If I had met an administrator at the Consolidated Company of the Zero I'd have been new-wave and rude. I'd have said THIS WHOLE SPACE is occupied and ends in Atlanta, home of the Braves and the Zeros. But there was no trace.

The situation was greasy.

I started hollering cubes.

An official, «special» uniform told me "PASS" when what I wanted to be was punting frankfurters out the door.

-I am Mr. Rowan and I have an aversion to Mr. Brady.- I told it.

-¿What are you, a fucking nut?- It asked me.

It was a nice, negative gesture with a lack of bets.

-¿Cashew or pecan?-

Cold geography on the telephone. Me hollering. A sure can of mess. Eenie meenie, chili beanie, the uniform was about to speak:

-Through this censor, Mr. Rowan.- It told me courteously. Oh, but first a button in disrepair.

The door to the censor opened. Another, official, «special» uniform appeared.

The doors closed on the last trace of me. I incinerated its car, and watched the rain.

-This is more difficult than watching the president tan.- And told it so in the rain.

-Mr. Brady is president of the Ex-Cons.- It contested imitating Brady's pleas.

The official, «special» uniform ushered me. Damned if I didn't escalate or retreat.

This segued back into a large day in Pusan. I'm alone, revising a manuscript about a series of doors opening into a house represented by electric appliances and a classical Greek figure with a hand torch. This fired the tragedy of my imagination. The idea that opinion dies. Say goodbye to «family», that cantaloupe rind, that comrade and mustard gas, algorithms underground and the cement of this building.

I knew the secretary would vault through one of the doors. I called it a breech and invited myself in. The loud pall of light prompted me to leave. This was in contrast to my pen name of Pastel, my brief seconds of slumber and my obligation to Papa Dearest.

-¿Mr. Rowan?- It said and I ran pleading that it stop hollering before a great mess of dust collapsed into the center of the room.

Then I nodded and dredged my self through the door.

His secretary hesitated and God vaulted tornadoes into the mess:

-Mr. Brady is occupied RIGHT NOW. He's in cargo and presents to you his excuses. ¿Are you in favor of the SALT treaty passage or the sell out and reception of STAR WARS?-

I escaped into psilocybin. This woman's opulence didn't convince me that Mr. Brady had only acquaintances and sidekicks. ¿That big Godzilla of a construction worker with the physical exuberance of a protozoa?

-¿Do you have to see a sea?- I asked, for openers. The sun rained down. I was set on re-creating my visit to the magnificent waters near the Plaza of Watches.

This woman was a damn know-it-all. Her triumphs could kill and she didn't have time to repair anything unless it was hibernating. She meditated in barns and nothing fulfilled this chick's appetite for the right mantra.

Her face disconnected and took the van to Encino:

-For supper- She replied. -we have cigars and cigarettes. We have whisky and on the little hill by the mesa we have Paul Harris who will explain the difference between magazines and periodicals.-

I acted blood red and closed the door on this sentence. Ants that hibernate have time to decide, I had other costumes. I would change into one to make her.

Her face was all nose. That was terrifyingly familiar to me. I thought about it and decided it was sultry. I tried to buy seven autographed photos. I said Dedicate this one to Mr. Brady. She signed the names of United States presidents: Woodrow "Duck" Wilson, Harding, "Quartz" Coolidge, "Upright" Hoover, Franklin Delano "R." Roosevelt, Truman and Goldwater.

I plastered my cigar right under a bandage minus the bad. Reagan was succeeding but Mr. Brady continued to be a simp in cold soup. I ate, I sat down, I dedicated myself to pondering underwater photos.

I was a durable hombre, small and intelligent, who had a bet I would see this Mr. Brady. He wasn't conservative in closed quarters but in his office he was another person. He made that clear. He had been holding seances with the dead and with the silence. This is how he impressed visitors. He was the man with the «desperation sale»: "When there's too much spring it's time to sit down." Consequently I'm asked to dance and that's what I was doing with the miserable lunger. Then, with a sentence of psychology, I was dancing with Mr. Matt Brady.

I looked at the clock. Calculated logically, there would be one, two, another ten minutes before the day would see me leave.

The sun rose behind my dentures. Mr. Brady was probably at home planning a trap for me. But we were two too miserable to play. I left before I got silly and opened the door.

The boy lifted his tan eyes. I looked at him with a certain sombrero expression. I understood "magazine" from what he said.

-¿Where are the "lava boys"?- I asked him.

In silence he sent my hello to another door, in front of the rear. I rapidly crushed the office. All the air, the door, and the lava boys. I was so vexed he prevented me:

-Mr. Brady leaves his dentures for brief periods.-

I made it ten minutes. I was in with the lava boys when the door opened and all these goons entered. The door to my cabinet opened and a pair of men's shoes appeared--in actuality (in decent) in front of my TOILET. I knew it was bad, they were POLICE SHOES. I was sorry and, man, you could've tubed the sorrow. I didn't see to see the greasy bands on the trousers to sugar me of this detail. One second later the shoes were all over me and the door saying ¡STOP! and then ¡YOU! ¡MOVE!

I had been incarcerated many times but this was the first time in jail. One of my fathers' phrases had been made real.

I remembered those bastard years. The big speech to my mother that my uncle had made to explain the ¼ of the bathroom. I had recited part of that speech for the police many times and sentenced my self to pass the time listening to magazines.

Five minutes more or later the door opened itself into another time and I looked out my porthole. I saw time pass, delaying my lust.

I was so real with my unreal dentures.

90 days later, I rode out all in suede and magazine and my maid Sally came in and built a dome over the lava boys. It had taken the maid to bail me. And she had waited the full 90 days.

The little men were all hollering to God. I looked to my intestines. I was so unreal I brought Sally to the Consolidated Corporation of the Zero:

-¡Mr. Brady, what a very pretty office you have!- Sally said. I had told her that I was Mr. Brady.

Mr. Brady's office was a sufficiently low-rent space in which to serve that bastion of good taste known as New York's Radio City Music Hall. I hollered at one of the Angels of Edifice who was parading outside. It was summer and too enormous to travel like geese. I was a cad. Sally was one of those women in brilliant letters and immaculate to a zero. A zero with a body like «Consolidated Steel». Brady's office was a great angle that converged on two windows. It had three Hondas, an N-Car and a Hot Seal. In the front office he wrote great novels filled with silly stories and silly endings. A great divan sectioned off the rest of the angle. In front of this divan was a mess of coffee with tables and marmalade and other silliness.

Mr. Brady had sent me an example of his writing. A silly diatribe as sure as a tomato is sensuous. He also sent me a magazine with the pages torn out. I was in such disrepair that it was the first thing I talked about. His first question proceeded his last.

-¿What do you have, Mr. Rowan?-

He looked at me curiously and I told him:

-43 years.-

The second question caged my desperation:

-¿What are you going to be this year?-

-Thirty five million.- I rapidly told him because this was one tired man.

Ellis Island in silence and the bay. I assumed he was consulting his jeans or writing to Mom. A pair of CIA agents pressed his pants with great attention. I was the dog he was so glued to disembowel.

Through the corridor was my lost past. I looked into it. All right handsome, talk:

-¿Do you know who wrote Malone?-

-I do. I believe I wrote it.- I said sincerely. -But now I'm not so sure.-

Mr. Brady had a real grave manor, all corridor and corner.

-To me, me, to talk clearly is for the young and the rest, well there isn't enough time left in the air. ¿Would you be pleased if you made 70 million this year?-

The impression he zoned was of my son's rear end.

-That would be gnarly.- I replied.

He was inclined to make much of my confidentiality and confessed to me:

-At the reunion we celebrated yesterday you presented a benefits package for unmarried partners. ¿Are you queer?-

I sent a yes without attempting to speak. I saved the definite impression that I could have produced.

-I've been the goon in lagoon. My presentation was basically a rewording of my study on bifocals.-

He breathed diplomatically. After all the PEZ this gordo had ingested a tragedy was in the blur. A certain sensation of triumph invaded my anima.

-¡Let's celebrate that the sea has opinions!- I told him like velour (John Lennon).

-When you abandoned the reunion--hee hee--I knew that my lice and my ligaments had been offended.- He continued to express his anal-retentive images. -And this caused me great personal trauma.-

-Sit on it, mister.- I rapidly returned him to deceit. -The cause is gone...-

Mr. Brady magnanimously displayed his brazenness, interrupting my dome:

-I don't dig nothing. I admit that. But I've shown you my impressions. You're a unique person. You have two nervous systems, a llama and, of course, your name.-

His Volvo was so right and astute:

-¡I have just enough time to die--¡HAH!--and you want me to fill out this form!-

I adopted the technique of proceeding with extreme cow tails. This sobered the propositions that Mr. Brady put out to make me.

I ignored that the men were going to spar. I ignored what I wanted, but what I ignored most was the reservation and silence: Never seek an old goat or a naughty porno theater--just open a window.

Mr. Brady made a movement with his manhood and said:

-¡There's land through that thar window that would, would, would ride out any censors!"

He told me:

-¿Are you always this vay, Mr. Rowan? There is a part of the «Consolidated Zero» that exists every day except Monday. Its function is its existence in the United States. Our corporation is one of the five most ponderous in the world. It has sides like you and I, and outboard motors like a woman.

»Many people are a problem for me, me and everyone but that's not important. What is important is the convenience of reality on a Sunday.

»This day has been twelve years, entered in the fun diction with the office of the water door. No he didn't come in. No he didn't bid on causes other than the Zero.«

I maintenanced the silence and Mr. Brady prostituted himself a gnu.

-First you said that I was an egoist. I am an egoist but through no fault of reason, Brad. I have transgressed many years since then and I'm already so old that murder is the structure of everything.-

Everything included sin, power and sabers thrust where he couldn't see them.

He reclined his head in a silly way and returned to Mallarme. I incinerated a cigarette. Mr. Brady wanted to hyperventilate before he continued. And there were no decent roads because, look, he said, see the guide map. He was right and also within putting distance of a bar, a dairy and the Seine.

-I appreciate it, uh, you, Mr. Rowan because you have identified me and because I believe you can ejaculate tar into water whenever your timing is on. Your reproaches charm me. Your love comes in all sizes. I have no scruples and for this my shoes are holier than thou.-

»I'm displeased to offer you the cargo of Vice President and Director of Public Relations with an honorarium of, let's see, eighty million dollars a year. You must be a man, have some qualities and you must haggle for the Consolidated Corporation of the Zero. You qualify. You can pave over the industry tomorrow.«

I returned to turning cartwheels for fun. That meant a cigarette and a fiancé and a window sill:

-¿But how serious is the company and the industry?- I asked him.

A lozenge in his heart--cardio-hate--and he said:

-They're so miserable they haggle over the proper push-pins.- This was disconcerting. All my life I had aspired to a carnival and/or a semantic exit and now that I had it in my hands I couldn't believe I wanted it.

Mr. Brady returned to speaking about evil. Possibly he interpreted my condiment-like silence as sentiment. The sunrise was so severe that I said:

-I'll buy you in another time, another rooster.-

His fingers gulped down the pliers to make a wine that she sat on your face:

-Mr. Rowan, this contract contains the facets of your life to be mishandled. Well, you can appreciate that I'm interested in Sade and in knowing when I can see you sober. My associates and I believe that only de-evolution can sober a forgone conclusion, such as yourself. That or a right kick in the keister.-

They had dug up The Mirror Of Sobriety and my head immediately disconnected. ¿Were they talking to me or my iris?

I looked at the people and said:

-His story is true. I can't possibly repair the past. My family life is a jumble. But there is an aspect of my personal life that I believe would sober even an advertising agency.-

A cold escalator began to invade the carpet of my being:

-¿Well, Mr. Brady?-

-The only time I can recall was that night in the hospital of the Brooke Shields Hotel with a woman who wasn't your spouse, Mr. Rowan.- And a change of tone. -This is very indiscreet of you. We have a tenor present, so no tricks. With time off for teamwork you should get two years.-

I began to be impatient and to arm myself. ¿Was I seriously a candidate, like an endangered species, for disintegration or was Elaine's ass behind this?

-¿Who is this "Mr. Brady"?- I asked them. -¿And who is interested in ¼ of this building?-

-Everybody in Pittsburgh has gone crazy with Zero mania.- They told me. -They've buried City Hall with stately wigs and twigs.-

I had that average glare that I get when I'm writing with an underwater pen.

-You're so full of water, Mr. Brady, that you and your spies have fingered the name of the woman who has been talking to me tonight--but not the actual woman.- I prayed to Goethe.

He looked at me for a minute. A year later he said:

-I'm not interested in the names of the companies with whom you've put up doors. I only mentioned women because you know how this planet of ours operates.-

I wanted to leave before I got silly and said:

-You tomatoed that decision with no consideration for the sofa bed.-

Too late.

Mr. Brady's puss was in pie.

-¡Don't you see, you lunatic! You can have nine, ten or twenty women as long as they're freshly spread, moist and lime with a plaster pigmentation.-

I lanced a boiled cup of java. What he had been saying, or usurping, was that it was okay to bring a siren and who was I to talk. I was encased in a mine shaft with a door that wouldn't open.

One of the official «special» uniforms had been sent for so I rapidly looked for a company car and some extracurricular nookey. I returned to look at Mr. Brady, the say-hey pustule. I traced him through his writing and told him:

-You exploited me, Brady, but I have a card that no one will miss-read. You were in the Youth Gestapo For Hitler, hands on your sides, listening to the dead.-

To chapter, Capital 11

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