Chapter Eight

i.

The screen door opens on the lone gas station in the sterile barren outskirts of Dieledon. Out walks a relieved Harry, the owner of the station who, during the week of the incessant rain, made the dank office his home. Magazine girls kept him company by night. By day he sporadically tinkered with a convertible Jaguar Coupe, a never ending endeavor that the rainy days have not brought closer to completion. During the storm, should anyone have come in need of anything more involved than a full tank of gas, he, as effortlessly as possible, sent them on their way, recommending that the solution to all their problems will be found in Dieledon.

As he steps out of his office, his squinting face warms with the sun, which he sees through lashes of half-shut eyes as it rises from behind the distant mound of skyscrapers. The air quality is exceptional and visibility gives the city a depth of field rarely available from this site.

Having grown so used to the noisy torrent of rain, Harry's ears recognize only silence; but gradually, delicate specks of sound grow distinguishable, such as the sound of water piddling through self-created grooves from one puddle to another into the flooded lavine, of birds cheerfully chirping, and of vaguely human cries for help, all adding sparse lines to the underlying cool air he hears passing through his nostril hairs as he savors each succulent breath.

Cries of distress? Uh oh. Effort. However, curiosity exceeds complacency. He asks himself what horrible sight accompanies the imploring sound emanating from the valley across the highway? Cautiously, he crosses the empty thoroughfare and, to his surprise, finds a selection of cars stuck in the mud. Like islands, rain washed patches of white skin spot the murky waters; these visible fractions like tips of icebergs of the mounds of flesh submerged, marking casualties on the way to the road.

A dignified woman, conformably dressed, can be seen sunken to her hips. A ranting man stomps atop the roof of his car nearby. Their calls grow more urgent at the sight of Harry whose interest in the fatalities is diverted by a highly polished red roof sloping into the mud like a sleek miscolored fish. That visible piece of the submerged puzzle is familiar to him as a car of fine but of, as of yet, undeclared classification.

He wishes the yelling would cease so that he might go about his scavenging in peace, but he gradually acknowledges the calls are from mouths attached to watchful eyes which, unless he puts them out, perhaps with his rifle, will remain alive for a good long while, having had the will power to survive the storm. What is the easiest thing to be done under the circumstances? he asks himself. He trots back to his office like a man concerned about his fellow man, abandoning all hope of claiming the car. He radios for help which arrives later that morning.

Four cars are discovered stuck in the mud from unrelated car accidents involving the treacherous curve with the broken guard rail that leads onto the highway. One of the cars is identified as a Porsche, much to Harry's agony. Within days, his son has him committed to an asylum.

Five suffocated corpses are dragged to the highway, two of which are Souiel and Marie. Several thousand years later archaeologists discover the fossil of a sixth corpse which serves as a model for ancient man.

One of the men in the volunteer ambulance corp, a young long distance runner, recognizes Souiel and, having longed to meet Thomas Sarro since he learned to read, offers to tell him the news.

Telephones are down and transportation is scarce, but thanks to the runner, news of Souiel and Marie, travels quickly to Sarro's apartment, an address familiar to local residents of Dieledon.

The runner is panting in the hall saying, "I saw him alive last night on TV and now I find him this morning lying face down in the mud, dead. And that poor girl with him, in the newspapers just the other day, almost entirely submerged. Oh tragedy!" He throws his arms up in the air.

Sarro, in his bed robe, shakes the early morning messenger. "Good God! Get a hold of yourself, man. What brought you to me?"

"Did you undersign this bill of sale?" He shows Sarro the receipt to the Porsche found in its glove compartment.

Sarro recognizes his secretary's forgery. "That's not my signature, but yes, I did co-sign the purchase."

Taking the situation firmly in hand, Sarro dresses and walks to the Clairol where he greets another catastrophe, fire trucks with ladders extended and hoses squirting while crowds of guests evacuate the hotel.

ii.

A sunsoaked multicolored umbrella, partitioned, beach ball style into primary hues of red, yellow and green, brand names of wine labelling its flaps, shades Lynn at an outdoor cafe peopled by the most decadent and impatient of perpetual hotel lodgers, the paranoid millionaires who prefer never to leave their rooms.

She is seated near scattered rubble and debris on a wire chair, her forearm leaning on a round table with the protective umbrella mounted in its middle. Her right shoulder points upward in an acutely angular position, her fingers playing thoughtfully with her lower lip as she views the damaged Clairol across the street. Draining itself of people, it seems more like a water tank than a hotel, and its ground floor exits are like unplugged drains.

A river of water from conjoining streams cascades into an open manhole cover nearby, the current fortified by the spray of the fire hoses.

Meanwhile, Kevin fights an upstream battle against the evacuating guests as he attempts to push his way into the hotel and return to his room. Panting agedly through a bone dry throat, he decides to surrender for the moment and rejoin Lynn in a refreshing glass of mineral water. Jostled by the mob, he possessively grips his dear Panama hat, which he persists in donning.

Lynn also covers her head. She is uneasily wearing a turban which she, by adjusting it too much, has gradually loosened so that it slips over her ears. She must unwrap it completely, revealing a shiny bumpy hemisphere peculiarly charming to Kevin who, about to sit, spots the exposed milky smooth surface and rushes over to embrace it. She vaguely pushes him away, knocking off his hat, which he hastens to retrieve while blurting, "Blaah!"

She methodically rewraps the turban as if blindly applying an Ace bandage to a swollen ankle, this time winding it over her upper forehead to convey the illusion of a lower hairline for she, like her husband, is nearly bald. They began shedding following the collision. Otherwise they are fine. John's aim was accurate but his plane of fiberglass molded over a metal rib cage lacked the mass to deeply penetrate a window frame half its diameter, not without a folding and squashing around the outer walls.

Since the plane did not go in deep enough, Lynn and Kevin sat clamped to each other, glaring at its nose, washing hair off their shoulders and faces with the shower of an automatic sprinkler system, yelling without hearing themselves over the fire alarms and the enraged suffocation of a racing motor whose fuel supply had been severed with the wings. The wings spun to the ground where they leaked, though not to ignite until a waiting taxi driver dropped a cigarette on the pavement, aiming at it with his heel. Hungry flames consumed the scattered wings and a few cars, raising the death toll from one, John, who at the last minute decided not to bother abandoning the plane and so split himself in half, to at least seven, including two doormen, three taxi drivers and a pedestrian.

During their remaining moments in the suite, Lynn and Kevin assembled outfits from a bag of dirty laundry in the outer room, covered their balding heads and then walked down twenty five flights to be among the first hundred guests to exit the building and for this they had their choice of umbrella tables at the cafe across the street, a reasonably safe viewing distance.

By the time they had reached the sidewalk, the fire department had arrived and was isolating the flames to an area removed from the delivery exit out of which Kevin and Lynn guiltily departed.

The city Kevin saw upon first arriving at the Clairol and the one he presently gazes upon appear to be the same place in two different time eras, as if he has returned to the same spot a thousand years later. Last Thursday the streets, buildings and even the pedestrians seemed so gleamingly metallic with falsely sharp edges which the rain has softened and worn down. The area seems now more at one with the original rock landscape on which the city was built. The street pavement seems less flat and more pliable. Even amidst the mad human chaos, the world is subdued, calm and at peace with itself. Kevin acknowledges this transition as he pours himself a glass of the bottled water. "Oops," he says, spilling half its contents on the tablecloth napkin where it bubbles. He yearningly follows a fountain of water emanating from a fire hose on the ground aimed rather uselessly up at the plane stuffed into and around the window of his former honeymoon suite. He says, "I've got to get up there somehow. We evacuated too damn fast. That plane's not about to explode. It's just going to stick out like a tourist attracting while inside all our stuff gets stolen."

Lynn clips a pair of sunglasses over the turban as a final measure to keep it in its place, and then settles into her chair to appear impassively festive and aloof during her public appearance. This unusual calamity has effected, for her, a catharsis presently unshared by her husband.

He expounds upon his perverse preoccupation with returning to their rooms. "I didn't mention this to you earlier but Philip gave me something in appreciation for all I . . . .," he hesitates, " . . . had done for him."

Lynn expresses herself by looking at him and, while shaking her head, fills her mouth with water without swallowing, gently bringing her teeth together in a smile while dribbling onto her shirt and the table.

He averts his eyes in embarrassment. "Well, for whatever personal reasons he may have had, he rid himself of several mint bills printed at the turn of the century which I took care to conceal upstairs in a drawer with intentions of having them appraised and framed at a later date. Do you think they'll be returned with the luggage?" He looks at her, already knowing the answer. She looks away. He wraps his arms around himself in general distress saying, "I feel like a snail would feel without his shell, like a slug." He burrows his face in his hands.

With raised eyebrows, she reads the extensive list of molecular composites printed on the bottle label, all supposedly contained in the clear liquid they are imbibing.

Kevin downs his glass in a gulp like a drunk on a binge, snorting and rattling his head as if the lightly carbonated water were ninety proof alcohol at least.

Lynn finally says something, a question: "Are you really leaving here today? Otherwise, I'm going alone."

"Back home?"

She casually remarks, "I meant to save it as a surprise but now it doesn't matter anyway. If my hair hadn't fallen out maybe I would have accepted an offer I received yesterday from foreign film director, Mysticonti."

Kevin perks slightly. "Why didn't you tell me? I hate that guy. He makes those stupid young love films when he's not designing opera sets. He's a great cinematographer though. Your hair will grow back."

"It's just a screen test. The telegram is on the bathroom bureau. Also, if you remember, perhaps you could also get my camera?"

He takes the words as a cue. Rising, he says, "Okay. I'm off to try again."

She restrains him by pulling at his pants, the nearest thing. "Forget it. It's worse than before. Even those men there with the stretchers aren't getting through and I'm sure they have a better reason than you." (Several guests went into shock.)

He resumes the conversation. "I'm excited. I'm coming with you to the screen test."

"That's if I go. What are your plans? Are you working on a new film?"

"I have no ideas."

"Then go back to school and study a profession."

"And leave the film career to you?"

"Why not? You've taught me a lot. Besides, I have direction in my life. I'm self-actualized; while you've gotten more passive and inactive. You need to wake up."

"I'm wide awake now, but it would be extravagant to hire a kamakazi pilot for every morning."

"You have to do something to get you off your ass. Think about helping people. Why be so angry and bitter toward the world? Serve society rather than fume over it. Whenever I feel down it's because I'm thinking too much of myself. That's why your friends were such a help to me. They were so self-absorbed that they drew me out of myself. It's wiser to serve society. Work to become one of its chosen servants and see if it doesn't indirectly serve you as well."

"You mean by helping others I'm really helping myself?" He bites his index finger in realization, feeling tired. He looks longingly up at his room into which he wants to crawl or slither like a shameful slug. He says in despair, "I'm too weak. All my life I never tried to improve myself. I was always too easily tempted and distracted by ready pleasures like movies, music or . . .," he grabs the bottle of mineral water, the first phallic object he can find on the table, ". . . like this." He shakes it. It effervesces, squirting all over an elderly couple seated nearby.

"Good heavens!" they exclaim.

"I'm sorry." Kevin did not mean to disturb anyone besides his wife. "Please. I'm sorry."

"Yes, are you stupid?" asks the wise old man, wiping off his lapels.

"It seems stupid. I've always been crazy and now I'm getting clumsy. It's for clumsiness that I should be committed. I'm sorry."

Lynn leans over and playfully swings at his head, again knocking off his hat. "Stupid. Stop conversing and help. Give them your napkin. Dry the beaded water off the lady's hairdo. Do something." The woman has the remains of a gravity defying hairdo, held stiff with molding spray. Lynn is giggling.

Kevin's hand slaps his tight skull. "Blaah," he says, rushing for his hat.

A waiter has come to the rescue, carrying spare napkins.

Pulling the hat over his brow, Kevin reseats himself. Lynn whispers, "That's exactly what I mean. You don't physically extend yourself for anybody. You just sit there saying you're sorry. Everything was done for you. If it wasn't for Sarro, you'd still be nowhere. You wouldn't have your fame and fortune and you wouldn't have me. Let's face it, all you do is get hard every once in a while and even then you won't fuck." She looks around to see if anyone has heard. The elderly couple turns toward her with great interest. She lowers her head below her shoulders and giggles.

"I can't even say I killed that girl. I was pulled." Kevin's fists clench.

She is amazed. "How'd you figure that?"

"How do you think? Someone did it for me using my film and a computer graph."

Squinting, she says, "I told you, in her suicide you were merely the weapon, my dear."

He stands. "I'm going to try again."

She takes a gulp of water and says, "Sit down. What's your hurry? Do you need a place to masturbate in private?"

"What?" He is indignant. "That's the furthest thing from my mind. I told you why I have to go back there."

"That's the stupidest reason I've ever heard. Are those bills that important?"

"Right now they are. What else is there? Certainly not sex. Do you know what my idea of pleasure is now? The knowledge that my enemy lies dead while I live." He jabs his finger on the table and his chest, respectively, for emphasis. His eyes glint wildly. He adds, "I can't tell you how good that feels."

"What enemy?"

"The one they're taking out with the garbage." He points at the plane.

"The pilot was your enemy?"

"Of course. He hit the building on my account. That's my plane up there."

She looks accusingly at him. "How could he know which room to hit?"

"I don't know," he lies. "He had the room number, the floor plan is straightforward. Anyway, I was getting calls all last night. He said come morning they'd be taking me out with the garbage." He tilts his head with each word. "Now ha ha on him."

"We don't know if he's dead."

"Uh, honey. I don't suppose you had a peak in the cockpit but the flesh enclosed was only the lower piece of a man." He mimics her, saying, "Now, I don't know if he was dead," succeeding in making her sick. "The point is," he concludes like a power broker, "He tried to kill me and, in so doing, killed himself; so I'm safe."

She swallows her nausea to say, "That reminds me. A girl visited the table while you were contending with the onslaught of hotel refugees. I can't imagine how she recognized me with my hair gone and my incognito sunglasses, but she looked me over and decided to give it a try. It seems you and she have something to discuss."

He jokingly asks, "What if she's an assassin? We should notify the police."

"Why? We haven't notified them that ours was the room hit. Why bother them about a silly thing like this? Don't worry," she consoles. "Her clothes were very tight."

"So?"

"No weapon."

He wonders, "How tight were they?"

"So tight that her pants were pulling into her crotch." Her face registers contempt. Kevin, repulsed, nods in agreement. She adds, "She carried neither purse nor pocketbook, so I deduced her only weapon to be her mouth."

Kevin freezes. "Her mouth?" he asks.

"Yeah." She slurps from her cup while maintaining eye contact. "She wanted to have words with you."

"Words . . .," he repeats in an ominous monotone.

She resumes conversational tone. "I'm surprised you didn't meet. She walked off in your direction." She notices Kevin's pallid complexion and a pulsating beneath his jaw. "Do you have a frog in your throat?

He admits, "It's been throbbing all morning.

She leans over and tries to pinch it with her fingers. "Why, it's a vein," she discovers. It suddenly stills. "Kevin, are you dead?"

"No, I still live. Only my heart has stopped." He feels his chest rumbling. "Now it's upset. It's jumping into my mouth."

"Can it be these last couple of days were too much for you?"

iii.

Kevin notices Crystal ambling a few tables away. He waves him over, calling, "Nice Pajamas," and lowers his head to the table.

Crystal seats himself on the table. Indeed, he is wearing the green bedclothes of Munsingwear. "Thank you," he says. They're nylon so it's easy to slide in and out of bed. That's why I wear them. Take this morning, for instance. I heard the crash and I was out of the bed in less than a second. They're also good for . . .." He looks under Kevin's hat and says, "You certainly were caught by surprise. All these years you fooled into thinking you had a full head of hair."

Kevin lifts his heavy head off the table, securing his hat, saying, "I did. I will, I hope. That was no wig. We both lost our hair. Show him, Lynn." His eyes bulge in apprehension.

"Later, Kevin." She calms him with her soothing voice. "Hi Crystal. What about your pajamas?"

"Oh yes. They're also good for slithering through the crowd." His hand imitates a snake. "And what a crowd. Why are you both bald?"

Lynn explains her theory. "When the plane entered our room we became so frightened that the pores in our skin tightened, clipping our hair at the roots."

Crystal is aghast. "Your room was hit?"

They humbly bob their heads.

"Are you all right? Do you realize how lucky you are?"

Kevin does not. "That wasn't luck," he says. "He did it on purpose. Recognize the plane?"

Crystal stands up and walks around, sending piercing glances in scattered directions. He returns. "I don't know if our insurance covers this." He realizes, "It's all hindsight, but that call was a warning. Oh shit, I was tired. But think about it. You showed him exactly how to do it. You're lucky to be alive, you dolt."

"Yeah, but we left all our luggage and things up there."

"Same here. Look at me. I didn't even stop to change. So what? Be merry. Our escape is much beyond our loss."

Kevin remains ill at ease. "I have these old bills that Philip gave me. They're up there."

Lynn, shaking her head, remembers aloud, "You flew him by our room. I'll bet you pointed it out to him."

Crystal sets Kevin's mind at ease. "Nobody will bother your bills. I was talking with one of the Clairol managers on the veranda. He said nobody's entering the building till it's approved by the building inspectors. That crack down the side may cause the collapse of entire floors."

"Don't you know an excuse for burglary when you hear it? It's those building inspectors who've got me worried."

Crystal blames Kevin's silly concern on the plane crash.

Lynn says, "He has to relax. Do you see his throat?"

Crystal touches Kevin's clammy forehead and feels his chest. "He's palpitating." To Kevin, he suggests, "You should go to the hospital."

"Again? I was just there a few hours ago. You were with me," he reminds Crystal. "It was too crowded."

Lynn says, "Kevin, there's no reason to get yourself sick over this."

He seeks to further alienate her. "I'm fine. The only thing important to me now is that money."

Crystal says, optimistically, "Your problem is that you're still young. With youth there is squandering of energy that you'll miss when older. If you stay alive a few years your resilience will be behind you and you'll have a purpose in life: to devote time, money and conversation to keeping trim, healthy, young looking and alive, and then you'll have something to share with your fellow man. The topic of health."

Kevin does not take this statement with the lighthearted optimism intended. "Are you suggesting I join a health club?"

Lynn smirks at Crystal who shrugs, carefree, and says, "Sorry, folks. I can't help but feel rather good here with the blue sky and the air which breathes upon us so sweetly, as 'twere perfumed by a fen. Everything's so clean. See the newness of the pavement; feel the crispness of the air." He is shaking Kevin by the shoulders. "The rain has softened the very shape of the city. Surely the water caused a change in us all. Don't you notice it in the world around you?"

"Yes," he admits. "In the pigeons."

"You saw them fly?" he asks, smiling with encouragement for if they can muster the energy, so can Kevin.

"No, but I see they're starting to look more like chickens." He points out a fat grey/blue one with a shrunken neck, waddling across the road to get to the other side. "I must step on it."

"Kevin, will you sit down?" From his sitting position on the table, Crystal easily restrains Kevin by pushing him back into the chair. Kevin is made to pant again from the thwarted effort. He slouches.

"Sit up," says Lynn.

Kevin cries in exasperation. "Sit up; sit down. You two are driving me crazy."

The fireman explains the freak accident and the orders for evacuation to Sarro. Sarro thanks him and walks around the crowd. He soon finds Crystal, Kevin and Lynn seated conspicuously in the forefront of the outdoor cafe. Because of their harrowing experience he treats them with gentleness. Crystal and Lynn embrace him. They are apparently fine; it is Kevin who shows sign of strain. With Souiel's death and the hot publicity for Friends, Kevin will be more wealthy than ever. Sarro congratulates him on his Pyramid award and his new step up in the financial world. He considerably calms Kevin with the suggestion that Kevin's solo film, Plants, be released some time this summer. He looked at the film again last week and has the highest hopes for it. He tries to impart to Kevin a much needed spirit of optimism before revealing his sad news.

Kevin responds to Sarro's enthusiasm. He says he no longer wishes to be a competitive artist, nor does he desire further money or prestige, nor does he need Souiel's approval. He has grown secure in his own standard of good, evil and bad. He wants only to live in appreciation of the boundless beauty of the entire spectrum of the world and words to that effect. He announces, standing, "I renounce all hatred and bitterness. I will show a constructive interest in society through my art. I will concern myself no longer with escaping life; rather, I will simplify my life." He nods to Lynn for the ideas. She barely recognizes them.

Crystal asks, "Why the sudden change?"

He answers, "I just feel like being happy. Do you want to make something of it? I can do it if I want to." He turns to Lynn and suggests, "Let's travel. I want to visit all the corners of the world and conduct an anthropological investigation of its many races, creeds and cultures. We can start with the Americas. We'll fly to New York City and forge westward in the spirit of the nineteenth century pioneers."

Lynn reminds him, "If I go anywhere, it will be to the Mirian Peninsula to meet Mysticonti."

"There again? I just got back."

Sarro, liking the idea, encourages it by asking, "But did you visit the museums and cathedrals?"

"No." He jovially accepts. "Okay. Let's go. We're leaving without delay. Lynn is to be in a film and, frankly, I'm glad. I hope she gets more offers and rehearses for a variety of parts. I'll be her prompter."

Sarro gives his blessing. "Fine. It should give your relationship internal variety. However, I hope you'll consider having more children in the future."

They simultaneously ask, "What?"

He grows solemn, thinking that perhaps these hypothetical youngsters carry on for the dead. He remains silent.

Lynn touches his arm. "What is it?" she asks.

"I came to tell you something. The weather has been responsible for many accidents, the worst of which is probably before us." He motions to the Clairol and continues. "But there's been another, smaller but no less tragic event that affects us on a more personal level." He exhales a sigh of defeat.

Crystal guesses, "It's Souiel?"

Sarro nods. "His car has been found submerged in a lavine off the highway. What's worse is that I believe Marie was with him. They were driving out of the city together. I received a report this morning that both were drowned. Has anyone seen her husband?"

iv.

Philip returns from a night spent with J.T. McGuilty in a high rise apartment nearby rigged with lights, hidden cameras and action supplied by Philip revelling in narcissistic exhibitionism. He is barred from returning to the Clairol. He asks, "Why won't they let me in?"

A fireman retorts with a question. "See that plane?"

"So what," he says, annoyed. Within minutes he finds his prominent friends at their ringside table. Kevin rises and greets him with a passionate tongue kiss, sitting back down to smirk at Lynn as if to have proven something.

Philip is shaky, worried, frightened, anxious and bored at the thought of work. With the new day comes the harsh question, What is he to do with himself? Without Marie by his side he is like a sailboat without a rudder. He wonders, assuming she has left him for another, does that kiss mean that Kevin intends to take care of him?

Lynn stares at his hopeful face and sardonically asks, "Philip, my husband simply loves your money. Where did you get it?"

Self-conscious from being the center of attention, and without any pleasantries to exchange, he shrugs and explains, "My grandfather died leaving nothing behind except the vivid memory of his wealth. Mother and father wondered, where had all his money gone? He had given my mother a combination; father found the safe behind a painting in my grandfather's rathskeller. They went to open it. Suddenly there was a BOOM!" He startles all within a radius of six tables. He concludes, "No more parents; only money."

The suddenness of the substitution intrigues Kevin. He asks, "Did your grandfather booby-trap the safe for protection or for a prank?"

Sarro shakes his head at Kevin while patiently awaiting the moment when he must repeat his own news.

Philip explains, "One of his business associates must have rigged the safe as a reminder of some wrong he did many years ago."

Lynn, equally intrigued, asks, "Where were you when it happened?" She catches sight of Philip's two toned eyes and imagines them crying.

"Outside in the garden, searching for an old tortoise that my mother said lived out there. We never found it. Then it wasn't long before the cops came. They found the safe, exploded, and our parents, splattered, but they didn't find the strongbox containing the cash as we had swiped that. They would have only kept it for themselves."

"See?" Kevin reprimands Lynn. "I have to get up there and get that money and fast."

Philip asks, "You still have that money? It's worthless. Marie has all the newer bills. Has anybody seen her?"

Sarro, up until now silent, gently explains the tenuousness of life and death while gradually spiralling toward the fact that Souiel and the storm have claimed Philip's wife.

"But she wasn't my wife. She was my sister!"

Lynn observes that as his eyes liquify, his ears redden.

"We only posed that way to be available for business but otherwise taken." He supports his forehead with his arm. "I was supposed to be our savior. Some savior. My talent was going to turn that cash into claimable wealth, so we could fend for ourselves without anyone bothering us. What a laugh. Now what am I supposed to do? I'm stuck. This damn hotel is the only place that accepts our money, and look at it. It's been torpedoed."

Sarro takes him aside for a private consultation.

Meanwhile, Lynn wells with anger. "Why did he take her with him?" she asks.

Kevin asks, "Were you attracted to Marie?"

She answers regretfully, "Perhaps this strengthens the fact that you and I are meant for each other, since they both turn out to be products of the same family."

This news pleases Kevin. "We are of the same mold. Let's travel together and search for others like them."

She stops him, speaking practically. "Kevin, I have a better idea. Why not combine Marie's dream of making Philip a star with your own dream of a new film? That's what initially interested you -- that he was an intriguing character. Now he's yours. You even have the script; he just told it. Cast some unassuming young lady as Marie and let Philip play himself. You direct."

Kevin looks back with admiration. "I don't know what I'd do without you. That's a great idea."

As Sarro rhapsodizes encouragement with a fatherly concern that would have thrilled Marie, Philip's mind can not refrain from wandering. He is beckoned by the park across the street where he hopes to find refuge, as he and Marie found when they escaped the cafe. When Sarro calls his name twice to gain his acknowledgement, he answers by begging to be excused so that he might take a walk, alone.

Sarro says, "Be careful," and lets him go.

As Kevin watches Philip cross the street, he whispers in Lynn's ear that he'll be right down with her telegram and camera, and he won't be more than a minute, after which they'll go. She smiles at his mania and does not bother stopping him.

v.

"No. You can't go in there, young man. This building is being evacuated."

"Please. I have to. There are some items in there I can't be without."

"Do you work here?" The morning chef, supervising the area, asks if Kevin is an employee because Kevin is trying to get in through the service exit from which he and Lynn earlier departed.

"I have a room in here and in it is a medication that I'm overdue in taking," he implores.

"Go ask at the main entrance. Can't you go to a pharmacy?"

"I'm light. The building won't notice me." He points to the left and yells, "Look at that!" and sneaks around the cook, out of the bright day into a dark corridor, past time clocks, lockers, the kitchen and the empty dining room.

Starting with the obscure circular stairwell that led Philip and Marie up to Sarro's party, he runs upwards in a repeated spiral, flopping forward like a salmon swimming up stream. The wind howls and the building creaks and groans, as does Kevin. Bloodless, he arrives on the landing of the twenty-fifth floor and, while walking over carpet, he distinctly hears beyond his own panting the steady click of heals on marble.

Without electricity, the long cushioned hall is shadowed in darkness, lit only by slot-windows at its farthest corners. Kevin scampers toward the light to his room at the far end of the hall and unlocks the door. Looking about the bedroom, he realizes he is unable to recall where he hid the bills. Sunshine in lazor-bright shafts let in around the plane aids his search but the room, in crumpled disarray with furniture covered in a layer of plaster dust, hardly seems familiar.

His scavenging like a catfish on the ocean floor is interrupted by the felt presence of another, Doreen, observing from the hallway entrance. Her legs are bound in pants of India cotton; an elastic tube-top encloses her chest; and her eyes are watering in apprehension.

From out of the rain forest comes a voice, earnest, noble and patriarchal, speaking words that sound thick, almost garbled, as formed by his stern muzzle. It is the ape again.

EPILOGUE

"I said we needed this rain and the proof flourishes around me. It has caused other changes, as well. I wouldn't know where to begin but the author, as part of our agreement, has supplied information pertinent to his story to which I will gladly restrict myself.

"Souiel and Marie are dead. Their bodies await cremation; their consciousness has dispersed into the nebula of energy that is neither created nor destroyed. Admittedly, they can no longer make this world theirs, but they remain a part of it nonetheless. As conscious entities, or spirits, they are presently encountering the great post-life surprise that awaits us all. The same goes for John. He couldn't be bothered abandoning the plane so he also died. Too bad. I agree with Kevin Vargas in this one respect, never die unless you have to.

"The other characters not killed in the course of this story have futures more open to conjecture but, here are their fates, again supplied by the author. Thomas Sarro keeps in touch with Lynn and Kevin. As a producer, he collaborates more closely with Crystal on several major stage spectacles but the thrill of the theatre, as well as the pleasure of being a mogul, wear off, and his position at the Beledon becomes one of figurehead with the likes of Henry pulling the strings from below. Sarro becomes leisurely occupied, again, with discovering and furthering individual careers of those variously and uniquely talented. Does he ever marry? Apparently, throughout this story he has been married.

"Crystal, or Joel Monroe, aside from designing Beledon shows, prepares the release of other Vargas/Souiel films, finding a market for them, although they no longer receive critical attention. Several years later, during a pleasure trip to Bulgaria he visits an ancient castle, becomes close with the son of its pale inbred family and they adopt him. He spends most of his later years there.

"The Souielists never die, though they do fade away, moving to little two-story attached houses in the suburbs of Dieledon where they eventually breed.

"The Beledon fails to live up to its grand expectations of becoming showcase of the nation and, after it loses Crystal, its pageantry is never, on any account, original. Tourists feel it is a place to visit and it survives as a landmark. The Pyramid Awards Ceremony is held at a different theatre every year.

"The Clairol is repaired completely. One would never know it was damaged. While it goes through several owners, it is refortified and remains filled throughout most of the year. It is always wise to make reservations there in advance.

"Kamakazi flying becomes a craze in the months to follow making tremendous headlines and doing plenty of damage, although never as much as expected. Some pilots crash for political reasons, others for religious observance, some for no reason at all. Many mad but not overtly suicidal pilots live to tell of their mischief, often on T.V., by abandoning their planes as little as yards before impact. Paranoiacs with expansive views of the park or bay areas find their most restive moods disturbed by this possibility. However, with stricter licensing restrictions, drug testing, radar and heavy taxing of air space, kamakazi flying becomes less frequent than skyjacking.

"Kevin is forced to remain in Dieledon due to his heart ailment, so after a few days he is indicted for murder, the charge of which is reduced to manslaughter with the case dropped due to a lack of a corpus delecti. This trial proves to be nothing compared with the insurance hassle that involves him as part owner of the colliding plane, but he is in no position to be bothered by any outside problems. Doreen Farahday leaves him hairless and harmless, staggering and crumpling into a fetal position on the floor of his semi-demolished hotel room where he waits for his heart to stop pounding while fueling its upset with his restless impatience. His capacity for self-hatred increases especially for this occasion. His heart persists in its rapid short-circuited course, circulating the blood around a limited chestal radius, freezing his endpoints and suffocating his brain of blood and, consequently, of oxygen, destroying its higher functions while reducing him to a blithering state. His heart resumes its normal beat in the Saint Dymphna Intensive Care Ward five days later. Although he despises himself, he looks forward to exciting future adventures with Doreen, whom he finds repulsive to the point of delirium. Evidence of this inner conflict can be found daily on his hospital sheets as he dreams back on their past encounter, during which she opened herself up to him. She did this by splitting her pants at the seams with a razor blade concealed in her back pocket. As she watched him crinkling on the hotel floor, she was loathe to tear herself away but, with greater control, she consoled herself with the gratification future encounters would supply. Rather than slicing up his throat, a tempting spectacle given his palpitations, she leaves, trading his clothes for her shreds, saying, "See you real soon," and exiting the building without attracting any notice. So crafty and determined is she to continue, that she gains midnight access into his convalescence room in the sterile St. Dymphna Hospital. Once reunited, they become morons together, having idiotic sex and, when they do, Kevin palpitates for a long time afterwards, usually no more than five days, and more intelligence drains from his brain. As funding has it, they are committed to the same clinic, though soon to be forcibly separated to prevent them from doing one another bodily harm. Tracing of Doreen's lineage reveals her to have no genetic relation to the deceased, Diane.

"Lynn is downstairs from the hotel suite talking with Sarro, remembering Kevin's promise to be right back so that they can leave immediately to avoid all questions and detainments, expecting him to be a while, while not yet aware that their journey is to be postponed indefinitely. Like so many other careers in film, hers fails to materialize. Instead, she makes a successful career transition into the world of fashion photography, having always been an observant model, becoming one of the few women in that field. In her free time, she lives with her parents while keeping in touch with her husband who, despite his pathetic mental lapses and extreme frailty, is pleasant company from time to time. It is ironic to note that Kevin often misses her and feels, more intently than ever before, that he really does love her.

"During the Swinson interview, Kevin mentioned sending his son, Kevin Junior, to a nursery school called Dream School. Kevin is reminded of this by scanning his article in Peopleview, something he often does in reviewing the good old days; and, when he sees his quote on Dream School he mindlessly carries out intentions of an earlier, more intelligent time. Thus, Kevin Junior is registered. He sleeps twenty hours a day. His dreams are well monitored. It's said he's created quite a peaceful life for himself in that little head of his.

"As for Diane, dead for over five years and legally pronounced dead amidst the many motions made during Kevin's trial, she has had an active afterlife. Almost immediately following her burial she was dug up by rowdy lay members of my tribe. Even in death, she satisfied their wanton lust and obsession for the human figure, a shape they adore. She was decorated, anointed and worshipped in a cave for months afterward. This is an embarrassment to such as myself who seek to advance and better our community for the good of all in it. Such physical adoration is wasteful religious nonsense and I lead the fight, in fact, I head the committee formed to stamp out this venomous practice, but, alas, other bodies are acquired and the decadence thrives among the minority of us. Let me say, though, that no matter how popular and economically advantageous this vice is and may be in the future, I shall not be swayed.

"And as for you, Philip," he speaks up. "I think it's time you came out from behind that rock."

A head peaks out, bloodshot and tearful. It is Philip, direct from his walk from the Clairol, having hid himself upon sight of the erect animal. He sniffs, "She's, she's dead."

"That was the first and most obvious piece of information I had to relate. But you," he points. "You live."

"But I should be dead. It's all my fault." He falters.

"Others have died as well. So must we all. Forget it. Forget everything. Remove those fabrics and let me take you along with me, away from all that is human."

Philip hesitates for a moment, but does remove his clothes. When the last article falls from his hands, the ape draws near and covers Philip's bony shoulder with his long hairy arm. Philip studies it, while discovering it is devastatingly warm and protective. He looks up at the ape who explains, pointing, "Come. It's just over that hill. We've been waiting for you. The future starts here."

Philip wishes he would be more specific. "Where?" He gestures vaguely. "Here?"

"No." The ape points to a spot directly beneath them. "Here."

They walk off toward the blue blue sky, though not far, only into the park.

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storm cloud -- dizozza