This is a work of fiction. Similarities to real people, places, or

events are entirely coincidental.

SMOKING IN BED

First edition. April 12, 2018

To Kiki, for believing in and loving me and working hard to give me the opportunity to write, and for putting up with a very moody author.

To my children, Raphaela and Xander, for inspiring me to keep the faith and reminding me to never give up, and for their love.

To my parents, Abe and Elaine, for their decades of love, support and understanding, and for making me possible.

Contents

CHAPTER ONE: STUCK IN THE MIDDLE

CHAPTER TWO: THE OAF

CHAPTER THREE: DREAM A LITTLE DREAM

CHAPTER FOUR: TATTOO U.

CHAPTER FIVE: TAPPIN’ ZEE

CHAPTER SIX: I AIN’T GOT NO BODY

CHAPTER SEVEN: THE OAF, REVISITED

CHAPTER EIGHT: DOCTOR WHO?

CHAPTER NINE: LEAVING EDEN

CHAPTER TEN: T.A.S.C. FORCE

CHAPTER ELEVEN: MURPHY’S LAW

CHAPTER TWELVE: THE FASTER WE GO THE ROUNDER WE GET

CHAPTER THIRTEEN: DICK AND BUSH AT YOUR SERVICE

CHAPTER FOURTEEN: TWO HUNDRED THOUSAND DOLLARS

CHAPTER FIFTEEN:  OEDIPUS, SHMOEDIPUS

CHAPTER SIXTEEN:  STRIKE BACK AT “THE MAN”

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN: CAWFEE TAWK

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN: A GREAT SUCKING SOUND

CHAPTER NINETEEN: SOMETHING HAPPENING HERE

CHAPTER TWENTY: IT FEELS LIKE THE WORST TIME

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE: HEY, JOE

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO: IN THE DARK

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE: FADE AWAY…NOT

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR: BURY ME NOT ON THE LONE PLAZA

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE: IMAGINE ME AND YOU

“Life is suffering.”

– Common (mis)perception of the Buddha’s teachings

“We must always remember that love is none other than understanding.”

– Thich Naht Hanh

“What’s so funny ‘bout peace, love and understanding?”

– Nick Lowe via Elvis Costello

The following happened, or more precisely did not happen, some years ago, on the island of Manhattan, New York.   The people you think you may know are not them.

CHAPTER ONE: STUCK IN THE MIDDLE

Phil was living someone else’s life.  Certainly, this couldn’t be what was meant for him. Not that his life was awful or anything.  Just a bit aggravating.  But not all the time.  There were great moments, in fact.  Like getting engaged.  To a woman who liked to have sex, often. That was good, right?  After all, didn’t most of his friends in a “couple” situation complain about how boring and stagnant their sex lives had become?  At least he didn’t have that problem.  But was it love? It felt like love.  Of course, he didn’t have much to go on.  Had he ever been in love before, really?  Phil tried to remember.  He was never a Lothario, a real “ladies’ man;” there weren’t so many women in his life that he had forgotten any of their names.  Still, he couldn’t be absolutely certain that he had ever been in love.  Truly, deeply in love.  How would you know?  How does anyone know?  Even if you love your parents or siblings, that can’t be the same as falling in love.  Some people talk about a feeling in the gut.  To him, it sounded vaguely like nausea.  An almost unpleasant feeling.  This was love?  He never had that type of pit-of-the-stomach feeling, except that morning after cousin Andy’s bachelor party in Jersey, drinking all night and then consuming the Grand Slam breakfast at Denny’s at 4 a.m.  Now that was a slam in the gut feeling, and not at all grand.

Phil suffered the common malady of too much thinking. Ruminating, they called it. He had always wanted to do something creative. He tried music, painting, writing, even a dance class. The resulting groin pull from the free tango lesson with his betrothed almost cost him a season with his co-ed softball team, the Brooklyn Aliens. He was the starting left fielder, batting third, perennial champions of their four-team kegger league.

As his groin healed, Phil retreated to cerebral rather than physical creativity.  His friend Burt, a Henry Miller enthusiast, insisted that Phil read “Tropic of Cancer.” On a lark, Phil tried to parody Miller by writing “sexual memoirs” of his love relationships, from the very beginning. He scratched the title of this exercise in bold, block letters on the front cover of the black and white speckled composition notebook: “My Life: A Sexual History,” surely a cleverly ironic title for his rather unspectacular record as a lover.  He began, as all men must, at the beginning.

“The first girl I made love to was Katie.  Katie Miller.  Or was it Mueller? Okay, maybe it wasn’t love exactly. ‘Twas hormone-fueled teenage lust that led us to the slightly moldy couch in her parents’ basement.  God, was she cute and, like, sixteen.  Imagine, sixteen!  So innocent and pure.  Neither of us knew what the hell we were doing, but nature took over, and I swear, that may still be the greatest sexual experience of my life, all 49 seconds of it. To this day, I am often aroused by the whiff of mold.”

Okay, so these memoirs were unlikely to be published except maybe by Larry Flynt and only if one had an in with Flynt.  Still, this was a good exercise.  It got thoughts moving, creative juices flowing.  Well, maybe not flowing, but at least trickling, about some very nice moments, with some great women, through college and beyond.  Like what’s her name, Nancy?  She knew more at 19 than any woman had the right to know, and she was a good teacher.  More like a private tutor, actually.  A tutor of love.

Yet, despite several seemingly satisfying experiences, he was aware of this persistent mental undertow, a belief that he was selling himself short by dating girls a little below his level.  Not Nancy, she was fantastic, but she was only fucking him until she met someone she was into on a deeper level, but the other women.  Phil feared rejection and subconsciously was unable to hit on women he was most attracted to.  Once in a while, though, they would find him, these special women, and torture the hell out of him.  Usually, he didn’t know quite what to do with this. The mere fact that a beautiful, intelligent woman with a sense of humor and a personality wanted to be with him was proof that there was something not quite right with her.  To paraphrase Groucho Marx, he wouldn’t want to join a club that would have him as a member.  But really, he was afraid.  Fearing the strength of his feelings for a woman of substance, he would not allow himself to get too involved, or to believe that she, too, could love him.  He didn’t think he deserved that.

Some guys just know how to talk to women, say the right things, get the response they want.  They read a woman’s body language, eyes, subtle signals they send out. The other guys just don’t get it.  They’re oblivious idiots when it comes to reading women’s minds, which is pretty much a required talent for a man to be in a successful relationship.  Phil was of this latter group, the idiots.  He believed a man should be able to tell if a girl liked him from conversation, physical cues and clues, something tangible, but invariably, if he decided from her signs that she was into him and asked her out for a drink, it turned out she just wanted to be friends.  Pals.  And of course, now that he revealed a desire for something more, they could no longer be friends anyway, because now she knew that he wanted to bang her.  The end.  She would always say she was flattered, or some such thing; they should be good friends.  But after a couple of phone calls or emails, all communications would cease.  Flattered.  When he heard that word, Phil knew it was time to cut and run.

And of course, on the other side of things, when a woman really liked him, and tried to show him in some subtle way (because, for better or worse, women leave clues; it is still, even in the 21st Century, men who do the asking out), he’d miss his cue, and lose an opportunity for a meaningful relationship with a special person he didn’t even bother to get to know because he was an oblivious schmuck sometimes.  The rest of the time, he was sensitive, almost to the point of paralysis, to everyone and everything around him.

Yes, he did okay with women when he was single.  No records were broken, but good fun was had.  Lust sometimes even ripened to caring. Even without vast experience, he managed to leave the ladies happy.  Good at sex?  At least he wasn’t as bad as most men of his generation.  He quickly learned that lots of guys were lousy, lazy lovers, and if he put forth the extra effort, it would be appreciated.  A lot of women came back for second helpings.  A few would even unwittingly refer their friends to him, because girls talk about EVERYTHING with each other.

Phil re-read his first entry aloud, the one about, well, his first entry.  It wasn’t very good.  Or erotic, even.  The mold was a nice touch, but there wasn’t enough detail otherwise.  Of course, the sex wasn’t that great to begin with; they were both virgins.  He thought of the other ones, in college and afterwards, mostly women who started out as friends and then one night, a drink here, a bowl there and next morning, the friendship had a whole new aspect, and she wanted to change his drapes.  Or at least get drapes to replace the blanket that he used as needed to keep out sunlight.

After running these various scenarios through his mind, he admitted that no matter how tortured, rapturous, lusty or naughty his own love life had seemed at the time, his dating history was, by and large, a repetitive and predictable sequence of interchangeable events, culminating in several days or weeks of sometimes brilliant carnal ballet ultimately replaced by complacence, boredom, indifference, and a benign, yet largely unavoidable sense of alienation.  He reasoned, therefore, that the same was true for everyone, and so why was his love life any more worthwhile of being documented for posterity than anyone else’s?

Sure, he could have gotten specific about Katie.  Worked in the details, like how the woven pattern of the couch left Triscuit-like dents in his kneecaps for a couple of hours.  Or how soft everything was, in her 16 year old state that now, years later, seemed so wrong to even think about: smooth skin, full red lips that would be ruined by an application of lipstick, perfect pink tongue that played gently with his own, smell of lavender lotion and Marlboro Lights, soft hair on her almost pristine, mint-condition genitalia.  Genitalia.  Never could a word about something so small make it seem so… important.  Or Italian.  Some kind of dessert or fruity drink, perhaps.

But after all this remembering, he still wasn’t sure he knew what love felt like, if he had ever experienced love.  He had strong feelings for many of the women he had known, but love?  There were no butterflies, except maybe when asking a girl on a date.  No nausea.  No slam-in-the-gut.  Was that necessary?  Really?  Did you have to feel that?  Did everyone feel that?  Did he feel that with Marika, his fiancé?  He loved her, but he couldn’t remember feeling that.  Was it something more?  Was it a feeling that once you met this person, you couldn’t imagine your life without her?  And why wasn’t it possible to think that, believe it, without feeling like you were going to hurl?

All of this brain use made Phil dizzy.  What was the point of writing, in trying to work it out?  It was too threatening, and potentially painful.  Maybe later.  Or maybe never.  Thus was “My Life: A Sexual History” relegated to the limbo status of his other hastily begun and just as quickly abandoned manuscripts.  Did he think himself Henry Miller, or something?  Sure, he wrote stuff down.  Lots of people do.  Problem was, he could never maintain any excitement about the subject matter once he started.  But so what? Worthwhile material would come along.  Besides, there was more to being a writer than writing, wasn’t there? There was the research, the reading of other writers’ product, the drinking of coffee… And as for inspiration, life was, after all, unendingly offering up a smorgasbord of bizarre and random excitements.  Something new and fascinating presented itself every day.

Phil didn’t really believe this, although he consciously tried to.  He regarded himself as a realist, more precisely, a pragmatic, lapsed pessimist on Prozac.  Despite this accurate self-awareness, he had read someplace (precisely where, he couldn’t recall) that life offered such a kaleidoscopic array of people, places, things and goings-on that it could be damn near enjoyable.  Yes, life can be an adventure, and a good one at that, if one doesn’t take all so personally.

At least that was the gist of it, and this was a fine concept, sure, but it also made him look at his life and say, where’s my kaleidoscope?  Where’s my array?  If this was what one could have, didn’t he lack by comparison?  Of course, Phil was missing the entire point of the teachings by seeing the glass half empty.

The actual source of this wisdom was a self-help book his fiancé left lying around the apartment, one that had been on the New York Times nonfiction list for over a year with the unlikely title “The Depth of You,” a trite yet soothing piece of pseudo-Buddhist self-help-in-a-box that, to his credit, he had read and quickly forgotten. The author, Phyllis Stenhouse, Ph.D., explained how to draw love, money and good health into one’s life by vibrating positively with thought.  Of course, she had died at age 67 of cancer, so the efficacy of the program was dubious. Yet something about this one thought rang true, and stayed with him: the idea that, instead of maintaining a generally negative or even neutral outlook, as many people do, one could decide consciously to start the day looking forward to life with genuine, even hopeful anticipation, and relish.  Yes, even mustard, for life deserves a little spice. So maybe he was getting the point after all.  Maybe if you didn’t like your lot in life, you could still find the joy.  Change your life by changing your mind.  By feeling good, even before there was anything to feel good about.  Because really there was a lot to feel good about, which brought things around full circle. All of this circling was probably contributing to Phil’s general sense of uneasiness and nausea.

Phil’s recent engagement to Marika supported his new, albeit artificially self-imposed positive outlook. He didn’t ask her to marry him because of the book, of course, but having love in one’s life, saith “The Depth of You,” somehow had the energetic effect of making one more complete, present and positive.  But being present and positive wasn’t a cinch.  It didn’t sit comfortably on his foundation of self, which consisted of self-doubt and self-sabotage, leading to occasional anxiety and sleeplessness.

A year earlier, when sleeping was hard to come by, Phil’s friend Burt had convinced him to try “medical marijuana.”  Of course, in those days pot was an illegal narcotic, but Burton had a supplier of high level hydroponics in the Five Towns, and so it was high-time to self-medicate, if not by prescription.  Besides, everyone did it and no one got arrested for it, at least not white people, so it was legal in practice if not in fact. He had smoked up before, on occasion, but not as a regimen. And it worked for a while; a nice buzz after work seemed to do the trick.  But then he was tempted to take a little along with him during the day, to use “as needed,” at lunch time, for example.  Judging from the aromas at various parks in midtown, he was not alone. “As needed” came earlier and earlier in the day, and finally Phil had to acknowledge that maybe it wasn’t the best idea, this chronic, daily usage.  He felt a little hazy much of the time, and he had gained 18 pounds from munchies.  So, when his supply ran out and Burt’s botanist friend was out of town on a yogic retreat in India, he just quit.

The sudden absence of cannabis from his nervous system had a profound effect that presented in an unexpected format approximately a week after his last bong hit, a week wherein insomnia almost drove him in desperation to purchase a twenty dollar bud from a Rastafarian down at the park for the first time since massage school.

Massage school probably deserves a footnote. After college, Phil wanted to do something “rewarding,” and make some new friends.  One woman he was dating had said he had good hands when he’d rub her shoulders.  Phil thought maybe he could help people with pain.  Unfortunately, his career as a therapist lasted about as long as his first sexual encounter with Katie Mueller, but he still massaged people from time to time and it was always a great gift in the event he forgot to buy someone a birthday present.  While the idea that with his hands he could help people feel better meant a lot to Phil, and he tried it professionally for a while, he couldn’t get around the sad reality of massaging the morbidly obese, and hairy men who smelled vaguely of McDonald’s.

About a week after he stopped smoking spliffage, Phil spent a particular afternoon at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, exploring the Impressionists, rather than at his desk, exploring the acquisition of new business, as his employer had every right and reason to expect.  At work, he had devised and mastered The Art of Selective Complaint (“TASC”), the central objective of which was to give the impression that his job was very, very hard, when in fact, to him at least, it was quite easy.  He could complete the same amount of work as his colleagues in a quarter of the time, but discovered early on that the only “benefit” afforded by this ability to outwork his coworkers fourfold was the expectation that he undertake four times as much responsibility. At first he encouraged this expectation by actually doing more work, and although there were positive results, namely, vague feelings of satisfaction and pats on the back from his overlords, ultimately it backfired, making his working life more complicated, one might say hellish, adding more work without the reasonably expected corresponding increase in position or salary.

To offset his employer’s penchant for overworking overachieving underlings, Phil began to “selectively complain” to his superiors and co-workers, albeit good-naturedly, to successfully create the illusion that his plate was full, his workload at its zenith, his responsibilities at a saturation point; to wit, he should not be burdened with additional work… Not that he was complaining… Never.  That was the key to TASC – NEVER LET ‘EM KNOW YOU’RE COMPLAINING.  And TASC paid off; his workload slowly diminished, and he was no longer responsible for carrying his entire department.

As a direct result of TASC, Phil often completed work by noon and had more free time during the workday than he knew quite what to do with.  He carefully fostered a myth around the reception staff that he took a lot of work home, and scheduled bogus appointments to get him out of the office, fictional business calls, seminars, stuff like that. But in fact, he was taking in all of the joys of New York City. Hence the afternoon at the Metropolitan, doing what he did best: looking at beautiful things while adeptly slipping under the radar. He stood and stared in the Post-Impressionists gallery at all those crazy, beautiful paintings, musing that, perhaps, this wasn’t a painting style, but rather what the world actually looked like to van Gogh.  That the painter saw a different reality than the rest of us, and to him, these were photographic images.  What if?

That night, his dreams were filled with the out-of-focus brilliance of those van Goghs, flame-like trees and balls of fire in the skies.  Only he was the painter, not van Gogh. This wasn’t a replay of the art he saw that afternoon. These were the original product of his own little brain, neurons firing, untethered from the gentle fuzziness of the cannabis.  Vivid, electric colors morphing into a variety of landscapes played like a little IMAX Theater in the caverns of his mind.  Only instead of Arles, the scenes were from his own life: seascapes, playgrounds, even Disney World.  His van Goghesque Epcot Center was a stroke of genius.  He awoke with tears of joy.

Phil never imagined that quitting the skunky chronic could cause such awe-inspiring visions.  He couldn’t fathom that one might hallucinate from quitting a drug, but that was only because he never had the need or opportunity to kick smack.  A quick internet search would have explained that one had to imbibe THC, or Delta-9-Tetrahydrocannabinol, the hallucinogenic organic chemical in marijuana, for some time in statistically significant quantities, and then quit suddenly and completely, to attain this kind of subconscious visual brilliance in one’s dreams.  And of course, the quality and THC content of the marijuana was an important element.  It didn’t hurt that his supplier, Burt’s oldest buddy from junior high, was a hydroponic hobbyist of unusual skill who grew High Times quality sativa in the back of his two-car garage in North Woodmere from seeds filched from a coffee house in Amsterdam and smuggled back on KLM to JFK in the crack of said friend’s ass.  To his relief, the moisture therein did not foster an early germination, and the plants were a major success.  If the guy grew wheat, he’d end world hunger and win a Nobel Prize.

This psychedelic dreaming carried on nightly for a good while.  He supposed the effect on his brain chemistry would wear off eventually and he’d resume his boring, garden variety dreaming, but evidently there was a lot of life residue stored up in his brain that needed venting. Or maybe it was more like vomiting?  That was what it felt like, only without the retching. It was somewhat cathartic. Dreams continued, sometimes several times nightly, mostly visual, trippy scenarios, with a vividness that astounded.

But then they changed.  What had been a pretty slide show from somewhere in the cerebral cortex became a stream of subconscious narrative, origins unknown. He almost couldn’t believe this stuff was coming out of him, plots and characters, and if he woke up afterward, he would scribble the stories down on a note pad he had taken to keeping on the nightstand.

The subject matter of these dreams became more and more outrageous, nuanced, inexplicable, and occasionally mythological.  Highly detailed, the only thing they had in common was that they never had anything to do with his real life whatsoever, except for the fact that since he dreamed these visions, they were from his own point of view.  He wasn’t always someone named Phil, or like him in any way, but he was undoubtedly the First Person. He would experience the dreams as he would reality, through his own eyes.  One night he was the first mate on a cargo ship, centuries ago, eating hardtack and some leathery flesh that was, he somehow knew, re-hydrated shark bits that had been secreted in his boot.  Another time, he was on a jury for a murder trial, the only juror for acquittal to the others’ chagrin; and then he turned into the defendant.  And then the judge. They were so real, one might have thought them to be previous life experiences, past lives, but Phil, to his credit, didn’t believe in that sort of thing.

Some of the dreams seemed allegorical, but Phil was not one to spend time deciphering allegory, probably because he wasn’t one hundred percent certain he knew what “allegory” meant, and so he left that dark cave unexplored.  But it wasn’t these dreams dripping in symbolism that delighted the dreamer the most, though he found them simultaneously puzzling and entertaining.  No.  The ones he completely got, that needed no deciphering whatsoever, the best dreams of all so far, better even than the van Goghs, were the graphic, serial sex dreams he was now having almost nightly.

When he was a kid, Phil occasionally had sexually-themed dreams, like right after he caught a fleeting glimpse of his mother’s friend Marge’s ample breasts at the pool club when she was young and milfy; fairly run of the milf, if you will, pre-pubescent dreams of Marge sitting naked in a tub of steaming milk, smiling and offering her heavin’ heavenlies out to Phil, who tried to touch them again and again, but they were always just out of reach.  In one dream, Marge was on an escalator right next to Phil’s bed, ascending, her pointy mammaries jutting out invitingly over the railing in Phil’s direction as she held out a glass of water.  To this day, Phil could still remember the frustration he felt as he reached out to feel the heft of Marge’s milky-whites, or at least to get a sip of water, standing on his little bed, half asleep in his Mets pajamas with Keith Hernandez’s number 17 on the back, extending his arms as the escalator carried Marge and her bodacious bosoms further and further away.

As a teen, he never dreamed, like some of his friends did, about girls he had crushes on in school, or about famous female cultural sex icons like Madonna, although he did fantasize about them quite often, and his mom’s copy of Madonna’s “SEX” book, that hadn’t been hidden quite well enough, served for months and months as fantasy fodder during frequent self pleasuring episodes of his early teen years.  His mother never seemed to wonder how certain pages got loosened from the binder.

Since high school, sex dreams weren’t the norm for Phil, but now, he had the greatest one ever.  For a few of weeks, it happened every night.  It wasn’t the same dream, more like a continuation, featuring unfathomable coital gymnastics with a beautiful young woman, who had, as Phil’s dad would have said, “a great body on her.”

Phil thought it was weird that he did not know the woman because he assumed that as a rule people usually dreamed about people they knew.  He could see her face, kind of, but they were always in a dimly-lit room, so he was never confident he could pick her out in a crowd, though he somehow knew for certain she was beautiful and had a fantastic ass.  Yet she seemed to be, fully, a creation of his subconscious, not anyone he had known… or could remember.

It wasn’t just because she was so hot, this girl, it was the museum quality of the sex that got Phil crazy.  It was Olympian.  They were like a god and goddess, the ground shaking as they went at each other like athletic, wild beasts.  Slow, extended, Kundilini-esque fucking with only one thing in mind: the prolongation of pleasure for as long as they could bear, holding onto the edge of orgasm as if it were the lip of a cliff dangling over a monumental canyon, wanting to stay on the edge and look down into the abyss, feeling like falling without actually falling in after one’s gaze.

The positions were inspired and occasionally impossible, the feelings of pleasure so intense, in some ways better than any real sex Phil ever had.  Her feel, her smell, her everything.  All of her was so distinct, so intense, so perfect.

They never came.  He didn’t want to.  Somehow, he just knew that if they ever climaxed, he’d never have the dream again.  Just to calm his anxiety over the possible loss of his subconscious girlfriend from accidental ejaculation, Phil took a survey and learned that none of his friends or colleagues could report having a wet dream after the age of 14, except Mitch, who gave up all sex, including self-pleasuring, for several months and took lengthy ice-cold showers for seven days all for the prospect of enjoying his “first wet one,” as he called it, since freshman year.  So Phil, with absolutely no desire to be celibate, either with women or himself, figured he was safe for the time being, notwithstanding Mitch’s proud declaration of his experiment’s success, bragging that it was worth all the trouble to reach this lofty goal.

1hese dreams were so real that, when he awoke, Phil would instinctively look around to see where the hell she was, this woman.  He’d feel next to him in the bed, and realize he had been thrashing about, moaning in ecstasy.  Had his fiancé not been away for two months, opening a new satellite office in some mid-western “city,” his nocturnal hip thrusting could have proven extremely tricky to explain.

The dream felt so realistic, he practically convinced himself that some perfect woman he never met was breaking into his place in the middle of the night and fucking his brains out in his sleep.  The dream sex was so authentic that he actually experienced guilt, as if he were in fact having an affair, which of course was impossible, as this was a dream.

Why should he feel guilty? Why would anyone? There was no conscious, willful attempt to have these dreams.  One isn’t arrested and jailed for merely thinking about doing something, unless one is, say, Muslim and taking flying lessons.  Adultery requires intent and opportunity.  And he wasn’t thinking about committing adultery (which he couldn’t commit, anyway, being unmarried), he was dreaming!  The subconscious doesn’t think, does it, or intend?  It just displays some random olio of memories and symbols, right?  Even if one were attempting to conjure up images, to consciously fantasize about one’s girlfriend’s best friend, for example, or wishfully call up scenarios of brilliant carnal relations with one’s fiancé’s college-aged cousin, the one blessed with the body of a ballet dancer - an unlikely scenario, to be sure, but certainly worth considering - if one were to create these fantasies on purpose and then commit them to paper and send them to a men’s magazine, say, or read them to dinner guests, that could be perceived by one’s girlfriend or fiancé as threatening or insensitive, but even so, not as egregious as actual infidelity. Creepy? Hell yes. But not cheating. And this wasn’t even conscious, it was a dream!  He hadn’t done it on purpose. It was involuntary! He was not guilty! Not responsible! She didn’t exist… so far as he knew.  The girl was a fiction! Her image a random confluence of synaptic activity somewhere in his frontal lobe, or wherever the mind’s screening room is located.

Despite this, feelings of guilt persisted.  Phil would find himself at work, gazing into space as he played back in his mind the sublime love tryst the night before, the intense sexual sensations, feeling a tad guilty, yet excited, physically and mentally, about the whole affair.  Until he remembered that she didn’t exist.  Then he felt like an idiot for feeling, well, anything.

His fiancé Marika called late one night, waking him from one of these dreams, and Phil almost couldn’t talk to her, such was the realness of his guilt. He had gone to bed early, fell deeply into sleep, and grabbed the phone reflexively instead of letting the call go to voice mail.  She asked if everything was okay; she heard in his voice a certain meaningful hesitation.  He probably should have come clean about the dreams right away, maybe played down the sex a little, make it sound a bit more pedestrian, less threatening, and she would have been fine with it, maybe even found it titillating, but Phil, being a terrible liar, would have sounded guilty, and then he’d have to admit he felt guilty, and if it was a dream, why should he feel guilty?  Marika would never believe him.  She would assume that if he felt guilty, he must have done something. What kind of meathead would feel guilty about a dream?  And why wouldn’t Marika think he’d dog around on her when she was away?  He was a man, after all, on his own for a couple of months, maybe taking one last lover before taking his vows. Wouldn’t be the first time that happened.  She trusted Phil, yet Marika thought it distinctly possible that a willing, attractive, and persistent woman could bed him.  Hell, even a not-so-attractive, not-so-persistent one; she knew that most men would drop trou at the drop of a hat.

Marika needn’t have worried.  Phil would never cheat.  Not because he was madly in love with her, mind you.  He loved her, sure, but that wasn’t reason enough.  Millions upon millions of men and women regularly, and with great gusto, cheat on people they truly love, or think they love, or say they love. No, Phil wouldn’t cheat, not because of love, but rather because he was a man of his word, at least he liked to think so.  He was a really nice guy, and nice guys simply do not cheat.  He had a lot invested in being a nice guy, convinced as he was that it was one of his best qualities.

And the other, actual reason he wouldn’t cheat was because Marika was the hottest piece of ass he ever had, and this was key.  She liked to have sex pretty much whenever he wanted to and sometimes when he didn’t want to and he would anyway because he was a guy and guys do that, even nice guys, while a lot of women don’t.  She was up for trying, often more than once, almost anything that came to his occasionally filthy mind, and she proved astonishingly good at almost every facet of sexual expression.  He could have said “every facet,” leaving out the “almost,” but he had to leave open the possibility that there might be some hitherto unexplored or even un-thought-of avenue of physical pleasure-giving that Marika would turn out to be mediocre at; indeed, he felt it his duty as a man, as a service to all men, to see if he could find out which technique, stroke or position that might be.  Thus far, he hadn’t succeeded.  Never was a man more fulfilled by his own failure.  Which might have been a reason for Phil to feel really fucking great about things, but his brain didn’t work that way.  There was something too good about this set up.

Soon after they met and Phil decided that Marika was about as horny as he was, he asked for her hand in marriage.  He acted so impulsively because, when Phil was a teen, his father, Dave, during a moment of intense depression over his marriage to Phil’s mother, Joan, said the following to his only son: “you know how everyone says sex isn’t the most important thing in a marriage?  Bullshit!  It’s the only thing.  If you find a girl who’s decent looking and likes to have lots of sex, marry her.  I don’t care if she’s illiterate and laughs like a hyena.  Marry her, and thank God you didn’t marry an intelligent, creative, sensitive woman who doesn’t care much for sex, like your mother.”

Phil’s father had said many such things to his son, most of it easily dismissed and forgettable if not downright stupid, and this might have gone the way of all the other fatherly “advice” dispelled by Dave over the years, but Phil never forgot this saw, as his father committed suicide that very night.  Phil found the body… and the note.  “I loved the woman.  I never cheated. I bought her gifts and took her on vacations.  But she wouldn’t sleep with me.”  There was more, but the rest was illegible as it was smeared in feces, the origins and species of which were never established beyond a reasonable doubt.

Phil was in full, raging puberty at the time; his father’s taking him aside to have “the talk” hours before his gruesome suicide profoundly affected him in ways still being revealed on a regular basis.  One of the most obvious of these revelations was to be found in his betrothal to Marika Simeon.

It wasn’t that Marika was stupid, she wasn’t, or that her laugh was annoying, it was, very, but rather, the thing that made Phil’s impending marriage to her so surprising to some was the obvious fact (obvious to everyone but Phil and Marika) that Phil didn’t really enjoy himself with Marika, at least when they weren’t having sex.  And let’s face it.  It’s pretty easy to enjoy oneself whilst laying fresh pipe with a double-jointed 26-year-old former model training to be an investment banker.  To enjoy oneself the rest of the time, aye, there’s the rub.

The rest of the time was the problem.  Although some people, but not all that many, found Marika enjoyable company, most found her a strident, unfunny know-it-all, possessed of singularly bad opinions on everything from politics to which sauce goes best with squash-blossom ravioli con broccoli rabe.  (Butter, lemon, parsley, garlic, a dash of truffle oil, and a subtly nuanced sprinkling of well-aged pecorino Romano is the correct answer.)  But, as Phil’s dad might have said, the woman could suck the chrome off a ’65 Mustang convertible, so who cares if she’s a great conversationalist?  Besides, isn’t that what a guy’s buddies are for, to be great company the rest of the time?

And he did what he could, albeit subconsciously, to keep her annoying traits submerged.  Like her tendency to be just a tad overweight. Not so much that you would notice unless she wore a belly shirt, which she would, unfortunately. She could take some weight off, if she wanted to, if she thought he was worth the trouble. And her teeth.  Too big.  And her eyes.  Too small.  And her laugh.  Too loud.  Just minor things, true, but over a lifetime, or even a year or two, such characteristics begin to gnaw at the psyche; they multiply like flies in shit.  But Phil, in the name of love, once more in the name of love, was willing, able, and in fact, felt it was his monogamously manly duty to ignore these insignificant faults for the big picture.  He was convinced that this was the way it should be done.

Which was just one of the thoughts going through Phil’s mind the week his life changed forever.

CHAPTER TWO: THE OAF

Phil was exhausted after he got off the phone with Marika.  He knew that she knew that something was up with him.  Of course, the only thing that was up with him was that he wasn’t smoking pot and thus having crazy dreams.  But he couldn’t tell her this, as he had been getting high almost daily for over a year but never said a word to her about it. It was his dirty little secret. In fact, the only time she asked him why he was acting strangely was this one day when he didn’t have any, and was straight as an arrow.

On top of it all, these sex dreams had him going so badly that he couldn’t lose the feeling that he had cheated, even though he hadn’t, so admitting that he had deceived Marika by hiding his cannabis hobby from her would have piggybacked itself on the guilt about his subliminal lover, and he didn’t think he could take any more.  Guilt, that is.

Because guilt, as much as any other mental formation, was the vibrational resonance of Phil’s life to this point.  Not love, compassion, happiness, sadness, fear or worry.  Well, maybe worry, but more guilt.  This was the unstable foundation he was trying to build a life on: guilt, his birthright as the son of a Jewish princess from Queens and a depressed Irish Catholic tile mason from Poughkeepsie who were both informed by guilt through their ancestors going back many generations.

So ingenious was the pinpoint accuracy and intensity of his parents’ guilt-inducing psychological mechanisms that Phil ended up spending the rest of his life, up ‘til now, trying to avoid the horrid feeling of guilt.  Relationships, jobs, investments, where he lived, which car he drove, what kind of scotch he drank, where he bought his clothes and his gasoline, all of the decisions regarding these and almost every other facet of his existence were greatly motivated by one desire: to steer clear of the awful, chest tightening, stomach fluttering, mind-reeling sensation of guilt.

And this was not easy, because, self-aware as he was, Phil often set the trap of his own guilt now that his parents had abdicated, his dad long dead, his mom living in the Canary Islands with her lover, a former junk bond trader-cum-dot com zillionaire from North Africa 23 years her junior.  As a very predictable and psychologically unglamorous result of poor parenting, Phil had assumed his parents’ unintended role of inflicting guilt on him, even when he had nothing to feel guilty about.  He assumed the vacated role of guilt monger and, being a good deal more intelligent and efficient than mommy and dad, proved a much better monger than either Joan or Dave ever could have hoped to be.

Amazingly, he wielded this power of self-flagellation and auto-guiltmongering without intent, awareness, or effort.  It just happened.  If he did something that triggered his guilt alarm, usually something that he did for himself, i.e. something “self-ish,” Phil felt like crawling into a hole.  Like the time he went to a massage therapist for a pain in his neck.  The therapist fixed the pain, but after he paid for the service, he felt so guilty about spending the money on himself as opposed to, say, spending it on Marika or putting it into savings, that the pain returned almost instantly upon leaving the clinic.

Yes, as often happens in this occasionally humiliating and complicated experience called “life,” Phil knew he didn’t like the way guilt felt, he didn’t know why he felt guilty in the first place, and he certainly couldn’t yet appreciate that he was both the source and the target of the guilt. He was also the means by which the guilt was delivered, something of a Buddhist tri-fecta.  Of course, had Phil been Buddhist, the defining motivation of his life would not be guilt, it would be… mindfulness, or something.  But he was no Buddhist.  He was half Jew, half Catholic, and almost one hundred percent self-sabotaging neurotic.

He had suffered from mild insomnia since he quit smoking pot, but was determined to get through it without sleeping medication, especially because he didn’t want to ruin the dreams.  But he was so screwy after talking to Marika that night he decided a couple of Cognacs couldn’t really hurt.  This did the trick and a little while later, Phil was off in sleepy land.  One night earlier, he and his dream lover had covered a few of the more challenging Kama Sutra positions, or at least what he figured were Kama Sutra positions, since he had never read the Kama Sutra.  Do you read that, or just look at the pictures?  Whatever.  Phil was hoping to pick up where they had left off.  Some kind of crazy position that was not unlike being the driver in a wheelbarrow race.

But this was not to be.

Phil awoke with a start at around two in the morning.  He immediately grabbed his pen and notebook off the nightstand and jotted down this dream in a middle-of-the-night scribble:

The Oaf

A small town.  A factory on the edge of it. Maybe late 1800’s, like some mill town in New England.  I don’t know.  There’s these people.  They all work in the factory, making something… widgets, whatever.  A few men and a few women.  One guy’s a family man.  Call him Joe.  The other is a really big, stupid guy, they call him The Oaf. He’s huge, like almost seven feet tall.  He’s an idiot though.  Lives with his mother who’s old and fat and ill.

Everyday the people show up at this small factory and do their jobs, including the Oaf, who mostly cleans up after everyone else and rotates the stock, all this heavy shit he’s always moving in and out of the storeroom.  At night he returns home to his sick old mother and eats dinner with her.  They eat, like, herring or bad cuts of meat.

Somewhere outside the factory, or maybe in the factory, is some machine that’s really loud, a sharp, biting sound of metal grinding on metal.  It’s omnipresent.

This goes on for years, like clockwork (don’t know how I know this in the dream, but do). The Oaf shows up at work, does whatever he’s told and puts up with a lot of jokes and insults at his expense, then goes home to his mother.  He’s never late, never misses a day.

One morning, everyone arrives at the factory and begins the workday.  Only the Oaf isn’t there.  He doesn’t show.  Joe, the family guy, who’s kind of like the foreman, notices first that the Oaf isn’t there.  They joke at first, but soon they start to wonder, even worry, as this hasn’t ever happened before. The hours tick by, Joe becomes concerned, and at lunchtime, he decides to go see what’s become of the Oaf.

Joe arrives at the Oaf’s apartment over a 19th century laundry, in a seedy part of town.  He knocks on the door.  After a long while, more knocks, the door opens an inch and the Oaf looks out.  Joe can see an inch of the giant’s face.  The Oaf is surprised but happy to see Joe.  After some chitchat, Joe asks why the Oaf didn’t come to work.  Is he sick?  No.  He’s fine.  It’s the Oaf’s mother.  She isn’t feeling too good.  Joe asks what’s the matter.  The Oaf can’t really say.  He hems and haws about it, and then finally Joe says he’d like to look in on the old lady.  After thinking it over, the Oaf lets Joe in.

The Oaf leads Joe to his mom’s room.  One look and Joe knows she’s dead.  And it’s clear that The Oaf is in total denial about the whole thing, and violent, because when Joe suggests they might want to take her to the hospital, The Oaf almost throws him out the window.  Joe realizes he’d better get out of there before things turn ugly, and then figure out what to do in the safety of the factory.  He humors the Oaf and leaves.

Back at the factory, Joe tells the others what’s going on.  Everyone agrees that the old woman’s body needs to be taken to a funeral parlor, or morgue or something. It’s unhealthy. But Joe says that The Oaf is in denial and got violent, etc., when he suggested they move the mother.  They decide that Joe will take the Oaf out for a few beers and in the meantime they’ll get somebody, the cops or some authorities, to take the body away.

Joe goes back after work and finally convinces the Oaf that his mother will be fine if they go out for a beer.  They go down to the pub around the corner.  Meanwhile, a wagon pulls up and attendants come out.

Joe and The Oaf have a few beers at the pub.  The Oaf is happy to be asked out for a beer.  None of his co-workers ever treat him as a friend.  Joe fees like a real shit-heel, since the only reason he’s out with the Oaf is so they can take away the poor bastard’s dead mother.  One of the other guys from work comes into the pub.  Acts like it’s a chance encounter, but he’s giving Joe the “all clear.”  Joe feels like a total cad but is relieved that his deception can end, says good night to the Oaf and practically runs home to his wife and kids.

After a sleepless night, Joe goes to the factory.  Everyone shows up, except the Oaf.  They start work.  No sign of the Oaf.  Finally, he ambles in, around ten o’clock.  He’s drunk, and sucking on a bottle of whiskey.  He smacks a couple of the guys around, then somehow herds everyone into the storeroom.  Remember, he’s like seven feet, 400 pounds. Like that old wrestler, he’s dead, what was his name… Andre the Giant.  He locks them in there.  One by one, he starts to take out all the men and beat the crap out of them, then returns them to the storeroom.  Joe knows that his time will come, and the Oaf looks around for him every time he enters to take out one of the other guys, but Joe hides behind a shelf or a big spool or something, hoping to avoid the inevitable.

Finally, the Oaf comes in and Joe steps out toward him.  Says he knows that the Oaf is only really mad at him, and he should just take him outside and kick the crap out of him, but let the others go.  He says he’s sorry, that he knows the Oaf is sad about his mother.  They never should have tricked him that way.  He just couldn’t think of any other way to do it.  Tears come to the Oaf’s eyes, and finally he sobs, great bursts of sobs come from deep inside him.  He falls to his knees, crying.  Joe steps forward, opens his arms, and hugs the Oaf as if he’s a little boy, the Oaf sobbing in his arms.  At that moment, the omnipresent screech of metallic machinery grinds to a halt, as only the deep, loud sobs of grief coming from the Oaf can be heard.

The End

CHAPTER THREE: DREAM A LITTLE DREAM

Whew! Phil thought.  Where the fuck did that come from?  Phil had a weird relationship with his mother, sure.  Well, as weird as most and more than some, but she was neither old, nor fat, nor ill.  She lived with her younger North African lover in the Canary Islands, remember?  Which is weird, but not like this kind of weird.  He was the Joe character in the dream, but while Joe was a family man with two children and a mortgage, Phil was a somewhat aimless mid-level sales executive engaged to an occasionally annoying professional woman with a healthy sex drive. The dream seemed to have very little to do with him.   It couldn’t have been more alien.  It was, obviously, someone else’s dream.  It had to be.  A very strange someone else with very deep-rooted mother issues.  Phil didn’t believe in psychotherapy, but now he wished he were seeing a shrink to ask what the hell it all meant.

The next morning, Phil’s pal Burt called to remind him about their plans for that evening.  Burt was in a new theater company that was doing a thing that night and he’d invited Phil to come.  Phil hated going to Burt’s crazy theater things, usually avant-garde crap during which he and the rest of the audience had to struggle to stay awake, or worse, dodge food or moist missiles launched in the dark during a “performance art piece,” but he loved Burt like a brother and so inevitably he would promise to attend.

He would have liked to bring a date, or a friend, but Marika was away.  And whenever he took friends to one of Burt’s events it was usually so annoying that Phil ended up spending the entire evening apologizing and was often behooved to pick up the dinner check. Worse, and completely to be expected, Phil’s guilt obliged him to attend his guest’s friend’s ridiculous future event, to return the favor. Thus, after little deliberation and to avoid racking up more guilt-debt, Phil flew solo to “Unintentional Theatre.”

Unintentional Theatre.  Jesus, Phil tortured himself the entire way over to the East Village.  “Theatre” instead of “theater.”  How pretentious and unnecessary. “Unintentional.”  What could that mean? Free form?  Improv?  Accidental?  No.  He knew what “unintentional” meant: boring, stupid and artsy.

Pretty much all of his friends and associates assumed that the only reason Burt got involved in the theater was to get laid, which was only partially true.  He was a pretty good writer, Burt, but never had the patience to sit down long enough or sustain the discipline necessary to pen more than a one-act play or a short story.  So he decided to become an “actor” and tread the boards, only he had this little problem with memorization, which he blamed on the misfortune of being dropped on his head as an infant.  His mother, Clara, was a competent parent, but was also clumsier than Inspector Clouseau on a drinking binge.  As Phil would occasionally remind Burt, however, he was actually a three-year-old toddler, not a newborn when he had his accident, that in fact he fell on his ass, and that the memorization problem more likely stemmed from Burt’s experimentation with Ecstasy and mescaline in the final decade of the prior millennium than it did from a nasty ass contusion sustained at three years of age.

No matter the cause, however, Burt figured that until he became an established film actor who didn’t need to memorize more than a few lines at a time, he would stick to improv, which required no memory at all. To explain his total avoidance of scripted theater, Burt informed anyone who would listen that he was, at his core, a film actor, and the only reason movie stars had to slum it in the theater was to prove they were superior to other movie stars; they were serious thespians who could do more than decently deliver short bursts of dialogue while looking fabulous with their faces blown up thirty feet wide on the big screen.

Of course, Burt’s theory of acting was inane and like most of his opinions totally off point, but he said it with such sincere conviction that people just nodded and let it go rather than point out the idiocy of his reasoning.  Most who heard this line of self-serving nonsense were actresses Burt was trying to get into bed.  Women in improv weren’t necessarily serious actresses, but they were often good looking and promiscuous, which pretty much checked off both of Burt’s desired characteristics in a woman. That, and a willingness to dabble in occasional semi-public fornication.

The theater, or “theatre,” if you will, was on East-some-single-digit-Street in the basement of a “tenement” or “cold-water flat,” still called thus despite the fact that the tiny apartments above the street were now selling at well over one million dollars.  A small, laminated, computer-generated sign was the only exterior evidence, an arrow pointing down a short flight of stairs that disappeared into the sidewalk; that, and what appeared to be the entire audience standing outside, smoking. Phil smiled.  He had quit some years ago, but it always warmed his heart to be around creative East Village types who still puffed with gusto.  He loved the smell of fresh secondhand smoke, especially organic American Spirit.

Downstairs, an attractive but easily dismissible young blonde smiled sarcastically, ripped his ticket, handed him a hastily photocopied program and indicated he could sit anywhere, all without saying a word and hardly moving.  The space was small, but surprisingly well maintained.  Unfortunately the seats, set on three sets of risers, were metal folding chairs, which would invariably make his ass cheek hurt and his right leg fall asleep after about fifteen minutes.  The lighting was rudimentary at best, and only a few people occupied the 30 or so seats, as the rest were still outside blackening their alveoli.

“Phil.  Phil!”  A voice stage-whispered from a doorway at the front of the room.  When they first laid eyes on him, many people who never met Burt Botwinck, if they were old enough, invariably thought of Groucho Marx.  It was a combination of the long nose, round glasses and moustache that did it.  The similarities with Groucho ended there, for although Burt was funny, it wasn’t usually on purpose.  Sure, he’d occasionally land a decent pun, and since he worked at his father Ned’s florist shop and joked with the salesmen and customers, Burt had memorized some of your more popular ethnic jokes and blue humor, but his kind of funny had very little in common with Groucho, Chico, or Harpo. Even Zeppo was funnier than Burt.  Hell, Karl Marx could land a better punch line. And did. Nevertheless Burt insisted on writing comedies.  Not very funny ones.  One might even say they were tragically unfunny comedies.  Fortunately, they were only one-acts.

“Yo, Burt,” Phil replied with a quick, two-finger wave.  Burt wondered if he, a thespian, should wander into the theater; surely it would a breach of acting etiquette, then quickly concluded that no one in this theater would give even a little shit if Burt came out from backstage before the inaugural, and likely final performance of Unintentional Theatre, so he sauntered over to his best pal.

“Thanks for coming, dude.”

“Don’t mention it… I couldn’t get anyone to come with me on such short notice.”

“But I told you six weeks ago,” Burt whined.  Phil shrugged.

“‘Unintentional Theatre?’ Really.”

“Improv.”

“No messy plot to deal with.”

“Oh come on.  It’ll be fun.  A lot of cute girls in the troupe.”

“Lot of good that does me.”

“True… When’s Marika get back?”

“A couple of weeks… So when does this thing start?”

“A few minutes.  It’ll be fun tonight.  We’re doing people’s dreams.”

“Excuse me?”

“Dreams.  We’re taking volunteers.  Have any good dreams lately?”

Now this was interesting and unexpected.  Although telling his sex dream was out of the question as that would be in bad taste, Phil had, in fact, just had the dream about The Oaf.  And he had to admit he was dying to tell it to someone. “What do you mean, volunteers?”

“You know, raise your hand when the Shaman asks if anyone wants to share a dream with us tonight, and then he’ll bring you down and you tell your dream.  He’ll probably ask you a few questions to get some details, and then the cast will figure out who plays what part in the dream, and we’ll do it.  Got any?”

“A few… but, I don’t know… The Shaman, you say?”

“You know the Shaman… it’s Bob Thurmond…”

“The little guy?  He creeps me out.”

“Oh, come on, Phil.”

“I’ll think about it.  Maybe.”

“Suit yourself.  Coming out for beers after?”

“On that I can give you an unqualified ‘yes,’ especially if you’re buying.”

And just as quickly as he appeared, Burt was gone, leaving Phil to consider the possibility of actually participating in this ridiculous endeavor.  Unintentional Theatre.  Sheesh.  What would be the point, Phil thought.  It’s not like these people really know how to interpret dreams.  They’re actors, for god’s sake.  Not even.  Nary a one of them made a significant part of his or her living from acting, nor had an agent or a professional headshot.  And what if someone in the audience knew him?  Not just one of Burt’s goofy friends, but someone whose opinion of him might even matter, a business contact, say.  It was a small world, even here in the big city.  That could be embarrassing

As if on cue, the audience filed in from outside, the rich aroma of organic American Virginia tobacco, the finest in the world and hovering at around seven or eight bucks a pack in Manhattan arriving with them. They took their seats; the lights dimmed.  Out of the corner of his eye, Phil caught a glimpse of something that made him gasp.

Could it be?  A few rows behind him, against the far wall.  The woman of his dreams.  Or from his dreams, anyway, the one he was sleeping with, sort of.  She looked a lot like her.  Of course, the lights were dim so he couldn’t be sure.  The lighting was always dim in his dreams, too, but a pre-dawn-gray-light-seeping-through-the-window dim, whereas here, it was an indirect-reddish-light-from-the-stage-kind of dim, so it was different.  Plus, she had clothes on, which limited his area of recognition to her face, while in the dream he usually concentrated on other parts.  Phil surreptitiously stole another glance over his shoulder, but the room was almost black. He’d have to wait at least until intermission, if there even was one, to get a good look.

He was torn from his reverie by a white hot spot light that dropped shaft-like from above to illuminate a man on stage.  Or was it a boy?  No, a man.  Phil recognized him from a prior show Burt was in, only he was in a completely different get-up.  Now, this small, elfin, almost gnomish man with white blonde hair and watery aqua-blue eyes was wearing a tasseled and shiny cloak of multiple colors that fell to the floor, making it appear as though he were hovering when he moved.  He held a microphone like Frank Sinatra.  This man, Phil remembered, was the one they called “Bob.”

“Good evening, and welcome to Unintentional Theatre,” said Bob. “I am Gurubob, the Shaman for this evening,” said the four-foot, ten-inch tall being who was neither dwarf nor midget, but merely a small boned, somewhat translucent bird of a man who, despite his diminutive stature, had a powerful energy that emanated from his core, reinforcing his persona with a dense strength that stood in stark contrast to his tininess. His concentrated delivery made it feel like Bob was talking only to you.

“Gurubob,” echoed in the recital hall of his mind.  This should be extremely annoying.  I just hope I don’t laugh inappropriately like the last time.

“Tonight, we present a special installment of Unintentional Theatre that we like to call ‘Dream/play.’ As many of you know, the performances of Unintentional Theatre are born in and inspired by the ideas of our audience members,” Bob continued.

How precious, Phil thought.  Almost fatally so.

“Tonight, we will take as our inspiration… your dreams.  Not hopes nor ambitions, no, but actual dreams, the window panes of the subconscious, echoes of past experiences and present feelings filtered through the layers of the ancient brain, charged with electrical impulses of firing neurons in ways not completely understood by modern science or age-old mysticism,” said Gurubob, almost making sense albeit in a new age carnival barker sort of way.

Please, someone, just hand me a gun and I’ll blow my brains out right now, thought Phil, and realized he was only half-kidding.

“Sharing one’s dreams, of course, is not something everyone is prepared to do in a public forum, amongst strangers.  We fear that others will interpret these flickering images from the chasms and crannies of our cerebra in ways that are unflattering, and perhaps judge us harshly by the desires and yearnings expressed in our subconscious state.  We worry that maybe, just maybe, people will find fault, or draw unfavorable conclusions about us, about our morals, our lives, our choices.  But please rest assured that the intent of Dream/play is not to interpret, for we are not psychologists, but rather to portray, as accurately as possible, our version of these raw, uncensored bursts of brain activity, so that the audience may, in some small way, experience the dreams of others.

“Usually, once the first volunteer comes up and tells his or her dream, and it is improvised on the spot, the rest of the audience clamors to live the adventure, that of being the writer of our small play, and the writer always is the dreamer.  But most are none-too-eager to be he who breaks the ice.  Tonight, however, we are fortunate to have in our audience someone ready to do just that,” said Gurubob with a dramatic flourish.

Only an idiot would put himself in a position fraught with such potential humiliation, thought Phil.  And at that very moment, another beam of light shot out from the wings and focused squarely on him. And Phil, goofy, involuntary grin on his face, instantly took the role of the proverbial deer caught in the headlights of an oncoming eighteen-wheeler cruising at about 75 miles per hour in icy conditions.  Oh no, he realized as Gurubob walked toward him, he means me.

Through the glare, he could make out the silhouette of his former friend Burt, who could not in any way misinterpret Phil’s baleful sneer: there would be hell to pay at the end of the evening.  Or maybe even sooner.

“I… that is… you mean… What?”  Was all Phil could manage as he looked up at Bob, who now stood before him (that Phil was slouching down in a feckless attempt to disappear inside his seat was the only physically possible way he was able to look up at Bob), beckoning Phil to follow him toward the stage.

He considered his options, the best of which, for a fleeting moment, seemed to be to scream like a sissy girl and run from the theater, but then he thought, what the hell, he’d go along. He probably wanted to anyway. As Bob gestured with yet another flourish, Phil rose and accompanied him to the side of the “stage,” which was not really a stage at all, but rather a floor at the same level as the first row of seats, a space not much larger than Phil’s living room, which, in true Manhattan tradition, was the size of a postage stamp, one of those larger commemorative Elvis stamps, perhaps, but a stamp nonetheless.

Phil stood on the spot indicated by Bob, an “X” of masking tape on the floor, and turned to face the audience.  He had never been on stage before, and fight or flight still controlled his brain. But since he had deemed that to flee was not an option, and cold-cocking and wrestling the four-foot-ten Bob to the floor would be unseemly, Phil stayed glued to the spot. “Thanks for sharing with us this evening.” Bob said.

“Uh.  You’re welcome, Bob.”

“Tonight, for Dreamplay, I am ‘Gurubob’… Please, tell us your name, friend,” Bob continued, thrusting his microphone in Phil’s face.

“Phil.  Phil McCone. We met at that...”

“I understand that you have a dream to share with us, Phil.  Why don’t you go right ahead.  I may interrupt from time to time, if we need any additional details.”

“Very well, Gurubob.  Okay.  Uh, I think it takes place in an earlier time, like the late 1800s.”

“Ah.  A period dream, if you will.”

“Yeah.  So, there’s a group of maybe, I don’t know, seven or so people working in this factory, or mill.  A small one.  Isn’t a mill sort of a factory?  Anyway, I’m not sure what they make there.  And I was like this married guy with like seven kids.  Don’t ask me how I knew this, because I never saw this family of mine, but I knew I had one.”

“I wasn’t going to ask how you knew that.”  Bob actually chuckled.

“Very funny, Gurubob.  So anyway, there’s these other workers.  And one of them is this huge guy, about seven feet tall.”

“The number seven seems to have some significance, no?” asked Bob, more to the audience than to Phil.  Phil just looked at him, one eyebrow raised.  Bob gestured for him to continue.

“Anyhow,” Phil obliged, “he’s sort of a retard, the big guy.  Sorry, bad choice of words.  What’s the P.C. term?  Mentally challenged?  He’s mentally challenged.  They call him ‘The Oaf,’ as in ‘that big oaf.’  He takes a lot of crap from the other workers.  You know, it’s over a hundred years ago, when people would often make fun of retards ‘cause they didn’t understand them. And they think they’re just teasing but it’s actually pretty mean. And his job, he’s kind of a gofer-slash-mascot for these folks…”

“Many people believe that every character in a dream represents a different facet of the dreamer.  Maybe this ‘Oaf’ is another, buried part of your ego?”

“I’m the married guy.  Not the Oaf.  It’s my dream. I think I know who I am in the dream, Bob.”

“Okay, Phil.”

“So, the Oaf lives with him mom, who’s old, and sick and fat, and one day…”

Phil tells the dream.  And it was surprising.  Not only did Gurubob stop peppering him with stupid questions, he seemed quite intrigued.  And not just Bob.  Even though Phil couldn’t really make out the audience through the painful glare of yet another spotlight, this one an unflattering shade of green, he could feel them hanging on his every word.  The people in the front row were actually leaning forward a bit.  So, he got into it a little and started to embellish, an extra detail here, an interesting adverb there, until, when he told the ending of the dream where The Oaf breaks down in tears and falls into the arms of the married guy, the audience actually broke out in clamorous applause.

This made Phil feel pretty good all over, because even though it was a dream, he did write it, in a way, and so they were applauding his creative abilities.  He was hoping that the woman-who-might-be-his-dream-girl was very impressed also.  Why wouldn’t she be?  After all, here’s this guy, brave enough to go up first on stage and pour his heart out in front of strangers. Dreaming about being a married father, hugging a giant retard, um, mentally challenged guy.  How sensitive, and yet how manly.  For emphasis, Phil even wiped away a tear after he finished.  The tear wasn’t actually there, of course, but surely the gesture wouldn’t be lost on his new fans.  In his mind, he even decided to forgive Burt for putting him in this position in the first place, although he would still torture the idiot afterward, just for fun.  And, for the piece de resistance, Phil leaned over and gave Gurubob a hug.

After the hug, Gurubob had tears streaming down his cheeks, which Phil decided were genuine, as Bob couldn’t be that good an actor.  He led Phil to a special seat at the side of the stage.  The actors and Bob huddled for a moment, as though they were considering which play to run against the 3-4 defense.  There was discussion, some of it quite animated.  Burt argued with the others, whispering vehemently.  Phil wasn’t sure, but it sounded like Burt was insisting he portray The Oaf.

Then, the huddle broke, the actors running backstage.  Gurubob turned toward the audience, hands outstretched, palms up.

“Unintentional Theatre is proud to present Dreamplay.  Tonight’s first offering we call ‘The Oaf.’  From the subconscious mind of Phil McCone, and featuring Burt Botwinck in the title role.”

The lights dimmed, and when they came up again, Bob had disappeared, as if by magic.  Actors wandered in from the wings, one by one, and pantomimed working in a factory.  One, a handsome young man with Mediterranean features, was the foreman, obviously the Phil character known as “Joe.”  Soon, Burt lumbered in.  Yes.  Burt actually lumbered.   Skinny and a little taller than the other actors, he somehow pulled himself up to even a greater height and heft. It was almost believable.  My God, thought Phil, this is the closest thing to acting that Burt has ever done.

It was indeed inspired.  All of the performers were over-achieving well beyond their meager abilities.  The “play” had a rhythm and flow, crescendos and decrescendos, and culminated in a poignant denouement when The Oaf fell to his knees into the arms of Joe, who consoled him for his loss.  The stage then went to black, and the ovation that followed was even better than the one following Phil’s telling of the dream.  Many in the crowd were moved to tears.

It was a feeling unlike anything Phil had ever experienced, satisfying and exhilarating at the same time.  He suddenly realized why people wrote, to see the effect of their work on others, to make the reader, the audience, and the actors experience different depths of emotion, to see and hear things that hadn’t even occurred to them, things they might never otherwise have experienced.  Phil decided to get back to work on his memoirs.  And not make them just about sex, no.  They could be about his whole life.  Or someone else’s life, even. Hell, he could just make up a life.  Maybe this is what he was missing in his world, Phil realized with some surprise, as he had always believed that what was missing was lots of money, powerful friends, and a really large penis.

The actors pulled Phil onto the stage to take a bow with them.  His ego inflated to such a degree that he couldn’t believe how much he had dreaded coming here earlier in the evening.  He even let Burt give him a hug.

Phil then returned in triumph to his seat.  The folks sitting nearby smiled at him, nodding, as to say, “good work.”  One guy, wiping away a tear, even shook his hand, like men did in synagogue after someone led a prayer or read from the Torah. Phil scanned the audience, and he swore that his possible dream girl, with two not-as-cute-as-her girlfriends, was checking him out.  She might be wondering where this sensitive and creative soul had come from.  Of course, he couldn’t be sure if she was really checking him out or he was just projecting, hoping, needing some sort of validation.  Never mind that it mattered little if she found him attractive, as he’d never cheat, but somehow just knowing that a girl like that had certain feelings could give a boost to one’s ego.

Now, after everyone had gotten re-settled, just as Bob had predicted, they all wanted to get in on the action.  It was like third grade, kids waving at the teacher, “oooh, pick me.  Pick me.”  After Bob sorted things out, several dreams were told and reenacted, featuring mostly garden variety, Freudian-type stuff; flying, or bathing in soup, or some such thing, but very little sense of story.  Each lacked that inspired moment, that flash of pizzazz that Phil had provided, and nothing rose even near the level of “The Oaf,” he proudly acknowledged to himself.

Finally, things seemed to be winding down, and Phil could almost taste the cold Pilsner Urquell on tap that was waiting for him at the tavern around the corner, the one with the beautiful bartender with the multiple piercings and so many tattoos so that, even naked, she appeared to be wearing a shirt.  Phil was ready to be congratulated, to have cute girls from the cast catch his eye and tell him how great, how moved, how downright sexy his dream made them feel, even though he wouldn’t try to sleep with them, so he was more than a tad disappointed when Bob, so obviously trying to gild the lily, said, “we have time for one more!”

There was some whispering and giggling in the back corner.  “Back there.  Don’t be shy,” encouraged Bob.

“I’m not going up there.  So stop it,” a female voice protested to her neighbor in a loud whisper.  There was more prodding and giggling, and finally Bob walked up the aisle and practically dragged Phil’s maybe dream girl down to the stage to a smattering of unenthusiastic applause.  She resisted, but not too much.

Phil finally got a good look at her.  Her hair was shoulder length and dark, with a silky sheen usually found only in commercials for hair care products.  She was more pretty than beautiful, but really sexy.  Perfect nose and a fit body, although there was plenty left to the imagination as she was dressed modestly, in a casual but sassy style all her own.  Phil couldn’t say for sure if this was the woman he dreamt about.  It was possible perhaps, that he had seen her before, on the street, or in a restaurant, or in a photograph, and her image had burned into his brain, only to return at night in grainy, sexually explicit escapades.  That, at least, would explain how a stranger had entered his dreams.  But he just couldn’t recall.  If he had encountered this lovely creature somewhere in his travels, he would have remembered.

Dream girl still giggled, as did her friends, and she blushed, embarrassed at being hauled onstage against her will.  Her giggle was cute, and the blushing, well, Phil felt a familiar stirring loin-ward.

“So,” intoned Gurubob, “who do we have here?”

“We have Stephanie.”

“Stephanie.  Your friends seem to think that there’s something you’d like to share with us.”

“Actually,” said Stephanie, looking down at the diminutive Bob, “I don’t want to share it at all and both of them are assholes for getting me up here.”

“Oh, come on, Stephanie.  What could it hurt?”

“Well, it’s kind of private, you know, and I’m not sure you could actually re-enact it, as it’s, um…”

“Sexual?” asked Bob, hopefully.

“Yes,” Stephanie stated emphatically.  “I’m glad you understand.”

“We’re all grown-ups here.  Most of us, at any rate.  I think we can handle a little sex.” And then to the audience: “Don’t you?”

A hearty round of applause greeted this suggestion.  Seriously, who wouldn’t want to hear another person’s sex dream?  Maybe not, say, Rush Limbaugh’s or Oprah Winfrey’s, but pretty much anyone else.

Stephanie was silent for a moment, apparently considering her options.  Perhaps, thought Phil, she was thinking about screaming and running from the theater, as he had considered earlier in the evening.  He also thought, wrongly, that she probably was not considering wrestling Gurubob to the floor and cold-cocking him, and she undoubtedly could.  She was certainly “on the spot” in the most uncomfortable way, the way that can get one to do something against one’s best judgment and even against one’s own best interest, sort of like an otherwise normal, working, lower middle class person voting for a mega-corporation-friendly Republican.

“Come on, Stephie. Be a trooper,” one of Stephanie’s buddies chimed.  “Yeah, Steph.  That fuckin’ dream is totally hot,” added the other, drunkenly.

Something resembling resolve took hold of Stephanie. Or maybe it was inevitability.  She couldn’t get out of it, so she might as well enjoy it. A slightly impish grin played across her pretty, smooth skinned face, and her hazel eyes shined.  Mmmm.

“It’s not much of a story.  I’m pretty sure there isn’t enough of a narrative for you to follow.”

“We’ll be the judge of that.”

“Okay, fine,” she replied, and then proceeded to summon up the courage to share her dream with the crowd of strangers.

“Give us the setting, then,” Bob prodded, “and don’t spare the details.  It’s all in the details.”

“Well, there’s a bed.  At least so far, there always has been.”

“Yours?”

“I don’t know.  Probably not, actually, as I think I would recognize my own bed.”

“Fair enough.”

“In fact, I can’t recall having seen much of the room in any of the dreams.”

“So, this is a repeating dream, then?”

“No, not exactly.  More like a continuation.  It’s like, it picks up where it left off.”

“How many have you had?”

“Ten, twelve, I don’t know.  A lot.  A couple of weeks ago, it was, like, every night.”

“Go on.”

“Well, there’s this bed.  It’s a big bed, rumpled white sheets, nice ones, soft, not much else.  And the light is gray, grainy, kind of like… I don’t know, like dawn’s early light seeping through the window.”

Phil gulped involuntarily.

“Is the ‘Star Spangled Banner’ reference relevant?”

Her look said “what are you, an idiot?”  And she continued, without missing a beat. “I’m there, obviously.  I’m naked.  Well, I think I might be wearing socks.  Yeah, white cotton sox and nothing else.  For some reason, guys seem to like that.  And my feet are always cold anyway.”

“And you’re not alone in this dream, I think it’s safe to say.”

“No.  There’s a man.  I can’t really make out his face that well.  He’s someone I don’t know, only he’s got a great body.  I mean, really nice, the whole thing.”

“I see.  So what’s happening?”

“What’s happening?  We’re making love.”

“That’s pretty generic.  Can’t you be more specific?”

“Well, you know, sex.  Intercourse.  Lots of it.  Oral sex, too, okay?   And, well, you name it, we do it.  And he’s really good, only it’s not pornographic, or anything.  There’s a certain spiritual quality to it.”

“You say he’s really good, but how do you mean that, exactly?” Bob probed further, a slight smile crossing his lips.

“How?  Like, uh, I don’t know, he’s a god.  He’s moving me around like nothing, like I weigh 90 pounds, or something.  And he takes me any way he wants.  And we’re going at it for what seems like hours.”

“How about you tell us, to the best of your memory, exactly what happened in one of these dreams?  Only try to make believe it’s not you in the dream, that you’re just watching it, like a movie, or something.”

“Jesus, Bob, isn’t that enough?” Stephanie snapped back.  “You want details?  Fine. It’s like I’m almost half asleep, and suddenly I feel his mouth on me, then his cock in me, the whole nine yards, okay, Bob?  He’s got this nice, large penis and he’s on top of me, and then, almost magically, I’m on top of him, like we’re weightless.”

“Oh,” said Bob, having opened the proverbial can of worms.

“One night, I was, you know, fellating him the entire time.  And it was fantastic.  And I’m not generally that crazy about blow jobs, not that I don’t see the necessity of pleasing a man that way in a good relationship, especially if it’s quid pro quo.”

Phil was about to fall off his chair.  This was his dream.

“I thought it wasn’t pornographic.”

“It’s not.  It’s really lovely.  Slow.  Sensuous.  Just kind of like, dancing.”  Stephanie was no longer holding back, the words and phrases tumbling out of her like recently unleashed water spilling over a dam through a flood channel. “One time, I’m straddling him, and he’s deep inside me, and I’m like dancing circles on his dick and I never want it to end.  And that’s the thing.  It never does end.  He never comes.  I don’t either, and I don’t want to, because I just want it to last forever.  I mean, I have this feeling that if we orgasm, the dreams will end and I’ll never see him again.  One night, I was flat on my stomach and he was behind me, just grinding and sliding, and I almost lost it.  I mean, some nights, it’s so intense that I wake up screaming with lust and expect to find him in bed next to me.  And he’s just taking his time, slow, so the seconds feel like hours.  It’s really quite something.  It’s the best sex I never had.”

Here, she giggled, realizing that she may have given out way more information than was necessary.  But Stephanie didn’t care.  She was up there, making a complete fool of herself in front of a room full of strangers, and she was taking all of them with her.  Finally, God bless them all, her mouth stopped, seemingly of its own accord.

You could hear a pin drop in the theater.  The audience was so turned on, it was almost like they were in the bed with her and her lover.  Phil could swear that the temperature in the theater had risen a good ten degrees.  He looked around and saw women squirming in their seats, men adjusting their pants.  The sexual energy in that room was so thick you could almost see it, but you didn’t have to because everyone in there was experiencing it in their own way.  Improv at its best.

“And then what happens?” choked out Bob, clearly affected by the description.

“Uh, I don’t think you’re getting the picture here, Gurubob,” said Stephanie.  “Nothing happens.  We fuck.  We have sex. That’s the whole thing. In every way imaginable, at least every way that two people, male and female, can have sex without any additional mechanical or electronic paraphernalia.  That’s it, Bob, the whole dream.  It’s just sex.  Great sex.  I mean, seriously, beyond anything I’ve ever experienced or ever will experience.”

“Do you think this means anything?”

“I’m not sure.  I’ve been celibate for two years now.”

An audible gasp arose from the audience members.  No one moved.

“Well, uh, maybe this means… how do I put this… that you shouldn’t be?”

Stephanie thought about this.  She could have just nodded and sat down, and avoided further damage, but that would be too easy.  So instead, Stephanie let her mouth take over again.  For some reason, maybe just from being on stage, she couldn’t shut the fuck up.

“No.  No, I don’t think so.  I mean, I’m really off men right now.  I had a couple of really bad experiences.  When guys come on to me in bars, I’m almost disgusted.  And I’m not a lesbian, either, although for a while I thought that might be the problem.  I don’t mean being a lesbian is a problem, I just mean, well, it would be a problem if I was a lesbian and didn’t know it. But the bottom line is, I just don’t want to actually have sex right now, not at all.  And in a way, the dream is much better than any reality.”

“And you never talk to him?  You never turn on a light?  Or, anything?  The phone never rings?  Or… something?”

“No.  Just sex.  Epic sex.  Hot, wet, steamy sex, without beginning or end,” Stephanie spit out. “There it is.  Make a dreamplay out of that, Bob.”

Bob looked at the audience.  He turned to the cast.  They all took a figurative step back.  Everyone in the theater seemed to have stopped breathing.

“I can’t believe I’m saying this, but you’ve stumped us Stephanie.  There’s just no way to re-enact your dream that would be any better than your telling of it.”

“That’s what I was trying to tell you.”

Bob nodded, defeated.  “I don’t know about the rest of you, but I sure as hell could use a beer.  And I don’t even drink.”

CHAPTER FOUR: TATTOO U.

As they were leaving the theater, it seemed that most everyone was relieved to be out of there.  It wasn’t that the evening was awful, as everyone attending at the invitation of a friend or relative (and that would be the entire audience) had every right to expect.  But Stephanie’s dream had been a bit much for everyone to, er, swallow, and the cool night air was just what the doctor ordered.

Phil waited outside for Burt, having decided not to shun him for the rest of his days, as his “dreamplay” experience went a lot better than feared.  He tried to make eye contact with Stephanie as she came up the stairs with her friends, to get a closer look to see if she was really the girl in his dream, hoping that if he was her dream guy she would recognize him, but she was having none of it, as pretty much every heterosexual male in the theater was trying to make meaningful eye contact with her.  They all figured that a girl with dreams like that would have to be awesome in the sack.  None of them were in any way deterred by her stated disgust for men or her proudly and publicly proclaimed long-term celibacy.  Stephanie knew men after all, and kept her gaze glued securely to the pavement four feet in front of her and passed into the night and down the street, angry at her friends, who followed silently several steps behind, and embarrassed for having so graphically revealed the contents of her subconscious nighttime trysts, which had just seemed like a little fun a few moments earlier.

Burt came out with a sweet-looking actress with short hair, doe-like eyes and a tight, athletic body, named Coco.  That’s right, Coco.  She was more than a little too young for Burt, thought Phil, but that was only because Phil assumed that, like most men his age, Burt was looking for someone he could have a mature relationship with, a true partner, when in fact, Burt was not interested in that at all.  Burt shared Phil’s father’s belief that sex was everything, and he was in no rush to limit the outlet for his sexual expression to just one woman.  Also, Burt was well aware that his emotional age was a good ten to fifteen years behind his physical age, so Coco, not yet 19 and a high-school dropout who worked at the local Ukranian restaurant as a waitress, or “waitron” to use the non-gender specific term she preferred, was essentially perfect for Burt, at least for tonight and perhaps even the next few weeks, after which she would decide, as all of Burt’s girls (to call them women would be a stretch) inevitably did, that she was too mature for him. Burt introduced Phil to Coco, they shook hands, she smiled in the very cute, sexy way she had apparently mastered for moments like these, which had its desired effect of momentarily making Phil jealous of Burt’s “situation,” and off they went to the bar around the corner.

“Suffer,” was a slight variation on the East Village theme: a dark, cave-like drinking establishment with loud music and profusely tattooed and pierced patrons.  Liquor bottles lit from below lined the shelves behind the bar and provided the chief source of light. Visually dominating the area behind the bar was a brilliantly tattooed and pierced young bartender, not an unusual sight in this neck of the woods, save for the fact that she was also remarkably beautiful.  In her natural state, sans the body art, she must have once been a textbook specimen of the perfect female.  Phil had been to Suffer a few times, always with Burt, and as he had on every prior occasion, he found himself standing just inside the door, staring at her like a doofus, a lump in his throat.

Part of him was taken by her beauty, which was mind-boggling, although she obviously hated herself for it, as no woman would obscure her incredible looks to such a degree without a healthy dose of self-loathing.  Seriously, though, the effect of seeing her was akin to seeing a perfect thoroughbred or a great painting, which she was to some degree, being so strikingly laid out.  Fortunately, she had the good judgment to leave her thick mane of chestnut brown hair in its natural state, long and tied back in a loose pony tail, rather than turned into, say, a blue Mohawk.  The vest that she wore made it easy to appreciate the manner in which the tattoo artist had used her body as his personal canvas.  It did indeed appear that she had on a shirt, but careful examination showed it to be all skin, albeit brilliantly colored skin. And the piercings: eyebrows, ears (from lobe to top), nose (just one, a small diamond stud), tongue, navel, at least one if not both nipples, and God knows what else (most assumed, correctly, that this included her labia), were pierced and adorned with metal or stone.  All of this seized the interest of his eyes, and another part of Phil, and left him somewhat spellbound.

If she looked at him, however (and that was part of her job, to occasionally look at the customers, and she was very good at her job), he made believe he was not staring at her, but just trying to see the booze selection behind her.  She was far too intimidating for him.  Even if he weren’t engaged to Marika, this multi-colored, holey goddess would have been way out of his league.  Women like this only dated men who were nothing like Phil: rock stars, perhaps, men with no fear, with incredibly well-muscled egos and physiques and similarly impressive sexual repertoires, including at least one threesome. Yes, a threesome with two hot babes, that most sacred of sexual holy grails for straight men the world over. Yet despite his suspicion that he was “not her type,” Phil couldn’t keep his eyes off her and figured she was probably okay with being stared at as her body was an art gallery of sorts, and so she would expect, and in fact want to be stared at.

He was absolutely correct in this aspect of his assessment of this exotic creature, named Susan, Susie in childhood, now known to one and all primarily as “Zee.”  Although she used to hate being stared at when she was 18 and impossibly yet simply flawless, Zee absolutely adored being stared at now, almost as much as she enjoyed the looks on people’s faces when she would attend family events, for example, her cousin’s daughter’s confirmation ceremony a few weeks earlier at a Roman Catholic church in Nyack.  She was especially thrilled with the reaction of the priest, who had to leave the chapel to collect his thoughts.

What Phil didn’t know was that Zee had fairly low self-esteem and would probably have slept with him at the drop of a hat if he acted the right way (by kissing her hard on the mouth, biting her shoulder, grabbing her ass and then telling her to fuck off), but he would probably never find this out, which was a shame, because he also didn’t know that between her shoulder blades was a tattooed labyrinth that she really liked having traced by her lover of the moment, and Phil was something of a maze maven.  In ways they would in all likelihood never discover, Phil and Zee were perfectly suited for each other.  In other ways, however, they were oil and water.

Burt brought Phil out of his meditation on the stained glass siren behind the bar by bringing him a beer, and they joined a few of the other so-called cast members and their friends at a table in the back near the dartboard.  A few of the gathered offered Phil thanks for sharing his dream with them; someone even asked if he was a professional writer, to which Phil replied, yes, sometimes, but didn’t volunteer that the only writing he had done since college was one mediocre paragraph about his fairly run of the mill sexual history.  Still, being identified as a writer gave Phil a nice warm feeling somewhere; he couldn’t say where, exactly, but it was somewhere between knees and his nipples, that area identified by the National League as the strike zone.

Since they already suspected him of being a scribe with talent, Phil thought he’d try out being a writer, just for the night.  And how does one be a writer?  Not by writing, that would be way too obvious, but by being writerly, acting like a writer, trying it on for size.  Writers observe as well as write, right?  He’d do research for his first novel, here, out amongst the hip theater radicals, lesbians and no-additives-added-cigarette smokers in the East Village.  He would make the necessary preparations to write about the human condition.

He wasn’t certain how one researched without a library or an internet, but then it suddenly came over him, the realization that what one might do was to actually listen.  Listen to whatever the other person is saying, he thought, as if this weren’t what he, and everyone, should always be doing.  But it was more than a mere thought.  It was almost an epiphany.  Yes, an epiphany was what this was.  Considerably odd, as Phil was one of the least epiphanistic adults in New York City.  His epiphany: tonight, for the first time perhaps since he was a babe in his mother’s arms, he would listen carefully, with his whole being, hearing each word instead of trying to figure out how he was going to respond after the other person finally stopped going on and on about something he didn’t really give a damn about.  Asking questions to inspire the other to go deeper into his or her story, instead of giving unwanted, ill-conceived opinions or showing off his pithy wit.  He wasn’t here to get laid, so he could afford to be totally honest; nothing behooved him to be funny, or even interesting.  Why, he might even talk to a guy for a change!  That was another great thing about being in a committed relationship.  He could actually hang out and bond with someone, instead of trying to convince some young coed, waitress, or retail clerk to come to bed with him at the end of the night, before the hangover, when there’s nothing left to do but go to sleep or have sex, or both, in that order.

Before he could wonder if it was totally gay for him to be mulling over the idea of bonding with men, who should sit beside him but Coco.  She smiled that smile again, the one that gave him a pleasurable tweak somewhere below his left testicle and simultaneously made him want to kill Burt.  Perfect, Phil thought.  I’ll get to know Coco, really know her.  She’ll be my first character study.  I’ll get her story, or at least find out what she sees in Burt.  For a brief moment, Phil worried that it might be because Burt had a big penis.  Damn.  If it turned out that Burt had a… But wait a minute, he realized.  Burt’s a shameless lout.  If he had a big penis, he would tell everyone, certainly me.  Burt told everyone he had sex with his sister, didn’t he?  Well, step-sister, technically… and they never actually lived under the same roof as brother and sister, but still…

“Awesome dream, Phil.” It was Coco, looking up at him with eyes that were, well, cocoa.  How could this divine, angelic, not-very-far-this-side-of-legal-girl willingly give herself to the unknown, unfunny Marx brother?  Phil would find out.  Listen, he reminded himself.  Hear her.  Make her words the center of your concentration.

“Thanks, uh, thanks, Coco,” Phil nodded casually.  “So it’s your eyes, isn’t it?  The color of your eyes.  That’s why they call you Coco?”

“The color of my… Oh, no.  My real name was so fuckin’ Jane, I had to come up with something.  You really think my eyes are cocoa?”  She seemed happy about this.

“Yeah… so you work at Vaselka, huh?  I never saw you there, and I’m there all the time.”

“I work mornings during the week.  No one comes in then if they have a real job.”

“That must be hell on tips.”

“Right on.  So, Burt says you’re engaged. Where’s your fiancé?” Coco wondered, ever so gently brushing Phil’s leg in a way he kind of liked but couldn’t tell what it meant, if anything.  He explained that she was away for work in Omaha, or Lincoln, or some other godforsaken, wheat-and-or-corn-filled…

“But enough about me.  What else do you do? I can’t imagine that an obviously intelligent, extremely cute girl like you is long for the waitress game.”

“Actually, I know this sounds weird, but I prefer ‘waitron,’” said Coco, in utmost seriousness.

“You mean, rhymes with matron, or patron?”

”Sort of, but more like, you know, if your name were Ron, and I was telling you to wait.  Wait Ron.  Only run it together like one word.”

Phil shrugged.  “Okay, but… why?”

“Waitress is one of the last accepted diminutives for professional women.  It should go the way of ‘comedienne,’ and ‘songstress.’”

“Or stewardess?” Phil offered.  Coco liked that one. “What about ‘server?’”

“Too subservient.”

“I can see that.  Okay.  So, besides having issues about gender specific linguistics, what makes Coco run?”

Coco thought.  She pored this over a good long time, to consider, and then cast aside, a number of possible motivations or passions that might give meaning and purpose to her life at that moment.  Surely, Phil mused, she’s got to have some dream for herself, something he never would guess. This is what writers must do to get material, he realized, feeling quite writerly and wishing he had one of those little lined memo pads and a Bic pen, one of those clear plastic blue or black bad boys that chew up real nice and often leave an indelible stain in your Levi’s.  This girl is special; she’s going to offer up an insightful reflection of the life of a 19 year old at this moment in time, New York City, post 9/11, and I don’t have the proper equipment to record it for posterity, he rued.  “Note to self,” a little voice right behind Phil’s left frontal lobe said. “Look up ‘posterity.’”

“I don’t know yet,” Coco gazed up at him sadly.

Oh, yeah, he thought.  This is supposed to be about her, and I’m just projecting.  “Well, I’m not saying that you should have your whole life planned out already, but surely…”

Coco looked up at him.  She shook her head.  And touched his leg again.  Wait.  She placed her hand on his thigh.  No, not quite thigh, more toward the top.  The thigh is more inside the leg, isn’t it?  This was more the top of the leg, not the haunch either, not that Phil had haunches, to speak of, at least not huge ones.  Quads, perhaps?  Rectus femoris!  Right, that was the muscle, connecting the front of the hip to...  His anatomical musings were brought to a halt by Coco’s next verbal salvo.

“No.  I was never much of a student.  I never really got involved in the arts, you know, music or painting.  What else is there?  Artists have this real passion.”

“But, you’re an actress.”

“Not really.  I mean, please, Unintentional Theatre?  I’m not a real ‘actress.’”

“Excuse me, I meant ‘actron.’”

“No.  Actually ‘actress’ is fine.  I mean, in acting, sure, we’re all actors, but if you’re casting up a movie and you need people, why not have one word that means both ‘actor’ and ‘woman.’  ‘I need an actress,’ not ‘I need a woman actor.’”

“So ‘actress’ is okay?”  She nodded.  “Right.  An exception, if you will.”

“If I will what?” Said she, in all earnestness.

“So what do you do, then?  You know, besides this and serving steaming plates of bigos?”  He asked, referring to the Ukrainian hunter’s stew.

“Don’t start me on the bigos.  Do you know what they put in that stuff?”

“I don’t want to know.  I like bigos.”

She shrugs.  “What do I do?  I work.  Watch TV.  Walk around, you know, live.  Sometimes I have a boyfriend, which can be nice, especially if he’s good in bed and respects me.  That’s pretty much it.”

“Is Burt your boyfriend?”

“Burt?  No, not really.  We just met.  I mean, we’ve had sex, but that’s it,” said this girl, this somebody’s daughter, completely un-self aware.  “I went out with a guy who was engaged, for a few months.  That was fun.”

Her hand didn’t move from his leg.  It didn’t send out any message, either way.  Of course, Phil wasn’t a cheater, so really it didn’t matter.  He was thinking about one of his pet peeves, the fact that a girl could just put her hand on a guy’s thigh, or, well, quads, and it was okay.  I mean, maybe a little flirtatious or familiar, but okay.  But if a guy just put his hand on a woman’s… quad, or thigh, or knee, well let’s just say it would definitely be sending a message, one that required a response. Is she coming on to me?  Nah.  She knows I’m Burt’s friend, and I’m engaged.  Wait, she likes dating engaged guys.  Or maybe that had nothing to do with why she dated that guy.  But why would she bring it up, unless she liked me?

As usual, a pretty girl could really get Phil’s head going round in crazy loops, thoughts bouncing off one another like pinballs off bumpers.  Phil batted one back with the flipper, careful not to give it too much English with the hips for fear of tilting.

“It was fun that he was engaged?  Or he was just fun.”

“No, I mean, he was fun.  I found out he was engaged after we broke up.”

“I see.  So, what was so fun about him?”

She just got this look on her face, a faraway look and a smile, for a second.  Phil knew that look.  The guy probably had a big penis.

“He was a real man.  You know?  Had a solid career, making great money.  But not just money, power.  It was sexy.  He was powerful for such a young guy.  Not too many around like him,” she enthused.

“Um, he was cheating on his fiancé with you.”

“Yes, but it was his last fling. I had to respect him for that.”

Make enough money, and women really cut you some slack, don’t they?  “Well, we know you’re not dating Burt for his money.  And please don’t tell me it’s because he has a big penis.”  Phil attempted a joke.

“Okay,” she replied.  “I won’t tell you.”

Damn!  He has a big penis, Phil thought, just as Burt crossed the room and sat on the other side of the table.  Coco took her hand off his… quad.  Damn.  She likes Burt, and now I have to talk to him and be his friend, all the while knowing that he has a big penis.  It’s never the guys you expect…

“Buddy!” Burt chocked him on the shoulder.  “You’re a hit.”

“Yeah, yeah, thanks for setting me up like that. It was like being run down by the A train.”

“Oh, come on, man, you had to love it.  ‘The Oaf.’  Wow, what a dream.  When did you have it?”

“Like a couple of nights ago.”

“See?  It was kismet.  Right before Dreamplays.”

“Right, kismet.” Burt offered. “How ‘bout that Stephanie chick, at the end.  That went over big.”

“The sex dream?  That was hot, actually.  Very erotic,” Coco replied blandly.

“Erotic?  Please. That’s such a chick thing,” observed Burt.  “If a dude came in there and started telling a dream like that, all the women would have been offended, like ‘that’s male-oriented submissive-female fantasy bullshit…’”

“We would not.”

“Oh, yeah, yeah you would.  Like this one time, my old girlfriend was looking for a phone number in my laptop and she noticed some porno files that accidentally got loaded into my “favorites” menu.  Fucking spam was all it was.  She got all holy about it.  So I go, hey you have all that Anais Nin crap and the Paris Hilton vid on your PC.  So she goes, ‘that’s erotica.’ And I’m like ‘erotica?’ It’s porn.  Paris is taking cock.  No, she says.  It’s erotica.  Donnez moi a break.”

“I see her point, actually,” said Coco, almost defensively.

“Me too,” Phil chimed in.  Burt couldn’t believe he was taking her side.

“I’m not saying I have a problem with porn, you know, morally,” Coco added.  “Just that it’s different from true erotica.  Although Paris Hilton, that’s not erotica.  It’s not porn, either, because it has some pop cultural value.”

“I don’t have an ethical or moral problem with porn, either.  I just think it’s partially responsible for the downfall of civilization as we know it.” Phil offered.

“Oh, now I’ve got to hear this one,” Burt scoffed.  “Porn has been part of every culture since the beginning of, well, cultures.”

“I read someplace that the average male internet user spends around ten or eleven hours a week viewing porn.”  Phil continued.

“Really?” asked Coco, appalled but trying to be okay with it.

Phil nodded.  “Now, I don’t have a problem with adults selling pictures of themselves having sex to other adults who want to see that; it’s just a bunch of voyeurs funding the antics of a few exhibitionist sex addicts.  Whatever stuff they throw in there, if it’s consenting adults, great. Have at it. Knock yourself out.  But I’m thinking, eleven hours a week?  I could learn a new language in six months for fuck’s sake.  I mean, if people are spending that much time downloading porn… and what about the other stuff?  Like the stupid jokes, or those acerebral little animation thingies, for that matter?  That’s not even included in the eleven hours.  And those stupid fucking chain e-mails.  I’m going to kill the next person who sends me one of those.  It’s no wonder nothing gets done. Business gets pushed aside, as does parenting, hobbies, learning.  See my point?  Eleven hours a week is a lot of time.  And also, the internet makes it too easy. It was better when people had to sneak behind the porno drape at the local video store. A little shame and guilt goes a long way to protect humans from their baser selves.”

Burt looked flummoxed.  Coco put her hand on Phil’s… knee this time.  Did that mean anything, now that she was down to the knee?  It was sort of less flirty.  But why put it back, then, if not to mean anything?  Maybe she’s just a toucher.  Some girls just have to touch.  And Burt just had to change the subject.

“So, Phil, I got to talk to you about your dream.  It’s… I don’t know.  It really struck me.  I’m not sure what it was, maybe the mother-son thing?  It really got to me.  You know, my mom, after she dropped me… I always had trust issues.”

“I don’t think my dream was about trust.”

“But, they fooled The Oaf.  They made believe they liked The Oaf to get him out of his house so they could take his mother.”

“They didn’t make believe.  The married guy just asked him to go out for a beer.  In the dream, his name was Joe.  And I was Joe, not the Oaf.  That was my point of view, in my dream.  And to me it was about choices, maybe.  Or, I don’t know, being nice to retards.”

“Mentally challenged,” offered Coco.

“Right.  Challenged.  That’s what I meant.  It was my dream.  I’m not The Oaf in the dream.  I had a very specific point of view.”

“That’s not how I see it.”

“You didn’t see it, Burt.  You reenacted it.  It was very well done, actually.  I was surprised.  I mean, let’s face it, most of your theater things don’t work out so well.”

“How do you mean, most of my ‘theater things?’” Burt asked, insulted.

“Never mind that.  My point is, you see it as a play, but it was my dream.”

“But I had a very strong reaction to that dream.  I mean, it really knocked me out, dude.  It’s hard to explain.  It was like it was my own dream.”

“But it wasn’t your dream.  It was mine.”

“I know, I know, but the mother-son stuff.  That could have been me.  I could have had a dream like that.”

“But you didn’t.”

“I know, I know.  I’m not saying it was mine, I’m just saying it really resonated with me, dick-head.  You should write that up.”

“What?”

“You know, like, as a play.  It was a great one-act play, tonight.”

“No, I don’t think so.  I’m not a theater guy.”

“So?  A short story, whatever.  You could even open it up a little, make a whole novel, or even a movie.”

“A novel?  It was a dream.  Milliseconds of random synaptic activity.  There’s not enough in there for a comic strip, let alone a novel or a movie’s worth.”

“Well, all I’m saying is, think about it.  You said you wanted to do some writing.”

“I am writing.  In fact, I’m doing research right now.”

“What are you writing about?” Coco chimed in.

“This.  Us.  Life.  Everything.”

“How much have you written so far?”

“A paragraph or so last week, but I tossed it.”

Burt tried to bring the conversation back to his agenda.  “But you have to admit, ‘The Oaf” rocked.  We were all great, right Coke?  I mean, I never felt a part like that one, man.  I’m telling you, I was the Oaf.  I just became this larger-than-life, really stupid guy, but sensitive, and in some ways quite powerful.”

“Wow, okay, Burt.  This dream really did get to you.” Phil was surprised.

“That’s what I’m trying to tell you, dude.  Hey, if you don’t do anything with it, maybe I could give it a spin?”

Burt was actually making Phil laugh this time.  “Yeah, right, I’ll sell you the publishing rights to my dream.”

“Yeah, well.  Let me know.  The only other dream I really responded to tonight was the Stephanie porno dream.”

“You know, funny thing about that dream.  I had that dream.”

“You were a chick wearing only socks getting fucked by a guy with a large penis?” Burt was rooting for this.

“No idiot.  I was,” glancing at Coco, “you know, having sex.  With Stephanie.  I’m that guy.”

“So, what?  Everyone has dreams like that.  Who wouldn’t want to have sex with a girl like Stephanie?  She’s hot.”

“Yeah,” weighed in Coco.  “I want to have sex with her and I’m not even a lesbian.”

“No, you don’t understand.  I’ve had that exact dream, and she was the girl I was having sex with in the dream, I’m almost positive.”

“But dude, you say Marika is the hottest piece of ass you ever had.  You have sex, like, twice a day.  Why the hell are you dreaming about sex with someone else?”

“Who’s Marika?” asked Coco, her hand back off his knee.

“My fiancé, remember?”

“Oh.  Right.  I don’t think you mentioned her name.”

“I don’t know why I’m having this dream, but it was just the way she described it, I mean, exactly, right down to the socks and the fact that the woman looks just like her, like this Stephanie person.  That is, I think so, because it’s pretty dark in the dream.  But the thing is, I don’t know Stephanie.  I never saw her before tonight.  So why would I dream about her?”

“Dude, you can’t possibly have a body like she said.”

“I’ve been working out.”

“Let’s see the pack, then.”

Phil shook his head derisively but nonetheless quickly pulled up his shirt to show what was actually a pretty tight midsection.  Phil was an avid exerciser, but when he quit the hemp, he didn’t count on the drop off in snack food consumption due to lack of munchies.  And there was a six pack.  Well, four or five pack, at any rate.

“Nice,” Coco appreciated, “for a guy your age.”  Phil, understandably, winced.

“Now, wait a minute.  You’re saying that you and this Stephanie are having the same dream, only about each other?” Burt’s mind was blown. “That is soooo hot.”

“Hey, what if it was even at the same time?  Like, you both had the dream on the same nights at precisely the same hour.” Coco theorized.

“I know! Let’s ask Bob!”

Phil didn’t want to ask Bob.  He wanted to tell this to Burt, to remind Burt that Bob was a personal assistant to a magazine publishing executive, and knew no more about dream interpretation than your average People Magazine reader.  He needed to help Burt recall that the last time they talked to Bob in a bar after a show, Phil got so weirded out by the guy that he started giggling uncontrollably.  But he couldn’t stop Burt and tell him all of this, as Bob was standing about one foot away and all Burt had to do was grab him by the sleeve and haul him into the seat next to him in the booth.

Bob was promptly filled in, during which time Phil recalled that the reason he couldn’t look at Bob without giggling last time was because Burt had scored a lump of hash that they had smoked on the way over that night after the show.  Hash always made Phil giggle.  Sadly one hardly ever came across it anymore.

“I’ve read about this ancient African -- or maybe Arabian? -- I don’t recall… folk story, that there are these spirits that actually come into your room and have sex with you in your sleep, resulting in an incredibly realistic sexual experience.”

“But this wasn’t that, even if that were a real thing,” said Phil, deadpanning dismissively.  “Her dreams were exactly the same ones I’m having.”

“You’re both having very typical sexual dreams with commonplace symbols.  Maybe she looks like the girl in yours, but there’s no way you’re having the same dream about each other at the same time.  It just doesn’t work that way.”

“Thank you, Dr. Freud,” Phil dismissed.

“I was referencing Jung… I’m no psychologist, but I’ve read a lot on the subject and let’s just put it this way: if this were happening to you, it would be a phenomenon never recorded in dream research, because if anyone documented a random sharing of a single common dream by two strangers, it would have been all over the internet by now, let alone the psycho-journals, and I’m pretty skeptical you’re experiencing a dream phenomenon that’s different from anything that has ever happened in the recorded history of dreaming... By the way, thanks for not getting all stoned tonight.  I think you enjoyed the experience more.”

“How did you know I was stoned last time?”

“It was in your aura…  Listen, I’ll be back in a minute.”

Bob left.  “In my aura.” Phil mimicked.  “Where does he get that aura shit?  We smelled like hash cakes that night.  In my aura, my ass.”  Phil was angry, because, of course, Bob was right.

“Let’s get a shot of something.  Tequila, maybe,” offered Burt.

CHAPTER FIVE: TAPPIN’ ZEE

Stephanie was a little pissed off, but she was starting to see the humor in it.  Every person in that room was significantly horned up by the time she had filled in the details of the lengthy, excruciatingly sensual sessions with her dream lover.  If only she had known how many couples (six) ran home and had sexual relations before they even made it to the bedroom or how many men (three) and women (two) couldn’t fall asleep before pleasuring themselves to the images Stephanie had shared with her now adoring audience, she surely and rightfully would have been proud, even as a celibate, because   although she wasn’t currently having any, she really had no problem with sex at all.

Of course, she had embellished a little.  He wasn’t that physically perfect in the dream, just fit, normal, comfortable.  But it was absolutely true that, during these dreams, she was having the best sex of her life, by far. Not that Stephie had been promiscuous, by most accounts, but she had been around the proverbial block.  A few times.

She knew why she had been having such vivid dreams.  She had smoked pot daily since eighteen months ago, when her fiancé, Gordon had died.  He was a little older than Stephanie, but in great shape, being an avid cyclist and a vegan and whatnot.  But that didn’t stop him from having a coronary right in the middle of her orgasm one night, when she was on top, or astride, if you prefer.  That’s right.  She fucked him to death.  As penance for the guilt she felt, celibacy was inevitable.

Meanwhile, and partially in response to the grief, she took up Gordon’s hobby, smoking a few joints a day. There was, like, a two pounds of killer weed in the closet (Gordon was a personal finance advisor, and favored saving cash by buying in bulk), and she would feel guilty flushing Gord’s beloved stash away; the way she looked at it, she’d fired it up in his honor, little by little. It did the trick more pleasantly than Prozac or some other such “wonder” drug, and she was still able to get her work done, mostly, but eventually her entire life had this fuzzy edge to it, and so, for clarity, she decided to give it up.  Plus, she had polished off the two lbs. and didn’t want to ask around for a dealer. It didn’t really suit her, anyway, the pothead existence, and she felt that her grief had run itself out, so she could stop getting high in Gordon’s memory, as it were.  Still, though she had mourned enough to give up one memorial ritual, she had no plans of having sex with anyone in the near future, mostly for fear of committing homicidus via coitus, and although she had considered dating women, who smelled better and were much easier to talk to, she had come to the conclusion that she simply was not a lesbian, even though she had no objection to lesbians and assumed that, in all likelihood, lesbians were less likely to die of heart attacks during sex, them being women and all; this, if true, was a definite plus for someone of her experience, celibacy-wise.

These are the kinds of things someone in Stephanie’s circumstance gives thought to, and while she was celibate because she didn’t want to kill anyone, that didn’t stop her from occasionally using The Intruder, a large, battery operated “special friend” with multiple “personal massage” attachments, a gift from her sister, Roseanne, six months after Gordon’s death.  It was while using The Intruder, on a lazy Sunday afternoon, and trying to fantasize about her friend Carol, a gorgeous lipstick lesbian who had tried numerous times to seduce and introduce Stephanie into the specialized realm of lesbiterianism, that Stephanie concluded, sadly, that she was not gay, or even bi, and fell back on fantasizing about her first boyfriend, Seth.  Actually, Seth wasn’t really a boyfriend, but her neighbor, seven years her senior and a fifth year senior at Columbia when he took Stephanie’s virginity at age 16.  He never took her to a movie, or dinner, or anything, but he was very good in bed, especially in the estimation of a sixteen-year-old virginal female, him being a college man in addition to a statutory rapist.

So, after settling down with her friends in the safety of the corner booth in a dark bar back uptown following a cab ride escape from Unintentional Theatre (her friend’s cousin was in the cast), and after two or three very well-mixed dry martinis, Stephanie started to see the humor in her adventure, and that it could make a great story someday, so she forgave her friends for putting her up to it.  Hell, she’d probably never see any of those people at the theater again, or so she hoped.

One thing bothered her though, kind of nagging in the back of her brain for the entire cab ride uptown, and that was the guy who told the story about the oaf.  Like she knew him, like maybe she had dated him once?  Or something.  But if she had, she couldn’t recall, and since she was never a big dater but more of a serial monogamist in her pre-Gordon days, she figured she probably hadn’t, unless she was wasted at the time, which was unlikely, as she had hardly ever done any drugs, at least none that would make her forget going on a date with someone, and she was usually pretty responsible about things like that.  So, to sum up, she never met the guy.  Then it hit her.

“Wait a minute.  I know...  He looked like the guy in my dream!  The sex dream!”

“The guy who dreamed about the retar… er, mentally challenged?  He couldn’t be the sex god you described to me.” Judy, a dangerous red head, had standards.

“I thought he was cute.  That dream about the oaf was so sensitive and moving, I swear it made me cry.”  Sunny (nee Sunshine), progeny of Hudson Valley hippies, was ever charitable and emotionally vulnerable in an endearing way.

“I exaggerated about how hot dream lover was, maybe? I was telling a story.  So I embellished a little.  Anyway, I’m not saying he was the guy, just that maybe I thought he looked familiar ‘cause he kind of looks like the guy.”

“Take him to bed. You’d know if it was him in the first five minutes,” suggested Judy, very practically.  “Unless the sex was an exaggeration, too.”

“No, it wasn’t,” answered Stephanie, quickly, blushing as if her dream lover were a real human being who actually existed outside her subconscious.  “But I’m not taking anyone to bed, especially not just because he looks like a guy I dreamt about, and hope to never see anyone from that theater, if you could call that a theater, ever again.  God what they must think of me.”  This emphatic statement was followed by a two-finger wave to the bartender to come on down and shake up some more ‘tinis for the ladies.  Stephanie hadn’t gotten drunk in months, and she wasn’t about to stop now.

“Actually,” offered Judy, with a point, “they’re probably just jealous.”

Meanwhile, Phil and Burt ambled down the street, Coco having said good night a bit earlier, saying she was exhausted and had to be at work early. Phil could tell that Burt was pissed at him for hanging around long enough for Coco to call it a night.  Phil was a little surprised at how good he felt that Burt wasn’t getting laid tonight, either. Misery loves company?  Maybe.  Did he have a crush on Coco?  No, Phil decided, it was his fatherly instinct, protecting this innocent young babe from the horrid experience of lying under the thrusting Burt and his big penis.  Maybe not as pure as the driven snow, this Coco, but… let’s just say that if Coco’s father could only know what Phil had done tonight, saving his daughter from Burt and his protuberant member, he’d appreciate Phil a whole lot, and owe him a debt of gratitude. Or so Phil liked to believe, as this dovetailed nicely with the whole nice guy persona.

“So what do you think of Coco?”

“She’s, uh, she’s real cute.  Very pretty.  Sweet girl.  But you know, she can’t buy her own alcohol in this state, Burton.  She hasn’t listened to Pearl Jam, or been to a Yankee game, you know?”

“I know.  Isn’t it great?”

“Did you ever think it might be nice to go out with a woman you have an emotional and intellectual bond with?  Who likes some of the same things you do?’

“Uh, no.  Not yet, anyway, thank God.” Burt scoffs. “Please tell me you’re not using you and Marika as a model for that kind of thing.”

“Why not?  I’ve made a commitment to start making a life with someone I care about and have connected with on a very deep level.  We do everything together.”

“Where did you read that ‘very deep level’ stuff, Phil?  You and Marika don’t have much in common, outside of the fact that she likes to fuck as much as most guys do, which I admit is a very fine quality in a woman, to be sure, but…”

“You’re kidding, right?

“Tell me what your ‘bond’ is then.”

“Okay.  Well…” And Phil thought about it.  There was, of course, the sex.  And the fact that Marika was successful and her father wealthy, so that took a lot of pressure off Phil’s future financial needs, but that didn’t fit the “common bond” criterion.  And of course there was physical fitness.  Although she tended to have a little extra flesh around the hips most of the time, Marika was very aware of it and had recently committed to a very low carbohydrate diet and was looking quite trim, but that referred back to the sex, since the only stake Phil had in Marika being thin as opposed to simply healthy, was that she’d be all the more desirable sexually. To him anyway. Which was an incredibly shallow basis for a bond. Bonds.  Phil was drawing a blank, but he had to come up with something to knock that smug smirk off Burt’s you-know-I’m-right face.

“What about values, then?”

“Ex-squeeze me?”

“It’s not a question of liking the same music, or movies, or vacations.  It’s more of a general thing, greater than the sum of the parts.  I don’t know how else to explain it.  Marika and I share the same values, the same world-view.  It’s a kind of ‘know-it-when-you-feel-it’ type thing.”

That was lame, Phil thought.  But after four beers and a couple shots of tequila, might that derail Burt’s train of thought?  And Phil wanted nothing more than for Burt to shut up, already.  He was starting to get a headache. Luckily, Burt went along with it.

“Either I haven’t found someone like that, or I’m not ready for it.  I’m sure I will be, one day, or maybe not, but if I can actually get girls like Coco, who gives a fuck?  Carpe diem and what not.”

Phil really had no argument, not that their individual takes on the matter couldn’t coexist in the same universe.  Then again, Phil’s “values” nonsense would fold under even minor scrutiny.  But what if Burt was right?  Not about “carpe diem,” which, Phil joked inwardly, Burt probably thought meant “seize the dame,” but about the fact that the only thing Phil and Marika had in common was their appetite for sex?  Then what?  What if Burt was right, and he had a big penis?!  Damn!  That would be just fucking great, now wouldn’t it?  It was almost too much to contemplate, Burt being right and well endowed?  That could almost upset the entire apple cart of Phil’s universe.  Luckily, Phil wouldn’t have to discuss it any further, at least not for now, as they had arrived at Burt’s place, a tunnel of an apartment in a four story walk-up over an Indian restaurant that always smelled of curry and deep fryer oil.  Phil inevitably felt hungry when he was at Burt’s, for saag paneer or vindaloo something. As they said good night, Phil couldn’t hold back.

“So what’s your secret, anyway?  With the girls.  I mean, no offense, but you’re no Brad Pitt.”

“Thanks.  You’re too kind.”

“No, really, but you get hot girls like Coco all the time.”

“Why are you so interested?  I thought you have all your values covered.”

“Fuck it.  Don’t tell me.”

Burt got a, well, cocky look on his face.  “Maybe it’s ‘cause I’m packing a lethal weapon down here under my belt, huh?  Like a fuckin’ Magnum.”  Burt burst out laughing, like he couldn’t take how god damn funny he was.

That’s it, he’s got a big penis, and he’s laughing at me, Phil realized, chagrined.

One manly hug and a “dude” or two later, Phil headed off down the street, alone, to ponder the meaning of values, or was it the value of meanings?  He wasn’t quite sure, but between running into Stephanie, a woman he had assumed existed only his dreams… between that and Burt being right (not to mention the other thing about Burt that Phil would do his best to try to suppress any knowledge thereof), Phil had a lot of thinking to do.  Mostly, he really had to think about his pending marriage.

Was Burt right?  Did he really only want to marry Marika because she liked to fuck a lot?  And if so, was that so fucking bad, to marry a girl who liked to fuck a lot?  That’s what Dad advised.  What if Dad was right too? Sure, he was a depressed, alcoholic tile man from Dutchess County, but Dave learned a few things in life that he tried his best to pass on to his son, along with his propensity for panic attacks and nervous eating.

Phil took the long way home, circling back through the East Village, to give himself time to calm down and sober up.  Was he getting married for the wrong reasons?  And what was the right reason?  Is there one central ideal, only one way to look at this thing?  That couldn’t be. No one knows why one marriage is “good” and another “bad.”  Some people’s really bad marriages might appear to be more than acceptable or even perfect from the outside, especially to those in even worse marriages.  And sadly, somewhere on this planet is the worst marriage in the world.  So maybe some bad marriages aren’t so bad after all.

But more importantly, how was he going to find out if Stephanie was the girl in his dreams?  Realistically, of course, he knew this to be unlikely.  The girl in the dreams was probably some kind of amalgam of characteristics that he had liked in women, and Stephanie, coincidentally, happened to embody most of these characteristics.  But that made her all the more enticing, being a composite of that which he found most attractive.  Of course, he couldn’t be certain of this, having not spent even one second alone with Stephanie.  But if he was so fulfilled with Marika, why did these dreams haunt him so?  Was it that the sex in the dreams was even better than real life?  Maybe.  Was it because in the dream he knew, somehow, that this was sex with a woman he truly loved?  But how could he know he loved her if he didn’t even know her?

Maybe he’d be better off not knowing. But the fact that Stephanie, a celibate from uptown, was having an almost identical dream to his own, only hers was about some guy who looked like him?  What was that all about? He had to know.  Maybe I’m not as hot as the guy in the dream, Phil thought, but still, it’s a remarkably similar vision. But that was what Bob had said, that these were “commonplace dream images.” Archetypes. Curse him, that Bob.  Thinks he knows everything about everything; worst of all, he does.  He even knows the meaning of “archetype.” At least he undoubtedly had a small penis, but that was only slightly comforting. Both Phil and Stephanie were having very typical sex dreams and the fact that they looked alike, both brown hair and dark eyes and physically fit, might just bolster the Freudian argument that everything in the dream is a reflection of the dreamer.

Wasn’t that Freud?  He was the only psychology guy Phil knew about.  Him and Jung.  Knew Jung’s name, but nothing about him.  And Dr. Brothers, right?  He remembered her from TV, when he was a kid.  Was this good, dreaming about fucking the female version of himself?  He didn’t know, but he wished Joyce Brothers were here to tell him.  He thought she’d be less judgmental than Freud or Jung.  At least she wasn’t dead.  Or was she?  If Freud’s patients knew they were talking to the Sigmund Freud, would they have been able to relax enough to really tell him everything?  They’d be thinking, “oh I can’t say that to him. It’s so Freudian.  He’ll just call me on it,”

Screw Bob.  He’s no expert just because he’s read a few books.  Maybe Phil and Stephanie never met and yet were still dreaming of each other, and this had never happened before in the history of dreams.  So what? Maybe this was the first time ever. The only way to find out was to meet her and talk to her.  Actually, maybe the only way to really find out was to sleep with her.

This thought made Phil smile, despite himself, and it was with this smile, a smile that reflected precisely how great it would be to live his sex dream in real life, to actually have that kind of high-quality, jaw-dropping sex with a woman that really did it for him in every way, that Phil entered the local all-night grocery store to pick up some half and half for his morning java.  It was this smile that almost evaporated, but then reappeared, when he heard a voice.  A lovely voice:

“You look like the cat who ate the canary.”

Phil looked down at her, a little, as he was a few inches taller; a woman with a mane of chestnut brown hair cascading past her shoulders, wearing a big old sweater and fatigues.  At the end of her sentence, between “ate” and “the,” the stud in her tongue clicked ever so fetchingly over her teeth.

“Oh, hi.  No, I…”

“You don’t recognize me?”

“I do… I just don’t…”

“Out of context, right?”

“Yeah, I guess.  You’re…”

“Zee.”

“Zee?”

“The bartender.  Weren’t you at Suffer tonight?”

Phil’s mind clicked like a slot machine until he finally realized he was talking to the tattooed goddess he had ogled for much of the evening.  He hoped she wouldn’t call him out for staring at her like a total fucking idiot, or even smack him in the face and tell him never to come into her establishment again.

“Zee. Right.  Great name.  Does it stand for something?”

“It’s kind of short for Susie.  And you’re…?”

“Phil, short for Phillip… It’s not that I didn’t recognize you.  It’s just that… you seemed so much taller…”

“The floor behind the bar is like four or five inches higher.  Gives me a better view of the room… you know.  If anyone needs a drink?  And I can see which guys are ogling me.”

“I tried to look like I was checking out the booze selection behind you.”

“That what you all do.”

“So…you recognized me, huh?”  She smiled and nodded, her eyes kind of a sea green.  Great eyes.  You could swim in those eyes.

Here’s where Phil wanted to be funny, or smart, or something, but he was just… Phil.  He stared into her eyes almost long enough to make her uncomfortable.

“Did you close the bar early tonight?”

“It was pretty quiet after your friends left, you know, Tuesday night and all. So X closed up.  Doesn’t trust anyone with the cash register.  Probably he’s right.” Phil was puzzled. “X.  My boss.”

“X, huh? As in…” Nothing.  Nothing was coming into Phil’s head.  He wasn’t overwhelmed by her beauty, or anything, or intimidated as he thought he might be.  He just didn’t have a cogent thought in his steel trap of a mind.  If there were a sound effect of Phil’s brain at that moment, it would be, say, crisp, dry footsteps echoing in a large empty room.  To Phil, though, it sounded like a voice saying, “you idiot.  Can’t you think of anything to say?  Look at her.  Just look at her!  She wants you to ask her out!”

To which Phil replied, also in his head, “no she doesn’t.  A girl like this doesn’t go out with a normal, nice guy like me.  She wants a guy with a big wallet, a lot of leather and piercings and chains…”

The first voice interrupted. “Why else would she approach you in a grocery store after midnight, when it’s obvious that she knows you wouldn’t recognize her with a sweater covering up that mural on her upper body, unless she wanted to get to know you?!  Huh?”

“It doesn’t matter, you dick, you’re engaged, remember?”

All this internal yelling, of course, wasn’t helping Phil get a handle on anything more interesting to say, except: “so, that’s a pretty hard job, bartending?”

“No, not really.  That place isn’t too big.  It’s easy, and it pays well.  In cash.”

“Oh.”

“What do you do?”

“Me?  I have a job, in an office.  With a company in midtown.”

“But what do you do?”

“I help attorneys.  Help ‘em find clients.  They pay my company for that.”

“Like, advertising?”

“More like professional ambulance chasing?  We chase the ambulance, so they don’t have to?”  Phil was going for self-effacing, but he was just getting pathetic self-loathing.  “We find people with legal problems and refer them to lawyers for a fee.”

A veil was drawn over Zee’s green, green eyes.  Not only did she not really understand what Phil did for a living, she despised him for it.  And she was a smart woman, so it wasn’t like she didn’t understand it.  No, she didn’t understand it.  She could grasp the nuts and bolts of what Phil did, but she could think of no reason whatsoever that anyone would want to spend their days performing such a thankless task, even if they could make a lot of money doing it, which Phil didn’t, not by a good stretch. Despite all this, she kissed him.  Hard.  Like a woman possessed.

Phil was shocked, mostly in a good way.  Here he was in a grocery store in the East Village kissing perhaps the most beautiful woman he had ever met in real life.  And with the whole shebang, teeth, lips, tongue. Like out of nowhere. And it was her idea.  He put his arms around her, and she him.  It was like a movie kiss, they grinded up against each other.  Phil knew he shouldn’t.  But he couldn’t stop.  Zee, in contrast, could.  Stop.  She pulled back, not like it was bad or anything but more like nothing just happened.

“You’re a great kisser, I’ll give you that.  But I just don’t feel it.”

“Feel what?”

“You know.  It.  The Thing.  I don’t feel The Thing with you.”

“I’m sorry.  The Thing?  What do you mean?”

“It’s… it’s complicated.  I’ll tell you sometime.  When I saw you looking at me tonight, I thought we might have The Thing and when I ran into you here, I needed to find out if, you know, it was fate, or something.”

“Oh.  Okay.”

“Your work sounds really…. fulfilling…I guess I’ll see you down at Suffer if you’re over there when I’m working.”

“You could say that to literally anyone,” he observed dryly.  They looked at each other for a second.

“Yes.  Well… bye!”

And with that, Zee brought her basket over to the nice Korean man behind the counter.  He said hello, and started up a conversation with her… in Korean.  They were laughing.  She was telling him a joke in Korean.  Or maybe she was just telling him what Phil did for a living.  This beautiful woman, with the great tattoos and the made-for-fellatio tongue-stud, who spoke fluent Korean, had wanted him to ask her out, practically tried to pick him up, and he COULDN’T THINK OF ANYTHING TO SAY!  And then, he didn’t have the FUCKING “THING!”

Fuck!…  But wait, I’m engaged, right?  This is ridiculous inner dialogue.  Who has a dialogue in their head, anyway?  I mean, besides Daffy Duck.

But… it’s not just about sex, is it?  This woman could become my friend. Right? She’s obviously intelligent.  And she’s funny, at least in Korean.  Can’t I just be friends with someone like that?  Even if she’s a woman?

Phil stole a glance over his shoulder at Zee’s ass and answered his own question.  He was attracted to Zee.  A lot.  Who wouldn’t be?  Even Coco was.  And Stephanie, she was hot too.  And he was engaged to Marika.  Oh boy, it was going to be a tough night.

Fortunately for Phil, he was wrong again, this time about not being able to sleep.  He got to his apartment, washed up and got into bed and was dozing in minutes.  It was the fastest he had crashed in a long time.  Which would have been good, except he soon found himself having a profoundly disturbing dream.

It was a little disjointed, to say the least.  Actually, it was decapitated.  One minute he was sleeping, and the next thing he knew, he was awake and giving someone a massage.  It was some guy.  This was not that odd because he had gone to massage school and still occasionally worked on his friends, on Marika.  People still came over to him at parties to tell him their shoulders hurt.

But that’s not the point.  The point is Phil was massaging a man who lay naked under a sheet.  Something about the guy was very familiar.  Phil couldn’t see his own arms, but he knew he was massaging the guy, just by the way he was moving around the room.  But then he noticed that the client had no head.  Just like that, too, no big deal.  Oh look, the client doesn’t have a head, dum-de-dum-de-dum, la-di-dah.  And then Phil realized, wait a minute, this is my body on the table.  Of course, there was a mirror handy, and Phil looked into it to see that he was a floating head somehow massaging his own decapitated body.  Strangely, this didn’t seem to faze Phil in the least.  He was dreaming a fairly gruesome and shocking scene, yet he didn’t feel scared or even a little put off by it.  And then when he looked back at the body, it was covered with bruises, or contusions… or maybe tattoos.  Zee’s tattoos!  Wait a minute, it was Zee.  Or no.  Maybe he was a disembodied head, massaging Zee?  Or had he turned into Zee?

Thankfully, mercifully, this is when Phil awoke.  He immediately got out of bed and went to the closet.  Grabbing a footstool, Phil climbed up and reached high into his closet, extracting, after some careful poking around, a box.  His stash box.  He took it into the kitchen. There was nothing in the way of actual pot in there. He pulled a knife from a drawer and pulled his pipe apart.  Scraping around inside, he pulled out a gob of shiny black goo.  He molded it into a ball, put the pipe back together, put the ball in the bowl, found a match, lit it, and inhaled deeply.  The glob of THC resin bubbled, then smoked, filling Phil’s lungs with a huge cloud.  After taking the hit deep into his lungs, Phil coughed, almost as though he were trying to cough out some alveoli chunks from deep in his lung tissue, for a good seven minutes.  Tears came to his eyes.

He threw some water on his face, toweled off, and did another hit, after which he coughed again, this time for only two minutes. He sat for a moment, tried to feel something.  Ah.  There. Mission accomplished. Phil was wasted. The aged residue held enough THC to do the trick.   Dream through that, he thought.  Then, and only then, was Phil ready to go back to bed.  And he was right.  He didn’t dream the rest of the night.

CHAPTER SIX: I AIN’T GOT NO BODY

This would be Phil’s lone fall off the pot wagon, and by the following week, the dreams had resumed in full, starting with the Stephanie series.  Only now, it was unmistakably Stephanie.  The sex was still fantastic, every aspect remained as perfect as before, only now he could see her face quite clearly.  Her expression was always one of sexual ecstasy, and since Phil really had no way of knowing what Stephanie’s oh-God-I’m-gonna-cum facial contortions were like, it surprised him that he could so easily conjure up that curl of her lip, tongue gliding across teeth, mouth open, panting with pre-orgasmic pleasure. The way she gazed passionately, yet almost angrily at Phil for making her feel so good. Like he had power over her.  It was disconcerting seeing someone having sex like that, someone he had seen in real life, in public, someone who existed.  He always found it helpful, or at least humorous when dealing with people in business, to imagine the faces they made when they orgasmed.  That leveled the playing field much more than merely imagining them in their underwear.  But now, with her, it was odd.  It seemed wrong, somehow, to see this stranger, this way.  Naturally, Phil felt guilty.

And for some reason, Phil now became a voyeur in his own subconscious, stepping outside the feelings in the dreams for a moment to get a grasp on the fact that he was, in some ways, directing himself and Stephanie in their sex acts.  He found that he could influence the dream by thinking about what he wanted to see.  Still, this wasn’t nearly as satisfying as being in the bed with Stephanie, like in his earlier dreams, which felt real, and Phil was disappointed because he couldn’t get back to that.  It was as if, now that he knew Stephanie existed, his relationship with his dream girl had changed.  She was a real person.  She had thoughts, desires, free will.  Phil was telling her how to act, projecting every moan, scream, sigh and shudder from his inner mind.  But who knew what Stephanie was really like in bed? Or out of it? Certainly not Phil.  And after a while, he was never the guy in the bed anymore, but just watching, sitting in a chair outside the ring of dim light that bathed the undulating couple in a grainy glow.

Disappointing, yes.  But not unexpected.  Phil somehow knew that if he ever were to find the girl from his dream, the real girl would replace the dream girl and so the dream would be changed.  And so it had changed, its purity lost.  Nothing could any longer be assumed.  There was, for the first time, ambiguity in their relationship.  What if, for example, the real Stephanie didn’t like such-and-such a sex position, or was too self-conscious to receive oral at five A.M.?  He never had to consider these things before, but now the dream was tainted.  Remember Phil’s concern that if they climaxed, the dreams would end?  Instead, this woman, formerly just a composite projection of all his desires, was now an actual human, with her own traits, physical and otherwise, her own strengths and weaknesses, assets and faults.  To be real meant no longer to be a dream. And to be real meant that even if he wanted her, she could reject him.

Yet the dreams continued, now with Phil as audience, not participant. The guy having sex with her was Phil, but he couldn’t be absolutely certain of this, either, for although the woman’s face had undoubtedly become Stephanie’s, Phil couldn’t quite make out his own.  Before he saw Stephanie at Unintentional Theatre, he never saw his own face in these dreams, because in the dream, he looked through his eyes, felt through his body.  He was in the bed, having the sex.  All he could see was this woman, and not all that well, parts of her here and there, a leg, a breast, her ear, a handful of her hair.  Now he could see both of the lovers, but the lighting was bad, the angles weird, and so while he assumed it was him, he couldn’t absolutely be sure.  Phil worried that his decapitation dream had influenced the sex dreams in some way, only without all the gross parts.  His mind was literally cut off from his body.

On the bright side, the best thing about the dreams changing was that Phil no longer yelled out in his sleep in ecstasy, which was fortunate, considering the imminent return of Marika from her days out on the lone prairie, opening the new office and recruiting salespeople for her firm’s investment services.  She always returned from these forays full of energy because, say what you will about Marika, and people often did, the girl could sell investment products.  She was damn good at her job.  Her natural business acumen, coupled with her flirtatious approachability and joie de vivre, made her an extremely effective senior account rep and sales manager.

Once upon a time, Marika had used her ample sexual powers over men in the field, and to great advantage.  It was basically unfair; the guys didn’t stand a chance.  But her engagement to Phil put an end to that.  Marika was thrilled to note that the absence of sexual networking made only a small dent in her net sales. She chalked that up to improved sales training.  She also returned home with the sexual appetite of a sailor on shore leave after months on the high seas.

It had been nearly two months this time, so when Marika got home, she basically tied Phil to the bed and they went at it for a day, with very little down time.  For several hours, Phil completely forgot about Stephanie.  What was he thinking? I’m going to give up this hot, real sex for some dream?

Sure the sex in the dream was beyond amazing, but Marika was awesome in bed, plus she was real, and really in bed with him, two definite pluses. And sure, he sometimes wondered how she knew how to do all the kinky things that she did, but then decided he’d really rather not know.  Phil had a charitable tendency to view his girlfriends as virginal.  Not that he actually thought they were virgins or anything; he just tended to put women on a sexual pedestal of sorts, believing for some reason they were more pure than men. And smelled better.  Marika threw a wrench into this line of thinking, because there was no way a girl could do the splits sitting on Mr. Happy without quite a lot of practice and a can-do attitude.  She broke her own rule and tried this technique, which she called “The Cheerleader,” on Phil after their first date, and boy was he impressed.

But none of that mattered now.  She was all his, this hot blooded babe with the damn near almost but not quite perfect body and limbs of rubber, he thought, as she gyrated on top of him, their hands intertwined, the engagement ring he gave her on her left hand, which squeezed his tightly as she orgasmed for the umpteenth time.  We don’t need no stinkin’ dream girl! This is reality.  Reality rocks!

After a particularly long session, they rested, spoon-like, his arms around her.  He was almost ready to go again, gently grinding at her from behind.

“You’re insatiable,” she smiled at him.

“We’re making up for several weeks of down time.”

“So, you didn’t have one last fling while I was away?”

“No…  Why would you think that, anyway?”

“I don’t know.  One night when I called, you sounded, what, distracted?  You weren’t there all the way.  Like I caught you in the middle of something.”

“Well, I… I might have been asleep, or… you know, whatever.”

“Oh?  Well…”

“Why?  Did you make one last ‘special sales call’ out on the plains?”

“No, of course not.  I’m marrying you.  I only sleep with you.  That’s the rule.”

Phil smiled.  He knew she was telling the truth.  But what he didn’t know was that she had an agenda.  This was leading somewhere.

“Do you love me, Phil?”

“What?”

“Do you love me?”

“Of course I love you, Marika.  I asked you to marry me, didn’t I?  Do you think I’d ask you to marry me if I didn’t love you?”

“No.  It’s just that… we have such amazing sex, don’t you think?”

“Yes.  Yes, it’s incredible, Marika.  I love being with you.  You’re so giving, and adventurous.  And you always want to, you know, whenever I want to.  But what does our great sex have to do with whether I love you or not?”

Ah.  The question of the ages, being asked by Phil for the first, but certainly not last time in his often torturous and seemingly logic-bereft life.

“Sometimes I think we don’t really know each other outside of that.  I mean, when we’re together, we fuck.  Sometimes we have meals together, or go to a movie, but mostly we have sex.  And don’t get me wrong, it’s great sex, but when you go out to actually do something social, it’s usually with your friends, Burt or whoever, which is great, too.  I want you to have friends, and go out with them. I’ll never ask you to give that up. But I think you and I should also spend some time together not having sex.”

“We do.”

“Not much.  Even Saturday nights, we always used to go to dinner and the movies, but now we order in Chinese and watch a DVD.  Most of the time we don’t even get all the way through the movie before we’re going at it on the couch.  I haven’t seen the end of a movie in months.”

“But you like our sex life, don’t you?”

“I love sex, Phil.  But marriage should be about other things too.  Right?”

“Well, think about it for a second.  When a relationship goes, the first thing that goes is the sex, right?  So our relationship must be amazing, ‘cause we fuck all the time.”

“What’s my favorite band?”

“Huh?  What’s that got to do with…”

“What’s my favorite band of all time?  I’ll give you a hint: they haven’t had a new album in many years.”

“What’s the point of this?”

“The point is, you don’t know. And that’s not all you don’t know.  We don’t know important details about each other, and we’re about to commit for our entire lives.”

“Did you change your mind?”

“No, you idiot!  I love you.  I want to be your partner, your best friend, mother to your children.  But I need to know you, really know you.  And I want you to know me better than anyone ever has, and I don’t just mean know what kinds of hideous faces I make when I’m having an orgasm.”

“I love your faces when you’re having orgasms.”  He didn’t know what she wanted.  “So, what do you want?”

“I think we should abstain from sex for a couple of months.  Nine weeks, actually That’s all.”

His head was spinning.  He had been faithful, at least in the real world.  He waited for her to return.  He could have had that bartender, what’s her name, Zee; at least that’s what the voice in his head kept telling him.  That could have been a real special one for the archives, not to mention the memoirs. If he had just bitten her, or smacked her on the side of her ass or something that night, Zee would have felt “The Thing.” And even Coco, who knows where that could’ve gone?  She flirted with him, touched his rectus femoris, even. Does he make a move?  Not Phil.  He waits, like a good fiancé.  Then Marika comes home and fucks his brains out, throwing in all her best moves, just to make sure he remembers what she’s capable of.  And now she’ll just take it away for a couple of months?  Put it on ice?  She’s going to prove her love for him by not loving him?

“Do you think that’s really necess…”

“I’ve been reading some eastern philosophy, some yogic journals.  They say abstinence builds fortitude, and increases energy for other things.  You know, the Kundilini energy, or whatnot, practiced by the Sikhs?  It seems that creative energy and sexual energy are one and the same.  So I figure, we pour our sexual energies into getting to really know one another, right?  We have plenty of sexual energy, so we’ll get to know each other really well.  And then, when we’re ready to have sex again, it will be so incredible, just the waiting, the anticipation…”

“I’m ready to have sex again right now.”

“Really Phil.  I’m very serious about this and I wish you could be too.”  She got out of bed.

“Where are you going?”

“Nowhere.  Just to the bathroom.  And it’s Nirvana.”

“The bathroom?”

“My favorite band.”  Marika pulled on her robe and left the room.  Phil lay there in the dark, looking at the ceiling.

His first thought was about the song title “Smells Like Teen Spirit?”  There was nothing about smells in the lyrics.  Come as you are, as you were, as you wanted to be… oh I know, don’t take a shower, then you’ll smell like teen spirit….

Then he thought, why me?  Or maybe just, why?  We have a great sex life.  Why take a hiatus?  There are just a tiny handful of non-toxic pleasures in life, sex between STD-free consenting adults being the best of them.  Why stop doing it just to make some kind of point about love?  And this ancient philosophy is the one source of the idea that creative energy equals sexual energy?  Excuse me, but duh?  Biologically, sex is merely the means to create offspring.  Of course it’s creative energy.

But then, after this philosophical scoffing, Phil just had to face the facts.  This was exactly the question he had been asking himself since that talk with Burt after Unintentional Theatre.  All of a sudden, Burt is the one who’s right all the time?  And now Marika was asking the same question.  Was he marrying her just for the sex, or did he love her?  This was exactly what Phil needed to find out, even though a large part of him didn’t want to find out; and another part, from his father’s influence, presumably, thought that marrying someone for great sex might not be such a bad thing after all.  Really, he reasoned, have you ever met a guy who was getting laid well and regularly who was unhappy?  Nope.  And it could be argued that abstinence, or more precisely Phil’s mom’s withholding of physical affection from her husband, had actually contributed to his father’s death, maybe even pushed him over the edge to self-execution. That’s what Dave said in the suicide note.  Of course, Dave was a delusional neurotic at the time, so it was suspect, but then again, who would know better than Dave why he killed himself?

Of course, it was possible that Phil’s mom didn’t sleep with Dave simply because he was insane, which is a pretty good reason.  Who would want to sleep with a crazy person?  Not including wealthy or powerful crazy people, because plenty of people want to sleep with them.  But that wasn’t the point.  Whether he gave it any weight or not, on some level Phil would always believe that his mother’s extreme lack of enthusiasm for sex had killed his father.

That aside, on its face, Marika’s request for nine weeks of celibacy, presuming she could hold off for that long herself, was not unreasonable even if it was stupid and annoying and personally repugnant to her fiancé, bringing up all kinds of grief and father issues.  Sikhs.  Phil had to admit an irrational prejudice. Not Indian Sikhs, Americans, white people, who decided to grow wispy beards and don turbans. It seemed a bit cultish.  And some of their facial hair stylings didn’t sit well with Phil either, especially the women’s.  Kidding.  Truly, in his rational mind, he knew these people were generally kind and spiritual, and productive members of the community; but there were those turbans and a certain earnest wholesomeness that didn’t always seem genuine.  Probably because of the daggers.  If everything’s all lovey-dovey and we’re supposed to be vegetarians, what’s with carrying a little hunting knife?

But Sikhs were not the problem.  Phil’s intellect could override his irrational prejudice against turbans.  He could deal with taking a sex break just as easily, as much as he was totally against it. He had quit pot, hadn’t he? The tantric thing could actually be cool.  Wasn’t Sting into it?  Or Jackson Browne?  One of those guys.  Sure.  But then again, why not?  It’s easy to abstain from sex when you’re a rock star and have had sex with forty percent of the young, beautiful women on the planet.

No, it wasn’t the Sikhs.  What really bothered Phil was how Marika, and presumably any woman, could just turn it off and on like that.  Say they went through this abstinence thing and went back to normal, whatever that was.  What was to stop her, a few years down the line, from playing the sex card again?  Every time she wanted something from him, or found a shortcoming that needed improvement, what was to stop her from saying, in effect, “no sex until you start cleaning the kitchen,” or “no sex until you start making a more money,” and so on?  It was distinctly possible.  This was setting bad precedent, all the way down the slippery slope off the slippery cliff into the slippery chasm of a lousy sex life.

It finally dawned on Phil what men have learned for centuries: once you sign on, you place your sexual life in the hands of your woman.  Sex is like a TV, and Phil was handing over his remote.  It was never lost on Phil that TV remotes are phallic in shape and operation, and as such, incredible fun to play with. In his house, he had always manned the remote, and even jokingly referred to it as “the penis.”  Well, it wasn’t just his TV anymore.  And it wasn’t just his penis, either.

So be it, Phil thought, resignedly.  I’ll have to spend time not having sex with Marika after we’re married, lots of time, especially after we have kids, so I might as well see what that’s going to be like.  Hopefully, she’ll get over it quickly and decide that we can really get to know each other better and still fuck like bunnies on Cialis.

What Phil didn’t know was that Marika hadn’t really read any Kundilini yoga journals; she’d gotten it all from a guy she met in Lincoln, or was it Omaha?  She could never remember which was which.  She was drinking, the Sikh wasn’t, as it was against his religion.  He was an American Sikh, son of New England Presbyterians, who sold life insurance, ironic given his steadfast belief in reincarnation.  He picked up hot women with his musings on red tantric yoga.  He found he could get virtually any woman to sign up for a sexual ritual that begins with a period of celibacy. Of course, kissing and cuddling are allowed, and what woman doesn’t want that?  Once they got going, they were so wound up toward the end that they virtually begged to have sex with him, in many interesting and esoteric yogic positions.  To him, sex was all about the waiting.

He gave Marika the tantric spiel, even though he knew she was engaged.  He liked to rehearse.  It was his hobby, pitching tantric; and he enjoyed seeing the effect on women as he told of his incredible abilities to delay orgasm.  All of this was done without employing even a single sexual reference or term.  Anything sexual was spoken in Sanskrit, or Hindi, or some such language.  It was the theory of seduction as spiritual enlightenment.  It was sexuality refined.  He got Marika’s number, said he would call her when he was in New York in the spring for a convention of Sikhs at the Jacob Javitz Center.

Marika had no intention or desire to sleep with the Sikh, despite his yoga-fit body and ample supply of Kundilini mojo, not to mention the impressive lingam bulge threatening the integrity of his I Dream of Jeannie pantaloons. But she didn’t much like his turban or his wispy beard, and couldn’t get used to a man who would never take a drink of wine or eat a steak.  Not that she was looking for an alcoholic deer hunter, either. He had some positive attributes, not the least of which was an ability to delay orgasm for weeks at a time, and also the ability to convey mature feelings of great love without the need for sexual union, surely a sign of an evolved humanity.  Certainly, this was a rare combo in a male heterosexual humanoid.  And ultimately, Marika bought into the proposition that true lovingness can exist even in the absence of physical expression, as much as she liked the act of lovemaking herself and had spent years getting good at it, so if Phil was going to love her forever he was going to have to do it both with and without the sex.

But Marika didn’t have the Sikh’s faith or knowledge to explain the emotional, spiritual and physical minutiae of tantric and Kundilini.  In great detail he studied and practiced it, and he believed it devoutly.  The tantric talk wasn’t just talk, he walked the walk.  Whereas she, without knowing even a fraction of what the Sikh knew, was going to try to get Phil to take on some of the finer characteristics of a spiritualist, only without losing his fun side.  A sensitive man with mojo, Marika style.  If he was going to be her husband, he was going to be her kind of husband.  Marika never had a specific list of characteristics for her kind of husband, but now that she had a fiancé, she would take the opportunity to research the optional equipment in the owner’s manual and make a detailed list, with footnotes.

Some women figure out, somewhere between playing house in kindergarten and having their first menstrual cycle, what kind of husband they want, others just find a man and then spend the rest of his life trying to turn him into the kind of husband they decide they want. Or kill the fucker trying.  Apparently, Marika belonged to this latter category.  And the husbandly traits on her list were subject to change, or at least refinement, at any moment, on any whim, without notice, as Phil would learn.

Marika returned completely dressed.  Fuck, thought Phil, she always looks hot when she really wants to. “Let’s go out for dinner, or something,” she ordered.

“Okay, so...  Starting right now?  No sex?  Eight weeks?”

“Nine weeks. Yes.”

“Sixty three days?  Can’t we get one long one in later and get a fresh start in the morning?  If I had known, I never would have finished so early before.”

“Phil.”

“Okay, okay.  I’ll get dressed.”

They had a perfectly nice meal at a place in Little Italy that was famous for never having been the site of a gangland rubout.  They talked, or rather, Marika talked about her trip, and how much money she had made them.  She pointed out that if he made as much as she, they’d be able to afford a Hamptons rental in August.  She told him about Kundilini, or at least as much as she knew.  He realized she didn’t know much and deduced that the Sikh she mentioned was just trying to red tantric his fiancé in her Kundilini.  But he kept this observation to himself, as he didn’t think sharing it would do anything to help his cause.

Marika decided they should walk home, as that would allow them more time to talk.  Phil dared not point out that she was the only one talking, or lecturing might be more apropos. He chose to say mostly nothing, because then he’d actually have to talk about whatever it was he brought up and he was still in shock over losing sex for six, eight weeks. Nine weeks? He didn’t mind listening to Marika, but tonight he wasn’t much interested in what she had to say.

“Oh, I always wanted to have a drink there.”  This roused Phil out of his head.  A drink.  That would be nice.  And before he realized it, and before he could come up with a viable excuse not to, Marika dragged him across the street and into Suffer.

Phil was relieved to see a tall Aryan-looking guy behind the bar, but his relief was short-lived as Zee returned from the storeroom with two bottles of some expensive and smoky small batch Kentucky bourbon.  He found himself staring at her again but didn’t have enough time to give her his full appreciation as Marika was pulling him toward a couple of stools at the other end of the bar.  Zee saw Phil, but turned away before he could notice.  They sat down.  Phil tried his best to angle his face away toward the back wall of the bar, as much to avoid eye contact with Zee as to force himself to keep looking at Marika while she blabbed away about feelings and music and business and… was that philosophy or poetry?  Who knew Marika had opinions about Rїlke?  Who knew if her opinions were valid or not?  Who knew what Rilkë said in the first place?  Who even knew how to spell Rilkë, or was it Rïlke?  Or Rïlkë?

Phil figured Zee would probably stay away now that she had no respect for him as a human being and didn’t feel “The Thing.”  Not that he had a thing for Zee either, really.  He found her incredibly enjoyable to look at, but knew that he could never have a long term relationship with a woman who would do that to her body, with the permanent painting and the extra holes everywhere.  He tried to imagine her as a grandmother, the tattoos over wrinkled flesh, her grandchild asking why.   Why grandma? Why did you do that?  That worked.  He didn’t have to look at her anymore.

“That’s that guy from the grocery store.  I might have even slept with him that night if he made even the slightest attempt.”  Zee looked at Phil as she mixed a drink.

“You see the rock on her finger?  She owns him,” said the Aryan, actually Zee’s boss, X.  No one knew what X stood for, but it hardly mattered.  X was the perfect name for him. “Pretty hot lady, I gotta say.  Maybe that’s why he didn’t want any.”

“Whatever.”

“You want me to get their drinks?” X proposed.

“No, X, I got it.”

“What’s the matter?” Marika thought Phil looked kind of funny.  “Why are you sitting all turned around like that?”

“I’m actually quite comfortable.  Great view of the room, and of you, honey.”

“Oh my God!  Phil, isn’t it?” Zee was suddenly upon them, and she wasn’t wearing a sweater now.  Just a vest-like thingy over jeans.  Her multicolored tattooed upper torso, which she had anointed with essential herbal oils, shined in the column of light cast by a sharply-focused halogen spot from above.  Her body jewelry and a dusting of glitter sparkled, almost blinding Marika.  She was a human mosaic unto herself.

Phil squirmed.  “Yes, hi… uh, Zee, right?”
“Right, right.  And this is…”

“My… fiancé, Marika.  Marika, this is Zee.  I came here with Burt last week, after his theater thing and…”

“Actually we met after, in the grocery store…”

“Right, right, the Korean…”

“You never said you had a fiancé.  That’s so great for both of you.”

“We certainly hope so, thanks,” said Phil, warily.

“When’s the big day?”

Phil passed off to Marika, who jumped in, on cue.  “We’re thinking about a fall wedding.  Maybe upstate. Like on the Hudson somewhere.”

Zee nodded enthusiastically.  “Sounds real nice.  So what can I get you guys?”

“How ‘bout two Cognacs?”  Marika liked a nip after din-din.

“What kind?”

“The best you have.”  Marika liked a quality nip after din-din.

“You got it.  Great to see you again, Phil.”  And off Zee went for the drinks.

“You seemed to have made quite the impression on her.  Zee, is that her name?”

“Aw, she’s just a good bartender.  Remembers people’s names.  I mean, what would a girl like that want with a guy like me anyway?”

“I wasn’t suggesting she wanted to date you.  She’s hardly your type.”

“And she’s way out of my league, besides.”  Oops.

“She’s too good for you?  What about me?  I’m what, in some minor league?”

“That’s not what I mean, Marika.  She’s not my type, like you said.  You’re my type.”  Phew.  Save, and a beauty.

“Please tell me that’s a really tight shirt she’s wearing under the vest.”

“Shirt?  No.  No, I don’t think so.”

“You mean?… Ugh!”

Zee came back with the drinks.  “You’ll enjoy those.  You want to run a tab?”

“How much?”

“Thirty five.”

“For two cognacs?”

“Each.  She said ‘the best.’  That’s a twenty-eight year old. It’s older than you, if I’m not mistaken,” Zee winked at Marika.

“Thanks.  A tab is fine.”  Phil said, hoping she’d leave just as quickly.

“Can I ask you about your tattoos?” asked Marika, virtually ensuring that Zee was going to stay for a good while.  Zee was more than accommodating, showing them the snake slithering from her arm to her sideboob, the Vietnamese characters across her upper abdomen, the tiger on her lower back, with deep, complex backgrounds of leaves and flowers, all done by an ancient Taiwanese gentleman who worked out of a basement in Chinatown… and finally, by adjusting her vest in such a way that she could expose her entire back while just avoiding a full-on titty show, Zee displayed her prized work of art, something she picked up in rural England.  Between her shoulder blades, an intricate labyrinth, a circular one.  Phil gasped.  Phil coughed.  Then he realized that behind him, several other people were admiring Zee’s art, too.

“What’s the matter?” Marika asked.

“Nothing,” Phil wheezed.

“Oh, right.” She realized.  “You like mazes, don’t you?”

“Labyrinths, really.  That’s a pagan meditation labyrinth, based on the Brighton Fields Labyrinth, Sussex, 12th century?” Phil was, as they say, spot on.

Zee turned, readjusting her vest to its normal position, looked Phil in the eye. “It’s an exact replica of the Brighton Fields Labyrinth.  How’d you know?”

Phil sensed Marika looking at him.  Glaring actually.  He toned down his excitement.  “I, uh, isn’t that the really famous one?  Just a good guess.”

“Oh?”  Zee nodded.  “So, I have to tell you this. You were in a dream I had the other night.”

Phil’s eyebrows arched.  Marika wasn’t quite sure what to make of this.

“Yeah, well, not you, really.  Just your head.  It was weird.  I was getting a massage, and your head was in the room.  You think that means anything?”

“Hey, Zee, can I get another round?” pleaded another patron.  Zee shrugged at Phil and Marika and headed back down the bar.

“My head?”  Phil couldn’t believe his ears.  That was his dream.

“Did she know you went to massage school?”

“No.  I hardly talked to her. I’m amazed she remembers my name.”

“She is a little nutty… but you see that?  That’s what I was talking about, getting to know each other.  I, for one, knew you enjoyed mazes but had no idea you knew so much about labyrinths,” said Marika, without an ounce of irony.  She seemed genuinely impressed.

“Actually, I used to draw mazes when I was a kid,” Phil offered, still mulling over the unlikelihood that Zee had the same dream, only from her point of view, and still worrying that Marika might order another round of these ridiculously overpriced cognacs.

“I love that!  I’m feeling really good about this evening.”

“It didn’t bother you that she had a dream about me?”

“As long as she’s not trying to sleep with you.”

“Well, I thought it was pretty weird.”

“Should I get a tattoo?  I’ve thought about it.”
“You?”

“Do you find that sexy?”

“What, her?  Zee?  No, not at all.  She’s obviously attractive, but she went insane with the tattoos.  It’s not my thing, really, body art.  Never has been.”

“What about just a little one, like on the small of my back.  Would you like that?”

“You mean like a target?  Sure, if you want to…” Phil didn’t give a flying fuck about the tattoo.  He was just doing all he could to keep from looking over at Zee while Marika was talking about a tattoo.  Zee was dreaming about him.  Zee was having my dream!  Or part of it, because my head was in it and she was getting a massage.   How is this possible?  Surely, these were just common dream scenarios, like Bob said.  But still, what were the odds that Phil would have the same dreams as not one, but two different women?  Two very different women, and both quite attractive, no less.

Zee really was extraordinary looking.  Phil felt almost angry at her for getting all those tattoos, like seeing graffiti on that Venus painting, you know, the one where she’s rising from the waves in a big scallop shell; who was that painter, Vermicelli, or something?  Actually, now that he thought about it, a tattoo on Marika might be nice, especially because she had those long legs.  Like many guys, Phil kind of liked those tattoos on the small of the back, reasoning that the best view of that kind of tattoo would be from behind, doggie-style, if you will.  At least that’s what he fantasized.  He had never actually had sex with a girl with a tattoo in that area, so he didn’t really know.  But his theory, that a girl with a tattoo on the small of her back must like to be taken in that position, suffered a critical blow when he met a lesbian with an intricate tattoo just above her sacrum.  Who would be less likely to have a preference for sex doggie-style than a lesbian?  I mean, what would be the point?  Of course, there was the strap-on scenario…

“Phil?  Did you hear what I just said?”

Phil quickly cleared his mind of the strap-on scenario.  “Dolphins would be nice.  But not the ankle.  Stay with your first impulse, the small of the back, especially if you’re going for sexy.”

“I like a man with an opinion.”  This evidently satisfied Marika that he had actually listened to what she had said, although Phil didn’t necessarily remember hearing it.  Phil had gotten pretty good at listening to Marika while he was thinking, which was kind of important, given that she was constantly talking, even during sex, whereas he was usually obsessing about something trivial and stupid, like whether or not a lesbian would enjoy doggie-style.

The night went on like that.  It was actually quite all right.  Phil indeed learned a lot about Marika, things he hadn’t even considered, like what kind of architecture she liked (des beaux arts, Art Deco), or which authors were her favorites (Wolfe, Sontag, Dr. Phil).  But since they were already engaged, the getting-to-know-you stuff was not flowing organically.  After all, they’d been living together and having loads of sex for months. So basically, she’d talk for a while, then he’d say a couple of things, maybe tell her something unimportant about himself.  He even made up stuff, for example, his favorite color.  He never really had a favorite color, but he told her it was blue because he figured if any question deserved a firm answer, “what is your favorite color” was undoubtedly it.  And he read somewhere that “blue” was the most common response to that question, so it would be very believable… Then she’d talk for another while.  And like that, for the next 2 hours.  Or so it seemed, until Phil realized it had only been twenty minutes, a half-hour, tops.

But no matter what, when things got tough, Phil flashed back to the night before.  Marika was an animal.  She clearly loved sex, was a sexual athlete, of sorts.  What guy wouldn’t love to say that about his fiancé? Sex with Marika was any normal heterosexual male’s idea of pretty darn perfect.  And he thought, you know, I could listen to her go on and on like this, if at the end of the night, when we hit the hay, she’s ready to make my toes curl.  Maybe that’s what the dream meant.  Maybe the girl was Marika in a way and he was just forcing her to be Stephanie, because he was afraid of marriage.  He knew that wasn’t the case, but still, it was reassuring that the dream could be taken to mean that what he was going to gain by marrying Marika, that is, excellent, and frequent sex, might be exactly the right thing for him after all.

And so for that night,the prospect of a lifetime of great sex won out over an emotional/intellectual connection.  Phil wasn’t sure they’d ever make a connection like that, but he knew they had amazing sex.  They went home and cuddled, and Phil decided it would all be just fine in just a few occasionally painful weeks.  Like a true gentleman, he didn’t even try to rub up against her with his erection.

CHAPTER SEVEN: THE OAF, REVISITED

Phil got to reading a few of the journals Marika brought home after rightfully calling her on the fact that she knew hardly anything about the practice of Kundilini Yoga, the grandfather of all yogas, or about tantric yoga, like wine offered as white or red, red tantric being the yogic sexual practice that everyone likes to talk about and make fun of but no one seems to really understand.  Marika admitted her information was secondhand and at least somewhat abridged, and so to fill in the blanks, she bought some literature at a Sikh bookstore/yoga place called “Yoga East Village.”  The yogi tea they served to the customers was very nice, so she bought some of that, too.

The only thing that really worked for Phil in all of the literature Marika brought home was the stuff about meditation, as opposed to his former core beliefs, medication… and guilt. Meditation made sense to him, if only because with some practice it replicated the best parts of a great pot buzz without the deep bronchial cough.  He could put on some tunes, like Coltrane or McLaughlin, or even that New Age crap Marika brought back from the Sikh place (he was almost annoyed that he actually liked that one somewhat; she paid twenty bucks for the damn thing), and get all relaxed.  So he’d sit and breathe… In, out.  In, out.  In, out.  In, out.  Focus on the breath…

He was born to meditate, Phil, a regular freakin’ baby Buddha.  Took to it like a rat to a sewer pipe.  It was his milieu.  He meditated on marriage.  He meditated on sex.  He meditated on no sex.  He meditated on the virtues of sexual compatibility vis a vis emotional connection.  He meditated on meditating.  The weirdest part was that he kept getting more and more… happy?  Maybe almost.  Content?   Definitely, but it was more.  Was this optimism?  Possibly, but not overboard optimism, cautious optimism.  Breath in 2, out 2, in 3, out 3, in 4…

He hadn’t seen Burt in a week.  That tended to happen after Marika came back from one of her trips and they had one of their fuck-a-thons, but this time was different.  Much different.  They decided to meet for lunch at Vaselka, where Coco waited tables.

Vaselka had a lot of windows.  That was the thing about the place.  The ceiling wasn’t as low as before they re-did it, but it still had that tunnel-like effect that was rather cozy on a rainy day.  But on sunny days like today, the windows really let the light in.

Phil found Burt sitting in one of the window seats, wearing brand new cheap sunglasses (he went through a pair every three to four days), looking up over the counter to where the specials, hand-written on chalkboards, announced the choices of the day: Bigos, stuffed cabbage, what kind of soup they had, and usually some kind of wacky pierogi.  Burt was entranced by the specials and didn’t notice Phil until he sat down across from him.

“Pumpkin pierogi?”  Phil wondered, startling Burt from his menu reverie.

“I know.  Sounds weird right?  Probably great.  How’s it hangin, bro?”

“A little to the left, I think.  The little man’s been on ice.”

“I can’t believe you refer to your dick as the little man.”

“Would you prefer ‘Big Mac?’”

“Still doing that tantric stuff with Marika?  What a lame exercise.  Sex is better if you have it less?  Then why don’t we just eat once a week, too?  The food would taste better and we’d have so much free time.  Are you two going to start wearing the headgear, too?”

“You’re referring to the turban?  We’re not converting to the Sikh faith, no. Is Coco working today?”

“I don’t know.  I think so.”

“Haven’t you been seeing her?”

“Not much, really.”  Burt noticed Phil smile.  “Did you just smile?”

“Me?  I don’t think so.”

“You’re glad I’m not sleeping with Coco.  Why is that?”
“Why would you say that?  I have no stake whatsoever in whether you sleep with Coco, or not.”

“Oh, come on, misery loves company.  You’re not getting any, and you’re glad I’m not, too.  Admit it.”

“That’s completely untrue.  I’ve moved beyond the physical, at least for the time being.  It’s like, I don’t know, quitting drinking for a while.

“Egad, man, don’t scare me like that.  It’s bad enough you don’t smoke the rope anymore.  Don’t go doing anything insane like quitting drinking.”

“Fear not.  It was just an example… Whaddya got there?”  Phil gestured to a notebook in front of Burt that featured some of Burt’s scribblings on the top sheet. “A new one-act?”

“Actually, no.  It’s just a little thing that I…”

Phil leaned over.  “The Oaf?  Is that my dream?”

“Well, sort of.  I mean, yes, but it’s just my notes from the night of the performance.”

“What kind of notes?”

“I just didn’t want to forget it, you know, in case.”

“In case I sell you the rights to my dream?”  Phil just had to chuckle.

“I was thinking more along the lines that if you aren’t going to do anything with it, I’d take a shot.  I wouldn’t steal your dream, Phil.  You’re my best friend.”

Phil had two simultaneous thoughts.  Could someone actually steal a dream? And, did grown men have best friends? Isn’t that kind of gay? Not that there is anything wrong with that? Make that three thoughts.

“I’m your best friend?  Really?”

“Well, yeah.  We’ve known each other for, what fifteen years?  And we actually still hang out a lot.  I’d say that’s kind of like best friends.”

Phil was actually touched.  “Well, thanks, Burt.  I’m flattered, really.  Fifteen years, you say? Wow... So, you think there’s enough there for a novel?”

“Well, I’d have to flesh it out a little.  I already mentioned it to a book editor friend of mine.  You remember Joannie, right?  I used to date her in college.”

“Sleeping with someone twice is not ‘dating.’”

“Even if she lets you do anal?”

“Joannie let you do anal?”

“No.  Just wanted to see if that would count as a relationship upgrade.”

“I don’t know.  Probably.”

“Look, Phil.  Whatever.  The point is, Joannie thought it sounded like a good concept for a novel.”

“Really?”

“Yeah.  She thought the mother/son relationship was practically mythological. She said the characters were, like, archetypes.”

Phil was taken aback.  Was Burt always going to be right, from now on?   And, did he actually know what “archetype” meant? Was this a new universe, not a temporary change, but a permanent re-establishment of order?  What should he do?  On the one hand, he always wanted to write something, but not necessarily a period novel about a special needs adult and his married pal.  He just didn’t see anywhere to take this dream.  And to him, that’s all it was, a dream, nothing else.  Maybe it had meaning beyond its four corners, but Phil couldn’t say what that might be, nor did he really care.  But he still felt funny about someone asking him for his dream.

“Hey, if you want, I’ll call Joannie for you.  Talk to her about it; write it yourself. It really struck a chord with me, so I’d like to take a shot at it, but only if you’re okay with that. I completely respect and understand if you aren’t.”

All right, here was his friend, Burt, asking him for something.  Not really much, just an idea for a story, really.  And it wasn’t as if Phil was actually going to run home and start banging out a manuscript based on these characters.  He was totally uninspired by it.  And Burt was probably his best friend too, although he’d never tell him that.  Sure he teased Burt, made fun of him, occasionally bad-mouthed him to others, but in reality, he loved the doofus.  So what was the big deal?  What was nagging Phil?  Was it that Burt might actually write this thing, do a good job of it, get published, get a great review in The New York Times, and become a bestselling, famous author hailed as the next Mark Twain or Phillip Roth?

Phil burst out laughing at this notion.

“What’s so funny?”

“Oh nothing.  Just the idea of someone writing a novel based on one of my dreams, it’s so… well, ludicrous.”

“But?” Burt asked, hopeful.

“Okay, fine.  I hereby grant you novel rights to my dream, The Oaf, for all territories, hard cover and paperback.  I expect a thank you and perhaps even a dedication.  A small percentage might also be in order.  Good luck.”

Burt leapt up out of his seat, came around the table, knelt down next to Phil, and hugged him joyfully.  “That is so great.  I can’t tell you how happy you made me.”

Phil accepted the hug, but with Burt’s exclamations louder than necessary, and the hug continuing far longer than etiquette required, he started to feel a little self-conscious.  The only thing missing was “You Made Me So Very Happy,” by Blood, Sweat and Tears.  His father used to have that one on vinyl.

And then Coco appeared from the back and walked over to them.  “Oh, hey, Phil.”  Coco was clearly happy to see Phil, at least as happy as she was to see Burt. “Hi, Burt.”  She was still adorable, although the waitress, or maybe it’s waitron, outfit didn’t do her justice.  “When did you guys start dating?”

“Hey, Coke.”  Burt stopped the hug.  He was playing it casual and cool with her.

“Coco.  Nice outfit,” teased Phil.

“Thanks.  I was thinking of wearing it to my friend’s costume party Saturday night.  The boys all love it.”

“Waitress fantasies… hot,” Burt said, instantly ruing his show of desire.

“Waitron, I believe it is,” Phil threw in, getting a smile from Coco.

“Coco!  Pick up twelve!”  A voice shouted from the kitchen.

“Be right there, Slava,” Coco shouted back.  “The cook’s a total hard ass....  What can I get you guys?”

“How’s the pumpkin pierogi?”

“Weird, but really good.”

“Great,” said Phil.  “I’ll try those.  And a coffee.”

“And Burt?”

“You know me.  Split pea soup and challah, extra butter.”

She wrote it down on her little pad, smiled in that very well practiced way of hers, and headed back to the kitchen.

“So what’s the deal, Burt?  Why aren’t you sleeping with her?  She’s even hotter than I remember.”

“It’s not me, dude.  I want to, she’s just, I don’t know, busy.  Never has time to go out.  And I don’t think she’s the booty call type, really, so it’s like I need to actually spend time with her if I’m going to get some…  She likes you too, you know.”

“Me?  What do you mean, ‘likes?’  And what do you mean ‘too’?”

“I mean, she said you were cute. And it’s totally obvious you think she’s a piece of ass. She thinks it’s totally hot that you’re having wild sex dreams about a woman you don’t know.  You still having those?”

“Had one last night.  But it’s weird.  Before, it was like a virtual reality thing, you know, I was really having sex with this woman, but now it’s kind of like I’m watching myself have sex with a woman.  It’s just not the same.”

“That’s cool.  I mean, come on, dude, tons of guys video doing their girlfriends for later viewing.”

“I told you.  I don’t like porn.  It’s kind of like watching tennis.”

“Porn is like tennis?”

“I hate to watch tennis, live or on TV, even great players.  I love to play tennis, however.  Same with sex.  Want to do it.  Don’t want to watch it.”

“Even, like, some hot Asian chick riding a guy with a ten-incher?”

“Especially.  Who would want to compare themselves to that, anyway?”  Burt said nothing in response, leaving Phil time to realize that a guy with a large penis, like Burt, presumably, wouldn’t be too concerned with such comparison.  Damn!  Damn the luck!

Not that Phil was small, mind you.  No not at all.  Every woman he slept with told him he was a great lover…Well, almost every one.  There was that girl Paula… And Leslie, who went lesbian after him.  How great was that, Leslie the Lesbian…. Thank God, Coco returned with Phil’s coffee and Burt’s soup so Phil’s brain could shut up.

“Here you go, boys.  Be right back with your pierogi, Phil.”  Coco smiled sweetly before turning.

“You see that?  How she smiles at you?  I never get that.”

“You just want to blame me for Coco not sleeping with you, instead of dealing with your own shortcomings,” Phil offered, immediately regretting and wincing at the word.  “That’s the kind of thing you need to do in a committed relationship.  Look inward.  What can I do to make this thing work?”

“If my girlfriend was looking inward, to see how to make it work? I would tell her to do more oral.  That would make it work for me.”

“Brilliant, as always.”

“I’m not saying I wouldn’t return the favor.”

“Pumpkin pierogi.”  It was Coco.  There was suddenly something extremely sexy in the way she said pumpkin pierogi.  Something in the “pum” sound, and the way the “n” in pumpkin just gave way to the “p” in pierogi, not to mention the somewhat guttural, throat-originating combination of the “r” and “g.”  Nice.

“Say that again?” Burt said.  Phil nodded.

“Pumpkin pierogi?”

“Wow,” Burt said.  Phil nodded.

“Enjoy your pumpkin pierogi,” she echoed.  Coco continued mumbling it to herself as she headed toward another table.  “Pumpkin pierogi, pumpkin pierogi, pumpkin pierogi…”

“Those must be the hottest dumplings on the planet.”

Phil took a bite of one of the steaming pillows of pumpkin flesh filled dough.  He grinned.  “Right on.”

“Can I try one?”

“Not until after you finish all your soup.”

Burt looked offended.

“Just take one, you mook.”

“Sour cream, or apple sauce?”

“Go with both.”

Burt helped himself to a pierogi, dipping it in the condiments, stuffing the whole thing into his maw and eating it with great relish.  None of the foregoing stopped him from talking at the same time, however.  “So, if it’s all right, maybe you could take a look when I get some of The Oaf down, you know, see if it reflects your dream at all?”

“You want me to give you the dream and help you edit it?  Why?  You’re doing it from The Oaf’s perspective, right?  My dream was from the other guy’s point of view.  It’s already not my dream anymore.  Just write it up your way.”

“I haven’t figured out the perspective yet...  You don’t have to, I’m just saying…”

“No, no, it’s fine.  Of course I’ll look at it.  I was just fuckin’ with you.”

“Dick head… Thanks, dude.  It’s really important to me that you feel good about this.  If it comes out good, maybe you and I can write a screenplay of it, together.”

“What, like that thing we tried to write after college, ‘Mutant Transvestite Undercover Agents League?’”

“Yeah.  The boys and girls of Mu.T.U.A.L.  Whatever happened to that?”

“The same thing that’s happening to ‘The Oaf’ screenplay.  I’m putting the kibosh on it before it even begins.  There will be no screenplay writing ever again in this friendship.  And that’s final.”

“That’s right.  We almost broke up during the Mu.T.U.A.L. fiasco, didn’t we?  Well then, here’s to ‘The Oaf.’” Burt hoisted his water glass.

Phil raised his coffee.  “Long may he wave.”

On the way home from Vaselka, Phil was distracted.  Something was bothering him, and he knew what it was.  If Burt wants to be a writer, why can’t he come up with his own fucking ideas?  He needs my dream for a story?  That’s the best he could do?  That’s my dream.  What if it’s some kind of great story, and the bastard ends up being the next Pat Conroy or Tom Wolfe?  What then?  And I just gave it to him, just like that.  Without really thinking about it, I just handed him this brilliant story that’s going to make him the next J.D. Salinger, for fuck’s sake.  I could have written a good story from that.  At least a short story, The Oaf.  Then at least I get some credit on this thing.  I mean, I don’t want to be a novelist, really, but if some great book gets written from my dream, what do I get out of it, exactly?  Letterman won’t be inviting me on his show just ‘cause the next Great American Novel was based on a dream I had.  Why did I do that?  Why?  I mean sure he’s my friend, but what’s in it for me here?

As he was going on like this in his head, thinking that this was just another way for him to bludgeon himself silly with guilt and self-doubt, his hand found something in his pocket that hadn’t been in there earlier.  It was a book of matches.  Phil pulled it out.  Vaselka matches.  He looked at them, finally opening the cover.  Inside was “Coco” and a phone number in Brooklyn.  Coco’s phone number in Brooklyn.

This must be Burt’s, Phil thought.  But Burt didn’t give me matches.  Unless Burt slipped them in my pocket, just as a joke.  But that’s not his handwriting; he couldn’t fake such cute handwriting.  The only explanation was that Coco herself had slipped them into my pocket, maybe when I went to the bathroom, or something.

So she did like him!  He got a little excited.  Coco was real cute, and young as well, very young, practically brand new, but legal.  Another trifecta…

If there were a perfect way to add to the burden of guilt Phil was already feeling for sabotaging himself by giving his great story idea away, it was this: having Coco, the girl his best friend was sweet on, put the moves on him while he was attempting to survive this damn celibacy thing to prove his love to Marika.  How could he be such a jerk, getting aroused and enticed by a coffee shop waitron when he was working on his lifelong commitment to his fiancé?  True, Coco was very sweet, and had a great body on her.  And he hadn’t been with a nineteen year-old since he was twenty himself.  But that wasn’t the point.  He was the reason Coco wasn’t sleeping with Burt.  She liked Phil.  The suddenly-always-right Burt was right yet again.

To recap: Coco, his best friend’s girlfriend, sort of, wanted to hook up with him.  He gave away his best story idea ever to said best friend who was now always right and had a big penis, and, just for a split second, Phil knew he wanted to be with Coco, too. Really badly.  I mean, 19 years old for God’s sake, brand spankin’ new, a practically unplowed field.  She’s not looking for commitment.  She likes her fun, she’s been with engaged guys…Rich, powerful engaged guys, yes, but… A last fling! She’d be perfect.

Or was this more than a physical, last fling thing?  Was there in her something that he thought was lacking in Marika?

Is there a term like “trifecta” for four things?  A “quadfecta?” ‘Cause this was a guilt quadfecta of enormous proportions.  One could actually argue that it was a quintfecta if you stretch out the Coco/Marika conundrum into a two-parter.  Be that as it may, the net result was Phil, walking slowly back home, a huge bale of guilt and confusion weighing heavily upon his stooped and bowed shoulders.  Boy, would his parents be proud of his guilt creativity.  Boy, did his shoulders hurt.

Luckily, this thought occurred almost simultaneously with Phil’s passing the Russian Baths.  He hadn’t been there in ages, and it was just the thing he needed to relieve some of this stress.  Yes, a nice hot steam and a massage, maybe even a shot of that hot pepper and garlic vodka, just to get the blood flowing.

He climbed the rickety stairs in the century-and-a-half old tenement building thinking that no one in their right mind would think about getting a massage in a place that looked like this unless they already knew what was inside.   Once he got through the door and the smells hit his nostrils, chlorine from the hot tub, massage oil and the musty, musky smell that comes from a hundred years of steaming and massaging and whacking each other with brooms made of eucalyptus, he couldn’t think of why he hadn’t been back in so long.  As luck would have it, a therapist was available, who did shiatsu and liked to walk on people.  This was Phil’s idea of a good time.

CHAPTER EIGHT: DOCTOR WHO?

Phil lay down on the mat, which was a little firmer than he had expected.  The therapist, a middle-aged Korean woman named Dr. Ruth, was about five feet tall, just over a hundred pounds, maybe one-ten.  She never heard of the other Dr. Ruth.  She didn’t seem to like Phil very much, but after a few minutes, Phil decided it was nothing personal.  She either didn’t like all white people, or men, or human beings, or some other group Phil belonged to.  Nevertheless, her dislike for any single group of people did not stop her from stepping, with her strong bare feet, on anyone who would pay seventy dollars an hour for the privilege.

Several times during the hour, or fifty-five minutes, to be more accurate, Phil almost cried.  Like when she put all of her weight on that tendon or ligament just below his knee on the inside of his leg.  What was it, the medial cruciate?  Whatever.  It hurt like a son-of-a-bitch.  “Oh.  Tsk, tsk, tsk.  Kidneys toxic,” clucked Dr. Ruth.  Great, thought Phil, my kidneys are failing.   I’ll be on dialysis for the rest of my life. The outside of the leg was worse.  “Gall bladder congested, tsk, tsk, tsk.”  Of course, I knew it.  All my organs are fucked up.  She leaned on his liver.  She poked at his spleen.  She kneeled on his erector spinae.  “Good, you quit smoking.”

“How did you know?”

“Your lung points, in the back, the organ points, they feel like they are healing.”

“Amazing.”

“Also, it is in your aura.”

Oh boy, another one.  Gurubob would love her.

“Anything bothering you?” Dr. Ruth asked this question with her heel just above his left kidney.

“No.  I mean, not much, really.  Regular life stuff.”

“How come you don’t have sex?”

“Now wait a minute.  How could you…?”

“Your root chakra is clogged worse than plumbing in my building.  Okay to take break from sex, but don’t kill yourself…  How are your moods?  Your feelings?”

“I don’t know…  Okay.  I guess.  I’m a little confused.”

“Any weird dreams?”

“Amazing you should say that… I have some.  One about this retarded… I mean, mentally challenged guy.  And then this one, you know, with a girl.  It’s kind of ongoing, the sex one…”

“Sex?  That’s good dream.”

“I have it a lot, but it’s changed recently.  First it was like this slow, prolonged… Ah, you don’t want to hear this.  It’s a little weird talking to someone about this.”

“You tell Dr. Ruth!  She knows about this.  You think just because I’m an old lady, I don’t know about sex?”

“I… no, I never said that.  And you are not old.”

“How old do you think I am?”

“Oh no, no you don’t.  I’m not falling for that one.  No guy answers that question, especially when the woman’s heel is right above his kidney.”

“Sixty-four.”

“What?  I was going to guess forty two.”  Dr. Ruth dug her heel into his ribs. “Ow! What the hell was that for?”

“Most people guess late thirties.”

“You see?  You can’t answer that question and win.”

“Okay, just take deep breath.  Hold it… release.  Keep going.  Now, tell me about dreams with this girl.”

Dutifully, Phil started to relate the dream as Dr. Ruth continued her two-step on his spine.  He told her what the dreams looked like, what happened in the dreams, in way too much detail, and last of all, he told her that he thought he had met the girl in real life.

“Did you get her number?”

“Number?  No.  Why, should I have?”

“Maybe.  Are you sure it was her in the dream?”

“Kind of.  Anyway, I’m engaged.”

“If you are engaged, why you not have sex?”

She had a point. It was the point of her heel and Dr. Ruth was now digging it deeply into the middle of his right butt cheek.  It hurt, but so damn good.  His piriformis, a muscle that connects lower back to upper leg and rotates the hip, was screaming under her heel.  He was starting to remember some of his anatomy.  There was a nerve that came out under that muscle.  Sciatic nerve.  Associated with anger, or held-in rage, was it?  Something like that, and maybe some sexual element as well...  what was that?  There was something…

He was just about to remember, when he passed out.

Not fainted, really, just a deep sleep induced by Dr. Ruth’s specific compression of several acupuncture points.  She was trying to get him out of his head, literally.  He thinks too much, this one, thought Dr. Ruth. And so, she stepped on his ass.

He was back in the room, the one with the bed.  The lighting was right.  It was her, Stephanie.  And he was the guy, the guy having the sex.  It was still incredible, better even than anything he had ever done, even with Marika.  Yet something was different.  It felt different.  She was, what, louder?  Was this Stephanie?  Stephanie didn’t have tattoos.  Or was it Zee?  Wow, neither.  She was Stephanie with Zee’s tattoos.  And with Zee’s personality, too, kind of wilder, screaming while they went at it.  Damn, this was awesome, even better than before.  But someone else was in the room.  Sitting in a chair, not too far from them.  Watching intently, he could tell.

Who was it?  A woman?  Yes, definitely, but who?  And then Phil shuddered, not with pleasure but with horror when he realized it was Marika. He wasn’t horrified because Marika was in the dream, but because he felt as though he had been caught, in real life.  Like the real feeling of the sex in the dream, Marika’s presence was real, she was really there, really watching.  He felt like it would in real life if he suddenly realized Marika was watching him have sex with another woman.  Did she seem to mind?  He couldn’t tell.  Her expression was blank, but her gaze never left them.

And then, pain.  A searing, sharp, tearing pain on his ear, up near the top of the ear where the little ridge curves down to create a narrow groove, the outer semi-circle of the outer ear. He realized that Stephanie was biting his ear, hard, like she was Mike Tyson, or something.  And then he realized that it wasn’t Stephanie, or even Zee.  No, the woman he was having sex with, who was now biting his ear, was Dr. Ruth.

“Ow, fuck!  What the hell…”

Phil woke up.  And while he did indeed find himself straddled by Dr. Ruth, she was not having sex with him, or biting his ear.  She was pinching it with her fingers, or her fingernails, more likely, judging from the sharpness of the pain.

“Herb plugs.  Like acupuncture in ear.  To fix all your organs.  I ask, you say okay.”

“I did?”  Phil felt his ears.  Like multiple piercings, there were seven or eight pellets, the pointy ends of which were embedded into the cartilage at the upper tip of each ear, which throbbed in pain.  Dr. Ruth was applying a plaster to hold them in place.

“Leave in for two or three days.  Long as you can.  No shower.”

“I can’t not take a shower for three days!”

“Take bath.  Or use shower cap.”

“Is it going to stop hurting?”
“I don’t know.  Some people yes.  Some people no.  Your gall bladder will feel much better.”

“I didn’t know my gall bladder was feeling bad.”

“Oh, yes.  Very congested… You fell asleep, you know.”

“Yes.”

“You had a dream?”

“I don’t know.”

“Oh, yes.  You said, ‘ride me baby, ride me hard.’  What you dream about?”

“I said that?  Oh.  Oh yeah. I was dreaming that… I was a horse?”

The explanation seemed to work for her.  Phil realized the massage was over when Dr. Ruth stepped into her slippers.  He donned the loaner terry robe and, after mumbling thanks for the treatment, stumbled out of the massage room, his ears still throbbing.  Three days?  No way he’d make it through three days with these things in his ears.  They hurt like hell and he looked like a freak.  Three hours was more likely.

After some more steam, Phil had a shot of pepper vodka just to clear the pipes, a ritual he had adopted when he saw some old Russian guys do it.  He figured they were so old that there must be something to it, the shot of vodka at the baths, something that helped you live longer. Or better.  Or maybe it was just decadent, bad for you but in a nostalgic, old-world kind of way.  He liked to sit in the restaurant area, just a few wooden tables where people ate salad and steak and drank vegetable juice in their bathrobes, heads wet from the baths.  Today, some old timer was telling stories.

“Belushi used to come in here.”

“Jim?”

“No, John.  When he was on Saturday Night Live.”

“No shit?”

“Yeah, the owner used to open the place up early for him, after being up all night doin’ the show, gettin’ high, he’d come in here, sit in the Russian room, sweat it out.  Then he’d jump in the cold pool, eat a couple steaks.”

“What was he like?”

“Great guy.  Very friendly.  He loved it here.”

Phil loved it here, too, and after changing back into his clothes, he went to settle up with the middle aged Russian sitting behind the counter near the door, reading a Russian paper and drinking strong black coffee from a tiny cup.  Though the man’s fingers were like sausages, he held the cup daintily, pinkie extended.

“Hey, how was your treatment with Dr. Ruth?”

“Great.  She’s really quite something.”

“I see you got the ear pellets, eh?  What’s that feel like?”

“Hurts like hell.”

“Yeah.  Got the herbs in there, pushed in all the way to the cartilage.  Fuck, I’d never let her do that to me, and believe me, she’s tried…  That’s an additional twenty-five, by the way.”

“For these?  I didn’t really ask for…”

“Dr. Ruth, she knows what you need, right?  That’s why she’s the doctor.  So, how much gratuity you want to leave?”

“Oh, I don’t know, eighteen percent?”

“You like caviar?”

“Excuse me?”

“Beluga.  Caviar.  You like it?  That’s the best, beluga.  I got some.”

“Really?  How much?”

“Fifty for a two-ounce tin.  From Odessa.”
“Fifty?  Isn’t that really cheap?”

“Cheap?  It’s practically free.  They don’t even sell this in the U.S. now.  There’s a ban on imports.  So not only is it cheap, it’s the only beluga this side of the Atlantic.”

“Wow.”

“You ever see a girl after a few spoons of this stuff?  They have to have sex right away.  It’s crazy, like that stuff, how do you call it, Spanish fly.”

“No kidding?  Let me see.  Fifty dollars, you say?”  Phil looked in his wallet.  “You take VISA?”

“For caviar smuggled in my cousin’s plastic leg?  I don’t think so.”

“Oh, well.  I don’t have the cash with me.”  Phil wasn’t that disappointed as he hadn’t yet become desperate enough to slip Marika a fish egg mickey.  He could be celibate if he had to.  Did masturbation count?  “Celibate” meant refraining from sex with others, right?  Of course, the red tantric thing, holding the essence, or whatnot, the Kundilini, it’s in the seminal fluid.  The stuff of life.  I’m supposed to be holding onto it here, stocking up the reserves, so self-pleasure was undoubtedly out of the question.  Keep the reservoir full, pump the kundilini up the spine.  I can do it.  Breathe, 2, 3, 4… His prostate would end up the size of a watermelon.

Phil gritted his teeth.   I can do it…  God, it used to be so much better when Marika and I were just having sex all the time…  What would Dad say about this?  Here I am, engaged to a woman who likes sex as much as I do, only she decides it’s better for us not to have sex for a while.  And to prove what?  Not fucking proves we love each other?  What is that about?  How did this happen?  And how is it all going to end?

This was what Phil was killing himself about as he headed back to his apartment.  His shoulders felt better, but it was still all in his head.  The stress.  Was it the sex, or lack thereof?  Or was there something more to it?  Certainly these dreams.  Maybe I should get some pot.  Get rid of those dreams once and for all.  But I love those dreams.  Maybe not the dream with Dr. Ruth biting my ear, but that’s got to be a one-time thing, don’t you think?  Sure.  But Stephanie, and now Zee, in an interesting way…

Curiously, he didn’t want that to end.  Funny, almost as much as he believed he wanted to make his relationship with Marika work, he also wanted to keep his dream relationship with Stephanie, at least see where it was going, insane as that sounded.  And he couldn’t be one hundred percent sure it was Stephanie, or rather that Stephanie was the woman in his dream.  And now Zee was involved, at least peripherally.  What about a ménage a trois?  Now that would be something.  Him, Stephanie and Zee.  If he meditated about that before bed, could he bring on a dream about it?  He could orchestrate sex with Stephanie in his dreams, so why not this?  It seemed worth a try.  How about sex with Stephanie and Zee, with Marika watching?  Now that would be some dream.  Throw in Coco, and you have another quadfecta.

But where there’s a quadfecta, inevitably there’s a quintfecta waiting to happen.  And so it did. Phil exited the baths and ambled down East 10th Street, still roiling, mentally but, save the throb in his outer ear, feeling not unlike Jell-o.  It was sunny, and a fall kind of crisp, although it was still July.  It had been cooler the last few days; one could tell by the almost complete absence of garbage smell in Lower Manhattan, except, of course, in Chinatown, where garbage always competes with restaurants for the aromatic domination of the local micro-environment.  For the moment, Phil forgot about the neurotic inner conversation he was having about how to intensify his sexual experiences with the women in his dreams.  He smiled and simply took in the entirety of the nice day, the people on the streets, almost like a normal person.

The guy came out at him from nowhere, a flash of dirty red hair and flannel work shirt.  No doorway, no alley, just like from nowhere.  Right in Phil’s face.  The guy’s breath stank, his clothes needed a serious washing last Tuesday, and now only industrial strength detergent would do the trick.  Phil recoiled.  He thought the goon was going to hit him, or kill him, even.

“Gimme a match?” The guy sort of half asked, plucking a bent but still smoke-able cigarette out of his shirt pocket and plugging it between his lips.  Phil didn’t even think.  He pulled out the matches.

He opened them, tried to light one.  He struck flint three, four, five times, finally a spark, and then a fizzle as it snuffed out on Phil’s thumb.  It burned like hell but Phil didn’t flinch.  He just handed the book to the guy.

“Keep ‘em.  I quit smoking anyway.”

“Hey, thanks man,” the guy mumbled at Phil’s back as he continued on.  He looked at the matches.  “Vaselka.  Their pea soup rocks!”

Fucking bastard.  Ruin my whole fuckin’ head, man, thought Phil.  I’m walking here, just walking, enjoying the nice day and this guy gets up in my face!

“Hey, man, what’s that on your ears, some kind of growth?   You should get that looked at, buddy, you know, a biopsy or whatever,” the red-haired guy slurred over his shoulder as he walked away.

Without responding, Phil peeled the stupid herbal plugs off his ears, the plaster yanking out the little hairs he never realized lined the ridge of his ear.  But no matter how much hair he ripped out, the pain, which brought tears to his eyes, felt so much better than the horrible herb pellets embedded in his throbbing ear cartilage.  Oh, my God!  That evil witch drew blood!  Extra twenty-five bucks?  Fucking gall bladder!

Then he remembered Coco’s number was on those matches.  He turned around, but the smelly fellow was gone.  Oh well.  No big deal.  He couldn’t have called Coco anyway, not with a clear conscience. The whole idea was a bad one, with him engaged, and Burt hot for Coco.

But then again he wouldn’t want her angry with him, or insulted, like she undoubtedly would be if he didn’t call after she slipped him her number. It would be better to call and at least say, you know, I’m flattered, you’re really amazing, but I’m committed to my relationship.  Something like that, only less lame.  He could work on it.  To not call would be perfectly asshole-ish, wouldn’t it?  They could be friends.  That was another thing a guy could do if he was engaged, have women as friends, real friends, like guy friends, you know?  To drink with, or whatever.  They could do that, couldn’t they?

Obviously, Phil was new at this engagement business.  He had never done this before, or he would have known that in his situation, such a relationship with an incredibly cute, sexy, single, young waitron was so completely inappropriate.  But his heart was in the right place.  He pulled out his phone and dialed.  After a few seconds…

“Burt?  It’s me, Phil…”

“Oh, hey Phil. What are you doing?”

”I just got a massage.”

“Did you get a happy ending?”

“They don’t have that at the Russian baths.”

“Oh.”

“Listen, can I get Coco’s number from you?”

“Why, you gonna ask her out?”

“No, I don’t want to ask… I just want to tell her that I can’t go out with her…”

“Well, then why even call her?”

“Well, because I don’t want her to be insulted…”

“Why would she be insulted?  She knows you’re engaged.  I don’t really think she expects you to call her, or anything.  Why would you think that?”

Because she slipped me her number on a book of matches.  Because Coco likes me better than you, big penis and all, but I’m not going to sleep with her anyway.   Because she touched my knee, or thigh, even, that night under the table.  No.  None of those explanations would be fair to Burt.

“Because of what you said, you know, about her liking me. I want to make sure she knows nothing can happen between us.” Tell the truth? Phil couldn’t do that to Burt.

“I didn’t mean she wants you to call her.  Besides, if I’m not going to sleep with her, why would I want you to?”

This made sense.  But it wasn’t the point.  There was no way around it.  “Look Burt, I don’t want to sleep with her.  She gave me her number on a book of matches this morning.  But I…  I lost them someplace.  Probably in the baths, or something.”

“She really did that?”

“There was a book of Vaselka matches with her number in it.  Either you’re a total schmuck who’s jerking me off by slipping it into my pocket as a joke or…”

“Do you really think for a second I would do that?  Or even think of that?  It’s so totally sick that you think that I would do that!”

“Then she did it, so she expects me to call, and I figure to not call would be completely asshole-ish and I do like her, not in a physical way, personally, friend-like. You know, any friend of yours is a friend of mine. And she’s probably just being friendly, anyway, me being engaged and all. But to be safe, I’m calling to tell her why I can’t, you know, date her or anything.  She’s dated engaged guys before, so she has a different perspective on the whole exclusivity thing.”

“Evidently… She’s dated engaged guys before?”

“Probably just one… Look, man, I’m sorry.  Once I talk to her, I’m sure she’ll come to her senses and realize how much she likes you.”  How he managed to sound sincere while throwing off that line remains a mystery to this day.

“Yeah, like I want your sloppy seconds, dude.”

“They’re neither seconds, nor sloppy, asswipe.  I’m not going to sleep with her and you know that.  Just give me her number and let’s file this under ‘Weird Things That Happened So Far.’”

Burt finally got over himself and gave Phil the number.  And so, Phil could call her.  He thought about it, considered the benefits of calling now and getting it over with, or waiting and thinking carefully about what he wanted to say.  She was a girl with a crush, nothing more.  She’d get over him easily.  This thought made him feel good, and yet kind of sad.  He dialed.  Ring.  Ring.

“Hi, this is Coco.  Leave me your number and a message.”

“Hey, Coco, it’s Phil.  Nice to see you today.  Listen… I need to… can we talk?  Sorry.  I… I’ll try you again later.  You’re probably still at work.  Bye.”

Phil hung up.  He thought it would be more gentlemanly to keep calling her and not leave his number to make her call him back.  Then they’d probably go back and forth on the voice mail for a while.  No.  He’d keep trying until he got her instead of the voice mail.  Phil had a thing about that.  Back when he was dating, he’d never leave his number on the first call.  He was the one doing the asking out, and he believed it was good form for the gentleman to place the call.  It was the old-fashioned side of Phil, the same side that liked steam rooms and pepper vodka, opened doors for women, and called a girl just to explain why he shouldn’t be calling her.  He was a nice guy, and nice guys don’t hurt people’s feelings.

So, he’d try her again later.

CHAPTER NINE: LEAVING EDEN

That night, Phil had the ménage a trois he always wanted, the one that all men want, at least the heterosexual ones.  True, ‘twas only in his dreams that he had this most sought after of sexual experiences, but it was good, even better than he had hoped.  It had some pornographic value, certainly, sexual athletics and so forth, but Phil never had much use for pornography, which he felt was, for the most part, poorly done fantasy, some other guy’s idea of “hot” that usually had little in common with his own.  But dreaming is generally not voyeuristic; the dreamer doesn’t watch passively; he is in the dream; he is the dream.  Dreams feel real, and not just virtually so.  And this specific-reality, athletic, no-holds-barred sex with two world-class female homo sapiens wasn’t going to be anywhere near his waking future, because Marika didn’t swing both ways and she had no desire to share her fiancé with another woman.  Hell, she wasn’t even sharing him with herself these days.  The dream, as he knew even while he was having it, was as close as he’d ever get to the real thing, in this lifetime.

In the dream, he kept looking around in the shadows for Marika, figuring she must be watching like in the dream he had in Dr. Ruth’s treatment room, but he couldn’t find her, and kept getting distracted by whatever Stephanie and Zee were doing to each other, which he had to admit, was even more exciting than what they were doing to him.  This isn’t to say that the random playful finger near one’s perineum as two beautiful mouths spend active time in the general neighborhood of one’s manhood isn’t an incredible sense overload, it is, but to him, at that moment, it wasn’t as mind-bendingly titillating as Zee and Stephanie writhing against each other, groaning and grinding, Zee’s tattooed swimmer’s body a stark contrast to Stephanie’s feminine smoothness and alabaster complexion.  Still, he sensed Marika’s presence, and in an odd, slightly perverse way, he wanted her to watch him, and he might have enjoyed the exhibitionistic fantasy if only he could get past the almost physical presence of his own irrational guilt that made him believe that somehow Marika, right now, in the real world, knew what he was dreaming as he was dreaming it.  And maybe she did.

Wow, when people start moving in and out of each other’s dreams, life can get real complicated.  Both lives, Phil realized.  The real life and the dream life can both get fucked up.  At that point Phil thought, as his dream-self was mounting Zee whilst Stephanie offered her own kind of encouragement from somewhere down near their entangled loins, you might as well throw in the towel, because you’re getting to a place where your dreams and your reality are the same fucking thing.  He then wondered how he could be thinking of that at a time like this and then forgot what he was thinking about in the first place and it didn’t matter anyway.

The dream had the same immediacy, the life-like feel of the first ones, before he saw Stephanie at the theater.  The sex felt as good, better, than any real sex Phil ever experienced with a solid, three dimensional woman.  It was all slow, and graceful, the three of them making a triangle, the strongest two dimensional geometric shape, the base and basis of a pyramid, and you know how long those things stay up.  And Zee certainly spiced things up a bit compared to when it was just Phil and Stephanie. This was a challenge, satisfying two voracious women simultaneously, a challenge that Phil was determined to meet head-on, asleep or awake, physically and mentally.

And then there was the loud screaming, which was rather unexpected and kind of ruined the moment for everybody.

Phil snapped awake, realizing that he had been groaning and madly thrusting his pelvis skyward.  Marika was shrieking her head off about something in that mumble-in-your-sleep-during-a-dream kind of way Phil couldn’t decipher, so at least she didn’t hear him moaning and growling.  Yes!  He wasn’t just groaning, he was growling.  Growling!  He, Phil McCone, was growling like a lusty, carnal beast.  He gave Marika a little nudge.  She stopped yelling, opened her eyes, looked at him, and sat up quickly, expressionless, as though nothing happened.

“What?”  She said.

“You were yelling in your sleep.  Sorry.  I didn’t mean to wake you, I just thought I’d give you a nudge and you might roll over and go back to…”

“I was dreaming.”

“About what?”

“I…I don’t remember.  I really don’t.”  She sat for a second, looking into his eyes.  Then she remembered.  “It was that bartender, Cee, was it?”

Gulp.  “Zee?”

“Zee, right.  You and Zee.  I walked in on you screwing Zee.”

Phil felt guilty, guilty as charged.  He was almost ready to confess.  Then he realized he didn’t do it, not in reality, anyway.  He just dreamed it.  Of course, he was dreaming it at the same time Marika was dreaming it and despite his recent experiences in dream phenomena, he found this profoundly disturbing.

“That’s, well, that’s quite a dream.  Probably a normal, you know, pre-marriage anxiety dream, don’t you think?”

“No. Maybe.  I mean…. I don’t know, but the weirdest part was that it felt so real.  I woke up in the middle of the night to get some water and went to the kitchen and there was this big ugly bug on the floor, but then it crawled up the counter, and past the sink, and as it crawled it started morphing into other kinds of insects, like, first a roach and then a spider and then finally some kind of beautiful moth that changed colors… And so of course, I think ‘I must be dreaming,’ and I feel around for the blanket, you know, the blanket and the bed, because if I feel them, I must be dreaming, right?  And I feel the blanket, and the bed.  It was a dream, and then I woke up.”

“What does that have to do with Zee?”

“I got out of bed and went for a drink of water.  No morphing moths.  The living room curtains were open and the early morning light was coming through, so I walked toward it, and you were fucking her on the couch.  You were on top of Zee.  And since I had just woken up from a dream, I thought, this must be really happening.  And you were having a really great time, let me tell you.  You two at it like there was no tomorrow.”

“Was anyone else there?”  He was wondering if she saw Stephanie, too.

“Was anyone else there?  I have a dream about you and that unworldly-gorgeous tattoo junkie fucking in our living room, and you ask me if anyone else was there?  What kind of stupid question is that?”

“No, I meant… I just wanted to know if…. if there was anything else in the dream, darling.  Anything that might help you to understand it… Doesn’t that make sense? And please.  You know I didn’t sleep with Zee, I mean, in real life.”

“But you wanted to, didn’t you?  You thought about it?”

Truth or dare time, once again.  “Blue” was not an even remotely acceptable  answer to this one. Think about it?  About sleeping with Zee?  He admired her as art, but did he think about having sex with her?  Did dreaming count as thinking, or even more important, desiring?  Not technically.  Would telling Marika that he dreamed about having sex with Zee make it better, or worse?  The smart money was on worse, with three or four-to-one odds, at least.  And that was without even mentioning Zee’s kissing him in the grocery store and his ongoing dream affair with Stephanie.  But there was no way she could know what he was dreaming, or was there?  Given his recent experiences, he couldn’t count on the previously beyond a reasonable doubt certainty that his dreams were known only to him.  This was no longer a given.

So there it was again.  First Stephanie, and now Marika, sharing his dreams.  Were they having the same dream from different angles, kind of like entering the same room from different doors?  Or was it just that his and her dreams happened to both feature him having sex with Zee?  If it was the same dream, Stephanie would be there too, wouldn’t she?  But what if she just didn’t see Stephanie, like she was under both of them, or the angle, or whatever?  Were they all just dreaming the same dream?  That was either fascinating or pathetic.  Surely, there are enough dreams to go around so that everyone needn’t share the same ones, or are people so average and uncreative that we can’t come up with our own original dreams?  Were these archetypes, these dreams?  An interesting question, he thought, but I still need to look up “archetype.”

Maybe that’s it, Phil thought.  All those books on dreams about what certain things mean.  Symbols.  Maybe everyone has the same dreams as everyone else, only we don’t even know it?  Perhaps with little personal variations but by and large, the same dreams… Nah, that’s nonsense.

While all this was zipping around his head, Phil realized that he still hadn’t answered Marika’s question.  And she was waiting.  She was wondering what Phil was thinking about before answering this simple fucking question.

Phil opted for a little white lie.  “I have never thought about having sex with Zee, okay?”  That was technically true.   “I told you, I don’t find all that tattoo work attractive in any way…”  That was technically a lie, but not an intentional one, for though Phil, in principal, was an anti-tattooist of sorts, subconsciously he found them extremely provocative and sexy.  He just didn’t know that about himself.

“So, that was it?” Phil blundered on.  “In the dream.  Nothing else happened?”

“You want details?  Like what, positions?  Moans and groans?  Sex talk?”

“There was sex talk?”  Her glare told him not to go down that alley.  “No, no, I just, I thought you wanted to talk about it.  You seem upset, and I just figure, you know, talking about it is the best thing.”

“I am upset but… it’s just a dream, right?”

“Exactly.”

“The way you stared at her that night at Suffer, I can’t believe you never thought of having sex with her.”

“That wasn’t sexual desire, it was shock.  You were staring, too, everyone was.  And let’s face it, some people find that tattoo thing quite… provocative.”  There was that word again.  Provocative.  Like Coco’s hand on his knee.  Like Stephanie telling her dream at the theater in front of all of those strangers, like the labyrinth between Zee’s shoulder blades (he traced it in his dream, when in the optimal position to do so).

“Actually, I guess there’s nothing wrong with that, you know, you wanting another woman, in the abstract at least.  Finding her attractive.  Sexy, even.  As long as you don’t act on it, thinking about it shouldn’t make you guilty, right?”

“Really?  I mean, of course.  How could you be guilty about thinking something?”

“Exactly.”

Phil was relieved.  He thought, wow, Marika’s pretty cool.  All of his nervousness wasn’t necessary, just his own fear of committing to one woman, perhaps.  But now, for maybe the first time in his life, a woman didn’t expect or want him to feel guilty.  She didn’t need to control Phil and their relationship with guilt.  He could unburden himself to her right now.  Not could, should.  If anyone would understand, she was the one.  He would love to talk to someone about these crazy dreams; who better than his affianced, his lady?  She had asked only that they be open, honest, and truthful with each other, to get to know one another better, so that their union might be stronger.  By sharing his most personal, subconscious thoughts, he would demonstrate their shared heartfelt desire for genuine closeness in the relationship, and that there was nothing to hide.  Like she just said, nothing to feel guilty about.

And so, in that spirit, Phil blurted out, “I have, however, dreamt about her.”

A shadow came over Marika’s already dark brown eyes.  “What do you mean?”

“I mean, I had a dream… with Zee in it.  Having sex.  With me.  In fact, I had it just now, when you had it.  It might have been the same dream.”

“You dreamt of having sex with her?”

Phil chose not, at this time, to add, “yes, her and another woman, as well,” given the way this all seemed to be going south in a real hurry, despite his best intentions.  That’s what you get for the truth, he thought.  So instead he said, “Well, so did you.”

“I dreamt about you having sex, not me.  That’s kind of a big thing, don’t you think, dreaming about sleeping with another woman?”

“Dreaming?  It’s just like thinking.  It all happens in the mind.” He pointed head-ward. “You just said thinking about something doesn’t make you guilty of anything.  And this isn’t even thinking on purpose, it’s a dream.  It’s totally involuntary.”

“Come on, Phil, think about it.  Dreams are subconscious.  They reveal our true inner selves.  Especially during this spiritual and physical celibacy we’ve undertaken, the inner truths come out… It says so in my tantra book.”

“But really, it’s just images, you know, like a video.”

“Isn’t a video a recording of something that actually happened?  How could it be like video unless you had sex with her, which you tell me you didn’t?”

“Don’t be silly!  Of course I didn’t!  She’s a person I met, for like a second.  She shows up in my dream.  That’s not so unusual.”

“You don’t think the fact that she showed up in your dream naked, on our couch with you on top of her is unusual?”

“Not really.”

“It was on the couch in yours too?”

“Weird coincidence, don’t you think?”

“She’s exotic, isn’t she?  All those tattoos, those colors, yet despite all of that, an incredibly beautiful woman.  Was the sex better than ours?”

The truth here, that yes, actually, the sex in the dream was better, would not do.  “Marika, it didn’t happen.  Nothing happened.  I was here, in bed, next to you.”

“But you think she’d be better in bed than I am because she has all those tattoos, is that it?  She’s wild and exotic and free?”

Phil had to admit, internally, anyway, that Marika had a point there, but lying still seemed to be the better option.  “Marika, no one is better in bed than you.  You’re a sexual genius.  It was a dream, some random electric pulse deep inside my brain.  It was milliseconds of mental activity, in reality.  I could have dreamt about anyone.  It’s random.”

“But she’s a real woman, one you’ve met and spoken to!  Do you dream about anyone else you know?”

“You.”  This was an outright lie, too, but a good one, Phil finally showing good instincts.  It just kind of popped out, and he went with it.  He had never dreamt of Marika.  Certainly not a sex dream.  They had sex whenever he wanted; what would be the point?  But it was a well-timed, excellent lie, and seemed to take the edge off her.

“Oh?  When?”

“Why, uh, just the other night.”

“Why didn’t you tell me about it?”

“I just now thought of it, because of our discussion.  You don’t remember every dream you have, do you?”  Good, Phil.  Real good.  “It was really hot.  In fact, it took place in the elevator… of the Chrysler Building.  And you know how much I hate elevators.”  He was on a roll now.  He ventured a little something extra.  “Let me rub your feet to make up for my REM-phase induced infidelity.”  She gave him a look.  “No strings attached.  Not foreplay, or anything.”

“You know when you rub my feet it gets me crazy.”

“So?  We’re storing up that kundilini, right?  This will charge up that root chakra.  I promise, I won’t rub the spots on your feet that get you horny.”

“What spots are those?”

He smiled only.

While Phil was working on Marika’s arches, paying extra attention to the areas just below her inner ankle, where the female genitals are represented in reflexology, and thus helping her dream melt away, Stephanie was sitting in her kitchen drinking a big tumbler of cheap sherry.  It was all she had, but it might do the trick.  God damn dreams, waking her up.  That was the third time this week. The Intruder was going to get another workout tonight, unless the sherry took effect first.  Now that she wasn’t smoking pot any more, and as a result kept having these highly charged sex dreams, a nice, toe curling orgasm was practically the only thing short of taking a pill that would put her to sleep.  And since her mother had already cornered the market on prescription sedative and tranquilizer abuse; Stephanie tended to steer clear of anything pill- or capsule-like.

The sex dreams had continued, and that mild-mannered guy at the theater who told the dream about the oaf was definitely the “sex god” in her dream.  Stephanie was surprised, actually, because he wasn’t her usual type.  He was the nice-guy type, which was fine for a friend, but as a lover she always preferred men with an edge.  Besides, he seemed sexier before, when she couldn’t really see his face.  Not that he was bad looking.  But for some reason, an actual face, and a voice for that matter, because she heard him speak at the theater, made her dream lover an actual person, not just a sexually talented phantom.  And not just a person, a man.  And men sucked, at least at this point in Stephanie’s life.

It was bad enough that her fiancé had died suddenly, which she was still angry about.  On top of that, within months of his death several of Gordon’s friends had tried to seduce her, apparently believing that having sex with one of her deceased husband’s friends would bring solace, and succor.  One idiot practically date-raped her until she smacked him in the balls with the first thing she could get her hands on, which turned out to be the schmuck’s daytime Emmy for best lighting design, series.

She felt betrayed by men, especially by Gordon for dying, and that wasn’t even taking into account her earlier dating history, which by any reasonable standard was pretty lame, as it consisted of a string of men who were totally wrong for her.  And talk about men issues, what about the men in her family?  Specifically, her father, an accountant who paid for her sweet sixteen by fixing some books for the mob and was eventually swept up in a sting under the R.I.C.O. act, turned state’s evidence, and was now in the federal witness protection program, whereabouts unknown even to Stephanie and the rest of her family.  The official word was that he didn’t want to put his loved ones in danger, but Stephanie believed that her father just wanted a fresh start in life unencumbered by wife, kids and a mortgage.

All of this might have gone a long way to explain the fact that a woman had entered her epic sex dreams.  This made sense to her, becoming a lesbian.  True, she didn’t want to have sex with women, which could be a major drawback for a lesbian, a deal-breaker, even.  She never fantasized about sex with a woman.  She wasn’t put off by the idea, just not in any way excited by it. But she thought, perhaps a bit in a grass-is-greener sort of way, that being a lesbian would be cool. Except for the sex with women part. Maybe she could be an asexual lesbian?  All about female companionship? Because, face it, girls are a lot more fun to hang out with then men.  And they smell better.  And they’re better dancers, usually.  Which was precisely why from her perspective it seemed better to be lesbian.  She imagined what it was like for old lesbian couples, cuddling, dancing cheek-to-cheek in the living room, going on picnics, seeing movies and shows, and that sounded pretty nice.  Of course, it could be nothing like that and Stephanie, who didn’t know many lesbian couples, really would have no idea.  No idea at all.

And though Stephanie was a non-lesbitician, the woman in her threesome became the fresher, more interesting part of the dream now, since the oaf guy, named Phil, of all things, was now a real person and not some god-like sexual Olympian. Not even close. This woman was quite beautiful.  She appeared to be wearing some kind of really tight, colorful shirt or leotard, which seemed odd, given that Stephanie and the man were completely naked, except of course for Stephanie’s socks.  It all felt fine to her, natural, to touch this woman and be touched by her, for two women to be there with this guy, but the real thing Stephanie thought was so cool about the woman entering the picture was the same thing she liked about the guy before she saw him in the theater: she was not anyone Stephanie knew, anyone real.  She was, Stephanie thought, like one of those nymphs in Fantasia, only life-size.  All those colors, all that hair, and so beautiful.  She wasn’t real in any way, and thus non-threatening, a true fantasy.

But when Stephanie woke up after the dream on this night, she instantly realized that if the guy was real, if the oaf guy at the theater the other night was the guy she had been dreaming about (which was pretty bizarre, and she still hadn’t signed off on that one), then this creature, this psychedelic nymph, might exist as well.

And therefore, the possibility presented itself that from now on Stephanie was going to dream about people before meeting them.  Which of course was ridiculous, but the thought of it made her vaguely nauseous, and anxious that maybe she was going crazy.  That maybe she needed some therapy.  Damn!  And she thought she was doing pretty well.  What would she talk about?  “Doctor, I dreamt about incredible lovemaking with an amazing man who then appeared in my life,” she imagined herself telling the therapist, in a melodramatic way.  Judging from the reactions of the audience at Unintentional Theatre that night, any therapist would love a patient like her, especially if she didn’t spare the details.  Note to self: find a female therapist.

And then she suddenly recalled a second woman in the dream, sitting near the bed, staring at them.  Yes. she looked just like this girl from college, someone she hadn’t seen in years.  Why would she be in this dream?  And why was she watching Stephanie’s ménage a trois?  But that was a really stupid question.  People turn up in dreams for all kinds of reasons, don’t they?  Sure they do.  And they don’t necessarily have anything to do with one another in real life.  At least this might someone she had previously known. Stephanie needed to calm down.  Certainly, just because one person from one dream entered her real life, a guy who maybe just bore a resemblance to the guy in the dream but wasn’t actually the guy, didn’t necessarily mean that now everyone she dreamed about was going to turn up in real life now, did it?  Of course not.

But all this reasoning didn’t help calm Stephanie’s mind in the least.  In fact, her internal debate lasted another hour.  Finally, to distract herself, she thought she’d take a look at The Intruder’s special attachments.  She had resisted opening the box for a few weeks after her sister had given it to her, until she couldn’t stand it anymore, and when she did, it was a regular wham-bam-thank-yourself-ma’am, without getting too involved in the options or the instructions, as if directions were even necessary.  For all of its badly done package art, and really dumb name, The Intruder was quite the effective personal pleasuring device, “self-care” at its best.

And there were indeed instructions, quite long and involved, about how to get the best use and longest life out of one’s Intruder.  Washing the attachment before the first use (which Stephanie now realized she hadn’t) with mild soap and warm water highly recommended.  Be sure to keep the main unit away from water, as electrocution may result.  Do not use if the main unit becomes damaged.

Interestingly, all of the instructions for this “personal massager” dealt with actual massaging of muscles, as if anyone would use it for that.  And there were attachments aplenty.  There was the little nub-like one, which seemed like the most efficient attachment of choice for girls, and then the little cup-shaped one, evidently for “rounded areas” (she could think of a few, both male and female), and the one with the comb-like teeth in it, which seemed completely unnecessary if not downright dangerous.

After washing the attachments in warm water and mild detergent, she retired to her bedroom to see exactly what these attachments might do.  She actually tried them on her feet, neck, and hands.  The vibration was nice, but hardly a massage.  Still, it was relaxing.  And of course, as three a.m. turned to four, one thing led to another and… well, let’s just say Stephanie finally got to sleep that night.

Zee did not.  She was smoking a cigarette in front of the TV.  What was it about that guy?  He wasn’t anything special.  She didn’t feel “the thing” with him.  Why did she keep dreaming about him?  And who was that really cute woman?  She never came into the bar, did she?  Maybe once.  That’s all it takes, right?  Seeing a person one time to dream about her.  But what if you just make up a person in your brain?  And they don’t exist, except in your mind?  But they seem so real.  And not just look, but feel… it was as if she were transported to another place to have real sex in her sleep, or something.

Maybe it was the medication.  She had been on some generic antidepressant she got over the internet from a guy in India, but had switched to a brand new one.  Her doctor gave her free samples, knowing that Zee had no health insurance.  The new one was for anxiety, too.  She should read the thing in the package about side effects.

Could you have an image in your mind of someone who didn’t exist?  You could dream about monsters, or dragons, or fairies, and they don’t exist, so couldn’t that happen with a person?  Sure.  Why not?  But still, it was odd, especially since the guy, Phil, was real.  But the weird part was the thing about Phil’s fiancé watching.  Sure, thought Zee, I’m a bit of an exhibitionist, but not like that.  Yet there was something truly hot about it, having sex with a guy while his fiancé watched.  And she had noticed, as did X, her boss, that the fiancé was pretty hot, you know, put together. Zee liked curves on a woman.

And that was what confused Zee most, the attraction she felt for the fiancé… Marika, that was her name.  She wanted to be with this woman, simple as that.  It didn’t bother her so much as surprise her, as she had never been much for sleeping with girls despite having ample opportunity in her job and, of course, back in college, when just about everyone was trying just about everything.  But Marika was special.  She was thinking, this woman is like a sister, only not really, because that would be sick, lusting after one’s sister.  But like an old friend I eventually became involved with, you know, involved with?

Nothing like this had ever happened in her real life, and Zee was baffled by the whole thing.  What did it mean?  Was she lesbian?  Or maybe she was looking for a guy who could be more like a girl?  That’s possible.

And what about this Phil?  Why is he haunting my dreams?  I mean, he’s okay, and I thought about sleeping with him that night in the grocery store, sure, but a professional ambulance chaser?  How pathetic.  His work holds no meaning for him, that’s so clear, and yet, there was something sort of, I don’t know, he brought out my mothering instincts, and I never knew I had mothering instincts.  He’s such a great lover in the dreams… but that doesn’t mean he is in real life.  Not that it matters.  And he was a good kisser, I had to give him that, but I didn’t feel “The Thing.”  But none of this matters; he’s getting married.  He shouldn’t get married.  Not because I want to be with him, Jesus, no.  But he clearly didn’t even like that fiancé of his, even though she has a great body.  Look at me.  Maybe I am a lesbian, who the fuck knows?

Unfortunately, Zee did not own The Intruder, or she may have gotten to sleep a little sooner.  Instead, she mused on her sexuality and relationships, her parents who lived on a commune in Massachusetts, religion and mortality, morality and whatever happened to Sally Jesse Raphael.  She finally passed out after seven Camel Lights, three Diet Cokes and a Hostess Twinkie, despite the nicotine, caffeine, sugar and sugar substitute buzz, with the morning sun glowing at her window.  Luckily, being a bartender, she didn’t have to get to work early.

CHAPTER TEN: T.A.S.C. FORCE

Unfortunately, Phil needed to get to work early, as there was a mandatory staff meeting to attend, and no application of The Art of Selective Complaint was going to get him out of this one.  Or maybe this was fortunate, a blessing in disguise, because even after she awoke, Marika was still quite a bit disturbed by her dream, or more precisely by Phil’s dream.  Like many people, she believed that dreams meant something, and if this had a meaning, it couldn’t be ignored, and it couldn’t be good.  Her fiancé, dreaming about having sex with another woman? And she was having the same dream as he was? Not exactly a harbinger of a happy ending, of the fairy tale kind.

While she begrudgingly admitted that Phil’s dream was not admissible evidence of any willful desire to have an affair, Marika felt it had to indicate something about their relationship, something bad.  She wondered if they should go to a counselor, someone who could help decipher the meaning of this dream and help them to plan a path for their lives together, if they were meant to be together, which she still believed they were.  But there was this nagging feeling that outside of the bedroom they hadn’t really established the chemistry she assumed necessary for a successful marriage, although she hadn’t the slightest clue as to what that chemistry might be, or what it would feel like, as she had no marital experience of her own and only her parents’ dysfunctional mess as a reference.  And while she liked sex as much as the next girl or, she would readily admit, a bunch more than the next girl, she was starting to feel that sex wasn’t the most important thing, and that, in and of itself, was not a solid enough basis upon which to build a long term relationship, perhaps an indication that she had more in common with Phil’s mom than Phil’s dad would have recommended.  Then again, as a woman who once believed that sex is the most important thing in a relationship, she worried that her change of heart, and mind, was part of the some anti-feminist programming, that she had been conditioned to think about sex in the same way that most American women, including her mother and sisters, did: that it was to be monogamous, and not the focus of the relationship.

Phil, meanwhile, was starting to think that all this celibacy was doing him some irreversible physical harm. Not having sex was one thing, and not one he was particularly fond of, but he was constantly having these dreams that left him in an extremely aroused state, and he worried that he might be damaging his equipment by not getting any relief.  What if his prostate got backed up and grew too big?   That was possible, wasn’t it?  Older, married guys were always joking about how the sex life went downhill as life went on. Maybe that’s why older guys had problems with the prostate, which was supposed to be the size of a filbert, or walnut, or something, but his was starting to feel more like a lemon.  Or maybe not a lemon yet, but at least a smallish kiwi.  Was there ever a study done to find out if men whose wives didn’t have sex with them developed prostate problems sooner than those who were sexually active?  It seemed like an important bit of information.  Surely, some male research doctor must have studied that.  The Viagra or Cialis people would put up the money for it.  Did daily, chronic masturbators have a lower incidence of prostate disease?  He figured he could find out on the internet.  If there were a study that showed that lots of sexual activity lowered the incidence of prostate disease it would be all over the place.  Even better if the masturbators had the same prostate cancer rate as the involuntary celibates; that way you wouldn’t get the same benefits from jerking off as you could from actual intercourse.  He could imagine the brilliant excuse: “Honey, I didn’t want to have an affair, but I didn’t want to develop prostate cancer even more.”

On his way into the office, he tried Coco again, as he figured he really needed to get that out of the way so he didn’t need to feel guilty about not doing it.  Surely, an affair with Coco, no matter how adorable and sexy and… uh, youthful she might be, would throw a major wrench into the works.  So, as he walked from the subway to the office, he dialed her on his cell.  He got the answering machine again.  “Hi, this is Coco, leave me your number and a message.”  He was about to hang up, but something sounded different.  It was.  The message continued.  “Oh, and if this is Phil, why don’t you just leave a number where I can call you back?”

Wow.  Her voicemail greeting, re-done just for him?  She really does like me, Phil thought.  What the hell.  He waited for the beep.  “Hey, Coco, it’s Phil.  Nice message.  I don’t think I ever had one personalized for me.  So, yeah, sorry I didn’t leave my number. I have this thing about… well, I’ll explain when we talk.  Meanwhile, here’s my cell...”  He left the number and hung up.

Okay, so now she was leaving him personalized greetings on her voice mail, which was very flattering and completely proved that she was into him. Things were getting messier by the minute.  Here was this really hot young woman who totally wanted him. He couldn’t actually go out with her, or sleep with her, even just once, could he? Of course not. It was wrong on so many levels.

So, this is what he gets for making the decision to think of life as an adventure?  A year ago, if a girl like Coco had wanted him, it would have been the greatest thing in the world.  So why now, when he was brainwashing himself to believe that life offered so much excitement and joy, did it feel like a bad thing?  Was it maybe because he couldn’t enjoy the benefits of her feelings for him? At least not with a clear conscience?  Duh.

But there had to be a way to spin this positively.  Just because he couldn’t have sex with her didn’t mean that it wasn’t great that she found him attractive.  This should bolster his ego, help his self-esteem, right?  Sure it should.  A guy doesn’t have to act foolishly and impulsively in order to feel good about a girl coming on to him.  Same with Zee kissing him.  Sure, she didn’t feel “The Thing,” but at least he got a chance at the plate.  And she was truly major league talent.

Maybe he shouldn’t tell Coco over the phone. That would be rude and inconsiderate, wouldn’t it?  She’s a sweet girl who deserves better, he thought.  The least he could do was meet her for coffee or something, and let her down gently, let her know that he thought she was awesome, even if he couldn’t hook up with her.  She was a bright woman.  She’d understand, and know he was right.  He could be like her big brother, kind of.  A friend.  That would be okay if she could deal with not sleeping with him.  He certainly could.  Couldn’t he?  Here we were in the post-feminist twenty-first century.  Men and women could be friends now, right? Even straight men.

Anyway, as much as he loved the knucklehead, Phil didn’t think Burt was the right guy for Coco; he felt protective of her. Maybe he could convince her to find a man who wants a solid relationship, one who would respect her and protect her.  She shouldn’t just be another feather in Burt’s cap.  Besides, Burt did all right for himself.  He was probably on to the next thing already.  Why couldn’t Burt find someone his own age, or even within ten years of his age?  Phil would be doing both Burt and Coco a service, really.

This made him feel better about things.  He would be a good Samaritan of sorts, performing a public service, helping out this young woman and others like her, showing them that men and women could get along in a peaceful, friendly way, that it all didn’t have to be about trying to get someone into bed.  The age-old war between the sexes was an unnecessary and outdated phenomenon anyway, and in order for society to move forward into a more evolved state, not only did there need to be peace and equality among the races and religions and countries, but also between the sexes.  Or amongst the sexes, if one were to consider gays, lesbians, transsexuals and other groups as separate sexes, and why shouldn’t one?  Phil had a few gay friends, and although, like him, they were men, they were different; his relationship with them was a little different than his friendships with straight guys like Burt.  Still, they enjoyed doing things beyond the obvious gay male proclivities like shopping and gardening and raising small dogs.  Unfortunately, a lot of hetero guys, especially those from Jersey (it seemed), were homophobic, even if they weren’t gay bashers, per se.  There was a wedge driven between people by fear and misunderstanding, and Phil, the new, more positive Phil, was just the guy to do something about it.  That’s what he would write about, how people were all interconnected like the Buddhists say.  How the ones you hate the most are in some ways the ones you most need to love.

Phil arrived at work in a little better mood as a result of his musings on bringing the world’s peoples together and all.  He crossed the vast plaza of the Fountain Building, an impressive edifice that housed the offices of many companies, passing the huge, Stalin Era-inspired statue of the building’s namesake, the unabashed capitalist, Josiah W. Fountain, who had founded the chemical company that bore his name in the 1950’s, turned it into a gazillion dollar multinational corporation banking on the fear factor of the Cold War Era, and built this monument to himself funded by money he made on then-legal insider trading deals on military-industrial stocks during the Vietnam War.  The statue was several stories tall, and portrayed Fountain, his hand raised for emphasis, giving one of his many speeches touting the importance of free trade and open competition, unhindered by those inconvenient and costly environmental and tax regulations.  The giant likeness, made from thick sheets of pounded and welded steel, weighed upwards of forty-five tons (Lady Liberty weights 225), and was continually populated by scores of pigeons that left their mark all over Mr. Fountain’s head and arms.

At the foot of Josiah W. Fountain sat a homeless man, one of the faceless, nameless have-nots who populate America’s cities large and small.  He had an impressively long gray beard and silver-streaked hair, and wore, as always, a brown overcoat that, although fairly well-used, had at one time been a high-ticket item from Barney’s, or Brooks Brothers, or some other store that, should he attempt to enter at this point in his life, he’d be kicked out of without a thought or moment’s notice or hesitation.

The homeless guy rested, as always, on a flattened cardboard box, with several plastic bags surrounding him, no doubt containing everything he owned in this life.  Phil never had spoken to him – why would he? -- and the man never so much as looked at Phil, or asked him or anyone else for a handout, but Phil, feeling all generous and good Samaritan-y on this fine morning, reached into his pocket, extracted a fiver, and placed it at the man’s feet.  The guy seemed to be meditating on something very deeply.  But not too deeply to notice the fiver.  He looked at the bill, then up at Phil, who smiled beatifically at him.  The man said nothing, carefully folded the bill and then put it in his shirt pocket, and went back to meditating, but not before scowling in Phil’s general direction. Scowling!  Phil absorbed this, feeling somewhat dissed after dropping a Lincoln on the dude, and thus dejected entered the building’s lobby through one of several revolving doors.

So much for his good mood.  And now things would only get worse, or at least more boring.  Staff meetings.  Ugh.  Sure, it wasn’t the worst thing in the world.  And he could see why they were necessary, at least in theory, but still, they usually went on far longer than necessary.  The room would be packed with employees since it was mandatory, and everyone always had something to say, just to show the boss they possessed an ability to form something resembling an actual coherent thought.  And then there’d be all that rah-rah company stuff, which he absolutely abhorred.  Couldn’t one work somewhere these days without having to put up with all the preaching and corporate propaganda about doing the best for the company, “the team,” or getting a whole lot of lip service about how important all of the employees are to the company?  What a load of horse shit.  The job, selling a service, was simple, really; why make it more complicated with all these idiotic meetings and theories?   The employer didn’t give a shit about the employees as long as they were reasonably productive and not embezzling funds, and the employees were there to make some money so they could eat, pay rent, and occasionally take a vacation.  Wasn’t that a fair exchange?   Wasn’t that enough?  Did they all need to be cheerleaders too?

Another thing: the offices were on the sixty-seventh floor of the very tall Fountain Building.  Phil had never felt comfortable spending more than an hour or so in a really tall building.  Something always felt wrong about it.  Like when he was dating this girl some years earlier, and she lived on the twenty-third floor of a high-rise apartment building.  Whenever he spent the night there, he could imagine himself sleeping in a bed with really high legs.  No building around it, just a really tall bed, twenty-three stories high.  This vision made it almost impossible for him to get any sleep. This was completely unnatural, to sleep and live this high in the air.  People weren’t meant to be at such heights, sleeping and eating and having sex and brushing their teeth and moving their bowels at three hundred feet above street level, unless they happened to be perched atop a gentle hillock or a plateau of some kind.  It was just wrong.  Then, on top of that, there was the September 11th thing.

World Trade Center.  Phil had been up in the observation deck a few months before it happened, and he had drinks at Window on the World once.  It was amazing up there on top of the city looking down at the lights, the bridges, the rivers, the cars streaming down and up the avenues at night in white and red like streams of fire. Phil was aware of how high up he was the entire time.  It wasn’t a fear of heights, necessarily.  He liked climbing the occasional Adirondack, and had no problem in airplanes, but a tall building was a whole other ball of wax.  And then when it happened, when he saw the towers on fire, like Manhattan was a steamboat and those were two giant smokestacks (he saw it with many others from the roof of the Fountain Building), it was very easy to recall the sensation of being up inside of them.  And when they fell, it was even easier to imagine the “we’re-all-gonna-die” feeling of the towers swaying, the floors dropping out, the thunderous rumble of glass and steel crashing into innumerable particles of dust.  He thought he might never take an elevator again.

But economics, the basic human need for money to pay for food and shelter, got him to once again brave the high-speed ride up into this skyscraper, where he now spent a good part of his working day.  Well, not a good part, but some.  It was probably this nagging feeling that living and working at such a height was unnatural and somehow just wrong, even more than his general aversion to work, that accounted for The Art of Selective Complaint and his wanderings from the office.  He took little solace in the fact that the Fountain Building was across from a hospital.  In fact, the hospital’s main wing housed the Josiah W. Fountain Surgical Center, funded by contributions of the Fountain Family Fund.  That meant, of course, that should something unspeakable happen in or to the Fountain Building, medical care quickly would be forthcoming.  Small consolation.  But then, why bomb this building, after all?  It’s just a building.  Not even a new one, or especially famous.  What idiot terrorist would bother with the Fountain Building?  Maybe a terrorist with low self-esteem.

They were all filing into the conference room, grabbing coffee and donuts and some fairly wan fruit salad, and taking seats around the long table.  Phil sat with his friend, Rob, a large, affable fellow from accounting who played on-line mystery and intrigue games in his spare time at home, and whenever he could get away with it at the office.  The irony, that this benign, slightly pudgy family guy liked to play violent on-line RPGs, had an internet alter ego who went by the name of Dirk the Shiv, and “traveled” from room to room murdering people and taking their stuff, was not lost on Phil.  He wondered if people would, in real life, do the things they did as their on-line personae, kill and maim and torture and have violent sex, if they could get away with it.  He figured they probably would and was quietly thankful that the prospect of prison and forced couplings with large, musky inmates named Meat kept most regular folks like Rob from acting out their violent impulses outside of cyberspace.

Dave Kitson, the president and inspirational leader of Client Connections, strode into the room, smartly dressed and coiffed as usual, and said hello to each one of his 46 employees by name, not an easy task, as the large sales staff was at best a revolving door situation, with people coming and going weekly.  They’d arrive lured by the prospect of six-figure commissions, then leave soon after learning that only the top three percent of employees actually make that kind of dough.  What none of them knew was that Kitson had, in his office and at home, a chart updated weekly with every employee’s name and picture.  He looked at this chart several times a day, and was able to commit the name and face of every underling to memory. He had learned early on that most people’s self-esteem was sufficiently so low that simply knowing someone’s name was often flattering enough to gain his or her loyalty.

Mr. Kitson’s strategy for making a client connection was simple.  First, you’d cold call a law firm, and find out which partner was in charge of client development, the one known as the “rainmaker.”  Generally, in the old days, the rainmaker relied on his own network of connections, college and prep school buddies who were now heads of large corporations who would throw legal business at their old frat pals.  In days of yore, pretty much the sole role of the rainmaker was bringing in business, but the law had become a much more competitive world, and partners who for years had delegated much of the legal grunt work to junior partners and associates now found themselves at the office late into the night and on weekends.  Even the rainmaker was expected to carry some of the workload, both to increase billable hours and to set an example for the younger lawyers who might otherwise become resentful working ninety hour weeks while senior partners left at six p.m. for 200 dollar per person dinners at La Whatever.  This made the essential business of client development even more difficult, as there was less time to devote to it, and into this vacant space in the fabric of law firm business life rode Dave Kitson on his brainchild and cash cow, Client Connections.

Ninety-nine-point-nine percent of the time, Kitson told new staff during training, the first call would result in a flat out rejection.  Most lawyers considered it bogus and insulting, if not downright immoral and unconscionable to pay a fee or commission (referred to disdainfully as a kickback) for an outside party to find clients for them, thinking that their firms’ reputations and their own relationships should be sufficient to lure prospective business.  Then, a few weeks would pass, wherein the firm would lose a client or two and be reminded how difficult it was nowadays to drum up new business, with the fierce competition and all.  And then, a divorce or daughter’s wedding or son’s bar mitzvah, prep school or Ivy League college tuition bill would rear its ugly head, and in the back of his mind, the rainmaker would hear the nagging voice of the sales associate, or “client facilitator” from Client Connections, saying how all they had to do was pay the annual fee and sit back and watch the clients roll in.  The best facilitators would find out about the wedding or bar mitzvah or divorce in the New York Times or Daily News. Then, as if by magic, there would be a follow-up call from the facilitator, now finding a much more amenable rainmaker on the other end of the line.

Phil was well aware of the effectiveness of this sales strategy, and adhered to the method, although not without feelings of guilt.  Making money off of lawyers didn’t bother him; lawyers got rich off the suffering of others (except for the occasional public interest attorney or public defender), so why not reap some benefits off their ill-gotten gains?  No, it was the way you cornered them, the fact that they would only succumb to the sales pitch because they themselves were having a tough time in their lives; that’s what irked Phil.  Mr. Kitson said it wasn’t taking advantage of people’s crises, but rather helping them in times of need.  Put yourself in the lawyers’ shoes.  You have a big monthly alimony bill, your youngest is entering Harvard in the fall, you just put a down payment on that Lamborghini or trophy wife you always wanted.  How to pay for it all?  Get more clients.  But you’ve already used up all your personal connections, your fraternity buddies, your co-members at the country club.  You’ve tried advertising, web sites, word of mouth, but still it isn’t enough.  Isn’t it worth paying what amounts to a very generous yet tax deductible business expense to a company with a network, with tentacles reaching out into the population to attract and then funnel clients to the firm, no matter what the specialty?  Personal injury, contracts, divorces, patents, business deals, you name it; Client Connections had it.

Still, Phil thought, as Kitson rambled on and on about how everyone had to push a little harder and give a little more for the company, it all seemed so shallow.  It was professional ambulance chasing, like he told Zee.  He was joking at the time, but he could see the light go out behind her beautiful eyes as soon as he said it.  What I do is thankless, and she knew it, and immediately she was no longer attracted to me, he thought, although he still couldn’t get his head around the idea that such a hottie actually wanted to sleep with him in the first place.  Or maybe it was the kiss.  He was too gentle.  Girls like that like it rough.  Maybe I should have bitten her neck. Hard.

Maybe that’s why I don’t want to be at work.  Maybe it’s not the day to day drudgery, or the 67th floor, or wearing a tie that bothers me, but rather the thankless nature of the beast.  There’s no real reward, outside of the money, and I don’t do enough to even make the really big money.

“Julie Syms has started a program to get everyone more involved in the development of the way we do business, or W.W.D.B, as I like to call it,” Kitson rambled on in his infectious drawl, sounding more enthusiastic than a southern preacher talking about Jesus.  “You all have, in front of you, two slips of paper, one white, and one blue.  On the white one, I’d like you all to write your goals for the next year.  I don’t care what the goal is, making the highest commission, or getting a promotion, or even having more regular bowels.  Just write it.  Then we’ll put it in the big duck and in a year, we’ll look at them again and see where we are, see the progress we made.”

Kitson pulled a big plastic duck out from nowhere and put it on the table.  It had a little door where its ass was, some kind of mail box, maybe.  “The blue paper is for suggestions.  Any suggestion about how we run our business, from increasing internet client traffic to having casual Fridays to getting different kinds of snacks in the lunch room.  Anything, even if you don’t think I’ll like it.  This is your chance, people, your chance to have an input, to make a change, to influence the workings of Client Connections.  This is your company.  And if we use your idea, you will receive a prize, to be determined later.”  It didn’t seem to bother him, or anyone else, that they were putting the ideas into a duck’s ass.

And on and on and on he went, like that.  Our employees are so important.  We’re like a big extended family.  We respect all of you, what you bring to the company, what you do in your spare time.  You’re all so valuable to us.  Right, thought Phil.  Tell that to all the people who get bonuses withheld every year because they don’t meet their quotas.  We’re all expendable, even you, Mr. Kitson, except you don’t know it yet.

A couple more hours of this nonsense, of the self-important bullshit of employee loyalty and morale boosting, and just like that, it was over.  The meeting ended.  Phil felt nothing but relief.  “Well, thank God that’s over,” he said to Rob. “Don’t have to endure another one of these for a few months.”

“I don’t know. I found it kind of inspirational.”

“Really?  How so?”

“Well, you know, he really seems to care about us, about making us all part of something here.  About making us more money.”

“Of course he wants us to make more money.  Then he makes more money.  Don’t you see?  The money all trickles up around here. It’s a giant pyramid scheme.  Didn’t it bother you at all that we put our ideas into a duck’s ass”

“Not really.  And what’s wrong with him making more money if we do?  It was his idea in the first place.  He’s just letting us get in on it.”  Rob seemed a little put off by Phil’s negativity about Client Connections.

“Oh.”

“I’m going to grab a couple of Krispy Kreme’s for the road.  Krispy Kreme’s, do you believe it?  You don’t think they care?  Only the best god damn donut in the country.  Want a few, take ‘em back to your desk?”

“No, that’s okay, Rob.  I need to get going.  Catch you later.”

As Rob waddled to the donut table, Phil started feeling a little claustrophobic.  It was the physical manifestation of his discomfort at being so high up in a building.  It happened a couple of times before and wasn’t too bad, generally speaking, but the only thing that would alleviate it was to go out and walk around at street level for a while.  Phil quickly exited the conference room and headed toward the elevators.  He passed the receptionist’s desk, waving to her as he went, and was within ten yards of the elevator buttons when he realized he was being approached by someone.  And not just any someone, but Mr. Kitson himself.

“Dave.”

“How’s it going, Phil?  Haven’t seen you in a while.”

“I’m here every day, sir.”

“That’s good, as you’re a full time employee.”

“Yes, I tend to do a lot of my work out of the office, taking appointments and whatnot.  I, you know, always check in throughout the day.  Much more productive that way.  I think it’s all in the roadwork, getting out there in the thick of it.” Phil could feel himself over-explaining but he couldn’t stop.

“Yes, of course.  Come with me.  Let’s have a chat.”

Oh, boy, a chat with Mr. Kitson.  Phil was still vaguely nauseous from the meeting and clammy from the claustrophobia, and now this?  He thought of asking Dave to go out for coffee with him, or something, but knew he would end up sounding like a school kid asking to have class outside because it was such a nice day, and besides, they had all just chugged down ample quantities of Starbucks and scarfed enough Krispy Kremes to beat the band, so Dave would just think Phil was a pig.  Anyway, it wasn’t all bad, as Phil hadn’t been able to Selectively Complain to Kitson in a while, so this was a good opportunity.  If anyone needed to know that Phil was working really, really hard, and that he couldn’t handle any more work than he already had, it was Dave.  That’s easy enough.  Just stretch out the two hours of work you do to fit eight hours.  No problem.

As he planned his complaining, Phil dutifully followed Dave down the hall and into the large corner office that Dave called home.  And seriously, it was like home, because despite the fact that Dave made most of his money from the work of others, he was usually the first to arrive in the morning and the last to leave at night, all the better to make sure his underlings were busily making him money.  And in his grand office/ apartment in the sky, he had a fridge, a wet bar, a small basketball hoop, a green, PGA approved putting surface, a Murphy bed, a table with four chairs, a closet for changing clothes, a big poster of Elvis Presley signed by Col. Tom Parker, diplomas for his M.B.A. from Wharton and J.D. from who knows where, and a floor-to-ceiling view of midtown Manhattan so spectacular that it looked fake, like a giant stage backdrop.  They entered.  Phil looked around, not knowing what Dave wanted or what he should do.

“Have a seat.”  Dave gestured toward one of the comfy chairs facing the large mahogany desk.  Phil did as told and sunk deeply into the cushions.  Dave sat behind his desk.  Phil had to look up at almost a 45-degree angle to make eye contact with Mr. Kitson.  Rearranging his posture or butt cheek placement did absolutely nothing to change this disadvantageous position, which was undoubtedly the point of this particular seating arrangement.

“We’ve just hired some new client facilitators and I’m checking in with some of our more veteran people, you know, to see how things are going.”  Phil didn’t know what to say to this, so Dave continued.  “So, how are things going?”

“Going?  They’re going… fine.  I feel like I’m pulling my weight around here.”

“Yes, well, the sales figures show you squarely at the mean average for all client facilitators, so that does appear to be true.  But, Phil, it seems to me that you’re capable of much, much more.  I think if you wanted, you could be one of our top earners, pulling down a nice six-figure income, easily.”

“Really?  That’s nice of you to say.”

“I’m not saying it to be nice.  Are you following my protocol?”

“To a tee.  And I find myself with a full schedule of things to accomplish.”

“Really.  Give me an idea of how you spend your work day.”

Well, here he was again, at a crossroads of sorts.  A decision needed to be made.  Certainly, T.A.S.C. required Phil to embellish, at this point, quite creatively, about how he spent his day.  The truth, that he had seen every first-run film and explored all of the city’s fine museums and parks during business hours, would simply be unacceptable.  And yet, he knew the guilt it would cause him to lie.  But it wasn’t lying, exactly. He closed a few sales, enough to make quota, but he did so in about ten or twelve hours a week, instead of the usual fifty or so logged by the other facilitators.  Still, what would be the difference?  There was nothing wrong with being an average producer. Most people were average producers, weren’t they?  That’s how it became the average, right?  There was no shame in being average.  If he didn’t embellish his productivity, he’d most likely end up regretting it, as much more would be expected of him, and he wasn’t okay with that, as it would violate the basic tenets of The Art of Selective Complaint.  This would not do.  Phil had standards to uphold.  So he let it fly with the clichés.

“Well, Dave, let’s see.  I usually come in and get my messages, e-mails, and so forth and make a few calls, read my mail.  Then, you know, a few cold calls to get the blood flowing, get some business started, keep the machine oiled, and then a few follow-ups, to keep the ball rolling.  Then I’ll spend some time on paper work.  Usually, I like to get out there on the street once a day, dropping in on clients, seeing how they’re liking the service we provide…”

“Good, good.”

“…and then I might, if I’m in a building, say, I might just walk into a firm that I’m not familiar with, pump the receptionist for some info, like who’s the rainmaker, that sort of thing…”

“U-huh, u-huh…”

“…and of course I keep my book, just like you suggest, my goal book and my step pages, make sure I’m following the system, see that I’m hitting all the steps toward a successful sales strategy.”

“How much time to you spend out of the office each day, you know, pounding the pavement?”

“Oh, at least a couple hours.  I think the personal touch is underestimated, the face time, you know, actually getting in there and seeing people.  Makes a big difference.”

“U-huh, u-huh…”

“And, well, that’s about it.  I check in with my team, of course, at least once a week.  Rob and I might have lunch, or something like that.”

“Nothing wrong there.  Just one question.”

“Yes, Dave?”

“If you’re doing all of that, how do you find time for your other activities?”

“As in?”

“Movies.  Museums.  Walking in the park.  That kind of thing.”

“I, well.  I mean… Um.  I’m not sure I know what you’re...”

“I’ll stop beating around the bush.  My new wife likes to spend my money, which is okay with me, as she’s quite beautiful and never says no to sex.  But she doesn’t buy jewelry like other executives wives, no.  She buys institutions.  She likes philanthropy, charities and such.  She also likes to support the arts.  The arts, as in museums?”

“Oh.”

“Yes, and she’s on the board of the Metropolitan.  And for her, it’s not enough to give money and go to functions, no.  She’s more of a hands-on kind of woman, which is great in the sack, but not always so great in real life.  She spends hours, almost every week, walking around the museums, looking at art, talking to the other patrons.”

“U-huh, u-huh…”

“… and so, maybe you see where I’m going here?  She’s there quite often and it seems you are as well, which would be fine, as I admire a man who likes art and spends time at the museums looking at it, but when that man works for me, is pulling in only an average commission while having the potential to bring in significantly more, and is looking at art during business hours… Well, I just can’t have that, can I, Phil?  It’s not what’s best for Client Connections.  It’s not what’s best for you, and most importantly, it’s not what’s best for me, because if you make more money, I make more money, and then my wife, my beautiful, hands-on, young wife who never says no to sex can have more of my money to give to her museums.  Capice?”

Oh boy, did Phil capice.  He capiced up the wazoo.

“And that’s not even including the movies and the walks in the park and the rides on the Staten Island ferry.”

“But how did you…”

“I hired someone to follow you.  Well, not just you, anyone I ask him to.  He’s what I call my Efficiency Consultant, and you’re going to need to be more efficient.”

Great.  As if life wasn’t annoying enough, now he had someone following him.

“I see.  Well.  I understand.  I’m sorry if you feel I was goofing off.  I’m the kind of person who needs distractions from time to time to…”

“Phil, listen. I actually don’t care.  You know I give a pretty free rein here.  Sometimes people need to goof off.  I get that.  But you could make damn near a quarter million in commissions a year, which you could imagine is quite a significant number in revenues for Client Connections.  I don’t give a rat’s ass if you see every movie, play, opera and concert, get season tickets for the Knicks, Nets, Mets, Jets, Yankees, Giants, Rangers, Islanders and whoever the hell plays soccer, indoors and out, in the greater metropolitan area, and take up hunting, fishing, golf and flugel-fucking-horn, as long as you start meeting your income potential.  Anyway, that’s all I have to say.  I hope we’re on the same page.”

“Yes, Dave.  We’re on the same page.”

And, so that was that.  Dave went back to his paperwork, and Phil slowly rose from his seat and left the room with the knowledge that, whether he liked it or not, he needed to do more than appear to be busy, he’d actually need to be busy.  They were watching him.  Mr. Kitson, his “Efficiency Consultant,” Mrs. Kitson.  Nancy Beauregard Kitson.  He remembered her now.  Very attractive woman, one might even say hot.  Multilingual, fairly friendly, at least in a superficial way, at company parties and such.  How could he have been so stupid?  Why didn’t he wear some fake glasses, or a hat?  No way she’d have noticed him. And how did she notice him anyway? Beautiful former runway model-type women with rich husbands never noticed him, except when it could get him into some trouble, evidently.

Phil slinked back to his office, really just a cubicle in a bullpen of cubicles next to Rob, who was busy polishing off his fourth or fifth Krispy Kreme and making some calls while playing his stupid internet game.  He’s playing around on line 33 hours a week, but does Kitson ream Rob a new asshole? Of course not.

Phil sat down at his desk.  He looked at the papers, at the files, at the e-mail icon on his computer blinking knowingly.  T.A.S.C. had failed him.  He was now officially part of the rat race, with expectations.  There was really no way out.  He didn’t have any other skills, or graduate degrees.  This was it, his job, his career.  And he needed some kind of career, didn’t he?  He was getting married soon.  He picked up the phone, looked at a number on his computer screen, and dialed.

“Mr. Kasoff?  This is Phil McCone, of Client Connections.  Did I get you at a bad time?… Good, good. I was wondering if you had a chance to look at the literature I had my assistant send over to you…”

And so, on and on it would go, for hours, days, weeks… a lifetime.   He would do what was expected of him, but they couldn’t make him be happy about it.

CHAPTER ELEVEN: MURPHY’S LAW

Anything that can go wrong, will.  This is the famous, time-tested Murphy’s Law, the philosophy that Phil used to live by more than any other, until he discovered The Art of Selective Complaint, and then decided to try and change his outlook on life as laid out in “The Depth of You.”  But now, with T.A.S.C. laying in ruins and his father’s advice about women, marriage and sex now looking like a big, fat, tantric joke, it appeared that Murphy was right after all.  Phil never heard back from Coco, either, and that was nagging at him as well.  At least talking to her, knowing that even if he couldn’t act on it she found him attractive; that would make him believe there was some balance in the universe.  He tried her a couple more times, leaving his cell phone number again, and then his e-mail address in case she found that more convenient, but she never responded so he finally gave up.

Marika seemed to be over her mania about his dream, and wasn’t bothering him about Zee anymore, which was a relief, but she still wasn’t putting out.  She continued to insist, however, that he awake at five in the morning to meditate with her, and that became the most important part of their time together.  Five a.m.  Something about the energy at that time, she said (or her tantric manual said), was more powerful in a Kundilini kind of way.  Actually, it was 4 or 4:30, but that seemed outrageous and became negotiable.  Phil liked meditating, but this forced thing, face to face with Marika, in half lotus position, their knees touching, sometimes staring into each other’s eyes for almost an hour, just didn’t do much for him or his eyeballs. He was much more interested in what was or wasn’t going on in his own head than exchanging energy with his beloved through the kneecaps and third eye.

One Saturday morning Burt called, begging Phil to take a look at the first pages of “The Oaf,” by Burt Botwinck.  He really didn’t want to, but Burt was so insistent, claiming that he needed Phil’s insight, since it was his dream, and all.  And so, against his better judgment, Phil acceded.

It wasn’t much, forty or so pages, but Phil had to admit, it wasn’t bad, either.  Burt had modernized it, somewhat, giving it a setting that made it more accessible to the mainstream reader, and his writing style was casually conversational, with bits of poetic license.  It kind ‘a flowed.  Though a mere a few chapters, Burt had opened up the story to the point where it encompassed a world and reality of its own.  It had a mythological quality, the basic story from Phil’s dream, but now one could see that it was completely possible to build on this premise enough to get a whole novel out of the thing.  Phil had dreamt up his own myth, just like the ancient Greeks.  And then he handed it off to Burt like a sweater that no longer fit.

Phil was beside himself.  How come he couldn’t think of anything to make “The Oaf” into a real book instead of a short story?  Then he could be writing this, with a chance to become a creative artist, a writer, instead of a wage slave, a salesman, a professional ambulance chaser.  And now it wasn’t enough to just slide by on 12 hours a week, no; he was expected to put in the full time, to whore himself to make Mr. Kitson richer.  Sure, Phil might actually raise his own income in the process, but big deal; he’d still be just an insignificant cog in a corporate wheel servicing the hated legal profession, with no positive effect on the world whatsoever.  And Burt, Burt who was getting regularly laid by young babes and fulfilling himself by acting in the theater while making enough money to support his scaled-down, simple existence by working part time for his father as a florist assistant, Burt would now become a published novelist, and do book signings, talk shows and fashion models and…

But wait a minute.  It still was a long way from that.  Burt didn’t even have an agent yet, let alone a manuscript.  It was just a few chapters, and needed a lot of work.  The metaphors were a little trite, the writing uneven, and the story would require scads more development before he had anything he could shop around.  And this was Burt, Phil’s best friend, really.  Didn’t Phil want his friend to succeed?  And if he did, would that mean that Phil couldn’t succeed, and find his own bliss, even if he had no idea where it would be coming from?  Of course not.

So when Burt called to see if he had any notes, Phil decided to be as generous as possible.  He spent over an hour on the phone, first going on and on about what a great writer Burt was and how he was so impressed by the way Burt figured out how to open up the story and how he could see the potential in what Burt had done.  And then he talked about what needed work, the plot, the language, the symbolism.  He said that he still thought the voice, the point of view of the married guy, needed to be brought out, even if Burt was more interested in the oaf as the first person of the narrative.  And he highlighted where he thought the mythology of the story needed to be reworked and emphasized, and where this, that or the other thing needed more development.  He even talked about how the story was the characters, and vice versa, all interdependent and Zen-like.  He gave it all he had, and Burt was rightfully grateful.

“So… you really think it’s good?”  Burt needed more stroking.

“Yes, Burt, I said so.  You’re a very good writer.  This is the best writing you’ve ever done.”

“That’s so great, man.  To hear it from you means a lot to me.  And don’t worry.  I’m going to tell everyone how your dream was the inspiration for this thing.  And you know, if I ever publish it?  You could work on the movie script with me.”

“Movie script.  That again?  You’re getting ahead of yourself there, aren’t you, buckaroo?  I mean, at least get down most of the novel before you start thinking about selling the movie rights, Burt.  One thing at a time.”  Phil decided to leave the movie script option open for the time being, just in case this thing took off.

“Oh, I know, it’s just… I get excited.  And you know, practically everything that gets published in popular fiction these days sells movie rights. It’s just a fact of the business, and I didn’t want you to feel that I wasn’t thinking of you, you know.  I want to make sure we’re okay with this, and I thought if there was some way to make it help you out, if this is successful and all…”

“Don’t worry about me, Burt.  Just give me a thank you in there somewhere.  I’m glad to help you out in any way I can.”

And so, after all this, it was not unexpected how surprised he was, shocked even, when Burt called a week later to tell him that he had indeed landed a book agent.  And not just some guy with a rented mailbox, no, but a real agent in a real boutique literary agency. Evidently, Joannie, Burt’s old fuck buddy from college, had liked the pages enough not only to sleep with him again, but also to pass it on to Babette, a new agent at Doris Fassell and Associates, an agency of five in a charming brownstone on Madison Avenue. Babette, or Babs, as Burt had taken to calling her with her apparent approval, had even taken him to a fancy lunch at Café des Artistes.  Burt, at Café des Artistes!  And not only that, but they ordered a cheese course after.  And Roederer Cristal.  All this basically on the strength of Burt’s chapters based on Phil’s dream, and Phil’s notes on those meager beginnings.  He could hear the giddy joy in Burt’s voice, and thought, “that should be me.  It’s my dream!”

But what did all this matter now?  Could he tell Burt that he’d changed his mind?  Tell him he didn’t want Burt using his idea, his dream, as the basis of Burt’s book?  Of course not. That would be unfair, and besides, what could come of that for Phil, except maybe losing a friend?  Was there another way to go about this, a way for Phil to work the thing to his advantage?  He thought long and hard.  Maybe I should suggest that we write it together?  Or, I don’t know, figure out something.  I mean, “The Oaf” by Burt Botwinck?  It wasn’t by Burt Botwinck at all!  It was by my brain!

But he couldn’t do that.  No, he had given Burt a chance to run with the story, and he made it work, and Phil couldn’t take it back now.  He knew going in that there was a possibility, no matter how slim, that Burt would get some traction with this novel writing thing, and he still might.  Getting an agent really didn’t mean anything, after all.  Lots of people get agents and never sell anything.  It wasn’t a sure thing by any stretch of the imagination.

And what was Phil thinking, anyway?  That he didn’t want Burt to succeed?  That went against the nice-guy prime directive, didn’t it?  Phil was a nice guy, and nice guys don’t root for their friends to fail, do they?  Even if they might reasonably become envious of said friends’ success, wealth, and/or fame?  No. That just wouldn’t be cricket.  And why was Phil thinking in British slang?  Never mind. Phil congratulated Burt on his good news, and got off the phone as quickly as he could to meditate on these feelings, namely anxiety, guilt, self-hatred and envy (a certifiable bad feeling quadfecta), that were now overwhelming him.

He would have loved to talk to someone about this, but Marika was at a yoga class. Instead, he sat in the half lotus position for twenty minutes, but couldn’t shake the mental picture of Burt and Babette fornicating on a table at Café des Artistes on a tray of Camembert, brie and artisan goat cheese, so he decided to take a walk around the neighborhood.  The weather was pretty nice; maybe that would be just the thing to clear his head and derail his train of thought, which right now was wondering if having sex amidst the cheeseboard at Café des Artistes could cause some kind of yeast infection.

The streets were full of people walking, talking, and window shopping; couples holding hands, people pushing babies in strollers; girls in tight T-shirts that proudly displayed imprints of partly erect nipples to the world; homeless people, shopping carts piled high with belongings; tourists from Europe and Asia; and the occasional ne’er-do-well drawing the eye of a shopkeeper or random beat cop.

Everyone was having a nicer day than Phil, including the homeless people.

The sun shined brightly, mocking Phil’s dark mood.  He tried as hard as he could to enjoy the moment, the exhilaration of living in the greatest city on earth on a gorgeous spring day in the dawn of the twenty-first century, but he just couldn’t.  He settled for pulling his Mets cap low over his eyes, stuffing his hands into his jeans pockets, and walking with his head down in order to avoid seeing all the people enjoying their lives a whole lot more than he was.

It was while slinking thusly that Phil heard his name called out by a familiar female voice.  “Phil?  Is that you?”

He glanced up to see Coco standing on the sidewalk a few yards in front of him.  A cloud had just passed the sun, and the rays shone down on her, lighting her dirty blond bob like a halo.  Ah, Coco.  Sweet and pretty as he remembered, only more so. This was all he needed to forget his foul mood, and he smiled as the inner clouds circling his brain lifted, imitating the real fluffy white clouds, and finally let the sunshine of this exemplary spring day shine down upon him.  Here she was, the young, sexy, impossibly perky-breasted waitron who had a crush on him. If this couldn’t fix his head, what could?

“Coco!”  Phil yelled, and almost ran over to her in his exuberance.  She seemed quite happy to see him, too, although she didn’t expect the bear hug he put on her, which she accepted and returned, though somewhat awkwardly.

“It’s so great to see you,” Phil continued, not really knowing how to follow up that exceptionally trite and tired conversation opener.

“It’s great to see you too.  Sorry I haven’t had a chance to get back to you.  I got your messages, it’s just… I’ve been pretty busy.”

“Not a problem,” Phil beamed at her.  “So, what’s new?”  Yet another brilliant bit of witty repartee.

“Not much.  Just work and stuff.  How’s Burt?”

Even the mention of Burt, the newly successful writer Burt, didn’t cast a shadow on Phil’s countenance as he basked in the smiling face of Coco.

“He’s good.  Got some good things going on.  You mean you haven’t spoken to him recently?”  Phil asked, somewhat too hopefully.

“No.  Not in a while.  What have you been up to lately?”

“Working a lot.  They just… my boss just gave me a whole lot of new responsibilities to handle.  I’ve been juggling quite a few new accounts.”

“Well that’s great isn’t it?”

At that moment, out of the corner of his eye, and over Coco’s shoulder, Phil recognized the face of a man quickly approaching.  Couldn’t quite place him, though.  Wild red hair, well-worn flannel shirt.  Then he remembered.  And he was coming right up behind Coco, like he was about to grab her.

Quick as a cat, Phil pounced, threw himself at the guy and took him to the ground.  They rolled around, scuffling, as Coco screamed.  Phil couldn’t understand what she was yelling.  He got a few punches in, and then managed to get the guy in a half nelson.  He put his leg over the red-head’s waist, pinning him to the ground.

“Phil!  What the hell are you doing to Mackey?  Let him up!”

Who’s Mackey?  Phil was confused.  He had just saved Coco from being mauled by this street person, hadn’t he?  You call that gratitude?

“Phil, that’s Mackey.  He’s my friend.  What are you doing to him?”

Oh.  Well, Phil thought.  Maybe I’ve made a mistake.

“What is wrong with you, dude?” Mackey wondered, rubbing his chin where Phil had managed to land a roundhouse left.  Coco leaned over and helped Mackey up.  She pulled out a bandana and dabbed at his chin, which was scraped and bleeding slightly.

“Poor baby.  Are you okay?”  She kissed him on the boo-boo.

Baby?  Did she say baby?

“I’m sorry.  I didn’t… I saw him coming up and… did you say baby?”

“Phil, Mackey… Mackey’s my... we’ve been dating for a couple of weeks.”

“Is it that long already?” Mackey asked, sincerely shocked by the realization.

“Mackey, Phil’s the guy who gave you the matches…”

“That was you?  You gave me the matches!  Dude!”  Mackey leaned over, pulled Phil to his feet and gave him a hug.  The hug went on, and on, much to Phil’s horror.  The dude was a nature guy, evidently, as he didn’t believe in deodorant.

“I don’t know how to thank you.”

For one, you could stop hugging me, thought Phil.

“You mean, you’re the… I did what?”

“Yeah, you gave me those matches, and when I got home, I was a little hung over, and crashed, but then later on I got up and was about to fire up a spliff and grabbed the matches and saw the name Coco.  I love that name; it’s so babe, and the phone number was there in that cute handwriting, right? So I called, and the next thing you know…”

“He was so sweet on the phone.  He wouldn’t say how he got my number, and we just talked for a while.  It was like we had known each other forever.”

“Mackey?”  Phil was incredulous.  “So, what’s your deal?”

“Mackey’s a brilliant songwriter and singer.”

“Oh, cut it out, you little minx,” said Mackey, almost blushing for real.

“No, really.  He’s a genius.  His band is called ‘Otto Fistula,’ and they rock.  They’re playing at the Boneyard next weekend.”

“Auto Fistula?”

“Otto.”

“Oh.”

“You want to get some pizza?  We’re going to St. Marks.”

Well, this was something.  He finally connects with Coco, the girl he had to tell that he couldn’t go out with her for several reasons, mostly because of Marika and a little because of Burt, and she was dating the homeless guy Phil accidentally gave her number to, who turned out not to be homeless at all, but a musician, of sorts.  So now Phil’s plan to protect the innocent Coco from guys like Burt and their big penises, and maybe help find her a nice young man who would respect and love her for who she was had ended up with this: a stoner musician named Mackey who looked like a homeless guy but in fact was the front man for a band with the unlikely, but one might suppose appropriate name Otto Fistula.

“No.  Thanks, I’ll pass on the pizza.  Trying to lay off the cheese.  Lactose sensitive, you know…  I really should be going.  Sorry about the chin.”

“No problem, dude.  If it wasn’t for you, I never would have met the woman of my dreams.  What’s a little scrape on the chin?”

“When Mackey and I finally figured out where the matches came from, I felt it was like you had handed us to each other.  You’re such a nice guy, Phil.  The nicest.”

“Thanks.  Well, see you soon, I hope.  Great running into you, Coco.”

“Yeah, Phil.  Let’s have coffee or something.  Stop by the restaurant.”

“Oh, I’ll be sure to,” Phil said, already backing away.  He turned and practically fled around the corner, the back of his head burning with the quadfecta of anger, embarrassment, rage and envy.  If you add stupidity, which isn’t a mortal sin but should be, you’d have the quintfecta of a lifetime.

CHAPTER TWELVE: THE FASTER WE GO THE ROUNDER WE GET

Phil skulked around the village for a while, hoping to let go of the bad feelings that had arisen from his chance meeting with Coco and Mackey.  It wasn’t working.  Why did this kind of thing seem to happen to him over and over again?  How did he, with the best of intentions, always manage to have the worst possible outcomes?  He just wanted to live his life in relative happiness, have a good time, or as good a time as possible under the circumstances.  Maybe take a nice vacation once in a while, eat at a few good restaurants, see some movies, attend a baseball game or two.  Find a partner who liked sex and wouldn’t suddenly change her mind or give it up for Lent.  And of course, to make a decent living, only without working so hard that it made him miserable.

And yet here he was, moping around the East Village, his mind racing through images of the past weeks: his weird, inexplicable dreams, then seeing Stephanie in real life, Zee and her tattoos, Marika going all tantric on his ass, and Mr. Kitson hiring some spy to tail him.  How did this all happen? And all at once!?

Who was he kidding?  It had been this way since childhood.  Like the time his third grade teacher read him the riot act and sent a note home to his parents after the cutlery-bending incident in the school cafeteria.  It was Jonny’s idea, bending the silverware.  Phil had only bent one lousy spoon, and he even bent it back to straighten it, having felt guilty after he did it.  But the teacher yelled at Phil in front of the whole class.  “If Jonny jumped off the Empire State Building, would you?”  Of course not, you nitwit, Phil wanted to say, and he did say it, in his imagination, time and time again later in his life when he was living over the humiliation of that moment.  And did she yell at Jonny?  No.  Jonny was the teacher’s pet.  He was cute, and had red hair, and was funny, whereas Phil was just average.

And then there was the other thing that Phil rued over and over again, that time in college when he had a chance to sleep with that really hot girl, what was her name, Shadi?  Some Persian beauty she was.  And his “friend,” Scott, tried to hit on her as soon as he heard Phil had a chance.  And when she repelled Scott’s advances, Scott told her that all the guys were having a contest to see how many girls they could kiss, and she got all pissed off at Phil for being involved in such a contest, which he wasn’t, and Phil, because of his pride at being called a cad, in not so many words, refused to talk to the girl afterward, and his chance was blown.  He didn’t get laid again that semester; it just ruined his rhythm for months.

And now here he was again, minding his own business, trying to keep out of the way, and yet it was nothing but calamity.  His father’s philosophy on women had failed him.  Never mind that it had miserably failed his father as well.   Failed him?  It pretty much killed him. What was Phil thinking, getting engaged to a woman he hardly knew, and maybe didn’t even like that much, just because she enthusiastic in the bedroom?  His father was an idiot, or at least badly misinformed.  Or maybe he was a misinformed idiot.  A suicidal misinformed idiot.  Another trifecta.

And yet, there was something wonderful about Marika.  Marika, that name, and she had a lovely voice.  Sometimes.  Her laugh, well, it sometimes got a little out of hand.  Who are we kidding?  It got a lot out of hand.  The woman shrieked like a hyena, and half the time when you asked her what was so damn funny, like when she was cackling with someone on the phone, it turned out not to be that funny at all.  Amusing, perhaps, but not the funniest fucking thing in the world like her laugh would have led you to believe.

Still, she was sweet, sometimes, and there was the sex.  When there was sex, which of course was not right now, but up ‘til now… But truly, how long was it that they had been sleeping together?  A few months, really.  Maybe that’s all she has in her.  Nah.  She really seems to enjoy it.  Well, seemed to, anyway.  Fuck.  How did he get here?

How, indeed.

He wanted to smoke a joint, but settled for a beer at McSorley’s.  Well, two beers, because they come in pairs at McSorley’s, you don’t have a choice.  But in small mugs.  And half foam.  He ordered the beers from the be-smocked bartender and then looked around, at the sepia toned pictures from the old days and at the dusty chicken wishbones lined up on a wire suspended above the bar.  Or perhaps that was mold, not dust.  Gross.  Or charmingly ambient, it’s hard to say which.  He quickly quaffed his brews, just wetting his whistle.  It was dark in here.  Nice.  And kind of cool.  And it was a Sunday, so there were a lot of people at the bar, but not too many, just a convivial crowd with an easy afternoon buzz going.  Sawdust all over the floor, a hundred fifty years worth of old beer giving the place its unmistakable aroma. Kind of disgusting, and yet wonderfully nostalgic in a whimsical, post-Freudian kind of way, thought Phil.

With this last thought, which didn’t seem to make much sense, Phil realized he had lost his mind.  Or not lost it, really, because he didn’t think he was going crazy, his mind just got away from him.  Sitting amongst the preppies and rockers and jocks and lesbians, he just stepped out of his head.  Not permanently, but for a moment, as he listened to the guys next to him.

“My nephew said to me, he’s six, he said, ‘I can’t believe I’m growing up with a president who’s a complete idiot!’  Isn’t that adorable?”

“Very cute…”

He couldn’t tell if they were gay.   They were both good looking.  Well, insofar as Phil could tell if a guy was really good looking.  I mean, sure, Brad Pitt and guys like that, you know, that’s easy.  But, for example, the guy he used to think was handsome in junior high ended up a fairly homely Hasidic orthodontist in Far Rockaway.  The guy next to him was talking about his nephew.  That’s kind of gay, isn’t it?  Gay guys have nephews, you know, and nieces, not kids, unless they adopt.  They have pictures of nephews and nieces in their wallets, which is cool.  Phil thought he had good gay-dar.  He did, actually, and being gay-friendly he could usually tell.  Gay men and lesbians.  Phil loved lesbians, and they loved him, too.  Lesbians.  It’s a great word, Phil thought.  Lesbians.  Exotic.  Not English.  Sounds like a club.  Or no, a charitable organization.  The United Lesbian Fund.

Why was Phil thinking these things?  He had stuff to figure out and all of these ridiculous thoughts were getting in the way.

Had it actually finally happened, the thing Phil had always worried about?  He read that the human brain is like a computer and it can be programmed and, with some difficulty, reprogrammed.  So Phil figured it was possible for the brain to go into some kind of short circuit, or brain-lock, or freeze, or maybe like a crazy mish-mash of stuff flooding the mind all at once.  But wait, it’s like a computer, so what if there were pop-ups?  What if your brain had pop-ups?  And like what if one of them was malware?  And you got a virus that raged through your brain tissue and you kept getting pop-ups and it made your computer, or brain, slow down and stop working properly?  Or crash? If the brain were a computer of sorts, why couldn’t this happen?

Phil was getting pop-ups.  He simply could not stop his brain, keep it focused on the task at hand.  It kept popping stuff up, about lesbians, about Marika, Stephanie, Zee, Burt and the Oaf.  He thought for a second he saw the Oaf in the bar.  Was that possible?  Were his dreams now invading his life as well has his life invading his dreams?  Or was it the other way around?  What if this happens to everyone, only they’re all so freaked out they don’t talk about it?  No, that’s ridiculous.  Even Bob said it.  Gurubob. Sheesh.  But he must be right.  Nothing like this happens in dreams.  At least not yet.  Maybe they were the first?  He could go to a dream researcher and get it documented.  And they could research his brain pop-ups as well.  He could picture the cover story in The American Psychiatric Association Journal, or maybe a piece in The Daily News: “Man’s brain glitch: pop-ups wreak havoc; writes bad checks.”  He was already worried, but now he started to feel panicky; that’s like worry on acid, or crystal meth.  Phil once tried acid years ago but never crystal meth, so he couldn’t say for sure. Or crack. Did people freebase anymore? Why was he asking himself these questions?

Was that the Oaf?  He was big and kind of ugly, but he didn’t look too retarded.  Or mentally challenged.  Phil had to remember to start using more acceptable terminology.  At least be a little PC.  If only that weird looking dyke in the hip-hop hat would get out of his way…  Lesbian, not dyke!  Why was he thinking in slurs?  And was that a big problem?  Could one slur, say, an ethnic group in one’s mind and still be okay?  Or was that a bad sign?  Was Phil becoming intolerant?  More importantly, was he going to meet everyone from his dreams now?  That was disturbing, almost too scary to even consider.  Oh, thank God.  It isn’t him.  As oafish as he might seem, this guy is definitely not the same oaf from the dream.  That’s a relief.

Or maybe not.  There had been a radical change, hadn’t there?  Phil’s dreams were now altering his perception of life.  Now, when he walked into a place, he automatically looked around for someone he might recognize from his dreams, whereas before, he would look around for someone he might have met in real life.  Was this kind of sick?  It felt kind of sick.  This thought was ruining the brief respite from anguish that had been furnished by the freshly-made McSorley’s ale.  He needed to get out.  He was feeling dizzy and had to have some air.

But the air didn’t help either.  He kept thinking he saw the Oaf, or some other vision from his dreams, and all of the dark-haired women on the street started to look a whole lot like Stephanie, and then he realized he’d better get home.  One shouldn’t be out in public if one is about to go completely nuts as one might hurt oneself or someone else and he certainly didn’t want that to happen.  So he took the most direct route back to his apartment.  He hoped that Marika wasn’t home from yoga yet so he could lock himself in the bathroom and take a hot bath, maybe.  That would help.  Maybe a hot bath and then a cool shower, like that, one, two, right in a row.

But alas, it was not to be.  And of course it wasn’t.  A day that had started out so promisingly, so full of sun and blue skies and hope, a day that had already come crashing down around his ears, would now completely bury him.

At least that’s what went through his malfunctioning mind when he entered his apartment, looked in the living room, and saw Marika sitting on the couch talking to a woman he recognized.  Oh, yeah, Phil realized, that’s Stephanie.

At first, Phil reacted as if this were completely normal.  He smiled and said hi.  But then he froze; his brain started asking him what the hell was going on here.  Sure, Stephanie was a real person, he knew that already.  But here she was in his apartment which, as far as he knew, hadn’t happened before.  And then he experienced something that hadn’t happened before, either.  He fainted.

When he came to moments later he was aware only of his chin and mouth grinding into the carpet, and he wondered why he was doing this, as the floor tasted awful and he was extremely uncomfortable and surely if he needed a nap he would have chosen the sofa.  Plus, carpet texture feels really weird on teeth.  Then he remembered he had passed out, and realized that someone was nearby.  Two people, actually.  Oh, yeah…

Marika and Stephanie had rushed over and were now trying to turn him on his back.  Marika thought it might be a good idea to call 911.  Was Phil in pain?  No, not really, although they informed him that his head bounced off the wall before it hit the carpet.  He still had that tingling in his chest and arms that he always got during a panic attack.  Chest and arms.  Oh no.  Was he having a heart attack?  It could be.  The symptoms were similar.  No, no, no.  His family didn’t get heart attacks, and his doctor told him his heart was fine after his last series of panic attacks.  In fact, thinking it was a heart attack, or a stroke, or something serious like that was the best way to bring on another panic attack.  It was a vicious cycle, just like life.

Phil swore he didn’t need an ambulance, that he’d be fine.  He felt a little woozy, but they were able to help him up and over to the couch.  Marika went to get a wet washcloth to put on his head and some water, leaving him alone with Stephanie.  They looked at each other for a moment, neither knowing what to say, both extremely uneasy.  Even in his condition, though, Phil was able to verify what he already knew: Stephanie was incredibly attractive, objectively and subjectively.

“Um, you’re Stephanie, right?”

“Yeah.”

“You were at the theater that night, the Dreamplay thingy.”

“Yeah.  I was hoping never to meet anyone who was there that night, after I told that rather pornographic dream of mine.”

“Well, didn’t you know me then, sort of?”

“Not really.”

“Because I didn’t know you, either, except that… I think we need to talk.”

”I don’t know.  This is all too weird.”

“But the dream you told, it was so… I have this dream, too, and in it, you and I, well, let’s just say we…”

“I’m not sure I want to know.”

And then Marika entered.  She went right over to administer a cooling washcloth to her fiancé’s brow.

“So,” Phil changed the subject, “how do you two know each other?”

“College.  We lived in the same dorm.”

“I told you about Stephanie; I’m sure I did.”  Marika settled the cloth on his forehead.  It felt nice.  “We were both business majors and lived down the hall from one another.  I think we once figured out we had slept with like five of the same guys.” She paused for comic effect. “Well, not at the same time.”  Marika laughed at her own joke.  When she was with her old friends, she liked to regale everyone with tales of their former sexual exploits.  It was something that Phil had originally found sexy but now found annoying and slightly inappropriate.

“Maybe six?” Phil offered, not explaining any further.

“What do you mean?”  She wondered, but he just played like he was still a little foggy and so she let it pass, and luckily didn’t notice Stephanie’s horrified expression.

“Maybe I should go.”  Stephanie was almost on her feet.

“No!” He yelled, startling them both.  “I mean, no, don’t go on my account.  You two haven’t seen each other in a while.  I’m fine… so when did you… how did you re-connect?”  Phil asked, innocently enough, but not too.

Stephanie was still between sitting and standing, but she reluctantly eased herself back into the chair.  “We… I went to yoga today for the first time since… well, for the first time in a long time, let’s put it that way.”

“I couldn’t believe it.  I was doing chaturangas and out of the corner of my eye I see her, and I’m not sure because for some reason I see girls that remind me of Stephanie all the time, but I keep looking, you know, when her head isn’t between her legs or anything, and finally I see it’s her.  I’m so glad you decided to come in there today.”

“Yeah, well, I used to go there a lot, but in the past year…”

“Stephanie’s fiancé died last year.  Heart attack.  He was, what, 34?”

“Thirty-three.” Stephanie corrected her with a tinge of sadness and acceptance.

“Just like Jesus… and John Belushi,” droned Phil with a far off look in his eye.  Marika arched her eyebrows at him, but Stephanie just continued.

“He was in great shape, too.”

“Well, not really,” Phil said.  Oh, no.  It was like the pop-ups were popping up out of his mouth now.

“What do you mean, Phil?” Marika wondered where he was going with this.

“Well, he had a heart attack, didn’t he?  I mean, maybe he looked great, but inside… you know, sometimes you never know.  When did it happen?  Was he playing basketball or something, or was it just out of the blue?”  Phil felt like he couldn’t control his mouth.  He was usually a private person who respected the privacy of others, but now he was prying like, well, a girl.

“We were… you know.”

“They were having sex,” Marika reported, almost admiringly.

“I fucked him to death.”  Stephanie blurted out, then laughed kind of self-consciously, in a way that made Marika and Phil want to join in, although Phil wasn’t so sure it was that funny.  Hell, yes, what a way to go, perched between Stephanie’s presumably silky thighs, but Phil hadn’t even considered the prospect of dying in fragrante delicto, and now he was sure he wouldn’t be able to get it out of his mind when he was having sex, if he ever had sex again.  But then he noticed that Stephanie was crying.  Marika went over to comfort her with an arm around her shoulders, but Stephanie quickly pulled herself together.

“I’m okay, really.  I can’t believe I just said that.  It’s like it just came out, like I had no control over my mouth whatsoever.  I mean, I’ve thought about it before, it’s kind of an obvious joke in a way, albeit a dark one, but I never say things like that.”

Phil thought girls who used “albeit” in conversation were sexy.

“That’s probably a good sign,” Marika reassured.  “It means you’re moving on, adjusting, don’t you think?”

“Yeah, probably.”

“Maybe you should start dating soon?”  That was Phil.  He really was acting like a girlfriend here.

“Phil!  The girl is just getting through her grieving period!”

“I’m not saying right away.  I mean, she’s making jokes about what happened, going to the theater, well, maybe not ‘theater’ exactly, calling that theater would be a stretch, but… she’s going to yoga.  Hell, if I were trying to date, I’d go to yoga.  High percentage of hotties.”  Why couldn’t Phil just shut up already?

“Phil!”

“No, it’s okay.  Maybe I will date soon.  Although, as I explained at that improve/theater thing that night, I’m not exactly man-friendly right now…”

“What theater?” Marika asked.

“Oh, of course, how could you know,” Stephanie said.  “Phil and I were both at this theater not long ago… before he knew that I knew you.”

“Burt’s thing.  That improv group.  They were acting out people’s dreams and we both told ours, and hers was…” Phil was about to go on...

“Listen, I really should be going.  It’s not because of your fainting, Phil, it’s just that, it’s getting late and…”

“No need to explain. I’ll walk you to the elevator,”  Marika offered.

“Bye, Stephanie.  Nice meeting you.  I hope we have more time to chat next time we see each other,” Phil ventured.

“Yeah.  That’d be great.  Nice meeting you as well.”

And Marika and Stephanie went out the door and that was that.

He was feeling okay about his first real interaction with Stephanie.  The fainting, well, that probably wasn’t a great first impression, but… he felt he had communicated something to her, and she at least acknowledged that there was something weird going on, which made him think that maybe he wasn’t completely insane, at least not yet.

And then Marika came back.

“How could you ask her if she was going to start dating?”

“I… it just came out.  I thought maybe she needed some encouragement.  It sounds like she’s been through a lot, but she might be ready.  Her dream, that night at Burt’s thing?  It was all about sex with some guy.  I mean, that was the dream of a girl who’s ready to get out there.”

“You just met her five minutes ago.  What makes you think you know her well enough to ask her that?”

What, indeed?

“I… well, she’s your old friend, and I guess I felt… comfortable enough to…   Anyway, I fainted, remember?  I wasn’t exactly as clearheaded as I’d like to be.”

“Yeah, and what’s that about?  Do you think you should go to a doctor?”

“No, it was a panic attack, I’m sure of it.  I’ve had them before.”

“Really?  You weren’t on medication for them, were you?”

“No… and what if I was?  Would that bother you?”

“No, not necessarily.  I just was wondering, you know, like I said, we know so little about one another, I mean on a deeper level, and that’s why I wanted to do this tantric thing… So what were you so panicked about?”

You.  Me.  This relationship.  Burt.  Coco.  Mackey.  Your totally hot friend Stephanie with whom I’ve had incredible, passionate, lingering sex almost every night for the last month, albeit virtually.

Phil fought.  He fought hard as hell.  And he won, at least for now.  He did not say any of the above out loud.  Instead, he said, “I don’t know.  It’s been a little stressful lately, you know, at work and whatnot.  I’ll be fine.  Don’t you worry about me.  Phil McCone never met an obstacle he couldn’t overcome.”

“Now, that’s the man I’m going to marry.”  She gave him a kiss.  The first good one in a while.  “Are you going to feel up to meditating tonight?  We’re supposed to do 40 minutes.”

They used to have sex for forty minutes nightly, at least.  And then quite often in the morning, before work.  Now, they meditated.  Oh, well.  It could be worse… couldn’t it?  Maybe. Phil shuddered at the thought.

“Yeah, sure.  I should be fine.  Maybe I’ll just take a nap.”

It may have been the afternoon beers, or the fainting, or both, but Phil drifted off into a deep, dreamless slumber.  It was the first time in months that he enjoyed a sleep unencumbered by some odd vision or exploit being projected in his mind’s eye.

And then his cell phone rang.  It was on the coffee table.  It was already getting dark outside when Phil slowly opened his eyes. It didn’t ring, actually, but rather, it “played” “When the Saints Go Marching In.”  Should he answer it?  He didn’t feel like it, but maybe it was important.  He grabbed it, against his better judgment.

“Hell…” Phil cleared his throat, “hello?”

“Phil?  Yo!  Whassup?!  Did I wake you or something?”

”Burt?  No.  No, who would be sleeping at this time of day?”

Phil couldn’t help it.  He always felt guilty when someone caught him taking a nap.  Made him feel lazy.  It’s surprising how many Americans feel guilty about napping.

“I just had some brilliant news.”

Brilliant?  Oh, so now Burt was British too?  “Since this morning?  What is it?”

“Well, Babs just called.  She’s a real sexy woman, did I happen to mention that?  Anyway, on Friday she slipped some chapters to this editor friend of hers at one of the big publishers, Harper Collins, or one of those bad boys.  Anyway, the girl totally flipped for it!  I mean, she couldn’t even wait until Monday to call Babs.  Babs said she’s taking it into the publisher this week and she thinks it’ll be right in his wheelhouse.  Babs was having multiple O’s over the phone.”

If he says “Babs” one more time, I’m going to stuff this phone down his throat...  And then it sunk in.  Burt was about to become a best-selling novelist at a major publishing house on the strength of the story that was Phil’s dream.  Phil’s idea was solid enough for an editor at a mega publisher to green-light it, and he had given it away.  For nothing.  He just gave it away.

“Wow, I can’t believe it, Burt, that’s… it’s amazing.  I’m so… thrilled for you, dude.”  Phil tried his darnedest to sound sincere.  He wasn’t completely succeeding, but Burt was so ecstatic it hardly mattered.  He didn’t even notice that Phil said “dude,” which, to his credit, was a word Phil never used, certainly not in serious conversation.  Burt went on and on about the phone call from Babs.  He did indeed say “Babs” again, many more times.  With each “Babs” Phil found himself closer and closer to another panic attack.

“Listen, bro, I’m telling you, we’re writing this movie together.  It’s going down, dude.  It’s going to happen.  ‘The Oaf,’ is the real deal.” And on and on, about how he wanted this to work out for both of them, which Phil could appreciate, at least in principle, but it was doing absolutely nothing to make him feel any better, and yet he was completely unable to extract himself from this conversation.  So he just put it on automatic, using the valuable ability he had perfected with Marika, that of not listening, but still hearing, and after a few more minutes the phone call was mercifully over.

Phil put down the phone.  He had a headache, he was exhausted, and he was on the brink of not caring about anything anymore, forever.  He had almost lost it a few times that day; now he wasn’t sure if he even could lose it, moreover, if there was anything left to lose.  He felt as if his mind just might shut itself off and at this point, that would be just fine.

Keys in the door.  Marika came in with some groceries.  “Oh good, you’re up.  I’m going to make some dinner and then we can meditate.”

Marika marched into the kitchen.  Phil just sat there, head in hands, staring at the wall, and thinking about nothing, which is kind of like meditating, isn’t it?

CHAPTER THIRTEEN: DICK AND BUSH AT YOUR SERVICE

Phil meditated that night with Marika, and he gave it his all, but his heart wasn’t in it, not all of it, at any rate.  They sat on the floor, in half-lotus, knees touching, face to face for forty minutes, but Phil was never fully comfortable.  It wasn’t sitting in half lotus on the floor, or keeping the knees touching, or the continuous staring into Marika’s eyes that did it (though that was difficult enough), but rather, the huge (well, maybe not huge, but definitely pronounced and, in half-lotus, greatly uncomfortable) erection he had that made it difficult to sit still for a prolonged period.  He kept repositioning himself, much to Marika’s consternation.  He thought he might cause a circulation problem to his genitalia, and eventual impotence.  He had read that could happen if you ride a bicycle too much, and that would not be a good thing, obviously.

Now, erections happen.  They are a natural part of life for any healthy male, and can occur at any time, any place, with or without sexual stimulation.  The penis, it is said, has a mind of its own, and perhaps that is true.  But the problem here was that although Phil was in close physical proximity to his fiancé, his beloved, the woman who, until recently, had fucked his brains out quite well and almost daily for several months, his current tumescence had less to do with her than the fact that he couldn’t stop thinking about Stephanie.  He realized after she left that in addition to being incredibly cute, smart, and funny, Stephanie also wore his favorite fragrance.  He didn’t even know the name of it, but she had that smell about her, that kind of spicy-yet-sweet smell worn by some women around town.  Whatever it was called, it was worth the price because whenever he smelled it he felt like having sex.

Now, some women might not want to arouse that kind of reaction in a man, especially some strange guy passing in the street or standing close by in a crowded subway car, but if they wanted to have that effect, that scent, be it Shalimar®, Bal a Versailles®, or Palimony™, or whatever the hell they called it, was well worth the big bucks that it undoubtedly cost at the perfume bar of the local department store, or wherever one might buy those kinds of things.  What if a guy walked into Bloomingdales or some other place, and some store clerk was spraying people with that stuff and he lost control because of the scent and the next thing he knew he’d be sitting in the holding pen of the local lock-up on some pending assault charge.  Luckily that had never happened, but it was something to consider upon entering a department store.

Yes, he was sitting there, trying to ignore his boner, staring into the eyes of his betrothed, thinking about another woman’s scent.  There was something seriously wrong with this picture.  Given his feelings for Stephanie, maybe marrying Marika wasn’t a given, after all.  Well there it finally was, out in the open, where it could be dealt with.

But wait.  What if he spent time with Stephanie and found out she had some odd tic or emotional quirk or weird obsession, or maybe she wasn’t that interested in sex?  After all, she had been celibate for two years, and that made Marika’s two months, or nine weeks, or whatever the hell it was, seem like a little bump in the road.  How could he so fixate on another woman as to threaten his planned life-long partnership with Marika when he knew very little about this other woman except that she smelled nice and had a perfect ass and great hair?  Yet it was these very thoughts that made him realize that he couldn’t commit to marriage unless and until he knew for sure that he was or wasn’t in love with Marika.  Or Stephanie.  That wouldn’t be fair to him, it wouldn’t be fair to Marika, and it wouldn’t be fair even to Stephanie.  What if Stephanie loved him, only she didn’t know it yet?  What if they were destined to be together, and these dreams, and Stephanie’s friendship with his fiancé, no matter how complicated or unsavory such a triangle might seem, were to be the strange, yet oddly effective means by which Stephanie and Phil were to meet?  People met in all sorts of bizarre ways, didn’t they?  Sure.  If it worked out, if he did indeed end up with Stephanie, wouldn’t this all be a great story to tell the grandkids in the years to come?  Well, maybe not the graphic details of the sex dreams, but the rest of it?  Sure.  And didn’t Marika, though she would be heartbroken, presumably, deserve to be with someone who wholeheartedly committed himself to her, head and heart, body and soul, instead of a man unsure of his feelings for another?  That seemed more than reasonable.

Nonetheless, Marika noticed neither the erection nor the vacant look in Phil’s eyes, which she took for a meditative trance.  She had no idea that he was somewhere other than in front of her, knees to knees.  She thought this was all going swimmingly, if only he’d stop fidgeting, and looked forward to the effect it would ultimately have on their sexual relations, once they were resumed in earnest.  Although part of her was still not one hundred percent positive about taking the plunge off the cliff of matrimony, she felt that Phil was giving it his all, and believed that his agreeing to this period of celibacy and meditation was a good sign of his devotion to her and his desire to make this impending marriage the best it could be. Ultimately, she knew that she deserved, and in fact was entitled to a great marriage.  And for the first time in her life, she was deepening a relationship without using sex as both tool and barometer.  And, by the way, she also liked the way Stephanie smelled, but she had no idea the effect that scent had on Phil or she might have gone out and picked up a bottle of Palimony™ herself.

So it was with little surprise that, not long after falling asleep, Phil found himself in bed with Stephanie, cuddling.  It wasn’t like the dreams he had before, in that there was no great sex going on, none of the Kama Sutra-esque virtual reality stuff that had encumbered his nightly attempts at sleep in the weeks leading up to his fainting spell, and so he couldn’t be sure that this was, in fact, a dream.  She was so sweet, Stephanie, nuzzling into the soft hair on his pectorals, half asleep in the post-coital zone that was relaxing and sleepy-like, and she smelled fantastic.  He wanted to ask her the name of the scent, but he couldn’t seem to form words.

He didn’t know where he was, except that it wasn’t his apartment.  Was this Stephanie’s place?  He thought it might be the same bed from the dreams, but the sun was beaming in, filtered through the tulle curtains, whereas most of the great sex dreams had been in the grainy grey pre-dawn hours, and so he couldn’t quite tell.  He thought he should check to see if Stephanie was wearing those little white ankle socks, as that would at least offer a clue, but he didn’t want to spoil the moment.  They kissed, deeply and passionately, with just a hint, a delicate flicker of tongue, and he was thinking he just might be ready for another round, but suddenly he felt really hungry.  Sometimes, after sex, or even during, a guy just wants to eat.

“I’m famished,” Stephanie murmured into his ear, seemingly reading his mind.

“What are you in the mood for?” Phil asked, ready to get her anything her little heart desired. That she liked to eat was sexy.

“Maybe a touch of something to eat… and coffee.  I’m not usually a big breakfast eater, but you really worked up an appetite in me.  You’re quite the cocksman, mister.”  She smiled at him.  Phil felt himself blushing, something he hadn’t done since adolescence.   What a smile this girl had, all those perfect little white teeth.  It was a movie ingénue kind of smile, so sweet and yet sexy at the same time.

Maybe they should have another round of incredible love-making before he went out and fixed some breakfast for the two of them.  He wondered if she had a breakfast tray, and maybe an elegant bud vase he could put a single rose in and bring it back to bed where they could spend the rest of the morning snuggling and screwing in all sorts of memorable positions.  But the next thing he knew, there was a soft knock on the door.

“Who is that?”  He asked.

“I don’t know.  Why don’t you ask?”

“Who’s there?”

A voice, slightly high-pitched in an unnatural, falsetto way, responded, in French.  “Petit dejune!”  Phil didn’t know much French, but he knew breakfast in many languages.

“Do you have a maid?”  He asked Stephanie.

“No.  Do you?”  She wondered.

“Isn’t this your place?”

Stephanie looked around.  “I don’t think so.  Just tell them to come in.”

“Okay!  Come in!”  Phil said to the door.

The door opened, slowly, and in wheeled a tray of breakfast delicacies, breads, fruits, coffee, juice, everything you might want or need for the morning repast.  That was fine.  It was what followed the tray that made Phil flinch, although at this point there was no reason to expect anything but the bizarre.

It was Dick Cheney.  Yes, that Dick Cheney, and he was dressed in a French maid’s outfit, the whole thing, with the short skirt and apron and the little hat. Or was it a snood? No matter. It was a sight to behold, a scary sight, to be sure.  Vice President Dick Cheney walking in on him and his dream paramour would have been freakish enough, but the French maid get-up took the cake.  And if that weren’t enough (and truly it should have been), Dick was followed by Bush.  George W. Bush, similarly attired, only Bush had a blond wig on, while Cheney’s was brunette.  Neither seemed uncomfortable in this setting, nor in these uniforms.  You’d think powerful men like these would feel awkward, walking in on someone’s dream wearing French drag, yet they didn’t seem to mind a bit.

The two politicians, leaders of the free-world, set about fussing and fawning over Phil and Stephanie, who were now sitting up in bed, at the height of self-conscious discomfort, covers pulled up to their chins.  Dick fluffed the pillows, while Bush set about preparing two lovely breakfast trays for the couple, which he then set down, with a flourish, in front of them.  After fluffing the pillows, Dick pulled out a feather duster and tidied up a bit, dusting a few surfaces and folding the clothes that had been hastily strewn on the floor and setting them on the divan (Phil knew no one in Manhattan who could afford a bedroom large enough to accommodate both a bed and a divan), while George poured the coffee from a French press and set it down on the trays, each with its own tiny pitcher of half and half.  When finished, both men stood off to the side behind the rolling tray and waited for further instruction from the love birds.

“Um.  Are you waiting for a tip, or something?” Phil wondered aloud. “I seem to have no pants”

“Of course not, sir.  You were very generous at the beginning of your stay and we assumed that was intended to cover the rest of your time with us,” said W, ingratiatingly.

“We just need to know if there will be anything else, or if we can go ahead and take care of the laundry and polishing the furniture in the living room,” chirped Cheney in his French accented falsetto, smilingly.

“No.”  Stephanie piped in.  “You can go, please.  And thank you.”

“Mon plaisir,” the President said, and turned on a high heel to exit, the VP falling behind him.  After Dick and Bush had gone, Phil and Stephanie looked at each other, not knowing what to do.  And then they both exploded in laughter like hyenas.

And then, Phil felt like someone was punching his arm.

Phil awoke in his bed.  He was sitting up, and Marika was smacking him in the arm.  He reached over and stopped her.

“Why are you hitting me?”  He wondered.

“Why are you laughing like some kind of hyena?” Marika asked, still painfully unaware of her own high-pitched guffaw that arose when she was on the phone with friends.  “And why are you sitting up?  And who is Dick?”

Sit still, Phil thought to himself.  Let the moment pass.  Don’t say anything you’ll later regret.

“Dick Cheney.”

“Dick Cheney?”

“Yes, Dick Cheney.  I had a dream… and Dick Cheney was in it.”

“Was it a nightmare?  It sounds like a nightmare.”

“No, not really.  He brought me breakfast in bed.”  Phil decided, off the cuff, not to tell about Stephanie, or even Bush.  He realized, even in his half-asleep condition, that a dream about Dick and Bush could be misinterpreted, and of course, the Stephanie thing was strictly off-limits.  Why was he dreaming about these men?  A lifelong Democrat, and usually quite liberal in his views, Phil tried his darnedest not to think of either of those two unless absolutely necessary.  And the French maids outfits.  Did Phil have a thing for Dick and Bush?  No, that couldn’t be.  Even if Phil suddenly transmogrified into a gay man, something he didn’t anticipate given that the prospect hadn’t presented itself in almost 30 years of life, he still wouldn’t have a sexual thing for either the President or the Vice President.  Was it his fear of terrorist attacks, maybe?  The alert level was up to yellow that day.  Maybe that’s all it was.  Hearing about the alert made him subliminally think of Bush and Cheney and then they haunted his dreams.  That was as good an explanation as any.

“Why would you dream about Dick Cheney,” was all Marika could ask.

“Why do people dream about anything?  I don’t know.  I’m scared of Dick Cheney. He’s on TV all the time.”

“But you were laughing like a lunatic.”

“I thought I was laughing like a hyena.”

“Whatever.  You were laughing… like crazy.”

“He was serving me breakfast in bed.  The vice president.  That is kind of funny, isn’t it?’

“Well, sure.  I suppose.”  And they left it at that.

Of course, what Phil didn’t know, and one reason Marika hadn’t pursued her line of questioning about his Dick and Bush dream, was that Marika had been regularly having a dream of her own, only this one didn’t have Cheney or Bush, or Phil and Stephanie, for that matter.  No, Marika’s dream featured Zee.  In fact, she had been dreaming about Zee almost nightly for a week.  It all seemed to start, this dreaming thing, when she stopped drinking coffee because her yoga teacher talked her into it.  She had to admit, despite occasional irregularity, she was sleeping better.  These dreams with Zee had nothing to do with the one she had about Phil and Zee having sex.  In fact, there was neither sex, nor Phil, at all.  These dreams featured Marika and Zee doing normal, everyday things together.  One night, they visited the Bronx Zoo, a place especially close to Marika’s heart as she had grown up near the zoo and gone there almost weekly as a child with her mother and sisters.  Another time, they were having a fantastic meal at a fancy restaurant, and Zee was explaining the many reasons that she found Marika so interesting and incredible.  Then there was one where they were at the Museum of Modern Art, looking at paintings, incredible paintings, all with a sexual theme, it seemed.  They held hands and smiled at each other conspiratorially while perusing the pictures, some of which were Georgia O’Keefe style paintings of labial flowers and fruits, and some realist female nudes.  At one point, Zee herself became a work of art, and as she stood in the center of the museum’s main hall, the patrons slowly gathered around to examine the art-covered beauty of this woman whose body was inked by a master.  Marika watched from afar, feeling only proud to be there with this woman.

Marika didn’t feel guilty about these dreams, nor did she pay much heed to the lesbian undercurrent.  She thought they were probably just remnants of her jealous reaction to Phil’s admission that he had a sex dream about Zee.  She might have told Phil about it, but after having given him such a hard time, she could hardly do so without losing leverage.  He had been so eager to placate the anger and insecurity his dream triggered, and she didn’t see the point of letting him off the hook so easily.

By the next morning, Phil had pretty much gotten over his confusion about the Dick and Bush dream and what it meant.   Oh, sure, he thought about it when he woke up, and then again in the shower, where he finally had a pretty good chuckle.  I mean, Dick Cheney in a French maid’s uniform?  Every time he thought of it, he laughed out loud.  No doubt Cheney hated the French.  And although it wouldn’t surprise Phil in the least were he to find out that Cheney or Bush or any other extreme right wing Republican (or Democrat, for that matter) had some unusual sexual fetish, it didn’t seem likely to Phil, given his looks and his heart condition, that Cheney’s fetish would be dressing up in women’s clothing.  True, J. Edgar Hoover was a cross-dresser, which was equally as hard to fathom given his appearance, as he must have made one of the ugliest women of all time, but Hoover was gay, so he had a good excuse, presumably.  What a name for a gay man, Hoover, slang, after all, for blow job, although the vacuum reference is disturbing.

So, upon arriving at work, dropping another dollar in the hat of the homeless guy outside the building (Phil was determined to get a smile or a thank you from the guy; but today, as usual, nothing), heading up to the 67th floor and logging on to his computer and being instantly met with the list of boring, thankless tasks he had planned for the day, Phil left his dream behind, completely, and thought that, for the rest of the day at least, nothing would make him laugh.  Yes, as he had long feared, actually doing work forty or more hours a week was a kind of living hell that no man should have to endure.  Especially this job.  And especially this man.  Calling lawyers, lawyers who have a lot more important things to do than to talk to a professional ambulance chaser about paying outlandish fees for the referral services provided by Client Connections, Inc.  What a drag.  Nine times out of ten he didn’t talk to an actual lawyer, but rather an assistant, or secretary, or receptionist who didn’t know or understand what it was that Phil did or what he was calling about, and didn’t care, either, and for all Phil knew, had been instructed to humor Phil, take a message and file said message in the circular filing cabinet.  And why shouldn’t they?  Such was the life of a salesman, and that’s what Phil was, essentially.  A salesman.  At least most people could understand what Willy Loman did.  They just nodded politely when Phil described his job, or their eyes glazed over, like Zee’s had.

Even when he went out to grab a sandwich at lunch, Phil could not escape the drudgery of his work, and was certain Mr. Kitson’s spy was on his tail.  He kept seeing the same short, dark, South-Asian-looking-black-haired-guy-in-sunglasses every time he turned around.  Could it just be a coincidence?  Maybe the guy worked in his building and decided to go to the same deli for lunch and then walk toward the park?  Not likely, as he hadn’t bought anything at the deli and was rather obviously trying not appear like he was watching Phil.  So, rather than eat his lunch in the park and enjoy the beautiful weather, as he had hoped, Phil returned to the office and ate at his desk.  Had it come to this?  Had his hard-fought-and-won freedom, via the genius of The Art of Selective Complaint, been lost so quickly and so completely, without fuss or fight, resulting in lunch, alone, in a cubicle, 67 floors above the city’s pulsating heart?  It seemed, sadly, that such was his cross to bear.

But as he chewed on his dry turkey on rye with mustard and washed it down with a Diet Coke (and noted that the beverage shared initials with Dick Cheney), Phil realized the little red light on his phone was blinking, the light that signaled a phone message waiting for him on his voice mail.  Could it be that one of the lawyers had actually heard his obnoxious message and called back?  Might his efforts actually pay off by his closing a new account for his beloved employer, Client Connections?  Phil was curious.  Not that he wanted to work this hard, but if he was going to, he might as well make more dough.  And so he dialed his voice mail, entered the password, and waited while the phone-lady’s voice went through her litany, “to play your message, please press one, to change your greeting, press…”  Phil pressed one, and the new message played.

It was not a lawyer.  It wasn’t his fiancé, or even his friend Burt calling to gloat over… er, let him know about yet another achievement in the book publishing game.  No, to Phil’s utter joy and surprise, it was better than any of that, and a message he never thought he would get, at least not so soon.  It was Stephanie.  And to top it all off, not only was she calling him, but she was calling to ask him to meet her after work!

“Um… Phil?  Hi.  It’s Stephanie.  God, I can’t believe I actually tracked you down.  Obviously I wasn’t going to ask Marika for your number, but I somehow remembered the name of your company and… what is it that you people do over there?  Anyway, that’s not the point.  I was wondering if you would meet me after work.  For a drink.  Not like that, I mean, not like ‘a drink,’ you know, but… I really need to talk to you about something and… well, you know that bar on 43rd, Steve’s, or Dave’s… some guy’s name.  It’s east of Broadway, I think.  Anyway, call me if you can’t make it, or if you can’t find it.  Here’s my cell number, if you have a problem…”

And she left her number.  Her personal cellular phone number was now in Phil’s possession, do you believe it?  She called him!  Phil was floating on air.  Well, maybe not on air, but he was, indeed, thrilled, as thrilled as he expected to be should this ever happen, and it just did.  He was going to talk to Stephanie alone and undoubtedly and finally discuss these dreams, the fact that they had these crazy sex dreams about each other and then, out of the blue, or so it seemed, they met in real life.  What are the odds?  She had to know it was some kind of kismet, as he also knew, even though he hadn’t a clue what “kismet” meant.  She finally had accepted that there was something going on between them, something important that needed to be explored and understood.

Of course, there was her cryptic qualification.  Not “a drink.”  What did she mean by that, that it wasn’t a date?  Well, so it wasn’t a date.  But who cared?  It was a chance for them to finally discuss this crazy connection that had brought their lives into alignment like two planets in some kind of weird eclipse, or something.  Phil knew it was going to be hell to sit at his desk the rest of the day.  Not that it wasn’t hell already, but now it was going to be even worse, counting down the minutes until he could finally sit, face to face, maybe across a nice corner table, dark, with a candle, with the girl of his dreams, literally, and just talk like two grown people who knew that there was some magical thing going on between them that perhaps couldn’t quite be explained.

Meanwhile, in Washington, D.C., the Vice President of the United States was not his usual self.  He didn’t feel quite right.  No, he hadn’t shot anyone recently, and it wasn’t his heart condition, either. Thankfully, he had been doing much better in both areas, and his new heart medication was brilliant.  Even with indictments raining down like SCUDS and the low approval ratings and the war going so badly, his cardiologist was quite pleased with his progress.  It was these damned dreams.  He had always been a solid sleeper, but in the last few months there were some crazy dreams that he couldn’t figure out.  One was a recurring dream wherein Osama bin Laden was hiding in his house.  In the first one, he thought bin Laden was living in the basement, but he never could catch him down there. The worst part of the dream was that his lovely wife, Lynne, had taken to bringing the fugitive terrorist meals on a tray, which she would leave outside the boiler room door.  But whenever Dick went down there, he couldn’t find bin Laden.

The dream had occurred nightly for a while, in different versions.  One time, he found an old army cot and an Arab headdress in the boiler room, but no Osama.  Another time, he could have sworn he saw bin Laden tiptoeing, naked, past the living room into the kitchen.  He could hear him rattling around in the cabinets and in the refrigerator, but when he went in there, no one was in the kitchen and the only thing missing from the fridge was a package of bratwurst, which didn’t make any sense because as a devout Muslim, bin Laden would never have chosen the bratwurst.  In his most disturbing dream he saw bin Laden in the bathroom, but when he went in there all he found was the man’s beard.  It was a real beard, made with real hair, but it had little hooks on either end above the sideburns to be slipped over the ears.  Cheney tried it on. It was grey and flecked with sand and smelled awfully of stale camel’s milk.

He woke up screaming, but wouldn’t tell Lynne what he had dreamt, for fear that she would think he was losing it and try to talk him into resigning, which she had done quite often right after his last heart episode and had resumed in earnest with the negative midterm polls.  Lynne said that the American people didn’t understand or appreciate her husband. They didn’t deserve his brilliant leadership.

At least he could explain the bin Laden dreams.  They were garden variety anxiety dreams.  They couldn’t find bin Laden.  He had evaded the army, the marines, the CIA, the Secret Service, the Pakistanis and everyone else.  People were even suggesting that the Bush administration didn’t want bin Laden captured because he and his family were in cahoots with the Bush family for decades.  In truth, the administration wanted to capture and try Osama bin Laden, even kill him, despite making sure that the bin Laden kin living in the U.S. were whisked out of the country right after the events of 9/11, which in retrospect Dick had to admit didn’t look so good.

But then there was the dream last night, in which he and Bush were in drag.  This he couldn’t decipher.  That’s right, George Bush and Dick Cheney wearing women’s clothing.  He was wearing a French maid’s uniform, talking French in a high falsetto and serving breakfast to some strange naked couple in bed.  How humiliating!  As if Dick Cheney, the leader of the free world (Cheney wasn’t merely the most powerful veep in history; in the executive branch it was known that Cheney gave the marching orders), would serve breakfast to some post-coital, 20- or 30-somethings.  And in a French maid’s outfit!  He hated the damn French!  They were always getting in the way of his plans.  That damned Chirac had been a nemesis, and now this new guy!  He wished they could just order assassinations like in the good old days, but that just wouldn’t fly, not anymore.  If they got caught, not even Karl Rove’s magical talking points could explain that away.

It wasn’t that Dick doubted his sexuality.  Sure, his daughter was a lesbian, and even though the official party line held that being gay was some kind of mental illness or depravity, Cheney was smart enough, and in his own way socially modern and scientifically-minded enough to acknowledge that homosexuality was probably genetic.  He just knew that it came from Lynne’s side of the family.  After all, there was her mother’s late aunt, a hulking, mannish gal who lived in San Francisco with a female companion named Cyd for over forty years.  Why, there wasn’t a fudge-packer or muff muncher (terms he heard, but never used, in the country club and hunting lodge locker rooms) in the Cheney line, as far as he knew.  Of some of the (old money) men in the locker rooms, he was less certain.

Still, what did these dreams mean?  An educated man, Cheney acknowledged that dreams mean something.  If he believed in psychoanalysis, he would talk to a shrink about it.  Well, maybe he did believe in analysis, but not for him, the Vice President.  What if word got out that he was seeing a shrink?  He would never live it down.  It was a sign of weakness, and he couldn’t show weakness, especially at a time like this, when the president and his advisors were appearing, well, weak.  No, he’d have to tough it out.  Maybe he’d get some stronger sleeping pills from his doctor, something that would knock him out and stifle the dreams.  He had too much work to do.  There was a war to fight, a middle-eastern country to rebuild, contracts to be meted out to various associates and contractors, the top 1%, and money to be made.  People were counting on him, God damn it, including the President’s mom and dad and the Christian right, and he wasn’t going to let some dream about wearing women’s clothing get in the way.  In fact, he had to admit, to himself at least, there was something liberating and exhilarating about wearing the frilly satin lingerie under the little dress and apron.  It felt so silky-soft against his skin.  Anyway, he had to stop thinking about it.  There wasn’t much time left for the administration.  He never would run for president.  His heart condition, mumbling, grouchy demeanor and homunculus-like homeliness rendered him downright unelectable.  There’d be plenty of time for soul searching after it was over.  Besides, why kill himself running for president when he already knew what it was like to run the whole show?

“Dick Cheney in a French maid’s outfit?”  That was what she kept repeating.  At least four or five times.  She was incredulous.  Phil had entered the bar, excited beyond his wildest dreams (again, literally) to be meeting her for a cocktail.  He found Stephanie in a dark corner, as he had hoped (only without the candlelight), sipping a martini, and ordered same from the waitress.  Before now, he would have noticed immediately that the waitress was an inordinately attractive blond in a leather micro-skirt, black boots and a shirt that showed off a taut belly featuring a dangly rhinestone and silver navel piercing, but he had eyes only for Stephanie, who looked, as always, as though she were standing on the corner of Cute and Sexy.  He gazed into her eyes and smiled, hoping for one in return, that perfect, little white-toothed smile of hers, but all she could talk about was Dick Cheney.  She didn’t even care about George Bush, because, she theorized, Bush didn’t look too bad in the outfit.  At least Bush in drag wasn’t as disturbing and downright unpalatable, probably because of his weak chin and especially as the wig obscured his Alfred E. Neuman ears.

Stephanie was profoundly disturbed by this latest dream, and she blamed Phil for it.  Phil was insulted.  How could she make it his fault?  Wasn’t it just as likely that it was hers, and that he was in her dream?

“No way,” Stephanie scoffed.  She never had sick, twisted dreams like that before, and she just knew that it was Phil’s brain that was coming up with these bizarre scenarios. It was the only possibility. That was the truth.

“Aren’t you more interested in the fact that we’re having these erotic dreams about each other,” he wondered, “and that we started having these dreams even before we met?  Isn’t that somewhat curious?”

“Yes, sure, but maybe people have dreams like that all the time.  I mean, that’s possible, isn’t it?”

“But it would be documented somewhere, and Bob, you know, the guy at Dreamplay?   He said he never read anything about it.”

“Gurubob?  Are you kidding? The guy is what, a personal assistant? What does he know? What if we all have dreams about people we don’t know all the time, real people who exist, only we never meet when we’re awake?  How would you know you were having a dream about a real person who was having the same dream about you if you never met that person later on?”

She had a point, as confusing as it sounded.  Maybe this did happen all the time, only there was no way of proving it… usually.  Phil should have been comforted by this possibility, but the idea of it simply disappointed him. He assumed he had seen a picture of her from college, or something, but then he didn’t recall Marika ever showing him college photos.  If Stephanie was right, the dreams wouldn’t necessarily signify what he had assumed they did: that they were being driven together by the cosmos, by fate.  Instead, what happened might be merely normal, and commonplace.  It made sense.  After all, just because he had a dream about Cheney and Bush serving them breakfast in bed didn’t mean that he was destined to have that happen, did it?  He certainly hoped not.

“Okay, so maybe it happens all the time, though I doubt it.  Still, how can you blame me for that dream?  After all, when you had those first dreams and thinking about how hot the sex was and went as far as to tell a room full of strangers about it, you thought it was your dream, so what makes you think that this one isn’t?  Isn’t it just as likely to be yours as mine?”

“No.  I’m not that kinky.  I mean, sure, a normal sex dream with a man, that might be something that could come from me, but Cheney in a French maid’s uniform?  Only a very sick and twisted mind could come up with that.”

“Are you calling me sick and twisted?  You don’t even know me!  And they were just serving us breakfast.  Why is that kinky?”  Here it was, the first time they were alone together, talking, and they were already having their first fight.

“Maybe you have some kind of condition, I don’t know, a brain tumor or something.  I mean, you fainted, didn’t you?  That’s not normal.”

Oh no.  A brain tumor.  Was it possible?  He didn’t have any headaches, at least not more than other people, but the fainting was a little strange, he had to admit.  Didn’t his grandfather die of a brain tumor?  He read somewhere that tumors in the brain could affect dreams and thoughts, and make people act a little crazy, so… Oh, god.  Please no.  Please don’t let it be a brain tumor.  He had enough problems as it was.  At least he had pretty good health insurance, thanks to Client Connections, but still, who would want to go through that?  Anyway, what was she, a neurosurgeon?  How could she even suggest that without at least a brain scan?

“I don’t have a brain tumor, Dr. Stephanie.  And even if I did, that wouldn’t explain the fact that you and I were having the same dream.  Speaking of which, was Zee in your dream?  You know, the woman with the tattoos?”

“You mean the skintight, colorful shirt?”

“That was no shirt.  She’s tattooed from neck to ankles, I think.”

“Really?  Hmm.  And she’s so pretty.  Why would she… wait a minute.  She’s a real person, too?  I mean, you know her?”

“Uh-huh.  She tends bar at a place in the East Village that I went to after Dreamplay that night.”

“Did she have the dreams also?”

Well, this was something Phil hadn’t even considered.  Marika had a dream with him and Zee, but without Stephanie… or maybe she just didn’t see her?  Phil dreamed about Stephanie, Zee, Marika, and himself.  Maybe he should take another trip to Suffer and ask Zee herself.  Would that be too crazy?

“Was Marika in your dream, too?  The one with Zee?”

Stephanie didn’t hesitate.  “Yes.  She was.  Although she was just watching, which I was good, as a lesbian dream about Marika would just be… weird.”

“Isn’t it weird already?  And why can’t you admit that it was hot and you’re at least a little bit curious about me?  I mean, that night at the theater, you were going on and on about what a sex stud I… er, he was.”

“First of all, I didn’t know it was you.  And second of all, I couldn’t even see your face at first.  Maybe I filled in your face in the dreams after that night.  Maybe it wasn’t even you until I saw you and for some odd reason you became the guy in the dream.”

“And what does that mean?  That you wanted me to be the guy in the dream?  I mean, really, it’s your subconscious sending you a message, isn’t it?”

“What do you expect me to say to that?  I want to have sex with you to see if you’re as good as the guy in the dream?  I don’t think so.  You’re my friend’s fiancé, for one thing.  I mean, even if I was curious to find out before now, and I’m not saying I was, that alone would kill the deal. It’s like a bad porno.  I’m not going to have an affair with Marika Simeon’s fiancé just because I had a dream about him… I mean, you.”

“So, now you’re saying it was me, definitely?”

“I don’t know what I’m saying!”  She stuck her finger up in the air.  “Can I get another martini, please?”  She shouted to the waitress.

“Look, I’m as weirded out by the whole thing as you are.  Nothing like this has ever happened to me before, and as far as I know, it’s never happened to anyone else, except you, and you’re the one it’s happening with, so….”

“So what do you think it means?  Are you saying that Dick Cheney had the same dream we had?”

Phil hadn’t thought of that, either.  So he did.  Think about it.  And they looked at each other.  She seemed to be waiting for a response.  And Phil was trying to come up with one, but the only thing he could do was smile, shake his head, shrug, chuckle a bit, and then laugh his head off, the way he had that morning when he was in the shower.  Stephanie didn’t think it was so funny, at first.  She was all set to be insulted that he was laughing at her, and then realized he wasn’t laughing at her, but rather at the prospect that Dick Cheney and George W. Bush had the same dream and they were dressed in French drag and serving breakfast in bed to a naked couple they didn’t know.  And when she started to see it from that angle, she lost it, laughing. Only instead of a loud cackle like Marika’s, she had this infectious, sweet laugh almost like a song, or a bird.  Phil loved that song.  He knew right then that he would want nothing more than to make her laugh as much as possible, so he could hear it over and over and over again.

The waitress came over and put the drink down in front of Stephanie.  She smiled at this handsome young couple laughing.  She started laughing herself.

“It’s so nice to see a couple having such a great time together.  You guys are so sweet.  How long have you been together, if I you don’t mind my asking?”

Phil and Stephanie looked up at her.  “We’re not…” Phil began, then he figured it wasn’t worth explaining, so he said, “just a few weeks.”

“Well, there’s obviously some great chemistry here.  Whatever it is, I wish I could put it in a bottle, you cuties!… Let me know when you’re ready for another, ‘kay?”

Phil smiled at Stephanie, as if the waitress’s intuition added heft to his theory, that what was happening between them was more than a psychosexual coincidence, that it was in fact a kind of fait accompli, the growing power of which was way past its starting point and reaching inertia, that there was no stopping this big old freight train.

Stephanie wasn’t buying any of it.  “Phil, this is crazy. I mean, I like you, really I do, but this whole idea that somehow we’re supposed to get together because of a dream is insane.  It just feels wrong, on so many levels. I can’t even start to name them all.”

Phil had to stop her momentum, so he jumped in.  “I think you’re over-thinking this.  Maybe I’m not being clear.  I don’t want to sleep with you, either.”

It worked.  She shut up. But what was he saying?  Oh, no. Phil worried he had lost control of his mouth again.  What would he say next?  Not even he knew.

“You’re right, it would be totally wrong.  You know, I was thinking, after how good that sex was in the dream, the real thing could be nothing but a big letdown.”

Stephanie was flummoxed, and he could plainly see this.  And why not? He just said that she couldn’t possibly be as good in real life as she was in the dream.

“I mean, right?  It was amazing, from my perspective.  Just incredible.  I’ve had some, well, let’s just say my sex life is usually pretty good for some reason or other, but, never anything like that dream.  Didn’t you say that?  Something like that?  When you were telling that dream to Gurubob.”

“Stop calling him Gurubob.  He’s just Bob.”

“Anyway, what I’m saying is,” he forged on, seemingly out of control, “sleeping together would be a big mistake. So you can relax. I’m grateful we got to meet, to talk. The last thing I’m trying to do is get into your pants.  Or, jeans, or whatever.”

What am I saying, what am I saying, what am I saying?  Phil’s mind echoed, over and over and over, until he noticed a subtle change come over Stephanie.  She was looking at him funny.  And smiling a little.  In some odd little way, Stephanie seemed to like him a little more than she had a few minutes ago.

“So, what are you going to do?  You’re engaged to her, and you’re out here talking to me.  She deserves better, don’t you think?”

“Of course she does.  She’s a great woman.  And I’m, well, maybe I was really in love with her, or, I do love her, but I started to question that just around the time you came into my life.  Or into my dreams, I guess.  Not that it has to be you, I get that.  I don’t really know you.  I’m probably the most not-your-type-of-guy you’ve ever had a drink with.  That’s all right, too. You like, what, bad boys?  Or, athletes?  Or bad boy athletes, that’s always a good combo if you like your men violent.”

There, she was smiling again.  Phil thought to himself, well, at least she won’t develop a crush on Burt.  He’s the only guy around who’s even less her type than I am.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN: TWO HUNDRED THOUSAND DOLLARS

Two hundred thousand dollars.  Or thereabouts.  Give or take.  And then of course there were the taxes, and the agents and lawyers, so maybe a little bit less.  But in that general neighborhood.

Two hundred thousand dollars up front; that’s all Phil heard.  Two hundred thou.  And that was just the advance on the total to be paid upon publication.  Plus bonuses based on sales.  It was an astounding sum. Enough to make any man more attractive. But that’s what a bidding war can do for you, and a sharp agent.  Or at least that’s what it must have been, Burt said, humbly incredulous.  That was the story of the sale of Burt’s debut novel, “The Oaf: A Moralist’s Tale.”

Phil was paralytic.  He couldn’t think of what to say.  He couldn’t think of what to do.  Fortunately, his medulla oblongata took over all brain function after the “flight or fight” moment; he mumbled some cheery good words, waffled again on whether or not he’d co-write the screenplay of the book when Burt’s “girls” (how he referred to his agent and editor now) sold the movie rights (which was now, according to Burt, fait accompli.  Fait accompli.  All of a sudden, Burt’s using fancy Frenchisms… or was that Latin?  Or some kind of Latin-French derivative?… Nevermind), and then he hung up as quickly as possible with only minor and largely undetected rudeness.

So, there it was for all the world to see, a huge advance, the largest of the year, certainly one of the biggest ever for a first time novelist.  Novelist, sheesh.  Mere months ago, Burt couldn’t even write a grocery list.  He could barely finish a sentence.  His “Top 10 Favorite CDs of All Time” list had six entries.  And yet, here he was, signing a big deal with a big publisher and fucking his hot, blonde agent, or at least that’s what Phil presumed and he presumed correctly.  Babs was the proverbial piece with a piece, she got ten percent, with benefits.

Sure, Burt had thanked him up and down, and sincerely, no doubt.  And invited Phil to dinner, any restaurant, Le Bernardin, Nobu (“maybe we can run into Howard Stern,” he said), any place in town.  And that thing about the screenplay.  Maybe that wasn’t such a bad idea; at least it was a way for Phil to get something out of his creation. But when would he have time to write, with Client Connections and Mr. Kitson and his spy breathing down Phil’s neck expecting law-associate-type hours and growing sales figures?  Of course, when he told Marika about his new responsibilities and Kitson’s great expectations (he decided to leave out the part about the spy and T.A.S.C.), she thought it was fantastic.  “Really, Phil,” she beamed, “it means you’re on your way.  It’s the Kundilini, I’m telling you.  It makes things open up at just the right time.”

Opens up everything but your legs, Phil lamented to himself, coming up with the good instinct not to say it out loud just in the nick of time.  So, it was the Kundilini that was fucking up his life?  Or maybe life was fucking up his Kundilini?  Phil was a wage slave while Burt, who probably had a big penis, was living his bliss he didn’t even know he had, and he never compromised the way Phil did by trying to be something he was not.  Oh, the pure hell of it all.

But then Phil thought again of Stephanie, and that little smile and birdsong of a laugh he had gotten out of her.  They left on good terms; she even gave him a brief hug, a genuine, affectionate-type hug where their bodies pressed together and he could feel her body against his. Not sexual, warm.  There were no decisions made, no promises given, but Phil thought it was a good sign.  He swore he could still smell her perfume, whatever it was called, where her shirt touched his sweater as they hugged, and so he sniffed it again.  It was still there, sweet with just a little eastern spice and earth.

The drink date, or non-date, went great. She could have told him to get lost and to never dream about her again, couldn’t she? But she didn’t. He wasn’t about to get his hopes up for nothing, but he also wasn’t going to let Burt’s good news ruin the little bump from the “date” with his dream woman.

And Stephanie, bless her little heart, held up pretty well under closer inspection.  Sitting near to her, really drinking her in (bathed in flattering lighting, surely, but so what?), did nothing to lessen Phil’s attraction; in fact it enhanced it.  Her scent, whatever it was, created an aura that made Phil want to deeply inhale huge nostrilfuls of her, but surely huffing at her like she was a can of Kryoline would have freaked her right out so he held off.  There was absolutely none of the letdown that Phil had feared upon meeting her alone, no odd facial tics, or annoying catch-phrases, or previously concealed facial hair, and he figured that if she got any major negative vibes from him at all, she wouldn’t have left it open-ended.  Where there is life, there is hope.

But still it bothered Phil, this Burt thing, not the base jealousy and envy he felt but also the idea that his best friend’s great news would have such a negative impact on his psyche.  That really flew in the face of Phil’s nice guy self-image, it disturbed him and made him feel guilty.  He wondered if this aspect of his ego, of his personality, was a weakness of character, or worse yet, a kind of neurosis.  True, the already awkward circumstances were exacerbated by the fact that it was Phil’s idea, essentially the entire dream verbatim that had gotten Burt his advance, so maybe, just maybe, he thought, this is a completely normal reaction.  Still, he realized that this might be a good mental formation, almost custom made, for meditation.  Sure.  To allow the idea of his self-image and vulnerability to sit, to embrace it, to look at it and then to become it in order to look at it from within. This was all such bullshit, he heard himself thinking, yet I believe every single word of it. Or do I? He figured if he could achieve some kind of meditative state, at least he’d be able to shake the thought of wearing a T-shirt with “My Friend Got Rich On My Idea And All I Got Was This Stupid T-Shirt” silk-screened on it.

Zee was not so sure what she was thinking, either.  She had decided, after much ruminating, that she would seek out Marika. Zee wasn’t sure what she’d say to the woman, except to tell her she couldn’t understand why she was having all these dreams about her, and ask Marika if she thought this had any significance beyond the fact that they had seen each other one time at the bar.  Zee had even come to believe that she was showing off her body more for Marika than for Phil that night, although life in hindsight is easily re-interpreted and reinvented, and Zee was a bit of an exhibitionist anyway.

She was prepared for the worst if ever she got to reveal her dreams and thoughts to Marika.  She feared with great certainty that Marika would laugh at her.  Rejection was sure to follow, as Marika was engaged to that Phil person, whom Zee had to admit was attractive in an odd, sort of post-Christopher Reeves kind of way, even if he had a soulless job and didn’t make her feel “The Thing.”  They were clearly in love,weren’t they?  Zee couldn’t see why they wouldn’t be.  After all, she was attracted to both of them, so why wouldn’t they be attracted to each other?  She had that huge ring on, for chrisakes, but it didn’t matter.  If Zee didn’t find this woman and express these feelings to her, she’d never get another decent night’s sleep.

Zee figured they lived in the neighborhood, in the Village, because she had run into Phil at the Korean market, but that could be anywhere within several blocks and so probably accounted for a gazillion people or something.  So it was a daunting task.  But Zee worked at night; she had the advantage of free daytime hours, and took to walking the streets randomly, hoping she’d run into someone, or see something.  She didn’t really know what or whom, but it was better than sitting around thinking about it and what the hell, she couldn’t sleep much anyway. Besides, out on the street was the only place a girl could smoke in peace.  The question remained, though, where to begin?

Marika was too carefully put-together for the East Village, a bit preppie, but she wasn’t very West Village either, which left her somewhere in the middle, an area home to a hundred thousand New Yorkers or more.  Still, that at least made Zee’s search somewhat more manageable, and the weather had been particularly fine the last week; that didn’t hurt either. So she wandered and looked and wandered and smoked and wandered, not really expecting to find anything or anyone, and doing precisely that.  After a week of this she lost two pounds from walking, which was great, but Zee was no closer to finding Marika.  She opted the next morning to try a more systematic approach.

She started back at the Korean market.  What the heck, it was the first place she talked to him, and she needed some cigarettes.  She had been smoking more of late and had finally taken notice that the high-priced packs of smokes were now featured citywide, which was eating into her tip money.  Bad habit.  But so good in so many other ways that you just can’t explain to a nonbeliever.  Plus, she figured that by the time she had heart disease or lung cancer, they’d have a cure anyway, like pulling out your bad lung through a dime-sized incision between your ribs and growing a new one inside your body.  That would be cool.  They’d have that surgery ready in 20 years, easy, so no worries.

In the market, she had the exact same conversation with the grocer as on the night she met Phil.  What Phil didn’t know about Zee’s impressive Korean language skills was that she asked the grocer to teach her how to say “Camel lights, please, Mr. Han.  How is Mrs. Han?” Then he’d make a joke, which she didn’t understand; she’d laugh anyway and he’d laugh because he thought she was a nice woman and he had a fetish for tattoos, although he’d never let Mrs. Han get one, as in his opinion, tattoos were for whores.

She liked to learn a phrase in every language, did Zee, a couple of simple sentences.  This was usually sufficient to impress any friend or potential dating material, not that she really needed any assistance in that area, with her perfect body, face and tattoos. Even men who didn’t like tattoos hit on her because they assumed having all that body art meant she was promiscuous. She asked Mr. Han if he remembered Phil the night they were both at the store, but he couldn’t, and he was certain that he wasn’t a regular because Mr. Han knew all his regulars.  On occasion, he was known to enter the other Korean markets in the neighborhood in disguise and give grief to any of his regular customers found shopping in the other establishment.

Next, it was onto the Department of Motor Vehicles, not to find Marika, but because she had to do an errand for X, her boss.  A lifelong Manhattanite, Zee had never been to the DMV, which was way downtown near Wall Street.  Zee was in fact proud, in true New Yorker fashion, of her unlicensed status, although she realized on her way down to the department that it might be good to learn how to drive.  Should she ever leave New York for whatever reason, unlikely as that was, she wouldn’t want to be in a position of dependency on any person, especially male, to drive her around.

She wanted none of that.  A recovering co-dependant, Zee had finally broken a chain of unhealthy relationships with men that dated back to her father, and she wasn’t about to relapse.  Her father hadn’t been abusive, not physically or sexually at any rate, but she had quickly turned into his confidante and cohort – his little buddy -- after her parents’ divorce, so finally, after turning twenty, Zee put her foot down and insisted that he start taking care of himself for a change.  He was one of those men who had abdicated the responsibility of social planning to his wife, and after the divorce pretty much had no friends except his daughter, a fact that she enjoyed when she was eleven, but when she started dating it became rather a problem.  It had been difficult to change this dynamic.  She had to say no a lot in the beginning, and not just to her dad, because her relationship with him was reflected elsewhere in her life.  And the separation from her father, for that was what it was, a separation, not actually like a marriage but with some of the same psychological dynamics, was starting to pay off, finally, even for her dad, who seemed to be finding his stride at last.  Sure, he’d never be a powerful business executive again, or even a low level one, but at least he felt good about what he was doing and didn’t need to borrow money from her or her brother anymore.

To Zee’s surprise, her father went back to his roots, his first profession, the law, but instead of using his vast business experience, he took a job, at a very low salary, to work crazy hours at a free family law clinic in Brooklyn.  He loved his job, and he was making new friends.  His coworkers were all twenty years his junior, but in a way, that suited dad, as he stopped thinking of himself as growing older on the day he turned 23.

One of the relationships that reflected Zee’s father issues was with X, her boss.  He was always getting her to do things for him that had nothing whatsoever to do with her job at the club, which was what brought her to the DMV in the first place.  She had been learning to say no to X as well, but there were times when she found it difficult.  Her habit energy was strong.  Luckily, although he was quite good looking and really fit, X was into some really weird sexual practices involving latex and mild self-scarring, which was why X and Zee never hooked up; hence, sex never had a chance to complicate things as it had plagued many of Zee’s other relationships with men.  X’s tastes didn’t ring her bell, for although she loved the tattoo needles, and sex, Zee liked to keep her pain and her pleasure in separate containers.  But now it seemed that there was one other container on Zee’s shelf, and it had a big, fat “L” on it.

Zee had never so much as touched a woman’s nipple, at least on purpose, and certainly not in a sexual way.  Oh, sure, during puberty she and her girlfriends made frequent comparisons that required some touching, but even then, when some of the girls were letting the breast comparing segue to stronger, more serious experimentations, Zee had taken a pass.  In college too.  Yes, that one time she and her roommate tag-teamed a basketball player, but they hadn’t done anything to each other, at least nothing major.  Still, something about this turn of events was completely unsurprising to her.
What was surprising, or at least mildly disturbing, was the guy seated near her in the waiting area of the DMV.  He kept stealing glances.  Now, Zee was used to commanding attention, and in fact, she liked it quite a bit.  It wasn’t why she tattooed herself, to be gawked at, but it was an added benefit, she had decided after becoming used to the attention.  She jokingly referred to herself as an attention whore.  But while she didn’t mind people staring and then saying hello and asking about her tattoos, she hated when people would ogle her and then pretend not to be looking when she looked back at them.  And she had great peripheral vision, thanks to her job.  And that was what this guy was doing.  He was kind of a dorky guy, tall, with a moustache.  She never thought much of moustaches, she could take ‘em or leave ‘em.  But she did enjoy other forms of facial hair, especially creative beard/sideburn/soul patch combinations.  Which was another reason the lesbian thing seemed odd, in that if she were in fact lesbian, facial hair would now, presumably, be a thing of the past, notwithstanding the amazing things being done with synthetic hormones these days.

But that was beside the point.  Why was she thinking about women growing facial hair?  More so, she was in no mood, at this portentous crossroads where she was contemplating the most important decision of her life, at least insofar as relationships and sexuality, and whether or not to learn how to drive, to fend off the lame-ass advances of a mustachioed dweeb.

Yep, there it was again.  He was looking at her; she could sense it.  She was starting to get angry when he stood up.  Maybe his number was called?  But no.  He slowly, carefully, and with some effort, moved down the row of seats, then up the aisle two rows, then turned, and soon stood standing over Zee, as if waiting for a response.

“Listen,” she began, hoping to head it off at the pass, “this isn’t really a good time right now, as I just decided I’m a…”

“You’re Zee, right?” was all the dork said but that was enough, as she was a fairly sociable woman, to put Zee at ease somewhat.

“Yes.  I’m sorry.  I don’t remember meeting…”

“At work.  I mean, your work.  My name’s Burt.  I’m a friend of Phil McCone’s?  We come into your place a lot.  I think Phil ran into you afterward, someplace?  At least that’s what he told me.”

Well, sometimes you’re all right place, right time, thought Zee of this moment.  Here she was, the last few days spent wandering hither and yon or what not, just randomly sampling the area for signs of Marika, aimlessly, and yet now, on an errand for someone else, in another neighborhood, without even the least impulse to search out a familiar face, she ran into a very useful person.

But, how to handle this, Zee wondered?  You can’t just tell this guy that you think you might be in love with his friend’s fiancé and ask for their phone number. (Actually, Zee should have asked this very question.  Thinking that Marika was all wrong for Phil anyway, Burt would have thought this hilarious and, barely containing a gleeful inner guffaw, would have handed over Phil and Marika’s number in a flash.)  Zee reasoned, not knowing better, that this required a certain amount of tact.

“Right, I remember you,” although she didn’t, not really.  She knew, as an exotically beautiful and heavily tattooed bartender and the object of many young male fantasies amongst the East Village patrons of her work establishment, that men were always flattered and disarmed if she said right off that she remembered them, whether she did or not.  “So, Phil mentioned that we met after, at the grocery store?”

“Oh, yeah, right,” Burt thought he might take this opportunity to help set up some strange for his buddy Phil.  Marika was all wrong for him.  If they got married, they’d just hold each other back.  So why not encourage this bartender chick?  Phil said he could have slept with her, although Burt, seeing her up close, couldn’t say for sure if Phil wasn’t completely delusional.  I mean, this babe, Burt thought in these exact words, is smokin’ hot.  And of course, she was.  But she was hot for Marika.  Of course Burt didn’t know this, and continued: “Phil really was taken by you.  He told me that you were one of the most beautiful women he had ever met and he was so enrapt by your gorgeousness that he babbled like an idiot when he was talking to you.”

Enrapt by your gorgeousness? Shit Maybe a bit too much, Burt thought.

This revelation was unexpected, even as it wasn’t true, exactly, but it made Zee feel like she was blushing under her tattoo, which she did from time to time, making the reds in her twin dragons an almost obscene scarlet.   Even if it was Marika she was after, the girl liked a nice compliment. It kind of threw her. Zee smiled. “Enrapt by my gorgeousness, huh?”  Burt winced.  “So, what brings you to the DMV?”

“I… well, I just closed a book deal, to write a novel.  Phil had a lot to do with that too… Anyway, long story short, I’m going to be traveling a lot, you believe it?  I mean, eventually, when it’s done there’ll be tours, and readings, and I never drive, you know, in New York, but I thought out of town I’d need to so I checked the date and would you believe it?  It’s almost expired.  So I’m just renewing my license.”

That was more information than she needed, and not the right kind.

“You haven’t written the book yet and you’re planning for your tour?  Aren’t you getting ahead of yourself?”

“Lifelong Boy Scout,” said Burt, as if that explained the whole thing.  When he realized it didn’t, he added, “be prepared?”

“Isn’t Phil engaged?  I mean, that was nice what he said about me, but…”

“He is.  I shouldn’t tell you this, but… she’s totally wrong for him.  Everyone thinks so.  Well, except Phil, but he’s always been really good at fooling himself.”

Zee was starting to relax.  There was a kind of Zen-like quality of forward motion to this quest, this path that seemed to open up into new paths all the time.  The way Marika appeared in her life, and then her dreams, now this chance meeting with Burt, who thought Phil and Marika were terrible for each other… and knew where they lived.  And their phone number.

“Do you live around here?”

“East Village.”

“How do you and Phil know each other?”

“College, freshman year.  Binghamton dorms.  New York City clubs.  All that crazy shit.”

“Phil lives near you, right?” Zee asked, innocently enough.

“He’s over on Mercer, that apartment building.   It’s actually Marika’s place, but I think he’s on the lease now.”

That wasn’t enough information.  Apartment on Mercer… “Oh you mean that fifties-style one, with the…”

“No, the brick building, from the thirties.  Nice.  833 Mercer.  Got a doorman and everything.”

“So, why do you think Phil and Marika are wrong for each other?”

“They’re too different.  She’s all ambition and hard work.  Phil likes to coast a little, but he’s only one idea away from something great and he needs someone who’s laid-back, supportive, yet inspiring.”

“You mean the perfect woman.

Burt shrugged.  “I just feel it about the guy. He’s needs a new direction.”

“You think?  He doesn’t seem happy in his job.”

“Who would be happy in that job?”

Good point.  Now, did she need more info?  She had the address, there was a doorman.  Doormen were easy tools for girls like Zee.  Oh, but what about…

“What is her last name, Marika?  When she and Phil came by the bar another night, I thought I recognized her from somewhere.”

“Simeon.  Marika Simeon.”

“Simeon…  Hmm.  Probably just reminds me of someone else.” That was it.  That was all she needed. “Oh look, my number is up on the screen.  So nice to chat with you.  And congratulations on your book deal.  It sounds fantastic.”

“Yeah, thanks.  They tell me it’s the second largest advance for a first time novelist, after Bret Easton Ellis, or was it Jay McInerney?  Whatever, one of those 80’s or 90’s guys.  Feeling pretty good about it.  Have a great rest of your day.  Maybe I’ll grab Phil and come down to Suffer one night, buy you a drink.”

“Thanks.  That’d be great.  Gotta go.”

Of course, her number wasn’t up on the screen, but she needed to get away from Burt.  She wasn’t too pleased that he and Phil might come poking around at the bar.  Clearly, he wants Phil to sleep with other women, get him off of Marika.  Wait a minute.  What about that?  What if I seduce Phil, and get him to break up with Marika?  Then she’d be available.  I’m not a lesbian…Yet.  I could still sleep with men.  Maybe I’m bisexual or pansexual (whatever that is exactly), and just in love with this one woman right now…  But that’s crazy; sleep with Phil to get him away from Marika? And then what?  What if he falls in love with me?  Weirder things have happened.  Or what if I fall in love with him?  Or worse, what if I fell in love with him and was also still in love with Marika?  What a twisted triangle! Me and an engaged couple?!

No, sleeping with Phil was right out.  She would just leave a note with the doorman, for Marika Simeon, or write a letter.  She didn’t know the apartment number, but the postal worker could figure that out, right?  It would get there.  One problem: Zee wasn’t very confident in her letter writing abilities.  No, she was going to need help with this one.  Too bad that Burt guy was such a dweeb.  Even if he was making a lot of money on his book deal, Zee couldn’t imagine he’d have the words she’d need to convince Marika to meet with her.  Yet, he wanted Phil and Marika to split up.  What if she just told him about it?  What if she just went back there and said, “I think I might be in love with Marika.  Help me get her away from Phil.”  She looked back.  Burt was still sitting there, jotting notes on a pad that he carried with him everywhere now that he was a writer.  He was writing down his Great Thoughts, lest he forget them.  Was it possible that this guy with the moustache and eyeglasses… he reminded Zee of that Groucho in the old movies her father loved so much… would be her pathway to the woman who, more and more every day, seemed part of her destiny?

While Zee contemplated the great questions of her own little universe, Dick Cheney, the Vice President of the United States, was in hiding again.  Okay, not hiding exactly, but in a secure location.  Not for any particular reason.  Well, there was that little matter of the increased terrorism readiness alert… it was orange again; but mostly he just felt safe and warm in a secure location. He thought they were ready for any threat this time.  But there was such a fine line between being ready and being over-prepared, spending millions of taxpayer dollars to stop a terrorist plot that turned out to be the inventions of, for example, some low ranking Al Qaida operative who just made something up so they’d stop torturing him.  And yet if something really bad happened, like 9/11 bad, and it turned out there was any intelligence of even the most questionable quality that hadn’t been acted upon, the administration would take a hit that could jeopardize all that had been accomplished thus far.

But even in this secure location, with its bunkers and marines, the dreams, these disturbing dreams continued.  He tried some stronger sleep meds, but to no avail.  And since he didn’t want to talk about the dreams to anyone, like a psychiatrist, no one was going to give him any anxiety medicines or whatnot.  Besides, he couldn’t go on medication for anxiety.  Imagine what the liberal press would make of that.  No, that just wouldn’t do; it would be feeding ammo to the enemy, the “Liberals.”  Still, the new intelligence about a major attack on American soil couldn’t be ignored.  And they had always expected the bastards to try New York again.  It was the Jew thing.  Lots of Jews in New York.  Not that Cheney had a problem with Jews, but the New York Jews were a bunch of Liberals, card-carrying.  Some Jews, like Paul Wolfowitz, or that Jack Abramoff, why, they were great Americans and he was happy to do business with them, although Cheney always believed Abramoff would go too far eventually.  He had said that to everyone and it turned out Cheney was right. As usual.

But the dream last night was the worst.  Not only was he still in the French maid’s outfit, this time he was serving breakfast in bed to bin Laden himself.  Bin Laden kept yelling in Arabic for Cheney to get out of the room, as bin Laden’s head was uncovered and Cheney was dressed like a whore, but Cheney didn’t know Arabic.  He only knew French (not in real life, but in the dream), and a little English.  Finally, after screaming at him in Arabic for who knows how long, bin Laden pulled out a sabre and started chasing Cheney around the room, threatening to decapitate Cheney; somehow, Dick understood this perfectly.  Maybe it was the menacing way bin Laden was waving the weapon around.  It was hard to run in heels, Cheney discovered.  But just before bin Laden could corner him and chop his head off, Cheney awoke in a sweat.  It was going to be New York, he knew it, and yet, what could they do, short of closing down the city, causing a panic, and looking foolish when the information turned out to be erroneous?

The fact was, Cheney wasn’t convinced that there would ever be a major terrorist attack on U.S. soil again.  Maybe 9/11 was all the evildoers needed, and now the threat of it, and the money spent trying to protect against false threats, would slowly bleed the country to death.  How could bin Laden do this?  He was one of us! His family, the Bush family, Halliburton, it was one big happy.  But now, this idiot, this black sheep, decides he’s not going to be part of the family business.  No.  In fact, he intends to ruin the family and the whole set up for everybody.  Damn rich kids, he thought.  Ivy Leaguers.  Always just this side of psychosis, anyway, but bin Laden went all the way with it, the fucker.

Needless to say, Burt was surprised when he looked up to find Zee standing in front of him.  He wasn’t sure what she had in mind, but he liked looking at her, so as long as she wanted to stand there, it was fine by him.

“Finished already?” he wondered aloud.

“No, actually, I misread the number on the screen.  It’s not my turn yet.”

“Oh.”

“So, what you were saying, about Marika and Phil being all wrong for each other.  It made me think.”

“About?”

“Well, here’s the thing.  I think I might be… well, I’m not sure ‘love’ is the right word, but I’m kind of into Marika.”

No, this wasn’t what Burt had in mind; in fact, he never saw this coming in a million years, but it was very interesting.  Maybe he could figure out a way to get it into his book, although it had nothing to do with the current plot. He fought desperately the impulse to explode in laughter, as he figured that would ruin the moment.

“That’s pretty wild.  I mean, Phil thought you might have slept with him the night you met.  I guess he was delusional, if you’re a lesbian.”

“No, he was right.  I probably would have slept with him.”
Burt was surprised.  He thought this Zee was way out of Phil’s wheelhouse.  “So why didn’t you?”

“I kissed him.  We didn’t have ‘The Thing.’”

“What thing?”

“It’s hard to explain.  It’s this thing you feel when you and someone… Nevermind.  The moment passed. And I’m not a lesbian.  At least, I’ve never been one, but I’ve been having these dreams about Marika.  I don’t know where they came from, since I only met her that once, but it’s kind of, I don’t know, an obsession.”

“Wow.  So… why are you telling me this?  Not that I mind in any way.  It’s kind of hot…”

Guys, Zee thought.  He’s getting turned on by this lesbian talk.  Maybe it was a mistake.  But Burt interrupted her thoughts before she could change her mind.

“So wait.  You totally had me before.  I mean, here I am, Phil’s friend, and I’m giving his address out to you, I mean, I don’t really know you.  You could be a stalker, or something.  Aiding and abetting a stalker, great friend, huh?… Not that you are a stalker by the way.  I’m not saying that at all.  Although, you did describe yourself as obsessed.”              This hung in the air for a moment; there was indeed something stalker-ish in Zee’s behavior.  And Zee figured there was nothing left to do but push on.

“I, well, I want to write a letter to Marika, and get her to meet me, or something, and tell her about these dreams I had about us.  It’s only stalking if I try to get her to meet me and she tells me she doesn’t want to and I keep asking her.”

“I’m down with that.  It’s okay by me.”

“I’m not asking for your permission.  I’m asking for your help. I’m not much for written expression, and since you’re a pro, and you know Marika, I thought maybe you could help me write it.  You know, write something that will work with her.”

This was getting better all the time, Burt mused.  Finally, a chance to help nudge Marika away from Phil.  Isn’t that the least a friend could do if he knew the marriage was doomed?  Sure, he had been thinking along the lines that he would get Phil to fall for another woman, or at least have a fling with one and realize that his love for Marika was purely physical.  That Stephanie chick with the pornographic dreams would be perfect, but no way would Phil muster up the wherewithal and dogged persistence to close that deal.  Having Marika fall for someone else, a woman, no less, was in some ways even better.  That way, Phil, who tortured himself with guilt as Burt knew, could get out of this relationship with a clear conscience.  Marika could dump him for someone else.

“Happy to help.  You have any paper?  All I have is my little writer’s notebook.”

“You want to write it here?  Now?”

“You have anything better to do?”

Zee looked at the screen, and then at the number in her hand.  Who was she kidding?  She was going to be there for at least another hour. She went to the information desk and borrowed a piece of paper.  She sat down next to Burt and handed it to him.

“What do you want to say?”

“I don’t know.  I never really talked to the woman.  What would be the best approach?  What’s she like?  You don’t like her, I can tell.”

“No, no, Marika’s fine, she’s great, she’s just not right for Phil, you know?  It’s obvious to anyone who knows him.  She’s way too ambitious and driven.” Burt actually didn’t like Marika, and felt he gave a good performance on that one.

Zee thought she could deal with that, as she was ambitious, too.  “What could I say that would get her attention?”

“Well, as far as I know, she’s not a lesbian, but neither are you, so that’s not necessarily a deal breaker, but I wouldn’t start right out with the love thing.  Maybe something innocuous, like, you know, remember me, we met at ‘Suffer’ that night?  I’m the bartender.  Just an introduction so she knows who you are.”

“That makes sense.  Then…?”

“I’m not sure.  What are these dreams about?”  Here, Burt was hoping for something really dirty, some good lesbian stuff with, say, strap-ons or feather dusters, and some serious tongue piercings.  I mean, he thought to himself, look at this babe.  She’s hot, she’s gorgeous, and she’s covered with tattoos.  She must be into some wild shit.  And as much as he didn’t like Marika, he knew quite well what attracted Phil to her in the first place: for all her annoying characteristics, Marika was sexually talented.  Needless to say, Burt was disappointed when Zee said:

“You know, it’s weird.  They’re not about anything, really.  We’re just hanging out, like having dinner, or going to a museum.  You know, the kind of thing you do with a friend.”

“Well, if it helps you decipher the deeper meaning of your dreams, two guys who do that kind of stuff together a lot?  Totally gay.”

“It’s not really a physical thing, but there’s this incredible connection between us that I just can’t get over.  It’s like we’ve known each other forever, you know?  Like we have this energy thing… I could really use a cigarette.”

“Marika hates smoking.  You should probably take that into consideration if you’re particularly attached to the habit.”

“I’ll quit.”

“Wow.  You have it bad.”

“That’s what I’m telling you.”

“How about this?  Lay off the dreams, as that might sound a little odd in a letter, and you two don’t know each other, so it could scare her off.  Why not just say, uh, that you felt this, I don’t know, this connection with her the night she was at the club.  And this is, what, a month or so ago?  And you feel like you know her, in some way, and you’ve thought about her from time to time over the last few weeks and would like to meet for a drink, or coffee, or something, and just talk.  I mean, you’re not a guy, you know she’s engaged to Phil, so it’s not likely she’ll think you’re coming on to her, which is a good thing, right, ‘cause that might freak her out?  And you’re essentially telling the truth, which is good, too, as it’s easier than lying and you don’t need a back story if you get caught… You know, this is really weird.  Phil and this cute girl Stephanie were dreaming about each other too.”

This Burt isn’t so bad, Zee thought.   Sometimes people surprise you.

“He’s such a fucking jerk,” Phil kept thinking, sitting in half-lotus on the floor, a burning candle providing scent and inspiration to his meditation, and each time he thought bad thoughts about Burt, he felt guiltier and guiltier, but try as he might, he couldn’t stop thinking them.  He could follow his breath to Timbuktu, wherever the hell that was, and he’d still be thinking them.  How could he feel this way about his best friend?  Yet there it was; he couldn’t get around it.  Phil was pissed at Burt for taking his idea and becoming a big success with it.  Never mind that Phil had handed it to him on a silver platter; Burt didn’t have to ask for it, did he?  Why couldn’t he get his own goddamn idea for a book?  There’s, like, a million fuckin’ ideas out there, and he has to take mine!?  He’s a fucking jerk. And I’m a fucking loser idiot.

That’s right, idiot.  This from another part of his brain.  You are an idiot.  You get engaged to a woman because she’s good in the sack, and the first thing she wants to do is stop having sex.

No, Phil thought back, I’m an idiot for giving Burt the idea, not for getting engaged to Marika.

Wrong.  That’s not why you’re an idiot.  Giving Burt “The Oaf?”  That was generous.  That was friendship.  Getting engaged to a woman when you’re not sure you’re even in love with her?  That’s idiotic.  And then finding the girl of your dreams before it’s too late?!  That’s lucky.  Luckier than you have any right to be.  And all you can do is whine over the thought of Burt getting a shot on your idea.  Burt made it happen; you didn’t.  It’s one thing to have the dream, but you have to make it happen or it’s just a dream and it doesn’t amount to anything beyond a dream.  And you can’t buy clothes or food, or better yet, real estate, with a dream.

Oh, yeah? Phil thought back (although by now he was starting to wonder which voice was the real Phil), so what do you want me to do, smart guy?

Cut your losses.  End this sham of an engagement and move on.  Do it in the nicest way possible, but any way you do it’s gonna suck, big time.  Marika’s going to hate you.  But better now than in 20 years when you realize that you gave up a real chance at love just to play it safe and fulfill your father’s prophecy.  And your father was an idiot, too, by the way.

Hey, he was your father too.  Wait a minute.  Who am I talking to?

Follow your heart, you moron.  For once in your life, do what you really want to do, what you’re passionate about, instead of letting yourself be guided by guilt and fear.

No guilt and fear?  Phil thought.  That can’t be possible, to survive without the twin pillars of guilt and fear.  But maybe it is possible.  Lots of people seem to live without constant guilt and fear.  And what is it about those people?  What common attribute do they seem to share?  Is it something like happiness?

Phil came to and realized that he had been sitting for well over two hours, although it felt like mere minutes.  He thought he was struggling to quiet his mind, when in fact he was deep in a meditative state without any awareness of the world outside of his mental field, yet his mind had been everywhere his body wasn’t, and now it was back home.  He looked at the candles burning, the wicks now long black question marks in puddles of wax, smoke curling from their tips, the blue orange yellow of flame moving upward, ever upward.

It took Phil a full five minutes to straighten his legs, but other than that, he felt fantastic.  Refreshed, like after a long sleep.  He had things to do.  First, he called Stephanie.  She was surprised to hear from him so soon, but he could tell from her voice that it wasn’t an unpleasant surprise.  He invited her to lunch.  Not to appear too eager, he suggested the following week.  She equivocated for a moment or two, hem and haw, one of each just for effect, and then accepted.

“Ms. Simeon?  Someone dropped off an envelope for you this morning.”

Marika always liked getting unexpected packages and envelopes.  It was usually nothing that exciting once opened, but before she slit the tape or the paper and read what was inside, she held forth the hope that it would be something life changing, in a positive way, of course.  She’d hate to get a note about someone dying, or an envelope filled with anthrax or bird flu.

The handwriting was unfamiliar, but kind of nice, in a slightly schoolgirl, yet genuinely artistic way.  She thought of looking to the bottom to see who wrote it, but decided to hold off and enjoy the contents of the letter, maybe try to guess who wrote it.

“Dear Marika:

I hope you’ll remember me.  I’m Zee, the bartender at Suffer?”

Well, that ruined Marika’s little guessing game.  No surmising here.  She said it right up front.  Zee?  The one I dreamt about?  The one Phil dreamed about? She went on.

“You were at the bar with your fiancé one night.  I think I gave you the grand tour of my tattoos.  I get that way sometimes, but I’m not usually such an exhibitionist.”

Yeah, I’ll bet, Marika thought.

“Anyway, I’ve thought about you a couple of times since.  I don’t know why, but I sensed a certain connection, like we had met before, even though I’m pretty sure we haven’t.  You probably think I’m crazy.  I can’t imagine you had any similar feelings.”

No, although I did sense a certain connection between you and Phil.  And then there were those dreams.  Where is she going with this?  I wish she wouldn’t drag it on much longer.

“Listen, I won’t drag this on much longer.  I was just wondering if you might like to grab a cup of tea or something, just talk.  I’m always looking to meet new people, and I trust my instincts when I get a certain feeling about them.  My e-mail’s on the bottom.  If you don’t feel like getting in touch, that’s fine, no big deal, but who knows?  You might just make a new friend.

Warmest wishes,

Zee”

This was not what Marika had expected.  Not that she knew what she expected, exactly, but it definitely was not this.  This woman, this tattoo canvas, is she actually trying to be friends with me?  Why?  What could be her agenda, her motivation?  To get to Phil?  But then why would she do that?  If she wanted Phil, she would go straight to Phil and have an affair, wouldn’t she?  Why go through a whole fiction about getting to know me first?  That didn’t make any sense, unless this woman is crazy, which she might be, with all the tattoos, but probably not.  Marika’s mind was running amok.  She couldn’t make it stop.  And she didn’t want to.

But why me?  We’re so different.  She’s beautiful, sure, and very exotic, but we live completely different lives with completely different types of friends.  She’s all East Village.  I could never be East Village.  Lower East Side, maybe, that’s kind of retro chic but… wait, I’m getting sidetracked.  Is she gay?  No way.  She’s so totally not gay.  And even if she was, why would she try to date an engaged woman?  That makes no sense.  She knows Phil and I are engaged, so even if she’s gay, she’s probably not going to come on to me, but she’s so not gay.

While Marika was completely and utterly confused and unclear about Zee’s note and what it all meant, she was absolutely certain of one very key thing: she was going to meet this Zee.  There is something fascinating about this woman.  We’re meant to meet.  Everything that the Kundilini has brought to me has been good, why not this?  It’s probably not a lesbian thing, but I shouldn’t be afraid of it.  I’m just going to be open to all of the feelings, let them come through the universe to me.  And then I’m going to feel the feelings in the feelings. Whatever the hell that means.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN:  OEDIPUS, SHMOEDIPUS

The last thing Phil expected was to get a phone call from his mother.  It had been well over a year since he had heard her voice, although he did receive the occasional letter, which was his mom’s preferred method of communication.  That was her old-fashioned side, handwritten letters in her neat, somewhat ornate, feminine script on personal stationery with the tiny printed irises in the upper right corner.  But this time, she phoned from Washington, D.C., where she and her lover, Ali bin Safayeh, were visiting his parents, who were about Phil’s mom’s age and worked for the Sudanese Consulate.  If there was a Sudanese Consulate.  Wasn’t Sudan on the White House terrorism list?  Or bad dictator list?  (Was there a good dictator list?)  Whatever.  All Phil could state with certainty was that it was one of those countries in North Africa; he could never remember which one was which except Egypt.  His inability to recall this little informational tidbit was a passive aggressive reaction to his ambivalence about his mother’s relationship with the young man.  Phil was not now, nor had he ever been a racist, at least not any more than most people, but the idea of his mom having a North African lover was something he never seemed to get comfortable with.  Maybe it was the man’s age, which was not much older than Phil.  Of course, it didn’t matter, generally, whether Phil remembered the name of Ali’s homeland since they now lived in the Canaries, thanks to the incredibly large earnings from Ali’s participation, as a very young man, in the dot-com revolution. Phil couldn’t remember much about that either, but it had something to do with stock option bonuses and then finally selling his small internet company to a huge corporation and retiring at age 23 with more money than he’d ever need should he live to 100, which he probably would.

After Dave McCone killed himself and blamed her in his aforementioned never- satisfactorily-identified-feces-besmeared suicide note, Phil’s mom, Joan, went on a spiritual journey to discover everything that had lain internally dormant during her long, sexless marriage to a guy who ended up being neither as smart nor as funny as she first thought.  Evidently, there was a whole shit-load of stuff lying dormant in there, and of course, such a journey after a sexless marriage often means having sex.  Lots of it, in Joan’s case.  Without a doubt, the woman more than made up for lost time.  And as Joan, sexually speaking, was low mileage, with only one child and an intercourse tally in the low double digits, she was still quite a hottie at not quite 40 and therefore quite desirable to a very high percentage of well-off men of all ages.  And she started all these aerobics classes and power yoga and before you knew it she was modeling in print advertising for women of a certain age, like the Bloomingdales catalog.  She did more and more of this work over the years, and ran in some pretty lofty New York social circles, attending parties and fetes and soirees, usually as the uninvited guest of an uninvited guest, but still, it was most important, and advantageous, to be seen. And to have one’s photo snapped for Hamptons Magazine. Finding sexual partners was effortless and her appetite, despite Dave’s suicidal claim otherwise, quite insatiable, at least for the first few years following a reasonably modest grieving period.

It was in these aforementioned social circles that she met Mr. bin Safayeh, a young, handsome, young, coffee-complexioned… very young man who favored expensive hand-made shirts and colorful ties.  He was intrigued by this woman, older by almost twenty years yet still so youthful, so ripe.  She was like none of the American girls he dated, mostly just to have sex with and move on.  She had a depth.  She had seasoning.  She had developed, in the years just prior to their meeting, enviable skills in the bedroom.  He fell in love.

Joan, for her part, was intrigued by him, because one of her divorced friends had been going on and on about her Arab lover, and even though Ali was technically North African, that was kind of like Arab, as was his name.  Anyway, he was dark-skinned (extremely so when compared to the pasty, late Dave), which was another thing Joan wanted to explore, just because it seemed exotic. She never harbored an idea of falling in love with this man.  He was too young, too different.  Even too rich.  Why would she want to end up with a guy who thought he could own her by buying her diamonds and designer clothes and taking her on holidays in private jets… wait a minute.  Maybe he wasn’t too rich.  She could get used to that kind of thing.  Really, who couldn’t?

And so this love affair started and never stopped.  Phil couldn’t figure it out; to his credit, he didn’t try.  He figured, if his father had screwed him up so badly, all those years with him must have been rough on his mom, too, and now she seemed happy, so did it really matter if she dated a young, rich guy?  Naturally, had she been happy when Phil was a kid, then today’s Phil might not see the glass as half empty; actually a little more than half.  For example, look at this glass through Phil’s eyes.  You see?  Right there.  Look closely.  The liquid line -- what is that called, the meniscus? -- is definitely below the mid-line, which would actually be right about… here. Right?  How could it be half full if it’s more than half empty?

On the phone, he updated his mother on his work, his new status as an engaged person, and some other things of that ilk.  She seemed pleased about his betrothal and wanted to meet Marika.  She had plans to be downtown that Saturday, and so Phil asked if she wanted to stop in, see the apartment and meet his fiancée.  Maybe they could have brunch.  Joan said this sounded great, and they set a time.

After inviting her, Phil wasn’t so sure that this was such a good idea.  They should have met on neutral ground, perhaps. Phil should have met with Joan first, just the two of them, as it had been years since they had seen each other.  What if she had changed?  Of course she had.  Maybe she was Muslim now, or whatnot.  What if Marika couldn’t stand her?  What if she couldn’t stand Marika?  Why couldn’t she be like all his friends’ moms and live in the USA and have been remarried to a plumber, or a small business executive, or a gambling addict, or something like that?  Why did everything in Phil’s life seem to veer to the extreme?  He yearned for normalcy, even if that might be boring.  Maybe life was supposed to be boring.  All those people looking for adventure, jumping out of planes, taking designer drugs and dyeing their hair puce on a whim, maybe they had it all wrong.  Maybe sameness and predictability were the keys to life’s castle.

And did Phil really want to meet this Ali bin whatever?  Not especially.  This man was fucking his mother.  Yes, he was a motherfucker and the mother he was fucking was Phil’s. Sure, if Ali were some middle-aged guy from Philadelphia or some other town that Phil could pronounce and actually had visited once or twice (in which case the man’s name in all probability wouldn’t be Ali; it would be Steve or something) maybe then Phil would have been invited to dinner once or twice, then he could probably live with the idea of his mother having sex; this out-of-nowhere love affair with some playboy millionaire from an oasis in the Sahara, however, would take some getting used to.  And no, it wasn’t racist!  Not Phil!  It was just… unexpected! Nothing like this ever happened to his other friends, like Burt.  Burt’s parents were still together.

But having already agreed to brunch, he was behooved to go forward with the arrangements as to do otherwise at this point woulc be insulting or rude.  Of course, it was still only Tuesday, so any number of things could happen between now and the weekend to change everything.

Marika had been warmer the last week or so. Sure, she was still insisting that they meditate at inconveniently odd times of the day, and she hadn’t given in on the sex thing, but she seemed to be turning on that issue as well.  Just last night, she had allowed him to kiss her, really kiss her, and even though Phil’s ardor was slightly clouded by pop-ups of Stephanie, he was still easily aroused by his fiancée’s expertly darting tongue.  This arousal manifested itself in the usual way, and Marika didn’t seem displeased in the least.  In fact, she gave the package a nice friendly squeeze before getting out of bed to take her shower.  Phil was frustrated, but he took it as a good sign that the oath of celibacy might soon come to an end.  Of course, that wasn’t necessarily a good thing as it would cloud his decision-making regarding Stephanie and all that, but he was so ready to have sex he was willing to live with the conflict of feelings that some great, hot sex with Marika might produce.  Frankly, the whole situation vaguely nauseated him, the twistedness of it all, the fact that actually having sex with the woman he was supposed to soon marry would feel like cheating on a woman from his dreams who he never slept with; yet, in his current state of desire and almost ‘round-the-clock tumescence, any chance at sex might merit consideration.  That, naturally, brought up the guilty feelings regarding cheating, with his self-image as a nice guy and all.  True, he was going pretty far down the path toward infidelity with Stephanie; let’s face it, if she said yes, he’d take her to bed instantaneously and worry about feeling guilty later.  And really, a man could only go so long without sex, right?  Isn’t a man entitled to a sex life as a right?  Isn’t that in the Constitution or the Bill of Rights?  Why not?  After all, the Founding Fathers covered religion and guns.  Maybe sex fell under the catch-all “pursuit of happiness?”

Phil had read in The Depth of You, or someplace, about the Buddhist precept “craving equals suffering,” but his own precept was that the only sure way to end that suffering was to satisfy the craving.  Sure, it might be more efficient, long term, to get rid of the craving altogether, which would relieve the suffering permanently, but Phil didn’t see himself giving up sex for the rest of his life.  He figured that once you had sex and decided you liked it, and liked it a lot, it was too late, on a pragmatic level, to become a monk or a priest.  And look what happened to all of those priests who took vows of celibacy and then found themselves fondling altar boys.  Or girls.  Sure, they were a tiny minority, but maybe that proved that, no matter where one’s heart was, spirituality-wise, not everyone was cut out for this celibacy business, even if it seemed like a good idea at the time.

Craving and suffering aside, Phil and Marika planned a menu for the brunch.  He would have stayed simple, but she wanted to go all out: eggs Benedict on home-baked English Muffins, a batch of Bellinis with fresh-squeezed orange juice, haul the cappuccino machine down from the shelf where it had resided since it had been received as a very generous, if impersonal, engagement gift.  She was truly excited to finally meet Joan; coming as it did on the heels of their hard work to increase their premarital Kundilini, Joan and Ali’s visit seemed a good omen.  Even though Phil’s tenuous relationship with his mother meant that Marika didn’t feel a desperate need to win Joan’s approval, she knew, at least subconsciously, that getting thumbs up from her future mother-in-law could help smooth the path toward wedded bliss.

The one thing distracting Marika these days was her new friendship with this Zee person.  No, they hadn’t gotten together since Zee’s first letter. They had spoken on the phone and e-mailed each other several times, yet Marika still thought of her as “this Zee person.”  It was probably the tattoo fetish that made her unable to completely tear down the barrier she felt between Zee and herself, but maybe it was something more.  Although Zee hadn’t made any overt statements indicating any such intentions, Marika couldn’t help but think that Zee found her attractive sexually.  Part of this was Marika’s egoistic (and generally accurate) view that men and lesbians generally found her physically attractive, yet there was something in Zee’s eyes that night at the bar that Marika recognized as a look she got from men who wanted to get into her pants.  And most men wanted to get into her pants, partly because she was appealing, but mostly because they were men.  And Marika gave off some kind of heat, or energy, that men picked up on. She gave off sexual energy, simple as that.  She knew it, and it had served her well, both personally and professionally, to let those vibrations flow out to the world in all directions.  In any event, when Zee had suggested they meet at the Museum of Modern Art at lunchtime on Wednesday, Marika said yes without even a second thought.  Whatever happened there, it would be fun.  Or at least weirdly entertaining.

That same Wednesday, Phil had agreed to meet Stephanie for lunch and maybe a little stroll in Central Park.  He wanted to have drinks again, but she demurred.  She thought it less likely that they’d end up sleeping together if they met for lunch rather than at a bar after work, and that seemed sensible, given that she had always been a cheap date and following their first drinks at that midtown bar, by the second or third martini, she felt a familiar stirring in her loins.  Having been celibate for so long, she really didn’t want to let her guard down while drunk and sleep with her college friend’s fiancé.  It just hadn’t seemed like a good idea.  It still didn’t.

After a fabulous sushi lunch, the weather being quite fine, they walked through the park, by the lake. During lunch Phil had been enormously funny and unselfconscious.  This was unusual because around women he found attractive Phil had always been awkward.  He didn’t know why he was so “on,” exactly, but he had both Stephanie and the sushi chef in stitches.  Phil couldn’t tell “jokes,” but for some reason every observation out of his mouth was pithy and genuinely humorous, so much so that the chef poured them large servings of sake from his own private stash. And Stephanie, and not just because of the sake, was being charmed by Phil, little by little. This was undeniable. It was apparent that he liked her quite a bit, in a way that went beyond sexual attraction.  She started to see what she found so sexy about him in the realm of dreams before they met in real life. He had a cute smile, and nice teeth.  And his eyes were blue, a particular shade of a deep sky blue for which she always had displayed a weakness.  And when once or twice their arms touched, seemingly by accident, she couldn’t help but notice that his skin was warm and soft, as soft as hers, even.  Not to mention the fact that for the first time since she had lain eyes on the real him, Phil left his worn-out T-shirts at home and sported a pretty cool button-down that showed off a fairly fit midsection and nicely muscled shoulders.  She even flashed back to the first dreams, before she know who he was, when he was on top of her, her legs wrapped around him, and he was sliding so slowly into her, keeping her on the edge of climax ‘til her eyes rolled back in her head and she was literally begging for more, something she would simply never do in real life.  Phil looked over at her while she was reliving the dream, and she blushed.  He seemed to know what she was thinking. The sushi chef, like the waitress in the bar at their first meeting, thought them a nice couple and sensed something meaningful between them. For “dessert” he made them uni with quail egg, and winked at Phil. “Hmm. Stamina.”

What was she doing?  But then again, how could she stop the inevitable?  Not just how, but why?  Maybe this was simply meant to be… these and other clichés about love and relationships ping-ponged around in her mind.

For his part, Phil couldn’t stop looking at her, catching a glimpse of her at every opportunity.  If she had noticed his sidelong glances, she might have thought he had a facial tic.  He tried to keep her laughing, and for some reason everything he said got at least a smile.  God, she was gorgeous.  The way she occasionally tossed her silky smooth hair, the shine in her green eyes, the way he could see the soft valley of her modestly fetching cleavage peeking out from the neck of her cashmere blouse that was open one button below the norm.  Was that for him?  Or by accident?  He didn’t know, nor did he care.  All he wanted to do was to make this go on forever.  Sure, there was some guilt.  He was letting himself fall for another woman only days away from introducing his fiancé to his mother.  Yes, there was plenty here that was wrong, but nothing that couldn’t be sorted out.  Marika was a great woman, to be sure, and she deserved someone who loved her unconditionally.  She’d be angry, of course, who wouldn’t be, but she’d ultimately appreciate the fact that getting married to a man who didn’t feel a truly deep love for her did not bode well for a happy future.  It would be better for all of them in the long run to make sure.  Right?  And if “all things happen for a reason,” as detailed in The Depth of You (although Phil still couldn’t recall where he’d read it), then certainly Phil’s dreams of Stephanie and their subsequent meeting happened because the cosmos intended to make their lives collide like comets, in a wonderful explosion.

This was all fine in theory, but how to put it over the top?  Could they close the deal?  Should they? Would they be able to put aside their misgivings, guilt, and plain good manners and make this happen?  Questions lingered everywhere, some of them very uncomfortable.

As they walked through Central Park, over and under Gothic and Bow bridges, taking in the fine weather of this summer day and basking in the glow of each other, one thing was certain: they couldn’t ignore these feelings anymore.  They had been talking about this and that on the way into the park, but now they were silent. No communication was needed.  If an infrared picture had been taken of them at that moment, a warm red field of heat energy would flow between them, each of them a source, with the energy radiating toward the other.  No.  Really.  On impulse, Phil took her hand and to her surprise and his she didn’t pull away. They looked at each other, acknowledging the symbolism of this gesture, silently agreeing that they had crossed a line that might change things; no, rather, would without a doubt change things in both of their lives tremendously. They walked on for long, luscious minutes like this, hand in hand, each almost afraid to look back at the other, as if doing so would somehow break the connection, or spell; they might burst into laughter and realize the silly, high-schoolish behavior that they were engaging in was simply that.  Nonetheless, they continued on in this way until they reached a century-old, adorable Victorian kiosk by the lake.

Entering the kiosk --or was it a gazebo? And what was the difference exactly?-- they were treated to the view it offered, framed by painted pine, some of it newly replaced, of the lake and, reflecting off its surface, the Art Deco buildings of the upper west side.  The Dakota, where John Lennon lived and was murdered. Imagine. They stood there, gazing.  Phil snuck another peek at her out of the corner of his eye, her silhouette a shape he would never forget from that day forward. Once again acting on impulse, but without fear of being rebuffed, Phil put his arm around her, and pulled her close.  As she turned toward him, her eyes instinctively fluttered closed, and they kissed.  At the first electric meeting of their lips, she pulled back, not from repulsion or regret, but because of the powerful energy she felt.  This was weird.  She never felt this before, even with Gordon.  Looking deeply into his eyes, she reached up, held both sides of his head gently in her hands, and kissed him full on, her tongue pushing against his, their teeth clicking together, their lips, soft, pulling each other even closer.  It was her first kiss like this since her fiancé died, and it was fantastic, better even than she remembered, better than she had hoped.  Better, even, than chocolate.

To some, such public displays of affection are at least annoying if not downright offensive, even nauseating.  This can be simply because they remind us of something we don’t have, maybe did have and/or maybe never will.  Or it may be that we would prefer not to witness strangers sticking their tongues down each other’s throats and ruining our view of The Dakota, which is reasonable.  It is presumed that very few people, if any, actually enjoy such a spectacle, and indeed most unwilling voyeurs would wish only that the offending couple would get a room already.  Some might even feel an irrepressible urge to yell out this advice.  Be that as it may, at the moment Phil and Stephanie shared their first romantic lip lock, unbeknownst to them, they were being watched.  And not just by the company spy, no, but also by a very attractive middle-aged woman walking alone in the park.  She stood not far off, smiling to herself as she took in the sight of these two young people in love.  What was she thinking that brought that smile to her face?  Was it a memory of some moment like this in her past life, or perhaps merely the enjoyment of sharing a magical moment with two attractive strangers?  Whatever the reason, she stood, savoring the warmth of their kiss, their embrace, from fifty or so yards away, and then she turned toward the east and walked off, that smile, Mona Lisa-worthy, still playing across her very nicely proportioned, attractively glossed lips.

Over at the Museum of Modern Art, Zee and Marika strolled through the galleries, quietly gazing at paintings and enjoying the serenity. They were gorgeous together, like buttah, Zee in a simple T-shirt and jeans with a rip just below the left ass cheek that gave ample evidence of her body art (which competed rather successfully for attention with the gazillions of dollars in paintings that adorned the walls); Marika in a tasteful, flowing ensemble that accented her legs and height.  Soft music infused the space.  The lighting was museum-perfect.  It was a goddamned tampon commercial, a serious moment of bonding between two strong women.

“Marika?” Zee pulled her out of a painting.

“Yes?”

“I think I’m in love with you.”

Although Marika was subconsciously expecting this, she was also completely flustered and confused by Zee’s revelation.  She stood there with her head cocked slightly to one side like a large bird.  A really stupid large bird with big breasts.

“Did you hear me? I said I think I’m…”

“I heard you.  Yes.  I’m… I’m truly flattered.”

Uh-oh, Zee thought.  Flattered. Not a very promising response.

“What does that mean?”

“Mean?  It means I’m… happy you feel that way.  Surprised a bit, that’s all…”

“Do you feel that way about me?”

“Feel?  Well, you just said ‘love,” right?  I mean, that’s kind of way up there on the feelings list.  You know, it’s kind of a weird time.  I’ve been doing that tantric thing with Phil…”

“How’s that going?”

“It’s good… I think we’re growing closer…”

“Oh, I’m sorry…  I mean, I’m not sorry you’re getting closer, I’m sorry for hitting you with this while you’re dealing with your own relationship issues.”

“Issues?  No.  No, not at all.  I’m just saying, to have you come along like this, now, just right at this time… I mean, I guess it’s just like life.  Here I am, about to take this big plunge over the cliff of matrimony…”

“Do you really think of it as jumping off a cliff?”

“No… I’m kidding.  Couldn’t you see I was smiling when I said that?”

“Oh.”

“Anyway, this tantric experience is amazing.  You have to really throw yourself into it, which we have.  I feel a need to see it through.”

“It might also mean that you just don’t want to have sex with him right now.  You know, celibacy is easy when you don’t want to sleep with your partner… you know, like that.”

“I know, you’re right, I’m confused, and you’re confusing me.  I can’t feel the feelings in the feelings.  Where is that from?  Is that the Tao?

“That’s Thich Nhat Hanh, if I’m not mistaken.  No, I’m pretty certain.”

“When you say you love me, you mean what exactly?”

“I mean, I want to be with you.  I want to hold your hand and kiss you in public.  I want to sleep with you every night…”

Zee came closer, reaching her hand out to Marika.  Marika looked like a deer that just walked into a National Rifle Association picnic on the first day of hunting season.  And not wabbit hunting season.

“But… I’m not a lesbian.”

“Me neither.  That’s what’s so strange about this.  I’ve never been with a woman.  I deeply and intensely love sex with men, but then here you are. Not that I wouldn’t consider sharing a guy with you once in a while if you feel you need that sort of thing…” Boy, how stupid, Zee thought.  What sort of thing exactly? A penis?

Marika said nothing, yet the thought of her and Zee in bed with some unknown yet incredibly hot male specimen got her kind a’ horny.  Her reaction to this, however, was unexpected: Marika suddenly turned and bolted for the door.  Zee knew she blew it – too much too soon -- and ran after her, but as sleek and athletic Zee was, she could not keep pace with the former high school cross country team member, losing Marika’s trail somewhere between the museum and the subway. Zee was beside herself.  She slowly walked downtown, chain-smoking Camel Wides.

Phil and Stephanie parted at the entrance to the park.  They shared one last kiss, passionate, with just a discreet touch of sake-infused tongue.  Phil, all bubbly and exuberant after this goodbye, had another familiar feeling: guilt, his foundation of self.  Instead of panicking as he normally would, he took a few deep breaths. Ah, so something good did come out of this tantric training. Some deep breaths to release the toxic guilt.  There, that’s better.  With a little jaunt in his stride, Phil set course for the office.

But this nagging feeling he was being watched just wouldn’t go away.  And having stopped smoked weed, his paranoia tended to be justified.  Surreptitiously he looked over his shoulder, left, then right… There he was… that guy.  Kitson’s spy.  What a schmuck, that Kitson, doing this to his employees.  The guy was definitely following him, and who knew for how long?  He might have seen me making out with Stephanie!  Fuck!...  Wait, it’s okay.  No one at work ever met Marika.  Him meeting a woman, presumably his own fiancé, for lunch and a stroll in the park?  Perfectly normal.  To be applauded, even, as it smacked of at least future family values.

That’s it, Phil thought, I’m not going to let this get me all crazy.  He’s going to pay.  And with that, Phil ducked into the doors of the Plaza Hotel, almost knocking over a man with a briefcase and umbrella, even though it wasn’t expected to rain.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN:  STRIKE BACK AT “THE MAN”

As he dashed through the lobby, getting the once over from a security guard who quickly decided based on racial profiling that Phil couldn’t possibly be a terrorist, Phil recognized that he’d just crossed another line by taking action against his wage enslavement.  Truly, Dave Kitson was “the man” and he had to stick it to the man.  Or in this case, the man’s representative.  Phil wasn’t doing anything illegal.  He couldn’t hit the guy, or scream obscenities and tell him to go away, but he could make this company spook’s job a living hell, at least for a short, blissful stitch in time.  So Phil went for it, running through buildings, subway stations, hotel lobbies, a toy store in Times Square, up and down escalators and elevators of the Empire State Building, teasing the spy, letting him get close, and keeping his trail hot, but never letting the poor schmuck catch on that he was being led on a wild goose chase.  Somewhere between the Empire State and the office, Phil lost him.  From the spy’s perspective, the trail went cold.  Kitson, through his stooge, had been at least temporarily thwarted.

Arriving at the Fountain Building plaza, Phil elated in his victory, having reclaimed some sense of freedom from “the man.”  His feeling of genuine redemption, insignificant and somehow pathetic though it may have been given the circumstances, was validated moments later when he dropped a fiver in the homeless guy’s hat, under the giant statue of the capitalist, Josiah Fountain. For the first time, a reaction; even better, a wink and a nod from the guy.  It was as though he knew what had happened, what Phil had done, and they bonded through Phil’s jab at “the man;” two strangers, from different walks of life, yes, but kindred souls in the class wars all the same. Phil valued validation from this man of the street far more than he would from his employer.

Stephanie couldn’t believe she kissed Phil, and more than once. Not just kissed, either, but with tongue and a mashing of lips and teeth. What was she thinking? Sure it was nice, but I know his fiancé, for God’s sake! He’s engaged!  Still, he is a good kisser, I have to give him that. But what am I doing?  He’s Marika Simeon’s fiancé!

She called all her friends for advice.  To a woman, and one gay man, they agreed that it was pretty amazing that she met the guy she was dreaming about.  Most of them thought it might be a bit of a problem that he was engaged, but not necessarily a fatal complication to the relationship.  If he were married, that might be another thing, but engaged means there’s still time to meet someone you love even more than your fiancé. Her friend Judy, the redhead with Stephie at the theater the night she told her dream, and a self-proclaimed slut with a Queens accent, got right to the point and asked how it was.

“Good,” Stephanie replied, then giggling a little too girlishly, “actually, really good.  He has a nice mouth.  Soft lips.”

“Just fuck him already to see if he is the guy in the dream before you get too involved and attached and destroy the guy’s relationship with your old college buddy.”

“Not that it matters, but she was hardly a buddy.  We were in the dorms together, hung out a lot sophomore year with a whole bunch of people, but big fucking deal.”

“So? Why don’t you fuck him, then?”

“How can you tell me to have sex with him and in the same breath tell me not to get too involved?  You know I get attached when there’s sex in the equation.  And he only really likes me because he’s confused about getting married, probably.”

“Maybe he just really likes you,” Judy offered. “I mean, why not? You’re a babe.”

When Phil got home, Marika was in the kitchen, cleaning.  She was manically detailing the cabinets with a toothbrush, having already taken out every dish and platter and glass and stacked them on the countertop.

“What are you doing?

“It needed it. This place hasn’t had a deep cleaning in weeks.  I’m doing the bathroom next.”

Phil shrugged.   “Okay, whatever.  Are you going to floss the pipe joints again?”

As he turned to leave, she jumped on him from behind, her legs around his waist, and started ripping off his shirt.  What ensued was so erotically charged, Phil totally thought it was worth the wait, the meditating, the almost painful erections during full lotus position, all of it was worth the trouble if the sex was this good.  They went wild on the floor for hours, like animals, on the table, on the desk, in the closet, devouring each other practically everywhere in the apartment until climaxing in a red tantric explosion.  Phil literally passed out.  Marika laid there in his arms, a faraway look in her eyes.

Zee was a wreck.  She was smoking more than ever; at least she remained mostly sober.  The Twinkies were a bit of a problem, but she was walking the streets so much that it hardly mattered what she ate.  Marika hadn’t responded to her e-mails.  She tried to be witty, not serious, just lighten it up a little, but evidently her prose had fallen flat.  Maybe she could go back to that Burt guy and beg his advice and aid.  She dialed Marika’s celly a few times, only to hang up on the voicemail.  Of course, Marika would probably know it was her and this most assuredly was stalker-ish behavior, calling and hanging up.  At one point, Zee considered staking out the apartment, but luckily realized early on that that would most certainly send the wrong message.  So she settled for strolling by every once in a while, hoping she might “run into” the object of her affection.

“Yes, of course I know we had sex, but we had a couple of weeks left to finish the program and I think we should continue.”

“But it’s moot.  We already had sex.  The delay part, the holding back, that’s over.  That’s the point of tantric, isn’t it?  And it was amazing, darling, truly… not that I’d care to be celibate that often, but…”

“Just bear with me for the next 10 or so days.  You can just do that one thing for me, couldn’t you?”

Phil thought about Stephanie.  About the kiss in the park.  He thought how unfair it was for him to let Marika carry on believing everything was fine when he wasn’t so sure.   Was he going to let her continue with this tantric thing?  Wasn’t that wrong?  Yes, maybe, but he didn’t see any real choice in the matter.

“Of course I can, sweetie. We’ll do it any way you like.”

“Thank you.  Really.  I appreciate your willingness to be flexible.”

“Oh.  You’re welcome.”  Here he was, being all gracious, when he was in fact contemplating ending their engagement because he fell in love with a woman he met in his dream.  A woman Marika knew.  The guilt was overwhelming, or at least whelming.

No, Zee didn’t want to be a stalker, but she couldn’t sit back and forget about Marika either, so she continued to attempt a “chance” encounter, passing near Marika’s place once a day, stopping in at the market across the street for coffee and cigarettes even though she didn’t need any.  She thought there was a pretty good chance she’d run into Marika if she did this around the time that Marika left for work in the morning. For a few days this wasn’t fruitful.  Then, one morning, she was examining the fruit salad in the display.  It was way too expensive, but it looked real nice, the strawberries the right color red, a smattering of blueberries and some very fresh and ripe looking orange and green melon slices; and the way the whole thing looked slightly moist yet still quite firm and sweet under its layer of taut clear plastic wrap, professional grade, she couldn’t take her eyes off it.  Which is why when she backed slowly away, she smacked right into someone.

“Zee?”

She jumped at hearing her name, both surprised to see Phil and disappointed that it wasn’t Marika.

“Phil?  What are you doing here?”

“I live across the street.”

“Oh, really?  Wow.  So… how are you?”

Phil was staring at her again.  He couldn’t help himself.  Her beauty was undeniable, staggering even, despite the bad fluorescent lighting of the Korean market, enhanced by the fruit salad display.  Her tattoos against the background of beautiful fruit sitting on a pile of shiny ice was almost too much to bear, like a Chagall perfectly replicated in stained glass… fruit.

“I’m fine,” he finally managed.

“How’s Marika?

“Marika?  Oh, she’s, she’s great.  Thanks for asking.  You have a great memory for names.  I never remember people’s names after talking to them just once at a bar.”

“Huh?  Oh, sure, well, actually, it’s a good skill for a bartender.  Listen, can I talk to you for a bit?”

After they made their purchases, Zee walked Phil toward the subway and told him, in incredible detail, about the dream with her and Phil and Stephanie sleeping together and Marika watching in the background.  She wasn’t sure why she was telling him this, but it seemed like a good way to steer the conversation toward her feelings for Marika.  Phil was amazed that Zee also had the dream.  What are the chances?  And it was so sexy hearing Zee, in her bedroom-smokey voice, talking about having sex with him and Stephanie.  This beautiful woman describing with incredible verbal dexterity the narrative of an earth-shaking ménage a trois.  Phil could only wish once again that it had been real.

It was a relief, yet another person experienced what he was going through. So he told her all about his dreams, including the ones with just him and Stephanie. She couldn’t get her head around this dream-sharing thing.  He wondered if Zee telling him about her dreams meant she wanted to sleep with him after all, and if so, maybe he could manage this ménage, one way or another.

As if to confirm his hunch, Zee kissed him again, hard, her tongue and teeth smashing against his own, but then stopped as abruptly as the last time.

“You’re not really into me, are you?” She wondered, surprised. Sort of.  And to his surprise, he wasn’t.

“You’re amazing, Zee.  I mean that.  You’re way out of my league, in fact.  But also, I’m trying to make this work with Marika.  We did this tantric thing.  We didn’t have sex for, like, months.  And we used to fuck all the time, excuse my French.”

“No problem.  Fucking is a fine way for a couple to spend free time.”

“And then the other night, I think it was Wednesday?  I came home and she was obsessively cleaning and I said hi and she jumped on me and almost fucked me to death, I swear to god.  It was amazing.”

“Wednesday?”

“Yeah, in the afternoon.  I don’t know what came over her.”

“I do.”

“You do?”

“I don’t know how to say this, but you know how I said I don’t feel ‘The Thing’ with you?”

“Yes.  That’s completely annoying, by the way, that whole ‘feel The Thing’ thing.  I hate that.”

“Sorry, but maybe not as annoying as this: I feel ‘the thing’ with Marika.”

Phil didn’t know Zee very well; he thought that very probably this was just her way of joking.  She was kidding right?  Zee considered sleeping with him but instead she now wanted to fuck his fiancé, a woman?  This was either brilliantly sick, or sickly brilliant, he didn’t know which, but he knew that one of those wasn’t too good.  On the other hand, this revelation did offer interesting possibilities, if she wasn’t kidding.

“Are you saying you’re in love with her, and don’t want her to marry me so you can be with her?”

Zee heard every word of this question and it gave her pause.  It was, in fact, exactly what she was suggesting, of a fashion.  Why else would she be telling this man that she was in love with his fiancé?  And this idea made it more crystal clear the kind of sea change, or Zee change, that her life was to undergo if she took this step.  The starkness of it hit her like a lead pipe, or so she imagined, thankfully having never been hit by a lead pipe.  She was declaring her love for a woman she barely knew.  To that woman’s fiancé.

“Yes.  That’s what I’m saying.” It was that day, Zee thought, the same day she ran from me at the museum.  She came home and broke her vow of celibacy because of me!  She fucked Phil, but she was thinking of me. Or so Zee hoped.  She was pretty sure.

“I don’t know what to say.” Phil responded, shaking his head at the craziness of it all.  “This wasn’t what I expected, to say the least. And I’m late for work.”

“Could we talk another time?”  They were at the subway.

“Yeah…  Give me your e-mail.”

Stephanie, meanwhile, still couldn’t get the kiss out of her head. She played it over in her mind, the kisses, the hand-holding, the walk in the park.  She felt like an adolescent, giggling like a schoolgirl at inappropriate moments.  She fought the impulse to call Phil, reasoning that it was morally, karmically wrong to carry on a relationship with her old friend’s fiancé.  Well, not really a “friend,” let’s face it, she thought.  We were kind of friendly in college.  I don’t speak to anyone from back then, hardly.  But this was no excuse.  Still, there was something powerful about these dreams, and about the chemistry she was starting to feel with Phil.  Maybe this is what it’s all about, she thought.  When the right people meet each other, it’s like everything else falls away.

Finally, Saturday arrived, the day of the brunch.  Nothing happened in the intervening time to forestall the inevitable, nothing that would justify cancellation, at any rate, and so it was on.  Phil and Marika baked, cooked, sliced and mixed all morning, practically from dawn after starting the day with a quick meditation. The buzzer finally rang.  The moment of truth had arrived in the form of Joan.  Phil opened the door and there she was, a truly beautiful middle aged woman, still in her prime, with perfectly done make up.  Phil, who like most guys couldn’t possibly ever acknowledge his mother was a hottie, the object of many men’s attention and desire, felt uncomfortable when she looked so good.  When he was younger, he could sense his friends ogling her and tried to ignore it.  He gave her a hug, the kind where you lean over and touch shoulders. Not a real hug.

“Phil, you remember Ali?”

This was a surprise, as for some reason Phil thought Joan was coming alone, but here he was, the motherfucker.  Phil couldn’t help but think this, and of course, he was joking in his own head and almost laughed out loud but then caught himself, which was good as he’d have a terrible time explaining his inappropriate laughter.  He gave Ali a hearty handshake and a clasp on the shoulder.

“Actually, Mom, Ali and I have never met, but it’s a pleasure.  Come in.  Let me take your jackets.”

“I thought you met in D.C. that time we…”

“It was that weekend with the high terrorist alert and you told me not to fly to Washington, remember?”

“Beautiful place,” Ali said, as he entered the tiny one bedroom with a view of the buildings across the street.

“Small, though,” Phil offered.

“I like it.  I had a place just like this back when I lived in the city.” Ali added.

“Where?”

“Upper East Side?”

“Nice… You look great, Mom.  Life’s treating you well.”

“Ali treats me well.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.  You attract kindness wherever you go.”  Joan smiled at Ali in a way Phil had never seen her smile.  He smiled back the same way.  Would you look at that, thought Phil.  They’re in love.

‘Twas then he noticed the very large diamond on Joan’s left hand.  Obviously there was some big news.

“Nice ring.”

“I was just about to tell you, Phil.  Ali and I are engaged.  No date yet.”

“Congratulations!  And funny, too, about the date.  We don’t have one either. Maybe we could have a double wedding.”  Phil was joking; neither Joan nor Ali got it.  Luckily, however, at that precise moment, Marika entered in a figure-hugging sun dress, looking fantastic, her hair up loosely, with just a kiss of make-up.  She crossed immediately over to Joan and embraced her.  Joan accepted the hug, but the look on her face was one of great disappointment that only Phil could see.  He didn’t know what it was about.  His mother was never the kind of person to judge on appearances or make too much of first impressions.  But maybe he was projecting.

The brunch was, in a word, amicable but boring, the conversation peppered with platitudes and clichés, talk of weather and movies.  This was to be expected under the circumstances: Phil had never met Ali, and Ali never met Phil or Marika, and most importantly, the first meeting between Marika and Joan and the overhanging, unspoken possibility that they might not like each other, or more to the point, that Joan might not approve of her son’s fiancé.  Marika was trying very hard to please her guests, too hard, in fact.  She laughed too loudly at their quips. At one point, Phil thought Joan even winced at the ear-piercing quality of one particularly equine guffaw.

Ali, on the other hand, seemed to be the most laid-back, easygoing person in the world.  Phil surmised correctly that this was the product both of good parenting and the early attainment of wealth, which left the young man with very little to worry about and almost nothing that he couldn’t have, if he wanted it.  Even though Phil was all set to not like the guy who was having his way with his mom (often a few times a day – a factoid of which Phil was mercifully unaware), he found himself understanding why his mom liked Ali so much, and seeing, too, that Ali’s love for Joan was quite genuine, not based only on sex or some kind of older woman fetish.  He obviously adored Joan in a way that Phil wished he could feel about a woman, especially about Marika, his betrothed.  Here was yet another lesson in life, as well as something else he would need to ignore in order to marry Marika.  Either that, or meditate himself into feeling that way.

Halfway through the brunch and the trite conversation, after Marika had plated and served the crepes, there was a loud knock on the door.

“Are you expecting anyone?” Marika asked Phil.  Phil shook his head and went to the door.  There had been no call from the doorman in the lobby announcing a visitor, which was odd.  It could be a neighbor; maybe one of the kids in the building was selling candy or wrapping paper for his or her school.  Or maybe it was someone the doorman knew well enough to allow up without calling first.

And that was indeed the case as Phil looked through the peephole and saw the jovial face of his comrade in arms.  He opened the door.  Burt stood there, beaming, a bottle of vintage Dom Perignon in one hand, his other arm around a gorgeous female specimen with wavy, natural blond hair, saucer-like steel blue eyes and large breasts tipped with what seemed to be permanently erect nipples visible through two or three layers of fabric.

“Hi Burt.”

“Hey, I hope we’re not interrupting anything.”

“Well, I…”

“Phil, this is Babs, my agent… and girlfriend.  Babs, this is my closest, dearest friend, Phil.  Can we come in?”

Without waiting for an answer, and with Phil unable to supply one as he was understandably staring at Babs, as she was the most beautiful woman Burt had ever been with, by far, Burt and Babs, or B & B as they would become known for a short time, entered the room like they owned the place.  Why such a genetically gifted woman was toiling away in the book agent game was certainly a fair question, yet here she was, an agent, and evidently a very good one.  She even gave Phil a hug, pressing her ample bosom against his chest in such a way as to cause a brief semi-erection and confirm that these boobs were, like her blond-ness, real, and that she wore the same scent as Stephanie, the one that made Phil think of sex.

Everyone at the table stood to greet the uninvited guests. And Joan was pleasantly surprised to see Burt, the only one of Phil’s friends she had actually met, not including, of course, a few boyhood playmates.  Burt seemed rather pleased to see Joan as well, and they hugged.

“Mrs. M, it’s so nice to see you!” Burt beamed.  “You look great.  I mean, really, you haven’t changed a bit.”
“Burton, I would think that by this point you could call me Joan.”  She was apparently flattered by his greeting, which was followed by introductions all around.

“I hope we’re not interrupting,” Burt repeated, “but we just got some incredible news and I couldn’t wait to share it with Phil.”

And then, speaking hurriedly and excitedly like a kid who just got the coolest new gaming system for Christmas, Burt announced that the publisher Babs hooked him up with was so in love with “The Oaf” that they were rushing to print at the tune of hundreds of thousands of copies, and not only that, soon after publication Burt would go on a multi-city book tour, and the publisher promised he’d pull as many favors as necessary to arrange for Burt to kick it off with an appearance on Jon Stewart’s show.

Phil did his best to conceal his incredible jealousy and self-loathing.  He thought about jumping out the window.  Not actually doing it, mind you, but what effect it might have on everyone.  Burt popped the champagne.

“Phil, why don’t you tell your mom about how the whole thing came about?”

Phil was pretty sure he couldn’t properly work his mouth, but he managed to say, “No, Burt, you go right ahead.  I’ll get some glasses.”

“Well, all right.  It all started with this improv theater thing I was doing, Dreamplays.  I asked Phil to come that night and…”

And so, with Babs beaming up at him with pride and affection, Burt went on and on, for quite a while, telling Joan, Marika and Ali the story of how he wrote his novel based on Phil’s dream, which he outlined in great detail.  And about how he sent it to a friend, who sent it to Babs, who sent it to a friend at a publishing company, who gave it to her boss, who gave it to her boss, and on and on, up the ladder, until the big cheese read it and went crazy for it, and now, here he was, Burt Botwinck, a large advance in his bank account, about to be published by a major publisher, sure to be reviewed by the New York Times, the Times of London, the L.A. Times, in short, all of the Timeses... with a book tour and TV appearances, and on top of all of this, he had met the woman of his dreams, the incredibly beautiful, well-read, and amply endowed Babs.  And he had Phil to thank for all of it, and he was going to insist Phil write the screenplay with him, when, not if, the movie rights were sold, which Babs insisted was imminent.

What followed was an awkward silence.  Marika and Joan didn’t say anything. They just looked at Phil like, you idiot, how could you just give away a great story like that?  Joan gathered herself in time to congratulate Burt, who was so busy filling champagne glasses that he didn’t even notice the discomfort in the room.  Phil felt like a boob.  It was bad enough when he was just imagining that Burt would become famous by selling “The Oaf,” but now it was real, a done deal.  Burt, he of the unfinished one act play, was moving on to literary greatness.  As Burt passed out filled champagne glasses, no one seemed to notice Phil’s pain, except Ali.

Ali understood all too well the jealousy that others felt at their friends’ successes.  Many of his friends, most of whom were from politically attached, powerful families themselves, had a hard time accepting Ali’s sudden and vast jump into stratospheric echelons of great wealth.  Being a sensitive young man who valued his friendships, Ali had managed to counter the envy of his friends through his generous, empathetic actions, not necessarily by buying their love, but rather by conducting himself in a way that made them realize he was still the same old Ali, only richer, and eventually their negative feelings passed.  Not knowing Phil very well, Ali wasn’t sure how to handle the situation, or whether his sympathy would be welcome at all, but nonetheless, unseen by the others, Ali gave Phil a truly warm and understanding pat on the back.  Phil looked him in the eyes.  Ali smiled gently, as if to say, “your time will come.”  Phil did all he could to keep the tear welling up in his eye from rolling down his face, but it did. Luckily, to protect his own pride, Phil managed to wipe it away with none but Ali taking notice. While Phil thought his display the epitome of pathetic, Ali was actually moved by it; jealousy was not a positive emotion, but a human one, and Ali was not one to be put off by humanity.

And so it went.  Once the bottle was finished, Phil, being a big sport, pulled out another, not as expensive, but decent and French, and they polished that off as well.  Between the Bellinis and the champagne, everyone was feeling pretty good, except Phil, and even he was feeling a little better with a buzz as the afternoon wore on.  Finally, Joan announced that she and Ali had some dinner plans with some of his old friends uptown, and they needed to go.

A long goodbye followed, and at some point, Phil found himself alone with his mother, talking quietly.

“You think I’m an idiot, don’t you?”  Phil asked.

“About what?”

“Giving away my story to Burt.”

“No, of course not, sweetie.  I would have loved you to benefit from it, sure, but he’s your good friend.  It was very generous of you.  Maybe you should write the screenplay with him?  It seems like a nice idea.  You always were a very good writer.”

“Me?  Not really.”

“Yes you were.  Remember that paper you wrote on Joan of Arc in tenth grade?  Mrs. Dubinsky thought it was brilliant.”

“Mom, an A on a paper in tenth grade does not qualify one as a writer.”

“An A-plus.” Joan corrected him.

“Well, then, what is it?”

“What’s what?”

“There’s this look of disappointment you’ve had all afternoon.  I saw it as soon as Marika walked in.  What’s going on?”

“I’m not disappointed.”

“No?” Phil challenged.  “Look, Mom, I don’t see you that often anymore, but I know what you look like when you’re disappointed.  You’re my mother, for Pete’s sake.”

Joan was caught in a lie.  Something was bothering her, and she couldn’t cover it up.  She didn’t want to come clean, that was apparent, yet she couldn’t leave without saying what she was thinking.  So, after taking a look to see that Marika was quite deeply involved in conversation with Ali, Babs and Burt, she leaned in, and whispered in Phil’s ear.  “I was thinking… well, I think that the woman I saw you kissing in that gazebo – or is that a kiosk? – in Central Park on Wednesday afternoon is much more your type.”

Phil was, to say the least, floored.  Never in a million years could he have anticipated that his mother had witnessed his moment with Stephanie.  And yet it was almost a relief.  Here she was, the woman from whose loins he sprung, saying the exact thing that he had been thinking these last several weeks: that it was Stephanie, not Marika, with whom his destiny lay. Or is it laid? Lied? No matter. The shock of that revelation was almost too much to bear.

Phil needed to talk to his mother.  He needed to hear her say it again.  He just had to get more of her opinion on this, as clearly she had one.  It was weighing on him heavily, and she was his only family.  So he asked if she could meet him for lunch some day in the next week.  They could have lunch in his office building.  An excellent restaurant, The Top of the Town, was housed on the top floor of the Fountain Building, with incredible views of the city.  She could meet him there.  Joan was happy to oblige, and so they made a date for Tuesday.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN: CAWFEE TAWK

Meanwhile, back in Washington, D.C, Dick Cheney’s dreams were growing even more bizarre. He had never been one to lose sleep over just about anything, especially dreams, but the bin Laden visions continued unabated, haunting him to the point where he had taken to wandering the halls late at night, muttering.  It was the worst he’d felt since the midterm congressional elections.  He couldn’t even talk to Lynne about it, as she would just worry more about his health. On top of it all, there was recent intelligence of an imminent attack, lots of internet chatter and excitement in the terrorist cell networks that something was going down.  It didn’t fit the usual patterns; something wasn’t quite right, but he couldn’t ignore it.  The worst possible thing would be another successful operation by Muslim extremists on American soil before the next presidential election. Or any extremists for that matter. Then the Republicans would lose the presidency for sure, and, combined with the loss of a congressional majority in the midterms, all of the work he’d done over the last two terms would be flushed down the toilet by the next Democrat administration.  He had a legacy to protect.  Sure, they were looking a bit overmatched now, but he knew in his gut that history would prove him right.  And even if it didn’t, he wasn’t about to blow all the gains he made for his pals at Halliburton and elsewhere.  The gravy train was on the move, and he was determined to keep it from derailing.  The best way to do this would be to thwart another terrorist attack, establish an Iran connection, and open up an Eastern front in the War on Terror.

But these dreams, and the sleep he was losing, were making his life a living hell.  He didn’t know what to do with himself.  Back in the day, he’d go hunting.  Shooting a bunch of ducks or deer always cheered him up, but that was a no-no these days, ever since he shot his old buddy in the face.  Damn it, didn’t people know how to duck buckshot anymore?

The only thing that would relax him, that he could manage without starting a shit storm in the press, was to head to a safe location, which always made him feel better.  He chose the bunker out in Virginia.  Something about a bunker was very reassuring.  But once there, he was still tormented. Even his short afternoon naps were interrupted by bin Laden and his nasty beard.   One time, he dreamed that he went to a reunion at his old fraternity house, and all of the brothers were wearing bin Laden beards.  In his dream, he thought they must have been playing a prank on him, so he went around the room trying to pull the fake beards off, figuring they were the kind with the little ear-hook attachments, but this time they were real and couldn’t be removed.  He knew what it meant, too.  It meant that not even his oldest confidantes could be counted on to help him out of the mess that the war had become.

He hadn’t told anyone besides Lynne about the dreams, but this was getting out of hand.  He asked his cardiologist if his new heart medication could cause weird visions, but the doctor said he’d never heard of such a side effect. He even spent hours on-line, looking for anyone who had reported any similar experiences, knowing all too well that the pharmaceutical companies, bless their little Republican campaign-contributing hearts, would cover up all kinds of weird side effects for as long as they could, but to no avail.  It got so bad that some nights he gave up trying to sleep at all, instead coming up with new scenarios to make money off the war.  That was actually not such a bad thing, as he had quite a few strokes of genius.  And of course, there was Iran.  That was a whole other can of worms that needed to be opened.  Maybe another war would be just the thing to take his mind off the dreams and bring him a new sense of purpose, and clearer focus on the matters at hand.  Ever since the hostage crisis during the Carter Administration thirty years earlier, Americans hated Iran, so selling the people on a war against that wheel on the axis of evil couldn’t be that difficult.

Stephanie sat at her desk, but she wasn’t working.  No, she was thinking about Phil, again.  She thought about him quite often these last few days.  Only instead of her conflicted thoughts of a few weeks earlier, she found herself fantasizing about going to bed with him.  Not that she was completely sure she wanted to, but she was really getting horny, what with those dreams and all the talk with her girlfriends, especially Judy, who begged relentlessly until Stephanie would retell the last episode in graphic detail.  And while she always had a healthy sex drive, at least before Gordon died on top of and inside her, this was a whole new thing.  It was like a deep, inner aching need for a man.  And not just any man, but Phil, a guy who, based on her past relationships, was not anything like her type.  Weird.

The idea of needing a man was not something she was particularly fond of, as she had become quite used to the idea of being alone, and strongly believed that a good sign of character was confidence in one’s ability to continue on without a mate; more than that, it was a badge of honor, this strong sense that she didn’t need a man to define her, to help her feel comfortable and secure about her place in the world.  But then this whole Phil thing happened and got her panties all in a twist, so to speak, and suddenly, there she was, thinking about taking him to bed.  More than thinking about it, she was fashioning detailed lovemaking scenarios that got hotter and hotter until she couldn’t even focus on her work.  It might require yet another night flight of the Intruder, although she was getting tired of plastic and was longing for real human contact.

It was at this precise moment, sitting at her desk thinking longingly about being, for the first time in ages, penetrated deeply and repeatedly, that Stephanie’s phone rang.  It startled her out of her reverie.  Not that her phone didn’t ring often, being as she was a trusts and estates paralegal at a midsize law firm, but because it hadn’t yet rung this particular morning, the phone seemed louder than usual.  She pulled herself together and answered.  It was Marika.  Wow.  Coincidence?  She thought not.

“Hi, Stephanie.  It’s, Marika.”

“Oh…Marika, hi.  How are you?”

“Okay.  A little stressed actually.  How’re things with you?  Did I interrupt anything?  It sounds like you’re involved with something.  Is this a bad time?”

Yes, she thought to herself.  I was just fantasizing about fucking your fiancé.

“No, no, just working.  I’m good, fine.  Getting some work done, you know, the usual.  Been to yoga lately?”

“No.  I’ve been too busy...  Listen, I was wondering if you might like to meet me for coffee.  There’s something I’d like to discuss with you.”

“You sound upset.  Is everything okay?”

“I’m not upset.  Not really.  Maybe a little, but that’s why I’d like to talk to you… as a friend.”

“Oh?  What is it?”

“It’s a little uncomfortable to discuss over the phone. Can you get away from the office later?  Just for a quick coffee.  This shouldn’t take long.”

Don’t do it! Just say no! Stephanie shouted to herself in her mind, suddenly feeling a little panicked.  Why am I so panicky?  Because Marika knows.  That’s got to be it.  What else could it be?  Phil told her about us, and she’s upset and wants to sit down and discuss it with me.  Why didn’t he tell me he was going to tell her?  What kind of an idiot tells his fiancé he’s falling for another woman without telling the other woman first?  Especially when the other woman is the fiancé’s friend?  Well, maybe not “friend,” but old acquaintance.  Maybe “acquaintance” wasn’t strong enough, but “friend?”  They hadn’t spoken in years until they met at yoga.  That’s not really a “friend,” is it?

Stephanie realized she was arguing semantics with herself and not answering Marika’s question.  She came to that realization because Marika said, “Stephanie?  Are you still there?”

“Yes, of course.  I was just looking at my schedule for later.  I guess I can meet you.  Where?”

“You know that place ‘Café au Life’ near Gramercy Park?”

And so the meeting was set and the phone returned to its cradle.  Oh my god, Stephanie thought, this is going to be terrible.  I need to call Phil.  Or maybe I shouldn’t.  No, of course I should.  I need to know what he told her.  Maybe this is just a bad idea.  Maybe I should just end it now, before anything serious happens.  That’s it.  I really like him and I’d love to sleep with him, I think, but it’s not worth the trouble.  There’s millions of guys out there; why start a relationship with this one when it’s going to be so complicated?  I don’t need this shit.  Isn’t having my fiancé die in my arms after an incredible orgasm enough for one girl?  She tried desperately to dial up Phil and ask him what he told Marika, but all she got was his voicemail.

While Stephanie pondered the ridiculous and potentially painful nature of her situation, and how to either extract herself from it or make it go away or make it work out, Phil was on the phone with Zee, which was precisely why he didn’t answer Stephanie’s call.  He had carried on a rather intense e-mail correspondence with Zee over the last few days.  The best thing to come out of it so far was that Phil realized his infatuation with Zee was just that, an infatuation, and not love, or even desire.  Sure she was beautiful and the tattoos, he had to admit, were kind of sexy, but her personality, while engaging, was completely incompatible with his.  The weird thing was, she actually seemed a perfect fit for Marika if only Marika were a lesbian, or even bisexual, which as far as he knew she wasn’t.  But, hey, people change, don’t they?  In any event, Zee was clearly obsessed with Marika, which was both interesting and somewhat disturbing.

The e-mail thing was fun, for both of them.  For Phil, it was a distraction from his mundane workload, and Zee was really happy as Phil was giving her more and more insight into her beloved Marika.  The more she heard about Marika, the more she loved her.  And the odd thing was that Phil didn’t seem to love her all that much anyway, so in some strange twist of fate it seemed that in fact she could save Marika, as well as Phil, from a loveless marriage that would inevitably fail, or worse, produce a couple of kids and drag on and on for years leaving them both frustrated and dissatisfied, and their kids messed up beyond all therapy.  The more they talked, the more Zee felt that this was a good thing, and more so, the right thing, almost kismet, that she had met Marika at this time and place.

Phil was becoming more and more certain that this was the something that might make it easier for him to segue from his relationship with Marika to one with Stephanie without crushing Marika’s hopes and feelings.  If he could somehow maneuver Marika into Zee’s arms, get them together and impress on his fiancé the idea that if she found something more meaningful, someone more appropriate for her, that she should go for it, Marika might even make it happen for both of them, which would take him off the hook, which was slightly cowardly, to be sure, but what’s so bad about that?  Why not have some life-changing, potentially hurtful situation diffused by the fact that Marika, the person who presumably would suffer the most in this situation, would realize that the decision for this momentous change was her own?  It was almost perfect, except for the fact that it was bizarre and completely unlikely, again, given Marika’s long history of enjoying the sexual company of males and being quite good at it.  And he was ignoring, to the best of his ability, the annoying or at least theoretical problem that once he and Stephanie were actually free to explore a relationship with each other uncomplicated by his being engaged to Marika, they might not like each other all that much.

It came as no surprise, then, when Zee called him, instead of just sending another slightly loopy e-mail.  She had asked for his phone number, he e-mailed it to her; she called almost immediately.  She felt their correspondence was very helpful, but she needed some face time, as it was frustrating to have a dialogue via email, as it requires one to wait for a response.  He really wanted to get out of the office, so they decided to meet later in the afternoon.  He prayed that Zee wouldn’t try to kiss him again to see if they had “the thing.”  Not that he minded kissing her, not at all, she had a very soft tongue and surprisingly nice breath for a smoker, but he didn’t want anything to distract him from the matter at hand.  He didn’t want to go all the way downtown on his lunch hour, so they picked someplace in between.

It was another beautiful day, clear, with a light breeze and almost no humidity.  The kind of day that makes one energetic and hopeful, happy even.  Phil did his best to vacate the office without notice, but these days, one never knew.  Marika hadn’t wakened him at 4:40 to meditate, which was unusual these days, but Phil wasn’t about to complain.  He was happy to get more sleep, and felt better for it, and was unusually relaxed when he left for work.

Stephanie, on the other hand, was a nervous wreck.  She was girding her loins to defend herself as soon as Marika hit her with the Phil thing.  And Marika had to know that Stephanie knew what this was all about.  How could she not?  What else could Marika want to talk about?  That’s what bothered Stephanie so much.  Why would Marika be so mysterious?  On the other hand, there was the comforting fact that she wanted to meet in public, which would lessen the likelihood of hysterics, or violence, which of course Stephanie didn’t anticipate.  Marika was a kind person; she couldn’t see her old college friend hauling off and throwing a roundhouse left at her head.  No, Marika would be civilized and mature about this.  But what would be her approach?  Would she beg Stephanie to step aside, and give up on the idea of being with Phil?  Or would she be more conciliatory, and say that maybe they should all discuss it, see what Phil really wanted?  Would she be angry?  Or would she be sad and upset?  Stephanie didn’t know the answers, but what she did know was that if Marika really wanted her to walk away, to end this crazy thing with Phil, if she asked really nicely and Stephanie could see that Marika was in love and that Phil and Stephanie getting together would break her heart, Stephanie would do the rational, adult thing and call it off immediately.  In fact, Stephanie was prepared to offer to end it preemptively, without putting Marika through the pain of asking.  She would be the big person here, the one who would do the right thing.  Stephanie was great at putting herself in another person’s shoes, be they sneaker or pump.  She could empathize with Marika, and it didn’t feel good.

Stephanie sat inside the cavernous “Café au Life,” waiting. The place had twenty-foot-high, floor to ceiling windows and about 50 small tables.  The interior design was vaguely continental, French perhaps.  Some of the tables had umbrellas, even though it was indoors.  There was the omnipresent din of chatter, chairs scraping on marble floors (it had been a bank, once), and the hiss of steam from the cappuccino machines, although the high decibel sense overload added a certain je nais se quois, whatever that means.

As she sat there, she worried.  What would Marika’s mood be like?  Would she be sad?  Angry?  Incensed?  Righteous?  Or (e), all of the above?  Stephanie ran through every possible conversation scenario and response.  Just say it was a mistake.  Of course she didn’t know Phil was Marika’s fiancé when they met, how could she?  True, that wasn’t much of an excuse, considering their affection started to grow in earnest after the Marika connection was established.  Should she even bother talking about the dreams she and Phil shared?  How could anyone explain that, anyway?  That didn’t explain easily.  How could it?  The idea that two people dream about each other having passionate, expert-level sex, no less, and then meet in real life and connect in such a strange way, was, to say the least, inexplicable.  Yet there it was.

But then Stephanie, who always took care of everyone, thought of herself for once.  Should she cave in so easily?  Let’s say for example that Marika demanded she back out.  Should Stephanie just say yes?  Why would Marika want to be with Phil if he had feelings for another woman?  And why should Stephanie give up on something that might be truly special, an actual chance at true love?  How many people get that?  One in ten?  One in a hundred?  A thousand?  Didn’t she owe it to herself, to Marika, and to a lesser extent to Phil to at least discuss the situation fully?  Even Gordon, her late fiancé, didn’t he deserve, and wouldn’t he want in his eternal repose to have his life-long love (okay, not life-long, but at least for the few years after they met in school) find somebody?  Someone to love?  Don’t you need somebody to love?  Didn’t Grace Slick sing that?  Can anybody find me someone to love?  Didn’t Freddy Mercury sing that?  Or something like that?  It was the truth, wasn’t it?  How could Marika be so blind?  And are those two really great rock star names, or what?

And yet, Stephanie understood that feelings might drive someone to ignore all rational thought in the name of love.  All of those dating websites dedicated to finding true love, or something like it.  Evidently, a lot of people were hurting, needing a man or woman in their lives, or a significant other, a human being who would understand them and put them on a pedestal, or at least on a small mound of something or other to raise them above the rest, make them feel special, loved, needed and cared for.  What was Marika thinking?  How could she be so selfish?

Her completely disjointed train of thought mercifully derailed as Marika finally arrived and took a seat opposite Stephanie at the small table.  They were no more than two-and-a-half feet away from one another, measuring nose tip to nose tip, almost too close.  Marika looked great, full of life and health.  She smelled amazing, no easy task given the pervasive aroma of French Roast.  Here is a woman of substance, thought Stephanie, a solid, self-sufficient person who didn’t need the acceptance of others to feel good about herself.  Yet there was something in her eyes, a sadness perhaps, or concern.  Clearly something was bothering her and Stephanie knew all too well what it was.

“So, beautiful day, huh?” Marika started in, clearly avoiding the subject that she came to discuss.

“Yes.  Lovely.  It’s been incredibly nice these last few weeks.  Last year it was all humid and nasty this time of year.” Wow that sounded stupid, Stephanie thought to herself.

They were quiet for a minute, uncomfortably so.  Thankfully, a waitress came over to the table and they ordered cinnamon lattes.  Then they sat looking at each other for a bit, as Marika seemed to be getting her thoughts in order.  It was agonizing.  Stephanie waited.  She planned her response.  She had gone over it again and again in the hours leading up to this meeting.  She anticipated all the possibilities, the different things and ways they might come up.  She wanted Marika to kick it off, to give her the proper opening, but if she wasn’t even going to speak, this was going to be difficult.  Was Marika about to start crying?  Her eyes looked red and full.  Stephanie hoped not.  She wasn’t that kind of girl.  Stephanie couldn’t remember Marika ever getting dewy-eyed in college, over a boy, or even at the movies.

“I don’t know where to start.  This is so awkward.  I’m very confused and…”

“We didn’t really do anything.  I’ll walk away from it, okay?  That’s all.  I’ll just walk away and we’ll make believe it never happened.”

Marika just looked at her.  She still seemed ready to cry.  Stephanie went on.

“We just kissed.  Honest.  I promise that’s all it was.  I mean, sure I was flattered, but I think he really loves you.  He’s probably confused.  Ha!  You know men and commitment!  And those dreams, we both didn’t know what to make of that.  But I could never be the one to break you two up.  You obviously have some stuff to work out with him, but you seem to be doing the right things.  I didn’t know he was your fiancé, obviously, when we met.  It was just that… you know, it seemed like fate.”

Marika now looked stunned.  She was trying to figure something out.  Finally, at last, she managed to say, “are you talking about Phil?”

“Of course I’m talking about Phil!  Who else would I be talking about?  Isn’t that why you wanted to meet me here?  To discuss the situation between Phil and me?”

“Um… there’s a situation between Phil and you?”

“Oh.”

“I asked you to meet me because I needed someone to talk to about this woman, Zee, who seems to be in love with me.  I wanted to talk to someone I could trust... Did you get together with him after that day, when he fainted?  Is that what happened?  Oh my god, what are you saying?  I thought you were my friend!”

“No, no, it’s just… we had these dreams.  About each other.  Before we met.  Of us together…” Stephanie was on a roll.  Part of her knew she should just shut the hell up already, but she couldn’t stop. “…sexual dreams, it was weird… and then at the theater… we realized it was the same dream, we were having the same dream… and after that there were others, like the one with the ménage a trois with the tattooed girl, the beautiful one … and of course Dick Cheney, which was kind of...”

“Dick Cheney?  What does Dick Cheney have to do with you having an affair with my fiancé?”

As their voices rose, the people at the neighboring tables couldn’t help but overhear, and naturally, became quite interested in the conversation.

“And who is this tattooed girl?  Are you talking about Zee?  You and Phil had a threesome with Zee?”

“Who is Zee?  I don’t know any Zee.  And I’m telling you, Phil and I kissed, like twice.  That’s it, nothing else.  Really, Marika.  I swear.”

Meanwhile, Phil and Zee were having their own tête-à-tête over coffee.  Zee was very emotional, and their frank talk was opening up even more of her deeper feelings.

“I’ve never quite felt anything like this for another person, Phil.  It seems so weird to be telling you this, as she’s your fiancé, but the more I think about her, the more I’m sure it’s love.  I mean, true love.  And I don’t know why.  A woman?  Me?  I’ve never even thought about a woman sexually.  But it’s not even the sex, it’s this feeling in my heart, and in my gut, all at the same time.  It’s like I’m going to die if I can’t be with her.  Do you understand?”

Phil nodded, although he didn’t understand, never having felt that himself.  Although maybe he was starting to feel that for Stephanie.  It sounded familiar. Was that like the thing where he wanted Stephanie to smile all the time, and laugh that cute little laugh of hers?  Maybe that was like what Zee felt for Marika.  He was sympathetic and wanted to make her feel better.

“Look, if it makes you feel any better, I think I’m falling in love with someone else, too.”

Zee looked at him.  He was smiling now, looking her in the eyes.

“You don’t mean me, do you?  I told you, Phil, I like you, and I probably would have slept with you that night if you didn’t go into the whole story about your job and all that, but I don’t feel…”

“The Thing, The Thing.  I know.  You don’t feel The Thing with me. You feel it with Marika.  Well, I feel it with Stephanie.”

“Who’s Stephanie?”

Phil launched into the whole story about Stephanie, about the dreams, about meeting at the theater the same night Phil came into Suffer.  He even told her about the dream he had with Zee and Stephanie and having a threesome with him.

“Oh my god.”

“What?”

“I had that dream.”

“You did?”

“Yes.  Exactly the way you said it, but from my point of view.”

“That is really bizarre.  I can’t wait to tell Gurubob, that idiot.  Never in the history of dream research, indeed.”

“Who the hell is Gurubob?”

“Uh, that’s not important… What the matter?”

Apparently, Phil’s revelation about his feelings for Stephanie and the dreams was a bit much for Zee, and with all of this stuff welling up from deep inside her, she started to cry, really cry, sobbing loudly, slowly losing control of herself. This created in Phil an incredible discomfort, as he had never been okay with public displays of emotion and this was beyond a display.  People at other tables looked at Phil like he’d smacked her in the face, or something.   A woman sitting nearby sneered at him, her look saying, “What did you do?” Phil, desperate to not seem a cad, moved over and put his arm around Zee to comfort her, but this only made her sobs louder and more desperate.

Stephanie and Marika were glaring at each other, having said pretty much all they could, and getting nowhere in the process.  Stephanie felt like an idiot, having revealed all for absolutely no reason.  How could I have done that, she thought.  How could I have been so stupid and panic like an idiot?  All she wanted to do was tell me about this woman who’s in love with her.  Wait a minute, she’s in love with this woman, too, isn’t she?  She’s at least considering it.  Does that mean she wants to split up with Phil?  But now she probably won’t because she knows that Phil will just get together with me and that would be threatening to her ego, wouldn’t it?

Marika had her own thoughts.  God, I always liked her.  She was so nice all the time, and here she is plotting to take away my fiancé.  You never know people, do you?  And Phil!  All of this meditation and tantric and Kundilini, and all the while he’s sneaking off behind my back for lunches with my incredibly beautiful and sexy college friend, taking walks and kissing in Central Park!  He never took me for lunchtime walks in Central Park!  I’ve wasted all this time on him!  And now, if I decide to be with Zee, Phil will just go off with this whore Stephanie!  It’s exactly what they wanted.  It’s like I’m just handing him to her on a silver platter!

Just as they both seemed ready to lunge at each other, talons unsheathed for an epic, kung fu cat fight like in some Quentin Tarentino movie, they took notice of a loud shrieking wail from across the room.  Not a scream, actually, but someone sobbing, obviously in great emotional distress.  Thus distracted, they turned from each other and focused their attention across the room.  The rest of the patrons in Café au Life were likewise diverted, as all heads were turned toward the source of the wailing.  Marika and Stephanie stood up to get a better view.  What they saw they were completely unprepared for, and this was reflected in their appalled and angry visages.  Marika’s already tense face contorted into a mask of rage, and Stephanie’s normally benign countenance squeezed itself into a tight, pinched, teeth-clenching patina of pain.

Phil was embracing Zee, whose head was on his shoulder.  He had both arms around her, and then she turned further into him until they were holding each other tightly, like long lost lovers.  Not realizing, from appearances, that love had actually nothing whatsoever to do with this seeming show of affection, both women at first had no idea how to react, but then Marika bolted across the room, followed quickly by Stephanie, and while Marika seemed to have a sense of purpose as she descended upon her fiancé and the woman who supposedly was in love with her, Stephanie was likely following Marika’s lead because she couldn’t think of anything else to do.

Imagine, if you will, Phil’s surprise as his fiancé and his dream girl, together again, approached while another woman’s tears were drenching his shirt.  And not just any woman, but the same uncommonly beautiful woman who had pledged her love to Marika and had populated Stephanie’s and his dreams with carnal, lusty adventures.

“What the fuck is going on here?!” Marika demanded.

“Nothing!  I swear!  She was upset about you, really, and so she called and we…”

Phil only stopped talking because Marika had picked up a glass of water and emptied it in his face.  Then, she stormed out of Café au Life.  Stephanie stood there, speechless, suddenly aware that everyone, and the café was filled to capacity, was staring at them, waiting with great anticipation to see how this scene would unfold.

“You,” Stephanie stammered, just trying to spit out something before making her exit, “you pig.  Do you have any other women in your stable?  What are we, just playthings for your amusement?  What kind of egotistical… asshole… are you anyway?”  And Stephanie, too headed out the door, slamming it for emphasis.

Phil sat, dripping, his arm still around Zee’s shoulders.  Zee stopped crying.  The ceaseless noise in the coffee shop had completely ceased, and one could hear the proverbial pin drop.  Many women in attendance shot baleful looks at Phil, while some men seemed to view with admiration this fellow who apparently balanced a full dance card of very hot women successfully, at least until this point in time.

Phil looked at Zee, hoping for something.  A word, a gesture, to say that she was sympathetic to his current situation, as she had at least in part been responsible for it.  Instead, however, the waterworks started up again.  Tears streamed from her eyes, the sobbing began in earnest, and Zee twisted and tore herself from his arms and bolted out the door, heading in the same direction as Marika.  This left Phil alone, sitting in the midst of this fiasco, surrounded by scores of perfect strangers staring at him like he was some sort of freak show.  Which of course, he was.  He smiled around the room, looking for an understanding face.  Anything.  But all he got were more angry stares, or simply blank expressions.  Some people looked like they had just witnessed a tragic car accident, while others had the appearance of sitting in a theater, or at home, watching television, and being enormously entertained.  The first thought he had was, who to follow?  Not Zee, surely.  His fiancé?  That would seem to be the most prudent move, but she’d probably haul off and smack him.  What about Stephanie, the woman who, apparently, he was falling for in a big way.  Indecision ruled the day, however, and so he sat there dumbly.  After a few moments, the other patrons realized the show was over and returned to their own conversations, except for the woman at the adjacent table who couldn’t leave well enough alone, and summed it all up simply.

“Jerk.” She said.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN: A GREAT SUCKING SOUND

Phil raked the neighborhood searching for Marika, to no avail.  There was a very slim chance at success anyway, given all the streets and buildings and sidewalks and parks, and people walking about on this fine day.  But she wasn’t answering the home phone or her cell, so he assumed she was walking it off, which made her a moving target and hence that more difficult to track.  He soon gave up and wandered aimlessly for another hour, then returned home to sit in the apartment and wait.  There was no point in returning to work under the circumstances, especially given his mood.  Screw Kitson and his spy if they didn’t like it.  This was his life, damn it.  This was important.

Figuring Marika wasn’t home and wanting to delay the inevitable for as long as possible, Phil decided to check the mailbox, as he realized that neither of them had brought the mail in the day before, and the mail carrier tended to get uptight when the box got over-full.  Even worse, in an incredible display of passive aggression, she would simply stuff things in day after day, envelopes would get bent and torn and with the glut of junk mail would create quite a mess.  In extreme cases, the mail would be compacted into a solid rectangular cube.

He crossed the lobby, removing his $7.99 Walgreens sunglasses, entered the mailroom, opened the box and found the usual assortment of advertising and coupons, a couple of “invitations” from credit card companies to increase his debt, and a few bills.  But there was something else in there, a sturdy, parchment-like envelope of eggshell white with his and Marika’s name and address done in elegant calligraphy and the return address of a company up on Avenue of the Americas.  Curious, Phil opened it and pulled out the contents.  It was a real invitation, to an event.  A party, it seemed.  Cocktails and hors d’eouvres.  His earlier good mood, a gift of this lovely, low barometric pressure day, had already been impaled on a sharp stick of emotional pain, yet the contents of this letter deflated his balloon even further: an invite to “A Celebration of Burt Botwinck’s Debut Novel ‘The Oaf’” at an elegant, fabulously expensive restaurant near Rockefeller Center, cocktail attire, please.  Not the usual small publishing house offering of port wine cheddar and merlot-in-a-box, no, this party was co-sponsored by Perrier Jouet and Tag Heuer.  There would be gift bag loot aplenty.

Phil’s heart sank, again, filling him with guilt about the jealousy caused by his friend’s success, again.  Before, it all seemed like some rude fantasy, an unlikely future event that might not happen after all, but this was it, again.  Sure, he already knew Burt closed the publishing deal, but now there was this actual party with actual people in an actual restaurant with actual food and booze, quality food and booze at that.  And watches in gift bags.  And while it was inevitable and somewhat expected, it still stung like a sonofabitch, even if he would be receiving a free watch.  Burt, a famous novelist.  Based on Phil’s dream.  This, he thought, could only happen to me.

Thus further saddled by the unfairness of the world, shoulders bent and face downcast, Phil headed for the elevator.  As luck would have it, both cars were on the upper floors, and so he waited for what seemed like an eternity as they descended, his energy and mood further dropping along with them.

He entered the apartment and collapsed onto the couch, without removing his coat.  He was too tired; he needed to think.  They obviously had a lot to discuss, and the sooner the better.  Maybe this accidental meeting of the four of them was no accident at all, but in fact the best thing possible.  At least it got everything out in the open where it could be dealt with.  Now, he and Marika would finally talk it through.  They could be reasonable; they could work this out in the best way possible for everyone involved.

This sounded quite sensible while he was thinking it, before the keys jangled and the door key was inserted into the lock.  Then, Phil panicked.  Well, not quite panicked, but freaked.  In the seconds before the door opened, he realized there was almost nothing he could say that would satisfy her.  Why would it?  They were about to be married, she gave him all the sex he wanted, at least until the last 10 weeks when she came up with this whole tantric thing which she only did because she wanted to be with him more fully, or mindfully, or some such thing and she made a good living and she liked the same things he did and let him go out with his friends when he wanted.  And he repaid her kindness by allowing himself to develop feelings for another woman, and not just any other woman, but someone she knew.  Any woman would be more than justified to feel incredibly pissed off in this scenario.  He realized it would be best to just let her have her say, to listen attentively and take whatever it was she had to tell him, take it like a man.

Unfortunately, when Marika saw him sitting on the couch, she said nothing.  She did nothing.  She communicated nothing.  He smiled at her warmly.  At least he was going for warm, but wasn’t sure it was coming across.  She glanced at him, shook her head, and went into the bedroom.  No expression, really, not anger or sadness, just a shake of the head.  Phil had been hoping for something more to work with.  Even being yelled at would have been preferable to silence.  Or sarcasm, that would have been good, like when she would sometimes say, “nice.  Real nice,” in that way you knew meant anything but.  He never really liked sarcasm much, felt it annoying and much too easy a device, but at this moment, he would have welcomed it. Yet she gave him nothing.  If they were going to talk, he would need to take the initiative; in fact, he’d need to carry the discussion.  And he didn’t look forward to this any more than he looked forward to someday losing the ability to have an erection.  This was that bad.  It was sure to be painful, uncomfortable, even agonizing.  And it was all on him.

Worse, by having this talk, he might be required to make a very difficult choice between the known quantity of Marika, with whom he had at worst a very high comfort level, and the unknown reality of Stephanie, who, frankly, he knew very little about except that she was very sexy, smelled great, and, at least by his estimation, wore a tight pair of jeans better than any woman he had ever seen in real life.  And she had a wicked sense of humor, he was starting to learn.  And she liked his jokes, which didn’t happen to Phil often.  And she had those nice little white teeth, all in a row, or two rows, actually, top and bottom.  But otherwise, what did he really know about her?  Not much, except that she fucked her fiancé to death, impressive, to be sure, and then was celibate for over a year afterward, which was certainly prudent and in a way even more impressive as she undoubtedly feared committing another death-by-intercourse. Oh, to be the cowboy who got her back in the saddle…

After a few extremely long minutes, Phil decided to make his move and get it over with already.  There was a 600 pound, extremely odoriferous gorilla in the room, and there was no point ignoring it any further.  Having seen enough movies, Phil knew that he’d be a lot better off with a belt of booze under his belt, so he grabbed the nearest bottle and poured three fingers of Glenmorangie 12 year old single malt into an Orefors crystal glass, an engagement gift from someone he had never met, and tossed it back in one gulp.  It burned, but in a good single malty kind of way.  His eyes teared up, he shuddered involuntarily, and turned toward the bedroom. His testicles pulled into his groin in self-defense, a bio-mechanical marvel.  He thought about knocking before entering, but that would have been a power-draining, balls-less move, so he just turned the handle loudly, and slowly pushed the door open.

Marika was folding her clothes.  His first thought was that she was packing a suitcase, and the idea that she might actually leave him caused him a moment of blind panic and abdominal discomfort, but she was merely putting things away, straightening up, as she often did when stressed. She looked at Phil, but said nothing, nor did she seem very interested in him.  She might as easily have been glancing at a moth that had flown out of the closet.  She went back to folding.  He dove in.

“Listen, honey, I know it looked bad, but nothing happened between Zee and me.  It was just… she asked me to meet her to talk about you.”

“You think I don’t know that?  I’ve talked to her enough to know how she feels about you.  She doesn’t feel a thing for you.”

“You mean, she doesn’t feel ‘The Thing’ for me.  I know.”  He was trying to lighten the mood with a little humor, but she didn’t find it amusing.  And that’s because it wasn’t.  Nonetheless, he pushed onward.  “So then, why did you go running off like you just found me in bed with her, or something?”

“I have a question.  What about Stephanie?”

This, of course, was the big question, the same question he had been asking himself for some time.  He wasn’t completely surprised that she knew, but he wasn’t sure how much she knew either, or if she was talking about something else regarding Stephanie, which was incredibly unlikely, but he didn’t dare give out any information, as whatever he said would surely be used against him.

“What about Stephanie?” He responded, the accent on about, while her accent was clearly on Stephanie.

“Oh come on.  She told me everything.  The kissing.  The walks in the park.”

“But that’s all it was.  I’m not saying that it’s not a bad thing, darling, but it was just walking, and talking, and very little kissing.  That’s it.  We never even went to second base.”

Second base?  What am I, in junior high school?  What an idiot.

“Second base?”  Marika let that ring out for a few seconds before continuing. “Jesus, Phil, we’re getting married, or I thought we were.  Why are you going around with my old friend?   Kissing, walking and talking?  What are you thinking?”

Another good question.

How could the truth work here, mused Phil.  What do I tell her, that I may be in love with Stephanie?  I’m thinking that I still want to marry you, but I’m not sure how much of that is because I’ve spent the last year trying to grow accustomed to the concept?  I’m thinking that I don’t know what I’m thinking, and I have no idea how this is going to turn out?  Phil had these thoughts; thankfully, and to his credit and personal safety, he vocalized none of them.

“I wasn’t thinking, obviously.  I’ve never experienced anything like this.  I met Stephanie at Burt’s theater thing that night and she was having the same dream about me that I was having about her.  I let it go, but then I come home one day and here she is with you in my apartment.  I had to ask her about it.”

“Had to?”

“Of course, Marika, think about what you would do.  You would definitely tell someone if you were having the same dreams about each other.  You absolutely would. You’d have to.”

Marika seemed to concede this point.

“That doesn’t give you the right to go on a date, for godsakes.  Lunch, walks in the park, kissing?  What is this, some kind of mid-century romance?”

“Hey, it’s not like either of us ever could have anticipated Zee coming into the mix, either.  Weird things happen.  Now we deal with it.  Yes, I was wrong to encourage my friendship with Stephanie; I’m engaged to you.  But let’s not for a moment forget that I just had coffee with a beautiful, exotically tattooed bartender who is in love with you, feels ‘The Thing’ for you, do you believe that?  And you’ve been seeing her, too.”

“Going to the museum is not a date!”

“It is if you’re a lesbian!”  This, Phil realized, was going too far.  “I’m sorry.  I didn’t mean that in a derogatory way, or as a slight against lesbians.  You know I love lesbians.  We agree on a very important point, lesbians and me.  Attraction to women…”

“Phil, thanks for the creepy apology, but I’m not a lesbian, so why would you think I’d be offended?”

“That’s beside the point, and you know what I’m talking about. Maybe it’s possible, somehow, that you might feel the same for Zee as she feels about you.”

“That’s ridiculous.”

“Is it?  Then say it.  Say you don’t love her.  That you have no feelings for her.”

Marika said nothing.

“Well?  Anything?”

“Okay, Phil, I’ll grant that I’m confused, too, but it seems ludicrous to end my engagement because some wildly tattooed East Village chick who smokes too much tells me she feels ‘The Thing’ for me, as flattering as that may be.”

“So?  What do you want to do?”

“Do you still want to get married?”

Another great question.  This was the best talk they’d had in ages.

“Do you?”

“You answer first.  You’re the one who’s been dating.”

“It’s not dating.  The truth is, yes, I do want to get married, but I’d be lying if I said I felt nothing for Stephanie.  And it’s true, part of me knows that the whole thing is insane, that it’s just some weird coincidence, or that we weren’t dreaming about each other at all and we’ve talked ourselves into believing we were.  Then again, Zee and I also had some of the same dreams.  With Stephanie, in fact, both of us.  How do you explain that?  And you were in it, actually.  You were…”

“Watching.” Marika completed his thought.  He looked at her.  “I had the dream, too.  I was watching you with them.”  They took a moment to absorb this.

“Okay, so, what does that mean?  Does this dream thing go beyond us?  We can’t be the only ones in the world experiencing this.  Do you think…”

“Who says it has to mean something?... and what are you saying, anyway?  That Dick Cheney dreams about you, ‘cause you had that stupid dream that he served you breakfast in bed?”

Phil thought about Cheney having the same dream, replete with the French drag, and mused that it might be both strange and wondrous were that possible.  Dick Cheney having that dream.  That would change the way Phil, and everyone, saw reality and everything.

Silence followed as they both tried to summon the decisiveness and understanding to know what to do in this most odd of situations.

“I’d like to keep meditating on it,” Phil said, surprising himself.  Was he just stalling?  Did he really think that by sitting and concentrating his mind at the problem, he might, they might, be able to see the right way through this quagmire of odd and uncomfortable feelings?  Or was he just delaying feeling those feelings he dreaded?

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, Marika.  I wouldn’t want us to make a big, impetuous mistake and not be able to take it back.  We should give this the time that it deserves.  We’ve been together for a long time.  Our relationship deserves it.”

“I almost wish you just said, ‘I want you, Marika.  I love you.  You are the only one for me,’ but I guess I see your point.”

And so they spent the next few days trying to reconnect with each other.  There was a sense of desperation in their attempts, understandable in that they had both declared their intent to marry, and so backing out now would at least make them look quite foolish, and no one is very fond of looking foolish.  Maybe that wouldn’t be as foolish as getting married when one isn’t absolutely certain that he is marrying the right person, which of course would make one look foolish years later when the damn thing falls apart in front of everyone and you speak badly about each other, but either way, there was a lot of looking foolish that had to be avoided at all costs.  And if that required them to continue with this tantric meditation rigmarole, then so be it.  Not that tantric wasn’t useful, he had to admit; but it was hard to believe that all this sitting in painful positions, staring into each other’s eyes, knees touching, hands in various mudras, would have any truly life-changing effects that would last more than a week or two.  And yet, they persevered.

Meanwhile, there were the un-identical twin questions of Stephanie and Zee.  Neither would return phone calls.  Phil tried Stephanie twice, but he would be damned before trying a third time; to do so would be a sure sign of weakness.  Two messages was plenty enough for her to know he wanted to talk to her.  The ball was in her court.   As for Zee, she would have called Marika back by now, but she had dropped her phone in the toilet at Suffer while telling her sister about what happened at Café au Life, and hadn’t been able to get to the store to buy a new one.  This being incommunicado suited Zee quite well for the time being, as she was, in short, heartbroken, and wanted to wallow in it to the utmost.

Phil and Marika meditated their asses off.  No one witnessing this display of spiritual esotericism would for a second doubt the participants’ zeal and hope for success.  The positions alone were both daunting and impressive.  Despite this strong effort, things changed between them.  This was inevitable, given all of the true feelings that had been revealed the last few days, and it took its toll, emotionally, weighing around the neck of their relationship like dead-albatross-on-a-rope.  They put their best faces on and feet forward, but the underlying tension became an almost-glowing ember that just would never go away and could not be extinguished, waiting instead for the harsh wind of anger or jealousy to fan it to full blaze.

In the midst of all this, after the brunch on Saturday, Phil had invited Joan and Ali to have lunch with him at “Top ‘o the Town,” the restaurant on the top floor of the Fountain Building.  He still had much to discuss with Joan, and wanted to get to know Ali a little better.  Phil decided he really liked the guy.  Of course, had he known in the meantime his entire world would be sent scattering like a fistful of marbles, lunch with his eccentric mom and her Sudanese multimillionaire fiancé would probably not have been his first choice for a work week activity, but it was too late now, and he did want to see her again before she left.  Sure, he mused, she acts more like my contemporary than my parent, which is odd, but she does have a youthful spirit, so why should she act old just ‘cause she’s my mother?  Phil tried to feel okay about this imminent event and was able to ward off the deep, gnawing need to come up with an excellent excuse to cancel.

So, after saying goodbye to Marika, and hugging her one last time, Phil went to work.  On his way, he remembered to RSVP for Burt’s thing, to a recorded “hotline” dedicated to receiving RSVP’s for the publication party of “The Oaf.”  For the first time in ages, he didn’t feel jealousy or envy about the book.  Phil entered “yes” that he and Marika would attend, but wondered if they’d actually go together.  Weird.  He had assumed he’d be with her for the rest of his life, and now going together to an event just next week was uncertain. But he was proud of Burt, and even happy for him, which had the effect of making him feel happier in general, which was something he hadn’t experienced in a long time.

After he got on the train, the course of recent events, starting when he first stopped smoking weed and started dreaming like a maniac, and continuing on to the big blow up at the coffee house, played in his head.  Then, at the next station, a man got on wearing a sandwich board and clanging a small bell.  He had a mop of gray hair and wore thick-lensed, black-framed glasses and an old overcoat and sneakers, and for all anyone could tell, nothing else.  The front board said, “THE END IS NEAR”, and the back one read “ASK ME ABOUT GREAT LIFE INSURANCE RATES,” in big, black, carefully hand painted block letters.  Phil chuckled.  It was quite funny, actually, not to mention the truth.  Yes, the end is near, it’s always near, and that’s why it isn’t worth getting all insane at times like these, the odd and quirky moments filled with the complicated life annoyances that everyone goes through in his or her own unique and very special way.

Didn’t he read that in “The Power of You?”  No, “The Depth of You.”  Sure, meeting new people in one’s dreams was not an everyday occurrence, but it was just one small part of the big picture.  Just because the details were different didn’t mean their experience wasn’t pretty much like anyone else’s; just one other fucking thing that needed to be dealt with, like taxes or garbage or cancer or food shopping.  It was a part of life, not one that they had to share with others or be particularly proud of, but it still counted.  It was no great mystery of life.  It was… well, it was life.  And of course, a good insurance policy couldn’t hurt.

With this thought, Phil suddenly felt free.  It would all work out well and for the best.  If they all did the right thing and trusted and respected one another, they could finesse this thing and no one need get hurt.  Well, maybe a little hurt, but not that really bad, lingering, spend-thousands-on-psychotherapy-to-get-rid-of kind of hurt.  The thoughts that plagued him stopped issuing from his mind, and instead he felt a warmth, a kind of joy.  It was like the feeling he would sometimes get when he meditated, once in a while, when it would happen just right.  He joked that it was nirvana.  But he wasn’t meditating now, and it was nirvana, or something like it.  What exactly was going on?  Maybe all this meditation stuff was finally paying off in a complete and sudden change of attitude.  Now wouldn’t that be something?  Is that even possible for anyone under 80 and not living in a monastery in the Himalayas?

Phil quit the subway and climbed to the street into one of the most beautiful summer mornings he’d seen in years.  The air was starting to warm, the sky was a deep morning blue and there was no humidity so it still had the spring-like coolness of crisp cotton sheets on a freshly made bed.  The energy from the clear sunlight seemed to inject, like through a needle into a vein, even more power and frenzy into the constant buzz and hum of the city.

He bounded up the plaza steps two at a time to the Fountain Building.  And suddenly, he knew what mindfulness meant, that quality one reads of in spiritual literature and bad self-help books.  Or good self-help books.  Phil read about it in one of those kinds of books, and he thought he knew what it meant but until this moment he hadn’t been one hundred percent sure.

Everything was crystal, like he had just been born and opened his eyes for the first time.  He saw a group of Japanese tourists snapping pictures, and was able to spend what seemed like long, lingering moments on each face, long enough to sense how they were feeling, their enjoyment of the morning.  A busload of children arrived for a class field trip and a tour of the building, each of them beautiful, angelic, even the ones that weren’t so perfect.  We’re all like that, Phil thought, and then time carves us up into different shapes.  A little girl smiled at him.  He smiled back and moved on toward the building.  While all of this had taken mere seconds, fifteen tops, Phil’s concentration was such that time slowed for him.  It reminded him of hearing a famous baseball player saying that when he was hot with the bat, the ball would slow down for him so he could see the spin of the stitches.  Now he suddenly understood what the guy was talking about. Today life was grooving a fastball right in his wheelhouse.

Phil was passing the homeless guy, who met his eyes again for only the second time in two years.  Phil smiled expectantly, anticipating another affirmative nod from the fellow, his ally, his comrade in arms against “the man.”  They had bonded, hadn’t they?  Against the man?  But instead of smiling, the homeless man looked sadly up at him and shook his head somberly, sadly.

Phil shuddered. “What is it?”

The man said nothing, just stared sadly at Phil.  Phil got annoyed.  Sure, give the guy a fiver and see what that gets you.  He’s not just ignoring me; he’s flat out playing with my head.  And I’ve been dropping money on him for months!  Doesn’t he have even a little bit of social skills?  He looks smart enough; does he actually think the world owes him something?

Phil was getting angry, but he didn’t know why. The guy’s at best neurotic, depressed or disturbed, if not a full blown psycho.  Why should I expect him to act in a rational way all of a sudden?  It’s not the guy’s fault.  He’s a victim of the unfairness in the world.  Let it go, Phil.  Let it go.

Upon entering the building, Phil looked back, but the homeless guy was now in a meditative trance, his gaze a few inches in front of his belly button.  Unsettled, Phil got on the elevator and tried to breathe on his way up to his office.

He entered the bullpen of cubicles; his was one of ten spaced throughout the long room.  At least, thank the Lord, the space had windows, even if it served as a constant reminder of how high up they were.  These were the cubicles of the “Facilitators,” Client Connections-speak for “salespeople,” or at best “account managers.”  Phil was to say the least chagrined to see Mr. Kitson pacing around near his desk under an annoying sign that said “Client Facilitators.”

“Born under a bad sign?” Phil muttered to himself.

“Phil.  Good to see you.”

“Hello, Dave.  Nice to see you as well.  How are you, sir?”

“What happened the other day?  I was told that you left work around lunchtime and didn’t return.  I thought you had started getting with the program and making things happen around here.  Was I mistaken?”

Phil looked at Kitson, and at the other faces in the room.  Several Facilitators watched the conversation with great interest, among them Rob, who slowly worked on a raisin bran muffin the size of a porkpie hat.  Yes, it was just slightly smaller than his head, a raisin brain muffin, if you will.  Phil was surprised.  Not that Rob was eating again, or that he was eating something the size as his head.  Nor was he surprised at having been caught by Kitson; he kind of expected that because Kitson’s spy was pretty tenacious.  He was surprised because Kitson had usually displayed a certain level of tact while dealing with his lackeys.  A public dressing down was not part of his repertoire.  Seconds thereafter, Phil segued into his next emotion: anger.  He was already in touch with his anger, after his encounter with the homeless guy (though he still wasn’t sure why that pissed him off so much), and so this emotion was already close to the surface.  He was irate that this man, Kitson, was talking to him in a condescending manner in front of his colleagues, especially Rob, who chewed intently on his brain muffin like a cow.

Now, anger takes people different places.  Usually with Phil it would move toward some kind of guilt, remorse or other negativity, like inwardly turned anger, or depression, which was completely unproductive and would often result in some minor intestinal discomfort and perhaps a later-regretted one-liner or insulting bon mot that would feel good at the time but would actually worsen the situation.  But what he hadn’t realized was, due to the months of regular meditation, his brain was now hooked up much more directly to his mouth and body than it had ever been, which meant that he would almost have no choice under the circumstances but to tell the entire truth, without editing or any sense of irony or insult, and without inserting any jokes except the truly obvious ones, absolutely avoiding humor referencing excrement or really graphic sex.  In short, he had no choice but to tell Mr. Kitson, Rob, and everyone what was going on these days.

And so, Phil’s mouth started to move of its own accord.  Words poured out; he had no time to think and no reason to, either.  He told about Marika, how great she was in bed and how he asked her to marry him because her sexual talents jibed with his father’s theory of marital accord, and how his father killed himself, and dad’s suicide note (he left out the part about the never-identified feces), about the tantric thing, and the dreams with Stephanie, and The Oaf, and Burt and the novel, and Coco’s pumpkin pierogi, meeting Stephanie at the theater, and meeting Zee at the grocery store, “The Thing,” Zee and Marika, dreams of threesomes, him and Stephanie holding hands and Burt’s publishing deal and the party… everything, up to and including the blowup at Café au Life.

When he was through, he didn’t need to do or say anything else.  They all felt his pain deeply.  He moved slowly over to his desk.  In a hugely unexpected gesture, Dave Kitson pulled Phil’s chair out for him.  Phil took his seat and smiled up, warily and wearily at Kitson, who patted Phil on the shoulder and moved, mutely, on down the hall.

Phil spent most of the morning trying not to call Stephanie again. In fact, he used it as a challenge, to prove that despite needing desperately to speak with her he could nonetheless keep his composure during this communication blackout.  He decided to try making a few business calls.  Despite the fact that his heart wasn’t in it, for the first time in days, Phil got through to a law firm’s “financial administrator,” a title bested only by “client facilitator” in the “World’s Stupidest Job Title Contest.”  It was time to improvise.

“This is Joseph Ginley.”

“Mr. Ginley?  Oh, I thought your assistant was going to pick up again.”

“I’m all yours.”

“Have you had a chance to read our literature yet?”

“Who are you?”

“Oh, I thought you knew.  Phil McCone, from Client Connections.  We…”

“Oh, yeah, the ambulance chasers.”

“It’s not really ambulance chasing, sir.”

“I know that.  I’m just jerkin’ your chain.  What do you want me to do?”

“I want you to sign up for our Sapphire service, sir.  For a firm of your size, that plan makes the most sense…”

“Phil, our managing partner’s wife just passed after a long illness.  Very kind, vibrant woman.  It was sad.  Our billables are down this year, but we’re holding on.  You’re asking me to spend a whole lot of money on what is by no means a sure thing…”

“Our track record is excellent, sir…”

“I know that.  But based on what I’ve just told you, what would you do in my shoes?”

Phil didn’t need much time for that one.  “I’d say ‘no thanks.’  With a lower income stream, an investment like this would leave you cash poor, and the whole firm is dealing with the loss of the senior partner’s spouse.  How ‘bout I give you a call in six months or so, Mr. Ginley?”

“Great Phil.  Good answer. Thanks for understanding.”

For some reason, even though he didn’t get the account, Phil felt good about the call.  Being nice was… nice!  And then it was time for lunch.

After washing up, Phil stopped by Kitson’s spy’s “office,” formerly a document room.  Well, still a document room, but an office too.  Sort of.  Phil leaned in.  The spy looked up, taken aback that Phil was seeking him out, as generally everyone avoided him.

“Hi.  I’m having lunch with my mother and her fiancé upstairs at ‘Top o’ the Town.’  You really don’t need to follow me, or anything.  I won’t go anywhere else.  I promise to come right back to the office after.”

The spy shrugged.  “Order the crabcakes.  They’re excellent.  In fact, I might have to stop up there and have some myself.  Been a while.”

“Oh, well please be sure to stop by the table and say hi to my mom.” Phil smiled, and walked away.  The spy looked suspicious.   He knew that Phil was playing with him, but still…

Phil rode the elevator up to “Top o’ the Town.”  Not entirely accurate.  That would have actually been cool, riding up from his office to one of the best restaurants in the city, except that it had its own elevator and so Phil had to go down to the lobby and cross to the other elevator lobby to get the “Top o’ the Town Express,” a nicely, if somewhat gaudily decorated cube with two cushioned benches and an elevator man, whose only job was to press one of two buttons, marked “L” for “lobby” and “T o’ TT” for… well, you know.  Okay, he also had the “door open” and “door close” buttons, but big deal, a three year old can work those.  Phil thought it was cool to sit in an elevator, so he took a perch on the bench, but he then felt behooved to give up his seat to a wheezing, greatly overweight man with a psoriasis rash on his elbow.

Phil planned on getting there before his mom.  He wanted to make it great for her, make sure they had a good table with a view, not too in the middle of the room, where it was noisy. After all, it was his place, sort of, or at least his building.  Well, not his building, per se, but the one in which he worked. He stepped off the elevator and crossed immediately to the hostess, or “greeter” as Coco might say (“hostron?”), introduced himself and reported with some confidence that he had a reservation.  She greeted him, as a greeter would, and informed Phil that his “party” was already at the table.

Phil was led across the high-ceilinged room, the walls all windows, passing white linen by the hectare, each table with a bud vase containing a single, fragrant stargazer lily.  He couldn’t locate their table until they were practically on top of it.  It was a perfect table, right by a sparklingly clear window with a downtown view.  The sun shined brightly, although to the west, over Jersey, a bank of tall, dark storm clouds threatened with the prospect of an afternoon thunderstorm.  Seated at the table was Joan.  Ali was nowhere to be seen, and the table was set for two.

Phil was surprised she came alone.  Not disappointed, necessarily, even though he had decided after their brunch that he really liked her fiancé and wanted to get to know him better.  Plus, Ali could act as a buffer between Phil and Joan, as their relationship was odd, to say the least, and seemed to flourish better with others in the room.  Let’s face it, Phil had been completely gypped of mother/son time for most of his life.  Sure, Joan never abandoned him, technically, but that was only because she left when he was already a fully emancipated adult.  But even a grown man wants his mommy sometimes, and after her whirlwind life in Manhattan, Phil’s mommy, his only remaining parent, moved not to Piscataway, but to the Canary Islands of all places.

But he hadn’t been alone with his mother in years, and without Ali there, Phil quickly recognized this as a great opportunity to reestablish his maternal bond.  The hostess pulled out his chair and he sat, the second time today someone had pulled his chair out for him, something that he couldn’t recall ever happening before.  It was kind of nice, but completely unnecessary as it’s a simple enough operation to perform on one’s own.  Phil smiled and leaned over to kiss his mother on both cheeks in the European fashion she had adopted.  She looked extremely happy to see him.  And indeed, she was.

“I thought Ali was going to be here.”

“He sends his best.  I told him I wanted a little time with you alone.  We haven’t had one-on-one time in ages.  And that’s my fault.  I’ve been a terrible mother.  You have every right to be disappointed.”

Phil was surprised by her candor, and not totally displeased with her admission of failing in her motherly duties. Still, he didn’t want this lunch to turn into some kind of confessional about her shortcomings as a parent.  Even though she was right about his disappointment in their relationship, he still loved his mother and had always hoped that they’d have a chance to reconnect and put the past behind them.

“Listen, Mom, I appreciate what you’re saying, but now that you’ve said it, I realize I don’t have any hard feelings.  I can only imagine what it was like for you after Dad killed himself, and even though I’ve missed you quite a bit, I’m happy you were able to start your life over and find someone like Ali.  He’s a great guy. I wish nothing but the best for both of you.”

Joan smiled.  She hadn’t expected Phil to be so warm towards her, and in fact had expected him to be full of anger and resentment.  What she didn’t know was that Phil’s recent foray into meditation had also allowed him to work through many of the deep-seated resentments resulting from his father’s suicide and his mother’s selfishness.

“That’s incredibly kind for you to say.  It couldn’t have been easy for you either.”

“No, it wasn’t,” Phil admitted.  “But, I guess the big question is why you don’t think Marika is the right woman for me.”

“Cutting to the chase?  Good for you.  I like that in a person… It’s not that I think she’s wrong for you, really.  I mean, yes, she doesn’t seem like the type of woman I’d expect you to want to spend your life with, but what the hell do I know?  I haven’t spoken to you much over the last decade-plus, and it’s reasonable for me to assume that I know very little about you, the way you are now.  My opinion is probably based on what I knew about you when you were a boy.”

“People don’t really change that much.  Everyone always talks about how great children are, how innocent and full of joy, but the bottom line is, every asshole was a kid once, and if you knew them, you’d probably see that they were an asshole kid, too.”

“You were always a sweet child.”

“Thanks.”

“So, who’s the other girl? The one in the park?”

“Her name is Stephanie.  I can’t believe you saw us there.  I guess I should have been more careful.”

“I wasn’t planning on it, that’s for sure.  It was weird.  I was walking around that day, and I thought I saw you but I wasn’t sure.  When I finally got close enough to see it was in fact you, I assumed you were with your fiancé and was going to come up and say hello, but you seemed so happy together that I didn’t want to spoil the moment, so I figured I’d wait until Saturday, when of course I found out that the woman you were kissing with such obvious passion was not the woman you are planning to marry.”

“Passion?”

“Oh, yes, definitely.  Anyone could see it.  You were in your own little world together.  It was like the city was just a backdrop for your mutual enjoyment.  I was so happy for you.  That is, until I found out she wasn’t your fiancé.  Why are you marrying Marika if you’re in love with Stephanie?”

“In love?  Mom, that’s a little overstated.  I hardly know the woman.  We just met a few weeks or so ago.  We haven’t even been intimate.  There’s a strong attraction, to be sure, but Marika and I have been together for so long.  I can’t just give that up on a whim.  Plus, it would break her heart.”

“I don’t hear you saying that you’re deeply in love with Marika.”

Phil was silent, so Joan continued.  “And if you aren’t, I can tell you from experience, it’s a bad idea to marry her.  You’ll both be miserable… How did you and Stephanie get together, anyway?”

How, indeed?  And so, for the second time today, Phil launched into the whole story about Marika, and then the dreams, and meeting Stephanie, and so on and so forth.  At least he was getting good at telling it.  In fact, he was adding little details and feelings that he had left out earlier, and was rather enjoying telling his tale.

“You know, that’s interesting, those dreams you’re having.  In Ali’s culture, there is a belief amongst some of the tribal people that when someone has a detailed, realistic sexual dream like that, there is a spirit of some kind that manifests in human form and actually comes into your bed. Others believe that these aren’t spirits at all, but rather real people whom the dreamer hasn’t met in real life, and that these other people are having the same dream at the same time, but from their own point of view.”

This gave Phil the chills.  “Wow.  That’s kind of interesting.”

“But I still want to know, if you feel so strongly about Stephanie, even if it’s not love, or whatever, why would you go through with a marriage to someone else?  That doesn’t even make sense.”

“Well, I’ll admit, even if you are my mother, it has a lot to do with the sex.”

“How do you mean?”

“I just think that a fulfilling sex life is very important in a marriage, and to me, that means having sex pretty much, I don’t know, every day, and it’s been my experience that most women aren’t likely to do that kind of thing.  Marika is very sexual.  I mean, she wants to have sex even more than I do sometimes.  Do you know any couples who have great sex all the time and aren’t happy with each other?”

“Where did you get the idea that you should marry a girl simply because she likes to have sex all the time?”

“Um… from Dad?”

“He told you that?”

“Well, yes.  And what he wrote in the suicide note.”

It was Joan’s turn to be silent, but it didn’t last long.  Within moments, she was laughing with apparent glee.  Phil was slightly irritated that the mention of his father’s suicide note spurred a real crack-up from Joan.

“What’s so damn funny?”

“You really think it’s a good idea to follow your father’s advice?  On anything?  I mean, Phil, he was a decent person, your father, but he was depressed, neurotic, and, I’m sorry to say, a bit of an idiot about relationships, may he rest in peace.”

“But your marriage… wasn’t that the biggest problem, the lack of sex?”

Joan scoffed. “Your father couldn’t take responsibility for his own shortcomings in the marriage department.  I was basically a virgin when I met him…”

“Basically?”

“Let’s just say you needn’t know the details.  I had almost no experience with men, and figured he’d teach me what he knew, but that proved wrong.  He didn’t know anything, really.  And when I finally realized I liked sex, I quickly learned that he was pretty bad at it.  Downright awful, actually.  Like many men of his generation, he didn’t know how to please a woman, how to delay his own satisfaction, you know, stuff like…”

“Mom, that’s pretty much all the info about my parents’ sex life that I need here.”

“Right.  Got carried away.  Anyhow, despite plenty of opportunities, I never cheated, but from then on, the marriage was doomed, as he could never satisfy me.”

“I get the point.  Thanks for telling me, actually, as disgusted as I am hearing about my parents’ sex life.  Wish I’d known sooner, actually.”

“Yes, well that was probably my biggest mistake as a parent, letting you go on believing that your father gave good advice.  Still, even though he was depressed much of the time, your father did love you very much.”

Phil’s cell phone rang.  He couldn’t get it out in time, as he forgot which pocket it was in and fumbled through all of them before finding it.  Just then, it stopped ringing.

“Was it important?”

“I don’t know.  Probably nothing.” His phone buzzed: voicemail.  Phil recognized the number, but couldn’t recall whose it was.

“Sorry Mom.  Just give me a second.”  He listened to message.

“It was Stephanie.  She said she needs to talk to me right away and is taking a chance on coming by the office, like, now.”  Phil gave her a look.  Joan quickly surmised that Phil really needed to talk to Stephanie also.

“Go.  Find her.  It’s okay.  We’ll have lunch tomorrow.  This is something you should deal with as soon as possible, don’t you think?”

Eighty-seven floors below, Stephanie arrived on the plaza of the Fountain Building.  She was nervous and excited and wasn’t quite sure what she was up to.  It seemed a little crazy, but for her own benefit, and for everyone else involved in this unseemly, sordid affair, she needed to talk to Phil.  If they talked, it would be as clear as day what they should do.  She was certain that if they spent a few moments together, talking about what was going on between them, she would know for sure whether or not they were meant to be together.  Marika was another issue.  No, she didn’t want to hurt her friend, but if Stephanie and Phil were destined for each other, they would actually be doing Marika a favor to figure it out now, before she committed to a marriage that was doomed from the start because he was in love with another.  And if they talked, she and Phil, and Stephanie realized that they were just living in a dream world, then at least they could move on with their lives and let go of this thing that had developed between them.

Stephanie looked around to see, on this still beautiful day, the vast assemblage of people in the plaza.  She saw much of what Phil saw earlier: Japanese tourists snapping pictures; the busload of school children, done with their tour and lunches, running about; people who worked in the area sitting along the edge of the plaza on benches, eating and talking.  What she couldn’t see, because of the tall buildings surrounding the plaza and cutting off the view of anything on the horizon, were some very dark, very tall, extremely menacing storm clouds moving toward the city from New Jersey.  Still, not even the prospect of a thunderstorm could deter her from her mission to talk to Phil and figure out once and for all what they were going to do about this sublimely ridiculous situation.

Stephanie noticed the homeless guy under the statue of Josiah Fountain.  Always the type to help people in need, crying children, and small animals, she dropped money into his hat.  She also said, “Hi.”  He smiled up at her.

“Hello.  And thanks.  I really appreciate it.  The name’s Harbor.”

“Harbor?  That’s such a beautiful name.”

“Yeah, thanks.  Dad was in World War II.  If I was a girl, he would’ve named me Pearl.  Pearl Harbor.  But thankfully he came to his senses.  Pearl’s a fine name, too, but it would’ve been quite a burden on a young man.  What’s your name?”

“Stephanie.”

“Stephanie.  Always loved that name.  Had a girlfriend back in high school named Stephanie.  God, was she adorable.  Actually, it’s been my experience that women named Stephanie are inevitably quite attractive, and nothing about you changes that theory.”

“That’s very sweet, Harbor.”

And while Stephanie was anxious to talk to Phil, she was also a little afraid of what the outcome of their discussion might be, positive or negative, and so she stood under the statue talking to Harbor for a few moments.

Meanwhile, Phil had kissed his mother goodbye and thanked her for being so understanding and, well, parental.  He was grateful that she had come along at precisely the right time to advise him in this difficult and complicated situation, and he figured, considering what she had been through with his dad and Ali and whatnot, that he should follow her advice.  After all, pretty much everything his father had told him seemed to be fairly useless, and how often did he have the opportunity to listen to what she said?  Not very often at all.  So, deciding that her advice had to be another sign of fate, that perhaps he and Stephanie belonged together, he ran to the elevator to return to his office, hoping that she had arrived or would get there soon.

The elevator doors to the Top o’ the Town Express were closing, but Phil stuck his hand in between them and they opened again.  There were two people in the elevator: the guy who pressed the buttons, and the office spy.

“Hi.  So, did you get your crab cakes?” Phil inquired, sarcastically.

“Yes, I did, but then Mr. Kitson paged me and I never got to eat them.”

“Oh, that’s too bad.”

“How come you didn’t eat?”

“I got a call, too.  Kind of an emergency.”

“That’s your mother you were having lunch with?”

“Yep.  Good ol’ moms.”

“Very attractive woman.”

“That’s what they tell me.”

Meanwhile, outside, two window washers were on a rig at the 70th floor.  But they weren’t washing windows.  Instead, they were attaching something to the outside of the building, a rectangular object with a couple of handles on it, kind of like a large suitcase or trunk. They mounted it onto the corner of the building with large suction cups and lots of duct tape, very careful in their work.  Apparently, they had been at this activity for some time, as there were other similar cases already in place at various spots along the outside of the same wall.  They seemed nervous about the operation, and with good reason it turned out, as one of them lost his footing and slipped, smacking the rig control, which dropped them a few feet and slammed against the side of the case, which in turn was jammed into the building.  The men had only a second to glance at each other when the case, and they, exploded in a giant fireball, rocketing the rig into the air, followed by a chain reaction as the other explosive charges went off, adding to the fire, smoke and debris that shot out from the building like cannons from the side of a battleship.

Down below, in the plaza, the tourists, the children, the people eating their lunch, the security guards, Harbor and Stephanie, looked up at the loud booms, like thunder, only louder, which looked briefly like fireworks in the middle of the day.  But the falling chunks of concrete and steel and mangled remains of the window-washing rig announced that this was anything but.  Everything said run as far and as fast as you can, but the unexpected shock of the situation glued most of them to the spot.

In the restaurant, the windows shattered inward, shards of glass like so many diamonds flying at the speed of sound.  Phil’s mother, sitting quietly as she waited for the waiter to return with her credit card, knew something heinous was happening, but the look on her face, now streaked with fine, bleeding cuts from the tiny glass razors, was very peaceful, in contrast to the panicked expressions on most of the other diners.  As the explosion’s noise dissipated, it was replaced by screams and anguished cries

In the elevator, Phil and the spy heard the explosions, muffled but ominous, and felt the elevator car jolt.  They looked at each other just as the lights went out and plunged them into darkness.  Without thinking, they both screamed and hugged each other for dear life.

The skin of the building buckled, a supporting beam failed, and the top of the building started to lean, almost in slow motion, then fall, like a giant tree that had been sawn through.  Exactly as planned, except the two men who planned it expected to live.

Inside the restaurant, people shrieked in horror as the floor started to shake violently, then undulate, tables and people sliding and jumping like fleas on a dog.  They all heard what one survivor from the lower floors described as “a great sucking sound” as the explosion pulled a huge column of hot air up the elevator and ventilation shafts of the building.  Joan sat in her chair and closed her eyes, allowing gravity to do its work.  She knew it was all over for her, and she accepted this tragic reality, yet the only thought she had was that at least she had a chance to talk to her son one last time.

In the elevator, Phil and the spy held onto each other and screamed as, in darkness, the elevator plunged and tipped in unnatural directions, and the sickening feeling of falling helplessly through space became their entire consciousness.  They didn’t know the elevator man had suffered a massive heart attack and was already dead.

On the plaza, as people shrieked and ran in all directions, Stephanie stood transfixed, her upward gaze aimed at the top of the building as thousands of tons of steel, concrete, glass, and the contents of the upper offices, loosed by the explosion, rained down, straight down, to where she stood.  Harbor pulled Stephanie under the statue, as far under as possible, as the building debris crashed around them, burying them many yards deep in seconds with a deafening roar the likes of which no one living had ever heard before.

CHAPTER NINETEEN: SOMETHING HAPPENING HERE

Phil awoke in the bed he and Stephanie had shared in their first dreams together, those vivid dreams on the edge of ecstasy in the grainy morning light, only now he was alone and the light was bright, glaring, fluorescent.  Anxious voices and bustling activity filtered through the slightly open door. Though a bit foggy in the head, after gathering himself, Phil rose to investigate.  Finding the clothes he was wearing to lunch at Top ‘o the Town draped on a chair near the bed, he dressed and walked through the open door.

He found himself in what he assumed correctly was the main emergency room hallway of the hospital, across the street from the Fountain Building.  It was a truly horrifying scene, the kind you only read about in the Daily News or see on TV, often from another country: hundreds of injured people, some of them quite alarmingly critical, being attended to in this apparent carnage by unexplainably calm and composed doctors and nurses. Phil checked himself top to bottom; he didn’t seem to have a scratch.  However, his leg really hurt.  He limped down the hall, asking anyone he passed what happened, and how could he help, but not a soul seemed able to see or hear him.  Finally, his frustration building, he confronted a young intern.

“Excuse me, doctor?  Hello?  Doctor?”  The intern ignored him and continued checking patients.  Phil finally exploded in anger, shouting at the doctor, getting right up in his face, even grabbing at the young man’s lab coat, but to no effect. “You idiot!” he screamed. “Are you deaf, man?  Blind?  What is wrong with you?  I’m just asking what the hell is going on!  Why won’t you answer me?”

It was as though Phil weren’t even there.  Then someone nearby spoke, calmly.

“Don’t bother. They can’t see you. Or hear you. Or feel you, for that matter.” Phil turned. It was the homeless guy from under the statue in front of the Fountain Building, sitting in his usual cross legged position, on the floor of the hallway.

“Hi. The name’s Harbor. Like Pearl Harbor. If I’d have been a girl, dad would have named me Pearl.”

“I’m Phil.  If I was a girl, I guess I’d be… I don’t know, Phyllis, maybe.  You’re the guy who sits under the statue, right?”  Harbor nodded.  “You’ve never talked to me before.  I’ve probably given you well over a hundred dollars, but without even a single ‘thank you.’  I had begun to think that maybe you’re mute.”

“I didn’t realize you were paying me to speak, or surely I would have more often.  Anyway, thank you for your money.  Does that make you feel better?”

“No, not especially… Do you know what’s going on around here?”

“Don’t you remember?  There was an explosion.  I think it was some kind of attack.  Terrorists, maybe.”

“Yes.  I remember.  But what does that have to do with them not being able to hear us, as you say?”

“Isn’t it obvious?  We’re dead.  They’re alive and we’re dead and so they can’t see us.  We’re, like, ghosts, or spirits, if you believe in that sort of thing.”

“Oh?  And how do you figure?”

“Well, they’re obviously alive, running around like that.  We’re in the hospital and those people are injured and the doctors are caring for the injured, and we came here to be cared for because, well, what else would we do?  But we’re not really here at all.  We’re dead, and I think we’re supposed to wait here until someone comes to get us.”

“You’ve had a lot of time to think this through, haven’t you, Harbor?”

“I’ve been here a few hours.  Where have you been?”

Good question.  “I don’t know.  I think I was asleep, or something.  In this nice big bed with white linen.  You know, that could be it.  This could be a dream.  I’ve been having a lot of strange dreams lately, and in some of them I’ve been in that bed.  With Stephanie.”

“Stephanie?” Harbor tried to remember why this name meant something to him. “So, if it’s a dream, whose dream is it, yours or mine?  ‘Cause I know I’m perceiving this in my consciousness, if you will, and I’m not a figment of your imagination.  So maybe you’re just a figment of mine.”

“Actually, the dreams I’ve been having are… well, let’s say it’s been very strange.  I’ve been sharing dreams with other people.  I mean, I dream the dream from my point of view, and they dream it from theirs, so maybe you and I are both having the same dream, each of us, at the same time, and we’re both in each other’s dream.  Does that make any sense?”

“That’s very interesting, but I just think we’re dead.”

“Do you want to be dead?”

“Not particularly, but it seems to offer the best explanation of what the hell is going on around here.”

“Yeah?  Well, I just don’t feel quite completely dead, so you’ll pardon me if I try to investigate this a little further.”

“Why don’t you start off by asking that fellow over there what he thinks?  He’s the only one I’ve been able to talk to,” Harbor suggested, gesturing toward a fireman seated against the wall, exhausted, covered with ash and smoke, still wearing his helmet.

Phil moved over toward the fireman.  “Sir?  Are you alright?  Can you hear me?”

The fireman’s eyes fluttered open, as if he had been asleep, and he looked up at Phil.  “Who are you?”

“I’m Phil.  Phil McCone.  I was just wondering if you have any idea what’s going on.  You and Harbor, that guy over there, seem to be the only people who can hear me or see me, which is very strange, don’t you think?”

“Yeah.  I don’t know.  But I’m really tired.”

“Harbor thinks we’re dead.  What do you think?”

“It’s possible, but I can’t really say.  Maybe.  Maybe not.”

“Did you ask any of the doctors?  Has anyone treated you?”

“No.  I’m fine, I think.  I’m just going to wait here for my guys.  That’s what they told us to do in training.  Just wait for the guys.  We have these now,” he said, pulling out a device that Phil never saw before.  “It’s a global positioning beacon.  Yes sir, the latest in technology.  We got ‘em after 9/11.  As long as I have one of these, my guys can come and get me…. I’m Bob, by the way.  I mean, Captain Robert… I can’t seem to remember my last name.  But the kids call me ‘Fireman Bob’ when I do the station tours for the schools.  So, you can call me that, too.”

“Um, okay, Fireman Bob.  But wouldn’t you like to at least look around?  I mean, I haven’t seen what happened out there.  Aren’t you the least bit curious?”

“No… Maybe.  I think it’s best to just stay here.  Stay here until my guys come for me.  They’ll come for me, all right.  Now that we have these.  I’m just going to stay here.”  With that, Fireman Bob’s eyes drooped shut and he leaned back against the wall.

Phil shook his head and returned to Harbor. “Well, that was very helpful.”  Harbor shrugged.  “So, Harbor, let me ask you.  If you’re so sure we’re dead, how would you prove it?  I mean, I don’t think I’m dead, but if I am, I’d kind a’ like to know for sure.  So, if you wanted to prove we were dead, how would you go about it?”

“Hmm.  Well, let’s see.  I guess if we’re dead, then we’re spirits and we’re not in our actual, physical bodies, so that would mean if we could find our bodies, you know, see our bodies, and they were dead and we weren’t in ‘em, that’d pretty much prove we’re dead, wouldn’t it?”

Phil mulled this over. “Yeah, that seems reasonable, under the circumstances anyway.  So… how about you and I take a little walk around to see if we can find our bodies?  Then maybe we can see what happened, and….”

“No, that’s okay.  I’m fine with just staying here.  I sat under the statue of that capitalist blowhard Josiah Fountain for over a year, so I can certainly sit here a little longer.  When they come to get us, I’d hate to be off somewhere else running around looking for my body and miss the boat.  Plus, I feel like I should reserve my energy, like maybe we’re going someplace, a long, strange trip, know what I mean?”

“Um, no.  Not really.” Phil responded, growing impatient with Harbor, who shrugged again, and closed his eyes, like he was meditating.  Phil felt his ire rise once more.  What was it about this guy that could get him so pissed off so easily?  He didn’t know.  But he knew he wasn’t going to sit around and wait for something to happen.  If there were ever a time to take action, this was it.

Phil limped down the hall, passing more and more of the injured.  The doctors and nurses were overwhelmed, but to their credit, carried on as best they could.  It was amazing, thought Phil, how well they seemed to function in the face of mass lunacy and chaos.  He admired how well these professionals persevered where others, under far less chaotic circumstances, surely would throw in the towel and run screaming from the insanity.  He never had much faith in the medical profession, but this gave him a fresh perspective.  Many of them, he observed, were willing to go through hellfire to save lives of people they didn’t know, against seemingly impossible odds.  Unfortunately, they didn’t appear able to help him at all.

Despite his newfound appreciation for the work of those in the white coats, he couldn’t quite keep his anger below the surface.  He started jogging along the hallway, still gimpy.  He thought maybe he was beginning to feel panic.  That was all he needed now, to go into a full-fledged panic attack and faint, or worse, convince himself he was having a coronary. He had too much to do, and besides, there was no way that he could get a doctor to help him.  Not only were they too busy helping the seriously injured to deal with his nonsense, but they couldn’t see or hear him, either, which was definitely an obstacle to providing quality medical care.

Having seen enough triage to last a lifetime, Phil went upstairs.  There was an open staircase at the end of the main corridor up to the next level.  Instead of the wide hallways and treatment rooms of the emergency floor, he found in-patient rooms and the maternity ward.  Passing one doorway, a woman was screaming.  He couldn’t help but look, even though he feared seeing something horribly distressing and bloody.  Instead, he witnessed something awesome… and bloody: a young Asian woman bearing down and delivering a baby.  It was amazing that in the midst of all of this carnage and death a new life was coming into the world.

Phil moved randomly from room to room, glancing in to see every bed occupied.  Even the chairs were filled by people waiting to be seen, some cradling their wounded limbs in shock.  A man had his entire head, save for his mouth and one eye, wrapped in gauze, through the top of which seeped a spot of blood that seemed to grow before Phil’s eyes. Some people appeared to be unconscious or comatose.  Others looked perfectly fine, physically, but stared off into space, rocking or mumbling quietly.  And then, in one room, he saw something unexpected, something he wasn’t even looking for, although at this point, perhaps he should have been.

There was Joan, standing in a room with four occupied beds and a few chairs.  There were seven other people in the room, a few of whom knew each other.  Joan stood off in a corner, arms wrapped tightly around herself, sadly observing a middle-aged, overweight black woman who was crying uncontrollably, her sobbing a rhythmic ebb and flow seemingly with no end, the kind of crying that doesn’t make one feel any better, but rather feeds on itself and gets stronger and stronger and infects anyone in the vicinity.  Phil was relieved and delighted to see Joan.  In crisis mode, he had all but forgotten about her.  She had no apparent physical injuries.  He entered the room and went to her.  No one acknowledged him.  Phil went right up to her, to embrace her, but it was as though she was looking right through him.

“Mom?  It’s me, Phil.  Can’t you see me, Mom?”  Phil was on the verge of tears, his heart broken.  Even his own mother couldn’t see him?  Surely, this couldn’t be a good sign.  But he wasn’t about to give up.  Maybe, he reckoned, she’s in shock.  That could be it.  I just don’t feel dead, but she’s got to see me.  If I can make her see me, then I can’t be dead.

“Mom!?  It’s me, Phil.  Please try real hard to hear what I’m saying… I need you to see me, damn it!  Come on.  Snap out of it!”

And then, she did.  As if a light went on, suddenly, where there was nothing, there was this instant rush of love and happiness on her face and she could see right in front of her with her own two eyes her only child she thought she would never see again in this lifetime.  And she didn’t believe in a next lifetime, so this one was all she had.

“Phil!?  Is it really you?  Oh my dear God, thank you!  I thought I’d never see you again.”  Although she had no belief in the afterlife, Joan didn’t mind invoking The Creator on occasion.  They embraced tightly, like they never wanted to let go.  At this point the others in the room finally noticed them.  They gazed at Joan and Phil hugging, and seemed saddened by it, maybe because they had given up on finding their loved ones and so seeing Phil and Joan reunited served as a reminder of their own pain.  Phil almost felt guilty that he was experiencing happiness amidst all this horror and grief, that their joy at finding each other could cause strangers such pain.  Some people hold back displays of good feelings, out of embarrassment or self-consciousness, or because their happiness might cause sadness in others whose unhappy circumstances look bleak in comparison.  But this is wrong; everyone is responsible for his or her own feelings, Phil had read in The Depth of You, so why squelch displays of happiness on the off chance that it might cause sadness?  Not to encourage, for example, laughing uncontrollably at a funeral, or anything so obviously rude of course, but since truly self-affirming, positive feelings can often be rare occurrences in this life, it is an act of self-denial, or even more, self abnegation not to appreciate and experience them to the fullest.  This, indeed, was what being alive was all about.  At least according to The Depth of You.

“What happened, Phil?  Do you know what happened?”

“I think it was a bomb, or something.  Did you hear the explosion?”

“Yes.  And the windows shattered.  It was horrible.  I was sure I was going to die.  But I felt okay, in a weird way.  I think it was because at least I had the chance to see you one more time.”

Phil felt a catch in his throat when she said this; a flood of warmth filled his chest in an incredibly wonderful way.  It was easily the nicest thing anyone ever said to him.

“I thought I was dead, mom.  I don’t know what the hell is going on downstairs, but almost no one could see me.  It was awful.  I tried talking to this doctor, and he wouldn’t even look at me.  And then I met this guy Harbor, this homeless guy.  He saw me.  We talked.  In fact, I’d like you to come with me now and meet him…”

“Leave here?  Now?  I don’t think that’s such a good idea.  I was told to wait here until further notice.”

“Who told you?  A doctor?”

“I don’t know.  Someone.  Maybe a social worker?  I’m not sure.  He didn’t have a name tag or an official ID or anything.”

“Mom, you should just come with me.  Are you hurt?”

“No.  I don’t think so.”

“So what’s the point of staying here?”

“I don’t know, but there has to be some order, don’t you think?  I mean, somebody must be in charge around here.  We can’t all just be going around doing whatever we like.”

It was at this point that the sobbing woman stopped wailing and moaning and simply stared at Joan and Phil.  She was no longer anguished, but angry.  “Who the hell are you talking to, lady?”

“My son.  This is Phil, my son.  Why?”

The woman’s voice softened.  “Listen, lady, I’m sorry.  We’ve all been through a lot, but there’s no one in front of you.  You’re talking to an empty space.  No one there, do you understand?  You’re seeing things.”

“What are you talking about? I can see him as plain as day.”

“Don’t listen to her, Ma,” Phil said, suddenly feeling his panic returning in an avalanche.  “She’s in shock, like everyone else.”

“She’s right,” chimed in the man in the coveralls sitting near the black woman’s bed.  “Ain’t nothing there, ma’am.  Just air.  Your son is not there.  We’re all dealing with pain and shock, so it’s understandable you’re a bit confused.”

“I’m not confused,” Joan snapped back.  “This is my son.  He’s right here.  Are you telling me I don’t know my own son?”  And she looked back at Phil.  As she did, Phil’s heart sank, for he knew that, in fact, she could no longer see him.  “Phil?  Where did you go?  He was standing right here.  Am I insane?  Phil?”

“Mom, I’m right here!” Phil yelled, grabbing her shoulders in his hands.  But she could neither see him nor feel him.  That was it then.  A single tear trailed down Joan’s cheek to her chin, followed by more, and soon she, too, was sobbing uncontrollably.  The man in the coveralls stood and went over to comfort her.  She let him hold her for a moment, then looked back toward Phil.  Or looked through Phil like she had when he first came in; that was what it felt like to him.  The man guided Joan to his chair and gestured for her to sit.  He stood by, patting her gently on the shoulder.  Phil took one last look at Joan and bolted out the door.

He was running again, his face full of pain and heartache, back past the woman still giving birth, past the man with the gauze on his head and the spot of blood, down the stairs and into the hallway full of the wounded and maimed, and doctors and nurses and emergency workers.   He passed a window and looked out.  It was covered in soot, now being washed away by a heavy rain that had just started to fall. There was lightening in the distance, but no thunder to be heard.  He wanted to cry, more than anything, but his tears wouldn’t come.  Instead, he felt rage. He couldn’t believe it. Dead?  Is this what it was like?  It wasn’t what he expected.  Not at all.  Nothing he ever read or heard in a church, synagogue or chapel of any kind could have prepared him for this.  Nothing in the bible, which he had been forced to read as a boy, or the self-help drivel or the yoga journals Marika brought home, or the “Buddhism for Dummies” kinds of books he had leafed through at the Barnes and Noble one afternoon had anything that remotely resembled this scene, this feeling, this hell, or whatever he was stuck in.  But maybe this was what it was, after all.  Hell, or something like it.  What did the Catholics call it, limbo?  No, that didn’t sound very Catholic.  Wasn’t that the dance where you try to bend backwards and walk under the bamboo stick?  Purgatory, that was the one.  Between heaven and hell.  Or was he dreaming?  Or maybe none of the above.

He pushed his way through the crowded hall back to Harbor, who remained cross-legged on the floor, eyes closed, very much at peace in the midst of this chaos.  How does he do it?  Phil wondered.  Here’s this man, a man with nothing, a man who lives outdoors, under a statue, on a folded piece of cardboard, everything he owns in a large, black, thirty gallon, heavy duty plastic drawstring garbage bag, and he’s the most content, most centered person of all.  Maybe that’s it.  Maybe if you have nothing, no one, no attachment to any of it, maybe that is the only way to be free.

“Harbor?  Please.  I’m sorry to bother you, but I need to talk to someone.  Please.”

Harbor opened his eyes.  He smiled at Phil.  It wasn’t an “I told you so” smile, nothing derisive or superior about it at all.  It was pure warmth, like Phil was his oldest friend in the world.

“What can I do you for, Phil?  What’s up?”

“I’m kind of freaking out.  I found my mother upstairs.”

“Wow.  Your mother?  Was she in the building when it went down?”

“We were having lunch together upstairs in the restaurant.”

“How’s the food up there?  I heard it’s a pretty nice place.”

“I don’t know.  I never got to eat.  I hear the crabcakes are excellent, though.”

“Did your mother see you?”

“Yes… for a minute.  But then she couldn’t anymore.  I’m not sure what that means, exactly.  But I suppose you’re right, about us being dead.”

“Maybe because she’s your mom, she could see your spirit, or something like that?  Isn’t that usually how it is with these ghost things?  People see their loved ones and all?  That would seem to make sense.”

“You’re kidding right?  None of this makes sense, Harbor.  You’re sitting there talking to me about ghosts and spirits, for godsakes.  What kind of sense is that?  We’re in this hospital, and some of us can see each other and some of us can’t… Has anyone around here been outside yet?  I can’t imagine you have.”

“Nope.  Haven’t moved from this spot.  I told you, I’m…”

“Waiting.  I know.  I’m still not sure you even know what the hell it is you’re waiting for… I gotta get out of here.  I need to see what’s going on outside.  Maybe I can find my fiancé, or somebody I know.  I just have to get out of here.  You sure I can’t talk you into going with me?”

“No offense, Phil, but I just don’t see the point.”

“Fine, Harbor, suit yourself.  It was nice talking you, finally.  Maybe we’ll run into each other sometime.”

“I hope so, Phil.  Hey, if you find out anything, let me know.”

“Hey, who else am I going to tell?  No one else can even see me.”

“Good point.”

“Yeah, right.  Whatever.”

Phil made his way down to the waiting room near the ambulance entrance.  There were injured people all over the place, nowhere to put them.  He had to step over people lying on the floor, some covered in sheets.  He wondered if maybe under one of those sheets was his body, or Harbor’s or Fireman Bob’s, but he thought it would be better not to look, as he didn’t know what he would find and figured it would be too disturbing anyway.  He reached the doors leading out to the driveway.  They were the kind with the panic bolts, although there was also a button on the wall to press to open them automatically.  He moved forward, pushed on one of the handles, smacked his head in the door and bounced off.  It didn’t hurt, exactly, but it was a little aggravating.  He tried it again, charging at the door harder, and quickly found himself on the floor.  He couldn’t figure out what the problem was.  Maybe the door was stuck?  He backed up and ran at it, slamming hard with his shoulder, but that just made him rebound even further. At least it didn’t hurt. He looked around, hoping that someone would see his predicament and offer some aid or advice, but to no avail.  Maybe another ambulance would arrive and the doors would open, or someone would leave and he would follow and slip through the open door, but no.  He tried pushing the automatic door button, with similar results.

Then, while he was figuring out his next move, a big, ugly bald guy with a fringe of greasy dark hair dressed in grimy blue coveralls with the name “Bill” stitched over the breast pocket walked toward him.  He sneered at Phil, which Phil took to mean that the guy could see him, and he was right.

“What are you looking at, dirtball?” was all the big gorilla said, which Phil thought was unnecessarily rude.

“Um, nothing.  Where are you going?  Can you open the door?”

The guy just snorted in response.  For a second, Phil thought Bill was going to walk right into him, but instead, he brushed by and continued straight for the exit, only instead of pushing the bolt in the customary fashion, Bill reached out one hairy ham of a hand and touched the door panel.  After that, it was like a hallucination, as the man’s hand passed through the sheet metal door panel, then his arm, then his body and head and all the rest, and just like that, he was gone, passed through the presumably solid object like it was liquid, causing a discernable ripple in the door’s surface.  Phil stared after him, not quite believing his eyes, and why should he?  People don’t just pass though solid matter!  But Phil was starting to realize that things were different now.  The world was not quite as he remembered it.

So Phil, having absolutely nothing to lose, figured he would follow Bill’s lead.  He walked slowly toward the door and reached out his hand.  At first, it was the same as earlier; nothing happened.  He couldn’t really feel the door at all, but neither could he push his hand through it.  He held his palm against the door panel and concentrated, just trying to feel the surface.  He knew how it should feel: smooth, hard and cool to the touch, but it felt like nothing.  After a moment, though, his hand started to sink in until it all but disappeared leaving nothing visible below his wrist.  The sight made him vaguely nauseous, and he quickly yanked his hand back and examined it closely.  It seemed fine, but the feeling of his hand being inside the solid door remained, and he didn’t like it one bit.  Still, he’d have to endure that and a lot worse if he was going to get out of the hospital, and he wanted nothing more.

It was, literally, a case of mind over matter.  If he tried to force his way through, he’d bounce right back, but if he concentrated on what it would feel like to pass through, it would surely happen.  And so, once again, he approached the door, only this time placed both hands on it.  In moments, he started to sink in.  Then he leaned forward and touched his forehead to the door panel, and began to feel something at the same time terrifying and amazing as his head, eyes, nose, brain and everything else slowly eased into the door.  The weirdest part was the eyes, as at first he could see the door, and then he could see inside the door.  His eyes were both in the door and seeing the internal parts of it, up close.  It was as if he could see molecules, which of course was impossible, or was it?  Then again, he was passing through a solid object, so why not see molecules?  He didn’t have long to think about this before the rest of his body pulled itself through the door and joined him outside the hospital walls.  He turned to watch his right leg come through last, seeing the door ripple like the surface of a pond that had been disturbed by a pebble as he was finally free of the door’s grasp.

He shuddered uneasily, but quickly confirmed that he was indeed intact and unchanged by the experience, at least physically.  He looked around to get his bearings.  He was in a small tunnel with parking for ambulances at the end of a driveway or alley that led from one side street to the next.  The place was full of ambulances, but it was strangely and curiously quiet, save for the patter of rain from the storm that continued to pour down on the city.  He walked toward one of the streets, not knowing in which direction he was heading.  Then a thought crossed his mind.  If he could pass through doors, and possibly walls, and god knows what else, then why couldn’t he pass through the pavement below his feet?

And with that thought, he started to sink into the concrete as if it were thick mud. With each step, his feet, and then his ankles and shins, began to disappear below the surface of the pavement.  It was horrible; a sinking feeling to say the least.  His first reaction was to look around for help, but of course, that would do him no good because there was no one out here, and even if they were, they likely couldn’t see him.  Where did that Bill run off to?  But wait, maybe that was the key.  Bill didn’t seem to have any problem walking through the door, and he couldn’t see Bill’s head sticking up out of the concrete, so in all likelihood, Bill had simply walked off just as easily as he had walked out of the hospital.  So if an obviously intellectually inferior fellow like that could manage to walk on the pavement without falling through, then Phil should have no problem, right?  Mind over matter.  Mind over matter.  Or maybe no mind over no matter.  Maybe if he dumbed it down a bit, didn’t over-think.  How did it work with the door?  When he thought the door was solid, he couldn’t walk through it.  And then, when he saw that Bill could walk through it, he was able to do it too.  So now, all he needed to do was concentrate on letting go of his new perception that solid matter was not solid.  No matter.  Now he needed to believe with all his might that the ground was solid, which was easy because of course it was, it was hard as a rock.  He needed to simultaneously believe the ground was solid, and that walls and doors could be walked through.  It was somewhat confusing, but he’d manage it if he could just clear his mind and concentrate.  Concentrate.  Concentrate.

And so, while forcing himself to believe as hard as he could in a fact that he had always taken for granted and had never doubted for a second in his entire life, namely, that the streets and sidewalks of New York City were solid matter that wouldn’t give way under his feet, Phil took a few steps.  At first, he still sunk into the concrete like it was mud but slowly, after a few more steps, it was as if he were walking out of a mud puddle and onto firmer soil.  Soon he was only sinking in to his ankles, then an inch or two.  Then only the soles of his shoes were being sucked on by the mud, which wasn’t mud, of course, but felt like it, and finally it was as if all was normal again.  Yes, he could do it.  He could walk on this stuff.  He could go down this alleyway, toward the street, without falling through the pavement.  What a thought it was, that something so normal and everyday and expected, the solidity of sidewalks, now seemed a miracle.

He looked up to see the sky between the buildings.  It was obscured by smoke and dust, but the rain was helping.  He could even see some light to the west, but he couldn’t tell if it was the sun.  So, he continued down the alley, not knowing what he might find on reaching the end.

CHAPTER TWENTY: IT FEELS LIKE THE WORST TIME

It was much worse than anticipated.  Phil emerged from the alley onto the avenue.  The air was thick with soot and ash, even as the rain fell.  Nightfall was fast approaching; he could tell by the darkening of the thick cloud of smoke above, while to the west there was a faint glow in the sky.  The most disturbing sight was the bodies on the sidewalks, covered with tarps, sheets, jackets, anything available to lend some dignity to the dead.  He knew the hospital was across the street from the Fountain Building; still, it took him a few moments to get his bearings.  He walked slowly, no longer limping.  There were few people in the area, mostly emergency workers wearing breathing masks.  A couple of times he passed a civilian staggering in the opposite direction in a daze, covering his or her mouth and nose with a cloth or handkerchief to filter out the gritty ash.

A bright light filled the sky, and he moved toward it.  It wasn’t a light he remembered.  As he got closer he observed that the source of the light was a truck parked at the curb near the Fountain Building Plaza, several trucks in fact, all with huge mirrored lights mounted on their beds, pointing upward, where the beams of light converged in a brilliant diamond many hundreds of feet above the ground.

As he neared the light, he passed more and more first responders.  The area was cordoned off and he expected at any moment to be stopped, to be asked what the hell he was doing here, but then he remembered he was invisible.  He found the main stairway to the plaza and climbed it.  He could finally see what the lights were focused on.  Their giant, megawatt beams shot upward toward the top of the building, and his gaze followed.  He saw something that didn’t quite make sense.  The top twenty floors or so of the Fountain Building were gone.  The lower two-thirds of the building remained intact, save for a complete absence of windows, but the top of the tower and the floors directly below it were no longer there.  Instead, from a jagged, twisted mess of steel and concrete, a flame poured forth, not unlike a giant candle.  The lights were aimed at the flame and all around the plaza, giant water cannons shot thick geysers of water straight up at the flame, the air thick with the sooty mist, gray, ashen water cascading down the side of the building and flowing in small rivers that then flowed down off the plaza steps to the street and into the gutters and sewers running to the river.  The rain, Phil thought, must be helping their efforts to extinguish the blaze.

Phil stood staring up at the destruction, transfixed, unable to move or turn away, as much as he wanted to.  When he finally could break his gaze from the burning top of the building, he realized that he was surrounded by piles of steel and concrete that covered the plaza, in some places several stories high.  The entire statue of Josiah Fountain, save for his hand and part of his arm held up in an oratory gesture, was obscured by the wreckage.  It was amazing the statue still stood, but that could only be known by the fact that the hand was still there, still pointing to the sky, as if the great man were saying, “Look.  Look at what they’ve done to my building.”

It was then that Phil heard sounds: of men shouting orders to each other, of the water spurting in great torrents from the cannons.  Up until this point, it had been as though his ears were stuffed with cotton and all he could hear were muffled, indeterminable noises.  But suddenly, someone turned on a switch and where there had been eerie quiet there was now sound, loud, urgent sounds of the terrible task being undertaken by the city’s bravest souls.  Phil scanned the plaza, looking for signs of life, but save for the emergency workers, there were none.  He looked at one of the smaller piles of rubble and to his dismay and horror, saw a severed arm sticking out from the pile.  Or was it severed?  Maybe there was someone attached.  He walked over to the pile to examine it closer, but he couldn’t tell, and he couldn’t move anything.  Of course not.  He couldn’t even open a door.  He opened his mouth to scream, but, like in a nightmare, nothing came out.  He needed someone’s attention, to call them over to see if the arm was attached to a person maybe still alive, but he couldn’t make a sound issue from his throat. Even if he could, it would not be heard.  Frustrated, sickened, and angry, he turned from the sight of the carnage and ran, fast as his legs could carry him.  He ran away.  He didn’t care where, or in which direction, he just wanted to get as far away as he possibly could.

Meanwhile, Dick Cheney was riding at fairly high speeds in his bomb-proof limousine with full police and Secret Service escort to the airport to be flown to an undisclosed location in New York to oversee the situation. He always loved traveling through the streets like this, fast, with an escort, running red lights.  Finally, a terrorist attack, something he could really sink his teeth into to take his mind away from all the problems of the administration’s second term, and from all those weird fucking dreams.  He was in his element, in the armored limo, heading to a safe location in one of the greatest cities in the world, taking charge.  There would be planning, scheming, addressing the media.  They could use this, maybe even to invade Iran, if they could pin the blame on the right parties.  That was a problem, though.  The intelligence services had seen none of the chatter of the pre-9/11 days, none of the portents of a Muslim extremist terrorist event.  This had all the earmarks of a domestic group, like that God-damn moron idiot McVeigh and the Oklahoma City fiasco.  Still, with the right slant, the right spin, they could pin this on the right enemy.

Upon arrival at Newark, Cheney was to be whisked to a tall office building in midtown Manhattan.  It was unusual for the secure location to be in a very famous landmark like that.  It was a bit too nice for his taste as the Veep liked things low-key, and yet it was hiding in plain sight.  He might get to enjoy it, way up high in a landmark building, secret offices and living spaces arranged on a floor between a law firm and a real estate magnate’s headquarters.  All very nicely appointed.  It was great to be king.

In shock, Phil wandered around the city unseen.  Once he got away from the epicenter, life seemed to be going along near as usual, though a lot more somberly.  The streets were quiet, uncomfortably so.  As he got further away and the air cleared, less people wore masks or held bandanas over their faces to avoid breathing in the soot.  A few people about walked quietly, purposefully; some looked over their shoulders as if being followed. Many businesses had closed, while a few restaurants and bars and grocery stores were doing a brisk business.  Of course.  A drink would be great right now, but problematic for Phil since he didn’t think he could figure out how to lift a glass in his current condition.

What happened? It was a dream, right? How could it be otherwise?  Even if something this horrible happened, would he and his mother be in the middle of it? This kind of thing didn’t happen to people like them. It had to be a nightmare. He was asleep, right? But where? The last thing he remembered was having lunch with his mother, and then getting on the elevator. He didn’t remember going home, having dinner, watching TV, going to bed… but who thinks of that in a dream? He never used to meet people in his dreams, either, but now that was part of his everyday life, so maybe this was a new thing for him, dream-wise. But what if it were real? How could this happen to him?  Could this really be how his life would end?  Did that make any sense?

His stream of consciousness was dammed (or perhaps damned) when he looked up and realized he had arrived at his apartment building.  Evidently, though he was invisible and in a complete state of shock and confusion, his sense of direction was intact.   His feet, with tiny little minds of their own, had carried him home.  He looked up at his window and saw that the lights were on.  Marika was home, probably, as she was fairly anal about shutting off the lights when they were out.  Maybe, like his mother earlier, his fiancé, the woman with whom he had spent so much of his life and shared a meditation practice could be made to see him, to hear him, to know he was alive, or at least present in some form that he couldn’t quite get his head around.  Of course he was alive!  He felt alive, didn’t he?  Sure, there was the strange new ability to pass through solid objects, but that would be explained, eventually.  How could someone be dead and not know they’re dead?  It just didn’t make any sense.  Of course, ever since lunch today, nothing did.

Getting into the building was easy enough, as he had mastered the art of passing through solid objects.  He entered the elevator, which was even easier, as the door was open, but then he realized he couldn’t push the button for his floor.  It was heat sensitive, and evidently he wasn’t giving off much heat.  But before he could get off and take the stairs, a neighbor who lived upstairs entered and pressed her floor, and it was too late to get off.  He figured he’d ride and then the car would return to the lobby and he’d get out and take the stairs, but he had a sudden inspiration.  As the elevator was about to pass his floor, he took a run at the doors and passed through.  Unfortunately, the momentum of the rising car sent him flying up into the air.  For a moment, his head passed through the ceiling, which was an odd sensation to say the least, and then he fell down, landing in a heap.  Luckily, he kept his senses about him, such as they were, and didn’t pass back down the through the floor.  He checked himself for injuries, there were none, and then he walked in the direction of his apartment.

He didn’t know what to expect.  He thought probably Marika would be watching coverage of the bombing on TV, as undoubtedly most of the city was, indeed, most of the world, and crying her eyes out, upset at the idea that her fiancé had been killed in this tragic and horrifying catastrophe, more upset, even, because of the difficult times they had been having recently, and because they hadn’t been able to work things out and forgive each other.  Unfinished business always leaves a bad taste in one’s mouth.  Yes, she’d be sitting there, on the couch, eyes glued to the TV set, a box of tissues at the ready, her eyes moist and red from tears of grief, a pile of used Kleenex in the wastepaper basket, a large tumbler of booze on the coffee table to numb her broken heart.

And so, when Phil got to the door, he was gratified to hear the sounds of the television from inside.  He passed through the door, and sure enough, there was his betrothed, sitting on the couch, as expected, with the scotch whiskey, the tissues, the wastepaper basket, the red, moist eyes staring at the video images of the Fountain Building carried live on the news.  Unexpectedly, however, seated next to her on the couch was none other than Zee, her arm around his grieving fiancé, speaking soothing words to her, rubbing her shoulders consolingly.  Zee looked fantastic.  She was dressed casually, much as she had been in the grocery store that night after Dream Theatre, in a loose sweater and jeans; ink visible through holes on the upper thigh of her jeans only hinted at the great mural that lay beneath.  Her hair was loose, smooth and shiny in the track lighting.  It was a touching scene, and Phil just stood there, taking it all in.

“He could be fine.  Maybe he’s dazed, just walking the streets in shock.  I’m sure that’s what it is.  That happens in these situations,” Zee offered.

“I would have heard from him by now, I know it.  I think he was having lunch with his mother.  In fact, I’m positive.  They were upstairs, in the restaurant.”

“Maybe they weren’t there yet.”

“Then why hasn’t he called?”  Marika burst into tears.  Zee held her closer.

Phil had to admit, he was touched by this scene, by Marika’s sadness at his presumed death, Zee’s consoling her.  He completely forgot why he had come in the first place, namely, to see if he could make contact with Marika.  He found himself watching like a spectator.  Yes, it was sad, even objectively, this woman grieving for the man she was supposed to marry, now perhaps dead in a pile of rubble at the base of a building in midtown, maybe pulverized by the explosion or by the impact of falling so far and being obliterated by tons of glass and steel, not a trace to be found.  And sad as it was, in some ways it was fulfilling for him to see the impact he had on someone else’s life.  How much she cared, and how much his death, as premature as it might have been to call him deceased, had turned her plans to dust, her future now a big question mark.

And so he continued to watch, almost like he was viewing a film on a screen, when Marika turned toward Zee and Zee held her close and Marika cried on Zee’s shoulder, and then Zee pulled back to arm’s length and held Marika’s face in her hands and they looked into each other’s eyes, and Zee brushed the tears from Marika’s cheeks tenderly and then, before he knew it, before he could think about whether or not he wanted to continue to be a voyeur in this slice of life that he was no longer a part of, this beautiful, raven-haired, tattooed specimen of perfect womanhood leaned in and kissed his fiancé’s full, pouty lips deeply, romantically, sensually, deliciously.  At first, Marika seemed uncertain, but in moments she was going back at Zee with the same lusty relish, tongues intertwined, arms squeezing each other tightly, full, beautiful, heaving breasts crushing against each other’s buoyant softness.  It was like a bad romance novel, only not so bad, and Phil was starting to get into it, thinking maybe, just maybe this could be his chance at the perfect ménage a trois, but then he realized that he wasn’t visible to them.  This wasn’t for him, this show, it was for them.  It wasn’t a show at all, in fact.  It was a moment between two women who, it seemed, were starting to fall in love with each other, or at least in lust, but whatever it was didn’t include Phil and wow, was that a big blow to the ego.

How could she go so easily from tears to this?  They were now touching each other through their clothes, grabbing a breast here, a thigh there, with a squeeze of a buttock just for good measure.  Was this going to happen, right here, right now, right in front of him?  Sure, it was sexy, but it also hurt. Undoubtedly, the grief had overwhelmed her.  Marika wasn’t gay, and even if she was bi all of a sudden, she certainly would wait an appropriate amount of time before having sex with Zee, wouldn’t she?

Um, no.  There went the sweaters.  There was Zee pushing Marika back onto the couch, quickly turning off the TV, and unsnapping Marika’s jeans.  And that was all Phil could take.  Sure, he wanted to watch.  What guy wouldn’t?  But instead, he ran into the bedroom and burst into tears like a girl.

It wasn’t the fact that his fiancé was falling in love with someone else, male or female, that got Phil’s knickers in a twist.  After all, he had done the same thing.  In fact, this was what Phil was secretly hoping for; Marika’s falling for Zee would open the door for him to explore his relationship with Stephanie without guilt or remorse.  But now he wasn’t even sure he was alive, which definitely put a crimp in his plans.  No, it was the circumstances that rubbed him the wrong way.  She didn’t even know he was dead yet!  And even if that were confirmed, shouldn’t a fiancé wait a respectful amount of time before diving into her first lesbian affair?  That’s what got him so angry, that she couldn’t wait, that even if he were buried somewhere under the rubble of the Fountain Building, hanging onto his last breaths, she just didn’t care anymore.  She was moving on without him, and it hurt like a sonofabitch.

This hit home worse than anything earlier in the day, more than being invisible, or seeing his mother, or walking through walls, or seeing an arm sticking out of a pile of twisted steel.  It wasn’t just that he was dead; that was bad enough.  But the reality of Zee and Marika on the couch made him realize that life would go on without him.  His fiancé would continue with her loves and experiences, as would Zee, and Burt and everyone else, but Phil’s line would end here.  Sure, they might miss him, and think of him from time to time, but they would go on, and he wouldn’t.  This thought turned his sadness to anger.  Never one to fly off the handle and into a wild, gut-busting rage, Phil was surprised at the intensity of the feeling he had as it built from his belly to his chest to his throat like an explosion about to rip his head off.  He didn’t quite know what to do with it, but he wanted to get rid of this feeling any way he could.  And so, without thinking his actions through to their logical conclusion, he ran at the window and dove through it.

It was a large glass pane and it would have made a satisfying crash if Phil were still made of solid matter, but his mind had become accustomed to the idea that he could pass through solid things and so he went through the glass like it was water.  In fact, had anyone been watching, they would have seen the glass ripple like a pond on its surface.  And suddenly, Phil found himself in mid-air, and after his momentum from diving through the window came to an end, he plunged head first toward the street.

This, of course, was kind of what he wanted when he jumped through the window in the first place, wasn’t it?  He was trying to kill himself.  Sure, he was probably dead already, but that wasn’t the point.  It was the rage and the hurt and the pain of his own death and his fiancé’s quickly seeking solace in the arms of another that drove him to dive through the window in the first place, so logically, it was an attempt to end it all, even if it were already over.

So, Phil decided to throw himself into it, so to speak, and he assumed a position of supplication, holding his arms out.  He thought this was pretty cool, almost Christ-like, giving in to the moment.  He prepared himself for impact.  Or would there be impact?  Maybe he’d just evaporate, or something.

The most amazing, unexpected thing was that he had so much time to think about what was happening.  It felt like forever.  His mind must have been racing at incredible speeds to produce so much thought in the few seconds it took for him to fall from his apartment window to the pavement.  Yet everything seemed unhurried, focused and clear.  Even as the sidewalk rushed up to meet his chin, his mind was free of confusion or worry.

And then, something wondrous happened. At this point, it seemed inevitable that things would keep happening that couldn’t be explained.  Nothing today was explicable, so why shouldn’t it stay that way?  But this took the cake. As he fell at what must have been hundreds of feet per second, arms extended wide, back arched exposing his chest to the ground below, he had a sudden impulse to fly, to soar like the falcons he once saw on a trip out west, swooping out of the sky after prey, diving at steep angles to the valley floor, only to pull out of the dive at the last second and climb back up to ride the heat currents again.  And so that’s exactly what Phil did.  He extended his arms further, arched his back more, and, just before hitting the ground, ascended again at a sharp angle, straight up over the neighboring apartment buildings and high over Manhattan.

He felt like Superman.  He didn’t have to flap his arms, or make any physical effort; rather, he could just point his body in the direction he wanted to go and there he went.  It was amazing, brilliant, ecstatic, electrifying.  He let out whoops of joy, not caring that they couldn’t be heard.  The freedom he felt was beyond anything he had experienced in life.  He no longer felt the anger of moments ago, the reality of his own death and his fiancé’s betrayal of his memory.  Instead, he was filled with happiness and contentment.  He soared high over the soot and dust of the Fountain Building to see a full moon and a blanket of stars left in the wake of the violent storm.  He flew as high as he could, and then dove again, down over the city streets.

As he zipped past windows on either side, Phil caught glimpses of people in the act of living lives: eating dinner, watching TV, talking, hugging, playing.  It was an opportunity to see things he had never seen before, people he didn’t know, in lives mundane and exciting, in their own little worlds, presumably free from the eyes of others. Was this what it was to be, then?  Was he a ghost who could fly from ledge to ledge, passing through walls unseen to observe people in their most intimate moments?  Maybe there were others around like him, maybe older souls dead for decades wandering the nights like phantom peeping toms, looking in on family and strangers alike.

He remembered when his grandmother died, thinking that maybe she was still out there someplace, that perhaps she could visit him and his family without them knowing.  When he was very young, this idea was both comforting and kind of creepy.  She could be an angel watching over them, but then if she were there, couldn’t there be all sorts of other people passing through unannounced?  These thoughts plagued him even into his early teens, when he wondered while, for example, taking a crap or masturbating in the shower, if his grandmother might be watching.  This would naturally ruin the mood, especially so for the self-pleasuring.  Then again, he reasoned, what spirit in his or her right mind would want to hang around in a bathroom watching people relieve themselves?  As for watching someone masturbate… well, that wasn’t Phil’s deal but neither would he judge.

Needless to say, this kind of thinking went along well with the Jewish/Catholic guilt of his childhood, the idea that someone, i.e. “God,” was watching to see if he’d do “bad” things.  Later, this concept became just a benign nuisance, and he eventually stopped thinking about it altogether, but it came back to him now, as he flew through the city, alighting outside people’s windows.

In one building, he walked through an entire floor of apartments.  Just passing through.  He saw a family at dinner, the mother and father arguing with each other while the children looked on, sad yet complacent, having witnessed this kind of thing all too often.  In another, a couple made passionate love, quite creatively, in fact, but rather than finding it arousing (or even amusing, as they were both pudgy and older and didn’t look like the kind of people who would be so sexually limber and athletic), Phil was even sadder.  Yet another enjoyable activity of the living in which he could no longer partake.  People cooked, cleaned, played cards, sat on couches doing pretty much nothing, played with themselves while staring at porn on the internet, gabbed on the phone… just about anything and everything he could have expected to see, and absolutely nothing that he needed to see more than once.

In the last apartment, a man sat in the dark, drinking a tumbler-full of booze, watching the TV, his eyes moist from crying.  He flipped the channels to see more coverage of the Fountain Building.  His wife sat across the room in a chair, watching him watch the television.

“Michael, why not turn it off ?  You’re not going to see anything.  He’s probably fine, maybe a little, you know, confused, in shock.  They’ve said it all night, that there are countless people wandering around not knowing what to do.”

“Not him.  He’d get to a phone, at least, if he could.  He’s not on any of the hospital lists.  If he were alive, we’d have heard by now.  Remember 9/11?  Nobody showed up alive after the first few hours.  If they didn’t find him yet...”

“Then… he lived a good life.  He had his family, and a wonderful career.  There’s nothing you can do right now.  Watching this is just making you crazy.”

“That’s easy for you to say,” the man snapped.  “He’s not your father.”

A toddler waddled into the room in a diaper and T-shirt.  He looked at his parents, at his father sobbing, and then crossed to the TV. Calmly, he turned off the set and closed the cabinet.  Then, he turned back to his parents.  No one said anything for a moment.

“No more TV for anyone in this house!” The lad shouted with conviction.

His father stared, slack-jawed, and wiped his eyes with the back of his arm.  He stood and lumbered over to the boy.  He towered over the little guy, looking down at him.  Then, smiling broadly, scooped up his son and hugged him like there was no tomorrow; today’s events made it abundantly clear that no one could know if there would be.

Phil was touched by this display, and also somewhat disgusted with himself for spying on people like this.  And then he remembered: Stephanie.

She left him a message.  She was coming to the Fountain Building.  That’s why he left lunch early.  That’s why he was in the elevator and not across the table from his mother.  And if she had arrived, soon after she called, as he assumed she had… Fuck.  She could have been there, too.  In the building.  He needed to find out what happened to her, and right away.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE: HEY, JOE

He needed to move quickly.  Luckily, he could fly.  Although he never had been inside her apartment, he had gotten hold of Stephanie’s address and on one particularly sunny Sunday had managed to amble by, just to take a gander at her digs and try not to feel like a stalker.  A nice building on the West side in the fifties, a kind of retro-chic block with refitted warehouses and a couple of prewar buildings.  So off he flew, high up over midtown, passing the Empire State Building for a close look, the Chrysler Building, of which he had always been an admirer, and Times Square.  He was interested in seeing these landmarks from perspectives he had not even imagined, but couldn’t really enjoy himself as he was concerned about Stephanie, about himself, about everyone.  Still, after today, seeing these structures standing was somewhat reassuring.

In a weird way, he wasn’t sure what he could find out about her.  Sure, he’d want her to be okay, but then what would that make him feel?  There she’d be, alive and well, with him all dead and soon to be buried, if there was anything left to bury.  What good would that do him?  She’d get over him quickly enough.  He wasn’t even sure she liked him all that much, although it seemed she was starting to.  She’d just move on, probably, eventually find someone nice to settle down with.  She was, in Phil’s estimation, deeply attractive, and smart, too.  Finding a good man wouldn’t be a problem.  Yes, she’d feel bad about losing him, maybe even grieve for him, hopefully more than his fiancé had, but that would pass soon enough and then Phil would be just some memory, something to tell people about later in life, this guy she was starting to get involved with who was killed in this awful and infamous incident.  She’d get a lot of mileage out of that.  In some sort of sick way, at least it felt sick to him, he had this deep, gnawing wish that she’d be dead with him.  That was so selfish! His most selfish thought ever. How could he hope for such a thing?  He’s falling in love with this woman, and yet he wants her to be dead, as if somehow they could be reunited in some kind of heaven.  If only he believed in heaven.  Well, at least he’d finally get the answer to that one.

And then, when he got there, walked into the building, found her name on the tenant directory and went up to her apartment, she was not at home.  He looked around her place a little bit, and although it seemed nice, he couldn’t really get a sense of her style since the lights were out and he couldn’t turn them on, being dematerialized, or whatnot.  Her cat, however, seemed a little spooked by him, which was interesting.  In all those ghost movies, the cats and other animals seem to be able to see or sense the spirits, which he had always assumed to be some part of the story formula, but maybe it was true.  Animals had better senses of smell and hearing and maybe also had the ability to see the dead, if he was dead, which he was starting to think he was, even though there was no absolute proof.  Yet.  Except maybe the flying and walking through walls part.

There was not much left to do now.  He had done the looking-at-strangers-in-their-private-lives thing, which had left him vaguely nauseated and, of course, guilty, had seen his fiancé in the arms of the beautiful tattooed bartender he had introduced her to after blowing his own chance at sleeping with said bartender (even though he wouldn’t have if she said yes anyway), had flown around New York, yelling at the top of his lungs like a lunatic, and checked in on Stephanie, only to find her apartment empty save for one skittish kitten.  He decided to find a perch and get a better view of things.

Phil flew up, soared around aimlessly gathering his thoughts, and then alit at the top of an office building north of midtown.  Up here, he could see his favorite landmarks all lit up, and the jagged ruins of the Fountain Building, which had become visible as the smoke and soot thinned out, and was still smoldering, the Klieg lights shining on what was left of its upper floors, firemen pouring water over it as the flames died down and were replaced by smoke and steam.  It made an oddly beautiful sight, reminiscent of those geysers he had seen on a trip to Yellowstone Park with his folks when he was a kid, or maybe the smokestack of an old riverboat, which they had seen in St. Louis on one of those endless treks of his childhood.  His father was fond of long car trips because, he said, it was the only way to really see the country, but Phil secretly believed that his father was too cheap to take an airplane, and afraid of flying to boot.

He didn’t know the name of the building he landed on, but it had a large, flat roof that could easily accommodate a helicopter, and in fact, it had lines painted on it for such a possibility, although it didn’t seem to be an active heliport.  Red lights lined the edge of the roof, which afforded a three-sixty degree view of the city, as it was the tallest building in the neighborhood.  Phil always loved great views of the city, even as much as he hated being up high in tall buildings (evidently with good reason), but now his fear of heights didn’t concern him in the least.  First of all, he was probably dead, and secondly, he could fly, so how could he worry about being high up in a building, or falling off one, for that matter?  Plus, there was little chance that he’d be blown up twice in the same day.  For a moment, he felt free.  But then that anger welled up in him again, anger borne from the thought of his life ending before it had really begun, and he yelled out, to no one in particular (or to God, he wasn’t sure which, even though he didn’t believe in God, per se), “how could you let me die like this?  I’m a good person, aren’t I?  I mean, pretty good. Do I really deserve this shit?”

It was then that he realized that someone was standing behind him.  It wasn’t that he sensed a presence, although he may have.  He just heard a voice say, “it’s not really a matter of whether you deserve it or not.”

Phil almost jumped out of his shoes and off the building, but he was too interested in finding out who was behind him and just how it was that this person could see him and actually communicate with him, so he stood in place and slowly turned toward the voice.

There stood a youngish black man, with long dreadlocks, wearing motorcycle boots, jeans, a whiter than white T-shirt, and an open leather jacket.  A nice leather jacket, Italian perhaps.  His arm encircled a crash helmet with an intricate design of unusual origin that reminded Phil of something, some kind of Egyptian ankh, perhaps, but he couldn’t be certain of that, and couldn’t remember why he knew the term “ankh.”

“Hi, Phil.  I’m Joe.”

Phil was flummoxed, and he babbled.  “Joe, huh?  Nice to meet you.  I mean, I don’t remember meeting you before, although you seem to know my name, which would indicate that maybe I have.  Met you, I mean.  At least you can see me, which is refreshing, as I haven’t had much success in making myself visible to people in the last few hours.  But you know, things seem to be a little… confusing, as it were….”

“Easy, Phil.  Relax.  Everything’s going to be okay.”

It was then that Phil noticed the very cool, extremely expensive-looking motorcycle parked on the roof several feet behind Joe.

“Beautiful bike, Joe.  What is it, a Ducati, or something?”

“Thanks.  No, it’s a custom job.  A no-brand kind of thing.”

“Are you, like, God or something?”

Joe laughed heartily.  “Thanks for the compliment, but no.  I’ll be happy to explain everything to you one of these days, but right now I just wanted to ask if you’d mind going back to the hospital and waiting there with everyone else.”

“Go back to the hospital?”

“Yeah.”

“Why?”

“Like I said, I can’t quite go into it right now, but I’ve been looking all over town for you and while I’m glad you’re okay, I have a lot to deal with at the moment.  It’s just important for you to go back there until we can get everything sorted out.”

“Okay?  You think I’m okay?  Do you realize what I’m going through?  I’m dead, or something, right?  I can pass through walls and fly.  What is the deal with that?”

“This is why I need you to be at the hospital.  You’re supposed to wait there until it’s time to go.  I can’t make special arrangements for everyone.”

“Go where?  What is going on?”

“I told you, you’ll find out soon enough.  Now, please…”

“Can you make me?”

“Make you what?

“Go back to the hospital?”

Joe chuckled.  “No, I can’t, but I’d really appreciate it if you’d cooperate.  It would make this whole thing a lot easier for me and everyone involved.  Catch you later.”

Joe turned and walked to his fancy motorcycle while pulling on his helmet.  He hopped on, rocked it forward to kick up the stand, pressed the ignition and revved it up.  He took a slow turn to the distant end of the helipad, then steered back toward Phil and throttled up, speeding past and disappearing off the edge of the roof.

Phil couldn’t believe what he saw.  He ran to the railing and looked over.  Instead of seeing the motorcycle flying out toward the street, Joe was literally riding down the exterior wall of the building.  Phil dove off after him, and was closing in, but he hit a patch of smoke and suddenly Joe was gone.  Phil landed on the sidewalk and looked around, but there was no sign of Joe.  He shook his head in befuddlement.  Maybe this was all some long, complicated dream after all.  Things were getting stranger and stranger, and none of it made any sense.  A dream would be better than being dead, right?  Sure, that had to be what it was, a dream.  Why should that be so surprising, given all the weird dreams recently?

As he stood there, musing over his situation and trying to make some sense of it, a large motorcade sped by on the avenue, several black SUVs, a limo, and four police motorcycles.  It wasn’t something one saw every day, even in NYC.  Phil was intrigued.  Who could this be, someone important, undoubtedly, being whisked to a secret location or meeting.  Maybe it had something to do with the Fountain Building.  Without even thinking about it, Phil took off and followed the motorcade uptown.

The cars flew through traffic, not even slowing down at red lights.  Wow, that was cool, Phil thought, being able to run red lights like that, in midtown Manhattan, no less.  The front two motorcycles would pull into the intersection and the motorcade would zip through, then the rear two motorcycles would move up to the front and the ones that had stopped would rejoin the motorcade in the rear.  It was amazing to see the coordination from above.  Automobile choreography.  The motorcade pulled into the parking garage under a famous office building north of midtown.  Phil followed them underground.

A bunch of Secret Service types exited the SUVs and scanned the area, communicating with each other on concealed microphones and earpieces.  When the all clear was given, the limo door was opened and out stepped none other Vice President Dick Cheney!  It was weird, seeing him in person.  Phil felt like he knew the guy, maybe from seeing him so much on TV, or maybe it was from that dream.  Phil laughed at the spectacle of Dick and Bush in their French maid outfits.  Boy, would Cheney be embarrassed about that one, if he could see it.

Since Phil had nothing better to do, and more than anything he didn’t want to go back to the hospital despite Joe’s urging, he decided to follow the Vice President upstairs to see what was going on.  At least Phil could get the inside scoop on what exactly had happened that day, and who had caused this nightmare, assuming, of course, that Cheney knew.  It was quite thrilling, actually, to be able to walk right through the tightest, most high-tech security on the planet, into the midst of Vice Presidential seat of power.

The Secret Service was quite orderly and efficient, as one might expect.  They checked out every elevator car, every hallway, every bathroom, every doorway, before the VP could enter.  Wow, thought Phil, that’s power, being protected like that.  He wondered if they even tasted Cheney’s food for him.  Phil imagined one of them tasting Cheney’s dinner and saying, “sorry, sir, you can’t eat this.  It has too much cholesterol.”

Cheney was whisked into an elevator; Phil followed.  He stood right next to Dick as the elevator ascended.  Weird thing was, Cheney seemed very nervous.  And not because of the situation, or the presumed terrorist act.  No, Phil was convinced that somehow Dick Cheney knew he was in the elevator.  He was clearly uncomfortable, and he kept glancing in Phil’s general direction, and for a second, Phil thought he’d been busted, until it was obvious that although Cheney seemed to sense someone or something standing next to him, he couldn’t see anything, and he wasn’t about to say something to the Secret Service guys riding in the elevator with him, because they’d no doubt think he was crazy, and while he didn’t mind being called egomaniacal, no one was going to call Dick Cheney crazy.

The elevator stopped on a high floor and Phil followed the Secret Service and Cheney down a hallway into a large conference room.  He was surprised to see that they chose a room with high ceilings and windows from floor to ceiling on three walls.  Phil thought that wouldn’t be as secure as an inner room without windows, but what the hell did he know about security.

Cheney took a seat at the head of the long conference table.  There were already several people waiting for him, although not enough to fill even a quarter of the table, which was expensive and shiny and made of rich mahogany, or some such kind of fancy wood, and polished to perfection so that the city lights from outside the window glinted off the surface.  There were half a dozen men and one woman, all of whom rose when the Vice President entered, although he quickly waved his arm and grunted, which was apparently his way of telling them to sit down.  Some were in suits, some in uniform, and a couple, like Cheney, dressed casually in short sleeves.  There were notes, a map, and a few laptop computers on the table.

“What do we have?” Cheney barked out at them.  They all looked at one another to see who would go first, and the woman, a small, bony redhead in a pantsuit and glasses, took the lead.

“Several groups have claimed responsibility, but most of them seem to be bogus.”

“I don’t care who’s claiming responsibility, I need to know who did it.  Was it Al Qaida?  Some other Muslim group?  Any Iraqi or Iranian connections?”

A nerdy looking guy in a short sleeve button-down shirt and a buzz cut raised his hand.

“What is this, high school?  Speak up!”

“Well, Mr. Vice President, National Security has been monitoring the internet for any chatter, and the investigators are looking for any signatures in either the explosives or the method.  The most verifiable leads so far seem to point to a domestic group, the Brothers of the Order of Bethlehem.”

“What the hell is that?”

“They advocate the recodification of federal and state law to follow the literalist interpretation of the bible.”

“Fuck!  The bible?  Are you telling me these people are Christians?!”

A guy in a dark suit chimed in.  “FBI’s had them on our radar for several years.  They’re not exactly mainstream Christians.  Kind of Bibleo-anarchist-polygamist-white supremacist types.”

“Brothers of the Order of Bethlehem?  What do they call themselves, BOOB?”

Buzz cut raised his hand, but then remembered he shouldn’t and lowered it. “Actually, it’s BOB.”

“BOB?! For christsakes what the hell is going on around here?  Has this whole country gone fucking mad?”

There was silence around the room, as if they were all answering, “yes.”

“No one knows who these idiots are.  Can we pin this one on Iran, or Hezbollah, or one of those groups?  I can’t use this for anything otherwise.  It’s just a big Oklahoma City pig fuck if it isn’t the Muslims.  Did any Arab groups claim responsibility?  Maybe we can just float that out there in the press?

Phil couldn’t quite believe that this is what happened in these meetings.  It wasn’t about finding out who did it, but rather figuring out who to blame.  Sure, he suspected that things like this probably happened all the time, but for some reason it wasn’t in his nature to give credence to conspiracy theorists. He simply assumed that people in power would want to do what was right and get the answers.  And here he was, having been blown up in this thing, by BOB, of all things.  BOB, like Gurubob.  He was being haunted by Bobs.  Talk about coming full circle.  And now these people killed him, his mother, maybe Stephanie and God knows who else, and the powers that be were going to try to use it as some kind of political tool, maybe to start another war?  He had to do something.

Slowly, as though he might be seen, Phil walked around the table and stood behind Cheney.  He leaned forward so his head was right next to the VP’s ear.  Cheney seemed to shiver, and Phil could swear the hair on the back of Cheney’s neck stood up.

“What the hell… is the air conditioning on in here?” Cheney wondered.

“I’ll check it out, sir,” one Secret Service guy offered, and he left the room.

Phil wasn’t sure what to do, but he did know that he could pass through solid objects, so why not the Vice President?  He stuck his finger out and pushed it at the side of Cheney’s head.  At first, it met resistance, like when he tried the door in the hospital.  So he cleared his head, and tried to believe that he could put his hand through Dick Cheney’s head.  And then, his finger sunk into Cheney’s skull just above his ear.  Cheney didn’t seem to feel it at first, but then he started to look uncomfortable.  The Secret Serviceman to his left noticed.

“Is everything all right, sir?”

“Yeah, yeah, fine.  I just have this weird feeling in my head.  Get some ibuprofen from the doctor, will you?”

“Yes, sir.”

Well, this is fun, Phil thought, but it wasn’t doing much to change the situation.  The redheaded woman spoke up.

“We did get a claim of responsibility from a fringe Palestinian support group, one with ties to the New York Metro area, but they don’t seem to have the resources to pull off anything like this.”

“What if they had help?  You know, from Iran, or some other entity? Funding, training, weapons, explosives?”

Phil needed to take this a step further.  He got his mind in the same state as when he walked through the walls in the apartment building, and he sat right down in Dick Cheney’s lap.  In a second, Phil was melting into Cheney’s body.  It felt really weird, very unpleasant.  Disgusting, actually.  Not necessarily because it was Dick Cheney, even though Phil felt his political ideology morally repugnant.  No, Phil was fairly certain that melding into just about anyone’s body would be pretty gross, at least until one got used to this sort of thing.  Being as they were about the same height, soon Phil found himself occupying the same space as Cheney, including his head.  He could hear Cheney’s thoughts.  That was quite something.

“Who are you?  What the hell…?”

“Hi, sir.  It’s me, Phil.  I was killed in the attack today.”

“You’re kidding me, right?... Wait. Am I saying this out loud?”  Cheney looked around the table.  Apparently, only he and Phil could hear his thoughts.

“Is this some kind of sick joke?  Have I been drugged?  Or is this one of those mind probes the Russians have been working on?”

“Mind probes?  The Russians have been working on mind probes?  Wow.”

“Listen, Phil, if that is your name.  No one messes with Dick Cheney’s brain and gets away with it, you hear me?  So clear out of here before I…”

“What are you going to do, sir, tell the Secret Service the Russians have invaded your brain?  I mean, really, Mr. Cheney, who’s the Speaker of the House?  A Democrat, isn’t it?  You want some Democrat taking your job because you’re acting all crazy, thinking someone’s in your brain.”

“Okay, okay, I’ll give you that.  You’re a tough negotiator.  Phil, is it?  What do you want from me?”

“I want you to tell the truth.  I want you to find out what happened in the Fountain Building today, and not blame some other country and start another war just to take focus off your bad poll numbers or to make some more money for your friends at Halliburton.”

“I would never do anything of the sort. You’re listening to too much liberal talk radio.  Phil, whoever you are, you don’t know shit about foreign policy and dealing with terrorists, so why don’t you just clear out of here and let me do my job?”

At this point, Cheney started to notice that the other people in the room were looking at him and wondering why he had suddenly become so quiet.

“Just give me a moment, people.  I need to think a few things through here.  Talk amongst yourselves,” he said to them, out loud

“Look, Mr. Cheney, I know you have a job to do, it’s just that, as a victim, I demand that you get to the bottom of this and not use it to manipulate some kind of international situation.  I think everyone killed in this thing today, their families and the American people, deserve better, don’t you?”

“What are you telling me, that you’re some kind of ghost or something?  That’s ridiculous!  I am not crazy, and this is not happening!”

“This is just a shot in the dark… I’m sorry, maybe that’s a bad metaphor, but… can I ask you something?  Did you ever have a dream that you and the president were wearing French maids’ uniforms and serving breakfast in bed to a naked couple?”

“What?  What did you just say?”

“Whoa.  You did, didn’t you?”

“This is madness.  This can’t be happening.”

“Ouch.  My chest hurts,”  Phil exclaimed with a grunt.

“That’s not your chest, it’s mine.  You’re giving me angina.  Please, just get out of here before I have a heart attack!”

The others in the room couldn’t help but notice that Cheney was turning a very uncomfortable-looking shade of red.

“Sir, is everything all right?”

A Secret Service agent walked over to the Vice President and talked into his lapel.  “Get the Veep’s doc up here right away.”

“Please, Phil, whoever you are.  Please get out.  I promise, I’ll do whatever you ask, but I need you to…”

“Okay, okay. But remember, if you don’t, I’ll be back.  Sir.”

And with that, Phil tried to stand up.  But it wasn’t so easy.  It was like he and Cheney had become one person, and he was stuck.  He tried and tried, but nothing.

“What the hell are you still doing here?

“I’m trying.  I can’t get out of you… That sounds so wrong!”

“What are you talking about?  Of course you can!  You got in here, didn’t you?  So?  Go out the same fucking way!”

Phil gathered himself, settled his mind.  He went into a meditative trance of sorts, to settle down.  Interestingly enough, this had a very soothing effect on Cheney as well.

“Wow.  That feels okay.  What is that?”  Cheney wondered.

“It’s called breathing… meditation, you know?  Just chill for a second, will you?  I’m trying to concentrate.  Take a few breaths and calm down”

Cheney did as he was told.  He closed his eyes.  The people around the table looked on with alarm, having never seen the VP do this.

“What’s he doing?  Sir!?  Are you all right?”

“He actually looks pretty peaceful, for him.”

“Can he hear us?”

Phil visualized what it was like to be separate from the Vice President again.  He wanted that.  It was very interesting being inside another human being, to be sure, but enough was enough already.  He took a few more deep breaths, and stood.

It was a slow, deliberate process, almost like an amoeba during cell reproduction.  They were spliced together, and Phil had to pull himself, bit by bit, out of Cheney’s body.  But with much effort, he finally did, and they separated with an audible pop that Phil thought only he and Cheney could hear.  But he was wrong.

“What was that noise?” asked the red haired woman.  “Did he break something?  I definitely heard a pop, like a ligament, or something.”

Phil found himself on the floor.  He wanted to get out of there as soon as he could, but he was weak.  He crawled away slowly as the Secret Service rushed in with Cheney’s doctor.  Then, the weirdest thing happened.  Well, everything since this afternoon had been the weirdest thing, so this was just one more weirdest thing, and it was pretty weird.  He started sinking into the floor, like he had sunk into the concrete when leaving the hospital.  Only he couldn’t stop himself now.  He was too weak from being inside Cheney and crawling back out.  It had sucked the life out of him.  He sunk deeper and deeper as he crawled, until finally, the floor turned into mush.  It was like a chute opening up under him, and he was sucked down into it.  He fell, story after story, floor by floor, passing through the solid concrete and steel as if it were sludge.  Faster and faster he fell, until he could no longer see the individual floors as he went.  Everything was a blur.  And then everything went black.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO: IN THE DARK

“Dad?”  There he was, Dave, Phil’s father, looking pretty good for a depressive neurotic who had been dead for quite some time.  They sat on a boat in the middle of the Great South Bay in Long Island, fishing, probably for flounder. These were the only times they seemed to get along well, here and at Mets games. It was during these bonding moments that Dave dispensed his fatherly advice, and Phil was willing to listen, even though he usually thought it was a pile of horse shit.

“So, what’s going on with you?” Dave asked.  “We haven’t had a chance to catch up in a while.”

“Well, you’ve been dead for, what 12, 13 years now, Dad? That’s probably why.”

“How’s it going with your love life?  Anyone special?”

Phil had to laugh.  “It’s a long story, Dad.  But you should know that your theory about marrying a woman based solely on the fact that she really enjoys sex was a little simplistic and logically unsound.”

“Yeah, I know.  That was stupid.  I was all wrong about your mother.  I thought she didn’t appreciate me, but I guess it was my own fault.”

“Really?  You really think that?”

“Yes.  It’s actually all about love, Phil.  I mean, if your mother and I were in love, I mean, really in love, we would have been able to work things out between us, I’d probably still be alive, and we even might have had sex once in a while.  I guess I was just feeling sorry for myself most of the time, and that didn’t make me very attractive to her.  Hey, you got one.”  Dave was gesturing toward Phil’s fishing pole.  Sure enough, it was jerking up and down, pretty hard, a little more bend in the tip than would be expected from an Atlantic flounder.  Maybe it was a fluke or a blackfish?

Phil began to reel it in, and it was quite a chore.  The drag was set pretty tight, but the fish was strong and it kept pulling out more line every time Phil reeled in some.  Finally, Phil could see something below the surface.  “Get the net, Dad.  It’s a big one,” he yelled out and then yanked up hard on the line.  Only instead of a fish, it was Stephanie.  She didn’t have the hook impaled through her lip, thankfully, as that would have been disgusting, but she was tangled up in the line and it seemed to be choking her, as her face was turning quite red.  Dave tried to get the net under her, but she struggled hard against the tension, and the line snapped.

“Damn, son.  I told you we should have used the 30 pound test!  You let a great one get away.”

Phil looked at his father, then down into the water.  Without a thought, he dove into the bay and swam downward, following the bubbles.  He could see Stephanie sinking below him and swam as hard as he could, but she was always just beyond his frantic reach.  He was running out of air.  He looked up, but couldn’t see the boat, or the sun.  In fact, all above was darkness….

When he awoke, not sure how long he had been unconscious, Phil found himself in the dark a few levels below the street, presumably, given the lack of air, the dank moisture, and the sounds of the place. In the distance, a thundering metallic thud, repeated ominously.  It reminded him of the noise in his dream about The Oaf, but he was pretty sure he wasn’t dreaming.  He was stuck under a large chunk of steel, heavy and immovable.  His leg was killing him, which was odd, as he thought it had been getting better.  It looked like it was broken, at a grotesque angle. Maybe he was injured when he fell down through the building?  But that didn’t make sense, as the last thing he could remember, before being inside the body of Dick Cheney, he was flying around and passing through solid objects with ease.

He heard something.  Or someone.  At first, it was a ways off.  Maybe a rat, or something else that might live in the subterranean world he seemed to be visiting.  Or maybe, he thought, this is hell, or purgatory, or something.  Of course, he didn’t believe in any of those places.  With nothing to lose, he called out.

“Hello?  Can you hear me?  I’m stuck here.  Can anyone hear me?”

After a moment, a voice replied in accented English that sounded somewhat familiar.  “Where are you?”

“I don’t know.  I’m over here.  I can’t really move.  Something fell on my leg.  I think it’s broken.”

“Keep talking.  I can follow your voice.”

“I wish I had a lighter or something so you could see me.”

“That’s okay.  Smoking is bad for you anyway.  Wait; I think I can get to you.”

It seemed to take forever, but was just a few minutes until, through an opening in a wall, Phil could make the the shine from a little pen flashlight.

“Right over here.  I can see you.  I’m over here.”

There he was, approaching, squeezing between two panels or walls.  Was he in the elevator?  Then Phil had to squint as the penlight shone in his eyes.

“Phil?  Is that Phil McCone?”

“Yes?  Yes, it’s me!  Who is that?  I can’t see you.”

Phil could make out the features of his face.  It was none other than his nemesis, Mr. Kitson’s spy, whom he had last seen in the elevator of the Fountain Building.

“Oh, it’s you.  I… Are you… you made it out of there?  You can see me?  Are you dead?”

“Dead?  Why would I be dead?” asked the spy, incredulous.

“We were in the elevator.  There was an explosion.  Didn’t the elevator drop?  With us in it?”

“I… I don’t really remember all of it.”

“Oh.  Well, can you at least help me get out of here?  Where are we?  It’s like we’re underground.”

The spy put the penlight in his mouth and leaned on the hunk of metal that pinned Phil in place to.  It probably weighed over a ton and it wasn’t going to budge.

“I can’t move it at all.”

“What if you got a pole, or something, to use as a lever?  Even if you could move it an inch or so, I might be able to get out.”

“Your leg looks bad.  If you move, it might make it worse.  Just stay where you are and I’ll go get help.”

“What?  But… please, don’t leave me here alone.  What if you just wait here with me?  If you found me, surely one of the rescue workers will come along soon enough.”

“No, no, you’ll be fine, Phil.  I’ll just be gone a few minutes.  You sit tight and I’ll find some help.  They probably will need a crane or something to cut that metal so you can be moved.  Really, it’s the only way.  I’ll be right back.”

“Wait…” Phil called after the spy as he receded into the darkness, but before the word could echo back to him from the recesses underground, the spy was gone.  Phil wanted to cry, but he was in shock.  Another wave of pain passed over him, and mercifully, he passed out cold.

Phil snapped awake again, only now, somehow, he was back on the rooftop of the building with the heliport and the great views of the city.  He quickly jumped to his feet and felt his leg.  It was fine.  Was that just a dream?  Was the whole thing a dream, with Cheney and the spy and everything?

“What the fuck…” was all he could say, and he yelled it loudly.

“Must you always use profanity?”  The voice came from behind him.  It was Joe.

“What do you care?”

“I don’t, really, but I also don’t see the point when there are so many fine words to use in the English language.”

“Thank you, Miss Manners.”

“Hey.  I told you to go back to the hospital, but did you listen?  Of course not.  You’re one of those people who never does what he’s told, aren’t you?”

Phil couldn’t quite argue with that.  In fact, it made him feel… guilty.  Wow.  He hadn’t felt that in a few hours.  “What happened?  I thought my leg was broken.”

“Uh, yeah, well, it might be.”

“Really?  But it feels fine now…how did I get up here?”

“I think you fell.”

“Don’t people usually fall in a downward direction?”

“Usually…You’re asking too many questions.”

“Did all that really happen?  With Cheney and falling and being underground in the dark, and…”

“Phil, I told you before and I’ll tell you again, I’ll explain everything to you, but now we’ve got to go, and I should be there already, except I’ve been running around the city looking for your sorry ass once again!  Now just take this and hop on the bike.”  Joe held out a motorcycle helmet to Phil.

“Yeah, the way you drive that thing, I need the helmet.”

Joe rolled his eyes. Phil pulled on the helmet as Joe straddled the bike.  Joe motioned for Phil to get on behind him.

“I sit behind you and put my arms around your waist… like a girl, right?”

Joe just looked at Phil like he was an idiot.  Phil got on behind him.

Joe revved it up and sped toward the roof’s edge, plummeting over.  Phil knew this was coming, but nonetheless screamed like a baby, convinced he was going to die, again, but then the motorcycle leveled off and they flew through clouds and smoke.  Even though he had just done a bit of flying himself, Phil hung on for dear life.  It was oddly peaceful, however, and he started to relax as the bike flew, or floated was more apropos, smoothly, without jolt or jostle.  Soon they were moving at a very high speed, but still he felt safe and warm.  They flew so fast that the lights turned into trailing streams, surrounding them completely, like a tunnel.  Minutes later, Phil was lulled to sleep.

He awakened to a thump and found himself still on the back of the cycle, now riding through an abandoned subway tunnel.  Bare light bulbs lit up the stations, which were covered in colorful graffiti, mostly illegible but strangely beautiful, like the language of some long lost ancient civilization.  It looked real, and yet not quite.

“Um, we’re not in Kansas anymore?” Phil asked.

“Kansas?”

“You know, the Wizard of Oz?  The movie?  Dorothy?  Toto?”  Joe shrugged.  “What do you do in your free time?”

Joe cackled.  “Free time?  That’s a good one.”

“Are we there yet?  And where is ‘there,’ exactly?”

“Relax, Phil.  Soon enough, all will be revealed.”

“Are you kidding with this ‘all will be revealed’ crap?”

Phil was starting to lose patience, not that he had any to begin with.  Joe didn’t much care. He veered off the subway tracks and onto the platform, then bounced up the stairway toward the exit.

They came out onto a city street.  It was like being outside, only not really.  The light had a distinct quality that was familiar, although Phil couldn’t quite place it. Then he realized that it was not unlike lighting in a theater, stage lights.  But when he looked up, he couldn’t see a ceiling, or a lighting grid, only a gray immensity that extended out in all directions.  All around them were tall buildings, and they, too, had an artificial feel to them, like a stage-set rendition of a city scene, only massive in scale.  In the center of it all, a gigantic object was covered with what appeared to be a black sheet, or a shroud, in the center of a vast plaza.  People wandered around the plaza and the sidewalk adjacent to it; cars and buses passed, but they, too, were like mock-up vehicles that might be seen in a large and expensive stage production on Broadway or the Vegas Strip.  Joe stopped the bike and motioned Phil to get off.  Phil removed his helmet, handed it to Joe, and then took a good look around.

“I feel like I’ve been here before,” Phil said, not realizing he was talking out loud.

“That’s what you said the last time,” Joe responded.  Phil nodded, not sure what Joe meant, exactly, but figuring, correctly, that he wouldn’t get more of an explanation.

At one end of the plaza was a cordoned-off area where an audience milled about, dressed to the nines in tuxes and gowns, sipping cocktails amidst fine linen and candelabras.

“Who are all of those people?” Phil wondered.

“Oh, everyone’s here.  No one wanted to miss this.”  Phil was about to respond with some sarcasm or other, when he saw something that stopped him dead in his tracks: his mother.  She was standing along the edge of the crowd, facing the plaza like everyone else.  “Mom!  Hey, Mom!”

“She won’t hear you.  I mean, she can’t,” said Joe.  “Not now.”

Those in evening wear partied it up, boisterously gawking up at the buildings and the people and everything, while those scattered around the plaza stared blankly, not knowing what to expect, or why they were there.

Gorgeous orchestral music of indeterminable origin featuring a chorus of angels swelled from a pit near the plaza, an overture of sorts, and a hush fell over the crowd.  The black shroud rose, disappearing in the darkness above, to slowly reveal an almost life-sized stage set rendition of the Fountain building, complete with the statue of Josiah Fountain, a homeless man, presumably Harbor, sitting at its base, meditating.  Only not Harbor, but rather someone dressed in a Harbor costume, an actor playing Harbor.  Then, the “sky” lit up, mimicking sunrise, and, in a slightly accelerated fashion, pedestrians began to appear on the street.  The plaza filled with people going to work.  One of them was Phil.  Only again, not Phil, but someone dressed as Phil had been that morning.

“What the… is that…” was all Phil could get out.  The Phil character crossed the plaza, stopping in front of Harbor, and as he had done this morning (was it this morning? It seemed like ages ago), smiled at him.  And, in a reenactment of their earlier meeting, Harbor shook his head ominously, only this time Phil, and everyone else in the audience, knew what the omen meant.  Then “Phil” continued into the building.  Phil, the real Phil, said only, “no.  Don’t go into the...”  But his doppelganger did go in.  He had to go in, because Phil had gone in, this had already happened.  Everything, every detail was as it had been that day: the schoolchildren arrived by bus for their tour of the building, the Japanese tourists snapped pictures of each other in front of the statue, the messengers came and went, mail was delivered, the UPS and the Fedex trucks arrived and left, typical goings-on on a typical day at the Fountain Building. But everyone in attendance knew this day was anything but typical.

As people in the audience gasped at the drama unfolding before them, Phil glanced around to see that the spectators had organized themselves in distinct groups: there were the Japanese tourists in one area, the schoolchildren and their chaperones, the diners and waitpersons from the restaurant (including his mother), and so on, all watching in rapt silence as people portraying them on stage went about recreating the activities of the day.  Phil watched, helpless, as a woman dressed like his mother entered the building for her fateful last meal.  He saw some of his coworkers enter the building, including Rob, who stopped at a hot dog vendor on the sidewalk and ate his way across the plaza.  But none of the people from Client Connections were present in the audience.  As the action continued, some in the audience couldn’t help but speak their thoughts out loud.

“Don’t go in!  Please don’t go in there!”

“Jeremy?  Are you here too?  Or am I alone?”

“Is that me?  Can someone tell me?  Is that me?”

“Okay, Joe.”  Phil pleaded.  “Can you please tell me what the hell is going on?”

Joe just put his fingers to his lips and motioned to the stage.  Phil was ready to haul off and sock him in the head, but it he didn’t think it would do much good.  And then Phil saw her: Stephanie.  Not in the audience, although he assumed she was there, somewhere, but on stage, portrayed by a woman who Phil, though in a deep state of confusion, noted had Stephanie’s great hair and beautiful smile, but nonetheless didn’t do Stephanie justice.

As she climbed the steps to the plaza, everyone’s attention turned to the window washers ascending the side of the building, placing the cases full of explosives at various points around the outside.  The audience became more agitated at this, knowing what was about to happen.  Phil, however, was riveted on Stephanie.  “Please don’t let her go in there,” he said aloud, but he knew he was powerless to do anything to stop her.

Stephanie walked toward the front doors, but stopped briefly to talk to Harbor, placing a dollar in his hat.  He smiled up at her, and they began to talk.  But it didn’t last long, as, with a great theatrical flair, the charges set by the window washers went off.  It was not the full, hellfire conflagration of the real event, but rather a high tech display of fireworks and explosions that one might find in a very expensive stage production or rock concert, but nonetheless breathtaking.  The audience oohed and aahed at the spectacle.  The north side of the building at the level of the explosions was torn away, and the “characters” on the plaza looked up in horror to see their fates unfold.  Massive chunks of steel and concrete rained down on them.  Harbor pulled Stephanie under the statue, which was quickly obscured by the falling debris.  The top of the building, without half of its support, started to sway, and then topple to one side.  It fell like a great redwood, crossing the avenue, the top of the tower landing on and completely obliterating a building in the hospital complex.  Phil was confused and turned to Joe.

“That wing of the hospital with the emergency room.  I was in there before.”

“That building was destroyed, Phil.  A lot of people killed.”

“But I saw the doctors and nurses, they were all working and helping the injured.”

“That didn’t really happen.  Everyone you saw in the hospital was just doing what they would normally have done under the circumstances.  But it wasn’t real.”

“What the hell...?”

“Hell is just a metaphor used create guilt and fear and make people adhere to a certain belief system.”

Some of the audience, as they witnessed their own demise, turned and walked away toward the many subway entrances surrounding the plaza.

“Where are they going?  I need more information here, Joe.”

“Okay, Phil, I’ll spell it out for you.  A lot of people died today.  And when that happens, all those souls, they’re confused, there’s kind of a tear in the cosmic fabric.  These people didn’t know where to go.  That’s why we had to do this… performance you could call it.  They need to know what happened so they can accept their fate and move on, or they end up wandering around… like you did.  Oh, and that schmuck.”

Joe gestured to the bald guy in the greasy overalls who almost ran through Phil in the hospital lobby.  “Hey, Bill.” Joe shouted.  “Yeah, that’s right, you.  We need to talk.”  Joe turned back to Phil.  “I’m going to give it to that idiot with both barrels.  He really scared the hell out of some people…  At least I found you two.  The other guy in the elevator hasn’t been as cooperative.”

“You mean, Kitson’s spy?  I saw him… he’s dead, isn’t he?”

Joe nods.

“Okay, I think I’m starting to understand.  But this… performance, or whatever.  Does this happen whenever someone dies?”

“No.  It’s easy enough when it’s one or a few people, but hundreds?  We need to show it to them, play it back, if you will, only we can’t just play it back, or anything like that, so it’s reenacted, kind of.”

“You mean, with actors?”

“Not exactly.  None of this is actually happening.  But everyone here experiences it like it is.  It’s a medium we find particularly effective.  Theater is so much more personal and emotionally involving than film or TV, don’t you think?”

“You’re saying that this is some kind of replay of what happened today, and all the dead people can finally see what happened and get on with their lives?  Or deaths?”

“Kind of.  You see, there are all these pathways, everywhere, and people are energy, right? You know that. Interdependent… interbeings, or whatever you want to call it.  So, when a lot of people die all at once, it affects everyone, like an echo, which causes, like… a clog in the energetic plumbing.  That’s one way to explain it.”

“And you’re the plumber?”

“If you will.”

Phil was trying to absorb all of what he just heard.  But it was a lot to take in, and it wasn’t exactly following any kind of rational thought patterns with which he was familiar.  “So, all those doctors at the hospital? Who couldn’t see me?”

“They were dead.”

“And my mom?”

Joe nodded, sadly.

“But what about…?”  Phil stopped as Joe held up his hand and looked to the plaza.  While they were talking, fire trucks, police cars and ambulances had arrived on the scene, and the rescue workers set about putting out fires and looking for survivors.  They pulled aside some rubble and pulled out the fireman Phil had spoken to in the hospital.  Raucous applause issued from the audience.

“Fireman Bob is alive?” Phil asked.  Joe nodded. “I don’t understand.  If my mom died, how come I could talk to her, and I could talk to Fireman Bob, only he’s alive?”

“Good question. Maybe she was still alive?  I can’t keep track of everyone.”

“So I’m dead?”

“I had a feeling you were going to be one of those people who makes my job a living hell.  Don’t you see Phil?  The fireman isn’t dead.  The doctors who couldn’t talk to you are dead.  You could talk to the fireman.  You see what I’m getting at here?  That’s why I needed you to stay put instead of traipsing around the city like a nut...  You’re alive, Phil.  Un-dead.  Your mortal coil is not yet shuffled off… You see, I do get to do some reading in my spare time.”

“And Stephanie.  What about her?”

“Do you see her around here anywhere?”

“You mean, she’s not…”

“I knew you weren’t so obtuse.”

“Then why am I here if she isn’t?”

“I told you.  Because you’re one of those types who needs to see this so you could understand what’s going on and go back… She’s much smarter than you are.  She knows to just wait.”

Phil was just starting to get the tip of this existentialist iceberg.  Then, without warning, a searing pain, like fire, or worse, poured into his leg and he fell to the ground.

“Oh my fucking god, what the fuck is that?”

“Yeah, sorry.  That’s life, my friend.  It hurts sometimes.  You know how some Buddhists say ‘life is suffering?’  Well, that’s not completely true, but sometimes it’s a real ass-kicker.”

Phil struggled to pull himself to his feet.  He looked back over the crowd.  His mom was heading away from the plaza, toward a subway entrance.

“Can I talk to her?  Can I say goodbye?”

Joe shrugged.  “I can’t see why not.  You won’t remember any of this, anyway.  At least, you’re not supposed to, although in your case I wouldn’t bet on it, if I were a betting man, which of course, I’m not.  Heck, I don’t even have money if I ever wanted to gamble.  Which I wouldn’t, so this is a kind of ridiculous metaphor that...”

Before Joe could finish, Phil was off and limping, in severe pain, to his mother.  He shouted after her. At first she couldn’t hear him, but finally turned to him, smiling.  She looked great, even dead.

“Mom!”

“Phil?”

She ran to him and they hugged.

“I’m sorry, mom.  I wish you hadn’t come to lunch with me.  You’d still be…”

“It’s fine, son.  At least I got to see you again, after all this time.”

“I saw dad… It was a dream, I think, but at this point, I can’t really be sure… He said… that he was wrong about you, about your relationship.  That it didn’t work out because you two didn’t love each other enough.  And that it wasn’t your fault.”

“Really?  Are you sure that was your father?”

“Yeah.”

“Well,” she seemed impressed. “Phil, I need to go now.  But that Stephanie… she’s a good one, you know.  Try to find her.”

She kissed him on each cheek and turned away, heading with some of the others to the subway entrance.  Phil wanted to know where they were going, but he understood that he couldn’t know; he wasn’t allowed. Yet. He watched her go.

What happened then was unexpected, but by now, Phil expected that.  He started to fade away.  He disappeared completely.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE: FADE AWAY…NOT

When Phil came to, he was back in the subterranean darkness, his leg pinned under concrete and steel, pain knifing through his body.  His face dripped sweat; he tasted blood that he figured correctly was seeping from a cut in on his brow.  The thunderous metallic thuds seemed closer, almost directly overhead.  Everything shook with each thud, and he noticed that dust and grit came down each time.

Then, suddenly, it was as if a door opened above, and light poured in, blinding him, but Phil could tell he was still inside the elevator car, which seemed to have been almost split in two by the girder that had broken his leg. Thankfully, in his trauma and momentary blindness, he didn’t notice the two bodies in there with him. He looked up toward the light, and saw a head in silhouette, wearing a helmet and face mask.

“Hey!” the masked rescuer shouted to someone behind him.  “We got a survivor!” He turned back to Phil, “Hang on there, pal!  Stay with me!”

Phil awoke, or at least it felt an awakening, in a hospital room, hooked up to machinery that monitored his every bodily function, his leg immobilized in some kind of inflatable boot and suspended from a frame over the bed to keep it elevated.  The first word he heard was, “dude.”

He turned his head, his neck stiff and sore but at least mobile, and laid eyes on his buddy, Burt.  “Dude,” Phil said sincerely, even though he rarely employed the term, and never without irony.  For once, however, it felt really great to say “dude.” Of course, that didn’t compensate for the searing pain down his back and leg when Burt hugged him a bit too hard and then pulled back when Phil winced.

“Sorry, sorry! Phil, man, it’s a fucking miracle you’re alive, you know that?”

“What happened?” Phil asked in a morphine-induced stupor; he was dosed up pretty good.

With a sprinkling of dudes, Burt told Phil what happened, from the terrorists that might have been part of a Syrian extremist group, to the fact that Phil probably owed his life to the post-9/11 design of the high speed, high rise elevator car he was riding in, reinforced to withstand explosions and impact in catastrophic events.  He told Phil how his rescue was on TV and the internet and beamed all over the world, and that he was, along with the other survivors like Fireman Bob, a symbol of all Americans fighting the war on terror.  Phil seemed to take it all in stride, but it was just a combination of PTSD and morphine.

“Dude, you’re probably alive because of 9/11.  The elevators were designed for.... I mean, seriously, think about that.”

“Jesus.”

“There’s you and this fireman they pulled out first. You’re, like, all over the internet. It’s amazing.  You’re famous.”

“But I don’t want to be famous...”

“There’s morphine in that drip, right?” Burt changed the subject. “Nice buzz?”

“Where’s Marika?”

“She left an hour ago… she’ll be back.”

“Was she alone?”

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t know... Where’d she go?”

“Home.  She was here most of the night.  She needed to shower and eat and whatnot.  I told her I’d call her when you…”

“What happened to my mother?”

“Man, Phil, I…they said…”

“She’s dead, isn’t she?”

Burt was no good with this sort of thing. “Yeah, bro.  She is.  I’m sorry”

Phil wanted to cry.  “I knew it.  I saw her.  I had crazy dreams, Burt.  Like I could fly, and walk through walls.  I was invisible.  I saw Marika making out with Zee.”

“That bartender?”

“Yeah.”

“What the… Jesus, Phil.”

“Did anyone say who did this? Syrians, was that what you said?”

“That’s what they’re floating out there.”

“Doesn’t seem right.”  Phil shook his head like he wanted to clear out the dust.

“What doesn’t seem right?”

“I don’t know.  I’m not thinking straight… Remember that girl Stephanie?”

“Uhhh. No.”

“She told that sex dream at the theater...”

“Oh Yeah! The cute one you said was having the same dream as you?”

“Yeah, well, it turns out she was… and I think she was coming to see me at work right before it all… when did this all happen?”

“Day before yesterday. Wait a minute… you hooked up with her? Really?”

“No, yes, we met, but…  I was in that elevator for two days?”

“Almost, bro.  It’s still like a war zone out there.”

The magnitude of the fact that he had survived so long under street level in an elevator car that had fallen who knows how many floors settled in on Phil and he took a deep breath and held it for a moment, then let it go.

“You should get some sleep.”

That was the last thing Phil heard for several hours.  When he awoke, Burt was gone. Most of the lights were off in his room, and he was no longer hooked up to as many tubes.  He reached for the control panel on the bedside, snapped on the light and looked around the room.  He wondered if maybe Marika, or Burt, or even Stephanie might be sitting outside in the waiting room.  He thought about ringing for the nurse.  His leg hurt like a son-of-a-bitch and he punched the button on the morphine for another hit.  It didn’t feel good so much as it felt a little better.  And then he noticed Harbor.

It was startling, to say the least, to see the homeless man from under the statute standing in his hospital room in the middle of the night, yet Phil wasn’t shocked; in fact, he kind of expected something like this.

“Hi Phil.”

“You know my name?”

“Damn. You don’t remember? We talked in the hospital.  Over in the other wing.”

“The other wing?”

“Oh boy.  What did you get when they sent you back, a lobotomy?

“I know you.  You’re that panhandler from under the statue.”

“That’s not exactly accurate.  I never asked you for money, did I? And who says ‘panhandler’ anyway?  That’s kind of demeaning, not to mention archaic, isn’t it?”

“Sorry, I, uh, I almost died yesterday so you’ll excuse me if I can’t manage the English language very well at this time.  No offense intended.”

“None taken… I’m Harbor, remember?  If I’d ‘a been a girl, dad would’ve called me Pearl?  I almost died yesterday too.”

Phil’s eye twitched, but he couldn’t recall anything concrete about this Harbor.

“What are you doing here, Harbor?  Are you okay?”

“I need you to help me.  You see, I’m stuck in this pile of rubble, but they aren’t digging near us.  They’re on the other side of the street.  Where the hospital was… is.  You remember the hospital?”

“You’re under the pile.  Great.  That’s, that’s great, listen, pal… Harbor, is it?  Cool name. I’m, like on morphine?  I mean I don’t know what I’m seeing or hearing or doing or saying.  And on top of that, you’re making very little sense right now.”  Phil covertly pressed the button to summon the nurse.

“Stephanie can’t wait too long.”

“Stephanie?”

“You’re awake?!”  The nurse chirped as she entered the room.

“Yes, hi.  I do seem to be awake, don’t I?  Listen, uh, this gentleman here, he’s not done anything wrong, but I’m not sure that, given my condition, he should be here.”

“Gentleman? Are you referring to me? No one calls me gentleman and gets away with it. Why I oughta…” Harbor did a fair Curly Howard impression.

“What gentleman?” she asked, looking directly where Phil indicated, which was exactly where Harbor was standing.  At first, Phil thought she might be going along with Harbor’s joke, but then he realized, very clearly, she did not see Harbor at all.

“There.  That’s better.”  Harbor was a cut up.

“Shut up.”  Phil said.

“Excuse me?” the nurse looked at him.

Phil tried to cover.  “I mean, well, just shut me up!  I must be high as a kite, ‘cause for a second I thought there was a guy over there.”

“I’ll have the attending check your dosage.  Maybe you should do some Vicodin instead.  Do you need anything else?  Water?  Bedpan?”

“No, no, I’m fine, thanks.  No bedpans for me.  But thanks for checking in.”

“I’ll look in in a little while.  Try to sleep.”

“Yes.  Thank you.”

The nurse turned to leave.

“Wait, nurse?”

“Yes?”

“Do you know how long someone can survive without food and water?” Phil wondered.

“Well, you can go without food for a pretty long time.  Weeks even.  Water? Three days, probably.”

“Three days?”

“That’s my understanding.  Although people have been known to go longer.  I’ve heard of people going seven or eight days, even. Why?  You mean other survivors?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, they’re working around the clock out there. I served in the Army. Combat.  I saw things.  What I mean is, don’t stop hoping.” She smiled sadly and walked out.

“I’m really here, Phil.”

“Shut u-u-p,” Phil sang in a little triad.

“Phil, I’m telling you, I’m here but I’m actually in the rubble and there’s this girl Stephanie…”

“Why do you keep saying Stephanie? You don’t mean my Stephanie, do you?”

“How the hell would I know if she’s your Stephanie?”

“Just ask her.  Ask Stephanie if she knows Phil.”

“Phil?”  It was Marika, standing at the door.  “Who are you talking to?”

“Me?  Nothing, no one, I mean…”

Phil looked over and Harbor was gone.

“Really.  No one.”

“You were asking about Stephanie.”

“I was?  Really?  I was asking someone who isn’t there about Stephanie?  Okay, that’s definitely strange.  I’ve lost my mind, or something.”

Marika wisely decided that now was not the time to continue their discussion about love, Stephanie, Zee, et al., and smiled warmly as she could.

“Phil.  I’m so happy to see you.  I thought you were gone.”

Something felt a little funny about what she was saying.  Not a feeling-in-your-stomach kind of funny, but an actual “ha” kind of funny.  And that’s just what Phil did.

“Hah!”

“What?”

“What?  I don’t know.  I just.  I just laughed.  I’m sure it had nothing to do with what you said.  I’m just… I’m kind of… you know… crazy?”

Marika navigated around the equipment, the railings and the casted leg and managed to sit next to Phil and give him a hug.

“It’s a miracle you’re here, Phil.  I don’t know if you understand what a fucking miracle it is.”

“I know.  I need to figure out the ‘why me’ of it all.  I mean, even the other guys in the elevator. I knew one of them, kind of.  Why me and not him?”

“It doesn’t matter why you.  It’s just how it happened, okay?  You survived.  It wasn’t that you were chosen, or maybe you were, but you’re never really going to know.”

“Yeah.  I guess not.”

“But I’m really glad you’re here.”

“Me too… kind of.”

They had what people call a “nice chat” until Phil fell asleep again.

Marika was relieved when the doctor said Phil was almost certain to recover most of his leg movement, and that he was out of danger.  At least he wouldn’t die. But she felt guilty.  Even though Phil knew she and Zee had a connection of some sort, he still seemed to trust her to do the right thing by him.  But what was the right thing?  And what about Stephanie?  And where was Stephanie, anyway?  Marika had left her three messages, none were returned.  It made perfect sense to put all this star-crossed lover shit aside in the midst of the awful thing that had happened to Phil and everyone else in the city, yet it just played into the question of what was the right thing to do, making it even more essential that they find an answer, and right away.  If the end were to come, like it did for so many people over the last few days…

Oh, please, let’s be honest, people have been killing each other continually for thousands of years over the most trivial and inconsequential crap. Who would you want by your side when they come for you?  Who would be that certain someone to comfort and center you and help you figure out a way through your suffering, to help transform that suffering to joy, or at minimum, to a will to survive, to still want to live?  Maybe we each get one such person per lifetime and it’s very important, indeed, to be able to recognize the special one when you see her.  Or him.

And so Marika needed to decide, and soon, who that certain special someone might be.  Her, or him? And this was so much more than a gay versus straight thing.  This was a choice based on her closely held feelings of love, which had to do with the very essence of  Marika. This, as they said in the early seventies, was some heavy shit.

When Phil awoke late that night, he needed to pee, bad.   He looked over at the bedpan, and thought, no fucking way.  He almost missed the catheter.  Well, not missed, exactly, but…  He looked down at his leg.  The doctor had been pleased to report that the fracture was non-displaced, whatever the hell that meant, so Phil could be refitted with the inflatable boot.  Still, it hurt like a bastard, throbbing, but at least his foot had good color to it.  He had been refusing the pain meds, he thought they might interfere with his dreams and he didn’t want that. He again eyed with trepidation the bedside urinal, but then espied a walker by the bed.  He sized up the distance to the bathroom.  Not bad.  He could make it, even dragging the IV stand along with him.

It took an eternity to move to a sitting position and let the pain pass, but Phil persevered.  He managed to get to the walker near the bed, and separate the IV tubes from the rest of the equipment around him.  He stood, winced, and sat right back down.  Then tried again.  Using the walker to bear most of his weight, wincing from the several nicely dressed gashes along his left arm that he hadn’t even noticed until now, he slowly, like an octogenarian after a triple bypass, shuffled across the room to relieve his bladder.   He had to make it.  The bedpan was too demeaning.

Finally, he reached the bathroom door.  The light was movement sensitive, a very energy efficient thing, to be sure.  Phil crept over to the toilet and decided quickly that standing mostly on one leg would be much less painful than attempting to sit.  He positioned the walker on one side so he could lean on it, and pulled up the surgical gown, which reminded him to ask Marika to bring him some pajamas or sweats, although he did appreciate the easy access his gown provided at this particular moment.

As his stream began to ring off the side of the bowl, Phil glanced to his left. In the tub, sitting cross-legged, was Harbor, looking very peaceful.  Phil’s stream was dammed.

“Sorry.  You go right ahead with your business.”

Phil got over both his shock at seeing Harbor sitting in his bathtub and his pee-shyness quickly and continued to relieve himself.

“Will you please stop popping in and scaring the crap out of me?”

“I’m not so good at this out-of-body shit.  I could have beamed myself into a wall, or something like that.”

“You think that can happen?”

Harbor rolled his eyes.  “How’s the leg?”

“You ever been shot in the femur?”

“What’s a femur?”

“This is ridiculous.  I’m talking to a hallucination.”

“I’m not a hallucination, dickhead.  I’m really here.  Or is it an hallucination?  That sounds better, don’t you think?  Isn’t that how they say it in England?”

“I can’t do this anymore with you.”

“Oh, yeah, what I came to tell you is, Stephanie… she’s not doing so well.”

Phil mis-targeted at the mention of Stephanie and peed on the side of the toilet.

“I’m telling you, Phil, I’m here, but I’m not here, you understand?  I’m in the room with you, but I’m also somewhere else with Stephanie?  I know this sounds fucking insane, but what the fuck, it’s my reality, so welcome fucking to it!”

“Where are you?”

Harbor closed his eyes. “I don’t know.  I can’t see a thing.  It’s dark in here.”

“That’s it?  It’s dark?  You can’t be more specific?  You have to do better.  Can’t you, I don’t know, walk around and look and see where you are?”

“Hey, this ghost shit didn’t come with instructions!  I’m wingin’ it here.  We don’t have all the time in the world, so what are you going to do about it?”

“You really shouldn’t be out of bed.”  This last statement came from the night nurse, who was not pleased.

“Sorry… I just couldn’t handle the bedpan, both literally and figuratively.”  He did his best to look sheepish.  What else could he do?  He checked to make sure he was properly covered which he was, barely.  Harbor found this all quite amusing, but the nurse couldn’t see him, so Phil made believe he couldn’t either, lest she, too, see that he was completely insane, which he was starting to admit was completely possible.

“Let me help you back to bed,” said the nurse.  As she guided him, Phil glanced back at Harbor, but he was gone.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR: BURY ME NOT ON THE LONE PLAZA

Phil had a lot to consider, but the nurse had other ideas.  She gave him a pill to knock him out for a few hours.  He didn’t want to take the drugs, even for the pain, because he thought they would keep him from dreaming, or whatever it was he was doing, like the pot had.  The nurse insisted on sitting by the bedside and waited until he went to sleep.  She didn’t see him spit out the pill and secure it under the pillow. He made believe he was asleep in order to get her to leave sooner, but he was so exhausted he actually fell out deeply.  And thank God for that.

Phil awoke outside.  He was fully clothed.  His leg didn’t hurt, and he strode purposefully toward the Fountain Building.  Yes, his stride was purposeful, all right.  And it looked like the real building, not like that other plaza he now remembered, the fake one, the theater set with the audience watching and the orchestra playing.  No, this was all real, too real, in fact, as he passed unnoticed through the police barricades and entered the war-zone-like setting that the once enticing (save for that tacky, Soviet-inspired statue of Josiah Fountain) public plaza had become.  Emergency workers slowly and methodically pulled away and picked through rubble, dogs sniffed for the scent of human beings, living. or by this time most likely dead.

Somehow he knew where to go, toward the pile of rubble near where the statute once stood.  And he again remembered that he could pass through solid objects, which was a good thing, as that was the only way he, or anyone, could get into that pile.  It was weird walking through the rubble, as it was pretty tightly compacted, so that he passed through one solid piece of something directly into another, which took Jedi-like concentration and was extremely exhausting.  But he could hear a voice, and that kept him moving forward.  The voice was muffled at first, but as he got nearer, he could make out a few words.

“Are you there?  You still there?” This was a woman’s voice.

“I’m back.  Are you okay?”  The other voice replied.  Phil thought it was Harbor. “I told this guy who works in the building about you.  He knows you.”

There was a long silence.  “Phil?”

“Stephanie?”  Phil said.  It was her.  Her voice was faint, but he knew it was her.  He pressed onward, through tighter and tighter spaces, but soon he found… something.  An opening.  A pocket of air in the tight-packed pile.  He crouched down to fit in it.

“Who is that?” Harbor called out.

“It’s me, Phil.   Where the hell are you?”

Harbor lit a disposable lighter.  All Phil could see among the slabs and rods of steel mashed in on all sides, and the only recognizable feature, was Josiah Fountain’s huge, solid steel head, which had kept its shape quite resiliently and was in fact responsible for the space that existed, which held its own against thousands of tons of steel and concrete.  Harbor had somehow avoided serious injury, although it was impossible to tell how, as he squatted in an area the size of a mini-bar.

“You smoke?”

“Used to.  Now it’s a survival tool.  Fire, you know.  Man’s best friend.”

“I thought a man’s best friend is his dog.”

“Phil?”

Phil moved around the giant head.  It broke his heart to see Stephanie, pinned tightly in and under heavy steel rods that by some miracle hadn’t cut her into pieces, but instead formed a cage that both imprisoned and kept her alive.  Her face was bloodied, but that wasn’t serious.  At least she was alive.  Unfortunately, pinned as she was, it was difficult to breathe, and she looked dehydrated.

“Stephanie.  I’m so sorry.”

“Phil, can you get me out?  I need to get out, like, really badly.”

“I can’t.  I have to get help.”

“It’s okay.  I know.  Just see what you can do?”

Phil reached out to touch her face gently, but as he did, his hand passed through her like she was made of liquid.  Phil did it again with the same result, only this time he put the “liquid” to his lips and tried to sip her.  Somewhere in the distance, a crowd exploded into applause at his gesture.  Phil couldn’t see them, but he knew they were there, somewhere.

It was morning.  Phil looked down at the foot of his hospital bed, half expecting to see Harbor, or somebody corporeal even, but he was alone.

His dream was no subconscious jumble of images; it was real, as real as anything he had ever experienced before, even more real than those sex dreams.  And Stephanie turned out to be real in those dreams, so why not now?  Why couldn’t this be real?

But what was he supposed to do?  The nurses seemed hell bent on keeping him in bed, resting and medicated. Even if he somehow managed to find one person who could actually help (but who? Some fire commandant or chief or city official?), what would he say, exactly?  That he left his body, travelled into a pile of rubble, and saw people trapped in a tiny air-pocket there? And his proof was that he met this woman in a dream they were both having and she turned out to be real? The chance of convincing someone specially trained to handle such crises, someone who held the lives of the city’s finest and bravest in the palm of his hand, seemed dim at best.

He needed aid, and succor, whatever the hell “succor” meant.  Hell, he needed help and advice and neither his fiancé nor his best friend seemed right for either.  He needed his mother.  Since that was not an option, Phil decided he needed to talk to Ali.

It wasn’t an easy call.  Ali was in mourning, and even though Phil could tell Ali liked him, he also figured he probably wanted to be left alone.  But he was the only one Phil could talk to right now.  Burt just wouldn’t get it, and Marika… how could he tell her he was spending all his time in the hospital worrying about Stephanie?  That was arguably why they were all in this position in the first place. On top of that, had he not met Stephanie, she certainly wouldn’t have been at his office building when it all came down.  And he might not have met his mother for lunch, as there might not have been anything ground-shaking to discuss.  So had he not met Stephanie, in all likelihood, she’d be safe and his mother alive.  Maybe.

Of course, had he not met Stephanie, and still had lunch that day with his mother, well, then he’d be dead, because Stephanie never would have called, which was the only reason he left his mother to die what was certainly a horrible death, and found himself in the elevator and thus far the sole survivor above the 67th floor.  So if he hadn’t met Stephanie, he’d either be dead, or alive. His mother would be dead… or alive.  And Stephanie, well, she’d definitely be fine.  So at this point, Stephanie was way ahead in the contest of whose life was more fucked up because they met the other. Or way behind, depending on how you look at it.  She never meets him, she’s alive.

Otherwise, he had nothing.  The rest was a toss-up, like life.

Phil expected seeing Ali to be difficult for both of them.  Ali was crushed by Joan’s death, Phil knew, but he summoned all of the strength and stoicism he could in order to hold it together for Phil’s benefit.  As for Phil, he had seen something in Ali.  There had been that moment that day at the apartment where Ali felt Phil’s pain, and Phil experienced Ali’s compassion, and figured, correctly, that that was just the kind of guy Ali was, a person who had compassion for everyone and anyone.  And though Ali dreaded that seeing Phil would be gut-wrenching after losing Joan, he thought it would be the best, most immediate way for him to experience the fact that Joan lived on, in both himself and in Phil, who Ali now realized had his mother’s face, or at least part of it.  It was healing for them to see each other.  In fact, they soon felt very comfortable.

“So you and Mom seemed to have worked out the Jewish-Muslim thing? Was that hard?”

“You’d think so, but I was fortunate in that my parents, while not without faults and prejudices, are fairly tolerant people.  Still, introducing Joan to them was a bit… scary.  But she and my mother, well, they aren’t much different in age… they hit it off immediately.  My mother told her all these embarrassing things about my childhood…”

Here, Ali was reduced to tears.  Phil reached over and grabbed Ali’s hand.  He liked this guy.  And then, maybe to take Ali’s mind off his pain, or maybe to see if he was completely losing his mind, Phil decided to trust Ali completely.

“What would you say if I told you that this homeless guy who lives on the plaza of my office building was in here last night, only the nurse couldn’t see him, but I could and I swear he was right there? Actually, it was his second visit.”

Ali didn’t quite know what to say.  “Okay.”

“Okay?”

“Yeah, sure.  There was a guy there you say.  He’s a ghost?”

“I don’t think so. More like an out-of-body thing.  I think I’m supposed to help him, but when I’m awake, I don’t completely recall what it is.  Or where he is. He also mentioned Stephanie.”

“Who?”

Phil told Ali about Stephanie and the dreams and Marika and Zee and The Oaf and all of it.

“That’s quite an amazing story.”

“The last person I told all that to was mom.”

“And what did she say?”

“She said Stephanie seemed much more my type.”

Ali nodded. Phil went on.

“The weirdest thing is when I was in that elevator, underground, I wasn’t there the whole time.  I just know I went someplace else.  I could fly… walk through walls.”

“You said you practice meditation?”

“Yes.”

“What kind?”

“Kind?  I guess vaguely Vietnamese Zen Bhuddist.”

Ali nodded. “Do you ever feel like you leave your body during meditation?”

“Uh… yeah.  I just thought that was like a flashback or something.”

“Okay.  So, what if you meditate, and you’re in a dark place, no light, can’t move, and you sit there for 19 hours, breathing… maybe your mind, or ‘soul,’ whatever you think that word means, could travel about?”

Phil knew what Ali was saying, but he could neither confirm nor deny.

“Harbor is always meditating.  I mean, like, all the time.”

Ali nodded and shrugged.  “Could be…maybe he was here.”

“You think?”

“I have no idea.”

“What am I saying?  I see a guy who probably died, no one else can see the guy.  I see this guy every day for a couple of years. I’m kind of obsessed with this guy.”

“Why?”

“Because I give him money but he doesn’t acknowledge me… he did once, because I was fighting back at ‘The Man.’”

Ali isn’t quite following.

“Post-traumatic stress?  I’m just, like, tripping, right?”

“That’s another way to look at it, I suppose.”

“Right.”

“But how do you know what is the truth?”

Ah, the truth. The truth was a problem.  There was too much information coming into Phil’s brain that he didn’t know how to process.  He had been somewhere, and seen some things during his time in limbo, or whatever it was, but he couldn’t remember any of it.  He slept, hoping to dream, that his dreams might reveal the secrets of his recent days, but his naps were blank, due no doubt to the effects of the sedatives and pain-killers that were being pumped and fed into him ‘round-the-clock.

Maybe he could stay awake? Maybe if he stayed alert, he could remember? That’s why he didn’t want to take the painkillers and sleep meds.  And it was painful, but the pain kept him alert… kind of.

Ali had been emotionally overextended, to say the least.  But Phil was wrong about one thing: though he had just suffered the loss of the deepest love of his life, instead of wanting to be alone, it was good for Ali to talk to Phil.  It was the closest he could get to Joan at this point, yet so painfully paradoxical to feel so close to her without her being there.

Ali wasn’t sure about Phil at first.  Phil was one of these American guys who had the world at his feet but didn’t know it.  He was a nice enough fellow, but wasn’t realizing anywhere near his full potential.  He was somewhat selfish, but not enough as to constitute a serious flaw.  And yet Phil grew on him, not by showing Ali who he really was, because Ali still had no idea, but rather because Phil seemed to believe in true love, something that Ali had never bought into, but then learned the value and reality of, having loved and been loved by Joan.  Ali knew that if someone believed in true love, no matter how imperfect that belief or shallow the person, there was a chance that such an individual might have something to offer to the world.  And not “true love” like in a fairy tale.  That was all bullshit.  Real true love, Ali had seen it happen, when a man or woman figures out that love is not just a physical or emotional thing, but rather a complete absence of self, the abnegation of the ego, the willingness and desire, or rather, need, to give love without requiring anything in return.  And when that happened, it was beautiful.

So Ali listened, about Harbor’s visit, about going into the pile in a “near death” state, and he thought, this sounds insane, yet, in some way, he’s so sincere.  Maybe this isn’t crazy at all.

Ali asked a doctor if he could take for a roll-about in the wheelchair.  The doctors wanted to be cautious about Phil’s leg and minor concussion, but the doc on duty thought it was okay as long as Phil kept the leg elevated and they kept to the hospital grounds.

It was pretty sweet, Phil had to admit, as he could sit back and feel the breeze go through his hair, almost.  At least he could go “outside,” to a concrete slab where patients could get fresh air, something of a rarity in hospital architecture.  After all, these people are sick. Why in God’s name would they want to breathe fresh air?  There were a few sad-looking trees in hardened soil disks, two benches, and not much else.

“Your mother spoke about you all the time.”

“Really?”  Phil was genuinely surprised.

“Yes.  She was quite proud of you.  She missed you, but she was sure you’d be all right, as she thought you were a very intelligent and resourceful guy.”

“My mother?”

“Yes.”

“But she… it doesn’t make sense… the whole guilt mindset doesn’t work… if you assume everything will be all right…” Phil trailed off.  Ali laughed.

“She had guilt.  She was learning how to let it go.  I was very proud of her.  And she did feel guilty about leaving you, but believed that staying in an unhappy marriage wasn’t good for you, either.”

Phil nodded.  It was good to hear about his mother.  He didn’t know her as much as he would have liked, but he realized that as long as he could talk to Ali, he could still get to know her better, even though she was gone.

Ali wheeled Phil back into the hospital and down a hallway past open doors.  In one room, a woman sat in bed, eyes closed, skin colorless.  She was hooked up to monitors.  Her husband sat looking at her, sad and helpless.  For all Phil knew, she could have been a survivor of the Fountain Building attack, but she actually had been there for weeks with an inoperable brain tumor. In all of the rooms lives played out, post disaster.  Some had been injured in or because of the Fountain Building horror, others were there because their lives turned this way.  They were sick, or were in a bad car accident, all very random.

And Phil realized that, even though his rescue was all over the news, even though he was something of a symbol of New York, the City going through another crisis, he was still just an injured guy in a hospital with other injured guys and women and sick people and families all hoping and waiting for their loved ones to get better.

Yet all he could think was, how can I save Stephanie?  How could he convince someone important enough, influential enough, that this girl he had been dreaming about, and then met and fell in love with, was stuck in an air pocket at the bottom of the rubble with a homeless guy named Harbor, if I’d been a girl, dad would’ve called me Pearl? Who would believe him?

They returned to Phil’s room.  Ali sat in a chair, drained.  Phil was exhausted but restless.  He tried in vain to find a comfortable position in the bed.

“Thanks for pushing me around.”

“No problem.”

Phil fiddled with the remote, turned on the TV and flipped through the channels.  It didn’t take long to get coverage of the Fountain Building attack.  There was talk of groups claiming responsibility, including one Syrian faction with strong ties to the Palestinians.  Phil, who normally took little notice of who was blowing up whom and why, thought this sounded preposterous.  In fact, he even said the word “preposterous,” for perhaps the first time in his life. This got no argument from Ali, who, despite his grief, knew as soon as he heard what happened that it was a tough time to be a Muslim in Manhattan and thought it might be a good idea to get the hell out of Dodge.

Phil changed the channel again and saw a familiar face.  The graphic on the screen indicated that he was none other than Captain Roberto Lopez, Company 99.  But Phil had met him as “Fireman Bob” in the Emergency Room hallway of a hospital wing that no longer existed but was evidently part of an intricate and detailed scheme to keep a lot of confused souls busy until it was time to tell most of them they were dead.  But Bob wasn’t dead, nor Phil, or Harbor, presumably.

Phil needed to talk to Fireman Bob.  And he needed to do it now.  And he knew where Fireman Bob was, because this was live: Captain Lopez had just arrived at the Fountain Building for the first time since being rescued 24 hours earlier.

“Ali, would you wheel me over to the Fountain Building?”

“What?”

“Right now.  I need to talk to this guy.”

“There is no way your doctor is going to let you.”

“We’re not going to ask.  We’ll be back before the nurse can come in and siphon off more of my precious bodily fluids.”

Crossing the street, Phil got his first real look, in real life, of the devastation. It was horrific.  Ali pointed out where the top of the building had fallen, after Phil’s elevator had plunged down to the foundation of the building, and taken out the hospital wing.  There were people everywhere, working, observing, staring, crying.

Ali wheeled away from the plaza to the lobby of the building next door, which had become the disaster operations center.  Phil caught everyone off guard.  They had been fully apprised of Captain Lopez’s visit, but the other survivor, at the same time?  The Arab-African-ish looking guy pushing his chair didn’t have clearance, which gave the security people pause.  But the crowd went wild, rhythmically chanting Phil’s name (something he rather enjoyed, as it made him feel like a famous athlete or rock star, or something), and there was nothing to do but let him and Ali through.  Members of the media, already ecstatic with the arrival of the fire captain, were having multiple O’s over Phil’s surprise appearance.  Before then, Phil had only been a face.  He had made no statement.  Little was known about him.  Surely, he would use this opportunity to say something important, meaningful, even inspirational. Front page-worthy. They readied themselves for what would no doubt be the lead story for tonight’s evening news.  The sharks were circling. Blood was in the water. Microphones and devices were thrust in the direction of Phil’s face, questions shouted.  Then, a strange quiet descended.

“Thanks everyone… Special thanks and love to the heroes who saved my life.  I hope to thank you in person someday.  That’s all I have to say.”

Phil and Ali nodded at each other. Ali propelled Phil, extended leg pointed forward like the prow of a sailboat, through the tide of reporters, who continued to shout out questions.  All Phil wanted was to make his way through the forest of microphones, cables and lights and talk to one Fireman Bob, across the way in the midst of his own media mayhem.  But Bob seemed to be enjoying it. A lot. Of course, he wasn’t in severe pain like Phil, but given the circumstances, Phil thought Captain Lopez was enjoying himself a little too much.

As Phil wheeled closer to the hive of reporters buzzing around the fireman, Bob noticed Phil, smiled broadly, and waved him over.  There was much tumult as the two famous survivors of the Fountain Building Incident, as some of the media called it (to the chagrin of the FBI), met for the first time.  Only Phil and Bob could possibly recall that they had met before under very unusual circumstances.

“Come on over here,” Fireman Bob shouted, all friendly-like, brotherly.  When they got closer, Bob leaned down and embraced him.  Phil whispered in Bob’s ear.

“You remember me, don’t you?  In the hospital?  You’re Fireman Bob, right?”

“Captain Roberto Lopez… the kids call me Fireman Bob when they visit the firehouse.  I don’t recall having met…”

“And then there was the place with the reenactment, like a huge Broadway show?  Where they showed the Fountain Building, and the explosions, and all of that?  There was an orchestra, I think, and an audience…”

Fireman Bob’s right eyebrow arched as he had a moment, a very brief one, where this didn’t sound crazy, but then he pulled himself back to this planet.

“I’m not sure what you’re saying…”

“You having any weird dreams lately?  Long ones?  Where you go places even though you’re in your own bed?

Fireman Bob had such dreams, but he was trying to get rid of them with medication.  “Listen, Phil.  It’s been a hard time for everyone.  After this all settles down, you and I can have lunch.  But in the meantime…” he stood up and smiled, “I’m going to be on ‘The Today Show.’”  And with that, Capt. Lopez was whisked away to his appointment with his 15 minutes, or with any luck hours or perhaps even days of fame.

Did Fireman Bob know anything about what Phil said?  Did that moment’s hesitation signify that Fireman Bob remembered something, or maybe that he’d had a dream of some kind like the ones Phil was having?  Phil couldn’t be certain.

As Phil thought this over, his image was carried live to hundreds of millions of television sets and computers.  One of these TVs was in a large room with a shiny mahogany conference table and windows overlooking Manhattan.  It was being watched by Dick Cheney, Vice President and Man In Charge.  He stared at Phil.  Weird. This was definitely the guy he had dreamt about, the guy he later hallucinated had entered his body and mind.  That is so wrong, thought Cheney, on so many levels.  There’s just no way I can tell anyone about this.  But I need to talk to him.  I need to get to the bottom of this.  Hey, wait a minute.  I’m Dick Cheney.  I can do anything I fucking want.

Phil’s doctor had to draw the line somewhere.  He was willing to let Phil be wheeled gently around the hospital, and dictate when he would have visitors.  That seemed reasonable, and the doctor had no time to fight stupid fights, so he let those go.  But a run over to the Fountain Building, in his condition?!  That was insanity, pure and simple, and if this patient wasn’t going to cooperate, well, this doctor knew how to make him.  So he put him on a mild sedative, intravenously.

The nurse knew something was wrong when she heard a loud crash from his room, and she ran in to find him on the floor, going rigid and trying to swallow his tongue.  Thinking quickly, she hit the red button on the wall. Help was on the way. Phil was in a full-out seizure. A bad reaction to the meds?  Brain swelling? Un-diagnosed blunt trauma? They needed to find out, stat.

Phil was wheeled into emergency surgery.  His hair was shaved off.  Lines, like a target, were drawn on his head with a Sharpie.  There was an anesthesiologist, a surgeon, an assistant, and two surgical nurses ready to go.  The surgeon prepared a drill for the job.  It looked remarkably similar to the drill you use to install shelves in your home.

Phil found himself on the roof of a tall building in midtown.  It felt familiar, because he had been there twice during his recent flights around town.

“Hi Phil.”  Joe stood there, helmet in hand, next to his cool as hell motorcycle.

“It’s you… uh, um…”

“You’ll remember shortly.  You know this guy.”  Joe gestured to Harbor who was standing a few feet away.  “You need to remember where he is.  When they give you drugs, you won’t be able to remember.  That’s why I brought you out here.”

“Joe?  But you told me I’d forget all of this.”

“Yes, yes, and you will, eventually.  The problem is, Harbor here has no one, no family.  So there is no one who can tell them where he lives or spends his time.  Except you. So you can’t forget. Yet.”

“I’m trying, okay?  It’s not so easy to get people to believe me.  I mean, this kind of thing, talking to spirits, or whatever you are, out of body experiences?  Generally frowned upon in polite society.  I mean, people already think I’m a bit off…”

“I know it’s a burden, Phil, but right now we need you to remember.  And if you help them find Harbor, they’ll find Stephanie. She wasn’t supposed to… ”

“That was real, then?  When I went out to the… the plaza and saw her?”

“Eh… kind of.  That’s more like a sense memory, you know, you experience it as real but it’s all happening in your head, like the reenactment.  By the way, just so you know, in order to get you out here I needed to put you in a coma.”

“A coma?!”

“Your doctors think it’s a drug reaction.  Don’t worry.  It’s just a tiny little coma.”

“A tiny little…”

“Sorry.”

“Why do you care so much about Harbor and Stephanie?  All the other people died. Why didn’t you save some of them?”

“I can’t save anyone.  Only people can. If you didn’t miraculously survive, they wouldn’t have a chance.  But you did.  That was a real Old Testament-type miracle. Or dumb luck, maybe. But it happened.  So now I can help you save them.  Got it?”

Phil nodded.

“You remember where Harbor is?”

“Of course.  He’s under the statute.  He’s always under the fucking statue.”

“Again with the swearing.  Yes… He’s still there, and you have to remember this, to tell them  he’s there and still alive, got that? You need to convince them! Now, I’m going send you back.  Sorry about the hair, by the way.”

And just like that, in the operating room, as the surgeon was about to drill into Phil’s head, just millimeters away with the drill bit whining, his vitals flipped back to normal, like someone threw the switch. Phil’s eyes fluttered.

“Hold it, Doctor.  Vitals just came back.  Normal pulse, pressure, respiration.”

“Really?  I’ve never seen that. It’s enough to make you believe in divine intervention.  Which is tough for an atheist.”

“Atheist?  That’s funny.  You play God at work every day.”

Phil awoke in his hospital room.  He felt all right for a guy who just came out of a coma, albeit a tiny little one. He sat up, and ran his fingers through his hair, to straighten it out, like he always did upon waking, only there was none.  He was as bald as an egg.

“’Sorry about the hair?’  Jesus Christ, Joe, very fucking funny…”

Marika sat in the chair near the bed.  She rose and went to him.  Hugging him tightly, she said, “Never do that again.”

“You mean use the Lord’s name in vain?”

He was trying to be funny.  She was crying.  An hour ago, she thought he was going to die, again.  Phil was touched by her emotional display.

“Okay, okay, I’ll never… whatever I just did.  Never again… promise.”

She smiled and laughed, softly, sweetly, not her usual guffaw.

“Listen, I really appreciate that you were so worried about me, but we still need to talk, don’t you think?  I gotta tell you… I know you were with Zee that night...  And I’m okay with that, if that’s what you want.”

She tried to take this in stride, but her face was all shock and surprise.

“That really happened, didn’t it?” Phil continued. She didn’t move.  “I’m telling you, I’m having dreams about bits and pieces of things that happened, and that’s one of them.  I saw you with Zee.  The night of the attack.  You two were at our place.  And I was angry at the time, I admit, probably because I just died in a horrific fireball of doom, for all you knew, and there you two were, ripping off each other’s sweaters.”

“Did you watch?”  She seemed a tad disgusted at this notion.

“No.  I’m not that perverse… or masochistic.  I jumped out the window, to kill myself… again. I thought everyone would just go on and I’d be missing it all.  Instead, I found out I could fly.   After I flew around for a while, I realized that maybe that would make you happier, to be with Zee.  And if that would make you happier…”

“You could fly?... Phil, what the hell are you...”

“It’s pretty simple, Marika.  Do you want to be with me, or with Zee?

“I have so much invested in you and me spending the rest of our lives together… Part of me doesn’t want to let that go…”

“Part of you?  Exactly why it’s better know that now.  We both want this ‘rest of our lives together’ thing.  We should at least be with someone who, in theory at least, we could love for that long, and if we’re this close to marrying and still questioning how much we’re in love… wondering if it’s enough to last a lifetime, well…”

He didn’t need to finish.  He was exactly right and she neither would nor wanted to say anything to refute it or even to edit it.  “Well…” said it all.

This might have been a poignant, even loving exchange between two people who had shared so much and were now considering a major re-ordering of things, save for the fact that at this precise moment three agents of the Secret Service burst into the room and set out to inspect every last square inch of it.

“Miss?  We need to ask you to vacate the room for the next fifteen minutes, please,” said one, flashing a badge.  Marika couldn’t see any reason she shouldn’t oblige, especially as the gentleman seemed to be packing heat, so she said goodbye to Phil and walked out.

“Uh, sir?  I’m, well, just kind of wondering what the deal is with you guys coming into my hospital room, kicking out my fiancé and…”

“Sorry, Mr. McCone.  I’m Agent Gordon, Secret Service.  We’ll be bringing in the Vice President momentarily.  Please excuse the interruption.”

“The Vice President of what?  You mean, Dick Cheney?”

Agent Gordon just looked at Phil as if to say, “of course, Dick Cheney, you idiot.  Who the hell else could I mean?” But he kept his internal dialogue internal.

After Phil and his bed were carefully checked for weapons, and the chair that Marika had been sitting relocated next to the bed facing Phil, the two agents took up positions within lunging distance, and the door opened.  In walked Dick Cheney.  He looked firmly in control, but a little anxious.

“Hi, Phil, I’m Dick Cheney.”

They shook hands.

“Hi, uh, Mr. Vice President… Have a seat?”

Cheney sat. “So, doing a little better I see?  That’s great.  Every American out there is pulling for you, Phil.  I heard about your near miss with the brain surgery.  Funny, I often feel like I have a target on my head, too.”

Phil realized that the Veep was joking, or trying to, about the lines that were still faintly visible on Phil’s freshly shaved pate.  Phil chuckled.

“Thanks.  Thank you, Mr. Cheney for sharing that humorous observation… Um, no disrespect, sir, but why are you here?  I mean, you don’t usually do these little ‘meet ‘n greets’ with the victims, especially Democrats.  You’re more of an ‘undisclosed location’ kind of guy, wouldn’t you say?”  Phil was amazed at his own brashness. He was having one of those moments where self-censorship proved impossible.

Yes, Cheney thought, I would say I am that kind of guy.  But instead of saying it, he said to the Secret Servicemen, “Wait for me outside.”

The Secret Service retreated as told.

“Those guys have to do pretty much whatever you say, don’t they?” Cheney nodded. “Sweet.”

“Yeah.  Hot stuff, right?...  Listen, Phil, I respect your candor and I won’t waste your time.  I need to talk to you about something very sensitive and confidential.  I’m depending on the fact that you’ll repeat this to no one.  If you do tell anyone what I am about to discuss with you, well, it wouldn’t be a good idea.”

“Are you saying that if I tell anyone, you’d do something to…?”

“I’m just saying, don’t tell anyone.”

“Okay.”

“You’re the guy in the dream I had.”

“What… oh, that dream?  With the French maid’s outfit?  Haha.  Yeah, that was hilarious…  Don’t worry.  I won’t tell anyone about that.  Besides, who would believe that?  That sounds so made up, like a silly joke, you and the President in drag like that.  Who could possibly think…”

“I don’t give a shit about that, son.  I’m talking about the other night, when you were supposedly buried under tons of steel and concrete, but you were in fact in my command center and if I’m not mistaken, for a moment, inside me, as well, odd as it might feel for me to say that to another man.”

The scenario struck Phil as familiar, but he thought that it, like the other visions, had been a hallucination, a thought flash.  And how great was it that Dick Cheney had the dream of serving Phil and Stephanie breakfast in bed?!  Phil was real excited about that one. Cheney could tell and hated him for it.  Phil wished he could tell Stephanie.

“Now, as far as entering my body and us having a little chat in our minds… what exactly do you make of that?”

“What do I make of it?  I don’t remember much.  I thought it was a dream at the time.  I mean, in a way, anything could be a dream.  Me talking to you could be a dream.  In fact, I’d give my left nut to make the last few days turn out to be just a dream.”

“Sure you would, but I ain’t gonna let’cha.”  This, from Harbor, who stood at the foot of Phil’s bed watching the exciting proceeds.  Phil just rolled his eyes as if to say, “of course, you’d be here too.”  Unlike Cheney and the Secret Service Agent, however, Phil was now in the habit of saying his inner dialogue out loud.

“Of course, you’d be here too.”

“Who’s there?” Cheney was quite pushy at times.

“Harbor.  He’s not really there.  He’s a homeless guy who lived on the plaza, and now he’s in the pile, right Harbor?”

“That’s right.  You tell him.  That’s the guy right there.  He can get me out of this mess, me and Stephanie.”

“I don’t see anyone.”  Cheney exclaimed.

“Let’s put it this way: if you could believe that I was inside your body and we had a little chat while our minds were melded, well, then why can’t there be a guy standing over there named Harbor who I can see but you can’t?”

This was a poser, a stumper, even for an expert spinner like Cheney.  “All I think is you got hold one of those devices that made it seem like you and I were sharing minds.  The Russians are working on something like that.  I was really hoping we’d get it done first.  I’d love to know what Putin is thinking.”

“He’s thinking you’re a big asshole,” said Harbor.  Phil stifled a laugh.

“Mr. Cheney, I’m not a Russian spy.”

“You don’t know one percent of what you’d need to know to be a Russian spy, let me tell you.”  Harbor chimed in, offering this to Phil’s annoyance.

“You’re obviously not a spy, Phil… I’m not saying I didn’t experience some interesting… phenomena.  But that stepping-into-my-body thing is a bit hard for even me to swallow.” Cheney continued.

“How’d you do it?”  Harbor asked.

“How’d I do… oh, that?  It wasn’t hard, once you get past the idea of going into someone else… you have to let go of the sense of self and other and just go for it.”

“What did he ask you?”  Cheney demanded.

“Do you remember before I entered your body?  I stuck my finger in your brain.”

Cheney thought for a second.  “No.  Not really.”

“Maybe, Mr. Cheney, if you had another demonstration...”

“I was kidding, Phil.  I’m not going inside Dick Cheney, okay?  I don’t like people that much.  I guess you could say I’m antisocial.  And this guy in particular, he...”

“You want out of that hole, Harbor?  Do you?  Then you’d better cooperate,” Phil said to him, or the air, depending on your point of view, and pointed his finger urgently.

“All right, all right.  I’ll do it.”  Harbor assented.

“You’re giving me the heebie-jeebies there, Phil.  Just who are you talking to?”

“His name’s Harbor.  He’s actually standing right next to you, now.”  Phil nodded Harbor toward the VP.  “He’s going to touch you.”

“Oh is that so?  Listen, maybe I ought to be going…”

Harbor tentatively stretched his arm out so his finger was right next to Cheney’s ear.  He tried to touch it, but nothing was happening.  He shrugged at Phil.

“Just quiet your mind.  Go with it.  You meditate, right?  Well meditate… now.”

Harbor shrugged again, to himself this time, and closed his eyes.

“Phil, it seems you’re a whole lot more… uh, traumatized than I thought, so maybe…” as he was talking, Cheney had been swatting at a “fly” near his ear.

“Mr. Cheney?  Is there a fly in here?”

“I… there must be something.”

“In this high security, germ and airborne particulate-free wing of this hospital?  I don’t think so, sir.  Actually, Harbor is tickling your ear.”

“Oh, please.  That’s preposterous.”

“Harbor?  Try something more invasive.”

Harbor stopped with the ear, thought a moment, and then stuck his finger in Cheney’s gut.  It sunk in. “This is gross,” Harbor observed with a face to match.

Cheney squirmed around to rid himself of the unpleasant sensation.

“He’s sticking his finger in your belly right now, Mr. Vice President, and if I’m not mistaken, he’s kind of twirling it around.”

“Oh my god that is unpleasant!”  Cheney exclaimed.  Phil nodded.  Harbor pulled out his finger and, for comic effect, wiped it on Cheney’s shirt, even though there was nothing on it to wipe off.

Now that he had his full attention, Phil carefully and in great detail explained that Harbor and Stephanie were alive, and had little time left, so the rescue operation needed to be aimed where the statue had stood. That the statue had stopped some of the large pieces of the building before they fell to the ground. He explained how he knew this, how he had traveled while he was trapped, which was when he visited Cheney, and that he had been able to travel back into the pile recently, in his dreams.  And as crazy as it sounded, Phil said sincerely and believably, he was one hundred percent certain that a woman he knew was trapped alive in an air-pocket the size of a Volkswagen Beetle with a homeless guy named Harbor who was somehow, in some form or parallel dimension or something, in the room with them right now, the same way Phil was in the room with Cheney the night of the attack.  And if Dick didn’t agree to help, even if he thought Phil insane, Harbor was next going to stick his finger in Cheney’s brain.

“No!” Both Cheney and Harbor said this at the same time.

“Fine,” Cheney finally gave in.  “I’ll send word to the person responsible.  But nothing will be said to anyone about you flying or going into my body or talking to an invisible homeless guy!” Cheney grew thoughtful.” But how to put this, exactly… without sounding nuts?”

“Tell them, tell them that…I don’t know, some advanced infrared satellite photos suggest there might be survivors trapped deep in the pile.  You just had a call from the CIA. Or whoever would know that.”

Cheney took this in.  “Good!  That’s very good. And finding more survivors would take some heat off the investigation for a few days…

“Wouldn’t finding survivors be a good thing in and of itself?” Phil wondered.

“Ever consider government work, Phil?  Press liaison kind of thing?”

“I hadn’t, but you never know.”

Harbor chimed in.  “Hey, you can field job offers later… Meanwhile, this is a great opportunity to tell him his preferred form of government is an abhorrent, elitist dictatorship by committee that stomps on the rights of Americans and chokes the very life out of our planet and will mark the beginning of the end of civilization as we know it.  Tell him that, will you?  We’ll never get a chance like this again!”

Phil laughed.

“What’s so freakin’ funny?  What’s the invisible homeless man saying?”

“Let’s just say I don’t think he’s a big supporter of your platform.”

Cheney thought this over. Luckily, he didn’t have to see or hear Harbor, because that would have just pissed him off.  A bleeding liberal mouthpiece.  A homeless bleeding liberal mouthpiece, for God’s sake!

“Oh?  Well fuck him.”

It was crazy, yet The VP believed every word of what Phil said.  It was a whole lot better than thinking he was himself out of his mind, which up until now had been the logical inference.  This CIA satellite angle might work after all.

“I’ll handle this my way, okay?  Not a word from you.”  He looked at where Harbor stood, sort of.  “Him too.  If anything goes wrong, if there’s no one in that pile or one of those emergency personnel gets hurt our there, well, I’m not going to be pleased.”

“I can’t speak for him,” Phil replied, “but my lips are sealed.  There’s just one last thing I need to know.”

“What’s that?”

“We both know this wasn’t Palestinians, or some Muslim group.  Why are you telling people that?”

“What are you talking about?”

“It just came back to me. That night you got to New York. One of your people said things pointed to a domestic group. You need to tell us the truth.”

“Don’t tell me how to do my job.  You think it’s easy what I do?  Sweating all the details, coming up with the plans, and getting none of the credit?”

“No, but...”

“You wouldn’t last three minutes in my shoes, Phil.  Just let me handle this the right way. If we find survivors where you say… well, let’s just see.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE: IMAGINE ME AND YOU

So it went like this: Cheney’s people leaked Phil’s idea about a CIA surveillance satellite photo that showed heat readings at the bottom of the pile.  Some sort of advanced wartime spy technology used to find survivors.  It was a positive story that would sway public opinion on the handling of the disaster and made the administration look good for a change.  The press swallowed it hook, line and sinker like hammerheads bobbing for T-bones.  I gotta hand it to that kid Phil, Cheney thought.  He’s a quick study.

Cheney wanted to generously share the blame should this turn out to be a wild goose chase, so he sent the word down the chain from on high, through the senator’s office, the mayor’s office, the police and fire chiefs, down to the man in charge, a 30 year veteran of the fire department, named Al, short for Alonzo.  An Italian last name.  Big hero on 9/11, now the head of the city’s disaster response team and architect of the entire rescue effort at the Fountain Building.  Very big on his promise to search aggressively while maintaining the safety of the rescue workers.  After 9/11 more than ever, keeping the emergency services body count down was essential.  But after all this time, they still had very little to show for their efforts.  Sure, there was Capt. Lopez, and this Phil McCone, a decent-seeming fellow, but that was it. Lots of body parts. Crushed corpses. Workers were on little sleep carrying heavy loads.  Finding even one more survivor would fuel the effort for days and make all of the work up to this point meaningful.

Top engineers were called in to survey the pile and map out the fastest, most stable place to tunnel in.  They were good.  They didn’t argue much amongst themselves and signed off on a plan in short order, crucial as there was much concern that anyone who survived was likely to be badly injured and wouldn’t last much longer.  Equipment was requisitioned, and the best operators, and work began on what one reporter dubbed “The Tunnel Against Terror.” It made no sense, but caught on anyway

After all of this stress and intrigue, Phil passed out.  The emotional and physical toll of his injuries, his grief, and the rest finally hit him.  He couldn’t be woken for medication or food.  His doctor was a little worried, given his sudden “coma” of the day before. He still worried that maybe there was some undetected brain injury.

And Phil was dreaming that Harbor was with him again.  He woke up, but it was the kind of waking up where you know you’re dreaming.

“What are you doing here?  You’re being rescued.”

“I can’t get back in my body.”

“What do you mean, exactly?”

“I can’t get back.  I can’t find myself.”

“Again!?” Harbor shrugged. “Now that’s what you call your existential dilemma.” Phil cracked himself up with this one.

“Very fucking funny.  How can you joke at a time like this?”

“Wait, you mean you’ve been wandering around since Cheney left?”

“Yes!  I can’t find my way back!”

“What do you want me to do?  I can’t even leave my room…”

“Phil, I’ve been trying for hours.  They’re getting pretty close, and if I’m not there to tell them where Stephanie is, she’ll never make it. She’s too weak to respond to them.”

Phil  thought about this.  “How can I help?  Last time I was in a coma."

“You told me if you think you can walk through a wall, you can.”

“Oh.  Yeah, that’s what happened back in the hospital… the not-real hospital… Oh boy.”

“Let’s try that.”

Harbor sat on the floor.  Phil shrugged.  They looked at each other, and breathed.

Phil wasn’t sure he was still conscious; he didn’t care.  He was no longer in his hospital room.  He was back outside.  It was nice to walk pain-free again.  And when he was outside like this, for some reason, he still had his hair.  He wasn’t sure why, but he wasn’t about to complain.  He always had a nice head of hair, and based on what he remembered about his father and knew about his grandfathers, he figured he’d probably be dead before he was bald, not including involuntarily having his head shaven and a target drawn on it with a Sharpie.

Right behind Phil, Harbor walked unsteadily as they navigated around the pile of rubble.  He wasn’t graceful, but he made progress.  They stopped to observe the work of the emergency personnel and the Army Corps of Engineers on the tunnel. They had excavated the side of the pile and buttressed the opening with huge, hydraulic braces at strategic points to prevent a cave-in from the tens of thousands of metric tons of steel and concrete that comprised the wreckage of the Fountain Building.  Unlike the World Trade Center, which had collapsed into itself, the top of the Fountain Building fell like a tree, and was not pulverized.  There were large pieces that helped give the pile a structure, tentative though it was, that could withstand the digging of a tunnel, at least based on sound structural engineering theory.  No one had attempted anything like this before.

“You see where they’re digging?  That’s the bottom of the statue.  I can’t believe you couldn’t remember where that is.”

“Damn it, Phil, I know where the fucking statue is!  I just can’t find my body, damn it! And I needed your help to get through all this shit!”

“Okay, okay relax.  Remember, you can go through anything.  I mean, you were inside fucking Dick Cheney, for godsakes.  How hard could it be to get through a pile of rubble?”

Harbor snickered.

The unlikely duo passed through the remains of a broken symbol of the apex of capitalism, trying to figure out exactly where the head of Josiah Fountain was, because that’s where Harbor’s body was, and Stephanie too.  And time of the essence; the potential rescuers were closing in and if Harbor wasn’t there, he and Stephanie were screwed because she was unconscious and could not respond.

“Harbor, will you move your ass?”

“I am moving my fucking ass! I mean give me a break. We’re walking through concrete.”

There was a crash from above, and they looked up to see light, dim light, seeping in over their heads.

“They’re almost here.  Does anything look familiar?”

Harbor brightened with the light.  “Over there.  I see the head.”

And there they were.  The actual Harbor sat in full lotus in a tight air pocket just a few feet from Stephanie who lay pinned and unconscious in the same position as earlier.   Harbor went over to his body.

“Good luck, Phil.”

“You too, pal.  I’ll see you on the other side… I never thought I would say non-metaphorically.”

Harbor sat down into his own body and was once again a single entity.

Phil waded through a slab of steel reinforced concrete to where Stephanie lay, pinned inside the iron maiden-like cocoon of twisted steel rods that threatened to end her life.  But she was somehow still breathing. She sensed him there.

“Phil?”

“I’m here.  You can hear me?”

“Yes.”

“Oh.”  Phil didn’t know if that was good, that she could hear him.  It didn’t work out too well for his mother. “Stephanie, you need to hold on, okay?  Just breathe… They’ll be down here any minute…  I’ll be waiting for you when you get out.”

He wasn’t sure if she was still conscious.

Then the roof fell in.  Literally.

It was scary at times, with the constant threat of collapse.  They planned to come in from the side, but decided at the last moment to go a few feet higher to lessen the weight above the tunnel by tons.  They anticipated at least a small cave-in when they broke through; the idea was to make it insignificant, or at least not life-threatening.  The noise was terrifying to all present, as was the gush of dust and ash as the roof fell in on the air pocket. But fortunately the engineers were correct and despite the theatrics only a small amount of material fell into the hole.  A brilliant white light shined on Josiah Fountain’s head, which showed a few glints of metal where it was gouged by falling rubble, and the stains of tens of thousands of pigeons over the years.

Harbor was virtually unscathed and walked out with little assistance.  Stephanie was not so lucky, but she was alive.  After the jaws of life freed her from the web of steel that both imprisoned and protected her, she was strapped tightly to a board and gently lifted from the tunnel.  As firemen emerged from the side of the mountain of ruin that was the focus of every eye looking at every television in America and around the globe carrying Stephanie on a board, and she managed a small wave of her hand for all the world to see (a picture of that hand to appear tomorrow on the front page of pretty much every newspaper and news website in the land), music from an unseen orchestra swelled and an audience broke into spontaneous applause as the curtain fell.

And just like that, Harbor and Stephanie became the third and fourth survivors of the Fountain Building disaster. This was indeed a miracle. Unfortunately, they were also the last survivors.  This was a shame for which all humanity had to take responsibility.  The idea that, when you kill someone, even your “enemy,” you also kill yourself hadn’t yet taken root.  But it would start to now.  It had to.  The national mourning would begin anew, sadly not for the last time.

Phil awoke back in his room.  He had an oxygen tube under his nose, like in a hospital movie.  That was his first thought, that it was like a movie.  And he was still bald as an egg.  Marika and Burt were sitting nearby, on a couch near the window. They didn’t notice he was awake.

“Did they save her?”

Burt and Marika leapt up and went to him.

“Phil, dude.  It’s… all right.  You’ve been through hell...”

“I feel okay.  Did they find her? And that guy, what’s his name?”

Marika was confused. “Who are you talking about?”

The nurse came back into the room.  “They just found two more survivors,” she said, excitedly, but not too excited, so as to maintain hospital professionalism.  Phil nodded and closed his eyes. Marika and Burt looked at each other.  Burt shrugged.

When Phil awoke again.  Harbor sat in the chair, looking at him.

“Hi… I’m Harbor.  If I’d a’ been a girl, dad would have named me…”

“Pearl. Yes.” Phil finished weakly.

“Hmm. Must have told you before? Anyway, they said you were here and I wanted to say hi.  And thanks?”

“Really? For what?  I didn’t know you knew me.”

“You give me money almost every day.”

“You noticed?”

“Are you shitting me?  Most people make believe they can’t see me.”

“But you never said thanks, or smiled, or anything, really.”

“I thought it was implied… and I thought if I called attention to it you might feel self-conscious.”

“Me? Nah.  I think I actually wanted your approval on some level.’

“Oh?  What I had done to earn that?” Harbor shrugged. “You know, something happened out there that I can’t quite figure.  Do you remember?”

“What does that mean, exactly?”

“I don’t know. I was stuck in that pile for a few days.  I lost something, but I bet you anything I’ll remember it someday.”

“Well, let me know when you do…Where are you going to stay now?”

“What do you mean?”

“You need a place to stay, or anything? I got a sofa-bed if you need for a few…”

“Thanks, I’m good.  They put me on TV, and people are sending in all sorts of money and clothes and stuff.  And job offers.  People are real nice, but it’s kind of ironic.  I mean, I like what I do, you know?  It suits me.  But I guess I could live in a house or something for a while… You’re a lucky guy, you know?”

“You too.”

“No, I mean, that Stephanie, she’s something.  Whenever she was conscious, she talked about you.”

Phil had briefly forgotten about Stephanie, which was understandable after his recent experiences.  But now this guy, this homeless guy from outside the office building where he worked, was talking about her.

“You know Stephanie?  How do you know Stephanie?”

“She was in that pile of rubble with me.  She’s here, man. Down the hall.  She’s going to be okay.  The statue of that horrible man saved us. You believe that?”

So Phil finally had his thing to write about, although he hadn’t exactly been looking for it.  His story was getting pretty good, compared to just a couple of months ago.  Let Burt write the story about Phil’s dream.  Good for him.  “The Oaf” might even be a Great American Novel someday.   But Phil’s experience was, well, it was something.  At least what he could remember.  He hoped what he had forgotten would come back.

It was weird, having this epiphany that his actual life experience was the best thing he could write about, stepping back and looking at his own life as if it were a fictional tale, seeing it from the outside as a separate entity, and yet feeling that he was part of it at the same time.  Also, he was the means by which the story would be conveyed between his inner self and his outer self, and to everyone else.  And he was also everyone else.  A very satisfying Zen quadfecta, to be sure.  Of course, he couldn’t remember a great deal of what had happened. Or what hadn’t.

Stephanie had been awake a few times over the last several hours.  The doctors knew she was awake, but she didn’t move, or say anything, which was worrisome.  Then she drifted back to sleep.  She did this on and off, offering hope and then pulling it away.  The longer this continued, the less likely it was that she would completely recover.  She had some broken bones and trauma, a lot actually, but her vitals were decent.

And when she finally awoke, and moved, and spoke, her doctors were thrilled that she was quite lucid.  She calmly asked where she was, and what happened.  Then she asked for Phil.

He wasn’t the most important person in her life, although he might be one day. Still, she needed to see him before she saw anyone else.  Because Stephanie remembered but one thing from her time in that pile of wreckage at ground zero in the latest atrocity committed by human beings against other human beings: that Phil was there with her right before the light came on over her head and the roof caved in.  She didn’t know how she knew this, but she did.  And because she met Phil in a dream, because of what had happened between them since that night at “Dream Theater,” she had to talk to him, to run all of this by him, before she spoke to anyone else.  She needed to talk to him because she needed to find out if he really was with her before she was saved, like he had been with her in those dreams, or if she was going hallucinating from pain and dehydration.

Phil didn’t know what the hell she was talking about.  After he woke up the last time, he had no recollection of any of it, just as Joe had promised.  He had no reason to remember, as it would just get in the way of living his real life, so he forgot Joe, the audience watching the show, the orchestra, flying, Dick Cheney, pretty much everything that he had experienced, real or not over the last few days.  But there was something so sincere in how she told her story about him coming to her in the pile, and of course he remembered those first dreams, and how they met, and so, maybe there was something…

“You looked at me.” Stephanie told him of the dream she had before they rescued her.  “It was weird, because your head was half inside a giant hunk of concrete.” Phil’s head hurt at this thought. “You told me you’d wait for me.”

Yeah.  Phil did say he’d wait for her.  He didn’t so much remember it, as know that it was true.  He loved this woman, and he’d always wait for her.

And this might have been the happiest feeling, throughout his mind and his whole body, that he had experienced in his entire life, except at that exact same time his brain flashed the last few days past his eyes like a slide show or a movie and he had the most god-awful thought that took him out of his head as he realized that he wasn’t completely sure if this moment, talking to Stephanie in the hospital, was real, or if the other stuff was real.  What if the dreams were his real life, and all this other stuff, his mother, his father, Marika, Zee, T.A.S.C., B.O.B., the Van Gogh paintings at the Met, all of it, merely a figment of his subconscious mind?

Not that he realistically thought any of this could be true, nor that it made any sense in any way, but at this moment he wondered if it might be possible, and much nicer, to live in that other place, where you could fly.