At some indeterminable point in the past Richard's own name began to appear in the porno-stories which he now wrote for a living. This development initially went unmarked by Richard. As time elapsed, however, the name "Richard" recurred with alarming frequency -- as did the highball-cigarette-suicide cycle which has since accompanied the writing of all of Richard's porno-stories. Richard freed the Buck knife, found a clean section of wood on his desk, and began to whittle anew the letters "UM."

"UM:" Ulysses' Mantra, the story that Richard was sure would catapult him from anonymity into public consciousness. Two decades ago it appeared in The Lost Creek Letters, and immediately thereafter Richard was notified that it was a finalist for inclusion in that year's anthology of best American short stories. It did not make the final edition. That was fifteen years ago. On two other occasions Richard's "legitimate stories," those stories which unabashedly bear his given name, have been finalists for inclusion in the annual anthology; on each of those occasions the stories were ultimately disqualified. It was after that third time -- the third time Richard had experienced the fleeting high of recognition, followed by the devastating banishment to the ranks of the average and artless -- that the better part of Richard met with its abrupt end. Like a virile hound trying to sprint beyond the length of its chain, Richard was yanked by the yoke back into his insignificant little fiefdom.

Richard now felt that familiar pressure above his groin -- that indicative and mature sensation which always followed his second highball. He staggered to the bathroom, clumsily unzipping his fly even as he walked down the empty hallway, the naked floor boards complaining with each of his steps. The stream of Johnny Walker urine echoed in the bowl beneath him triggering a memory of adolescence over a quarter of a century old: The season was spring. The place was the Uniondale Middle School. The time was just before gym class. All the boys were in the locker room changing into their athletic attire. Richard, thirteen years of age, was nervously attending to his business at a urinal feeling the presence of the entire locker room bear down upon him while he pissed. He had always been the smallest and weakest male in his class -- unathletic, defenseless, relentlessly tortured by his male classmates, and jeered at by his female. Standing at the urinal, his penis between his thumb and index fingers, Richard wondered how small his penis was in comparison to those of the other boys. A voice addressed him from behind:

Voice: Hey Richie -- Richie Rich [laughs from the crowd], what teams you goin' out for?

Richard: [With a nervous stammer.] Me? None [silence].

Voice: Yup, he's gay [hysterical laughter from the crowd].