Brakes screamed. A car skidded to a halt. White-faced, the driver leaned out and yelled, “Why’n’cha watch where you’re going, you crazy nut?”

  “Oh.” Bailey came to himself with a shock and realized that he stood in the middle of Post Street, the light against him. “I—”

  Cars stopped perforce around the tableau and honked. A crowd gathered. A large blue policeman pushed through. “Awright, awright,” he said, “what’s going on?” He assessed the circumstances. “Jaywalking, huh? You wanna get killed, Mac?”

  “I—I—” Fear, irrational but terribly real, closed fingers around Bailey’s throat.

  “Give him a ticket, officer,” the driver demanded. “Haul him off right now. He’s a menace to radiator grilles.”

  Toot! Toot! Toot! “Judas Priest,” the policeman groaned, “we’ll get traffic snarled from here to Daly City on account of you. Come over here! Off the street! Lessee your—” But Bailey had already offered his wallet.

  The policeman’s jaw dropped. “Why the hell didn’t you say so right off?” he exclaimed. The car was starting again. He ran and whistled it to a halt. “You, there! Pull over! Don’t you know you damn near killed an unfortunate?”

  The driver blanched afresh. “Yes,” said a voice in the crowd, “and abused him too. Called him a crazy nut.”

  “For sure?” the policeman asked.

  “Yes, indeed.” The speaker stepped forth. “I heard him myself, officer. Goodness knows what psychic damage that brute inflicted.”

  Several witnesses added corroboration. The policeman said, “I’m sorry, Mr. Bailey, but I can’t book him for felony abuse less’n you come down to the station and swear out a complaint. You want to do that?”

  Bailey gulped and shook his head.

  “Well, anyhow, I can summons him on a 666,” the policeman said grimly. “And he’ll appear before Judge Jeffreys. I’ll see to that personal. Nobody gets away with abuse on my beat.”

  Bailey felt he ought to put in a word somewhere, but he was too shaken. Wanting only escape, he faded into the crowd, which made way for him, and onto Union Square. Its grass was long overdue for mowing, and badly littered, but the flags still flew on their staffs—

  Wait. Those were supposed to be American and Californian flags, weren’t they? Not the Jolly Roger, and SPQR, and a Campbell tartan, and Friends United in Close Kinship, and—

  The man who had been his first witness touched his arm. “May I be of service, dear boy?” he murmured. “You are evidently new to our fair city.”

  “Well, I…I’ve been in Napa,” Bailey said.

  “And now alone. How perfectly awful! You might have been simply days about finding your real sort.” The man was small, neat, clean educated of speech; in fact, no matter how closely Bailey looked, the sole remarkable thing about him was his strapless blue velvet evening gown. He shook hands, lingeringly, and said, “Call me Jules.”

  “Bailey. Douglas Bailey. I—uh—you too—an uh, unfortunate?”

  “But of course, delightful boy, but of course. You are so lucky that I happened to be there. Few of us come down to this area. Without a guide, you could have been stranded among absolute tessies.”

  A man in a black uniform emerged from the throng, mounted a bench, and trumpeted: “Friends! My dear subhuman friends! Listen to me. This is a very vital message. You will note that I am of Caucasian stock. Well, friends, I have a surprise for you. I am something rather unique. I am a racist—a dedicated, fanatical racist—who maintains, and can scientifically prove, that his own race is inferior. The only true humans on Earth my friends, the main line of evolution, the masters of the future are the lordly Melanesians.”

  Bailey and Jules wandered upwind. “But there do seem to be, well, individualistic types here,” Bailey said.

  “Oh, my poor innocent,” replied Jules. “How can you count them? Don’t be so naive. “It’s charming in you, but it is still naïveté. Half the Union Square orators are sane. They merely indulge themselves, knowing that an overworked police force will seldom ask to see their certificates. And the other half—now really, darling, don’t you agree that they are as bad as the tessies?”

  “Tessies?”

  Jules patted Bailey on the rear. “I see that I shall have to take you in hand. I shall truly have to. No, no, don’t feel obligated. My pleasure. My, shall I say, soul-artistry. I shall introduce you to the people who matter. I shall inform you. I shall remold your personality. I shall, in a word, make you.”

  “What? Uh, hey, look here, I don’t—”

  Jules took Bailey’s elbow and urged him along. “Tessies,” he said, “are tesseracts. Four-dimensional squares. The stolidly, immovably sane. But I insist that these downtown psychoceramics, even the certified ones, are tessies themselves. They have the same preoccupations, society, success, display, no dimmest concept of inner space. Why, I heard one ranting about God once, and asked him if he had ever apprehended the infinite by simple contemplation of an antique Quaker Oats box, and he positively spit! ” They crossed the street. “I shall take you straight to Genghiz’s. I’m sure a party will be starting. It’s that time of day. And he has the most delightful friends… Ah, here we are.” Jules stopped at a Volkswagen. It was overparked, but evidently the U sticker on the windshield, or perhaps the flounces around the chassis, took care of that.

  “You have a driver’s license?” Bailey asked in his bewilderment.

  Jules nodded. “It makes me very much in demand in my little circle. Not many of them are allowed to drive, you realize. Some wax positively furious about it. But I must agree, just between the two of us, dear, that society has some rights as against the unfortunate. Not many, but some. However, can you think of any reason why a homosexual should not drive?”

  “What? But, uh, but—your case—”

  Jules trilled merriment. “Oh, my love, how did they treat you in Napa? Were you never allowed newspapers? Newscasts? Why, it was the big issue of the last election. We were even divided among ourselves. The Mattachine Society said they had worked so hard to get us accepted as normal, if un-average, citizens. Poor dears. They were just unrealistic. The rewards of ‘unfortunate’ status are well worth the label. And it isn’t supposed to be a stigma anyway, is it? Every candidate—I mean simply every candidate throughout the nation—who favored changing the law to declare us mental cases, was elected by an overwhelming majority. I had no idea there were so many of us. Now, do hippity-hop in, doll child, and let us be on our merry way.”

  Bailey climbed in, automatically, recognizing his own weakness but unable to do much about it. Besides, he thought, I was at loose ends. This could be fun. I can always leave if it isn’t. I hope.

  They drove west, over the hills toward Haight-Ashbury. Jules pointed out the sights as they went. The Temple of Ishtar: “Well, I may have certain prejudices of my own, but I do think those satyriasis and nymphomania sufferers are a teensy bit vulgar, making a religion of it incorporated under the laws of the State of California don’t you? And so unnecessary.” The marijuana maze in Hamilton Playground: “That litigation went to the Supreme Court. What may or may not certified parents do about the rearing of their children? The Court found that, under the Fourteenth Amendment, it was discriminatory to exercise official control over such families when no physical harm was being inflicted.” The distant view of Oakland’s blackened ruins “So tragic. But I suppose, with the load they have, not to mention the demand for admissions far exceeding the available space, institutions must be forgiven for believing that an occasional arsonist has been cured.” A gaggle of men and women, dressed in artistic paint designs and nothing else, posting for the cameras of a foreign-looking couple: “I believe those tourists are Russian. We get a great many Russians these days. They laugh and laugh. I wonder why.”

  When the car stopped, Bailey gulped and had half a mind to run. The street was lined with old houses whose glass was broken, doors sagging, shingles loose, frames unpainted and tottery. The sidewalks were ankle deep in rubbish. The next block was unpassable because two automobiles had locked horns there and never been removed; they were rusted hulks now, and a rat scuttled from one. Nobody else was about, except a mainliner happily injecting himself on a decayed front porch. The smell of garbage blew strong on a cold breeze, and shadows deepened between the lean walls. Someone, somewhere, was crowing, loud and with a horrible regularity.

  Jules sensed Bailey’s unease and patted his head. “Don’t worry,” the little man said. “I know this may strike you as the least bit…sinister? But really, that handsome head of yours is quite safe here. It’s merely that—well, the tessies have their own areas, but hey can’t monopolize the entire city, can they? This section has been turned over to the unfortunates, to do with exactly as they like. Because wasn’t excessive conformity one reason they become ill?”

  Bailey mustered his nerve and accompanied Jules to an Edwardian mansion, turreted, scaled, and three stories high, which had been subdivided into apartments. “Shouldn’t we, uh, bring something?” he said. “If we’re crashing a party…a bottle or a sixpack?”

  Jules stamped his foot. “You must shake off those preoccupations!” he cried. “What could be duller than a ‘party’?” He all but enunciated the quotation marks. “How do you organize fun? And as for beverages, if you really haven’t the inner resources to get high by and act of will, why, they’ll be around. You see, Genghiz Khan knows Hairless Joe.”

  “He does?”

  Jules calmed down and explained. “We have an unfortunate who thinks he’s Hairless Joe. Surely you remember your classics. Hairless Joe made liquors. Therefore anyone who thinks he is Hairless Joe must be allowed to make liquors. And licensing or taxing him would hurt his psyche. So the cost is negligible.” He winked and dug a thumb in Bailey’s ribs. “It wasn’t easy to get that certification. Hairless Joe is the subtlest man I have ever met.”

  From a gloomy, cobwebby entrance hall, a flight of stairs led up to the sound of voices and what Bailey supposed was music. “Uh, who’d you say our host is?” he asked.

  “Oh!” Jules smote his breast. “I am so glad you reminded me! It could have been simply dreadful if you didn’t know you must humor his delusion. Be sure to call him Genghiz Khan. His name is—was—really Ole Swenson, but we don’t mention that. As long as you oblige him in a few reasonable ways—you know, kowtow when introduced, trembled in fear, inquire how his conquest of China is going—he’s really a love. But otherwise, well, I must admit he can get terribly, terribly vicious.”

  “Violent?”

  “Oh, no! Gracious no!” Jules threw up his hands. “Where do you get these distorted impressions? I admit some of my friends are a little strange, but it isn’t their fault, it’s society’s, and they are all, I am sure, such dear, good people at bottom.” He dropped his voice. “However, as for Genghiz, do be careful. If you don’t treat him as the Emperor of All Men, he…he sues you. For psychic damage. He often wins, too.”

  Bailey moistened lips gone dry and creaked after Jules.

  But once he got into the swing of it, the party turned out to be harmless. Indeed, he was reminded of student days in Berkeley. The odd clothes, the rather grubby bodies, the earnest and somewhat pompous conversations, the necking in the various corners of the rooms, which were painted black or hung with parachute cloth or otherwise decorated in the latest nonconformist mode, were very familiar. He remembered that this company were certified safe, able to cope with the world provided merely that the world paid their way. Like him.

  The affair got larger and noisier as day slid into night. Volunteers took a collection—unlike other Bohemians, this one did not lack for cash—and brought back sandwich makings; Bailey stayed in the apartment, circulating, getting acquainted, talking, admitting that Jules had probably done him a favor. This was an interesting bash.

  He did suffer occasional disillusionments. For example, a young man in a robe, hair to his waist, interrupted Bailey’s discussion with a former professor of economics. “Hey, Phil, you hear about Tommy?”

  “No, what?” replied the professor. He was a gentle, soft-spoken gray man who seemed more resigned to his own untidiness than rejoicing in it.

  “He got busted,” the young man said. “Cops caught him with his wife.”

  “Well, well.” The professor shook his head. “I can’t say I sympathize overly much. You know I never approved.”

  “Now, come off that tessie kick of yours,” the young man said. “We can’t let the fuzz pull this kind of stuff. We got to do something.”

  “What’s the trouble?” Bailey asked. By now, a glass of wine in his hand and another inside him, he felt almost bold.

  “New, chum?” the young man said. “ ’S like so. Tommy got himself certified last year. Stubborn case of marital impotence.”

  “You mean it wasn’t?”

  “Hell, no. Tommy’s the biggest stud on the West Coast. Like, he towers. But I guess word got to the fuzz. Imagine that! Snooping on a man’s private life. What kind of police state are we getting, anyhow?”

  “But a malingerer—” Bailey found he was addressing the back of the robe.

  The professor smiled. “I’m afraid that that’s become so common it’s positively respectable in some circles,” he said. “Our young friend makes no secret among his friends that his religious monomania is nothing but a way he had found to live without working.”

  “And you don’t report him?”

  “No, I regret to say I lack the courage to be a fink.” The professor sighed. “My own breakdown was quite genuine You try explaining modern American fiscal policies.”

  —An hour or two later, Bailey stood on the fringes of a group which listened to a voluble Negro explain an idea.

  “Man, I tell you, we can do it. All we need’s the organization. If the fairies did it, why not the colored? Way back in Brown vs. Board of Education, the Supreme Court found how discrimination effects the psyche. Right? Right. And law or no law, we still go discrimination in this county. So why shouldn’t we get a bill passed saying every black person’s a mental case. Don’t Whitey owe us that much?”

  “Well,” answered Genghiz Khan, “if the same thought could be applied to Mongols and Swedes—”

  “Sure,” said the Negro. “Why not? I was thinking we should get together with the Jews. But too many Jews got tessie hangups. So why not you instead? Logrolling, they call it.”

  A red-haired girl tugged Bailey’s sleeve, nodded toward the speaker, and whispered, “Now that’s a marvelous irony. Ferd wants certification so bad he can taste it. You should hear him rave about how the black man ought to rise and kill every dirty white in the world. But he’s never gotten past any examining board. The bastards always say he’s not paranoiac, he’s just expressing a political opinion. You see, down underneath, he likes white people. He can’t help it; he does. So now he’s hatched this scheme that ought to get him certified as an individual. Only I’ll bet it doesn’t. I’ll bet that inside ten years it’ll be the law of the land.”

  —Toward midnight they started dancing. By that time, probably half the population of the district was crowded into the house, every one of its apartments, and spilling downstairs into the street. But they discovered they could hop to recorded bongo drums if they did so in unison.

  Bailey’s head ached. He felt a trifle dizzy. Too much alcohol, smoke, warmth, stale air, excitement, in his weakened condition. But he didn’t want to leave. His inner disturbances were lost in a roseate glow. His loneliness was no more. This world-within-the-world accepted him. The red-haired girl had talked about her analysis, and talked and talked and talked. But she was nice-looking, and active as they sprang belly to belly, and he thought he could get her into bed later on. He danced.

  The company danced. The floor boomed. The chandeliers rocked. Plaster fell. Windowpanes shattered. Rat-a-plan, rat-a-plan, paradiddle, flan, flan! Hey, ha!

  Until the entire dry-rotted, termite-infested building collapsed. Bailey had an instant to know that he and the roof were falling.

  Then the rubble buried him and he was dead.

  Death was a stormwind. It was as if he were blown, whirled, cast up and down and here we go again. But by concentrating his will, by resolutely ignoring things like thunder and lightning and octopuses, he could stay somewhere on a level course.

  “Zero,” God counted, “one, ten, eleven—”

  Oh, shut up, he snarled.

  What was happening to him? Would this succession of sticky endings go on forever? Had he died his real death and been consigned to Hell?

  No. For what was the point of Hell if you couldn’t remember what you were there for?

  He focused himself on that one riddle. Who was he? Why was he? Not being so confused and frightened this time around, he discovered that he could recall his entire past in each of his lives. And up to a point they were the same. Ordinary boyhood, studies, travels, books, music friends, marriage, divorce, other women, other hobbies, promising career as a young research sociologist attached to the University Medical Center in San Francisco, because he’d written his thesis on the problem posed by the rising incidence of mental illness and was now trying to find cause and cure in terms of his own science…The lives diverged several years ago, in 1984 as nearly as he could place it.

  “One thousand, one thousand one, one thousand ten.”

  But which of the four was his real existence? Or were they all? No. Couldn’t be. Nothing in their common past suggested that his psyche would ever disintegrate. And yet it had. Four times. Then weren’t those episodes the illusion, the not-so-merry-go-round that he had to get off?