Whale Music by Paul Quarrington Page A

hallway. In this hallway are also many Grammy Award plaques, which Danny and I often used as coke mirrors. Many things in the popular music industry can be utilized as coke mirrors, no mere coincidence. At any rate, there used to be more of these gold and platinum records and such, but one night Danny was in an extremely drunken bad mood because he’d caught his wife Lee in bed with another woman. Lee was by far the most beautiful of Dan’s wives. Danny called Lee many filthy names and then, following a logic that eludes me still, he started pitching our gold and platinum records to the fishes. I was worried more about depleting our supply of potential coke mirrors. Those were the days when I did quite a bit of that stuff, although I’ve cut down recently, mostly because no one willsell me any. Let’s face it, I can’t purchase No-Doze. I don’t really see what the problem is, it’s not like I’m going to go out in public and shame myself. I’ll stay home and shame myself.
    I must be on my way somewhere, although I seem to have stalled in this hallway. From another room I can hear music, Claire is listening to a Van Morrison record. If she really wants to file an accurate report on our planet she should listen to Perry Como. My best guess is that I was headed for the kitchen. It seems like I haven’t eaten in days, I’ve actually lost a bit of weight. But I’m bogged down in the hallway, which means something unpleasant is about to happen.
    Knock-knock
.
    Front door.
    I should hire a butler to drive these people away, but then who would protect me from the butler? I press myself against the wall, hoping to bury myself in a shadow.
    “Desmond?” comes a voice. “I know you’re there.”
    It’s one of the Dr. Tockette impersonators.
    “Desmond! Let me in.”
    “If you’re really Dr. Tockette, use the secret password!”
    “Desmond. For your treatment to be successful, it’s imperative that you allow me to enter without this password nonsense.”
    “Do you think the president of the United States just allows anyone to come in? No, sir. I’ll bet he has a highly complex system of passwords. And yet no one calls it nonsense or accuses him of mental imbalance.”
    “Certainly they do!”
    “A bad example.”
    “If I say the password, will you let me in?”
    “I most certainly won’t if you don’t.”
    “This once then, and never again.
Garuda.”
    “Garuda?”
    “Open the door.”
    “No. You’ve alarmed me. You conjure in my mind thisterrifying image of some mythical beast, half-bird, half-human, and then you ask that I open the door?”
    “Play fair, Desmond. I’ll tell your mother on you.”
    “By the way, Columbia University will not admit to ever hearing of you, let alone awarding the Doctorate of Psychiatry that you lay claim to.”
    “Not that Columbia. Colombia the country. ”
    “You studied psychiatry in the country of Colombia?”
    “A very reputable school.”
    “Dr. Bolivar’s School of Advanced Torture Techniques?”
    “Your mother says you have a girl in there.”
    “There is a visitor here.”
    “Don’t you wish to discuss your sexual hang-ups?”
    “Don’t
sexual hang-up
me, you mountebank.”
    “Garuda! Garuda!”
    Claire is beside me in the hallway. She says, “Fuck off!”
    “Who’s that?”
    “It’s the person telling you to fuck off,” answers Claire.
    “Young woman, I am Mr. Howl’s personal doctor. I insist that you open the door.”
    “Well, I don’t believe you’re his personal doctor, because you know dick on a stick about him.”
    “I know everything about him! I have one entire filing cabinet devoted to him.”
    “So then,” says Claire, winking at me, “what’s with this sexual hang-ups business?”
    “Sexually speaking, Mr. Howl is retarded at about the level of a three-year-old.”
    “Yeah, well, that don’t sound like the Desmond I know.”
    “Oh,” snorts Dr. Tockette, “I suppose you and he have had intimate