Like one reluctant to speak who is yet thrilled to speak, McGuire tells me it was a terrible thing—“Her husband murdered her. Beat her to death right in their house. Kids in the house, but couldn’t stop him in time. He had a poker, he’d been drinking. Keisha had been saying how things weren’t going so well between them, her husband had ‘bad nerves’ from the Gulf War. He was jealous as hell of Keisha for having friends.” Fiercely McGuire wipes at his eyes. “Keisha was loved by everyone who knew her. There was no one like her in any of our lives …”

“When—did this happen?”

McGuire calls to a big-busted blond woman stacking cans on a shelf: “Shirley? When did Keisha pass away?”

“She didn’t ‘pass away,’ man. She was murdered.”

The blond woman speaks with her own particular vehemence, as if in his squeamishness McGuire has somehow insulted the dead woman.

The way McGuire submits to this, one senses that the two are related, intimately.

“All right. But when?”

“Five, six years ago.”

Briskly a gum-chewing teenage cashier is ringing up my purchases. The exchange means nothing to her, she isn’t even listening. My knees are so weak, I must lean against the counter. The gum-chewing cashier has turned to me, I see her snail’s mouth moving but have missed her words. Patiently she repeats:

“Paper or plastic, sir?”

So. I have answered your (stupid) question. Please don’t ask another.

MISS GOLDEN DREAMS 1949

Hel-lo! Welcome to Sotheby’s! Come in.

As you see, your seats are reserved. Today’s (private) auction is restricted to the most elite collectors.

And I am the most prized item on the bill—Miss Golden Dreams 1949.

That’s to say the single, singular, one-of-her-kind three-dimensional living-breathing-plasma-infused PlastiPlutoniumLuxe Miss Golden Dreams 1949.

Not mass-produced. Not “replicated.” Just—me.

(Re)created from the authentic DNA of—me.

The most famous pinup in the history of America and the most famous centerfold in the history of Playboy. And, by popular acclaim, the Number One Sex Symbol of the Twentieth Century.

Do you doubt, Daddy? Approach the platform—(no, Daddy, you can’t climb up on the platform!)—see for yourself.

My eyes see. This voice you hear is issued from me, it is not a spooky recording of Marilyn’s hushed, breathy, little-girl voice, but the authentic thing. I am the authentic thing. Full-sized, anatomically correct in every crucial way.

How am I “animated”? I am not animated, Daddy. I am alive.