I caught a bus across town that deposited me in front of a store with a brand-new window and the name S. S. Schwarz, Skull Cap Mfr., overhead. In the window, on shelves, sat tall, conical spools of thread like so many Turkish fezes, and under them a pile of completed yarmulkes. I crossed the street to number 305, where there was also a new window set into a dingy wooden front. A really good painting hung there: palette-knife work, the paint thick and juicy and clotted with dizzying whorls of blue that sucked the eye round and round and down into the vortex where a single eye stared at me unblinkingly, The hand-printed card at its base read COMPULSION by Oliver Keene. I rather liked that. I have my compulsive moments, too: I get sucked into maelstroms of frenetic activity that keep me from sitting down and giving up, which happens when I experience feelings of total inadequacy. I sometimes think if you harnessed enough compulsive people together their tensions could probably supply energy to a fair-sized city.
