Dr Jew

never gonna see you again –"
    "Don 't say that. That's… not true. We'll beat this so I don't want to hear any more talk like that. Alright?"
    "…"
    "Alright?" he said again.
    "Okay."
    "Hey, here's some good news. I did get Rick to change the charity percentage."
    "The what?"
    "The cut of gross domestic profit that the studio will give to Swine-AIDS research. It was gonna be .01%."
    "Hm."
    "I know, doesn't sound like much, but it could really be quite a bit."
    "I 'm sure."
    "Hey, don 't think the studio wanted to even give us that much. They're just trying to keep me happy. But here's the point – I got them to up it to .02%!"
    She coughed , then said, "That's great."
    "You sound a bit patronizing."
    "I'm sorry, it's just that when you have black warts showing up in your armpits it's a bit discouraging when only .02% of a film can go to research."
    "You have armpit warts?"
    "Yeah, it's gross."
    "Yeah."
    "Hey!"
    "Sorry, I was… just thinking of something else. I know what you're saying though, but the studio's not there for research. They're there to make money, and partnering with Simpaticofilm on the distribution will help us get the film out there. I'm just their tool for doing that. And if they have to donate money to keep me happy they'll do it. But don't think for one second they care about a cure. You know, just yesterday Rick was still trying to get me to connect this film to the Nice Nazis. Nobody cares how implausible and pointless that would be. They want me to churn out those films forever. Why doesn't anyone get it? I'm done with them! Fuck Anne Frank! Jesus."
    "I get it."
    "I know you do. And I'm sorry for venting. You're the last person who should have to hear it."
    "No, I'm the first person. I'm your wife, and you're my baby."
    He started speaking as she started coughing up blood and they drowned each other out. Even through the speaker Sergio could tell it was a cracked scratching in her throat that ran deep in her lungs and peeled out like a match struck on sandpaper. It went from sound of cough to horrible raw feeling he could almost feel and smell impossibly through the phone and went from there to a dull gastric smell from his worst flu memories and childhood horrors. Her blood lightly sprayed the camera lens before she could cover her mouth and Sergio was forced to look at a red Rorschach blot over a quarter of the screen.
    "I 'm—" cough "I'm—" cough "—so sorry, hon."
    "Don 't be, don't be. But I can see I should let you go get some rest. I'll call you back tomorrow and you can talk with Erin and Gretel. I'll just check with you first to make sure you're up for it. Don't want to give them nightmares."
    End it end it end it. Sergio wanted to be off this phone before he passed out or became sick himself.
    "Alright. Goodbye, hon."
    "Goodbye, Lise."
    He clicked off and went to the bathroom and saw in the mirror a man covered in sweat and lips so pale. Fortunately he did not get sick and only took a dump. When he looked at his feces in the toilet it seemed to be a face, a maniacal jack o' lantern in brown with a knobby nose and inappropriate smile.
    Inspiration was everywhere, even as the world fell apart.

XXVI.

    Philip K. Glassdick described his film music as "atmospherics," because this is what he thought people expected of him, and because it justified the exorbitant sums he asked for his soundtracks, which he considered hackwork that paid the bills and allowed him to fund his eight-hour operas and architectural experiments in the Arizona desert, three eighty story skyscrapers filled with cement on the lower forty floors, and with no elevators, only stairs, to get to the upper forty floors. There were no restrooms, plumbing, or electricity in these buildings. There were no locks on the doors because there were no doors, no glass in the window frames. Each building had one couch on the eightieth floor and no other furniture. Glassdick ran a full-page ad in the New York Times , National Geographic , and Hustler when the buildings were completed. They were photoshopped with happy Disneyland families giddily scaling the towers and gazing into the desert wisdom of the starry Arizona gloaming. The ads encouraged people to visit – free – to live there, deface the buildings, whatever they wanted.
    To fund these and other projects, Glassdick would continue to cal l his film music "atmospherics."
    Sergio Simpatico, once a friend to Glassdick in their college days, and now more of an