one The Beatles had had their adventure in, the one that had been so useful in the struggle against the blue meanies, the one connected to the song, which he had never liked very much and which now raged very nearly out of control in his head before subsiding, slightly, then more fully, like someone had thrown a fade switch, “You can get inside it,” Alfonso said,
“It’s the Yellow Submarine,” Harry said,
“A model, made of chicken wire and papier mâché, but a good one,”
“The song …” Harry said,
“It goes away, I should know, I live with the thing,”
“Did you build it?”
“I inherited it, there’s a hatch, you can get inside, there’s more room in it than you might think,”
“It’s certainly nicely done,”
“I often climb inside it when I want a bit of quiet, after a hard day on the box, the bottom is padded, it’s very nice to lie down inside it and doze,”
“I see,” said Harry, taking a sip of his coffee and looking a little more carefully at Alfonso, who he suddenly understood was either drunk or medicated, but rather pleasantly so, indeed his comments about climbing into the yellow apparatus and lying down and dozing struck Harry in exactly the right way, as if he were drunk or medicated too—even though he had been neither in years—and he found himself drawing Alfonso out not on the subject of why he had invited him over at this insane hour and why, now that here he was, he was showing him this papier mâché model, but instead on the merits of lying inside the Yellow Submarine and having a snooze and feeling warm and cozy but also—that was the trick of it—vigilant, which was just as well because it turned out the answers to both sets of questions dovetailed nicely when, after a few minutes, Alfonso took his coffee mug, showed him how to open the side hatch, helped him to climb in, directed his attention to the viewing grill—hidden to the casual glance from the outside—and said, “You will be able to observe her through that, it’s a camouflaging technique, often used in the military, when you’ve had a chance to get a feel for the inside, climb back out and we will wheel it over to the boulevard—if we get out early enough you can have the spot opposite her, it’s nice isn’t it, when I was young I once pitched a tent in my grandfather’s attic and spent a week there, this reminds me of that,”
I’ve thrown away my Don Quixote costume and am in a yellow submarine,
thought Harry,
“It has wheels,” said Alfonso, “It’s actually quite easy to push, the friend who left it here in payment of a debt pushed me around while I lay inside of it before he left, it’s very comfortable to ride in, and if we were closer to the boulevard, I would offer you this pleasant experience,”
“I don’t understand,” said Harry,
“Why I’m doing this,” said Alfonso,
“Yes,” said Harry, overcoming an urge to remain on his back in the warm yellow interior and opening the hatch,
“I would be lying if I told you it was because I was the bearer of bad tidings this afternoon,” said Alfonso, as the two of them began wheeling the submarine through what Harry observed with relief were the rapidly brightening streets of the city, “because I told you you weren’t welcome on the boulevard in your lousy Don Quixote costume, nor because I could see, even as I had barely crested the midpoint of the story of the silver angel, which I remind you I was retelling and did not invent, that you were being deeply, troublingly affected, no, I’m doing this because as you were striking your ridiculous, amateurish poses, as you stood gushing sweat and huffing and puffing on your box, I spent no small amount of time looking at you, and while I won’t go into the why of it, I thought to myself,
there’s a story and a half there, a story that begins in the dark and ends in the even darker, and I would like to hear it,”
“Everyone has a story,” said Harry,
“There you
“It’s the Yellow Submarine,” Harry said,
“A model, made of chicken wire and papier mâché, but a good one,”
“The song …” Harry said,
“It goes away, I should know, I live with the thing,”
“Did you build it?”
“I inherited it, there’s a hatch, you can get inside, there’s more room in it than you might think,”
“It’s certainly nicely done,”
“I often climb inside it when I want a bit of quiet, after a hard day on the box, the bottom is padded, it’s very nice to lie down inside it and doze,”
“I see,” said Harry, taking a sip of his coffee and looking a little more carefully at Alfonso, who he suddenly understood was either drunk or medicated, but rather pleasantly so, indeed his comments about climbing into the yellow apparatus and lying down and dozing struck Harry in exactly the right way, as if he were drunk or medicated too—even though he had been neither in years—and he found himself drawing Alfonso out not on the subject of why he had invited him over at this insane hour and why, now that here he was, he was showing him this papier mâché model, but instead on the merits of lying inside the Yellow Submarine and having a snooze and feeling warm and cozy but also—that was the trick of it—vigilant, which was just as well because it turned out the answers to both sets of questions dovetailed nicely when, after a few minutes, Alfonso took his coffee mug, showed him how to open the side hatch, helped him to climb in, directed his attention to the viewing grill—hidden to the casual glance from the outside—and said, “You will be able to observe her through that, it’s a camouflaging technique, often used in the military, when you’ve had a chance to get a feel for the inside, climb back out and we will wheel it over to the boulevard—if we get out early enough you can have the spot opposite her, it’s nice isn’t it, when I was young I once pitched a tent in my grandfather’s attic and spent a week there, this reminds me of that,”
I’ve thrown away my Don Quixote costume and am in a yellow submarine,
thought Harry,
“It has wheels,” said Alfonso, “It’s actually quite easy to push, the friend who left it here in payment of a debt pushed me around while I lay inside of it before he left, it’s very comfortable to ride in, and if we were closer to the boulevard, I would offer you this pleasant experience,”
“I don’t understand,” said Harry,
“Why I’m doing this,” said Alfonso,
“Yes,” said Harry, overcoming an urge to remain on his back in the warm yellow interior and opening the hatch,
“I would be lying if I told you it was because I was the bearer of bad tidings this afternoon,” said Alfonso, as the two of them began wheeling the submarine through what Harry observed with relief were the rapidly brightening streets of the city, “because I told you you weren’t welcome on the boulevard in your lousy Don Quixote costume, nor because I could see, even as I had barely crested the midpoint of the story of the silver angel, which I remind you I was retelling and did not invent, that you were being deeply, troublingly affected, no, I’m doing this because as you were striking your ridiculous, amateurish poses, as you stood gushing sweat and huffing and puffing on your box, I spent no small amount of time looking at you, and while I won’t go into the why of it, I thought to myself,
there’s a story and a half there, a story that begins in the dark and ends in the even darker, and I would like to hear it,”
“Everyone has a story,” said Harry,
“There you
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