A matter of time

• • •

The lines begin and run off around the ever-curving face of the Klein bottle, seeking their beginnings in any of a thousand directions.

XXX. On the Z Axis;

12 September 1977;

Final Program

Total darkness. Near silence broken only by whispering and restless audience movements.

Suddenly, all-surrounding sound. A crossbreed, falsetto yodel/scream backed by one reverberating chord of the bass guitar. A pillar of red light waxes and wanes with the sound.

Erik Danzer is on.

Nude to the waist, in hip-deep vapor, he rakes his cheeks with his fingernails. He looks like an agonized demon rising from some smoldering lava pit of hell.

Light and sound depart for several seconds.

Sudden light reveals Danzer glaring audience right. Light and sound fade. Repeat, Danzer glaring left.

Harsh electric guitar chords, with the bass throbbing up chills for the spine. Mirror tricks, flashing, put Danzer all over the stage, screaming, "You! You! You!" while pointing into the audience. "You, girl!"

The lights remain on, though dimly, throbbing with the master chords. Danzer sometimes seems to be several places at once. The pillar-spot jumps from band member to band member.

The man whose forged German Federal Republic passport bears the joke-name Spuk neither understands nor enjoys. His last encounter with British rock was the Beatles' "Penny Lane." He does not know that Harrison, Lennon, McCartney, and Starr have gone their separate ways. He has never heard of "Crackerbox Palace," Yoko, Wings, "No, No, No."…

Nor does he care.

The pillar moves from man to man. The spook lifts the silenced Weatherby.227. Through the starscope the once familiar face looks like a stranger's.

The curtain masking the door to the box stirs. A shoe whispers on carpeting. A hand reaches from the darkness. The rifle barrel goes down.

The spook turns pale as he stares into another face from the past.

"Dad."

"Michael."