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Show 400 so as not to gross anyone out, and looked down and saw that his penis was wrapped in green leaves. When he pulled them off he shuddered to see a white scaly mass that was already beginning to seep. Wild, frightened eyes were watching him, he noticed, filling the whole window, and he decided to give them something worth watching, but when he turned to surprise them he discovered a little old man asleep under a wooden crate, and his heart melted. White hair crawled over the old man's fragile head and in his back pocket Lorin found a flat bottle with pale green shoots and tubers sprouting and ramifying into each other in a succulent tangle. He would not hurt the old gentleman for worlds. He turned and jumped off the loading ramp into a star- and cricket-filled night where three boys were on the asphalt beating up an angel whose books and papers had fallen off the table he had set up in the parking lot and were blowing against the chain-link fence. Enough was enough. He pulled them apart and was surprised, though not displeased, to see the angel's face flatten out to a misshapen three-quarter profile in black and white, with dark hurt eyes that glared hatred at him. He became aware, while breathing between his teeth to avoid the smell of fixative, that a clean pink daylight was starting to soften the walls of his room and early-morning sounds of cars and people coughing came up from the street. And then he knew it had been daylight all along. He heard a frantic scrattle of a key at his lock and opened his eyes in time to see himself stumble through the doorway into the room, holding his head and moaning. He was ready for the interruption but wondered mildly where he had been. |
