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He couldn t speak the name.
She said the name. His face went white again. It was the speaking of the
unspeakable.
 Oh God, Kate, oh dear God, I m screwed, I m screwed...
 Cindy can t get you, Mike. She s still in the Home, isn t she?
He nodded, unable to answer.
Kate slid across and held him. He was shaking.  It s all right. It s going to
be all right.
She tried to rock him, like a child in pain, but his terror was an electric
current surging through him.  I ll take care of you, she said.  Till you re
better. There won t be any
Marcie, and there certainly won t be any Cindy.
 No!
he screamed, pulling away from her.
 No!
He stumbled toward the door.  I ve got to get out of here. They can find me
here. I ve got to go somewhere out away from here, fast, fast, where they
can t find me ever.
He yanked open the door and ran into the hall. The elevator was not there. It
was
never there when he needed it, needed it badly, needed it desperately.
He ran down the stairs and into the vestibule of the building. The doorman was
standing looking out into the street, the glass doors tightly shut against the
wind and the cold.
Michael Kirxby ran past him, head down, arms close to his body. He heard the
man say something, but it was lost in the rush of wind and chill as he jammed
through onto the sidewalk.
Terror enveloped him. He ran toward the corner and turned toward the darkness.
If he could just get into the darkness, where he couldn t be found, then he
was safe. Perhaps he would be safe.
He rounded the corner. A woman, head down against the wind, bumped into him.
They rebounded and in the vague light of the street lamp looked into each
other s faces.
 Hello, said Marcie.
Opium
INTRODUCTION
This one was written to be read on television.
I ve done so on two occasions: first, on an NBC interview show called
At One With...
, with the estimable Keith Berwick as host; the second time I read it over the
Canadian
Broadcasting Company during the go
Minutes Live show, then-hosted by Peter Gzowski.
Bringing the spoken word to the tube-enslaved masses.
No, I m not going to enter another crazed screed against television and its
manifest horrors. Consult my last book for everything I care to say on that
dreary topic.
Then why does he tell us all this?
I tell you all this because  Opium was intended as a bit of guerrilla
warfare. It is a story that says only one thing: we are entertaining ourselves
into oblivion.
I can t stand it, we say. I work my ass off all day, and I just want to get
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away from it all, we say. I don t want any heavy stuff, I just want to be
entertained, we say. And so we spend the major part of our nonworking hours
escaping the Real World, the pragmatic universe, if you will. Whether it be
fast sex, fundamentalist religion, cheap novels, empty-
headed movies, booze, dope, sword n sorcery fantasy, endless
television-watching, fast food or miniature golf, we run from dealings with
the Real World like ants from Raid.
So I wrote this story to say that Entropy tries to maintain the status quo in
order to keep the system working. And that permits of very little outlawry,
very little berserk behavior. And from the desperados, whether they be
Einstein or Elizabeth Cady Stanton, come the strength and the upheaval that
moves the world forward toward light and reason.
And the  opium of the people (as Marx called religion) has changed through
the centuries. Now it s all the elements noted above that keep people
distracted and dumb. And that includes the deification of sports. (Quoting
from another great philosopher, Howard
Cosell, who said:  Sports are the Toy Department of life... the primary means
for sustaining delusion and illusion.  )
This story, intended as fifth column warfare against the medium of television,
to be read on television, says simply that if the Real World isn t interesting
enough to command the attention of the lives it contains, then maybe the Real
World will alter itself magically to keep us away from Taco Bell and
Laverne
&
Shirley.
This moment of softness has been brought to you by Zee Toilet Tissue.
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