How the fuck did I get here? Wait, no, I should start more basically? Where the fuck is here? Shit. Ok, let's ask the first question and go from there. The question pretty much every college student has to ask themselves at some point.

What the fuck?

It's the easiest question in the world to ask. It's also the hardest one to answer. What the fuck is the question of all questions, in a sense. It's not quite as eclectic as, "Is it pious because god loves it, or does god love it because it is pious?" It's not as tailored up as, "To be or not to be?" What the fuck is basically asking, "What is?" and not paying much mind to what is not, for after all, we can always focus on what is not in life, what we don't have, what we can't get, can't achieve, will never obtain, and so on and so forth. But no, not what the fuck. What the fuck is all about what IS going on, what IS to be seen and heard and understood and obtained. What the fuck is such an influential question, especially in our world, that it often is a prefix for other questions, though in my opinion adding anything onto it takes away from the utter gravity of the statement. What the fuck is the ultimate rhetoric, since no one ever can agree how you define rhetoric anyways. Find me two men who agree on the exact implications of the question, "What the fuck?" and I'll find you two men who are one in their views on modern philosophy. Or two men who don't care about it at all and are saying anything they can to dispute what I'm trying to say here. Or maybe they're just two people who have been convinced that someone else got it right and are just repeating whatever has been told to them previously. That or you have two guys just drunk enough to repeat what I'm saying and think that they thought it up themselves.

I'm getting ahead of myself. What the fuck? And by that, I mean, who honestly gets on a bus at 10 at night singing out loud the song on their Ipod, and gets everyone on the bus but me to join in? Who does that? I mean, one minute I'm just sitting here, riding home after an interesting night the way I always do, writing nonsense and chicken scratch and whatever you want to call what I normally write, and in comes this...this girl. Short, frizzyish hair, tiny nose, greyish bluish eyes, slender, stickish body somewhere lost in an enormous parka and those furry boots everyones wearing. You know, the epitome of an East Coaster. And she's swaying to her music, I think it was some local band here in town or something, because she starts singing out loud and everyone seems to recognize it. Next thing I know, everyone else just joins in. And I'm siting there like, is this actually happening? I know I always have to ask myself if I'm awake or not, but even after the bus turned and I smacked my head into the nearby pole next to my left ear and realized that I indeed was still awake, I still didn't believe what was going on. And I do mean everyone else was singing along. Even the bus driver, and bus drivers tend to be some of the most unhappy people I've seen in cities. Like taxi drivers that get no tips and little to no conversation. Even HE was singing along, like it was a god damn karaoke bar. And so did this old lady right in front of me, who I couldn't tell if she was asleep or dead because she didn't move until this girl got on. I actually think I've seen her on this bus the last time I rode it, and she didn't move then either. I thought I was high AND drunk and I don't even get high. I mean, of course I was drunk, but not drunk enough to start hallucinating. I'm not even sure if alcohol is capable of this kind of distortion, and believe me, I would know. And yeah, the song finishes, and everyone claps and smiles, and then she just gets off and that's it. End of story. The bus goes on riding like nothing ever happened. It is this event that makes me ask: What the fuck?

Apparently, that is. As in that happens, that occurs. I wonder what causes that to enter someones mind. Let's get on a bus and sing and get others to follow along. Let's make this completely random event occur in peoples lives, whether or not they were even ready for it. That goes down.

I also ask what the fuck, and consequently where the fuck am I and how the fuck did I get here because in the midst of me watching this girl do her random act on my ride back 'home', I completely forgot to pull the cord for my own stop. I don't have the slightest fucking clue where I am now. And that's not good. Looking out the window, it doesn't look like a good neighborhood. I know they say, "Never judge a book by it's cover," but ask those same people if it's ok to judge a neighborhood by the amount of abandoned buildings with individuals standing near trash cans lit on fire at 10:08 at night, I'll bet you won't have as many people going along with that philosophy. Maybe I should pull this cord before we get really far into this bad-looking neighborhood. Before the bus driver says I have to get off. Before I regain full sobriety and realize what a huge mistake I've made in general.

What the fuck?

I pull the cord, there's an obnoxious buzz, and the bus stops with a bit of a skid. I hoist myself up, not even caring about the bump on my head because I've got bigger problems now. Shuffling off the bus, I look at my new surroundings, immediately regretting my decision. This is not an amicable environment. I'm not even sure how far off campus I am and already I'm pretty sure I'm in a proper setting to be fearing for my life now. Where the fuck am i?

That's another example rather easy question to ask and hard to answer when you think about it. You ask where you are plenty of times, and you see signs to indicate it. Road signs, maps, GPS in cars here and there. But how the hell do you know where you are. Half the time you're just going off experience of where you've been an a prediction of where you're going. You try to disregard how plenty of people steal and/or manipulate road signs just for fun or to fuck with people. You overlook how easy it is to read a map wrong or that there are plenty of times where roads are labeled incorrectly or in a complicated way. You disregard that people can be very stupid or ignorant and give wrong directions, and you may be stupid or ignorant to follow those directions when they are given. Or how about the fact that the majority of us have no idea what the world actually looks like because we spend our time believing what others have told us it looks like. I'm looking at this map and hoping that my street is 3 blocks behind me, but I have no idea if that's the case. I've never used this map once before, have I been given an actual reason to trust it? I've seen plenty of maps of the United States and the world, but I've never gotten in a spaceship and gone up to see it for myself, so why am I to regard it as the unquestioned truth. So many things we learn nowadays we are told and expected to both remember verbatim and accept without rationalizing it. There's no reason not to believe most of what I've been told, but at the same time, why is it considered automatic that I just say, "Ok, you got it. 2+2=4. The capital of Iceland is Reyjavik. George Washington was the first American president." and ignore that I've never been to Iceland, I wasn't alive when George Washington was, and two quantities of one thing and two quantities of another thing does not have to add up to four quantites. And besides, George Washington was the first president under the Constitution, but he was not under the Articles of Confederation, so that's noteven wholly true in that sense.

Where the fuck am I going with this?

Looking up, I find my street. It looks familiar enough. If this is my street, my door is the 6th one on the right after the side street.

How the fuck did I get here? Easy I walked. Except, I didn't walk to get here in the first place. I flew. The plane flew and I rode in it. Then the taxi took me from the door of the airport to this street, the location I am still on my way to. But its especially easy for a Texan to ask how the fuck he ended up in Madison, Wisconsin. I might just want to leave it at that. I'll be up all night contemplating shit if I keep this up. Man, this must be why philosophers never make any money. They don't get shit done because they spend all their time just thinking about shit but never knowing how to act upon it.

Yep this is my door. I walked in and hit the elevator button. It was there on the first floor, waiting for me. I just kind of slump inside, taping the number four button.

What the fuck?

26. Now that we have your attention…

Sidney finally found her way back to the hotel right when everyone else was just packing up, it seemed. She passed virtually every person of the group she knew on the way down the hall or in the lobby or parking lot or wherever. She had gotten no sleep in the past day and a half, her hair was matted, she had ingested more alcohol in the past week than she had previously in the rest of her life, which was no modest task.

By the grace of god, she managed to pack whatever it was she had unpacked and raced herself downstairs to be in sight of one of the vans before it left. She didn’t give an easy breath, she kept hustling. Kept moving. And then BAM. She found herself on the ground, not 3 feet from the SUV, asking herself what the fuck. What the fuck just happened?

What the fuck had just happened was not very clear before, during, or after the fact. Sidney had known it would probably not be a clear train of events leading up to telling Charlie, the possible love of her life, that she had become pregnant and put the child, his child, up for adoption without telling him a thing.

Charlie didn’t take it too well.

His smile disappeared instantly as he sat in the bed next to her. His arm slid out from around her. He turned quickly and slunk out of bed in a hurry, sitting on the side, facing away from Sidney. Sidney had expected him to be shocked and upset, but she hadn’t seen a phase out coming.

Suddenly, he leapt from the bed, turned, and began a felonious verbal assault. Which makes it not actually felonious, but still, it was a terrifying sight for Sidney. Charlie began to scream, scream, scream in a blood-curdling voice he had never let her hear. He threw a chair across the room and into a wall like it was a baseball. Sidney was so shocked by it, she only started to catch the actual words after he paused long enough to take a breath.

“How the fuck…Who the fuck do you…what the fuck did you fucking…” it went on kinda like that.

Finally, Charlie paused long enough to sit down and put his head into his hands. Sidney heard him begin to sniffle. She felt her heart sink. In the same day, she had made him furious with her and made him cry.

Finally, he looked up at her. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
Sidney tried to find the words. She couldn’t. “I just couldn’t…”
“Couldn’t WHAT?!” Charlie leapt up from his seat. “Couldn’t let me be a father to my own child?! Couldn’t save my son from living the type of life that I had to?! Couldn’t be honest and tell me you had forgotten to take your birth control?! Which was it, Sidney?”

Wow, she reflected, that was all true. She was feeling lower by the second.

“I didn’t want to be the one to break your heart. Which I can see I screwed up at, and I’m so, so sorry, but I-”
“I cannot fucking believe you. CAN. NOT.”

Sidney was losing her grip on how to control her own emotions. “I just couldn’t do it.”
“Do what? Be a fucking woman about it?!”
“Be a mommy.” She started to tear up. Keep it together, she told herself. “You left me and went off to be a super soldier and left me and I didn’t know how to deal with shit as it was and then next thing I know, I’m pregnant. I freaked out, I know, but-“ Sidney’s explanation was interrupted by a forceful slap across her face. It sent her rolling across the bed away from Charlie. With a desperate yelp, she covered her face and head, preparing to be beaten again. She could no longer hold back her tears, they flowed without end.

Sidney just stayed there, huddled up on the bed, while Charlie continued to scream and thrash about the room. She closed her eyes, covered her ears, and did everything she could to shut out her surroundings. She took herself out of the room mentally.

When she awoke, the room was dark and Charlie was nowhere to be found. She looked around, partially incredulous that she had lost him again, partially dazed from a sudden headrush, and partially relieved that she was even alive considering the rage he had been in. She suddenly had an enormous headache and felt completely lost. Glancing over at the clock, she gawked. 3:47. The group was to leave in 13 minutes from across town. She was screwed.

Sidney leapt up and threw on her clothes. It ached to move so fast now. Sidney found herself feeling almost swollen as she did, but wouldn’t let herself be slowed. She grabbed the purse and the sunglasses she had brought with her and fled the motel room.

Flagging down a cab and hightailing it across town was a blur. Sidney wasn’t even sure she had given him the right address. Upon seeing the familiar hotel, she nearly leapt out of the window while the car was still moving, but no before flinging a handful of cash at her cabbie. She stepped quickly but somewhat dignified as she made her way up to her room and rummaged what she had into the bags. She was now 2 days behind on paperwork and planning, but it didn’t matter. For now, things were on autopilot. Greg had the first debate in a day and a half and then an interview or too. Or something like that. Shit, what came next? Who was supposed to know that? Was that Kelley or her job?

Sidney continued to grill herself as she tumbled herself down the stairs to the SUV’s. She was all the way to the car without making any more of a scene than necessary when her luck ran out. The strap on the bag looped over her waist snapped. It fell to her feet while they were still moving, which caused her to fall forward quite directly.

Ugh. So close, Sid. So close.

Sidney just sat there for an instant, unable to move. Then, she felt something pull her to her feet. Her sunglasses fell to the ground as she rose up. She reached back down to grab them as she heard that same old voice:

“Can you go four seconds without falling head over heals for something?”
Sidney smiled as she looked up to Robert. “Not while you’re around.”

As she smiled, Robert’s smile disappeared. He turned stern, almost instantly angry. “What the hell happened to you?”
“Oh my god, Robert, I’m so sorry about last night. I just…when I saw Charlie again I just got-“
“Charlie? ...Charlie?!” Robert got hotly mad.
“No, Robert, it wasn’t his fault, he didn’t do anything wrong?”
“Look at you! How the fuck can you say that? This wasn’t your fault! Are you ok? My god, I am gonna fucking kill that cocksucker! Where is he, that fucking psycho?!”
“He’s the psycho?! Look at you right now! Calm down!” Sidney put her hands on Robert’s shoulders.
“Hey, I NEVER put my hands on you in a way that hurt you and know that!”
“Well, neither did he, ok? He loves me, he’s just angry right now!”
“Oh, so he uses you for a punching bag and he’s the victim?!”

Sidney remembered the slap. She sighed frustratedly. “Ok, fine, he lost his cool, but it was just one hit, ok?”

Robert’s eyes shot open. He seemed to be looking her over. “Is that what you really think happened?”
Sidney squinted. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Robert reached out to her face and moved away her matted hair. He rubbed his fingers across her face softly, but she instantly felt aches and pains she’d never noticed. Sidney didn’t know what to make of it. She fumbled for her purse, dropping the other bags she had been carrying. She found it and flustered through it for her makeup. Opening it, she looked into the mirror to find her face covered with scrapes and bruises. Still not believing it, she rolled up her sleeves to find more bruises all over the place. She felt them on her stomach through her shirt.

Robert stood there, unable to say anything. His anger burst subsided as he obviously searched for some way to comfort her. It would have been a waste if not for Sidney’s ability to ignore her pain as she seized him in a gripping hug. She tugged him as close as she could, trying so hard to close her eyes so they would never open again to see herself as she just had.

27. The Adventures of Captain Obvious

Dave nearly kicked in the door as he entered the room Jim had just resided into. Jim had literally just dropped his bags and flopped onto the bed. He felt himself slip into paralysis again, but it wasn’t quite in full swing yet. He had another minute to get comfortable. But he had the whole night to let it run it’s course. The debate was highly anticipated for tomorrow evening, so he would need all the energy he could muster. He had all night to chill himself out. Until now.

Dave flung himself in so fast, he didn’t have time to dodge the bags in the middle of the floor. He had time to trip and flop onto the floor in a pain-filled matter. This just barely slowed him down.

“Do you know what we’re involved in?! Holy shit, Jimmy, do you have any idea what’s goin’ on with this campaign?! Do you know what I just found out?!”

That I’m not getting any rest tonight? “What’d you find out Dave?” Jim asked, sitting up calmly.
Dave took a deep breath. “I think Carol is in the CIA.”
Holy fucking shit, I didn’t see that one coming! Oh man, this is huge! This is big. This is really big. “Ok. What makes you say that?” Jim asked with uncontrollable coolness.

Dave lurched closer. “Because, she’s in the fucking CIA! When I was researching her account over the database for the company, it kept coming up as classified within our own registry. It only does that for government files. When I tracked where the account came from and funneled to over a bunch of transactions, it went to Langley, Virginia. Langley! Fucking Langley! She’s in the fucking government! My god, Greg either pissed off someone serious or he’s being framed or… or something that’s fucking bad! Holy shit, what are we gonna do?!” Dave began pacing back and forth. He pulled out his hair as he did, in quite a furious manner. “Jesus nostril raping Christ, Jim, will you stop being so damn calm about this and start freaking out for a second?!”

Jim was much more perplexed than Dave was, and for good reason. He was a bit less worried than he had been, but then again, not really. From what Greg had told him and Robert (Robert wouldn’t remember a damn thing) Greg had been watched for some time now. He had to know what was going on though, there was no way he wouldn’t know his wife was in the CIA if he was in the government work himself. Or did he? But more so, what reason would she have for making him go through all this crap now? And if she was a fed, and knew about what his family had done when he was younger, why would she not just move on him legally if she really did want to screw him over, as both he and Greg thought. Why this way?

Dave hadn’t stopped. “I mean, why, why, fucking why?!”

Thank you, Captain obvious.

Well, one thing was for sure. Greg had lied. Again.

Greg was no longer worked up. Now he was just sad. His friend insisted in hiding something from him. Maybe he wasn’t supposed to figure out what was going on with the campaign. Maybe Greg wanted to keep this to himself, whatever Dave and he were getting closer and closer to. Maybe…

Dave now leapt on the bed next to him, still midrage of words. “I mean, fucking look! Money going from Carol to Hagerty. Money going from Carol to Redmond! Redmond to Carol, back to Redmond! I mean, what the fuck IS all this shit!”

Jim had tuned way out and was now lost. He seized the papers Dave was holding as fast as he could, which came across as a light and half-ass grab. “Did you just say money was going from this account to both of the other candidates?” He said slowly, now very much under his chilling disability.

“Ummm, YEAH. Thank you, Captain mother fucking Obvious! Jesus, what is with you man?! I’m telling you that our friend is at the center of one of the biggest cover-ups or conspiracies or travishamockeries of our generation and all you can do is sit there on the bed and be calm about this?! If I wasn’t worried about an arson investigation, I would whoop your ass again!”

“Dave, if you don’t shut the fuck up, the people in the hallway that can hear this are going to run and get some popcorn to eat while they enjoy listening to you parade around like a complete jackass.”

Dave opened his mouth to explode some more but then shut his mouth.

“Good. Now, is that door closed?”
Dave shuffled over to the side of the room and returned after a loud thud had smashed from behind him. “Ok, so what are we gonna do?”

Jim looked back at the paper. “Nothing yet. First we have to figure out exactly what this means.” Jim paused as his eyes fixed on one of the columns on the spreadsheet in front of him. “Why does this number keep coming up right here?”

“Dave leapt back onto the bed and eyed the column where Jim was pointing. “Oh that. That’s what we call a routing account. Carol didn’t have all this cash in her own account so she would use another account to withdraw money from automatically every time she made a transaction. This way, that organization can back her with whatever she needs but not have their name come up constantly.”

“So why is it up here?”
“I used a username with clearance to print this out from our company.”
“You hacked into a higher clearance level?”
“No, I stole a computer that does it automatically.”

Jim wished he hadn’t asked. He wasn’t worried about the new addition of theft to Dave’s possible rap sheet. He was worried about this account. He began fumbling though the other papers Dave had.

“What? What are you looking for?”
“Well, Dave, I’m pretty sure I’ve seen this number before. Did you print out that e-mail I sent you?”
“Uh, yeah I did. Last page. Why? Where have you seen that number?
“It’s the other account I asked you to check into. Did you do that?”

Dave gawked. “Oops.”
Greg found the last page. He put it next to the page he’d been looking at. The numbers were the same. This was not good.

“What? What does that mean?”
“Dave, do you know where I got this account number from?”
“Where?”
“From the bottom of the check that Johnny Mateos wrote to Greg.”

Dave turned his head in shock. “That’s the file that Carol’s been taking money from?!”
“It would seem so.”
“This is not good.”
“Thank you, Captain Obvious.”

28. Chain letters and pick-up lines

There was a knock on Robert’s door. A loud, impatient knock. Robert jolted from his position on the bed. Knocks on the door never meant good things anymore.

“Robert! Open up, open up right now, we need to talk!”
Robert rolled his body a bit towards the door. “Who’s there?!” He called out.
“It’s Greg, open up!”

Shit. It’s Greg.

Robert slowly rolled Sidney out of his arms, towards her side of the bed. Then, with hasty smoothness, slid his arm out from underneath. It wasn’t too well executed but she was so far asleep it didn’t matter. She had spent the past 3 hours crying herself to sleep before passing out a half an hour ago. Robert felt so bad for her he just stayed there with her in the dark. He stayed and thought about all that had happened. All that he had been through with her. All that she had been through because of him.

Robert got up just as Greg knocked a few more times. He hustled to the door and rushed it open. The light jumped into the room and into his eyes. He tried to squint and block the light with his hand impulsively.

“Jesus, what time is it, Greg?”
“About 2:30 in the morning?”
“What the hell do we need to do at 2:30 in the morning?”
“I need your help reviewing for the debate, I thought maybe we could do a quick rundown of things.”

Robert looked up at Greg, incredulously. The lights in his eyes didn’t even phase him anymore.

“Are you crazy? You haven’t worried about any of your material for the past month. In fact, you haven’t needed to. And you come to me about this now?”
“Ummm…yeah. Why, you have someone in there?”
“Have you been drinking, Greg?”
“Why yes, thanks for noticing. Answer my question now. Do you?”

Robert knew that by asking, Greg already knew and was going to pry until he admitted it. It had always been a habit of Greg’s to make sure no one else could enjoy their nights peacefully if he himself couldn’t. That meant he wasn’t getting any from Kelley tonight…interesting.

But just as Robert opened his mouth to affirm that, yes, he had some company, Greg rushed past him and barged into the room clamorously. Robert was shoved aside right into the bathroom door, almost falling down and smacking his head. By the time he had grabbed the door and pulled himself up to regain his balance and ran to try to prevent Greg from seeing who was in his room, it was far too late. Greg was standing there in front of Sidney’s half covered body, his mouth half open. The bruises and scrapes were much more apparent than Robert would’ve hoped for.

“Robert…what happened?”
“It’s not what it looks like,” Robert rushed out, trying to think of the best way to explain.
“It looks like Sidney slept in your bed after someone beat the hell out of her.”
“Well then it’s exactly like it looks.”

Greg pulled Robert back away from the bed. “You didn’t…”
“Of course not. I would never do anything like this to any woman, certainly not her!” Robert shot back in an imperative whisper. Greg’s eyes grew wide in startlement.
“So then who did that stuff to her?”

Robert didn’t want to say. “I have no idea.” Shit, that didn’t sound convincing at all.
“Robert…”
“What? I don’t know, I have no idea!” His whisper got a bit louder.
“Robert…”
“Ok, fine!” his voice cracked into a small yell. Robert grabbed his mouth, wincing to see if Sidney stirred. She didn’t move.

Dragging Greg into the hallway, Robert came clean.

“It was Charlie.”
“Charlie…” Greg was obviously sure he had heard that name somewhere. His eyes lit up after a moment. “Not Charlie. Not that guy that…”
Robert nodded. Greg covered his mouth. “That Charlie, the guy you met in college Charlie? Him?!”
“Yeah…him.”
“The guy that you said you set up with Sidney in college?”
Robert grit his teeth under his lips at the thought. “One and the same.”

Back in college, Robert had been just as much of a ladies man as ever. He was uncanny at it, it was almost an addiction, particularly in the fact that it sucked up all his time, energy, and motivation, that he couldn’t stop, and that it was almost certain to get him killed. Robert went to Yale for his undergrad years before law school. The thing he learned first and foremost about Ivy league schools is the unwillingness most of the professors had to fail him. Practically anything he turned in was praised like he had written it immaculately and slaved for hours to confirm it. It was almost as easy as he had had things in high school, when he honestly did no work his junior and senior year. So he had all the time he needed to juggle the insane amount of women knocking down his door.

Robert’s friends and roommates never figured out how he did it. He had any girl he wanted, and to the untrained eye, it seemed like he did it without even trying. Robert didn’t even really brag about it to people, but it wasn’t because he was humble about it. To Robert, achievement was bragging enough. That was a virtue he had learned without the help of his parents. Sometimes, actions must speak louder than words.

But for those who weren’t around to see and hear about his actions, Robert was very vocal. Such as whenever he talked with his best friends from back home. Greg usually had comparable stories since he had gotten into Princeton by way of grants and an unprecedented academic award. Jim and Dave, on the other hand, were less forthcoming with these kinds of stories, especially Dave considering the long time girlfriend he was always talking about. Robert almost enjoyed telling the stories more than he did making the stories occur. He finally had all the privacy and free time to go as crazy as he’d known he wanted to go. College was everything he dreamed of in this respect.

But such ubiquitous success only made him look back to the one girl he’d never had. Robert thought of Sidney a lot more than he’d ever had admitted. Not just that she had ditched him and that he had handled it rather badly. He just thought about her in general. Her sense of humor, her spunk, her beauty, her intellect. Robert thought about her in general. He even checked up on her from time to time, which he felt was a bit stalkerish.

The summer before college, Robert, Greg, Jim, and Dave had taken a trip to Mexico. It was a longtime planned thing. It was considered the trip of stupidity to end all trips of stupidity. They all worked and saved enough money to be able to plan a monthlong excursion into Mexico. Dave and his father worked out the details themselves, which meant the other three had nothing to worry about. As it turned out, Greg had known someone who said they were welcome to crash in their place as long as they needed, which Jim found particularly interesting but with which there was ultimately no problems. The trip was set up and they went. And my, did they go crazy when they did go.

The place they ended up crashing at was amazing. Robert had suspected they’d be staying at some rundown shack in the middle of a ghettoish area, fearing they’d be robbed the entire stay. They ended up staying at a lavish mansion with a flawless outlook of the Gulf of Mexico. The man whose house they stayed at was an elderly-looking latino man, Robert thought he was Cuban or Puerto Rican or something. Robert never really even figured out the guys name, and that’s surprising because this guy did not stop talking the whole time he was around. But who Robert did get to know was the mans son, Dante. Dante was about their age and was twice as crazy as any of them, which was saying something at this point in time. Dante took Robert and the guys out with some ATV’s, took him surfing and deep sea diving, and about a thousand other crazy activities, many while intoxicated. The month felt like a week for Robert. He and Dante took eachothers personal information and kept in touch for the rest of the summer.

It never came out until everyone’s first year of college that Dante was attending Harvard. Robert was shocked to find this out, both from relief and anxiety because he now had an excuse to visit Sidney but felt like he also had an obligation to do so. So he visited his south American friend plenty of weekends and never stopped by, always promising himself he would go next time. And then the next time became the same as that. And the next, and so on.

But it was until second semester of his junior year that he finally made himself just stop by just for the hell of it. He got her address off of Facebook the first time instead of calling and asking where she was on campus. He broke away from Dante for a few hours while Dante did something or other and went to the building she had listed.

After a few minutes of standing outside, someone let him in from the inside. He had worried that plenty of people would ask him what business he had in the area but no one seemed to care as he watched down the halls and up the stairs. He exited on the 4th floor and stopped in front the number that was supposed to be and hesitated to knock.

There was a name tag next to the door. It read quite different than Robert remembered spelling Sidney’s name before.

A girl was walking down the hallway on the other side of the corridor. Robert hesitated for a second whether or not to ask her, then decided it was worth a shot.

“Hey!” he shouted as he hustled after her. She was a shorter girl, asian looking but with darker skin, with short stubby legs under her sweat pants and long sleeve shirt. She had on headphones for an Ipod clipped to her waist as she stepped hurriedly. She pretended not to hear him the first time. Robert tried again. “Hey, hang on for a second!”

The girl took off her headphones in a frustrated manner. She gave him a look like by taking off the headphones, he had commited some unspeakable atrocity towards her. Robert almost let her go from the look she gave him. “Yes?!” she almost hissed at him.

“Umm, I was looking for a girl on this floor. Sidney Clark? Do you know her?”

The girl went to put her earphones back on. With one hand, she motioned over toward where Robert had just looked. “She’s in that one.”

Robert glanced over. “Yeah, I just looked over there, the name says Xianen Fei.”

The girl brought her slight glare back up from her Ipod. “Yeah, I think she put that up herself or something.”

Robert didn’t understand. “Why would she do that?”

The girl shrugged with indifference. “Iunno. I don’t really know her that well.”

With that, she turned and kept her impatient stroll down the hall. Robert turned to ask something else, but couldn’t think of what else he wanted to know. So he turned with his arm out to point inquisitively, at the exact moment that someone else was coming by with a stack of books in his hands. Robert smacked the books clean out of the guys hands and up against the wall. It’s likely that Robert was more startled by this than the guy.

Not.

“BAH,” was the verbal reaction to the guy as he flinched backwards, petrified. Robert was probably more taken aback by this guys reaction than he was by the collision. The guy nearly tripped over his own feet as he worked to regain his balance. Robert looked upon this kid with disbelief. He was a puny little runt, it seemed, about 5 foot 6 with shaggyish brown hair, thin eye brows, a small but rounded nose, and a nice shade of blue in his eyes, Robert noted. Robert had not moved his feet since he had smacked away the books. He slowly shuffled over to pick up the books as his new acquaintance inched closer himself.

“I’m…I’m sorry about that. Here you go,” Robert stuttered out uncomfortably.
“Oh…uh, no problem.” The guy didn’t reach out initially. Robert stretched the books out. As he did, he noticed a book that he himself was using at the time. “Ha, philosophy, huh?”

The guy looked confused. Robert pointed to the book. In a shy and embarrassed fashion, the guy smiled and tried to laugh it off. “Oh, right, right. Yeah, it’s pretty cool.”
“I know. My class just finished with Descartes.”
Finally, his eyes lit up with signs of life. “We do that next, we were a little long on validty and logic.”
“Ahh yes,” Robert remembered those subjects. “I’m just waiting for discussions of religion and lifestyles and such. I get a bang out of all those conversations.”
“Really? I didn’t think they did those here.” The other guy looked slightly vexed.
“Oh, they don’t. I don’t go to school here. I go to school at Yale.” He extended his arm to the guy, who had just managed to get the books into his grasp properly. “Robert Berry.”

The guy smiled slightly, shifted his books to one elbow, and grasped the hand with his free hand. “Charles Upperman Porter.”
Robert almost laughed a bit. This guys initials were C-U-P.

The two kept going on about philosophy, which led into more talk about politics. Eventually, Charles invited him into his room to sit and relax some. By this point, Robert had forgotten why he had even come to the dorm. They went on and on, quite easily actually. Charles, as he initially called himself, was very easy going after the first task of connecting with him. The nerd melted away from him and a jovial, amusing counter part of Robert was right there. Maybe it was just that Robert brought that out of people.

Another thing he seemed to bring out was the alcohol. Charles’s roommate came back with several bottles of booze. That’s about where things got crazy. Robert got them playing drinking games and inviting girls and guys and whoever over. Within 2 hours, he had half of the building cramped in the small one room dorm room. Robert downloaded some jams from an online music sharing community and had them blasting. Then he found a strobe light and a disco ball from others on the floor, and that was it. He created a party from which there was nerdery. It was an uncanny skill of his apparently. People were dancing, drinking, making out, and anything else they wanted to do right there in that crowded room or in the adjacent hallway. It was beautiful, Poindexters and Savants rockin’ their bodies to Twista and Young Joc and the Ying Yang Twins, coupled with a few techno songs that brought the small Asian crowd from their chosen spot along one of the walls. A few of the room managers came by, initially to complain on behalf of the 2 or 3 people in the rest of the building that didn’t appreciate the noise. But 3 minutes talking with Robert and they were persuaded to drink themselves, which prompted the thong contest (don’t ask). Then at one point, someone thought they heard the cops coming but it turned out that someone from elsewhere in the building had pulled the fire alarm, which brought about the sprinklers in the hallway. This didn’t really do anything to stop the party though because half of the crowd moved out into the hall and kept dancing while getting wet. Robert couldn’t have planned it going as well as it did.

The party finally started winding down around 4. The alcohol had been gone, but that’s when one of the speakers blew and most of the people were exhausted anyways. Robert had been astounded at how these kids had partied so far. He looked around, trying to find Charles so he could tell him he was leaving before he and Dante headed back towards Dante’s dorm. It was then that Robert saw Charles huddled in the corner, apparently sulking. Robert approached him.

“What’s up, Charles?! How’d you like this get-together we just threw?”
Charles didn’t even look up. “It was alright.”
Robert was mildly insulted, not to mention incredulous that anyone had made such a statement. “Alright? Alright?!! This party was the Harvard party to end all parties! This was to parties what Bob Marley is to reggae music! How do you top this?!”

Charlie was still very sullen and depressed looking. Robert was just sober enough to guess that either something had happened or it was something beyond this night. “What’s wrong, buddy?”

After a few more unsuccessful coos, Charlie lifted his eyes to Roberts. “I have no luck with women.”
Robert had noticed that during the party. Charlie had been all over the place and had seemed to strike out with everyone and their cousin. But Robert was in no state of mind to reply with this, so he played dumb. “What are you talking about? I saw you out there, you were tearing it up!”
“I was embarrassing myself, as usual. That fuckin chain letter was right, I’m cursed with women. I’m cursed. I can’t say anything, I can do anything, I can’t dance to save my life. I can’t even spit out a pick-up line right apparently.”

This perplexed Robert just enough to ask, “Which pick-up line did you try to use?”
“The one about ‘if I followed you home, would you keep me’ and then ‘nice legs, what time do they open’ too.”

Robert fought to not laugh. He had never used pick-up lines for reasons like the ones he was about to explain.

“Ok, buddy. Let me pass on a bit of wisdom I have acquired over the years. Never, ever, ever use pick-up lines.”
Charles’s gaze looked up to Robert, slightly surprised.
“That’s right. Never. You wanna know why? Because they don’t help towards the task that they are created for. Pick-up lines are intended to get the girl to notice you and look you over, maybe even give you a quick smile. But only a certain type of guys use pick-up lines. We have a name for this type of guys. Douche bags. Now, these douche bags that use pick-up lines tend to turn girls off by using the lines because the girl has a hard time taking the guy seriously, usually because he was foolish enough to think a pick-up line would work in the first place. Any time a pick-up line works, it tends to be very unnecessary because the girl probably would have noticed the guy if he had approached her in a conventional way. The pick-up line serves only to show chauvinism and arrogance: chauvinism in that the girl can be taken by using a single phrase, and arrogance that you are a big enough player to be the one to pull it off. You follow?”

Charles nodded. Robert continued.

“Now, as far as getting girls, you must learn to lighten up. Like a book by the same name, “Don’t sweat the small stuff.” It’s like baseball, finding a girl. Most people strike out much more than they score, that’s why batting averages are always low. Nobody ever bats a perfect percentage because no guy is perfect for every single woman. Simple truth of the world. All you can do is be yourself and wait for the girls that are into THAT guy. Sometimes you wait forever and don’t find ‘em, sometimes you wait a few minutes and find the one you’ve always wanted. I wish I could say I knew you were gonna get her soon, but I can’t. All I can say is what I’ve already said: be you. Just be you.”

Charlie looked ahead, obviously thinking it over in his head. Robert now decided to slightly qualify his statement.

“With that said, let me give you some advice. 1. Stop trying to come at women a certain way. Just introduce yourself. Do it in your way, but make sure that you get you across rather than taking the road of some goofy catch-phrase. 2. You need to accentuate your good features. Get a shave, trim up that hair, take that acne down a peg, and for gods sake, do something about the glasses. I mean, there’s nothing wrong with looking intellectual, but as thick as those things are, I was worried the sun was going to burn a hole in my forehead. Contacts. Wear them. And finally, most importantly, don’t ever blame your problems, of any sorts, on a chain letter and a pick-up line. You are in control of you. You. Remember that.”

The look Charles gave signified that the words did their job. He nodded slightly and smiled, looking back at Robert one last time. Robert gave Charles a hand slap. “I’ll see you later, Charlie.” Robert patted him on the back as he got up and walked out of the room, finally content with his visit to the dorm.

As Robert left the room, he got an idea. He finally remembered why he had originally come to this dorm. Looking around, Robert spotted a girl who he had met in the dorm room. Krissy was her name, he was pretty sure.

“Krissy, I need a favor.”
Krissy was still tipsy. “Oh, ANYTHING for you, baby! What do you need, a place to stay? ‘Cuz you know you have one with me if you want it!”

Robert nearly shuddered at her braced-up, pale face. But he had to kind of play it off that way for a second. “Hmm, well, you can show me where your room is real quick.”

She tried to stick her tongue down his throat before he had quite closed his mouth. Robert did shudder this time, because he came close to vomiting the way she rubbed against the back of his mouth. As she finally pulled away, he could taste metal. Metal and Chinese food. Chinese food that wasn’t necessarily that good.

She hastily led him by the hand up a flight of stairs to her room. She had this odd nervous laugh she was doing the whole time. Robert would find it hard to forget the way her bushy black hair swayed back and forth the whole time. She reminded him of Monica Lewinski if Monica had been a nerd with a slight lisp in her college years. As she opened up her door with one hand, the other grasped for Robert shirt, pulling him right up next to her with emphasis.

With much difficulty, Robert pried his mouth from her lip grip. “Ok, hang on for a second there.” He almost had to throw her off of him, and she fell much like he did. Ironically, she tossed herself onto the bed, thinking it was what he had wanted.

“Ooh yes, make it rough!” she said, falling back and closing her eyes in a sprawled out manner.

“Just give me a second.”
“Oh, ok, well let me take a quick shower for you!”

She leapt up and grabbed a towel and sprinted to the door. As she opened it, she added, “when I come back, you better be ready to feel amazing!” She flew out, the door shutting behind her.

That won’t happen if I see you in a bath towel, Robert thought with a huge cringe.

Robert took the moment to find what he had been looking for. He found a spare notebook and quickly tore out 2 pieces of paper. Then, finding a pen, he sat down and wrote what he had been tossing around in his mind while he had been getting sexually assaulted the past few minutes. He wrote it down quickly for one piece of paper, then, after a moment or two of thinking, he wrote the other side. Then, with much haste, he folded them up and scrambled out of the door. He was almost worried she would be right there, waiting for him in her one rag of a towel, but then reminded himself that there was no way in hell that he was touching her again unless it was to floor her as he fled the scene. But she wasn’t in the hall, and he wasted no time leaping down the stairs to the ground floor. Now walking a bit more calm, he found the front desk, which had no on behind it. Just like he was hoping. Robert leapt over the side and found the drop boxes for the rooms. He wrote the room number for Charlie’s room on one note and then Sidney’s room on the other. Then, just before he dropped them in, he stopped. SHIT. Did I write the numbers on the right notes?

He checked. A sigh of relief. That would’ve slightly complicated it, to refer to the two in the wrong sexes with notes that claimed they had written them themselves.

That might not have worked as well. He dropped them in the box.

Let’s see if a chain letter said this would happen.

Robert walked hopped the desk and stepped out of the door, finally content with one of his visits to Harvard.

25. The ends are the means

Robert shook his head incredulously and took the last big gulp of his 3rd drink. Greg could see him start to really feel its effect. Robert was a pretty happy drunk and right now he was showing every sign of his drunken self.

“Guys, guys, guys,” Robert tried to hush the other two as he dragged himself to the middle of the room between them. “You know what we need to be full of here? Hmm? Do ya? Do ya?”
“No, Robert, what do we need to be full of?”
“Guess.”
“Umm, why don’t you just tell us?”
“Just guess.”
“Robert, stop being-“
“LOVE! That’s what we need! That’s what this room needs! LOOOOOOOVVVVVEEE!”
Greg and Jim looked at each other, both rolling their eyes. “Ok, Robert. We’ll do that.”
“Yeah you will. Call someone and order some love. OOH, you know what else? You should call Kelley and bang her a few good times since you’re no longer married. And then you could call Sidney so she can ditch me again. And call… call whoever it is that Jim hangs out with while everyone else is having sex. Even better idea. Just start calling people, let’s see if we can get Jim an orgy or something-”
“Robert, just have a seat, ok buddy?” Jim slipped through his teeth.
“Aww, poor ol’ Jimmy wimmy shimmy timmy. You need a hug, don’t you?”
“I don’t need a hug.”
“Yes you dooooo.”
“Do not.”
“Well maybe I do, get over here.” Robert advanced on Jim’s position on the bed, his arms spread open. Jim sat up just far enough on the bed to push Robert away as he got close.

“Fine! Don’t give me a hug!” Robert flopped back onto the other bed, on top of Greg. Greg winced slightly but stayed where he was on the bed.

Now Jim turned back to Greg. Jim was nowhere close to drunk, but he had suddenly taken a seat and become very subdued, almost to a scary sense. Greg chalked it up to another long, long day. Jim exhaled forcefully, cupping his lips. “Why did Carol choose now to divorce you?”

Greg double-took at Jim. “You think it made sense to me either? I understood it less than you do. One minute she wants us to be perfectly independent and do our own things and lie to the public and out of nowhere, bam, let’s get a divorce! I was hit by it out of left field, I didn’t expect it. Why should I?”
“How exactly did your marriage become an open marriage in the first place?”
Greg was in the middle of refilling his own glass with Robert still lying on top of his legs. “Put it this way: when both people in a marriage become involved in politics, there’s no more point in bullshitting the other anymore. We knew pretty soon into things that we had done it just for the appearance. It was a good image, we figured, ‘ why throw that away when we didn’t need to?’ So we took some time off from each other. And then some more. Suddenly I look up and it’s been 4 years since we’ve really talked about anything. I mean, she’s still my good friend inside somewhere, but being married to her sucks. It’s kind of depressing.”

Jim sat up slightly. “It’s kind of bullshit.”
“What do you mean?”
“That’s not the whole story. You know it, I know it. Robert knows it.”
“You know it and I know it. Robert doesn’t know what state he’s in.”
Robert picked his head up. “I’m in a state…of incoherence!” He slumped his head back.

Jim resumed, “There’s more. There has to be. Every time your wife comes up in a conversation, you clam up. You always did. When you told me you were getting married and you barely said anything about it, like you had some terminal illness and you didn’t want to dwell on it. You know how many times I’ve even seen or talked to her? Twice. Once at your rehearsal dinner and once at your reception. And that was it. She might as well have been kidnapped the rest of your life because I never saw her. And now she returns from the ashes to dissolve whatever remnants of a marriage you guys even had, and you want to tell me there’s nothing extra going on? Try again, Greg.”

Greg glared at Jim. Robert flung himself up to a seated position. “You know what we should try? Let’s find that new husband upstairs or where ever he is, and let’s kick his ass!” Robert thrust his fist to show his enthusiasm.

Greg half figured Jim knew everything anyways. Maybe he just wanted him to admit it to the world. Maybe he wanted for Robert and Dave to know too. Not like it made a difference with either at this point, since Dave was still AWOL and Robert was drunk enough to want to fight someone.

Greg had first met Carol Harris in 7th grade, when his parents had driven him across the state of Virginia to go to some meeting for a church group he had been dragged into. It was some nerdily-named group that talked about god and fellowship and crap like that, but really it was all about get black kids to meet each other so they didn’t get too used to dating outside of their race. At the time in his life, Greg was considering marrying the most country, inbred, piece of trash he could find, just to piss his parents off. If nothing else, it would be payback for dragging him all this way across Virginia to meet more people that were basically like everyone else who thought they were any more unique than the people not at their meetings.

At this particular meeting of whatever the group was called, Greg wasn’t really listening. He wasn’t big on church either, but it was better than what they had been discussing. He was reading random bible verses. Particularly, ones that had been quoted in movies he’d seen.

“Still with us, Mr. Turner?” came from above his eyes. Greg winced. He hated being called that.
“I was just reading some things,” he mumbled out quickly, obviously surprised.
“Like what?” his youth instructor pressed on.
“Just stuff.”
“Well, you haven’t looked up once since you got here. You can’t give us one passage you were looking at this whole time, since you haven’t contributed with conversation?”

Greg grumbled slightly. Apart from despising talking in this place, he had gotten pretty used to not having to talk too often in his life in general. After being very talkative his whole childhood, he had become almost mute during his middle school years thus far. Not out of shyness or spite, he had just found it easier to get through things as the only black kid in most settings if he just didn’t say a whole lot. Yet the harder he tried to apply this same principle everywhere outside of school, the more people seemed to want to hear what he had to say.

Namely, Mrs. Fullmore, his youth instructor who tried in vain to get Greg to call her Abby. Like she was one of the other kids there. Like she was a friend and not a chaperone. And that didn’t make any sense especially when she insisted on calling him Mr. Turner, which he had told her he HATED.

Greg hadn’t been paying attention to what passages he had flipped through, so he spat out the first verse he could think of.

“Ezekiel 25:17.”
“Anything special about that one?”
“It was the one Sam Jackson always said in ‘Pulp Fiction’ before he shot someone.”
A grave look came over Mrs. Fullmore’s face. “Oh. Well, um, well…”
Greg could see her uncomfortable. He took this as an opportunity to make her even more so. “You’ve seen it, I’m guessing. That’s the same type of role Sam Jackson has every movie he’s in. Loud, angry, shooting or hurting someone. Except Deep Blue Sea, when he got eaten by a shark in mid-speech.” Another horrified look from the adult in the room. Greg laughed slightly.

“Umm, that’s very interesting, but we’re getting back to our conversation about violence in the real world-“
“But that is the real world I’m talking about,” Greg wasn’t finished with her yet.
“That was not the real world, Mr. Turner. That was just in movies.”

She called me Mr. Turner again. It’s on.

“And yet I know for a fact that people have been killed by sharks in the past year. And I don’t know specific cases, but you know someone’s been recently knocked off by a hit man somewhere. That shit just happens.”
Half the kids in the room gasped along with the teacher. The other half started laughing. Greg half realized what he had said but didn’t react to it much.
“Mr. Turner! Watch your language!”

Again! She did it again! “That’s the funny thing though, that Sam Jackson was in nothing but violent and gritty movies where tons of people get killed for complicated and unforeseen reasons. Die Hard With a Vengeance. A time to kill. The Shaft remake. He was even in the movie a few years ago, Snakes on a plan! Remember that one? ‘Oh shit, there’s mutha fuckin snakes on this mutha fuckin plane!’” Now all of the kids began laughing hysterically. Greg looked around, amazed at the amount of laughs he had just gotten.

Unfortunately for Greg, his youth instructor was no longer the only adult. Greg saw out of the corner of his eye a large dark figure. He correctly guessed it to be Pastor Hubert in his robe. He correctly guessed that Hubert was laughing. However, Greg did not correctly guess the bible slap across his cheek that sent him sprawling to the ground.

It just came all of the sudden. A loud whap that suddenly Greg could feel all throughout his jaw. He lost his balance and flew out of his chair, forward and to the opposite side. He felt his body rub into someone else’s legs with a clash as he smacked into the ground, clamorously. He kind of flopped and made a big scene about it, but it was quite a shot that had sent him to the ground. Greg originally thought it had been a hand but when he noticed the sting of blood, he realized it had been something that had corners.

Still in a daze, Greg just happened to look up at the person he’d slammed into, who he had, ironically, not looked at once since he had come in and sat down. He looked up for the first time into the face of Carol Harris.

She was a bit younger than he was at the time and she was already beginning her pubescent development. That was the first thing Greg’s eyes were drawn to, both of her developments. But aside from that, she had this look in her eyes when he got around to looking at her face. It was the look of shock. Of intrigue. She wasn’t so much laughing at the current situation as she was focused upon it. Then, randomly, she stuck out her tongue at Greg. Greg gave her a tongue back.

This moment of focus on Carol only lasted about 3 seconds because Greg soon felt the pull in his ear yanking him to his feet and down the hallway. Before he knew it, he was in an office next to his parents being screamed at about fire and brimstone. Greg actually counted the number of times there was a reference made about his own soul going to hell. It came up to 4.

The car ride back was agonizing. Not so much because of the swelling taking place in the side of his mouth but his parents yelling and lecturing him now that he had gotten them kicked out of the church group. Greg would have been smiling about it but for the fact that his mind somehow kept creeping back to that girl whose name he still didn’t know.

Greg didn’t see her again or learn anything about her until 5 years later, at one of his parents’ random parties. They were having another loud and brash get together at his house with one glaring difference. His parents were throwing this one.

“Greg! Honey, did you finish vacuuming in here?!”

Greg looked up from his trance on the couch. “Yes, mom,” he said in a tranquil and monotone voice, “for the seventeenth time, I vacuumed this whole house.”
“Well, there’s a spot on the carpet here, why don’t you run it over this one more time?”
Because it didn’t come up the first two or twelve times you or I tried to get it out. “Ok, I’ll get right on it.”

As she walked out of the room, he stretched his foot over and clicked the ‘ON’ button with his foot, still staring at the screen. He hadn’t moved more than 2 steps from his position on the couch since the World Cup games had come on that morning, despite his parents going insane about if the house was impeccably clean or not. He had carefully planned things as to not have to move from where he could see everything going on. He had prepared a sandwich beforehand, had set out fresh clothes for whenever he needed to change, and had finished anything else that he had agreed to do way earlier the night before or early this morning before coverage started. There was no way he was missing any of this years games.

“Greg! Make sure you get dressed too!”
“Yes mom.” Greg slipped off his robe and put on his clothes lying next to him, not taking his gaze from the screen.

Denmark and Germany were just starting the second half when the guests started to arrive. Germany was the heavy favorite thanks to some pair of midfielders whose names Greg couldn’t pronounce, but Denmark had broken a 2-1 lead. Greg was gripped with intense World Cup-mania; he barely looked guests in their eyes as they came into the house and shuffled past him. After an hour or so, a small group sat from time to time to watch Greg jump and shuffle and pace with every moment of action in the game. When Germany scored a tying goal near the end of regulation, Greg jumped on top of the coffee table and started screaming “GOOOOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAAAAAALLLLLLLL” as loud and as long as he could, much to the entertainment of everyone watching. As he was done yelling, he fell backwards onto the couch, as if suddenly lifeless and unconscious. As he fell, he figured this was a bit much, even for his level of enthusiasm.

Suddenly, his body became writhed in pain. At the same moment, his left arm and the back of his head both smacked against something rather hard. Not rigid, but with enough figure to not be pleasant to run into. Almost immediately, he heard someone yell out “OW” at the same moment he did.

After a few seconds of pain-riddle confusion, Greg realized for the first time that he was not the only person on the couch he was sitting. This upset his world greatly.

“Where the hell did you come from?!” He shouted, grabbing the back of his head.
“I was sitting there quietly, you jerk!” The girl next to him shouted through her hand, which had been brought and cupped over her mouth, the apparent point of contact.

“Jesus, how long were you there?!”
“Since the 4th minute, jackass!” The girl’s hand flew away from her mouth to gesture high in the air to the side of Greg’s face. Greg’s eyes became wide.

It was that girl.

Her hair was just a bit different and she was a little taller and looked like she had a bit of a tan, but Greg recognized her immediately. His eyes widened. “You!”

After another few moments of painful daze, the two resumed watching the rest of the game. Greg’s companion engaged him in small talk pertaining specifically to soccer. Surprisingly, she was pretty sharp about all sports in general. Germany won in penalty shots, much to Greg’s celebration. As the commentators summed the game up, Greg realized that he didn’t know anything about the person sitting next to him on his own couch.

“So what’s your name?”
A chuckle. “You don’t know my name even. Wow. Way to go, Greg.”
“What? I never learned your name. I’m sorry.”
“It’s ok. You like being the center of attention. I understand.”
What did she say? “What?”
“You like being the one people pay attention to. It shows.”
What the hell was that supposed to mean? Greg’s eyebrows arched. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“Geez, don’t take offense to it. Just an observation.”

Greg found himself staring ahead, reflecting on whether or not he wanted to be the center of attention. He couldn’t see how that made sense for him, as quiet as he was most of the time. Maybe he acted that way the few times this girl had been around, but that was so long ago. He could care less if people were paying attention to him or not. At least he thought he could.

“Turn the channel,” the girl pressed on.
“I like to hear the commentary of the whole day.”
“It’ll be on Sportscenter all tomorrow.”
“I won’t be here to see that.”
“Why’s that?”
“Besides, ESPN’s guys don’t know soccer like these guys do. They’ll focus on pro American stuff instead of everything I care about.”
“Yeah, Americans do tend to focus on Americans, even for sports. But you didn’t answer my question.”
“You never answered mine.” Greg shot back, glancing back from his gaze at the TV.
“My name is Carol. Now my question.”
“I’m running an errand for my parents.”
“Awww,” Carol cooed mockingly. Greg loves his parents!”
“Awww, Carol loves to psychoanalyze me!” Greg shot back without really meaning to.

Carol giggled at him. Greg wasn’t sure if she was amused or unable to make a comeback of her own. The conversation went on like that for a while, questions coupled with mild jabs at one another. Greg found himself enjoying it. That’s about when the talk took a turn.

“What errand do you have to run for your mommy and daddy?”
“A mini road trip over to Arlington and back, nothing major.”
Carol’s eyes perked up slightly. “I live in Arlington, which part?”
Greg didn’t want to tell her anymore than he already had. “I’m not really sure yet.”
“Oh. Well, what do you have to do?”
“Just some stuff.”
“…Some stuff? Like what?”
“Just stuff, I gotta drop off some things I think. I dunno, what do you want from me?” He kicked himself inside for showing his frustration.
Carol chuckled incredulously. “Now that sounds just fishy. What, do they have you making some shady deal? Are you a bag man for a drug cartel or something?”

Greg’s heart might as well have exploded from the number of beats it skipped. He had no idea if he kept it together visually or not.
“Pshhhh, yeah sure. Surreeeeee,” he somehow blurted out. His mind desperately tried to calm himself down. There was no way she could have known anything. No fucking way. It was a shot in the dark. It was one hell of a lucky guess. She didn’t know anything.

As luck would have it, this was the exact moment when some voice in the other room screamed for Carol. “It’s time to go; we have a long ride back home.”

Carol looked up and then back at Greg. “I guess that’s my cue.” She pulled herself to her feet. Greg did the same.

As Carol turned to leave she turned back suddenly, like she was going to say something. Greg didn’t see it right away and walked up right into her, almost bumping her. They both stood there, close but not touching, for a second, both silent and unsure what to say or do. Then Carol pulled a small piece of paper from her hip pocket and put it up for Greg to grab. “When you get a free sec in between your errands tomorrow, you can call me up, if you like.”

Greg grabbed the paper softly. “I’ll do that if I get the chance.” He said to her hazel-nutmeg eyes.

After another moment of suspense as to if anything was to happen, Carol pulled away, and nearly pulled Greg with her as she did. She turned as she left the room, giving him an arched eyebrow glance. Greg noticed he let his breath out after she had gone. Whoa, he thought.

That moment stayed on his mind the rest of the night. It stayed especially fresh as he watched her and her parents climb into the red pick-up in the driveway and pull out. He must have looked at the number she gave him 10 times before he put it back in his pocket. He barely got to sleep, going over and over in his mind about everything that he said and she said and he did and didn’t do. He was giddy the next morning, which he never was during his weekend runs he made for his parents.

The only reason he even came down from his energetic high was his dad’s words of reassurance, thinking he was nervous.

“Don’t be nervous, son. It’ll be fine.” He said over his newspaper at breakfast.
Greg hated being told things would be fine when no one could possibly know that ahead of time.
“If it’ll be fine, why don’t you do it?” He uttered without looking up from his cereal.
His dad took a long pause. Greg could see him put down his paper from the side of his eye. “You know the answer to that.”
“Refresh my memory.”
“Son, let’s not-“
“Tell me again!”

His dad blew out a helpless breath. “If I could fix things in the past, I would. I would turn back time and make it so we never even met those creeps. But I can’t. You know I can’t. And you know what happens if we tell anyone or we stop making the deliveries. And you know why I can’t go.”

Greg was fully aware of all of that, but he still stormed out to the car spitefully. He checked to make sure everything was already in the back, hopped in the driver seat, and took off. He switched on his music immediately, trying to lose himself in something besides his mood. The ride to South Arlington always sucked, even with the extra time to think and the lack of traffic. The lonely highways of rural nothingness never ceased to bore him to death. Greg turned up his music a bit louder and hummed along. The bass kicked in heavily with every single song the way he had it turned up. He was sure it wasn’t good for the system if it sounded like this when he played jazz songs, but to hell with it, one more reason his parents would have against having him do this crap for them.

Eventually, Greg found his way to Arlington. He made his way down the same deserted highway. He went to the same deserted parking lot and parked the car. He ejected his CD and slipped it into the holder and shoved it into one of his Velcro pockets on the side of his leg. He studied the front seat, making sure nothing personal or distinguishing was there. Not a thing. He turned the car off and exited the car, making sure he left it unlocked. Deciding to be sure, he opened the driver side rear door and glanced in the back. It was all there, just like before he had started driving. Greg shut the door and stepped away from the car, looking in every direction, just to make sure he wasn’t being watched.

A slight breeze permeated Greg’s cheap t-shirt and jeans as he scoped out his surroundings. The parking lot was next to some warehouse or abandoned building overlooking the Potomac River. By now the sun was getting pretty high in the sky, showing a beautiful morning sky. The river side where he could see had a nice, grassy meadow a bit farther up from shore. Great place for a morning start.

Great place for a shady deal.

Greg walked briskly across the 4 lane road and into the small coffee shop right across from where he had parked. He sat down at an empty table by the window overlooking the lot. After a few minutes, a waitress came by and took his order. He took the same breakfast scrambler he always did, complete with hash browns and toast. He loved the meal, it was big enough that he could eat all he wanted, box up the rest, and by the time he got home, he would be hungry enough to eat the rest of it. It was a habit he had acquired to, if nothing else, make him feel a bit better about coming out here.

But as soon as the waitress left, his heart started pounding. Simultaneously, it sank.

A familiar face walked into the coffee shop. It spotted him as soon as it walked in, and scurried over to him.

“Well hello there, Greggory.” Carol had the same smile that she flashed him as she left his house, but now her hair was pulled back in a ponytail and she was in a provocative ensemble of a small red spaghetti strap and yellow miniskirt.
“Hey there, Carol. You eat here?”
“Of course I do, I live right up the street. Mind if I sit?”
Greg gestured to the empty seat across from him.

“Well this is certainly fortuitous.”
“How’s that?” Greg inquired.
“Well, usually I have to make small talk with a waitress or random customer. But you’re here for me. That and now you can pay for me if you’re gonna be nice.”

Greg smirked at her as if to say, “Yeah you wish.”

“So,” she rotated her head to the side, “what are you doing in the neighborhood? You get done with your back alley antics yet or are you still waiting?”

Out of the side of his eye, Greg thought he saw a car pull into the lot where his car was. Best he could tell, it seemed to be the same black SUV it always was. “Something like that,” he said without looking away from Carol.
“So you never told me what you came here for.”

Bullshit time.

“Oh yeah. Well, as you probably know, my dad does a lot of work with Interstate Commerce. Every so often he sends me out to scope out the development of nearby cities. Note stuff that’s being built, stuff that’s about to be torn down. Areas doing well areas doing poorly. Really it’s kinda pointless but really time-consuming, so he does it so I get out of the house.”
“Wow.” That seemed to be all that she could muster for a second. “Wow that job sucks.”
“Meh. It’s not so bad. Why don’t you go ahead and order something and I’ll be right back?” he jumped up and turned away, towards the payphones and bathrooms before she could say anything to it.

Shuffling briskly, Greg noticed the older couple near the wall where the phones lay. Greg turned to be out of sight, as if he had gone into the bathroom. He just had to wait here for the guys to tell him that they had gotten everything and left the money and that it was safe to drive home. Greg hated the cloak and dagger routine, but it was safer than allowing for use on his own cell phone, which could be easily monitored and traced if he had anyone looking into it. As it was, the process really wasn’t all that much of a risk except for what would happen in the unlikely event that Greg did get caught. It wasn’t like this was the most logical way for these things to get done. Who looked for guys like these in Virginia?

Greg was surprised that the phone hadn’t already rang. He had it timed almost perfectly now, so that the phone started to ring almost as soon as he stepped in the back. It was far back enough that no one could really hear it with all the other things going on in the diner. But there was no ring when Greg walked back and put his hand on the receiver in anticipation. The lack of sound came as a shock, but the initial shock wore off soon and Greg felt relief when the ring came a few moments later.
“You guys get everything you need?” he prodded, semi-impatiently, in his pretend older voice.
“Yeah, yeah, we got it. There was a little confusion about which case goes to which customers, nothing to do with you,” a gruff and raspy southern-accented voice uttered out.
“Good. Is everything set then?” Greg was so ready to hang up. He got nervous every time he had to have one of these conversations. He thought he could hear faint siren wails in the receiver.
“We’re wipin’ this sucker down now. Hey, speakin’ of which, I was supposed to ask, you think you could make a second delivery today? It’d be something much closer to your neck of the woods.”
The siren wails were more noticeable now. Greg closed his eyes hard, as if it would make those words disappear. There was no way he was doing anymore of this crap. No way. No fucking way.
“Ummm…I don’t think I can today.”
“Why not?”
“I just…I just can’t. I’ve got other stuff goin’ on.”
A pause. Greg was now more than a bit nervous. “You sure, compadre?”
A slight pang of relief. “Yeah. Real sorry.”
“Well dag gummite, that’s alright. Just- hey, what the blue lights of Chinese cinema is going on here?!” The sirens were louder than the voice in the phone, complete with screeching sounds and several voices yelling. Greg’s eyes were dancing every which way, along with his heart beat. He tossed the phone to the side and ran back to the window.

The once quiet street outside looked more like the Blues Brothers had just passed thourgh while evading custody. The lot was surrounded with an unnecessary number of police vehicles, all with cops leaning out with guns drawn. The Escalade sat in the middle of the enormous semi-circle in a space next to the car Greg had taken, with a few of the men from it still standing outside of it, all seemingly stunned. Greg didn’t know what to make of the situation.

All at once the henchmen threw their hands up. They were rushed from all sides, some even coming from the far side where the meadow had been. Greg walked closer to see, unnoticed as everyone else in the diner and surely everyone trying to drive down the street was watching this enormous spectacle.

And then, just when Greg was pondering what exactly he needed to be doing, a number of the cops turned and started pointing to the coffee shop frantically. Several ofthem began racing over. Greg didn’t wait an instant longer, he turned to bolt back to the back hallway. Then instantly he stopped. SHIT, he thought to himself.

He ran back to his table and grabbed Carol by the hand. She was mesmerized by the sight outside and didn’t seem to recognize that she was going anywhere. He seized her right out of her seat and tugged her with him as he ran for the back door again. It wasn’t until they were almost to the back of the dine that she managed to ask, “Where the hell are we going?!”

Once through the door, he swerved his arm around the corner and grabbed the hanging receiver. With it far from his head, he could still hear the words of that same voice screaming a much different message:
“He’s in there! That’s the one you want, we just do what he tells us! For god sakes, we’re just the pawns, the boss is in the coffee shop there! Get your dag gum foot of my neck, I’m innocent I tells ya-“ Greg hung up and resumed his exodus.

With Carol still lightly tugging back as he dragged her, Greg leapt through the kitchen door and to the far wall of stove tops. Next to them, there was a door he had remembered. He kicked it open and he and Carol hustled into a dreary alleyway. 6 or 7 steps down the alley, Carol finally stopped running. She pulled away rigidly.
“Ok, really, what the fuck is going on?!”
“We have to go! Come on!” Greg reached back for her hand.
“No! Greg, what’s wrong, why are we running?! We haven’t done anything!”
Greg looked away to see if the alley was beginning to be occupied by anyone besides the two of them.
“Greg…have we done something wrong?”
“It’s a long story-“
“I didn’t ask for the story, I asked if we, and by we, I mean you, have done something that we should be running for. Yes or no?”
“I can’t-“
“Greg!”

Greg flinched not sure if anyone had heard that.
“Yes. Yes you could say that,” he said with a sigh.
“…What?”
“I know it looks bad and sounds…well, crazy, but I can explain. I really can. But I won’t be able to explain unless we get a bit further away in the next few seconds! COME…” he grabbed at her hand and nabbed it this time, “ON!”

Carol glared at him untrusting for an instant, not sure what to do. Then she looked back and started advancing with him. He looked back too as they continued their flee of the scene. Halfway to the end of the alley, Greg pulled Carol to a side-alleyway and started to move slower. He wasn’t quite sure if it was this one or the next one down. He took one or two more steps and froze. He could hear shouting from behind them. Not wasting an instant, he saw a dumpster a bit further up to the right side. He tugged at Carol’s arm and they slunk down on the far side of it. Greg made the motion for Carol to be quiet as the two of them scrunched low and stayed quiet, listening to the sounds in the alley behind them.

Two sets of steps reverberated in the random puddles of alley filth as they moved closer to the entrance to the side alley. Greg could still hear shouting but couldn’t quite make out what they were saying. He looked over at Carol, her eyes closed, her head lying up against the dumpster side. Greg could see the top of her head against some bird crap, but knew not to mention that yet. She just might scream. And that would be bad.

The steps got closer. The yelling became more intense. Greg felt helpless, trapped. Well, technically he was trapped, so he felt like he should have felt at that moment. Damn it, why the hell did he agree to this? Why had he let his parents talk him into this? He was screwed. Oh man, was he screwed. Maybe he should just run for it now, before they got closer. No, screw that, he had gone with the hiding plan, had to go through with it now. Had to.

The steps stopped after clacking to a halt right behind the dumpster. Greg now shut his eyes too. Out of frustration. Urg! They were gonna catch him, weren’t they?

“I think they turned here!” “Yeah, this was it. Stay sharp!” The cops must have drawn their guns and flashlights, because Greg could see 2 circles of moving light search the alley. Greg turned to Carol, his eyes beginning to tear up. He mouthed out an “I’m sorry,” to her as the steps behind them became more and more defined.

What happened next Greg was not sorry for. Mostly because he had no idea it was about to happen.

Carol suddenly seized Greg by the cheap t-shirt and pulled him closer to kiss him. It had to have been on impulse, because there was absolutely no warning. She kind of banged his head against the side of the dumpster when she connected with him. It was quite a moment, one of the best kisses of Greg’s life he would later realize. It was such an explosion of lust, and Greg figured she was doing this before the two of them were to be arrested. So he kissed back, putting his hand up to both of her cheeks. His eyes closed after the initial shock. For just a second, he forgot exactly what it was he had been afraid of.

But then the next thing he knew, Carol jumped up and took off down the side alley way, towards the far street in the distance. As she did, her tennis shoes smacked on the ground in an exaggerated fashion, leaving Greg stunned. The cops seemed as stunned for a moment. The next thing Greg knew, they were running after her, screaming out their usual phrases like, “Freeze!” and “Halt!” and Carol just kept going. It was actually kind of impressive, she was moving pretty fast for someone wearing that kind of skirt.

She disappeared around a corner down the alley. The cops followed suit, still yelling. After they did, Greg sat there momentarily, incredulous of what was going on. What the hell had she…had she really…I can’t believe…she kissed me?

Greg somehow made himself jog his way down the alley and turn the opposite way as she and her pursuers had, towards the small parking garage a street over. Dusting himself off and checking if he was being watched, he found the beat up piece of crap car parked all the way in a back corner, his plan B car. He felt smart for even thinking this far ahead about something like this. He found the car unlocked as he had left it some months back when this crap had begun. The keys were in the glove compartment, untouched. Apparently, this wasn’t a car anyone had an interest in.

The car started with a hiccup or two and Greg pulled it out nervously. He was still in shock of whatever it was that had transpired in the alley. She had actually run with him instead of getting him caught. She had hid and had fled and pulled the cops off of him. And she had kissed him. She had kissed him. But why?

Why?

“Why?”

His exact words the next time he saw her. She had just come to visit him at his house the next day after what Greg imagined was a long night of explaining things. He opened the door and saw her standing there, seemingly enervated and those were the first words out of his mouth.

“Why?”
“Why did I come to see you? Because I need some questions answered and you promised them.”
Greg shut the door as he pulled it closed, stepping onto the porch. He hadn’t told his parents what had happened, he had just said they had made him switch cars with them after the pick-up.
“That wasn’t the why I was asking for. Why-“
“-Did I run? Right. I figured you were the one who was going to get in serious trouble if caught, whereas if they caught me I wouldn’t get more than a bunch of angry questions. Plus, I mean, my car was right in front of the diner, it’s not like they weren’t going to figure out who I was if they didn’t track me down. You had plenty of time to make your necessary escape.”
“But why-“
“Why what?!”
Greg grabbed Carol, drew her away from the door and down the steps, and put his finger to her mouth.
“Why did you kiss me?”

Finally, Carol shut up. She sat silent for a second, not too sure what to say to that question. She looked at Greg’s eyes, then down to his lips, then back to his eyes. “I just…”
This time Greg initiated the kiss. He felt that same rush he had the day before, that first time they had connected. He savored it this time.

When the moment had come to an end, he leaned his head back. “Now. You said you had some questions or something?”

Carol took a second to catch her breath. “Ok. What were you running from?”
“I was running because the people I made a drop of uncut Columbian cocaine to were busted and I feared they would bust me too.”

Carol stared at him, turning her head slightly sideways. Then she let out a flat laugh. “Um, yeah, sure. Try again.”

Wow, she actually doesn’t believe that. All that joking about shady deals and she doesn’t buy it. Greg took a deep breath.

“My dad works with commodities. All that stuff about Interstate commerce was bullshit. I mean, it was close, but what I said in the diner was a lie. When I was about 6 my dad started working with international trading companies. He stayed on the mainstream stuff for the first few years. Coffee, Food stuffs, plenty of stuff. He even got into Oil trading with south American suppliers, connected them with the right people in America. He was a guy who made connections. Unfortunately, it’s not much of a reoccurring job and after everyone he got in contact with met everyone else, he was kind of out of a job. I mean I don’t really understand how he ever made it work legitimately but he did apparently. So when people didn’t need him anymore, he struggled. And after struggling, he had to get creative. So he started to…move things. Himself.”
“Move…things? What kind of things are we talking about?”
“Like…Cuban Cigars for example? Or a few stolen items here and there, you know, nothing terrible but certainly not legal.”

Carol looked uncertain. “Stolen items like…what TV’s? Computers?”
“Cars.”

Carol’s eyes grew in size a bit. “Oh.”

Greg continued. “And it steadily got worse. Then he brought through some guns. Then more guns. Then some missles. Then a tank or two. By my 13th birthday he was just like Nicolas Cage in Lord of War except for the Eva Langoria part of it. And somehow he never got caught. At least not by authorities. You know, real authorities.”
“What does that mean?”

“This guy contacts my dad, and he tells him he knows about everything he does and he’s going to sell him out and send him down the river. The guy says the only way he’ll let my dad go and not go to jail is if he starts working for him. My dad asks what the guy wants him to move, the guy hands him a brick of marijuana. So that’s how my dad got up in drug running. He had to move this shit from Columbia, Panama, Nicaragua, Jamaica even though Jamaicans don’t give a shit. And gradually he started having to get it into the U.S. but god knows how he figured out how to do that. And when they started to get used to him, he started to move more and move different products and it just kept building up.”

“Well…that was certainly more that I thought you had to go through on ‘errands’ but okay. So why did you have to make a shipment yourself?”

“These crazy ass hillbillies help get dad’s stuff in from Mexico. I don’t know what they do but they appear to be pretty reliable. They started to demand that we give them their own cut of the shit after we get everything. My dad would make the delivery himself but he says he can’t take the risk of anyone linking him to an actual drop.”
“What?”
Greg sat back, remembering he didn’t quite understand the rationale either. “He says that it’s extremely dangerous for him to be seen moving actual product. The way he has it worked out now, he makes deals and connections, and tells and dictates what others do. If he himself is shown doing any of the work himself and is caught, it brings everyone down.”
Carol looked absolutely incredulous, as she probably should have. “Some father of yours, huh?”
“I didn’t say I agreed with what he did.”
“Oh, so you do see something a little wrong with a father using his own son to sell drugs?!”
“Lower your voice! I can’t let them know that you know any of this!” Greg whisper yelled back. He dragged her further off the porch. “What am I supposed to do?! Am I supposed to complain about what my dad does to support his family?! Am I supposed to go to the cops and tell them, ‘Hey, guess what, my dad’s smuggling dope through this country faster than George Bush can snort it up in his retirement home!” and let him come and cuff my dad and show everyone what a lie everything in my life has been?!”
“Yes! God yes, that’s exactly what you’re supposed to do!”
“Well I’m sorry to disappoint you, Carol, but I can’t just do that! I can’t! I’m not the same moral character that you are I suppose!”
“Oh, and you think what your father does is perfectly okay? The ends justify the means! Is that right?!”
“The ends are the means! That’s what I’ve learned from what my dad does. You want to vilify him for what he does because once you learn what he does, you could give a flying fuck why! He doesn’t want to be used, to ship drugs that kill and debilitate! He wants to keep our family safe! He wants to make a decent fucking living! And he knows damn well, like I know, and like you should know, that the minute he refuses to do what these people want, they’ll take him out and have somebody else accountable for it. So yes! He smuggles that shit! He is one of those scumbags! Whatever you’re gonna say about him! It’s all true! But he’s still a good man to me and my mother, and nothing he does to protect us will ever make me say different!”

Carol paused. Greg took the opportunity to relax himself and wipe the sweat from his forehead.

“So he can be a drug dealer and still be a good man because of why he’s a drug dealer?”
“He’s my father. He’s a good man because of that.”

Carol stepped in closer to Greg. “Oh Greg. I look at you and I see someone trying to hard to understand why they’ve been used. Over and over and over. It doesn’t matter why he used you. It just matters that he did. And as long as you let people use you, they will…Sooner or later.”

Carol kissed him on the cheek and started to walk back to her car. Greg looked down in disgust, unable to say anything or look at the world. As Greg turned to walk back inside, Carol called out to him: “Greg!”

He turned slowly and met her with his distant gaze.

“If you want to talk, you can still call me/”

Greg stood and watched as Carol sat down in her car and drove off down the lonely road. He couldn’t move for the longest time. Everything he had just said and she had said replayed over in his mind, striking him with angst as he heard those words he himself had shouted out.

The ends are the means.

He didn’t believe that. Why would he tell her that? Motivation and action were two completely separate aspects of any event. Saying one was the other didn’t make any damn sense. And further more, if it was a valid statement, that still didn’t make it right in the least. Terrible things had been done with good intentions and surely somewhere, good things had been done with bad ones. He should know. He was living proof, wasn’t he? His father supported his family with drug money, and at the same time plenty of people died or were addicted or otherwise consumed by narcotics so that Greg could have a better life. His dad had put his life above all the lives that were destroyed as a result of what happened.

After that, Greg couldn’t do his fathers work for him. Greg told them what had happened and told them that Carol knew everything, and they flipped out. Rightfully so, Greg decided. It was a likely reaction.

Soon after, Greg’s dad left him and his mom. Disappeared. He left early one morning and just never came back. Never answered his phone. Never wrote a letter or a postcard. Greg’s mom feared he had been kidnapped and killed until about a month went by and checks of money started coming in the mail. They came through some obscure bank in the Cayman islands, most likely untraceable. Greg didn’t know whether to be overjoyed that his father was alive or full of anger and bloodlust that his father had abandoned him, left to save his own skin without so much as a “Gotta go buy cigarettes,” type of excuse. Greg and his mom somehow managed to get through things the same way.

Actually, they barely made it the first month or so out of sheer missing Greg’s dad and the things he did that the two of them were not used to doing. As a junior in high school, Greg had to learn certain roles as the man of the house, and ended up having to do just about every bit of cleaning, organizing, and bill paying. His grades slipped and he cut back a lot of the time he spent with his friends. He even quit the soccer team from that year, much to the warpath of his coach and the district championship he was vying for. His mother had become more and more apathetic and ill-tempered with him and everything else in the world. She began acting erratically and inexplicably.

And one day she just left. She had several bags packed and lined up along the front door when Greg came down before a day at school. He was just finishing his drudgery of a junior year. Greg was about to ask what was going on when his mother told him straight up:
“I’m going to look for your father.”

Greg was positive he had heard wrong. “I beg your pardon. I believe I had something crazy in my ear.”
“No, that’s what I said. I looked into the account your father set up. There’s some place in south America that the cash gets forwarded from, I’m going to start there. I’ll be there as long as it takes, I have to find him.”
“Why? Why do you have to find the man who walked out on you, walked out on your son?! He left us, you really want to find him so you can know why he sends us money?”
“I want him to come home.”
“Now why would you want something like that?”
“Because I love him! OK, Greg? Is that alright? That I miss my husband and I can’t keep going on without knowing what happened to him? How’s that?!” She turned to storm out. Greg stood there, at the base of his stairs, helpless.

Greg’s mother turned away to cry a few tears. When she had finished and had sniffled herself back to composed, she turned back around. “I have to find him, Greg. I just have to.”
“And what about me? I just stay here on my own? Left by everyone that said they’d be here for me?”
“You’re strong, Greg. I’m not. I need to know where your father is for myself. You’ll be safe here. Have some friends over tonight or something, have some fun. Call Jim and Robert and Dave, bring them over for a bit. Just-” She trailed off momentarily. “Just… don’t worry about me. The money that comes should be more than enough until I get back. Just be mindful of all the bills and everything, like you’ve been doing. Ok?”
Greg sulked against the banister, looking down. His mother came in closer. Her hand rubbed against his cheek softly.
“I wouldn’t ask it if I didn’t really need it, Greg.”
He looked up at his mother. She reached up and wrapped her arms around him. He returned the action, pulling her as close as he could, trying so hard to fight back his own tears.
“Just hurry, ok?”
“I will.”

And with that, Greg’s mother packed up her bags and walked out the door and out of his life. He had turned 17 years old the previous weekend. 22 years later, sitting in that hotel room with Jim and Robert, he had never seen, heard from, or said anything to either of his parents. And for some reason, no one seemed to really notice. No one asked questions about when his parents were coming home or what they would say about stuff in the house that broke or anything like that. Greg somehow never had to tell anyone. But he thought they all secretly knew. Jim had to have known. Jim saw right through everything.

“Come on, Greg. What’s going on? What does she know about you or what will she do to you or what?”

Greg took a deep breath.

22. Jimmy doesn’t know, Jimmy doesn’t know, Jimmy doesn't know, so don’t tell Jimmy, Jimmy doesn’t know

There were too many questions for Jim to keep straight anymore. There had been a point where he was just curious about the way things were running but now he was just confused. Probably anyone would be in his position. In fact, let’s be honest, the people reading this story right now probably aren’t much more clear about things up to this point.

Tough.

Jim was on his way down to the room Greg and Kelley shared. Kelley still pretended to stay in another room but they wouldn’t be fooling too many people for too much longer. For all Jim knew, he was the last one to know and everyone else had found out a while ago. He just hoped he could catch them before they went to bed.

But just as he was about to knock on the door, it opened and Kelley started to back out, carrying a huge box in her arms. She bumped right into him in doing so and nearly jumped back into the door, letting out a “WOOP!” The papers went flying everywhere.

Jim also slightly jolted, more from the sound Kelley made than her bump into him. She pulled herself back together and straightened out her dress. “Jim! Don’t do that to me!”

Jim’s eyes were still open as he blurted out, “I’m sorry.” He didn’t know what else to say. Kelley bent down and began piling papers into the box. Jim bent down to help.

“I got it!” she shot at him.
Jim didn’t stop. He bent down. “No, I’m really sorry, let me-“
“I said, I got it,” she put across imperatively, staring at Jim.

Jim looked back up and then rose to his feet again. He put his arms up to signal, “Have it your way.”

As Kelley scrambled to put everything else back in the box she’d been carrying, Jim glanced up to see if Greg or any one else was in the room. No one. No one was walking up the hallway either. Completely empty.

“Where is everybody?”
Kelley looked up quickly. “Most of the other workers are still out, Robert’s downstairs with some reporters, lord knows where Dave or Sidney is, and Greg is up with his soon to be ex-wife signing divorce papers.”

Jim stared intently. “He’s doing what?!”
“I know...” she finished putting papers into the box and stood up. “I know. It makes no sense to me why they would want to do this now. She’s running for senate again and he’s running for presidency, and the two of them are calling it quits. Who knows what’s going on in their minds?”

Jim was thinking of just that. It was perfectly illogical, even for Greg and his habit of confusing everybody. It just didn’t follow one damn bit of sense.

Maybe it wasn’t supposed to.

Jim glance down at the top piece of paper in the box as Kelley picked it up and rose to her feet. Looked like some generic expense report, like he’d seen plenty of. Some of the lower helpers on the campaign used them to log all expenses to the finance log, something Dave would be keeping track of if he was around.

But why would Kelley have one? That was way below her job. And come to think of it, a lot of those pieces of paper resembled this one. Was there a reason for that too?

Kelley turned her head slightly as she looked at Jim questioningly. “So what are you here for?”
Jim brought back his attention span. “Oh, I was looking for Greg to talk about next week. Just had a few ideas I wanted to kick around with him. Nothin’ major.”
“Oh. Well he shouldn’t be too long upstairs, maybe you can catch him before we-…ahem, before he goes to sleep.”

Jim smiled as unnoticeably as possible to still let her see that he was. Kelley smirked to the side as she shuffled off down the hall. Jim’s smile disappeared as she kept walking. His thoughts were racing again. What did all this mean? What was going on? What was he not getting?

“Oh yeah, Jim,” She called out from behind him.
He turned. “Yeah?”
“Did you have a lot to drink tonight?”
He shrugged. “No, not really. Why?”
“Well, I don’t know, you just seemed drained and lifeless towards the end of the ball tonight. I wasn’t the only one to see it. Mr. Harris said you needed some caffeine pills.”

Jim’s eyes shot up intently. Then he did his best to tone it down. “Mr. who?”
“Mr. Harris, he’s a CEO of some Fortune 500 company or something. He’s the new love in Carol’s life. He’s upstairs with Greg and her right now.” Kelley said as she opened the door to her room. With that, she stepped inside.

Jim’s heart began beating heavily. His eyes flip-flopped back and forth in his head, like the answers he desired were in the hall, jumping back and forth to evade him. He knew of a CEO named Stanton. Of all the companies in Fortune 500, he knew of 1 in particular known to the world as Harris. Harold F. Harris. Jim knew him by another name. It was the name he had gone by up until he had taken control of a large pharmaceutical company due to his predecessor’s death. Jim had read practically every article written on the man.

Furthermore, Kelley couldn’t have known Jim’s past encounters with him, if it was indeed the Harold that Jim now suspected. There’d be no reason to assume that they knew each other. Jim’s position and contributions in Tyson had all but been evaporated, as if he had never even set foot in the building. Like everything he’d done had been the work of someone completely different. So maybe she just didn’t know that he would know who she was talking about that quickly. Or maybe she did. Maybe she was trying to tip him off, to help him because she couldn’t do anything herself. Or maybe she was in on it, whatever was going on. Maybe she did it just to spite him, to make him wonder like this. And then there was always the chance that he was letting his imagination get away with him again.

Nope. This was real.

As soon as Kelley’s door closed, he rushed over to his room and fumbled to open it with his own key card. Once the door was closed, he latched it locked and backed against the door. He didn’t know exactly what to make of what had just happened but he knew there was definitely more going on than anyone wanted to tell him.

Now he rushed over to his bed and picked up the phone. Then, after dialing 2 numbers, he slammed it back down. Would someone have tapped his phone? He quickly dismissed this. Damn it, Jim, he chastised himself. Don’t go getting paranoid again. At least not that paranoid.

He picked it up again and dialed Dave’s cell phone. It rang twice before Jim heard the click.

“Hello?” Dave’s voice sounded faint and enervated.
“Hey, Dave?”
A long breath. “Yeah, Jim, it’s me. Look, I-“
“Dave! Did you go back to your office?”
“Uh, yeah, I did.”
“Did you do what I asked you to do?”
“I sure did, Jim, but I gotta tell you, man, I-”
“Cuz I just got a really bad feeling about some things. I need you to go check a few other accounts and then I need you to bring back that and everything you already printed out as soon as possible.”
A pause. “Um, I can’t really do that yet.”
“What? Why, why come, uh, how come?”
Dave took another deep breath. It almost sounded like a shiver the way let it out.

“Dave what the hell happened?”
“Ok, so I went back to my office and I went to my desk and it wasn’t my desk anymore. So I looked for my desk and found they’d taken my desk out and put it into trash bags. So then I got kinda pissed and threw a bit of a fit and then I got really mad and figured I’d get these bastards back, right? So after I looked up the stuff you asked about before, I sort of…”
“You sort of…”
Dave began weezing and gagging right there on the phone. Almost like an asthma attack but out of pure anxiety. Jim knew the difference from the way the two sounded half the time.

“Dave, what did you do?”
“I kinda set the building on fire.”

Jim let the phone down to the side of his ear. He just sat there on his bed, unable to properly comprehend what he had just heard. “You…you…” he put the phone down momentarily. “You did what?!”

Dave was almost in tears. “I didn’t mean to!”
“Do you expect me to actually believe that?”
“Ok, fine, I meant to! But I wasn’t trying to hurt anybody…physically. Maybe damge some emotions. It was a nice building and all, -“
“God damn it, Dave!”

Jim put the phone down for a second. Ok, Jim. Collect yourself. Focus. Task at hand, task at hand. “Ok Dave. Bear with me here. For just a second, forget about the fire and the arson charge after you might be facing. Focus. Are you focused?”

A small sob. “Mhm.”
“Ok. Good. Now where are you?”
“I’m down the street at a motel.”
“You alone?”
“Yeah.”
“Drinking?”
“Not anymore.”

Jim was about to yell and chastise some more but stopped him. If he himself had just set a building on fire, Jim probably would have chugged a bottle by now.

“Ok. IS there any way you can access any more files from that room?”
“Uh. Yeah, one of the laptops I took has wireless and there’s a modem connection in here anyways.”
Jim gawked. “You stole shit from the place too?!”
“Just a few. It was another part of my angry vengeance scheme, I-“
“I don’t want to know, don’t tell me! Just, look back into files of Hagerty’s and Redmond’s about Tyson pharmaceuticals. Search through names Finch and Harris, going back as much as 10 years, ok?”
“Yeah.”

“And one more thing, man. Can you link bank accounts to your companies accounts?”
“Sometimes, if there was any money deposited or withdrawn by our company exclusively. Why?”
“I need your yahoo email. The one you’ve had for years that you never give out anymore. You remember it?”
“Umm, yeah, NumberMuncher989@yahoo.com. Assuming it’s still active.”
“In a few minutes, I’m going to contact that account from my e-mail, I want you to use the accounts I send you and crosscheck them with anything in your company database. See what you can dig up.”

Dave swallowed hard. “Um, sure bud. One question though.”
Jim cocked his head up to the earpiece a bit closer. “Shoot.”
“Well, since I’m doing all this running around and probably dodging some sort of jail time, I was really kinda hoping you could tell me what the hell I’m doing here?”
“The same thing I’m trying to do. Make sense of what I’ve been told and what I haven’t been told.”

23. Checks and Balances

Robert came off the elevator just as Kelley was getting on with a stack of paper. The two exchanged quick glances and nodds but said nothing. They never really had anything to say to eachother. Not after that one time that while back…well, we’ll get to that later.

Robert quick-stepped his way down the hall. He wanted to get this done with as fast as possible and pray that no one besides Greg ever asked. Greg he could handle, he was sure. Maybe Dave if he needed to check the books, maybe even Jim because Jim seemed so cool about everything. But it couldn’t get back to Kelley and it damn sure better never get to Sidney, or he would be in so much shit, he’d pray the Columbians really would come finish him off.

It had taken the entire morning to convince the lady downstairs to give Robert a copy to Greg’s room. Then he had to get her to copy the right room since she had given him Jim’s room key by mistake. But now he had it and could finally do what he had to.

Robert slipped the key in and pulled the handle, which gave away nicely. Robert walked in cautiously, praying no one else was still in. The windows were closed and the shudders were all the way across, but the sunlight peaked through enough for him to see that no one was in. With that, he slipped open the bathroom to make double sure. Yep, coast is clear. With that, Robert began looking.

He started with the large stack of papers on the desk. Throwing most of them aside in haphazard fashion, he searched vigilantly across the stacks to no avail. Next he leapt to the dresser but found nothing. The night stand had plenty of Kelley’s medicine and pills, but not what he was looking for. Now Robert began to sweat profusely. This wasn’t good. What if Greg still had it and kept it on him? Robert knew he was a terrible pickpocket. He was a terrible thief as it was. In fact, he was just a terrible criminal, why had he become a lawyer in the first place?

Then it popped in Robert’s head. He ran to the closet and looked at Greg’s jacket suits. He began going through pockets until he finally found the small slip of paper he had searched for. Sliding it out of the inner pocket of the black blazer, he looked upon it, unsure if he should unfold it or not. Slowly, his fingers edged it open. He gradually expanded it and…

Oh dear Jesus lord.

Robert was absolutely petrified and exhilarated at the same time, and all because of the numbers on a piece of paper. He had known Johnny Mateos was a crazy man but this superseded his understanding of it by far. It was so intense for him, standing in that empty hotel room, Robert almost felt turned on. Turned on by a personal check. He would later remember that thought as one of many that he thanked god no one was around for him to express to.

But as he pulled himself together and prepared to flee with it, some clicking came from the front door. Robert’s heart shot into his stomach and began mashing its contents around. For reasons he did not fully understand, he felt his rear tighten. He instinctively dove into the closet and pulled the door closed quietly behind him. Then he held his breath.

Robert heard the door swing open and shut dramatically. Stamping back and forth over and over again. Robert struggled to keep his breath quiet. Then suddenly the door jolted furiously. Subsequent thuds and crashes came from the room and Robert now felt even more nervous. This was not good in any situation. Maybe Greg was pissed about something going on with his campaign. Maybe it was some mobster coming to find the very check that he had just found, and they would soon open this closet and take the check before popping 3 caps in his forehead. Or worse yet… Maybe Greg and Kelley were doing it and he would have to sit there and listen to it all.

Robert shuddered at the thought.

But he ruled it out quickly. He couldn’t hear too clearly, but he could tell that whoever was in the room was male and was cussing and screaming. And it wasn’t likely a gangster looking for something would start yelling while they had broken in on someones room. Robert concluded that whoever was in there had a right to be there at least.

But that wasn’t that good of a thing either. If any of the guys found him in here, he would have to answer for why he was hiding and then why he had taken the check. They’d think he was gambling again. They’d think he had something to do with Johnny’s visit to the ball yesterday. And there would be no way he could convince them otherwise.

As he thought this, the doors suddenly burst open. Robert sat there, wide eyed as Greg lurched back in astonishment that he wasn’t alone in his room. Robert let his mouth open slightly but then decided to let Greg ask the first question. It was an awkward enough moment without him trying to start a conversation. Greg was sweating, his hair in disarray, his clothes half torn off. Greg’s mouth also hung open, out of exhausted disbelief it seemed.

Ironically, the first words out of Greg’s mouth were the words he hoped wouldn’t have to hear. “What are you doing with that?”
“With what?” Robert squeaked out, eyes still wide open.
“That check?”
“Check? Wha- what check?”
Greg pointed. The one in your hand.”

Robert turned his head, seeing he was still holding the check in his hand right next to his head, just as he had been doing when he was trying to fit in the closet.

“Ok, I know this looks bad, but I can explain.”
“You don’t have to, I understand what’s going on.”
“No, no, really, hear me out. I wasn’t-“
“Robert, you don’t have to. I know you owe Mateos some money. A lot of money. Take the damn thing, I don’t want it.”
Robert’s eyes became even wider. “A-wha?”
“I said take the money. What, you think I want to use a mobster’s money? I have enough people pulling my strings, I don’t need the underworld on my shoulder.”

Robert hesitated. “Umm, I don’t think that’s how this works though. You know, the whole ‘mob giving you money’ thing. You accepted their cash, they assume you’re going to use that check. Even if it bounces.”
“I don’t give a shit! Give it to charity for all I care! Write em a check back! I won’t spend blood money!”

Shit, I’ll spend it, Robert thought. It’s the money or my blood.

“Why are you here? Nevermind, the money’s why you’re here. Just leave, just go.” Greg moved back over to the bad, out of Robert’s sight. Robert now put his arm down and moved over to the desk to see Greg again. Greg had slumped right down to the bed, face down. His body went limp as he lay over the side, nearly falling off. Now Robert was perplexed.

“What’s wrong, Greg?”
Greg didn’t move.
“Greg. Look, I know you’re disappointed I tried to take something from you, but that’s old news. I’m a lawyer, that’s what we do. What’s wrong? Did Dave assault somebody else? Did Jim become fully comatose?...Did I call you the wrong name in a press conference again?”
Greg’s body turned over slightly. Robert moved across the room and sat down on the bed, sitting across from him.
“What’s wrong, buddy?”

Greg turned his head up to face Robert. A tear dropped from the side of his right eye. “The newspapers all know that my wife divorced me. That’s what’s wrong.”

Robert didn’t understand. “I don’t understand, isn’t that a good thing?”
Greg sniffled softly. “Yes and no.”
“Okkkk, do explain that.”
Greg turned onto his back, staring up at the ceiling. “It is because this marriage has been over for at least 10 years now. It’s always been a sham, especially from a political standpoint. It’s a bad thing because of what happens now that the world doesn’t think that we’re still together. Now she takes half of everything, now she contests for everything else she wants, now she and that asshole run around, spreading even more lies and bullshit about me. She’s not supposed to be the one who tears me down, she’s supposed to be the one who makes me look good! Me! Not him! He didn’t do anything for her, why should she run off just like that?! URGGGGG! OH, and lest we forget the best part! Now I’m stuck with my fucking secretary! Who, believe it or not, probably isn’t even a fucking secretary in the first place!”
“Hey! You get a hold of yourself! Right now!” Robert interjected, pointing a stiff finger.

Greg sucked in his air, then exhaled it softly.

“Now…fucking relax, man. That’s what you need to do. Because of all the things I’ve sat through and listened to you bitch about, this right here makes the least sense of everything. And I do mean that. Of everything. I mean, all the shit you got going. You’re in the middle of a freaking political campaign that you are in great position to win as long as you don’t commit a felonious assault of some sort. You’ve got a great career ahead of you. You’ve got a gambling addict lawyer, a rage-aholic accountant, a severely apathetic but brilliant strategist, and a slutty ivy-leagued prima-donna running your affairs, not to mention your promiscuous secretary that just slightly complicates your love life in the first place. You have a mob boss that could literally kill anyone he wanted to coming to visit you and writing you a check in support. A check that I won’t lie, I kind of need some cash from in order to keep my knee caps and other vital and important organs. You even have a slight case of amnesia and narcolepsy from time to time, and you’re honestly worried about your fucking sham ass marriage?!”

Greg was about to say something, then stopped, probably realizing that he had nothing to respond with.
“I hate to break it to ya, but there are worse things that could happen to a guy, you in particular. You didn’t get stabbed or shot, or hit with a piece of pottery or a plate. I mean, you know that somewhere, someone got hit with a piece of china or something that they got at their own wedding. But you! You’re gonna be alright! I mean, think about this. You hated being married. You told me so, I was there. You bitched about being married at your wedding while your ex wife was walking down the aisle. Jim practically had to hold your hand until she was given away by her parents. I mean, even Dave seemed happier with his marriage than you. Your entire marriage was a series of uncomfortable maneuvers designed to ignore one another. You’ve both cheated so much, it’s not cheating because you two have completely changed the rules of what marriage is supposed to be, and that is not easy to do, even in today’s age. Remember that time you tried to sleep with your first secretary when she had put on 30 pounds and was losing hair? That bitch didn’t even have teeth!”
Greg narrowed his eyes at Robert. “I never told you about that!” he exclaimed.
“You never had to. Everyone else did. And I do mean everyone. I wont say I didn’t see it coming from the start. I mean, you are a politician. Politicians kiss ass from time to time, maybe even more often than that, shit happens. You’ve slept with every secretary you ever had, and then plenty of ones you haven’t. And on top of that, you convinced a girl who was by no means a secretary to drop everything of her old life and become a political secretary, just to get to sleep with you over and over and over again.” Robert paused for an instant to catch his breath. “Now, you mean to tell me after all that, that you still want to be married?”

Greg looked up from the side of the bed and into Robert’s eyes. “This divorce means more than you think.”
Once again, Robert didn’t understand. “What does that mean?”

“Yeah, Greg. What does that mean?” came from behind Robert. He turned to see Jim, in his usual bathrobe and slippers.
“Hey, um, Jim, you think you can just give us a second here, just a sec. We were-“
“No, I think we all could benefit from understanding exactly what’s going on this campaign. There’s a lot of things you need to clear up pretty soon, Greg.”

Greg just sat there, as Robert turned his gaze back over to him as Jim sat there near the doorway. Robert couldn’t tell where exactly this was going, but he knew what he had to do first.

“Wait. Don’t say anything until I’ve made my drink.”

24. Is this really the right time to be drinking?

David poured another drink. He chugged it all down, not even looking at which bottle he grabbed. He was just about as wasted as he’d ever been when drinking by himself. Wait, no he wasn’t.

He took a second to hack up a ball of spit that had accumulated in the back of his throat while he was lying against the bed post like he was. It fell out of his mouth and dropped to the bottom of the bed to his right. Now he breathed easy again and put the cigarette back into his mouth. Taking a large drag, he blew it out easier. Ooooh, he thought. That was better.

Now he was feeling better. Now he was easy. Now he was in control. He could do anything. He could be himself again. Finally. Finally…

The thought popped into Dave’s mind again. The temptation. Ooh, he could so do it right now.

He took another long sip of that whatever he had poured. Why the hell not, he asked himself.

Fuck it.

Dave reached onto the nightstand next to him for the phone. In doing so, he smacked over several miniature bottles over the side. They clinked and crashed their way to the ground, causing Dave to flinch from the clamor. He swerved his neck around but quickly flashed back to what he was really reaching for. Opening it, he tapped and smudged his way across it until he had the entry he wanted. He pressed the send button and put it up to his ear.

One ring
Two.
Three.
Click. Dave opened up his mouth to speak. A deafening crash came to his ear and the line went dead. Dave looked at the phone, incredulous.

That bitch! Dave pressed call and reselected Lisa’s number.

One.
Two.

A different click came on. Lisa’s new voicemail came on again. Dave almost hung up. Then he paused. He had found out he was being divorced this way, why not tell her now. Dave heard the beep. He took a breath.

“I need to get this off my chest and there never seems to be a good time to say it. You never seem to want to listen to what I have to say. I used to want to just listen to you, but on some level I assumed you wanted to listen to me too at some point. I used to think that you wanted to be around me, that you wanted to share everything with me, and that you wanted to love me. But the worst assumption I made was that all that was what I wanted. I thought it was actually worth it for me to make things work with you. I really did, I thought you were worth it. I thought that the kids and the house and this life that we made here was enough to convince me that I want to be with you. But after all that we’ve been through, I realized all you made me do was lie. Because for the past 18 years, you and I have disagreed on nearly every single decision we made because I had to lie in order to agree with you. I lied about the color of the living room; I absolutely hate that color, whatever shade of green you call it. I lied about which car I liked best, but then I also lied about liking either of them. Your cooking, your cleaning, your fashion sense, your sexual performance. You were one of the laziest mother’s I could ever have imagined. Your language has rubbed off on the kids, and probably in a few years they’ll drink and smoke and cheat on their own families the way you do too. But overall, the one thing in particular that I lied to you about was when I told you that I would always love you. Because what I wanted to say all this time, what I needed off my chest: I loved Mallory, Jenny, and Richard from the moment they were born and I never will stop. But I never wanted to love you and something tells me that in a way, I never really did.”

Dave paused because he felt himself vomit in the back of his mouth slightly. He swallowed it back instinctively.

“Anyways, I’m guessing you’re out on bail, so I’ll talk to you Thursday at the mediation. Bye, Lisa.” He hung up.

And instantly, he felt the same pang of mixed feelings. The freedom. The loneliness. The huge relief. The amazing dismay. He had imagined feeling this great euphoria right now, from finally telling off the woman he felt so much anger for right now. He had been saving up things to say for so long, but even now he wasn’t sure what he was exaggerating. In some small corner of his mind, he noted that it had taken a mini-bar full of alcohol to properly lure this soliloquy out of him in the first place. Not that he didn’t also feel good about saying what he had to say. But maybe that was because he felt so good anyways.

Tossing the phone to his side, Dave pulled on of the laptops sitting across the bed closer to him. All three of the stolen laptops were spread out on the bed in front of him, all turned on and all performing an action. Two were linked to the B & F database. One was searching through accounts, at this point left on the search engine that had brought up Tyson pharmaceuticals and the names Finch and Harris. The other was cross referencing the bank accounts Jim had sent him, which Dave had been writing the notes from on a large yellow sheet of notepad. The third computer was downloading every song Dave wanted to hear off of some downloading agent he had seen his daughters using a few times. Dave turned to this one, and typed in for another audio search. He searched by artist, typing in ‘Queen’. Then he realized he had really typed qwqiuyie3eeenmn instead. After about a minute straight of struggling with it, he finally tailored what he had typed to what he meant. It took about 5 seconds before results began to pour into the screen, most of which he selected hastily without looking. God bless this wireless internet, he thought. It never worked this well at home, with 3 computers upstairs constantly using the connection.

Dave looked up for a second at the TV. He gasped breathlessly. In a stupor, he struggled and slapped all over the spot he lay in, looking for the remote. After rolling and rolling himself back, he found it under him. Fumbling it to his grip, he aimed at the set and pressed up on the volume button.

“Authorities are still searching for the exact cause of the fire that torched the 7 floor Midwest office of Bradley and Farthington Accounting Firm yesterday evening. The blaze ferociously tore through the building and adjacent parking building, but no other property was harmed and no lives were lost.”

Dave closed his eyes and let out a sigh. Thank goodness gracious.

“Senior Deputy Duane Jarret of the sheriff’s department is standing by with more:”

Dave gawked again. Duane? Jarret?
“As of now, we are quite certain there was foul play involved with this case. The difficulty will be in finding any evidence at the scene since the fire spread for so long prior to any alarm being sounded. We therefore, must move in another direction of investigation at this point. We are currently very interested in motives and opportunities up to the night in question. We also want anyone that has any knowledge they think pertinent to our case to call our non-emergency line to help any way they can.”

Yeah, that was Duane alright. He seemed a bit more tan than usual, probably from more than his usual dose of fake-baking in a salon somewhere. But even with his crew cut and clean shaven attire, Duane could see he was still the same vain pretty boy he’d played with in college. What he was doing in Cleveland though, Dave could hardly imagine.

“Detective! Are there any key suspects up to this point?” some reporter from the crowd shouted out.
“Senior Deputy.”
“I’m sorry?”
“Senior Deputy. That’s what you meant, ma’am. There’s no detective on this stage, there’s just me, one step away from being sheriff, here representing this department. How about you get that fact straight first and foremost, reporter?” Duane shot out from the podium. “There are some people of interest, but a clear suspect has yet to show themselves as of yet. We’re still looking, like I just said.”
“Um, no you didn’t say that part.”
“Um, yes I did, ma’am. I said exactly that.”
“No,” the reporter persisted, “you said nothing of suspects. You mentioned evidence and motive, but nothing about suspected individuals.”

Dave laughed out loud. That was definitely Duane.

With a hot red face, Duane glared at the woman. “Next question.”

A man jumped up from the left of the camera. “Do you have any comment on the accusations of evidence tampering made in the O’Hara case this past week?”

Duane again got the red hot look. “I neither have any more comment nor see what that has to do with the current discussion.”
The reporter seemed to want this response. “Well, seemingly, an inconsistency in one case’s evidence would mean questions about all of the cases coming through this department-“
“Sir, I can’t control what people chose to say or not say about the people that work here. I’m not going to give you any more ammunition to fire at my department just so you can feel like you have a scoop.” His voice began to raise as he went on. “But I will not stand by and let you talk about good men that way! Julia O’Hara is a drug peddling skank that got caught, and whether she left her prints at that scene or not shouldn’t be the issue on your mind because we took her off the streets one way or another! If that’s the direction questions are going, then this conference is over.”

Duane stood up from his seat in front of the podium, slapping the microphone up as he did. As it flew upwards, the rest of the holder it was in went with it. Then the rest of the stand did as well, as it came crashing down onto the ground below, just before the first row of the press, who leapt and dove out of the way. A huge commotion roared up as Senior Deputy Jarret scurried off even faster now.

Dave could barely breath he was laughing so hard. Even if he was drunk, that was absolutely great. Ahh, that goober never failed to entertain, did he?

Looking back to the computers linked to his workspace, Dave grabbed the pad of paper and finished writing down the numbers and names that had come up. There were plenty of hits on each of the names he had been given, and even more activity to both accounts. Dave knew that he had found out something, but he had absolutely no idea what. He didn’t recognize the name Finch, didn’t know much about Tyson pharmaceuticals, and these accounts didn’t mean anything to him. The only Harris he knew was Greg’s wife’s maiden name, so that didn’t mean anything now. It almost bothered him, to have all these names flying around and no clue what was going on. But once again, he was drunk.

Randomly, a grave thought entered his mind. No, there’s no way. It wasn’t the same. It couldn’t…could it? Oh crap. Yes it really could. Oh crap crap crap!

Dave’s wheels began turning in his head. Instantly his drunken buzz wore down severely as he sat up to begin seriously thinking. Was there any way to check? There had to be. All the numbers that he had seen and forgotten, this was one he could find. Surely. But how?

OOOH! He did know how.

With the computer downloading music, he closed he download agent and logged back into his e-mail address on yahoo. Hastily, Dave brought up the memo that Jim had sent, with the 2 account numbers. He looked at them one more time, both sets. 12 digits each. Dave broke each one up into 2 sets of 6 digits and replayed each group in his mind for a few minutes. With great care, Dave pasted them in his memory for future reference.

Then, with that page still up, he opened his corporate ID from within the company’s website and signed in. Then he opened up his e-mail on that. It still surprised him that all of this had not stopped working, since he had of course been fired. There was an unread e-mail in his inbox, but Dave didn’t even bother to look at it, he was in too much a frenzy. He opened up the search engine feature for e-mails and typed in the first number. Pressing search, the results brought up no e-mails. Not even hesitating, he entered the second number from his memory.

Fifteen e-mails came up as a result. Dave’s eyes bulged halfway across the room. He cycled the contacts that these e-mails had gone to and became even more nervous. These were senior company members. These were high up guys. This one here…this one was from John Avery, the guy Dave had just seen in the building last night. This thing was huge. Dave still wasn’t sure what the hell he had found out, but as he had suspected, he had seen one of these accounts before. But how the hell did Jim know about them? And what did it really matter if they were familiar? Did it have to be a bad thing?

Dave began packing up his computers. Basically he folded each one shut and pulled the power cords from the wall and he was done. Then he stacked them rapidly in the bag he had carried them in. He piled the change of clothes that lay on the floor and shoved them in his second bag. Then he jumped over to the bathroom to make sure he had taken everything else of his. He checked his own pocket and found everything in them as well.

Dave knew he had to get back to Jim so that some of this crap could be explained. His marriage would have to wait, this was important. Well, his kids and his house were too. Shit, maybe he couldn’t leave. Wait, yes he could, he could come back, and when he came back he could tie the marriage thing up quickly. Right? Yeah, he sure could.

Now he took another moment to try to keep his head around the daze he was still in from the drinks.

Come on, Dave, this is no time to lose it. There’ a time to be drunk and a time to flee the motel room. Dave grabbed the remote and flicked the TV off.

This is no time to be drunk.

19. Money is power

On the campaign trail, Dave had been the center of problems most of the time. He had gotten into a fight with Jim, who had finally awoken from a long string of apathy, he had been photographed struggling with Robert in a provocative position, and he had made a scene about his wife and then slept with a random bar woman.

When Dave got back to Cleveland, he seemed to be the only calm person he had to deal with. His wife wouldn’t shut up, his kids wouldn’t stop cussing or crying at him, and the people he worked with were furious of his leave of absence. Dave barely knew where to begin with his business.

The first thing he did was go home to see his kids. It was during the week, so David correctly guessed that their mother would be nowhere to be found. Her brand new Nissan Sentra wasn’t in its’ space in the driveway as Dave pulled up in his Dodge Stratus.

The noise hit him like a whirlwind the minute he opened the door. The blasting of TV’s and music at the same time. The dog barking at anything. And the kids running this way and that, without bounds.

“Richard, you son of a bitch! Where did you put the god damn remote?!” Mallory screamed out as David entered through the door next to the garage.
“I have no idea, leave me alone!” Richard’s voice came in from far off.
“Bullshit, you can’t hide it again! Tell me where it is, you little bastard!”
“Check under the pillow under your fat ass!” Jenny chimed in as she walked through the kitchen. She saw David peer through. She responded with instant excitement.

“Dadddyyyyyyyyyyy!” she exclaimed as she ran towards him, arms outstretched wide. Dave cracked a genuine smile in his own house for the first time in quite a while. He picked up his little girl as she jumped up into his arms. Dave did his best not to start sniffling as he hugged one of his children. “Darling’, how are you? I’ve missed you so much. Have you guys been ok?” He could hear his daughter sniffle in his arms. God he missed this feeling.

From the stairs he thought he could hear his son barreling downwards, but it was Mallory that first emerged from the rest of the house, leaping out of the family room and yelling jovially at her father in a fashion like her sister. She joined in on the hug over her sister, not waiting for her own turn. Robert followed quickly, adding to the noise. For about a minute straight there was just a commotion in the center of the kitchen/breakfast nook, filled with three sets of questions, all at breakneck speed. Dave felt this warmness he had forgotten all about.

When he was finally able to distinguish an actual question, it just so happened to be the one he was dreading having to answer.

“Are you and mommy getting a divorce?” Richard asked innocently.

David put Richard down and kneeled down to look him eye to eye. He started to answer and stalled his breath. “Son, I don’t want you to worry. Your mom…well, your mom wants to change some things and I think some of it’s for the best. We probably are going to split up, but I want you to know something right off the bat. It has nothing to do with you, with any of you. I still love you to death. We both still love you very much. It’s just that mommy and I need some time apart, ok?” He looked at Richard, feeling guilty for having to break the news to him like this. But Richard didn’t frown or sob, he kept looking that same, adorable, naïve little stare he had. For a moment, Jenny and Mallory had nothing to say either.

Dave switched subjects. “So, how are you guys doing?! Tell me all about your weeks!”

A roar of ruckus exploded from 3 directions. Dave flinched back, gesturing in the air for quiet.

“One at a time!”

Mallory went first. Her black hair and blue eye shadow flashed back and forth as she swayed, deciding how to tell the story. “On Tuesday I had the final speech for my Comm. Arts summer school class and it was awful, daddy, it SUCKED because a bunch of people who took forever to recite their last poems and they could barely even speak. So by the time I got up to talk the whole class was bored and no one was listening to me, but I think it’s because they’re all jealous because I’m the only one who’s smart enough to voluntarily take that class during the summer. And after that I went and hung out at the mall with Sam and Elizabeth and Rachel up the street and mom said we had to be back by 9 last night but I said fuck that- um, I mean, screw that, and we went over to Sam’s and I didn’t get back until 1 because
Elizabeth couldn’t drive us back until she went and took care of her boyfriend because he got drunk with stoner friends and ended up on the side of the road somewhere up on interstate 76 so we had to go up there and pick him up and UGH he smelled like vomit and almost threw up in the car going back home, it was soooooo gross! And then the next-“

“Honey! Back up for a second. Did you get the grade from the speech class back yet?”

Mallory gawked. “Is that all you listened to?!”
“I heard your story up to picking up Elizabeth’s boyfriend, but you didn’t answer my question.”
Mallory’s eyes darted back and forth. “I didn’t get them back yet.”
“Malloryyyyyy…”
More eyes darting.

“She got a C-,” Jenny mumbled.
“Shut up, you little whore!” Mallory snapped back.
“I saw her grades in the mail; she’s got a 2.6 overall GPA right now too.” Jenny jumped to the side as Mallory lunged at her. “I’m going to strangle you right here in the kitchen, you are SUCH a bitch!” In an Ashley Simpson-looking blur, she whirled around to grab Jenny again. She narrowly missed some strands of Jenny’s blonde hair as her younger sister darted around to behind her father. Dave was quick to part his daughters accordingly. Richard stood in the same spot, giggling hysterically.

“Whoa, whoa! Time out, hang on,” he continued to struggle one daughter away from the other. “Calm, right now, calm yourselves!” Mallory shoved her dads hand back and stood against the wall, arms crossed. “Ok, now that we’re calm, Richard, why don’t go next?”

“Wellll,” Richard’s eyes rolled upwards as he rocked his balance back and forth energetically. “Today me and Billy from next door were playing outside and he bet a dollar me I wouldn’t eat a worm and then I did. And we played some video games and watched some Pokemon and then Mallory took over the TV so we had to go back outside. And then yesterday mommy told me to take a shower because I was all dirty from rolling around in the mud in the forest but I took a shower last week so I just went into the bathroom and ran the water and then hid from her.”

A hesitated, “OK,” was about all Dave could muster. He then had to make sure his two daughters didn’t get any closer. “Ok, Jenny, how was your week?”

She glanced up from her hiding spot within her father’s armpit. “I didn’t do anything whatsoever and loved it.”
“Excellent, honey, very nice story.” Dave could tell she said pretty much what he wanted to hear, but how was he going to complain now?

Just as he was about to say more about how much he loved each one of them and all that good stuff, he heard the hum from behind him that the garage door made when it opened. Dave froze in horror. He honestly had no idea what to do right now. Hide? Run out the front door? Stand and face the wrath of his soon to be ex-wife?

As he thought, his three kids looked at each other and scattered rapidly to the 4 corners of the house. Or three of the four of them anyways. Dave impulsively did the same. He dove through the kitchen and ducked down in the dining room next to the table. He was about to reconsider for a better hiding place when he heard the screech of the garage door. His hearth shot up into his throat.

“David Desmond Franklin, you conniving mother-fucking bastard! Show yourself!”
Dave didn’t move an inch. Lisa’s heels smacked the kitchen and breakfast nook floors dramatically. He wasn’t sure how she knew he was there.
“You’re fucking piece of shit car is out front, you shitty ass low-life! You think I’m retarded?! I know you’re scum ass is here!”
Oh yeah.
“I can’t believe you would stoop this low! Stalking me in my own god damn home! I can’t wait to sue the ever-living shit out of you! Where are you?!” Dave thought he could hear her shifting towards the living room, the opposite way he had dove for cover. Her steps reverberated over around, through the living room and to the stairs. The smacking sound disappeared as he could hear the pounding up the staircase. Dave breathed a restrained sigh of relief.

Dave sat and reflected for a moment. He could get into a face-to-face conversation with his wife or he could leave to avoid it. Unless he could pull off hiding in his own house from her. If he talked to her everything would be out in the open, his kids would know that their parents had cheated on each other, they would see their parents fighting in full blows. Or he could leave, and walk out on his children and deal with this whole thing like a lil’ bitch, not to mention give Lisa some great ammunition against letting him have custody or the house.

Dave knew he had to bite down and do this. He got up from his crouched position and pulled out the chair he had knelt behind. It made a wooden screech against the floor. Dave winced slightly. Slowly, with much uncertainty of what he was getting himself into, he sat down and folded his arms patiently. He heard the pounding come back down the stairs. No way to back out now.

Lisa almost slipped on the smooth wooden floor when she leapt from at least 6 steps up to make sure she caught her husband. She landed violently, but barely paused when she saw him sitting patiently at the table. When she Dave, however, she suddenly turned seemingly docile. Dave stared into his oncoming struggle. He immediately regretted his decision. He should have run for it.

For a moment, Lisa didn’t say anything. She ambled her way into the side of the dining room, seemingly with a complete change of attitude. She stretched out her arms to both sides once she had made it through the door way, one hand against the wall, the other against the rack of expensive dishes that Dave and Lisa had, many of which had been given at their wedding and even more that they had never used. Lisa’s eyes locked onto Dave’s. Dave stared back, trying to read when she was going to explode back up at him.

He read correctly that she would explode; he just didn’t react to it fast enough. She suddenly gritted her teeth, screamed intensely, and hurled something blunt from the dish rack towards Dave’s head. Dave gawked for an instant, just long enough to not be able to duck the large object of china or crystal stemware hurling towards him.


“Well, Davey, you took one hell of a bump on the head. I think it’s just a mild concussion and lost a lot of blood, but nothing new to you, so no biggee.” Dr. Kyle Mandrake said from behind a thin pair of glasses and crew cut as he strolled his way into the small, white-walled doctors’ office, holding a clipboard. “Just take it easy for the rest of the day, try not to think too hard or anything like that. I’ll stitch you up real quick and you’ll be good to go back for round two.”
“Yeah, blow it out of your ass, Kyle,” Dave blurted from his position on his back, facing the other way. The right side of his head felt like it wasn’t even there.
Kyle chuckled. “That’s quite a chipper response.”
“What would you expect me to say?”
“From you? Something along the lines of, “Ughhhh, I did NOT see that coming!”
Dave laughed at the Luke Wilson reference.
“But on the plus side, I’d say you’re getting through the early stages of your divorce. Progress is progress.” Kyle set down the clipboard and approached the cot where Dave laid, head turned onto the side that wasn’t bloody and gashed.
“Oh, you’d know all about that, wouldn’t you?”
Kyle shrugged. “3 times around. Yet somehow I managed to never get hit in the face with one of my own wedding presents.”
“No one ever bought you a wedding present from your Las Vegas chapel.”
“Hey, they have good services! And besides, I didn’t use a family heirloom as a ring like you did.”
“…Yes you did.”
“Well, I didn’t do it more than once!”
“…Yes you did, you stole it from the first wife and gave it to the third one. You had me help break into her house.”
Kyle squinted. “You remember that?” he asked with a cracked smile.
“I went to jail for the night, you damn right I remember.”
Kyle laughed, shaking his head at the memory. “Ah yes, the good ol’ days. Geez, when was that?”
“We were 24.”
“That’s right. That second marriage lasted a full year. Unlike you with your 15+ year relationship”

This made Dave just sit and reflect. Wow, it had been that long. He had stuck out for…wow, for 18 years, it was. He had come damn near close to a 2 decades with the same woman. He, Crazy Dazy Davy from college, had lasted in a long term marriage, especially by modern standards. After all of his insane party days, he had actually settled down and been a respectable adult.

His epiphany was interrupted by his friend slightly missing one of his stitch marks. He went a bit too deep, much to Dave’s agonizing chagrin. “Oops,” Kyle said, halfway sorry and halfway spiteful.
“God damnit!” An incredible rush of pain stung the side of his face.
“So how’s the campaign going?”
Dave’s face started to swell, but the sting subsided. “It’s fine, everyone’s been busier than I have, I just came back to check on a few things elsewhere.”
“Elsewhere, huh? Yeah, divorces need to be dealt with like that, I suppose.”

Yes they did, Dave thought. He knew better than to tell anyone he was back home doing research for the campaign at his job. He was pretty sure he would get in as much trouble as Jim had described to him if things went as well as they could go. It was a huge risk and the payoff might be large and might be nonexistent, but to Dave it was worth it to come back all this way just to look.

Dave looked at his watch. It was quarter ‘til five. At least the timing was about right. “Are you almost done,” he asked semi-impatiently, turning slightly.
“Yeah, I’m done. You’re all set, slugger.
Dave picked himself up and looked at his face in the mirror briefly. He was almost disappointed at the lack of mark he had in his face. It was more like a shaving accident than a concussion-causing battle scar to Dave. He had gotten bigger bruises in his high school days playing football. It was especially unrepresentative of the amount of pain Dave was still in at the time. But oh well, he still had the story for his lawyer.
“I’ll call you in a few days to check on your progress. Good to see you again, buddy,” Kyle called out to Dave as he made his way out.
“You too.”

Dave wasn’t supposed to drive, so he ended up calling a cab to get him over to his office. It was a quiet ride. Dave ignored the young woman’s attempts at small talk. He focused his mind on getting the information he came for. He focused on getting in and out of the building quickly and with running into the minimal amount of people.

And he focused on trying to phase out the enormous headache he still had.

When the cab pulled up to the front of the Bradley and Farthington Accounting firm, Dave looked cautiously before getting out. He was sure his keycard for the front desk would work, but wanted to see how few people he could run into in the way up. Slipping on his sun glasses, he stepped out of the cab and walked in through the revolving doors smoothly,

The lobby was relatively empty. The modestly but tastefully furnished foyer was deserted, as was to be expected on a Friday after 6 in the evening. He walked up to the turnstile stations all in a neat little row by the elevator. He swiped his and tried to push through. The metal bar didn’t budge and Dave smacked his midsection into it as he tried to walk through. He looked down, frustrated. He swiped again. Nothing. The green light that should have lit up did nothing. Dave looked around. The guard that was usually there to watch for people that needed help was nowhere to be found. There was no one else trying to get through or coming back out. The only other person in the area was a lady at the front desk, with her back turned, talking away her anytime minutes on her cell phone.

With a quick set of glances, Dave jumped the turnstile and walked briskly to the elevator. After pushing the button several times repeatedly, the up arrow for a nearby elevator lit up and he slunk in. He punched the 6th floor button.

After the short ride, the door opened back up. Dave was now more cautious than ever. He leaned out of the elevator slowly, as if he was afraid of being shot on sight as he entered. No one. He stepped softly off the elevator and towards the west wing of hallways and cubicles. From where he was, he could tell that most of the lights had already been turned off. The janitors wouldn’t be coming in until about 10 p.m. on Saturday after the midday few overachievers had cleared out. Save for random stragglers, Dave should have been home free.

Peering around the corner once again as he turned right, he saw one older man walking towards him with his suit buttoned up and his briefcase in hand. He recognized him pretty soon. It was John Avery, one of the regional directors, most likely a future partner. John was a good guy, just too high up to really remember Dave or anything that he’d done even though they had met numerous times before.

John walked by casually as Dave loosened up his walk and straightened himself out a bit, trying to appear relaxed as well. “Hey there,” John said in a quirky, Midwestern accent as he passed.
“Uh, hey,” Dave replied with a faked deep tone of voice.
“How’s things goin?”
“Not bad, not bad at all. How about with you?”
“Oh, same ol. You know how it is. All work and no play. No wonder so many accountants are dull, huh?” He chuckled. Dave forced out a few laughs. “So, headin’ out soon?” It was obvious John had no idea who Dave was. This relaxed Dave.
“Yeah, just came back in to grab a few things. I had a late lunch.”
“Oh. So is that why you’re wearin’ shades on inside?”
“Yeah, I just happen to be a badass.” They both laughed.
“Badass! I like that,” John smiled through his pearly teeth, grey eyes and faded red hair. “Well, don’t work too hard, buddy. See you next week.” John strutted his way out.

Dave breathed uneasily as he slunk through the rows of small cubicles, looking for his own. It was so eerie, being here now that he had more purpose than checking on figures to make sure no one else had screwed up. All these years he had just wandered these halls, like a rat looking for cheese. Now he knew what he was looking for. Now he knew what the cheese he searched for was.

He turned the familiar corner to his right to get into his cubicle and…What the hell? What the…what the hell?!

Dave’s desk was gone. His computer, his pictures, his mound of work was not where it was supposed to be. His name tag wasn’t there. It had a different name in its place, someone named Doris Gayheart. Her family’s picture had taken the space where his was, sitting in its oversized frame.

Ok, Dave. There’s an explanation for this. There has to be. Maybe you’ve just taken a wrong turn somewhere, no biggee. You’re just a little turned around.

He looked around. He wasn’t mistaken one bit. After 16 years in this maze, he had learned his way around perfectly. He was the 5th row from the west windows, 4th column, facing the water cooler when he turned around. This was his desk.

Ok. Ok. Maybe they just moved you.

They had never moved him once in all his years here. This place hated reorganizations, with all these damn numbers flying around as it was. Why increase the odds of mistakes? Even the managers here knew better than to push their workers. Many people didn’t realize just how unstable accountants could be on a long term scale.

Ok. Ok. Well, they made an acception. It had to have been for a special reason. It’ll be close.

Dave started frantically searching for anything that looked like his in the nearby cubicles. He darted through, becoming more and more distressed. Then he thought he saw his old chair, the deluxe recliner, but it was in Gary Darcy’s office and Gary had always had crappy everything. Dave knew better. Gary wouldn’t have taken my chair. He told himself. There’s been a mistake.

And then he saw it. Near the elevator bank on the far side of where he had come in, there were 3 small white trash bags tied together set in a line. Across the top of them lay another priceless possession of Dave’s.

His old baseball bat from high school and college.

Dave walked up to the bags reluctantly. He felt himself begin to sniffle as the ends of his eyes became more and more moist. He tried so hard to hold it back. He bent down next to one of the bags. He untied it tenderly. With a deep breath, he looked inside.

There, atop a stack of strewn papers and folders, lay the framed photograph of his family at Hawaii on the beach, all huddled together. Then his attention shifted to a folder that lay right under it. The brownish manila folder was his company dossier, with his picture and job title across the middle. In bold red stamp, the word, “Terminated” lay across the folder, a confirmation of what Dave had feared had happened to him. Dave picked it up and looked at it, unable to hold back his faint cries. His eyes teared up gradually as he closed his eyes and sunk into a pile there on the floor.

Dave had been fired.

He had lost his job and his marriage in the same week. What was next? What was next?

Dave opened his eyes and tried to rub the tears away, but the pain wouldn’t leave him. He just felt so beat down, so overwhelmed with change in his life. Yesterday he had felt liberated, freed. Now he felt deserted and abandoned.

Dave took a breath. A heavy breath. How could they? After all the money he had saved this place, all the ass he had kissed and all the necks he had saved. They terminated him. How could they? Why? WHY?!

Dave pushed himself to his feet. He began pacing back and forth. Wait a sec, he thought. Hadn’t he always hated this company? Yeah, he sure had. He had hated being here, wasting his time. What a waste, it was a good thing he was gone. He had time to do other things and live his life. Live his life… the life that had been half dedicated to this hell hole.

This had been the one break he had taken from work in the past 5 years, since he had gone to visit with his mom before she passed away. He had been loyal, he had been focused, and he had never haggled for anything he didn’t fully earn within the company. He hadn’t been one iota selfish. And this was how they repayed him.

He tripped over something by his feet and stumbled a step or two. Looking down, he remembered his bat.

Yeah, this was how they repayed him.

With that, Dave repayed his company.

It wasn’t even a conscious move, he just picked up the bat and the next thing he knew, he was in full swing, aiming at a nearby computer. He let the swing loose and smacked the computers’ screen clean out of its’ cubicle, sprawling a few rows over. Dave kicked over the wall of whoever’s cube he was in and continued his rampage.

Dave spent a good 10 minutes trashing the large office room. He must have destroyed half of the cubicles in the room, he couldn’t stop himself. Some of the cubicles were filled with papers that he tossed about furiously. Some were near empty and he bashed the structure of the small workspace. Here and there he would turn over desks and in the cubicle that used to be his own, David even knocked the cabinet shelving clean off of the cubicle walls.

At this, Dave took a second to relax himself. He was out of breath and covered with sweat. He had practically broken this bat that he loved so dearly, and his hands were about as red as they had ever been, blistering intently.

God he felt good.

Now Dave circled back around to find his chair. He found the cubicle easily; he had intentionally not touched it. This one was to be saved for last. Because of all the assholes whose cubicles he had just trashed, this was the one that had it coming the most. Ohhhhh, this guy had it coming. Dave was about to pee his pants, he had wanted this so bad.

And when he got to the cubicle, Dave hesitated to smash everything of Gary’s. There wasn’t much there worth destroying besides his own chair, and Dave loved that chair. No, no, he had a better idea. He knew how to get Gary once and for all. And everyone at this place. And at the same time he could do what he really came to do, to help his friend.

Dave pulled up his chair and sat down at Gary’s computer.

20. There should be a maxim connecting power and success (Imagine it’s here if there is)

About the time Dave was properly thanking his company for its’ loyalty, Greg was trying to figure out how to deal with new loyalty of his own. So far, he was not off to a great start.

“What in the fuck just happened?!” he exclaimed into his cupped hands in the back seat of the Suburban he and Kelley had grabbed after Johnny Mateos’s visit. Greg had to restrain himself to not pee his pants or start crying when the most powerful mobster in north or south America had sat down at the same table as he and wrote him a check for eighty million dollars. Greg was not too sure what this visit meant, but could not imagine one good thing that could come of this.

“I really don’t know, Greg. I have…no…no idea.”
“How did he know where…why did he give…what if he wants…GAHHH!” Greg spazzed out, flailing his arms in every direction. Kelley flinched away from him momentarily. After a few moments of incoherent rambling, Greg wiped the remaining sweat from his face. “Robert has some serious explaining to do.”
Kelley inched back towards Greg. “What? You think Robert knows anymore about Johnny than you did? Robert was the one that had all the embolisms pop when he came in. I thought he was going to combust right there in front of everyone.”
“I’m telling you, “Greg stated with a pointed finger in the air, “Robert knows something.”
“Just because he’s a god damn gambling addict doesn’t make him some kind of mob snitch.”

Greg blew out a hasty breath, trying hard not to fidget. His eyes locked into a spot on the ground. “Ohhh, it’s just bad. Not good, not, not, not good.”
“Well, it serves you right.”
Greg looked up from his stupor. “A- wha?”
“You heard me.”
“I deserve this? Is that it? I deserve this?”
“Well that’s what you get for trying to sabotage yourself. You wanted some bad luck on this campaign, and you got it. Serves. You. Right.

Greg sat up and looked closer at Kelley. “Are you crazy? You think THIS is what I asked for?! I wanted to ruin my career, not my life! That wasn’t some small time crook from a little Texas town somewhere. That was Johnny mother-fucking Mateos! They say he shot five people in the head over a set of golf clubs!”

Kelley sat silent for a second. She stared off into the same state that Greg had a few moments ago.
“How did he know your name?”
Kelley snapped right back to Greg’s words. “What? He didn’t know my name. He thought he made a mistake.”
“Then why did he wink afterwards?”
“I have no idea.”
“Kelleyyyyyy…”
“Seriously, I don’t know what to tell you.”

The Suburban came to a halt in front of the hotel. Greg got out, still unsure what to make of Kelley. As soon as he took a step away from the car, he instantly forgot what he had previously had going on. He came to a standstill in front of a black woman, a bit shorter than he was, with full, swirled black hair with hints of grey here and there. She had on the same conservative dress style as always, her lipstick and makeup were done impeccably, and she stood there in that spot like she had known exactly where Greg would step into the hotel. Greg couldn’t decide if he wanted to run or scream and then.

His wife was there.

He didn’t know how to even start the conversation properly. There was something very eerie about this. She was calm, so to speak. She was standing waiting for him in the empty lobby-way of a hotel at about 2:30 in the morning and she looked like there was nothing out of the ordinary going on. Greg began as coolly as he could. “Hi, wife.”
“Hello, husband.”

Greg went in closer for the awkward hug and then flinched backwards, not sure if she would extend her hand for the handshake. She stood there, very perplexed by Greg and his sudden pang of strange behavior. Eventually, Greg embraced her with a hug as she stood there without motion. After a few pats on the back while within the hug, she grabbed his lower back with one hand to give the impression of hugging back. Then the two jumped back, as if to shiver out cooties.

Greg now started walking again, through the hotel doors. Carol followed after turning and giving a very fake smile to Kelley, who stayed a good 50 feet back. As they walked, Greg gradually became more curious and finally, after a few moments of silence, bothered to ask, “What do you want?”
Carol looked surprised. “What do I want?”
“Yeah, what are you doing here?” he added without looking at Carol.
“I can’t just come see my husband every so often to tell him he’s running a great campaign and I want a divorce?”

Greg froze in his tracks. “Divorce?” He cocked his head to an angle, looking at Carol funny. “Divorce divorce or divorce like what we’ve been doing?”
“Divorce as in let’s stop this crap and get on with our lives.”

YES, Greg thought to himself. He was so close to jumping up and down and dancing in the lobby right there, it wasn’t even funny. But somehow he kept it from happening for a time. Instead he tried t stare dumbfounded, like he had been crushed. Carol kept a stern look on her face as she stared back at him.

It was no use though.

Carol’s face cracked first. The smile broke through emphatically. Greg’s stare also broke down. The two started to laugh again, and this time hugged for real. “My wife’s divorcing me! YESSSSSS!”
“I KNOW! WOHOO!” The two laughed some more. Kelley shook her head in lack of understanding.

“Oh so wait!” Greg pulled back from the hug. “Are you really tying the knot with that one guy?”
“With Harold. Yes I am, just as soon as you and I are done.” They walked right up to the bank of elevators in front of them. Greg pushed the up button.
“Awesome. Do you already have the papers or what?”
“Yes, they’re all upstairs in our room if you want to come finish this now.”
“That sounds like a good idea. We can do that really quick,” he said, now turning to Kelley. “You wanna just meet me back in our room in about fifteen or so?”
Kelley nodded knowingly. “Ok, sure.” She smiled just as Greg did.

The elevator came and they all piled on. Greg pushed the 7th floor for Kelley as Carol pushed the penthouse button. Greg tried not to stare. He glanced at it 3 or 4 times on the way up as they talked.
“So is that all that you’re in town for?
Carol shrugged, looking up at the number of floor they were on.. “Yeah, for the most part. This is on the way to my father’s cabin in Michigan, so when we heard you were in this area, we figured we could stop by for a few days while you’re around.”
“Oh, I love Michigan during this time of year!” Kelley threw in. “Do you go up often?”
“Oh, twice or three times a summer! It’s gorgeous, isn’t it? So much better than how it tends to get the other 3 quarters of the year.” They both giggled.
Well that’s bullshit, Greg thought with a fake smile.
“How are things in your world?” Carol sent back at Kelley.
“Oh, it’s pretty cool. I love working on the road. Greg’s got a few more stops to make before the first televised debate in June, so we’re just trying to stay busy for a little longer.”
“Well, you are doing great, I can’t even imagine running a campaign. Tremendous job, really.”
The door for the 7th floor opened up with a ping. Kelley hopped off jovially. “It was nice meeting you, Mrs. Turner.”
“Mrs. Harris in a little bit. After that, who knows?”

The doors shut smoothly.

“So that’s what the little slut actually looks like?”
“Well, if that’s what you want to call her.”
“Well what should I call a woman that pretends to be a politicians secretary just so she can fuck around with him over and over again?”
“Carol, don’t start now, I’m trying to help you.”
“Help me? You’re trying to escape me.”
“This was your idea.”
“It was my idea, but you actually get something out of it.”
“Just as well, I finally got something that I wanted.”
Carol sneered at him. “This is what you want? You don’t mind getting a divorce while you’re running for office? Because that won’t look bad at all, right? That’s been done before without problems. Nothing odd there.”

Greg stared ahead, saying nothing.

“What’s going on with you, Greg? Ever since you and I started having problems, you’ve been acting absolutely crazy, even for you. Drinking, late nights and weekends away, that inexplicable trip to Europe for 4 months straight. Gambling. Firing people, hiring people that don’t know the jobs you need them to do. It’s all irrational behavior for anyone running for office. If I didn’t know better, I’d say someone paid you to take a dive.”

Greg turned and looked at Carol, almost accusingly. Carol looked back, her eyes opened wide and arched, teeth gritted. “That or someone is doing the next best thing.”


Greg exhaled, irritated. He still couldn’t believe she was doing this to him. She was able to make him trigger all this deception, all these lies, for what he couldn’t see meaning much good to her in the end.

He did his best to appear to have kept his cool.“So who’s this future hubby of yours?”
“Yeah, that’s it. Change the subject.” She chuckled. “He’s a CEO of a pharmaceutical company. Made a bundle off some new form of drugs. I don’t even know what the hell he’s talking about when he tells me what he does for a living.”
“Is that so? Well, it’s not like you could aim any lower.”

The elevator pinged to a stop. Carol led the way down the hall and to the right to one of the far suites. She flipped in a key to the door slot and gave a tug. The door swung open.

They entered a nicely furnished living room, complete with a grand piano and an elaborate fish tank. Over on an elevated platform sat a lavish set of black leather couches and a marble coffee table. Across one of the sofas sat an elderly looking man with grey, thinning hair in a brown suit, his feet up next to a set of wine glasses and what looked like some boorish class of Cabernet.

“Greg Turner, meet Harold Finch.”

21. Douche Ex Machina

About the time Greg was tying off the end of his marriage, Sidney was at a hotel across town, wrapping up something of her own.

Actually, if you want to get technical, Charlie was the one wrapping it up. Sidney was too exhausted by this point to do anything.

Charlie finally gave out and collapsed onto Sidney. The two had been at it for nearly half a day straight. He rested his head on her shoulder for a second. Both he and Sidney were completely out of breath and drained of any will to move. Then, he looked up to Sidney’s face with his big blue eyes and his devilish smile.

“Ok, your turn on top.”

Sidney gave out an exhausted laugh as he gave her a small kiss on the forehead as he slid off of her and turned over in bed next to her. She hardly knew what to say to him now that they were done making love. It was like there should have been some way to say what she needed to say to him, but the words still eluded her.

Sid had first realized the words eluded her when she had left the charity ball with Charlie the evening before. She had been walking over to Robert to tell him the very thing she now couldn’t tell Charlie when she wanted to.

Out of the side of her eye, she saw a blur of green. Even without looking, Sidney could tell it was someone in a greenish camo suit, so she figured it was just a random troop coming to show support for politics. But when she happened to glance, it was a soldier holding out a white tulip. Sidney halted in her walk because only one guy had ever gotten her a white tulip.

And when she looked up to his face, it was that same guy. Sure he had some scars on his cheeks that hadn’t quite healed yet and he had significantly less hair, but it was still Charlie. Holding that same flower.

Instantly, Sidney excited herself and ran to her companion. She leaped onto him with pure instinct. She grabbed him and hugged the crap out of him. He hugged back almost as hard. Sidney was hit all at once with every bit of feeling she ever had him. This manifested into an enormous kiss. Sidney felt hypnotized the whole time, almost unable to pry herself away from her former beau. When they did part, it was so that Charlie could get a few words out.

“So you did miss me?”
“Like you wouldn’t believe.”
“Come tell me about it?”
Sidney nodded emphatically.

Charlie seized her hand and stormed out of the crowded dance floor with her trailing behind eagerly. Sidney could barely keep up in her heals, and thought about just kicking them off.

And then for some reason she suddenly felt a huge sting in her stomach. She felt like she was doing something terrible. She shut her eyes hard, wincing in pain. With that, she looked back over her shoulder as she kept fleeing the dance floor. Robert stood at the bar, a stunned look on his face, still holding his drink. Sidney almost waved, but how could she do anything but look away? She turned back.

The two of them jumped in some crappy pickup truck and took off. It took Charlie 4 tries to get the engine going all the way. They popped the curb exiting the parking lot, bottoming out as Charlie gunned the engine on the road.

“So where are we heading first, you wanna stop and grab a drink somewhere?” Charlie asked with his slight but recognizable Alabama accent. Sidney didn’t hear the question though.

Her mind was still on Robert somehow. Just figured, didn’t it? She spent all this time missing one guy, and as soon as he’s back she can’t stop thinking about another.

Sidney had first met Charlie in college. When she got to Harvard, she hated it with fiery passion. Her dad had insisted that she go there for a top flight education. She would have been much happier going close to home with a familiar face or two, but daddy paid for everything of hers and she really couldn’t say anything. But Harvard was much harder to deal with than she would have figured. Sidney thought she was a bit spoiled and snobby, but the kids she was going to school with turned out to act like freakin’ aristocrats. They made Sidney look like a humble chimney sweep. Sidney didn’t make any friends the first year or two. She barely did anything but study, which she desperately needed to do anyways. Actually, she had discovered that in the ivy-league, few people that try actually fail, but to be even close to the top of the class took a world’s worth of work more.

Besides, she was still pretty hung up on Conner, who Sidney had kept dating after high school. He went to Boston University and was a few hours away. There was no warning for Sidney on how hard long distance, college year relationships were. But for the most part they got through it ok. Conner came down pretty often, and the two of them would try to find local parties that didn’t completely suck. Sidney became comfortable with him, accustomed to having him near. But mostly she liked having Conner around because Conner was pretty submissive and loyal. He didn’t really argue with her about anything, which would have bothered her at any other time in her life. But at this point in Sidney’s life, she liked having control over something.

And then after her sophomore year, Conner applied to the study abroad program at his school. So Sidney was left alone while Conner went off to get high and drunk in the sex-riddled streets of Europe. And he was totally different when he came back. To put it bluntly, he had a spine of some sort. Which took away his appeal to Sidney.

Over time his absence was much harder on her than on him. She found herself leaving her apartment less and less often, even despite classes. When she did leave, everything seemed to remind her of what she didn’t have. She would walk down a street and see nothing but people holding hands or cuddling, or families filled with kids, or people talking on their cell phones to people to their loved ones.

So then on Valentine’s Day for her junior year, she woke to a knock on her door in the late morning. It was about 11 in the morning, but by this point, Sidney didn’t leave her room until about 12 each day. She had begun to put on a few extra pounds from inactivity, even though she still tried to keep up with her running and yoga in her own spare time. On this particular morning, she had a slight hangover from drinking by herself so she actually considered not answering the door the first set of knocks. After the second round of them, she forced herself up.

Stumbling over something in the dark, she cursed and hopped her way to the front door. She didn’t see anyone through the peep hole and grumbled more as she opened the door slightly. On the ground, on top of her mat outside, she saw a white envelope sitting there. Laying across the envelope was a long-stemmed, white tulip.

Sidney nearly fell to tears immediately when she bent down and picked up her gift. The letter inside the envelope was as follows:

To the lonesome girl next door,

Tonight this door shall open wide
To whom desires to enter
Tonight I hope the girl inside
Shall come with me to dinner
Tonight this flower shall not lie
Unwanted for the taking
Tonight I hope that I can try
To stop your heart from breaking

Tonight the stars shall shine upon
Us as we look on, gazing
Tonight I hope, when it is gone
You’ll remember it as amazing
Tonight will be a night to say
‘Oh, put away your sorrow’
Tonight, you’ll forget yesterday
And think about tomorrow

7:30 P.M. I would love it if you would accompany me out for a night out. Dress comfortable and wear shoes you can dance in. If you don’t want to go or cannot make it, slip this note back under my door.

C. Porter

At the words of the poem, Sidney began sobbing. She must have read them over and over 8 times straight before finally regaining any train of thought. There was absolutely no doubt in her mind that she had to meet the author of such a poem. She rushed up and back into her room and began trying to fix herself up.

She started with her hair, putting curls in it every which way they would fit. Then when she had her hair filled with rollers, she began fumbling around through her make-ups and lipsticks to figure out just which ones to narrow down through. Then at some point, she began her search through hundreds of outfits to decide what to wear.

She was looking through her dresses when she froze. What was she doing? Was she insane? Who the hell was this guy? What did he want with her? Better yet, why the hell did he know so much about her? Was he some sort of stalker or something? And he lived next door? On which side? Granted, Sidney had never seen any of her neighbors long enough to remember them. She almost always avoided eye contact with people around here and got glimpses of them coming out or going into their rooms hastily.

As 7:30 approached, she became more and more suspicious. She kept asking herself questions that she knew she couldn’t herself answer. Was he cute or not? What if he stole the poem from someone else? What if he smoked? What kind of a name was Charlie? Was it too soon to be over Conner? Why was she so eager to be ready for a complete stranger?

When 7:30 came around, there was a knock at the door. Sidney had been ready since 6:42 out of pure nervousness and anticipation. She flinched at the knock, like she had only partially expected it to happen. Three distinct, sporadic pounds came and she suddenly was thrown into a near fit. Sidney rushed over to the door but was so edgy it took her two tries to undo the chain latch. With a huge breath, she opened the door.

The first thing she saw were those blue eyes. They were exactly the same blue of the sky to Sidney. She stared a them like she was staring at a specific point in the sky. In doing so, she forgot to talk. He returned the stare, his mouth hanging open.

After a few moments, he said something. Stuttering aside, it equated to, “Hi, I’m Charlie.”
“Charlie Porter?”
A surprised look. “That’s right? And what might your name be?”
“Sidney…Sidney, um, Clark.” She extended her hand quickly. Charlie took it and kissed it gently.
“Oh,” Sidney sighed out. “How, gentlemanly of you.”
“Anything for such a gentle soul.”

Sidney blushed momentarily.

“Are you ready?”
“I, uh, I sure am. Let’s go.” She grabbed her purse from the counter to her left and pulled it with her as she almost leapt out the door, still holding Charlie’s hand. She was so taken by his presence alone that she forgot to lock it. Not that it mattered in the small apartment complex on Harvard’s campus, where nothing was ever reported stolen and anyone there could easily replace what was missing. But all the same, she was just that focused on Charlie.

Even as they started in small chatter as they walked, Sidney was unable to bring up one of her questions for Charlie simply because of how beautiful he was to her. His hair, his face, his body type, his dress style, and even his smell were exactly what Sidney had been hoping for, whether she had realized it or not. How could she do anything to possibly provoke this man, sitting in front of her that had this perfectly kempt reddish blonde hair, sky blue eyes, Ben Affleck face, muscular but not over-the-top build, very nice dress style, and emaculate smell? She was almost too afraid to answer any of his questions honestly for fear he might hear something he didn’t like. The walk down the street flew by though, and she found herself telling all truths to everything her new acquaintance had to say.

Charlie led her to a small Mexican food joint about a mile off campus, one that Sidney had always wanted to try but hadn’t. They got a booth outside, overlooking an open terrace with a garden below. Sidney finally began to truly relax and decided to ask a few questions herself.

“Ok, so here’s a question: When was the first time you saw me?”
Charlie’s lips pressed together as his eyes went up and to the left. “First time…I saw you…ooh, I do remember. It was back sophomore year, when you were in my political science class. You had on this denim jacket that had a hole in the front right pocket, like you had been shot. Or like someone had ripped off the pocket.”
Sidney was astonished. She remembered the very jacket, it had belonged to Conner. What’s more, she was the one that had put that hole in the jacket, when she had accidentally shut part of it in a car door and ripped it clean off.
“Wow. Ok. Ok, Mr. Memory, how about this? How did you know I was lonely?”
Charlie looked confused. “How did I know what?”

Sidney shifter from her position in her chair. “How did you know I was lonely? In that poem you wrote me, you said at the beginning, ‘To the lonesome girl next door.’ How did you know that?

Now Charlie sat there, confused look on his face again. His mouth hung slightly open, in a much more surly style. His eyes shifted away from Sidney again. Sidney was trying to read his face but couldn’t seem to figure anything out.

Softly, in a mumbled tone, Charlie murmured out, “I didn’t write you any poem.”
Sidney was stunned. In her mind, she told herself that there was no way that those words could have come from his mouth. She somehow fooled herself into thinking he was kidding.

“You didn’t write me anything?” She pulled and unfolded the poem out of her purse and put it in front of him. “You didn’t write me this and leave a white tulip on top of it on my doorstep?”

He looked at the poem on the table before him like he was looking at incriminating evidence to a murder. His eyes became wide as he read it to himself. He hesitated to look up at Sidney again. “This…I…”

Sidney jumped up from her seat. Her chair toppled backwards as she began exclaiming out loud. “This wasn’t yours. Great! GREAT! That’s just perfect. It’s not like this could have been Valentine’s Day without me getting my hopes up about someone, a guy of all things! I have my heart touched and I meet this…this…” She now realized she was making a scene at the restaurant. Some waiter had just walked up with chips and salsa, preparing to take their orders. “Look, I’m just gonna go.”

Sidney picked up her purse and stormed out as quickly and nonchalantly as possible, but it wasn’t much use. Every head turned as she slipped out the same way she came in. As she pushed through the revolving door exit, her purse’s left handle caught along the side of the door. The other handle was around her wrist, so this caused her to be pulled back powerfully as the door kept turning after she had gotten out on the outer side. She jolted backwards, her body twisting, feeling herself being dragged right out of her shoes. For an instant, her dress was pulled down a bit as she struggled with it, trying to at least stay on her feet. At last, she let the purse go in the door and flopped down on the ground with a small thud. Her face came down right into the ground, a lighter type of pavement for the walkway.

Sidney just lay there momentarily, her clothes and makeup strewn about, as her purse enjoyed another ride around the revolving doors. She thought she heard some people inside let out gasps and cries in response to her fall. But then a side door next to the revolving door opened and it turned out to be laughter, mostly from the bar area. Sidney picked up her head slightly, just enough to accent the force with which she let her forehead back to the ground with another thud.

This of course now made her yelp out, “OW!” as she now lay in her best black dress and merlot spaghetti strap, shoeless and now covered with scrapes.

And then, when she felt she had fallen completely apart, some voice came out from above her and said, “Here. Let me help you.”

Sidney felt herself being helped to her feet, though she was a bit slow to regain her balance. When she looked up from the ground, she saw Charlie, trying to wrestle the purse out of the door as it passed by another round trip. Unsuccessful, he hopped in with it and kept struggling to free the purse while moving along with the door. It took him another full rotation to undo the strap. When he finally did get it off, he held it up in triumph, much tot the chagrin of the bar go-ers, A few of them gave Charlie some applause.

Sidney did everything in her power to not crack a smile. She tried to sit there forlorn and dismayed when, in truth, she was pretty happy that someone else had made themselves look as much a fool of as much as she had. But then after a second it turned back into shame and sadness and Sidney felt like crying more than ever. Charlie returned to her where she had stood.

“And here you are again.”
Sidney opened her mouth to say something but didn’t and instead just snatched the purse, continuing her awkward stroll without her shoes. She made it maybe 6 more steps away.
“You forgot something,” he now called out after her. Sidney stopped and turned as Charlie walked up and handed her a folded up piece of paper. Sidney didn’t even look down at it. She didn’t have to.

“What are you doing? Are you giving me a poem that you didn’t write and that I’ve already received?”
“Something like that.”

Sidney sniffled as she turned to face him completely. “You know, you really had me going there for a while. I thought you were gonna turn out to be this guy that I waited all this time for and BAM you’re just a guy who got mixed up with me like everyone else and I-“
“Sidney, I think you misunderstood. Read it.”

Sidney looked at him sideways for an instant, then frowned in a frustrated manner as she opened up the letter. She double-took as she read the first line, then looked up at Charlie in disbelief. He looked back, knowingly.

The letter read:

To the lonely boy next door

You’ve been waiting for a misses
Spreadin’ joy and sendin’ kisses
Lendin’ hands and grantin’ wishes
Takin’ ‘way your doubt
Look no further than your neighbor
Sharp and sturdy, like a sabre
Think of it not as a favor
Look and you’ll find out

Don’t be shy and don’t be lazy
Passing up would make you crazy
Thinking of the waste of days we
Could’ve enjoyed throughout
Please make sure the steps are taken
Hurry to, don’t keep me waitin’
Knock upon my door with patience
Look and you’ll find out

7:30 P.M. Come by and take me to dinner somewhere. Perhaps Siesta Sammy’s up on Twilight Rd. Wear dancing shoes. Don’t be late.

S. Clark

Sidney was now the confused one. “But…but…bu-“
“I know. I was as dumbfounded as you seem to be. I’ve kinda had a rough few months…well, years, really, with relationships. I’ve been pretty down. So when I got this on my door, I figured, hey, this is what I’ve been waiting for, right? I mean, sure, I was a little curious about some things, and I would’ve asked about it earlier but you were so…I was afraid you’d want to cut the evening short. And obviously I was successful in that because here you are, leaving. I just came to say that I was sorry. And I understand if you still want to leave and find whoever wrote this for us but I want you to know that I really wish that I could’ve wrote you those words. Because I like the way you looked at me when you thought I did.”

Now Charlie began to wander back to the restaurant behind him. Sidney turned around. She took another step. The last words reverberated in her mind. She turned back around.

Charlie had already turned back around and was right behind her, now in front of her. He opened his mouth to start just as Sidney got the urge to as well. But instead of saying anything, she just grabbed him and pulled him closer. The two connected in a way words could not quite have.

After about a minute long kiss, Charlie whispered in her ear, “So that’s a yes on dinner?” Sidney smiled at Charlie, the way he actually was.

The two of them stayed together the rest of their days at Harvard. Sidnye finally loosened up to everyone around her, in a way. She would go back and forth between being a study-addicted hermit and a completely sociable tavern-dweller like the rest of her new found friends turned out to be. Charlie was a natural at making friends, it just seemed to be what he did effortlessly, without trying or meaning to half the time.

It broke Sidney’s heart when she found out that Charlie had enlisted in the Marines in order to pay for college. But Charlie never once complained or made any comments that showed he regretted his decision. He always seemed to accept the things in his life the way they came. Sidney grew to admire that about him.

Now, lying next to him in bed, she scarcely knew how she would ever be able to tell him what she still really really needed to tell him. Yet she was sure that if she told him, she would never get to see him smile at her the way she did before he knew. As it was, she wasn’t sure when she would see him again. For all she knew, he was to leave later that day. He could have a girlfriend, a hundred different girlfriends, a fiancée, who knew? She had him this time, just for this time, and she was actually thinking about telling him what would tear him upinside.

Sidney rolled away from him, trying to keep from hating herself anymore than she did. He pulled her back over to him. “And where do you think you’re going?!” he prattled easily.
“Nowhere,” she pouted crossly.

Charlie now sat up. “What?”
“Huh? What about what?”
“What?”
“I don’t know what-“
“Sidney, what is it?” He now put imperatively. Sidney could feel it slipping.
“Cuz’ honey, whatever it is, you can tell me. I won’t get upset. Come on, what is it? Do you have to leave soon?”
“No,” Sidney mumbled morosely.
“Are you pregnant?”
Sidney looked rolled her eyes away from him. “No.” Charlie’s eyes shifted for a second.
“Was I not any good tonight and today?”
“Noooo,” she cooed back at him. “And by no I mean you were incredible as usual, even for a marine.”
“Phew, ok well then it’s nothing too bad. Hmmm…is there someone else?”
“No! No, no, no, no one else. Just you, baby,” Sidney turned back and grabbed Charlie by the shoulders, “Only you.” She kissed him. “Only you.” She kissed him again.
“Ok, ok, ok. Then what?”

Sidney frumpled her part of the covers as she bit her lip. It was no use. And lying wouldn’t work either, so she might as well just get it over with. “Well, there’s something I kind of have to tell you.”
“Ok, ok, I’m good at this game…you got a hysterectomy?”
“Um…no, I-“
“You burned down your dad’s house?” he continued to jest.
“No, this is actually seri-“
“You ran over someone in one of the campaign suburbans and you think CSI is onto you? YES! I got it, I so got it, damn I am just so good!”
“Charlie…” Charlie perked his eyebrows up.

Sidney took a deep breath.

“Charlie, you have a son.”

17. Success is all in timing

“With that in mind, I’d like to turn it over to the man we’ve all been waiting to hear from, presidential candidate Gregory Turner!”

A hail of applause rose up from the crowd as Greg climbed up onto stage from his seat next to Kelley and Jim. Jim looked on with his usual smirky smile. He hoped Greg would make this one quick. It was getting late and Jim had hours of restlessness to get back to.

Just as Greg began his speech, Jim felt that same old pull in his stomach. He blinked hard.

Jim’s body tingled all over. He almost jumped when it started this time. God, he thought, why now? He was always waiting for it to happen and yet it never seemed to come when he was prepared for it. He took a deep breath and did his best not to attract attention to himself. He inconspicuously reached in his left hip pocket and started his small stopwatch.

It started at his stomach. He could feel it creep up and down his body, both to his legs and to his chest, down his thighs and up through his windpipe. The chain of tingles moved rapidly down through his legs, gripping his toes in a semi-numb rigor. Now upwards, to his chin. He felt it wrinkle its way to his head, all over his forehead and crest at his nose. From there it slowly subsided, gently creeping backwards as it had just progressed over his body. The wave of shivers and tingles swept its way back to the center of his chest. It got calmer and calmer. Finally it gave out.

Jim exhaled his breath again. Looking around to see if anyone was looking, he found no one interested. He pulled out the stopwatch. It read 2:58.

Just under 3 minutes. It’s getting longer, Jim reflected uneasily.

Jim still had no idea what to do to make these attacks stop. He had always figured this would be the type of thing that killed him. Some inexplicable internal…well, whatever it was, be it an attack or a nervous breakdown or a temporary paralysis. It was all the same in the end. And whatever it was, there was no way to explain it.

No way to explain it. Just a way to show.

Except the only way to show anyone was to give them the same drug that Jim had once created himself. It was something like 17 years ago now that Jim had first begun working for Tyson Pharmaceuticals in their enormous and state-of-the-art research lab in Duluth, Minnesota. Jim remembered how much he loved the cold as soon as he got off the plane. It had been years since he had felt anything like it, due largely to his mothers despise of any portion of land that ever went below 65 degrees. After Jim graduated from high school and attended Cal Tech, his mother had left his father and moved out to San Jose where she had grown up. Maybe that’s why Jim ended up trying to get so far away from California after college, just so that his mom wouldn’t try to follow him again.

There wasn’t much to do in Duluth. That is, there wasn’t before Jim got there. Jim became a near legend to the town for being so lively and so creative with his ways of causing mayhem. Weekends at any of the local bars seemed to be prime targets for Jim to go out and have a ridiculous time. Jim made friends easily pretty much everywhere he went, but here, in the ice box of the U.S., the people seemed eager for some excitement.

One night, Jim and some people he had just met got drunk and started stealing snowmobiles from a small shop down the street that rented them out for a nearby ski resort. Jim had one of the females distract a male attendant watching a large rack of mobiles while he and 6 other guys jumped on and rode off down the cities street. Jim was so drunk and wild at the time, he actually used the snow mobile to flee from the police when they began chasing him. Jim spent the night in jail for it, though the owner of the snow mobile shop later dropped charges. Another night, Jim orchestrated a random party to celebrate the birthday of a girl he was dating. The party ended up spilling out of the bar they were in and into the adjacent street. And at about 3, when that bar closed, so many people were still around that the party became a parade that moved across town, in the biting cold, to the girls’ cabin.

Jim just had that power over the world he was in. He never realized it until this point in his life because he had always been so quiet and subdued. Not out of laziness or character traits, but more out of his parents and their warnings of what his actions could mean for Jim’s father. Now, with his parents split, Jim’s exodus of anywhere near the homes of either of his parents, and the fact that not a single soul in the state of Minnesota seemed to have any idea who his dad was, Jim was free to be himself. Or rather discover himself. He still wasn’t too sure if he actually wanted to be this party animal, but oh was it ever nice to get to try it out.

But what Jim really loved, what he was most happy doing was his work. Tyson Pharmaceuticals had been the contributor of the scholarship that lifted Jim out of Grandbury and into Caltech University. Lord knows he never would’ve gotten money to attend college there otherwise, from his mom’s incessant surgeries or his deadbeat dad, who just so happened to be a Virginia senator. He studied every kind of science he could at college, but ended up with a double major in biochemistry and mechanical engineering. Once he did graduate, working in his field at the Duluth research was a dream. He was allowed a brand new workstation all to himself and given nearly any kind of drugs he wanted to work with. That was what made his job so much fun, the fact that he himself wasn’t actually responsible to any one person directly above him. The upper management had him and a few other top graduates from the top schools around working on whatever they wanted. Tyson pharmaceuticals had figured correctly that certain minds are better left to their own devices, especially in Jim’s case. In his first 6 months, Jim doubled the effectiveness of 7 different antibiotics, patented a brand new form of energy supplement, and discovered flaws in a metabolic boosting pill that would have cost the company millions.

As his track record became longer in the company, he was promoted quickly. In 3 years, he was making more money than some people who had been around when Tyson was founded. He soon had his own corner office, a company car which did him little good in the snow, a small but lavishly furnished house on the edge of a ski lodge and a lake, a bank account too big for Jim to spend responsibly, a month worth of sick days every year, and a desire to one day own the entire company he had been put into comfortably.

In any case, the day that changed everything was just like any other. It was a Wednesday. Jim remembered it. It felt like Wednesday.

Jim was in his laboratory early as usual when Harry Finch, one of the other Vice Presidents, walked in suavely. Harry’s slicked back hair and impeccably clean business suit strode in like he owned the place. He pushed the door open like it should’ve known to move for him in the first place. Jim didn’t even look up at him as he came in because he could tell from the sound of his shoes. They always reverberated in a distinct way from anyone else’s because Harry practically stomped on the ground as he walked. Probably imaging the people he’s stepping on, Jim once thought to himself.

Harry pounded the ground all the way up to Jim’s work desk. He stood right in front of Jim, who still had not looked up from the Petri dish he was mixing. Jim was working on the growth habits of a few simple strains of e coli. He had hoped to find a longer lasting disinfectant than was presently available. After a few moments, Harry slammed his fist down on the table and made everything jolt. Jim casually glanced up at Harry, then looked back down, mumbling an uninterested, “Good morning, Finch.”

Harry’s voice was hotly frustrated. “Are you out of your fucking mind?!”
Jim looked up again in a confused matter. “Why, no. Not to my knowledge. Why? Should I be?”
“You pompous little prick! You think you can just waltz in here and take down everything I established here? You think I’d let a snot nosed son of a bastard, gum shooed little asshole like you ruin my business?!”
“Whoa, whoa, let’s take it easy, Finchy. Whose business are we talking about here?”
“MY business!”
“Your business?” Jim reached across his desk and picked up a random policy book for the company. He pointed to the name on the front cover. “This says Tyson on it. Your name isn’t Tyson. If this was your company, it would say ‘Fucking Douche bag Pharmaceuticals’ on this part. But it doesn’t,” he tossed the book aside, “so I’m afraid you’re mistaken about that much. Now please, do tell what is your problem with me on this particular morning?”

Finch leaned closer to Jim. He stretched his hands across the table to each side, like he was considering flipping the whole thing over at any second. His face got really close to Jim’s and this hatred-filled, red-faced glare came across Harry. “I read your recommendation of the Relactin file. You told Frank it should be completely terminated. Five years of hard work and valuable resources, completely scrapped because of your whim. You made my time, money, and my opinion look like a joke just to spite me, again! That product will cost this company millions! Will cost ME, the senior vice president, millions! And for what? Because of some god damn stomach acids and bloating? Because of slight inconsistency with release time in the body-“

Jim stood up suddenly, furious, and got even closer to Harry’s face. “That’s exactly right! I don’t know if you forgot it or not, Finch, but we’re in the business of making things that we know will help people, not the business of selling things that we hope probably won’t kill them!”
“Oh! And I suppose you are perfectly confident in your own product that does the exact same thing as mine! Your precious Melladrol can do no harm, right?!”
“You had as much time to study the effects as I did; you tell me if there is anything wrong with my product line!”
“Why should I even bother?! Frank loves you like a son, or maybe a gay lover! Your words mean more than mine no matter how compelling my argument is!”
“My anything means more than your everything!”
“You shut your disease-riddled mouth!” Harry screamed directly into Jim’s face. With that, he grabbed a stack of papers and flung them into the far wall. “You’re going to revoke that recommendation! You’re going to do it today!”
“I will do no such thing! This product is not ready for release!”
“You say that about everything I back nowadays!”
“That’s because everything that you back you also have a hand in producing!”
“You aren’t the only one in this building who knows something about medicine! Take back the fucking recommendation!”
“Eat a dick, Finch! You’re the one with so much god damn political clout! You’re the one who’s been friends with Frank for 4 decades now! You’re not getting my help! Twist your own fucking arms if you want your piece of shit drug to go on the market!”
“I won’t ask you again!” Harry slammed his fist down on the table again.
“Sure you will!” Jim slammed his hand down too.

The two stood in stand off for a second. Then Jim backed up from Harry’s teethy sneer. He shook off his lab coat and grabbed his business jacket. Harry kept making little snide comments as Jim walked past him, knocking his shoulder into Harry’s as he pushed his way past. Jim started out of his door.

“This is your last warning!”

Jim shook his head and turned slowly. “Now that sounds like some kind of ultimatum. You should know I don’t react too well to those, Finchy.”
“Don’t doubt me, Jim.”
“Don’t threaten me, Harry.” Jim pushed through the door.

After that day, Jim’s work days were a bit less enjoyable. Jim discovered his job becoming more and more like a prison yard. Particularly the tendency of people to walk away from him and avoid being seen talking to him. He was less than surprised. Harry had been side by side with Frank Tyson since they graduated med school together some years ago. But while Frank had turned into the visionary wise man, Harry Finch had become the conniving, greedy bastard that would release anything into the market that he could as long as he saw a profit on the horizon. Finch only got away with it most of the time because of the political contacts he had made as a teen and young adult through his family affluence. Jim had heard from someone within the company a while back that he was even connected with people in federal food service organizations and numerous health inspectors that Tyson went through for approval.

But Jim didn’t fear Harry or his threats. Which was probably the first of Jim’s downfalls. Another might have been Jim’s high confidence in his work as a chemist, his annoyance and disgust of the slick-back, executive type, and his trust of the other types of people in this world.

The day that changed everything started the chain of events that culminated in the day that ended everything. Which was the very day that Jim was supposed to demonstrate his precious new drug to the senior members of the company.

Jim was so nervous about it he almost threw up fifteen minutes before hand in the bathroom. He was sitting there, in his most expensive and most stylish looking suit, huddled up on the floor of the bathroom around one of the toilet stalls, covered in sweat and deprived of at least 3 nights worth of sleep. He had been there for at least half an hour when he remembered to look at his watch. 8:56 A.M. The meeting would start in 4 minutes.

Shit.

Somehow, Jim pulled himself to his feet and straightened his suit out. Exiting the stall, he walked over and checked himself out in the mirror. He pulled the bits of lint from his hair and smoothed his short brown hair out. Then, with the help of the towels, he wiped off every bit of sweat he could from his head and shoulder area. He needed to be flawless and the first part of that was to look flawless. Hastily, he got as close as he could to that point. Then, throwing the towel to the ground, he took a second to psych himself up for this. He had been waiting for this. If he could pull this one thing off, he wouldn’t have to prove anything to anyone again. This would be that thing he wanted to do all along. He’d be there.

Ok, Jimmy. You got this one set. You’re ready. You’re prepared. You’re focused…You’re unzipped. Fix that. Ok, now you’re there. Got that out of the way. Now get in there and slap that presentation around. Get out there and bust it up. BAM.

Jim made a few slaps at the air. Then he bounced himself up and down a few times, like he was ready for a boxing title bout. He took a few practice punches, watching himself in the mirror. Then he stood there and stared at himself again.

Go do it.

Jim walked his was through the exec floor like a Herculean warrior facing his arch-nemesis in final battle. He stared straight ahead, strutting like he had some theme music in the background that he wanted to stay in beat with. He passed a few people he knew here and there, waving but not stopping to chat. Somebody yelled, “Go get em, Jimmy!” to which he yelled back, “I’m goin’ to get em!”

Jim entered the executive meeting room right as the clock struck 8:59. He strolled over to his seat at the end of the head of the table, next to Frank and some VP of sales, right across from Harry. Harry usually spent the entire meetings avoiding any eye contact with Jim, grimacing anytime anything positive was said about Jim. But on this morning, Harry was staring right at Jim the whole time. He didn’t look away once.

The meeting began promptly. Frank got up and said a few things, introducing Jim and his new product that would basically change medicine as the world knew it forever. No pressure. Jim wasn’t even listening, he was too busy trying to figure why in the hell Harry was staring at him. He didn’t look mad or spiteful. He didn’t look anything. He just was staring blankly. This, if anything, freaked Jim out just a bit.

But he quickly snapped back in control when Frank called him up. Jim picked himself out of his chair as calmly and cool as he could. He walked normally to the front of the room where Frank was standing. Jim reached into his pocket and pulled out the two rather large vials filled with a clear reddish liquid. Handing one to his boss, Jim took the other and unscrewed the black cap. With a toasting clink of the two vials, Frank and Jim both downed the full capsules in a few quick gulps. Frank sighed with an enthusiastic ‘AHHH’. Jim was slightly less energetic about it. The aftertaste took him aback. It was different than before when he had tried it in the lab. It tasted better before, this felt so watered down. Why the hell would it be watered down with anything?

Jim’s eyes lit up for a second as he glanced over at Harry. Harry was still staring, but now in a different way. It looked before like he was just present and observing, now he was leaned forward in his chair, hand up to his mouth licking his lips. Out of the corner of his eye, Jim saw Harry check his watch as Jim began his little speech.

“For the past decade, our generation has been struggling with a very important, very challenging question: Where do we go from here? Many of the diseases that we are and have been able to cure have been long dealt with and are no longer even considered worth worrying about. The majority of what is left has been thought to be incurable or untreatable and abandoned. What’s worse, the attitude of many modern medicine makers has been not to cure but to treat, as medicine is made just well enough to keep the patients coming back. These are the people more concerned with making money than with making a difference in the world that they live in. Well, ladies and gentlemen, it may disappoint some people in this room to know that I am not one of those medicine makers. This new product that I have created, Melladrol, is the first step in a new direction for pharmaceuticals.”

Jim flipped on the overhead projector from the ceiling. On the large white screen to his left shown a complex dodecahedron-like figure.

“This new product is the first of a series of new advances that Tyson pharmaceuticals will soon make to its market. This not only will act as a stronger version of existing medicines, but serve as an all-in-one brand. A panacea, in a sense. Melladrol will be an over-the-counter antibiotic, anti-congestion medicine, anti- inflammatory, and in time can be looked upon to go as far as anti-depressants if we want it to. Once put into a pill, the liquid that I and Frank here have just consumed will be this millenniums’ version of insulin.”

Seeing a few people glance around in confusion, Jim flipped the slide.

“Melladrol acts as a complete system balance aid. It searches throughout the body and detects improper levels in all systems and triggers sufficient chemical response, within reason. Most of the reactions and balances are monitored on a cellular level and taken care of before they manifest into a full organ problem. Things like blood sugar, hormone imbalance, neurotransmitter reuptake, and so forth are now as easy to handle as a single pill a day. In fact, we have found that cancer cells are reduced by up to 80% with the daily dose of this pill, though we are waiting for proper confirmation on that front. Put simply, it gets the body to react faster as to what needs to be done. Of course, certain healing, such as broken bones or paralysis, are still out of reach, but this shows great progress in that we have made great improvement as to understanding how the body heals itself. And the closer we are to fully understanding it, the closer we are to enhancing it.”

Jim pressed on his talk about possible applications for his newfound sense of fulfillment when a horrible shiver came over him. He first thought it was just his nerves, but he kept the monologue of his going just fine. He felt a wave of cold shoot through his body at one point, so intense he jolted briefly and forgot what he had been saying. It subsided quickly though and Jim rebounded from it. It was a few minutes later, as he was summing up his points that he felt the same thing happen again, but this time much slower and much heavier. Gradually, his speech became more and ore difficult to give. He could feel his body disorienting. His eyes became heavy. His arms became more and more difficult to keep up as he continued gesturing in his speech. It was like he was drunk except the hangover had come before the tipsiness and Jim didn’t have much of a conversation to keep up.

What’s wrong, Jim? He asked himself that over and over. Just be cool. Stay with this. You were doin’ so good, just finish it up. Keep going. Keep…going.

And then at some point Jim couldn’t keep going.

At least, he figured that’s what happened. He woke up in a hospital bed with 4 or 5 different IVs in his arms. The moment he came to he felt like he’d been asleep for a week.

“Well it’s about time, Jimmy. You’ve been asleep for damn near a week.”

Jim could barely move his body. Nothing wanted to budge for reasons he couldn’t guess why. But with his eyes, he glanced over towards the sound of the voice that he knew was Harry Finch.

“What the hell happened? Where am I?”
“You’re in Detroit, in a hospital.”

Jim paused. He wasn’t sure which part of that was worse news. Probably the hospital part, but Detroit…ugh.

“What the hell am I doing here?” Jim found himself trying to raise his voice and failing. He felt so calm and levelheaded and part of him thought that it was a totally unnatural thing to feel while in a hospital bed.

“You got sent way over here after you didn’t wake up from your chemically induced coma.”
“My what?”
“Well, you should probably be sitting down for this one.” Harry jested at him. “Oh that’s right, you can’t sit any other way!” he started chuckling. Jim did not.

“Well, turns out that the drug you made wasn’t such a good idea after all. I mean you had some noble ideas there, but it just wasn’t meant to be.”
“Wasn’t a good idea? I don’t understand.”
“Well, you just ended up losing your support with all that talk about being different and curing things and having one drug to do the job of fifty different drugs. I mean, great work as a pharmacist. But as a businessman, Jimmy, you need another degree or something. Sorry.”

Jim stared down at his blanket. What did this mean?

“Tell me something, Jim. When you took that sip of the liquid stuff at the meeting, did it taste really sweet or was it all watered down?”

Jim’s eyes shot up. He turned his head as best he could over to Harry, who had this awful look in his eye. The small, trite, devilish grin. Jim’s mind put things together just as Harry let the words out himself.

“You know for someone as hateful towards me as you are, you should really think of being more watchful of the other people you work with. That girl working with you was easy to buy out. Most of your so-called allied colleagues were. But that girl, it was her idea to drug you in front of the whole senior staff during your presentation. I would’ve been happy having Johnny kidnap you and beat the hell out of you for a few days. But I guess I was wrong about you. You weren’t that smart after all. Everyone gave up their support for you just for some measly stock options. And you know why, because money is the best motivator nowadays, Jimmy. It’s money that makes people who and what they are, not their hopes and dreams. Life doesn’t work out like it did in all your Disney movies, buddy boy.”

Harry jumped up from his chair and walked over to Jim’s bed. He leaned over the side railing. “I didn’t mean for you to drink the one with loaded down with noradrenalin. I wanted Frank to be the one to be relaxed to the point of passing out. Poor guy, that heart of his just couldn’t take all that arsenic. Truly frail, I must say. But you. You had to pull right through. Turns out, I put so much noradrenalin in with that wonder drug of yours, your body got confused and started making it nonstop. The doc said he thinks it’ll wear off sooner or later, or else you’re gonna be one cool cat for the rest of your life. That’s almost a blessing the way you were working. Think of it as a vacation. That and a timeout for being such a rotten little punk of a kid.” Harry laughed again.

Jim began to breathe harder. He wanted to scream, to jump up and break Harry’s neck right then and there, but the more he tried, the harder his body seemed to fight him back. He couldn’t release himself inside. His neck gradually became more flexible, bit by bit.

“Nothing personal, I hope you realize. I just got tired of the weak-minded running what always should have been my company. It really did hurt me to have to take you out, but then again, it wasn’t you who bought it, was it. All the same really. I’m in control now and you have nothing left at Tyson, so perhaps it’s better this way.” Now Harry leaned in closer. He put his hand up to his face and whispered, “All this is our little secret, ok Jimmy? Wouldn’t want to have to bring it to the public eye just how much you had to do with your colleague’s death. Right now the autopsy and the evidence say a stroke. You just remember. I can send the cops after you anytime you name if one single accusation comes up that there was foul play in Frankie’s death. They’ll have you in jail faster than I can have you in another coma for all the boys on the inside to have a great time with you. I suggest you get out of the Midwest too, in fact. Just leave. This is a one way ticket voucher you have in your name to be redeemed at anytime for American Airlines to San Jose, California.” He laid the packet of papers on the table in front of him. “Go see your mom, take some time. Start over somewhere, you’re smart enough for that, aren’t you? Or did you need to be told that to believe it?”

Harry leaned back upright and started out the door. He slid his feet in a dance move-like fashion. Jim looked down at the ticket in front of him. With an amazing act of focus, his right arm slowly moved its way up and lay on top of the ticket.

“What makes you think I’ll just sit here and take this?” Jim did his best to call out, still in a woozy state.

Harry turned back around and gave Jim that evil grin one last time. “You have no house, no car, no job, no money, and no future. Sitting and taking it is the one thing you have left to do at this moment. ”

The door shut closed. Jim sat there in his bed, after just having had it explained to him that he had lost everything that he had worked for in the last 16 years. Of all the things he could have thought about, his mind came back to one thing:

Was jail really a worse option than his moms?

18. Time is money

Robert was so damn bored. He was in awe of how long Greg could keep up a speech about poverty and have the rest of the audience interested. Well, maybe not Jim. At one point, Robert thought Jim had started to lose consciousness and fall to sleep right there on the table. Poor lazy bastard, Robert thought to himself.

It took almost an hour of mindless dreck before Robert could go back to drinking at the bar where he had been before. Robert was keeping himself in line up to this point. No hard stuff. Just cheap wine and the one weakly mixed gin and tonic Jim and he had toasted with. Robert had plenty to think about anyways. Plenty to not get drunk for.

Huddling himself over his drink again, Robert took this moment to glance over at the source of most of his confusion and angst at the present time. She was so beautiful.

Sidney was chatting with a few workers of the charity committee. The men talking to her seemed very much taken by her presence. She was jovial and cute, even humorous apparently because the men around her seemed to crack a laugh every time she said something.

Why don’t I get to deal with this girl, Robert wondered. Why do I get the raving lunatic that has to complicate everything all over again?

She glanced over to him as her present company began walking away from her. She had a devilish, sultry look in her eyes as she began to sway closer to him.

Perhaps the raving psycho has advantages too. Robert put his drink down and turned in his chair.

They had never really talked about what happened last night. Sidney had left in the morning and had stayed focused on business. The two hadn’t really even made eye contact. Not that Robert really wanted an explanation for everything all at once, but there was always that element of question to the motive for Sidney and his escapade. Was it the liquor or did they actually feel something for one another?

Sidney stopped walking towards him in the distance. She turned slightly. Suddenly her eyes lit up. She shrieked and started racing across the room. Robert’s eyes became big as he watched. He had to turner around the other way in his seat.

He twisted back just in time to see Sidney rush up and practically jump on top of some man in an armed services uniform of some kind and hug him to pieces. Robert wasn’t sure if he was air force, army, or marines, but he was pretty sure the navy had white uniforms and this guy was in dark green camo. He had a bald cut. He was pretty damn buff for being that far across the room.

As Robert watched, the hug turned into a passionate and drawn out kiss. Sidney planted a kiss on him as she leaned backwards from the hug. Her eyes closed. She began rubbing his back as she did. He returned every favor.

Robert could only watch in awe. He wasn’t even heartbroken yet simply because it was so unreal to him. He couldn’t believe this was happening in front of his face. As he continued watching, bewildered, the army guy leaned out of the kiss and said something that excited Sidney visually. As the two began scurrying off, hand in hand, Sidney suddenly remembered to look back at the bar at Robert. Robert couldn’t tell what the look was supposed to mean. He couldn’t even fathom what was now happening.

Yes he could. He had been used. Again.

He took another sip of his wine. Then, half way through it, he said to hell with it and downed the rest of the glass. Wincing as it went down his throat, he asked the bartender for another.

Just as Robert reached for the newly filled glass, however, his phone rang. Well, not his phone, but the phone he had been using up to this point. He kept telling himself he really needed to get a new phone but just hadn’t had the moment for it.

He already had guessed who was calling. It was the same number from before, area code from the Philadelphia area. Robert almost didn’t answer it, but thought better of it. Ignoring the mob never seemed to do anyone any good. Besides, he needed something to take his mind off of other problems of his.

“What’s the problem now, Carly? Did daddy break his foot of in your ass too far this time? ‘Cause I’m a bit far to come and pull it out for you tonight.”
“Oh Robert, sweet Robert. Your diction never ceases to amuse me.”

Robert swallowed hard. That wasn’t Carlos’s voice. It was much older and deeper. The South American accent was way thicker. There was a voice of patience and virtue, not impatient violence. Robert began sweating right there, in his seat with that drink in his hand. He felt himself start to lean over to the side of the bar, away from wandering ears.

“Uh, hi Johnny.”
“Hello Mr. Berry. I understand we have some business to attend to. How about you step outside and help us clear it up really quick?”
“Outside? Outside now?!” Robert was now looking to the windows, looking for someone looking back inside, holding a cell phone up to their ear.
“To your left, my friend. Over behind the piano.”

Robert spun around and found the figure he was looking for. About fifty yards to behind the piano from where Robert was sitting, there stood a little man in the window waving softly.
“Better yet, you wait right there. I’ll be right in.”
Oh dear lord, no! “I’ll be right out, Johnny, just hang on.”
The line clicked. Robert nearly fell out of his chair. That was much worse. Much much worse. Outside, Robert was the only one at risk, if that’s what it came to. In here there were plenty of innocent bystanders and people that would see the most powerful mobster on this side of the world walk up to him at a charity event.

Robert flung himself from his chair and started across the dance floor.
“Whoa, buddy, where do you think you’re going?!” the bartender called out.
“Oh, I’ll, uh, I’ll just be a minute outside.”
“You owe me for your drinks and your friends from earlier. Pay it now.”
“I just gotta take care of this one thing, hang on!”
“No, that’s against our policy! All drinks paid for first and foremost, no exceptions.” The bartender glanced over and motioned to a man with a security blazer on. The man started his way from the end of the bar.

Robert gasped himself quiet instead of protesting more. He didn’t have time for this. Hastily, he grabbed his wallet from his inner jacket pocket. He fisted a handful of bills and tossed them at the bartender. He had just thrown close to $300 at the man for a tab barely over $40 but that was the last thing he needed to be worried about. If he couldn’t talk his way out of trouble with Johnny Mateos, he wouldn’t really need money where he was going.

But just as Robert began his hasty stride across the semi-crowded dance floor, he saw he was too late. The aging but still poised Johnny Mateos had already made his entrance. Somehow, even when he was being humble and trying to not draw more than enough attention to himself, Johnny commanded every bit of respect from everyone. He wasn’t like most other mobsters. He was just as crazy and just as, if not more so, capable of terrible things and yet when on his good side, you’d think of him as the perfect grandfather. His wavy white hair, wrinkled face, and slight limp in his left leg all backed up this image.

People recognized Johnny Mateos immediately. A path cleared between Robert and Johnny as Robert stopped in his tracks, watching his debtor advance on him gradually. Even security didn’t want to stand in the way of the 3 figures that stepped lively into the busy charity ball. Behind Johnny came Carlos, Johnny’s oldest son, and Guillermo, a loyal and enormous bodyguard. This guy made Enrico look like a member of the Vienna Boys choir. He too had the tattoo on his inner elbow that read, ‘R.E.S.P.E.C.T.’

“Robert, my friend, how are things going?” Johnny came up, embracing Robert as if he was embracing a long lost friend. Robert tried hard not to shiver in fear as he hugged back faintly. Then he felt a kiss on his cheek and thought he was getting killed shortly for sure. Then he remembered that the Sicilians were the ones doing kisses of death, not the Columbians.
“I’m doin’ just fine, guys.” He glanced at Johnny’s company. Guillermo looked on through thick sunglasses, refusing to make a single expression. Carlos looked like he was just waiting for Robert to provoke him so he could beat the hell out of him. “What do you say we talk outside about things, this isn’t much of an entertaining venue for you. Lemme just-“
“Oh nonsense, dear Robert. Let’s mingle some.” Just then Johnny moved right past him and went up to where Greg was sitting with Kelley, both looking through something in one of Kelley’s little folders. Johnny pulled up a seat and sat down just as the two looked up from what they were doing. Robert stood by, terrified too much to move.

“Hello, Mr. Candidate.” Johnny began in his thickest accent, hissing softly.
“Hello. I don’t think I’ve had the pleasure of your name, Mr…” Greg extended his hand.
“Mateos.” Johnny extended his hand and grabbed Greg’s with both hands. “Francisco Jonathan Mateos. But everybody calls me Johnny.”

Greg’s eyes glazed over for an instant and he turned his head slightly to look at his new guest. He looked down for a second, then back up. “Johnny…Mateos.” He cracked an uneasy, surprised small and found himself unable to start his next sentence for a few moments, though not without great effort. “Great! Great, how nice to meet you, Mr. Mateos! How are you are you thirsty or anything?” He motioned hastily over to the closest server, a young Hispanic man who hesitated and looked around nervously before coming to the table. Greg imperatively instructed the server, “Please get these gentlemen something to drink. Go ahead and bring some cake and anything else you got. Go.” The server hesitated again, looking over at Johnny, who sat and stared calmly, even warmly. Greg raised his voice slightly, “Go ahead!” Johnny nodded politely to the server, who promptly sprinted off in the direction of the bar, knocking an elderly couple out of the way. He looked incredulously at Johnny again. “So what brings you in town, Mr. Mateos?”
“Oh, just a bit of business to clear up. Some people who have things I require and some who require something of me. You know how it is in this world, Mr. Turner. All a man is is the people he can trust.” Johnny glanced up at Robert, who thought he was about to faint. “In any case, I thought it worthy to stop in tonight and show my support for you and your cause. I am a huge supporter of you, Mr. Turner. You cannot even imagine how many people back in my country are pulling for you.”
“Oh, well, I appreciate every bit of support I can get.”
“Oh but it’s not just a bit of support. It’s quite a large force, Mr. Candidate. In fact,” Johnny reached into his jacket for something. Robert prepared to dive out and knock Greg over to avoid being hit by bullets. Instead Johnny pulled out a small billfold, “I would like to extend to you a contribution of my own. Me and the people I represent. We too are the middle class in our own land. The people overlooked and underappreciated. Not rich enough to be set and not poor enough to be helped. That’s my world. In my world, you have to help yourself. And once you help yourself, in my world, you are entitled to the choice of helping yourself some more or helping others. I don’t know about you, but I like to help others. I like to contribute.” He handed Greg a check. Greg looked down and gawked. His mouth dropped open. He glanced up at Johnny, then back down as if to make sure the check was still in his hands. Then he shut his mouth and seemed to redirect his emotions. Solemnly he dragged out the words, “I can’t accept this.”
Johnny’s face shifted sternly. “Yes you can,” he said with a quick smile.
“Oh, well then. Thank you.”

At this moment, about 10 servers descended upon the table, serving everything that had been offered at the event that night. The young man that Greg had originally flagged down brought a tray with 6 different glasses of wine, all a different shade. Each of the three ball crashers selected one, sipping casually. Then the servers stood by, as if waiting to be scrambled into another order. Carlos picked at a few of the dishes on the table, while Guillermo only broke his stone figure every so often to take a sip.

Johnny now turned his eyes onto Kelley, the only person at the table who hadn’t really shown any signs of fear. This was partially because there was a room full of witnesses and partially because this man didn’t have any interest in her up to this point.
“And who might our charming companion here be?”

Kelley kicked herself inside for feeling safe. She opened her mouth to say her name hastily.
“This is an old friend of mine, Kristen Wilkinson. She and I were college friends.”

Kelley looked over at Greg quickly. She then smiled at Johnny. “I just came to show support for Greg’s campaign.”
Robert breathed a sigh of relief. Kristen Wilkinson or Kelley Wilson, whoever she was, did too.

Johnny sipped his wine to the end. “Well, I apologize for leaving hastily but I must be going, I have more business to attend to nearby. Mr. Turner, it’s been a real pleasure. And you as well, Miss Wilson. Oh, my deepest apologies, I mean Wilkinson.” He said with a wink.

He rose and stared at Greg. “Remember what I said. All a man is is the people he can trust.”

He and his companions left without even shaking hands. Greg was gripped with a shocked and feared look, still clutching the check like it was someone’s newborn entrusted to him. He strolled right back the way he came. Robert scurried right after him, as his other two companions followed briskly. As soon as they made it away from the table, the servers that were standing nearby all ran off in different directions.

“What in the world was that about?” Robert shrieked and whispered at the same time.
Johnny pushed his way out of the front foyer area, ignoring Robert’s voice it seemed.

Robert continued to follow. It was kind of scary, but during the last few seconds, Robert actually lost his fear of anymore intimidation. He ran in front of and stopped Johnny just as he got outside. “What was the purpose of all of this?!”

Johnny stopped. He seemed surprised at Robert’s reaction. “Well I thought that this much was clear. Tonight was your warning.”

Robert shifted his eyes. “What?”
Johnny smiled. “Ok, Robert, it’s your turn to listen. You have owed something to my son for a number of years now and that means you have owed me the same. Now, I don’t need to look in this little black book of mine I have to know that whatever credit next to your name reads, you can’t pay it. But you see, that’s not the real problem. Plenty of people owe me money, they have owed for years. Decades. That’s my business, as far as my numbers are concerned. Always make it to where someone owes me money or, if not, will soon. Because as long as someone owes me money, I will never be broke. Understand?”
Robert nodded robotically, a bit unsure if he was in imminent danger.
“The thing is, when people don’t make any effort to fix their credit, to amend their debt, we have a problem. See, I don’t actually need the money you owe me. It’s a substantial amount, but I don’t need it. The money itself don’t matter much. What does matter is the act of owing me and not paying me. If I let you owe me, I have to let everyone owe me. And that’s not good. We have to keep making progress towards our goals in life, and right now, one of your goals is to register zero credit with me. Believe me, that’s what you want. I hate to break it to you, but tonight is as friendly as my collection gets. When I have to make collections personally, of all the things I could be doing, this, yes THIS is as pleasant as I will be.”

He continued his stroll outside to his limousine. Robert wanted to stay where he was but felt Johnny’s two tag-alongs drag him outside. Oh shit, he thought, this is where they break my kneecaps and throw me out of a moving car.

They did no such thing. They just tossed him to the ground in the grass where Johnny had stopped to light a cigar. Robert looked up as Johnny flipped his lighter closed. “Time is money, my friend. Time is just as important, in fact more important. This is the last time I give you either. Your friend has been given a substantial amount of money tonight. This is my gift, to show that I too can be charitable, no strings attached. But to you, I extend the more valuable of the two commodities. Time. I give you something that you will spend, cannot pay back, but better not waste. Within the next 3 months, you are going to make some serious effort to repay this debt to me. I’ll be keeping an eye on you, Robby. Frankly I don’t care how you get my money, but I do suggest that you get creative and get busy. If you don’t have a good amount of my money paid within half a year, things aren’t going to be looking good for you. Things aren’t going to be looking good for the people around you. Greg. Kelley. Dave. All of them have just as much to lose in life as you do.”

He bent down next to Robert. He now cracked a smile and broke his bad mood rant. “Arivadelchi, my boy.” Johnny, Carlos, and Guillermo strolled over and got in the car. Carlos turned and looked back at Robert, who rolled to his side. He pointed his finger accusingly. “This isn’t even close to underground, Robby. Fuck up again and I’ll show you what is.” Then he disappeared into the limo and it promptly skidded off.

Robert picked himself up and dusted off. Jesus, he thought. Time is money.

And I’m broke.

13. Gentlemen, Welcome to Fight Campaign

While Kelley and Greg made each other feel less distant, Jim sat up against the wall on the bed, still wide awake. He was flipping through channels, like he did any other night in the past 6 years.

He tuned into Sportsceneter and stared mindlessly for a few minutes. He didn’t even care about what sports they were covering, he just was sick of flipping through.

Jim relaxed his arm back and focused his eyes on the screen. He tried so desperately to distract himself all the time. It never worked like it was supposed to.

The night he had just experienced replayed over and over in his head. In less than an hour he had learned that Greg was cheating on his wife, that Dave was cheating on his wife because he found out that he was cheating on him, and that Robert was in deep with a Columbian cartel. Jim figured out from the comment the reporter had made in the conference and the way Robert had reacted. Robert would never admit it or ask for help or anything like that, but Jim knew from the ways Robert handled being accused of things. One time in high school, a classmate had accused him of taking a textbook. Robert got so upset, he began screaming and throwing the contents of his backpack across the hallway he and Jim had been standing in. Even with his leaps and bounds of progress with keeping cool, Jim could still tell.

As far as Dave, that wasn’t hard to tell. He had been livid the whole evening after the press conference. Dave had been screaming at his wife’s answering machine when Jim had finally scurried back behind the stage to get him to shut the hell up.

He had found Dave with a semi-hoarse voice, screaming into a phone he held with one hand while motioning to an empty corner with the other hand. Dave had loosened his tie completely, had been sweating profusely, and had turned bright red with anger. Jim was both shocked and relieved. This was the first time Dave had let out any of his pent-up feelings about anything. But holy crap, this was not the way for it.

“Dave!” he had yelled in and under-the-breath manner. Dave didn’t even turn around, he kept right on his ranting. Jim inched a bit closer, looking behind him to see who all was watching. “DAVVVVEEEE!”

Nothing.

Jim walked to just behind him. “DESMOND!”

Dave froze. He looked up and turned his head slowly. Jim knew how much he hated being called by his middle name. Dave’s glare was chilling. Jim double-took as he connected eyes with him, almost jumping backwards. Then Jim reasserted himself.

“Hi. How ya doin’? You wanna do me and Greg and everyone a favor and get a bit quieter? There’s a few people in the back rows that didn’t quite catch your wife’s name or the city you-“

Jim felt a winding pain in the right side of his lip as his body was forced backwards. He tripped and hit a stack of chairs. It was a few moments before he could account the fact that he had been hit in the face.

With a shake of his head, he glanced up at Dave, still in his post-punch stance. Dave seemed absolutely stunned at himself. Jim was surprised as well, but partially because of the added shock that he was suddenly dizzy and bleeding and in a huge pile on the floor…again. He just kept coming back to this state of mind, didn’t he?

While Jim could’ve very easily become upset and angry at Dave, he had figured that this was probably what Dave needed. Sort of. The release of anger. Just wished he could’ve hit someone else.

Dave rushed over to pick Jim up. “Jim, I…I’m so sorry, I-”

Jim jumped up and socked Dave in the side of his cheek. Dave was so taken by the move he fell backwards just the same way Jim had. His cell phone went flying as he did. It crashed into the wall next to a ladder the same moment Dave smashed onto his back on the ground, near the rear door. Jim wasted no time.

Jim leapt on top of his friend and began throwing jabs to his midsection. Jim did his best to work up a rage, but his barrage onto Dave felt more like jesting to him than fighting. He came close to even laughing while punching Dave. He was doing his best just to get Dave to release everything he had been screaming into his cell phone a second ago. Dave just rolled for a second, trying to check his bearings, but after a while, he managed to block Jim’s blows. He managed to work up enough fury to throw Jim to the side of him.

The two now jumped to their feet at the same moment. Jim’s nose was still bleeding and Dave’s midsection was throbbing. The two now crouched into fighting stances, lunging back and forth at each other, afraid to charge head on again. Jim’s eye glanced over to the side of the stage. Somehow, no one had come to inquire about the clamor the two had made. Dave seized the moment and brought a stiff cross. It landed onto Jim’s neck. Jim’s body gave to his right side as he took the blow. His left hand came swinging around as he almost fell backwards. It struck Dave in the top of his forehead, colliding awkwardly. Now Jim’s hand and his neck both hurt as he tumbled into the backside of the stage, while Dave lost his balance and collided with a spare light, knocking it to the ground. The two made an incredible amount of noise.

Dave and Jim just kind of laid there for a second, unable to move and unsure of how they got to where they lay. Jim looked around to see what he had run into. Oh good, he thought. The back of the stage. At least it was nothing small enough to fall and hurt someone.

He thought this, he swore he felt it give just a bit and let out an annoying creak. He gradually turned his head over to Dave, who was face down in a heap of extension cords. Dave rocked back and forth, groaning in pain.

Jim was about to call out to Dave to make sure he wasn’t hurt too badly when he looked over to see Sidney standing in the rear doorway. The look on her face was one of disbelief. She opened her mouth to say something.

“Do you really want to know?” Jim started before she did.
“…Kind of. Just don’t start until I’m halfway drunk.”
“Ok.”

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Ok, how to explain…ok, here. Have you ever seen Fight Club?” Jim began about 2 hours later in the hotel bar.
“That weird ass Brad Pitt movie?” Sidney asked, quite tipsy by this point.
“Yeah, that one. Did you see it?”
“Umm, I think I watched part of it on network television once. I turned it off when the cops tried to cut off Edward Norton’s balls or something, it was pretty confusing.”

Sidney took a quick sip and then let her drink fall back to the bar top. It slammed and made a considerable slam. A few heads turned, but more from instinct than actual interest. Sidney had been making a bit of a scene for quite some time now. Jim paused to laugh as he sipped his whiskey with the hand that wasn’t bandaged up. He rubbed his neck and continued.

“Yeah, you kinda have to watch the whole thing to get all the jokes. And even then it’s just kind of strange. But there’s this part of the movie where Brad Pitt tells Edward Norton, “Hit me as hard as you can.” Obviously, this surprises Norton, and he asks why, and Brad says he wants to see what it’s like to be in a fight. They debate for a second, and then finally Brad Pitt convinces Norton to hit him. When he first hits him, he’s so awkward about it, he hits him in the ear and then Brad Pitt kind of is taken aback by it for a second. Then he comes back and smacked Edward Norton, and the two gradually work up into a real fight.”

Jim paused to glance over at Dave to this other side, who grunted loudly for no good reason it seemed. Dave looked at Jim for a second and then continued to stare into blank space, sipping his root beer. He had only been drinking root beer at Greg’s request. No sense getting him in any more mischief tonight than already. Jim turned back and resumed.

“The point of it is that after they finished, they sat there on the curb, sipping beers, talking about how they should do it again. And not only do they do it again, but they start a club to show others the same thing they just stumbled upon. Leaving out a bunch of other details of this movie, I can tell you that they were both stressed out people that found a medium through which to release their aggression and pent-up rage. They go on to get more creative with it, but fighting is the main focus. And see? Me and Dave are fine now, we aren’t still mad at one another. This is a wisdom that many women will never fully understand. The idea isn’t to seriously hurt or kill the other person, but just beat each other senseless to the point that you can’t remember what the fight was about or to the point that you don’t really care anymore.”

Sidney seemed even more confused than before. She was about to take a sip but put it down. She grew a very perplexed look on her face, then it turned to confused disgust, as if she had suddenly become constipated.

“If that was your idea to let Dave unwind, why’d you wait 'til today, when we were in a fucking public forum? When we were explaining another one of Dave’s hissy fits of all times?!”
“Hey, he socked me first! I had to improvise!” Jim had tried to explain his way out. Sidney wasn’t gonna understand, He wasn’t sure why he was still trying.
“Jim, I’m not gonna lie, I think you just wanted to fight back at something.”
“Oh you do, do you?”
“I do,” she managed to slur out in a more imperative and yet sloppy manner. “I think you’ve managed to be so lazy and unmotivated that you suddenly couldn’t handle it anymore and exploded it into a fighting rage. And the only person who would fight you and was a big enough challenge was Dave, who just happened to be as angry and uncontrollable as you and your crazy ass. You’re a damn loose cannon, you know that, Jim? You’re fucking crazy sometimes.”

Jim sipped again. That made even less sense than my explanation. What the hell was she…oh wait, she’s drunk. Nevermind.

The two of them continued on as Dave just sat there in his punch-drunk stupor. Then, after another round had been served to Sidney, Jim, and Robert as he strolled up, Jim noticed that Dave had started talking with a girl to his far side. Jim couldn’t get that good a look at her, but he could tell she was blonde, about 40’s in age, attractive, and from her behavior she seemed either very understanding, very desperate, or very vulnerable for Dave and whatever he was spilling to her. After about an hour, Dave and his new friend left the bar together, seemingly headed for the set of elevators that could take them to the rooms 6 floors up.

Jim might have tried to stop him but for the fact that he wasn’t drunk. Dave had been completely sober and had still made this decision. He had found out not 4 hours before that his wife was leaving him and here he was, about to go and make things worse with the first girl he had met in a bar. That, of all things, sounded like the old Dave.

The part Jim didn’t want to bring back.

Jim left soon thereafter, for Robert and Sidney started arguing about something stupid and insignificant, something about the mixture of drinks they were having. Jim was starting to feel his dizzy spell come on and still didn’t want to have to explain anything to the others. He got to the elevator before he realized his sight had begun to blur again. It took him 3 tries to hit the button for 6 and make it light up.

Halfway slouching backwards, Jim realized he wasn’t alone in the elevator. He didn’t even really care. They would probably think he was drunk and shrug him off anyways. It’s not like he was the one on the cover of a newspaper, straddling one of his friends. Who would recognize his face?

Jim had to struggle to open his door after managing to put his key in correctly. He practically used his full body weight to pull it downward and this caused him to lose his balance. When the door opened, he just sat in the doorway for a second, frustrated at his current condition.

Randomly, Kelley came running out of the room next to him on one side and ran into the one on the other side of his room, which Jim could have sworn was Greg’s room. She didn’t seem to notice him, just sitting there in the middle of the floor. Big surprise, Jim thought. Guess I’m just that easy to miss.

Gradually, Jim made his way across the floor to the bed. He saved his strength for a second. He would need it.

Ok, you can do this. You’ve had more to drink than you should have for being able to move around, but you still got this. Just get it done with and chill out.

Jim took a deep breath. Then he forced his whole body against the ground and lurched himself onto the side of the bed. His upper body clung fiercely to the bed sheets. And by upper body, I mean his hands and wrist, for the rest lay powerless, almost paralyzed. Under him, his feet struggled to keep him up, with his legs and thighs in the same lackadaisical state. With another surge of force, he finally rolled himself onto the bed and was able to prop himself in front of the TV.

Now, exhaling in relief, he took a second to reset his mind. God, whatever that is that happens to me…it’s weird. Wish I could get someone’s help with it. Or opinion, or something.

He thought of that. Who would he tell? Who COULD he tell? What, was he gonna go see a doctor and say, “Hi, how’s it going? I think I was drugged with something that paralyzes me at night until I wake up in the morning, what do you think?” That’d be a great hospital visit to have.

He set his mind onto the TV. Focusing his strength to his wrists and right hand, he picked up the remote from the night stand and, slowly and carefully, and set it down on the bed. After turning it to where it was pointed at the TV, he pressed the on button and began flipping. Cartoon network. Flip. USA. Flip. CNN Headline…nah, maybe later. Flip.

After a few seconds, he paused for a moment and tuned his mind off from the TV. He swore he could hear the bed rocking back and forth through the wall behind him. He smirked and shook his head as best he could. Of all the surprises of today, that was one he had half seen coming. He had known for a while that Greg and Carol were on the rocks. Even before the political insinuation or before Greg’s occasional phone call to bitch about woman in general some years back. Jim had always felt like they were never really passionate about each other. It had seemed to him like Greg and Carol were always supposed to end up together. Both black, both raised in the country surroundings, both very political, both the thinking and plotting type. They approached marriage like another aspect of running for office. They never seemed to be right there, right where they just wanted each other as who they were, not what they were. Such a shame, Jim thought. Such a waste of time.

Greg’s sleeping with Kelley. David’s marriage is over. Robert’s in with the cartels. What more surprises can there possibly be?

He went back to flipping channels.

14. Across the hall

A soft but firm knock came from the door at about the same time Jim was mellowing out in his room. Robert’s nerves shot to life. His heart skipped a beat. His eyes shot open as he lay in his bed. The room was dark but had some light comin’ in from the window and from the light in the hallway.

“Room service, Mr. Berry,” called out a faint female voice. Robert closed his eyes and breathed out. He wasn’t sure if he should relax or start packing again. His thoughts raced as he struggled to decide what to do.

What are you crazy? You can’t run now. Now?! Ughhhh. Well, if it is someone that needs to be run from, this situation was a bit different. He was with people who could be hurt even if he got away, he was part of something he couldn’t ruin.

The bed sheets rustled next to Robert in the dark. A cold arm crossed the top of his chest and grabbed his armpit, pulling his body closer.

“Oh shit, now they bring the fruit.”
“I know,” Robert mumbled back, pretending to be sleepier than he was. He wrestled aside and slid out of bed. He brushed against the door softly as he edged his way towards the door. Carefully, he leaned closer towards the door and looked at the peep hole.

Outside, he could see a petite girl, blonde, with dark brown eyes look back up to the hole. He relaxed slightly. Still unsure, he looked down further to see a tray in the hallway. It was there, to her side close to the door.

Slowly, Robert unlatched and then unlocked the door while watching the waitress through the door. He kept waiting for the server to kick open the door and start shooting rapidly into his room. But she just stood there calmly, and Robert realized after a few seconds that he had opened the door pretty far while still hiding behind the door. His head wrapped around the side, shielding his naked body still covered with hickie marks and massage oils. The light hit him in the eyes like a ton of bricks.

Half squinting his eyes shut, Robert got around to saying, “Ergggg, hello there.”

As best he could tell, she gave an awkward smile and said, “Um, good evening, I have the fruit and whip cream you ordered.”
“Ah, yes, you can charge this to the room, right?”
“Sure can. Just sign here.” She handed him a clipboard. After an awkward struggle for balance, Robert managed to hold the door partly closed, hold the clipboard in the light and be able to find the space to write down his name. Then he grabbed the cart and wheeled it into the room, covering the parts of him he wasn’t ready to show the waitress. He didn’t know if she looked closely at everything he was trying to hide.

As soon as he wheeled the cart back into the room and climbed back into bed, he felt his companion roll over to him again. His side rubbed against her chest as she breathed upon his neck again. He finally breathed out in relief.

What a night.

He had thought the exact same thing when he had leaned back against the bar downstairs a few hours ago. What, with the news of Dave’s wife, of he and Jimmy fighting, and with the stress of the press conference. Sidney hadn’t shut up in hours about anything but now was at least finally starting to become less agitated thanks to Mr. Jack Daniels across the bar. She was becoming…jovial.

“All I’m saying, Jim, is that if you really want Dave to open up his feelings, give him a hug. A hugggg. Just wrap him up in your arms and cradle him and tell him you love him and that everything will be alright.” She pretended to cradle someone in her arms. “Maybe even sing to him.” She began to hum some unrecognizable tune.

Robert had glanced over to her in disbelief. Leaning back, he could see Jim was looking off in the distance, not even listening anymore. Which wasn’t surprising, Jim tuned out frequently. Robert didn’t blame him. He grabbed the closest bottle he could and showed it to the bartender, who nodded. Robert grabbed a shot glass and poured himself one full.

“Enjoying your shots, Madame?” he murmured under his breath as he inhaled his first shot.

Sidney was still in the process of explaining to Jim how to sing to Dave. Robert took another shot quickly and spun his chair to face Sidney.

Sidney was getting to be a mess. Her long brown hair was starting to frizz here and there, her eyes were bloodshot, and her suit was gradually beginning to come undone right there in the bar. As Robert watched, she took another shot and then glanced over at Robert. “Did you say something, scum bag?” she half shrieked out in a drunken tone.
Robert smiled to himself. “I was wondering how you were enjoying your whiskey there.”
“It’s not just whiskey, I’ll have you know. There’s also some depression and loneliness mixed in there too. And then a hint of misery. You want some?” She tried to hand him a glass nearly half full with Jack Daniels in it.
“No thank you, I’ll be fine with what I got right here.” He held up his own bottle of the same substance.
“Oh come on, you lil’ bitch, get a man’s drink. Besides, misery loves company and you YOU,” she said with a point up to his face, “are just about as miserable as I am.”

Robert paused. “What does that mean?”
Sidney tried to sit up and almost lost her balance. Robert put his right hand across her back quickly, ensuring that she wouldn’t fall off the stool. She didn’t seem to realize what had just been about to happen, and instead squinted her eyes at him and then smiled mischievously.

Robert looked at her for a second, not knowing exactly how to take that comment. Then he turned and grabbed a glass like the one Sidney had and filled it up. He was going to need to be less sober for this. He began drinking faster. It wouldn’t be long 'til he was gone at this rate. Sidney was one hell of a drinker and he usually stayed away from alcohol in its heavier concentration.

“I’ll bet you’re glad you got to touch me.”
“Don’t flatter yourself.” Robert spat out in between sips. God this tasted vile.
“Oh pbbbbbblllllltttttttt!” She blew out her tongue at him. “Why do you still pretend you hate me?”
“Where have you been? I don’t pretend that one bit. You’re the one who throws out insults every which way any time something goes slightly off plans you’ve laid.”

Sidney seemed incredulous at this. She exaggerated her lips as she responded. “I beg your pardon, asshole…um, actually.” She murmured.

Robert could start to feel himself sway a bit. He continued. “I mean, why the hell do you have to try so hard to convince everyone you still hate me? You can’t even seem to convince yourself.”
“You disgust me! Every time I look at you I think of every terrible thing you’ve said and every thing I’ve heard about you and I can’t BELIEVE that I ever let myself care about you!” At this, she stood up and leaned closer to get right up next to his face as she continued her tirade. Her eyes locked onto Robert’s.

“Well excuse me for making you feel something for someone. You’re right, I never should have been anything to you, you should have stayed with what’s-his-name and become a stupid housewife. You never should have been anything to the world but a bitchy brunette with a rich father and a taste for expensive EVERYTHING! But most of all, I’m sorry you couldn’t fight your attraction to the one person who sees through all of your bullshit!”
“You think you’re such a god damn stud and every girl you want is just a gift or a pick-up line away! You think your words mean so much more than anyone else’s! But nothing you say ever means shit! You might as well just walk around with a sign on saying that whatever you say is the exact opposite of the truth! Or just stop talking altogether!”

For an instant they just sat there, glaring at each other, unable to think of what to say next and unwilling to look away from the other person’s eyes.

Sidney’s hands moved first. She suddenly grabbed Robert by the shirt and pulled him the rest of the distance between them. As she did, he raised one of his hands up to her cheek. He wiped away her hair just in time as her lips connected with his emphatically. Their mouth’s collided in a huge passionate kiss. Both sets of eyes closed. The rest of the world melted away in a swirl. Robert was just tipsy enough by this point to forget for a moment that they were in a bar. Sidney, on the other hand, was so gone; she was already halfway out of her blouse and began fumbling with Robert’s shirt buttons while continuing her tongue wrestle with him. She got 2 of them off before the bartender’s voice came into the side of her mind.

“Take it upstairs, you two. “

It took them about 10 minutes to get up 6 stories. They fumbled with virtually every button in the elevator except the emergency stop switch. Neither of them opened their eyes once, they just kept going at it. In the process of getting to their rooms, the elevator stopped on almost every single floor going up and half of them going down. They weren’t even aware that other people rode with them as they descended from the 13th to the 8th story. They didn’t care. In fact, neither of them were really sure which floor was theirs, they just happened to get off at the right time. Robert pulled away from Sidney’s face but grabbed a hold of her hand. The two of them raced down the hall to Robert’s room, both laughing and eager to continue their inexplicable explosion of emotion. Once inside, Robert shut the blinds and Sidney dove onto the bed. She picked up the phone.

Robert looked over as he shut the curtains. Sidney rolled over in an energetic, giddy frenzy.
“Hello, this is room service.”
“Um, yes, room service?”
A pause. “Yes, this is room service, ma’am. Can I help you?”
“Yes, room service, I would like to order strawberries, chocolate sauce, caramel and fudge and all the whip cream you can spare! We need it now!”
Another awkward pause. “Um. Yes, we will have that, uh, right up for you. Will you be needing anything else tonight?”
“Hmm,” Sidney said as she looked at Robert ponderously. “Are there any massage lotions in the bathroom?”
A third pause. “Yes there are.”
“Then I think we’ll be fine for now.” Sidney hung up the phone. She motioned with her index finger to Robert. “Get over here.”

15. Cents and Sensitivity

When Dave woke up the next morning, the girl from the bar was already gone. He half expected her to be gone, half figured she’d just be leaving. Yawning forcefully, he found himself in his bed alone and relaxed. So this is what a decent night’s sleep felt like.

Dave leapt up and stepped his way to the window. Throwing back the shudders, he looked out his window to see…a secluded D.C. back alley. He had hoped for a nice view to go with his fresh new day, but oh well, this would do. The other buildings on either side of the alley were nice, he supposed. He took a moment to admire them.

And then in his mind, a pang of guilt came over him. What was wrong with him? Why the hell was he so relaxed? His marriage was over. His kids would be in the middle of a messy divorce. His job would probably suffer some. His work on the campaign would be in jeopardy as well. So why was he so…so…

David paused his thoughts.

Relieved. That’s what he was. Relieved.

After all this time of being strapped down with marriage, with a nice quiet suburban lifestyle which he was in no way satisfied with, with a terribly boring and utterly meaningless job that no one remembered hi for, with the meekest of existences, Dave felt as if he had been set free. Like he should be checking his legs for broken shackles and looking over his back to make sure he had eluded capture.

Dave’s life had felt like prison for quite some time. Not that he hadn’t loved his children or his wife or his job at some point. Well, no, he corrected himself. He had never really liked his job. Counting and budgeting money of people he hated. He had sometimes found himself wishing he’d make a mistake himself or someone working with him, just so that some of these rich snobbish pricks would suffer as a result. Stupid bank. Stupid real estate companies. Stupid political action committees. Virtually everyone he worked for was full of shit and he had the numbers to prove it if he really wanted to. Hell, he could probably-

Wait. Was that true? Could he really if he looked hard enough?

Dave’s eyes glanced back and forth contemplatively. He was almost sure what he was plotting was plausible and he had worked long enough where he was at to figure it all out but how? Would he ever have time now to do something like this?

Of course he would. He’d make time.

Dave didn’t waste another moment. He grabbed a bathrobe that he had stolen from Jim’s and bolted out the door. Then, catching it just in time, he turned around and stuck the latch in the door to hold it open. He gave a power leap across the hall and started knocking on Jim’s door impatiently.

After about 20 knocks, Jim reluctantly opened up the door. He looked completely smashed, even now at 10 in the morning. His hair was disheveled and his sideburns were ridiculous, which was normal. But he was completely naked this time, which was kind of awkward considering he opened the door all the way open.

Yet Dave didn’t seem to really notice at the time. He was too excited.
“Jim! What would you say if I told you I could dig up dirt on both of our opponents in the political race?!”
After a second of staring blankly, Jim’s initial response was, “Wha-buh?”

Dave barely paused for breath. He barged his way into the room, past his naked friend, and shut the door.
“Come on; think about it for a second. Dan Hagerty and Ted Redmond have both had plenty of shady deals going down since before Greg was even really in politics. The papers already have turned up plenty of crap about them both but they don’t know where to look. I do, man!” He turned around and faced Jim, almost hysterical with enthusiasm.

Jim’s face returned his with disgust and incoherence. It wasn’t clear to Dave if Jim had been drugged or beaten with something blunt. Not that surprise wasn’t warranted in this situation. Here Dave was in Jim’s room, less than a day after the two had actually thrown blows at one another, and Dave had the energy of a high school cheerleader. Finally Jim managed to get out a few actual words, “What the hell are you talking about?”

Dave pulled up a chair from the desk. “Ok. Start with Hagerty. Remember all those contributions he received from all those shadowy foreign countries? I mean, no one could ever fully prove it, but there was all that speculation on his years spent in Venezuela and Columbia and Brazil doing banking and law consulting. Well he went through plenty of firms that used my accounting firm. I mean, we practically audited half the companies over time because the organizations themselves had so much corruption going on the side. How hard would it really be to turn up exact figures, dates, times, places of meetings, and even names of mobsters and who knows that he was involved with? I could put twice the dirt that’s already on him with my eyes closed. And Redmond! HA! That piece of work has had his father buy him into practically everything he’s worked on for the past decade. I probably don’t need to bother looking for a way to bury that bastard.” He turned back to Greg. “You see?”

Jim was looking more awake now. Sort of. At least his eyes were open and he didn’t have to lean on a wall to stand up. Jim’s eyes were on the floor, spaced out. Dave could tell that the wheels were turning in his head. This was a good sign. It meant Dave had thought of something that Jim hadn’t yet, or else why would he need to sit around and think about it?

Jim’s eyes looked up. “Well, what do you think?” Dave asked again.

Jim walked over calmly. He sat down on the bed right across from Dave. He clasped his hands together and looked his eyes up without moving his face too much from it’s downward angle. In a relaxed manner, he asked Dave, “Are you out of your fucking mind?”

Dave looked stunned. He didn’t know what to respond to that with besides, “Noooo… why?”
“Why?” Jim started to become more fire-eyed with his responses. “Because only a man outside of his fucking mind would take on Fuller Redmond and the mob at the same damn time! Do you even know who Fuller Redmond is?!”
“Sure, he’s the CEO of Time Warner now.”
“That’s right. That’s exactly right. Do you have any idea how much cash flow he now is in control of? It’s not like before, when they just focused on the entertainment business. That corporation that he sits on top of owns several sports franchises, restaurant chains, international trade deals with god knows who. I mean, it’s like the mob but bigger. Most of the shit they do is impossible for the government to stop because or all we know, THEY are the government now! That’s how rich the guy is. He can make anything he wants to happen, and if you go public with accusations of corruption, he’ll swat you like a fly. Literally, I’m sure he has a machine somewhere that does that.”

Dave sat there; perplexed at Jim and this surprising display of insight he was exhibiting. Jim went on.

“And then you’re talking about digging up dirt on the mob. The MOOOOOBBBBB. And not just any mob. Not the Russians or Italians or Irish hoodlums or even the Asian mobs. You’re talking about the South American mobs. Cartels. Kidnapping and extortion rackets. I heard some of the organizations down there have even started muscling into gambling rackets. I’m telling you, these are the types of people that take out politicians for fun, let alone when they threaten their business or their associates. And as slimy as Hagerty is, I’ll bet every one of those mobs he’s in with will be looking to compete for first in line to whack anyone who comes trying to bring his private matters to light.”

Dave sat thoughtful for another moment. “So…you’re saying don’t go looking?”
Jim turned his head to the side slightly. “On the contrary. I think it’s the best idea you’ve had yet on this campaign trail.”
“But I haven’t said anything else yet.”
Jim pointed his finger at Dave. “Precisely,” he exclaimed in a scholarly manner.
Dave was confused again. “I’m confused again.”

Jim pulled him up to his feet. “Good. Now this is what I want you to do.” He began to lead Dave out of his room. “I want you to go to your branch of office back home. I want you to look into both Hagerty and Redmond, and I want you to find everything you can on both of them. Go back as far as you can, as recent as you can, just get everything. Take all the time you need, but be thorough. But, I want you to especially look into their connection with a certain mob. You ever heard of Johnny Mateos?”

Dave stopped. His eyes squinted at Jim’s as he mentioned the name Mateos. Dave’s heart froze cold. He did his best not to show any reaction. After a moment, he collected himself and shook his head softly. “No, don’t think so anyways.”
Jim nodded. “Ok, well run that name through any databases you have and tell me what comes up.”
“Sure.”

Now Dave wanted to leave. He had to think of this too. Did Jim know? Oh dear god, what had Jim figured out now? How did he always know everything so easily? Dave reached for the door handle and then turned back. “What are you going to tell Greg?”
“I’ll tell him you went back to handle things with your divorce and to review early book records for the campaign. He should have his hands full with things as it is. We go on the road in the next day or two. If you can, have it done when we head through Cincinnati, you can meet with us there.”

Dave opened the door and started across the hall. “Hey Dave.”
Dave turned around. “Don’t tell anyone what this is for, ok?”
“No problem.”

16. What was it we set out to do again?

Greg, Kelley, and Jim were walking out of the elevator of the hotel to get to check out when it first happened to Greg. He had known it would start sooner or later but still hadn’t exactly prepared for it.

Somebody recognized him. Somebody who was normal.

A middle aged white woman, a bit younger than Greg, short and kind of pudgy with curly brown hair ran up to him screaming, arms flailing all over the place. Greg barely had time to crack a smile and give a slight wave before she game him an enormous hug. Greg tried to remain jovial, but he really started to get uncomfortable when she grabbed his ass and almost lifted him off the ground. Then, as Kelley tried to pull her off gently and without any sort of jealous retribution, the woman gave Greg an enormous, lipstick-filled kiss on the cheek. The imprint was noticeable for everyone watching. Greg’s eyes glanced back and forth as she spun him around, chattering nonstop. Jim and Kelley kept walking, both giggling to themselves and looking out the side of their eyes.

Greg tried with no avail to calm the woman down and have a normal conversation with her as Jim and Kelley took care of the bill for the rooms at the front desk ahead. Greg could barely get a word in with her.

“OH my GAWWWSH, Mr. Turner you have no idea how much I’ve wanted to meet you, the woman said with a thick southern accent. “Me and my husband just came up to D.C. for the weekend for a bit of sight seein’ and I told him, I said, ‘Bob, if I could get a glimpse of that Mr. Turner, I just know I wouldn’t need to see anything else in that entire city!’ and now I run into you just before we’re about to leave! This is incredible!”
“Thank you!...um, thank you. What’s your name, miss?”
“Oh my name is Georgia Hall, and my husband’s name is Sherman. He’s sittin’ right over there.” She pointed to a balding little man in the line behind Jim and Kelley waiting to check out. “We came here last week around Wednesday. Dun’ drove up from the midmorning, and my husband sped just enough to get here as the sun was settin’ on the capitol buildin’. We live in Jackson, Mississippi. Well, really a small little hick town right outside, but we like to call it Jackson just the same!” She laughed incessantly. Greg chuckled in a forced way.

“We saw your press conference on the news last night and you were so gracious with all those reporters. I mean, they had all those, those questions about that picture of those two men and whatever foolishness they thought they had found and they just had all that to say, but you not only kept your cool about it, but you sure dun’ made me think you were right on top of things, Mr. Turner!”
“Oh, well, yes I tried to be discreet.” Greg looked over. Kelley was waving for him to come along.
“And in the middle of all these scandals and all these people goin’ to jail for fixin’ elections all over the country, and even the two other presidential nominees are such scum buckets! I don’t mean to be harsh about them or anything, it’s just I’m glad that someone like you came along! You’re different, anyone can see it. Five minutes of you getting’ up on that stage and you can just see it, that you’re the type of guy that’s a leader, that is really gonna do somethin’ for his country and not himself!”
“Well listen, Mrs. Hall, we really have to get going, we got a big road trip ahead of us.”
“Oh lord, I’m sorry if I’ve been keeping you, I just love to yack my head off sometimes! Hahaha, I just start chirpin’ and next thing you know people’s ears start hurtin’! Well you have a great campaign and we’ll be cheering for you! You can count on our votes, sir!”
“Well I certainly appreciate that. Goodbye.” He strolled along, turning back to smile at Mrs. Hall on his way towards the door.

It was the first time in a while that he forgot about the efforts he had made to sabotage himself. He chuckled a bit more as he jumped up into the black Suburban waiting for him just outside. He thanked the bellhop that held the door for him and waved to a few people smiling and watching as they sped off.

Greg just kind of watched the view for a bit of the ride, sitting in silence. He watched the city surroundings gradually turn suburban, the suburbs turn to rural plains. They would be riding for a few more hours, heading north well into the afternoon.

Finally, Robert’s voice from the row behind him brought Greg back into the picture. “So where are we going, again?”

Greg’s head swiveled around. Before he could answer, Kelley’s voice came in, “We’re starting with a speech in Charlotte, then a charity function in Raleigh.”
“Ok, and how about after that?”
“After that we willllll," Kelley flipped through some notes of hers. “After that we will decide if we want to hop on a plane to Kansas or keep driving up the east coast towards New England.”
“Hmm. I see.” Robert put his finger over his lips in a contemplative pose. Greg and Jim both turned their heads.
“What?” Jim asked first.
“Huh?” Robert exclaimed back, shifting his eyes nervously.
Jim leaned forward and looked closer at him. “What is it?”
“What is what?”
Greg chimed in, “What is it that requires such deep thought?”
Robert gave a surprised look. “Deep thought? I’m just sitting here thinking.”

Greg and Jim both nodded and said in unison, “Exactly.”
Robert looked a bit more nervous. Then he shook his head and tried to look indignant. “What is that supposed to mean?”
Greg and Jim stared at each other. Then Jim turned his head first. “What happened in Philadelphia?”
An awkward face crept over Robert. “What, what, uh, erm, what do you mean?”
“Robert, come on.” Greg chimed in now. “Obviously something’s got you spooked. I could tell when I was on the phone talking to you to come onto the campaign. You were riding in your car at the time, were you not?”
“I was," Robert admitted with hesitation.
“Well, considering when you got here, you would’ve had to have basically left Philly right then and there or soon after. I mean you got here just about when Dave did. Speaking of which, where the hell is he?”
Jim turned quickly, “Oh, Dave went back home for a few days. You know, straighten some things up with his family and his impending divorce.”
“I see. Hey, maybe you could give him a hand with legal advice, Robert.” Greg turned back to him.
“Oh, I don’t know how helpful I would be.”
“Eh, just give it a shot.”
“Heh heh, maybe.”
“But really, buddy. You seemed shook up at the press conference even though you still performed well. You seemed to be looking over your shoulder every breath you took when we went out to dinner. You even drank at the bar last night. You! I’ve never heard of you drinking at all before! Anything else you’d like to let us know right now?”

Robert’s eyes wandered past Greg to Sidney, sitting closer to the front. She stared at him imperatively, then shook her head no. Greg noticed this of course, but turning his head would let them know that he noticed. Greg was pretty sure Jim knew, but in his own ways. Jim figured everything out sooner or later.

Robert’s eyes focused back on Greg. “No, guys, I’m telling you, I just have a lot of stress in m life right now. That and I was wondering what are strategy would be for the next few weeks, ‘cause I gotta tell you, I feel kind of out of the loop here. Can you just fill me in on some things? So that the next time I get in front of an audience I don’t have to spew my own bullshit, but yours instead?”

Greg turned further in his chair. He smiled gently. “What do you want to know?”

Robert leaned forward. “Ok, what’s your political platform like for starters? Give me a broad range of how you feel on things.”
“Ok. My stance is that America has been in a lapse of focus on the average American. Over the years, since the 90’s, more and more emphasis has been put on the special interests and the people that have enough money to support their interests and make others interested in their interests. As a result, getting into office has been more about how many asses does it take to kiss and how many favors does one have to do instead of what kind of person do the real people want to elect. So we want to bring it back to that focus, especially in this election year, with all the senators indicted on that defense contract scam last March and both the Democratic and Republican candidates being completely inept and unfit for any type of responsibility, much like you were saying the other day in my kitchen.”

Greg paused to see how much of it Robert was eating up. He had pretty much made this up on the spot. Lord knows he had never really sat down to think these things out; he had been too busy plotting his own downfall.

But Robert and Jim seemed to dig it thus far. Robert pressed on, “Foreign policy.”
“America has gotten a bad name for throwing it’s weight around internationally. That’s why more nations are beginning to embargo our exports and raise their prices or refuse to send us their own products. What’s worse, we’ve become accustomed to trying to solve other people’s problems for them, which has landed us on international terrorism’s hit list at #1 with a bullet. Now, I am not saying in any way that my predecessors did not act in the best interests of our country but at the rate we’re going, we’re just making double the trouble for ourselves. What’s more, we need to be more understanding and more accessible to the rest of the world and stop treating it like we own it or that we are higher up above people elsewhere. China and India are growing astronomically. Each are developing middle and upper-middle classes comparable to the ones in our own country, and we’re talking 300 to 400 million people in this one class alone. In 5 to 10 years, we’ll be at their mercy, so to speak. When that time comes, do we want them remembering us as the country of slovenly hicks that depleted oil and tried to police the world for half a century, or as a nation that has become much more civil and appropriate with the way it handles itself overseas? Hopefully, we can star progress to be the latter.”
Robert nodded. “How about all things involving our own economy? You know, social security, defense spending, general economics?”
“Well, I haven’t really consulted Dave on all these things yet and I should have by now, but the way I see it, our government has gotten in the habit of trading favors for future favors. We have plenty of domestic debts that haven’t been collected and things are running less than smoothly on Wall Street, with or without outside factors on our own economy. I truly believe we could improve conditions if we apply a fraction of the spending that we are doing in the right ways. So basically, I propose we get rid of the graft and corruption. The past few president’s and congresses have been way too easy on campaign contributions and political influence. If we were able to show specifics in this category, we’d do better to get legitimate support in this area instead of people saying we’ve got the right idea but then voting the other way.”

For an instant, Jim kind of perked up near the end of Greg’s little shpeal. Greg tried to not react, but couldn’t help wonder what that was all about. He continued with Robert. “What’s next?”
“What’s the deal with a vice-president?”
“The MAC party said they would choose one for us all their own. I protested in vain. It’s out of our hands for now.”
“They think they got it down to 3 guys now. One’s a douche bag that heavily supports legalizing weed, one’s almost too senile to remember what years he’s been running for public office, and the final seems promising until you get to the fact that he’s a complete deadbeat and will probably start crying if put onto a debate,” Sidney threw in from her seat acutely.
“Ok, what about campaigning? I mean, there are blue states for Democrats, red for Republicans, so what? We get green?” Robert said with a small laugh.
“That’s what we’re hearing,” Kelley said in a semi-shrill voice.
“That’s so awesome. We got the bloods, the crips, and here come the ninja turtles from the back!” Robert made karate moves with his arms and laughed.
Kelley remained focused. “But for now, we look more to getting support where the other two have neglected. Hagerty thinks he has Florida locked up and is really pulling for California will Redmond has worked Texas and New York dry. So we start with the places they won’t even bother with. Then we’ll work our way up to the big states that we can swing from them should there be anymore scandal from those two.”
“You think there will be?” Jim asked.
“There already are.” Kelley reached to Sidney, who handed her a folded newspaper. “Apparently, Redmond shot his mouth off at a reporter, calling her a bulimic bitch with melanoma. It got caught on a microphone set to full volume, and struck such a nerve with the crowd he was booed off the stage.” Kelley read a bit more. “Oh, I see why. He was speaking at a hospital opening.”

Everyone in the car laughed now. Even the driver, a buff nightclub bouncer-type with sunglasses and a stern look cracked a chuckle.
Jim turned to Greg. “Sounds like you’re gonna have to try to screw this one up, eh, buddy?” He said with a smirk.
Greg smiled back. “Only I would be up to the task.”

:: +Memory :: Tell a Friend :: Reply

9. The man makes the clothes?

Jim was still getting used to his suit when the time for the conference came around. The haircut was ok, he had decided, but it had been so long that he had seen a suit on him that didn’t feel like another of his bath robes. Now people could see he hadn’t really gained that much weight all these years. He looked…normal.

Jim was just waiting in the kitchen again when Dave finally emerged. Now he was the one in the bath robe who looked like they hadn’t slept or bathed in weeks. And it had been a little over a day since he had been in hiding.

Jim pretended at first to not see him, seeing if Dave would talk first. He didn’t say anything as he inched himself in. He just moved right to the kitchen’s pantry. After staring into it, he moved over to the refrigerator.

“You’re too late,” Jim said to the room without looking up.
“Huh?”
Jim looked up. “For the pizza. You’re too late. That was scavenged at about an hour ago.”
Dave looked perplexed. “What makes you think I wanted pizza?”
“Because that’s the only thing you ever eat when you’ve had a bad day or couple of days or anything like that.”

Dave smiled in a small way. Jim could see him start his long process of cheering up.

Dave instead grabbed the milk. Then he took some cereal from the cupboard and grabbed a bowl. He sat down across from Jim.

“How’d Lisa take it all?”
“About how you’d expect. Three hours worth of things her mom was right about followed by another 3 hours of ultimatums. After that I just had to sleep off that damn hangover. It’s-“
“Been a while, huh?”
“Yeah.”

Jim put down his paper for a second. He exhaled deeply before asking what he was sure would be a long and uncomfortable conversation.

“Dave, do you enjoy it?”
“Enjoy it. Well, no, I guess not really. But drinking allows me to relax usually, and unwind, even if I occasionally overdo that, as there is now newspaper evidence. But I-“
“Wasn’t talking about drinking, Dave.”
A pause. “Then what are you talking about?”
“The wife. The kids. The house in the suburbs. The 9-5 job crunching numbers. I remember the life you used to lead. Of the 4 of us, I still don’t understand how you managed to become such a…what’s the correct phrase for this...tight ass stiff?”

Jim could tell that Dave wanted to say something. For just an instant. It was very brief and anyone could’ve missed it, but Jim caught the glimpse of the old version of David. For just an instant, his eyes had changed from the hopeless, bored state they were in now to the passionate focus they used to be in. Which was ironic, because with that passion, Dave had never been so tightly wound. He had never gotten nervous. He had just acted. He had just been livid. He had actually seemed happy.

Now, returning to the droopiness they had been in before, he looked back down at his cereal.

“Do you know what it feels like to lose control of everything? To feel like nothing you do makes a difference anymore?” he managed to mumble.
“You’re talking to a guy who once chugged a bottle of maple syrup because he was too lazy to leave his couch and get some water.”

Dave had to crack a giggle at that.

“Sure, I know what you’re talking about, Dave.”
“So what did you do about it?”
“I got up. I got dressed, took a shower,” he led on as he reached over and pulled Dave out of his chair. Taking a whiff of his friend, he added on, “I took a really really quick but thorough shower, and washed up these cobwebs you’ve got in your skull, and then I took a shave, and got dressed, and then I got ready for our friend’s campaign press conference. And I did it in the next 15 or 20 minutes.”

10. Pressing Issues

“Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for joining us today for this brief conference. I am Robert Berry, the new spokesman for the Turner campaign. Just like to say what an honor it is to be working with such a promising figure as Jim Turner on this trail.”

Oh shit…did I just call him Jim Turner? Yes I did. Shit. Should I just let it go and try to downplay it or correct myself and look like a jackass just the same?

Robert’s thoughts were racing as he just stood there silent in front of the crowd of flashing lights, reporters, and campaign personnel.

“We have several things to get through, but are there any questions before I get started?”

Every hand in the crowd went up. Aww man, Robert thought to himself. He pointed to a young man with a crew cut near the front. “Yes?”

“ Hugh Yates, New York Times. Did you just say you represent Jim Turner? Don’t you mean Greggory?”
“That’s our nickname for him within our group, my mistake for not making that clear. Next question.” He selected a middle aged Mexican woman near the left side of one of the middle rows.

“ Rachel Vasquez, Charlotte Herald. What is the reason for the replacement of the former spokesman for the MAC party and the Turner campaign?”
“Mr. Young resigned from the campaign for health reasons. He is back at home with his family at the moment, he has not made more details on his condition known.

This was complete bullshit, but how would they know for a while? Koren Young had been asked to leave because of his inability to string together full sentences when speaking on any matter. It wasn’t such a bad thing for press conferences, but for any other situation, when charisma and character and people skills were necessary, Young just flat out wasn’t what you wanted in a speaker. He was appointed by somebody in the party that owed him a favor or something, but Greg had planned to get rid of him from the start, even before he had decided to bring his old friends on board.

“Next.” He pointed to a pretty young brunette in the front middle.

“ Danielle Bale, Milwaukee Post. Has the senator made any further comment to the photos from last night?”

The senator? Who the hell were- oh wait, Greg was a senator. Wait, what state was he in? Shit, I should know something like that.

Ok, here we go. Just like Jim walked me through. Downplay it but address it. Look lightly frustrated by it but don’t lose your temper. Here we go.

“Ma’am, I don’t see a reason that you would need a comment from Mr. Turner about a picture he was not a part of.”
“But the picture involved people that work for him, and any reputation they have would seemingly affect his own reputation. He really has no response to it?”

Perfect. Jim read this almost word for word.

“The stance of the campaign is that there is no reason to take focus from the more important issues in this world to indulge in this mere gossip just because some cameramen have some photos that they think were provocative enough to make front page news. I would rather address questions on Mr. Turner’s foreign affairs, on hi position on homeland security, on the environment, or his economic principles, but obviously to you, a photograph that doesn’t even have the candidate in it is much more important. So fine. The photograph involved myself and another member of this campaign. In the process of doing campaign work, the two of us began to engage in meaningless and immature tom-foolery that just happened to be caught on camera. I do not defend the actions but at the same time do not think anything wrong with what happened. We are not a bunch of zombies in this party; we know how to unwind here and there. Are there anymore questions about this matter?”

Several hands rose. “Well then we shall get to those later.”

He glanced over at Jim. Jim had a satisfied smirk on his face, nodding slowly.

“At this time, I would like to introduce some of the new faces in our group. I’ve already introduced myself, Robert Berry. To my left,” he motioned to his side, “is our Personnel and Events manager, Misses Sidney Clark. To her left, the man to her left is our new Budget analyst and Economic consultant, David Clarke . Then, the man on the front row that most of you cannot see is our Special consultant, Jim Pottilak. With these new additions to the Turner campaign, we hope to move things into a more positive direction. Mr. Turner made it clear to those running his campaign before that he was dissatisfied with their attitudes, that he wanted someone that took his goals as seriously as he did. There were also reports that many f the former members did not get along and caused problems with both members of the party and members of the campaign. Mr. Turner will be out for his own comment shortly but for now, any desire for clarification on that part?

Hands shot up. Robert just pointed randomly to a black man in glasses. “Thomas Gander, USA Today. Have any of the former campaign members been available for comment?”

“I am not aware where any of the discharged members are or whether they wish to make any comment regarding the Turner campaign. Next.” He chose again.

“Gloria Smith, Washington Post. Do any of the new additions to the party have any previous political experience or campaign work credentials?”

Shit. I don’t know! Why are you asking me this shit? “I am not prepared to comment on our experience at this time, we are currently more focused on moving forward, not looking backwards.” Yeah, suck on that, fool. He selected another quickly.

“Ivan Brown, Scottsdale Chronicle. Has Turner selected a vice presidential candidate yet?”

Damn it, not another one. What’s with asking questions I don’t know the answers to? “Mr. Turner has not made a definite decision yet.”
“Could you tell us some of the possible names at this time?”
“We are not prepared to release those names at this time; we would rather give one definite instead of several possibles.”

Against his better judgment, he took one more question. Good looking Asian girl near the back.

“Kim Jameson. ABC broadcasting. How do you respond to the allegations that you were involved in an embezzlement and money laundering scam in Los Angeles in May of 2005?”
“I respond to that with this: Don’t believe everything you hear about in California.”

He paused briefly, waiting to see if she tried to say anything to follow up. She opened her mouth to say something.

“With that, I’d like to hand it over to Mr. Turner himself for the rest of your questions.”

11. “Could you repeat that, I had something crazy in my ear.”

Dave was more than happy to get off stage once Rob had introduced him. Apart from being camera shy, a nervous wreck, and horribly uncomfortable from dressing hastily for this conference, Dave had to go to the bathroom like no other. It had been all he could do to not start hopping around, crossing his legs like some 8 year old that hadn’t been taken to the bathroom yet.

As soon as he was led off stage, he quickly ducked off the side of the stage and into the nearest men’s room. Relieving himself went on unexpectedly long; he just couldn’t seem to cut himself off. When he was done, he walked over cautiously to the sinks. His headache was gradually subsiding, but for the most part it was in full swing still. Worse than that, most of the things said in his ears kept reverberating faintly over and over. Which he was sure was not normal.

Cupping a huge hand of water, he splashed himself in the face. Not even bothering to wash himself off, he leaned his head up for a moment. He looked at himself in the mirror.

Come on, Dave. Keep it together. Keep it cool. Keep it cool. Small hangover, nothing major.

He grabbed a towel and pulled it across his face. With a sigh of relief, he straightened his face back up and fixed his hair. He exhaled again.

Cool.

Now he strolled back out of the bathroom towards the stage. He tried to stride it out and be smooth. Like a man who was in control. Like a man who was right where he should have been. Like…

He paused that thought as he reentered the side of the stage because he felt his cell phone ring. He had made sure to make it vibrate instead of ring out loud. Even though he had a normal ring tone, he had made sure to prepare everything as to not embarrass his friends campaign anymore than he already had. He grabbed it from his coat pocket and flipped it open. His eyes became big as he looked at the name. Lisa. She was calling from her cell.

He hesitated momentarily. He wasn’t sure why she would call now, at 7 at night. But if she knew where he was, it would probably be for something pretty serious. He glanced over to the podium. The “audience” was giving a light ovation and then an awkward hush for Greg. Dave didn’t want to miss this.

On the other hand, how often does Lisa call for anything? He better just make it quick, he thought.

He flipped his phone open. “Hello?”
“About damn time you answered. Where did you go?”
“What do you mean?”
“The press conference. On stage, you could barely sit still. You’re eyes kept wandering and you rushed off the moment you got off stage. Everyone watching noticed it, David.”

Dave stared in a frustrated manner. He did his best not to give a helpless sigh. It came anyways.

“David…” Lisa started again naggingly.
“I had…” he almost grumbled. He composed himself. “I had to go to the bathroom.”
“A- pshya you did. Sure. Whatever.”
“What, honey? Why else would I rush off?”
“David, what’s going on with you?”

David hesitated. He didn’t like where this was going. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“First you agree to go out on this campaign without asking me first. You just leave our daughters and me and Jan all alone here. Then you meet up with those friends of yours, Greg and Jim, that good for nothing lazy son of a bitch and that piece of shit of a lawyer, Robert. Then, I have to find out from a newspaper article that you got drunk and got in a fight with your lawyer-schmuck friend and got caught on camera! On camera! And everyone I know has already called to tell me what they saw, since obviously this is the only time that anyone remembers your face and…” That’s about where Dave tuned out; he had had this exact conversation just before eating breakfast at 4 in the afternoon.

He looked over to the stage. Greg was handling things beautifully, it seemed. The reporters all laughed out at something. God, that guy can make anyone like him. Greg was such a great judge of characters in people. He always seemed to read people perfectly.

Dave became startled by silence on the phone.

“Well?” Lisa asked impatiently.
Oh shit, Dave thought. Silence. She asked me a question. What should I do? Hell, I’ll do the same thing I’ve done for going on ten years now.

“Yes, dear. You’re absolutely right.”
A gasp came from the other end of the line. Dave was confused suddenly.

“Oh…my…god. It’s true. Of course it’s true, isn’t it? You son of a bitch! You ARE having an affair, aren’t you?”

Dave spat out the bit of saliva in his mouth. “What?!”

“You low life bastard! I should’ve known. My mother was right about you, you cock sucker!”
“What are you talking about?! I haven’t been cheating on me!”
“You said not 3 seconds ago that you were! Now you’re a liar and a cheater!”
“Have you lost your mind? I would never do anything like that. And how did we even get from the newspaper story to an affair?!”
“Oh sure, try to deny it now, you fuckin’ joke! I’m not listening to another denial you make! You have no idea how close I am to coming down to Grandbury just to bitch-slap the shit out of you!”

Dave was getting more and more frustrated. He could barely think anymore. He slid over to a seat near the door. Leaning against some panel, he tried to think of the next thing to say. Then, as he was about to try once more to calm his wife, he thought he heard a voice in the background. A deep voice.

“Where are you right now, anyways?”
A pause. “Well Dave, I didn’t want you to find out this way, but not much point in pretending now. I’m not at my sister’s in Des Moines. I’m in Atlanta…with Ted.”

Ted. Ted. Where do I know that name from- oh my god, Dave almost blurted out loud. He tried to keep it under control. He loosened his tie up.

“Who the hell is Ted?” he belabored out as controlled as possible.
“I’ve been seeing Ted for a few months now. He travels to Cleveland often.”
“You’ve been cheating on me, and you call me the cheater?! ARE YOU SERIOUS!”
“Oh, don’t deny it, you asshole, I know you’re life is no cleaner!”
“I didn’t lie! I never once cheated on you once, not even ONCE!”
“And all those nights you were working late last year?!”
“With the McMillam account?! Those guys made us a bundle! That’s how I managed to swing that trip to Hawaii!”
“Yeah, out of guilt for not being there! You think I’m falling for any of your shit?!”
“THEN YOU TELL ME WHERE THE MONEY’S COMING FROM, GOD DAMNIT!”
“If you do not lower your voice, you can forget about talking to me ever again, phone or no phone! And then Ted will come and kick your number crunching ass in front of the country right before you fuck up and cost your so-called friend the presidential election!”
“YOU LYING BITCH!”

A click. The line went dead.

David’s eyes glared. His face turned crimson. He gritted his teeth. He then pressed send on his phone. His call list came up. He selected Lisa’s number.

He could barely think straight. He could barely breathe. Somewhere in his mind, he realized that he had just lost the last reason he had to be in control.

One ring.
Second.
Third.
Fourth.

“Hello, this is Lisa Franklin, soon to be Lisa Hill and then perhaps Lisa Reynolds. Whoever it is you reach, just leave your name and your number, unless you think you can tell me which of these people I am yourself.”

12. The Current State of Affairs

Greg awoke suddenly. He was covered in sweat and breathing hard.

Breathe. Just breathe, Greg, you’re fine. You’re fine.

Greg looked around the room he was in. Pitch black. To his right, he saw red glowing, probably from an alarm clock. He glanced over. 4:35 A.M. Wow, my eyes have actually been closed long enough to lose focus. That’s gotta be some sort of record for me, he thought with a smirk.

It wasn’t obvious exactly where he was. He honestly couldn’t remember anything that happened in the past day or so. He might have been in his own bed, but hell, he might have been in a hotel room in Vancouver again. It wasn’t like that had happened more than once, but the point was it still had happened. And there was no telling who was next to him in bed, if anyone. He just hoped it was one of 2 people. He had enough problems.

“Greg? Greg, what’s wrong?”

He recognized the voice immediately. Thank god.

“Nothing’s wrong, Kelley. I’m just dazed again.”
“Can’t remember yesterday again?”
“Not a thing. What’d I miss?”

Kelley sat up and brushed her hair away from her face. She took a deep breath.

“Ok. You had the press conference to respond to the pictures of your friends Robert and David in some provocative positions and to introduce the new people that you brought onto your campaign to sabotage your election chances. Robert responded to questions fine and then you got on and took the rest. But no one was paying attention to you because David started screaming his head off about his wife cheating on him. Then the conference ended and Dave and Robert and Jim went out to a bar to try to cheer Dave up and Dave got drunk and got into a fight with a group of lawyers. Then, while Jim was talking to the cops, a bunch of Hispanic guys came and grabbed Robert. We still haven’t heard from him by the way. Then you and I came back up to the room, you released your sexual angst with me, and you passed out. That’s the gist of it. Oh and Sidney ran off with one of the guys Dave was fighting with”

Greg looked over. He couldn’t help but smile. With a laugh, he asked, “Are you serious? That’s great!” He thought about what she had just said. “Wait, that’s not good at all! That’s bad! I want them to ruin my life, not their own!”

Kelley looked away, wincing. “Understandable.”
“Do you know where they are now?”
“Umm, no, not really. Well, Jim shouldn’t be hard to find. But Dave’s still in jail and, like I said, we don’t know where the hell Robert or Sidney are.”

Greg rubbed his eyes furiously. He tossed the covers off his side of the bed and jumped up. He took one step and then his right leg smacked into a small table in his way. Greg toppled to the floor.

In the dark, he could hear Kelley rustling around, too. Greg groaned in pain but pushed himself back to his feet quickly and continued looking for any of his clothes.

“Greg? Greg, are you alright?”
“I’m fine. Look, find a light switch, we gotta get out and help them. All of them, I want you to start with Jim.” His foot ran across his pants. He fumbled to pick them up.
“Greg…”
“He can’t have gotten far. He’ll know what to do anyways for tracking down Robert. Then we’ll bail Dave out.” He had on one of the pant legs.
“Greg…” The voice became more imperative and louder.
“Friends don’t let friends hang out to dry in a dark and crowded jail cell.”
“Greg!”
Greg turned. “What?!”
“I was kidding.”

Greg could faintly make out Kelley’ silhouette. She stood right in front of him now, close enough for him to see her eyes from the bit of light coming from the window behind him. She inched closer.

“Everything was true up until the part about Dave going to jail and Sidney running off and Robert being kidnapped. To my knowledge they all made it back to their rooms on this floor and are tucked away safe and sound, unless Robert and Sidney are still arguing or have finally finished arguing and started doing what we were doing.”

Greg breathed out uneasily. He glared at Kelley’s figure.

“You were joking? You think that shit was funny?!” he demanded.
“No, actually I don’t.”
“Then what the fuck was that all about?!”
“I was proving my point.”
“What’s your point?”

Kelley took another step closer. He could now see her whole face. Every bit of beauty that he saw. Everything he remembered. Everything he used to see in someone else.

“My point is that these are your best friends. You would go to war to save them; you would risk your neck for them. Yet you’re using them for a selfish and ridiculous personal need and you insist on keeping them in the dark about it.”

Greg turned away. He limped his half-dressed self towards the window, now being wary of the furniture.

“Have you considered what your little stunt will do to their lives as it is? You’ll be out of politics, finally out of the world’s spotlight. And that’s fine for you because that’s what you want. But what about them? What if they want to do the right things for their country? They came onto your team expecting to make a difference. What happens when they crash and burn? What will become of them?”

“What will become of them? Look at what has become of them. Jim doesn’t do anything productive anymore and won’t give the slightest clue why. Robert doesn’t do a damn thing unless it has a female name and an attractive body. Dave spent half his life trying to please a woman that just admitted to him she’s leaving him. These guys are my friends and they’ve already fallen beyond my help.”

Greg looked out the window. The peaceful skyline of Arlington, Virginia was unfamiliar. It looked like any other city that you could lose yourself in. It looked promising.

“You’ve got it wrong about me, Kelley. I don’t want to lose them by using them and betraying them. I want to be in the same boat as them again. I want to join them, so things can be like they were again. The four of us. I want my friends back. The guys that have always made me happy, that I could always make happy. I just feel like…like if we could just… I don’t know.

“Yes you do.” Greg turned and looked back at Kelley.

“I’m just so sick of being distant from the people I care about.”

Kelley put her arms around his neck. “If you don’t want to be distant, I suggest you stop lying about your motives so often. I suggest every once in a while you just come out and say what you’re thinking rather than working your way through words and never quite getting there. I suggest you come up with schemes that make more sense, both politically and otherwise. I suggest that you think of better ways to use your friends, or rather, enjoy your friends.”

She planted a long, passionate kiss onto Greg. Greg closed his eyes and felt his body relax.

“And if you really don’t want to feel distant, I also suggest that you come back to bed.”

5. Oh, was I suppose to wait for your permission?

By the time his mother heard from a neighbor that the Turner campaign had taken him onto their staff, Jimmy was already on a plane, heading to his friend’s base of operations somewhere in southern D.C., which already sounded kind of suspect, considering that just about every south side of any major city sucked to be in. That and D.C. wasn’t that great in its better parts either. What was more, Jim had already been told that he would be one of the “key strategists” in the campaign, which flat out didn’t make sense. He had also been told that Robert and David, two of his best friends from back home, would also be along, one as a public relations director and spokesman, the other as a financial consultant, and that made even less sense. Sure, the four of them were dear friends and went way back, but as far as he knew, they hadn’t spoken in years consistently. Of what he had heard, Jim had heard from Dave that Robert was in big with the Columbian cartel for gambling trouble, and he’d heard from Robert that Dave’s wife was probably cheating on him. This sounded like the exact opposite like the type of people you’d want working for the first major political campaign of what was considered the most promising of the presidential candidates for this election.

But that sounded just like Greg. Millions of distractions, millions of questionable moves, and zero answers. It was the same type of thinking Jim liked to live by himself: keep everyone else confused, even if you have to confuse yourself.

The flight flew by, all 6 hours or whatever of it. In truth, Jim was just happy to get out of the house for once. He’d left while his mom was still sleeping, still pissed off from his incredible display of apathy.

He wanted to tell her what happened…kind of. He wished he didn’t have to listen to the constant questions, but he didn’t want her to look at him the way he knew she would when she found out he had failed again. In any case, it wouldn’t be soon before his mom would believe anything he had to say about it. Conspiracy theories didn’t fly nowadays.

Getting off the plane, Jim realized he didn’t really know where the hell to go from here. He had the number that had called his house but all that Greg had told him was that they were meeting at home. And home was still a ways off from where Greg had paid to fly him.

Coming to the taxi terminal, Jim couldn’t decide whether to find a pay phone and call for more instructions or find a hotel or find some place to get a decent suit. He would probably still be walking around in his bathrobe if his father hadn’t left some of his clothes in his mom’s closet from decades ago. As it was, these boxers didn’t quite fit…at all. The pants were only a little loose, but these shirts he had were like jackets on him. And then there was the disheveled face, between his hair, his lazy man’s goatee, and…well, he still probably needed another bath.

Just as he was turning in another direction, Jim noticed a limo driver with a sign that interested him. It read, “There’s three things I hate,” in plain, thick, black text. Thinking of it, Jim chuckled to himself as he walked back over to him.

“Can I ask you something?” he accosted the driver.
“What can I do for you?”
“The three things you hate, what are they?”
A pause. “You tell me,” the driver turned his head slightly and looked Jim in his eyes. His sign dropped slightly from its grip.
“I’d have to guess liars, fakes, and cheaters.”
“Good to meet you, Mr. Pottilak, I’m here to take you to Grandbury.”

6. Homecoming

Robert’s trip to Grandbury, Virginia was less relaxing than the other’s, since he drove himself there nonstop from his impromptu exodus from Philadelphia. That and the fact that he was still unsure of the reaches of the Mateos family and how far they would go looking for him.

The funny thing is that Robert wasn’t really worried at all about his business contacts. Many of them switched phones even more frequent than he did, and in the end he could always tell people some hoodlum had stolen his phone and was having some fun with them. Who would honestly believe that a crime family of bookmakers and smugglers would take the time to ruin a one man booking agency?

Now, if Robert had someone besides his clients to answer to, like a boss, then there may be some trouble. But Robert had always been good at adapting to difficulties. This was not a big deal. Not yet, anyways.

Robert did his best to get his mindset straight. He was here to help his friend, whatever he asked of him. Lord knows of all the people he owed, Greg Turner was at the front of the list.

Grandbury was about 10 minutes from the Maryland-Virginia border. A small nothing of a town that people could easily miss while driving through it and looking around for it. Robert remembered there being more grass before, now it was just fields of even less than before.

Robert turned down the old, old road towards Greg’s old house. It was only a mile or so from the “town center” that consisted of 2 gas stations, a diner, and the police station/ fire station/ jail/ hospital. That was called the crisis center, mostly because any situation that came through the door was likely to get worse. There were about 5 people, none of which were capable of solving too many of their intended problems. Not like they ever tried to help or were there or anything like that. There were even open/close hours on the window. But it was these types of things that said a lot about the area of Grandbury. Even when there was an emergency, there just never seemed to be anyone in this town to respond.

Robert found the house pretty easily. Not like anything else was on this road for a while. The bright red bricks were just as faded as they had been the last time he’d visited some while ago. But now there were newer looking fences, the lawn was somewhat well-kept, and the driveway, which used to be abandoned all the time, was jam packed with SUV’s and trucks, seemingly filled with papers, posters, and other miscellaneous campaign material.

It took around 6 seconds of being out of the car for Robert to be accosted by someone. It just so happened that that person knew who he was. And that wasn’t a good thing.

“Can I hel-…what the hell are YOU doing here?!

Robert’s eyes bulged for an instant. Was that Sidney? “Sidney?”

She stared daggers at him. “You son of a bitch, how dare you ever even come back to this town, you filthy sex demon!”

Yep, that was her.

Sidney’s long flowing hair hadn’t changed one bit. Neither had her fiery reddish brown eyes or her temper. Last time Robert had heard her yell at him, she was much taller, her hair had just been made drastically shorter and she was much lighter toned. Now, god knows how long later, she was…well, she was still hot.

And she was still mad.

“So what in the fuck are you doing back here? When Greg sees you’re hear, he’s gonna flip out. He’s going to FLIP OUT!!”
“Whoa, you’re screaming. Why are you screaming? That’s not even necessary, that’s just loud. Besides, Greg invited me personally; I’m supposed to be here!”
“Not for long you aren’t, I haven’t approve everyone on this campaign and I can tell you right now, you might as well leave now and save yourself the time, you big bag of sleaze!”
“Ok, time out, time out. So really now, why all the insult? What is the problem here?” Robert was lying; he knew exactly what he had done.

It had been 2 weeks before graduation that Sidney Clark had dumped Robert. No one was really sure what had happened because Robert insisted that he had dumped her and few people knew who to believe, but the break up was certain. Robert was about as close to popular as anyone in Grandbury High was. It was such a small school and no one liked the ‘popular’ clique but Robert had friends every which way. But Sidney was some sort of goddess to the school. There was not one guy who didn’t stop talking and stare in awe every time she entered the room or watched to leave when she exited. And not just because she had a fabulous and plastic-surgery-enhanced body or because she dressed like an absolute slut from time to time, but just about everything she did just seemed to bring attention to herself. Not always in a positive way, but still, she was a magnet for attention. Robert had asked her out off a dare from Jim, and the majority of the relationship had been an extension of “I bet you won’t do this,” and “How awesome would it be if you said that?” until Robert found himself actually enjoying it.

The funny thing about Robert is that he seemed to be able to get any girl he wanted even in his younger years. His dad had always been a slickster, according to himself anyways, and Robert just picked up the habit of knowing what girls around him wanted to hear. As a result, most girls and their feelings meant little to him. He could break a girl’s heart open in front of a national audience and not feel the least bit bad about it. Maybe it was that he was chauvinistic, or maybe it was that he was border-lined ADD about that type of thing and was constantly looking for a new pursuit.

So it was just that ironic that a girl as vain and as materialistic and as insulting and as everything else that Robert hated in girls as she was could be the one girl that he actually developed feelings about. Granted, he wasn’t the most inwardly adorable person either, but it was still surprising. So when she came to him right before prom and told him she wanted to see other people, he took it pretty hard.

And by hard, I mean he started crying right in the middle of the pep rally when she announced it to the whole school that Conner Fayette would be her escort and not Robert. So Robert responded in 2 ways. First, he convinced Sidney’s then best friend, Lisa, to go to prom with him. Then, with the help of some incriminating evidence that Robert was able to obtain, he revealed to Lisa that Sidney had been secretly been cheating on her boyfriend a few months back. And that she had stolen several of her school assignments when she had forgotten her own. And some other pretty terrible things. He even found a buried police report of the accident where Sidney had “accidentally” ran over Lisa’s pet boa constrictor 10 times in 10th grade. So Lisa agreed to help him get her back.

Of course, they thought afterwards that drugging her with chloroform, shaving her head, and covering her in white paint with the words, “Little White Liar,” on her forehead in red letters right the night before graduation may have been a bit much. They were lucky to get away with it. Actually they weren’t really. I already described the police force in Grandbury.

So yeah, she had a right to be mad still. She started walking back inside. He hurried after her.

“So what are you doing on this campaign, Miss Moneybags? Did daddy finally run out of trust funds for you?” Robert managed to shoot back.
“Don’t you even speak of my father! I’m here for policy advisement and personnel issues. Such as yourself, you house painting ninny.”
“House painting? I went to law school, toodles. What did you go to?
“I went to Harvard, for your information!” She reached the porch and scurried up the steps. He followed.
“You mean you bought Harvard! My colleague there said your father made a half a million dollar donation. Explain how YOU got in at all!”
“My grades were more than enough to be considered and you know that. I didn’t ask him to give that cash, he just did! I can’t help it if my dad worked his ass off! I’m sorry he didn’t have to win the lottery to be able to afford his lifestyle like someone I know!”

They entered the porch and turned into the family room. Robert was finally getting an argument going worth having. He was actually enjoying this at some level. He was pretty sure she was too. Sidney sat her papers in hand down on a desk already crowded with all sorts of campaign junk. The room was dim from the setting sun’s glare, with the lights still off. No one seemed to be around despite the enormous amount of cars out front.

“Oh so now I’m the one that’s spoiled?!”
“Spoiled, I don’t think you’re spoiled at all. Spoiling implies there was a time where you were bearable! I think you’re cursed and vile, but not spoiled. I think you’re disgustingly chauvinistic, but not spoiled. I’d even say you’re grossly overpaid and dangerously under-qualified, but spoiled? Nope.” She hissed at him.
“Everyone in this room that has never rented a limousine to go run errands, has never paid someone to make out with them in front of my house, or has never taken an airplane ride to Miami just for dinner, please raise your hand now!” Robert raised his hand. He looked away, checking the room for anyone else, then looked at Sidney. Her hand was raised.
“It was dinner and then Heat game and you know it.”
“Oh my god!”

From the corner of the room came, “Whoa, easy, easy you two!”
Sidney and Robert turned from their battle. David had just come in with a drink in his hand. “I see you two have kissed and made up,” he slid in with a tip of his glass.

7. Camera shy guys

Dave seemed to be the only calm one in the room, as usual. He had had plenty of practice at calming down. Getting upset never seemed to work anymore.

“So when did you get in, Robert?” He said, advancing towards him, drink still in hand.
“A few seconds ago,” Robert replied, now smiling uncontrollably.
“Wow, you lawyers don’t waste time with travel, do ya?”

The two hugged like they had never been chummier than at that moment. Sidney had to sit there and listen to some unintelligible chatter between them as they caught up in a matter of seconds. It kind of sounded like words, but it also might’ve been some inside joke that she didn’t want any knowledge of.

Eventually, Dave turned and greeted her as well. “How are you doin', Sid?
“Just fine. How’s the family?”
A forced chuckle. “You know Lisa. She’s about as loony as ever. The kids too. But things are good.”
“That’s nice. I heard you moved to Cleveland, how’s that workin’ out?”
A pause. A sip of the drink, which was close to empty “Good. Pretty nice neighborhood. The job can get hectic. But good…yeah. I’m gonna get another drink, you guys want anything?”

They both motioned their heads no. Dave turned and went back towards the kitchen.

They can already see right through me, he thought to himself.

Robert followed him. “So where the hell is everyone? There’s cars all over the place but no people.”
“Oh, Greg took everyone to some charity ball earlier. They left about an hour before I got here.”
“You know what for?”
“No idea. But you know Greg.”
“So what has he got you on the campaign for?”
“He said he wants me to help with financial issues. Keeping books, monitoring contributions, planning and figuring out expenses month to month and so on. What about you?”
Robert giggled. “Public relations. Me. Dealing with the public.”
Dave looked less surprised. “What? You have a way with words. At the very least, we’ll make sure we get all the women votes in the country.” Oops, is he gonna take offense to that, Dave thought. I can’t believe I said that, it just came out.

Robert laughed freely. “You asshole. And you’re forgetting the women that have actually gotten to know me. If any of them get a microphone, we’re in trouble. Just like if you have to ever carry a one from a column or tell your wife that you’re working late. “

Ouch. That was good. Dave laughed too. “Oh, this coming from a guy who doesn’t work early or normal either. What was it you went to college to study again?”
“Can’t remember, must not have been that important. I just remember some dude speaking Latin and talking about the people’s court. Better than studying numbers for 4 plus years.”
“Hey, at least numbers like me. I don’t remember the last time I lost a bet.”
“You mean, you don’t remember the last time you made a bet.”
“Well maybe you’d like to make me an offer I can’t refuse.”
“Besides giving you a way to move out of Cleveland?”

Dave paused. Was he serious? No, there’s no way he was serious. Dave chuckled out loud again and sipped his drink, whatever it was he had made. He wasn’t hard to please with liquor.

“I didn’t realize Lisa let you drink anymore.”
“Lisa doesn’t.”
“Ooh. So if evidence of you consuming this drink were to make it back to her…you would pay dearly, would you not?”
Dave looked up from his drink. “That’s about the size of it.” He took another sip.

As his lips touched the ice and the cool beverage, there came a flash from Robert’s side of the room. Dave nearly choked the rest of his drink up as he spat in startled confusion. Whirling the drink down, he looked over to see Sidney, holding a miniature digital camera. She had an enormous smile on her face. Robert began laughing hysterically. “Did you really not see her?!” he managed to breathe out as he continued to crack up.

“Sidney, give me the camera,” Dave started calmly but imperatively. He slid his drink down on the countertop next to the stove and began strolling towards her.
“Ooh, sounds like someone’s got something to be nervous about,” she sighed, pretending to not react.
“Sidney, delete that picture right now. Right now.”
“How much do you think I can get for this? It’d be less worth anything if you weren’t pretending to be a Mormon too, eh?”
“Sidney, give me the CAMERA!” As Dave said this, he broke into a sprint around the counter top and lunged himself in Sidney’s direction. She took off out of her heals, squealing with delight.
Dave gradually caught up to her. She tried to turn at the other end of the kitchen but slid due to her panty hoes. Dave made up his ground, but lost his balance and tripped into the table, barely able to keep himself from knocking it and everything on it clean over. This had been his 3rd drink. She started off into the connected living room on the carpet, but Dave was still too fast for her. As Dave grabbed her by the arm, she shrieked and tossed the camera to Robert. Robert did a Heisman pose and make a couple of juke moves as he took off down the hallway. Dave was right after him.

Robert turned left and realized he had cornered himself in the bathroom. As he jumped back out, he narrowly avoided Dave as he again lunged for his incriminating evidence. Looking up, Robert tossed the camera back to Sidney, who was still unable to stop laughing. Dave threw himself to his feet and started after her again. Right as he did, she tossed it back over to Robert, who now leaped back through to the other side of the breakfast nook.

“This is not funny!”
“Well that is a blatant lie!” Robert called out as all three took off down the hall way.

Now Robert moved back to the front door. He couldn’t decide which way to turn from here. Back to the family room or to the stairs.

He spent too long hesitating. As he turned around to see where Dave was, Dave lunged one more time. And ran smack into Robert. The two toppled over each other towards the front door. If the door had been shut, they might have knocked it clean off the hinges. But Robert had left it open. All they did was smash through the screen door and onto the porch.

Dave managed to pin him down now. He was almost in tears from laughing so much, but now was also in some pain.

“Give it to me!” he demanded.
“No! You can’t have it! I have to post it for all to see because I’m an investigatory journalist. The people have a right to now! It’s for the people!” Robert continued cracking up. So did Sidney.
“Give…it…to…me!” he rolled on top of him. Now straddling him, he reached again for the camera. He repeatedly shifted under him, trying to keep it out of his reach.

“Umm, guys…stop. Just stop right now, there’s some-.” Sidney intervened from the door.
“Not until I get it!” He reached again. He turned his body over, lying on his stomach with Dave sitting on top of him. He flipped her back over somehow. He still clutched the camera next to his stomach. Dave tightened his straddle hold on him with his thighs.

Sidney pleaded again. “Really. Stop. Stop! Stop right now, the-“

“So help me GOD! You are going to give it to me right now or I will choke the life out of you right here on this porch in front of Sidney! Give it to me NOW!” Dave roared.

Sidney now tried to drag Dave off but with little effect. Dave was so much larger than her and was in quite a fury.

Robert stopped laughing for a second. Then he started to open up his hands. Just as he seemed to be ready to hand the camera over, one of his hands reached for the top of his blouse and he shoved the camera down his shirt. He began cracking up all over again. Dave and Sidney both continued their struggling.

“DAMN IT TO NAZARETH, GIVE IT TO ME!” he exploded.
“Oh yes! YES, that’s it, poppy! I’ma give it to you! I’m here for you, baby!” he now screamed out, pretending to moan like they were passionate lovers. He made a ridiculous face as he pretended to moan.
“Guys, please stop it this instant!”

And suddenly there came another flash of light from the side of Dave and Robert. Dave instantly froze in terror. His eyes got really big. He spun his head to the direction of the flash just in time to get another one of him looking right at the camera men. At least 7 of them.

Dave could do nothing but sit and stare, but Sidney continued trying to drag him off of Robert, who was now somehow laughing even harder.

Then from around the cameras came a large black man, age 39, slim build, short, fad-cut hair, thin mustache, thick eye brows, the same rounded nose, the same light brown eyes, and a tiny but recognizable scar on his lower left side of his chin. With him was a short and petite woman with long brown hair, holding a clipboard. Or a binder, or portfolio, something like that, Dave’s eyes were so dazed from all the flashing he couldn’t tell.

“And you were worried about people not getting along, Kelley.”

8. The truth about bad publicity

“I really don’t see what’s to worry about!”
“Are you crazy?! The fact that you even say that makes me worry about YOU even more!”

As Greg entered his kitchen the next morning, he was so far from awake it was still pretty funny to him the events that had happened last night. Particularly the media spectacle that had awaited him after an insanely boring charity ball. He had almost fallen asleep on his feet, even if he was dancing with his wife at the time. But coming home had been quite lively. When seeing his front porch’s ‘activity’ the only comment he had been able to give was, “Everyone on my campaign works very closely.” He had retired before that to avoid losing his serious face on camera.

His plan was already working beautifully, it seemed, and Greg had yet to even put forth real effort to sabotage himself. Finally, some good fortune. In a sense.

Greg’s house had always been a zoo. Back in the groups’ high school days, it was the popular hangout, since it was a fairly large house, rather secluded, and Greg’s parents were almost never around. No one ever seemed to find it strange. No one ever even really asked him what they did or saw them on a regular basis. It was pretty convenient for Greg. One less thing to lie about.

“Look, just because it’s in the paper doesn’t automatically make it a big deal, alright?”
“Oh, you are right! Front page cover makes a big deal! Lead story! Big deal!”

Rubbing his eyes, Greg drug himself over from the side of the room to get some coffee. Sidney and Robert barely even noticed his entrance; they continued sparring as Jim sat at the table, looking on most disinterested. Jim had taken the liberty of bringing along his old, worn bath robe and house shoes. His unkempt hair and goatee made him resemble the Dude from The Big Lebowski.

“I just can’t believe you don’t realize how badly this looks!” Sidney prodded at Robert.
“Well, cool down for a second, Sid. I mean, the media will run with whatever we give them.”
“What WE gave them was a picture of one man straddling another man in the middle of a porch, fighting over a camera!”
“Well, you know what they say.”
“What?”
“There’s no such thing as bad publicity.”

Greg had to cover his mouth to keep from laughing at this. Jim let out a few chuckles. And Sidney just stared, incredulous.

“Hey, if it was such a big deal, why’d you wait to try and break it up? Better yet, why’d you even take the picture?”
“I assumed it wouldn’t break into a front yard wrestling match for national coverage to eat up.”
“Well that sounds like a personnel issue to me.”

A death-ray glare came from Sidney’s fire and brim stone eyes.

“Ok, my love. Ex-love. Whatever. Bear with me for a second.” Robert moved closer to her, right around the counter top between them.
“This campaign that we’re on is a unique one. It’s not Democratic and it’s not Republican. It’s MAC, Middle American Class or Meaningless And Crazy, whatever your letters stand for. And the reason that we have such strong initiative this year is that we’re different. We’re not Dan Hagerty, the new Republican candidate with scandal of corruption. We’re not Ted Redmond, the Democrat that’s lost all credibility and has changed his platform every election year. We’re different. And because we’re different, we have to show that we’re different in more than one way. We’re a genuine group here, are we not? So why should we worry about one little story? Both Hagerty and Redmond have had dozens in the past week, neither can stay afloat. Besides, I don’t see one mention of Greg’s name in this whole article.”

“It’s in the header: ‘Turner campaign on top of things already.’ The words above the picture of our financial consultant straddling and strangling our spokesman.”

Robert looked again. “My mistake,” he conceded with a smirk.

Jim interrupted their skirmish. “You two both relax. Do you guys ever take a break? I mean, I realize you have to pretend you hate each other, but damn, go get a room and get some of this sexual tension out already.” He sipped his tea and looked back down at his part of the paper.

Now Robert and Sidney were completely silent for once. Both turned and looked at Jim, trying to think of something to respond with. Neither seemed to have anything.

Jim continued, “So really, why do you care so much about this article? This is the morning after, yes. But this newspaper is read by a bunch of northern Virginia hicks that we already have votes from, what’s the big deal.

Sidney grabbed a stack of newspapers from one of the side tables. She hobbled them over. One by one she tossed them onto the table. They were from every major newspaper in the country. All had a picture from the porch on the front page.

“Dallas Morning News. L.A.Times. Miami Herald. U.S.A Today. New York Times. And look. Look at some of the stories that we beat out.” She grabbed one. “Suicide bombing in London. Not as important. Hostage situation in the Bahamas. Second page. Mob related kidnappings suspected in some hotels in Philadelphia. No big deal.”

Robert’s eyes suddenly became very big, Greg happened to notice. He focused back to Sidney.

“The national focus is on Greg right now, because you’re right, Robert. We are different. HE is different. He’s not all about keep the rich richer and the poor more so. He hasn’t bought his way into power or into any and everything else. He is different, and he is still untainted, and there are a lot of people waiting for that to change. This article covers all of us. You, me, Jim, Dave. They aren’t just turning up the focus on Greg anymore, but on all of us. We can’t afford to have another spectacle like last night because I’ve got news for you. Bad publicity exists for the people trying to make good change. Publicity is only not bad when you just want attention or face time, not when you want to show that you are the example that needs to be set.”

She turned to Greg, who had now come and sat down at the table next to Jim. “I want to apologize for what happened, I feel like I was the one who-“

Greg held up his hand. “Don’t.” He gave her a warm smile. “I chose the people on this campaign for a reason. You are all the exact people I want helping me. I only ask that you be yourselves.”

If they only knew, he thought. “Has anyone seen Dave yet?”

Jim was the first to look Greg in the eyes. “He hasn’t left his room yet, far as I know. Lisa called bright and early. She was PISSED when she saw the article. It’s not every day your husband gets to look like an ass on the front page.”

“And I’m guessing he’s still kinda hung over.” Robert added on.
“And embarrassed.” Sidney added.

“Ok, fine, let him deal with it his own way for now. We got a day or so until we start travel up. Once we do, it’s about 3 or 4 solid months, a couple of debates, and November is right there.” Greg paused and looked over at Jim again. “What do you think we do about this newspaper situation?”

Jim took another sip and looked back up. “Hold a press conference. Both to try to explain these pictures and introduce the new faces.”

1. Another reason Jim should pay more attention
It was Wednesday night again. Or maybe Thursday. Jim was never sure anymore. He hadn't been paying attention to what day of the week it was since high school let out. What was the point? He was doing what he did pretty much every night. Flipping channels, eating fritos in his boxers and bath robe on the couch of his mothers’ living room, trying as hard as possible not to look away or blink. He was also trying not to listen to the nightly assault he was sure was going on in the distance.
"JimmYYYYYYY, did you clog up the toilet again?! Damnit boy, if I wasn't happy that you moved from that position on the couch I would take a tire iron to your asshole! Come clean this shit up now!"
Jim flipped again. Sportscenter. Flipped again. Home shopping network. Again...what the hell was this? Law and Order? There's another one?, he thought to himself.
Jim's mother flip flopped her house slippers across the one story, 2 bedroom San Jose condo. She nearly tripped over a pile of something or other on her way into the room. Jim didn't look. Somewhere inside him, he braced for in case she finally fell and broke her good hip. She was fine though so he offered no external reaction and kept flipping.
Jim's mother looked at him with a blatant scowl. "What the hell is it you do all day anymore?! You haven't changed clothing in a week! You haven't eaten or drunk anything but chips, beer, and that bottle of maple syrup in 2 weeks! You haven't looked me in the eye or said anything intelligible in over a month! In fact, I haven't seen you move in so long, I'm beginning to think you could be in a coma and get the same amount accomplished! What in the Sam hell of Virginia Slims is the matter with your lazy broke ass?!
The Sam hell of Virginia Slims? What the hell did that mean? Jim almost looked up to her just to ask that, but thought better of it.
His mom now moved closer and sat on the couch next to him, looking in his eyes in a concerned way. "I’m serious, baby; you haven't done a damn thing since you moved back in here. I know I said you could stay as long as you like but I didn't mean that you shouldn't make an effort to. Plenty of people go through jobs over and over, it's just tough times for you, that's all. But at least talk to me. Give me a sign that you're still alive inside.
Jimmy seemed to pause for a second. Then he leaned away from his mom. A hiss came from under Jim. With a loud and deliberate sniff, he rocked back from his right butt cheek and continued flipping.
Jim's mother shook her head, disgusted. "Fine, if you want to be a waste, then be a waste. But you know I won't be here to feed your lazy self forever. Neither will your father."
My father isn't here as it is, Jim thought to himself. Again, he came close to letting the words fly but didn't.
Instead he flipped again. Some political talk show. Jim turned up the volume loud enough so that his mother could be drowned out but still thought he was listening.
"Gentlemen, you're missing the point. This is a huge day for the political process everywhere. It's been nearly a century since an Independent party has had a remote shot, let alone a decent chance at the Presidency. Finally, we can see that there is still some hope for those working against the 2 party establishment in this country," some Ted Koppel look-alike was spewing. Jim was surprised; he hadn't heard anything about this before. Not that it was that surprising, he usually didn’t turn this high up in the stations because by now he'd have found a cartoon or porno or even something on the food channel to satisfy his attention span.
Jim was always very opinionated about politics. He hated most politicians, most of which were the stereotypical versions. Slick hair, boorish voice, unclear communication, constantly exaggerated or distracted from the truth, tons of money, that type of thing. It was most representative of the type of American that Jim never wanted anything to do with. They used people. They took what they could and gave back what they couldn’t use. Jim hated those people most of everything in his life. He had his reasons.
Everybody did.
"I just don't know if this guy has a prayer in the world. I mean, it is great that someone could pull it off to this point, but I really hope for Turner's sake that he's got one hell of a campaign to be run because if he screws up bad, it will only look just that much worse for anyone and everyone trying to do what he's doing.
Turner? Just Turner? No, Jim thought, there's no way he could be...
"If you're just joining us, Gregory Turner's bid for presidency is projected to rival both the Democratic and Republican nominees in a monumental race for the newly emerging MCA party." As they said this, a picture came up of a black male, age 39, slim build, short, fad-cut hair, thin mustache, thick eye brows, the same rounded nose, the same light brown eyes, and a tiny but recognizable scar on his lower left side of his chin.
For the first time in a long time, Jim Pottilak dropped the remote. It fell and clanked against the grimy coffee table, among the nasty bowls and plates left around. His mother, still standing in the corner, continuing her verbal barrage, stopped and looked at Jim. His mouth had dropped about as far as the remote did.
Jim's best friend was running for president.

2. Robert can’t come to the door right now

“House keeping!”

Robert barely had enough energy to look up from the pillow he had been face down in. With a squint, he glanced over to the alarm clock. 4:30? What the hell kind of hotel is this? “It’s too early, come back when the sun’s up!”

“Baby, the sun’s been up for a while, it’s you that’s been sleepin in,” some voice retorted from next to his right ear.

Robert had to fight the urge to not b startled or ask question to the voice like, “Who are you?” and “Why are you still here?” and instead looked closer at the clock, still barely able to open his eyes. Oh right, that did say P.M. “My mistake,” he sighed calmly.

“House keeping, sir!”

“Hang on, damnit!” he now managed to say out loud.

Pushing himself up, Robert Berry rose from his slumber, however long he’d been sleeping in the peaceful hotel suite. With still limited vision, he strolled to the door and removed the latch. He was about to unlock the door handle lock too when the door budged forcefully. It barely stood up to the force that had been put to it.

Robert jumped back. “Whoa, hang the hell on, buddy, the room’s a mess, but there’s no fire in here!” Robert now inched closer. “Alright, just take it easy.”

Robert now looked through the peephole. Instantly his heart skipped a beat. It skipped a couple of beats.

Through the hole, Robert could see the build of a man he didn’t want to see right now. Or ever, for that matter. The biceps and shoulders he could see were, in one word, behemoth. In 2 words, hulking behemoth. There was a cryptic tattoo written on the inner elbow that read “R.E.S.P.E.C.T” in bold, stylish writing. And Robert would recognize that tattoo anywhere.

It belonged to someone in the Mateos family.

Not wasting anymore time he still had, Robert, dove back to his bed and began getting dressed. He had got his pants halfway on when he remembered he wasn’t alone in his room. Going to the side of his bed, he leaned down and picked up the covers over his companion. With a heave, he tossed the blankets off the bed, towards the TV.

To his surprise, there were 2 companions instead of one in the bed he had just risen from. Now Robert was pissed. This day had had potential after all.

“Ladies, I’m sorry but I gotta get going, I got some errands to run and you should get going too!” he rushed out as he continued to find his clothes across the room.

“Geez, are you already ready to go again? Guess we should’ve brought another friend, huh?” One of his companions moaned as she rolled over, still completely naked.

“Oh you guys were quite a handful, but I meant we have to leave…soon. Really really soon. So come on now.” He pulled her to her feet.

Still dazed, the first girl gradually started moving. The second girl still lay motionless, piled up on the end of the bed next to the wall.

Pulling his shirt on, Robert glanced over at the second girl. “Tell her to get a move on, we gotta get out quick.”

“What, so we missed check out, “the first girl cooed as she turned and faced Robert. She ran her fingers up his check softly. “Just means we get to repeat last night and this morning,” she now whispered as she turned her head sideways and moved in closer.

The moment was interrupted by more furious knocking. “Robert, open up, you knew it would come to this!”

“Who’s that?”
“Nevermind who that is, shut up and wake your friend!”

Robert nearly threw her off of him as he moved back to the dresser. Grabbing all his clothes, he hurriedly tossed everything in his suitcase.

“If you knew you had a meeting, why didn’t you pack already?” The girl said as she wrestled on her halter top.

“I didn’t know I was having a meeting today until a few seconds ago.”
“What? When did you find that out?”
“When Enrico Llammalas of the Mateos family tried to kick my door in.”

Now the girl froze and looked at Robert blankly. “Ok, really, it’s not funny anymore. What’s going on?”

“The Mavericks and the Red Sox both losing when I needed them to win. And I’m not laughing either.” Robert snapped shut his briefcase.

“Look, I’m not gonna lie, if I don’t leave in a few more minutes, I might as well just hang myself by my shoelaces so it’s quick. I need to go. I’m sure they won’t hurt you too, just don’t lie to them. They don’t like that. Tell em I went out the window and climbed down the building by the balconies without saying where I was going.”

“But you just said not to lie.”
“Good girl.”

With that, Robert tossed open the door and threw his bags over the side of the building. He was aiming for the bushes, 5 stories below. His suitcase hit the target, his briefcase landed in the pool right below. It was just as well, that was his decoy case anyways. Like his dad had always told him, let people think you’re much busier than you are.

Now, swinging his legs over the side of the rail, Robert carefully but expeditiously let himself down, sliding his hands to the bottom edge of the rail. It was rusty, but not rough enough to slow his progress. When he finally hung from the bottom edge, He reached his foot for the next level’s balcony. He couldn’t seem to find it. Now swinging more hurriedly, almost furiously, Robert kept trying to make contact with something below. No such luck. Glancing down, Robert could see his target. It was just out of his reach.

Suddenly, above him, he heard a thud. Shit, he thought. If Enrico was in the room, he didn’t have too long left. Closing his eyes, Robert took a deep breath. Then he let go of his grip.

He came down hard on the next level, ass hitting the rail first. His balance was thrown backwards and he turned a flip in the air. For an instant he was just falling, head first, down the side of a building, incapable of stopping himself in anyway.

His fall was broken by his backside crashing down onto the 3rd floor balcony for the adjacent room of the one 2 floors under his own. He would have taken more time to writhe in pain but he still was evading a bad ass bookmaking family. Leaping up, Robert gave a hard rub to the right side of his back. Then, without a second thought, he flung himself once more, this time over the front side of the rail, right over the pool. Lucky for him, the pool was close enough to the building for this. Only as he was flying through the air did he even think to look which side was the shallow end.

Lucky for him he had chosen correctly. With a chaotic splash, Robert came to rest in the water. He wasted o time getting back out. Now walking in a drenched fashion, he picked up his briefcase, which was floating easily due to the lack of anything inside of it at the moment. Then, instead of leaping over the wall, Robert decided to walk through the front lobby and get his car and just go. His clothes were replaceable, his knee caps were not.

Quite a few people glanced as Robert pushed and brushed his way through the first floor lobbies. He acted like it was nothing out of the ordinary. He waved here and there to bell hops he knew, since he’d been around for so long. Too bad he had to check out of this one, he had liked this area so much.

Rushing up past the main front desk, Robert decided to check messages this one last time. He didn’t bother with the line; he just walked past the people there. No one said anything like, “Hey!” or “It’s not your turn!” or “Why the hell are you all wet?” as if they knew that this guy should probably just be left alone. Robert found Morgan, his favorite desk clerk.

“Good morning, Morgan.” Robert said as if absolutely nothing was wrong.
“It’s 5 in the evening sir, but thank you all the same.” Morgan looked bewildered by Roberts’s appearance.
“Right…anyways, any messages or calls?”
“Hmm…let me check…”
Robert looked over both shoulders, doing his best to not appear nervous. He wasn’t sure if Enrico was alone or not. He always had been in the past, thinking he was just that good of a collector. Still, Robert knew if they caught him, he’d have much more to worry about than the enormous Puerto Rican that had just kicked in his door.
“Ah here we are, you have one letter from Johnny Mat-…Mateos? Um, oh, and you got a call from someone working with the Turner campaign, they wouldn’t say about what.”
“Turner campaign? Are you sure?”
“Yeah, they called at about 9 this morning, we told them you were out for the day given you… current condition.”
“Fair enough. You have a return number?”
Morgan handed him a slip of paper. Robert snatched it up and strolled off impulsively.
“See you later then, Mr. Berry!” Morgan called off after him.

Now, still looking here and there for someone looking to beat the hell into and then back out of him, Robert strolled quickly for the front door. He grabbed a gratuity newspaper near the coffee bar. Just as he was nearing the front, he noticed outside of the window another familiar face, Carlos Mateos, one of the main under bosses, leaning next to his ridiculously expensive foreign car. Flipping up the front page of his paper, Robert squinted closely. It didn’t look like Carlos was carrying any major heat, but he wouldn’t really need to, would he? Aside from being an absolute maniac, Carlos was enormously built for a man that was 5 foot nothing.

Inching closer to the door, Robert grabbed the first valet parker he could. It just so happened to be Manuel. (Manuel was black, not Latino…we’re not trying to make a big deal about Latinos in crime or low paying jobs here) Manuel looked frantic when Robert grabbed him.

“What the- oh hey man. Wait, why are you all wet?” he asked right off.
“Long story, look, can you pull my car around the side?”
“Uh, yeah sure. Hey man, you see who’s parked out front there?” he pointed.
“I do.”
“Mannnn, somebody’s gettin’ themselves whacked upstairs if THAT dude’s around.”
“Tell me about it. Look, I need to get out of here, get my damn car!”
“Aight, aight, calm down, you got it.”

Within minutes, Robert was speeding off from the side entrance of the Philadelphia Hilton in his 1998 Mercedes Benz E320, heading south out of the city as soon as humanly possible. Which wasn’t too fast, apparently there were plenty of people fleeing something in Pennsylvania. Traffic was near standstill for as far as Robert could see. Still nervous and still dripping wet, Robert now turned back to the paper and the developing story of his best friend from home, Gregory Turner, and the insane amount of press he was getting. Remembering the number Morgan had given him, Robert pulled out his cell phone. Except it wasn’t his own cell phone, it was one of the girls. Which wasn’t good at all, considering the amount of clients that he had in there, but for the moment, he would try not to worry about that. He called the number for Greg.

After 2 rings, an elderly sounding man picked up. Upon hearing his name, the man quickly ran to get Greg. Greg’s voice hissed in, impossible to mistake or forget as anyone else.

“Good afternoon, old friend. I’ve been tryin’ to call you all day, what happened to your old phone?”
“It’s jettisoned for the moment. How are you doin?”
“I’m hangin’ in there, just trying to keep everything rolling? You been watching the news?”
“Of course. You got some kinda deal goin or somethin’ right? You were tryin to sell somethin’ or whatever on TV?” Robert jested. A loud chuckle came from the other end.
“So listen, I have a proposition for your busy self.”

Just then Robert was getting a call on the other end. “Ok, buddy, just one moment.” He switched over quickly. He knew who was calling him right away.

His own phone was.

“Good morning, you cock suckers!” Robert yelled in an aggravated way.
“Afternoon, Berry. It’s the afternoon. Why do you have to be this way? Can’t you just pay on time like everyone else and not make us chase you?”
“Can’t you just hop of your father’s ball sac and go make your own living? I didn’t realize you were demoted far enough to having to do all the grunt work of chasing people like me around.”
“Robert, Robert, I thought you’d heard. I’m running things on the east coast now. It’s all my operations, no questions asked. I can make all the house calls I want. Besides, I wanted to come and see such a high roller as yourself. I enjoy our conversations.”
Robert was never sure how Carlos could always be so calm when talking on the phone but such a lunatic in person. “Well I’m goin underground for a while, good luck getting whatever you claim I owe you now.”
“If I have to call your clients up myself and lose you all your business, I’ll get what I ask for.”
Oh shit, Robert thought, hadn’t thought of that. “You wouldn’t.” Oh yeah, nice comeback, dickhead, he thought.
“We’ll be in touch, Robby.”

Robert knew of only one way to get the Mateos family off his back now…2 if you counted paying them, which he doubted he would ever be able to do. He owed individuals in their bookmaking family so much that if they ever figured out all his different debts they would never stop looking for him. There was only one option.

He clicked back over to Gregory. “Sorry man, I’m listening.”



3. Never count an accountant out

When David got his call from Gregory, he was doing the very thing that neither Robert nor Jimmy ever seemed to get around to. Work.

He had been at his tiny desk in his 4 bedroom Cleveland home, furiously trying to fix the amazing amount of problems that one of his coworkers had made while trying to cover the monthly budget. Not that it mattered what his coworker or he did because someone in upper management always seemed to reorganize or cut funding or do something to make any and all of David’s work absolutely worthless. Still, he put forth the effort in hope that someone would look back and appreciate it.

In the background, David could hear the living room TV blasting some music video something or other, he didn’t really know. He’d given up trying to control anything that went on in his house since his wife had had their 2nd child. His oldest, Mallory, was just getting to the age where she was at constant war with her mother, right around 15. Jenny, at 11, was taking notes on how to wage such a war, but for the time being was still way more interested in sucking up. And Richard, the youngest at 8, was almost completely oblivious to anything that David had to say. The only thing David seemed to have less control over than his kids were his wife, Lisa.

Far off in the distance, it seemed, the phone rang. David didn’t even look in its direction; he had to figure out what the hell these numbers were trying to indicate. Mallory must’ve answered the phone because the next thing he knew, she was screaming something profane and unintelligible at him. Oh well, David thought, at least she’s talking to me still.

With a long and labored sigh, David managed to shout back up, “Ok, sweety, I got it.” He leaned over and picked up the receiver just as his daughter slammed it down. The cracking sound in his ear barely fazed him, but seemed to catch the person on the other end by surprise.

“OWW, that was unnecessary, even for such a lovely lady like Mallory, eh, Dave?”

Dave was hesitant to respond for a second, he remembered the voice on the phone but was still unsure. Part of him continued trying to work while he talked.

“This is, uh, this is David Franklin. How may I help you?”

A chuckle on the other end. “Good David, always right to business. I’d like you to fly to Washington and help me run a political campaign.”

David’s eyes became really big. He dropped the pencil still in his hand. “Greg?”
“Absolutely! How ya been, good buddy?”
“I’m…I’m fine, how are you? Well, I mean obviously you’re doing great but- how are you otherwise?”
“About as good as I can be. Carol’s driving me crazy, politics is full of liars, fakes, and cheaters. You know, as good as our country gets. How about your old nutty self? How’d Lisa manage to get to move to Cleveland?”
“Oh she wanted to be closer to her family. She’s got some friends in the area and she wanted to work part time just to have something to do during the day, and who am I to deny her of that?”
“Ah, yes, yes. So what about my question?”
“What question?”
“Dave…I want you on this campaign. What do ya say?”
“Greg…are you…are you out of your mind? I can’t run a campaign!”
“That’s what you said about getting married, having kids, and stopping smoking and drinking. Thus far, you don’t seem to be a good judge of your own capability.”

David paused at this.

“Look bud, I’m not asking you to run it. I’m asking you to help it. I need someone who knows finance stuff and guess what, you’re one of the few people in this country I both trust with my money and haven’t already recruited.”
“Greggggg, I have a family. I have a job now, I can’t just-“
“I’m not asking you to do this for free, Dave. And think about it. Political office. Washington. Real responsibility, real way to affect change. C’mon, you old salt, do it for me. Do it for your country, damnit!” Greg was getting all patriotic again.

David tried long and hard to come up with a good excuse to say no again. But he couldn’t. Gregory had always been there for any of his crazy schemes when they were younger. Perhaps he was owed this. Greg was one of his original best friends, and at the end of the day, if he wanted David’s help, he was getting David’s help.

“Where do you want me to come meet you?”
“Home.”


4. You is talkin’ loco and I like it

Greg hung up the phone and thrust his arms up in the air in triumph. He had just pulled it off. More or less.

Kelly, his secretary, was walking by just as he did this. She paused and stared as she so often did, then shook her head and started to keep walking.

“Well aren’t you gonna ask me what I’m celebrating?”
“Actually, I figured it was something I didn’t want anything to do with. Am I right?”
“…Sort of. You’re already involved, so there’s nothing you can do about it now, toots.” Greg said as he pulled out a bottle of champagne from his desk drawer. Out came 2 glasses with it.
“Okayyyyy, now you can tell me what that means.”
“Or I could just wait for you figure it out yourself.”
“Well then I would need to know what you just finished doing.”
“I just got off the phone with my last new cabinet addition. My new finance manager.”
“But I thought you said you just called your old buddy from grade school.”
“David Franklin. Accounting extraordinaire.”
“I thought you said he was a nervous wreck, why would you bring him along?”
“Same reason I’d bring along Jim and Robby. Nostalgia.”
“Jim and Robby? You’re putting them in an office? In this office?” Greg’s smile began to bleed through his deliberate stern expression.
“Ok, what is going on? I understood putting a bunch of dead beats from the party in with you, but these guys? I remember Jim from your wedding, that guy doesn’t do anything productive except eat, sleep, and breed new strains of bacteria. And Robert? He’s already had reputations in multiple cities for being a huge horn dog and an even bigger gambling addict!”
“Just a bit louder, Kelly, there’s a dozen campaign workers outside that didn’t catch the last part about Jim.”

Kelly stopped and looked over her shoulder. “My point is, what in gods name are you doing? This is a huge race, why are you trying to ruin it for yourself already?!” she whispered fiercely.

Greg sat and rolled his eyes at her for a second. Then he returned his attention to the cork in his hand. With a pop, it flew across his tiny office and landed on a stack of papers somewhere off to the side.

“Kelly, do you remember what I said when they first tried to nominate me for this initiative? I told them then and there that I didn’t want this responsibility. I told them I didn’t have the integrity that I would want in this party’s presidential candidate. I said that my platforms weren’t what they needed to be to convince a NATION to choose me, let alone a bunch of greedy, conniving leeches known as Congress. Don’t you see? I want out. Out of politics. And this just might be the only way anyone will ever let me just go. This way, not only will the MAC party accept my resignation, they won’t ever approach me for any other kind of political action, along with anyone else. I can stop acting like a goddamn saint. I can go walking in public and have people not rush up and try to tell me how much they admire me. I can finally give my wife what she and I both desperately want…a divorce.” He shifted out of his seat and snagged Kelly’s hand. Tugging her close up to him and whirling her around, he whispered in her ear, “and then we don’t have to keep up the lies anymore.”

Leaning back onto his shoulder, Kelly nearly shivered as Greg’s right hand moved its way up her thigh. She closed her eyes and turned her forehead onto his neck. Trying to fight her urges, she found herself giving into Greg’s whispering in her ear, one of her fetishes. She now turned and grabbed him by the collar. She forced a passionate kiss onto him. Then, as he began to wrap her into his arms as well, she leaned her head back. “You’d rather be a pariah than a politician?”
“If you ask me, politicians always end up becoming just that.”

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