BEFORE THE DOORBELL

He is the creator and destroyer, and the source of all energy and love — a warrior. His profile says so, they think so, the ones who come here. The Man marvels that another one will arrive soon, ring his doorbell — all from a few hundred words and some dirty pictures. It’s been arranged, The Scene. It’s only sex, the Man thinks…twitch twitch…It’s only sex, he thinks, as he checks the list in his head.

Mirrors everywhere. Sexy, gotta get sexy here, sexy. That pudgy person there, you think he’s sexy? Just look at him! Flash flash … So much to do, check the list? Back there — over by the cerebral cortex, it’s sitting on the bloody corrugated furrows of your life ... The Man peels the clingy shirt from his middle — once a lithe and nimble runner flying above the sidewalks and the grasslands to the admiration of bystanders… pound pound pound … that’s the password to a fucked-up knee.

Post-op was going so well, doing just great until that last time, that last scene, that full-Monty scene, that full sex scene, that scene, as in, what scene are you into? And he sings out, It’s not for me to say, and he takes over and he throws his knee out. Must stretch, stretch the fricassee of tendons and fascia. A sound in his leg, Pop pop pop…There is a curse is upon him. He’s a goner, another scene, he is crazy, obsessed, just like the old addict days. Addicted…Addicted to sensation…Sensation, that’s the thing. You’re such a sensation: he says it to the man in the mirror. You’re such a sensation!

He stares into the mirror. He becomes the mirror. He becomes his genitalia, two-toned, like 40’s dance shoes — spotted like something amphibian, primal, hanging off the front of his body. Tan and white, well pink, but white by comparison to the rich brownness of the rest of him, white from the rubbing and the rings, pulling at him in his drugged-up madness so long ago. Make it bigger, must be bigger, must be as big as the biggest one they’ve ever seen. Gigantic, a steak at the corner butcher’s…Slice slice slice. Childhood operation, only 1.5 testicles. Sheathe your sword, and get on with it.

The Man shuffles across the Denny’s behind his walker, eager for the early bird special. Maybe they have the roasted turkey tonight, he thinks. His companion is ancient, a wizard, wielding drumsticks as crutches. Both are dressed in warrior gear, but they refuse the discount, because in Palm Springs you’re still young, forever young, young is how he feels.

He craves to exceed the physical boundaries provided by God, to fill up every cell, each molecule, all the atoms. He is God, one more time, he is Shiva and he feels high. Where is that fucking thing? Not the list, the white plastic thing, not the dildo, like the late night cable shows. No, the small, pure white plastic rocket ship melting against his healthy prostate, which he wears like a fashion accessory.

— My, that’s a lovely brooch … real diamonds or cubic zirconium?

— Fuck you, I deserve it, I deserve a good prostate rub, even if I am on a walker.

The Man takes the diamond blue tablet out of the squat plastic bottle with the teeth — it almost bites him, makes his teeth clatter, teeth chatter…chat chat chat, fuck fuck fuck — So he places the blue pill onto the countertop, next to the espresso machine. He’s a-brewing, needs a jolt before the scene.

Did you know there are vigilantes at the Starbucks? The old Chinese woman, she signals Charlie Chan who cha-cha’s in. The jig is up. They know he’s ordered an extra shot! It’s OK, Mr. Chan, they told me it was OK. It’s all I have left… don’t take away my macchiato!

He slips his chaps on quickly to cover the cellulite, and kneels before the altar in the corner — Pan, Ganeesha and a horizontal Buddha, even Jesus lounging serenely, stare up at the wall, a framed oil painting of the Man’s dead father, a handsome soldier in an Eisenhower jacket and a pencil thin mustache. He whispers.

— Did you know that I was captured by an itinerant artist in the rubble of France right after V-E Day? … just a Joe with some cognac, a few sou’s, and a scar on my ass-cheek.

The Man picks up a tri-colored rose and pricks his finger on a thorn. Pricks grow from the Cocteau walls, cocks fall out of the windows; the swollen ones join in a chorus of shame and old show tunes. He ignites some incense from the world’s highest mountain. Tibetan essence curls around the Man’s palms as he releases a prayer:

I want to destroy whatever it is, the waxy yellow buildup that haunts this room…Give me strength, if not love….Oh, Daddy!!

His favorite leather vest no longer covers his belly, no matter how much he smoothes it out. The geometry of the mirrors and the sling, it’s too much for him, it makes him sweat.

I smell like a man, not an animal, he shouts, and suddenly his dog pees on the edge of his boot. The dog coughs and pants. The Man stops to calculate the dog’s life, 13 times 7, somewhere near 90. Who will die first? the Man wonders, although he himself refuses to pant and cough.

— This doesn’t fit, I can’t do it, I can’t stuff the cannoli.

— Don’t expect cannoli unless you’re in the hospital and I stop on the way.

— Who will bring me cannoli or hold my hand in the overpowering evening sweetness of the Angel’s trumpets?

— Maudlin is NOT attractive, sir. Bitter, party of one, this way please.

— Don’t hook that walker on my pants cuff. Don’t force me to cuff you, to make you watch the endless wrestling by the prisoners of Williams Burroughs and Abu Ghraib. Don’t make me love you.

He hears the doorbell above the sound of his heart, and he runs for it.