near the end of the interview he leaned forward and
asked, “now is there any final word you’d like to give to
your audience?”

“no,” I answered, “no final world.”

I felt his disappointment.

“no final word?” he asked again.

“no,” I said.

he had wanted a nice closer, he had wanted me to save his ass,
he had wanted me to save the asses of my readers.
well, I had worked on saving my own ass but I felt that I
hadn’t really done so

but just to come up with some ditty of a line would have been
totally misleading ultra crap.

“well,” he recovered himself and said to me, “it’s been a real
pleasure to interview
you.”

“sure, baby,” I said.

then he motioned to the camera and the sound men that it was over
and they began packing their
gear.

“you fellows care for a drink?” I asked.

“no, thanks,” the interviewer spoke for everybody, they were
pulling plugs from the walls, folding equipment into
cases, it were as if I no longer
existed.

they had what they needed.

I stood with cigar and drink and watched them file out the door
and into the night.

then they were gone with their asses that need saving even
worse than mine.