What had we smoked at Jasmine�s party that night in Hell�s Kitchen? Some herb from the exotic far east? Unthinkingly, we sucked it greedily in from an enormous communal hookah. Tasting of pungent cinnamon, it filled the lungs and danced through the veins, until one�s skin tingled and vigorous dots swam, like psychedelic sperm, before one�s eyes.

Even Bob, that strange visitor from Indiana who had refused every drink all night, had refused even one hit of a marijuana cigarette, had taken a sample puff from the hookah, although he had quickly given up in a flurry of coughing. Bob looked the part of a Hoosier, a large, hammy figure. A plaid red shirt stuck out from his baggy overalls, while the stereotypical straw hat was planted firmly upon his head. A few of us wondered, briefly, who he was, what he was doing here, who had invited him.But all kinds of people passed through Jasmine�s parties, some even stranger than Bob, so we quickly forgot about him and enjoyed the festivities. At first the music had been too loud for conversation, but by late in the evening only the soft tinkling of a piano remained, while the few remaining guests talked softly or nodded off on the silken cushions that graced Jasmine�s apartment.Most had paired up with someone of the opposite sex (or a few of the same sex) and we lay in each others� arms softly stroking, speaking softly. Except, unusually, for Jasmine, who for the first time anyone could remember remained alone.Like some ineffectual Hoosier scarecrow Bob had faded into the background, and it seemed unclear as to whether he even knew how to talk.

Finally Jasmine danced over to Bob, shook her breasts at him three times, gave him a soft kiss, and spoke.�Most of us are scared to cross the Hudson,� she said in a voice that teased like the ringing of small bells.�Some don�t even believe there is life outside of Manhattan, although most have visited the outer borroughs, and some have made it as far North as the Catskills. A few have ventured as far across the Hudson as Hoboken. Of course many of us have hopped on a plane to California, and the hardiest, bravest adventurers have even made it to such fabled lands as Nevada and Arizona. But between East and West there seems to lie nothing, except the fabled lands of the Midwest.Tell us about Indiana.�

Bob spoke in a slow, strange language which some of us recognized as English. �There is one feature,� he said, �which determines all life in Indiana, and that is corn.Fish live in oceans, birds in air, and Hoosiers in corn.It is their sea.Yet fish have more to do, more to experience, than Hoosiers. Fish can maneuver up and down, can dart among the coral, can evade larger fish, can enjoy viewing, and eating, great schools of smaller fish, in many colors and shapes.Hoosiers are more like nomads in the desert, moving endlessly across a flat, never-changing landscape.The corn is everywhere, in rows, stretching its arms to the sky, each stalk calling to God.�

We sat there mesmerized by Bob�s languid drawl. While he spoke more slowly than a New Yorker could even imagine, he was, somehow, impossible to interrupt.

�Only the corn convenes with the heavens. The people are bound to the endless rows of corn, which form paths, straight and narrow.Every day the people trod down these paths, beginning when the sun first glints over the horizon, following its passage through the vast sky, until it descends, a huge bloody sphere, beneath the horizon.

�Hoosiers are a solitary, silent lot. They march forward all day, peering only ahead, trudging through the corn-stalks, plucking an ear here, an ear there, shucking them skillfully with one hand and flinging the husks to the ground. To the rhythm of their walking, they munch upon the sweet kernels inside, row by row yet somewhat unevenly.There is nothing like fresh Indiana corn, sweet and delicious, bursting with energy poured from the sun�s sweet rays.In school you have probably been taught the virtues of a balanced diet, of the food pyramid, but this concept does not apply to Hoosier corn, for its goodness swells with all vitamins and minerals, everything one needs to build strong teeth and bones, firm muscles, well-oiled digestive systems, keen vision and hearing.For this reason nobody is as healthy as a Hoosier, a naturally tough breed anyway, although they do tend toward pot bellies.Corn is fattening when eaten in large quantities.

�Does this mean that the solution to famine in impoverished countries, to rows and rows of sad eyes, of starving children, lies in the Midwestern hearleand, in the perfect nutritional balance of the endless fields of corn? I confess, most Hoosiers haven�t thought about such questions but, being something of a philosopher, I have considered it at great length. And alsas, I have concluded, the problem is no, for it is an established fact that this corn is best under the brilliant Hoosier sun, in the fresh Hoosier air, freshly plucked and eaten. To corn, Indiana is the center of the universe. Just as our planet depends upon a mother sun for its very being, and, unimaginable eons ago, this same sun once existed as a puny part of a vast cosmic mass, so corn vibrates with goodness only in its homeland. As a tender stalk of corn moves further from Indiana, it slowly loses its taste.All vitality is sapped from it, all healthfulness, until it is a limp, tasteless, drooping shell, a shibboleth of its former self.

�Because of his access to fresh corn, the native Hoosier is one of the luckiest beings in the universe.Yet also one of the loneliest.Hoosiers never travel in groups, and this I cannot explain. Perhaps it is because economic necessity which, under ordinary conditions, forces humans to band together, is inapplicable under the unique circumstances of Indiana.That which we think of as holding together, friendship and laughter, is weaker than the annoyances, the petty misunderstandings, the clashing of egos, which inevitably occur when people get together.Under the perfect conditions of Hoosier life, it is possible for people to live alone, and so they do.This at least is one explanation for the solitary nature of life in Indiana. It may just be, however, that the people are different from those elsewhere, of a particularly strange and taciturn breed.

�There is, of course, one purpose for which when Hoosiers cannot remain alone. This is procreation.Following the laws of nature, that a population expands to the limits of the environment which contains it, one would expect a swelling, overpopulated state which eventually depleted the corn, however vast its extant. This is not the case, for in Indiana the population is so small, and the acreage of corn so vast, that it is a rare occasion when the paths of two individuals cross.That both should be young enough to breed, and that one should be male and the other female, is a cause of great excitement.It is only such a chance meeting that distinguishes one day from another, bringing the elements of time and change into lives otherwise as placid and unchanging as the ocean waves, or as the ceaseless waves of Hoosier corn. And, just as corn is pollinated by bees working tirelessly to maintain the balance of nature, so the meeting and mating of a Hoosier couple occurs just enough to perfectly maintain the population, perhaps twice in the lifetime of a typical speciman.

�The offspring of this fleeting romance are little trouble. Due to the corn�s healthful qualities, the pregnancy is free of discomfort; when the baby does arrive, it glides painlessly from the mother�s womb. The little tyke, perfect in every feature, needs care for only a few short months.The mother cradles the darling thing in her arms, rocking it tenderly. When it cries, she suckles it gently to her breast and soothes it to sleep. Soon enough it starts to crawl.Once this happens it is no longer a burden of any sort; the mother merely sends it down an alley of corn, like a bowler releasing a ball, where it crawls straight and true, surviving on the smaller stalks of corn which nestle close to the ground. So is the Hoosier baby weaned.

�And what of the couple whose union created this baby? Is there no great passion between them? After their act of love, as darkness hovers above, they lie side by side, hand in hand, under the blanket of night, and stare up at the vast heavens. The stars burst out, more brilliant than elsewhere on earth, filling the sky with diamonds of light.The constellations are visible: centaurs gallop across the sky, crabs crawl, gods frolic. The seas and skies and deserts intermingle, swelling with beauty. And the couple gazes at the heavens, arm in arm, their minds wandering until sleep overtakes them, bringing dreams of the fluxing constellations and the spiral of the Milky Way, which circles even beneath their closed eyelids. . . .�

At this moment Bob was interrupted by an ugly snore. It was Jasmine, who had fallen asleep. Her mouth was flung open, a gaping, distorted hole. Bob grew silent, and as my eyelids shut I felt myself falling into the cavern of that mouth, into a land of grotesque dreams.