CLINTON ST. QUARTERLY wolf who was going to slyly ask me for dope, or a slimy jackal-off deviant who was going to offer us an ungodly huge heap of money if he could film my Chunky in Tricia’s popcorn. He was behind us like a subway rush-hour commuter. As we reached the doors to the lobby, 1 wondered whether I should go to the bathroom here (up a narrow staircase to a men’s adjacent to above marquee access) or wait until we got home (a block and a half away). The zoomer seemed to be gnawing at our necks, so 1 decided it would be wiser to walk Tricia home and brush off Mr. Aisle-Hog outside. 1opened the door to the lobby with my right arm and led, then held, Tricia with my left as secure protector and escort. The lobby was abustle, stares, murmurs, and neck-nods. A bit unusual, the Esquire not being that popular as an after-the-film pit stop, but, as always, I figured that I didn’t have my glasses on and that in post-movie limbos I’ve learned to dismiss peculiar scenes as normal denoument of eyesight contortions. We stepped outside and paused to acclimate; all the lights above the shut-down box office were glaring. A cop on the beat was chatting with someone near the outside poster display. The blond bongo, who I’d hoped would just pass by and wander on to other spatial wars, suddenly grabbed my right elbow tightly; I turned; he said some blend of “ Don’t move, do as I say” ; someone yanked Tricia from me; I looked to that side; a cop had pulled her yards away, into the street, behind a kneeling policeman who was aiming a rifle at me; two uniforms materialized from around the box office and pointed overstat- ingly strict long-schnozzled pistols at my belly; cop on the beat had a revolver directed towards some part of me, though any part would’ve been adequately intimidating. Stupid me, without my indestructible cape; I was reminded of Tricia’s first words, neatly articulated at nine months old: “ Uh oh .” No cop on beat. No toker-joker. No kidding. “ Put your hands on your head.” A classic Godzilla-sized Irish homicide-hooey appeared, his badge polished. I put my hands on my head, causing my unbelted trousers a hiphanging fight for decency (I spend the better part of my days hiking up my oversized pants because such an activity helps me both into and out of the devil’s playground, reinforces my egocentric preference for a non-swim- mer’s swim over fashion’s fascistic falsettoes, and makes me smoke fewer cigarettes by providing an optional twiddle for my grubby mitts). I was nonplussed, but acutely alert to my trousers’ edgings toward a career in slapstick. Blondie frisked me, unpocketed my eyeglasses. I tried to say something (I don’t remember what, but probably something like “ surprise?” or something equally profound) but was told to just do as told to do in order to remain okay, so 1 tried not to say something and looked around. There were people across the street, across both streets, across to the other corner, bunches of people watching. And there were squad cars all over. Tricia was being gingerly restrained and interrogated. There were other law-enforcement agents, back-up scratchers, fuzzy dots, tagets, gunnozzles, nightmares, instigators who should be cuffed and canned. So much so fast; unlike winning a sweepstakes and microphones begging your future, it’s inverted, a prize-catch day with you as victim, the buck at large shot down. They asked me who I was and I told them who I was and that I lived only a block and a half away and they asked me for ID and I told them I didn’t have any ID (I mean, knowing who I was, why would I need it?) but that I could go home and get some. More bright lights stung my senses from a TV camera team. I had no idea what I’d done to create such an uncommon interest in me, but I suspected it must’ve been something a wee bit wackier than my usual repertoire of crimes against nature poems and still-life lives. My mind raced. (vrrooommm, vrrooommm; maybe my nightwalking self blacked out and killed someone and I just can’t remember but they’re gonna prove it and I ’ll have to undergo years o f institutional mashed potatoes and witch doctor treatments before I can remember and scream OhMyGod I Did It I Did It; but at least then I ’ll probably also remember Why I Did It and bet i t ’ll’ve been fo r a damn good reason, probably because o f an all-strings- attached personality test being handed to me by an acne-chewing evangelist downtown; or maybe, during my travels, I ’ve been unwittingly used as a pawn by government agents who affixed sensitive microfilms to my briefcase and then couldn’t f ind me fo r a transfer because we got o f f in the unpredictable likes o f Bozeman, but now they’ve caught up with us and need to arrest me with a cover incident in order to later set me up with a new identity in Hoboken to avoid possible harm to my loved ones from alien forces; maybe; maybe; all those times I liberated all the copies o f the Atlanta Constitution with my one slim dime; maybe I said a trademarked word in vain; I ’ve had unclean thoughts about produce; I put my shoe-heel against the lobby partition an unforgivable second time; I wished everyone dead and a whole lot o f them died; I ’ve spat on spit-shined shoes, I ’ve insulted millionaire Jasnion- designers, I ’ve ignored check-up notices from my optometrist, I ’ve eaten plants because I couldn’t hear them talk and say “no, no, please, ” and I ’ve made fun o f people behind their backs because they were funny-looking without their minds on) “ Hey, turn off that camera,” said a plainclothes hand, wrinkled sweep through my limelight. 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