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nearing the end of the gauntlet.
        Finally, the last guy, a skinny bug-eyed creep, stamped my passport and handed it back to me. "Behave yourself," he said as I cleared the last metal detector and hefted my knapsack back up onto my shoulders. "Oh—by the way," he added, sniffing, looking more and more each moment like Barney Fife on speed, "you might have some problems with that laptop." He pointed to the x-ray outline of my little Superbook. I gave him a quizzical look, hoping he might elaborate, but he just fashed a goofy smile, and turned back to the next customer, a long-haired, leather jacketed dude who he waved right through.
        The long-haired guy had what I guess you'd call a swashbuckling manner about him. Sculpted dark blond beard-and-moustache combo. Kind of rakish and buff, with a twinkle in his eye. I was inclined to dislike him on sight, but he smiled at me, too, as he passed. I was still adjusting the straps, trying to get my shit together. It didn't look like he had any luggage at all.
        I made my way down a hallway that rivaled any architectural monstrosity of Soviet excess, a way-too-huge walkway to—what? I still hadn't seen the Gate, didn't actually know what it looked like, or what the actual apparatus of movement from one realm to another was.
        I had some ideas, but no one I'd ever spoken to who had frsthand experience of the process had ever told me anything useful. Evidently, it was different for everyone.
        Aurora told me she'd had "Body and Soul"—jazz saxophone genius Coleman Hawkins' masterpiece version—on a disc in her Walkman, and when she came into the room, she hit play, closed her eyes, and started dancing. And when she opened her eyes again, she was in Oz.
        Now, here I was, about to fnd out for myself. I'm a Hawkins fan, but Aurie's style is not exactly my style. I'm more of a "Hail Mary" kind of guy when undergoing great stress. I haven't gone to church for about ten years, but I still invoke the "St. Anthony" algorithm while looking for lost keys.
        The anxiety I thought I'd shaken in the morning was back with a vengeance. I was terrifed. I started saying what I could remember of the rosary.
         The hallway ended in a cement wall, with a big garage door in the middle of it. Two guards with automatic weapons stood on either side of it. There were a few people there before me, including the longhaired guy, waiting to try their luck. I got into the line behind him.
        Someone behind me was speaking. I turned around when I realized he was talking to me.
        "Excuse me?" I said.
        "Fifty-thousand to one." He was a beefy guy with a big beard and hornrimmed glasses. He was wearing a really tacky "Dorothy" tee shirt. "Fifty-thousand to one odds of exploding." He giggled. "Feeling lucky?" Giggle, giggle.
         "Why don't you shut up, ese?," somebody said from in front of us in line. It was a young, well tailored latino guy with a suitcase. "You gotta bum my trip right when I'm having one of the best days of my life, eh?" Then to me, he said, "Don't listen to him, homeboy, only putos explode." He pointed at the fat guy. "Like you, maybe, Dorothy. Or like Kenny G. or something."
        Just then the huge speaker horn hanging from the wall above the door shrilled, "Alphonse Gutierrez!" The latino guy smiled. "Vamanos," he said, and strode toward the door. The garage door opened up slowly, and it looked so benign, like you could walk in there and get the lawnmower or something. You couldn't actually see what was in there, because there was yet another corridor to go down, this one low, dark and foreboding. I knew something was going to look really foreboding at some point.
        The guy with the suitcase looked quite happy. Go fgure.
    Happity HI oh Yay!!!!
        Stop it, you little asshole! (Sorry. The Thing in my laptop is trying to learn English, I guess. It's really starting to bug me. But I'll get to that in a