helped the President with his plan to ransom an inflatable doll named Doody.’
‘Let’s see, Jan, wasn’t Doody kidnapped from the luggage of an American businessman who was changing planes in Beirut?’
‘That’s right, Bob. The Ismail Alternative Reformed Liberation Army claimed responsibility. And the President was prepared to offer them West Virginia and possibly Kentucky, in return for Doody’s release.’
He switched to another channel.
On the screen, a reporter stood before shelves of red and white boxes. The reporter’s expression defined this as a solemn experience.
‘… company will be recalling all bottles of Kokophrin now on the shelves. So far, no one knows exactly how the cyanide got into the capsules, but a company spokespersonsaid Koko and Bingo Laboratories are certain that it did not happen at their Baton Rouge factory. For now, they ask everyone who has a bottle of Kokophrin to throw it away. This is Heliotrope Snarsch, YBC News, South Bend, Indiana.’
‘Dave, what do we have from Capitol Hill?’
‘Well, Donna, the presidential sanity hearings reopened today …’
They launched themselves into the Village night: belligerent blacks, wild-eyed lunatics, menacing motorbike homosexuals, pathetic drooling junkies, wilted prostitutes, homicidal hispanics, disgusting beggars, staggering drunks, hostile faces, suspicious shopkeepers. Everyone was slick with sweat, numb from noise, weary of human contact, half-dead from breathing the warm, damp, acidic air. All that kept the night alive were the little knots of slack-brained university kids threading their way through the crowds, untouched by it all. They were giggling with coke, or perhaps only innocence, as they scoured the night streets relentlessly in search of fun.
Susan and Fred looked into a few restaurants, but all seemed crowded, or expensive, or unsuitable for one reason or another. They ended up taking themselves, like two fretful children, to a McIntosh restaurant, where they could eat controlled portions of hamburger, french fries, milk-style shake.
Their meal the following night was less controlled. Jonah Bramble came upstairs to fetch them.
‘Nice place,’ he said listlessly. ‘By the way, I asked a couple of other people to come along to Chinatown with us. They’re waiting downstairs, with the cabs.’
‘Cabs?’ said Susan.
‘Chinatown? I thought we were going to an Italian place,’ Fred said.
‘You wanted Italian? You should have said something. Too late to change our reservation now.’
‘But –’
Susan took Jonah’s part. ‘Oh, Fred, stop being awful about it. Chinatown is fine.’
The other people did not get introduced during the ride in two cabs. It was not until they were all sitting at a round table in the Chinese restaurant that Jonah spread his arms and said: ‘Let me introduce everybody.’
‘Everybody’ included a thin, bearded, apparently mute man named Luther Dorgue; a police sociologist from Arkansas named Boyd Something or Something Boyd; Boyd’s girlfriend Trashi, who claimed to earn her living modelling kitchenware (or perhaps kitchenwear); Trashi’s half-sister Poo; and an elderly man who looked like William Burroughs but was never introduced.
Jonah spread his arms and said, in a slightly more robust voice: ‘Luther is my former lover, ha, ha.’
Boyd said: ‘Shit, you can’t just say it like that, Jonah. Makes everybody thank the pore sucker’s some kinda gay blade.’ He turned to Susan, adding: ‘Nothin’ quare about Luther, honey. See, when they was lovers, Jonah Bramble was
Joan
Bramble. This was way, way back – long before he got a dick sewed on.’
Trashi said: ‘Boyd, watch your mouth.’
Pseudo-Burroughs coughed. ‘Jonah, I never knew you was ever a gal. Was you agenting then?’
Jonah, who had gone back to listlessness, nodded. ‘I worked for Mark Windsor then. Everybody want the special?’
Fred was unable to find the special on the menu; as he searched,
‘Let’s see, Jan, wasn’t Doody kidnapped from the luggage of an American businessman who was changing planes in Beirut?’
‘That’s right, Bob. The Ismail Alternative Reformed Liberation Army claimed responsibility. And the President was prepared to offer them West Virginia and possibly Kentucky, in return for Doody’s release.’
He switched to another channel.
On the screen, a reporter stood before shelves of red and white boxes. The reporter’s expression defined this as a solemn experience.
‘… company will be recalling all bottles of Kokophrin now on the shelves. So far, no one knows exactly how the cyanide got into the capsules, but a company spokespersonsaid Koko and Bingo Laboratories are certain that it did not happen at their Baton Rouge factory. For now, they ask everyone who has a bottle of Kokophrin to throw it away. This is Heliotrope Snarsch, YBC News, South Bend, Indiana.’
‘Dave, what do we have from Capitol Hill?’
‘Well, Donna, the presidential sanity hearings reopened today …’
They launched themselves into the Village night: belligerent blacks, wild-eyed lunatics, menacing motorbike homosexuals, pathetic drooling junkies, wilted prostitutes, homicidal hispanics, disgusting beggars, staggering drunks, hostile faces, suspicious shopkeepers. Everyone was slick with sweat, numb from noise, weary of human contact, half-dead from breathing the warm, damp, acidic air. All that kept the night alive were the little knots of slack-brained university kids threading their way through the crowds, untouched by it all. They were giggling with coke, or perhaps only innocence, as they scoured the night streets relentlessly in search of fun.
Susan and Fred looked into a few restaurants, but all seemed crowded, or expensive, or unsuitable for one reason or another. They ended up taking themselves, like two fretful children, to a McIntosh restaurant, where they could eat controlled portions of hamburger, french fries, milk-style shake.
Their meal the following night was less controlled. Jonah Bramble came upstairs to fetch them.
‘Nice place,’ he said listlessly. ‘By the way, I asked a couple of other people to come along to Chinatown with us. They’re waiting downstairs, with the cabs.’
‘Cabs?’ said Susan.
‘Chinatown? I thought we were going to an Italian place,’ Fred said.
‘You wanted Italian? You should have said something. Too late to change our reservation now.’
‘But –’
Susan took Jonah’s part. ‘Oh, Fred, stop being awful about it. Chinatown is fine.’
The other people did not get introduced during the ride in two cabs. It was not until they were all sitting at a round table in the Chinese restaurant that Jonah spread his arms and said: ‘Let me introduce everybody.’
‘Everybody’ included a thin, bearded, apparently mute man named Luther Dorgue; a police sociologist from Arkansas named Boyd Something or Something Boyd; Boyd’s girlfriend Trashi, who claimed to earn her living modelling kitchenware (or perhaps kitchenwear); Trashi’s half-sister Poo; and an elderly man who looked like William Burroughs but was never introduced.
Jonah spread his arms and said, in a slightly more robust voice: ‘Luther is my former lover, ha, ha.’
Boyd said: ‘Shit, you can’t just say it like that, Jonah. Makes everybody thank the pore sucker’s some kinda gay blade.’ He turned to Susan, adding: ‘Nothin’ quare about Luther, honey. See, when they was lovers, Jonah Bramble was
Joan
Bramble. This was way, way back – long before he got a dick sewed on.’
Trashi said: ‘Boyd, watch your mouth.’
Pseudo-Burroughs coughed. ‘Jonah, I never knew you was ever a gal. Was you agenting then?’
Jonah, who had gone back to listlessness, nodded. ‘I worked for Mark Windsor then. Everybody want the special?’
Fred was unable to find the special on the menu; as he searched,
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