Backing out of the bus, arm crooked, shielding against the driver’s spraying spit:
“There is a bus going back to the city! You just have to be patient. Whadaya think, I’m your private chauffer? You take the bus, you gotta wait!”
The air door hisses shut, leaving me in the middle of the industrial belt, again, about a mile away from Sealed ASS. I begin my trek down the dusty road, thinking, now wouldn’t this make a good story. Flashback to yesterday when the cowboy stuff came to me. I know, it’s been done before, but maybe I can put my own spin on it. Like a modern day western with me as the anti-hero. “The rider took off his hat and wiped his sweaty forehead with a faded shirt cuff. He contemplated with curiosity the slapdash scattering of buildings in the distance...”
I get buzzed in and am about to walk straight through to Pepe’s office when the receptionist stops me.
“Excuse me?”
“I’m walking to the back. I’m working with Pepe Hartmann now.”
“You still need a pass. You’re supposed to have one.”
“I got this one,” I say, holding up the pass from yesterday.
“That’s no good. It’s a temporary pass. You need to make a permanent pass, with your photo.”
She leads me down some corridors into another office, puts me on a tape mark and snaps a polaroid. Then she has me write my name on a card.
“We’ll bring it back to you when it’s finished. You can go now with your temporary pass.”
She leads me back through the corridors, a different route this time, and leaves me near the door to Pepe’s office. I enter without knocking this time. The secretary, on the phone, cups the receiver and looks at me.
“Yes?”
“I’m Eric Blair. I was here yesterday for the interview?”
“Who?”
“Eric. Eric Blair.”
“I’m sorry. There is no interview scheduled for you, Mr Blair.”
“I mean Miguel... umm yeah... I’m Miguel.”
“Oh Miguel... that’s right! Welcome to the team!” she says, giving me her hand. I shake it again. “I’m Charlene.”
“Pepe said that you would have some paper work for me to fill out.”
Charlene, still holding the receiver, looks vexed. She uncups the mouthpiece:
“Hiii... sorry... I know, I know... no it’s just a new guy here... I know, I know... OK look, I’ll call you back... OK... oh stop it... OK... buh bye.” She hangs up and dials an extension. I can hear Pepe’s phone ringing in the office directly behind me.
“Hi, Pepe? It’s me Charlene. Oh, get outta here! You are sooo silly! No... no... Miguel is here to see you. Yes the guy from yesterday.”
She hangs up and Pepe walks out of his office.
“Miguel! How are you?”
“I’m fine Mr Pepe. I was just asking Charlene here about that paper work you told me about.”
“I got it all ready for you... you know, just some routine things that you need to sign before working on these premises.”
“Why, what’s wrong? Is it dangerous?”
“No. Just regulations. Here in Sealed ASS we follow all the rules... isn’t that right Charlene?”
She’s yapping on the phone again.
“What?” she asks.
“Oh, nevermind,” says Pepe, shaking his head. Then to me, “That Charlene sure is something... never understands a thing!” he says chuckling. “Come with me, Miguel. You can use this desk back here to fill out your paperwork.” He leads me to a desk in the corner of the front office. Near me are the two employees I saw yesterday, staring at their laptop computers. They ignore me as I walk by. I sit down and Pepe brings me a stack of papers and a pen.
“Just read these through and sign after each statement in the space next to it.”
Pepe rushes out of the office again. I look at the top sheet. It reads: Sealed ASS, Inc. Below, in bold print: SECURITY MANUAL. What to do in case of an emergency. I turn the page. Now there is a bulleted list of numbers, and beside each one a different heading:
1. Objective
Establish directives to achieve optimum safety levels.
OK, that’s pretty obvious.
2. Scope
The security rules are general objectives for all the personnel, and cover all of the activities in Sealed ASS.
Yeah, I think I gathered that, but I would like to know what some of these activities are...
3. Responsibility
Sealed ASS, Inc. management makes itself responsible for the promotion and vigilance of Sealed ASS rules herein stated.
Blah blah blah.
4. Policy
More nonsense. I skip ahead.
5. Declaration of the Policies of Security
The philosophy of Sealed ASS is based on continuing improvement through brainwashing...
No... wait...
collaboration with people that form part of this company, united under our slogan:
ATTENTION AND PREVENTION ABOVE ALL ELSE!!!
Below is a list two pages long of principles and objectives, all of which I skip. Then there are Security Instructions, so wordy that they almost seem like hieroglyphics. I skip these too and go straight to the part that requires my Hancock. There are ten spaces in all. At the bottom of this page is written:
Sealed ASS regulations demand strict conformity to everything previously stated in the Sealed ASS Commandments.
And next to it:
I hereby state my conformity to all expounded regulations previously put forth under the Sealed ASS Commandments.
Without a second thought - besides that of finishing the damn thing - I sign it. I look through the pages again to make sure I haven’t skipped anything. I’m wondering, these are all safety regulations and rules, but what about my contract? How much am I gonna get paid? I look up and can see Pepe through his office window, laughing and waving his hands, speaking to himself apparently. He presses a button on the phone in front of him. Ah, it must be the speaker phone. I get up and start walking to his office when Charlene cries out:
“Stop! Where do you think you’re going?”
“Umm... I was going to see Pepe?”
“You never enter his office unsolicited... that’s a Sealed ASS commandment. Didn’t you just read all that?”
“Oh, yeah... that one... sorry, so silly of me.”
“Wait here while I contact him.”
She hangs up on her conversation partner, dials Pepe’s extension, and through the window I can see Pepe switching lines.
“What’s your name again darling?” she asks, looking at me.
“Miguel.”
“Pepe, Miguel wishes to see you... OK... OK... I’ll let him know.” Now, back to me, “OK Miguel, you can go now.”
I enter Pepe’s office just as he hangs up the phone.
“Close the door! Close the door! That crazy Charlene is always talking and I can’t concentrate.” He waves to her through the window and winks. “All right Miguel. Did you finish your paperwork?”
“Sure did. It’s right here, signed and everything.” I hand him the signed Sealed ASS Commandments.
“Fantastic. You know, Miguel, this is just routine. Even I had to sign the commandments.”
“I was also wondering about my contract. Don’t I have to sign some more papers?”
“Oh yes! Of course. But first thing’s first.” Pepe takes a couple sheets from a drawer and says, “Here you go.” He makes an x and a line at the bottom of the second sheet and says, “Sign here.”
I take the sheets and scan through the stipulations. My position is “Administrative Assistant”. I scratch my head.
“What exactly does an administrative assistant do here?”
“Well, in your case, Miguel, you’ll be my personal assistant. Basically you’ll help me out: doing some filing and scheduling.”
I read further down. My salary is stated as “coinciding with the standard administrative assistant’s regulation remuneration, article 23.5, Sealed ASS, Inc. Constitution.” I press my index on the clause and show it to Pepe. “What exactly does that mean? How much does that mean I’m supposed to get paid?”
“Umm,” he takes out a calculator and works some numbers, then says, “you can expect about 15 dollars an hour, after taxes.”
It’s not a godsend, but it is the most I’ve ever been paid. I want to jump on his desk and scream. I want to kiss that goddamn mustache of his! Pepe my savior! “And what about transportation? Will that be covered too?”
“I’m sorry. All fuel costs fall on you.”
“But I have to take the bus.”
“What, is your car in the shop?”
“No. My car doesn’t even exist.”
“REALLY? I can’t believe you don’t have a car. I didn’t even know there was a bus out here. Hold on.” He punches some more numbers on the calculator, then, scratching his chin, says, “I think we can work that out Miguel. Done. Your bus will be paid for.”
I can’t believe my luck. I scan the rest of the document, skip a clause and arrive at my name: Miguel Gomez. “Mr Pepe, I have to tell you something. You see, Miguel Gomez is my... ummmm... nom de plume. Legally I have to be contracted as Eric Blair.”
“Not a problem. Not a problem. Just correct and initial the appropriate spaces and sign below.”
I do as I’m told and slide the sheets back to Pepe. He smiles and opens his drawer and drops them in. Then he swipes his palms as if they were covered with dust. “Easy huh?” he asks rhetorically, then stands up and thrusts out his hand. “I’m glad to have you on the team, Miguel. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have some important phone calls to make.”
“What do you want me to do?”
“Oh, just go and sit out there at your desk and wait for me.”
“You mean the one I was at? That’s my desk?”
“Sure is,” he says as he picks up his phone and dials a number. I walk to my desk, past the two zombies. Charlene is on the telephone again going haw! haw! haw!, slapping her desk. I press the space bar on the computer next to me and the screen grows like lichen. I find Solitaire on the menu and play three losing hands.
It’s been an hour and I’m getting antsy. I could use a coffee. I get up and walk by Charlene making drinking gestures with my hand.
“Hold on. Hold on. Yes?”
“Coffee.”
She winks at me as I walk out of the office and down into the warehouse. I approach the coffee machine and sadly realize that I have to pay. I only have a five dollar bill and a nickel. Someone’s gonna have to make some change for me. On a crate nearby is a worker in blue overalls. I think he’s the forklift driver I saw earlier. I approach him.
“Excuse me? Do you have change for a five dollar bill?”
He pulls out some coins, definitely not enough to make change for a fiver. He takes out 35 cents worth and gives it to me. “Take this. You can get me next time.”
“Thanks man.” I get my coffee, put in extra sugar and walk back. I pull out a pack of cigarettes and offer one.
“You’re not supposed to smoke here. You know that don’t you?”
“Yeah, but no one’s gonna see us.”
“Doesn’t matter. It’s a Sealed ASS Commandment. Can’t break it.”
“Oh... I skimmed through those. Must’ve missed that one.”
“And that too,” he says, pointing at a book jutting from my coat pocket, “no reading allowed either. Unless it’s Sealed ASS material, of course.”
I pull out my copy of The Castle. I’d been trying to finish this book for half a year now. Thought I’d be able to finish it during my free time at work. “Oh well...” I say and jam it back in my pocket.
“You new here?”
“Yeah, just started today.”
“Doing what?”
“I’m Pepe’s personal assistant. Besides that, I have no idea.”
“Yeah. I know what you mean.”
“How’s that?”
“See those boxes over there?” he asks, pointing to a stack of boxes on the other side of the warehouse. “I move them with that,” he says, pointing to the forklift, “and put them over there,” he says, pointing to another corner with boxes on the opposite end of the warehouse. “Once a week I have to help load them onto trucks.”
“But what’s in them?”
“That’s just it... I don’t know. I just move the boxes... there,” he says, pointing to the loading bay, “that’s where the trucks pull in.”
“How long have you been working here?”
“About three years.”
“And you don’t know what they do?”
“Nope.”
“And you don’t care?”
“I don’t ask questions. Last guy that did - Wayne Wong - got his ass fired.”
“Wow. Really?”
“It’s a Sealed ASS commandment. He broke it and they fired him to make an example for us all.”
“That’s crazy!”
“Yeah. But I got a family, two kids to feed... it’s just a job, after all.”
“I guess you’re right.” I take the last sip on my coffee and get up. “I’m Eric, by the way.”
“Nice to meet you. I’m Alvaro.” We shake hands and I walk back into the office, that vapid space with the yapping head and the two zombies. I can see Pepe through the window and he has the phone cradled to his head while he stares at his computer, pressing the odd key every now and then.
I’m still sitting at my desk 30 minutes later. The clock on my computer says
“There isn’t any place to eat around here. Everybody takes their cars to the next town. It’s either that or bring your own food.”
She tells me about a vending machine on the second floor that sells candy bars and sodas, the only “food” for miles around.
“Thanks,” I say, and walk up to the second floor and pull a candy bar and a coke from the machine. The sticky-sweet combination is making me nauseous just thinking about it, but I’m starving and I need something, anything to keep me going. After some failed attempts I eventually find my way back to my office. I sit and eat my lousy candy bar, pull a couple sips off my coke and shut my eyes.
When I open them again the two zombies are at their computers, Charlene is babbling, and Pepe is in his office with the phone cradled on his shoulder. He jabs stupidly at random keys on his computer. I look at the clock on my computer:
I’m going crazy already, my first day at work, consumed by inaction. There’s nothing worse than making a worker feel useless. Pepe is at the door again and I leap at him, literally, accosting the man who laid this trap for me.
“Mr Pepe, is there anything that I can do? I’ve been sitting out there all day.”
“I’m sorry Miguel, but I’ve got some important business to take care of. Go wait for me and I’ll be right with you.”
The rush I’d gotten from taking the initiative, however lame it was, has disappeared, and defeated I walk back to my desk. I take my cell out, scroll through the agenda, and stop on Gina’s number. I dial it on the work phone. I need some interaction, desperately. Maybe it’s the sugar rush? There’s something sick about this feeling. She answers.
“What’s up tigerlilly?” I ask.
“Nothin... just surfin the internet.”
“Find anything interesting?”
“Do you have internet over there? I’ll send you this crazy picture Michelle sent me. The biggest dick I’ve ever seen!”
“Heh... I don’t know if we have internet. Let me check.” I click on the internet icon and up pops Sealed ASS’s home page. I type my email server’s address on the navigator bar and a window pops up asking me for a password. “I guess not. You need a password to log on.”
“That sucks. How’s work?”
“What work?”
“Man I’m not in the mood for it. You know what I mean.”
“I haven’t done anything yet. My boss, Pepe, just has me sit and do nothing.”
“Shit. I have to go. The boss is coming. Is this your number?”
“Yeah. Wanna meet up later?”
“Yeah, yeah... but I gotta go. Let’s meet at Leo’s.”
She’s hangs up and I fiddle with the mouse cursor for a while, then maunder through the back offices. Not much really. Just some copy machines and cubicles and more zombies.
Before leaving Sealed ASS the receptionist gives me my official security pass. My eyes are shut in the photo. As I rush out of the office I say goodbye to the receptionist and she ignores me. I stuff my official Sealed ASS pass into my breast pocket and walk back to the deserted bus stop.
I’ve been here for what seems like an hour now, and no sign of the bus. I kick the post, a can, because I need to take my frustration out on something. My stomach is in a knot and I can’t wait to get back to the city, civilization, and get a bite to eat. I have an idea. Suppose I hitch hike like yesterday and save the extra money that they give me for the bus - assuming that there even is a bus going back to the city. I stick my thumb out at the passing cars and they zoom by in endless variations, wheeeeer wheeeeer wheeeeer. Picking up a single man unfortunate enough to not have a vehicle isn’t exactly on their itinerary. Aren’t there all kinds of stories? Creepy stories about hitchers who abused the trust and goodwill of strangers?
An old pea green
...
“Well?” he asks.
“Uhhh... can I get a ride to the city?”
“Whadaya think I pulled over for? To collect my thoughts?”
“No, just courtesy I guess.”
“Screw you kid.”
He revs his engine and the car lurches forward. I yell after him:
“FUCK YOU OLD MAN.”
The car skids to a stop and he kills the motor. He gets out and leans one beefy arm on the roof of his car and with his other free hand he takes out his pipe.
“Pretty cheeky there kid.”
“Fuck you.”
“Fuck you, too.”
“Whatever man. Don’t waste my time. I gotta get back to the city and the longer you stay here the less chance I have of getting a ride.”
“C’mon. Hop in.”
It’s dusk now and I know my chances of getting a ride in this waning light are slim and getting slimmer. A lonely single man on a deserted highway is the ultimate social pariah. Likely to attract the crème de la crème of freaks. I can’t imagine what they’ll be like after this guy.
“All right. I’m comin.”
He lifts up a stack of papers from the passenger seat and sets it on the dash. Before getting in I have to kick aside empty whiskey bottles to make room for my feet.
“Here. Gimme those.”
He takes one of the bottles and shakes the last few drops into his mouth before tossing it into the back seat. He grabs the others at my feet and tosses them back as well. They bounce and roll to the floorboard. He twists the key and steps on it and we accelerate into the stream of city-going traffic. On the dashboard in front of me is a stack of papers and presently with the inertia of the accelerating car half of it slides into my lap. One page floats up with an incoming stream of air and whips out the window.
“Goddammit! Roll up the window!” he yells.
He swerves the car to the side, jams in the emergency brake and hops out of the car with the engine still running. In the rearview I can see him run about fifty feet back. There in the middle of the highway he snatches the page moments before a Porsche screams past. He’s running back and I’m frantically trying to make some order of the pages in my lap. It seems to be a manuscript of some kind. The driver’s side door is open now and the man sits back down. He gives me the piece of recusant parchment and revs the engine and burns into the highway, just ahead of a semi. I look at the paper: page 78. I begin rifling through the impossible mess of papers on my lap.
“Leave it kid. I’ll take care of it later.”
“You want me to put them back on the dash where you had them?”
He doesn’t answer me. His eyes are on the road, his fingers on his beard. He puffs on his pipe and the bluish smoke wafts out in front of him, then is sucked out the cracked window on his side. Whatever. I put the jagged manuscript back on the dash in front of me. He takes out his pipe and mutters, as if to himself:
“Nothing is sure.”
I just watch the car swallowing the dotted yellow lines on the highway. The man continues:
“You know, I was lucky. One time, the damndest thing happened to me. Back in my
“What happened on the train?”
“No idea kid. The manuscript disappeared. Who knows what happened to it.”
“Hey... you know, that’s what happened to...”
A truck carrying a coop of chickens barrels past, whipping up a fierce gust of wind, rocking us.
“Screw you,” he says, shaking a white-knuckled fist. I’m not sure if he means the truck or me.
The barren landscape blurs past like an impressionist painting. The signs, the turn offs, the rest stops, the lights of the distant towns. All so desolate and faded. The man nudges me and I see his fat sun burnt hand thrust out, holding a whiskey bottle.
“Want some?”
Oh well, if I’m gonna go out with this nutcase I might as well do it in style. I take the bottle, a fatalistic swig, and hand it back to the driver. I gulp and the sticky fire swishes down and I shake my swelling head.
“Wheeew!”
He takes out his pipe and takes a long slow swig.
“You drink like a girl,” he says.
I can see the traffic looming up ahead. We’re tailing it to the off ramp, in line with the rest of the 9-5 commuters.
“So, you just finish a book?” I ask.
He stays silent, puffs on his pipe. His foot is alternately on the accelerator and the brake. We inch forward.
“No kid.”
“Isn’t that a manuscript?”
“Yeah.”
“What is it then?”
“That is a sketch. It will be a book. But not yet.”
“What kinda stuff do you write?”
I take the whiskey back and pull on it, squelching my impulse to gag. Somehow I keep a straight face and hand it back to the man, who takes another long swig. He takes out his pipe and grips it in his steering wheel hand. He says:
“You know kid, there is nothing sure in this world.”
“You write philosophy or something?”
“Philosophy is for fairies and krauts.”
We’re on
“Nope there is nothing sure in this world. You build something up, it gets torn back down.”
“You just negated yourself. You just said that there is nothing sure in this world, but that in itself is an absolute.”
“No. I’m wrong. There is one thing that’s sure in this world.”
“What?”
“Kicking ass. And you’re getting on my nerves. You get off here.”
He swerves to the side and slams the brakes. I stumble out and say, before shutting the door:
“Good luck with your book.”
“Screw you kid.”
“Screw you too you alcoholic hack!”
Keep on Fishin’ drives off and disappears in the red-yellow blinking of the downtown traffic. I sit on some steps next to a hot dog vendor and pull out my notebook:
Met freak hitching. Reminded me of Hemingway in his last desperate days. Had unfinished manuscript, smelled like a brewery. Note to self: this guy’s a parody of himself. He’s trapped in the romantic ideal of what he thinks a writer is supposed to be.
I walk three blocks to lonely Leo’s. Gina is in another booth, this time near the front. She has a book this time: Toole’s Confederacy of Dunces.
“Hey is that my copy?”
“Shhhhh!”
I lean towards her and she thrusts out her hand and stops me midway. I shrink back and sit down in the opposite seat. I wave over the waiter and order a club sandwich and a soda. Gina is tittering, flipping pages. Finally she shuts the book and smiles at me.
“I was just finishing that part. Sorry,” she says, then leans forward and plants a kiss on me, absolving her for the earlier rebuff.
“Ignatius is in a movie theater, thoroughly disgusted with the whole spectacle... the whole clichéd charade.” She picks up the book and says, “Here. Check this part out: He put the empty popcorn bag to his full lips, inflated it, and waited, his eyes gleaming with reflected Technicolor. A tympany beat and the soundtrack filled with violins. The heroine and Ignatius opened their mouths simultaneously, hers in song, his in a groan. In the darkness two trembling hands met violently. The popcorn bag exploded with a bang. The children shrieked.”
“Actually I had this idea the other day. We get a crew of people together and go to one of those multiplex cinemas. Then, through a megaphone we announce the ending to all the movies showing. Like: Aston Cruiser joins gay samurai cult and happily swishes his saber to the end of his days. Or: they all die except for Sylvester Segall.”
“What do you need the crew for?”
“To back me up in case the movie fanatics try to jump me.”
“And how are you going to find out the endings to all those movies?”
“I’ll make them up. Just watching the trailers you can figure out the whole movie...”
“You’re talking about
“Of course.”
“What about that Godard movie we just saw? What was it?” she fingers her chafed bottom lip. I admire it for a quick second, then save her from her memory lapse:
“In Praise of Love.”
“I mean...”
“The guy’s a parody of himself.”
“Do you know what OK means... do you know where it comes from? Did you know it comes from the Civil war when the soldier’s returned to their barracks and if no one had been killed they would write on the door zero killed or O.K. Did you know that Mr American... or do you not like history?”
“He needs to leave his Swiss chalet and actually live life.”
“You call yourself American? Did you know that there is a
“If he wants to give history lessons he should’ve become a teacher. And who the hell wants to listen to his judgments on everyday semantics?”
A hand hooks my shoulder and I turn around and see the curmudgeon it belongs to.
“Ze ketchup, si vous plait,” he says.
I pick ours up and hand it back to him. I look back at Gina and mutter, thumbing back at the guy:
“Is that him?”
“Oui. It is I,” says the man, his head turned away now, as he applies the ketchup. “You kids tink I can make nothing honest? Zat it eez all deliberately obscure and grating? Zat I ahv nothing new to say?”
“As a matter of fact, we do,” I say.
“Urrrrrrggghhhhh!!!!”
“I think he’s choking!” says Gina. I turn around and sure enough the angry old man is choking on a piece of horsemeat. His shirt is splattered with ketchup.
“Anybody know the Heimlich maneuver?” I ask. “Quick! This man reinvented cinema 40 years ago!”
He’s flushed now, eyes bulging from their sockets. The waiter whips off his apron and clutches him from behind and squeezes one, two, three times and the troublesome morsel shoots out and sticks to Leo’s formica counter.
“Putain merde... American steak!”
“That’s North-American to you. But not
“Buahhhh!” He takes his napkin out from his shirt and throws it on the table and stomps out of the diner.
The waiter cleans the ketchup splattered booth, then finally takes our orders. After he finishes Gina asks:
“Wanna check out a party tonight?”
“Yeah sure. Why not? Where at?”
“At my place. Sandra is throwing a party for her friend Lowrah. He’s going back to
“You mean, thee Lowrah?”
“I already explained everything to you. You know it meant nothing!”
“I shall be on my best behavior, I promise.”
We get to the party about half-past twelve and the place is lit; people are buzzed and stumbling around. We walk in sober and steady and I’m wondering if anybody can tell. No, no way I think as we pass a couple making out in the hallway. Space is cleared out in the living room and a DJ is set up on one side and a table with liquor and soda bottles set up on the other. We’re walking past bunched bodies and Gina is greeting about every third person. I recognize some faces, but they’re mostly just characters that pop in and out of her apartment. I leave Gina in the living room and I go to the porch in the back, pour a couple beers from the keg, and walk back and hand one to her. Someone from behind hands me a joint. I turn around and recognize Beaver One, the undercover lover, the cupid who corrupted Gina.
“Whadup, Eric.”
“Whadup. Everything cool?”
“Yeah. It’s all right.”
“Thanks.”
I nod and take a hit off the joint and pass it to Gina. It’s sticky, home-grown, probably some crazy transgenetic clone of some superbud back in
I leave Gina and walk down the hall to her bedroom. I’m hoping that for just one moment I can lay on her bed and chill out, collect my nerves. I open the door and there’s a couple sitting on her bed, deep in conversation. It’s Rod and Carrie, a couple we’ve known for a while now. Rod’s a guy I used to work with, back when I was a messenger. Next to them, on a table, is a cd jewel box with some rails of coke. Rod offers me a line and I take it, just to snap out of my stoned haze.
“Did I interrupt you guys?” I ask, as I wipe off a nostril.
“We were just talking about
“Never really been outside The City.” I remember now that she’s just come back from a one year exile abroad.
“Then you have to go...”
I stay and listen, but as is the case with most conversations under the influence of cocaine, everything has taken on an overstated importance. Every sentence is charged with a false (though well-intentioned) sincerity. I’m not really at that level, yet. I stay long enough to put my two cents in, thank them for the bump, and walk back to the heart of the party in Gina’s living room. The DJ is playing some hip hop now and almost everybody is dancing. I see Gina dancing with Sandra and a tall guy with curly hair and designer glasses. I go over and greet Sandra, and, as it turns out Lowrah. They’re all smiles and smooth moves, and I’m not feeling up to par so I go to the keg and pour another beer and go back to watch the three of them dance. Ever since I read an article in Kosmopolitan, one about choosing your perfect mate, Mr Right, or some other such nonsense, I’ve been thrown into a world of self-doubt and insecurity about the way I dance. According to Kosmopolitan, you can judge the way a man is in bed by the way he dances. So I, accursed by a white man’s rhythm, have been mired in paranoia from that day on, at every single event where dancing has been expected. I get too cerebral, thinking, OK, now if I dance like this, with a little hip shake here, a little shuffle there, is that sensual enough? Am I going fast enough? Do I have the flow? Or am I too white? I was doomed the moment I started to think about it and I’m genuinely envious of people that dance well, however foolish they sometimes look. Nope. I’m not hip at all according to the Kosmopolitometer. I curse the day I picked up that lousy brain-washing women’s strategy magazine and take another sip on my beer. Now I remember another part of the same article that so shrewdly explained how a man’s way of drinking described his personality. Am I going to give off the impression that I’m a rash, impatient sort by gulping this beer down? Or am I going to sip it smooth and sensuously to please the ladies, to con them into thinking that here stands one hell of a sexy, patient, and understanding guy? I know it’s incorrect to blame Kosmopolitan for excessive drinking, for my need to get totally ripped in order to really enjoy myself, but I do it anyway in these fits of reflexive battering. I go to the kitchen and take a tequila shot with a couple familiar faces - people I’ve only seen in parties, never in the real world - and only now that I’ve totally torn down my walls of inhibition do I go and join Gina and Sandra and the French guy, Lowrah. Ah, I guess I secretly like to shake my rump every now and then. The music is good too. Real raunchy. Getting raunchier every minute. Gina and I get down low and do the dirty: crazy hip thrusts, things we’ve seen in Sir-Mix-A-Lot videos... I think... jesus I hope so...
Eventually this peak dips into a valley, something more conducive to tired, booty-shakin fools. Gina, Sandra, Lowrah and I sit around a table and pass a joint, sip on jack and cokes. I’m trying to pace myself, the tequila having gone to my head, so I turn down the joint and pass it on to Lowrah.
“What? You don’t like to smoke shit?” he says.
“We say weed or bud or kine or skank or mary jane or ganja or sensamilla or yesca... but we don’t say shit,” I answer. I can see Gina boring into me with critical eyes. “I mean, not that I mind or anything... it’s cool if you wanna call it shit.”
“He asked you a question, Eric,” says Gina.
“Oh, yeah... I do... but I don’t really feel like it right now. You know, I don’t like to mix,” I say, trying not to think about the spectrum of narcotics that I’ve already inhaled, imbibed, and snorted.
“No problem,” says Lowrah.
“What’s your name again? I’m not sure if I got it right.”
“It’s Lowrah, Eric,” says Gina.
Then, Lowrah adds, “It’s
“No, it’s cool. I can remember Lowrah just fine. So, you’re French, right?”
“I prefer to call myself a citizen of the world. I have no frontiers,” he says, making a sweeping, outward gesture with his hands.
“Yeah, whatever buddy. So how long you been here?”
“For one year. I did an exchange. I’m in the same classes as Sandra.”
“And you like it?”
“Yes. Very much. I met some very interesting people here. But alot of Americans... how can I say without offending you... they drink too much. They do everything too much.”
“But you’re French! Aren’t you guys known for your wine drinking?”
“I don’t drink... I prefer to have a clear mind, always.”
“But you smoke?”
“Yes. But it is natural.”
“But the last time I checked, smoking marijuana does alter your mind.”
“Yes. Maybe you are right. But I prefer not to have anymore vices.”
“Vices?”
“You don’t know what a vice is? It is...”
“I know what a vice is.”
“What I want to say is that drinking alcohol will be another vice for me.”
“But just drinking alcohol isn’t a vice. If you abuse it... then it becomes a vice.”
“I already have so many vices. Everything in life is a vice!”
“What?”
“Sleeping is a vice. Eating is a vice. Sex is a vice,” he says, winking at Sandra.
“No man. Those aren’t vices! A vice is something that can harm you. A vice is something bad!”
“Ah ha! That is very American what you just said. You cannot divide the world into good guys and bad guys!”
“What?”
Then Sandra breaks in, “Eric, there is no good and bad. You can’t make that judgment yourself. Good and bad is defined by cultures and depending on where you are in the world something that might be considered good for you would actually be seen as bad for another person! It’s all about balance, the yin and yang, and every culture has a different concept of it.”
“Yes Eric. The good and bad, light and dark... they are all western concepts.”
Oh man. It’s the worst when people try to enlighten you with half-baked, self-loathing philosophies. Isn’t it? I summon a world of patience and listen on.
“But I think what Eric was trying to say was that vice means something bad in the English language,” says Gina.
I can’t contain myself. “A vice is something... it could be anything that is taken to excess... repeated over and over... and is detrimental to one’s well-being.”
“But you can’t say one’s well-being because who’s to judge what one’s well-being is?” Sandra asks.
“I know. I know. But it’s all relative. I’m just saying that something, when it’s called a vice, at least in the English language, is something that is bad for you.”
“But sleeping is a vice, and we need it,” says Lowrah.
“Sleeping is not a vice if you don’t abuse it.”
“Then drinking. That is a vice.”
“Wrong again. If you drink in excess, wake up in gutters and so forth, then yes. Maybe that can be considered a vice.”
“I would seriously consider that at the rate you’re going, Eric,” Gina adds.
“I mean... don’t come at me with this ‘There is no good and there is no bad’ stuff. That’s not the point. I’m talking about a word. There is no gray area here. Look. Here. What’s this?” I ask, pointing to the table. “TABLE! IT’S CALLED A TABLE!” Now I point at my shoe. “SHOE! IT’S CALLED A SHOE!”
“Yes Eric,” says Sandra with an enlightened tone, “But the table can be used as a chair if you sit on it. Or your shoe. You can use your shoe as a pot for a plant if you fill it with dirt!”
“Yes. Everything has an infinite amount of possibilities,” says Lowrah.
“An infinite amount of interpretations,” says Sandra.
“So that means that everything we’ve been saying means absolutely nothing because there are a million interpretations and according to you I would be a typical American in attempting to come to some kind of conclusion.”
“Yes. Perhaps.”
“So we can just throw out Webster’s and
“Eric.”
“I read in the paper the other day that a guy hiking in the woods in
“I don’t know,” says Lowrah mystically.
“What do you mean, you don’t know? That transcends any culture! THAT’S BAD!!!!”
Sandra has both her elbows on the table and she leans towards me. “But it all depends on how you interpret the situation. You can look at it positively or negatively. It’s all a state of mind!”
“You call cutting off your own arm a state of mind! What’s he supposed to do... think happy thoughts and poof! fuck my arm anyway!... it’s all a part of the yin and yang man...”
“C’mon Eric... let’s get some fresh air,” says Gina. We excuse ourselves, good vibes of course, and take the stairs to her roof. I’m actually totally sober now. But glad, in a way, that I can blame my rude farewell to Lowrah on the alcohol. Deep down, I guess, I’m not the conflictive type.
“If there’s one thing I can’t stand, it’s when people think they’re visionaries after reading a few new-age whackos that probably drive beamers and trade mutuals and drink wheat grass shakes.”
“I should have warned you about the two of them.”
“I mean, I know that it’s all relative... that there is no definition.. that the good and the bad and all that stuff are all up here...” I say, pointing to my head.
“I know, Eric. I know.”
“Me, I’m just a simple man with healthy desires. That’s me. Just a simpleton. That Lowrah. He’s what they call Beyond Good and Evil.”
“C’mon.”
