Anaideia 12

I hopped into work with bells on my toes and my head held high. I greeted each coworker with a joviality that would make John Candy smile. “Good morning Mike!” I said to one.

“Who the fuck are you?”

I danced and twirled all the way to my work station where Dale was hard at it. “My goddamn bitch of wife came back from Florida,” he said to me immediately. “She said she went there to visit her grandma but I called bullshit. I told her to get her shit and get the fuck out of my West Covina trailer. She cried and cried over the children but I told her ‘bitch! My dick’s been dead for 20 years! Fuck the children and FUCK YOU!’ So she grabbed her things and is staying with her friend in Hacienda Heights. I got rip roaring drunk and called her up and begged her to come back but then she threatened me with a restraining order! Can you believe this shit?”

“Good morning Dale!” I said. “Yeah that sounds fucked up but I’m sure things will work out. You gotta stay positive, ya know?”

“Yeah, I’m positive I’ve got a polyp in my ass!”

I nodded and began putting on my heavy duty work gloves and protective glasses. As I picked up a cloth to help wipe down the toilets rolling off the assembly line, Dale gave me a puzzled glance. “It’s 6:45am,” he said. “Work doesn’t start until 7. You’re four hours early!”

“Well goddamn,” I said. I stripped off the gloves and glasses and headed straight for the bathroom to commence my extra long shit. But before I could get there, the boss man announced there was an all hands meeting in the break room. I forwent the shit and followed the gaggle of workers into the cramped break room and waited for the boss man to appear. Finally, 45 minutes later, he shows up all smiles. “Great news everyone,” he announced, “my son who attends USC will escape all sexual assault charges from the Los Angeles Superior Court. Thank god for expensive attorneys.”

He lead the crowd with a round of applause.

“Unfortunately I have some bad news,” he continued. “Toilet sales are down and the only way for this factory and corporate shareholders to turn a profit is if we have mass layoffs. Now look to your left and your right. There’s a good chance that the person next to you won’t be here next week. But that’s all I’ve got for you folks. Let’s go out there and have a productive day!”

Some shuffled out of the break room shedding a river of tears but I wasn’t gonna let this news ruin my day. So Dale and I returned to work where Dale continued to bitch and I halfassed my responsibilities.

“Fuck it,” Dale declared, “if they’re gonna lay me off, I’ll just go home and blow my brains out.”

“Yeah that’s one good solution Dale,” I said. “But I prefer less violent resolution to my problems. I’d probably pick off a liquor store or steal from my senile grandmother. There seems to be too much finality with death, ya know?”

As Dale pondered my comment, the boss man approached and asked me to follow him into his office. Figuring my inevitable termination, I tossed off my gloves and spat on the ground. I followed him past the lobby and into the office area where several corporate officials sat around a conference table. I was instructed to take a seat at the end of the table with the bulldog-looking plant manager on the other end. The boss man sat on one side while HR sat on the other.

“You’ve been an employee here for a long time,” the plant manager began. “How long has it been?”

HR shuffles through some papers before landing on my name. “Four weeks,” replied HR.

“And you’ve been a very productive employee,” the manager continued. “You show up, you wear clothes, you eat and breathe, sometimes you talk…”

“Spare me the bullshit,” I interrupted. “I know I’m getting canned so jump to it. Is there a severance package? If not then let’s stop jerking each other off and let me go home.”

The manager nervously chuckled and scratched his head. “What are you talking about?” he asked. “We’re not laying you off. We’re giving you a goddamn promotion! Congratulations buddy! You’re one of us now!”

I cock my head. “Promotion?” I say. “You mean more money?”

“You’re goddamn right pal!” he beams. “How does a dollar or a dollar and a half sound?”

I raise my head in suspicion. “What’s the catch?”

“No catch. You get promoted to supervisor and we pay you more money.”

The manager flicks a piece of paper across the table and it slides towards me. I pick it up and attempt to decipher the legalese. Then a pen comes sliding towards me from HR. “Just sign it,” the manager urged.

I shake my head in disbelief. “You know I can’t read this shit,” I say.

“Look,” the manager pleaded, “all we need you to do is do the work of seven to eight people with minimal help or support from us and you’ll make $8.36 an hour. It seems like a fair wage.”

My palms were sweating as I contemplated signing the document. It was a lot of money to just come in and take three shits per day. But I felt a higher calling. Something felt different about this day and I had to follow my instincts. “I can’t do it,” I say, “something about it doesn’t feel right.”

The manager takes off his glasses and sets them down in front of him. He clasps his hands. “You understand that if you don’t sign it that you will be laid off,” he explains.

“No shit?” I ask. I take a moment to collect my thoughts. “In that case, I tender my resignation,” I finally said. I stand up and straightened out my piss stained shirt. “Good day gentlemen,” I say.

“But if you resign before you’re laid off then you won’t be able to collect unemployment,” HR informs me.

“That’s a risk I’m willing to take,” I say. I proceed to the doorway and release a massive ass fart before closing the door.

Outside as I walk back to dingy apartment, I stop to smoke a cigarette. Under the glorious Los Angeles sun, I felt unyoked for the first time in my life. Perhaps now was the time to pursue my dream of owning a head shop in San Bernardino, or at least I kept reassuring myself that. But before I could ignite my lighter, I noticed a familiar face staring back at me from across the street. She was holding up a pair of binoculars while sitting in the driver’s seat of a beige Chrysler 200.

TO BE CONTINUED…

Anaideia 11

A demon-like wraith crawled up my leg in the middle of the night and I struggled to breathe. I tried to fight the creature away yet it taunted me. Silent screams rung out from my body as the beastly thing threatened to devour me whole. I twist and I turn. I futilely and desperately try to escape my fate, and then like a pardon from god, the nightmare was over. The sweet reprieve of wakefulness blessed me with the familiarity of my own bedroom and the sounds of Los Angeles outside. I couldn’t believe my luck.

So I climb out of bed and rush to the window. From my second floor apartment I could see an adolescent man tagging a phallic image on a loaded dumpster with a can of spray paint. I open the window and cried out.

“You, boy!” I shouted. “What day may it be?”

The man looked up. “It’s Thursday you fuckin moron,” he said.

Christ, I thought. That meant I had to be at work in a few hours. I dig through the hamper to find a wrinkled pair of pants and a grease-stained shirt. I throw them on and forgo brushing my teeth and rush out the door. But as I was walking out, I noticed a small business card at the foot of the door. I lean down to pick it up and flip the card over. Susan Brusheti, Fixer it read. This wasn’t good; a known trafficker of human organs knew where I lived.

I stuffed the card into my pocket, went down the stairs, and made a beeline to the nearest convenience store. I walked in and grabbed a six pack of Miller High Life and sat it on the counter. The white Rastafarian clerk looked up from his Car and Driver magazine and glared. “Sir, it’s four thirty in the morning,” he told me, “we can’t sell alcohol until seven.”

“Since when” I ask.

“It’s been California law for at least 50 years.”

“Shit,” I said under my breath. “Well I gotta be at work this morning. Can you sell me anything that will fuck me up?”

Annoyed, the clerk drops his magazine and looks at the locked plastic displays on the counter. “We got some kratom here I guess,” he said.

“Is it any good?”

“Shit if I know. I don’t touch that crap.”

I shell out the $150 for seven tablets of kratom and buy a 24 oz Monster Energy drink on top of that. I walk outside and crack open the kratom and swallow a couple of tablets. Feeling parched, I then start drinking the Monster. After walking a few blocks towards Sunset, I felt better than I had in a long time. “Maybe life isn’t a waking nightmare after all,” I say to myself.

Trying my luck, I throw out my thumb to hitch a ride. Almost instantly, a bloated boomer pulls up curbside in a red 2003 Mitsubishi Eclipse. “Hey buddy, you need a ride?” he asks in a gruff voice. Skid Row’s “Slave to the Grind” was blasting on the radio.

“Fuck yeah dude!” I say then jump into the passengers seat.

The boomer tear-asses down the street and pops open a fifth of Jack. “Care for a swig?” he asks. I take a swig. Then he asks me where I was headed. “To the toilet factory off Sunset,” I say.

“You’re going to work?” he asks.

“Yes sir.”

“Fuck that shit,” he says then lays on the gas.

It was seconds, or maybe minutes, or maybe hours before we were in the hills. By that time the lights appeared as bright streaks racing through the sky like distorted stars. I felt like a child journeying through the birth canal. The world and time itself seemed distilled into a single wormhole, the other side of which awaited a new universe. Perhaps it was the sun rising in the east, or maybe my pupils were overly dilated, but the earth was changing. As we rammed through the streets of the Hollywood Hills, I looked down onto the city and for the first time I entered the places only dreamed by monks and ancient philosophers: the supreme sublime beauty. My mind was awakened and my body felt the blissful lassitude of a long journey. But like all good things, this too must end. We trekked down the hills and back towards Sunset. The city was now awake and bustling with vehicles going to and fro. Everything that I had once cursed now seemed to be in its proper place; the world was whole.

The Eclipse pulled into the toilet factory parking lot. The lethargic and groggy-eyed workers shuffled into the building under the morning sun yet I was reinvigorated. When the car came to a complete stop, I looked to the boomer. “Thanks for taking me into the hills,” I tell him. “It was a journey of a thousand miles and I’m thankful for every step.”

The boomer looked at me side-eyed. “The fuck you talking about kid?” he asked. “You were in my car for five minutes.”

TO BE CONTINUED…

Anaideia part 10

I waited for a cab outside the tawdry gates of Big Dick Cedars. The burly guard approached me with a stack of old and faded nudie cards he found stashed away in the guard shack. “Can you believe my luck?” he asked as he held a picture of a fully bushed woman spread eagle on an eight of spades.

“Pretty neat,” I said.

“I know! I can’t play solitaire without getting a boner!”

But as he thumbed through each card with increasing intensity, the taxi pulled curbside and rolled down the window. My heart sank when I saw the driver. “You son of a bitch!” the cabbie shouted. It was the same racist cabbie I stiffed earlier in the day.

Panicked, I grabbed the guard’s pistol believing it to be a 9mm then I aimed and fired it at the driver. Instead of a bullet, a prong shot out and attached itself to the cabbie. While he convulsed from numerous volts of electricity, I dropped the taser and headed for the bushes. I realized then that there was only one way back to Los Angeles and that was on my own two feet.

21 hours later I was back on the outskirts LA. With my feet rubbed raw and the soles of my shoes hanging by a thread, I crawled into my flat on all fours. I headed straight towards the kitchen and grabbed the last beer in the fridge. It was a Pabst BlueRibbon. “Goddamn piss water,” I said to myself. Vic must have drank the last of my Miller High Life. But I cracked open the PBR and crawled to the couch and tried to enjoy the lukewarm beer.

Right as I was about to doze off, Vic came through the front door carrying machete, a 12 gauge shotgun, and a dead boar. “Evening mate,” he greeted in his Scottish draw.

“I didn’t think there were wild boar in California,” I say.

“There’s not,” he explains as he throws off his gear. “Ay went huntin in the San Gabriel Mountains and was stalked by two prowlin cougars. I killed em both with me machete and used their skins to make me loincloth. Aye, I had a good dee killin’.”

“But how did you get the boar?”

“Tha boar? Oh that’s just roadkill mate.”

Vic strips out of his bloodied shirt and mud-caked pants to expose his cougar-skinned loincloth. Unbridled by clothes and restrictions of modern man, he stood like a Roman god in my living room. The half naked Scot then picked up an acoustic guitar and gently plucked away as he sang hymns from the mother land. I finished my can of piss water and threw the crushed piece of aluminum across the room. Vic stopped his serenading. “Oy mate, where have you been all day?” he asks.

“Norco,” I say.

“Norco? Why would you go to tha shitehole?”

“Someone owed me money. It’s like the goddamn wild west out there.”

“Aye. It’s the wild west everywhere mate.”

I rub my hands across my face as I choked back tears. “How did the world get so crazy?” I ask.

Vic lays down the guitar and leans forward. “The world has always been crazy,” he says. “We’re just feeble beings floating on an insignificant rock through time and space. Some days you’re up but most days you’re down yet the world spins madly round. They say that man is born into sin but his soul can be redeemed. But I say man is rotted to the bone. There is not one pure creature that walks this earth. Nay not one. God was right to look upon his creation and curse it. And if god has cursed us to live this madness then what hope have we? The pursuit of sanity will forever remain an empty one. In fact it’s something worse. It’s vanity.”

TO BE CONTINUED…

Anaideia part 8

I descended into the valley of opulence and avarice where blissful ignorance is felt in these enclaves. Protected by the herringbone floors and Italian marble, these people are shielded from the heat raging from the plebeians at the gate. I was an unwelcomed intruder in these parts, for as a weightless gadfly I shattered their pristine slant. Now they walk with their self-assured innocence, but later they possess a fate worse than hell.

Such was the gated community of ‘Big Dick Cedars’. I waltzed up to the guard gate where a large burly man with a stretched out polo and a 9mm was fingering his nose. He gazed upon me through rounded glasses and droopy eyes. “Hello sir. Welcome to Big Dick Cedars. Are you visiting someone today?” he asks.

“Yes. I’m here to see Randall J Furie,” I say.

“Is he expecting you?”

“He better be.”

The guard radios to another. “I’ll have someone meet you at the gate,” he says to me.

I step a few feet away to the main entrance. While I waited, I expected to be greeted by another dopey looking guard. But when the gate swung open it was the same man. “Welcome to Big Dick Cedars,” he says to me again, “please take a seat in the golf cart and I’ll escort you to Mr. Furie’s.”

I sit in the dilapidated cart. The leather seats were torn and one could barely see through the plexiglass windshield. When the guard turned the key, the cart pushed forward at a snail’s pace. I could have got out and walked faster. There were also speed bumps every 15 feet and the guard made it a point to hit every one. “You can never be too safe,” he told me as the cart struggled to hurdle the meager obstacle. 45 minutes later, in a walk that I could have made in 10, we arrive at Randall J. Furie’s Greek revival mansion.

The guard steps out of the cart and pulls up his sagging khaki pants then escorts me past the fountains and Maseratis to the front door. He knocks loudly then belches. “So you know Randall well?” he asks me.

“You’re goddamn right I do. And his name is Randy.”

The guard nods and pounds on the door again. When someone bothered to answer it, it was a tall and proper looking butler wearing all the proper butler garb. He opens the door and looks me up and down. “So you hea ta see Mista Furie?” he asks in an unexpected Cajun accent.

“Yup. The son of a bitch owes me money.”

“Come on in suh. Kick off your shoes n stay awhile.”

I step inside to the marble floors and kick off my shoes. I follow the gangly butler through the foyer, past the kitchen, down some corridors, past another kitchen, a billiards room, a home theater, a Subway stand, another kitchen, two replicas of the USS Defiant bridge from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, a toilet complete with a bidet, the servant’s quarters, some starving Vietnamese children, a Pol Pot memorabilia room, and finally to the reception room to Randy’s office. The secretary was none too pleased to see me.

“Mr. Furie is a very busy man,” that bitch of a secretary said. “Why didn’t you set an appointment?”

“Why don’t you mind your own business lady?” I responded.

“It’s quite alright Blanch,” a cheerful voice was heard from the other room. Randy stepped out from behind the leather padded door. He was shoeless and donning his signature wayfarers. “Welcome to my humble abode,” he said to me with all smiles, “I’ve been expecting you.”

TO BE CONTINUED…

And yet another shot at the title (part xxxx)

“Why am I doing this shitty cash grab for the studio?” I ask Dan after my summons to the production office. Kat was standing around dumbfounded as usual while Dick was menacingly stroking his chin in the corner.

“What else would you be doing with your life?” Dan questioned. “Raising a family? Have a love life? You’re none of those things. You’re a shark, James. You were put on this earth to do one thing: make movies.”

“I concur,” Dick interjected as he stepped out of the shadows. “This Jimmy fellow, he’s a piss ant. Now’s not the time to cower down and retreat to your home in the hills. Now’s the time to wear down your prey like a stalking lioness in the Serengeti.”

I nodded my head. It was hard to find fault in these gentlemen’s arguments. Then I turned to the lead producer. “What do you think Kat?” I ask.

She began to stammer. “I…I…I think right now we should be concerned with moving forward and making a good product,” she said.

“Quite right,” I agreed. “Perhaps I acted too hastily when I named Cornelius as director. I’ll let him and Greta know that I’ll be stepping back into my directorial duties.”

“No!” Dan angrily shouted. I was a bit taken aback by this sudden burst of emotion.

“But Dan, he’s just a kid. Literally!” Kat pleaded.

Dan tried to backtrack. “But this is the perfect opportunity to, to…,” he began to trail off. “…to let James step back while still being involved.”

Kat and I both found this excuse to be lacking. “You know I can’t let that happen,” Kat explained. “There’s too much money involved and…”

“Yes yes yes, the studio,” Dan interrupted. “Kat, you’re an accomplished producer but perhaps you should let the men do the talking.”

“Now Dan,” I said, “I’m as guilty of old timey sexism as the next guy, but even that was pretty low for me.”

The attorney came to his senses. “Right,” he nodded, “my apologies. I guess I’ve invested a lot of time into James that I don’t want my efforts to go to waste. But at any rate, Cornelius needs to stay on as a director. James, you mentor him. And I’ll remain on set and iron out any problems with the studio. That is all. Good day.” Then he marched off set.

When Dan was out of earshot, Kat looked to me. “What the hell was that about?” she asked.

I think I knew. But probably due to a lack of giving a shit, I waved the incident off. “Casper needs to get that buttplug shoved back up his ass,” I told her. “We have a job to do.”

TO BE CONTINUED…

And yet another shot at the title (part xxxiv)

Ma Sheila Easton sat stone faced, arms crossed but tits still out, with the rest of the producing crew. Dick was there, gloomy eyed and staring off into space. Kat was terrified. Because sitting next to her was Jimmy, annoyed and red faced as he usually was.

I sauntered in knowing what this meeting was about and ready to have it over with. “Take a seat,” Jimmy ordered me.

“Nah, I’m good,” I told him. “It was only a minor blowup with me and my former agent. I haven’t alerted the media. I’m just stepping aside and letting my grandson take over.”

“He’s still in high school. You know I can’t let him take over a multimillion dollar production,” Jimmy said.

Dan Gillespie rushed into the production office with his suitcase in hand. “Sorry, I was just in court handing Bret Radner’s latest sexual harassment lawsuit when I got word,” he told everyone.” He sat his suitcase down and laid his hands on my shoulders. “James, are you okay?” he asked.

“I’m fine. But we might have to restructure my deal with the studio.”

“Oh for fuck’s sake!” Jimmy shouted. “We haven’t even shot one frame of film and you’re already causing problems!”

Dan gave Jimmy a raged glance and began wagging his finger. “Jimmy, I can have your ass on a spike!” he warned.

“Relax everyone!” I said. “I don’t understand what the big deal is! Let’s not pretend that we’ve forgotten all the other crazy shit I’ve done!”

Jimmy rubbed his face. “Alright alright,” he calmly said. “Can we have some privacy please? I want to talk to James alone.”

All the producers happily got up left the room. Only Dan stayed behind. “That includes you bucko!” Jimmy warned Dan.

Dan shook his head. “I don’t think so,” he said. “James is my client.”

Jimmy threw his hands in the air. “So be it,” he surrendered.

Kat was the last one out and she shut the door behind her. Dan and I stood at one end of the table with Jimmy on the other. “So,” Jimmy began, “I guess this is how it’s going to be.”

I was puzzled. “This is how it’s always been Jimmy,” I said.

He nodded. “True. But we’ve know each other a long time my friend. I’ll be 80 next month. I was hoping to be retired by now, living the rest of my years with my dear Darla in the Hamptons. Instead, I’m in Burbank trying to reason with a lunatic.”

I shrugged. “What’s your point?”

There was a long uncomfortable silence as Jimmy pondered. “I guess I don’t get it,” he finally spoke. “What is it that you want?”

“I dunno,” I thought. “Money, drugs, sex, booze…”

“No no, that’s not what I meant,” he interrupted. “I mean, you’ve achieved everything that can be achieved. How old are you? You look 90 if you were a day. Why bother with this obvious studio cash grab?”

TO BE CONTINUED…

And yet another shot at the title (part xxxviii)

“Ass,” Cornelius spoke.

“Pardon?” I ask.

“Men’s asses. Everywhere. You said there’d be tits on set.”

“Ohhh…,” I replied, “I understand your confusion. You see Cornelius, when you make movie, you have to put things in to make everyone happy. Sure everyone likes to see a luscious pair of tits, but men’s asses have their value too. They’re very funny to look at. And that’s the first thing you should know about filmmaking.”

Out of the production offices, Pee-Wee rushed up and coward before me. “Please don’t hit me sir,” he begged.

“Why would I strike you?” I questioned. “Sure you’re a weak little man that I despise but I’m not a monster ya know?”

“But I’m here to inform you that I will no longer serve as your assistant.”

“But Pee-Wee, after all we’ve been through?”

“Yes sire. I am defecting from your team to join Greta’s.”

My first instinct was to ball up my fist and scream obscenities at the poor fellow. Yet I understood things were changing. Besides, moments before I relinquished my directorial duties to Cornelius. So I lifted up Pee-Wee and put my hands gently on his face. “I just want to say thank you Pee-Wee for all the horseshit I put you through,” I told him. “Sure, you were never worthy of working in my presence, but you performed admirably. I wish you godspeed.”

“Really?” he cried.

“Not really. I’m just being professionally courteous.”

“But I must tell you sir, as one last act in your service, Jimmy and Kat told me that they wish to see you.”

All the rage that normally boiled just beneath the surface nearly spilled over. But I didn’t lash out at Pee-Wee. “Pee-Wee,” said I, “today I grant you a reprieve. Unfortunately I’m no longer the director of this picture. Those responsibilities have fallen to my grandson Cornelius. And I am sure as a primary director, his first order of business will be to beat your ass. Have a good day sir.”

TO BE CONTINUED…

And yet another shot at the title (part xxxi)

“$400 million?!” Greta shouted.

“That’s his asking price,” I said.

“$400 million for an actor that hasn’t been in a picture in 20 years and was never that popular to begin with?”

“It’s only money,” I shrugged.

Greta shook her head. “There’s no way,” she said. “You might as well pile that money in this office and light it on fire. And besides, I already offered the role to Ryan Duckling.”

“But I already offered Casper the role.”

“When were you going to discuss this with me?!”

“When were you going to discuss Ryan Duckling with me?”

Greta tried to reply but words kept failing her. Finally I shushed her and spoke in a low, calming tone. “Why are we always fighting?” I asked. “Aren’t we a team? Isn’t this production supposed to be the teaming up of the two greatest filmmakers of our time? There’s got to be a way to resolve this as two sensible people.”

“James, like you’ve done many times before, you hijacked this movie!”

“Now wait a minute! You wanted me here! Sure you fired me and I took the studio to court and got an attorney killed, but that’s all in the past! This is now. So might I suggest a compromise: give Ryan the lead. Casper can be the villain. Does that sound fair?”

“And the $400 million?”

“I’ll pay it out of my own pocket. What does it matter to me? I fart on set and I make $400 million.”

“You’re a fool. The villain is only on screen for 10 minutes.”

“Worth every penny.”

“That’s $666,666 per second of screen time.”

“So it’s a deal?”

“You do what you want. I’ve got my hands full at the moment,” she explained as she gathered up paperwork. “I gotta be on the sound stage in 20 minutes.”

When I asked her about Pablo, her mood changed. “Oh he’s wonderful,” Greta beamed. “Did you know he played chess in college?”

I was puzzled. “Pablo went to college?” I ask.

“Yeah. Majored in physics. Minored in Russian literature.”

“Pablo?!”

“Yup. And he negotiated an incredible contract. He knows this picture will make billions. So I’m entitled to all the merchandising rights. Isn’t that great!”

“He never did that for me.”

“He’s one of the best in the business. You know, you never should have let him go as your agent.”

“Are you sure we’re talking about the same Pablo?”

TO BE CONTINUED…

And yet another shot at the title (part xxii)

In its nearly 22,000 years of existence, the city of Burbank sat as a barren heap on the Los Angeles basin. They say that the natives used it as a staging ground for child sacrifices, senseless slaughtering of enemies captured in meaningless disputes lost to history. Since man began sowing the fields of Eden, Burbank remained a godless land where even the most savage beast dare not tread. When the white man came, those conquistadors found acres of cow shit and rivers fouled with the funk carcasses rotted. There it remained for another hundred years before a movie executive saw fit to build a studio there. Nothing has changed in the time since. Still the stench and ghosts of men long dead shout aloud in its halls. At the very center of this ghastly haunt is Trainwreck Productions which sits as a Caesar watching over its forsaken wasteland. No one dares challenge him. For what king would be foolish enough to lay claim?

That’s when I graced its halls. Perhaps for the last time I thought.

Pablo was waiting on me in the lobby. He was more alert than usual. “I don’t know why but Kat and Jimmy aren’t talking to me,” he explained.

“That’s okay. Dan is taking care of contract negotiations,” I said.

He was flummoxed. “Well, am I still your agent?”

“I haven’t fired you yet,” I shrugged.

“Goddamnit,” he said. “Then let’s get this day over with.”

Kat joined us moments later. “Great news fellas!” she exclaimed.

“What’s that? I’m finally getting back pay for my work on This Tastes Like Ass?” I ask.

She cocked her head. “No. The elevator is finally working. So no more crawling up the air ducts.”

It wasn’t much but it was something. Perhaps a sign of things to come. After all it only took 30 years. So the three of us crowded into the cramped elevator, Kat more chipper than usual. “Did you remember to bring your script notes?” she leaned forward to ask me.

“You should know me by now Kat,” I told her. “When have I ever taken notes?”

TO BE CONTINUED…

And yet another shot at the title (part xvii)

It was defeat. There was no way to sugarcoat it. Dan didn’t say a word to me as we walked out of the courtroom. As we approached the vending machines, he stopped dead in his tracks.

“You okay, Dan?” I ask.

His briefcase fell to his feet and he began shaking. “I…I…,” he started to stutter.

“Now’s not the time to have a stroke,” I warned.

Then tears began to slowly stream down his face. “I’m sorry I shit the bed in there,” he cried, then buried his head into my shoulder.

I could have belittled him. I could have made him feel like the useless attorney that he now was. His weakness somewhat disgusted me. But Instead I felt something that had never once occurred to me in my entire life.

It was compassion.

I placed my arms around the large Texas lawyer in a calming embrace. “It’s okay Dan,” I told him, “I always knew it would come to this. I’ll hand the money over to Jimmy then go back to my home in the hills, put on my white kimono, and commit ritual seppuku just like in the days of the samurai. It’s a warrior’s death. There’s no shame in it.”

“My father always told me that I shouldn’t be a lawyer,” Dan cried. “He said only Jews and queers practice law and my penis isn’t circumcised so what does that make me?!”. Then he bawled loudly onto my shoulder. “Oh how I curse the day I got my law license!”

“Jesus Christ, Dan,” I said. But his lamenting stirred up my own fears and doubts. I began to question myself; had I known that all my successes and victories led me here, to this cursed hall of justice, would I have chosen a different path? I didn’t have an answer. Like Dan, I began to feel as though my whole life’s mission was meaningless. So we let him weep away and pout himself in vain for things that cannot be undone.

As we stood there motionless in a mournful embrace, a passerby approached us. “Are you two okay?” the fellow asked.

“We’re fine. Thank you,” I responded.

“Is the gentleman crying your client?”

“No. He’s my attorney.”

TO BE CONTINUED…