to stay as much as he could out of any line-of-sight with the radar antenna. Down at Profane again he showed him the hamburger.
'Amazing,' Profane said. 'How did you do it?'
'Someday,' Pig said, 'I will have to tell you about the biological effects of r-f energy.' And so saying inverted the white hat in the direction of Hiroshima and Howie Surd, showering them both with cooked hamburger.
'Anything you want,' Pig said then, 'just ask, buddy. I have a code and I don't forget.'
'OK,' Profane said a few years later, standing by Paola's bed in an apartment on Nueva York's 112th Street and twisting Pig's collar a little 'I'm collecting that one now.'
'A code is a code,' Pig choked. Off he got, and fled sadly.
When he was gone, Paola reached out for Profane, drew him down and in against her.
'No,' said Profane, 'I'm always saying no, but no.'
'You have been gone so long. So long since our bus ride:'
'Who says I'm back.'
'Rachel?' She held his head, nothing but maternal.
'There is her, yes, but . . .'
She waited.
'Anyway I say it is nasty. But I'm not looking for any dependents, is all.'
'You have them,' she whispered.
No, he thought, she's out of her head. Not me. Not a schlemiel.
'Then why did you make Pig go away?'
He thought about that one for a few weeks.
II
All things gathered to farewell.
One afternoon, close to the time Profane was to embark for Malta, he happened to be down around Houston Street, his old neighborhood. It was cooler, fall: dark came earlier and little kids out playing stoop ball were about to call it a day. For no special reason, Profane decided to look in on his parents.
Around two corners and up the stairs, past apartments of Basilisco the cop whose wife left garbage in the hallway, past Miss Angevine who was in business in a small way, past the Venusbergs whose fat daughter had always tried to lure young Profane into the bathroom, past Maxixe the drunk and Flake the sculptor and his girl, and old Min De Costa who kept orphan mice and was a practicing witch; past his past though who knew it? Not Profane.
Standing before his old door he knocked, though knowing from the sound of it (like we can tell from the buzz in the phone receiver whether or not she's home) that inside was empty. So soon, of course, he tried the knob; having come this far. They never locked doors: on the other side of this one he wandered automatic into the kitchen to check the table. A ham, a turkey, a roast beef. Fruit: grapes, oranges, a pineapple, plums. Plate of knishes, bowl of almonds and Brazil nuts. String of garlic tossed like a rich lady's necklace across fresh bunches of fennel, rosemary, tarragon. A brace of baccale, dead eyes directed at a huge provolone, a pale yellow parmigian and God knew how many fish-cousins, gefulte, in an ice bucket.
No. his mother wasn't telepathic, she wasn't expecting Profane. Wasn't expecting her husband Gino, rain, poverty, anything. Only that she had this compulsion to feed. Profane was sure that the world would be worse off without mothers like that in it.
He stayed in the kitchen an hour, while night came along, wandering through this field of inanimate food, making bits and pieces of it animate, his own. Soon it was dark and the baked outsides of meats, the skins of fruits only highlighted all shiny by light from the apartment across the courtyard. Rain started falling. He left.
They would know he'd been by.
Profane, whose nights were now free, decided he could afford to frequent the Rusty Spoon and the Forked Yew without serious compromise. 'Ben,' Rachel yelled, 'this is putting me down.' Since the night he was fired from Anthroresearch Associates, it seemed he'd been trying every way he knew to put her down. 'Why won't you let me get you a job? It is September, college kids are fleeing the city, the labor market was never better.'
'Call it a vacation,' said Profane. But how do you swing a vacation from two dependents?
Before anyone knew it there was Profane, full-fledged Crew member. Under the tutelage of Charisma and Fu, he learned how to use proper nouns; how not to get too drunk, keep a straight face, use marijuana.
'Rachel,' running in a week later, 'I smoked pot.'
'Get out of here.'
'Wha.'
'You are turning into a phony,' said Rachel.
'You're not interested in what it's like?'
'I have smoked pot. It is a stupid business, like masturbation. If you get kicks that way, fine. But not around me.'
'It was only once. Only for the experience.'
'Once I will say it, is all: that Crew does not live, it experiences. It does not create, it talks about people who do. Varese, Ionesco, de Kooning, Wittgenstein, I could puke. It satirizes
