The voice modulated to a good imitation of a tinny one coming from a faraway control tower via drunken radio waves. 'Cheatahoutafishwiferakahomedadough! What the fuck are you doing around here? I thought I threw you out in 7-come-ll BC!'
'The eternal recurrence is a heterosexual obligation. I told you I'd be back. Got to pick up a singer for my cruise. Therefore the bold intrusion.'
'Control tower to Cheatahoutafishwiferakahomeda-dough! Is that your name, for shitsake?'
Brief silence.
'Are we playing that the name is the key?'
'That rule is suspended.'
'Good. Try Baalow Nee.'
'You're in.'
'Far out. I've been knocking for a long time. Listen-may I activate the electronic canopy removal mechanisms?'
'Go ahead, clamcake! You're the control tower now!'
Suddenly Andrea realized something that nearly made her piss in her pants, although if it had she wouldn't have known why. She understood all this. She didn't know how, but somehow she understood it.
There was a tiny electric hum. The canopy and curtains of the sedan chair started to recede. They folded into a compartment on the chair's far side like the top of a convertible. Their departure revealed, in order, a flat stomach above the still-lumpy loincloth; a somewhat sunken chest with a diffused patch of salt-and-pepper hair centered on the breastbone; the tip of a long wispy beard a few shades darker than the chest hair; shoulder-length tresses to match; a birdlike neck with prominent Adam's apple; and finally a perplexing face of indeterminate age dominated by a pair of pale sky-blue eyes that looked at once entirely voracious and totally pacific. Andrea could not decide whether the face was handsome or not. Random guesses at age ran through her head. The nose was a little hooked. Fifty-five? But the cheeks were soft and smooth and unlined. Forty-five? The hair and the beard… they concealed a lot but didn't tell much. Salt-and-pepper… if he'd started to go gray early he could be as young as… flirty-five?
Or maybe he was a hundred and seven.
Was he made up? He could easily be seventy…
The body had a kind of stubborn hardness under its dark tan that likewise made it hard to tell much about its age.
The intruder's lips were curved upward in a Cheshire Cat smile.
Andrea cocked her head, grinned uncertainly back, wondered whether someone had slipped LSD into her world, and waited.
'Well for Christ's sake… Buddha's… Confucius'… Joe the Barber's… whosoever you want… don't you recognize me?' The occupant of the chair was indignant. His voice squeaked like a rusty hinge in a high wind.
'Should I?'
The voice fell two octaves and intoned, 'Should you? Should you? We met on the plains of Thermopylae after the Russian Whipped Cream Invasion. There were no cherries left on the Sundae when we were done. You fell into my arms hindmost in the Procreation Period. I know all about you. You recently earned a black belt in Ostentatious Eroticism.'
'Motherfucker,' Andrea gasped.
'That and that alone is true.' The voice modulated again, this time to an easy cocktail-tone. 'Anyhow, will you come?'
'Huh?' Andrea shook her head as though something had suddenly come loose inside it. Sean pushed his way through the crowd and joined her.
'Haven't you been listening to me?' the visitor wailed plaintively.
'All I've heard is a lot of noise.' Andrea looked apprehensively at Sean.
'Dig it,' he whispered, 'this guy doesn't make a whole lot of sense. I mean, maybe he's off his nut. You think he might be dangerous?'
'Ha!' the man cried. 'You may not believe I heard you, but I did! And I'll tell you! Making sense is what I do. For a living. I manufacture it!' He paused as though checking some mathematical computation. 'That's wrong. Manufacturing implies mass production; interchangeable parts. Nowadays. But every bit of sense I make is original; unique! I create! Sense?' He looked up at them as though surely they would understand. When it was obvious they didn't he became long-suffering and patient. 'It's just because it's original that you can't understand it. A new bit of sense… it's not that easy to grasp, you know. Don't blame yourself.'
Sean scratched his ass, then his head, and Andrea, having nothing better to do, helped him.
'I've been on television,' the visitor announced as though it would be helpful. 'You should at least know me that way.' There was a titter or two from the crowd that grew to a significant buzzing. 'Don't you read the papers? Don't you read Playboy? December? 'The Guru Who Gets Off?' The one with the bunny blowing Santa Claus?'
Andrea grabbed Sean's arm excitedly. 'Hooooo… it's coming through! This is that crazy guru! The one I told you about. Remember? The No Touch Shot?'
'Holy shit.'
The Guru grimaced as though he'd bitten into a chocolate-covered dog-turd. 'Ugh. The No Touch Shot. Crude Americanism. In the more esoteric circles of mysticism we call it Thinking Off.'
Sean gagged.
Andrea's eyes opened wide.
'Anyhow, have you got the message yet?'
'What message?'
'Aha! You've got it!'
He turned and raised his arms like a choir director. 'Okay. A-one and-a-two and-a-three-'
'The Round Square is Completely Bare The Circle Jerk can Wear No Clothes The Smelly Sock can Have No Nose And Where It Stops the Guru Shows!'
'That's for sure,' Sean sighed as the chant ended.
The Guru was petulantly bewildered. 'Don't you get the gist of my motherfucking invitation?'
'I'm afraid not,' Andrea admitted. 'What gist? What invitation.'
'The gist that came out of the gist-mill! Boy, are you slow! Didn't you hear me tell the control tower why I'd come?'
'What?'
'Why I requested permission to land, dammit! If I may be granted the privilege of quoting myself, I said, 'Got to pick up a singer for my cruise.''
'Oh yeah. I remember something like that.'
'If you'd been smart that's all you would have remembered.' His voice softened and went gushy. 'The essence of profundity lies in sorting the meaningful from the meaningless. Separating the wheat from the chaff. It's all there-there's just too much of it. You know what I mean? Getting around the bullshit. That's what it comes down to.'
He stopped abruptly and stroked his beard. He leapt off the chair, postured extravagantly, and whirled around. 'I can see,' he proclaimed to all and sundry, but most especially to the two ravishing chaperon figures who stood across the room near the door, 'That the landing pattern dictated by the Cosmic Essence of the Unknowable and the Federal Aeronautics Assholiation for this girl-strip is not optimal. Bring the pinstripe suit. White carnation. Black oxfords. Hold the ox.'
The black woman, her healthy hips swaying under a tinsel skirt, her Afro bobbing like a weather balloon, turned to a chest that had somehow found its way to her side, and the oriental leaned over it with her. In seconds the Guru was decked out in an immaculate pinstripe suit, starched shirt (ruffled), bow tie, bowler hat, and black oxfords with spats. 'Bring the cane!' he cried. 'You know I can't do this bit without a cane!' A Bat Masterson cane poked out of the crowd. He grabbed it, rapped it smartly on the floor nine times, turned to Andrea, and bowed. 'Do I not seem to be the essence of the solicitor? Don't answer that. I am the Guru Baalow Nee. Pronounced Baylow Nay. Spelled B-a-a-l-o-w-N-e-e.' He halted reflectively. 'You will notice the subtleties in its pronunciation. It is necessary to roll the tongue on the 'buh' sound… ' His voice trailed off, then came back decisively. 'It is subtle of pronunciation because its roots lie in a conglomeration of languages saturated with religious mysticism. Incidentally, I am the only
