No, I can't. I'm a little stuck around this dicey baby-killing issue.

Denny looks me hard in the eye and says, "Are you really, like, a cyborg? Is that your mom's big secret?"

"A what?" I say.

"You know," he says, "an artificial humanoid created with a limited life span, but implanted with false childhood memories so you think you're really a real person, except you're really going to die soon?"

And I look at Denny hard and say, "So, dude, my mom told you I'm some kind of a robot?'

"Is that what her diary says?" Denny says.

Two women come up, holding out a camera, and one says, "Do you mind?"

"Say cheese," I tell them and snap their picture smiling in front of the cow shed, then they walk away with another fleeting memory that almost got away. Another petrified moment to treasure.

"No, I haven't read the diary," I say. "I haven't fucked Paige Marshall. I can't do jack shit until I decide about this."

"Okay, okay," Denny says, to me he says, "then are you really just a brain in a pan somewhere being stimulated with chemicals and electricity into thinking you have a real life?"

"No," I go. "I'm definitely not a brain. That's not it."

"Okay," he says. "Maybe you're an artificially intelligent com­puter program that interacts with other programs in a simulated reality."

And I go, "What does that make you?"

"I'd be just another computer," Denny says. Then he says, "I get your point, dude. I can't even figure out change for the bus."

Denny narrows his eyes and tilts his head back, looking at me with one eyebrow cocked. "Here's my last guess," he says.

He says, "Okay, the way I figure it, you're just the subject of an experiment and the whole world you know is just an artificial construct populated by actors who play the roles of everybody in your life, and the weather is just special effects and the sky is painted blue and the landscape everywhere is just a set. Is that it?"

And I go, "Huh?"

"And I'm really a brilliantly talented and gifted actor," Denny says, "and I'm just pretending to be your stupid masturbation-addicted loser best friend."

Somebody snaps a picture of me gritting my teeth.

And I look at Denny, and say, "Dude, you're not pretending anything."

At my elbow is some tourist guy grinning at me. "Victor, hey," he says. "So this is where you work."

Where he knows me from, I haven't the foggiest.

Medical school. College. A different job. Or it could be he's just another sex maniac from my group. It's funny. He doesn't look like a sexaholic, but nobody ever does.

"Hey, Maude," he says and elbows the woman he's with. "This is the guy I'm always telling you about. I saved this guy's life."

And the woman says, "Oh my gosh. So it's true?" She pulls her head into her shoulders and rolls her eyes. "Reggie here is al­ways bragging about you. I guess I always thought he was exag­gerating."

"Oh, yeah," I say. "Old Reg here, yeah, he saved my life."

And Denny says, "Anymore, who hasn't?"

Reggie says, "Are you making out okay these days? I tried to send as much cash as I could. Was it enough to take care of that wisdom tooth you needed yanked?"

And Denny says, "Oh, for crying out loud."

A blind chicken with half a head and no wings, shit smeared all over it, stumbles up against my boot, and when I reach down to pet it, the thing's shivering inside its feathers. It makes a soft clucking, cooing sound that's almost a purr.

It's nice to see something more pathetic than I feel right now.

Then I catch myself with a fingernail in my mouth, cow crap. Chicken shit.

See also: Histoplasmosis. See also: Tapeworms.

And I go, "Yeah, the money." I say, "Thanks, dude." And I spit. Then I spit again. There's the click of Reggie taking my pic­ture. Just another stupid moment people have to make last for­ever.

And Denny looks at the newspaper in his hand and says, "So, dude, can I come live at your mom's house? Yes or no?"

Chapter 2O

The Mommy's three-o'clock appointment would show up clutching a yellow bath towel, and around his finger would be the blank groove where there should be a wedding ring. The second the door was locked, he'd try and give her the cash. He'd start to take off his pants. His name was Jones, he'd tell her. His first name Mister.

Guys here to see her for the first time were all the same. She'd tell him, pay me after. Don't be in such a rush. Keep all your clothes on. There's no hurry.

She'd tell him the appointment book was full of Mr. Joneses, Mr. Smiths, John Does, and Bob Whites, so he'd better come up with a better alias. She'd tell him to lie down on the couch. Close the blinds. Dim the lights.

This is how she could make a pile of money. It didn't violate the terms of her parole, but only because the parole board lacked imagination.

To the man on the couch, she'd say, "Shall we get started?"

Even if a guy said he wasn't after sex, the Mommy would still tell him to bring a towel. You brought a towel. You paid in cash. Don't ask her to bill you later or bill some insurance company, because she just couldn't be bothered. You pay cash, then you file the claim.

You only get fifty minutes. Guys had to know what they wanted.

This means the woman, the positions, the setting, the toys. Don't spring anything fancy on her at the last minute.

She'd tell Mr. Jones to lie back. Close his eyes.

Allow all the tension in your face to melt away. Your forehead first; let it go slack. Relax the spot between your eyes. Imagine your forehead smooth and relaxed. Then the muscles around your eyes, smooth and relaxed. Then the muscles around your mouth. Smooth and relaxed.

Even if guys said they were just looking to lose some weight, they wanted sex. If they wanted to quit smoking. Manage stress. Quit biting their nails. Cure hiccups. Stop drinking. Clear up their skin. Whatever the issue, it was because they weren't getting laid. Whatever they said they wanted, they'd get sex here and the problem was solved.

If the Mommy was a compassionate genius or a slut, you don't know.

Sex pretty much cures everything.

She was the best therapist in the business, or she was a whore that fucked with your mind. She didn't like being so slam bam with her clients, but she'd never planned to earn a living this way.

This kind of session, the sex kind, had first happened by acci­dent. A client who wanted to quit smoking wanted to be re­gressed to the day he was eleven and took his first puff. So he could remember how bad it tasted. So he could quit by going back and never starting. That was the basic idea.

On his second session, this client wanted to meet with his fa­ther, who was dead of lung cancer, just to talk. This is still pretty much normal. People want to meet with famous dead people all the time, for guidance, for advice. It was so real that on his third session, the client wanted to meet Cleopatra.

To each client, the Mommy said, let all the tension drain from your face to your neck, then from your neck to your chest. Relax your shoulders. Allow them to roll back and press into the couch. Imagine a heavy weight pressing your body, settling your head and arms deeper and deeper into the cushions of the couch.