Clark informed me as we stood on the sidewalk talking and smoking like we do every morning.

“We are all out on the street because of fucking women. Do you know what I mean? Do you?”

“What do you mean?” I asked to stop him from asking again.

“You’re out here becausee of your wife, right? She won’t let you smoke in the house, am I right?”

He was and he didn’t need me to tell him because I’d been bitching about it ever since we’d first met.

“Willoughby’s out here cause his wife left him and he’s got no one else to talk to, right?”

“Wrong,” I said. “Willoughbys not down here.”

“Well if he was… when he was… when he will be, it’s because of a woman… his ex.”

“Who’d you fuck to end up down here?” I asked, actually curious.

“Fuck? Fuck you. Who said anything about fucking you sick fuck?.”

“You said, ‘we’re all out on the street because of fucking women’,” I reminded him.

“Figure of fucking speech,” He said and he was quiet for a minute and smoked. “I’m talking about my dead mother. I mean that’s sick. I’m down here because my mother’s dead and she never let me smoke in the house in the end… the cancer… It became a habit.”

“Smoking?”

“Smoking outside,” he said “I’m here out of respect for the dead and you…?” and he made a nauseous face and I could see his eyes working in his head.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I thought you were going to open up about your personal relationships.”

“I don’t have any personal relationships. I got you and Willoughby.”

“Willoughby’s not here.”

Clark looked up at Willoughby’s window and said, “So what’s wrong with Willoughby?”

Clark asked.
“In Hell,” I said.
“Behind the window?”
“Yes behind the window… Behind his eye lids. Up there. Down the street. Where ever.”
“Seriously,” Clark said. “I haven’t seen that stupid fuck in weeks. It’s like he’s breaking up our old gang. He used to be down here smoking and shooting the shit with us and now I ain’t seen him for weeks.”
“He’s having a rough time,” I said.
“He’s having a rough time? Why? Rough time? I’m having a rough time. Shit, you’re having a rough time. Whose not having a rough time?”
“Well he’s having a rougher time than most,” I said.
“Bull shit,” Clark said.

He was quiet and then the Helicopter came back and he was yelling at me again, “Did you see that other Spielberg movie?”
“What?”
“War of the Worlds,” He said.
“Say, was Orson Welles an alien?” I asked.
“What’s that got to do with it?”
“He did the radio War,” I yelled.
“Oh that guy. No. He was just fat. No,” Clark said. “But Hitchcock was. He was fat and an alien. You know how I know that?”
“You look at him and he’s fat,” I said.
“Rear Window… who else would make a movie where a skinny fuck like Jimmy Stewart tries to give Grace Kelley the air. He should be so lucky.”
“Well Jimmy Stewart was a big movie star,” I said.
“Not in the movie,” he said. “In the movie he was a stupid shutterbug. Grace fucking Kelley!? Please.”
“Well she wasn’t Grace Kelley in the movie either,”I pointed out.
“Who gives a shit?” Clark said. “She still looked like Grace Kelley didn’t she?”
“Yeah,”I said and I could see his point.

He was talking and talking, but none of it made much sense to me. Something about the will and his dead mother and probate and the estate and then he was off onto God and the desert and the funeral and the first miracle of water and wine and over head a helicopter said, “badadadada badadada badadada” as it chopped the air and he was yelling over it at me and I hadn’t even had my second cup of coffee yet and then I could see Willoughby shut his window on the second floor. Nobody could stand Clark’s noise, but Clark.

“The Military,” he said. “Has been taken over by the last remaining branch of the Hitler’s S.S., who are it this very moment in the desert building an arena for the Ascension, like in Close Encounters of the Third kind? You think that’s an accident? Hell no. Spielberg is one of them…”

“Spielberg is one of the last remaining members of Hitler’s S.S.?”

“No, of course not… One of THEM.”

“A Jew?”

“No. Boy are you ignorant. Religion is a code and smoke screen… NO, he’s an Alien. One of THEM. Raiders of the Lost Arc? E.T.? You think that’s a Coincidence?”

And the helicopter was louder now and it said,”BADADADA BADADADA BADADADA!” and It fealt like a hammer hitting my head.

“Don’t you ever breath,” I yelled over the noise when the helicopter zoomed off and I finished the “breath” in the insant of quiet.

“Breath? Of course I breath,” he said. “I don’t want to die….
…Not before the truth comes out. It’s going to be fascinating. You don’t believe me?…Listen.”

Then he was talking again and then the helicopter was back and it said,