I made a habit of following her. She knew I was doing it. I think she got into the act. She stopped at weird places. A costume rental. A glazier. She spent some time looking at sports cars in a showroom. Make something of that, eh, tovaritch? Then she drove aimlessly around the neighborhoods, the tangle that wove through Menlo and into Whiskey Creek, then Vintage and Palo Alto. I followed her. I followed her. Even at a distance I'm sure she was aware of it. I was getting stupid. Dizzy. I pulled over and got out of the car. I lay down on the grass and closed my eyes. I had a very distinct vision of her son standing out on the terrace, aiming a rifle at her as she was getting into her car to go to work.
Funny thing is, the very next day he did come out. Only the gun he had was one of those high powered water pistols. He drew a bead and spayed her car. She honked as she pulled out. The kid laughed and went back inside. He didn't see me watching him. Then the boomboom began. The little shit. Him a ape boy, strictly from Ape Death. He crawls over roofs at night, searching. He lunges from behind bars. He is a boy in a lit up suit on the Boulevard, another part of the night music we must endure. He walks in the rain. Sometimes he smokes. Smoke pours from his skin, from his eyes. He is called Wildfly and thought to be dangerous. HE IS NOT. DIG IT. DON'T WORRY. HE IS NOT. Flashing signs announce this as he passes. He seems to step on switches as he walks along, arms away from his sides, making with the gorilla effect, tripping himself up with self advertisement. DIG IT. DON'T WORRY. He withdraws the water pistol from his duster. Where did he get that duster? Some costume dive, same as his mother visited earlier. He is a fool to go in there. They know who he is. So do I. I report him to the various authorities who would be interested in his case. He is all that the case is, in fact, feel me? The duster is ridiculous. It advertises various automotive supplies: tires, jacks, carburetors of distinction in that world. He can't escape that world because he is of it, in it, stuck to it like a fly on a broom. That world called him to normalcy. He is passing, anyone can see that. Look at him. A Ruskie in drag. The fokking T shirt, the drilled out eyes which burn into you with the Eternal Question: Who the fok you think you are, Meester? Run. Run. I am dangerous. Got me a gun here that gives me the world until sunup, at which time I must dissolve into the pavement with the rest of the detritus of this here Late City, which is all there is. Know it. All there is. Feel me here, Tex? He is insane on the subject of his mother. Once I mentioned a boyfriend. What if she gets a boyfriend? I asked him. Over my dead body, he said with a certain show of bulging musculature, tits popping out of his shirt like flattened power packs. It disturbed me that he would feel that way. What if I became her boyfriend? Would he go for me with his water gun? Spray me for a fool? For love, sure, but anything else would be de trop, you know.
Look. We are in the doorway, me, Marina, kissing, actually making out like the wizards of suds, beer bodies bubbling into each other, wetting ourselves with the music of sex, the fluids we share pouring into each other, it is, ah, fantastic, but the kid, he sees us, sees us melding, making with the Big Rapport, you know, and he must spray. He aims. He fires. Water flows over us, it doesn't matter, we're so in love, finally we are in love, and water flows over us, waves rise, a sea, a sea of beer and squirtgun jizzm bubbling and troubling, blinking us into mean seas.
The night is drastic. We walk alone, holding hands. We are covered with goo, with the fluid which began as a sea of generation in her husband's balls and blasted into her at some point and now must come forth out of ordnance of teenage distraction, as false sperm shot from oatmeal guns. Even so, her husband's balls float like linked buoys with flashing red lights. We swim toward them. We reach out. A skinny man in the tights of Ubermenchen throws out a coupl'a hooks and drags us in. We are safe. We are safe. Fuck all tragedy and death by water. It is now our time to dry off together and have some chili with this fool. He takes us to his boat, which is a very good boat, indeed. I could buy such a boat, myself, and take us away to the Pure Land.
