That telephone sound again. It was Chris.

-I have the books...yeah, and they've...yeah, the balance of the...yeah.- He said.

I had seen Elaine and said so in the rain:

-Hold this cup a moment, I'm negotiating.-

-¿For what? ¿supper?- With a test of woman.

-Very good. When you're dead I'll sift through your retinas.- I said through a microphone.

-¿Will you have the time?- Chris asked, sarcasm knotted in his throat.

-Yes, a lot, let's go.- I seconded the question.

Chris then began to disintegrate into a large, sifted reptile. He corresponded only with capital letters, picking up only the CIA and his Adidas to exercise. I didn't press him, my attention was  gone. All I saw was Elaine. She was levitating deliciously above me as I examined the company's zero graphics.

I argued with one or another lady about Chris' modern dare, his manners and the fortune teller hairstyle on his head. I said I was studying his speech patterns.

I said to send my radishes in his sandals, but the day was so biting I surrendered. I went out to sea to see the sun. Elaine regressed into a mess and was sentenced.

That poor Fin Chris had ended his voice lessons and put cold goo on my telephone.

-¡Sit down!- I said to Elaine.

-I'm not your disciple.- She contested. -I have my own cargo.-

Elaine wanted to look at the books and I had agreed:

-According to this they say nothing. They formed a company that went to Tangier in favor of the American Institute of the Zero.- And then looking closer, she exclaimed:

-¡Ah! ¡They fired the Institute's public relations person!-

-¿Do you know what that means?- I asked.

-No, but it says here that I will speak of things I know nothing of during my last two weeks on earth.-

I was quite surprised and she explained to me:

-My uncle, Matthew Brady, is the president of the Consolidated Corporation of the Zero. I had been passing the weeks in his house.-

Matt Brady was a man--a durable zero of a man with an old excuse: He was an authentic pie pirate whose head was astute, cold and implacable.

I always had nothing to say and that was: «The eggs during that time had been quite rare». Chris had teamed with Brady, with more than nine guns and a magnet.

I read this put-on in my reflection and sent in what Elaine had preferred: A carcinogen:

My eyes looked into her eyes and decided it was getting crowded.

-I was thinking how fortunate it is that guys make the passes...-

-¿Do you believe that jerks like you bury themselves in fluids just for the publicity?- Elaine asked me. The sunrise had vanished beneath the rooster.

-¡Oh! I don't question that, but if I side with your uncle I'll be the tomato in the middle of quite a pickle.-

This meant sunrise for the sunflowers and replies from her eyes:

-¿You want me to say that you don't know my uncle? ¿When you're negotiating contracts you don't want to know the lazy orangutan?-

-¡That's an odious thing to say!- I contested. I had other, much more other but I didn't want to say "Trust my self, I know what I'm doing."

-¡And without baggage!- Elaine annoyed rapidly. -I'm a full-blown person and I want you a lot.-

I reached for my dentures. It was bastard difficult visualizing Mr. Brady all full of Band-Aids. And even more difficult to visualize why I would want to.

Mr. Brady was insightful. Only God knows when a man has a hair-brained idea. And with a simple, altruistic gesture, Matt Brady had a hair-brained idea.

-Good, I want you too, Elaine.- I said looking at my notes. -But now those bastards and I are going to our assorted parts: It's difficult for these companies to be on the dole and the publicity is so chowdered and sing-song and disagreeable and I don't have to tell you about integrating costs. I'm convinced that if you have valor and consonance then logs will rarely impale you.-

Her libido ran the counter from gesture to indecision:

-¡Hey, tell me again about the sea monster!- Elaine started.

-Okay.- I said. -Then we'll start a propaganda war on tv, in newspapers and off radio in what will be a senseless and a personally-propped-up history.-

Elaine retired sweetly, one hand on mine and one on the chicken entrée lazing in syrup.

I ran dumb.

Elaine was an animal and an intrepid animal. Her uncle, Matt Brady, was sent to see a podiatrist or a gull or so he said when he was sober. At that moment the room began to revolve and scream and I was obliged to move over onto her lap:

-¿Yes?-

It was the Lisa and metallic voice of Mickey:

-It's six and you're late. I have an important compromise this afternoon. ¿Do I have to be a permanent here?-

I consulted my watch and soldered a taco. I didn't have the dad to light a fuse.

-¡MARCH out, Mickey!- I told her. -I'm already thinking about who you're making it with.-

-Thanks chief, and remember: Olives don't cost ten dollars in these parts. Good night.-

My pallor was blank and I returned hastily to Elaine. I was so rain-headed.

-But your legs will be late to your house. ¿My entrance is done on my time, dig it?- Elaine said.

-To Marge it isn't important, this costume party.-

Elaine knew that what she had done was balsa.

-My hair has been in MARCH or May.- She told me extending the bar of libations and beginning to retouch my car stereo. -And that's important.-

-But if we don't make death or more Kool-Aid you'll have to walk to Washington tomorrow.- I contested.

Elaine looked to me for emphysema and her esophagus said:

-Let's return to the proximity of semantics...-

I fought to keep my attention in line with the libations and raised the top of my car at the end of the conversation:

-And then we can return to talk about this sober...The costs aren't very easy when there's that silly woman to reconsider.-

Her eyes sat posing and mine were excruciatingly modern:

-¿Then what is it, sugar-penis?- She asked.

I, or my voice, knew that I had this gal disconcerted and/or confused:

-Let's return to fire and cinder. If it's fire then we'll have to compromise. If it's cinder we'll use another voice and say this again.-

Her eyes mirrored mine. I saw two guns in them and moved my head, saying:

-It isn't major. I don't want to send you, tired and tranquil, through a tornado to your plane. Baste here and let me eat you.-

I was approximately to her as a pool is to, say, a pony.

-Very well.- She said, contradicting Nostradamus. -¿What price then if my tomatoes are fresh?-

Her god meditated then rapidly vaulted down and asked me:

-¿Why do you pretend, Brad?-

The expression on my car left no doubt that I was a genius:

-I'm not pretending nothing. I don't believe that inviting a woman for a refreshment means that I want her to say my eggplant parmigiana is perfect.-

Her gall was very grave:

-Evidently no, but it does. I also have the impression that you're a man who divests all invitations from people who don't drink refreshments.-

I sent for a beer from my car and lead from the red sun:

-¿Then, can you find my car keys?-

Her eyes were intent on reading my mind:

-¿Then why do you insist?-

I sent a turd. I did and was as embarrassed as a man who solicits women every day without rehearsing or thinking.

-¿Why am I a dildo for my deportment and you a goon for going down?-

I'd decided this by the expression on her face when she saw her watch stop.

-You aren't who I want to molest, Brad. And I've demonstrated what GODDAMN means.-

But not CONTEXT.

-Good night, Brad.- She told me, extending her womanhood. -And thank you.-

Her womanhood was behind quite a large bra. It was small and sinewy and so small that when she sat down the mirror told me the story of the small mirror and how it reflected on me.

-Good night, Elaine.-

-I'll return here when the moon approximately and then harmoniously believes that it's convenient.-

God vaulted down and said, "¡Rogelio, open the door!"

She knew who did and who did not look a trace like me.

I said:

-¿Where?-

P{a}rdon my manners. I sobered my writing and said:

-When you find me here, it will be one.-

-What a weirdo.- She said.

My head pondered that until it was desperate for the door and tore the contract into millions without even looking. My olfactory factory segued into a static so delicate that perfume aspired into my Sony tape recorder.

My inclinations were delicate and then the telephone decided that Marge had a right to see a gnarly red door at 8.

Meanwhile, as a young man, I had been sent out to marry-off Marge who had passed her entrance exam and had come to see me when there was wine in the office. When she knew she was cuckoo and when I'd readily admit it were small brush fires.

-¿Why brush fires?- Elaine asked me all instantly.

-Probably brush fires.- I said when I said it. Probably, and probably a disgraced woman.

The skies evoked a new calm with a loose scream down the side of my pants.

It was true, now Marge was dead in the dining room and Elaine Schuyler would soon be sitting on my lap. Nothing was absolute.

But I had cracked and was in the soup. When Elaine entered the office the moon segued into.

To chapter, Capital 5

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