I stood next to him in silence and held my NASA gla.s.s with the toothbrush and looked out over the top of Stice's head through the window's upper half. The snowfall was intense and looked silky. The East Courts' pavilion's green canvas roof bowed ominously down, its white GATORADE logo obscured. A figure was out there, not under the shelter of the pavilion but sitting in the bleachers behind the east Show Courts, leaning back with his elbows on one level and bottom on the next and feet stretched out below, not moving, wearing what seemed to be puffy and bright enough to be a coat, but getting buried by snow, just sitting there. It was impossible to tell the person's age or s.e.x. Church spires off in Brookline were darkening as the sky lightened behind them. The beginning of dawn looked like moonlight through the snow. Several people were at their vehicles' windshields with sc.r.a.pers down along Commonwealth Avenue. Their images were tiny and dark and fluttered; the Avenue's line of buried parked cars looked like igloo after igloo, some sort of Eskimo tract-housing thing. It had never before snowed like this in mid-November. A snow-covered B train labored uphill like a white slug. It seemed clear that the T would be suspending routes before long. The snow and cold sunrise gave everything a confected quality. The portcullis between the driveway and the parking lot was half up, probably to keep it from being frozen closed. I couldn't see who was in the portcullis's security booth. The attendants always came and went, most of them from the Ennet House place, trying to 'recover.' The flagpole's two flags were frozen and stuck right out straight, turning stiffly from side to side in the wind, like someone in a neck-brace, instead of flapping. The E.T.A. physical-post mailbox just inside the portcullis had a mo-hawk of snow. The whole scene had an indescribable pathos to it. Stice's fogged breath kept me from seeing anything closer than the mailbox and East Courts. The light was starting to diffract into colors at the perimeter of Stice's breath-fog on the window.

'Schacht heard that joke down at the Cranial place from some B.U. fellow with just terrible facial pain, he said,' Stice said.

'I'm going to go ahead and ask the question, D-man.'

'It's a statistics joke. You got to know your medials means and modes.'

'I get the joke, Orth. The question is how come you've got your forehead all up against the window like that when your breath's keeping you from seeing anything. What are you trying to look at? And isn't your forehead getting kind of cold?'

Stice didn't nod. He made his horse-sound again. He had always had the face of a fat man on a fit man's lean body. I hadn't noticed before that he had an odd little teardrop of extra flesh low down on his right jowl, like a bit of skin with mole-aspirations. He said 'The forehead stopped feeling cold a couple hours back, when I lost all my feeling in it.'

'You've been sitting here with bare feet and your forehead against the gla.s.s for a couple hours? hours?'

'More like four, I think.'

I could hear a night-custodial crew laughing and clanking a bucket right below us. Only one was laughing. It was Kenkle and Brandt.

'My next question's pretty obvious, then, Orth.'

He gave another awkward shrug that didn't involve his head. 'Well. It's sort of embarra.s.sing, here, Inc,' he said. He paused. 'It's stuck is what it is.'

'Your forehead's stuck to the window?'

'Best as I can recollect I wake up, it's just after 0100, f.u.c.kin Coyle's having them discharges again and there's no sleeping through that, boy.'

'I shudder to think, Orth.'

'And Coyle 'course just doesn't even hit the light just hauls out a fresh sheet from the stack under his bunk and goes right back to sawing logs. And I'm wide awake by this point in time, though, and then I couldn't get back under.'

'Couldn't get back to sleep.'

'Something's real wrong, I can tell,' The Darkness said.

'Pre-Fundraiser nerves? The WhataBurger coming up? You feel yourself starting to climb plateaux, starting to play the way you came here hoping one day to play, and part of you doesn't believe it, it feels wrong. I went through this. Believe me, I can und-'

Stice automatically tried to shake his head and then gave a small cry of pain. 'Not that. None of that. Long f.u.c.king story. I'm not even sure I'd want anybody to believe it. Forget that part. The point's I'm up there - I'm lying there real sweaty and hot and jittered. I jump on down and got a chair and brang it out here to set where it's cool.'

'And where you don't have to lie there and contemplate Coyle's sheet slowly ripening under his bunk,' I said, shuddering a little.

'And it's just starting to snow, then, out. It's about maybe like 0100. I thought how I'd just set and watch the snow a little and settle on down and then go grab some sack down in the V.R.' He scratched at the reddening back of his scalp again.

'And as you watched, you rested your head pensively against the gla.s.s for just a second.'

'And that was all she wrote. Forgot the forehead was sweated up. Whammo. Kertw.a.n.ged my own self. Just like remember when Rader and them got Ingersoll to touch his tongue on that net-post last New Year's? Stuck here f.u.c.king tight as that tongue, Hal. h.e.l.l of a lot more total stuck area, too, than Ingersoll. He only did lose that smidgeon off the tip. Inc, I tried to pull her off her about 0230, and there was this f.u.c.king... sound sound. This sound and a feeling like the skin'll give before the bind will, sure. Frozen stuck. And this here's more skin than I care to say goodbye to, buddy-ruff.' He was speaking just above a whisper.

'Jesus, and you've just been sitting here all this time.'

'Well s.h.i.t I was embarra.s.sed. And it never got quite bad enough to yell out. I kept thinking if it gets a little worse I'll go on and yell out. And then along about 03 I quit feeling the forehead altogether.'

'You've just been sitting here waiting for someone to happen along. Chanting quietly to keep up your courage.'

'I was just praying like h.e.l.l it wouldn't be Pemulis. G.o.d only knows what that son of a wh.o.r.e'd've thunk of to do to me here all helpless and immobilated. And Troeltsch is sawing logs just inside that door there, with his f.u.c.king mike and cable and ambitions. I've been praying he don't wake up. And let's don't even mention mention that son of a b.i.t.c.h Freer.' that son of a b.i.t.c.h Freer.'

I looked at the door. 'But that's Axhandle's single. What would Troeltsch be doing sleeping in Axhandle's room?'

Ortho shrugged. 'Trust that I've had plenty of time to listen and identify different folks' snores, Inc.'

I looked from Stice to Axford's door and back. 'So you've just been sitting here listening to sleep-noises and watching your breath expand and freeze on the window?' I said. Imagining it seemed somehow unendurable: me just sitting there, stuck, well before sunrise, alone, too embarra.s.sed to call out, my own exhalations fouling the window and denying me even a view to divert attention from the horror. I stood there horrified, admiring The Darkness's b.a.l.l.sy calm.

'There was a kind of real bad half-hour when my upper lip up and got stuck too, in the breath, when the breath froze. But I breathed the sucker loose. I breathed real hot and fast. G.o.dd.a.m.n near hyper-v'd. I was scared if I pa.s.sed out I'd slump on forward and the whole face'd get stuck. G.o.dd.a.m.n forehead's bad enough.'

I put my toothbrush and NASA gla.s.s down on the cantilevered vent-module. Rooms' vents were recessed, hallway-vents protrusive. E.T.A.'s annular heating system produced a lubricated hum I had stopped really hearing years ago. The Headmaster's House still had oil heat; it always sounded like a maniac was hammering at the pipes far below.

'Dark, prepare yourself mentally,' I said. 'I'm going to help pull you loose.'

Stice didn't seem to hear this. He seemed oddly preoccupied for a man occlusively sealed to a frozen window. He was feeling at the back of his head with real vigor, which is what he did when he was preoccupied. 'You believe in s.h.i.t, Hal?'

's.h.i.t?' 'I don't know. Little-kid s.h.i.t. Telekiniption. Ghosts. Parabnormal s.h.i.t.'

'Just going to get around behind you and yank and we'll pop you right off,' I said.

'Somebody did come by before,' he said. 'There was somebody standing back there about maybe an hour back. But he just stood there. Then he went away. Or... it.' A full-body shiver.

'It'll be like that last little bit of ankle-tape. We'll pull you back so hard and fast you won't feel a thing.'

'I'm getting these real unpleasant memories of that piece of Ingersoll's tongue on Nine's net-post that stayed there til spring.'

'This is no saliva-and-subzero-metal situation, Dark. This is some freakish occlusive seal. Gla.s.s doesn't conduct heat like metal conducts heat.'

'There ain't too f.u.c.king much heat involved in this window right here, buddy-ruff.'

'And I'm not sure what you mean, paranormal paranormal. I believed in vampires when I was small. Himself allegedly used to see his father's ghost on stairways sometimes, but then again toward the end he used to see black-widow spiders in his hair, too, and claimed I wasn't speaking sometimes when I was sitting right there speaking to him. So we kind of wrote it all off. Orth, I guess I don't know what to think about paranormal s.h.i.t.'

'Then plus I think something bit me. On the back of the head here, some bug that knew I was helpless and couldn't see.' Stice dug again at the red area behind his ear. There was a kind of weltish b.u.mp there. It wasn't in a vampire-related area of the neck.

'And good old Mario says he's seen paranormal figures, and he's not kidding, and Mario doesn't lie,' I said. 'So belief-wise I don't know what to think. Subhadronic particles behave ghostishly. I think I withhold all prejudgment on the whole thing.'

'Well all right then. It was good it was you come by then.'

'The big thing's going to be to stiffen the old neck, Dark, to avoid whiplash. We'll pull you off there like a cork from a bottle of Moet.'

'Pull my sorry a.s.s off here, Inc, and I'll take and show you some parab-normal s.h.i.t that'll shake your personal tree but good,' Stice said, bracing. ''n't said nothing to n.o.body but Lyle about it, and I'm sick of the secretness of it. You won't pre-formulize any judgments, Inc, I know.'

'You're going to be fine,' I said. I got right behind Stice and bent slightly and got an arm around his chest. His wooden chair creaked as I braced my knee against it. Stice began breathing fast and hard. His parot.i.tic jowls flapped a little as he breathed. Our cheeks were almost pressed together. I told him I was going to pull on the count of Three. I actually pulled on Two, so he couldn't brace himself. I pulled back as hard as I could, and after a stutter of resistance Stice pulled back with me.

There was a horrible sound. The skin of his forehead distended as we yanked his head back. It stretched and distended until a sort of shelf of stretched forehead-flesh half a meter long extended from his head to the window. The sound was like some sort of elastic from h.e.l.l. The dermis of Stice's forehead was still stuck fast, but the abundant loose flesh of Stice's bulldog face had risen and gathered to stretch and connect his head to the window. And for a second I saw what might be considered Stice's real face, his features as they would be if not encased in loose jowly prairie flesh: as every mm. of spare flesh was pulled up to his forehead and stretched, I got a glimpse of Stice as he would appear after a radical face-lift: a narrow, fine-featured, and slightly rodential face, aflame with some sort of revelation, looked out at the window from beneath the pink visor of stretched spare skin.

All this took place in less than second. For just an instant we both stayed there, straining backward, listening to the little Rice-Krispie sound of his skin's collagen-bundles stretching and popping. His chair was leaning way back on its two rear legs. Then Stice shrieked in pain: 'Jesus G.o.d put it back! back!' The little second face's blue eyes protruded like cartoon eyes. The fine little thin-lipped second mouth was a round coin of pain and fear.

'Put it back put it back put it back!' Stice yelled.

I couldn't just let go, though, for fear that the elastic stretch would snap Stice forward into the window and send his face through the gla.s.s. I eased him forward, watching the chair's front legs descend slowly to the floor; and the tension of the forehead's skin decreased, and Stice's full fleshy round face reappeared over the small second face, and covered it, and we eased him forward until nothing but a few centimeters of decollagenated forehead-skin hanging and sagging at about eyelash-level remained as evidence of the horrific stretch.

'Jesus G.o.d,' Stice panted.

'You are really and truly stuck, Orth.'

'f.u.c.k me skating skating did that ever hurt.' did that ever hurt.'

I tried to rotate a kink out of my shoulder. 'We're going to have to thaw it off, Dark.'

'You're not getting close to this forehead with a saw, bud. I'll set right-cheer till spring first, see if I don't.'

Then Jim Troeltsch's towering A.M.-cowlick and then face and fist emerged through Axford's doorway just over Stice's hunched shoulder. Stice had been right. Being in somebody else's room even after Lights Out was an infraction; staying there overnight was too far out even to mention in the regulations. 'Reports of screaming have reached us here in the Eyewitness News-Center,' Troeltsch said into his fist.

'The f.u.c.k out of here, Troeltsch,' Stice said.

'Thaw, Ortho. Warm water. Heat the window. Hot water. Dissolve the adhesion. Heating pad. Hot pack from Loach's office or something.' Ortho. Warm water. Heat the window. Hot water. Dissolve the adhesion. Heating pad. Hot pack from Loach's office or something.'

'Loach's door can't be d.i.c.kied,' Stice said. 'Don't wake him up on Fundraiser day yet.'

Troeltsch extended the fist. 'Reports of high-pitched screams have led this reporter to an unfolding scene of dramatic crisis, and we're going to attempt to get a word with the youngster at the center of all the commotion.'

'Tell him to pipe down and get back with that hand or so help me Jesus, Hal.'

'The Darkness accidentally put his forehead against the window here when it was wet and it froze and he's been out here stuck all night,' I told Troeltsch, ignoring the big fist he held to my face. I squeezed Stice's shoulder. 'I'll go get Brandt to rig something warm.'

It was as if some tacit agreement had been reached not even to bring up Troeltsch's being in Axford's room or where Axford was. It was hard to know which would be more disturbing, Axford's not being in his room all night or Axford being in there behind the ajar door, meaning Troeltsch and Axford had both spent the night in one small single with exactly one bed. The universe seemed to have aligned itself so that even acknowledging it would violate some tacit law. Troeltsch seemed oblivious to any appearance of impropriety or unthinkable possibilities. It was hard to imagine he'd be this obnoxious if he felt he had something to be discreet about. He was standing on tiptoe to see over the window's breath-line, one hand cupped over his ear as if to hold a headset. He whistled softly. 'Plus in addition now reports of mind-boggling snowfall are coming in to the News-Center.'

I grabbed my toothbrush and NASA gla.s.s from the vent's protrusion; since the Betel Caper, 352 352 only the worst kind of naif leaves his toothbrush unattended around E.T.A. 'Keep an eye on Stice and my NASA gla.s.s right there, Jim, if you would.' only the worst kind of naif leaves his toothbrush unattended around E.T.A. 'Keep an eye on Stice and my NASA gla.s.s right there, Jim, if you would.'

'Any comment on the mixture of pain, cold, embarra.s.sment, and weather-related feelings you must be feeling, Mr. Stice is it?'

'Don't leave me immobilated with Troeltsch, man, Hal. He's going to make me talk to his hand.'

'A weather-related drama unfolding around the original plight of an embarra.s.sed man trapped by his own forehead,' Troeltsch was saying into his fist, facing his own reflection in the window, trying with the other big hand to quash the cowlick, as I trotted and slid to a stop in my socks just past the door to the stairwell.

Kenkle and Brandt were ageless in the special desiccated way janitors are ageless, somewhere between thirty-five and sixty. They were inseparable and essentially unemployable. Boredom had years ago led us to Lateral Alice Moore's minimally crypto-protected employee files, and Brandt's file had listed his S.-B. I.Q. as Submoronic-to-Moronic. He was bald and somehow at once overweight and wiry. Both right and left temples carried red jagged surgical scars of unknown origin. His affective range consisted of different intensities of grin. He lived with Kenkle in an attic apartment in Roxbury Crossing overlooking Madison Park High School's locked and cordoned playground, famed site of unsolved ritual mutilations in the Year of the Perdue Wonderchicken. His major attraction for Kenkle seemed to consist in the fact that he neither walked away nor interrupted when Kenkle was speaking. Even in the stairwell I could hear Kenkle discoursing on their Thanksgiving plans and directing Brandt's mop-work. Kenkle was technically black, as in Negroid, though he was more the burnt-sienna color of a spoiled pumpkin. But his hair was a black person's hair, and he wore it in thick dreadlocks that looked like a crown of wet cigars. An academic diamond in the very rough Roxbury Crossing, he'd received his doctorate in low-temperature physics from U.Ma.s.s. at twenty-one and taken a prestigious sinecure at the U.S. Office of Naval Research, then at twenty-three had been court-martialed out of the O.N.R. for offenses that changed each time you asked him. Some event between twenty-one and twenty-three seemed to have broken him at several strategic points, and he'd retreated from Bethesda back to the front stoop of his old Roxbury Crossing apartment building, where he read Ba'hai texts whose jackets he covered with intricately folded newspaper, and spat spectacular parabolas of quivering phlegm into New Dudley Street. He was dark-freckled and carbuncular and afflicted with excess phlegm. He was an incredible spitter, and alleged his missing incisors had been removed 'for facilitating the expec-toratory process.' We all suspected he was either hypomanic or 'drine-addicted or both. His expression was very serious at all times. He discoursed nonstop to poor Brandt, using spit as a sort of conjunction between clauses. He spoke loudly because they both wore earplugs of expanding foam - people's nightmare-cries gave them the fantods. Their custodial technique consisted of Kenkle spitting with pinpoint accuracy onto whatever surface Brandt was to clean next and Brandt trotting like a fine hunting dog from glob to glob, listening and grinning, laughing when appropriate. They were moving away from me down the hall toward the second floor's east window, Brandt making great shining arcs with his doll's-head mop, Kenkle pulling the gunmetal bucket and lobbing signifying phlegm over Brandt's bent back.

'And then the Yuletide season, Brandt my friend Brandt - Christmas - Christmas morning - What is the essence of Christmas morning but the childish co-eval of venereal interface, for a child? - A present, Brandt - Something you have not earned and which formerly was out of your possession is now in your po-ssession - Can you sit there and try to say there is no symbolic rela-tion between unwrapping a Christmas present and undressing a young lady?'

Brandt bobbed and mopped, uncertain whether to laugh.

Himself had met Kenkle and Brandt on the T (Kenkle and Brandt apparently rode the T at night, recreationally), trying somehow to make it up to Enfield from the Back Bay via the Orange Line, 353 353 and somewhat the worse for wear. Kenkle and Brandt not only got Himself onto the right color train and kept him propped up between them all the way up the eternity of Comm. Ave., they'd seen him safely down the T-stop's steep iron stairs and across traffic and up the hill's serpentine driveway to the portcullis, and had been invited in at 0200 by Himself to continue whatever low-temperature discussion he and Kenkle had been having as Brandt carried Himself up the hill in a fireman's carry (Kenkle recalls that night's discussion being about the human nose as an erectile organ, but the only really sure bet is that it was one-sided); and the duo had ended up being cast as black-veiled Noh-style attendants in Himself's and somewhat the worse for wear. Kenkle and Brandt not only got Himself onto the right color train and kept him propped up between them all the way up the eternity of Comm. Ave., they'd seen him safely down the T-stop's steep iron stairs and across traffic and up the hill's serpentine driveway to the portcullis, and had been invited in at 0200 by Himself to continue whatever low-temperature discussion he and Kenkle had been having as Brandt carried Himself up the hill in a fireman's carry (Kenkle recalls that night's discussion being about the human nose as an erectile organ, but the only really sure bet is that it was one-sided); and the duo had ended up being cast as black-veiled Noh-style attendants in Himself's Zero-Gravity Tea Ceremony, Zero-Gravity Tea Ceremony, and had been menially employed at E.T.A. ever since, though always on the graveyard shift, since Mr. Harde loathed Kenkle with a pa.s.sion. and had been menially employed at E.T.A. ever since, though always on the graveyard shift, since Mr. Harde loathed Kenkle with a pa.s.sion.

Kenkle hawked and hit a small strip of dust at the crease of baseboard and floor that the mop's arc had missed. 'For I am a missionary man, Brandt, is what I am - Brandt - as in give me the straight-forward venereal in-terface of missionary congress or give me nihil and zilch - You know what I am saying? - Give me your best thoughts on alter-native positions, Brandt - Brandt - For me, for my part at least, I say nix and nihil on the rear-entry or you might hear it termed Dog- or Canine-Style in-terface so favored in huts, blue car-tridges, Tan-tric etchings - Brandt, it's animal-istic - Why? - Why you say? - Brandt, it is an ess-entially hunched hunched way to have interface - She hunches, you hunch over her - Inordi way to have interface - She hunches, you hunch over her - Inordinate ly too much hunching, to my own way of -' ly too much hunching, to my own way of -'

It was Brandt who heard me as I came up behind them in socks, trying to keep to the drier patches. I almost slipped twice. It was still coming down hard outside the east window.

'Otto Brandt here!' Brandt called to me, extending a hand, though I was still several meters away.

Kenkle's dreadlocks protruded from under a plaid hat. He turned with Brandt and raised his hand Indianishly in greeting. 'Good prince Hal. Up and dressed in dawn's ear-a-ly.'

'Let me introduce myself,' Brandt said. I shook his hand.

'In his socks and toothbrush. E.T.A.'s athe-ling, Brandt, whom I will wager rar-e-ly hunches.'

'The Darkness needs you guys upstairs ASAP,' I said, trying to dry a sock against a pant-leg. 'Dark's face is stuck to the window and he's in terrible pain and we couldn't pull it off and it's going to take hot water, but not too hot.' I indicated the bucket at Kenkle's feet. I noticed Kenkle's shoes didn't match.

'What may we ask is so amusing, then?' Kenkle asked.

'Name's Brandt and pleased to meet you,' Brandt said, out with the hand again. He dropped the mop where Kenkle pointed.

'Troeltsch is with him now, but he's in a bad way,' I said, shaking Brandt's hand.

'We are in route,' Kenkle said, 'but why the hilarity?'

'What hilarity?'

Kenkle looked from me to Brandt to me. 'What hilarity he says. Your face is a hilarity-face. It's working hilariously. At first it merely looked a a -mused. Now it is open-ly -mused. Now it is open-ly cach cach -inated. You are almost doubled over. You can barely get your words out. You're all but slapping your knee. -inated. You are almost doubled over. You can barely get your words out. You're all but slapping your knee. That That hilarity, good Prince atheling Hal. I thought all you players were compadre-mundos in civilian life.' hilarity, good Prince atheling Hal. I thought all you players were compadre-mundos in civilian life.'

Brandt beamed as he backed down the hall. Kenkle pushed his plaid cap back to scratch at some sort of eruption at the hairline. I drew myself up to full height and consciously composed my face into something deadly-somber. 'How about now?'

Brandt had the custodial closet unlocked. There was the sound of a metal bucket being filled at the closet's industrial tap.

Kenkle brought his cap back forward and narrowed his eyes at me. He came up close. His eyelashes were clotted with small crisp yellow flakes. There were Struck-like facial cysts in various stages of development. Kenkle's breath always smelled vaguely of egg salad. He felt at his mouth speculatively for a moment and said 'Somewheres now between amused and cach-inated. Mirth-ful, perhaps. The crinkled eyes. The dimples of mirth. The exposed gums. We can bounce this off Brandt's best thinking as well, if -'

From directly overhead came a ceiling-rattling 'GYAAAAAAA' from Stice. I was feeling at my face. Some doors opened along the hall, heads protruding. Brandt had a full metal bucket and was trying to run to the stairwell, the weight of the bucket canting his shoulder and steaming water sloshing onto the clean floor. He stopped with his hand on the stairwell door and looked back over his shoulder at us, reluctant to proceed without Kenkle.

'I elect to go with mirthful, mirthful,' Kenkle said, giving my shoulder a little squeeze as he stepped past. I heard him saying different things to the heads in the doorways all the way down the hall.

'Jesus,' I said. Socks or no, I went forward into the really wet mopped area and tried to make out my face's expression in the east window. It was now too light, though, outside, off all the snow. I looked sketchy and faint to myself, tentative and ghostly against all that blazing white.

PARTIAL TRANSCRIPT OF WEATHER-DELAYED MEETING BETWEEN:.

(1) MR. RODNEY TINE SR., CHIEF OF UNSPECIFIED SERVICES & WHITE HOUSE ADVISER ON INTERDEPENDENT RELATIONS; (2) MS. MAUREEN HOOLEY, VICE-PRESIDENT FOR CHILDREN'S ENTERTAINMENT, INTERLACE TELENTERTAINMENT, INC.; (3) MR. CARL E. ('BUSTER') YEE, DIRECTOR OF MARKETING AND PRODUCT-PERCEPTION, GLAD FLACCID RECEPTACLE CORPORATION; (4) MR. R. TINE JR., DEPUTY REGIONAL COORDINATOR, U.S. OFFICE OF UNSPECIFIED SERVICES; AND (5) MR. P. TOM VEALS, VINEY AND VEALS ADVERTISING, UNLTD. 8TH FLOOR STATE HOUSE ANNEX BOSTON MA, U.S.A 20 NOVEMBER - YEAR OF THE DEPEND ADULT UNDERGARMENT M MR. T TINE S SR.: Tom. Buster. Mo.MR. V VEALS: R. the G.MR. Y YEE: Rod.MR. T TINE S SR.: Guys.MR. T TINE J JR.: Afternoon, Chief!MR. T TINE S SR.: Mmmph.Ms. HOOLEY: Glad you could finally get in, Rod. May I say we're all extremely excited, on our end.MR. T TINE S SR.: Never seen snow like this. Any of you ever seen snow remotely approaching anything like this?MR. V VEALS: [Sneezes.] f.u.c.king town.MR. Y YEE: Like an extra dimension out there. Less an element than its own dimension.SOMEONE: [Shoe makes a squelching noise under the table.] [Shoe makes a squelching noise under the table.]MR. Y YEE: With its own rules, laws. Awe-inspiring. Fearsome.MR. V VEALS: Cold. Wet. Deep. Slippery. More like.MR. T TINE J JR.: [Tapping the edge of a ruler against the tabletop.] Their limo in from Logan did a 180 on Storrow. Mr. Yee was just telling - M MR. T TINE S SR.: [Tapping a telescoping weatherman's pointer against the edge of the tabletop.] So what's the p.o.o.p. The skinny. What are we talking. Ms. H Ms. HOOLEY: Spot ready for previewing. We need your go. I'm in from Phoenix via New New York.MR. Y YEE: I'm in from Ohio. Choppered up from NNY with Mo here.Ms. HOOLEY: Spot's master's in the post-production lab down at V&V. All ready except for some final bugs with the matteing.MR. V VEALS: Maureen says we need you and Buster's green light to disseminate.Ms. HOOLEY: You and the t.i.tular sponsor here green-light it, we can have disseminatable product by the end of the weekend.MR. V VEALS: [Sneezes.] a.s.suming this f.u.c.king snow doesn't shut down our power.MR. T TINE S SR.: [Motioning with weatherman's pointer to U.S.O. stenographer to transcribe verbatim.] Seen it yet, Buster?MR. Y YEE: Negative, Rod. Just in with these folks here. Kennedy completely socked in. Mo had to charter a chopper. I'm sitting here cherry. M MR. T TINE J JR.: [Tapping edge of ruler on tabletop.] How'd you fare getting up here, Sir, if I may?MR. T TINE S SR.: Mountain comes to Mohammed, eh Tom?MR. V VEALS: How come I only came two clicks down here and I'm the one with a f.u.c.king cold?MR. T TINE J JR.: I've been here in Boston as well.MR. V VEALS: [Checking connections on Infernatron 210-Y Digital Player and Viewer System.] So shall we?MR. T TINE S SR.: OK, for the record. Mo. Demographic target?Ms. HOOLEY: Ages six to ten, with marginally reduced efficacy four to six and ten to thirteen. Let's say target's four to twelve, white, native English-speaking, median income and above, capacity on Kruger Abstraction Scale three or above. [Refers to notes.] Advertable attention-span of sixteen seconds with a geometric fall-off commencing at thirteen seconds. M MR. T TINE S SR.: Spot-length?Ms. HOOLEY: Thirty seconds with a traumatic graphic at fourteen seconds.MR. V VEALS: [Hawks phlegm.]MR. Y YEE: Proposed insertion-vehicle, Mo?Ms. HOOLEY: The 'Mr. Bouncety-Bounce Show,' spontaneous dissemination at 1600 M to F. 1500 Central and Mountain. Cream of the crop. 82 Share on spontaneous receptions for the slot. M MR. Y YEE: Any data on what percentage of total viewing in the slot is Spontaneous versus Recorded cartridge?Ms. HOOLEY: We had 47% plus or minus two as of Year of the Yus.h.i.tyu 2007. That's the last year the data's firmed up for.MR. T TINE S SR.: So say 40% of total viewing for the spot.MR. Y YEE: Give or take. Impressive.MR. T TINE S SR.: So check, check, check. We got rough costs?MR. Y YEE: Production just over half a meg. Post-production -MR. V VEALS: Bupkus. 150K before matteing.MR. Y YEE: I might add that Tom's pro-bonoing his part of the production. MR. VEALS: So you all ready to eyeball this or what?Ms. HOOLEY: Since 'Mr. B-B' 's contracted as a no-public-service-spot vehicle, dissemination charge'll come out around 180K per slot. M MR. Y YEE: Which we're still of the position this seems a bit steep.MR. T TINE J JR.: The upcoming year's Glad's year, Buster. You wanted the year. You want the Year of Glad to be the year half the nation stopped doing anything but staring bug-eyed at some sinister cartridge while little whorls went around in their eyes until they died of starvation in the middle of their own exc-? M MR. T TINE S SR.: Shut up, Rodney. And quit with the ruler-tapping. Buster I'm sure knows the incredible good will that's even now accruing from their proud sponsorship of probably the most important public-service spots ever conceived, given the potential threat here. M MR. V VEALS: [Sneezes twice in abrupt succession.] [Comment unintelligible.]MR. T TINE S SR.: [Taps telescoping weatherman's pointer on edge of tabletop.] Righto then. The spot itself, then. The spokesfigure icon thing. Still the singing Kleenex? M MR. Y YEE: The what-was-it, Frankie the No-Thankee Hankie, warning kids to say No Thankee to unlabelled or suspicious cartridges?Ms. HOOLEY: [Clears throat.] Tom?MR. T TINE J JR.: [Taps ruler on edge of tabletop.]MR. V VEALS: [Hawks.] No. Had to s.h.i.t-can the dancing Kleenex after the response groups' test data were a.n.a.lyzed. Various problems. The phrase 'No Thankee' itself perceived as archaic. Uncool. Crotchety-adult. Too New England or something. Summoned images of a leathery-faced old guy in overalls. Took attention away from what they're supposed to say No Thanks to. Plus phrase-recognition data was way under minimum slogan-parameters. Ms. H Ms. HOOLEY: Problems with the icon itself.MR. V VEALS: [Blowing nose one nostril at a time.] Kids hated Frankie the Hankie. We're talking levels past ambivalence. a.s.sociated the hankie with snot, basically. The word booger booger kept coming up. The singing didn't help. kept coming up. The singing didn't help. Ms. H Ms. HOOLEY: Which is why in this case thank G.o.d for response-group testing.MR. Y YEE: This business'll make you old.MR. V VEALS: Had to go back and completely reboot at square one.MR. Y YEE: Does anyone else smell a peculiar citrusy floral odor?Ms. HOOLEY: Tom's boys've been at it twenty-four/seven. We're extremely excited at the result.MR. V VEALS: It's previewable but rough. Not really quite there yet. The first Phil's digitals had a bug.MR. T TINE J JR.: Phil?MR. V VEALS: A small bug, but nasty. Dregs of a turbovirus in the graphic encoder. Phil's head kept detaching and floating off to the upper right. Not a good effect at all, given the message we want to send. M MR. Y YEE: Like orange blossoms, but with a kind of sick sweetness.Ms. HOOLEY: Oh dear.MR. V VEALS: [Sneezes.] And debugging put us behind on some of the fonts, so you're going to have to use some imagination here. Has this 210 unit been downloaded for schematic matteing? M MR. T TINE J JR.: Excuse me. Phil?MR. V VEALS: Introducing Fully Functional Phil, the prancing a.s.s.Ms. HOOLEY: More like a mule, a burro. A burro.MR. T TINE J JR.: [Tapping like mad.] An a.s.s?Ms. HOOLEY: Horse-characters were copyrighted by ChildSearch. Their 'Patch the Pony Who Says Nay to Strangers' spots.MR. T TINE J JR.: A prancing a.s.s?Ms. HOOLEY: The perception of naivete and clumsiness about a mule-icon provoked a kind of empathy in the response groups. Phil's not coming off as an authority-figure-joy-killer type. More like a peer. So the cartridge he warns against gets none of the forbidden-fruit-type boost of being warned against by an authority figure. M MR. V VEALS: Plus the kid market's a frigging horror show. Near every species was copyrighted. Garfield. McGruff the freaking crime dog. Toucan Sam. The O.N.A.N. bird of prey. Let's not even get into the bears or bunnies. It was basically either an a.s.s or a c.o.c.kroach. Never again the kid's market as G.o.d is my witness. [Sneezes.] Ms. H Ms. HOOLEY: Once we went with the burro, Tom opted to accentuate the clumsy-incompetence factor. To almost ironize the icon. Buck teeth, crossed eyes - M MR. V VEALS: Extravagantly crossed. Like he's just been whacked with a sock full of nickels. Eye-response was through the roof.Ms. HOOLEY: Ears that won't stay upright. Legs keep getting all rubbery and tangled when he tries to prance.MR. V VEALS: But prance he does.MR. Y YEE: But surely it doesn't present itself as an a.s.s. Surely it doesn't prance out and say, 'Take it from me, an a.s.s.'MR. V VEALS: A fully functional fully functional a.s.s. a.s.s. Ms. H Ms. HOOLEY: Tom's rather ingeniously played up the functionality angle. The energy and verve versus pa.s.sivity angle. He's never just Phil. He's Fully Functional Phil. He's a blur of kid-type activity - school, playing, teleputer-interfacing, prancing. Tom's got him storyboarded for a number of thirty-second activity-packed little adventures. He's a goof, an iconic child, but he's active active. He stands for the attraction of capacity, agency, choice. As versus the spot's animated adult who we see in a recliner ostensibly watching the Canadian cartridge, little spirals going around and around in his eyes as his body sort of melts and his head starts growing and distending until the pa.s.sive watching adult's image is just a huge five-o'clock-shadowed head in the recliner, his eyeb.a.l.l.s huge and whirling. M MR. T TINE J JR.: [Taps his ruler against the edge of the tabletop.]MR. V VEALS: Let's just roll the thing for them, Mo.MR. T TINE S SR.: I've got to say I foresee trouble selling a certain Commander in Chief on a prancing a.s.s as an improvement over a singing Kleenex. Ms. H Ms. HOOLEY: Phil's message is that not every entertainment cartridge out there is necessarily a good old safe pre-approved InterLace TelEntertainment product. He says word's reached him during his fun-filled fully functional daily activities of a certain very wicked and sneaky cartridge that even has a little smiling face on the case and when you first start watching it looks like it promises to be more fun to watch than anything you've ever wished on a star or blown out a birthday-cake candle for. In a thought-bubble that becomes visible when Phil's ears flop down again - M MR. V VEALS: [Sneezes.] Not yet matted in all the way -MR. T TINE S SR.: You know how he is about Kleenex.Ms. HOOLEY: - will be an image of an iconic cartridge case with a friendly smile and pudgy little harmless Pillsbury Doughboy arms and legs. M MR. Y YEE: [Loosening his collar.] Not the actual copyrighted Pillsbury iconic-limb animation-codes, though.MR. V VEALS: Relax. More like a reference. An allusion to plumpness, cuteness. Pudgy and harmless-looking limbs, is the thing.MR. T TINE J JR.: [Tapping edge of tabletop with ruler.]MR. T TINE S SR.: [Pointing at tapping ruler with weatherman's pointer.] You're close to losing that hand, bucko.Ms. HOOLEY: [Referring to notes.] Then Phil looks up and pops the thought-bubble with a needle and says But it's a liar, this smiling cartridge is, a wicked thing, lying, like the stranger who leans out of his car and offers you a ride home to your Mommy and Daddy but really wants to grab you and put his sweaty hand over your mouth and lock you in the car and take you far away with him to where you'll never see your Mommy, Daddy, or Mr. Bouncety-Bounce ever again. M MR. V VEALS: Which and here's the traumatic graphic at fourteen, a dark-bordered new thought-bubble over Phil in which now the cartridge's limbs are like a dockworker's, it's a swart leering cartridge with yellow fangs and long nails in a plaid cap and overalls driving off with an animated kid splayed all screaming and horrified against the car's rear window, spirals starting to roll in the kid's eyes. Wait'll you see it. Ms. H Ms. HOOLEY: It's so scary it's positively riveting.MR. V VEALS: [Sneezes twice.] Stuff of f.u.c.king nightmares.MR. Y YEE: Urgle. Urgle urgle. Splarg. Kaa Kaa. [Falls from chair.] M MR. T TINE J JR.: Holy mackerel.MR. T TINE S SR.: Buster? Buster?Ms. HOOLEY: Mr. Yee's epileptic. Severe. Untreatable. Happened twice on the chopper in. Stress or embarra.s.sment brings it on. He'll be back up in a minute. Just act natural when he comes back up. M MR. Y YEE: [Heels drumming on terrazzo State House Annex floor tile.] Ack. Kaa.MR. T TINE S SR.: Jesus.MR. T TINE J JR.: [Tapping ruler on tabletop's edge.] Jesus W. Christ.MR. T TINE S SR.: [Rising, indicating tapping ruler with extended weatherman's pointer.] All right, G.o.d d.a.m.n it. Give me that thing. Give it here. M MR. T TINE J JR.: But Chief -MR. T TINE S SR.: You heard me G.o.d d.a.m.n it. You know it drives me bats. You'll get it back when we're done. Drives me up the wall. Always has. What is it with you and that ruler. Ms. H Ms. HOOLEY: Be up and back in the game in a jiff. He won't remember the fit. Just don't mention it. The embarra.s.sment of mentioning it'll set it off again. That's why twice on the chopper. I learned the hard way. M MR. Y YEE: Splar. Kak.MR. V VEALS: [Hawking.] For Christ's sake.Ms. HOOLEY: [Referring to notes.] As the cartridge in the car in the thought-bubble drives the splayed kid away, Phil prances a bit and warns that we don't even know for sure what the cartridge to watch out for is even about. He warns that the police only know that it's something that looks like you'd really really want to watch it. He says all we know is it want to watch it. He says all we know is it looks looks really entertaining. But that it really entertaining. But that it really really just wants to take away your functionality. He says we know it's... just wants to take away your functionality. He says we know it's... Canadian Canadian. M MR. V VEALS: That's why the plaid cap in the traumatic graphic. Response data indicates a plaid cap with earflaps signifies the Big C to over 70% of the spot's target. The overalls drive the a.s.sociation home. Ms. H Ms. HOOLEY: At nineteen seconds, Fully Functional Phil then dances his Warning Dance, a Native-American-c.u.m-Breakdance-type dance we're hoping will catch on among younger dancers. His rhetorical thrust is to play it functional and safe and make sure and check with Mommy and/or Daddy before watching any any entertainment you haven't seen before. I.e. to accept no Spontaneous Dissemination and play no post-delivered entertainment without checking with an authority figure. entertainment you haven't seen before. I.e. to accept no Spontaneous Dissemination and play no post-delivered entertainment without checking with an authority figure. M MR. T TINE J JR.: But as a peer. More like, 'I'm thinking this is what I I better do, if I want to stay fully functional.' better do, if I want to stay fully functional.' M MR. Y YEE: [Back upright in chair.] Somebody's mentioned the floppy-ear and plastic-buck-teeth product tie-ins.MR. T TINE J JR.: Jesus Mr. Yee, are you sure you're OK?Ms. HOOLEY: Ixnay on the entionmay.MR. Y YEE: [Sweat-soaked, looking around.] What did he mean? He didn't mean...?MR. T TINE S SR.: G.o.d d.a.m.n it, Rodney.MR. Y YEE: Urg. Splarg. [Falls from chair.]Ms. HOOLEY: [Clears throat.] And finally, direly - can I say direly?MR. V VEALS: This is at 25.35 seconds.Ms. HOOLEY: Emphatically warns that if Mommy and/or Daddy have been observed sitting in one position in front of the home's viewer for an unusually long period of time - M MR. V VEALS: - Without speaking. Without responding to stimuli.Ms. HOOLEY: - or acting in any way unusual or distracted or creepy or spooky with respect to an entertainment on the viewer - M MR. V VEALS: We cut spooky spooky on the last pa.s.s. on the last pa.s.s. M MR. Y YEE: Sklah. Nnngg.Ms. HOOLEY: - that the fully functional kid'll never never attempt to rouse them himself, and Fully Functional Phil leans way in in a kind of fisheye-lens close-up and says 'No-ho-ho-ho attempt to rouse them himself, and Fully Functional Phil leans way in in a kind of fisheye-lens close-up and says 'No-ho-ho-ho way way' would he ever be so dumb as to even for a second plunk himself pa.s.sively down and have a look at what it is his parents are so silently, creepily engrossed by, but to vacate the premises and prance as fast as he can to get a policeman, who'll know just how to cut the premises' power and help Mum and Dad. M MR. V VEALS: His trademark expression is 'No-ho-ho-ho way way.' He works it in whenever possible. M MR. T TINE J JR.: His equivalent to the Kleenex's 'No-Thankee.'MR. T TINE S SR.: We're ready to view, I think.MR. Y YEE: [Back in seat, necktie now wrapped all the way around neck like aviator's scarf.] Still hashing out the tie-ins with Hasbro et al. M MR. V VEALS: We're all cued and ready.MR. T TINE S SR.: Let's have a look at the sucker.Ms. HOOLEY: Since Tom's too modest to say so, I should say that Tom's already storyboarded an extremely exciting adolescent-targeted version of Fully Functional Phil, for music-video and soft-core disseminations, where Phil engages in a great deal more ironic self-parody, and in this version his trademark expression becomes 'It's your your a.s.s, ace.' a.s.s, ace.' M MR. T TINE J JR.: So let's have a look at the b.a.s.t.a.r.d.MR. T TINE S SR.: Kid, your job here from here on out is to pipe down, now do you -?MR. Y YEE: I've been asked to say for transcription how pleased the Glad Flaccid Receptacle Corporation is, during this potentially grave interval, to be a proud - M MR. V VEALS: [At the Infernatron 210 Viewer.] Hit those lights over behind you, kid.MR. T TINE J JR.: This'll make it difficult for the transcriber to transcribe, can I say.MR. Y YEE: This spot doesn't happen to in any way optically pulse or strobe, does it?MR. V VEALS: Are we all set?MR. T TINE S SR.: So lights already.

Gately's memories of 'Cheers!' 's Nom now are clearer and vivider than any memory of the wraith-dream or the whirling wraith who said death was just everything outside you getting really slow. The implication that there might at any given time in any room be whole swarms of wraiths flitting around the hospital on errands that couldn't affect anybody living, all way too fast to see and dropping by to watch Gately's chest rise and fall at the rate of the sun, none of this has sunk in enough to give him the howlers, not in the wake of Joelle's visit and the fantasies of romance and rescue, and the consequent shame. There's now a sandy sound of gritty sleetish stuff wind-driven against the room's window, the hiss of the heater, sounds of gunfire and bra.s.s bands from cartridge viewers on in other rooms. The room's other bed's still empty and tightly made. The intercom gives that triple ding every few minutes; he wonders if they just do it to bug people. The fact that he couldn't even finish Ethan From Ethan From in 10th-grade English and hasn't got clue one about where ghostwords like in 10th-grade English and hasn't got clue one about where ghostwords like SINISTRAL SINISTRAL or or LIEBESTOD LIEBESTOD mean or come from, much less mean or come from, much less OMMATOPHORIC, OMMATOPHORIC, is just starting to percolate up to awareness when there's a cold hand on his good shoulder and he opens his eyes. Not to mention is just starting to percolate up to awareness when there's a cold hand on his good shoulder and he opens his eyes. Not to mention ghostwords, ghostwords, which is a real and esoteric word. He's been floating just under sleep's lid again. Joelle van D.'s gone. The hand is the nurse that had changed the catheter-bag. She looks ha.s.sled and unserene, and one cheekbone sticks out farther than the other, and her little slot of a mouth's got little vertical wrinkles all around it from being held tight all the time, not unlike the basically-late Mrs. G.'s tight little mouth. which is a real and esoteric word. He's been floating just under sleep's lid again. Joelle van D.'s gone. The hand is the nurse that had changed the catheter-bag. She looks ha.s.sled and unserene, and one cheekbone sticks out farther than the other, and her little slot of a mouth's got little vertical wrinkles all around it from being held tight all the time, not unlike the basically-late Mrs. G.'s tight little mouth.

'The visitor said you'd requested this, because of the tube.' It's a little stenographic notebook and Bic. 'Are you left-handed?' The nurse means sinistral sinistral. She's penguin-shaped and smells of cheap soap. The notebook is STENOGRAPHIC STENOGRAPHIC because its pages turn over at the top instead of to the side. Gately shakes his head gingerly and opens his left hand for the stuff. It makes him feel good all over again that Joelle had understood what he'd meant. She hadn't just come to tell her troubles to somebody that couldn't make human judgment-noises. Shaking his head slowly lets him see past the nurse's white hip. Ferocious Francis is sitting in the chair that the wraith and Ewell and Calvin Thrust had all sat in, his skinny legs uncrossed, gnarled and crew-cutted and clear-eyed behind his gla.s.ses and totally relaxed, holding his portable O because its pages turn over at the top instead of to the side. Gately shakes his head gingerly and opens his left hand for the stuff. It makes him feel good all over again that Joelle had understood what he'd meant. She hadn't just come to tell her troubles to somebody that couldn't make human judgment-noises. Shaking his head slowly lets him see past the nurse's white hip. Ferocious Francis is sitting in the chair that the wraith and Ewell and Calvin Thrust had all sat in, his skinny legs uncrossed, gnarled and crew-cutted and clear-eyed behind his gla.s.ses and totally relaxed, holding his portable O2-tank, his chest rising and falling at about the rate a phone rings, watching the nurse waddle tensely out. Gately can see a clean white T- under the open b.u.t.tons of Ferocious Francis's flannel shirt. Coughing is F.F.'s way of saying h.e.l.lo.

'Still sucking air I see,' Ferocious Francis says when the fit's pa.s.sed, making sure the little blue tubes are still taped under his nose.

Gately struggles with one hand to flip the notebook open and write 'YO!' in block caps. Except there's nothing to really hold the notebook up against and write; he has to sort of balance it flat on one thigh, so he can't see what he's writing, and writing with his left hand makes him feel like a stroke-victim must feel, and what he holds up at his sponsor looks more like . .

'Figured G.o.d needed a little help the other night did you?' Francis says, leaning way out to the side to get a red bandanna hankie out of a back pocket. 'What I heard.'

Gately tries to shrug, can't, smiles weakly. His right shoulder is so thickly bandaged it looks like a turbanned head. The old man probes a nostril and then examines the hankie with interest, just like the dream-wraith did. His fingers are swollen and misshapen and his nails are long and square and the color of old turtlesh.e.l.l.