Serial_The Long Red Light

No reproduction or transmission to a 3rd party allowed without prior written consent permitted.

Howard Self is a very small man. He dresses as big as he can. Most traffic engineers wear clip-on ties or no ties. Howard wears Armani ties and custom-made suits and shirts. They're custom-made in Hong Kong because he hates to buy clothes in the children's' stores and he hates to be fitted by a tailor who is taller than he is.

"Screw the jerks," says Howard, as he stands in front of the street light control box at the southwest corner of Pico and Beverwil. Looking east, he can see the skyline of downtown Los Angeles. Behind him, westward, down Pico, clothing factory owners play gin at Hillcrest, Westwood rests, and Santa Monica washes its feet in the sparkling ocean. To the north is Beverly Hills where the movie moguls are taking lunch on Rodeo Drive, and where there are more hand-held video cameras than could be found at a Rodney King-Police reunion.

But Self is not a tourist and he's not looking at the view; he's a city traffic engineer and he appears to be on city business. He's doing complicated work. He's turning dials and pressing switches and taking readings from the red LED displays in the traffic light control box.

Howard is programming this streetlight because he has a girl friend named Janice. She's just a little taller than he is, but it doesn't matter, because in bed, they're both a foot tall. They never go out together because he doesn't want to be seen with a taller woman and she doesn't want to be seen with him at all. She's married to a traffic engineer who works the graveyard shift out of Howard's department. Her husband does wear clip-on ties and a pocket protector and a scientific calculator in a plastic belt holster.

Janice met Howard at the department Christmas party. She was impressed with his Armani tie and his custom-made suit. Even his tiny little shoes impressed her. She used to have a dollhouse. She even liked his thirty-dollar hairstyle that gave him another inch of height. She told him how lonely it got after 11 when her husband was at work. Howard took the bait and they made a date for him to bring over a videotape.

Howard sets the controller's clock to 12 midnight. The LED displays of time delays and auto queue lengths change. The controller is actually designed to sense cars fifty feet from the intersection, but the city is too cheap to install the sensors. He steps the time through to 3 AM and then the delays and queue lengths revert back to the daytime values. Howard has programmed the controller so that the light will stay green for east-west traffic for at least three and half minutes. If there is no north-south traffic, it will just stay green for east-west traffic all the time.

That way, Howard Self can drive from Janice's duplex to his West LA apartment without getting caught at this light. He nods at his work of genius and closes the controller's silver door and locks it.

"This is my light. It's my time window. God, I've got to be here to see it work. The Howard Self traffic light. If you can't serve yourself, what's the point of being a traffic engineer?" says Howard Self.

That night, at 11 PM, Howard arrives at Janice's building. He has a bottle of French wine that he bought for $2.99 at Trader Joe's. "Impressive but not expensive," he says, as he scratches off the pink shards of the price tag. As he walks up the stairs he notices that little lights flash on as he takes each step. Over the doorbell is a miniature traffic light with the red light glowing. Howard nods and then pushes the bell and waits. He hears footsteps coming down the hall and the traffic light changes from red to yellow and then to green as the door opens.

Janice stands holding the door. She's ravishing in a low cut black evening dress. Her thigh shows white against the slit in the side of the tight dress. The curves of her breasts show through the black lace. Nearly the whole of the breast is there to see. Howard points to the miniature traffic light, "Jack do that?"

Howard looks at her, long enough for her to hear his brain engage the question. "Very nice." Her face still has a question wrinkle in it. "Real fine." It goes neutral. "Janice, it's beautiful." She smiles.

"What do you have there?" She steps up to him. In high heels, her breast touches his shoulder. Janice is not a beautiful woman, but on these evenings with Howard she imagines a woman who's sexy, sensual and glamorous, and on this evening a sexy, sensual and glamorous woman caresses Howard's neck with one hand and with the other takes the wine and appraises the French label.

The table is exquisitely set. Candles gently burning in silver candle sticks. Black china plates: dinner plate with salad plate nestled on top. Black bread plate with little butter knife. Crystal glasses for water and wine. Cloth napkins with silver peacock napkin holders and starched folded peacock tails.

"Janice, this is beautiful, a lot of work. You didn't have to do this for me," Howard reassured her.

"It's my birthday and it's for me. Jack never takes me out, hates to dress up, hates fancy food and I think he electrocuted his dick working with his toys.

"Tonight, my night, we're going to celebrate! We're going to have a fine meal and we'll make fine love and we'll have a bubble bath together with scented oils and we'll make love in the bath and then we'll have brandy and we'll pour chocolate and rum on our bodies and..."

Howard glances at his watch, estimates the time required for the scenario, starts walking toward the kitchen and says, "Sounds great, can I help you with the salad?"

"No, no, open your Chateau Monte Rouge and let it breathe, then sit down." She glides into the kitchen.

Howard watches the candles and wonders why they haven't burned down more. The candles, now an inch shorter, ignore his time fantasy and shake their flame heads at him. Its 11:30 PM, thirty minutes to Howard's time window, the activation of Howard Self's light. "I'm going to miss the premier," he says.

"What did you say?" Janice says, as she carries the bowl of artichoke and butter lettuce salad, covered with walnuts, to the table. She starts to serve Howard with two slender silver salad forks. He watches the small increments pile on each other slowly. She finishes and bends deep, exposing the roundness of her breast to him, picks up an artichoke and brings it to his mouth while licking his ear. She waits for him to kiss her breast. She rolls her eyes, "What premier are you going to miss?"

"That's wonderful, what's the dressing?" he asks. He can't answer her. You can screw another engineer's wife in complete secrecy, but never talk shop. She'll say something for sure. By accident or to look smart.

Howard quickly cleans his plate. She is picking and tasting. She looks at him, smiles, "You really liked it didn't you?" He nods. She leans forward, "Don't be shy." And she refills his salad.

Howard and Janice don't talk much. They dress up, eat, watch TV, make love, he goes home, and then she returns the apartment to the efficient dullness her husband, the engineer, appreciates.

The clock in the kitchen dings and then announces, "It's twelve o'clock midnight." He looks at his watch. It's definitely midnight. Actually 12:00:24 plus or minus half a second. Jack doesn't care about time like I do, Howard thinks.

A perfectly detailed van, with curtains covering the smoked, oval windows and a $5,000 speaker system booming, races a Mazda Miata south on Beverwil, up the hill, to the intersection with Pico. On the side of the van is painted "El Cid, The Conqueror" along with a portrait of a bare-chested Charleton Heston beckoning to a thousand extras pulling a monster cannon up a hill to a Moorish Castle.

In the Miata is a blonde with a tight sweater and a very short leather skirt and really fine tapered and smooth legs.

Cid looks down on the legs of the blonde. She looks up. "Hey, Cid that's quite the van."

They talk about the van, its sound system, the TV, the bar, the climate control. He invites her for a drink. She accepts. He adds that it's at the bar in the van. She nods tells him to follow her to a parking spot. The light finally turns green and off they drive.

She pulls to a stop and he parks close behind her. She stands up, wiggles her ass and then gets out of the car, all long legs and high heels.

Inside the van is a couch, bar, sound system and plush burnt orange carpeting. They have a drink and she presses her breast into his arm. She looks squarely in his eyes and licks her large hungry lips. He leans to her, her mouth opens. They kiss and thrash about. He fondles her breasts and she moans and strokes his ears, his chest, his stomach and his crotch. He moves his hand to her calve and then up her leg to between her thighs. She closes her legs on his hand, immobilizing him. Biting his ear, she says, "I want you. I want you in my ass. I want it in the ass first."

She nods as if she expected the answer and then pulls down her panties from inside her short skirt. She lays face down on the floor, pulls up her skirt and wiggles her ass at him.

Cid strips and gets down with her and climbs on to her. She guides him inside her. She squeezes her eyes shut. He arches, looks at his van and smiles. The payoff.

He pulls off and rolls over to his back. "Hang in there I'll be back in a minute," he says. He stokes her back.

She lies there smiling, taking the strokes and then she sits up, opens her purse, and pulls out cotton balls and makeup remover. There is a butterfly knife in her purse. She takes off her eyebrows, her eye lashes, lip stick, rouge, earrings, and bracelet and then Cid sees the blonde take off her wig.

The blonde pulls the knife from the purse and stands up. She flips open the knife and says in a man's voice, "Now it's my turn." She unzips her skirt and lets it slide to the floor. Cid sees a naked man with a knife. He rolls over to get away, but the blonde leaps on his back and puts the knife to his throat.

The blonde kisses his cheek and bites his ear. "Relax and enjoy this and you'll never fear AIDS again."

Bill, a black Beverly Hills attorney, accelerates up the hill in his new shiny Corvette, with the top down, trying to catch the green light. The green is so short he gets caught at the red. He waits, revs the powerful engine, listening to the deep rumm, rumm, feeling the car torquing, and responding to him. "God, what a beautiful machine. No movies and no vacations for the last two years, but you're mine now, and I deserve you." He waits.

Janice grips the brass bedposts with her fists. Her legs hold Howard's hips as he moves in and out of her, penetrating and relaxing her. Her eyes are closed tight. Her lips make a tunnel through which oooo's and moans slide out. Her whole body is consumed in the act.

Howard watches the clock. It's 1:29. He has only 90 minutes: less 11 to shower, 2 to dress, one to kiss her good-bye, maybe 30 seconds, 20 seconds down the stairs, 10 to the car, 5 to...

Bill drums his manicured nails on the polished wood dash, pushes the buttons on the radio, and looks at tapes in the tape box. He strokes the spotless new left door panel as though it were the shoulder of a beautiful sensuous woman. He waits. Finally he pounds the wheel and looks left for on-coming traffic. No cars. His eyes glare.

He spins the wheel and guns the Vette into a peeling right, heading west, on Pico and comes to a red light at an intersection with a Union 76 gas station. In the station is a black hustler wearing a fuzzy white fur coat, standing unstably next to a big white Cadillac with gold chrome trim.

The hustler struggles and yanks the gas nozzle from the pump. He aims the nozzle at the gas pipe and misses, scratching the $4,000 paint job. He spills gas. He's drunk. He tries to jam the hose nozzle back into the tank opening and can't. He drops the nozzle and bends to pick it up. He stumbles and yells, then jumps in his car without paying. He crashes into the car in front of him and then jams into reverse, peeling backwards out of the station. The rear of his car races towards Bill's new Corvette. Bill braces for the crash. The hustler swerves and rips off the front fender and bumper of Bill's car. The Cad spins and crashes into a car across the street. The radiator bursts and steam hisses in a cloud.

The station attendant runs towards the steaming Cadillac. Bill yells, "Hey, you hit my car!" and starts to write down the license number.

The hustler pushes and pulls on his door and then kicks it open. He stumbles onto the street and pulls a gold chrome gun and starts shooting and walking toward Bill. A bullet ricochets off the Corvette's chrome windshield frame. Bill ducks behind the wheel.

The hustler jumps up on the back of the Corvette, scraping deep cuts in the back panel. He points the gun at the attendant. The attendant turns and runs. The hustler slides into the passenger side of Corvette and pokes Bill with the gun. "Start driving, Asshole!"

"Chump change! I need real money! We're gonna get some real money!" The hustler pushes the wheel. "U-turn mother fuck!" He pokes Bill in the head with the gun. Bill turns and heads east.

The hustler rolls his eyes. "Bullshit. You're an Uncle Tom corporate kiss-ass. Where do you live? South Central. Shit, you never even been to Normandy and Florence. Right."

"Never got out of your car I bet. Don't answer. Don't waste the world's time. Drive to 5th and Spring."

They pull over to the curb on 5th, just past Spring. The hustler holds his palm up. "Keys."

Bill hands him the keys. "If you leave, I'll sell your car to a chop shop after I put a 357 in your back."

The hustler goes into the Mexican bar. Bill watches in the rear view mirror. The hustler comes out with a dealer. They step into the parking lot. The hustler flashes Bill's fifty-dollar bill. The dealer reaches into his mouth and pulls out a dime of rock, wrapped in aluminum foil and the hustler passes him the fifty and gets the foil. The dealer pulls a roll of tens from an inside pocket and peals off forty in change. The dealer then pulls a roll of fifties from an other inside pocket and adds the fifty to it.

The hustler walks back to the front of the bar, nods to the dealer and gets back in the Corvette, "Drive into the alley, Mr. Westside."

In the alley, the hustler lights up the rock and smokes it. Bill looks in horror and slides down in the seat. A police car drives by. "Shit, I could lose my car."

"Chill out man. Cops don't give a shit," the hustler says and gets with the feeling. He leans his head back in the seat and looks at the walls of the alley. "Now it's bank time." The hustler reloads his gun. "Drive back to the bar. Keep the engine running."

Bill pulls up to the curb. They wait. The dealer comes out and looks up and down the street. He looks at the hustler who asks, "You got more good stuff?"

The dealer leans over the Corvette and opens his coat. The hustler exposes his gun and signals silence with his finger.

He reaches into the dealer's clothes and finds and takes rolls of bills and dumps them on the floor of the Corvette. "You can keep the stuff, it's shit."

He pulls the dealer over the window of the car. "Drive before his back-up sees us." Bill doesn't move.

"Drive motherfucker!" The hustler puts the gun to the dealer's nose. "Or I blow him away."

The backup and the runner come charging out of the bar, guns out and shooting. The hustler, holding the dealer by his coat, shoots over his shoulder with his other hand. The backup shoots, hitting the back of the car. "Turn left, left, now. Go, go, go! I sound like Ross Perot. Should've run for president."

"Your amigos don't like your ass, essay." The hustler pushes the dealer away from the car. The dealer rolls into trash barrels and boxes. He gets up, pulls his gun from his back waistband and starts shooting as Bill turns into an alley, knocking over cardboard boxes. A large soup can catches under engine. The car screeches through the alley with sparks flying.

As he nears the end of the alley, a lumber truck crosses over the exit. Bill slows down. The backup comes in on a motor cycle, shooting. Bill looks back and floors it and yells, "Low Bridge!" He races under the truck bed and the windshield is sheared off. The Corvette careens onto a side street.

Bill is driving west on Beverly Blvd. The Corvette is minus the front right and left fenders, the bumper and the windshield.

The hustler sits expansively, with his arms on the window and Bill's seat back. The wind blows eddies in the fleece of his coat. "Tell me, when did you get this much excitement in the halls of white power? Shit, you buppies think you're fighting, if you disagree about the pattern in the carpet.

"Shit, you should pay for this. I'm your rush-meister. I'm your mother-fucking adrenal tour guide!"

Driving next to them is a Low Rider Chevy Impala. White, Immaculate. The Mexican youths in the car look at Bill's car. The hustler looks at them angrily, "What you looking at Pancho?"

The hustler grabs the wheel and slams the Corvette into the Low Rider. The fiberglass of the Vette grinds against the steel of the Impala. Bill turns his head to see what they hit. The hustler then hits Bill's leg, accelerating the Vette. The rear fender catches the front fender of the Low rider. The fiberglass crumbles and bunches, giving way to the steel until it gives no more. Then the bolts of the steel fender pop and both fenders are ripped off.

The low riders pull guns and start shooting. Bill does a left turn into the next street, which is covered with broken bottles and rocks and building materials. Bill weaves, but crunches over some of the bottles. A tire catches a nail.

Bill is driving west on Melrose. Freaks with purple pointed hair are pointing at his car. "Stop there, at the all-nighter, I want a hamburger," says the hustler.

They pull up to a building shaped like a hamburger. The hustler yells at a panhandler. "Hey kid, get two burgers for me and you'll get ten dollars for yourself." He sharply nudges Bill in the shoulder, "Give him your ten, bad-ass." Bill pulls the ten from his shirt pocket and hands it over.

The hustler gathers up the rolls of money from the floor of the Vette. He examines the rolls. "Hundreds, fifties, twenties...tens, shit. Here, Pussy keep the tens." He stuffs the tens in Bill's pocket.

"Ten's! You did ten thousand in damage to the Vette! Keep your fucking tens." Bill takes the roll out of his pocket, pulls of the rubber band and throws the bills in the air.

The hustler looks at the center of one of the rolls. "Fuckin A, a locator. Son of a Bitch had a radio locator." Then there is a roar of engines.

He throws the radio away. The kid comes with the hamburgers. The hustler grabs them.

Down the street from the east come motor cycles, Mercedes', BMW's, a pickup full of men with guns. "The money's on the ground. Let's go!"

Bill is turning the Vette right again at Pico and Beverwil. He sees what might be his lost front bumper. He hits the brakes and starts a left turn.

The hustler forces the wheel to the right. "We got no time for such foolishness. Get back to the Cad before some hood strips it."

Back at Roxbury and Pico, Bill has parked the Vette next to the hustler's white Cadillac. He has his chin resting on his palm, looking bored, frustrated, and tied down. The hustler is pulling stuff out of the trunk. He looks the Vette. "Hey man, low tire, we almost got a flat."

Bill jumps out of the Vette and sees the nearly flat rear tire. "Shit!" He pops the trunk and begins to get out the spare and the tools. "That's all I needed."

The hustler pulls the gun. "No, it's my gun, and it's my car now and we're late for my appointment. I pay or I die. I arrive and you drive or you die. Get the drift?"

The hustler shoots the jack. Bill repositions it. The hustler shoots Bill in the arm. Then the hustler turns and yells, "Now let's go."

Bill picks up the tire iron and screams, "My car, my tire!" And he throws the black iron at the hustler with all his force and hits him in the temple. The hustler looks surprised, turns, his eyes become glassy and then he shuts off, falls backwards and his head hits the pavement with a loud final crack.

Kriss Davidson walks out of the Tribecca singles bar alone. She hands the valet her claim check and waits ignoring the single men, hanging out on the sidewalk. They watch her, the light silhouetting her long slender legs through the gossamer dress. They wonder if they made a mistake by not coming on to such beautiful legs in the bar.

The valet screeches around the cars in the densely packed lot, swings onto the street, making a northbound car dodge into the next lane, and squeals to a stop in front of Kriss. He jumps out and opens the door, his body spelling T.I.P. She takes the long way around the car and checks out her new Toyota for dings as the red-coated valet from hell stands impatiently holding the door. No dings. Still a new virgin car. She hands him the folded money as she slides behind the wheel. She accelerates away, hangs a U and heads south for the Beverwil and Pico intersection.

Candles light a path to the bathroom. Candles flicker on every counter. Janice's flushed face is engulfed among the bubbles that overflow the tub. Tall flute glasses of champagne stand on the counter. Howard looks at her and then at his watch. It is 2:15. "I get wrinkled like a prune if I spend more than five minutes in the tub," he says.

"Jesus! Jesus, Howard is this my birthday or a Swiss watchmakers convention?" she complains and throws soap bubbles at him.

Howard forces himself not to look at his watch. He feels small, uncomfortable, and naked in front of her. Why do I give this woman my time, he thinks. As he steps into the tub he looks in the mirror. The clock on the wall, which has no numbers, reads 15 minutes to 10. Shit, he thinks, the clock's backwards. He gets into the hot water of the tub. The bubbles rub the hair on his legs. He quickly slides in.

"Smell the fragrance, feel the oils, let me wash you. Relax as my hands touch your chest and your stomach and your pubic bone and your soft, not so soft. I love to feel you grow hard."

"One more goddamn wasted night!" curses Kriss as she pulls her Toyota to a stop at the long red light. "Nothing but dorks and perverts." She waits and waits.

"Why should I be on display. A heffer at a cattle convention." She looks left. "Who the hell are those guys in their fancy silk shirts and gold chains?" And she looks right. She's at the crest of the hill. Her view is obstructed.

"To hell with it!" She guns it and drives into the intersection. Just then two eighteen wheelers roar up over the crest. She slams on the brakes. The trucks veer, one to the right and one to the left. The one on the left hits the back of the new Toyota. The car spins and Kriss is slammed against the door. Her head hits the side window, which begins to shatter. At that instant the truck on the right hits the front of the car, spinning it back to straight north and south. Then the wheels of the Toyota grab the road and the trucks' front tires lift and ride up the side of the rear and front bumpers. They crush the front and back of her car, leaving her trapped inside.

The fire department comes with the jaws of life and cuts her unconscious body out of the car. The car is totaled.

She is loaded on a gurney and bounced into the back of an ambulance and taken to City Hospital.

Emergency is overloaded with gang victims, crazies and poor people with colds. The triage attendant tags Kriss as "not critical." Her only identification is a "K.D." on her anklet. That is marked on her tag. Her clothes are removed and a hospital gown is tied around her. Her bloody scalp is cleaned and she is rolled into the hall.

Richard, the pervert, dressed as an orderly, looks over the shapely calves sticking out of Kriss' gown. He senses the curves of her hips and her breasts as her chest rises and falls with her breathing. He caresses her hair, looks around and fondles her breast. He starts pushing the gurney, looking for an empty room. He rolls her into a linen closet. He pulls back the gown. Then he hears moaning. He hides behind the shelves of sheets.

Dr. Jensen pushes Nurse Wills away, "Someone's here. Not now." She walks toward the door, buttoning her uniform, covering her bra-less curves. Then she sees the gurney with Kriss. "Anyone here?" She listens. But Richard keeps quiet. "This must be the missing kidney donor we're waiting for. Why park her here?" She rolls Kriss out. Dr. Jensen zips up his pants and then follows her out the door. Richard waits behind the shelf.

Nurse Jensen takes Kriss to the basement operating room hallway and parks her outside the lounge. She walks in the lounge to get coffee. Richard comes back, puts an x-ray folder on the gurney and rolls it away.

He rolls Kriss down the hall, nodding at other orderlies and then rolls her into a stairwell and closes the door. He kisses her lips and then he slides his hand down her body to the edge of her gown. He starts hiking up her gown above the knees. He kisses her knees. He hears footsteps coming down stairs. He straightens her gown and leaves by the door.

Two white-coated orderlies come down the stairs holding hands. Ralph says, "Look! The dykes in admitting. No name, just 'K.D.', incomplete records!"

David pulls the X-ray order from the gurney holder. "This is the K.D. He writes "K.D. on the folder. Hold the door; this one goes back to Pre-OP X-ray. They're looking for their kidney donor."

In the Pre-Op X-ray room is another woman on a gurney. She is yelling at a nurse, "I don't need another X-ray. I had one yesterday. You'll give me cancer. Why did you pull me out of dialysis? I need my dialysis! I'll die without my dialysis."

The nurse pulls her chart from the gurney holder. "Dearie, you're a kidney donor."

"Kidney donor, my kidneys aren't worth shit. That's why I'm on kidney dialysis. Look at my chart, it says 'K.D.'," the distraught woman says as calmly as she can.

The nurse looks at her in the eye. "Madam, I know it says K.D. On this floor, K.D. means Kidney Donor."

The door swings open and Kriss, still unconscious, is rolled in by the orderlies. "We found the donor, we found the donor!"

The nurse looks at the still and quiet Kriss. "Well, ain't that nice, all sedated already. You two," she points at the orderlies, "take this hysterical woman up to Dialysis. Madam, you shouldn't get so excited. See, everything sorted itself out."

She turns toward Kriss. The orderlies roll the other woman out, banging the swinging door with the gurney, "Off to Dialysis!"

One of the orderlies pushes the dialysis patient down the hall while the other rides on the front of the gurney, regally gesturing from side to side with a nod of the head and limp hand, to everyone he sees, as if he were Queen Elizabeth II.

They stop and punch the elevator button and wait, ticking the time away with their hands. They see a young nurse with a tray holding a big pink pill and a cup of water. "Hi Sally, how's the new job?"

"Tense, just too tense," she says, and walks into the open hospital room, next to them, and up to a woman expensively dressed in a neon orange and yellow pantsuit. She's sitting in a chair, reading a 1942 copy of Life Magazine with Roosevelt on the cover. "Madam, its time for your med."

The woman keeps on reading her magazine, but speaks in a cultured Eliza Doolittle accent, "My dear, I'm a guest."

The nurse becomes indignant. "Madam, my instructions are to give this med to the woman in room 205."

The woman slowly raises her eyes to the young nurse, "I am Sondra Herbert Walker Smith, Miss. I am a guest; I am not your patient. She is in the crapper."

"I don't care who you say you are. You're the woman in 205. Will you please take your med. Here is your cupper!"

Dr. Jensen, now dressed in greens, walks into Pre-Op from the O.R. Nurse Wills stands behind him, holding the door to the Operating Room, He asks, "How soon will the donor be ready?"

The x-ray nurse looks at him, "Couple of five minutes, soon as I get some damned help."

Jensen looks back at Wills and they both walk to the wash-up room, taking off their greens, as they walk. The door closes behind them.

Richard, the pervert, walks in to the x-ray room. The nurse sees him, "You, numb nuts, help me put this one on the x-ray table. She grabs Kriss' shoulders and he takes the feet. "Up," she announces. They lift her up, and then she twists the body facedown, and drops her on the table with a splat. The nurse, while reaching for the x-ray gun, tells Richard, "Get the shaving kit and the cut prep kits." She pulls an x-ray plate from the box and rams it into the table drawer. "Wait outside, else you'll glow in the dark."

In the Operating Room Dr. Bork, dressed in his greens, gets a beep. All the doctors check their pagers, but he declares, "It's my new alpha pager, gets whole messages." He looks closely at the pager. "Damn answering service garbled the message." He goes to the wall phone and dials. He waits, he plays with his pager. Finally, "Hello, this is Dr. Bork, I'm in surgery right now. You garbled my message, as usual.... What, my operator had a heart attack.... She's dead at the switchboard. Look, I've got an operation on hold here. Just lift her body and get my message."

Outside the x-ray room the nurse opens the door and finds Richard, just beginning to walk away, "Git your ass in here, the sharks are in the theater, they're hungry for meat. The students are in the balcony and they can't wait to hear the kidney hit the stainless steel. What the fuck are you waiting for? Shave and paint!"

The nurse opens the O.R. door. "Hang in there, two minutes to show time." She knocks on the wash-up room door. "Two minutes."

Richard lifts her gown, looks at her crotch. The nurse eyes him. "What are you some kind of artiste? Shave that woman!"

Richard whips a batch of shaving cream, swabs her and then gently shaves away the pubic hairs.

The nurse looks at the work. "Close enough for government work. Now paint her. She puts the butadiene swab in his hand.

Richard starts to swab Kriss' neck. "Not the neck! You trying to be funny?" He tentatively dabs stomach.

Kriss' eyelids flutter. The nurse scowls, "You got shit for brains? This is a kidney job, not a hysterectomy." She rolls Kriss on her side. She slaps her side. "Here shithead! I gotta show you how to piss, too?"

The nurse proudly rolls Kriss into the O.R. "Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the star of the show." The O.R. team applauds. Kriss is moved from the gurney to the operating table. The nurses stick the electrodes to her chest. They attach the ground wire to her stomach and put the green sheets on her. The anesthetist lifts her eyelid and shines a penlight into it. Kriss opens both eyes and looks at him. "What are you doing?" Kriss asks groggily. The anesthetist ignores her.

He looks at her pupils. "Too much reflex. Needs more gas." He turns to the tanks and turns the red knob. He picks up the hissing facemask and turns toward Kriss. She raises her hand to block him. A nurse restrains her hand. Kriss bites the nurse's wrist. The anesthetist tries to force the mask on her face. She judo chops his hand and rolls to a sitting position on the table.

The head surgeon looks around, he asks a nurse, "Where's Jensen? It's his turn to open. The nurse gives him the finger-in-the-hole sign and eyes the door. Then she pulls imaginary taffy in the stretch out sign. He walks slowly to overhead mike and speaks, the theater echoing with his voice, "Madam, you are a kidney donor, don't you remember?"

The surgeon picks up her chart. "'K.D.' right here on your chart. 'K.D.', kidney donor."

Kriss jumps off the table and stands defiantly, "You're a bunch of organ snatchers. I'm Kriss Davidson, 'K.D.', I'm an accident victim, not a donor."

The surgeon signals to the nurses, who move in to corner Kriss. She pushes one of them away and grabs a scalpel from the tray. The rest of the O.R. staff back away. She sees the door and runs for it. The ground wire yanks the oscilloscope onto the floor. Kriss looks at it and then yanks at the pad on her stomach, it doesn't release. She yanks the wire out of the oscilloscope. The other wires pull loose from the EKG machine.

She crashes into the x-ray Prep room, her gown open, wires waving in her wake. The nurse looks up from her magazine, "You ain't the donor, either?"

Kriss looks at her as the O.R. team comes through the double doors. Jensen and Wills come in from the wash-up room, buttoning up. Jensen looks at her and says, "Don't be so impatient, it didn't take that long."

Kriss screams, waves her hands over her head, and runs out into the hall. Her bare feet slap the linoleum floor as she disappears around the corner.

The crowd comes out of the Rocky Horror Show, laughing and poking each other. Some are dressed in ghoulish costumes; some have theatrical knives jutting from their chests and dried blood stuck to their faces. Jennifer isn't laughing. She isn't dressed up. She is actually dressed down. She wears a long dark gray dress. He hair is hidden under a scarf. She has simple black shoes. She is out of place. And now, very late, at nearly three in the morning, she is in a hurry. She rushes to her car, which is blocked in the parking lot by two other cars. She waits. The guilty rude-doers arrive and ignore her. They drive away laughing and kicking up dust with their spinning tires.

"Gotta get out of the water. My skin's turning to mush." Howard rises out of the water. Only a film of bubbles remains. "Come on," he says, "I'll dry you off." He turns to the towel rack and sneaks a look at the clock. It reads 2:45.

Howard and Janice walk naked into the bedroom. He bends over to pick his neatly folded pants off the chair. Janice pushes him onto his back, on the floor. She straddles his neck, with her tush under his chin, and then pours chocolate syrup on his chest, stomach and crotch.

She bends to lick the brown syrup. He looks at his watch. "I've got to go. Janice, you don't understand. Three o'clock."

Howard Self comes racing west on Pico in his department car a brown Chevy compact. There is his light, green, as he had programmed it. "The Howard Self memorial green light," he says to himself. "God damn, when you got the power, use it!"

Jennifer had been waiting in the southbound left lane. She is sure the light had turned green for the northbound but not for her. She now is sure it will never turn green for her. Shes late. She has to turn left to get home to her Orthodox parents who will not understand why she is still out when it's nearly three AM.

Howard races to the foot of the hill, losing sight of the green light. He taps his forehead. "You're so smart."

For Jennifer the light is still red. To the left and right the little white man symbol is walking in the pedestrian light. Across the street the orange hand warns the southbound pedestrians to wait. At 2:55 AM there aren't any pedestrians. Jennifer looks; there is no east or westbound traffic. She slowly edges out into the westbound lane to make her very illegal left turn. A left turn is illegal if you endanger on-coming traffic or if you do it against the light. She's doing both.

Howard races over the crest of Beverly Hillcrest. He sees Jennifer moving into his lane. "Jesus!" he yells. He hits the brakes and swerves to the left. He hits the bumper from Bill's Corvette and goes airborne. The car turns over 180 degrees and hits the pavement, with the roof down. Sparks stream out as the upside down car, with the insignia decal to its door, "Los Angeles Traffic Commission, Street Light Control", screeches diagonally across the intersection. The roof is sheared off the by the curb.

Howard benefits from being short, for the first time in his life. Shards of glass hit his face and the sidewalk scrapes off his thirty-dollar hair, but with the car against the steps of the real estate office on the corner, he still has his head.

In the emergency admitting room of the City Hospital sits Cid. He has knife cuts stitched with black sutures on his hands and face. He holds his knees tightly together and his clothes are burnt. His face is blackened with soot except bright white patches, where his sutures are sown. Next to him is Bill, with his arm in a sling and blood drying on his shirt. Next to him is Kriss, neck yellow with butadiene, wires stuck to her chest, coming over the neck of her hospital gown. Howard Self is pacing back and forth. His head is wrapped in bandages.

"Fine, fine. She...he didn't get me, didn't get me. Too much of a tight ass. Burned my van, the bitch."

"O.K. then you can wait," she says and hangs a Green tag around his neck. He looks at the tag. "I've already been released. I'm waiting for a cab.

She turns to Howard. "Mr. Self, you feel O.K.?" She sniffs. "You smell like a Hershey bar. Could you help me with your insurance information?" He nods, feels pain and looks at her. "Mr. Self, who is your employer?"

Cid, Bill and Kriss look up, focus on him, and ask in unison, "Did you program the light at Pico and Beverwil?"

Howard blows on his finger nails, (fade to black) "You bet, that's the Howard Self memorial traffic light...."

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