"You stop!" Roy sobbed to the microcosmos of broken Styro-foam, spent toothpaste tubes, Tampax, condoms, Kleenex and the small, night-foraging animals surviving now as his own kind once did. "Holy Jesus, get out of my head . . . STOP."

With his whole shriveled soul, he begged the voice to leave him alone. Against that gigantic clarity, he struggled to regain a small, neat box for a cosmos to believe in, with strong walls to contain all the truths he lived by, but the walls caved in under the pressure of what he knew and could never again deny.

He saw other systems now, the whole galaxy revolving with its own motives, rank with hatreds, vibrant with love, brilliant with alien striving in which he had no place or dramatic destiny, all wheeling ponderously through impersonal space and time.

Subconsciously aware of the fragility of his artificial reality, the paranoiac must ever reinforce its defenses with more and more elaborate rationale. His virtues must be defined, his enemies painted in primary colors. The basic motive of fear is raised to mystic proportion: a cause, a uniform, a symbol. He proclaims his purposes one with God's.

"NO - ".

The central infection inflames and eventually mortifies the entire psyche until any healthy stimulus becomes alien.

Roy stumbled through the reeking, rusted mountains of garbage toward the lights from Plattsville.

The fundamental problem of identity -

"I got no fuckin' problems, man. None!"

- reaches to the core of being until even sexuality may be stunted. In males the basic relationship to women becomes dysfunctional. Commonly the subject may not be able to separate pleasure from guilt, and therefore pays with pain, quid pro quo. When this compensation becomes an intrinsic part of the natural pleasure principle, there can be no gratification without pain or defilement.

"This is ... insane."

No, just reality. Being finite and wholly fallible myself, I have my own prejudices. What you call hang-ups.

"Why do you hate me?"

Because I'm subjective enough to be disgusted with a flaw in my own work. Because I'm in trouble, too, but you I can deal with. Live with it, Roy.

"That's right, live!" Roy hurled to the uninterested stars. "I'm alive. Nothing's changed. I win, you fuck."

Infantile, needing to be the center and reason for creation, the less educated or advantaged subject needs a distorted miraculous theology to support a perilous existence, externally and constantly threatened as it is by "them."

Howl.

Tightening, darkening, narrowing in ever-smaller circles -

Howl.

- until as your human joke puts it, the paranoiac eventually flies up his own metaphorical ass and disappears.

Roy reached the limits of Main where it became a feeder road to the Interstate. He hooked his arm around a lamppost, tottering, while the brutal light in his brain grew brighter and brighter.

Can you cut it? the cruel voice challenged, or just give up?

36 - Perks for the upwardly mobile

Woody it was, solid, warm and alive in her arms, with all the customers in McDonald's gaping at them, some of the vocal opinion that young people had no manners, and if they wanted to make out they should go home or to a drive-in.

Charity came up for air somewhere around the fifth kiss. "Woody, we're alive."

"Promised you, didn't I?" he murmured into her hair. "Nothing will happen for me that you won't share."

She still hung on to him for dear life. "You did. You promised. Gol-lee, I must be alive for sure or I wouldn't be so hungry."

They dropped into two empty seats at a vacant table. "Oh, Woody - where we've been and what we've seen. Can we live with it?"

Woody laced his fingers with hers, still delighted with the reality of her next to him. "It wasn't your usual vacation. But what's so bad, Char? I've seen heaven and you've seen hell, and they're just what? Common sense, funny and horrible with a lot of bullshit thrown in, just like the six o'clock news."

When the adrenaline rush of excitement passed, both of them slumped with exhaustion, still holding on to each other. "Tell you what I can't do," Charity allowed on sober reflection. "Can't go back to the tabernacle." "Not hardly."

That kind of faith was simply outworn. The revival-tent gyrations of Purdy Simco would rouse no more fervor in either of them than a storm-window commercial.

"Maybe we can be Unitarians."

Charity knew little of the breed. "What do they believe in?"

"Can't say for sure," Woody admitted, "but I don't think they want to kill anyone."

"I'm for that." Charity inhaled the ambrosial aroma of broiling burgers. "We got any money? I'm star - " She broke off mid-syllable at sight of the two familiar figures at the serving counter; this she had not figured on. "Woody, is that who it looks like?"

"Sure," he confirmed, quite used to miracles now. "Just came along to say goodbye."

Well, she had a new concept of normal now herself. Charity welcomed the sight of Milt Kahane, bouncing with more life than most live people she knew, charging down at their table laden with shakes and burgers, Essie Mendel in tow. "Hey, Char! Quite a show, huh?"

Charity blinked at him. "Can I ask a dumb question?"

Milt struck a chairman-of-the-board attitude. "I suppose you're wondering why we're here."

"Just stopped off on our way Topside," Essie twittered, opening her cheeseburger with the curiosity of an Egyptologist. "May my family never hear of this."

"I'm giving trafe lessons." Milt attacked his Big Mac with gusto. "You believe this woman has never been in McDonald's or Burger King? Life in the fast-food lane, lover. Try the shake."

Essie took an experimental bite and then sipped judicially at the vanilla shake. "The shake is nice. The burger kind of sticks in my throat. Maybe it's guilt. Finish it, Char."

Charity dove gratefully at the food. "What about your boyfriend in Accounting?"

"I wouldn't cry," Essie said primly. "Didn't I wait long enough for him? In a hundred years he'll still be going home to his mother. Which reminds me, Milton. I want to keep kosher when my parents come to visit, they'll expect. And furniture, leave the

selection to me. I saw a really beeiootiful cream leather in an Ultimate Rise ad, really classy, and Topside we wouldn't have trouble keeping it clean, am I right? Speaking of clean, trust me, you wouldn't go wrong letting me pick out a few nice clothes for you, Milton. God maybe can get away with ratty jeans, he's eccentric, but you are still on the way up, and they don't do anything for your character or your position as an angel."

"What?" Charity choked on a mouthful. "Milt, you're a what?"

"An archangel," Essie announced with a death lock on Milt's arm. "My fiance, the Right Hand of God."

"Oh, hell." Milt just looked embarrassed. "They commissioned me after Beirut. Ninety-day wonder. Big deal."

"Anyway, people respect what they see." Essie was not to be deterred. "And an archangel in skuzzy clothes, what will they think? I don't keep a decent house? If you ask me, Milton, assimilation is one thing and plain sloppy is another. I wouldn't say a word if you want to look like a nebbish day laborer, but - "

Through all of which, Milt's tolerant smile grew slightly strained. 'The next time I see something cute, please let it be a car."