‘Well I thought just the one.’
‘No, John.’
‘More?’
‘Many more.’
I said, ‘About how many?’
‘I think I should have many children, John.’
‘Well okay. Sure. Why not. What, say two or three more?’
‘We’ll see,’ said Caduta Massi. ‘I’m glad you’re amenable to that, John. Thank you.’
‘Forget it.’
‘And another thing. I think I should have a mother, a white-haired lady in a black dress. But that’s not so important.’
‘You got it.’
‘And another thing. Don’t you think I should change my name?’
‘What to, Caduta?’
‘I don’t know yet. But something a little more appropriate.’
‘Whatever you say. Caduta — let’s meet.’
After that I had them send me up a rack of cocktails and canapes. The same black bellhop walked skilfully into the room with the silver trays on his tense fingertips. I had nothing smaller, so I flicked him a five. He looked at the drinks and he looked at me.
‘Have one,’ I said, and picked up a glass.
He shook his head, resisting a smile, averting his mobile face.
‘What’s up?’ I said coolly, and drank. ‘Little early for you?’
‘You party last night?’ he asked. He couldn’t straighten his face for more than a couple of seconds at a stretch.
‘What’s your name?’
‘Felix.’
‘No, Felix,’ I said, ‘I did it all by myself.’
‘. . . You gonna party now?’
‘Yeah. But all by myself again. Damn it. I got problems you wouldn’t believe. I’m on a different clock to you, Felix. My time, it’s way after lunch.’
He lifted his round chin and nodded his head tightly. ‘I take one look at you, man,’ he said, ‘and I know you ain’t never gonna stop.’
I didn’t attempt anything else that day. I drank the drink and ate the grub. I had a shave. I had a handjob, closely structured round my last night with Selina. Or I tried. I couldn’t remember much about it, and then all these guys came walking in on the act… So me and my sore tooth throbbed our way through a few hours of television — I sat flummoxed and muttering like a superannuated ghost, all shagged out from its hauntings, through sports, soaps, ads, news, the other world. Best was a variety show hosted by a veteran entertainer, someone who was pretty well over the hill when I was a kid. Amazing to think that these guys are still around, still alive, let alone still earning. They don’t make them like that any more. No, come on, let’s be accurate: only now, in 1981, do they make them like that. They couldn’t before — they didn’t have the technology. Jesus Christ, this old prong has been sutured and stitched together in a state-of-the-art cosmetics lab. The scalloped blaze of his bridgework matches the macabre brilliance of his flounced dicky. His highlit contacts burn a tigerish green. Check out the tan on the guy — it’s like a paintjob. He looks terrific, positively rosy. His Latin rug sweats with vitamins. His falsy ears are sharp and succulent. When I make all the money I’m due to make and go off to California for that well-earned body transplant I’ve promised myself, I’ll mention the name of old green eyes here, and tell the medics, as I go under, There. That’s how I want it. Give me one just like that. . . But now this aged android starts bringing on a string of even older guys, also spruce and dazzlingly metallic, a chorus line of tuxed fucks called things like Mr Music and Entertainment Himself. Wait a minute. Now I know that one has been dead for decades. Come to think of it, the whole show has the suspended air and sickly texture of treated film, that funeral-parlour glow — numb, tranced and shiny, like a corpse. I switched channels and sat there rubbing my face. The screen now showed a crater-field of dead cars, the frazzled heaps pummelled to the sound of tinnitus, a new necropolis of old American gods. I telephoned, and found no answer anywhere.
Time passed until it was time to go. I climbed into my big suit and brushed the hair back off my face. I took one more call that afternoon. It was a curious call, a strange call. I’ll tell you about it later. Some whacko. No big deal.