Melting Clock

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Grasshoppers,” Salvador Dali whispered, shrinking back as I opened the door. He didn’t say “grasshoppers” exactly, it was more like “grah-zoppairs,” but I understood the word as he repeated it, his eyes open wide, his long, dark waxed mustaches curled upward at the end like sharp-pointed black surgical needles.

“A giant monk with an ax is coming through that door behind you in about ten seconds,” I said.

The door I was pointing to shuddered.

“Make that five, Sal. What’ll it be, a couple of grasshoppers outside or a split personality?”

Dali, dressed in a white rabbit suit, removed the deerstalker hat perched on his head and pointed at the splintering door with one hand. Then he did a little dance from foot to foot as if he had to find a toilet.

It wasn’t much of a room, a couple of mismatched chairs with a small round table between them. A table-top Philco radio was on and Martha Tilton was singing “From Taps Till I Hear Reveille.” The room looked as if it were set up for a seance or a sanctuary to worship the Blue Network. The room did have one thing going for it-a big window through which, by the light of the full moon and about forty yards away down the hill, I could see a party going on. Beyond the party, I could see the Pacific Ocean.

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