9

I was on time; John was late. Never one to pace a room or sit quietly, I went through my entire repertoire of cracked knuckles including a whole-body’s worth of joints until they were all refractory.

I retraced my memory and remembered—was convinced—that the front steps to the door of the hospital’s lobby were the appointed rendezvous. The traffic on Claiborne rushed back and forth in front of me, heavy trucks at times dropping debris as a result of potholes encountered. I waited very anxiously for a whole fifteen minutes in the heat—just about the limit of the antiperspirant self-indulgent among us—before my “How rude” neurotransmitters made me desert the spot. Blowing out puffs of impatience, I walked into the hospital and followed the dark gray-colored floor tape that tracked a path to Radiology. I had been this route before, but still felt it comforting in my mission to follow the colored guides. I politely waved off senior volunteers who chased me in their duties. A few nuns, apparently noting my determined pace, didn’t even try to ask if I needed directions. At Radiology began another shade of gray—a brighter gray—which took me, once again, down a long hallway with windows on either side, indicating this was merely an interiorized walk to a separate building. This new colored tape was the “MRI” trail, and it led me once more to Magnetic Resonance Imaging. During my walk, I would occasionally encounter a candy-striper, each ready to assist me, but repeatedly discouraged by my tunnel vision; my peripheral vision, on the other hand, would note only the blend of red and white that they wore.

It was Saturday and this section was, as John had predicted, sparsely populated. Rarely did I encounter a generic hospital type doing generic hospital tasks. I finally entered a small waiting area with interlocking chairs up against a wall that faced a counter or nurses’ station. The station was empty as was the waiting area. There were several doors besides the one that led to the magnet. One was to the “green room” where Abby and I had first met John before her scan that time. Another was designated a unisexual restroom. Still another was marked for storage. A metal one, standing out because it was in fact metal, had a sign on it which read, ENTER ONLY WHEN CALLED.

I don’t know why I thought of this, but I chose a friendly memory—a falsetto, drawn-out “Dinner’s ready” type voice which I pretended was calling my name. It was the memory of one of my serial mothers from way back when. It seemed to call warmly to me as much as I seemed to choose it as the excuse to obey the sign. “Coming,” I called, and then I entered, realizing that, even in the face of terrible unknowns, I was certainly still a wise guy.

“C’mon, let’s go; c’mon, let’s go,” I shouted to myself in cadence as I walked through the labyrinth that led right up to, Surprise! –to Ava, Ralph Ebe’s widow.

“Hello, Rocky,” she said, suspiciously chipper.

“Ava, where is he?”

“Don’t know. I’m waiting, too.”

“For what?” I asked.

“Oh, just to see you off.”

The cheery affect was nauseating, reminding me of a wacky sit-com wife about to pull some hare-brained scheme. I became increasingly uneasy, almost like the feeling you’d get when you suspect you might be pushed into a swimming pool. The awkward pause in conversation made her a little uncomfortable, also.

“How was Ralph’s car?” she asked inanely.

“Oh, fine,” I answered. “Thanks for letting me use it.”

“I’m glad I could help out,” she said, speaking again with a superficial air. I reached into my pocket and fished around to pull out the black key from among my own. I handed it to her, but she was reluctant, as if she wanted to be sure I didn’t need it anymore.

“Better take it, really, Ava,” I warned. “I can’t guarantee who’ll be taking it out next if you don’t.” She smiled at me as I placed it in her hand.

“Sorry, guys,” John said as he walked in. “Landry snagged me, asked a lot of questions—Why was I here on Saturday? Anything going on? and the like. So let’s get cracking, ’cause I was real flimsy with my answers.”

“John,” I said with a tone expecting explanation, my finger pointing to Ava.

“Ava said she’d like to watch, unless you have any objections.”

“Me? Hell, no,” I said defensively. After all, John was there, allaying any suspicions. “Where do I get for this?” I asked, ready.

“Get up on this table, just like what you saw before,” he motioned, referring to a gliding affair with tracks and motors. It was a white flatbed on a metal guide, destination North/South. “Here,” he requested, “give me anything metallic on you.” I handed him my belt to eliminate the buckle.

“Do I need to put on a gown or something?” I asked.

“We’re not interested in your radiology; we just want to magnetize you.”

“Oh, right.”

“What about keys, Rocky?”

“No way, John,” I protested, digging my hand back into my pocket to feel them once again. “I may need to get into my apartment where I’m going.” He regarded the thickness of my trousers and pocket material, and he relented.

“Alright, I guess so. Now get up on the table.” I obeyed. I strained to feel the magnetism as I hopped aboard and the trolley began its journey. I guess that was ridiculous—how do you feel magnetism? I lay face up, my head aimed at, apparently, the business end of this whole building.

John began explaining his procedure to an interested Ava from behind his control panel as the motors beneath me continued taking me toward a claustrophobic arch that would soon receive my head. I felt like the victim being inched toward the buzz saw.

I pivoted my neck to see John and Ava discussing the controls quite animatedly when John barked at me.

“Head down,” he sternly instructed.

“O.K., O.K.,” I said.

“Stop talking,” he further reprimanded.

“O.K., O.K.,” I again agreed.

“Music?” he offered.

“Sure, why not,” I answered.

“I said stop talking,” he said again.

By this time, I figured he was goofin’ with the magnet, because I began to hear some irritating popping noises. In the nick of time, my head was in perfect position between two stereo speakers to enjoy the first lush chords of an orchestral arrangement of Claire de lune (if that’s what it’s called here).

“Don’t talk, Rocky; just listen, O.K.?”

I acquiesced by lying absolutely still as my answer. I could feel my keys pressing up against my trousers to escape. And then like a disc jockey on talk-over, John gave me some news with Debussy as a luxurious background.

“I don’t know how important it is to you, but one of the things Landry told me this morning was that Abby, the one left here when your Abby was pushed along...well, she had the abortion yesterday.”

And Debussy began his orchestral refrain.

How important was it?

Truly, that was hard to say. I was not as militant against it as my Abby was. And after all, the one here wasn’t my child, but my pop-up’s child—a Rocky’s child of some sort. That thought was fairly consoling, in an escapist way, to my thwarted fatherhood until I accepted the realization that there would be living versions of my child, or Rudolph’s, or Reggie’s, or whoever’s, elsewhere in several layers. And this one, here, was one of the unlucky ones. This made it almost a shame for the lucky existers elsewhere.

Debussy re-introduced his theme.

I wondered where I was headed, and then I remembered where my head was. Normally I would chuckle to myself over a pun like this, but I was getting pretty scared over where I was going. Was I going to a place where my real Abby would successfully champion her child’s birthright, or would it be such a terrible place as to force her to terminate the pregnancy against her wishes? Or even by her wishes?

Guilt grew as I realized that I cared more for a birth down the line than I did for the aborted pregnancy here. But since guilt is self-destructive, certainly profitless and therefore a phenomenon I forbid, I blocked it from my mind.

“It’s too bad this is just a send-off, and not a proper scan,” John said over the music. “It looks like you have an anomaly deep in your brain. Looks like an extra convolution or something.”

Then Debussy did some weird things. He got a bit funky. I don’t mean the recording became a disco rendition of his work, but that the inherent melody had a contrapuntal kick as a sneaky undertone, growing more menacing until it dominated, and then detonated, devouring it’s prey, now the original submersed theme.

I knew I was sliding—being pushed, actually.

“One thing,” I said to John.

“Make it quick,” he said to me, heard better through the speakers than the speed of sound could carry his actual voice through the air.

“As long as I’m here and all, and you can see extra contusions—”

“Convolutions,” he corrected.

“Yea, those. Well, could you, like, also check to see if I must have rocks in my head.”

“Shut the fuck up, comedian,” he said to me, and I did. “You stupid asshole, you’ve screwed up my test.”

This John was the Welcome Wagon for my new world. I not only shut the fuck up, I got the hell out of that contraption. Ava was nowhere—gone. It was funny how I instinctively looked for her in my peril. Instead, Dr. Landry the shrink was in her place behind the console with John, or whatever his name was here.

“I need that scan, Jim,” Landry told “Jim” angrily.

“You would have had it if he’d’ve kept quiet, the fucker,” Jim responded.

With this no-help retort from a subordinate, the psychiatrist popped his hand on the back of Jim’s head.

And me—I was on my way out.

“Hey, you!” Dr. Landry commanded. “Lie back down.”

Running was the talent of the moment. I dashed, and boy! were they hacked off. There were words said I’d never even heard before.

“Coprosucker bile-wad!” shouted Jim.

“Boveater!” added the psychiatrist to my dust. “Lap-lapper!”

I reversed my path through this one hell of an ugly building. The floor stripe, now black, raced under me like under the front wheel of a departing aircraft. I ultimately made it out to the steps by the entrance. As I darted past, my arm was hooked by someone’s hand that centripetally spun me around. The deafening sirens on the street heightened the frenzy. It was a woman’s hand.

I looked at Ava, the widow, Les’s mom. She stopped spinning in my vision a split-second after I did, and before I could wonder whether it was she or the version of this world, she spoke.

“It’s really me,” she said, truly existing, over the sound of the sirens going by. “Landry caught our John while you were in there, gave him all kinds of grief, and summoned him, along with your ‘version,’ to some security office. I ran off, but then I ran back to the magnet and climbed in. I’ve been waiting an hour.”

“Oh, Christ,” I said, but I wasn’t sorry. “C’mon, let’s get out of here,” I told her, showing obvious irritation with the distraction of the sirens the hospital seemed to attract. I grabbed her hand as we waited to cross the busy street on the green light. Suddenly, we each felt a tremor—I know I did.

“Did you feel that?” I asked her.

“Yes.” The light turned from red to green. I mean I saw it as red, looked at Ava, then regarded the light again and saw it was green.

“Let’s go.”

Wrong! We both nearly got creamed. The driver showed no remorse as his very heavy car whizzed past, the wind assisting in belting us back.

The light had not turned from red (Don’t Walk) to green (Walk), but it had actually turned green (Don’t Walk). We had slid, together, hopefully following an electromagnetic wake that my Abby had made.

The auto horn to my brain had caused a body jolt, and by the time this jolt had receded, we attempted to cross again. Different jolts came back. Cars were changing colors and shapes, their positions altering slightly with each step, with each slide. Damn, we were sliders across the whole half thoroughfare! The types of sirens kept changing, which added a chilling aural enhancement to the surrealism. Our footfall hesitations and worried lurches forward must have looked hysterical to those of the static layers we were passing through; I know we appeared drunk or spastic or something. Which reminded me: she sure needed to do some explaining about what happened to her son when she had decided to come with me. These thoughts popped in and out like prairie dogs as I concentrated on the target practice for cars that the sliding was funneling us into.

We made it to the median, terrified. Ava began to cry and I held her tight.

“It’s just a street,” I told her, my eyes focused on her but my peripheral vision witness to the blurred flickering background that was the series of worlds we were traveling. We were both exhausted, this side of the avenue having taken us a nerve-racking very long minute.

“We’re lucky to be alive,” she exclaimed, out of breath. The magnet was fierce, because I could appreciate we were sliding dozens of times a minute.

“It could always be worse,” I reminded her.

“It’s getting worse!” she said emphatically, attesting to the stroboscopic panorama of altering buildings, changing colors, and wavering hemlines. She dropped to her knees on the cement at the median and became sick. I crouched down to assist, but had nothing to wipe her mouth with.

“Here,” I offered, holding out my sleeved arm so that she could dry her mouth on it.

“No, no,” she refused, finally gaining some stability, her motion sickness abating.

And then it stopped.

Like beating your head against the wall, you truly don’t realize how bad it feels until you stop. Understand this: I’ve always been the one to do the sliding. Sliding’s never been done to me. I’ve always done it once at a time, I might add. That flickering effect is for the birds—like being on LSD. When it had stopped, I felt like I’d gotten off of a boat ride’s worth of seasickness myself. I too felt a brief wave of nausea. I felt fine, though, by the time the lights, in a stationary world, turned again who cared what color.

“Ava?” I asked.

She just shook her head, indicating well-being as she arose to a standing position once again.

“We do have to cross the rest of the street at some point, Ava,” I said to her as I helped her stand.

“I know,” she replied in a depressed tone.

“C’mon, there’s no sliding now; let’s do it.”

“O.K.” She rallied.

We began to lah-dee-dah walk across, hand in hand, terrified that the shimmying might begin at any time, without warning. We placed each step carefully, as if respect for the ground’s tranquility would keep us in some god’s good favor. Except for the first step off of the curb, we started crossing without any paroxysms. The traffic had been coming from the opposite direction than expected and, like all good Yankees on vacation in England, we had had to jump back.

“Look both ways before crossing a street,” I teased her. “Didn’t your Mama teach you that?” Her answer was a mock scornful look as we aimed for the other side. Step by polite step, we slowly made it across to the next safe harbor. From there, we crossed an easier crosswalk to Tulane Avenue, and then walked down a block to put some distance between us and St. Luke’s with its harrowing ambulances.

We agreed on a coffee shop right at hand, “Eddie’s Coffee Heaven,” and walked in. It was a fairly large family place that would be a likely roost for retirees having their morning coffees with cronies. In other words, it seemed like the type of place that experienced no bad crowds, nor would tolerate them. It reeked of settled middle-aged values where there was never a scene, never a tip under fifteen per cent (or over it), never any trouble. In the distance I saw Eddie, my former employer, fussing at some underlings with all of the authority an owner has. At one point he seemed to catch my eye, so I waved at him. He must not have recognized me, however, because my hailing went unnoticed. The place was fairly busy with the normal business of plate-rattling, chair-shuffling, and ice clinking until all ceased in deference to our suddenly noticed presence. Even Eddie noticed us, paralyzed in unfriendly silence—still no recognition.

We had the strangest unexpected feeling—like being the only non-Mormons in Salt Lake City. The sign read, PLEASE SEAT YOURSELF, and so we did. The commotion resumed.

“Why did everyone stop when we walked in?” she whispered as she immediately saw to wiping her mouth clean with a napkin. She made a face attesting to the fact that she had not completely tended to the distaste remaining.

“I don’t know why everyone stopped,” I said. I checked my zipper, then looked around and saw everyone looked the same as us, except for one difference. Everyone had on some type of hat, cap, scarf, or something on their heads. Ava noticed it too.

“Gee,” she said, “we’ve committed a fashion faux pas.” Patrons regarded us from time to time, and the expressions on their faces were not positive. We were definitely not on the same team.

“See that guy over there by the cash register?” I asked her.

“The man in white with all the grease on him?” she said, spotting him.

“Yea, that guy. I used to work for him when he just sold burgers in a joint right here in this spot.” Ava looked around again.

“He certainly has prospered, hasn’t he?”

“He’s the type who would in a worse world,” I responded.

Just when I felt it had been an uncomfortably long time to wait for service, a waitress came up to us. She did not take her pad out of the central pocket of her dirty apron but instead further filled it with her hands, making a stance in front of us. She was a solid woman, one I easily imagined could deliver Steins at the Oktoberfest. She finally spoke.

“No shoes, not hat, no service,” she proclaimed.

Being the smart ass, I opened a napkin and placed in on my head, smiling—just to sort of break the ice, you know.

The open-palmed slap is the one that hurts the most. The fingers give a sting that is supplemental to the blunt thud of the palm. Rings, as in this instance, are particularly luxurious appointments to the whole effect.

“Trouble here?” a sudden policeman said to her.

“Hey, no trouble,” I offered. “Let’s go, Ava.” Ava was most conciliatory and arose as I was speaking. The policeman followed us very, very closely until we were at the door. As a parting shot, he offered a little friendly piece of advice, as policemen are prone to do in any layer.

“Fellah, make it easiest. Get a hat.”

“Yes, officer,” I said. We promptly exited.

With the door closed safely behind us, I clutched my radiating face. “Wow-oh-wow! What a slap.” Ava held my chin to regard the red hand on my cheek.

“Oh, look, you can even see where she was wearing her rings.”

“Don’t remind me,” I said, the hand-shaped welt still tingling.

Everyone had hats. I mean everyone. O.K., so hats were all the rage here. More than that, it was some perverted jingoistic patriotism on display. I eyed the intersection we now considered.

“Ava,” I said, “there are three hat shops right on this corner. Not that they need the business, but I say we need hats.”

Suddenly an elderly hatted gentleman shouted from his passing car, “Get a job! Get a hat!”

The hat shop diagonally across the street on the corner opposite, Hattest Brands Going, meant traversing traffic again. Of the two shops on our side, Love and Hat and Where It’s Hat!, we chose the former simply because it was the closer of the two, and we could dart in without any more abuse for our naked scalps. The glass door rang a bell set to trip at the top of the door jam. The ring, I noted, was muffled somewhat, as I discovered someone had taped a little hat on top of the dome of the ringer.

“Oh, come on,” I smirked to Ava, pointing out the little mascot. There were a few customers in the shop, and there were as many sales persons.

“Best morning,” the man behind the counter said, turning to face us, looking over his cash register as he did. Both Ava and I gasped. The man was Ralph Ebe! Ava’s Ralph, the guy I had sort of killed which had made her a widow. We backed away from him a step in our disbelief and surprise, my being repulsed further by those weird self-antagonistic feelings again. Amazingly, this man showed no recognition on his face, indicating to us that he was a replacement, a pop-up for the space occupied in another world by another Ralph Ebe. Actually, no recognition wouldn’t be exactly accurate. It was, in fact, an expression of recognition, but of an acquaintance, not of a wife, co-parent, best friend, or lover. This person, it would seem, should be married to her version here, a version Ava more than likely replaced. She hoped to discover the truth with her next question. And so, with his face not matching the expected reaction of intimate familiarity, Ava asked.

“Ralph?” she asked. “Aren’t you going to kiss me hello?”

“Are you nuts?” I whispered, as I continued to back away without her until I was up against the door. I began getting shaky, almost like being affected by the panic that results from anger without action. My hands got very cold. The man made a quizzical face, having no idea why she would be so forward.

“Ma’am?” he replied.

“Aren’t you Ralph?” she asked.

“Yes, ma’am,” he answered, “Ralph Ebest—the respectablest name in hats, although I’m sure you might disagree.” His pride still eroded through his wondering about her being so brash. Why he was sure Ava might disagree with him made no sense. I was beginning to lose any interest in this turn of events as I was in slipping out of there, for I was starting to plunge deeper into strange feelings again; these feelings I’ve felt before—the kind that strive for resolution, even using someone’s death. As pre-occupied as I was with my own distraught seizure, I still could notice that the gentleman had no unpleasant rumblings himself.

“So where do you live, Mr. Ebest?” Ava asked him. This startled him. To Ava, it was just a question to possibly ascertain any connection he might have with her; to him it was, of course, an inappropriate invasion of privacy.

“Ava,” he said to her, knowing her name. His tone was one of counselling. “First you want to kiss me, and then you wish to find out where I live the best. I don’t know if I should be associating in this way with my competition.”

“Your competition?” she asked him. “What do you mean?”

By this point I couldn’t have cared less about this mysterious exchange, because I couldn’t take it anymore. My heart pounded in my chest. I could feel these palpitations radiating up my neck and down into the center of my belly. I began to sweat. I began to unravel. If I had remained in that shop any longer, I felt, I would certainly be going for his throat.

“Ava!” I shouted. “I’ve got to get out.”

“But a hat. You need a hat.”

“Right now, Ava! I’ll be at the next shop. Get one here, if you must, but I have to go.” I slipped out to the muffled sound of the welcome bell. I spun around the edge of the opened door, and in doing so, spun right out. I leaned against the window, catching my breath and my civility. Calming down, I turned to look at the two of them in there. I watched as Ava chose a little felt ribbon thing for her hair. I waited patiently. After a few more minutes she left with her purchase, to be surprised by me catching her arm as she exited.

“That was important, Rocky,” she complained. “Why did you leave?”

“Because I didn’t want another person dropping dead on me. Remember?” This was cruel of me. She did remember, and I could tell by the face she made. “I’m so sorry, Ava,” I told her, loosening my grip on her arm to that of a caring, sympathetic hold.

“That’s alright,” she said, trying to wipe away the instant tears. “I should have been more considerate. It’s just that I discovered that this isn’t a world I want, if that wasn’t my Ralph.” I got a little annoyed at this point, in spite of her crying.

“I hope you don’t mind if I find out whether this is the world I want?” I asked. She smiled, even with her red eyes.”

“Of course not. We’re in this thing together. And wouldn’t it be wonderful if it turned out to be the same place for both of us?” I felt better immediately. “But oh, look, Rocky,” she cautioned, “you’re on the street without a hat...”

“And that’s not too cool, I know. You’re absolutely right. Let’s go into Where It’s Hat! for me.” We began walking to the next hat store that was only one address away. As we did, she told me she didn’t recognize the money she used to make her purchase.

“I just handed him the bills and let him take what was needed. I felt like an illiterate,” she complained. I pulled out some cash I had on me. The five dollar bill, that is, the one with Lincoln, read $101 instead. The ten, with Hamilton, was a $1,010 bill. I considered this for a moment.

“Wait a minute, don’t worry,” I told her. I have this figured out. “We’re in Base Two here.”

“What?” she asked.

“Base Two.”

“What’s that?”

“Just a different way of counting,” I answered. “But it represents the same thing.” She was still not comforted. “I was a math major; take my word for it. It’s not inflation.”

“That’s a relief,” she said. “And it’s not lire or yen or something like that?”

“Really, it’s good ol’ bucks. Just count on two fingers or leave the money to me.”

By now, we were at the next store, and upon entering we at once noted that this was a much smaller establishment. The sole person there was a woman who stood up from a stooping, head-down position, her face now readily seen as Ava’s face!

So this was the competition!

Ava gasped. I watched nervously as I witnessed familiar emotions swell in her and this time, as well, in the person who was her mirror image. There the two of them stood, face to face, shaking and gasping at each other. It was like dueling bellows, the two of them there, huffing and puffing in terror of each other.

“You bitch!” the woman cried at Ava.

“No!” she fired back, “you bitch! And you witch, too!”

“I wish you were dead,” the woman continued.

“After you—on your way to Hell!” Ava now screamed. The woman ramped up her hyperventilating even more, reaching behind her for a back of a chair for support.

“C’mon, Ava,” I said to her, “let’s get out of here. Quick!”

Suddenly, the woman collapsed. I had hoped it wasn’t death. I grabbed a cap with one hand as I grabbed Ava’s arm with the other and we escaped.

“Rocky,” she exclaimed just outside the shop, “I don’t know what to do.”

“You don’t have to do anything. Just catch your breath a sec while you sweeten up a little.”

“I don’t know what came over me. I was so hateful—I don’t know why. That woman—she was like me. I wanted to hurt her. Why?”

“I don’t know, but believe me, I know just how you felt.”

“I wasn’t very nice to her...” Ava said in self-blame. “We’ve got to go help her.”

“No way,” I replied. “Do you want to die?” I looked back through the window in the door and saw the woman, dazed, struggling back to her feet. “She’s O.K.,” I reported.

Ava peered in with her own doubts, only to see her distraught double duck behind the counter. With my cap planted squarely on my head, I pulled her the hundred or so feet back to the coffee shop. She was heavy in her resistance, being not quite sure what to do. She was dazed and off balance by her confused emotions.

We entered Eddie’s Coffee Heaven again, and once again we seated ourselves. This time there was no awkward silence to introduce us. My cap, which was a baseball cap, read, “Chicago White Hats.” Ava read it aloud to me.

“I’m not surprised,” I told her. We waited for our waitress again. Ava sighed.

“That was really strange,” she said of her confrontation in the second hat store. “It was like meeting all of the people in the whole world I can’t stand, and they all turn out to be me.”

“That’s exactly what happened to me the night of Ralph’s death,” I told her.

“Yes, I know now,” she said with a new wisdom given a voice. “I understand fully. Before I just thought I understood. Now I really understand. I felt the lethal potential there.”

“That’s best,” we were relieved to hear our waitress say, having reclaimed our table properly attired as we were. Every feature on the woman was as sharp as the pencil she threatened her pad with. Her nose and chin might just as easily have come from the same pencil sharpener. She squinted one eye to aim the other, as if through a scope. She was locked in on target and was ready to engage any shit from anyone. I kept my neck cocked for a quick duck should I see a deft hand flying my way. Just to be on the safe side, I intended to be careful in the way I ordered.

“Are you still serving breakfast?” I asked her.

“Up till the uppity-ippest o’clock,” she answered. Luckily, I spied the advisory in the menu which read, “The Breakfest Breakfast Till 1,011 O’Clock.” Of course, I thought: since this was Base Two, any word of theirs for eleven, or 1,011 here, would be gibberish to us. I translated for Ava.

“Eleven o’clock,” I whispered, pointing to the four-digit time reference.

“No. I said uppity-ippest o’clock,” the waitress reiterated.

“Yes, that’s right,” I said agreeably, figuring it wasn’t half an ip past uppity yet. “We will order now.”

“Yes, sir?” the waitress asked, pad in hand. “Order you best; I’m the readiest you’ll need.”

“Superlative service,” I commented to Ava, who promptly kicked my shin under the table, adding to my injuries. Careful, Rocky, I thought, the message reinforced by Ava’s footwork; diction’s affected here. I tread carefully with my order, eyeing the size of the waitress’s rings. I read from the menu verbatim.

“I’ll take a glass of the orangest juice, the hashest browns, and the breakfest sausage.” She scribbled furiously, the leading stroke popping a small point off of the lead of her very sharp pencil, the trajectory causing it to pop me in the forehead. I let it slide.

“And you,” she said to Ava.

“Uh, I’ll, uh...” she fumbled, “I’ll take the hottest coffee.”

“You’ve got to love it; it’s the best. Thanks the most.” She snapped curtly around and bolted off. Ava and I shared a glance, one of self-congratulation for a conversation well done.

“All of this reminds me,” she said sadly, “of a time when I was still moving from world to world, before I had met Ralph. The point at which I finally noticed ‘the direction’ was when I came upon the world that had had slavery.” She took her eyes off of me and looked past me, unfocused. “It seemed so barbaric to me that human beings would think so worthless other human beings as to put a worth on them.” She paused with a little laugh, her eyes once again snapping back to fix on my eyes. “I guess that doesn’t make much sense.”

“Actually, it does,” I assured her.

“I don’t know. I guess when people didn’t seem important—to others, or even to themselves—that’s the point where I knew I had to stop before it got any worse. And even though slavery had ended over a century earlier, it just showed what the people were capable of.” She rapped her fingers on the tablecloth. She really needed some coffee.

“What made you think of that?” I asked.

“Oh, just looking around. Such a big change. It made me think of my first appreciation of degeneration. When did you first notice things were getting worse?” she asked.

“I saw some deterioration for awhile before it really had dawned on me. In retrospect, I guess it started with my parents. I think I’d still have them today if I hadn’t slid around so much. It’d be nice to hit a layer where they’d be back again.” Now I was the one rapping my fingers, because I really needed some coffee, too. “But I guess I finally noticed in a conscious way, a way that really affected me, when Ava got that bump on her nose.”

“I beg your pardon,” Ava said quizzically.

“No,” I added with a little laugh. “Not you. My girlfriend before she was renamed Abby...after she had replaced Ana.” I stopped and Ava could tell I was looking at the bump on her own nose.

“Oh, stop it,” she blurted. She put her hand on her nose.

“Somehow,” I went on, “this all fits together—you, her...me, him. But I’m afraid it’s a little too complicated for me, even if I do have an extra convolution in my brain or whatever—like John said.”

“I wonder if I have one of those, too,” she said more to herself. Then to me, “Why do you think things are getting worse?” she asked. I could tell by her expression that she had her own pre-conceived ideas but that she was interested in mine.

“I really don’t know, to tell you the truth,” I answered. “I think it could have just as easily gone the other way. I’d like to think it was my exertion with Ava—”

“Who?”

“O.K., with Abby.”

“You mean sex,” she said with a bit of an accusative tone.

“I mean love,” I clarified, wondering why I was always being put on the defensive about this. “Well, whatever. An exertion. I’d like to think it was this exertion that had me make the jump.”

“Like the magnet.”

“Yes, like the magnet.”

“So,” she concluded for me, “you think it was basically a random choice of directions, either good or bad.”

“I guess so. What are your ideas?”

“Well,” she began, “I’m not quite so sure myself. I have to figure all of these worlds co-exist, and we can just cut through. I think that one’s self-serving moves—”

“You mean selfish slides,” I translated.

“Yes. I think that selfish slides put us in a direction, a wave if you will, that can only give us a perspective of the results of our inconsiderate actions, as seen only in realms where these results can be accepted.”

“Or something like that,” I mocked good-naturedly.

“Or something like that,” she agreed with a smile. “It’s like when we slide to profit ourselves in some way, we see the world a little worse off for our actions. To us, it’s just a worse world.”

“You mean we’re not traveling?”

“Oh, we’re traveling alright. I don’t have all the answers, I know.”

“Who would know?”

“Right.” She paused. “Kind of like making yourself look better by making everyone else look bad. That’s kid stuff, I guess, with the bullies and tattle-tales.”

“What about love?” I asked her. “What about sliding for love? Shouldn’t that be considered unselfish? Shouldn’t that take me back the other way.”

“You would think, wouldn’t you,” she answered. “Unless, of course, you started out long before that for just sex.”

“Alright! I admit it. I’m a heathen. O.K.? Is everyone satisfied?” I wasn’t exactly yelling, but my tone was a bit animated.

“Listen,” she comforted, reaching out across the table and touching my hand, “I’m here, too. It’s human nature to do for ourselves. I must have started my direction long, long before I ever noticed. We’re here together now, right?”

“O.K., O.K., I’m not mad,” I reassured her.

“Good.” She thought again about the earlier part of our conversation. “Anyway, like I said, I was stopped dead in my tracks with the slavery thing.”

“When you realized what people there were capable of.”

“Yes,” she said. “They were capable of that.” I could tell she was still amazed.

“Not only of that,” I added, remembering the holocaust, “but capable of much worse. I knew the score with nose bumps and all, but my history book blew me away. It’s was funny how things dawn on you, and then they dawn on you.” I sat with her quietly, still waiting for our order. I kept feeling this thing on my head—oh, yea, I forgot: the ridiculous hat.

“Bothering you, huh?” Ava asked.

“Yes. A stupid device. Actually,” I now whispered, “a stupidest device. Hats are so senseless. And yet, they seem to be so important here, so expected.”

“They are most sensitive here, aren’t they?” she reflected.

“The most,” I said.

“Yes,” she agreed, “the most.”

“Ava,” I called to her softly.

“Yes?”

“Why?”

“Why what?” she asked me back.

“Why did you come here?” Before she had a chance to answer, Eddie strolled up to us for a visit. He maneuvered out a chair and plopped down on it, closer to me.

“Well, Ebest, I guess I can talk to you now that you’re decent,” he said.

“Well why the hell didn’t you wave back to me when we first came in?” I demanded.

“Keep your hat on, pal, O.K.? I don’t even wanna know ya without your cover. So where y’at. Still sleazin’?”

“Sliding,” I corrected. It sure was different hearing Eddie talk without all of those Z’s.

“Oh, yea, slidin’,” he laughed, still sporting that grease-layered cough component to the sound. “You always were the craziest.” He reached over and tugged at the visor on my cap. “You sure picked a white trash hat to wear, huh?” He leaned back into his chair again, looked Ava over, and then turned to me. “And this is...”

“I’m Ava,” Ava offered, holding out her hand. This was regrettable, because she was forced to use her only napkin to remedy the soiling that the handshake had caused.

“So what’re you, his mommy dearest?” Eddie asked her.

“Just a friend,” she stated flatly, her eyes fixed on his in that way that indicates something is taken badly.

“Excuuuse me the most,” he said, laughing again. He popped up, saying, “Time’s up, gotta go, here’s Hap.”

“Huh?” we both said simultaneously.

“Aw, it’s just a Channel Four joke. Don’t let the gris-gris getcha. Ha!” He was back at his cash register within seconds, like none of this had ever happened.

“He knows about your different worlds?” Ava asked me.

“Someone I used to talk to. Someone who didn’t matter.”

“One of the little people,” she said, accusingly. “Y’know, worthless.”

“Please, Ava, cut me some slack. I’m a guy, O.K.? I’m a bachelor guy. And I’m a rich bachelor guy who can slide. Please don’t get into my lack of preoccupation with the downtrodden and all that. I’m no different than any other beer-drinking, girl-chasing college student. I’m getting pretty sick and tired of—”

“Stop, please. I’m sorry. It’s just that, you know, having seen the worse worlds go by, I’m a little sensitive to the callousness of people like—”

“Like me!” I interjected.

“No, like Eddie, I guess.” She then smiled at me, about to tease. “Of course, a little humility on your part...” I glared at her, rekindling my original question. I wasn’t going to let something like Eddie’s interruption save her. I raised my eyebrows in expectation. She knew I still wanted her to explain her following me.

“I’ve come for Ralph,” she finally answered. “You’ve come for your Abby, I’ve come for my Ralph. Is that very hard to understand?” She seemed very defensive.

“I knew that. But having a reason and then doing it are two different things. I guess I meant to ask you why did you actually do it. Ava, he may be dead here and all the way down the line, too. And you left your son.”

“We all take risks based on what’s at stake and what can possibly be gained.”

“What about Les? Who’s got him now? If you left him with John your pop-up will cry kidnap.”

“Ralph’s mother has him. She never did like me—I don’t know why. She probably would in the worlds before. Nevertheless, I gave her full written custody, to her utter delight. I knew this would fulfill her wildest dreams. She’s been wanting Les for years. She even asked me about it right before the funeral. Can you believe that?”

“But you’re his mother. How could she have such a crazy wish?”

“She’s always felt he could be rehabilitated better living with her. Her husband, Ralph’s father, owns part of a physical therapy practice. I heard constantly how they could do for him probably better than our private therapist who was coming out to the house. So the nag’s got him and he’ll be quite O.K. I’m happy for him. She’s been my pain, but she’s always been good to Les. And if she never liked me, she’s certainly not going to like my replacement. There’s no way Ralph’s mother would ever give him back. And the papers my replacement will have to deal with are iron-clad.”

“Even if you return?” I asked.

“If I return, it’ll be with Ralph. His mother won’t give him any trouble about returning Les to the both of us.”

“You’re really expecting to get back, aren’t you?”

“Of course. How could I leave my son forever? I must return. I know I will. Call it a mother’s intuition.”

“And with Ralph?”

“Of course. It’s all a package deal—me, Ralph, and getting back to our Les.”

“And if you return without Ralph?” Ava waved her finger back and forth in front of me, showing her resolve that this was out of the question. “Won’t you miss him?” I asked. “Especially if you never get back,” I added.

“She spoke with the half-baked foresight which had inspired her impromptu stow-away mission. “I’ll have him here. ”

“Oh wait, Ava. Big mistake. Not the same. He’s liable to be worse. C’mon, girl, you left your Les behind.”

“I’m sorry, but everything in me as his mother says it’s just temporary. Besides, the one here lost his mother when I popped up. I’ve got immediate responsibility.”

“Ava, didn’t you think this out before you left? We’ve got work to do—a mission for God’s sake. We can’t do it with a child here, possibly more handicapped than Les is.”

“I was kind of hoping,” she said, lips trembling, eyes filling, “that John here...”

“You mean ‘Jim,’” I corrected.

“Yes—that Jim would watch him. He was our friend there, so I figured he’d be our friend here.”

“The guy who told me to ‘shut the fuck up,’” I said; and I said this too loudly, apparently.

“You talkin’ to me?” asked a voice from the next booth. I instinctively covered my cheek.

Suddenly Ava shrieked as my hat proved no resistance to the fist that accordioned my head into my neck.

And then, without warning, we felt ourselves slide.

“Trouble here?” asked my policeman friend with good advice.

“No, no,” I answered with all haste, eyeing the sign that said, in this new sudden layer, ALL OFFENZIVE ACCOUTREMENTZ TO DENY, THE RIGHT, WE REZERVE, TO ZERVE. Eddie’s Z’s were back.

“Yez,” the waitress sneered. “He’z got a hat on, ozzifer.” I looked around and noticed I was suddenly in a hatless world.

“You filth. Get out. Out,” the ozzifer directed. And then if the waitress didn’t slap the ever living hell out of my other cheek.

“You want the next zlap for here or to go?”

“And Zstay out!” shouted Eddie. Good ol’ Eddie.

“Pretty ugly scenes you create,” Ava told me outside.

“Of course, my fault,” I said, turning to her with my whole body. “I wonder how many Japanese cities got nuked here.” I held my throbbing cheek. “I have a stiff neck from the fist behind me and my face feels like it got caught in an applause machine. Not to mention my shin,” I said as I rubbed my leg.

Now she kissed my newest cheek to make it feel better, and it really did feel better. I leaned against the wall of the coffee shop as she healed me and mothered me. She did not pull very far away from my face after her therapeutic kiss, which set into motion the cliché: my eyes answered her gaze, we were drawn, our lips met—you know the bit.

Almost immediately we stopped each other by popping apart; we had frightened each other. It was worse for me, though, because I was in pain and I was frightened. She and I gave traded nervous little laughs. This was really weird. I kissed a woman twice my age. That was weird enough, but this woman who co-truly existed with my Abby—well, I felt Abby when we kissed. God, this was not “kissin’ on another woman,” exactly. Actually, I didn’t know what it was, but it wasn’t that. And it wasn’t so bad, either. I felt it, I felt the love.

She did too.

“That was so wonderful,” she said to me after considering her feelings. “It wasn’t like kissing Ralph,” she explained, nearing her face close to mine again, “it was kissing Ralph.”

I gulped.

She smiled and backed away to arm’s length. “Where to?” she asked, doing a poor job of dismissing the whole incident.

“We don’t have any choice. We’ve got to check the Les here, I suppose, right?”

“Right,” she responded, relieved, grateful for my answer.

Standing on the corner of our chameleon street, we discussed some logistics. My eyes nervously darted back and forth to see if the world would suddenly become hatted again, or earringed (God, I hope not), or flatulent, or whatever else. When in Reme, I thought...

A rental car was out. If we thought crossing a street as pedestrians was tough, rolling on wheels at high speeds with big machines trying to avoid all the other big machines would be suicide. But we didn’t particularly fancy walking, either, especially after our pin-ball experiences.

We’d take cabs, my ol’ stomping method. I had expressed some reservations about getting enclosed by a lot of metal with a driver who may suddenly be outraged by my diction, but this did seem safest.

Thankfully, our money had changed with our slides, making what we had on hand Base Ten legal tender.

“First thing,” I suggested, “is to get to my bank to draw out some more cash.”

“Oh, I hate to use yours,” she said. “I’m really well fixed. Let me treat for a while.”

“Forget it—I’m rich, too; I’ve got over a couple million from shrewd sliding myself,” I explained. She was still slightly hesitant, like, “oh-let-me-pay-the-check,” which finally relented with the “if you insist.”

We stood in line at the taxi stand in the next block, and when it was our turn, we hailed one the obviously customary way, the way we saw those before us do: by sticking out our thumbs.

“Whaddaya want?” asked the cabby. “Ride of your life or guaranteed deztination?” I knew this guy. This was my famous cabby, Mr. Doublecharge. His hair was a bit greasier, his face a bit more pockmarked, but it was definitely the same character.

“We’d like guaranteed destination,” answered Ava as we climbed in. I was relieved to see this version of him didn’t seem to recognize me.

“That’ll be exztra, fox,” he advised, head reversed at her, eyeing her legs, a black cigarette (thin cigar?) anchoring one corner of his mouth, the voice coming from the other corner. No hat. I checked my money. Still no longer in base two, thank goodness.

“First National, three lights up,” I directed.

“Ain’t no zuch thing,” he said to me, his pile-driving eyes not leaving her. So my bank had changed names, and so had probably my name. I’d deal with that at the bank when I got there.

“That bank, then, whatever the name,” I further directed.

His head snapped back on straight, and he began driving.

“Lazt Word National Bank,” he said, to himself as well as to us. He cocked the flag on his meter.

“How much you gotz?” he asked.

“About twenty dollars,” I said.

“Oh,” he said. “Geez, I don’tz know.”

“You don’t know about what?” Ava asked.

“I don’tz know if that’ll getz you that far, what with guaranteed deztination and all.”

“Let us know when you’ve gone as far as the money’ll take us,” I said, solving that problem.

This was a bad world. These people were crazy. People were treated with such a casual disregard for courtesy and decorum. I just knew that I was going to get slapped up again before the end of this ride. I noticed the large high school ring on the driver’s right hand. Yes, it was a bad world.

Before, I had been dismayed by the uglier direction sliding had taken, and then concerned at the often cruel tendencies of the layer I had left behind—my Abby’s launch layer, the magnet layer—with its children on milk cartons, its double nuclear nudge to the Japanese, its holocaust. At least for the most part, most people strove to make it make sense, and some could even, with the mixed bag of loveliness and tragedy, still try to call it a beautiful world.

This direction, though, was getting even worse, as impossible as that seemed. There was cruelty going further down this direction, too. But now was added the murderous quality of senselessness. Wear no hat, get slapped silly. Wear a hat, offend the police—guys with guns! To Protect and to Zerve the hatless.

Senseless responses, senseless cause-and-effect, senseless relationships. And for this reason, I dreaded what Ava might find in her son here. How had her pop-up raised him? I mean it takes tireless hope and the patience of a saint to raise a child—much less one handicapped—where we came from. How might that child have suffered in a place like this? I wondered if Ava had thought these thoughts. Of course she had; after all, she wasn’t a stupid mother. She was a true exister who had been sliding her whole life, too, until stopped in the layer I had met her in, her Ralph Ebe’s layer.

(Because my late co-true exister had been named Ralph Ebe in a layer innumerable layers down from the one I had been named Ralph Ebe in, innumerable layers after I had graduated summa cum laude, I wondered if those two Ralph-Ebe layers, separated by vast expanses of subtle degradation, were related. A layer wormhole? A short cut?)

“Time’z running out on guaranteed deztination, sportz fanz,” the cabby informed us.

“No problem,” I told him, expecting him to let us out at the appropriate endpoint of our cash. He spoke again.

“The only way to makez it work iz to tranzfer the meter to the cheaper mode.”

“Which is...” I cued Ava nervously.

“...ride of our lives,” she finished, as we each went for a door handle on our respective sides.

We had each succeeded in opening the doors a crack before the sudden acceleration slammed them shut and us back into the seat. If I hadn’t been about to die, I’d have appreciated the considerable talent this driver had. When you can cleverly play the clutch, brake, and accelerator in such a way as to make the car buck at sixty miles an hour in downtown traffic, including turns, of which there were too many, then I, while surviving, am impressed.

Thump!

“He waz azking for it,” laughed the driver, referring to the pedestrian foot he had clipped. I spun my head around, wrenching my forgotten stiff neck to see a man hopping mad and shaking his fist. Ava clutched me even more tightly than the car’s clutch was pumped. The car screeched to a halt, a rear bumper of a parked car none the better as it provided the final damper for our landing.

“Ya lucked out, crew,” he said to us, turning and draping his brush-burned elbows over his seat. “Lookz like you gotz the ride of your livez and your deztination. Lookz like my day’z off to a bad start.” It was amazing how the vertebrate long ash still had not fallen off of his cigarette butt during the gravity swings. He winked, and it then did fall cold on Ava’s knee. He snatched the cash as we bailed out.

Last Word National Bank had a revolving door, like my same bank had, but it was beaten up and wooden, not gold-brushed metal like before. We shared the same spinning wedge as we walked in, Ava sure that paying through the nose for guaranteed destination was the way to go from now on. She was developing a little nervous laugh, a tic that I knew didn’t mean she thought anything was funny.

As we lined up, I pulled out my wallet to see how my ID may have changed through the slides. There was my picture, thankfully hatless, with my new name.

Ralph Ebe! Again! Ava eyed it, then held it, and then she looked at me.

“I’m not going to get weird about this,” she said, her Ralph obviously on her mind. “Instead,” she continued, “I’m going to relate to it, appreciate it, even enjoy it. I call you Ralph starting now.”

Who was I to argue. That was my name before. Ava, on the other hand, indicated to me that she had brought no ID with her.

“Just a face without a name in a hatless world,” I teased.

“My name is Ava—always has been.”

“Oh, yea,” I said. “I’m the true exister who changes names.” I considered our trip so far. “It looks like names around you, though, are changing, just like they’ve always changed around for me.”

“Yes,” she realized, “that is tough to keep straight. New for me. You did this to me.”

“All iz in order, Mr. Ebe; come thiz way,” said the smiling blond bank officer (ozzifer), my credentials having been presented to him after waiting our turn in line.

And some line. A queue is a queue, but lately in these layers, there seems to have been a slight breakdown in line etiquette. If you’ve ever been to Italy, you know what I mean. Unlike Italy, however, the bank offered no fine eating. Not even toasters. And, as I was informed, it did not even offer my money.

“What!” I shouted.

“Mr. Ebe, calm down,” said the bank ozzifer.

“I’ll calm down when you give me my money.”

“Trouble here?” a security guard asked, approaching both of us, our position reactively semi-seated at the desk. Ava nudged me hard, reminding me that it was possible to add to my list of injuries.

“Ow!”

“No, sir,” offered Ava to the guard.

“Good,” said the bank ozzifer, stacking a neat deck of correspondence, and then he continued. “Having been lizted PNG, we were, regrettably, forzed to pay you negative interezt.”

“Excuse me?” I asked. “PNG?”

“PNG, Mr. Ebe. Pecunia non grata.”

“Yes?”

“Your money or your businezz, we don’t want.” The ensuing silence was my fault, as the ball was in my court. Finally...

“Why not?”

“An ezplanation we don’t have to give.”

Now this rang a bell, not so much what he had said, but how he had said it. Last layer, the hatted layer, was the superior layer. Everything was the best, the orangest, and so on. Next thing, we were slid into the hatless layer, with all the zs and sentence inversions, like All Offenzive Accoutrementz To Deny, The Right, We Rezerve, To Zerve. I, of course, got clobbered in both. This was, I vowed, to always be an important consideration, especially with the reminder of a security guard, a polizeman, standing near.

“Well, if you don’t want my money or my biz-ness,” I offered, “let’s have it. Hand it over. No problem.

“No problem,” I repeated more loudly, but I smiled stiffly, for the benefit of the guard.

“Well, zir, that’z it juzt,” he stammered, nervous with apology. “If it weren’t for negative interezt, no interezt you’d have at all,” he said, now mustering up a wry tone which made the lyrical quality of the inversions stand out all the more.

“Look, I’ve had about enough—”

“Zit down!” Ava commanded, and then turned to the banker. “Please just explain to us where is the money so we can have it.”

“You zee, I’m afraid we were forzed to pay negative interezt, at a high yield rate.”

“Highezt yieldz in the state,” the guard boasted proudly. The banker continued.

“Over the pazt few weekz, we’ve had to abzorb all of it. It’z our Bank Appreziation Plan your azzountant directed uz to do. Of courze, he getz hiz cut.”

“Of courze! The sleazy baztard!” I had been embezzled.

“You’ll rezeive a bill for the paper work. I azzume you’re at the same addrezz.”

“I think zo,” I answered, investing in the vernacular. “What is the addrezz you have?”

“Arnold Building, Riverzcape.”

“Ah, yez,” I said. Arnold Building. It’z the zame. Well, it certainly waz a pleazure dealing with your bank.”

“Why, thank you,” he told me.

“Just one lazt question,” I said. Ava gave me a “Don’t start” look.

“Yez?”

“If I were to take out a big, fat loan at your larcenouz bank, could I get a negative interezt rate, one that paid me more the longer I kept the money? And could thiz gentleman in the uniform give you hiz gun so that you could do thiz zort of thing properly?”

And the guy slapped me in the head. Real hard. And the guard escorted us out as the crowd of customers gawked. And then he slapped me, too. Damn! And then he kicked my ass.

Ava helped me get up. By this time the boot trooper had revolved back in through the sit-on-this-and-rotating door.

I rubbed my head and Ava rubbed my behind, which was almost worth it.

“I guess this bank has the last word,” she said to me.

“Let’s rob it,” I suggested.

“Let’s not,” she retorted, taking me seriously. “Let’s go to my house here and pick up Les. Then let’s take you home to “Riverscape,” where we can catch some Zs.”