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.

Two tracks from

Amebikan war sutha

Recorded on Beeswax Records

LP 7178342

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Patent pending

VC Sweetheart

Born in a hearseLeft foot firstNursed on a hand-me-down nippleGot a murder degree From I.T.T.Shot three holes in a crippleTo the highlands I was sentTo the highlandsFlute music playingThey're counting up the deadFlute music playing in the highlandsWho's that out thereEdging toward the banquet of my dumb fearSlant eyes burning in this bible bushVC honeyWith her curls and tap shoesVC sweetheart twirling her batonShe had superdog hearingAnd eyes that scannedI loved every way she made loveTwelve years oldTiger soulShe knew what to do with a manAcross the highlands we did goAcross the highlandsBlues music playingThey're counting up the deadBlues music playing in the highlandsShe wore black pajamasAnd a blade at her hipSo soft and cool and sweetTwelve years oldTiger soulShe knew how to cheat and repeatI sang to her in my own true voiceA folk song of flowers and peace:What do we have to live forBut each otherWhat do we have to die forBut our loveEast the vanished mountainsWest the barren fieldsSoccer-playing bodhisattvasFlowing through the grassShe sang to me in her own true voiceA folk song of people and land:You are tall lean strangerYou are wordYou are Christmas tree of EasterShining birdYou are hunter prophetYou are lion's pawYou are angel avengerCome to my doorTricky little glitterIn her eyes that nightI made love like a fur-bearing beastTwelve years oldTiger soulShe knew how to give what was leastIn the highlands we did restIn the highlandsJazz music playingThey're counting up the deadJazz music playing in the highlandsSleeping long and deepOn a hard straw matI dreamed of the love of my lifeTwelve years oldTiger soulShe knew what to do with a knifeWho's that out thereEdging toward the banquet of my dumb fearSlant eyes burning in this bible bushVC honeyWith her curls and tap shoesVC sweetheart twirling her batonDown the highlands I was sentDown the highlandsRock music playingThey're counting up the deadRock music playing in the highlandsBorn in a hearseLeft foot firstNursed on a hand-me-down nippleGot back homeMinus some chromeWomen they call me a cripple