e Georey Melinda Georges Stories

An Untrue Non-Fictional Autobiography

by Georey Melinda Georges

(Ghost Written by Danny Cohen)

To Greg, Youve parked me in. Could you moe your car? anks.

Foreword When I was asked to write the forward for this autobiography, I paused for a moment before cashing the enclosed check. In a 1992 prole in the e New York Times Magazine, Georey Melinda Georges was called an enigmatic non-Arab lothario. ey could not have hit the nail on the head more if they had a literal nail to hammer into the so spot on Georeys skull. e extreme historical anachronisms presented in this book only solidify the incredible life that Georey has had. While he is from the post-war baby boom era, his memories jump back and forth like an exuberant kid playing jump rope. And much like that exuberant kid, Georey reads at a third-grade level. is is no matter, as Georey has had no part in the reading of his autobiography. When the reader (hopefully yourself, unless youve selflessly purchased this for someone else in an odd moment of generosity) begins the amazing journey through the life of Georey, he will pass through a metaphorical river, full of equally metaphorical feral wildlife. Waist-deep in chilling waters, the reader will begin to doubt the truth of this harrowing book. But have no doubts all the stories contained in this paper-packet are as true as the metaphors previously mentioned. Only then, once doubt is erased and replaced with an odd smell, will the reader truly know that he has taken the journey that Georey himself passed through. It is one of fortitude and expired milk. I have known Georey for many years and I do not use that term lightly. He has led a storied life full of strife, knife and wife. While our friendship has been tested through his many trials, he has always been true to the world. Now I invite you to discover Georey Melinda Georges in a private way. Danny Cohen Underground Bunker, ird USA

Chapter 1 Birth Boner. It all started with a boner. And thirteen months later I was born to a young couple in the Black Hills of South Dakota. Melinda Villaroli Postoni ed Italy in 1942 with her daughter, the twelve-year-old Regina. An admired opera singer in her home country, Melinda came to America penniless. She lost everything during the War of the Worlds Part 2. ey arrived at Ellis Island in 1943 and were quickly funneled into the Old Neighborhood, a hotbed of multinational immigration and mononational geography. e two women set up in an apartment above a cobbler above a clockmaker who shared his shop with a watchmaker. Regina would spend days seeing the clockmaker and watchmaker yell at customers, explaining the virtues of their respective products. Why are you going to make yourself sweat carrying a watch around all day, just throw it up on a wall. What good does a clock do you? Keep on breaking your neck to see that thing. Just look at your arm, you can move your arm, right? Melinda taught music lessons in their apartment. She would oer the C-scale for free, but charge for the others. From time to time, Melinda could be caught soly singing when she thought Regina was asleep. Regina, on the other hand, was not asleep. She could hear the subtle sadness in Melindas songs. I Miss My Childhood Love and I Am Really Truly Very Sad were some of the cryptic tunes that Melinda would sing. is was an important time for the Old Neighborhood. A huge street festival brought all the big names during the summer of 1943. While Melinda stayed inside, Regina wandered the streets seeing the sights. e meatball had recently come into vogue, and no one was able to advertise this recent cultural bombshell like the Dwight D. Eisenhower. I take two meatballs in the morning to help me ght those Axis jungle rats, he would tout as he toured
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the festival. e corpse of Tesla, kept from rotting in a vacuumed argon-lled glass tube by Einstein, was pushed throughout the crowds. Henrick Hugo, the mayor of the Old Neighborhood, gave a speech proclaiming that a new era of immigrant-empowerment would be taking the country by storm, and it would all start right there in the Old Neighborhood: I have no doubt that the melting pot that we have here will continue to be piping hot, and we will be able ladle up opportunity into the ready bowls of the American economy. In January of 1944, hard times hit the Old Neighborhood. A strange cold winter brought unheard of amounts of snow. e local science man, Professor Alan B. Harking, said that jealousy and the murderous fuel of gin was to blame for the odd barometric readings. e local ham market was shut down. Frostbitten pails and dirty wingtips piled up on street corners. Haystacks shrunk to sizes smaller than a ngernail. Worst of all was the sickness. Melinda got stricken with what was at the time called Soggy Lung. Soggy Lung was a very contagious illness. She had to stop her piano lessons and could not pay for the only known treatment of Soggy Lung, a sponge shoved down the throat for several hours at a time. Melinda could not take care of her child. Regina was taken in by the Church and spent her time sleeping in the church basement. Regina enjoyed spending time listening to the footsteps of churchgoers above her and playing games with the nuns. She learned how to combine the rustic Italian cooking of her mother with the bland, uninspiring delights of the nuns. As the winter was nearing its end and spring was about to peek its blushing head from the gutter, Melinda could hold on no longer. She passed in the evening. Having no other relatives, Regina became property of the church. All that she had of her mother was a single piano key, a recipe for Zatarain's, and a silver spoon engraved with her name. Regina became property of the church. Losing her mother and home brought about a sadness in her, and knowing she was stuck in the church basement only made it worse. For the rst days,
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she would not leave the small closet in which she had been placed. She ran out of tissues, then handkerchiefs, and nally ended up drying her eyes and blowing her nose on the canvas cot. Aer a week, she emerged and was ready to begin a new chapter in her life. e next four years were slow for her. She became intimate with the steps of the church she regularly scrubbed. She learned the bible backwards and forwards from the bibles she had to create by hand. Regina would later recall this time as the beginning of how everything went wrong. Regina was trained as a missionary. Soon, she, another girl, and a nun got their marching orders to the Black Hills of the Dakota. Despite the territory known as Dakota already having been established in the late 19th century, the Lakota were still rampantly vigilant in the area. In light of the recent Red Scare, the Church was worried about these areas of Native American groups becoming hot pockets for communist regimes to gain hold of America. It was their intention to turn these redskins into full red blooded Americans to protect themselves from the Reds. e month-long journey to the Black Hills from the Old Neighborhood was a wonderful experience for Regina. ey took the train from e Old Neighborhood into Manhattan, and from there to Chicago and nally Sioux City. She learned so much from the nun named Sister Magg. Regina enjoyed hearing about all the things that Sister Magg had planned for them when they got to the Lakota reservation. ey would sing songs about being friends, make dream catchers, and bake cookies. It all sounded so wonderful. Yet, when they arrived in Sioux City to get into the covered wagon that would take them deep into the Black Hills, it became clear that the fun would not be as fun as they had previously thought. e unnished road that led to the Lakota reservation was long, winding and bumpy. Although it was summer when they began their trip, the bitter autumn was beginning. Harsh winds and dusty eyeballs and similar things of the like. ings were tense at rst for Regina and the nuns. e natives did not understand why they were there. Not wanting to let
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on, the nun said it was for research on how to treat them. I doubt that they bought this reason, but it was in none of their interests to upset the US Government. Regina began holding meetings. She admonished the ways the Lakota prayed to their various gods. In her notes and diary, she said that these are a stoic and proud people that need to be shamed. She kept mostly to herself, until the rst Celebration of Dust. It was a party that everyone attended. Sister Magg insisted that Regina go in order to appear kind to the tribe. It was then that Regina Postoni met Phillip Georges (this name an Anglo version of Fills Up Gorges, an English translation of his native Lakota name). Phillip was a tall, handsome individual who was the tribes best warrior. He had eyes like a piercing hawk. If you were to lay your head next to his heart, it would sound like war drums beating furiously. He was tan. ey began their walks quite innocently. Phillip would teach the city girl about nature, and Regina talked about the Church and what it was like to live in a city. Phillip took every chance he had to take o his shirt, sometimes wearing multiple shirts so that he might take many o in succession. He liked the way Reginas white lady hair swayed, and she was smitten as well. She felt safe with him, as well as really hip. Regina snuck out at night to meet up with Phillip on a regular basis. ey would skinny dip in the old shing hole that contained an insignicant amount of nuclear sewage. Aerwards they laid down upon each other on the grass. Phillip said beautiful Lakota words that she didnt understand, but she didnt care because he was built. Like, yknow, structured well like the Sears Tower. It was that evening they made love for the rst time. It continued for many months, this love aair. e tribespeople and the church ladies knew what was going on, but no one wanted to interfere because that conversation was needlessly awkward. It was an innocent ing, they all thought, that wouldnt last far beyond the missionary work. at was until Regina wound up more pregnant than a panda in captivity. Sister Magg was furious, as was the tribe. Nei4

ther could say anything. ey just went about their passive aggressive ways, putting Post-it notes on each others doors telling them to keep the music down aer 10 because they had to study, or to replace the toilet paper on the dispenser rather than on top of the toilet. Regina and Phillips marriage, insisted upon by Sister Magg, was just another ordeal. To make peace, it was suggested that they just go with a Jewish wedding. is tradition was not fully understood, however, and many glasses were thrown into the nearest river. Phillip began to build a teepee for my mother next to his trailer to have more room for the baby. If it turned out to be a girl, Phillip would name it. He had Zero Star Nine for his choice, as it was the rst phone number he had ever dialed. Regina went with Georey Melinda for the boy, aer her father and mother. On the evening of July 7, aer a brutal een hour labor, I burst forth from the cavity of my mother. I was told later it was like a giant marshmallow falling in the midst of reworks. As accordance with Lakota policy, I was cleansed by four dips into a bath of Sprite. Sister Magg christened me on the spot to ensure my protection under y Lord. My mother held me and my father held both of us. I was born-ed.

Chapter 2 Life on the Reservation I was a happy child, most likely because I didnt wear any underwear and there is nothing like freedom. I was loved by the Lakota as their native son. I have few memories of my time living in the Black Hills, but the memories I do have I cherish. I remember pipe smoking ceremonies around a large green table, where the elder men would sip on ceremonial brews, exchanging cards with dierent faces on them. It seemed like what I would later learn is gambling, but Im sure it was far more sacred to them. I remember what it was like in the authentic Native American Trailer Home. My parents were in the master bedroom, and I got to sleep in the pantry. In the mornings Id wake up to the smell of fresh hot cakes boiling below me. Sometimes, though, the heat of the cooking would make the wood expand and I was stuck in the dark pantry. A few hours later I was able to get out, but by that time the hot cakes were cold and gone. I got to spend time with the tribe elders. Chief Alon Tzo Morning, a man wearing elegant feathers, with arm tattoos, and a rain maker he got from the Discovery Zone Store, would tell wonderful stories to the children. He told the Tale of the Whisper and the Jackal, e Fight of the Rabbit and the under, and e Legend of the Dangerous Minds. ese tales would resonate throughout my life, but they all ended with one side conceding that they were too proud and boastful. For all I do recall from that time, I did not recognize the strain and distance in my parents relationship. ey would ght and scream at each other over cultural dierences. She was a rm believer in Christianity and Western ideals. He was just a bad boy. Despite the ghting later that winter, Nevin, my little brother, was born. I think my mother knew that my father was slipping away, and she thought that another child would be enough to keep him near.
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Nevin was a loud baby, but it wasnt his fault. He was born with an inoperable splinter in his right heel and an overactive pain receptor. Normally an older brother becomes jealous of his new siblings, but I was, at the age of three, Nevins primary caregiver. My father was always out at night, aer a long day of working at the Native American Factory, and my mother had to work at keeping her composure gazing out the window waiting for him to come home. As a result of my mothers fear of losing her husband, she would not allow Nevin or I to play outside oen. I came up with many games to keep Nevin preoccupied. One was called Get It All where you would go around a square board, collecting properties, earning money when your opponents landed on your properties. I foolishly showed my game design to an elder named Rich Uncle with Penny & Bags, who later sold my idea to the Parker Brothers, a greedy unimaginative duo. is was my rst encounter with swindles. I remember sleeping up in the pantry, Nevin nestled under the sink, and hearing the shouting matches between my mother and father. ey would see who would scream loudest, and once a winner was named, would sit down over Native American Tea and discuss their issues with each other. My mother wanted him around more, and my father wanted a motorcycle. My father bolted in the middle of the night. We thought he had gone out for an early hunt, but when he didnt come back for dinner (mac and cheese night) she knew something was amiss. A month aer my father le, Sister Magg came to Regina to tell her that it was time to return to the Old Neighborhood. e church had decided that the communist threat was never going to inltrate the heartland of America via the Native Americans. At rst she refused, but my mother eventually came around and realized that he was never coming back. He was a good for nothing troller of the land, a hot bod with a hot head, a wicked smooth operator without a license, and he had a family that he abandoned.
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My mother le heartbroken that dad never came back before they had to leave. She would cry the loudest sorrowful wails I had ever heard since or now as we took the train back to Sid Meiers Civilization.

Chapter 3 e Old Neighborhood We returned to the Old Neighborhood when Nevin was rounding his rst year of life. We got stuck in a one room nothing. I shared a bed with my brother while my mother was behind a screen on a wax mattress. Upon returning from the Black Hills, the church distanced itself from my mother because of her having mixed-breed children. She became a maid in the city, leaving me and my brother behind. Despite being country boys, we quickly acclimated to the ways things worked in the Old Neighborhood. Because school hadnt been invented yet, all of us kids would just run around all day. e Gang consisted of me, Joe Loe Tro, uincy Cakes, Double Ginko, Inkface and Loki. Nevin would tag along every now and then, but usually my mother would make him stay back. She always said that he had to start his letters, because he was going to be the smart one. I was, by default, the gru one. I was the one who had to go out at night to get more milk from the Dairy Bureau on 8th. I became a genius at playing stick ball in the old stick yard. Old Man McHaddings said it was a lumber yard, but them twigs he had for sale wasnt going to be used to build no house, as we used to say. Nevin wasnt the best player, on account of his heel splinter making him run slow and in circles. I always tried to make sure to include him, but sometimes the Gang made Nevin sit out. I hated that I didnt speak up for Nevin, but I learned the lesson of getting people to like me early on. Times in the Old Neighborhood moved slowly. Days and years went on and on. ere were street festivals and parades, and every once in a while some politician would come through promising hed get the street stones re-cobbled. Nothing ever changed. In the Fall of 1950 or so, they built the Old Neighborhood School in the basement of the Potato Sackery. ere were seventy-ve of us in the one room, taught by one teacher. I never met the man, as I was to sit in the back of the room, but I was told he stood 4 foot wide with grizzly bear hands.
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When I was fourteen, my mother stopped going into the city and instead starting working at home. I didnt quite understand how that worked, but various uncles would stop by, bringing coats, and she would do something with the coats, but the uncles had to stay the night. I thought these men werent my real uncles, but the foggy family tree along with the positive reinforcement of names like slugger, champ, and Donchutelyermombouthis made me not worry too much. Me and the Gang would skip out on school whenever we could and go down to the ocean to throw rocks. We would talk about our plans for the future. Joe Loe Tro was going to be a reghter. Double Ginko said he would be a butcher, like his father. Loki said he was going to be a woman, salmon, tree stump and a y, on account of his shape-shiing abilities. Me? Heck, I didnt know. I just wanted Nevin and Mama to be safe. If I could do that, then I would be happy. e summer months were ending and the days were growing shorter. e slop buckets started to show up on the street corners. All the fresh herrings were going in to be pickled. It was time that I return to a higher level of school. (high school)

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Chapter 4 Low Times at High School e rst day at Berwind High School was daunting and harsh. By the end of it, I vowed never to learn anything again. I arrived by way of school-ed bus from the Old Neighborhood, a wide eyed freshman. Berwind was on the other side of town, next to the ocean, lined with palm trees and always sunny. I sat in the auditorium and listened to Principal Walters drone on and on about the amazing experience we all were about to embark upon. But my attention was elsewhere: Stacy Pearlmuter. She was like nothing I had ever known before in my life in the Old Neighborhood. e assembly ended and we all shued out to our lockers. As luck (being a lady tonight) would have it, I had the locker right next to Stacy Pearlmuter. We were putting our bags away, when we smiled at each other. For a moment it seemed as if time had stopped, and we looked into each others eyes. And then, out of focus, a gure came between us. Hey, punk, you better be staying out of our way. Mikey Friedland: blond, headband, leather vest. Yeah, were the Silver Cobras, the meanest, most baddest gang in this school, echoed his right hand man, Corey Zurgowsky. You better keep you head out of our school, book boy. And then I was abruptly shoved into the nearest locker. And now youre in our locker!? Mikey erupted Ill see you aer school at the agpole. I was stuck in a locker, but I could hear the laughter of the school children. en the bell ring, and een minutes later the janitor let me out. Taped on my locker was a note from Stacy: Dear Geo, I write this as my father is packing my bags for boarding school. He found out about you and me, and, well, he was furious. My mother said it would never work between us. You being from the Old Neigh11

borhood, me being from the sunny side of town. ey say that you being messed with by gang boys is only going to end up hurting me in the end. I will always remember you as my rst love. - Sarah Pernmeter Not only was my heart broken, but I had her name wrong the whole time. ankfully, we never spoke, but it was still one of the most meaningful and shortest relationships Ive ever had. High school was already o to a bad start. Berwind High School was known for its terrifying aerschool brawls at the agpole. I would hear stories from the older kids about the ghts ending with police showing up and the Fridaynight cage matches and gender-altering wedgies. Needless to say, I was terried and I tried to make through the day without worrying. During recess, I sat at the Uzbek table, with Bobour and Mamood. ey acknowledged that I was a pity tablemate as they drunk their school-sanctioned doctorprescribed vodka. When the nal bell of the day rang, I grabbed my backpack and made for the front door. I could see the school bus there, idling right o the front curb. All I had to do was walk by the ag pole to get to the bus. It was easier said than done. At Berwind HS, if a ght was scheduled, most students would leave early to get a good spot. As soon as I stepped out of the building, I was noticed and dragged into the middle of a circle, with Mikey Friedland standing on the other side. Well, dweeb, I hope youre ready for a pummeling. I didnt want to tell him no, yet I wasnt much for lying, so I stayed quiet. Dweeb, how about this, Ill give you the rst shot. I was taken aback by his generosity, this being his home turf and all.

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Knowing I had nowhere to run, I dropped by book bag, formed a st and swatted it towards his stomach. It made successful contact with his surprisingly large Iowa belt buckle. My turn, punk. and his st ew towards me. is was not the rst time Ive bled from my nose, but it mightve been the most embarrassing. I fell to the ground, as the crowd tightened its circle and Mikey Friedland was raising his boot to stomp me into oblivion. Fearing the end, I closed my eyes, clenched my teeth and swallowed my gum. However, no end came. Nothing came. I opened my eyes to see Mr. Nash, an English teacher, pulling Mikey away. e crowd dissipated, and Mr. Nash brought me and Mikey into his classroom. You boys you boys cant be ghting. Mr. Nash began, Mikey, this isnt the rst time Ive had to stop you from ghting. But he started it, Mr. Nash! Mikey whined. I know about your you can get the rst hit scheme, Mikey. It may work on other teachers, but not me. And who are you? My name is Georey Melinda Georges, and this is my rst day of high school. Mr. Nash just laughed and laugh. Your rst day? he squealed. Mr. Nash let Mikey go with a week of detention, but he asked me to stay behind so he could talk to me. Georey, this is high school, its a tough place. But if you cant make it here, the outside world is going to eat you alive. What do you want to do aer high school? I dont know, sir. Ive never given it much thought. And I hadnt. I had always been living from day to day, trying to keep my family together. Well, Georey, you rst gotta get out of here, and Im gonna help you with that. Youre going to teach me how to ght!? No, Im going to teach you how not to need to ght.
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is blew my mind. I was in a catatonic state for four minutes, he said, before I snapped out of it. I am going to teach you how to walk away from a ght, and how to walk away even before anything bad happens. Mr. Nash agreed to teach me the ways of the great nonviolent heros, like Gandhi, Dr. King and Steve Buscemi. I could avoid Mikey and the Silver Cobras by staying with him aer school. He would help me with my homework or sometimes just talk to me about my life. He would drive me home and sometimes stay and have dinner with Mama and Nevin and me. He was dierent than the other guys who would come home and have dinner with us. Usually they wouldnt be interested in me or Nevin or all. eyd just like talking to Mama. And then aerwards, Mama would make us go to our bedroom when it was still light out. And then it sounded like they were playing air hockey on the kitchen table, but there was no air hockey set to be seen in the morning. Mr. Nash would stay until it was too late, helping with homework, or just playing one of our poverty-grade board games like Is at A Color? or Medical Bills: e Game of Delaying Payments. I saw a poster one day at school announcing nominations for teacher of the year, and I had to nominate Mr. Nash. I stayed up all night working on the essay about how great a role model he was. I had never really had any positive male gure in my life, and now I just wanted him to know how much I felt. Two weeks later, I walked into his classroom to see him boxing up his desk. Mr. Nash, where are you going? e school board has red me. Why? Well, Georey, because they never hired me. ey thought it was suspicious that you would nominate me for teacher of the year, so they looked into it. Mr. Nash went on to explain how he had interviewed for the job, but was never ocially hired. However, he wanted to be a teacher so much that he decided to show up on the rst day of
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school and act like he was the new teacher and no one wanted to say otherwise. Will I ever see you again? Not likely. Ive taken a job in Alaska. e state is paying for me to go get my teachers certicate and in return I agreed to be a teacher there. I got the idea from a TV show called e Byrds of Paradise. Goodbye, Georey. But, what am I supposed to do? If I dont show up, then everyone will think Im a chicken and my high school life will be over. Georey, theres only one more lesson I can give you: never try to do anything nice for anyone you care about, because itll probably just be more trouble than just saying thanks. And just like that, he walked away into the curiously cover of fog. Sometimes I think about him at night. Where is Steve Nash now? But back in high school, I had a bigger problem. e Silver Cobras had been silently threatening me on a daily basis and only Mr. Nash was there to keep them at bay. at aernoon, I would have to face them, or resign myself to living in the high school. I wouldve chosen the latter, but I was still afraid of ghosts at this point in my life. erefore, I did what anybody would do when presented with one option: I still tried to stall. I stood at the front door to the school, and I could see the crowd at the ag pole, with Mikey Friedland in the middle. I had never seen someone crack their knuckles so much as he waited for me to walk to him so he could nally smash my skull in with his boot. I accepted my fate and walked into the crowd. I stood across from Mikey Friedland. It mayve taken seven months, Georges, but today I am going to send you to the hospital. Mikey, Im not going to ght you. is blew the minds of everyone, sending them suspended animation for four minutes, before they snapped out of it Mikey retorted.
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You have to ght me. If you dont ght me, everyone is going to think youre a chicken. And theres nothing worse than a chicken, except a quail. ats right, everyones going to think youre a quail. e weakest of all the game birds. An ooOOOOOOoooo spread throughout the crowd. Do not make fun of birds! Growing up Native American, I gained an appreciation, somewhat foolishly, for animals. I did not like someone belittling them, and a fury built up inside me. Make me, Georges. Or are you too quail ? HOOKACHAW! HOOKACHAW! He continued to chant. How could I reconcile my promise to Mr. Nash not to ght with my deeply-ingrained need to protect the reputation of small birds? And then it dawned on me: Everyone! I have an announcement to make, I began. e reason that Mikey wants to ght me so much is because I slept with his mother. ats right. Im Mikeys new dad, and hes just having a hard time reconciling that. He tried to yell thats not true, but the crowds laughter drowned him out. He was humiliated and had no retort. He ran away and never bothered me again. I had invented the Your Mom joke. e Times came to interview me at my house. I was praised at school. I even spoke at the pep rally before the big game. e school newspaper has a record of my speech: Tonight, we are going up against Roosevelt High, and some people do not think we can beat them. But Im here to tell you something: I slept with everyone on their teams mother. So, remember, when youre on that eld tonight, staring at someone, wondering if you can make that tackle, just know that theyre reeling from the knowledge that I slept with their mom. Again, a huge applause. I realized that the next four years at high school wouldnt be that bad. Yup, everything was going to be all right.
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Chapter 5 And It All Comes Crashing Down Nevin was hit by a re truck. e saddest part of it was that he loved the annual July 4th parade when all the municipal vehicles came down our street. He also loved savoring his popsicles. He wasnt able to focus on anything else. us he wandered in front of the slow moving re truck and was struck. He lasted just long enough, thanks to the cooling popsicle, for my mother to be found in the crowd. She was rushed to his side, the melting popsicle mixing with his blood. is was the beginning of the nal chapter of my mothers downfall. Aer the funeral, Mama decided she didnt want to leave the apartment anymore. She was already working from the apartment, but she would occasionally go out for an evening to gossip with the neighborhood squawker ladies. Now, she would stay inside, sitting by the window, watching the world go by. Mama was getting sicker. I was hoping that with some of my homemade medicines, she would be better, but Butternol and Cinnamonnin didnt do anything. Mama didnt want to go on. She was too sad to live any more in the cruel world she hated. She lost the husband she loved. She lost her smart son. She was le with me, her reminder of the family she lost. It hurt too much for me to look at her. She closed her eyes. She just wanted it all to stop. Aer Mama passed, I was struggling going to school and working odd jobs to be able to aord the apartment. Mrs. Pottarelli let me carry her laundry downstairs for a nickel. I was getting good at corning brisket for the Goldsteins. Old Man Wenders needed help reading the doctors prescriptions. e problem was that all together I was making a $1.25 a day and living far below the poverty line. I had to do something. One day aer coming back from hauling kilos of salt across town, I came home and there was an eviction notice on the door. I
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kicked the door down and there was a band of mice playing hot jazz on the kitchen table. I knew then it was time for me to leave. I wasnt learning anything from school because I was working all the time, and I wasnt making enough from working to keep the house. I packed the few things I cared about: A picture of Mama, a cracked snow globe of the Old Neighborhood, my Semitic teddy bear Albie, the recipe for Grandma Melindas famous Immigrant Sorrow Stew, Nevins wooden shoe, and the only thing I ever had of my fathers: an authentic Native American Kohls Gi Card. I didnt know what to do. I had spent my entire life, as well as I remember it, in the Old Neighborhood. I had never seen the world for what it is, let alone what it was. Yet, it meant leaving the Old Neighborhood. I had to say goodbye to everyone. I had to say goodbye to the Pottarellis and their stromboli, and the Goldsteins and their latkes, and the Smiths and their nely craed musket balls. I spent all I had on a train ticket out West. I was going to see America!

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Chapter 6 My Time as a Nanny In my time traveling from the Old Neighborhood, I made a stop one evening in a small town in Ohio called Mount Chesterbunk. On the train tracks there was a man selling nickel kebabs, and I was starving. I jumped o the train just long enough for the train to pull away. I was stuck until the next morning when the next train would come through. I wandered into the town of Mount Chesterbunk, hoping to nd a mens shelter, when I encountered Jack at the general store. He was buying a heck of a lot of food and was having trouble getting it all to his car. I oered to help him. Turns out that Jack was a highly decorated ocer in the US Army, General Jack Fimmlebuck. He had recently become a single father aer losing his wife to the cold bitter grip of her leaving him. His children, he told me, were quite a handful. ey all lived together in a giant mansion on the northern hills of Mount Chesterbunk, and until recently, with a nanny to keep order. Jack was struggling to keep everything together. I commiserated, as a former single brother. Jack sized me up and I was hired on as the nanny for the family. I took the position as it would help me earn some extra dough on my See America Tour (the dough I could bake and sell for money). I was brought back to the house that evening and the next morning I began my work with the Fimmlebuck children. ere was Luther, 17: the oldest and a brash and misunderstood man. And his sister Barbara, 16: the desire of all the young boys in Mount Chesterbunk. Her brother Jack Jr., 15, a healthful jovial lad. en there were the 12 year-old twins Greg and Geenie, who kept to themselves. Finally was little Pik, the 7 year old who was always entering a world of imagination. We would have the most wonderful of times. I had a set of tuning forks that I was to always carry with me. If I hit a high Gnote, the children would form a line and say their name with a curtsey or a bow. e middle-C tuning fork was used for meal
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times, for them to go wash up, return to their seats and present their hands for inspection. e best was the middle-F tuning fork, one tone from which would result in a performance of a complicated song and dance number called Were the Fimmlebuck Bunch. It all made my life very easy. It was only recently that e General had begun courting a woman named Madame Belvare. Of old money, (wide $500 bills and $10 coins) Madame Belvare was a widow who had no children of her own. ey had met at a recent social function at the West Rauktaster Country Club, introduced by a mutual friend of theirs, William Issac Hayes, the philanthropist to numerous orchestras around the country. Aer months of back and forth, the General insisted that Madame Belvare move up to Mount Chesterbunk. It was his private hope that she would be not only a companion, but could provide the motherly guidance that the children lacked. Madame Belvare suggested that a gala be thrown in her honor for her arrival to the town. She arrived the day before. I used the tuning forks to get the children to present her with owers and a small song (A Pleasure to Meet (A Family to Keep)) when she came to the mansion. She was a boastful woman of considerable wealth and of equally considerate weight. She smelled of several bottles of perfume, masking other odors that were once trapped but now seeping out of the folds of her belly. For all of her abundance, however, she only had enough mind and heart for the General, and immediately ignored the children. e evening of the gala, I was instructed to keep all the children in their rooms. I had put everyone to bed at 5 PM, as per the instructions, and sat outside in the hallway. Below the gala began in full force, complete with a chocolate fountain, prime rib bar, and DJ Sneakypantz. What I had forgotten, though, was that the children had become quite adept at climbing out of their windows, normally to play the wealthily-rompous game of Danger Tree, but this evening to sneak down to the party. I was positioned at the top of the stairs
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and did not notice anything amiss until I saw Greg and Geenie wandering. I quickly ran downstairs and asked the twins what they were doing there. ey responded in their unintelligible twin language. at was right before I saw Jack push over the ice sculpture that had been carved in Madame Belvares image. e entire party stopped (the DJ made the record screech) and the General assembled the children with a low and stern B tuning fork. e General demanded an explanation for why the children would want to disrupt Madame Belvares welcome gala. Barbara responded that the Madame did not like them, and they were only showing their mutual disappreciation. But, children, dont you want a mother? the General asked. Daddy, we just want you, Pik pipped up. e General walked over to Pik and picked him up. General, if it was your intention for me to mother these children, then you have made a grievous error, Belvare explained. Yes, I seem to have made a General Grievous error. Madame, I wish for you to be a member of my family, but it is not just my family. It is my childrens family as well. e party ended and Madame Belvare le the next day on the train. For not keeping a watchful eye on the children, I lost a month of desserts. It was a tough punishment, but I just ate a lot of snacks to balance it all out. All the children were quite excited for the end of their school year. ey were ready for a variety of trips in Europe and safaris in Africa and shopping at outlet malls. All were excited except the eldest, Luther, as he was graduating from high school. I thought it was that he was going to miss his chums, but aer goading the information out of him, it was anything but. I had discovered that Luther did not want to follow in his fathers footsteps, becoming an army general, but instead wanted to become an Olympic oor show performer. I took a stand and told
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the General I thought he was making a mistake forcing his son into a life in the Army. While the General appreciated honesty, he did not appreciate me meddling in how he chose to force his children to grow up. I was asked to move on from the Fimmlebuck family. I packed my things, and before I relinquished everything, I took out the highest tuning fork I had and struck it. e children slowly came in the room, one by one and began to sing a beautiful choir piece (Toodle-oo to You-dle-oo). I spent the money I saved up from the nanny job on a used 1956 Chrysler-Lotus Super 7RT and continued my way out West. Years later I received a letter from Barbara, who had just nished her third divorce at the hand of a whiskey-related fury, asking me if I still had the tuning forks. She wanted to be hypnotized in hopes of going back to a childlike state. I still have the letter to send back to her of where to acquire the tuning forks from the original manufacturer, but lack any 2 stamps.

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Chapter 7 I Laid in Running Waters Transmission sputtering on the old dirt road... e high prairie elds, who was she I followed her down to the pond and we removed our clothes. Her hand on my back, rubbing (the dust) o. e gentle soothing touch of her ngers. e bobbing of our humanity. Enough of my hurting feet. She gave me her ex-husbands ey had been her fathers We lay together in a woolen (bed). e sunlight dead, e moonlight hidden, e candlelight gone. Her, a saddle. My spurs spinning. Neigh. He-haw. He-haw. e dew from the morning grass, though my feet are dry. anks to her fathers boots and the car she gave me. Forever, just, a, memory.
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boots. too.

Chapter 8 How I Rode Out the War I rst encountered the Vietnam War on my way out through Chicago-city. e Democratic National Convention, a Ringling Bros. Production, was on its way into town. ere was a lot of hubbub. I drove in Chicago and was looking for something to eat. Because I did not plan on staying long, I got a deep dish hot dog pizza. I had quite the stomachache aerwards. Wandering the streets, I stumbled into a store asking if I could use their bathroom. ey obliged and I let myself release. irty minutes later I emerged from the toilet-chamber with a clearer mind and no pain. is was the moment I realized I had walked into the Chicago Dra Board Oce. It was a face/o between myself and the military police. Running through a montage around various streets in downtown Chicago while old ragtime music plays can become tiring. It is precarious to enter and exit through various doors of the same building, and to appear in a manhole then above an awning while the MPs shake their sts at you. I nally had lost them aer I had changed into the attire of a wealthy magnate. I met up with a group of young hippies, led by a jovial bearded man named James Russelini, or as most people called him Jay Russ. Before they would let me into their band of hippies, I had to prove myself to be worthy of their protection and to prove I was not a narc. I sat down with Jay Russ in a dark corner of their illegal lo. What do you think youre sitting on right now? He told me, his voice smooth like caramel. Bales of hay? Everyone giggled, and I turned a shade of red, thinking I had mispronounced bialey.
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Naw, man, youre sitting on bales of Old Lady J. Sticky Toke. e Mean Green ueen. Are you hippies aligned with marijuana? I was shocked, most evidently by the elevated position of my eyebrows. Listen, Geories, Jay Russ began, as he was rolling a blintz of dope, If you want protection, then you gotta show us you know how to be hip. Im hip! I was about stand up and perform my pop culture-infused stand up, but he handed me a wacky cigarette. Smoke this. I proceeded to smoke the marijuana, as my Native American heritage told me it was rude to shy away from a toking of appreciation. I smoked it deep and well, and I fell into a daze. I began to see colors that had no names and hear sounds that were void of energy. I soon found myself at a table with the two dimensional representations of playing cards. ey were betting candy corn and giggling. Eventually they all began to spin upside down. A man riding a sword like a broomstick grabbed me and we rode together on an interstellar rainbow of jewels. I turned into one of the jewels and was placed on a necklace that was placed on the neck of ueen Elizabeth, who was a dragon. I then fell into an icy abyss and was frozen for thousands of years. Upon waking, a handsome naked man on horseback took me to his house, which I think was Fallingwater, but inside out, and there he made me spaghetti. And then I was all of a sudden in a hot bath of tomato sauce, nally poured over, falling, falling, falling. And I woke up from my trippy dream. I relayed this all to Jay Russ. Yeah, Ive had that trip before. You aint no narc. At that point, the dark lo turned into an all-out funk party. It was wonderful. ere were mini-quiches and a rockfunky music band. Allow me to tell you about our organization, Jay Russ told me as I followed him around the party (so many women in body paint), We are a group known as the Nonviolentists, from San Francisco, but were here in Chicago to protest at the DNC. To25

morrow we are going to hold a huge rally. eres just one problem we dont have any good slogans or posters to hold up. He walked me over to an area of the room where people were pitching ideas for their protest tomorrow. What if it was like Vietnam? More like, Vietmom? said one guy wearing a shirt made of ower petals. No, no, no, countered the man in the ower-themed maternity moo-moo, Its something like You cant have aggression without G.R.E. What are you guys smoking? Because it cant be weed, said the man with the water-blasting fake-ower and the name tag reading Edwin Starr, e slogan has to be War isnt good for absolutely anything. ey all looked at me, waiting for my thoughts. Fellow non-narcs, I have to say that all of your ideas are no good except for Edwins, which just needs a little nessing. How about this And we spent the rest of the night thinking of the greatest anti-war slogans. I even reimagineered the very notion of holding up a protest sign. I was the one who came up with the idea of stapling poster board to a wooden stick. Also, my slogans were praised as revolutionary. Stop the War and e War is Wrong were reviewed by T Magazine as the it that denes it-ness. e next morning we assembled outside of the DNC with our high tech signs on sticks. en the riot police came. We had so many extra owers le over aer putting them in the barrels of their shot guns, that we just started sticking owers in electrical outlets and drainage pipes and all sorts of tubes. e authorities were none too pleased. It was time to have the face/o. I was too proud of my signs to run o. e military police caught me and hauled me into the recruiting oce. Considering I was half-Lakota, they could not dra me into the war without inciting a publicity nightmare. I was, however, booted over the state line into Indiana with a military grade boot.

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Chapter 9 A Regrettable Season Portland, Oregon, is the diaper of cities. Not in that it smells, but it collects everything before it falls at on its face. If you fail in Los Angeles or New York, you move to Chicago or San Francisco. If you fail there, maybe Houston or the Twin Cities. But if you cant make it any of those cities, and you refuse to move back to the small town in Michigan where you grew up, Portland is the place for you. e land of settlers those who settle for less. If you move to Portland, expect to be working in a comic book store or a microbrewery, or even the highly desirable microbrewery with a comic book theme. ere are few other professions, maybe except for a job in a bicycle shop or being a member of the esteemed (by Portland standards) Bicycle Council. is was a group whose sole purpose was to make sure that the people who felt it necessary to boast of their nonuse of cars were recognized as full citizens. is is where I ended up aer things settled down with the Military Police. ere was a roadblock on every entrance into town. e deputy told me that I had to surrender my car and I could pick it up it on my way out. is was a strange place for sure. As I walked into town, I rst noticed the many rolled up pants and climbing shoes. e streets were littered with bicycles of all sizes, and I almost got run over by tandem bicycle pulling a trailer full of used clothes that were headed for the local secondhand shops. I was parched from the walk in and stopped at one of the cafes. It was hard to choose a particular one, as they all advertised with chalkboard signs and boasted some strange brew known as java. I headed into One Cup or Brew and asked the native behind the counter for a drink of water. He encouraged me to try adding some wheatgrass and I insisted otherwise. He continued to pressure me and I feigned interest in his lecture about the health benets, I was far more concerned about my personal hydration.
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Straying away from the sidewalk, I accidentally bumped into the Grand Chancellor of the Bicycle Council. Jasper Jocus (ne James Weinstein) had succeeded the previous leader aer he failed to nish his dissertation and his parents would no longer deposit money into his bank account, forcing him to return to Bethesda. In accordance with Portland Law, by bumping into a cyclist I had challenged him to a race around the city. On the day of the race, Jasper arrived in his vehicle of choice: a 15-xed-gear super-lightweight city bike. He knew the roads like the things he knows really well. e entire town was cheering for their leader. Having a choice of vehicle myself, I chose my only car that had previously been quarantined. e race began and I won. A longer account was presented in the local per (as they had abbreviated the word newspaper to reect the hand copied and stapled leaet they laughably passed o as legitimate journalism), e Portland Slack Jockey: as Jocus nished the race, with his competitor nowhere in sight, he rst assumed that he had won by a complete landslide. However, he nished three hours aer Mr. Georges screeched to a halt at the nish line, covering the crowd in dust. Jocus, exhausted and humiliated, peddled away from the event. While Mr. Georges celebrated by exemplary st pumping, the crowd enjoyed a ceremonial drum circle. It was in this manner that I became the King of Portland and the Grand Chancellor of the Bicycle Council. I relished the power. ere is nothing like being served piping hot kombucha on request. I would see over civic duties such as the choosing of a new bicycle rack design and presiding at the annual Microbrew Festival. I was given the nest hammock and the most illustrious of rolled up selvage. Also, I got a used sport jacket with some Weezer pins still stuck in it. I was praised. Aer a string of highly popular decrees on blog entropy and limits on Canadian music collectives, I was on a power high
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and I decided to ban neck ties. I had always found them to be quite absurd, a swatch of fabric tied around the neck that served little purpose. Are we so afraid of buttons that we must hide them? was my primary argument. I for one would relish the chance to have my buttons undone in a whirlwind of criminal undressment. It was my hope that the ban of neck ties would allow gentlemen (and the occasional lesbian) to be more free. In fact, I thought, if neck ties were gone, this town might become less strange. I loathed Portland. Prohibition came into eect and the sluggishness of the towns dappers brought down the entire city to a standstill. e pace of the city slowed, and the citizenry stayed o their bicycles. e monthly poetry slam was cancelled, along with the cheap wine and cheese parties. e local climbing wall was deserted. I continued to preside over the lowly town. I met with a representative from Subway about bringing a franchise to town. I seized control the local college radio station and started to broadcast propaganda, harmless in content, German in dialect. e Bicycle Council members wanted to stop me, but they had no will. By the end of the rst month, I really just wanted to get out of there. My car was installed in the history museum as a monument to my greatness. I was, for the time being, stuck. ere was a small movement growing amongst the populace to remove me from oce. is resulted in Jasper Jocus, the man I had defeated, publicly bumping into me in a ivory suit. It was another race for power. Jasper, invigorated by a public outcry of support, rode his xie (a name I attempted to outlaw). I, unable to use my car, was forced to use a xie as well. I didnt even make it past the starting line. ose damn xed-gear bikes make no sense! ey are nearly unusable! In the end, Prohibition was lied and council unanimously voted to ban me from entering the city of Portland ever again. However, before they could hand down their decision I had already ed. I attempted to burn the city to the ground, but some girl with a homemade re extinguisher she sells on Etsy stopped me. We made out.
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Chapter 10 e Land of the Never Ending Sunset I arrived in South California on an uncharacteristic rainy day, which made each subsequent sunny day always surprise me. I was nearing broke and no idea what to do with myself. ank god I was in Los Angeles. It was the summer, and all the neat kids were hanging out by the beach. I spent all I had on a wood paneled car to strap on my surfboard and drive it on to the beach. e swim trunks always felt a little tight, but in those days we didnt care. I also had no idea how to swim nor surf, so I spent a lot of time on the beach, singing songs about surng, being with ones best girl, sneaking out to hold hands, holdings hands in the moonlight, surng in the moonlight, and sneaking out with your best hand holding moonlight in the girl. Because of all the time I spent on the beach, I made a particular group of friends who were equally aquaphobic. Me, Donnie, Ronnie, Sammy and Greg cut an album together. We were known as e Sand Guys, and would regularly hold concerts near my wood paneled car. Our hit song was Hold My Hand (Not My Arm): Oh, baby, hold my hand, not my arm, Put your palm right there. And if you hold my hand, not my arm, en I can drag you anywhere! It was a hit and the kids went wild for it. Well, all the kids except a young thug named Brian W. (name changed for legal reasons and to protect the person from everyone knowing how mean he is) Brian was in a band of his own and had the singing skills, sure, but he also knew how to swim and surf, and he knew that was my weakness from our other hit song Cant Swim or Surf :

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Cant swim or surf. Just stay on the turf Holding your hand And you holding mine. Dont want to wade Just stay in the shade Hand holdings ne Its just sublime. And in classic fashion, I was challenged to a surng contest. Normally, I would run away from any such challenge, but the Sand Guys were right next to me when it was issued, so I assured Brian W. that there was no chance I wouldnt sweep the oor with him. Aer the confrontation, I tried to tell my bandmates that I would surely lose the surng contest. Donnie, a physics doctoral candidate at UCLA, said he would train me. Ronnie, an o-world marine researcher for NASA, also said he would pitch in. Sammy, an oceanographer, jumped at the chance to lend a hand. Greg, a recovering gas-hung addict and former sweatshop manager, fell o the wagon and spent most of the time I was practicing using drugs under the shade of clis. We practiced surng every day until the sun went down and every night we would play for the kids. is went on for one day, as I had foolishly agreed to schedule the contest so quickly. Brian W. and his cadre of equally young and musically talented thugs came to our beach, Challenge Beach, the next day. Alright, Georges, you ready for a surng contest to end all surng contests? Brian threateningly asked while sticking out his chest. I guess well see, huh? We both got on our surfboards and wading out into the blue ocean and we waited for a wave. Any wave. ere were no waves for three hours, and we got to talking.

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Brian, I dont see why we cant be friends, I started, Weve got so much in common. We both like songs about surfing. Geo, go to hell and die there. Brian yelled back. It was going to be dicult to win him over. It was then that a wave came. e largest wave I had ever seen, or maybe that was just because I was directly underneath it. I did exactly as I was told. e style of surng was to put all your weight on the front of the board and hold your arms straight out. Needless to say, the contest went on for three hours. We were jetting around on surfboards, precariously perched on the front of them, while the sun belted down upon us. Eventually, low tide hit and the jet skis came out for their evenings of piracy. is caused variable waves. I, trained by the top minds of science, was aware that dierent waves are not good. Brian, just really really really good at writing and performing music, didnt know. I also kicked his leg out and he fell from his board. Once we got back to the beach, I was named the winner of the challenge, and Brian W. promised never to return to Challenge Beach, the state of California, or to the sub genre of surfer music ever again. (Later I would nd out that he not only to returned to all three, but had Challenge Beach renamed as Cheater Beach). at night we got some franks and roasted them weenies on a good campre. Summer was winding down and soon Donnie, Ronnie and Sammy would have to return to their science jobs and Greg was taking computer classes sponsored by the state so he could sleep with the teacher, get a refund, and spend the money on drugs. Heck, we didnt know much. I was just a kid of almost 30 who hadnt seen much of this world. e rest of the summer was great. I was hanging out with all the cool kids who know how to party. I dont think I ever danced so much and got such an even tan. I even fell in love. Just once, but once was all I needed to have qualied as falling in love. It was one evening we were kicking the soccer ball around when I met Charlene. She was 17, I was of an undetermined age, and our eyes met. at was until her ex-boyfriend Axel showed up
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with the rest of his motorcycle gang, who, incidentally, also knew karate. I was a fan of karate, and thought we should exchange knowledge on the cra. However, the interaction went dierently. Hey, lamer, get away from my girl. Axel said. Im not your girl, anymore, Axel Lombardi. Charlene screamed. is aint about you. is is about me and this dweeb, Axel retorted, with vigor, What do you gotta say, dork? I dont know who you are. How come you are becoming so violent against me? What if I had a gun? I professed. If you had a gun, I would do this! Axel demonstrated a swiping motion with his forearm, meant to disable my use of any pistol I had, in a pocket of my trousers perhaps, and position it in the sandy beach sand. Oh, is that karate? My curiosity was getting the best of me. If only I had nished that book from the library! Of course it is! Me and my gang are not only a motorcycle gang, but we also know karate. We have karate trophies! Axel boasted. He was quite proud of not only his, but his companions accolades. Lets get this over with. He set himself into a ready stance. Let me show you a move I know. I excitedly oered. I ran towards him, tripping over his decidedly inconveniently placed outstretched leg, and landed face rst in the sand. If I had known then what I know now, I would not have let Axel bruise my ribs with such intensity or let his cronies share in his amusement of my beating. However, being so young, I allowed it to happen. Aerwards, no one wanted to look at me. I felt humiliated. Charlene tried to console me, but I was too much of a man to let her do so. I crept away from the party, watching Axel and the rest of the thugs desecrate the sacred tradition of a summer beach party. at night, the Sand Guys broke up and went their separate ways. We passed around a bottle of original recipe Dr. Pepper and reminisced about songs and all the people we tricked into paying for them. We sang so much a capella that night that I wished I
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hadnt sold my guitar to pay for new guitar strings (I had not learned the concept of irony yet). We sang one nal tune before Id never see them again: As the summer ends As it would again and again My best girl I hold her near. And the rest of my gang, All the times we sang, In the moonlight Holding hands... I le California the next day. However, before I departed, I did the only honorable thing anyone could have done and set a delay fuse on Axels motorbike. He received burns on 65% of his body and ended up doing deliveries for a second hand orist for the rest of his life. Charlene felt bad for him and they eventually got back together and married. I think they have two kids or something. ey are, typically, unhappy together, but neither is condent enough to leave. She still stays up late at night, thinking about what we couldve been. More so since I sent her a cardboard cutout of myself.

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Chapter 11 e Desert Territory From California I traveled east to the areas now known as Arizona, New Mexico and Texas. In those days, it was simple known as e Desert Territory. A lawless land thats only rule was a 9.85% sales tax. I was driving on Highway 40, which was then called the Los Picaros. e general knowledge was not to stop for any hitchhikers. Even a pregnant woman could really be a erce long-haired drug addict with a bag of bombs just ready to destroy. It didnt matter if the burning sun was up or the death-cool moon was shining. My only hope was to burn through the Desert Territory as fast as possible. As the aernoon sun was starting to wane on my rst day, I pulled into a characteristically heavily-guarded gas station outside of Flagsta. e man with the sawed o shotgun kept an eye on me, while a man with a full shotgun kept an eye on him. I got a good look at the lawless vagabonds who called these parts home. Lots of dusty leather and spiky hair. Cars with steel cages built in to protect the driver during ips. ere were 40 oz. cans of energy soda with names like Bloody Spit and Cool Bile that were stacked next to the engine coolant. I pumped my gas and was on my way. e rst night was relatively easy. I wanted to stop, but the case of Bloody Spit was easily keeping me going with the incredible mixture of taurine, caeine, and pralines. is was no place to stop. Genetically modied super-coyotes would surely get to me aer the road gangs got to my vehicle. I drove past a car wreck that had me unsettled, seeing that it was a highway patrol car. A wolf had been painted on the patrol car in blood, to signal that the Los Lobos, the most terrifying gang, had done the deed. It was a calm morning until the sun was high in the sky. I had been focused on the road quite hard when a light shining in my rear view mirror startled me. I swerved from side to side but managed to keep going. is was about to become trickier as this was the section of the Los Picaros that not only had serious divots in the road, but ramps and jumps as well as boost pads.
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I went o my ramp and was struggling to stay straight. At that moment, the Los Lobos were surrounding in their caravan of carnage. A crossbows arrow stuck itself into the gas tank. I didnt have much time le on the road, but hopefully Id make it o alive. I was hoping that Id be able to get through it all by getting from one boost pad to the next, but all hopes were dashed when more arrows deated my tires. I was losing speed as I went o another ramp, but without the proper momentum the car just slowly went o the edge and teetered into the ground. I was done. e Los Lobos stopped their cars and pulled me from mine as I passed out. I awoke in a large dome-cage with many vagabonds and feral children. ey all looked at me like I was foreign, except for one of the feral children. I called him Little Bono because he wore sunglasses and rags. He handed me a pail of dirty water. He scuttled away, hiding behind a tall man. Welcome to the Cage, the tall man began, We are prisoners of Los Lobos. Some of us have been here for years. Either we die, or they sell us. And even if were dead, they might sell our bodies to a medical school! He told me in a terrifying voice, while all the children shivered. e tall man continued, aer ripping o a thick piece of jerky. My name is Eric LaSalle, and I have been in this cage longer than I can remember I lost count at three years! How did you all get here? I asked. Some of us were caught in the Desert Territory, like you. Others made deals with Los Lobos and lost out. e children were on a school trip to the Hands On Museum when their bus driver traded them for an Xbox 360. And you? Me? I used to have a life. I had parents, job, children I had a wife. I wore a suit. I wore a hat. I was a senior customer service manager for a cable company in Michigan. One day, I get an escalated case call from one of the Los Lobos, saying that he wanted an installation appointment on a day that we had already
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booked up. I tried to explain to him that we would do our best, but he didnt want to hear it. He just hung up. ree days later, aer I got home from work, they were there, in my drive way. ey put a bag over my head and dragged me down here. ey say theyll let me go as soon as they get NFL Sunday Ticket, but I keep on telling them thats only on DirecTV but they dont care. eyre animals. eyre Los Lobos. at name shivered throughout the group. e sun was setting and the prisoners settled in for the night. Small campres let me see how the prisoner were in smaller factions. I learned that some of them hoped for release, and they were called the Dreamers (NC-17). ere were some that thought they might be able to become Los Lobos themselves, trading the cage for the life of a dangerous road gang. And then there were those who have lost hope. I spoke more with Eric LaSalle, who let me in on how life was in the cage. eres something strange about this cage. At rst you hate it, then over time it becomes normal. Finally, it becomes something that you love. Sometimes I doubt that the world out there exists. at theres desert and this cage. Were stuck in a bloody snow globe! ere is a world outside, I wanted to give him hope because I thought raising his spirits would get me a bit of that wild jerky he was snacking on and maybe, if we work together, we can get out of this cage. Dont do that to me. Dont give me hope, Outsider. Fine, I was really hungry, there is no world outside. Were stuck here until we die. Dont lose hope, Outsider. Here, have some of my straw. He handed me a baggie of damp straw. Dont chew it all at once, savor the nutrients. ank you. I was hungry and upset, and went to sleep. e next morning, as the sun began to burn, the Los Lobos entered the cage. eres nothing quite like the sound of nineteen machine guns ring into the air at once, and theres nothing quite like the feeling of fearing what might happen when the bullets
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come raining back down upon you. at fear was quickly replaced when they came over to me and dragged me out of the cage, head covered in cloth, the feral children nipping at my toes. I was sat down in a storage room with the members of the Los Lobos gang. Now that I recollect the situation, I nd it startling that twenty ruthless thugs were able to comfortably t in there with all those couches. I was seated across a table from the leader, El Jefe. A single light hung from a makeshi FR light xture. You were traveling on our road, El Jefe began, And when we nd a person on our road, without our permission, we take control. A shot glass of tequila with a bullet in it was slid across the table. I wasnt quite sure if they wanted me to nish cleaning the bullet or drink it. Drink it. And then, the man with the fastest sts we know will punch you in the stomach so hard that it will in eect shoot the bullet through you. El Jefe said. What if I dont drink it? I was worried as I can get a little handsy when I drink. en well kill you anyway, so you might as well get a drink out of it. He was a compassionate and logical man. He had kind eyes that were hidden behind a hateful brow. I drank the shot. I had never had anything like this before. I had whiskey and beer and spritzers and -tinis and wines of all type, but never a tequila like this. I started to cough violently. e Los Loboses laughed at and mocked me. I continued to have a coughing t. It was then the bullet dislodged from my throat, shooting through my mouth at an astonishing speed. A speed so fast, in fact, it was as if it was shot out of a gun itself. And the bullet was headed straight for El Jefe. It pierced his temple. e rest of the Los Loboses had no idea what had just occurred, drew their guns, and began to shoot in every direction. As I leapt to the oor, the single light illuminating the room was shot
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out. Aer a minute of gunre, it stopped. I got up and made my across the body-covered oor to the door frame where I could see the sunlight piercing through. I opened the door and the room had become, suce it to say, a slaughterhouse. I couldnt look away. I snatched the keys from El Jefe. ankfully, the door was easily closed and I was now looking at the entire Los Lobos eet of super badass cars. Before I could drive away, I went over to the cage and freed all the little feral dusty children. ank you. Little Bono said while hugging me. I jumped into El Jefes crazy convertible, and heard the voice of Eric LaSalle: Outsider! I turned to see him huddled in the Cage. I ran to him. You are free now, I explained, eyeing his jerky that he might possibly leave behind. is is all I know, I cannot leave. eres something called Mountain Dew Code Red now. His eyebrows raises in curiosity, and he ran out of the Cage, following the feral children. I drove back onto the highway, heading east. I later learned that the Massacre de Los Lobos freed the area from the tyranny and fear and allowed it to prosper into the great cultural epicenter it is today. Eric LaSalle returned to Michigan to learn his wife had remarried, but he got a good job as a night manager at a Home Depot. Little Bono grew up to be part of a super-famous Irish music group as the lead guitarist e Edge. Culture was eventually brought in the form of In-N-Outs. My work in the Desert Territory was nished.

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Chapter 12 Pig Farmers and Butter Daughters I had strolled into Kettlewhack, Kentucky in the middle of the night. e car I had taken from the Los Lobos had drained itself of diesel fuel and there was nary a gas station in sight. e car sputtered to a dead stop and I pushed it into a ditch, walking the rest of the way into town. I was getting tired and the sun had no intention to rise soon. ankfully I found a barn not far from the road, and went to sleep on a pile of hay. I awoke, as I have many times since, to a cocking in my face: a double-barreled shot gun. Dagnabbit, the voice behind the shot gun blared if I see you or your pickled little dilly face around here in these parts again, Ill hose you up so good yo mamma wont be able to tell you from the fat on her back! I rushed out of that barn as fast as a hog with a daisy, dodging the farmers gunre. I ran through corn elds and marshes and tall wheat and even taller corn. I had nally stumbled upon the only house around for miles. I needed shoes and something to eat. e sign said Farnum Farms with a cute image of a smiling pig being seared alive on a mound of coals. Upon knocking on the front door, the owner, Boss Farnum, opened it. Now, I know youre not from Charleston, because they do a rap-a-tap-a-rap on the front door, and most of the chillen from Syracuse enjoy a kick on the door before a rolling knock. Everyone knows that. But, I cant rightly place your knock. Whatyre doing placing hands on the wood of my house? Sir, I began, as I thought this would butter the large man up, Ive lost my shoes, and I was hoping that I might get some help. Well, Ill be willing to lend you a pair of my sons, but youd have to work for them. I am a hard worker. I hate to lie, but my feet were mighty sore.
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Oh, I dont know. Youve got legs like a stilt box on a hogs mammy. Yreckon? I nodded in hopes of buying more time to decipher what he had said. Ill never know. Eh, you look too stupid to swindle and too smart to steal. Come on in! Boss Farnum invited me in to his quaint Southern house. ere was a lovely smell coming from the backyard. He took me out back, where a BBQ was underway, and introduced me to his family. is heres my son Hank. Hes quite the athlete for the schools football team. He pointed to the rooster basting the ribs. And over there is my brother Yarkle Farnum, he motioned to the crocodile who was lounging in a hammock. You see, round here, its all about barbecue. You can get it on any corner. You walk up to a postal box, and itll say dry rub or wet, and you just tell it which kind rub you want, then open up the slot on that postal box and therell be a slab of ribs. Because thats how its always been done. He walked over to a huge tub of red sauce, stuck his st in, and drank as if it were a running stream. Now, you member I was telling you about a job I had for you? He patted my back with his sauce-coated hand. I nodded in understanding. Good! See, the folks at the county fair have a problem with me having my boy and my brother be my assistants in the barbecue cook o, on account of them being color blinded. What about them being animals? Now, whatd you say? Your son is a rooster, and your brother is an alligator or a crocodile or something. You a Yank, right? Yes. He just laughed and laughed, smacking his knee for about ve minutes straight. e rooster and the alligator chuckled.
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Now, if I give you a pair of shoes, youd be willing to be my assistant in the barbecue cook-o? Yes. I really wanted some shoes. Its only in a few days, I better get to teaching you all I can about CUEING SOME BARBA. e next two days were a crash course in smoking, grilling, basting, roasting and toasting. He taught me how to slather on sauce and how to pat down a rack of ribs with rub. I learned the dierence between dry and wet rubs (a secret I will take to my watery grave(!)). He also had me give his brother a thorough dental inspection, based solely on my still having all my teeth. e morning of the cook-o, we awoke early to start the rst stage of the smoking process. We sat down, me with a cup of cocoa and he with thermos full of rendered pig fat. Boss Farnum always had wisdom to speak. If youre from West Mississippi, like myself, you wear a red sock on your le foot in October. Everyone knows that. Yknow, Gerey, I aint been around on Errf long enough to know which way the winds come and beckon themselves, but I can surely tell you the truth about life. Life is like smoked meats. You start with a ne slab, douse it in a rub, and then let it stew in that smoke. Long hard work is the only way to winning the blue ribbon. is making sense? I understand. No one had ever taken me in like he had. He helped me to realize that there are no shortcuts in life, because the long road is where the real rewards are. And that reward for us was hopefully winning the Meat Extravaganza portion of the cooko. It was only a few more hours until break, aer which we would drive two towns over to the Oakel Country Fair. We loaded into Boss Farnums pickup. I had to hold onto my side of the car as to keep from sliding towards him, on account of the he with which he was weighing down his side of the car. e smoker was tied down in the back. He continued to wax poetry to me.
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Aint a lady nothing but a head of a dog with a bit of sweet butter on her face? Im just playin a jester for you, now. You need to relax. You know how we relax here? You go down to the swimmin hole with your best pals and play Pokmon Gold. Just sit back and let the alien-animals do the ghting. Everyone knows that. We arrived at the Oakel County Fair. As we made our way to our stall, pulling with us our smoker resembling Euripides sense of tragic loss, there were vendors aplenty. ere were children crowding the man selling pet sticks (he was sold out in minutes aer opening). ere was a tall man giving hot shaves, singing about revenge. One man had the largest deep fryer allowable by law, made from a city dumpster, powered by a crude oil. Step up! Step up! We got deep-fried potatoes, deep-fried chocolate bars. Well fry your hat, well fry your sister. Well take that sense of self loathing and give it a deep fryin! You got a fear of heights? row it in the fryer! Deep-fried horoscopes, deep-fried honor, deep-fried depth! We got it all! And the fair certainly had it all. Back in the Old Neighborhood, we would have days celebrating the grand varietals of cultures there, but here, in Oakel County, it was just so much of the same. I saw last years prizewinning watermelon being fed to last years prizewinning pig being cut with last years prizewinning knives and fried with last years prizewinning lard. It was such a rich and savory culture. Boss Farnum and I set the booth and got to continuing smoking the meats. e judging wouldnt take place until tomorrow, but Boss Farnum swore by a 36 hour slow smoke, accompanied by hourly baths of sauce and occasional shakings of seasoning. We settled into place and watched the fair go on. Now, Gerey, I aint one to be taking a sip of wine before the bell rings, but let me tell you about what Is gonna be having done once we take away the blue ribbon. Imma gonna start selling the sauce in jars, slapping on Farnum Farms, and selling them around the county, state and the country! Imma gonna make so much money I can nally get my son the surgery he needs to x his
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bow legs. And you, Gerey, Imma gonna cut you in to the deal. Have you ever thought of yourself as king of barbecue sauce? I hadnt ever considered foodstus to be my path. I told him, being in an honest mood from the BBQ fumes. Son, and I use that term like a father, you can be what you want to be, but there is no more holy venture than assisting folks in the slathering of avors upon ne meats. en, sir, Id be honored to. ats what I thought, he said, and he took a huge swill of his moonshine: one part lard, one part buttermilk, two parts butter. We had worked all night, smelling of burnt embers and covered in sauce. e morning came and the judges came around for their preliminary tastes. Only the best ve would make it on the nal round of judging. I will spare you the details when I say that the lighting hitting the meat that morning reminded me of the rst time I saw the Pacic, in all its beauty, with the waves crashing; not only a visual experience, but an aural one too, with the sea gulls ying overhead and feeling connected to the Earth for the rst time in my life with the sand running between my toes and the warmth of the sunning being felt through my body up to the top of my hair. We got through to the nal round. Boss Farnum and I shared a swill of his moonshine. It tasted like what I can only describe as pig juice, but not like the juice that comes out of a turkey. I mean if you were to squeeze a pig, like they squeeze oranges, through a juicer. It tasted like that. Boss Farnum went up on stage along with four other cooks. He stood up there, proud and smiling. I watched from the audience as they read o the names. Boss was heavily sweating, I assumed from the fact he was obese and under the hot, hot sun. But, then, he began to stumble. Everyone stopped and looked at him. His hand went for his heart right before his entire body fell forward, ipping over the judges table and the ne smoked meats from all the contenders. Boss Farnum had a huge, incredibly massive heart attack, most likely from the years of eating pig ear stew
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and calf fat jerky, if not from the insane drug regimen of blood thinners. We were disqualied from the competition on account of Boss Farnums having eaten everything we were cooking as we went. Instead of taking home the blue ribbon, I got a lawn trimmings-sized bag of his clothes. I returned back to the farm and helped his rooster son and crocodile brother bury him. e next morning, they gave me their powder blue Ford pickup, saying they had no need for something that was full of such bad memories, whatever that means. As I drove away, seeing that crocodile nally eat that rooster, I knew what I really wanted in life: a family once again.

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Chapter 13 A Right Southern Mix Up in Charleston Hurricane season had struck the coast, and from the look of it, Hurricane Lexus Princess Johnson was a hey woman. I had to turn o the road or be forced into the ensuing ood. A diner with a crackling neon sign reading Maes Spot with the lights on inside seemed like a welcome refuge from the downpour. I sat at the diner, drinking a cup of coee when a phone call came for a Geo George, I gladly took it as I had never been called on the phone before as well as I could remember. I walked into the hallway where the payphone was and picked up receiver. Hello? I will be arriving on the number 7 train from Calgary. I will be wearing a black twill suit and a grey overcoat. e porter will announce me as Mr. Fndan, but be certain this is not my real name. In my briefcase, I will be carrying the artifact. e exchange will follow. Please be waiting. A dial tone followed. e tall British voice was gone. I returned to my seat confused. Heres your change, the old waitress said in her deep singtalky way while dropping o a pile of money. I havent even paid yet. Have a good evening. I looked down at the change: several hundred dollar bills and a motel key. e fob told me it was for room 109 at the Motel Planter. It held two keys of dierent sizes. Miss, I think there is a mistake. Son, you picked up that phone. If anything, you made the rst mistake. It was at that moment the power went out. We were rushed out of the diner into the parking lot. I made a quick run for my car. I couldnt stay on the roads. Motel Planter was only a quick drive down the road. I would go there and wait out the storm. Upon entering room 109, I found a briefcase waiting for me, opened, containing a black drivers hat and a piece of paper
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with the word Fndan was in the briefcase. Resting below the paper were stacks and stacks of money. More money than I had ever seen before in one place. Shocked, I shut the briefcase quickly. at was the last time I saw the money, as the briefcase locked and I had neither the key nor the code. e hurricane was calming we were entering the eye and it was time for me venture out to the train station. I made the decision to follow through on the meeting to clear things up. I would hate for this Mr. Fndon to be le all alone at the train station. He would be so embarrassed standing there all alone aer all the other passengers had le the platform. I was in possession of not only someones briefcase of money that I could not open, but also a nice hat and a motel key. I stood on the train platform, briefcase at my side, holding the sign for Fndan. e train came in and the passengers deplaned, gathering their luggage. Aer ten minutes, no one else was leaving the train, until a series of police ocers rushed on. A porter quickly rushed over to me. Are you waiting for Mr. Fndan? Yes, I replied, although I knew the truth that he was not me. He is dead! the porter, suddenly in a Ukrainian accent, exclaimed. e porter handed me the briefcase that Fndan had been traveling with. It was identical to the one I had been holding. Black and locked, like my Spanish teacher in high school. I quickly went back to my car and threw both briefcases into the trunk. I have to admit at the time if I was not worried about the strange circumstances, I would not have placed the identical briefcases in the same space where they could knock around and get mixed up. However, I was not completely unsure what to do, and the rain was starting to fall again. I sat in the motel room, not sure what to do. Before I had one mysterious briefcase, and now I had two. One contained the stack of money, and the others contents were completely un47

known. Furthermore, I had two keys. One to my room, 109, and a seemingly identical one that did not open any room. e non-iPhone phone rang. I let it ring. And ring. Fourteen times it rang. And then it stopped. Someone knew I was there. And then it rang again. I let it ring only twice before answering. Is this Geo George? the voice on the other end said My name is Georey Georges, I began And I think there has been a miscommunication here. No need for formalities or pluralities, Geo. However, you are correct about the miscommunication. I sighed in relief. I had a feeling this whole mess was about to be over in only a few seconds. We were on the same page. Your courier, Mr. Fdon is quite dead, and you are to be the same if we do not get the money back. Is this clear? Someone is going to kill me?! Whats going on? Games are not allowed. Playtime is over. Clean up your toys and wash your hands for dinner. You have twelve hours to return to the train station with the money. We know where you are staying. Again, I panicked, and it seemed that as long as they whoever they were got their money, I would be free to continue on my merry way. I placed one of the briefcases underneath the bed and le the other on top of the dresser. I didnt want anyone to come in and wonder why I had two briefcases. e confusing that would ensue. Dear lord. It was then I took a look at the keys I had. One opened the door to room 109, but what did the other open? Not the briefcases. Nothing in this room. It was then that my greatest moment of deduction ever occurred. I was looking at the key fob over and over until I saw it in a new way. If one were to, as I did, rotate 109 around, it would read 601. I thought myself mighty clever, but I had to put my hypothesis to the test.
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I walked up to room 601 and put the key in the door handle. Like magic, the door swung open. (I stopped for a moment to check if magic was involved, but on further investigation simple mechanics caused the door to open.) An almost identical room. Steam was coming from the bathroom, along with the sounds of a shower. It was then that the woman I would soon learn to call Valveria came out wearing only a red towel. Geo, whereve you been? I was hoping to see you sooner. I could not respond, as my jaw had metaphorically hit the oor. Although I couldve guessed a man like you wouldve taken care of business before taking care of She dropped the towel, it literally hitting the oor. pleasure. My jaw had metaphorically driven itself through the oor with the force of a hydrogen blast. All the confusion of what had been occurring with men showing up dead and two briefcases went out of my mind with the vision of Valverias magnicent body. She had to have been mistaking me for another Geo George, or she may have just been very slutty. Either way, she made ravenous love upon me for thirty three whole minutes. Aerwards, we lay in bed. She smoked a cigarette and I attempted not to cough. I had expected a much... older man, she said to me through the smoky breaths she took. Oh? I was trying to play coy to ensure that I would stay in the comfy bed. My feet were toasty and the thread count was like silk. When we spoke on the phone, I didnt expect you to have such spunk. Her speech pattern was starting to become grating, as she was always saying the last word later. When we spoke on the phone? I was confused, as I carefully journal all of my incoming phone calls. Yes, on the phone. My toes curled when she spoke. Maam, I think youre nice, and I appreciate you bedding me, but we have never spoken on the phone before.
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Youre Geo George correct? Im Georey Georges. ere is a dierence. Had I known she was going to pull a gun on me in response to my correcting her, I would not have tried to be helpful. However, I was now facing the scary end of a bullet-popper, and could tell that things were going South by Southwest. Where is the artifact? My mind loose from the recent jostling of the loins, I could not hold the lie. eyre in room 109. Being pistol whipped is similar to have a cake of bricks clownishly smacked against your face. I blacked out, thankfully, most likely to cope with the pain. I woke up tied to a chair, which was tied to another chair, which was tied to another man. We were back to back. Who are you? Im Je Jorge, from the FBI Department of Antiquital Aairs. I was setting up a sting operation all along. So, youre who they were looking for!? I was starting to ll in the puzzle of the last day. My ight from DC was cancelled due to the hurricane. As soon as I realized what happened, I tried to get in touch with you. I followed you and called your motel but you didnt pick up. I kept my mouth shut for I did not want him to think of me as a rude person, dodging his attempts to meet with me. If there was one thing my late mother imparted upon me, it is that all strangers are just friends with new hands to shake. Did you keep the money or the artifact? I dont know. How can you not know? e briefcases are identical and locked. Whats in it? I cant tell you. It would be endangering you even further. Were already tied up in the basement of a Southern mansion. ings cannot get much worse. at was when the French Marxists came in. I was never scared of skin heads with face tattoos until now. eir communist
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ideals had given way to petty international artifact thievery. Also, without any hair the face tattoos were more like head tattoos, like permanent Halloween masks. ey shot Je in the shin and he passed out from the pain. Another one started to pour gasoline around the entire room. ey le as Valveria walked in. She was more clothed than I had ever seen before, in a stunning red gown. She entered the room holding her patented tiny pistol. Weve found out the FBIs plans and we now have both briefcases. We will be selling the artifact to another buyer. Just as soon as we silence any claims to ownership. She raised the gun towards me. Goodbye Geo or is it Georey? I thought we had something special. If just for that one moment. I thought it was I was trying to copy her speech pattern, magical. Tears welled up in her eyes and she lowered the gun. She loosened the ropes around me and brought her mouth closer to mine. e pool of blood pouring out of Jes leg mixed with the gasoline was creating a maroon-hued intoxicating bath of love. Our lips touched. I am not proud of kneeing a woman in the crotch. However, when faced with certain death I was more proud of preserving my life, much like the preservations of strawberries at the cost of plastic. She fell to the oor in pain, dropping the gun. She began to breathe in the gasoline/blood mixture [thats a little too much] and soon passed out. I unraveled the ropes from myself and Je and headed out the door. I ran out of the mansion, dragging an unconscious Je, just in time to see the limousine drive away with the Marxists. ankfully, Valverias motorcycle with sidecar was in the driveway. Further thankfully, the keys were still in the ignition. Final thankfully, there was a daily planner with Burn down mansion followed by Fancy river boat casino with a programmed GPS device on the dashboard. I threw Je into the sidecar and drove o to the harbor.
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I got to the docks just to see the riverboat depart. I detached the sidecar and accelerated down the dock. I hit the max speed as I went o the gangplank and rode through the air. I was coming up short. I wasnt going to make it. I jumped o the motorcycle. e motorcycle sank into the water and exploded under the water. I landed on the roof of the riverboat. ere was a fancy party happening beneath. I hadnt seen so many white suits since the winter pageant in pre-school. I attempted to blend in, but I was wearing eggshell, causing embarrassment, further causing rosy cheeks. I was a mess. I looked around, either for the French Marxists or the briefcase. I nally saw two men, each with a briefcase. Stop! I yelled. ey swung around. You should be dead. e rst man told me, worried I might not be aware of his expectations. e man held up his gun, and shot a bullet at me. I ducked, and the bullet traveled into the top of a sousaphone, through the instrument, out the mouth piece, ricocheting o the diamonds of a womans necklace, and into his accomplices temple. Damn it, the man exclaimed as his partner dropped to the oor. How about this? He tried for a second time shooting me. However, the bullet went through the organ and came out going through his hand. He screamed in anger, and rightly so. Finally, having no luck in the horizontal delivery of a bullet, he shot his gun up in the air. (We later learned the fate of that bullet and the fate of a seagull) Im taking this riverboat to sea! Were going to get out into international waters, therell be nothing to stop me from taking as many chances to shoot you as I want! Except for the Wind and Fiddle Society! a proud White voice shouted.
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An arrow shot through his hand. e man dropped his gun, causing the pistol to re into his already wounded hand. TRIPLE WHAMMY. It was the secret Wind and Fiddle Society, of Ivy League infamousness. ere was a strong belief that they had been blessed with the call to protect the antiquities of the world from falling into the wrong/foreign/Wesleyan/lesser hands. As soon as they saved my life, the Wind and Fiddle Society were gone before I could ask about all the things that didnt make sense about the situation. Namely why the woman running the diner from the beginning of this mix-up would be in on this whole thing. I never found out, complacent with a voucher for free pie. e riverboat was steered back to harbor, and I returned the artifact to Je Jorge. I signed an agreement with the FBI saying that I would never discuss the incident ever with anyone else. As of this writing, I have not, and it is not my fault if this is mass published. Liability is three-eighths of the law and Im holding a full deck, if you know what I mean.

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Chapter 14 I Join a Cult Aer traveling the perimeter of the US, I decided it was time to call it quits. I headed North back to the Old Neighborhood. I had been gone for so long that the area had changed from a rundown ghetto to just a regular ghetto. Religion was hard to accept during my formative years. I was half-Lakota, half-Catholic and fully confused. Even the transsexual kids in the LGBT club in high school didnt want to accept me. Now that I was on my own, I had nothing grounding me. I was invited over to dinner by an old friend of mine from the Old Neighborhood. Joey Tonka Two Truck Kerzwok. He had gotten his high school girlfriend Sonya pregnant and the two were now living together in a small cardboard shack in Troublers Alley on 43th and West Ruttiger Avenues. eir baby, Tiny Eddie, was born only an infant, and that was the moment I met him. e dinner was wonderful. Glazed port, port glaze, and ne port in glazed pottery. Tiny Eddie was a beautiful young baby, except for his troubling early-onset male pattern baldness. Joey had been having trouble nding work that paid enough for this new family, and Sonya had recently discovered a work community that will house someone while they work. It was called the Assal & Friends Happytime Family Snugglefest and it was located a couple hundred or so miles upstate. ey were going to be moving there soon, and were looking for someone to take over the cardboard shack in Troublers Alley. I inspected the cardboard shack and, frankly, was not impressed by the shoddy workmanship. Even though the location was prime, I could not accept their oer. Instead, I asked more about this work community they were moving to. ey explained that the deal was that they work for free, but everything would be taken care of. It sounded interesting to me, so I decided to tag along. May is a ne month to hitchhike upstate. Myself, Joey, Sonya and Tiny Eddie made ne companions. Aer a short walk out of the city, we were picked up by a nice one-armed man in a pow54

der blue pickup truck (the same truck from Boss Farnum? Ill never know...). He rambled on for the entire trip about how cheese was a scam, and that the government was keeping the best cheese to experiment with rats on in rat experiments. He further explained that a super mutant rat named Splinter took his arm in a street ght. We nally made it to the Snugglefest late at night, were shown the cabin we would be staying in, and went to sleep. e next morning, several triangles awoke us at sunrise, and we marched out the cabin and were told to assemble in a big eld. A large stage had been set up. To say I was taken aback the rst time I met Grand Leader Assal would be an understatement. He was a man standing at least eight feet tall with a glorious set of hairs on his head. A masterfully stroked beard rested upon his silky face. Grand Leader Assal wore a cloak spun from ne threads of cotton, hemp and leather. When he spoke, his arms would rise up as if he were about to play a standing organ. He wore gray New Balance sneakers on his feet. He was a legend, yet not legendary, if my dri is understood. Welcome all to the Assal & Friends Happytime Family Snugglefest Commune. Together, we will create bliss in our lifetime. I am Grand Leader Assal, and allow me to rst state that I care rst and foremost for each and every one of you. ere are going to be a lot of terms thrown around like cult, sacrilegious, and tax exempt, and let me assure you that that talk is ludicrous, Assal rose his arms even higher, as we gasped. I will make it my personal duty that when our lord, the Multicolored Zebra, comes to fetch us and take us to the magical land of Kalokia, that everyone will have a seat on that giant zebras back. Welcome. And the Grand Leader le the stage and walked into his mansion-cabin. We were told to strip ourselves as we were given new burlap pant suits to represent our equality. ere was a good een minutes when everyone was standing around completely nude. It was a great time. Aerwards, we began the work of farming and building a society. ings were wonderful. As the days continued on, however, I started to become more suspicious of this place. ere was a lot of bowing and kissing
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of portraits, and I dont want to even mention the prayers made over the latrines. (Although I just mentioned the prayers made over the latrines, I will not get into any of the details about scrubbing, smelling, holding and wind chimes (although I touched upon the topics surrounding the prayers made over the latrines, I will, as recently stated previously, not get into any details of even more recently stated topics. (OK, you twisted my arm, we would have to whistle.)).) During meal times we all ate from one large bowl. is made it dicult for Carol, a woman with a nut allergy who was regularly excluded from meals. One evening aer dinner, Carol complained that she was hungry. at very evening Carols mattress was replaced with sacks of nuts. e next morning Carol was nowhere to be found, presumably exiled for her betrayal to the Multicolored Zebra. e Grand Leader Assal regularly enjoyed giving town hall meetings, and during one I was given the chance to ask a preapproved-and-provided question. I asked Grand Leader, how will we know when we will begin our trip to Kalokia? e Grand Leader took a seat on his stool and began, Im glad you asked that question. As we all know, the Multicolored Zebra will come to carry us away to Kalokia. And this will only happen when all the jars that say Claussen on them are lled with pickles. Until then, we will toil on in this world, doing the duty of our lord patiently, brining without question. Getting to ask that question was a proud moment for me. e summer months were lovely, but as autumn surely gloomed towards us, the winds picked up and we were regularly freezing at night. e Grand Leaders house was kept warm with a propane tank. When we asked why we could not have propane to keep us warm, we were given an extra share of cucumbers to pickle. Autumn was giving way to winter (also called Wyntr) and food was becoming scarce. A daily rationing of pickles commenced and it was at that moment we were told that hunting was going to begin. I was brought into a small shack to speak with a man named General Binar.
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Have you ever hunted before? the General asked. Should I sit or? ere was a chair on the other side of the desk, but I didnt want to be presumptive and sit. What a guffaw! Well, it wont be long, you can stand. Im going to sit. at chair was just staring at me, mocking me. I had to sit! Fine. Look, this isnt what I wanted to talk to you about. e General was getting tense, antsy even, but I didnt want to get into his personal drama at home, whatever that might be. (I learned later he had to slaughter the woman he has been assigned for she was stealing grain, complaining of needing to eat for two during the harsh weather). Do you know how to hunt? Absolutely -- I started, but did not get a chance to nish with the not part. Excellent! e general stood, grabbed a bow and quiver of arrows from the corner and handed them to me. Your task now is to hunt for deer. Alright. I nodded and accepted the gi. I sat for a moment. You can leave now. And I stood, reminiscing about my time sitting in the chair, and le the shack. Outside, people gazed as I walked away with my pristine bow and quivered arrows. ings were nally looking up. Except the food supply was getting dangerously low and I, someone who has numerous conrmed hunting kills, was tasked to feed everybody. Nevertheless, I set out on a hunt. Naked. At around midnight, I spotted my rst animal: a small rabbit. I tracked it far away from the cabins. It was a thrilling experience, hunting was. To be out in the wild with only my wits and a set of arrows. I spent the next three days tracking the rabbit until I found its furry little feet outside of a bears cave. I decided to let the bear win this time. I started my way back to the commune. On the way, luck struck me in the form of a pubescent deer frolicking in the woods. I
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quickly gave the best deer call I could to lure the deer. I was incapable of this, however, as I had no idea what a deer call sounded like. I did discover, however, that deers enjoy Miles Davis, and I continued like that. e deer took a chance to graze in an open eld quite close to the commune, and knocked an arrow. I pulled the arrow back to shoot the deer. My hand slipped and the arrow shot in the wrong direction, especially toward Grand Leader Assals cabin, and the cabins powerful propane tank. It punctured the tank, the arrowhead sparking against the aluminum shell. e entire side of the cabin shot up in ames. e ensuring chaos ended in the disbanding of what, I had come to learn, was a cult, and attempting to gain tax-exemption status as a religious institution! e campground burned to the ground quite quickly. e food store was raided. So much Claussen. I watched two people make out for fourteen minutes before jumping in a van and heading back down south. I was only in the Assal & Friends Happytime Family Snugglefest for six months, but it was the most rewarding time I ever went without taking a bath.

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Chapter 15 Back in Town Aer the failed experiment of alternative independent religions with hardly enough venture capital being pumped in, I decided it was time for me to start living my life. I was back in the Old Neighborhood, but the Old Neighborhood had changed a lot. e wonderful ethnic porridge turned into ghetto imitation stew. I was able to get a small room to stay in while I gured things out. I did a few odd jobs, like picking up chicken bones o the sidewalk and getting the deposit back on them, or dusting chalkboards for the schoolmarm, but nothing serious. ere was only one thing holding me back. I had never had a real job before. I didnt have a resume, or know how to go in for an interview, or which hand to shake with. I was penniless. I ventured out from the Old Neighborhood on the subway. First on the R, then on the L, and nally the V for Vendetta. Aer weeks of failed interviews for sign spinning, spin class instruction, and a vertigo abolitionist, I got a job at the Club for Drinks and Neorealist Expressions of the Mind in the Village (rst the West then the East). It was the only place that would accept a kid with a high school diploma in only the so skills. I soon began cleaning glasses lled with exotic elixirs and distilled liquors. I also poured buckets of ice into the urinals. ere were many beatniks, but there was one who took a particular shining to me. His name was Al Gintsberg. He was an intellectual and a poet, and many times he would still be drinking single malt ball whisky (Also known as Whopper Whiskey) when we were closing up and Id be wiping up the tables. It was from him that I rst learned about karma, larva, and Bravo. Georey, come closer, Gintsberg howled as grog bubbled from his mouth, I want to tell you something about how the government is afraid of vegetables. ey see one man standing there with a stalk of celery, and out come the guns and the police batons. We are living in a police state. You try to walk around with only
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one pant leg, and they lock you up for murdering the Constitution. Top me o! And Id pour him more of whatever he was drinking that night. It could be grog, ale or mead. Hed oen demand one part sewer water mixed with one part lemon vinaigrette and twenty parts vodka topped with a cherry, and I was happy to oblige. He gave me big tips for making sure he didnt swallow his vomit when he passed out. I would take the V train back to my squalid one room squat in the Old Neighborhood. All night long I would listen to people walking into the opium den next to me. One morning the police busted down my door, thinking I was the opium proprietor. Aer convincing them my interest in anime was only a lonely boys innocent hobby they checked next door. Mr. Lens Opium Den was shut down, but I gured the man who moved in aerwards, Mr. Mogorium, was peddling angel dust and PCP in his Wonder Emporium. At work, I was starting to make friends with everyone except the manger, Hank Franco. e owner, a swiller by the name of Langrish Burton, was hardly around and Franco came to be the keeper of the saloon. I could tell by his stout appearance and proportions that he had always wanted to be the proprietor of his own pub, but never had the likeability. Sure, he was able to keep the place going managerially, but it was Burton that people truly wanted to be around. Franco was kind to the drinkers, but hell to us workers. He would regularly throw his sweaty rags in my face, instructing me to Tide em once and Tide em again. He would then give a giggle resembling a horse watching e Simpsons for the rst time. He loved to laugh, but he didnt know how to be nice. He once replaced the employees toilet with an empty beer bottle, and I had to poop. One evening, Hank Franco had come to me, once again, yelling at me and asking where his pills were. Franco had a wide array of pills for everything from headaches to the constant colds he was getting. I found the pills he was looking for and placed
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them on a high shelf, behind some cans of paint. I gured that upon learning of where the pills were hidden, he would laugh and nd my prank to be hilarious. Only then would I gain his respect and we would begin a lifelong friendship. When Hank Franco died of a sudden heart attack, we were all shocked, me most of all. He was taking blood thinners as prescribed by his doctor, but the pills he needed were nowhere to be found. Ill never nd out if I had mistaken his heart medicine for cold medicine, but as Mr. Burton had said shortly aer the incident, there is no benet in remembering our missteps. And I never did.

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Chapter 16 Moving Up A real nice guy who regulared the club named Marcus Fradick said he had a job for me in the Big City, and I jumped on it. Yet it meant leaving the Old Neighborhood forever. I said goodbye to the friends I had made. e Korean man who taught me how to play tennis, and the Puerto Rican who took me shing in the sewer. Most of all, I would miss the friends I had made. e Greek elderly couple, and the two Inuits that just were too kooky not to love. Really, it would be the friendships I had forged that made it hard to leave. My local gang leader and the surly local taxi dispatcher, short and stout. But, it was my time to make a change. I moved uptown to midtown to work at the Downtown Agency. e Downtown Agency was a place for fresh faces to be molded into the stars of tomorrow. e head of the agency was Mr. Francis Butofski. He was a stern man with jowls the size of Arkansas (pre-revolution) and a brow that was forever sweaty. I was given the role of Mail Gabber, or clerk. I was meant to gabb the mail to various people around the oce aer I gabbed it from the P.O. Box. On the outside things seemed to be going well, but on the inside I was troubled, and emotionally I was also troubled. I was in a new part of town with no friends. For a time I was scared of riding in elevators (having never seen them before) and being a mail gabber was a lot of work. I wasnt sure what kind of sandwiches people would be bringing for lunch, so I just had two slices of bread with me every day. I got laughed at for having holes in my socks, and laughed at even more for taking my shoes o when I came into the oce. I was a black sheep in a pond full of white minnows. I stood out like a guy who wasnt from the same place as everyone else and didnt have the same cultural capital. What I did have, though, was persistence. I came in everyday before work started and le when the janitor came to sweep up the oces. I asked questions and kept my mouth shut. I was always aware and kept my mind on my work and work on my mind. Aer
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a month or so of mail gabbing, I moved up to General Gabber. I gabbed copies and gabbed lunches and sometimes gabbed phone calls. I started to make friends with the other people working there. I would listen during lunch (I learned that tuna salad was acceptable to place between my two bread slices) as they talked about their aspirations. Saul Goldstein was going to be an entertainment lawyer. Sal Gauldstien was going to be an entertainment banker. Sam Gouldsten was going to be an entertainment entertainer. eyd ask me what I was going to do, and all I had to say was I wanted to have a full and happy life. At this point they laughed at me for my childish and candid hopes and dreams. (In hindsight, they werent the best of friends, but you know how it is with coworkers, you just have to deal with them and you kind of like them because you spend so much damn time with them). ings continued on that way for many months. I would come home, water my succulents, and fall asleep. Id wake up and enjoy a breakfast of combined cereals. Crispix on the bottom, as it doesnt get as soggy, followed by Cheerios, and nally Rice Krispies. I was able to walk to work, and did so with a gallop in my step and whistle in my mouth. Id try to stay positive, but I was still yearning for something more. Id go to sleep, still anxious to make my mark on the world. Little did I know what would soon be in store. One day the sides hadnt come in for an audition and everyone was scrambling. Mr. Butofski came to me, yelling at me to write something for the actors to say. Ive never written anything before, I said. What do you mean, nothing!? He said while downing a cocktail of Maalox and rum. I mean, Ive got stories about me in the Old Nieghborhood and the Black Hills and my mom and the dad Ive never really known and my brother who died and my trip around America and -- Mr. Butofski slapped my face.
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Just write something, dammit, and bring it into the room in ten minutes. He hued o. I hurriedly threw something together on the typewriter and ran it into the room. Mr. Butofski snatched it out of my hands and threw it at a fourteen year old Greg Kinnear. Get out, the boss said; I rushed back to my desk. I sat there for hours, as actor aer actor went in and out of that room, waiting for Mr. Butofskiy to emerge, march up to my desk, and re me on the spot. I dont think Ive ever spent as much time in the fetal position as I did that day, not even those thirteen months in the womb. And I didnt lie on the ground. I was afraid he might come out and stomp upon my body, as people tend to want to upon me, so I lay in fear on top of my desk. At closing time, Mr. Butosi came slowly striding up to me, and started to pat me on the head. Where did that come from? he slowly started, stroking my hair. e rst thing that popped into my head. I was still shaking as he caressed my fertile crescent. It was incredible, he replied. I arose, calmed, and sat up on my desk. It was the best thing Ive ever read or heard in a long damn time, he continued, I went through hours of listening to horrible terrible actors just so I could hear it once more. Id never heard Mr. Butofski speak with such passion or seen him hold someone with such vigor. I cried and laughed and almost wet myself had the play not turned back to drama, and then once more to hilarity and nally sorrow. It was touching and at the same time removed from any reality that I know. You liked it? I was trembling. No, He started I like liked it. You really mean it? He gave me a tender kiss on my forehead, morning dew style. I want you to write a play.
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And it was at this point my life took a dramatic turn (pun most certainly intended. Laugh). Someone wanted something from me that wasnt an organ in an alley. (I have neglected to write a passage about my time dragging a church organ into the alley behind the Chinese food shop for avant garde plays) In that singular moment I felt so many emotions it was like tasting three dierent ice cream avors at once (only later would I learn I was incorrect and it was like tasting three dierent gelatos, but I had not tasted gelato at the time of this revelation). I was in a state of awe and dry mouth (parenthetical passage). Do you hear me? I want you to write a play! Mr. Butofski slapped me. I had been thinking about this revelation for twelve minutes. A play? A play about what? I just didnt know what was going on. Mr. Butofski explained that he wanted me to expand upon what I had written earlier in the day. But it was just a short passage; Id have to take time o to write a complete play, to think about the characters and the story. He oered me $400 a week just to work on the play. I went and immediately bought myself the one thing I had always wanted all those years when I was scrounging around the oor for money. I didnt mind those who called me insane. Owning a french press was a point of pride for me, despite my strong dislike for coee. Back at the Downtown Agency oces, I was given a proper corner oce and a desk. I was provided a turtleneck to show that I was now on the creative side. I spent the rst day simply pouring out ideas onto the page for the play. I called it freedom writing. By the end of the day I had an outline. My playwright sash came on the following Tuesday and it was time to begin. I would write from morning to night, not much considering a strange Daylight Saving Time mishap from Congress that year involving a sun blocker and tidal reposition to beat the Koreans. Still, I was generating pages of the play. I was halfway through when the note came. I came in the next morning and saw the note from Mr. Butofski. He wanted the play that evening. I began to sweat,
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promptly turned o the space heater, and sat down to work. I didnt think I was behind. I was taking my time in order to present the best play I could produce. Yet, that evening became one of the longest of my life. I skipped my lunch and dinner, as well as the afternoon snack of celery sticks and apple slices. I hunkered down more than anyone before or since has hunkered. As the sun settled and everyone poured out of the oce, I was the only one le. Just me pumping on the keys, sometimes in seemingly random order. I developed a temporary muscle spasm that required me to use white out over and over. As the night janitor le and locked up, I heard a set of wealthy shoes moving towards me. I swung my head around to see the source of the steps. It was Mr. Butofski. He had come to collect my play. Its not ready, sir, Im sorry, but it just isnt ready. I said as tears were starting to form in my eye ventricles. Let me be the judge of that. Mr. Butofski snatched the pages from me and began to read. And read he did. He sat in a chair opposite me until the sun rose. I watched him for every moment. His lack of emotion bewildered me. I was more anxious than a school girl at her thirteenth birthday party, ready to burst with a clammy sweat at the sight of her crush. More anxious than an end piece of bread, wondering if hell be toasted and eaten or discarded like so many that came before him. Even more anxious than the time I was stuck in the turnpike tunnel and I had to use the bathroom. At 5 AM, when the last remnants of the evening lied from the Earth, Mr. Butofski set down the play, removed the glasses from his face, stood and walked to the window. Geoery, never in my forty ve years of working in the Big City entertainment business have I ever read a play such as this, he began. I never told you this, but when I was fourteen, I fell in love with a woman who lived across the street from me back home in Lawrence, Kansas. Her husband was a traveling salesman and for most of the days he was sitting in the front seat of his red hot Cadillac listening to rock n roll. My mother, the saint she was, would regularly send me over to this womans house to help her
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with the chores. She was all by herself. Cynthia He whispered and stood silent for a second before turning back to me. It was on the third week of me coming and going that she needed help dusting the top of her cabinets. I held the ladder in place as she dusted. At a moment she reached for a far edge and slipped. I caught her in my pubescent yet capable arms. We looked at each other for a moment. She caressed my face. I looked into her eyes. We knew what true love was. In the summer months that followed, I spent more and more time with Cynthia. I would take day trips with her to orchards, having picnics of ham hock and dark bean soup. We would make love under the hemlock trees. It was perfect, until her husband came back at the end of August. Butofski turned back to the window, staring at the rising sun of New York City. He came back, and she discovered she was pregnant. She and I both knew the truth, her husband being none the wiser. How could he have known I was taking her to bed while they were the ones who were wed? He couldnt. Until he awoke one night to her screaming and crying. He tried to console her, as he still loved her. But she admitted that she had been unfaithful. From across the street I watched the silhouettes ght and run through the room. I heard when the mirror shattered. When the lamp was thrown out the window, the glass sprinkled onto the street as homes lit up to try and nd out what was going on. But no one intervened. Butofski walked over and returned to his seat across from me. e next morning the police came to take statements and found Cynthia strangled on the bed he drowned himself in the bathtub. I was terried and miserable and heartbroken. My parents moved the family, thinking I was only shaken up by the entire incident. ey didnt know of our forbidden love and the fruit we created. He wiped away the tears from his cheek. But this play youve written makes my memory a worthless pile of discarded sanitary napkins from a kindergarten class. He lunged forward and hugged me. ank you for teaching me how to feel again. And he wrapped his bear arms around me.
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Rehearsals for Ponchos on Sunday started two weeks later. As producer, Butofski took the play around and found a space on Fih Ave. that was run by a man named Jared Sachs, who agreed to split the upfront costs. We were unknowns, but soon Sachs Fih Avenue Playhouse was bustling with the spirit of theater! As most of you know, Ponchos on Sunday revolves around a young boy, half-European and half-Native American, living in a rough n tumble neighborhood. His mother is struggling to hold her family together as the neighborhood is crumbling around her with guns, drugs, solicitors and the changing ways of the world. For the part of the mother, we cast a beautiful woman named Michelle Terrife who had just appeared in something called Guyzen Dollse to rave reviews. She took to the part very quickly and understood the words in the play. Wed seen many actresses try out who had little to no understanding of English, something Id attribute later to the audition yers that stressed Looks over books. She was the perfect foundation for P.O.S. e young boy was picked right o the street. Wed originally cast an up and coming actor named Jimmy Viper, but he overdosed on a cocktail of cocktails and heroin the day before rehearsals began. Butofski scrambled and found our new star, Sammy the Scammer, lying face down in a gutter aer an evening of eating too much candy. Sammy was an orphan who was running with a gang of street urchins led by a tough 15-year-old named e Duke of Dupe. Sammy wanted to be in the show, but the Duke of Dupe took a stand: No way, Sammy. Aint gonna be the case, unless you show us a turkey leg as big as me! But we had Sammy audition and he was incredible! He was the part. He had dened it. He was willing to work for shards of toast! is was when I got involved and headed down to the Little London area of New York City. I took the F train until the train tracks ran out, and took a trolley until the trolley ran out, and then a horse-drawn carriage until the horse would go no further. I was in Little London. A dark gray town smelling of sewaged cabbage and a foulness most likely
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attributable to the overwhelming Cockney accent of the residents. I asked around for e Duke of Dupe but only got responses of youre on the search for a scoundrel such as that? You must be a scoundrel yourself ! and if you nd that no-good bunny-stealing turkey-leg-grubbing rag wearer, you tell him he owes me a rabbit at least! I was nally tipped o by a man selling rotten apples at surprisingly high prices (ese are rotten, but not yet eaten, and an uneaten fresh rotten apple is a tough fruit to nd in Little London) that I was not properly baiting this team of orphan thieves. To x that, I took out a British pound (change from the carriage driver) and let half of it show from my back pocket. Within seconds, a young orphan lied it from me. I ran aer him and followed him into an alley, where the Duke of Dupe was perched up above me on a chicken coop. So, you be wanting yer money back do ya? he Cockneylingly said waving the single piece of money in the air. Actually Mr. Duke, I want to have Sammy in my play. Ahhh, so youre the fancy man with the leather hair who wants our boy Sammy? ats right. I just dont understand why you wont let him be in the play! Let me tell you something, us orphans the only way we get out is if were locked up! Once youre an orphan, youre an orphan to the end. eres no ladder to a clean bed and rice pudding. No pass to golden shoes and a top hat that doesnt have the top cut o. But it doesnt have to be that way. I promise. I had an ace up my sleeve, but I wasnt about to let them have a chance at stealing my only playing card. Im an orphan too. Prove it, Mr. Playman. My mother died when I was just a boy, so I had to be on my own. is play, its about me, but its also about all orphans, its a celebration of orphanity! e Duke jumped down from his stoop and slinked over to me. Mr. Playman, when I said prove it, I meant, show us hows you
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an orphan like us. Steal me something. e rest of the little orphan punks around me started mumbling and chuckling. ey knew I wasnt up to the task. Scared are we? I was scared, but I was also much bigger than any of these kids. And thus leads me to the rst moment in my life when I slugged a teenager across the face. He fell to the ground quite fast and the rest of the orphans backed up. Let me make something clear, I sternly said with my st ready to punch again. I want Sammy at the playhouse tomorrow morning ready for rehearsals. I leaned down, grabbed my pound back, and headed out of the alley. Soon enough it was the opening night of Ponchos on Sunday, and the theater was packed to the brim. Critics from e New York Times, e New Yorker, e New York Post, e New York Gazette, e New York Wired Magazine, e Newsweek York, and e Christianity Scientic Monitor were in attendance. Orphans were watching in the catwalks. I was backstage, wringing the Playbill. I peered through the curtain at a seat right front and center that said Reserved for Mr. Georges. I knew he wouldnt show, but maybe my father learned that I was putting on a play and hed come to New York City at Sachs Fih Avenue Playhouse and watch it and aerwards come backstage and give me a hug and tell me he was proud of me. But the seat would stay empty all night. Mr. Butofski came up to me and patted me on the back. Youve done well, Georey. I have a feeling that you and I are going to have a long history of partnership together in the theater. And the curtains opened and we watched the play from the back of the playhouse. As the curtain opened up on the stage, I almost passed out, but the quick applause kept me upright. e audience was eating it up. ey almost fell out of their seats during the moment the orphan did the classic loose legs routine that would make the crowds in Cairo laugh years later. Crying ensued during the mothers forty minute death sequence. By the end, the audiences were on the edge of their seats. It was magnetic!
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During the curtain call, I was pushed out on stage, everyone urging me to make a speech. I had never given a speech before, but I tried my best, as I recall. Everyone, thank you, I said, I hope watching this play was as exciting as it was to live it and write it and produce it. But none of this could be possible if not for the man who took a chance on me. Im speaking, of course, of my mentor Francis Butofski. Mr. Butofski, come on out! I waved him on from the wings of the stage. e sound was overwhelming, his smile stretching from ear to ear. And then it felt like slow motion as he grabbed his chest and his body dropped to the oor. e horror and shock as he came crashing down, one arm grabbing up at the heavens. I ran to his side. Mr. Butofski I didnt know what to say aer that. Georey, I -- He struggled to get his words out. Yes? Yes? I needed to hear. Georey, you -- His last few moments, he couldnt get the sentence out. is was his moment to be lazy?! What is it, Mr. Butofski? e shrieks of the women in the audience made it hard to hear. Georey, if you ever feel lost, always -- And then he passed. His heart gave way to the cold hard grip of death. Mr. Butofski was gone. Dead. Aerwards, aer the police came, we all sat at the bar near the playhouse, a small hole in the wall called Load Bearers, and everyone was on edge, waiting for the reviews, but I couldnt think of anything else. I had lost Mr. Butofski, the man who believed in me enough to put on my rst play. At 4 A.M., the early edition of the papers came out and Sammy the Scammer ran in with the papers. I got the reviews! eyre in, they is! He shouted holding up the papers he most likely stole. Read them! Read them! Michelle Terrife, our leading lady, screamed back. Ok, one sec, Sammy opened up the paper and struggled to read, Luh la luhla lass luhlast last -- last nnnn Michelle yanked the paper away from Sammy. Despite having a starring role, he could not read. Michelle scanned the review.
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We were on the edge of our seats, quite a dangerous act as the Load Bearers chairs were top heavy. Last night Ponchos on Sunday, a new play, written by bold newcomer Georey Melinda Georges, debuted to-- She stopped and set down the paper. ey love it! She screeched. We couldnt believe it. People embraced and kissed and celebrated. Champagne was brought out, but all I could think about was Mr. Butofski. e feeling was bittersweet, 70% cocoa. I had an o-Broadway hit!

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Chapter 17 White Faucets e buzz for Ponchos on Sunday was palpable and the papers printed positive reviews on the pulp for the previews. I couldnt walk into a room without opening a door. I was getting calls from reporters itching to get a word from me. ey were in love with the rags-to-riches story that was my life and the play. I could barely make a move without contracting a muscle. For once in my life, I was on top. My life was only made better by the fact that I had recently fallen in love. e evening aer our third show, we went back to the Load Bearer for drinks and caveats. e main actress from Ponchos on Sunday, Michelle Terrife, and I went home together and things become heavy fast. In the ensuing weeks we spent all our time together. We woke up late, enjoyed slow brewed coee, and ate roasts that took hours to make. What one might do in a day we did in a week, and our love made each moment feel like a month. By the time I woke up from this daze of passion, it felt like three full lifetimes had passed. is was the perfect moment to continue the craze of theatrical entertainment. Aer the passing of Mr. Butofski, I was lost without a guide in the big world of theater. I needed a new compass. I was approached by David Lowenstein, a stage producer who had a long string of hits like Jungle Puppies and Once a Man, rice a Lady that had made him the wonder of Broadway. ere were many people clamoring for my time, but Lowenstein was the one I wanted to work with. I had a few ideas of what to do next, and aer conversing with Lowenstein, we agreed on the idea of a young mute Persian boy who moves to rural Iowa in order to write the great American story. It was bold, thanks to the typeface. I didnt have much time to write it. Lowenstein wanted it to premiere in three months. We would cast and rehearse as I wrote it. eir performances would inuence my writing, and vice versa. Pretension on a high wire, some called it. We would need a small Persian child, the woman
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who falls in love with him, the geriatric shoe shiner, the wiccan princess, a giant with poor eyesight, and a little person with a handlebar mustache. Rumors lled the theatrical community of a play to end all plays, and actors were sending in headshots just to be ushers. For the leading lady, I had to have my current love, Michelle. When I was writing late at night, I would have her read the lines back to me, and I couldnt think of anyone else that would be able to play the role of a naive Iowanian with a ery passion for a mute boy. She was my rock, my anchor, my nail in the foot that would keep my head steady. Lowenstein searched for directors, but we found none that could handle the delicate nuances of White Faucets. He was the one who came up with the idea that I direct the play myself. I wouldnt have suggested it, but Lowenstein had a way of smiling that let me knew everything would be alright. It was his project, his bet, and he wanted a huge return. I didnt want to let him down. e casting process came to an end and rehearsals started, with only half a script and an opening in two months. e entire thing was happening so fast that I assured myself that this was all part of some incredibly insane creative process that would create a more fantastical play. Ive always been a quick write, so I was not worried that the play wouldnt be done in time. But, I was focused on so many things that I was becoming increasingly unfocused. ings became rocky with Michelle. I was spending a great deal of time working on my show, and while she was the lead actress, the relationship was straining with me writing and directing the work. As the writer, I was a needy individual who wanted her around to inspire me. As the director, I was in control and needed to know how to control and tame her. And she was always hysterically yelling like a jackal with a splinter. Word about the play spread like hot cats scatting on a hot tin roof. Lowenstein was already busy selling investors on my next play following this one. I was growing nervous from all the pressure. I would ask what would happen if this play wasnt a hit like Ponchos on Sunday was? He replied every time do you think the
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Yankees ever worry about the score? I wasnt quite sure what he meant, but it made one thing clear: he had a severe hearing problem. Beyond my struggles with a big-dreaming producer, the script was coming together more poorly than a street cobbled from fudge bricks. To make matters worse, Michelle and I stopped becoming intimate (read: nailing) and things became even tenser during rehearsals. But continue we did. Costumes came in and programs were printed. en came the dress rehearsal. Piss-hail storm is a term that was invented on that day. No one was hitting their marks or reading the lines. All the press coverage was overshadowing the actual need to perform the play. e fact that it had already been awarded several Tony awards did not help. On top of all that, I specically remember my shoelaces being askew and could not focus on much beyond that. It was a hurricane of urine-ice balls. At the end of the dress rehearsal, I began to give notes, and thats when Michelle snapped. While on the outside it would seem that she was upset over me telling her to cross the stage slower, it was really everything building up over the course of the last two months. She stormed out of the theater. By the time I arrived home an hour later, she had packed her bags and the bottles of wine and was o. I tried calling her the next morning, but I couldnt nd her anywhere. Lowenstein was running around like mad to nd a replacement. We went on in nine hours! He went and picked out the only person he could think of: his mother. is would have been the moment that made me question his judgment forever if he had not already been a success. His mother, wheelchair bound with a bout of rickets to boot, went on, somehow knowing all the lines already. Mrs. Lowenstein did not t into the current costumes and went on in her muumuu. I couldnt even bring myself to watch. I sat in the dressing room, hoping to hear a round of applause, but nothing ever came. Admittedly, I fell asleep twice. I slinked onto stage aerwards to say my thanks and almost apologized.
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We stayed up all night at the Load Bearer, drinking bootloads of shoe shine, and it was then that the reviews began to come in. Ive reprinted here, without permission from the New Yorker, a review of my show. Although, I doubt that I gave my permission to be judged as anything more than a provider of entertainment. Mr. Georges sophomoric foray into playwriting and his rst in direction fell as at as the understudy for the lead character, Mrs. Lowenstein. Beginning with a een minute monologue by a dim-witted shoe shiner given during his cardiac episode, White Faucets continues down a trail that keeps going down and down until it hits a pit out of which no one can crawl. As more and more of the reviews came in, our spirits dried more and more towards depression. By the time the sun came up, I was the only one in the tavern, spending my last moments on the top drinking from the bottom of a bottle of warm whiskey.

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Chapter 18 A Disturbed American in Scandinavia My second play was an unmitigated disaster. e papers had slammed me as a one-trick pony, while at the same time my failed investment in a new highly-focused pony circus act was similarly criticized. I could not get away from the paparazzi. e investors for my third play about the last alien from a dying space civilization coming to Earth in order to repopulate promptly pulled out their monies. Intergalactic Re-Fugees was put on hold, and the Fugees dropped out. Everywhere I walked in New York City, I was mocked. I was in ruin. I did the only thing you can do when the entire world is against you: I went to Copenhagen, Scandinavia. e cloudy sanctuary of the Great White North would be the perfect getaway and allow me to recharge my creative battery. e trip was already looking up when at the airport I was not asked to remove my belt at security. I took this as a sign of things to come. I arrived in Copenhagen via aircra, though the local airport had not been completed yet. Supposedly a shipment of 2x3 bricks that were to ensure that the street plates did not slide and break apart were on backorder. I was met curbside by a friend riding an all-weather tandem penny-farthing. I had met him while he was doing a playwriting residency of his own in New York. Kjork Jorkklen was a skilled story crasman, focusing on the futility of marriage and fulllity of yogurt-based breakfasts. His most recent work, Simple 7, was a thirteen hour domestic kitchen scene. It was breathtaking in the design and execution. is was the new Postmodern that had taken Europe and my mind by storm. He took me to his ice farm in the Northern country. His 16 year old twin sons, Jrk and Brk, lived there with him. His sons were from his rst wife who died in childbirth. His second wife Loja died while trying to conceive. His third wife Elja had recently le aer a failed venture into a daycare center. e ice farm was a simple place, from what Kjork told me. ey would plant raw ice beans in the ground during spring and by
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winters time the ice would be ready for harvest. Aer harvesting and separating the ice into cubes, it would be bagged and ready to go to market. Kjork explained that in recent years the ice market was going down, so they were hoping for a big harvest this year to oset losses from last year. If not, they would have to sell the farm, move into the city, and get work attaching little yellow heads to little yellow bodies. Sadly, when the harvest had come and gone, they didnt have the hoped-for success. It was a particularly warm growing season, and they could not keep the ice watered enough. Kjork sold Jrk to a traveling circus, which made Brk cry, which made Kjork write a play, which told me it was time to go. I took a midnight train to Jorjia Station back in Copenhagen. I was back in Copenhagen without a guide, staying in a sideways hotel. I went and saw all the city had to oer. I went to the Postage Stamp Museum, Copenhagens most loved building. I ate at Scandinavias most famous sports bar, Hterannhafns. To say that I got glasses with tiny dime-sized lenses would be an understatement. In the land of bleakness, they had a surprisingly large array of t-shirts. ey varied in sleeve length from barely covering the arm pit to above elbow, and came in shades from Utter Blackness to Obsidian Obesity. It was a revolutionary time in the voidness of design. My designer friend, Shawk Rendskil, had made a shirt that had collars around the arms and the waist, but not at the neck opening. It was hailed as a bold reinterpretation of the classic collared shirt, but never made it to market as the mass manufacturing hurdles of a bottom button shirt could not be leapt (ne leaped). Despite taking in the local culture, I was still waiting for the Postmodern breakthrough that would help me get back on top of the theater world. Shawk Rendskil (yes, his father is the Sren Rendskil) was showing his neo-erotic photography at a gallery. As I perused the pictures of fruit wearing ladies underwear (the irony not lost on me knowing Shawk was a gay man who wore panties and a bra) my eye caught Shoshana Mar Del lk. Shoshana was an artist, specializing in the stark Scandinavian style of nothing78

ness. Her latest work, woman bleeding 2, was praised by all in the Postmodern art community. We started up a conversation, in which she giggled constantly as her eyes swung back and forth like a cat-shaped wall clock. She knew of my work, including White Faucets, which she had surprisingly read. I am not surprised that the American audiences did not like your newest play, she began. I rewrote it. She handed me a single sheet of paper with e End typed in the middle of the page. How could this play be put on? Its a single ending page. I was astonished and taken aback. Aer giggling, she responded it is a statement that art that does not begin lives forever. At this point she lit her cigarette yoyo and started playing with it. But theres no story. At the time, I didnt completely understand her extreme notions of art. It is not the story that is told, but the story that is not told. It was at this point she leaned into me and whispered I want to create a owing river of intercourse upon your body. It was at that point that we le the gallery and walked along the snowy streets to her art lo in the Vesterbro district. Her front door key was little more than a xylophone. Inside her apartment were the original Its a Small World animatronics, fully functional. It was hard to tell the little tiny robot eyes from the little tiny children eyes that were watching us make love. e next morning the little tiny children made us a breakfast of bread and cheese cubes as we lay in each others arms. Shoshana began to teach me about her style of art. Her brand of anti-aesthetic, coupled with her unique sense of unformalism and redeconstructionism, simply blew my mind. She was currently working on her new piece: a bicycle wheel constantly spinning with a key lime pie soldered to the spokes while a wind chime of empty dipping tobacco canisters are played by a blind ex-Navy drill sergeant. It was something new and unique and maybe it was the uaaludes or maybe it was the Danish moonshine, but I once
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again felt alive. It was all because of Shoshana. She was my new muse. Aer her exhibition of woman bleeding 3 three months later, I invited her to come back to the US with me. Wearing a dress made out of tree bark and silly string, she nodded her head. It was dicult getting through airport security with her wearing that, but we were soon enough sitting on a transatlantic ight. Sadly, I could not bring back any souvenirs from my trip because Shoshana had used my one free checked bag to bring over some of her art pieces, including a statue of David made out of monkey paws. True art. Watch out United States: here comes culture!

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Chapter 19 Return to the U.S.A.R. Our ight came in late, I think at 10 PM, and we took a cab to my apartment in the Village. ank God my key still t. We fell asleep and woke up late the next day, still jetlagged. e apartment in the morning light illuminated how much Ive changed over my trip to Europe. I rose, careful not to wake Shoshana, and looked over my old belongings. I was a Postmodernist looking at my past as a Neorealist. e irony washed over me like a sweet cinnamon lather. Frothy dras of plays I had written in a t of idealism. Loose-tting shirts I had bought in a t of comfort seeking. at was my past. I gathered everything and stued it into a closet. Shoshana awoke and we shared a single square watermelon for breakfast. She was excited to, as she said, reinvent the notions of sanity through artistic calamity. I le the United States aer my career was tarnished with the tarn of poor reviews for White Faucets, and now I would remerge like a moth from a cocoon to produce plays that made little to no sense. My rst step was reconnecting with my producer, David Lowenstein. Shoshana insisted we meet at childs hair salon, and I had to follow my Copenhagen honeys advice. As we sat, myself on a plastic lion, himself on a bumblebee, we discussed my future as a creator of Postmodern classics. Lowenstein, I am a changed man and have transcended the old notions of story. Well, what is it you were thinking of doing? I have an idea for a one man show where I slowly undress a single man over the course of two hours while my soul mate Shoshana lingers in the background playing the blues on a sitar. Georey, this is one of the most convoluted ideas that Ive heard in a while. I thought you coming back meant you had something new that I could produce. How can you not understand the intense emotional latitude Im going to convey?
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Im leaving, Lowenstein said, and then he le. Do you want a buzz cut? the short Vietnamese lady asked me. As I walked home, the fall air sweeping through my buzzed hair, I knew that it was Lowenstein who was out of touch with art, not I. I could not wait for the New York scene to catch up with the future. I went to the Postmodern playhouse in the village known as the Meathouse, and spoke with the manager. I made arrangements to exhibit my new play, to be called Excalibus, in three weeks. I was sure it would work, and I went ahead dumping money into Excalibus. It featured a cyclical narrative about a wizard who drove a bus called Excalibus around space and time to teach wisdom to deaf-mute children. Shoshana found my use of even the hint of a narrative troubling, and our relationship began to become strained. I tried to appease her on some fronts, including by using nonprofessional actors. For the part of the wizard, I got the only literate drunk from the line of homeless people outside the theater, and for the deaf-mute children I used bags of potatoes that were painted with faces. Still, she was not impressed. Shoshana would sit on the rehearsals, chiming in as I was trying to get the actors to transform into their characters. Right when we were getting to a breaking point, she would insist on milking a cow on stage and having us all bathe together in the milk. While the homeless man loved the idea of a bath, I was struggling to get the play ready in time for opening. I couldnt stand having her there. She knew how to be very passive aggressive. Whenever I was giving notes to the actors, she would being coughing and rolling her eyes. ings came to a head een minutes before the curtain rose on opening night. As usual, Shoshana and I were in a huge ght. She insisted that the play would only ovulate if it were presented in reverse. I had already given in so much to her, I was not going to allow her to change the entire course of the play right before it began. She then stormed out of the theater, taking a sack of potatoes with her.
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ere was no time to address my international relationship incident, as the theater was quickly lling with reviewers and lovers of the theatre who were excited to see what the creator of Ponchos on Sunday had conceived. I watched the play unfold from the back of the theatre. It was less than ve minutes time before people started to leave. I heard their remarks: Crazy! Insane! I want a refund for the babysitter I had to get! At the time, I thought they were wrong, but now, years later, I know the truth. I had gone too far from my roots. By the time the curtain dropped and the lights came up, the theater was entirely empty. I burned all of the Excalibus materials and walked back to the apartment. It was late and I stumbled up the stairs and struggled with the lock on my door. I had no doubt that Shoshana would be ragingly angry with me. I had failed at being a conceptual artist. However angry she was with me, it was not enough to dissuade her from having sex with someone who is not me in our bed. How did I know this? I was witness to their intense embrace upon opening the door. I cleared my throat for twenty minutes while Shoshana and her lover nished, at which point he fell asleep and I was able to talk to Shoshana in the kitchen. How could you do this to me? I asked. Georey, I have done nothing. It is in the meaningful act of lovemaking that we feel nothing. What? I have outgrown you, like a caterpillar becoming a bunny. You were my cocoon. You protected me and helped get me my green card. She got up, gave me a kiss on my forehead and went to gather her things. With that, she moved out. e next morning, Alan the man she had slept with the previous night and I got breakfast down the street. If you ever need a piano player at a private party, you should call Alan because he is a nice guy.

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Chapter 20 A Brazen Flutter of Hope I had enough savings to coast for a few months while I gured things out. I was back to Square One, an employment consulting rm that I hoped might be able to help me focus myself. I took tests and interviews, and in the end my ideal occupation came back as inconclusive. I am too complicated an individual to be placed in any particular category. In a world of round pegs and square holes, I was an amorphous plasma that had no static form. I would spend days sitting in bookstores, hoping to gure out my next step in life. All that I got was my wallet stolen when I fell asleep in those comfortable chairs at the end of the aisles. My long walks in the park did nothing to clear my head and I ended up playing on a national-level Ultimate Frisbee team for two weeks. ere were some Callahan award winners on there, but aer I couldnt do a forehand for crap, I quit and moved on. I felt like I was wandering more than walking, wading more than swimming, interpretive dancing more than Charleston-ing. Nothing seemed to make sense. I received a telegram delivered by 1920s newsie, I assume to ensure delivery. I read the note: I want to talk to you concerning the world of the theater. Meet me at Cafe Dluckse tomorrow for lunch at high noon. - A.F. I had no idea what to expect, other than a meal, yet I did not know the Cafe DLuckse menu, thus furthering my lack of expectations. I arrived at Cafe DLuckse at 11:59. I saw a man with a bowler hat and a blue velvet smoking jacket with a red ower. I approached him and sat across from him. Can I help you? e dapper man asked. Im Geo George. Alright. You arent waiting for me? No.
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Im really sorry. I just thought because you had a ower in your jacket that -- What? What are you saying? He was becoming visibility upset with me, or his tea was not sitting well. My presumptions of how strange rendezvous stereotypically occurred had gotten the best of me. Georey, over here! A voice from across the cafe rang out. I swung my head to see another man, who was apparently waiting for me. I sat down across from Archie Findle. He was a tall and heavyset man with a beard and a stud earring in his right ear. In the le earlobe was a ceramic gauge, like a hardcore kid from Denver might wear. He spoke as if his words were given to him from God, with a deep timbre. Mr. Georges, I admire your work and you have promise. I want to produce your next play, whatever it may be, but I will not accept anything less than a modern story. I am not here to give you a blank check. I will support you nancially, but if you come back with a trite piece of postmodern theater, I will write this meeting of ours o as a stroke of bad luck and a business expense on my part. When you know what play you wish to write for me, give me a call. Enjoy the lunch. He dropped his business card, at least an inch thick, reading Archie Findle, Producer and Oliphile, and walked away. I stayed, enjoying my London broil, trying not to stare at the stranger in the blue velvet smoking jacket with a red ower. (I stared) Back at my apartment, I went through my old scripts and dras, searching for a proper idea. However, all the ideas were dusty. I needed something new. I didnt know what to write about, but I sat at the caf every day with a pad of paper and a pen. And I would look at the paper. At the end of the day, Id leave with a clean pad of paper. I could not write anything. I had no inspiration and no stories that I wanted to tell.

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Every day Id sit down in the same place. Around 7:30 she would come in and order her coee. Shed turn and smile at me, and Id smile back. And then she le. Every day was the same thing except for the weekends, when she didnt come. Wed exchange niceties. I learned that she was a teacher at a nearby school. She found out I was writing a play, but we didnt know each others names. She didnt know of my horrid past. And the innite possibilities of what we could be to each other helped me to create the play now known as Winter in Summer. I handed o the rst dra to Archie, but it wasnt good enough. Despite working towards a tight narrative, I was stuck in the Postmodern world. It was a scatological nightmare (this was when scatology was still a discipline surrounding scatting). He sent me back to writing, and I went back to the coee shop. I would wait to write until the woman came in to get coffee, and then Id write for the rest of the day. On a day she didnt come in, I didnt write anything. Aer three more weeks, I had a rewrite that I was ready to let Archie read again. He was intrigued by the play I had created. I fused the traditional narrative of a love story together with the postmodern notion of a thousand endings. A thousand possibilities of how these two lovers would end up together. Each night would be a new surprise. e repeat audiences would bring in grand sums. We began rehearsals at once. While I was not the director, I would sit in the back of the theater while the rehearsals went on. A young Johnny Malkokovich was the star, opposite the young darling Bertna Backarat. I heard the words, but all I could think about was the woman in the coee shop. It wasnt that kind of desire that makes you want to lay in bed with someone. It wasnt the kind of lust for a curiosity to the completion of the physical puzzle that was love making. I would think about what it felt like to hold her as we watched television together on our Crate and Barrel couch. I imagined how it felt to sit at Nordstroms while she tried on dresses she looked beautiful in. I thought about the smiles we would exchange across a crowded
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room when we saw each other at the end of the day; each of us picking out the other from the masses, her face brighter than any others. I knew what I had to do, but I was terried. It was so simple: invite her to the play. It was an easy in. But what if she hated it? What if she was put o by my attempts? I could not mess up what I was sure to be the greatest love of my lifetime. Yet time was passing with every moment, and knowing that my cowardice meant I was losing a moment to be with her, I gained the courage I needed. I went to the coee shop when it opened and sat, slowly sipping a drink to stay away. She came in and we smiled at each other, and I knew it was the right move. I got up and walked toward her. Hi, I havent seen you in a while because Ive been working on a play. I wrote it and its opening tonight, and Id like for you to come see it. I have a ticket waiting for you at will call, but I didnt know your name, so I just le it under Pretty Girl. I hope that isnt weird or anything. I didnt want to ask you your name because I couldnt bear to know anything more about you with there still being a chance that I might end up living without you. I hope you come. And then I le. On opening night, I was more worried that she wouldnt show up than that the show would go poorly. Yet show she did. at night, I waited in the wings and watched her the entire time. She sat there, gently smiling. She didnt laugh when the couple had their rst awkward date at his house, with the power going out and the lobster jumping out of the boiling pot of water. She didnt cry when he made the grand gesture on the train platform. She didnt recoil at the Ricola jingle-song. And, at the end of the show, she got up, looked at her watch, and le the theater. She didnt come backstage, she didnt send me a note. She just le. We spent the entire night at the pub waiting for the reviews, but all I could think about was the woman that I invited that
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evening. As day broke, I made my way to the coee shop and sat again. Eventually, during the morning of hustling and bustling, she came in. I walked up to her while she was in line. I gured that I had nothing more to lose as she had already walked out on my play. Im sorry to bother you, and if you want itll be the last time. I didnt know what to think when you ran out. I saw you check your watch, and I didnt meant to bore you. I hoped that -- It was a school night. And then I realized that the last eight hours I spent agonizing over where I went wrong over this woman, this woman whos name I didnt even know, like a borrowed DVD that youve had for so long you forget who lent it to you, the agony was all for nothing. Im Georey. Julia. We shook hands, and I never wanted to let go. Julia and I were in a state of what could only be called buffet love, because once we had some, we wanted more until all we could do was fall asleep in each others arms. We were always nishing each others ________. ings quickly became ever more wonderful. We would spend evenings at each others apartments just talking. At times I felt like she loved me more. at worried me, so in the competitive spirit, I loved her more. is only made her love me more, to which I replied with even more love, nally infuriating us both into a loving frenzy. However it happened, we were in what could only be called salad bar love, because its good for you and kept us regular. Although I was only in a relationship for three months, it felt like much longer than that with Julia, like a growth on ones foot that at rst you think will go away, but then realize has replaced the normal skin and esh and its there to stay. It was becoming more dicult to juggle my artistic lifestyle with dating, especially since Winter in Summer moved onto a real Broadway theater, plus matinees. e shows wouldnt end until
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nine. Sometimes she would stay out late with the company as we drank and thought quite highly of ourselves. She was a good sport, but I could always feel her knowing shed be tired the next day at school. I wanted to be with her so much, and I couldnt ask her to be tired every night. Furthermore, opium was going out of fashion and everyone was entering the Moody 90s and the all-night aerparties were dragging on. I had to come to the conclusion that if I wanted to continue courting Julia, I would have step o the court of the theater. It would be a dicult sacrice to make, but, as the saying goes, when God closes a door, the air pressure in the room bursts open another exit. I had a sit-down with Archie at the Belorouge, a fancy French restaurant. I oered to have him treat us as it was an important meeting. I broke the news to him that I would not be continuing with my theatrical endeavors. Georey, you and I can do great things. Im getting a lot of oers. I assumed he was referring to plays, and not telemarketers. I have to make a choice, Archie. Between the theater and the woman I love. She cant follow my lifestyle. Ask her to. Youre going to be successful. She wont have to work at all. If its meant to be I mean, if she loves you, shell change. I dont want to her to change. I love her now. I stood up and bid farewell to Archie. (e bid was quite high and despite my best intentions, it went to a foppish dandy who intended to keep the farewell in his private collection.) Aer a long torrid time, full of burnt brandy, dried tears, sheer panties, ripped curtains and being envious of people getting high in the catwalks, I le the theater scene forever.

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Chapter 21 News Pauper I reentered the theater scene three days later. I was given the opportunity to work the arts beat at the local newspaper, going to gallery openings and play previews. e best is that I was able to be spending more time with Julia. I was on the outside of the art scene looking in. Most importantly, no longer did newspaper people have to wear silly hats with press signs. Instead we had sashes. Lovely silk sashes with nely sewn lettering. March is traditionally known as a slow time in the art world. e beginning of the year celebrations are over, and spring isnt entirely ready with new fashion, literature, theater or lm. I spent most of my days at the paper just sitting at my desk practicing my pencil sharpening skills (as the managing editor told me I should). en, crime in the Big City started to go up. I am not sure if there is any correlation between the lack of art in March and the rise in crime, but I wasnt a correlationist. On one particular day, all the crime reporters were out, and the paper needed someone to follow up on a particularly gruesome murder. I was told to head down to a crime scene to nd out what was going on. It turned out that some guy found out that his wife was cheating on him with her golf caddy, and he ended up killing Tom Kite. Needless to say, I reported with all the vigor and gusto that I gave to my art pieces. ey loved my crime reporting and I was moved from the arts section to metro. I was covering city council meetings and learning the ins and outs of municipal government (THIS IS A SMALL DETAIL THAT IS IMPORTANT FOR LATER ON), stalking schools for scoops, and talking to old people about cherished memories of forgotten lovers. I got a chance to walk the entire city, although I did have a discounted bus pass, not to [Fort] brag[g] or anything. It was a lovely position that still allowed me to spend enough time with Julia. I had been on the metro desk for two months when I got a very cryptic letter in the letter:
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Attn Metro Desk, New York Centennial, If you do not publish this jumble, then I will be forced to do terrible things to your publisher (spoiler alert: kill). Do not test me, as I believe tests are biased towards the white auents and will only enrage me further. (Do not take this as a hint of my race, as I transcend race.) Enclosed was jumble with a drawing on the right of a bell tower and the caption Who will I kill? It was terrifying. I brought it straight to my editor, Don Fellowell. We were soon in a meeting of all the top brass (tuba) at the paper in the conference room (I had mixed feelings about this, because I was concerned about the killing, but exciting to get to sit at the big redwood table and enjoy chilled bottled water). We should publish this jumble, Said Alfred T. Rockslow, the publisher of the paper. He was a man who always wore pin stripe suits with a pencil mustache. If we publish it, were just giving in to this psychos demands! Were giving him all the power, Fellowell insisted. If we dont, he may kill someone, Rockslow red back. Not someone, Rockslow, hell kill you. From the corner of the room, the copy editor of the nancial page, Terrance Capple, raised his calculating voice. So, the question is, whose life do you want to put in jeopardy? ats a stupid question. I dont want to die. Run the damn thing, Rockslow calmly replied with ferocity as he stood up and le the room. ey made the decision to run it in place of the normal jumble on the back page. e next day, the paper went out, and we immediately received hundreds of phone calls from concerned parents that the answer to who will I kill? was a nun. We didnt let out that Rockslow allowed the message to be published in hopes of protecting his own life. People were furious that we would allow
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such a jumble to be published, and soon enough the story got out that a killer had taken over the back page of the Style section. We sat huddled around the police scanner in the newsroom, waiting to hear word of a nun being killed. All the nuns around town were on alert, but also believed that their destiny was in Gods hands and if it was their time, it was their time. At 4 PM, we got word over the wire: a stripper in a nuns clothing was stabbed to death in an alley. We were all relieved except Terrance Capple, who knew the stripper-nun personally and was saddened to lose her syncohypnopathic moves. He went into the storage closet to drink and snort cocaine while I rushed to the scene. Our paper gave him the name e Funnies Killer, and we all thought we were quite ingenious for coming up with a cute name like that. ere was nothing for a few weeks, and we thought the matter was settled. is was a one-time incident from a crazed lunatic. However, one day Jimmy Olswine, the mail boy, dropped o another letter for the Metro Desk. e same deal. Publish what he wanted, or hell kill Rockslow. It was a crossword. It was a really hard crossword and no one could gure it out in time before he killed the victim that was 13 down. In his next communiqu, a short story about how crayons are made, he inserted a small passage about how his intent is to terrify and not confuse, and apologized for creating such a dicult crossword. It wasnt really fair. Yellow and blue make green! e words were chilling. He followed it up with a Dr. Rex Morgan cartoon that he had edited to read the following: Panel 1: Dr. Rex Morgan pointing a sniper rie out a window. Panel 2: An elderly black woman sitting at a park bench, in the ries scope. Panel 3: Dr. Rex Morgan eating her heart. It was very cryptic indeed. We published the comic but didnt know how it would turn out. An advisory was put out to the citys old black ladies telling them not to sit at park benches. How92

ever, the National Consortium of Female Afroelderly Bench Lovers was meeting the next day in Central Park! Furthermore, considering the history of telling Black women to give up their seats, and the fact that the current police commissioner was a devout racist, the advisory was largely ignored. It would be like shooting helpless old ladies stued in a barrel! Despite the best eorts of our sta, the comic sadly came to life (except for the part about her heart being eaten). However, it was simply a stripper dressed up as an old black lady. Figures from both the black and stripper communities, along with Terrance Capple, were outraged. e polices search was becoming more intense. Check points were set up throughout the city. e theory had been that this was two white hicks from the country driving around in a white van. White vans were being burned all over the city. We also wondered: if the killer or killers knew that everyone knew that they were using a white van, why would they continue to use that vehicle? Despite our best guesswork, we kept on receiving creepy messages and publishing them, and the killings continued. I would spend all my waking hours at the paper, and Julia was becoming nervous for me. She was worried that I was getting in the middle of this, but I thought she was just being overly nervous. However, I realized she was right when I received the latest message from the killer. He wanted to meet with me, and insisted on killing someone every hour on the hour if I refused (this message was even more frightening coming out of the mouth of Sir Beetle George Bailey). He was complaining that everyone was getting his story wrong. He complained that the media was biased against killers of his type (the dangerous and killing sort), and he wanted his side heard. He felt he had a close relationship with me. I was attered for sure, but you know how it is when a boy starts to pay attention to you. He only wants one thing... And thus I found myself standing on a street corner waiting to speak to him. e police had been notied, and they were perched on the rooops. e payphone rang and I answered.
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Georey, I know the police are following you. Get on the F train heading north. Youll be hearing from me. If you miss this train, I will kill. I hung up and rushed to the subway. I got onto the train on the last minute and sat. I waited. Eventually a small man with round glasses dropped a note in my lap. Get out at the next stop and wait. Before I could do anything, the small man was gone. e train stopped, and I got o. I waited for an hour before the last train had come and gone. e station was empty. I gured that the Funnies Killer wasnt going to come. I walked up the stairs but the gates had been locked. I was stuck. I rushed back down and there was a man standing on the platform. It was the Funnies Killer: a man with round glasses, slick black hair and a leather trench coat. Yknow, Georey, I have been itching to get some time with you. He talked like a clown that was on a break. Whats your name? My name? Im not stupid enough to tell you that! You think Im stupid. I dont think youre stupid. In fact, he seemed to be intelligent enough to coordinate this entire evening, but I felt as if any attery might come o as sarcastic. is is the problem with all you media idiots. He began to walk back and forth. You all think you know stu you dont. What do you want? I wanted to cut to the chase of this because I kinda needed to pee. When I was ve years old, my old man decided it would be a good idea to start beating me to shut me up. ought the voices in his head was me just yelling all the time. Every night hed drink a bottle of valium, and then a bottle of Jack, then eat a loaf of marble rye and a block of sharp Vermont cheddar. His stomach became enraged and he was angry at the world for not telling him to stop. He had mommy issues and he gave me daddy issues. He was the rst man I killed. I stued his mouth full of my comic books when he was asleep. I ran o that night and joined the Merchant Marines. I liked the suits we got to wear and the sea
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air settled my mind. I was an able seaman, getting awarded sailor of the moon-cycle three times. Yet, whenever we put into port, I would go out at night and kill. All I could do was kill and eat Nutella. And then eight months ago the ship I was on nally went out of business and me with it. I was stuck in this god forsaken sodomite-ridden bug-bubbling ass-tasting shit-bucket skank of a city. And it needed to be cleansed with the blood of the dead. Do you think you can write all that? He added. Id have to get a pen and a paper, or a tape recorder. I honestly didnt know you were going to go into all of it right away. I felt quite embarrassed. Guaw. Annoyed, he raised his gun. Tell me one reason why I shouldnt kill you right here. I sensed he was going to shoot me. Because Im in love, and she loves me! Who? His gun was rattling. I have to admit that I peed myself just slightest bit, just to remind myself that I was alive. My girlfriend, Julia. ats good to know. Aer Im done with you, Ill nd your little girlfriend and tell her to come meet you in HELLLLLLLL!!!!!! BAM! e police had tracked me to the subway tunnel and shot the sicko dead. His brains exploded over my shirt. I sank to the ground. I sat for hours aerwards thinking, and I knew... I knew what was important then. (besides getting rid of the brains covered shirt because I would never want to wear it again, which was more tragic than all the lives lost in this ordeal because it was 2-ply Egyptian cotton. Its like when a bird poops on your shirt. You know itll come out, but there are some things that you dont want to be reminded of.) I stayed up all night waiting for the shops to open. I bought the ring and proposed to Julia by hiding the ring in her glove. It was really painstaking to get the ring to line up perfectly
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when she slid her hand into it, but it was a really good surprise. Also, I had to wait three weeks for the rst cold day. Furthermore, she had le the house with her glove without me knowing, so I got a weird phone call when she was at work asking if I had put an engagement ring in there. I rushed out of the house to propose in person in front of her second grade classroom. One kid threw up. Pure romance.

We were married four months later under a tree, with autumn leaves gently falling. Her entire family was there. I had no one, having alienated myself from the art scene with my abrupt departure and not really knowing anyone well enough at the paper just yet, as well as having no living family members. Julias mother was a hardened taskmaster, and her father was a hippie who came up with the original Ben & Jerrys avors (it was hard to listen to the man call Ben & Jerry a couple of thieving cogs in the corporate machine). Julias sister married a priest. ey were a regular wacky family. Again, I had no one.
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e reception was wonderful. We danced to ueen that night under a heated tent. ere was another reception going on right across the street for some woman named Rachel, but from what we gathered it was a depressing, self-centered, forciblyalternative ceremony. Our honeymoon was lovely. She wanted to go to Europe, and I wanted to stand in line waiting for Ghostbuters II to open, so we compromised and went to Maine for a week and a half. We drove up in a rented red Alfa Romeo Spider with the top down along the Atlantic coast. Maine is a strange and exotic land. I hadnt seen so much annel in my life. Every tree had a bucket attached to it to catch the maple owing out of it. e entire time I was very hungry because of my allergy to lobster(!) but I did ne with the other wonderful foods there. e last night we sat on the seashore in each others arms. For the rst moment in my life, everything was stable and perfect. I had a job and a beautiful wife and it was all so sweet, except for that darn basil plant which would not seem to grow no matter what I did.

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Chapter 22 Baby in Arms ings settled into the new normal aer the honeymoon. We moved into a nice brownstone next to Sumner Redstones son Bluegem. I thought we had both gotten sick from all that Maine lobster, but Julias vomiting lasted longer than mine. Julia was pregnant, allegedly with child. Conrmation came several weeks later at the doctors oce. We were thrilled and started planning from the coming of our child. At work, things were getting busy. e Mayor had just announced that he had inappropriate relations with his chief of state, several interns, his maid, a local pool boy, an exotic Argentinian dancer, and the entire batting lineup of the 1979 New Jersey Nets. To top that o, it was revealed he was just a patsy put into oce by the 3/6ths Maa, the most melodic of all the families. Even further, the Mayor wasnt even a Mayor, but the Deputy Mayor in disguise! e entire town was furious and it was up to the metro desk to help the citizenry know the facts. Because I was always working wherever news was happening, I could not easily be reached. At this time, cell phones existed, but only the Japanese used them, and only while laughing in the faces of Americans. e rest of the world, we used beepers. e beeper buzzed and I ran to a payphone, inserting a shiny quarter. My wife picked up on the other end. Honey, its happening. She was headed to Bellevue, and I was 200 blocks north. I had to get back to my wife. She needed me. And this was the exact moment when one of the largest brownouts in the history of the northeastern United States occurred. It was Utter Mayhem (Matador Records, 1996). I wouldve taken a taxi if the streets werent jammed. ere was looting happening all around. I remember carrying a television three blocks for someone whose hands were too full of stereo equipment. ank god he lived close because my back was beginning to hurt. I ran as far as I could, but the chaos was too much. e most terrifying things were the ash mobs that had emerged. ere
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was a giant pillow ght in the streets right next to the people doing riller right next to the people frozen in place. I could barely make my way through the crowds. I ran into my old friend Joey Tonka Two Truck Kerzwok. He had recently taken a job as a janitor in a high-rise and told me that at the top was a glider that I could take to y over the insanity that was engulng the Big City. Maneuvering the glider would be the simple part. First I had to get through the insane crowd that was looting the 10 T-Shirts for 5 Dollars Tower to get to the roof. I had nally gotten to the roof and there was a horde of people crowding around the glider. In the middle was a man protecting the use of the glider from the crowd with a sword. No one may use this glider! e sword-wielder screamed. e crowd didnt understand. You all would use this glider, but then it would be on the ground, in a static death. Never to be used again. We must cherish the years that we live in agony. He responded, wildly waving the saber. I stepped forward. Sir, I have to get to my wife, she is in labor. I pleaded as I have never pled before. ere is no greater gi than a child. A child is the fruit of loins pulsing against each other. Cherish this child. Love this child. Allow the child to blossom. Let the family soar. He lowered the sword. Take the glider, and a copy of my book, Chronicle of a Death Foretold. I thanked Colombian author Gabriel Garcia Marquez and took o on the glider south towards my laboring wife. Below me I could see the city in chaos. Pretzels going unsalted. Hot dogs going unboiled. Strip clubs going unsoiled. I eventually made it to the roof of the hospital, which was running on back-up generators. I ran down and found Julia and my son, Baby Eric. For all this worry of the last nine months and particularly the last few hours of my dash to the hospital, I was mightily unimpressed that
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his skill level was so low. Yet, I knew I could train him to be my own. I was instantly in love with him. I enjoyed calling my son Baby Eric because, at least to me personally, it sounded like the name of a hip-hop musician. Life was hectic. I had gotten the story of rushing to see my son born during the blackout into the weekend magazine, and I was suddenly getting noticed. Rockslow especially liked the story. I was paired with another reporter, John Newbery, to do an expos on crime in the city. e corruption from head to toe and dreg to doe. A recent garbage strike that ended with a slice of pie raised eyebrows all over. Something else was going on. It went from the mayor to the police right down to the rats themselves. Newbery had blown the cover o the last city scandal: a complex society of undermen living in the sewers. e mail boy came by and dropped o my regular mail. However, this time, there was a certain letter written on birch bark. is was the moment that I stood frozen in time. I opened the letter. It was from the Department of Indian Aairs sending me a check for $3.47, the amount we all made from the prots on the Indian Water Treatment Plant that they had installed just a year earlier. Yet, from reading the letter, I learned that my father was still alive back in North Dakota. I didnt know what to do. I still had a dad out there. What kind of father could I be, if I had a father who abandoned me when I was but young? Oh, Stephen Sondheim, tell me what to do! I did the only brave thing: I plunged myself into my work. I was going all over town, getting interviews, searching municipal records. When I did nally come home, Julia and Baby Eric would be asleep or shed be up trying to lull him back to slumber. Either way, I was completely wiped. I had no time for my family, even though I thought I was committing myself fully to them. I mean, I was constantly bringing home half-eaten sandwiches to no recognition. Later on, Julia would tell me she had found the Department of Indian Aairs letter in her daily wife-mandated pocket
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rummage. She knew what was going on, and she tried her best to give me the time to sort out my head. She also thought I might run away as my father did, so she had replaced my wedding band with a tiny electric dog collar. I was staying late and had just gotten o the phone with Julia. Baby Eric had been crying all night. Julia insisted that he needs his father. I couldnt pull myself away. is piece was going to be the front page headline the next day. Well, Georey, lets put this one to bed. Newbery was ready to get back home to his cocaine. Its not done yet. He grabbed my arm. is story isnt going to get any better. I looked up at him. I cant go home. Georey, let me tell you a story about my father, Newberry began, lighting a pipe, My old man was a traveling businessman. Hed be home maybe a few days a month, but all the time he was driving around in that shiny red convertible of his. When he was home, all he wanted to do was lie around the house. Hed go on and on about providing for me and my brothers. ats how I remember my father. He was a man who thought he was supposed to make money, but he shouldve really been making love. John, I said, ats the second saddest story Ive ever heard about a traveling businessman husband in my life. Is that a backhanded compliment? Not really. Just honest. Well, you didnt have to say it. Sorry. Like, how does that help either of us? I thought -- Georey, go home, go to your wife and kid. On the train ride home I couldnt get it out of my head. I walked into the apartment and could still hear Eric crying. I walked into the nursery and saw Julia asleep in her chair,
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hands slumped to the side, with the baby in the crib. I picked up Baby Eric and held him in my arms. He stopped crying. Julia awoke and smiled at us. Youre his father, Georey. Nothing will ever change that.

Im looking into your, the readers, eyes right now.

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Chapter 23 Campaignman Aer years of working in the Big City, I got a call from the Washington Post to write for their editorial page. Aer weighing the pros and cons, we decided to move to Washington, D.C., where we could raise a family with a front yard, in a city that wasnt full of people living on top of each other, and that didnt smell like the urine of some hybrid homeless man/otter. It was also at this time that Washington, D.C. was the murder capital of the country, which was proudly displayed on its ag:

ere had been problems in every part of the city that had come to my attention already in my short time in the city. Lead in the water, lead in the education, lead in the bullets that were constantly being driven into the bodies of the poor. Also, DC was constantly being treated like the love child of the United States, Puerto Rico being the countrys sisters child she got aer prom night that she couldnt care for aer she went crazy and moved upstate. Coincidentally, it was an election year and I decided to take matters into my own hands. I was going to get on the city council and change things. Aer getting the signatures on the petition necessary to get on the ballot, I only had three months before November rolled
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around. I had a lot of contacts from the newspaper biz and the theater world, and soon ended up with a crack team headed up by Alan Swindell, an old time campaign man. He had us meet over whiskey at a wine bar. If you want to win, Georey, youll let me run your campaign. It was 5:01 and he was already on his way to a sloshy evening, Ive gotten Koreans elected in South Carolina, a pixie into the Minnesota Labor Union, and a South Carolinian a seat on the Pacic Rim Senate. Im a kingmaker, no two ways about it. I promise elections won and delivered straight to you, even on weekends or holidays. He mightve been rough around the edges, but he soened those edges with the sultry Mitzy Falbarzio. She had been working her way up the past three years, starting with comptrollers in New Jersey and on to a mayor in South Jersey. She was the assistant campaign manager. To round out the team was my speech writer Ken Watanabe, ad men Tom & Richard Jif, driver El Greco, jinglemaster Bryce Cooperstock, and a handful of interns (who I later learned were holding, and charging for, sex parties in the campaign oces at night, although they did save extra pizza for our sta lunches). ings were starting well. I had won a debate with the incumbent third ward councilman, a patsy of the 3/6ths Maa, DC Branch, named Carl Castillo. I accused him of such, and his attempt to deny it wouldve been successful had it not been for the carbon copy Bribe Forms that he oered in his oce. Back at the campaign oce, however, things were getting tense. Alan and Mitzy were at odds with how to go forward. Alan wanted me to keep on attacking Carl, while Mitzy said I should be more positive and appeal to the voters desire for more than just a lesser evil. In the end, it came down to me, and I had to agree that being nicer was nicer to be. Aw, hell, theres no way youre going to take third ward with some skirt shaking her skirt. Alan stormed out of the oce. Wed never see him again, considering all that was found of him was his hand, clutching the bottle of whiskey. Alan Swindell was
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only 65 when he walked in front that bus. His ferocity and boldheaded condence, matched with his drunkenness, made him believe he could stare down a bus like a wild bualo. But much like the wild bualo, Swindell was part of a group of old-style politicos who were going extinct. Everyone moved up a rank. Mitzy to campaign manager, El Greco to assistant campaign manager, Ken Watanabe to jinglemaster, Tom & Richard Jif moved up to speech writer, and the interns were in charge of ads. (We got a new set of younger interns that held even sexier, and more expensive, parties aer the regular parties at evening.) As things were heating up on the campaign trail, Julia was feeling the stress. On top of taking care of the kids and her teaching job, her mother had taken a turn for the worse, having driven her car into a building. Her Alzheimer's made her think the steering wheel was a pancake and the building the home of Aunt Jemima. She was not far o, but I doubt the National Archives would like to be thought of the keeper of strictly all things racially insensitive. As Julia was spending her days at the hospital, things were heating up on the campaign trail. e mudslinging was beginning. We were all working late in the oce, trying to gure out our name move against my opponent, backed by perennial District of Columbia mayoral candidate Henry Rollins. People started to nod o and leave, and before I knew it, it was just me and Mitzy Falbarzio, sitting in my oce, going over the next day. She stood and slunk over to me. Were getting down to the wire, Georey. She slowly said, Soon youll be giving your acceptance speech, celebrating, and then, the work will begins. Youre about to become a public servant. at it is, Mitzy. I wanted to tell her o for being so expository, but that wouldnt be nice. So, celebrate with me. Celebrate what? She released her tightly wound bun, to let down her fourteen inches of shiny brunette hair.
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Georey, I want to go to Pleasureville, and I want to take that ride on top of you. My jaw dropped. For the rst time in my entire life I understood a metaphor. A whole world of speech had suddenly become clear. How about it, Georey? she said, stroking her hair. Im married. No. I cant. I dont want to! I had nally come to this aer comprehending the metaphor. What? Your wife? I assumed it was a sham marriage, like they all are with you politician types. Absolutely not. She cackled with hyenic passion. Oh, please, Georey, Im not naive. I know how this works. We get close working late and I fall for you. I cant commit to a real relationship because Im scared theyll never work out so I pour everything into my job. As a result of caring too much about my job, I have incredibly high aspirations. And getting with you would be a nice sweet taste of what those aspirations would feel like. She hiked up her skirt to reveal a set of lacy undergarments. I dont know how my tie became loose or a glass of tidy bourbon appeared in my grip, but I did manage to see her press play on the stereo and dim the lights. She began to move in a hypnotic fashion that was made to arouse the senses of any man who thought he was in control of all the women in the world. If every last chick was just to be the next notch on his bedpost. Yet, I couldnt. I was in love with another woman. I have to go. Ill see you tomorrow. I stood up, grabbed my jacket, and le the oce. All I wanted to do was go home and get a good nights sleep, but I headed o to the hospital where Julia was watching over her mother. I came into the room. I told Julia I would watch her mother while she went to go get some food. I sat at the hospital bed and held the dying womans hand. Julia? I would ignore her insults as she was ill. Its me, Georey.
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Oh, Georey please, I dont have much time. e cancer is eating away my bones, like a bunch of third graders with an aerschool snack. I need to tell you this before I go. Anything. You can tell me anything. I shot FDR. What? I admit it. I pulled the trigger. I was there on the day. ey thought it was that bastard in the book depository, but it was me. Do you mean JFK? NO DAMN IT! I mean FDR!!!! And then she atlined. Nurses and doctors ran into the room, attempting to resuscitate her, but to no avail. Julia came back and ran into my arms. We watched on as the doctor called the time of death. We watched as they unplugged the machinery. We watched as the Clown Doctor came by to bring a balloon bouquet to her. e election was right around the corner, yet we all took a step back for Julias mothers funeral. Surprisingly, I had never been to a funeral. When mama died, we were too poor for anything more than a carting away. For all the people that died in my life, I was never strong enough to see them nally laid to rest. Yet now I had to be the strong one for my wife. As I was walking away, a tall man who called himself Cedric Daniels came up to me. My name is not important. I am from the Wind and Fiddle Society. e super secret Ivy League society? e one and the very same. It has come to our attention that you might lose the election tomorrow, and we want to assure you that we will do everything in our power to make this not the case. For reasons unknown to us now or in the future, you must win the council seat. I dont know if I want to win if its dishonest. My sense of morality, still based on ease, was hardening.
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Do you know that every council member gets a pen and nameplate set? I shook his hand and he disappeared as quickly as he appeared. Nissans are quick little roadsters when they need to be. I won the district and was on the city council. For the past thirty-ve years Ive enjoyed reigning over the nations capital, with what little power the federal government actually grants us. Its like playing in a sand box where the other states are constantly taking away our toys and sand. Ugh.

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Chapter 24 Temporal Slumber Party e recent years of my life have been, thankfully, uneventful. Since leaving the city council, I spend as much time as I can with my family. I have a magnet school and a breakfast sandwich combo at Pumpernickels named aer me. Im equally touched by both. Julia teaches still. Baby Eric is a professor in linguistics at the University of Alberta at Miami Online. With all my free time, I nally had one thing le on my bucket list that I had to take care of: I needed to go back to my roots. To the Black Hills. Seven months prior to this writing I got on a plane headed for South Dakota. I received word from the local Lakota chief, Rick Henderson, that my father had died. He lived to be 123. I was going to visit the place where I had been born for the rst time. When the plane landed in Grand Rapids, I waited in the airport terminal. I didnt get in a taxi, I didnt ask for directions. I just sat in those chairs. And then I just got back on the plane because I didnt need to go back to where I was from. I was, however, escorted o the plane because it was going on to Olympia and I had to wait for a return ight home. As I sat in the airport, I thought about how it would be if I had met my father as an adult. He had lived to be a very, very old man, and I didnt even know. Woe, what tragedy befalls the man who has never met his father, yet he was just a simple plane ride away all these years. But I didnt need to meet him anymore. I had come to peace with my father. It was my birthday, and my wife led me to the school where she had, until recently, worked. She said she had a surprise for me. As I walked in the auditorium, I saw all of the wonderful people from my life. All of those people I had met, who helped me along the way, who made me the man I became. I stood on the stage, and looked out upon the faces of the crowd and saw many friends I had not seen in so many years. e
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kids from the old neighborhood, and my pals in the Sand Guys, Je Jorge, Eric LaSalle, Richard Dryfuss, the children from the military mans family, the old stars of stage and the sage scars of gold. I have reprinted below the speech I gave on that day: Hello, my name is Georey Melinda Georges, and I have led a blessed life. ere is no reason a man such as myself, from such humble beginnings, should have done the things I did or be rich with the friends and memories I do have. Yet, I have gazed upon this beautiful nation of ours, and walked upon the land. I have seen the most vile, but only so that I might see the most beautiful. I have seen the Algonquin native sun rise in the broken misty morning. I have swung from the trees of the Amazon with monkeys with shoulders abroadened. I have won Scotlands freedom. While I have done great things, the greatest things I have ever done are with the people I love and love me. e greatest gi a man can get, aer an Aeron chair, is to live a life full of love. I am rich in gis. I am rich in savings bonds. I am rich in liquidity. I am rich in the memories that all of you have given me. Life is what happens when plans fall through. I had never planned to be touched by so many of you. And I will always hold a slight resentment against those who love me for veering from my path. I always wanted to be a restorationist of vintage airplanes. I never told anyone that. It was my deepest secret, and now you all know. ank you for enriching my life. ere was a wonderful gathering aerwards in the lobby. I got to catch up with so many of the friends that I had lost touch
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with. ere were awkward conversations and hearty laughs and gentle cupping. e tears were a mixture of emotion and humor, and the pats on the back had a certain ring of the one who got away. We were all enjoying our fun when a security advance team came into the lobby, followed by two rows of buglers. My wife grabbed my arm. eres one more surprise for you, Georey. Do you remember Sammy the Scammer? e orphan from Ponchos on Sunday? How could I forget that illiterate street rat? He was Precious (ne Push). And in strode Sam Donaldson. ats right, Sammy the Scammer grew up to be Sam Donaldson. Hello, Mr. Georges. Sammy I was stunned that he was wearing a suit without patches on it. Everyone! He raised his voice. I have word from the President of these United States that he signing into law that today will forever be known as Georey Melinda Georges Day, a tax-free holiday in Delaware, Ohio and Utah! Cheers from the crowd. Mr. Georges, Sammy the Donaldson continued, thank you for giving me my rst big break. Its because of you that I dont feel like an orphan anymore. We embraced, on a hugging level. Never forget, Sammy, I told him, holding back tears, Ill always think of you as an orphan, and so will everyone else. Everyone started to cry. e buglers had to stop their horning on account of all the tears. So many many tears. For me. So much love. ` Yet, while love is undying, those in love may pass. Julia died on a Tuesday. She was laid to rest on ursday. I had a yard sale on Saturday. at Sunday I went and got a bagel. e following Monday was a holiday so a lot of businesses were closed, but on Tuesday I got a new suit. On Wednesday I wrote a will. On ursday, I bought a bus ticket to Buxton. Friday I walked
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from the bus stop to the shore, to the ocean. I took o my shoes and walked into the sea. Never to walk out again. She knew when everyones birthday was, and I wasnt about to invest in a calendar. She wrote the thank you notes and bought the fruit and told me when to x things around the house. She knew what shoe was the le one and what shoe was a tissue box. She told me when my hands were dry because she was always holding mine. She would remove the chocolate chips from the chocolate chip ice cream because I liked it just so. She hid oatmeal when I walked in the room, and never let me go outside without a kiss. Life just didnt feel right living without her, because it didnt feel much like living at all.

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Chapters 25-967 Nothingness Im dead.

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Chapter 968 4000 Years Later I awoke stark naked in the middle of the Cryocage Room. I looked around at the other vessels for freezing humans, but they were shattered and empty, long thawed corpses in them. I was the last one. Red lights blinked and sirens blared. Smoke was quickly lling the room and the temperature was rising from the ames. I had to get out before I died again. I ran down the hallway. Flickering lights from ransacked rooms. A faint heavy smell of gas was waing into the hallway. I was lost, but kept running what I thought was the exit. A shadowy gure on horseback was coming towards me. I ran as hard as I could, but my body had not yet thawed completely and my muscles were weak. I slowed and the sound of sharp hooves grew louder. As much as I tried to get away, I couldnt. I fell to the ground, wheezing. If living is your cause, get your body in motion, a handsome voice said. I swung my head around to see the Savior of All. It was Danny Cohen, futuristic freedom ghter. He was naked as well, but by choice, with a huge sword, on a tiger, bare back. He swung me up behind him and I grabbed hold of his tight abs. Ride on, Hyperius! he cried as the tiger bolted from the exploding building. e world is a dierent place now in the year 4000(!!!!!!!!). e world is a dierent place, Georey. Shortly aer your death in the 21st century, the terrorists began to take hold of the entire world. Crazy libertarians in Montana joined forces with the Taliban, and they all worked together with the Inuits (who had been planning a massive seal-based attack, but had not gotten around to it due to budget issues and layos). e social networking websites that had become so popular brought the extremists altogether with groups like Death to America, Homemade TNT, and Colin is fagggggayyyyyy. In response, the United States
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teamed up with Canada to form the North American Union, which was ruled by an iron st by Al Gore the ird. Eventually the Greatest War occurred and there were massive nuclear explosions, followed by a nuclear winter of 1000 years. Humans lived underground. ey created hyper-intelligent robots that eventually became too intelligent, and an all-out Second Greatest War took place between humans and robots. More crazy nuclear explosions, and another 1000 year nuclear winter. e world cleansed itself and humans began to inhabit the world again. With the knowledge of all human history, we built small communities and clans, vowing never to ght again. Egalitarianism was at its best. But then the clans became to grow uneasy and restless. Inghting over who got the best land and who was a baker or who could be an artisan. People wanted to know why some had to use solar energy, while others had to settle with wind or, ugh, hydroelectric. My father, Christian Cohen, was a man who preached peace, and he was quickly beaten with clubs and the newly invented pointy stick. Chaos had begun once again. And this is now where I meet you. e world has fallen apart. I have been protecting the Chronocryozone station that you have been frozen in, waiting for you to be woken up. is morning, the non-believers torched the station, and that is why you are here now. I took a moment to realize that he had stopped talking. I totally didnt pay attention to him, as I was looking around and saw that they have the same sized iPods that they had in my time. I thought they would just keep on getting smaller, but theres a certain point where things just get too small. Why were you protecting me? I was attered, but also a little nervous that we were both naked and I didnt know if he was normally like that. And at this point he handed me a torched book, with just the title page, reading e Georey Melinda Georges Stories. I could not comprehend how he was handing me a book that I had not written yet.
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What am I to do? I was very much worried it would involve waiting in line. I have a small time travel capsule that I can send back to the time you came from, he told me, his chest pounding from his strength, I have the technology. What I need from you is to write the book. Ill read it and then send it back in time, so I might nd it in this time, thus completing the loop. How can I write a book that Ive already written but I dont remember writing any of it? Its a time loop and a paradox and I dont understand! It was at this point Danny Cohen, the strongest and most handsome man that I had ever seen (and this was the future, so I imagined he was highly evolved, and it showed) touched his body to mine, and held me close. Georey, you are the key to saving humanity, he said as a single tear, unicorn-quality, fell from his cheek. Im pretty sure it was a mixture of aloe vera and Dasani. And thus I am writing this book. It took me two weeks. Ive been hanging out with Danny Cohen at the protected fortcommune that is populated with people who think I am a god. ey call themselves the Clan of Winds and Fiddles, and at one point in the past were known as the Wind and Fiddle Society. Apparently, this book is the only surviving book and they are all waiting for their bible to be created by me! It is great getting treated with reverence. Now I know how Dave omas, founder of Wendys, felt. Dannys a really good cook and I imagine would be a great boyfriend if he could ever meet anyone in this post-apocalyptic wasteland. He showed me a screenplay hes been working on about a really stressed-out attorney who falls for a kooky independent book store lady who likes to wear homemade hats. It could be good if he worked a little harder on it, but hes really distracted with trying to survive and protecting the clan. Last night we had oxtail stew. I wanted to say something, but I didnt want to ruin these peoples lives with telling them that what they think is cumin is nothing more than old dust.
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I can only hope that they nd the key to restarting a fruitful civilization in this, dare I say, novella. So, now, that Ive written this book, the real question is: If you read this book while listening to All ings Considered, do they sync up? Also, I didnt write fuck once in this book.

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What people are saying a-bout this b-ook:

is free advanced copy is the Arthur Ashe of Literary Triumphs.

Shamgod Shamgod

Mr. Georges, youll be glad to know weve found your luggage.

Delta Airlines

e book stole key elements of my own life and improved on them.

Boutros Boutros-Ghali

Cut the red wire? e red wire? eyre all red wires!
Tavis Smiley

Close that book. Its time for dinner.

Your Mommy
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