And there he waited.
Perhaps Enkidu had gone hunting. Perhaps he had not come back to camp at all.
Perhaps he would come back, if Gilgamesh waited long enough.
With a throat raw from lamentation, Enkidu sat there in the dust and watched the bodies of the dead around him disappear: some burst into flame, and those moved as if alive while they burned; some became like water and soaked into the soil; some melted like tallow over a flame; some simply disappeared.
While he was waiting for Enkidu to return, thinking of the dolphin-prowed ship at anchor, ready to take them to the island of Pompeii, Gilgamesh heard a sound.
A cry. A whine. A mewling sob of pain.
Up rose Gilgamesh, searching out the source of this heart-rending cry, and found a dog, underneath the woman's wagon, bleeding from his neck and from his right forepaw.
Gilgamesh knew this dog, whom the woman called Ajax, although Enkidu had told him the dog did not recognize that name. He said, "Dog! Ajax dog, I am Gilgamesh to whom all secrets have been revealed! I can heal you if you let me touch you. Do not bite me, dog."
The dog raised his muzzle and bared his teeth as Gilgamesh reached for him.
Then he sighed a heavy sigh and put his head down on his unwounded paw so that Gilgamesh could touch him.
When Gilgamesh touched the dog, it quivered and then it closed its eyes. When Gilgamesh cleaned the dog's wounds and dressed them with unguents from the woman's wagon, the dog cried but did not bite him.
When Gilgamesh bound the dog's wounds with strips of yellow silk from the wagons curtains, the dog wagged its weary tail.
When it was clear that Enkidu was not returning to the caravan, the king of Uruk picked up the dog called Ajax in his arms and carried it to the boat waiting to take them to Pompeii.
So did Gilgamesh set sail for the magical city, with a wounded dog for his companion, and from there, perhaps, to trek to long-lost Uruk. And because
Enkidu was no longer with him, Gilgamesh stroked the dog and told it everything he would have told Enkidu of the adventures awaiting them.
Gilgamesh did this with a heart that was heavy, but not unbearably heavy.
Enkidu had gone off with the caravan woman, this was certain: neither of their bodies were among the slain.
Gilgamesh, like Enkidu, was not alone.
CRUSADERS IN LOVE
Bill Kerby
Hey, wait a minute, who the hell is this Lefty Armbruster anyway? Am I suppose to know him?
My answering service is about to go ape; he just keeps calling.
This is not exactly the choicest time to be bugging me for favors, either. I'm not the kind of guy who doesn't remember who he's been, believe me. But all of a sudden Robin and I are flooded with attention - we are on the "A-list," everybody's new best friend. We go down to City Cafe and every head turns.
They want us to be celebrity judges on Dance Fever. We stand in a movie line and the guy comes out and takes us right in. Free popcorn, too. My lawyer finally returns my calls. Suddenly, it doesn't seem to be my turn in the rain barrel anymore, as the old saying goes.
When I came to this weird beard town, I hadn't exactly fallen on" the turnip truck. I'd been in the Marine Corps standing tall (I will walk my post in a military manner, keeping always on the alert, and observing everything that takes place within sight or hearing, sir!), struggled in New York as a starving actor (my hottest moment was. when Morty himself, drunker than a skunk, tried to pick me up in F.A.O. Schwartz), plus I got involved in some semi-shady stuff which I'll tell you about later, okay?
But how the hell can you prepare yourself for L.A.?
It's sixty-two miles wide at one point, every living soul in it is on the make if we're going to be honest about it, - and there are - by actual count - more Mercedeses than there are Plymouths! Go figure. The weather's always nice, and half the people give you that empty grin and tell you to have a nice day, while the other half are cutting your heart out with a rusty hacksaw. They got championship sports, championship business, and championship pussy. If it's Wednesday where you are, I don't care, it's already Saturday out here! At the top, you can go anywhere, do anything, be anybody. And at the very bottom, you know in your soul that you've come as far as you can go in continental limits before you've run out of plans. This is IT, babeee.
Last chance saloon.
So you get a car, you start hanging out, and you do the breast stroke through the panic and dead dreams of the jerks at the bar. Everywhere you look" mirrors. You can see yourself. Or you can be yourself.
Bo, it's sad.
Time: 3:30 A.M. Monday, April 10. Los Angeles Police Department, Officers Fishbeck and McConnell, North Hollywood Division. Automobile A was traveling south on Laurel Canyon Boulevard at a high rate of speed. It was a 1958
Triumph convertible, red in color with a tan leather interior. It was not equipped with safety belts. Skid marks indicated that automobile A had crossed the double yellow lines just south of Croft Street, which intersects Laurel
Canyon Boulevard to the east. The weather was clear, the pavement was dry.
Automobile B was a 1984 Jaguar X-6 sedan, green in color, with a green leather interior. Safety harnesses were employed, Vehicle B was traveling north at a normal rate of speed when it was impacted by vehicle A. There were two witnesses, whose names and statements are listed below.
After the emergency paramedics were summoned by Officer Fishbeck, and the fire was extinguished, a cursory search was conducted of what was left of vehicle A. A bottle of Herra Dura tequila was found, still intact, along with cocaine paraphernalia. Also in the glove compartment was what appeared to be a large electric dildo with the inscribed words, "Look, Ma, top of the world!"
Robin and I had just bought a sensational old mock-Norman Tudor castle-type house-small, but pasta perfecto - way up on Laurel Canyon in the Hollywood Hills. Three bedrooms, a steel spiked portcullis, a cathedral ceiling in the living room^
hardwood floors, a ten horsepower disposal, a view to everywhere, and a pink and black marble master bath with a Speakman shower head* It's only heaven, pal.
But it wasn't easy finding it. I mean, you got Iranians in track shoes trying to get the good ones.
Or developers laundering drug money, or (he worst: the trust fund casualties. They buy them up, maybe redecorate, and just sit on them until the price is right. Robin and I must have looked at two hundred houses, from the Valley to Olympic, from the ocean to Pasadena. We'd get the Times, make a big pot of double French roast coffee, and let our fingers do the walking through the real estate section. That was back when we had dreams.
Before all this meshuga.
When I got to L.A. I had trouble, just like everyone else. But with some hard work (so to speak; more about that later) and some good luck, I found myself taking care of some kids who belonged to this old-time producer in Beverly Hills.
He was a sweet guy-looked like a leprechaun, stole like a bandit, and drank like the Commies were rolling into Santa Monica. The guy'd won an Oscar for some movie that I never saw, but my buddy, who did, told me it was short and boring with no tits and no gunfights - Just two fat-ass losers from Brooklyn sitting in a kitchen talking. Different strokes I guess.
Anyway, this producer guy didn't know how to deal with his own kids. He loved them true but, like most power brokers out here, he was scared of them. So I took over the education of three of the meanest, best looking, smartest little ferrets you ever saw. They had names, but I called them "Moe," "Larry," and
"Curly."
I taught them how to climb trees. I taught them how to play tennis. I taught them how to roll joints. I taught them how to make crib sheets. I taught them how to swim, how to ride, and how to lie so even your own mother couldn't tell. Hey, these were good little cookies, and they deserved my best shot.