"I suppose one valid purpose of poets is to bring blasphemy to the steps of the altar. I just wish you hadn't felt obliged to do it today. Nevertheless, I appreciate it as a political, if not a religious necessity."

"Mr Calkins," I said, "most of your subjects aren't sure whether or not this place even exists. I'm not presenting any long considered protest. I wasn't sure there was a Father till today. I was just asking—"

"What are you asking, young man?"

What I'd intended to come back with got cut away by my realization of his real distress. "Um…" I tried to think of something clever and couldn't. "…is the Father a good man?"

When he didn't answer, and I began to suspect/recall why, I wanted to laugh. Determined to go in silence, I got off the arm of the chair. Three steps, though, and my blubbering broke into a full throated giggle that threatened torrents. If Calkins could have seen, I would have flashed my lights.

Brother Randy, robes blowing about his sneakers, stepped around the corner. "You're going?" He still wore bis methadrine grimace.

"Um-hm."

He turned to walk with me. The breeze that had been dull in my left ear now grew firm enough to beat my vest about my sides; it tugged Randy's hood off. I looked at the lone Australia on the South Pacific of his skull. It wasn't nearly as big as I'd imagined from the edge. He saw me looking; so I asked: "Does that hurt?"

"Sometimes. I think the dust and junk in the air irritate it. It's a lot better now than it used to be. Before, it was all down over my ear and the back of my neck — when I first got here. The Father suggested I shave my head; that's certainly given it a chance to heal." We reached the steps. "The Father knows an awful lot about medicine. He's made me put some stuff on it and it seems to be clearing up. I thought for a while he might have been a doctor or something, once, but I asked him…"

In the pause I nodded and started down. I'd swear he was on something, and the moment he'd started talking I'd gotten auditory visions of the endless rap.

"…and he said he wasn't.

"So long." He waved his big, translucent hand.

All the way across the broken overpass I tried to assemble what I had of the man behind the wall (my lights flashing through two flowered grills of stone, a web of light around his body); I even wondered what he'd felt during our conversation. The one thing that cleared when all my speculations fell away was that I had an, urge to write.

We didn't say all those things in that way; but that is what we talked about Reading it over brings back the reality of it for me. Would it for him? Or have I left out the particular, personal emblems by which he would recall and know it?

(Do you have that restless…? like it says in the back of the magazines. Sure.) But sitting here, in a back booth at Teddy's, tonight, while Bunny does her number to not-quite-as-many-as-usual customers (I asked Pepper if he wanted to come with me but he really has this thing about going in here, so I brought my notebook for company), I see all it has produced is this account — and not what I wanted to work on. (Bunny lives in a dangerous world; she wants a good man. What she can get is Pepper … no, an image Pepper at his best [when he can smile] consents to give, but he's usually too tired or ashamed to. Is it my place to tell her that, bringing my blasphemy to the altar steps, sharing with her the data from my noon journey? I just wish I enjoyed his dancing more.) This is not a poem. It is a very shabby report of something that happened in the Year of Our Lord it would be oh-so-nice to write down, month, day, and year. But I can't.

If Dollar doesn't stop pestering Copperhead, then Copperhead will kill him. If Dollar stops pestering Copperhead, then Copperhead will let him alone. If Copperhead is going to kill Dollar, then Dollar will not have stopped pestering Copperhead. If Copperhead lets Dollar alone, then Dollar will have stopped pestering Copperhead. Which of the above is true? The one with the fewest words, of course. But that's faulty logic. Why? Three times blessed is the Lord of Devine Words, the God of Theives, the Master of the Underworld, duel sexed in character, double dealing in nature, yet one through all defraction.

her elbow across his jaw.

John said, "Hey…!" and went back, hands up, palms out.

The sound she made was something I'd never heard out of anybody. She kicked at his leg, got him under the knee. He grabbed at her arm again but it wasn't there, so he pulled back.

And stumbled over a root, right up against the trunk. Which made him really mad: he swung at her again.

She jumped. Straight up. His fist landed against her arm. She came down raking at his neck. His shirt tore.

He hit her, hard. But it didn't matter; I thought she was going to bite his throat out. She bit something. He hissed, "Shit…!"

Denny grabbed my arm. "Hey, don't you wanna stop her…?"

"No," I said. I was scared to death.

John tried to punch her in the stomach.

Both of them twisted, missing.

Milly kept circling around them and Jommy started to say, "Hey, somebody…" and then saw the rest of us and just swallowed.

John pushed her away in the face. She grabbed his arm and yanked. Not pulled, yanked. His elbow hit the tree. He yelled, and hit her flat-handed in the jaw.

"FUCKER…!" she shouted so loud you knew it hurt her throat. "FUCKER…!"

Her right fist came down from her left ear and hammered his face. Like an echo his head cracked back against the trunk.

"Hey! Stop it… Stop…" Then I guess he really tried to break out. He shouted, grabbed her wrist…

She was meat red from the neck up, yanking her fist over, twisting his fingers; then grabbed one fist with the Other and swung it against his neck.

"Jesus…" Jommy said, to me I realized. "She's crazy…" But he stepped back from the look I gave him.

John tried to grab her in some sort of bear hug. He kicked out, and they both went down, him pretty much on top. Everyone stepped back together.

Flailing out, she came up with a handful of grass. Then there was grass in his hair and he yelled again.

His ear was bleeding. But I don't know what she'd done.

"Hey, look!" Milly said, loud and upset. "Why doesn't somebody…" Then it struck her that if somebody was, the somebody was going to have to be her.

She started forward.

I touched her on the shoulder and she looked sharply around.

"Fair fight," I said.

He hit her three times, hard, one after the other: "Stupid. Bitch. Stupid…" but she somehow got him off. And reared back. She came down with both fists on his face, once glancing off his ear and hitting the ground and coming up for another hit, bloody. When she hit him again — he was just trying to cover his face, now — I saw hers was scraped up bad.

About the sixth time she hit him — one knee went into his stomach — I thought maybe I should try and stop her. I thought about Dollar. I thought about Nightmare and Dragon Lady. But I wasn't as scared as I'd been at the beginning, when I'd thought her quivering, shaking rage would explode her.

Denny's mouth was open. He let go my arm.

She stood up, almost falling. "You fucking shit!" she said. It sounded like her jaw clicked between syllables. She kicked him in the head. Twice.

"Hey, come on…" one of the others said, and started toward her. But didn't touch her.