On the bus, on the way to the industrial belt. I’ve gotten to the last section of the Daily Times: the letters to the editor. I read one from a concerned citizen, bitching about the sorry state of The City’s sidewalks. Apparently, the dog-owning lot has grown extremely disrespectful lately, and the sidewalks are smeared with dog excrement. Concerned Citizen wrote about a particularly traumatic episode in which he slipped on a turd on his way to work. He says: 30% of my paycheck goes to taxes, and the government can’t even keep our sidewalks clean? Signed: Enraged. Now I’m on one with the heading: It’s still Horrible. I recognize the heading from a couple months ago.
My life at work has become intolerable. I work for an important company and my position there requires utmost responsibility, vigilance, and organization. I always do my job to the best of my ability, and have been recognized in the past for the quality of my work output. Not so now. I’m paid far below my merit and the simplest requests are ignored. My boss is mobbing me with his total indifference. I’m depressed and angry. Please, where’s the respect?
I consider this letter, think back to all those stories of frustrated men and women, all throughout
Pepe called in sick today, and the three of us are left to ourselves, here in the back office. The zombie twins are zoned out as usual in front of their computers, apparently lacking the basic human instinct to enjoy life, to be frivolous for chrissakes. Charlene is sputtering, bubbling with unoriginal tales of romance and deceit. I’m at my desk, re-reading the Daily Times. My ennui is acute today, perhaps because Pepe isn’t there, perhaps because I feel no pressure at all to pretend that I’m working. I prop my feet up on the formica desk, flip to the sports section, and sigh. For the first time I contemplate leaving Sealed ASS, leaving this comfortable little sinecure in the industrial wasteland, going back to square one. Is this what I really want? A steady paycheck and a lifetime of feeling useless? Already I can feel the mental entropy, like I’m aging, like my ass is growing moss on this chair. I can smell it, the decay. I click on the word processor and pull up some stuff I’ve written.
It’s difficult to write at work. Although I have all this free time, which conceivably could be used for writing, the inspiration has been slow in coming. For one, Charlene is always yapping on the phone. Also, every time I get in the groove of something Pepe’ll ring me up on my extension and ask me to file this or that. I’m not the kind of person that can block out everything and write on: no, everything around me seeps in and affects my work. Everything from the fluorescent light washing over me to the constant whir of computer fans.
I thought about writing a romance novel inspired by one of Charlene’s sordid adventures. A sensuous saga with pirates and exotic women. I already have the title: Lust Treasure. The problem is that when I get down to writing it I can’t take anything seriously. The flow isn’t there and the characters are wooden. Plus it reads like a film treatment for a porno.
So I decided to make a critique on corporate
Storm clouds bedecked the island, and the occasional flash of lightening reflected on the sheer glassy walls that stretched, almost disappearing, into the testy heavens. Roger walked amongst the crowd that was scurrying to the Wall Street stop and noticed that it was almost dark outside, but with the frequent flashes and shiny, crystalline rainfall, the city seemed to give off its own light.
Roger Rogers has just made millions. This therefore makes him indifferent to the mad dash of humanity, there under the torrents of rain.
He relished the dramatic face that the tempest cast on the city. He felt it was appropriate that it coincided with his best day ever in the pit. He had just made millions in a matter of minutes, off of what only a few years ago was a small one-man operation run out of a garage in
When he catches a glimpse of himself in a rain-sleeked window nothing is different. He is the same slender, pale man as always, but suddenly his thoughts are different: now he’s player. He’s mastered that abstract database of codes.
His was the look of a successful man, a man who got exactly what he wanted out of life. It had taken him ten tenacious years, an impressive roster of brown-nosing just the right people, and now he was there, finally the man on top.
All I know is that I’m gonna kill him off in the end. All that self-ingratiating philo talk goes for nothing. He’s human like the rest of us and the tempest over the isle of
My fingers are resting on the keyboard, about to leap into the parable of Roger Rogers when Charlene’s phone rings. Her voice penetrates, shaking loose the story that was about to spring from my fingers. I go out for a coffee.
Alvaro spots me and parks his forklift. He pulls a coffee and we sit down on some crates.
“I’m goin crazy in there, in that office. Pepe called in sick, and I don’t even have to pretend to work.”
“Why don’t you cut out early?”
“I can’t. Not with Charlene. She’ll bust me, for sure.”
“Yeah. I know what you mean. Tony, my supervisor, is always spying on me.” He points to a short, pudgy fellow with a mustache, taking inventory. “Even now he’s watching. But he’s a goddamn hypocrite. He takes breaks all the time. I caught him one time in the bathroom.”
“What do you mean?”
“You know what he does? He brushes his teeth and washes his hands, like twenty times a day! Then he goes back to the locker room and splashes himself with his nasty cologne. Man, he reeks!”
“You mean like he’s obsessive-compulsive or something?”
“I just think it’s an excuse not to work. He’s been here for seven years now. This place’ll drive you crazy!”
“Why don’t you report him or something?”
“That’s not my style, man.”
“Know what my motto is?”
“What?”
“MOB. Mind your Own Business.”
“Check it out! See him looking?”
“Guess you have to get back to work.”
Tony is jotting down some notes on a clipboard, facing us. Alvaro tosses his empty coffee cup and hops in his forklift. I walk back to my desk.
Everybody’s on their lunch breaks and I’m alone in the office, chomping on a roast beef sub I made the night before. The doldrums of Sealed ASS! Alone, here in the office, wondering just what the hell I’m doing with my life. I need to sublimate this weariness, and at the same time make my life more tolerable here at work. Yes, that would be the most intelligent thing to do. I look at Charlene’s desk, think of re-arranging her figurines, then think of something else. I walk to her desk and grab a roll of transparent tape. I tape down the hang-up button and walk back to my desk, prop my feet up, and call Gina. We decide to meet later at Shalimar, a Pakistani restaurant downtown.
When I open my eyes again Charlene is at her desk arranging her files and figurines. The phone rings and she reaches for it.
“Yeah?” she answers, smacking strawberry gum, eyes rolling upward.
The phone keeps ringing, and I have the Daily Times up to my nose while I peek over. The zombie twins are at their desks, typing.
“Hello? What’s going on?” The phone rings again and she hangs it up, then picks it up and answers it again. It keeps ringing. “What the hay?” The phone finally stops ringing and she hangs it up and stares at it. Then she turns to the zombies.
“Jack, Zack, have you been playing with my phone?”
“Umm...”
“... no.”
She looks at her phone again, then at me.
“Miguel. Does your phone work all right?”
I pick it up and punch some numbers. “Yeah Charlene. It seems to work just fine. In fact... wow! It’s got an awesome tone!”
She scratches her head and the phone rings again. With the receiver held directly in front of her she yells, “Hello? Hello?” Turning to me, she says, “It’s just so weird! It was working fine this morning.” Then her face lights up and she walks to Pepe’s office, enters and sits in his chair. She picks up his phone and dials, then proceeds to relate her traumatic tale to one of her girlfriends. I doze off in the relative peace of our office.
I’m at the bus stop now, thumbing at the passing cars. I can’t remember how I got here. It’s all a blank, like I’ve done everything up until now on autopilot. I’m in the office, I fall asleep, then suddenly I’m here. Weeks could’ve passed, for all I know. I’m wondering where in my subconscious those moments have disappeared to when a sand-colored Ford sedan pulls up. I hadn’t expected a ride so soon, and especially from a car like this. It’s an older model, probably pre-WWII, in mint condition. The passenger side window rolls down and a pretty freckled girl peeps out and smiles.
“You guys goin to the city?” I ask.
“Sure are. Hop in.”
I get in the back seat and the car jolts forward and accelerates into the traffic. Driving the car is a young man, about her age, I’m guessing, with a tilted Stetson that reveals greased black hair. On the seat next to me is a blanket and I move it to make more space for myself. I touch something hard and lift the blanket. It’s the stock of a twelve gauge shotgun. I quickly cover it and try to act casual. The woman is looking back, her eyes starry, wild.
“Ah, don’t mind that hon. If you ain’t laws or stoolies you got nothin to worry bout.”
I search for something to say, for something else to talk about. “This car. It’s amazing. I don’t think I’ve ever ridden in something this... classy.”
The kid driving the car lifts up his Stetson and glances back at me, one hand on the wheel. “Yeah we had to take this one on loan. A mighty fine automobile. American know-how. American guts. I’m so impressed, I think I’m going to write ol’ Henry a letter to show my appreciation! Whadaya think, baby?”
“That’s a fine idea!”
“I’ll write it, but you have to correct it for me.” He glances back at me again. “She’s the one with brains. She’s always been a fantastic writer. Honey, why don’t you show the kid that poem you wrote.”
“I can’t baby. It’s in the trunk, back there with our duds.”
He directs his voice at me again. “We’ll show you later. It’s a modern day American epic. It’s colossal!”
“Is that what you do?” I ask. “You write poetry?”
She turns and says, “No honey. I don’t have much time for it. I have to write for posterity. Out of necessity. Baby and I, we’re vindicators for the common man.”
“That’s right.”
“We’re only taking back what’s ours. Don’t you listen to what those bulletins say. We ain’t no cold-blooded killers.”
“No! No!” I sputter out. “I would never say such a thing.” I look out the window, try to avoid eye contact with her. There’s something insane in her eyes and I don’t want to go there. Just chill and go for the ride.
We’re about halfway to the city and they’re in the front seat whistling Brother Can You Spare a Dime. I watch the dry grassy landscape roll past, the sky turn red, then bruised purple. The guy driving suddenly says:
“Up there, baby. Let’s borrow from that truck-stop over there. We’re running low on supplies.”
We take the next turn off and up ahead is a big truck depot with a neon sign that says Jim’s. We scrape in on the gravel and the guy driving turns to me and says:
“We’re going for a burger. You hungry?”
“Uhh...”
“C’mon! It’s our treat.”
“No. I already told my girlfriend I’d meet her for dinner.”
He looks at the girl. “He’s a good kid. Watching out for his girlfriend,” he says with a wink.
The two of them get out of the sedan and walk arm in arm to the diner. I can see them inside now, through the window, sitting at the counter. He’s saying something to the waitress and she titters and runs back with their order. I slouch back in the seat and close my eyes.
Fifteen minutes later and the couple is still in the diner. To kill time, I get out of the car and meander around the depot. There are rigs everywhere, parked, with cabin lights on. Near the back I hear music - rancheras, like the bastard child of Polka music with synthesizer horn blasts and bending bass notes. Through the dusk I can see a bus with the interior lights on. There’s a woman dancing in white lacy lingerie. Then another woman gets up, topless, laughing, stroking the other woman. She presses her hands on the ceiling of the bus and arches her back and coos with delight. At least it seems like she’s cooing; I can’t hear anything except for the irritatingly repetitive riffs blasting out of the bus. Then a man shimmies up from the woman’s crotch, the woman’s bra draped over his head. He’s doing a variation of the pogo hop and petting the two women at the same time. Then he spins around and whips off the bra. I squint my eyes and try to comprehend what I’ve just seen. Is this... no. I can’t believe it! The bus driver! The lousy jerk that’s been leaving me stranded everyday at Sealed ASS, and the whole time he’s probably been whoring at a truck depot. I watch, incredulous. The bus driver is shirtless now, doing the Elvis pelvis, and the two women are screeching and giggling. He lifts up a whiskey bottle and tips it to the girls. The topless one reaches for it but he pulls it back and pours a golden brown stream down his mouth; half of it splashes over his chin and chest. The topless girl snatches it from him and takes a quick pull and her mouth opens up like a wound and she laughs, piercing through the ranchero. The man disappears down below again, then the girls, and I sneak up closer and peer in through the front window. They’re fooling around on one of the seats with the bus driver sandwiched between the two girls. There is a trail of clothes going up the isle, about three seats deep. I push on the door and the hinge gives, but just barely. I manage to get it open by one inch, prying my fingers inside and soon have it the rest of the way open. I take his pants by the door, then crawling up the isle I take his underwear and shirt. The girl in white lingerie has his belt and is whipping him. All I can see is the flash of the belt and her brown hair going up and down.
I’m out almost as soon as I got in, running with the bus driver’s clothes, back to the couple’s car. I open a trash bin on the way and stuff them in there, then go sit in the car and wait.
It’s not long before the driver’s side door opens with a jerk and the pretty freckled girl jumps in, starts the car and clutches the steering wheel.
“What’s goin on?” I ask.
She’s fixed on the diner. Her boyfriend busts out the front door with a revolver in one hand and a handful of cash in the other. He jumps in the car and we fish tail in the gravel to highway. I’m gripping the seat end with my hands, I can feel my arms bulging, veins popping, adrenaline pumping. A hand thrusts out.
“Wanna beer?”
It’s the guy, holding out a bottle instead of the revolver.
“Got it for ya. Sorry for the inconvenience and bumpy ride. Consider it on the house.”
I take it and twist off the top and sit up, watch the depot disappear in the distance. He pulls another beer from his coat pocket, pops it, then reaches back with it. I raise mine to toast and he says, “To personal freedom.” I concur. Up ahead the highway is clearing out, the last rush hour jams are dissolving. I take a long pull off the beer. Blue-collar, American beer. Ice cold.
Sitting in a corner table of the restaurant, waiting for Gina. Under the rippling fluorescent lights something comes to me and I whip out my notebook:
Met two kids today who said they were vindicators for the modern man. I liked them, though I was scared shitless when they were robbing that place. Guy said something about personal freedom. Could it be that corporations like Sealed ASS are thieves of personal freedom? If so, who will be the one to vindicate me?
I stab a samosa with my fork and pinch off a bite. I’m telling Gina about my ingenious psychological crusade against unoriginality.
“But why,” she asks, “do you have to pick on that poor woman?”
“Do you understand what it is to work with someone like that? Day in, day out?”
“Couldn’t you be more direct with her?”
“I guess I could. But this is more effective, I think. It’s all about conditioning.”
“I don’t get it.”
I take another bite and continue.
“I’m introducing her to other possibilities, unknown stimuli. You see, she is forced to confront totally new situations.”
“You can butter it up all you want, but you’re still just fucking with her.”
“Did I tell you the bounty hunter story?”
“No. What’s that?”
“I overheard this the other day. It’s her latest misadventure.”
“Another tale of ‘romance and deceit’?”
“Yeah, just listen. Apparently she and her girlfriends went to some club the other day...”
“Wait. How old is she?”
“Dunno, maybe like 50 or something. Anyway, I can just imagine the scene... some swank lounge, upturned collars, pink cocktails, lip stick stains, stride piano wafting through...”
“I can see it, totally.”
“So she’s there with her girlfriends, who I imagine aren’t all that different. In come four young studs. Buff, bulging, swaggering... they see the four eager women pretending to ignore them... they dance and dazzle them with stories of wild, rough-riding adventure...”
“Like what stories?”
“So it turns out that they’re bounty hunters, the four of them. They just happened to stop by Buzz Kowalski’s Starlight lounge on the way to a job. And get this, they were hunting the Sasquatch. He said, ‘boy it’s so hard hunting that crazy Sasquatch. I’ve spent so many months, alone in the woods, wrestling grizzlies, strangling copperheads, inspecting strange feces, it’s been so long since I’ve had the graces of a lovely woman like yourself’. So Charlene takes the bounty hunter home, his friends leave with the others, and... in the morning of course, the end is disappointingly standard in her book... he had left without a word and she was missing jewelry and cash from her purse.”
“Tragic.”
“I felt bad for her, actually. She too deserves her revenge for the dirty trick that cowboy pulled on her.”
“See. You should leave her alone.”
“Then she launches into more stories, more cackles, and more misadventures... after a while she sounds like a loop... and man, she’s driving me crazy!”
The rest of our food is ready and the cashier rings a bell at the counter. I go and pick it up: two plain nans, basmati rice, some chicken dish, and chick peas.
“It’s too spicy,” she says, after she tries the chick peas.
“It’s good for the libido.”
“I don’t think I need any help in that department... jesus! What’s wrong with you?”
“What?”
“You’re all red and sweaty!”
“Damn! This shit is fuckin hot!” I gulp down a mouthful, then take a sip of water.
“Why’d you order it like that?”
“I asked for the authentic dish. Not the white bread stuff they serve to everybody else. This is what they eat.”
“Whatever.”
We decide to crash at my place since it’s walking distance from Shalimar. On the way back we stop at the video store. We’ve been through the new releases and nothing looks interesting. I’m not in the mood for a classic, and not in the mood for anything foreign. Besides, she says, she’s not up to reading subtitles right now, and I agree. We look in the cult section but we’ve seen most of those. There’s one section left.
“Why don’t we get a porno?”
She looks at me, a conspiratorial arch in her brow and quick, grinning eyes. “OK.”
We walk behind a little partition and there’s another couple in there, a little older than us. Somehow we avoid eye contact with them as we quickly scan the covers. Cum spurting cocks, breasts and garish colors everywhere. Part 6, 7, 8, to infinity of black on white, white on black, chicks with dicks, fake tits, real tits, hairy pussy, shaved pussy...
“Oh, gross...” says Gina under her breath.
The other couple snatch a movie and hurry out, to the counter. We check out another wall, over by the gay section. There’s a shiny ass with a bulls-eye on it. Muscle-bound boy toys. We go back to the straight section, try to find something we can get off on.
“All these guys. They’re so nasty. I don’t know.”
“C’mon. Let’s just get one and get it over with.”
A slick-looking suit has just entered. This is getting hairy. I snatch a random movie and we walk out of the section, careful to avoid eye contact with anyone else, lest we should run into an acquaintance. Oh, hi! How you doin? ... Oh not too bad. Just renting a porno. You know, a little action. No dice. We don’t want any of that. The cashier says I’m overdue three days for the last movie, and normally I haggle and say can I pay later, or can I pay half now. Enough with the haggling. I fork out the dough and we walk back to my place.
I open the cover and look at the greasy tape: Fuck Me in the Office, part 16. Gina is on the couch smoking a cigarette. I dim the lights, turn the TV on, and blue light spills over the room. I fast forward through the FBI warning and stop on the trailers. A bunch of advertisements for 900 numbers, datelines, catering to all types of fantasies. Apparently, lonely, sex-starved men have lots of cash to spare.
Finally we’re at the movie. Over a black background we hear some music, like stock samples on a Casio keyboard with a couple extra trills and beeps. Then: starring Baby Cakes, Everything, Helen Hotter, and Jonny Member. Next we see a scene with a secretary typing on her computer, chewing her pen, twirling the cord on her phone. We hear her thinking: It’s so hard being Lance’s secretary. He’s so hot, and he’s always busy. He never has time for me. But the other day I caught him with the cleaning lady, fucking her on the desk! Then there’s a scene of the secretary spying through a crack in the door as Lance fucks the cleaning lady doggy-style on his desk. She’s banging herself behind the door. Gina gasps in disbelief.
“Oh, please. He’s so disgusting! That is so unreal.”
Next we see the secretary back in her office, staring off into space, dreaming of studly Lance. Lance enters suddenly. Jasmine, he says. We need to talk about the MacGruder account. I need to iron out some wrinkles. He walks around to her side of the desk and they strip and suck and now they’re fucking on her desk. He’s slapping her ass and grunting.
“What a beast! Oh, gross!” Gina is on the other side of the couch now, turned off, yet unable to take her eyes off the television. Lance suddenly pulls out and jerks himself off and Jasmine is on her knees with her mouth open, expectantly. Gina covers her face and peeks through her fingers. Lance grunts and turns away from Jasmine and shoots all over her computer screen.
“Euwwwww...” we both say simultaneously. I get up and shut the TV off.
“That’s pathetic. Do you guy’s actually like that stuff?”
“I guess, sometimes.”
“I’m disgusted.”
“I mean, not exactly this. I wouldn’t ruin a perfectly good monitor...”
“Why can’t they make porno for women... I mean, with good-looking guys and decent plots.”
“Maybe if women made pornos... this is all from a man’s point of view, you know. The cameras could focus on the guys, you could have swashbuckling stories of romance and deceit.”
“Yeah, whatever. Let’s just watch regular TV. I need something a little more gender neutral.”
I turn the set back on and flip through the channels. There’s an infomercial on one.
“My god! What’s that?” I exclaim, pointing at the screen. We’re both silent, watching a bronzed model attach a device to his abdomen. He turns a dial and then there’s a close-up of his abdomen, pulsating, bulging.
“Woo... that’s crazy!” I say, truly amazed.
“It like, stimulates your muscles...”
Next there is a scene of the guy typing at his computer. He has the device strapped on. His abdomen is rippling, disembodied, like some preternatural beast is dwelling inside him, like Alien.
“He can just chill, and the machine gives him a work out!” I say.
“It’s a gimmick, no doubt,” says Gina.
Now there are pictures of him with the device on his biceps, then his thighs.
“That’s great! I need one of those,” I say.
“No you don’t. Don’t be silly.”
“Yeah I do. Check out my legs.” I pull up my pant leg. “Chicken legs!”
“Get outta here. That thing is bogus.”
“I know. I know. Just foolin.”
Then a spokeswoman comes on, announcing “Muscle Master 3000 - carefree workouts in your spare time!”. I flip through more channels until my thumb can’t take it anymore.
I’m stuck in a mass of flesh, surging forward than backward - elbows, zippers, halitosis... Everybody around me is familiar, yet I can’t place any of them. Who are they? Where are they from? Three people over I finally recognize someone - Charlene from work. Maybe she can tell me what’s going on. I muscle my way through the straining bodies and reach for Charlene’s shoulder, only it’s not her anymore. It’s a kid I used to know in elementary school. He was the repellent kid in the front row with all the answers and we used to call him Mememe. Mememe ignores me and I turn around and suddenly I’m overwhelmed by the size of the crowd. Riefenstahl couldn’t have conceived of anything more cinematic or bombastic. I desperately look for anyone, anyone that will give me that mutual look of recognition, that they too are stuck here, like me. Everyone has their chin turned up and their gaze fixed at one point behind me. I turn around and I’m in front of a stage stretching beyond the periphery of my vision. Arc lights mounted on towers on both sides of the stage blast on and blind me momentarily, then subsonic waves with little horn flutters and electronic beeps roll through us. Fog shoots out from the stage footings, then a drum roll gradually builds up... and splash! Like a demagogue, a black leather-clad figure appears in the middle of the stage, back turned, and the crowd roars. Is it? Elvis? The fog dissipates and the arc lights dim into a thousand orange eyes. A spotlight falls on the lone figure. He spins around and women and men alike faint, others are transfixed, jaws slack. It’s not Elvis, I realize, but Charleton Hasselhof, and behind him the words The Knight Rider appear on a giant video panel. He spins and hair grease suffuses the entire crowd. I push and squeeze my way through the mindless masses, thinking I must escape before the climax. The pernicious climax, whatever it is, is imminent, and in my soul I know that I must get out, for the sake of my mental well-being. I’m in a boat now, calm waters around me. The sun bakes me with its solitary stare and I roll over into water that runs so deep I can’t see the bottom. The currents below are engulfing me, warming me, and now they’re sucking me down in spirals. I’m going further down, past the sediment, rivulets of bubbling lava, to an intense bright light, and suddenly I remember that I need to breathe... where am I, wasn’t I stuck somewhere, how did I get here?
“Wh... what’s that?”
The space next to me is just a pillow with an impression, the comforter below is bulging. My legs are stretched out, so I realize it’s not my knees, it’s somebody. Gina’s head emerges from the darkness of the comforter, then the rest of her and she is already naked and I can’t remember how any of this started...
“I had no I idea what was happening,” I say, when we’re finished, both of us staring at the ceiling. “I was having this terrible nightmare about Charleton Hasselhof, and the next thing I know I’m getting sucked down into a whirlpool...”
“I read about it the other day.”
“Really? Where?”
“In Kosmopolitan.”
I’m amazed. And I’d been unfairly accusing Kosmo of ruthless, emasculating mendacity all this time.
“I’d never have thought of it. But it was the best way ever, I think, that I’ve woken up.”
