The Bedroom Revolutionary

About the book

2006-08-15T07:01:00.000-07:00

This book is no longer available. It has been revised and re-published by Fabulist Press.

Please follow the updates on my websites for information on where you can preview and purchase the book.

DM

2006-08-15T06:56:00.000-07:00

From: "the kid"<pepelives@potmail.com>
To: ginajonze@potmail.com
Subject: please forward this to anyone and everyone who might care, love you
Date: Sun, 9 Dec 2002 22:56:00 +0000

One of the sharp ironies of life is that you can be caught up in history, in the violence of judgment, simply for being there. We can cry out, try in vain to control things, but, finally, there’s a momentum not unlike the waves in an unfathomable ocean that pushes us on. The only thing we can do is try and understand it - and accept it. I fell into a tide pool and was sucked down into the depths of hypocrisy, the design of which I’m only now beginning to understand. The authors of this tragic play found a useful extra in my person, however unwilling I was to be fully complicit. Now I’m into something much deeper than I originally thought.

I’m writing this from far away, in whereabouts of which I can’t divulge. It would mean my life.

On the day in question - the day of Pepe’s immolation - I disappeared, never to return. It was as if providence had my car and my keys stolen. It was as if I was never meant to return. I made the largest withdrawal I could from an automatic teller, got on a bus, and headed south. What was there for me in The City? I had no job, no life really other than the listlessness which I was determined not to return to.

Who hasn’t had the fantasy of disappearing and assuming a totally new identity? That was my plan - to get away from all this. I bought a fake ID for fifty bucks off some Mexicans in LA and blew out like El Niño. My plan is to explore, to learn, and ultimately, to respect. I still have to participate, do the things that normal people do, but I do these things with lucidity. And it’s not just about the money, though that’s an inevitable fact of life. I simply don’t believe that there’s a grand idea out there waiting to be discovered, to save us from ourselves. That kind of self-hatred has led to unbelievable carnage.

The news trickles over here sometimes. Especially big news. Terrorist attacks and workplace massacres make for news just about anywhere. The Sealed ASS incident made the news because it was the first of its kind in the States. No one had self-immolated until Pepe staggered in that day. The news talked about a disgruntled worker who was fired from his job a few months earlier. It talked about an estranged wife, about alcohol, and finally about “a heretofore unknown terrorist cell”. After the bombing an email vindicating the attacks was sent by Islamic fundamentalists - taking advantage of someone else’s outrageous, bloody statement. I, obviously, know better.

The body count was made, and a total of four people were found dead. Pepe, Alvaro, Tony, and Janine, the receptionist that tried to stop Pepe. She unwittingly saved my life by doing her job and blocking the entrance to our upstairs offices. Witnesses were called forth, and an investigation was underway. All were accounted for, except me. I’d left earlier that day and no one knew a thing about me. One temp said he saw me leave the factory in a state of great agitation. No shit, great agitation indeed. When all attempts to contact me failed, the FBI and the local police tried my apartment. What they found inside were things exactly as I’d left them. My squalor, my music, my books... everything. Some clever dick assessed the situation and came up with a theory. I had books - lots of them - but apparently only the ones about “subversive” elements caught their attention. God knows what they consider subversive these days. Just words and names, regardless of context, have been enough to demonize me. Names like Marx, Bin Laden, Kaczynski (I had the original New York Times manifesto) - probably literary seers like Orwell or Burroughs are also considered dangerous. The important thing, always, is to have a critical eye. “Don’t take no guff from those swine,” as one famous drug addict once put it. They also found my writing (I left a hard copy of the satire I wrote about Roger Rogers - the everyman in corporate America - along with other notes scattered about the apartment). I’d neglected to look at those things for a while now, since I’d gone on that rollercoaster corporate adventure. According to them, my writing was “critical of the American way of life, with a subversive, apocalyptic bent... clearly the work of a deranged, misguided individual...”. And here’s the cincher. They found evidence of Islamic infiltration - food wrappings - that caused investigators to believe that I had sympathies with, or was part of, a terrorist cell. What they were referring to was the wrapper and half-eaten falafel sandwich I’d left on the kitchen counter a couple days earlier. That was enough to implicate me. Now I’m wanted for “questioning”. I haven’t heard anything about Baxter. Sternislouse must’ve gotten him off the hook. That’s where the buck really stops.

So I do what I can now, but it’s hard not to have a past, not to be able to talk about myself. That’s why I write: to put something out there, to express myself. Even if people won’t believe that behind all this was some spoiled brat who held a grudge against his father. The point is not to reap material rewards, or to expiate myself for my small hand in this affair. It’s become something else entirely. It’s become a mode of survival. Yes, these notes from the underground allow me to live with equanimity simply because they allow me to be me.

12. NEMESIS

2006-08-15T06:53:00.000-07:00

I’ve created an impasse for myself with my job at Sealed ASS, all my new furniture still being paid for in installments, my Z3, my affair with Sylvia. I scoffed at people like myself a few months ago, but here I am, sitting in my little office, my yapping secretary outside, my designer shoes propped up on my faux oak desk. I suddenly want this to end, want my old life back, with Gina, with the barroom philosophy, dive joints, freaky stories. My encounter with Pepe jolted my ordered lie of a life. I need to go back to being me.

In front of me I have the Daily Times. There is an article about the recall vote. It just passed, meaning that the governorship of California is up for grabs. So far, porn stars, porn magnates and former child stars are amongst the thousands of people who’ve announced their candidacy. If I were to consider this seriously, subjectively, I’d probably have to vote for the porn magnate. After sifting through the detritus, the backstabbing politicians, the whimpy government, never accomplishing anything, I’d go for a guy who came from the backwoods, built an empire, survived an assassination attempt and still had the tenacity to keep going. Here is a man with resolve. Then again, just wait till the rumor mills dredge up the dirt on this guy. He’ll get smeared just like the rest.

On the next page is a picture of Pinky MacDonald with a silver haired gentleman. I read the caption: Independent Party star announces his bid for governor on Pinky’s show. Fred Dawson... that sounds familiar. Where did I see that guy before? Could it be the guy that conned all those free drinks outta me? I don’t remember that gleaming silver hair, nor the sharp suit, but yeah, come to think of it, it definitely could be the same guy. I go on to read an article with the headline: “Fair” Fred Dawson, Rising Political Star Announces Candidacy For Governor.

LOS ANGELES, California (DT) - Added to California’s legion of would-be governors is the only contender that actually has an agenda. His opponents accuse him of base populism, his supporters say he’s the only man with integrity on the ballot. “Fair” Fred Dawson’s story is indeed the stuff of the American Dream. This virtual unknown outside political circles has just made history on Pinky MacDonald’s show by announcing his intention to run for governor of California.

Immediately after his announcement wild speculation about Fred Dawson’s character and past circulated the rumor mills. Who is this man? And why is he so alluring, so revered among his political cohorts? Early polls already show him with a strong minority vote - surely a result of his magnificently staged coup on America’s most popular talk show. Experts say his chances of moving up in the polls are extremely strong due to the lackluster and in some cases laughable competition. Fred Dawson, also known as “Fair” Fred Dawson, is a self-made man whose humble origins and insightful political agenda has won him supporters from both left and right wing politicians, made his candidacy known to a surprised Pinky: “Ladies and gentlemen of the grand state of California, enough of the political backpedaling and half measures. You need someone who’s willing to take a stand on the issues, to bring California back to the forefront. We need to come out of this crisis. And to do that we need to take a stand on the issues. No more special effects, short term political amendments. Intelligent solutions are what we need. That is what “Fair” Fred Dawson proposes. I first came to this great state with nothing! And look at me now! I remember a golden state, where dreams come true. That is what I remember, and what I’ll bring back, California, if you put your confidence in me.” Pinky then asked what was on the minds of 40 million American viewers: “Mr Dawson, what exactly are you trying to say?” “Pinky, fellow Americans, fellow Californians, I hereby announce my bid for governor of California!” There followed a long round of applause and cheers, and Pinky, surprised like the rest of us just shook her head and smiled. Maybe she realized too that history had just been made.

“Fair” Fred Dawson’s story is one of hardship and triumph. Growing up in the tough urban environment of Detroit - son of East European immigrants - he struggled in menial labor during his teens and early twenties, eventually working his way into political circles where his hard-earned opinions on the lives of America’s working men and women were attentively listened to. “There’s a kind of magnetism to him.” says one of his former co-workers at a Detroit car factory...

Through the window I see Chinaski coming in. 10:30. Two and a half hours late. No, I won’t say anything. It’s been a good month with Chinaski. Never once has he pestered me for work, and he seems to get along with his fellow workers; that is, not at all. I haven’t seen him talk once with anybody in the entire building. The lateness can be forgiven. Yet, to keep up appearances, especially in front of Charlene, I think I should call him to the office. I call him on his extension.

“Chinaski? Could you come see me?”

“Yeah. Sure Miguel. I’ll be right there.”

In a few seconds Chinaski is at the door to my office. “Go ahead,” I say to him, “shut the door and take a seat.”

“I’m sorry about being late like that Miguel, but...”

“Just call me Eric from now on, Chinaski.”

“OK, Eric. It’s just that the bus...”

“Don’t worry about it. I didn’t call you in here to complain about that. What I want to know is what you are doing here.”

“What?”

“Sealed ASS. Why are you working here?”

“Just getting paid, I suppose.”

“But you could do that anywhere. Why Sealed ASS?”

“Look. If you’re trying to get rid of me I’d prefer if you just told me straight out.”

“I wasn’t thinking that at all.”

“I just need to pay the rent. I’ve done every kind of job imaginable. Don’t think you’re breaking my heart.”

“Chinaski stop. I know this is kinda personal, but the other day I was remembering your resume.” He just looks at me, head tilted, eyes cracked. “About not getting laid in five years.”

“Did I really write that?”

“That’s what is says here,” I say, reaching down to my file drawer.

“No. No. You don’t have to show to me. I just can’t believe some of the stuff I write sometimes.”

“This isn’t really the best place to talk about it. Why don’t we meet later for a drink? At the NiteCap downtown. 8 o’clock.”

“You inviting me out to drinks? Hold on... you... aren’t...”

“C’mon man! Let’s just get some drinks. I think I have a solution to your woman problem.”

“No man. I went to the doctors, everything...”

“Just first things first... all right?”

“So, you’re not gonna fire me?”

“No.”

“But, I really wouldn’t mind. This job is beginning to...”

“Yeah, I know. I don’t really care. Whatever you want.”

“I need to be fired from this place, Eric. It’s part of the equation, my suffering.”

“If you really want me to. Then, you’re fired.”

“Thanks.”

“Wait a second. Let’s do this in style. You run out of the office, and I’ll follow you, yelling.”

“All right. This’ll make a great story.”

“Something to put on your resume. Ready?”

“Ready.”

Chinaski gets up and walks out the office and I follow behind and bellow:

“YOU’RE FIRED CHINASKI! That’s the last time you come in late! Don’t bother bringing your lazy ass back here!”

Chinaski runs out as we planned and slams the door behind him. Charlene is slack jawed, phone loosely cradled to her head. Jack and Zack have their dull, shallow eyes fixed on me.

“And the same goes for the rest of you! Let Chinaski be an example! Charlene, please hold all incoming calls for the rest of the day. Tell them I’m in a meeting. Thank You.”

I wake up around noon with a cold cup of machine-made coffee in my hand. Charlene is talking, gesturing wildly outside, and for a second I think she wants to get my attention. Then I realize it’s just the phone. I pick up the Daily Times and go to the Letters to the Editor. Just when I’m about to read one entitled: The Last Straw, Charlene jumps up and down, screaming. I lay the paper down on my desk and walk out of my office just as she hangs up the phone.

“What’s going on? What’s the matter?”

Charlene sits back in her chair and cups her head in her hands, shaking.

“I can’t believe it... I can’t believe it...”

“What is it?”

“I won. What am I gonna do? I’m not ready! I can’t believe it!”

“Won what? What’re you talking about, Charlene?”

“A date with RUSSELL CLOONEY! That’s what I won!”

“Charlene. You know that’s not possible. There’s no way that you can ‘win’ a date with anyone. Especially Russell Clooney.”

“They just called and told me to be ready in five minutes... oh my gawd... what am I gonna do?”

“Charlene!” I slam my hand down on her desk, knocking over an idyllic courtship scene between the purple monster and the yellow clown. “GETTA GRIP, WILL YA!”

“What am I gonna do! I’m not even dressed up... I gotta...” She fumbles around her purse, pulls out some powder kits and starts for the bathroom.

“Charlene! What’re you doing! It was a joke! I called you. Don’t you know that?”

Charlene doesn’t answer and the bathroom door slams shut. I turn to Jack and Zack.

“You guys gotta talk to her! She’s gone out of her mind.”

“We don’t...”

“...know anything about it.”

“Yeah. Yeah, guy. Of course you don’t.”

I go back to my office and consider the possibilities. Really, there are none other than explaining the truth to her. But she isn’t disposed to the truth, apparently. She's back at her desk, where she gets into her coat, grabs her purse, and rushes out of the office. I run after her, down the halls, yelling her name in vain. She’s already through the door and past reception. When I get outside the bright midday sun blasts down on my mal-adjusted eyes. I see Charlene ahead of me, gliding, almost as if she were captured in time, in a slow motion loop, towards a pearly-white limousine. The door opens and out steps a man in a suit. I can’t quite make him out, as the pearly-white of the limousine and the sun are scintillating, forming a dazzling silhouette around him as he takes Charlene’s hand and eases her into the back seat.

“Charlene! Don’t go there! It’s not what it seems!”

She disappears in the tenebrous interior. The man in the suit nods at me and ducks into the limo before it pulls out. I run after them and the limo leaves me in a cloud of dust and exhaust. I squint my eyes, watching it disappear, watching Charlene disappear with her movie idol, silver screen fantasy.

The NiteCap is a trashy dive bar downtown, one I’m sure Chinaski knows about. I told him to meet me at 8 o’clock because I anticipated his tardiness and in reality wanted to meet him at 9. I’m sure he’ll show up - if not for my hospitality, than for the free drinks I’d promised him.

The same old freaks from many months back are in there: Maurice the granny tranny, Big Jilm the paisley-clad queer with bad b o, Jane and Sue the regular late-night cheerleaders, and Walt the old time bartender. He hooks me up like old times with a double whiskey and a beer back. The juke is playing some Hank Williams, and the pool balls are clinking in the background. I’m at the corner, next to the door, watching the evening crowd pick-up. The night looks promising: suits on the prowl, skanks, misfits, and thrill seekers are drifting in from the mean streets. What is it about this place that brings me back? Am I a freak myself? These are disturbing thoughts.

“Hey Walt... how’s business?”

“Ahh.. man same old here. You know... all the old regulars, a few more. Got a new Sleepy LaBeef CD on the juke. That’s about it.”

“Glad to see things haven’t changed too much.”

“Where you been?”

“Out of town. Personal matters.”

“Well, welcome back, kid.”

I take the last pull on my double whiskey and wash it back with the beer when Chinaski walks in and takes the stool next to me.

“Hey man, glad you made it.”

“Get me a seven and seven.”

I shoot my order off to Walt and Chinaski turns to me.

“So. What’s the big news?”

“First off... let’s not talk about that just yet. Are you sure about your job? Don’t you want it back?”

“What?”

“Man you think I was just ingratiating you back there? Do you really think I wanna fire you?”

“It don’t matter. That place was a heap of shit anyway.”

“Well, I tried.”

Chinaski takes his first long sip on the seven and seven and shakes his head.

“That’s the first time, and I suspect the last time, that my boss has begged me to come back.”

“Well, I’m not gonna be boss for long.”

“Oh yeah?”

“That’s not what I came here to talk about.”

“Then what is it? You drag me here out of the goodness of your heart?”

“Kind of.”

“Oh?”

“I want you to knock the shit out of me, Chinaski.”

He almost chokes out his last swallow as I say this and looks at me with jaded eyes.

“OK.”

“Thing is, I want you to wait until Sylvia arrives.”

“Who’s Sylvia?”

“She’s the girl you’re gonna steal from me.”

“I don’t need your sloppy seconds.”

“You don’t understand. She’s fucking hot, alcoholic, and borderline crazy. Filthy rich too. She also likes rough, marginal types... like yourself.”

“Sounds interesting.”

“Don’t you wanna know why?”

“No.”

“Well... this is what you have to do.”

Sylvia and I had arranged to meet at 10. I’d promised her a quick drink here before we went on to one of her hipster places. The bar is packed now, with colorful folk drifting in and out, cigarettes puffing discreetly in the corners through the buzz of the pool table lamps. Cash is singing a song about cocaine and cheatin women, and I’m alone at the bar. I’m halfway through my third double whiskey, getting tipsy, the alcohol finding easy space in my empty stomach. Then she walks in. So poised, primmed, confident. So utterly antithetical to the usual clientele in the bar.

“Sylvia,” I call to her. She smiles, sashays over, and pecks me on the cheek. “Howya doin baby!” I dig my hands into her thigh.

“Stop that! Are you drunk?”

“No baby! Just glad to see ya!”

“Bartender!” she calls to Walt. “Get me a Kosmo.”

Walt goes and mixes a Cosmo, probably the only one he’s made in months. Just for the lovely Sylvia.

“Parking is a pain in the ass around here.”

“Why’d you drive? Your car’ll last five minutes out here before it gets stripped.”

“I was downtown anyway. But don’t worry. I got my Rover parked in the garage.”

She looks over the clientele in the bar, then back at me. I try to give her my best shit-eating grin.

“Some characters in here,” she says.

“Yeah. That’s Moreen over there,” I say, pointing to Maurice the granny tranny. “She’s my ex. Ain’t that right baby?” I yell out. Maurice looks over and winks at the two of us through the smoky red air.

“You’re kidding me right? And what’s goin on with the big guy dancing over by the juke box? Is he strung out or something?”

“Big Jilm? Dunno. Why don’t you ask him for a dance?”

“My you’re aggressive tonight!”

I down the rest of my whiskey and order another from Walt. Sylvia flashes a smile with her perfect, sculpted teeth and stares ahead of us again. I’m not sure, but it seemed genuine.

“You’re drunk, I can tell,” she said.

“No... I’m... not.”

“You are! You’re so sweet normally.”

“Normally! Ha! You hardly even know me!”

“If you want me to go... I don’t even know what the hell I’m doing in this dump.”

A big guy sits on the other side of her, two stools down. He orders a beer and checks Sylvia out, then me.

“It’s you,” he says. “Miguel. You got some nerve comin to my bar. What... you wanna rub it in? You think it’s funny?”

“Miguel,” says Sylvia, “what’s he talking about?”

“That’s just Chinaski. Some slacker I had to fire today.” I brace her with my left arm, pulling her towards me. “Stay away from him. His loser ways are contagious.”

“Let go!” she says, wriggling out of my grip.

“Chinaski your stink is affecting my woman’s sense of logic. You better get outta here.”

Chinaski just sips calmly on his beer. The other clientele in the bar are beginning to look in our direction.

“Chinaski! Did you hear me! When I fired your slacking ass it was because I didn’t want to see you again!”

Chinaski sets his beer down and leaves four dollars on the counter. He gets up and starts walking out when I get up and approach him. I give him the biggest shove I can and he goes toppling backwards, straight into Big Jilm. Sylvia is drawn into herself, stuck up against the bar. Chinaski comes charging after me and the neon beer signs, pink and blue of the juke, the yelps and cheers from the barflies, blur into one intense moment, like a struck match, and the next thing I know I’m on top of the pool table swinging a pool stick, Chinaski coming at me. Somebody pulls me off from behind and Chinaski rams me once, then twice, then three times until all I see is Sylvia over me, screaming.

“Miguel! Miguel! Are you all right? Miguel!”

“Yeah... uhh.. where’s that bastard Chinaski? What’re you doin here?”

“He went off with one of those floozies. I don’t know. C’mon we better get outta here.”

Sylvia helps me to my feet. I’m trembling like a newborn calf. “C’mon... lets get to my car. I wanna get outta here before the police arrive.”

“You kidding me? There’s fights in there every night. The police won’t show up there for nothing!”

“Here,” she says, leading me into a garage a few blocks away. “Just wait here and I’ll go get my car.” I sit down in a chair next to the valet’s booth and feel my bashed-up face. So that bastard Chinaski beat me up and went off with another girl. Figures. Now I’m stuck with Sylvia again. Sylvia and her goddamn Picasso tattoo. I never want to face that thing again, I think, when up pulls a green Land Rover. I see her driving it, then I see it in front of me, in front of the cafe. I see the Brigades for the Oppressed kid stepping out, and all of a sudden something gels. I’m not quite sure, but it’s almost like a premonition of things to come. She unlocks the door and I get in.

“C’mon. Let’s go back to your place. You need some washing up.”

She hands the valet a wad of one dollar bills and we peel out into the one way traffic.

“Sylvia. Look. I don’t know why I have such a tough time saying this. I mean, confronting the truth with you.”

“Miguel, don’t worry about it. I can see you got your senses back. You were so obnoxious in the bar!”

“It’s not that, Sylvia. I’m not drunk, wasn’t that drunk to begin with. I can’t be with you anymore.”

Her mouth spreads open and she sucks in a deep breath, and just when I think she’s about to scream, she bursts out laughing. “You fucked me Miguel. Once! What do you mean you can’t see me anymore? I’m the one who sees you. Don’t you know that?”

“You don’t even know me Sylvia. You don’t even have my name right.” We’re coming to a stop at an intersection and I take the door handle with my right hand. “You hear that? Huh? With your big car, fancy coats, your Chanel number 5... You wanna have your lie! On your own, baby.”

As I open the door she yells at me, “You just lost your job! I’ll make sure of it!”

I‘m out of the car and I swing the door shut on a rock-mouthed Sylvia. The light turns green and the tires squeal as she accelerates into the myriad red and white lights stretching to the end of the boulevard, up and over the bend.

In front of my mirror now I check out the damage Chinaski did to my face. Not as bad as my last real fight, 10 years ago in the school yard. Chinaski bruised me up, but broke nothing. I wash off the caked blood underneath my nose, pat it dry with my hand towel, and collapse on my couch.

I wake up around eight with a busted and swollen face. Somehow I manage a shower and carefully avoid any needless touches to my face. I go to the garage and start up the Z3 and drive out to Sealed ASS, one hour late. Outside the building, perhaps a hundred feet away, I see a yellow car idling. Another weird premonition comes to me in the form of Sylvia’s Guernica tattoo. Those distorted faces, broken perspectives, the violence. I need to get my stuff and get outta here. There’s no telling what she’s gonna say to Sternislouse.

In the back office Jack and Zack are at their computers, as usual. Charlene’s desk is vacant, however.

“Don’t you guys...” They both look at me, blank stupidness written across their faces. “Nevermind.” I wave them off and enter my office. I grab my few belongings, and from the shelf, Pepe’s Seven Steps book. I sit down in the chair and think about calling Sternislouse, telling him the gig is up, before Sylvia has a chance to manipulate the situation. But no, I just need to leave, here and now. I think of Gina, the only person that I can confide in right now. But just as I’m about to dial her number I take a look at the open paper in front of me. The Last Straw.

Are my complaints futile? Will nothing ever be done? I believe in the working man, in the right to a just and fair work environment. Now that all legal means are used up, I have no choice. Desperate times call for desperate actions. If no one will hear a rational voice, then I have to resort to one still greater.

On the way in I saw a yellow car idling with two occupants inside, a hundred feet from our building. I remember the Land Rover, Sylvia handing money to a kid - the Brigade for the Oppressed kid. Sternislouse’s rotten apple fell off the tree and lived in my neighborhood, printing out his phony hype, fomenting hate from his little hovel with his mousy girlfriend. He had the site plans, and now it’s all making sense. I see the two towers on his kitchen wall burning up, crumbling. I hear a boom, feel the building shudder around me. Muffled screams come from the corridors. As I run out of the office Jack and Zack stare at me with animal fear in their eyes. “What’s wrong with you guys? MOVE!”

The halls are a chaos of people rushing for the exits. “Where was it?” I ask. “Where the fuck did it happen?” I hear someone say the warehouse and I run down the stairs and when I enter the first thing I see is the receptionist, shredded, severed at the waist with her guts spilling out. An overwhelming stink of shit and burnt plastic engulfs me. Bloody chunks are laying all around me, crimson is splattered thirty feet up on the ceiling. A leg is off in a corner. I see Alvaro in his forklift, crumpled up against the steering wheel. I run through the bloody carnage, up to him, see blood trickling out of his ears. “Alvaro!” He doesn’t move. A few feet away is Tony, holding his severed arm. His face is spattered with blood. “She tried to stop him. She tried to stop him,” he says when he sees me.

“Who?” But before he can answer his eyes shut and he collapses in a puddle of his own blood.

I walk further into the warehouse to see if there’s anyone left. The walls are pocked with shrapnel, blood and bones. On the ground in front me is a disembodied head. I see the face, sun burnt, cherry-red, ripped and torn. It’s the face from a couple nights ago. I see through that messy, brown beard, and remember that defeated voice.

It’s not too late I tell myself as I rush out of the factory, to my Z3. The yellow car is long gone. I hop in my car and drive like mad to the city.

I park in the middle of the sidewalk, about half a block from Brigade’s building. When I get there the gate is open and I take the four flights up to his apartment. I push on his door and it eases open. Scraps of paper and the odd item of clothing, nothing more. I walk into the kitchen and everything is gone. I don’t know what to do anymore. What else does he know about? Who else has he duped?

I walk down the streets, down past the bars, the massage parlors, the bums, everything. My car is no longer on the sidewalk. I pat myself down. No keys. I must’ve left them in the car when I dashed up to Brigade’s house. I pull out my cell and scroll through the menu until I find Gina. A man’s voice answers her work extension.

“I’m sorry, she doesn’t work here anymore,” he says, and hangs up. I dial her cell number this time and she picks up.

“Gina. It’s me.”

“Eric? I can’t believe it.”

“Gina I’ve been so wrong. I have to see you. You won’t believe what’s happening.”

“I... I can’t.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’m not there Eric. I left everything after we split up.”

“What?”

“I’m in Europe, Eric. I’m in Marseille.”

“Oh. I see.”

“I’ll write you some time. I gotta go now.”

“OK. Take care.”

I fold my phone and stuff it in my jacket and walk on, delirious with pain for everybody around me. What the hell is going on in this world? I’m not a good person, it’s just that I feel so bad for people. Bad for Pepe, for Alvaro, for Gina, for Sylvia... even for that pseudo-revolutionary kid that thinks he has the answer, that he knows better than everybody else. Even for Sternislouse on his Aegean isle, so far from the carnage, so far from reality. He’s gotta have a story, something to tell. Now I know what I have to do. I’m gonna get it from him, his story, stop all this madness. I’m gonna strip everybody in this giant whorehouse. Till we’re all just flesh and bone, ink on paper.

Myths no more.

11. THE PRODIGAL KID

2006-08-15T06:51:00.000-07:00

I wake up with my heart pounding and an ineffable feeling of unease. Suddenly the walls seem like they’re gonna collapse and bury me alive. Maybe I’ll walk around the neighborhood for a bit, breathe some relatively fresh air, unwind.

It’s been weeks, no months since the last time I went walking at night around here. I cross the street, walk past the all-night deli further up the block. The garish lights of massage parlors, head shops, and sex shops spill on the sidewalks, and I walk through them, into the shadows, into them again. It’s four in the morning, so the last barflies have long gone home, and only the stragglers are on the streets. The stragglers and the prostitutes. Mercedes and BMWs and Astrovans drive past with leering, lusty eyes inside; the busty mulattas and peroxide blondes do their routines on center stage. Nagging Regret and Tragedy are waiting in the wings for their cues; I walk through the rafters, into the nether regions.

I’m dressed in dark sweats and no one bothers me, not even the hoes. They accost just about anybody, as long as they can smell green. Guess I’m not white enough for them. Guess a guy that looks like he belongs in their territory isn’t exactly what their pimps would call a cash cow. They whistle and click their tongues at passing cars. Up ahead a Jaguar pulls over in a bus stop, rolls down the passenger side window. A mulatta leans in, takes one look at the driver and walks back to her triad. “Uh uh.. I ain’t goin with no nigga!” Another girl, a white one, walks up to the purring Jag and leans in. She’s gesturing, upping the ante, and soon the two drive off together. I’d always thought that these girls would go off with anybody for the right amount of money - but it seems they too have their choice of johns.

Up by the transvestite and boy hustlers I make a U-turn and walk back in the direction of my apartment. I stop in a liquor store to get an iced tea. A haggard man in rags is ahead of me, at the register. He has a messy brown beard, wisps of hair on a sun burnt dome, cherry red skin. He smells like stale gym clothes and liquor.

“You sell out of pack?” he asks in a high register - too high for his corpulence.

That voice sounds familiar, but I can’t quite place it. Maybe it’s one of the freaks from the cafe, from my former life. The counterman pulls out a few open packs and says, “Yeah. We got regular, light, menthol...”

“Gimme the menthol. A couple,” says the man in rags, then places a quarter down on the counter with grime caked hands.

“Thirty cent. It’s 15 a smoke.”

The man pats his various pockets in his mountain of clothes, and the counterman, tapping his hand on the register says, “Don’t worry about it. Just get me next time.” The bundle of crusty rags walks out. As I pay for my iced tea the counterman says to me, “Those fuckin homeless freaks stink up the store if they’re in here for more than a few minutes.”

“Yeah,” I say, pay and leave.

I look to the left, then the right, and see the guy from the store up ahead. He’s stumbling, stopping every few feet to pick up butts from the ground, which he places in a metal tin. I follow behind him until he sits down on some steps in front of a building. I keep walking, trying not to slacken my pace, to let him on to the fact that I’m tailing him. With his unlit cig in his hands, he sits in a bundle, looking straight ahead of him.

“Gotta light?” he asks as I pass by.

I reach in my pockets, sure that I have a book of matches or something for the guy. “Yeah, take this,” I say and hand him a book. He grabs it, mutters “Thanks” and strikes a little ball of fire, sucks on his menthol cig. More than ever I’m convinced that I know this cat. What is it?

“Do I know you, man?” I ask.

“Miguel. A course you do,” he says. “I uze to be your boss,” he says, his alcoholic breath striking me.

“Pepe?” I stand back into the orange spill of the street lamp. Then I step closer. “Pepe? Is that you?” His eyes are slit, bloodshot.

“Who dya esspect? Oliver Twist?”

“Damn Pepe! What the hell happened to you?” I kneel down, so as not to tower over him.

“What happened to me? My world collapsed around me. Thaz what happened to me.”

I sit next to him on the outcropping. “Is this... I mean... how long have you been like this?”

“Days, months... I don count anymore.”

“So... like after Sealed ASS...”

“Miguel. That job waz everthing to me.” From his pocket he pulls out a plastic pint of vodka and takes a pull.

“But Pepe... shit. I’m shocked to see you out here like this.”

“Miguel. Could you see yousef where you are now sizz months ago?”

“No... but, this is so drastic. I hate seeing you like this. So miserable.”

“When Sternislouse made his dirty proposal, thaz when it all happened. He cut my salary firs, then he fired me. I lost my job, my life, my will to live. It just seemed like a joke... all of it. I started hitting the bottle,” he says, then takes another swig, “and my life is an alcoholic blur. I can’t see things anymore, and that’s fine by me. I don wanna see anything. None of my problems.”

“What happened to you? You used to be so optimistic! I used to laugh, almost, at your optimism. I always thought, where does that guy get all his energy from?”

Pepe just grunts and stares ahead at a group of whores walking past. Then he shakes his head.

“Remember...” I ask, “that book you left behind in the office? The Seven Steps to...”

“Sussess and Popularity.”

“Yeah. It said: step one, have a good attitude.”

“Bullshit.”

I laugh despite myself. “I could’ve told you that.”

“Some people are juz shit. You won change them or your life with happy thoughts.”

“What was that you said earlier about Sternislouse?”

“I don unnerstan...”

“You said something about a proposal.”

“Oh, that. You probly know all about that now.”

“No. He didn’t tell me anything about a proposal.”

“Sternislouse! A course he wouldn tell you! Haven you met Zilvia?”

“Sylvia? She’s beginning to say things...”

Pepe takes another pull from the bottle and says, “Sternislouse invited me and Rosa - my wife, by the way - to an extenned weekend outing at his cabin in the Sierra Nevadas. It waz all very strange... but I had so much respect for Sternislouse that I waz blind to his intenzins. A course, I noticed how he made sly glances at Rosa, how she tittered at his stupid lil jokes. I even think Zilvia was involved somehow. I jus tried to ignore it, and hoped for an early end to the weekend. This hope came true... but not in the way I expected.”

He finishes his last drag on the menthol and flips it into the street.

“We wen walking one day, and somehow Sternislouse and I got way up ahead of Rosa and Sylvia. He began saying things abou Zilvia, how they’d been married so long, how it’s only natural that ‘passion dries up’... to put it in his words. ‘Pepe?’ he sez, ‘You seem like an intellgint man.’ ‘You seem like you understand the affairs of the flesh. To cut to the chase, Zilvia and I have an understanding. We can see whomever we want’. But I still din get what he was driving at. Then he sez, ‘Pepe. Don be so stubborn... she likes you!’ I turned around and saw the two of them coming up behind us and I got nervous and said I had to piss. I took off into the woods and found a little spot to go. I jus din wanna face the reality that Sternislouse was laying on me. In front of me was a pretty bush with fleshy leaves. I don know why, but I stopped to touch it and admire its grace. Then I unzipped my pants and pissed all over it.”

“So Sternislouse, what was he proposing... you and Sylvia...”

“He waz affer Rosa the whole time. When I got back to the three of them he waz going on in one of his routines, making them laugh, making Rosa blush. I could see where this waz going and I decided to warn Rosa about it when we got back to the cabin. We walked and it waz about ten minutes later that I first began to notice it. First it waz in my hands, then my penis. An itching, an incredible itching... like nothing I ever experienced. I looked down at my hands and they were puffy and swollen, and my crotch waz a blazing inferno. I thought back to the bush, what I hadn’t known, but do know now... poison ivy. I wen inta shock and an ambulance had ta be called. I couldn piss by myself for a whole week. They humiliated me there in the hospital, took pictures of my privates, even lafft amongst themselves. It waz during this time that Sternislouse let his feelings for Rosa be known. When I got back from the hospital and started working again I could sense a change. A change in his attitude, and in Rosa’s attitude. It ate my soul alive, Miguel. It ate me alive...”

“But... I mean... were Sternislouse and Rosa having an affair?”

“I’m sure of it.”

“But you don’t know? She never told you?”

“I’m jus positive. I have a nose for that kind of stuff.”

“So this is when Sternislouse fired you.”

“He said my attitude was ‘out of line’. I told him he could go fuck himself, the best thing I’ve ever done. An he fired me. He jus came in a few days later an fired me. I went home, got in a huge fight with Rosa who denied everything an found myself wandering that night through the streets. And I haven’t been back since.”

“Pepe, man. You could be exaggerating this whole thing. Maybe Rosa was telling you the truth!”

“I don have anything, Miguel. I’m ruined. I won turn back, affer the fight with Rosa, the things I said. As you know, when Sternislouse fired me, he also took away my Sealed ASS shares. I lost everything. I’d just bought a new apartment, a new car, I was so far in debt. All gone. I just couldn’t face reality anymore. It just seemed so unfair. I shoulda paid more attention to those letters. This never woulda happen...”

“What on earth are you talking about? What letters?”

“Anonmis letters that we kept getting at the office. Warning us of the lies an the corruption. I kep one, though. I call the number.”

“You’re not making any sense man. You gotta sober up. You’re gonna kill yourself.”

“Fugg you...”

“Pepe. You gotta let me help you. What do you need? Here,” I say stuffing my hands in my pockets. I pull out a couple Jacksons. “Why don’t you get a room for the night or something? I’ll give you my phone number. You can call me if you need anything.”

He takes the bills and grunts again.

“I’m serious Pepe...”

He reeks so badly of cheap vodka and street scum I’m getting sick. He starts swaying, then plants his grimy hand on the ground and pushes himself up.

“I don’t need you fuggin handouts you punk,” and he throws the bills back at me and stumbles off, back where he came from. “Dat Sternlouse kid is helping me out.” He grumbles the rest of his sentence and disappears around the corner. I pick up the bills and walk back to my apartment. With each step I take I want to tell myself that Pepe has brought this all on himself. I want to think that, but I can’t help feeling complicit in some way.

10. SWINGMATISM

2006-08-15T06:49:00.001-07:00

Hank has been a real pleasure to work with. He’s absolutely right. He just minds his own business. He’s a little shy, which I think the impenetrably ignorant Charlene takes for arrogance, but I’m sure she’ll come around eventually. Hank doesn’t even mind that I never have anything for him to do. He just sits there all day, with only the occasional coffee break. I suspect that he isn’t even eating on his lunch breaks. I want to offer him something, like some leftovers of one of my swank hybrid meals, but I know better. Don’t pry. I’ll just leave him alone.

It’s seven thirty, a half hour before Sternislouse’s town car is supposed to pick me up. I just finished listening to Mirage’s new CD. It sounds just like all their others. That’s what I like about it: no gamble, no challenge at all to me. Music for the masses, and I’m through with my elite-thinking days. I stab the on button on the TV remote. I have over one thousand channels: all the porn I could ever want - Hungarian, Italian, Dutch, you name it. I get independent and blockbuster movie channels; I get documentary and cartoon channels; I get weird Arabic and German channels - basically I’m inundated with admittedly useless information and I have no idea what to do with it all. I spend endless hours trying to decipher the thing. The porn, I’m totally bored with. I can’t even get a hard-on anymore watching the stuff, so I usually just zap right through them. The documentaries all suck, always the same crappy WWII footage, always some catastrophe... nothing hip and new. I used to watch that stuff before, like all those weird independent movies, but I just can’t deal with it anymore. I prefer music video channels with scandalous teeny boppers tongue kissing, and that dangerous rap music straight from the Detroit ghettos. I get pumped up and shadow box to those infectious beats. “Boy you really hurt me! But you think I’ll let you off eas-y? Yeeeeeah beeeeeatch!” But, more than anything, I don’t want to think. I want to laugh. Laugh like a fucking idiot.

That’s why I love Pinky MacDonald’s show. She’s number one in the ratings, and, ironically on network television. I’m shelling out 70 bucks a month and I’m watching free TV. Whatever. Pinky is always up on the latest gossip - like today she’s going on about the latest news: Prad Bitt and Breezy Callahan are getting married. Women all across the country are both devastated and deeply envious of sexy Breezy Callahan. They’ve been weeping in public. One has even proclaimed her undying love for Prad in the nude, with her breasts pressed against the windows of the observation lounge at the New York Stock exchange. News footage of disgruntled mail carriers arriving at Prad Bitt’s PR office shows them carrying bundles, literally, of packages containing women’s panties and heart-rending, last-ditch love letters to the as yet single Prad Bitt. I chuckle to myself. That crazy Prad. To think that lucky bastard gets to mack on Breezy Callahan. Luckily, with my one thousand plus channels of satellite TV my chances of seeing him on any given night, that I can live through him vicariously, are quite high.

Now Pinky is interviewing guests who have had the fortune of meeting Prad and Breezy in the last few days. The first guy is a baker. Pinky asks him:

“So, Mr Shingle, can you tell us what it was like to meet Prad and Breezy in person? In the flesh?”

The camera cuts to Mr Shingle, an older man with a choppy bowl of gray hair and perplexed, darting eyes. He is silent, gap mouthed. The camera zooms in on his face. Pinky asks again:

“Mr Shingle, I know it was a timeless moment, difficult to put to words, but could you, please, for the sake of our audience, try to describe it? Take your time Mr Shingle.”

Some girls scream in the audience. The camera cuts back to Mr Shingle.

“I... I was just standing there. This lady came in and ordered a birthday cake for her daughter. One with Eyewanna Lopez drawn on it. I asked her what kind. She said ice cream. I asked her what kind. She said mint...”

“Mr Shingle. Please. Tell us about Prad and Breezy. Is this when they came in?”

A girl in the audience yells “Yeah!!!”. Mr Shingle continues:

“I was just getting to that part. The moment I said, `Mint? Will that be all mam?´ Prad and Breezy come walking in.”

“How did that make you feel, Mr Shingle?”

“I didn’t feel anything, Ms MacDonald. I just thought, oh, I better take care of this lady quick cause I hate it when customers cram up the shop.”

“But these were very special customers, Mr Shingle.”

“Oh yeah. I knew. My daughter has her room covered with Prad’s posters...”

A girl screams in the audience. The camera cuts, zooms in on her. Can’t be more than fourteen or fifteen. Back to Mr Shingle.

“That’s my little Cindy!”

“Please. Mr Shingle, tell me what happened next.”

“So they come to the counter, and Prad looks me straight in the eyes like and says, `do you sell sunflower-raisin-sun-dried-tomato bread with soy cheese swirls?´. Then...”

“Wait! Mr Shingle. The director says that he has a re-enactment of the scene with Prad and Breezy!”

“That’s fantastic! How’d you do that?”

The screen cuts to a shaky, hand held video camera, reminiscent of mid-nineties Dogme films. Mr Shingle is played by a man I seem to recognize from other reenactments on Pinky’s show. Prad and Breezy are both wearing sunglasses and baseball caps, so it’s difficult to tell whether or not they’re good doubles. Mr Shingle’s double goes:

“You’re in luck. A fresh batch of sunflower-raisin-sun-dried-tomato bread with soy cheese swirls just came out of the oven.”

Prad says, “Really?”

Mr Shingle responds, “Yes. Really.”

Breezy says, “That’s awesome.”

Mr Shingle says, “How many loaves do you want?”

Prad says, “One.”

Breezy says, “Two.”

Mr Shingle says, “Two coming up.”

Mr Shingle hands them to steaming loaves and the camera swish pans to Prad taking them, leaving change on the counter, leaving with Breezy. Then a swish pan to Mr Shingle. He says:

“Thank you. Have a nice day.”

We cut back to Pinky. She is smiling, shaking her head.

“Thank you so much for sharing that with us, Mr Shingle! Now, for our next guest. Mrs Hutchins here tells us she took the same flight to Paris as Prad and Breezy...”

The buzzer rings and I walk to the door.

“Yeah?”

“Mr Gomez? Your car’s here.”

“All right. I’ll be right down.”

I shut the TV off and check myself in the bathroom mirror. My special overnight skin toner seems to be working. Not a pimple. Also, I’m cutting down on coffee, trying to stick to my fruit smoothies.

I settle into the plush interior of the Town Car, enveloped by a rich leathery smell. I ask if I can roll down the window and the driver responds with a nod. I say, go ahead turn it up, in reference to his radio. He obliges, but soon I realize it’s a CD, some R&B hits I recognize from the music videos.

The traffic is backed up for three or four blocks. We’ve been inching forward for about fifteen minutes now and I tell the driver I’ll get out here. I can walk the rest of the way in a couple minutes, and besides, there’s a Starjack’s across the street, and for some reason I’m craving one of their chai chai grandisimos.

Up ahead, yellow blinking light is washing over a rainbow of cars and trucks. There’s an officer directing traffic around some paramedics loading a limp body into an ambulance. There’s a bicycle mangled and useless looking, still lying on the street, shattered plastic, and a taxi with blood whorls on its side, a couple feet further up. The police are prying the driver with questions, he is shaking his head, looking at the mauled messenger clinging to his life in the ambulance. I wonder if I know that kid. It seems like so long ago, that part of my life. The weekend warriors, bridge and tunnel kids, suits, and tourists are honking all around me. It’s tense out here, the energy that pushes us forward, past the carnage, the mishaps. I walk on by, duck into Starjack’s for my chai chai grandisimo.

I go straight through the hotel lobby, past reception to the glass encased elevator. Buzz Kowalski’s lounge is on a floor all its own, 14 flights up. I press my forehead against the glass as I shoot up, the squeaky, hushed lobby ever more minuscule until the elevator slows to a stop. Bing, the doors open, and there it is - Buzz Kowalski’s swank Starlight Lounge. A slick, brilliantined maitre’d is exchanging lascivious looks and trite small talk with a waitress. When he sees me he turns with affected casualness and asks, “Yes?”

“I’m here for the Sealed ASS party.”

“Name please.”

“Eric... I mean, Miguel Gomez.”

He scans the VIP list in front of him, raises his eyebrows. “OK Miguel, come on in.” He flashes straight white teeth and waves me in. The place is dimly lit and tonight there seems to be a kind of tropical theme. Fake palm trees and electric tiki torches adorn the place. People are walking around with Mai-tais. On a small stage to my right are three women in sequin mini-dresses and a short guy with a blond pony-tail, wearing crimson crooner regalia. Behind them the band, dressed in similar attire. They’re going through a rendition of Sugarhill Gang’s ubiquitous rap classic, with the pony-tail guy rapping. There’s a group of guys, all wearing light blue shirts tucked into beige Dockers dancing up near the lip of the stage. I walk through scattered, similarly dressed people on the dance floor and end up at the bar. The bartender comes over with her patent leather pants and tight halter top and takes my order for a Gibson. I turn around and lean against the bar, watching the people file in, expecting Sternislouse any minute. I try to imagine Charlene here with her three buddies, hunting for rich, cheesy guys. The band switches now to a rendition of ME2’s “Wild Fly”. Somehow, I find myself at the bottom of my Gibson by the time that song is over and order another one, not the least hesitant to take advantage of the open bar.

Talking to one of the lawyers at our site about a new contract we’re trying to bring in - some eccentric French porn producer who wants to invest in Sealed product. I couldn’t give a shit, but the inertia of the conversation and the necessity of being sociable keep me afloat. He keeps picking at his nose, grinding his teeth, and I half expect him to sniff the dandruff off the guy standing next to him.

“Thing is, Sternislouse said we need to rope him in, show him the statistics for the last couple years and guarantee him a profit,” he says, mandibles sliding left and right.

“That’s easy, but the tough part is when the client starts asking questions...”

“It’s easy to circumvent those. I just worked out this amazing legal contract. It swings everything in our favor. The shmuck’ll be so confounded by the thing that he won’t realize what he’s signing. Sternislouse will become the sole proprietor of his investments. And you and I’ll rake in the commissions.”

“Sounds brilliant,” I say, staring absent mindedly at some slinky ladies in front of us. Buzz’s Starlight Lounge may be tacky, but the kind of women that come here live to be looked at, spend entire days in salons getting primped, cut, dyed and dried for events like this. One can’t help but admire such singular, narrow-minded precision.

As the lawyer and I sit, trying to find common ground and a socially acceptable exit to another conversation, I see Sternislouse enter. Though I can’t make him out completely in the deceiving dimness of the club, the casual indifference in his gait is unmistakable. I see that quif of silver hair, his face with those tinted lenses, and a certain air of assuredness that only a pimp or a player can have; at his side is a stunningly cliché blonde. I’d heard comments in passing about Sylvia, his bombshell wife. They had painted a blurry picture, but one I could imagine based on the archetypes I carried with me. I’d even heard she used to be a porn actress; that she was a countess; that she lived a life separate from his; that they had a tacit understanding for the pursuit of individual gratification. But, much like Sternislouse, she was shrouded in an air of mystery; her image was on the other end of that line every time I closed a deal for Sternislouse, those waves crashing in the background.

She is upon me. Sternislouse had picked me out immediately and introduced the two of us, the lawyer and I, to Sylvia. She has a long angular face, straight whiter than white teeth and swollen, lascivious lips. She’s wearing pointed, low-heeled shoes and a loose, yet snug dress that grips her curves. The cover band kicks into a version of “Living la vida Loca” and she says to me, her boozy cigarette breath washing over me, “So you’re Miguel. Clement has told me so much about you.”

Her self-assurance and vacuous blue stare remind me of any number of Hollywood’s starlets. I’d seen them on television, in the tabloids walking the straight line of their captive lives. She was a product of that, I could be sure. I shake her hand.

“Sylvia, right? A pleasure to finally meet you.”

Sternislouse shakes my hand and falls into conversation with the lawyer. I’m down near the bottom of my Gibson and tell Silvia I’ll accompany her to the bar.

“So, how long have you been working with Clement?”

Her use of his first name disarms me. With Sternislouse, that surname, I had built a secret mythology. “Clement?” I ask dumbly, to fill the pause. “Oh, maybe half a year. I mean, in all. I started out as an assistant, under Pepe.”

“Oh, poor Pepe. Had a beautiful wife. Clement was crazy about her.”

“That’s funny. Sternislouse, I mean Clement, never mentioned anything about her.”

“No, she’s not important I guess. He just wasn’t happy with his work. But he speaks very highly of you, Miguel. You can be a rich man if you play your cards right.”

Sylvia turns and orders a Kosmopolitan and another Gibson for me. Sternislouse has joined us in the interval carrying a double whiskey.

“Miguel, I’m so glad you made it. Did Vargo treat you right?”

“Oh, you mean the driver? Yeah, he was great.”

Sternislouse mugs us with a smile reminiscent of Bob Willis’ smirk, and says, “Carpe diem.”

We raise our glasses, Sylvia and I, and make a toast. Sternislouse excuses himself, saying something about making the rounds, then “C’est la vie... c’est la vie.”

Two hours later, Sternislouse has just given a brief speech on the stage. He was amazingly curt, much to the pleasure of the rest of the Sealed ASS team. We were loose, unable to maintain rigid posturing in front of Sternislouse. I’m off, by one of the windows, looking down at the city. The band has launched into a cover of “The Girl is Mine”. Somehow, Sylvia has found me, over here by myself, and she leans against the window. Her perfume is overwhelming, though I don’t no if it’s in a good way.

“Hi, Miguel.”

“Hi.”

“What’s the matter? Getting bored?”

“No. Just needed a break from all that,” I say, thumbing behind me. “What about you?”

“Oh, you know. I’ve been to several of these with Clement. It’s the same thing every time.”

“I love this part of town from up here,” I say, pointing down to the miniature of the city, its flashing lights, little, perfect people.

She turns around and looks down at my view. “You’re different from the other guys Clement has hired. Different from Pepe, at least.”

“I’m trying... I wanted to give the impression that I’m integrated...”

“Clement has no clue when it comes to things like that. He just sees everything in terms of results. And with you he’s content.”

I’m not sure, because of the music and her hushed tone, but I think she said, ‘and he should be.’ I always get nervous when I feel a vibe coming from a woman, no matter who it is, and instinctually look for a diversion, anything to keep me form doing what is natural. Maybe I’ll suggest going back to the bar for a drink. Before I get a chance, she says:

“So, Miguel. Where are you from, originally?”

“Here. America. Why?”

“No,” she turns her head to me. “It’s just your look.”

“What?”

“I just thought that you might have family from down south, you know, South America.”

“Excuse me, I’ll be right back,” I say, walking towards the bathroom. Once inside I piss out all the booze over fresh ice, go back to the mirror next to the valet and ask for a face towel. In the well-lit bathroom, alone, I look at myself in the mirror. Another one of those weird modern mixes. Half Asian, half white, not enough for either side. Most people think I look latino, others think I look Arabic, one guy even thought I might be Brazilian. Depending on what neighborhood I’m in, or in what store, people sometimes follow me, expecting me to to bad. Asians look at me like I’m some sort of novelty - but not one of them. I guess the easiest is just to let people believe what they want to believe. You know, let them have their cookie cutter world, their pre-defined notions. You start messing with their base and their world crumbles around them like a house of cards.

I remember the time, walking through my neighborhood, when an old woman stopped me, said something in what I now recognize as Spanish, ayudame, chico, and then I took her elbow and helped her across the street. I remember the Peruvian migrant workers who came up to me while I was at a stoplight, with my bike, and asked me how to get to the embassy downtown. They asked me in Spanish and when they realized that I couldn’t respond, tried their English, got frustrated, and walked to the next promising individual. It was then that I realized the order of the world, how we class things based on name, and look. I’m a half-breed, who, for whatever bizarre reason, feels no place in either of the worlds my parents belonged to. The brotherhood, the belonging that I’ve always been envious of, is built on presumptions, not actions. Even here in America.

I walk to the bar for one last drink and Sylvia, by the window still, sees me. She leaves whoever it was that she was talking to and sashays through the throngs and approaches me at the bar. Her eyes are like unsteady beads that finally, with effort, settle onto me. What does a high class woman like her want with me? I’m hypnotized by the thought of being with her.

“Tell me something,” she says.

“What?”

“Tell me something in Spanish. I just love the way Spanish sounds.”

I search through my Spanish phrases, which aren’t many, and pull one up that seems appropriate. I’m about to say El diablo está en mis pantalones, the devil is in my pants, something Alvaro taught me back when we had more time to talk, but instead I say, “La vida es un sueño.” Something I got off some CD liner notes. After all, this is the boss’s wife. Gotta be tactful.

“Here,” she says, handing me a cocktail napkin with lipstick traces.

“What is it?”

She grabs it and turns it over, revealing a hastily written phone number.

“You’re crazy! What if Sternislouse sees?”

“Clement. It’s not his business anyway.”

I take the number and stuff it in my pocket.

“I have a separate line,” she says. “You don’t have to worry, if that’s what you’re thinking about.”

“I don’t know...” I nod towards the bar. “Do you want something else to drink?”

“No Miguel, that’s not what I want. Clement’s already called me a car. I gotta go.” She stands back, eyes, dress scintillating. “See you soon, Miguel.”

One more drink will probably put me under, yet I turn around and order it anyway.

I let a week pass before I called Sylvia. It was a moderate week at work, with no more deals than usual. I found myself, after reading the newspaper, surfing the internet, staring at the track lighting and mottled ceiling. I thought about Gina, about calling her, but let my pride call the shots. I felt the vague desire to act the wounded one, to let her be the one who broke down first. I still had the cocktail napkin with Sylvia’s number. I pulled it out of my wallet one day and set it in front of me on the desk. I thought about the implications of calling Sternislouse’s wife. I thought how wrong it would be to two-time with the boss’s wife. Then I thought, well hell, it was she who gave it to me, and what was wrong with calling her? “Wife” held too much moral weight for me, now that I’ve decided to shed all non self-serving philosophies. The napkin still had her lip paint, was crinkled and pathetic looking in front of me. I turned it over and saw her scribbles, and thought, well that is the beginning of something. If I don’t finish it, then this will be a story without conclusion, could haunt me for the rest of my days.

She didn’t sound surprised at all to hear from me. The tone in her voice suggested that she expected me to call, and her nonchalant manner assured me. We arranged to meet that very evening, after I got off work, at a bar downtown called the Blue Room. I’d never been there, but had passed by it many times, often with leering glances at the deep blue interior, lined with bottles from floor to ceiling. It seemed like the type of place she’d choose: discreet, yet fashionable.

The night in Buzz’s lounge I’d never taken a meaningful look at her, perhaps out of respect for Sternislouse. But when she came in, I was stunned. She was made-up, confident, and immediately I could see why so much fuss was made over her. She inspired respect. At first she seemed distant, and I was beginning to wonder if we’d crossed signals somehow, if the purpose of our meeting was misunderstood.

“Clement is off now with his latest paramour. He could care less about us,” she said.

Finally, she’d made it clear for me. Revenge scheme or no, she had her manicured hand on my thigh, her Cosmo to her lips, and continued:

“But I’m always careful. He’d never set foot in a place like this. Not enough class. If he did find out, you’d end up like Pepe.”

“What about Pepe? What happened to him?”

“You probably know better than I.”

“The day Stern... Clement came into the office and fired him he walked, never showed his face since.”

We were sitting in a booth in the corner, with a vantage of the whole place. Above the bar was a giant martini glass, slowly swaying from side to side. She was looking at me, with glistening eyes, and as we talked her tongue darted out of her mouth inadvertently.

“You live in The City?,” I asked her.

Her eyes rolled to the bar, and, ignoring me, she said, “Can you get me another drink? A mojito this time.”

I stood up, without thinking, and ordered the drink for her. I felt like her puppet, her plaything. When I came back she asked:

“Where do you live?”

“Near here, actually. About ten minutes walking.”

“And you’ve never been here?”

“I haven’t really gone out that much in this part of the city.”

She took a drag on her cigarette, mashed it out, then moved her head closer, her eyes half-way lidded. Then we kissed, tongues lashing, tasting like cinnamon gum, cigarettes, grapefruit.

“I’m so glad you came Miguel.”

I felt like throwing up. I wanted to ditch her then and there, give up the whole lousy farce, but I almost felt sorry for her as she clenched harder on my thigh. I saw through her thin fantasies, her designs. I barely conquered the sadist in me, deciding finally to ingratiate Sylvia.

She insists on taking a cab to my place, even though it’s only a few blocks away. She’s up against me, sitting in the middle of the back seat, her hand greedy and clumsy down below. With the first opportunity I turn and look out the window. We’re at a stoplight, and in front of us groups of kids, junkies and whores straggle across. Then we take off. I’m not sure, but I think I saw Gina through my alcoholic blur.

Sylvia pulls out a wad of cash in front of my place and hands the driver a ten for a five dollar cab ride, and tells him to keep the change. He says good night to us, then winks and nods at Sylvia. I take her waist, her blonde hair spills over my right shoulder and we walk into the dilapidated lobby. I’m praying to the god of crappy apartment buildings that my elevator is working, not so sure anymore that I’ll be able to steer Sylvia up those four flights, not so sure if I can do that myself. When I press the button I can hear the pulley groaning, the elevator coming down, and to my relief the door opens. We tumble inside and Sylvia takes me to the corner and I have to snake my hand out from our tangle of clothes and flesh to press the sixth floor button. I see the light switch and the STOP button and consider fucking her in the elevator, between floors, with the lights out. I see the scenario, neighbors pressed up against the elevator shaft, listening, the box itself swinging precariously on the rusty cables, the difficulty I’d be in for, holding her by her straddling legs, me pressing her up against the chipped and etched metal siding... The door slides open on the fourth and we tumble out, laughing like fools, staggering to my apartment. I open the door.

“Welcome to my castle...”

She walks ahead into a reasonably presentable squalor. Shoes and clothes are strewn about, coffee and water cups lying here and there... She laughs some more and takes off her coat, tosses it at a chair and misses. She walks to the window and looks out.

“This is so seedy,” she says looking across the street at the Asian massage parlor, the rundown buildings, the whores and Colombian crack dealers down below.

“I’m sorry, I should have warned you.”

“It’s so... ethnic. So... authentic.”

I walk over to my hi-fi, flip through my CDs. I pick one by Barry White and put it on low.

“You want something to drink? How bout a double whiskey?”

“Oooooh I love this place! It’s just like I always imagined. So sleazy, so charged with that undercurrent of violence. It’s so tangible.”

I pour myself and Sylvia a couple fingers of Scotch and walk to her silhouette by the window. I run my finger down her back, over her cheeks. She’s firm all over, her smell is an overwhelming mélange of beauty products, like the perfume section in a department store.

“My Baxter lives around here. I can almost see why he wants to live here.”

“I didn’t know you had a kid. I mean, you don’t look old at all.”

“Oh he’s the black sheep. He ran out on us years ago when he found out about Baxter Sr... his grandfather. Clement took everything from him,” she says, almost absent mindedly. I get the feeling she’s drunk enough not to care what family secrets she’s revealing to me. “He still calls, about once a year from different places. He’s a bum, Miguel. Clement bought out his own father and turned him into a bum. Baxter Sr is crazy, senile, and miserable... but Clement doesn’t give a damn. That’s why our son left us. Because of Clement’s callousness.”

“You seem to be OK.”

“You have no idea what I go through to preserve myself. Life... is so cruel.”

“Tell me about it,” I say, images of Gina, of Pepe, of crack whores, of junkies, then finally one long still of Sylvia’s wet, glistening mouth, opening.

We’re on the sofa now and I have her dress up, my head up between her legs. Amazingly, she’s not wearing panties. She’s smoother than any other woman I’ve been with, and her pussy has only a thin strip of hair above the clit. I lick at it and the taste is unpleasant: sour and biting, probably because of one her skin toners or something. Not like Gina or the others. Hers is strange. I try not to breathe through my nose and do an admirable job, working her clit, one then two then three fingers inside her. She’s moaning arching her back, thrusting herself up into my face. Her hands are gripping the cushions, then her dress. She pulls it up, her eyes are half-lidded, her whiskey soaked tongue darts out at me, implying fuck me Miguel, fuck me Miguel. I’m beginning to feel like an actor.

I have her dress all the way off now, and her breasts are heaving, large and tense with excitement. I explore her areola with my tongue. The archetypal Mrs Robinson, the blond bombshell, the boss’s nymphomaniac wife. She’s a stunner, and I’m afraid to call the old maxim: it’s too good to be true.

In the dim yellowish light of my living room I have my shirt off, then my pants. She sucks me off greedily, impatiently. Then she comes back up, hot for it. I cavalierly spin her around. Firm, yet gentle. A tactic I learned from Kosmo. I run my hand along her back, along something I hadn’t expected. In fact, it’s something I’d never even considered.

“What the hell is this?”

“It’s Picasso...”

“I know it’s Picasso. Just what the hell is it doing on your back?

“Just fuck me Miguel...”

I’m staring down at a miniature reproduction of Guernica, tattooed on her back. I see distorted, devilish faces, explosions of gray, black and white. I try not to think, I have her, she’s poised, and I try not to think of the carnage I have in front of me. I put one hand on my hip like I’ve seen those porno actors do...

She called a cab a couple hours later, after we’d turned over the apartment, fucked in every single room, in practically every single position. I was a worn, wet rag, collapsed on her couch. She’d sucked all my vital energy, and was probably up for more.

“Let’s meet in few days,” she called from the bathroom, where she was washing herself.

“Whenever is fine for you. But you gotta give me some rest. I’m a mere shell of a man. You’ve sucked me dry!”

“My poor Miguel. I know. I’m very demanding.”

“Clement must get a workout... being married to you.”

“Are you kidding me?” she said, reclining on the sofa next to me, slowly blowing out her cigarette fumes. “We haven’t touched each other for years now.”

“Why are you together, then?”

“Convenience, I suppose. He needs me, in a way.”

“How’s that?”

“I’m the only person who really knows him.”

“Yeah. You know, Sternislouse is kind of a mystery to us all at Sealed ASS.”

“When I first met him I had such a stupid, childish vision of that man. He was like a prince. I’d never met anyone so handsome, so cultured, so refined. I was so young then, and it seemed that everything he said was so witty and clever. People clung too him, laughed at all his silly jokes, treated him with deference. He was a god to me.”

“He is a very wealthy man. I guess, to some extent, that can be awe-inspiring.”

“Well, let me tell you,” she said, stubbing out her cigarette, looking off into a corner of my ceiling. “Clement is a human being.”

“I know. People like him... they’re placed on a pedestal.”

“Many years ago we were on vacation in Buenos Aires. We were staying in the city’s finest hotel, where all the jet set stays. I remember the day clearly - we’d gotten home late because the night before he took me tango dancing. Clement was in his element, making everybody laugh with his jokes, tipping the valets, waiters, bartenders - everybody in sight. He had everybody charmed to death. When we got back to the hotel I remember he still had a long-stemmed rose in between his teeth. Yes. It was the last night we ever made love. I remember, he took me on the balcony of our penthouse suite, above the city. Clement was a real playboy. He could control himself, move, everything just to excite me more. Later I found out that these were techniques he’d learned with his whores in Monaco, Budapest, Thailand, you name it. Clement knew how to fuck, but one thing... his mind was never there with me. He was pleasuring me to serve his own ego. I realize that now. He was just waiting until he had me conquered completely to let me go and move on, back to his whores and mistresses. So he fucked me that night on our balcony and I remember this distinctly because it was our last time together... before the moment. That happened the next morning.”

“He had me put my hands on the railing, took my hair in one hand and took me from behind. He was a beast when he fucked. I loved it. He knew just the limit between pain and pleasure. When he was coming, however, he pulled out of me and stuck his dick out between the railing and shot out over the city. From way up there. Then he just stayed there with this supremely content look on his face. “Todo mio! C’est tout moi!” he screamed.

“Did he always do stuff like that?”

“Come to think of it, yes. I just never paid attention to it before. I was too dazzled by his yachts and private planes and seaside villas. I’d never seen him as he really was - I’d never really thought about the mirrors he had above our bed, about our one-sided conversations. That is, until the next morning. We woke up late and were supposed to drive out to the countryside for some horseback riding. Clement got dressed in his Jodhpurs, I in mine, and we had our chauffeur waiting out front for us already. We were walking through the lobby, which at that time of day was in full swing. Also, I think there must have been some kind of convention or tour group, because it was filled with Japanese tourists. Inside and out. We were walking through, when Clement was reminded of something he forgot to tell the receptionist. I think it was about dinner reservations for that night. Anyway, he had me go on ahead, through the hotel’s giant rotating doors. I was out front, waiting with the valets and the Japanese tourists when I saw Clement walking towards us. He walked straight into the rotating doors and was about to meet me on the outside when the door stopped. Whatever it was, the motor, the electricity, I don’t know. It just stopped. Clement walked into the glass. He grabbed his nose and scowled, then looked at the glass and pushed on it. But the door wouldn’t budge. He was trapped inside. He banged his fists on it, then stood back and smiled at me and shrugged his shoulders. The valets tried to move the door, but the thing wouldn’t budge, and after five minutes Clement began pacing around. Then he began shouting, and all we could hear were little yelps and fists pounding on glass. Like a frightened monkey in a cage. He jumped up and down, making a frightful scene and soon everybody, both inside and outside the hotel, were laughing at him. He just looked so pathetic, throwing his tantrum... there in the stuck door. Then he just sat down and pouted like a little kid that couldn’t get his way.”

“Since that day, you couldn’t see him the same way?”

“He became a laughable figure. I don’t think he could do a thing about it either. I can see through all his dazzling wealth and culture. It’s a mere facade.”

“It’s surprising. He always seems so on top of it. So sure of himself.”

“Yeah. But when he’s a man by himself, he is nothing. He’s never had to fight for anything in his life.”

The buzzer rang.

“That must be the taxi...” she said, and gathered her coat and purse and pecked me on the cheek and promised to call me within the next couple days.

I was exhausted and as soon as the door shut I dozed off.

Sylvia and I are in my Z3. For some reason she’s driving it and that seems OK to me. She’s laughing so hard that I’m almost afraid she’s gonna lose control. The car lurches a couple times and I try to tell her to cool it, but the whole situation seems ridiculous and I start laughing as well. We’re overtaking the cars ahead of us until we’re ahead of them all. The yellow dashes zoom by underneath us. Tears of laughter are streaming down my face as I reach for the handle and try to open the door. I pull at the lever but it is stuck. The window won’t roll down either. Sylvia has her foot mashed into the floorboard and we’re on a missile now, shooting into oblivion...

9. I KICK ASS (I CAN'T STAND MYSELF)

2006-08-15T06:47:00.000-07:00

I have the Daily Times spread out before me. In between my transactions for Sternislouse, and my daily pursuit of bizarre stories on the internet, I still get a kick out of reading the Letters to the Editor. I skip through the first two - one is the age old gripes about lost traditions (read: evolution), another about the inordinate attention that the media pays to movie star scandals - until I get to one called Traffic on the Subway:

I was shocked and perplexed to read in The Daily Times that “The City’s Subway System isn’t overcrowded”. I was even more shocked when the city commissioners stated that they wouldn’t be investing any more money - and I can assure you that the subways are more than overcrowded. And I’m not just talking about the daily occurrence of breakdowns and delays.

So I invite you, Mr Mayor, Mr director of the Subway system to travel on any given day during the week between 7:30 and 9:00 AM between any of the downtown stops. None of your town cars or your taxis. This is the way to start your day with happiness, comfort, and convenience for the user!!!!

This one is signed, Perplexed. I chuckle to myself. Ever since I bought my Z3 I’ve avoided the subway. I got it all decked out with a custom Spanish leather interior and a Blaupunkt sound system. Ah, the old days on that lousy bus, in those stinking subway cars. The trials and tribulations of these concerned citizens, enraged, castrated plebiscite, seem so far away. I prop my feet up on my desk, sip on a vitamin-enhanced tropical-flavored fruit smoothie and read the next letter to the editor. It’s titled, Just a Dream:

I dreamt that my boss was a very special man. I remember his sincerity and generosity upon entering the company. He was clever and knowledgeable, and knew that we were concerned about the security of our jobs. He said he would start with a clean slate and that none of us would be discontented. He was always fair, balancing the needs of the company and the needs of the workers with a sense of justice worthy of any great statesman. He never kept his policies secret.

I dreamt that he ran his company without thinking about higher and higher profit margins, because such trifles weren’t important to him. I dreamt, finally, that I still had a job.

Signed, A Man. What a curious way to sign a Letter To The Editor. A Man. There have been a string of letters in the past few months that have had the same whining, longing tone. The same tone of a man trapped, confused, and utterly baffled by the behavior of his fellow human beings. I can’t help thinking of Pepe when I read the last lines in this letter to the editor. I wonder what he’s doing now. I look on the Sealed ASS directory to see if his number is still there. Nope. Not a trace of the guy who put more than three years of his life into this company. I punch in my password to the internet, laVita, and go to the phone directory. Under Pepe Hartmann there is nothing. Then I remember Giuseppe is his real name and after a couple tries I pull up what must be his number. It’s a cell phone prefix, for The City. I punch his number and after a couple rings someone picks up - but there is only silence and the faintest sound of breathing on the other end.

“Hello?” I ask. “Hello, Pepe?”

Nothing. I think I can hear traffic in the background, but I’m not entirely sure.

“Pepe. It’s me, Miguel. Just wanted to check in on you. You know, you left your book here, Seven Proven Steps to Popularity and Success. I could bring it to you if you want.”

Still, not a peep from the other end of the line.

“Pepe? Are you there?”

Then the silence is broken by a female voice. “Pepe isn’t here anymore.”

The line goes dead, yet I hang on for a couple more seconds, then press the hang-up button and begin dialing the number again. But, before I get to the last number I pause, my finger hovering over the keypad. No, I better put this off until later. Whoever that was, she knew about Pepe, but didn’t seem too eager to go into details. Best to wait a while and try a different approach.

I’ve been placed in a quandary. Thing is, Sternislouse has required me to start interviewing people for the assistant job. That’s the job that I had - and like me before, the next will be there to replace me if I ever become a liability (i.e. - get on Sternislouse’s nerves). Suddenly, as if the situation had woken a part of me I never knew existed, I find myself jealously plotting to retain my job, at whatever cost. It meant nothing to me before, but now, with the possibility of losing everything, all the conveniences that I’ve acquired over the past few months, I find myself in the position that Pepe was once in. I had Charlene place a classified ad in the Daily Times, and so far we’ve received ten resumes, by fax and email.

Three interviews were scheduled for today. The first was a girl named Katy Larson. Fresh out of college and it was obvious that she was just looking for any old job. At least my intuition had told me so; I’d been in a similar situation myself.

“To be perfectly honest with you... you don’t want this job. From your resume, it looks more like you’re interested in a career that’s media-related. You should go for that. Charlene out there,” I say pointing to the flapping head, “she’s been here for years. She doesn’t do anything but talk on that phone.”

“I don’t understand what you’re trying to say.”

“What I mean is that you’ll be wasting your time here. You might even catch a rabid case of logorrhea.”

“Yikes. What’s that?”

“It’s terrible, Katy. Imagine, uncontrollable brain spasms that force you to talk, incessantly.”

I think that scared her off. Luckily, for interlopers and usurpers could come in any guise, even that of an innocent young woman. Why create unnecessary competition?

The next was also a woman. Her resume was deceiving, however. It gave her a degree in Business Administration, a four year stint at a bank, and another five year stint at a publishing company. She’d also sent an earnest cover letter which I failed to read at the time. Only later after our bizarre interview did I read it:

The paths of life have afforded us so many opportunities to excel and I have found my way to Sealed ASS lead by my institution [sic] that this is the place where I will be allowed to blossom and reach my full potential like a seedling in a giant redwood forest growing to glorious heights I hope to give Sealed ASS my unbounded dedication. I am a spirit, you are my vessel, Sealed ASS.

This letter would have warned me that this woman’s resume was a total fraud. She came in wearing fuchsia-colored clam diggers and a patchwork shirt. Around her neck she wore a crystal pendant which she kept rubbing during the interview. It went something like this:

“So, how did you find out about Sealed ASS?”

...

“I asked you a question.”

“Sealed ASS came to me. All paths in life lead to yourself.”

“Have you had any administrative experience before?”

...

“Can you hear me, Mrs Burrows?” That was her name, by the way.

“I have life experience.”

“So, in this life experience, have you ever had to manage accounts and schedules... it says here that you worked at...”

“Words are just symbols and illusions. They’ve lost their magic.”

“Are you telling me that those jobs listed on your resume aren’t real? Just illusions?”

“Are you real? What if I close my eyes?” With this question she scrunched her eyes shut and shook her head. “Nope! You’re not real! I can’t see you! This is all an illusion!”

I stood up, held the door open for her. “Thank you, Mrs Burrows. I’ll call you tomorrow. Metaphysically, I mean.”

Then she got up and just kind of floated out the room, with this strange, distant look in her eyes. I crumpled her resume and cover letter and dropped them in the waste basket.

For lunch I took my Z3 to a little town next to the industrial belt where I ate in a swank Mexican restaurant. What the hell that place was doing out in the middle of nowhere I have no idea. And what the Chinese couple running it were doing there I have no idea either. Just one of those weird modern mixes. All of a sudden cultures are exploding and mixing everywhere, it seems. When the Chinese guy brought me my food he said something in Spanish with a Cuban accent. I just went along with it and said, gracias.

Back in my office I pick up the last interviewee’s resume: Hank Chinaski. This guy, I just felt sorry for. He had such a lame resume (the only places he’d ever worked in were a toy factory and a meat packing plant). I knew that here I had an honest man. No one is gonna lie about shitty work like that.

I’m juggling numbers for one of Sternislouse’s accounts when the phone rings. It’s Charlene, telling me that my three o’clock interview has arrived. I tell her just a minute and go to the door.

“Hank?” I inquire and a guy a little older than me turns around and nods his head. “Enter, please,” I say and sit down in my plush pleather recliner seat. “Shut the door behind you.” And he does so. I love it.

I pull out his resume and scan it. Then I look at him. He’s pretty shabby looking, big, with a rough face. I don’t care though. I can remember back to my first interview with Pepe, sitting here where he is now, with my five dollar suit. Maybe Pepe thought the same way about me.

“Do you know why I called you, Hank?”

He shakes his head, silent.

“I called you because, to me, you seem like an honest man.”

“I just mind my own business, that’s all.”

“It takes guts to put down what you did on your resume. Let’s see,” I say sliding my index finger down the bullet points on his resume. “Dropped out of Los Angeles City College. Worked in toy factory, meat packing plant... never for more than a couple months. It says here that you live in a pension hotel, that you haven’t been laid in five years.”

“Does it really say that? I don’t remember writing any of that.”

“That’s what it says,” I say pointing to the small rambling paragraph at the bottom. “And what about this part. It says that you have ‘shit stains’ in your underwear.”

Chinaski just nods, and I continue. I stand up and palm the desk, leaning towards him. “Do you know how much guts it takes to put that on your resume? I’ve never known anyone who would admit to that.”

“We all smell like shit. It’s just that some try to cover it up.”

“I particularly liked the addendum at the bottom of your resume: blue red blue red blue red/ the sirens outside/ that crazy bitch next door screaming/ and me, trying to write the immortal poem. That has flair. It’s not really eloquent, but it has an earthy, working-class perspective.”

“I vaguely remember writing that part.”

“So, what brings you to Sealed ASS?”

“I got fired from the toy factory.”

“What for?”

“The boss got on my nerves and I told him so.”

“Why did he get on your nerves?”

“All he ever talked about was ‘nailing’ this girl and that. Unoriginal, macho energy. Plus, he asked too many questions.”

“I see. And you came across our ad in the classified section, I’m assuming.”

“I told you. I don’t remember.”

“I need an assistant. That’s why I put the ad out.”

“OK.”

“Don’t you want to know what the job is?”

“No, not really. I just need to pay the rent.”

This man strikes a chord in me. I think this guy could be my assistant. There’s a tacit understanding here, like we can read each other completely. And I don’t sense that eagerness that could threaten my job.

“Hank,” I say, thrusting out my hand, “you got yourself a job.” He stands up, gives me his hand and manages a quick smile. Almost more of a smirk. “Any questions?”

“No.”

“Very well, Hank. You can just call me Miguel. Report back tomorrow at 9AM and we’ll have some paper work for you.”

Hank stands up, a good two inches taller than me, and nods and walks out the office. He says bye to Charlene who acknowledges him with a forced smile. I pick up the phone and call her. Through the window I see her switch lines and pick up the phone.

“Sealed ASS may I help you?”

“Charlene, it’s me, Miguel.”

“Oh hi Miguel! How you doin?”

“I’m great Charlene. Did you see that guy who just left?”

“Oh. You mean the fellow that just came in for the interview?”

“Yeah. His name’s Hank Chinaski and I want you to get some paper work ready for him. He’s going to be my personal assistant.”

I can see her jotting down some notes through the window. When she’s done she winks back at me through the glass and says, “Will do.”

“Thanks Charlene.”

Since I’ve moved into Pepe’s office our relationship has improved ten fold, at least from my perspective. In the office, with the door shut, I can block her yapping out completely. The Psychological Crusades no longer have a purpose, and watching her out there in her endless monologues is somewhat amusing to me. Looking through the window at her spastic head and the zombie twins is like looking back at the past. It only makes me savor the present.

The phone rings again, and this time it’s that weird prefix. Must be Sternislouse. I clear my throat, sit down in my recliner before answering.

“It is I, Sternislouse.”

“Hello Mr Sternislouse. How may I help you?”

“Just checking. How are things there? Did you finish that business with Mr Turkovsky?” He’s this Russian oil barren we’ve managed to snare.

“Yes Mr Sternislouse. All done.”

“Excellent, Miguel. Excellent. What are you doing this Friday night?”

“I was planning on going out with a couple coworkers. But, nothing’s set. Why?”

“I’m throwing a regional party at the Jilton downtown. In Buzz Kowalski’s Starlight Lounge. Will you be free around eight?”

“Yes. I think so.”

“Good. I’ll send a car for you. Good bye. Au revoir...”

The phone is already pulsing in hang up zone when I add my “goodbye” to the conversation. I realize that I’ve forgotten to tell him about my new employee, Hank. No matter. I’ll just drop him the info at the Starlight Lounge.

How ironic that I’m going to the Starlight Lounge. How ironic that I’m doing what Pepe should be doing. What force has brought me here? Why am I living Pepe’s version of the American dream? While I think of the great mysteries of the universe I belch. Then I scratch my short and curlies. In the solitude of my office I’m immune to social norms. It’s fucking great.

8. EASY STREET

2006-08-15T06:45:00.000-07:00

I spent the rest of the month sitting in Pepe’s office, learning just what it was that he did all day. Sternislouse never came back after the day with the helicopter, but he kept calling from some overseas number, telling me to move money in between his various accounts in Cyprus, Ghana, and Uzbekistan. I transfer money, with the click of a button, sometimes over the phone to strange prefixes and perfect, heavily accented English. Somewhere in Spain Sternislouse has a phone bank that pulls business directories off the internet and public domains and calls each name listed - selling them the Sealed shares in the form of a bank account in one of his fiscal paradises, with a minimum opener of 10,000 US. We get four or five of these a day, in our office alone. On Thursday a guy from Sweden invested fifty grand in our spurious product. I acted as the closer, then I transferred the money to one of Sternislouse’s accounts. With the commission from a few of these I’ll be able to buy a BMW Z3. The warehouse with all those boxes, it seems, is just a front for Sternislouse’s money-funneling operation. He’s literally selling empty boxes.

I’ve closed all my emotional portals. I’ve decided that thinking, contemplating, is debilitating and counter-productive. Sternislouse may have triggered this, but it’s been a long time coming. I’ve always wanted to see what life was like from this angle.

I’m starting to enjoy it. This indifference.

I got the hang of it real fast, and spent most of the time surfing the internet for bizzaro websites. I can’t believe some of the shit I’m seeing. Kids selling their virginity to the highest bidder, words for sale, gory disaster videos, balloon porn... I’d call Gina or she’d call me when we’d found something interesting. That is until our last fight; it’s been a few weeks since we talked. I’d just gotten back from CHIKEA, where I ordered a new bedroom set and a swiveling rack for my new Bang & Olufson entertainment center. I thought she’d be happy: me, finally with my shit together, finally, really self-sufficient. That night we went out to eat at a new sushi restaurant that one of my clients, an internet entrepreneur, recommended to me. It was supposed to be the new “in” spot. Gina was grumpy and capricious, almost impossible to please. She barely touched her food. Not that the portions were that big to begin with. Anyway, we left, and when we got back to my apartment the real trouble started.

“What’s this?”

She was holding up my new Muscle Master 3000.

“Oh that? It’s nothing.”

“It’s the Muscle Master, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, try it on. It’s a trip.”

“Since when do you buy shit like this? What’s happening to you?”

“What are you talking about, ‘shit like this!’?”

“Look at your place, Eric. Look at the shit you got lying around. Your place is so different. And since when do you need this thing?” she asks, dangling the Muscle Master 3000.

“I don’t know. I just figured that when I’m watching a DVD or something, I could get a work out. You know, stick it on my legs, get some definition, get a six pack maybe...”

“What’s going on with us? What happened to you?”

“Why are you so derisive? Why you pointing at me?”

“You’re the one that’s derisive. You’ve lost your sense of humor. You don’t want to think anymore. Like that sushi restaurant. It was so cold in there, decorated like some basement methamphetamine laboratory. That’s what I’m talking about... you’re a walking contradiction.”

“You’re just jealous... that’s what it is. You’re jealous because I got a career, I got a cushy job that affords me all the luxuries I could possibly want. I’d invite you along, but you reject everything out of hand.”

“The other night you laughed and blew me off when I invited you to that concert. I’m not the one ‘rejecting’ everything.”

“You mean The Disillusioned Cows?”

“Yeah. That one.”

“The ones that play gothic-salsa? HAH! You gotta be kidding me! I’ve never heard of ANYTHING more ridiculous in my life!”

“That’s just it. You’ve lost your sense of humor, Eric. You’re a fucking bore.”

She picked up her jacket, and started to leave. I felt the vaguest tinge of guilt, like some indelible part of me wanted to make up with her, to tell her that, yes, I am a sham, that I don’t believe in any of the hype Sternislouse throws at me, none of the bonuses, none of this material shit scattered around my apartment; but I wasn’t so sure myself at the moment. I think it was the night I ordered the Muscle Master 3000 when I thought about it all. I decided to “go with the flow”, as Sternislouse always says, and take every opportunity that came along to me. My twenty six years of transgression had done me no good at all, I thought. And if I’m gonna change, make something of myself, I certainly don’t need Gina around to criticize me.

As she opened my door to leave I called out, “Things change baby. That’s life.”

“Oh, how trite. Who planted those winning maxims in your head... hmmm, Sternislouse!”

With that she slammed the door. I didn’t budge, not an inch for her. Instead I lifted up the universal remote and surfed through some satellite television on my new 21 inch flatscreen.

Last night I went out with some of the guys from accounting. Actually, they were all girls and one other guy that only talked about sports. We spent the whole night snorting rails of coke and drinking vodka Red Bulls. I think we were at a club, or maybe two...

It’s the weekend now. I’m nursing a nasty cocaine hangover, listening to the latest ME2 CD. Since my promotion I’ve noticed that my taste in music has changed as well. What I once derided as smooth soul-less pretentiousness actually appeals to me now. I have a killer stereo system, and it’s amazing the sound design in this latest ME2 album. Especially the hit single, “Ebola Nights”, with the sampled African percussion, Bonorhea’s megaphoned voice, and The Precipice’s spacey guitar. Just classy, well-made stuff.

Walking down the street to the new juice bar. My newest thing is the wheatgrass-mango-echinacea-macedonia nut shake. It’s so much more invigorating than coffee. So much more nourishing. I suck it down and crumple the plastic cup and toss it at the nearest trash bin. Next to it is a homeless guy with a sign that says “United Negro Hamburger Foundation”. He’s cracking jokes at everybody passing by. In my earlier, weaker days, I probably would’ve appreciated his irony, would probably have given him a “donation”, but not now. I’m not gonna give this loser a cent. I walk by him and grumble, “Get a job.” Why, just the other night I saw a documentary on COX True Stories about a guy that made his living begging, pulling in like two to three hundred dollars a day. His whole thing was a con though, and the COX reporters uncovered him one day, lifted that ratty blanket, took his wheelchair out from under him and the sucker stood up to fight. He wasn’t crippled at all, you see. It just goes to show that all these homeless people are losers who don’t want to work, who just try to take advantage of hard-working men, like me.

I’m walking, thinking one of these days I’m gonna have to leave this freaky neighborhood, when up ahead I see the BFO guy from the Freespace Collective. He’s coming out of that same liquor-deli at the corner. I follow him from a few meters back, wait until he enters his apartment and walk back to the liquor deli to buy some time. I don’t know what’s impelling me to follow this guy. Boredom? Or maybe it’s just an innate desire to argue. I buy an iced tea and drink it on the corner before going back to the apartment. I take out the business card, and punch the number on the intercom, 4D. A voice crackles through:

“Yeah?”

“Hello, Brigade for the Oppressed?”

“Keep it down!”

The gate buzzes and I push it in, then take the four flights up to his apartment.

The building’s dilapidated, with holes worn in the carpet, dents, nicks and bullet holes in the walls, and a rotten smell, like old gym clothes. Finally, at the fourth floor. I read, B,C, then D. The doorbell is missing, and in its place are two exposed wires, sticking out from a hole. I knock on the door and hear someone padding to it.

The door opens and a furtive voice says, Come in, come in! The house is everything you’d expect after climbing those broke-down stairs. Only it smells worse, like animal shit. When we get to his living room I can see why. He’s got a little obstacle course set with two-by-fours and pipes criss-crossing the room. Scampering across it upon my arrival is a ferret.

“That’s Lilly. My girlfriend.”

“It’s nice. I didn’t know you could keep those things as pets.”

“No, I meant her,” says Brigade pointing at a lump on the couch. A mousy brown tangle of hair and two beady eyes peek out from under the blanket. She darts back into it and rolls over to her side.

“Hi Lilly,” I say half-heartedly.

Brigade is looking at me, his eyes crooked with confusion. “Do I know you? Who sent you here?”

“You did.” I show him the Brigade for the Oppressed card. “You gave me a ride home a few months ago.”

“Oh... yeah. I remember now. You’re the writer, right?”

“I guess. Yeah.”

“C’mon. Let’s go to the kitchen. Lilly’s getting her beauty sleep.”

Lilly grunts and shifts her ass on the sofa as we walk out of the room. The first thing I notice is the Twin Towers exploding with the second suicide plane. In white print below the flaming inferno is written “Just Do It”. Brigade sees me contemplating his poster, and says:

“Here, check this out,” he hands me a black T-shirt with the Twin Tower image. “I’m selling them... 15 bucks a pop.”

“I don’t get it. What’s your point?”

“The very beacons of capitalism burning to the ground and you ask me what the point is?”

On the table is a blueprint of sorts. I sit next to it while Brigade man pours me a glass of water. In the corner of the blueprint is: Sealed ASS, site plans.

“Hey,” I say, “that’s where I work. What are you doing with this?”

He rushes over, nearly spilling the water and rolls the blueprint up.

“That’s nothing. I’m just interested in the industrial belt. Always have been. I studied industrial engineering in the university. You know, just a little refresher. This is all public domain, by the way.”

He tucks the roll between some empty bottles sitting on the shelf, then comes and sits near me.

“From now on you can call me comrade Kojak, my revolutionary name. You’ll be...”

“Poderoso. Comrade Poderoso.”

“As you wish, comrade Poderoso. You’re interested in the journalist position. Well, I’m starting a free paper called the New Revolution, and I need contributors just like you. Especially ones with inside information, like yourself.”

“I’ve never written anything like that before. I’m not sure if I’m up to it.”

“It doesn’t matter. What we need is the rawness and honesty that you can bring. An unrefined voice speaking from the depths of the capitalist nightmare. Something that people can relate to.”

“I could probably do something to that effect. I could try at least. But what about the paper? You mean it hasn’t come out yet?”

“Of course it has, comrade Poderoso. Just that we don’t have a division in The City yet. But there are many willing party members who are on the verge of launching this thing. And I’m spearheading it.”

“So... where do I start? What do you want me to write about?”

“Anything at all, comrade Poderoso. But always make us visualize what you’re talking about. Then pound us with memorable slogans. Make sure your comrades remember you when the revolution begins!”

“I think the stuff that I write is a little more personal. I’m not really taking a political stance...”

“Politics... hah! That’s a farce. I know what you mean, and I have confidence in you Poderoso. So are you up for it?”

“I... think so.”

“Good, your first assignment is due next week.” Now Kojak gets up and walks across the kitchen and lifts up a white linen bag. “You need to bring one of these the next time. You can’t be visiting this building without some kind of pretext... so make like you’re doing your laundry. We are under constant surveillance.” As he says this he walks to the window and peeks out. “Also, for printing expenses, until we get our funds from the party, which are due in the next few days, we’re going to need forty dollars.”

“Forty dollars? I thought you were going to pay me!”

“Ah, Poderoso. Do you really think there is such thing as a free lunch?”

This guy is spouting out clichés like Sternislouse! It’s strange that two people so diametrically opposite could have the same approach, the same air about them. “I don’t know. This sounds sketchy.”

“You, comrade Poderoso must be selfless, must lose your family, your comfortable position in life, in order to join us. The Brigade for the Oppressed is your family now! You must be courageous!”

I stand up, look down on him and yell, “You louse. You think I’m gonna give you money, you trust-fund faker! I saw you in the Land Rover the other day.” He shrinks back into his chair and looks up at me like a battered dog. “You wanna show me courage? Go and wear that fucking shirt outside for a minute, and see what happens to you.”

I leave him shaking and mumbling to himself in the kitchen and slam his door hard on the way out. I’m not pissed, actually I’m laughing at the whole ordeal. Imagine, that little creep representing the oppressed. It makes me sick. Back on the street now, I go to a diner a couple blocks away, order some breakfast and flip through the Daily Times. Maybe I’ll see a movie today. I’m in the mood for something visceral.

7. THE GATHERING

2006-08-15T06:43:00.000-07:00

Sternislouse’s offer. I felt forced, in a way to take it. Not that my life depended on it. Sometimes you know you have one opportunity to find out about something. There might’ve been that time when you blew a girl off and regretted it ever since. Maybe you turned down a chance to see someone like Johnny Cash - then he dies. The golden portals of corporate America were open to me and the offer was too tempting to turn it down.

But that doesn’t mean I was happy about it. I felt awful for Pepe even though I’d derided his entire concept of life only months before. I spent the rest of the week in a drunken stupor; it’s a wonder I made it to work on time everyday. My nights consisted of one dive bar after the other, senseless meandering through the hood, drunken banter with god knows who, then sweet oblivion on my couch. Always the couch, never the bed. Taking off my work clothes was too much of a chore. After a couple days they were wrinkled and I probably looked like the typical skid row drunk. It was Gina who smoothed those wrinkles, got some sustenance and water into the mix.

What would I do without her? Ever since we met she’s had a calming effect. It’s Koyaniskatski without her - life out of balance. They’d been meaningless flings before her. Not that she wasn’t about sex. It’s just that with her I didn’t come out of climax and have the urge to escape. I wanted to be with her and expose my soul. So many times I’d been fired up, cocked, completely out of control until the sobering moments after sex. But I have no regrets. How can you regret your nature? Your own flesh?

Life is like that. The order is only in our heads. The grids and the symmetrical structures, the beams and the foundations - all random chaos. Like monkeys with twitchy fingers typing Shakespeare. The odds are one in millions, but it can happen. In the end, what does it all mean? What are moral principles in the face of pure passion?

So Gina found me. I was working as a janitor for the options broker, downtown. She was working at the record company, like she still does. It was pure math, is what it was. In between my building and her building is a diner called Leo’s. Right smack dab in the middle. I usually came in towards the end of the day shifts, to clean up the remains of the paper chase. This was just about the same time that she got off work. That day, at the end of her shift, she went for a coffee. I was going to work and went for a coffee. We already had one thing in common.

It was raining so hard people were bunched up close to the sides of the buildings. Rivulets made crazy patterns on the diner’s windows; the street lights came on early, the headlights and break lights blinked and flashed through the crystalline curtains draping down from the sky. I remember all that, and the smell of wet fabric and corporal steam. It was like a movie with glossy streets pointing to the horizon. Like a modern day noir flick.

I was soaking wet after run/walking the few hundred feet from the subway stop. My eternal condition had seen to it that I wasn’t prepared and my permeable clothing had sponged up every drop. I wanted something hot like coffee or soup and there was Leo’s right in front of me.

I got a coffee and sat in a booth near the front. Suits and secretaries and messengers were stuck up against the window outside, their clothing streaking the smeared glass. Wayward drops came hurtling in from up above, sometimes pat pat-ing the glass, sometimes ruining a hundred dollar hair-doo. Watches and cells flashed, and intermittently a brave modern soul would make a dash through the elements, opening a gap where I could see through to the street. In one of these gaps I saw this individual, a fifty something man in a suit, trotting through the deluge. The sidewalk splashed up with each step, and his once tailor-made suit was now skin-tight, and cheap looking. He was drenched, but for some reason he couldn’t accept this fact and held a newspaper over his head - a soaked newspaper that was dripping yesterday’s news into his brilliantined hair, down into his suit. What on earth was he trying to do? I heard a woman laugh, as if on cue, and turned to my left and there was Gina, sitting at the counter, wet and cute looking. She said, “What kind of idiot would do that?” I knew she was my kind of girl. I shrugged my shoulders and tried real hard not to say anything stupid. So I didn’t say anything at all.

Thanks to that I didn’t seem like I was ingratiating myself with her. Soon she walked out and I got up and paid. I ran like a fool to my shit-cleaning job, so I could punch that clock on time. But that very same weekend we crossed paths again, this time at a friend of a friend’s house party. So we had another thing in common: our circle of friends overlapped somewhere. We were introduced and the whole charade began. Our feelers were out, and slowly we tested each other’s waters. We both had a thing for Billy Holliday; we both hated the Patrick Nagel 80’s cocaine aesthetic; we had differing opinions on cinema and literature - and the respect of these opinions was mutual. Soon we were intimate, real, and I said, “Don’t you remember the first time we met? There in the diner, with the guy outside and the newspaper?”.

“Of course I do. Why spoil a moment with words?”

She’s just way more clever than I am. My cognitive gears cracked up and made me silent. Luckily she misconstrued it for animal intelligence and our relationship was borne on new, natural currents. And here we are now. There’s been good times and bad times, but life’s momentum has kept us tight.

She slept over last night and we’ve decided to go Larry’s Coffee shop for brunch. This is one of the myriad Chinese diners that dot my hood. There’s nothing Chinese about these dives except for the crews of people that sling hash and wipe tables. The golden era of jazz clubs and juke diners was long ago, and the original owners have long since died or moved on. But the new owners have done a good job of assimilating the greasy spoon m o.

I bought the Sunday edition of the Daily Times, and have it spread out in front of me. Gina has the supplement, and is reading about the new Botox craze in Hollywood. She shows me an insane looking picture of Mickey Rourke looking like his head got boxed by Foreman. I’m just skimming through one article after the other about corruption and betrayal. My head isn’t ready to take all this in so I skip to the classified ads and skim down:

Jobs Offered:

Telemarketers...

Waiters/waitresses...

Bilingual Assistant for local television station. Tasks include translation and production coordination. At least five year’s exp. 9$ an hour.

I wonder who had the nerve to write this thing. Some people are paid twice as much to sit on their ass and act like assholes - without getting even one language right. I skim on:

Security Guard...

Dog walker...

Hot Dog vendor...

Personality needed. Janky Communications needs outgoing individuals to dress up as company mascot, a fun-loving cell phone, and hand out flyers. Easy work, and fun! 7$ an hour.

There was a time when I would have considered this job. Desperate days indeed. Though I don’t think there is anything easy about being humiliated in front of your peers for seven lousy bucks an hour. I doubt, for example, that Sternislouse would be capable of this job. He doesn’t have the honor.

Extras...

Actors needed (m/f) for amateur erotic movies. Good cash up front. Call Dan.

The allure of starring in a porno movie. Quick easy cash I’d assume, but a friend of mine went to one of these “castings” and was filmed jerking off. He was paid fifty bucks and adios. The dude never called him, and now he probably has a collection of these “castings” for his own personal enjoyment. Dirty sleazebag taking advantage of raging hormones and starving youth. The key is to make the movie yourself, then market it and rake in the cash. I run the idea by Gina:

“The old cliché ‘sex sells’ can’t be wrong. Just look at all those late night advertisements... all the porno mags... all the personals... it’s the lynchpin in this giant machine. You can’t miss if you invest in it.”

“Here we go again...”

“I got this idea for a reverse fetish movie set in the future... but you know, like a Blade Runner type future where alot of things look the same but they’re run-down. People are essentially sexless... guided by a giant moral arbitrator that controls them through microchips they have implanted in their bodies. They live to work, and procreation only happens once in their lifetimes, in a laboratory. Sometimes the governing chip malfunctions and the citizens are sent to the insane asylum where the doctors are sex androids and for a thirty day period the inmates get ‘their brains fucked out’... until they’re ready to assimilate the microchip and go back to being Joe Citizen. Here’s where the reverse fetish thing comes in: everything will be white, including the bondage gear. Solitary confinement will be equipped with every imaginable sex device...”

“You just spent the entire night telling me how you were ready to take Sternislouse’s offer...”

“This is fast, easy cash baby!”

“Where you gonna get the cash to fund this thing?”

“That’s easy. I’ll just put an ad out and the phone’ll be off the hook with investors.”

“Why would they trust you?”

That’s a good question. I don’t even trust myself most of the time. The waitress has just laid down our orders of pancakes and waffles. The steam rises up and engulfs my face; maple syrup and butter scent the air.

“You really have to bust my balls all the time, don’t you.”

“Busting nothing. You talk one thing yesterday and all of a sudden you wanna be the next Larry Flynt.”

“I know. It’s just that the Sternislouse gig isn’t exactly what I had in mind for a career.”

“Whadaya wanna do then? Make skin flicks?”

“No. Write, I guess.”

“What are you doing about that? You spend all day philosophizing and criticizing. You’ve barely shown me anything.”

“That’s because I tore it all up and...” I can’t resist the soft delectable pancake in front of me and stab it and pinch off a heaping forkful. Chewing, I continue, “...thoo it out... da winnow.”

“What?”

I gulp down, take a sip of watery coffee, what Europeans call American coffee. “Out the window. I threw all my crappy stories out the window.”

“Alot of good that’ll do.”

“Oh c’mon! Your remonstrations don’t really do me any good. You think I don’t already know that?”

“Then why’re you telling me all this? You’re asking for my opinion.”

“The truth is I want the job. I want the cash and I don’t care one iota bout how I get it. There.”

Gina takes some sips on her coffee and looks out the window. The morning light is harsh, and the people straggling outside - hookers, bohemian kids, blue collar workers of every stripe - all these people look like they had a bitch of a night.

“If you wanna take it then go in straight. Don’t hedge. I hate hedgers, and that’s what you’re turning into.”

“I just wonder why it has to amount to this. What the hell is the point?”

“Oh please. Don’t whine now. Dork.”

I laugh despite myself. It’s like she suddenly laid it out for me. “Nothing to it but to do it.” I got that one from Sternislouse.

The place is starting to empty out and the regular morning champs are coming in for their afternoon coffees. When we finish our brunch we decide to walk it off with a little stroll around the hood.

I love lazy Sunday afternoons. The world is so docile. There’s no idiotic scramble, no stress. People hang in the park, go to movies, just enjoy life in general. Here in my part of town it’s a curious admixture of freaks and the down and out. Also, the perennial lost tourist. We all are, in a way, kinda like these lost tourists - when we aren’t self-conscious. They are wide-eyed, gawking, taking everything in. That makes them easy targets for the hustlers and the conmen. But if they go with the oldest advice in the book - pretend like you belong, like you know what you’re doing - they won’t get fucked with. Life’s like that in general. How many people really know what they’re doing? The best pretenders are the most successful. Just look at all those fools on top. We’ve come so far away from our animal souls in 60,000 years of evolution that we live almost entirely in our heads.

“What’re you thinking about?” Gina asks me as we walk past piles of electronic junk laid out by a sidewalk vendor.

“Nothing.”

“It’s like you drift off sometimes. I’d love to know where you go to.”

Up ahead is the bus stop for the park bound bus. It’s been a while since I spent the afternoon there, since I fell under the luxurious spell of soft grass and endless sky.

“Why don’t we check out the park?”

“Yeah. Why not. It’d be nice to get out of this shithole for once.”

“You calling my hood a shithole?”

“Don’t take it so personal, darling. I’m a girl.”

“There’s lots of girls here.”

“You don’t get propositioned by johns just for wearing something cute.”

“You gotta point.”

On the bus, sitting on the lateral seat in the middle. Here you can contemplate life as it flits in and out. It’s like the stage for free theater, like cinema verité in real, vibrant life. Of course, that depends on how you look at it. Most people get on and make a point of ignoring everyone around them. They got point A to point B mapped out in there heads, and anything breaking that straight line will make their lives utter chaos. I like observing, spying, the deviant path.

Not many people on the bus, but that’s understandable because it’s a Sunday, summertime, and what better thing to do then wander around in the open air? At every other stop people get on and off, and through the back door, where people can hop on without paying, is where the most colorful characters get on. After a couple lurching stops a homeless guy gets on and staggers to a seat towards the back. Luckily he’s about three seats away from us, cause from the look of him he’s seen better, more hygienic days. Up front a couple punk rocker girls with listless, been-up-all-night stares sit sullenly, swaying with each turn and stop of the bus.

“I wanna just film this. You know, document all this... the people getting on and off the bus... the stuff going by outside,” I say.

“It’s a pretty desolate view of life.”

“This is true, you know. It’s like the mascara that coats everything is dripping down. Society’s ugly face is rearing itself.”

Two older men, obviously a couple, get on and sit down near the front. They hold each other and look around nervously. Probably tourists who’ve heard one too many stories about The City - the random violence, the thievery, exaggerated tales that make more impact, therefore more news. At this same stop two kids get on by the back door donning baggy gear and a boombox. Whatever’s playing on it, it’s a loop, with no lyrical soundtrack. I’ve seen these kids before, probably on this line, freestyling, capturing in their way, the moment.

“...mashin, smashin, bus-hoppin on the 31, fuck payin tolls cause I'm the dirty 1...”

The other passengers glance briefly at the two jesters, then go back to being themselves. Ba boom boom ba...

“...avoid the back seat cause it smells like piss, and the dude sittin next to me needs to get dismissed, sportin a shit stained trenchcoat in the middle of the summer, ripped up the back so he’s smilin like a plumber, his shoes are hella big for his little ass body, $100 nikes on a homeless jon gotti...”

“... bus driver, busdrover, yo pull the fuck over, it’s time be up and get over like grover, can I get a transfer, yo I paid my fare, don’t be a bitch cause this nigga don’t care, don’t drive another block just drop us right there...”

“... the bus is my limo, driven by my driver, I tag on yer windows cause I’m a graff lifer, tomorrow I’ll be mashin on the same fuckin line, sitting in the back droppin rhymes like dimes...”

They get up at the next stop and one pulls out a fat marker and scrawls out something, I’m guessing his name, on the bus’s paneling before getting off. Their beats fade out when the door hisses shut. Up ahead, I see the green of the park and we get up, grapple the aluminum pole, each other. The bus is strangely silent and introspective now that the two kids have left.

“That’s mean what they said back there,” says Gina.

“People say mean things all the time. Just not in public.”

We get off at the park stop and walk into the lush microcosm in the middle of the concrete beast. Little encampments of homeless people can be seen on the periphery, but further in, where we’re walking to, the meadows open up and people are laid out, reading, making out, playing fetch with their dogs... I can hear drums in the distance. Circular tribal rhythms that blend in nicely with the drunken Sunday atmosphere. We walk on, towards the beats, and up ahead some hills open up, and on them, around them, are groups of kids with the anti-global tribal aesthetic - like straight out of the Mad Max post-apocalyptic guidebook to style. We walk towards the amalgam of disaffected youth, enter, and sit amongst them watching the circle of drummers pound out their souls. One guy with a sax is blowing dissonant notes, but they blend into the beats; a girl is twisting, doing some kind of trippy, post-Woodstock dance. Everyone around us is puffing on something. We fall back, our elbows planted in the soft earth, take it all in...

We wake up to a jangly guitar and a dry, whiny voice. I get up first and see an old guy with stringy, long hair, stubble beard and a biker’s vest. Looks like one of those guys that never had their rude awakening. Looking down on us, his mouth forms a gappy grin and he hop/dances to the next sleeping individual a few feet down; and the routine begins anew:

“Wooooo... those crazy days are comin... comin round the bend... hoooo yeah... yahkah-yaw yikkee-yay yikkee-yay yikkee-yah yikkee-yo!”

“Man what a trip,” I say, staring ahead. “Looks like he just got off the ‘Furthur’ bus.”

A kid with dreadlocks sitting to our left passes Gina a joint and she takes a couple quick hits and passes it to me. With the first hit I don’t really feel anything, but the next hit suddenly funnels all my attention to the immediate surroundings. The circle of drummers is still going at it, and the whole meadow, groups of people, seem to mirror the ad hoc chants and rhythms. I lean over Gina and hand the joint back to the dreadlock guy.

“Thanks,” I say.

He’s nodding to the beats, eyes chinked, and though his head is profiled, I think he just smiled. He takes the roach and pulls hard on it, then exhales a mighty, languid cloud. It dissipates into millions of tiny strands wisping in the air. Ba ba ba ba ba ba boom, ba ba ba ba ba ba boom...

Dreadlock guy hands a flyer to Gina, gets up and snakes his skinny self into the mélange. It looks like he’s doing some psychedelic variant of tai chi, but really I know he’s dancing, doing what Whitman called the body electric. I glance over at the flyer he handed to Gina: two tone, black on yellow. It reads: [freespace] Collective. Art opening and all night freak out with visuals by 3rd I. Starts at 7:30 w/ extreme yoga session, then a video presentation by the BFO. I look at Gina.

“Extreme yoga?”

“Yeah. I heard about it. Michelle is into it, I think. It’s like yoga, but hardcore. It’s supposed to be really, really hard. A total work out.”

“Where’s this at? I gotta check this out!”

I grab the flyer and scan it for the address. 45 Laissez-Faire lane.

“Isn’t that next to where Black Sausage played?”

“Yeah around there.”

“Why don’t we check it out?”

“No, I’m not really up to it. I gotta work tomorrow.”

“So do I.”

“I’m gonna chill tonight. Go check it out if you want.”

We split up after the park and I stopped in a Mexican joint and ordered a huge burrito mojado - with heaping amounts of guacamole and sour cream. My stomach is bulging out now, satiated, a full tank of gas for my motor. My sex machine. I take the 40 minute walk to the Freespace Collective to burn off the monster burrito.

After passing through neighborhoods, each one a different variant of the myriad minorities we have here, I get to one last one where the buildings are suddenly drab gray and brick. The warehouse district. After several missed turns I find Laissez-Faire Lane and walk down, past dumpsters, a couple vagabonds, until I get to number 45. It’s a black door, and I don’t hear a thing. I wonder if this is the right place as I knock on the door with the soft part of my fist. After a couple rounds of thudding the door opens and marvel in a robe opens the door. She has a Hindu ornament glued to her forehead and with her sash and her hair tied back she seems like a vestal virgin opening the doors to her secret rites.

“Is this the Freespace collective?”

“Yeah. Shhhh...” she holds up a finger. “They’re in the middle of the extreme yoga session. Are you on the guest list?”

“I only got this,” I say, holding up the flyer from dreadlock guy.

“No, that’s not it. To come in you need to make a donation of five bucks for the art opening.”

I’ve already come all the way out here, so I don’t feel like turning back - though the idea of paying for this miffs me. She smiles, spreading luscious lips, and I buckle. I pull out a wad and count off some ones, hand them over, then brush past her and enter a red-lit gallery. White walls to the left and right, around the corner, and adorning them are photos of buildings in “beautiful decrepitude”. The light washes over everything, but the red tone makes it hard to really appreciate whatever it was this photographer was trying to do. I hear a woman howling, then a horrible grating sound, then the same woman’s voice, moaning. It’s coming from behind the partitions and I walk through the small gallery, out into an opening. There’s a group of about twenty people in a cat-like crouch, and a large video screen with a topless woman sitting on a beach. It’s moving slightly, probably a loop. In front of it is what looks like the same woman, also in a cat-like position. She stretches out and the group follows her, then she takes the microphone and howls again. I cringe, but manage not to plug my ears. There are others, like me, watching the spectacle. They don’t seem to be bothered at all. The woman flips to her back and starts shimmying, pushing herself in circles. The others follow her. Then she screams and takes the microphone and mashes it in some sand she has spread out around her. The amplified cacophony is awful. Extreme hardcore shit, all right. Some of her students also scream, but most seem to be having a hard enough time just shimmying around in circles. The woman howls again and I let my eyes wander, then follow them with my feet. At a makeshift bar in the corner I ask for a beer, and the girl behind it glares at me.

“We don’t have beer. Alcohol is forbidden in here. Don’t you know that?”

“What do you have then?”

“Smart drinks. Smoothies. Water. The prices are on that menu in front of you.”

I look down at a list of drinks with names like Namasta Blasta, Kakaram, Shinto Dive... all for exorbitant prices, totally out of my range.

“I’ll take a water.”

She hands me a bottle about the size of my fist, ice cold, and I fork over $2.50. I say “thanks” and she ignores me and stares ahead at the gyrating yoga cult.

Ten minutes after I arrived tons of people started showing up. All of a sudden the whole space was filled, and there were kids sprawled out on cushions they pulled out of the woodwork; some were off in corners on sofas, like me, just hanging, waiting for the next act. I take out the flyer again and unfold it. It says: BFO video presentation. Over the PA someone clears his voice, and the murmur around me hushes. I get up and strain over the group. The speaker, he’s strangely familiar.

“Thanks for coming out. We’re the Brigade for the Oppressed, the BFO...”

That’s where I recognize him from. Those spectacles, the slapdash bohemian look. The ride back from Sealed ASS...

“I’d also like to thank you for the donations at the door. Some of those proceeds will go to our cause - a good cause. For the people!”

Some scattered applause, cheers.

“Lilly? Can you hit that first slide?”

I look up to my left and above and there’s whom I’m presuming is Lilly, at the controls. The screen behind the BFO guy switches to a computer desktop, and the cursor slides over it, clicks on an icon, and a list of newspaper headlines appears.

“These are all news items culled from nationally syndicated corporate media outlets. They were presented as news items, as real actual facts. But we, the Brigade for the Oppressed, created everything. Lilly, can you show us that first slide?”

The screen behind BFO guy switches to a close-up of what looks like a piece of fried chicken, dangling from two fingers.

“Lilly, can you show us the details?”

The slide switches again, to what looks like the same photo, but blown-up. The odd thing about the fried chicken is that the undulations of fried meat form something... like a picture.

“A few years ago some of you might remember the O’Donnell’s Christ O’Nugget scandal. One shocked customer reported finding the image of the lord on her O’Nugget... next slide Lilly.”

The slide switches again and we see two masked figures in a kitchen apparently preparing some Christ O’Nuggets. Then the slide switches again and we see the two figures holding up a completed Christ O’Nugget.

“We paid an O’Donnell’s employee twenty bucks to sneak the Christ O’Nuggets into some orders. Most customers ate the nugget without noticing the peculiar pattern... but one customer, a Ms Agnes Mills reported the Christ O’Nugget to the local TV station and the scandal erupted as planned. Things went a little awry. The Christ O’Nugget actually increased business, and the O’Donnell’s franchises around the country were packed with doddering fools trying to get closer to god. Eventually the employee who planted them fessed up and the scandal blew over... but it was never traced back to the BFO.”

“The Christ O’Nugget showed us how easy it was to manipulate the media. And by manipulating the media we were manipulating the masses. The masses, people!” He folds his arms and has a smug look, eerily reminiscent of Il Duce in one of his public rants. I hear some scattered, half-assed applause, but most of the kids around me are too busy packing bowls, bullshitting.

“All the rest of the news items on that list were conceived by us. False alarms throughout The City have been responsible for evacuating entire buildings. Reported gas leaks, even, like this last one... Lilly, can you show us the next slide?”

I see what looks like a street in the grid, downtown. On the sidewalks in front of the buildings are thousands of people.

“That was an anthrax hoax. All we did was mail an envelope with common household flour inside. The current psychosis does the rest for us. The rumors rippled through the feeble masses of corporate slaves and soon the whole building was evacuated!” he stands back again, arms crossed, but this time no one applauds. Everybody around me is smoking, sitting in concentric circles. Two girls off to my left are practicing capoeira.

“History has always been made by minorities! Just look! Amongst the masses there is a new stream - a stream of opposition. Like you here in the Freespace collective. We are anti-capitalist, outside of the system. You, enlightened ones, gathered here, it is the recognition of this fact which is already in pursuit of the American system, which is already hunting the system down... we will one day scourge the masses into action!”

“I, comrade Kojak, fellow BFO men and women, are in pursuit of the fundamental truth. We are enlightened, we know the corruption that lies in the heart of the average citizen... the average citizen that waits for hours to buy their Christ O’Nugget, the average citizen whose pathetic lives consist of nothing other than the pursuit of one material object after the other. What do they need their designer shoes for... what do they really need... a swift kick in the ass is what they need...”

Looking around me I would say this group of kids needs a kick in the ass as well. One kid with a bone through his nose hands me a joint. I take a hit off it, and pass it back. One of the girls practicing capoeira almost steps on me with her Adidas...

The BFO has lots to say. Though I don’t think anyone here is really listening. Not that there is a coherent message behind any of this. His points are driven home by colorful language and doubtful metaphors, and if anything I think he should try his hand at poetry, not political agitation. Still, he fits in here, somehow. The collective has one thing in common - a complete negation of self. By assimilating cultures and half-baked philosophies they think they are being noble. Like they are up above, looking down on the unenlightened masses. BFO continues, though his hurried tempo indicates that he senses restlessness.

“The fraud of the present money madness must be revealed! The system only begets more sheep, more people that buy into it. It is based on lies and deception, on stock market fraud and speculation, on the exploitation of migrant workers, of people like us!” Another pause, but this time he doesn’t cross his arms. A patchouli cloud drifts by me, cherries lights up. “We, the BFO, have prepared a video as a parting gift. Lilly, can you click on the movie please?”

She closes the window and pulls the movie off another menu. “BFO presents” fades up from black. Breakbeat rhythms blast in the background. We see the billboard to a gas station, with the varying prices, the camera tilts up to a familiar tri-color sign - Exton. Then, on black, “Exton, good for your car”. We see a car pulling into the station. “Exton, good for driving” We see the car driving off. Next we see a pair of masked individuals sneaking up to the same car, parked in a driveway. They pop the gas cap with a screwdriver and jam a hose into it. Next shot is a close-up of the hose following a pinkish translucent liquid that flows down into a container. Next we see the gas being poured through a funnel, into a bottle. Then we see a rag being stuffed into the bottle. Cut to what looks like footage from one of the G8 protests in Europe. Close-up of the rag being lit, then the camera zooms out and the bottle, being held by another masked figure is hurled at some police officers. The frame freezes with the flaming bottle in mid-air, just a few feet from exploding. “Exton, good for guerrilla warfare.” The video fades to black and the breakbeats fade out. This time there is some enthusiastic applause.

I check my cell phone. 11 pm. Tomorrow, bummer, I’ll have to get up early, go to Sealed ASS. I don’t know about the BFO and the yoga cult, but I gotta work for a living. I make my way through the crowd, back through the gallery of “beautiful decrepitude”, out to the street. The cool evening air kisses me, and I walk down Laissez-Faire to the orange-lit boulevard and begin the trek home.

6. HUBRIS

2006-08-15T06:40:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I think I’m going crazy. It’s the weekend again. I can’t remember how it became the weekend. I can’t remember the bad humor of Monday and Tuesday, the routine drudgery of Wednesday, the hopefulness of Thursday, and finally Friday, which always seems to breeze by. I’m here now, in bed, listening to Beethoven’s 7th, wondering just what I’ve done with myself this week. I reach over to my nightstand and grab my notebook. No, there are no new entries, and yes, it definitely is Saturday. For some reason this thought gives me gas and I let one rip under the covers. It’s spicy, giving me a clue as to what I ate the day before. Probably the Mexican joint on the corner. Disgusted with myself, I get up and fluff the sheets. Then I open the window and look down at the street. Ah... Saturday, the sweet repose of the weekend. People are maundering, gawking, generally doing nothing. In the kitchen I brew coffee and while I wait I flip through my CD collection. Outside it’s brisk, somewhat overcast, so I try find something to fit the mood. Here’s a good one: Mingus Plays Piano. Just Charlie improvising, recorded for posterity. I pour my coffee, black, and mix in two heaping spoonfuls of sugar.

I don’t feel like bothering with the newspaper today so I pass up the newsstand and continue walking. Gina’s out of town at her parents, and it’s been so long since I’ve seen anyone - since I’ve been at Sealed ASS, all my free time has been spent with her. I feel like a ship without a port. What can I do, who can I see? Suddenly I’m depressed, dwelling on my own sense of uselessness. I go to the old cafe and drink another coffee, eat a bagel, hoping to run into some neighborhood freaks; but no one stops by. I take the cafe’s paper and flip through to the movie section. There’s a new serial killer movie out, a documentary about out of control firearms, and an intentionally politically incorrect satire about Modern American Life. Just reading the synopsis for each of these makes me depressed. No, no multiplexes for me today. I don’t need to see cynical renditions of the life I supposedly lead, gore, or critically acclaimed pedantry. Disheartened, I lean back in my chair and watch the folks drift by. What if I tail one of them, like in a noir movie? I see a spanking new Land Rover pull up in front of the cafe. I fix on it, because something about the bespectacled kid in it reminds me of somebody. I watch as the kid exchanges a couple words with a woman, then I see what looks like money exchanged. The kid gets out and looks around furtively, untucks his shirt, stuffs his hands in his pockets and starts walking. It hits me that this is the guy with the yellow Pinto, from a couple months back. I leave some change on the table and follow him up the street. From my wallet I pull out his business card: Brigade for the Oppressed. Yeah, this is the guy. But what was he doing taking handouts from a lady that looked like his mom? Maybe it was his mom. Dunno. I follow him up Ford street, to the corner, then down Hughes street. He stops in front of a trash bin and takes off his jacket and tosses it. He walks on with his button up blouse loosely hanging from his lank frame. I stop at the trash bin and pick up his jacket. It is monogrammed with the initials BS jr. After a few quick strides I catch up with him, all the while feeling the jacket for objects. From the right waist pocket I pull out a squishy, half-eaten sandwich. I toss it at the nearest garbage bin and walk on. In the other pocket is a wad of tissue. What a slob. I leave the jacket draped over a trash bin for a homeless person. Better, I figure, than just throwing it away. I follow BS junior to a convenience store and loiter around outside until he comes out with two large bags over-flowing with soda and junk food. He trudges around the corner, uphill. He finally stops in front of an apartment building and enters. I look at the address on the Brigade for the Oppressed business card, and, sure enough, it’s the same. The place looks like a dump, and I ponder it, perplexed. Something isn’t adding up here. After a few minutes I walk back down to my neighborhood and grab a bite to eat at a Vietnamese sandwich shop.

Pepe is in his office with Jack and Zack, waving a piece of Scotch tape in front of them. He’s shaking his head now, then slams his fist on the desk and slumps into his chair and shoos them off, like two pesky flies. He buries his head in his hands and combs through his hair with his fingers. As the zombies exit I walk hurriedly to my desk and sit down. Charlene is a little ball of fury, with her hands on her hips:

“Jack, Zack... that’ll teach you to fool around with my phone!”

The zombies sit behind their computers, traps shut.

“Miguel,” she says, looking at me, “gimme some support here!”

I clear my throat. “Charlene’s right. Your behavior is downright despicable. In fact, maddeningly passive-aggressive and ineffectual. Instead of direct and honest confrontation with the issues that irk you, you abscond, snigger, and make pathetic retributive attempts to sublimate what is really an inner dissatisfaction, an inner yearning to actually be that which you so manifestly try to abhor.”

Charlene is gawking at me, wide-eyed, infinitely dull. The truth is, I do long for blissful ignorance. Charlene, with her screwed-up, smug sense of righteousness; her self-confidence; her damn Russell Clooney, bounty-hunter fantasies; her gum-smacking trap; there is a logic there. A brutal, constant logic. She’s a survivor. I’m a goddamn misfit. My nose buried in books that only deepen my discontent and self-loathing, while her animal inertia pushes her on through corporate America.

“Thank you, Miguel. I don’t understand a thing you said, but thank you.”

Charlene picks up the phone and dials. “Yeah, it’s crazy... NO... OH... MY... GOD... you’re kidding...”

I try to concentrate on the Daily Time’s crossword when Pepe walks out of the office, pallid, disheveled. After a few minutes he shuffles back through to his office, coffee in hand. I get up and go to his door and knock.

“Is everything all right, Mr Pepe?” It’s only now that I notice some weird splotches on his exposed arms. Like the remnants of some kind of skin rash.

“Yes, Miguel just fine.” His face is puffed and sick-looking. He stabs at random keys on his computer. “I have some work to do. Why don’t you come back later?” He manages a weak, tight-lipped grin that says LEAVE ME THE FUCK ALONE.

Back at my desk, I try with all my might to tolerate the boredom and Charlene’s endless yapping. But, no go. I simply can’t take this, even for my fifteen-hunny a month. Was I born into the world for this? Convenience at what price? Madness. I pick up my cell and walk out like I’m taking a coffee break. I walk through the hallways, down to the receptionist, back outside, where I have coverage. I dial Sealed ASS’s number, then Charlene’s extension:

“Hello! This is Big City Telephone! May I ask with whom we’re speaking?”

“Uhhh... yeah? This is Charlene?”

“Charlene? What is your last name?”

“Johnson. Charlene Johnson.”

“Wonderful! Charlene Johnson, did you know that you’ve been selected, through random, totally up-to-date computer automation, for a chance to win our first ever BCT Celebrity date day?”

“Who.. me?”

“Yes you! Charlene Johnson! How would you like to win a date with the one and only Russell Clooney?”

“No... really? Deek! Are you pulling my leg?”

“This is not a joke, Charlene Johnson. You actually have a chance to win a date with Hollywood’s most famous gladiator!”

“I can’t believe it! What do I have to do?”

“Well, Miss Charlene Johnson, as you may or may not know, we are cleaning the phone lines today. After studying the use-frequency of our phone lines, we discovered that you have one of the most outstanding use to non-use rates at BCT. This means we need to clean your cables in order to optimize your phone conversations. So between now and 6pm, you cannot, under any circumstance use this line. If you do, the dust being blown out of the cables may come out your end of the phone line, causing permanent hearing loss.”

“Oh... I don’t want that to happen. That’s terrible!”

“But it’s only a small price to pay for BCT’s excellent premium phone service! And, not to mention a possible DREAM DATE WITH RUSSELL CLOONEY!”

“And... so I’m not supposed to use the phone between now and 6pm, that’s it?”

“That’s right Charlene! And... if you can do this, you’ll be eligible for that dream date with Russell Clooney!”

“WOOOOOOOOOOOOOW!”

“Now Charlene Johnson, it is very important that you don’t mention this to anybody.”

“Why?”

“Because, Charlene Johnson, you have been chosen in a lottery from amongst hundreds of potential dream-date winners. If others find out, obviously, it will decrease your chances of winning.”

“OK... OK... but can I tell my girlfriends... I mean... when I get home?”

“OF COURSE! Now, thank you Charlene Johnson, and have a nice day! Good-bye and good-luck!”

I snap my cell shut and take a deep breath. After my ingenious BCT impersonation I need to collect myself, walk back into that office and pretend that I have no hand this latest episode of the Psychological Crusades.

Back in the office I prop my feet on the formica desk and try to tackle the crossword. The phone rings and Charlene just looks at it and bites her nails. She doesn’t answer it, however, and the office is once again silent. I guess, in a way, I’m a cruel bastard, but just think of the peace that I’ve finally brought to this dump!

9 down, six spaces, first letter H. Clue: Brought Icarus down. I’m thinking of this, imagining the mythic man escaping the labyrinth in Thebes, flying up, up, then plummeting to the ground in a mass of wax and feathers. What is it, heat? I go through all the H’s that I can think of, but nothing fits or is appropriate. My eyelids sink down and I’m thinking about the letter H, then Michelle from the other night, wondering what she would look like naked, then I’m suddenly in the ocean, floating, arms outstretched, giant blue saucer above me...

My head is on one of those daydream waves and I come to, spittle forming at the corner of my mouth. Everything is pretty much the same, except for Charlene who isn’t yapping on the telephone. She’s typing something on her computer, every few minutes pausing to look at her phone when it rings, then biting her nails. I can see Pepe in his office with his head buried between his arms. I wonder what’s with him. He’s normally the one that tries to cheer me up. Hmmm... I click on the Solitaire window and start up a game.

I’ve almost got my four aces when the door to the office opens and a man wearing a suit and tinted glasses steps in. On his head is a fashionable sweep of silver hair. He stops in the middle, in front of Charlene’s desk. She just looks up at him in silent awe. The man looks at Jack and Zack, then me. He announces, matter of factly:

“It is I, Sternislouse.”

He spins on his heel and walks straight to Pepe’s office and closes the door behind him. Charlene and I look at one another, and she shrugs her shoulders.

“You mean, that’s thee Sternislouse?” I ask, in a low voice.

“Dunno. I’ve never seen him,” she whispers back.

We look at Pepe’s office and the man with tinted glasses is standing above him, lecturing. Pepe is shaking his head, trying to reply, but the man keeps thrusting out his palm and stopping him midway. Then the man gestures with his right thumb, pointing back into our office. It seems like he’s pointing at me. I look at Charlene and she’s as perplexed as I am. I look back at the office and Pepe is nodding, then, for a brief instant we make eye contact. He looks back at the man sheepishly and nods his head. Then he stands up and turns around and snatches the photos off his shelves, then some books and rushes out of the office. He’s about to leave, when he stops.

“Everybody, it was a pleasure to work with you.” His eyes are glassy, puffy. “Charlene, you were a great deal of help to me. Jack and Zack, you were reliable, punctual fellows. And Miguel, you’re a paragon of Sealed ASS conduct. You deserve everything that comes to you. Good-bye.”

He rushes out the door and there is only silence and the humming computer fans as we try to comprehend what has just happened. The man walks out of Pepe’s office and Charlene blurts out:

“Mr Sternislouse, you can’t do that! Pepe was a great boss!”

“Not now missy.” He looks at me and pushes his index on the bridge of his glasses. “Miguel Gomez?”

“Yes. That’s me.”

“Step into the office with me.”

I enter the office behind Sternislouse and he sits back in Pepe’s chair.

“Shut the door please, Miguel.”

I shut it and take my seat opposite him. There’s this weird sulphuric smell. Like gas and cologne.

“It’s a damn shame,” he begins, “but it had to be done. Pepe’s a fine man, but frankly Miguel, he’s incompetent. He’s great at a social level, which has been beneficial in relations with clients and prospectives, but his administrative skills are questionable.”

“I thought he was a decent boss.”

“Ah yes. I’m sure you did, Miguel. But I, Sternislouse, have to relegate the positions of power in Sealed ASS, and frankly Pepe has become somewhat of a liability.”

“But he had good rapport with us here in the office... I thought...”

“Miguel, Miguel, Miguel. The truth is,” he leans towards me now, “the guy got on my nerves. That’s it.” He leans back in his chair and weaves his fingers together behind his head. “Miguel, you’re young, but you should know that in business, it’s not who you know, but who you blow. Who wants a sour apple?”

Is it just me, or does the man have an uncanny ability to spout out clichés?

“I think I know what you mean. Still, I don’t understand...”

“Come with me Miguel, let me show you something. Maybe this’ll clear things up for you.”

He gets up and I’m following him out the back office when he stops and announces:

“Ladies and gentlemen, fellow coworkers, you will now be answering to Miguel for all your work-related inquiries. Collect your jacket, Miguel, we’re going for a ride.”

The force of the wind blowing from the helicopter is tremendous and I find myself holding my head like in one of those Vietnam war movies, only I don’t have a helmet, or for that matter a hat. The buh buh buh buh of the whirring blades is the only thing in my mind as I follow Sternislouse to the cockpit door. His pilot gives us a nod as we step in. I sit next to Sternislouse and he straps himself to the seat and motions for me to follow suit. After Sternislouse’s thumbs-up the pilot nods again and he pulls back on the lever and I feel a slight tug of inertia as we lift off, over the Sealed ASS warehouse, now over the rest of the industrial belt and soon the cars and the highway below look like a model train set. The cars which normally race past me move like ants to their destinations, and suddenly I have a true sense of relativity. Up here, everything looks minuscule. Sternislouse points ahead, and there, out of the earth sprout the first skyscrapers on the city’s horizon.

“Your first time in a helicopter, Miguel?” he shouts, just inches from my ear, straining over the hum of the motor.

“Yeah,” I yell, slack-jawed at the neon wonder looming ahead.

Sternislouse grins and sits back in his seat and now we’re over the off ramps leading into the city. We’re whirring ahead at a good clip and the nose of the helicopter is tilted down slightly. The concrete and glass walls shoot down below me, merging into a multicolored river of cars. I look to the side, through the half-bubble at the buildings as they blur by me. I can even see the occasional person for brief instances. I’ve never contemplated this view, on the level with these high rise offices, looking in. I’ve always looked up at these bastions of corporate might, never thought of the cogs that make up the machine. The pilot pulls back gently on the toggle and we rise up, above the tallest of the skyscrapers and I half expect to see a rock band with blowing mullets playing on one of the rooftops. We’re hovering over one of these rooftops, over a giant letter H and I’m reminded briefly of the crossword I was trying to figure out earlier. I think of poor dejected Pepe and then I think of myself and Sternislouse way up here, and it comes to me: hubris. The six letter word missing from the scheme. I’m a goddamn bastard for taking that job from Pepe and I’m a coward because I’m afraid to turn it down. The helicopter lands and Sternislouse slides open the cockpit door and holds it and lets me out first. I hop off and run, covering my head again, squinting my eyes under the flattening gale, and run to the door by the stairwell. Sternislouse is right behind me and we stop and watch the helicopter lift off slowly, like a giant insect into the city’s skyline.

On the top floor of the building is a cocktail lounge - humming with businessmen and businesswomen, stride piano wafting through the refined atmosphere like celestial music. We’re at the bar now and Sternislouse has just bought me a 15 dollar Gibson.

“Come along, Miguel. Check out this marvelous view.”

We walk to the window where we can see the red cusp of dusk outlining the neon rims of the city. It’s a clear day, with only the picturesque cloud or two highlighting the horizon. I lean in closer and try to peer down. I can’t manage the full vertical drop, yet images of the terrorist attacks come to me, of people just like Sternislouse and the folk around us leaping from heights just like this; on days just like this.

“Incredible, isn’t it Miguel.” He leans back on the railing between us and the window and sighs. “I brought Pepe here too, a few years ago.”

“Mr Sternislouse. I just want you to know that I appreciate all you’ve done for me - I mean the helicopter, this place - but I just can’t take Pepe’s job. I just don’t feel right about it.”

“It’s a done deal, Miguel. Stick to you guns, it all comes out in the wash.”

“What?”

“Patience is a virtue.”

“Maybe I’m just a softie. I never wanted anything more than the job I had. Certainly not Pepe’s job.”

“He spoke highly of you, Miguel. You should know that our site near The City was my first. The rest of the world came later. But, The City’s site is something really special. That’s why I want you there. You’re tried and proven and I think I can trust you. Face the music, Miguel... you’re already in there. You’d be a fool not to take advantage of the situation. Six digits a year plus 50 in Sealed ASS stock options... and commission on every closer. Opportunities like that don’t come knocking on your door too often.”

“Yeah, I guess you’re right.”

“Tell you what Miguel... just give it...”

His phone rings:

“Yehhhllo.”

...

“Hola, mi amor...”

...

“Si... por supuesto... donde siempre. Un beso.”

Back to me:

“I have to run, Miguel.”

I look at my barely touched Gibson.

“You take your time. Drink whatever you want. You’re on my tab here.”

Sternislouse exchanges a few words with the bartender then waves back to me and walks off. I take another sip, think about calling Gina, but decide better. I shut my cell off, take the elevator down 96 flights to the lobby and walk out into a bustling financial district. I’m too discombobulated by the day’s events, too overwhelmed to know whether or not I’m depressed or elated by the turn of events. It all smacks at underhanded aggrandizement, of trophies on mud pedestals.

Man, do I need a drink. I walk through the unfamiliar grid, look for any decent looking bar. I see an Irish pub and enter, sit and order a whiskey on the rocks. Then another, with a beer back. I’m in mid sip when a suit taps me on the shoulder and makes like he’s lighting his cigar. I slide him a pack of matches in front of me.

“You don’t mind do you?”

“No, it’s alright.”

He pulls up a stool next to me and orders a greyhound. I thought he meant the cigar smoke, not join me; but I’m not gonna say anything now.

“I don’t think you can smoke in here.”

“Cigarettes, kid. I got myself an arrangement with em anyway.”

“Whatever you say.”

“Thanks for the company, son. I just need to unwind. Been a long day. Phewwwww.” He tipples his greyhound and swishes an ice cube around his mouth before continuing. “You want my advice son, stay outta politics. Not unless you’re prepared to sell your soul.”

This guy pulling my leg or what?

“Look, man. I’m not in the mood for it.”

“Just hang with me for a minute. I appreciate it, really. I just need to unwind, like I said before.”

“Unwind, then.”

I pull on my beer and check the clock on the wall. Gina should be off work soon. Might as well listen to the guy. Random bar freak.

“You know what a kiwi is son?”

I turn and look at him. You fucking kidding me? A kiwi?

“You know, that funny looking fruit that’s green on the inside and all furry on the outside?”

“Yeah. I know that.”

“Well I bet you didn’t know this: did you know that it was originally called a Chinese Gooseberry? I mean, it’s no wonder they changed the name... who the hell would buy Chinese Gooseberries... sounds like some disgusting venereal disease if you ask me... they changed the name to kiwi and all of a sudden people started buying them. There’s a lesson there son. Now if you’re clever enough, instead of incubating that there barstool for the rest of your life you’ll get with it like yours truly. I mean, you gotta learn from things. Like me. Fred Dingler is my given name, but I changed it to Dawson. I mean, who the hell would vote for a guy named Fair Fred Dingler? Lord have mercy on my poor father’s soul... old man Dingler knows I love him up there in God’s hands.”

...

“Now, you’re probably wondering about the `fair´part. I mean, it has a nice ring to it, a good political moniker... but it’s origins are much stranger than you think...”

“Hey man, while you’re ‘unwinding’, do you think you could get me a beer?”

He orders a draft and another greyhound and continues:

“Let’s see. I have to start way back to when I was in my early twenties, just a listless slacker, a no ambition having bum. This is way back when I was just plain ol Fred Dingler, scraping by, hand to mouth, accepting any kinda employment, and never lasting for more than three months in any one job. I was on the subway, on the way to a janitorial job downtown, when I passed out in the crowded car. I must’ve been drinking the night before, can’t really remember what, but anyway that part doesn’t matter. The point is that I slept past my stop, and when I woke up I realized that I had to walk about five blocks back down just to get to work. Had it not been for this crazy fluke on that bright Monday morning I wouldn’t even be here now, talking to you like this...”

I gotta admit this freak is starting to interest me. I think he can sense the change in my attitude and his tone gets lower, more intimate. I take a pull off my beer and he puffs green cigar smoke.

“So I was walking along when I passed a strip joint and I noticed a small ‘Help Wanted’ sign posted on the door. It said to come back round 6 when the club opened and speak to one Carlos bout the ‘maintenance’ position. Now, I probably would have completely forgotten about the sign had the events later on that day not lured me back. I walked on, forgetting bout the strip joint job. So I was at my lousy janitor job in a huge advertising agency... just me and a little Filipina harpy named Letty cleaning up that horrible place... Letty had it in for me since day one... and I suspect for purely nepotistic reasons, somehow manipulated the director of the agency into firing me. She had a huge family, and had been trying to get one of her cousins hired on as a third janitor for some time already, so that much was clear... I didn’t trust that sly little bitch, I mean I got instincts. So what happened was that that day after I finished doing my rounds I walked into an empty office and decided to take a little rest. I must have fallen asleep because the next thing I know Mr Davis, I think that’s his name, comes busting in and says three very familiar words: ‘YOU ARE FIRED!’. He gave me my final check and said he didn’t wanna see me again. When I walked out I could have sworn that I heard that crazy little witch cackling. Well, I hope she’s satisfied, because little did she know it, she had just done me the biggest favor of my life. No more fucking toilets for Fred Dingler.”

“I know exactly how you feel, man.”

“That’s good! I had a feeling about you son. Anyway: when I walked out of the building I couldn’t think of anything to do, anyone to turn to, when I remembered the strip joint. I looked at my watch and realized that I had enough time to get to a 6 o’clock appointment with Carlos. So I walked back up to the strip joint and walked into a dark passageway, past an empty cashier’s counter, into a suspicious smelling room. The lights were dim and some sorry sucker was cleaning up the place with a mop and some bleach diluted in water... and I thought to myself, oh no, not another fucking janitor job, no way, and I asked the guy if I could speak to Carlos about the maintenance position... he pointed to some stairs and I walked up and saw light coming from a small office in the back. I knocked on the door even though it was already open and a young, slick-looking half Chinese Mexican guy turned round and greeted me with a too-eager grin... I tell you I immediately didn’t like the guy, but it was always that way for me with my bosses so I didn’t think twice bout it... I remember the pictures on his wall... pictures of him with girls in exotic looking places... there was a giant inflatable penis hanging from the ceiling... but anyway, Carlos ran the spiel to me like it was old hat and told me about the maintenance position... it was evident that he’d told it a thousand times before. It turned out to be pretty basic stuff, besides some minor check-ups now and then through the club, and some work with the bar, unloading trucks and that sort of thing, the key part of the job was pole cleaning. Now, you can imagine what that is, the pole cleaning bit... you know the pole that the girls use in strip clubs for their shows... well that was the part of the job that Carlos was most interested in... it consisted of going out on stage every third act or so and polishing the sucker... that is climbing to the top and wiping it all the down. I mean, it’s normal, just think about it, when all those girls get worked up dancing, with their sweat and their juices an all, you gotta clean the sucker... I figured what the hell... I’d done worse jobs than pole cleaning in my life, and really, I had no other choice at the moment.”

“I started that night and boy it was harder work than I expected... I was always on my toes, running round... and when it came time for me to clean the pole I had to drag a ladder out to the center of the stage and begin wiping... I tell you I had never been assaulted by so many ridicules in my life... it seemed like the whole audience was heckling me as I wiped that sucker down and I couldn’t wait to get back stage... I was known as Pole Cleaner Fred, but the girls mostly just called me PC Fred and this went on for a few weeks.”

“C’mon... pole cleaning?”

“Think about it son. Somebody’s gotta do it. Now, getting back to the story: Carlos was real pleased with me because I seemed to take the constant humiliation better than any of his previous employees... he started giving me perks like free drinks and before long I started meeting some of the girls too... none of them were too interested, that much was obvious, them having boyfriends like DJs and rock stars and lawyers and me being just a lousy pole cleaner... I mean it just makes sense why they wouldn’t want nothing to do with me. Well, one day I was staying late after the joint closed down and was having a few drinks when one of the ‘B’ strippers, a girl named Eden, came and started chatting with me... we both drank Long Islands, and before long we were both laughing and spilling intimate secrets... that’s how she got to asking me why I didn’t have a girl and I told her it was on account of me being shy... and logically she asked me why and I told her it was on account of my penis and she said, “Oh don’t worry! Lots of guys have teensy weenies!”... that’s what she said! Teensy weenies! I of course told her it was NOT because I had a small penis, because, in fact I have a rather large one, but it was because of the strange shape of it that I was so shy... strange in that it is curved, real curved, if you can picture a boomerang then you get the idea. Anyway, I told her in fact that I had never even gotten past first base with a girl because of my extreme shame. Now Eden, who had had quite a few drinks, was intrigued and I can still remember that lusty look in her eyes as she led me to the dressing room under the pretext of showing me her photo album. She wasted no time in getting to work... she had barely pulled down my underwear when out it sprang, my monstrous, skewed penis... I mean imagine... twenty something years of neglect... and suddenly like this, and drunk and without shame. She gasped, I could tell she was delighted and soon we were screwing on her make-up counter... she was screaming at one point and I thought I was hurting her in some way but it wasn’t that. Now son, when you get to be older and wiser like yours truly you’ll begin to understand intricate things like the female anatomy... it just so happens that inside the front of the vagina is a zone called the G spot which by the grace of god my penis can easily reach, on account of it having that crazy curve... every thrust I made brought her boundless ecstasy... and by the time we finished, she was trembling and crying in my arms, telling me that she’d NEVER been fucked like that and that my boomerang shaped penis was a gift from the gods... now I took this as a compliment coming from a girl who had probably fucked more men than all the toilets I’d ever cleaned in my life... it was one of those moments when you know that nothing is ever gonna be the same again... I just felt it. On the way home that night I began thinking bout old man Dingler, wondering if his thing was also curved, wondering if the Dingler family surname actually had something to do with our large curved penises... if Dingler was actually a derivative of Dangler... if I had somehow inherited a grand sexual legacy.”

“Grand sex legacy and a long ass story. Think you can swing me another?” I ask, pointing to my empty pint glass. I’m hoping there’s a payoff to this one.

He says “sure thing” and orders another beer and greyhound. “But it doesn’t end there... that Eden was a nasty little bitch and she couldn’t get enough of my thing after that... and word got around fast and soon all the girls found out about my special gift and I found myself paying special visits to the dressing room two or three times a night... the action was endless and the girls worshiped my warped phallus like it was the monolith in 2001... some strange beacon from the gods that spoke to them in a secret, forbidden language. I have to admit that despite everything being so easy I was enthralled... after such a long time with nothing, then BAM like this and with professional sex workers to boot. One night Carlos approached me... thing is, he kinda had an inside line to everything that was going on in the club and somehow he found out about my relations, and more importantly, about my incredible member... he took me back up to his office and called Eden to come and join us... she got to work without the slightest qualm and I can still remember Carlos’ murmur of disbelief... ‘Dios mio. Santa Maria. Eeeeez the most amazing thing I ever seen!’, he kept saying, and later that night he took me for a ride in his chauffer-driven Mercedes 500SL to one of his special after hours clubs. Now, I was expecting some sleazy lounge type thing, with shifty looks, and cocaine rails laid out on mirrored bars... well, to tell you the truth it was kinda like that, but more than that there was a rotating stage mounted in the center of the room with couples and trios and quadruples and you name it doing the sex act... when I got in a well-endowed midget was screwing his full-sized nymphet girlfriend to the heavens... and there I was with Carlos and a bunch of other guys that looked bizarrely similar to him and a bunch of very attractive and horny women... I mean high class bitches that wouldn’t look twice at you even if your ass was spitting out blue fireballs... yes indeed and there I was in the middle of it... just two months ago a lowly shit cleaner and here I was in a Roman sex den and my ticket was my throbbing, bent member. Carlos introduced me to a beautiful tall black goddess with perfect skin and rippling, lithe muscles... said she was called the One Hitter Quitter on account of her powerful build and ability to knock a man out with a single punch... he had me join the Quitter on stage where she undressed me and unsheathed my fearsome weapon... she was obviously impressed... that much was clear... I could tell she had never seen a thing like mine and soon she was on all fours and we were doing it on stage in front of a wide-eyed, totally silent audience. Now, normally I probably would have been ashamed of myself... I mean, just plain old PC Fred with this beautiful Nubian princess, but I tell you, man I could feel the electricity in the air... man it made my skin go goosy... all those eyes, that hush... that’s right son... a star was born.”

The bartender has been near us for some time now, with an indelible smirk as he wipes down the crystal. “Same ol story, huh Fred.”

“Give the kid a shot of anything he likes. I’ll take another greyhound.”

“Whiskey. On the rocks.”

“Let’s see, where was I? Oh yeah... so soon I was out of Carlos’ joint and he became my Colonel Parker and we began the underground sex circuit in America... I was known as PC Fred... and people came from thousands of miles away to see me and my special gift. I mean there were ambassadors and their wives... senators... mayors... you name it. I was making a name for myself in the world. I was wanted in the District Federal, I was wanted in Bogotá, I was wanted for Carnival in Rio... me and Carlos even did the circuit in Thailand and some other parts of southeast Asia... I even did a private show for a big mafioso in a gulag in Russia... we went through eastern Europe, stopping off in Budapest where I performed in a count’s castle in front of aristocracy and some people I probably shouldn’t even name... we went to Amsterdam where I did live sex shows for a month’s stretch where I drew record amounts of spectators... I came on right after the banana lady and I dressed up as an astronaut... a very special one of course... that seduced all kinds of extraterrestrial nymphomaniacs... I even did live sex shows in Barcelona and Madrid for another stretch where I did this act I called La Salchicha Encantadora...”

“I was a wealthy man after all this, and Carlos was even wealthier, that slick mother... and lemme tell you, I made some of the craziest connections while I was working the scene... political connections and old money connections... and soon I was savvy enough to be able to break away from Carlos... this guy was strictly small time and with me I think he went in over his head. I was young when I started out, but by then I was in my mid-twenties and more than aware of how he was exploiting me. I decided to break away and try out some of my connections. I mean it was known that I could speak and that I was no dummy... apart from my incredible schlong, it was known that I had the gift of gab. I had seen a lot, and I was beginning to get tired of the endless orgies night after night... yes, I wanted love and stability, something we all crave for at one time or another... luckily enough I had met a wonderful girl, an intern for a California congressman, won’t mention his name, who came with him to one of my shows. We had a little romance and she hooked me up in the mail room in the congressman’s office... and the rest is history, as they say. The sudden break from the sex circuit came as a shock and the extra energy I had was spent in hours of political discourse, day after day, night after night, and I was becoming known for my monologues... I began to create another type of following, based on my gift for rhetoric, and soon I found myself an intern, then an official dispatch... I was walking the halls of congress in the capital itself... and this is where it got tricky, because I was still known as PC Fred in many circles, only by this time most people just assumed that it meant Politically Correct Fred which was just fine by me, but when they shortened it to PC Fred I was afraid that someone might catch on and reveal my scandalous past. People were intrigued by me and often demanded explanations, possible connections... basically some things just didn’t add up for them. I mean, I didn’t go to some Ivy League school, I didn’t study at Oxford or Sorbonne or some fancy school like that, I just suddenly appeared on the scene with this incredible vitality so I had to explain my past, obviously well-disguised... my poor upbringing, my first-hand accounts of the misery in America, my struggles in school and in menial labor, and finally my five year search for truth in the underbelly of America, then the world, my political formation if you will, what shaped all my political beliefs today... this of course was my time spent on the sex circuit, and instead of investigating the roots of misery and corruption in society I was on stage with the wives of ambassadors and eating steamed sparrows in sultans´ palaces. Anyway, all this hullabaloo impressed everybody... the typical rags to riches nonsense... the typical American legend stuff like Bill Gates or Leland Stanford, and my fame was spreading and soon I was commanding audiences of my own, with all kinds of people coming to listen to me.”

“Well one day, and I’ll get through this fast... because I have a meeting I gotta go to... my mentor, the congressman I told you bout earlier, had a little chat with me about the danger of my past catching up with me. I mean, what if people found out that my formative years in politics were actually spent in sleazy sex dens? What if they found out the truth? It would be over for both me and him, career wise... and this is where the name change came in... for some time now I had been using the Dawson surname, but everybody still knew me as PC Fred and this is what worried the congressman... everybody might think that it stands for Politically Correct instead of the lowly Pole Cleaner but the initials worried him and he didn’t want the association to be made... so we began to think and it dawned on him that Politically Correct was a good angle, something non-offensive and neutral bout the tag they put on me and he decided to go with that angle and that’s how he came up with ‘fair’. I became Fair Fred Dawson that afternoon and, well, you’ll soon find out the rest... it’s the stuff of legend... so you want another drink? I have to head out... some important things to do... important meetings with some technocrat fat cats...”

“No man. I’m toasted. But thanks anyway.”

The suit jabs his hands in his coat pockets, then his trousers.

“I don’t understand... I just had it!”

“What’s wrong?”

“My wallet. I must’ve left it back at the office. You think you could spot me? I’ll get you back another day.”

“I’m tapped out. I don’t know if I can cover it. Guess I could charge it,” I say pulling out my wallet.

“Thanks! What’s your name son?”

“Eric.”

“Well, Eric. Was a pleasure.” He slaps his hand on the counter and winks at me. “Remember. None of this ever happened. Anyway, no one would ever believe you unless you were someone important, that is well-known, which my instincts tell me you aren’t... so the truth is for you and you alone.”

He walks out past a group of office temps that have just come tumbling into the bar. The bartender comes back with the receipt and I sign it.

“I just got had, huh,” I say.

“That’s Fred for ya.”

Shit. I’m sauced now as I walk out into the night. I decide to walk home, up past the financial district into my neighborhood - to burn off the alcohol in my system. At the corner, while I’m waiting for the signal amongst a group of pedestrians I burst out laughing. A big bent dick! The lady next to me looks at me like I’m crazy. I say it aloud: “A big bent dick!” I’m still laughing to myself as the rest of the pedestrians surge up ahead.