Like Dizzy Gillespie's Cheeks

Seventy-two

Max once explained to me a phenomenon called "shut down," where people who spend too much time at a museum begin to experience burning, blurry eyes, a sensation that the brain is becoming numb, like it could shut off at any moment, and a dull pain and severe warming of the ears, as well as an overall feeling of body fatigue.

He explained it as an overloading of the senses ... something about being in the presence of great art that, I guess at some point, he says, becomes so overwhelming that your system just shuts down. Naturally, he suggests that one spend a maximum of an hour actually viewing art and either taking a break before jumping back into it or coming back another day. "Shut down" was the way I felt as I flagged down a cab.

The Ben tapes, although some more crude than others, were masterful. I could understand what Ben meant by learning from them. I was only able to listen to a few tapes, most of which were Ben and Miles. I was stuck on one tape in particular, where I kept listening to this piece that was probably eight minutes long, over and over again. I was mesmerized by the interplay between Ben and Miles. It was thoughtful and aggressive and competitive at the same time. Some of the other tunes were nothing more than jams.

One of them would set down a riff, and the other would follow, and they'd come together, and go apart, and both seem to end at the same time. The other thing that was priceless was listening to the two banter, talk, jive, and, frankly, give each other shit.

Exhausted yet inspired by the Ben tapes, I sat in the back of a cab and closed my eyes. Not only did the stink of sauerkraut and stale coffee prevent me from dozing off, the driver's high-pitched, Asian-accented voice made sure I didn't.

"Good plans for New Year?" the cab driver asked.

I opened one eye and found him beaming at me in the rearview mirror like a Jerry Lewis parody with thick glasses and buckteeth. Before I could answer, assuming that I was going to answer, he asked me another question.

"What happen to face? You know how you get rid of big, red pus sore?"

I surrendered. "Enlighten me."

"Oscar bacon grease."

"What the hell are you talking about?"

"Fry the Oscar bacon, put grease on towel, and hold on big, red pus sore."

"Yeah, OK, sounds like a fine idea. I'll be sure to do that as soon as possible. Thanks for the advice." He was beaming with delight as I closed my eyes again. This time I dozed off and could feel myself entering that warm state of sleep, where nothing bothered me. Not the bumps in the roads, the honks of traffic, or the cab driver singing in his high-pitched, Asian-accented voice, "... gonna dress you up in my love, my love, my love ..." In fact it all added to the dream of me floating through a magic tunnel, dully lit on the sides, and brightly lit at the end. And as I journeyed through the tunnel, Madonna's face floated by, then her cone tits, then her bare tits, her legs and fishnets—all visions of the old trampy Madonna. And as I got closer to the end of the tunnel, and I floated to the light, it got brighter and brighter, and all of Madonna's parts disintegrate into a billion tiny particles followed by a big, bright explosion that coincided with the feel of a newspaper whack the side of my head. I woke up to find the cab driver turned around looking at me, with his newspaper in hand.

"We here, we here. Wake up, man, wake up."

An ache on the side of the face revealed itself as I touched the throbbing of my right temple and cheek. At that point, I definitely reconsidered the standard 20 percent cab tip I would normally adhere to.

As I approached Helena's front door, it felt routine, as though this place was now a part of my life. No longer anew—After all, it made for my third visit to Helena Storm's residence in the past week in a half. The air was crisp, but my senses were not. I was nervous as to what Ivory wanted to chat about. Normally, I would've been ecstatic to keep company with Ivory, as a matter of fact; I was in awe the instant I found out who Helena was. But unfortunately, they'd become nothing more than "people to be suspicious of." Of course they only qualify for "people to be suspicious of" because I was fast turning into "person who is paranoid."