“The feeling of severance, the feeling of pure lonesome emptiness around me was shocking and awful, and it was as if someone had taken all my clothes from me and left me in a desert place. For a full hour, perhaps more, I said nothing to anyone. I lay back, hoping this feeling of misery would leave me, trying desperately to realize I was free of him, I mustn’t complain of it, I was free to go on with the tasks of Manhood, to be Tommy’s devoted nephew, to make Aunt Queen happy, to learn from Nash. All the world was quite literally waiting for me!

“But I was without Goblin. Utterly without. And I felt a quality of agony that I had never known.

“Strange that in this lengthening aftermath, as I lay back in the luxurious seat being served another glass of wine by the sweet stewardess, as the plane seemed enveloped in the silence of the engines, and I couldn’t even hear the voices of Tommy and Aunt Queen, no, couldn’t even see them, or Nash with his book—it was during this sudden long and cold interval that I realized I hadn’t said farewell to Patsy.

“I hadn’t even tried to find Patsy. None of us, to my knowledge, had tried to find Patsy. We hadn’t even thought of her. Not even Clem had asked what he should do should she want the limousine. Nor had Big Ramona said, What do we do if she brings her singers and her drummers into the house?

“No one had given her a thought either negative or positive, and now I lamented it, that I hadn’t tried to call her and say good-bye. A coldness stole over me. Did I miss her? No, I missed Goblin. I felt as if my skin had been peeled and the cold winds had me.

“Patsy, my Patsy. Would she have the sense to get the medical care she needed? I felt too weary suddenly to tackle the problem, and certainly too alienated and too far away.

“And then a fear gripped me, not just a fear but a certainty.

“And realizing that I couldn’t possibly be reached by phone on this plane but that I could phone Blackwood Manor, I broke out my new credit card and phoned home.

“I could hear the glass breaking in the background before I heard Jasmine’s voice.

“ ‘Thank God it’s you,’ she declared. ‘Do you know what he’s doing? He’s breaking every pane of glass in this place. He’s on a rampage!’

“ ‘Tell me exactly,’ I said. ‘Can you see him?’

“ ‘No, I can’t see him. It’s just the panes shattering. He went through the living room first. It was like a fist breaking them, one after another.’