Part I, published in Livebearing Trumpet No. 6, "the toilet issue," January 1993.

 I arrived home from work, thankful to lay down upon the couch in order to nurse my cold.  After twenty minutes, I almost felt human again and was almost happy.  Sleep had just about overtaken me when the phone started ringing.  It was Joe Middleton.  Joe was babbling incoherently with great excitement, and kept insisting that I had to "share the glory."  Joe announced that he would shortly arrive at my home, and I could only hope that understanding would arrive with him, for I had no idea what he was talking about.
 Joe bounded through my door, clutching to his breast
 

Part II, published in Livebearing Trumpet No. 9, June 1993.

    ...some sort of book.  His lips were moving quickly, but no sound emerged, a man saying desperate prayers silently.  He pulled up a nearby folding chair and straddled it backwards and slapped the book with vigor once or twice.
 "Man, it's all here!  Every single fucking detail!  Right here!  No more doubts!  No more guesses!  Buffalo, look!  Damn you, open your eyes!"
 I guess my eyes must have been closed.  Joe was still in my apartment, and still looking maniacal.  The book was about fish, of course.  "I'm sick, Joe.  Please, please leave me alone.  I'm dying slowly and you are just too animated for me to focus on.  Go away."
 "No, no, no!  Listen..."  My eyes had closed again, and Joe stopped talking.  I was waiting for the sound of door slamming behind Joe as he left.  He was humming and walking away.  I was almost asleep, and was thinking that he was taking my lack of attention to his lunacy well, when about a half-gallon of 80° aquarium water arrived with sudden impact upon my face!
 By the time we were two blocks or so from my apartment my rage had subsided enough that I realized the impossibility of the chase ending with me catching Joe; the guy has ten foot strides when he's running scared.
 Coffee, coffee.  Warm, loving, caring coffee.  The chase had ended near Telecafé, and now I was drinking warm coffee and wiping my nose.  I think all the excitement cleared my sinuses some at least.
 "All right, Joe, I'll listen now."
 "Buff, I found the answer."  Joe slowly, calmly announced.  "Hey...you don't look so well.  Anyway, here's the gist of it..."
 

Part III, published in Livebearing Trumpet No. 12, December 1993.

 Thankfully, before Joe could get any further with his psycho-fish-screaming, through the plate glass window of the coffee shop, I spied my longtime Love/Hate partner, Nina White (recently nee Lewis).  Choosing the lesser of the two evils (Oh God!  Imagine Nina as the LESSER of two evils!  I must have been feverish!), I deflected Joe's enthusiastic attention by yelling, "NINA ALERT!!!  Quick, Joe, we've gotta hide!  You hide in the bathroom and I'll crouch under the table!  She's coming in!  Hurry man, hide...damn you!! Hide!!"
 As soon as I was certain that Joe had secured himself behind the bathroom door, I bolted from the table and hailed the approaching Nina with a resounding "JOE ALERT!!!  Quick, Nina, we've gotta run!  he's got some wild hare up his ass, and I can't shake him!  I'm dying of the flu, and he's drug me out of bed with nonsense in a book!  You gotta help me!!"
 "FUCK!  Fuck, fuck, fuck!!  Let's get the fuck out of here then!!"  She grabbed my arm and began to drag me away, faster than I had imagined her squat little legs could manage.  "I'll save you, Buff!  Fuck him and his fish bullshit."
 Soon we were near...
 

Part IV, published in Livebearing Trumpet No. 19, "Doin' the Devil's Work," February 1995.

 Nina's apartment.  I begged her to allow me the use of her couch for a few hours.  I explained my cold to her and requested Chinese black tea.
 "You do look kinda sick, Norm.  You just come on up and rest.  I have some leftover duck if you're hungry.  You should have come to dinner last night.  It was grubbin'..."
 "The cold, you know.  I couldn't make it.  Sorry.  Who was there?"
 "Lisa and Ken showed up and brought this kick-ass wine.  Sot and A.J., Mary, Lisa, Cody, Pete, Carl, Amy and Morgan..."
 "Sounds like everyone."
 "'Cept you and Rick.  Say, you invited him for me didn't ya?"
 "Uh.  Ya.  I called him a few days ago."  I hadn't.  I'd forgotten.
 "He never comes over."
 "I know."
 Nina's place is the entire second floor of a house built in the twenties.  She shares it with her new husband Brian, her roommate of many years, Lisa, and whoever else happens to have moved in for a bit.  She never locks her door, and people are always crashing there when they are too messed up to go to their own places.  She has an open invite out with several bands, and they are always dropping by.
 Today, though, the place seemed empty.  Often it was during the day.  She went off toward the kitchen, but stopped by the stereo and asked if I wanted music, I grunted a non-committal and eased onto the couch.  Soon I was leafing through one of Nina's tattoo catalogs enjoying the photos of masterfully executed tattoos, and she was making a racket in the kitchen.
 

Part V, published in Livebearing Trumpet No. 21, "Going Through the Motions," June 1995.

 Nina woke me up by singing off-key to the Concrete Blondes' song, belting out lyrics about vampires in New Orleans as loud as she could.  She shoved the various magazines, catalogues, books and beer bottles off the coffee table in order to make room for her green tea kettle, pulled two coffee mugs out of her pockets, poured tea in both, handed me one and reached for a nearby ashtray.  I noted that my coffee mug sported the slogan "Fuck Off!" as I took my first tentative sip.  Chinese black tea as she promised.  It was perfect.
 "Did you pick one out?" she asked as she grabbed my smokes out of my pocket.  She lit two cigarettes at once and handed me one.
 "Huh?"  I was still groggy and didn't understand what she meant.  "Pick what out?"  Her coffee mug had two cute little cartoon pigs engaged in intercourse on it and said "Makin' Bacon."
 "Your tat'."  She pointed to the forgotten tattoo catalog that I had fallen asleep while examining.  "You haven't seen my new one, have ya?"  She yanked her blouse off her shoulder to reveal her new tattoo:  a naked woman wearing a witches' hat gleefully riding the face of the Man in the Moon (moon is a crescent), as he was engaged in licking her crotch.
 "Uh, that's great, Nina.  Really great."
 "When you getting one?"
 "I'm probably not going to.  What's that now, your third?"
 "Yep.  I go back to Cool Ghoul next week for another one.  It's gonna be this bitchin' naked woman..."
 Lisa walked in the front door then, yelling Nina's name over and over in a sing-along kind of voice like a little kid.  She was in a good mood.  Under one arm was a framed painting.  "Nina, look at what I found at Chad's house!  He let me have it.  It's a real velvet painting."  She presented the painting towards us gleefully.  "I call it 'The Blue Lady.'"  It was a naked woman walking through a beaded curtain showing her posterior, awash in blue light.  It was beautiful.
 She threw a velvet painting of the Pink Panther behind the couch and replaced it with her new painting.  "Oh yeah, Norm, that tall guy Joe is outside asking if you are here.  He's got some fish book with him and said you had to see it."
 "Shit!  That's just great...!"
 

Part VI, published in Livebearing Trumpet No. 29, "The Dead One is Full Again," October 1996.

 The stairwell from the entrance was full of odd sounds, as Joe began his assent.  It seemed Joe flailed about wildly below, and sputtered profanities.  I rushed over toward the door leading to the stairs, and eased it closed.  He was cursing cobwebs and for a moment, I was confused;  I couldn't recall any cobwebs on the stairs.  Then it occurred to me, of course the cobwebs were well above my head.  I turned from the door, trying to clear my head of the muddling effects of the fever.
 Nina, seeing my indecision, grabbed my arm and pulled me into the kitchen.  "Joe buggin' ya, NormGod?"  All I could do was nod.  I needed to get out.  Away from Joe.  My fever must have been getting worse, for my mind seemed almost detached from the events going on around me.  "All right, let's go!  Ruben's probably home by now, or A.J. will be.  One of them will let us in. We'll hang out there until it's time to go to Satyricon.  Bella Mondo is playing tonight, along with Sweaty Nipples.  You remember Davie Nipples don't ya?  You met him at my place a couple weeks ago.  Well, that is his band.  Well, his and his brother's.  Ya ever meet Mike?...."
 While listening to Nina when she gets going can be tough on the patience, at least she was keeping us moving as she blathered.  She led us through the back door, down the fire escape, around the south side of the building, and immediately pulled us through the busy traffic on 6th Ave.  It must have been rush hour, judging by all the cars that almost ran us down.  Ruben lived just across the street.
 We ran up the stair that fronted Ruben's house, and Nina pounded on the door with the heel of her hand.  "Open the door.  Damn it, open the door, Ruben!"  Nina is the loudest person I know.  I am constantly surprised by the amount of sound she can produce.  She looks too small to make such noise.
 
 

(to be continued???)