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By Root 610 0

used to beat off nights about her when I was a kid — like everyone else. The more I thought about her, the nearer I got to beating off about her now. She had been a big brawny vision in her youth, with an encouraging hint of rural gullibility in the breadth of her eyes and lips. Over the passing years, time had been kind to Caduta Massi. Over the passing years, time had been cruel to nearly everybody else. Time had been wanton, virulent and spiteful. Time had put the boot in. Now, at forty-odd, she could still play the right kind of romantic lead, given a sufficiently elderly and/or bisexual co-star... I hadn't been quick to come around to Caduta, as you know. I would have preferred someone less gorgeous, happy and sane—Sunny Wand, or even Day Lightbowne. I'm not sure why. But Fielding argued that Caduta was crucial to the package, and you have to follow the money in a case like this. Caduta, wife of the erring Lorne Guyland, rival to the busty Butch Beausoleil, mother of the greedy, thieving, addicted Christopher Meadowbrook or Spunk Davis or Nub Forkner — or whoever the hell we ended up with. The role was passive yet quietly central. It was sad. I wanted someone more realistic ... You see, the impulse behind my concept, my outline, it was personal, it had to do with my life. Autobiographical. Yes, it had to do with this old life of mine.

I rang the Cicero, where Fielding had installed Caduta and her entourage. A man answered. Caduta asked me to come to an address in Little Italy at two o'clock that afternoon. I then threw in a call to my sock in London. Engaged. Engaged ... According to Fielding, Caduta was in need of reassurance. I was going to give her some, gladly. I just hope I've got a little to spare. Yesterday, after that tearful reunion with my suitcase, I tried to get a negro hand-slapping thing going with Felix. Why? I thought. It's for the touch, for the touch. After all we are only human beings down here and we could do with a lot more praise and comfort than we actually get. Earthling reassurance — it's in permanently short supply, don't you think? Be honest, brother. Lady, now tell the truth. When was the last time a fellow-Earther let you rest your head on their heart, caressed your cheek, and said things designed to make you feel deeply okay? It doesn't happen often enough, does it. We'd all like it to happen a lot more often than it does. Can't we do a deal? Oh boy (I bet you're thinking), that head-on-heart stuff, whew, could I use a little of that.

I yawned and stretched — and nearly spilt the coffee. Reaching to steady the cup, I unbalanced the ashtray. Reaching to steady the ashtray, I spilt the coffee, and also hooked my elbow in the telephone's lone dreadlock — so that when, with a final heroic convulsion, I burst out of the bed, the swinging casket somehow smashed into my shin and then dropped like a bomb on to the bare mound of my foot... Twenty minutes later, by which time the pain had done its worst, I unpeeled my way through the sodden address book. I sought reassurance that Martina's number wasn't listed there. This was one call, one lost date, one apology, that I begged to be excused. Here we are: Theresa's, TV Repair, Trans-American, Trexacarna — Martina Twain. Now wait just a goddam minute. That wasn't my handwriting. It was — Selina's! . . . Bitch. Was this a recrimination, or a taunt? Defiantly I squelched the book shut. Yes and then I made that call.

—————— And still I surfed on Manhattan static. YIELD say the traffic signs— but don't you listen! Not yielding, that's the thing. To strive, to seek, to butch it out — it's all a question of willpower. Thus midday discovered me with a second scotch in my hand, a Pakki nightie round my waist, and a half-naked sex-stewardess straddling my thighs. I was in the Happy Isles, on Third Avenue. I had read about the place in Scum magazine ... I felt all right in here: a circular, windowless room, tricked out in some lost pimp's image of a para-disal arbour — tendoned vines, plastic grape-clutches, bamboo ceiling, lagoon lights and canned birdsong.