The Fan Man by William Kotzwinkle Page A

Square Park… .”
    “Run-away teenagers?”
    “Fifteen-year-old chicks … fracture of the kneecap, see it protruding … singing church music, man … one million sheets of the music you have in your hand have been distributed all over the city, we expect a considerable crowd… .”
    “Concert?”
    “The day and hour is written on that sheet … possible laceration of the greater fibula… .”
    “I think we’d better get you to the hospital, Mister …”
    “Badorties, Maestro Badorties of the Fourth Street Music Academy . . contusions of the … young girls who have run away from home come to live and sing at the Academy, which welcomes them with broken arms. If you could help me to my feet… .”
    “Yes, of course … can you walk… ?”
    “I will use my umbrella as a cane … a most important concert … I assure you it has news value, can you help me to the elevator … I will go directly to my family doctor … over at Bellevue… .”

Chapter 16
Far Out, Man
    On the street once again, man, with satchel and umbrella, and I have gone to NBC, man. I have informed the network of the Love Concert. Now it is up to the gods, man, to make it happen. Look, man, it is quitting time, and all the secretaries and executives are on the street, man, hustling along. Everybody flooding into the subway, man, and Vice-president Badorties must descend into the darkness with the rest of the working class.
    Going through the turnstile, standing on the platform, and here comes the impossibly-crowded car into which not a single more person can fit, they are already hanging out the windows. It stops and a hundred more people get on and I am one of them, man, and my umbrella is another one, and we are inside, standing straight up, crushed together in the car.
    It is the middle of summer and we are packed stuffed wedged in the subway, and there is absolutely no air, man, to breathe. And I cannot get to my fan, man, my arms are pinned.
    Riding, riding, five hundred people in this car, man, all of them pissed-off, hate the boss, going nuts, dropping dead, fainting outright but supported by the crowd.
    Mumble mumble kill somebody fiendish energies collect down in this tunnel thrown off by countless workers every day. Kill the boss death push in front of subway car fart sweat foul. Can’t stand this subway, man, it overloads the brain, man, but I cannot get out, even when the doors open, I am jammed too much in the center and my umbrella is stuck up in a strap handle. Reading the subway ads, people getting off, getting less crowded, reading the subway ads, shrink your hemorrhoid, easy terms borrow needlessly when you must, our family makes this sauce for generations out of stenographers, you’ve come a long way, baby. A LONG WAY! Jesus Christ, man, where am I, I must be at the Lower East Side by now, man. It does not … L ook familiar, man, as I step out of the subway car.
    Up the subway steps, man, walk up, see where I am.
    I am on Brooklyn Heights, man, there is the sea below. A wild wind is blowing and the sun is dropping toward the ocean. The water is gold and the tugboat goes through the gold.
    I am with you again on the Heights, man.



Chapter 17
The Elephant Dance
    I am sitting on a park bench, man, on the cliff-heights of Brooklyn, looking out across the water. How peaceful, man, I’ve got to get out of here, Brooklyn is the end of nowhere. Alright, man, I’m off the bench and walking. Lead weights in my brain, man. It is nearly impossible, man, to function with shrinking Japanese-Chinese shoes and my head on backwards. Carrying satchel and umbrella, flopping along the street. Horse Badorties coming apart, going along. When I was a little kid, man, I used to dig a hole in Van Cortlandt Park everyday and crawl into it.
    What is this I see, man, it is a toy store. Must go in, man, and look around. I’m in the store, man, a little old Brooklyn toy store, and I am buying not one, but two music boxes, man.
    “Thank you,