Donnie Dump arrived first. He sniffed. He sighed. The place stunk. He took a deep breath and ambled over to the plain wooden door with the brass numbers ‘4’ and ‘2’ glued on at a slight angle. The door looked to be plywood.
He dug around in the front right pocket of his too-tight Lee’s and found the crumpled piece of paper. He uncrumpled it. He nodded and mumbled: “Yep. This is the place.” He re-crumpled the paper and jammed it back into his pocked. Then, he turned the cheap brass knob and pushed. The door opened into a room without light. “Crap. I’m the first one here.”
Donnie fumbled around the door jamb for a light switch and flipped one. He said, “Let there be light.” And, there was light. A row of florescent lights flickered on to reveal a small arc of cheap chairs. In a corner of the smallish room, a vending machine offered a variety of salty and sugary snacks.
Donnie hated being late. But he hated being early even more. Yet, here he was. Early. The first one here. He thought, How the hell was I supposed to know traffic would be so light. The truth was traffic was always “unusually” light now, but he hadn’t yet connected the dots; he hadn’t noticed nor had he realized how that fact related to his own ‘second career’ as he often called it.
AI generated image.
Just then, he heard a noise and spun quickly to see another obese, masked marvel of manhood who raised a hand to him and said, “Hey. AA?”
Donnie nodded and began to regret having agreed to come. His wife Maggie had been insistent. Maggie the Naggie, he thought. She should just mind her own damned business. “I don’t need fixing!” He had told her.
She had countered, “I’m not saying you need fixing. But you’re just—understandably stressed. It’s not an easy job.”
Donnie now glanced at his watch. He could see several other guys out in the hallway. He was glad to see half of them were at least as old as he was. It was hard work chasing down folks trying to run away from you. He thought: True, the numbers and the weaponry made it safe enough but so is a carnival ride and they’re plenty scary too. But it’s whacking ‘em on the head I really get off on. Head wounds bleed a lot. The thought that they might be stupid the rest of their life from that one blow, or have a part of their body paralyzed or weakened. That was power. I like the taste. And, when the opportunity comes up, I’ll take whatever the hell I want. What’s everyone staring at me like that for?
Everyone had been seated for awhile and had been taking turns jabbering on about something or other. The so-called “Facilitator” had just said something to him. But what? That’s the question. Everyone’s staring at me.
Donnie stammered: “Sorry, what was the question?”
The facilitator faked a smile and said in a pleasant voice that Donnie just knew had to be rehearsed: “Have you experienced any unusual symptoms since joining NICE?”
Donnie shook his head and thought: Symptoms sound like I’m some kind of psycho or something. Aloud, he said, “No, nothing. No unusual symptoms. Like what?”
The F-man shrugged and said, “Like drinking more alcohol than you used to or using more pot or bad dreams. Anything.”
Donnie shook his head. Maybe I shook it too hard. This is weird. No wonder Maggie wanted me to come. This is chick stuff. Feelings and that crap. I wish I knew what the other guys said. Doesn’t matter. They can’t prove what I think or what I did. We’re all masked. I can hold my liquor just fine. Who cares? It’s good to celebrate our victories. Kids. Some of them look like kids but so what? They’re criminals at heart. And not America citizens. Not because some liberals wrote it into a Constitution. Not with skin that dark. Everyone’s staring at me again. I want my assault rifle. Why is everyone staring at me?
Donnie said, “Look, I feel fine. I like beer. So what? I do my job. I’m only here because my wife insisted. Well, that won’t matter much longer. Everybody knows it works better when women are property and we stop pretending their people with their own ideas. Go on to the next guy.”
The meeting only lasted an hour but to Donnie, it seemed like a lifetime of boredom.
It was late when Donnie got back home from the meeting and the post-meeting meeting at the “NICE GUY TAVERN.” Maggie had fallen asleep in her bathrobe staring at the boob tube. The twins must be asleep, he thought.
I don’t drink too much. I just want to feel good.
Donnie didn’t see anything wrong with that. But he did see something wrong with his damned wife being asleep when he got home. He didn’t exactly shout, but he did want to be heard over the sound of the frigging TV and he did want to wake her up and he had been drinking so his “Hey!” Sounded a lot more like: “HEY! Wake the hell up, Bitch!”
Maggie sat up and said, “Hey, Donnie. How was the meeting? I didn’t realize it would run so long. Was it fun?”
Donnie was already pouring himself a few fingers of Jack D. He bolted it down in one gulp before turning back toward Maggie and snarling in a soprano of swishy sarcasm, “Was it fun? Was it fun? Did you boys have fun talking about your frigging feelings?” He switched to his own voice and added, “No, it wasn’t fun! It was boringand useless just like you knew it would be. Do me a favor. Next time you get a brilliant idea, just keep it to yourself. I don’t drink too much. End of story.”
Maggie didn’t really agree, but she bit her lip to keep from…saying anything she’d regret.
Meanwhile, Donnie was pouring himself yet another Jack D but only got two fingers’ worth. He yelled, “What the hell? Drink your own damned drinks! Don’t drink my good whiskey! Ain’t lady-like anyway! Don’t you have some sprizzer chicker drinker? Leave mine alone! Now, I’m out of Jack!”
At the moment Donnie said that, he was not, in fact, out of Jack. There was another fifth, unopened, staring right at him from the edge of the countertop. The fifth stood just a little too close to the edge. It should have known better but it didn’t know better because, first, it was filled with booze and secondly, it was only a bottle and didn’t really know much of anything.
In any case, when Donnie staggered and stumbled into the counter top, his elbow toppled the bottle onto the hard tile of the kitchen. Maggie and Donnie didn’t own any pets and the twins were asleep, so when the bottle shattered into smithereens, Donnie could see no-one to blame but Maggie. His subsequent screaming did manage to wake the twins who toddled out to the kitchen in a daze to see what all the commotion was about.
Maggie saw them toddling forward in their PJs and yelled at them to go back to bed, but not before each of them managed to step on several broken shards. Maggie was horrified to see the blood of her darling toddlers mixing with the stinging whiskey. The toddlers were none too happy either. Their pain and confusion were exacerbated by the increased tension they had felt at home ever since Donnie joined NICE.
Tears streamed down Maggie’s cheeks. She shook her head and stared at her husband—a man whom she had once loved. She could see that he was smiling and that the smile was genuine. It was the happiest she’d seen him since he had started working at NICE. She gripped the her elbows with her hands, knowing she should get her kids and fix them, but suddenly, she didn’t know how. She just cried silently wondering what had happened to the nice man who used to live inside Donnie’s skin.
Forty percent. That’s a wonderful number. Most people have a sense of what that means. It’s a large percentage but it’s not quite a majority. If you are a Major League Baseball slugger and you get a hit 40% of the time, that’s a lot! That puts you in rare company.
So, when President Mush Melon says forty percent of Medicare calls are fraudulent, that’s a lot! You quite understandably think: What’s wrong with an organization that deals so badly with fraud that 40% of the calls are fraudulent?
And, you might also quite understandably think: What’s wrong with so many of my fellow Americans? Forty percent of them try to cheat the medicare system!
But you know what? It was a lie. It wasn’t a hitter like Ted Williams or Ty Cobb or Aaron Judge. Not at all. It was instead someone who wouldn’t even make the farm team because they were batting worse than .001
Maybe there’s something special about baseball. Well, there is of course. There’s something special about everything. But it isn’t that there’s a big difference between 40% and less than 1%. That kind of difference is important almost all the time.
Let’s say you work for a company and you are reasonably satisfied with your job. Then, one day, you get a call from a recruiter who says:
“Say! Instead of working for the ABC company, we’d like you to come work at the XYZ company. Furthermore, we are offering you a 40% pay raise! What do you say?”
Presumably, you’d do some research, but you’d likely end up accepting the offer. Now imagine that you quit your old job, move across town, say goodbye to your old friends, start your take your new job and then you discover that you actually got less than a 1% raise. Would you just say, “Oh, well any raise is good.”? Maybe, but I doubt it. Most of us would be very angry to leave our job and our work colleagues under false pretenses.
Let’s take another example. Your “friend” will pay you ten million dollars to play Russian Roulette once. He shows you twenty ‘six-shooters’. He tells you (and you verify) that only one of the twenty six-shooters has any ammo in it. That one has one bullet in the cylinder. You’ll be blind folded and then choose one gun, spin the cartridge, put the muzzle to your head and pull the trigger once. If you live, you get ten million dollars. You might think of all the things you could be you and your family for ten million dollars.
You choose to play. But then, your “friend” loads every gun with two or three bullets. Are you still going to play? Would you be upset that he misrepresented your odds that blatantly?
Please understand that these are not “innocent mistakes” or “slight exaggerations.” That is the difference between 39% and 40%, not between 40% and less than one per cent. To make that kind of mistake, you need to have evil intent or suffer from gross incompetence.
Not an actual photo from hell but an AI-generated image.
But this President Mush Melon isn’t just someone setting out to destroy the American government and the confidence of people (though some snowflake liberals would say that’s quite bad enough). No, he’s also in charge of cars that are supposed to drive themselves. Would you want someone who has evil intent to be building cars that drive themselves? Oh, maybe he’s just grossly incompetent. Well—same question: Would you want someone grossly incompetent to be building cars that drive themselves? Oh, by the way, this same someone can download new software so that your car behaves differently!
No worries! The Cybertruck only has a top speed of 130 miles per hour and only weighs between 6600 and 10,000 pounds, so what could possibly go wrong? It’s not as though it could run over you in your driveway. Over and over and over and over.
AI-generated to the following prompt (keep in mind, AI technology is supposed to be driving your self-driving car). “A Tesla Cybertruck that is a dumpster fire”
But wait! There’s more! President Mush Melon also happens to own a company that controls communications satellites used for—-among other things—-war fighting and voting. No problems there, right? It’s all okay so long as there’s no evil intent or gross incompetence.
But wait! There’s more! The Mush Melon also happens to control a company that shoots missiles out over your head. And, the best part is—they never unexpectedly explode! Sure, they suffer from catastrophic unscheduled disassembly. But we’ve all had days like that.
Well, okay, sure there’s some danger having someone in charge of missiles when we know that person lies or suffers from massive incompetence, but hey—at least it’s not a pizza shop, right? You’d know a bad pizza soon after you bought it no matter how many lies the cook told you.
On the other hand, it might be some time before you see the impact of your self-driving truck under someone else’s control, or the results of cutting off crucial communications, or the havoc caused by missiles exploding—excuse me—-rapidly disassembling— at unscheduled times.
Though on the other hand, you might feel this is all worth it because, after all, this person makes billions and billions of dollars a year and therefore provides a huge influx of cash to the U.S. Treasure to the tune of nearly…
Wait…
Nothing? Nothing? Are you kidding? The supposedly richest man in the world pays zero income tax.
But he gives huge contributions of money to a Presidential candidate who then drops all the cases about Mush Melon’s frauds?
The Melon and the Felon: A marriage made in heaven. What’s a good name for the couple? I’m thinking just MF for short. We could call the Felon by 47 but what’s a special number of the Melon? Oh, there’s the form he is supposed to submit to Congress — FS-86. So, I suppose they could go by 8647 or 4786.
“Hey, Hon, guess what? We’re finally going to be able to get that new vacuum cleaner you’ve been asking about.” Stevie grinned from ear to ear. Of course, the vacuum cleaner wasn’t the only thing. But Stevie didn’t see any point in mentioning the new bowling ball or the fifths of Johnny Walker Black. He wasn’t trying to hide those purchases from Karen, his wife of fifteen years. Not exactly. It’s just that—timing was everything. That was all.
Karen looked up from her iPhone solitaire game. More accurately, she looked up from the ads that were interrupting her iPhone solitaire game. Once again, they were trying to cajole her into getting a new app but it was (once again) one she already had. She sighed. She could see that Stevie was quite jazzed so she amped up her enthusiasm two notches as she answered, “That’s great, Stevie. Thanks. Did you get a bonus or something? Win the lottery?”
“No, no lottery. That’s for suckers. Vegas gives you better odds. A bonus though. Exactly.”
Karen chose to paint smile level three on her face. She knew it well because she had practiced in since Junior High. She thought it looked pleased, surprised, happy, and just a tad beholden. “That’s great, Stevie. What’s the bonus for?”
Stevie’s smile faded and he looked out the front window and noticed that it looked as though a thunderstorm was on the way. “Well, for meeting my quota. You know. Just saving the country by getting out the criminals like always. But now we’re serious about it.”
Karen chewed her lip a little. “Yes. Well, a new vacuum cleaner will be great.” A flicker passed over her face. She realized her smile had withered, but Stevie had a faraway look in his eyes anyway and so she returned to her game. The game within the game. The game of finding out where they had hid the X this time—the X that closed down the ads and sent her back to her game. She vaguely noticed that Stevie had walked away over toward the liquor cabinet. She thought: This sucks! All Kings and Jacks but no Queens. How’s that work? Where the hell are they? She pushed the “Random Deal” button to start again.
Summer, 2025.
“Hey, Hon, is dinner ready yet by any chance? I gotta head back out for some…I gotta head back out to work.”
“Really? That’s too bad. Couldn’t they get somebody else? Didn’t you already do your shift? Did you forget it’s Brittany’s swim meet tonight?”
“What? Oh, crap! No, no, I didn’t forget. It’s just…we need to round up more people and there’s…well, we have something planned. These vermin are slippery, you know? I can’t let the team down, not to mention Captain Bligh. Sorry. Next time.”
Karen frowned, “Captain Bligh? I thought your Captain’s name was ‘Smyth with a y’ — you said you guys all called him that because he was always asking ‘Why?’”
“Oh, yeah, you’re right, but that was months ago. He’s out. Bligh’s in. Look. I gotta go. Is dinner ready or not?”
“No, Stevie. We were going to all go out after the meet. We talked about it. Brittany will be hungry after and Steve Junior is always up for burgers and fries.”
Steve Junior slid into the kitchen, raised his eyebrows and grinned. “Did someone mention burgers and fries? You comin’ too dad?”
“No, dammit. I already said that. I have to go to work. Do we have anything in this frigging house to eat? Never mind. I’ll grab something from…I gotta go. Good luck at your meet Junior.”
Steve Senior grabbed his car keys off the hook and left. He hadn’t meant to slam the door. Not exactly.
He didn’t mean to spin gravel onto the lawn when he left either. Not exactly. Karen sighed and Steve Junior frowned as he said, “Meet? What meet? Does Dad think I’m on Brittany’s swim team now?”
“No, he just…he’s just distracted. That’s all. Come on. Let’s pack up. I’ll ask Sue to swing by. She’ll have room for the three of us.”
“Yeah. Well, if Dad’s not going, why should I go? A swim meet’s not the most exciting thing in the world you know. You can’t even see the girls. At least in a track meet you know who’s who. In a swim meet all you see are bubbles and bathing caps.”
Karen put her hand up to hush Stevie Junior while she called Sue. Finished, she said, “Sue said there’s plenty of room for you too and…anyway, although Brittany would never admit it to you, she really does want you there rooting for her. Especially since Dad…won’t be able to make it. Again. She hadn’t mean to say ‘Again.’ Not exactly.
Fall, 2025.
Doctor Lemon shook his head as he glanced at the labs report before him. He kept glancing down at a written report and up at his computer screen. Stevie frowned and drubbed his fingers on the steel arm of the chair. After a few minutes, Doctor Lemon looked up. “Well, Mister Miller, the good news is, there no sign of cancer but your blood work—well, this is the worst it’s ever been. Did you really cut down on sugar and alcohol these past six months. That was our plan, right?”
“Yes! Yes, I did. Way down. Not every day, of course. But overall. Yes. Maybe it’s just genetics, you know?” For some god-damned annoying reason some stupid poster child for WOKE or some stupid folk singer sprang into his head and the young singer or actor, or ‘wacktor’ as his buddies liked to call them, said, ‘Remember. It makes no sense to lie to your own doctor.’
“Well, Mister Miller, genetics do play a role, but your genetics haven’t changed in the last six months. So that’s not why your weight’s up, your blood pressure’s up, and your numbers all look worse. You liver, in fact, is just outside the intervention zone and that’s never looked bad before. Have you cut out exercise? Change jobs maybe? Or stopped walking the dog? Or given up golf?”
“I’m busy at work. That’s all.”
“Yes, well stress can also…”
“I never said anything about stress! I didn’t use that word! You did! Anyway, it’s fine. I’ll do better. But meanwhile, can you give me a pill or something to get my numbers back down?”
Doctor Lemon swiveled his chair to face Steven Miller more directly. The doctor leaned forward and said, “Look, Mister Miller, we’re on the same team here. But I need to know what we’re dealing with. Have you had trouble sleeping?”
Steven Miller ground his teeth. He didn’t mean to growl. Not exactly. But growl he did as he said, “Look, Doc, can you give me a goddamned pill or not?”
“I can give you a pill that might help bring your BP down and even lower your cholesterol, but you know, there are always side effects.”
“Like what?” Steven Miller wished he were on duty right this minute. He could leap up and wrench the guy’s arm for being such an asshole.
Doctor Lemon frowned. He could see his patient was clearly upset. But why? “Sleepiness. ED. Nightmares. Muscle weakness.”
“Screw that! I need my strength. You think my job’s easy, but it isn’t. Just…you know what? Forget it.”
Stevie had had enough poking and prodding for one day. His head felt full like it was a balloon ready to burst. He thought to himself, ED? Bullshit. What does he expect? My wife’s like 45 years old now. So what if I have a drink now and again. I’ll find a way to get the pills. Damned doctors anyway. Stress! Hah! I’d like to see him wrestle these people to the ground. Fucking protestors anyway. If the illegals weren’t here in the first place, they wouldn’t need to be roughed up and deported. I’m doing the job for them. What’s with the damned protests anyway?
Stevie didn’t notice how close he had parked the passenger side of his car to the cement pillar in the parking garage. Not until he heard the scrape of metal as he backed out. Even then, he hadn’t realized at first that his own car was causing the noise. When he finally figured it out, he stopped the car, got out, and walked around to the other side of the car. “Goddammit!”
Like all parking garages, this one was designed and built with two-person golf carts in mind, not SUV’s. So, when Stevie stopped his car, he blocked off the lane for others who wanted to drive by and exit the parking garage. A guy in a BMW tooted his horn. Stevie flipped him off. He thought: Driving a foreign car anyway. An expensive one. Probably a faggot. They’re next. Why is everybody out to get me when I’m just doing my job?
And speaking of people who were just doing there job, that was the situation for “Old Joe” as his co-workers affectionately called him. At one time, his job had been as a soldier. After two tours of duty, he became a cop. He retired from that and had enough to live on. Old Joe wasn’t rich, but he wasn’t destitute. But he liked work. He liked doing something. And, he especially liked doing something that added to society. And he liked having co-workers. And they liked Old Joe as well. He was firm but polite.
He was firm but polite when he requested to see Mr. Miller’s validated parking ticket. Mr. Miller, for his part, explained through gritted teeth that he had left his parking ticket at the doctor’s office and that no-one had reminded him to get his ticket back when he left. Old Joe said, “That sometimes happens. You have two choices. You can pull over there and go back up and get your validated parking ticket. Or, you can pay the max for a lost ticket just like it says when you enter.”
Stevie didn’t mean to growl. Not exactly. His grunts, when translated into more polite language, boiled down to this: “No, I’m not going to do either. You just open the gate up. I need…I’m on an important mission. I’m RIME—which, in case you’re so stupid you don’t know, is the militarized version of ICE. Raiders, Inciters, Maulers, Executers. You understand what ‘Executers’ are? For now, it means we execute the orders of the executive branch. But soon, we’ll have the power of on-the-spot executions of anyone who’s deemed an enemy of the state. If you’re in the way of the state, you’re an enemy of the state. And you, sir (no, Steve didn’t actually use the word ‘sir’—not exactly) are in the way of my doing my job. We’re due to raid a…well, none of your business. But I’m on my way. Now, let me out of this garage before I blow your brains out.”
This claim of being on the way to a raid wasn’t actually true. Not exactly. After his aborted doctor’s visit, Stevie had arranged to meet up with a bunch of the guys over at the bar that was jokingly known by two names: “The Library” (because books would be the last thing discussed there) and “The Lie-Berry” because when the guys got together, they told fishing stories. But the stories weren’t about fishing at all. They were about the size of the lies that they got away with, or, in some cases, didn’t get away with. But it didn’t matter to Stevie. It wasn’t any of Old Joe’s business where he was going. He was RIME. He could do whatever he felt like. And what he felt like right now was smashing Old Joe to smithereens.
Old Joe had seen a thing or two though and he said, in a calm voice,“Well, Mister, I don’t appreciate being threatened. But it seems to me you’re having something of a really bad day. Why don’t you just tell me your name and the phone number of the doctor you went to see and I’ll call them. And if they say you were there, then, I’ll pretend you have a validated ticket.”
“And if I crack your skull, I’ll consider myself validated!” Stevie screamed this much louder than he meant to since there was now a growing line of cars behind him. The last time his group of guys from RIME got together for a Lie-Berry session, Fat Frank had talked about beating up a grocery bagger for putting eggs and tomatoes in the bottom of a paper bag and then throwing in a six pack on top of them. Frank said it was a real pain to deal with the blow-back but in the end, the bagger was fired and Frank didn’t pay any penalty at all. Well, not exactly. In fact, the baggers all avoided the lines that Frank was in. He mostly bagged his own groceries but never really noticed it.
Winter, 2025.
Things were getting out of hand. It wasn’t a full-fledged Civil War. Not exactly. But Stevie had to be careful all the time. Yet he felt too rushed to be careful. He had trouble falling asleep every night and, on the two nights he had experimented with not having any alcohol at all, he hadn’t slept at all. On his typical mornings, the hangover headaches and the bright sun put him in the mood for mayhem.
It didn’t help his mood, that he and Karen hadn’t had sex in months, but that was not a forever problem. Pretty soon, everything would be in place, including women and girls like his smarty pants daughter, Brittany. They were baby ovens and pleasure boxes and household chore-doers. Soon, robots would take that over the chores and the ladies could all sit home and watch soap operas all day or whatever the hell it was they did. But the point is that they would know their place once and for all.
Stevie turned on the TV and surfed over to the Cotton Bowl Game. Cheerleaders. Announcers. Players making amazing blocks and catches and stupid errors. It was just like always.
Not exactly. Stevie felt something between an upset stomach and a tickle. He wondered: What? It feels different. Why? How? What’s going on? He muttered aloud, “Where is everybody?”
Stevie noticed that there were fewer fans in the stands than in any bowl game he’d ever seen. What Stevie didn’t notice was the connection between the plummeting attendance at live sporting events and his own support of the Glorious Leader and his actions as a RIME agent. Few people wanted to risk being caught in the crossfire outdoors or more likely for rooting too loudly for the “wrong team.” Apart from the risk of physical injury, fewer people tended to care about the outcome of a “game” when everyone knew it was rigged so as to enrich the Glorious Leader and those currently in the “inner circle.” There was a lot of money to be made on sports betting when you could control the outcome. Until most betting fans caught on.
Stevie Junior came into the living room to sit beside his Dad and watch the game. He had a large bowl of sour cream flavored ruffled potato chips in his hand. “Say, Dad…”
“No! The answer is still no! Don’t ask again!”
“Dad? Are you okay? The answer is no to what? I was going to ask you if the game’s any good. You mind if I watch? I’ll share my chips with you.”
“Your chips? Did you buy them? Am I missing something? Those are my chips. Did you ever look into getting a job delivering packages? They always need help around this time of year and they’re always hiring. Even you could get a job, Junior.”
“Yeah. Well, this year, they are not hiring any extra people at Amazon or VanCare. I checked. Not a banner year for retailers.”
“Yeah, Stevie. Whatever. I’m sure you could get a job if you really tried. But sure, stay here and freeload instead. Tell you what. I’m heading out to watch this on the big screen. I’ve got a bet going with a bunch of the guys. I forgot I promised to watch the game with everybody at the Lie-Berry. If you see your mom….”
“Hey, Stevie, I’m right here. Did I turn invisible? You’re heading out now? Will you be back in time for dinner?”
“Oh, Christ! Now, you’re going to bug me too?”
Karen sighed. Steve Senior seemed to be in a bad mood most of the time now. She glanced at the coffee table and quickly counted five beer cans and one sudsy mug. Presumably, four beers had already been consumed. Yes and no. Five beers had been consumed and a shot of Jack Daniels with each beer. Karen said: “I’m not going to bug you. Go hang with your friends. But drive carefully, please.”
“Geez Karen. Now I know why everybody hates a Karen. ‘Drive carefully please.’ My ass. Just say what you really mean—that I’m a drunk and I trink do much. Well, no wonder with this family. I’m outta here. Don’t wait up. Like you would anyway. One of these days, I’ll be hauling one of these dangerous criminals out of the country and he’ll pull a gun on me. Don’t worry there’s insurance money. You’ll think you’ll be better off but you won’t be. You need a man to protect you. More than you know. Understand? It’s coming. Women are supposed to belong to a man. Without me. I hope you never have to find out.
Steve Senior staggered as he stood. He grabbed at Junior’s arm to steady himself and succeeded at knocking the potato chips all over the table, floor, and couch. “Jesus, Junior! Watch what the hell you’re doing. Too bad you inherited your mother’s clumsiness.”
Steve stormed out of the house. As he went to unlock the car door, he realized he’d never make it to the library without peeing. He glanced around. It was dark and he didn’t see any nosy neighbors anywhere so he peed next to the garage, mostly hidden by the car. Steve headed off to the Lie-Berry but he never made it there. He didn’t die in a car accident fatality. Not exactly. He did die in a car accident but not from a car accident. He was caught in a cross-fire between National Guardsmen trying to disperse a crowd of peaceful demonstrators by using live ammo and Marines trying to disperse the same crowd of peaceful demonstrators also by using live ammo.
Steve Senior smashed head-on into another car, but his heart had already stopped functioning. Most likely, his brain had also stopped functioning given the damage done to it. We may never know whether he ever had a flicker of consciousness at the end to wonder about his fate.
Perhaps his last thought was the reassurance that he would be ushered up to heaven where scores of beautiful young women would be his slaves in return for his service.
Like most people, when I awake to a clear sky and morning sun, I think to myself, “What a beautiful day!” Here in the San Diego area, there are many days like that. I take my dog Sadie for a walk every morning.
Sadie enjoys the sunny days. Probably unbeknownst to her, the golden morning light makes her golden doodle fur even prettier than the midday sun.
Sadie enjoys the rainiest of days as well. She watches the water gush into the storm sewer, enjoying the interplay of gravity, inertia, cohesion, and friction. Often large water droplets fall onto puddles and make large bubbles. Sadie snaps at as many as she can. Perhaps she imagines they are small silvery fish. Perhaps not.
Sadie also enjoys foggy days! Sometimes, it feels as though the joy is more a product of Sadie than it is of the weather.
Sadie enjoys days like this morning–gray, cloudy, drizzly. It hasn’t rained enough to cause flow a darksome torrent. But the moisture from the drizzle enhances the aroma of the earth and all the life that tracks across it.
Bailey: “There’s something in here! I can smell it! Peter Cottontail!” Sadie: [Stares at me] “What is Bailey on about? I don’t smell anything.” Bailey: [Runs through flowers] “Sister Sadie! Sister Sadie! This way! This way! I know it’s here! I can smell it!”Sadie: “Bailey! Chill out, brother. That rabbit you smell left 1200 sniff-teens ago.”Bailey: “No way! I smell rabbit! It’s this way!! Come on, Sis!”Bailey: “Where did the rabbit go? Down a rabbit hole? Into a magician’s hat? Stranger things have happened, you know.” Sadie: [Looking toward the golf course at the ever-changing course-changing antics of her younger brother]: “You were just down there!”Bailey: “No! Scratch that! How could I have been so anosmic? It’s *this* way!”
Bailey: [Sheepdogishly}: “Or, this way!”
Dogs don’t always immediately choose the right path. But they are willing to work together; to change direction; to admit their mistakes; and they hardly ever blame others for their own mistakes.
The San Diego area has famously good weather. Flowers blossom forth all year round. I like it!
But that doesn’t mean it never rains. In fact, I’m glad it does rain. Without some rain, it would be much less pleasant. Fewer plants would grow which would mean fewer friends from diverse parts of the Great Tree of Life: fewer butterflies, fewer lizard, fewer rabbits, fewer crows, fewer hummingbirds and fewer bees just to name a few of the critters I see almost every day.
On the other hand, I was supposed to play tennis this morning and that had to be canceled. We can’t really let the dogs out by themselves to play in the garden because now it’s too muddy. I have to take them out for a walk even when it’s raining. It seems to me that houses should be built with multi-species toilets that would allow humans, cats, and dogs all one place to go without causing a mess. It doesn’t seem that difficult a design problem.
But in our actual house, the toilets are only for humans so it’s important to take the dogs out several times a day. And that means I end up walking in the rain.
It’s wet. My feet often get wet. If it rains hard, I get wet on my head, my back, and my legs as well. As for the dogs?
They love to go out—rain or shine.
Sadie, who is now nearly three years old, often looks up at the sky when we begin a walk. I talk to her about the weather, the airplanes she spots at night, the moon, the stars, the planets. Perhaps she doesn’t understand every word, but, honestly, neither do I. I don’t know “why” there is gravity or how it relates in some way to the strong and weak nuclear forces. I’m not even sure there is a “why” to it.
What I do know is that Sadie does not just tolerate the rain. She loves the rain. She cannot change the weather. So why not love it?
Nor, for that matter, can I change the weather.
When it rains hard, the nearby storm sewer provides a mystery: a never-ending rushing gush of water! She looks up at me as though to ask: “Where does the water go?”
“The ocean,” I explain. To Sadie though, it remains a portal into another universe.
On its way to the sewer, the water rushes down the gutter and the raindrops cause bubbles to appear in the stream! Bubbles! Sadie snaps at each bubble and destroys it. Perhaps she does this in case they are tasty fish, but I think more likely she does it for the same reason I used to like to pop soap bubbles: sheer joy.
The moisture changes the intensity of smells and provide her with unusual odors. She likes to drink the water on the street which I discourage since the water probably contains more gas and oil than is good for her. Soon, I think, my water supply too may be too polluted to be healthy.
The passing cars make more noise in the rain. If it’s a hard storm, the wind blows the trees which she often looks up at as well. She does not wear shoes or boots and seems not to mind at all splashing through the cold puddles on her way to the next novel aroma.
These days, I’m not a big fan of the rain. I’d rather play tennis. I’d rather take pictures of the flowers in the sunshine. I’d rather not get wet.
But Sadie helps me remember an earlier time when I desperately wanted to go outside in the rain. I loved to splash through the mud puddles and wade in the just-born streams of the gutters. The deeper the stream, the better. I tried not to let the water spill over the rim of my boots—not because it was unpleasant to have the water suddenly soak my socks but because I knew my parents would be quite upset. Sometimes, I came home and managed to hide the fact that I had waded into too-deep water. That, in itself was a pleasure.
Even though I’m not as much of a rain fan as are Sadie and her younger brother Bailey, I’m something of a fan. The raindrops on flowers are beautiful. I enjoy Sadie’s enjoyment of the rain.
Why not love it?
Yes, we do teach our dogs.
We teach them tricks.
And, the dogs teach us.
They teach us to love and to live and to sing of the rain.
(AI generated image to this prompt: A Reporter interviews a Martian. The Martian has antennae on its head and a small child draped around its head.)
Reporter: “Mister President, do you have any comment about the explosion of yet another one of your rockets last night? Are you at all concerned it might have caused property damage or injured anyone?”
President Mush: “There was no explosion.”
Reporter: “Well. Many people saw the explosion and the falling debris in the night sky. How can you say there was no explosion.”
President Mush: “Easy. I use my mouth. Watch carefully. There was no explosion. See how I did that? I’m a genius. Did I mention that?”
Reporter: “Here’s a photograph of the explosion.”
President Mush: “Oh, that! You’re referring to an unscheduled disassembly. It’s a great way to improve things. If you were a genius, you’d know that.”
Reporter: “Sorry, what’s the difference between an explosion and an unscheduled disassembly?”
President Mush: “An explosion sounds dangerous and might make people think we’re incompetent. An unscheduled disassembly makes it sound as though our rockets are so smart that they don’t even need to wait for us to tell them to disassemble. They do it on their own through artificial intelligence.”
Reporter: “So, you are saying AI caused the explosion?”
President Mush: “No! I’m not saying that at all. I just want to use polysyllabic words people don’t understand so they don’t object. If you’re stuck, in order to get unstuck, it’s sometimes mandatory to deconstruct and disassemble the stasis preliminarily prior to the instantiation of the improved and more efficient and effective state. That’s what we’re doing now with the government.”
Reporter: “You’re performing unscheduled disassembly of the Federal government? What are the side-effects of that?”
(AI-generated image to the prompt: Exploding buildings. People screaming.)
President Mush: “I’m having fun. The shady hackers I’ve hired are having fun. Putrid’s happy. I’m finding trillions of dollars of savings so it’s making America great again!”
Reporter: “You’re firing long-time experts in many parts of the government and that will impact many government services. Will it not? Just to take one example, you’re firing people from the Park Service. That means longer lines, less safety, more crime, more danger of fires. Is it worth it?”
President Mush: “Why should the Federal Government be involved in Parks at all? The private sector can do it much more efficiently. All Federal property should be turned into profit-making theme parks or used for strip mining or oil drilling. This will make quadrillions of dollars for the wealthiest .001% of Americans and we can pass along at least two bits worth of savings to every US Citizen. I mean, of course, real citizens whose parents are both white and were born in America.”
Reporter: “The US Constitution says quite clearly that anyone born in America is an American citizen.”
President Mush: “Right. And how stupid is that? When the Constitution says things that are clearly against the best interests of the ruling elite, we should ignore it and do what common sense demands.”
Reporter: “Were you born in the United States? Were your parents?”
President Mush: “I was born rich. And my parents were white. And I am rich. And, did I mention I am really really rich?”
Reporter: “Yet, you don’t pay taxes.”
President Mush: “I’m cutting more waste out of the Federal budget than you pay in taxes. Much more. For example, take the Veteran’s Administration. Do you have any idea how many veterans are no longer serving their country but they are taking advantage of the services of the so-called Veteran’s Administration? If they are no longer going to war for us, why are we giving them any services at all? And, even so, this so-called Veteran’s Administration is wasting incredible amounts of money! Just to take one example, they sterilize surgical instruments, perform an operation and then they want the taxpayers to pay for sterilizing those instruments all over again! What a waste!”
Reporter: “Did you yourself serve in the Armed Forces?”
President Mush: “I do better than that! I build rockets and satellites and exploding cars! Also, I helped insure Putrid’s victory over the Democrats with my money and by repeating the Kremlin’s propaganda on NaziX until people believed it! That’s a real contribution! The previous administration was siding with Ukraine for God’s sake! How stupid is that? Do you know how many nuclear missiles the Ukrainians have? Zero! Zero! Why the hell don’t we join forces with North Korea and Russia? Then, we’ll have the vast majority of the nuclear weapons! Don’t buddy up with Ukraine!”
Reporter: “As I understand it, Ukraine did have nuclear weapons but they agreed to give them up in return for security guarantees from America and Europe.”
President Mush: “That’s what I mean. How stupid was that? Why would anyone do that?”
Reporter: “To help reduce the risk of unlimited nuclear proliferation and atomic war?”
(AI generated image to prompt: Atomic war.)
President Mush: “Yeah, yeah. That’s why I need more trillions of dollars to get humanity to Mars. That way, if we do have an atomic war, some of us—me, mainly—will continue the human race. Mars is perfect, by the way. No atomic weapons and no pollution. In fact, no disease. No large predators. No small predators. No pesky insects. No idiotic trees dropping their leaves. No stupid mushrooms to poison people. It’s ideal!”
Reporter: “It would be incredibly expensive to populate Mars, wouldn’t it?”
President Mush: “Who cares? We can tax the poor till they remember that they’re poor and were meant to be. All it takes is me and say a hundred beautiful baby ovens.”
Reporter: “Baby ovens?”
P-Mush: “Yeah. What you woke types slavishly call ‘women.’”
Reporter: “So, you want the people of earth to fund you to start a new colony on Mars which will consist of you and some young women? Aren’t you sad to leave your own kids on earth?”
P-Mush: “My human shields? No, they will have served their purpose by then.”
Reporter: “The rest of us…here on earth…what are your plans for us?”
P-Mush: “No plans. The rest of you are stupid enough to blow yourselves up.”
Reporter: “Does that include your sidekick?”
P-Mush: “He will have served his purpose as a clownish distraction. So, he should be happy. He’ll get a chance to kill a few hundred thousand people. He’s got Vlademort Putrid to help him. And Rat-Fink Klansman Junior to help him. Maybe he’ll kill a million. Maybe more. A guy that obese can’t live forever. At least his life won’t have been in vain.”
Reporter: “Because he’ll have been responsible for the deaths of others?”
P-Mush: “Sure, and have stolen most of their wealth. What on earth is life for except to be the apex predator? If you can’t actually eat people, you should at least ruin their lives. Right? I mean if they’re stupid enough to believe some bull$hit I spew about making things more efficient for them and they swallow that bull$hit, then if I steal every last shred of joy from their life, don’t they deserve it?”
(AI generated image)
Reporter: “I would say, no. No, they don’t deserve to be lied to and cheated. For example, people paid money into Social Security their whole working lives and now you’re trying to steal the money. I wouldn’t say that’s something that they deserve. In fact, rumor has it that your real reasons for investigating fraud in the government is to plant evidence of fraud on the part of your competitors and squash investigations into your own fraud and incompetence. Is there any truth to that?”
P-Mush: “Truth is whatever the richest people say it is. You’ll find that out when I call the head of your paper and have you fired.”
Reporter: “I see our time is up. Thank you for your time, President Mush.”
P-Mush: [Laughs a maniacal laugh]. “Our time? No. Your time is up. Not mine. I’m the apex predator and it’s time for my lunch!”
(AI generated image to prompt: Hannibal Lecter eating lunch. The lunch is a reporter. SIDE-NOTE: Do you want AI driving your car?)
I’ve never been close to being a professional athlete. On the other hand, I’ve enjoyed many kinds of amateur athletics. Playing ping-pong, tennis, racquetball, football, baseball, golf, volleyball, basketball, softball—to me, each has provided hours of enjoyment—win, lose, or draw.
During all those hours of enjoyment, there have been a few moments where everything went right for a few moments of—I won’t call it glory—because the audience was small and not the point. I would have enjoyed those moments nearly as much if I’d been alone. It was the joy of living, being, moving, seeing, hearing, and having it all work together.
Such moments involve skill combined with dumb luck. In third grade, for instance, I was playing center field when the other team had the bases loaded and no out. A short liner was hit my way and I sprinted toward the sinking ball. Apparently, the runners all thought the ball would drop for a base hit because they all sprinted for the next base. I caught it near my shoes and kept running I stepped on second base to double the runner who had left there and immediately threw my mitt to my left to tag the one arriving at second base from first. Yes! An unassisted triple play.
In college, I got married between my Junior and Senior year and, while I went to school full-time, I had three part time jobs. It just so happened that my intramural softball team was playing near-by my path from job one to job two so I ran by the baseball field. They put me in as a pinch-hitter and I hit a grand slam home run. After crossing the plate, I ran to job two. In this case, there was a lot of luck involved in even having the opportunity to participate in the game, let alone hit a home run.
When I began working at IBM Research, I played pitcher on a city league softball team. At one point, I needed to cover home. A giant hung of a guy barreled into me as he sprinted home from third. He made no attempt to avoid the tag. His plan was clearly to knock the ball from my mitt regardless of what happened to me. He hit me so hard I did a 270 degree twist while executing a back somersault. But—I held onto the ball and he was out. I took no pleasure in the fact that he broke his wrist while I was relatively unscathed other than some bruising and whiplash. Once again, conditioning and skill, along with a fierce determination not to drop the ball combined with dumb luck.
I’ve had similar moments in tennis and golf, frisbee, and football. But my greatest examples of truly astounding athletic prowess comes from my uncanny ability to pick up a pebble with the sole of my right tennis shoe and throw that stone with perfect arc and timing so that it lands in the space that temporarily appears as I stride between my sock and the “collar” of the shoe. In many cases, the pebbles are irregularly shaped and they must be oriented just right to slip into that small and fleeting cavity. Unlike the unassisted triple play or the grand slam home run or my “Hole-in-One,” however, hacky-sacking a stone into my shoe with the other foot is a repeatable experience!
Of course, it is tempting to be annoyed when this happens since it makes walking uncomfortable and even painful. Theoretically, I can stop and untie my shoe, but I’m usually walking an impatient and powerful dog. And, often, on the route I walk, no-one has thoughtfully placed a couch and ottoman along the road so that I can simply remove the stone. But instead of being upset, I choose to marvel at the sheer skill such a shot requires. And even though, it’s commonplace, the skill of my body thrills my soul. But what lasts is beyond even that. It is a celebration of life; to some extent, what it means to be alive as a human, but even more, it’s what it’s like to be alive as life. Life of any form is about being “tuned in” to the environment and organizing your own resources to obtain a goal. And when it all seems to work magically well, it’s an amazing reminder of what life can do when it really tries—and has good luck.
Dan Johnson’s family had been dairy farmers for as long as any of the folks in or around Oshkosh could remember. Like his pa and grandpa, Dan dressed the part. Going to the general store, fiddling a jig at the barn dances, or tending to his herd, Dan could be seen in his checkered shirt and blue jeans held up by red suspenders. Like many (but not all) of the Johnson clan, Dan sported curly red hair and freckles. His once-handsome face now bore a strong resemblance to corrugated cardboard from his many years in the sun.
Now that Cindy was gone, he didn’t much care. And he didn’t even care that he didn’t care. Life went on, and he did have flashes of pleasure, but they grew ever dimmer and rarer as the lonely years passed. Dan still enjoyed his herd. He enjoyed feeding them, milking them—hell, he had even come to love the putrid smell of cow patties. He also enjoyed the occasional visits from some of the other old codgers in Winnebago County.
Though winter seemed to come later each year, he hadn’t yet thoroughly prepared for this one. He stayed strong from handling the chores on his own. He still felt pangs of regret that he hadn’t had more kids. Now he had no surviving sons or even cousins to help, and, more importantly to take over once he…”passed on.”
Dan took a breather from wood-chopping and made himself a cup of black coffee. He had always considered cream and sugar a “sissy way” to enjoy coffee. He loved the unadulterated bitter taste. He set down his cup to cool a bit. His fingers idly pulled the stack of papers toward him across the slick formica. He squeaked and squinched his chair around so the dim light of late October fell onto the contract. He shook his head.
In his younger days, he’d never imagined ever selling his farm. If he had imagined it, it sure as hell would have been to a neighbor, not some dark-suit, white-shirt, red-tie from New York, of all places. Of course, back then, he’d had no idea that he’d lose both sons, one to war and one to COVID. Every year, it got just a little harder. He’d had no idea how difficult it would become to compete with the huge agro-business factories.
“Factories.” Dan couldn’t bring himself to think of the “Golden Opportunity Pastures” as actual farms. The way that smooth-talking New York fellah—Steve Banshee—talked about the cows—well, come to think of it— the way he talked about everything—yeah, Mr. Banshee talked about everything like he was doing some kind of math problem. But the math never seemed to add up. Banshee’s way was to scream and coo and wave his hands and then go back to screaming again.
Dan looked over to where Cindy had sat for four decades. He imagined her and smiled. “Well, Cindy, what do you think? Should I sell this old place? This city fellah, you heard him, I guess, he says they don’t have any use for this old house and I can stay here as long as I’m above ground and then he’ll arrange for me to be buried right beside you. He promised you and I could sleep under the old black walnut tree forever. And, he promised to let Old Blue stay on too, though she can’t give milk any more.”
The light began to fade. Dan sighed. It was some good money, all right. “Cin—I’ll tell you what—I can buy a real nice headstone for you. I know. You’re happy with the little cross I make for you every spring. I don’t want those city folks forgetting where you are. Sure, I admit, I’ll buy a few thing for myself as well. But I’ll send along a check to your friend Sue in Milwaukee too. It would be from both of us. Appears, I’ve made my mind up.”
Dan stared at the contract. He began to read it and it made no more sense than it had the first few times. But, after all, this Mr. Banshee from New York said he was an expert about these things. And, he had made it very clear how much the money was and about the provision for Dan to keep the house and burial plot. Dan signed the papers. For a moment, he hesitated because he couldn’t see Cin’s signature. Then, he realized that was just habit. He didn’t feel sad. But a single teardrop fell onto the spot where Cin’s name had been.
Now that he and Cin had finally made up their mind, he felt lighter, younger. He slept very well that night. He mailed back the signed contract and his week went on as it usually did and he talked to the cows as he milked them and he told them about selling the place and tried his best to paint the buyer, Mister Banshee as a nice person, but the cows weren’t buying it. They pretended as though they didn’t really understand what Dan was saying.
It wasn’t until the following Monday that Mr. Banshee showed up along with two young linebackers or professional wrestlers.
Dan hated to scream, but once Banshee had told him “how it’s going to be” that didn’t stop him, “Mister Banshee! You agreed! We shook hands! Right here in this kitchen! Shook hands.”
Banshee held up his hands like a crossing guard, “Hold it right there, Dan, you know as well as anybody that people say all sorts of things when they’re negotiating, but what matters is the signed document. Why? Different people have different memories of conversations, but the written document is in black and white. It is what it is. And a good thing because I don’t even recall talking about having you stay here, let alone anything about a burial plot or a sacred cow. Good Lord, man. Think! We have standard contracts. The only thing that changes are the amounts and dates of payouts.”
Dan pursed his lips tight. He clenched his jaw. He stared at Mr. Banshee without speaking. He glanced at the two thugs who stood behind Banshee. For a moment, his mind fled to the two cords of wood he’d stacked up for the winter. Then, he thought of “Paul Bunyan”—not the legendary giant woodsman—but the axe he used to chop firewood. It was a name Cin came up with many years ago.
Dan, shirtless, had been splitting logs on a warm summer’s day. She’d come out to him with a jam jar filled with lemonade. She’d smiled as she handed it to him and said, “Well, now, if you don’t just look like Paul Bunyan himself!” Dan had blushed as he took the glass, beaded with condensation, and lightly stroked her fingers.
He liked the name Paul Bunyan, but applying it to himself? No. He had smiled at her though and tapped the oaken axe handle. “This is the real Paul Bunyan.” From then on, they’d both referred to the axe as “Paul Bunyan.”
From somewhere far off, he heard someone talking. It was that Banshee fellow. He was still jabbering on about how the time for negotiating was over. They had a signed contract and Banshee had placed a check right before him. Dan stared at the check. It was a lot of money. It was the largest single check amount made out to him that he’d ever seen. It was also about one quarter of what they had “agreed to.”
Mr. Banshee reminded him once again that he needed to move out by Friday. At the latest. After that, anything remaining on the property would belong to “Golden Opportunity Pastures.” Dan nodded and followed them out to their car. The trio of “city folk” leaned on their car and Mr. Banshee said one last thing, “That money should last you awhile, Mr. Johnson, if you’re wise with it. I hope you learned a valuable lesson. Watch what you sign. Oh, and remember city folks are just plain smarter than the folks hereabouts.”
Dan nodded and said softly, “Hold on, Mr. Banshee, I’ve got some maps & schedules in the barn that you’ll find useful. I’ll be right back. Just take a minute. You folks stay there. I’ll get everything you need.”
The thugs that Mr. Banshee brought with him were strong, but they were no match for a herd of cows driven by a cattle prod that Dan had very seldom used until today. One of the thugmen had reached into a holster and taken out a pistol. Paul Bunyan took care of that arm. The man screamed and tried to stop the bleeding. Uselessly.
Dan saw the wounded men and took pity on them. Lots of broken bones. Lots of pain. Paul Bunyan fixed all that in a few moments. Dan sighed.
“Well, Cin, we got us a lot of work to do. Can’t bury them here. Ground’s too near frozen. Gonna have to drag them one by one to the marsh. Old Blue can help though.”
Two weeks later, after a light brushing of snow, the local sheriff, Bill Baxter drove up in his “Oreo” which is how the locals referred to the police cars. Dan offered Bill a cup of coffee. Bill took his black, just like Dan. “What’s up?”
“Well, Dan. Here’s the thing. There’s a real estate guy missing by the name of Banshee. That name mean anything to you?”
“Yeah. That’s the name of a fellah who came all the way from New York City. He wanted to buy my farm. Came up a couple times. He didn’t want to take “no” for an answer. I guess he finally got the hint. Haven’t seen him for awhile.”
“Okay. Well, he seems to be missing. Any idea about that?”
Dan bit his lip and tilted his head. “No, he didn’t say where he was headed next. Last time I saw him, he handed me a contract. I signed it, ‘Suck my Johnson’ and mailed it to him. I figured that might help him get the message. Anyway, he hasn’t been back since. So I guess it worked.”
Bill stared for awhile at Dan. “Maybe. Thing is, the people at his office apparently didn’t notice that you hadn’t signed your actual name and cut a check. And that check was cashed. It was a good deal of money. They seem to think you sold the farm.”
“No idea, but I am sure I’m not rich. Look around. Same as always. If there’s a check, I haven’t seen it. And, I sure as hell will never sell this farm. Especially not to a New York City guy in a suit.
Dan smiled at Bill and thought, Guess the trip to Minneapolis was worth it. Dressed in a suit and tie, with his beard trimmed short and wearing a white cowboy hat, Dan had looked quite different standing in line at Sunrise Bank. Not that anyone bothered to look for him on security footage, but if they had, not even officer Baxter wouldn’t have recognized farmer Dan.
Bill finished his coffee and stood. “Well, Dan, if you hear from this guy Banshee again, let me know. Or, if you remember anything he said about where he might be headed next. Okay?”
“Sure will. Have a great day now.”
Dan looked out the window and saw Bill do a Y-turn in his gravel driveway. He nearly backed into the chopping block into which Paul Bunyan sank his single sharp tooth.
“Donnie’s Restaurant,” located in the town center of Lancaster, Pennsylvania, began business in 1854, a quarter of a century before Franklin Winfield Woolworth opened his first five and dime store in 1879. Of course, back then, it wasn’t called “Donnie’s Restaurant.” It was originally called “George’s” named after the original proprietor, George Oglethorpe Parsons. Lancaster was originally named “Hickory Town.” Indeed, for many years, a stately grove of shagbarks abutted the estate upon which George decided to open his general store and tavern.
If we now fast forward (and who, these days, doesn’t love to fast forward?) to 1985, the name was changed to “Donnie’s Restaurant” by one of George Parsons’s descendants Donnie Parsons. Donnie continued many of the Restaurant’s traditions, including hickory nut pancakes with real maple syrup and local butter; beans and franks in homemade basil tomato sauce; and a one pound serving of prime rib. The prime rib came from local Holsteins. Though not officially “organic,” both beef and butter were free from toxic concentrations of antibiotics and pesticides.
In the summer of 2015, the restaurant changed hands again and for the first time, the proprietor bore no known blood relationship to the earlier owners. Nonetheless, as luck would have it, his name was also “Donald” so he decided to keep the name “Donnie’s Restaurant” as well as the “Pennsylvania Dutch” architecture fused with Italianate features.
The restaurant’s popularity grew under the new owner during the first few months. He kept the traditional dishes and promised to lower prices considerably as soon as possible. He also promised that he would increase the salaries of the cooks and waiters as soon as economically feasible. He fired most of the servers and replaced them with more attractive women.
(AI generated image above)
If one had judged the success of the restaurant by Donnie’s residence, one would have concluded that the restaurant was doing quite well indeed. Donnie found it expedient to cut costs by replacing some of the daily and weekly cleaning routines of the former owners with well-timed bribes for the health inspectors. At first, the bribing was initially more expensive but Donnie recorded the health inspector’s bribe-taking which reduced the necessary fee considerably.
Donnie kept the menu unchanged although he found ways to save more money by replacing the most absurdly expensive ingredients. For example, Donnie’s famous hickory nut pancakes were still listed that way on the menu, but instead of paying a fortune for hand-picked hickory nuts, he bought walnuts in bulk from China. Instead of paying a fortune for locally produced butter, he bought butter in bulk from India. Instead of using real maple syrup, he found that most people could not distinguish it from “Aunt Jemima’s” provided he simply ordered staff to pour the sugar syrup into a serving container that was labelled “100% pure Vermont Maple Syrup.”
(AI generated image above)
By greatly reducing the cost of hygiene and ingredients, Donnie had the option of raising wages or lowering prices or both. He decided it would be more prudent however, to increase profits. After all, Donnie found that if one promised to lower prices and increase wages, it worked nearly as well as actually doing it. This is particularly true if one promises with passion and sincerity.
Despite all the time and effort Donnie put into the restaurant, he found that after several months, fewer people actually went to the restaurant. There were still a large group of faithful customers who showed up on a regular basis, but he was not attracting any new clientele and even the faithful didn’t always show up. Donnie considered spending money on an advertising campaign but decided it was too expensive. Instead, he launched his own anti-advertising campaign aimed at discouraging people from dining at other local restaurants. He wrote letters to the editor. He dropped hints in conversation. He privately told several of his staff members that if they wanted to keep their jobs, they had better join in with his whispering campaign.
A local diner was said to be adding rat turds to bulk up their pecan pie. A fried chicken house went bankrupt from continual reports of Salmonella poisoning despite the fact that there were no actual cases of Salmonella. A sandwich shop, famous for its sourdough bread, had to close doors because one of the bakers had been “caught” urinating in the dough. This too was an out and out lie, but, more importantly, from Donnie’s perspective, it cut his competitor’s business in half. The local “Ponderosa Steakhouse” was said to be using horse meat instead of beef. Again, although completely unfounded, this persistent rumor cut their business in half.
It worked! As the number of options for restaurant-goers diminished, more business returned to Donnie’s. To celebrate the uptick in business, he painted a lot of gold trim on the doors to the restrooms which were newly labelled “Women ONLY” and “Men ONLY.” He found other ways to cut costs. For inspiration, he needed to search no further than his own smear campaigns. He bulked up his pies with rat turds. He told his chefs to save time by not cleaning cutting boards between cutting raw chickens and preparing fresh vegetables. He substituted horse meat for prime beef. Initially, these changes increased his margins and he was happy.
These changes, however, did not go completely unnoticed by his customers. Let’s zoom in for a moment (and who, these days, doesn’t love to zoom?) to a couple of long-term customers of “Donnie’s Restaurant” as they sit in their kitchen and contemplate dinner plans.
(AI generated image above)
Mildred sighed and banged the cupboard shut. She peered over at Gerald whose brow furrowed as convoluted and hateful as an Alito decision rationale. He grunted a single syllable: “Well?” Mildred sighed again and tip-toed across the kitchen to the table and sat beside him.
“We have no pasta, Ger. Sorry. We haven’t been to “Donnie’s” for a while. On the way home, I could run in to Walmart & grab some pasta for tomorrow. Doesn’t a prime rib sound good? You used to love them.”
Gerald grunted. “Yeah. I dunno. Lately, their steaks and prime rib haven’t been as good. Tough. I think maybe they overcook them. I dunno. Also, they replaced their home fries with whipped potatoes but they kind of suck. I think they may be powdered.”
Mildred nodded and bit her lip. “Funny you say that. I used to like the meatloaf. But lately, it has tasted…I dunno…off somehow.”
Gerald peered up at the ceiling and once again thought about what could possibly be causing the ever-widening stain. He shook his head slightly and thought, I’ll deal with that later. First things first. Gerald said, “Well, it can’t really be that different. After all, it’s got the same menu and the same name.”
Mildred and Gerald sat in silence for a few moments before Gerald said, “Not much else in town these days. Such a string of gross stuff. You could stand to lose a few pounds anyway. How ‘bout we just go have a couple slices of pie and a cup of coffee? Skip the main course? What say?”
“That sounds good, actually. Hard to mess up a pie, after all.”
Hard, but not impossible.
Unlikely as it might seem, most people don’t care much for the taste of rat feces. Sure, Donald had the chef throw in loads of extra sugar but it didn’t completely obscure the vermin taste. Privately, neither Mildred nor Gerald cared at all for their desserts. An observer wouldn’t guess that from their conversation however.
“Oh, fine. Yeah, it’s fine. I should have ordered pecan, I think. I generally like pumpkin, but I think this whole season, I’ve been close to ODing on pumpkin spice. How’s yours?”
“Um. Great. Really. Not like I remember it when gramma used to make peach pie. She got fresh peaches from the Farmer’s Market. Can’t expect the same from canned fruit, I suppose. But it’s good. Yeah. I’m not all that hungry.”
“Yeah.”
“Yeah.”
“Donnie’s” became popular with tourists who wanted to see “what all the outsized complaints were about.” Tourists soon found out for themselves that the various reviews they have read were not exaggerations. The service was terrible. The prices never fell but continued to rise. The ingredients were low quality and having them put together haphazardly by inept cooks didn’t really help much. Still, it was fun to watch “Crazy Donald” come storming out of the kitchen and swear at the servers, the busboys, the hostess, and often, even the customers. Although neither Mildred nor Gerald liked the food, they were not disappointed when it came to the show. Sure enough, right before they paid their bill, Donnie stormed out through one of the kitchen’s swinging doors and knocked a large tray of drinks smashing onto the floor. He ignored his bleeding employee and screamed at no-one in particular:
“What the hell do you mean, it’s not good! It tastes good to me! What the hell’s wrong with you people! I’ll tell you what’s wrong! You’ve had your sense of taste destroyed by fast food and TV dinners and foreign sushi and pho soup and sauerkraut and some of those foreign restaurants even serve raw shark and cooked dog! If you don’t like my food, just leave! Give the receptuous, the receptive, the velocitoraptor! Damn! Whaddayacallit. The bitch. Give the bitch your credit card number and I give you double your money back.”
(AI generated image above)
Mildred and Gerald smiled at each other. Fifty bucks for two pieces of pie and coffee? Seriously overpriced, but the show was worth it they both thought (and, these days, who doesn’t like a good show?)
At least they had thought the show was worth it until they awoke around midnight and spent the wee hours alternating between diarrhea and vomiting. (These days, very few people enjoy the consequences of doing business with a liar).
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