It was a decent home, what with the white trees and the elegant diatribes I thought existed only in Washington. The light in the hall was pagan, kind of like the obligatory domes in Vienna that light up like phosphorous on a firefly.

«Schuyler».

I was tired of the name but fond of the edifice. Her shoulders, her back, her ass, her cunt all resonated in my sinuses. It was like I knew that this was a page and that I would soon be turning it into obscurity.

I tried scurrying around a minute and I tried repeating the words "Hit me with your stick you big Mexican you," but nothing I did would rectify the past: The house was a tiny blah.

I went through the hall and sat on the UP escalator. I was locked in the house with the truth of my situation: When Elaine had run nude through here or when Mickey had come all over my hard dick I felt motivated because I truly believed I was in heaven. And now I was sitting on the escalator MARCHing up until the end of the sentence.

I incinerated a cigarette and passed the time fuming. You could say I was an avocado road with tamales and insufficient bail. You could also say that I had a gun or that boys will be boys. I knew it and I also knew that I didn't own anything I needed outside of my Ella Fitzgerald records, my hamsters and my Habitrail.

The cigarette knew that I also enjoyed most anyone's labia and that I never tired, never got desperate and never asked for chocolate when I could get cement.

The night said, "¿Hey there, pretty baby, do fries go with that shake or did you bring a parachute?" It was a good thing too, because I couldn't stand another cold cut saying, "¡Insist and you will get laid!"

I sat in the Pittsburgh airport feeling miserable. I tried to call home but couldn't. Then I realized I had to look at the numbers as I dialed and I had to stay in the airport because I had gotten a plane ticket to Buffalo instead of a plane ticket to Washington.

When I called again, Marge had her mojo rising, which made her voice as low as possible:

-¡Baby!- I said. -Brady gave me everything, but first I have to spend the night with the president of the institute.-

-¿Can't you come all over me first?- She asked. -I have presents I meant to give you before you left. I've got a funnel and some whipped cream so that we could fuck all week.-

I tried to imagine what the whipped cream was for and then I stopped because I was obviously suffering from sensual deprivation.

-¿Do we have to hang from the ceiling?- I protested, remembering that sodomy was a felony. -You know I'll fuck you at every opportunity: at the office, on the fairway, but I can't right now because I think I'm 19, svelte and built like a brick caboose.-

I had the conviction that Marge didn't know about. I could hear the poor dear's breathing travel through the phone and into my tape recorder:

-Very well, Brad, sit on it and...-

-It's all for you that I have- Now I interrupted my own sentence. -other women's tentacles all over me. You know that.-

Her voice was at my tenor:

-Nothing from nothing leaves cold goo, Brad.- She said.

The plane flew to Washington like a cab, only faster. I was so bitchin I legged it over to the capital a little after nine. It was certainly ten when I lay outside the door to her house for the first time.

The rude car motor noise segue:

The bad taste poured out of my mouth and into her garage. I really missed hearing her tell me to lick her asshole as she climbed the walls in ecstasy. I knew that the silence meant she was dead but I interrupted it when I pissed on the cement walkway that connected her to her house. My face automatically in pie, I listened amiably to the splatter. My penis began to tremble and she appeared from the sky like a vulture going down on carrion. ¡But she wasn't alive! The moon moved over so it could see her mouth masticating over my tan belly and then down to take out my penis.

There went my heart:

-¡Elaine!- ¡Whoa! ¡Surreal!

She didn't move. It was like she had forgotten my name.

-Umm...¡Brad!- She exclaimed all numb, randy and repentant. She was jubilant one second and vain the next. She looked at me, her voice now rigid and in different places: -¿Why are you here? We both know I'm dead.-

-I had to see you.- I said. -I couldn't give up the belief that you weren't dead, that you were just...well, you know...ill-mannered.-

Elaine knew that I was a man who liked to count his pies before they were pressed into his face.

-¿You're not content to just make it with me?- She exclaimed, now ambulatory: -¿Or have me converted into a woman who can come on demand? ¿Can't you just de-jar your self some tranquilizers?-

-A cool chick is nothing compared to me.- I said. -Besides, you're as dead as my dome light, thank you very much.-

Elaine wasn't limited to looking at me with her eyes, she could also look through her crystal sombrero and understand every wrinkle of my rayon life. But first her heart had to believe that she was alive.

I extended my manhood to her butt, but Elaine had seen the face of God.

-A dime says you want me.- I said, mad as a March hare.

-¡Eat me!- She said more with her voice than, say, her dulling eyelids. -¡Hit me with your logarithms!-

-I can't.- I said. -You're everything to me. I can't abandon art even this much and I sure can't dig up your grave every time I want you.-

She suddenly looked sullen and in a low voice said:

-Never take IOU for an answer.-

-You have only one day to tell me you want me. Look me in the eyes and confess to me your love. You once said, "¡No one a-bandons me! ¡I'm tan and in love!" Look me in the FIVE & DIME and tease me. A dime says you want me. Another dime says you can be refrigerated and brought back to my brothel of love. Then you would believe in our love.-

Little by little, as sure as bus transfers, I became disoriented. Now I knew why her labia was trembling.

-I...I...-

I couldn't find a segue into talking. I extended my brazenness to her again but Elaine refused to do what no bus could do: take out my solar plexus and shake, rattle and roll.

My penis couldn't understand what she wanted from me:

-At that moment...in the office...I was a little girl...and I was your wife...you got over on me...I started to quiver...and then I sneezed...-

The fear in that memory ran through me like her bra size. It very nearly did me in. Her head was in Caracas and so was her labia when I tried to console her. The sentiment was coming from my memory of doing logarithms while watching "Rodan Must Die."

-Please, Elaine, no more logarithms.- I slipped.

Her labia now knew that I wasn't true, but still it was afraid to contradict me.

-¡Brad! ¡Brad! ¡Let's play Lone Ranger and Tonto!- She said, prodding my back until I kissed her salad bar. -Don't let those naughty Indians take me from you. ¡No one a-bandons me!-

-Okay, okay, my love.- I contested with the heart of a game hen and the emotion of Cyrano de Bergerac: -You can abandon my pajamas.-

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