The rain of water in ¼ of the bathroom made me desperate. I took a left at the moment I would've died from lung cancer and that's a hell of a ¡BAM! I lighted the stove to see my watch. It was nine. Marge never knew if I was coming or going down on her. I thought about the telephone and about death. I dialed the number to the house. I would persevere the ruin of my marriage.

Then I saw lean Elaine of 911 fame. She was perfectly immobile for an instant. Below her, ¼ of the bathroom was soaked. I breathed through my brain.

¿Is this what you call a house?- She asked me in a tone more firm and active than limp and negative.

I moved my head. She didn't contest me.

Marge's voice sounded too concrete to travel through the phone.

-¿Brad?-

-¿Yes?- The conquered. -I've been a little high for a long time.-

-Yes, Brad, ¿But where are you now? I haven't seen you for ten days.-

-I'm being a toy.- I said. I sure could say more by arching my back than I ever could talking. -I've been on a tad of a bender.-

-¿Are you telling the truth or just being a man?- She insisted. -You sure have gone all strange.-

-I said he was okay.- I replied, infatuated. -He tore my pants with four whiskeys.-

Elaine returned to enter the ¼ of the bathroom at the end of the door.

I extracted a cigarette from my pitiful pack and treated it to a match.

-¿Is someone with you?- She asked. -¿Where are you? The dizheads at your office treated me like I was the local tart all afternoon.-

-I'm in a bar on Third Avenue.- I mentioned. -¿What is it you want?-

-I don't know. Chris said that you should call him when you're relocated in the office. Also, I say you should call me at home.-

Marge's tits were a beautiful pair of memories for an instant:

-¿What is happening, Brad? ¿You've been salivating the truth, haven't you?-

-No.- I contested bruskly.

To travel from the telephone to the podium to the house to the avenue to see the sun rise was not intended for dumb animals.

-Don't get preoccupied with women, Brad. To be is not important. After all, you're not a regular, deal-and-gun-the-other-guy guy.-

-Yes.- F on the test.

Her voice was a swift animal:

-Chris told me he was going to Pittsburgh. He ignored me when he talked but he took your mallethead test because he was as sick as he thought necessary. ¿Are you going to talk to him now?-

-Yes.- I returned with a tasty snarl.

-Then explain to me why you damn well pick and dig at me as if I were a bone. ¿Huh?-

-¡I'll thank you to use that tone with your soap!- I replied.

-I confess that I'm not much of a babe.- She said. -I know I'm bad. I tease and I taunt and I...-

-Not too much.- I replied, not intending my life of desire to end right now with this conversation. -I'm going to talk to Chris and I'll call you from the dentist in a moment.- And returned the phone to floor.

This was the scene: The bathroom door, a Volvo, and me talking pasta with Elaine.

-¡I don't want to be here, the heck I do!- Elaine told me. -I don't want to know how you treat private conversations.-

Her eyes were monstrously pensive and more liberal than usual. -I can't be a man-eater here and go see "Charley's Aunt" there.-

She treated me like a Bromo-Seltzer echo and continued:

-¿Ain't ya got no romance?-

A piece of somberness encircled her mouth and I said gravely:

-I don't, but you knew before you said it.-

Avalanches became her, but Elaine, a deal at a little over twelve (hours dead, that is), knew she was raining on my brazenness.

-You have what I call «¡FUCK ME, I'M A MAN!».- Elaine indicated.

-Spare me the photos and the home videos.- I told her.

A kiss on the back could send my aunt all hot but Elaine would have to travel all over me with her toes.

-¡I love you, Elaine!- I'm so, so real! -I've never loved until now and I never believed pajamas produce lacerations.-

-¡Brad! ¡My love, Brad!-

Segue into kisses, this time on the neck. Delicious kisses, gargantuan kisses, diminutive kisses. I felt her suspicions go to the zoo and I entered her, pushing on her nibs for support. I spit into my hands and squeezed her ass.

-¡A dime, Brad, a dime! ¡Make me believe we aren't fucking but playing! ¡I want you to give me a dime when you come in me! ¡A dime and a Velveeta demonstration!-

I came in blasts and cobras.

Chris's voice was up a calorie when (the poor Fin) I decided to call him.

-¿Where the demons have you been? You were supposed to tie me up.-

-¡Shut up!- I said succinctly. -¿What's happening to us?-

-Brady wanted to talk with you about making rats.- He told me. -He wants thirty in his Pittsburgh office tomorrow or tomorrow.-

His enthusiasm seemed contagious. The old man, after all this, wanted to take in rats. And to think I had been at his side, necking, pretending to understand his reactions.

-My mouth has ping-ponged into MARCH and I have to buy plane tickets.- I told him.

-I already have them.- Not my reply. -They're in your name at the airport, flight one, niner, cinco. It sails at 11:15 and you're now a certified mallethead, equipped to sell.-

I considered selling my watch: It was almost ten. I felt the pressure on my arm.

-Thank you, Chris, I'm going with Allah.-

His fire lighted me but I saw no thing in his voice:

-Try dinner at home. Sign the contract and dare to live the good life.-

Cold goo on the telephone and me returning to Elaine's eyes.

-¿Do you have ears?- I asked her.

-Yes.- She said. -There's no time like the past.-

-¿The pressure's eating you too?- I asked and it started raining. -For a woman you sure are a mallethead. ¿Why should I go to Pittsburgh without you?-

Elaine stayed seated in her camel and leaned over for some salt:

-¡Brad, you're not a raging sea and you can't do this!-

I was already planning the blouse she wouldn't wear:

-Münchën.- I dose-me-under told her. -You don't know me. ¡I can do whatever the FUCK I want! You're dead meat, a good sleep and I won't let you lie and rot until this contract is bought, sold and registered.-

I called home while Elaine prepared her cosine.

-I'm going to eat on the plane--destination: Pittsburgh.- I told Marge.

She replied:

-He who is quiet pours tartar sauce on llama.-

-He who doesn't pour diddley on squat- I told her in a reference to my mean blood pressure. -telephones Chris who is occupied. So, I called and talked with him. Brady wants vermin.-

-That's stupid.- Marge contested,leaning on Algeria. -¿And I'm supposed to sit here like an orangutan waiting for you, Brad? I already know you're a fur-bearing animal.-

Chris had tomato all over his precious face. There was a note stuck on my suitcase informing me that he had reserved a «suite» in my name at the Hotel Brooke Shields. We were in the hotel room at two in the morning after having made the register and a firm entrance.

Elaine was fixed in the center of the bathroom motioning how to revise the botany of the department. A cable of minutes passed as I made wine with the soap in her hand. The intrigue of the dollar and the closing of the door traced her.

I returned to her and the sunrise:

-It's very humid out there but there is no better situation comedy.-

She was no contest.

-Not comedy, imbecile, THE MOON. Pittsburgh isn't a bad place to lose your sanity in.-

For five bucks I decided it was worth contesting her:

-Pittsburgh has a tentative side and a habitual side. The habitual side writes this sentence. The tentative side wants to know who are all these men you know.-

-¿And if you've known them do you known me?- She added.

-I now own you...-

I wasn't just whistling "Abracadabra".

-Brad.- Elaine protested. -You don't know what gentlemen want because you're an ignorant son of a bitch without the capacity to understand the solar system...-

-It's just not important to me.- A new attachment. -Gentlemen are about as important to me as my shirts. The eunuch who engaged me was you and I don't want you apart from me now that you're dead. I've had perhaps the messiest time of my life in our bathroom rendezvous.-

Elaine knew I was a zero. She searched for my mouth with her eyes:

-Brad, you are, without celery, the sickest man I know.-

I was sent with my head:

-I'll give you all the pasta in Ecuador if I can have your baby.-

Her eyes segued and totally flipped into mine. I didn't know what the debacle to look for in her. It's good that I believed in hell as already I was gyro sober and, out of habit, I'd missed the dirt road twelve times.

-Just a minute, Elaine.- I told her. -We have to make our eggs before they hatch.-

I had to leave before I became viler. In my brazenness I had left a dollar at the door to my notoriety.

To chapter, Capital 10

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