Neil Fletcher was known to his AP classmates as Strelnikov. The name fit him perfectly, for he was a nerdy kid who thought himself a revolutionary. He followed the leftist minds of the time – Tom Hayden, Angela Davis, Abbie Hoffman. Marx and Mao were his gods, for he had abandoned the christian one. When he heard that Che Guevera rode a motorcycle, he sold his coin collection in order to buy a two-stroke Suzuki. So much of his time was spent on The Revolution, reading about it and writing about it for the school newspaper, that he neglected his social life. In fact, he was about to graduate as a virgin. A dreaded fate he was desperate to rectify in the little time he had left. It was worse than that – he hadn’t so much as kissed a girl. But he was a young man, packed full of optimism, who believed that he could do great things. And if he could lead the way to overthrow capitalism and christianity, surely he could get himself an old lady before he flipped over the tassel of his mortar board.

* * * *

On a warm spring evening in '71, Neil and Wynn Davis, both seniors, rode their whiny two-stroke motorcycles into junior Sherry West's driveway. Sherry was a majorette, thin and pretty and a little shy. Not outgoing enough to handle all the social rigors of being a cheerleader, but okay to twirl a baton. She was pretty enough to make Neil a little nervous, and wonder if Wynn hadn't overstated how well he knew her, enough to stop by and say hello unexpected. She opened the front door, not fully, and smiled with a mix of reserve and surprise. Wynn had pushed his luck.

"Hey, Sherry, how ya doing? Do you know Neil?"

"Hi, Neil. People at school don’t call you Neil. What is it they call you?"

"Strelnikov." He was never sure if he liked the name. After all, Pasternak, who was initially impressed by Lenin, eventually turned on him. That was no good. And Pasternak had written Strelnikov as a fatally flawed character. But it grew on Neil, and he embraced it for the best. This majorette, who was in the process of mildly rejecting him, he wouldn’t expect her to comprehend it.

"A friend of mine had to explain it to me,” said Sherry. “I couldn't even spell it if I had to."

"It's a weird nickname, I know, but I can't say it doesn't fit."

"I have friends over, but it was nice of you to come by." Past the door, Neil could see in Sherry's living room, the start of a Saturday night pajama party. A stack of 45s were balanced on a cheap mono record player whose needle static between songs was quite audible. A bubblegum song began playing, and the girls started bouncing around, aping the vocals, swinging partners, falling to the carpet from laughing. One - junior Ellie Spaulding - wore flannel plaid pajama bottoms and a too short undershirt that revealed her belly button. Wynn had said once that she had a body like an eleven-year old boy, which was a bit unfair. Worse, Wynn put girls into one of two categories: fuckable or unfuckable. Several times, he had said Ellie was the latter.

She had a nickname, Lizard Girl - Neil didn't know what it meant. But unfuckable Ellie Spaulding had fallen down laughing, and before she pulled herself back up, she slid backward, so that the carpet pulled her pajamas down, and they remained that way after she was fully up. Two scoops of vanilla ice cream ass were exposed. She had to know there were guys at the door, that she had been seen, but her exuberance was uninterrupted as she tugged things back into place and resumed an exaggerated hoedown.

Neil, Wynn and Sherry stood by the door awkwardly, finally said 'well, see you in school' to each other, and that was the end of it. Another night with nothing to show for it. They rode to Wynn’s house and made sandwiches. Neil heaped a load of sandwich spread on a piece of bread and doubled it over. Wynn made a PB&J.

“Man, what a slob you are. That sandwich spread is all over your mouth.”

"Wynn, I'm going after Ellie Spaulding."

"That bony thing? C'mon."

"I saw her ass. It's burned into my retinas."

"You saw her ass?"

"You couldn't see from where you were, but I saw plenty. Ellie fell down and her pajamas didn't come back up with her. No underwear on."

"Was she drunk?"

"I don't think so. It reminded me of teen club, you know how girls just dance in a group with themselves? It was like that."

"I don't know, she's so weird. But hey, I'm glad to hear that Strelnikov is taking some time out from The Revolution to get himself an old lady."

"Why do they call her Lizard Girl?"

"Beats me, maybe she's got a pet iguana. She isn't uncute, she's just kinda asexual looking to me. But hey, maybe you'll finally get The Walk. The Walk all men must come to know."

"Quit bragging, I'll get laid eventually and it doesn't really matter to me when. Do you have any rettes? I just broke my last dollar and it's gotta last."

"Here ya go, a few lung-bleeder Kools for ya. Well, all I can say is, don't let her use your toilet. She'll chip the seat."

Neil smoked one of the Kools on the ride home, got in bed and read, in this order: a review of Captain Beefheart in Rolling Stone by Lester Bangs; three chapters of Romans, King James version (a bet he had lost); a 1964 New York Times article by Isaac Asimov on the future, swiped from the vertical file at school; a short story by John Updike called “The Astronomer”; “Hope is the Thing with Feathers” by Emily Dickinson; “Death” by W.B. Yeats; the lyrics to Leonard Cohen's first album, handwritten by a unanimously unfuckable girl in his biology class who was hinting around about the prom; and a criticism of James Fenimore Cooper, part of his term paper research. Something he knew he could never produce, a zero that would leave his grade tipping between a D and a flunk. All that Latin footnoting had a way of making his mind shut down.

He stretched to reach the wall switch and then he was in the darkness, that darkness Hemingway wrote about, where a person's thoughts differ from their daytime cogitations. Two years ago, he was in that state when he made the realization that god, at least any of the gods proffered by all the religions of the world, wasn't real. He had not been seeking an answer to this question, it sneaked up on his thinking and caught him by surprise. Suddenly he was breathless, as if his head had been shoved underwater. He surfaced, gasped, and thought, What Have I Stumbled Upon? He needed only a few seconds to realize the cause of this illusory jolt: someday, he would cease to exist, for the rest of time.

He awoke Sunday morning and was pleased to realize his proclamation about Ellie Spaulding had not been a passing whim. In fact, he felt energized. Like most young men, he spent a lot of time looking women over and it was obvious this was going to be a lifelong pursuit. And that fraction of time he had spent looking over Ellie had been pleasurable. It wasn’t just the fact he had seen her naked, it was the playful way she danced. Every average guy dreams of finding a girl that he thinks is cute but other guys pass over for some strange reason. Those girls do not exist, but that fact is lost on the average guy. And so Neil hoped that Ellie was that non-existent girl. It was Mom's fault that he was so hopelessly average. Her first husband was handsome and they had a handsome son, Norm. Her second husband, Neil's dad, was just an average guy across the board, a safe runner-up after what her first spouse had put her through with other women. She probably never considered the consequences of this crossing and how badly it would affect Neil's life. He would be lucky if a girl like Ellie Spaulding would go for an average shlub like himself.

Sunday was a day of chores with his father; Neil swore he would never, ever own a house and its perpetual grist mill of upkeep. So many guys in his graduating class were already planning for jobs, houses, children. Not Neil Fletcher. The Revolution came first. He spent all day completing his father’s list, ate dinner, and then just thought about Ellie until bedtime.

As he started out for school Monday, Neil's Suzuki whined past white and pink dogwoods – earthbound, tethered clouds. The verge on both sides of his block was lined with them. Their billows of petals had grown into each other, forming an arch above him as he rode past, making his ascendant street seem like the path to heaven. A godless heaven, of course. The ring-ding-ding of his two-stroke's engine quieted as he neared school. He locked the Suzuki’s fork into place between the bumpers of Freddy Sample's tan Bug and sports star/guitar god Bronk Steinmark's primered hearse (it contained a wooden, satin-lined, lidless coffin with scratch marks on the side for each girl he had balled in it).

The day was humdrum except for a wonderful reading of Othello by his English teacher, Mr. Gambitz. Mr. G, a slight but kinetic man, played Othello, Iago, Cassio and Desdemona. Yes, he seemed to glaze over in glee as the latter, but he was wonderful, daily he was, and worth the fact that he almost never gave out an A. Neil was set to leave the building at final bell, but realized the Student Progressive Initiative was to meet. He lit up and smoked the last of Wynn's three lung-bleeders in the smoking court, then headed to B Gymnasium.

SPI was one of the biggest clubs in the school. Mrs. Engleman, in her bright colors, array of floral scarves and forearms dense with bangles, sat everyone on the floor in a circle five to six deep. For equality. New leaders were chosen each meeting, again, to promote equality. Of all things, Neil had given a talk once on where he thought the women's movement was headed. (Well, he had read The Dialectics of Sex by Shulamith Firestone and Our Bodies, Ourselves.) He was confident, he had told the circle, that in ten years, beauty pageants would cease to exist. He really did think that. What a wash of ambiguity flowed through his head each day when it came to women! This was certainly amplified when he noticed Ellie Spaulding sitting ninety degrees from him.

Why did she happen to show up right then, after he had declared to the winds for her? He was going to be nervous, that was a given, but he had insisted he was going to go for her, so that was that. One thing pushed him forward. Last month, after what he thought was going to be a life sentence of wearing dorkball eyeglasses, Dad bought him a pair of teardrop wire rims like Peter Fonda wore in Easy Rider. The transformation, he thought, was miraculous. Some day, he’d complete the look by trading in his Suzuki for a chopper like Fonda rode, with its absurdly elongated front fork gleaming like the tusks of a prehistoric mammal. Besides the eyeglasses, other facial characteristics were evolving for Neil. His red curls were as long as his Dad had ever let them get, though doubtless another battle was nigh. And his sideburns were starting to thicken. And Peter Fonda was pretty damn scrawny himself. Neil heard nothing that was said at the meeting, then rose and circled around to Ellie.

"Hey there, Ellie Spaulding."

"Hey there, Strelnikov." This was his first chance to really look her over. She had long bangs, which invaded eyebrows kept natural. No plucking, no penciling. Doe eyes and faint lashes. A small mouth, concealed teeth. Was she pretty? The great question. Well, was she? It was hard to say for sure, what an impartial young male might say. But Neil had made a commitment that night as she yanked her pajamas back in place. He had gone beyond impartiality.

"I listened to what everybody had to say,” said Ellie, “and I'm still unsure if I'm a communist or a socialist. Or if there's a difference. What do you think?"

"Oh. well, I don't know..."

"Weren't you listening?"

"Well, I might've been distracted at the time..."

"Yeah, you were staring. At me? Really? Why?” Her short, frank question put him on his heels. He sought escape from having to answer. Lamely, he succeeded.

"Well, at least I didn't stare when you lost your pajamas." She slumped.

"Oh my dog! So you saw that, did you? Hope your eyes recovered."

"I really didn't see anything," he lied. "Sherry had only cracked the door. She obviously wasn't cool about us stopping by."

"Her parents and my parents, they're pretty old-fashioned. And she's an only child like I am. We have those things in common. She's a good friend, but she's pretty straight. You’ll never find her at SPI, that's for sure."

"Do you want a ride home on my motorcycle?"

"Oh my dog! My dad would freak out! Alright, just drop me off before I get there. I live in Coventry Court."

"Your dog?"

"Beats saying 'My god.' I'm trying to train myself away from saying 'Oh, god' and stuff like that. Holy rollers love it when you say 'good god,' they get to say 'he is, isn't he?' You don't believe in god, do you? I mean, even if I weren't communist, I wouldn't believe in god."

"No, I don't. I don't even believe in that vague god people refer to when they say 'I'm not religious, but I'm spiritual.' Yet, there are people so much smarter than me who believe in the christian god. I worship John Updike, I think he's more a master of the English language than Shakespeare. But the guy's a christian. It messes with my mind."

"I’ve read Updike. He doesn’t write about women well, but he got me to reading Kierkegaard. I call him Kierke-god. That man puts my atheism on its toes, for sure."

"Kierke-god, huh? Okay, I hate puns, but I'll let that one slide. So, two brilliant minds who believe in god. The christian god, no less. What do you make of it?"

"Plenty of brilliant people have been wrong throughout history about all kinds of things."

"Well, I hope you're right."

They walked out to the street where he had squeezed his Suzuki in. He handed her his spare helmet, a white Bell model that he had covered in black magic marker with bloated letters spelling out snippets of The Communist Manifesto, and she put it on. Neil's bike had a pretty decent passenger rail that he assumed she would grab on to - but that was not what Ellie Spaulding did. She put her arms around Neil's waist and even pressed up against him. Their helmets, front to back, made a soft clack. She nodded in a too serious way that she was in place and ready to go. He felt her acquiesce within this mechanized magic. This was his domain, and she was content to ease into it with him. It was a short trip, not enough time for Neil to fully take in her unexpected nearness. But he noticed her forearms, how slight her wrists were - yet her grip on him was strong. Her fingernails were well-formed, not chewed up like his own. He wondered how it might feel if, at some point, they held hands. Hell, he was already wrapped up in her arms!

He dropped her off at the corner of her court – the whole experience felt like a waking dream. She handed him the helmet. It seemed for a moment, as both their hands were upon it, as an orb employed in a ritual, wherein a new, commingled energy had been created. She said bye backing up, turned and was gone.

At the kitchen door of his house, Neil slumped to see his mother was on their one and only phone, a rotary dial on the wall. He went to his room and flopped backward onto the bed. Above him, a large, black-and-white poster of Frank Zappa sitting on a toilet bore the words "Phi Zappa Krappa." On the opposite wall were his quotations. Whenever he read a passage he especially liked, he typed it out and taped it on the wall. The usual stuff from The Greening of America, Steal this Book!, The Strawberry Statement, Soul on Ice. He sprinkled in a few quotes from Kennedy so his father wouldn't feel like he'd lost all connection. It looked like a huge community bulletin board, but much of the paper and tape was starting to yellow, as if it were an old stamp collection.

A few, very few, of the postings were typed in red. Whenever he had what he hoped might be an original thought, that's how he distinguished it. Unfortunately, none stood the test of time. It might take a week or a year, but all came down eventually. His ears were tuned to the sound of his mother hanging up the phone, and when she did, he called Wynn. The kitchen fan muffled conversation if he stretched the extra long cord, a cartoonishly drawn-out stretch of pasta, into the dining room.

"Well, it's only been two days and I already got her contemplating my navel."

"What?"

"I rode Ellie Spaulding home, she had her arms around my waist. Practically digging the lint out of my belly button with her nails. I want to bite them."

"No shit, how'd that happen?"

"She showed up at SPI. Interesting, huh? I was nervous, but it all went so smooth, it's hard for me to believe. I gotta tell you, though, I was feeling really good about it all - then I dropped her off and she took off the helmet. For the first time, I looked her dead in the face as she backed away. Man, I don't care what anyone says, I think she's pretty. It's a little intimidating. I've spent the last two years sweating that I wouldn't be able to get a cute girl and now that I might have one, it feels like a hassle. I really don't need a girlfriend to be a fox. It could be a pain."

"Okay, listen. We are going to have this conversation, and then we are going to pretend like it never happened, and we will never discuss any of this again. Three years ago, you were a dork deluxe, you were hopeless. You were the skinniest guy in school. Worse, you had no cool. In junior high, you used to race from class to class making engine noises with your lips. But you have really come a long way, both physically and mentally. A long way. You are overrating her and seriously underrating yourself. Get over it, we're men. I am your friend so I'm telling you something you need to hear, but it's the last time I will ever talk to you in this way. It is not my thing. Okay?"

"Okay. Thanks. Seriously, thanks."

The next day, Mr. Gambitz asked Neil to drop in after school. He walked down the hall toward the classroom. He had not turned in any drafts of his term paper, and it seemed unlikely that he would find some space in his brain for it now that Ellie had moved in to occupy his thoughts. His mind ran through the possibilities for his next move with her. The May Day protest march was near, his parents would kill him if he went. The anti-prom was in June, too far away. And he couldn't dance anyway, absolutely feared any situation that might lead to the possibility. Most girls could dance; most guys could not. That was the only original thought he had had that stood the test of time, though it wasn't worthy of being typed in red. Bronk Steinmark was smooth on the dance floor, even back in seventh grade. Why was life so easy for that guy? Neil had tried loosening up with a couple of beers before dancing, that didn't work. And he hated grass. He smoked from a lid of cheap Mexican four times before he finally caught a buzz, and it was amazing at first. ("Why didn't you tell me?" he said over and over to Freddie Sample, the first guy in their class to have really long hair and a bedroom full of black light posters.) But after two or three more buzzes, the paranoia overtook the euphoria, and that was it for pot.

Neil felt pretty deficient about not being able to handle dope, everybody else he knew was sucking it down in bongfuls. Wynn, fortunately, was a beer man and a bit of a redneck in some ways. But being dudes who didn't partake had reglued their friendship at a time when it could have fallen apart. Then Neil read Naked Lunch, and the main character, William Lee, who had done every drug in the world in every kind of way, couldn't handle marijuana. Made him paranoid. So Neil felt a lot better, figuring that was true for somebody that Burroughs had known in real life, if not himself. He had little in his mind about the term paper as he walked into Gambitz's classroom.

"Mr. Fletcher, I've not received anything relating to your paper, I'm a bit concerned."

"Yeah, Mr. G, I'm having trouble with it."

"What kind of trouble? You seem to like literature, I've always sensed it meant a great deal to you."

"Well, I picked Cooper and I haven't been able to do the reading. He's incredibly dull, at least to me. I wanted to pick Fitzgerald but somebody else had already chosen him."

"Specifically, Joan Nash, correct?"

"Anything I wrote would look like crap compared to Joan Nash. In just one class discussion, she has more ideas about a book than I come up with all semester. I do love literature, but novels are more like paintings to me. I just take in the beauty of the language, the power of the words. The power of the writer. That's why I like Shakespeare and have worked really hard to understand his language. I've read twenty-one of the plays. So I'm not lazy. But that Latin footnoting just wears me out - every time I try to get motivated, op.cit. and ibid. just break me down."

"Joan is one of my best students, obviously, but most of what she shares in class is regurgitation from her years of careful grooming in the Great Books program. I can't tell you what an advantage that after-school curriculum has given her. She participates in our discussions each day, but has she had an original thought? I think not. You, on the other hand, don't contribute often, but I always feel your struggle to say something real. Not that you have, but it may yet come. Between you and Miss Nash, my money is on you."

"I try all the time to have an original thought - it's not easy."

"It is not. Well, it's too late to change your thesis, but I'll tell you this. Read what you can of our verbose Mr. Cooper and try to cobble something together. If you turn in anything, as long as I see some effort, a bit of sweat, I won't give it a zero, and your grade for the semester won't suffer as much. That's the best I can do for you."

"That's a lot, Mr. G, I appreciate it. I won't be a joker about it and just turn in a cover. I'll try my best."

Neil left and walked down C hall, past all the posters of people running for next year's class council. He had drawn a humongous poster for Jack Weber, who was running for vice president. It was a front view of Jack on a chopper, cruising down a widening road, with bold, stone letters in the foreground that shouted, "EASY WEBER."

Some in the leftist SPI were not happy about the poster. They felt it painted Weber as a radical candidate when he really wasn't. Benj Wallace, one of the unhappy ones and an assistant editor on the school paper, was also peeved about the May Day editorial Neil had turned in, even before the event had happened.

"It's a good opinion piece, it's well-written, I just think it should be handled by somebody who is actually going to the protest." And the truth, that Neil was afraid to go, afraid of what his parents would do if they found out, flummoxed any thought process he had constructing a rationale. Finally, after it was too late, after Benj had said his peace and walked away, Neil realized a defense. Nobody he knew that was going to the protest could write that article as well as he could. It was mostly burnouts and a few semi-smart heads like Benj who had conviction but couldn't write a lick. There's no way his article wasn't getting published, nobody would ever dream of telling him no, not the sponsor Mrs. Jacobelli, not the editor, nobody. There wasn't much in his world he felt confident about, but this was one area that was his.

Besides, he hadn't completely ruled out the idea of going to the protest, though it seemed hopeless. How cool would it be if he and Ellie went? What a perfect first date for two young commies. It would take double courage: lying to his parents, and asking her to go. How hard his life had become, all because he wanted to both save the world and have a girlfriend.

When his Dad got home that night, the old man was acting a bit strange. After dinner, instead of falling into his recliner and watching Huntley and Brinkley, he furtively brought a guitar and amplifier into Neil's room. The amp was covered in something that looked to Neil a little like burlap. It looked country-western.

"Neil, I've been meaning to give this to you for a while. I just figure it's time. When I got back from Korea in one piece, I was determined to learn to play. Make use of the second life god gave me. I bought this guitar and hid it at your uncle's. Your mother would have had a fit, you know how she is. Now, it's not a flash-o-doodle rig like you'd like to have, but trust me, these are very fine instruments."

"Is that burlap?"

"The case and amp are tweed - very big in its day, a bit old-fashioned now. But take a look. It's a Gibson Les Paul, I picked it up in 1959. Perfect as the day I bought it. I got it second-hand from a guy who never opened the case, just like me. If you want to learn, she's your baby. A lot of great musicians used these. Maybe they still do, I don't really know."

"Wow, dad, this is great and I'd love to learn to play. But you remember how well the clarinet went in junior high. I don't think any of us have any musical ability. When we all sing Happy Birthday, it sounds like a funeral."

"Not so. I've listened to you sing and you can hold a tune, unlike the rest of us. I'm just hoping it works out for you. If not, well, we tried. Just tell your Mom that a friend let you borrow it for as long as you want. I still don't want her knowing I once hankered to play."

"Thanks, dad. Really."

"Well, I haven't given you much, but I wanted to give you this. How's the New Testament coming along?"

"I've almost finished Romans. No more bets with you. I feel pretty dumb now, thinking Charlie Chaplin couldn't have been a communist. He's just not how I picture a revolutionary."

"You probably don't remember, but when you were about seven, you wanted to bet me that Jackie Kennedy never used a toilet."

"That's funny."

"Well, I'm just glad you're reading something to balance out all that pinko crap."

"Thanks again for the guitar."

Neil hated the guitar, he had listened to a little of Les Paul and he wasn't impressed. Les Paul had a very clean sound. Neil wanted a rock and roll guitar with some distortion to it. He put it toward the back of his closet. Too much pressure: term papers, the plight of the proletariat, and now he had to learn to play guitar for the old man's busted up dreams. It was so much easier just to think about Ellie. But what if she was one of those girls who is just so darned friendly with everyone and the bike ride meant nothing to her? What if? That would kill him. Everything else could go to imaginary hell in a handbasket, please just let that not be so, he said silently to the god that did not exist.

And when would he stop talking to this non-entity god? Probably never, you couldn't shake your early years, they followed you as an adult and were always hanging around. God wasn't the only concept he was having trouble with. Free will was also tottering on a cliff in his mental model of the world, and ready to fall off at any moment. It seemed that people mostly did things without really thinking. But he kept an open mind on the subject. You couldn't give up everything, next thing you know you're sitting next to Sylvia Plath in that non-existent part of heaven reserved for people like her. Focus on Ellie. It felt so good to fall asleep thinking of her. And so he did.

After school the next day, Neil ran into Bronk Steinmark playing acoustic guitar on the bleachers in front of the football field. Bronk had very long hair, an earring and wore peasant tops that would've looked very girlish on anyone but Bronk Steinmark. He was an all-county linebacker. Everything went right for him, he even made the honor roll once in a while. All those lines of social demarcation that high school drew meant nothing to Bronk. He had no ego and Neil was perfectly comfortable talking to him.

"My dad gave me a guitar and amp, it looks like a country guitar."

"What kind is it?"

"It's a Les Paul. It's old, but nobody ever played it and it looks brand new."

"Those are good guitars. They weigh too much for me."

"You're right, it's heavy as hell. Are you going to the protest?"

"Yeah, a couple of guys from the AV club are hooking up a Leslie speaker on top of the hearse. I'm going to drive downtown and play for everybody."

"Hope they know what they're doing, those audio-visual guys can be dangerous."

"It'll be cool. Are you going? I mean, Strelnikov has to go, right?

"Believe it or not, I might miss it."

"No way, man. Strelnikov has to be there. The People are counting on you. Get on your ring-ding and if things get hot, just scram the hell out of there."

They were interrupted by Markie Wise, climbing up the bleachers with a white electric guitar held over his head. Markie was always selling somebody something. He was kicked out of the Future Entrepreneurs Club, but he always swore that whatever he claimed about his goods was the truth. He wasn't much to look at and was even starting to get bald, but you got the feeling looks never bothered him for an instant.

"Bronk! Bronk! Take a look at this! I waited outside Grand Funk Railroad’s hotel for hours and I finally caught Mark Farner. I got him to sign this stratocaster. See, right here, it almost covers the whole front of the guitar. This will be a museum piece one day, worth thousands. But I need to unload it for another deal, so I can let you have it for only $300."

"Markie, that's a cheap Japanese strat. I don't care if Farner anointed it with his jizz, I ain't paying $300 for a made in Japan strat."

"I can do $250."

"Grand Funk sucks, man. Get outta my face." Markie went down the bleachers, the guitar high over his head.

"He'll probably be rich one day," said Neil.

"He can have it. I just want an old lady, some bud, and a great guitar to play. This Yamaha is okay, but I really want a Martin someday."

"I guess you couldn't teach me some things on it."

"I've tried, I'm the worst teacher. I have no idea how to explain how I play. It scares me sometimes, I feel like I'm possessed by the guitar god. Honest, it scares me, like I'm not the one in control."

"The guitar god, huh? Maybe I could start praying to it."

"You could try, man, who knows?"

* * * * *

The next morning, Ellie sat down to breakfast. Her mother cooked often and acted like it was a lot of trouble, but Ellie suspected she'd completely lose her sense of worth if she didn't. She worked as a crossing guard in the mornings and afternoons and was secretary of the BabySitters Club, a group that she certainly had no reason to be in anymore.

"I spoke to Mrs. Dalrymple across the way, she said a boy brought you home on a motorcycle. Don't worry, I won't tell your father. Is he a nice boy, Ellie, apart from the motorcycle?"

"We're married and I'm carrying his child."

"You're such a funny girl, always joking. Well, I have noticed that you've really come into your own this year and I think there are lots of boys who would realize you've become a pretty girl. You're more than old enough to wear makeup, I'm surprised you've never shown an interest. At your age, I was not allowed to. Before a dance, I would lick my fingers and press them against the roses of our wallpaper. When I got out the front door, I'd rub the color into my cheeks. I myself was not all that pretty and your father was no Prince Charming. My sister - now, she was pretty. So I didn't know how it would turn out for you. Well, I'm excited to see that indeed, you're going to be a pretty girl despite your Dad and I not being..."

"I am so sick of a woman's entire existence bent on whether or not she's pretty! Everybody gauging me like a weather report: 'I think she's starting to get pretty,' 'Looks like she's blossoming into a pretty girl,' 'I can see a pretty girl starting to appear.' Of all the human qualities worthy of comment, why is 'pretty' always at the top of the list for women? This guy and I are both communists. That's why he likes me, because I'm a commie. I have no idea if he thinks I'm pretty and I couldn't care. The next person who tells me I might be turning into a pretty girl is really going to get it."

"Fine, dear, and I won't tell your father about the communist thing, either. Your aunt was a communist in college and now look at her, accounts manager at a big collection agency. It didn't hurt her one bit."

"Speaking of my father, you ever notice how he never misses The Porter Wagoner Show? He watches that stacked to heaven Dolly Parton sing her two songs, then he's off to the bathroom. You ever notice that? I'm going to school."

"No, I never...you hardly ate, at least take your toast with you. And don't forget to take your pills."

At lunchtime, Neil and Wynn finished their lunches and played comb football. The cafeteria was a cacophony of gossipy girls and apish boys. Six to a table, they demarcated socially, drawing boundaries that would last a lifetime. The inept and the cocky, drawn to each other or repelled by a kind of social magnetics.

"I'm glad you're not going to that commie crap this weekend."

"Yeah, but only because I'm chickening out. I want to go. For two reasons now - I want to help end the war, plus I'd like Ellie to go with me."

"Oh, brother. 13-7, that last kick was wide. We could go trail riding instead. Hey, I've got a personal interest in this as well. If you end up all cozy with Lizard Girl, it puts some pressure on me to find a girlfriend. Which I wouldn't mind finding, as long as she's on the fuckable list."

"What about Sherry West?"

"Highly fuckable, in my estimation. Attainable? Probably not, but I'm trying. I've gone by twice to visit since that Saturday night. The first time, she let me in and closed the door but didn't ask me to sit down or anything. It was brief, but it was progress. The second time, we sat in her kitchen and she got me some iced tea. It was really good iced tea, too."

"She's good friends with Ellie, that could be very convenient."

"Funny they're friends, I don't see the connection. I mean, Lizard Girl and a majorette."

"20-14. You're going to have to stop calling her Lizard Girl, unless she blows me off. Then you can call her anything you want. And I'm going to have to find out how she got that name."

"I heard she used to look like a lizard in grade school."

"Everybody's told me one reason or the other, I don't think anyone knows for sure."

"21-20. When are you going to make a decision about this weekend? I'd kinda like to make plans."

"I'll be torn from now until Saturday morning. I'm a wimp, I know it."

"Well, wimp your ass on over and we'll go trail riding. I'll bring some Bud."

"I don't do that stuff anymore. It's not just me, William Lee couldn't take it, either. I realize he's a fictional charactre, but I figure he's based on somebody's truth."

"Not bud. Bud. Budweiser. And who the hell is William Lee?"

"Never mind. I was unfocused, I know you don't partake. I'm glad you don't. Time for class, 28-20, you win."

When the final bell rang and Neil went to his cycle, Ellie was sitting on it and had her hands on the handlebars. As soon as she saw Neil, she jumped off quickly. Neil was thrilled to see her but a bit upset that she was monkeying around with his handlebars.

"Careful, you'll flood the engine. The throttle is on the right and two-strokes are very easy to flood."

"Sorry, I shouldn't have. I just forget myself sometimes. That's an interesting word for it - throttle. You're not going to throttle me, are you?

"Not a chance, Ms. Punny. So, do you need a ride?"

"That wasn't a pun, just a play on words. But yes, I'd like a ride. It's not a problem now, the whole neighborhood apparently knows, including my mother. And my dad doesn't get home until six. He'll be the tough sell. But don't worry about either one, they had me late in life and they're both so old. I could probably get away with anything, they wouldn't have a clue."

"Cool, well, you know the drill." Again, she grabbed around his waist and he took her through the tunnel of petals where dogwoods bloomed in long rows on either side of the street, then down into her Coventry Court. The ring-ding backfired as he shut it off and spit some oil from its exhaust."

"See. Easy to flood."

"Sorry. I won’t do it again."

"Is your mother home?"

"She'll be home shortly. Crossing guard."

"We can just talk out here."

"Sure. I want to tell you something, I just need to get it out of the way. It's kind of a long story." Neil sat sideways on his cycle seat. Ellie absentmindedly played with the throttle again. It had, Neil would admit, a comforting give to it.

"Maybe you haven't heard it, but I used to have, and maybe still have, a nickname. It's not particularly flattering, but it's probably more puzzling than anything else.

"I think I know what you mean. Lizard Queen. I just thought maybe you wrote poetry, like Jim Morrison." This just came out of him, unrehearsed. Conversationally, he had a knack to make people feel better about things.

"Well, that'd be nice, but no. That's not anywhere near the truth. It happened so long ago, in seventh grade. I started hearing voices. They weren’t sinister, they weren’t telling me to do bad things, or belittling me. If anything, they were kind of companionable in a weird way. My mother was very worried because mental illness runs in my dad's family. So she takes me to a shrink. He put me on a drug that kids don't usually take. There was concern about a weird side effect called tardive dyskinesia."

"Tar what?"

"I know, it's so weird. Well, one day in the middle of class, I got it. Tardive dyskinesia. My tongue started darting in and out of my mouth. I had no control over it. I put my math book up over my face. It was horrible. It didn't happen all day, every day - just enough to ruin my life. You know how kids are. I stopped taking the drug, but it took months for the tongue darting to go away completely. With some unlucky people, it never goes away. So I guess I'm fortunate, all things considered. Now I take a small dose of a different drug and all's well. And that's the story of the Lizard Girl."

"Not a big deal at all, but I'm glad you told me."

"Really? Oh, I'm so relieved!"

"Do you want to go to the protest with me on Saturday? We can take my bike and avoid getting stuck in traffic. Provided you stop flooding my gas line." There – he asked her! Where did that courage come from? Being near Ellie gave him strength, he was starting to realize. She took her hand off the throttle.

"I'm sorry, I keep forgetting. It's just so squeezable."

"Well, do you?"

"My parents would kill me, they can't find out. Is there a movie out now that you've seen? You can tell me the plot and we can say that's what we did."

"Mine will kill me, too. My friend Wynn and I went to see M*A*S*H last week. It's still at the Apex. It was hilarious, I can fill you in."

"Okay. You really don't mind what I told you?

"About the tongue thing? Jeez, that was so long ago. Most kids at school do not know why. Believe me, I asked a lot of them."

"You asked? I don't know if I should like that or not."

"I probably shouldn't have told you that. But my mind is always so full of stuff, anything can spill out. I probably belong on meds myself. Okay, that shouldn't have come out, either. Sorry. I'll pick you up at eleven. If it rains, we're screwed."

Neil rode home a happy wreck. So Ellie had a mental health history, it was kind of cool, really. Some of his favorite writers were known for being a bit blitzed in the brain. The important thing was, Ellie was going with him to the protest. But what if their parents found out? In junior high he got nabbed lifting coin collecting albums from the drug store. The assistant manager had a hold of his arm, but he could have easily broken loose and run. Why didn't he? Because adults have a different kind of hold on kids, a binding, electrical charge of sorts, and the fear of that hold had him squirming.

It was a Thursday night, his half-brother would be visiting for dinner. Norm was square-jawed like a comic book hero and a little bit redneck. Mom adored him. Neil came in a very distant second.

"Here for the free chow, Norm?"

"Best free chow in town. Smells like lasagna. Can I come in your room, or are you going to kick me out again?"

"That was three years ago."

"Two. I'll bet you. Got a girlfriend yet? Cut your hair and lift some barbells, you might get lucky, featherweight. I'm doing the deed with a neat girl. I just bought her a ring, a Lindy star sapphire. We like to put on some Top 40, finish a bottle of Boone's Farm, and get sweet under the sheets. Doesn't make me wear a rubber like a lot of girls. She's learning steno, maybe she'll come to work at my building. We could sneak out for a quickie at lunch. Yeah, life is sweet, buddy."

"She sounds like a swell girl, Norm. How many abortions will she have, thanks to you?"

"I pull out, I'm not an idiot."

"How charming of you. That's the least effective method of birth control there is, pea brain. You need to read Our Bodies, Ourselves."

"Screw you and all your dumb books, I'm just here for Mom. You and El Lame-O in the recliner upstairs can bite me."

"Get out of my room."

"Knew it. I told you. Nothing changes."

Dinner passed quickly and the lasagna was good. Norm ran his mouth about local sports. Thank god (yeah, that non-existent guy again) that Dad didn't care much for sports. Dad had said several times that he liked sports in high school, but after Korea, they just seemed sort of pointless. Little bloodless wars.

Actually, Mr. Fletcher never did any fighting. Talks for the armistice were going on as his ship neared, and they kept it at sea until they were sure that the war was over. But he saw a few things anyway. A South Korean soldier fell asleep at guard duty. The next morning, his CO lined up all the troops. He yelled at the soldier who had fallen asleep. Then he started beating him with a rifle butt. He beat him until the soldier crumpled up and died.

Then there were all the poor Korean women in a nearby village who would screw for peanuts. Such a sad thing to see, his Dad had said. They looked like all the life had been drained from their faces. They'd crowd around a jukebox. "You play 'Your Cheatin' Heart', GI?" they would ask. Neil imagined jamming a rifle butt down Norm's big mouth to the sound of Top 40 music. Was there anything in the world worse than Top 40? What a dunderhead.

Saturday morning came, there was no rain, but it was quite windy. Neil kicked his Suzuki quite a few times before it started. He probably should've changed the spark plugs or at least wiped them clean - Ellie might have fouled them fiddling around with the throttle the way she did. He rode to her house, wondering if he would have to meet the folks this time.

Fortunately, he did not. Ellie was waiting outside for him. She jumped on the bike, put her helmet on and said, "Let's scram!" In short time, they were on the Pike, which Neil didn't like traveling on. It was a 50 mph limit, and his engine had very low torque at that speed due to some bad engineering of the exhaust pipes. He could downshift to help things, but he never liked getting his rpms that high. The wind made it worse. And when you added rider weight, it was not a fun cycling experience. His bike was quirky like that. But he had Ellie's arms around him and they were going to the protest and he was far more happy than apprehensive.

As they neared the municipal city limits, the Suzuki made some familiar pops. The plugs were fouled, and he didn't have replacements with him. The pops became more frequent until Neil had to pull over. He took out the spark plugs and tried to clean them on his shirt tail. Still, the bike was fussy when he started it, and would not hold an idle.

"I'm sorry, Ellie, I've stranded us. I'm not sure what to do except walk it to the nearest gas station and take a bus home. I have spares at home, but the gas stations don't stock the right kind. No protest today."

"At least it didn't cut out after we'd gotten into the city. That would've been scary to get stuck on Capital Street." Ellie followed Neil as he walked the bike along the shoulder. With their heads drooping, they didn't notice a vehicle slowing down near them, and for a split second Neil thought it was a cop. But it wasn't. He looked up and saw Bronk Steinmark in his hearse. He rolled the window down and shouted at Neil.

"Strelnikov!

"Bronk! We were headed to the protest but my bike konked out."

"Man, are you in luck! I ditched the coffin for today. Stick your bike in back and let's get going." The hearse had no rear seats. Neil and Ellie had to pile in with the Suzuki. Reefer wreaked throughout the vehicle.

"What a day it's going to be!" said Bronk. "I got my ax, a Leslie mounted on my roof, some great bud, and some beautiful people along for the ride. Couldn't be better."

"Bitchin'," Bronk's girlfriend said. She was more than pretty, with thickly shaded eyelids and long bangs, a look from the beatnik days that still worked with the right face. She smiled at Neil and Ellie in a way that said, okay, you are Bronk's friends, so the lines of demarcation don't exist for today. But after that, expect nothing. Neil was quick to pick this up, but he was too pumped to let in any bad vibes.

"Don't forget," he said, "we're going for a serious cause. Soldiers are dying every day for no reason. Vietnamese villages are getting torched, they'll hate us for generations. We gotta put a stop to it all. The Revolution is now."

"Bitchin'," repeated Bronk's girlfriend. Neil never got her name. Bronk was too stoned to introduce her.

Capital Street had its side roads closed off for the protest. As they drove down it, more and more hippies appeared until the street was too dense with hair and protest signs to drive any farther. And yet they were still quite a distance from the hub of activity.

"Well, it looks like this is where we do our thing," said Bronk. He parked and connected a battery to the Leslie. Then he strapped on his guitar, climbed onto the roof of the hearse, and started playing. The Leslie was loud and the throng gathered around. He had a fuzzbox hooked up and the distortion drove everyone crazy. They danced all around the hearse.

"Bitchin'," yelled Bronk's girl.

"Sorry," said Neil to Ellie. "I'm not a dancer. "

"That's okay, I'm not big on it, except with friends. Then I can get a little crazy sometimes."

"Well, I remember you dancing at Sherry West's house, you were pretty crazy that night."

"It was just a silly pajama party and we were being...silly."

"Did you want to get a buzz? I wouldn't have minded. But I just can't do the stuff, it makes me paranoid."

"It would be a bad thing for me to do since I take - you know - psych meds. I stupidly tried it a few times, I get what you mean about the paranoia. And I hate the smell."

"Well, that makes me feel better, because pot sure has a way of dividing people up into groups. You know, those who partake, and those who don't. It annoys me how that is. It's nice we have a lot of stuff in common. The important stuff, that is."

"We're a pair annoyed."

"Yes, we are, Ms. Punster! Do you want to go sit in the hearse, it's too crowded out here for me."

"I don't think so, I'm afraid of getting electrocuted. Too many wires all around. And the pot smell is worse in there than it is out here."

"Okay. Ellie, I have something I want to tell you. I know we met at SPI, and I want you to know that I am a serious revolutionary. I'm not ready to become a weatherman or anything like that (I wish!), but I want to make a difference. I'm very big on women's issues. I respect women. But I'm also attracted to them. There's no reason for those two things to be incompatible, but you'd be surprised how often a guy gets tested on the subject. I don't know what to do about it. Like you, for instance. I think you're pretty and it causes some conflict for me to say that--"

"Oh no, not you, too. Pretty! Pretty!" Ellie ran through the crowd, to the other side of the street and kicked a trash can several times. She grabbed a spray can from a woman and decorated a fire hydrant. She punched a 'no parking' sign again and again. Then she was back to denting up the trash can.

"Your old lady is seriously bitchin', man," said Bronk's girl. Then Ellie flew back across the street toward Neil. He froze. She stopped perfectly, as close as when they rode his bike together, except this time, face to face. From her expression, he thought he was going to get socked, but no - she stretched up to put her lips to his, and very softly, they kissed. For the longest time. They kept kissing through Bronk Steinmark's sonic guitar riffs and the bumping of shoulders around them and the anti-Nixon signs waving above their heads. Finally Ellie spoke.

"When I saw you at the pajama party, I thought you were cute, all nervous at the door. I went to the school store and bought back copies of the school paper, read all your articles, and figured I had to meet the famous Strelnikov. So I came to SPI."

"You almost had your back to me that night at Sherrie's."

"People in my family have extraordinary peripheral vision. I saw you perfectly. It was the same way at SPI, I saw you staring at me." Her palms rested upon his chest. "The wind is blowing that nasty pot smell directly under my nose."

"Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May."

"I thought you didn't make puns."

"You're a bad influence on me, eagle-eyed Ellie Spaulding." May Day. Neil would always remember it. The day that he had met his obligations as a revolutionary journalist and found himself an old lady, all in one beautiful finesse of fear.

* * * *

"Wynn, I can't believe how good things are right now," said Neil as he stretched the coiled telephone cord into the dining room. First thing Monday, I'm finding Benj Wallace and let him know that I was there, man. I was fucking there. With my old lady! And Bronk Steinmark. Nobody can say shit about my May Day article now."

"I'm happy for you, brutha. You got just about everything in place, and just before graduation. There's only one thing missing."

"What's that?"

"I wasn't going to bring it up, but everything's changed now. You got yourself an old lady, and you got one month in which to not graduate a virgin."

"Oh, c'mon, man, let me be happy."

"Hey, it's up to you, man. Either put a little pressure on her, or graduate a virgin. Look, the first time always sucks. I was nervous as hell, didn't enjoy it at all. The second time wasn’t much better. I finally started to enjoy it the third time. You might as well face that reality. Get it over with. You'll be glad you did."

"I'm not messing things up just for that."

"You're scared, more afraid than you were about going to the protest. Look, I'm not trying to get your goat. I just know how much better you'll feel about yourself when you're in the club. You'll feel different. You'll get The Walk."

"The Walk, The Walk. I walk just fine. I'll say this, the thought has crossed my mind. I don't want to force the issue with Ellie, but if it happens naturally, losing my virginity before graduation would be a big relief. Okay, I hate that I just said that. But I can't lie to you."

"Well, just look for your opportunity, and carpe clam. That's all I ask. It'd be great if we both graduate as men." The circumstances of Wynn's sexual experiences were a little different than what he had described to Neil. It was true that Wynn's older brother was very cool and took him to parties. And that all three of his bangs were one-night stands. But what Wynn didn't tell Neil is that he and his brother found streetwalkers in the middle of the city and paid the old twenty and five. Twenty bucks for the girl and five for the room. Wynn had gone to his brother, distraught that he'd never been laid. He simply couldn't graduate a virgin, he would never be able to live with himself. And so his brother helped him out. Wynn had no problem with secrets.

For the entire of May, Neil and Ellie did nothing but kiss. Mostly on his motorcycle after riding her home. He was sated completely by the exploration of her lips - he couldn't imagine what it would be like beyond her kisses and her embrace. And yet graduation came closer and closer, and Wynn was in his ear about it. "Did you get The Walk yet?" "Are we a man today?" It was the angst of his lies that made Wynn push Neil. But where, Neil wondered, would they do it? Did she even want to do it?

Neil decided upon a prepared speech to Ellie. He was a good writer, if he did it well, she wouldn't be offended. She might even think it sweet. But a man doesn't ask a woman for sexual favors. That's not how it's done. Bronk Steinmark never asked a girl to do anything, you could bet that. Why was everything so easy for that guy? The guitar god, good fucking grief. Notches on his coffin. How much does a girl have to like a guy to ball him in a casket? A whole hell of a lot, that's for sure. Actually, Neil thought, that satin probably feels pretty good on the skin. Wow, Ellie, naked in the silky tufts of Bronk's coffin. That would be heaven. She would hate it, and not just for the bud reek. Probably drop him at the mention.

But, a location. He needed a location. Would a motel accept them? He could get a rubber at the gas station bathroom where he filled up his Suzuki. That stinking bathroom, it was like suddenly stepping into a slum in the middle of the city. This was starting to sound so seedy. Finally he thought the best thing was to tell her the truth. He told her of his plight, gave her the whole prepared speech, sitting on his bike in front of her house, as best as he could deliver it from memory.

"I'm trying to put myself in your shoes, Neil. I'm not angry at you. I'm glad you told me. But things are going so well with us, why rush? I'm a little disappointed, knowing your politics and stuff. Men simply have too much hormones - it's a biological fault. Can't you just lie to Wynn? Hold him off for a few months, and then we can buy some time, let this happen more naturally? I want to do it if things keep going as well as they are."

"I'm a terrible liar, it wouldn't work. I can't blame it on Wynn, it matters to me, me alone. I'm glad we talked about it, now I can see how stupid the whole thing is. At least you know now: I'm a virgin. Who cares if I graduate without ever having done it? Who cares? Why is Wynn even my best friend, he's such a redneck. Most guys are lying about sex, I bet. Big fat liars, most of them."

"At least you know now that I'm a virgin, too. It's just one more good thing about us. We are going to share that when we finally do it. It'll be worth the wait."

"It's not even that I want to do it so badly, it's not hormones. It's just the stigma of graduating as a virgin. No, it's not hormones. Don't get me wrong, I'm attracted to you and all -"

"-You'd better be."

"Oh, I am. So much, Ellie."

"That's sweet. You're going to get your chance, I just can't say when."

* * * * *

There was a field party the night before graduation. The night was warm and they both wore T-shirts and cutoffs. The gathering was at a quarry no longer in use. Ellie and Neil decided to go, although they didn't expect to see anyone they knew. Except Bronk Steinmark. How many times Neil had walked into a party and felt so uncomfortable, what a difference it made now with Ellie at his side. He wanted to live in a world where those things didn't matter, but there was no denying it. He was pushing the lines of demarcation.

There was a smattering of freaks there, but way more rednecks than he hoped to find. And plenty of jocks. At some point in the night, Neil realized he and Ellie were drawing unexpected attention. He wasn't sure why. But then some of the football players started asking questions. And supplying their own answers. "Hey Mickey, what's your girlfriend's name, Minnie?" No one had ever called him Mickey Mouse before. Neil got redfaced and felt he needed to do something. But what could he do against a bunch of jocks twice his size? The lines of demarcation were redrawn, back to their original points. Bronk Steinmark saved him once again.

"You fucking assholes shut the fuck up. I am so glad I don't have to play football with you jerkwads anymore. This guy is going to make a fucking difference in the world and all of you are just going to drink beer and do manual labor the rest of your fucking lives. Laugh it up, morons, I'm done with you. This is my man, he's a bitchin' dude and he's gonna make this a righteous world. Fuck you all, I'm taking his side!" He motioned to Neil and Ellie to follow him toward the hearse. They got inside and Ellie was quick to notice something.

"It doesn't smell like pot in here anymore. It smells like patchouli. I love patchouli!"

"I cleaned her up good, I got tired of the smell myself. Took a while. Look here, kiddies, I got some sweet treats for you tonight. The white lady." Neil and Ellie tried to read each other's face about the matter. Neither had done cocaine, neither ever had the money to afford it even if it were ever made available. But Bronk was offering it for free. Could they really waste the opportunity? Neil was concerned for Ellie, due to her head meds. But they were young and impetuous. In no time a mirror was placed before them with white lines and a straw made from a dollar bill, and each in turn inhaled the powder into their nose.

"You know," said Bronk. "It's not the coke. I swear it's not the coke. But I'm going back out there and rat out Buck Johnson. He's a filthy player. I saw every move he made from my position on the field, and he's a filthy-ass player. He even punches guys in the trenches. I'm going back out there and let everybody know the truth." Bronk left the hearse, and yelling soon broke out into a fight. Everyone gathered around the two as they rolled around on the ground. It was a good, long scuffle that would be remembered in class lore forever. It gave Neil and Ellie plenty of time to be alone together in Bronk's hearse.

"So how do you feel? This is my first time," said Neil.

"Mine, too. I was worried because of my meds, but I feel really good. Like, really, really, really, good. Not trippy or anything. Just gooood."

"Me, too, it seems more of a physical thing than a head trip, I'm surprised."

"But the biggest thing I feel is....horny. Very horny."

"Really?"

"Yeah, really. Get your ass back in that coffin, mister."

They slid back onto the satin. They explored each other's bare arms and legs. She lifted his T-shirt and kissed the length of his stomach muscles, a faint outline of eight squares that only drew itself at the apex of his breaths. In turn, he lifted her T-shirt and passed his palms over her nipples, like a tactile benediction. Without undressing, they ground into each other, and after much entanglement of limbs and expended energy, both had an orgasm. The experience was good enough to construct a lie that would fool Wynn Davis. It was a lie good enough for even Neil to believe. It was one damned good lie-in-a-coffin, you non-punster Neil Fletcher, you.