hands to her enormous bosom and
gasping when she catches sight of me.

It comes to me that I am quite a fucking sight. Bloody, sunburnt, wild-eyed,
with my simian hunch and my scabby jaw set at a crazy angle to my face and
reality both. Not to mention my near nudity, which I'm semipositive is not her
idea of light entertainment. "Hey," I say. "I, uh, I got stuck on the roof. The
door shut." Talking reopens the wound on my jaw and I feel more blood trickling
down my neck. "Unfortunately, I only get one chance to make a first impression,
huh? I'm not, you know, really *crazy,* I was just a little bored and so I went
exploring and got stuck and tried to get someone's attention, had a couple
accidents... It's a long story. Hey! My name's Art. What's yours?"

"Oh my Lord!" she said, and her hand jumps to the hammer in its bandolier
holster on her round tummy. She claws at it frantically.

"Please," I say, holding my hands in front of me. "Please. I'm hurt is all. I
came up here to get some fresh air and the door swung shut behind me. I tripped
when I knocked over the chimney to get someone's attention. I'm not dangerous.
Please. Just help me get back down to the twentieth floor -- I think I might
need a stretcher crew, my back is pretty bad."

"It's Caitlin," she says.

"I beg your pardon?"

"My name is Caitlin," she says.

"Hi, Caitlin," I said. I extend my hand, but she doesn't move the ten yards she
would have to cross in order to take it. I think about moving towards her, but
think better of it.

"You're not up here to jump, are you?"

"Jump? Christ, no! Just stuck is all. Just stuck."

Linda's goddamned boyfriend was into all this flaky Getting to Yes shit,
subliminal means of establishing rapport and so on. Linda and I once spent an
afternoon at the Children's Carousel uptown in Manhattan, making fun of all his
newage theories. The one that stood out in my mind as funniest was synching your
breathing -- "What you resist persists, so you need to turn resistance into
assistance," Linda recounted. You match breathing with your subject for fifteen
breaths and they unconsciously become receptive to your suggestions. I have a
suspicion that Caitlin might bolt, duck back through the door and pound down the
stairs on her chubby little legs and leave me stranded.

So I try it, match my breath to her heaving bosom. She's still panting from her
trek up the stairs and fifteen breaths go by in a quick pause. The silence