his neck, unaware that he had begun that habit years ago, when the strange shadowy shapes hid in his closet and only the blanket could keep him safe. Pulled the covers high and tight, and closed his eyes, and felt her hand stroke him, felt her breast and hip and thigh, and heard her voice as breath against his cheek.
âO chestnut tree,â Jock said, as he had been taught to say, ââ¦great rooted blossomer,
âAre you the leaf, the blossom, or the bole?
âO body swayed to music, O brightening glance,
âHow can we know the dancer from the dance?â
The audience applauded in his mind while he slipped into sleep, and he thought it remarkable that they sounded genuine. He pictured them smiling and nodding at the show. Smiling at the girl with her hand raised so; nodding at the man who paused forever, then came on stage.
D OGWALKER
I WAS AN INNOCENT pedestrian. Only reason I got in this in the first place was I got a vertical way of thinking and Dogwalker thought I might be useful, which was true, and also he said I might enjoy myself, which was a prefabrication, since people done a lot more enjoying on me than I done on them.
When I say I think vertical, I mean to say Iâm metaphysical, that is, simular, which is to say, Iâm dead but my brain donât know it yet and my feet still move. I got popped at age nine just lying in my own bed when the goat next door shot at his lady and it went through the wall and into my head. Everybody went to look at them cause they made all the noise, so I was a quart low before anybody noticed I been poked.
They packed my head with supergoo and light pipe, but they didnât know which neutron was supposed to butt into the next so my alchemical brain got turned from rust to diamond. Goo Boy. The Crystal Kid.
From that bright electrical day I never grew another inch, anywhere. Bullet went nowhere near my gonadicals. Just turned off the puberty switch in my head. Saint Paul said he was a eunuch for Jesus, but who am I a eunuch for?
Worst thing about it is here I am near thirty and I still have to take barkeepers to court before theyâll sell me beer. And it ainât hardly worth it even though the judge prints out in my favor and the barkeep has to pay costs, because my corpse is so little I get toxed on six ounces and pass out pissing after twelve. Iâm a lousy drinking buddy. Besides, anybody hangs out with me looks like a pederast.
No, Iâm not trying to make you drippy-drop for meâIâm used to it, OK? Maybe the homecoming queen never showed me True Love in a four-point spread, but I got this knack that certain people find real handy and so I always made out. I dress good and I ride the worm and I donât pay much income tax. Because I am the Password Man. Give me five minutes with anybodyâs curriculum vitae, which is to say their autopsychoscopy, and nine times out of ten Iâll spit out their password and get you into their most nasty sticky sweet secret files. Actually itâs usually more like three times out of ten, but thatâs still a lot better odds than having a computer spend a year trying to push out fifteen characters to make just the right P-word, specially since after the third wrong try they string your phone number, freeze the target files, and call the dongs.
Oh, do I make you sick? A cute little boy like me, engaged in critical unspecified dispopulative behaviors? I may be half glass and four feet high, but I can simulate you better than your own mama, and the better I know you, the deeper my hooks. I not only know your password now , I can write a word on a paper, seal it up, and then you go home and change your password and then open up what I wrote and there itâll be, your new password, three times out of ten. I am vertical , and Dogwalker knowed it. Ten percent more supergoo and I wouldnât even be legally human, but Iâm still under the line, which is more than I can say
âO chestnut tree,â Jock said, as he had been taught to say, ââ¦great rooted blossomer,
âAre you the leaf, the blossom, or the bole?
âO body swayed to music, O brightening glance,
âHow can we know the dancer from the dance?â
The audience applauded in his mind while he slipped into sleep, and he thought it remarkable that they sounded genuine. He pictured them smiling and nodding at the show. Smiling at the girl with her hand raised so; nodding at the man who paused forever, then came on stage.
D OGWALKER
I WAS AN INNOCENT pedestrian. Only reason I got in this in the first place was I got a vertical way of thinking and Dogwalker thought I might be useful, which was true, and also he said I might enjoy myself, which was a prefabrication, since people done a lot more enjoying on me than I done on them.
When I say I think vertical, I mean to say Iâm metaphysical, that is, simular, which is to say, Iâm dead but my brain donât know it yet and my feet still move. I got popped at age nine just lying in my own bed when the goat next door shot at his lady and it went through the wall and into my head. Everybody went to look at them cause they made all the noise, so I was a quart low before anybody noticed I been poked.
They packed my head with supergoo and light pipe, but they didnât know which neutron was supposed to butt into the next so my alchemical brain got turned from rust to diamond. Goo Boy. The Crystal Kid.
From that bright electrical day I never grew another inch, anywhere. Bullet went nowhere near my gonadicals. Just turned off the puberty switch in my head. Saint Paul said he was a eunuch for Jesus, but who am I a eunuch for?
Worst thing about it is here I am near thirty and I still have to take barkeepers to court before theyâll sell me beer. And it ainât hardly worth it even though the judge prints out in my favor and the barkeep has to pay costs, because my corpse is so little I get toxed on six ounces and pass out pissing after twelve. Iâm a lousy drinking buddy. Besides, anybody hangs out with me looks like a pederast.
No, Iâm not trying to make you drippy-drop for meâIâm used to it, OK? Maybe the homecoming queen never showed me True Love in a four-point spread, but I got this knack that certain people find real handy and so I always made out. I dress good and I ride the worm and I donât pay much income tax. Because I am the Password Man. Give me five minutes with anybodyâs curriculum vitae, which is to say their autopsychoscopy, and nine times out of ten Iâll spit out their password and get you into their most nasty sticky sweet secret files. Actually itâs usually more like three times out of ten, but thatâs still a lot better odds than having a computer spend a year trying to push out fifteen characters to make just the right P-word, specially since after the third wrong try they string your phone number, freeze the target files, and call the dongs.
Oh, do I make you sick? A cute little boy like me, engaged in critical unspecified dispopulative behaviors? I may be half glass and four feet high, but I can simulate you better than your own mama, and the better I know you, the deeper my hooks. I not only know your password now , I can write a word on a paper, seal it up, and then you go home and change your password and then open up what I wrote and there itâll be, your new password, three times out of ten. I am vertical , and Dogwalker knowed it. Ten percent more supergoo and I wouldnât even be legally human, but Iâm still under the line, which is more than I can say
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