The fiddler and the joker spent too much time in the balcony. Tess up and took the carriage and left them to wander in the wretched mist outside the abbey. A leper crawled from the shadows and pleaded for absolution. The joker rendered it with a vanilla wafer and then knighted him with his battery driven vibrator. The fiddler sweated out a sentimental lay and a squad of policemen came to disperse the growing mob.
Some kid with a suggestion of a beard sat down on the curbstone and started to draw. This lurching wino with a red beard and dark glasses peered across his shoulder. Unzipped and pissed onto the kid’s pad. There followed a fight. The wino lost two finger to the kid’s angry knife. I think the wino, who used to be able to draw rather well, died. I think the kid died too. It was just two column inches in the Daily News.
The phone rang. Tristan reached across the sleeping form of his beloved and lifted the perfect object from its holy cradle. Yes? Blake? Yes? We got a beached whale down at the cove. Ya coming?
Tristan dressed in five. He threw some water into his eyes and stopped just long enough to creep his tongue into Isolte’s ear. Back soon’s I can. Her lip curled in maybe a smile maybe a snarl and he was out the door.
He smelled the thing even before he saw it. It lay on its back, in five feet of water, looking like an Oldenburg doorstop. He pinched with his thumb and fingers its rubbery side. It made him think dark thoughts about his first wife. As the other geeks from the Society measured and took blood samples, a municipal employee was dialing pet food companies.