On The Clock

2002-11-21T15:57:00.000-08:00

**********16

The Full Contact Poetry show on Saturday night was a roaring success. Both Thiel and Soren sold several chap books, and Bullwinkle managed to sell eleven CD’s at ten dollars a piece. Augie’s band Gojira headlined the gig to a packed house. Unfortunately, Duncan had to leave as soon as Bullwinkle came off the stage to get down to the bar, but all that would be over soon.

The next day, Master David arrived part way through the afternoon. He had been a close friend of Soren, Augie and Duncan for many years and used to live locally. Now relocated to Boston to be with his sweetie, he returned to his place of origins a couple times a year to visit. Thiel had not known him when he was still a local, but had since met and gotten to know him on his past several visits.

“Master David!” Soren exclaimed as he walked up onto the porch to give her one of his signature Big Hugs. “It’s great to see you.”

“It’s great to be seen. Could I get a little help unloading?”

Thiel and Duncan ran outside to help their friend unload his car. He had brought several drums and various pieces of electronic equipment along for his visit, all of which were taken to the basement.

“So,” Master David began, stretching out comfortably on the couch, “what’s this I hear about a cosmic moose? I’d like to give it a listen.”

Part way through the recording he exclaimed, “Wow. Not bad at all, though I think we could mix it down a little differently.”

“And record some drum tracks,” prodded Duncan.

“And record some drum tracks,” Master David agreed. “Good thing I came equipped. But first, the pancakes and scotch.”

Right up the street was one of their favorite restaurants. It was a family diner kind of place, the kind where one could get meatloaf, homemade pie and pancakes at all hours of the day and night. It had been established some fifty odd years ago and was still run by the original family. They had, in Master David’s opinion, the best pancakes in the world.

After an impromptu late breakfast, they returned home. Having thought ahead to their friend’s arrival, Duncan had already brought home a bottle of Master David’s favorite scotch from the bar since hard alcohol wasn’t sold on Sundays in the midwest. Happily sipping from an espresso cup on the couch with one hand while tapping out a tune with the other on his leg, Master David sat back and stretched.

“Aahh…it’s good to be back. So what the hell are you guys doing for a living these days?”

“Nothing that has anything to do with reality,” explained Duncan. “But at least we’re making decent money doing it.”

“And we get to work together,” added Soren.

“Cool. So what’s your schedule like for the next two weeks?”

“Hmm…let me think,” began Duncan. “Our schedules are pretty flexible, and since Soren has started to do most of the invoicing, that means she’s here most of the time. I’ve got some field work to do this week plus Thiel’s stores, but the only set in stone time that I have to be working is Wednesday morning—there’s been a new store added to the market that I have to go count with our boss for the first time. After that, I’m going to count Midtown Mart, then I’ll be home. I’m thinking that I can get most of it done by Thursday if I work long days at the beginning of the week. Soren will be bartending Wednesday night, and I’ve asked Michael to work most of nights for me for the next two weeks. Some time in there the transfer of ownership should be taking place.”

“Cool. Aren’t you starting school soon?”

“Next Monday, but that will only be for four hours in the evening twice a week—much less than my usual bar shifts. I’m going to try to get my work done as quickly as possible in the week so that I’m done after the new store on Wednesday. Augie is over at Constance’s place until probably later tonight, and Thiel is leaving tomorrow for San Francisco.” Thiel looked up sickly at Duncan from where he sat on the couch next to Master David.

“Congratulations. Soren mentioned the convention in her emails.”

“Yeah. Thanks.”

“He’s a little nervous,” explained Duncan.

“He’ll be back next weekend, though he’s already given permission to use any of the tracks that we recorded with him to do whatever with. What’s the master plan?” asked Duncan.

“There isn’t one, really. I’d like to mess around with the stuff you’ve got, and we’ll just see what else happens. I have a final project due in two weeks. They don’t exactly expect us to record and mix an entire album, but if I can manage it, that’s what I intend to do. I mean, why not? All hail Eris,” he saluted happily with his miniature mug and smiled.

The next day, Augie and Thiel left for the airport, Thiel still grumbling and shuffling his feet. Duncan went out bright and early to get his work out of the way while Soren and David hung out, catching up on what had been transpiring in each of their lives, the whole while Soren tapping away on her machine to keep it running.

“So you’re getting paid to sit around and talk to me on your couch?” inquired Master David.

“Yep. Not a bad deal.”

In the evenings, Duncan and Master David disappeared into the basement where all sorts of weird electronic and rhythmic sounds could be heard. By early Wednesday morning, they were happy with their first results. Soren only half woke as Duncan climbed into bed.

“Cosmic Moose is finally done, I think,” whispered Duncan.

“Cool. How different does it sound?”

“Oh, it’s different, all right. We’re thinking about brining it down to the Warehouse tonight and seeing if we can get Mike Dangers to play it on the dance floor. We’ll bring a bunch of copies in case anyone is interested, that is if you don’t mind keeping them behind the back bar while you’re working.”

“Not at all. Anything for the cause.”

Only a few hours later, Duncan disappeared to meet Duke for the new store. He had the address written down, but according to the street signs, this address appeared to be the middle of a parking lot. He drove back and forth, still not seeing any sign of either Duke or this new convenience store, which was supposedly called Quicky Quick. In the middle of the parking lot, he could see one of those old photo booths, so he decided to inquire there. Walking from his car, he could see a crudely painted sign covering the old photographic logo. The sign said Quicky Quick—The World’s Smallest Convenience Store Chain. This was it.

“Um,” he began, cautiously brandishing his authorization letter, “is this Quicky Quick?”

The large balding man in the window just looked at him. According to his name badge, this would be Clyde. “Yeah,” he finally grunted.

“I’m with BC Wilson, and I’ve been authorized to count your store monthly. We’re a statistical data collection agency…”

“You got the check?”

“Um, yes sir. It’s right here.” Duncan handed the check toward the window where it was snatched out of mid-air.

“All right then. Count away.”

Duncan looked through the window and attempted to assess the logistics of this invitation. Clyde easily took up two thirds of the space inside of the small booth.

“How do I…?”

Clyde sighed the sigh of the terminally weary. “The door’s around back.”

Duncan walked to the back of the booth, noticing the fading colors of the old photo booth logos. He turned the handle as the door swung forcefully outward, nearly knocking his ScanWand out of his hands.

“I’ll just get out of your way,” said Clyde, turning sideways to step through the small opening and lighting a large cigar. Duncan stepped inside and assessed the situation. For starters, he certainly wouldn’t need Duke’s help counting this store. From where he stood he could view all of the contents clearly. Condoms. Over the counter herbal speed. One roll of dusty one-ten film. A few bags of pork rinds. Some candy bars made by a company of which he had never heard. Flavored rolling papers. Ahh…shelf stable milk. It was a category that their company counted, but until now, he had never actually seen it sitting stabley on a shelf. Over in a dark corner was a large can wearing a label that said “oil.”

“That’s not for sale,” said Clyde quickly as Duncan looked at the can.

Thirty seconds later, Duncan had completed the count and saluted Clyde on his way back into the booth. He asked about invoices, but Clyde said there weren’t any. Getting ready to walk back to his car, he saw another man approaching, dragging a large cart with the words “Quicky Quick” painted crudely on the side. This must be the “chain” of which the original sign boasted. He wondered vaguely if he should scan the contents of the cart, or whether he even wanted to know what was in there. He turned to Clyde.

“So, would you consider the contents of this cart part of this store’s inventory, or is it considered a different store?”

Clyde looked at him blankly for nearly two minutes while the other man huffed and puffed, anchoring the cart to a hitch on the end of the booth. “Different store,” he finally said.

“All right then, sir. I’ll see you next month.”

Clyde grunted some kind of agreement as Duncan returned to his car. He had seen a pay phone somewhere along the plaza of which this parking lot was a part, so he zipped over to it and dialed Duke’s pager number, letting him know that the count was done and there was no reason for him to join him.

A half an hour later he was in Midtown Mart, one of his larger stores. There had been a candy delivery today, and for the first time he had the opportunity to meet the man known locally as Vince the Van Guy. He had entered invoices from Vince and had seen a representation of his haggard face stylized on the packages, but never before had they met. He saw the van parked out front, and met the man himself as he was stocking the candy personally, hanging bags of gummy bears, fruit runts, and red licorice onto the peg racks of aisle three. He was a grizzled older man who looked as though he had just come down from the mountain earlier that morning.

Apparently Vince was a repackager, meaning that he bought candy in bulk, scooped small amounts of it out into little bags, then stapled them to cardboard placards which could be hung on pegs. Each one sold retail for fifty-nine cents or two for a dollar. From where Duncan stood counting, he could see the inside of the van, left open as Vince unloaded it. It was full to bursting with hundreds and thousands of small, multi-colored bags and there was a barking hound dog happily wagging its tail from the front seat.

He held out his hand when Vince came back into the store with another arm load of candy. “Hi, I’m Duncan Conrad. You must be Vince.”

“Yep, I a’reckon,” he answered, hanging another three bags of candy lipsticks on a peg.

“So how do you like this line of work?”

“S’all right, I s’pose. It don’t take much—just some bags, some printed cardboard and some staples. And the van, o’course. Only one day a week, too. I could hire somebody to run the d’liveries for me, but my old lady says I get a bit loopy if I don’t get out once in a while. Rest of t’time I can spend with my old lady or working on my boat.”

“Your boat,” prodded Duncan.

“Yep, t’boat. She’s a beauty, all right. A real honest to gawd yacht. I should have ‘er done by this summer, then me and the old lady’s gonna cruise ourselves to the Bahamas. T’s all I ever wanted to do, so t’ats what I’m a’doin’.”

“Wow,” remarked Duncan, genuinely impressed, “how long have you been working on this?”

“Welp,” he said considering, “’bout the past eight years. See, up before then I had to work for a livin’, but then I retired. Got my pension and ever’ting so that ‘bout takes care of most stuff, so I’s been doin’ this to fund the boat. Boy, she sure is pretty. I’ve been studyin’ navigation since I was a young’en—my uncle was a seaman you know.”

“No, I didn’t know,” answered Duncan since Vince seemed to be waiting for a response.

“Yep. Sure was. Taught me ever’ting there is to know about the sea. Got to sail with him, too when I was younger, but then I had to go t’work in the factory and that was that. I promised the old lady the day I married her that we’d go a’sailin’ just as soon as I could build me that boat. So, there she is.”

“How long have you been married?” inquired Duncan.

“Oh…let me see…’bout forty years now, I s’pose.”

“So what are you going to do about your business while you’re gone?”

“Don’t rightly know yet,” Vince said concentrating. “We’ve got one boy, Bobby, but he’s a lawyer now an’s got no interest in the business. Don’t rightly know what I’m gonna do with it. I sure hate to give ‘er up since it works out so profitable and all. But,” he sighed “I can’t very well sail the open sea and package candy, so I guess that’ll be the end of Vince’s Fine Candies.” Seeming rather sad, he went back to hanging the candy lipsticks.

Duncan scanned for a few moment in silence, thinking very hard about the gameplans that he and Soren had been working out. Jump. Like a squirrel.

“Have you considered taking on a partner?” he inquired.

“A partner? Now where t’hell am I gonna find one o’those?” Vince squinted at him intently.

Duncan reached into his pocket and withdrew a card. “Here’s my number. If you want a partner in this, just give me a call. It would be a shame for you to go out of business—hell, every convenience store in this area carries your candy. Besides—my wife and I are always looking for things that we can work on together. Have you ever considered expanding the business? Going national with it?”

“Hot damn,” exclaimed Vince. “I like the way you talk. Yeah, I’ll be getting in touch with you here in the next few weeks. Summer is fast approachin’ and I’m getting’ the itch for the water like I do every year ‘bout this time. Let me talk it over with the old lady and we’ll see what we can do.”

“What’s your boat’s name, by the way?”

Vince stood back from the wall of candy, getting a far away look in his eyes. “I call ‘er ‘Madeline Goes to Paradise.’ Madeline’s my old lady, ya see.” He winked at Duncan.

“That’s a beautiful name. I wish you the best of luck on your journey.”

“And I wish you the same. We’ll be in touch…” Vince winked again, then walked through the exit door to the overwhelming glee of the hound in the front seat of the van.

Ahh the unpredictable forces of chaos. What would they come up with next?

Duke burst through the front doors of the convenience store, looking slightly more bedraggled than usual.

“Oh thank god you’re here,” he said seeing Duncan. “I overslept and then got caught in traffic and couldn’t make it to Quicky Quick. I got your message. There weren’t any problems there, I hope.”

“Nope. None at all.”

“Was it a bear to count by yourself,” asked Duke.

“Um, well, no. They only have six things.”

“What?!?” exclaimed Duke, which brought on a ferocious coughing fit. When the fit passed, he asked again more calmly. “What do you mean by ‘six things’?”

“I mean they only had six things.” He held up his ScanWand and pressed in the numbers to bring up the store file for Quicky Quick. “Look for yourself.”

Duke held the ScanWand in front of him, scanning from one screen to the next. Finally, he lowered it. “Unbelievable. Six things, eh? Well, what are you gonna do—we need independent stores in the sample, and these days they’re getting pretty hard to come by. If this independent store has six items, well, then we’ll count those six items. How are you doing here?”

“No problems,” answered Duncan, taking back his ScanWand and continuing to count. “I should have this one knocked out in another couple of hours.”

“Good, good,” he said absently. “Can I ask you a question? Kind of a personal question?”

“Sure,” answered Duncan cautiously.

“Do you think that a man at my age who’s been a bachelor for so long could actually settle down with one woman? I mean, can I really give up all the joys and freedom of bachelorhood for a commitment? I’m asking you since, hey, you’ve obviously figured out how to do it. Is it difficult to give all that up?”

Duncan laughed. “I think you’re talking to the wrong person. I don’t see being in a relationship with Soren as giving anything up. I lived alone for several years, and frankly the only thing I’m giving up is loneliness. There was never any question of giving up anything else.”

“Yeah,” continued Duke, “but is it difficult to stay with just one woman over a period of time? There are millions of them out there—don’t you ever ‘feel their call’ so to speak?”

“No,” said Duncan smiling as he continued to count. “Never. I had decided to live like a monk before I met Soren. I didn’t ‘feel their call’ when I was single, so I certainly don’t now. If I wasn’t with Soren, I would have just continued living like a monk for the rest of my life.” He shrugged. “That life was nice, but now I have somebody to share it all with, which makes it a hundred times nicer. I still do everything I used to do—now I just don’t have to do it alone.”

Duke seemed to be considering something. “So, it’s not all that bad, is what you’re saying?”

“It’s not just ‘not all that bad,’ it’s fantastic.”

“Hmm… Well, that gives me something to think about. Maybe you don’t have my problems anyway.” He leaned closer and dropped his voice. “I think it’s the ferra gnomes.”

“The ferra gnomes?” asked Duncan.

“Yeah. I think I smell different to women. They kind of give me a look sometimes, you know what I mean?”

Duncan didn’t.

“Anyway,” said Duke abruptly, standing back to his normal height, his voice regaining volume, “I guess if you’ve got this all under control here, I’ll go out and check on one of my problem children. That woman—she just has issues with authority. She plays all kinds of games, and sometimes I think she’s just trying to push me to see how much I’ll let her get away with. Now she’s claiming that she can’t get her work done because I changed her route around. As if she ever got it done in the first place.” He shook his head. “I don’t want to fire her if I can help it, but I swear I’m this close to canning her and saying the hell with it. But in a way, I feel sorry for her. She’s with that deadbeat who doesn’t have a job half the time. Taking care of her mother, taking care of the kids…I don’t want to be that bad guy who takes away her only stable income, but damn she gets on my last nerve. If she’d just do the work she says she’s going to do… But alas—I’m out of here. You take care and tell the rest of the Kabal I said howdy.”

“See you later,” said Duncan without looking up from the chips he was counting. He knew from experience that if he waited for Duke to finish a conversation to begin working, that the working would never begin or consequently end.

Finally finished with the stock in the front, Duncan went into the stock room and started to count flat after flat of twenty ounce Perka Cola bottles. A middle aged man walked through the stock room, absently saying hello on his way past as he went into the cooler. Vendors were in and out of stores all the time, so Duncan thought nothing of it until he emerged again a moment later with a twenty-four ounce can of Knudkeiser in one hand, popped the top, and drank it back in four long gulps.

“Want one?” asked the man, holding out his empty can.

Duncan shook his head.

“Suit yourself.” He stood for a moment, then disappeared into the cooler again. A moment later, he reemerged with another red and white can in hand, popped the top and drank it down exactly like the last.

After the fourth can of beer had disappeared, Duncan began to wonder if he should alert management. Who knows? This could just be some guy who wandered in off the street, found the cooler, and started drinking free beer. Just then, the manager sauntered into the back and ran into the beer drinking guy.

“Hey Luther,” said the manager, obviously recognizing him. “Done delivering the soup yet?”

“Yep,” he said, taking another big gulp then burping loudly. “Stocked the freezer all up.”

“Those frozen entrees of yours sell like mad. I think that most of the soccer moms who come in here just can’t bear the thought of fixing another meal after their five kids get done practicing whatever the hell sport they’re into. With the high school a block away, we get a lot of student and parent traffic through here. How’s the catering business?”

Luther burped again. “Going good, going good. Just did a huge wedding this past weekend. It’s outrageous what some people will pay to get married. Hell,” he said, tilting his head bad for another tremendous gulp, “a couple could buy a house for what some of these weddings cost. Whatever happened to the justice of the peace in your parents’ backyard?”

“I hear you, I hear you,” replied the manager. “I say pay the fifty bucks for the license and spend the rest on a nice vacation or a car or something. It’s ridiculous to spend a year’s income on one day. But, I guess that’s what folks these days expect.”

“Yeah, and I guess I shouldn’t complain. It’s keeping me in business.” Luther laughed, disappearing into the cooler as the manager returned out front. Duncan didn’t see him again—he wondered vaguely if he had curled up on a shelf of twelve packs and passed out.

Now entirely finished, Duncan made his way back home through rush hour traffic. Usually, he tried not to be on the road at this hour, but on occasion it was unavoidable. At least he was able to go home this early, he mused. At his last job, rush hour was always good and truly over by the time he left the office, so sitting in traffic every once in a while just didn’t seem like such a big deal.

Soren and Master David were eating stir-fry when he came through the front door, her machine still lying on the coffee table in front of her while she ate.

“Hi, sweetie!” she said excitedly as he entered. “We were just talking about you. You want some dinner?”

“Oh, yes, thank you. I’m starving.”

“Any wild and wacky adventures today at work?” inquired Master David.

Duncan told him about his amusing encounters for the day while crunching the pea pods and bok choy, enjoying particularly Soren’s reaction to meeting Vince.

“You met the Van Guy?” she asked excitedly. “Wow—he’s almost a local celebrity.”

“Yeah, and get this—you and I may be running Vince’s Fine Candies while he’s off sailing around on his home-built yacht this summer.”

“Get out,” she exclaimed. He explained the story to her, especially the part when the squirrel spoke to him.

“Well then,” she said, “you did the right thing. I’d be happy to spend one day a week stapling bags to pieces of cardboard. It has to be a fairly lucrative business if Vince has built a yacht out of the income. I mean, they carry his stuff in almost every convenience store in town.”

“I’m not sure what all the financial details will be, but I’m thinking that I could probably do deliveries at the same time I’m working for BC Wilson so that they would be paying the mileage. We’ll see…but it just seemed like too good of an opportunity to pass up.”

Master David was shaking his head. “You guys have a truly weird life. I love it. So when can we go down to the Warehouse and see if we can get this new CD on the air?”

Soren looked up at the clock. “We’ve got about three hours. How many CD’s did we get burned today?”

“About fifty. I figure that’s plenty for a first night out. If we sell them all we can always take orders.” Master David looked at Soren. “Get the cash up front.”

“Right-O,” she replied. “If we get there early, you guys can sweet talk Mike Dangers and let him hear it while I’m getting the bar set up. I’ll keep them behind the bar while you two go on your selling spree. It really sounds great, by the way.”

“Why thank you,” said Master David. “I think it’s pretty good too, if I do say so myself. Neat stuff you guys put together, by the way.”

“Yeah, but it’s all the better with real drums—Blinky just can’t play that way. And the mixing was fantastic.”

“I like the poetry samples,” said Soren. “I think you two are insane for mixing in samples of Full Contact Poetry, but it works. I sound so creepy…” she said with obvious glee.

“You are creepy, dear,” reminded Master David. “You’re just used to it.”

A few hours later, Soren, Duncan, Augie and Master David made their way down to the seedy part of town where the Warehouse stood looming in the night like a hollywood monolith. On the trip downtown, Augie recounted his trip to the airport with Thiel earlier that morning.

“I nearly had to physically carry him onto that plane,” explained Augie. “On the way there he started having these terrible fears about the plane crashing. Then he was afraid that he had given Lady Monster the wrong flight information. Then he was convinced that he had left his paper at home and wanted to come back and get it. Jeez—he was worse than a bachelor with cold feet.”

“So did he make his flight?” asked Soren. “You know we can always email his paper to him if he forgot it.”

“That’s what I told him,” continued Augie. “I swear that if I hadn’t been with him, he would have bailed. But, he got on the plane. I could see his terrified face surrounded by that mop of hair in the window near the wing.” He chuckled. “He’ll be fine once he gets there, and if I know Lady Monster, she won’t let him back out of it at the last minute.”

Soren laughed. “No fucking way. She’ll whip him up on stage with a cat-o-nine tails if she has to.”

The Warehouse was deserted other than the few employees who had arrived early as Tomm let them in the sheet metal coated front doors. It was amazing how ugly the place was with the lights on, but then again it explained the club’s motto—It Isn’t Very Pretty.

Soren went behind the front bar to start cutting up lemons and limes while the guys went in the back to find Mike Dangers. Dangers was an old friend of Soren’s—they had known each other since their mid-teens. He had a great sense of what people would and wouldn’t dance to, so she hoped that he would give Cosmic Moose a chance. A few minutes later, she heard the loud bass beat of the first song as the DJ cranked up the volume of the deafening sound system.

Soren smiled. It was weird and kind of nice to hear music produced in her house played in a venue like this. She had to admit—it sounded great. Unconsciously, she started to dance around behind the bar. It really was good music.

The CD played all the way through, and she was struck again by how different each song sounded from the other, though they all hung together as one project as well. Master David had rearranged the order of the songs so that one flowed flawlessly into the other, adding bits of beats here and there to tie the whole thing together. She giggled as she heard her own distorted voice roaring through the club, “I give more bang for the buck…”

Eventually the sound system powered down, and the boys appeared from the back with Mike Dangers in tow.

“Wow,” said Dangers as Soren handed him a Nickeltoe Light. “That sounds fantastic. I think I’m just going to let the whole CD play straight through.” He grinned. “That way I don’t have to mix for forty-five minutes. I’ll also announce who the band is and that the CD is available for sale at the front bar.” He took a swig from his beer and started laughing. “Cosmic Moose. If you guys come down here some night all dressed like Bullwinkle, I’ll eat my shoe.”

“Don’t tempt us,” warned Duncan. “Our boss has been trying to get all of us to do that for the past six months.”

“So all you guys are working for the nark?” he asked.

“He’s not a nark,” explained Soren, “he just looks like one. If you knew him better you’d never get that point confused.”

“You’re talking about a man who buys whippets on company time,” added Augie. “And has company meetings at Jugs in the middle of the afternoon.”

Dangers laughed. “Doesn’t sound like a bad way to spend an afternoon to me. You get paid, right? How about you, David. You’re not working there too, are you?”

“Nope. I’m just in town for a couple of weeks to work on some music stuff in their basement.”

“Well,” Dangers said, checking his watch, “it’s almost time for the masses to crash the gate. I better get up to the booth. I’ll wait until a little after eleven to pop in the CD so it’s over in time for the midnight pit.”

“Sounds good,” observed Duncan. “Wait for a bit of a crowd if you don’t mind. Thanks again for playing this.”

“No problem,” he said, finishing off the rest of the bottle and wiping his chin. He checked his watch again. “Gotta run. Talk to you guys later.”

The doors opened and the crowd rushed in as they always did on Wednesday nights. Black leather, black nylon, black latex, black, black, black. Soren popped the ear plugs into her ears and turned on the sound system at the front bar. It was dollar double night at the Warehouse, so she spent most of her hours serving alcohol that she wouldn’t have used to strip the paint on her car.

“Can I have a double vodka cranberry?”

“Give me a gin and tonic.”

“I’ll take a bourbon and soda.”

On and on the plastic bottles tipped back and forth, Soren smiling at the customers she loved to hate. Eleven came much sooner than she was expecting, and the first sound of the familiar music made her stomach seize up in butterflies. Was she nervous? She hadn’t expected this.

“This next bit of music is by a local group. They’re new, they’re hot, they’re Bullwinkle. You can buy their CD at the front bar. It’s time for a ride on the back of the Cosmic Moose….” Dangers’s voice trailed off into the ether as he turned up the volume knob on track number one. Before the first song had finished Soren had sold five CD’s at ten bucks a piece.

The bar manager, Tomm, looked at her wad of cash appreciatively. “Looks like you’re going to make more money on the CD than you will in tips. Maybe I’m in the wrong business.”

“You were in a band once, right?” asked Soren. Tomm had actually been one of her roommates many years previous and they had been good friends since way back when in the blurry days of her youth.

“Yeah—Rubber Fish. We were straight out punk. Mostly I just staggered around on stage sweating, screaming and throwing fish. It was great.” He grinned with the childlike grin which only Tomm could muster, completely sweet and innocent despite the fact that his head was shaved and his face pierced in several places. Tomm was perhaps the scariest looking teddy bear Soren had ever met.

In between track number two and three, Mike Dangers announced the band again, reminding the patrons who had been there and informing the ones newly arrived that the CD was for sale at the front bar. Within minutes, Soren had sold twelve more CD’s.

“Wow,” she exclaimed to Duncan when he approached her asking for a stack of CD’s. “These are selling better than cheap vodka. I hope we don’t run out.”

“I hope we do,” grinned Duncan back at her. He leaned across the bar, gave her a quick kiss, then turned toward the group of people who had followed him there to purchase Cosmic Moose. By the time the CD was done playing on the dance floor, they had sold all of the copies of the CD and had nine people pre-paid for a copy to be delivered. By the time the lights came up at two-thirty, the list had grown to twenty-seven.

“Not a bad haul,” mused Duncan counting the money at the end of the night. He pulled fifty bucks out of the stack and slipped it into the tip jar in the DJ booth. Doing the calculations in his head, he divvied up the cash between the other members of the project who were there, keeping aside a cut for Thiel and Tyim.

“I think this calls for a celebration. Who wants to go to The Anchor? Pancakes are on me,” said Master David exuberantly.

“Damn,” mentioned Augie on the way to the car. “This is more money than I’ve ever made at a live gig, and I didn’t even have to carry around a bunch of heavy equipment. I got paid to sit around drinking beer listening to cool music. This rocks.”

The Anchor was a piece of history stuck in time, splitting the difference between the pristine creepiness of a David Lynch diner and a greasier than average spoon. The neon sign in the window boasted “We May Doze But We Never Close” to anyone who would care to read it and it was true—they were always open. The inside of the restaurant was decorated in schizophrenic kitsch and sported the world-famous miniature band housed behind glass in the corner fronted by a garishly dressed Barbie doll. The band played and Barbie gyrated every time someone slipped another quarter into the juke box.

“I want to hear ‘Tiny Bubbles’ and any of the six Patsy Cline tunes,” announced Soren as she bounced happily on the seat of the red vinyl booth, her black vinyl dress noisily sticking and unsticking to it.

“Yeah, yeah,” said Duncan as he stood poised over the juke box quarters in hand. “I’m just trying to figure out what I want to play other than Was Not Was and REM.”

“What an odd selection,” noticed Master David sipping his tea. “Whoever picked out this music must have been smoking the same thing as the person who decorated it.”

An electronic ship rocked back and forth above their heads hypnotically while Barbie wiggled mechanically in the other corner. “I just love this place,” said Augie stretching out his legs and yawning. “And the most expensive thing on the menu costs less than five bucks. What is a ‘Teachers Special’ anyway?”

“No one knows,” answered Soren mysteriously. “Are you a teacher?”

“No.”

“Then it’s a secret. I asked once and that’s more or less what they told me.”

“Do you remember coming here with me many years ago, five years or so before we started dating?” asked Duncan. “That was the night that we stayed here until dawn after the bar closed, when Tomm’s girlfriend was so drunk that she passed out in the van leaving only the request that he bring her mashed potatoes when he was done eating."

“I remember.”

“I wrote down a quote from you that night in my notebook. It said ‘I knew a guy named Slim once who used to eat lard and ketchup sandwiches. He’s dead now.’”

Soren laughed. “If that isn’t a blast from the past. I think that was the same night that you made the mistake of lifting the astroturf patch in the weird display over in the corner.”

They all involuntarily glanced over to said corner to see the same display still standing there making no more sense than it ever had. It was a plastic ship surrounded by artificial daisies floating on a green see of synthetic grass.

“Whatever you do, don’t lift grass,” warned Duncan. “There are things in there no one should ever have to see.”

“Don’t you think that they’ve decomposed by now?” asked Soren.

“Hush, woman! There are people here who are planning to eat. It was also the night that I pointed out to the waitress that there was a cheeseburger on the floor under our table.”

Soren laughed. “Oh yes—and you know how ‘take no shit’ the waitresses are around here. She just glanced down and said ‘Yep. Sure is,’ then went on scribbling down our order.” Soren looked under her feet, making sure that she wasn’t standing on anyone else’s dinner. The coast was clear.

The food was decent enough, though, and as Augie so astutely pointed out, the prices were fantastic. Fat with food and cash, the friends eventually tottered back out onto the street, all of them exhausted after a long but very productive day.

Out in the parking lot, Soren gazed happily up at the stars. Not so long ago she had longed for this life—freedom, security, creativity—and now she was actually living it. Oh yes, life was good.

*************17

They all slept in the next day, resting happily after a job well done. Eventually, Augie and Duncan arose and went their separate ways to finish their stores while Master David and Soren hung around the house again, talking and discussing various projects they were working on. For the rest of the week, they spent the majority of their evenings in the basement making all sorts of random and weird noises on the dozens of musical instruments which were in the house.

Soren, who didn’t consider herself musically talented, nevertheless had a wonderful time playing with glass slides on the cello or imitating Miles Davis lines with a slide whistle. Master David played drums behind this menagerie, blending, mixing, and moving the music toward a state of irregular cohesiveness. The result was something that they agreed could only be called Tribal Jazz.

Thiel was due to arrive at the airport Sunday evening; Constance and Augie had agreed that they would go pick him up from the airport and bring him home. Walking through the door, he looked almost as anxious as he had before he left.

“Hey! How was the con?” Soren asked him after they had all said their hellos.

“Um, well, I think I need to discuss this with you guys anyway.” He gulped. “The Investigator was one of the publications which hosted the convention, and a few hours after I presented my paper, the editor approached me. I was at the bar—I needed a beer after that—and she asked if she could buy me a beer and sit down. Sure, I said. Well, then she starts talking about how my paper is the one everyone was talking about, and how she’s sure I’ve had a lot of offers, but would I consider coming aboard The Investigator. I nearly fell off my stool. I mean, that’s the most respected independent journalistic publication in the country. They’re one of the only ones which has actually made it big. I was floored.”

“So what happened?” asked Duncan excitedly. “There’s got to be more to this story than that.”

“To make a long story short, they’d like me to write for them. I can live wherever I want to, though they’d be flying me out to San Francisco periodically. They want to send me all over the place. Hell, they’re talking about sending me to Israel next month if I take the job.” Thiel gulped. “I don’t know what to do. I really feel out of my league.”

“Nonsense,” said Master David. “You’re a fabulous writer and San Francisco is a great place to visit regularly. It’s not like it’s LA or anything.”

“True enough,” agreed Thiel. “But shit—I’ve never been to Israel. Can I really do this?”

“Of course you can,” encouraged Constance, sitting down on Augie’s lap. “If you were out of your league they wouldn’t have offered you the job. Isn’t this exactly the kind of dream come true that journalists fantasize about all through school?”

“Well, yeah, I suppose, but I never really thought that it would happen. To me. Now.”

“So just consider yourself both lucky and talented,” suggested Soren. “Jump, man. Quick and random like a squirrel.”

Thiel thought about it for a minute before the smile washed over his face. “Oh my god. I’m really going to do this.” He continued smiling for a minute before he seemed to think of something. “But wait—what about my job? I don’t want to bail on you guys just a few months after I started. I’m probably going to get rid of a bunch of my stuff and I’d be happy to take the smaller room in the basement while I’m in town. I’m still happy to pay rent on the room, but I’m not hardly ever going to be here That’s kind of rude, isn’t it?”

“Nonsense,” chimed in Duncan. “We put this whole thing together so that we would all have the time and energy to pursue our dreams. This job isn’t the dream—it’s just the means to get there. So you happened to get there quickly—fantastic! This is exactly the kind of thing that we hoped we would see. You can keep your stuff here and stay whenever you’re in town—we’ll make sure that the rent is equitable.”

“But what about all the work I’ll be leaving? I mean, they want me to give them an answer this week, and they’d like to have me out there by the end of the month for orientation. Won’t you guys get stuck with a bunch of extra work if I go?”

“For one,” said Augie, “we can handle it. For another, it’s not like we don’t know ten other people who would jump at the chance to have a job like this. Justin, my old roommate, is looking for a job right now. He and I moved together into the last house with those other guys, only I got out and he hasn’t been able to yet. I’m sure he’d be happy to take over some of the rent, though I’d like dibs on Thiel’s old room.” Augie grinned. “It’s a really cool space. Anyway, Justin acts and does set design, which means that sometimes he works for two months then is broke for the next six. He’d love to have this job—he already told me so.”

“And it’s your turn to recommend someone,” pointed out Soren, “and get your big cash bonus. I figure it’s fair if we all take turns doing that.”

“I’m sure that Duke will go for it,” added Duncan. “We are, by far, the most productive employees he has. All of us are rated in the top two percentile in the nation in efficiency and productivity. We can even volunteer to train Justin so that Duke doesn’t have to. Nope, this won’t make things a problem at all.”

“Damn,” said Thiel smiling, “I just can’t think of any more reasons not to do it. So, I guess I will.” He sat there thinking for a minute, still smiling. “Kick ass. This is really cool. By the way—Lady Monster is interested in a job doing what we do out in San Francisco, and since I won’t be with the company very much longer, I though that I could get either Duncan or Soren to recommend her. Think of it as a sort of severance pay to y’all for giving me this opportunity.”

“No problem,” said Duncan. “I can fill out the referral sheet tomorrow and send it in.”

“So how were the poetry readings out there?” asked Soren.

“Oh yeah,” he said, his face brightening even more, “they were great. Here,” he added, reaching into his bag and pulling out a black binder with newspaper clippings in it, “these are some reviews. I had no idea that it was going to be THAT kind of poetry reading, but I’ve been yelling into a microphone for so long that I forgot all about the press being there and just read my stuff. It was a blast. Totally different scene than the midwest.”

“Wow,” exclaimed Soren, reading the clippings then passing them on around the room. “…hearing Thiel Sarentski’s poetry is like being kicked in the head with words. Not since Charles Bukowski has poetry had such a visceral impact upon the listener…” She handed the next clipping around. “Sounds like you were a hit.”

Thiel shrugged. “I just read my shit like always. People like it or they don’t.”

“Sounds like they liked it,” observed Master David handing the first clipping back to Thiel.

“I guess. Hey—what did you guys do with Cosmic Moose? I’ve been dying to hear it.”

Duncan clicked a button on the stereo and the bass growled out at them. Thiel’s eyes lit up. “Damn. That’s us?” he asked incredulously.

Duncan reached into his pocket and pulled out a wad of cash, stuffing it into Thiel’s surprised hand. “And that’s your cut of the CD’s we sold at the Warehouse.”

“This is the most money I’ve ever seen for my music at one time,” commented Thiel still staring at his hand.
“I think we’ve all had that reaction,” agreed Duncan. “And as Augie pointed out that evening, we didn’t even have to carry a bunch of crap to or from anywhere—we just showed up with a stack of CD’s. Master David has already been working on a web site to sell them online.” As well as being a Master Drummer, David was also quite fluent in many forms of technology.

Things happened quickly over the next few weeks and months. Master David mixed and produced not one, but two albums by Bullwinkle, both of which were unique, frenetic, creepy, and harmonious at the same time. The web site was established and sales began. They were slow at first, but after the promotional copies were sent to various record stores and DJ’s around the country, the sales picked up quickly. Duncan took care of burning the CD’s while Soren packaged them and sent them out. Needless to say, Master David passed his final project with flying colors.

Thiel, still looking a bit nervous, flew off to San Francisco for his orientation, then he was off to Israel.

Lady Monster was hired in San Francisco and Soren received another five hundred dollar bonus. Justin was hired and quickly moved into the basement, desperately happy to be out of his former household. The work was steady and the members of the household tore through it like a finely oiled machine. Duncan and Augie took turns training Justin, and he was on line and ready to work on his own in record time. Duke was thrilled and stunned at the same time, but since the Kabal seemed to be working so efficiently, he mostly just let them do what they wanted.

The sale of the bar was finally final, though Duncan still worked every once in a while when Michael needed a night off. He enjoyed being there a couple days a month to say hello to the people who hung out there, and Michael was turning it into a regular artists’ consortium. Duncan also continued to study with the Tibetans and was becoming more and more fluent in their language. School was also going very well for him. Always an intelligent and absorptive student, he aced every test while others around him floundered and dropped out, having had no idea that the anatomy and physiology were going to be so intellectually challenging.

In April, Vince called and got together with Duncan. It was decided that Duncan would be in charge of the business until such a time as Vince was done travelling, if that ever happened. They made a deal which was equitable to both of them, signed the appropriate contracts, then said good-bye as Vince and his wife sailed off into the sunset. One day a month, Soren and Duncan measured out candy, put it in bags, then stapled it to the famous cardboard cards with Vince’s smiling face on them. Duncan took care of deliveries, most of which were already on his route. He also sent samples to neighboring cities and spent one Friday each month delivering candy to a single location in each city which was then responsible for distribution in that area. The first month that Duncan was in charge, the profit margin more than doubled. Occasionally, they received happy postcards from all across the world—Vince had taken to calling Duncan his adopted nephew.

Now that the Vince’s candy business was up and running, Soren finally was able to quit her job bartending at the Warehouse. On one hand, she would miss the friends of hers who worked there, but on the other hand she could still visit them any time she wanted, only now she could leave when she felt like it. As much as she had grown to dislike the environment, she had grown used to seeing these people every week. There was a big good-bye party for her when she left, and she was astonished to find herself getting teary-eyed at the end.

The tears cleared as soon as she was out the door—she was free. She no longer needed to go Out There anymore to make her living, and she was overjoyed. She wrote with a passion and fervor now that she had never known, publishing short pieces under several pseudonyms, being now much more controversial and eccentric with her work. Never before had she known such happiness. Still, the screenplay daunted her.

Near the end of summer, Augie and Constance sat down with the rest of the household one Sunday afternoon. They apparently had something to say to everyone.

“We have something to say to everyone,” began Constance. She looked at Augie, both of them having a difficult time controlling their obvious and overwhelming happiness.

“We’ve decided to get married,” Augie finally said. “We’ve been talking about it for a couple of years now, but Constance was kind of afraid to commit to someone who had historically had such a difficult time holding down a job. Not to mention that even the other work I did was done sporadically. But this has all gone so well that she’s ready to take the jump and give it a try.”

Constance beamed, almost blushing. “I’m just so proud of him. I understand why he’s always hated most of the jobs he had, but part of me was afraid that he’d never find anything acceptable to do with his life. I watched my mother work her ass off for most of my life trying to support my step-father and three kids, and I just can’t go there. And,” she continued happily, “he sent out portfolios to ten different toy manufacturers and four of them wrote back and want to see his work.” She looked at him proudly. “I always knew he could do it if he would just try.” Leaning over, she kissed him gently on the cheek. A bright new sapphire ring glowed from her left hand.

Augie blushed. “I know she’s not exactly a traditional girl, but she’s always loved sapphires. It was her birthday yesterday, so I popped the question. What they hell—she said yes!”

Truly a happy event, Duncan called Michael to see if there was any champagne left down at the bar from the previous New Year’s Eve party. Retrieving the bottles while Soren made a feast for everyone, they celebrated the event they had all been eagerly waiting to see.

“One more thing,” added Constance after the champagne toast. “We’ve decided to go ahead and move in together to make sure that this is going to work. I don’t know how much notice you guys need, but Augie will be moving into my house as soon as it’s convenient to do so.”

“No problem,” said Duncan. “He’s free to go whenever he wants.”

“Does that mean that I inherit the big room upstairs?” asked Justin with glee. “I love that room. Hey Augie—I’ll make you a deal—I’ll help you box up your stuff later tonight if it means that I get your room. The basement room is nice, don’t get me wrong, but the attic is way cool.”

“You know,” added Duncan, “Duke mentioned that he’s going to need to hire someone else for the market.” He looked at Soren. “How would you feel about finally building that shed out back?”

Gulping down the last of her champagne she said “Sure. But what does that have to do with the price of eggs in China?”

“I was thinking…”

“Oh no…” said Soren sarcastically. “What nefarious plan have you come up with now?”

“Well, the weather is still plenty warm to do work like that outside, and it’s something we’ve been wanting to do anyway. Who do we know who’s looking for a job?” Soren said nothing, trying to think. “She’s reliable, dependable, and travels all over the place…”

“Gesa!” exclaimed Soren. “Oh yes—she’d be perfect. But what about her forge?” Gesa was a friend of theirs who had lived in their city but had moved up north to apprentice with a blacksmith. Now that she was making stuff on her own, she traveled all over the area selling her wares, sleeping here and there as she traveled. Occasionally she would pass their way and stay a day or two on their couch. She had been looking for a job and Soren had actually already recommended her, but where she currently lived was too far off the beaten path for it to qualify as being inside of any of the districts. Duke had already met and talked with her, telling her that if she ever came back to the area she would have a job waiting for her. It was perfect.

“But what about her blacksmithing?” asked Soren. “Doesn’t she need some kind of special equipment for that?”

“She has a portable forge,” explained Duncan. “She just needs a well-ventilated building in which to set it up. I’m thinking that that shed out back would be perfect. It’s something that we need to build anyway, you know.”

It was true. There were always things which needed to be stored, and since the attic and basement had been converted to living quarters, the storage space in the house had dwindled to almost nothing. They had discussed plans for a building in the back, but with all the excitement of the past few months, plans for the shed had taken a back burner. Now that they literally had tons of candy sitting in bags in their basement, it was time to create more space. Jump.

“Sounds great to me,” answered Soren finally. “How late are hardware stores open on Sunday?”

For the rest of the day, Duncan and Soren shopped for and ordered all kinds of lumber, roofing, and building materials, all to be delivered the next weekend while Constance, Augie, and Justin packed Augie’s belongings into boxes. Later that evening, Soren placed a call to Gesa on her cell phone since there was no telling in what part of the area she would be.

Telling her about the plan, Gesa was thrilled.

“I’ve just been going over my books,” she explained, “trying to figure out how the hell I’m going to pay my bills. I just can’t take a regular job and still do the blacksmithing, which is really all I want to do. However, demand for that comes and goes with the seasons. Christmas and mid-summer are always great times, but after the feast is always the famine. I’d be happy to bring my forge down, and I can always come back up here on weekends to work on big stuff if I have to. When do you want me?”

Soren paged Duke and worked out the details. She could start any time.

Since Gesa would be using the shed for her forge, she insisted on coming the next weekend to help with building. She already had a lot of construction experience—she had gotten used to taking all kinds of odd jobs over the past few years—and it would also mean that her first two months rent would be free. Justin, Augie and Constance also agreed to help, so with so many helpful hands, they raised the shed the following weekend.

“Wow,” said Duncan appreciatively. “This is just like a good old fashioned barn raising.”

“The Amish call this a folic, you know,” added Soren who also happened to be a linguistics buff.

“And it really is,” said Gesa happily. “This is the most fun I’ve ever had doing manual labor. And with the way this thing is constructed, you’ll never have a rodent or bug problem.”

Using a dolly and the available man power, the bags of candy were quickly hauled into the shed and emptied into clean air-tight containers and the scale hung above them. They had needed only simple wiring to hang lights, and a few good-sized ventilation fans to cool the area in summer. The fire of the forge would certainly keep it warm enough in the winter.

“Perfect,” admitted Soren upon completion of the project. “And to think that we just came up with this plan a week ago.” She winked at Duncan. “Our turn-around time is getting faster and faster.”

“That’s because of the company we keep,” he added, smiling at their friends.

“So when are the two of you finally going to get married?” asked Constance as she sipped a glass of iced tea on a stone bench in the shade of the back yard.

Soren and Duncan looked at each other smiling. “Funny you should ask that—we just talked about it again last night. We’re going to wait until I’m done with school, which will be near the end of next year. The following spring we’re going to take a month long trip out west and tie the knot in Vegas.”

“Vegas!” exclaimed Gesa. “How are we supposed to go to your wedding if it’s in Vegas?”

“We’ll have a party when we get back, don’t worry,” assured Soren. “But we think we’d like to take a long trip alone and just get married along the way. For us, the wedding itself is really just the institutional recognition of our relationship, which we’re having perfectly well in the meantime anyway. We’re not in that much of a hurry because, as far as we’re concerned, we’re already married. It’s just the matter of getting a piece of paper that says what we already know.”

“Aahh…you guys are just too sweet,” commented Gesa. “If you weren’t such cool people I might be a little nauseous right now.”

“And who knows…” added Duncan mysteriously, “we may never come back.”

************18

Gesa began training, and since Justin’s initiation had gone so smoothly, Duke was fine with allowing Augie and Duncan to train her. He had his hands full with his problem children anyway, as well as an apparently budding romantic life. Duncan had noticed large bouquets of flowers on the front counter of the Dairy Barn when he had gone in to do his weekly beer counts, and smiled when he noticed the prominently displayed cards on them signed by Duke.

Thiel was in and out of town, staying in the small bedroom when he was there. Once he got his feet wet in the kind of journalism he was meant for, he did exceedingly well. So used to getting up in front of people and telling them exactly what he though was a skill which came in handy for his new line of work. Journalism or poetry—either way, he hit people where they lived.

Soren was happy, content, and secure in a way she had always imagined but dared not hope for in real life. Her life was, in many ways, a dream come true. But still there remained the screenplay. As the days grew shorter and the leaves began to turn their beautiful evening party colors, that project returned to daunt her. It had, after all, been her musings about writing that screenplay which had started the whole ball rolling last fall, and here she was a year later, though much further down her life-path, still without a screenplay.

Constance had sent her the web address for a place which was sponsoring a contest for National Novel Writer’s Month, the object of which was to finish a fifty thousand plus manuscript entirely in the month of November. She wasn’t certain why, but this idea kept sticking in her head. Over the past year, she had practiced the screenplay format many times, using old short stories or making up short scenes between characters just to get the feel of the format. Perhaps she should just start with what she knew… But what to write about? Plot had always been her short-coming when it came to beginning a project of this length.

Write what you know, the books are always saying… Certainly, she must have learned something over the past year. Certainly life had changed dramatically.

Climbing back into her treehouse where it all began almost a year before, she watched again as the squirrels chased and ran from one branch to anther, never stopping, always trusting that there would be a branch to catch their fall. She had certainly learned an awful lot watching those squirrels—without them, she might still be paralyzed in her life, bemoaning the crushing feel of the world upon the creativity exploding within her. She picked up her new notebook and stared at the first page, glaring whiteness staring back at her, a void begging to be filled. She picked up her pen.

Jump.

There was a day. An afternoon to be exact. In Autumn. Today, perhaps. There was a notebook, and in the beginning there were the words……..

2002-11-20T14:40:00.000-08:00

**************14

In the next couple of weeks, Augie and Thiel settled into the house and continued training with Duke. Though the two looked forward to the day when they were no longer bound by Duke’s schedule and they could really start doing the work on their own, they both also agreed that this was the easiest and least stressful job they had ever had.

Apparently, Duke was quite a different animal when women and married men weren’t around. Augie came home from his first day on the job looking perplexed. He found Duncan playing a classical guitar on the sofa and sat down next to him.

“So,” he began, “did Duke ever take you to a head shop? The kind that sells bongs and stuff?”

Duncan chuckled. “Nope. No tittie bars either.”

“It was weird. We were on our way to this store way out in Beechgrove, when all of a sudden he takes this turn into this parking lot. I’d never heard of the Head Shed, but it was pretty apparent what it was. He bought a whole case of CO2 canisters and some rolling papers. No big deal—hell, I don’t care what the man does in his off time—but then he was all surprised when I didn’t know where to tell him to buy pot. His comment was ‘I thought you artist types were into this stuff.’ Weird.”

Duncan was laughing. “That’s Duke.”

Augie paused before continuing. “Has Duke ever…felt like Bullwinkle when you’re with him?”

Duncan laughed harder. “All the time. Some days he just feels like Bullwinkle. Was this feeling accompanied by a loud ambiguous noise that made half of the people in the convenience store turn around to see who had stepped on the moose?

“Yes! That’s it exactly! And he’s obsessed with renting Bullwinkle costumes for everyone and going down to the Warehouse just for the hell of it.”

“Has he gone into pirate mode with you yet?”

“Yeah,” said Augie through a puzzled look. “He starts making ‘arrgh matie’ noises and squints one of his eyes up at me. What the hell is that?”

Duncan shrugged. “That’s just Duke. He has a complete and total knowledge of convenience stores loaded into a head that’s done more acid than you or I can ever comprehend. It kind of gets all twisty and complicated in there, I think. But, he functions all right and he seems to be having fun, so what the heck? We’re all unique in our own way, I suppose.”

“I suppose. I just wanted to ask. I thought maybe there was something odd about me that brought this out in him. As long as it’s not just me,” he smiled.

“No, that’s just Duke—he’s a one of a kind kind of guy. But without him, we’d all be working shitty jobs and not doing anything else.”

“I heard that,” agreed Augie.

With Duncan, Thiel and Augie all working together, the attic was refinished in record time. The three of them ceremoniously hauled Thiel’s possessions up the three flights of steps and deposited them in his new accommodations. Thiel was thrilled—this new space was twice the size of his old apartment and had several added benefits as well. He and Augie began playing music together in the evenings while Duncan fiddled with the recording equipment and added accompaniment here and there. They bemoaned the lack of a talented drummer in the household, but made due with an electronic drum machine they ceremoniously dubbed “Blinky.” Kind of accidentally, they wound up with a CD of disturbingly haunting instrumental music, about which Soren was thrilled.

“Oh I just love this,” she exclaimed one night while she was taking a break. “I really like to listen to music when I write, but I can’t deal with music with words—the words in the music get in the way of my own and I can’t write a thing. This, however, is exactly the kind of stuff I’m looking for. What do you call yourselves?”

They looked back and forth in confusion. “Um, we’re not sure yet,” supplied Augie.

“We’re Not Sure Yet—I love it!” she exclaimed. “I promise to buy all your albums. How about a pot of vegetarian chili? I could use a little extra bean power right now.”

They were all having a great time—it was like the college roommate experience that none of them had actually had. They took turns doing household chores with Duncan making out a schedule every week of what needed to be done. Everything was running smoothly and they were all seeming to benefit a lot from the experience.

Thiel had even sent out a few commentaries and articles to some publications he had found on-line. Not really expecting a response, he was quite surprised the day that the letter came in the mail.

“Holy shit,” he exclaimed after tearing open the envelope and reading the contents. He looked up to where the rest of them were waiting expectantly. “They want to send me to San Francisco to present my paper at the National Convention of Independent Journalists next month. It’s the one I wrote called ‘The Hand that Holds the Sword—America’s Role in Middle-Eastern Conflict Since World War Two.’” Looking suddenly pale he said “I’m not sure if I’m ready for that.”

“Nonsense,” dismissed Duncan. “How many times have you gotten on stage and read your poetry? If you can do that, you can do this.”

“Yeah,” he said gulping, “but that wasn’t in front of six thousand people. Oh dude… Hey, I can’t miss work, right? I mean I have to pay the bills.”

“When is this little shindig?” asked Duncan.

Thiel looked at the packet of papers included with the offer. “In three weeks. Why?”

“Didn’t Duke say that you’ll be out on your own starting next week?”

“Yeah…why?”

“I’m just thinking… How about this—give me your ScanWand and assignment sheets before you leave and I’ll go into the stores and do your work. As long as it’s transmitted from your machine, you’re the one who gets paid. That way you don’t have to worry about the financial strain.”

Thiel gulped again. “But dude—I’d get paid for work that you did. That’s hardly fair.”

“Just consider it an advancement. Some week when I’ve got something important to do, you can reciprocate. We’ll just keep track of the hours until everything is even. Deal?”

“Deal. I guess. I’m still nervous, though. At least I can stay with Lady Monster while I’m out there—I doubt that the NIJ can afford to put up all the speakers at a fancy downtown hotel.”

“You’ll be great,” supplied Soren. “Just pretend it’s another show with Full Contact Poetry—you’ll get through it fine.”

“Speaking of which,” interjected Augie, “I was wondering if you guys would be interested in doing a gig next Saturday. My band is playing, and I was wondering if FCP would open for us.”

“Sure,” they all nodded. “I’ll need to get Michael to work the early part of the night for me,” said Duncan, “but that won’t be a problem.”

Augie looked slyly at Thiel and Duncan. “And I was wondering if I Don’t Know Yet would want to be the second musical act.”

They all burst into giggles. “Sure, but I think we need a better name.”

“Well, we’ve only got a couple of days to make up flyers, so we’d better get creative real quick. They all sat in silence for a minute until Augie’s face lit up.

“How about Bullwinkle?” he suggested.

As soon as they were all able to stop laughing, they agreed on the name and Soren went upstairs to make the flyers while the guys argued over whether or not they should wear moose antlers on stage.

By the time Soren returned downstairs, flyer in hand, Duncan was already on the phone with their friend Tyim, also known as the Urban Sasquatch. Tyim was a terribly talented graphic designer who, like so many of the creative people in their generation, felt stuck in the corporate machine. On the side, he wrote and drew insanely funny and intelligent comic books and was one of the nicest men anyone would ever want to meet. Currently, Duncan was requesting a CD cover for the band Bullwinkle’s first album entitled Cosmic Moose. Thiel and Augie were still grinning in the kitchen while they washed the few dishes in the sink.

“Cosmic Moose?” Soren asked. “Oh my…y’all have gone boggety.”

“What the hell?” added Augie. “We can burn the CD’s in the basement for about a buck fifty a piece, slap some cool art on the front and sell it next Saturday. Why not?” he said, drying his hands. “Stranger things have happened.”

“I’ve got a new chap book to debut as well,” added Thiel. “It’s called ‘Beat the Nation.’ I’m going to copy it tonight.”

“Wow—so this show is like a debut party,” noticed Soren. “Maybe I’ll try to put together a chap book of my stuff. I’ve been thinking about doing that anyway, and what with the spirit of new projects… What the hell. Hey Duncan…”

Duncan glanced over at her with raised eyebrows, still discussing Cosmic Moose with Tyim. “Can you ask Tyim if he has time to do a cover for a chap book of my poetry by next Saturday? I want to call it Monkey Truck.” Duncan nodded and continued his conversation. Soren noticed that Thiel had stopped drying dishes and was standing at the counter looking slightly dizzy and nauseous.

“Are you all right?”

Thiel gave her a sick look. “I was just thinking about next Saturday and that reminded me that I have to leave two days later for the convention. Every time I think about it I get this funny feeling in the pit of my stomach.”

“They call that excitement, man,” assured Augie. “The proverbial butterflies? You’ve heard of them, I’m sure.”

Thiel turned his sick look toward Augie. “I’m just a little nervous, that’s all. I’ve never even been to San Francisco.” He gulped.

“You’ll be fine, trust me,” said Soren. “Just pretend everybody’s drunk—it’ll be just like doing poetry.”

“Right. Whatever. Every journalist I respect is going to be there. I just feel kind of out of my league.”

Duncan hung up the receiver. “Great. It’s all set. Tyim will get right on it tomorrow as soon as he’s at work. Remember… artistic work is best done when somebody is paying for it.” He smiled.

“Speaking of which,” interjected Soren, “I have time to add to my stores. Where is that damn machine?”

“Yours is the one with the bright blue electrical tape on it, right?” asked Duncan from where he stood in front of a bank of ScanWands.

“Yep. Just turn her on and I’ll start getting paid to stand here and gab with you guys. I was thinking…”

“Yes?”

“Maybe this Friday we could have an invoicing party. It will be the end of the cycle and all of you have stores to invoice, right?” They all nodded.

“So why don’t we do them together? Thiel can make a pot of his famous potato soup, I’ll bake some bread, we can get a couple of bottles of wine—it’ll be fun.”

“Sounds like a party to me,” said Augie. “And how much will be we making collectively to sit around, eat good food, drink wine, and listen to crazy music?”

“You do the math. Not bad for a Friday afternoon,” surmised Duncan. “Not bad at all.”

Later that day, Duncan found Soren busy writing in the library. He knocked tentatively, not wanting to disturb her. She looked up at him.

“Can I come in?” he asked. “Or would later be better?”

Turning her chair to fully face him, she said “Come on in. I need to take a break anyway—my neck is getting sore.”

Duncan walked up behind her and started to rub her neck. “You need to watch the way you sit,” he cautioned. “If you crane your head forward when you’re on the computer, you’re going to end up a hunch back.”

Moving her neck from side to side, she sighed. “I know. I try to stop and take yoga breaks every couple of hours, but when I really get going, I just don’t want to stop. For any reason. The other day I sat on my foot for three hours. When I finally moved, my whole leg was numb. I tried to get up to answer the phone and fell flat on my face.”

“Yep. I know how you are when you really get into writing. That’s why I’m so glad you’re doing this.” He leaned down and kissed her forehead, still rubbing her neck as he did so.

“Thanks. That feels great. Have you ever thought about doing this professionally?”

“Well,” he started, “that’s actually one of the things I wanted to talk to you about. I’ve been doing some thinking…”

“Uh oh,” she said jokingly. “What have you been scheming about now?”

“The other night when I was at the monastery, Jum Yung asked me what I did for a living. I told him about this job, and he thought it was wonderful that we had found a livelihood which enabled us to be together and still pursue the things we love. But then I started thinking about the bar. Well, started thinking again about the bar. I’ve been thinking about it a lot lately.”

With the added time in his schedule, Duncan had begun to study chanting with a group of Tibetan monks who had a monastery in town. He had always had an interest in their culture and practices, but until very recently, the likelihood of running into Tibetans in the midwest was only slightly higher than running into a yeti. However, times were changing, and he had been very happily surprised when a peaceful looking man in red and saffron robes had approached him at a multi-cultural fund raising event.

“So, you play guitar.” It had been a statement, not a question.

“Yes,” he answered, not bothering to ask how the monk had discerned this.

“You rock and roll? I rock and roll.” The monk wore a mischievous grin. “I love Jimmy Hendrix.”

Thus began the unlikely but very fulfilling relationship between Duncan and the Tibetan clergy. He had been practicing the Mongolian throat singing for a few years now, and since beginning to work for BC Wilson in the quiet confines of the coolers, his skills had improved dramatically.

The monks were fascinated by this. The Mongolians were neighbors of theirs back in the days before China overran the Tibetan country and culture, and their histories intertwined from ages ago. Upon hearing his skill at this art so uncommon in the West, they had asked him if he wanted to learn Tibetan chanting. Of course, he agreed. Since then he had been studying at the monastery two nights a week before going down to work at the bar.

“I just don’t know how I feel anymore about owning a bar. I used to go down to the Loft before I bought it, and I had a great time there. Mostly I just shot a few games of pool, got into interesting discussions with the local artists, yacked about music with the musicians, drank a couple of soda and cranberries, tipped ridiculously, and went home. But now…now I’m starting to see the habits that people have, the way that some of them drink themselves silly every night, and it’s starting to get to me. I know that if I wasn’t there serving them the drinks, they’d just go somewhere else, but still. It just isn’t a good feeling to watch people, some of them really nice people, drink themselves to death out of unhappiness. I don’t like to contribute to that.”

Soren nodded. One of the reasons that she loved Duncan so much was because of this very type of thing. He was a good person, an ethical person, and was well respected because of it by everyone who had ever gotten to know him. She could easily see where this would eventually bother him.

“I understand,” she explained. “I get that feeling sometimes at the Warehouse, but for the most part, that’s a much younger crowd. I just tell myself that they’re going through a phase.”

“Yeah, I understand that. Lots of us went through that phase. But once a person hits a certain age and they still haven’t slowed down…well, you know they’re drinking because they can’t stop. I think it’s worse, too, because I own the place—I don’t just work there. Maybe I’m being overly sensitive…”

She pulled over the other office chair and motioned Duncan to sit down. “No, I don’t think that you’re being too sensitive—you’re just the kind of person who really looks at things honestly. If you don’t feel right about it, you don’t feel right about it. You know that I’ll support you in whatever you decide to do.”

“I know,” he said leaning forward to put his head on her shoulder. “Just like you supported me when I wanted to open a bar.”

“Yep. Just like that. People learn, change, grow. And when they do, they have to base their life upon the most recent and complete knowledge they have unless they want to stagnate.” She kissed him on top of the head. “I am a force of chaos—I do not fear change.”

He chuckled and snuggled closer. “I know. I know. But we’d just gotten financially stable and ahead—now I want to go and change everything.”

“Not everything—just owning a bar. No big whoop. So what do you propose to do?”

“Well, I’ve been thinking…”

“You mentioned that.”

“I’ve been thinking that I’d like to go back to school. I tentatively talked to Michael the other night, and he would be more than happy to try to finance buying the bar from me. Since I bought it outright and there are no debts to pay off, I could easily finance school and still have money left over. Remember—liquor licenses are expensive.”

Soren remembered. “So what kind of schooling are you considering? Are you off to a monastery in India to shave your head and study Buddhism? That’s fine with me, but no vow of celibacy for you.” She tickled him and he sat back laughing.

“I knew you’d be Ok with all of this. I’ve been a little nervous to bring it up, since we’d just gotten to a place where everything wasn’t changing every ten minutes, but I should have known you’d be fine. No, I don’t need to go to India—I’m perfectly happy to study with the Tibetans who are here. I’d like to go to school for massage. Eventually I'd like to study Tibetan medicine, but that comes after I'm licensed.”

Looking at him with amusement, Soren said sarcastically, “Oh no—anything but that! Oh, all the hours that I’ll have to spend with you rubbing on me—you need to practice if you want to be good, right? Oh, it’ll be terrible. But, as your soon to be wife, there are sacrifices that one must make…” She batted his arm then hugged him. “I think that’s wonderful. I’m completely supportive of your decision. You can start practicing right now, if you’d like.”

He stood up again and began rubbing her shoulders and neck. “Cool. Spring quarter starts in two weeks, and Michael thinks that he can get the money together by then if necessary. If not, we’ll figure out a way to scrape the tuition together for a couple of months while the bar changes hands.” He leaned down and kissed the top of her head. “I love you so much.”

“And I love you too.” She thought for a moment the smiled. “So I suppose I should say ‘welcome to Phase Four.’”

Duncan smiled in return. “Phase Four.”

**********15

Things were going great in the household. The sounds of various instruments could be heard at all hours of the night, and since all of the house mates had already known and liked each other for years, relations between them were smooth and easy.
Duncan continued to play with Gregg every Thursday and Sunday evenings, and because of their popularity, they had actually started to make pretty decent money at the gig. The manager of the Java Stop was overjoyed—his business had more than doubled on those nights and he had asked Full Contact Poetry to read for special events a few times. Now that the house remodeling was finally complete, Duncan also went back to the Tai Chi school where he had studied before the hours spent between the bar and Stacis had become too much to bear. He was really enjoying it and was more than willing to teach the rest of the household anything that he learned. Many days out of the week, all four of them could be seen in the back yard, moving with slow deliberation together in one ancient and graceful pattern. He also enrolled in massage school, went to orientation and picked up his text books.

Soren continued to write. She actually finished a novel she had begun in college, though she didn’t really feel confident that it was ready for publication. She had also sent out and had published several book reviews, academic papers, articles and poems. Winning a Women’s Studies writing contest for a collection of short stories had almost given her enough confidence to begin the screenplay, but not quite. Still, the screenplay book taunted her, though she had read it all the way through three times now. Although she was very happy with her creative talents and output, the screenplay was still a sore spot in her psyche. She just couldn’t decide on a plot. Write what you know, the books always said. But what did she know? She had come to accept that she would figure it out someday…someday….

Thiel still worked a couple of late night shifts at The Copy Center every week and continued to write poetry at a break-neck pace. Augie was busily designing a line of toys, and also began writing a series of books for young adults which went along with the new designs. Tyim, being a wonderful sport and enjoying doing work which had nothing to do with selling laundry detergent, was illustrating the work, and as usual, only charged a percentage of whatever the finished product sold later. On one hand this meant that he might not make anything, but on the other hand, if something eventually did exceedingly well, the gamble would pay off. Either he really just enjoyed the different kind of art or he believed that one of these horses would win, but nevertheless his art work was always top-notch.

The following Friday, the four of them sat around invoicing and having a blast. While Thiel cut up potatoes and celery for his famous soup, Augie kept his machine running for him. All of them were faster than average at every aspect of the job, so the extra time was always necessary. Duncan had worked out all of the math on each store so that each of them knew the optimal time that a store should take to maximize the income potential.

So many parts of this job were just absurd. The names of products, for instance.

“Fierce Melon. Grrrrr,” growled Augie over the beeping of his ScanWand. “How, exactly, can any melon be considered ‘fierce?’”

“Get this,” said Duncan. “At Midtown Mart, I found this package in the freezer that just said ‘Meat.’ Nothing else—just meat. No price, no nutritional information, no expiration date, no list of ingredients.”

“Meat?”

“Meat.” He scanned though his stack of papers. “Funny—I don’t see an invoice for meat. Meat snacks, on the other hand…”

“What is up with the coders?” Soren fairly exploded. “Are they smoking crack?”

The coders for BC Wilson were a department of people who decided which information about a product would be abbreviated and included in the short, two line description in the machine. Sometimes they picked pertinent information, sometimes they didn’t.

“Speaking of meat, I’ve got a whole slew of meat snacks here and I can’t tell one from the other on the ScanWand screen. Yes, I know that they’re wrapped in plastic and made out of meat—that’s true for every single one of them. Unfortunately, once the coders give me that important piece of identical information on each product, there isn’t enough room to give me less important facts, like say size or flavor. I have twenty entries on this thing that look identical. How the hell am I supposed to know which one is the Flaming Teriyaki, which is the Giant Jerk, and which is the Kippered Happy Cow?!? I’m going to find these people and break their knee caps!”

“Now, now,” soothed Duncan, “there’s no reason for violence.”

“Yes there is!” the other three agreed in unison.

They tapped along in relative silence for a few minutes until Soren broke the silence. “I’m craving potato chips.”

“Potato chips?” asked Duncan with mild disgust.

She nodded and looked down at the stack of papers on her lap. “It might have something to do with the Kussman’s invoice I’m entering now. Barbecue… sour creme and onion… wavy… mmm….” She tapped along a little while longer then looked up. “But I HATE potato chips.” She flipped the page. “Mmmm… frozen novelties… ice cream on a stick…”

“Is that potato soup almost done?” yelled Augie into the kitchen. “We’re getting the munchies out here.”

“Almost,” Thiel called back. “It just needs to simmer for a few more minutes.”

“I am being driven mad by the smell of bread!” shouted Duncan toward the ceiling, sniffing the air violently. “Bread!!!! Hrrooooww!” he howled.

“It’s all almost done,” reassured Thiel. “Jeezus you guys are like wild animals in there.”

“You know what Duke would say,” prompted Duncan. “We’re in here grinding away like wild animals.”

“Aarrrghh!” the rest of the housemates exclaimed in unison just as the phone rang.

“Who is it,” called Soren to Thiel, who was standing in the kitchen next to the caller ID box.

“Speak of the Devil…” said Thiel grinning, holding the phone out in front of himself like a steaming potato. “I think that since Duncan summoned him, Duncan can talk to him.”

Duncan took the phone. “Yeah. Uh huh.” Miles Davis and the soundtrack from 2001: A Space Odyssey blared out from the stereo. “No, he’s not here right now. Uh huh. Ok. She’s out with her mother. Yeah. Sure. Wednesday? Yeah, that’s not a problem. Uh huh. No, I didn’t hear about the discovery on Jupiter. Uh huh. I think they make them out of steel wool. No. The kind with fur. Yeah. All right, see you then.”

As Duncan ended the call, Thiel called from the kitchen that it was, in fact, soup yet. Ladling out bowls of soup and moving them into the dining room, they ate happily, the sound of beeping in the background as they kept their machines running.

As Augie opened a bottle of wine and poured out four glasses of deep red liquid, he started to chuckle. “Wow—I’ve never been paid quite this much to drink wine,” he noted, pushing another button on his machine to keep it running.

“Cheers to that,” said Soren, raising her glass. Still munching on hunks of homemade bread, they all heard the telephone in the kitchen start to ring.

“Six. One. Seven,” the automated voice from the caller ID announced from the other room.

“Master David!” Soren exclaimed, swallowing a gulp of wine to wash down the partially chewed hunk of bread as she ran to pick up the phone. “Hello? Hi! What? Sure, that would be great. Sunday evening? No problem. We’ll see you then.”

She returned to the dining room table and the expected look from her three friends. “That was Master David,” she explained. “He’s been going to school about three hours away from here learning how to do music production. His final project is due in two weeks, and since we’re much closer than Boston, he wanted to know if he could come here to work on it. I told him no problem.”

“Cool,” said Duncan. “When will he be here?”

“Sunday night. He just figured that with all the recording equipment in the basement and a house full of musicians, he would get more interesting stuff to work with here than he would staying at the school and using their equipment. And really, Boston is pretty far away and he’d rather not do the drive unless he has to. And now,” she wiggled her eyebrows, “you have the drummer of which you were so recently bemoaning the lack.”

David was referred to by said title because he was a Master Drummer. If one closed one’s eyes while he was playing, it was much easier to believe that there were at least ten drummers playing. It was almost impossible to believe that one person could make that much rhythmic noise. He had actually begun to play the drums in basement of Duncan’s house nearly ten years previous, and once he started drumming, he never quit. Ever. Every waking minute of every day since he had decided to become a drummer, he drummed. On anything. All the time. It had made him a truly ferocious player and one that all of them looked forward to having as a guest. Whenever he came to stay with Soren and Duncan, there was crazy live music at all hours of the day and night.

“Too bad I won’t be here,” added Thiel, starting to look a little sick again. “But you’ve got my permission to use any of the tracks we’ve already recorded for his project.”

“You’ll be back before he leaves,” reminded Soren. “And stop looking so ill—you’re going to be fine in San Francisco.”

“So you keep telling me. Lady Monster lined up a couple of poetry readings for me while I’m out there, so I just keep trying to stay focused on that instead of the conference.”

“Sure—you’re just going out there to read poetry, and oh yeah—present a paper at a conference. No big whoop.”

Thiel gulped. “Yeah. Right. By the way, can I hitch a ride to the airport Monday morning so that I don’t have to leave my car at the airport all week?”

“No problem,” said Augie. “I’ll take you myself so that I’m sure you actually get on that plane. I have stores to do near there anyway, so I’ll even get paid to take you.” He gave Thiel a look. “I don’t want to have to man-handle you through the airport, but I’m prepared to if necessary.

Thiel gulped again. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

“All right, kids,” announced Duncan standing up from the table. “Back to work. We’ve got invoicing to do.”

“Awe…” said Soren, “but I like getting paid to drink wine. Can’t we find jobs doing that?”

“What,” asked Duncan, “are you suggesting? That we bill ourselves as free-lance alcoholics? I don’t think that there are too many positions open for that sort of thing—this is probably as close as we’re going to get. Now let’s hop to it.”

“I like that idea,” smiled Thiel, picking up his stack of invoices. “We could stand on a street corner with signs that say ‘Will Drink Beer for Food.’ Sounds like a great idea.”

“Gawd!” exploded Soren looking at her invoice. “I hate Hex Mix. I hate the word. It reminds me of how the stuff smells.”

“The word reminds you of the smell?” asked Augie.

“Yes. I haven’t eaten the stuff since I was five. You remember…back in the old days before they mixed the stuff up for you and shoved it into bags, back when people used to mix the cereal, nuts, and whatever the hell else they put into it? I hated the stuff. My parents had friends who would mix up a bowl of it whenever they had company over and I hated it. Just the smell alone was enough to put me off. I haven’t eaten it since, but just seeing the word reminds me of how much I hate it.” She tapped away for a few more minutes. “I hate the words ‘snack pack’ too. Snack pack. Who would eat this crap?”

“Hey Duncan,” interjected Thiel, “how much is twenty-four times seven?”

“One hundred sixty-eight,” he answered without looking up.

“What the hell is a frosted midget?” inquired Augie.

“Yikes!” exclaimed Duncan. “Here I am thinking that I’m looking at an invoice for gum, but then I noticed that the flavor was ‘unscented.’ Is that a flavor?”

“According to my friend Joe, a paper eater from way back, unscented does not mean unflavored,” explained Soren. “So yes—I suppose that it could be considered a flavor.”

“I hate it when I confuse gum and panty liners.”

“Don’t we all.”

“What’s twenty-four times nine?”

“Two hundred sixteen.”

“Could you pass me that bottle of wine?”

“Here’s to the all poor bastards sitting in cubicles right now praying for five o’clock. I drink to their freedom.” Duncan took a swig.

“Here, here!” they chimed in, glasses raised.

“What the hell is this music?” asked Thiel.

“It’s Ornette Coleman and Tibetan monks,” answered Duncan.

“Do you know them?” asked Augie.

“Who? The monks or Ornette?”

“Either, though I was referring to the monks.”

“Yeah, I know these guys, though I’ve never met Ornette.”

“Lady Monster got to see him play a couple of weeks ago,” interjected Thiel.

“Lucky duck!” exclaimed Soren. “I guess there are some fringe benefits to living in San Francisco.”

“These are the monks who were touring the US last year. This CD was taped at the monastery.”

“I like how it sounds with Ornette,” commented Augie. “It’s a weird mix, but I like it. How the hell do you play them at the same time?”

“I’m a musician,” said Duncan slyly. “That means that I understand the principles of creative wiring and the properties of duct tape on a very intimate level. The poor kid behind the counter at Radio Shack went pale when I explained my intentions to him. He nearly refused to sell me the adapter—he just kept repeating over and over ‘that’s just not possible, man. That’s just not possible.’ But, as you see, it is possible. The way that it’s hooked up, you can play the CD player or the turn-table individually, or as we prefer, at the same time. It increases one’s musical choices exponentially. I’m thinking of hooking one of the mixing boards and distortion machines to it so that it can be customized even more.”

“You’re mad.”

“That’s what they tell me.”

“What’s twenty-four times six?”

“One hundred forty-four.”

“What is the difference between ‘Classic’ and ‘Original’?”

“Jeezus,” exclaimed Duncan. “At Midtown Mart, there are these four big cans of generic orange juice which have been sitting on the bottom shelf for years. The prices are written on the tops of the cans with marker, and you can see where they’ve had to trace over it several times as the ink has faded.” He gulped uncomfortably. “One of them sold.”

“Aren’t these things supposed to have expiration dates?”

“I think that these were manufactured before those rules existed. They were ancient—the pilgrims may have brought them over on the Mayflower. I wonder how long the dust ring will sit on the shelf, reminding me of this atrocity.”

“Gelatinous juice. Mmmm….”

“What’s twenty-four times eight?”

“One hundred ninety-two.”

The afternoon slipped away as the four friends had a wonderful time doing their work. Collectively, they made more in that day than most of them had been able to make in a week at their previous jobs, and they had a blast doing it. The work, although it was always there, was almost secondary to the afternoon soiree that they were having. Good food, good wine, good fun.

The doorbell rang as night was approaching. They all looked up, rather startled.

“That must be Constance,” said Augie, standing to open the door. “She was going to come over after work.” He looked around. “I hadn’t realized that it had gotten so late.”

“Funny how the day slips by when you’re having fun,” noticed Duncan. “We’ve been working for nearly ten hours.”

“And how much money did we make?” asked Soren as Constance entered the room.

“A lot. Hey, Constance—How’s the zoo?”

“Great,” she returned, hugging Augie then finding a seat on the couch. “Good heavens—it looks like a family of very large rats has been building a nest in here.”

It was true. Hundreds of sheets of paper were littered all around the living and dining rooms from where they had been carelessly discarded by the invoicers. As one sheet was done, it would float to the floor like a dead leaf to rest in a misshapen pile with the rest. The cats weren’t helping this matter too much, either. Soren and Duncan had seven of them—some of them inside and some of them outside—and the ones inside had certainly made a mess out of the discarded invoices. Tearing through the rooms, they would swoop and dive through the irregular stacks, spreading paper everywhere in their wake.

“We’ll pick it all up when we’re done,” explained Duncan.

“And after the cats get bored,” continued Soren.

“So what are you guys up to tonight?” asked Thiel.

“We were going to go down to Kaldi’s then out to a movie,” answered Augie. He looked at Constance and some sort of information seemed to pass between them. “You guys want to come along?”

“Sure,” answered Thiel. “The soup was good, but I’ve eaten four bowls of it today and could really use a nice veggie burger.” He turned to Soren and Duncan, who were also exchanging looks. “Are you guys coming?”

“I don’t think so,” said Duncan. “I think we’ll just hang out here tonight.” Although they loved living with their friends, the thought of alone time together in the house seemed like a really nice idea.

“How are the drawings going?” asked Constance.

“Have you seen the stuff he’s been working on?” asked Soren. “It’s fabulous.”

“I’m just glad he’s working,” said Constance. “How about you take me to your room and show me your etchings?”

Augie laughed, standing, stretching, and setting down his ScanWand. “That’s it for me today. I got two and a half stores invoiced, and I’m happy with that. Damn, it takes forever to do this stuff.” He looked over at Soren. “How many did you get done?”

“Six,” she said happily, “and I did the check-outs on another four. I’ll be running time on them for the rest of the weekend. By the way… if any of you get sick of the invoicing part, let me know. It’s good to know how to do it, but after y’all get the hang of it, if you want to get rid of any of that work, just hand it this way. I like invoicing and the less I have to go ‘out there’ the better. I’m more than happy to invoice anything, as long as I don’t have to go into the stores to count it.”

“Cool,” replied Thiel. “I’d be happy to get rid of a little of this stuff. What the hell—I’m making more money than I ever have, and with the invoicing, it almost puts me over the maximum hour limit.”

“Are you still working at the Copy Center?” asked Constance.

“Yeah, but only two nights a week. I’m just keeping the job so that I can copy my chap books for free.”

“Excellent. I have a job for you from the zoo. I know that you do a good job, and they’ve given me a budget, so you’d be well compensated. I’ll tell you all about it over dinner. So, shall we?”

Augie ran down to his room to get his jacket and his drawings to take along with him. Soren and Duncan started to pile the invoices into some semblance of order, rubber banding them together by store and filing them away in the cabinet behind the dining room door. They were supposed to keep each set of them for three months, just in case there were any questions. A couple of times, Soren had been audited because of quick invoicing. It was statistically improbable that she could type so fast, so every once in a while Duke would have to stand over her shoulder for a few minutes watching her do it, then fill out a form saying that, yes, indeed she was actually doing them that fast. This was, of course, before she learned that it made more sense to rack up time.

“See you guys later,” she called as Constance, Augie and Thiel disappeared through the front door. “So,” she asked, turning toward Duncan, “are we done for the night, or do you want to keep working?”

“I think we’re done. Maybe we could order a pizza, rent some movies, hang out and rack up some time while we’re doing it. What do you say?”

Soren giggled. “It almost seems criminal to get paid this much for what we’re doing. I wonder if the other three thousand data collectors in the country are having this much fun with it.”

“I doubt it,” he said, coming over to embrace her. “Most people don’t have this much fun in general—especially not when they’re
working.”

“Why not? I mean, it’s not illegal.” She gave him a sly smile. “Yet.”

“I don’t know. Maybe it just doesn’t occur to them that they’re allowed to have fun. Really, people in offices could have fun too, though at first I’m sure their co-workers would look at them a little strangely. If you have to walk to the copier already, there’s no reason not to skip. If there are already six people sitting around a table for a meeting, there’s no reason not to do a few rounds of ‘Row Row Row Your Boat’. There is no law which prohibits dancing wildly to the muzak, but no one ever does.”

“Really,” added Soren, “I would think that having fun would increase productivity. Why does everyone just sit there like mannequins in their cubicles? No one can really stop them from doing whatever the hell they want to do, as long as it doesn’t keep the work from getting done. Hhmm… maybe we should start some kind of office worker seminars where we go in and teach the poor bastards how to be alive, even while they’re working.”

“Yeah,” said Duncan, “I’ve already thought about doing something like that where I go in and teach office workers basic Tai Chi and stretching. It would make them all so much more comfortable and happy. Sitting in a chair all day is not at all conducive to good posture or health. It’s why so many of them have back problems.” Duncan stretched. “It’s why I started Tai Chi in the first place. I was tired of my shoulders living right underneath my jaw. By Thursday of every week, it was excruciating to raise my arms high enough to hold the steering wheel when I was driving home from work. I started doing Tai Chi on the weekends, and after a month my shoulders wouldn’t start hurting until Thursday. Then it was Friday, then they didn’t hurt at all.”

“Sounds like a good plan to me. Help people, get paid—what could be better?”

“That’s what I’m looking forward to,” admitted Duncan. “I’ve spent most of my life looking at this world and seeing what a wonderful place it could be if people would just let it. I want to do everything that I can with this life to help the world in that direction.”

“Amen, brother,” agreed Soren, high-fiving his hand in the air. “I’m all about that. It’s one of the reasons that I’m sort of glad that I haven’t had the time in my life that I always wanted to write until recently. Frankly, five years ago I wouldn’t have had much to say to the world that was positive. Now, however…” She smacked him on the arm. “It’s all your fault, you know. I was very happy being a cynic until you came along. The world was shit, nobody cared, and that was all right. I had genuinely found a way to be myself within that paradigm that made me happy. Well…or at least not unhappy. But now…now I have this whole universe of things to say about how this world could genuinely be better for everyone. And really, when I look at it, it’s all just common sense. It’s not some pie in the sky dream world, but a reality which could really happen in this reality.”

“I know what you mean.”

“I know you do—you’re the one who convinced me of it. Not that you were trying to change me,” she held up her hand to his oncoming protest, “but because we talk and debate a lot. You just out argued me—something which no one until you has been able to do. We talked and talked and talked for years until finally I had to say ‘damn—he’s right.’

“There’s always been that question of whether art imitates life or if life imitates art,” she went on, “and I think that it’s a little bit of both. If I’m going to make art, and if it follows that life may imitate that, then I want the reflection of that art to be one which is actually beneficial. Yes, I see the shit. No, I don’t deny its existence. But do I still believe that the shit is always inevitable? No. I see a million places which only have to shift th—is much and the whole world would be a better place. I can’t change it all, but I can change th—is much of it.”

“That’s why I like the Tibetans so much,” explained Duncan. “Here is a culture which was almost entirely sheltered from all of the stuff going on in the rest of the world for thousands of years which developed a truly enlightened society. Sure, they weren’t perfect, and the sad part is that they were just on the brink of truly bringing equality and equity to all of their people when China came in and destroyed the whole thing. But here they are, almost fifty years later, still believing and living the same things. Their reality is much different than that of most people, and I find that truly fascinating. I think that the world can learn a lot from them.”

“No kidding,” commented Soren. “I find it so inspirational to be around them because the actually live their philosophy rather than just talking about it. I mean, so many of them have seen their families killed, have been tortured, have seen their homes destroyed, have escaped their country in ways which nearly killed them, but yet they’re still serene, calm, loving people. They’re not even angry about what’s happened.”

“No, they’re not,” agreed Duncan. “In fact, many of them see the Chinese army’s invasion as a positive things since it has made them spread out all over the world and talk to so many people about what they know. I also really appreciate the fact that they don’t care a lick about what religion people are, they just care about the ending of suffering for all beings. They’re not looking for converts, they’re just trying to share information about what they’ve learned about living in a way which brings happiness to all people. Not a bad philosophy if you think about it.”

“Not bad at all,” concurred Soren. “So, are we going to stand around all night hugging each other, or should we go get our pizza and movies and get paid to snuggle?”

Duncan laughed and went to the kitchen to find the phone. “Sounds good to me. I’ll order the pizza if you go get our jackets; it’s still pretty cold outside.”

“Check. Hey—when do you start school?”

“A week from Monday. Why?”

“Well,” she said, snuggling up to him again, “I was thinking that maybe, later, when we’re off the clock, you could give me a nice non-therapeutic massage.”

He squeezed her, giving her a lewd look. “Why certainly. Just remember—I’m not allowed to accept monetary compensation.”

“Yes dear—I think they call that prostitution.” She sighed happily. “You’re so good to me. All this and artistic patronage, too.”

“You’ve got it even better than Van Gogh. You can think of me as both your supportive brother and the whore you fell in love with.”

Soren giggled and swatted his arm. “Do I get to keep both of my ears?”

Reaching over to nibble on one of them, Duncan said “Of course. They smell like vanilla, you know.”

“If you don’t order that pizza soon…well…”

“Well what?” he asked, still nibbling. “I’ll just snack on one of these.”

“Ow! That’s still attached, you know.”

He detached himself from her ear and grinned at her. “Maybe we should order that pizza first. All right—work now, play later.”

“Eating pizza and watching movies—this is the best job I’ve ever had. Speaking of which, where’s my ScanWand?” She turned on the machine with a beep and began to dance around the kitchen while Duncan dialed the phone. “I’m getting paid to dance! I love this job.”

Waiting for the operator at Pavlov’s Pizza to answer, he grinned at her again. “It’s all in how you define the phrase ‘on the clock.’”

2002-11-13T17:13:00.000-08:00

**************10

“So,” asked Soren as the convertible slipped along the highway heading north toward the neighboring city, “what kind of studies are these?”

“Cosmetics,” answered Duncan ambiguously. “Lots of them. We have four stores to do up here, and with both of us being paid for mileage…well, we should make more money today than we often do in a week. But, we’ll be working late, I’m sure.”

Soren pulled out the stapled packet of papers and flipped through them. “Dear god,” she exclaimed. “We have to count every single cosmetic in each of these stores. Every eye shadow, every lipstick, every nail polish. What kind of useful information could someone possible glean from this?”

“I have no idea,” answered Duncan. “I didn’t process stuff like this at Stacis.”

They rode in silence for a moment until Soren asked, “Where did the name ‘Stacis’ come from, anyway?”

“It stands for ‘Statistical and Technical Analysis for Consumer Industry Services.’”

“Sounds fascinating.”

“Sounds like what it is—a shell game. Though an accurate one, I’ll admit.”

“So that analysis really works?”

“Better than you would think it would. It’s almost like some mathematical miracle. But what is the point, really, in applying the most advanced statistical analysis available to the opinions of Italians on toothpaste? Was it before or after lunch? Was it a feast day? All of these things have to be taken into consideration. And then there’s the problem of responses which just fall too far outside the box.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, one time I was running this analysis on ready to eat pasta dinners from data collected in Europe. In American, it’s taken for granted that we’re supposed to want convenience, but in other parts of the world, it’s different. In Europe, for instance, just the idea of ready to eat pasta dinners is repulsive—sacrilege almost. So no one was able to answer questions like ‘What ready to eat pasta dinners are you currently buying now’ or ‘Do you prefer the new Brand X ready to eat pasta dinner over the one you are currently purchasing’ because they can’t imagine doing something so cruel to pasta. They’d just go out, but the fresh vegetables, make their own sauce, and perhaps even hand make their own noodles. We couldn’t even get enough of a response for me to run an analysis on it. But, we had to give the client something.”

“So what did you do?”

“Exactly what my boss told me to do—I made something up. Of course, with the understanding that we were to tell the client that, under the present conditions, this product would probably not go over well in the European market. Then there are the individuals who throw the numbers completely out of whack…”

“Like what?”

“Like during a survey on brands of toothpaste, there were two participants who said that they never brushed their teeth, thus skewing the data completely in one direction.”

“What did you do with that?”

“My boss’s words were ‘That’s gross—throw those numbers out.’”

“All of the numbers?”

“No—just the two people who didn’t brush their teeth. I mean, Americans just don’t want to believe that anyone would possibly do that. They forget that toothpaste is an invention of the twentieth century, along with deodorant, shampoo, and maxi pads. No one can remember a time before these products existed, so to them these products are a part of the given consensual reality—there is no reality outside of these products.”

They rode in silence for a few minutes, Soren occasionally glancing down at the study to figure out what all it entailed. “What other weird things did you see?”

“Well, I learned things like cranberries are always ‘tangy.’ They are not tart, sour and for heaven’s sake don’t even mention the word bitter. You’d be shocked at the things they’ve attempted with cranberries.”

“Like what?”

“It’s unmentionable. Let’s just say that the cranberry salsa didn’t go over too well in the test market. But at least it didn’t kill anyone.”

“Is that a possibility?”

“Anything is possible—that’s the one thing statistics don’t think about too much. No, the worst story I heard was about this scented fabric spray which was sent out to a whole slew of people. A couple of days later, some teary-eyed woman called to say that the spray had killed her dog. The worst part was trying to be politic about it when we had to call everyone on the list who had received it, ask them if they’d tried it yet, then try to talk them into sending it back without giving away too much information. The matter was settled quietly out of court and as far as I know, poor Fido was its only victim.”

“Good heavens!”

“Oh navigatrix…is this our exit?”

Soren looked down at the map and up at the exit sign. “This is it. Get off here, turn right, and the Glutton Mart should be on the left.”

They pulled into the multi-acre parking lot and found a spot in the sea of gleaming metal cars. Going into the store, Soren winced as her eyes were assaulted by the shiny fluorescent lights. She looked up shielding her eyes and hissed. Nearby a clerk looked at her askance.

“I need optical protection if I’m going to be in here for more than five minutes,” she said. “I think the dark shades are a bit overmuch—I’m going to go check out that rack of colored specs over there while you sign us in.”

Spinning the rack, she found the perfect pair of glasses with dark red frames and lenses tinted a shade somewhere between pink and purple. Duncan came up behind her while she was trying them on, and selected a pair with blue lenses with silver wire-rims.

“They look good on you,” she added as he was gazing in the mirror. “Can we expense these?”

“I don’t see why not. I’ll go pay for these if you want to find the cosmetics section.”

“Make sure you keep the receipt. See you in a minute.”

She shielded her eyes with her hand and scanned the signs hanging over the tops of the aisles looking for something which implied cosmetics. Aisle seventeen said “Beauty Aids” so she headed that way, at the same time opening the first page of the study and scanning the bar code.

Question 1: Does this store carry cosmetics?

That was one way to put it. One hundred and fifteen feet (they had to measure it later) of cosmetics hung dauntingly on the wall. She sighed and scanned “Yes.” This was going to take a while.

Shortly, Duncan joined her in the cosmetics aisle, handed her the tinted shades, and perused the situation.

“No wonder Duke was afraid that all this work couldn’t be done in the next two and a half weeks. We’ve got four of these to do today, though Duke said that this was the largest of them.” He sighed. “Let’s get to it.”

Scan. Count. Enter. Scan. Count. Enter. Scan. Count. Enter. Scan…

“What color, exactly, is Scoot? Or how about Zoom and Zippy? Do people really get paid to come up with this stuff?” Soren giggled as Duncan kept up a running diatribe.

“Raison Rage, Python purple—since when are snakes purple?—Magenta Minx, In the Red Crème, Latin Beat Frost…”

“Or how about these,” said Soren, joining in the fun. “We’ve got Pink in the Afternoon—apparently it changes color at night—Certainly Red, which it is. Then there’s Strobe—it’s on, it’s off, it’s on, it’s off—then the ever popular shade Pounce.”

“This isn’t just mascara—it’s high dimension lash highlighting with new light interplay technology for soft lit lashes.” He arched his eyebrows at her mysteriously. “It claims to come with a multi-dimensional brush. Now your lashes look longer in twenty-seven dimensions! The new mascara for the quantum age…”

“This one is called Raven red—since when are crows bright red? It’s next to a color called Deeply Chili—ouch! I wouldn’t want to rub that on my lips.”

“Oh, that’s nothing,” retorted Duncan. “I’ve heard that the bruised look is supposed to be sexy this season, but this is the first time I’ve seen a shade called “Shiner.”

“And here’s the line named after natural disasters—Earthquake, Tidal Wave, Typhoon…I guess it’s a good thing that they’re right next to Shazam. And huddling here in the row underneath them is Fearless Fuchsia.”

“Here’s a lipstick called Sandstorm—I guess cracked and bloody at the edges is the look they’re going for.”

“It’s not cover-up stick—it’s an Illuuuuusion Wand.”

“I can understand the phrase “naturally nude” but what, exactly, is Deep Nude?”

“Here in the Sexy Beiges we have Nude Velvet, High Beam Tan, and Animal Instinct—which is ostensibly a shade of brown in case you’re wondering. Mrrrow!”

“Cherries in the Snow—evocative yet mysterious…”

“Since when are Snowflakes Pink? And how do they get the descriptor Khaki Zing for what looks to be a mixture of blue and green? I think they’re taking liberties with the limitations of zing.”

“I love these lipsticks—Witty, Boast, Compelling, Sly, Striking, Breathtaking, Astonishing, Victim…I mean Vixen… Infatuation, Racy, Outrageous, Tempest. It comes with this great warning label that says “Stop use if rash occurs”—I though Rash was one of their colors!”

“Here we have the temporal anomalies—Limitless Lilac, Perpetual Plum, Timeless Tawny, Boundless Bronze, Forever Rose, Eternal Mauve…the list goes on forever…”

“And over here we have the movement is color line—Full Tilt, Resort, Frolic, Soar, Off Shore, Zippy, Speed, Bomber, Thrill, Presto, Orbit, Lickety Split, Dive Bomb, Skyscraper, Fleeting, Beat, Rhythm, Short Order, Snappy, Fire, Exhaust and Nightlife.”

“Exotika. With a K.” Duncan pursed his lips dramatically and kissed the air.

“Rouge pulp—pulp?—liquid lip colors…Feisty, Crush, Tempting , Forbidden, Seduce, Racy, Acid, Carnal, Yearning, Wink, Breathless, Skimpy, Exposed, Strapless and Blushing. Oh my my…are they allowed to sell these things to minors?”

“You know, I understand wanting to see the sparkle in her eyes, but Flicker and Glaze I’m not sure about…”

“Hmmm…I think I see a message in this one. Paranoid, Snob and Rage are right next to each other. In the next row, we have Passion, Desire, Slink, Sin and Aftershock. Kind of sounds like a made for TV movie.”

“Saucy Sangria and Naked Ambition duel to the death with Fawn Fatale.”

“You know what they say—Mauve It Or Lose It.”

“The add for this lipstick line claims that it has a ‘Flawless finish, won’t wear off.’* If you look at the bottom of the sign and find the astrix, it says * ‘with normal activity.’ I wonder what they consider normal?”

“Get Down Plum—it’s on my leg! It’s on my leg!”

“Vagabond mauve. Venus Pink. All About Pink. Grape Grape Grape…”

“Let’s not forget the ever-popular Beach Nut—I’m a psycho with a surf board, AND I’M NOT AFRAID TO USE IT!”

“Truly Burgundy. Even More Brown. And my favorite—Nudes for Life.”

“Oooh Chilly.”

The time passed quickly as they scanned and counted one item after another along the entire one hundred and fifteen foot department, laughing and receiving strange looks from more sedate shoppers. Soren finished the last section of nail polishes marketed for teen-aged girls while Duncan went on to the next section of the study and measured the length of the aisle with a ruler printed in the margin of the last piece of paper in the packet. That was it—they were done.

“One down, three to go,” Duncan said cheerfully as Soren rolled her eyes. It was going to be a long day, though at least it was a long day together.

The next three stores weren’t nearly as bad. One was a small, independently owned grocery store that had one very small section of powder and nail polish mixed in with the facial cremes and that was it. The other two put together were about the size that the first one had been by itself. All in all, it was a long day’s work—especially counting the hour each way from their house to this burg in the north—but they were together and well-compensated for their time. Near dark, they turned south toward home and their evening jobs, their mission accomplished. They still had this study to do in a few stores in their home town, but those could be done on some other day.

“So how do you like it?” asked Duncan on their way home.

Soren thought for a moment. “It’s all right. I mean, the work itself is meaningless, but that’s true for most jobs. The hours are great, the pay is great, and there’s no body here to yell at me for sexual harassment.” She reached over and tickled him while he squirmed away giggling, doing a very valiant job of staying in his designated lane.

“Yikes! Settle down, woman. You want I should make you hitchhike home?”

“Uh uh uh…remember—I’m on the clock. You set me out here and half of our mileage charge goes out the window.”

“Ahh…you’ve got a point, there.” He reached over and patted her leg. “Too much general public today?”

“No, not really. If I had been there alone it probably would have bothered me, but when you’re around, I pay attention to you and don’t notice that I’m surrounded by people.”

He squeezed her leg again. “My sweet little misanthrope…You love all people unconditionally and without exception—as long as they stay the hell away from you.”

“Exactly,” she smiled. “I’m so glad you understand me so well. It’s not that I don’t like people—quite the contrary—I just can’t stand to be around many of them for very long. It just doesn’t feel natural—so many people, all stacked on top of each other. I think I’m some kind of evolutionary throw-back to a time when you could name every single person you’d ever encountered. The world just feels so…full. It’s probably worse because I’ve lived in the city for so long—I wasn’t really cut out for this kind of life. I’m more the ‘hermit in the cave up on the mountain’ type, so modern culture is a bit overwhelming for me.”

“You hide it well.”

“Thanks. I don’t have anything against people—I can just only take so many of them at once. Sometimes being at the bar drives me crazy. It’s not so bad most of the time—at least I have a physical barrier between me and the unwashed masses—but still…fifteen hundred people sweating in the same room is a bit much. But,” she said sounding chipper, “it’s only temporary. I don’t plan to be slinging beer five years from now.”

They rode in silence for a few miles when Duncan starting speaking again. “You know…I’ve been thinking. Why don’t you cut back your hours at the Warehouse? Now, now, I know what you’re going to say,” he said, interrupting her protests. “But here’s the deal—I want you to write more than anything…”

“But…”

“But nothing. You know what you want to do, and I know it too. You’ve done a great job these past few years working your tail off in an environment which, to put it mildly, isn’t exactly conducive to good health. You put up with all kinds of bullshit there, and you’ve handled it very well. But we both know you’d be happier writing.”

For a moment Soren said nothing. He was right—she did know what she would rather be doing. “But I probably won’t make any money writing for…who knows how long, if ever. I don’t feel right cutting back my hours when you’re still working so much.”

“Well, I’ve already talked to Michael, and he’s coming down this week so that I can show him how to do everything. He’s filled in before and he’s worked with me on the busy holiday nights, so I think I’m going to give him Sunday, Monday, Tuesday and Thursday starting next week, so I won’t be working as many hours. And, I’m not working sixty hours a week at Stacis anymore. We’re fine financially, and as soon as we move onto Phase Three, well, there will be plenty of money. Frankly, when we get there, as far as I’m concerned you can quit the Warehouse altogether. Whatdoyasay? Will you talk to Tomm about it tonight? Just drop one or two nights if you still feel uncertain. It’s not like you can’t pick it back up later if you really feel like it.”

Soren thought about it. Boy, it sure would be nice to not have to be in that loud, dirty, crowded environment as much anymore. And Saturday nights just drove her mad—the crowd was unbearable on the weekends.

“All right. BUT, if at any time we need more money, I’m going back. Also,” she continued, “if I end up with a huge case of writer’s block, I just can’t justify staying home so much. And what about you? I know that there are things you’d much rather be doing with your life, too.”

“Frankly, I’m not ready. I still have about another year of practice before I’m going to feel comfortable performing on my own, and I’m no where near recording an album at this point. Since I’ve discovered all of these other areas and kinds of music, I’ve been on a big exploration kick and I’m not sure yet where it’s all leading. You, on the other hand, are already up to snuff and know what you want to do. I say you go ahead and do it.”

She leaned over and put her head against Duncan’s shoulder as they sped down the dark highway. “It’s so nice to have someone believe in me. It’s kind of scary, too. I mean, I’ve wanted this for so many years, and now that it’s being offered to me on a silver platter, I’m kind of nervous. What if I can’t live up to your expectations?”

“I don’t have any expectations,” he explained. “I just want you to write. I don’t care one lick about how much money you do or don’t make with it—I just want to see you doing what you love…”

He though for a moment and continued. “This is another thought I had, which you can consider and decide what you want to do with it. I also don’t think that you should take on too many hours with Wilson. I know you pretty well, and I think you’ll like this job just fine, but only if you do it on your own terms. If you start spending every single day in convenience stores, I’m afraid you’ll go crazy. Since we can do this stuff pretty much any time we want, you might be able to schedule things so that you were only working a day or two a week out in the field. I’ve been thinking…it seems as though Duke would like to hand off some of the big monthly stores to me, which I’m fine with. If he does that, it will mean that there is a LOT of invoicing to do every month. Since you seem to enjoy that…”

“I love invoicing. I don’t know why, but I find it relaxing. It reminds me of knitting.”

“I know. So I’m thinking that maybe you could do the minimal amount of work in the field, and concentrate mostly on doing the invoicing at home. That way…”

She suddenly burst across the front seat of the car and wrapped her arms around Duncan. “Do you mean it? Do you really mean it? Oh Duncan—that would be fabulous! Ever since I entered the workforce I’ve been dreaming of the day when I could leave it again. It’s not that I mind working, it’s that I mind being OUT THERE. I just find this culture sooo distracting—it’s like everybody is into all this stuff that just doesn’t make any sense to me, and being around it too much makes me forget what I do find important. Oh, that would be great! You’re a genius.”

He chuckled. “So you like my little plan? See, you’re not the only one who can scheme about our future. So is it a deal?” he asked, putting up his hand.

“It’s a deal,” she replied, smacking his hand where it hovered in the air between them in the dark.

************11

The next few weeks passed as Duncan continued training while Soren did her assigned stores and began getting into the groove of entering invoices one day a week. She had laid out her schedule between the two jobs to maximize the number of days she had off in any given week since she found large blocks of uninterrupted time to be the most conducive state for writing. Since her new bartending schedule had been cut back to include only Wednesday and Friday nights, she decided that Wednesday through Friday were the best times of the week to get her work done. At first, she had been anticipating trying to get as many hours as possible making Monday the most likely day to begin working, but with the new plan it made the most sense for her to compress her work into the end of the week.

Also, there were some times when she and Duncan were scheduled to pick up extra work, usually to accommodate people who were going to on vacation, so during those times she adjusted her plans accordingly. On most weeks, however, she worked Wednesday and part of Thursday out in the field then spent the rest of Thursday and all day Friday entering invoices. This gave her four days every week to concentrate on writing, with Sundays off from everything to spend time with Duncan.

She was really enjoying the new schedule and really starting to get into the idea of writing full time. For years she had fanaticized about the day when such a schedule would be possible, and it was hard for her to accept that that day was really here, now.

Discussing it with Duncan, she had decided that, for now, she was just going to get into the habit of writing. Rather than having some stringent schedule, goals or dead-lines for particular projects, she just sat down and wrote everyday without too much concern for where that was leading.

Duncan often still went out with Duke to count the large stores since Duke seemed to be under the impression that it would be almost too much work for one person to deal with. However, according to Duncan, he could have probably done the work much faster if Duke hadn’t been there. This, however, was not really a huge concern of his, always keeping in mind that he was paid for every minute that he was on the clock. So if it took longer, that just meant more money later.

One Friday afternoon, Duncan came home to find Soren busily typing away at the invoices. He had an unusual expression on his face, and Soren was sure that he was up to something. He began asking her unusual questions…

“So, how long does it usually take you to invoice these stores?” he asked. “On average?”

“Well,” she said slowly considering his inquiry, “it depends upon the store. For the big stores like Midtown Mart, it usually takes about three hours. For most of the rest of them it takes between an hour and a half and two hours. Why?”

“Have you transmitted any of the stores you’ve finished yet this cycle?”

“No, not yet. I’m done with two of them, but I hadn’t sent them in yet. I wanted to go over them and make sure that I’d done everything correctly. Why do you ask?”

“Well, today Duke brought up the bonuses that they give for speed. The thing is this—no matter how fast you go, there is a cut-off point for how much money they’ll give to anyone for any given store. It’s this really complicated mathematical equation that they run on the stores to figure out how long it ‘should’ take somebody to invoice them based upon the number of items that the store carries. He rattled off the details pretty quickly, but I listened closely enough that I think I can figure it out on my own. I’ve just been thinking… Do you mind if I look at the stores?”

Soren shrugged. “Not at all. What are you thinking?”

“I’m not sure yet. I’ll let you know after I give them a look. I think I’ve figured something out…”

Soren handed over her machine to Duncan, then watched as he glanced through files, wrote down numbers, then poked at the calculator for the next hour. Apparently finished, he looked up.

“You’re too fast,” he began.

“But I like doing it fast. One of the reasons that I like this job is that once I’m done I’m DONE. I’ve always hated the other jobs I had because even though I could get all the work done in two hours, I’d have to keep sitting there for another six. With this job, I do the work as fast as I can and them I’m finished for the day. I don’t want to slow down…”

“And you don’t have to. That’s what I’m getting at.” He slid his scrap paper toward her and pointed to a long string of numbers. “See, this is how long the company figures it will take someone, anyone, to invoice a store this size. For every minute under that time, you get this much applied toward a bonus.” She nodded to let him know that she understood so far. “However, once you get this much faster than they expect, anything over that no longer counts toward the bonus since they have a cut-off for how much they’re willing to give for that.”

She nodded again but began to protest. “But that’s a couple of hours longer than it really takes me. I don’t want to dally just because…”

“You don’t have to. What I’m suggesting is this: On this paper, I’ve written out the amount of time which is the most financially beneficial, i.e. the fastest that you can go to get the maximum amount on your bonus while still getting paid for the highest amount of time and still get that bonus. You don’t have to enter the invoices slower, it just has to appear that way.”

“What, exactly, are you suggesting?”

“I’m suggesting that you go ahead and enter them just as fast as you can, but then when you’re done, keep the machine running until you get to this number. That way you’ll still get the biggest bonus and the most hours on the clock without it cutting into your life. While the clock is running, you can eat dinner, talk on the phone, take a bath…”

“Or write.” She started to grin. “Hell, even if no one else is paying me to write, BC Wilson will. Oh that’s great—I’m so glad that you’re so good with numbers.” She stood up to hug him. “This will work out wonderfully.”

“Yep. All you have to do is hit a button on the machine every minute—any button at all—so that the machine keeps running. Sure, it’s a bit of a hassle to drag it around the house with you everywhere, but getting paid that much an hour to just hit a button once a minute…”

“…is a pretty good deal. That’s fabulous!”

“I have more good news,” Duncan continued. “Today Duke mentioned to me that he’s ready to fire another one of his ‘problem children’ as he calls them, and wanted to know if we knew anyone else who’d be interested. I told him that I was pretty sure we did.”

“Ah haa…” she said twinkling. “The beginning of Phase Three. Are we ready?”

“I think so. We’ve got maybe one more day of work to do on the basement, which I was going to see if you wanted to do tomorrow. I was thinking of giving Thiel a call and seeing if he would be available to go out to brunch on Sunday so that we can discuss our nefarious plan with him.”

“Sounds good to me,” she said turning back to her machine and picking up the pile of invoices while Duncan went into the kitchen to get the phone.

On Sunday around one in the afternoon, Soren and Duncan sat in Kaldi’s waiting for Thiel to arrive. Kaldi’s, a bookstore and coffee shop around the corner from the bars where they worked just north of downtown, was one of their favorite places to eat. Full Contact Poetry had performed there a few times, and on the weekend evenings, they hosted some of the best live jazz in town. On weekends, they offered a wonderful brunch menu from ten until two, and since Thiel had to be at work at his job at a copy center downtown by three, Kaldi’s was the perfect place to have their little meeting.

A few minutes later while Soren was still looking at her menu attempting to choose between French toast and the breakfast burrito, the door under the giant sculpture of the goat’s head opened as Thiel stepped off of the brightly lit early afternoon sidewalk and into the mysterious gloom of the coffee house. Soren waived her menu in the air to attract his attention as his eyes adjusted to the drastically different light level.

“Over here,” she called. Finally looking her way and nodding toward her with his chin, Thiel wandered through the mismatched tables and chairs to where she and Duncan sat near the back. He was an intimidating looking man from a distance, not very tall but built like the proverbial brick shit house. An unruly mop of long curly black hair surround his stocky frame, a fierce but calm expression always on his face. On stage, he was one of the hardest hitting poets anyone had ever seen, but off stage he was a soft-spoken, highly articulate sweetheart. After settling in at the table and ordering a pot of coffee and a pastry, Thiel looked from one to the other of them.

“So, what’s up? You guys look like spies.”

They hadn’t meant to dress like undercover agents—it was just a habit they’d fallen into with the job. I mean, if everyone thought they were there spying, why not play the role to the hilt, right? Glancing at each other through oddly tinted shades, they wondered which one of them should begin speaking. Duncan began.

“Do you ever get the feeling that there’s never enough time or money for you to pursue the things that you love to do? Like write, for instance?”

Thiel looked at him. “Of course. All the time. The job at The Copy Center is Ok—I mean it does allow me to copy all of my chap books for free when I’m in there after hours, but I’ve been there for three years now and I’m barely making more than most sixteen year old kids who work at fast food places. It makes so little that I have to work at that damned chain coffee shop on the weekends and before my shifts at The Copy Center to make up the difference to pay my bills.

“I HATE it there—the customers drive me to the brink of homicide—but Starburnt is right next door to The Copy Center so that I can just go from one to the other. But, I do at least get one day a week off…but mostly then I just stress about how the hell I’m going to pay the bills and don’t get any work done anyway. I live in a four hundred and fifty dollar a month shoe box—I can’t play the guitar without the neighbors calling the cops, so if I want to practice I’m going to have to rent a studio. Still trying to figure out how to pay for that… Why do you ask?”

“Well, we have a sort of proposal for you. As you know, Soren and I have started a different job in the past few months. The hours are totally flexible, the pay is way better than average, and you’d never have to deal with another customer again. You could even still keep your job at The Copy Center if you wanted to, since it does have the late night fringe benefits, but you’d never have to make another vanilla latte for a snobby upper-class housewife again.”

Thiel looked from Duncan to Soren then back again. “Sounds too good to be true. What’s the catch?”

“There’s not one. We’ve been doing this for a while now, and it’s working out better than we could have imagined. Hell, I quit my job at Stacis a while back and I couldn’t be happier. There’s a bit more to this proposal as well…”

“Go on.”

“We’ve also spent the past couple of months remodeling the house. It was all stuff that we’ve been wanting to do anyway. The upshot of this is that we’ve fixed up the basement so that there are two bedrooms down there as well as a large open room that can be used as a practice space. We have a church and a YMCA behind us, a parking lot on one side, and a ninety year old lady who can’t hear anything on the other side. It’s not possible to make enough noise in our house for anyone to call the cops. I’ve already got my musical equipment down there and have set up a small recording studio.

“The proposal is this—the job at BC Wilson is yours if you want it, and if you’d like to cut down your rent costs to a fraction of what you’re paying now, you are welcome to move in. Use of the practice space and recording equipment is included in rent.”

“And,” continued Soren, “the first two months rent are free if you’ll help Duncan remodel the attic. After that, you can decide if you want the attic or basement as living quarters.”

Thiel sat there for a minute looking at Duncan and Soren, mouth partially open. “Are you serious? Why would you do this?”

“Because,” started Soren, “we’re both people who want to do something different with our lives. We have dreams, things we want to do, art we want to create. It’s really nice to know other people, such as yourself, who feel the same way. The problem for all of us has always been not having enough time or money to purse these things. Our thinking is, that if we all combine resources, it will enable all of us to pursue the things we really love. And, as you know, the more you’re around that kind of creative energy…”

“…the more energy you have yourself to create. Wow—this just almost sounds too good to be true. What would I do with all my stuff?”

“You live in an efficiency, right?” asked Duncan.

“Right. The shoebox.”

“Frankly, the space downstairs is big enough that you could probably fit all of your stuff down there. And there’s the shed out back if you need to store anything. There’s only one house rule…”

“I knew there had to be a catch.”

“The only house rule is no television,” explained Duncan. “It’s distracting and not conducive to creating things. And if Soren heard one in her own home, she’d probably run down the street screaming.”

“After smashing it to bits with a baseball bat,” she added.

“Any other rules I should know about?” asked Thiel.

“Nope. That’s it.”

“Then I’m in. My television is a fifteen year old piece of shit anyway, and you’re right—the box sucks the life right out of you. I’d be happy to toss her on the curb. I’ll think of it as an initiation ritual. So, when does the party start?”

“You can interview with our boss, Duke, any time next week. You’ll do some of your training with him and some of it with Duncan.” Soren slid a piece of paper across the table to Thiel. “This is his number. He’s expecting your call.”

“Cool,” he replied, taking the first bite of his almost forgotten pastry. “When should I load up the truck and bring my shit over?”

“Anytime you want,” answered Duncan. “I don’t know if you have to give notice at your current abode, but whenever you want to start bringing things over, feel free. Here’s a key.”

Thiel smiled between bits of icing. “Wow. This is just too good to be true. I think I’ll go give…Duke?” They nodded. “…Duke a call as soon as I’m done with my danish. Hell, if he wants to hire me, I’ll tell them tonight that I want to switch to part-time evenings. Mostly, I just want to keep the job so that I can publish my chap books. I’ve got a new one out, by the way.”

“How many does that make?” asked Soren.

Thiel looked up at the ceiling, silently counting on his fingers. “Sixteen so far. I don’t know why I put them out…”

“Nonsense,” interjected Duncan. “I think it’s great that you write so much and then put that writing out there. How else is anyone else going to read it?”

“Yeah, yeah. It’s not like I make much money at it, but I just can’t stop writing. I think I’d go crazy and kill somebody if I did.” He paused with the danish part way to his mouth to take another long drag of coffee.

“Have you ever considered going back to journalism?” asked Soren. It was well known that Thiel was a “non-practicing journalist” as he liked to say. He had a degree in journalism, but found that the entire business was corporate run and full of censorship. Highly disillusioned, he had quite the industry entirely less than a year out of college.

“Humph. Not really. Though I have heard about a few publications which are supposed to be pretty good. Unfortunately, every time I try to get on one of the computers at work to check out what’s out there, the thing logs time and I get busted. I can’t stay on the internet for more than five minutes without an automatic bill printing up for the time.”

“Feel free to browse once you get to our place,” offered Duncan. “Up in the library we have two computers with Internet access hooked into an extra phone line. You can browse to your heart’s content.”

“Cool,” answered Thiel. “If I could find a few places I like, who knows? I might actually start writing articles again once I’m not killing myself working. Well,” he said wiping the icing from his fingers, “I’m going to go call Duke and see what the man has to say.”

Duncan and Soren looked at each other briefly, both beginning to talk at once.

“He’s…”

“You might find him…”

They stopped and looked at one another again. How could they possibly describe…?

Thiel was still standing there, one hand on the back of his now empty chair, waiting for them to continue.

“See…well…that’s the one thing that we should maybe tell you about this job. Our boss is…” Duncan fumbled for the right word.

“Unique,” Soren supplied.

“Unique. Yes, that’s a good way to put it. He’s easy as hell to work for and his heart is truly in the right place, but he’s a bit…different. Just thought you should be warned in case he went into a spiel about dolphins or something.”

“Dolphins?” asked Thiel in confusion. “Unique I can deal with. I mean, we’re all a little unique, right?”

“Oh absolutely,” Soren agreed. “It was just something that you should be aware of. He really is an all right guy.”
Still looking a little suspicious, Thiel walked toward the pay phone fumbling for change in his pocket on the way.

“Welcome to Phase Three,” said Duncan, holding his hand in the air.

Soren smacked his palm with hers and lifted her hot chocolate toward him in a toast to life. “Here’s to Phase Three.”

A few minutes later, Thiel returned to the table, a mixture of amusement and confusion playing across his face.

“Um, yeah. He’s unique all right. He mostly talked about a pet squirrel.”

Soren and Duncan started laughing—this was a new one.

“He asked me if I knew what kind of stuff he could put outside for it to build a warmer nest out of. I suggested polar fleece or some old flannel. What the hell do I know about building squirrel nests?” Thiel laughed. “But, he did offer me the job. He said we could start training any time.

“I also called the coffee shop and told them that I wouldn’t be coming back. Really, it’s for their own good. I don’t know what I might do if I went back knowing I didn’t need the job anymore…this is really the most humane thing to do all around. I don’t think that I’d poison anybody…but I don’t feel like gambling either. So, it looks like I’ll start training tomorrow morning. I’ll go ahead and work out my regular shifts this week at The Copy Center since I’m already on the schedule, but it won’t be a problem to cut back the hours for the schedule that comes out next week. I’ll also start bringing my stuff over next weekend, if that’s all right with you guys.”

He looked at them as they nodded in consent.

“I guess it’s all set, then. Wow—thank you both for swinging this my way.”

“Oh,” said Duncan reaching into the inner pocket of his jacket. “One more thing.” He slid the small round yellow shades across the table to Thiel. “You’re going to want these.”

Soren smiled at him warmly. “Welcome to the Kabal.”

*******************12

“Beep!!! Duncan, hi, this is Duke. Listen, I really need your help tomorrow. Word just came down from headquarters that the Dairy Barn is going to turn into a monthly store. You’ll still do beer there every week, but we’re going to start doing a monthly count on everything else starting this week. It takes a long time to get one of those stores set up… Thiel and I are going to go in tomorrow to start on it, so if your schedule allows, you can meet us there any time. About Thiel—I really like him. Do you guys know anyone who has an IQ under a hundred and fifty? It’s funny—the regional manager has started referring to you guys as ‘the beatniks.’ He’s working out great so far and …. Beep!!!”

Duncan walked into the Dairy Barn and immediately saw Dunk talking to the badger. Something had changed though.

“So how do you think the Egyptians did it,” Duke was asking as Duncan approached unnoticed.

Beverly looked around. “Well, if you ask me, I think they were helped by aliens. I mean, how else could they have moved all of those huge stone into place? Or come up with the math…”

“I agree,” said Duke in astonishment. “Most people just don’t want to think about the idea of alien influence on our world, but I think there’s evidence of it all over the place.”

“Certainly,” agreed Beverly. “I mean, look at the Mayans.”

“Exactly!” Duncan cleared his throat to announce his arrival. He could see the top of Thiel’s curly head above the candy aisle and the telltale rhythmic beep of his ScanWand. “Oh. Hey. When did you get here?”

“Just now. Where do you want me to start?”

“Hmm… I think Thiel has the candy aisle under control. Maybe you could start with the cooler.” He shrugged. “You and Thiel can work it out.”

Duncan walked over to where Thiel was counting candy while Duke turned back toward the badger and continued discussing the alien influences throughout history. He smiled as he approached his comrade.

“How’s it going?”

Thiel rolled his eyes. “Boy, am I glad to see you here. I’m supposed to be ‘helping’ Duke get this store set up. I don’t think he’s scanned one thing since he’s been in here.” He glanced over to where Duke was leaning on the front counter. “If you ask me, I think he’s got the hots for the manager. They’ve been talking ever since we got here. At first, I didn’t think she liked him at all, but then he brought up some anthropology books he’s been reading, and they’ve been yacking ever since.”

Duncan laughed. “Did he tell you any stories about ‘the badger’ before you got here?”

Thiel shook his head. “He mentioned that the manager here could be temperamental, but he thought it was just because she was too intelligent to be stuck working in a convenience store.” Thiel laughed. “He even brought in pictures of his squirrel with his house in the background, explaining that women love sensitive men who care about animals and that it wouldn’t hurt for her to see how big his house is.” He chuckled again. “I think he’s smoozing, the old dog.”

“So where are you on this candy?”

Thiel sighed. “I’ve done the top two rows, and some of the stuff is already programmed into the ScanWand, but some of the stuff isn’t. I know that we’re supposed to be adding the other stuff, but Duke hasn’t shown me how to do that yet.”

“Here,” said Duncan, scanning something from the bottom shelf which wasn’t in most of the stores, “I’ll show you how. See, they have a sort of default file that they use for new stores. A whole lot of stuff that you scan will already be in here, but you have to add the rest. When it says that it doesn’t recognize the UPC, just go to this menu, hit ‘new’, enter the information, then hit ‘enter.’ That’s all you have to do.

Thiel rolled his eyes. “That simple, huh? If I’d asked Duke he would have given me a twenty minute explanation after which I still wouldn’t have known what the hell I was doing.” He glanced over at Duke then back toward Duncan. “He’s quite a character. So, did part of your training involve going to titty bars?”

Duncan started laughing. “No… but I think that has to do with Duke’s odd sense of ethics. See, I’m a married man as far as he’s concerned so he would never take me someplace like that. You, on the other hand, are a bachelor and bachelors are supposed to do that sort of thing.”

“It was the weirdest thing…” continued Thiel. “There we were in this dark bar in the middle of the afternoon with a couple of beers brought to us by a topless waitress, dancing girls grinding away in the background to heavy bass funk, while we sat there beeping away on our machines.” He shrugged. “I’d never go to a place like that on my own, but for what I was getting paid an hour to sit there and drink beer, I can’t really complain.”

“So you think you can handle adding the new stuff?” asked Duncan. Thiel nodded. “Cool. I’m going to go start on the cooler since that will take a while, though most of that stuff should be in here. Corporate monopoly at least makes our job a little easier—they have the same pop everywhere.”

Thiel went back to the candy while Duncan moved onto the cooler, still hearing Duke in the background.

“…don’t you think that they’re trying to communicate? Maybe they’re trying to tell us something, something important.” He looked both ways then lowered his voice, Beverly leaning in so as not to miss a word. “I’ve been having dreams about them… the aliens. I haven’t told anybody about it yet…”

Duncan smiled and opened the first door, the sound of the refrigeration fans lightly drowning out the hushed conversation. Despite Duke’s fear regarding the time it would take to set up this store, they finished in about six hours. All finished, the two friends found Duke, still talking to Beverly at the front counter, to let him know they were ready to find the invoices.

“Really?” he asked incredulously. “Already?” They nodded in unison. “All right then.” He turned toward Beverly. “So, listen, what time is your shift over today?”

She glanced up at the clock. “In about forty-five minutes. Why?”

Duke looked a little sheepish, but continued, despite the fact that his face was starting to turn beet red. “I was, uh, thinking that maybe, uh, we could go get a drink maybe after you’re done. We’re almost done here,” he said turning toward Duncan and Thiel, “and I don’t have any other stores to do after this.” He seemed to suddenly remember something. “That is, of course, if Thiel here could get a ride back to his car with Duncan…?”

Duncan nodded and smiled. “Sure, no problem.”

Duke looked relieved. “So you see, my obligations for the day are completed, so if you would be so good as to accompany me…”

“That sounds lovely,” she said, seeming to greatly surprise Duke. “There’s a nice place right down the street.”

Duke smiled broadly, seemingly despite himself. “Great. Great. Well,” he said, turning toward the back room, “let’s get going.”

Duncan and Thiel had a hard time not giggling while Duke dug through the filing cabinet, trying to keep his mind on business but obviously distracted. Finally he looked up from the office chair to where they were standing, still grinning at him. He narrowed his look. “Not a word. She’s a really nice lady once you get to know her.”

“I told you so,” said Duncan. “Didn’t realize that you had common interests, eh?”

“No, I had no idea she was so smart,” said Duke. “I decided that just to, you know, kind of smooth things over with her that I’d read up on some of her interests. It didn’t occur to me that she and I could have so many things in common. Who knew?”

“Who knew,” responded Duncan, still unable to control his grin. “So I guess we shouldn’t tell her that you called her ‘the badger.’”

Duke shot them a look. “Don’t you dare. You’ll both be counting fish parts in Alaska if a word of that gets out.” He looked away thoughtfully. “She’s a strong woman. Hell of a figure. The kind of woman who could put me in my place…” He looked off thoughtfully and smiled. “Um, yeah. Why don’t you two take over copying these invoices. I don’t care which one of you does them. Or better yet—why don’t you do them together?” He turned to Thiel. “Duncan can show you how to enter these and do the reconcilliations at the end. When you’re done, email the file to me so that I can check it over before you transmit. That way if there are any questions about the stuff in the store I can answer them.”

“No problem,” answered Thiel. “I was going over to their place tonight anyway.”

“Oh that’s right—you’re moving into the ‘artists’ commune.’ Speaking of which, you don’t know anyone else who would be good at this job, do you? We’re going to be adding a whole slew of new monthly stores next month, and unless we all want to work fifty hours a week, I’m going to need to hire someone else.”

“Well…” thought Duncan out loud. “I do know one other person who’s been looking for a job. I can give him a call and ask him.”

“What kind of weird thing does he do?” asked Duke.

“He’s a musician and a toy designer.”

“Do you know anyone who has a normal job?” Duke chuckled. “If he’s half as smart as the rest of you, he can start work next week. If you don’t mind, I might send him with you sometimes, and I can train two people just as easily as one.” He stood up. “Well, I’m out of here, then.” He waggled his eyebrows. “Wish me luck.”

Unable to contain themselves anymore, they both broke into laughter as Duke disappeared through the swinging door of his destiny.

*****************13

By that weekend, Thiel had brought all of his stuff to Duncan and Soren’s house, deposited it in the basement, then began helping Duncan on the attic. Soren could hear them pounding away upstairs while she was writing in the library, the rhythmic hammering a kind of backdrop for the free jazz playing on her stereo.

She smiled. Everything was going according to plan. On Sunday night, Thiel went to work a shift at The Copy Center while

Soren made dinner for Augustus and his girlfriend Constance. She had known Augie for over ten years and his current significant other was by far her favorite. Constance spilt the difference between artistic and corporately mobile. She had a job at the local zoo in charge of the education department. It was the job she landed right out of college and was right up her philosophical alley. Part of what she did every day was to educate people about environmental issues and conservation, putting her intellectual efforts into something which was truly meaningful to her.

When she and Augie got together, it was a near perfect match. He had a degree in biology and a genuine interest in nature, so they had many common areas of interest. The only one that they didn’t seem to share was their differing ideas about work and career. Augie didn’t care a lick about money, convenience, or anything else along those lines. The antithesis of a materialist, he never wore clothes which hadn’t been purchased in thrift stores and rarely did the two socks on his feet match one another.

During most of the time that Soren had known him, he hardly ever kept a job for very long. Mostly he would work some job doing menial labor, saving enough to keep his head under the roof of whatever latest dive he was living. Then he would quit and be unemployed for a few months, happily making music and designing the toys which wandered through his head on a constant basis.

And never was something just a toy—on quite the contrary. Everything had an origin, a story, a symbolic meaning. The universes in his head were way too complex for anyone other than him to imagine or remember, and the stories he told of them were so rich and varied that one could almost believe that he was just telling the story of a place, time and characters which really existed. Meanwhile, his biology degree hung on the wall gathering dust.

The door bell rang and Duncan raced down the steps to answer. Soren could hear the greetings float to her from the front door to where she stood stirring a spicy vegetarian dish over the stove. Wiping her hands on a towel, she walked into the front room for greetings and hugs.

“Hey! It’s great to see you!”

“Great to see you too. Oh, something smells wonderful.”

“Long time no see.”

“Would you like a drink?”

Finally seated at dinner, Duncan asked Augie about his work situation. At the mention of the subject, Constance and Augie exchanged troubled glances.

“Well…” Augie began, “…um, let’s just say I’m between jobs right now.” Constance gave him a look, then returned her attention to picking at the rice on her plate. “Why do you ask?”

“Because,” said Soren, “we may have an offer which might interest you.”

“Really?” he asked around a mouthful of vegetables. “Doing what?”

“Working with us,” continued Duncan. “Soren and I have been working for a company called BC Wilson for the last few months, and Thiel just started recently, too. The job is dead easy, and the best part about it is that you can set your own hours, do the work at your pace, and you never have to deal with customers or co-workers again. The pay is excellent, plus the money paid for mileage. All in all it pays better than what I used to make working at Stacis, which is why I was able to quit my job.”

“Yeah,” said Augie putting down his fork. “I heard Tomm telling somebody about this the other night at the Warehouse. It sounded like you two were doing pretty well with it. I didn’t know that Thiel was working there too. Sounds pretty cool.” He continued chewing.

“How’s the roommate situation?” asked Soren.

Augie and Constance both rolled their eyes in unison. “Don’t ask,” supplied Constance. “He’s been coming over to my house almost every night just to get away from them. They’re animals.”

“Yeah,” Augie agreed. “I’m not exactly a neat freak, but these guys are just pigs. Sure, the place is cheap and I like that, but I’m just too old to appreciate ‘bachelor chic’ anymore. The place is a sty.”

“So, what are you paying, if you don’t mind me asking?” prodded Soren.

“About two fifty a month, not including utilities. I could almost afford my own place…almost…but not quite.”

There was an uncomfortable silence between Constance and Augie—apparently this had been some kind of issue between them.

“Well,” said Duncan, breaking the conversational pause, “that’s another part of what we want to discuss with you. For a little less than you’re paying now, you could live here with us.”

“Is this place big enough?” he asked, looking around. “I thought that you guys had pretty much filled the space yourselves.”

“We had,” added Soren, “until we remodeled the basement. We’ve started on the attic too. Oh—that’s the other thing—the first two months rent is free if you help out with finishing the attic. I think Thiel is going to take that room when it’s done, then you could have both rooms in the basement. And,” she continued knowing that this should make him happy, “there’s a practice space and recording studio set up in the basement now as well. You’re free to use it any time.”

“We only have one house rule,” interjected Duncan. “No television.”

Augie was nodding his head. “No problem there—I haven’t had one for almost five years.”

“See,” he continued, “we’re trying to create an environment here which is conducive for all of us to really work on the things we love—writing, music, designing, whatever. Instead of this just being a dream that we all have, we’re trying to bring all of this together to make it a reality. For all of us. A job like this, with its flexible hours and higher than average pay, is a great tool to use for such pursuits.”

Augie set down his fork and looked at Constance. “What do you think?”

“I think you’d be a fool not to do it.” She paused and considered. “I think that this is exactly the kind of thing that you need to get your career started. And while I understand and support your decisions regarding work, there’s still something to be said for financial stability.”

Augie lowered his head and said nothing. Apparently, this had been another issue in their relationship. “You’re right,” he finally sighed. He looked across the table at Soren and Duncan. “See, I would really love to move in with Constance,” he looked over at her and squeezed her hand. “She’s the best thing that ever happened to me, and I look forward to spending the rest of my life with her. The problem has been that, well, let’s just say that I haven’t been the most responsible grown-up in the world up until now. And it’s not that I don’t want to be,” he hastily added. “It’s just that most of the opportunities I see for employment just seem to take over your whole life with meaningless nonsense. If I do them for too long, I just start to be a grouchy bastard.”

Constance chuckled and rolled her eyes. “Isn’t that the truth. I don’t want you doing something that makes you miserable but…”

“…but you also don’t want to be responsible for a financial liability either. Especially if we’re going to have kids someday.” Augie grinned, almost blushing by this public admission.

“I think that this job would be a good test run. It would give you the time you need to work on your music, and maybe you’ll finally feel confident enough to send out your designs to toy companies. Really—this job sounds like it has everything you’re looking for, and if I’m not mistaken, you’d get a lot more productive work done here than you’ve been able to at the sty. That place isn’t conducive to anything—except cock roaches, maybe.” She picked up her fork and started eating again. “But you do what you want. This is just my opinion.”

Augie looked up and smiled. “So, you want to show me my new room before desert or after?”

2002-11-08T20:18:00.000-08:00

********************5

“So how did it go?” Duncan asked as he ran through the front door and immediately toward the kitchen. He was already running late for getting down to the bar, but he was sick to death of not having time to eat breakfast, lunch, or dinner. Tonight dinner was mandatory.

“It went fine,” Soren answered, sprawled out on the couch reading the massive BC Wilson employee manual. “Though I’m a bit worn out. Yes, I think that this will work out just fine.” She smiled. “I already mentioned to Duke that you’d be interested in a position and that you have a lot of experience in this field already. Really, it would almost be a transfer from one department to another.”

“Though I can’t wait to quit,” he said in exasperation. “I talked to Sarah again today about my workload and cutting back my hours. She swears that they’re interviewing next week for someone to help with my workload and that as soon as a new person is hired, I can cut down to part time.”

Soren rolled her eyes. “Yeah, pull the other one—it plays Jingle Bells.”

“Exactly.” Duncan returned from the kitchen with two roast beef sandwiches, already shoving part of the first one into his mouth. “I’ve been hearing this same story for the past eight months, so I don’t really have any reason to believe it. She sounded sincere, though.”

Soren rolled her eyes again. “Of course she does—she practices that tone of voice so that people like you will believe her and keep working their tails off. It’ll never happen. So, what are you going to do when Duke is ready to hire you?”

“Well,” he said chewing, “I’ve been thinking about that. I think that once I know I have another job lined up, I’ll give them one more chance to cut my hours. If it isn’t done immediately, I’m out of there. So what exactly are you doing?”

Soren showed the machine to Duncan and briefly explained its functions. “And that’s really it. You just wave the machine at the people who work in the stores, then go around scanning stuff. There’s really nothing to it.”

“And you can really set all your own hours?”

“Yep.”

“Cool.” He glanced up at the clock and grabbed his remaining sandwich. “Well, I’m out of here. I need to get down to the bar and scrub the floor before I open; I was just too pooped to do it last night. Are you working tonight?”

“No, I’m off. Tomorrow and Saturday I’ll be on. I’m doing more training tomorrow morning bright and early, so no late night for me. I think I’ll write a bit, though.”

“Good deal. That reminds me…” He reached for a guitar case which was sitting near the door. “I’m usually slow on Thursday night until around midnight, so I thought I’d take this down with me. I can practice before the crowd shows up. I meant to take it with me this morning—it was half the reason I came back to the house. So,” he bent over her kissing her quickly on the cheek, “I’ll see you in bed tonight.”

“Be safe—love you!”

“Love you too.”

Soren set down the massive technical tome and went upstairs. She looked again at the screenplay book she had left sitting next to her computer, smiled, and picked it up. Running a tub full of hot water and lighting a vast array of candles, she sunk down into the soapy water and finally opened the book.

*****************6

The next couple of weeks went by in a sleep deprived blur. No matter how early she got up, falling asleep early just never happened. It was only until training was done, she reminded herself, then she would never have to see morning again.

Her bartending job went more or less the same—slinging beer, shaking drinks, smiling when she really didn’t feel like it, washing the stench of cigarettes, spilled alcohol, and the residue from the artificial smoke machine off of her every evening. She kept the screenplay book next to the tub, reading through it a section at a time every evening when she returned from the nightclub. It didn’t look nearly as difficult as she had first feared. Hmm…

On weekends before they both had to leave for work, she and Duncan spent their afternoons preparing for Phase Two of their lifeplan, straightening, cleaning, purging the house of every useless or out of date object they could find. They rearranged, cleared rooms, took loads of paper to the recycling plant, donated furniture to rummage sales for worthy causes. It was a large house with a big yard, though with both of them being packrats, they had accumulated quite a lot of stuff in the few years they had been living together. They were both bibliophiles who enabled each other to indulge in their obsession—there were piles of books everywhere.

By the third weekend, they had cleared out the clutter and began to build shelves around the entirety of the ground floor. Over the buzz of the electric saw, Soren heard the ringing of the telephone.

“I’ll get that,” she said loudly over the noise. It was Duke.

“Hey. Did I catch you at a bad time?”

“Not at all. How can I help you?”

“Well, I’ve been thinking. You’re about finished with training—I figure next week you’ll be out on your own. Of course, you can still page me if you run into any problems, but I think you’re ready. Is Duncan still interested in a position?”

She involuntarily started to do a little dance in the kitchen, though she kept her voice steady. “As far as I know,” she replied. “Why?”

“Well, one of my problem children has acted out one time too many, and I’m ready to let her go as soon as I’m sure that I’ll have someone else to assigned the stores to. I already have stores set aside for you, but if Duncan is still interested…”

“Let me go ask him. Would you like to talk to him?”

“Sure. If he’s not too busy right now, put him on.”

Soren skipped into the living room and stuck her head outside onto the front porch where Duncan was sawing another length of wood for the shelving unit. He pushed back his safety glasses and raised his eyebrows at her.

“It’s Duke. I think he wants to offer you a job.”

Still covered in saw dust, Duncan trotted into the kitchen and picked up the receiver. “Hello?”

They talked for nearly a half an hour, Soren happily dancing around the room, listening happily to Duncan’s side of the conversation. “Ok. Sure. No problem. Well, I’ll see you then.” He hung up the phone as she danced around expectantly, waiting to hear the details.

“What’d he say? What’d he say?” she asked, still hopping from one foot to the other.

“Well, I can start training any time. The sooner the better as far as he’s concerned. And since he’s done training you…well, that means anytime.”

“So what are you going to do about Stacis?”

“I told him about that and also that I’d call him Monday afternoon with my final answer about the job, though I also let him know that I was ninety-nine percent certain that it would be a ‘yes.’ Unless a miracle occurs, I just can’t see them getting off their butts at this point.”

“Any more word on the new hire?”

“I asked Sarah about it again Friday. She said they would be putting out the ad next week.”

“Yeah, right. I think you’ve heard that one before.”

“Exactly. I’ll talk to her one more time first thing Monday morning, and if I get the run around, I have this funny feeling I’ll just walk out. I mean, even before I opened the bar they had been telling me that they would decrease my workload for over a year. I just don’t think that it’s going to happen. And, as long as they can get away with bullshitting me, they will continue to do so.” He smiled. “I have no idea what they’re going to do when I leave. The analysis that I do has become the most requested item by our clients, and I’ve been telling them all along that it doesn’t make sense that I’m the only one who knows how to do it. Oh well…”

Soren squealed and hugged Duncan. “I’ll just be sooo happy when you’re out of there. In case you hadn’t noticed, I really really like you, and I haven’t been able to see nearly enough of you because of that job. Between that and the bar…”

“Which I’ve also been thinking about. I’ll wait and see how the new job goes, but I think that after I’m done with training, I’m going to see about hiring Michael a few nights a week down there. I mean, he knows how to do everything, he’s good with the customers, he doesn’t drink, and I could use a few nights off once in a while. I’d still do the Wednesday and weekend shifts—that’s where most of the money is and you’re working those hours anyway—but I think I’ll see if he wants to work the rest of the week. Greg, the guitar player from my old band, was in the other night and mentioned that the Java Stop is looking for an acoustic act on Thursday and Sunday nights. He knows the manager there and wanted to know if I’d be interested in putting something together with him. He’s a hell of a guitar player, but he hates to sing. I always like working with him, and two guitars can make some pretty interesting noise. We’ll see…”

He glanced down at her. “You won’t mind giving me up for a couple of nights a week, would you?”

She snuggled against his chest. “Of course not. I mean, you’ve already been gone on those nights anyway, and with a gig at a coffee house, I doubt that you’ll have to stay there until three in the morning. Besides,” she looked off mysteriously, “I have a screenplay to write.”

Duncan looked at her questioningly. “So we’ve finally cracked the book open, have we?”

“Yes we have. It isn’t nearly as intimidating as I had feared. Not that hard at all, really. I have a few ideas…I’ve taken notes and worked with a few short stories, kind of practicing putting them into that format to get the hang of it. I actually want to talk to Augustus and Justin sometime. Justin has done a little directing, and Augustus took all of those classes a few years ago about filming and editing—who knows? But first, Phase Two.”

After one more hug, they resumed their remodeling, now with an even lighter attitude than before. Everything was working out according to plan.

**************7

On Monday around noon, Soren looked over her assignment sheets for the week, assessing the best order in which to do her stores. She was planning to start on them today, figuring that the best way to attack the work was to get it finished as close to the beginning of the week as possible. Also, if she got all of her assigned work finished, Duke had assured her that there was always extra work to be done closer to the end of the week. People getting sick, having car troubles, etc., always left him with a few stores to finish, and if her assigned tasks were completed, he would be happy to hand over the extra work.

Ordering her papers in a logical fashion, she closed the black leather binder she was using for the job and stared at the telephone. Technically, she was ready to leave for work if that was what she wanted to do. However, Duncan had promised to keep her posted on what happened at work that day, and she was quite curious. Perhaps she could just run out and do the three stores which were just a couple of miles away…

Then phone rang. It was Duncan. He was laughing.

“So, what’s up giggling boy?”

“I am sooo out of here. I tried three times to talk to Sarah and she blew me off every time. Finally I asked if I could make an appointment to sit down and talk to her since she seemed abnormally busy today. She looked at her calendar and penciled me in for eleven-thirty. As I was walking to her office for said meeting, she was coming out of it with her purse and a couple of the guys from Human Resources—they were on their way to lunch. She didn’t even seem to remember our appointment.”

“So, what are you going to do?”

“Well, as we speak I’m putting my few personal belongings into a box, and I’ve already written a short, sweet note and taped it to my computer screen.”

“What does it say?”

“It says ‘To Whom. I quit.’”

“That’s it?”

“That’s it. I can’t tell you how excited I am to be walking through those glass doors for the last time. It hasn’t really sunk in yet. I feel like the parole board just cut me loose when I had been expecting another few decades. I’ve been waiting for this day for almost eight years…”

“Isn’t that when you started working there?”

“Yes. The fantasies about leaving forever began about three hours into my employment. But now that it’s finally here, it almost doesn’t feel real. I’m afraid that I’ll get just past the fountain outside before the security guards start chasing me down. I had almost forgotten that I was allowed to just walk away any time I choose.”

He giggled maniacally again. “I am drunk with freedom. I’ll be home in a few minutes.”

Soren smiled and set down the receiver. She felt like a kite whose string has just been cut.

Less than five minutes later, it occurred to her that lunch from the Chinese place down the street from Stacis would be nice one last time. It had been their favorite place to go for lunch on those rare days when Duncan actually had time to take a lunch break, and one more helping of Szechuan Vegetables would be a nice celebratory meal. She dialed his office, hoping to catch him still packing.

“Hello. You have reached the former office of Duncan Conrad. Due to a ridiculous workload and months of unanswered requests for help, I am no longer an indentured servant of Stacis International. Any business should be forwarded to Sarah at extension two one six. I wish you poor suckers the best of luck.”

Soren smiled and set down the receiver once again. This called for streamers. Fuck work—she could do it tomorrow—that was the beauty of this job.

Hastily, she dug through a cabinet which they had designated “craft stuff, etc.” until she found a roll of bright yellow crepe paper left over from last year’s solstice party and proceeded to cut off lengths of it, tying it in bows around every perceivable surface. She also grabbed a stack of brightly colored scrap paper, suspending each piece along the length of a string, and wrote the words “Congratulations on Your Liberation” which she strung over the double-wide entry way between the dining and living rooms. Just as she was dropping the scotch tape back into the desk drawer, she heard Duncan’s convertible pull up outside.

Dashing upstairs, she quickly retrieved two jester’s hats from the top of a bookcase, donned the black and white one, and raced back down the steps to the sound of Duncan’s key in the lock. Hat in hand, she wondered vaguely if she should hide.

Too late. Duncan stepped through the door and looked around, a smile playing across his face.

“Well, you’ve been busy.” He grinned and kissed her, then allowed her to ceremoniously place the multi-colored jester’s crown atop his head. “So, did you just assume that I’d be quitting today? Or do you just work fast?”

“I just work fast. Two hundred and thirty-seven percent faster than the average employee according to Duke.”

He looked around, seeming a little confused. “Yellow ribbons?”

“Yeah,” she explained. “Like the song from the seventies.” He still looked confused. “Oh yeah—I forgot. You were listening to swing and big band music back then. It’s a song about a guy who’s getting out of prison…never mind. Let’s just say it means I love you and I’m glad you’re home.” She paused and sniffed the air. “Do I smell…?”

“Yes you do. I thought that we should have one last lunch from China Bistro as a way to celebrate. I stopped and picked up our usual order on my way out.”

He held up the brown paper bag which had previously been blocked from her view by his billowing black overcoat. “Do you want you fortune now or later?”

She hugged him again. “You’re just too fabulous. I actually tried to catch you when you were still at the office to ask you to pick up this very thing. Great minds and all that.” She giggled. “That was quite a message you left on your voice mail.”

“Yeah,” he smiled. “On one hand, I think that it might have been a bit snarky, but on the other hand, I’ve kept my cool for nearly eight years. It was one of those things that every employee of the company has had fantasies about doing, so I thought that one of us should go ahead and actually do it. I think it’s good for morale.”

They sat down to a feast of spicy vegetables, fried rice and spring rolls, munching away happily at their own dining room table without having to watch the clock for the time that Duncan had to be back at his desk. It was exhilarating.

Half way through one of his spring rolls, Duncan absently began leafing through the pile of papers on the dining room table.

“So,” he asked through a mouthful of Chinese food, “is this the work you have to do this week?”

Soren nodded, wiping a drip of duck sauce from her chin. “I had been debating going out to do this stack of stores today, but I was waiting around to see if you would call. I would have wondered what happened all day and probably wouldn’t have done a very good job of paying attention to what I was doing. Why do you ask?”

“On the phone the other day, Duke told me that if I wanted to go out and watch you work sometime so that I could actually see what the job entailed, to just keep track of my hours and he would count them toward my training. To fully demonstrate our intentions to the universe, I think that we should spend my first day of freedom moving forward with our plan. What do you think?”

“Sounds good to me,” she said, setting down her chopsticks and reaching for her fortune cookie. “We can leave whenever you’d like.”

“What’s you fortune say?”

Soren cracked open her cookie and unfolded the small slip of paper inside. “It says ‘Your latest endeavor will succeed beyond your wildest dreams.’ What does yours say?”

Duncan tore open the plastic wrapper then started laughing. “It says ‘Today is the beginning of a wonderful adventure.’” They both laughed as Soren went to retrieve the black machine from where it sat charging in an electrical outlet in the kitchen.

“I guess it’s decided—let’s hit the road.”

**************8

After paging Duke to let him know that Duncan was available to begin work immediately, they got their stuff together and went out to the first store. Soren ambiguously waived the black machine at whoever happened to be behind the counter and they would nod or otherwise indicate some similarly ambiguous consent. She explained to any of the workers which seemed to want more information that Duncan was in training and would be coming with her to the stores sometimes. At the third store, the lady behind the counter called her over.

“Yes?”

“So your boss isn’t with you today?”

“No. I’m more or less done with training.”

The lady shook her head. “Well thank god. I thought he was going to talk my ear off. And what is his hang-up about dolphins?”

Soren shrugged and smiled. “I hadn’t heard that one yet. I have no idea.”

Still shaking her head, the lady behind the counter wandered off and started to clean a milkshake machine. “I have no idea what that man is talking about half the time,” she muttered to herself.

Duncan raised his eyebrows as Soren shrugged. “He’s not the average bear,” she said as way of a reply.

Not looking up from the milkshake machine, the lady harrumphed. “You can say that again.”

Soren explained to Duncan the items that they were supposed to scan, concentrating in this store primarily on displays, and as she expected he caught on within minutes.

“That’s it?” he said incredulously as they were exiting the store less than fifteen minutes after arriving.

“That’s it.”

“And we can do this together?”

“That’s right.”

“Any time we want?”

“Yup.”

Duncan smiled broadly. “I can’t believe that I’ve spent so many years cooped up in an office. I mean, this is cake.”

“And,” she continued, “at least half the job is driving from place to place, which means lots of fun time in the car together. Of course we get paid mileage, which is non-taxable. If you add that money to the amount that this pays per hour…”

“…we end up making more money than I was at Stacis. Soren, you’re a genius.”

She shrugged. “Maybe…mostly I think it’s a matter of knowing what you want and not being afraid to ask for it. I had a pretty clear idea in my head of what kind of job I was looking for, and because it was so clearly defined, I recognized it when I saw it. I just knew that there had to be jobs like this out there somewhere.”

Duncan nodded. “I had no idea that the data collectors had such a cushy position. The suits have always had a nose in the air attitude about them, assuming too that they didn’t make very much money. Who knew?”

Laughing, Soren said “Well, if they let you white collar business types know how easily the other side was living, there wouldn’t be anyone left to sit behind a desk to process all of this data. So, you think you can handle it?”

They spent the rest of the afternoon zipping through stores, laughing, and generally having a great time. When they returned home shortly after dark, they could hear the beep beeping of the answering machine indicating that they had multiple messages.

“Dear god!” Soren exclaimed. “There are seventeen messages on here. There would probably be more, but the tape ran out.”

She hit play. The first message was from Duke, who must have called immediately after they had left. He wanted Duncan to call him back and let him know if he was available the following morning to begin training. Most of the rest were calls from Duncan’s former co-workers.

“Hi, Duncan. This is Sarah. Would you please call me as soon as you get in? Thanks.”

“Dude—you’re the man. Congratulations.”

“Ha ha ha! Way to walk. Good luck with everything!”

“Hey—this is Greg. I talked to the manager of Java Stop, and he said that if we put something together we could start the Thursday after next. I figure that we have enough songs already to do a couple of sets, so give me a call and let me know what you think. Later.”

“Duncan? This is Sarah. PLEASE call me as soon as you get in. I really need to talk to you.”

“Indentured servant? I am SO down with that. We’ll really miss you, but I’m glad that one of us got out. Keep in touch—we should go to lunch next week and you can tell me where you bought your balls.”

“You are sooo lucky! The whole company is calling your voice mail just to hear the message. It’s been blocking up the switchboard—everybody’s talking about it. You’ve always been our hero—good luck with everything!”

“This is Sarah. Call me NOW. Bye.”

Duncan stood there smiling while the messages played. “Geez,” he finally said looking a bit sheepish, “I didn’t really mean to cause such a stir. I didn’t expect anyone to figure out I was gone this quickly.” He shrugged. “Oh well. Guess I better call Duke then head down to the bar.”

That night, Soren spent several hours writing. Rather than force herself to write the screenplay, she decided that part of the point was to just get used to writing in general. There were so many ideas floating around in her head that it felt as though they had become congested. A visual image kept floating through her head of a giant funnel coming out from the crown of her head, twisting and pulling infinite ideas into her from the universe at large. So many thing, spinning and turning inside of her mind, but only that tiny opening at the end of the funnel through which the ideas had to flow to come into the world. When she felt the whole of it revolving through her, wanting, needing to be expressed, it was kind of overwhelming.

So, she wrote. She just sat at her computer and wrote and wrote and wrote. Not about anything in particular, not to anyone in particular—just letting the words flow out of her in whatever order they appeared to want to express themselves. It was a good exercise, one which left her feeling light and cleansed—the screenplay would write itself when the time was right.

At a much earlier hour than usual, she felt her mind relax after its exertion and was able to hear her body indicate that it would like to lie down. Drifting off into sleep, she felt more than saw the image of a squirrel bounding happily through space in the peripheral vision of her closed eyelids. Drifting into the world of sleep, she smiled.

**************9

Next morning, bright and early, Duncan arose with a smile. He was smiling because it was Tuesday. And unlike every Tuesday for the past nearly eight years, he wouldn’t be going into the office. Oh no, not today. Today he was going to explore the wild wacky world of convenience stores. And, while not being exactly the most picturesque location in the world, it was at least not a forty story high rise building filled with cubicles.

Who went to convenience stores in the middle of the day? Certainly not office workers, who were the only people he had been exposed to for most of the past nearly eight years. What kind of people were these? It was nice to know that many realities existed outside of the corporate towers.

It was one of the reasons he found Soren so refreshing. They were friends in their early twenties, both going through an experimental phase with corporate America. She had tried it, liked the money, but then got scared when she realized that the lifestyle was addictive. Watching her creativity and happiness slowly get sucked down the corporate drain, she ran like hell when she realized that she was starting to get used to the money, and worse yet, the convenience it was able to purchase. So she bailed.

Duncan had chosen differently. Making a very solemn promise to his aging father, he had vowed to become a “responsible citizen,” a person who could assure a parent that they would be all right financially and otherwise from then on. He fully believed that it was possible to see one’s employment as a means to an end, as a temporary condition while one was getting one’s artistic feet under them. The image of the starving artist is such a cliché because it is so often the case, but back then Duncan just didn’t believe that it had to be that way.

He still didn’t believe that it had to be that way, but he certainly began to understand a few years into the corporate trip that he was often surrounded by the antithesis of who be wanted and believed himself to be. He never really felt as though what he was doing was unethical, but rather that it was simply meaningless at best. Many people knew that he did some ambiguous task with math in a large office building, but whenever asked what exactly that was, he couldn’t help but dismiss their question. What he did, he would explain, was several layers removed from reality and really made no sense at all when one tried to explain it.

“So, there’s the girl who works behind the counter at the Milky Mart. Nice girl—named Susan, or Suzanne, or something. Anyway, she seems smart, and she’s relatively attractive… At any rate, I’ve been talking to her and she’s in this awful dead end relationship with this looser she’s supporting, trying to go to school and raise two kids from a previous marriage. They’re father is another looser who’s been out of the picture for a while now. But I just don’t get it—I mean, what are these attractive, intelligent women doing with this sleaze balls? We’ve been talking for a while, and I’m thinking of asking her out sometime, but I just don’t know…”

That’s the way the whole system was—each and every part of it existed in order to justify and support the rest of the system. Marketing, consumer data analysis, package design—it was all a giant racket designed to keep the American consumer is a state of sensory overloaded paralysis. The question was always “What kind of highly caffeinated artificially flavored sugar water does the consumer want?” and never “Does the consumer really want highly caffienated artificially flavored sugar water, or does he just buy that because that’s what we make available to sell to him and he’s already addicted to it ?” Any question as to the well-being of the consumer was, of course, never mentioned. No one in the business seemed to regard consumers as people—they were just the financial host for the parasite of consumption based capitalism.

“…so she tells me that the kids father is coming over on Friday night to ‘drop some stuff off’ and that she’s going to try to seduce him. Can you imagine? As if she hasn’t already gone through enough with this loser. But, she’s going to try her best to get knocked up again. I just don’t understand it. I mean, she seems like a very nice woman…”

Consume, consume, consume. How can we get them to consume more? How much are they willing to pay to consume this? If they consume this thing, what other thing are they now no longer consuming? How do we make the consumable product more convenient? I mean everybody wants more time, right? None of us has the time to do the things we love, right? Isn’t convenience wonderful? It gives you time, gives you back your life, gives you…

“..so I’m hanging out with these guys, these psycho-nauts for lack of a better word, and they’ve got this high grade windowpane acid. Each hit is segmented into four pieces, thus the name windowpane, and there’s a hit of acid in each quadrant. I was supposed to be the tour guide on this particular trip, but a few minutes after I’d stuck a hit in each one of my eyes, I knew I’d taken too much.”

A whole lot of sugar, fat, and chemical additives. But damn—you can eat it right out of the bag, so who can argue with that? They’ve got both kinds of sugar water— fermented and non-fermented. Oddly enough, the cheapest drink available, ounce for ounce in most convenience stores, is the bottom-shelf forty ounce bottle of malt liquor. Cheaper than water, cheaper than soda pop.

“…then tried to communicate to them that Duke would be leaving the building for a while, but it was already too late. I went to this plane of reality where everything was blue—just blue. I don’t know how long I was there, surrounded by blue, the entirety of my being a nice relaxing shade of blue. I kept waiting for the mother ship to swing by and pick me up—it wouldn’t have surprised me one bit—and of certainly I would have gone…”

Some would argue that there are a wide variety of fruit juices and sports drinks available these days as well. And what is the second ingredient listed for all of these categories of beverages? That’s right—sugar. But it says or implies right there on the label in big letters that the product is healthy, and the average consumer—always running late, never having enough time—has already heard the jingle on television six hundred and thirty-seven times is not going to take the time to read the rest of that label. And even if he does, what else is he going to chose? Sugar, sugar, sugar…

“…and then she says tells me that she just can’t get the studies done this week because her ex-husband has taken her car and the new boyfriend doesn’t have one. Get this—a few weeks ago she told me that they’d spent their last fifteen hundred dollars to buy a tanning bed—a tanning bed for chrissakes—but they didn’t have any room in the trailer to put it, so they put in the second bedroom and moved the three kids out into the dining room. Then her mother has some kind of problem that she’s always running around dealing with…”

Or, of course, artificial sweetener. On one hand sugar, on the other hand a chemical compound which builds up and collects residue rather quickly in the brain AND tastes like crap. But if you’re worried about the calories…

“…and I’ve tried to tell them that if the Market Supervisors don’t have any control in the company, who does? We’re the ones who are actually supposed to be supervising what’s going on in the field, and if we’re not doing our jobs, then how can we know that this data means anything? There are going to be a lot of changes in the company, and I don’t know what some of these people are going to do. I mean, the clients are starting to wise up and figure out that they’re not getting pure data…”

The only choice left is unsweetened tea or water, and if you’re trying to avoid caffeine too, well, looks that it’s ‘ole aqua vita for you. Sure, you could go into the bathroom of the very same convenience store and fill up your own plastic sports bottle with tap water and you’d have pretty much the same product, but it just seems so much more…American to buy the brand new bottle with the unbroken seal and expensive label. The label says “spring” which implies “pure” because that’s what the marketing has been telling us for years.

“…so she tells me that she wants these other two stores way out in the middle of nowhere. I’m like—lady—you’re not getting the stores done that you do have, so what makes you think I’m going to give you more of them? These people…”

Oh, but the caffeine is good for you—studies show that it increases productivity, and you know what that means—increased productivity means increased output. Increased output means increased capital. Increased capital means increased buying power. Increased buying power means an increased ability to consume. So what’s our lesson for today boys and girls? Caffeine is good for the economy. Don’t forget to consume!

“…I don’t think he’s actually been in that store for the past five years. I had to go in and do the count while he was on vacation, and there were all kinds of new items which hadn’t been added. Sure, some of those things could have been new since the last time he was there, but not all fifty-seven of them. Who does he think he’s kidding?”

Duncan wore a relaxed and beatific smile throughout the day while Duke talked to him, alternately about the job and other random interests that he had. Duncan observed the external physical phenomena, stayed present with the work, and breathed in rhythm with the beeping of his ScanWand. He hadn’t been this relaxed at work in over…no, never had he been this relaxed at work. Now that he had walked through the dessert of corporate work, he could more deeply appreciate the verdant meadows.

“I think that the supervisors should have larger wands on their machines than the rest of the underlings, sort of a way to indicate rank, don’t you think? “Prprprprprgh. Well, time to go have a man smoke.”

Duncan watch as Duke went outside in the cold billowy air and tried desperately to light a cigarette in the wind, all the time his hair flapping in the breeze above his forehead. He was a truly unique individual—not something Duncan had had much exposure to for the past many years. He smiled and continued counting.

Duke had decided to start his training in one of the large audit stores where they counted almost everything except alcoholic beverages. All the chips, pop, snacks, water, juice, shelf stable milk, pickled pork products, nutritional supplements, cookies, ice cream, candy, you name it. Soren had told Duke, that if it was all the same to him, she would prefer to have a bunch of the smaller stores than do a few large stores. She preferred to spend her days in and out quickly from one store to the next for it limited the amount of interaction she was forced to have with the general public.

“’Scuse me, mister.” A large man with a flannel shirt and work boots stood looming over Duncan, a twenty ounce Mt. Everest Fog in one large callused hand, a two liter of the same soda in the other. “Now why is it that I have to pay a buck twenty-nine for twenty ounces of this pop, but only ninety-nine cents for five times as much of the same pop?” He glowered down at Duncan.

“I don’t work here,” replied Duncan, turning back to continue counting the pork rinds on the opposite side of the aisle from the coolers. He glanced over at the man, who was still standing there. “You could just buy the two liter,” he suggested. The man didn’t move. “You’re being charged an extra thirty cents for convenience.”

The man looked at Duncan as though he had just suggested licking the mud off of his own boot and stalked away, still grasping both products. He vaguely heard a mild ruckus when the man approached the counter still demanding an explanation from someone, anyone, for this truly illogical actuality. Duke, coming back in from the cold, nearly ran into the large pile of angry flannel as the man pushed through both of the glass convenience store doors, grumbling under his breath as he unscrewed the cap of the twenty ounce green plastic bottle.

“I got a page while I was out there from my problem child.” He chuckled. “Seems as though she finally got around to looking at her store assignments for the week and has suddenly noticed that there aren’t nearly as many stores as she’s been used to seeing. He he he… She claims that I’ll never find anyone who can do her job as well as she can, no one who would be nearly as fast. Boy, what she doesn’t know…”

Duke stopped and looked around. “So, are you bored yet?”

Duncan shook his head and continued to count.

“These monthly stores usually take eight or nine hours to count, so I figure with both of us here we should be able to knock it out pretty quickly. When you’re done with the chips and stuff, you can move on to candy while I do the cooler.”

“I already did the candy—and the cooler. Though I haven’t done the back room yet.”

“Euugh? Really… Well, all right. At this rate, we should have this done in record time. Maybe we’ll have time to go over to the Dairy Barn afterward and I can show you how to do beer. The manager there…well, let’s just say she has ‘behavioral problems.’ Frankly, I hate to go in there—that woman is a badger.” He threw up his hands and laughed. “Proceed.”

Duncan finished counting the chips and then went into the back room, pulling on his jacket before entering the cooler to count the back stock. Soda had always amazed him—two point five servings for every twenty ounce bottle, twenty-eight grams of sugar for each serving. That was the equivalent of putting sixteen teaspoons of sugar in every twenty ounce bottle, an amount no sane person would ever voluntarily choose. He tried to imagine someone putting that much sugar into a glass of iced tea.

Frankly, it was surprising that any American still had teeth in their head, not to mention the unnecessary and completely empty calories that were being consumed. But there it was—stocked wall to wall in the convenience stores. And in a culture where everyone is always running from one place to the next, from one thing to the next, convenience was believed to be a necessity. It didn’t have to be unhealthy, but unfortunately, that was the reality.

He also learned very quickly that one is liable to see some odd things from behind cooler doors in convenience stores. Occasionally, one of the doors would open from the front as a customer made a selection from the choices of beer, pop, bottled water, or juice. Usually they knew exactly what they wanted before they opened the door, so the whole exchange was quick and easy.

Some customers, however, had very unique methods for choosing their beverage. While Duncan was scanning a flat of Burpsi Cola, he realized nonchalantly that one of the cooler doors had been standing open for quite some time. He looked up to see a man in a well-cut suit standing in front of the three rows of identical red Perka Cola labels, looking surreptitiously this way and that. After ascertaining that no one was looking, he began to sniff each bottle along the front facings. Not finding the one agreeable to his olfactory sense among the ones closest to the front, he began sniffing the next row. Finally, he sniffed out the right bottle, identical to all the others to any other customer, smiled, and pulled it out from the second line in the third row.

Hmm. That was different, Duncan mused. He fought the urge to sniff for himself, to find out if there really was anything to that method. But even if he could pick up some kind of differentiation of scent from the mass-produced plastic bottles, how would he know when he’d found the “right” scent? What exactly had that man been sniffing for? Perhaps he should go ask…

A few minutes later, the heavily insulated main cooler door opened from the back room, and the manager stepped inside and sat down on an overturned milk crate. Duncan continued to scan the orange juice containers in front of him, not certain at all if the manager was aware of his presence. Five minutes later, she let out a startled sound.

“Ohmygawd,” she gasped. “You scared me half to death. I didn’t see you over there.” Knowing that he must have been in the cooler before she entered, she suddenly seemed to feel a little foolish and changed the subject.

“That man just drives me crazy,” she explained. “I came back here to hide. How can you stand to work with him? Doesn’t he drive you nuts?”

Duncan shrugged his shoulders. “Not really. He’s a different bird, all right, but he’s an all right guy.”

“Well, he sure loves to talk,” she said in a exasperated manner. “I have no idea what he’s talking about most of the time, and I certainly don’t want to ask. He just goes on and on forever, and I don’t know what he wants.”

Duncan shrugged again. “I don’t think that he wants anything—I think that he just doesn’t get much human contact outside of work hours. He’s new in town, you know.”

“No, he didn’t mention that.” Her attitude seemed to soften a little. “It must be hard—I’ve lived here my whole life. I can’t imagine trying to make new friends, start a new life…” She trailed off into reverie. “Still, he drives me crazy. If it’s all the same to you, I’m just going to stay back here.”

Duncan said nothing and continued to scan in the relative silence of the refrigeration fans.

“So are you going to be doing this store from now on?” the manager asked, striking up another conversation.

“I don’t know for sure yet, but I think so.”

“Well good,” she said with a hint of satisfaction in her voice. “I don’t mind you coming in at all, but he’s going to drive me crazy if I have to deal with him once a month.”

Duncan smiled. “All done,” he said, waiving his machine vaguely at her as he stepped past. “Try to stay warm.” He went back into the stockroom where Duke was looking around confusedly. He looked up at Duncan.

“Did you see a big stack of Crockadilade?” he asked with consternation. “I could have sworn that I saw at least twenty flats of the stuff when I came back here earlier, but I don’t see any now.”

Duncan shook his head. “I didn’t see any. There are two cases of it in the cooler, but that’s all I’ve seen.”

“Huh.” Duke continued to stare off into space, then finally shrugged his shoulders. “Oh well. I did the stuff back here, and I was just about to come in and help you with the cooler.”

“I’m done.”

“Oh. Well. All right then.” He considered for a moment. “This is one of the stores where we can copy the invoices and take them home to enter, which is nice. I mean, when you’re doing most of the stock for an entire store, the invoicing itself can take longer than it does to count. With some of the stores, they’re paranoid about any information like that being taken through the doors, but most places are just as happy to not have you looming around the office. There’s a copy machine out front—let’s get these things copied, then we can head over to Dairy Barn and you can meet the badger.” He considered for a moment. “Then, if you’re not too worn out, we can go back to my place and I can show you how to enter the invoices, but we’ll see.”

Duncan followed Duke into the office and watched while his boss dug though file after file of invoices pulling some out and making harrumphing noises over others. When he had a stack about six inches thick, he motioned Duncan to follow him to the pay copier at the front of the store. He handed the stack to Duncan, then walked up to the counter, pulling a five dollar bill out of his wallet.

“Can I get change for this?” he asked the girl behind the counter. “And where did the manger go?”

“Sure,” she said opening the counter and glancing around the store. “She’s, uh, doing paperwork.”

“Funny,” mused Duke, “I didn’t see her back there. Oh—I need the change in dimes. Can I get a receipt for that?”

The clerk looked briefly shocked, but started counting out the dimes nevertheless. Duncan looked away and grinned—Duke sure had a way with people.

Luckily, Duke’s pager went off again, so he handed over the bulky handful of dimes and disappeared outside to the pay phone to make a call, leaving Duncan in relative peace to make the copies. He carefully initialed each invoice with “BCW” and the date so that he would know which invoices he had already used for this audit to avoid confusion next month. The process took about twenty minutes, though Duke had not yet returned.

Duncan took the invoices back into the office, found their original folders, and refiled them in chronological order. Still, Duke hadn’t returned. Taking his stack of copies, he went outside to see what was going on.

Duke was on the pay phone gesticulating wildly.

“I told Todd that this was going to happen, but did he listen? Oh hell—what are we going to do now? Those cosmetic studies take FOREVER. I’ve got a couple of new people who are really good, but even so, that’s almost too much work to get done in one cycle. Especially with that group of employees I inherited who are still causing problems.” There was a long pause. “Uh huh. Well, I’ll see what I can do, but no guarantees. Yeah, I know the client is paying a mint for this stuff—as well they should be. These things are a bear. Oh well. Talk to you later.”

Duke turned to see Duncan standing there, the large pile of papers rubber banded together in his hands. Duke sighed deeply.
“So, how much work do you think that you and Soren are ready to take on?”

Duncan shrugged. He was used to working between fifty and sixty hours a week without getting paid overtime, and that wasn’t counting the bar. “We can probably handle a good deal, why?”

“You see, there’s this study that the company usually does once a year, but for some reason, the client wants us to do it again. It’s only been three months since the last one, but they’re willing to pay for it. The problem is, this wasn’t a scheduled study, and we just don’t have the man power to pull it off. Or at least I don’t think we do. However,” he smiled slyly, “you and Soren might just be able to get me out of this mess. If you’re willing.”

“Of course,” he continued quickly, “there’d be a few benefits. For starters, you could do the stores together and ride together, but since it’s a special favor, I’d recommend that you both count the mileage. Usually if you ride together, only one of you would be able to collect the money for mileage, but for special occasions such as this, both of you can. This study is a bitch—it takes forever—but you could pull in quite a bit of extra cash. It would really help me out.”

“All right—no problem. As long as we’re able to do it during the hours that work the best for us.”

Duke waived through the cold air. “Not a problem at all. Some of these stores are open twenty-four hours a day. I don’t care if you do it at four in the morning, four in the afternoon, or whatever. Just as long as they get done.” He chuckled to himself. “I have no idea what most of these market supervisors are going to do with this. Really, I’m in a pretty good position comparatively. At least I have two good people in my district, which is more than I can say for most of them.” He pulled a pack of cigarettes out of his shirt pocket, tapped one out, and lit up. “Aaahhh…time for a man smoke.”

They stood in silence, the frigid wind whipping around them, causing the dead leaves and various pieces of parking lot trash to dance and swirl in the breeze.

“So,” Duke said, snapping out of his head, “you ready to meet the badger?”

“I suppose.”

“Boy, you’re gonna love her. She’s a real treat, let me tell you. I have no idea what’s wrong with that woman.” He exhaled a cloud of smoke. “She knows I know her boss, so I think that intimidates her. She’s on some kind of power trip with me, always name dropping and insinuating that her good grace is the only thing keeping me in the store. Of course, that’s bullshit. We’re authorized to be in these stores by the high ups who certainly don’t want the corporation to lose that big fat check we send them every month. Really, she’s the one who ought to watch it.” Duke looked at Duncan with conspiracy in his eyes. “I think there’s something going on in that store, something seedy and underhanded that she knows about. I think she’s probably got something to hide and that’s why she’s such a badger.”

He exhaled another cloud of smoke then stomped out his butt on the sidewalk and started chuckling. “Either that, or she hasn’t been laid in a long time. And with a disposition like that, I wouldn’t doubt it. I mean, who could get in bed with all those claws and teeth gnashing at them? She really is a badger. Kind of looks like a badger, too.” Pulling out his keys and heading for his Oldsmobile, out of the shop this week and running fine, he glanced at Duncan. “Ready to go?”

They drove the short distance to Dairy Barn, all the while Duke telling anecdotes about the badger. Walking into the store, Duncan immediately saw and was struck by the presence of what was, ostensibly, the badger. According to the name badge, her name was Beverly. She was a big woman—nearly six feet tall—and looked as though she could easily pick up a steel beam and swing it around her head. Her face was pleasant enough, that is until she looked up when the bells on the door rang and saw Duke. Then her face changed dramatically as she went into badger mode.

“What are you doing here?” she asked, obvious displeasure in her voice. “Weren’t you just here yesterday? It certainly couldn’t have been a week already.”

Duke smile with pleasant sarcasm at her. “Oh, it’s been a week. Did you miss me?”

“No,” she said bluntly as she returned her attention to the National Snoop that she was perusing. “Not one bit.” She glanced back up. “Who’s your friend?”

“This,” said Duke proudly, “is my newest employee. I’m training him today and decided that I wanted to personally introduce him to you.”

“Thanks. I’m honored,” she said dryly. However, as she looked down at Duncan, her expression changed to one full of warmth. “Hi, I’m Beverly. You need anything at all, just ask.” Looking back at Duke with animosity she asked “So does this mean that I won’t have to see your smiling face every week anymore?”

“Oh, not just yet. Maybe, eventually.”

“Too bad. Now don’t you have work to do? Or are you just going to stand up here at the counter all day and waste my time?”

Duke chuckled. “No, we’ve got work to do, I suppose. We’ll be in back.”

“Good,” she huffed, turning a page of the colored news print.

“See what I mean?” Duke asked under his breath as they were going into the back room. “She’s a badger. Don’t know what gets into women like that. Anyway…there’s a lot of beer here for a small store, so we better get to it if we want to have time to tackle those invoices.”

Sure enough, there was a huge shelving unit in the cooler full of beer in back stock. The cooler must have been at least thirty feet long, the only light coming from a single bare bulb which periodically blinked in its socket. After a few minutes of scanning in silence,

Duke said, “I think it’s time for another man smoke. I’ll be back.”

Duncan continued to scan the beer, but now that he was alone, he found a new way to entertain himself. He had been a singer for most of his life and had studied many techniques for training the human voice. However, just a couple of years previous, he had come across some things which were never taught in any of the Western vocal styles.

Driving in his car one day, he heard what he later found out were Tuvan throat singers, and he was amazed. There was a technique of pushing air through the throat which caused several notes to be formed at one time, a low droning tone with a higher melodic fluting tone above it. He had been working ever since then to train his voice to do this new trick, practicing whenever he could. The cooler, with its already droning refrigeration units and fans, was the perfect environment for this pursuit. Happily humming along with the machinery, he scanned at an even faster rate now, experiencing the slight euphoria which always accompanied this type of singing. To anyone who wasn’t standing right in front of him, the sound seemed to be just another mechanical hum, though with a slight variation.

Once, the cooler door opened from the front, and the customer stood there listening for a moment trying to figure out if he was hallucinating before grabbing his forty ounce beer and heading toward the checkout. Duncan could see Duke through the glass doors of the cooler talking to Beverly at the counter. From her body language, he could tell that she wasn’t pleased. Duncan laughed and shook his head—Duke just didn’t give up.

At one point, a customer wearing a knit cap was holding the cooler door open and fishing his arm around on the shelf, reaching behind one of the rows of six pack bottles of beer searching for a something. Duncan heard him call to his friend “Hey, I don’t see any Shrubb Lite six packs. You want something else?” Duncan just happened to be scanning a shelf of Shrubb Lite on the back stock shelves, so he slid one forward toward the arm which was still resting in the empty slot on the cooler shelf.

The man, still turned toward his friend, jumped as the six pack suddenly touched his fingertips. “Geezus,” he exclaimed, now seeing Duncan behind the shelves of beer. “You ‘bout made me wet my pants. Why you gotta go scarin’ people like that?” He smiled and grabbed the six pack. “But thanks, man.”

“No problem,” Duncan returned as the customer closed the glass door with a whoosh.

Shortly, the back stock was counted, and Duncan moved on to the shelf inventory. Mostly to avoid whatever drama was transpiring out front with the badger, he decided to count it from the back. It was a lot easier—he didn’t have to deal with the doors insistence that they should automatically shut and he could continue to sing to himself without drawing undue attention from customers. Not a bad way to spend a Tuesday afternoon.

When he was finished with the count, he wandered into the back office and found a folder with beer invoices in it. Since Soren had already demonstrated to him how to enter these, he went ahead and started pushing buttons. Nope, not too bad at all.

Finished with his tasks, he pushed through the swinging doors and walked toward the counter where Duke was still conversing with Beverly. He saw Duncan and gestured toward him.

“Now he’s a smart man,” Duke said. “So what do you think? Are the stories in these rags real, or do people make them up?”

“Um,” replied Duncan, not really wanting to get involved, “I’ve never read one so I really couldn’t say.”

“See,” answered Duke definitively. “Every intelligent person knows that they’re just made up.”

“I didn’t say they were all real,” retorted Beverly. “They’re just what we have and I’m bored. Besides, I just read it for the horoscope.”

“So, what’s your sign?” Duke asked inquisitively. “Taurus? You seem kind of bull headed to me.”

She glared at him. “I’m not telling you.”

“What’s your horoscope say that’s so interesting, anyway?” Duke asked.

She glared even harder. “It says that I will find love in a very unlikely place.” Looking around her she said with disgust “Well, this is about an unlikely a place as I can imagine. This is NOT what I expected to spend my life doing.”

“So what did you expect?” Duke asked, as Duncan continued pushing buttons to check over the data. “A penthouse in New York? Diamonds and champagne?”

“No,” she said nastily, shaking her head at him, “but I didn’t get a degree in anthropology just to waste my days standing around in a convenience store talking to the likes of you. Now go on and get out of here in case my dream man shows up and sees me talking to you.”

Duke laughed and moved toward the door, Duncan following behind still pushing buttons on the ScanWand. “See you next week,” he called over his shoulder.

“Exactly when are you coming back?” asked Beverly. “I think I’ll schedule myself off that day.”
Still chuckling under his breath as he unlocked the car, he called over to Duncan. “So what do you think? Was I right? She’s a badger, isn’t she.”

Duncan shrugged. “She’s all right. She just hates her job.”

Duke seemed to consider this as they were driving. “Do you really think she has a degree in anthropology?”

“I don’t see why she’d make that up.”

“Hmm…” Duke seemed lost in thought. “Ok, so, I guess we’re off to my house so I can show you how to do the invoices for the big stores. See, unlike the beer stores, a lot of the grocery bills don’t have UPC numbers on them, so you have to hunt and peck through all the items in the store. It’s a bitch, let me tell you. And none of the invoices are in any particular order, meaning that the store may have bought seven different kinds of the same brand, and they’ll be scattered in seven different places on the invoice. The only way to do it is with a lot of patience—that’s just the way it is.”

Eventually, they pulled up in front of a large two-story house at the end of a cul-de-sac in a relatively expensive sub-division. Duncan was certain that this had to be Duke’s house—on the flag pole flew a banner of the Jolly Roger. They bumped up into the driveway as

Duke reached up to his sun visor to push the button on the garage door opener. The large double door opened revealing inside a vast array of mechanical parts of all kinds, some on shelves, some lying around in no particular order. Duncan also got to see ‘Ole Bessy for the first time, her gold trimmed electric blue fins jutting out from under a dirty shop rag.

“I try to do most of the work on the cars myself,” Duke explained, “especially ‘Ole Bessy. It would just feel…wrong to let another man touch her with his dirty hands. I’m possessive like that.” He got out of the driver’s side and opened a door into the rest of the house. “Do you want anything to drink? I’ve got beer, soda, diet soda, gin, root beer, whatever.”

“I’ll just have a glass of water.”

“Water?” Duke returned incredulously. “All right—suit yourself. Make yourself at home…”

Duncan wandered into the hallway and looked around. The house was large, but almost completely empty. There was a good sized formal dining room and living room at the front of the house which looked completely devoid of any object whatsoever. Duke seemed to confine his living space to the eat-in kitchen and the den right off of it. In these two rooms, nearly every available surface was covered in paper in no discernable order. Duke approached him and handed him a glass filled with clear liquid.

“There ya go. Aqua. Sure that’s all you want?”

Duncan nodded.

“So,” said Duke, “Let’s get started. I’ll just clear a space here on the table…”

Amongst the stack of papers, stood an arcane looking machine. In the background out across the back yard, Duncan could see two small neighbor children playing on a swing set. Duke held up the machine proudly.

“Do you know what this is?” he beamed. Duncan shook his head. “It’s a whippet machine. You just pop the canisters in here like so…” he pulled open a latch, “then take a great big puff off of this tube. Want to try it?”

“No thank you,” answered Duncan.

“Hmm. I would figure you artist types would be into this kind of thing. Doesn’t matter anyway—I bought a case last Friday—figured it would last me through the weekend, but they were all used up by Saturday morning. I make a lot of whipped cream, you know…” Duke waggled his eyebrows. “At least that’s what I tell them at the home goods place where I get the canisters. I look respectable enough—I think they buy it.”

Duncan doubted it but said nothing.

“So, I’ll just go put some music on, and we’ll get down to work.” Duke disappeared around a pile of papers into another room while

Duncan rearranged the detritus on the kitchen table to sit down to work. Turning on the ScanWand and perusing the first invoice, Duncan suddenly felt his body go into momentary and involuntary shock, assaulted suddenly by the deafening sound of loud guitars. Hoping that the volume level was accidental and that it would be turned down quickly, he held his hands over his ears. The volume didn’t change.

Duke returned and shouted over the music. “I just love Yes—They’re my favorite band. You like Yes, don’t you?”

Duncan shrugged and screamed back. “I’ve haven’t heard much of their music.”

“And you call yourself a musician? I love ‘em. I saw them in San Francisco in the seventies—what a great show. What I remember of it anyway… Say, I’m going to have a beer—you want one?”

Duncan shook his head.

Duke went to the fridge and grabbed a shiny gold can. “I just love Heifferschlizt—it’s my favorite. Yes, sweetheart…Daddy’s home,” he crooned to the buxom blond German girl on the can. “Sure you don’t want one?” he asked again.

Duncan pretended not to hear him, a likely story considering the decibel level of the music. Glancing at the grocery bills, Duncan understood what Duke meant when he said that they were in no discernable order. This was going to take a while.

A few hours later, Duncan was still pecking away at the machine when he noticed that it was starting to get dark. He still had a few hours until he had to be down at the bar, but he was getting hungry. Duke was dancing around the room to the fourth Yes album he had put on the stereo. Duncan called loudly over the music.

“I think I’m going to call it a day. Can I use your phone to give Soren a call?”

“Huh?” yelled Duke absently, as if having forgotten that Duncan was still sitting at the table. “Wha…? Oh, sure. Let me turn down the music so that she doesn’t think we’re having some wild party.”

Silence was never so welcome to Duncan’s ears. Duke returned with a cordless telephone in one hand, already dialing.

“I’ll call her, let her know you’re on your way.” He held the phone up to his ear and waited. “Yeah, Soren? Hey—this is Duke. Just calling to let you know your hubby is on his way home. Yeah. He’s been grinding away like a wild animal on these invoices. Uh huh. He’ll also be bringing home some studies that the two of you can do together. Yeah. All right—I’ll tell him.”

He turned toward Duncan. “She asked if you would pick up some coconut milk on the way home—she’s making Sog Panties, whatever that is.”

“Saag Paneer,” Duncan supplied. “It’s an Indian dish with spinach. I’m not quite done with these—should I take them along?”

“Sure, sure,” he replied, picking up his keys to take Duncan back to where they’d left his car parked. “There’s no hurry really. We just did the count today, and the monthly stores aren’t technically due until the last week of the cycle, which is still nearly three weeks away. But go ahead and take them. I don’t care if you finish them, or Soren can do it if she wants. I’ve already ordered a lap top for the two of you so that you can transfer files from one ScanWand to the other. It should be delivered to you house in a few days. So, did you have any questions?”

Duncan shook his head. “Not really. But I see what you mean—this does take a while.”

“Yeah,” nodded Duke in agreement, “it’s tedious work. It’s my least favorite part of the job, but it has to get done. You did great today, by the way. I think this is all going to work out very, very well for all parties involved.”

“Me too,” assented Duncan. “So what’s on the plate for tomorrow?”

“I thought maybe we’d go do another one of these big monthly scans at the Dedino Plus in Oakburrough. Then maybe for the rest of the week, you and Soren can work together on that study I was telling you about. You game?”

“Certainly. What time should I meet you there?”

“Oh, I don’t know…say, maybe tenish? Sound good to you?”

“Just fine.”

2002-11-04T19:54:00.000-08:00

FORWARD

This is now.

Perhaps it’s time to make a novel novel—it can be whatever I want, right? There are just too many things going on to make up my mind all about one thing. On one hand I want to do this…on the other hand I want to do this…and I have a whole lot of hands. So, I’m just going to do whatever happens.

I was inspired today by this:

----- Original Message -----
From:
To:
Sent: Thursday, October 31, 2002 9:33 PM
Subject: NaNoWriMo 2002 :: So it begins
 Dear Novelist,

> In November, your story will achieve an at-times frightening force and velocity. Go with it. Write wildly, joyfully, in huge and bounding strokes. Was that last page the worst thing you've ever written? Maybe. Does it matter? Nope. All words are good words in NaNoWriMo. Follow tangents. Change directions at will. Stay loose. Make messes. Laugh at it all. You are doing something weird and wonderful here…
------------------

I have taken this message to heart. This will be whatever it is.

******************1
INTRODUCTION

Witness our heroine, sitting on the computer now, at four oh seven in yon morning, typing without direction into the unknown horizon. Where will this adventure take her? It’s impossible to say…

So many realities to create, so little time to do so in this particular continuum… But wait!—there is time. Time is now and that is the only time that time ever is. As long as the fingers dance they tap out something.

I have let the world get to me. Everyday it sits heavy upon my shoulders. Heavy as starvation, heavy as war, heavy as mass destruction. Heavy, heavy, heavy. This is the way that the world distracts me. It distracts everyone—this is just the way that distraction interfaces with my particular design. Every word I weigh—is this exactly the right word? Or this one? What if a word I choose could change the world, could make it a better more happy place for everyone to live? What if a word I choose could change the world, could make it a suckier more terrible place for everyone to live?

Silenced and crushed between the paradox I sit sometimes, waiting to speak until I have it all figured out. But that’s going to take a while, no matter how diligent I am in my pursuit. So for now I’m just going to have to be Ok with knowing enough to get started. Besides—so much of what I believe is that people can, do, must change grow and develop as they go along. An olympic grade piano player didn’t start that way and would never have gotten to carnegie hall if he/she had been afraid to play the first note for fear that it might drive someone listening to suicide or fascism.

I’ve just seen what the monkeys do with words sometimes and it’s kind of scary. They forget that they are just words, just representations of ideas, pictures of reality, and not reality itself. The words become the All Important Meaning and some forget to look past the words at the thing to which they point. I know how words can be interpreted, mistranslated, twisted into meanings to mean whatever the one seeking meaning needs them to mean. I’ve seen words slung and hurled like slingshot acorns at unsuspecting targets, hung and dried by their feet until their meanings evaporate into rigid pages.

Words are thoughts captured and pinned to paper, butterflies caught and collected mid-flight. Perhaps they were going someplace else. Perhaps if I hadn’t pinned them down at that precise moment they would have gone flying off into the wild blue yonder with me in tow to watch and observe their movement. Who am I with my intellectual net to set them down in this reality in a static state, a permanent slice of an idea glued to a slide to be examined under the scope? They were, I am sure, perfectly happy to be wandering freely in their natural state without me chasing them with my net of words.

But luckily they do fly on. They hold still just long enough for me to sketch down the rough shape of their iridescent wings before they fly off to the beyond as I follow along taking notes as fast as I can. Do I want to live my life or do I want to document it? Yes.

I supposed that before I drag you, whoever you are, into this madness, I should tell you a little bit about myself. I am not insane. I think that we should get that out of the way right off the bat, because if I mentioned this later you might not believe me. However, it’s true—I’m perfectly sane. I suppose that really hinges on one’s definition of “sane” since it is such a subjective term, but by most societal standards I am indeed sane. Don’t know why, really, it’s such an issue to me to convince you of this—perhaps I am more speaking to myself…though aren’t we all, really? I live in this world just fine…well, I guess that also depends upon how one defines “fine.” Hmm…I’m not really certain that there is anything that I can say now or in the future which will convince you of this fact, if fact indeed it is, so I suppose there is really no use trying.

How about this—I am at least as sane as you are.

There—I can rest easy with this assertion. Whether you judge me sane or not now or later is really a matter of how much you project your own sanity or insanity upon me since you are not me and can’t really know what it means to actually be in my head. You only know your own head and it is the filter through which all of this information will stream. You may think that you yourself are sane or insane—though no matter. One need not necessarily be sane in order to continue reading, though I wouldn’t recommend operating any unduly heavy equipment until you are a bit more sure of yourself. If you feel the sudden onset of schizophrenia, I would suggest sitting down for a bit in a comfortable chair, taking a few deep breaths, and for heavens sake don’t do anything that the box of raisons tells you to do without first getting a second opinion from someone who can’t hear them talking.

There—that should cover any legal liabilities which might arise. It’s is best at the onset, I feel, to cover one’s ass. Especially in this day of high litigiousness.

Do you ever wonder if there are people out there who actually make their living suing people? (Other than lawyers, that is.) Sending their kids out to roll down the neighbor’s driveway, hoping that they break an arm on another’s property… slamming on the breaks in heavy traffic just praying to be rear-ended so that they can buy that ski boat they’ve been eyeing… doing horrible things to themselves with forceps in post-op when the nurses aren’t looking…

I always like to hope that these concerns of mine are just the product of active imagination and the knowledge that anything that can happen will at some point or another in this great big infinity, though when I crawl out of my rabbit hole and look around I usually see some pretty bizarre things out there in the world. I’d like to say ‘I just don’t get it’ but I can’t because I usually do if I can bear to think about it long enough. Sure, sometimes I would just like to throw up my hands and say “monkeys—can’t live with ‘em, can’t live without ‘em because they’re all over the gawddamm place’, but I know deep down that this attitude is always a copout. They’re really doing the best that they can—I mean hey—they are monkeys and all.

What gives me the liberty to make such accusations? Well, for one, I myself am a monkey. I speak of me when I speak of you, and I speak of neither of us at the same time. We are all each of us, but we are also all each other as well. What the monkeys do is the collected works of what each individual monkey does, and what one monkey does it does as all monkeys. There is a monkey on my back and it is me.

Where did it all start? Well, that is impossible to say. Part of me wants to go all the back to the beginning, to the spaces of non-physical realities in which parts of the consciousness floats, back to a place beyond form, a time before time when there was no matter which needed to spin through it. Another part of me wants to skip ahead, to the place where this slow moving and three dimensionally binding reality no longer really exists, a time of freedom much like the time before.

But then, here, in this time and place there is another story. One which to me is flat, solid, and so slowly but ever constantly changing. In this place events happen differently than they do in the bigger picture. Here things progress in a linear fashion, one event after another like pearls on a string. I do not, in any real sense, actually experience reality in this fashion, though I have been conditioned and socialized enough by others to be able to see this order through their collective eyes and report back to them on it in such a manner as will make sense to them. I know that this is my mission, though it seems so slow and dull to me sometimes. Following time one bit after another rather than just reaching into the big pile of time that I actually see in order to pull out the pieces I want to show you. But that is for later… For now, if I want to get past the slow moving reality around me, it is the very thing which I must examine.

Oh things here work in such strange and wonderful ways… Not wonderful as in necessarily “good” but wonderful in the sense that they inspire a sense of wonder, sometimes twinged with awe that it could all be so unnecessarily complicated.

Consensual reality…oh how I miss the times and places where one needs no consent in order to order reality. But alas…if I don’t write my way there it may never be found.

So for here, for now, I will tell you how this one thing began and in the beginning of one thing we may discover the beginning of all things. But here is one thing, an arbitrary thing really in the big picture, but a thing nonetheless. Neither you nor I are entirely certain where we are going nor where we will end up, but happily for my sake, I'm the one driving.

*****************2

There was a day. An afternoon to be exact. In Autumn. Today, perhaps. There was a notebook, and in the beginning were the words

This is the autumn of our discontent when richard hides behind the swahili fearing the blowing winds of misfortune made hideous by this son of a bush. The ivory towers have all been creshed and fallen; artists run mad through dead leaves, distraught by the eclipse and that which looms over. For centuries past all expressing the giant now teetertottering haphazardly overhead, huge boots gnashing as it stomps its death dance. Could it be? Could it be really that the giant may finally truly fall? What then would there be left to be? What malevolent invisibility to shout about from towers to townspeople below?

It is too much—the world is just too much to bear and yet it’s born anyway. The giant’s crushing you! He’s eating you alive! But still townspeople jockey for position to be first into the slaughterhouse. Oh yes—just tell me what to do to better serve you as food, my great white corporate father. Wealth is the new heaven—someday even YOU could get there too if you try real hard to be the best, be the first, be the first one in line to hand over your life soul time mind freedom sentience bliss to the all consuming giant. The giant over time has become a highly efficient fully automated data entry assembly line invisibility embedded into everything we think. The giant has become so big that most have forgotten that the giant isn’t everything isn’t all there is isn’t the sun itself but rather that thing blocking the sun in the shadow of the eclipse.

Oh no—it wasn’t enough to have that shadow so menacing all the time hanging over us for even that wouldn’t satisfy the desire for bigness. But to want to be SOO FUCKING BIG that you can block the sun entirely if the mood so strikes you is just too fucking big in my opinion if you ask me, but brothers I’m not waiting for an invitation so I’m telling you this right now. YOU’RE TOO BIG. GET A GRIP RIGHT FUCKING NOW OR YOUR’RE GONNA FALL DOWN REAL HARD. This is not a threat—it is merely an observation.

I will no longer stand in the giant’s shadow. I grow bored with this gruff wind blowing at my spine and will no longer fear the crushing toe of the worldboot. I am done with you and your human experiment; no more will I hear the whistlestop call of the indivisible
american cheese nor will I rouse in fear of medicinal sirens.

If materialism collapses and no one is there to hear, does it really make a sound?

They run fastest in the autumn gathering nuts to hide in places they’ll soon forget in the tomorrows of their false hibernation. Fighting over leaves long dead when there are more than enough to go around for everybody as those observing see the fought overupon leaf lilt lilting down on steps of breeze to settle in piles of its brothers while the fight rages on above, prize now lost and forgotten. But of course they’ve gone mad—their ivory towers have been crushed and they are distraught by the eclipse which still looms over.

Sorry—I can’t go to work today. I’m a squirrel. Oh bedamned the wretchedness of thumbs! Which came first, thumb or gray matter? Does it matter now that even we can share a metaphor with the likes of the townspeople, yes the very ones who have come sometimes toting proverbial troches and pitchforks? They had their ivory towers and I had mine, point of the matter being that they’ve all been crushed and it’s hard to tell anymore who the real squirrels can possibly be, all of us here tearing mad through the trees. Everyone is out of their tree and winter may be coming quick on that lilt lilting wind winding down into a cold from the north likes
of none not seen in queet some time herein.

The giant who eclipses the sun looks east for a moment to see what he has done.

Words on a page, words on a page. What am I doing out here sitting in a tree watching the squirrels run crazy? I’d scream it from the rooftops if I knew what It was. Am I going mad, or am I just going? Squirrels run in chaos pattern, jumping at top speed from one branch to another no pause no sign no definition of intent but they keep moving moving moving and seem to have fun in the process. I want to be like them, knowing for certain as I took that huge leap that I would land just fine on the other side of the chasm and continue the chase as though it had never been broken.

Which came first, the language or the question? And what is the question exactly? I don’t know. I just know that the way things are just isn’t good enough anymore and be damned all the voices telling me that this is just the way it is. The way it is nothing more than the outcome of millions of interrelated choices made for eons and eons all over history making this chain mail event called Now. Fuck fate—fate is for people who are too lazy to do something else. Of course there is a ready made plan for each and every one of us, but I for one am not getting on that bus. I’m tired of wasting my life submerged and drowning in the trivial.

The world is no longer Ok with me.
She looked away from her notebook and down from her treehouse, switching gracefully to third person as she twisted her waist to consider a pile of leaves spinning in the autumn wind. She nudged the book at her feet and sighed.

Hhhhhhmmph.

Would she ever be able to write a screenplay? Even now as she sits sighing in third person on an autumn afternoon, she wonders if she’ll ever just crack open that damned screenplay writing reference book so that she no longer can use the excuse that she’s unsure of how to format the work, should she ever decide to actually begin it. What excuse would she use then?

Form…I find the form itself constricting.

Perfect. An excuse that split the difference between pretentious and ambiguous. Certainly it sounded made up. As of course it was. She looked at the book again, noticing the slip of paper Duncan Conrad had tucked into the front dust cover. To make her life even easier than it already was, he had gone so far as to preview it for her and write down the chapters which contained the information she was looking for so that she didn’t have to waste her time on the bits that she wasn’t interested in knowing. And still the book sat unopened since Duncan Conrad had last perused it.

“Chapters 13, 14, 15 & 17” the slip of paper said. Only four chapters of information stood between her and the end of her excuses.

She metaphorically stood on the precipice, terrified, shaking. What the hell. No one had to know she’d read it. If push came to shove, she could still claim ignorance. Though of course, there was no one else to whom she had to answer. No one had threatened to break her father’s toes or chase her dog with string cheese if she failed in said mission, and there was no one paying her an elaborate cash advance to finish said project in time for consideration by next year’s academy.

“Chill the fuck out.”

She looked around. That voice actually didn’t sound as though it had come from inside her head. Sometimes the sound of the wind combined with the far off drone of a train whistle to produce a sound like someone softly grunting a secret mantra, but that conglomerate environmental voice didn’t usually curse tersely.

A larger than average squirrel with a divot of fur missing from the left side of its tail stood still on hind legs considering her from the wooden post at the far end of the treehouse. He held an acorn in both hands, but otherwise looked nonplussed. Most squirrels, when carrying anything that could be construed as food, often had that harried paranoid look about them since they just know that everyone is out to get their nut, but not this guy. He held the nut tightly, with certainty. He didn’t wiggle and worry the acorn back and forth between taloned paws as many an autumnal squirrel, but rather gripped it firmly as one would brace a basketball just before throwing it accurately and with great force. Perhaps he was seeking medical help. Perhaps some misguided and poorly raised child had coated the nut with superglue. Perhaps…

But the squirrel had had enough of this mortal’s perambulations. Still gripping the acorn with both hands, he held it high in the air and shook it, as though showing off a magnificent trophy to one who could not possibly appreciate its greatness. He chattered and spit, spraying indignant rodent saliva as he cursed a blue-streak at this hairless monkey thing which had dared crawl from its place on the ground to disturb the foliage of the mighty oak. Damned be those who are called into supper!

And with that he decisively popped the acorn into his mouth, turned, and without considering where he was to land, jumped cleanly away into thin air. She heard a rustling of leaves, then he was gone.

*********************3

Evening came, as it is wont to do. Still, she had not written a screenplay. It was, perhaps, the issue of money which stood in her way. She’d been told by folks who seemed to understand mundane reality that the only venue in which writing still made money was if one would concede to write screenplays. This created a problem. For some reason, the thought of receiving money as the end result of writing always demotivated her. It just all seemed so tawdry…

However, in this particular reality, money was the omnipresent god watching over your shoulder. Every day millions of people made themselves unhappy for little pieces of paper, month after month, year after year while their lives slipped out of their hands and into the corporate machines. After seeing that for so many years, she had begun to equate the little pieces of paper with unhappiness and stagnation, therefor avoiding them at all costs.

Ahh, but then the paradox. Money and a need for it were inescapable—those in this reality had already consented and agreed before she got here, and no matter how much she pointed out that money was nothing but pieces of special paper with no inherent value behind them, reality refused to cast a re-vote. Still stubborn, she tried very hard not to participate in such a sophomoric and meaningless game.

But there is no such thing as a free lunch according to academics of western economy, so alas, she conceded to the smallest degree of her ability to do so and still maintain financial equilibrium. There had to be a way…there just had to be a way to beat the system at its own game…she was certain of it. The system is self-referential, always chasing its own tail, eventually catching that which is sought…

But there was no time to think of that now, or anything else of importance. Unfortunately, it was time to go to work. Work was, in fact, the only aspect of her life which required that she keep track of time at all, and she resented it deeply for this intrusion. Specific years, months and weeks could pass without naming and the numbers be forgotten, but because of the dreaded job, she had to maintain at least a passing contact with days and hours.

She was told that today was Wednesday. The sky had long grown dark. It must be nearly time for work.

Ahh…but this Wednesday wasn’t just any Wednesday—tonight they had a show to do before she had to start work. Conveniently, the show was being held at the Warehouse where she would be bartending later. But first, the show.

Arriving early as she preferred to do, she found Duncan already there setting up. He had come straight from working at his office job, having packed the sound equipment and other accouterments earlier that morning before he had left the house. Opening the door to the empty and currently well-lit club, she saw him fiddling with a tangle of wires and microphones, the sense of which she would never understand.

“Hey Duncan.”

“Hey Soren.” They kissed before she started to sort through a pile of tangled papers, ordering them in a somewhat logical sequence for the upcoming event.

“I wrote something new today,” she told him. “I’m thinking about reading it tonight as my closing piece. Do we have a list of players?”

Justin arrived with a set of colored stage lights and proceeded to help Duncan with the set-up while Soren wrote up a set list. Duncan would MC as usual—he was just so good at it. Then Thiel would go up and do a few pieces…he was always a good one to grab the audience by the balls and make them pay attention. Then a piece by Constance, a couple of rants by Augustus, then her pieces and the sequence would start all over again starting with Duncan. Unlike most poetry readings, Full Contact Poetry was a well-oiled machine. There were no uncomfortable pauses, no stammering poets, and no one stayed on stage long enough at any given time to bore the audience.

Eventually the lights went down, the club opened the doors, and people started streaming in off the street for gothic industrial night at the Warehouse. At ten thirty sharp, Duncan hopped to the stage while Justin hit the lights—it was time for the show to begin.

“We are Full Contact Poetry, dedicated to the idea that poet is a four-letter word.”

Disillusioned and cooler than thou though the audience was, the sentiments expressed were ones which caught their collective attention, and despite their general feelings regarding poetry readings, most of them couldn’t help but get sucked into the spirit of the moment.

“I give more bang for the buck than a truck load of monkey’s that you couldn’t hear with all the banana phones in the world.”

“What is born plastic must die plastic.”

“Cops. Cops. Are. Arrogant. Pieces. Of shit. Cops.”

“He loved goulash pie…”

“Television makes dandelions grow in my soul.”

“I don’t need your approval, love, acceptance, or even your confused stare. I just need you to fuck off.”

“I’ve got god in a box in a house of mirrors in a box.”

“The world is no longer Ok with me.”

The show ended to a surprisingly enthusiastic round of applause, whoops, whistles, and back slapping. It was always so difficult to predict how a bar crowd was going to respond to poetry, regardless of the content. Sometimes they listened, sometimes they didn’t. Tonight they listened.

Show over, she took her place behind the bar as the loud pounding music which was the usual venue started pumping vociferously, reverberating off the walls and causing the floor of the nearly condemnable building to pulsate dangerously. Wiping down the bar, she realized that she was getting kind of tired of wearing this costume. It wasn’t bad as far as costumes go, but there were days when she just didn’t feel like wrapping herself in tight leather and uncomfortable shoes. Nor did she particularly want to hear really loud music with words, either. The wax baffles shoved deeply into her ears only did so much to keep the driving and omnipresent bass from shaking her eardrums loose.

Slinging another cold bottle of beer across the bar to a kid dressed like an extra from a Boris Karlof movie, she tried not to hate them. The wave of irritation passed—it wasn’t their collective faults that she experienced such intense discomfort from the onslaught of other people’s words, made more powerful and invasive by the carrier wave of the music. These inane songs would be stuck in her head for days, drowning out and distorting her ability to find her own words, so she had grown to resent and avoid them.

Once upon a time not too long in the past, she had voluntarily spent her evenings in these very same surroundings, happily immersed in the environment she had now grown to find nearly intolerable. There had been a time when she wanted, needed, longed to be distracted, but that time had very recently but definitely passed. She very much desired to be completely undistracted, every day, all the time. There were things that she wanted to say and do with her life, things which would never be funded by corporate America, things which meant more to her than money ever could.

The bartending gig was all right—it paid her part of the bills and the hours were much more to her liking than any of the day jobs she had had. Day implies morning and morning was right out. She had always had insomnia, even as an infant. Sleeping at night for her felt physically unnatural, and no matter how many years she tried to condition herself to get used to it, she never could. One day, she realized that she was a grown-up and was free to make decisions about her life. Her first official decisions was to never do mornings again. After more than twenty five years of constant sleep deprivation and being forced to function on the schedule of others, her body had thanked her profusely.

But there was still that money issue. Duncan owned a recently acquired bar across the street where he worked six nights out of the week, and he also had a corporate day job which took up most of the rest of his waking hours. Ever since he had opened the bar, he had been trying to cut back his hours at work. Every week it was the same story—as soon as X project is completed, we’ll hire someone to take on part of your workload. As soon as X gets back from vacation, we’ll restructure. As soon as X monkeys fly out of your butt, we’ll see what we can do. Of course, the powers that be had approved his plan months before it was enacted, but when it actually came time to loosen the reins of their most productive work horse, they backpedaled immediately.

He was on salary, which meant that he worked from morning until well after most of the other workers had long gone home to their families for the evening. No one else in the department was trained to do the particular highly complex statistical analysis which was his specialty, and despite the fact that the demand for this particular analysis had increased by more than six hundred percent in the past couple of years, they jealously tried to save money by refusing to hire or train anyone else to do the job. They would be sorely screwed to lose him, but perhaps they didn’t consider such a possibility.

Soren desperately wanted to find some way for him to be able to get rid of that job which wouldn’t require her to more or less just switch places with him. She was certain that she could use her English degree to get some kind of job sitting behind a desk from nine to five everyday so that Duncan could stay home and work on his music, writing, and other pursuits, but doing so would not create more time for them to be together, which is what both of them so desperately wanted.

He had hoped when he first opened the bar that it would generate enough money so that neither of them had to work during the day, and perhaps could work together at night, but that was not to be. Between rent, insurance, utility costs, taxes, etc., there was barely enough left over for him to pay himself a small amount for the hours he worked there, much less anything after that which could be considered profit. And though the clientele there tended to be highly interesting and creative, being mostly artists and musicians who lived in the cheap side downtown studios, they didn’t have enough money to support two bartenders behind the bar. Thus her continued employment across the street at the much more lucrative dance club.

They were both highly intelligent and creative people—there had to be some alternative to the financial ratrace. But, she thought, if you don’t ask the universe for what you want, it won’t know what to send you for your birthday.

“So,” she began to anyone who would listen. “I’m looking for a job. A job where I set my own hours with no mornings ever, there is no dress code, no customers or clients to deal with, no boss looking over my shoulder, and it needs to pay at least X dollars an hour. If you hear of anything like that, let me know.”

The first three people she approached said that if she found a job shoveling snow in hell they would love a position as well. They were all cynical about the possibilities available to them, or anyone for that matter, and therefore often couldn’t see opportunity even when presented openly right in front of their eyes. Believing their reality to be limited by external forces, they did their best to be that external force for others.

Music pounded. Vampires drank cheap vodka. Mars circled the sun.

“Are you serious?”

“Certainly.”

“How soon could you start?”

“Tomorrow.”

“Hmm.” Duke Winkler collapsed over his elbows, bent and resting in a puddle of beer, his forehead burrowed deep in thought. He was decidedly not vampiric. In fact, most of the vampires were convinced he was a nark.

He was slightly older than most of the crowd that frequented the Warehouse and had just shown up out of nowhere one night. He was now a regular, spending most of his time sitting at Soren’s bar people watching. And, this was certainly the place to be for that kind of hobby. The Warehouse was known locally to be “the place where all the freaks hang out” so “tourists” were a usual commodity. Normally, though, they didn’t come back every night after the novelty wore off.

However, Duke was a novelty in and of himself. Apparently recently relocated to the area, he seemed to just want to be around people. Soren didn’t mind talking to him at all—he was always polite, interesting to talk to, and most importantly had never never made a pass at her.

“It’s really funny you should ask me that question. As of earlier today, I’ve been authorized to take on another field agent, someone reliable and infinitely trainable. The job is exactly as you describe it and you would be perfect for it. I mean, I’ve seen you work and I know how smart you are. Could you really start tomorrow?”

Rain spattered the street making it glow with blurred multi-chromatic reflections in the dark empty street as she stepped out onto the sidewalk. She saw the shadowed figure of Duncan walking toward her from up the street after closing The Loft. They met on the sidewalk across from the nightclub.

“How was your night.”

“Same as it ever was. How was yours?”

“Funny you should ask. I got a job.”

“Really? How…where…?”

“It’s with some company called BC Wilson doing data collection in retail stores. I’m not sure what all it entails, but I’ll find out tomorrow morning. All I know at this point is that I’ll be working on my own, setting my own hours, will never never have to go into an office and will have no contact with the general public. When my training is complete I won’t have to look another morning in the eye. It meets all of my requirements.”

He looked at her incredulously. “BC Wilson? That’s the company that bought out the company I work for a couple of years ago. What I do at work everyday is processing the exact information you’re going to be collecting.” He paused and seemed to consider something not quite namable. “That’s very interesting.”

That night, she dreamt of the squirrel. He was racing and leaping through the trees, never pausing or stopping once to consider whether or not the next foothold would indeed catch him as he sprang. Years of practice and an infallible instinct gave him the internal knowledge that he was in his element here, that the universe of which he was a part had been specially designed to hold and help him along his way, given that he exercised all which was inherent within him. If he was true to his nature, nature would be true to him.

She saw herself as if in third person, drifting through a montage of her life, only unlike the first time she had experienced these events, this time she appeared to know exactly what she was doing, as though following some kind of grand master plan. At each crossroad in her life she saw herself making the choice which most enabled her to stay truest to herself, each choice naturally leading to the next choice, deeper and deeper down the path she was choosing to follow. All of those times which felt like a dice roll in the dark really had brought her to the most auspicious place she could have dreamt in her life at that moment, for the path seemed to be going someplace absolutely wonderful. Now all she had to do was…

“Jump.” She said it out loud, waking both herself and a groggy Duncan. She sat up and leaned over her slowly waking partner. “I have a plan.”

******************4

Having explained to Duke what he already knew, i.e. that she worked until very late at night, he had said that they could meet later in the day. How did quarter of nine sound? Having barely slept, Soren squinted against the overly bright autumn sun just barely peeking over the hill on the horizon to the east. The parking lot in which she sat outside of the pony keg, bustling and bright already at this terrible hour, was still slick with the rains from the evening past. The new day rose out of the sky, promising one of those bright, crisp, autumn days which brings out the crimson, yellow and golds of the trees.

She hated days like this. Well, not usually. Mostly she just hated the sharp, pointy edges she always felt in the morning sun, regardless of the season. By noon it would be tolerable, but at this hour it was nearly unbearable. She winced and pulled a second set of eye protection, intended to be worn over prescription eye glasses, over her already darker than dark shades. Aahh..it was almost dark enough to sleep.

Just then she heard as sharp rap against her window as Duke stood there waving frenetically at her from where he stood between her car and his electric blue 1972 Cadillac convertible. The fins were trimmed in gold, making it appear almost Egyptian. If Elvis replaced Anubis, then surely this would be the chariot of the gods.

Duke was laughing as he opened her door. “I really wasn’t sure if you were serious. I thought maybe you’d sober up and forget all about our conversation.”

“I don’t drink.”

“Oh yes, yes,” he said, waiving away the former comment, “I know that. I meant figuratively.” He waggled his eyebrows knowingly. “But I sure am glad to see you. This is absolute gold. See I’ve only been recently assigned to this market—just transferred here from back east—so you’re technically the first employee I’ve hired in this area. They just authorized me yesterday to hire someone, and now here you are. And I have a feeling that you’re going to make me look very, very good.

“Now, before the end of the day, there are a few forms that I need you to fill out—just standard stuff—but we can do that later after you see what the job is all about and decide whether or not you’d really be interested. I think maybe we should leave your car here. You can drive with me, or if you don’t feel comfortable with that—I mean, I am really just some guy you’ve talked to in a bar a few times—then you can drive, though it doesn’t really make sense for us to drive separately. But I don’t get paid for mileage—salaried manager and all that—so either way I’ll count it as mileage that you get paid for. So, I’m going to run in here and get a chocolate milk and one of those microwave breakfast sandwiches. Do you want anything?”

He paused briefly, barely giving her enough time to begin to shake her head. “No? Ok then—I’ll be right back.”

She was stunned as she slowly pulled down the outer pair of sunglasses and watched him walk across the parking lot. Nothing had prepared her for this kind of…activity this early in the morning. She could tell already that she had a long, surreal, and very very strange day ahead of her. Sighing deeply, she reminded herself that it was for the greater good and mentally attempted to prepare herself for whatever weirdness the day was certain to bring.

He exited the pony keg, sandwich in one hand, chocolate milk in the other, talking through a blur of biscuit crumbs.

“Why don’t you drive.” He motioned proudly behind him. “Ole Bessy here is usually reserved for dates on Saturday night and Sunday drives the next morning, and she drinks gas like an old drunk at a wedding. The Olds is in the shop. Someone put potatoes in the exhaust. Can you believe it? Potatoes. Way up in there—I tried to get them out with a hanger, but it just didn’t seem to be working. From the looks of the bits that I could get a hold of, it looked like they might have been in there a while. Potatoes! What people won’t do. The Olds has never been the same since then. Every once in a while it gets some weird…condition. I think she might be haunted, from the trauma you know, but the mechanic tells me he’s never heard such a thing.”

He laughed and bit another crumbly bite of the biscuit enclosed around the ambiguous breakfast meat, blowing more crumbs against the backdrop of the rising sun. “Mechanics.”

And so the day began.

They drove first to a small convenience store on a busy four lane street, Duke explaining details about the job on the way. Still not fully awake and having no real information upon which to hang his descriptions, she let his voice settle into a long relaxing drone. He punched some numbers into the small black hand-held machine which was the major tool of the trade, then entered the store waving it toward the older woman smoking behind the counter. She seemed to understand the meaning of the gesture.

“We’re in the same stores every week, so they get used to seeing us.” He lowered his voice. “Most of them aren’t exactly sure what we do, so many of them are suspicious. They just know that their boss’s boss’s boss has authorized our presence, so if you get any flack, it’s usually because the manager is trying to hide something.”

Continuing in a louder more audible voice he said, “So. For these stores, we just come in and scan all the displays. First, you scan the barcode.” The machine made a light beeping sound as he scanned the end of the wand across the square of fine black lines. “If the display or the signs are provided by the manufacturer, then it’s this kind of display.” He pushed a button then scanned another item on the next end cap. “If it’s just stuff that the retailer has set up, then it’s this kind of display.” He pushed another button. “That’s it. Just do that for the rest of these end caps and that pop against the wall, and holler if you have any questions.”

After handing over the machine, he sauntered up to the counter and began some kind of conversation with another lady who had just come from the back room, ostensibly the manager. Soren looked with mild confusion at the machine, watching the flickering red light hovering at the tip of the wand strapped to its side. Tentatively, she swiped the light at the end of the wand across a barcode on the bottom of a twelve pack of beer. The machine beeped responsively. She typed in the appropriate letter, then moved on to the next item.

This was cake. The whole store took less than ten minutes and there was nothing remotely complicated about the task. She approached Duke at the counter—he was discussing a large tobacco company with the manager, who was looking mildly frightened. He was also chomping on a candy bar, occasionally dropping a stray nut onto the counter.

“All done.”

“Eugh?” he startled. “Already?” He glanced at his watch. “You did all the end caps? And the pop against the wall?”

She nodded.

“Well all right then,” he said, patting her congratulatorily on the shoulder, leaving a faint handprint of chocolate, “You’re going to do just fine.”

From there the drove to the next store. A convenience store much like the last, though this one was owned by a different oil company. Apparently, Duke had spent his whole life working in some capacity in and out of convenience stores and he knew their operating procedures like a finely trained general. Who owned what, who was going bankrupt, which president had transferred to the competing company, who used what additives in their gasoline, which chain had the biggest problems with theft, who owed who what favors to whom and why—he knew it all.

“Now in this store we do something a little different,” he explained while pushing buttons on the machine to load the individual store number. “Here we actually count all the beer, then put in the invoices to figure out how much of each kind of beer they’ve sold in the past week. It’s a bit more involved, but I don’t think that you’ll have any problems. Did you bring a jacket?”

Luckily she had, for they spent the next forty-five minutes in the built-in cooler counting and sorting all of the extra beer stocked in the back. “You can do the product on the shelf from back here if you want,” he called over the din of the refrigeration unit, “or you can do it from out front. From back here you can see a little easier what is actually on the shelf, but of course it’s a lot warmer out front. I don’t care which way you do it."

Not minding the cold and wanting to avoid the general public as much as possible, she opted to stay in the cooler while Duke went out front to chat with the manager.

Scan. Quantity. Price. Enter. Scan. Quantity. Price. Enter. Scan. Quantity. Price. Enter. Scan…

This wasn’t so bad, though next time she would bring gloves. When she was finished, she found Duke out front, taking animatedly on the pay phone near the door. She stayed back so as not to intrude upon his conversation, though she heard the words “impute” and “rework the study” since they were accompanied by gestures which caused Duke to spin part way around toward where she was standing. Finally he hung up the receiver, turned and noticed her standing there.

He harrumphed. “That was one of my ‘problem people,’” he explained, shaking his head. “I just don’t get some of these people. I mean, the job is dead easy—all you have to do is do it. But there are so many people in this company who have figured out ways to cheat the system and they think that no one else is smart enough to figure it out.” Leaning slightly forward, he narrowed his eyes. “But that’s not true anymore. Oh no—not with me in town.” He stood back and looked confident. “I’m onto their little games. So—did you have a question?”

She shook her head and offered the machine to him. “I’m done,” she explained.

“Done? Really?” He looked almost puzzled. “Really?” he asked again. “Damn.” Pushing buttons on the machine and glancing at various screens, he eventually looked up and smiled. “Fine work. Now, let me show you how to enter the invoices.”

Leading her toward the back room, he waived the machine toward the manager who nodded her consent absently. “That’s usually all you have to do, though some of the drones get nervous when they see you going into the office to root through the files. Makes ‘em wonder what you’re up to and what you’re going to find.”

Beer invoices were kept in a particular folder, and the quantities needed to be entered for each product next to the number which indicated how many of the same item were stocked in the store. The number purchased minus the number in stock generated the number sold that week. This number was then compared to the following three weeks of sales, all of which could be found on the same screen. Most of the invoices had UPC numbers on them which could quickly be typed into the machine, which Soren gladly did without much thought. She could, after all, type over a hundred words per minute.

In what was apparently astonishing time, she completed the task. Duke was overjoyed.

“Well hot damn!” he exclaimed. “You’re already doing twice as well as any of the deadbeats I’ve inherited from the last market supervisor. I wonder if they can feel their necks slipping onto the chopping block. Can they see the shadow of the axe hanging above them. He he he…” he fairly giggled. “Oh this is just too rich.” He suddenly looked a bit more cautious. “So, how are you liking it? It isn’t too boring, is it?”

She shook her head. “Not at all. And I can really do it any time of the day or night that I feel like it?”

He nodded. “Yep. Every week you’ll get a package by express delivery with a listing of all the stores you need to do and exactly what needs to be done in them. As long as they’re all done by Saturday at midnight, everyone is happy and the paycheck is in the mail.”

“Then I’m in,” she said decisively. “What do we do now?”

They went to a diner down the street and Duke showed her more of the finer functions on the little black machine over lunch. “See, when a store like the last one is done, then you go through and reconcile the numbers. Sometimes you’ll have invoices missing or whatnot, so it will look like there are negative sales. These things have to be adjusted—you’re smart—just use your best judgement. After that’s all done, just plug the machine into the phone line, press this button, and all the information downloads to the main computer at headquarters. And that’s pretty much it. You gonna eat that?” he asked, reaching toward the deli pickle lying on the edge of her plate as she shook her head.

“Oh,” he continued, munching through a mouthful of kosher dill, “sometimes there are these things called studies. If there is one in a store, it will be on the sheet that you receive at the beginning of the week. They are ‘special features’ that a client might request at some time.” He looked at his watch. “I actually have one to do today, though I didn’t really plan to take you there—I didn’t want you to get overloaded with information. But since you’re catching on so quickly…” He left the question hanging in the air.

“I’m up for it. I’d like to learn as much as possible as quickly as I can.” Although the day was going very well, she knew that she would be infinitely happier when the training part was over and she was out on her own. She really didn’t relish getting up at such an early hour for any longer than was necessary.

“Well, all right then,” he said, clapping his hands together, clearly pleased. “Let’s go.”

Duke loaded the pertinent information off of the store sheet and onto the machine as Soren pulled into the parking lot of a large supermarket.

“Sometimes,” he said absently, pecking keys on the chirping machine, “I feel like I’m radioing the Mother Ship when I do this. Maybe it will hear us, swoop down, and beam up the whole store. He he he…” He went on pecking as she followed him into the supermarket and headed for the soup isle.

“Ok,” he said, handing over the machine, “now in this particular study,” he lightly shook the stapled stack of papers and gestured toward the wall of identically sized cans, “the client is interested in soup—all seventy-five feet of it. Every brand, every shelf, every individual can. I can’t tell for sure,” he went on, alternately turning the pages and frowning, “but I think that this one is being paid for by Cantrell’s. They have this new line out—I think they call it Grandma’s Goulash. Cantrell’s wants to know how prominent the stores are making this particular product.”

She opened the packet of papers, scanned a bar code at the top, and began to zap the soup labels with her electric wand. For each kind of soup, she was supposed to type in how many cans wide and deep they were stacked, how many were actually in stock on the shelf, and how many could be stocked on the shelf if the shelf was stocked to capacity. Scan. Five. Twelve. Thirty-two. Sixty. Scan. Five. Twelve. Twenty-one. Sixty. Scan…

“Oh sure,” he explained waiving, “all the stores tell Cantrell’s that they’re pushing the new product, but whether they really do or not is up to the individual managers. That’s where we come in.” he said seriously but with obvious glee. “Statistical data is always more reliable than people. The numbers can’t lie. And the more reliable the people collecting the data…” He looked briefly and pointedly at her with his eyebrows raised.

“…the more reliable the data?”

“Exactly! And you know why it’s so important for us to collect this data, don’t you?”

She shook her head as she continued to scan—she couldn’t imagine a reality where this information could possibly be important.

“Because,” he said, lowering his voice and looking around, “we’re the people who told them that the product would sell in the first place. Well, not us exactly, but one of our subsidiary companies like Stasis--I mean, we own them all. Assuming that it was advertised and displayed properly we have deemed that the product should sell, and you know how much they’ve been pushing the television ads.” He glanced at her again as she shook her head.

“I haven’t watched television for fifteen years.”

For a brief second he looked agog. “You’re not missing much,” he said dismissively then continuing with his story. “Well trust me—they’re everywhere. They’ve got the archtypical rural granny that no kid today has ever seen except on television, cutting up vegetables on this wooden block for her suburban family who has come out to the farm for a visit. Little gray bun, gingham apron—the whole bit. ‘Granny’ is actually a machine which will cut the potatoes in three different sizes so that the soup looks more natural—more like homemade. Then they shove it all in glass jars, wrap a little label around it with the brand name printed in a font designed to look like handwriting and voila! They can charge four times as much for the same ingredients just by cutting them differently. He he he… the idea of love and care shoved into every jar, especially designed for Granny’s beloved children in the suburbs…”

He trailed off, a beatific smile wandering across his face, before noticing that she had moved quite a bit down the isle from where he stood. “Oh. But like I was saying, we’re the ones who told them that the product would sell if displayed correctly, so here we are checking up on that in case things don’t turn out the way we predicted they would. Then, we have the data to turn around and say, well, the stores dropped the ball on placing the product prominently while it was still trying to achieve brand loyalty, a problem completely out of our hands.

“And,” he continued, “we talk them into paying for it. There are thousands of people all across the country being paid to find out what is across the isle from Grandma’s Goulash, how many jars of Leftover Stew are sitting on the shelf, how many blinking arrows are pointing to the Brand New Line from Cantrell’s. So the client pays money—BIG money—to find out what the stores are really doing. How else are they going to know? And by this point, they’ve already invested HUGE money to bring out a new product, the package design, the advertising, and most importantly,” he waggled his eyebrows, “the absolutely essential pre-market testing. He he he…

“And they still make money. Kind of scary really. Poor Granny—slaving away over that hot wood-burning stove…” His glance drifted off, seemingly lost while the piped in muzak played an instrumental version of an eighties dance tune. He snapped back into the present. “Now let’s hop to it—this is going to take a while. To get started, you scan this bar code at the top of the first page, then go to question one and see what information it’s asking for.”

“I’m nearly done.”

“Wha…?” he asked, seeming to come back from someplace else. “With the study? The one about soup? But that takes over an hour. How can you be...?” She zapped in the last couple of answers regarding the other products which shared the isle with the soup, and handed the machine over to him as he glanced down at his wristwatch. “Oh—I guess we have been here for a little while.

But still—that’s hardly possible.”

The machine stuttered and beeped as he clicked through frame after frame, seeming to search for something. Finally, he looked at
her with a mixture of awe and suspicion. “You’re fast. I mean really fast. And you did all of it right—I checked it myself. Hmm… Well, you’ll be happy to know that they give bonuses for speed, and with a pace like this on your first day, you shouldn’t have any problems qualifying for that. Some of the people who get bonuses—pffff” he waved his hand, “they’re not half this fast and most of them are cheating the numbers anyway. Boy, they’re gonna hate you.” This seemed to really make him happy, and he laughed all the way out through the front doors of the store, the clerks behind the checkouts staring after him in confusion.

From the supermarket, they tooled around the corner to a small local branch library, found a table away from the other visitors, and sat down with a pile of disorganized papers between them. Duke leafed through the stack, searching for first this form and then that one, referring to a check list he had tucked into the pocket of his dress shirt, until he had the appropriate stack to slide toward Soren.

“Here. Start filling these out. It’s all the tax forms, release documentation, disclosure and privacy information, and all that. We see things that people would pay money—big money—to know. This stuff just says that you won’t talk to them, that all information you’re exposed to as an employee of BC Wilson is the property of your employer. Just in case you’re a corporate spy or something.” His eyebrows waggled uncontrollably.

She started filling out the forms as he continued to fill her in on some of the more intricate details of the job. He had gotten part way through the principles of basic statistical analysis when she saw her opening.

“…called…um, uh…what’s that called again…?” Duke was fishing for a word.

“Standard deviation,” Soren supplied.

“Hu…?” He seemed snapped out of his own world, as if having forgotten that she was there.

“Standard deviation. The word you’re looking for is standard deviation. When I was in college, I used to tutor people in statistics.”

He sat there, momentarily quiet, while the laugh grew in his stomach. She could see as much as hear it, gathering there behind the pale yellow cotton, threatening to shake apart the library walls. Soren glanced away and continued to fill out her forms as the laugh built to a very audible rumble. A librarian sent a “shushshshsh” toward their corner, while Duke worked to control himself.

Finally able to speak he said, “Well if that doesn’t just beat all. So you already knew all of the stuff I’ve been telling you today? No wonder you’ve picked this up so quickly—you understand on a deep level how all of this fits together.”

That wasn’t quite the way she would have put it, but she just nodded and continued to fill out her forms. “Well I’ll be. Any other pertinent information that you think I should know?”

“Well,” she began, still mostly concentrating on her forms, “my fiancé works for Stasis, a company which…”

“…was bought out by Wilson two years ago.” His eyebrows were raised, but he seemed to judge that there was more to this story. “And…?”

“And, I wanted to let you know, that if you need anyone else for this position in this area, he would be interested.”

Duke sat in silence for a long time, giving her enough time to finish up with most of the forms before he started speaking. “You know, there’s a five hundred dollar bonus given for referrals who are hired upon an employee’s recommendation, don’t you?”

She shook her head—she had not been aware of that.

“So why does he want out of Stasis?” Duke asked, leaning back in his chair and almost falling into the microfiche readers piled on a table behind him. The librarian “shushshshs”ed toward him again, this time a little louder.

“Because he’s tired of being paid to work from nine to five when he’s really working from seven to nine most days. He’s on salary…”

Duke waived his hand and let gravity drag the chair legs back to the floor in a loud bump. The librarian turned around sharply but said nothing. “Say no more. The bastards will drain you dry once they have you trapped in that office. Those huge towers of glass aren’t cheap, you know. Though I’d imagine he’s used to work which is a bit more…more…”

“Intellectually challenging?” she supplied.

“Yes. Intellectually challenging. So why…?”

“Because, like me, he has other things that he wants to do with his life. He has no interest in a life-time career of statistical analysis—it’s just what he’s been doing to pay the bills for the past seven years.”

“And after that long, it’s likely to pay those bills pretty well. This probably doesn’t pay as much as he’s used to…”

“Actually, it does. We figured it out last night, and with the number of hours that he works on average, divided by what his salary pays, it comes out to a little less than I am making right now per hour. And he can do this job on his own time.”

“So what else does he do?” Duke asked, sitting back in the wooden chair, though more cautiously this time.

“He’s a musician, among other things,” she supplied, not wanting to really get into exactly what other things entailed. “And as it stands, he has absolutely no time whatsoever to practice the things which mean the most to him. Not to mention that he and I rarely see each other even though we live under the same roof. If you need references…”

He waived this offer away, seeming to be deep in thought. Then a smile burst across his face. “I love it—a writer, a musician—it’s like the new bohemians.” He leaned forward and glanced around. “Let’s just say that there are going to be a few changes around here in the next few weeks. A little corporate restructuring, if you know what I mean.”

He seemed to be waiting for some response, so she nodded.

“Although there are no openings right now, as it were, the magic eight ball says that a position will be open in this market quite soon. Out look is very, very good.” He leaned back. “You could work together, do each other’s stores, knock out the big studies together—frankly, it would be ideal. We’ll see what we can do” Rubbing his hands together conspiratorially he said, “Thus begins the kabal.”