Oliver Benjamin
A chill shot up Niles’ spine. Men in black suits, he knew, spelled
trouble. Impulsively, he ran through the back of the shop and into the
garden. He pulled an assortment of joints hidden in his dreadlocks
and was about to hurl them down the kungkum bath drain when Yak,
who had been in the bath at the time, startled him. Sheba too was
surprised. She had been napping on the tile and flung herself into the
bath in terror. Yak pulled the soggy, unsettled feline out by its scruff
and placed it back on the tile with a plop.
“What a difference all that hair makes,” Yak said, examining the
diminished animal. “What’s the matter Niles?” he asked.
“Creepy fellas just came in. Where’s Roy?”
Yak nodded towards the tiny bathroom window out of which
emanated the ambiguous ululations of sex or murder.
Niles ran over and stood on a box so that he could call through
the window of the bathroom. Roy told him to get lost. But Niles,
caught in the clutches of paranoia would not give up so easily.
Though a veteran potsmoker, he was still prone to the crushing awe
that suffuses the user when the limiting valve of reason is opened up
wider than normal and the universe tumbles in, not beautiful, as
Blake would have it, but blinding.
“Roy, you been in prison, mon?” he said.
Roy let go of Leona’s succulent leg, which crashed down upon the
toilet seat and split the lacquered wood. The sudden noise made
Niles yelp.
“Why?” Roy demanded.
“Some guys dressed in black suits are here. They said something
about you going ‘up the river.’ They look like mean motherfuckers
too.”
Roy mulled for a second, then, breathing heavily, pulled away
one of the ceiling panels and hoisted himself upward. Leona could
not help but admire Roy’s stamina: even in crisis, his erection was
unflagging.
Colin was giving the Hasidic Jews a tour of the place, explaining to
them that Undergrounds was meant to resemble the Garden of Eden.
This enchanted the Hasids—their profoundly mystical branch of
Judaism was nostalgic in the extreme. Their brethren prayed daily at
the wall of Solomon’s temple in Jerusalem, begging a reluctant God
to resurrect the glory of a kingdom long-since vanquished.
Roy was directly above them, carefully sliding his body over a
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