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get used to tailors from Xingjian/Uyghur and Italian restaurants with waiters from Bangladesh there should be no surprise at some couple arguing about what nose to wear.”
    “Why would anyone from a place where people had life sciences so advanced that they could exchange body parts at will, come to live here?” I asked.
    “Why did so many people flee Europe when it was the center of culture and technology to come here?” he asked. “Stuff back home forced them to. Everyone keeps quiet about it but I’m told there are DOW support groups to help refugees over the rough passages in their transitions to this world. I think it’s kind of interesting!”
    Reconsidering the incident that had started all this speculation, I recalled the woman with whom the “one nose” guy was walking. The one she wore was casual but cute and slightly upturned. A fine piece of retrousse nosery if that’s what it was—far more stylish than his.
    I wondered if she had made some disparaging remark about the one he wore. A thoughtless person might do this, little considering that the nose someone else wears is the only one he owns and thus force him into an embarrassing confession.
    Other things happened over the next couple of weeks: a long ago lover came back and visited the city; I got some unexpected freelance work, found a new yoga teacher and a fine gelato shop. I pretty much forgot the man and his nose.
    Then one morning, stuck in traffic on Canal Street, I looked out of the taxi and noticed a sign in a third story window. It offered DOW counseling along with assistance on visas and immigration status. Later on that very same day I again passed the man and the woman on Bleecker Street.
    I’m 99% positive it was them. But the nose is an important part of one’s face and their noses were not the ones I’d previously seen. His was somewhat larger and more commanding. Hers was curved and a bit sensuous. I thought of Anthony and Cleopatra. They looked like satisfied and confident New Yorkers striding down the center of the sidewalk and forcing everyone else to walk around them.
    On a nice summer day a bit after that, I sat on a bench in Washington Square Park telling my friend Liz all that I’d found out about noses and Diverse Origins Worlds.
    Two extremely thin thirty-something women carrying nicely up-scale shopping bags passed by close enough for us to hear them.
    “For June it’s clothes for work, weddings and hauntings,” said the one.
    “Hauntings,” said the second one. “You mean at that abandoned place upstate?”
    “Uh-huh,” said the first.
    “But not enough of us are here for a real haunting!”
    “Not yet,” said the first woman. “But others are trying to get permanent visas.”
    “The easiest way is to marry a citizen,” said the second. At this they both laughed a bit and looked towards the fountain.
    Liz and I followed their gaze. Frankie, who first told me about Diverse Origin Worlds, wore a crisp jacket and a bow tie. He grinned and opened his arms to what would surely be his bride.

    Whips and Wands
    When a question from the past haunts you, rest is impossible until it’s tracked down and resolved. Mine involves the last night of Whips and Wands.
    Memories that might bother others don’t faze me. Gauntlets of girls flay the bare asses of boys who run up long, dark stairs with the flash of photo bulbs as the only light. At the top step stands Mistress Whipwell—aka Babe Jerome—in leather g-string and black boots, mascara-lined eyes framed by a black top hat and gold curls.
    What drives me is a front page tabloid photo of Whipwell/Jerome’s bloody body in a trash-filled alley. At this late stage of my existence I need to untangle my role in that. It’s why I find myself back in New York. But when you’ve been gone a long while, it’s hard to know where to start.
    After searching for what seems like years, I get lucky and more. In an exhibition of photos of 1950s Manhattan, there’s a shot of