THE SIXTY-EIGHTH PAGE

I told the managing editor that I felt even worse and she said she was beginning to feel not so well herself. A drink of water would probably do her a world of good I told her as I departed. She nodded her head gratefully and headed for the water trough.

At my departure in the lobby, a senior publicist, so stupid that he thought me friend, rushed up with customary euphoria. It was not what it looked like. Sometimes my day’s drug of choice induces euphoria. The company idiot’s euphoria this time was not his own; it belonged to the apomorphine hydrochloride, which quietly began to manifest itself again in the good old way. As the publicist cheerfully lurched toward me in his foolish embrace, I swiftly turned the puckered lips away and aimed them at the receptionist’s desk. Target!

My great luck continued because at that moment the elevator doors opened, and discharged a new flood of victims, who would no doubt head directly to the watering hole for their dose, returning again and again to wash the offensive muck from their stinking mouths.

Headed for a little recreational book shopping, I hit the street, singing in the rain.