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hears husband or maybe wild hog with stomach gas yelling for film somewhere off
somewhere. She spin off and leave Stonecloud feeling like phallic cannon in civil-war exhibit,
erected no less.
    Then alien come out
of machine, she all shiny like fuzz on newborn peach. She smell like ghost of a chance in the sec­ond race before the man with
the shovel comes out on the track. She look like second honeymoon making same old
mistakes.
    Machine burp her
and she stand up and step out of ma­chine. She walk over to him, reaching into her shoulder
pouch. She open mouth, she smile, show sharp-pointed teeth. This is gratitude.
    "It was beautiful!
It was wonderful!" she say.
    Stonecloud smile
like carnival employee winning teddy bear just next door. He not know what to say. He never
know.
    "The savagery, the
pain! Exquisite!" she said, and she shake with pleasure like flagellating blender and hug herself
like wraparound sunglasses.
    Stonecloud hold out
his hand. This is the best part in no way dimmed by Philadelphia wherever it is. He always had it
in for ...
    "You wonderful,
marvelous beast! You are so beautiful! So deliciously animal! I squirm at the thought!" She take
a handful of credits out of shoulder bag. She push them at him and he take, joy all
overed.
    He turn to go but
she stop him with her hand. She very curious tourist. She so curious she don't know electric
chair is clinical definition of tourist shock, which is worse being than culture shock as tourist
is shocker and object touristed against is shockee. But what did she know?
    "Don't you feel
bad?" she ask. "Don't you feel bad about killing? Doesn't anything in your beastly state bother
you? It's so refreshing!"
    He want no chatter.
Is time to bounce shoes, to eat before art replace life and he become artistic symmetry of
skele-tonhood, apprenticeship not so wanted, art being every­body. Also he worry art replace life
so quickly, all best res­taurants be snapped up fore he get there.
    So he just shrug
like camel with consumption.
    "How can you do it?
I don't understand? How do you do it?" She let go of his arm as she see he want to go.
    He guess the
obvious and say, "With a gun." And he walk away.
    He never understand
tourist. Like uncranking self-taught virgin. He put money into pants and it makes hot spot which
is only way tourist can be understood. Hot spot so hot it steam him up so cold rain of outside
not even bother him.
    He aim like highway
divider for restaurant, to go eat like stupidness. He come by shoe store. He thinking of it all
time too. Thinking of it like hunger. He see the robot clerk sitting in same place as before. He
go into store and get his old shoes. He wipe new shoes and put back. He put on old shoes and
punch switch on robot clerk.
    The robot clerk
come awake like traffic jam and make proper polite noises. Stonecloud, he look around like
com­plete stranger. He say, "So many shoes. Ten times my fingers and double my toes. I think I
will just take them ones," and he point at the pair of shoes he just bring back.
    Robot clerk ask if
he want to try them on. Stonecloud just wave grandly, detail too small for bothering
with.
    "Wrap em up," say
Stonecloud.
    The robot clerk
hand package to him and offer change.
    "Keep change,"
Stonecloud say bighearted as he go out door.
    Stonecloud go down
street, flap, slosh, with new shoes under arm. He feel so good. He going to eat to stupidness. He
going to drink to stupidness. He going to dance to stu­pidness.
    Yes, dance; he not
be ashamed to dance now. He had paid for his shoes.
     

Piano Bird
    In the nightclub
there, he smiled at her in the key of G. Maybe he wouldn't have smiled if he had known she was
once the smallest thing in the known universe. Maybe. She kept leaning over the end of the piano,
staring at him from the bottom of a mixed drink. The slightest breeze would tip her over. She was
smashed, trainwrecked, and dizzy on the end that blows bubbles and