NICHOLAS A. DICHARIO

DRAINAGE

DELSEY SLOUCHED OVER HIS kitchen table and fingered through a stack of bills,
receipts, vouchers, bank statements, and deposit slips. The dreaded shoe box.
This year's tax season would come and go without Ellen, and he was fully
prepared to mishandle his finances with the same finesse he'd mishandled his
marriage.

Cid, tinkering with a crescent wrench in front of the kitchen sink, chuckled
under his breath. Delsey ignored him, unfolding an old rejection slip from the
New Yorker. So much for his sonnet. He would remain an unpublished poet for yet
another fiscal year. It was a bitter little poem anyway, a versification of an
ugly divorce, complete with custody arrangements, unscrupulous lawyers, and
shameless self-pity.

"Hear about the Bronx Bank Robber?" Cid said, leaning over Delsey's garbage
disposal and deftly snatching a Stanley screwdriver from the Black & Decker
mini-tool-tote on the kitchen counter. "Here's a guy, in ten minutes, who robs a
bank in Flatbush and then he hits a bank in Beechhurst. How does the guy get all
the way from Flatbush to Beechhurst and pull two bank jobs in ten minutes?
Impossible, right? Well get this. Both bank cameras get photos of the same guy--
the same guy. But the best part is-- are you ready for this? -- some Catholic
priest runs this flophouse in the South Bronx swears the guy was sleeping off a
drank and never left his bed."

Delsey scoffed. "Great journalism from the supermarket checkout line."

"Pick up some interesting tidbits if you're willing to weed through the
Hollywood gossip." Cid pointed the butt of his screwdriver at Delsey. "Did you
know that human females are the only species on Earth who experience pain while
delivering their babies? It's the evolution of the human skull. Our brains have
developed so fast, see, and the pelvis can't get any bigger without screwing up
how women walk. I believe our next great evolutionary advancement will be some
kind of whacky gestalten outgrowth of the body and the beaner." He tapped his
forehead with the Stanley.

Delsey picked up the latest issue of Rock Disc magazine and searched for his
name in the contents: D.T. Furphy, Freelance Critic. (The "T" was for Townshend.
He'd added it in 1968, in an unsuccessful attempt to confuse Selective Service.)
Nothing in this issue, nothing in the last issue, and at this rate nothing in
the next. Critic's block.

Thank God for Ellen's child support.

Cid hunkered over the sink, beating down on his screwdriver. "I've been known to
file some pretty mean tax returns in my day. Be glad to help you out."

"Just fix the drain. Damn Water Authority. Ever since they converted to that
NYNEX monstrosity computer system, my plumbing hasn't worked right."

"The Industrial Revolution is over, Furf Welcome to the Information Age.
Supercomputers with teraflops speed, robotic links, sensory-response units. Man
has to learn how to interact. That NYNEX will pay for itself in no time.
California is already using something similar. Its cost-performance ratio is out
of this world."

Not too long ago, Cid had loaned Delsey an article about the Water Authority's
new NYNEX computer, "A communications transference modem miracle." Multiplex
networking had arrived! the article lauded, a supercomputer advanced enough to
upgrade circuit switching to something called packet switching, a system capable
of handling huge chunks of data in microbursts, up to ten million bits per
second, translate the information and deliver it in consumable packets faster
than you could sneeze to any on-line sub station with a receiving unit as Stone
Age as a modem. It could open and close valves in an electronic blink, siphon a
reservoir or cut off water flow to a main break within nanoseconds. Microbursts
had dissolved the span between decision making and response time to near
nothing. And yet drains still clogged and toilets continued to back up.

The telephone rang. Delsey tossed the magazine aside and picked up the receiver;
it was his editor from Rock Disc.

"I've got an interview set up for you with Lou Reed two hours before the show
tonight," Eidelstein said. "Seven o'clock at the Hilton. Can you make it?"

"Of course."

"Good -- oh, and Furl, I'm expecting something hot from you, right? I know
you've been riding some rough waters lately, with the wife bailing out and all,
but you've got to put it behind you, man. Your last couple of pieces have been,
well, let's face it, unambitious, disappointing. I want it fresh. I run
progressive magazine. No trite, press-kit prose. But I don't need to remind you
of that, do I, Furf?"

"Not to worry. I've already got some great stuff sketched out." Alie. But a bold
one.

"Looking forward to it. Don't let me down. I'm going out on a limb for you. If
it's hot, I'm talking nuclear, I'll give you the cover."

Delsey hung up the phone. A cover story in Rock Disc magazine might spare his
ego and his checking account any further embarrassments, at least for a couple
more months.

"How about I patch those loose bricks on your front walk when I'm done here?"
Cid mopped the sweat from his forehead with a rag that had been, in its prior
life, a pair of jockey shorts. "Somebody trips, hurts himself, he'll sue the ass
out from under your dick before you can bite it. Especially them Hairy Krishnas.
Can't trust a one of them."

"It's pronounced Har-e, Cid, like in car."

"Right. Did you establish your amount of allowable expenses yet? You know you
can subtract a portion of your mortgage interest based on the size of your
home-office space."

"How long are you going to be in my kitchen?"

"Long as it takes, I imagine."

It took two hours. And before Delsey could run his water, Cid would have to come
back to install a "gizmo." April 14th was already a third gone. He pushed aside
his taxes and scribbled a list of things to do:

1. Research at library, write skeleton for Reed review, 9:00 A.M. --12:00.

2. Lunch at Pasquale's Bistro w/Lumpy and Mouse.

(He was looking forward to this. He'd had to cancel his old army buddies the
last three times.)

3. Stop at market -- milk, Sugar Pops, French Bread Pizzas, microwave popcorn.

4. Pick up Corey after school, 2:30/drop at sitter's.

5. Dinner w/Vanessa, 5:00.

(He had met Vanessa a month ago at his sister Heidi's wedding. She was friendly,
intelligent, creative, attractive. An account exec for the ad agency of Fielding
& Fielding. He had taken an instant shine to her.)

6. Reed/interview, Hilton, 7:00.

7. Reed/show, Haskyn Theatre, 8:00.

8. Complete review and FAX to Eidelstein.

(This would be his last chance to get something in for the July issue.)

9. Finish taxes.

There, not so bad after all. His day looked much more manageable on paper.

Several things happened to fuck it up:

The local library didn't open until noon on Fridays. For the third Friday in a
row this detail had managed to elude him. He decided to drive to the main branch
instead, making a mental note along the way to price new mufflers for his
decrepit '82 Toyota Tercel. By the time he navigated bumper-to-bumper traffic
and road-construction crews and found himself a place to park several blocks
away -- not cheap -- 10:30 had already come and gone.

Microfilm, stored in the basement, needed to be requisitioned, at least a
ten-minute process. Magazines that weren't microfilmed always seemed to be
missing, and today proved no exception. Long lines formed at the copiers.
Silence was a myth. He called to cancel his lunch with Lumpy and Mouse, and
wondered if they would ever bother calling him back. By the time - two o'clock
rolled around he hadn't even fleshed out the background for his 'review, and
sketching the skeleton seemed light-years away. He gathered his material and
left to pick up Corey.

When Corey wasn't waiting for him outside of school, he remembered about his
son's soccer game. Corey would need a ride at 5:30, not 2:30, which meant his
dinner with Vanessa, for the third time in as many weeks, would have to be
rescheduled. He decided to break their date in person, and hoped she'd
understand.

"Of course I understand, Delsey. It's just, well, maybe we'd better call the
whole thing off." She flipped her bangs and squared her shoulders.

"Absolutely not," he said too loudly. "This is just one of those days when
everything self-destructs. How about I make it up to you as soon as things slow
down. Promise." Desperation had crept into his voice. The security guard who
looked like a Marine drill sergeant, the one who had earlier threatened him with
the I-Ain't-Amused redneck stare for bothering "Our Ms. Halidae" on an afternoon
she'd left specific instructions not to be disturbed, snickered with no vestige
of subtlety. Vanessa had come down to the lobby instead of inviting him up to
her office, a tactic that even an inept Dear Abby would have recognized as a
distancing ploy.

"Well . . .," She hesitated, clasped his hands, looked apologetic. "I'm sorry.
I'm sorry because I really like you, Delsey, but I can't get involved with a man
who's so irresponsible. Don't take this personally. I've had two bad marriages
and it's made me cautious. I need stability in my life. I understand what you've
been going through with the divorce and trying to take care of a ten-year-old
boy by yourself. It can be a real strain. I'm not an insensitive woman. I lived
through the sixties. I used to finger-paint my face. I would have slit my throat
for Janis Joplin and I remember peeing my pants when Jimi Hendrix walked on the
'Dick Cavett Show.' But I'm past all that now. If you want to know the truth,
Delsey, I think you're self-destructive. I think you're sabotaging yourself,
like you don't feel you deserve to be happy or something. . . ."

Vanessa paused to gulp some air. Delsey noticed the security guard riveted to
their conversation.

". . . Heidi has talked to me at length about you. Your sister loves you very
much, you know, but she's worried. She says you're this way with everybody and
everything. I have a friend, a psychiatrist--" Vanessa pressed a business card
into the palm of his hand. "Seven out of ten middle Americans would benefit from
just one psychoanalysis session. Not that I think you need just one."

Vanessa stood, spun around, and marched into the elevator. The doors slid shut
behind her with a swoosh and a ding. The end of round one. A technical knockout.
She never looked back.

The security guard said, "Have a nice day."

Delsey drove home 10 MPH over the speed limit with the windows rolled down and
"Are You Experienced" cranked past the eleven button. His Pioneer was having a
fit, the rest on his dashboard slam-danced to the bass line, and his hair
follicles shivered. Anyone who was past Hendrix might as well be dead.

WHEN DELSEY got home he collapsed on the couch and buried his chin in a pile of
dirty laundry.

He hadn't washed the dishes in a week. His fridge was bare. His bathroom smelled
like the subway. For the past few weeks he'd been suffering bouts of chronic
fatigue. He'd even lost a few pounds. He wondered if he might have a touch of
that Beijing flu he had heard so much about from Cid.

Probably not. Overreacting as usual. Ellen had abhorred that particular
personality defect, along with several others. The truth? He simply couldn't get
organized without Ellen. He was sinking. Instead of things getting easier with
time, as all of his well-intentioned, also-divorced friends had assured him they
would, little things, petty things, things that had mystically magically
disappeared when Ellen ran the household, now grew into intractable albatrosses.

He closed his eyes and let his chin sink deeper into the laundry.

"Hey, Delsey!" Cid yelled from the kitchen. "Hope you don't mind, let myself in.
Hear about that lady doctor in California? She delivers some woman's baby in
Salinas, and five minutes later her mother has this heart attack in Fresno, see,
and she uses CPA --"

"CPR --"

"Right, she uses CPA and saves the old bat's life. But how does she get from
Salinas to Fresno in five minutes? Impossible, right? Get this. An entire
nursing staff swears she had the flu or something, and she was sleeping it off
in the doctor's lounge. They say she never left the hospital in-- are you ready
for this? -- in Palo Alto. She's a resident at some veterans' hospital in Palo
Alto."

Delsey went to the kitchen and leaned against the doorjamb. If he didn't get
some rest he'd be worthless during his interview and he'd probably fall asleep
at the show. "Cid, finish the sink some other time. Please. I insist."

Cid looked up, bemused. "Sometimes you remind me of a squirrel monkey. Whenever
one of those stinkers/eels his dominance hierarchy is being threatened, he'll
let out this high-pitched squeak, lift his leg in the air, and flash his
pecker."

"Out!" Delsey trudged down the hall and slammed the bedroom door behind him. He
forced a deep breath through his lungs, picked up the telephone, and dialed
Ellen's office.

"I never would've called you, Ellen, if it wasn't important."

"It had better be. I'm interviewing a client."

He felt his innards chum but promptly overrode it, imagining the July issue of
Rock Disc magazine with his story splashed across the cover. His lips tremored.
"I need a favor. Do you think you could pick up Corey tonight after his soccer
game and drop him off at the sitter's? It'll just be this once, I promise. I'd
never ask if I weren't in a jam."

"Delsey, need I remind you of our divorce settlement? You have custody because
your freelance life-style is more conducive to parenting. You have the house,
Delsey. Why am I paying child support? So I can run errands for you? If you
can't manage to squeeze your son into the busy little schedule of your busy
little life, perhaps you'd better reassess your priorities. Just remember this.
If you find single fatherhood too much of a challenge, you'll be picking up
Corey every other weekend. Do I make myself clear?"

"He's your son, too."

"Corey tells me you're not dating anyone. Maybe you should be. You need someone
to take care of you."

"My personal life is none of your goddamn business!" Delsey slammed the phone in
its cradle, but Ellen had disconnected him first. Bitch! He should have expected
this from a woman who'd insisted she be called gravid rather than pregnant.

Delsey went past the kitchen into the living room. Cid must have gone, thank
God. He pushed Jeff Beck's Blow by Blow into the CD player and eased up the
volume. "Fusion," he said. "Music to tame the savage beast."

Four o'clock. He had one precious hour to himself. The thought of a hot,
relaxing bath became irresistible. Water. Steaming hot water. He stripped,
filled his bathtub, and sank neck-deep into a sea of foamy bubbles -- apricot
and aloe -- Ellen's favorite.

Delsey didn't want to think about the night in front of him, but he needed a
solid game plan to pull him through. First things first. Pick up Corey at 5:30.
He wouldn't have time to drop off his son at the sitter's so he would have to
bring him along on the interview. He cringed at this breach of professionalism,
but could see no way around it. He'd make his apologies and hope that Lou Reed
would find it humorous and that word wouldn't get back to Eidelstein and that
Corey was over his bouts of spontaneous diarrhea. Then he'd run Corey to the
sitter's, grab a very-fast-food bite to eat, and get to Haskyn Theatre to cover
the show. He'd put in an all-nighter to crank out something worthy of a cover
story if it drained every last breath out of his heaving lungs. Fuck the taxes
altogether. He'd get Cid to help him tomorrow.

Phew.

He took a deep breath and closed his eyes, letting the hot water fill his pores.
He allowed the sweat to bead on his forehead. Jeff simmered into a steamy
rendition of "Cause We've Ended as Lovers," and Delsey opened his pores to that
too and fell into the music with an uninhibited ease. What a music critic loves
he loves completely, religiously, unto death.

Ellen could learn a thing or two if she'd listen to just one bent note, one
bending, bleeding weeping Jeff Beck note. Let it penetrate her. She'd never be
the same. If she had tried even once during their marriage sentence to
understand his passion for music she might have learned to love something about
him along the way. They might have had a chance together.

He sank.

Slowly he submerged into a huge reservoir of warm, clear, silky, apricot water.

When he touched bottom his toes met smooth, white porcelain. Above him, swirling
white clouds matched the plaster patterns of his bathroom ceiling. The sun
glowed like a fluorescent tube curled in the shape of a cinnamon roll.

Silky water . . . silky body . . . silky mind . . .

He sank to the drain.

A plug, wedged deep inside the drain, needed to be removed. He pulled at it.

Cid appeared in a canoe fathoms above shouting something through the wall of
water, "Twist, don't yank, TWIST!"

Ellen, beside him in the canoe, wore a life jacket and nothing else. She peered
over Cid's shoulder, looking disappointed. "He'll never get it," she said,
scratching her crotch. (Ellen had always been susceptible to yeast infections.)

And then Ellen shouted something else: "You're drowning, dummy!"

Delsey snapped awake, coughed up a handful of water, and clung to the edge of
the tub. The first thing he noticed was how cold the water had turned, and then
his puckered skin, and then the quiet darkness. He leapt out of the tub and ran
naked into the living room. The digital clock on his stereo glared in
uncompromising red: 4:03 A.M. He'd slept through!

Corey! He ran into his son's bedroom, and found Corey sleeping peacefully.

He forced himself to breathe . . . a shallow, tremulous breath. He wrapped a
robe around his shivering body, went into the kitchen, and fumbled with his
coffee pot, shaking like an addict.

How could he have acted so irresponsibly? -- stranding his son, missing his
interview and the concert and his deadline -- damn, he'd never get another
assignment, he'd be blacklisted by editors and musicians alike, by record
company flunkies and gum-champing secretarial twinkles.

He sat on a stool, slumped over the kitchen counter, and felt the frayed edges
of a nasty depression begin to fold in on him.

Then he noticed something different about the kitchen table. Spotless! Someone
had done his taxes. Cid. Cid must have picked up Corey after the soccer game,
seen the taxes unfinished, and, Christ, he had to have spent all night on them.
For one brief moment he felt grateful. . . .

The jingling of the telephone woke him four hours later. It was Vanessa.

"I never would have called you so early, Furt, but you said you'd be hard at
work when the sun came up."

"I did." His words fell somewhere in that gray area between question and
assertion.

"I just wanted to tell you how much I enjoyed myself last night. I've never been
to La Fleur des Pois for dinner. Heidi never mentioned you were fluent in
French. Anyhow, I have to say I misjudged you, and, well, I know I said this
last night, but I can't wait to see you again."

"Eh, right --"

"Don't forget. Seven o'clock tonight. I'll be ready. Au revoir." She laughed a
conspiratorial laugh and disconnected him before he had a chance to say a word.

"I don't speak French," he mumbled into the dead line, wondering if Cid was
bilingual.

Corey scurried down the hall dragging his duffel bag behind him -- a slight kid
for his age, but he'd inherited Ellen's chutzpah.

"Corey, how'd you get home last night?"

"You. Gotta go, Dad, Cid's taking me fishing."

"Wait. Are you sure it was me? I mean, I was the one who picked you up from
soccer last night? And the sitter's?"

Corey squinted at him. "It was you, Dad, can't you remember? I don't wanna be
late."

Delsey didn't remember anything about a fishing trip. "Go on. Be careful."

He watched through the front window, as Corey hopped in Cid's 4x4. They waved as
they drove off, Cid's fishing rods jutting out of the sun roof--the sun roof Cid
had installed himself -- the fishing rods Cid had made from scraps of fiber
glass and cork and some old robber rings he'd replaced on his Remington 1100
automatic shotgun, a process he'd described to Delsey in painstaking detail.

Strange. Disconcerting. Downright bizarre. The soccer game and the sitters and
Vanessa and his taxes. There had to be some reasonable explanation. Didn't
there?

The phone rang. It was Eidelstein.

"Furf, this is the best damn piece you've ever written. You got it. I'm giving
you the cover. And I tell you what, I'll hold the run for you. If you can get me
that Velvet Underground companion piece you were so hot about last night, I'll
lay them side by side, and pay you triple. You've got to FAX it to me by eleven
tonight though."

"Eh, yeah, sure --"

"Talk to you later. Get to work."

Delsey heard the hum of the dead line before he hung up the phone. He sat at his
desk and booted up his PC, then printed a copy of the article he'd written.
Could he really write this well? He recognized his own style, some of the
sentence structures and word choices and so on, but the review was more alive
than he himself had felt in months -- make that years.

Delsey dropped the article onto the blotter and rubbed his tired eyes. He
couldn't begin to guess how he'd done it all in one night. The tub . . . the
music . . . the water . . . the dream. And nothing. A blank page. He had heard
stories (from Cid) about people blacking out, sleepwalking, doing things in the
middle of the night they had no recollection of the following morning. Could the
same thing have happened to him? What other explanation could there be?

Delsey's washing machine overflowed. He mopped out his basement, packed his car
with clothes, and took off for the laundromat. A cop stopped him along the way
to hand him a $75 traffic ticket for dragging his muffler. He fell asleep not
for a few minutes, but for a few hours on one of those hard orange plastic
seats, to the sound of dryers tumbling and the smell of detergent. When he got
home he still felt exhausted. I'm not a sleepwalker. I'm not a schizophrenic.
I'm not a zombie. I do not need to see Vanessa's psychiatrist. He looked for the
business card she'd given him but couldn't find it.

Delsey suddenly felt cold, deathly cold. He could feel every muscle in his body
tugging at his bones. A hot, relaxing bath, that's what he needed. Desperately.

He filled his tub, sank into the water, and tried to come up with an interesting
angle for the Velvet Underground piece he had apparently promised Eidelstein.

Tired. So tired.

Delsey watched the plaster clouds and the fluorescent sun fall away from him.

He swirled downward, slowly at first, and then faster . . . and faster. . . .

Below him, the drain approached dizzily, like the jaws of a great, drunken sea
serpent.

Delsey panicked, clawed for the surface, found nothing to grab but water.

Drowning! Drown -- g

Delsey shot up straight in the cold bath water, gasping for air.

Corey, pajamaed, stood brushing his teeth in front of the mirror. "Sorry I woke
you up, Dad. You prob'ly should get up anyways."

Delsey clutched the edge of the bathtub to steady himself. "What time is it?" He
shivered.

"Eight o'clock in the morning. Cid's taking me canoeing. You didn't forget, did
ya?"

"No, I didn't forget." A lie.

Another night. He'd lost another night. He tried to slow his breathing. His
brain ached.

Corey tugged his NY Mets cap over his eyes and flipped up the bill so that only
his thin nose and wide smile remained. Solid kid. Rarely shaken. The sight of
his old man out cold in the tub didn't seem to raze him. Perhaps he had
inherited a bit too much of Ellen.

"Thanks for taking me to the game, Dad."

"Sure." What game? . . . wait . . . the baseball cap . . . Shea Stadium? He must
have taken Corey to the Mets scrimmage at Shea. He had always wanted to do that.
Drive out and watch some spring training, an inner squad scrimmage where you
could walk around the park, shake hands with some of the ball players. Baseball,
the perfect father and son activity. He'd just never been able to cram it into
his schedule.

Corey darted into the bedroom.

Delsey crept out of the tub, toweled off, and shakily pulled on his robe. Skin
like wax paper. Cold, blue fingernails. Incinerator belly. He made the mistake
of peering in the mirror, where a pair of bulging eyeballs stared back at him
with the same dead gaze as those poor perch Cid had so often decapitated in the
backyard.

He set a course for the kitchen, figuring a caffeine fix might pump some life
into his veins, but as soon as he stepped out of the bathroom his knees buckled,
he teetered woozily, and it was either use the wall as a third leg or get down
on all fours and make like an anteater. He pressed himself against the paneling
and began to inch his way toward the kitchen. Sweat streamed down the sides of
his face. He didn't want Corey to think him ill, so he plopped onto the ottoman
at the end of the hall and bravely manufactured a smile.

Cid knocked on the front door, leaned in and said "Hi-ho," and strode into the
living room. Corey ran down the hall, gave Cid a bear-hug, then dashed outside
to the 4x4.

"Don't mind if I keep Corey for dinner, do you, pal!"

"Go ahead," Delsey said. All the better. No need to take chances with Corey.

"Jeez, Furf, you okay? You look like dry dog shit. You getting proper carbs in
your diet?"

"Touch of the Beijing flu, I think. Can you keep Corey overnight?"

"Glad to. Better sleep it off, pal. Ever try Chinese yoga? I was reading this
article about the Hui Ming Ching. Some interesting philosophy. 'Every separate
thought takes shape and becomes visible in color and form. The total spiritual
power unfolds its traces.' Great healing power if you got the beaner for it.
Nice job on the bricks, too. Didn't know you had it in you."

"What bricks?"

"The walk. Those loose bricks you patched on the walk. Got to admit, you
surprised me. Did a damn fine job."

"Thanks," said Delsey.

He waited for Cid and Corey to leave, gathered his strength, and went to his
desk. He signed onto the computer. There was a new document in its directory. He
accessed the file and read his article. "This is better than my Reed review," he
muttered to no one, then he laughed to no one, then he whimpered to no one. "Get
agrip," he told him self. "You can figure this out. "

On his book shelf, next to the PC, he spotted the baseball Howard Johnson and
Doc Gooden had signed. Well, at least Corey had enjoyed himself.

Facts: Over an hour to Shea Stadium; two or three hours at the scrimmage; a bite
to eat somewhere off the highway. Half the night would have been gone by the
time they got home. When would he have found time to write the article? When
would he have fixed the walk? Hell, Delsey didn't even know how to fix the walk
any more than he knew how to speak French.

Uh-oh. His date with Vanessa. He went to the kitchen, picked up the telephone
and dialed her number. "It's Delsey."

"Mmmm, hello, Furl."

"Eh, last night--" He hesitated, waiting for her lead. He was ashamed to admit
what he was thinking what he was hoping she would say.

"Oh, Furf, I never thought it could be so good. I mean-- it's not like I'm an
inexperienced teenager-- well -- I'll stop, I'm embarrassing myself. All I can
say is Ellen is either completely nuts, or half dead. Either way I thank her for
it."

"I have to go, Vanessa."

"What? Furf, is something wrong? Is it something I said? I didn't mean to --"

"No, it's just that I'm in the middle of something." He hung up the phone, and
as soon as the receiver clicked into place the bell rang again . . . and again .
. . and again . . . a dozen times before he could will himself to lift the
receiver; it felt like a barbell in his hand.

"Hello, Delsey," the voice said. "It's you."

"Who is this?"

"It's you, Delsey."

He knew immediately that it wasn't a crank call. He recognized the voice. Beyond
that, he felt as if he had spoken the words himself. Not literally. It felt more
like deja entendu, as if the words had been generated somewhere internally,
somewhere within his own mind, and then recycled into sound only after he had
heard them.

"What's happening to me?" he whispered into the mouthpiece.

"I called to tell you not to worry. I could sense you were worried. Don't be.
You can let go now."

Delsey fell silent. Both of him. "What are you talking about?"

"The change," said the voice. "Cid was right about our next great evolutionary
advancement -- you remember -- a whacky gestalten outgrowth of the body and the
beaner."

The change. Delsey could feel it, as if the words had triggered some intuitive
realization.

He should have seen it coming a long time ago . . . finishing chores he had
never started and reviewing shows he had never seen and keeping dates he had
never arranged and speaking French and patching loose bricks and talking to
himself on the telephone and God knows what else. What else? He was doing all of
this himself.

"How many," he said, an edge to his voice now. "How many of me are there out
there?"

"As many as you need," answered the voice, full and rich and breezy all at once.

"And you?" Delsey said. "Which one are you?"

"I don't know. It's not like that. We're all one, really. We're all you."

"Where were you last night?"

"With Vanessa."

He waited. "Well?"

"You were great. You were better than great. You were the best you've ever
been."

"That's ironic." He tightened his grip around the phone. "I couldn't even be
there for it."

"But you were," said the voice. "In a way."

"Of course. Of course I was there!" He slammed down the receiver.

Cut off. From himself, from everything. He dropped the phone on the floor.

How much of his life had he spent on the damn telephone? How much of his time
had he sacrificed to disembodied communication -- FAX machines, computer
networks, tape-recorded messages -- when a personal appearance simply wasn't
possible?

Man had to learn how to interact, Cid had said. What did he mean by that? Was it
possible that man had taken a,n evolutionary leap, had innately discovered a
method of crunching himself into ten million bits of information, of packeting
himself into microbursts of deliverable data consumable to even the crudest
receiving unit, something as crude as, say, the household plumbing-- why not?
The links had already been established: water pipes. Hundreds and thousands of
water pipes extending throughout the entire city, all connected by the central
brain, the NYNEX.

Insanity. That, too, loomed as a possibility, but an unlikely one. He couldn't
be any more insane than the infamous Bronx Bank Robber, or the doctor from Palo
Alto. There would be others, too. It was happening.

Delsey's legs caved in. He collapsed with a thud on the linoleum floor, his
moment of clarity already receding as effortlessly and persistently as time.

Cid entered the kitchen then, followed by another Cid, and another. Identical
Cids.

"Got a call from one of your Delseys," said one of the Cids. "Told us you were
having some trouble completing the change."

The Cids lifted him off the rug and carried him down the hall to the bathroom.
One of the Cids opened the door and yet another knelt beside the tub, drawing a
bath, smiling Cid's composed smile.

Two Ellens stood next to the toilet looking profoundly disappointed. (Some
things never changed.)

Three Coreys sat on the floor next to a Cid. "You're gonna be okay, Dad," one of
them said. "Cid wanted to wait it out, but I got worried. I was afraid you
weren't gonna make it without our help."

"Don't fight it," said one of the Cids. "Once you're liquid-micro-compatible
it's easy. If you could just relax and accept things the way they are once in a
while, just let life happen, you'd have a much easier time of things."

"I know what the problem is," said one of the Coreys to no one in particular.
"Sometimes Dad just plain tries too hard."

"Don't be ridiculous," said an Ellen.

Two of the Cids lowered Delsey into the steaming hot bath water. Delsey looked
up and saw himself standing beside Cid, and saw another one of him smiling over
his own shoulder, and another arguing with one of the Ellens. (Some things never
changed.) I "For your information,"he was saying, "I had a wonderful time with
Vanessa."

Swirling downward

To the scent of apricot and aloe. . . .

Don't fight it. . . .

Don't . . . fight . . . it. . . .

Down,

down,

down the drain he went.