Everyone always wonders, ' So then what happened next?' What is it about unrevealed, unwritten outcomes that so beguiles and befuddles? Doesn't anyone understand that there is nothing cast in stone when it comes to probable futures, other than death, on this third rock from the sun? The 'ole human equation, so very unknowable in the final analysis, Darius. It's not like life equals chess, you know, we don't all of us start with those same few players on our personal game board. Some of us have more pieces than others, know what I mean? Nor is it that life equals tennis, team players hopefully well-matched, whether involved in the Whataburger Southwest Junior Invitational or just a really cool intense Eschaton, debacled or no. Oh no. No, life is not like that. And, but, so after reading your probable future for my man Randylicious I was reminded of my own brief foray into one especially bone chilling, mind numbing Boston night, when I, Pandora Pox, secretly followed Randy Lenz on his way back to Ennet House from the requisite NA meeting, which I, Pox, had attended veiled, so as not to attract attention insofar as wearing a veil in post- Xtian ONAN times can be expected to not do, being gorgeously well HID and all, and armed only with the Troeltsch device of choice. Yes, Darius, my clenched fist into which I poured my stunned whispered observations for only your ears to hear. Do you remember? But today, because the lens is on Lenz, I will do my best to replay the incessant pock, pock and ticking clock; I can see my man Randy is, shall we say, anxious to go 'there' again. It was 2209 hours, I know because I checked my watch. It was a cold Wednesday in November, YDAU when this incident took place. I know this much is true.
It was as I said, after a particularly desultory and snooze-festive NA session that I notice Randylicious eyerolling the neophyte addicts' testimonials when suddenly he high-tails it to the men's rest room, only to emerge minutes later all in cool control, his ubiquitous Principles of Psychology book dangling like unreleased ripened fruit from his left hand while his right hand rubs his lensless eyes. He sniffs through red, recently not excavated but more like thoroughly entertained nostrils, his eyes all a-goggle and wiggly, one pointing north and the other NNE. A most unpleasant sight I assure you, Darius, quite unnerving and yet I was unable to tear away my veiled gaze. He presses his 'bible' close to his chest and wraps his RL (meaning Ralph Lauren, not Randy Lenz, although to not acknowledge the dual monogram, or anagram/acronym, whatever, like when RL=RL is not an equation so much as a cosmic joke, so not mentioning would make me remiss, I do think, so I reluctantly mention it here); where was I? oh yes, wrapping the flapping Polo overcoat around his skinny heartless chest so full of unexpressed and unresolved rage. There is no Bruce Green riding shotgun yet. There is only my piqued interest in Lenz' agenda. It all reeks of gaspers and Bing and stale psychology. I, in my nascent psychosis, am spellbound. I enter the shadowed alley and follow him. Whither to gory or glory thou goest, my Randyliciousness, I shall follow.
Randy skulks into the alley, eschewing rats and mice, and sets his optical lens on a mangy feral rag-tag feline who slowly yet greedily with unapologetic cat- hunger approaches when Mr Licious proffers a small bag of Glad all redolent of anchovy- cum -tuna in proximate range of the starving mark's olfactory glands. Somehow those ones are the last to go, the scent glands, it seems to me, Darius; if we can smell we must still be alive, don't you agree? This unfortunate stray cat is about to meet his maker, methinks, and I recall so vividly how I spoke those disquieting thoughts as quietly as I could into my trembling clenched fist, as if to announce '15-love' or '30-love' but never ever deuce, since the hapless cat never really had a chance that I could see, from my vantage point behind the dumpster. But now what is this? Randy removes a small Caldor bottle of kerosene from his trendy and elegant topcoat's camel colored inside breast pocket and sets the fucking cat on fire! 'There,' I hear him say in tones sauvage, 'There!'
It was then, Darius, that Heisenberg's uncertainty principle suddenly reared its ugly furry head. Juxtapose position x with momentum p and we get - though who could possibly predict - that the flaming cat would get its hackles up and charge after Randylicious, and set his only remaining Polo topcoat aflame? Racket, racket. Noises ensue; jaded Bostonians press their foreheads against cold panes, for a smidgeon of ex-officio cartridge-like and thus free entertainment. My man runs, Darius, he shags his personal ass (1) all the way to Ennet House and barely gets said personal and lately on fire ass into his 3-man room by curfew, 2330. What took so long?
It's a small miracle, isn't it, that my awesome Randylicious lived long enough not only to attract a friend, one Bruce Green, but to totally, almost, demap one basically redeemed and reprogrammed drug addict, Mr Don Gately. As Lyle was wont to say, 'the world is very old, ' Darius, and it is a strange place, in which one can only be free if one contemplates the inevitability of one's own death. Now let me lick your sweaty salty skin. As I lay here dying at leisure, Darius, I breathe in hot heavy on-fire air and somehow this smoking veil ignites my larynx, oh how I ... I am gasping. I find myself unable to...just breathe. Just to fucking breathe.
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1 DFW , Infinite Jest - page 544
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