Jitterbug Perfume

At the Last Laugh Foundation, Wiggs Dannyboy and Priscilla make love, while Wiggs talks of his past and his work in immortality. He talks about Alobar, who is presently locked in the state prison in Concord, Massachusetts, where they met as fellow prisoners. Wiggs recounts Alobar’s story. It seems Alobar spent time with Albert Einstein and posed as a janitor to sabotage contemporary scientific efforts to prolong human life. Alobar entered prison as a 46-year-old man named Albert Barr, but in prison he became depressed and began to age. Wiggs says that Alobar told him all of his secrets but swore him to secrecy about just one—the recipe to K23. Priscilla has a difficult time believing the story, though she recognizes the bottle in the story as the one in her own possession. Wiggs has more to say on a vast variety of subjects, such as zippers, perfume, the ’60s, freedom, and happiness, though his main subject is immortality. He tells Priscilla, “The universe does not have laws. It has habits. And habits can be broken” (251).

In the morning, Priscilla wakes up in love with Wiggs. She attends the next meeting of the Daughters of the Daily Special only to find that Ricki, now estranged, has withdrawn her nomination for Priscilla’s grant.