I decided to go in Camelot East looking for a job today.

Strangely, the dim room smelled not only of the impending, bustling almost-sex-for-hire near-redolence unique to just-opening titty bars, but also of rotten cotton candy and lemon bleach infused with Doritos or dirty feet, I couldn’t say which.

As I performed my slow, sensuous audition, tears for all humanity dampening my blushing cheeks while I undulated like a reed half-drowned by gray water, I thought I saw Parker Posey in the corner eating cole slaw.

But after, resting and breathing under the cold flourescents by the cigarette machine, I saw that it was not Ms. Posey at all, but Alabaster Throckmorton, a local homeless man and piano tuner (no one could say for sure which was his vocation, and which his blessed avocation, as both required a good ear, patience, and the packing of many esoteric tools and mysterious widgets).

He lifted his mournful black eyes and sneered at me like Billy Idol. “You messed up on the bridge,” he said. “You’ll never be anybody in this town.”

But the joke was on him: I danced to Goldberg Variations, which has no bridge. I shick-shocked a pack of American Spirits from the anachronistic space-age machine and tossed it unopened into his slaw.

“For your troubles,” I said, and walked out, wondering if Darla had eaten the sandwich I bought her, and if it reminded her of me.