The Moose in the NaNoWriMo

"Complex" Introduction

Chapter 29 and 30 (50,332 out of 50,000)

29.

Charles stands me up, I wait thirty minutes for him at my place and decide to go to Cynthia’s party without him – Agatha is home studying tonight, she’s coming by tomorrow to help pack my mom up – she’s moving home Sunday. She was so pissed I cam home drunk last night that se decided she’d rather be home with my father – it’s the ultimate guilt trip, getting so pissed at your son that you fucking move out and go back to the man that kicked you out. Whatever, I need some fucking pussy and David’s been putting me off.

Anyway – Charles – comes to the party without me. I don’t understand why I gave him the fucking address – I don’t understand what I’m doing. Fucking Ed’s with him – Chris is here but he’s shying away from me afraid I’ll pop him in his goddamn snotbox again. Even Cynthia’s being a bit elusive – the mother excuse only went so far and now that my mom’s healthy and even moving out I go back to that guy that broke up her party by starting a fight. Charles was supposed to be my fucking peace offering but he fucked me. Him and Ed are in cahoots – I have no fucking allies at the moment – my biggest supporter is a goddamn Starbucks barrister.

I got an in.

“Charles, man, can we talk for a minute?” Ed’s got distracted on his way to the bathroom by Bethany. She’s a baker – a good one too, she made me one hell of a birthday cake two years ago – I think its retail price was along the lines of eight-hundred bucks – she made it for me in her fucking kitchen for free – it was my present. I haven’t called her in a while and Ed is working her nice it seems, she’s smiling, black people have an edge up right from the start just by being black – they get this fucking mix of sympathy and fear – I love when they get called minorities, they can have this world by the balls if they just take hold of it. I wish I got some of my father’s skin – just a little color would have made my life so fucking easy – my mom gives me more than her fucking grief.

“Hey, man – I wanted to call you today.” He glances towards Ed, wants to either make sure he sees this or make sure he isn’t – I can’t fucking tell anymore.

“You should have – I was waiting for you.” I’m letting him lead – what the fuck is wrong with me?

“Sorry man – I told Ed I was coming to this party, he wanted to come along. He doesn’t know many people in the city.” Negro-brotherhood doesn’t exist. They’re jealous of your shoes. They’re jealous of your lady.

“So what’s going on there?” I feel like I should be more aggressive but at the same time I haven’t just fucking listened enough lately – I haven’t let people fall into their own fucking traps.

“Nah – he’s cool. He thinks you’re a dick, obviously, but he ain’t out for revenge – he got played, he realizes that. He kind of admires you, actually – he’s thinking of going his own ‘cause Starbucks sucks. He doesn’t want to fuck shit up anymore than it’s already fucked up.” This is bad – this is definitely a plot. There was at least five different explanations in there – he’s nervous, he wasn’t expecting me to confront him – I have him making shit up on the fly and he’s not that good about it – his element is playing the nigger card and he knows that shit doesn’t work with me.

“Why do you keep looking for him?”

“Huh?”

“You keep looking to see if he’s coming.” He pauses, he’s not good at being backed in the corner – this may be the time to press him, get him out in the open – when Agatha isn’t around. If the shit comes out now, even if it does get to Agatha, I can always claim a negative bias – these fucking people are waiting for me to fuck up again, all of them, give them something to talk about – they’re not the most unbiased reporters of what might happen tonight.

“I don’t know, dude. He’s a cool guy – I don’t want him to know you sent me to spy on him. The guy’s been through a lot, man.” He definitely thinks I’m soft – he thinks I’ll go for the sympathy route – like he’s just trying to help repair the damage that I caused. Like I’m some type of fucking asshole.

“Bullshit, dude. Bullshit. What the fuck is this – you think I don’t know when people are conspiring against me?” He looks pissed – like he’s going to fucking hit me – let him. Let me be the one on the ground this time – let me be the one with the fucking sympathy poured on me – that’ll get me back in right quick.

“Joseph, man – I think you’re getting too into this whole thing – I think you need to go home and relax.” Way to turn it around, dude – way to deny every fucking urge in your body that was trying to get me to cap me in the jaw.

“You don’t fucking tell me what to do –“

“Seriously, man – Ed’s good people – he learned his lesson the hard way but he’s good people. But if you keep popping off –“

“What is this? You guys want to work my scene? You’re trying to push me out?” People are starting to notice but I don’t give a fuck – I’m right on this one and they all fucking know it – I’ve been here before most of them – I’ve been everything everyone at this party ever wanted – they want me in this scene – not this freeloading lazy fucker and his loser friend that can’t even hold his goddamn job for a week – who’s jockeying a register at Starbucks and can’t come close to affording his fucking rent because he though he can live like a king in some Manhattan high-rise.

“Joseph. Seriously. Go home. I’ll call you tomorrow.”

“I’ll –“

“Go home.”

I turn and walk fast – part the crowd – no-one wants to come within arms reach of me – they’re all afraid. Chris gives me a smile and a nod as if he just watched me be defeated. A little fucking wink. Cynthia drops her head in disapproval – fighting her white guests was one thing but now I’m upsetting her charity case. Ed leaves the bathroom and asks me if I’m leaving – I refrain from breaking his nose but bump his shoulder hard. Cynthia’s nameless husband opens the door for me – I don’t even bother getting my coat – fuck it – I don’t want to be these people’s free fucking show anymore. No-one at the elevator – press the button and hear the ding instantly. Already ten stories down and it feels like I’m losing time – like there’s just shit missing – big chunks of the action just disappearing – I’m already in the lobby – I’m outside – I’m in a cab – it’s all just going fast – I’m missing things – I can’t remember a face I saw on the way home, I can’t remember the route the cab driver took or how much he charged me – I cant remember getting changed, I don’t know if I brushed my teeth – my mom might be in the living room, might be in the guest room – I don’t remember checking – I’m missing stuff – the TV was on ten seconds ago – my clock skipped ahead twenty minutes – I don’t know if I turned the heat off or I simply forgot to turn it on – I don’t remember waking up but then again I don’t remember going to sleep but an hours passed and I missed it somehow – the TV’s back on, it sometimes helps me sleep – I don’t think I’m having trouble sleeping, minutes are passing, sometimes hours, and they’re not there, I must be passing out – I’m on the toilet, I don’t remember waking up – I’m at the computer, downloading porn and masturbating, for some reason my own finger is up my ass and I don’t remember any of this.

I’m missing everything.

30.

She gives me a hug and tells me she’ll miss me, it was fun, thanks for helping her out, thanks for being patient and loving and understand, Agatha is sweet and a keeper, come by more often, call when I can, she’s going to be ok, she’s going to go to the gym, she’s happy to be going home, I shouldn’t drink so much.

Apparently last night I told her I feel like I’m losing control. When I got home from the party – I woke her up and told her all this shit about how I feel like everything around me is falling apart, about how it feels like everyone is trying to get me. She was scared, she said I sounded like I wasn’t even there, like I was coming down off of a high. She has no idea how fucking right she was.

She tells me to stay off the cocaine, if that’s what I’m using. She tells me to see a doctor. A shrink. She tells me to put more faith in Agatha, open up to her – I can trust her – she’s never seen me in love like this.

Apparently last night she asked me when we were getting married and I told her that I don’t know if I can. I want to but don’t feel like it’s going to work – I feel like she’s against me too and by proposing to her I’d be playing right into her trap. I told her about Ed and Charles – I told her that the three of them were conspiring against me. Apparently I didn’t know why they were conspiring when my mom asked.

She tells me that I should take the next step with Agatha. She tells me she wants grandkids before she dies and then she pauses and puts her hand on her stomach. She reasserts that she’s going to be going to the gym. She tells me not to worry. She tells me that she learned her lesson.

Apparently last night I told her that she’s a great mother. That she was always there to listen to me and I have this guilt inside of me because I squandered it – I let it go away – I got too involved in this game I’m playing that I cut-off all of the people who weren’t major pieces. I told her about Rick Desa. I told her how I felt responsible for his death – I told her that Agatha tried harder to save a stranger than I tried to save a friend. I told her about the funeral and how mad I was at her – how I thought she was lying – how I thought it was all some elaborate scheme of hers.

She tells me to eat healthier, to stay in once and a while – Agatha likes to play board games so I should consider staying home with her once a week and playing monopoly. Boggle. Two player clue. She tells me that I should go bowling with my father and it feels so out of place – I’ve never once went bowling and neither has my father.

Apparently I told her that I loved Agatha. I don’t remember doing it – it was probably just to shut her up since she was talking about grandkids and weddings and support and all this shit. Here she is, living with me for several weeks because my father kicks her out of the fucking house, doesn’t even come to see her when she has a heart-attack and she’s telling me about how important a stable relationship is. About how necessary marriage is. So I probably said I loved Agatha, that I planned on marrying her, only to make my mom fucking shut-up about whatever she was rambling about last night.

She tells me that she appreciates me taking time to tell her my problems last night. She tells me I helped her feel like a mom again. I helped her feel needed. I fucking fed her primal mind, I suppose – I remember none of it. For all I know she was dreaming. Either way in some way I gave her what she needed and that’s what I fucking do.

That’s all I ever do.

Apparently I compared myself to Jesus last night. I told her that I’m always taking shots for other people – giving them a better life and in exchange I never really get what I want. I have all the material shit and all of the invites and the free food but even when I’m enjoying it all I have to be someone I’m not. I’m a fucking social martyr, apparently. I told her that when I stopped doing it, when I took some time to focus on Agatha, everyone turned on me. They didn’t like the me underneath the me they knew. It all started falling apart. I apparently told her that I don’t mind, I would rather it all go away. I told her that I think I’m done, I think I need to move on and just have a fucking life, be content with what I have and prepare for my thirties. I told her I’m going to quit my job before they lay me off – I told her they’d likely do it on Friday since I’m no longer my bosses pimp or drug runner – the no longer have a need for me. I told her that come next weekend I’ll likely have no-one left but her and Agatha. I pushed it all away.

My father shakes my hand and tells me he’ll take care of my mom.

Apparently I told her I was afraid I’d end up like my father.

As they drive off and wave I realize that I may be going fucking nuts – I’m sane enough to admit that.

Chapter 28 (48,002 words out of 50,000)

28.

My mother’s giving me grief for going out – I need to get her and my father together again soon because this is starting to get ridiculous. I come home from a night out and she’s fucking passed out on the couch, some shloppy romance station on the cable box – off-air now – and she’s snoring and drooling and just ruining any fucking chance I have of getting laid. I haven’t gotten any pussy in the past week and I really either need to get this bitch our of the fucking house or go slumming with David. I can’t work any of the people in my usual circle because Agatha’s plugged in for the moment. If I didn’t know her better I’d say this bitch was working me – feels like something I would do – except I have a good understanding of where her skills in this matter lay – she’s mine, you know, I broke her a while ago. With the sex thing, it’s not even like she’s getting frustrated yet – she’ll casually invite me back to my place sometimes and I just picture my mother on the couch, looking alone and pathetic and tell her that things will be back to normal soon – by Christmas at the latest, I promise her, and she tells me it’s ok – that she understands – that if it was her mother she’d be doing the same.

That she needs to get some studying done anyway. That finals are coming up. That she doesn’t feel like she’s ready. I buy her some comfort coffee – she’s starting to acquire a taste for the good stuff – and send her on her way. She holds me a little closer, it’s as if she’s trying to comfort me, as if she feels bad for me and wants to let me know that she’s here for me – like she wants me to open up or some shit. I called my father yesterday and he says he’ll be willing to let her back in, that he misses having her around. He’s just sick of fucking eat McDonald’s every night – it’s amazing how these relationships become a matter of comfort, convenience – how people get so afraid to leave the person they’re with because a certain part of their life has simply become dependant on them. She should be out by next week, I’d imagine – one of them just needs to call the other. That’ll make Agatha happy – she won’t admit it, obviously, but I know her better than she knows herself – she’s so fucking transparent most of the time – she thinks she’s fucking Hollywood – she thinks she’s Audrey Hepburn and life is nothing but romance and love and puppies – she’s so fucking easy to please.

I kind of assess where I’m at and I think I keep losing sight of the goal – it’s kind of fucked – I can admit to that – it seems like everyday I have a new endgame – but it’ll all become clear soon enough, it always does. I’m sure there’s a clearer path to get there and I’ll see it in retrospect – it’s not like there are rewrites in life but you can at least learn from your mistakes and build on it. Not saying this is one big mistake – but I am saying that there may be a better way to get to where I want to get, wherever that may be.

Rambling a lot. That’s what I’ve been doing lately. Rambling. Changing course. Second guessing. Re-plotting. I feel pressed for time, I want to get back to where I was, to the stuff I was doing before this but at the same time I want to see this to fruition.

Haven’t heard back from Charles yet, been a couple of days. He’s supposed to be coming with me to Cynthia’s party tomorrow – he better deliver something before then. I wish I had the information before today – before this fucking Happy Hour – I feel so defenseless. I honestly have no idea how this is going to go but I need to be there to defend myself. Ed’s going to be drunk, Agatha’s going to be drunk – all of their coworkers are going to be drunk – there’s going to be an audience. It’s the perfect time to strike, it’s when I would do it.

I’ve been on edge lately, accusatory – maybe a little paranoid. I keep feeling like I need to find a way to get Agatha out of this potential shit-storm but then I ask myself why it even fucking matters – why am I even in this fucking shit-storm – how is this even a shit-storm? Why can’t I just work through it?

I feel like I’m losing control of this whole thing sometimes. I hate to admit it. I feel like someone else is controlling my life, like I’m a character in someone’s story and that someone keeps having different plans for me.

I feel like everything’s going somewhere, things are coming together, and I just don’t know what the final resolution is going to be.

That’s a scary place to be. For me, at least.

__________________

What the fuck. What the fuck.

“Joseph, my man, this is my friend Charles.”

What the fuck.

I missed this – there’s something here. What the fuck is going on. The way he introduced Charles – he knows I know Charles – he knows what I’m trying to do – what the fuck? Did he offer Charles something better? What the fuck could he even offer him. Oh. Wait. Wait, wait, wait.

“Yeah, yeah – I know Joseph – we go back.” No nigger camaraderie my ass. This is a fucking plot – this has to be a plot.

“No shit? Small world.” That fucking look – that fucking look – this is it, this is the end, unless I get Agatha out of here this is the fucking end. But what can I do? Fake sick? She’ll want to come home with me to make sure I’m OK and my mom would know I was faking sick – if there’s one thing a mom can do it’s tell when her child is faking sickness – no-matter how dysfunctional the mother in question that shit is like breathing for them – any moronic fucking mother can do it. I can’t go back to her place sick, she would question why I want to do that. Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck – how did I miss this? Goddamn black people are so fucking hard to play sometimes – especially the ones with little to offer. All Charles had to offer me was the fact that he’s black and my fucking friend. Fuck!

“Yeah – how do you know Ed, Charles?” Agatha sense this tension it’s so fucking obvious – this whole conversation is awkward and robotic and she can tell – she has the most peculiar fucking expression on her face.

“The man can ring up one hell of a mochaccino.” Everyone laughs, inside Starbucks humor – I’m the fucking outsider here. Look at them all – Agatha is wearing a sweater from New York Inc, a big fucking fluffy-ass turtle-neck and pants from Anne Taylor. Ed is wearing some Polo clothes – black man’s fancy wear. No matter how much money these guys make they wear shit like polo and Hilfiger – that’s their going out gear. Charles with a basketball jersey – fucking Knicks. The other barrista, Ellen, got that outfit off of the front page of a fucking Land’s End catalogue – November’s. Joe’s shirt says Old Navy on it – he’s proud of the fact that he can’t afford a decent shirt without a cost that’s partially subsidized by being a fucking walking billboard. There’s some gap. Some fucking Banana Republic. J. Crew, Eddie Bauer, H&M – that guys wearing Cubavera – white as fuck and trying to rock Buena Vista Social Club knock-offs. They’re all drinking Miller Light because it’s on sale – it’s the goddamn Happy Hour featured drink. They’re all laughing, they’re all in on the fucking joke.

How’d I get here?

_____________

Miller Light tastes like piss. I don’t understand how these fucking people can drink it. They’re putting them down like water because it is fucking water. I had like ten and I don’t even feel drunk, I mean, maybe a little buzzed but that’s about the extent of it. I mean – just a little tipsy, you know – whatever the fuck you call it – like – a little elated, you know? I took off my sweater – it’s too hot – that fucking sweater cost more than everyone in this party’s goddamn outfits combined and Ed spilled beer on it and apologized and I can’t say shit because this isn’t my FUCKING show. Agatha keeps looking at me, she thinks I’m drunk, I know it – I can fucking tell – she thinks I’m being an anti-social asshole – she thinks I should mingle with these fucking commoners – talk about coffee and sports and graphic novels and whatever else these wannabe fucking hipsters are talking about. Charles hasn’t said shit to me all night – him and Ed. Fuck! I opened myself up to this shit. Agatha’s probably in on it already, too. She has that empowered thing – had it until I fucking got to her – she probably got a spark of it back after they told her the deal. She probably feels empowered again, she probably fucked both of these guys because I know she has a nasty streak – she probably took them at the same time – doing shit with them she’d never do with me – taking it in the ass – screaming in ecstasy – probably had these guys inviting the goddamn million-man march to swing by after the protest for a gang-fuck. White woman love to fuck black men, everyone knows that – and black men are fucking sexual predators – everyone knows that as well.

How the fuck did I get here?

But nobody said anything – they’re enjoying this – they’re leading me on and playing with me – they’re hanging this shit over my fucking head for as long as they can.

All of them. They’re all in on this. And I fucking missed it.

Chapter 27 (46,337 words out of 50,000)

27.

I haven’t spoken to Charles in fucking months – haven’t really had the time too. He has his thing, I have mine. Last I heard he’s living in some upper management type’s basement – been there for about seven weeks now, a bit longer than his usual stay so this cat could have something worth holding onto or Charles is running out of boarders. Charles stayed at this one guys place for about four months because he was fucking the dude’s daughter – I think that’s his record. Charles gives me the big smile he gives everybody, asks me if it’ll be turkey like the rest of these white folk, I tell him us mullato types are partial to ham for some fucking reason – he just laughs and asks if I want it cut thin, his chorus of “hip” white folks all giggle and smirk and if I’m the outsider experiencing Charles for the first time – as if Charles didn’t just give me a wink indicating he has his next five places to stay lined up. He hands me my ham that I have no intention of eating and I quietly tell him hat we should talk – he announces his break to all of the white folks’ dismay – none of them want the hairy, dirty grungy looking dude with the hairnet on his beard to slice their honey maple turkey and proscuitto.

It’s cold out – December is rarely this cold – Charles likes to smoke during his break – sometimes cigarettes, sometimes dope. Depends on if it’s the holiday season or not. “You want some of this?”

“Nah – I’m good.” Charles gets some swag – I don’t smoke dope all of the time but when I do I like to make sure it’s not the type of shit you buy off some Jamaican fuck in Washington Square Park.

“Then just keep a look out.” He lights it up and tokes two like a pro, I’ve seen this guy suck down a fatty in less than a minute – it’s like a fucking super-power. “So what’s been going on, man?”

“Nothing, bro. Same shit.”

“Ain’t what I heard – I heard you’re shacking up with some white bitch.” By being a butcher is such a hoity-toity neighborhood Charles hears more gossip than anyone I’ve ever met. Seriously, this cat has talked to everybody who’s everybody in New York or at least overheard them talking about paying off someone’s abortion.

“I ain’t shacking up – I’ve just sort of been screwing around with her.” It’s not good that information like this gets to Charles; guys like Charles – guys like me – see this as a sign of weakness, like I’m out of the game. Next thing you know he’ll be working my party circuit, trying to learn the ropes – using his “negro-slave charm” to worm his way into the houses of a whole new clientele.

“Shit, I heard you were going to fucking Disney World with this bitch.” Goddamn people talk. At this rate Charles will be trying to con me into putting him up for a month.

“I have my angle.” He gives me a knowing eye, I got blood in the water and this fuck knows it – he smells it. “Look, bro, you know some guy named Ed Stevens?”

“Stevens?”

“Yeah, Stevens.” I’ve seen that look in Charles’ eye before – I should just end this shit right now.

“Black dude? Right? A black dude?”

He doesn’t know him – I think I’ve seen this exact routine. “So you don’t know him?”

“No – why’d you think I would? ‘Cause I’m black? All us black folk hang out?” He’s good, I’ll tell you that much. If it wasn’t for the fact that I agreed with what he was saying I’d probably feel a pang of guilt. It takes a black man five seconds to call another black man his brother or his cousin. You go to a black club and you feel like you intruded at a family reunion – when they’re not fighting each other they’re the best of fucking friends – every single one of them. I honestly think that every black person in New York has, at one time, gave a pound to every other black person in New York. Now, as far as how long they retain that information is up for debate.

“Don’t pull the nigger routine with me, bro.” He takes a toke, smiles, and toasts to me – I’m not out of it yet, Charles knows I’m the fucking master at this shit. “He works at the Starbucks across the street – just started there.”

“I fucking hate Starbucks.” There must be a gene that correlates intelligence to hatred for Starbucks.

“Well – Agatha works there too.” Fuck.

“Hold up. HOLD UP. This bitch you’ve been with for, what, two months?”

It’s been three. “Yeah – two months.”

“Works in a fucking Starbucks?” What’s funny is – everyone else I tell that too they completely understand – Starbucks is a perfectly respectable job. Dudes like Charles – dudes like me – we understand that there is nothing good to come of working at a Starbucks. This person likely has nothing to offer the world except for over-processed coffee drinks.

“I have my angle.”

“It better be a good one.” The whole mood shifts – Charles lost his faith in me – he doesn’t even want to be in this conversation anymore.

“Look – I fucked this guy Ed hard, recently. He was working at my office for a week and in that time I distributed pictures of him fucking a hooker in Atlanta to everyone he knows and everyone at work – getting him fired, causing his girlfriend to leave him and his family to shun him.” Charles pick up on that one – he gives me a loving smile – that’s some hardcore shit and he knows it.

“Aight, aight – so what you need from me?”

He’ll take this fine, I imagine. “I need you to talk to him – about Agatha – he can fuck up my work with little effort.”

“You want me to do the whole “nigger brotherood” angle.” That was easy.

“Yeah. Yeah, that would be great.”

“You know that doesn’t always work, right?” He takes the last two puffs of his joint – it’s amazing, really, he sucked that thing down like it was a fucking cigarette.

“How you mean?” Straight from the horse’s mouth, I suppose.

“There’s a lot of jealousy there – almost instantly. Niggas get jealous if you’re shoes are nicer than there’s or if you’re taller than them – you got to play into that but it’s tough to do.” That’s really fucking good information right there. No wonder I don’t have a lot of success with black people – at least not the real ones – I always thought my mom instilled a sense of white man’s guilt into me when I was in the womb. “That’s why you don’t roll with many niggas.”

Yeah, that and the fact that not many of them have much worth offering – at least not the real ones, again. It would be fun to get in with some rap producer or athlete but, I don’t know, I’d rather know the rich white guy that writes their checks. “But you think you can poke around a bit – see if he has anything planned?”

“Yeah – but I don’t see what’s in it for me.” Guys like us – we don’t shit unless there’s something in it for us – unless we can see someway to play it out way.

We usually end up trading a contact. I’ll do better than that for Charles; I’ll give him a whole new fucking scene. There’s only so much you can do as a butcher – it’s good enough for what he’s trying to do. But we all have aspirations beyond our current disposition and Charles has been looking for an in. Being a butcher, most rich folks wuld rather him stay at home or go out with his negro friends – he doesn’t get to work my scene much – that’s the fucking big leagues – that’s where you can go for anything you want. A butcher conning a place to stay is one thing. A butcher conning free dinner at Manhattan’s most exclusive restaurant – that’s practically fucking impossible. “How about a rich black couple with tons of racial guilt who throw the best fucking parties filled with the every contact guys like us fucking salivate over.”

He drops his blunt and gives me a look of disbelief.

Chapter 26 (44941 words out of 50000)

26.

I have had a fucking Peppermint Latte every day this week. They give me a headache – there’s so much fructose in one of those goddamn things I can feel my teeth corrode with every fucking sip. Agatha likes when I meet her here, though – gets her all giddy and shit which is where I want to keep her for the time being if I can. Same shit though, every fucking time I come here – I get a sad excuse for a latte while she finishes up her last few orders, we get lunch at Quiznos or some god-awful equivalent, it’s all the same shit food when you start slumming around like that, take a walk – she likes to walk around in the cold for some fucking reason, hold hands and shit, she pulls in close to me on big gusts of winds and smiles – it’s pathetic, really. She’ll keep cracking jokes about how it’s warmer in Orlando and how we should go out there – if she only knew what she was really asking for. I like putting it off, I like keeping her in this state where I’ve completely broken her, no more games, I just get what I want and know in the back of my mind that she has what she deserves coming to her. Two days ago she convinced me to get our picture taken with fucking Santa Claus at the thirty-fourth street mall – it had to be one the most degrading things I’ve ever sat through – the fat loser fuck actually asked me what I wanted for Christmas and I said a puppy – Agatha laughed like I knew she would – she likes stupid fucking kid jokes. He asked me what kind of puppy and I told him a pug, I noticed how Agatha always likes to stop and play with people’s pugs – she must have a thing for them so I figured I might as well use that to my advantage and get something out of the fact that I needed to sit on some child-molester’s lap. Agatha told tubby fuck with the bloodshot eyes that matched his fucking dirty suit that she wanted some new boots – how goddamn typical can you get? But, whatever, if that’s what she wants that’s what I’m getting her – give them what they want, right? Keep them happy. Make them reveal their complexes. Take advantage.

Fucking repeat.

I snuck a peek at her shoes when she was taking a shower – size eight – one things for sure, I sure as hell will not be going into nine-west or DSW or any of those fucking beggar’s shoe stores, I picked out a pair of Manolo Blahnik boots that she’ll have a conniption over when she sees them. She’ll have no idea what the fuck they are, probably classify them as the “cutest boots she’s ever seen” as if I picked them up at a fucking Nordstrom. I’m going to be sickly cute with it as well, get her all gushing – I’m going to take them out of the box and wrap them individually so that they look like nothing but boots covered in wrapping paper – play some silly “couples” joke like “guess what they are first” so that she can shake it and ask if it’s a DVD and I can give a hearty laugh and say, “Yes, it’s the complete first season of Dallas.” It’d be even cuter if I put the first fucking season of Dallas in the boot. She’d get a kick out of that.

That’s where I want her – that’s where I keep her.

“Good afternoon, sir, can I take your order?”

What the fuck? “Ed?”

Stupid. Fucking stupid, fucking not paying attention. He recognizes me. He’s looking right at me and he fucking recognizes me – this can’t be right – I’m missing something here, I’m sleeping at the wheel, I’m getting too comfortable. I fucking missed something and now I’m in this situation.

Walk away. Just walk away.

“Hey honey!” He looks at her and smiles. He fucking got me – this bastard’s been planning this, he had to have been planning this – he’s looking back at me now, smiling, he knows – this fucking guy got me – he fucking knows – I’m missing something.

“Oh. Hey Aggy.” He’s smiling – I know that smile, I use it all the time. It’s the type of smile you get when you know you have somebody – when you fucking broke through – when you get an edge, a one-up. It’s that goddamn mother fucking arrogant as shit smile.

“Ed, this is Joseph – my man.” Even when she’s ruining everything she tries to be so fucking cute – she just said “my man” in a way that panders to Joseph blackness – as if she’s down – as if she’s going to grow fucking break dancing on a cardboard box after work and wants Ed to come along with her.

“Yeah – I know Joseph.” He’s not going to let me live, he’s no going to let this pass. He’s going to ruin me – this fucking twenty-two year old wet behind the ears punk is going to fucking ruin me.

“Ed used to work at Allied.” Just play it cool dude, play it cool – you missed this – you fucked it up – he’s here for a reason – just play it cool. Let him think he has control – let him power trip, that always buys time. “What are you doing at Starbucks?” Shit. That pissed both of them off – I tried to make my tone as neutral and non-condescending as possible but neither of them went for it.

“It’s just temporary until I find a new job, need to pay the bills, you know?” He’s being accusatory, even Agatha’s picking up on it – that’s ok, as long as I play it cool he’ll ride this out – he’ll keep it all a secret because he thinks that there is power in it – he thinks that there’s ace up his fucking sleeve for as long as Agatha and I are together. “I can’t get an references out of Allied, obviously, and employees get freaked out when they see I was fired after two weeks.”

Just keep him here, he wants to be in control, keep him in control.

I fucked up.

“Oh – honey – you didn’t tell me that. I’m sure Joseph can get them to say something for you – he’s big shit at Allied.” He teases me with the information, he’s not going to tell, you can see it in his eyes, you can see it behind that smile – he’s going through scenarios in his head, thinking of how he can ruin me as if he even has a chance of stepping onto my fucking playing field.

“No – not when you consider the circumstances under which I was fired.” He’s trying to talk like a fucking James Bond villain – it’s actually kind of comical – if I had the freedom to do so I’d laugh. The important part, though, is that he’s toying. People who toy are never a threat, I can phone this one in – just keep giving him what he wants and fuck him up when he loses his position.

“I can at least ask.” Nice delivery. Humble. Begging for forgiveness with the inflection of my voice in such a way that only he would realize what I’m doing. And he bites; he gives his head a little shake – a little nice try.

“No. No – I’d imagine there’s plenty of bad feelings towards me there.” Not a James Bond villain – a fucking comic book villain. Like right now he’s this “super-smart evil genius” trying to manipulate the Hulk.

“Why’d they fire you?” Moment of truth – does he take me out now or does he give me a chance to fucking destroy him later on.

“Not a good topic of conversation for a Starbucks.” You’re dead asshole, you should have took it when you had the chance. People get too fucking greed these days, they get a taste of victory and all of a sudden they’re fucking Vince Lombardi. That’s fine – mission fucking accomplished as far as I can tell. “Maybe I’ll tell you at happy hour.”

Happy hour?

“Oh, that’s right. We’re going to Happy Hour this Friday, baby, do you think you’ll be able to come?” Man – alcohol is not good for the situation we have right here. There’re two things that can be happening here – the first thing is the fact that he’s just going to try and ruin my life, tell Agatha all about Atlanta and my real job as I described it to him. If that’s the case this whole thing is over but, whatever, I’ll deal. The second possibility is that his revenge might come in the form of attempting to steal Agatha – as if he even has a chance with her. There’s something in that look. Of course, if I were him, my play would be to tell Agatha about her douche bag boyfriend and use her fractured state to fuck her in the ass. But I don’t think Ed’s that smart – if he was he would still be working at Allied and I would likely be jobless at the moment.

“Friday? Yeah. I have to pick up my mom from the doctors at four and drop her off home so I probably won’t be able to make it until five-thirty.” There’s no fucking way in hell I let Ed have friendly non-work conversation when I’m not there – if he says shit I’m going to have to be ready to counter it quick.

His cell phone – shit. The fucking pictures.

“Your mother’s living with you now?” Agatha laughed. Or smiled – her mouth opened a bit though as if she was going to laugh. She finds this funny – she finds Ed’s digs amusing – that can’t be good. I really fucked this one up.

“Just for a little while.” I’ll take this shot, it’s better than the alternative.

“I could imagine it being…frustrating.” He looks to Agatha with a knowing glance and she coyly dips her head away. He’s got one coming to him for that one. I’m going to be honest. People have played against me in the past and have played well. Agatha is a great example. There was also this guy who used to run my network, named Steve. Quite possibly the most unassuming man you’ll ever see – just a down-home white boy with blonde hair and blue eyes, a square chin and fucking dimples in his cheeks. This guy used to try too hard, though – he didn’t know how to play it. Within a minute of talking to somebody he’d ask them what they did and turn cold if he wasn’t interested or hot if he was. What he never understood was that you always stay neutral. The people who don’t have something that off the bat gets you going will likely know someone who does – people like to keep low-maintenance friends, people who are beneath them, it makes them feel more real. There was this one guy, Willis, he was a fucking janitor or whatever the fuck you call the guy that works in a large apartment and unclogs people’s toilets on Thanksgiving day – whatever you call him it’s a shitty fucking job. I lived in this one apartment once that was managed by this vile woman – this old, shriveled, white smoking woman with huge red hair and thick fucking glasses. She had this guy Willis working for her, doing all the real work – Willis was cool as shit and put up with this wretched fucking woman. One day my fucking dishwasher explodes on Martin Luther King Jr Day – just fucking explodes and there’s water and soap suds everywhere. So I go down to the office thinking that this fucking bitch, Fay, this epitome of white, would be working on Martin Luther King JR Day. I open the office door and Willis is there – no Fay. I ask him where Fay is and he tells me that she took the day off. I just kind of stared at him, I had no idea what to say, finally he just nods and tells me, “I know, I’m quitting soon.” Well this guy, Willis – if Steven met him at a party he’d be instantly dismissed – not even a fucking hello – he’d see the dude was obviously living low-class so he’d just ignore him the entire time. Me, if I were to see a guy like Willis at a party like the kinds I roll to – I know he’d have something to offer. Willis was just the buildings super until I saw him at a somewhat high-class party – turns out this cat knows more about boxing than almost any mother fucker on this planet and the mother fucking boxing commissioner of New York City is his goddamn cousin by marriage. I’m practically best fucking friends with this guy now and I get front row seats to every fucking fight at the Garden. Steve – he noticed that his technique wasn’t working and became a bit jealous of the way my shit was going. So instead of trying to follow up my moves he just started trying to poach the people I was with – he was the socialite equivalent of a fucking cock-blocker – he’d wait until I went to the bathroom and find ways to say nasty shit about me. But the thing is – I always played it cool – so these people would come up to me and tell me Steven was saying some nasty shit behind my back. I kind of laughed it of for a while but eventually I had enough and I decided to fuck with him – I switched up my strategy and started leading him onto to people that weren’t worth working. There are some people whose offering isn’t worth dealing with their complexes. Like this chocolatier I met at a charity function for fucking feline leukemia (rich people and how they spend their money boggle my fucking mind sometimes) who was extremely delusional about where he fit into the grand scheme of things – you hear this guy talk and you think he made chocolate by crushing diamonds with Gwyneth Paltrow’s ass while cherubs played harps in the background. So, you think about the trade-off – do you really need a guy that makes fucking chocolate that bad? Especially when people in Belgium and France do it better? Fuck that – but that’s the kind of guy I was getting Steven onto and the more parties he came to the more depressed he got – the more he felt like a loser that couldn’t just work this shit right. And he saw me – always happy, always at the center – always getting whatever the fuck I wanted – and it fucking killed him. He ended up moving to some low-maintenance city like Denver or Tampa where the people are easier but that’s because they’re also a bunch of fucking losers worth nothing in this world. Phoenix is the bottom – Phoenix is where players go to die – at least he didn’t go there off the bat although I’m sure he’ll find himself there eventually. I let him work my turf for a little bit but when you try to encroach on my shit – it’s over.

“Joseph?” Fuck, zoning out again.

“Sorry, what?” I have several looks going, the lady behind me is tapping her foot and huffing up a fucking storm because I’m keeping her fat ass away from her caramel macchiato.

“Peppermint Latte, right? Or are you switching it up today?” Who tried to change the subject first? Fuck, I’m fucking up left and right over here – I feel like I missed something – there’s a tension here – I wonder if Agatha said something or gave him a look or whatever. This fucking guy. Ed. Lasted a week in my world. Who the fuck does he think he is, keeping something over me?

“Yeah – grande. So, who’re you interviewing for, Ed?” I’m taking control of this mother fucker again. I don’t know why I was even scared of him.

“General Motors, Sirius – Motorola interview tomorrow to help them market their next-gen camera phones.” Was that a jab? Was that some lame excuse for a fucking threat? I can’t believe I was actually backed against the wall with this guy. “Great resolution to catch someone in those embarrassing moments – the kind of pictures you’d love to share with friends, family – significant others – anyone who’d get a good rise out of them.”

“That should be your slogan. Get a rise out of Aunt Felicia.” He shoots me a dirty look, he doesn’t like me playing – doesn’t want it – this is his moment. In his mind, at least. “She can be in a wheelchair, too. And her husband shows her a picture that the audience doesn’t see and she flips out, gets out of her chair – rises up, if you will.” He’s turning red, biting his lip – I have an audience and they’re laughing and it’s driving him insane which is good – I’d have to have to deal with a sane man. “And then she, I don’t know – kills the husband by cutting his head off with a Dean Martin LP.” He’s furious – you walk away now and show him you’re not afraid of him – he has no control over you.

“Aggy, I’m going to have to take that to go. Big day at the office today. Power Point Presentations and speech lessons.”

Ed eyes me hard – he’s not going to take this and that’s exactly what I want.

Chapter 24 Part 2 and Chapter 25 (42,025 words out of 50,000)

At 27 years old, on a Saturday, I should be out. Saturday is the number one night for going out, Thursday coming in second although Tuesday is nipping at its fucking heels. On a Saturday night, I should be out on the town, drinking high-class drinks and getting head in the back of a taxi. I shouldn’t be sitting at home, playing fucking Boggle with my mom.

“I don’t think piebald is a word.”

Playing boggle with me apparently illiterate mom, I should say.

“It’s a word – it means something’s put together by a hodge-podge of parts. A Puerto Rican’s car is a piebald.” Even Agatha went out, she says I’ve been staying in too much and I need to start living again. How the fuck am I supposed to do that? I got my mom moping around the house all day – she’s such a negative fucking influence. She’s just so goddamn depressed, she’s always crying about how her life is falling apart and how she can’t lose the weight she’s supposed to lose and how that’s why my father kicked her out. He kicked her out because he had an out, me – he knew I’d take her in. And when she almost died he likely felt cheated, like he was so close to the fucking freedom that he’s been wanting and then it was just snatched away from him. Has nothing to do with her being a fat-ass - if that was the case he would kicked her out years ago – and has everything to do with the fact that most women on this earth likely fuck better than her.

“That’s not nice.” Agatha’s kind of pissed off, she’s fine with me putting my mom up for the time being but not too happy about how “intrusive” it’s become. Fuck her – I was paying for the Orlando trip. But that’s regardless, I have my heart set on ending this in Orlando and I’m a smart enough dude to realize that I’m stubborn sometimes – we’ll go next month. Or in February, even. Besides, it would be interesting to see what this bitch gets me for Christmas – I have my money on something ridiculously generic like silk pajamas and boxer shorts – fucking slippers or some shit.

“But it’s true. Pie.” I think I’m going to fuck with her some more – she seems to really dig living out the iconic relationship – keep that up, give her what she wants – if she’s happy she’s really good in bed, too. I misjudged her for some time, she has a supreme chivalry complex, knight in shining armor shit, probably comes from having an idyllic father – he died when she was eight so she never go to see him for the alcoholic let-down he probably was.

“I got that.”

“Drag.” Girls and their fathers – ninety percent of all female complexes can be traced back to that relationship. I don’t know if that’s documented or anything but it makes sense to me. Everyone always chimes on the mother. Overbearing or overly aggressive – only capable of showing love through physical trinkets – shit like that. All these chicks I meet – all the ones that want me to choke them with a belt or put a cigarette to their tits – all these chicks had some serious fucking father issues.

Phone.

“Who is it?” I don’t think I can enumerate the amount of things that annoy me about having my mom live with me but, if I could, I can only imagine number one being her fucking need to ask “who is that” every time someone calls.

“Agatha – hold on.” I normally would let it got to voice mail but she hates that – she’s been getting on about it lately and I need to keep her happy, need to keep her in the mindset that this is all innocent fun and that there are no hidden intentions – especially with recent delays in the master plan. “Hey honey. No, no – it’s going fine.” It fucking kills me to have to act this out sometimes, it’s all so mechanical – it’s the same fucking conversation every “couple” in the world is having at this exact goddamn moment – I’m just contributing to the noise. “Yeah, Boggle. I am.” As if my mom could even come close to my score in any board game – this bitch never even beat me in Chute & Ladders as a kid. “Actually – yeah, I’ll meet you there. That sounds good.” She always picks the lamest joints to meet up – her and her annoying fucking friends who I need to put up with way too often are going to T.G.I.Fridays – it’s fucking insulting to have to be there on a Saturday night. My mom’s giving me a look like I just ripped out her heart and replaced it with a steaming pile of shit. “Sure – like twenty minutes.” What the fuck does she want from me? I give her food, a place to fucking stay – played goddamn boggle with her – what the fuck more can I possibly do? Agatha’s the play here, my mom’s just getting in the fucking way. “See ya then. Bye. Love you too.”

I normally throw up in my fucking mouth when I tell this cunt that I love her but right now the immediate problem at hand is my mom’s depressing fucking face. “It’s late, anyway, you should go to bed. You gotta go to see your trainer tomorrow.” I signed her up for a personal trainer at the gym – you had to see this dude’s face when he met her for the assessment. Usually these guys weigh you first, take body fat measurements – the guy didn’t even bother. For weight he probably wrote “fat”, for body fat he probable wrote “all of it”. He sitting there and telling her all of the exercises they were going to do to help her lose weight and somewhere in the back of his head he fucking realizes that this bitch is so fat all she needs to do is move a little bit and she’ll shed fifty pounds. But he’s apparently going to get her doing some free weights (because the machines likely can’t support her) and get her on the treadmill (because they’re cheaper to replace than the elliptical machines). It’s going to be a fucking horror show. Especially in the locker room. I honestly doubt my mom would step foot in one but can you fucking believe it if she did? Could you imagine being in the shower and this four-hundred plus pound woman come in there and starts cleaning her enormous fucking snatch? Lifting her tits above her head so that she can clean her underarms? I’d tear my fucking eyes out – bludgeon them out with a bar of fucking soap. “Don’t look at me like that, mom. I hung out with you all day.”

“I know – you’re so good to me. Go and have fun.” She goes through all of the motions, the fucking clenched throat and the sobs and the teary eyes – I’m honestly fucking sick of it all.

“Look, not tonight, all right – I’m going out.”

She just puts her head down and looks at her list of Boggle words that she never got to scratch off her fucking list.

25.

David’s been harassing me to go to a strip club with him for the past fucking month – I don’t mind doing it on business – that’s work and I tend to have a good time – but I’ve been weary about doing it at home – I don’t like the idea of coming home smelling like a goddamn whore and having Agatha smell it on me, have her instantly know where I’ve been and what I’ doing. I don’t need to ruin everything I’ve worked for just for some skanky stripper fun – if it was a high-class bitch than that would be a different story, but David doesn’t go to the high-class places. “You see the Sox signed Beckett – I thought he was going to go to the Yanks for sure.”

David looks at me more with annoyance than disbelief – he’s had a few too many and I’d imagine he’s a bit volatile. “Dude – we’re in a fucking strip club.”

He turns back to the woman on stage that’s currently working overtime for David’s fucking dollar. She keeps moving for it but he keeps teasing it away from her – making her do one move, making her pay attention to him for one more second. I taught him that move, it’s a basic strip-club play. The thing is, these girls come to you for a dollar. A fucking dollar. They come to you and they shake their hips and they show their tits and they wrap their legs around your neck for a fucking dollar. Whereas that’s low, doing it for free is exponentially worse. So you tease them with the dollar. They already invested their dignity, there’s no rule saying you have to tip them, so the only thing they can do is prolong the hang-time, give you a little more show. The method doesn’t hurt your chances of getting the lap-dance and the eventual blowjob, either – you’re talking about a bitch that will lean over you wearing no shirt and kiss your cheek for a dollar – throw her a twenty and it’s a fucking party.

She takes the dollar and scurries away before he can take out another one but a new girl comes over. David just looks back at me and shoots me a dirty look, sighs and shakes his head disapprovingly.

“I don’t know what the fuck happened to you.”

It almost hurts getting insulted by a forty-year-old man with wife and kids – I’m just lucky I’m in control, I always know what I’m doing.

“It’s rough, dude, I don’t want to go home smelling like hookers. No offense.” I can’t believe that look she just gave me. As if she’s not a hooker. That’s right, she’s an “exotic dancer”. At least hookers start their pricing at twenty bucks for the low-rent ones, hundreds for the nicer ones. Fucking strippers – no matter the venue – start out at a fucking dollar. They usually hook for a Jackson. And they get insulted when you call them hookers – as if they’re above a common street hooker. Street hookers get to set their own hours – they maybe have five guys groping them a night instead of forty. But yeah, they’re above the street trash because they stand on a stage and shove dollar bills in their panties. Because they grind you for ten or twenty bucks while inviting you in the VIP room. Where for some extra money they fuck you rotten. And that’s at the classier joints. A place like this you can skip the lap dance and go straight to getting blowjob in the alleyway if the price is right. But they’re not hookers.

“Fuck that – by the time you get home Agatha will be passed the fuck out.”

That’s one thing about Agatha – if she doesn’t go out she’s in bed by eleven at the latest. I never understood that shit – I don’t think my body is physically capable of sleeping at eleven. She even starts work at noon – which is about when I start work – but you’d think she’d stay up later since she doesn’t have to get up ass-early. Instead she gets up ass-early and goes to the gym. That’s what fucking lunchtime is for. Everyone should have my schedule. I get up a ten or eleven, shower. Get dressed, do the hair – all that shit. Get to work at around twelve and go to lunch. Go to the gym, workout, shower, get dressed, do my hair, etc. Get back to work at around two, stay until three. Find something to do, go get some dinner, party all fucking night. That’s the way to live.

“It’s not like that. It’s my mom, man – it’s rough having her stay with you. She knows everything and she’s always judging.” He just turns back to the strippers, points at me and laughs. It almost hurts having a forty-year-old man miming “can you believe this guy” to a used-up stripper. Almost, luckily I’m in control – top of my fucking game.

“The mom excuse is getting old.” This coming from the twelve-year-old tit sucker – I’m sure he uses his dead mom as an excuse for everything. Every time he can’t get it up or pay the bills e finds a way to swing it around to his fucking mom.

“She’s working it out with my father, she should be out soon.” At least that’s what she tells me and I try to believe. Honestly, whereas I like helping her out and I like fucking with my father, enough is indeed e-fucking-nough. I’m sick of the crying and the guilt-trips, the broken chairs and the Ding Dong wrappers left on the kitchen table.

“I hope so, man – we’re getting kind of tired of you being such a fucking pussy.” Not a pussy, David. For once why don’t you say what you really want to say. Without me, you are nothing. Without me completely on my game, taking you out and getting you stoned and fuck, you are nothing but a miserable husband and father. Fuck this.

“Pussy, dude? Come on, David, you’re talking to the guy that gets you fucking laid on a daily basis.” No gratitude in some people, the turn on you in a fucking second. You want to see this human trait in action, go to a goddamn Yankee game. They’ll boo the fuck out of their own players until someone hits a homerun – they’ll cheer him on like her was fucking Jesus with some pine-tar. But the next at bat, if he strikes out – right back to booing. That’s what corporate America is like – that’s what people like David are fucking like.

“Used to.” Son of a bitch. What the fuck, I still do get laid on an almost daily basis. Why is it that when people get married and start having their own shitty sex they always assume you’re having shitty sex as well. These fucking guys put it in for several thrusts, pull out and cum on their wife or girlfriend’s stomach – clog up the belly-button – and assume that everyone else in a relationship, real or fake, is having the same fucked up sex.

“Used to? So, wait, you don’t get some stripper snatch for what – a fucking month – and I’m a goddamn ‘used to’? What the fuck is that?” The stripper gets the fuck out of here, can’t say that I blame her.

“Get the fuck out of here, man, ever since you starting hooking up with Agatha you just haven’t been on your game – we all notice it. Even in Atlanta you weren’t having a good time – we weren’t having a good time – I don’t even think you fucked anyone in Atlanta, did you?”

“Yeah. This one bitch.” I don’t even think I did. I was a little drunk, I might have gotten a hand-job. But I was busy, you know – I was fucking with Ed – that took a good amount of my time. A good amount of concentration – Ed was like the fucking warm-up, the snack before I get to Agatha. Believe me – if I wasn’t having so much fun other wise I would have been fucking all goddamn night.

“This one bitch! It’s fucking Agatha, man – she’s getting to you. She’s fucking with you. You can talk about your mom all you want but I think we both know that’s just a big fucking excuse.”

Chapter 24 (39,415 words out of 50,000) Part 1

24.

I’ve been to Orlando once. At Orlando, you can find examples of everything that’s wrong with this country - you just need to sit on a bench at Universal Studios for five minutes.

For example, ninety-percent of the parents in this country really don’t want to be parents. I don’t know why they do it – they probably get knocked up to save their failing marriage and tell themselves that they’re doing it because of an obligation to the human race and God – as if either God or humanity doesn’t hang their head in shame every time they think they somehow influenced two fat pieces of white trash to raise a kid that they despise and, in turn, end up neglecting. I don’t understand the need to reproduce; I never really studied it since most of the people I interface with on a social level don’t have kids. They have careers. They have material items and pimped out apartments. They have things worth getting in on. There is a direct correlation to the number of kids a couple has and whether or not they’re worth knowing. One or two kids – maybe they’re worth seeing on occasion and keeping close by, they might have something to offer. I never met a lawyer with six kids though. Never met a fashion designer with more than one. The people that fucking matter – few kids. The people with NASCAR posters in their kitchen – eight kids. And they hate every single fucking one of them. They hit them, they call them “little shits”, tell them to shut up. I’m not the most patient dude in the world but Jesus Fucking Christ – these people made some sort of agreement with nature to spit these kids out of their cavernous vaginas – you’d think that fucking counts for something, taking on responsibility and shit. But none of these people want these fucking kids. They shut them up by shoving candy down their fucking throats – these fat fucking kids now serve as justification for these grossly overweight parents. They can say their fatness runs in the family – it’s in their fucking genes – and has nothing to do with the pack of twizzlers that’s running through their fucking arteries. These kids are miserable, all of them, while vacationing at the Happiest Place on Earth. Their fucking parents are miserable. And all of this miserable will translate to one of these fucking kids jacking me up at an ATM machine in ten years.

I’ve also learned that everybody hates everybody else. Not dislikes, not “doesn’t trust” – they fucking hate everybody they see and everybody they hear. And for the stupidest fucking reasons – they hate people for the shit that they themselves do everyday. They hate you if you stand too close to them, they hate you if you’re too fucking loud on the cell phone, they hate you if your kids are screaming, they hate you if you bump into them, if you walk too slow, if you’re taking too long at the concession stand, if you’re in a wheelchair and get to skip to the front of the line, if you get the last slice of pizza, if you’re in front of them in line for the bathroom, if you ask them what time it is, if you tell them they dropped something, if you’re sitting next to them at the fucking stunt spectacular, if you ask a park attendant a question that they know the answer to, if you’re laughing, if you look like you’re having an ounce of a good fucking time. They simply hate you. They pass by you and roll their eyes or look back at you and give you the nastiest fucking look. And the thing is, everybody is doing it to everybody else so you can’t even feel bad for people – and they all hate each other for the same fucking reasons.

Another thing you realize is how fucking ugly this country is. In New York, you don’t notice it as much. People put effort into their appearance here for the most part – a lot of people take care of themselves, keep in shape – have basic fashion sense even if they’re wearing cheap knock-offs of the good stuff. But in Orlando you get none of that. I fucking swear to God I’ve seen the same goddamn Tasmanian Devil shirt on ten different people within a five minute span, the only difference is the city they’re representing. One says Atlanta, one says Texas – as if the people in Texas are too stupid to break it down by city, they’d rather make it easy and declare the whole fucking state – one says Memphis as if Memphis is the kind of city you’re proud to come from – as if the Tasmanian Fucking Devil would be proud to come from Memphis – as if he wouldn’t shit on a preacher and eat a Baptist church. They all got the shirts that cost them two dollars to make and they matched it perfectly with the black or grey spandex shorts or pants that are stretched so goddamn far you can see their flesh through it – fucking spandex is not supposed to be see-through. These fucking people buy spandex so that they can feel thinner. They can buy an extra-extra-large instead of their usual extra-extra-extra-extra-large and pull it on with minimal effort but plenty of pain. Besides the clothes and the fat there’s just the general ugly. The crossed eyes, the damaged teeth, the scars. The fucking ponytails and the cornrows. The bad breath. The raspy smoker’s voice – the freckles and the sagging tits – the bellies sticking out from underneath their shirts. I don’t understand how these people get fucked. Even if I was as ugly as one of these people I wouldn’t stoop so low to fuck one of them. But that shit happens. There was this girl that was in my neighborhood growing up, her name was Luz. Do you know that person you picture when you think of the name “Luz”? That’s exactly what she fucking looked like. Big ass girl, looked like a fucking brontosaurus. Fat-ass face, nose that went from ear-to-ear. Greasy-ass black hair that curled down to the small or her massive back. Breathing heavy every time she moved, always talked in screams. This bitch was the type of bitch you expected to die alone at the age of thirty with a fucking chicken wing lodged in her enormous throat. No – she gets married. And has a fucking kid at the age of nineteen. What the fuck is wrong with this county? In any normal country she would be a fucking social outcast, a goddamn hermit locked up in her apartment and eating rats. In this country she’s not only accepted but she’s allowed to procreate – she’s not mocked or shunned and if she is it’s OUR fucking fault – we’re inconsiderate. And when you’d in Orlando – about three-quarters of the people here are like fucking Luz. It’s amazing.

I figured all of this shit out when I was fucking twenty. I finagled my way into some Youth Leadership conference in Orlando and part of the deal was a free pass to Disney World – I realized everything wrong with the other half of this country within five-fucking minutes. The girl I went down there to fuck, this chick named Emily, was having fun riding on Small Fucking World and the Peter Pan ride so I just smiled and pretended that everything was normal – that I wasn’t witnessing The Fall of American sitting on the Dumbo ride and eating a fucking corndog.

If I saw all this at the age of twenty, when I was still learning my shit, can you imagine what I would have realized at twenty-seven, when I’m on top of my fucking game? I would have written a fucking thesis on it so powerful and honest that the world would be talking about, fucking camel-jockeys out in Fuckastan would have been using it as their manifesto to why they kill Americans – people in our country would have read it with shame before slitting their wrists – it would have been glorious.

But the Orlando trip, the last week I was to spend with Agatha – playing her into a myriad or embarrassing and painful situations while being hundreds of miles away from home and trapped with me - had to be postponed for a later date.

My mother is moving in.

Chapter 23 (38,009 words out of 50,000

23.

I think Ed might have been the quickest firing in this company’s twenty year history. The poor fucking guy started last week. Wet behind the ears, out of college, thinking he was getting hired because he took a couple of marketing courses, because is fucking bachelors is from the School of Management. He apparently broke down in the kitchen, too, and said all this shit to Derek who, obviously, told the rest of the office.

Apparently – Ed keeps a lot of people on his phone list. More than the average man.

Hi priest, for starters – which I found rather hysterical – who the fuck has this emergency need to call his priest? Does he routinely seek spiritual guidance at the fucking supermarket? His karate instructor. I keep picturing Ed getting into a fight and calling up his sensei, asking for advice. His mother, obviously, I knew that – didn’t realize she was this fucking hypochondriac controlling bitch who would lecture him for hours on end about how dangerous AIDS was – that’s some funny shit. All of his friends, boys and girls. His fucking landlord – the dude evicted him without second thought, didn’t even wait for Ed’s next rent check to bounce. His girlfriend’s father which is probably the funniest one, even funnier than his girlfriend herself who, obviously, broke up with him. Another of my favorites is the fact that this fucking boy scout had our new customers cell phone number in his address book – that’s one hell of a follow-up to a meeting, I’ll tell you that much. Who would have thought one picture could do so much damage?

I’ve been avoiding him all day – don’t really want an incident - I’d hate to have to administer a beat-down to this faggot after everything he’s going through right now. He cleared his desk and got escorted out of the building like a fucking criminal. I’ve seen this many times before. One time a guy I worked with was actually caught stealing company information and passing it off to a competitor. Another time this girl was smoking dope in the computer lab, somehow managed to start a fucking fire and destroy three computers. One guy even flipped out and threw some girl into the copy machine. All of these guys walked out with their heads held higher than Ed has his right now.

David, Bob, David and Eric won’t stop laughing about it. Around the other employees, obviously, they try to act all stern, as if they’re outraged by Ed’s behavior, not even realizing the employees are passing around a whole different set of pictures courtesy of my phone and giggling like idiots of them. Laura supposedly put them together to make a fucking screensaver and that’s making its way around the office. There are copies of the pictures hanging in bathroom stalls – being emailed all about – I even heard a rumor that someone was considering putting on of them on a coffee mug and giving them out as fucking Christmas presents around the office. When the employees aren’t around, however, they’re using Eric to puff up their own egos – talking about how funny it is that this young shit loses control, how bad he though he was and how he was shown up by people twice his age. I get lumped into that “twice his age” thing, of course, but I don’t complain – I’m one of the guys again.

Luis, the guard who escorted Ed out, says that Ed was asking about me. Nothing major, just asking if they knew me personally. They said no, of course, and reported the incident like they’re supposed to. I just find it funny, this spineless fuck somehow got it in his head that he can even consider coming after me. That’s it’s worth feeling out. This guy wouldn’t know what to do. What the fuck, would he punch me? Try to shoot me? What would that do, seriously? I mean, yeah, if he shoots me I could be dead but who gives a fuck about that once it happens – not me, that’s for sure. After all he went through this week he still doesn’t get it, he still doesn’t learn shit.

Look at what the fuck I did to him without throwing a single punch.

Chapter 22 Part 3 (37,283 words out of 50,000)

He was just sitting there, he look miserable, you know? He has some titties in his face, an ass on his crotch, and he just had this fucking face on. David, Eric and Bon were noticing, too – it was totally killing there evening and in turn making my fucking life harder. Plus, I don’t know – I might have felt kind of bad for the kid. I can only imagine, you know, he comes out of college and gets this type of money – it goes to your head. You’re getting all this shit you can’t afford and if the job falls out from under you you’re fucked. So he’s sitting there and I just fucking know he’s going to get laid off if he keeps acting like this and I think about him getting evicted, selling off all this shit he bought, his girlfriend shacking up with some other dude who can actually hold a job – and yeah, I felt a little bad. I went with the headache angle, gave him a couple of amphetamines (you can get anything in a strip-club, the strippers themselves are walking fucking medicine cabinets – they mark up the price of their shit and it pays for a week’s worth of junk) and told him to take them for his aching fucking head – he has this fucking scowl and tells me he’s fine – I tell him to take them and start acting like he’s having fun or else all this shit he’s been looking forward to is going to go away. He drops them down without even looking, trying to sell his headache to the bosses, chases it down with his goddamn Bass.

Now he’s in the VIP lounge with us, doing coke, smoking dope and I think he was even free-basing at one point. The strippers don’t even want to go near him, they all think he’s going to hurt them. The bosses are laughing, they’re using Ed as an outlet for their fucking dip-shitness – this young guy can’t even party harder than a couple of old fucks, they’re going to like having him around for that reason alone – if this was prison, Ed would be the bosses’ bitch.

He’s cursing, calling every woman a bitch, demanding lap dances, flashing hundred bills and claiming it’s all on the corporate account which it isn’t but the bosses thought it would be a funny joke not to tell him that. He’s already puked once, he punched a wall and tore the skin off of his hands as well. He tripped a couple of times and about five minutes ago he began to spontaneously jump around with his dick hanging out of his zipper – it’s like bringing your retarded cousin along with you.

I still do feel bad, maybe – he’s having fun, though – he’s securing his job by finding his niche. When David, Bob, David and Eric first brought me back on I had no idea what this fucking kid was going to do but he seems to be adapting, finding a place for himself – that’s good for him. But then I sort of remembered I don’t really like the kid and that I wanted him fired. I don’t like his shitty Polo cologne. I don’t like his demeanor. I don’t like his eyes, the way they stare at you and fucking judge you, deem you less than him. I don’t like his wardrobe – his fucking Dockers pants and Old Navy “dress shirt”. I don’t like his walk – it’s almost a strut – like he has some music about him that only he can hear and I can only guess the music is Dave Fucking Mathews with or without his goddamn band. I don’t like his shoes – they’re pretty fucking generic, probably got them at Macy’s at their year-end clearance sale. I don’t like his voice, the way it doesn’t shake, as if he’s confident – as if he’s actually fucking worth something. I don’t like his hair – too much gel, too affected – too Hollywood – he looks like he’s trying to look like some guy that’s trying to look like Brad Pitt – he looks like a copy of a bad copy.

So I take a picture with my phone that’s only available in Japan. I snap one off of Ed giving a stripper’s tits a raspberry, send it to Cynthia – she’s our receptionist.

I take a picture of Ed getting spanked by a stripper – his shirt is unbuttoned and his hair is all messed up – his brow is sweating profusely – I send it to James, he’s our human resources director.

I take a picture of Ed going into the bathroom with this absolutely rank stripper, one of the local girls that try to undercut the lap dances being offered by the actual employees – I send it to Shelly, she works in IT.

I take a picture of Ed grabbing at a stripper as a bouncer pulls him off – he already got some of her blouse and her tit is falling out - I send it to Janet, she’s one of the technical people.

The bouncer wants to kick us out but we already spent well over a grand here and the manager would rather we stay – he calls over some of his girls and tells them to pay attention to us – to have some fun with us – to do what we want. They take us to this stealthy VIP room and we start throwing hundreds around as if they were worthless pieces of paper. Ed is fucking this stripper, right here in front of us – she’s riding him hard and you can tell he’s never fucked a real woman before – goddamn smile like you’ve never seen. I take a picture, I send it to Phil – he works over at Corporate. Ed turns around and gets shit-faced excited, reaches into his pants pocket which is currently resting down by his ankle and pulls out his own piece of shit camera phone he likely got at Best Buy, probably used their credit card to get no interest financing for two years to pay for a phone that costs three-hundred bucks, tops. He throws me the phone and says he wants one too.

His face is enraged, he’s high on speed. His cock is submerged into this stripper’s snatch and he’s slapping her ass. I take a picture with his camera and send it to “Mom”.

He’s pulling her hair back and sucking on her neck, asking her how she likes it – the boredom on her face is priceless. I take a picture with his camera and send it to “Nick”.

He’s ready to cum, you can tell by his lips – he’s doing that hard-breathing thing that kids do before they realize they look like idiots and women find it threatening. I take a picture with his camera and send it to “Nicole”.

He’s shooting his load, he’s screaming like a bad porn star, everyone around his is laughing, you’d think the stripper was ripping his balls off. I take a picture with his camera and send it to “Noel”.

He’s pausing now, flexing his non-existent bicep as the stripper rolls off of his spent cock, he’s smiling like it’s Christmas morning. I take a picture and realize his phone has a “Send All”.

Chapter 22 Part 2 (36,072 words out of 50,000)

When David, Bob, David and Eric told me they wanted to go to McKendrick’s for their pre-meeting steak I figured it’d be a “high-class” night by their definition. An upper-tier strip club. But David, Bob and Eric are putting down shitty beers and getting nice and liquored up so I’d imagine we’d head over to Boomer’s and get these guys some VIP room action. It almost makes me feel like I’m being wasteful by knocking down a bottle of Volnay Santenots Hospices de Beaune Mochel Picard 1997 but I almost feel like tonight’s a celebration and there’s no better way to celebrate than with a bottle of Cote de Beaune. Ed, on the other hand, is drinking Sierra Nevada. What an idiot.

“Joseph! What’s the story with Boomers?” Bob’s eyes are so glazed over and wild I think he’s going to rape the waitress – something tells me I’m going to be bailing him out today.

“It’s one-sixty for about thirty minutes in the VIP room – that’s with tip. And I understand that sometimes the sluts will take you to this crazy stealthy, cop-evading, super VIP room of sorts – let’s just say that’s the goal for tonight.” I already know who to talk to and how much money to give. I have the proper amount, four-hundred dollars, rolled and labeled for each of my three guys tonight, even have an extra one in case David comes out with us – if he doesn’t I’ll consider using it myself – I haven’t had a good nameless fuck in almost two-months.

“I considered going tonight – tomorrow, though. I’ll catch-up with you fuckers tomorrow.” Excellent – I call that a sign if I call it anything.

“Yeah, I’m going to pass on tonight too.” The table goes silent as everyone looks towards Ed. What an idiot. It’s like the McDonalds cook telling his boss he’s not going to make hamburgers anymore – as if he even has the fucking right to have any say in how anything in his life is going to play out. David and David stare at each other, silently agreeing with the fact that this could have been a huge mistake. Ed doesn’t know what to say, he looks at me and realizes that I’m not shitting him – that he was only hired to make these guys happy. You have to wonder where his mind is. This kid’s twenty-two years old and pulling eighty-k a year. You don’t just walk away from a salary like that – I assume he’s already spending that money, too. I assume he has a nice apartment, a couple of new video game systems, a pinball machine, a charming neon sign that read “Budweiser: King of Beers” in his kitchen. You can see his mind going, weighting his options, trying to gauge his worth. “I have a headache.”

The silence is killing him. Headache is the worst excuse imaginable – nobody sympathizes with a headache. Nobody sympathizes with anything that doesn’t directly affect them. You can say you got shot, mugged, raped, fired, bit by a horse and contacted fucking glanders but as long as the only person getting hurt is you - as long as the person you’re giving your excuse to has never been shot, mugged, raped, fired, or contacted glanders – as long as the person you’re feeding an excuse to doesn’t have a headache at this exact moment – nobody gives a fuck about what’s bothering you. All you are at this point is a fucking party-pooper. A goddamn kill joy. You want an excuse, you need to tailor it to the person you’re giving excuses to. If someone won’t stop talking about their new fucking dress you simply tell them you need to go shopping. If someone had abusive parents you tell them you have to take your neighbor’s child to crisis counseling – you noticed bruises – you couldn’t let it go unchecked. If someone’s son has recently been hit by a drunk driver you tell them you need to do a fucking walkathon for MADD. You make up the most ridiculous shit imaginable, the shit no-one in their right mind would ever fucking do, and you just sell it as your excuse and the person you’re avoiding would never think twice. Because if he or she pushes it they’d need to reveal their addiction to shopping. They’d need to admit that they weren’t watching their kid when he chased his ball into the fucking street. They would need to admit that their father touched them in the dirty place – that he beat them when he came home drunk and they always felt so fucking defenseless – no-one was ever there to help them, they never had a fucking neighbor who took them to crisis counseling. They won’t even ask questions like “what about social services” or “doesn’t the kid have an uncle” because by asking those questions it proves that they know a little too much about the subject.

You’ll never hear an incognito AIDS patient talking about a condom’s failure rates.

“I took some aspirin, though. Like an hour ago. I should be fine.” And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the sound of a man’s dignity breaking in half. I almost feel bad for the guy – he likely has a girlfriend, you can tell by his posture and the way he dresses. This kid is fucking draped in GAP clothes. No self-respecting man wears GAP. If you’re single, you wear the high-end shit if you’re classy and you wear fucking Wrangler and Levis if you don’t give a shit. Only a bitch inspires a man to wear GAP clothes.

Like all things in men’s fashion, fags don’t really qualify for any of these blanket statements – but I’m pretty sure Ed’s not a fag.

“I hope it does work. I can’t wait to see some bitches dancing.” Ouch, Ed. Ouch. That one hurt you so much the pain shot across the table and hurt me. He can’t even look at me, this guy is one of those male-feminists, you can tell – most guys are out of college. This fucking generation. They don’t realize there’s no such thing as men and women.

There’s just you.

“Joseph – I think you’re ringing.” My phone has a distinctive ring, everyone calls me out when it goes off. The fucking thing is only available in Japan for now, it’s some fucking Motorola PDA/cell phone that does MP3s, pictures, movies, FM radio – but because it ain’t available in the states yet the fucking thing sounds like Dance Dance Revolution every time someone call me. Agatha – screened. I took her picture so that it comes up every time she calls – she thinks it’s because I like to be reminded of her when I’m business – truth is because the brain processes the picture a split-second quicker than it does the name or the phone number, gives me that much more time to get into my character – to make sure everything’s in order.

“Was that Agatha, Joseph?” David with his fucking smile, as if he knows something. He’s still pissed because two weeks ago I asked if I could get both corporate tickets so I can take Agatha to a fucking Yankee game.

“Yeah. But, whatever, fucking business, right?”

“I think David’s getting soft on us.” Mother fucker. This guys calls his wife every night on business – regardless of what the plans are. I’ve seen this guy take a phone call from his wife while he was getting a fucking lap-dance. His wife put his daughter on the phone and David told her the story of Goldilocks and the Three Fucking Bears – the stripper moved on, of course, having already took this idiots money. I’ve had this fucking exact conversation with David:

Hey, David, I got this guy that’s gonna run me some coke, he’s down on Cocoa. I’m gonna go pick it up.

Oh, wait, I’ll come with you.

Ok man but we gotta roll.

Ok, I’ll just call my wife on the way.

And we drove down to Cocoa Beach, going to pick up fucking COCAINE, and this guy is one the phone with his wife and asking her how the goddamn kids are doing. An hour later he’s pouring lines down his cock-hole and fucking two hookers at once.

“I’m doing all-right, bro. I just never realized the benefit of having poon at home.” The other David, Eric and Bob all laugh. Ed puts his head down, I just referred to his girlfriend as “poon at home” in his mind and there’s not a fucking thing he can say about it. David just shuts up and looks at me for several more seconds. I know you, David. I know you don’t get fucked at home. I know you don’t get blowjobs. I know you don’t get a quarter of what I get for you. You have no idea what it’s like to have poon at home and you fucking know it. When you call me out, you need to be ready to face the shit that’s going on in your head.

This is the old Joseph. Do I need to prove it to every fucking single one of you?

Chapter 21 and 22 Part 1 (34,548 words out of 50,000)

21.

“When are you going to ask me about Chris?”

“I’m sorry?”

“Chris – when are you going to ask me about what he said at the party?”

“…”

“…”

“When are you going to ask me about what he told me at the party?”

“I know what he told you.”

“Oh.”

“And I know you know I know what he told you.”

“Ok.”

“So?”

“So?

“You don’t care?”

“It was before we were getting together.”

“Yeah, true, but…I don’t know.”

“I don’t understand – do you want me to be mad at you?”

“No.”

“If it means anything I hooked up with someone that night too.”

“I’m not feeling bad…who’s you hook up with?”

“If you’re not feeling bad what’re we doing here?”

“You’re a guy.”

“Ok.”

“And guys are stupid.”

“Most of the time.”

“You’re supposed to be mad.”

“But I’m not.”

“Jesus Christ, Joseph, you…you fucking beat the crap out of Chris. You put him in the hospital. And you’re saying you weren’t mad?”

“I lost control.”

“No shit.”

“But I’m Ok now.”

“You’re ok now?”

“I’m ok now. Does that bother you?”

“What? What…no, it doesn’t bother me. I don’t particularly get it, but it doesn’t bother me.”

“Either way, you know you liked it.”

“Liked what?”

“The fight.”

“Not particularly.”

“Yeah, right.”

“Yeah right what?”

“You were hot for it, come on. You can admit it – this is me.”

“Hot for it?”

“Yeah – totally hot for it.”

“It’s the biggest emotional response I’ve seen from you since we’ve gotten together. I thought there was something there with Rick but you just bottled it. I was hot for you, you big doof. If anything I was kind of appalled you had to use your fists to express yourself. You keep flipping back and forth, now with your mom you’re this deep and caring man all over again. I don’t need you to always be like this – I just like to occasionally know that there’s more there than the two-hundred-dollar coffee and the shirts you wear sometimes, that’s all.”

“…”

“What?”

“Nothing.”

22.

He’s not even talking to her. The girl sitting next to him has her leg crossed towards him, she’s fake reading a book while twirling her hair with her pen. He should be fucking her in the cramped bathroom right now but he’s not even talking to her. He’s doing a fucking crossword puzzle, listening to his IPOD, taking a break from reading “The Catcher in the Rye”, the book of choice for every angst-riddled poseur. The fucking guy probably has Postal Service on his goddamn IPOD – how can people try that hard? You either have it or you don’t, how does a fucking kid like this deicide to waste so much energy pretending to have it. This kid should be at home right now, playing Dungeons and Fucking Dragons, masturbating to the latest copy of Final Fantasy. He shouldn’t be here.

She looks at him and asks if she can get by, she has to piss, obviously, the wine she’s kicking back is going right through her. If I was sitting next to her I’d have her in the back of this plane, fucking her brains out, while the flight crew video taped it and occasionally brought me a complimentary gatorade to keep my fucking electrolytes up. But this fucking guy, quick glance, this fucking indifferent nod and he doesn’t even get up, he just sort of shifts. The thing he doesn’t realize is, he’s driving this bitch nuts. She obviously wants to fuck him but he’s just ignoring her – her primal mind is going nuts, his isn’t how it’s supposed to be – he’s supposed to be hunting her, he’s supposed to be fucking her – she’s supposed to be nurturing these needs. SO in that regard, he’s doing good – he’s making her desperate, making her feel like a failure. But he’s leaving no opening to bring it home, by the time he makes his move – if he makes her move, she’ll have already shifted her minds focus onto someone else – he’ll be inconsequential, just another cock.

I need to talk to this guy.

He doesn’t even watch her leave, doesn’t check out that spectacular ass, could he be a fag?

“Ed, we haven’t really talked yet.” He lowers his IPOD, doesn’t even take his headphones out, looks up at me annoyed. If it wasn’t for his calm and cool fake-o demeanor I’d say he was simple afraid of flying and trying to block out the fact that he’s something like fifty-thousand feet in the air. But if that is the case, he’s really fucking good at blocking it all out.

“Yeah…Joseph, right?”

“Yeah, Joseph.” I wonder what happens to you when you get into a fight on the plane? Do they land it or something or do they just try to contain the dudes and lock them in some special room the rest of us flyers always assumed is nothing but a closet? I don’t know, this fucking kid is just some arrogant shit, that’s what his fucking problem is. He groans as I push him to move over so I can sit down, he’s fucking so emo I don’t feel like a goddamn tool using the word “emo” to describe him. This kid – this kid has no idea what’s ahead of him. I almost feel bad for him. If I were a better man I’d take him on as a prodigy but I already have my charity case. “The girl you’re next to, what’s her name?”

“I don’t know, man.” Oh – there’s some anger there. Does he feel like I’m calling him out? Challenging him? I’d have to assume so and you know how I roll, always give them what they want.

“She’s hot though, dude. She’s totally wet for you, too.”

“Well, Joseph, first off she has to be at least thirty. Secondly, I don’t know what gave you the impression that I’m your fucking locker-room buddy but I’d seriously reconsider that assessment of our relationship.” Using sixth-grade words in a well-spoken manner, he’s a fucking comic-book reading faker – this guy never read anything tougher than Michael Crichton.

“Well, Ed, first off a thirty year old chick will make you shoot your load so hard the inner wall of your cock will shed and a semen/blood mixture would cover her tits. Fucking secondly, and this is going to be great, why the fuck do you think David, Bob, David and Eric even fucking hired you?” This kid – this fucking kid – something tells me he honest-to-god thinks he got hired because he knows shit about business. Maybe he thinks he was hired because he’s one fuck of a marketer – his Power Point slides look like Jesus Christ made them.

“Because of my speaking skills – it’s why they have me running point at today’s meeting.” Oh. Man. This is beautiful.

“Speaking skills?”

“Yes.”

“They’re paying you, what? Eighty-k a year for your speaking skills?” David, Bob, David and Eric – seriously, guys, what the fuck will you do without me? You guys struck fucking gold the day I walked into your office – you are so lucky you didn’t let me go – if it was you and this fucking guy in Atlanta – when you wanted to go out and get laid and he wants to go over his presentation notes – you fucking guys would be calling me up and asking me to meet you out here. There’s nobody like me. This guy isn’t even fucking trying.

“That’s none of your business.”

“They originally wanted you to replace me.”

“I heard you don’t do shit, Joseph.” I don’t do shit. I’m sure they whisper that around the office. Joseph is making two-hundred-thousand a year fucking base for doing jack shit. He doesn’t even know what this fucking company does. He gets large bonuses. He’s always taking time off. Yet he doesn’t do shit. Nothing. But they don’t see what I do – none of them can even conceive what my two-hundred-k a year gets David, Bob, David and Eric. These are guys who pay thirty, forty-k a year to play golf in a club with no minorities or women – paying me 200-k, 50-k for each of them, to get them pussy once a week is a fucking steal. But they don’t see that. To the rest of the office, the people with no vision, the people with no sense of how fucking pointless their job is – they all think I do shit. Business – our goddamn capitalist society – is motivated by fucking. Everything we create, everything we do, is because we want to fuck. A guy doesn’t spend four-plus years in college so that he can get a job that pays well and have a sense of fulfillment. He dos it so that he can get a job that pays well and in turn flash his money to get some fucking pussy. That’s what I do – I get them the pussy they need. I’m the goddamn cornerstone of our economy.

“I don’t do anything?”

“That’s what I’ve heard.”

He has this smile about him, this weasel arrogant smile – this fucking King Shit smile – it’s the cool kind of smile, the one that’s supposed to make an “old fart” like me unhip and outdated. I got six years on this kid, round-a-bouts, but even when I was four years younger than he is now I’d fucking destroy him. “Let me tell you what I do. What you were hired to do. Tonight, for instance, is the night before the bog kick-off meeting. David Jones will likely just want to get a steak tonight and then retire early. Contrary to what you believe – he’ll be running point tomorrow and of the lot of us, he owns the most stock in this company and thus has the most to lose. David Richards, Bob and Eric like to get fluffed, however. I have a couple of strip clubs picked out already, which one we go to usually depends on what the guys drink at dinner. If they’re drinking beer we go to a sleazy joint – local – where the strippers have three kids at home and their vaginas are cavernous traps. If it’s wine we go a more ritzy club where the strippers are referred to as exotic dancers or adult entertainers and whereas they likely won’t be sucking anybodies dick there more inclined to anal sex and other more risqué fetishes if the price is right. David like blowjobs, if possible – I’d set it up for him behind his back he likes to believe he’s getting special treatment. I give the girl an extra tip and let her know he really likes to get his balls sucked. Eric just likes to watch – I set that up as well. Sometimes two women, sometimes one woman with several toys. From what I understand, he doesn’t even masturbate. He just soaks that shit up like he was a fucking TiVo and then waits quietly for us to return to the hotel room. My money is on the fact that he’s an in the closet homo – he likely fingers his asshole while he jerks off, maybe rolls on his back and shoots himself in the face – sucks on his finger with his eyes clothes – shit like that. Either way there’s a reason he doesn’t take care of it at the club. Bob likes to hit women – from my experience three out of four guys like to hit women, one out of ten actually act on it – Bob acts on it in a sexual aggressive fashion with the more run-down hookers, I tend to give them about five-hundred bucks in hush-money to get them to take a couple of slaps, maybe a cigarette to the tit – they always take it, they’re lucky if they make five hundred in a week some of these girls are so fucked up. If you stand outside the window you hear belts slapping, women crying – it’s a fucking thing to experience, I’ll tell you that. If you ever see Bob’s wife you will almost always wonder what he does to her when they’re home – the girl looks like a fucking church receptionist. Answer is – he doesn’t even touch her. Last I heard they had separate beds. Now all this, this is the night before the big meeting – this is how they window. On the celebratory nights it’s completely different. They all get laid or at the very least they flirt with women who would normally never talk to them but I’m lighting up Alabama Slammer shots for the ladies to have as long as they humor my guys. There’s always a bar fight, too, usually involving me. When I’m not acting as their pimp I’m their own fucking private gladiator. Occasional arrests, I have a bails bondsman contact in almost every city. I always keep a couple of hundreds handy to give the cop that pulls us over for a DUI. It’s all stupid Hollywood shit but that’s all these fuckers know.

“So that’s what I do. That’s why I get paid a couple of six-figures. That’s why you never see me working and why people joke that I don’t do anything around the office. It’s because my job, the job David, Bob, David and Eric are now expecting you to pitch in on, apparently, is more important than speaking well and fucking power point presentations. We keep this company afloat, we provide a service only the elite within our country are able to benefit from. Sure, it’s not the job you write home about, but who give a – Oh, sorry, is this your seat?”

She looks at me like I’m the man this fuck Ed will never be. She knows it when she sees it. She’s so fucking hot right now, so desperate and denied that it would be an easy score. “Sort of, you can have it if you want to talk to your little friend.”

“No. No, I’m done with him. The seat next to me is empty, though, if you wanted to talk for a while.” Ed shoots me a look – he still thinks I’m nuts – he still thinks I’m some bitter old fuck who’s trying to shake him down, who feels threatened by his knowledgebase.

“Yeah – I’d like that.” She shoots Ed a look that freezes him – Ed’s fucking childsplay, she was going to give him a courtesy fuck and teach him a few things – now she’s going to have fun, do for herself.

“Excellent. Ed – nice talking to you. This should be an interesting trip for you, aye?” He doesn’t answer, he stares at his seatback and puts it all together. Meanwhile I already have the name of the hotel she’ll be at as well as her fucking schedule and cell phone number.

Ed and I, we’re going to have some fun on this trip.

Well, I will.