Oreste Miandros strolls by wearing
steel-rimmed sunglasses with quicksilver lenses, ranting to himself about
problems with the pool. 
The sort of person who finds pubic hair in his tooth paste. He
says I'm half the man he is, that twice-a-day Godfrey, puffing his sunken
chest like a brain in my tongue, pulling at his trousers, walking twice a
day. I'm twice the man at half the day, all the days for my rest of my
price. Half the man at twice the life to kick my ass all around his face,
that dirty mind, telling everybody to kiss his sock behind my broken
baseball bat. A lumpfish bursts into Oreste's scream of unconsiousness,
face laced in snakeskin. It's Elephant Gerald, palming a tape recorder, as
excitable as a sea lion on Vicks inhalers. He has spent the last 24 hours
recording his television saying goodbye to Picasso. While comparing a
rough cut of Al Pacino to Picasso's portrait of Gertrude Stein, a woman
wearing pearls over her sweat shirt rushes home to check the value of her
art collection.It was a good excuse--the night before. Monte
Cazazza burned a cat during a performance by Tom Marioni. But now Hazel
ices over. She stares out the window as if eyesight 
doesn't matter any more. O'Gatty knows the
guest's expressions, and this one means the police can't unweave Socco's
arms and legs from the wrought iron gates; so instead of arresting him,
gate and all, they are going to accept his alibi--that he only recently
returned from Hell. Glaring in his eyes is a fierce madness. His head is a
frozen planet scrunched between brown blades. I been to Hell, man, six
fucking days. I get up on a chair in the center of my room, and I reach up
and touch Jeez
Cries in my light bulb, man. And Jeez lights up inside me. And he says,
here Socco, take this--this is my money, I am loaning for you. Socco
squints at O'Gatty and spits, stares into the spaghetti western sun and
says, Jeez Cries says to tell your lifeguard to leave my Pretty Mary
alone. Otherwise he's coming back, and this time he's gonna kick some
ass.