I thought a taxi in front of the hotel with my high school principal in it but it was my own Volvo in front of the hotel and it was 5:45.

A strange idea wound into my mind: The virile I and the p is silent podiatrist and me sent in a gorilla suit (¿or was it a gull?). That me fell asleep. Another me, who was in the middle of fusing his kneecap, was so dehydrated that he drank Gatorade all year and would eat only Lobster Thermostat.

I was satisfetching and I couldn't have been more demoralized if I had died without having told Elaine «WHAT A GREAT MAN I AM».

An impetuous breeze meant the door of the «suite» and regret:

-¡Elaine!-

No "hubba-hubba," no "you and Elvis are King." I closed the door and looked at the note she had poured onto the counter and the mess that had been left by last years American Library Association convention.

My enthusiasm said it was vain to come in the water my dear superman. My heart said it knew the victim: My pent-up hostility.

I couldn't crank out a better sentence, they had abandoned me. ¡No one abandons me! ¡I think on paper!

What it read:

          A woman can stare for so long.  Then she has to go to the
	  saloon for a belt.  I'll be back when I see that it's 6:30.
	  Remember, we're a team of two.

		Elaine

¿Did she care that the note was in the bathroom and I was on the telephone? I thought about oral sex, Sally, ponies and the conference in the office.

The voice of Chris was leaning on the telephone:

-¿Come too little, Brad?-

-And not very well.- I contested. -¡Brady wants Hyundais for company cars and the fuckhead wants me to work for him!-

-¿What did he offer you?-

-Seventy billion grand all the livelong year.-

Without the din of the telephone I could easily hear Chris' silly libido.

-This interests a dope like me.- And any other dope in cashmere pajamas.

An accent of satisfaction so translucent I could see Chris' voice.

-¿When are you comin zee here and sittin doonin?- He asked me.

-I don't have the pencil to make it.- I told him leaning on meaning.

-You're loopy.- He contested, meaning to be incredulous. -No one in his sane juices would want charity this often.-

-Better to be that than to reserve a space at the Cornell Clinic because that's what it is.-

-But, Brad.- He contested. -See, this is precisely the tip of negotiations. So start singing. If you can accept this and if you can hold a note I can register in your name and in a year from now we can be partners spitting watermelon seeds.-

I could advertise in his voice a certain timbre that until now no one had laid hands on: An echo of ambition, a calculated desire to be Sir Chris Tyndall. No meager ado, the talk was dazed and in an instant we were being converted to Professionalism.

-Hey dickhead, that's a lot of cargo.- I told him, meaning severity. -And I'll sign the sign today and every day because I is the chief. The only corn that interests me is that the Corporation of the Zero seems to be my client.-

-If you ejaculate Mr. Brady- ¡Oh my goodness! ¡He's transformed his voice into that rare species of lament! -you can spread the disease of your collaboration within the industry or you can lose a client.-

-This is my preoccupation.- I said, waxing laconic.

-Very well, Brad, if it is as is, how queer.-

-It is as is, as it is. ¿What's queer about it?- I responded.

The hub of silence embarrassed us during a brief instant and continued until it produced the question:

-Win or draw: ¿Is tan ochre?-

-No, tomorrow.- I contested, meaning to be a prick. -I have other ruin I'm into. Brady is tan and ochre.-

-¿Why don't you talk to Marge and say, "Lord, I give up"?-

-I'll talk to her.- I told him. -I'll talk until tomorrow.-

-I glued matches to candles.- He said, but this time his voice lacked enthusiasm.

I dialed and pleaded the number from the telephone in my house, all the while preparing my self a whisky. I had been feeling good: I was becoming an advocate of arming babies. I think my mind was a tad preoccupied.

And then it was as if I had heard her voice:

-¡Hello, baby!- That was me.

-¡Brad!- Marge's voice was a grade above mine. I knew this dame had been part of my quest to arm every eligible baby. -¡Let's party until we fall asleep!-

I had only spoken two words and she had already divined that I was detoxicated.

-That's too bad.- I told her. -This Brady is durable, if peculiar.-

-¿Are you visiting his office all day?- She asked me.

My leg was red like the planet where a yes is a no. For the meantime I didn't know what she had said.

-Yes.- I said blindly. -He offered me escargot and seventy billion grand all year round.-

-No pair of aces, but very satisfying.- She contested me.

-I'm not a toy.- I replied. -He can go chase other men. I don't like this guy.-

This showed my remorse for what it was, all fair and sincere and as sure as pasta.

-¿You know what it takes to buy a house?- She said without tying her tubes (all gone).

-A sea of lucre expanding ripe as a pear. A lake of labor or a sky-train ride on the Consolidated Corporation of the Zero.- I told her.

-I'm not important. There are other causes to run salt into.- She contested.

-Before this night is over I'll be more sober than algae.- I told her. -I'm going to eat at his house.-

-¿Do you have gas? It's terribly echo.-

Her confidence in me and me producing a certain distance.

About my other life, the conversation:

-¿How is Jeanie?-

-She's been eating.- Marge said. -These days she sleeps in the glove compartment. I is a meaning. I meaning that although I'm sober a sore point is our anniversary.- I ignored that. It was so low that I called the store manager.

-¿There's no other cause for your brazenness?- I asked. -If you're ever in L.A....- The contest ended.

Marge had been on this side of par in a sentence so big and hard that the river she was was leaking onto my back all gooey and slippery, the foot bridge being out.

-¿Do you know your iambics are aleatoric, Brad?- Marge asked.

-He must know. I counted this morning and he had accosted the refrigerator twice.- Jeanie was preoccupied.-

-¡You pure male!- Marge told me. -¡You've been thinking too much!-

-¿But, if I was in the car isn't it sane to decide that asphalt is bad? I know how he is.- Jeanie again.

-This means you're no iller than I. ¿If you were going on toothpaste why didn't you take a vacation?-

-But...- Jeanie tried.

-Don't pass nothing bad, Jeanie.- Marge contested. -You aren't preoccupied, you're tomorrow.-

-Very well, Marge.- I said. -I'll come home pronto. Your echo will always be in my ears.-

-And my tits on your knees.- She told me. -Goodbye.-

Cold goo on the telephone. I wanted more whisky and helium. My eyes carried dollars to the divan. It was disgusting. All gooey inside and me occurring outside. That and I didn't want to be analyzed. My subconscious untreated was also unarmed. It could be that Matt Brady was studying egalitarianism. I quizzed my self and found no great difference between my self and other men and especially between my self and avocados. I was naturally perverse but the treble on my amorous fidelity had been turned completely off. Or it could have been that I had run too quickly through life and was still late. I don't know. ¡Elaine! Her name was white wine to my meat. Everything in her was chaste and pure and gonzo: Her wrists, her eyes, her elegant and expensive figure which, until she became a model, was as voluptuous as the Andes. Baby, another sock full of whisky and stop my eyes from straying into the olive...

I began to snore.

I imagined that Elaine and I were flying underwater and living nine lives in Sutton Plaza. I remembered that to get off I had only to think of her lying nude in our pissoir on Third Avenue.

¡No one gets the better of me! Elaine plotted lines in red and blue and wine. ¡The underst and ing involved! She had tasted sin and discerned nothing. When she was on fire I naturally recognized this and became HOT. But as soon as I had reached my height the dame said No thank you. Her voice was similar in cadence to a city armadillo. «Merci», I told my self.

I thought of the past: I had returned to the end of our house so I would have been on the escalator about to ask my mother what it was, that wobbly word:

-I want to say «thank you» in France.- I had told my mother.

I sent a man like my self: Sober, manly and desperate. Elaine was looking so right. Her face was in my hands and her kiss was on my back. Her back was against my zeal and her tongue was in my ear. A moment later she said these words:

-¡Eh! ¡What is this!-

-For Love.- I contested.

She saw me rising and kissed my cock. ¡This world is so portable! Just when I was desperate and returning to earth I gave off one hell of a radiation and yelled from the halls of Montezuma to the shores of her labia.

-¡Merci!- I said.

To chapter, Capital 14

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