Fugue # 1

Z.Z.’s Views of Mount Fuji pretty much tanked. First, there was the copyright suit by C.D. Then there was the press. They just didn’t get it. Nobody seemed to understand how the Kohada Koheji umbrella related to eugenics, or whether Calypso was really Ana’s roommate or simply a figment of her active co-ed imagination. Reviewers who tabbed the erudite Neil Marbell character as a thin disguise for Z. himself were on target; reviewers who tabbed Marbell as his lover were less so (though, if he were Marbell, and Marbell were he, maybe that worked as an unflattering commentary on his latent narcissism). The ill-advised, tongue-in-cheek lecture series "Be the Master of Your Own Disaster" followed. Z. lost gigs, his trademark smile faded, and, well...he dropped out. Took the name Zed Zed, grew a beard, traveled, consumed, experienced. And ended up years later back in New York City, where he set up lunch with his former agent and checked into a hotel.

Remember the scene at the beginning of Apocalypse Now - the one with Captain Willard getting wasted, doing naked martial arts, cutting himself, and crying? It was like that, only with more clothes, and less karate (actually, no karate), blood (ditto), and tears (a few, maybe). Alcohol from the mini-bar, radio on the tv (not the Doors) in the background, quiet desperation. A sad guy alone in a room, looking inside for something, some reason to pull himself back together - finding little other than the worn Cartesian assurance of cogito ergo sum, which (thinking about being) only contributed to his problem. Maybe you’ve been there. Not necessarily in a hotel room like that, but you know. In that frame of mind, Zed fell asleep whispering what passed for an appeal to the rosy-fingered dawn from America’s former #1 motivator.