I understood that Frank led a reclusive life, did not socialize, and kept his home address and last name secret. (I also inferred that he lived off some sort of disability allowance for mental illness.) He had an ongoing legal battle with the F.B.I. and the D.A.'s office because of his magazine. His Rule Number One was: "Never trust anyone, not even your friends." So I was not surprised or offended when he explained that I couldn't visit him at home. However, he agreed to meet me at a certain corner. So I took the subway, called him from a pay phone, and described myself. He told me to sit on a bench and wait for him.

     Ten minutes later, he showed up, smiling at me from behind his dark glasses. He was smaller than I expected but wiry and tough-looking. He wore a black t-shirt, black jeans, and military-style boots. Actually, for a city guy, he looked pretty normal. You'd never tag him as a psycho. Even the gratuitous dark glasses on a cloudy day were not so unusual.

     We shook hands. "I don't see too many people, you know," he said. "I'm only making an exception cause you write me lots of letters and send me all kinds of cool stuff."

     "Well, I couldn't come to New York and not meet you," I said. "Say, let me treat you to something. What do you like?"

     We went down the block to an Italian deli and bought a couple of subs -- real New York subs, not the wimpy stuff they serve in Toronto.

     "By the way," he said, "my phone's tapped, so they know I'm meeting you, but I don't care."

     "How do you know it's tapped?"

     "I just know. It's all a game anyway. I'm used to it. They'll probably open a file on you now, but don't worry about it."

     "I'm not worried at all. I'm perfectly clean....Well, maybe not perfectly, but clean enough."

     "Yeah, you are." He finished his sandwich and soda (that's "pop" to you Canadians). "You know," he said, wiping his lips, "you're different. You're sorta psycho and sorta normal. I don't read books, but I read yours. You write real psycho stuff. But other than that, you're the most normal guy who writes to me. I like to get mail. That's how I connect with the outside world. That and my magazine."

     "Yeah, I understand. Anyway, look, I don't know my way around Brooklyn too well, and there's this guy I want to visit, and I was hoping you'd take me there."

     "Who is it?"

     "He's a strange guy who advertises in this flying saucer magazine." I pulled out a cheap-looking 6x9 magazine from my jacket pocket. It was called The Saucer Bulletin. "He calls himself Sungma Tenzing Lama Dickhoff, Ufologist. He says he communicates with the space people. I'm sure he's a wacko, but he could be good material for one of my books." I showed Frank the page featuring Dickhoff's ad for his mail-order business. "I don't know where that address is, and I don't feel safe going to a strange neighborhood alone. So I need you to be my escort. What do you say?"

     Boy, I sure hit the right button. Frank smiled like he'd never gotten such a compliment in his entire life. "Man, I could take down 007 if I had to!" He spread his arms and legs slightly and turned around to let me see him from all angles. "I'll bet you can't tell I'm carrying!"

     "Carrying?"

     "A weapon."

     "Oh....No, I can't see a thing."

     "Anybody messes with either of us, they're dead. Show me that address again....Okay, I know more or less where this is. We can take the M Train."

     We went to the subway and got the M. Frank still had not taken off his dark glasses. I wished he would, just to be polite, but I remembered that he was a psycho, after all, so I had to accept his idiosyncrasies.

     It was about fifteen minutes on the subway and then a ten-minute walk. Dickhoff's street looked okay, but his house was the worst eyesore on the block. I checked the address to make sure we had the right place.

     I took a deep breath. "Oh, well, we'll just ring the bell and see if he's home. I hope I'm not wasting your time."

     "Hell, no," said Frank. "I don't get out much. Maybe this'll be a real psycho adventure."

     I could hear the bell, then a faint sound of footsteps. A lock turned noisily, and the door opened just a little. A skinny, old geek with a fringe of curly hair around an otherwise bald head peered out at us. "Yes?"

     "Hi!" I chirped bravely. "Are you the famous ufologist Sungma Tenzing Lama Dickhoff?"

     "Y-e-e-s-s," he said suspiciously.

     "Oh, good! Well, I read about you in The Saucer Bulletin, and my friend and I were really eager to meet you and learn all about the space people." I decided to lay it on thick. "Lots of people claim to know the truth, but we think you're the one who really knows...about the space people...and their important revelations for Mankind."

     Once again I hit the right button. "Won't you come in!" said Dickhoff, opening the door wide and gesturing a welcome with his hand. He was wearing a dirty sleeveless undershirt and shapeless brown pants, no socks, and ragged slippers. I introduced Frank and myself. Dickhoff led us into the living room of his shabby little house. The place was a mess, and there was a bad smell -- sort of doggy. "I'm thrilled to have visitors! May I serve you some tea?"

     "You mean pot?" said Frank jokingly.

     "Ha, ha, ha! I could tell at once you were a naughty boy!" said Dickhoff, wagging a finger. The guy was obviously queer. "No pot, I'm afraid, just the kind of tea you drink."

     "That's fine," I said.

     "Just excuse me, and I'll go make it." Dickhoff went into the kitchen and was out of sight as well as earshot.

     "He's a real faggot," said Frank.

     "Yeah, but just bear with it. I only want to get him talking."

     "No problem."

     I looked around. Dickhoff had one dusty bookcase. There were a few UFO books and magazines, but most of the space was devoted to gay literature, thick files of dog-eared manuscript, and stacks of schlocky tabloids. The wallpaper was of a garish Hawaiian floral design, and the upholstery was pink and yellow. The design of the rug had been trodden into unrecognizability.

     "My place is way nicer than this," said Frank. "Even a psycho has certain standards."

     "I'm sure."

     Dickhoff was a long time making the tea. When he finally emerged with the cups on a tray, he was wearing a pair of ladies' thong panties instead of his trousers. And from the crazed look in his eyes, I figured he had just taken some sort of drug.

     He set the tray down on the table in front of the sofa and sat down awkwardly in the chair facing us, grinning like a lunatic, legs spread indecently apart.

     "I want to know about the space people!" I said quickly, to keep the conversation on safe ground.

     "Ah, yes, ha, ha!" he giggled as he slapped his knees and rocked back and forth several times. Then he began rambling, and I will never forgive myself for failing to bring my tape recorder. He spoke rapidly, with unexpected pauses and odd inflections, his hands moving spastically, and his eyes darting all over the room. "The aliens have developed the ultimate principle of orgone, which was discovered by Wilhelm Reich, but far beyond what he knew. The crystalline essence of sex energy on all planes, including sub-atomic, molecular, and universal, is transmuted, you see, by means of any orgone psycho-motor, which operates in pure telepathic space in telemetric electrogenic fluid space-time, or what the aliens call kativah, as it was explained to me by the alien ambassador. Man is obstructed from sexual functioning on the orgone principle unless a positron wavelength of twelve million kilocycles is directed at the pituitary gland, whose real function in cosmic reality is the receiver of orgone transmission. The alien space ships are actually driven by sexual energy using psycho-motors tuned to the key wavelengths of the space-time continuum throughout the universe acting through high-speed brain computers. I alone have been chosen to procreate the new race of Man, which shall be known as Zeron, and which shall have the power of spontaneous orgasm at will with any other species or with artificial devices, or even unassisted by self-induction in multi-dimensional kativah, and there is no cellular degradation or aging whatever, which means that the Zeron race is immortal!"

     I nodded and sipped my tea. "That's very interesting." Meanwhile, Frank sat immobile with a twisted grin on his face. He didn't touch his tea.

     Dickhoff stood up, unable to contain himself, and began pacing back and forth rapidly in long, unnatural steps, and his speech degenerated into an incomprehensible gibberish I would not even attempt to reconstruct. Words real and nonexistent were strung together in tortured syntax. It sounded like English but was really a meaningless language. At the same time, I could see a boner stretching his thong panties, which he slapped and grabbed as he spoke. "But let me prove it to you!" he exclaimed suddenly. "Let me prove that I am not insane!" And he bolted out of the room towards some other room out of our sight.