with a powerful erection. Awake, I couldn’t recapture the 4
ardor of my dreams. And without passion there was no 5
desire for the consummation of my lust.
6
“Mr. Blakey?” She had come in behind me while I 7
watched her assistant and thought of her.
8
“Oh,” I said. “Hi, Narciss.”
9
“Hello, Geraldo,” she said, having satisfied her social 10
obligation with me. “Have you been here long?”
11
“Not long,” the godling reported to his muse. He was 12
holding up a terrible painting done by my aunt Blythe.
13
“Is this really worth the film?”
14
“We’ll do the paintings first,” she said. “And after that 15
the clothes and then the hard objects.”
16
The crestfallen look on Geraldo’s face was worth a 17
whole week of hard labor.
18
“Excuse us, Mr. Blakey, but we’re going to be working 19
in here for a while.”
20
“If you call me Charles, I’ll let you alone.”
21
She smiled without answering and I left, grinning 22
broadly at the sour-faced Geraldo.
23
24
25
The next few hours were tough for me. I was reading a 26
book but wanting a drink. The book was about a prince S 27
who had been stripped of his memory and exiled from a R 28
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Walter Mosley
1
magical kingdom to mundane Earth. There were agents 2
trying to kill him, but in his confused state he couldn’t 3
understand why. I liked the story because I often felt like 4
that, like I was being persecuted but didn’t know why.
5
Why was I alive and seeing and thinking and dreaming if 6
everything was just stoplights and televisions, tests and 7
failures, red wine and death?
8
