Chapter 3: What Am I Doing Hangin' Round?

 looked confusedly around at my new surroundings. People were rushing everywhere, each to his or her own end. Some were heading to the trains, some were leaving; others were walking, running, in and out of the shops. And some, like me, seemed new here, and lost. The public address system was announcing the imminent departure of the 3:10 to Clarksville, and briefly an odd thought occurred to me that if these people could get organized, perhaps a greater good could be accomplished. I shook my head and tried to focus on my situation.

Where was I? How did I get here? What's the deal on Mark Fuhrman? And is anybody actually watching "Live Shot"? Where questions are trivial the answers are meaningless, and so I decided to explore on my own in hopes of discovering the reasons I was here.

I was having some trouble getting my Walkman started, and so I paused near a polished-granite wall and unclipped the box from my belt. I pushed "Eject" and removed the tape; then holding it by two diagonally opposite corners I spun it five times, then spun it horizontally once, tossed it in the air a few times, and finally reinserted it into the Walkman. I pressed "Play," and my heart froze.

I distinctly remember when I had removed my headset back outside the Denny's a moment ago, that the third song on side one of the album was playing, nearing the end. But this was not what I now heard through the headset; I was hearing the start of the fourth cut. In an uncontrolled frenzy that was fuelled as much by fear as by cold medicine, I frantically whipped the tape out of the player and tossed it to the floor. I flipped the switch to "AM" and heard a disembodied voice that identified itself as "Three-W-E." I ventured out the door, past a barbican of seven pillars, and walked down twelve steps to the street.

Outside of the terminal building was a plaza, with streets radiating out to the south. I stood at the hub, trying to guess which way I was expected to go; with no clue as to my destination, however, I found myself immobilized, frozen with an inability to find direction. I leaned back onto the square support of a statue and closed my eyes.

"Pardon me, but that's a very nice way."

My eyes snapped open, and I spun around, trying to find the source of the voice. "Who said that?"

"It's pleasant down that way, too."

I looked up at the statue and wondered, doubting myself, wasn't he pointing the other way?

"Of course, people do go both ways."

By now all pretense of logic had been ripped from my reality, and so, hesitating, I spoke. "W-w-w-why, you DID say something, didn't you?"

"No, twinkies-for-brains, over here. The information booth."

Oh.

"You look lost. Talking to statues, hmm? Crazy stuff. Just get into town? Thought so. May I make a suggestion? The Elegant Rhino. I think you'll find your answers there. Down Euclid, 'bout a half-a mile." He slammed the booth shutters down.

Well, an unexpected direction is better than no direction at all, and so I searched for a street sign that would identify a road as "Euclid Avenue," and began walking.

Unanswered questions kept drilling into my thoughts. How will I be able to rejoin the Monkeeheads? Is it true that when Michael Jackson wants to pick his nose, he just uses a catalog? Is Compuserve going to keep charging me $2.95 an hour the whole time I'm here?

Somebody on the radio was yelling "You da man, Tom Brokaw, you da man," as I arrived at a small streetside restaurant named The Elegant Rhino. Pushing open the ornately-carved oak and glass doors and removing my headset, I went inside.

A woman dressed as a waitress approached me and asked, "Smoking or nun?" I replied "Neither, thanks, I'm just having lunch," and after briefly consulting a chart, the waitress instructed me to sit anywhere. As I walked down the narrow aisle, a voice spoke up from a booth. "Hey, Nick, sit down."

Now, having been a contestant on Wheel Of Fortune some years ago, and appearing for about three seconds on a Burger King commercial in 1974 while picking a few notes of their then-current jingle The Mystical Magical Burger King on a five-string banjo, I have become used to strangers recognizing me off the street and calling my name. Sometimes I'll stop to sign an autograph, but usually I just knee them in the groin, take their wallet, and run. In this strange city, though, I began to believe that stupidity is the better part of valor, and so I sat down at the stranger's table.

"Stranger" is the operative word here, in every sense. She was dressed in a form-fitting gold lame blouse undercut with a white slip, and white stretch jodhpurs, her red hair piling up into a sky-high beehive that did little to hide her apparent 6-foot-plus height. She had swimmer's shoulders that were accentuated by the blouse's shoulder pads, and -- oh, yes -- an adam's apple.

Oooooookay.

"They call me Mr. Abnormal, though the name's Nicktoon. Nicktoon Angora." As I frantically rearranged the sugar packets and salt and pepper shakers and ketchup bottle and relish jar and napkin holder into some sort of protective semicircle, he told me the story of the Recycle Babes and the Lost City of Cleveland.