Cafe At The End Of Time (3.5)

                                          ****

Joel showed up with an actress from a show uptown and

a dealer from the Bowery about half past almost too late.

The dealer left after about five minutes…obviously he was

on the clock. Where the clock was, was anybody’s guess.

“Frank, this is Natricia…Natricia, Frank…”

“What do your friends call you, Natricia?  Nat?”

“What do your friends call you, Frank?  Fran?”

“Nice…”

It was love at first sight, but there were too many lifetimes

involved to pay much attention to the flash that had just

happened. I had to play it quantum.

“Where are you from, Natricia?”

“Charleston”

“Cool…you like beach music?”

“Of course…you like proctology?”

“Of course…mostly when it’s practiced on

someone else.”

“Cool…where did you grow up?”

“A suburb of Chicago.”

“Great…See much gang rape?”

“No….but I wasn’t looking…”

“Fair enough.”

It went on like that for several hours at least.

Most of the others dropped out of listening after

a while.. . our phylogeny was recapitulating…

same thing happened to John and Yoko….

Fine…don’t believe me….but someday soon

few people will remember the taste of oysters…

I’m just saying…