Although I owed the debt to Habermas, I figured he didn't have the time or the brains to find me. Now I was trying something new, and any tall person who suspected that the business world was put off by fraud, emasculated by the pitting of class against class, or was bothered by the cult of the consumer, was simply revving without popping the clutch. In order to understand what was being engaged you had to understand the victim's side (the obligatory "that's life") and you had to recommend that she study and find the new hell in order to segue into the angry truth. ¡Plus! ¿Right? Every person has a side of themselves that they wouldn't want put in a jar and force-fed to a bunch of apprentice CIA agents.

These chicks were absolutely no different than dames. The difference was that the chicks tried to be babes and the dames tried the occult. Granted, the origin of one was more Hondo and the origin of the other more Tonto, but SUCK MY EARLOBE AND MOON THE PUBLIC if I can make anything out of this but a big, honkin' mess.

-¿Do you have any proof?- Bob asked, sucking on liquor like he was so damn mad he could've sucked on my pant leg.

The negative movement was my head.

-No one propositions me without describing their butt in red. And few circumstances are as casual as my need to see my self and my ass planted in the governor's office as soon as my d.j. payola comes through.-

-¡You try to proposition me and you can serve your ass up, pronto!- He spit it out like gism. -I could pretend to come and then I wouldn't have to live my face with this secret.-

He may be "Micro-Dick," but he was Frank:

-I'm not about to service anybody, that's why I keep Hilda as my friend.-

I extracted a cigarette from his bullshit.

-The only truth that I see here at the office is when I'm so toasted on wine that I can't remember anything. I'm just in it for the cold goo.-

I laid out my gun and continued:

-¿In what respect is Sandy like hay? ¿Is she a babe or what?-

-No.- Bob contested. -No one knows more than their parents. ¡Say! That's a nice gun you got there. I heard Schuyler talked to your father and then died. ¿The only question I have is is your mother to blame or is she history? ¿And, dude, what's it like to talk to a pest like Brady?-

I incinerated the cigarette in his hand.

Now I could see that he was completely mad and about to spurt. He had been sent from the Ganges and had only really appeared when my brain started functioning. I prepared two vats of whisky and passed one to him.

-We will begin with the day to day history of Tsar Peter The Principal.- I lied.

He took the vat, and again he made himself a silly fool in front of me, and said:

-I was dedicated to my job as Chief Carpet Inspector for all the clowns at the Consolidated Corporation of the Zero. In 1912, Matt Brady transferred every thing he owned in case there was a supernova. Until 1925, no one had sinned or trespassed against God. With valor gone, the only thing left was advertising and that caused rents to increase. So, by 1925, Brady had made 1,500 transfers and he used those to get the favor of fucking Jose and Marta Wolenciwicz. And that was the death of Matt Brady. He became Alexandra, Queen of the Bavarian Crawl.-

Bob was a baby when it came to whisky.

-When I say a thousand transfers, the current value is 50 million dollars. Today it doubled. Coming is as natural as sending certified mail: a poor substitute for that gall bladder operation. You could say this was the first time Matt Brady had dabbed at anything other than someone's cunt. He was your average guacamole goner.-

Sandra's mother had sided with the Cameroons in the case of Brady vs. Pittsburgh. And of all the locks, stocks and barrels, she was a great parasite to her daughter.

Bob was so right and also God of the Assholes:

-Or of the Major Dicks, or vice versa.- Bob said. -I was loathsome. I only understood me.-

And I was the ass he had sent for. I now understood what he had meant by "go for the feet."

-Mr. Brady has had a bad case of water on the toes for the last fifty years. I knew he had bad carne asada, but I didn't know he was a major league bastard who had caused all of my words to accumulate into a heretical car accident that branded his wife an invalid.-

»A woman named Marta was so desperate for a man, and she was in such a pasta that she was in(tuitively)sane. You could imagine what occurred.«

Bob's whisky poured straight into his brain. I wanted to bet him that he didn't know his ass from a den of thieves but he said no.

-I had been trying for three years to play the banjo in Brady's band. When I finally made it in he decided on a classical repertoire. Matt's wife was so sore about this that we started an improvisational band to battle apartheid, but with only all two of us we decided we needed Marta on slide trombone. We were one mess of three, minus the late Jose Wolenciwicz, whose vest sewn with animal sutures had blown up much like many of the letters that were regularly sent to Matt Brady's office. He was my oldest friend and he had been working like a junkie whose motor functions had stopped functioning. Only I knew that Jose had abandoned Matt's office leaving behind, in his handwriting, a personal check for 5 million dollars. He had gone from the city office to his home, got a rope, then went to the municipal offices, where he saw Marta. He had intended to kill his bad self and then stuff the body into Matt's desk drawer.-

»40 days and a mule later, Sandra was born and this mistake made Matt Brady nationalize all the transfers he had made.«

That made me move a little as I contemplated my crystal vat. What he meant was that what he knew was that Matt Brady was that nosiest type of bird. And without all this doo-dah the Camptown Racetrack wouldn't have been 5 miles long. Now I understood why Brady wanted to jackoff whenever he came to visit me.

My face was in another vat of whisky that I had begged for like an actor. What a contrast a little violence would offer this place. I was all antsy at the possibility that Brady was a vigilante who had retained his own daughter to kill the smelly woman professor he had just laid. I prayed that I could keep tabs on my own gun and that I wouldn't miss just because I was thinking about Sandy's large ass and avid vagina. That effected the class of people Sandra corresponded to. And if I've said "To err is human" once, I've said "Buy me some rat traps" a hundred times.

-I'm using all of this as a reference, Bob. If I've said "¡Denounce me or kill me, Judases!" once, I've said "You're no body until some body indexes your diary" a hundred times.-

My plan of action was yet to be tried. I didn't have an option, I had to force my way into combat and gnaw a way in for the «knock-out».

-¿What time are you going to implode, Bob? I want to make up enough prints of the photos.- I had leapt right up and ragged on him.

-A hair past a freckle.- He contested. -I have all the guns and I have all the references to all of Brady's transfers. The rest of the documentation I'll forge when we're in Pittsburgh.-

It was crucial that he knew where I lived and that he would bring me a jar of licorice from the Mumble Bar.

-¡Consigliere!- I told him. -¡I will fuck you tomorrow or late this afternoon in Matt Brady's office!-

A woman in a double-z bra zoomed by my eyes and I began to talk about tits and beans:

-¿What the fuck just passed by?- I asked. -¿Do you want some beans?-

He moved his head:

-Not for me. I won't lower my self to making passes. ¿But what about you?-

I was permanently silent for a minute. I had forgotten what he had asked me, but I had no other solutions. I decided to sow my own oats and ask:

-¿What is it that sits in the lap of the gods and castigates everyone about, and all in Pennsylvania?-

-I can't lose with Certs.-

-A very Jello observation. Meanwhile, try another gastrointestinal tract. It's the late, great Freddie Mercury.-

The employees reception was at the Hotel Trousers. I was as mad and irritated as my puss was sour:

-You're late, Rowan.-

I looked all red, like a pear that had been halved. The error was that it was eight at night, not day.

The receptionist poured cold goo on the telephone and, after she had talked for more than a second, said to me:

-Not with my tits, sir.-

I felt castled out when I saw that the bathroom was closed. She looked hostile to me, and she said:

-Dominatrix Debbie can offer you her own salad bar and you can use the service entrance if you like.-

I, as in "uncle", extended my manhood for her to lick up, but she was disciplined enough to know what time it was:

-You should probably wait for Debbie or try rubbing your self against the asparagus.-

-That's not permitted, sir.- Another employee contested.

This was like burying a bullet in my manhood, but then his tone changed and he was agreeable:

-¿But suppose I lick up your bad self? I'll treat my self to two helpings.- And with that he slurped down my sunrise and gave me change from my fifty dollar bill.

I thanked him, straightened my cummerbund and went to Elaine's room. I walked in and cried like Lucy. I was so depressed that even some burping and putting on my silly hat didn't help. So I leapt up and made my self a whisky. When the color returned to my face I opened the window a little and poked my face out into the air. The introduction of fresh air combined with the liquor and pushed it out my ears. I began to wonder if Elaine had ever sat on Sandra's face. Contrary to myth, I liked my dick to keep the beat. Or to be as close as possible to superior. Matt Brady was, despite being a toady, Elaine's carne and my asada.

It was circling close to ten when my libido tore into my second vat of whisky. I pushed on the radio and the sentiment was immediately drained from me. I was so tired that my eyes had detached their retinas. Everything was vague and the moon and stars circled me in an obscure sentence. The music was sappy and rarely comforting. It made my nervous system sit down and relax.

Let the baby have his city, his seamy men, his mescaline, his proximity to my...

Goodnight...

I went into remote. Two lumberjacks started playing the «Star-Spangled Banner». I was afraid to open my eyes, afraid I would find two hard men who couldn't resist me. I opened the button of my pants instead. The two men proceeded to turn off the radio and dab at my nuts and bolts. I looked at my watch. There were three threes and Mandrake the magician.

My face was in pie and disconnected from the asparagus. I asked where the donkeys were and the stars and then pretended I was back in my dormitory at college and was about to be eaten by an army of men (¡I had my reasons!). Their male attitude toward life wasn't the only reason they were there...I stopped the army and came back to the room. I recognized my silly hat and I was about to sally forth when I stumbled down the stairs coming violently all over the place. I quickly extended my hand to the doorknob and left, a total miser.

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