Sanction

by Roman McClay

  “When I was in the oil patch, I had an old man as my mentor. Curt MacIntyre; smart guy. He was a multi-millionaire and he liked me. He’d take me out to titty bars and tell the strippers or go-go dancers at the club behind Diamond Cabaret that I was his son. I got more tail from that guy just introducing me to girls that way than I can recall. He was just like that, and I understood not one bit of it. I was idealistic and naïve all in one. Of course, most people will tell you that those two things go together axiomatically, but that is cynical and untrue.

  “I am more idealistic now than I ever was, and less naïve than I’ll ever be. I’ve separated the two further and farther apart than the wing tips of a condor, of the great spirit of the Athabaskan Raven , as far as the apogee and perigee of the sun star,” he said as the clouds spread thin and whitened and the mountain became pink in the dawn.

  She listened now with some thing inside her turning like leaves of October, like grey hairs at the temples of men who guard sacred places in silence and reverence. She watched him and this thing inside her heart and eyes look back at herself from above. This man was strange. He was a badass, a dangerous and competent man, and yet so sensitive, and fine-tuned, and full of emotions that he’d lay out like a vivisection for all to see. He bled, with each word he bled.

  He was a warrior-poet and an ancient man, but a store room of the latest scientific knowledge too. He was unloved, in fact hated, and she was grateful for this. His lack of popular appeal meant he was open to anyone who showed him interest and that meant she stood out from the crowd too. She worshipped him like an ancient -feared- deity who had lost one eye.

  “And this man told me one day after many, many travails in the oil field, with tool-pushers and company men and roustabouts and roughnecks. He said, Lyndon, you’re never going to get it are you ? And I said, never get what ? And he said with a smirk that old men get when they school young men about the vagaries of life, son listen :

  “You are tall, athletic, good-looking, and on location you live in the biggest 5 th wheel on the pad, bigger and more expensive that theirs -and they are bosses- and you are married to a Playboy model. Playboy model. Literally .

  “And he was of course right. However, I -intent on missing the point- I protested, but, I work harder than anyone on that pad, I put my whole cock and balls into it all , I said. He knew this to be true, and he laughed even harder.

  “You think they care about that? That is work, work is work. But, man, your mere existence is what drives them insane. They are men, old, broken down, or young and stupid, each one of them uglier than the next, they can’t understand one word you say, and think you make up -invent- half those 25 cent words you seem so fond of using around them.

  “I opened my mouth to object and he just raised his wise hand and here is what was said:

  Lyndon, they tell me this shit, they have no idea I’ll tell you; so they are honest. And honestly, they are jealous, insanely jealous and they will pull down your chimney if it’s the last thing they do. That’s why I recalled you here, you worked your ass off out there, for two years; but they’ve had enough of your ass, he said.

  I was a good worker man , I insisted as if I hadn’t heard one word he said.

  Yeah, and that made it worse not better; shit, if you were lazy they could have held that against you. But you weren’t, you were smart and strong and worked like two men put together and this enraged them further. You cannot underestimate the fact that their hatred is not something you can argue your way out of. They don’t need a reason, you are the reason. And your pride, that is all the foot hold that they need to climb into your head. You are so proud, so demanding of honor and respect that you bite on each insult and challenge with anger and rage that they used that to bar you from the field.

  They baited you and you took it. Lyndon, you threatened to kill Merle, ‘ cut his head off in front of his family,’ I believe is the phrase you used; you told the company-man to, fuck off. You had to have like three guys -Jason and those guys- hold you back as you tried to attack the tool-pusher. And each chance you got to insult them in return you took it. You didn’t let them win one battle, and so you lost the goddamn war. And in the oil field, shit, in life, the young buck with all the, with all of God’s gifts, doesn’t get to also exhibit more pride -in addition to more size, strength, looks, money, girls, style, brains- he cannot also heap more pride onto himself. That is what they saw as the final straw , he said.

  Well, I don’t like being made fun of , I said as if this was some idiosyncratic thing .

  Nobody does, but if you are the derrick man or mud man, then the tool-pusher and company-man outrank you; so, you take it, he said.

  I don’t , I said.

  I know , he said, and that’s why they called me and said to pull you from their pad.

  “See, he schooled me in something so important, so essential, that I missed it. I mean, I missed it, man. I walked away from that meeting thinking I was still right. I wasn’t right, I was wrong. I was dead wrong.

  “But, I didn’t know it; because I didn’t realize that I was half-assing my philosophy, my so-called pride. Shit, I was yelling and threatening and making a lot of noise; and sure we had a few fist-a-cuffs down in the driller’s shack or by the reserve pit or out on the road. We fought and drew blood, sure.

  “But, we did it over work, and often we ganged up on the lazy and the outcast and the truly despised for incompetence. It was a group thing and it was righteous and not at all unfair. These men deserved their beatings for fucking things up; even they admitted it later.

  “No, what I failed to do was kick the shit out of anyone who insulted me directly; I postured, I yelled and I swore up and down that I’d kill them, but I never did. Sure, they were scared, and walked away cowards. But, they got me removed, I didn’t get them removed. They won. See, a man can never learn -a man will never learn- if he always wins; or thinks he wins.

  “And they won; and while I in real life lost -I thought I won - and so nothing on either side ever changed,” he held his hand out under the water and she reached to him too. They touched finger tips and gingerly interlaced each finger on his left and her right hand. She felt better already.

  “And when I left the oil field, half broken and mangled from the outrage of the work, the brutality of the labors, I started my own businesses with the seed money earned out there in the Piceance , and with these owner-operator businesses I made a shit ton of money, between 2007 and 2017 I made $2.1 million.

  “And I thought I had the world by the balls. My clones were world famous man -my MMJ clones- and people came from out of state to buy Praxis clones. And I grew the dankest weed around. And I made money for my partners. I made working-class people -my employees- into middle-class earners. I tended to my girls as they accumulated around me. I bought dinners and shoes and gifts of all kinds. I read to them, I asked about their hearts and minds. I broke up their fights. I stuck up for the bleeding, the broken, the confused.

  “I was generous, magnanimous and made it a point not to lie or gossip and I diffused arguments between those bitchy tattoo workers; I owned a tattoo shop in addition to the weed warehouses, to launder the money you see?”

  She laughed and nodded. Each of his sentences had sentences within them like a nesting doll. Nothing was simple, solid, or safe.

  “So, anyway, I was the proto-typical, the apotheosis of the alpha, I was big and swaggering and aggressive and stern but generous and helpful and tended to my tribe. I shared my money eagerly and asked -like the alpha chimp asks- only that my females -and my honor- be left alone.

  “And the betas, from that tiny little fuck Jeremy to Dean and Michael and Carey and Frank and Jason and Jeff fucking Bernstein and Chris and Angel and Rudy, all of them plotted against me; piece by piece. And they did it for the same reasons; and if I had learned one thing from that old-head Curtis; just one thing he had said I would have seen it coming. They hated my looks and my money and size and cool cars and style and b
rains and my 25 cent words, and they hated that I strutted about with my two or three females half my age like I was too-cool-for-school.

  “And so, they threw rocks at me, and gossiped and waited to see how I reacted,” he said and let that sink in as the water steamed into the cold dawn air and her skin began to redden and flush.

  “Now, when a guy in traffic pissed me off, I would get out of my big redneck truck and pull them out of their cars on Colorado Boulevard, that is a fact. I beat a guy in broad daylight for honking his horn at me. I rammed three cars in total, over like a 15-year period, all for fucking with me. I even pulled a gun on two guys, three guys really and I made many men back down just by blowing up and intimidating them.

  “I was violent and mean and dangerous. I carried a gun each and every day and look at me,” he said as she took in the breadth of his black-tattooed Highlander chest and massive arms and a jaw bearded in black and as set as the lapsus in the crown jewels at Buckingham.

  “Beast,” she said with a smile and a moisture inside and out, adding, “bearman.”

  “Exactly. So, I thought I was handling my shit. I thought I was king shit, man. I mean I was rich and handsome and as big as a linebacker; I had young girls all around me and I’d spread money around like a big-city politician, man. I was smooth. But I wasn’t cynical; I was not strategizing or being a schemer; this was my honest personality and instincts.

  “But, I made enemies everywhere I went, just based on my virtues not my sins. My sins were overlooked, it was my virtues that began the plots,” he said and shut up as she tried to figure out what the fuck that even meant.

  “I was mean and insulting, no doubt. When men insulted me or were lazy or incompetent -which is always- yeah, I was rough. I did not speak nicely, I was rough and to the point. I was loud and intimidating and unfriendly. I admit it. I called them out for their immoral behavior; their lack of loyalty or dedication or shitty work ethic.

  “But again, because I am a dumbass, I forgot that moral suasion does not work on betas. They just want to see what they can get away with. They don’t care about pride or any of that stupid shit; pride in your work? What the fuck is that? these creeps say. Pride in your manhood? Nigga please.”

  She giggled and thought his use of modern phrasing was funny; both odd and humorous.

  “These guys had no honor, they would fuck your mom on your dad’s birthday, after they sent the old-man out to get beer, if they could. So, my yelling and dressing down and insisting that they were falling short of the kingdom of God was useless, and in fact -and this is the genius of life, man, in fact- they took it all in stride and as evidence that they could in fact take the whole thing -the whole coup against me- take it farther, further. And that is exactly what they all did.

  “One of my plotters told another plotter that I would quote, not do anything , unquote because I was afraid to lose all I had . See, they were right.

  “I had so much built up, so many businesses, material objects, bills, shit, I was spending $20,000 a month on shit for me and the girls and my people, plus I was paying out wages and leases for properties and business expenses of another $30,000 a month. I had partners to assuage and vendors and customers to placate; so, see, he was right, I had too much to lose . Your enemies will teach you lessons if you listen. But I did not listen at all.

  “And they saw it, and they said it. These guys were professional beta-males man; they were chimps through and through. And they tried to fuck my women and steal my money and businesses and get me thrown in jail -they literally recruited a cop, Jeff Messangelo- to build a case on me. They undermined me with my own father, calling him to tell him that I was a thief; and I was no thief, I never stole one gram of dope or one dollar from them.

  “It was no different than General Halleck spreading rumors of Grant’s drinking after Grant had won at Shiloh ; imagine winning that battle and being relieved of command. A man as great as Ulysses S. Grant undone by fucking rumors,” he shook his head and the vapor rose to his skin. She just watched as his eyes looked whiter about the albumin, darker at iris. He was more sad than angry, and this she saw each time he paused his words.

  “They gossiped to everyone; one of my employees, this Mexican dude who I was always good to, in fact he said I was always good to him, but they talked so much shit behind my back that he joined forces with them just out of sheer force majeure . He admitted it! He said to me -as the whole tattoo shop was abandoned- that he liked me, and admitted I was good to him, but that Dean and this asshole Kevin talked so much shit that he believed them; that he had to go with their side. It was a riot. I gave Kevin my profits from the business each month, right? I made zero money from All Heart Industry,” he said.

  “That was the shop’s name?” she asked.

  “Yeah, and I made no money on it; it was just a front for money laundering around $50,000 a month in cash, like paper-money, cash money. But the shop made money, it turned a profit, so I gave it to Kevin to compensate his dumb ass for managing it in addition to the money he made piercing; he was the piercer. And that little beta-fuck plotted against me too and took the whole gang with him. It was classic chimp shit.

  “Now, in 90 days I had all three marijuana warehouses, my tattoo shop and one of my girlfriends taken from me, and I had a police investigation opened on me for meth dealing and money laundering. Now look, I was laundering money -I admit- but I had never even seen methamphetamines in my life. And I paid taxes on my money, I wasn’t washing money to avoid taxes, I was doing it because Wells Fargo won’t take MMJ -medical pot- money. They take cartel money and Iranian terrorist money by the way, but not legal weed money.

  “Anyway, the bank refused, so I ran it through All Heart, a legit business. But I paid taxes man, I paid $30,000 a year to the IRS and another $5,000 to the state. That is more in taxes than most men make in total in a year,” he said as the music fell to a soft murmur of atavistic strings and war drums.

  “More than I make ever; I think the most I ever made was $24,000 a year,” she said.

  “Right, I was a team player man, I paid taxes. I was a citizen.

  “Anyway, they took it all, in a massive coup d’état; and it was genius man, the way they did it was pure plotting, scheming, lying, baboon smile-to-your-face, plot-to-your-back shit. And they took it all and I was left with nothing but my house -which I had to sell then to get cash- and my cars, I sold all but two of them; my motorcycles, one was stolen and I kept one; and I kept my books and wine. But I had to sell like $30,000 in wine to survive as my cash flow was cut off .

  “And they fucked my woman; now admittedly, she was a pure psychopathic whore. Sarah was a whore, but the others, it was the raven-haired angel whose name I shall not say aloud, then Alina the Russian with a hammer and sickle tattooed on her hip, and then Andrea the ballet dancer who had abs and thighs that made me nearly go blind, and they were, ok ; they never cheated. But Jeremy and Frank both fucked Sarah, and Carey tried to, and she plotted with them. She stole my weed from my house, she flooded the grow to help with the lease-clause plot,” he was being brief, but the Russian novelists don’t have plots this complex, and so even the truncated version was making her head feel like an overfilled crankcase.

  “What?” she said.

  “Yeah, the lease had a clause that if we flooded the grow -the warehouse- or blew up a transformer, we could be evicted. It was a water & fire clause, I guess. To protect the building from damage. And my partner had the lease; he made up those rules! And she flooded it on purpose, fucking water coming out the door, no shit, like Home Alone shit,” he was shaking his head thinking of the biblical flood now.

  Jadi was now laughing and shaking her head in parasympathetic reaction. She could not believe that this shit was real. She thought of her own boy, who was popular in school with girls and she thought of how he had explained that the other boys had already begun their plotting on him -just as Lyndon had described, with whisper campaigns and ganging up in little cabals- and she
had had no idea what to do. But now she was seeing her own son might fit inside some framework, some larger conspiracy of the cosmos and this man was explaining how it all worked. But these were just hints, breezes of the mind, and one could think of all that later , she surmised. But she began to pay more attention to this story, for now it seemed to hold something for her and her boys.

  “Dude, I am giving you bullet points, if I gave you details you’d call me a liar. The true details are that Byzantine. Anyway, they all plotted and they did it for one reason.”

  “What?” she asked quickly. She felt there had to be a point to all this. It felt like a clue, a hint, a cobweb-covered lock; stuffed inside a book by key.

  “I showed weakness; I did not physically assault them for their gossiping, their eye contact and their innocent stone throwing,” he said returning to the metaphor and thus the connection between man and his cousin the chimp.

  “They threw stones?” she found it hard to discern when he was literal and when metaphoric; his real life often contained realities that were other men’s rhetorical devices; he could do and say -and have happen to him- things that are not normal at all. So, one had to ask.

  “Metaphorically, they did. They did things -like not paying the electric bill or doing free tattoos for their friends in which they pocketed the cash- stealing basically or shorting the cash on a drop, like they owed me $20,000 for a deal and it would be -they would pay me- $19,100 instead. They’d gossip about me and ruin my name. And they waited to see what I did. See?” he squinted as if he was searching too.

  “Ah, yes,” she did see now.

  “And I yelled and shamed them, and they felt nothing inside. They had no shame. They secretly laughed at me and set their plot into overdrive, man. ”

  “So, you moved out here?” she asked as an elk began bugling far off enough that it failed to arouse any response from anything above the brain stem. Their ears barely heard it at all.