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stomach. I tried not to look at her while this was goin on, but account of the whole room was mirrors, this was not very easy to do.
    ‘Okay,’ she says, ‘start rubbing.’
    I got sort of aside of her an begun to rub her shoulders. She begun to make little
oh-ah
sounds. The more I rubbed, the louder they got. ‘Lower. Lower!’ Mrs Hopewell says. I gone on an rubbed lower, and the more I did, the
lower
I got! It was beginnin to get awkward for sure. In fact, I was now at the top of the towel. Finally she begun to pant an then she reaches over an hits the Chinese gong! It made the room shake an the mirrors seem like they gonna fall off the walls.
    ‘Take me, Forrest,’ she moans.
    ‘Where you want to go?’ I ast.
    ‘Just take me!’ she screams. ‘Now!’
    At this point I suddenly begun to think about Jenny an about a bunch of other things, an Mrs Hopewell was grappin at me an writhin an pantin on the bed, an this shit seemed about to get out of hand when, without no warnin, the door to the mirror room bust open an theyis a little man standin there wearin a suit an tie an steel-rimmed glasses, kinda look like a Nazi German.
    ‘Alice,’ he shouts, ‘I think I have got it figured out! If we put some steel-wool shavings into the formula, it will make it quit tasting like turpentine!’
    ‘Jesus God, Alfred!’ Mrs Hopewell hollers. ‘What are you doing home this time of day!’ She done bolted upright an was tryin to pull the towel up around herself to look decent.
    ‘My researchers,’ the feller says, ‘have found the solution!’
    ‘Solution! Solution to what?’ Mrs Hopewell asts.
    ‘The “New Coke,”’ he says. The feller strides into the room, actin like I’m not even there. ‘I think we got a way to get people to drink it.’
    ‘Oh, for godssake, Alfred. Who would want to drink that crap anyhow?’ Mrs Hopewell looks like she’s about to burst into tears. She ain’t got but that one towel, an she is tryin to cover herself up, bottom an top, with it. Ain’t workin too good, an so she is grappin for her nighty, which is on the floor, but ever time she graps for it, the towel falls off. I am tryin to look away again, but the mirrors won’t give me no other view.
    About this time, Alfred, I guess was his name, noticed me.
    ‘Are you the masseuse?’ he ast.
    ‘Sort of,’ I says.
    ‘That your CokeCola?’
    ‘Yup.’
    ‘You’re drinking it?’
    ‘Uh huh.’
    ‘No shit?’
    I nodded. I didn’t exactly know what to say, account of it is his new invention.
    ‘And it don’t taste awful?’ His eyes got big as biscuits.
    ‘Not now,’ I says. ‘I fixed it.’
    ‘Fixed it? How?’
    ‘I put some stuff in it from the kitchen.’
    ‘Let me see that,’ he says. He took the glass an helt it up to the light an examined it, sort of like a person will examine somethin nasty in a laboratory jar. Then he drunk a little sip of it an got a kind of squinty look in his eyes. He look at me, then at Mrs Hopewell, then he slugged down a big ole swallow.
    ‘My God!’ he says. ‘This shit ain’t half bad!’
    He drunk some more an get a real amazed look on his face, like he was seein a vision or somethin.
    ‘You
fixed
this!’ he shouts. ‘How in hell did you
fix
it?’
    ‘I done put a few things from that pantry in it,’ I says.
    ‘You! The masseuse?’
    ‘He’s not exactly a masseuse,’ Mrs Hopewell says.
    ‘He’s not? Then what is he?’
    ‘I’m a encyclopedia salesman,’ I says.
    ‘Encyclopedias – Huh?’ Alfred says. ‘Then what are you doing here? With my wife?’
    ‘It is kind of a long story,’ I tole him.
    ‘Well, it doesn’t matter,’ he says. ‘We’ll get to that later. What I want to know now is what in hell did you do to this CokeCola? Tell me! My God, tell me!’
    ‘I dunno, exactly,’ I says. ‘It was like, well, it didn’t taste so good at first, an I thought it could have stood some doctorin up, you know?’
    ‘Didn’t taste good! Why, you moron, it tasted