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hundreds for the entire game, talked mean, and got themselves numbed out on controlled substances. That is, those who weren’t in the band or on the team. The band had an amazing queer black boy named Dean Riverside out in front of them who did more boogie and stretch than the law allowed, the band into “Play That Funky Music, White Boy,” and the synchronized Chargettes throwing their legs around the whole affair. They actually made you enamored of the asinine, by God. Such style and earnesty!
    One night, when I was in Saigon, a chicken colonel’s wife walked past my Yamaha motorbike on the street. My eyes got wide and my heart was molasses. She walked by me, clicking her heels, tanned legs so lean, a fine joyful sense of her sex uplifted at the juncture of her thighs. Her face was serene, her eyes were blue, and she was, as they say, music. I recall the Rolling Stones’ “Lady Jane” was pouring from the door of the nearest bar. But she was not mine. I could never have her, and my heart was broken. The image of her kept me pure for years. I resisted the whores in Saigon, mainly out of a horror of VD, and never cheated on my first wife, mainly because there was nothing I ever saw like the chicken colonel’s wife again. Until I met Westy.
    Westy does not talk much about the act of love. She just does it with all her heart. Her children are beautiful and polite, and she has never threatened suicide, which my first wife was good for at least once a month, maybe thinking her period entitled her to it. We’re all God’s creatures, but some of us can be especially ugly. I had from this union three beautiful children to present to Westy. She liked them, and the second night we were together, with my two youngest heavenly blessings running around, Westy said, “I want you and all of it.”
    â€œHey, Doc, I hear you’re getting married,” says Mr. Hooch.
    â€œThat’s right.”
    â€œYou look happy and good, Doc. Me and Agnes wanted to invite you to have the wedding right here at the house. We’ll clean it up and the preacher will be free.”
    â€œThanks. I got a lot of sentiment for the place, John, but this lady is really fancy and I’m afraid it’s going to have to be at the old Episcopal Church.”
    â€œWell, could we get invited?”
    â€œYou didn’t get the engraved invitation yet?”
    â€œI don’t know. I don’t read much mail.”
    We went out to a heap of circulars, letters from the police, utility bills, pamphlets from the Cancer Fund, and unread newspapers in the front hall. I picked through it awhile, but I couldn’t find the envelope from Westy. Then there was a shriek from the top of the stairs. It was Sister.
    â€œI’ve got the cocksucking invitation up here I”
    Mr. Hooch looked very sad.
    â€œShe ain’t right, Ray. She sings at night and smokes that marijuana all day and don’t eat much. Go see to her, if you would.”
    Her room was well set up. She had an expensive stereo system with Devon speakers, a microphone stand, a Martin guitar on the bed, which was brass and costly, a thick oyster-shell carpet on the floor, a tape deck, rugged white thick curtains on the window, and the walls were solid acoustic tile as well as the ceiling. It was a studio. It smelled like she’d lit ten joints about eight secondsago. It had its own refrigerator. The door shut behind me as if in a vacuum unit.
    Sister was wearing only panties and a red halter. I’d never seen her look better. Actually, in good light, I’d never seen this much of her.
    She had the invitation from Westy in her hand and sat on the bed.
    â€œRay, you told me once that you needed to make love twice a day or you got very tense and had headaches. But I need it four times a day and I’m getting to be a better singer every day.”
    I didn’t say anything. I was still taking in her and the