"You don't have to," says he, "Sheckley is just up the street from you."

"Get out," says I once again.

Then Jerry told me how he had dropped Bob off at his sister's on West End Avenue, gave me Bob's phone number and about 15 minutes later I'm on the phone stammering to Robert Sheckley and planning to take him to lunch in a day or so. This happened at a Turkish restaurant at 100th Street and Broadway which I'd been wanting to visit for so many months. We ate exotic food. We talked way too much, and we had a great time. And I told him -- live and in person -- how much I loved his stories.

The rest of this instant friendship was talking and getting together often and generally having a great time for the better part of a year until "life in the hospital" set in and ultimately won out.

Let me impose, if I may, two other little stories from this "corporeal" period.