Death when it came, came all at once, like a soap bubble bursting, he thought, picking up the phone. It better not be that jerk Feingold.

“There’s been an accident.” It was Rabun.

“Oh my god! Diana!” He felt a new surge of nausea.

“No, not Diana. In the health spa I own in Florida. I’m being sued for a million dollars over my liability limit….”

“I got a temperature of a hundred and one and a half. I got flu,” Warlock interrupted.

“You what! I’m talking about a million bucks and you’re bringing up a sneeze. I’ll see you at noon tomorrow.”

“That’s Thanksgiving. And I’m puking all the time, plus number two every few minutes. I’ll mess up my car.”

“I presume your car has a door. Just do your little business in the ditch. I’ll give you a shot.”

“Yes, sir. Rabun.”

Crimenently! He took his favorite blanket and pillow into the bathroom in preparation for his vigil. Maybe he would be sick forever, like Mom. At least I am losing weight; that was the only bright side. Perhaps Diana should have stayed just in case of a coma. Hudley was not likely to run and fetch the neighbors. For some reason his brain summoned up the smell of canned dog food, then the odor of the Air Force mess steam table. This precipitated another double whammy with the attendant indecision of whether to hit the sink or toilet first. Neither, then the belated three steps between both. Oh my god, my dear pillow soiled. Why have you forsaken me.

His intermittent sleep was favored by brilliantly livid dreams of sex, power, triumph. In one segment he had dozens of brothers and sisters, something he had always longed for as an only child. There was a beautiful brunette nurse in suspenders and another glimmer of the future with fish swimming in the air with smiles, a war club and a pelt of scalps. There was a windstorm near dawn and a dream of King Arthur and Merlin from “The Book House,” crying out in a swamp, but it was Hudley crying about the windstorm.

At Rabun’s Warlock shook hands with a huge man with a small voice, then ran for the toilet. He actually didn’t have to go but wanted to demonstrate how put out he was by the summons. He felt built out of raw rubber tubes; thin, pale, wan, a feeling somehow not corroborated by the mirror. He stood there flushing the toilet every few minutes, making sinister faces, and thinking that his stomach was hideously raw but he might have to pick at something if it was a lunch meeting. Rabun tapped at the locked door.

“Let me in. I have your shot.”

“Okay,” Warlock groaned. “It better help.” He undid his pants to validate the charade, and opened the door.