When I came out, the brunette in the blue evening gown was standing near the doorway listening to Larry Bagsby. Next thing I knew, she let out a whoop, grabbed her bosom, and fetched Larry a good one on the ear. This was unfair. I was a witness, and Larry hadn't done a thing except look; her overworked shoulder straps had simply given way, like Akimisov's suspenders.
Curiouser and curiouser.... The noises around me were picking up in volume and tempo, for all the world like a dancehall scene in a Western movie, just before somebody throws the first table. There was a thud and a screech off to my right; I gathered that somebody else had fallen down. Then a tinkle of bursting glass, and another little chorus of shouts, and then another thud. It went on like that. The crowd was on the move, in no particular direction; everybody was asking everybody else what was going on.
I felt the same way, so I went looking for Ray Alvarez; you can always count on him to tell you the answer, or make one up.
Tom Q. went by, flashing that camera, and it wasn't till the mob had swallowed him that I realized he wasn't replacing the bulb between shots—the same one was blazing over and over.
Well, a few years ago it was silly putty; the year before that, Diarrhetics. This year, everlasting flash bulbs—and no film in the camera.
Ned Burgeon passed me, his grin tilting his whiskers dangerously near the lighted stub in his cigarette holder; he was carrying the guitar case as if he were wading ashore with it. I saw Duchamp off to one side, talking to somebody, gesturing emphatically with his pipe.