You seem like you must do OK, he said. Not that I don’t want the work. But why are you asking.
I don’t get the real girls, said Vlad. I get the girls who want a free house so they can think about astrology. You seem like you get the real girls.
Are you OK on a date?
I can close, said Vlad.
He got to work. What to say. I’m eight feet tall, he typed. Ten billion dollars. Nineteen inch penis. I’ll choke you if you want. I promise to make you like me. Leave you twisting in the wind. Erased it.
When he had something he sent it to Vlad and Vlad said here’s my password, just post it. Let me know when you line one up.
**
Her name was Brie. Vietnamese. I want to go out with you, he said. How about it.
Forward of you. Tell me about yourself.
What is there to know. I’m one of God’s creatures. No more significant than an insect, but no less perfect.
Does that yacht belong to you?
We just call them “boats.”
Not to be rude but you seem like an asshole.
I’m a product of our civilization.
I’ve dated “software people” before. You’re either assholes or autistic. And you don’t seem autistic.
Thank you. Anyway I want to go out with you. How about it.
Tell me a story, she said. Then maybe.
**
When he started the story he was trying to be a dick. What women want. But she told him: don’t be like that. It’s not who you are.
He started again. A little fairy tale. A man hated his life and took a magic drug to forget it. Tell me another, she said. He fell in love with a sex toy who became a real woman. She died. Another. He married a whore but she murdered him. He fell in love again but tried to be nice. In her bones a woman’s purpose is to propagate evil. Another. He turned into an old man and died alone but a unicorn saved him. He got a job and married a nice girl and was eaten by a vampire. There was a magic bird. It died alone too. All ridiculous. But it was about how he was afraid. She was afraid too, she said. The world was a trap. Whatever you try just makes it worse. We’re doomed. All of us alone. She understood.
Finally he told a story about the end of the world. In the story he fell in love. When he got there he almost cried. Because that was the most unlikely part. I love this, she said. I love everything about this. I want to go out with you, he said. How about it. She said yes.
**
The next morning he got a text from Vlad. A thumbs up emoji. And a new OKCupid message. Hey, she said.
Hey.
Can’t text at work. Long story. I had a wonderful time with you.
I get that a lot.
You’re different than I thought.
How so
More to the point. Your dick is bigger too, lol
He felt something shift in his chest. Like an old box falling from a high closet shelf, full of pictures of the dead. Paused for a minute. I have to tell you something.
Oh my God, I knew it. You’re not really separated–
No– actually I don’t know, maybe. But it wasn’t him, he said.
What do you mean
It was me. I’m a different guy. He hired me to write to you.
Holy shit
I’m sorry to bring this up. I’m sorry I did it. But there’s something about you. I really like you and I’m sorry. Can you forgive me, he said. Can we talk about it.
It was a day before he heard back. Whoever you are, she said, you’re amazing.
Thank you.
Can I ask you something?
Yes?
Can you keep writing for him?
Father of the Sword
Joy had the day off. She came in the morning. Took him to the beach where her canoe was waiting. Do you know how to drive one, she said. It is traditional Philippines boat. PVC pipe bolted to the sides on struts to make a catamaran. Black nylon fishing net heaped in the aluminum hull.
It was high tide. White sand stretched out into swaying weeds under calm water. Out on a pier a Chinese family studied distant ships with binoculars. The only other tourists. Tall storm clouds pulled sluggishly at the horizon. The night before he’d taken the scooter into Puerto Princesa to find sunscreen. A hundred kinds but only one that didn’t bleach your skin, for tourists. In a separate area of the pharmacy. On the boulevard by a harbor full of shipwrecks kids dancing in school uniforms stopped him for pictures, laughing. He woke up early. Spent long minutes smearing sunscreen on. Toweling it off. He didn’t want his nose red but didn’t want to be shiny either. Appraised his gut in the mirror. Sitting down like it would be in the boat.
She sat in front, golden like a part of the sunshine. He waded out up to his knees pushing the boat out. Lost a flip flop in the sand and she laughed. We are going south, she said. My father is not far from here.
He did know how to drive it. He’d gone canoeing on a family vacation, at fourteen. Kept his boat next to his cousin’s; she was sixteen with big pink sunburn tits wet in a white one piece and he thought about them seven miles downriver. Little hard on in his trunks keeping his belly warm. She was a grandmother now. He paddled south past the resorts to where the mangroves began. Families waded chest high in the salt flats gathering clams in their basketball shirts. They grinned and waved. Fish with zebra stripes chased one another in the sunlight. Are you sure he’ll like me, he said.
Yes! Don’t be afraid, sir. He likes Westerners. He has worked on ships, traveled many places. He is a scholarly man.
OK.
Before this, where did you go in Philippines, sir.
Manila.
Anywhere else?
… Pampanga.
You mean Angeles? All the men are going there. For the girls.
I was visiting a friend, he said. He told me there are vampires there. Aswang.
Yes sir, here too. Some people say at night they hear them flying. But I have not seen it personally.
Up the shore the green wall of the mangroves broke into a lagoon. Steer there, she said. Inside a pool shaded by leaves. Children playing tag in the water. Girls on boys’ shoulders splashing. When they saw him they went nuts. Tom Cruise! they screamed, pointing. Donald Trump!
Rodrigo Duterte! he said pointing back, and they laughed. To the right the mangroves formed a channel. Older kids stalked the tall arches in the roots. Pulled out crabs in nets, their claws frantic in the air. It is not far sir, she said. Around a bend, a cave made from the hissing trees. Huts and houses on the muddy shore. Three little canoes like theirs pulled up on the sand. One long mean-looking speedboat, four engines askance on the back, props in the water. TABAK painted on the side with a crude cutlass in a bronze fist.
Men on the shore, mending fish nets, hacking at bamboo shafts with machetes. Women weaving hut walls out of palm leaves. A screaming rooster tied to a tree with twine and a water buffalo with clay covered skin, a neck like a dinosaur. But no dogs. Welcome to my home, she said. A wiry man chopping at a bamboo pole looked up, put his machete down and ran into the big house. He finds my father.
**
When the door clicked closed behind him he saw the guns. Battered AKs leaning on dirty wallpaper. He heard his heart suddenly. Knew he would die. Relax, said the old man. You are a guest.
A concrete house. Palawan didn’t get typhoons but it was the only way they knew to build. In the entry a big table, mismatched office chairs, papers. A laptop. Paintings of old boxers, like everywhere here. Outside the chicken burbled, worried. The old man had kind eyes. Maybe five foot two. As he approached the boat to help Joy out to shore he’d cast an appraising eye. Made a muscle pose. You brought me Arnold Schwarzenegger, he’d said. Too many consonants for his tongue.
Inside he gestured to sit. Murmured something to Joy in dialect. Telling her go somewhere for tea. She obeyed.
You are afraid of our guns, he said. They are necessary here. For many years, trouble.
Are you–
Am I ISIS? I
am a Muslim, sir. But all people are my brothers and sisters. We are in your country too. The states.
Yes sir. California.
And you are here for tourism.
That’s right
Where have you seen.
Manila… Pampanga
For the women.
I was visiting a friend.
A man wants a woman. It is a part of nature.
It’s not why I’m here.
For what then.
He paused. The girls were near the airport that took you to the island with the rare Philippine cockatoo. He still hadn’t seen it. Nature, he said.
My daughter says you don’t like your work.
Why are you asking me this? Can you just tell me what you want– I’ll cooperate–
I have told you, you are a guest. I will not kill you. I want to know what you want from this place.
I wanted to retire, he said. Maybe here.
Not America.
No, it’s not– it’s not a good place.
Why? You told her you earn five million peso–
Yes but it’s not like you think. It’s not worth as much.
Oh?
They take it from you. If you make more the rent goes up. You work hard and you do what they fucking tell you. And the women look at you like a worm.
The old man was laughing.
I mean it– I have to work to pay to work to get a woman’s attention so she can reject me. Love is impossible. A house, a wife– a second date, impossible. Normal things. I’ll never hold my first child. Those things just ended. Yes, I hate my work. And I’m afraid of losing it. They get angry if you’re not thankful for it. That’s a bad attitude. You have to lie every day, every minute, and say you love the thing that’s killing you. It’s Satanic. What do we have, better toilets? The men are all liars. The women are barely people anymore. I’m barely a person anymore. I’m starting to like it. I’m starting to feel proud when I close a deal. To sell branded entertainment. To sell Verizon to fucking moms– it’s all like this. Everything exists just to sell you shit and you have to sell shit too just to live and they make you fucking smile about it. I’ll get old like this. Alone. Nothing but my career– I wish you would kill me. Please– is that what I’m here for? To cut my head off? Trust me, no one gives a shit–
The old man laughed again. And you sell information, he said. For this job.
Yes.
I know your firm. I have seen your Linkedin profile. He spoke the words like binding a demon.
OK.
We are at work on something here, he said. A project. When we are finished, perhaps things will be better.
OK–
But first we need information.
I can’t–
You think I am a terrorist. But I speak to the Westerners here. Like you. Some will not tell the truth. But they know it. When the sun is covered in darkness, when the stars fall, scattering; when the mountains are annihilated and what you possessed is in flames, when the beasts draw together in their hordes– your soul will know then. What you made with your life. They know. That is terror. You know.
He did know.
When you go back, you can speak with Joy. Via Skype. We will only need a little from you. And when you are finished you can come back for her.
He waited to say yes. It took a second to sink in, that the old man hadn’t asked. Hadn’t had to.
He stayed three more days. Kissing Joy under the waterfalls. Her eyes full of love, like his dream. High in the trees the birds cried, mostly out of sight. Just flashes of white feathers. Red streaks like their guts were slashed. Then it was time to go. Back to work.
The Big One
In the morning they were going to move north. It had rained again. At 1AM maybe. The water tapping hesitantly at first on the tent roof and then walls of it making rivers of ashes, crawling cold in the dirt under the nylon floor. Hissing over the dying trees and ripping the gray grass out of the mud like a cancer patient’s hair coming out in clumps. Snaking into holes in the blown out Sherman Oaks roofs around them. Waking up mold spores in wrecked sectional couches and pianos and entertainment centers. Fattening up the burned out corpses of TV writers on hiatus who’d moved over the Cahuenga pass seeking highly rated schools. The scorched ribs of the pit bull mixes they’d rescued. It had taken months to get one. The shelters were bristling with volunteers and their alimony money. They interviewed you like Harvard. They wanted credentials. Certificates of education about rattlesnakes, coyotes. You had to try and try. You had to know somebody. Nothing left alive to soak up the sounds and the air made white noise like a jet engine next to you. She had second shift to listen for killers but when he woke up her cheek was nestled in his armpit. Her hair on his neck still wet, smelling like campfire smoke and swimming pool. The rain calmed down to a tap tap tap on a detached gutter pipe somewhere and a gray light was picking up. Her fingers on his collarbones and her eyes were opening and she was pulling down the zipper in his 25 degree rated sleeping bag and kissing him. Her mouth stank like Slim Jim debris caught between teeth for sixteen hours but he got used to it. She pulled open his cocoon and the cold air hit his belly. Slipped off her toothpaste color underwear and crawled on top of him and he felt like he was easing into a warm bath in winter. Moving slow with her hot palms on his chest and he looked in her eyes, seeing a child outside time that he wanted to hold and protect. When he came the world went white and he could see her black bones.
Industrial Society and Its Future
Marcy Pendergrass was putting up the Fourth of July decorations. The one hot girl in the office.
She made no small talk. Her heart not in it. The CEO gave a speech, remotely. You may have read about merger talks. Nothing has been determined. As you know in this competitive landscape we can and must do more with less. In the coming weeks, departments may be evaluated. I expect with your competitive drive and your love for a challenge we’ll emerge from this process stronger than before. Applause over the conference room speaker phone.
The summer after freshman year of college he worked nights in a candle factory. They’d fire you for going near the trash. If they let you take broken candles you might break candles you wanted. He worked the shipping line. It was called Plymouth Rock Candle but they barely made anything there. Just assembled it. Product came from overseas. You’d open a crate and an oxblood color bug the size of a men’s loafer would crawl out dying. Second shift once startled a cobra sleeping in a case of votive holders shaped like Christ. The candles were sold by women at parties. They were a loss leader. Revenue came from selling women the idea of selling candles to friends and neighbors. Seminars and training materials. The women sold women who sold women and so on.
The shipping warehouse was biblical. A million cubits high. So big there was haze in the distance. He was a temp. Third shift was an experiment. Keep working 24 hours. 9PM to 5AM he stuck UPS labels on boxes packed with Yankee Bayberry Everflame™ Jar Style his coworkers picked from scaffolding racks that leaned over and gave you vertigo. You could feel the electricity that ran the conveyor belt in the nerves of your arms. Next to him a man pulled a lever over and over that dropped styrofoam peanuts from a hanging bag the size of a high school gym. Labels were a cake job except one or two hours a night, when a guy up the line screamed CANADA and you had to start reading the tiny address as the box rushed by. Three provinces need an extra sticker. Housewives sell each other candles in places like Yellowknife where babies die from blackflies. If he fucked up and forgot the sticker one more time one of the guys on truck said he’d kill him. He’d done 20 years for murder. Six dollars an hour.
One night Mark, the manager, called the whole warehouse to sit in a circle. They’d succeeded. So productive the company made third shift permanent. As such half of you will be let go in four weeks. Anyone talking about layoffs will be fired immediately. I know this is hard news. Also, second shift packed 5,000 unicorn votive stands with no bubble wrap. This product is genuine glass. Bef
ore we start on quota we’ll take them out and repack.
Violins began to play. Management chose an adult contemporary mix. Annie Lennox’s “No More I Love Yous” four times per night. Mark was watching as they scotch taped bubble wrap on the smiling cartoon unicorns and they couldn’t talk about getting fired. On break he’d told the foam peanut man he was taking Amtrak to Long Island. Visiting a girl from school. They’d taken acid together. Their souls were intertwined. They’d get married. Someone had to say something while Annie Lennox overenunciated IN SI-LENCE so the peanut man said: hey. Did you know this guy has to go 200 miles to meet a girl. Mister New York here.
Surprised it’s not the fuckin moon, said the convict.
They made fun of him all night. But he thought about her hair. Felt hope. After the layoff he moved his trip earlier. Couldn’t wait. When he got off the train she introduced her new boyfriend.
**
This time he was safe. Larry, Vice President, Global Sales, overheard him talk about telemarketing. So you have cold calling experience. They moved him up to sales. He took a girl to dinner to celebrate. She got a direct deposit every month for an old man to watch her take a bath, then half fuck her with a bunched up condom on. The amount was ten times his raise. The client’s money came from an instrumental role in developing the USB adapter. Half the time his dick felt like it went in upside down. On sales calls the voices felt like cigarette burns on his neck.
The office nervous. But not him. Now he was revenue, not cost, plus he planned to steal key data on government officials from the company’s database. Give it to terrorists. Marcy’s summer dress was white and her panties were striped like a candy cane. When she reached high to hang tiny American flags she showed 36 hours of armpit stubble. His mind became two micrometers tall and he wandered among the fat cut hairs like in a forest, feasting on her smell. He wanted to say don’t be afraid. Don’t be afraid to lose something we all hate. Why could I never speak to a girl like this. We’re both just mammals. How am I so beneath her.
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