572
FRANK CONROY
I was prepared, of course, but prepared through my imagina–
tion, and I couldn't possibly have imagined the reality. First of
all
it was hot, really hot, like a furnace room. I began to sweat
im–
mediately. The smell was overpowering.
It
was useless to breathe care–
fully as I'd done outside, here the smell was so pungent and thick
it seemed to have taken the place of air-a hot substitute filling my
lungs, seeping into my blood and making me its own creature. With
the first deep breath I was no longer an air breather, I'd changed
to
another species.
It was noisy. A noise that raised the hair on the back of my neck.
Far-out throats, tongues and lips forming sounds that wound their
independent way up and down the scale with no relation to any–
thing. Whispering, mumbling, fake laughter and true laughter, bub–
bling sounds, short screams, bored humming, weeping, long, roller
coaster yells ... all of it in random dynamic waves like some futuristic
orchestra. In this meaningless music were sudden cries of such intense
human significance that I stood paralyzed.
It
was as if all the saints, martyrs and mystics of human history
were gathered into a single building, each one crying out at the
moment of revelation, each one truly
there
at his extreme of joy
or pain, crying out with the purity of total selflessness. There was no
arguing with these sudden voices above the general clamor, they rang
true. All around me were men in a paroxysm of discovery, seeing lands
I had never known existed, calling me with a strength I had never
known existed. But they called from every direction with equal
power, so I couldn't answer. I stood balanced on the pinpoint of my
own sanity, a small, cracked tile on the floor.
"They're a little noisy now. It's just before bedtime and we let
them blow off some steam."
I looked up and discovered a huge man standing in front of me,
smiling. Involuntarily I took a step backward. He was all eyes, im–
mense white eyes impossibly out of his head, rushing at me. No, he
was wearing his eyes like glasses. Two bulbous eyes in steel frames.
He turned his head and the illusion disappeared. Thick lenses, that
was all. His bald head gleamed with sweat. His arm was as big as
my leg.
"I'm Olsen," he said.
"Where's Guy?"
