst that'll wilt yer socks off. I need some grub too, you sweet ol' babe, how's it shakin' with ya? I hear your ol' man is suiing the bast-no, I mean those rotten Ridgeview creeps—that terminatored him to weasel you outa what's rightfully yours. Izzat so, for real? ALLLL RIIIGGHHTTTT!!! Thom finally paused to get his breath. Emilia, nearly blown entirely off her laid-back Krakatoan ambience course, had to reset her sails to billow properly in the correct direction. She harumphed into her nail-polished hand.

"Uh, yes, my husband Ed, Mr. Bitters, is taking the management of his former company to court in order to retain his position there as Level III Administrator. Or, in lieu of that, to retain his benefits package." She was drawing the pitcher as she spoke carefully tipping the head of foam off as Thom, regathering his forces of speech, began to exposit at her once again.

"How do ye do, how do ye do. That's wonderful! Our town oughta be proud of men like Ed Bitters. They hang in there when the going gets touch..I mean, he sticks it out! That is, I believe that man is one tough dude, period. I hope you folks win big time!!" Thom accepted the preferred pitcher, waving it in a grand manner that spilled not a drop. The motion seemed also peculiarly Italian, although how it was so is not something that can be easily described to the written word. He seemed to offer it back, salud, to Mrs. Bitters, without quite clearly doing so; then he swung it 'roun' and took off for a table, leaving a tiny trail of white-bearded form in his bruising wake. Emilia pealed loudly with laughter, a nifty habit she'd gained over several years' time and practice. Her laughter rang like elves' bells off the beer foam, jiggling the light streaks on the polish of the thick, massive bar, glittering elves of light that danced and captured the sight and sound of beer being swung darkly through the indoor shadowy air.

"I'll tell you, they ain't gonna come after anyone in this burg after Ed's through with them! They don't know what'll hit 'em, m'am. He'll put them down for the count, TKO, over and out! Wham, bam, their name is spam."

Thomas enthusiastically began to pour himself a glass, but he was forced to raise his eyebrows in shocked horror when the lack of a bottom to the glass became readily apparent. He held aloft an undeniably moist hand. "Whaaa?"

"Here," called out Emilia, who couldn't let the incident dampen her outlook, no siree, but who had to take her time and enjoy the spectacle she'd created. She lightly tossed a rag across another empty glass. It gleamed with three dripping golden dots, popping and squeaking in the thin, yellow, and neon-generated colorful lights, which were emanating from six different framed bar signs in eight different colors, and which preceded the lady Bitters and concealed her partially in outer darkness as she came out from the oasis of the island behind the bar.

"It's the least I can do for a fan such as you, you eye-tal-ian, you." Stationary and startled, Thom felt the well-defined thump of hard glass on equally hard table. For a moment he idiotically feared for the polish on the table. The glass sat in beer. Emilia began wiping the beer up, lifting the second class to do so. Didn't take long.

"I'd stay and slurp with you, but I have to mind my station, or I'll stand accused of commiserating with the consumers." She stepped gaily back to the bar. "WE wouldn't want that to happen, now, would we?"

"No, ma'am," stated the still shocked DaLieken, who for the first instance of his life had attempted to take a drink from his hand. He remembered, staring at his slippery fingers and doping out what had occurred, when his father had told him that "da folks" were part Indian "because everybody is, this is America." He'd given Thom a book of very florid short stories on Indians...one of the better ones described in-depth how some Native Americans had a custom of taking drinks with their hands from mountain streams. Yeah, there were these weird little malicious beer commercials with funny guys in leiderhosen and straw hats wearing red, black and white snow-bunny costumes that, uh, pour. Pour, poor, poor poor, yeah. Glug, glug and glug, glug, and gulp. Ahhhhh...

"You know, the last person to call me an Eyetalian also mangled up the word 'nuclear,' like in nuclear submarines. He called it 'nucular.' Do you think maybe it's a regular, legitimate pronunciation? I don't think so, nah.

"Hey, Mrs. Bitters! Let's pass a law. I want it to read, anything real that you ever need from life is rendered completely legal, so you're always be happy, as long as nobody else suffers, unless they stink, and no little kids pass out from lack of oxygen. That way, maybe you won't do so many old-hat party gags at me, okay? And oh, yeah, is tomorrow Darts Night?"

"Or what?" staccatoed Emily, slapping the bar with one hand. It, ah, vibrated.

"Or _what?"_ stammered Thom. "If it's not Darts Night, I'm gonna stay home, eat blue corn chips, watch high-definition TV - there's bound to be a rerun of Mario Puzo on cable. It's safer than dealing with _you!"_

CRITICIZE THE FIENDS, or Needless to Say,

All through the 80s, lots of

THE RIGHT TRIANGLE - I saw Sillies

('Member how there weren't any female bodies to show off? The thing where they lift up their t-shirts hadn't started yet. Instead, the 80's were the era of The Wet T-Shirt Contest, or the public throwing of water over the heads of girls and women wearing only a white t-shirt, no bra, and it revealed a lot once wet.)

An early history of recent lack of complexity:

_All_ the sexism in the world is since the birth of James Thurber. He single-handedly re-invented sexism. By hating it, but having a giant black-haired woman keep bugging him and mostly ruining his life. I think it was his Mom. But in the end, The Last Flower expressed his need for peace, and one fancy dream of mine involving having exactly one child between me and the Man.

So, let there now be Tin Drums and Bearskin Dresses, already (originally, the bearskins were dressed, but I couldn't figure out in what, so...)

QUESTIONS you may have in about now, scuseski

That is, you May, you know

1) What happens, viz Caza's problems?

2) Workers of the World, Inc., or WWII—how was it born? Was it a labour

issue?

3) What was the origin/end of the _nice_ slime mold? Politics?

4) Describe Sara's apartment in depth, including the dust.

5) Tell us more about the Cloadia/Dave/Sharone love nest triangle; for

example, did they ever square things?

6) What happened after Ed Bitters left evil Ridgeview for good?

7) Who owns the Tomatoe Grocery? Are Tomatoes orange? Is it small? Is it

Expensive...is it for sale? Is it open?

8) How about the hairdressers? How 'bout 'em?

9) Is the river gully important? Does it relate to the glowing, dead Mexican

from 1902?

10) Who was Gabe's mystery obscene phone caller? Wotan? The Klan knows.

What?

11) Where did Phoebe Sommers go? Long time passing. The gas crisis of the

30s. Someday, have some eyesight on me.

12) Did the pigeons, buy any chance, go fourth to Capistrano by accident,

having swallowed their pride? It's pigeon pride Week.

13) What happens to Sharone and Dan as they move, presumably separately, to

LA?

14) What was Gabe there doing with the devil? Mutual masturbation?

15) What scared Mabel so much about Dave's reappearance? Was he ugly?

16) Did Thomas DaLieken ever become a monk—as promised?

17) Who the hell is "Fred?"

HARMIN BOOLE BALANCED at the bar. On a hard stool, scrunching up his tiny wrinkled butt. Extremely retired, for life. Disgusted yet easy-going fellow 77, he fagged out easily. Years of drinking, smoking, and spouting off to townies doing him in. This was also one of those days when his legs bothered him. Edema, and gout. Filling his knuckles, wrists and toes with agony. Maybe people would be in. Older people, with luck. They were slower and more patient with the likes of him. He sat, nursing a whisky sour, muttering to himself in a voice that echoed with the haunting sentiments of country music.

A young man, one whom Harmin had never seen, but had known several of, sauntered into the bar. A Mexican, perhaps. He walked over to Harmin. He was a blurry form. This could mean a pool game, Harmin thought, but I don't think I can take it. _My goddamn legs!_

"Excuse me," sighed the exasperatingly tall young man, "Have you seen Cloadia Tager? She's my girlfriend."

"No," scraped out old Harmin, in a pronounced whisky voice. "I don' know her well. Sometimes she's in with that skinny black gal. She the real cute tallish gal? The one who has to bend over the pool table when taking a shot?"

"Yes," replied the young man. He tossed his formidable swath of hair back. Harmin had a light dusting of grey left. "I want to see her very badly. Do you know anything about her, where she's living like that? I only dated her twice, but I loved her, I simply have to see her again. Please tell me what you know."

They stranger said on a barstool. The weekday bartender was on. Mabel was watching TV in the back, her favorite soap, and possibly she was composing a plot for her next romance novel. These actually sold. She made about $75,000 a year from them.

"Mabel School Jones might be able to answer your questions, young man. Hey, Mabel! Ffreet! There's a Mexie here wants to find Cloadia Tager. Says she's his girl. Izzat a fact?"

"Hi," said Mabel, coming out from the back. She wielded a cloth, like she usually did, and began wiping stuff off with it. "Sees not a regular. She's in here sometimes with another girl."

"I must see her again, uhhh, I owe her some money. No," said the 'Mexie,' laughing. "I love her, I want to talk with her, but she's very, uhhh, flighty. I don't know where she lives. Do you?"

"Ahhh, no," Mabel said, reflectively. She wiped a pitcher. "I have no idea. Wait a minute, I think maybe she's up on Silvedale past the park. I used to have an address list. People drove people home and I didn't have to look through the wallet. But I don't got her address now, sorry."

"Oh, well, better luck next time for me, I guess. Thank you so much!" said the young man, warmly. He smiled, placing a dollar bill on the counter. "I must go, thanks I don't have time for a drink."

"Take some sunflowers," Mabel yelled, tossing him a package of shelled, salted seeds, a freebie on his way out. "Thanks!" yelled Dave Velasquez. And that was the last the Krakatoa saw of him, for a while.

About a week later, Cloadie, Sharone and Saragina all stopped in for a pitcher.

"We WON! We won all three games, now we're fifth overall in the league!" revelled Cloadia. The gals were on a bowling team representing the Krakatoa. "Pledge we'll come back carrying a trophy!"

"Hey, Clo," said Mabel. "There was a guy came in looking for you last Wednesday. Said you were his girlfriend but he didn't know where you lived. I told him you were probably past the park on Silverdale, but I didn't have your address. I don't like to give 'em out to strangers."

"What'd he look like?" "Oh, young, cute, Spanish, kinda dark. Had lotsa hair. Maybe west coast. Sound familiar?"

Cloadia gulped. She picked up a cigarette and looked at it, turning it round and round in her fingers with fast pronounced casualness. "Only guy I knew like that is Dave Velasquez, but he's dead...he was killed by a helicopter. I mean, we went skydiving, and, and it sucked him up into it. Into the rotor blades."

Mabel, on the other side of the bar, paled. "Gosh, how awful! I'm so sorry! But this must be some other boy. He was perfectly fine, looked okay. He just wanted to know where you were."

Cloadie looked down. She began sort of intentionally bumbling with her cigarette, began. "I dunno," she heavily muttered. "I don't know any other suchlike dudes. That bloke was it; Mr. Dave. God. I dunno."

Then, as Sharone reached out to comfort her, Cloadia Tager looked up, seemingly at something. "Waitaminute," she called out, loudly and imperiously. "I did useta pray to the old Greek God Poseidon. But it doesn't make sense..."

Mabel frowned. This wasn't her glass of beer. She was a mom-type and could handle legitimate problems, but what was this? "What Greek God Poseidon? What are you talkin' 'bout, honey? Are you, like, okay?"

"Poseidon--he was the Sea God. Lord over all of the Earth's oceans. He had absolute power over all waters, everywhere. He called to my blood, my spinal fluid, my...I useta do this special prayer for him at parties. I said, look, he's in the beer, right? Mostly for laughs. Not too serious.

"Maybe he has something to do with Hispanics, 'cuz they're 'middle people,' you know, they're between the two extremes. Tears? Neptune, or Poseidon, is the god in between Zeus and Hades. You hardly hear about this Guy. Has to do with water. Yeah. Beaches. And they were really too sexist to women.

"But...Dave was killed in Zeus' realm, the sky. I never prayed once to Zeus, not even in regular church, and my LIFE. Honest!" Cloadia finished, pulling at her glowing cig. She wondered exactly how much like a lost space cadet she sounded. A silence dropped over the bar. Sunlight maneuvered over faces, alternately lightening and darkening them. Shadows crept in on the floor. "Isn't Zeus the, uh, predecessor to the Jewish God, y'know, our regular ol' God god?" asked Mabel.

"Don't know," called our Harmin Boole, astutely, sticking both his hands in his pockets. "Not my Tonka Truck, those things." Harmin, a regular, was indubitably standing by. He was grinning and rocking back and forth with the balls of his feet.

"Who asked you, Harmin?" teased Sharone Bitters. Her mom tended bar weekends, relief for Mabel. Her father was a hospital administrator for the local "sickness mausoem," Ridgeview Hospital, but he'd been layed off.

Budget cutbacks were blamed. But Mr. Bitters had immediately gotten a new job as local office manager for Estrada Corporation, in spite of these setbacks and cutbacks; not bad, less pay, but much lower pressure; howsoever, he'd lost his former benefits package. Not good indeed...

"I ast myself, look," Harmin said, too robustly. "A fella comes in looking for Clo, right? Let's not stray away from reality...it's not her dead boyfriend. It's not the undead god Poseidon. Dead folk don't take to walkin' again. Right? Right. So, of course, either her boyfriend's still alive or it was someone else.

"Now, isn't that the case? Fair enough? Harmin started off, limping, and also chuckling, back to finish his pool game with Artie. Harmin liked to act swell, wise and all-knowing. He knew Rama. Acting in on things was his way.

"Never mind that old Harmin," said Mabel. There was a pause, a silent acceptance of reality. She looked into the distance, as though something meaningful were in force, but she indicated nothing whatsoever, save perhaps that she was holding back tears. And then she smiled stiffly, turned swiftly, and all but fled back to the bar.

"I'm scared," Cloadia whispered, to Sharone and Saragina.

"Chin up, old gal. This'll resolve some weird dudes' silent fantasies. No, it'll resolve itself, ah'm sure. Maybe they heard you got a thang for Spanish duders and they actually managed to get it all together and sent out a scout. Never fear. Shar and Sar be hyar." Sharone poked Sara in the side and they laughed uproariously, in unison, as though on cue.

Later, Mabel was closing the bar for the night, waiting for her husband to pick her up when, while locking the back office, the probable truth floated up to her mind about what was happening with the Mysterious Reappearances of Dave Velasquez Velasquez. She shuddered, and, standing patiently at the front glass doors, she hoped fervently her Bill would show up, very soon. He did.

LOST. AT SEA. A sacrifice to Poseidon, awash on the ocean of dreams...

All the way out in Shell Park, on the beach, all alone, on a picnic table, in between a holy trinity, of a kind, sat Gabriello Sancto. Sat, reciting: Saragina's place, Caza and Artie's room, and Cloadia and Sharone's digs composed a Trine. What a hard care is lust...

To the north and the west and the south of Gabe lurked four beautiful women. Nothing known to be female was to the east. Gabe sat on top of his splintery picnic table at 4:38 am on a weeknight, in the autumn, awaiting for the sun to rise in the east. Or for Him to freeze to death, whichever occurred naturally first. It was a cool night in October. He'd been there since roughly 1:30 a.m. It was chilly. His bones ached. His legs were numb.

But he had an erection, the false one-eyed God of sexual deceit. This description had been by a priest of Gabe's early acquaintance, not by anyone real. "Why 'one-eyed' when the thing hides two openings, Hose A and Hose B?" he mused miserably.

Saragina DeSoto would not, repeat, would not, repeat, would _not_ _ever_...Gabe HAD. Many times. Already. Saragina had of course been previously married. Gabe needless to say had not. Why? But, not why? Why not. Humongous expellations of diaphragm-dwelling air (did I ever tell you about "The Ring of the Nibbled-On?"). That oughta heat the environment, dragon-breath.

I've done this before (being rudely interrupted by me.) When Monica-Lisa would, but would not the second time. Nor the third time. Nor the fourth time. By the fifth time, I took her dog for a walk instead. It was almost more fun. Not quite. But, Phoebe put up with me. For two-plus whole years. We were almost REAL. Oh, almost...

So here am I, sitting by any drunken Navajo TV, waiting tenuously for Yaga Bar to show up and overtly criticize my seating posture. "Growll! Your back is all crooked. SLLASHHH!!! Now you're sittin' up straight. Ooooops, looka the blood. Lick, lick, lick." Gabe flinched. His imagination was running away with him, or perhaps with the picanic basket. Where's Ranger Smith when you need him? He put his shaggy, short-furred head in his hands. He was freezing, but it was only about 58 degrees out. Practically tropical. Barely a Nip in the air. A few. Please?

Buttoning his jacket up to his neck helped. He did so with numbing hands. The moon was buxomly gorgeous, and becoming swiftly more so. Full, golden, watery and globular, quicksilver imbedded—no, sort of flatly—in the atmospheric, shadowy, romantic slate greyness of dying, oppressive nighthead. He wasn't there yet, never in a single day.

Gabe's eyes felt old, older, three times as old as he already was, near temporary death, obese, ready to quit forever, solid as a petrified rock, and happy as a lightly-steamed clam. Such is youth. He wasn't shaking much. The breeze was light and warmly soothing. Like Saragina's hand stroking his clean-shaven cheek. God save me, it's dark.

"Beau" frozenly smiled the marionette's tragic smile of deformity, as though practicing for death, making his smile come from the lovelornly, brainlessly, ridiculously damned and condemned fool. He bonelessly slumped over sideways like a child's long-deserted clown doll. His head flopped limply, he spread his entire bony faced to the limits, mimicking a candleless Jack O'Lantern. It was an attempt to keep awake.

He was envisioning becoming a gruesome corpse. He'd look awful in this suit.

I'll never suicide, no, not me. But, what if? I fall asleep, right, and the cold takes me. Like the Little Match Girl. Uh, red, red wine. Nothing ever would bring me back. Nobody'd care. My funny body is discovered by wide-eyed little children. They pour red, red wine all over the sleeping me, and I feel nothing until he they throw the matches. That they stole from the match girl. The WOOMPH! is incredible. It's like a Roman candle. The flames lick the highest heaven. Smoke is visible in the Carolinas. Perched on her roof, Gramma reads understandable words into it. They say, "Your grandson won't darken your door one more time." They mix me up with the Hologram Vectors when I make heaven he in ruddy-colored flames. While BRRRring. But then they find out otherwise. The Little Match Girl points the finger. The mother-haughty angels, blonde or (Indian father and white male mother!) well, it kills time.

Blonde, or dark-haired, loveless, violent, perfectly stone cold, flawed but having forgotten 'em, tear me apart with their merciless, numerous, bulging, inhuman nine-foot wide arms. Like a chicken thigh. They cast the pieces back down to lovely hell, hoar in Rama, for sleeping around with girls so much. I scream in pathetic, dire, hideous, self-immolating eternal torment. Without even trying, I take the picnic table to hell with me. It catches like a matchstick. Old wood sure burns good. I am one with the table. Wow, it _hurts!_ The burning flesh smell re-attracts Yoga, who proceeds to eat me in addition to the other extremely intolerable and unspeakable pains. I finally relish these death agonies as an orgasmic, cosmic atonement, purging my evil, carnal soul, like a middling good laxative. Well, it kills time.

I supremely declare (that I want out of all politics because I have no group) to the infernal skies, amplified one thousand times, or so, that none of this compares to the bottomless pain of not having Sara to fornicate with, and no one else knowing that, in any way, shape or form, because they have no brains. Ma'm. Zowie.

So tightly enclosed in my arms and cradled in my bosom and immediately right there with me, if not sooner. My sweet love! I've heard...nah, I haven't heard any such thing....Yaaugh!

I burn harder, in perpetual torment. The ferocious bears' remorseless teeth (naturally there's more than one gigantic, hirsute, malevolent bear, three or four, I can't tell) I really can't, cruelly sink into my throat, destroying my lower jaw; my rended arm is being gently remove, as though by nurses; my foot, mangled, immolates; the center of my body bloats and explodes...

...I collapse into the brilliant daylight outside, where my numb legs unwind to greet m'lord or m'lady the recently repainted sun, and I (as my whole, unfailing self) fall gracefully off the pic-a-nic table. Oh, look, what a fascinating rock. I believe it's deeply embedded in my calf. Perhaps corrective surgery to remove my brains, especially to replace them into my calves, so they'll "moo-ve," is in order.

The flames appear to be extinguished. I cannot feel either of my legs. I cannot, as we shall say, rise.

I'm going to just lie in this fine position rat cheer for a great, long while.

No kidding. Perchance those maiden aunts will succulently Indulge. No, they all resemble Sara, or I, and are super-coy. Or, are they—there's one—ouch.

Oooooooooch. At least a few of them aren't. Itches!! I slowly wobble upwards from necessity, scratching fiercely, rising northwards like the moon, committing a daylight shadow performance, an imitation unseen by any audience. No, here come some freaky people. How embarrassing. Would they react if I threw rocks? But, what if they felt sorter hurt? And threw 'em...back?

"Gabe! _Gabriella!_ What're you doing out cheer so early?" It was Mariko Yamaoka and her teeny tots, a boy and a girl, taking a walk among the evergreens spreading so verdant and pure, to feed the ducks early. It only takes a little bread, and then the ducks, geese, pigeons, seagulls, chickadees, swans, grebes...etc. A rainbow of water colored birds, circling above you 'til you drop food at their rubbery feet.

I stammered around for the reply, coughing up and swallowing three-quarters cup of phlegm. Well, maybe a tablespoonful. Would you b'lieve a teaspoonful? A pinch. I try to pinch Mariko, thinking she was Lydia, but my fingers wouldn't touch. I made an OK sign instead. Blatantly.

"Oh, I killing time until it begs for mercy." "No kidding? Me too. "Cept I brought the kids, having nothing else to do with them today. Apartment is colder than outside. Nature calls. Look out!" cried Mariko, swiftly leaping forward to stop Gabe from falling over again. He made a whooshing sound with his lips, and Mariko set him down on the bench. Camera moves back. Premature senility, depicting an Impressionist painting in the muted soft haze of incoming daylight. Zoom in to camera close-up.

"I was sitting on the table. Much less comfortable." The bench began to touch his behind as though it were extant in his cosmogeny. "Why were you doing that?" came gently the voice of a Japanese Mother, Finestkind, to his ears. But, his eyes Responded.

Blink. Blink, blink. Blinkies. "I guess I was, uh, going to turn the tables on someone. Like in a restaurant."

Soft, brown, time-oriented Asian like-a-tadpole fish eyes hovered like filled nut-meg accidentally-on-purpose placed in clove containers. In mid-air. Where else?

"You can't _do_ that! Hang on. I will run to grocery, buy you nice cup _coffee!"_

Clucking softly, she sprinted away, a Japanese lightening flash of Speed on sandaled feet. She likes sandals best. A pixie sprite. To Gabe's muggy, fogged-over airport of a mind she shrunk magically into the trees. As Asiatical of a dryad as could be was borned. Mystic glowing embers remained from the imaginary fire, surrounding and blurring her Asiatical form. Bores. Boris.

"Watch my kids! Keep 'em safe and occupied. I'll be right back!" Speaking truly, her back vanished, right side first, in a puff of streaming daylight. The sandy dry ground kicked up under her a stupendous halo of dust. Gabe almost choked. She was a pen-prick. She was Gone. So was the erection, long gone?

"Sha-za-yiam," Gabe yelled distantly at the ghostly sprinter who wasn't there. He strained to look wildly at the kids; yup, they were playing nearby, the pokes. No, they WEREN'T playing. They were building cars! The same old ones! Nope...

They were standing, as though frozen in time, and were FROWNING quite tellingly.

Unmistakably, neither liked him. That's okay, Gabe figured, I'm a Ralph Benchley fan. And Malcolm X. I'll fall asleep now. He did.

Saragina's alarm went off, it rang, or bludgeoned her awake at 6:45 a.m. On the dot. She went back into the bedroom and shut it off. "Member those stories 'bout perfect white ladies with just one thing wrong with 'em?

Breakfast was quite good. However, the eggs were slightly runny. She stuck them in the micro for ten. She used a salt substitute called oregano. First thing she walked in the door at Ridgeview food service, the intake worker said they were absolutely out of orange juice, and that meant a total emergency. Read screaming light time! Who cared if every other CNA didn't even show up?

He was such a despondent, dependent, dented fellow, or so. "What the heck can we all do here?" As though it was all over for Breakfast in America, for all time and terrible twisted, convoluted Space. He made a terrifically drooping face.

"We'll hafta solve grape juice, in the Stead. It's bahh-ter anyhoo, it's LOWER acid for the, uh, the patientttsss...everyone may drink if safely." The service workers acted on Lady Sara's comment, more people drank their morning juice. _Woes end!_

The Yamaoka kids were rediscovered by their returning, black-coffee bearing Mama, remaining in a seated position - a row of Golden tater tots with their expensive clothing defining them, and while holding down Gabe.

The whimsically big boy and girl casually explained Dot and Ditto-style that they were there strictly for his safety. Concerned and protective, like a split suit.

"He might fall over again. We don't like to see that! He's a good guy...though he stayed overnight in a public park...know what we mean?"

NOBODY FOUND HIS BODY. Because the Bo was still alive. Cloadia explained this to Gabe when he asked her why there'd been no official funeral services.

"Do you believe in faith healing?" she asked him. He was playing pool with Artie Blend an hour before they were due to join a group taking a truck out to a job site.

"No, but I believe his good solid tales. You got one?" Gabe said, tsking at Clodia, and winking. Cloadia showed small upset. She was very pretty, always wearing fringed leather vests lined with shiny beadwork to match her near-stilleto-heeled cowboy boots, and her hair shone with glamour. She acted surprised, tsking back. "I'm not making anything up, honestly. Dave actually was killed funny. Honest! The helicopter sucked him up away from me. I saw it." She strolled elegantly, clicking her heels on the hard wood floors, over to the other side of the pool table to watch Artie shoot.

"Uh huh. Yeah. Well, there's a guy looking for you and claiming to be Dave Velasquez; therefore, isn't it extremely likely that Dave is still, ah, sorta alive?" Artie' shot worked and the three ball thunked into the east side pocket, chlormph.

"Look, mi amigo, just because my believability quotient is going downwards--that doesn't mean anything. I AM is your president. Why... Why would you all think I was lying? You are the ones wanted to talk, 'member?"

Many were the mythical events occurring on an informal basis in this backwater, otherwise dull noncosmic burg. Gabe had seen several; there was the incident of the slime mold in the park, the town of Rama, the time he was orgasmically shot twice while picking up his weekly paycheck, the berserker deluging of the town of Rama by crazed weirdos on bicycles, Idaho, but as for political events...

He never had reason to disbelieve Clo, but wanted to storm something on horseback –but not alone. The story was starting to radiate carcinogens.

"Dave lives, lady, you're putting us on. Don't tell me?" Gabe purred pettishly...pettishly. "You have a $100,000 life insurance policy on Dave. I won't breathe a word, not to a soul, not to save my life." Gabe actually was running out of succulent breath. He'd been drinking schnapps and copa largoes, tall ones, and both reality and time were slipping away, away...even ol' Artie looked fuzzy 'round his edges.

Laughing, Cloadia flashed an elvish grin at her watch. "No such luck, Paul. I'd scarcely known him a month. Cute man, plucky, but about as bright as I. After that par-tic-'lar night, that is saying less and less." Clo collected her fringed leather purse and fringe jacket. "'Scuse me, I have an airplane to board. Sayonara."

The bar was darkened. So, there was a loss of light. Artie had drifted out the door somehow. Gabe was reluctantly reminded to get going (omigod, I just thought of WHY there's a Madonna again, the "rubber knife", nothing to do with Marilyn Monroe) to take the truck back, before Nightfall. Nightfall. He finished his last drink and split, twenty minutes later. As though dragging his feet.

On the way out he ran smack dab into Caza Zooweiler. She grabbed his arm and stared him in the face. With the drifter's smile (thin.) Gabe opened his mouth, feeling deep, but momentarily lost for his "little sister."

"Artie and I saw a thin Hispanic dude on Silverdale, looking up and down the road. Artie went over to say hi, but he, uh, vanished. What's going on?" She swallowed, looking hopeful.

"Dunn," Gabe offered. "And I hafta go drive a truck. Can't deal with that. Say hi to Artie for me." He left Caza standing there and walked to where the truck was parked. It wasn't there. They'd left already. He was over ten minutes late. Ooooops.

Hokay. He figured, it's a sign, from Zeus, maybe. Or from the god Landrover. He went out to Silverdale, to look around for days. He walked all the way up and down the street. He'd never met Dave. Tired, he dropped by Col and Shar's place, hoping for miracles. He rang the bell.

A moment, black-and-white, passed; the door was opened. A young, then, Hispanic man stood there, stark-staring naked under a bathrobe, blankly measuring Gabe. "Beau's" neck hairs prickled. They were unshaved. And unshared. But, who was it, Dave Velasquez?

"Jew, are you?" inquired the alleged helicopter victim. "I am Dave."

"Oh, nobody important. I hang out at the Krakatoa. We all heard you folks were having a problem, and I'm also with the church, so I came out to say hi..."

"Are Jew the cops?" mustered the door-devil, unkempt three-foot hair, and all.

"No," answered Gabie, calmly. "I'm a friend of Cloadia. Squalling, they stormed the town...no..."

"SORRY, we're busy. Can't talk to Jew right now. Later." 'Dave' started closing the door. "Gotta go. Hope it wasn't no trouble for Jove."

"S'alright..." Gabe was facing a door. Not a doorway. He left.

Waltzing, only mentally dazed, back down Silverdale, Gabe saw Sharone Bitter's auto go past. Her face appeared, blurrily, momentarily, before his watery eyes, hovering within the suspension of a single moment's time. It was young, smooth, describably angelic, and for that moment's own sake, if not for the sake of infinity's, definitely not a boy's, not ugly or ugly's, and not a man's...

...then there was a flash of smooth gray metal slipping by, and she parked the car in the "Pah-king" lot of the edificio des picos where she and Cloadia lived. He walked away, thinking of his potentially lost job and that it would all probably be okay, he'd go to the pay phone at the Krak and call in and tell them and apologize.

He almost heard Shar's wide car door open and really heard it close, and saw the sun set, towards his right, longing to run over and kill men in Idaho, as he ambled casually to the, the altogether giant toilet flushed drinking establishment that was so necessary for the absolute promotion of Rude alcohol demises.

He thought, it could have something, ANYTHING, to do with water! I'm thirsty. Also, for a change lately, I'm getting HUNGRY. Starved, ipso facto. Facto Factotum ad Absurdum. Quaint. There aren't any strange people here, never have been.

Maybe I should head for the Fantastic Café instead. No, tomorrow when it's open for big fat breakfast. I need to buy two dozen jelly-filled donuts. As my big fat apology to the WWII Big Fat Crew. They have money, and no soul.

Mustn't forget the decaf coffee, samovar-style. It's what a Grecian urns, causes bladder cancer if you drink it mostly. You get breast cancer from no children. So have a kid every day, in order to prevent wearing pink ribbons.

ANOTHER FAVORITE HANGOUT for the boys, girls 'n goats of Rama, WA, is the Fantastic Café. It's an art deco wonderment, but subdued, and prematurely greyed-out, possessing a broken-down interior and generationally grown dust ground-in every bit as though it were forty years old in there, and it probably was. The redecoration took place in the mid-70s.

Originally it was a breezy, airy li'l lunch counter, wide-open all-glass front, dusty, oblique, with round padded stools that badly needed recovering, and an earlier incarnation of Mabel Jones presiding. Her name was Thu Breckinbrack, she of the white aging Afro, and she slaved daily over the regular service of Rama's restaurant food and phosphates. She's dead now. She died of liver failure from alcohol poisoning.

More time on the part of the local masses tends to be spent at the Krakatoa, anyway, with her distracting rip-roaring volcano, at the base of which was once an equally roaring fireplace until it cut loose one night after closing (improper banking technique by a fly-by-night barkeep) and burned out most of the back wall. The original artificial plastic volcano, which was much smaller, melted, and it costs $10,000 to pull it all out and replace the wall. Back then the bar was named "King Author's Palace."

John Harcourt, the current manager at THAT time, Robert Goneschlaw, who was then still able to talk, agreed with a local contractor with a fetish for kitschy restaurant decor, who was "in love with the place" for money, and they installed a ten-foot artificial "live" plastic volcano, replacing the defunct prior fireplace completely. Harcourt renamed the place "Krakatoa," after the disaster. After all, what disaster?

This turned out to be a terrific idea and it jam-packed in the customers. The new volcano gave off twice as much light, no heat whatsoever, and was "lots prettier." The whole bar glowed womblike and invitingly, with softly flickering reds, oranges and gold. It put you to sleep while waking you up, simultaneously, as it should.

Oh yeah, there's also those ubiquitous pool tables at the Krak, and a stowed-away Ping-Pong table being saved for special occasions by Goneschlaw, a foozball table with two broken plastic men, and three of those old-fashioned pre-video, uh, game machines that go "tilt" if you rock 'em. Pinball right? And four video games, besides, the newest one being over three years old. At least those got used.

Only food, drink, and a daylight open view for you at the Fantastic Café. Of course there was and is a Daily Special.

Hamburgers are the out-and-out mainstay at the Fantastic, and cost a mere $1.99 for a third-pound of beef, with a toasted sesame-seed bun, all condiments, letters, a dill pickle or sliced sweets, onion, and a side of potato salad or a bag of chips. You can get 'em salt-free. Cheese is 35cents extra per slice and you have to figure the tax. Coffee is an incredible twenty-five cents with a burger or sandwich, sixty cents for a cup alone. Free refills, up to three. No more and let its decaf.

You can tell by that last piece of info that it's not a crowded room.

The original idea was to supply the lunch throng of hungry factory workers from the nonexistent factory that never arrived, despite all attempts toward its western extraction, in Rama, or close by. That's why no crowds. But two people a day?

Well...Gabe took a copy of As I Look Back to the Fantastic, banging open the glass door on his way in. A high school kid, Jeannie Ontermeyer, was behind the counter. He knew her; he used to babysit her brother. They'd lived in the same neighborhood about two years ago, back when Gabe worked at the bookstore. After a while, a black kid Gabe didn't know came out from the back storerooms and joined her up front.

" _Jeannie!"_ yelled Gabe, waving his book. "How's the _roast beef?_ I got paid yestiddy and I need a good solid slice of beef on a bun." Gabe strolled casually up to the counter and slid neatly onto his usual recovered stool. Jeannie laughed merrily, winking at him. That's when the new kid Gabe didn't know suddenly appeared, bringing with adroit certainty two boxes, probably full of filled or unfilled donuts, or maybe crumpets, straight out of the mysterious back. Gabe craned his stubby brown neck up excitedly. He waved a non-threatening forefinger.

"Hey, man, are those donuts? Are they jelly-filled? That's great, if they're at least a little fresh at all? I need about two dozen of 'em, in a box. I'll buy up all ya got, I need them DONUTS!!! Gabe shouted like an auction customer, both in imitation of his Artie buddy, who got away with stuff like that, and in lack of surety about what the black kid's plans were, with those doughnuts. Surely he would be willing to sell "Beau" some of them. Would sweet talk be required?

Ahhh...he looked at Gabe like, he was serious? "You must be hungry or what, or somepin', Bo," flatly stated the gangly, dark-black teenager. He was standing stiffly, not very open and friendly. "Beau" was turning him off.

Nevertheless, Gabe did a double-take. "Howdja know my name, that's my real name, or do ya?" he inquired while searching the kids' face for memories. Perhaps guesswork should be attempted. Did the name "Beau" involve genetic facial structural imprints, widely known to everyone? Probably not. He could swear he'd never seen this kid before, ever.

"Yes, Bo," the kid tiredly explained, in an' I've-done-this-before kind of a voice, "I used to work for your mother. I delivered roses to her every day. Pure, unspoiled white roses. In bunches of twelve, with card attached." At this point, the youth, scarcely one hour over sixteen, jabbed a finger at "Beau," while balancing both boxes on his other hand like a French waiter. Averting his shy and youthful gaze, he plopped 'em down on the counter. He continued, very pleasantly, with an undertone beneath his speech of an intangible, mild, inaudible scream. Screaming coming from somewhere down deep inside. You could feel the strain in his body.

"And with every bunch I delivered a single cream-filled chocolate-covered donut, at no extra charge. She was really sweet, your mother was, she tipped me $5 every time I delivered those flowers." He smiled, ever pleasantly, at the donut-seeking stranger.

The black youth balanced carefully but staunchly on the counter-face with both hands palms down. "She even let me eat a donut with her every once in a great while." The look on his dark face was entirely serious, but uncertain. Perhaps a stormy expression. "She died last year, I heard." He drifted away at this peculiarity, as though it was the type of event that never befell people like him...

..."sudden-like. Now, what can I really get for you, a burger, a sandwhich, a milk-shake, all of the above, or some of our fresh roast beef, flown-in today from Ha-why-ya." He said this last part with a New York accent. The strange new worker, at least strange from Gabe's perspective, had apparently finished his speech quietly and with a slight smile. And he shrugged, sort of listlessly.

Gabe just didn't react. Or, did he? "No, shweet-haht, I'm serious. I gotta buy both boxes of donuts 'dju got cheer' (he jabbed a finger at the boxes) for my hungry work crew, an' I wanna get wunna those orangeaid coolers, too, or a big samovar full of coffee, whichever's cheaper. We're headed to an outa-town work site. See, we work through the mission," Gabe explained, feeling as though he were falling back on an old bad habit, or relaying an important piece of news, "and we have a lotta guys 'n dolls what needs their blood sugars raised, and their core temps maintained while they are out-of-doors in the livable freezing cold."

Gabe wasn't angry at the youth, who was beginning to look familiar, largely from being stared at for the last many minutes. He couldn't blame the guy for being upset at him either. Getting upset was the order of the day, and perhaps the day's only one, at the Fantastic Café. Hey!

"I see what your problem is. You come out from the back with your two flats of donuts, and just then in I waltz, slam, and I attempt to claim up all the pastries you've got, all at once. But, izzat really all you've got today, by any chance?" Gabe searched his face in an empty, quizzical manner.

"Yep, no problem. We can order another two flats from...no, that's what the problem is. Jeannie?" Jeannie, who was off wiping tables at that point, almost instantly came right over. "Yeah, what's going on?"

"This customer would like to buy us out for donuts, and I'd be very happy to sell them to him, but I, uh, have no idea whatsoever how to get any more of them today because we use Wally, you know Wally, and he told me that we can only get two flats of these on Monday or Thursday. He said we usually don't even buy them on Thursday. I'm sorry, Bo," said Ned, "to put you off, but these are all the donuts we have got access to for the whole week, maybe."

Jeannie, who was listening closely but with a skeptical expression on her pretty, exquisitely made-up face, broke in helpfully.

"We can too order more doughnuts, or any baked goods, from Smither's. She turned to Gabe. "That's the bakery, in Unionville, and if you have a car, you can drive to Unionville and buy dozens and dozens of really fresh doughnuts. All the jelly-filled donuts you'll need for work tomorrow. These ain't even all filled." Jeannie opened the top box and picked one up. She broke it in two. It smelled fresh.

Ned got upset. "Hey, that'll ruin the donuts for the Bo."

"Nah, it's okay, it's a baker's dozen in both boxes and the wants twenty-four," she laughingly said, handing a half to Gabe. "Try this helpers extra."

Gabe chewed thoughtfully. "You wanted two dozen, all right? See, this isn't even filled. Go ahead, eat the whole thing, already! Kinda dry? They're an afternoon old.

"Jeannie, darling', you're givin' away all our week-point secrets!" Ned frowned a big black frown down at Jeannie, who was sorta short for her age. She hiked herself up at him and shook herself defiantly, nyah nyah nayah. She looked to be very happy and ultimately forgiving. But tough. Ned was tallish and thin, unsurprisingly wiry.

"Nonsense, we had to have 'em delivered last night, and they were in the cold storeroom overnight. That's over a day old, and no fault of the café's."

Jeannie bit the other half; it was dry as bone dry would be, were bones that dry. She nodded, petitely, and frowned prettily. "Todja. Y' should go to Unionville, Gabe Hooter, the bakery is open ever day, they're just slow on delivery. You can get 'em all filled, finest-kind, just like Nedders used ta take to yer mum, g'wan you guys." Jeannie poked Ned in the ribs with her finger. Today, she wore bewitchingly blonde hair interlayered with orange streaks, a cellophane dye. "You're kidding us, Nedders, you never took any filled dounts to Bo's mum."

"'Course not!" Ned objected, agreeing. "They were all dry! His mom don't like 'em filled. She's losing weight. Those filled pastries are chock-loaded with horrible death-defying calories." Ned reached in and grabbed a filled donut. He tore it gently in two. "Here, this is what these are like." He gave it to Gabe, who ate it. "Not bad. But dry, as you say. You sure you usedta deliver these to my mom? She lives on the east coast, three thousand miles away, give or take ten blocks."

"Ohhh, no, you AIN'T Bo Ruskin, are ya?" I thought you were the Bo who played us on the football team, with Roosevelt High last year. I was opposite their team's wide receiver. Can't see too good to through those face masks." Here, Ned did a long dramatic pause--obviously he was beginning to have trouble keeping this improbable story up--and he looked Gabe square in the face, but he raised one black eyebrow about twice as high the other one, in a most novel manner. Apparently Ned was bored, but a trickier'n usual cuss.

"Beau," convinced something else was going on, remained maturely and calmly unimpressed with the youth's antics. He was there to buy some apology food for his crew, having made himself late before from hanging out and picking on Cloadia too long.

"All I want is a roast beef sandwich for me, pronto. I have to get a car out to Unionville and pick up those donuts. You two are right, that's a much better idea."

"Gabe slapped the counter top, placing both palms, fingers flat, together and raised, directly on the counter's edge, as though cutting his palms. "Capitol suggestion, that, in fact, mi varon, mi cara, absoLUTEly capitol! Would the senor brioso care to drive me out to Unionville? I know that Señorita Jeannie can handle all the customers presently located in this establishment excellente," Gabe exulted, swinging his left arm outwards to indicate the total lack of anyone else resembling people in the entire place. "I'll pay you twice the gas, agradece-miento."

Ned did the same thing with his lips that Dame Gretchley had done when she was talking with Ed Bitters. He looked as though he were auditioning for a Hollywood part, but, where was the show? Gabe relaxed for a moment and attempted to enjoy the weirdness. That's what he usually did. It was all he could do.

"All right...Jeannie can handle it. I'll drive you to Unionville and we'll go donut-shopping." Wiping his hands on his apron--they weren't even dirty, what from? --Ned went back in the back. He came out waving his car keys jingling high and he and Gabe quickly exited out the front. Ned quietly closed the fragile glass doors behind them. Gabe never did get his beef sandwich. On the way out to Unionville, Ned went ahead and told Gabe that the Reason for Ned was that Ned's mother had killed horribly, summer of last year, with a wooden-handled, double-barreled shotgun. "She did drugs and had a lot of pain. Like that other lady on the news, years ago." Then he was silent the rest of the ride. "Beau" believed him.

Unionville was slow, settled-in, and unobtrusive. The bakery emanated wonderful, cloying, overwhelming smells. Ned casually entered and picked up the two dozen donuts. When he returned, Gabe was gone, but Ned found him looking into a shop window at a pair of beautifully hand-crafted workman's boots. What a lovely collage, one that he never did go to, or create for himself. "I hardly ever get out there. Thanks!"

"Like those boots?"

"Too expensive, man, I can get better boots 'n these through the JC Nedders' catalogue. I will, when I get paid."

Ned dropped Gabe off at his apartment building. "I'm sorry if I was funny at you, "Beau." You like Gabe better?"

"You can call me Gabe or 'Beau,' but my name's Gabriello," chanted Gabe. "But now I have to call you Ned. If I may ask, Ned What?"

"Ned England, if you can believe that. Your mom's really on the east coast? Ah, me. You're almost like me. My mom is really gone, gone for gone. My pop's got a girlfrien', though, an' there's hope for him. He ain't lost, yet. Me, too...

"Well, en-joyyy your dooo-nuts!" said Ned, dragging out every syllable. Gabe gently closed the car door. Ned spun away, trailing dust. The donuts felt light; the boxes were still warm.

As Gabe trudged up the stairs, he accidentally dropped a box on the second floor landing, but it plopped down upright. Two of the donuts were mashed together, a pastry union, kinda sweetly funny. Un acoplar allegre.

Being short on money, he was glad he had to fix a sandwich and a soup on his hotplate at home. This way, he still had plenty enough to take Saragina out. Wondrous Ned had bought him the donuts.

On a heady night at the Krakatoa, Beer Bustin' Night, the monthly event when beer cans gathered all over town were crushed for recycling purposes, herself Cloadia Tager showed up, dressed to the hilt, on the arm of an equally haute-coutered Dave Velasquez. They were greeted with cheerily abundant surprise by a very full bar. It was a most recycling-conscious turnout.

Clo pulled up a chair and sat down on it backwards, an event nearly made impossible by the revealing stretchy tights she wore. She cleared her throat and sat upright, waving her hands, and made the general announcement. SSSWWWWEEEEARRRRUHHH

"I want to fix it up about a little problem, here. Listen up, comrade beeroid chill-out fixer denizens."

Everyone listened raptly, although there were occasional scrunching sounds.

"Those were all Jeweesses, an' this here good-lookin' young man is Dave Velasquez. He's no Jewess. He's also not dead, as you may have heard. I'm Cloadia Tager, his new boss, hi, y'all.

"We're gettin' married, and you're ALL invited, with grand solicitations, especially Jewesses," Cloadia interrupted, indicating a certain waitress. She waved back. "To the wedding party," she finished. Slight pause here while Cloadia ladylike coughed into an incredibly long-fingered hand, or maybe it was the lightning. Scrunch.

"When's th' hitchin'?" croaked Arthur Blend. Artie possessed a correct and legal and most definitively CURRENT birth certificate. "Ah gotta rent a decent tux! They done buried Graham Doonall in mah old suit ah lended 'em. When?"

Saragina and "Beau," who were nodding together and sharing a pitcher, before leaning back in their respective chairs to burp comfortably, bolted up straight.

"Now you tell me!" Gabe sputtered. "What day, Jose?" tittered, or tilted, Saragina, who tippingly lifted an ignorant glass. Gabe was, had been, experiencing concrete elbow again and those two were studiously doctoring Gabe's pain with alcohol, taken internally. It appeared to be working.

"This month, the 10th, 2 p.m. Magnolia Ave. Church, up north off the highway. Oh, don't forget to bring highly expensive presents. Or your highly expensive self, well, at least a card. Formal wear is required. That means they have to be good blue jeans, Artie. No holes!"

"Fangs a bunch!" Artie slurped, slamming his beer down right on top of a pop can and crushing it neatly with the big bottom of the glass. "Wow, tha's purty good. Swell, y'all headin' fer a weddin'...congrats, salutes and sis-boom-bah! Hallelujah!" He flourished eight navy salute, not unsnappingly. Murmurs of amused approval circulated throw out the bar. No, the Krak. No, the Bar.

"As part of our Wedding Announcement," Cloadia continued, "Dave has a joke to share with you. His English ain't so hot, so y'all listen up. And that's all from me. Next time you folks see me, you can refer to me as Mrs. Velasquez, or maybe some of you kids can call me Mrs. Alaska." She stepped neatly away from the chair, clumping loudly across the floor and heavily hobnailed cowboy boots. SHE was the Goddess. Dave swiftly swung the seat under his small behind. He grinned a mile across at all the Krakapokes, as Mabel called 'em. None were kids, most of them being over 30 and rather soused. Smoke was blown sideways.

"Well, I have little that's good to say, so I'm going to tell you folk a joke. IN...English! Better than my being dead, right? Hokey? It sorta goes like this:

The Young Priest

The new priest at her first sermon was so afraid he couldn't speak so he asked the Monsignor how he could relax. The Monsignor said, "Next week it might help if you put a little vodka or gin in your water." The VERY next week the priest put some vodka in his water and readily preached up a storm. After Mass he asked the Monsignor how he had done. The Monsignor replied, "Fine, but there are a few facts you should get straight.

"First: There are ten commandments, not twelve.

"Secondly: There are twelve disciples, not ten.

"Tertiary: David slew Goliath, not 'beat the snot out of him.'

"Fourthmost: We do not refer to Jesus Christ and his disciples as 'JC and the boys.'

"The Fifth: Next week there is a taffy-pulling contest at St. Peter's, not a peter-pulling contest at St. Taffy's.

"Sickly: The Father, the Son and Holy Ghost are not referred to as Big Daddy, JC and the Spook.

"Seventhly: Do not refer to the cross as the "Big T.'*

"Burp: Last but not least, it's the Virgin Mary, not 'Mary with the Cherry.'"

"Having finished, the Monsignor flipped the young priest's surplice over his face," Dave intoned sonorously. "And he just blew it off." He sighed. "Story over."

"Yeah, I'LL say!" screamed an erstwhile inebriate gent in the back of the bar. "With the Cherry! A Cherry! A Cherry!" Laughter broke out, like the...in it's spontaneously startled manner, that, but WAS whistled dead by Thom DaLieken. "Hey, show respect for the bride, there." Thom enjoyed the idea of TAKING marriage seriously.

"See you at the WEDDING!" Dave called forth, taking Clo by the hand and escorting her to the front door, clump-clump-clump-clump-clump-clump. A momentary weighted silence held the bar crowd entranced, the bar quietly echoing with Clo's footsteps.

"Scary, man, downraht frahtful," Artie wheezed. He lifted his massive fist. Crunch. It was time to begin crushing recyclables again, life as usual.

*While running on empty.

Artie Blend's Worst Drunken Ramble, which must End Soon

We'll you KNOW, after Gabe, Workers of the World, IND. But, before Gabe, there was, anyway, so who CARES? Even if only the Mouth is working...

All that going to jail? It doesn't MEAN! There's always the SITTING! Martian Columbus! You've gotta, walk more! Lose that diet! Oh, THAT easy way oudt.

And yet, nobody ever gets the hidden secret message buried inside every box of Crackers. Dan NUTS. Nuts'r nuts, peanuts 'r a guy who's nuts.

But, strike up the poignant music? Workers of the World, Inc., began originally as a relief of the SIGHS. Of the Angelos. Ooooops. Well. It WAS the pig net, and at LAST they found one. There were these bums, see, and they started a business through the water that they made. On the STREETS!!! Get it? _Yeah!!!!!!!!!!!!_

And it WAS during WWII. Andy they named it after WWII. Preach Zeus. All Asia is left alone, on that. Yep. No Europa!

You know how it's hard to write a store, anyway? Crack that safe. Anyway? Anyway is anyway, anyway. They crashed this STOREFRONT, and everyone who asked Questions WERE told that those bums were STARTING A BUSINESS.

And, when, when the politics NEVER, NEVER EVER arrived, they what? Well, they wha-HAT? K? Is that, K? Or, is that I? And, they really, really, really did start, THIS business? ALL good is even. I'm Odd, but not a freak show. NOT YET!

Anyway, it became a MISSHUN. Miss SHUN. Okay? Is that okay? Yet?

Yet? FOREVER? But WHY? And, drugs were in the well, Burt not for long, and, finally, we-all figured out WHAT EVIL PEOPLE ARE. YEAH. And, there.

Anyway, HOW to be a drunk. Well, anyway. And, they got funding through calling EVERYONE in the UNIVERSE on the sacred, the absolutely (yeah, but you're TRAPPED by the idea of a drunk) SACRED Crashin; Get Don Adams shoe phone, and got MOANEY, MOANEY I SAID, and THESE TYPOS are INCREDIBLE! But, they quit drankin' and anyway, they are just alike, but somehow men and WOMEN are not the SAME! In our WWII. And _afterworlds!_

Maul the time! And, they put the first BACKWARDS CLOCK (which runs counter-clockwise) in there just to give the DAY OF TIME to people.

Is that OKAY? IS IT, BIG MOUTH ME? _IS IT?_

Or, is THAT okay? Better? Artie, are you still alive?

Batman is a registered Twat. Izzat OKAY?

Why the red paint on girls after Lucille Ball? Comics, I'll tell you.

"I DON'T WANNA move to LA, you know, my roomies are getting married. What else can I do? I'm a nurse at Ridgeview Hospital, I pinch gold fillings, subway tokens, bus tickets. I could stay in town. Parents here. But, why? Rents are phenomenal, well, they're not good. Too high for me."

One would think this was not the Case. Don't nurses make good money?

"So you're moving to LA?"

This last was blurted by Gabe as he leaned way forward (maybe about three inches way forward) and breathed himself vicariously into the unassuming (and always vicariously) skinny vessel made from the expanded eyes of...and that she was, Sharone Bitters. "You aren't going to hurt about that too much, are you?" she whispered.

As usual, there was nothing further to say or do, nowhere to go with...anything. Gabe stammered, as if his own soul had fled for Poughkipsky.

"You're right, I GUESS, LA is good, but I think, uh, we're all going to miss you." Long, serious, lingering silence. But nothing was wrong. Nothing. Ever.

"I like being a nurse, I'll be a nurse in LA, no sweat. None. Soft Job." She heavily emphasized that last word. Life is. Funner'n Blue Blazes. there is the absolutely mitigatable presence of an earthquake

Sharone teasingly smiled, drawing her windeglass over to just under her long, thin brown fingers. Gabe's 'r short 'n stubby. Take them out. Her ruby fingernails clicked faintly against the glass. She didn't drink from it, instead facing Gabe one-on-one, glowing on a tip softly and incandescently. She was chain-smoking, which was rare for her.

"Get this, sweetheart. I make $45,000 a year. Hone, that's a bunch." She smiled, obviously in condescension, but without any rancor or hostility. She had a ghostly manner, being an ephemerally thin woman. Bar smoke circled around her, producing a night-time campfire haze, entangling both darkling people in brief opaque clouds. "It's a real moneymaker, being a nurse. You should try it sometime. Two years of school can get you in; four is better. Want to know how much I'll make in LA?"

The angels, some part of Gabe's brain stuttered, city of the angels...that would be swell, to stubbornly become one. "Where does it come from, all that thar money?" Little tree toads in the forest generate it. No, it comes from private sources, insurance, Medicare, Oregon, and Medicaid. Come join ussss, you won't be a tree toad anyone, hey?" Sharone playfully gave "Beau" her best come-hither look, then turned her face to her Windeglass. Gabe once again sensed the enormous wall of...bottled booze shining nearby him, to his right as he sat with Sharone. So decorative, so expensive. He gazed at the pool tables lovingly layed out in the volcano-lit room, before him like so many offerings of commercial affection, love mixed with hatred, a were-party meant mostly for men.

Much smoke was coming from the other couple, seated throughout the Bar. They were white ones generally, busily blowing tobacco wafts as they kibboitzed, dressed as country hicks in blue jeans, workers. They made tiny fiery glows, miles of feet away, dancing spot romantic lights like candles, in the dark. Gabe relaxed more than he had ever in his life, that night; he gave himself over to a sleepy joy of living.

Sharone was sipping her red wine and, reflecting, both in the bar mirror and inwardly. "I'll make at least $70,000 in the Los Angeles area. I don't even have to live in-city to do it. The commute is pretty wicked, but I have a good car. That's what I'll have, yeah. Car, career, and someday near. But what, Babe, are you fixin' to do with your Standing Life?"

"Beau" didn't exactly get green around the gills at the prospect of telling Shar what, but on the other hand there was that sinking stomach feeling. Why WAS she hinting around? Do I have to out-and-out admit it? Me?

"I'm going to hang out with Artie and wait for what Saragina wants to do to emerge. Then I'm going to play it from there." Sharone idly swallowed her wine, looked across at the bar mirror, and then smiled, tightly, absurdly appreciating Gabe's impasse. But she didn't feel sorry for him. "I'm sure you'll work it out in the end. You don't need a car for your job now, do you?"

"Nah, they drive us out. I can get a clunker. My gramma offered to buy me one, but I didn't feel like it. Job's okay as it is. Oh, I have to meet Artie down at the laundromat, we're going to check of the stereo system he's wanting to sell for some people, I guess."

"Huh. I'm going to dunk this town and get on home and study manuals. Then I'm going for run, the hospital sponsors a day run. Five miles, every Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday. Mostly us ladyfolks. You're welcome in if you want."

Gabe shook his shaggy head, feeling a bit like there were hidden bugs in it. He hadn't bathed yet, that day. Also he hadn't gone running for over a year now.

"No, but thanks, dear lady, thanks."

The slanting October daylight hit him, as he walked out of the bar, like a full blast of surprised power, straight in his Eyes...

Dave and Cloadia were married in broadest daylight, no shotguns, on the church (I did not have the pleasure of seeing you) lawn on Magnolia Avenue. There was a droopy white awning for the couple to waltz and schmaltz under. Harmin, the Dame, Caza and Thom threw rice, an Asiatic fertility symbol of love...in massive cascading handfuls, mixes white, wild, and brown. Forthwith, the Dame took pictures of the happy couple fastidiously brushing each other off.

There was considerable Happiness until unexpectedly, the middle of the ceremony, Zeus or whoever 'twas began splatteringly to speckle some rain. Those giant drops. Said downpour was sufficient to drive everybody into the church. Harmin, adamant as usual, refused to go in. "You...people _planned_ this?"

"It's against my principles. I cain't stand nothin' to do with no church nor th' cross. You-all kin have yer blessed fun." Harmin crossed, anyway, his skimpy skin-flapped arms against his shrunken chest, and he glowered with vinegar at the wedding party. The flower girl tossed him her posies. Harmin decided to wait, uncertain where to go, what...to do. Perhaps he'd catch his death. He began to hum an ancient Gaelic ditty, stamping the ground, drawing his coat's collar under his ears.

He had a felt hat pulled down over them, but it was swiftly becoming soaked. He passed around the stucco side to the ivy-covered back of the one-room church. There was a rock garden, containing foot-high statues of the major saints (the old man glowered at them, especially poor St. Francis) and a small white gravel path leading to a tiny open cemetery, where elder parishioners were buried.

I can't seem to escape death, mused Harmin, it's all over. Wherever I turn. He felt an old familiar chill, cutting deeper than the wind and the blowsy rain, and it arrested him inside; it drew his vital organs together, but not protectively squelching out all hope of life to come. I can take it, he thought, I've got guts, I'm an old man now, there's the kids, and Juney's dead many moons. I miss her so much...what's this?

There was something greener than usual covering a headstone and blanketing two of the old-fashioned graves in back of the church. A glowing halo effect, almost nausea-producing, attracted the old man's cloudy eyes, which were slowly proceeding towards cataracts. He wasn't sure if it was him or what he saw. He moved over towards it, and sure enough, it was moving. It slipped off the headstone and began slithering, gooily and insanely, in his direction.

Mr. Boole couldn't grasp what was happening. This was too new and strange for him. What memories did it reach? The bunching thing was touching his shoes before he could react. He nervously stepped back, seeing in the rain, a slimy wet mass of variance sluggishly gathering itself to launch at him. While the sight was too fascinating for words, watching the thing impossibly motilate as the rain lashed threateningly around, Harmin was certainly not game for his shoes to be consumed...not at this church!

"I bought these leather shoes last November and you ain't gonna ruin 'em that easy, Billy Joe Bobbers." He walked away, slowly, keeping a gimlet eye on the thing to see if it followed him. Nope! It hesitantly explored forward, found nothing but grass, and then inched itself back over the graves. It jiggled. Was it protecting something? Harmin Boole almost returned, to look for his wife. It wanted to stay where it was. Harmin lost sight of it as he walked away.

Voices came through the rain, called out from the church: "Hey, ol' man Boole! C'mon in! It's stupid to stand around in the rain, you jerk! We got a blanket and some coffee for you! C'mon!" Mabel and Thom and Dave Velasquez were standing in the doorway. "Oh, hokay, no good company outside alone, talkin' to meself!" shouted Harmin, shaking the rain off his coat as he pranced into the church, grabbing the proffered cup of coffee. "You people don't know how to get prop'ly married..." Right, satin sheets. Too expensive. Why not wear a cowboy hat?

#  Chapter Ten

A DECLARATION OF _IMMUNITY_

NATIONAL STATE, OR _SLAVE COLONY_ _?_

THE Day I DRANK your Party

Was a Night to Dismember?

GABE, ARTIE, SARA and CAZA \-- love _elsewise_

A dark, moody piece, with Black Forest depth, Nixon-era, 1960s, yippies and college deans deserting their posts, dirt-ingrained permanently at the floor. With light flickering softly, mutedly, temporally over two people; dark moving shapes against the long brown bar. Multiple shining, light-encrusted ovals, vertically overwhelmed by a single giant, flat rectangular horizontal blob.

Shapes of detachment and withdrawal in the blue indoor shades of afternoon, lost between two people murmuring gently. A voice sonorously announces: "I have come to investigate the firing of our elder Edward Bitters."

The drama furnished by this statement was great and fantastic. Yep. Fantastic drama. Perhaps a sponsor would interrupt shortly.

"Well, that's what he ought to say," inveighed Saragina, thickly and heavily. She inveighed this at Artie as they nursed, with a slow typicality that was often alarming to Sara, a beer apiece one midafternoon at the Krakatoa. "But first of all, he wasn't fired. He was "laid off" due to "budget cuts."

"Do tell," Artie wetly replied. "Ah thought they retired 'im young." He took a long drink. Slurp. It was slow, it burned as it went down. Ahhhhhhh...

"There's this Japanese field investigator for the state attorney general. I forget his name. Gando-something. An American. From the east, near the capitol. Not a Santa Claus, but he's real I guess, and Mr. Bitters' political connections are coming through. He's looking into the viability of charging Ridgeview Hodpital with discriminatory firing. You know why?" Sara leaned against the long bar with both arms, without relaxing completely.

"Why?" asked drunken, free-wheeling, oddly awake Artie.

"Because they fired him before he got his retirement."

Experimentally. Of course! Artie smiled, and twirled the glass between his two front forepaws.

"Viability," said Sara. She looked guarded, a little severe, as though close personal matters were involved. Artie cast her a believing, convivial, and drunken look, then steadily said, "Ah'm glad ah stayed outta that world, lady. Ah kin only wish you the best."

"Do tell," breathed Saragina. A forte of hers. "Do tell, but I have not yet begun to enter that there world. I enjoy my job, thank you very much, world, and Artie."

Later on, they all heard, Ed was offered a different position at Ridgeview Hospital. It was a better one than he was currently holding as local manager of a major regional corporation.

The position was not higher pay than the previous one. Ed had nearly the same benefits package at his new job, about 75% of the formal deal. The corporation that was Ed's new boss would suffer terribly in the event that this country should happen to run out of loggable timber, but it would not do so for many years. Ed was too near retirement for anything like that to matter. Sure. He told Ridgeview no, straight-aways. That's how Saragina currently looked ahead. Straightaways.

"I'm still going to college, and nothing will stop me. Nothing..."

Sara began rising from her barstool, brown slender hands gracefully falling, hard, on the bar.

Only one of 'em bounced.

"...except money. Or too many useless distractions." This was not aimed at Artie, really, y'know. He just happened to be there. Good to hurt others. Sara had appointments. She set her glass down and paid.

"What about Gabie, though, hon?" Artie had to refrain from touching her arm. Couldn't do that. It was Misunderstand-able. He spun towards her, carefully avoiding bumping his knees on the underside metal.

"Why, he's not nothin', isn't he, though?" high-pitched S. DeSoto, who had been self-confidently confusing for years. But that had been her ex-husband's major problem, too. Maybe. He'd had trouble holding jobs...

"I will arise and go now," wheezed Artie softly to an empty room. He slowly realized he was sitting in an emphatically empty dusty tavern. With naughahyde plants drooping over the booths. Artie's natural habitat for centuries.

He 'most turned to watch the volcano, erupting hollowly forever, but didn't.

CAZA IS MAYBE DYING of a degenerative kidney disease. That means _peeing!_ Sooner or later her kidneys will begin to fail, well, get a little drunk and you land _in jai-yul_...she'll be put on dialysis, which is only the beginning of waiting to die.

She was happy-go-lucky, charming and sophisticated anyway, in spite of being a mere descendant of Mexican farmworkers, a dust mote on the speck of wisdom that is deemed humanity. She would never have children, she thought, but she hoped.

In Gabe's dreams she played, a yearned-for lost Madonna, a lost sister whom he could never reach out to, Norwegian wall-blocking, a vulnerable, crushingly Indian child, too much a toy in the hands of God. She was dying on us, and all that laughter and light and sweet talk would falter within any year's time, with Artie the Drunk the only thing to catch her, there, if he did not slip. He was falling, too. Never is life sufficient. That's why we use computers.

If we refuse to acknowledge the natural beauty around us, there's always the Losses file, to put every piece of dead gnarled wood in, each never fitting...you accountant, you...in the computer's memory. The File Extract command is Invoked, Meph. No, I came now hither of mine own Accord. C1 will be the name for the extracted file, and this is key-entered when requested by the ...Caza. Lady of the Lake, Igraine, alike, the drowned under the value of tears, golden tears of Urine. Artie swore to tell himself, his lady's urine is sweet and pure. But it wouldn't be. No sirree. He might have to clean up her messes someday, but she'd probably handle it, or the hospital.

After the command is complete, a new file is on the disk which contains the first quarterly totals and losses and returns. Puts the previous info in. The cell will be the upper left corner of the file that will be combined with the Yearly Losses Report...the command is initiated and the files are combined.

This will involve swapping disks and retrieving and saving a number of files, and will sharpen your disk and file handling skills.

The File Erase command permits a file to be Deleted from the Data Disk in Drive B without leaving the Worksheet. More efficient methods than this (shall we say, never?) are used to delete numerous old and unused Files. They are described in the next section on the LOTUS File-Manager Program in the Access System...Caza may access this System, as she so pleases.

It may be Possible to recover the Data if a Mistake is Made, and an Important File is erased for which no duplicate exists. If no other files have been saved to this disk, it may be possible for someone who is very familiar with IBM data disks to "recover" your file. The steps to do this are beyond the scope of this text... GoTo Overview. Hurry! Next Job arriving in tomorrow's mail...

Caza's no Rapid Religionary. Nope. No sirree bobberoonies. Limitations! The LOTUS database has several limitations imposed by the program itself. Because the database exists within the worksheet structure, the maximum number of records that can be Sloth be key-entered is 2047, and she generates a Good Income, 1 less than the number of rows in the Program. This is probably only a Theoretical limitation because the Computer's Memory will be filled before these Column and Row limits are reached.

LOTUS will not enter the numbers in individual cells if they are imported as labels. What is happiness, if not the actualization of peace? The pointer is positioned where the upper left corner of the imported chart should appear.

After entering the text, the imported part of the chart appears the same as the original. The pointer is repositioned and the file is imported again, this time selecting the Numbers subcommand, Numbers, Deuteronomy. The result is the same chart _with labels and accompanying acts of parasitic damage..._

When I get hungry, Caz sighed, I have an imaginary tapeworm that eats my burritos. I fix great food for Artie, and he fixes it for me, but worms ensure the loss of eating by living in your intestines. If you're lucky. Sometimes, they fly through the sandy air, laying their eggs in the thousands on your bed sheets. Being poor has its major drawbacks. Pinworms, hookworms, trichina worms. _Nausea!_ I treated us both for pinworms once. I am glad they are gone, hopefully.

GABE HOOTER GROPES at boredom. It was a hot, breezy, listless evening, typical for mid-to-late August. He knew, now. And his apartment seemed empty. He'd had a date with Saragina, his lady love of the moment--a long moment, but still not one tied down--and she hadn't shown up. Gabe's apartment was flooded with light, amberized, frozen in time. The city shown like a pulverized gem outside, trailing small lights in the gentle and gathering darkness.

Earlier that day he'd met Artie on Guild Street. Blond Artie had a beard and a grocery bag, having bought several six-packs of cheap beer. They clinked.

Gabe asked Artie what passes.

"I thought we could have a party, man, you an' me. Maybe summa t'others, but I can't get holda nobody, not t'day." Gabe and Artie both felt the heat. "It's the last day b'fore dis thray-week job, man, an' everybody's gawn. Ah boughts all dis bare, hennyways." Artie spoke hoarsely, breaking into his usual sweet laugh.

He sounded tired, very spent with the heat. A tall man, he drooped forward over Gabe like a wilting sunflower. Gabe only leaned back and sighed.

"I want to go up to my room, Artie, it's too hot to hang around out here, taking up sidewalk. Maybe I'll catch you later." Gabe turned and headed down the street.

"Don't forget, job starts at 7 sharp." They both worked, as I've said, for a local service agency, doing day labor jobs.

"Later, Gabie," called out Artie behind him as he stalked away, clinking the bottles in the sack.

Up in his room, Gabe lay back on his bed and looked out the window. He had a small electric fan blowing at him. He could read if he wanted, or listen to the radio. But he didn't. Right now it had caught up with him a little, the meandering, unambitious, pointless form his life was currently taking. And had been taking for several years. He had fun, he felt sure, but that was about all. And when he thought about it lately, he thought maybe he drank too much. He'd been figuring it would catch up with him. But waitaminute, maybe Saragina was coming over tonight. Panicked, Gabe started to leap out of bed, then stopped, landing squarely on the edge. No need to panic. So glad he was, living the life of not having to...make love.

Saragina. What a problem. She had an ex-husband in California who wrote letters asking to come back to him. He wanted her there, with him. She wanted to stay where she was. Gabe wasn't sure if it was him, or if she just liked the town, her job, and her friends. He ex had frowned on her having a career.

She was leery of settling down again, and kept Gabe at a short distance. He wanted to close it soon, but his own career was gimmicky at best. He made about $800 to $1500 per month, not enough to support the probable family spring up, like freshly-planted grass. It gave him drinking money, with which he usually bought beers for his friends, but lately, he'd been slipping into that bottomless glass routine that always catches up with bored barflies. Sooner than later.

Hanging out with Artie, he figured, was The Cause. Artie usually bought a pitcher or two and shared with Gabe, who had no excuses. Gabe sometimes drank in the afternoons due to this. Maybe, this could end...someday.

Thinkin' 'bout drinkin' is no good alone. I think Ah'll go down to the Krakatoa in two hours, git a beer and go to beds.

Gabe went down to the Krak, which _was_ a bar, and met Artie. THAR! Twang, they both walked into the bar, an' didn't fall down, n'yet.

"Gabie baby, ah gots a rayl #1 magnifico idear. Le's go hup thet ol' buildin' on To-may-to Strayt, th' one wit th' fahr 'scape tha' looks so fun. We kin git hup on th twelfth floah, man, and drink beers. An' watch th' pidgies flah bah. Right?"

Once UPON A TIME, there had been a Sesame Street in Rama, Washington. It was where the Tomato Grocery was originally located. It held the entire Universe, up to that point in time...everybody was there. Children played all day and night, without a fright, everything was clearly left behind. The nuclear bombs didn't kill anyone during the 1970s' Cold War. Sunny days, chasing the clouds away. Funny neighbors, and that's where we meet...h'year that Jewish deeply melodious flute playing sonorously in the ground, to let you know? Hi diddle low, hi diddle diddle die, hi diddle do, _die._

So there they went, except Artie changed his mind midway up the fire escape and they entered via a seventh-floor window. They sat inside, drinking beers. Gabe put down two, thought about Artie soaking up all the rest, then stopped. That flew him pretty well. Artie never stopped. After all, he's an American.

"Hey, Gabe! Ah got 'n idee. See theef boarz?" Artie drunkenly indicated several boards leaning against the wall. They--Gabe and Artie--were sitting by a window, outside of which an adjoining building's roof could be seen. Eery intent was buried in the back of his face, Artie's face. Roof was about ten feet away.

"I bet I could walk across t' th' othah buildin' ovah thar. All I neez is dese boarz, man, and I'm 'way. Wanna watch me, Gabie m' man? Getch'a big kick outa that 'un!" Sure, whatever, Artie...

Gabe was pleasantly sleepy, sitting leaning against the wall that faced the opposite building. He had the fourth beer in hand and was painlessly and smoothly stretching it out. He tried to calm Artie down. "Artie, stop waving those boards around and sit down. You're going to get hurt. Now, be as sensible chap. There's a good fellow hombre. Why do you want to pull a stunt like that?"

"'Cause it's FUN, man! I'm bored of sittin' 'roun and I'm gon' do it. G'bye now." So speaking, Artie pushed the boards out of the window. Gabe suddenly felt a slight chill, a suspicion of something altogether not good, but he let the beer drag down all of his present insecurities. They do that. Right. He muttered wearily, talking to the only ears that listened, other than his own:

"Goodbye, King Arthur." Yep, Art was that kind of a guy.

Just as unconsciousness started to force consciousness to bite in, Gabe heard a muffled but resounding distant crash. Jolting himself to his feet, almost falling on the way, unwinding slowly, and staggering over to the window, he calmly looked out. Couldn't see anything, anything worth it.

He ran down the inside stairs, which were musty and covered with garbage and filth.

The seventy-year-old building was condemned to be demolished soon, and was standing yet in the place locals were accustomed to passing by, a place now considered to be useless and empty. Rama, the town too small for anything real but farming, had once been part of an expanded Western Washington city getting ready for an industrial boom. The Tomatoe building they were in, one of the largest in the area and nowhere near the stretch of concrete where Gabe was shot at, was one of many destined for the rumble pile whenever a buyer cared to turn one over into the soil and lay a new crop of stone or other means to hoped-for wherewithal. Nowhere in the state was small enough to escape such eventual action by a buyer. Japanese, familiar, or otherwise.

All outside doors were locked, luckily, except for the one facing the alley; it gave to Gabe's frantic push, at least, when he hit the bottom of the stairs.

Nothing. Gabe breathed, taking in only dust once again, facing the mystery. He fought a wild urge to flee into daylight. But, what...Artie's jacket. Lying flat, unnaturally sprawled, on the ground so filthy, steps away. Gabe picked it up, answering the pleaing of words from surely not inside him, not him, forming through his teeth, on his lips, Artie, how could you...it's blood-soaked.

He stood there for a long moment, feeling betrayed, holding the blood-drenched jacket and wondering what God would allow blasphemies this strength to attack him, then slowly he realized something.

It was Gabe's jacket, one of his cheapest ones. Old, loved, well-worn. Elbows vanishing into tawdry snakes of intertwined loose threads, gaping with flabby holes. Tears came to his eyes.

Brown eyes, capable of reflecting non-extant fragments of light, peered with opening wonder down both sides of the alley-way. Artie must apparently have crawled out, literally on his hands and knees, or stumbled tragically broken and futile, a disabled weaver of pain, to the only legitimate place he could have gone to, Shell Park, the oasis of true beauty in nature facing Rama's Rudnick Street. Gabe began to shake and choke with sops, stiffly accounting for the likelier actions having occurred and occurring, stifled, man-forbidden sobs that welled up from deep inside and ran through his hands into the politely-returned clothing. What if?

Artie had left behind an insurance policy, stipulating that his entire crock-pot of money be left to his sweetie, the tartly nut-brown Caza Zooweiler. It was a $50,000 policy. It was all he could afford. He cleared very little, like Gabe, and Caza had said something about her needing heart surgery in the near future. She was a hurt, broke part-Indian gal, had nothing, kinda like Gabe. She'd always had these problems, really bad physical ones. They could end up meaning something, with or without help. Maybe it would?

While Gabe stood still, holding the awful and bloody jacket. Artie lay shaking and mooning on a park bench, where he had crawled, as Gabe envisioned, to die. He had broken seventeen bones.

Eventually a man saw Artie and called the police, who took him to Ridgeview Hospital, the public health hospital. Gabe called in and found out. At midnight, he dropped by Artie's unit. Arthur's fast asleep... _raz_ for King Art!

"AH CAN'T BELIEVE that, Mayan. Whata wimp...can ya _forgive_ me?"

Thus spake Artie Blend, even more gravel-throated, from his manual hospital bed. He had a tube up his nose, a needle in his left arm, a sling cast on his elevated right arm and a nifty body cast on both his messy legs.

"Ain' this sumpin'? State's gonna hafta pay parta this. Ah got some insurance.

"Ah tells you, man, that's it fer me and drinkin'. Nor more, ever again, less ah gets sui-cidal. Cain' talk anymore." Artie lay there, sighing. Gabe stayed with Artie, murmuring amiably, but in a while he became very thirsty. He left the room to buy a couple sodas.

On way to the cafeteria, which was in the basement, Gabe ran into Jesus Christ. Well, at least it looked like Jesus. He was even glowing. Decked out in full white robes, long flowing dark or sandy, lighting, can't tell, beard and hair. Beard.

"Excuse me," Gabe said, attempting to catch the astonishing figures attention. Christ was about to stroll past him, in the lobby. They were turning the corner at the gift shop. "Are you, uh, Jesus Christ?"

"Of course I am," snapped the Man. "And I'm in a hurry. They are dying people here, see? I have to help them. What do you want?"

"Uhhh, I was wondering what business you have here, I guess, but apparently you already have some. Maybe I should continue towards the cafeteria," said Gabe, looking at Christ over his shoulder as he passed him. "Perhaps we may meet again some other day."

"Certainly!" cried the amazing figure. He walked away, down the hall, past the restrooms. Gabe watched him pass a giant painting of blue, waxen cubes on a kaleidoscopic green, red and yellow background. Then he left, heading for the elevators.

In the cafeteria, the next mysterious event occurred. Mary joined him in line.

Gabe had decided to BUY a sandwich. He had a feeling something was behind him.

He felt something brush him gently while standing in line. He turned, and there she was. Mary, Mother of God, dressed in full blue robes and white-caped hood. There she was. Mary, Mother of God, dressed in full blue ropes and white-caped hood. There she was. Mary...oh, Hail Mary, Mother of Grace, uh, er umn er umm.

"Holy guest appearances," Gabe breathed. If you were female, you would enjoy. He grabbed a milk.

"Yes," quoth the Lady.

"By any chance, is there a play going on today?" She was not very pretty. But she smiled.

"Yes, there is. I am an actress, playing Mary. It's called 'The Life of Christ' and it's being staged in the hospital chapel, Wing D or 4th floor. It's primarily for the cancer patients, especially the children. Would you like to come see it?" Her Voice was particularly sweet, compensating for her face's lack of youthful luster. Something in it made Gabe strange, made him want to turn away and flee, even though it was a highly pleasant and understandable voice. She had one freckle, no more, on her right cheek, or perhaps it was a mole.

"I'm sorry, my Lady, but I'm here to visit my Friend and I should stay with him. Perhaps some other time."

Gabe went back to Artie's room, sandwich and drink in hand, and told him what had happened. "She had a great voice and a so-so face. Couldn't see the Bod."

"Yeah, an kin believes that, they have lotsa stage 'vents heah. Ya kin open 'm up an' crawl insahd. Wow. You saw Jesus and Mary on the say-yam DAY! In the cafeteria! Far out. What will they think up next?"

On the way out of the hospital, Gabe ran into the police. They stopped him to talk, burly the both of 'em, male and female they created them, kinda fat each, also very pushy and authoritative, especially the Male. "We're looking for a young man, muscular, about 5'10" or so. Possibly black or brown." The officer seemed to be mildly apologetic.

"He was reported selling cocaine in the hospital. Have you seen him?"

"No," said Gabe. Another weird moment of wishing what shouldn't happen could. It passed. He took time to drop by and see Sara on the way to his apartment. She was fine, fixing him a rattling cup of Seattle's best organic lunch blend.

ARTIE WAS HOSPITALIZED FOUR-THREE (3) months, then sent home. Caza helped him apply for temporary welfare benefits, including unemployment. This paid the rent and fed him reasonably well, considering the circumstances, while he recuperated. During those long six months, Gabe worked extra hours, Sara put in some more time, and Caza did extra bookkeeping. Fortunately she and Artie were not married; otherwise the State would've counted her petite but considerable income as one with Artie's, and paid out commensurately less in benefits. It was a pretty good program, anyway. He started physical therapy at Ridgeview and in a while was seeing a chiropractor, covered.

Artie was walking on crutches in four months. In nine months all the casts were off. In two years he was ready for light work again, rarin' ta go. He hadn't taken a drink during the entire time, not one beer. He was very proud.

"Ah feels great," he bellowed. "Better than b'fore! The Doc said ah was starting to sustain major liver damage. He said it might kinda repair itself a bit if'n ah leaves it 'lone. Ah'm gonna have to, so's ah kin go beck ta woik 'gin."

He didn't mustard onion pickle catsup lettuce or relish the idea of living off Caza's meager per-job income. Herself took so much personal care of Artie during this time that she seriously considered forsaking bookkeeping and becoming a nurse. She could earn a degree in two years at Hillbright College. She'd become chummy with the nurses at the hospital, learning enough to assume Artie's health care at home. Under her, he thrived. "Yer mah silly angel queen _ladeh!"_

At last, the grand day arrived. A Changed man, namely Artie Blend, walked with a pronounced but DETERMINED limp to the Guild Street Service Agency to apply for work...again. He only BREATHED a little harder. Don't you?

He got in without having to re-apply, and without shoving ANYONE WHATSOEVER out of his way. For a change.

"Are you sure you won't like to take a desk job? Most of our current listings are outdoor and field work. We do offer indoor and office work..." Bill Keane was the intake worker that afternoon, a paid volunteer with sixteen years of experience inside his expertise, which largely revolved around cartooning.

"No thanks, ah cannot wear a monkey soot and a noose, none of 'em fit me. Ah jus' HAF to wear mah blue jeans. Hit's cuz they look great when they is rilly tight, and ah work in those only. Hahahaha _hahahahahah_ ahahahahahaha!"

LONG AGO A PROMISE WAS MADE to a subterranean superannuity squaricle...who wasn't really a fruity. Just an unmember of the overground. But, the under-WEAR, as well? What's under there, underwhere? Well, hardly never.

Said tread, when shed, belonged to Fred. Who lost (and regained) her ped. So, walk a mile in his shoes. But what the Heck is wrong with yours?

I'll warn you, they mayn't flop. They're leather, old, worn out, need replacing with spiff-rad running shoes. But there's character in leather. Co-character...have you noticed that men's shoes are still made from dead air-pad brownstone cows, or WHAT? No, but I have. And so has a dude named Fred...something.

Fred had no more work, an' couldn't buy NO more shoes, 'cuz his last job had tended in the direction of piling up hours. This was okay, but it was at the low pay end of the scales. He was bored, didn't list, but there was money saved in his bank account. It too had piled high. Finally, he went back to work, and...omigod.

It was great at first. He started at a twelve--hour day, and after six months he moved up to fourteen hours. After a year he was working sixteen to twenty-hours shifts. Five or six days a week. Seven. Eight. Nine...ten...duh...

After the second year he was talking to himself and driving the delivery car back and forth across the meridian. In beautiful downtown Wabash, near Unionville, and finally he hit the freeway. Leaking brake fluid. This of course led to a "minor" traffic mishap involving five cars and two deaths, while his DisAbled passenger _seemingly_ survived with just a few scratches, and Fred scrunched into a hopeless bo-loody murdered ball of tyrannized flesh. I say "murdered" because Fred had been born being paid sub-minimum wage at work, because he didn't try hard enough, and the mounting hours were s'posed to help him make his court-ordered child support, beautiful Men! (And three to five eating kids) and accumulated taxes and bills. No, they were teds. His support hose. It was partly his own fault; he drank, two. Or more. Coffees. And a beer.

Screwed, no screwed, up Theirs. _Hiccup._

"Blame it on suburban pride. If they hadn't took me in a cart I'd have got off with Der Less."

Fortunately, the hospital personnel were able to pry him apart again, and he patiently and slowly became, in his own croaked-out words, "A-Okay from Stay." He always was that abominable kind of guy. If he couldn't do it, "by golly, I won't!" He was prone for almost eight months.

After two years and several months, he could sit up all day in a wheelchair. Without vomiting. After five years of daily physical therapy, and twelve major surgeries, suffering the maximum use of a totally persistant Nietschean will, Fred was able to sit up straight, and was shakily walking ten feet with a crutch. He could've done better, really. But he grit his pearly whites on every step, and you could hear those ivories grinding from down the hall, an hundred feet away.

After twenty-seven frustrating, straight uphill years, with occasional ice cream and beer breaks, Fred was merrily prancing down hallways indoors on one crutch. Without it, however, he fell down hard. But, darn it, he'd get up again. And hafta walk some more. He could walk a quarter mile, no more, and he collapsed stiffly at the end of the walk, sin-king luxuriantly into his favorite chair. His WHEELCHAIR. Then he spasmed stiff as a board, again, often falling from the chair, messily spread-eagled. Whatta sight, Fred the Fright, on the carpet, none too light.

He'd get up, sit down again, sneeze, let out a ton of saved-up air and fill the room with dog-tired sighs. Then he'd turn on his fan. He'd break out into a tooth-some growl. "I MADE IT!!!!!" was his usual exclamation at this point. Then he had some ice cream or pie, as a reward. And a beer or two.

His sister, who lived with him for nearly ten years, got it for him. She was a saint from Heaven, but she had a very bad drug problem, pills, for a long time. She used to cry, and stare at his legs as though doping out a way to straighten them. Finally she moved out, literally shooed there by Fred.

"I get some space _to Wobble!"_ he foobled. He needed a Peace of Solitude.

He was fully insured and the driver of his paid-for used care. They were really that bunch of crazies at the license bureau, yeah, and gave it back to him. Paperwork Fat City. His ever since, how 'bout that. There. He'd returned to delivering those disAbled vehicle passengers to appointments, thirty years after the accident, at a much slower-paced four hour day. Eventually six! A helper rode with him. He was, after all, gettin' older. Nobody ever pushed him now. His child support had grown up. He maintained the same liquid amount, thanks to a goodly raise.

Nineteen years into this happily livable misericord of fortune, Fred chanced to run into Artie Blend on the Ridgeview rehab ward. Cancer patients, accident victims, and Medicare-social services' form wrist-limp sufferers, plus other Beloveds of God, inhabited, place was crawlin' with em'. Good God!

"God, I can't take th' pain anymore!" Artie screamed while performing his twice-daily 'waltzing Matilda' down the hall, bouncing off the rails, five long months after his spectacular nose-dive splat onto the filthy alley off of Tomato.

"God, help me!" he cried weakly, not wanting to sound too wretched. Walking unassisted, he was started to fall down for the ninth time. Floor, here ah comes agin,' he saw with surety, dizzily gauging his rate of earthbound speed.

"I'm here, I'm here," chuckled "Fred the Walking Dead." He was doing roughly the same as Artie. Excepting he'd progressed beyond the supreme PAIN that the Luckman Blendman was unfortunately presently experiencing in grand and sweeping detail.

With every step. Fred caught Artie on the way down. They rocked like about, until righting with no gravitational pull, sheer ballast on their side.

They stood motionless, practically staring into each other's faces. Stop.

"Physical Ed ain't the bests sport for a wounded man t' hafta face, is it," Fred smoothed. They hadn't collapsed, thank the Lord. He patted Artie's busted, still-taped shoulder. Both shoulders, and his right arm, were broken. Artie winced. He held the wince as long as possible, then twisted it into a foppish, performance-clown face against the pain that both of them had to learn to fight, separately, but commonly experienced. A female cancer kid waved "Boo!"

Fred, who booed the kid back, recalling what it was like and accompanying the stumbling Artie's bum to his wheelchair, resembled no aide there. There were a few. Fred made visually made sure the brakes were locked and eased Artie, 'shall we say, well?" into the padded manual deity. Artie was gratefuller 'n hell. Fred talkered, so:

"Reet walkin', man! Now, use yer lovin' arms to push that chair! That's the spirit, Joe! What's your cover, you look lahk a true Jesus freak you recent hard-core lifetimer, you!" Fred broke into laughter that broke into sobbing, coming back to laughter again. Via coincidence, the guiltless and immortal and that's ridiculous goddess Fate, who freely bestows her oddest chances and takes special orders, had made them both tallish cusses, matching bookkends end-to-end. Fred was a good 6'0" or so, and Artie, bent over at present, was a fetchingly broken-and-reassumbled 5'11". Artie, like a Virginia Pine Evergreen, would suremost sprout.

He grew the remaining inches taller again gradually, and has been walking with a straight(er) back ever since. "One kind!" And several Bastard Nasty. A bad back is _not_ the best form, but it's somepin' you get over in a few months.

Insistantly Fred, chanting, cheering, jeering when needed and prodding, trodding and Maiden France sub-plotting, led Artie in spinning his wheeling up and down the ward. When he completed two whole laps, Fred loudly put politely applauded, yelling for everyone to notice Art's incredible feet. They smelled! Artie collapsed sideways and burped "mama" like Elvis. His innards were frantically calling for medics, all at once. A real aide got him some water, and for the help Artie bought Fred a sandwich. That's Artie, always Rolling Rolling, Rolling,

Keep those High Plains Goin'?

Keep those doggies rollin'?

Pick it up or leave it, _Rawhide!_

Sometimes I can't stand 'em,

Pick 'em up and Brand 'em,

Working toward the end of my ride.

Move 'em up move 'em out move 'em in move 'em out move 'em in move 'em out, Rawhide, ride 'em in move 'em out... _Rawhide!_

Fred shared Artie's stupeed Drinkin' Problem. Mr. Snowballing Work couldn't seem to shake it; drank on and off regular. "It relieves the pain," quoth he.

One time he had Artie over to his house and offered him a delectable (once my knees hurt so badly I had to take a big bite out of a table, _honest!)_ old vintage cabernet sauvignon. Artie was up and walking fairly well by then.

"No thanks, you dear ol' nee-grow, ah cain't cuz ah promised meh Caza.

"Ah'll gait deef 'for ah gets 'nother DRANK. Last drop ah soofied was hate storahs HIGH. You gon' stop or do ah has to throttle ya outa BOOZE! Yer choice!"

Artie bellowed his general Montana mountain mossee-call, pitching out of his wooden kitchenette chair onto the table. With one sweep of his good arm, the wine bottle was smashed onto the kitchen floor. "Argoo with THAT, Frederickson!" They faced each other as gunless musketeers.

"Ah, m'man, what you doin' to ME for. Oh, well. I guess you are Correct. But MAY I finish this eight-ounce glass in safety and Peace, Massa Blend, oh my Christly freaky-being that obviously consists mostly of hair?"

"What're you talkin' 'bout, you BORE, didn't ya usedta have a FRO?"

Fred's eyes, lingering on the Past, glittered devilishly as he easily, but slowly, raised the Art-forbidden glass to his thirty lips. That explains the Dead French. "I haven't been taken with a lady for nigh unto twenty years, now." He looked away from Artie, who whistled. A sharp, B...he looked away..."Yer freakin' kiddin', man!"

"No SIR. I relax with my WINE. I can't serve my family or the ladies like I used to. Those ARE the Breaks.

"No serve! SHOR ya can! Ah still does! She flip back? You kin finda GOOD womans! You a handsome soulman, you even gotsome! You a workin' Stiff. Ah'll getcha a galfiend, ah knows more fahn Messikin Ladies then ya EVAH did seed, they working FAHMS, they be beauty QUEENS, and you'll falls in luv with 'least two dozen gals ah knows OF, ah even gots handles on other-types gals. They Portable! Yer pick! Ah'll getcha off thet sub-stee-toot rocket fuel. You needsa sangle lady?"

"LUV'S BEST, _FREDS!"_ They soothingly poured a limpid acknowledgment.

This rocks in the little small farmtown of Rama, Washington. Beware of your own Backhand. "You wantin' decent female comp'ny in yer ol' age! Ah'll set ya up with sweet wife-quality material, Freddo, lahk you've never believed in yet. You hold taht!"

Weirdly, Artie was good as gold on his word. He and Caza found Fred one Manuela Venuzco y Hernando, a farm and chore worker on the side for the rich elderly owners of the same farms. Can ya beet it. Still a spectacular raven-haired gentle siren, with a touch of distinguishing Grey in her sweeping feathery tresses, who was married twice previously to young Chicano bloods who sadly became over-burdened, under-priced drug dealers and who were, mercifully, shot. Darn! Hooray for holy-wooooooooooould...

Manuela (picture her swiftly unfolding a ten-foot road map) needed a rest stop for such dealings. She was clean, joyful, sexy, intelligent, relaxed, and informal and quickly much Fred's "slower" speed, although she exhibited a weirdly "bad" tendency to point. They married with the assist of a justice in Wabash within five poky months, and remain happily marriageable to this VERY day. Urrpppp. Wells, Manuella _was_ skittish...Fred could end up alone agin. He don' deserve it, he's too calm a guy to hold onto anyone fer more than two years.

Saturdays, Manuela y Fred go dancing in Unionville, same place as Gabe and Saragina met, the Eagle's Second Hall, and square-dancing in the same club as Ed and Mabel "School" Jones. Fred was not the first black man to enter membership in the newly-named HotSteppers of Unionville, Square Della Rondeley Grover's Yeehaw Club, and Chappiter Thirty-Five. And Manuela was the very first Hip-Hotstepper Lady. They cut a fine figure on the slower dances, as Fred sits many of them out. The club thinks he's deep, and Tops. Next year he'll be elected Treasurer, she's going for Secretary.

Artie never could see square-dancin', sans contacts. "Ah lahks rock n' roll hoe-down mo-town put down and been around!" He still free-styles the Shindig.

Again at home, he grabs Caza, whirling her over his hairy head. "YAHHHHhhhh? Lemmee down!" she fakishly screams, but not shrilly, and he DOES. PHewwwww.

Then she grabs his grey lapels, with flowers on either side, stuck face to face, and says if he flings her back up in the air again, she'll do the Puke, or a flip, looping mythically skywards, as Artie is no longer drunk and has balance enough. Well, nahhh. He tosses her gently, remembering her heart, and she lands without their immediately falling over. Hot fulminations!

"Life is, Shorty! Live it OVER! You should love your Wife! There ain' nuthin' goin' on BUT life 'less you holdin' somepin' big back on MAY!"

Caza says she enjoys perpendicularity. Eventually they put on some music.

GABRIELLO "BEAU" HOOTER woke up too early, of a depressingly nihilistic, hideous, insane, perverted and summarily twisted Saturday morn, yawned, and stretched, and sleepily noticed his soft, white, and snowy tiny miniscule forepaws. Furry, they were, and they tickled. He sneezed.

He jerked awake, and was shocked to find he could only sit up partway. Plus he was extremely small, and furry. He could barely see over his covers. He was also color-blind. Then he looked down at what remained of himself.

Omigod. I'm covered in snowy, bleachy fur, all over me. He thought: (har) Why, I've been turned into a pussy cat. And so "Jade," the kitty, was born.

This can't be, he inwardly stuttered. I just yesterday ran completely outa tuna fish. Sara and I were going grocery shopping today. I was gonna grab six or so cans, on special, and a medium jar of low-cholesterol mayo.

But no. This morning, out of the blue skiis, it's "Return of Kafka, Part II." I'm a pussy. How impoetic. I look like something named "Snowball."

"Meaoww," he sleepily murmered, in the way of attempted dialogue. "MMeww. Muuurr." What a predicament! He'd never get to wear his new high-tops, now. Purr-haps he could fit into one of them. Wonder what Roscoe would do in a situation like this?

Bending all four new legs, he lurched upright, yawned, and stretched. And stretched some more. He had never stretched that far in his young life; it felt as though he doubled in length and straightaways folded back like an accordion. He chopped his chops in surprise, smeck-smeck. He glanced down at his usual pink tongue. But it was merely about half an inch long. Then he jumped down from bed, only to go into brief, jarred shock at the incredibly rough landing.

God, how hard and cold the floor was. Brrrrrrrrrr. But how light he was...

He was additionally stupefied by the tremendous lot of dust. Gigantic clots of caked dirt and dustbunnies. Roscoe would've choked to death on these. Can't eat 'em, he mused, and I haven't swept for a week. Now I can't. If Sara would, y'know, for me...gotta meet her in two hours. As a cat. Must be a karmic punishment, for laziness. I've been getting a lot of that, lately.

Uh, no don't think I can...I know, he decided, padding swiftly off on two sets of cushy li'l pink fluffy paws, I'll go to the living room and fish out my I Ching. There's spells that'll turn me back into a normal human being again...if I can speak them aloud. Oooops, can't find it. Thought it was in this pile, holy shit, where'd it go? My only wild hope. Fuck.

Suddenly, Artie, Gabe's former workbuddy, entered the one-time human's apartment. Weird, exotic, psychedelic smells hit Jade the Kitty's mushroom nose.

"Hey, big fella. Wha's shakin'? Me an' all da Vikings are gonna raid th' east cosat of Angleland—yew wanna come 'long? We're gonna raize all dem shitty little villages, man, using M16s, and meltin' tar with feathers. From birds you ate! An' nervous gas outa mah butt! You cain' back out on's now, kitten! We gon' eat them Angelfish suckas and them Sexy-uns-rayvenge! Pillage aspartame!! Are ya game? Wow, doo-ders, youse a real cat's meow."

"Si, you said it," said Jade, who apparently could manage speech after all.

"I've been transmogrified—can you say transmogrified?"

"No, man."

"I've been turned into a feline. Where's a decent spelling book so's I can switch-back?" Gabe 'miaowed' and tried to look appealing, like Rosco used to when he asked for his dinner.

Politely and for the fourth time. Sara said he eats everything now.

"Mountainous, man!" rumbled Artie. "C'mon, let's go climbin'!"

"I can't do a Viking raid—I can't even do lunch—I'm only sixteen inches long. They'll eat me alive, those English dogs, or at least the fleas will.

"If t'were forced to flea. Tick's a silly idea." Jade scratched—it was a pretty good ear. Vintage! "You're raiding Vinland?"

"Yeah! How's 'bout you raid th' cathouse, man, that'd be yo spayed!"

"Mouse likely it is. Do you think vermin will like me?" Jade blinked, pettishly. You might say he was being petty.

"How dar' you im-puma woman like that!" Artie magically grew a green suit with a purple paisley tie, a self-righteous expression, and a specious short haircut. Greying distinguishingly at the temples. Temples dedicated to Aikaterina, the Cat Goddess of Egypt.

"And you a fur-man womanizer! You, you furball, ah'll pull yer tail!"

So screaming, newly-square "Artie" lurched down and grabbed Jade by his scruffy neck, which woke him up. It was really Saragina, Gabe's girl, gently touching his hairless forehead. His hair was black as ebon, again She didn't look whitely righteous. Gabe was lying in bed, still, and was largely a prone man.

Sara was lovingly stroking his hair.

"You're having a nightmare," she sexily whispered. Gabe felt his spine tingles all the way down to the base. 'Awwww, poor Beau."

"No, I was a white kitty-catty," he mumbled, albeit dryly. "Not a horsey."

A black and white Tuxedo female cat hopped and skittered by; Jade immejitely took off after her, tail lashing widly back and forth, sailing across the floor to catch up with this new, paranoiac prospect.

THE CATHOLIC MISSION and Mr. Goneschlaw were at odds with each other. He thought. _Loads!_

There was very little excitement left in Jewish Bob Goneschlaw's life. He'd sold his part ownership in the Krakatoa. He was forever stuck with God's enforced silence, unable to speak clearly for past dozen years, much longer than that, it seemed.

It never felt right to him. Sometimes Bob lost track.

He would consult paper, this guide and toy, to check on what his life was doing to his life, and the world in general. His hearing was beginning to go. He almost desired to join it, to go to wherever it was going, but decided against it many times. Life!

He had a lady friend, almost gettin' her trapped, in Poindexter, WA, up the road always. Poind had a notable water tower, a brand-new clinic and sported three sprawling horse ranches, but little else save Virginia gave it any character or flavor. Virginia WAS character and flavor. Ah, later, my lovely, and later STILL. If you will, I will, and c.

Mr. Goneschlaw fed his cat, a twenty-pounder that could walk maybe ten steps to the front door before she sped out and ran around like she liked, all night, bloody the hell the night. She was named Gilliganna "Fahrvergnugen." He couldn't say that word. One night be decided to join his cat and have an adventure, a soundless reprieve.

The Adventures of a Dumb Man

Polish, plain, but charming, elegant but not stuck-up, Robert Goneschlaw breezed out of his Sunday den into a lucid, cool night that opened before his as the bottom of a starry, limitless canopy, a velvet, lanolin-on-the-skin nightcap for his head and soul. He carried a cane, and his swinging it alternated with his using it. His gout was bothersome once more. Terminal.

"By go, I enjoy ravishin' nighttime when I've been missing it," he thought. He sadly was used to the malformation of his spoken words, mangling language freely, but still he opened his mouth, desiring to sing aloud, speak in Polish, chant a canticle, go "boo" at the evening birds, or anything. Oh, anything.

In the still calm quiet simple night, he began to fantasize. An assault that could occur. Punks from nowhere. They were all dressed in white. Like nurses.

A moment previously, the darkness had sounded with crazy laughter. Unswallowed by pitch darkness, six all-white thugs, one black, one Asian, one Indian, none female, all alike, all burly, all wearing white clothing, entered his light and created a circle of fear. Bob froze, tensing smoothly. "Whuuuuuuuggggghhhhh yuuuuuu?"

"We are the Christian punks, an' we have found ya at last. Here is we. Now you must dee-fend yourself, or we will force PAMPHLETS upon you." At this point, the head punk, white with reddish-brown hair and a mustache, demonstrated his meaning by showing Christian pamphlets at Mr Goneschlaw's face

WHHHIIIISKSNICK! Immediately, flashing silver sword cane. Bob dropped his mild-mannered pose as a barborous cripple. "RICHELUI!" he moaned hystersterically, coldly, bonechillingly, "YOU'RE TIME HAS COME! DRAW YOUR SWORDS!" Robert Goneschlaw (of old) stood with legs far apart, planted in full Teutonic Saber stance, with sword cane ready. He growled rumblingly low. Various sounds of Christian punk weaponry being produced. Knives, axes, poleaxes, Pulaskis, swords, spears, slingshots. A zip gun. Rubber bands, okay?

" _Wait!_ Wait!" came a gentle voice from out the shadows behind Bob. He turned slightly. She was on the side unsurrounded by the young punker fiends. She ran up to him, put her arms about him. Why, it was Caza Zooweiler.

"These young men are CHRISTIANS. That means they turn the other cheek! They don't fight with weapons, they're willing to take blows! Can't CHA tell? You know, like we women do, unless we train extremely well AND have Weapons and extremely tough male backup or are wow Sneaky..."

Or, try very hard to do Otherwise, in a Kung Fu female way.

"By the by, this is getting to be a very unfeminist story, Bob. Wake up!" So saying, she snapped her fingers twice in the air. The weird white boys disappeared. For now. Mr. Goneschlaw was left standing all alone. His speech impairment had returned. Funny, sword cane was still drawn. Cautiously, he inserted it back into its scabbard. Skkwwoooop. It was a nice sword cane, one that he really liked. From secret, designated, unintelligible board games played in Korea during the "quiet" 1950s, which were silent – yet you could hear grenades.

A voice rang out from the eternal darkness of night:

"And by the way, it was a really complex decision not beating you up, either, okay? We only want to get regular families and have wives and kids and stuff, okay?

"We're not out to get you older Catholic Protestant guys on every other street corner, okay?" Got it, Seneschal? Feel free already to go for a walk! A fun run, even. Just don't get interviewed! Sheesh." The imaginary voice faded away into the vast and almost appreciatively balmy darkness. Goneschlaw was feeling pretty balmy himself. He sure didn't call anything names. Not even in his worst dreams.

He would've gone home and called Virginia on the phone, but she couldn't really understand him over it. He continued walking, passing the closed Fantastic Café, dark with night shuttered, proceeding down the east sidewalk of darkened Llewellyn. He passed Ridgeview Hospital, heading towards the freeway. As he walked, he became aware of the light streaming warily from His moon overhead. It was very romantic, the darknesssss.

I don't need that me, my life, my tongue, my mouth, my native language, not my soul of personal contact with people. NO. For I have disowned what no one has had, yet...I have my legs, and in this particular Logan's bargain with fate, perhaps I will get to keep those insofar as I have let my mouth be the punished desire of my body, not my ambulatory instruments. As yet. Good riddance to my mouth, which filled at little provocation with swear words and low cultural barbs of pain, directed at all You Wonderful People, you, and for the namelessly weak and the spuriously strong, guttural jeers of banished misfortune, for you. Now I must suffer your speech, all the rest, and your good cheer or disgusted misfortune violence. Or not...

...as I can always talk with ANYBODY who knows Ameslan.

Sharone, Dave and Cloadia, also out for a night stroll, apparently to do their laundry, no, they are turning on 23rd, behind me, and heading nowhere I need...I can't even yell _hi_ at them, I can only wave. I have no interest in these young folks, or do I? And so they turn and go. I hope all is well. Sharone looks sad. She usually does...seems like we seldom talk. I need to make more friends, with somebody, soon.

He stood, watching them easily thanks to the street lights, which bedazzled the darkness, able to clearly see them, taking and laughing, able to hear them, enjoying them and their good feelings, smiling almost proudly to himself. They disappeared around the corner of the house with a white picket fence. The very house that had cost his fantasy earlier. The pickets had turned into Christian punkers. Or so Bob thought.

He wondered if they were going to the cemetery, popular day-hangout, near the park, and amenable to poky explorations and little philosophical triumphs of love.

"YAAAUUUUGGHHHHHHHHH _HAUUUUUGGHHHHH!!!!_

The shattering dreams they rang through the darkness, that froze his soul, that set flight to his feet, that set him racing in the screams' direction; that continued as he swiftly reached the tiny local cemetery, his blood racing--perhaps dragging a little something in its wake--and his heart POUNDING, to where the three stood trapped, their shaking legs grabbed by an amoeboid gray and green cloud, earthen silly-putty mud-cloud, thrashing and screaming! And as Mr. Goneschlaw reached the last empty block before the cemetery, insanely looking both ways before crossing Silverdale, he manfully and lustily and rakishly drooled, and drew his sword cane once again, freely leaping full-bodily on the nightmarish, hideous THING (which helped the drooling slow down), slashing and slashing and slashing it until green ooze gunkily poured out, Bob the Dad asked Father, freeing his trapped powerless Children, who were just sort of standing around anyway, he Madly slashing the slime mold all about him.

The young group stepped shakily out from the cemetery. Goneschlaw was a wonder of action to behold. They congregated, watching Bop fillet the thing as though he had enough rage and all the time in the world, and a bull whip. About the THING? It fileted!

He rested not a moment. When it began dying, proper, chopped like liver, Dave and Cloadia and Sharone moved in and began stomping it to DEATH.

Sharone sobbingly used big rocks on it, and Dave ran swiftly back to the apartment to get a can of gasoline and strike-anywhere matches. Natches!

Little medium-size quivering Pieces of the damned tank waited patiently for Dave's return. It actually didn't have much of a Choice. Cloadia swore at it in French. It swore back at her in something, but they couldn't tell what.

It made weird smells, popping noises as the terrified People (makes 'em human) burned every piece they could find. Just think, if the Japanese had attacked our West Coast... every blasted, twisted one. Every Bugger! And standing still, they were not sure if all the pieces have been found to this day, which is on the weekend...perhaps some did Escape, Wreaking Havoc. In movies and films, maybe videos, and an occasional TV show by mercurial Jews with MS.

Artie quoth later, over an ice-cold dripping beer _(AHHHH)_ at the Krakatoa, that he'd found "somethin' blueish unusual and blob-like" quivering in his BLT sandwich, which he ordered every Friday at the bar, perched on a stool and puttin' down four tall brewskies. He said he went ahead and ate it. Nothing happened, just his usual _arcanely_ polite burping.

"I thought it was blue-grass lettuce, _URPH,_ leafs."

WE ALL WALKED over to the water, Shell Lake, and there they were - Harmin Boole's "kids." They were his, because he didn't have any kids. Well, Harmin had been half of a one-child couple. Through magic means, which probably had something to do with how much his wife liked to bake, and how many thousands of chocolate-chip cookies she used to hand to "known strangers," there was a large accumulated crowd of varying sizes and ages of kids, possibly all white kids (although this was not necessarily the case), and who were his slavish followers (remember Wilma Rudolph? That way, she led) and devoted fans. Also, it was reputed that Harmin occasionally indulged in a paganic cult, due to his never going to church on Sundays. Any church.

"In m time," he said, "everyone else did. So they thought I was a real freako. But we were pretty normal, after all, turned out." The paganic cult nowadays involved worship over Harmin's future grave, which was planted with vegetables, beans and flowers a veritable pea patch.

Once a year, a special kid, often a boy, was chosen to attend the Feast of Summer Wealth on the Harper Point Ferry, where he was supposed to steal a single loaf of bread.

Preferably whole grain, though a good white bread sufficed. One's expensive.

Then Harmin, in ceremonial style, would bury the loaf, plastic wrapper and all if it had one, and his own grave. Perhaps it was symbolic, a cere-mony (Ceres, Goddess of the harvest) involving the Staff of Life (Harmin's fertility producing one blood son, the aforementioned book thief II), and dozens of 'adoptees'), being laid to rest. A stolen life?

"Maybe he's a tad bit touched in the haid, you know, by the fairies," frankly observed Mrs. Bitters. She had her own problems. She wanted to find a better job than barkeeping the Krakatoa. Previously, she had taken the lowpaying job because a more lucrative one would've interfered with her husband's unemployment benefits. But Ed finally settled the case with his former boss, receiving three-quarters of his full retirement benefits from Ridgeview. He would also eventually receive additional benefits from his new job, when he completely retired. I digress.

So, there we were at the lake, and the kids were carefully picking up shells and putting them into sandy cloth bag. They were picking out white ones.

The bags looked like old-fashioned flowers sacks. "Don't forget the quartz rocks," said a little tow-headed girl to her compatriot. He, tall and lean and tawny-looking, smirked asininely. "I got 20, all of them white." Another kid, in obvious disregard of rock preference, stuffed pretty, multi-colored quartzes into his bag. The beach along the water fairly glowed with these gems, once uncovered from the dirt and sand. The sand itself was crushed quartzes in kaleidoscope.

All at once, I was staring into a quizzical, tear-streaked face. Half my height. An innocent eight-year-old face. Sadness in miniature. "Mr. Boole died last week."

I thought so. "Yes. We went to the Krakatoa, and he wasn't there. Not for five days." They sure are bad about letting children into bars around here, I thought. I poked at the shells and stones in the sand with a stick; they rattled and tinkled like elvin bells, like raindrops on a tin roof.

"He died in the hospital. I dunno why." So saying, the sandy child continued poking about for shells. Saragina called the hospital on the Tomato Grocery outside the payphone.

A nurse told us old Harmin had died of heart failure following a massive stroke.

The kids had been assigned by their parents, former "children" of Harmin's, to keep a daily eye on him at his home. He'd lived alone for years. They used to drop in occasionally and check on him. One remorseless day, the children found him on the floor, clutching the phone.

The hospital pronounced him dead on arrival. He seemed to be grinning.

I decided that Gabe should have given Roscoe to Harmin instead of Saragina. Roscoe would have helped. Old Harmin would've been less alone.

"Rotten difficult task to give little kids, dontcha think?" I asked. Everyone winced nervously. But "Beau" and Saragina and Caza and Artie agreed. "Next time we'll arrange paid help for our elderly friend." Next time. Sara was only studying diet for geriatrics, not home care. Caza sighed deeply, recalling her care of Artie recently. She wished she'd known Harmin was in need. But Artie came first...

...we walked with the kids to the cemetery, Hawthorne Cemetery on Tomato Street, and we helped them pile the smooth white stones on top of the recently-smoothed grave, the headstone, and the grave and headstone of the wife of Harmin Boole. One stone per hundred cookies. The veggies and flowers were all plowed under, like Harmin.

I couldn't help but notice that what we did bore a close similarity to a way Ashkenazic (check the last two syllables) Jews honor their dead, but I said Not A Word, not freckly me, no Sir y M'am, and kept it all to myself.

The little kid who liked colored quartzes got away with strolling them on the new grave. They brought back memories of the flowers, making the site much less stark and intimidating. But there would be no more garden among the graves.

One kid wanted to keep some of the flashier stones. "They're really purty!" he exclaimed. Ex-plained...to make less _plain?_ To attempt to exclaim...is to make it stranger. Maintain my mood of children surrounding grave danger of elderly man, unknowing what death means except it is okay in animated cartoons.

Well, that was how they "buried" him...

\--Mabel "School" Jones, writer of itchiness, pastorality an' sheer bilious doubt, First Legit Author of Rama, WA, USA, America, the World, Gaia, Gondwanaland, the Solar System, Milky Way Galaxy, and the outskirts of black Cleveland. There isn't much beyond there, you can ask any cop who patrols the corners.

Her shoes fell off, one at time. "Do you desire a church, or would a National Park be preferable?"

Gabe's toothsome grin like a lantern glowed, turra-lurra. All you girls remember how green it was?

"Yes, sir," I said, and willing to run from there; "I am sorry I said it to you."

She gulped. "Well, my folks went to a Presbyterian church," and she ground her teeth at the probable monstrosity of the lying involved in her words, "but, but it's too many lost and lonely miles far, far away. So are they. Uh, yep. Well. How about in Shell Park? Nature is so clean, pure, and natural, really. No, REALLY.

"Oh, and please, put me down, my back absolutely kills me in this position."  
Sara winced with the urge to recontact terra firma, her family of origin, and her shoes before her pantyhose ran. But then again, she was on Cloud Nine, there to live, breeze and love forever, or until icky divorce reared its ugly head.

Putting HER down? Who's ALLOWED? Immediately, Gabe did so. Osculation followed. They were married in June - in the deep, abuse-victim Goddess whose name is Juno, wife of Jupiter or Zeus. She judges people who help her.

A bloomin' traditional Hippies in the Park wedding. Even was a white layer cake, trimmed in gold, which was instantly deceived by fire ants. Artie wore a whole suit, no tie, with a carnation boutonniere in his red headband. Saragina held squirming, smarmy, warmly furry Roscoe in her arms instead of a flow'ry bouquet; when he couldn't take it anymore she took the yellow and red rose with stubbly white stick flowers bunch to her abundant front and masked the "Unwell," it all going with her slightly off-white then and, of COURSE y'all, satin wedding gown, derived from a source you wouldn't believe in, because You keep such careful track, or something. I can't! I can't _stand_ it, I...am not a kitten.

Roscoe sported a flower collar and smelled herbal. His chunky grey head bobbled atop his orange tabby body, while he squirmed and mewed. The whole gang from the Krakatoa attended, along with Sara's work friends from Ridgeview and some out-of-town acquaintances of Caza's. The latter sure did look like farm workers. Perhaps the pitchforks they sat on, as folding chairs, under bales of hay.

Harmin Boole's "kids" threw bread at the birds, attracting well over an hundred geese and ducks, almost twice as many birds as wedding guests. They made an effective cloud cover. They flipped around the people all throughout the ceremony, the older kids timing it so that a flock of massive Canadian geese burst and flew as the minister pronounced Gabriello Sancto and Saragina DeSoto husband and wife Gabe had written in for a copy of his birth certificate, and that enabled him to grab up the marriage one too. For twenty-five bucks. Artie paid it. "Rahs!"

The kids simply threw small pebbles at the flighty geese. And as they flew, those Canuck geese, off for another drinking spell elsewhere, conversed with each other about the probability of their maneuvering into a defensive squadron and attacking certain Asiatical women, and you know who you are... _kidding!_

...but what you say makes the case. And as they flew, those Canuck geese honked, flitting cross the sky similar to swans. When pearl-white black-beaked lengthy trumpeters swoop across the daytime sky, angels are Real. I saw four at once, whitely flocking into Heaven. "Those are the original angels, _folks!"_

Gone much too soon!

END OF THIS BOOK – _I WON!!!_

Nah, not 'til the short, brown, stubby fat lady sings. I have freckles. Nasal ones. In my inner sanctum, where the wild finger rides. Kleenex, _pullease..._

CAZA DIES AT dawn, eventually, when she runs out of books to balance—Gabe is keeping all those books, anyway. WWII started when three bums crashed a Unionville shop front, setting up an 800 number - accessible only to multi-line phone system with a fax.

The evergreen, emerald local park had generated that ol' slime mold out of the remains of a dead prostitute from 1879. It was melted by firefighters' blow torches in the used car lot nearby; Gabe eventually bought a convertible.

A small piece of the slime, disguised as chewing gum, affixes under the left side of "Beau's" peeling, slip-covered yellow back seat. It might not go away soon, but Gabie and Artie use nails to fix it into place for now.

Gabe maybe dies instead of Caza, because Sara's apartment is twenty degrees hotter than the outside, due to its fireplace and twelve real and smelly lion-skin rugs insulating it; and the very first time she forgot to open the flue...SMOKE _GETS IN YOUR_ (boom) _EYYYESSS!!!_ While Dave and Cloadia knotted their marital ties, Sharone immediately landed her Los Angelinos job, whilst Dan Nuts followed her part of the way out to southern Cal. And then left her for Chrissy Goneschlaw, moving in irregardless of his own sanity.

Ridgeview hired too many whites after firing Ed, but they were girls straight out of college, and they took lesser, lower-salaried positions. Tomato Grocery is owned and operated seven days per week by a Japanese-Jewish family, named Horoshakiwitz. They know the ropes. All the townie girls hit the hairdressers at once one Sunday and descended into 'doing' each other.

The dead Mexican was really a drowning victim from the river gully. He may have lived, and then pulled a weird phosphorus joke on Caza. The "obscene" phone call for Gabe was from Mike Loughlin, the crip with a phone account at the Krak, and it was a wrong number.

Phoebe ran off with Lomanian Smith, who was a secret hetero-womano-lover-person. When they can find them. They're killer as a couple, now. The pidgies in Gabe's story left for Capistrano to replace the swallows who no longer go there; they hit Miami Beach nowadays, to kibbitz with the gators. Lotsa gators in the Air. Sharone Bitters and Cloadia Tager finally quietly got together (you knew!) They became one of the first lesbian couples to adopt children in Washington State, petitioning to adopt Cloadia's baby from her marriage with Dave. This worked because it turned out, despite all appearances, _Dave was DEAD!_

Dan joined the gay LA community, alright, but nobody had sex with him due to his ears and the AIDS scare. He ended up on the drunk ward of intensive care, where he re-met and rehashed with Nurse Bitters. Chrissy...caught up with him, after Dan lived with her for over five years, getting her pregnant, then leaving her for "a cute boy" down the hall in their Los Angeles building...'nuf said. No, Danny Boy had been looking at Gay Porno on Chrissy's desktop computer. He had no intention of leaving Chrissy. But she caught him surfing porn, and ordered him summarily to leave their house. In a veil of frustrated tears! Dan would've been a good family man; he paid full child support, forever. His further misadventures are too lengthy to recount here, and warrant yet another galumphing book!

Gabe was caught dealing with Satan and fishing for laughs to get his poetry published in a hard-cover anthology. They charge you, and you get one page with a byline. Yick. Then, he entered a $15 contest with millions of entrants, and lost, while Sara made the Honorable Mentions list and lost.

Mabel was askeered because Dave pulled a "resurrection" and was followed around thereafter (gaining avid disciples)—but they were all in weird prior backstories BEFORE Dave's vanishing act! Tom DaL., natch, does not 'go monkees' but eventually remarries; the Dame performs a church basement wedding. Once Ned and Jeannie divorce, due to Ned's "innocent philandering," Tom the woppish dago marries Jeannie, right? Gets yet another divorce, becomes the Personal Care Attendant (ahem, plug plug plug for that job for the disabled, _independent living!)_ or in other words Home Health Care Aide for the aging and dying Bitters couple.

Bob Goneschlaw literally "got gone." He married an old flame of Harmin Boole's, getting hitched in Dame Gretchley's basement. Then he left her for the Dame! She'd been on his mind too much, and he on hers. They're happy forever, living somewhere out in the wilds of Canada, where everybody keeps trying to go. The border is ridiculous, policed by Pro-White Racist Scumbags.

Fred is a stranger, hailing from out of town, who met and befriended Artie on the rehab ward. Like I _said!!!_ Actually, maybe an exemplified Manfred is involved. Fred's last name, like Jesus, remains a mystery.

DISABLED | RETARDED | DEVELOPMENTAL ENDING (By Caza, whose school system claimed she was "developmentally disabled" when she _aced_ a test meant for boys alone, a special awareness mathematics test):

Fred is a Black stranger, hailing Fr' out town, who enabled Artie on the rehab ward. "Like ah _said!!!"_ Meanwhile, he and his DisAbled "male" buddy, a guy turning out to _not_ have survived the truck crash "bak 'ere, SOMETIMES ago," got the first Wheelchair Accessible house built _in_ British Columbia, Canada, _by_ Gabe, Artie and their other crew members, 'cluding Fred. The ghost of Shirley, Frederick's two-sex, awesomely cute companion in the cab, who was crushed in the accident, haunted the WA house - until they freeway moved it to Alberta.

Mark Campos is the genuine name of "M," the Mexican-American knife-fighting maniac this book is based on, contributing to it _muchos._ _Who?_ His Markness, the Prince of Darkness. I am Karen S. Cole, the actual name of the German Cherokee Jewess Shiksa weirda...NO, Artie wrote it. Barack Obama only contributed something. I am 5' 4" tall, was huge in the short-assed Philippines, and _now_ I weigh exactly 250 leaping lbs. In English foot smells, and my left arm is an imaginary aardvark that sweats blood. SNOW, IT'S _NOT_ _!!!_ My husband's name is private, and he calls himself "Daddy." We're all from Archie Comics. Recently.

Roscoe turned out to be a Girl Kitty, after all. A regular Pussycat. She dumped her kittens into the lint-filled back of the Late Night Laundry, from whence she had come, mysteriously appearing in Gabe's laundry basket. 23 kittens, all mewing and alive, in spontaneous rainbow colors. One of 'em held aloft two heads, working, meowing, _hungry_ ones! Best mouser ever, in Rama. She teamed with the area's better ratter dogs, gorgeous collies from outlying farms who workd the overflowing grain silos. They raced around their kitten, protecting her from imaginary harm, barking silently as their yelps had been _removed,_ for Christ's sake!

Saragine scooped that freakshow kitty up, naming him Amos and Andy, or Famous Amos. _Boooooooooooooooooooo_...t'was my childhood nickname...the Boo.

CAZA EXOTICALLY DANCED, quixotically, erotically, for Artie in his and their single-roomed apartamento, a ramshackling over-large studio. It really was a studio, with eastern exposure and half-bay windows, meant for half-bay artists, especially those not necessarily having a terrific southern exposure.

She used teeny metal finger cymbals, which were an ode to Carlos Castanets and his mentor Don Juano; she wore a flowing green-blue sequined gown, sporting shiny Persian slippers, imported strictly from Taiwan. They ate off Big Fat China, where all the concentration camps originally got started. "Maybe you just accused them of founding the universal school system." Only the table was shithim wood. A deeply green jewel, a Jewish Stone from The Wizard of Oz (and NOT "Wicked," which I hate for rescuing the Wrong Witch) was idly but firmly stuck, buied up to his neck in her navel. Why rescue an evil person, and leave someone else to........

Was the gem a genuine natural emerald, craftily smuggled from guanoesque Mexican mines? Perhaps. Why else was Miguel Shuba _so concerned?_ Artie sang as she danced, playing a rapturous Eastern melody on his wooden flute. His voice clear and strong, noble, proud...free...not for _sale_...US Marine...like the God Poseidon, who _knew_ somebody helps those who truly assist others. Vaguely.

"Mah lady mine, mah lady mine, fahner than the best of wahn,

Ah loves you all that love can be

For mah love is vaster than the ocean

And your love is deeper than the sea.

"Lady, mah lady, come lay down with me

What games we can play when we re-combine

What songs can be sung...you are so sublime!

Ah wants to go 'way with you, alls ah wants is to play with you...

Artie began a long, slowly dwindling musicum on his sakahatcheck flute, which was Japanese, tubular, and holy. It lovingly sounded with keening beauty and quite grace intertwined perfectly yet organically what Caza's dancing.

She jingled arcanely and softly, tinkling bright noises of jangling glee.

"I love you my Artie, I _really_ do! There's no more need to party, and I wanna belong to you. Forever let's sever the emptiness of never." As you know, temptations abound when you're in love. Yet this behavior is theirs alone. If Caza is a Mom before she dies, she'll be the best temporary one she can be. And if Artie is a Dad... _dang,_ where's that blowtorch for the cockroaches?

Laughter, dancing, singing and prancing merrily for hours. No neighbors complained. It would mean sweat, pounding walls, knocking on the door with sanguine merciful knowledge. Medieval stiff-backed wooden plastic chairs...with verses written on the backs, twining with flowers: _Love is when the other person's happiness is more important than your own._

SHE LOOKED AT Gabe like, I mean business, Mr. Stranger. We've even sat together.

Too bad...

"Okay, that's it. I'm going to college, gonna study Diet. The human diet."

I am, thought Gabe; sort of.

Gabriella/Gabriello "Beau" Hooter Sancto took Saragina De Soto's lovely hand. He held it, gazing up at her reluctantly.

"I'll miss you so much. How will I live without you? I love you."

Saragina saw what was plainly written in Gabe's face. She suppressed an urge to chock. "Gabe, it's all right. I won't be gone for long. But I don't want to commute. I hate traffic so much, I..." She stopped talking.

"No, I can't stand to be without you. I'd rather be dead. Tell you what..."

" _What,"_ begged Saragina, breathless? Normally, her air intake was pretty good. "I'll go to college with you." Gabe was dead serious.

"You _will?_ Whatever would you study?"

"Electronics. I want to learn how to hot-wire a house. That is to say, I want to learn Home Construction, Remodeling, and ordinary exterior work. Also, I want to further my studies in carpentry, masonry, interior exterior finish work. You wanna learn how to do high-up wooden cabinets?"

"Migosh; I've been wantin' to learn _how to build_ things! Why, this is such a shock. It's so sudden. Then again, it's gonna take another two to four years. Do you want a bachelor's?" There was a moment of absolute stillness. Gabe never asked Sara where she was going to work. Not after the books. They sold, were selling, and although it was more niche than best seller, they were moving.

" _NOOO!!!!!!!!"_ yelled Gabe, bundling her into his octopus arms. "I want nothin' less than STEADY MARRIAGE!" They osculated, fancy word fer kissing. Saragina had to bend purty far downwards. Even so, he craned up, and she felt her long legs elevating off the ground. Ah wusn't there, I was busy w'Caza...hey, now _y'know_ the Blendman wrote mosta this - parts Gabe and Sara-rogino _didn't_ do!

Caza edited it some, but mostly she does bookskeepin' fer people, not novels fer starangers...Saragina tooks on a new career, re'glar fiction writer. They say Black lady authors knows what they's a doin'. I can barely unnerstand what she pens, but it's all good. She gave up on dietician 100 miles 'way, stayed on part time as a dietary aide here in town, and Gabe keeps struggling on, too. He's basically studyin' carpentry 'lectrical hookups under me and some other dudes, the types who act like Tarzan swingin' thru the evergreens. I think they both'll go to college someat someday, but who needs it when _you got me?_

I think it's _purtier_ in Rama than it's ever been in Helena, Montana, where my Mom was born, and my uncle too. And my gramma's kids... _Caza, stop pickin' yer nose_ and come over _here_ and give the Blendman a good time. I stop drinkin' fer you, and...what d'you mean, fix my dinner? _Hokay!_ You sit over there and rest, and I'll gitcha another pitcher of limedade. Grab me a silly straw!

Meantimes, Gabe manfully hoisted his Sara. He bent o'er backwards. She swung around - loop de loop. As she gaily flew and swooped, arching her long body like a beautiful spotted-grey seagull harp seal, hoppin' fum pier to pier on the Seattle Waterfront, nestled amid ferry boats pullin' out loadsa cars, foot passengers and soundin' their dismal fog horns, she sang loudly thistly, a song played soully on Rama's WKRQZ on alternate Tuesday weeks:

"Maybe baby taybe _waybe,_

Maybe baby _taybe_ waybe,

Maybe...baby...waybe... _getaybe!"_

...to be continuously continued, by 10 teensy brownie-townie fingers and 10 wiggle-butt butterfly-moth combo toes.

Turning and turning the world's a gyre, deepmost over my head...

Yearning and learning the worlds on fire; it's deepmost 'til the end,

'Til the end...baby seek letters inspired, carry us siiiiide by side,

And hand in hand in hand we will ride, over Versailles. Turn your magical

Eyes around and around. There is a looooonely sound. Carry us throooogh

The sky, "Les Bicyclettes de Belsize"...rewritten part NOT by Engelbert Humperdink

THE END – Gabriello/Mark Campos, Saragina/Darlene Hayes, Artemus/Max Imholte, Caza/Chiara Zaratkewitz... _take a bow!_ These four people were the basis for my "main dudes!" Mark was my Mexican American boyfriend, Darlene was my Black nextdoor neighbor, Max was my hippie newspaper boss, and Chiara was my Eastern-European American friend who married a Latino. All four of us knew each other oh so briefly in the 1980s. I miss them a lot, of course. rainbowriting.com/ – only one "w" please; karen@rainbowriting.com – same Ghost Writer, Inc. – Book ghostwriting services. We handle manuscript, screenplay, script, music and lyrics writing and editing. 180+ diverse writers, editors, marketers and others - promotions, sales, publishing, optioning assistance through our partner agencies. We do it all for _you,_ for upfront or "on spec" payments!

Books by Karen S. Cole:

**The Rainbow Horizon**

**A Tale of Goofy Chaos**

Woody Allen Makes a Scary Sandwich

Horror Pastiche: Stories & Poems

The Book of Nice Monsters

Or a Few Scurrilous Drawings

The Invisible Mitzvah

Memoirs of a Ghostwriter

Future Work in Progress:

The Men's Baby Club

How Suburbia Went Out – Thataways

