Straight Man

us, which turns yellow as Tony looks up.
    “Moon,” Missy says, locating the moon. “Green moon. The moon is made of green cheese.”
    I shake my head.
    “Sounds like moon?” Missy wants to know.
    The light turns red. Tony puts the Stanza in gear. We proceed through the red light.
    “I give up,” Missy says.
    “Me too,” I tell her.
    “You can’t give up,” she objects. “It’s your clue.”
    “Here we are,” Tony says, pulling into his driveway.
    “Jeez,” Missy says. “Do I have to pee.”
    We all get out. Missy trips along the slate path and up the steps, stamping her feet impatiently until Tony locates the right key. There’s only one bathroom in Tony’s house, and since waiting is out of the question, I go around the corner and drip on his hydrangeas.
    When I’m finished I follow them inside and find Tony in a small room off the kitchen toward the back of the house. I suspect he’s gone there so he’ll not have to listen to Missy tinkle in the preternatural quiet of the empty house. Against one wall is an expensive computer, monitor, laser printer, all set up on designer computer furniture. Tony purchased the whole rig from a remainder catalog at what he described enthusiastically as incredible savings. The problem is that the various components cannot be induced to work together, and all of the university’sso-called computer experts have failed to bring his system on-line. Each has a different explanation of what’s wrong, what’s needed to fix the mess. When I see that Tony has wheeled his old Smith-Corona electric typewriter into the corner, a sad admission of defeat, I wonder if Russell, my son-in-law, might be able to help out.
    “It’s like visiting the room of a dead child,” he admits so seriously that I am almost moved.
    “You were fornicated,” I agree.
    We hear a distant flush, and Tony arches an eyebrow. “Do you ever wish you were single and good-looking?” he wants to know.
    He’s grinning at me in the dark, and I can’t help grinning back.
    “I’m on-line and ready to interface,” he says proudly. “I bet it’s been a long time since you’ve even booted up.”
    Since it’s close enough to touch, I hit the ON switch of Tony’s computer, which goes directly into high gear, whirring away with great urgency. What appears on the monitor is wonderful. Every symbol on the keyboard is represented, and they fill the screen from margin to margin, the entire nonsense text scrolling upward. Every line that disappears at the top is replaced by another at the bottom, all of it total gibberish. I’m grateful that William of Occam didn’t live to see this.
    “You call this interfacing?” I say.
    He sighs. “It casts into serious doubt the old theory that an infinite number of monkeys at an infinite number of typewriters would eventually write the Great American Novel, doesn’t it?”
    We watch for a while until Tony turns the machine off, and in the silence we hear Missy, somewhere distant, squeal with delight. She has discovered, it turns out, the hot tub on Tony’s back deck. At the kitchen window we watch Missy undress, which she does with remarkable drunken efficiency. When she’s completely naked, she spies us at the window, two middle-aged men, and puts her hands on her ample hips and cocks her head as if to say, “Well?”
    Tony waves at her. “Pay attention,” he nudges me. “You’re never too old to learn.”

CHAPTER
13
    When I say I’m going home, I’m persuaded to stay for one beer. This persuasion takes place at several levels. At the basest of these I’m persuaded because there’s a pretty, naked young woman in the Jacuzzi, even if the effect of her beauty is marred somewhat by the fact that the rich steam rising off the surface of the hot tub is uncaking and separating her television makeup. Her face now resembles a low-budget horror movie mask, the idea of which is to suggest skin peeling away from bone. I’m also persuaded to stay where I am in the hot tub by the fact that since we’ve all climbed in it’s begun to rain. Sleet, really. I hunker down. Below the water I’m feeling relief. The water temperature seems to have alleviated some of the pressure in my urinary tract.
    Having agreed to keep them company for one beer only, I don’t seem to be making much headway on that one beer. It takes me far too long to realize that the reason for this is that it’s sleeting at about the same rate I’m drinking, so the glass is filling