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days after the fight with Zeus, the thought of food still made me slightly delirious.
    “You look like a damn scarecrow. You need to eat if you’re ever going to get your full growth.”
    Herb munched thoughtfully on his turkey and tomato wrapped in lettuce. He’d been on a low-carb diet for half a decade. Because of long-term glycogen deprivation he was sometimes subject to erratic behavior. Sometimes, at night I would catch him waltzing with a box of Raisin Bran, crooning “I’m gonna eat you. Oh yes… I’m gonna… eeeat…”
    “Lando Cooper… I know who you really are.”
    “What?”
    “The jig is up, son. I’ve uncovered your big, cosmic secret.”
    He chuckled again, his eyes round with a kind of conspiratorial wonder. “God Almighty.”
    From my dimensionally sensitive multi-mind, several Aspects tossed up suggestions.
    Sky Daddy: “Rewrite his memory.”
    Father Flies: “Erase him from the spacetime continuum.”
    Burning Bush: “Give him a stroke, then if he recovers you can tell him it was all a hallucination.”
    “If you think I haven’t been paying attention, son… you’re wrong.” Herb reached up with one mayonnaise smeared finger and tapped his right temple. “These eyes don’t miss a trick. As a student of the Human Animal… I see all.”
    Herb arched his brows. “Look at me, Lando. Look me in the eye when I’m talking to you.”
    “I am looking at you.”
    “No you’re not.”
    “I am.”
    “Unflinchingly?”
    “You’re insane.”
    Herb stood. “Lando… a steady, unflinching gaze…”
    “‘…establishes interpersonal tactical dominance.’ I know, Pop.”
    “That’s Herb’s Rule of Engagement Numero Uno, son. First thing any effective negotiator learns… if he intends to make something of himself someday.”
    “I’m not interested, Pop.”
    “Lando, I know that you’re struggling with certain elements of your personality. And although I don’t claim to understand it...”
    “Pop, I just want to borrow some cash.”
    “Son… you’re gay.”
    “Pop.”
    “It’s OK, Lando.”
    “I’m not gay.”
    “Well I think you are.”
    “I am not.”
    “Admit it now. Get it off your chest.”
    “No.”
    “Denial. That’s sad, boy.”
    “I’m not gay!”
    “Twenty-first century, son. Liberation done come to de plantation. I may not approve of your lifestyle, but I’ll die to support you. That’s why we all marched, back in the Sixties...”
    “Pop…”
    “…why my generation took to the streets while ‘Mister Charlie’ was burning school children and night-bombing churches…”
    “You’re ridiculous.”
    “I marched so that you and your brothers could be as irresponsible as the White Man’s children...”
    “I’m not doing this with you, Pop.”
    “…waste your lives in whatever meaningless pursuits you see fit, no matter how much it might break the hearts of those who sang freedom songs while Klansmen hounded us with dogs and torches.”
    “Torches? Were they chasing black people or Frankenstein’s monster?”
    Herb chuckled again. “Deflect and Distract: another useful negotiating strategy. When you take over the store…”
    “I’m not taking over the store, Pop.”
    “…when you take over from your ailing old man, you’ll have to be strong, son. Stronger than those early pioneers.”
    Herb reached into his pocket and produced a thickish wad of cash from the billfold he’d had surgically grafted to his hip. He thumbed through the wad and peeled five one hundred dollar bills.
    “I want you to take Sabrina out Friday night. Show her a good time. Grab a hotel room in the Loop. Do the deed, for Christ’s sake. You’re not still a virgin are you?”
    “No! Not that it’s any of your business.”
    Herb held up his hand. “Just be sure to take your gal out for a ‘test drive’. Nobody wants you puttin’ your money down on the wrong horse. You know… genderwise. One thing about me and your mother… we were sexual