A large estate, sloped ground, structures I don't calculate into my dreamspace (remember I have poor visusal memory so keep my dreams vague with cheap sets like high school plays) - I cannot find Scoob again. There are other hounds bounding around, but I don't see him.

Then he appears at my side.

We arrive in a villa, like on the Mediterranean, and Reloj says, I'll go move the plane to the point. He heads off down a sloped street. It's just a minor adjustment to our progress, like stopping for coffee.

But I know it's final. I go after him, but with no real urgency, as if chasing fate, or closing out the final minutes of a losing game.

There is a residential cul-de-sac resembling those in Northern California. I know one of the paths goes down to the seacoast, so I move about, although there are no signs of access. Around a fence and a circular hedge, there is a path. I take it, but it dissolves...

But now I'm leaving. I am very sad. Someone comes up to hug me, but it seems not at all sincere. She is brunette and slender. Now I'm sitting in an outdoor auditorium seat a little further on down the road, and another comes. I must shift over a seat to allow her to join me. She is Rubenesque and pretty, blonde, and she is crying.

Just the sad renderings of too late blues, striking the set after another unsuccessful run in Boise...

"Anyway, why can't we race for real? Why all this phony grimace stuff?"

The roughewn vagabond is speaking to the press. He was hired off the street by a visiting art consortium, Institut d'Art, to ride a bicycle around a tight course of city streets. Various painters and portraitists sat along the way and worked on images from the circuit.

The Institut d'Art had great success in Paris and Brussels and London, but were running into trouble in Dallas. The press was on the trail, and controversy as always followed. Some of the participants were quite willing to oblige the news industry. Yes, yes, they understood the message, we are sorely abused by these foreigners.

The press agent for the Institute protested, `But it was never meant to be a race. It is theatre, it is a means of capturing expression on the fly. We make use of the outcasts of a community in order to display certain emotions the normal social constraints forbid to citizens within the pyramid.'

`Look, we take these rabble out of the gutter. We dry them out, fit them with shiny new bike togs, and teach them to ride. All they do for their twelve dollars an hour is ride those bikes in a circle. We ask them to conceive of their lot in life, their grievances, and the artists attempt to capture that at game speed. That is all. There have been very well-attended showings all over Europe, accompanied by the raves of famed art critics...'

`Yes, but why do you not allow them to race for real? Are you not making fools of these unfortunates? Isn't it a lot like dressing senile old men in childish paper hats for birthday celebrations at the nursing home?'

The show was closed down in Texas, and the rest of the tour canceled. The Institut d'Art still operates in Europe, and has moved to Tokyo and Istanbul, with very favorable results. There is a showing now in the Prada.

There are no plans for another American tour.

An outdoor cafe, me and Niki J. We are set upon by a rowdy party two tables over. One even joins us, but he is more irreverent than threatening, and he speaks in a stream of gibberish meant to satirize social niceties like adolescents everywhere rather than confront or contribute.

I encounter the waiter between the tables on his way to the kitchen. He is noncommital while I point out the malefactor, who ducks his head in mock embarrassment, back at his regular table now. The waiter continues his march, promising, "He'll be gone."

I venture backstage to tell the proprietor I am pleased with the dispatch with which the problem was handled. It's Bill Perkins, my old companion from the days at the Vets Building in Watsonville, but he's busy and I don't approach. A tall blonde waitress is very efficiently moving about. On her way out to the dining room, she stands up very close to me, filling my entire viewscreen, and makes suggestive promises. She kisses me and yet I cannot quite feel her body against me. It's like a chaste movie kiss, however deep. I think, it must be all right, because it's happening without my meaning it, like rain.

I am warm. I have on an Elizabethan stripped leather doublet. I can feel the warmth, when all about is chill. I am settling into the perception that I am the product of misuse. I have the sense that all I am is the result of neglect. Long ago, many might have done better by me. My present state is the fault of all those who failed in their basic duty. I might have been a contender, but because of outrageous betrayal -

- a finger from an unknown hand jabs my solar plexus. I feel it, but see no one. I hear, but see no one:

"It's you, bub."

Suddenly the warmth has gone out of the leather doublet.

We are around a huge oak table. We are agreeing in quiet voices in a dim light. Nodding. Yes, yes. Someone mutters the profile of the one we seek, as if it's well understood, like coordinating watches when everyone has the correct time.

"He will live for a long time near a large religious establishment. He will take no vacation."

We all nod, looking at maps on the table.

I am visiting an estate, spacious, airy, like in the movies. This is a fashion setting; the residents are known in that field. There are clothes falling onto a tile floor, which is in a large dormitory bathroom. Some new skirts, probably with labels recognizeable by some, droop near a pool where ordinary sewage stands. I am appalled at the sight. Such an effective contrast.

I try and tell one lady in another scene, no need to display the label. Everyone will know it's an Armani.

There is a pup who is not Scoob. He rambles around an office. Some raffish sort is moving towards the john, and I'm anxious to make sure to keep the pup out of his way.

Here is one gathering large boxes. How is she doing this? She will take the pup home with her. I make to help, but don't know what I might do. The hound must be a stray, and she will keep him until she finds a home. She is carrying now what looks like computer equipment, the way you might bundle up a laptop to work at home, but this is the monitor and processor of a desk unit. She will take the pup with her. I say, oh, well, I guess she knows what she is doing...