Удушье (Choke)

She snaps her head from side to side to whip the stage with her hair, her hair looking purple in the red light. With her hands, she smooths the hair back off her face and crawls to the edge of the stage.

The music is loud dance techno mixed with samples of dogs barking, car alarms, Hitler youth rallies. You hear sounds of breaking glass and gunshots. You hear women screaming and fire engine sirens in the music.

'Hey Picasso,' the dancer says, and she dangles her foot in front of Denny.

Without looking up from his pad, Denny takes a buck out of his pants pocket and slips it between her toes. On the seat next to him is another rock wrapped in his pink blanket.

For serious, the world is gone wrong when we dance to fire alarms. Fire alarms don't mean fires anymore.

If there were a real fire, they'd just have somebody with a nice voice announce, 'Buick station wagon, license number BRK 773, your lights are on.' In the event of a real nuclear attack, they'd just shout, 'Phone call at the bar for Austin Letterman. Phone call for Austin Letterman.'

The world won't end with a whimper or a bang, but with a discreet, tasteful announcement: 'Bill Rivervale, phone call hold­ing, line two.' Then, nothing.

With one hand, the dancer takes Denny's money from be­tween her toes. She lies on her front, her elbows propped on the edge of the stage, squashing her breasts together, and says, 'Let's see how it turned out.'

Denny makes a couple fast lines and turns the pad for her to see.

And she says, 'That's supposed to be me?'

'No,' Denny says, and turns the pad to study it himself. 'It's supposed to be a composite order column the way the Romans made. See here,' he says, and points to something with his smudged finger, 'see how the Romans combined the volutes of the Ionic order with the Corinthian acanthus leaves but still kept all the proportions the same.'

The dancer, she's Cherry Daiquiri from our last visit here only now her blond hair's dyed black. On the inside of one thigh is a little round bandage.

By now I've walked up to look over Denny's shoulder, and I say, 'Dude.'

And Denny says, 'Dude.'

And I say, 'It sounds like you've been at the library again.'

To Cherry, I say, 'It's good you took care of that mole.'

Cherry Daiquiri swings her hair in a fan around her head. She bows, then throws her long black hair back over her shoulders. 'And I tinted my hair,' she says. With one hand, she reaches back for a few strands and holds them out near me, rubbing them be­tween two fingers.

'It's black now,' she says.

'I figured it's safer,' she says, 'since you told me blondes have the highest amount of skin cancer.'

Me, I'm shaking each beer bottle, trying to find the one with any beer left to drink, and I look at Denny.

Denny's drawing, not listening, not even here.

Corinthian Tuscan composite architraves of the entablature . . . They should let some people into the library by prescription only. For serious, books about architecture are Denny's pornogra­phy. Yeah, first it's a few rocks. Then it's fan-tracery vaulting. My point is, this is America. You start out with hand jobs and progress to orgies. You smoke some dope and then, the big H. This is our whole culture of bigger, better, stronger, faster. The key word is progress.

In America, if your addiction isn't always new and improved, you're a failure.

To Cherry, I tap my head. Then I point my finger at her. I wink and say, 'Smart girl.'

She's trying to bend one foot behind her head and says, 'You can't be too careful.' Her bush is still shaved, her skin still freck­led pink. Her toenails are silver. The music changes to a blast of machine-gun fire, then the whistle of falling bombs, and Cherry says, 'Break time.' She finds the slit in the curtain and she's gone backstage.