JONATHAN LETHEM.

MOTHERLESS BROOKLYN.

WALKS INTO.

Context is everything. Dress me up and see. I'm a carnival barker, an auctioneer, a downtown performance artist, a speaker in tongues, a senator drunk on filibuster. I've got Tourette's I've got Tourette's. My mouth won't quit, though mostly I whisper or subvocalize like I'm reading aloud, my Adam's apple bobbing, jaw muscle beating like a miniature heart under my cheek, the noise suppressed, the words escaping silently, mere ghostf themselves, husks empty of breath and tone. (If I were a Dick Tracy villain, I'd have to be Mumbles.) In this diminished form the words rush out of the cornucopia of my brain to course over the surface of the world, tickling reality like fingers on piano keys. Caressing, nudging. They're an invisible army on a peacekeeping mission, a peaceable horde. They mean no harm. They placate, interpret, massage. Everywhere they're smoothing down imperfections, putting hairs in place, putting ducks in a row, replacing divots. Counting and polishing the silver. Patting old ladies gently on the behind, eliciting a giggle. Only-here's the rub-when they find too much perfection, when the surface is already buffed smooth, the ducks already orderly, the old ladies complacent, then my little army rebels, breaks into the stores. Reality needs a prick here and there, the carpet needs a flaw. My words begin plucking at threads nervously, seeking purchase, a weak point, a vulnerable ear. That's when it comes, the urge to shout in the church, the nursery, the crowded movie house. It's an itch at first. Inconsequential. But that itch is soon a torrent behind a straining dam. Noah's flood. That itch is my whole life. Here it comes now. Cover your ears. Build an ark.

"Eat me!" I scream.

"Maufishful," said Gilbert Coney in response to my outburst, not even turning his head. I could barely make out the words-"My mouth is full"-both truthful and a joke, lame. Accustomed to my verbal ticcing, he didn't usually bother to comment. Now he nudged the bag of White Castles in my direction on the car seat, crinkling the paper. "Stuffinyahole."

Coney didn't rate any special consideration from me. "Eatmeeatmeeatme," I shrieked again, letting off more of the pressure in my head. Then I was able to concentrate. I helped myself to one of the tiny burgers. Unwrapping it, I lifted the top of the bun to examine the grid of holes in the patty, the slime of glistening cubed onions. This was another compulsion. I always had to look inside a White Castle, to appreciate the contrast of machine-tooled burger and nubbin of fried goo. Kaos and Control. Then I did more or less as Gilbert had suggested-pushed it into my mouth whole. The ancient slogan Buy 'em by the sack Buy 'em by the sack humming deep in my head, jaw working to grind the slider into swallowable chunks, I turned back to stare out the window at the house. humming deep in my head, jaw working to grind the slider into swallowable chunks, I turned back to stare out the window at the house.

Food really mellows me out.

We were putting a stakeout on 109 East Eighty-fourth Street, a lone town house pinned between giant doorman apartment buildings, in and out of the foyers of which bicycle deliverymen with bags of hot Chinese flitted like tired moths in the fading November light. It was dinner hour in Yorktown. Gilbert Coney and I had done our part to join the feast, detouring up into Spanish Harlem for the burgers. There's only one White Castle left in Manhattan, on East 103rd. It's not as good as some of the suburban outlets. You can't watch them prepare your order anymore, and to tell the truth I've begun to wonder if they're microwaving the buns instead of steaming them. Alas. Taking our boodle of thusly compromised sliders and fries back downtown, we double-parked in front of the target address until a spot opened up. It only took a couple of minutes, though by that time the doormen on either side had made us-made us as out-of-place and nosy anyway. We were driving the Lincoln, whe didn't have the "T"-series license plates or stickers or anything else to identify it as a Car Service vehicle. And we were large men, me and Gilbert. They probably thought we were cops. It didn't matter. We chowed and watched.

Not that we knew what we were doing there. Minna had sent us without saying why, which was usual enough, even if the address wasn't. Minna Agency errands mostly stuck us in Brooklyn, rarely far from Court Street, in fact. Carroll Gardens and Cobble Hill together made a crisscrossed game board of Frank Minna's alliances and enmities, and me and Gil Coney and the other Agency Men were the markers-like Monopoly pieces, I sometimes thought, tin automobiles or terriers (not top hats, surely)-to be moved around that game board. Here on the Upper East Side we were off our customary map, Automobile Automobile and and Terrier Terrier in Candyland-or maybe in the study with Colonel Mustard. in Candyland-or maybe in the study with Colonel Mustard.

"What's that sign?" said Coney. He pointed with his glistening chin at the town house doorway. I looked.

"'Yorkville Zendo,'" I read off the bronze plaque on the door, and my fevered brain processed the words and settled with interest on the odd one. "Eat me Zendo!" I muttered through clenched teeth.

Gilbert took it, rightly, as my way of puzzling over the unfamiliarity. "Yeah, what's that Zendo? Zendo? What's that?" What's that?"

"Maybe like Zen," I said.

"I don't know from that."

"Zen like Buddhism," I said. "Zen master, you know."

"Zen master?"

"You know, like kung-fu master."

"Hrrph," said Coney.

And so after this brief turn at investigation we settled back into our complacent chewing. Of course after any talk my brain was busy with at least some low-level version of echolalia salad: Don't know from Zendo, Ken-like Zung Fu, Feng Shui master, Fungo bastard, Zen masturbation, Eat me! Don't know from Zendo, Ken-like Zung Fu, Feng Shui master, Fungo bastard, Zen masturbation, Eat me! But it didn't require voicing, not now, not with White Castles to unscrew, inspect and devour. I was on my third. I fit it into my mouth, then glanced up at the doorway of One-oh-nine, jerking my head as if the building had been sneaking up on me. Coney and the other Minna Agency operatives loved doing stakeouts with me, since my compulsiveness forced me to eyeball the site or mark in question every thirty seconds or so, thereby saving them the trouble of swiveling their necks. A similar logic explained my popularity at wiretap parties-give me a key list of trigger words to listen for in a conversation and I'd think about nothing else, nearly jumping out of my clothes at hearing the slightest hint of one, while the same task invariably drew anyone else toward blissful sleep. But it didn't require voicing, not now, not with White Castles to unscrew, inspect and devour. I was on my third. I fit it into my mouth, then glanced up at the doorway of One-oh-nine, jerking my head as if the building had been sneaking up on me. Coney and the other Minna Agency operatives loved doing stakeouts with me, since my compulsiveness forced me to eyeball the site or mark in question every thirty seconds or so, thereby saving them the trouble of swiveling their necks. A similar logic explained my popularity at wiretap parties-give me a key list of trigger words to listen for in a conversation and I'd think about nothing else, nearly jumping out of my clothes at hearing the slightest hint of one, while the same task invariably drew anyone else toward blissful sleep.

While I chewed on number three and monitored the uneventful Yorkville Zendo entrance my hands busily frisked the paper sack of Castles, counting to be sure I had three remaining. We'd purchased a bag of twelve, and not only did Coney know I had to have my six, he also knew he was pleasing me, tickling my Touretter2019;s obsessive-compulsive instincts, by matching my number with his own. Gilbert Coney was a big lug with a heart of gold, I guess. Or maybe he was just trainable. My tics and obsessions kept the other Minna Men amused, but also wore them out, made them weirdly compliant and complicit.

A woman turned from the sidewalk onto the stoop of the town house and went up to the door. Short dark hair, squarish glasses, that was all I saw before her back was to us. She wore a pea coat. Sworls of black hair at her neck, under the boyish haircut. Twenty-five maybe, or maybe eighteen.

"She's going in," said Coney.

"Look, she's got a key," I said.

"What's Frank want us to do?"

"Just watch. Take a note. What time is it?"

Coney crumpled another Castle wrapper and pointed at the glove compartment. "You take a note. It's six forty-five."

I popped the compartment-the click-release of the plastic latch was a delicious hollow sound, which I knew I'd want to repeat, at least approximately-and found the small notebook inside. GIRL GIRL, I wrote, then crossed it out. WOMAN, HAIR, GLASSES, KEY WOMAN, HAIR, GLASSES, KEY. 6:45. The notes were to myself, since I only had to be able to report verbally to Minna. If that. For all we knew, he might want us out here to scare someone, or to wait for some delivery. I left the notebook beside the Castles on the seat between us and slapped the compartment door shut again, then delivered six redundant slaps to the same spot to ventilate my brain's pressure by reproducing the hollow thump I'd liked. Six was a lucky number tonight, six burgers, six forty-five. So six slaps.

For me, counting and touching things and repeating words are all the same activity. Tourette's is just one big lifetime of tag, really. The world (or my brain-same thing) appoints me it it, again and again. So I tag back.

Can it it do otherwise? If you've ever been do otherwise? If you've ever been it it you know the answer. you know the answer.

"Boys" came the voice from the street side of the car, startling me and Coney both. "Frank," I said.

It was Minna. He had his trench-coat collar up against the breeze, not quite cloaking his unshaven Robert-Ryan-in-Wild-Bunch grimace. He ducked down to the level of my window, as if he didn't want to be seen from the Yorkville Zendo. Squeaky cabs rocking-horsed past over the pothole in the street behind him. I rolled down the window, then reached out compulsively and touched his left shoulder, a regular gesture he'd not bothered to acknowledge for-how long? Say, fifteen years now, since when I'd first begun manifesting the urge as a thirteen-year-old and reached out for his then twenty-five-year-old street punk's bomber-jacketed shoulder. Fifteen years of taps and touches-if Frank Minna were a statue instead of flesh and blood I've have buffed that spot to a high shine, the way leagues of touri burnish the noses and toes of bronze martyrs in Italian churches. grimace. He ducked down to the level of my window, as if he didn't want to be seen from the Yorkville Zendo. Squeaky cabs rocking-horsed past over the pothole in the street behind him. I rolled down the window, then reached out compulsively and touched his left shoulder, a regular gesture he'd not bothered to acknowledge for-how long? Say, fifteen years now, since when I'd first begun manifesting the urge as a thirteen-year-old and reached out for his then twenty-five-year-old street punk's bomber-jacketed shoulder. Fifteen years of taps and touches-if Frank Minna were a statue instead of flesh and blood I've have buffed that spot to a high shine, the way leagues of touri burnish the noses and toes of bronze martyrs in Italian churches.

"What you doing here?" said Coney. He knew it had to be important to not only get Minna up here, but on his own steam, when he could have had us swing by to pick him up somewhere. Something complicated was going on, and-surprise!-we stooges were out of the loop again.

I whispered inaudibly through narrowed lips, Stakeout, snakeout, ambush Zendo Stakeout, snakeout, ambush Zendo.

The Lords of Snakebush.

"Gimme a smoke," said Minna. Coney leaned over me with a pack of Malls, one tapped out an inch or so for the boss to pluck. Minna put it in his mouth and lit it himself, pursing his brow in concentration, sheltering the lighter in the frame of his collar. He drew in, then gusted smoke into our airspace. "Okay, listen," he said, as though we weren't already hanging on his words. Minna Men to the bone.

"I'm going in," he said, narrowing his eyes at the Zendo. "They'll buzz me. I'll swing the door wide. I want you"-he nodded at Coney-"to grab the door, get inside, just inside, and wait there, at the bottom of the stairs."

"What if they come meet you?" said Coney.

"Worry about that if it happens," said Minna curtly.

"Okay, but what if-"

Minna waved him off before he could finish. Really Coney was groping for comprehension of his role, but it wasn't forthcoming.

"Lionel-" started Minna.

Lionel, my name. Frank and the Minna Men pronounced it to rhyme with vinyl. vinyl. Lionel Essrog. Lionel Essrog. Line-all Line-all.

Liable Guesscog.

Final Escrow.

Ironic Pissclam.

And so on.

My own name was the original verbal taffy, by now stretched to filament-thin threads that lay all over the floor of my echo-chamber skull. Slack, the flavor all chewed out of it.

"Here." Minna dropped a radio monitor and headphones in my lap, then patted his rib pocket. "I'm wired. I'll be coming over that thing live. Listen close. If I say, uh, 'Not if my life depended on it,' you get out of the car and knock on the door here, Gilbert lets you in, two of you rush upstairs and find me quick, okay?"

Eat me, dickweed was almost dislodged from my mouth in the excitement, but I breathed in sharply and swallowed the words, said nothing instead. was almost dislodged from my mouth in the excitement, but I breathed in sharply and swallowed the words, said nothing instead.

"We're not carrying," said Coney.

"What?" said Minna.

"A piece, I don't have a piece."

"What's with piece? piece? Say Say gun gun, Gilbert."

"No gun, Frank."

"That's what I count on. That's how I sleep at night, you have to know. You with no gun. I wouldn't want you chuckleheads coming up a stairway behind me with a hairpin, with a harmonica, let alone a gun. I've got a gun. You just show up."

"Sorry, Frank."

"With an unlit cigar, with a fucking Buffalo chicken wing."

"Sorry, Frank."

"Just listen. If you hear me say, uh, 'First I gotta use the bathroom,' that means we're coming out. You get Gilbert, get back in the car, get ready to follow. You got it?"

Get, get, get, GOT! said my brain. said my brain. Duck, duck, duck, GOOSE! Duck, duck, duck, GOOSE!

"Life depended, rush the Zendo," was what I said aloud. "Use the bathroom, start the car."

"Genius, Freakshow," said Minna. He pinched my cheek, then tossed his cigarette behind him into the street, where it tumbled, sparks scattering. His eyes were far away.

Coney got out of the car, and I scooted over to the driver's seat. Minna thumped the hood once, as if patting a dog on its head after saying stay stay, then slipped past the front bumper, put his finger up to slow Coney, crossed the pavement to the door of One-oh-nine, and hit the doorbell under the Zendo sign. Coney leaned against the car, waiting. I put on the headphones, got a clear sound of Minna's shoe scraping pavement over the wire so I knew it was working. When I looked up I saw the doorman from the big place to the right watching us, but he wasn't doing anything apart from watching.

I heard the buzzer sound, live and over the wire both. Minna went in, sweeping the door wide. Coney skipped over, grabbed the door, and disappeared inside, too.

Footsteps upstairs, no voices yet. Now suddenly I dwelled in two worlds, eyes and quivering body in the driver's seat of the Lincoln, watching from my parking spot the orderly street life of the Upper East Side, dog-walkers, deliverymen, girls and boys dressed as grownups in business suits shivering their way into gimmicky bars as the nightlife got under way, while my ears built a soundscape from the indoor echoes of Minna's movement up the stair, still nobody meeting him but he seemed to know where he was, shoe leather chafing on wood, stairs squeaking, then a hesitation, a rustle of clothing perhaps, then two wooden clunks, and the footsteps resumed more quietly. Minna had taken off his shoes.

Ringing the doorbell, then sneaking in? It didn't follow. But what in this sequence did follow? I palmed another Castle out of the paper sack-six burgers to restore order in a senseless world.

"Frank," came a voice over the wire. came a voice over the wire.

"I came," said Minna wearily. said Minna wearily. "But I shouldn't have to. You should clear up crap on your end." "But I shouldn't have to. You should clear up crap on your end."

"I appreciate that," went the other voice. went the other voice. "But things have gotten complicated." "But things have gotten complicated."

"They know about the contract for the building," said Minna. said Minna.

"No, I don't think so." The voice was weirdly calm, placating. Did I recognize it? Perhaps not that so much as the rhythm of Minna's replies-this was someone he knew well, but who? The voice was weirdly calm, placating. Did I recognize it? Perhaps not that so much as the rhythm of Minna's replies-this was someone he knew well, but who?

"Come inside, let's talk," said the voice. said the voice.

"What about?" said Minna. said Minna. "What do we have to talk about?" "What do we have to talk about?"

"Listen to yourself, Frank."

"I came here to listen to myself? I can do that at home."

"But do you, in fact?" I could hear a smile in the voice. I could hear a smile in the voice. "Not as often, or as deeply as you might, I suspect." "Not as often, or as deeply as you might, I suspect."

"Where's Ullman?" said Minna. said Minna. "You got him here?" "Ullman's downtown. You'll go to him." "You got him here?" "Ullman's downtown. You'll go to him."

"Fuck."

"Patience."

"You say patience, I say fuck."

"Characteristic, I suppose."

"Yeah. So let's call the whole thing off."

More muffled footsteps, a door closing. A clunk, possibly a bottle and glass, a poured drink. Wine. I wouldn't have minded a beverage myself. I chewed on a Castle instead and gazed out the windshield, brain going Characteristic autistic mystic my tic dipstick dickweek Characteristic autistic mystic my tic dipstick dickweek and then I thought to take another note, flipped open the notebook and under and then I thought to take another note, flipped open the notebook and under WOMAN, HAIR, GLASSES WOMAN, HAIR, GLASSES wrote wrote ULLMAN DOWNTOWN ULLMAN DOWNTOWN, thought Dull Man Out of Town. When I swallowed the burger, my jaw and throat tightened, and I braced for an unavoidable copralalic tic-out loud, though no one was there to hear it. "Eat shit, Bailey!"

Bailey was a name embedded in my Tourette's brain, though I couldn't say why. I'd never known a Bailey. Maybe Bailey was everyman, like George Bailey in It's a Wonderful Life It's a Wonderful Life. My imaginary listener, he had to bear the brunt of a majority of my solitary swearing-some part of me required a target, apparently. If a Touretter curses in the woods and there's nobody to hear does he make a sound? Bailey seemed to be my solution to that conundrum.

"Your face betrays you, Frank. You'd like to murder someone."

"You'd do fine for a start."

"You shouldn't blame me, Frank, if you've lost control of her."

"It's your fault if she misses her Rama-lama-ding-dong.

You're the one who filled her head with that crap."

"Here, try this." (Offering a drink?) (Offering a drink?) "Not on an empty stomach."

"Alas. I forget how you suffer, Frank."

"Aw, go fuck yourself."

"Eat shit, Bailey!" The tics were always worst when I was nervous, stress kindling my Tourette's. And something in this scenario was making me nervous. The conversation I overheard was too knowing, the references all polished and opaque, as though years of dealings lay underneath every word.

Also, where was the short-dark-haired girl? In the room with Minna and his supercilious conversational partner, silent? Or somewhere else entirely? My inability to visualize the interior space of One-oh-nine was agitating. Was the girl the "she" they were discussing? It seemed unlikely.

And what was her Rama-lama-ding-dong her Rama-lama-ding-dong? I didn't have the luxury of worrying about it. I pushed away a host of tics and tried not to dwell on things I didn't understand.

I glanced at the door. Presumably Coney was still behind it. I wanted to hear not if my life depended on it not if my life depended on it so we could rush the stairs. so we could rush the stairs.