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waved a monkey wrench in the air. “Nope. I got to work on this beast. It needs more torque.”
    “Torque?”
    “Torque.”
    The strange-sounding word started bouncing inside my head. “Go like this,” I said urgently.
“Torque torque. Torque torque.”
I gave Danny a note, jabbed in the air to set him on a rhythm. Danny made a rude sound, but I was insistent, and my brother finally started doing it, quietly at first and then with more power. “
Torque torque. Torque torque.”
    I falsettoed away up high, the better to swoop down on the melody like an eagle.
“The beast needs more torque!”
I sang.
“The beast needs more torque.”
I waved my brother up to another note, and he adjusted.
“I gotta uncork the cork, because the beast needs more torque!”
Up to the fifth, an idiot could see it coming.
“The pig needs more pork,”
I shouted,
“and the beast needs more torque!”
We laughed, Danny and I, and then we flew down to the basement. The Farfisa spat out the raunchy chords like that was what it had been waiting to do. Danny grabbed a tambourine, and without thinking he began to sing the melody, and I took over the undercurrent,
“Torque torque. Torque torque.”
The song was written in seven minutes, but we spent about four hours singing it over and over again.
    We were finally summoned up to dinner. The father scowled at us and picked away at his
poule grappé
. He looked sad and distant, lonely in a strange world. My mother was very animated, though, and as she served us our food she sang softly under her breath,
“The beast needs more torque …”

I have decided that I must go to bed. Not a radical bed-going, mind you, just a simple clocking of zee-time in order to rise refreshed and rosy-cheeked. This is a real step forward for me, mental-health-wise, and I
should
call Dr. Tockette and make him aware of this achievement. No way in hell I’d do such a thing, but it’s a positive sign that for a fleeting moment I considered initiating discourse with the quack.
    I have finished recording the song “Claire”. I don’t know how long it took, but I do know that my belly has lost some of its size and toning. My eyes are screaming eaglet arseholes, I have developed a pungency that only a long period without dips in the pool can produce. Speaking of which, I think I’ll go for one now. Let me see how big a splash I can make.
    Ah, here is Claire herself, sunbathing beside the pool. She is asleep. Talk about your restful slumber, this is napping in Connecticut, dozing by the fire while Aunt Dorothy makes plum pudding. This girl makes the oddest sounds when she sleeps, it’s like her nose, mouth and throat decide to party down while she’s flaked out, they sputter and whistle and make noises like tiny pink engines. Needless to say, Claire is currently naked. They have scant truck with clothes up on chilly Toronto, which is a bit surprising. Claire is lying on her stomach. I wonder if she realizes that her bottom is turning red as a lobster. This is going to be very painful for the creature. Beside her lies a tube of ointment, and I decide that I will add some to this sensitive area. I make a dab in one palm, rub my fleshy hams together and then gingerly press down on Claire’s body.
    “Aaeeyah!”
There is a sudden bolt of awful electricity, and Claire is on her feet, staring at me, her hands twisted and clawlike. “What the fuck are you doing?”
    I show her my greasy palms. You have to careful when you have an interplanetary house guest, you never know when you’re going to offend some ethnocentricity. “Your bottom was getting burned, number twenty-one. I thought it would hurt you.” I clamber to my feet, not feeling particularly well. “Ihave decided to go to bed. A great leap for mankind. I’m sorry I scared you.”
    “Where I come from you don’t just go around latching on to someone’s arse-end.”
    There, you see? How was I to know? I turn and lumber away. I wander down to the