(photo by Miles Tsang*)

Some promoters wouldn’t book you because you weren’t popular enough, others because you were popular with the wrong crowds. I met this one set of Rastafarian cats running a venue out of Harlem who told me my bands couldn’t play because they were white. I asked if the word “unity” rang any bells with them, and he asked if the word “apartheid” rang any with me. The point was moot and I had no choice but to tell “Blunted Me with Science,” the Rasta New Wave band I was managing, that they couldn’t play with their idols Bad Brains because of the color of their skin. It was a shame too, the fellas in the band had been telling me about this “Devo style cover of ‘banned in D.C.’” that I was dying to hear.

More often than not you could find ample booking if you were willing to settle for the emo scene. This being the heyday of New Jersey’s emo fallout, every church, VFW, and basement was a retrofitted showcase for self-indulgent, misguided, tight-jeaned Maiden fans convinced that they too were the next big thing. Hard to blame them, record companies really WERE snatching up bands from the area like hotcakes. Having dibs on a venue during this period was like staking a claim on an undiscovered oilfield, promoters could just kick back and watch the money pile in.

Local emo bands became bitter rivals, fighting to death for opening slots on gigs they themselves wouldn’t have paid to see. Record contracts were popping up in the strangest of places. Suddenly even the smallest showcase presented the potential for life-changing emo success. But people only wanted to hear what they knew, shitty high school poetry sung over recycled Taking Back Sunday riffs. Ska and punk bands were confined to two venues on either side of the state that were perpetually overbooked and impossible to play. I only got on one of these venues once, and it was a nightmare. I’d misread the show’s roster and accidentally booked my Latin/Jazz fusion group on a September 11^th punk show.

The first sign of trouble came when the opening band, who arrived at the show in a leopard print hearse, started their set shouting “FUCK FIRE FIGHTERS!” Hernando, the leader of the Latin group, went into a frenzy. He came from a long line of firemen, and had lost an uncle to the Trade Center rescue teams. Nando, as he never let me call him, was a pretty level guy, but to hear someone say something like that . . . well . . .

Two sets later he and his boys climbed on stage with their horns and congas. “In response to the viscous declarations of the first band (if you could really call them that) we’d like to take a moment to commemorate a group of valiant heroes from across the mighty Hudson River.” I could feel the tension in the room, the punks gathering together in one corner making obscene gestures at the stage and the rest of the crowd waiting silently for what would happen next.

“These heroes,” Nando continued, “risked life and limb to save New York, if not the world, from a terrible threat the likes of which we’d never seen before. We hope you will join us in honoring these tragically underrated New Yorker heroes, saints even, with this song.” And with that he counted the band off. Much to the surprise of everyone in the cramped auditorium, the tune which followed was a straight cover of Ray Parker Jr.’s “Ghostbusters.” Although most of the crowd enjoyed it, Nando and co. still got beat up after the show by the opening punk band. That was a given, those guys’ll smash anything. What’s really bad is when the promoter’s the one trying to wring your neck.

I’d been living in the van with “Karl Marx and The Kommies,” a 5 piece rocksteady group on their first tour, and tensions were running high. There’s only so long you can live off Hostess’ Fruit Pies and Mountain Dew before you snap, and Fast Eddie, the band’s chicken-picking lead guitarist, had actually proposed this as his senior thesis back at Bergen Community College. It got rejected of course, which made him twice as angry as before. He wasn’t a violent person, but he could pass aggression like a motherfucker. “Donny,” he’d say to their drummer, “maybe if you stopped smoking all those cancer sticks you’d be able to keep up with the rest of us on ‘Ranking Full Stop.’ You’re going to die if you don’t, just saying.” Donny, on the other hand, was an extremely violent person and would usually respond to this by forcefully holding Eddie’s head out the window of the moving bandwagon and telling him that he’d die first.

All of this disappeared when they got on stage. It evaporated into the music. Even at gigs like this, where there wasn’t a single dude in the crowd wearing men’s jeans, they managed to draw some skanking. Not the easy kind either, but the hectic “Pick it up, Pick it up, Pick it up!” type that haunts rude boys’ wet dreams.

Overall the show was a success, the boys had more of a draw than even the headlining act, “Cross The Street Not Down The Road” (an up-and-coming emo band with a sound indistinguishable from anyone else’s), and were looking forward to a night in the lap of luxury; which, by their standards consisted of a moderately priced Chinese dinner and a round of Olde English. But it wasn’t meant to be.

The promoter played it cool, claiming we hadn’t earned the money, but after retrieving the evening’s ticket quotas from the doorman and presenting him incontrovertible proof, he came clean. He said bands like “Cross The Street Not Down The Road” didn’t play without a signed minimum of eight hundred dollars. Even if they didn’t draw a crowd (which they didn’t), contractually they were still entitled to that amount. Such agreements hold up in court, the promoter explained, and paying the band now would save him a lot in legal fees.

I didn’t care and told him so with a series of superlative attestations to his mother’s promiscuity. My boys had earned their money fair and square and wouldn’t have enough to keep up the tour without it. The promoter laughed, saying that if the band wanted to stay afloat they should “get with the times” and “play music the kids actually listen to.” I tried telling him he was a closed minded cog in a corporate machine threatening the very fabric of music itself, but he’d stopped listening.

So off I went to round up be band, leaving in my wake a slew of thinly veiled allusions as to how sorry the promoter would be when I returned. Before I could reach the door I saw him whistle to a large Russian fellow working security and give him a few violent hand signals directed towards me.

The Ruskie came running and jumped into a half kick, half lunge at my chest. Making a split second decision, I hopped back a step and pressed myself against the side of the entrance hall. It worked too, the bouncer had been aiming for me at the hall’s center and was unable to reroute his course midair. He flew right past me, ramming headlong into the church’s heavy steel door and taking an emo kid with him.

I looked down at the two, the hulking former-soviet giant sprawled out unconscious atop the flimsy, moaning skeleton hipster. His shirt read “fragile,” and for the first time I actually laughed out loud at a pre-fab, Hot Topic one-liner.

“Keep your dirty money!” I shouted and stormed out of the venue, making sure I further smashed the bouncer’s head upon opening the door. It felt so good I did it again. Then a third time for luck.

Outside the Kommies were waiting in their van. “Boys, I’m a failure as a manager and do hereby resolve to never book a show again” I announced.

“Oh come on,” Donny said, “You’re not that bad!”

“Yeah!” Eddie and Tim chimed in.

“I couldn’t get your money” I said.

“I take that back” Donny said, “He is that bad.”

“But I’ve got an idea how to get this son of a bitch back real good and leave our mark on this whole god forsaken music scene! You with me?”

“Will it cost us anything?” Tim asked.

“A little” I replied.

“Well . . .” the boys said in unison. This was a technique they’d often used to squeeze a free pizza out of me.

“Alright, fine, I’ll flip the bill,” I said, “Just get in the car; we’ve got work to do.”

“Alright!” the boys cheered.

We drove to the closest Wal-Mart and picked up 4 bottles of the most potent deer musk we could find. Then, driving back to the venue, we dumped it all over the promoter’s car. This being deer country, the smell attracted dozens of horny deer within minutes. The deer, being fully aroused and disappointed to find this strange metal contraption at the odor’s source, became enraged and tore the fuck out of the car. We could see them running from the woods in hordes as we drove away through the dreary Jersey evening. This was our mark on the music scene, and thought it was forgotten within a week and brought about no long term or radical changes to the tyranny of commercial music as a whole, you should have seen all those deer trying to run with raging hard-ons bouncing between their legs. It was priceless.

*Click here to view original photo.

View Scene It All Before at Supraterranean

Here was the conversation as it actually happened:

“Oh, so you play drums.”

“Yeah . . . you too?”

“Uh-huh, this is my big paycheck, I lead the band.”

“Cool, man. Dig it.”

And here’s the conversation that wasn’t happening:

“So you’re here to steal MY blankets to sleep with MY girl?”

“Sounds about right.”

“And this doesn’t bother you?”

“Nah man, a girl like this you can’t control, she’s like the wind.”

Well, I sure got a taste of my own medicine when I tried to let Annabella’s crazy antics fly in the secular world of Washington Heights. My band was playing a show, and just as our singer spit the words “I don’t need another lover to complicate the situation,” Annabella was outside rounding up people for an orgy.

This wasn’t her first attempt, either. Previously she’d tried to swing a three-way between me and her other boyfriend while her pops watched. Needless to say I did my best to bow out of that one, but this time she caught me all sorts of fucked up and ready for anything. Problem was, by the time we got to leaving the bar, there were only 2 girls in the group and about 7 or 8 guys. Annabella wasn’t setting us up for an orgy; she was shooting for a gang bang.

As the second half of the crew drove off to meet us at the apartment, it was Anabella, our friend Stacy, Conrad, Harold and myself who walked down through the Bronx that evening to Washington Heights; the girls stripping down to their panties and screaming the whole way. Crowds were forming around them as they urinated down city steps and fingered each other. It wasn’t long before they were totally naked and walking past the 50th precinct. Harold and I were in a total panic, but the cops just smiled and waved.

When we got to Stacy’s place we were stopped by an off-duty Bx7 line. “HEY YOU GUYS, COME HERE, I WANNA TAKE A PICTURE” the driver shouted. He looked as though he’d had a few to drink himself. He invited us on the bus and quickly explained that he had a camera somewhere and that we’d have to wait for it. In the meantime he offered to drive us around.

This was good enough for the rest of the crew, who hopped into the back, got naked, and began to fuck, but Harold was skeptical – for one thing, we didn’t need to go anywhere, we were already at our apartment, and for another, where was this guy’s camera?

Finally, after the fifth or sixth loop around the block, Harold noticed the driver starting to slip out of his pants. He grabbed us by the hair shouting “THIS IS OUR STOP” and flipped the door switch out of the driver’s hand. As we bolted out into the street, the driver came to a halt and stood at the side of the road glaring at us. For the rest of the evening, each time I’d walk to the bodega to get more beer, he’d be right there in his bus demanding I come over to take care of some “unfinished business.”

Back in the apartment, everyone who’d been admiring Annabella all evening hopped on her like a 25-cent grocery store ride with me in the corner getting drunk. I got into the fray for a little while and even tried shit with Stacy, but it just wasn’t the same. Seven guys to two girls just isn’t right.

Other guys in the room sensed this too and asked if I was really down with them balling my girl. The response every time would be one which, just a week before, I’d been pretty fond of: “a girl like this you can’t control, she’s like the wind.”

As the evening wound down I found myself sitting with a couple of the benchwarmers downing the rest of the 40s. The conversation between them went as follows:

“I think everyone in here thinks you’re gay.”

“Nuh-uh, everyone in here thinks YOU’RE gay.”

My sole contribution:

“You’re both gay, now shut up so I can get some sleep!”

The next morning insecurities were still riding high. The first thing I saw was Annabella in the middle of a mass of naked bodies vaguely resembling the pantheon. I had a Clash sort of “should-I-stay-or-should-I-go” moment and eventually decided that she was happy and that was good enough for me. She was shipping out to another festival that night though and I couldn’t figure out if I wanted to say goodbye. I grabbed every coin in the room and flipped them for an answer. Each concluded that I should go, but I didn’t like that answer. I sat on the corner of the bed with my pants and shoes on for a minute when out of nowhere, Annabella throws everyone to the floor and tackles me. “What are you doing,” she says, “jealousy isn’t a good look for you.”

We spent the rest of the day together in the apartment fucking – she’d apparently only been with really lazy hippie lovers and needed a good old fashioned Jersey railing to spice up her life – when she started spouting stuff about love. Not the hippie sort of “I love everybody” routine either, but things like “I know saying you’re the love of my life is clichéd, but you make me LOVE my life and I love you more than anything.” Shit was starting to smell of monogamy, and since we really didn’t have anything else in common, that was all she’d talk about. Every other sentence was about how she could see us together for ever and she would die for me. Every sentence besides that was about the moon being in Aquarius and the spirits mingling with the goddess for some kind of celestial kegger. Needless to say, I was getting a headache.

I took her to a Harlem pickup game and she couldn’t grasp it. She’d honestly never seen basketball before. She told me that these “natives” with their “ritualistic chakra cleansings” were just what she needed to “ease her spirit” before it was forcibly “removed from her body” by the “evil force.” I looked down at my hand and caught that it was tightly wound in a fist. I’d never been this frustrated with anyone before.

“Do you ever listen to yourself speak, or do you just black whenever your lips start flapping?!” I demanded.

She just looked at me and smiled. “I know, I know, I’d be thinking the same thing if someone started spouting this bullshit at me. I’m surprised you’ve even put up with it for so long.”

So needless to say, I’m through with hippie chicks. Somebody get me a nice businesswoman in pants suits.

View The Disproportionate Orgy at Supraterranean

After making this affirmation, Bob’s gaze shifted back down to his unfamiliar bed. In it, curled next to him, was a figure of particular heft and altitude. From under the comforter protruded the most heinous set of bunions he had ever seen, and somewhere amidst them was a pair of feet too. He knew he had to get out of there before this sleeping giant awoke, but his pants were nowhere to be seen.

Throwing himself upon a set of scattered dresser drawers, Bob rifled through for dear life. The only thing not covered in blood or semen was a bleach-stained floral print muumuu. He was about to throw it back when he heard a coarse, screeching yawn from the bed and knew it was too late.

Walking out onto the streets, Bob was hollered at by everyone he passed. It annoyed him at first, but then he realized how easily free shit started coming his way. He never had to pay for a train ride or cigarette again. He could even get some lovesick businessman to buy him the 40s he needed.

“Thank God I 86’d that mustache the other day,” Bob thought as a stockbroker bought him a half dozen St. Ides, “or else this scam woulda never worked!”

Clutching the bottles in hand and waiting for another train, Bob thought to himself about women’s rights and equality. He couldn’t help but wonder why anyone would want to relinquish free gifts like these just to be on a level playing field with the opposite sex. As a man, he had to busk his ass off in the streets to make money; learning how to play guitar since no one would support a bum with no talents. But within his first 12 hours dressed as a woman, he’d raked in more freebies than he could ever imagine.

Just then, a group of scantily clad Jezebels approached twirling purses filled with bricks. “Look at the new girl,” one laughed amidst dainty chomps of a White Owl stogy. “Cuttin’ in on our territory and not givin’ us a cut!”

“Poor form,” said the hooker at the head of the pack, and before Bob could get a word in he was on the receiving end of an imitation Prada pummeling. Somewhere in the fray his bottles fell and smashed with a vibration that ricocheted off the linoleum walls.

The fight was called when there were no more press-on nails to reapply. The head hooker rallied her troops, gave Bob one last kick in the ribs, and said “You ain’t getting no more freebies in this town looking like that. Now you godda work for it like the rest of us!”

As they left the terminal, Bob sat on his bench and wept. Even dressed as a woman, he couldn’t find it in him to hit a woman back. What’s more, without the alcohol he knew we wouldn’t allow him in the apartment, and he didn’t even have money for a train ticket. He was at an all time low when a pudgy business type waddled in and took the empty seat next to his.

“What’s wrong dollface?” said the suit as he produced a tissue and wiped Bob’s tears. “So you got a little banged up, it’s a rough neighborhood, that sort of thing’s bound to happen.”

“But,” he said as he whipped out a wad of bills, “at least your lips still look good.”

View What’s Wrong, Dollface? at Supraterranean

“They’re the tastiest!”says Scorager, who is camped in a symbolic lack of luxury – one 1974 Dodge Caravan with nothing more than the last remaining case of Peach flavored UNITHONG panties.

“You could say this is the only thing I have left to live for,” says Scorager.”NO, really, you couldsay that. I don’t even like when women wear them anymore. It’s fucked up. I can’t help it. I just want to eat the panties.”

Scorager then went on to describe his diet consisting of different flavored panties to correlate with the days meals. “Each one has to be a three courser,” says Scorager. “Seriously, I need some help. This is a cry for help.”

Scorager, having recently only come out of his household shower (in which he subsisted on only Unithong panties and tears), has developed what scientists like to call “Panty-gut;” a self-inflicted disease not dissimilar to scurvy, in which one’s tear ducts become relocated to the salivary glands. “Why are you laughing when I talk, I seriously need help. You’re the first person I’ve ever felt comfortable enough to reach out to. Why don’t you acknowledge what I say? Turn the tape recorder off!”

When asked when Scorager was planning to come out it was suggested that the interview be ended and that I never come back

View Martin Scorager at Supraterranean

“Sanctuary?” Mother Maggie asked.

“Yes,” Spoke one of the sisters, “it’s when we grant protection to those being persecuted.”

“Can we really do that?”

“I read about it in a book one time . . .”

“A BOOK?!” Mother Maggie exclaimed, “Then it must be true! Come in, sir, come in!”

The man came in and lit a cigarette.

“Oh no, there’s no smoking in here,” one of the nuns said.

“What do you want me do to,” the man asked, “Go back out there?”

“Errr . . . I guess not,” said the nun, who then did 10 Hail Marys for suggesting such wickedness.

The weeks went on and it became abundantly clear to the sisters that they still didn’t know what their new guest was running from. Some of the nuns even thought about taking bets, but that was about as far as the idea got. None of them were the gambling sort.

The stranger meanwhile had been caught gargling with the holy water and flirting with some of the sisters. All the infractions were forgivable, but even when they weren’t; the nuns just turned the other cheek.

When Sister Josephine found him going through her panty drawer, she just left them on his bed the next morning to save him the trouble. Same thing happened with Sister Maria’s bras and Sister Lydia’s G strings. Soon the whole nunnery was walking around without undergarments and the man was making every excuse possible to get them to bend over.

“Look,” he’d say, “There’s a tile on the floor that looks just like the baby Jesus!”

That’d get them every time.

The sisters of the First Church of Christ the Ever So Well Endowed had a meeting one morning and decided it was time they found out what their guest was hiding from. For all they knew he might have been an abortionist or something; maybe even gay. Mother Maggie called him in to her office the next day for discussion.

“It’s come time for you to tell us where you’re from” Mother Maggie said.

“What’re you broads going to do,” the man asked, “throw me out?”

“Well, no . . .”

“Then mind your own bee’s wax,” he said, and stormed out.

Soon lent rolled around and Sister Theresa caught the man on the phone with his bookie. “Which dog is bigger?” he asked. “I’d take your word for it, Ron, but last time you had me betting on a schnauzer going up against a Doberman! I don’t have that kind of money!”

When he was done talking the sister suggested he give up gambling for the 40 days. The man just shrugged and said “Nah, I’d rather just give up pissing in the confessional if that’s alright with you.”

Sister Theresa stammered. She’d been wondering why her frock was always wet after confessing her sins. She’d assumed it was the lord’s work. He worked in mysterious ways, after all.

One of the nuns finally cracked and slept with the man. She was denounced and defrocked immediately, but as it was of her own accord, the sisters couldn’t hold the man accountable. Besides, whatever he was running from had him awfully tense; he’d been hitting the blood of the lord pretty heavy lately.

To make matters worse, he was a real abusive drunk and took to giving the nuns swirlies in the convent toilets. Whenever he dunked their heads, they’d turn the other cheek and shift their weight; if they didn’t, their knees would fall asleep. None could blame him for his actions though; they all knew how alcohol corrupted even the purest of souls.

“You’re telling me Jesus was made of this rotgut?” he’d ask.

“In a matter of speaking,” Mother Maggie would reply.

“Shit, that guy must’ve been trashed ALL THE TIME!” he would laugh. Then the swirlies would begin.

One day a woman came into the nunnery claiming to be the man’s wife. She had a five o’clock shadow and other conspicuously mannish features, but the sisters took her at her word. They didn’t like to judge. They were all made in the lord’s image after all.

One of the sisters saw through the charade and took Mother Maggie aside. “From this woman’s looks, Mother Maggie, I believe her to be a man in women’s clothing!”

Mother Maggie slapped her on the wrist with a ruler and explained that “we were all made in the lord’s image.” Then she turned to ask the mysterious stranger’s wife how long they’d been married.

“TOO LONG,” the woman replied. Her voice was gravelly like a driveway; coarsened further by the thick cigar she was smoking. The nuns would have scolded her for smoking had the convent not already been filled with smoke by their previous guest.

When the man walked in he was smoking a cigar; two of them, in fact. “Alright,” he said, “which one of you ladies wants to see me.” Then he stopped and looked at his so-called wife. “Oh shit” He said.

“Glad to see you ain’t forgot about my money,” the woman said, taking off her wig to reveal a buzz cut.

“I told you I ain’t got it!” the man whimpered.

“And I told you what happens when I don’t get my money!” The other man said.

The Nuns didn’t know what was going on, but they were sure of one thing: that woman was actually a man. And if what he’d said was true and he was married to their guest, than the two were living in sin.

“Sisters!” Mother Maggie screamed, “We have blasphemy in our midst! GET OUT THE RULERS!!”

Huge yardsticks were pulled from closets in the wall and the two men were beaten and thrown out. Not long after a gunshot was heard, then a blood curdling scream from a familiar voice.

“As if they hadn’t sinned enough already,” Mother Maggie sighed.

View Sanctuary! at Supraterranean

A car drove up, filled to the gills with frat boys, all simultaneously flipping us the bird. In retaliation, I pulled my pants down and spread the cheeks to stare them down with my brown eye. Our car began to shake. They were throwing soda cans at us, full ones at that.

The cans exploded on O’Shea’s hood and splattered all over his window. One nailed me in the rear and sent my head into O’Shea’s lap. “Get the fuck off me, you faggotty-ass son of a bitch” he screamed and pulled me up by the hair.

O’Shea grabbed his walkie and dialed Adams, who was coming up behind us in his Honda. Riding shotgun was our buddy Putin, his girlfriend, and the rest of our beer. It was a tight fit.

“Yo Adams,” O’Shea shouted, “you still got that EMT rig in your car?”

“Sure do,” he said.

“Good, then why don’t you drive up behind these douche bags and give ‘em a good scare?”

Adams laughed and flipped on the blue lights suction-cupped to his dashboard. The frat guys panicked and pulled over without skipping a beat.

I sat there quietly as O’Shea hustled up a handful of quarters from his glove compartment and stuffed them into a tube sock. I started to see where he was going with this, but before I could say anything, Adams tapped me on the shoulder with a baseball bat.

I’d never seen him wear a grin so wide.

Once again, my mouth started to form words when Putin rolled up with Adams’ 12 gauge. It wasn’t loaded yet, but the frat guys didn’t know that. I was too shocked to speak.

“ON THE FUCKING GROUND!” Putin screamed, pointing the nozzle at their driver.

The brothers did as they were told, welcoming a series of wicked, full-body thrashings with nothing more than a heartfelt plea for their lives. It was too much for me. I stood at the side of the road and felt the lining dislodge from my stomach. Those frat guys deserved a lesson, but this was ridiculous.

“Come on, let’s get out of here!” I moaned, climbing weakly into O’Shea’s passenger seat.

“Hold it,” he screamed back, pulling out a knife and running it through the other car’s tires.

“Don’t worry,” Adams laughed, “I’m sure mommy and daddy’ll cover this like they do everything else.”

When we finally left, there wasn’t anyone else on the road for miles.

At the cabin there was a Labrador Retriever sitting on the front steps wagging its tail. He started to get up and do a little dance for us as we approached. Half step forward, half step back, half step forward, half step back, tail spinning round all the while like a propeller.

“You didn’t tell me you had a dog” I said.

“I don’t” O’Shea replied, then, turning to the mutt, he said “Get out of here Morris!”

The dog stopped dancing, tail quickly finding its way back between his hind legs, and his head fell dejectedly to the ground. For the briefest of seconds he ventured a glance back up at O’Shea, but was met with such hate that he took off running.

“How did you know his name?” I asked.

“You look like you could use a drink” he replied, and threw me a can.

“You bring your sleeping bag?” Adams asked.

“No, should I?”

“You’ll see” Putin laughed.

The door was opened and we entered into a cozy, well furnished log cabin. There were no bedrooms, but the kitchen was enormous.

“This should be alright.” I said, “Maybe a little tight, but not bad.”

“This ain’t where we’re sleeping.” O’Shea chuckled, opening another door at the far end of the hallway.

This led to an unfinished two story renovation. The project had been dropped without adding a roof or insulation to the empty floors. Through the skeletal roof beams I could see rain clouds forming.

“Great, isn’t it?” Putin joked.

“Are you kidding?!” I cried out, “we’re going to fucking FREEZE!”

“Not if we get good and drunk” O’Shea replied, wheeling out the Keg.

“Don’t worry baby, I’ll keep you warm” said Putin’s girlfriend Galatea, who was hanging off his arm like an overgrown shopping bag.

The guy cheated on her left and right, recently going so far as to break her arm in three places, but still she kept coming back. All his girlfriends were like that; convinced they were the only ones he cared about and willing to kill each other to prove it. Galatea wasn’t the girl he loved, but she was able to hold on longer than the rest. In return, all she got was more degradation and cruelty.

Since Putin switched girls more often than a square dancer, it was hard for me to remember names. Galatea was unmistakable though. She may have looked, dressed, and gesticulated like all the rest, but behind that style was a world-weary face that no amount of black eyeliner could cover up.

You could see it in the way her lips never fully curved at the ends when she smiled, or the glassy stare she gave when pretending not to notice Putin fiddling around with another girl. Galatea had the look of someone who knew deep down she was unwanted.

I woke up the next morning without a hangover and figured it must’ve been my lucky day. It wasn’t. The alcohol poisoning would set in a few hours later over a pre-breakfast game of “Kings.”

“You dumb shit,” O’Shea cried out, “You’ve got to draw the seven card if you want to go to the bathroom!”

“Fine, I lose,” I said, “Just let me go.”

“Not until you finish your beer.”

“I really don’t think that’s a good idea . . .”

“Tough, you poured it, now drink it, bitch!”

I started to walk away but felt the barrel of the shotgun press against the small of my back. It wasn’t loaded, but the threat was still there.

I snatched the cup from the table and downed it as fast as I could. Before it left my hands, my sight went dim and vomit started streaming from my mouth.

“You better clean that up!” I heard as I crawled to the bathroom.

I awoke to a shotgun blast from the other side of the window. O’Shea was standing outside holding his rifle in the air.

“Hey shithead,” he said, “Wake up, some of us need to use the toilet!” Then, as if on cue, a loud series of knocks were made on the bathroom door.

“Did you just fire that gun into the air?” I finally managed to ask.

“Yeah,” he laughed, taking a swig from his beer, “what of it?”

Well, faster than you could say “Scattershot,” a hail of tiny metal pellets came raining down against the windows and sides of the house with torrential force. O’Shea clasped his hands over his head and dove for cover. I don’t remember what happened next, but there was a lot of shouting.

Putin and O’Shea woke me up with blasts of ice water. “Look at him squirm!” Putin laughed. He didn’t usually say anything unless he was having fun at somebody else’s expense, so I knew I was in for trouble.

“We’ve found a cure for you” he announced, and O’Shea laughed in perfect time with my racing heartbeat.

“Hospital?” I asked feebly.

“Better,” he grinned, pulling out a funnel from behind his back. “DRINK!”

No one needed to hold me down, I didn’t have the strength to move. O’Shea held the funnel to my mouth and Putin poured the whiskey. “We’ll make you hold your alcohol like a man,” they declared.

I swatted at O’Shea’s hand but could barely make contact. My arms were like spaghetti.

Just as I couldn’t take any more, Adams came running into the room with a little white baggie dangling from his hand. In all the excitement I’d completely forgotten to give them the cocaine, and in going through my jacket (presumably for money) Adams had found it.

“Look what this bastard’s been keeping from us!” he shouted.

Everyone looked at me, including Galatea, who’d been peeking in quietly through the bathroom door. The funnel was thrown to the ground and punctuated with cries of “You Ungrateful Jew son of a bitch!”

An anonymous punch was sent flying at my temple, and before I knew it I was on the floor.

Trying to explain the china white was only a present I’d bought for their birthday cost me a series of kicks to the gut. It wasn’t long before I was puking all over the place and the attacks slowed down.

“These were brand new shoes, asshole!” were the last words I heard before a horde of footsteps left the bathroom to perform a symphony of snorts and razor blade cuts down the hall.

I woke up hours later feeling like the better portion of a million bucks.

Upon walking out into the morning sun, I decided to fire off a few rounds at O’Shea’s makeshift target before anyone else returned to the land of the living.

Aiming at the bull’s-eye was pointless since buckshot makes accuracy next to impossible, but shooting a gun feels good enough as is, and I was glad to have the strength back to pull the trigger.

I went to reload when something nipped at the tail of my shirt. I turned to find Morris dangling from a leash. At the other end was an angry looking old man in a fishing hat who demanded to know what I was doing on his lawn.

“YOUR lawn?” I asked.

“Yeah, my goddamn lawn!”

“YOU own this place?”

“Did I stutter? Christ you’re dense, boy!”

“And that’s YOUR dog?”

“Yeah, he’s my dog.”

“Do you always let him roam loose?”

“No, this is just my summer house. I live in New Brunswick; I only got in a few minutes ago.”

“ . . . Then you leave that poor dog out here to starve?”

“None of your goddamn business! ‘Sides, mutt has teeth like little prison shivs and can fend for himself.”

Morris smiled at me, teeth gleaming in the light.

He didn’t seem so tough the last time I saw him.

“Fair enough,” I sighed, putting the rifle down and taking a step back. “Listen, if this is your place . . .”

“It is,” he said firmly.

“I know, but there are some guys inside who claim it’s theirs. They invited me over this morning to practice my shooting, said the cabin belonged to them. Place looks like a war zone; I assume you didn’t leave it that way. I’ve never seen so much puke before!”

“Bastards! I’ll murder every last one of them.”
“I’m just a visitor, sir, I only got here a few hours ago, they brought me. Is it okay if I just go home? I really didn’t mean to cause any trouble.”

“Well . . . alright.”

“Thank you. Listen, they’re all unarmed and this is the only rifle. Take it. There are more of them than you and this’ll give you an advantage if they try anything.”

“That’s awfully helpful, thanks.”

“No problem, least I could do. Where’s the nearest bus stop by the way?”

“About 10 miles that-a-way to a Grey Hound station.”

“Thanks.”

It really was a beautiful day.

Months later I was on a southbound to Seaside. At the station I was picked up by Spina, the only trustworthy character I knew who would be at O’Shea’s that weekend.

The bungalow was two towns over from the boardwalk and all its excitement, sitting atop a hill of cramped, two story shacks like the king of low-income housing. Behind it was a strip of the Jersey shore. Not a particularly nice one, but an ocean view nonetheless.

O’shea and Adams were sitting inside on a king-sized couch made of empty beer cans. “Christ, how long did it take you guys to make that?” I asked.

“We finished ‘er last night,” Adams said, “but couldn’t . . . ”

“SHUT UP OR YOU’LL MISS IT!” O’Shea hissed.

They were taking a shot of Vermouth every time Lars Ulrich broke down and cried in “Some Kind Of Monster.”

So far they were both very drunk.

Outside the sun was shining and cheerleaders were playing volleyball. Neither of them seemed to notice.

“There he goes again!” Screamed O’shea, tilting his glass to the sky. “This shit is priceless!”

“See guys,” televised Lars whined, “My dad agrees with me, he doesn’t like the song either . . . why won’t you listen to me? You guys!”

“Where’s Putin” asked Spina.

“Out back,” Adams said, “SHHH!”

Behind the house, Putin was sucking a Pabst Blue as he beat off to the girls playing volleyball. He was alone that weekend, and this was apparently how he got by without his hipster harem.

It was sad, really.

“This is nowhere near as nice as our nudist beaches in Poland,” he announced, not slowing his formation out of any sort of modesty.

By now the girls had all noticed him and were screeching with disgust. That didn’t stop him though, he was determined to finish.

“Oh come off it!” he screamed back, “I wasn’t hurting anyone!”

But despite his reasoning, their screeches continued. Finally he just gave up and put his pants back on.

“You’re not even all that hot to begin with!”

At the boardwalk, Spina must’ve pumped 10 dollars into the same crane machine. Hanging above his row was a sign which read “A WINNER EVERY HOUR.”

As he was explained how close he was getting, a buzzer went off on the machine next to his and a novelty check was brought out for its player. I looked down at my watch. It was only five minutes past the twelve.

“Alright, fuck it, let’s go” he said, “but mark my words: I’m not leaving this place without winning one of those checks!”

“Christ, man. If you’re going to get a gambling addiction, at least get a dignified one.”

Back at the bungalow the guys were still drinking and seemed to find it insulting that Spina and I had aspirations for anything higher.

“You ungrateful Jew bastards” O’shea said. “I offer you all this alcohol, a place to sleep, food . . .”

“What food?” Spina demanded “all I see is you guys and your goddamn beercouch!”

“BEERCOUCH!” shouted Adams and Putin as they gave each other high fives. Adams was obviously too drunk to realize he’d just received a hand full of polish pubes.

“There’s Doritos in the cabinet” said O’shea.

“That’s not food!” Spina hollered at him. “How do you expect to survive the next few days?”

The trio shrugged and pounded back the rest of their brew.

“Fuck this,” Spina said, “Come on Vlad, I think I saw a Mcdonalds down the road.”

“You sons of bitches!” O’Shea bellowed, “If you go out . . . could you at least bring me something back? I’m fucking starving!”

“What’s the matter, Doritos not good enough for you?” Spina laughed as we walked out the door. We could hear him shouting the whole way down the hill.

It started to rain when we got to the Mcdonalds and we offered some cute college girls we’d met a ride home. One thing led to another and we wound up back at O’Shea’s. The place was empty and unlocked when we got there, which ordinarily might have given rise to suspicion, but now only brought relief.

The four of us sat down in the living room (if you could call it that) and had ourselves a drink, followed by a few more. Just as things were starting to get romantic, O’Shea and the crew stumbled back in soaking wet from the storm.
“Christ, where were you guys?” I asked, momentarily finding myself concerned.

“Fuck where we were,” O’shea replied, spitting rainwater from between his teeth, “WHERE’S MY GODDAMN DINNER?”

When we told him that we hadn’t gotten anything, he flew into a fit. He accused both of us of being “stingy Jew bastards” and then smashed an assortment of kitchen appliances with a rotary phone ripped right out of the wall. Spina tried to remind him that we were entertaining guests, but wound up sporting a fat lip instead.

Adams and Putin, meanwhile, just slumped down into the corner and cracked another round. Occasionally they would cheer when O’Shea broke something expensive, but otherwise they were pretty quiet.

“The girls will be fine with us,” O’Shea said when there was nothing left in the kitchen to break. “besides,” he laughed, “I’m sure they’d just think less of you for not being grateful to your hosts.”

I looked to Cindy, who was digging through my pockets for cigarettes. Our eyes met and she said “Just get them their food; we’ll be here when you get back.”

I sure hoped she was right.

When we finally returned to the cabin, the storm was giving the beach an L.A.P.D. beatdown and all the lights inside were dead. With all the rooms blackened, the stove-clock shone brighter than anything else. It read 2:05 – we’d been gone over an hour and a half.

Spina remembered a flashlight he’d seen in one of the cabinets and grabbed it. It hadn’t occurred to us that the lights would have turned on if we just hit the switch; we were too caught up in the moment.

A slight metallic creaking could be heard from upstairs. It was O’Shea, mounted on top of Cindy and giving her all he had. Cindy didn’t seem to be moving. I called her name but she didn’t respond. Her head lolled to the side as O’Shea pounded at her. She was unconscious.

O’Shea just kept going.

I pulled him off of her and clocked him in the jaw.

“This ain’t no synagogue,” he said, “we SHARE in this house . . . NOW WHERE’S MY DINNER?!”

I punched him again before even realizing it.

In the other room, Spina was doing the same thing with Putin and Adams.

“Yo Spina, we’ve got to get these girls out of here!” I said.

“Neither of these guys were wearing rubbers,” he called back, “we’ve got to get her to a hospital, who knows what kind of shit she might’ve picked up!”

“You’re not going anywhere” O’shea said, still crouched on the floor.

I kicked him right in the face and laid him out, then took Cindy, put her clothes back on as best I could, and threw her over my shoulder. I met Spina downstairs to find he’d done the same. On the way out I noticed a bottle of Jameson on the counter and grabbed it.

We hailed a surprisingly fortuitous cab at the bottom of the hill and had it take us to the boardwalk. When we got there we paid the cabbie extra to take the unconscious ladies to the hospital.

I don’t know why we didn’t take Spina’s car. That mistake would come back to haunt us later on.

The boardwalk was closing up and the rain was beating down. Prom weekend was a big thing for the cops, and as we passed by our friends’ expensive shorefront hotels looking for a place to crash, we saw them all being raided. Before long, all our friends were either arrested or too scared to leave their rooms. Meanwhile, the storm got worse, and I was chugging Jameson to stay warm.

“I can’t take anymore of this,” I said, slouching down onto a bus stop bench.

“Come on man,” Spina said, tugging at my arm, “the cops are going to see you!”

“A night spent in a holding cell would at least be DRY!”

“You’re not thinking straight. We need to find you someplace safe to crash while I run to get the car.”

“Spina, that’s like 6 miles from here!”

“No biggie, I used to be on the track team.”

“Distance?”

“No, sprinting, but I figure I could just do it in little bursts.”

“Spina, you’re my hero.”

It was decided that I would lay low beneath a Ford Explorer in an unlocked parking garage. There was no way a patrol car could see me, but I could definitely see them. They came by at 10 minute intervals, squad lights blazing. After about 3 or 4 of these, I started dozing off.

At some point I was dragged from under the car by a grubby set of hands, and though I can’t remember what happened next, when Spina finally came to pick me up I still had all the cash in my wallet and only a few scrapes around my eye.

Sneaking into O’Shea’s the next morning was easier than we thought. The door was left wide open. Nobody would dare rob the place with the three of them sitting atop the hood of O’Shea’s Acura clutching crowbars and baseball bats.

“Makes you wonder who had a worse night, eh?” Spina whispered as we crept inside.

The two of us split up and collected our respective knickknacks from the bungalow. As I was walking out the door I remembered a cable descrambler I’d picked up at a garage sale and went back to retrieve it. It was sitting on the beercouch in the living room. As I leaned over to pick it up, a large whooshing noise went past my right ear and half the beercouch was suddenly disintegrated.

O’Shea was standing over me with a metal Louisville slugger, ready to give it another swing. “Little early for Tee Ball, isn’t it?” I said, dodging another blow.

“LOUSY JEW SON OF A BITCH!” he shouted, swinging the bat again. This time it took out a shelf hanging a mere 3 feet above my head. His aim was getting better.

“You know what happened to people like you in the 40s?” I asked him.

“What?” he replied, winding up for another shot.

“NUREMBURG!” I shouted as I kicked him in the chest. His bat, which was being held overhead for a downswipe, fell to the floor behind him. The blow sent him reeling right over it, and in turn caused him to crash into a dilapidated coffee table.

“HEY VLAD, A LITTLE HELP?” called Spina from the other room.

I ran in to find Putin clinging to Spina’s back and clawing at his face while Adams swung wildly with a crowbar. I don’t know what was with those guys that morning, but neither could hit the broad side of a barn. Every time a swing would get close to Spina, he’d turn his back let Putin take the blow.

I chucked a VHS tape at Adams’ head and he dropped the crowbar, which in turn fell on Spina’s wrist.

“CHRIST VLAD, I ASKED FOR YOUR HELP!!” Spina yelped.

Adams was on his feet again and charging at me. I stepped to the side and he ran right past into O’Shea, who’d been standing behind me in the doorway ready to attack. The two toppled to the ground, O’Shea’s bat flying into the air, and were both whacked with it when it came down. Neither of them seemed to have any intention of getting back up.

Putin was the only one left now and he wasn’t letting go. His arms were wrapped around Spina’s shoulders as tightly as ever. I walked up to him and took a clean shot at his face, but it didn’t faze him.

“GET THIS GUY OFF OF ME!” Spina yelled. “HE’S CLAWING THE SHIT OUT OF MY FACE!!!”

“I’ve got an idea,” I said, pulling out my lighter.

“JUST HURRY!” Spina shouted.

I lifted the flame and touched it to the tail of Putin’s shirt. The fire took and started spreading across his back. It wasn’t until the fire reached his hair that he started to panic, springing from Spina’s back and running for the nearest water source.

Unfortunately, since the O’Sheas didn’t like to pay their water bills, he wound up having to run all the way to the ocean for relief. As he skipped across the sand, shirt engulfed in flame, he passed the girls he’d been watching the day before. They all pointed and laughed.

“What would have happened if he hadn’t gotten off of me?” Spina asked as we ran to his car.

“I don’t know, the words “flame broiled” ring a few bells . . .”

“You’re a crazy motherfucker.” He said.

“Compared to what we just saw, I’d actually like to think I’m pretty sane.”

“Alright, I’ll give you that.”

“So where to now?”

“To the boardwalk.”

“The boardwalk? Why in god’s name are we going to the boardwalk?”

“Because I’m not going home without one of those novelty checks!”

And we didn’t either. The blow from the crowbar made Spina’s hand spazz out while operating the crane’s joystick and somehow, by strange coincidence, caused it to pick up the right item that coincided with the cash prize. It was dumb luck, but that was the only kind we had that weekend. Too bad the check hardly covered the gas price for the drive back.

View Two-Tiered Comeuppance at Supraterranean

“Nothing up my sleeves,” he began, rolling up the arms of his tux jacket. He’d lost the cufflinks to many a rental this way, but it was the only way for him to gain their trust. That was much more important to him than a tailor’s fee.

“And nothing in my hat,” he continued, removing his archaic Stove-top. It was the sort thing aristocrats used to wear back when there still were aristocrats. He placed it down on the table, which was covered in an opaque green cloth, and from it retrieved a white hare. The creature had a distressed look on its face, presumably from having just been materialized out of nowhere.

The crowd clapped respectfully, but were quickly silenced by a cry of “HE’S GOT A CAGE UNDER THE TABLE!” from the back of the room. The illusionist squinted as best he could to make out the heckler’s face, but couldn’t see past the first row of tables. In true cavalier fashion he decided to just ignore the taunt and carry on with his set.

The heckler proceeded though, informing the crowd that the illusionist’s so-called levitation was really just him “balancing on his rear tiptoes,” and that his lovely assistant wasn’t the one flying around under the giant sheet he’d draped her in, but rather a “mesh rigging on a hidden pulley.” The illusionist was startled by the accuracy of his tormentor’s comments, but maintained composure nonetheless. He kindly asked the crowd to refrain from any further outbursts, only to be told by the disembodied voice that if he couldn’t take the heat he should leave the kitchen.

At this point the Illusionist reminded the crowd that beating someone up in the parking lot wasn’t against club policy, and that should they feel the need to, say, take a certain loudmouth out back for a crash course in proper magic show etiquette, it would not be frowned upon. No one stirred though, at least not so far as he could see, so he moved on to his big finale: The Disappearing Barmaid.

From behind a row of barstools came Helga, a hardened southern belle with a scar above her left cheek. She and the illusionist had talked before the show and she was excited to be part of a real magic trick for once; usually she just watched from the sidelines. As a child Helga had seen Marko the Magnificent escape from a padlocked straight jacket, and since then had found herself immensely turned on by any man who could so much as name the card she’d drawn from his deck. Her panties were soaking wet as she approached the stage, and like the levees in her hometown of New Orleans, they failed to stop the flood as it flowed down her legs, but she didn’t notice; she was in a trance. The illusionist couldn’t have asked for a better volunteer.

He had her introduce herself to the audience, though this was unnecessary since most of them were regulars. Everyone clapped for her and she did a little curtsey with her bar smock to show her appreciation. This was her shining moment and everyone in the club knew it.

The illusionist wheeled out an upright oblong box and spun it around in front of the audience just like the magic shop owner had shown him. he instructed Helga to get inside, and once she had, promptly closed the door behind her. Tapping the lid 3 times, he opened the box once more to reveal that Helga was missing.

“FER CHRIST’S SAKE,” a voice cried, “YOU CAN SEE HER SHOES STICKING OUT FROM UNDER THE CURTAINS!”

It was true, Helga had been too excited to wait in the wings for the illusionist to conjure her back, she needed to be right up against the curtains to see the astonished looks on everyone’s faces. Unfortunately, one of her sneakers had slid into an unnoticed crevasse in the fabric and revealed it’s self to the crowd.

Helga was mortified and immediately fled the stage in tears, leaving the illusionist still holding open the door to an empty prop. As she ran past the box its rear trap door sprang open revealing the means of her escape to the crowd. She stopped momentarily to look at it, then let out a whimper and ran through the front door of the night club night club never to return.

“HOW DARE YOU!” The illusionist cried out in outrage.

“Funny,” the heckler persisted, “I said the exact same thing about your pathetic parlor tricks.”

The illusionist clenched his fists. He swore he’d never let his rage interfere with his magic career ever again, but he could feel it welling up inside him at an alarming rate. “So what,” he asked indignantly, “you’ve seen it all before, is that it?” He was beginning to loose control, the anger management councilor had warned him about this.

“Everything and more, my boy,” the voice announced with a condescending chuckle, “There’s nothing you could show me that I haven’t already seen.”

“We’ll see about that,” the illusionist said, a sly grin spreading across his lips as he invited the heckler up for one final act which he promised to be “a total showstopper.”

An old man in an equally ridiculous Stove-pipe hat and tuxedo approached the stage, his cufflinks hanging on by threads. He gave his name and a list of credentials, but the illusionist was no longer listening, he was too preoccupied rounding up the equipment necessary for his next stunt. The old man looked at these materials, an oblong box laid horizontally on a table and a large saw, and scoffed. “Don’t tell me you’re going to saw me in half!” he exclaimed. “Fine then,” the illusionist replied, “I won’t.” And with that he lifted the lid and ushered the old man inside.

“Do you know what the technical term is for this procedure in the medical world?” the illusionist asked.

“Haven’t the foggiest,” replied the heckler, whose head was sticking out from a hole in the box’s side. Similar holes had been drilled on the opposite end for his feet.

“A hemicorporectomy,” the illusionist said, touching his finger to one of the saw’s teeth. A drop of blood ran down into his palm; the blade was sharp enough to do the job.

Because of his restricted range of vision, the old magician saw none of this, though if he had, he would have probably dismissed it as showmanship and thought nothing of it. He began whistling a tune which had accompanied his performances back in his circus days. It had been a long time since he’d been on stage and he was enjoying every minute of it. “A comeback of sorts,” he thought to himself.

Before long the illusionist was ready to begin. He sunk the saw’s teeth into the lid of the box and began pulling it back and forth.

“Aren’t you supposed to put sheets of plastic on either side of the blade?” the magician asked.

“I thought you’d seen it all!” laughed the illusionist.

The old man shut his mouth, embarrassed to be shown up, even if only momentarily, by such an amateur. He was determined to make the illusionist pay for that petty barb, and would reveal the trick’s mystery to the crowd immediately.

“Whoever’s in the hidden compartment on the other side of this rig is pretty good,” he said. “He’s moving his legs exactly the same way I am!”

The illusionist smiled. “I assure you,” he replied, “that you are the only one in there.”

“So robotics is your game, eh? Well, the motion sensors must’ve set you back a bit, but . . .”

“There are no robots either,” the illusionist interrupted. Then leaning in close so only the old man could hear, he whispered “those are your legs.”

The old man looked down and wiggled his feet, then back up at the illusionist. “Then how are you doing this?” he asked, a puzzled look spreading across his wrinkled face. That was when he felt the blade graze his chest.

By now the crowd was awestruck by the performance; it looked so real. The way the old man writhed in pain like he was really being cut open was dead on (no pun intended), and the entrails that spilled onto the stage when the illusionist split the box open were incredibly convincing. It wasn’t until the illusionist was dragged away in handcuffs that any of them started to ask questions, and even then they figured it was all just part of the act.

View Part of the Act at Supraterranean

Because of this, free online digital information databases, with their glut of instantly accessible “Facts” and “Figures,” have singlehandedly driven us once great Encyclopedia Barons to the unemployment offices.

“Good Riddance!” I’ve heard some declare, though they’re usually the same ones who get their news of the world from biased underground blogger sites, so I don’t take their jeers too personally.  Unfortunately, these people have become the majority now, making it harder and harder to ignore them.  It’s like being trapped amidst a huge flock of lemmings being led to their own demise (in this case intellectually) by a bunch of sensationalist internet pundits.

I wish I could just dismiss it all as being a harmless resurgence of yellow journalism, but these guys are out for blood!  They’re claiming that they, with their community-edited, donation-based servers, can fairly offer you “all the facts” we so-called “encyclopedia suits” have apparently been “keeping from you.”  Of course, they offer few, if any actual citations for any of these so-called “facts,” allowing articles to be printed with merely a “citation needed” marker on them.

What scares me is the fact (no pun intended) that the American public can simply accept this blatant oversight without raising a single question.  I’ve lost many a night’s sleep over this as we near the end of our 47^th and final edition of the Encyclopedia America; a once proud and yearly publication.  I’ve been with the company since the beginning, back when I still had a loving wife and a full head of hair.  The bigwigs promised me a future here in the encyclopedia biz, and for the first few decades, when promotion after promotion was being thrown my way, I certainly couldn’t disagree.  Now though I find myself sitting atop this crumbling corporate ladder, looking down at the ever-changing world below me and feeling much like a walking anachronism.

“You can’t be an anachronism,” my secretary informs me.

“And why is that?” I ask.

“Because,” she says, “an anachronism’s an abbreviation for a group of words.”

“An abbreviation for a group of words!”  Can you believe it?  We’re running an institution for the philanthropic retention of societal learnings and my secretary actually thinks an anachronism is a group of words! I swear, if we hadn’t already canned the human resources department I’d be down there right now giving Jerry a piece of my mind.  I can tell this is his handiwork because despite her lack of qualifications, my secretary has the body of an Olympic gymnast.  She’s one of the dozens of under-qualified, oversexed beauty queens we now have on the payroll thanks to Jerry’s uncontrollable libido. They make up the majority of our 47^th and final staff here at the Encyclopedia, and while it’s certainly the most attractive staff we’ve had in years, I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t a constant source of frustration in my life.

Because of this I usually spend my office hours holed up in one of our supply closets reading through back issues.  Today I picked up a copy from 1986.  It was the height of Reaganomics and our sales couldn’t have been better, the front cover even said so its self.  “Most Trusted Reference Guide in Entire Northern Hemisphere,” it boasted.  Back then we didn’t have time for modesty, everything was moving too fast.  The cold war was creating dozens of new terms each day and we had to scramble to keep up.  Every time we’d finish an entry on a third-world country it’d change ownership and we’d have to start all over again.  Somehow though I still found time to teach on the side. Nothing special, just a community college gig, but it gave me this feeling like I was pushing the youth of America, or at least Jefferson County, in the right direction.  How the fuck was I to know that one of my own students would become the first internet database tycoon?

2

“Where’s all the information going to be stored?”  I ask my fraternity brother Frankie Holloway over a round of martinis at the Harvard Club.  Outside the Puerto Rican Day Parade rages on, causing the tables, chairs, and even chandeliers to rattle violently with each Reggaeton downbeat.  DOO-ba-DOOMP-ba, DOO-ba-DOOMP-ba, DOO-ba-DOOMP-ba, etc. Frank takes another drag of his cigarette and smiles.  “I’m sure they’ve got top-of-the-line servers and round-the-clock tech support backing everything up.”

“But what if something should happen?  They don’t have anything written down on paper, it’s all digital!  What if . . . ”

“Now you’re just being paranoid, can’t you just accept retirement with some dignity like the rest of us?”

Frank has no right to talk to me about retirement.  He’d found success on Wall Street within months of our graduation and reached total financial security before his forty-fifth birthday.  Retirement for him was a much different beast than it would be for me.  The only legacy he had to worry about was a largely overlooked bronze plaque hanging in the far corner of the trading room floor.  Me, I’ve got centuries worth of information to protect.  My wife’s analyst used to call this “Delusions of Grandeur,” but she couldn’t have been further off.  Had she consulted the Encyclopedia America she would have known better.

“Hey, take a look at this!” Frank says, pointing to the TV above the bar.  Its image is shakey from all the commotion outside but I recognize the face on it immediately.  “Wasn’t that a student of yours?” Frankie asks.  I know exactly where he’s going with this and already can’t stand it.  “Yeah,” I reply weakly, “Manny Wilfred, Class of ’88.”  Frank shoots me this real smug grin from across the table and goes back to watching the tube.  “You know,” he says, “it says here he’s the CEO and owner of . . . No, it can’t be!”

I roll my eyes impatiently.  Seeing this, Frank decides to change gears.  “Here” he says, sliding a dog-eared copy of the Times book review across the table.  “I was saving this for you.”  There on the last page was a half-paragraph mini blurb about the Encyclopedia America closing its doors – our obituary.  “Encyclopedia goes way of almanac,” it proclaimed, and suddenly I no longer have the strength to read on.  “Well,” I say, handing the paper back to Frank, “At least it’s in print.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means it can be trusted.”

“You know, people used to say the exact opposite.”

“Yeah, well, the internet’s changed that.”

“Has it?”

Before I can answer the music outside comes to a dramatic halt, and for the first time all morning we can hear the TV.  “KNOWLEDGE.COM TO HOLD FIRST PUBLIC STOCK OFFERING NEXT WEEK” it blares through its tiny speakers. All around the room dormant businessmen spring to life and whip out their cellular phones.  Within seconds the room is filled with a chorus of 40-something CEOs shouting: “BUY! BUY!! BUY!!!” I can practically smell the desperation.

“Guess this means your boy’s coming to town” Frank says as he lights another cigarette.  There’s supposed to be a law prohibiting him from doing this, but when you’re as rich as he is you’re above such things.

“Yeah,” I reply, “I guess it does . . .”

“You want me to arrange a reunion?”

“How do you propose to do that?”

“You forget,” he says, “all public auctions are now being held at the Frank Holloway Memorial Conference Center.”

View The Lexicographer at Supraterranean