11
We faced each other across a small table, talking. The table was very old, round, set with one candle in the middle. The candle had been stuck directly onto a saucer. And that was the entire inventory of furnishings in the room. There weren't any chairs. We sat on piles of books.

It was the Sheep Man's room.

Narrow and cramped. The walls and ceiling had the feeling of the old Dolphin Hotel, but it wasn't the old hotel either. At the far end of the room was a window, boarded up from inside. Boarded up a long time ago, if the rusty nails and gray dust in the cracks of the boards were any indication. The room was a rectangular box. No lights. No closet. No bath. No bed. He must've slept on the floor, wrapped in his sheep costume.

There was barely enough room to walk. The floor was littered with yellowing old books and newspapers and scrap-books filled with clippings. Some were worm-eaten, falling apart at their bindings. All, from what I could tell, having to do with the history of sheep in Hokkaido. All, probably, from the archive at the old Dolphin Hotel. The sheep reference room, which the owner's father, the Sheep Professor, pretty much lived in. What ever became of him?

The Sheep Man looked at me across the flickering candle flame. Behind him, his disproportionately enormous shadow played over a grimy wall.

"Beenalongtime," he spoke from behind his mask. "Let's-ussee, youthinnerorwhat?"

"Yeah, I might have lost some weight."

"Sotellus, what'stheworldoutside? Wedon'tgetmuchnews, notinhere."

I crossed my legs and shook my head. "Same as ever. Nothing worth mentioning. Everything's getting more complicated. Everything's speeding up. No, nothing's really new."

The Sheep Man nodded. "Nextwarhasn'tbegunyet, we-takeit?"

Which was the Sheep Man's last war? I wasn't sure. "Not yet," I said.

"Butsoonerorlateritwill," he voiced, uninflected, folding his mitted hands. "Youbetterwatchout. War'sgonnacome, nothreewaysaboutit. Markourwords. Can'ttrustpeople. Won'tdoanygood. They'llkillyoueverytime. They'llkilleach-other. They'llkilleveryone."

The Sheep Man's fleece was dingy, the wool stiff and greasy. His mask looked bad too, like something patched together at the last minute. The poor light in the damp room didn't help and maybe my memory was wrong, but it wasn't just the costume. The Sheep Man was worn-out. Since the last time I'd seen him four years ago, he'd shrunk. His breathing came harder, more disturbing to the ears, like a stopped-up pipe.

"Thoughtyou'dgetheresooner," said the Sheep Man. "We-beenwaiting, allthistime. Meanwhile, somebodyelsecame-'round. Wethought, maybe, butwasn'tyou. Howdoyoulike-that? Justanybody, comewanderinginhere. But anyway, was-expectingyousooner."

I shrugged my shoulders. "I always thought I would come back, I guess. I knew I had to, but I didn't have it together. I dreamed about it. About the Dolphin Hotel, I mean. Dreamed about it all the time. But it took a while to make up my mind to come back." "Triedtoputitoutofmind?"

"I guess so, yes," I said. Then I looked at my hands in the flickering candlelight. A draft was coming in from somewhere. "In the beginning I thought I should try to forget what I could forget. I wanted a life completely dissociated from this place."

"Becauseyourfrienddied?"

"Yes. Because my friend died."

"Butyoucameback," said the Sheep Man.

"Yes, I came back," I said. "I couldn't get this place out of my mind. I tried to forget things, but then something else would pop up. So it didn't matter whether I liked it or not, I sort of knew I belonged here. I didn't really know what that meant either, but I knew it anyway. In my dreams about this place, I was ?part of everything. Someone was crying for me here. Someone wanted me. That's why I came back. What is this place anyway?"

The Sheep Man looked me hard in the face and shook his head. "'Fraidwedon'tknowmuch. It'srealbig, it'srealdark. All-weknow'sthisroom. Beyondhere, wedon'tknow. Butanyway, you'rehere, somust'vebeentime. Timeyoufoundyourwayhere. Wayweseeit, atleast? The Sheep Man paused to ruminate. "Maybesomebody'scryingforyou, throughthisplace. Somebodywhoknewyou, knewyou'dbeheadinghereanyway. Likeabird, comingbacktothenest?Butlet'sussayitdifferent. Ifyouweren'tcomingbackhere, thisplacewouldn'texist." The Sheep Man wrung his mitts. The shadow on the wall exaggerated every gesture on a grand scale, a dark spirit poised to seize me from above.

Like a bird returning to the nest? Well, it did have that feel about it. Maybe my life had been following this unspoken course all this time.

"Sonow, yourturn," said the Sheep Man. "Tellus'boutyourself. Thishere'syourworld. Noneedstandingonceremony. Takeyourtime. Talkallyouwant."

There in the dim light, staring at the shadow on the wall, I poured out the story of my life. It had been so long, but slowly, like melting ice, I released each circumstance. How I managed to support myself. Yet never managed to go anywhere. Never went anywhere, but aged all the same. How nothing touched me. And I touched nothing. How I'd lost track of what mattered. How I worked like a fool for things that didn't. How it didn't make a difference either way. How I was losing form. The tissues hardening, stiffening from within. Terrifying me. How I barely made the connection to this place. This place I didn't know but had this feeling that I was part of?This place that maybe I knew instinctively I belonged to?/p>

The Sheep Man listened to everything without saying a word. He might even have been asleep. But when I was through talking, he opened his eyes and spoke softly. "Don'tworry. Youreallyarepartofhere, really. Alwayshavebeen, alwayswillbe. Itallstartshere, itallendshere. Thisisyour-place. It'stheknot. It'stiedtoeverything."

"Everything?"

"Everything. Thingsyoulost. Thingsyou'regonnalose. Everything. Here'swhereitalltiestogether."

I thought about this. I couldn't make any sense of it. His words were too vague, fuzzy. I had to get him to explain. But he was through talking. Did that mean explanation was impossible? He shook his woolly head silently. His sewed-on ears flapped up and down. The shadow on the wall quaked. So massively I thought the wall would collapse.

"It'llmakesense. Soonenough, it'llallmakesense. Whenthe-timecomes, you'llunderstand," he assured me.

"But tell me one thing then," I said. "Why did the owner of the Dolphin Hotel insist on the name for the new hotel?"

"Hediditforyou," said the Sheep Man. "Theyhadtokeep-thename, soyou'dcomeback. Otherwise, youwouldn'tbehere. Thebuildingchanges, theDolphinHotelstays. Likewesaid, it'sallhere. Webeenwaitingforyou."

I had to laugh. "For me? They called this place the Dolphin Hotel just for me?"

"Darntootin'. Thatsostrange?"

I shook my head. "No, not strange, just amazing. It's so out-of-the-blue, it's like it's not real."

"Oh, it'sreal," said the Sheep Man softly. "RealastheDolphinHotelsigndownstairs'sreal. Howrealdoyouwant?" He tapped the tabletop with his fingers, and the flame of the candle shuddered. "Andwe'rereallyhere. Webeenwaiting. Foryou. Wemadearrangements. Wethoughtofeverything. Everything, soyoucouldreconnect, witheveryone."

I gazed into the dancing candle flame. This was too much to believe. "I don't get it. Why would you go to all the trouble? For me?"

"Thisisyourworld," said the Sheep Man matter-of-factly. "Don'tthinktoohardaboutit. Ifyou'reseekingit, it'shere. The-placewasputhereforyou. Special. Andweworkedspeciallhard-togeyoubackhere. Tokeepthingsfromfallingapart. Tokeep-youfromforgetting."

"So I really am part of something here?"

"'Courseyoubelonghere. Everybody'sallinhere, together. Thisisyourworld," repeated the Sheep Man.

"So who are you? And what are you doing here?"

"WearetheSheepMan," he chortled. "Can'tyoutell? Wewearthesheepskin, andweliveinaworldhumanscan'tsee. Wewerechasedintothewoods. Longtimeago. Long, long-timeago. Canhardlyrememberwhatwewerebefore. Butsince-thenwebeenkeepingoutofsight. Easytodo, ifthat'swhatyou-want. Thenwecamehere, tolookaftertheplace. It'ssomewhere, outoftheelements. Thewoodsgotwildanimals. Knowwhatwemean?"

"Sure," I said.

"Weconnectthings. That'swhatwedo. Likeaswitchboard, weconnectthings. Here'stheknot. Andwetieit. We'rethelink. Don'twantthingstogetlost, sowetietheknot. That'sourduty. Switchboardduty. Youseekforit, weconnect, yougotit. Getit?"

"Sort of," I said.

"So," resumed the Sheep Man, "sonowyouneedus. Else, youwouldn'tbehere. Youlostthings, soyou'relost. Youlostyour-way. Yourconnectionscomeundone. Yougotconfused, think-yougotnoties. Buthere'swhereitalltiestogether." I thought about what he said. "You're probably right. As you say, I've lost and I'm lost and I'm confused. I'm not anchored to anything. Here's the only place I feel like I belong to." I broke off and stared at my hands in the candlelight. "But the other thing, the person I hear crying in my dreams, is there a connection here? I think I can feel it. You know, if I could, I think I want to pick up where I left off, years ago. That must be what I need you here for."

The Sheep Man was silent. He didn't seem to have more to say. The silence weighed heavily, as if we'd been plunged to the bottom of a very deep pit. It bore down on me, pinning my thoughts under its gravity. From time to time, the candle sputtered. The Sheep Man turned his gaze toward the flame. Still the silence continued, interminably. Then slowly, the Sheep Man raised his eyes toward me.

"We'lldowhatwecan," said the Sheep Man. "Though-we'regettingoninyears. Hopewestillgotthestuffinus, hehheh. We'lltry, butnoguarantees, nopromisesyou'regonnabe-happy." He picked at a snag in his fleece and searched for words. "Wejustcan'tsay. Inthatotherworld, mightnotbeany-placeanymore, notanywhereforyou. You'restartingtolook-prettyfixed, maybetoofixedtopryloose. You'renotsoyoung-anymore, either, yourself."

"So where does that leave me?"

"Youlostlotsofthings. Lostlotsofpreciousthings. Notany-body'sfault. Buteachtimeyoulostsomething, youdroppeda-wholestringofthingswithit. Nowwhy? Why'dyouhavetogo-anddothat?"

"I don't know."

"Hardtododifferent. Yourfate, orsomethinglikefate. Tendencies."

"Tendencies?"

"Tendencies. Yougottendencies. Soevenifyoudidevery-thingoveragain, yourwholelife, yougottendenciestodojust-whatyoudid, alloveragain."

"Yes, but where does that leave me?"

"Likewesaid, we'lldowhatwecan. Trytoreconnectyou, towhatyouwant," said the Sheep Man. "Butwecan'tdoitalone. Yougottaworktoo. Sitting'snotgonnadoit, thinking's-notgonnadoit."

"So what do I have to do?"

"Dance," said the Sheep Man. "Yougottadance. Aslong-asthemusicplays. Yougotta dance. Don'teventhinkwhy. Start-tothink, yourfeetstop. Yourfeetstop, wegetstuck. Wegetstuck, you'restuck. Sodon'tpayanymind, nomatterhowdumb. You-gottakeepthestep. Yougottalimberup. Yougottaloosenwhat-youbolteddown. Yougottauseallyougot. Weknowyou're tired, tiredandscared. Happenstoeveryone, okay? Justdon't-letyourfeetstop."

I looked up and gazed again at the shadow on the wall.

"Dancingiseverything," continued the Sheep Man. "Danceintip-topform. Dancesoitallkeepsspinning. Ifyoudo-that, wemightbeabletodosomethingforyou. Yougottadance. Aslongasthemusicplays."

Dance. As long as the music plays, echoed my mind.

"Hey, what is this world you keep talking about? You say that if I stay fixed in place, I'm going to be dragged from that world to this world, or something like that. But isn't this world meant for me? Doesn't it exist for me? So what's the problem? Didn't you say this place really exists?"

The Sheep Man shook his head. His shadow shook a hurricane. "Here'sdifferent. You'renotready, notforhere. Here's-toodark, toobig. Hardtoexplain. Likewesaid, wedon't-knowmuch. Butit'sreal, allright. Youandustalkinghere'sreal-ity. Butit'snottheonlyonereality. Lotsofrealitiesoutthere. Wejustchosethisone, because, well, wedon'tlikewar. Andwe-hadnothingtolose. Butyou, youstillgotwarmth. Sohere'stoo-cold. Nothingtoeat. Nottheplaceforyou."

No sooner had the Sheep Man mentioned the cold than I noticed the temperature in the room. I burrowed my hands in my pockets, shivering.

"Youfeelit, don'tyou?" asked the Sheep Man.

Yes, I nodded.

"Time'srunningout," warned the Sheep Man. "Themore- timepasses, thecolderitgets. Youbetterbegoing."

"Wait, one last thing. I guess you've been around all this time, except I haven't seen you. Just your shadow everywhere. You're just sort of always there."

The Sheep Man traced an indefinite shape with his finger. "That'sright. We'rehalfshadow, we'reinbetween."

"But I still don't understand," I said. "Here I can see your face and body clearly. I couldn't before, but now I can. Why?"

"Youlostsomuch," he bleated softly, "thatnowyoucan-seeus."

"Do you mean ??" And bracing myself, I asked the big question: "Is this the world of the dead?"

"No," replied the Sheep Man. His shoulders swayed as he took a breath. "Youandus, we'reliving. Breathing. Talking."

"I don't get it."

"Dance," he said. "It'stheonlyway. Wishwecouldex-plainthingsbetter. Butwetoldyouallwecould. Dance. Don't-think. Dance. Danceyourbest, likeyourlifedependedonit. Yougottadance."

The temperature was falling. I suddenly seemed to remember this chill. A bone-piercing, damp chill. Long ago and far away. But where? My mind was paralyzed. Fixed and rigid.

Fixed and rigid.

"Youbettergo," urged the Sheep Man. "Stayhere, you'll-freeze. Butifyouneedus, we'rehere. Youknowwheretofind us."

The Sheep Man escorted me out to the bend in the hallway, dragging his feet along, shuffle .?shuffle .?shuffle. We said good-bye. No handshake, no special salutations. Just good-bye, and then we parted into the darkness. He returned to his tiny room and I continued to the elevator. I pressed the call button. When the elevator arrived, the door opened without a sound. Bright light spilled out over me into the hallway. I got in and collapsed against the wall. The door closed. I did not move.

Well ?, I thought to myself. Well what? Nothing came after. My mind was a huge vacuum. A vacuum that went on and on endlessly nowhere. Like the Sheep Man said, I was tired and scared. And alone. And lost.

"Yougottadance," the Sheep Man said.

You gotta dance, echoed my mind.

"Gotta dance," I repeated out loud.

I pressed the button for the fifteenth floor.

When the elevator got there, "Moon River" greeted me from the ceiling speakers. The real world — where I probably could never be happy, and never get anywhere.

I glanced at my watch. Return time, three-twenty A.M.

Well now, I thought. Well now well now well now well now well now well now .?em>, echoed my mind.

12
Back in my room, I ran a bath. I undressed, then slowly sank in. But strangely, I couldn't get warm. My body was so chilled, sitting in the hot water only made me shiver. I considered staying in the tub until I stopped shivering, but before that happened, the steam made me woozy, so I climbed out. I pressed my forehead against the window to clear my head, then poured myself a brandy which I downed in one gulp before dropping into bed. I wanted to sleep without the taint of a thought in my head, but no such luck. I lay in bed, conscious beyond control. Eventually morning came, heavy, overcast. It wasn't snowing, but clouds filled the sky, thick and seamless, turning the whole town gray. All I saw was gray. A sump of a city slushed with sunken souls.

Thinking wasn't what kept me awake. I hadn't been thinking at all. I was too tired to think. Except that one hardened corner of my head insisted on pushing my psyche into high gear. I was on edge, irritable, as if trying to read station signs from a speeding train. A station approaches. The letters blur past. You can almost read something, but you're traveling too fast. You try again, when the next station careens into view, but you fly by before you can make anything out. And then the next station ?Backwater flags in the middle of nowhere. The train sounds its whistle. High, shrill, piercing. This routine went on until nine, when I got out of bed. I shaved, but had to keep telling myself I'm shaving now to get me through. I dressed and brushed my hair and went down to the hotel restaurant. I sat at a table by the window and ordered coffee and toast. It took me an eternity to get through the toast, which tasted like lint and was gray from the sky. The sky foretold the end of the world. I drank my coffee and read and reread and reread the menu. My head was too hard. Nothing would register. The train raced on. The whistle screamed. I felt like a dried lump of toothpaste. All around me, people were devouring their breakfasts, stirring their coffee, buttering their toast, forking up their ham and eggs. Plates and cutlery clink-clink-clinking. A regular train yard.

I thought about the Sheep Man. He existed at this very moment. Somewhere, in a small time-space warp of this hotel. Yes, he was here. And he was trying to tell me something. But it was no good. I couldn't read it. I was speeding by too fast for the message to register. My head was too thick to make out the words. I could only read what wasn't moving: (A) Continental Breakfast — Juice (choice of orange, grapefruit, or tomato), Toast or ?/p>

Someone was talking to me. Seeking my response. But who? I looked up. It was the waiter. Immaculate in his white uniform, coffee pot in both hands, like a trophy. "Care for more coffee, sir?" he asked politely. I shook my head. He moved on and I got up to go. Leaving the train yard behind.

Back in my room, I took another bath. No shivers this time. I took a long stretch in the tub, softening my stiff joints. I got my fingers moving freely again. Yes, this was my body all right. Here I am now. Back in a real room, in a real tub. Not aboard some superexpress train. No whistle in my ears. No need to read station signs. No need to think at all.

Out of the bath, I crawled into bed. Ten-thirty. Great, just great. I half considered canning the sleep and going out for a walk, but before I could focus, sleep overtook me. The house-lights went down and suddenly everything went dark. It hap- pened quickly. I can remember the instant I fell asleep. As if a giant, gray gorilla had sneaked into the room and whacked me over the head with a sledgehammer. I was out cold.

My sleep was hard, tight. Too dark to see anything. No background Muzak. No "Moon River" or "Love Is Blue." A simple no-frills sleep. Someone asks me, "What comes after 16?" I answer, "41." The gray gorilla steps in and says, "He's out." That's right, I was asleep. All rolled up in a tight little squirrel ball inside a steel sphere. A solid steel wrecking ball, fast asleep.

Something is calling me.

A steam whistle?

No, something else, the gulls inform me.

Somebody's trying to cut open the steel ball with a blowtorch. That's the sound.

No, not that, chant the gulls. Like a Greek chorus.

It's the phone, I think.

The gulls vanish.

I reach out and grope for the bedside telephone. "Yes?" I hear myself saying. But all I hear is a dial tone. Beeeeeeee eeeeeeee, comes a noise from somewhere else. The doorbell! Somebody's ringing the doorbell! Beeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.

"The doorbell," I mumbled.

Gone are the gulls. No one applauds. No "bingo," no nothing.

Beeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.

I threw on a bathrobe and went to the door. Without asking who it is, I opened up.

My receptionist friend. She slipped inside and shut the door.

The back of my head was numb. Did that ape have to whack me so hard? It feels like there's a dent in my skull.

She noted my bathrobe, and her brows knitted. "Sleeping at three in the afternoon?" she said in disbelief.

"Three in the afternoon?" I repeated. It didn't make much sense even to me. "Why?" I asked myself.

"What time did you get to bed? Really!"

I tried to think. It took real effort. Nothing came. "It's okay, don't bother," she said, shaking her head. Then she plopped down on the sofa, adjusted the frame of her glasses, and looked at me straight in the face. "You look terrible."

"Yeah, I bet I do," I said.

"You're pale and puffed up. Are you okay? Do you have a fever?"

"I'm okay. I just need some sleep. Don't worry. I'm generally pretty healthy. Are you on break?"

"Yes," she said. "I wanted to see you. I hope I'm not intruding."

"Not at all," I said, sitting down on the bed. "I'm zonked, but no, you're not intruding."

"You won't try anything funny?"

"I won't try anything funny."

"Everyone says they won't, but they all do."

"Maybe everyone does, but I don't," I said.

She thought it over and tapped her finger on her temple as if to verify the mental results. "Well, I guess probably not. You're kind of different from other people."

"Anyway, I'm too sleepy right now," I added.

She stood up and peeled off her light blue blazer, draping it over the back of the chair like the day before. This time, though, she didn't sit next to me. She walked over to the window and stood, gazing out at the sky. Maybe she was surprised to find me in such a haggard state, in only a bathrobe — but you can't have everything. I don't make my living looking great all the time.

"Listen," I spoke up. "I didn't tell you, but I think we have a few things in common."

"Oh?" she said without emotion. "For instance?"

"For instance — ," I began, but right then my mental transmission stalled. I couldn't think of a thing. I couldn't get words to come. Maybe it was only a feeling. But if it was a feeling between the two of us, however slight, that at least meant something. No for instance or even so. Knowing it was enough. "I don't know," I picked up again. "I need to put my thoughts in order. A method to the madness. First organize, then ascertain."

"Wow, that's really something," she addressed the windowpane. While her voice didn't she entirely cynical, it didn't quite have the ring of enthusiasm either.

I got into bed, leaned back against the headboard, and observed her. That wrinkle-free white blouse. Navy blue tight skirt. Stockinged legs. Yet, even she was tinged gray, like an old photograph. Actually quite wonderful. I felt like I'd connected to something. Next thing I knew I had an erection. Not bad. Gray sky, exhaustion, hard-on at three in the afternoon.

I continued to watch her. Even when she turned around and saw me looking, I kept looking.

"Why are you staring at me like that?" she demanded. "I'm jealous of your swim club," I said. She shook her head, then broke into a smile. "You're a strange guy, you know?"

"Not strange," I said. "Confused. I need to put my thoughts in order."

She drew close and felt my forehead. "Well, no fever," she said. "You should get some sleep. Pleasant dreams."

I wanted her to stay here with me. By my bedside, while I slept. But I knew that was impossible, so I didn't say anything. I watched her put on her light blue blazer and leave. And then the gray gorilla entered the room with his sledgehammer again. "That's okay, I was falling asleep anyway," I started to tell him. But the words weren't out of my mouth before another blow fell.

"What comes after 25?" somebody asks. "71," I answer. "He's out," says the gray gorilla, Surprise, surprise, I thought. Hit me that hard and I'm not going to be in a coma? Darkness overcame me once again.

13
Knots. It was nine P.M. I was eating dinner alone, having awakened from a deep sleep at eight. I got up and was awake, about as abruptly as I'd fallen asleep. There was no middle ground between sleeping and waking. And my head seemed to be back in working order. All postcranial gray gorilla lesions had vanished. I wasn't drowsy or sluggish and I had no shivers. I remembered everything with great clarity. I had an appetite — I was ravenous. So I headed out to the local watering hole I'd gone to the first night and had a few nibbles with drinks. Drinks and grilled fish and simmered vegetables and crab and potatoes. The place was packed, thick with smoke and smells and noise, everybody and his neighbor screaming at each other.

Need to organize, I thought.

Knots? I queried myself in the midst of the chaos. I brought the words softly to my lips: You have but to seek and the Sheep Man shall connect.

Not that I completely understood what that meant. It was a bit too figurative, metaphoric. But maybe it was the sort of thing you had to express metaphorically. For one thing, I could hardly believe the Sheep Man had chosen to speak that way for his amusement. Maybe it was the only way.

Through that world of the Sheep Man — via his switch- board — all sorts of things were connected. Some connections led to confusion, he'd said. Because I lost track of what I wanted. So were all my ties meaningless?

I drank and stared at the ashtray in front of me.

What had become of Kiki? I'd felt her presence very strongly in dreams. It was she who'd called me here. It was she who needed me. She was the reason I'd come to the Dolphin Hotel. But I had yet to hear her voice. Her message was cut off. As if someone had pulled the plug.

Why was everything so vague?

Perhaps the lines were crossed. I had to get clear what it was she wanted from me. Enlist the help of the Sheep Man and link things up one by one. No matter how out of focus the picture, I had to unravel each strand patiently. Unravel, then bind all together. I had to recover my world.

But where to begin? Not a clue. I was flat against a high wall. Everything was mirror-slick. No place for the hand, no place to reach out and grab. I was at wit's end.

I paid my bill and left. Big flakes of snow tumbled down from the sky. It wasn't really coming down yet, but the sound of the town was different because of the snow. I walked briskly around the block to sober up. Where to begin? Where to go? I didn't know. I was rusting, badly. Alone like this, I would gradually render myself useless. Great, just great. Where to begin? My receptionist friend? She seemed nice. I did like her. I did feel a bond between us. I could sleep with her if I tried. But then what? Where would I go from there? Nowhere, probably. Just another thing to lose. I don't know what I want. And, if that's the case, as my ex-wife said, I'd only hurt people.

Once more around the block. Snow quietly coming down. Sticking to my coat, lingering a brief instant, then disappearing. I tried to put my thoughts in order. People walked past, puffing white breaths into the air. It was so cold the skin of my face hurt. Still, I kept going around the block, kept trying to think. My ex-wife's words stuck in my head like a curse. Worse, because it was true. I hurt everybody. If I kept going like this, I'd go on losing them too.

"Go home to the moon!" were my last girlfriend's parting words. No, not departing — returning. She was braving it back to the big, bad, real world.

Then along comes Kiki. Yes! Kiki's got to be the touchstone. But her message had vaporized midway.

So where to begin?

I closed my eyes and struggled for an answer. But in my head no one was at home. No Sheep Man, no gulls, no gray gorilla. I was abandoned, sitting in a vast empty chamber, alone. No one could give me the answer. I'd sit, grow old, and shrivel in that room. No dancing here. Very sad.

Why couldn't I read the station signs?

The answer was to come the following afternoon. As usual, with no prior warning, out of nowhere. Like a gorilla whack out of the gray.

14
Strangely enough — but not that strangely, I suppose — when I hit the sack at midnight, I fell asleep immediately. And I didn't wake until eight in the morning. Precisely at eight, as if I'd come full cycle. I felt rested — and hungry. So I went back to Dunkin' Donuts, and then went for a walk around town. The streets were frozen solid, feather-soft snow drifting quietly down. As ever, the sky was heavy with clouds. Not exactly weather for a carefree stroll, but getting out was good for my spirits. The cold was bracing and cleared my head. I hadn't resolved a thing, so why a simple stretch should make a difference was curious.

After an hour, I made my way back to the hotel. My receptionist friend was on duty at the front desk, together with a colleague busy with a guest. My friend was on the phone, smiling her professional smile, unconsciously twirling a pen between her fingers. I walked up and waited until she finished her call.

She shot me a look of reproach, but she didn't let it interfere with her manual-perfect professional smile. "How may I help you?" she asked politely.

I cleared my throat. "Excuse me," I began, "but I heard that two girls were tragically attacked by an alligator at the swim club last night. Do you know if there's any truth to that story?"

"Well, one never knows about these things, does one?" she replied, the fastidious artificial flower of her smile pinned in place. Her cheeks blushed slightly, her nostrils taut. "I can't say I know anything about it, sir. Excuse me, but are you certain that was the story you heard?"

"It was a huge alligator, by all accounts, the size of a Volvo station wagon. It came flying through the skylight, shattering glass everywhere, and it swallowed the two girls in one bite. Then it had half a potted palm for dessert. I was wondering if the creature was still at large. Do you think it's safe to go out?"

"Forgive me," she broke in, without a flicker of change in her expression, "but have you considered contacting the police yourself, sir? I'm sure they could provide you with the most recent developments on the case. There's a police station not far from here. You might try asking there."

"Thank you. I'll do that," I said. "May the Force be with you."

"Not at all, sir," she said coolly, adjusting her glasses.

Not long after I returned to my room, she called.

"Would you care to tell me what that was all about?" Her calm monotone scarcely disguised her anger. "You weren't going to do anything funny during business hours. Didn't I ask you that? I hate pranks like that when I'm working."

"I just had to talk to you," I said apologetically. "I wanted to hear your voice. It was a dumb joke. I'm sorry. I only wanted to say hello. I really didn't mean to bother you."

"It's very upsetting. I told you that. When I'm on duty, I get tense. So please, don't do anything like that again. You promised not to stare too."

"I wasn't staring. I was just trying to talk to you."

"Well, then, from now on, no more talking like that. Please."

"I promise, I promise. No talking. No staring and no talking. I'll be as quiet as granite. But you know, while I've got you on the line, are you free this evening? Or do you have mountain-climbing lessons tonight?"

There was the sound of a dry laugh, half of it silence, and then she hung up.

I waited for thirty minutes, but she didn't call back. I'd pissed her off. Sometimes people don't know when I'm kidding, any more than when I'm being serious. At a loss for something better to do, I went out walking again. With luck, I might run into something new. Anyway, the idea of exercise seemed more appealing than sitting and doing nothing. May the Force be with me.

I walked for an hour and succeeded only in getting cold. The snow kept coming down. At twelve-thirty I popped into a McDonald's for a cheeseburger and coke and fries. I didn't even know why. For reasons that escape me, I sometimes just find myself eating the stuff. Maybe my physical makeup's been programmed for periodic ingestion of junk food. Maybe I did "need a break today."

After McDonald's, I walked for another thirty minutes. Still no major revelations. The snow picked up. The storm was getting fierce. I zipped my coat all the way to the collar and wrapped my scarf around over my nose. Even then I was cold. And I had to take a leak. Why'd I have to go and drink a coke on a day like this? I scanned the area for a place where I could use the toilet, but the only possibility was a movie theater. A real deadbeat establishment, but they had to have a toilet. And it was probably warm in there. Why not? I had time to kill anyway. So what was playing? A domestic double bill, one of which was Unrequited Love, that movie starring my former classmate. Well, fancy that.

After relieving myself at length, I bought a hot coffee and took it into the theater. The place was empty, as expected, and warm. It was thirty minutes into the film, but it was hardly like walking into a complicated plot. My classmate played a tall, handsome biology teacher, the object of a young girl's adoration. Predictably, she was gaga over him, practically fainting at the sight of him. And of course, there was this other guy — who did kendo in his spare time — earnestly in love with her. Talk about an original concept. Hell, / could've written this movie.

Even so, I had to admit, my classmate — whose real name was Ryoichi Gotanda, not exactly the stuff for making girls swoon, so he'd been given some dashing screen pseudonym — played his role with a little bit of complexity. Not only was he handsome and nice, etc., but he also exuded traces of a troubled past. Common garden-variety wounds, to be sure — maybe he'd been a student radical or maybe he'd gotten a girl pregnant and abandoned her — but better than nothing. From time to time, the film would have these flashbacks — CUT TO ACTUAL FOOTAGE OF STUDENT TAKEOVER OF TOKYO UNIVERSITY — inserted with all the subtlety of a monkey lobbing clay against a wall.

Anyway, Gotanda played his part to the hilt. But the film was ludicrous and the director such an obvious zero talent and the script so embarrassingly infantile, with an endless succession of breathtakingly meaningless scenes and close-ups of the girl, that Gotanda was doomed from the start. No matter how much real acting he did, you couldn't bear to watch.

Then, at one point in the film, Gotanda's in bed in his apartment on a Sunday morning with some woman when the girl who's in love with him shows up with homemade cookies or something. Good grief, I did write this movie. Gotanda's oh-so sweet and slow and sincere in bed, close to what I'd imagined. It's very nice sex. And he probably has very nice-smelling armpits too. His hair has been mussed sensuously. He's caressing the woman's back. She's naked. The camera dollies around to zoom in on her. And suddenly I see her face —

It's Kiki!

I froze in my seat. I could hear the sound of an empty bottle rolling down the aisle. Unbelievable! This was the exact same image I'd seen in that dark corridor of the Dolphin. Gotanda sleeping with her!

That's when I knew: We were all connected.

That's the only scene Kiki appears in. Sunday morning, in bed with Gotanda. That's it. Gotanda had gone to a bar on Saturday night, picked her up, and brought her home. Then they fuck one more time in the morning. That's when his love-smitten pupil, the girl lead, enters. He's forgotten to lock the door. That's the whole scene. Kiki has only one line. And it's a pretty awful line at that. This is how it goes:

KIKI

What was that all about?

After the girl lead runs out in shock and Gotanda's all in a daze, that's the line Kiki says.

I wasn't even sure if it was her own voice. My memories of her weren't very clear, nor were the movie theater speakers too sharp on audio fidelity. I could remember her body, though. The shape of her back, the feel of her neck, her silky breasts — yes, it was she all right. I sat there riveted to my seat, staring at the screen. The scene couldn't have lasted more than a couple of minutes. Kiki's in Gotanda's embrace, she flows to his caresses, she closes her eyes in a state of bliss, her lips tremble slightly. She lets out a little sigh. I can't tell whether she's acting or not — but let's suppose it's acting. This is a movie, after all. Not that I believe for a moment that Kiki could act. Which poses definite phenomenological problems.

Suppose Kiki wasn't acting, then that meant she really was coming on to Gotanda's lovemaking. But if she was acting, then that meant she wasn't the woman I knew. She didn't believe in acting. She wasn't meant to act. Either way, though, I was burning with jealousy.

First a swim club, now a stupid movie. Was I capable of getting jealous of anything? Was this a good sign? Now the girl lead opens the door. She catches sight of the two naked bodies embracing. She swallows her breath. She shuts her eyes. She turns and runs.

Gotanda is stunned. Kiki says: "What was that all about?" Close-up of Gotanda's dazed face. FADE OUT.

Aside from that cameo, Kiki appeared in no other scene. Forget the dumb plot, I was all eyes at the screen, and I know she wasn't anywhere. She was destined to be a one-night stand, witness to one fleeting scene in Gotanda's life, before vanishing forever. That was her role. The same as with me. Suddenly she's there, she sees what there is to see, then she's gone.

The movie ended. The lights came up. Music played. I remained in my seat, transfixed by the blank white screen. Was this reality? The film was over, but I didn't get it. What was Kiki doing in a movie? And together with Gotanda, no less. Absurd. I must have been mistaken. Got the wrong circuit. Got my wires crossed somewhere. How else could I explain it?

I walked around again for a while after leaving the theater. Thinking about Kiki the whole time. "What was that all about?" she whispered into my ears.

What was that all about?

It had to have been her. It couldn't be a mistake. She'd made the same face when I made love to her, her lips trembled like that, she'd sighed like that. That wasn't acting. No way. But this was a movie.

It didn't make sense.

The more I walked, the less I trusted my memory. Maybe the movie was a hallucination.

An hour and a half later, I went back to the same movie theater. And I watched Unrequited Love again from the beginning. Sunday morning, Gotanda is making love to a woman. The woman's back is to the camera. The camera dollies around. The woman's face comes into view. It's Kiki! Plain as day. Enter the girl lead. Who swallows her breath. Shuts her eyes. Runs. Gotanda, dazed and confused. KIKI: "What was that all about?" FADE OUT.

Exactly the same, down to the last detail.

I'd seen it a second time and I still didn't believe it. Not at all. There had to be something wrong here. Why would Kiki be sleeping with Gotanda?

The following day, I went to the movies again. I sat stiffly through Unrequited Love another time, waiting for that one scene. Antsy and impatient. At last the scene came up. Sunday morning, Gotanda is making love to a woman. The woman's back is to the camera. The camera dollies around. The woman's face comes into view. It's Kiki! Plain as day. Enter the girl lead. Who swallows her breath. Shuts her eyes. Runs. Gotanda, dazed and confused. KIKI: "What was that all about?" FADE OUT.

There in the dark, I let out a deep sigh.

Okay, okay. You win. This is real. There's no mistake. We are connected.

15
I sank back into my seat, folded my hands in front of my nose, and asked the old familiar: What to do? The same question. But now I knew I really needed to think things over calm and collected. Needed to put things in order. Needed to sort through the confused connections.

Something was confused here, that was for sure. Something was amiss. Kiki and Gotanda and I were all connected, in a tangle, but why? I had to untangle us. I had to recover my own sense of reality. But maybe the connections weren't confused, maybe this was a totally unrelated, new connection. Still, I had to untangle the entangled threads. In order not to break any.

Here was a clue. I had to get moving. I couldn't stand still. I had to dance. So light on my feet that it all keeps spinning.

You gotta dance, the Sheep Man said.

Gotta dance, echoed my mind.

Time to return to Tokyo. Nothing more for me here. The Dolphin Hotel had fulfilled its purpose. Once I got back to Tokyo, I'd have a lot of knots to untie.

I bundled myself up and left the theater. Snow was falling thicker than ever, nearly obscuring my way. The entire city was as icy as a corpse, and every bit as depressing.

Back at the hotel, I rang up All Nippon Airways and booked a flight to Tokyo that evening.

"Because of the snow, there's a good chance of delay or even cancellation," the reservation lady informed me. I didn't care. I'd made up my mind and the sooner I got back to Tokyo the better. Then I packed and went down to settle my bill. My friend with the glasses was on duty at the front desk. I asked to speak to her at the car-rental desk.

"Urgent business came up and I have to go back to Tokyo," I explained.

"Thank you very much. Please come again," she said with a professional smile. Could she have been hurt that I was giving her so little notice?

"I plan to be back soon," I said. "When I do get back, we'll go to dinner and talk things over. There's a lot I want to tell you. First I have things to straighten out in Tokyo. But when I'm done, I'm coming back. I don't know how many months it'll take, but I'm coming back. There's something — I don't know how to put it — special about this place. So sooner or later I know I'll be here again." "Hmm," she said, rather dubiously. "Hmm," I countered, rather positively. "I'm sure what I'm saying sounds phony."

"Not at all," she said, expressionless. "One can't be sure about things so many months down the road."

"It won't be so many months. We'll meet again. I really feel that we share something special too," I said, as sincerely as I meant it. "Don't you have that feeling?"

She tapped her pen on the countertop in lieu of a response. "And I suppose you're going to tell me you're taking the next flight out?"

"Well, uh, yes, I planned to. If they're flying, that is. But with this weather, we may not get off the ground."

"Well, if you do leave by the next plane, I have a request."

"Of course."

"There's a thirteen-year-old girl who has to get back to Tokyo. Her mother had to leave suddenly on business, and the girl's been left here in the hotel. I realize it's a terrible imposition, but could the girl possibly accompany you down to Tokyo? She's got a lot of luggage, and I'm afraid to send her off on a plane by herself."

"I don't really understand," I said. "Isn't it kind of off-the-wall for a mother to run off somewhere and leave her child behind?"

My friend shrugged. "I suppose, but she is off-the-wall. She's an artist, a famous photographer, and she can be quite eccentric. An idea popped into her head, and she was off and running. She completely forgot about the child. Later on, we got this call from her, about her daughter being somewhere around the hotel, and could we please put her on a flight back to Tokyo. That was it."

"Shouldn't she come and get the girl herself?"

"That's not for me to say. Besides, she's in Kathmandu on this job, and she said she'd be busy for another week. She's very famous and she's a regular guest at the hotel, so who am I to contradict her? She said that if I got her daughter to the airport, she'd be fine by herself the rest of the way. Maybe so, but really, the girl's a child, and if anything were to happen to her, it'd be our responsibility."

"Great," I said. Then the thought occurred to me. "It wouldn't happen to be a kid with long hair and rock 'n' roll sweatshirts and a Walkman, would it?"

"The very same. How did you know?"

"Fun for the whole family."

My friend snapped into action immediately. She phoned ANA and reserved a seat for the girl on my flight. She buzzed the girl and told her that someone — someone she knew — was going to take her back to Tokyo and that she should gather her things together right away. She called the bellboy and sent him up to the girl's room for the bags. She summoned the hotel limousine service. I couldn't help expressing my admiration. "I told you I liked my job. I'm cut out for it." "But if someone gives you a hard time, you'd rather cut out."

She tapped her pen. "That's different. I don't like being the butt of jokes."

"I didn't mean it that way. Please believe me," I said. "I was only trying to be funny. No offense intended, honest. I only joke around because I need to relax."

She pursed her lips slightly and looked me in the face. With the look of someone surveying the lowlands from a hill after the floodwaters have subsided. Then she spoke in a voice that was almost a sigh, almost a snort. "By the way, could I ask you for your business card, please? As a professional measure, of course, seeing as how I'm entrusting a young girl to your care."

"As a professional measure," I muttered and pulled out a card for her. For what it's worth, I do carry business cards. For what it's worth, at least a dozen people have told me how necessary for business they are. She eyed my card as if it were a dust rag.

"And could I ask what your name is?" I had to try.

"Next time, maybe," she said, pushing up her glasses with her middle finger. "If we meet again."

"Of course we will," I said.

Soft and silent as a new moon, a smile drifted across her face.

Ten minutes later the bellboy and the girl appeared in the lobby. The bellboy was lugging two huge Samsonite suitcases. Each could have held a full-grown German shepherd, standing. A bit much for a thirteen-year-old girl to haul to the airport all by herself, to be sure. She was wearing tight jeans and boots, and her sweatshirt of the day read TALKING HEADS. Over which she wore an expensive-looking fur stole. There was the same transparent sense about her as before. A beauty that was so vulnerable, so high-strung. A balance too delicate to last. Talking Heads. Not bad, for a band name. Like something out of Kerouac.

The girl looked me over, blase. She didn't smile. But she did raise an eyebrow, then turned to my receptionist friend with glasses.

"Don't worry, he's all right," my friend said.

"I'm not as bad as I look," I declared.

The girl looked at me again. Then she made an oh-well-I-suppose sort of nod.

"Really, you'll be fine," my friend went on. "The old man tells funny jokes — "

"Old man!" I gasped.

"He throws in a nice word from time to time," she continued, paying me no attention, "he's a real gentleman to us ladies. Besides, he's a friend of mine. So you'll be just fine."

The two of them proceeded to the limousine at the entrance of the hotel. I followed, dignity deflated, quietly behind.

The weather was terrible. The road to the airport all ice and snow. Antarctica.

"What's your name?" I asked the girl.

The girl stared at me, then shook her head briefly. Gimme a break. Then she slowly looked around as if searching for something, but all there was to see was the blizzard outside. "Yuki," she said. Snow.

"You can say that again."

"It's my name!" she hissed.

Then she pulled her Walkman out of her pocket and plugged in to her own private pop music microcosm. The rest of the way to the airport she never gave me so much as a glance.

Snow, eh? Such a charming character, so full of social grace. You'd think she'd at least offer me a stick of gum every time she helped herself to some. Not that I wanted any, but hadn't she heard of polite? It would have made me feel like I was riding in the same car with her. I sank into my seat, aging by the minute, and shut my eyes.

Only later did I learn that "Yuki" actually was her name.

I thought about when I was her age. I used to collect pop records myself. Singles. Ray Charles' "Hit the Road, Jack," Ricky Nelson's "Travelin' Man," Brenda Lee's "All Alone Am I." I owned maybe a hundred 45s. I used to listen to them day in and day out. I knew all the lyrics by heart. The things kids can memorize. Always the most meaningless, idiotic lines. Stuff about a China doll down in old Hong Kong, waiting for my return?/p>

Not quite Talking Heads. But okay, the times they are a-changin'.

I stationed Yuki in the waiting room and went to purchase our tickets. The flight was running an hour late, but the ticket agent warned that the chances were it'd be delayed even longer. "Please listen for the announcement," she said. "At the moment, visibility is extremely bad."

"Do you think the weather will improve?" I asked.

"That's what the forecast says, but it may take some time," she said grimly. She probably had to say the same thing two hundred times. Enough to depress anyone.

I returned to Yuki with the news. She glanced up at me with a hmmph sort of look, but didn't say a word.

"Who knows when we'll get on, so let's not check in yet. It might be a disaster trying to get our luggage back," I said.

A whatever-you-say look. Again, not a word.

"I guess there's nothing we can do but wait. No fun getting stuck at an airport for hours, though." No one could accuse me of not keeping up my end of the non-conversation. "Have you eaten?"

She nodded.

"What do you say we go to the coffee shop anyway? We could get something to drink. Whatever you want."

An I-don't-know-about-this look. She had a whole repertoire of expressions. "Okay, let's go," I said, rising to my feet. And off we went, rolling her Samsonites along.

The coffee shop was crowded. All flights out of Sapporo were delayed, and everyone looked uniformly on edge. We waded through waves of irritability. I ordered a sandwich and coffee. Yuki asked for hot chocolate.

"How long were you staying at the hotel?" Well, somebody had to try to be civil.

After a moment's thought, a real live answer: "Ten days."

"And when did your mother leave?"

She looked out the window at the snow a bit, then: "Three days ago."

I felt like we were practicing a Beginning English language drill.

"So your school's been on vacation all this time?"

That did the trick. "No, my school hasn't been on vacation all this time. Don't bug me," she snapped. She retrieved her Walkman from her pocket and plugged her ears in.

I finished my coffee and read the paper. Was every female in the world out to give me a hard time? Was it just my luck or a fundamental flaw in me?

If I had a choice, I'd rather it be just my luck, I decided, folding up my newspaper and pulling out a paperback of The Sound and the Fury. Faulkner, and Philip K. Dick too. When besieged by groundless fatigue, there's something about them you can always relate to. That's why I always pack a novel — for times like these.

Yuki went to the restroom, came back, changed the batteries in her Walkman. Thirty minutes later the announcement came: The flight to Tokyo, Haneda Airport, was delayed four hours due to continued poor visibility. Great, just great. More agony sitting here.

Look on the bright side, I tried cheering myself up. Use the power of positive thinking. Give yourself five minutes to consider how you can turn a miserable situation to your benefit and that little light bulb is going to click on. Maybe it will, and then again maybe it won't. But something had to beat sitting and killing time in this noisy, smoke-filled hole.

I told Yuki to stay put while I went back into the lobby. I walked over to a car rental and the woman behind the counter quickly did the paperwork for a Toyota Corolla Sprinter, complete with stereo. A microbus gave me a lift to the lot, where I was handed the keys to a white car with brand-new snow tires. I drove ten minutes back to the airport and went to fetch Yuki in the coffee shop. "Let's go for a three-hour ride."

"In the middle of a blizzard? What are we going to see? And where are we going anyway?"

"Nowhere. Just around," I said. "But the car's got a stereo and you can play your music as loud as you want. Better for your ears than listening to that Walkman."

A you-gotta-be-kidding shake of the head this time. All the same, as I got up to go, she stood up too.

I got her suitcases into the trunk, then pointed the car out into the snow-swept no-man's-land. Yuki fished a cassette tape out of her bag, popped it into the stereo, and David Bowie was singing. Followed by Phil Collins, Jefferson Star-ship, Thomas Dolby, Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers, Hall & Oates, Thompson Twins, Iggy Pop, Bananarama. Typical teenage girl's stuff.

Then the Stones came on with "Goin' to a Go-Go." "I know this one," I boasted. "The Miracles did it ages ago. Smokey Robinson and the Miracles. Years ago when I was fifteen or sixteen."

"Oh," said Yuki with not a flicker of interest.

Next it was Paul McCartney and Michael Jackson singing "Say Say Say."

The wipers were going full force, batting away at the flakes. Few cars on the road. Almost none in fact. We were warm, riding around in the car, and the rock music pleasant. I even didn't mind Duran Duran. Singing along, I kept our wheels on the straight roads. We did this for ninety minutes, when she noticed the cassette I'd borrowed from the car rental. "What's that?" she asked.

"Oldies," I said.

"Put it on."

"Can't guarantee you'll like it."

"That's okay. I can handle it. I've been listening to the same tapes for the last ten days."

No sooner had I punched the PLAY button than Sam Cooke's "Wonderful World" came on. Don't know much about history .?Sam the Man, killed when I was in ninth grade. Then it was "Oh Boy," by Buddy Holly, another dead man. Airplane crash. Bobby Darin, "Beyond the Sea." He was gone, too. Elvis "Hound Dog" Presley. A drugged stiff. Everyone dead and gone. Everyone except maybe Chuck Berry with his "Sweet Little Sixteen." And me, singing along.

"You really remember the words, don't you!" Yuki said, genuinely impressed.

"Who wouldn't? I was just as crazy about rock as you are," I said. "I used to be glued to the radio every day. I spent all my allowance on records. I thought rock 'n' roll was the best thing ever created."

"And now?"

"I still listen sometimes. I like some songs. But I don't listen so carefully, and I don't memorize all the lyrics anymore. They don't move me like they used to."

"How come?"

"How come?"

"Yeah, how come? Tell me."

"Maybe it's because after all this time I think that really good songs — or really good anything — they're hard to find," I said. "Like if you listen to the radio for a whole hour, there's maybe one decent song. The rest is mass-produced garbage. But back then I never thought about it, and it was great just listening. Didn't matter what it was. I was a kid. I was in love. And when you're a kid you can relate to anything, even if it's silly. Am I making sense to you?"

"Kind of." The Del Vikings' "Come Go with Me" came on, and I sang along on the chorus. "Are you bored?" I asked Yuki.

"Uh-uh, not so much," she answered.

"Not so much at all," I threw in.

"Now that you're not young anymore, do you still fall in love? "asked Yuki.

I had to think about that one. "Difficult question," I said finally. "You got any boy you like?"

"No," she said flatly. "But there sure are a lot of creeps out there."

"I know what you mean," I said.

"I'd rather just listen to music."

"I know what you mean."

"You do?" she said, surprised.

"Yeah, I really do," I said. "Some people say that's escapism. But that's fine by me. I live my life, you live yours. If you're clear about what you want, then you can live any way you please. I don't give a damn what people say. They can be reptile food for all I care. That's how I looked at things when I was your age and I guess that's how I look at things now. Does that mean I have arrested development? Or have I been right all these years? I'm still waiting on the answer to that one."

Jimmy Gilmer's "Sugar Shack." I whistled the riff during the refrain. A huge expanse of pure white snow spread out to the left of the road. Just a little shack made out of wood. Espresso coffee tastes mighty good ?1964.

"You know," remarked Yuki, "anyone ever tell you you're ?different?"

"Hmmph." My response.

"Are you married?"

"I was once."

"So you're not married now?"

"That's right."

"Why?"

"Wife walked out on me."

"Are you telling the truth?" "Yeah, I'm telling the truth. She went to live with someone else."

"Oh."

"You can say that again," I said.

"But I think I can see how your wife must've felt."

"What do you mean?"

She shrugged her shoulders but didn't say anything. I made no effort to probe further.

"Want some gum?" she asked after a bit.

"No thanks."

By now, the two of us were chiming in on the back chorus of the Beach Boys' "Surfin' U.S.A." All the dumb parts. Inside — outside — U.S.A. Maybe I wasn't entirely relegated to the dustheap of "old men" after all.

The snow was starting to lighten. We headed back to the airport, turned in the keys at the car rental, checked in, and thirty minutes later were at the gate.

In the end, the plane took off five hours late. Yuki fell asleep as soon as we left the ground. She was beautiful, sleeping next to me. Finely made, exquisite, and fragile. The stewardess brought around drinks, looked over at Yuki, and smiled broadly at me. I had to smile too. I ordered a gin and tonic. And as I drank, I thought about Kiki. The scene played over and over again in my head. Kiki and Gotanda are in bed, making love. The camera pans around. And there she is. "What was that all about?" she says.

Yes, what was that all about?