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    What would this place look like and sound like tomorrow night?

    I said as much to Mikio, who reaffrmed his belief in the mysterious and powerful natures of Ozma and Glinda.

    I hoped those "inscrutable" matriarchs knew what the hell they were doing.

    We got up to the street the Burrito was on in no time; the air seemed to have had a good effect on Ralph, who started to walk okay on his own, and in fact started walking so fast that Mikio and I could barely keep up. We had no trouble with anyone—we barely saw anyone. Evidently the prescence of Mikio and Ralph, drunk or not, was enough to deter any would-be computer-snatchers.

    We rounded the corner, and even though I'd been witnessing marvels at every turn for the past few day, I wasn't ready for what came next.

    There was a lion sprawled in front of the restaurant, placidly plopped down in front of the door like a sphinx, guarding it, with a line of people behind him, some of them petting him like a housecat. He was purring—a loud, languid sound—and he never took his eyes off the front door. A tiger was pacing up and down in front of the crowd, like it was agitated about something. Soon enough I saw what it was.

     There was this—thing—standing out in the middle of the street. It looked like some kind of rubber latex monster out of the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers—ten feet tall with a head covered with eyes—except that it was real, and incredibly menacing.

    Mikio looked geniunely disturbed. "This is defnitely not right," he said, looking over the crowd in the street, "—something wack going on here."

    Ralph walked up to within fve feet of the monster guy. He yelled at it, with a bemused look on his drunken face. "Skeerak! How's it hangin," ol' buddy?"

    The thing let out a slow growl from somewhere within the front of its pants.

    "Good," Ralph said, "nice to see you too."

    Then we all skirted around it, towards the Emerald Burrito.

    Slowly, checking out the scene, we moved towards the front door, hoping that our extenuating circumstances would absolve us from standing in the line. Maybe Aurora had a guess list, too. When we got to within maybe twenty feet of the door, a sound like the sky tearing in half ripped down out of the atmosphere.

    All eyes shot up, and people in the crowd started screaming, some of them ran.

    From out of the northeast, a jagged line of blackness, something like a photo negative of a lighting bolt, snaked out across the heavens. It scrambled like a brittle hand searching for something in the dark, then lurched down onto and straight through the roof of the Burrito. "Oh my god..." Mikio said, staring with his mouth open.

    The lion was up in a fash, pawing the door open. And responding to some caveman fght-or-fight instinct, we all jumped through the door with him.

As the moon rises over the Emerald Burrito, there's a line around the block. Business has been good—almost bad, it's so good—and we are racing to keep pace with the fow. Of course, we're all aware of the blackness surging toward us; it's the talk of the town by this point. But people gotta eat, and it strikes me that we're gonna need all our strength if this cloud is as black as it seems.

    It's right about this time that this guy in a corporate shmoozo suit comes swaggering up to the front of the line. He's an Earthling, and he's handsome in the way I most despise: white teeth and inchdeep tan, Ken-doll sincerity and a predator's charm. He's even got the fucking corporate young-turk ponytail (an artifact that trickled down sickly from Hollywood's Miami Vice phase to the hills and plains, so that now even accountants from Nome or Botswana sport them to prove that they're "edgy" and "cool").

    "Hey," he says, smooth as laxative, at the door. He profers his hand. "You must be Aurora Jones."

     "Do I hafta?" I say, and he looks at me funny.

    "Uh-hah," he throws out. It's like an imitation laugh. "Well, hey! It's a pleasure to meet you. I'm C. Scott Rung, from Meaty Meat. But you can call me Scottie."

    "Okay," I say. I still haven't shaken his hand. I'm thinking Meat
y
Meat. Oh, jesus christ, and hating him all the more
.

    At the front of the line, this nice winkie couple is eyeballing him sideways. They look like they've travelled quite a ways off the farm to fnd out what all this musical mexican hubbub is about. I smile at them, turn back to "Scottie."

    In the background, "Mack the Knife" is playing (I try to include some standards).

    "Damn," he sez. "I'm just so sorry about Alphonse." It is a moment calculated to yank my strings, perhaps bond us together in meaningful closeness. "He was really one hell of a guy."

    "Indeed," I say.

    "But, hey. Life goes on…"

    "You might have noticed," I point out, "that there is a line."

    "Oh, well, yeah," he sez, but his eyes roll back, like a shark going into a coma. It's clear that he doesn't like to deviate from the script; there's, like, this sine-wave emergency broadcast network
boooooooo emanating from the depths of his head
.

    "The thing is," he continues, "that I've got some very importan
t
people who would like to have dinner here tonight. People who
I think you will—under the circumstances—really want to meet."

    
Hmmmm, I'm thinking, looking at this smarmy guy, and sort
a transposing Rokoko over him: like a color transparency in an antique health class slide show, describing the geography of organs over bones. Meanwhile, a young munchkin couple leaves, and I usher the Winkies inside.

    "So you want to make a reservation?" I say.

    The line moves up. More people stare at Scottie.

    "Exactly!" he enthuses. "That would be perfect. Say, maybe an hour from now?" He looks at his watch, though I can't imagine why; every watch I've ever seen in Oz tells time like Milli Vanilli sang a cappela.

     "How big is your party?" I ask him.

    "Party of seven," he says. Clearly, he'd intended to say it all along, had pre-prepared the words in order. I fnd myself wondering if he's the one corporate robot that actually made it into Oz. That might explain his watch working.

    I fnd myself wanting to look up his sleeve, and sense another pivot-point in the unfolding drama. The Rokoko-transposition is no vague, random thang; it strikes me as clear that the same mysterious force is at work here, trotting out a fresh face in its attempt to win me over. Beneath the fur and spiffy threads, it's just a scaled-down version of the same old shit: instead of twenty-three tables, we're down

to seven seats.

    And I think about the goomer magick. And I think about the looming cloud. And I think that, well, hell, there's no point at all in delaying the inevitable.

    So I say, "Okay. Party of seven. I'll put together a special menu. I think that you'll be pleased."

    C. Scott Rung gives me a very special smile. It's the one, I suspect, that he reserves for victory. Then he throws me a wink, like a sex conquistador.

    It is all I can do not to barf on his suit.

So. An hour goes by. I bet it's actually slightly more. But lo and behold, here comes See Spot Run with his nightmare entourage.

    I recognize Skeerak at once. He's impossible to miss. He is just too goddam huge. I'm guessing 7'4" when he slouches, which I'm guessing he never does. He has crystal-plated pecs that he thrusts out like a showgirl, tight tummy armored as a crocodile's back. He also has a head like a stop sign, only red and black, with seventeen asymettrical eyes that run all down the front and the back.

    This doesn't leave much room on his face for other features, but that's okay. He wears his nostrils on his neck. As for the rest, rumor has it that Skeerak sports his mouth where his crotch oughtta be, with a phallic tongue 12-anna-half inches long (they say it also spooches goo that burns like molten lava). This would account for the steelplated trap door on the front of his clankety pants, kinda like a union suit in reverse.

    More to the point, he has arms like jackhammers, albeit fngered at the ends and made of overpumped meat. I think about fghting him. It's not a happy thought. He has a nasty reputation, richly earned through many deaths. None of them his. None of them pretty.

    The odds are real good that he could easily kill me.

    And he is not alone.

    To his left is O'Mon Node, the Jack Palance of Oz. He's roughly my size, which is more than big enough; and he's a legendary sadist in a land that barely has use for the term. A freakishly oversized munchkin, he is gray-eyed, gaunt and chill, and appears to have no real emotions at all. Except when he's killing. From what I hear, that always seems to perk him up.

    I could probably take O'Mon, if push came to fucking shove. But of course it's not that simple.

    On the right, there's Rokoko as well.

    And as if these three aren't BAD ENOUGH, then there's the executive branch. It consists of Gurk Hwort, the munchkin Ambassador to Emerald; Rumpus, leader of the newly-formed Lollipop Guild; some elderly American suit who might be C.I.A.; and, of course, good ol' Scottie Dogg.

    All of them are maybe ten yards away now and closing, executives in the lead. It's heartening to know that I could slaughter the front line in six seconds fat. It's the back line that spooks me. As you can imagine, I'm starting to sweat this, and trying real hard not to let it show. I feel like Gary Cooper from High Noon and the Galloping Gourmet, all rolled into one: half-sherrif, half-chef, all terror.

    The line of waiting diners on the sidewalk has not diminished. In typical Ozian fashion, they've been amusing themselves quite nicely: telling jokes, singing songs, playing goofy games with fantastic objects. But now, as the posse approaches, I see a ripple through the crowd.

    Apprehension fows across their features. What I bottle inside, they display all too freely. The singing stops. The jokes death-rattle. The games are replaced with a tense stance of dread. I scan the ranks for friendly fghters, see a few. But mostly not. Most of these people are just nice folk, hungry for goomer.

     It's not enough.

    My mind does rapid inventory of the customers already inside. Is there anybody in there who can back me up? Aside from Poogli, who is good in a pinch, my cranial chalkboard draws a great big blank.

    And I fnd myself thinking: what the fuck IS this? Who let thes
e
motherfuckers through the gate? I am hoping like crazy that I am no
t the only one who knows they're here, aside from the people in line.

    And just as I start fring mental beams at Glinda, like an e-mail without even tin can or string, I hear dual roars echo from down the street.

    Noble Lion. And Hungry Tiger.

    Scottie's gang hears the roars as well. They freeze in their tracks, and the smirks disappear. (Did I mention they were smirking? Well, they were. The lousy pricks.) Suddenly, they are staring off to their

right. I step out of the doorway, and suddenly stop.

    There are hands at my waist. They are tiny and quick. I look down and see Pinky, her eyes saucer-wide. She is strapping a belt to the strut of my hips. The belt holds a scabard. The scabard holds a sword. The sword is really heavy. I'm impressed by her strength.

    "Thank you," I say, but I do not yet draw the sword.

    Now Lion and Tiger appear, huge and ferce. They have people astride them, one apiece. The frst is made of cloth and straw and magickal brains.

    The other, I'm guessing, is Dorothy herself.

    "Oh, wow," I think, feeling ever so much better. I've never seen her before, but it has to be her! She looks so much like a grown-up Fairuza Balk that it's almost scary (Judy Garland, my ass. I always felt Fairuza ruled): ferce dark mane, big lips like me, and a knowing heart behind those spooky eyes.

    Dorothy is dressed in fowing white that hearkens back to gingham. She is a sweet, smart, strong midwestern gal who simply knows what's what. If her eyes are spooky—and they are—it's because she knows too much. She has the eyes of a midwestern cowgirl shaman who has long since parted the veil.

    Given the way that age plays out in Oz, she is biologically about

43 now. She looks good. She looks fantastic. The combination of earthiness and magick wisdom is uncanny in its power. I can't take my eyes off of her. And neither can the crowd, nor the Party of Seven.

    But it is Scarecrow who breaks the silence. (He's dressed pretty much like himself.) "Hello!" he says, waving as much to them as he is waving to me.

    Gurk Hwort is the frst to smile, though impressively phony it is. He's a horny little bugger, as most Ambassadors are, and a born politician besides. "Greetings!" he says, looking straight past Scarecrow to Dorothy, not fooling anyone.

    "What brings you here?" Scarecrow inquires, dismounting as he speaks.

    "Why, good food, of course!" Hwort exclaims. "And, of course, a gesture of peace!"

    It is hard not to laugh, so I don't even bother. It's not diplomatic, but it sure feels good. All eyes turn toward my guffaw, and I wipe away a tear as I turn to my guests.

    Dorothy is smiling. So are Lion and Tiger. Scarecrow's painted that way, so it hardly even counts. Skeerak has no visible mouth, so I guess by his eyes, which do not imply happy. Between Lion and Tiger, he might just be up the crick.

    Now that the odds are more even, I come off the front step and slowly advance. Dorothy dismounts from Lion, who nuzzles her lovingly, eyes locked on Skeerak. Tiger, meanwhile, begins to circle behind them, moving toward the crowd still gawping from the sidewalk. O'mon turns in tandem, pacing Tiger, hand afoat an inch from his hilt; though his gray eyes give away nothing, there's a whisper of smile on his lips. He is the only member of Scottie's posse who could be said to be enjoying himself.