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A CUP OF MU TEA. We went to the Marine Inn coffee shop to get a little breakfast. I’ll never forget Simon’s groan and horrified look when I ordered. “A cup of Mu tea, please.” It was exactly the right thing to do.

“Mu tea? I’m not sure we have any of that,” the waitress replied. Another customer helped out. “Ain’t that just some sort of Chinese tea?” And she brought me a cup of Mu tea. It was probably just some magically transformed Tetley or Lipton.

“Is the tea in the leaves or in the tongue?”

I was trying out the new world and my new self. If I could get a cup of Mu tea in the Marine Inn, that was quite something. I mean, what do you have to have before you say “Miracle”?

How could it be that everything made such perfect sense, that I was thinking so much, so well, feeling so much, so well, seeing so well, hearing so well, knowing so much, so well.

That everything strange that had happened to me in the past few days was all in my head was a possibility but it didn’t seem to be very likely. Something very big was happening, and I was figuring it out as I went along.

Part of the confirmation that something really had happened was the price of tobacco. The last time I had been in town a tin of tobacco had cost $1.20 and now it was $1.80. The supermarket was very strange. There were no other customers in there. There didn’t seem to be very much left on the shelves. Did money mean anything any more? Did I have to pay for anything or could I just take whatever it was I wanted?

It was very important not to run out of tobacco. I picked up as many tins as I could carry. Smoking was an important reminder of who I was. It was my clock. Cigarettes seemed to keep time. They had a continuity with the real world that I seemed to be losing. As long as I smoked cigarettes I was alive. As far as I knew, dead people didn’t smoke cigarettes.

I was walking out of the store with seven or eight big cans of tobacco just as Simon walked in from the bank. He looked upset with me. “Mark, do you really need all that tobacco?”

I felt slightly ashamed and defensive. Simon wasn’t a smoker, how could I expect him to understand? The manager of the supermarket was looking on with disbelief and maybe a little fear.

“Mark, did you pay for these?”

“No, Simon. I figured that if I was supposed to pay for them he would say something,” pointing to the manager. He was just staring, not about to interfere. I could have picked up a cash register and he would have just watched. The idea that this wild-eyed kid would just stroll into his store, pick up over ten dollars’ worth of tobacco, and walk out without the slightest pretense of hiding the stuff was too much.

Simon talked me into putting most of the tobacco back. I kept one can and some papers and Simon paid for them.

Imil riggle ugle roo. What I would like to know is why no one ever told me there was something like this. What I would like to know is what the fuck is going on.

Skimmy zoo a loop de roo—the problem is what to do? What to do ought to do. I’ve always thought ’bout what to do and why to do what to do and not to do.

There’s naught to do. I always knew there’s naught to do—but what to do, ought to do, once you know there’s naught to do.

I had hoped that if we could just get to the bank where we had all that money—lubrication to throw at obstacles—it would compensate for my growing inability to deal with things. But money seemed to be cracking up as badly as I was. Prices all screwy. Where is the fucking bankbook? How do I sign my name?

We had always felt vaguely shitty about that money anyway. Capitalism, parents, etc. And to use it now when things were breaking down was obscene.

Simon decided we should switch over to his theoretically more reliable vehicle. He didn’t want to drive Car Car and was probably losing faith in my driving. But his car needed some work, so Car Car and I trailed him to the gas station where we said loving good-bys while Simon got his car fixed.

The last