This is what I did. I went back to the window and crossed my arms over my chest, wedging my hands in my armpits. This for warmth. I had been brought up to regard death as an irrevocable state. I tried to reconsider this proposition now, to go over the steps one by one, and I wanted to be warm while I did this.

Eventually I unplugged the bathtub, draining it of gray water. I got the broom and swept in a careless manner for about ten minutes. This was panic of such depth it seemed lodged in being itself, my own, a dread of forgetting what I was called or what language I spoke. I put Opel's things away, the few items hanging from chairs or looped over this or that doorknob. I put these away in the closet. After this I spent some time in the bathroom scraping out the soap dish.

This is what else I did. I looked everywhere for change and then went out to find a telephone. Aloud I repeated three sounds: wun der lick. Walking south on Broadway (downtown, always down), I repeated these sounds over and over, trying to penetrate vapor, to reach beyond the sounds to whatever it was they designated, the dream guiding the body through the snow, wun-der-lick, object of the inquiry. The air was coarse, leaving a slight burn high in the nostrils. I stepped into a phone booth. Ten yards away a man was urinating against a wall, standing happily in his own cataract and mist.

I spoke to someone downtown, a bored municipal voice, downtown in the huddled buildings, the record sectors, death and taxes, requisition forms, police recruits taping every emergency, bored, bored, the facsimile of a voice, all walls green halfway up, agencies, bureaus, extensions, downtown where the records are kept, massive, passive, ever distending, the idea of a voice, no one in control.

I thought of calling Bellevue next but decided finally in favor of St. Vincent's, gentle, humane and dedicated, St. Vincent's, merciful and compassionate. I insisted on speaking to a nun. I wanted someone who believed in St. Vincent himself, in his ideals, in his sacrifices, whatever these may have been. They wanted address, phone number, sex of deceased. I insisted on a nun. I wanted a nun, a short round woman, perhaps of German descent, someone who believed in the sacredness of dying and the veneration of the dead. No nun, no deal. This is what I told them.

The man was standing outside the phone booth. He wore the plaid lining of someone's topcoat. In his hands was a half-pint bottle of rye, which he offered me. I put down the phone and took it. The snow fell perfectly. Burn marks were evident under the man's frozen stubble. I drank, thanked him and gave back the bottle. Then I called Globke, who said he'd take care of everything.

Superslick

Mind Contracting

Media Kit

"The Bucky Wunderlick Story"

Told in news items, lyrics

and dysfunctional interviews

Prepared by Esme Taylor Associates

A DIVISION OF TRANSPARANOIA

London, April 17 (UPI) – Bucky Wunderlick, the American rock music star, has been held for questioning by police here after allegedly setting fire to a stewardess aboard a TWA 747 just being cleared for takeoff at London Airport.

According to several eyewitnesses, Wunderlick, 24, had complained of being airsick, although the plane had not yet left the ground, and was purportedly acting in a loud and disruptive manner. When Patti Stepney, 22, of Falls Church, Va., one of twelve cabin attendants aboard the London to New York flight, attempted to calm the controversial entertainer, he reputedly set fire to her uniform with a cigarette lighter said by an associate to be a gift of an unidentified member of the British royal family.

The flight was delayed while passengers used blankets to smother the flames, allowing Miss Stepney to be escorted from the 355-ton jetliner by airport personnel. A TWA spokesman later said she was being rushed to a medical facility for observation and possible treatment. Simultaneously, London police released a statement saying they are holding Mr. Wunderlick, who was removed from the plane following a brief struggle, eyewitnesses said.

"Peace-loving men everywhere deplore the English penchant for violence," the internationally known figure was quoted by a companion as having remarked, following another brief altercation inside a police vehicle moments after he was led from the 22-million-dollar jetliner, reportedly bleeding from a gash over his left eye and said to be wearing a team jersey bearing the legend Tottenham Hotspur.

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