Spring 1973

The first nightmare Brad had that spring was actually an afternoon nap-mare. It was Saturday, the last weekend of March, and the weather was just beginning to break.

He dreamed he was at choir practice, sitting in a long narrow room with doors front and back. People kept getting up and disappearing, as if on some prearranged signal, until he was alone in the room with one of the basses, who looked as bewildered as Brad was. Then Marcia, a soprano he had had a couple flirtatious exchanges with, swung in the back door wearing a gypsy outfit replete with ear-hoops, bangles, and a lurid orange scarf around her head. She looked at Brad and the bass with a surprised smile and said, "The boys are in the parlor, better hurry up!" Then she swished through the room and out the door in front. Brad gathered up his music — red folder, black folder, blue hymnal, gray Psalter — and skidded out the door after her in his socks. He turned right and skated up the hall, passing the bass (Brad never could remember his name), who was leaning against the wall like a derelict about to pass out. There was something vaguely sinister in the glance that passed between them, and Brad sped up as he pulled away.

At the end of the dark corridor was the door to the parlor, almost closed. Shapes were moving swiftly in the strip of yellow light along the door-edge; a hand or a stockinged foot would flash in the opening like a fish leaping out of sunlit water.

But as Brad entered the parlor, expecting to be caught into some whirling dance, he found instead that the men of the choir were simply milling around, waiting for Philip, the choirmaster, to start the sectional rehearsal or whatever it was they were there for. No one spoke or even seemed to notice that Brad had come in late, which would have been a relief (he was late rather often), if he could have picked up some sense of what was going on. Then he realized that all this must have been planned at the last rehearsal, which of course he had missed.

All at once they lay down on their backs on the carpeted floor, their stockinged feet pointing toward the opening Brad had just come through.

He did the same, and in a moment heard the door click as it locked. The light became very dim, and Brad sensed movement near his feet. He lifted his head to see, and a pregnant black cat gathered and leaped up the full length of his body, its teats glowing orange like navigation lights. Brad was pulled into a back flip as if by an undertow.

He woke up face down on the carpet beside the couch. He worked himself slowly to his hands and knees, his limbs leaden, his heart in full gallop. He shook his head to clear it, and heard something smack against the plaster wall. He squinted toward the sound, but the gray air in the room was still too thick with fear. His nose itched, and he rubbed it with the palm of his hand. Blood ran down his wrist in three rivulets.

He staggered toward the bathroom, caroming off the door frame, slipping so badly on the tiles that he pulled the string out of the light socket. Leaning both hands on the sink, he looked into the mirror. Blood dripped off his chin into the bowl of the sink, but it seemed he only had a nosebleed. The air around his image was sparkling with tiny eddies of light.

He coughed, spattering the mirror. Shit, he thought, Barbara'll love this mess. He wrenched the cold water tap and jerked at the wash rag hanging from a ring above the soap dish. But he had grabbed both ends, and this pulled the bracket out of the wall. Roaring, he hurled it away, knocking everything off the back of the toilet and cracking the frosted glass window above it. He sat down on the rim of the tub and wept.

An hour later, he was already half in the bag. His wife and toddler daughter still weren't home, and now, after three pretty stiff old-fashioneds, Brad was no longer sure they had just gone shopping. It was after eight o'clock, and Robin had to be in bed by nine. "Something must be done," he pronounced, raising an emphatic finger. Besides, there wasn't nearly enough Scotch to get him through the evening, so he'd have to go out anyway5.

He weaved over to the phone, picked it up. Who the hell could he call? Without really knowing why, he punched in his sister's number. He owed her a call by now, and old Georgia was always good for a laugh. And, he remembered, she and Barbara were thick as thieves of late.

"Hello?"

"George! How the hell are ya?"

The voice on the other end was taut. "Who is this, please?"

"It's your brother, for Chrissakes!"

"What number are you calling?"

"Huh?"

"What number are you calling?"

"Quit screwing around, George. Bobbie and Beanbag aren't back from the store, and I'm getting worried. I just wondered — "

"I think you'd better hang up and try again."

Brad sobered up.

"Wait about five minutes and try again."

"Are they there?"

"That's right. Wait five minutes. Then try again."

"Can't talk, huh?"

"Hope it works out." Click.

Brad hung up slowly. What the hell was going on? He headed straight for the almost empty bottle in the kitchen. Wait a minute, he thought. Five minutes'll get me out to the liquor store and back, just about exactly. He whipped his jacket from the back of a chair.

It took ten, and while he fumbled with his keys outside the door, he could hear the phone ringing inside. But by the time he got to it it had stopped.

"Damn!" By now he was really worried, so he quickly emptied the open bottle into a tumbler and plopped in some ice before heading for the phone again.

"Hello?"

"George, what the fuck — "

"You asshole, where the hell have you been all day?"

"At home — well, mostly — what —"

"Barbara and Robin just left. You were supposed to be here for dinner tonight, meet my new boyfriend, remember?"

"What?"

"I talked to Barbara last week — "

"I didn't know a thing about it."

"She said she told you."

"Well, she didn't, the bitch."

"Look, Brad, I don't care whose fault it is, I busted my hump all day cleaning and cooking and then we spent the whole evening biting our nails over you. All I can say is, you better have a damn good excuse when they get back, or Bobbie'll crack your nuts for you."

"Why didn't you call here before?"

But Georgia had already hung up. "Christ on a crutch!" he yelled, his voice rattling in the plaster corners. "I don't fucking believe this!"

He looked at the clock. Twenty-five minutes on the subway, even if they didn't have to wait. They might take a cab, though, and if they got one right away, they'd be here any second. Georgia was right, he'd have to have a story, if only to calm Beanbag down. Later on, when the kid was asleep, and with a little more Scotch under his belt, he could have it out with his wife.

The truth was, he had forgotten. The dream and its aftermath had really freaked him out. But now he was facing a major battle, three hours at least. There was even a chance he'd end up in the street in the middle of the night, weeping like a child. It had happened before: Barbara would convince him a divorce was best for Robin; Brad could stay with Georgia till he found a place of his own. It would all sound so reasonable, and he did so desperately long to be free of that terrible woman his wife had turned into. But the thought of leaving Robin would shrink his heart, and he'd contrive some arrangement that would enable him to come back and hang on until Barbara calmed down. She would soften, her resolve would break, she'd forget what had made her so mad. Brad would promise whatever she asked, get her to believe what she wanted to believe, get the truth to go to sleep again. And things would go fine, if a little numbed, until the next catastrophe.

Oh well, he thought, chugging the Scotch. Maybe I'll try the truth this time. Nothing else works, why not?

When he woke up on the couch the next morning, his first thought was that he'd had no dreams. He was lying on his side, staring at the stain on the rug where he'd banged his nose after the last one, which he couldn't remember except that he was at — choir practice! Panic shot through him. What time was it? He threw off the afghan and leaped to his feet, but the pain that burst in his head nearly knocked him down again. He stumbled to the window. The sun was too high. Dammit, he'd get fired for sure if he was late for church again. The only clock was in the bedroom, and be damned if he wanted to deal with his wife first thing, not after last night, whatever had happened, not with a head like this. He tiptoed to his daughter's door. All quiet. Good sign. Beanbag was usually up with the birds. He nipped into the bathroom, grabbed his razor case and toothbrush, and silently let himself out of the apartment.

As Brad slid into the end seat of the tenor section, they were just putting away the offertory music. The other anthem, the one for communion, was William Byrd's Ave Verum Corpus, a succulent Renaissance motet Brad could sing in his sleep. Philip, without looking up from the music rack on the piano, said, "I think you'd better sit this one out, Brad."

"Not the Hey-varoom, Philip, please. I'll never be late again. I'll quit smoking, I'll assassinate the rector. Anything, Philip."

Marcia, the frisky soprano, snorted. Even Philip smiled. "All right, I guess you know it well enough. But lay out during the offertory, please?"

"I'll just stand there and mouth, I promise."

"Don't push it, Brad."

"Yes sir."

Philip spelled up the opening chord on the piano. Some throat-clearing and then silence. The slight rustle of Philip's sleeves as he gave the upbeat, the unison intake of breath. The delicious G minor chord, falling sadly to D major and then, as the tenors held their A into the change to F major, spinning out and out through another suspended D into G major, like a cloud clearing the sun. Ave verum corpus. Hail, True Body. Brad always felt this music being drawn directly out of his chest, like a golden cord that buzzed with the sweetest ache there is.

O dulcis, O pie, O Jesu fili Mariae, miserere mei — O sweet (one), O pious (one), O Jesus son of Mary, have mercy on me. As always, Brad was enthralled by this last section, repeating "miserere" over and over, the four voices huddled within one octave, murmuring almost, mercy, mercy, mercy ... .

The whole "O dulcis" section repeats, but Philip, glancing at his watch, said, "Take the Amen." An alto said, "What?" and Ray, Brad's second tenor partner, started flipping the last page frantically. The cadence wobbled a little, but Brad leaned into the E flat that began the Amen, holding down Ray's fluttering page with a finger. The tuning focused itself, dipped gracefully into the double suspension at the end, and came to rest.

Philip dropped his arms, snatched his music off the piano and strode out of the room without cutting them off. Brad sat there shaking his head as everyone else stood up. "God, that is a tasty little sucker."

Ray stood jittering, waiting to get by. "We'd better get robed."

Brad didn't move, still staring at the music. "Breaks my heart."

Marcia grabbed his ear and pulled him out of his chair. "Philip's gonna break your butt."

"Ouch! OK, OK, I'm going!" Grinning, she let him go with one hard pinch and jogged out of the room. Ray brushed Brad's shoulder on his way past.

"We'd better get robed, Brad."

"Right. Gangway, ladies!" He bowled into a trio of sensibly-shod altos, sending them into a flurry of titters. "Time to praise the Lord in song!"

He took the stairs down to the robing room in threes. A killer soprano waited to use the ladies' room, glaring at him. "Morning, sweetheart!" He rose on tiptoe and pecked her on the cheek. One side of her mouth twitched up. Sailing around the corner to the men's he collided with the bass whose name he never could remember.

He didn't shave or brush his teeth during the sermon, he dozed. It was bitterly cold, a brilliant dawn, and he was pulling his little girl by the hand down a street overlooking the harbor. A huge bridge loomed against the sunrise, one black tower perforated by pinpoints of fiery light. But they were walking away from it, into the wind. Beanbag was crying from the cold, not trying to keep up at all, and Brad's patience was near its end. There was already little hope of catching whatever it was they were hurrying towards, when suddenly Robin jerked her hand out of his and started whining, "Pick me up! Pick me up! Pick me up!" He spun around, teeth clenched in rage, and made a grab at her, but she ran the other way, now shrilling, "No! No! No! Daddeeee!" He lunged for the hood of her parka and pulled her back, but her head came off and arced into the air like a pop fly. Brad scrambled to get under it, but the sidewalk was jammed with people, and he had to almost swim through them to the curb. Then the light changed, just in time for him to see his daughter's head plummeting into the space between two accelerating cars.

His eyes snapped open. The roar of traffic condensed into the drone of the preacher's voice, booming its echo in the plaster arches of the nave.

"Everything was burnt. Ash floated in the air like a fog. To my right, just off the path, a small rock was still steaming. I kicked it away, but it had no weight, and flew to pieces. Beneath it were three live pheasant chicks. What I thought was a rock was their mother."

Brad almost fell out of his chair. Ray grabbed his arm. "Wake up, dammit." Brad righted himself, leaned both palms against the chair in front, locking his elbows. The hollow just below his breastbone felt like a sucking wound that went all the way down to his anus. He tried a deep breath, and it steadied him. He pressed one hand over his solar plexus; it was sore, and throbbed like a bruise. But his heart had stopped misfiring, and in a moment, when all rose for the Creed, he found he could stand without holding on. He glanced over at the organ console. Philip stood beside the bench, hands folded, eyes glazed, reciting in rhythm with everyone else. Maybe he hadn't seen anything. Maybe nobody had, except for Ray, and Ray had thought Brad was asleep. Maybe nothing had happened. What had happened, anyway? The dream was fading fast, indeed was almost gone. All that remained was the sense of a huge dark shape against a blazing sky, and Beanbag's almost boneless little hand between his fingers.

The offertory anthem was a bombastic Victorian rafter-raiser. Brad stood with the rest and moved his mouth, but kept to his penance and didn't make a sound. During a short organ interlude he felt Ray lose count and gather himself for the tenor entrance a beat early. Brad elbowed him hard, and Ray faltered long enough for the first tenors to come in right. Brad mouthed on merrily. Poor Ray, he thought. Voice to die for, can't count for shit. Ray gave a little miffed sigh, then slid in at the next phrase.

Ha! thought Brad, I'm a poltergeist, the spirit of some predecessor, haunting the choir stalls, policing performances, keeping the tenors in line. On second thought, though, maybe we are the insubstantial ones here, materialized by the music, which after all was older than all four tenors put together. Brad saw in his mind the parade of portraits in the hall leading from the robing room past the sacristy and into the church: rectors going back to the 1700s, their hairdos and clerical drag nearly as varied over the years as any ladies' fashion — their lives framed by their service to — what? This building! Calmly breathing its cloud of parishioners in and out every week, what trace did it retain of any one of them? Some of the organ pipes were bellowing their praise to God a century before Philip was even a gleam in his daddy's eye. The sheet of music in Brad's hands bore a thumb print on the bottom of every right-hand page: fifty years from now, when Brad was a doddering grampus, some gay young thing with a clarion voice would wonder, as he did now, how long that smudge had been there. And what was it? Chocolate icing? Dust? Dust from what? How old was the dust when that sweaty thumb lifted it from some hymnal spine and pressed it onto the paper, while its bearer nervously counted out the rests? How old was the tree when it was cut down to make this paper, how old was the man when he planted the tree?

Brad heard the bombardes kick in for the last chord, then thud into silence, flatting towards the end of the echo from the Doppler effect. Even then he thought he could hear the wooden pillars in the nave still purring from the tune they'd just listened to.

He realized he'd been holding his breath, and now let it out carefully, swaying a little as his balance came all the way back. Ray was whispering something out of the corner of his mouth.

"What?"

"Nothing, Brad."

Ray was mad, he knew that. Maybe Brad should have let him charge in a beat too soon, throw the altos off as well because their line echoed the tenors', screw up the fugue altogether. That would prove to Philip that Brad was indispensable, the section needed his precision, even if his smoky voice wasn't exactly solo material. Maybe it would have won him a reprieve until the next time he showed up halfway through the rehearsal, sporting a hangover from beyond the grave.

Ah, but there was still the Ave Verum for his swan song. Soon, soon. From this point on the Mass said itself: no surprises, no mistakes, the rhythm of those ancient prayers and responses as automatic as breathing.

Ray stood to go down to take communion. Once again Brad didn't move, so Ray sidestepped out of the row the other way. The ushers were closing the gate in the rail, laying the cushion across the gap. He'd watched this a million times — were they doing something different? No, that wasn't it. Then why couldn't he take his eyes off them, why had his breath stopped again?

Philip stepped into his line of sight. The faithful of the choir now half-ringed the altar, standing with downcast eyes and one hand cupped in the other. The murmur began: "The Body of Christ. The Body of Christ. The Body of Christ." The priest worked the line of acolytes and choristers, pressing a white coin into the top palm of each pair of hands. What the hell, thought Brad. Hair of the dog. He slipped out of his chair and squeezed in next to Ray.

"The Body of Christ." The wafer tasted like paper when Brad popped it into his mouth, using both hands like the rest. Not much left of the Old Boy, what? The thought made him smile. But the swallow of wine was rich and potent, diffusing into his empty stomach with an almost electric warmth, which kept spreading into his shoulders and thighs until he shimmered inside.

Most of the choir had returned to the stalls, and Philip was improvising quietly toward the first chord of the Byrd. Brad of course was the last to return, but he couldn't hurry, he felt so — what was the word? Cozy? Like a babe on the breast, dropping off to sleep.

As Philip readied the upbeat, the sound of a gentle wind arose out in the nave. Brad glanced out over the head of the waiting priest, and saw The Body of Christ get to its feet, gather in the artery of the center aisle, and spread in stately flow along the rail. The wind condensed into a G minor chord: Ave Verum Corpus.

Tears sprang to his eyes, and his voice shuddered so badly he had to clamp his mouth shut. He wrenched his eyes over to Philip and locked them there.

Beside him Ray tensed, and the musician in Brad took over. He opened his mouth and sighed in, placing the consonants precisely. Now came the hemiola, a languid three-beat pattern over two measures of four which Ray never quite got the feel of. The next to the last note held an extra beat, breaking off the hemiola one cycle early, and Brad leaned gently against Ray, passing the rhythm into his shoulder. At the next entrance Brad could feel the spin return to Ray's voice, and knew they were all right. From then on Ray stayed with him phrase for phrase, breath for breath, teasing the swell gently out of each suspension, lingering, letting it resolve as if reluctantly.

The repeat of the last section was so quiet they were barely breathing, the Amen sweeping up in slight surprise like a raised eyebrow, then settling down towards the final cadence, a feather drifting to the floor. Brad let his voice run out before the cutoff; he was losing it again. During the silence that followed, Philip put his palms together in blessing, and swiveled back to the console. The choristers turned to each other, glowing. Ray caught Brad as he collapsed, eased him into the chair.

"Are you all right?"

Brad could barely nod. The murmur down by the rail was coming to its own cadence. "The Body of Christ. The Body of Christ. The Body of Christ."

"Here. Your nose is running." Brad looked down at the white ball of tissue Ray had pressed into his hand. A tear dropped off his chin, smacking as it hit the last page of the Byrd. He laughed.

"What?"

"Fifty years from now — " Brad clamped down on another spasm in his throat. "Never mind."

The gates creaked open again, and with a final small flurry, The Body of Christ resumed its seats.

Philip's office was chilly, so Brad stood by the window, his back against the sunlight, chafing his hands.

"It's one of my favorites, too." Philip had been buttonholed in the doorway by one of the blue-haired ladies who'd sung in the choir when FDR was still wearing a dress and baloney curls.

"No kidding? Well, why don't you audition? We could use another alto. Sit down, Brad, I'll be right with you."

Brad didn't move from the window. His teeth were chattering. Here it comes, he thought. Now which will it be? The hatchet to the face, or the needle at the base of the spine?

"Well, you practice up and give me a call when you're ready. Bye, now!" Philip blew a kiss into the hall, then turned to Brad. "Ray told me about you out there." The door clicked quietly behind him.

"Last time I take a drink first thing in the morning. That wine is dangerous."

"What happened?"

"Oh, nothing sensational. I had a vision of The Body of Christ."

Philip didn't smile. "Are you all right?"

Brad started to speak but couldn't. His eyes blurred.

"Don't worry about it." Philip repositioned the stack of Ave Verums on the piano top. "These things happen."

Brad looked up quickly. What things happen? What was he talking about?

"Ray's worried about you. So am I. If you want to talk about it ..."

Brad frowned.

"I'm not trying to pry, it's just... well, I'm here if you need me."

Brad stuttered twice before it would come out. "You're not gonna fire me?"

Philip guffawed. "Fire you? Is that what you thought?"

"I'm not exactly a model employee."

"Well, that's true, but I wouldn't fire you for that. Not unless you stopped showing up altogether. I need at least one person in that section who can count up to four without losing track."

Now Brad laughed. "God, you had me scared. The look on your face when I tried to sneak in this morning — "

"Well, I was annoyed, but I was more relieved. I was afraid you wouldn't make it at all."

"It was close."

"Especially after that lame excuse you tried to sell me for missing rehearsal Thursday night."

Brad's smile collapsed. He couldn't remember what he'd said. Or even when. "That bad, huh?"

"Hopeless. You used to be so inventive."

"Yeah, well, I must've had something on my mind."

"But nothing you want to talk about. With me, I mean."

Brad sighed. If Philip didn't stop being kind to him, he'd lose it all over again. "No. Not right now."

"Rain check?"

"Maybe."

"Fair enough. Hey, you want to come out to brunch? My treat."

Brad shook his head. "Gotta get home. Baby-sitting duty." Hang on, he thought. That was reflex, the result of years of training in how to avoid fights with his wife. Then he remembered that the part he hated most about major engagements like last night's was the aftermath, the whole sickening, hypocritical making-up ritual. Which was exactly what he'd be going home to. "Uh... can I use your phone?"

"Shall I discreetly absent myself?"

"Maybe you'd better. Sorry."

"No questions asked. We'll be at Joshua's." The door closed silently, then swung open again. "By the way," Philip said, his hand on the doorknob, "I'd keep that vision to myself, if I were you. The Church tolerates eccentrics, but mystics tend to end up at the stake." He saluted smartly and disappeared.

Brad heard himself answer the phone. "Hello, this is Brad and I'm not home and neither is Bobbie or Beanbag ... ." What? Where are they? "... Beep."

"Bobbie, I'm sorry, Philip's sprung an extra rehearsal, I should be home by three, g'bye." As he lowered the phone toward its cradle, he thought he heard Bobbie pick up on the other end. He quickly hit the disconnect button, then put all three lines on hold. Unless somebody else called out, Bobbie'd get a busy signal the rest of the afternoon.

Brad shook his head as he left Philip's office. "I'm a baaaad boy," he crooned, and danced out onto the sunlit sidewalk.

Brad was very merry, tucking into his second Irish on the rocks, forgetting all about his french fries. Meanwhile, Marcia was doing a parody of Philip's conducting, spattering everyone with Bloody Mary from the end of her celery-stalk baton. Philip rocked back so hard his chair fell over, and amid hoots of laughter Marcia intoned the last rites, standing at his head and shaking Bloody Mary over him like holy water. Suddenly she screamed and jumped back, smacking Philip on the head with her celery stalk.

"Oh! You Preevert! He was looking up my dress!" She scampered back to her chair and flounced into it, deeply offended. She put a confidential hand on Brad's arm. "Try to give a little constructive criticism, and see what happens. What a world! What a world!"

Ray was trying to get Philip upright, but Philip was paralyzed with laughter. Ray gave up, gestured like a ham actor at Philip's supine form and said with tragic authority, "Ave verum corpus!" which sent everyone howling.

Brad's face hurt. Around the other end of the table, the killer soprano, the flock of altos, and the bass whose name he could never remember sat convulsed over their omelets. Someone called his name from the doorway to the dining room, and when he looked, there stood little Beanbag, her eyes wide with alarm. She was holding something in her chubby fist at about shoulder level. Brad squinted. It was her mommy's finger, attached to her mommy.

"I can understand her being mad," Georgia grunted as she jammed the edges of a sheet under the sofa cushions. "Hell, I'd be furious. But you're not a criminal."

"Thanks, George."

"You're a jerk."

"Thanks again."

"But that ain't grounds for divorce."

"She'll figure out a way to make it stick."

Georgia straightened up and looked at him, hands on her hips. "You want her to, don't you?"

"What?"

"Make it stick. End it. Throw you out for good. You'd do anything to get her that mad, wouldn't you?"

"Not anything."

"Anything stupid, then. Nothing evil, then she'd have a real excuse."

"Yeah, I guess so."

"I'm sorry I called you a jerk."

"Nothing new to me."

"You're a creep."

"Let's change the subject."

"Something on your mind?"

"I had a vision of The Body of Christ."

"I had a dream you got hit by a truck."

The phone rang.

"If that's for me, I'm not here."

Georgia picked up the receiver. "Sure. Just a minute." She held it out to him. "It's for you."

"Is it her?"

"It's a man. Probably wants a date, now you're free."

Brad grabbed the phone. "Fuck all siblings."

"I'm ready when you are." She sashayed toward the bathroom.

"Hello?"

"Hi, Brad, it's Philip. I... just talked to Barbara."

A long moment passed. "Oh," Brad said.

"I just wondered if you... wanted to have a drink, or something."

Georgia leaned in the doorway, arms crossed, eyebrows raised.

"Uh... when?"

"Anytime. Tonight, if you feel like it."

Georgia rolled her tongue inside her cheek.

"Well, uh... where?"

"Any place you like. You could even come here, I stock a mean liquor cabinet."

"Hang on a minute, Philip." Brad put the receiver against his chest. "Oh, Jesus." His heart was thundering. Georgia deadpanned the whole thing.

"How'd you know?"

"He called while you were in transit. You gonna take him up?"

"Should I?"

"Christ on a crutch." She shook her head and went into the bathroom.

"What's that supposed to mean?" he yelled after her.

The receiver made a muffled noise. "Huh?"

"Brad?"

"I'm back."

"Listen, maybe tonight isn't so good — "

"No, dammit, I'll be right over. I have to talk to somebody who doesn't think I'm an asshole."

"Good luck, Mike!" Georgia sang from the bathroom.

"Fine. Half an hour, then?"

"Sooner, if I'm lucky." He hung up the phone and shrugged on his jacket. Georgia was in the doorway again.

"Doesn't one usually shave before sodomy?"

"I'm not sure. Why don't you ask your boyfriend?" Something large hit the door as he closed it behind him.

To Brad's surprise, the bass opened Philip's door.

"Hi, uh ... ."

"Brad, come in. What can I get you?"

"Uh... Scotch — or Irish, if you have it."

"Soda, water, straight up?"

"Just the booze. And a glass." Brad tried to laugh. He was a nervous wreck. "You the houseboy?"

The bass gave the tiniest smile. "Yes. You know what a pig Philip can be. I'll be right back."

"I'm sorry."

"I beg your pardon?"

"I feel like such an idiot. I don't remember your name."

"That's all right." He was gone.

"Great start," Brad muttered, and looked around. Everything was in velvet shades of gray: the walls, the ceiling, the carpet, the modular sofa and love seat tucked into one corner by the fireplace. Whatever wasn't gray was chrome and whatever wasn't chrome was glass: glass coffee table with a chrome base; chrome mantelpiece with a mirror above it. The bass had disappeared through a gray leather swinging door with chrome studs and push plate; the diamond-shaped window flashed in its silver frame as he returned with the drink.

"Chrome tray, of course," Brad observed, lifting the glass.

"But of course." The bass whipped the tray under his arm with a professional flourish. "You like the decor?"

"It's, uh... strong."

"'Obsessed,' Philip calls it."

Brad's eyebrows went up. "You did this?"

"With Philip's money, yes. It takes some getting used to."

"I can see that." Brad took a healthy sip and swallowed, wincing like Bogart.

Once again, that tiniest of smiles. "A single malt Irish, with a name I can't pronounce. I'll write it down for you." Brad could only nod. The bass turned back at the swinging door. "By the way, you can call me 'Boy.'" The door flashed again.

When it swung back, Philip sailed into the room, a glass in one hand, a bong in the other. "Such a snot when she feels put upon. Pay no attention. Are you hungry? Let's get high first. Sit, sit." He sank into the love seat and flipped open a chrome cigarette box on the coffee table. Inside was enough finely sifted grass to fill a family-size canister of baby powder. "This seems to be your day for altered states, Brad."

"Altered states?"

"Your vision."

"Ah!" Brad said, smacking his forehead. "Right! No point in breaking the pattern now."

"I don't know how good it is," Philip said, packing the bowl. "Boy just scored it last night. And I never get loaded the night before church. Makes me stupid at the keyboard."

"'Boy?' Really?"

"Short for 'Boylan,' a family name. In high school he was 'Butch,' can you imagine?"

"'Boylan' is certainly worse."

"I told him you'd understand."

"Isn't he... going to join us?"

"No, he has a date tonight. Probably left already, out the back way."

Philip lit the bong, passed it. Brad toked up deeply, sat on the cough. For a moment they rocked back and forth slightly, holding their breath. Then their eyes met and they started to laugh, and were soon hacking like consumptives.

"Sorry," Philip wheezed.

"You have to cough to get off."

Philip snorted, and set off another bout of coughing. He started to refill the bong. "Another round?"

"Sure the fuck not," said Brad, then wondered what he'd just said.

Philip waved away his puzzlement. "I understood you perfectly." He handed the bong to Brad, folded out a match.

Brad was buzzing already, but he shrugged and went to work.

"Not so fast, take in more air," Philip suggested.

Brad shook his head and pushed the bong toward Philip, his cheeks puffed out with excess smoke. After a long painful moment, he slowly let out a thin stream of near smokeless breath. Philip set the bong down on the table and sat back with his eyes closed.

"So why did he answer the door?"

Philip's eyes opened slightly. "What?"

"If he has a hot date."

"Oh. Checking out the competition, I should think."

"What?"

"You girls got everything you need?" Boy struck a seductive pose in the doorway, white tie and tails, patent leather pumps. No question about it, he was gorgeous.

"You, Boy," said Brad, lifting his glass, "are a vision."

Boy graced him with one last infinitesimal smile, then turned to Philip. "He is a dear. Be gentle with him."

"Don't come back smelling like a loo," Philip tossed at Boy's retreating back. The outside door slammed.

Brad swatted Philip's knee. "Philip, you bitch."

Well, the dope was great, and the whiskey was the best, but Philip's offer of consolation didn't get very far beyond the "drogs." Oh, they'd talked and talked, and laughed and laughed, and eventually tried a clinch or two, but it never caught fire between them, and at last Philip got weepy about how alone one ultimately is in life, and Brad ended up leaving him sobbing in the bathroom.

Oh well, Brad thought, trying to look on the bright side. It's not like I really need another entanglement just now — especially this one. But Philip's still the best fucking organist in the city.

He stumbled up the steps to Georgia's building just before dawn, exhausted and sad and wishing to hell he had a key. He had tried to call from the pay phone on the corner, but a diligent rifling of all eleven pockets turned up exactly one nickel, two pennies, a toothbrush, and a razor. There was only one thing to do. Ring the bell.

With finger poised above the little white disc he stopped. You're an expert in these matters, he told himself. Use your brain, what's left of it. You could push that damn button until God died, and she still might not open the door. She might not even be home, lusty young thing that she is, with a boyfriend and all. Save the bell for last resort. There must be another way in.

Georgia's apartment was on the ground floor, which was great because he wouldn't have to climb anything in his condition, but terrible because all the windows had burglar grates on them. All except — he snapped his fingers — the one in the bathroom! a narrow little sash affair with starred glass and a lock that hadn't fit for fifty years. It opened onto an air shaft around back.

The alley between Georgia's building and its neighbor had a locked gate across it, but Brad managed to jimmy it with toothbrush and razor handle. The air shaft was reached by scaling a wooden fence at the other end of the alley. There was the window, glowing dully in the predawn twilight. He stood up on a garbage can and started to inch it open.

It suddenly occurred to him that this might be the wrong window. Horrified, he pulled back — the garbage can tottered. After some seconds of desperate gymnastics, he righted himself and peered through the narrow opening to make sure. The light from inside was pretty weak, coming from an interior room. But very dimly reflected in the mirror above the sink, Brad thought he could see the white sheet on the sofa in the living room. It seemed to be worth the risk, so he slowly shoved the sash all the way up.

Once he squeezed through and carefully climbed from the sill onto the seat of the commode, gingerly stepping over the forest of toiletries on the tank lid, he could make out the monograms on Georgia's towels: "Mine" and "Mine." With a sigh that stirred the shower curtain, he sat down and slipped off his shoes. Then he shuffled in his socks across the tiles to the open door. From there he could hear her soft snoring.

"Thank you, Lord, for bringing me safely to the end of this fucked-up day. I swear if you let me get to that couch without her hearing me, I'll go to sleep and never wake up to drive people crazy again." So praying, Brad entered the living room.

Near one end of the sofa was a beat-up old wing chair, and in it was Georgia, her legs folded under her, fast asleep. On the end table in between, right next to his pillow, stood the night light their mother had made for them in ceramics club, and that each in turn had grown out of: a portly ceramic cat in a tuxedo. It had holes in its eyes, holes in its ears, holes for the buttons on its shirt. And from thence the fiery blaze of an orange Christmas light poured stoutly into the room.

His sister's hands lay open in her lap, palms up, one on top of the other.