I was in a strange receptive jumpy mood after eavesdropping on Angie’s interview, hearing her detached medical version of our communicable RobertRobertRobertitis, then seeing that show of new paintings by Francis Bacon. Angie had insisted I go and, as usual, damn her, she was right; it was incredible, upsetting work. Bacon kept depicting two nude white men humped over each other in some excess of erotic greed. They were usually eyeless and their pose showed a leaden suet will to do only what each did, with no more love than dogs show while fucking. I remember thinking these figures must be based not on photographs of lovers, not even on Bacon’s personal memories. No, these guys seemed painted from life, done very fast—of the people in some low-rent apartment just across the way, rutting people who do not know they are being watched or preserved, even by each other.

Letting myself in downstairs, I saw that Alberta—across the hall—was up late working as ever; it must be around one or so. I thought of going in and complimenting her on the beaded Alabama top, championing Alberta as the unacknowledged creator of the thing, but, this bushed, I decided against it. Robert had known to ask her to whip up his New York cocktail tweed, and Bama commissioned a state map in Ziegfeld bugle beads; and who would I be, as clothing—a blazer made of Baptist choir robe, and Confederate gray, what? I was so friggin’ sick of talking about all this. About them. Alberta’s music rolled on, scratchy, Rudy Vallee doing hits describing midnight terraces, a cottage for sale. Waving her cigarette my way, she signaled that her cat was over visiting R’s place.

It sometimes pleased me to just wander up to Robert’s apartment and take naps in the mythic Ludwig-gondola of a bed. I had never plundered any of Robert’s drawers or trunks or closets, even though I longed to. I wanted that too much to actually indulge it. No, I had standards; I only read those items left right on top!

God knows what-all lurks in a park statue’s pedestal closet.

Alberta’s yellow cat slipped out of Robert’s half-cracked door as I slid in. Barefoot, I wandered to the bed and, using his short ladder, clambered up onto it. Feeling somewhat better already, I sat on its side nearest half-lit windows. Across the street, our pizzeria’s neon; the pink word “Slice” became a blue pie-triangle then returned, a pink if violent word. Four windows’ suspended crystals—gifts mostly, now hung plentiful as icicles. They seemed to burn with a green light; odd, since I’d just left the street and had seen nothing there that color. Green also burned in the fishtank supporting its little balsa wood and canvas baby Titanic. The ship floated there in perfect silhouette. A scale model good enough can convince you that the room is giantized, not it, condensed.