It was a hazy unveiling: I was one loaded person and nothing shy of a leper could have pressed my attention. I transformed my self into a sow bug about to be ruined. The candles smelled and were pretty and everything but the world blew great gusts of rumors.

Everything else was vague.

After that it was 3 days of constantly noting what day it was by reading the country's most important newspapers. I noticed that photographs of Elaine and I appeared in every one. I was impressed that they had taken the space to publish my good side. According to the tabloids, I spent ¼ of the day in the major teem of romance and the other 6 hours noticing how posing for photographs was sensationally lucrative. My faults became smaller and appeared on tv programs in the form of «situation comedies».

I couldn't see lunch as anything but luxury. All the restaurants remembered my name and when I was at my silliest they would pass the gefilte fish, returning my head to the matter at hand. The best headline was ¡SUCK MY BEDPAN OF LOVE! The public hated my comments but wanted and admired my gestures as the one constant in a tedious din of "No sir, try the rear."

But Elaine had tenor, temple and valor. She always kept her head as her guide and her rear end as her Nostradamus. If I had heard it once I had heard it a hundred times: "¡Don't be dabbing at my I.U.D.!" Nothing could've hurt me more (well, maybe a saber in the gizzard). What's more, I had tried to be nothing more than a GRADE A restaurant.

I wanted to explain to Marge that what she had seen in the papers was easily explained but after our last altercation there was no way I could kiss her and there was no way I could charm her. That miserable Jeanie was now a pain in the rib. She had taken up with a Parisian named Omar who constantly chimed, "¡YO! ¡Bum rush the ville!"

And my father thought that history was the reason he drove a cab.

The tabloids didn't have the timidity to corroborate their stories. What they did have was our idle likenesses in every corner. They made sin seem like a bargain to be bargained with.

Every day the press would call in the morning and ask:

-¿Is there a Hal Jalikakik in the place?-

And every morning I'd lay out the same:

-¡No!-

But the coleslaw--which had been out all morning talking with Elaine on the phone--asked about Aunt Nora's sexual habits.

-¿Who is this woman?- The coleslaw asked.

-Uncle Matt's wife.- Elaine replied.

-¿Why are you talking to the coleslaw?- I asked. -No one listens to a word it says.-

-Well, it's not like it's strange.- She explicated. -Aunt Nora is an invalid. She's 40 years old and she still wants to be silly and just because I don't know why I'm talking to coleslaw doesn't mean that I'm lying.-

-¿Do they fuck?- I asked. -¿And what passes as fucking for her?-

-Her penis and her car keys were lost in a car accident and so a year later they got married.- She contested. -Uncle Matt bought her a new car, a Stutz, and a sex change. She sallies around spending money, but she's really a prisoner to that car. There isn't a day that she doesn't think about adjusting its valves.-

-That's good and sharp but all the sentiment was missing.- I told her. -¿Does she use a dildo? ¿Is she desperately antsy? ¿Does she believe that all the blood vessels in her heart have been aired out?-

-¡Brad, you ruin reason!- She said in a tone darn near reproach.

-And you smell, something awful. -

-And Aunt Nora is a ninny, and she's only 100 years old.-

¿Could it be that this was conversation?

-¿What is it that looks you right in the ear?-

-I thought that serious conversation was like a fur-lined waistcoat to you.- Elaine contested. -More or less for everyone when there's nothing to think about except lying around with their pants off.-

-¿Have your Uncle Matt's tennis shoes ever gone in for an eye examination?- I prayed to her gun.

-Nora says they're sick a lot and when they do notice the hour it's a day too late. But I have my vision and my faculties and today is today. That's why they pay me the big money upstairs.-

-Very well.- I told Elaine. -I'm not buying and you're not coughing up anything other than your phlegm recipe for salsa.-

Elaine's tits were beautiful:

-¿Brad, are you so sure that you're not going to burn in heck? I don't see how you can be in favor of racism.-

-I am a little bit of a loser.- I contested. -You know I'm a dick and you know I treat every action as tantamount to temerity. Look, I intended to hold you hostage but I swear that I didn't intend to tie you up and tickle you.-

-Very impressive, Brad.- She contested. -Now name Aunt Nora and list her desires.-

-Number 10: She is unable to come during lunch.- I leered and cackled.

-¡You loser!- She said. -¿Don't you have even a bite of heart?-

-¿Who's biting?- I laid into her, round as a telephone pole.

Her voice tore into me with affectation:

-I don't dig you anymore, Brad. We had an argue meant to keep everything quiet. ¿Savvy? ¡I'll KILL you, you dog-food-lover!-

-Everyone who looks sees what a comedian you are.- I wanted to fuck her right there on the refrigerator. -When I was your boy-toy you didn't interest me, nuh-uh. Give me cash, bonds and Matt Brady.-

-¿I didn't interest you, Brad?- Her voice carried through her nose and then turned inquisitive. -¿And your family?-

That stopped my eyes and, dude, also my momentum:

-¿No balls, Brad?- She continued, meaning "Repeat after me."

-¿Don't you want me to sit on your face?-

The telephone came off in my hand and that meant cold goo desperation.

Elaine didn't have to spare the rod to spoil my reputation. Que sera sera, whatever will be will be manipulated by the media.

The telephone was sounding and moving all over the place:

-¡Mr. Robert M. Levi is seeing green!- Mickey said, holding up a metallic dildo.

Call me a horndog but my olive branch was extended. My berries were waiting to be picked and eaten. Wake me when her pubic hair is on my palate, bore me with the results of the eighth race or slip a carrot up my ass and call me late for tea.

-¿Has the past passed us by?- I contested, vaulting up and onto Elaine's lap.

If no man was an island, I was a nun with a side order of chowder. I still couldn't reconcile the "o" in boy with the "V" in Wappinger Falls. But, leave it to me: grease on my new white shirt and teeth marks on my butt.

-I have what you have: a clear path to madness.- She said.

-But all my work goes for all my venetian blinds. I bought them al fresco because that way they'll lose their elasticity.-

-¿What the gastrointestinal are you talking about?-

¡Late again!

Her face went limp, as if she had gotten to the last page of a novel to find it had been torn out. I had upped the ante. I extracted a cigarette and incinerated it.

-Of all the prudes, I had to pick a hairy prude.- Elaine said.

The boy in me gestured. It was elegant and desperate, but mostly it was The Captain and Tennille mania. I was a good and decent person who always agreed with everything I thought. I wasn't so much tender as I was quiet. I was more minimal in mood than I was Haile Selassie in humor. Now my space was the city. I offered it my manhood and said:

-Take this all of you and eat me.-

The sun rose and I stretched my arms and laid an egg with a provincial accent that no one could stand:

-¡Carcinogenman! ¡You act much like Cha-Cha Man!-

Elaine's hands were firm and solid and, at this moment, stretched like a vine over my John Thomas. Her expression was grim.

-¿¡Where the cold goo is my hat?!- She asked concentrating her penknife on my manhood.

I was zooming down the office corridor when Mickey said through the p.a.:

-¿Yes, chief?-

-¿Are you listless?- And prayed to goo that she'd give me her cunt.

-Today I'm a queen.- She contested.

This kind of shit segued into Bob as I sallied down the corridor. I detoured in front of Chris Tyndall's old office and pretended that Bob was making me jerk him off there. I laid down across his body and shut the door.

I laid there a moment and then let go of the fantasy until I could see it again, but this time there were certain difficulties.

-¡But if my name is Bob then I can ejaculate on this door!-

I nodded and laid down the law:

-This--tee hee--was the first day that you were of any use.-

-¿How am I supposed to hang you out to dry?-

-You're about as much man as is possible, but I'm afraid I'll have to throw part of you back. I'd prefer to ensnare you than to see you get on the good foot.-

Bob arched his burly back and said:

-¿Do we think that a tan is bad?-

I opened the door from sea to shining sea and asked the dullard to come in:

-¡You bastard!- I contested as he entered MY space using MY legs.

And HIS asshole:

-Hilda is about as random as a banjo...and I forget the rest.- And he did. -She always tried to be my friend, tried to get me to scribble a personal reference to Brady and his Consolidated Corporation of the Zero.-

-Being- I said. -an envious boy, I'm always looking to get my ya-ya's out.-

A gust of deception sent Levi back to his room. He looked his 50 years and a day:

-You come into my garage so that you can envy me and then you start haggling about how far your car can go...and then you start hollering about how far your car can go...and I forget why this is so odious.- (¡I couldn't argue!) -Elaine was a tender tampon, the kind you just want to submit to and see how deep you could go. ¡And now- And meanwhile, I was about to kick his ass out the door. -you dare to take this opportunity by the costume and sit on it! After lunch we'll have a reunion and all get miserable. And later we can also do our Barrymore impressions while we bet on who's gone into debt the quickest.-

Bob sure could sling the cilantro. He sat down and told me:

-Thank you, Brad. Even when my hormones are raging I don't think that my laser is ready to fire.-

-Your presence alone would make me one young stud.- ¡Boy, could I lick scrotum!

Proving that not everyone is desperate, embarrassed and naive. Some are quiet, staid and humble.

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