marching orders to the professional—”
“—and marching powder.”
“For I have no use for professionals, my dear Ratso, as mere professionals. Kent will be here in the capacity of my friend. I don’t require professional help, as you so sensitively put it, of any kind. Remember, my dear Ratso, Ratso, Ratso, it was professionals who built the Titanic. It was amateurs who built the Ark.”
Chapter Twenty
I had a lot riding on Kent Perkins’s much-anticipated arrival in New York, my success in this rather unusual investigation, my reputation as a private investigator, my interpersonal relationships, such as they were, and my likelihood of remaining an ambulatory citizen who doesn’t have to read a sign every day that says, “The Next Meal Is Lunch.” That is a lot of baggage for one Californian to carry and I just hoped Kent was up to the job. Perkins was, of course, not a native Californian. He was born and raised in Texas. As I always like to say, “It’s no disgrace to come from Texas; it’s just a disgrace to have to go back there.”
With relations what they were in the little loft community, and my condition what it was, waiting for Kent Perkins soon took on all the spiritual proportions of Waiting for Godot. I was coming to see his arrival as my last opportunity for resurrection after many days of being crucified by tiny baby ducks. It was becoming clear even to me that I was not getting any better. On the other hand, I was not especially getting any worse. I simply vaselined back and forth between feeling almost normal and then wandering around lost, shivering, delirious, feverish, hopeless, and disoriented in the grip of a ruthless, unforgiving malarial fugue. But the biggest problem was that all my ills, quirks, comments, and foibles were compounded by the fact that I was living my life in a bell jar under the intense, often misguided scrutiny of the Village Irregulars, and there was no escaping them. Once you’re in hospital, nuthouse, opium den, marriage, or gay men’s choir, it’s not so easy to get out again, and even if you’re able to, some of the crud invariably rubs off. The loft, I felt, had a little bit of all these institutions going for it, and whatever peace or freedom I’d once felt there now seemed to have dissipated like so many smoke rings crashing themselves to death under the heels of the lesbians. Everybody knew I was not well. Sometimes I even knew it myself. But reality was still reality, and regardless of my fevered, delirious state of mind and body, I fervently felt that I was observing this rare creature more clearly than ever before in my life. Hell, I thought, many people had never even seen it at all.
“Almost time for this poncey bloke from the left coast to be arrivin’, innit?” Brennan asked the question casually, but underneath I detected a note of quiet concern.
“He’ll get here when he gets here,” I said.
“So will Jesus, mate, but there’s no point in waitin’ up for him, is there? Do you get my meanin’? Should I stick around the flat to meet and greet or should I go out to the pub? That’s the question, innit?”
Brennan had been through about a case of Guinness that afternoon and it hadn’t seemed to slow him down a bit. If anything, he seemed slightly more dignified than usual. This was saying a lot for Mick because he did not suffer dignity gladly.
“The real question, Mick, is whether you care to get to the bottom of this mess or not?”
“You mean the flat, mate? It’s a true no-hoper. You’d have to dig through twelve archaeological layers of cat shite to get to the bottom of it. You’d probably find Troy and Atlantis on the way.”
“I always kind of liked Hector and the Trojans. I would’ve liked to have fought with the Myrmidons. They were ants transformed into soldiers. I’d like to have hosed Helen. I don’t know if I’d have enjoyed listening to Achilles always complaining about his heel.”
“Bet the Trojans
“—and marching powder.”
“For I have no use for professionals, my dear Ratso, as mere professionals. Kent will be here in the capacity of my friend. I don’t require professional help, as you so sensitively put it, of any kind. Remember, my dear Ratso, Ratso, Ratso, it was professionals who built the Titanic. It was amateurs who built the Ark.”
Chapter Twenty
I had a lot riding on Kent Perkins’s much-anticipated arrival in New York, my success in this rather unusual investigation, my reputation as a private investigator, my interpersonal relationships, such as they were, and my likelihood of remaining an ambulatory citizen who doesn’t have to read a sign every day that says, “The Next Meal Is Lunch.” That is a lot of baggage for one Californian to carry and I just hoped Kent was up to the job. Perkins was, of course, not a native Californian. He was born and raised in Texas. As I always like to say, “It’s no disgrace to come from Texas; it’s just a disgrace to have to go back there.”
With relations what they were in the little loft community, and my condition what it was, waiting for Kent Perkins soon took on all the spiritual proportions of Waiting for Godot. I was coming to see his arrival as my last opportunity for resurrection after many days of being crucified by tiny baby ducks. It was becoming clear even to me that I was not getting any better. On the other hand, I was not especially getting any worse. I simply vaselined back and forth between feeling almost normal and then wandering around lost, shivering, delirious, feverish, hopeless, and disoriented in the grip of a ruthless, unforgiving malarial fugue. But the biggest problem was that all my ills, quirks, comments, and foibles were compounded by the fact that I was living my life in a bell jar under the intense, often misguided scrutiny of the Village Irregulars, and there was no escaping them. Once you’re in hospital, nuthouse, opium den, marriage, or gay men’s choir, it’s not so easy to get out again, and even if you’re able to, some of the crud invariably rubs off. The loft, I felt, had a little bit of all these institutions going for it, and whatever peace or freedom I’d once felt there now seemed to have dissipated like so many smoke rings crashing themselves to death under the heels of the lesbians. Everybody knew I was not well. Sometimes I even knew it myself. But reality was still reality, and regardless of my fevered, delirious state of mind and body, I fervently felt that I was observing this rare creature more clearly than ever before in my life. Hell, I thought, many people had never even seen it at all.
“Almost time for this poncey bloke from the left coast to be arrivin’, innit?” Brennan asked the question casually, but underneath I detected a note of quiet concern.
“He’ll get here when he gets here,” I said.
“So will Jesus, mate, but there’s no point in waitin’ up for him, is there? Do you get my meanin’? Should I stick around the flat to meet and greet or should I go out to the pub? That’s the question, innit?”
Brennan had been through about a case of Guinness that afternoon and it hadn’t seemed to slow him down a bit. If anything, he seemed slightly more dignified than usual. This was saying a lot for Mick because he did not suffer dignity gladly.
“The real question, Mick, is whether you care to get to the bottom of this mess or not?”
“You mean the flat, mate? It’s a true no-hoper. You’d have to dig through twelve archaeological layers of cat shite to get to the bottom of it. You’d probably find Troy and Atlantis on the way.”
“I always kind of liked Hector and the Trojans. I would’ve liked to have fought with the Myrmidons. They were ants transformed into soldiers. I’d like to have hosed Helen. I don’t know if I’d have enjoyed listening to Achilles always complaining about his heel.”
“Bet the Trojans
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