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    "Pretty good with that," I said, smiling back.

    The man laughed, let loose with a torrent of the most backwardmasked-sounding, odd-syllabled language I'd ever heard, then he bounded down the street like a disturbed rabbit.

    Realizing then that I hadn't had any language leaves in awhile, I decided to work on fnding some immediately. I walked out into the dirt street (which could almost be called an alley) and across it, down it a little way, and fnally spied the distinctive leaves of a potted language bush next to a green wrought-iron bench. I went over and asked it politely, etc... this one demurely offered me a slender branch to pick from. I plucked some, thanked it, and kept walking, munching away on my gift of leaves.

    The directions Aurora left me were pretty clear; I marched down the middle of her street and out to the frst main thouroughfare mentioned: Gilabola Boulevard. Almost immediately, a black-hooded man riding something like a two-legged camel nearly stomped me to death. The camel-thing had two long arms hooked around the man's legs, and was carrying him piggyback. It chuckled and spit. "I'm very sorry," it said, in a syrupy, deep voice.

    The guy was also very polite, of course, apologized, and then suggested that next time, I look both ways before crossing into a busy street. Which I realized, looking around me, that it was.

    People and color and sound everywhere—despite the emerald glaze over everything. Pointed hats with the bells seemed to be an ubiquitous item with the men, seemed to fll the same function as a cowboy hat or baseball cap, and silk, lots of silk on the women, too, and sparkles, and of course jewelry. Vendors' stands sprawled across the sidewalks, people moved in and out of shops and down the street on various conveyences, living or otherwise. Two cows were riding in a cart pulled by two other cows. One very hairy man, I mean wolfman hairy, was gracefully moving down the street in a spidery wheeled contraption. He pumped a water pump, which sprayed a high pressure stream of water over a fywheel of some sort, and turned the wheels.

    I took a left down Gilabola, as per the directions, and gradually found myself in the middle of a Bosch painting.

    Two little blonde children foated a glowing orb back and forth between them as they ran down the sidewalk, side by side, and a cat-faced man, complete with whiskers, sampled a slice of purple cheese from a pushcart. He smiled and purred loudly as I went by, and produced a string of pearls, which he handed off to the (apparently) lizard proprietor in exchange for a hefty violet cheese wheel.

    I'm trying, but there's no way to accurately describe this place. Every L. Frank Baum tryptych is a bleached-out pencil drawing of the real thing. Conventional wisdom suggests that he must have had some strong psychic link which allowed him to draw up the amazing stuff that he did, but, if that's indeed true, it was like a weak, dopplered signal from another arm of the galaxy by the time it arrived, full of noise and distortion, allowing only the most salient features to shine through, the resolution missing. This in turn must have caused Baum to improvise. Sometimes suggestions, letters from his young tunedin readers, most likely receivers of their own Oz-visions, would fll in factual gaps. Sometimes he came up with right-on fantasy characters on his own that could well have existed here, sometimes he came up with utter bullshit.

    But when you're actually here, walking down Gilabola Boulevard, facing east and the gleaming spires of Ozma's Castle, and a guy with a blue-striped face is trying to sell you a bunch of cinnamonscented things like pulsating pink turnips, it's a question of too much resolution.

    I looked up and saw a sign that said, "Topeka." That made me laugh, and it looked like a bar, so I ducked into it. Turns out "Topeka" had nothing to do with Kansas. I was right about it being a bar, though. "Topeka" is also an old Winkie word that means "strong intoxicant." I was all for it right then.

    There wasn't much happening in there, two guys sitting at something that looked less like a bar and more like some kind of late 1800's apothecary, or a Chinese herb store.

    Sure, there were bottles back behind the counter, and the bartender was dispensing something that looked remarkably like liquor to the regulars, but it looked like there was more to it than that. There were lots of jars of powders back there, too, and unidentifable yellowed dried things, and what looked like an elaborate altar to some winged diety.

    The guy behind the counter was a beefy guy with long salt-andpepper braids to either side of his head. He looked up from pouring, wiped his hands on his long white smock, and winked at me. His features were unmistakably native American.

    "Too early for you to have a drink, Gene," he said. "Go eat something. Come back later."

    I grinned a weak shit-eating grin and backed out the door. Either word gets around really fast here, or that guy was wickedly psychic. It being Oz and everything, I guessed at the latter.

    I ducked back into the Bosch painting, kept my head down, and followed directions until fnally, I saw a big sign with a picture of a big green burrito a la Keith Haring, cartoony steam lines pouring off of it, and "The Emerald Burrito" in block letters underneath.

    The front door opened up as I got to it, and this little weeble person looked out, squeeked, and ran back in.

    In a second, Aurora was there, slapping four off of her hands, and giving me a big hug and a kiss on the mouth, getting four all over me anyway.

    God, she looked good right then. She was a sight for sore eyes. Or sore head, whatever. All the vague hopes I'd had for us came swarming up in that moment. But I hadn't come expecting anything; it was enough just to see her, to be with her again. Thank God I didn't say anything stupid.

    She'd dyed her long hair, superman-blueblack shining in the green light, big toothy smile and that gravely voice saying how glad she was I'd found it all right, how long did it take me, did I this, was it that. She grabbed my hand and walked me to a table, where I settled myself, noticing seven or eight sets of eyes staring at me from various places in the room. Then she disappeared into the kitchen again, saying she'd be right b

Dear me,

    This morning was berserk, pretty much as I'd expected. Even Poogli was stunned by the death of the Fonz; and I have to admit I'm not quite over it, either. I keep thinking I'll see him walk in the door, briefcase in hand, tie slightly askew. No explanations: just an immediate critique of napkin placement, followed by a hug for whoever set the table.

    That was the thing about Fonzie: he wanted so badly to be al
l
business, but his heart always got in the way. Usually after the fact
, but you know what I'm saying. He couldn't spank you without kissing the fresh handprint on your ass. Macho buttercup. Ruff tuff creampuff.

    Dumb dead sonofabitch…

    Anyway (sniffe), I bring this up just to point out that he wasn't a total spaz. I loved him a lot, and I liked him, too. He was a very important part of my life. There'd be no Burrito without him—without that morning after the one night we made out, when he knew that I wasn't going to fall in love with him, but he knew that he wanted me in his life; and he said to me, all soul-puppy eyes, "Well, then, what can we do together?"

    And I said, "Well, I'd love to do a restaurant..."

    And now, I guess, that restaurant is mine.

     But anyway. It was crazy this morning. But there was also the dream, which was what sent me scurrying kitchenward. Because Mikio had planted a seed in my head. I needed to dream for the seed to take root.

    In the dream, Mikio was naked, and his unit was easily two feet long. He was using it to stir a big kettle of soup, and the kettle was adorned with charms. I remember that the stereo was playing "Jambalaya." I remember asking him what the fuck he was doing. He just smiled and said, "Won't you be surprised?"

    I remember this raising a dream-eyebrow, and me brandishing a spatchula as long as my arm.

    I don't know why I poured the soup on my head, except that maybe I just wanted it to soak into my skin. He smiled, then—he's so
cute!—and the next thing I knew, I was licking his ladle.

    He tasted just like curried chicken.

    All of a sudden, I was wide awake, and Gene were snoring beside me. I was half-tempted to suck him off (don't he wish), just to get my bearings. But the idea was riveted in my head; and the more I laid there, the more it made sense. (An Ozian sense, to be sure; but when in Oz...)

    So no, I didn't head straight over to Mikio's place. I hit work an easy hour before the rest of the gang, headed directly towards the kitchen. I had enough charms around the apartment to make experimentation a snap. I had the stereo design from my cool boy genius, which I'd already studied quite a bit. And I also had the hoof of poor Patsy the cow, who'd mysteriously disappeared about a year ago. (She'd lost the hoof when she was just a calf—snapped it off, trying to jump over the moon—but she'd saved it, all those many years; and for some reason, just weeks before she vanished, she'd come to the conclusion that she really, really wanted me to have it. So I took it. Who knows why these things happen?)

    Anyhoo. By the time my crew showed up, the meat had been marinating for almost an hour; and by the time the crying was mostly done, I felt it was ready to cook up and serve.

    But it wasn't until Gene showed up that I was ready to stage the test.

    He came in, wearing the clothes I'd laid out for him, with a look of immense perplexity on his face. He's so funny—so observant and cool, but still totally living inside of his head—and it was clear that his vacation so far had him wiggin' out more than a little bit. The fact that I was playing Grand Funk Railroad didn't seem to faze him— maybe "Closer to Home" was some kind of psychic balm—but he gave me a hug with no small boneage involved, and then let me lead him somewhat dazedly to a table.

    Gene has, if nothing else, a discerning pallette (this is not a diss, but a thick slab of praise; he has lots more going on, but it's his sensory acumen that grabs ya). If this experiment had been a success, he'd be the frst to tell me.

    So I raced into the kitchen, and whipped up a heapin' helpin' of
machaca con huevos, in the new Aurora style. The shredded mea
t and eggs and veggies smelled, to me, exactly right. I added a salsa I knew he'd like—hot and sweet like no peppers on Earth—and laid out some noomy root as garnish, the entire platter stylized as a japanese entree.

    Then, praying that this wasn't some weird inversion of goomer cream—a thing that smells nummy, but tastes like shit—I sidled back to Gene's table with the experiment in my hands.

    "Oh," he said, as the steam caught his nostrils. "Mmmm..." It was clear he hadn't eaten right in days. He gave me a look with those luminous eyes that said thank you thank you thank you, and I kissed him on the nose.

    I can't tell you how utterly focused I was upon his reaction. From the frst contact with his fork (a long-standing Ozian emplement, as well) to the time it touched his lips, I could feel the sweat welling up beneath my skin, feel my consciousness start to swim with astounding concentration. Why was it so important to me? Why had Patsy chosen to leave me her hoof? Why was Fonzie dead, before he could taste this? I had no fucking answers, and I have none now.

    But I swear on every God I love that it was destiny I smelled at that table, in that moment: destiny once again, not so much cutting through the shredded meat but annointing it, like grace on a sainted soul. This was not just meat; this was some kind of solution, to a dilemma I am only now beginning to understand.

    And then the fork actually reached his lips. And he actually chewed. And he actually swallowed. And the expression that actually took possession of his face was the one I'd been praying for with all my heart.

    "Wow," he said. It was a start.

    "What's it taste like?" I asked him.

    He said, "What do you mean?"

    I thought about that for a second. "I mean," I said, "well...what do you think you're eating?"

    He had a fork en route to face. It wavered there, and his face turned suspicious. "Umm," he said, looking me straight in the eye. "What do you mean?"

    "Is it good?"

    "Well, yeah!"

    "Does it taste familiar?"

    "Well, kinda! I mean, I don't know what kind of peppers you're using..."

    "But the meat?"

    "I was gonna ask you about that..."

    I could feel my heart sink. It must have shown in my face. "What?" he said, getting exasperated.

    I didn't just want to come out and say it. I wanted him to say it frst. I couldn't blame him for dodging my ball, but I really just wanted to slap him to death.