 
T his is a work of fiction. The names, characters, businesses, organizations, places and events in this book are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, or persons, living or dead, or businesses, or organizations, is entirely coincidental. So no, you are not in the Goddamn book.
For Miss Go Lightly and the Sneef
Horse's Ass

By Jay M. Arre

Copyright 2012 Jay M Arre

Smashwords Edition V1.0

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Chapter One

Just before noon in the third week of October 2006, from the confines of a nondescript office building, the fire alarm's shrill and unrelenting cry pierced the quiet corporate workspace.

Inside the building, the employees poked their heads over the short walls separating their cubicles, and depending on the vagaries of their day either thanked, or cursed, the alarm that gave no quarter. Regardless of their perspective on the inevitable trip out of the building, no one began to move. The employees, who recently survived a downsizing based on the color of their clothing, did not want to foster the perception they lacked commitment. A pretext for the company to release them in the next, inevitable, round of cost reduction. Although management had not formally established its position on the first to leave, the rumor mill steadfastly believed the safest course of action was to wait until harangued by the Fire Marshall before heading for the exit.

As the alarm rang into its third minute, and the smell of burnt popcorn stained the air, the employees grew increasingly prairie doglike. Although none moved to leave, all sought to gain the advantage a few extra inches provides when sitting sentry and looking for the first tell the building truly is on fire. To this end, some balanced like gymnasts on their chair's armrest, with their arms locked in full extension. Others, to see the far reaches of the floor, hopped onto their desks. Seeking confirmation they've not made a life ending choice by staying put, an ineffectual attempt at job preservation, many bowed their heads and prayed. At this point, almost all covered their ears.

When the fourth minute came, the cowardly and faithless, those prone to question corporate missives, began to flee. To justify their premature exit, they loudly voiced excuses. Several elderly employees, hobbling with canes, boldly accused the younger generation as they shouted to be heard over the alarm, "Damn pot smoking hippies setting fire to the pantry, again. Didn't live this long to die working at this miserable job. Hippies are why the Chinese are kicking our ass! China ain't got hippies."

Close behind, paranoid and worried he was about to become corporate America's latest victim, followed Nels. As Nels ran to the stairway, index finger jabbing the air for emphasis and voice verging on panic, he pointed randomly at his co-workers. "They want you to burn. It's the dead peasant tax. They started the fire." Nels referred to the practice of corporations taking out life insurance policies on their employees, without the employee's knowledge or consent, for which the corporation was the tax-free beneficiary of the death benefit. His panicked state, one plausible explanation for his dilated pupils, was nearly the catalyst for a stampede as dozens of employees jumped from their chairs, visibly shaken that Nels might have key knowledge to which they were not privy. As Nels made his escape his Doc Martens clopped on the floor, and his Rastafarian hat fell off, freeing his dreadlocks to bounce wildly.

On the staircase, Nels jostled past those already descending and forced them from his path as he drove towards the exit and the safety of the out of doors. Taking the steps three at a time, he bumped the aluminum cane from an elderly woman's hands. The cane clattered down the cement stairs to the landing, where it came to rest. Nels ignored his wrongdoing, pushed on, and left the swampy smell of patchouli oil in his wake.

Covertly making eye contact while nodding in agreement with one another, the persons in charge were unanimous in their read of the situation. They found it unfortunate Nels lacked the dedication and perspective necessary for management consideration. An observation recorded by his boss who scrawled feverishly in a folder held close to his vest.

Frightened by Nels' accusations, the employees who remained in the building stood, frantic and ready to stampede; their feet positioned as if in sprinters' blocks. Traumatized by repeated layoffs, and absent all trust in their employer, the workers' psyches are now hardwired to believe that some must be lost for any to survive. In this state, they would willingly trample one another if it increased the odds of remaining employed in the down turned economy. Agitated, and on the edge of fratricide, none listened as their bosses screamed to exit in a calm and orderly fashion, should they choose to stop work. The tension continued to grow as the deafening alarm rang.

As if on cue, five minutes after the alarm sounded, Wayne, the Fire Marshall, appeared in an oversized fireman's helmet clutching a bucket of water and a clipboard. It was unclear what information he intended the clipboard to manage, but he scribbled furiously in the breaks between blowing the whistle and his exhortations. In the past, Wayne declared the water a necessary evil given the risk of the job. He fully expected at some point to douse himself, run headlong into the flames, and cash in on his fame. The volunteer Fire Marshall's job description was clear that he must be the last person to leave the building to earn, 'Significantly Exceeds Expectations,' rating on his annual review. With the kind of money in play that could drive a new Buick from the lot, darned few had a stronger incentive than Wayne to torch the place.

Whistle held loosely between his lips Wayne blew loudly, a whisper on a scream as he competed with the alarm. "Out! All of you get out of the building. Leave everything, and get out. You need to leave now!" As Wayne shouted, water splashed wantonly from the bucket nestled in the crook of his arm holding the clipboard.

Ignoring corporate protocol, and Wayne's demands, the employees hurriedly began to gather their coats, purses, laptops, lunchboxes and anything else they thought they could not live without for at least the next twenty minutes. They were especially careful to gather up the things they thought their co-workers, or bosses, likely to steal.

It was now nearly six minutes since the alarm sounded, and the masses, like cows to the barn, began the slow and deliberate walk to the exit where they would lumber down the cement stairs and perform the perfunctory building exit. The first to comply with Wayne's demands was a group from across the hall. Walking in zombie-like fashion, their arms outstretched as they pantomimed the robot from the hit 1960s series, half dozen employees chanted, "Danger Will Robinson! Danger!" As they went they embraced the win-win situation that let them mock Wayne, and get the hell out of the building while appearing cavalier, not cowardly.

Wayne swore quietly as the employees filed past. He hated all the sons of bitches that disrespected his authority, and these young upstarts fully met that criterion. "Goddamn hippies," he mumbled.

As the employees mobbed the stairway door they faced the crux move of deciding whether to skirt ahead of, or to remain behind, those immediately near them. An incorrect assessment of their co-workers fitness could force them to a rate of descent in which a fall was likely, or a pace so slow that if the building truly were on fire it was likely to come down upon them. It is tough to say what pace guaranteed survival in a real emergency, but few would argue there was much probability of getting out alive at the tail of this corporate pack. On site health facility and wellness programs notwithstanding, this company's white collar staff was redolent with the obese and inactive.

Nels, having brazenly passed the elderly and less athletic on his descent, exited first from the emergency exit and far ahead of the lumbering herd. "Thank God, I made it!" As he stepped from the building, he quickly made the sign of the cross. The piles of wet leaves, which littered the outskirts of the parking lot, bore silent witness to the miracle of his escape. Outside, Nels' clothes flapped loudly about, and he quickly found himself soaked from the driving rain that fell from the low hung clouds.

In the area immediately outside the building, the only protection from the elements was under the covered bridge that joined the executive parking lot to the building's main entrance. Nels previously learned the covered bridge was for the sole benefit of upper management. His first attempt at finding a respite under the bridge, while rain poured and the alarm rang last spring, resulted in him nudged from the shelter, ass to ass, as upper management turned their backs on him and their ranks expanded. Physically pushed from the refuge Nels stood directly beneath the edge of the roof, in shame, where water poured down the back of his shirt. More wet than if he had been standing in the rain the whole time, he eventually left to join the huddle of his co-workers. Thinking it best not to repeat his mistake, Nels waited, alone and exposed, for the rest of the herd to join him.

The first to join Nels was his friend Rico. Seeing Rico set Nels to laughing, "Dude, what is all over you?"

"Huh?" Slow to realize it was raining, Rico pulled his shoulders up and tucked his chin low as he tried to keep the water from running down the inside of his shirt.

"You're covered in red powder. Look at you. What gives?"

"Oh, what the hell?" Rico looked at his hands as if seeing them for the first time. "I think it's Doritos." Rico's frying pan eyes provided the necessary explanation as to why his mouth, chin, and hands, were covered in henna like dust.

"Looks like you had a bad spray tan experience. I thought you were making popcorn?"

"Wait, you have popcorn?" Rico asked, clearly excited at the possibility and misunderstanding the question.

"No. You were making popcorn. You shoved four bags in the microwave last I saw you."

"I was? Oh, shit. I must have totally forgotten and wandered off to the vending machine."

"That might explain why we're standing out here, again." This was not the first time Rico had emptied the building, naive to the black smoke that belched from the microwave while he fed quarters into the vending machine down the hall.

"Note to self: I've got to quit getting high before lunch. It really leads to poor nutritional choices."

"And, standing in the rain."

"Right, and standing in the rain," Rico added, popping a cough drop in his mouth.

With the crowd in the parking lot growing, Barry, the company's legal counsel, poked his nose from the door and sniffed. His little ears wiggled with the effort and added to his overall rat-like appearance; protruding and pointy nose; fallen chin; and black hair, greased and combed straight back. Uncomfortable in open spaces, preferring the confines of low ceilinged offices, traffic backed up as he worked up the courage necessary to scurry across the lot to the covered bridge. Surprisingly quick for a chubby little man, he crossed in a blur. As Barry ran, the rain beaded up on his cheap, brown polyester suit.

Under the protection of the covered bridge, and out of the wind and rain, Barry held his phone in his sweaty palm and nervously ran his thumb over the key pad. While he fiddled with his phone, his beady black eyes stared intently at the building and he looked for the first sign of fire. An optimist at heart, Barry was unable to contain his exuberance at the possibility this might be his last day of corporate servitude and chanted, "Burn baby, burn. We don't need no water."

As Barry stared at the building, he faced a conundrum; would the building burn and devalue the stock, or was this alarm false? He stood transfixed, consumed with a correct read of the situation. Should the building burn Barry could make a small fortune selling the stock short. A trading strategy based on the stock falling in value and a sure bet if headquarters was reduced to a pile of ash. However, to misread the situation and short the stock if the building were not headed to ashes would mean his financial ruin. To complicate matters, it would mean irrecoverable loss if Barry stood idle while the building was destroyed since the company stock, in which the majority of Barry's wealth was held, would become worthless.

Barry had to make a quick decision on whether to short, or hold, his equity positions as it would take time to execute the necessary transactions. Calling his stock broker was not an option. The Securities Exchange Commission was particularly strict on insider trading and Barry, a limp wristed, namby-pamby executive, would not fare well in prison. To avoid detection he would have to send a cryptic text message to his wife's father thereby initiating the dealings. In the event Barry sent the text, and monies were made, the profits would be divvied up at a previously agreed upon split. Barry gnawed his lower lip as he sorted out how best to profit from the situation at hand.

As Barry vacillated on whether to text his father in-law, he realized the Velcro closure on his shoe had unfastened and squatted to fix the strap. Standing back up, he found a group of smokers huddled nearby.

The smokers, the only caste to cross socio-economic boundaries at work, stood in the driving rain and gusting winds with backs straight and chins up. Impervious to the weather, given their repeated exposure to the elements as they tended their nicotine addictions, few wore a coat.

At the center of the smokers, and commanding everyone's attention, stood The Chairman. Thin, tall, and in his late sixties, he kept his hair in a huge, gravity defying, snow white afro, which, from afar, made him look like a dandelion gone to seed. He wore a disco era polyester jacket in lime green, paisley tie, and lively electric blue silk shirt. With his alligator skin platform shoes proudly displayed beneath his bell bottoms, he stood a full three inches taller than his actual height and well over six feet tall. Inimitable in his finery, he was resplendent as he defied the hurricane like winds and conjured perfect smoke rings which rose, dissipated, and awed all watching. Miraculously, no rain fell on him.

As if he were the messiah, The Chairman shared his life's wisdom with the group that gathered close and encircled him. He preached the merits of tobacco, and cited Japan and France as definitive proof that smoking from a young age, and smoking often, drove longevity and wealth. Huddled tightly, the smokers gushed in hushed tones of what they would do with the extra life they were given as they danced on the graves of the non-smokers. Testifying to The Chairman's persuasiveness, they lit their next cigarette off the butt of their last.

Opposite the smokers, and closer to the building, stood the CIO, Shap, with his director level, servile brethren. Unlike Barry and The Chairman, Shap was without a meaningful equity position in the company. Poor posture and downcast eyes distinguished his group from the others clustered about the parking lot. Their repeated hazing, and firing as scapegoats for upper management's mishaps, conditioned them to complete subjugation. Out of necessity, Shap, and the other directors, had adopted a survival strategy akin to that of the poisonous tree frog, or the colorful monarch, in which the investment to remain uneaten was significant, yet, as a result, the predators stood skittish in their presence. Both animals were fatally toxic if consumed. This group, which often spent every waking moment at work, was always the first to sue for discrimination or wrongful termination, and held encyclopedic knowledge of employee rights, benefits, and paid time off.

At this point in their lives, Shap and his cohorts were well into their late thirties, and fully cognizant their pay raises would keep parity with the cost of living until they reached the maximum compensation for their position. History had shown that the few upper management positions which became vacant would inevitably be filled by outsiders, and they would never be selected for any meaningful opportunity. Stuck in a professional whirlpool, from which they would never move forward, they were also in the unenviable position of being hated by those they governed and, therefore, excluded from the camaraderie that previously made work tolerable. Having carried anything of value outside, Shap was less concerned about the building burning than the effort and time to find equally unfulfilling work elsewhere. Waiting to be ordered to go back inside, Shap stood and shivered.

Among the last to leave the building, and barely outside the door hoping to capture whatever heat escaped, was Sue, an entry level analyst. A lusty, sultry brunette with bee stung lips and a dancer's body, her peers clustered near and basked in her beauty. Sue and her group, all in their early twenties, could not fathom death and believed themselves ten feet tall and bulletproof. Prone to workplace romances, indiscretion, and routinely served by deputies in the lobby, they passed their nights in a drunken, orgy-fueled haze at clubs and parties as they downplayed their role at the bottom of the corporate food chain.

With the recent realization that her work was closer to a McJob than a career, Sue hoped to marry out of her dire circumstances and leave the tedium of PowerPoint presentations and Excel spreadsheets far behind. That goal in mind, she had marked her calendar for today's 2006 Board Meeting months ago. As she scanned the parking lot, dressed like a Tijuana prostitute and woefully unprepared for the weather in her low cut blouse, mini skirt, and sky scraper heels, she hoped for an opportunity to chat up The Chairman. She was disappointed to find the mega-lord holding court over a large crowd of smokers, and as she waited an opening to approach him she contemplated her alternative retirement strategy.

Sue's back-up plan, should marrying for money not work out, was a combination of American Idol, Publishers Clearinghouse Sweepstakes and lottery tickets; effectively summarized as taxes on the statistically challenged. Sue may be working for a long time. The odds of winning the big one were 1:195,000,000. By comparison, the odds of death by meteor were 1:700,000. Not thinking to look up for falling space rocks, Sue continued to watch The Chairman and the chance to improve her station in life.

Unexpectedly, and with his incomplete sentence hanging in the air, The Chairman suddenly caught an oblique glimpse of Sue. As he turned to face her, he slid his sunglasses to the tip of his nose and ran his eyes up and down her body. Pick of the litter was part of his incentive package, and he liked what he saw. The Chairman assumed his most predatory stance, dropped his chin to his chest, and mouthed, "Meow," then, so only he could hear he spoke to the heavens, "Render onto Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and unto God the things that are God's."

Holding his stare, Sue dramatically clawed the air with her right hand. "Meow, tiger," she answered, her red nails flashing. With The Chairman's rapt attention, Sue shrugged as if to say, "What gives, you naughty, naughty man?"

The Chairman kept the ball in play, and answered by blowing a smoke ring, then spearing it with his index finger.

Sue returned the volley by arching her eyebrows, and provocatively nibbling the tip of her thumb. With their courtship formally underway Sue fumbled in her purse, pulled out a small notebook, and crossed the item from her to-do list: Plan Retirement.

Back inside, with the fourth floor nearly empty and the employees standing forlornly in the rain looking at the building and waiting for something to happen, Wayne spied the lone holdout. At his desk, surfing the internet, sat Mike.

"It's not worth dying over an e-mail Mike."

"It's the microwave popcorn dickhead. It's been the microwave popcorn every time. Why would I waste an hour walking up and down the stairs, and standing in the rain, when I know it's popcorn. For whom does the bell toll? Freaking popcorn."

"That's not true," Wayne said emphatically, given he was rarely right. "Remember when the fish burned on four back in April? That crazy Puerto Rican, Rico, burned it like a son of a bitch. Come on man. Just get out of the damn building. You know I'll get screwed in my review if this floor isn't empty."

Mike smirked at the thought of Wayne getting screwed on his review because he couldn't fulfill the pledge of the voluntary Fire Marshall.

"C'mon, get out of the building," Wayne implored Mike to leave.

As Wayne hovered Mike became uncomfortable, relented, and started toward the exit. On his way, he looked back to make certain Wayne wasn't following him.

Wayne had a creepiness about him that made Mike want to move along. Something off putting about the overbite, greased pompadour, and satellite dish sized ears. Contributing to the instinct to remove himself from Wayne's presence was Wayne's slightly asymmetrical face. It gave the impression of a quartered apple, which was hastily reassembled with the pieces not quite in alignment. Mike also found it extremely troubling that Wayne's zipper was never fully zipped, as if closing the last half inch was an insurmountable task. When Mike thought Wayne was no longer watching, he ducked into an open office and hid behind the door.

Wayne didn't really give a shit if Mike burned, in fact, he'd prefer it. He just didn't want to deal with explaining why he couldn't manage the simple task of emptying the floor. Best if both he, and Mike, pretended Mike wasn't hiding behind the door.

While Wayne pretended he didn't see Mike hiding behind the door, the CFO, Alan, fell just outside the window screaming, "Leadership," and wearing what looked to be a powder blue burqa. It was exactly twelve minutes since the alarm sounded.

Chapter Two

Alan, the CFO, was a mean, tiny man whose insecurity in his physical stature drove his need to rule and fueled a genetic predisposition for power, greed, and ambition. Growing up, Alan emerged from puberty no different than he had entered, with the notable, and unfortunate, exception his hips were wider than his shoulders and he sported a small pot belly. Protein shakes, weight lifting, and karate, all proved equally ineffective in changing his girlish, childlike figure into that of a man. At 5ft 1in, and 45 years of age, he had spent a lifetime handed kids menus, and endured an ongoing plague of random children asking if he wanted to play. As Alan entered his forties, he adopted a peculiar habit of resting his thumbs under his chin and drumming his fingertips together in front of his nose. The overall effect was bug-like and highly unsettling. Alan knew he was on to something when children instinctively ran from him, and wait staff stood uncomfortable in his presence, avoiding eye contact and discourse. Alan was certain it was far better to order with no menu, than to be handed a kid's menu.

Angry at the world, Alan consumed the majority of his days daydreaming about the ass he would kick were he not trapped in a child's body. His mind replete with fantasies of one punch knock outs at all who impugned his manhood - the tailgater on the highway, the teen that cut in front of him at the self checkout, the staff that called him Napoleon. There was an endless list of those who slighted him given his small build. In his fantasies, he left behind a world littered with the unconscious. Their inert bodies lay on the sides of roads and the aisles of grocery stores waiting to be claimed by their loved ones; humiliated and in a world of shame for Alan had served them a crushing defeat.

To survive and excel, personally and professionally, Alan honed his skills at verbal abuse and belittlement. His powers lay in his gift of public humiliation; an asset that served him well in business but had him running for his life in high school. More often than not his verbal tirades escalated to the point of sputtering, his anger so deep he lost the ability to enunciate. Eyes closed, spit flying, and fingers pointing accusingly, he struck with his signature phrase, "Stupidity is your medium, and with it you become Michelangelo." Alan did well in the corporate world where the risk of physical confrontation was virtually non-existent.

The Board considered Alan's penchant for reducing subordinates to bumbling, sobbing shells of their former selves valuable leadership traits. Alan's cost reduction initiative further cemented The Board's perspective. At the 2005 Board Meeting, Alan showcased his business acumen and mental acuity by mandating orders that currently shipped in separate boxes, to the same address, be combined in the same box. While this might seem intuitive, it ran in direct opposition to the COO, Cuddy's, earlier program aimed at growing orders.

Under Cuddy's earlier 2002 Separate Orders program, products that would logically ship in the same box shipped separately, albeit with a threefold increase in the number of orders and shipping costs. When Alan announced his Combine Orders program The Board patted each other's backs and gurgled in ecstasy as the cost of service fell. The order volume and shipping costs were now exactly as they had been before Cuddy's program, but The Board celebrated in their declaration to Wall Street they had cut costs. Alan celebrated too, for he emerged as the lead candidate to be the next CEO. He also took the baton from Cuddy, the previous front runner. With the adulation bestowed upon him Alan puffed up, grew more pompous, and like Satan, the angel who would not bow to God, began to covet Doug's job as CEO.

Furious at the turn of events, Cuddy had Wayne raise all the urinals a half foot so Alan would not be able to use them. If Alan wanted to piss at work, he'd have to piss in the stall like a girl. Alan was too mean to piss like that, and instead began surreptitiously pissing in the corner of Cuddy's office.

Doug too saw Alan's potential and sought to sabotage the emerging threat. To defend his kingdom, Doug cast Alan into 'the lake of fire' and assigned him an IT project certain to destroy his career, and torture him 'day and night, forever and ever'. Alan was not the first person Doug cast into 'the lake'. In 2002, Doug tossed Cuddy in when his Separate Orders program positioned him as Doug's likely replacement.

To reward Cuddy, for Separate Orders, The Board granted his wish and gave him control over Facilities. It was the first time in the history of corporate America that anyone sought control of Facilities. However, a long life of bullying taught Cuddy never to underestimate the leverage physical discomforts exert on your rivals, and Cuddy saw Facilities as an underleveraged resource in the battle for corporate control.

With Cuddy's kingdom growing, and his emergence as the leading candidate to replace Doug as the CEO, Doug realized his best defense was a good offense and made a compelling case to The Board to build a new computer system. The project's vaguely worded charter was to replace the outdated system, note cards, and Excel worksheets, the business currently ran on with something better. The promised new system would automate everything and enable the firing of hundreds of employees. Masquerading behind this pretense, and not his true reason of incapacitating those that would seek to replace him, Doug made his pitch. The Board vehemently agreed that firing people was an enjoyable and necessary thing, and approved his request, anxious for the bloodletting to begin.

Doug immediately absolved himself of direct accountability, by placing Cuddy directly in the line of fire and assigning him as the project's lead. Not that it was Doug's concern once he assigned the project to Cuddy, but The IT project Doug proposed had an exceptionally low chance of succeeding.

Ninety percent of these types of initiatives are abject failures by the time funding is cut and whatever code is written is forced into production, or the plan abandoned and the business continues to run on whatever existed at the time the project began. Whoever Doug afflicted with the IT project faced several insurmountable hurdles. First, collecting business requirements to document the computer system's features and functions from those so challenged with structuring thought that explaining where they parked was a Herculean task, would be impossible. Second, there was no way the peers of whoever was leading the project would agree to sign-off. To do so would concede their claim on the throne. It's rare all those assigned to a large systems project were still with the company when the project was 'completed'. Once saddled with the project, the best to be hoped for was gainful employment when the inevitable idiom, "epic fail," was declared.

Intended, or otherwise, Cuddy's bullying and duplicitous nature and an instinctive propensity to over engineer and complicate the simplest of ideas proved the projects undoing. On calls with the development team in India, Cuddy's warlike nature travelled around the world, verbally haranguing the programmers as he forced them to produce a system with endless flexibility and unbounded functionality. Cuddy declared it of paramount importance the system anticipated every possible situation. As Cuddy barked his unreasonable demands, the CIO, Srini's, head lolled on its axis in a lemniscatic pattern. In Srini's native India, the waggling of the head is a conscious mannerism, intended to signify active listening and deep cerebral engagement. In this instance, it was better read as a subliminal declaration that the time and cost to complete this project were infinite.

The obvious objections that an IT project requires scope, rules, and logic, fell on Cuddy's deaf ears. The resultant 'system' that appeared at the end of three years was a series of disjointed data elements and a pile of code whose notable flaws included the inability to produce a customer list, report the status of an order, or post financials that could survive the simplest of audits. The combination of Cuddy's tormenting nature, and Srini's subservience, meant the company might as well have piled money in the parking lot and burned it. It might even have saved Alan's life, should he have landed on the pile, although Alan would have likely had to relearn such rudimentary tasks as eating with a spoon.

For thirty-six months the business waited the second coming of Christ, not realizing it was Godot for whom they hung around. When The Board learned the IT project Cuddy shepherded was no closer to completion than the day it began, The Board demanded an accounting of the project at the 2005 Board Meeting.

In a last ditch effort to claim victory, weeks before the big meeting, Cuddy forced the system into production. The debacle ended when the staff staged a massive sit-in. During the sit in, Nels tossed a computer through a fourth floor window in a fit of rage, and nearly killed Doug as he escaped work to play basketball. Management never learned the name of the perpetrator which threw the computers, although many correctly suspected it was the resident anarchist, Nels.

No longer considered CEO material, and with an 'epic fail' on his hands, Cuddy embraced the only tactic he knew to save his job. He publicly shamed and then dramatically fired Srini, his first in command. It was Cuddy's artistic mastery of Srini's termination that kept him employed. In Cuddy's presentation to The Board, at the 2005 Board Meeting, slide 6 was a picture of the poor bastard, Srini, sobbing upon notice of his termination. Slide 7 was a picture of Srini leaving the building, security guards on both sides and cardboard box with personal effects in hand, as tears ran down his sad, exhausted face. In the background of both pictures stood Cuddy with his hands folded in gangster origami and head tilted in disrespect to the now unemployed CIO.

The Board, twenty old men that had each downed the proverbial tumbler of fracking water at some point in their careers to prove their corporate fealty, sat and listened as Cuddy tried to explain where $100 million and three years had gone. With his back to the audience, Cuddy pointed at the picture of Srini and defended his life, "It was his fault! He screwed up! Wasn't me! I didn't' do nothing."

Prone to uniformity and the ability to get behind anything that made money, The Board booed loudly when the pictures of Srini were shown.

At the head of the table, leading the charge, sat The Chairman. The sole black man on campus, he was prone to dressing as a 1970s pimp and to the meeting wore a canary yellow, zip up bell bottom jumpsuit of velour. Although all the board members anxiously fingered the cigarettes they held, none had The Chairman's balls. He smoked indoors and unapologetically. The movie Shaft a more formative influence on his life than perhaps even he realized. When he saw Srini's picture on the screen he exploded, "Jive turkey! dumb ass, mofo!" When he finished his apoplectic rant, he blew a cumulus cloud of smoke over the table and repeated himself, "Jive turkey! dumb ass, mofo! That's one lazy ass son of a bitch!" He shook his head, disgusted that he shared the earth with this incompetent vermin.

The other board members bounced up and down, like cymbal banging monkeys, and repeated after him. All wanted to be like The Chairman, and from every corner of the room, "dumb ass," "mofo," and, "son of a bitch," rang out.

Unable to let it go, and still fuming, The Chairman fired off another salvo, "Punk ass fool! One hundred million freaking dollars! Who gonna pay that back? Huh? Who gonna pay that back? Three years! Who gonna give me back my three years?" He exhaled another cloud of smoke as he waited an answer to his unanswerable question. Realizing the money and time lost, he adjusted his purple headband and pushed his afro to new heights.

A couple of the board members, excited by the fresh kill, imposed on Cuddy to restage the poses in the pictures. Cuddy willingly complied and ran to the front of the room where he leaned forward, cocked his head at a rakish angle, and stacked a series of hand signs, palm outward and fingers splayed. He looked gangster and The Board cheered enthusiastically. Cuddy would survive this debacle, but he would hang, Hussein style, if it happened again.

While recreating the scene a wizened board member, The Racist, whose presence was historically limited to prejudicial remarks and sucking his gums while his rheumy eyes leaked, misunderstood the demented hand Cuddy pinned to his chest and spoke to the room at large in his phlegmatic voice, "Cerebral palsy? Is that cerebral palsy? I didn't know the fat one had cerebral palsy."

As Cuddy returned to his seat, having barely kept his job, Doug went on the offensive and re-assigned the IT project to Alan. Alan seethed at the announcement, realizing he'd been outplayed and was destined to fall out of favor as the lead candidate to be the next CEO. Even the brilliance of his Combine Orders program wouldn't be enough to save him from this Sisyphean task. Faced with the impossible, Alan slumped low in his chair and took on the posture of a pithed frog; as if Doug had speared him through the back with a trident. Alan knew Cuddy (COO), Mary (VP of Sales), and Doug (CEO), had no interest in seeing him complete the project. Alan's success would position him as next CEO and lead to Doug's ouster. Mary and Cuddy saw themselves as the next CEO. Further complicating the situation, Doug wasn't ready to retire; he hadn't made enough money yet. There was no way Alan was ever going to complete the IT project.

After Doug's announcement, The Racist leaned into Alan and spoke in a gravelly voice, "Get another Indian. You want an Indian that can talk to Indians. The race is prone to dishonesty and misrepresentation." His breath was blinding, an acrid mixture of rotting dentures and cigarettes. Cuddy liked to sit by the old man because it reminded him of his childhood pig farm. Alan winced, nodded, and scribbled the directive in his notebook. A week later, Alan hired Shap, unaware Shap was Native American, had never been to India, and only spoke English. Realizing failure a certainty, Alan also hired Mike.

Two degrees of separation is the formally recognized boundary within business by which people were fired for mishaps, and the Mike-Shap combo gave Alan the safety buffer he'd need when the IT project tanked under his watch. The Board would demand its pound of flesh, and Alan planned to save his job by firing them both. To that end, Alan simply picked the two resumes that were on the top of his desk when he was assigned the project. Mike and Shap seemed as worthy as fall guys as anyone. Alan knew the art in selecting a scapegoat lay in deciding when to go external, versus internal, and figured with millions circling the drain a second time he'd want experts brought in with, 'fresh eyes and proven track records,' to take the fall.

As Alan predicted, his attempt to complete the IT project, to all intents and purposes, ended as an officially recognized disaster roughly a year after he was afflicted with the assignment. Alan had been conveniently withholding this fact when he continually presented the project's status as, 'green,' for the last twelve months. With the 2006 Board Meeting looming, Alan was certain to fall from favor as lead candidate to replace Doug when The Board demanded an accounting of the project. Alan hoped to survive the debacle by combining the firing of Mike and Shap with the time proven, 'none more indignant than I,' defense. An employment strategy in which the perpetrator of the crime is the most offended. Politicians, Baptist preachers, and business leaders, have proven this survival strategy time and time again.

Alan had been rehearsing his speech for weeks. As he stood at the podium of the Board Room, on an inverted garbage pail, Alan hammered his tiny fist and shouted into the empty room, "I assure you, regarding this disaster, no one is more indignant than I." For greatest effect, Alan planned to fire Shap and Mike at the conclusion of his speech, live and in person, thereby going one better than Cuddy's humiliating pictures of Srini.

As the 2006 Board Meeting drew near, Alan's stress at losing his grasp on the executive office put him into a permanent state of ill humor. His warrior fantasies grew, but he never considered the alternate outcome in which he takes the beating after initiating the fight. This was exactly what happened.

While cutting across the field in a local park, on his way to get coffee, Alan was struck in the head with a football. In a fit of anger he pitched the ball into the small woods on the side of the park. The kid that threw the football intended no meanness. From the child's perspective he was throwing to a classmate, not at him. A joyous gesture meant to include not harm. However, once Alan threw the ball into the woods playground protocol dictated either Alan retrieve the football, or the two fight to address their respective slights; Alan being struck, and the child's ball missing in the woods.

Running up to Alan the child demanded he retrieve the ball. Alan, realizing for the first time in his life he was in a confrontation in which he held the size advantage, pushed the child in the middle of the chest with a pointed jab from his right index finger. Alan testily yelled at the child, "You simian creature! Your IQ is that of an idiot, likely in the low twenties, and your mental age that of a three year old. The best part of you dripped from your mother's chin onto the floor of the bus terminal where you were conceived." Alan was thrilled at the chance to destroy this hoodlum, verbally and physically. He was certain he would emerge victorious given the years and thousands of dollars he had invested in martial arts training. As the child stepped back, lowering his jaw and balling his fists, Alan's mind raced with the revisionist possibilities re-telling the tale offered. That he'd poked a badger with a spoon didn't occur to him.

Standing in front of Alan was no ordinary sixth grade reprobate, AYSO drop out. As his fists rose, Alan noticed each hand sported words written in indelible black ink. On the right hand, written in the spaces between the knuckles, the letters E.A.T. On the left hand, written on top of each knuckle, the letters S.H.I.T. The letters were penned in an olde English font, a style consistent with the tattoos favored by cons, thugs, and those destined for a life of violence, petty crime, and betrayal. The child was well schooled in controlling the playground, an early student of respect through fear, and he spoke softly, comfortable with the impending violence, "Holmes, me and my lonesome gonna fuck you up."

In front of the child in a ludicrous karate stance stood Alan, taunting and naïve to the reality of the situation. Not knowing what to do Alan jabbed him a second time in the chest, whereupon the kid unloaded like hell's fury. The child fought old school style, a bare knuckle brawler from the days when kids settled their differences between themselves. No verbal taunts, no guns, no parents. The kid's short crisp punches were from the shoulder, not telegraphed, and thrown with bad intent.

At the end of the UFC regulated time limit for a non-title fight bout, exactly 15 minutes after the second chest poke, Alan sported two black eyes and a bloody nose. His sixth grade opponent sported a scraped knee and ripped shirt. After the kids initial barrage, the remaining fourteen minutes and forty five seconds were spent with the kid chasing Alan around the playground equipment as Alan sought to escape from what was certain to be an untimely death. It was while chasing Alan that the kid ripped his shirt and scraped his knee. Eventually a couple of mothers intervened, separated the two, and formally ended Alan's shellacking.

Alan felt he had put up one hell of a fight as the kid's knee was really scraped, and he was pretty sure the kid's shirt was ruined. Also, it took the kid nearly 15 minutes to find his football, during which time Alan gloated from behind the slide. Buzzing with adrenaline and the metallic taste of blood in his mouth, safe under the watchful eyes of the policing mothers, Alan decided to continue to the coffee shop and leverage the opportunity to show the barista, for whom he longed, his rough side.

Like most middle aged men in suburbia, with fat wives and screaming kids, Alan had a constant hard on for the young barista that poured his morning coffee. Alan also faced the same lamentable situation the rest of the middle aged male population did in their acid washed jeans and outdated polo shirts; he was unable to recognize the point at which he became invisible to the young of the opposite sex, and began confusing the requisite friendliness of those in the service industry with desire. Surely this hot young barista with the pixie cut didn't greet everyone with a smile, banter jokingly about the day, and wish all a good morning? Alan was certain she too felt a spark, and he stood at the dangerous precipice in which his fantasy manifested itself in action.

Throwing caution to the wind, Alan decided that in his bloodied state, and with a little revisionist history to embellish the fight, he would ask her out. Alan willfully neglected to consider the certainty that the barista had no interest in anything other than pouring Alan's coffee. In fact she had no interest in any interaction with him whatsoever; however, pouring coffee was a task so clearly in her job description that she could not defer. As a result, the plague of unrequited love from married men, and their middle age come-ons, would continue as long as she worked her way through college.

As he walked through the front door of the coffee house, Alan stepped around a pack of young kids waiting on their orders. He spied his heart's desire behind the counter talking on her cell phone. Mustering as much swagger as his tiny frame allowed he sauntered to the counter. Before he could recast the tale of the playground fight, to one in which he fought an enforcer for the Hell's Angels, a battle where he took a beating but gave more than he got, she blurted out, "Oh my God, he really did mop the playground with your sorry ass. I heard about the fight. I babysit for that child on Tuesday nights. Are you okay? You are so lucky you were able to hide in the doll house until the Moms could break it up."

A minor setback in that she knew the actual events, but Alan remained determined. As he stood on his tip toes, and readied for the big ask, he spotted an engagement ring on her left hand. The words froze in his mouth as he stared at the brilliant gemstone. Before Alan could say anything a co-worker stepped to the counter, a hot chocolate in each hand, looked at Alan, confused him with the kids waiting their orders, and asked, "Kid's cocoa, right? You want sprinkles little man?"

Humiliated, as he raged from his would-be lover's betrayal, Alan began to lose his mind, "Coffee, I want a coffee you minimum wage baboon. Ed, is your name Ed? Ed, you baboon, give me a coffee!" Alan's head turned purple as he shook with rage and sputtered like a misfiring engine.

Ed was nonplussed. He was used to irrational behavior and customer rants, plus, the arty socialite that always flirted with Ed just walked in the door. He was definitely getting after that as soon as Napoleon got out of the way. To pacify Alan, and move him along, the barista handed Alan a small coffee.

"My straw! Where is my straw?" Alan demanded with asperity. In an effort to keep his teeth white Alan only drank coffee and red wine through straws. The barista reminded Alan the straws were on the counter right behind him. Insult was added to injury when Alan turned around and realized it was his boss's wife, Aspen, who stood in line witnessing his temper tantrum.

Alan's undoing continued the next day at work when the additive effects of the failed IT project, playground fight, and barista's betrayal, conspired against him and he decided to re-title himself. Alan's HR-approved corporate title was Chief Financial Officer. A standard title for his job responsibility and one commonly used and recognized in the business community. Alan was convinced a more differentiated title would separate him from his peers, better position him to be America's first formally recognized dictator (George W was not officially recognized), and oust Doug from the CEO role. It might also help to minimize the fallout from the failed IT project. Alan planned to add the word, Exalted, to his title.

During Doug's staff meeting Alan began to refer to himself in the third person, and ended his sentences with the bombastic phrase, "and so sayeth the Exalted Chief Financial Officer." Normally Doug would have lit into Alan for behaving as an idiot, but Doug simply wanted out of the little, bug like, man's presence. Misinterpreting Doug's looks of disgust as approval, Alan immediately laid plans to reprint his business cards with his new title: The Exalted Chief Financial Officer.

After re-titling himself Alan's business cards couldn't accommodate the corporate logo, font, and font size, without splitting his title across three lines. This was exactly the Goddamn detail he, The Exalted Chief Financial Officer, didn't want to be bothered with. To fix it he outsourced the problem to Sue, the young, entry level analyst within Mary's organization whom Alan was convinced also felt a mutual attraction.

Unknown to Alan, Sue had been informed earlier in the day that at week's end she should, "stop by HR with her laptop, and to please bring her pictures and personal items with her." Unfortunately for Sue, Cuddy, the COO, was hell bent on firing all the attractive people in Mary's organization. As the day of reckoning loomed Sue realized the end was at hand, and her retirement plan unlikely to come to fruition. In a last great act of defiance she penned the new corporate tag line: We Hate You As Much As You Hate Us.

Venom dripped as Sue changed the logo and graphics of the corporation's business cards. The new logo, which took a minute to decipher, was a mosaic of offensive symbols and names. A quick study, her corporate servitude had gifted Sue with a penchant for profanity laced tirades. With Satan as the backdrop, the card featured swastikas in each corner, and a rainbow of offensive words that included cocksucker, cunt, fuck, motherfucker, piss, shit, and tits. The infamous George Carlin 7, which rounds to the Lenny Bruce 9 if you add ass and balls. Sue elected to forego "ass and balls". She found them commonplace, and without the caustic impact she sought. The new corporate address was clearly legible as Buttfuck, Illinois.

Sue then ordered new cards for the entire company, not just Alan, and not just any cards but the most expensive business cards she could find. Engraved on a wafer thin slice of T6 aluminum, and printed in full color, the cards were nearly $10 each. She found a vendor in London and ordered them express, next morning delivery for the entire company. All in the cost was a few hundred grand. To give the The Board something to talk about, she wanted them to arrive in time for the 2006 Board Meeting.

The cards arrived the morning of the 2006 Board Meeting and Sue prominently set the invoice and a box of cards on the middle of Alan's desk. Already on Alan's desk was a large package wrapped in gold foil and adorned with a large red bow. As providence would have it, on this fateful morning, Alan was gifted an executive parachute. This gift from The Board was a symbolic gesture intended to show the financial protection the company offered upper management. It was never intended for use.

Golden Shower touted their executive parachute safety devices as, "no training required." However, by the time Golden's corporate lawyers coupled the likelihood of facing a real lawsuit from a wealthy estate with their lax production standards they felt it prudent to publish a user's guide. The guide was clear that if the canopy felt like cotton, not silk, the owner should immediately call a 1-800 number and report the quality control issue. Early models of the parachute incorrectly featured 1000 count cotton sheets for the canopy. The co-efficient of drag for the cotton sheet, the determinant in how slowly you fall, was rated slightly better than lawn furniture but nearly five-fold worse than silk. Golden Showers realized production standards in China might be improved if the blueprints were provided in the native language, but in the interim this solution would have to suffice.

Hours before the 2006 Board Meeting at which Alan was formally expected to concede the IT project was an epic failure, and surrender the baton as CEO frontrunner, the fire alarm rang and burnt popcorn could be smelled on the executive's floor. Alan was overcome with joy at this unexpected turn of events, and the possibility of a clean slate. If the building burnt to the ground his atonement for the systems and business card debacles would be the least of The Board's worries. Pushing his happiness to new heights he realized his boss and peers might perish in the fire and create a career opportunity that hadn't existed a few minutes before. Thinking that all might not be lost, and he could still emerge as the new CEO with a decisive show of leadership, he quickly made plans to parachute from the building. He saw himself landing Special Forces style in the parking lot while the lowly staff, and The Board, stumbled out the side exit and stood with their mouths agape at his decisiveness and bravery.

As the alarm cried into its tenth minute, hands shaking with excitement and a faint sheen of perspiration on his upper lip, Alan stood and formally embraced the evolutionary strategy of the dodo. Onto his desk he tossed the sandwich, Wilma, the Executive Assistant, had just dropped off. From within the deep recesses of his closet he found and donned the biohazard suit he kept hidden, a previous symbolic gift from The Board. Immediately overtop the suit he placed the executive parachute. Lastly, he removed the pistol he kept hidden in the bottom drawer of his desk and strapped on a western style gun belt. He was now wholly consumed with the joy he would experience watching the building reduce to ash through the bulbous, aquarium-like hood of his biohazard suit as he stood in the parking lot, where he planned to rise like a phoenix from the ashes and become the new CEO.

Alan never considered the implications of discarding the parachute's user's guide before reading it. It's tough to know how much time to invest in the user's guide but a good rule of thumb is to spend time in a manner proportional to the likelihood the product might save your life. The guide was clear that you needed to be at least fifty floors above the deck if you had a prayer in hell of surviving the jump. Looking out this sixth floor office, Alan's fate was sealed before he broke the double pained window in his office, with his stapler, and leaped. Alan was a short man, and would fall farther than most, but even with the extra distance his parachute would not deploy.

Alan expressed his exuberance when he exited the building by somersaulting out the broken window. As he fell he made his final executive declaration, "Leadership!" Graceful in the pike position, his enthusiasm caused him to over rotate and he raced to the earth with his body parallel to the ground. Precisely 2.3 seconds after exiting the window, Alan opened his eyes to find the ground six inches before him. The fall went well, with gravity performing as expected, but the impact caused his gun to misfire and it flattened some poor bastard's front left tire. In medical parlance the coroner would note Alan's cause of death as rapid deceleration trauma.

As the fire alarm rang, and Alan fell, Officer Nonutz received word over the radio that untoward events were transpiring in the center of his beat. Nonutz was certain the office building, for which the fire alarm cried, functioned as the headquarters of a terror cell. It would be huge kudos for him, and extra pay, when he brought the organization down. Racing to the scene Nonutz hurriedly pulled from the road and into the parking lot. Doing so he lost control and the squad car fishtailed. Nonutz surprised himself by steering out of the skid; historically these situations required a tow truck.

Nonutz aimed his car toward the mob gathered outside the building, lights flashing and siren blaring, as he gunned the engine and raced towards Alan's landing zone. As he sped, Nonutz fumbled to un-holster his pistol. "Son of a bitch," he mumbled in frustration as he tugged at the stuck gun. He'd yet to figure out how to remove the gun from its holster without his full attention, and quickly became wholly consumed with the task. After repeated tries he was successful. Pistol in hand, he returned his focus to driving his vehicle. "Ahhh!" he screamed as he stomped the brake, arms locked in full extension on the steering wheel, about to plow into the crowd. As Nonutz braced for impact, time appeared to slow and the car slid forward with its tires locked. At the last second, realizing the squad car about to crash into them, the crowd parted like the Red Sea before Moses. Nonutz skidded to a stop in the middle of the crowd, and ran over Alan.

Having destroyed the crime scene, Nonutz freaked out, threw the car in reverse, and stomped on the gas. He gunned the engine until the rear tires smoked and Alan was unceremoniously dislodged from under the car's front bumper. The car raced backwards and out of control, front end fishtailing, until Nonutz again slammed on the brakes, and barely missed hitting the cars parked in the lot.

Nonutz stepped from the car to survey the scene. He wiped his brow and declared in his cop voice, "Damn it! That was close." His car now sat a good fifty yards from Alan. He walked through the tire's smoke, and towards the strange blue sack. The tarmac upon which he walked was scored with the squad car's tire marks, inbound and outbound, and fresh pills of rubber lay on the outside of the tracks.

Nonutz jostled his way through the crowd, and up to the man he'd just run over. Alan lay facing the sky with a look of terror frozen on his face, and tire tracks marring his otherwise pristine parachute. Given the last few minutes, he was unquestionably dead. Nonutz prodded him with his boot, and realized this wasn't the terror mastermind he'd expected. With Alan's parachute, biohazard suit, and sidearm, Nonutz quickly knew the terror cell was more sophisticated than he'd initially thought. "Damn it," he proclaimed, "I may need backup."

In Nonutz's interviews with the few employees he was able to corral, conducted in the freezing rain with his pistol shoved under the pit of his arm as it also took his full attention to re-holster the weapon, it became apparent few were certain what had fallen from the sky. Some claimed a midget Disney princess had fallen from an airplane. Others were certain an oversized garden gnome had been sucked up by a far away tornado, and thrown hundreds of miles to land, as unglamorously as possible, in the middle of the parking lot. A couple people would later testify under oath that they were pretty sure it was Alan; they heard him scream, "Leadership," as he fell. In any event, a blue sack appeared where one hadn't been before.

Crowding into Alan's office to sort out what had happened, Mary, the VP of Sales, and Cuddy, the COO, looked down at the sorry, crumpled sack in the parking lot. When they realized Alan wasn't likely to have survived they began to pillage his office. Both struggled to suppress their glee at this unexpected turn. With Alan gone one of them was likely to emerge as the next CEO. Both have formidable credentials. Mary is a profane and vain blonde known for her crushing handshake. Her nemesis, Cuddy, is a porcine school yard bully well versed in the persuasive powers of discomfort.

Mary, under whose tutelage the integrity and compliance programs reported, gathered the pictures Alan had neatly displayed on his bookcase. She hastily removed the pictures and pocketed the frames. Of late, Mary was more and more concerned with a need to surround herself with photos of beautiful people. And, Alan's frames were likely silver given the monogrammed letters at the bottom, which until a couple minutes ago contained pictures of his wedding and family vacations.

Cuddy, who had been through like scenarios several times before, instinctively knew to run to his office and get the cardboard box he hid in his closet for just such an opportunity. Experience told him that the first items taken were under the pretext of need and no one really took anything of value until the pace built and then, "Katie bar the door," the pirating began in earnest.

Alan's secretary, Wilma, was familiar with the provenance of the sandwich that lay on Alan's desk. She'd ordered it less than an hour ago, and even when she considered the risk of mayo it was still a $9 roast beef sandwich that'd only been sitting out a couple hours. While she looked out the broken window and waved to the employees gathered around the strange sack sixty feet below, she chewed noisily.

Nels, seeing Cuddy and Mary poke their heads out the broken window in Alan's office, appealed to the crowd's humanity, "We gotta talk them down!" He then spontaneously led the employees in chant, "Jump! Jump! Jump!" The employees followed his lead, and soon the mob shouted in unison as their fists pumped the air.

As the crowd's shouts grew, Alan's boss, Doug, the CEO, poked his head in the office. Instinctively, he knew what happened and quietly asked Wilma to collect Cuddy and Mary's executive parachutes. Doug was certain the shareholders would understand this happening once in a while, and might even expect it, but with the company's history of mishaps he didn't want to risk a second jumper.

The employees in the lot caught a glimpse of Doug, escalated their discordant screams, and grew even louder, "Jump! Jump! Jump!"

A few were waving back to Wilma when the "all clear" sign blew, and the wave of humanity reversed course and re-entered the building. Alone and dead at the corner of the parking lot among the leafless box elders, geraniums, and tulips, sat Alan, wrapped in his biohazard suit with an un-deployed executive parachute on his back. As Wilma was looking out the hole where the window had been, a breeze rattled the papers on Alan's desk and scattered the photos that had been stripped from their frames. The photos flew willy-nilly about the office.

Chapter Three

The Gift of Drug, Inc., or G.O.D. as those familiar with the company refer to it, sits at the corner of Oak Street and Brach Avenue in a six storied building on Chicago's outskirts. Viewed from the outside, the building conveys an air of impermanence, as if its designers did not take the project seriously or intend the building to last for more than a few years. Paint bubbles and rust stains run like icicles below the windows, ornamenting the off white Dryvit with Rorschach like markings, and testifying to the building's shoddy design and low budget fabrication. This architecturally uninspired workspace, commonplace and dull, is where Doug and his minions labor.

Outside, to the east of the building, opposite the main entrance, is a two acre lawn through which a serpentine gravel path meanders. Geese flock to the open turf by the dozens, intimidating any would be walkers and claiming the land as their own. It is not a surprise that goose shit litters the campus. On this same side of the building is a large rectangular reflecting pool, two feet deep with a coal black bottom, which is widely regarded as an eyesore. In summer, mosquitoes rise in droves from the algae laden water. In winter, the pool sits fallow and frozen, a grim reminder of Midwest winter. Year round, the pool collects cigarette butts and fast food wrappers.

Inside G.O.D.'s humdrum offices, cheap, efficient partitions provide a place for each employee, and an easy way for management to make certain each employee is in his, or her, place. Within the honeycombed, maze like environment, the employees are constantly reminded to think outside the box as they spend their day in a veal pen sized cubicle of less than a hundred square feet. The cubicle has not played out as the consultants promised. Rather than fostering worker equality and the free flow of information, the cubicle's soulless and Orwellian nature has driven the employees to covet privacy above all else. To find solitude, employees e-mail the person in the adjacent space instead of engaging in conversation. Workers seated near each other dial into the same conference call rather than meeting in person. Paradoxically, the staff is driven to the most public areas of the floor for private conversations; the pantry, conference room, even the lobby. Places where they can tell their doctor how bad it burns when they pee, or when they'll be able to make whatever payment they've missed and for fuck's sake not to repo their car.

From the low ceilings, fluorescent lights cast harsh, artificial luminescence onto the muted earth tones that are the common denominator over everything from the furniture to the plastic, potted plants. The building screams mediocrity but the cries go unheard, absorbed by the low pile beige carpet. If the air didn't have the faint reek of burnt popcorn, and a couple of windows weren't boarded from Alan's jump and the computer Nel's tossed, the building would have no personality at all.

Dispatched from G.O.D.'s bland confines, to patients diagnosed with rare and often terminal illnesses, are life giving, extremely expensive prescription drugs. G.O.D.'s business, specialty pharmacy, was built on the economics that it was cheaper to fill prescriptions for these types of drugs at centralized locations and mail them to the patient than it was for the patient to use their neighborhood drugstore.

Like most corporations, G.O.D. followed a predictable path in which the founder, Norman, an old man unencumbered by consensus management and the limitations of quarterly profit statements, began mailing prescription to his patients as a means of convenience. The terminally ill patients he served appreciated doing what they wanted with their limited time, and not having to drive to and from the pharmacy. The business was profitable and grew steadily, but all good things must come to an end. In the late 1990's, Norman sold the business to fund a south Miami lifestyle replete with face lifts, strippers, and the ongoing removal of pre-cancerous squamous cells that pop up on the bald heads of those with Gaelic origins who retire to sunny environs. Recurring appointments with his doctors were a minor inconvenience, as the last thing Norman wanted was to become a customer of his former business.

With Norman's sale of the business and subsequent departure, any sharing of institutional knowledge and focus to longevity and future generations was abruptly ruled out. This became most apparent when the new owner took the company public, hoping to cash out. The investor community's response to the initial public offering was lackluster and didn't provide the windfall the new owner expected. Thereafter followed several financially disastrous years during which time those employees that were able to find alternate employment left for greener pastures. The result of the mass exodus was a reverse natural selection scenario in which the least desirable remained. Doug, the CEO, Cuddy, the COO, and Alan, the CFO, all sought exit, but none of them received any job offers from the few firms with whom they were able to secure interviews. Unable to persuade external candidates to fill out the upper management ranks and manage the leper colony as the company tanked, the three ascended into upper management as the beneficiaries of attrition. Mary, the VP of Sales, was given her position as payback for a favor her father did for Alan.

In a classic case of the inept reveling in serendipity, G.O.D. saw record profits under Doug and company through a series of misadventures. Among the factors contributing to G.O.D.'s success were the rampant price increases taken by pharmaceutical manufacturers. These price increases, which hovered well into the double digits, coupled with G.O.D.'s inability to manage inventory, resulted in huge mark-ups in the value of the drugs G.O.D. stocked. As a result, the drugs G.O.D. paid $10,000 for were now worth $90,000. In any other industry, the penalty for overstocking inventory would have been the financial ruin of the company; however, G.O.D. made a killing as the pricing they charged was based on the manufacturer's list price at the time the drug was shipped to the patient, which had no bearing on the acquisition cost at the time G.O.D. purchased the drug.

In addition to rampant price inflation, several key manufacturers realized a series of production mishaps resulting in product shortages for life sustaining drugs. G.O.D.'s inability to manage inventory again proved fortuitous as the company had unintentionally stockpiled these drugs. Price and demand skyrocketed, and G.O.D. capitalized on its monopolistic situation and again drove record profits. The worthless options the executives were granted during the financial morass, when they assumed leadership positions, moved well into the money and worth millions, as factors beyond their control drove the company into the black.

Piling on, the company's name change to Gift of Drug, Inc., from Norman's Specialty Pharmacy, bumped earnings a stellar three hundred basis points and drove the company's market capitalization into the tens of billions. The company quickly learned when it called the terminally ill, announced, "Hello, this is G.O.D. calling," and let the patient know they needed a refill if they wanted to live another day they ended up shipping a lot of drugs.

With the new name, Doug, Cuddy, Alan, and Mary, also benefited from the demand for Madoff-like returns when the electronic stock ticker scrolled G.O.D. as an investment option. Emboldened by a right wing conservative president, whose gift to the country was a reduction in tax for the wealthiest Americans, the rollback of environmental protections in favor of big business, and the dismissal of U.S. attorneys whose investigation might not favor those in power, the ministers and flock of mega Churches invested their money directly in the deity who answered their prayers. The cash poured in.

To date, the idea to rename the business has been the only sage advice the white shoe consulting house, which was firmly entrenched at G.O.D., has provided. As luck would have it, this idea was uttered in jest by a high school intern when he mistakenly answered a rhetorical question uttered by one of the partners in his firm concerning what could be done to drive sales. His other suggestion was to hold a holiday party, which didn't turn out as intended and had him batting five hundred at the time of Alan's jump.

Today, the specialty pharmacy business works off of strange economics and sits at the intersection of four customers with opposing goals and of unequal importance. G.O.D.'s customers include; the pharmaceutical companies, which make the drugs; the health plans, which contract with G.O.D. to provide the drugs to its members; the doctors that refer the patients; and, the patients themselves. In descending order of importance to G.O.D., the ranking goes pharma, payers, prescribers, and then patients. To secure its patients G.O.D. contracts with the payers to serve as the exclusive pharmacy provider of specialty drugs. Under these arrangements, the patients don't have a choice in their specialty pharmacy if they want to exercise their health benefit.

Unlike the time it was founded, G.O.D. no longer makes money buying and selling drugs. As it stands, the money G.O.D. makes is from the data it sells the pharmaceutical manufacturers about the patients it services; the more patients the more data, and the more data the more money made. G.O.D.'s financial model is now more like that of a market research company than it is a retail pharmacy. Another unique aspect of the specialty pharmacy business concerns the optics of providing life giving drugs to the terminally ill. G.O.D. has not solved the dilemma of shipping drug regardless of whether the patient paid their bill.

About a year before Alan jumped, the financial analysts and market makers that dictate requisite performance of public companies grew wise to G.O.D.'s shenanigans. Doug's three card monte management initiatives, Separate Orders and Combine Orders, were exposed for the scams they were, and the price increases, product shortages, and name change, that drove profits recognized as one-time events that couldn't be counted on to drive future earnings. As Cuddy hammed it up at the 2005 Board Meeting, Wall Street recast the company's value and sent the stock on a slow and steady fall. Although it circled far from the drain of bankruptcy, G.O.D. now struggled to meet its investor's expectations. This shortfall was primarily due to patient's not paying their co-pays. As the stock fell in value, Wall Street found common ground in its belief that Doug was a buffoon, and his management team, especially the fatuous, blockheaded Cuddy, was a cluster of imbeciles.

Chapter Four

At the end of a long gravel road, a couple of miles outside a town where children and men still point at airplanes, sits Cuddy's childhood home. Like much of Nebraska, Cuddy's hometown suffered at Mother Nature's extremes and found itself constantly subject to mercurial temperature swings and a medley of thunderstorms and paralyzing blizzards, with the occasional town leveling tornado thrown in for good measure. The Nebraska Department of Transportation's annual report concerning this area of the state was peppered with words like; sterile, barren, depressing, and in one particularly artistic turn of phrase, godforsaken. Here, the ceaseless winds denied gravity's reign on the earth and plumb lines were no source of truth. Current theories on Nebraska's ubiquitous obesity appear to be converging on the hypothesis that body-mass indices over thirty five, the morbidly obese, are a survival response to inclement weather, and not a disagreeable result of the all you can eat buffets at the Indian casinos to which the hordes flocked seeking any respite from this wasteland. Cuddy's personality was forged by the climate he grew up in; loud, obnoxious and unrefined.

Cuddy was raised as the only child of a single parent, Mungo, who fled his Scottish homeland after firing a World War II howitzer he found hidden in an old barn on a dare and accidentally shelling his town. Scottish secessionists had hidden the canon for use in their planned uprising against England. About an hour after he'd bombed the town into near oblivion, having destroyed the constable's office, the parish, the vicars home, and most of Main Street, the survivors crowded his property with pitchforks and lanterns and screamed of crimes against humanity. The survivors, comprised mostly of pissed off widows and orphans, chased him into the nearby craggy foothills where he spent his days hiding. When all looked clear, he lit out for the coast and took a steamer to America, where such happenings were more commonplace. Behind, he left his pregnant wife with whom he didn't get on terribly well.

Mungo never elaborated on why he and his wife didn't get along, but town gossip held that it centered on his wife's position that Mungo not be allowed in their house. Since Mungo moved into her ancestral home, after their wedding, he had knocked a hole in the low ceiling with his head, tripped and flattened a wall thereby creating a three walled, lean-to like structure, and crushed a half dozen chairs while leaning back on two legs after supper. At nearly seven feet and 44 stone (620 pounds) Mungo, in his wife's estimation, was simply not designed for indoor living.

When he landed in America, Mungo moved west until the wind stopped him, found cheap land, and took to pig farming. In a move that proved formative in Cuddy's development, Mungo opted to build their home where the delivery truck dumped its load, which became immediately downwind of where the pigs dumped their loads. Directly west of the home would eventually sit a pigsty and a hundred pigs. Mungo was a penny pinching Scot, and the builder wanted an extra few dollars to deliver the building materials to the far end of the lot and upwind of the pigs.

Mungo built their home from the few building materials he could afford, field stones, and other found materials. The land upon which Mungo built was used by the county as the dumping grounds for spent tires. A couple of times a month, Mungo would find, scattered on the edge of his property, one, two, or on occasion an entire set of used tires. Over the years, Mungo filled the tires with dirt, wrapped them in green tarp, and stacked them against the side of the home. Even with the spent tires as reinforcement, the ceaseless winds pried the shingles from the roof and bowed the westerly facing walls inward.

Several months after he'd built enough of a home to live in, and nearly two years since he'd fled Scotland, Mungo reclined in a large Barcolounger when he heard a knock at the door. On the small thirteen inch black and white television that sat before him, Mungo watched a rarely televised shinty match; a highland sport best described as ice hockey on the lawn. Mungo rose, and as he crossed the room to answer the knocking the floor beams creaked loudly. From the home's small windows that overlooked the flat, mostly treeless, land of central Nebraska, Mungo spied a brown Ford racing toward the horizon. As it went, the dust rose from its wheels, and it looked like a rocket car racing on Utah's salt flats.

Outside the door, on the porch, he found a fat little boy picking his nose and looking up at him. Mungo assumed the note pinned on the lapel of the child's coat would explain his appearance. He palmed the boy's head with his left hand, as if it were a basketball, and pulled him up. Holding him by the top of the head with one hand, several feet off the ground, Mungo examined the lad at arm's length. With his oversized ears, upturned nose and jowly face, the child looked like a piglet. Mungo took a long draw on his whiskey as he stared at the odd creature.

As Mungo moved the child closer to unpin the note, and simultaneously jostled his glass of whiskey to keep it from spilling, the child kicked Mungo squarely in the balls, which sat unprotected beneath his kilt. Mungo fell to the ground gasping for breath. Only once before had Mungo been felled, and that was years ago when he was struck in the temple with the business end of three and a half feet of hickory during a shinty match. As he spiraled downward, the child landed safely away from the fallen giant. The note fluttered to the ground. Blinded with pain, Mungo read the note with his head resting sideways on the ground and his hands clamped between his legs.

Mungo:

He's your son. I named him Cuddy and he's a mean little fooker. He'll kick you in the balls if you give him the chance.

He's widely regarded as a pox on our parish. The village pitched in, with the Vicar donating much of his retirement, to send him to you.

You didn't kill anybody but the Constable's still pissed, and it'll be a while before you're welcome back. Most of the buildings are rebuilt including the Post.

Write me.

The Wife.

Mungo's heart swelled at the idea of returning to his much-loved Scotland. With the Post rebuilt, he made immediate plans to send a letter. Mungo penned the response in his head, while his balls ached from the kick.

Wife:

For Christ's sake woman, are you sure you sent the right kid?

I've learned to live indoors. Send for me, when the time is right.

Mungo

As he stared dully at his father writhing on the ground, Cuddy spoke for the first time, "Haggis! I want haggis. I'm hungry," and then began bawling, a strange squeal that stood the hair on the back of Mungo's neck on end. A migrant worker at the property line hastily mumbled a prayer. In some parts of the world the pig-man is no joke.

Mungo raised Cuddy never to cheat at golf, not spill his whisky, and to avoid relations with the livestock. Even with those mores taken to heart Cuddy grew up a fat prick prone to scheming whose signature move was the burr shampoo. Popping up on the seat behind an unsuspecting classmate on the school bus, Cuddy rubbed handfuls of burrs into his bus mate's hair. Once in they were nearly impossible to remove and usually had to be cut out. Cuddy's third grade class picture featured a disproportionate number of kids, boys and girls, sporting buzz cuts. Their shorn heads adorned with pink band aids from where the farm shears nicked the scalp.

After a series of suspensions at the local elementary school, which centered on Cuddy's love of the burr shampoo, Mungo began to have Cuddy tested for retardation. Mungo's testing proved inconclusive with the doctors time and time again pronouncing Cuddy high functioning. The psychiatrists never declared Cuddy 'normal,' as Cuddy's reputation had grown throughout the region and they were uncertain what he would do next. With their licenses at stake, the medical community's consensus was to be conservative when deciding who might, and who might not, be rowing with one oar in the water.

Had a chicken not got the better of him, Cuddy would have followed in his father's footsteps and become a pig farmer. On this day of note, Cuddy ran aimless through the plains chasing stray chickens. He was never quick enough to catch them, but tried until he grew dizzy and fell to the ground. As he closed in on a large rooster, near a truck loading pigs to take to slaughter, the rooster ran up the boarding ramp, between and under the pigs to the front of the carrier, and then hopped out one of the ventilation holes. Behind followed Cuddy. At the moment Cuddy realized he'd been outwitted, and tricked onto the truck, he heard the doors close.

Never an attentive parent, it wasn't until Mungo had signed the paperwork and the truck was pulling away he noticed Cuddy staring mutely out the carrier's ventilation holes. As the truck drove off, Mungo realized Cuddy was about to be sent to slaughter and screamed, "Stop the truck!"

The stifled guffaws of the truck driver haunt Cuddy's dreams to this day. The result of all this was that Cuddy never outgrew the fear that one day he would again be mistakenly loaded onto the slaughter truck. This fear, and not the sense extravaganza that is pig farming, or living downwind of the pigsty, drove Cuddy from the family farm. And like the pigs that eyed the horizon line Cuddy sought his escape. He also vowed, at every opportunity, to eat his weight in chicken.

The years passed, and Cuddy grew to be of average height with disproportionately short, spindly arms and legs, and an ample belly. As Cuddy entered high school, he not only began to look like a pig, but to act like a pig. This strange transmogrification first became evident during Cuddy's one and only football game when he appeared to run faster on all fours than on his feet alone. Handed the ball on fourth and goal, in a game with less than three seconds on the clock and his team up by forty points, Cuddy wedged the ball between his chin and chest and ran on hands and feet into the end zone. It was the only time Cuddy played in a game, and it served as the high water mark in his high school years.

As he ran, the opposing coach pointed at the abomination of nature, "Ain't right. That ain't right. Something wrong there."

The opposing players nodded in horror and repeated their coaches' words, "That just ain't right."

Cuddy earned below average marks through high school. However, it was after graduation that Cuddy's business acumen began to shine. Cuddy honed his business skills, and raised the money to pay for college, as a vendor at the local, organic market. His father, rightly as it turns out, had been touting their pigs for years as organic. In Mungo's case, organic pig farming was driven by his overall stinginess. It was cheaper to let the pigs run all over the county than maintain a pig house. Free range pigs could eat whatever they wanted, and antibiotics and growth hormone were costly. More often than not Friday night found Mungo and Cuddy racing their county's back roads in a beat up Chevrolet sedan with a carload of snouts sticking out the windows, rear bumper dragging and sparks flying, as they worked to find enough pigs to take to the Saturday market.

Cuddy didn't buy into the green movement and couldn't understand why anyone would pay $9.88/lb for organic broccoli. He quickly realized he could buy cheap produce at the local Walmart, wrap a blue rubber band around it, and then sell it as organic at the Farmers' Market for a tidy profit. Cuddy would have probably made a career of organic farming if he hadn't gone a step too far and tried to sell locally grown organic coconuts for $27 each. By the time the farmers' market banned him for life, Cuddy had earned enough money to secure entry into a third tier college located in the same neighborhood as G.O.D.'s pharmacy.

Packed, and with his son ready to head to college and leave Nebraska for the first time, Mungo surprised Cuddy with the announcement that he would be returning to his beloved Scotland. His father had received the letter for which he'd patiently waited fifteen years. The shinty team was down a player, the town rebuilt, and both the Vicar and Constable too infirm and senile to remember the cause of the infamous bombing. In the letter he'd received, his wife let him know it was finally safe to return.

Never an overly affectionate pair Mungo and Cuddy hugged and wished each other well. At the end of the short embrace Mungo handed Cuddy a thick manila folder. "These are the medical records be proven your high functioning. You may see need for them. It's likely with your personality people will be confusing you for the small minded, but even if you were seeing a challenge with the math and the reading your scheming nature will serve you well in the moral morass that is the state of today's business world." With that, he handed Cuddy a tumbler of whiskey and heartily proclaimed, " _Here's to the heath, the hill and the heather, the bonnet, the plaid, the kilt and the feather._ When we're goin' up a hill o fortune, may we ne'er meet a frien' comin' down. _Alba gu brath! Scotland forever!_ "

Cuddy drank deeply and wished his father well, "Beannachd Dia dhuit. Blessing of God be with you."

It was during his second year in college that Cuddy took a part-time janitorial job at G.O.D. and began his slow, labored ascent into management. Immediately upon graduation, with his business degree in hand, Cuddy switched from janitorial services into an entry level position in operations. It was Cuddy's first foray into corporate America that did not require a name tag.

During the salad days of Cuddy's career he frequented a downtown Chicago area affectionately referred to in local parlance as the Viagra triangle. Bounded by State, Rush, and Oak, the Viagra triangle was home court for aging lotharios trapped in loveless marriages, cougars and the ever present professional call girl. Cuddy loved the area for the endless free appetizers, offered as an inducement to keep the randy patrons in place as they sank $15 cocktails. Cuddy's favorite, far and away, was the infamous Lobster Jaw.

The Jaw sported a fifty two foot "all you could eat" buffet and mechanical bull. It also featured the weekly Lobster Jaw contest, in which the patron with the most food dripping from their chin received a twenty five dollar gift certificate. Cuddy had twice won the contest, butter dripping in slow rivulets from his chin as he raised his arms in victory. He confirmed his victory when he hopped up and down in celebration, and onlookers found his golf shirt a yard short on the amount of fabric required to remain tucked in his pants and covering his pale and gelatinous belly.

Predictably, Cuddy met his wife Irene at the Lobster Jaw one Thursday in September as patrons ran from the building screaming. Swimming upstream, undeterred by the wave of humanity passing by him, Cuddy sought access to the buffet. In the scrum of humanity, as the customers ferociously jockeyed to exit the building, Cupid's random arrow struck. In front of the buffet, riding the mechanical bull in a tube top and mini skirt, was Irene; a wall of jiggly meats and Rubenesque in her glory. She and her girlfriends smelled like day old clams.

Not a girl to be constrained by the trapping of undergarments, Irene's angry, furry snail left a slick on the mechanical bull from which she could not be thrown. Her knees broke the plane above her head as the bull fell quickly from its high point. As she rode her watermelon sized boobs bounced up and down. First in stereo, with both up and both down, then in mono, with one up and one down. Then, abruptly, as the bull changed canter, they emulated a tennis match with one left, and one right, as they passed in the middle. It was this spectacle that had emptied the bar of all but Irene and her girlfriends. Cuddy stood spellbound near Irene's girlfriends, who all knew Irene would ride until she grew bored. The bull wouldn't get her off - literally. These large boned lasses all owned vibrators that bucked harder than this bull. Cuddy had never seen anything like this; Larry Flynt hadn't either.

Seeing Cuddy from the bucking and rolling bull, Irene too felt Cupid's sting and knew it to be love at first sight, or more likely double-sight as she was severely cross eyed with a wandering right eye. When the ride stopped, a full seven minutes later, Cuddy, Irene, and Irene's girlfriends, stood in the bar with the buffet adventure before them. Six months to the day Cuddy and Irene married in a civil ceremony at City Hall. Celebrating back where it all began, after the nuptials, Irene won her first Lobster Jaw award, barely edging out Cuddy.

Irene grew up a big girl, with big hair and big mouth, from a big state. A far cry from a rocket surgeon Irene went through life believing Alaska an island, given its boxed representation on the maps of the United States. Presented with a math question on her college admission test in which a triangle was shown with values for two of the three sides, and an X on the third side, she was asked to find X. She circled the X.

Irene met Cuddy the night she flew in from Texas for a girlfriend's wedding. Responsible for appetizers she'd brought a ten pound bag of frozen shrimp on the plane, and stuffed it into the overhead bin. The same bin within which the bride had placed her gown and the bridesmaid's their dresses. By the time the flight landed, a few hours before Cuddy laid eyes on Irene for the first time, the shrimp had melted, and smelly water dripped from the overhead bin within which the dresses floated in clammy brine. Having never been to Chicago Irene wouldn't have guessed mechanical bulls survived the 1980s, she'd meet her soul mate at the Lobster Jaw, or that you could buy frozen seafood.

Confirmed suburbanites, the greatest loves in Cuddy's and Irene's lives are their pugs, Pugsly and Scootch. Theory splits into three camps on the magnetic properties of the pug; those that believe the pug's physical and behavioral characteristic draw the zealot; those that believe the preponderance of costumes, clothing, and pug-centric events naturally select the over enthusiastic; and, by far the majority, those that believe people select dogs that most resembles them. Putting an exclamation point on the thesis that dog owners resemble their pets, and vice versa, they cut to the chase and selected brother and sister pugs. With its spindly legs, pot belly, upturned nose, and curly tail, it is the breed that most resembles a pig. To this day Cuddy's annual Christmas card, featuring the dogs and owners in matching bejeweled holiday sweaters, haunts the internet as de facto proof, in the bloggers' circles that vigorously debate these matters, that given enough time, man and dog, or man and pig, becomes indistinguishable.

To see the morbidly obese Cuddy as an adult is to see a pig's genetic zenith. Dressed in the light pinks he favored (shirts and trousers), with his short, bristly hair and upturned nose, Cuddy resembled his animal doppelganger. His pig like laugh, a pitched, staccato squeal during which his head tilts slightly back and his ears wiggle, sounds like a rutting pig.

People meeting Cuddy for the first time often look around believing they are about to be the victim of some Hidden Camera or Punk'd tomfoolery. When they realize Cuddy is for real their pupils dilate in fear. The cleaning crew that worked late at night often spoke of the, "hombre de cerdo," or the pig man – a terrifying violation of nature as Cuddy ran to and from the vending machine. Recently, the cleaning crews at G.O.D. had taken to wearing rosaries, and were in deep negotiations with their employer for a proper exorcism.

With his bullying and scheming nature, Cuddy has proven formidable in business. An instrument of blunt force, Cuddy believes anything can be made to bend to his will. He is certain that with enough pressure, he will become G.O.D.'s next CEO.

Chapter Five

Mary grew up wearing kitten heels, the spoiled brat of a bit player in the Chicago political system. Equal parts potty mouthed princess and entitled diva, Mary was raised as a beauty pageant kid that segued to cheerleading when she started losing pageants, and eventually to music when she lacked the athleticism to make the varsity cheering squad. She was prone to bad thoughts, worse decisions, and came by both honestly.

Mary's daddy was a cigar chomping Chicago alderman who considered resort wear business casual. He funded his lifestyle, that of a muddling mid-tier crime boss, by taking bribes in exchange for zoning variances and tipping off restaurant owners before inspectors arrived thereby giving the restaurateurs enough time to sweep out the mouse droppings and rat nests that littered their larders. Liquor licenses, twenty four hour diners, sky scrapers, were within his control in neighborhoods that were historically zoned for elementary schools and single family homes. Daddy's war chest was funded by the business interests of the rich who sought exploitation of, and, exemption among the masses. Never one to quibble with his constituents, he passed the variances late at night, and typically in smoky basements, as envelopes of cash traded hands when his signature adorned the required legal documents. His propensity for always saying yes, when the money was right, meant his elected post had yet to face a serious contender.

Mary's mother was a flight attendant who'd met Daddy while he was on a taxpayer junket to Vegas. While taxiing down the runway Daddy swatted the comely flight attendant on the ass with his newspaper and asked for a quick refill. It was his third gin and tonic since hitting the pleather, and Mary's mother was smitten with this thirsty traveler sitting in domestic first class in his resort wear finery. This was the star she had looked to hitch on to since she'd dropped out of high school, taken this Godforsaken job, and slipped into irreversible debt by charging her new double Ds onto an already maxed out credit card.

By the time the plane taxied to the gate Mommy was sitting on Daddy's lap, had quit her job by telling the pilot to, "kiss her grits," over the PA system, and had secured a vaguely worded marriage proposal. Not surprising, Mommy was also pregnant as she and Daddy stumbled off the plane. This being the time in air travel before September 11 regulations restricted the bathroom to one paying customer at a time. Arms around each other, drunkenly weaving down the jet way, Daddy and Mommy stumbled into the blinding desert heat. God bless Vegas, in no other city can you arrive unannounced, intoxicated, having known each other for less than 24 hours, and commit to a life of for better or worse, richer or poorer. They married that day, and Mary was born nine months later.

Mary learned early in life, from her alderman father, that perception is reality and perception is controlled through image. She also learned a good handshake should pop knuckles and make them wince. From her mother, she learned to be no friend to the ugly. These life's lessons were taken to heart, and beginning at an early age Mary worked tirelessly to surround herself with beautiful people and beautiful things.

It first became evident that Mary's moral compass was forged in the fire of Chicago's political system when she orchestrated selective seating in her elementary school. Prior to Mary's acceptance at the coveted magnet school (her father called in an outstanding favor), the kids at the school organized themselves during lunchtime by classroom and neighborhood. Kids who knew one another tended to sit together. Mary immediately and successfully sought to reorganize the lunchroom dynamics. Her vision was that of three tables; the popular kids, semi-popular kids, and unpopular kids, with popularity based on attractiveness. She knew her plan wasn't perfect, it was more like five percent popular, fifteen percent semi-popular and the remainder unpopular, but the lunchroom was limited to three tables and math wasn't her strong suit. Like Barbie said, "Math is hard." Mary didn't like the compromise, but felt her life's work too important to wait.

Once the kids were assigned the appropriate group Mary leveraged her plan to fund her growing clothes habit. She offered her classmates an opportunity to upgrade tables as long as her immediate seat mates remained handpicked. A daily upgrade was one dollar, while a week could be had for three dollars. She picked a couple of goons to enforce the rules and paid them a dollar a day to police the tables. The kids looking to upgrade offset the cost of the thugs and Mary pocketed a nice profit. From Mary's perspective everyone won; the ugly kids had a chance to mingle with the beautiful; she made a tidy profit and was able to dictate those with whom she ate; and, the thugs were able to fund their growing slushy and cigarette habit at the Seven-Eleven.

Mary also learned the art of profanity from her father, a noted and cunning linguist, whose skills were honed berating the immigrant workers he found throughout his ward as he shook them down. Mary swore like Daddy (and Mommy); without regard for grammar's punctilious rules. Subject and verb agreement wasn't required when you were in the zone, and it wasn't necessary the adjective correctly modify the noun. Mary's repertoire of zingers centered on the f-bomb she liberally sprinkled into almost every conversation.

Life's lessons learned, and over a decade since dropping out of high school, Daddy didn't really care what Mary did as long as she moved out of the house. As Mary headed into her thirties she was still sponging off her parents, struggling to hit the high notes, and mired in debt as she dressed in the finest Europe had to offer. Her unemployed, luxurious lifestyle was costing Daddy plenty, and not solely from a financial perspective. A serial cheater, Daddy needed Mary out of the house; not laying his best laid plans to waste or wasting his best lays. A half a dozen times he'd brought home some young bimbo only to have his adulterous plans derailed by Mary, who was hanging around the house. Infidelity in mind, Daddy decided to call in a favor and get Mary a job, thereby putting in motion a series of events that would culminate in her running G.O.D.'s Sales organization.

Slick was a local music producer who had promised a sizable contribution to Daddy's war chest in return for a zoning change to a residential property he owned. Slick wanted to open a night club, but the building he owned wasn't zoned for commercial use and did not have a liquor license. Daddy indicated these were fixable problems, and re-zoned the property in return for the aforementioned contribution. Slick never paid up, and Daddy, rather than rezone the property with permissions consistent with that of a parking space, forced Slick to manage his daughter's non-existent music career. To meet this new obligation, and avoid seeing his prized establishment become worthless, Slick booked Mary to play at his club.

Slick was clear on the style of music the club featured, and Mary was thrilled her beauty would be accented by the Carhartt sporting patrons lucky to hear her golden voice. Slick's club was a working man's bar that favored heavy metal and the blues. It stunk of sour beer, vomit, urine cakes, and stale cigarettes. The patrons were discriminating. Robin Trower was okay. Joe Satriani was a douche bag. REO Speedwagon was always welcome. Rush sucked. There was no explanation for their preferences, it was best simply to memorize what they hated as the crowd could become violent at the least provocation. Slick told Mary she needed a ten song set list which should be centered on Zeppelin, AC/DC, and Aerosmith. Repeatedly, he warned her not to try any of that torch singer crap here. That was for later after she had a few gigs under her belt, and figured out how to hit the high notes.

Mary was thrilled the songs wouldn't require any D sharps above middle C, but refused to budge on her vision of herself as a torch singer. She saw herself as a chanteuse whose wily charms and good looks were inexcusably absent People and Hollywood Tonight. On her second, or fourth, drink of any given night she would exclaim with certainty that a reality show, or two, were in her future and she was sure to be America's next idol. On the night of the show, Mary stood offstage and to the right, hidden behind the curtain. As Mary waited her debut, she watched Slick lambast the pregnant stripper with the broken leg who preceded her.

"For Christ's sake, you need to bounce them Sister. Nobody's getting hard watching your preggers pirate routine with those saggy ass water balloons." Slick pressed his hands against the sides of his head. "What the hell? Are those kick ball nipples? Who hires a stripper with kick ball nipples?" he yelled in abject consternation at the disinterested barkeep, who shrugged as he wiped the bar top with a musty dish rag.

To placate Slick, the stripper began to 'dance'. Her broken foot fixed her to the stage as she moved in slow counterclockwise circles to a heavy metal ballad. She looked like an ox tethered to a pole grinding grain, her pregnant teen body bloated and saggy. Mascara ran as she tried, unsuccessfully, to hold back the tears.

Realizing how desperate the situation was, Slick shouted at the stripper to watch how it was done. He pinched his nipples and tugged them up and down. His lesson was to no avail. The oxen like stripper continued to circle.

The situation grew sadder. "Oh, for God's sake you're killing the liquor sales." Slick watched an old man at the bar wave off a refill, declaring the show so depressing he'd rather go home and watch Nancy Grace. Several other patrons left with him. They all shielded their eyes, as they stepped from the bar's dark cocoon into the bright sunlight.

Slumping from the stage at song's end, each hand covering a breast, the teen stripper hobbled past Mary whom she assumed was the next stripper and her likely replacement. "Good luck mama, it's a joy working for Slick. Living the dream is what I'm doing."

Mary was thrilled to have been preceded by this tiresome troll, and stepped onto the stage in a silk blue evening gown, freshly lit cigarette in hand. The house band sat far to the right, partially obscured by the red velvet curtain she'd harassed Slick into providing. On stage, the microphone stood lit by a sole spotlight. The club was pretty sure she was a stripper given the last act and cheered heartily. "Show us your titties," echoed off the walls.

The ring leader of the hecklers was a ponytailed, forty something biker whose sleeveless jean jacket, worn over a flannel shirt, was covered in motorcycle club patches. His pockmarked face sat veiled beneath a long, unkempt beard, and, on his head, he wore a sun tired, faded red bandana. With his eyes hidden behind cheap sunglasses, he pointed at the object of his desire. "Lemme see them titties! Lemme see them titties!"

Mary stared at him long and hard, and expressed no emotion as she took a hearty drag on her cigarette. The embers burned at over fourteen hundred degrees Fahrenheit. With no thought given to the consequences of her actions, Mary expertly flicked the cigarette at him. A quick, violent motion in which the lit end brightened with the rush of oxygen before it struck its target. Off the forehead of the ringleader an audible, "thunk," rang out, and glowing embers showered him. On his clothes, which were soaked in flammable solvents from his work release mechanic's job, a dozen small fires instantly sprang up.

"Oh my God! Help me! Help me!" He cried like a little girl, thinking his immolation eminent as he frantically swatted himself.

To save him from the blossoming fire the barmaid dosed him with a pitcher of beer. Disgusted by his spinelessness, she shouted in his face, "Man the fuck up!"

Bitter and defeated he sat down, and mumbled about revenge while he stared coldly at Mary.

Mary's victory wouldn't last. Her performance broke bad before the first verse ended, and her career as a torch singer slammed to a halt with her misguided attempt to sing AC/DC's, You Shook Me All Night Long, in the style of Ethel Merman; staccato, theatrical, and with a New Yorker's nasal accent. With the right light, and angle, you could still see the letters, 'udweis,' where she'd been struck in the head by a quart bottle of the king of beers on her debut.

As Mary lay unconscious, and sprawled on the stage, Slick braved an onslaught of half empty bottles and dragged her to safety. It was Slick's interest in self preservation that forced him to save her. Slick had already betrayed Daddy once. The second time might have him swimming with cement shoes in the sanitary canal that was touted as the Chicago River.

Waking in the backroom of Slick's, with a pounding headache and a creepy roadie from the house band feeling her up, Mary swore vengeance. Her immediate plan was to become a Chicago cop wherein she would be gifted with a pistol and Billy club, the perfect tools with which to exact her revenge.

More pissed than she was twelve hours earlier, Mary showed up the next morning at the police station unannounced and demanded to know if they were hiring. Fortune smiled upon her, and she was asked to fill out a simple questionnaire. More luck, if she had a minute they'd have somebody talk to her and get the process underway.

As she walked around the main counter on her way to the interview, with all eyes upon her, Mary thought her career as a cop promising. She liked standing out as the best looking person in the room. Given enough time she reasoned she could run this place in the style of Charlie's Angels. She immediately saw herself commanding a force of Victoria Secret's underwear models; a purse for every cop and a gun for every purse, as they drove the ugly from Chicago.

In the interview room, a bald moderately overweight white man in his fifties, dressed in a cop uniform over which he wore a black leather cop jacket, and a thirty-something black women similarly dressed, albeit absent the leather jacket, sat behind a small conference table. The officers removed their Billy clubs, and set the clubs on the table to make it easier to sit. They offered Mary a seat, and readied their questionnaires.

Before either cop could begin Mary spoke, "You get the Billy club when you become a cop, right?"

Befuddled, the cops nodded in affirmation and glanced at each other. It was clear they had a wacko on their hands.

Looking at the club, Mary realized this might be the most aroused she'd ever been. Her heightened state had nothing to do with the phallic nature of the club since Mary was asexual by nature. It was the promise of using the tool as an instrument of violence that moved her so. Mary went on excitedly, "I mean, you got to be careful not to confuse the violating end with the handle, but for fuck's sake you could beat the fucking ugly out of somebody with this. Service to mankind is what I'm talking about."

Before the cops could secure the clubs and return them to their holsters, Mary picked one up and spanked it quietly into her open palm. "Fucking A, you could violate the shit of the perp with this thing. What is it twenty four inches? That'd make you talk." Mary jerked the club violently back and forth while she stared into the distance and spilled corrosive, masochistic sentences into the air.

The cops looked at each other, and the male cop stood and slowly reached out and grabbed the club. Exiting the trance, Mary was temporarily confused on her whereabouts. The female cop extended her hand and thanked Mary for coming. She winced as the bones in her hand made an audible pop under the crushing force of Mary's handshake. Hoping to move Mary along, the male cop skipped the handshake and nodded enthusiastically.

Mary returned thanks, one more question on her mind, "They sell those in the gift shop?" She pointed at the Billy club.

The lady cop sighed in resignation, "Honey this is the police department. They used to sell them behind the front desk, but that was when Burge ran the show. He's in the pokey now, though." Burge was a Chicago commander convicted of perjury and obstruction of justice. The convicted felon is also alleged to have tortured hundreds of criminal suspects.

"Burge. Oh, I've met Burge. I know him quite well." Mary exaggerated having seen Burge once with her father. Mary was a firm believer in the transitive properties of celebrity, and saw fame as a commutable resource in which knowing a celebrity entitled you to share in their fame. Rarely a day passed Mary didn't loudly mention her association with a famous politician or celebrity.

After Mary left the male cop opened a, "file in waiting," titled Mary SMITH. He wanted credit for seeing this one coming. The lady cop rubbed her hand and tried to make the hurt go away while she watched him fill out the paperwork.

At about the time the unruly patrons were hurling half empty quart bottles of beer at his daughter, and screaming for her to take her shirt off, Daddy was being served with a federal subpoena. Daddy's long list of those with whom he bartered late night zoning changes for political contributions proved to be an unfortunate paper trail. The quid pro quo documentation and Mommy's agreement to testify against him proved to be his undoing.

In the criminal world you want to face State charges. States have a parole system within which you rarely serve even half your time. The Feds aren't keen on early release. Daddy's speedy trial ended with him sentenced to eleven years in a Fed pen for racketeering, where he'd join like pillars of the community Ryan and Blagojevich. As the inevitable became obvious, Daddy called in his second favor in as many weeks.

Alan, G.O.D.'s CFO, owed Daddy big time. Year's before Alan had approached Daddy for a zoning variance to install an in-ground swimming pool at his spacious Lakeview neighborhood home. Daddy's war chest was spilling cash and Daddy had just finished watching The Godfather. The result was the understanding that Alan owed Daddy a favor that some time in the future Daddy might, or might not, call in. Alan didn't give a damn about being in Daddy's pocket. Alan liked swimming since regardless of how tall you were only your head floated above water. Alan routinely held pool parties in which the guests arrived to find him in the pool for the entire party. Alan was world class at treading water, and the activity suited his duck-like personality – floating calmly, while kicking like a maniac. With the feds knocking on the door, Daddy called Alan and made it clear that Mary needed a job that paid very well. Daddy also let Alan know that, at this point in his political career, he wouldn't hesitate to spill the beans. By the end of the call Mary was VP of Sales.

This turn of events did not thrill Mary, but with her singer career and cop aspirations gone to hell, Daddy in the pen, Mommy missing with some young barista, and the family home repossessed, it seemed the only option. Mary had never worked in a corporate environment. In fact, other than infrequent babysitting and her recent disastrous stunt as a singer Mary had never been employed. Mary reluctantly took the job and decided it was time to find a husband. She wasn't keen on intimacy, but, damn it, someone needed to pay the bills.

Mary knew she didn't have time to waste chasing losers in bars looking for Mr. Right. She went to the bar to get good and drunk, not flirt or dance with frat boys. The other problem Mary faced, chasing her soul mate via the club scene, was her persona non grata status at a half dozen of the choicest bars off Clark Street. She was known as an instigator and had a reputation for starting bar fights. History had established her proclivity for sucker punching unsuspecting bystanders that crowded her personal space and kneeing poor bastards in the balls that leaned in to ask her to dance. Daddy had sent his car numerous times to pick her up at the bar's service door, typically in the alley, to keep her from being arrested. It was an old school tactic that still worked to keep her out of jail.

To find Mr. Right, Mary figured she'd rely on a tried and true method – the dating service Daddy used. Christ, until his recent incarceration he was scoring like a pinball machine. Mary met with the service, filled out the forms, and made it clear from the get go that looks were paramount followed closely by personal wealth. She had principles, and there wasn't a chance she was to be seen with anyone who wasn't pleasing on the eyes. She made it clear, she was no friend of ugly. She didn't trouble herself with specifics on his personality, including whether he had a personality, and was almost one hundred percent that they wouldn't be sleeping together. The woman at the agency leaned back in her chair, took a drink from her Mountain Dew, and heard Mary out. Then, in a thick Russian accent, as she tipped the ash from her cigarette onto the floor, she proclaimed, "I avv exactly vot you need. Its vot vee all need."

Philbert was as queer as a three dollar bill but built like a gymnast. That is if gymnasts were six feet four. A part-time Calvin Klein underwear model, his inheritance rested on him getting married. His parents had issued an ultimatum a year ago, and he was down to the last seventy hours before the seven million dollars he was scheduled to inherit upon his parent's death was gifted to a right wing Christian association whose mission statement included, "the eradication of the abomination that is gay love," and redefinition of the words santorum and palin. Santorum being the slang used to describe the fecal foam that forms on the penis, and around the rectum's rim, during vigorous, unprotected anal sex. Palin being the populaces' name for the bolt gun used to euthanize cattle.

Mary and Philbert met later that afternoon and surprisingly Mary figured this could work. She had a background check run on him, drove him to the clinic for testing (blood and urine), and then took him to the gym for a body fat analysis. On retainer, Mary kept the names of a group of University of Chicago graduate students that had developed optical recognition software that quantified facial symmetry. Seven million dollars was enough money to skew the mind's eye, and Mary wanted to make certain she wasn't misreading the situation and marrying someone who'd later prove grotesque in certain lighting. She wished she had more time to assess the health of the parents. Mary could only confirm they were religious zealots in their early 70s that lived an active lifestyle and had yet to experience a traumatic health event.

Philbert's lab tests and BMI were acceptable, and his face was nearly symmetric with ratios that rivaled Denzel Washington's. Even though she was bitterly disappointed in the likely longevity of his parent she decided they would marry at City Hall. Immediately after the civil ceremony, in which they both fumbled to remember each other's last names, Mary renamed Philbert, Adonus. It wasn't presented to Philbert as a suggestion or a question. She figured with his black wavy hair and perfect olive complexion she could pass him off as Italian. It would also help explain his effeminate nature and delicate mannerisms.

After they married, Mary had Adonus pull all the legal documents to make certain she garnered all rights duly owed her as the daughter in law. Unmentioned, but clearly stated in the legal documents that bound Adonus to his parents, was a clause in which the seven million dollars jumped an extra three million if he had a son.

"What the fuck!" she screamed, as Adonus cowered in the corner, his arms held in front of him defensively, "you withhold this detail? It's not going to take three million bucks to raise a fucking kid. This is a money making opportunity!"

Mary stomped away only to circle right back. She leaned over, inches from his face, "And where do I send your parents the invoice for my wedding present?"

Since was a child, looking at the pages of Life magazine, Mary had associated glamour and fashion with wild cats on leashes. To that end she purchased herself, as her wedding present, an extremely expensive bengal kitten; a domesticated house cat bred for the exotic markings on its coat. It wasn't an African wild cat but would serve as an entry point, a gateway pet.

The next day Mary drove to the local IVF clinic to discuss the procedure with which she would be inseminated by Adonus. In the back of the car, intently flipping through the stack of gay porno magazines he kept hidden in an old suitcase, sat Adonus. Two weeks later to the day Mary confirmed she was pregnant, and nine months later Romulus was born.

Physically perfect, as if Michelangelo had drawn a precious angel from heaven, the child, Romulus, was inhabited with a wildness in which the simplest impulses could not be controlled and the word, 'containment,' became a central theme in his upbringing. As a mother, Mary became a ready conscript of the, better parenting through alcohol movement, and often kept Romulus tethered on a leash as she walked down Wells Street in the Old Town neighborhood of Chicago; gin and tonic splashing from her red Solo cup; a lit Benson and Hedges pinched between her painted lips; and, tall heels wobbling unpredictably on the sidewalk. Adonus trailed behind, batting cleanup, and issuing the required apologies.

At the time of Alan's jump, Mary was forty four years old, stood a little over five and a half feet tall, and kept her suicide blonde hair asymmetrically bobbed. Profane and vain, she is known for her meticulous dress, crushing handshake and venomous tongue. In keeping with her parent's mores, she routinely had enough Botox to paralyze a small village injected into her face, and kept a set of hand grippers in the glove box of her sporty European sedan.

Mary's absence of moral compass, insatiable appetite for wealth, and sense of entitlement present a formidable challenge to Cuddy's claim on the throne. Mary sees herself the star in a world built on aesthetics and needs control of G.O.D. to make her dream a reality.

Chapter Six

At day's end, with Alan's body shoveled onto a gurney and hauled away, a lone voice echoed from the staff parking lot, "Son of a Bitch! Why does it always involve my car?" It was Shappa's, or Shap's, as he preferred to be called, tire shot flat by Alan's misfired pistol. When he saw the rim of his wheel resting on the ground it triggered his desire to quit the corporate world, and he reflected on the insanity of building a computer system no one wanted completed.

Five feet eight and with a light brown complexion, Shap was bald as a cue ball and slight of shoulder. He was the only bald American Indian he was aware of and certain this situation was valuable, even though he'd yet to figure out how to profit from it. Looking at the flat tire, he made a mental note to revisit the idea of trying to quit this place. Maybe he could make money by participating in clinical trials to cure baldness.

He pulled his AAA card from his wallet, dialed for a service truck on his cell phone, and waited. With a tremendous show of will he forced his hands into his pockets to keep from picking at his face, a nervous habit that he'd let get out of control. An hour later the truck pulled into the lot, and within fifteen minutes the spare was on the car. The mechanic patted Shap on the arm, more collegial than Shap knew tow truck drivers to be, and said, "I hate them, too. Rat bastard sons of bitches." Confused, Shap gave him a twenty dollar bill for his trouble, jumped in his car, and began the uncertain drive home. He was running late for dinner and needed to hurry.

Shap crested the small hill a quarter mile before the right turn onto the street that led to his house. Looking into his rear view mirror, he saw flashing lights. He began to perspire and shake, his facial tic kicked into overdrive, and he began to involuntarily scrunch his right eye. He pushed his turn indicator up and pulled over to the right side of the road. It was only a few hundred feet to his house, and this was the second time this year he'd been pulled over in this location. It briefly crossed his mind to flee the vehicle and run into the subdivision.

These traffic stops, the only times he'd ever been pulled over, suspiciously coincided with communications and rumors concerning changes in governance of the IT project. His prior traffic stop occurred on the day he started work at G.O.D. All knew Cuddy had nothing to gain if the system project came to fruition, and he remained committed to sabotaging all efforts at completion.

Stopped on the shoulder Shap put his hands clearly on the steering wheel and spoke to himself, "Oh, man. No, no, no! How could I be so stupid?" Earlier in the day the rumor mill was churning that the IT project was going to be reassigned to Mary. He began to pray the he wouldn't be Tasered like the last time he'd been pulled over. Shap wasn't certain what triggered this traffic stop, but the last time the suburban cop hadn't taken to the God Bless Osama Bin Laden sticker brazenly displayed on the back of his car. The sticker, combined with his misunderstood ethnicity, ended with the cop screaming, "Keep your hands where I can see them, you Taliban scumbag," and firing a Taser into Shaps left arm. Shap wasn't aware of the bumper sticker on his car at the time. His mind was distracted from his first day's work at G.O.D., where he was hired by Alan as the new CIO.

As Shap reminisced on the side of the road, and waited for the cop, a small crowd gathered to watch. In the crowd were some of Shap's kid's friends and their moms. He recognized several in the growing crowd from his prior traffic stop. The little fat kid was the one that kept yelling, "Jolt him again. Jolt him again." Officer Nonutz laughing in complicity as he squeezed the Taser's trigger and sent electricity through the wires and into the barbed darts stuck in Shap. "Do it again! Do it again!" the kids all shouted as they followed the fat kid's lead. That was the last thing Shap could remember before he woke in the back of the squad car.

The close of the squad car's door jarred Shap to the present. The cop walked to the rear, driver's side, of the car with his weapon drawn. Shap recognized the policeman from the prior stop, and earlier in the day when he ran over Alan. It was Officer Nonutz. Apparently Nonutz recognized Shap, as well. "Keep your hands where I can see them and exit the vehicle. You law hating Taliban scumbag."

Shap slowly stepped from the vehicle and stuck his hands over his head in the exaggerated fashion of those not accustomed to police interaction.

With Shap fully compliant with Officer Nonutz's orders and the crowd too big to allow the unauthorized use of the Taser, the ordeal ended with Shap receiving bogus tickets for speeding, failure to signal, and running a red light. Shap knew the, "I Hate Cops. Cops Suck." bumper sticker was the driving factor behind the situation and realized he could no longer afford to drive his car without always checking for offensive and unauthorized signage. He cursed himself for being so focused on the flat tire he forgot to inspect the rear of his car.

Shap grew up in Michigan, the son of a prominent physician. He was raised in a family that loved Ted Nugent, muscle cars, deer hunting, and lake cabins. After graduating public high school, at which he made above average marks and played the holy trinity of baseball, basketball, and football, he attended Wayne State University where he majored in Information Science. At the time, he didn't foresee India becoming the destination for cut rate professional services. Had he seen the future Shap would have gone into car design and avoided a life of miscast stereotypes, outsourced jobs, and nervous tics. Because he was bald, off-white, and uniquely named, everyone assumed he was from India.

After graduation, and with nearly a decade's work experience in information technology at a company that provided the software used in emissions testers, Shap found himself unemployed when the department he worked for moved offshore. With no employment opportunities with the big automakers and auto suppliers and peripheral businesses feeling the downstream effect, Shap moved to Chicago seeking work. In tow were his wife and two elementary school daughters.

Within days of starting work, as G.O.D's new CIO, Shap developed a facial tic. A strange, nervous habit in which his nose wrinkled like a rabbit and his right eye scrunched. A week later a third dimension appeared and Shap began sticking his tongue out the side of his mouth. The peculiar involuntary behavior started when he realized the amount of work needed to complete the IT project in the twelve months he was given. Exacerbating his nervous condition was an ongoing battle with the business over the functionality the new IT system was required to have before the project could be considered complete. His job was miserable. He was bullied into doing more with less, routinely promised he had the final requirements only to be told later they had changed, and asked on a daily basis for his best guess only to find his guess budgeted and he and his team locked into delivery.

When Shap was hired, Operations used a combination of 3x5 cards and spreadsheets to manage the business, along with a dumpy old computer system that tracked a patient's prescriptions. It was surprisingly effective, and Shap wasn't certain much would be gained designing, building, and implementing, a new computer system. The investment to set the patients up seemed unlikely to provide much return. Most of the patients had died before they received a second shipment. Shap suspected the right approach was to buy an off the shelf software program, load it onto a server, and be done with it. Doug emphatically disagreed, and was adamant the storing of patient name, address, and phone number would provide a competitive advantage. Doug's exact phrase was, "strategic differentiator." Who was Shap to disagree? He needed the paycheck.

Shap started the project over. He threw the useless pile of reports and documents Srini, the former CIO, had compiled into the dumpster. To get the requirements right and system built, Shap learned the business; he read the health plan contracts that dictated the pricing and terms of service; he read the pharmaceutical manufacturer contracts that outlined the cost of goods and reporting obligations; and, he sat with those that would use the new system to learn their jobs. Nine months later he had a clear perspective on what work should be automated, and where the red herrings lay that would sink the project.

Shap worked tirelessly, often twelve to fourteen hour days, and rarely saw his family. Compounding the work to complete the project, he was paired with Mike as his co-lead, an abject and feckless bumble who had no experience in system development, and was, quite possibly, the laziest person Shap had ever met. Shap soon realized Mike was useless with the heavy lifting needed to complete the project, and assigned him trivial administrative tasks like booking conference rooms, scheduling calls, and ordering lunch. Late on Friday's Shap could often be found on conference calls with India. On Saturday, he was typically in the office. Mike always liked to get a head start on Friday rush hour, and typically left the building around three pm. On Monday, Mike liked to linger over breakfast, and didn't typically arrive at the office much before eleven a.m.

As an army of one, Shap outlined the business processes and workflows, documented the requirements, developed the detailed design, oversaw the offshore building of the new computer system, as well as its final testing. He invested hundreds of hours working closely with the system's users to make certain what they were building met expectations. He also produced the data model and physical data design, developed the interfaces that moved information from and to other systems, architected the user interface, and laid the foundational hardware upon which the systems ran. As the project approached the ninth month, on time and budget, Shap scheduled a formal review with Doug, Alan, Cuddy, and Mary. His hope was to secure their final sign-off and move the system from the test environment into production, thereby completing the project and allowing him to return to his life.

At the designated meeting time and place, with the 2006 Board Meeting looming, Shap and Mike found themselves in the conference room alone. Shap was very proud of what he'd done. In only nine months, he had salvaged the train wreck Srini and Cuddy had left behind, and stood ready to upgrade G.O.D.'s systems. Aware that the upper management team would never understand the magnitude of his accomplishment, he nonetheless was hopeful of some reward; a change in pay, new job, or access to the deeded parking. Twenty minutes after the thirty minute meeting was to start Doug walked past the conference room with a basketball hidden under his sport coat.

"Doug, we're right here," Shap assumed he was trying to find them. Doug wasn't trying to find them; he was sneaking out of work to play basketball.

Walking into the room and looking more pissed off than usual, Doug elected to stand, and neither sought nor gave any salutations. "Who the hell are you two, and how do you know my name? Does security know you're in the building?"

Knocked back on their heels, Shap and Mike tripped over each other explaining who they were, what they wanted, and how they knew Doug's name. Shap's tic kicked into overdrive, and he began blinking, scrunching, and sticking his tongue out.

Nodding that he understood, but still visibly pissed at being kept from the basketball courts, Doug asked one question, "Does the system manage the patient's pets?"

Doug's question confused Shap. He wasn't familiar with this requirement, and he took meticulous notes. "You mean like dogs, cats, goldfish? What do you mean, 'manage the patient's pets?' That doesn't make any sense."

"All that. No system is going into production until it handles patient's pets. And, quit sticking your tongue out at me. What the hell is wrong with you?"

"Pets! Are you kidding me?" Shap's insubordination was as much a shock to Doug as to himself. "I've spent thousands of hours in design, and prototype. I'm through final acceptance testing, and you want to start over? The system has all the functionality you need to run this business. No one ever mentioned requirements regarding pets. I don't even know what you're talking about. Why don't we launch what we've got and plan a second release?"

"No. I want patient's pets in the system. End of discussion."

Doug's refusal should not have surprised Shap. It was commonly believed most of Doug's key decisions were based on the Magic 8-Ball. The staff had glommed onto this rumor as no other explanation seemed plausible for his constantly changing directions, the randomness of his dictates, or the never ending cycle of re-work that he created. It was the executive assistant, Wilma, who swore she had seen Doug shaking the Magic 8 Ball during an Investor Relations teleconference and started the rumor.

As his order reverberated off the conference room walls, Doug ended the meeting. He refused to sign-off and move the system into production. Doug was well aware that signing off reduced the signee to a single degree of separation, and placed that person within the circle of direct accountability. With accountability comes failure and eventually termination. Doug wasn't sure why it was important to manage the patient's pets, or what that meant, but he had no interest in opening that discussion without a pack of consultants at his side. The consultants were clear, "you need to manage the patient's pets." He'd been told repeatedly. More importantly, there was no way Doug would ever sign-off on the IT project. That was never his goal. Doug dribbled his basketball as he ran down the hall to his private elevator.

Alan never showed up for the meeting. He was hiding in his office next door, listening through a glass pressed to the wall, when he learned of the disaster at hand and began planning to fire Shap and Mike. Screaming profanities into his tie, which he'd balled and pressed against his mouth to keep from being discovered, he began planning the, 'none more indignant than I speech,' he would deliver to The Board. In addition to his speech, Alan was certain he could make both Mike and Shap cry when he fired them. The Board would respond well to two grown men bawling, and, God willing, he would remain the Exalted Leader of Finance. The Board loved public shaming, and Alan was among the best at reducing subordinates to tears.

Cuddy also never showed. No way was he signing off on anything that put Alan, or anyone, ahead of him for CEO. At the time of the meeting, he and his factotum, Wayne, were hiding in the boiler room eavesdropping on the meeting with Cuddy's head in the air vent as he stood on a ladder. To make certain the ladder didn't tip over, crush him, and crash to the floor, Wayne held on for dear life and braced the ladder with both hands. With Alan's failure, it was certain Shap and Mike would be sacrificed. Shap's firing would be unfortunate. Cuddy still had dozens of offensive bumper stickers he hoped to use.

Mary was engrossed in a fashion magazine, and simply skipped the meeting. The article, One Armed Woman Applauds Right Handed Purse, demanded her total focus. It was a banner issue, on the next page; Teen Pregnancy Significantly Drops Off After Age 20.

A band-aid was the first indication all was not well with Shap's mental health.

In the debrief the following day, Shap began absent mindedly picking at the smallest of moles that sat, nearly invisible, in the middle of his forehead. As the tempers in the meeting rose, and words were angrily exchanged, he began nervously fingering the imperceptible bump until the first show of blood appeared, like the water that materializes in the bottom of a hole dug in the sand by the sea. After the meeting, Shap found a small round band aid, the size of a fingertip, and neatly covered the sore. At noon on the same day, and in a second meeting on the same topic, he removed the band aid and resumed worrying his thumb with the growing scab. At the end of the second meeting, a standard band aid, three quarters of an inch wide and three inches long, covered the ever expanding sore. At four pm the same day a third meeting. Like before, Shap nervously picked at the edges until he'd pulled the band aid off and began picking at the sore. By day's end, Shap wore a Chernobyl sized band aid, a full four inches wide by eight inches long, and testament to his mental melt down. The band aid fully covered his forehead. It was six months before the sore healed, and he was left with a large slightly off white scar in the middle of his forehead. The scar resembled a target.

As he pulled into his driveway, a stack of driving infractions on the passenger seat, Shap stood on the precipice of mental collapse. The combined effects of the defunct system, traffic stops, and hazing at upper management's hands, put him in a state so frazzled that the smallest tension triggered his facial tic. He is sick of being the business's bitch, and longs for retribution.

Chapter Seven

Doug ran G.O.D. from a bully pulpit, and was known for his screaming diatribes based on half-truths and misunderstandings, and inability to make executive decisions. A former division III basketball player, Doug stood six feet eleven inches and hovered near his college playing weight. Oddly, most people didn't mention his height or fitness when asked to describe him; rather they recalled the size of his enormous head. On the internal newsletters and propaganda that piled up in the common spaces of the various floors it was common to find pictures of Doug defaced with, 'Space for Rent,' written across his giant forehead by bitter employees.

Chief among a sizable list of Doug's character flaws was an inability to ask questions for clarification. This shortcoming emerged shortly after Doug ascended from the leper colony as the new CEO. Under the impression that CEOs are all knowing, and to avoid the perception that he wasn't, he stopped asking questions and instead turned to other less proven management aids. Doug's lack of inquisitiveness became analogous to the pinhole that undermines the dyke, and subsequently the town the dyke protects. It would result in millions of dollars of modern art buried deep in the earth, his bankruptcy, and a fear the IRS would, one day, tattoo his forehead with the logo of the highest paying big box retailer.

Whatever incompetence Doug exhibited that couldn't be directly ascribed the flaw noted above, likely stemmed from his failure to manage his calendar. He never scheduled key reviews, and routinely declined invitations to attend meetings at which his participation was required. He was also plagued with an inability to join the few meetings he graced with his presence at the scheduled start. It was as if he'd been born twenty minutes late and never caught up. The result was Doug's derailment of meetings underway, his refusal to sign-off on key milestones since he had not been kept apprised of the situation, his eventual sign-off under threat of mutiny, and his inevitable reneging on his sign-off when he realized, in a panic, he had no idea what the hell he'd agreed to.

As CEO, Doug mistook the stock's ascent for his management prowess. This misunderstanding drove his sense of superiority, and the subsequent realization that his executive mind should no longer be troubled with details. He hadn't worried about details and the stock rose. No further proof was required. Inspired by a fortune cookie, within which was written, "The mundane should never burden great minds," Doug decided to no longer concern himself with particulars and began to wander in a fugue regarding G.O.D.'s operations. This sudden change in perspective freed Doug from the hassles of running the company. It also opened up his afternoons to play pick-up basketball on the public housing courts, where we was affectionately called, Old White Money.

While utterly incompetent in any leadership capacity, Doug played a wickedly good basketball game. Able to sink three pointers at will, and drive the lane, he was always among the first picked when teams were formed. Doug saw his athleticism as further testament to his preeminence and worth as CEO.

In 2002, when the stock began to climb in value, Doug was convinced by his wife, Aspen, to allow her to create a service award statue he could bestow on the employee of the year. Bored, unemployed, and socially competitive, Aspen decided late in life her calling was art. The statue validated Aspen's view of herself as an important artist, and provided Doug a means of celebrating worker achievement without spending any money. Doug liked the idea of rewarding employees without cash, shook the Magic 8 Ball (yes- definitely), and readily agreed. It turned out Wilma was correct; Doug was managing G.O.D. with the Magic 8 Ball.

Aspen's vision for the award was a three foot tall copper sculpture in the style of a 1950s ad executive; tall, thin, and broad shouldered. The angular statue's hands were to be in his pockets from which cash poured forth. Having completed and subsequently painted the sculpture she then placed it in a kiln to dry. At this point things broke badly. When the statue emerged from the kiln, hours later, it had melted and collapsed in on itself. The ad executive's spine was now bent into a pronounced S shape, and the sculpture featured a large penis-like bulge at the front of the trousers. With his hands in his pockets, slouched posture, and fedora melted to cover his eyes, the service award looked like a pervert playing with himself.

Aspen broke into tears when she saw the finished product, but Doug proclaimed it just the thing; he would give it to Cuddy. Aspen struggled to separate treasure from trash and with Doug's enthusiastic review reconsidered her position and realized this must be fine, modern art. From Doug's perspective, it worked out perfectly. Cuddy received a backhanded reward for Separate Orders, and had to haul the pervert statue around at the awards banquet for four hours. When the staff bowled over in hysterics upon its presentation, Doug immediately named the statue The Chubby. Doug commissioned a second statue, years later, to reward Alan for the Combine Orders program.

The Chubby would not be Aspen's only attempt to introduce art to G.O.D. Her second attempt ended in The Debacle, when Aspen bought several million dollars worth of modern art, using company funds, to decorate G.O.D.'s lobby. About six months prior to The Debacle, at the 2004 Board Meeting, The Board mandated, in an act of great munificence, Doug spend several million dollars in a manner consistent with G.O.D.'s mission. Doug was clueless on how to spend the money, given he had no idea what G.O.D.'s mission was and never entertained asking The Board for direction.

When Aspen learned of the money, she jumped at the opportunity to use it to atone for a slight mishap among Chicago's modern art cognoscenti. Doug had presented The Chubby at the awards ceremony, and as rewarding as he found humiliating Cuddy to be his instincts told him encouraging Aspen's love of art was a very bad idea. Aspen continued to press, and Doug found it hard to tell her no. Her long blonde hair, tight black yoga pants, and flirtatious nature were very demanding.

As seductive and persuasive as she could be, Doug vacillated until the Magic 8 Ball provided the necessary guidance. Under pressure to make a decision, as the 2005 Board Meeting loomed, Doug asked whether he should give Aspen the money and shook the Magic 8 ball. To his surprise, "Signs Point to Yes," showed through the display window of the icosahedra polygon. "For the love of God, finally!" Doug rejoiced. He was clear on how to proceed, and Aspen was again given a chance to bring art to G.O.D.

Having realized her full potential as a sculpture, Aspen had changed focus from artist to aficionado and declared modern art her passion and raison d'etre. Absent a formal art education, she chose the discipline of modern art given its meaning is open to the most varied of interpretations. How best to explain a giant piece of white canvas with a tiny green dot in the middle?

"It's God's view of man."

"No, it's a unicorn's tear."

It's tough to be wrong. That said several months' earlier Aspen had an embarrassing mishap. Walking through the esteemed Art Institute of Chicago, with a half dozen of her art maven friends, she climbed up on a ladder in the middle of the modern art wing. Aspen's group of wealthy and bored ladies wasn't certain what Aspen stood upon, but none suggested she climb down. Standing atop what she was certain was intended to be an interactive experience, arms wind milling to keep her balance as she stood nearly ten feet in the air, Aspen extolled the artist's powerful representation of dystopian society and existentialism. The group surrounding Aspen grew as random persons joined in to hear this self declared docent's critique of the exhibit. The air grew ripe with impending disaster.

In reality, the custodian had placed a ladder and toolbox in the middle of the hallway. He was in the middle of replacing a light bulb when he realized he needed a screwdriver, and stepped away to get it. Before the sizable crowd that had formed around her, Aspen's embarrassment hit the high water mark when the custodian told her, "Get the hell off my ladder. I am damn well sick and tired of you uppity white bitches causing me grief. Goddamn women you never work a day in your life now you gonna fall off my ladder and gets me fired. Sheeit!" Aspen climbed down from the ladder, red faced, as her socially competitive friends laughed loudly at her expense.

Retelling the story later that night to Doug she was emphatic, "I'm convinced it was the artist telling me to get off his ladder. The abuse was a necessary element of his art."

Doug's response rattled her, "I think you were on the janitor's ladder."

Unfortunately for those at G.O.D., most of Aspen's art friends, who had clustered about the ladder hoping for further misadventure as Aspen struggled to climb down in her stilettos, had well established affiliations with particular artists and styles of art; the shock of photography had been claimed by Muffie; neon art was owned by Aby; the experience of sound sat under Kitty's control; mobiles were Laura's; and, in a move Aspen thought total bullshit, Trixie had surreptitiously claimed the bizarre world of edible art. With most of the medium spoken for, Aspen felt forced to declare herself the patron saint of the virtually unknown space of scented art.

Aspen was vaguely familiar with a local militant, vegan artist, Stinky Pete, who incorporated dramatic smells into his porcelain, childlike renderings of animals such as chickens, skunks, cows, and pigs. The white statues stood nearly twelve feet tall, and were infused with malodorous scents. Aspen had never seen, or smelled, his work and was unaware he considered Evil Kitty, a giant cat, his crowning achievement. Stinky Pete's work had never been featured in an indoor gallery for intuitive reasons, but Aspen was less concerned about the art than that she could claim a multi-million dollar exhibit; the true benchmark of the art world and guaranteed atonement for past transgressions in high society.

With Doug's blessing, Aspen contacted Stinky and commissioned a multi-million dollar exhibit. Beginning late Friday, on a hot summer afternoon, and working ceaselessly through the weekend, the artist transformed the lobby of G.O.D.'s corporate office into Aspen's vision of a modern art museum. The three oversized statues, Evil Kitty, Fecal Bunny and Hating Goose, blocked the sunlight and crammed the lobby. To pass through security and access the elevators the employees would need to form a twisting, single file line.

Minutes before the employees began to file in for work Stinky poured fifty gallons of toxic concentrate into the giant diffusers each statue contained. Aspen and the artist then ran to the security room to watch the reaction of the staff on the closed circuit TV monitors. Aspen was certain the impact the artist intended, and she sought, had been achieved as the un-expecting masses walked headlong into the respective smells of rotting garbage and feed lots.

"The power of art," Aspen exclaimed from the backroom as she clutched the artist's hand.

"Look," the artist said excitedly. His hand shook as he pointed at the employees fleeing the lobby as if it were on fire. "They are running back outside, even jumping through the windows, to share their experience with the uninitiated." Packed inside the lobby, and unable to breathe, the employees began to panic and poured like rats from a burning ship.

"This is perfect," Aspen beamed.

An hour later, and unaware of the melee brewing, Doug entered the building via his private entrance and heard a brouhaha in the direction of the lobby. He was surprised the building reeked of sewer water, and made a mental note to ask Cuddy what was going on. The stench was blinding, and he wasn't anywhere near the front entrance. Doug elected to skip the elevator and took the stairs. Doug liked to sneak up the stairs whenever it looked like employees might be hanging about the lobby waiting for the elevator; best to avoid forced dialogue that always stalemated into awkward silences or discussions about the weather or traffic.

Exiting from the stairs and onto the executive floor Doug was met head on by an angry mob that had gathered outside his office. Among them, he was certain, was the unknown saboteur that had nearly killed him by throwing the computer out the window. His instincts also told him that the mob likely contained the mastermind of the business card mishap. (With Alan's death, the paperwork to fire Sue was misplaced, and no one ever figured out who was responsible for the cards. Most incorrectly assumed it was Nels.)

The angry mob of a few dozen employees, led by Nels, demanded to know why shareholder money should be used to buy the crap that now blocked the lobby. Doug had a hell of a time understanding what they were saying. They all had their noses and mouths covered with napkins, towels, pretty much anything to filter the air. More popular than Doug would have guessed were the adult diapers many had taped around their heads in a last ditch effort to remain conscious. Struggling to understand what the hell they were talking about, it eventually became clear; they were asking Doug his opinion of the art. Doug felt blindsided and naked without his Magic 8 Ball or consultants. With the money he paid those consultants they should have forewarned him as to what his wife had done, and been standing between him and these Goddamn workers.

"Assholes!" Doug shouted at the employees, then ran into his office, slammed the door, and left the unattended mob in the hall.

Tipped off by Nels, the press arrived a few hours later and scored the main event for the evening's news when they filmed biohazard donning firefighters removing the art, towing it to a landfill, and burying it deep in the Earths' belly. With their backs against the wall, The Board issued a press release in which they apologized for the misunderstanding and clarified G.O.D.'s position on community giving. Doug blamed himself. He knew he should have waited until the Magic 8 Ball was definitive in its position before empowering Aspen. "Never, never again do I doubt the Magic 8 Ball," he muttered, then added, "my psycho, nut job of a wife needs a boyfriend."

The Debacle helped clarify Doug's lingering feeling that he hated being G.O.D.'s CEO. He pretty much hated Aspen too for convincing him the fourth time would be the charm when he re-married. Doug's wants in life were simple. He wants his equity in G.O.D. to move back into the money, and he wants to hang out with Chicago's south side, unemployed urban youth drinking 40 ounce bottles of malt liquor, playing basketball, and talking trash.

In his first, decisive move since he became CEO, Doug had one of the two elevators re-purposed for his personal and uninterrupted. He didn't need the Magic 8 Ball to tell him this was the right thing to do, although he confirmed his plan with the prognostic black globe. With Doug actively working to avoid all unnecessary interaction with the unclean masses, the staff now waited twice as long for elevators. In his elevator Doug installed a desk, small leather couch, potted fern, bookcase, and a tasteful picture of a non-descript woodland setting. His auxiliary office created the illusion that a private elevator allowed him to make productive use of the time he traveled to and from the sixth floor. It was also a highly visible testament to his commitment to the company.

In his second, decisive move, and consistent with his new found hatred for those that worked for him, Doug began to speak only to the myriad consultants that followed him around like imprinted ducklings. Doug's new modus operandi, under the context of improving communication, was to funnel everything through the consultants. In practice, Doug whispered into one of the consultant's ears who would then repeat what Doug said. If the staff needed to tell Doug something, they reversed the process. It was a little awkward when Doug, the staff, and the consultants, sat at the same table or participated on a conference call. Awkward became problematic when Doug misheard one of the consultants comment on the $100 million dollar IT investment and Doug thought he was to make certain the system tracked, "patient pets." Not prone to asking questions, Doug would later learn the consultant said, "patient's debt."

A year ago, with the serendipity that drove G.O.D.'s fortune long gone and the stock on a slow and steady fall, Doug panicked and embraced the ludicrous position of trying to fix the revenue problem by cutting costs. In other industries, this form of financial remedy resulted in cruise ships emptying their septic into the sea, and auto companies running cost benefit analysis on the human carnage of exploding gas tanks and sticky accelerators.

Doug's first try to cut costs was an attempt to fire employees without incurring any wrongful termination lawsuits. Having been previously burned when he fired a pregnant, black, Muslim director in the IT department who refused to use the staff elevator, Doug followed Barry's sage advice and avoided using age, race, religion, gender, pregnancy or performance as a basis for firing. Limited in his options, Doug found inspiration in his wife's paint set and based his cost reduction plan on the color of the employee's shirt. Once a week Doug spun the color wheel, and those employees whose shirt matched the targeted color were herded into a conference room. Doug then typically called into the conference room while driving to the basketball court and fired them, en masse, via speakerphone. Initially the strategy seemed to be working. However, Doug's plans went fully awry when a group of necessary middle managers were terminated when they all wore blue dress shirts on a day unkind to the short wavelength of the visible spectrum.

The staff reacted to Doug's methods by investing considerable effort to avoid being let go. To remain employed they dressed in black and white, values not found on the color wheel, and embraced the survival tactics of the zebra. Although an individual dressed in black and white stood in stark contrast against the office's uninspired shades of brown, as a crowd they blended together creating a single, confusing entity. Huddled in large groups, as they moved as a herd, they loaded their calendars with bogus appointments to create a pretext for denying any meeting whose ulterior motive might be the pink slip. It was rare anyone answered their phone. These unintended consequences, forced Doug, at least temporarily, to change course. The stock continued to fall.

With no end to the stock's fall in sight, Doug embarked on his second cost reduction initiative. Unlike Alan, Doug noticed the disclaimers that adorned his executive parachute and thought Golden Showers outsourcing of quality control, in which the customer was accountable, was brilliant. This was a lot like car brakes. It didn't matter if all the brakes worked. You only needed the brakes to work on the cars of those persons who would sue you if their brakes failed, and that wasn't everyone. Outsourcing quality control naturally selected for those patients who received the wrong medication, and cared enough to call. Doug pondered his logic, "Why pay for a quality control process that included all shipments? Why pay for quality control when the patient doesn't care or notice they received the wrong drugs?" Doug knew this wasn't a long term solution, but all he needed was to get the stock back into the money, and he was gone.

When Doug decided to move his outsourced quality control vision into the pilot phase, and test it in select geographies, he put in motion the events that culminated in his bankruptcy and indenture. With G.O.D. no longer checking what was in the box, Doug stood blindly at the helm and oblivious to the reef that lay ahead, like captains of cruise ships and oil tankers are wont to do. As the stock continued to lose value, immune to Doug's cost reduction efforts, Doug embraced Lord Jim's strategy and became the first of the management team to try and abandon ship. Unfortunately for Doug, as he prepared to fall into the lifeboat, he fumbled his attempt to cash out his stock options and incurred a multi-million dollar tax bill that he can't service until the stock price rises.

Doug's stock options allowed him to buy 5.2 million shares of stock for a nickel per share. At the time the stock was trading for $8.00 per share, offering Doug the opportunity to make $7.95 per share. He could exercise the options, immediately sell the stock, and walk away with a retirement sized check of almost $25 million after tax. Or, he could exercise the options and keep the stock. The latter would only make sense if the options were expiring and Doug thought the stock was likely to rise in value. This was not the case. When Doug called his broker to initiate the transaction, his broker offered Doug several means through which to exercise his options: Same Day Sale, Sell to Cover, or Cash Exercise. The choices confused Doug, but Doug didn't feel it was worth the risk of being perceived as an idiot by asking for clarification. Without understanding the consequences, Doug shook the Magic 8 Ball and went with option three.

With option three, Doug incurred a tax bill of $16.5 million dollars a few weeks after the transactions settled. He also had to pay another quarter million dollars for the stock. Unfortunately, in the window between when he exercised his options and learned of his tax liability the stock price fell and rendered his holdings valueless. The precipitating event to plummet the stock was an angry blog from a customer, Helen, which lay bare the customer service issues she experienced as a result of Doug's quality control outsourcing. However, per the federal tax law, Doug remained responsible for the tax bill regardless of whether he made any money. Showing great mercy, the IRS agreed to a plan that allowed Doug to keep his material possessions, provided Doug remained gainfully employed as CEO and met the terms of the payment schedule.

Standing before the IRS agent, head hung in shame and hands folded neatly and prayer like in front of him, Doug showed his contrite side as the IRS agent lambasted him. "You and your ginormous head are on mighty thin ice. Consensus in the office is we ought to rent that enormous forehead of yours for advertising space, but as it stands you can keep working and pay off the debt. One slip up and we'll tattoo that melon with the logo of the highest paying big box retailer." From a few feet away the agent held his hands up and framed Doug's head with his thumbs and fingers and imagined the tattoo.

Doug nodded that he understood, eyes wide with fear. To avoid looking like an imbecile Doug didn't ask whether the agent was serious.

Doug is now as indentured a servant as the entry position plebes he mostly kept on the fourth floor. That is until the stock breaks the magical $8.00 price, and he pays his tax bill. To that end, Doug checks the stock every fifteen minutes and screams at the unmoving value as a paraplegic might scream at his legs to restore movement. Further complicating his life, Doug needs to replace Alan before The Chairman selects the next CFO and inserts a spy into the organization.

Chapter Eight

Mike walked through the revolving door at the building's entrance at eleven am, as he had each workday since he started working for G.O.D., right after the first of the year. A few minutes prior to entering the building, he had parked near the yellow caution tape that surrounded Alan's impact zone. Crows noisily flew away as he passed. Walking by the security guard, the guard asked, "ID?"

Mike parroted back "ID!", and continued echoing, "ID! ID!" He fumbled his badge from his pocket and flashed it to the guard. Mike's picture was recent, within the last year, and showed him with short black hair severely parted to the right and black, horn rimmed glasses. He was in the middle of six feet one and six feet two, a no man's land that he usually rounded up, and weighed a beer or two under two hundred pounds. An athletic geek with socially awkward tendencies, Mike walked to the elevator bank.

Unknown to his coworkers Mike suffered from situational echolalia, an uncommon form of autism (not formally recognized by the medical community) in which the sufferer parrots the tail end of a conversation as a declaration of fact. In Mike's case, the echolalia manifested itself with women to whom he was attracted and with those that held positions of power over him. The disease had proven itself a destroyer of personal relationships.

Date: "What do you want to do?"

Mike: "What do you want to do!"

Date: "I asked you first?"

Mike: "I asked you first!"

Ad infinitum.

Interestingly, in the work environment the disease was often mistaken for deep thinking, a sign of great intelligence as still waters run deep.

Management: "Will the business grow?"

Mike: "Will the business grow!"

Management: "Sales are increasing?"

Mike: "Sales are increasing!"

In the foyer, Doug's executive elevator sat unused and cordoned off with a velvet rope. The elevator looked like a cheap set for a community theater production requiring an office. Unfortunately, the staff elevator was in use, and it would be at least fifteen minutes before it returned to the ground floor. A crowd began to form alongside Mike, and as Mike waited he pondered his status as a muddling middle manager whose next likely step was working in the mail room if things persisted as they had recently. The promotion he had recently received resulted in the loss of any management responsibility, a pay-cut, and effectively positioned him as the company's pariah.

As humiliating as working his way backwards, Benjamin Button-like through the organization was, working at G.O.D. appeared the least painful of many possible employment scenarios. Much higher on Mike's list of concerns was a perpetual fear of finding himself only employable in the state of New Jersey whereupon he would be forced to live next to the Buttafuocos, The Real Housewives, or that imbecile, Snooki. Mike was the first to admit his psychosis was irrational, and wasn't naïve to the amount of brain space he consumed, and time he fretted, over the New Jersey-Buttafuoco scenario.

Mike graduated with an associate degree in biology from a junior college in the late 1980s to find there was no money counting ducks on ponds, and too unnerved by the body's inner mechanics to pursue a medical degree. To pay the bills, and move from his parents' home, he took a job with a national firm that sprayed 'cides' on the lawns and trees of suburban homes in order to wrest control from nature. The manual labor, coupled with a need to undergo weekly blood tests, quickly ended with his termination. At the end of the short run, he was certain he didn't want a career that involved the testing of carcinogen values. He still remembered asking the area vice president whether the permissible value shouldn't be zero given they are spraying nerve agents. The vice president chuckled and patted him on the back.

His next stint was as a pharmaceutical sales rep. A godforsaken job glad handing the office staff, with the majority of the day spent sitting among the ill while he waited to deliver a thirty second commercial. After the Food and Drug Administration disallowed the frequent prescriber programs that rewarded doctors with trips, cash, and prizes, based on the number of patients they prescribed medicine for, the doctors had no inclination to see sales reps. Thereafter, Mike spent most of the day driving office to office handing out samples. Mike quickly realized he was a UPS delivery man absent the brown shorts. The job paid well, required little more than a few hours a week, and came with a car.

Mike skied almost daily the two years he worked for the pharmaceutical company - on water and snow. Eventually his addiction to gravity sports commanded his life, and he began to create fictitious records of the little work that was expected of him. "Met with the doctor and he loves the product," repeated endlessly in his call logs. The charade came to an end when his Regional Manager surprised him with a visit and rode with him for a day. Mike was unable to find any of the doctors he'd reported calling on, and got lost in his territory a half dozen times. To make matters worse, empty beer bottles, pizza boxes, and a couple pairs of skis wedged diagonally between the front and back seats, littered the car. It was a long day which ended with him fired from his second job in three years. Other, more dramatic, firings would come later.

On the plus side, his work experience provided enough material to fabricate an impressive vitae (vitae being from the Latin, to lie) and gained him access to a four year college where he studied business. It helped Mike that in today's litigation crazed society the only information his prior employers would provide were dates of service. In bold letters, under accomplishments, he fabricated that he'd tripled sales and received the President's Favorite award. He based the remainder of his resume off an illustrative example he found on the internet.

In school, Mike surrounded himself with the self indulgent gluttons of the world. His classmates were mostly pretentious little pricks who hungered for the trappings of wealth, and idolized festering piles of shit, real and imagined, like Trump and Gecko. Caught up in the mob mentality, he sallied forth and figured it would take a year, two at most, to reap millions from the heyday of the internet. When the internet bubble burst, he jumped ship to try day trading. From day trading, he entered the real estate market, and from there the sub-prime mortgage market. With his work history a long tale of too little too late, he found himself in his forties with no savings as he plunged into bankruptcy.

Mike was comfortable with failure, and at this point in his life he expected it both professionally and personally, as his dreams repeatedly slipped through his grasp. Recently divorced from his wife, having been unable to reconnect emotionally after her parole, he had yet to re-enter the dating world.

He'd met his wife at a local bar. She was a militant vegan and animal rights activist who'd had her jaw broken when the dairy cow she was trying to free from human oppression kicked her. Around her neck she wore a pair of wire cutters, a necessity should she vomit and need to cut her way out of the wiring that held her jaw together. Small and dumpy, with mousy brown hair, neither could remember what they spoke of on the night they met – he with his echolalia and she with her jaw wired shut. They were married for eight months before her sentencing on animal cruelty charges for starving their two dogs, Teardrop and Jupiter, nearly to death. The fateful conversation that led to her incarceration played, over and over, in Mike's mind.

"Should I make the dogs vegan?" his wife asked.

"Make the dogs vegan!" Mike responded as his wife unbuttoned her blouse for bed. The circumstances of seeing his wife's pear shaped body naked drove his situational echolalia.

"Should I do it?"

"Do it!" Mike gasped for air, unable to repeat her full sentence, as his wife stood topless before him.

The dogs didn't respond well to the meat free diet she put them on, losing fur and weight until they stood naked at death's door. An SPCA raid featured on local TV saved the dogs. Her resultant trial was a short, unpublished affair that ended with her incarceration.

With the goal of a steady paycheck, Mike got a haircut, dug out an old suit from his pharmaceutical sales days, and updated his resume. Weeks after he e-mailed his resume to thousands of firms he received a phone call from G.O.D. asking him in for an interview. The interview was a strange affair that took place in Alan's office.

"Mike?" Alan asked when Wilma dropped him off at Alan's office for his interview. Alan didn't stand to greet Mike at the door. In an effort to disguise his height, Alan always remained seated at work. To cover his lapse in manners Alan extended the smallest courtesy and pointed at the coffee maker on his desk, "Cup of Joe?"

"Joe!" Mike echoed back.

Confused, Alan looked at the resume on his desk, "Mike?"

"Mike!"

Alan grew more confused, "Joe and Mike?"

"Joe and Mike!"

Alan rested his thumbs under his chin, drummed his fingers together in front of his nose, and contemplated the value in a scapegoat with two first names. It could prove most fortuitous to Alan if he could declare he'd fired Shap, Joe, and Mike, when the time came. The Board too old and infirm and Doug too divested to know Joe and Mike was the same person.

The day after his interview, Mike received a thick packet in the mail from G.O.D. offering him the business lead in charge of a handful of business analysts within Alan's Finance organization. Mike knew G.O.D. didn't offer the get rich quick scheme he'd planned his life around, but a couple of years of work would pad his resume and give him the money he needed to pay down his bills. He also hoped to move out of his parent's basement, and, God willing, buy a new car. His father's words, "failure to launch," rang in his ears each time he descended his childhood home's basement stairs to his room.

An ominous start to his job, Mike presented at work an hour late on his first day. As Mike waited in the lobby the security guard phoned Alan, who, having forgotten Mike the minute the interview concluded had no idea what the guard was talking about. Mike could clearly hear Alan through the guard's phone. At the front desk, Mike argued vehemently, employment letter in hand, he now worked for G.O.D. The guard shrugged his shoulders and reached down to unfasten his pepper spray. Mike left quickly, as the guard had the calm and cool look of those used to spraying caustic agents into the eyes of irate customers and out of control employees.

Mike returned home an hour after he started the day. Seeing his son, his Dad commented on the obvious, "Jesus Christ! Fired? That's a record. You didn't even make it to lunch." Fifteen minutes later the phone rang. It was Alan telling him to come back. Alan had forgotten it was Mike he'd hired as his scapegoat for the inevitable fall. Alan didn't offer any apology, nor did he bother to stop by Mike's office and welcome him on his first day of work.

Mike had never developed a computer system but figured, "how hard could it be?" He'd played video games for years. Mike had no idea what he was up against and saw firsthand the destruction that manifested from unrealistic expectations with mortgages and family on the line. Mike sat directly across from Shap during the series of meetings in which Shap nearly bore into his brain. After the fateful meeting in which Mike and Shap sought sign-off, it became clear to Mike that his career was dying on the vine. When the meeting ended Shap sent Alan, Cuddy, and Mary, an e-mail explaining Doug's refusal to sign-off, and that it appeared the project was again stillborn.

Cuddy hit 'reply all' and told Mike, "To get his ass over to the office supply store and buy as many green 3x5 cards as they done have." Cuddy figured he'd pass them out, and his staff could keep track of the pet information on the green cards. Cuddy was never keen on having to train the hundreds of employees on a new computer system, and, from his perspective, this had worked out for the best. More importantly, Cuddy wasn't going to let Alan succeed. It wasn't his problem the shareholders had spent over a $100 million coding a system that would never be used.

When Mike returned a half hour later from the office supply store the project team had been disbanded, and Mike was a manager without a project or staff to manage. This strange state of limbo lasted for weeks. Mike didn't mind not doing anything, but he did feel a lot like a, "Japanese window sitter." A futureless employee who reports to work daily, draws a salary, but has no job responsibilities.

Alan wasn't sure the time frame before The Board learned of, and reacted to, the additional money squandered on the IT project, and didn't want to fire Mike prematurely. The Board required their pound of flesh, and it was better to wait until The Board meted justice; otherwise, they might go after Alan in Mike's absence. Best to leave Mike waiting; like a lobster in a tank he wasn't going anywhere. Eventually Alan had Mike assigned to a team of consultants Doug retained to develop a strategic vision for the company. Mike's reassignment came with a title change. He was no longer a director he was a special guide, and his pay, paid time off, and benefits were scaled back accordingly. It also moved him out of Alan's cost center, and made him someone else's problem.

The project Mike was assigned had nothing to do with strategy. It was a cost-cutting initiative focused on firing employees without incurring lawsuits. To that end Mike was involved in the non-discriminatory downsizing based on the color wheel. More specifically, he was responsible for herding the employees into the conference room where they were fired by Doug via speakerphone. Mike quickly became a pariah at work. A status which didn't end when the project was abruptly halted after the irreplaceable middle managers were terminated. As bad as shepherding his co-workers onto the killing floor was, it was no worse than hanging around watching Shap try to collect business requirements from Cuddy, Mary, and Doug, for an IT project that none of them wanted completed.

The strategic vision project wrapped up several months ago and Mike again showed up for work only to sit in his office and wait for something to do. To kill time he wrote verse, and produced a poem that was so dreadfully awful the literary agent to whom it was submitted was certain it would stand on the podium of worst fiction of the year and win the Bulwer-Lytton award. Surprisingly uplifted by being the best at being the worst, he next tried to teach himself French, alone and in his office.

Lost in his thoughts Mike missed the staff elevator when it returned, and the crowd surged past him and filled it to capacity. Mike got on the elevator fifteen minutes later, when it returned to the ground floor. With the elevator stopping at each floor, and the shuffling of passengers to accommodate those in the back, it took another fifteen minutes to get to his floor. In hindsight, and thirty minutes later, Mike realized he should have taken the stairs.

Chapter Nine

Sitting in his office with the lights out Doug spun slow circles in his chair as he puzzled out Alan's replacement. Inherent limitations in the Magic 8 ball restricted its management value to only confirming or denying selections, it was of no value identifying candidates, and Doug simply did not have the energy or interest to speak each employees name and shake the ball looking for direction. As he was considering the value an Ouija Board might offer in helping him out of his predicament, Doug had a vague recollection of an application the consultants had hurriedly installed to identify employees most suitable to fill mission-critical, open positions. The positions stood open after Doug fired the blue shirted managers.

The software application Doug recalled, The Hand Job, was a talent management tool that could identify the ideal candidate to fill an open position. It matched job requirements with skills and experience. The fifty dollar piece of software came on a single CD and installed in three minutes. As the system was installed, the consultants needed to test it to confirm it worked. In what was to become a life changing event for Mike, he was randomly selected as the test case to prove the system. In creating the test case, the high school intern who loaded the CD fabricated Mike's education, work history, and civic achievements. According to The Hand Job, Mike had degrees from Harvard, Yale, and the Sorbonne. He was also the recipient of a couple of Noble Prizes (economics and physics), a Heisman, and hosted his own cooking show. The analyst loaded a picture of Mike to his profile. In the picture Mike was sound asleep, snoring at his desk.

Doug removed the Magic 8 Ball from his pocket, mumbled a question, shook vigorously, and flipped the 8 Ball belly up. He then leaned over and whispered intently into the ear of a consultant seated cross-legged on a pillow at the end of his desk. The consultant hopped off the pillow and ran out the door. A few minutes after the consultant ran from Doug's office, he returned with Wilma at his side. They stood in the doorway facing Doug.

Wilma spoke, "Hi Doug, what's up?"

The consultant immediately stepped in front of Wilma, preventing her from seeing Doug. "Speak only to me, I will relay the message."

"Are you kidding me?"

Before Wilma's question was answered, Doug spoke, "Tell Wilma I need the pig man in my office. No, inside my office would be a huge mistake, I want him in my doorway. I don't want him in my office. I want him standing in my doorway in ten minutes. Make sure it's clear he is not to enter the inner sanctum."

The consultant immediately restated Doug's request. "Would you please ask Mr. Cuddy to stop by Doug's office, but to remain in the hallway? His presence is requested in ten minutes."

Wilma stomped away.

Moments later Cuddy appeared. As before the consultant stood blocking the doorway and facing outward. Cuddy shifted side to side trying to see Doug behind the consultant. The consultant was an adept defenseman and moved accordingly. Cuddy jumped up and down. The consultant placed his hands, palm outward, on top of his head to block Cuddy's view.

"Mr. Cuddy has arrived sir."

"Tell the human pork chop I need him to identify Alan's replacement. Have Shap run The Hand Job and see if there is anyone in the company that can fill the role. One hour. I want to announce his replacement in an hour, before The Chairman inserts a spy into my organization." Doug wrinkled his brow worrying about the possibility The Chairman's nephew or niece might become the next CFO.

The consultant repeated Doug's directive nearly verbatim, the only change being to substitute, Mr. Cuddy, for, human pork chop.

As Cuddy was about to leave Doug spoke, "Is Alan still in the bushes?" Doug's furrowed brow returned. It would be damn embarrassing if Alan sat decomposing in the lot.

Before the consultant could restate Doug's question, Cuddy replied, "No. They took down the tape and shoveled him onto a giant trash bag. Apparently the parachute did a good job of keeping the splatter to a minimum. There is a little bump in the concrete, but you can barely tell what happened. I mean unless you look up and see the boarded window. Or look down to see the crows picking at the ground near where he hit."

In a breach of protocol, Doug leaned far to his right to see through the gap between the consultant's body and the door jamb, and spoke directly to Cuddy, "The what? Crows? What are you talking about?"

"Crows is hungry just like everybody else." Cuddy's world view revolved around the belief that everyone was hungry all the time.

"Look, you fat sausage I need to you to run The Hand Job and figure out who replaces Alan." The consultant repeated Doug's directive verbatim, on top of his game once again, and pointed toward Cuddy's office, indicating the meeting was over and Cuddy should return from whence he came.

Cuddy walked back to his office, sat down, and used the speaker phone to call Shap, "Dipshit get in here." Cuddy heard what sounded like a cup of coffee spill and Shap mutter, "Damn it." Even after a year of working with Cuddy, Shap had yet to grow accustomed to Cuddy's bellicose, abrasive nature.

Minutes later Shap stood in Cuddy's office. He looked more disheveled than usual. The front left side of his shirt was discolored from the wet paper towel he used to blot the coffee he spilled when Cuddy surprised him with the call. The sound of Cuddy's voice often caused a Pavlovian knee jerk response.

Shap formally announced his presence, "Shappa here." He clicked his heels and stood at attention.

"I Goddamn well know you're here. I'm looking at you, you bald jack off. Look, I need you to run The Hand Job and find Alan's successor. I want to see the names before they're shown to anyone else."

"What criteria do you want me to use in our candidate search?" Shap's tongue flicked in an out of his mouth and his nose scrunched up and down. Cuddy's presence was a known trigger for his facial tic.

"Jesus Christ Shap, I do not know. Maybe he should have a freaking Nobel prize, be a national sports hero, and been educated at the finest schools in Europe. Use your common sense boy and don't push me for clarification where clarification is not necessary. Half-hour, I want the list."

Shap stood a minute longer, blinking and scrunching, as he finished writing out his meeting notes. On the top left of the page he wrote the date, time, and location, of his interaction with Cuddy. Below, he wrote a near verbatim transcription of their discussion. Shap was an excellent note taker. He asked Cuddy to initial his notes, but Cuddy told him to get the hell out of his office. In the corporate world of cover your ass, Shap's note taking skills translated to long term employment.

Shap ran back to his office and logged onto his computer. In the top left side of his screen was an icon of God's hand, index finger extended to give life to Adam. It was a rip off of Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel fresco. Below the icon were the words, The Hand Job. Shap double clicked the hand and the sound of thunder emanated from the computer's speakers as it launched. The system asked him to specify the role and Shap scrolled down the list looking for CFO. His first hardship, CFO wasn't an option. This meant he needed to call Alan's assistant and find out the job he was filling.

"Wilma, this is Shappa. Do you know what Alan's title was?"

"I know it's you silly. I can tell by the phone." Wilma flirted unabashedly with Shap, a powerful attraction to the bald thirty something Native American from Michigan.

"Yes, cutting edge technology. Look, do you know Alan's title?"

"Alan had the consultant's update his job title in anticipation of his coronation. He was the Exalted Chief Financial Officer. Sadly, he never lived to see the benefits of being exalted."

Shap scrolled down the list and found Exalted Chief Financial Officer from the drop down list of approved titles. He double clicked the title. At the system's prompt he entered the criteria that would be used to identify appropriate candidates. Shap pulled out his meeting notes and entered accordingly; European education, Nobel prize recipient, and sports hero. Instantly, Mike's name appeared with a match score of 100%. "Holy shit! It worked." It always surprised Shap when technology behaved as promised. Shap hit print and sent Mike's profile to the printer.

"Mike?" Shap laughed to himself, "no freaking way Mike has these credentials." Shap had worked with Mike and knew him to be lazy and incompetent. Still pissed off about the system debacle, Shap couldn't imagine a better way to stick it to upper management than to saddle them with Mike. He chuckled, thinking this would be like loading a dummy round in the chamber before a gun fight. Shap grabbed the profile and ran back to Cuddy's office.

"Cuddy, I have your man," Shap exclaimed excitedly. He waved Mike's profile in front of Cuddy as if fanning the air.

"Bullshit. Let me see." Cuddy rudely snatched the papers and scanned them quickly. "Well, I'll be. A freaking rocket surgeon amongst us." Cuddy pulled a small well thumbed notebook from his back pocket. Cuddy did not remember meeting Mike, even though the name was vaguely familiar Cuddy was pretty sure Mike had never darkened his doorway. Before Cuddy moved forward he wanted to make certain Mike wasn't on his Mighty List of Slights.

Cuddy's Mighty List of Slights was a detailed register organized by date, severity, and offender, of any injustice, criticism, or denigration, to which Cuddy thought he had been subjected. Cuddy consulted this list on an hourly basis, and used it for everything from deciding whether to hold an elevator door open for someone to the size of bonuses paid at year's end. The book confirmed that Mike was exactly what Cuddy wanted; a zero maintenance employee with whom Cuddy did not hold an existing beef. Cuddy figured he could easily manipulate Mike into siding with him in his ongoing feud with Mary, and his efforts to unseat Doug. Alan had proven unpredictable, aligning with either Mary or Cuddy per the topic at hand, and towards the end in the unforgivable position of lead candidate for next CEO.

"Christ, he aint on the list," Cuddy mumbled. It was then Cuddy realized Mike was one of the scapegoats Alan hired for the IT debacle. This was too good to be true. It was like being handed the keys to the kingdom. Doug would now promote the slacker that co-lead round two of the failed IT project. If Mike screwed up, and that was inevitable, it was Doug that had promoted him. Better, when The Board learned the IT project still wasn't complete Cuddy had no association with Mike. If no repercussions came from the system disaster then all Cuddy had to do was build an ally, thereby shifting the voting 2:1 in Cuddy's favor over Mary. Cuddy opened the side drawer on his desk, took out an empty manila folder, and in his crude lettering wrote, "Confadentale". He placed the profile of Mike inside, set the folder on the desk, and kicked the drawer closed with his knee.

To celebrate, and win a small bet, Cuddy then pulled open the top drawer of his desk and removed a small plastic dart gun. Holding the gun with both hands, Cuddy jumped, in a seamless and uninterrupted motion, into a stance favored by tactical situation officers. He shot Shap in the middle of the forehead. Cuddy was exactly two feet from Shap when he fired.

Shap's eyes crossed at the moment of impact, and Shap reacted expectedly. "Are you insane? Are you out of your freaking mind? Who shoots someone in the head with a dart gun?" The dart stuck unicorn-like from the middle of Shap's forehead. His eyes watered from the force of the dart.

In an unhurried motion, Cuddy reached out and yanked the dart from Shap's head. The dart's removal created a loud 'pop,' and a perfect, purple circle, formed. A giant blood blister now stood in place of Shap's white scar.

"Son, you got the reflexes of a heroin addict. Goddamn you didn't even blink."

"I'm going to Doug and Legal with this. You are done."

"Doug don't care, you dumbass. He dared me to do it. Bet I couldn't hit you dead center of that target you're sporting. You got no witnesses, so Legal won't help. You need to improve your reflexes. That's the issue here." Cuddy curtly dismissed Shappa, and stepped around him and out of his office as he headed back to Doug's.

Alone in Cuddy's office Shap looked at the backside of Cuddy waddling down the hall and flipped him off with both hands. Then he rubbed the middle of his forehead, which was starting to burn a little, and reached for his zipper.

Cuddy burst through Doug's office door and caught Doug sitting at his desk, aimlessly staring into space, while quietly bouncing a basketball. Surprised, Doug rolled the ball under his desk and hid it. "Do you ever knock? Where's my consultant?" The consultant had just run to fetch Doug a fresh coffee.

"Not when it's this important. I found Alan's replacement."

"Who?" Then, realizing Cuddy had walked into his office he pointed at the hall, scolding Cuddy as one might a dog that had jumped on a forbidden couch, "Stand in the hallway. Do not enter the inner sanctum." Cuddy did as told and stepped back.

"Guy named Mike."

"Mike who?"

"Hang on." Having never met Mike, Cuddy quickly scanned the document looking for Mike's last name. As he fumbled, he held up the full page, color picture of Mike mid-snore at his desk for Doug to see. While Cuddy clumsily flipped through the pages trying to find Mike's last name, Doug's consultant returned, hot coffee in hand, and stepped into Doug's office. Doug looked at him, imploring for direction.

The consultant handed Doug his coffee and laid out the path forward. He pointed at Cuddy as he spoke, "Here is what I want you to do. Tell Mike we need him up here ASAP. What time is it?"

Doug checked his watch, "Eleven a.m."

The consultant nodded, implying it was a good thing it was mid-morning, "Mike should be in his office. Cuddy, call Mike and tell him of his selection as the new CFO. Doug, call The Chairman and explain we've found Alan's replacement. Cuddy, return to your office."

His presence no longer required, Cuddy tossed Mike's profile to Doug from the doorway. It landed neatly on Doug's desk. Doug, hating any clutter on his desk, immediately picked up the folder and tossed it in the waste bin.

As Doug reached for the phone to call The Chairman, the phone rang. It was The Chairman, and he spoke before Doug announced himself, "You've squandered one hundred million dollars on an IT project that remains unfinished. You cost us millions in modern art that sits buried in a landfill. Your CFO leapt to his death a day ago. You fired the ten managers that knew what the hell they were doing. The stock is in free-fall. Fix it."

His hand shook nervously as The Chairman dressed him down. Doug tilted the phone away from his ear for his consultant to share in the conversation, and he and the consultant bumped heads as they listened intently. From on high their bald heads, pressed together, looked like an ass.

The Chairman continued, "You may not have hit rock bottom yet, but you're exploring new found depths in the world of corporate incompetence. I'm giving you one year to reduce bad debt, complete the IT project, and increase employee productivity. If the stock isn't where it needs to be at the 2007 Board Meeting, you'll be standing in traffic with a cardboard sign begging change."

The Board was always keen on a baseball, basketball or football similes, and Doug hoped to deflect the blame by explaining the goings on with a hackneyed sports metaphor. "I'm the QB. I can't throw the ball and catch it. I can't believe they dropped the ball so many times. I'm turning this around three hundred sixty degrees, and I'm gonna move the ball in the right direction."

The Chairman hung up without responding to Doug's comment. Contemplating the threat, Doug rolled the basketball from the corner under his desk with his foot, and began nimbly dribbling while he checked the stock price and surfed on the internet.

Back in his office, Cuddy pulled out the company directory and looked up Mike. He then picked up the receiver, a rarity as he almost always used the speaker phone, and dialed. Waiting for Mike to pick up, Cuddy shouted into the hallway, "Why does it always smell like a damn porta-potty in here? "

Mike answered, "Hello, this is Mike."

"Mike this is Cuddy, the big man. Need you up on six for a meeting."

"Beg me, you pig faced bitch. Beg." Mike was pretty sure he was getting punked as he and Rico frequently called each other pretending to be heads of state, celebrities, or on occasion ex-girlfriends. Recently Mike had received calls from President Obama, Samuel Jackson, and in a huge screw up on celebrities dead or alive, Michael Jackson.

"Mike, I didn't quite understand you? I need your ass up on six." Cuddy knew a lot of the employees screwed around on the phone and wanted to give Mike a shot at avoiding his Mighty List of Slights. He also realized it would be a pain in the ass to re-run the The Hand Job, pick another candidate, and update Doug.

Mike looked out his window and realized Rico was chatting up a couple of the female customer service reps. Embarrassment flushed his face as he realized it really was Cuddy on the phone. "Ass up on six!" he parroted, the panic kick-starting his echolalia. "Cuddy sir, sorry, I was finishing a conversation with my Mom on my cell phone," Mike lied shamelessly. "What can I do for you?" He had never spoken to Cuddy directly, but assumed he was about to be asked to create some type of blackmail report that would undermine another executive's position.

"I need your ass up on six, be at Doug's office in 15 minutes."

"Ass up on six, be at Doug's office in 15 minutes!" the human parrot answered.

"Bring your personal effects and your laptop."

"Personal effect and laptop! Personal effect and laptop! Wait, I'm being fired? Fired! You can't fire me!" Mike blurted incredulously. Mike's thoughts raced to French history and the Reign of Terror, "You can't execute the executioner. I am the knife!" It was his job to herd his co-workers onto the killing floor, not vice-versa. He was at a loss when Cuddy broke the silence.

"Just meet me at Doug's office. You're the new CFO, you horse's ass." Cuddy chuckled to himself, "This kind of power never gets old."

Mike hung up and reflected on what had just happened. His life as a consummate fumble, and textbook case of failure to launch, had just taken an unexpected turn. To prepare for his ascent, Mike turned to Wikipedia and its insight on Chief Financial Officers. Hoping to learn what a CFO does, he skimmed the introductory paragraph, but the article was a long one and he lost interest after the first few sentences. "Screw it," he thought, "I'll figure it out as I go." Driven by a fear Doug would reconsider and change his mind, a sense of urgency overcame Mike and he quickly packed his things. He grabbed the box he used when pirating other's offices and quickly began to fill it with his personal effects. In went his toothbrush, toothpaste, mints, gum, mouthwash, Binaca spray, tongue scraper, and floss. In lieu of a six month bonus, Mary issued all new employees a breath management system. Next he threw in a few pictures and his coffee mug. Box in hand, with his coat and laptop, he walked with a sense of purpose to the staircase and hurried up the stairs to the sixth floor.

When Mike arrived at Doug's office, he found the doorway blocked by the consultant. Cuddy and Mary were already standing in the hallway in front of Doug's office. Mike found a place to stand between Cuddy, and who he assumed was Mary. Mike had never seen Mary, and his only interaction with Cuddy had been via a couple of e-mails and the call earlier in the day.

With the consultant blocking the doorway he couldn't see Doug, but if he could have seen him, he would have recognized him. Mike had seen Doug a couple of times; the meeting that led to Shap giving himself brain surgery, and a few weeks ago when the executive elevator accidentally stopped on the second floor while Mike was waiting for the staff elevator. Inside his private elevator, Doug sat in a wide backed leather chair, reading Sports Illustrated, with a piping hot cup of coffee. Behind Doug, leaning against the elevator wall, stood a burly guard from the security detail. The image was more of Russian mob boss than of American CEO. As the elevator doors began to shut Doug looked up, but he didn't acknowledge Mike.

As before, Doug spoke with the consultant immediately restating his words, "As you may be aware, our prior CFO, Alan, met an unfortunate and unexpected end. Tragedy. Honest to God tragedy. He was a great man, and a warrior. I loved Alan like a father. I mean like I'm the father, not like Alan's the father. Therefore, he would be the son." Doug grew confused and mumbled, counting on his fingers as he tried to sort out whether it was better, he, or Alan, was the father in the scenario he had tried to create." As Doug secretly shook his Magic 8 Ball, hoping for guidance, the consultant walked over and whispered something in his ear. Doug stopped shaking the prognostic globe and continued, "I'm the father. Anyway, only God knows our destiny. I mean God as God, not G.O.D."

Had Mike not been familiar with the events that led to Alan's death, Mike would have thought Alan died of cancer per Doug's explanation. Mike was also pretty certain he knew which God Doug referred to.

"But companies move forward, and we need to replace Alan. I'm down a man with two minutes to go. We've scoured our company's records looking for the best fit. We need a man who lives up to the expectations of The Board, our shareholders, and our customers." Doug listed the three in the reverse order most people would consider them relevant to the company's success. Most would argue that the customers created any wealth realized by the shareholders and that The Board was the shareholder's steward.

"Mike," Doug leaned forward conspiratorially, and tried to see around the side of the consultant, "Ask yourself, 'Am I that man?'"

Mike assumed the question rhetorical, but no longer able to suppress his inner parrot answered, "Am I that man! Am I that man!"

Cuddy and Mary did not respond well to Mike's definitive response, and glared at him. Still waters run deep, and Mike might be a more formidable foe than either had imagined.

Doug too was troubled by Mike's fervor, and rubbed his chin contemplating the threat Mike posed to his kingdom. It occurred to Doug that Mike might need to go for a quick dip in 'the lake'.

With the elongated pause, Mike became concerned that Doug was waiting for a better answer. As Mike was about to repeat, "Am I that man!" for the third time Doug abruptly continued, "I think you are. I need you to step up to the plate and knock it outta here."

Mike was shocked and dumbfounded. Five hours ago he'd woken on a musty couch in his parent's basement, and then driven to work in a beat to shit mid eighties Yugo, whose front left tire was a pint sized spare given his credit cards were maxed, and he couldn't afford a new tire.

As the meeting ended Cuddy slipped his hand around Mike's arm, and button hooked him. Linked arm in arm, Cuddy led them to Mike's new office. As they approached the doorway Cuddy removed his hand and ushered Mike inside. Once both men were inside, Cuddy held his hands wide and smiled. Plywood still blocked the view to the parking lot and small shards of glass sparkled on the carpet, but the trappings of the executive suite were evident; bespoke dark stained wooden furniture, leather chairs and couches, and the hushed tones that prevail in the atmospheres of those in command. Cuddy assured him new glass had been ordered and that the office would be restored to original condition before the end of the day.

With Cuddy's footsteps receding down the hall, Mike sprawled out in his new office. The chair he sat in was oversized, regal and leather. Mike was certain Alan's feet wouldn't have touched the ground. Sitting with the chair flush to the desk gave the impression of being six and half feet tall. Inspired, Mike balanced the chair on two legs and wiggled his upper body back and forth to keep from crashing to the floor. As he balanced, he broke into improvised verse, "Who's in da big seat now?" He answered his question with the refrain, "The mac daddy. The mac daddy." While Mike sang he fist pumped the air, and wondered what he had done to earn this change in fortune. As he approached the third minute of his impromptu rap, Mike noticed Alan's old secretary, now his secretary, darkening the doorway.

"Mike, I'm Wilma. I'll be your executive assistant. I support all the gifted and powerful minds; Doug's, Cuddy's, Mary's and now yours. I wanted to introduce myself, and let you know you are expected at Doug's staff meeting. It's in an hour. You're to meet in his doorway. Be careful not to enter the inner sanctum, and don't touch his stuff. Can I get you anything? Would you like some coffee, or lunch?"

"Do you have any of those little finger sandwiches they serve at high tea?"

"Of course we do. Alan always had me remove the crusts from his sandwiches. Would you prefer the crusts on, or off, the sandwiches?"

"Take them off. No crusts. I'm never eating crust again. I'm in the big seat now." Mike sat, excited by his change in fortune, in his new office.

Chapter Ten

Since Cuddy dropped him off, and Wilma served him crust free sandwiches, Mike's new office had been a hub of activity. The workers took down the plywood and replaced the window, thereby restoring the office to its original condition. The crew worked steadily, largely ignored Mike, and did not ask about the events that led to the broken window. Mike sensed the workers dealt with this kind of thing routinely. It wasn't hard to imagine computers tossed out windows in fits of rage, chairs crashing into walls as executives screamed their resignation, or plants and furniture upturned as vice presidents met in the center of the conference rooms and waged hand to hand combat over the laying of blame. His mind's eye could see them throttling each other; their hands wrapped around each other's throats; thumbs pressed on Adam's apples until capillaries broke in their eyes, and the weaker of the two hoarsely whispered, "No mas."

With the window installed and vacuuming completed, the sole worker that remained pulled a large plastic sign from the cart and applied industrial glue to one side. He then pressed the sign against the window and admired his work. Prominently displayed on the window was a placard featuring a parachuting figure surrounded by a bold red circle with a do not line running through it. Below the graphic was written: Not An Exit.

Mike wondered how long before someone defaced the placard, and he was stuck looking at Rest Stop graffiti every time he walked into his office. The more Mike thought about it the more certain he became. There was no doubt within a month someone would add either devil horns or a giant penis to the placard that sat as the centerpiece to his office. Maybe some witty phrase would appear in a caption bubble, but none came to mind and he wasn't certain the intellectual wattage to make the situation funny could be found in the building. He'd go giant penis if it wasn't his office. Now that would be damn funny.

With the last worker gone Mike stood alone in his new office. The calm, hushed tones of the floor conspired against him and he felt a nap coming on. He'd overeaten, his appetite for crust less sandwiches nearly insatiable, and had been standing around waiting for the work crew to finish for a couple hours. He knew if he sat down he'd be asleep in minutes. Although he had no idea what his job required, it seemed to be in his best interest to stay awake. After he was relieved of all work responsibilities, he routinely snored himself awake in his old office. He considered breaking out his French lessons, but felt certain his willpower to avoid the couch would wane and he'd be found in a fetal position. In an effort to stay awake, he began to unpack the few things he'd brought upstairs with him.

Mike connected his laptop to its docking station and adjusted the desk chair's height. In doing so he rallied his entrepreneurial spirit, and faced the monitor away from the door and at an angle such that the image reflected off the window wouldn't give him away to those in the hallway when he frittered the hours away surfing the internet. He was especially proud of this foresight given they were headed into the dark days of winter, and with lights on inside, and dark outside, the windows would be like mirrors. Mike's skills at creating the impression of work were myriad, and he employed two proven strategies. First, he streamed talk radio through his computer to simulate a conference call, which in turn justified his closed door. Next, he booked a series of random, recurring meetings on his calendar. Best if all thought he was up to his ass in alligators. With his computer now functional he checked his e-mails, and found he hadn't received any work related communications in a couple of weeks.

With the illusion of work in place, Mike surfed on the internet for a while to see if any of the names on his annual Sure to Die and Untimely Death List had, in fact, died, and then grew bored when it looked like everyone, including Charlie Sheen and Keith Richards, was still alive. With the topic of celebrity death on his mind, Mike updated his list to include the new wave of self indulgent teen celebrities, certain to implode when the limelight faded and they became legal adults left to their own devices. Mike added Miley and that creepy Beiber kid to his list. The office pool was sizable on a direct hit and he could use the money for new car tires. While he waited for the updates to his list to finish saving to his computer, he spent a few minutes on Wikipedia continuing his research on the role and responsibilities of a CFO. On the unused tablet he kept at his side he scribbled, 'Responsible for managing the financial risks of the corporation, financial planning and record keeping'.

As he was about to log onto Facebook, and kill whatever time remained before Doug's staff meeting, he remembered he'd brought a box of pictures with him. From the box he pulled out of a half a dozen framed photos. The photos were shots of him and his friends skiing, his family, and his dogs. He set the pictures on the wooden bookshelves that sat to either side of his desk. Prominently displayed the pictures formed a small shrine to his life outside work, and testament to the fact he wasn't a total loser. He figured it would be best if he played by the behavioral norms and didn't want to be the only employee without the ubiquitous pictures that adorn corporate America's workspaces. As he stepped back to admire his work, he realized he might need to take some new photographs.

The first picture was him and a couple friends at the tail end of a case of beer after a long day skiing. He remembered pushing the car up the pass on that snowy day years ago. Front and center in the picture was his car; skis stacked like pick-up-sticks on the hood, and a case of Pabst Blue Ribbon on the roof. His friends looked inebriated, and the Yugo did too. To the right side of the skiing pictures he set the pictures of his dogs. The dogs stood listing to the side, patches of fur missing, their ribs jutting from their emaciated bodies with their teeth bared at his wife as she took the picture. Since the photo was taken, and dogs removed from her care, the dogs had rallied, gaining weight as their fur grew back, and their sunny dispositions returned. Across from the dogs he set a picture he'd snapped of his ex-wife in her prison garb; an orange jumpsuit boldly emblazoned with Department of Corrections. He adjusted the pictures so the dogs were growling at his ex.

Unpacked, pictures displayed, and uncertain of the expectations of him, Mike rummaged through Alan's old desk. Most of the goods had been plundered, but he found an electric pencil sharpener and a couple boxes of unsharpened pencils. Hidden in the bottom drawer was a worn copy of Stand Tall Small Man, and a discarded user's guide for the executive parachute. With nothing left to do, he began sharpening pencils with the automatic pencil sharpener he found in the bottom right drawer of Alan's desk. He really wanted to see if he could stick the pencils in the ceiling, but the risk of getting caught outweighed the joy of the proven elementary school time killer. With a dozen sharpened pencils sitting on his desk he then looked at his watch, and realized he was a couple of minutes late for Doug's Staff Meeting. "Wow," he thought, "time flies as an executive."

Mike returned to the doorway where he'd been promoted just a couple hours ago. Cuddy and Mary, both of whom attended his inauguration, stood in awkward silence in the hallway in front of Doug's office having arrived just ahead of him. Mike walked up, and as he'd done earlier in the day he stood in the space between them. Mary stood to his left and Cuddy to his right. Cuddy nodded a curt hello.

Mary looked over, remembered Mike's six month service award, and asked him how his breath was.

Mike replied, "Minty, spectacularly minty."

Mary leaned in, her nostrils flared, and she nodded in approval. It was a small victory, but the battle against ugly and its many forms was endless. The three resumed the uncomfortable silence.

As they waited, Mary turned slightly towards Cuddy and rubbed the top of her nose, between her eyes, with her middle finger. She stared hatefully at Cuddy.

In response, Cuddy leaned back, placed his hands deep in his trouser pockets, and fumbled about in the deep recesses of his pants. If he wore a fedora, he'd look exactly like The Chubby award. His wedding tackle bounced up and down as he groped about his pockets. Mike realized he wasn't just playing with himself when Cuddy pulled out a wadded BigMac and shoved it in his mouth. To fit it all in he used the bottom of his hand's palm, elbow pointing out, fingers under his chin, and pushed. His eyes bulged with the effort. Cuddy returned Mary's hateful stare, and stuck his tongue out to show her the partially masticated food. The ultraviolet green of the pickle stood out in marked relief to the surrounding grey paste. It was disgusting, and to make matters worse Cuddy began to speak with his mouth full of food.

Mike couldn't make out a word he said, and when Cuddy realized this he began to shout, slowly and emphatically, as if he was in a foreign country and volume and tempo were why he wasn't being understood. Cuddy grew louder, and began to gesture with his hands. Mike still couldn't make out what was being said but nodded in agreement, hoping whatever Cuddy felt so important that it be shared before he finished chewing he'd feel he communicated. As Mike stood and nodded like an idiot, and Cuddy sprayed him with food, Mary could not take it any longer and hid behind Mike for protection.

With Mary no longer in his field of view Cuddy stopped shouting and un-tucked his shirt. He began absent mindedly picking at his belly button. Next he pulled a pair of nail clippers from his pocket and clipped his nails. Nails clipped, and belly lint free, he completed the trifecta by blowing his nose into a napkin and then opening the napkin to see what he'd put there. He nudged Mike with his elbow to try to get Mike to look in the napkin, but Mike stood frozen in fear and looked straight ahead. Mary stared at the ground. Mike followed Mary's strategy.

Several minutes passed, and suddenly Doug swiveled around in his chair. Mike didn't realize Doug was in the office. Cuddy and Mary jumped to attention and smiled pleasantly. Doug began immediately, forgoing any pleasantries, "Let me pose a riddle. What has two thumbs, speaks French, and wants results?" Leaning back in his chair and pointing at himself with his thumbs Doug answered his own question, "Me." Normally the consultants would have led the meeting, with Doug sitting a slight distance back and nodding at the appropriate times, but it was Wednesday and the consultants always flew home early in the afternoon to, 'work from home,' on Thursday and Friday.

Mike's autism kicked in, and he answered without thinking, "Moi!' Surprisingly the French lessons appeared to be working. He was familiar with this old joke having heard it in the context of blow jobs, and spoke to cover his echolalia, "I think you mean moi."

Before Doug could address the insubordination, Mary jumped in, "Why the fuck would he mean you?" Her black reptilian eyes narrowed, and she stared despicably at Mike. "Dumb ass," she added accusingly.

Doug nodded appreciatively at Mary. She, in turn, stood up straighter, with a smile on her lips. Doug kept talking, "This recent debacle with that sorry sack of shit midget has roused the suspicion of The Board that perhaps I'm not on top of things. You tell me how I could have prevented Napoleon's last stand?"

Mike murmured as quietly as he could to avoid being heard, "Napoleon's last stand! Napoleon's last stand!" He worked to suppress the desire to correct Doug. He was pretty sure it was Custer's last stand, but given present company hadn't taken to his earlier comments he waited until his echolalia passed.

Doug pulled a folded piece of paper from his back pocket and began reading. The paper bore the watermark of the consulting firm that was constantly bouncing around the executive floor with Doug, the parasite's host. "I've been told, and now I'm telling you, we need to meet Wall Street's expectations." A pregnant pause followed, and Doug mumbled quietly as he considered the gravity of the situation, "God help us." Doug returned to his executive voice, "Now if you've got a brain in your head you ought to be thinking, 'What does that mean for me?' Well, it's fourth and goal and we need a win. That is what it means."

Mike echoed, "Fourth and goal! Fourth and goal!"

"It's refreshing to see that kind of enthusiasm. " Doug pointed at Mike and nodded appreciatively.

Cuddy and Mary glared at Mike. It wasn't going to work for them to be shown up by this deep thinker on day one in his new role. This was a two pony race for the top job with no room for a third.

"Mary, you are now responsible for implementing the computer system. I want this never ending problem behind us: No discussions, no delays, and on budget. I want it done, and don't tell me the requirements changed and the goalposts moved, or Cuddy won't sign-off. Shap works for you now, understand?" Doug was concerned Mary's profane, vain nature and crushing hand shake had favorably impressed the Chairman. As his most likely replacement, it was best if she went for a quick 'swim in the lake'.

Unlike Cuddy who never realized what hit him and Alan who seethed when Doug screwed him with the IT project, Mary channeled her inner monster and loudly declared, " Oh that fat fucker's gonna sign-off, or I will obliterate him." She cracked her knuckles menacingly, and then pointed at Cuddy.

Cuddy snorted in defiance, a strange, flabbergasting affair that drew everyone's attention. Cuddy glared back. Doug's directive quashed his hope that the system project would simply go away with Alan's death, and he'd return as the heir apparent. The CEO's job was now Mary's to lose.

"Cuddy, I want the productivity of your people improved. We're not hiring more people; you need to get more out of those bums on four." Doug then repeated himself, slower and louder for Cuddy's benefit, "I want more work from the same number of people. This is a slam dunk." Cuddy listened inattentively, he was more concerned with the means he would employ to undermine Mary.

"Mike, you are to reduce our bad debt by getting the sons of bitches to pay their co-pays. Assume your job depends on it, because I'll replace you with a lower paid rookie if you don't fix this. In fact, we will sue you for incompetence if you screw this up. You got the balls to fill the little man's seat at the table? Well, you better be bringing your A game." Mike found Doug's comments extremely insightful as he was uncertain what Alan's job was. As far as Mike knew, Alan simply read the summary numbers from the reports the staff produced aloud. Wikipedia hadn't proved as helpful as he'd hoped in helping him learn the CFO's job.

As Mike repeated Doug's words, "A game!" he considered the irony of being sued for corporate malfeasance while he lived in his parent's basement and drove a beat to shit Yugo with a donut tire. Mike's thoughts left the meeting and floated to a fantasy world where he sat on the witness stand in a court of law surrounded by barristers and judges in powdered wigs.

"Sir, kindly tell the court the address at which you reside," his elderly barrister queried. The packed court sat hushed, in nervous silence, as they waited Mike's answer.

"At 1532 West Georgenian street sir, in Chicago." Murmurs from the court room as Mike sat innocence incarnate, and the victim of G.O.D.'s derelict power.

Doug glowered from the plaintiff's bench, shaking his fist as Mike spoke.

"A fine residence to be sure, and is this your home?" His barrister adjusted the pince-nez spectacles which sat pinched at the end of his nose as he waited Mike's answer.

"No sir, my parents. I live in the damp basement on a weathered pull out couch." Mike looked at the ground, despondent at what he was about to say, and continued, "I am a classic example of failure to launch. My fuse would not light."

Gasps of shock rang out from all over the courtroom. A beautiful woman in the front row fainted. The judge pounded the gavel and demanded order.

The plaintiff's barrister cried out, "Objection!"

Undeterred by the crowd's reaction, Mike's barrister went on, "Now kind sir, is it a long drive to work?"

"It is. Long and very dangerous." Mike rubbed his chin for emphasis, a pained look on his face as he recollected the perils of his daily commute and the improbability that he was still alive.

"How so?"

"I drive a Yugo, with a donut tire on one of the four wheels." A distressed look came onto Mike's face as he told the truth. Screams and chaos from the courtroom as the audience rose up, no longer able to control themselves, and reacted to the injustice. In a pronounced Cockney accent, a working class man deep in the recesses of the crowd shouted, "You can't sue those who can't launch."

As the courtroom disintegrated into chaos, the audience stormed the witness stand and carried Mike towards the exit. The constables, frozen in terror, stood as if made of stone. The crowd's passion to free Mike was more than they could control.

The judge, wig now askance and unable to restore order, pounded the bench with his gavel and declared that he would not tolerate this perversion of justice.

Mike fought to focus on the events at hand, as he felt himself pulled further into the fantasy. Leaving the high court of England behind, Mike returned to the present to find Doug standing, his chair knocked over on its side, and about to conclude the meeting.

Doug ignored the carnage, leaned forward, and placed the palms of both hands on his desk. He looked Mike, Cuddy, and Mary, in the eyes as he spoke, "I'm not taking questions at this time. We will meet in twelve months, at the next Board Meeting in 2007, at which time you will have completed what I've asked, or; Mary, you will be replaced with a younger, prettier and more competent you; Cuddy, you will be returned to the primordial ooze of the janitorial ranks from which you rose; and, Mike, you will be sued in a court of law."

Looking down, Doug shook his head in disgust and cursed. He wiped the top of his right shoe on the back of his left leg's pant.

Cuddy bit his tongue to keep from laughing. Immediately after Alan's death, Cuddy had Wayne lower the urinals to ground level, and his plan appeared to be working. It looked as if Doug had pissed all over his shoes as his height conspired against him. Cuddy was certain if a man stood around in wet socks all day he would collapse psychologically and surrender.

Mary started to object that there was no one prettier than she, at which point Doug raised his hands from the table, palms facing outward, and repeated what he'd just said, "I'm not taking questions at this time. Talk to the hand." Doug walked over and closed his door.

"But, but, but..." Cuddy stammered not wanting Mary to have the last word.

Doug had effectively pitted his direct reports against one another. For Mary to move the system into production, she needed Cuddy and Mike to sign-off. There was no way Cuddy would ever sign-off since it would concede his claim on the throne. For Cuddy to improve productivity, he'd need IT's help to automate manual tasks. Since IT now reported to Mary it was a sure bet she'd never help him. Mike was screwed. He had no say in when they shipped or to whom, yet he was accountable for reducing bad debt and collecting the patient's co-pays. Compounding Mike's problem, unlike Cuddy into whom Operations, Human Resources and Facilities reported, and Mary into whom Sales, Marketing, Legal and IT reported, he had no staff. Of greater concern, Mike still had no idea what a CFO did.

Alone in his office, door closed, Doug quickly checked the stock price. He hoped to discover the price had magically risen of its own volition. Regrettably, he found the stock a couple of pennies down, and cursed as he slammed his fist off the desk. Then, resigned that the only thing left in his power was prayer, he bowed his head. He prayed that whatever serendipity previously drove the stock price returned, comet-like, to rescue him. His day's work complete, Doug changed into a track suit and basketball shoes, and left his office. He was certain he could make the courts in time for a couple of quick pick-up basketball games, and a frosty forty ounces of malt liquor, before he was due home. He planned to check the stock again when he got home and see if his prayers were answered.

In the hallway, Doug turned towards the elevators and broke into a quick jog. He thought it best if no one saw him leaving work this early. As Doug ran down the hall, the executive elevator's resident bodyguard stepped forward, unclipped the velvet rope, and pulled it to the side. Doug stepped into the elevator, around the desk, and sat in his chair. The burly guard returned the velvet rope to its rightful position, stepped back into the elevator, and pressed Ground. The elevator's doors closed.

Chapter Eleven

As Mike's meeting with Doug, Cuddy, and Mary was concluding, two floors below and late into the afternoon, Rico popped a cough drop in his mouth. His friends, none of whom could recall his real name anymore, all called him Rico because of his seemingly endless consumption of Ricola cough drops. Rico dialed Mike's phone.

Rico hoped to prank Mike by pretending to be the wealthy shareholder Lady Nicklebottom, who would threaten to sell her stock and plummet the company into further financial disarray if the upper management team wasn't immediately mobilized to help her search for Mr. Wuzzums, her Yorkshire terrier. Per the storyline Rico had coined, Mr. Wuzzums had run off with a fuzzy poodle in a relationship all about the dirty love. Unfortunately, Mike's phone could be heard ringing, signaling Mike wasn't in his office. Rico really wanted to know why Mike was summoned to the rarified air of the sixth floor. Mike's continued absence further piqued Rico's curiosity. HR typically liked to parade the newly fired around the floor, cardboard box laden with personal effects in hand, for a quick lap of shame before escorting them from the building, and Rico hadn't seen Mike since late morning.

Contrary to Wayne's belief Rico wasn't Puerto Rican. This was evident the first time anyone met him. He was a little over six feet, light skinned, lanky yet well muscled, with the gift of a handsome jaw line, and an easy going demeanor. His long sandy-blonde hair hung to his shoulders, framed his face, and accentuated his luminescent blue eyes. With his looks, and mostly easy going disposition, Rico didn't want for female companionship.

That Rico was occasionally called crazy had nothing to with him setting in motion the events that ended with Alan's jump. Nor was it related to the first time he caused the building to be evacuated, in the spring of 2006, to the smell of burnt fish. On that fateful day Rico was pretty stoned when the alarm sounded– it being the equinox of April 20, at 4:20 pm in Room 420. And four twenty being the widely recognized moniker of pot smokers embracing pot and pot culture.

A half a year before Alan's jump, Rico, and a handful of the company's customer service reps met in conference room 420. An equinox wasn't an equinox without the special conference room; hence Rico booked the reservation the minute the system allowed for it. Rico's cryptic invitation gave no indication to the purpose of the meeting: Dave's Not Here. To gain entry invitees knocked on the door and announced, "It's me Dave." In response, those in the room shouted, "Dave's not here!" and opened the door. To the meeting Rico brought a vaporizer, bag of natures finest, and a lighter. An hour later the attendants departed the room, high as kites, to finish the remains of the work day.

After the meeting Rico longed for a dish one of his many ex-girlfriends had introduced him to, Puerto Rican fish soup. In anticipation of the equinox, and its resultant munchies, Rico brought the necessary ingredients for sopón de pescado to work. Equinox concluded, Rico lovingly assembled the dish, placed it in the microwave, promptly forgot about it, and wandered off to the vending machine. It wasn't until the fire alarm sounded he vaguely remembered he was making soup.

Nonetheless, neither Rico's masterminding the four twenty equinox, nor the subsequent piscean disaster, played a material role in Rico's co-workers and friends calling him crazy. Rico earned the epithet when he stepped in goose shit on his way into work and returned, twenty minutes later, with a golf club and brained a goose half-way between the reflecting pond, upon which The Board was deep in thought, and the smoking area. Given the detente between man and geese on the corporate campus the goose felt pretty blindsided. The mate of the dead goose looked up in disbelief, and then flew off angrily, honking in recrimination. At the goose's final honk, The Board looked up from their tight huddle, en masse, and saw what had transpired.

Seeing the dead goose on the path, The Chairman spoke in his sonorous voice, "That's some cold shit, brother. Staving that mofo's head with the one wood. Damn!" Contradicting his words he nodded in approval, for he too had stepped his custom snakeskin shoes in goose shit.

Staring directly at Rico several of the board members followed The Chairman's lead and imperceptibly nodded their approval, for they too had stepped in the nasty green paste. The huddle of management then reformed, tight and near the water, and resumed its discourse. Law enforcement was in unanimous agreement that their conversation would be very tough to record, from any distance, with enough quality to be court admissible.

The goose's demise began long before Rico's unfortunate step. It could be argued the goose was 'a dead man walking' when Rico arrived at work, unhinged, after having to forego butter on his daily, morning toast. It was a tough start to Rico's day when he couldn't trust the butter in his refrigerator; although, no tougher a start than for that of the goose.

The mistrust of dairy began the night before when Rico's roommate, who was entertaining his girlfriend in his bedroom, stepped into the living room naked except for a small washcloth covering his boner, and asked Rico and his friends if any of them had any personal lubricant they could spare. Rico and his friends instinctively withdrew their feet from the naked man and writhed on the couch, upon which they sat, to put as much distance between him and them as possible. As they scrambled they screamed at him to point it somewhere else. Finally, Rico told him to get the hell out of the living room; they didn't have any personal lubricant in their pockets. Answered in the negative his roommate high tailed it back to his bedroom, ass exposed like a baboon.

When Rico awoke early the next morning, with enough of a hangover to piss him off, but far short of that requiring a personal day, he popped a couple of pieces of toast in the toaster and began picking up the dead soldiers that littered the small apartment. He cleaned until the toaster popped the toast up. As was his morning ritual, Rico threw the toast on a plate, opened the fridge to get the butter, and immediately came to know everything which was wrong with having a roommate at his age.

"You've got to be kidding me!" Rico shouted in the direction of his roommate's closed bedroom door. Finger marks marred the stick of butter, as if someone had hastily swiped their hand through the butter; butter as a personal lubricant? Rico wasn't certain what happened, nor were his convictions ever proven, but the combined effects of realizing he couldn't trust the butter and choking down dry toast for breakfast while his head pounded were cited in his defense as causal factors in the goose's death by blunt force trauma.

In the post-mortem, Human Resources conceded Rico had been under a lot of stress, and that it was unfortunate timing The Board was reflecting at the time of his crisis. As a result, some punitive action was necessary. When the dust settled Rico ended up with one hundred hours of court ordered anger management, and the widely held perception he might be a little crazy.

Rico was no dummy. He never disclosed how freaking great it felt to kill the goose. Even more prudently he didn't elaborate on his logic that if it felt that great to brain a goose how great it would feel to brain, in descending order of joy, his roommate, those in charge and select co-workers. In this post-9/11 world some thoughts are best unexpressed, even in the safety and confines of the corporate psychologist's anger management session while resting in a supine position on a ridiculously comfortable leather couch.

In addition to the requisite therapy, the Department of Wildlife gave him a life ban on goose hunting. The wildlife agent privately conceded he too hated those damn geese and made Rico retell the story a couple times. The agent excitedly rubbed his hands together when Rico detailed the look in the goose's eye when it realized the détente' was off, and it was about to get brained with the Big Bertha.

None of these events phased Rico. Rico didn't care about anger management or goose hunting. The requisite anger management courses got him out of work, the geese weren't a staple of his diet, and hunting wasn't his passion. Rico held an undergraduate degree in literature, an M.B.A. in international finance, but a passion for music.

Rico's high school's talent show sparked his musical passion twenty some years ago. The third act of the program, James and Friends, was listed as a tender smash up of Olivia Newton John's, Have You Never Been Mellow, and The Captain and Tennille's, Muskrat Love. After the second act, a power ukulele folk trio, completed their rousing rendition of the Kingston Trio's, Low Bridge, the house lights darkened. Inside the bible black, packed auditorium, movement could be heard on the stage but not seen; the bump of a cymbal, footsteps, cords sliding on the wooden stage, hushed murmurs, girl's voices.

Minutes later a sole spot light lit James as he stood before a microphone in the center of the stage. His hair, a brindled pattern of blondes, from near white to dark brown, hung in greasy, grapevine-like strands to his shoulders. Disheveled and skinny, with nicotine stained hands, stovepipe black pants, and converse high tops, his dilated pupils would have warranted his exiting the vehicle during a traffic stop. From James' road worn and scarred telecaster guitar a cord ran to a ridiculously oversized amplifier. James began to play slowly; a finger style interpretation of the Australian singer's hit. At the end of the fourth measure a pregnant pause ensued.

The audience thought he'd forgotten the chords, or stalled at the point the vocals began. Shouts of, "Come on James, do it!" rang from the packed auditorium.

Looking up from his guitar, a smirk of deception broke onto James face. As his trickery unfolded an unseen drummer, and a bass player, with hair so long and chaotic his face could not be seen, began a tribal and repetitive pattern. James turned the volume knob on the guitar fully to the right, and as feedback squealed from his amp he dropped all pretense and laid into the starting riff to the Tubes', White Punks on Dope. The rafters shook from the noise, and the audience sat in shock.

From nowhere, and to James' left, long before Nirvana used them so effectively in Teen Spirit, a half dozen of the scuzziest cheerleaders suburban America had ever seen stormed the stage. These disjointed recruits from the smoking area, perpetual stoners, many of whom were unaware they were currently pregnant, began a bizarre cheer. James sang with angst, lamenting wasted youth, absentee parents, and the boredom that comes with ridiculous wealth.

A right wing conservative Christian who sidelined as a preacher for extra cash, the Prinicpal sat at the back of the auditorium riding shepherd over his flock. At the moment he realized James's con he prayed for help, his voice ripe with fear, "Sweet Jesus help us! Satan has descended!" The Principal jumped up, and ran from the back of the auditorium to cut the power and lay hands on.

James was moving into the second verse when the Principal made the stage. The Principal was certain a master switch cut all power, but uncertain its location. Running back and forth at the back of the stage, while James sang, he searched in vain. Blocking whatever switches and plugs lay behind the stage was a massive curtain. The Principal ran his hands madly up and down the curtain. "Cut the power! Cut the power! Satan is amongst us!" James and Friends played on.

As he searched for the off switch a dilemma ensued; James had begun to disrobe. James was trying to pull his pants down with his right hand while his left held the microphone into which he sang, the song now carried by the drummer and bass player. In an effort to fix two wrongs, the Principal picked James up by the back of his pants and dragged him along like a puppet. James' toes raked the stage, microphone in hand, as he sang. The Principal continued his frantic search for the off switch.

When the Principal found the switch James realized the jig was up and abandoned the microphone. He grabbed his pants with both hands and pulled them below his hips. The Principal was losing the battle, his one hand no match for both of James, and in a second James would stand naked on the stage. Unbalanced by James' extra effort, he, and the Principal, fell into a pile on the stage locked in mortal combat over the destiny of James trousers.

As the packed auditorium breathlessly watched the battle between good and evil, with the bass player running the rhythm, drummer pounding the backbeat, and cheerleaders disintegrating into chaos, the crowd rose and gave a standing ovation. In the audience, near the front row and to stage right, sat Rico with his twelfth grade girlfriend. The young lovebirds, quietly holding hands, watched in awe. Rising to their feet with the rest of the auditorium, and overcome with emotion, Rico's girlfriend let go of Rico's hand, flashed her tits at James, and declared, "I love you James!" That was the first and only time Rico saw her topless, and as he stared at her pert, young breasts the power of music became obvious. Rico knew music was his calling.

At the next talent show the Principal sat on the stage, his hand resting nervously on the kill switch. James was not at the school. He was touring Europe with Skinny Puppy. Rico's ex-girlfriend was with him.

Years later, in the mid-1990s, Rico graduated from a state college with an undergraduate degree in literature and then worked a few years for a small lawn sprinkling business. The work was physically taxing, but, surprisingly enough, mentally challenging. On new installations the margins were so tight the simplicity of the design, in which fewer materials were required, determined the profitability of the job. On service calls, especially for sprinklers for which the blueprints didn't exist, good detective work could save hours of back breaking labor and prevent unnecessary confrontation. Customers weren't keen on paying large bills when their well manicured lawns were turned inside out. Looking back, Rico realized the competence of his old boss, Marc. He rarely underbid jobs, took full accountability when his company screwed up, and was careful to treat everyone with respect. He also worked like a Chinese rice farmer; fourteen hour days in the good weather, and twelve hour days rebuilding the equipment in the foul weather. Rico sometimes wondered how the executives he served under would fair running a restaurant, construction company, or lawn care business. Jobs with low barriers to entry immediately weed out the incompetent. His guess was they would be out of business in a few months.

Still unsure of what to do with his life, Rico decided to leave manual labor and the sprinkler trade behind. He applied to, and was accepted by, a top tier M.B.A. program. The closer he got to corporate work, the less enthused he became. His disillusionment with the corporation came as he sat in class listening to his professors. Self proclaimed experts, with little or no actual work experience, who droned on about sure fire ways to make money, and lots of it. At the heart of this growing alienation was his realization that, on his current path, he'd be running a business for shareholders with whom he had no allegiance other than his pay check, while he sought to drive out local proprietors whose shops made cities unique. He understood the arguments that options and equity aligned shareholder interests and that consumers vote with their dollars. Rico didn't buy the argument. He believed that most people didn't realize, weren't bright enough to understand, or were simply wrong when they shopped on price without regard for the impact these decisions had in their hometowns, and drove America toward a bland and homogenized existence: No town different than any other.

As his disenchantment grew Rico continued with his classes, but began to perform with growing regularity at a number of local coffee shops and bars. He realized his passion was music and made a run at paying his bills by playing whenever and wherever he could. He was often found in the afternoons busking off Michigan Avenue for the fifty bucks he could make.

Rico found it fulfilling to own the creative process, and he loved not having to report into anyone. On rare occasions he wrote the songs he played, but mostly played his favorite covers. On the covers he often re-voiced the chords to his liking and flipped the arrangements to reinterpret the original. His favorite was revisiting old funk and disco standards and arranging them for a sole acoustic guitar. The juxtaposition of a grungy, long hair playing a bare bones cover of a song most recognized, like, How Deep Is Your Love, was generally well received.

When Rico graduated from business school in the late 1990s, with unemployment rampant, he took to playing music to pay his bills and skipped out on the big money M.B.A. job he might have scored. The money he saved while working construction with the sprinkler company paid for his business degree. He ran the math and if he could bring in $200 a week, and work part time at a restaurant for the food perks, he could easily tread water and remain financially solvent. His apartment was a cheap dump decorated with a few beat down couches, a small TV, radio, and milk crates repurposed as end tables, book cases, and speaker stands. That, and a handful of guitars, amplifiers and recording equipment, plus an old white van, was all he owned. Being beholden to no one gave him sole control over his life's choices, and let him decide the level of suffering he'd accept for his art.

A couple of years ago Rico found it increasingly difficult to pay his bills on the coffee shop circuit, the traditional venues musicians used to build an audience. People can only tolerate so much change and Rico knew the key to a successful show was to intersperse his originals, which typically found couched enthusiasm, with widely recognized covers. Most of the shops where he played, and built a following, were discontinuing their music programs under pressure from the performance rights organizations to pay exorbitant licensing fees or face lawsuits. The law required royalties be paid the original artist, regardless of whether the venue or musician received payment. As a result, it was easier for the coffee shops and bars to let the music go than it was to pay into a dysfunctional system, or face fines that ran into the thousands of dollars. No one made any real money on covers played by coffee shop musicians; hence, there wasn't any money to pay royalties.

As much as Rico lamented his troubles finding venues to let him play, his life, for the most part, had been one free from sickness, heartbreak, and loss. Growing up without a mother, he'd never missed her. The closest to sadness he'd come was the passing of his much older father, a strange affair involving a bus and dozens of Japanese tourists. His father's death wasn't unexpected given his age, although the way in which he died was a bit of a shock. Rico had been through some lean times, but he'd never gone to bed hungry or cried himself to sleep. He was the one person from whom the proverbial grieving Buddhist mother could have borrowed mustard seed. Without the empathy life's struggles brings, a veil sat between the songs Rico could have written, had he truly experienced hardship, and what he wrote; uninspired originals, tepid and thin, that never won the audience over. With nothing of any consequence to say, Rico resigned himself long ago to playing covers and telling other peoples tales.

As Rico approached his fourth decade, squeaking a living from his music, he realized there might be an easier way. A friend of a friend told him G.O.D. was hiring, and the pay was reasonable. Rico figured he'd latch onto a regular salary, carry health insurance for the first time in his life, and use G.O.D.to underwrite his musical aspirations. Rico's purpose at G.O.D. was entirely self serving. He harbored no ambition to move up the corporate ladder.

Chapter Twelve

Mike stepped from the building at the end of what had certainly been the most unusual day in his life. The crisp fall air and sunshine were refreshing after the recent rain, and a day spent indoors under fluorescent lights. Dreading the drive home in his Yugo, Mike chanted a small mantra to Saint Frances of Rome, patron saint for safe travels, "No flat tires, no flat tires." He then expanded his mantra to a less precise but more realistic incantation given the state of his soviet-bloc auto, "Please let me get home alive."

He had the donut tire on the car with no spare in the trunk, and had been driving on it for a few weeks already. Slowly working his way out of debt, it'd still be a while before he'd be able to clear enough space off his credit cards to replace the tire. As he neared his car, Mike saw Rico and called out to him from across the lot. Mike was dying to tell someone about his day, and Rico was the only employee at the company who still talked to him after his involvement in the color wheel downsizing. Rico stopped and Mike began walking towards him. They met with Rico speaking first.

"Dude, what happened? I thought for sure you got canned."

"No, promoted. It was long overdue. They gave me Alan's job. I'm no longer a special guide. I'm either the CFO, or the Exalted Leader of Finance." It occurred to Mike he had no idea what his title was.

"You took over for the little man? What's up with that? I didn't know you knew anything about Finance."

"Well this is one of those types of jobs where you learn as you go. They gave me Alan's old office, so I got an office now. They gave me Alan's secretary, so I got a secretary now. I'm attending Doug's staff meetings, which, based on a sample of one, wasn't filled with the brilliant rhetoric I'd expected. I'm better suited to the CEO role. That's my calling. With my executive mind fully engaged you're going to want to hang on to your options. Up, up, up, that's where the stock's going."

"Right, like I'm invested in the company. You get to use the executive elevator?"

"That wasn't mentioned, so I'm assuming not. You raise a good point though. For the time being I'll probably take the stairs. There is only one chair in it, and my promotion to CEO, at this point, is really a foregone conclusion. It's only a matter of time."

"You get to use the executive parking lot?"

"Seriously? Have you seen the car I'm driving?" Mike pointed at his broke-back ride. "It's not in my best interest to flaunt my inability to secure a livable wage now that I'm in charge of the company's finances, or whatever I do as CFO. I may be the first executive in the world who drives a twenty five year old Yugo by necessity. The car the show Car Talk deemed the worst of the millennium."

"A millennium is one thousand years. That would make it the worst car ever made. That's the car that blew off the Mackinac Bridge?"

"Correct. I'd like to point out the car was stopped at the time it was blown off the bridge, thereby magnifying the terror of driving it."

"There's an office pool going on how long you're going to drive on the mini-spare. Sizable number thinks you'll eventually end up with all four wheels as donut tires. I'm going to tell you straight up I didn't even know they made car tires that small." Rico pointed at the Yugo's pint sized spare.

"That tire's not really made for a car," Mike confessed. "It's a lawn mower tire. With the track record at hand, it'd be a fool's move to bet against the possibility of four donut tires. However, a contrarian might consider whether the car has another two hundred miles left, and an opportunity to be fully donuted."

"I'll have to reconsider my wager. You feel like hitting Collings to celebrate?" Rico knew he was Mike's only friend at work and offered the invitation for which Mike longed.

"Drink beers instead of racing home to watch TV in my parent's basement? I'm using the word racing figuratively. "

"It's safe to assume I puzzled that out. I'd also like to comment that your parents have some culpability. They created an incentive to hang around when they heated the basement and carpeted the cement floor."

"I'd have been out of there years before with a cement floor and no heat."

"No. You'd be sleeping on the living room couch."

"Probably right. Anyway, beers at Collings would be great. I'll meet you there." Mike figured it would be an opportunity to get the insiders perspective on the legendary hatred between Cuddy and Mary. Mike considered Rico an expert on hate, given he recently completed the court ordered anger management class.

Because Rico had no aspiration to rise through the corporate ranks, and really didn't give a shit who was herded into the conference room and fired, he was one of the few employees in corporate America absent the ubiquitous fantasy of: a.) quitting his job and telling his boss to fuck off; b.) quitting his job, telling his boss to fuck off, and making a ton of money; and, c.) quitting his job, telling his boss to fuck off, making a ton of money, and running into his boss while driving his new Porsche. Void of any corporate ambition, Rico wasn't envious of Mike's change in fortune and didn't consider Mike's promotion a measure of his worth in the world. Rico couldn't care less if Mike was promoted. All Rico wanted was to write one great song before he died.

By the time Mike arrived Rico was already inside, seated in a booth, and headed into what looked like his second, or third, beer. Rico always sat with his back to the wall and his legs stretched out on the bench itself to make it easier to watch the girls walk by. Looking up, Rico told Mike that he thought he'd skipped out.

"No, no. In my over exuberant state I accelerated to almost forty miles an hour at which point the radio fell out of the dash. When I moved my hand from keeping the windshield in place to grab the radio, the windshield fell into the car and knocked the steering wheel off the column. It was stupid of me. Above thirty miles an hour the windshield has a history of crushing the driver."

"The steering wheel came off?"

"Yeah. It's happened before. I keep a pair of channel locks at the ready to grab onto the steering shaft and pull off to the shoulder."

"So, how did you fix it?"

"Got lucky. Guy in a Gremlin and another guy in a Renault stopped helped me out. Words of wisdom from both were,' Today you, tomorrow me.' While I put the windshield back in, one guy took care of the radio, and the other guy reattached the steering wheel."

"You did get lucky. That's twice today."

Mike slid into the open bench seat, and, like Rico, sat with his legs stretched out and parallel to the table. Mike ordered a pint of Guinness when the waitress dropped off Rico's beer. Sitting sideways in the booths, both watched the waitresses walk to and fro.

"After my promotion I'm in a meeting with Mary and Cuddy, and the hate is so thick you could feel it in the air. Mary is subliminally given Cuddy the finger, and he's playing with himself to piss her off." As he spoke Mike fiddled with the salt shaker. He poured a small pile of salt on the table and balanced the shaker, diagonally, within the pile. He then blew the loose salt away to create an optical illusion. The shaker appeared to defy gravity and balance on its edge.

Rico laughed. "Man, you don't know the back story? In the history of acrimonious relationships, I'm not aware of any as caustic as that between Cuddy and Mary. Lennon and Nixon got along better."

"No. My job as special guide carried a price. No one really talks to me at work."

The waitress dropped off Mike's beer, and having overheard part of the conversation weighed in, "Poor baby."

Rico raised his glass, "Cheers."

Mike clinked the glasses together, "Cheers."

"Well, sit back and let me tell you a tale of hate. Their hatred stems from a series of escalating events over the last few years. If you had to reduce it to its essence, Mary hates Cuddy because he's fat, ugly and gross. Cuddy hates Mary because she's a threat to his shot as CEO."

Mike smiled, encouraging Rico to tell the tale. "So what were the escalating events?"

"Unlike your well deserved turn of fortune, Cuddy crawled his way from the bottom, stepping on everyone to get to the top. He, Doug, and Alan, weathered the hard times after the company first went public. It wasn't that they turned the company around, it was success through attrition. They were unable to find other jobs. In dire straits, and with no one interested in running the company, the three stooges were promoted after their predecessors left for greener pastures. A couple weeks after Cuddy parks his fat ass on six, Mary randomly appears as the VP of Sales. Rumor has it that this was her daddy calling in a favor before he went to the big house. So they hit the top of the ladder at roughly the same time, albeit completely different paths. They are peers, everything is copacetic, and they are playing nice. At least it appeared that way. Then came, 'the call'.

Back in the day, once a year, Mary had an all hands teleconference. Every employee was required to participate and the call ran for an hour. The Board, key shareholders, patients and the press all dialed in. The call was the consultant's brainchild. It was intended to manage The Board and keep them off Doug's back, but Mary owned it. It was her baby and she loved the attention. The objective of the call was the same year after year. The press gets a few kernels about our strategy and key initiatives, The Board understands what we do for a living, and the staff and patients feel they've had a say in their healthcare. If all went well, The Board left Doug alone for another twelve months. The call ended with the verbal equivalent of a group hug. Everyone thanked everyone, and all cheered at the money to be made. There were probably one thousand people on the call."

Rico took a deep draw from his beer, and went on, "So, on the day of the call everyone dials in and Mary gives a read out of our promising future. She's all peaches and cream, profusely thanking everyone that works here and the patients. Anyway, in the middle of the call Mary is droning on and on about a series of strategic programs we are planning to launch, blah, blah, blah. In the background, growing louder and moving to the forefront of the call, is someone taking a huge piss. It sounds like a cow pissing on a flat rock. Mary keeps raising her voice to compensate, but the piss gets even louder. It's the world's longest piss, and finally Mary gives up. You can hear the suds in the bowl, and then the flush. Dude the toilet flushing sounded like a jet engine. Everyone on the call is laughing and talking about how gross it was. Mary screams the call's over; only she doesn't hang up. She thinks she's hung up, but she hasn't. Then we hear her frantically dialing and cursing, and she inadvertently conferences Cuddy onto the teleconference."

Rico played both Mary and Cuddy as he replayed the conversation.

"'Cuddy Macdonald speaking.'

'You fucking twat.'

'Don't get butt hurt sister. It wasn't me. That sounded like Doug.'

Cuddy was laughing uncontrollably in a high pitched squeal. From the sound, you could picture him holding his belly with one hand, the other bracing him on a table, bent at the waist. It was that crazy noise he makes that gets the cleaning crew crossing themselves."

Mike nodded he understood, for he too had made the sign of the cross the first time he heard Cuddy's squeal.

"From Mary's perspective, Cuddy suggested the unthinkable. If Cuddy was correct, Doug would rather piss than listen. And if Doug was willing to piss in the middle of the most important hour on Mary's calendar, then clearly she was number two, or maybe three, in line for his job. Mary's so flustered she hangs up, but you can hear her mumble in an exorcist voice that she will be avenged. We were all pretty creeped out.

So now, Mary has lost face. She looks like an idiot in front of her boss, her boss's boss, her staff, the patients, and the press. To rebound Mary starts hounding Doug to hold a corporate retreat. Mary believed that if everyone met her, they would immediately realize Cuddy was the problem. So, to keep peace, Doug agrees and lets Mary book a corporate retreat at one of the local forest preserves.

The retreat is the usual corporate bullshit: Catch me If I Fall, Everyone Over the Wall, and Teamwork Through Obstacles. The day ends with the Tube of Trust. The tube is a tunnel that runs about fifteen feet long with a diameter of a couple feet. It smells like hell and is kind of muddy on the bottom. Anyway, before anyone can go home, they need to pass through the Tube of Trust. So Mary picks this poor overweight manager from accounting to go first. The girl's in tears. She knows she won't fit but doesn't see a way out. Mary's barking into the megaphone, 'Trust, trust, trust.' With the girl kneeling to enter the tube, Mary announces Cuddy is next. Behind Cuddy she randomly assembles another half-dozen employees. Cuddy's screwed. He can't get out of it since Doug is right there, and if he doesn't go he looks like a total puss. He's so pissed you can see the veins busting out of his forehead.

So the manager gets on her belly and starts to crawl into the tube. As soon as her feet disappear, and mind you she's probably a third of the way into the tube, they send in Cuddy. Well she gets stuck. I mean stuck. The company running the show thinks it's a matter of trust, so as soon as Cuddy has his shoulders into the tube two of the company's workers grab his feet and start pushing him forward. They are using him like a battering ram to clear the block. While all this is going on Mary's still screaming, 'Trust, trust, trust,' pumping the air with her fists and marching in tight little circles in her blue business suit.

After about two minutes, Cuddy's head is wedged against the manager's junk. The poor girl can't go forward, and she can't go backward. She starts to panic, trapped in the dark tunnel, and shits herself and Cuddy's head. So now the tube begins to emit an unbelievable toxic event, and you can hear the horror in Cuddy's voice. He's squealing like a stuck pig.

So Cuddy and the manager are wedged in the tube. Cuddy's hands are at his side, so he can't wipe his head or move himself backward. He truly is," Rico paused for effect, "a pig in shit.

The idiots with the company realize they're never going to clear the tube going forward, and reverse course. You can see the worry on their faces as they grab Cuddy by the ankles and start to pull him out. By now the entire company has gathered around.

Well, they finally free Cuddy from the tube. His glasses are broken, shirt ripped, and one of his shoes is off. He looks like a Dairy Cream ice cream cone dipped in chocolate. He is so pissed he is shaking. Probably the only thing that saved Mary's life was Cuddy can't see without his glasses. Then Doug starts to laugh. I mean belly laugh. Like this is the funniest thing he has ever seen. Behind the laughter you can still hear the hysterical screams of the manager stuck in the tube. I heard they had to dig the tube out of the ground and cut it in half with the Jaws of Life to get her out. I guess a lawsuit is pending. So now Cuddy is the most humiliated executive in the company, not Mary. All in, the retreat becomes a huge coup for Mary.

Cuddy doesn't wait long before he strikes back. Mary is obsessed with looks. I am talking obsessed. Watch her. She gets twitchy and erratic if an unattractive person nears her, like it will rub off. When she sent that poor manager into the Tube it wasn't that she wanted anybody to go before Cuddy, it was the girl was homely and fat and standing way too close to Mary. Cuddy realizes this, and in retaliation he leverages Human Resources, which reports into him.

With Human Resources under his direct control, Cuddy is tasked with filling Mary's open positions. At the time we didn't have all the sales people we do today. Mary's furious, all she can do is specify the qualifications; education, work history, willingness to travel, that sort of thing. It's against the law to specify race, religion, or what Mary really cares about, looks. So Cuddy embarks on a campaign to staff Mary's organization with the ugliest people he can find. He was trying to fire the hottie, Sue. That should give you some insight into how far he is willing to go."

Having listed to Rico's tale without interrupting, Mike commented, "Dude, she is smoking. I was in a meeting once and she yawned. Every guy in the audience yawned with her, including Doug. He was at the podium."

"Yhea, she's about as hot as it gets. Anyway, Cuddy begins hiring the most repellant humans on the planet, the physical characteristics of whom make people involuntarily wince. Imagine every circus freak and carnie dressed in ill fitting polyester. There's even a dude that can stick his finger in his nose and have it come out the hole where his eye used to be. He hired him for one of Mary's key accounts."

"Seriously, he can do that?" Mike asked.

"Yhea, it's bizarre. But Cuddy's not done yet, in fact, he's building steam and he keeps hiring. Girls with skullets, you know that weird mullet thing where you're bald on top. He hires those with noses like cucumbers, teeth the size of playing cards, six hundred pounders, and the asymmetrical. He's got a lobster girl, bearded lady, missing link and wolf boy. It's like Mary's team fell from the ugly tree hitting every branch on the way down, only to land in the road and be run over by the ugly bus.

Mary is oblivious to what Cuddy's doing because all she gets is the number of positions he's filled, and in this age of political correctness no one says a word. Finally, the go live date hits and all these new hires show up in the lobby for their ID badges and transport to the hotel for orientation. That's when Mary meets her team for the first time.

She walks into the lobby, where they are waiting, a couple minutes late. The place is packed, and you can see Mary holding back the vomit as they surround her. Most of them are too fat to fit in the cars Mary had lined up to drive them to the Marriott. Mary's screaming like hell for utility vans and a flat bed truck.

Cuddy scored again, but unintentionally, when he inadvertently doubled her travel costs and its killing her budget. Each time they travel she has to buy two seats for most of them to fly, and pay the airline up-charge for the seat belt extender. So finally they get them all to the hotel and begin to settle in for orientation. As fate would have it, the Marriott is hosting the Preventing Lookisms Society at the same time the fuglies arrive."

"The what?"

"The fuglies. Not just ugly, but fucking ugly."

"No I know what fugly is. What's the society?"

"The Preventing Lookisms Society? It's a national, not for profit organization aimed at preventing discrimination, harassment and bias on looks. It also advances the cause of the ugly, and is a friend to ugly. Kind of like an NAACP for the unattractive. Most of the fast food chains, inventor of jeggings and the Segway are big contributors."

"You know, you learn something new every day."

"In an instant, Mary's new hires and the Preventing Lookisms Society are thick as thieves. As fate would have it the Society is meeting to decide who should be the recipient of the annual Preventing Lookisms Award. The Society has a press conference scheduled for late that afternoon to announce the winner. G.O.D.'s new hires can't say enough wonderful things about Mary.

The minute the Society sees Mary's team they immediately rescind the award they planned to give all McDonalds franchise owners and unanimously vote for Mary. So the Society calls Doug, who's out playing hoops and can't be reached. The call gets routed to Cuddy who not only enthusiastically approves, but calls CNN and a half a dozen other news agencies to capture the event live.

While Mary is droning on during orientation about the corporate history, back to the audience in a state of denial regarding her team, the doors are thrown open and in comes the Preventing Lookisms Society and half a dozen national news organizations with flash bulbs popping. Starting with the evening news, and into the following morning's papers ,there is Mary, sobbing in her Chanel suit, arms straight to her side, staring at the ceiling, tears streaming down her face as she is awarded the Preventing Lookisms Award. The Society assumed it was a lifetime of caring which has brought her to tears. Anyway, this pretty much waylaid Mary's 'Ralph Lauren-Hermes' vision of specialty pharmacy. For a while Cuddy had the pictures enlarged and hanging in the lobby. The pictures came down after the modern art incident, but Cuddy still has a bunch in his office."

"That explains that guy I always see with the head that looks like an eggplant."

"The one who wears the mustard yellow overalls and train cap?"

"Yhea, that's him."

"That's a girl," Rico corrected. Cuddy's mastery of the art couldn't be denied.

Mike and Rico both ordered another beer, decided to settle in for a while, and picked up the dinner menus. Flipping front to back on the laminated menu Rico opted for the meatloaf sandwich.

Mike vacillated between the Reuben and the turkey burger, eventually deciding on the burger. His budget didn't normally allow for the extravagance of a meal out, but with his promotion he decided to indulge himself.

Rico moved to the end of the tale, "At this point, it comes down to whether or not anyone can implement the cursed new computer system. I'm guessing with Alan's death the IT project will probably get passed to Mary, and the CEO's job will be hers to lose."

"You're right, Shap works for Mary now and Mary's been assigned the godforsaken project. So what does Cuddy do?"

"Cuddy's screwed. Mary won't give him any IT support unless he concedes defeat and signs off on the new system. No doubt he's scheming, but this Alan thing probably rattled him. Alan was unpredictable. He'd side with Mary on some things and Cuddy on others. But now that you're in the mix I'm sure Cuddy and Mary are trying to figure out how to gain your allegiance. Doug is all about the path of least resistance, and he'll side with whoever has two of three votes."

It occurred to Mike that he was about to inherit Alan's problems. At least those associated with G.O.D.'s bad debt and inability to get patients to pay their co-pays.

The waitress dropped off a large white plate with the meatloaf, and a red plastic basket with the burger. Mike was starving. He'd underestimated the nutritive power of crustless finger sandwiches and could feel the beers. As the waitress bent over she caught Mike trying to peek down her shirt. Rico kicked him under the table and quietly called him an asshole for getting caught.

With Mike rubbing his shin, Rico closed out the story, "So, Cuddy's points include urinating during the all hands call, the fuglies debacle, and Mary's Preventing Lookisms award. Mary's scored with the Tube of Trust, now has the IT group moved under her control, and stands next in line for CEO. That is, if she can complete the system project."

"So what's next?" Mike asked anxiously.

"Who knows? Cuddy has been slowly trying to undermine the IT group, and Shap seems on the edge of a nervous breakdown. Cuddy's not the brightest bulb in the drawer, but he knows what works. Rumor has it he's somewhat responsible for Shap's ongoing feud with the law."

Rico reflected on the moral to his story. "You know why Cuddy and Mary have all this time and energy to wage war against each other? In their world they don't know the competitors. As a result, they've begun to compete against each other for Doug's job. Their competition isn't about outperforming the other, which would be too difficult. It's about undermining the other. They celebrate when the other fails. Only one seat at the top, and when one screws up the other's odds go up a bit. On top of it all, neither one wants to work for the other, which would be demoralizing. My advice is to keep Cuddy close, but not too close. I'm also suggesting, quite arbitrarily I'll concede, you decline any dinner invitation to Cuddy's house, aka the Pig Farm. He'll try and draw you in, but I'm telling you to 'just say no'." Warning Mike, Rico rubbed his stomach to quell its unrest at the painful memory.

Mike couldn't leave the vague warning alone, "One reason, you gotta give me one reason to decline the invitation to dine at the Chateau du Cuddy." Mike smiled, second time today he'd used his French.

"His wife can't cook. She burns water." Rico paused as he built up the courage to tell the tale. "She drove around with a whole chicken in the trunk of her car for a week before serving it. Everyone at the dinner was admitted to the hospital. I spent 3 days in the ICU. Learn from my mistake. Reason enough?"

Rico added in a few more details on the fateful meal and Mike agreed, "You're a great person Rico. You may have saved my life." Mike pushed his bottle forward and clanked Rico's bottle noisily, "A votre sante'!"

"I didn't know you spoke French."

"I'm pretty fluent. Une autre bier?"

Rico agreed to one more beer, but was getting antsy. He wanted to figure out the bridge for a cheesy ballad he had been working on. With his glass empty, Rico shared a final thought as he rose to go, "Alan's death will fuel the war as they battle to oust Doug."

Mike contemplated Rico's words as he nursed his beer. He wasn't in any hurry to resume his drive home.

Chapter Thirteen

The bane of G.O.D.'s existence was a woman with a well followed blog that focused on her account of terminal illness, and what it's like to die when you are young and pretty. Hippie Helen, as she referred to herself on her blog, Helen's Blog, emerged as a reluctant leader in the patients' rights movement after the scathing diatribe she directed at G.O.D. aired on the national news. Helen wasn't as old as her nickname would imply, having been born in the mid 1970s. Her nickname was partly due to her liberal beliefs, but mostly based on her e-mail address: HipHelen@gmail.com.

A couple of months before Alan's jump, Helen walked through her front door and violently tossed her purse to the floor. She was shaking from the news she'd just received. Alone now, she broke down. Tears streamed down her face and dripped to the floor. She stomped her feet in a child's temper tantrum, "It's not fair!" Her arms flailed wildly as she fought an imaginary opponent. The part of life's journey in which she wondered how she would die was now behind her.

After months of complaining of a vague malaise that included headaches, problems remembering words, and a fateful morning in which she woke up and couldn't remember the last few hours, Helen learned she was dying. The only consolation in this knowledge was that the roller coaster of hope and despair, with its manic ups and downs, and hours in the antiseptic cocoon of the hospital, undergoing tests, scans and exams, was over. Her situation offered little hope; a five year survival rate of a few percent, and a mean survival time of twelve months from diagnosis. She probably had a year to live.

Next came the hard part. Sitting at the keyboard, Helen typed her daily blog. When she started her blog it was to keep her friends and family apprised of her life in Chicago. She moved to Chicago about a year ago, from a small town in northern California. Her blog was a fun way to stay in touch and share the crazy people and fast paced life of the big city with those back home. On many posts she featured a random person, a testament to the crazies that lived in her neighborhood. Recent pictures included a grandma with a rainbow Mohawk, and a six and a half foot body builder, in high heels and a Speedo, walking a small, pink poodle. Helen never intended her blog to be read by anyone other than family and friends, nor for it to become, eventually, the primary vehicle through which she voiced her growing concern that something was seriously wrong with her.

August 3, 2006

Helen's Blog

I'm just going to get to the point. A little while ago I left my doctor's office where the worst of my fears was confirmed. The doctor's exact words were, "We found something."

It's really, really, hard to believe this is happening and I'm bawling as I type. I was diagnosed with what I feared most. They won't call it terminal because I'm supposed to live a year, and get this; I could die before that of something else like a taxident in which two cabs collide, hyper-hydration in which I bet a random at the bar I can drink my weight in water, or any other event that isn't this disease. I'm screwed.

Speaking to you all through this keyboard, I have a weird feeling of guilt, even though I didn't have a choice in whether I fell ill. Not everyone dies of old age or lifestyle, sometimes it's just bad luck and you get picked. I suspect my life will now be consumed battling the disease, and fighting for each day while I struggle to stay employed and keep my health benefits.

If it wasn't for work that provides my health insurance, and the doctors in Chicago I'd return home today. Unfortunately, or maybe fortunately, I'm stuck in Chicago away from all of you as I travel this hard road.

Experts say there is a normal process of acceptance of mortality – denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. I think I'm going to be pissed off until my last day. This is so unfair. I had plans.

I wanted to let everyone know what's going on and to thank you for all your prayers and words of encouragement.

I love you all.

Hippie Helen

Helen posted her note to her blog. Her phone began to ring immediately, and she spent the next ten hours talking. The hardest two hours of her life were telling her parents. No parent should have to bury their child.

The doctor she'd seen earlier in the day thought it extremely important she begin a course of treatment, a combination of pills and IV infusion, immediately. The drug cocktail had a proven history of extending life. It wouldn't cure the illness, but it might buy a few months, and ninety days is a lot of time when you have a year to live. The drugs needed to be maintained within a specific temperature range, and the IV medication required infusion in a doctor's office with a pump. Because of the cost of the medications and unique handling requirements the doctor did not stock the medication, and the drugs were not available at the local retail pharmacy. She'd have to work with a specialty pharmacy to receive the drugs in the mail, and bring them to the doctor's office for the treatment.

With prescription in hand, she left the doctor's office assuming she'd simply call the 1-800 number on the back of her medical insurance card and order the drug. As it turned out, she spent half the day on the phone while her insurance company tried to determine whether the drug would be covered under her medical or pharmacy benefit. Given the cost of the medication neither wanted to pay. It was finally determined that the drug would be covered under her medical benefit, and supplied by her specialty pharmacy provider, G.O.D.

Before G.O.D. would ship the medication, she needed to submit to a battery of additional lab tests and receive prior authorization. She was vaguely familiar with the extreme side effects that were possible with the drug. Her doctor had briefed her and she couldn't imagine anyone wanting the drug that had any other choice. This wasn't a drug that was abused for recreational purposes. It was as likely to kill you as the disease itself.

The need for a prior authorization forced her to make a second trip to the doctor's office late in the day. Back at the office more blood needed to be drawn. As sick and tired of being poked with needles as she was, she complied with her insurance companies requirements. After an hour, her arms black and blue from the phlebotomist's repeated attempts, she filled a half dozen small glass vials with her blood. Hours later, having sat at the doctor's waiting for the results to come back from the lab, the nurse called her to the desk and handed her a stack of papers. Helen had them faxed from the doctor's office to G.O.D. She then called G.O.D. to confirm they had everything they needed to ship. G.O.D. told her to expect the medication in the next day, or so.

A day came and went, and finally two days later there was an urgent knock at her door. The UPS man stood on her stoop with a large box. She signed and brought the medication inside. Labeled on the box was a warning not to open the medication until she was at the site of administration, the doctor's office. She wondered again why the hell they didn't ship the medication to the doctor directly. Earlier she'd been told it was cheaper to sell the drug to the patient and only pay the doctor for administration, than it was to allow the doctor to bill for both the medication and its administration. What a freaking hassle. Inside she called the doctor's office to set up an appointment to begin treatment. It was the first time she'd felt any hope since the diagnosis was confirmed. There were several reported cases of patients living for years after the treatment, but they were the exceptional cases, with life's serendipity casting them three standard deviations from the mean.

Box in hand, she drove back to the doctor's office in downtown Chicago. She wasn't supposed to drive but didn't have much of a choice given the cost to take a cab. At the doctor's office the wait wasn't horrible. She sat in the waiting room, the box on her lap, and a half hour after she arrived she was ushered into a room to put on a flimsy cotton robe. More naked that not, Helen was then directed into the infusion area for treatment and told to sit in a large recliner. Surrounding her was a couple of dozen patients, in like chairs, tethered to small infusion pumps. The pumps thrummed with the defeatist sound of mechanical respiration as they pushed selective poisons into the patients to whom they were tethered.

A kind nurse hovered over Helen, and helped unseal the box. Upon its opening, which Helen had been explicitly instructed not to do until she was in the presence of a health care professional, Helen learned she had been shipped the wrong medication. Making matters worse the medication was frozen. The nurse shook her head in disgust and told her that the drugs had been over packed in ice, and the proteins were likely denatured and of questionable efficacy. Helen didn't fully comprehend the science behind the nurses' comment, but understood that even if G.O.D. had shipped the right drugs they wouldn't have been usable.

Helen was too disappointed to cry after all she'd been through in the last 48 hours; this was her third trip downtown this week; she'd spent hours on the phone working out whether her pharmacy or medical insurance was responsible for payment; she'd submitted to additional tests to prove she needed the drugs; and, now sat in the middle of dozens of strangers in a flimsy cotton robe with the wrong drugs in her possession. The doctor said it was important she start the therapy in the next couple of days, and it was clear she wasn't going to make that timeline. Helen wanted a shot at hope, and the medication had given her hope. She went home, took the phone off the hook, and cried herself to sleep.

The next morning she woke and dialed the toll free number to G.O.D.'s customer service. After spending the better part of a day dialing the number, and receiving a busy signal, Helen finally reached the automated attendant. Endlessly pressing 0, she finally reached a customer service representative as the sun began to set. Exasperated, but trying to remain calm, and reminding herself the person to whom she spoke wasn't solely to blame, she explained she had received the wrong medication and that, in her case, a few days could make a big difference. She reiterated she really needed her drugs. Helen was also clear to the rep that when you're given a year to live you don't want to spend your day on the phone trying to reach customer service.

The representative was sympathetic to her plight and asked her if she'd opened the drugs. When the rep learned she had, he informed Helen she would need to pay the full cost of the drugs before they could ship the correct drugs. The drugs she'd opened couldn't be returned or exchanged. Helen was beside herself. She didn't know they shipped the wrong drugs until she opened the box, and she certainly didn't have the money to pay for another shipment. Her illness had quickly drained her savings and her credit cards stood at their limit. The cost of travelling across the country, to visit leading doctors and obtain second opinions, was exorbitant. She was also on the cusp of being released from her job, since she'd begun inadvertently juxtaposing numbers, a sign of the disease's progression. Helen wanted to understand why the quality control function hadn't caught the mistake.

"We've outsourced that to our customers", replied the customer service rep cheerily. "Pretty slick, huh?"

At this point, Helen lost control. "You've outsourced quality control? How do you outsource quality control in healthcare? You're accountable to the lives of the patients you serve!" She was incredulous at the idea.

"It's a pilot program. The CEO wants to cut costs and is interested in what this will save. The idea is that we typically ship the right drugs, and the patients are in the best position to know if we've sent them the wrong meds. See, you noticed."

"Let me get this straight. You're telling me the frail and infirm are accountable for whether they take the correct medication?" She was becoming hysterical. "They've never been to pharmacy or medical school. How would they know if they had the right medicine?"

"I'm guessing they'd have to check on the internet. I'm not sure how they see this working. They are piloting it now trying to work out the bugs. Do you want me to see if I can find a good website for you?"

"What bugs?" she asked, as her voice rose in anger.

"We're not one hundred percent on our shipments. The spreadsheet we are running the pilot off is a bit of a disaster right now, and it looks like we might be off by one row. When they pulled the patients to assign into the pilot they accidentally shifted everybody's medication off a row in the spreadsheet. The rows in the spreadsheet don't quite line up like they are supposed to. So you probably have the medication for the person before or after you on the list."

"You mean I have someone else's medication, and they have mine?"

"Likely. Do you want the names of the patients before and after you in the list? It's probably with one of them and you can call them and work out a swap. We shipped everything at the same time so they're probably trying to reach us right now. Unfortunately, it's about a six hour wait to reach a representative."

"No. Just send me my drugs, and a return label for the wrong order. "

"I'm not allowed to do a return and reship without receiving payment."

"You've always shipped my drugs and billed me later, why is this different?"

"It's a different policy for re-ships, than for regular ship. The regular ships we have to ship, whether you pay your co-pay or not. The reships we can stick with you with the bill before we mail you your medicine. Plus, you opened the drugs, remember?"

Helen was done talking on the phone. Less than a year to live and she'd wasted the day in anger and frustration. Her back hurt from sitting all day. Her elbow ached from the blood draws. Her ear hurt from the phone. She wanted to be done with the call. From the rep, Helen took the names and numbers of the patients above, and below her, on the spreadsheet. She planned to call them to see if one of them might have her drugs, and she theirs, and if so to work out a swap.

Before she had a chance to hang up, the rep had one quick question, "Do you have any pets?"

"Pets?"

"Yeah, pets. I'm supposed to find out whether you have any pets. Perhaps a gerbil or house cat? Maybe a dog? I guess the pharmaceutical company wants to know."

Helen slammed the phone down. She then sat at the computer and typed her daily blog, her cross-hairs focused on the customer service, or lack thereof, she received from G.O.D. Helen's blog went viral when a national news program got wind of her experience and featured her on the evening newscast.

On air, Helen's poise, stunning looks, and story, captivated the nation. During the interview, Helen had to force herself to keep from recoiling when the anchor, whose behavior she found plastic and self serving, laid a sympathetic hand on her forearm. As the anchor moved to close the segment, Helen spoke the sound bite that rallied the nation, "The wrong drugs arrived frozen and unusable. The drugs I need to stay alive."

With Helen's words hanging in the air, the station cut to the bleach blonde co-anchor who cheerily announced, "Up next, lemon zesty meatballs!"

The anchor that had interviewed Helen answered, "Yummy!" and ended Helen's segment. The news then cut to a commercial for alpine scented laundry detergent.

Forensic accountants would later point to Helen's TV appearance as the moment G.O.D.s financial problems began in earnest, which coincidentally preceded Doug's attempt to cash out by a few minutes. The stock hit its nadir.

After her TV appearance, word of mouth and random queries on the Internet grew her following into a groundswell. Firmly entrenched in Helen's camp were other patients of G.O.D., friends, caregivers, and those who understand that there but for the grace of God go I. She also attracted a following among those that held a morbid, voyeuristic curiosity with death and dying. At one point a lottery existed to guess the date Helen would pass. Helen thought them overly optimistic.

Helen's original intent of blogging, to let everyone know about life in the big city, had morphed into a vehicle to apprise her loved ones of her illness and a means of managing her grief and helping her think through the cards she'd been dealt. Never in a million years did she think her blog would come to influence the financial valuation of a company. Financial analysts had come to see her blog as a predictive indicator, and were incorporating her perspective into their projections of G.O.D.'s worth.

Chapter Fourteen

Mike pushed his Yugo into the first spot he found after it stalled as he turned into G.O.D.'s parking lot, and walked to the front door. On his way he passed the small bump in the concrete where Alan hit, and skirted around the bright yellow, plastic tape which flapped uselessly in the wind as it declared in bold, black letters: Police Line - Do Not Cross. It was a little after eleven in the morning when he made his way through the heavy revolving doors and into the lobby.

Unlike twenty four hours ago, the oversized TV monitors in the lobby no longer flashed corporate propaganda of employees (hired actors) showing great satisfaction in their dreary work. These same TVs now showed a short black and white, grainy film of Mary picking her nose in the elevator and wiping her finger on the button panel. It was clearly the work of Cuddy and his henchman. Accompanying the looping video Janet Jackson's song, Nasty, blared from the tinny speakers in the ceiling. The war was on.

Facilities were a lesser known organization within Cuddy's fiefdom that reported into Wayne. Wayne wasn't just the volunteer Fire Marshal; he oversaw building maintenance, security, and office supplies. Most saw facilities as a necessary evil, with no value in building a corporate empire. Cuddy held a contrarian's perspective on this topic, however. As a schoolyard bully Cuddy was well versed in the persuasive powers of physical discomfort and embarrassment and saw facilities as a strategic asset given the ever present, "trust but verify" surveillance cameras, the corporate TV station, and other mundane, but important, aspects of daily comfort.

Of late, most of Wayne's time was consumed with adjusting the height of the urinal based on who Cuddy perceived as his main adversary. Cuddy had yet to figure out the means by which to convince Mary he was the rightful heir to the CEO's job, and that she should relinquish her claim, but given time he was sure he'd think of something. In the meantime, Wayne was under strict orders to monitor the surveillance cameras and find any, and all, unflattering events in Mary's day and report them directly to Cuddy. Cuddy's foresight had paid off. Late yesterday the security detail informed him Mary had defaced the elevator. Cuddy reviewed the tape and ordered Wayne to loop it on the corporate TV channel as an educational service to the employees. It wasn't enough to get her fired, but he could mortify her while he plotted her downfall. Cuddy called a couple of local television stations, and the Tribune, to see if they'd find the video newsworthy. Unfortunately for Cuddy, none expressed any interest.

Mike skipped the elevator and walked up the stairs. He wasn't certain whether he was allowed to use Doug's elevator. It wasn't discussed in the staff meeting, and he didn't want to get fired on his second day as CFO for such an easily avoided breach. With nearly the entire company hating him, Mike also didn't want to deal with the snide comments he was sure to encounter when he pushed, 6, the executive floor, in the crowded, staff elevator. Slightly out of breath he reached his new floor and worked his way over to his office. On the way he stopped in the pantry and poured himself a cup of coffee.

The restoration crew had his office back to its original condition, and as he'd predicted the, Not an Exit, placard was defaced with both a giant penis and devil horns. Studying the artwork he settled into the large leather chair, and, for kicks, put his feet on the desk. Although he'd only been up for a few hours yesterday's events conspired against him, and he struggled to remain awake. The pleasant smell of leather and wood polish, the hushed calm of the executive floor, and the ridiculous comfort of the office chair with his feet elevated were too much. In what seemed like an instant he was startled awake by his phone.

"Mike this is Cuddy. Get your sorry ass over here."

Mike repeated the end of Cuddy's sentence and then caught his reflection in the newly installed window. He must have nodded off for longer than he thought. The argyle pattern of the chair was pressed deep into his face. He rubbed vigorously to remove the telltale signs of napping. As he stood, he grabbed the cup of coffee he'd set on his desk before he'd nodded off and found it to be room temperature. Having slept longer than he'd expected he would need to revisit the pantry and reheat the coffee with the microwave. The latest fire alarm incident resulted in the removal of all microwaves except those on the sixth floor. Mike felt lucky he'd have piping hot coffee for his visit to Cuddy's office. Life really was better as the CFO.

Hot coffee in hand, Mike whistled as he walked the short distance down the hall. He found Cuddy's door closed, and rapped lightly. Cuddy grunted from inside to confirm it was Mike, and told him to come in and quickly close the door. Inside, the shades were drawn, lights off, and it reeked of urine. It took a second for Mike's eyes to adjust to the darkness. Sight restored, Mike found Cuddy standing before him in his tighty-whitey underwear, Princess Leia t-shirt, sporting a large yellow stain on the belly, black socks, and dress shoes. Behind Cuddy, on its own white pillar, was The Chubby award. Cuddy's pants and shirt hung from the erection like bulge. "Close the door, boy," Cuddy boomed.

"The door!" Mike repeated. Then realizing the possible implications of the situation, he hurriedly added, "This makes me extremely uncomfortable." Mike stood, frozen in the darkened office with the door closed. On the wall opposite Mike hung a picture of Hippie Helen taken from her newscast. Her eyes were scratched white, several of her teeth were blacked out, and a fumanchu mustache decorated her upper lip. Penned on top of her head, and drawn suspiciously like those that defaced the placard in Mike's office, were devil horns.

Cuddy told him to shut the hell up and sit down. He pointed at the visitor's chair indicating where Mike should sit. Unable to stop himself at the implication of being alone with Cuddy in his underwear Mike sat. He remembered Rico's warnings about keeping Cuddy close, but not to close, and squeezed his butt cheeks until they ached.

Cuddy shuffled to the corner of his office and pulled a large piece of fabric off what Mike incorrectly assumed was a new bookshelf. Underneath sat an antique exercise machine with a large leather belt. The rage in the 1950s, the idea was you could vibrate fat into muscle. An idea later proved scientifically unsound, but popular at the time. Mike didn't bother to ask why it was in Cuddy's office, nor why Cuddy appeared to be about to strap himself into it wearing his underwear and dress shoes. Cuddy answered the question in Mike's mind as he stepped onto the machine and strapped the belt around his waist.

"This is all about exercising without effort. My fine Irene says I need to get to less than five hundred pounds or we are going to break the bed and cause the home some structural damage. You know I can't quit that good thing." Cuddy winked. "Hell, I figure I can shake off thirty pounds by the end of next week. Wayne recommended this, found a bunch in an old warehouse." Cuddy closed his eyes, leaned into the belt, and flipped on the machine. The floor shook. It was deafening.

Looking around the office Mike saw the carpet under Cuddy's chair irreversibly peppered with grease and oil. Quarter size spots stood dark against the carpet's beige color. Between the keys on Cuddy's keyboard, peanut shells and pretzels littered the spaces. The wall near the trash bin was covered in stains. A lone French fry stuck like wet spaghetti to the ceiling, and a half-eaten jelly donut sat on a book shelf. The cleaning crew faced a daily, monumental task against this formidable opponent.

Cuddy abruptly began to shout over the cacophony, "I don't give a damn how you ended up working here with your credentials. I truly do not. Truth be told, I don't think I'd ever seen you before Doug called you up. However, I am willing to allow you to join the big man on Team Cuddy. And you know why you want to be on my team? First and foremost, at this level in the organization, you don't have to deal with the damn customers." He opened his eyes and pointed at the vandalized picture of Helen. "They suck. They complain. They make your life hell. 'Oh,'" he mimicked, "'you sent me the wrong medicine.' Get over it honey, nobody lives forever."

Cuddy paused, as the exercise impacted his breathing. "Second we build an alliance and when I ascend the throne you are my boy. Now, you may be thinking you'll claim the CEO spot as your own, or maybe side with Mary. That would be damn foolish. I assure you, you will be working in the mail room by day's end if you're not on my team. Regarding the CFO role, you and I both know you don't know shit from Shinola. I seen you surfing Wikipedia. I see everything."

Mike sat tall and straight in his chair, nervous he'd been found out as a fraud. His hand shook as he took a sip of coffee. Cuddy was clear on what he wanted and the ramifications if Mike didn't behave accordingly. As Cuddy shook on the machine, the office began to smell strangely of grapefruits and ammonia. Mike moved his hand in front of his nose and mouth in an effort to filter whatever contaminants he could from the air he breathed. He focused on taking short, shallow breaths.

Beads of perspiration began to show on Cuddy's head. "I am in a battle for control of G.O.D.'s future. Doug isn't long for his role. The minute Doug's options are back in the money he's gone, and damned if I'm not going to be the next CEO. Plus a lot of the board members ain't fond of Doug." Cuddy lowered his voice, bent forward at the waist, and whispered, "They ain't convinced he got the skills. The say it about him behind his back." Cuddy repeated himself, "Ain't got the skills," and nodded slowly to confirm what he said was true. "Me, I've got skills." Cuddy pointed at himself with his thumb, bumping the large yellow stain on his shirt. The tip of his thumb turned yellow, and Cuddy stuck his thumb in his mouth and sucked on it.

"With Alan gone, it comes down to me or Mary, and I ain't working for no skirt. No way I'm working for that hoochie mama." Cuddy adjusted the leather belt which had fallen below his enormous belly and now appeared to be sawing him in half. "My goal is to make certain Mary doesn't realize the goals Doug laid out in his staff meeting. Let me make this clear, we are at war with Mary and that little, bald dipshit Shap. I want Mary castrated, like a tunic."

Overwhelmed at Cuddy jiggling on the machine, and his bluntness in planning to destroy Mary and Shap, Mike repeated, "Tunic! Tunic!" Then, without realizing it, he corrected Cuddy, "I think the word you mean is eunuch. I don't think women can become eunuchs." The blended smell of ammonia, urine, and citrus grew, and Mike covered his nose with his other hand.

"I swear to God I'm going to stab you in the ear with a pencil, boy." Cuddy shook his head in anger. Or, it might have been the machine shaking Cuddy's head. Mike struggled to read Cuddy's body chemistry while Cuddy shook on the vintage Battle Creek Health Builder.

"You understand my message, boy? Your job is to help me derail Mary and either complete Shap's mental breakdown or send him back to India. I'm giving you a choice. With Shap, I've given you a big head start. You seen that scar he's sporting?" Cuddy squealed in delight remembering his marksmanship. "That boy got the reflexes of a heroin addict."

In his big Nebraska voice, Cuddy made it clear, "Ain't no way in hell I'm signing off on a system that can't manage pets. The system has gotta manage pets." As Cuddy shook, he wondered how anyone could be stupid enough to overlook the obvious need for a specialty pharmacy's computer system to consider the patient's pets out of scope. Cuddy knew of Doug's refusal to sign-off and piled on. "Plus, I've solved how to meet the goal Doug assigned me without Mary's help, and I sure as hell ain't to be helping her. Damn if I ain't to be the next CEO."

Cuddy began to sweat profusely. Shaking on the machine was proving more difficult than he'd expected. "Now let me provide you some business insights. The issue we have in this company is a lack of food to fatten the piggies. You provide more food, the employee works harder and become more productive. This is the type of thing books get written about. I'm talking meaningful books. Now let me pose a question, What do you think is the food?"

Mike had no idea what Cuddy was talking about, and his situational echolalia engaged, "Food! Food!"

"Damn straight, you need food. Office supplies are that food, boy. Productive employees consume office supplies. If A equals B, then B equals A. Consumption of office supplies equals productivity, and, therefore, productivity equals consumption of office supplies. I plan to drive our employees' productivity by forcing office supplies on them. I know how to feed the piggies, done that my whole life, and this ain't no different. Farming pigs is all you need to know in life. You ever farm pigs?"

Before he could answer, Cuddy shook his head sadly in the negative. "Boy, you don't know shit from Shinola. Pigs eat what you give em. More food means bigger pigs. All I gots to do is force office supplies on my staff, and they will become more productive. They become more productive, I get my bonus. I get my bonus, and I get to be the new CEO. I get to be the new CEO, I get to fire Mary."

Cuddy closed the topic, "I want truckloads of office supplies delivered to the fourth floor. I am going to feed the fires of productivity." Finished on that topic, Cuddy changed course. "I'm also very interested in pursuing operant conditioning as an employee motivational technique. You familiar with this? "

Mike nodded no. He had no idea what the hell Cuddy was talking about.

"Damn boy, you aint as bright as your credentials would lead us to believe. Operant conditioning proved itself by training chimps to fly. Christ, with that type of management tool you could triple productivity. Unfortunately, Mary's got control over Legal, and you damn well know I'll get no support I start hitting the low performers with cattle prods. I guarndamntee I'll have orders shipping I hit those nine dollar an hour slackers with the prod." Cuddy referred to the means which were used to teach chimpanzees to fly as man entered the race to reach the moon. The chimps were taught a command sequence with which to execute the buttons on the drive panel in the space capsule. Incorrectly executing the sequence resulted in painful electronic shocks. Over time, the chimpanzees learned to execute the procedure flawlessly to avoid electrocution.

Cuddy prattled on, and, upon further reflection revised his earlier offer to allow Mike to determine how best to undercut Shap, "That asshole Shap has got to be returned to India. I just can't have him in the country no more. Once he's out of the office, I can have Wayne unplug the server and disconnect him from the network. Then we fire the corporate travel agent, and he'll be stuck in India. This is not that complicated. He is cheap and dumb. He will never pay the airfare to return, and it'll be months before we select a new travel agency."

Mike saw no value in pointing out Shap was Native American, not Indian.

"You'll do well to side with me boy, I've a proven track record. See that award behind me?" Cuddy pointed to The Chubby which stood repurposed as a clothing rack. "I won that for increasing orders. I'm going to create a level of physical discomfort that will force Mary to quit. You see the video this morning?" Cuddy laughed his weird pig like laugh. "I want her penis on a plate!"

Softening his tone, Cuddy extended Mike an invitation to dine at the "casa de Cuddy" and enjoy some of Irene's fine cooking. Visions of the pugs jumping on the dining table in the middle of dinner and running off with the chicken came to Mike, as he recalled Rico's warning. He also remembered Rico's traumatized whisperings of Cuddy's open mouthed fury as he spoke, his mouth full, food flying everywhere, while Irene's lazy eye rolled aimlessly in its socket. Mike was convinced the bravery required to dine with the MacDonald's on their home court didn't exist, and he readied to politely decline the invitation. At this point Cuddy's chins and man boobs no longer shook in concert with his stomach, creating a vertiginous effect.

The disturbing image, combined with the dinner plate comment forced Mike an involuntary vurp, and a combination of baby vomit and burp nested in the back of his throat. Mike was certain Shap grew up in Detroit, pretty sure Mary didn't have a penis, and damn sure he needed out of Cuddy's office before he threw up. Mike jumped up, clapped his hands together, and bolted out the door. As Mike ran from the office, the flab to muscle transmogrifier machine began to make a high pitched whine. Cuddy's weight had gained the upper hand in the battle. With the air now ripe with the burned scent of ozone, the electrical engine moved into mechanical tachycardia.

"Step 'n Fetch, get your ass in here," Cuddy hollered for Wayne. While exercising, Cuddy had solved the problem of how best to persuade Mary to quit the race for CEO and time was wasting. He wanted Mary's seat pitched downwards fifteen degrees, like a slide. Cuddy knew anyone that spent their day sliding off their seat, digging their clothes out of the crack of their butt, would break psychologically. Cuddy simply needed to give gravity an opportunity to exert its influence. He'd seen proven results through Alan's interaction with gravity. Cuddy laughed maniacally at his brilliance, "Never underestimate the power of physical discomfort. Never. Mwah, ha, ha, mwah, ha, ha."

Wayne laughed with him, his asymmetrical face contorted by his hyena like snorts.

Chapter Fifteen

A little while later, walking at a hurried pace past Mary's office, Mike heard Mary call out to him in a very loud voice. Mike was a couple steps past the door to her office when she called, and his instinct was to pretend he hadn't heard, sneak back to his office, and hide. As he tiptoed away, Mary's voice grew shriller and he became certain she would keep yelling until he made an appearance. To avoid her escalation to a full on temper tantrum, Mike acquiesced. He circled back and poked his head into her doorway.

Looking in, Mary appeared to have breakfasted on vodka. She sat slightly off center, tilted to one side, and one of her eye lids sagged limply. That he stood before someone emotionally and mentally unstable was his first impression. It was clear Mary had not taken assignment of the IT project well. Mary extended her hand without rising and unenthusiastically congratulated Mike on his new position.

Mike stepped forward and hesitantly shook her hand. Mary crushed his hand in her viselike grip. As Mike winced, his thoughts wandered to whether she could undo the lug nuts on a car wheel without a wrench. If so, she might be really be helpful at some future point in time as the Yugo was absent a tire iron.

As he rubbed his hand, hoping to make the dull ache go away, Mike looked about Mary's office. Pictures of Mary decorated the walls, from floor to ceiling. The pictures were everywhere. On the bottom of a large and expensive silver frame, that stood prominently displayed on her desk, were Alan's initials. To the victor go the spoils, and the frame was booty captured when Mary pirated Alan's office. Many of the pictures were at corporate functions Mike had attended, yet the pictures often featured a potted fern or garden gnome in lieu of the person Mike remembered at the event. Case in point, on the desk sat a picture of Mary receiving the Preventing Lookisms Award. However, the picture showed Mary, surrounded by about a half dozen potted ferns, receiving a large crystal bowl from a six foot garden gnome. Mike remembered seeing the original pictures in the newspaper with Mary surrounded by her fugly Sales team as she received the award from the Society's president, an obese little man whose head was larger than his torso.

Seeing Mike looking at her photos, Mary commented, "Mike, I don't want you to be a potted fern. You don't want to be a fern, do you? You are a person." The crushing grip and adulterated pictures created an unpleasant sense of Stalin's Russia.

Mike nodded affirmatively, and then thinking he might have inadvertently implied he wanted to be a large plant, clarified his answer, "I don't want to be a fern." He shook his head back and forth to emphasize his desire to remain a person, not a flowerless plant.

"Good, I knew you didn't," Mary said cheerily. "Doug is soon to be thrown out, and I'll be running the company. I've a vision of specialty pharmacy as the glamour industry of the twenty first century with its own reality show. Perhaps something focused on the hot boss whose minions want nothing more than to bask in her presence, and maybe a tinge of mischief. The boss's office might have a stripper pole. Hmm, wouldn't that be exciting and naughty?"

Mary stood up, held her hands wide apart, and clumsily executed a quick flurry of steps that ended with a jump off her right leg. She landed on both legs and fell heavily into the bookcase. Dust showered down, and Mary brushed herself off. "The boss would open each show singing a large theatrical number with dozens of dancers, a full orchestra, and all the trappings. You can see how this would be huge?"

Mike stood as stone. Any movement of his head, inadvertent or intentional, vertical or horizontal, would be perceived as an answer and might trigger the minx's next affront to propriety and decorous behavior.

"Mike, as kind as you know me to be, I've no place for ugly, or the friends of ugly. None. I'm no friend of ugly." Mary returned to her chair and took a deep swill from a coffee cup containing a clear liquid. "Imagine a work environment in which everything is beautiful. It will be like living in a fashion magazine. The people, furniture, building will all be sublime. There will be nothing unpleasant to sully the eye." Mary spoke as if in a trance and burped quietly.

Falling from her dream state Mary continued, and her voice rose, "My life's calling is hard, hard work. I fight against the fast food industry, suburban strip malls and inferior genetics. It's a noble battle, and when I win, and I will win, that fucking porcine ape and the piglets that work for him will be out the fucking door." She slammed her fist down, jarring everything on the desk briefly into space. Distracted by her fantasy, Mary's unfocused gaze stared into the distance and the briefest smile graced her lips.

Mike's autism kicked in, and he repeated, "Out the fucking door!"

Mary smiled, certain Mike stood by her side. "That's right, out the fucking door." As a reward she leaned forward and looked hard to her right to provide Mike an uninterrupted shot of her cleavage. Her tits were her best asset, and she found it insulting if she wasn't down-shirted. She took a deep breath and pushed her chest out.

Mike didn't mean to respond, and wasn't keen on looking down her shirt, but he was powerless against cleavage and stole a glimpse. Cuddy had threatened him if his allegiance strayed, and he was clearly becoming a pawn between two warring camps. As diplomatically as he could be, Mike tried to excuse himself. "I'm certain we all share in a vision of a bright future."

Mary jumped from her chair and stabbed Mike in the chest with her finger, a pained expression on her face as wrinkles gathered on her forehead. "I don't give a fuck about you or your future. I want that Goddamn potted ham out of here, and you're either going with him, or you're with me, you little fuck bucket. You need to convince him to sign-off on the computer system and let me be the next CEO." Her visceral, caustic reaction caught Mike off guard.

Mike stumbled back into the hall. He could smell the burnt machine parts from Cuddy's office. He walked back to his office and called Rico, thinking it best to talk through what he just learned and get his perspective. Rico might even know what a 'fuck bucket' was. He also figured Rico would appreciate a head's up regarding Cuddy's plan concerning office supplies.

Rico didn't provide much insight, having never heard the phrase, "fuck bucket". Although, Rico thought it was a pretty kick ass saying and said he might use it as a song name one day.

Mike wasn't sure what to do. A background of ditching work and fabricating life experiences hadn't prepared Mike for the unusual circumstances as G.O.D.'s exalted leader of Finance. It wasn't clear whether the situations he faced, as Cuddy and Mary sought his allegiance and plotted to undermine each other, fell under Wikipedia's definition of the CFO's job. Mike was also afraid his knowledge of their plans might give Doug fodder for Mike's likely trial on incompetence and corporate malfeasance charges.

Mike decided to err on the side of, 'less is more'. He wadded up the paper upon which he'd taken notes during his meetings with Cuddy and Mary, shoved it in his mouth, chewed, and swallowed. He didn't want any of this coming back to haunt him should he be sued. Of more concern, resolving these types of situations might keep him at work past his three pm scheduled departure time, and put him in the height of rush hour on the drive home.

Chapter Sixteen

Mike's non-committal ending to their brief meeting rattled Mary, and she realized she needed to sort out how best to handle this situation while she plotted Cuddy's downfall. With Adonus and Romulus both home on Sunday morning, Mary headed to church. Mary had found that church was the best place to plot, return calls, and answer e-mails. She also found it a damn good place to paint her nails if she didn't have time to get to the salon.

Church wasn't Mary's idea. Her life coach thought it might provide a necessary avenue to rebuild some of the glamour Mary had lost in her battle with Cuddy. Her coach was certain Mary could win the Parishioner of the Year award, if she lobbied hard and wore a skimpy bikini top to mass. Mary was hesitant, until she realized that with twelve months prepaid church dues she had her choice of a designer bible with gilt cover, or pink handled revolver with a mother of pearl cross inlaid on the handle. She chose the revolver. It's what Jesus would have done.

As Mary sat plotting in the front pew it became clear to her that she needed to end Cuddy's blight on the earth. The nose picking incident cost her dearly in the glamour department, and she was itching for payback. No more screwing around. First, she would remove the last vestiges of computer support and drown his staff in manual labor. She'd make him beg for a new system. Second, she'd make certain to park in the spot nearest Doug and send the subliminal message she should be the next CEO. "Christ," she thought, ironically, as she never thought about religion when she was in church, "she'd kill his career if she could pull this off. Who would promote a bumble that couldn't put things in boxes, or parked in the wrong spot?"

With her plan now before her, Mary called Shap at his home. The preacher was mid-sermon, but that wasn't her concern and she spoke in her cell phone voice. The congregation, preacher, and chorus shared in her half of the conversation. "Shap! I need you at the fucking office."

"It's my daughter's birthday. It's Sunday. We're going to have a birthday party," Shap answered, already resigned that his argument wouldn't sway Mary and he'd end up at the office in the very near future.

Rising slightly from the seated position to better use her abdominal muscles to raise her voice, Mary shouted into the phone, "I don't give a fuck if you ride the short bus sitting next to a kid in a hockey helmet licking the window. Get your ass to the office. It's not my problem." Returning to a seated position Mary adjusted her bikini top and retied the string behind her neck.

"It's my daughter's birthday, it's Sunday," Shap pleaded, a last ditch effort.

"Shap, I swear to fucking God I will beat you like a red-headed step child. Do not give me cause." With that she hung up, set the phone in her pocketbook, and began filing her nails.

"Watch my coffee you Goddamn klutz," she barked as her pew mate's child moved to kneel and pray. Looking around, Mary realized almost all the parishioners were glaring at her. Many of whom held their mouths open in shock. With all eyes on her, Mary was certain she was a shoe-in for Parishioner of the Year award and quickly reached for her lipstick and compact.

Among the reasons Mary might not garner all the votes she expected from her fellow church goers in her pursuit of the award, her prolific use of the finger was sure to be cited. Twice, she'd given the preacher the finger while peeling out of the church parking lot. She didn't realize who it was until after she'd driven past him. "Who the hell stands in the middle of a parking lot waving to people?" she'd asked herself as she swerved to miss hitting him while screaming, "Dumb ass," out the window. She also thought most of these Sunday pansies drove their minivans way too slow. Time and again, she'd been forced to pass on the shoulder, or weave through traffic. She wasn't shy about a little confrontation with another in her flock if it meant she'd make the light. Or, at least be the first in line at the intersection.

Shap borrowed his daughter's bike and rode the ten miles to the office. He couldn't risk another encounter with the law, plus his wife had the family car and she wouldn't be home for a couple of hours. The bike was a pink sting ray with three speeds and a flowery basket on the handlebars. He placed his briefcase into the basket and began pedaling. His knees came above his chin each revolution of the crank, but he forced himself to clear his thoughts and keep a positive attitude. He focused on his gratitude at not being unemployed in Detroit. An hour later he walked into Mary's office to find her skirt pushed well above her knees, and Mary bitching about sliding off her chair. It was clear Mary was in a foul mood and the atmosphere toxic.

"What the fuck happened to your head?"

"Cuddy shot me with a dart gun."

"He fucking what?" Mary jumped up, excited at the possibility of legal recourse. As she stood she adjusted her skirt and panty hose.

"Shot me in the head with a dart gun. Said Doug dared him to do it."

"Did you take this to Doug?" Mary asked as she returned to her seat.

"Doug laughed, and said Cuddy showed him the dart gun. He said he didn't realize Cuddy was serious, but that it was a pretty damn good shot and I should appreciate fine marksmanship."

Mary leaned forward; excited that something this common might prove to be Cuddy's end. "We're taking this to Legal. We will sue his ass and have his balls forcibly removed." Her shift in posture slid her bottom toward the front of the chair, and she quietly mumbled, "Fuck," while readjusting herself. She stood and again smoothed her skirt.

"I have no witnesses. He'll claim I walked into crown molding, or some damn thing."

"Crown molding? Do you know what crown molding is?" she asked. "What did you do when he shot you?"

"Nothing at the time, it hurt like a son of a bitch. But after he left, I pissed all over his desk and a little on his chair."

"Nice. Well played. I've pissed in there many a time myself to mark my fucking turf." Mary nodded approvingly and sat back down. "Look, I know for a fact Cuddy is plotting to send you back to India, and castrate me."

"India? I've never been to India in my life. You understand I'm Native American? I'm feathers not dots. Born and raised in Detroit. My family's been here a thousand years longer than Cuddy's. How do you know?" He nimbly avoided commenting on the planned castration, while his mind worked overtime and subconsciously blocked her urination comment.

"I fucking heard him screaming his plans to Mike. You think he has a modicum of common sense? You think he shuts his door when he plots? Fuck no! He is an idiot. The only part of his plan I didn't hear was whatever he's schemed with Wayne. That mixer he straps himself to was starting to strain and I couldn't hear him over the ball bearings coming to the end of their life," She grew hysterical as she jumped from her chair a third time to undo the wedgie and smooth her skirt back into place. "This fucking chair sucks!" Cuddy's plan to tilt the seat of Mary's office chair downward, like a slide, was working.

Standing and picking the hose and its tangled mess out of her backside, she looked up and found herself surprised to see Cuddy and Wayne staring at her from the doorway shaking their heads in disgust. "It's the curse. You done got the curse!" Cuddy pointed at Mary as she picked at her rear end. Wayne started to giggle, Cuddy followed suit, and both ran off like little school girls before Mary could respond.

Mary walked to her door and slammed it shut, then, angrier than before, laid out her plans, "I want Cuddy's team working off pencils and paper. All the systems are to come off line and you're going to show me what needs to be unplugged. I want his sorry, sack of shit, worker bees here night and day filling orders." As she sat back down she nearly slid off her chair. Mary caught herself on the chair's armrests, just before she fell onto the carpet. "Fuck!" She again stood to push her skirt back to its rightful position, and undo gravity's relentless reign on her undergarments.

"Mary the computer system is built. You just need sign-off. The only function it doesn't have is pet tracking, and no one can explain what this is. It enrolls patients, sets up their orders, tracks shipment, collects data for pharma and handles billing and payment." Shap counted on his fingers as he listed all the work that had been completed. "It does everything. Doug and Cuddy have no idea what's been built. That's the problem! There's nothing left to build." Shap grew anxious thinking of the year he'd wasted on the cursed project, and repeated himself, "The IT project is complete. It's finished. It's done. There is nothing left to do!"

Mary waved her hand dismissively. "That's not important. I don't give a fuck what's built or not built. What's important is Cuddy surrender, and to make that happen he needs to be beaten. And not just beaten, but humiliated, shamed, and made to grovel. Now show me what needs to be unplugged."

Shap knew nothing could be done. A few weeks ago it occurred to him that perhaps he'd simply been misunderstood, and Doug and company didn't understand all that was needed was their sign-off to take the computer system live. For weeks he'd tried to get on Cuddy's calendar, but Cuddy categorically denied his meeting requests. He tried Mary, but she too declined his invitations. This was the first time Mary was even willing to broach the subject. When he tried to reach Doug, the number listed in the directory went unanswered and his e-mails bounced back.

Defeated, Shap led Mary to the computer room and unlocked the door. Inside the small room sat a couple of servers, fans whirling to keep them at the appropriate temperature. Shap pointed guiltily at a server a couple feet from where they stood.

Mary pointed to confirm and then walked to the machine. As she sang, "Momma had a baby and her head popped off," Mary unplugged the server and violently tore the three pronged plug from the power cord. The frayed wire fell to the floor, and she pocketed the plug. The fan quickly stopped spinning, and G.O.D. no longer ran on computers.

Chapter Seventeen

Rico worked on flyers for a show he was playing Saturday night, when his phone rang. As he was about to answer, Nels darkened his doorway. Rico held his hand above the ringing phone waiting for Nels to speak. From his disheveled look, Rico assumed Nels wasn't there to ask for another day off to test an invention, or to offer Rico in on the ground floor of his latest business opportunity. His instinct told him that Nels appearance and the ringing phone were comingled, and he'd be well served to hear Nels out before he answered.

"Don't answer that. It's Hippie Helen," Nels spoke between huge gasps of air. Rico's hand remained in limbo inches above the ringing phone. "She is on the warpath." Nels stood, bent at the waist, with his hands resting on his knees and still not in full control of his breathing. Nels had run the distance of the floor at great personal peril, given the office supplies stacked at precarious heights in the hallways. True to Mike's warning, twice a day Cuddy had the office supply company delivering to the fourth floor, as Cuddy sought to drive output with a push based model. Nels labored to catch his breath.

Rico knew all about Helen. Cuddy had scheduled an ongoing half hour daily call to review her latest blogs, and had assigned a couple of employees to refute her statements and assassinate her character. "The war path? You kidding me? Nels, what the hell happened?"

"Nothing. I mean I didn't do it, but we sent her the wrong meds again. I did everything you told me to do," Nels pleaded, as the phone continued to ring.

"Nels, I told you to personally check her order before you shipped again. C'mon man." Rico had played a late show the prior night and had only been able to grab a couple hours of sleep.

Somehow, in the very recent past, Nels became the recipient of two black eyes, and Rico figured getting bitched out at work on top of whatever event had darkened his eyes wasn't going to fix the problem at hand. "Sorry, the show started late last night and I'm burnt. I'm not blaming you," Rico offered, in a conciliatory attempt to retract his harsh words.

"I checked the meds, but the pharmacist shipped what the system said to ship."

"What system? We don't have a computer system anymore."

"That's the problem. The pharmacy found an old server in a boiler room and plugged it in. There is an old version of the computer program on it," Nels explained.

Rico shook his head in dismay when he considered how out of date the software and its resident data must be. The phone rang on. Helen wasn't going anywhere until she spoke to Rico. Rico voiced his frustration, "You know that system is wrong. Why didn't the pharmacist call her and ask what she is supposed to be shipped? Or, call the doctor?" Rico was anxious to pick up the phone, its incessant ringing doing his hangover no favors.

"Exactly what I told him. He said he didn't have time to call patients and make his production quota. Since Doug outsourced the quality control, Cuddy's doubled their production quotas."

Rico dismissed Nels with a wave of his hand and nodded it would be okay as he picked up the receiver. "Hey, Helen." Since her first shipment had arrived, frozen and unusable, Rico and Helen had been on the phone almost daily. Initially the calls dealt with resolving the paperwork and financial mess Helen inherited when G.O.D. shipped hundreds of patients the wrong medication. More recently though the calls dealt less with the business of providing Helen her drugs than the opportunity for Helen and Rico to connect and talk about arts and entertainment. They'd quickly developed a distant friendship over common ground. For as much time as they'd spent on the phone, Helen never disclosed, nor had Rico asked, the details on her illness. They'd joked about getting together for coffee, or a beer, a couple of times but had yet to make that happen.

"Hi Rico, it's me, Helen. You shipped me the wrong medication, again." Rico expected a torrent of curse words and anger, but Helen's tone was more resigned. "I've the refill for a little girl who I just learned died of leukemia. This has happened before, and you can imagine how thrilled the family is to have me calling and asking them if they can hustle about and see if maybe they have my drugs. Oh, and if so, could they please go to the post office and mail them to me. I don't have it in me to call them and fix the problem. I want you to ship me the correct meds and not bill my credit card for the wrong meds."

"I just learned about this from Nels, the rep you were talking to. Can you tell me what you're supposed to receive? I'll fill the box myself and ship it to you."

Helen mispronounced the drug's names, but offered the spelling and the dosing she'd been prescribed. She also gave Rico the name of the prescribing doctor in case he needed it. Pleading, she added, "Rico, the doctor says it's really important I follow the regimen. I need to take them today."

"I'm not sure if we can ship them for same day delivery this late in the afternoon."

"If I can find a way up there is it possible for me to pick them up? I'm not allowed to drive since my diagnosis, so I'll need to call around to find a ride."

"You're only a half hour or so from here. How about if I drop them off around six, on my way downtown? I'll pick up the wrong meds when I'm there."

"That would be great. You have my address?"

"Yeah, let me make sure I can get a map to your house. Hold on one second." Rico reduced the flyer he was working on for Saturday's show and navigated to Google Maps. Shap had done Rico a favor and worked out a means to keep his computer working. It was one of the few computers in the building that was still functional. Typing in Helen's address the screen quickly gave the route to reach her house. "Yeah I'm good. Oh, and take my mobile number down so you can reach me if something comes up. Ready?"

"Hold on, you need to go slow. I have a little trouble writing, and my short term memory isn't so great." Rico read his number to her. It took a few times, but he was pretty sure by the end of the call she had it. She read it back to confirm.

"Rico, I'm not mad at you, or at Nels, I just need my medicine."

"It's our screw up, I'll make it right. I'll see you around six."

Rico was now burdened with getting the correct medications from the pharmacy that sat on the first floor. He had no authority over the pharmacy, and no direct access to the drugs, but knew almost everyone that worked in that part of the business. He headed to the elevator to ride down the three floors to the pharmacy. In the hallway, he ducked under, stepped over, and contorted himself to navigate the growing stacks of office supplies. Cuddy's productivity plan was in full swing. After a short elevator ride, he walked to a door that required a special security card. Rico's card wouldn't open the door, so he waited until someone came out and slipped past. Once inside, he walked over to the counter at which the pharmacist in charge was working. The face was familiar, but Rico couldn't place a name.

Rico extended his hand, "I'm Rico. I'm a manager up in Operations. We've got a recurring problem with a patient. Twice we've shipped the wrong meds, and she needs what she's been prescribed by day's end." Rico pulled out the note card upon which he wrote the details of the meds she needed and the doctor's number. The sheet also contained details on what she'd been shipped.

The pharmacist didn't reach out to shake hands, but took the piece of paper from Rico's hands. As he looked at the paper, he slowly typed the information into the computer and hit, "Enter". The computer reeked of the mid-1980s. Its cathode monitor covered the better part of the desk, and on its DOS based screen the cursor blinked as it waited the next set of typed instructions.

The computer didn't seem to have the information he sought, and the pharmacist walked over to a wall of old wooden file cabinets. He spent a few minutes walking back and forth until he finally settled on a cabinet, groaned loudly, bent down, and opened the bottom drawer. Flipping through the chaotic mess within, the pharmacist eventually pulled out a thin manila folder from which papers spilled. He groaned a second time as he stood. His appearance was that of a man who spent most of his day muttering under his breath.

"The meds we shipped are what the system says to ship."

"I understand that, but it's not the medication she needs. I just talked to her."

"System says it is."

"You, and I, both know the system is worthless. Be a good Nazi, and ship the meds she was prescribed."

"You mean kill the Jews?"

"No you dumb ass, I mean be a human being."

"Oh, you mean be a good German and a bad Nazi."

"Exactly."

"No can do. I have to ship what the system says."

"Even when I stand here and tell you that I just talked to the patient and it is the wrong medication? What does the folder show?" Rico looked up to see most of the technicians in the pharmacy watching what was quickly becoming a heated argument. With Rico's history with waterfowl, he would have thought the pharmacist likely to be more respectful. "You have the doctor's number, call him and ask him what he wrote."

A young pharmacy tech nearest the argument looked at Rico and rolled her eyes. She mouthed the word, "Asshole," in reference to the pharmacist. Rico nodded in agreement.

"I ship what the system tells me to ship, doesn't matter what the folder shows or doctor says. My job is to make sure what I ship matches what the system says to ship. That is my job. My job is not to figure out what the doctor wrote. We've outsourced that function to the patient." The pharmacist crumpled and tossed the piece of paper into the recycle bin at the far end of the counter. The paper went in without hitting the sides, and the pharmacist raised his hands over his head, "Goal!"

It was then Rico remembered this buffoon. He was one of Cuddy's henchmen when Cuddy was first promoted from janitor. Cuddy had cast him off and left him behind in his ascent, but at the time they worked together they were friends. This clown, Cuddy, and a couple of other losers, used to sit on the same side of the lunch table, nudging each other as they watched the women walk by. They scored the girls asses one to ten. In an effort to build allies, Mary had implemented a program that loaned large windbreakers for the girls to tie around their waists. After a while most of the girls gave up and ate in their cars.

Rico walked away. He had loosely considered coming across the counter and beating the pharmacist within an inch of his life, but didn't have the time or energy for more court ordered anger management sessions. Also, his weapon of choice, the Big Bertha, was in the van. As he walked away he worried how he would explain this to Helen. Things didn't look good.

A couple hours later, as Rico sat in his office and tried to figure out the best way to call Helen and give her the bad news, he looked up to see his doorway darkened the second time that day. It was the technician from the pharmacy with a paper bag in her hand. She looked nervous as she checked the hall behind her to make sure she hadn't been followed. Before he could ask her what was going on, she threw the paper bag to him and ran off.

Inside the bag were the meds Helen needed, and a bill for $12,000. Half the problem was fixed as Rico now had the meds, but it was going to cost Helen. She'd have thirty days before the dunning cycle kicked in, and they began to harass her for the monies outstanding. Rico still hadn't made it completely right, but at least she'd get her meds today. He had no idea what he'd do if she was still alive in ninety days when her refill came due. He took the bill from the bag and put it in the top drawer of his desk.

Rico didn't want to risk losing the drugs now that they were in his possession, and thought the best option would be to hide them in his coat. As he walked across his small office, and placed the bag in his coat pocket, he noticed the hallways were now almost fully blocked with office supplies. Boxes were stacked without rhyme or reason and in many places they reached the ceiling. There must have been three hundred boxes. As he looked out his doorway, he watched a couple of the employees crawl underneath the supplies that blocked the narrowest parts in the hall. The employees patiently waited their turn. No one wanted the Tube of Trust redux.

When they first started stacking office supplies in the hall, Rico thought it was funny. Now it wasn't possible to navigate the floor. Rico stood a long time looking at the hall and realized how to make things right. He quickly returned to his desk and dialed the phone, "Nels, can you come down to my office? I have a sure fire, one hundred percent, guaranteed, money making, business proposition for you."

Chapter Eighteen

Nels grew up an only child in an upper middle class family on Chicago's north shore. He was the son of working professionals, which made great amounts of money as the stock market reached new heights at the turn of the twenty first century. As his parent's wealth and comfortable trappings increased Nels' ambitions reacted diametrically, arguably hitting the lowest point when his parents mentioned, "Trust fund."

Bright but lazy, Nels graduated near the bottom of his high school class, missed the deadlines for college applications, and subsequently attended but flunked out of junior college. Unemployed, and living at his parent's tony estate, Nels saw a future in which after he moved his parents into an assisted living facility he'd remodel their home into a swinging bachelor pad festooned with bear skins rugs and mirrored ceilings. For years, he'd been pressing his parents to consider the move when they turned fifty five. The youngest age they became eligible for residency.

Beyond outliving his parents, and repurposing their home to better suit his lifestyle, Nels' interests in life centered on smoking dope, getting laid, and growing his hair. As Nels entered his early thirties, his metamorphosis was nearly complete. He simply needed his parents to finalize the details on his trust, the trust to start writing checks, and his parents to hand over their house keys. When he completed those milestones, Nels would be one of the few in life who can proudly proclaim they've realized their dream. In Nels case, he will emerge as the highly coveted, but elusive, trustafarian; an unemployable, trust fund baby sporting dreadlocks, and a holier than thou socialist agenda.

The turn of events that derailed Nels' plans for a life of work avoidance, and led to his employment at G.O.D., began innocently enough and like almost every other day since Nels dropped out of junior college ten years before. As Nels' parents quietly shared a basket of warm blueberry scones, and read separate sections of the Wall Street Journal, the calm of their quiet suburban morning was violated.

Nels pulled into their driveway, windows down, while his truck stereo blasted the acerbic rants of the Sex Pistols. He misjudged the distance to the back end of his parents Mercedes and clunked loudly into its bumper. "Oops," he burped, as the Mercedes rocked back and forth. The car's alarm rang out at the violation and cycled through its myriad sounds, from depth charged submarine to imploding nuclear facility. Nels killed the rumbling diesel engine of his truck. As he stepped from his vehicle, a beer bottle fell to the driveway, rolled loudly to the street, and testified to his slightly inebriated state.

His arrival woke the majority of the neighborhood. As the neighbors peeked out from behind their blinds, they shook their heads in sad resignation to his sorry state and spoke of the wasted talent, the disappointment, and the shame. The neighbors knew of what they spoke, for many of them had adult children asleep in the bedrooms of their youth.

Crooked and unsteady as he went, Nels walked to the front door with a can of beer in one hand, and the last beer in the six-pack dangling from the plastic stringer at his side. As he entered the house Nels overshot the tiled entranceway and noisily bumped into the wall. A framed picture crashed to the floor. "Oops," he muttered, as he fumbled to answer his phone.

In the foyer, Nels launched into a mostly one sided conversation centered on the evils of capitalism, "Marta, I read your rebuttal to my Facebook post, and I'm going to tell you why you're wrong. Those in favor of chains and any like Wal-Mart brethren will scream this is capitalism, and that capitalism is the backbone of America. That's a skewed perspective. This is the evil of commoditization, in which every town offers the same retail experience and customer service is provided by minimum wage employees absent choice and education.

As goes retail so go the arts, with the same uninspired music pumped from corporate rock stations, coast to coast. As a result, they and the music, even the Goddamn music in the elevators, kills your self-esteem. Page couldn't take it. Music absent the artist's intent as Pena, channeled through Miller, never gets caught in the funky shit going down in the city. Caught instead in the funky stuff, whatever that is. You couldn't pay me to run that corporation." His rant threw his diaphragm out of sync, and he began to hiccup.

Looking at his wife, Nels father spoke resignedly, "I think he means they wouldn't pay him to run that place. I don't think they'd pay him to do anything. I don't think he's employable." It was Wednesday, at six thirty in the morning.

Finished with his diatribe, with whoever might also be up at this hour and in the mood to talk to the intoxicated Nels, Nels smiled at his parents. He winked at his mother, and clicking his cheek like a chipmunk snapped his fingers. The snap culminated in his index finger pointing at the person to whom he spoke, "Moms I'd love one of your full on omelets. You know the one where you separately sauté the ingredients and then combine them. It's so much more flavorful that way, and decidedly better than what I get at the bistros. How about you get after that while I freshen up a bit?"

Nels held out the last can of beer on the stringer. "Pops? No? You sure? It's still frosty and cold. Alright then, no sense letting it waste." As he walked down the hall to his room, alternately bumping off both walls with his shoulders, he opened the last can of beer and shouted over his shoulder, "Make sure to use the organic eggs and cold pressed olive oil." As he turned into his room he slammed into the wall and a second picture crashed to the floor. "Oops!" Again, he hiccupped.

His mother's unspoken response was to give him the finger.

Fifteen minutes later, Nels walked back into the kitchen from whatever freshening up had occurred. The only noticeable difference in Nels' before and after state was the reek of patoulli oil and the music which blared from a set of headphones he wasn't previously wearing. Disappointed at not finding his mother slaving at the range, Nels voiced his displeasure, "When did we adopt a no hot breakfast policy?" Nels sat, and dined on organic orange juice and the remains of the blueberry scones.

As he watched his thirty-something, nappy headed son eat, Nels' father ran the math in his head. Nels wore newly bought vintage jeans ($285), an unbuttoned dress shirt ($300), Birkenstock sandals ($150) and a Rolex ($4,500). He wasn't certain the electronics' cost, but the oversized headphones looked expensive and the smart phone appeared to be new. As he saw the future clearly, perhaps for the first time, his father had an epiphany. But, before his father could speak, Nels phone rang.

Nels launched into another of his monologues, in which he impugned corporate America and its leadership. "No Marta, my issue with running a corporation is the wanton abuse of power. Greatness is not found in the benevolent dictator. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. No, you look at Tolkien, Frodo notwithstanding. Look at Hussein in Iraq." Nels' slightly drunken state compromised his hearing, and he grew louder, "My problem with corporate America is deeper than the leadership. I object to the devaluation of life. In their twenties, the young Turks don't believe the statistics will apply as they are all certain they will run the show. In their thirties, reality begins to set in, but the Turks are screwed with a mortgage, bitchy wife, and shitty kids. In their forties, and God help them as their destiny becomes clear, they stand waiting for those above to fail or die. In their fifties, they pray to survive the downsizing, as they hide beneath their desk to avoid being seen. Dante's ninth circle has nothing on daily life in the corporate world as a middle-aged Director.

Spend your life to earn a fifteen year service award, the terrestrial equivalent of the shitty bag of peanuts you fight over on a flight. They aren't worth a nickel when you're feet are grounded, but you need to rationalize how you've spent your life. I'll be no party to a wasted life, measuring time's passage by the number of times I'm forced to change my password at work."

Nels shook his head and vehemently disagreed to Mara's response, "No that is incorrect. I drive the Mog because I'm not going to participate in the denigration of American entrepreneurialism. You saw what The Man did to Tucker? I'll be no part of that."

Timing Nels need to pause, as even the disenfranchised youth of the wealthy require oxygen, his Father interrupted. "Nels, my young man, your mother and I have finalized the provisions of your trust."

Nels moved the phone from his ear, excited this would be the day he realized his life's dream. From the unattended phone Marta's tinny, nasal voice could be heard ranting.

"Nels, your trust will pay three fold whatever you post on the adjusted gross income line of your federal tax return, or that you can prove in income. No sense involving the federal government if we don't have to, eh, old sport? Until age eighty that is. Upon your eightieth birthday, you will inherit the family fortune, or, more accurately, whatever we have not spent."

It was news to his wife, but she was still pissed off about the omelet and broken pictures, and played along, "I think eighty two would make more sense."

Her husband nodded his assent, and a quick bump of the knuckles sealed the deal. "Eighty two then, old sport," his father corrected. "The trust pays three fold what you earn until age eighty two, at which time whatever money that remains is yours to squander as you see fit." His father then laid out the mathematical principle that would govern Nel's life, "Three times zero, equals zero."

The color ran from Nels face, and he weakly asked, "You what?" His phone fell to the floor.

"Oops," said his mother.

His father handed him a page from the classified ads. Boldly circled in red ink sat a customer service posting for G.O.D., whose only requirements was the ability to dial a telephone and speak. Bingo, his dad thought when he circled the ad twenty minutes ago, I've seen him do both. Circled on a separate page was a rental apartment that hit at the heart of the matter: Cheap Apartment in Shitty Area.

Incentives clarified, and knowing their son's motivation to be limited to those instances which were self serving, his parents gently kicked their thirty something son from their house. While Nels finished his breakfast, his parents haphazardly packed his belongings in a dozen cardboard boxes and hurriedly tossed the boxes into the back of his 1974 Unimog. With the truck packed his parents stood and waited for the now procrastinating Nels to finish breakfast.

Nels slowly drank his glass of orange juice. His mother, tired of the wait, took the glass from his hand before he'd finished. His father then pulled Nels chair, with Nels still in it, from the table.

Nels stood, sighed loudly, and then walked unsteadily to the front door. The same door through which he'd entered less than an hour before.

As he walked, his mother commented he looked drunk.

His father refuted her concern, "No drunker than when he arrived. We'll deny we saw him."

"Nels," his mother yelled as Nels walked from the house. "Take the route by the school. Follow the school zone signs." She answered her husband's puzzled look, "The way the moms drive and text he'll never be noticed if he weaves."

Her husband repeated himself, "We'll deny we saw him."

Nels lumbered from the house in the strange, German military vehicle. As he drove away, Nels looked more like a crusader on a relief mission than he did a middle aged trusafarian forced from his parent's upscale mansion.

As Nels rounded the corner, his parents ran inside and grabbed the phone book. Looking under 'Locksmiths,' his father found an ad to re-key the locks.

His mother hurriedly dialed the phone. "Do you re-key locks?" she asked hopefully.

"We do. We are running a Slacker Offspring Special for forty five dollars per door. It's very popular in the north shore area."

"Perfect. How soon can you get here?" Nels was lazy; he wasn't stupid. Given the chance he'd return by day's end.

With his key no longer opening the door to his parent's manor, Nel's life became wholly consumed with reclaiming that which he'd let slip through his fingers. Accustomed to life's luxuries, Nels required the steady income gainful employment provided, or more precisely the steady income gainful employment plus threefold your adjusted gross income provided, to sate his desires. Nels current plan is to invent something, anything really, that pays well enough to allow him to empty his trust in a single year and retire. His obsession with retirement, or, more accurately, work avoidance, has led to an endless stream of inventions and a host of get rich quick schemes, none of which share any commonality other than the mind of Nels, the place where the ideas were born.

After seeing a grilled cheese featuring the Virgin Mary sell on eBay for $30,000, Nels quickly developed the Jesus Toaster; a silhouetted foil wafer which was placed inside a toaster to produce religious images on an as needed basis. With his patent pending, he had yet to reap the financial benefits, although he'd electrocuted himself a half dozen times developing the product and burned through a hundred bucks worth of foil and wonder bread. The toaster segued to an online store that featured all the major religious figures and a smattering of holiday inspired offerings burnt into the bread of your choice, including, but not limited to, panini, grilled cheese or toast. Pending his first order, he was hoping the phone call from Rico might have been just that customer. Answering the phone, he found it to be Rico.

Enticed by the carrot Rico dangled, Nels quickly returned to Rico's office and rapped his knuckles against the door. At the knock, Rico looked up and asked the question which was foremost on his mind, "Nels what's the story on the black eyes?"

"I was testing a recent innovation in the world of gravity sports. I've got an opportunity for one more investor if you're interested." Nels threw in his patented chipmunk noise, wink, and finger snap to try and close the deal.

"You were what?" Rico ignored the investor question. Both he and Nels knew Rico lived paycheck to paycheck, and Nels wasn't much of an inventor.

"On Saturday, with the snow falling, I jumped off the toll bridge on the south side of Chicago to see if the Humpty worked. My head slammed into my knees when I hit the water."

"To see if what worked?" Rico quickly moved to the real question, "Why would you do something so stupid?"

"The Humpty is my latest invention. It's an egg shaped device with a flat standing platform intended for the recreational pleasure of jumping off large bridges into the water below. Between the egg shaped bottom and the standing platform sits a half dozen springs. The springs dissipate the force upon impact. You experience the joy of free falling, but without the water enema."

"Why would you build this?"

"I figured I'd go the bungee jump one better. It's like parachuting without the plane or parachute. Fortunes were made off the bungee, and this could be the next big thing."

"We saw how well parachuting worked for Alan."

"I wouldn't call that parachuting, as much as gravity having its way with you."

"Needless to say the force was a little more than you expected?" As he reflected on Nel's logic, Rico asked a second question, "Who made fortunes off the bungee?"

"Many people got very rich. Anyway, I either misjudged the height of the jump, the dissipative properties of the Humpty, or both. It's entirely possible the jump would have been safer without the Humpty, which may force me to reposition the product as something that creates the illusion of landing from a great height. The black eyes aren't the worst part. I had to be rescued by my buddy in a rowboat, and the prototype Humpty now rests on the bottom of the inlet. The fact that it displaced less water than it weighed was a design flaw I hadn't considered, until the Humpty pulled me underwater, like an anchor. My accomplice threw me a lifeline from the rowboat and winched me from the icy depths. Man that water was cold, but it was big air."

Behind Nels, and from nowhere, Cuddy appeared as if summoned by an evil incantation and broke into the conversation. "You want big air boy? Pull my finger." He stuck his finger in Nels face. Nels, caught off guard, flinched involuntarily. Cuddy's finger smelled like sauerkraut.

As his finger waggled in Nels' face, Cuddy raised his right foot off the ground, as if kick starting an imaginary motorcycle. Cuddy's face strained in concentration, his eyes bulged, and the veins in his forehead pulsed heavily. He seemed on the edge of losing consciousness.

A look of concern passed between Rico and Nels. "Stroke?" Rico mouthed, expecting the morbidly obese Cuddy to crash to the ground at any minute.

Nels nodded, and answered, "I think so."

Rico began to rise from the chair to run for medical assistance, but before he reached the door Cuddy sent forth a fart that rocked the floor.

"Big air. That's big air. Breathe deep boys. That's Irene's chicken salad. You can smell the feathers." Cuddy laughed, and as he as he waddled away his body tilted dramatically from side to side to accommodate his sizable mass. His passage was slow and difficult, and as he went he slapped the boxes of office supplies in approval.

Rico was in shock. He didn't see that every day, and certainly not from the Chief Operating Officer of a public company.

Nels had tears running down his face.

"You crying?" Rico asked in concern that Nels might be injured.

"No, my eyes are burning. I've never been that close to ground zero. That's the type of thing that keeps Homeland Security up at night. Late at night."

"Why don't you step inside and close the door? Let's keep as much of the breathable air in the office as we can." Per Rico's suggestion Nels stepped into the office and quickly closed the door behind him.

Rico smiled, "I've a sure fire business opportunity, and I'm letting you in on the ground floor."

Nels leaned forward and greedily rubbed his hands together, "Do tell."

Chapter Nineteen

Later that day, and a little after five o'clock, Rico stood in his doorway and found himself shocked at the number of boxes that were stacked in gravity defying piles in the hallway and in the spaces between the cubicles. Since he'd met with Nels, Wayne had continuously delivered pallets of office supplies to the fourth floor. Labels on the outside of the boxes proclaimed their contents: binder clips, copy paper, pens, pencils, staplers, computers, office furniture, artificial trees, and much more. Many of the boxes marked, 'Office Furniture,' had been torn open, the top of the boxes cut with a car key, or scissors. Inside, the employees had hoped to find privacy screens or tall walls with which to modify their cubicles, and remove themselves from the withering gazes of Cuddy and his henchmen, who randomly appeared, clipboards in hand, and demanded more as they marched up and down the aisles.

Looking at the obstacle course that stood before him, Rico loudly proclaimed, "The cowards never started, and the weak died along the way." He kneeled on the ground, the halls to full to allow passage while standing, and began the arduous journey to his van. In the side pocket of Rico's coat was the paper bag with Helen's medication. As he crawled under the boxes he dragged his computer bag and lunch box behind him. The opening in the hall was too tight to accommodate him and his baggage, simultaneously. After a few minutes he reached the end, where sunlight again showed. He wriggled from under the last of the boxes, relieved to escape the claustrophobic tunnel, and stood up in the elevator lobby. "God help us if the fire alarm ever rang in earnest," he thought.

Arriving in the parking lot, almost twenty minutes after he started, Rico approached his ride. The standard issue, serial killer, pedophile, contractor van in white, was ideal for a performing musician, but he was the first to concede it creeped a lot of people out. He'd converted the back into a pull out bed to make it easier when he played clubs far from home, or found himself in an altered state of consciousness and didn't want to roll the dice with a DUI, or its ugly stepsister a DWI. Below the platform that held the pull out bed and a couple of mini chairs, sat guitars, amplifiers, and other musical equipment, neatly nested into shelving he'd designed and built. He'd wager, as an accomplished urban camper, he spent upwards of thirty nights a year in the van leveraging the sleep where you parked option.

Rico unlocked the driver's door and climbed in. As he settled into the driver's seat, he looked at the map he'd printed and headed out accordingly. From G.O.D.'s campus he pulled eastbound onto a city street, and drove until he accessed the southbound highway. The traffic was bearable and he made good time. As he drove a stick-on, plastic hula dancer shimmied on the dashboard. He didn't turn the radio on; instead he thought about how he would explain twice sending Helen the wrong drugs. Twenty minutes later he exited the highway, hung a left at the end of the exit ramp, and drove another couple miles to Helen's street where he hung a final right to find her home the fifth on the left. He parked on the street, walked up the driveway and onto the front porch, and rang the doorbell.

Rico was a little nervous and hoped to avoid a verbal altercation. Although he and Helen had built a reasonably strong relationship over the phone they'd never met, and she had every right to be pissed. After the tech had thrown him the drugs, he called the doctor's office and pretended to be the pharmacist to confirm that what he had was exactly as prescribed. He couldn't afford another screw up. While he waited, he drummed his fingers on his leg and figured he'd wait another minute before he rang the bell again. He didn't want to leave the drugs on the porch and have them go missing. As he moved to ring the bell a second time, the door opened and Helen stood before him.

Helen was in her late twenties, and much, much, cuter than he anticipated. She wore her bright, naturally red hair just past her shoulders and dressed like a college student in faded jeans, a white cashmere sweater, and small, gold hoop earrings. A blue, jacquard patterned silk headband pulled her hair back. Thin and lithe, she looked as if she'd run cross country in college. Even with all the time they'd spent on the phone, Rico had never seen her national news interview and incorrectly assumed Helen was a fat old woman with long grey hair, mu mu, and chunky jewelry. Other than the strain in her face, noticeable in the corners of her eyes, she looked remarkably healthy.

Fumbling with the door, she cradled a phone against the top of her shoulder and mouthed, "Rico?" to confirm the stranger before her.

Rico nodded.

She smiled briefly, waved him in, and motioned for him to sit by pointing at the couch in the front room. Still invested in her phone conversation she turned her back to Rico.

As Rico walked to the couch, he couldn't help but overhear what she said.

"Yes Dad, I'll call them later today and see what they're doing for clinical trials.

No Dad, I'm not going to do that. Surgery isn't an option, and I'm not going to die on the operating table.

I understand, and I'll think about a live-in nurse or somebody to stay with me. I understand how important it is to you and Mom."

I promise. Okay. Love you too, bye."

Helen turned the phone off and stared at her bare feet. Her head hung in resignation. She took a deep breath and turned to look at Rico. "You must be Rico," she looked him up and down, arms crossed, and then reached out to shake his hand. "I was expecting a much shorter man with a large caterpillar mustache."

"Everyone does." Nervous, he popped a lozenge in his mouth and began sucking on it. His cheeks dented inwards. "It's a nickname that comes from my habit of always putting cough drops in my mouth. You're familiar with the Ricola cough drops? Well, they call me Rico."

"Rico," she rolled it around in her mouth as if it was a ball bearing. "Rico, would you like a drink? The drink we've often talked about, but never had. I definitely need a glass of wine, and I'm not supposed to drink by myself. Well technically I'm not supposed to drink, but what's it going to do kill me?"

Rico shrugged, "Sure, why not?" Rico didn't expect to be inside Helens house sitting on the couch and waiting for a glass of wine, but to leave now would put him in the heart of rush hour. Wine wasn't his first choice, but he figured he'd kill a half hour and catch the tail end of the traffic jam. Also, it wouldn't be the worst outcome if he patched things up with Helen. It would make his job a lot easier.

Helen walked back into the room with a glass of red wine and a beer. "You don't look like a wine drinker, but I can get you wine if you'd rather. Something about you says beer drinker."

"No you're right, I prefer beer." Rico took the bottle from Helen. "Wow, beer in a bottle. I usually end up drinking beer from tall cans. I drink a lot of warm beer in tall cans."

Helen's sense of humor hadn't left her, "Should I pull the six-pack from the fridge?"

"No, no, this is good." Rico laughed.

Unprompted, Helen sat on the couch next to Rico and put her feet up on the coffee table. She slouched low, as if seated in a chaise lounge with her head and knees at the same height, and stared into the distance. It surprised Rico that he didn't feel uncomfortable seated next to Helen. Although they'd spent hours on the phone, they'd never met. The same could be said of Helen, who required more personal space than anyone she knew. Yet here they sat, bumping elbows in a surreal Norman Rockwell scene that included the middle aged, wanna-be rock star, and the terminally ill, impish, young redhead. Holding his beer with one hand, Rico reached into his coat with his free hand and pulled out Helen's meds. She took the bag and set it to her side, opposite Rico. Helen didn't open the bag to see what it contained, which Rico thought flattering and a little surprising. If the roles were reversed he was certain he'd have checked the bag's contents. G.O.D. was zero for two on getting her the right drugs the first time.

"I was going to lay into you for the grief your company's put me through, but I think I'll just tell you my story and hope that will get you to see things from my perspective. I don't think I've ever told you why the meds you send me are so important, lately we always seem to talk about the fun things." Rico nodded and listened, he figured this was coming.

Helen didn't speak for what Rico thought was the longest time, and they sat, each absorbed in their own thoughts, then, without being asked, she began to tell the story of her illness. "It started off innocuously enough. I'd forget words, have a dizzy spell, headaches would linger. I always seemed to wake with a headache. Nothing that says something is really wrong, but enough that it catches your notice. My work was demanding, so it wasn't uncommon to hear others at work complain of the same things. I even went to see a doctor, and he told me I was dehydrated and under stress." She held her arms out in front of her, palms up, implying, 'what the hell?' "Seriously, stress was his diagnosis. As if I'm a frail tropical bird that suddenly appears in Chicago and is troubled by the lack of a rain forest.

Then, a couple of months later, I woke up in my hallway in the middle of the afternoon in a huge thunderstorm and didn't remember anything. The tree in the backyard was hit by lightning, and the strike woke me. At first I thought I might have been hit by lightning. There must have been twenty messages on my answering machine from work trying to figure out where I was. I drove myself to the emergency room, and forty eight hours later they gave me my diagnosis and the comforting news I've a terminal illness. Now I'm fighting to live out the year, or even live for a few extra months into the next year. You know, move into the top percentile, and become an outlier. How nice it would be to finally be above average at one thing. It's kind of funny; I used to worry about everything. Now I just have this one thing to worry about."

Slouching lower on the couch, her knees now higher than her head, she went on, "My arm would have a muscle spasm and I was sure I had Lou Gehrig's, a weird heartbeat was a valve about to explode. Then I wake up with a bloody nose in my hallway and can't remember how I got there. Nine out of ten doctors agree, there is nothing like a terminal illness to cure a hypochondriac.

For the first six months every time I woke up, whether from a nap or the night's sleep, I'd have a couple minutes where I'd forget what was going on, and then wham, I'd remember. It's like being socked in the gut. I read about a ski racer that suffered a traumatic brain injury. Each day he wakes thinking he and his wife are still married and in love, only to find she left him years ago. Imagine replaying that every day. Anyhow, that's me." Helen smiled pensively as she turned to look at Rico. "Now you see why it's important I get my meds?"

"Yhea. I never thought it wasn't important. The company I work at doesn't always make it easy to do the right thing." Rico didn't want to try and explain G.O.D.'s inner machinations, or what he'd gone through to get her drugs. Whatever excuses came to mind, he'd surely told her before.

"Well, enough about me and my woes, what's your story?" Helen wasn't accustomed to being mad at someone, and with a nearly full beer in front of Rico, and a full glass of wine before her, she moved to make small talk.

Rico was caught off guard at the conversations change in course and the directness of her question. He fumbled to move the cough drop to the side of his mouth before he could answer, but then found his rhythm. "I think I told you, I'm a manager at G.O.D. and oversee a couple dozen customer representatives whose job it is to call patients and schedule delivery, grab payment information, and follow up to make sure our patients are taking the drugs."

"No, I mean your real story. Your heart's not in your job. There's a reason you drive a van. Are you a craftsman or aspiring serial killer? Perhaps an accomplished child abductor," she grinned teasingly and nudged him with her elbow.

Rico played along, "My fondness for kids is platonic, but I could be persuaded to kidnap if the payout was high and the child unharmed. No, I play music. I'm an aspiring singer songwriter. I'll answer your next question, before it's asked. You've never heard me play nor have you heard anything I've ever written. The emphasis on the description, aspiring singer songwriter, is solely on the word aspiring."

"Wow. A real life John Denver hanging in my crib, delivering my drugs. Maybe I should call you Keef?" Helen asked. Her eyebrows rose in mock awe. She wasn't very good at holding these peculiar faces and began to laugh. "You never told me that you were a musician! Aren't you a little old for high school rock star dreams?"

Rico joined her laugh. "Well, that's the dream, it doesn't die, and you asked. You're surprisingly flirtatious for being terminally ill."

"What? You don't believe I'm terminally ill. Seriously, I am terminally ill." She laughed, punching him on the side of the leg, and then added, "Oh my God I can't believe I'm laughing about this."

"No, no. I believe you. It's just not what I expected."

"Well it's not what I expected either. Now, tell me about your music?"

"I play mostly covers, but every blue moon I'll play a few originals. It's really tough to keep an audience engaged with music they've not heard before, but I try to play some of the songs I write once and while."

"What's your music like."

"I do everything from Nancy Sinatra to Sonic Youth."

"No, your music. That's their music. What kind of music do you write?"

"Oh. Well, stylistically, is a cross between Elliott Smith and Kurt Cobain, if such a thing can be imagined. I'm flattering myself with that comparison, but I'll describe it as I'd like others to think of it. I seem to struggle to find the right words to put to my music."

"I have no idea who Eric Smith is," Helen feigned. "Your musical style sounds very higgledy-piggledy."

Rico turned and looked at her for the first time since she'd sat on the couch next to him. "Elliott, not Eric," he corrected. "Piggily wiggily? That's not a real word. You can't just make up words. Only rappers can do that."

"The word is higgledy piggledy, and it is a word. You want to bet a dollar?"

"A dollar it is."

Helen pulled out her smart phone a typed in the word. Almost instantly the definition shown on the small screen and Rico conceded she'd won the bet. Rico returned the conversation to the earlier topic, as he fumbled a folded up dollar from his front pocket and handed it to her, "Anyway, you asked about my music. It's really tough lately, a lot of the open mics are closing down and finding venues to play is becoming more and more challenging. Used to be I'd play at a coffee house and the owner would give me a hundred bucks. A lot of the coffee houses and bars won't let me play, or they make the musicians play their own music. They're getting sued by the performing rights organizations to pay royalties for the music played, even though they don't charge anyone to come and listen. It's a mess. The industry is collapsing in on itself and they're going after anything to keep the money coming. With the internet the artists can go straight to the fans and cut out the labels."

"What's wrong with playing your own music?"

"Believe me, I wish I could get the audience to hang around and get into the stuff I write. Every once in a while a song or two will click, but I'm a covers guy. I play the stuff others write. I spend all my time driving around to find bars, coffee houses, book stores, you name it, that'll pay me a little bit of cash for a night's work."

Helen pursed her lips as if she wanted to speak, but forced herself not to. After a short silence she awkwardly returned to the earlier topic, "Since my diagnosis I spend almost all my time alone, locked inside the giant medical complex downtown. I moved here about a year ago from California, and now I'm stuck. All my family and friends are on the west coast."

"Why don't you fly home? They have hospitals in California."

"I can't quit work or I'll love my health benefits, and I'm not at the point where I qualify for disability."

"That's good. I mean, that's good that you're not sick enough that you qualify. If you didn't tell me what was going on I'd have no idea what you were facing."

"I don't like to think of it as an illness. I like the term 'predicament,' and my predicament always hits me the hardest when I'm hundreds of feet in the air on the umpteenth floor and looking down at the canyons between the buildings. I see the city alive with people walking, driving and biking. I just want to be among them, naïve to my mortality. Not inside a sterile building in a paper robe waiting the results of a scan or blood test or physical exam. The 'why me's' always hit the hardest the minute I put on the paper robe."

"The dreaded paper robe! It's like wearing a giant, see through, napkin."

"You are so right! I thought dying would be more glamorous and melodramatic, but it's really like giving a speech in junior high. Everyone has to do it, but no one wants to go next. Some days I don't want to fight anymore. I get so tired of it all, and I think, 'Pick me! Pick me!' I'll go next and get it done. I know my mental faculties will go, and I'll forget names and memories. Maybe, at some point, I'll forget I'm dying. I'm terrified to burden others, but I don't have the courage to take my life." Without intending she started to cry softly, but then tried to lighten the mood, "It could be worse; I could have smashed my thumb."

Rico took a long, deep pull on his beer and nearly finished it. He spoke afterwards, "Not sure I follow."

"It's something I used to joke with my Dad about. No matter how bad anything gets, it's always worse if you add a smashed thumb. I'm not sure why I'm telling you all of this. I guess I'm just tired and looking for someone to connect with."

"No, no, it's cool." In an effort to lighten the mood, Rico added, "You're not going to die today, right?"

"No. Not today, but soon. And that sucks. Do you want another beer?"

"Yeah, sure." Rico didn't have anywhere he had to be, and he wasn't in the habit of saying no to another beer. When he parked, an hour ago, he figured he'd simply knock and hand the bag to Helen through a crack in the door, but he found himself really enjoying Helen's company.

Helen eased herself from the couch, concealed the paper bag in her hand opposite Rico, and walked down the hall and into her kitchen. She returned a couple of minutes later absent the bag. Under her arm she'd tucked a beer, while her hands held a tray with cheese and crackers. Helen set the tray on the coffee table, and flopped back onto the couch. Her wine sat mostly untouched.

Rico took the beer, nodded thanks, then leaned forward and scammed a couple of crackers and a few slices of cheese. Realizing he was hungrier than he thought, he grabbed a few more. Helen moved the tray closer to him.

"You know what sucks?" Helen asked.

Before Rico could answer, Helen held her hand up, "That's rhetorical."

Rico pursed his lips in silence, and nodded to confirm he understood a response wasn't needed.

Helen went on, "I'm forced to deal with my mortality and my spirituality at the same time. It seems a better approach is to get the spirituality thing worked out, and then get after the mortality. Before this happened the only God in my life was the one printed on the dollar bill in my wallet, and I used that to buy milk. I wasn't prepared to sort out whether I believed in God, or what God I believed in, in twelve months. Now I'm constantly asking myself why the hell I didn't sort this out while I had time. It's overwhelming to realize how short our time on Earth is, when time is infinite. Or at least I think time's infinite. I never finished that Hawkins book, a Brief History of Time. Did you know that book is touted as an approachable introduction to theoretical physics? For whom was the book intended, MIT post-docs? It gave me a headache, and I never did figure out what happens when we die."

"I tried to read it, too. I'm not sure that's what the book was trying to explain. I don't think anyone knows. I guess you know when you know, or maybe you never know, and only those that are left know what happened. That's why it's called faith. Are you religious?" Rico asked curiously. Having never sorted out his spirituality, he was always interested in others' perspectives.

"Thanks, Captain Obvious," Helen softened the bite of her words with a smirk. "My parents are staunch Catholics. I was raised likewise. I made it through first communion, but I rebelled before the confirmation. Mostly laziness, it wasn't the history of abuse, religion as means of world domination, or the sexism of the Catholic Church that kept me from going, although I guess when I line them up like that I might have a pretty good strategy for my defense. I wanted to sleep late on Sunday's and could never rally the energy to sit in the pew for an hour; sit, stand, kneel, repeat.

How pissed am I going to be if it turns out I should have been there on Sundays? I have this image in my mind of God playing my life before my eyes like a sports highlight reel, and making notes each time he sees me sleeping in bed on Sunday; a big red pen circling my head, John Madden style, with an arrow showing how I should have been in Church. You know what else completely sucks?"

"What?"

"You get to a point with all the anxiety about dying that you flip your sleep routine, and you can't sleep without someone watching over you. Up all night, then sleep during the day. It's a fear that you'll die in your sleep when it's dark, but the daylight protects you. It's very irrational, but an easy trap to fall into. It can't help my cause to stay up all night worrying, only to get up exhausted, go to work, and then fight with G.O.D."

Rico let the words hang in the air, and then commented, "In your shoes, I'd hate G.O.D. too?"

"Let me clarify," as she looked at the ceiling she spoke loudly, "I don't hate God." Then she leaned into Rico and whispered conspiratorially, "I can't take any chances this close to the departure date. Anyway, I don't hate your company. I hate how hard it is to get the drugs I need to stay alive. Every time I talk to a rep for a refill they want all sorts of information: blood pressure, weight, side effects. Your rep told me the data is collected to sell to the pharma companies. I think this is my doctor's job, and it's my business not the pharmaceutical drug companies." Helen sat up straight and looked directly at Rico. Other than the time Rico challenged her word choice, they'd both been facing the same direction, like kids sharing a seat on a school bus.

"Also, you know you've mailed me the wrong medication the last two times. It took me two months to get the charges reversed on my credit card from the first wrong shipment. Remember how much time we spent on the phone?" Helen softened her tone, "So that's not really helping your cause. My belief is if you operate in an industry that deals with health or mortality, you better exceed the airline and cable TV industries in customer care. I don't have the answer, but before we build weapons of mass destruction, fund other governments, or send rockets into space, we should provide health care. It's a right of life, or at least it should be. You know your company's outsourced quality control to the patients? The patients! After the customer service rep let me know that, he asked me whether I had any pets. Pets!" She hit Rico harder this time.

"Ouch." Rico rubbed his arm. "I don't disagree with anything your saying, and I wasn't aware of the quality control thing or the question on pets. It must be one of our CEO, Doug's, brilliant plans. Somehow the specialty pharmacy industry's evolved such that there is no margin in buying and selling drugs. We live off the money we get paid by the drug companies. They pay us for the data we collect and report on the patients who take their drugs. The companies sponsoring the drug benefit, like your employer, beat the hell out of us on price. It's not uncommon for us to sell for less than we paid. Without the data fees we'd lose money. Actually, they are starting the beat the hell out of the employees and shifting a lot of the drug benefit cost to you guys. You've got to be seeing that?"

"My credit cards are maxed and I'm in a weird footrace. Do I run out of money before I run out of time?" Her hands mimed a balance as she spoke. "At some point I'll have to sell my car, maybe my house. I'm not allowed to drive so I should just suck it up, get over it and sell the damn thing. I'll need the money soon enough." Helen bit the inside of her cheek, and pursed her lips tightly. She looked hesitantly at Rico.

Rico emptied his beer and reflected on what she'd said. "I'm not sure anyone's smart enough to figure out what you're proposing. But I'm the first to admit a little compassion could go a long way."

"Exactly." Helen picked Rico's bottle from the table and shook it, highlighting its emptiness. "Beer?"

"Are you trying to get me drunk? I should probably get going before I pose a threat to the fair citizens of this town on the public thoroughfares."

"No, I'm really not. I find more and more I hate to be alone at night," her voice was more pleading than she intended. The sun had begun to set.

"Okay, last beer, but only if you refill the cheese tray. I'm starving." Rico had continued eating as they talked and the plate was nearly empty. "What do you do for work?"

"Hang on, let me grab a beer, get more food, and then I'll tell you about work." Helen stood, and it appeared she was about to fall. She reached out and Rico grabbed her hand and steadied her by resting his other on the small of her back. Rico would have thought her a little drunk if the untouched glass of wine wasn't evidence to the contrary.

"Better?"

"Yes, I'm fine now. The meds make me a little dizzy, especially when I stand up. The doctor said to expect it."

Helen returned with Rico's beer, a block of cheese, some apples and pears, a box of crackers, and a knife. Setting the food down Helen casually mentioned, "You're probably going to hate me when you learn what I do for work."

"Hate you? I don't think that's possible. But you've piqued my interest, what do you do for work?"

"Do you remember earlier when we were talking about coffee shops and bars paying royalties to the performing rights organizations? And how you're struggling to pay your bills as a musician, and committed to a life sucking, dead end job at G.O.D.?"

"I don't remember giving that description of my job, but I remember the part about how I'm stuck working at G.O.D. because it's so difficult to pay my bills playing music given all the venues are drying up."

"Well, I work for the performing rights organizations. My job is to find all the places live music is played in Chicago and get the venues either to pay the annual licensing fees, or stop playing live music. Let me be precise. Original music they can play to their heart's content. It's profiting off music that isn't in the public domain that I target."

"Fees? How much money do you think the coffee shops make off the open mic night?" Rico struggled to keep his voice at an indoor level.

"It's irrelevant. The songwriters are entitled to compensation whenever their work is played. The proprietor needs to pay into all three organizations: ASCAP, BMI and SESAC. We distribute the fees to the members, the musicians like you. End of story." Helen rose to the building argument, cheeks flushing with blood.

"You charge a coffee shop two thousand dollars a year to have an open mic night. The shop doesn't charge anything to the patrons or the musicians, and they make no money off the music. My experience is it is short sighted greed. If you hear a song you like, you buy the CD or download the tune. You're the group that sued the Girl Scouts for singing campfire songs a few years ago." Rico was dumbfounded by her logic.

"Yes, but we settled on a symbolic one dollar per year licensing fee. Look, the Supreme Court ruled in 1917 that restaurants must pay songwriters even if the business didn't charge directly for the music." It was clear to Rico that Helen had argued her case many times before.

"There is no way to keep track of what's played where. It's based on radio playlists, and I assure you the obscure songs I play aren't on the radio, or if they are its college radio. I understand your position, but the reality is the local music scene dies and these are the locations where the seeds that become the next big stars sprout, American Idol notwithstanding." Their discussion was passionate, but not hateful or heated. Rico figured they weren't likely to change each other's perspectives, and he moved the conversation in a different direction, "How did you get into this line of work?"

"I grew up on the west coast. My dad worked in the entertainment industry and was an executive at a small label, and then an agent. Sorry, he's a long time out of the business, but back in the day he could have gotten you on Lawrence Welk."

"Lawrence Welk? Oh, my God! My grandmother loved that show," Rico's tone softened as they found common ground.

"Well here's a funny story. My dad used to know the show's musical director and on a dare from a friend of his he convinced this poor guy that, One Toke Over the Line, was a modern spiritual. The guy bought it, and if you look on YouTube you can see the original footage of a hundred blue haired old ladies and their husbands singing, 'One toke over the line sweet Jesus, one toke over the line.'"

"I never heard that story. I've played that song a few times and have, perhaps, been one toke over the line on occasion."

Not willing to leave it alone, Helen sarcastically asked, "Were the writers fairly compensated?"

"I don't even know who wrote it."

"It was Brewster and Shipley."

"I don't remember. I was pretty stoned at the time." Rico laughed and changed topics, "What did your mother do?"

"My mom isn't the most grounded person. I love her to death, but my high school graduation present was either a boob job or college. Her advice was to make an investment in myself and get some boobs." Looking down Helen shrugged, "Well safe to say I went to college. Apparently common sense skips generations in our family, at least on my mom's side. My grandmother sat me down and helped me get into college."

They continued to talk, and Rico ate his way through another platter of food. The subjects became much lighter, changing from mortality and corporate responsibility to pop culture. At around ten pm, inspired by their talk of American Idol, they flipped on the TV. Rico provided a musician's perspective on the performers and called out when the singing seemed pitchy.

With the TV on, and Rico rambling on about off key singing, Helen fell into a sound sleep. It was the first meaningful sleep she'd had since her diagnosis, and, with a person she'd met only a few hours ago watching over her, she wholly gave into the darkness. Rico watched TV for a few more hours, Helen asleep at his side, and then around two in the morning he draped a blanket over Helen, and walked out the front door into the cold, dark night.

Chapter Twenty

Rico's van sat where he'd left it across the street. He scanned the front window as he approached, and found it void of parking tickets. He hadn't checked the signage when he parked, assuming he'd only be at the porch for a couple minutes. That the van was still there, and un-ticketed, he took as a good omen. He wasn't sure how many parking tickets he had outstanding, but he knew he didn't have a current city sticker, the plates expired a month ago, and it was possible his driver's license needed renewal.

It was his habit to sleep before tackling the drive home, and the beer buzz, fatigue, and lateness of the hour, instinctively led him to the van's back door. He unlocked the back door and climbed in before he realized it. Of late he'd been sleeping in his van more often. A few weeks ago he'd walked in on his roommate and roommate's girlfriend chasing each other around the apartment in see through Batman and Robin costumes with a feather duster. "Is nothing sacred?" he asked, telling them to take it to the bedroom. "Damn it!" he shouted as they ran down the hall, "That's the duster we use on the furniture."

Inside the van, Rico knew he really should climb over the seats and drive home, but inertia conspired against him and he opened the first of two stacked plastic bins and pulled out a couple of pillows. Next he flipped the order of the bins and pulled out clean sheets, pillowcases, and a blanket. He liked to sleep on clean linen, and had developed a system in which at the end of every couple weeks he switched out the linen in the van for an identical, clean set. On a small shelf behind the driver's seat sat several books and a toiletries bag. He popped the window open on the side of the van, and brushed his teeth with the mouthwash and toothpaste he kept in the bag. He spat out the window, and then left the window open for fresh air. Lastly, he switched into a track suit he kept in the bin with the linen and lay down.

Sleep was a long time coming. He kept replaying his conversations with Helen, with certain words and phrases echoing, in random order, over and over in his head; "No Dad, I'm not going to do that,"; "Surgery isn't an option,"; "No, not today, but soon,"; "It's a fear that you'll die in your sleep when it's dark, but the daylight protects you,"; and, "I find more and more I hate to be alone."

With sleep rolling in, Rico pulled an old acoustic guitar from its case and grabbed a pencil and notebook from the passenger's seat. He always kept a notebook nearby, as he hated losing random phrases, or ideas, that either blossomed into songs or bettered songs he had underway. Even though the songs he wrote were often met with disinterest, every once in a while he'd pen something above average. "Journey, not destination," he'd reminded himself, over and over, as he worked at his craft. As he scribbled in his notebook he was overcome with a sense of urgency. What he now had to say was so important it couldn't wait, and needed to be shared. The exigency of Helen's situation drove his pen.

As he strummed the guitar he decided to move from standard tuning to an alternate, open G, or, 'Chicago' tuning. A sound he could build into a mournful and bluesy song. As he turned the guitar's tuning pegs, his thoughts circled on the Zeppelin song, That's the Way, written in like tuning. Stuck in his mind was Plant's line, "All that lives is born to die." With the guitar re-tuned he began working on a simple chord progression, in six eighth's time. The words came easily, and he framed them as a Japanese tanka with the lines of verse comprised of 5, 7, 5, 7 and 7 syllables. He preferred the Japanese forms given they didn't need to rhyme or adhere to a strict count of metrical feet. He'd sing it closer to a waltz, but he believed the words he'd penned could be easily put to music. He fell asleep working on the first important song he'd ever penned with the guitar's worn and checkered top illuminated by the moonlight.

Helen woke in the morning, and found herself alone on the couch and thinking of Rico, not her illness. For the first time, in as far as she could remember, she felt refreshed and absent the morning headache that she'd known for so long she assumed pain a natural part of rising. She didn't remember what time Rico had left, or whether he might even still be in the house. He didn't seem drunk enough to have to sleep it off, but she wasn't sure. She rose, yawned, and walked down the hall to find the guest bedroom empty.

In the kitchen, she put on a pot of coffee and pulled out her laptop. Next to the kitchen sink, and testament to not having dreamed last night up, she found three empty beer bottles in a neat line. She sat in her customary chair at the table, and posted a short, concise note to her blog, vaguely explaining how G.O.D.'s effort to get her the correct medication went above and beyond the call of duty. G.O.D. wasn't off the hook. G.O.D. was zero for two, or one for three, depending on how you counted, but she wanted to give credit where it was due. Looking out her living room window, she saw Rico's van still parked on the street. "Weird," she thought, and went outside to investigate.

Rico awoke to a knocking on the back of the van with a guitar lying across him. It wasn't the first time he'd been awoken with someone pounding on the back of the van, but being startled escalated to a full on panic when he realized it was daylight. His musician's work ethic had him dancing precariously close to the pink slip. Looking through the sunroof, he found the sun high in the sky. "No, no, no. How did I sleep so late?"

Rico sat up and crawled the few feet to the back door, to figure out who was knocking. Moving the curtains that covered the back window, he peeked out to find Helen standing there. Rico opened the door and was met with Helen's cheerful, loquacious greeting, "What's the story morning glory? You know vagrancy is a crime. You can't just sleep in your van, even if your van is down by the river." In front of him was Helen, smiling broadly and wearing a Cub's baseball cap, a ponytail pulled through the back of the hat. It looked like she had on yesterday's jeans, but now wore a long sleeve, rugby style jersey emblazoned with a Ducati Motorcycles logo. Given the enthusiasm of her greeting, he expected her to say, "Ta da!"

"I know, I know. I'm totally screwed. I missed my morning meeting, and I've still got to head home to shower and dress." Rico stepped from the van, and stretched barefoot in the cool morning air, surprised that it wasn't much colder. As he did so Helen's neighbors curtains moved from inside. His sleeping in the van hadn't gone unnoticed. It was nice outside, bright blue sky as the sun worked its way up, and warm enough that a heavy coat wasn't warranted - which was rare for early winter in Chicago. "Long live global warming," Rico proclaimed. Helen looked taller than Rico remembered, but he quickly realized she was wearing cowboy boots.

Helen looked Rico over top to bottom and crossed her arms in mock disgust, "You need to call in sick. You're wearing a track suit and standing barefoot after having slept in a van. Come on, I'll make you breakfast. I've a pot of coffee on." In the morning sun her emerald eyes twinkled, and the constellation of freckles that bridged her nose shown devilishly. Her smile radiated life. That she was dying made no sense, and didn't seem possible.

Rico, like most musicians, wasn't overly imbued with a Protestant work ethic and agreed to skip work without much fight, "You," he pointed at Helen, "are going to get me fired." He then followed Helen up the driveway and through the front door.

Looking at his shoeless feet, Helen asked, "You don't live in the van do you?"

"No, no. I have an apartment." From his pocket, he pulled his keys. "Look, the gold key with the tag that says 'apartment'. I'm looking for a new place. I've got a butter defiling super hero roommate, whose unemployment fuels his strangeness. At this point, I'd rather sleep in a van."

"You've got a what?" Helen asked, giggling. "You never told me this story."

Helen was in hysterics when Rico finished the story.

Chapter Twenty One

Prominently displayed in front of G.O.D.'s main entrance is a large warning: No Spitting, Bird Feeding, or Gum Chewing. Without the proper context, visitors are often confused on the signage, naïve to its origins in G.O.D.'s famous parking war. The class struggle which drove the parking war culminated in the staff's defeat at the hands of upper management, but the war raged on, transformed into an ongoing, daily battle between Cuddy and Mary.

The war began when upper management, tired of the unpredictable nature of parking and drunk on power, assigned themselves the spaces closest the building's entrance. This did not bode well with the staff, which was typically at work long before the execs arrived and long after they departed. Pissed off at having their faces rubbed in upper management's wealth, as they walked past a stable of expensive automobiles, the staff retaliated and defaced the cars by spitting on their windshields and littering the ground with bird seed. The employees took great satisfaction in their insurgency and cheered loudly whenever flocks of pigeons, drawn to the seed, circled above and shat mercilessly.

From upper management's perspective, it was unfortunate these acts of treason were too surreptitious to capture on the grainy, black and white surveillance video, and no retribution could be meted out to employee or bird. As could have been predicted, Doug and company quickly tired of walking across bird shit laden blacktop to find their cars fouled, and retaliated. To even the score, and secure a safe harbor, Doug shook the Magic 8 Ball and confirmed his God given right of eminent domain. He declared the entire western parking lot for the exclusive use of the executives.

With the western lot now serving the executive minority, the eastern lot did not hold enough spaces for the staff. Inspired by both the airlines and his Separate Orders program, Cuddy solved this quandary by ordering Wayne to halve the size of the spots, thereby doubling the number of spaces. This immediately created two problems. First, employees arriving late to work were forced to circle the lot in an endless loop hoping to find the last of the open spaces. Second, those that drove station wagons and SUV's typically needed to exit through the tailgate or sunroof; the spaces too tightly packed to allow the doors to open on these larger vehicles. Viewed from on high, the morning rush hour was reminiscent of a scene from a classic zombie movie as cars circled aimlessly, and the staff crawled from their car's windows and walked stiffly to the building.

Uprising squelched, and masses duly humbled, the execs then reveled in their victory by spending shareholder money to refurbish their lot in a manner befitting an English lord. To begin, they removed the blacktop and bricked the lot in an eye-catching herringboned pattern. Next, still concerned the staff might continue to harass their beloved autos, they built a large earthen embankment to separate the lots. In an effort to mask its moat like function, the embankment was landscaped with wildflowers, fountain grass, boulders, and flowering shrubbery. Lastly, a large covered bridge was constructed to ensure safe passage from the executive lot to the main entrance. The bridge was well received by the executives, given the company's history of things flying out of windows. Of equal importance, the covered bridge mitigated unnecessary interaction with the staff and provided a comfortable place of respite during the frequent fire alarms.

Upon its completion, the executives parked in a tranquil garden oasis secured with its own private entrance. Hints of pine and lavender scented the air, and the carefully landscaped grounds offered seasonal blooms. Only one spot in the executive parking lot was assigned for the exclusive use of an individual: Doug's parking spot. The remainder of the spots, none more than a few feet from the base of the bridge, were available on a first come basis. Each spot, by design, was wide enough to accommodate the hurried parking of the management team without risk of a door ding.

Initially overjoyed at their imperial parking, but now feeling contempt for the familiar, Cuddy and Mary began to fight amongst themselves for the spot nearest Doug's. Both believed that parking next to Doug's car was an important step in their selection as next CEO, and competed daily for the perceived advantage it offered.

On his way to work, a little after eight in the morning, Cuddy felt the persuasive growl of his stomach. He'd eaten breakfast, but, not his second breakfast, and he was certain he was seeing big dividends from his fitness routine. Real or perceived, he was convinced his appetite was in high gear due to the effort needed to change fat into muscle. "Fuel for the fire baby!" he shouted over the deafening country music that pumped from his SUV's speakers. Seeing the golden arches of the Promised Land, Cuddy cut a hard right turn into the parking lot to pick up a little something to tide him over the few hours until lunch. He planned to work out when he got to work and didn't want to shake on an empty stomach.

Cuddy left the McDonald's drive-thru with a large paper bag in one hand and supersized milkshake in the other. Not normally offered as breakfast items Cuddy and Irene held enough sway that the store manager agreed to modify the menu. Pulling from the drive thru window, Cuddy drove with his belly. His attention wholly fixated on opening a catsup packet. The packet proved more difficult to open than expected, and with the extra effort Cuddy lost track of the distance to the main thoroughfare, and overshot the stop sign that marked the end of the McDonald's parking lot. Looking up, at the last minute, he realized his car was part way in the busy street and now blocked the right lane.

Car horns wailed and brakes squealed as oncoming traffic scattered and missed Cuddy by inches. As he fumbled to regain control, hands slicked in McDonald's grease, he cut the steering wheel hard right and floored the accelerator. The violent turn caused the rear right tire to clip the curb. At the unexpected jolt the supersized milkshake, which he still held in his left hand, sloshed from the top of the straw and onto his pant leg. As he fumbled to wipe the milkshake from his leg, he dropped his Big Mac. It bounced down his front and came to rest against the passenger door. Special sauce, lettuce, and cheese, lay strewn about the passenger's floor mat. Sauce stained his shirt. "Horse's ass," he mumbled, now covered in McDonald's.

Fully in the road now, Cuddy's SUV raced forward absent its driver as he bent below the dashboard and began to reassemble the Big Mac. He leaned fully into the passenger's space to put the pickles back on the all beef patties, and reinsert them inside the sesame seed bun. He then wiped the inside of the bun off his shirt to recapture as much of the secret sauce as possible.

Coming up ridiculously fast on the Escalade that pulled directly into her path, Mary cut sharply left and wailed on the horn. "Asshole!" As she passed, she gave the driverless truck the finger. Mary was an excellent multi-tasker. Looking through her rearview mirror, as she broke hard for the red light, Mary realized it was Cuddy she'd nearly rear ended.

Cuddy popped back up just after she passed, and immediately recognized Mary's car.

At the light, Cuddy pulled up next to Mary. Mary sat in the left lane, while Cuddy sat in the right. Two hundred yards ahead, and to the right, sat the entrance to the expressway. From there it was ten miles to the exit for the office, two hundred yards on a city street, across the employee lot, and finally into the executive lot that held the storied spot. With their attention wholly focused on the stop light, neither driver acknowledged the other. The race was about to commence.

As he waited the green light, Cuddy bit his Big Mac cleanly in half. He didn't like to race on an empty stomach anymore than he liked to workout on one.

As Cuddy chewed, Mary sat in her charcoal M6 BMW revving the engine. The tachometer spiked and fell with no noticeable change, and her piping hot cup of black coffee, with steam rising, sat ripple free. Classical music filled the cabin. Mary didn't need consumer reports to know German was the way to go for the everyday commute. Any country with balls enough to start two world wars leads in mechanical engineering by necessity. Mary couldn't afford a Ferrari or Lamborghini and compromised on the charcoal colored M6. Capable of speeds over two hundred miles per hour, the car is as aesthetically pleasing as it is powerful. Long and shark-like, the car rides inches above the ground.

She'd bought the M6 a couple of months after taking the job at G.O.D. It was a serious drain on her already strained finances, but she wanted to reward herself for both becoming a vice president and getting married. Ownership included a series of high performance driving schools. In the morning rush hour, Mary's new racing skills, paired with her high performance auto and sense of entitlement, made her a formidable contender. Her vanity plate told it all: KLASSY. CLASSY, spelled with a C, was already taken.

Cuddy sat to Mary's right in his white Escalade on oversized aftermarket wheels, with a one thousand watt sub woofer in the back. Country music vibrated the vehicle and loosened union tightened bolts to the point where they could be removed by hand, if the bolts hadn't already fallen off of their own volition. The car was oversized and obscene, with unimpressive acceleration and average top end. All in it was no match for Mary's BMW on an open course. Luckily for Cuddy, the rush hour commute into G.O.D. was no open course and Cuddy's driving was honed on the roads of central Nebraska.

Unlike Mary's formal schooling at the hands of former Formula One race car drivers, Cuddy learned to drive every go cart, mini bike, tractor, and farm implement, he could fit in. If it had an engine, and you could slide the back end on a snowy turn or gravel road, Cuddy had probably spent ten thousand hours doing so. Filling out his driving portfolio were the years spent slogging farm equipment on Nebraska's interstate highway system. Driving large vehicles, with thirty five mile per hour top ends, on crowded highways creates the type of learning environment that leads to a sixth sense of traffic patterns and other drivers' behaviors.

Likely, the only commonality between Mary and Cuddy in the realm of automobiles and driving was the vanity plate. Cuddy too felt the need for a vanity plate. Unfortunately, his fat fingers were unable to fill out the requisite form accurately, and his intended BIGMAN became PIGMAN when his chubby thumb smudged the ink and changed a B to a P. Cuddy finished his Big Mac in a single bite, and then reached into the bag for the supersized fries.

The light turned green. Mary floored the accelerator and left two large black strips on the cement road. She handily beat Cuddy to the entrance ramp, then blew past the stop light at the bottom of the ramp intended to manage traffic flow.

Cuddy burped loudly and watched her race away, resigned to having lost the pole position.

Coming onto the highway, Mary accelerated to ninety miles per hour, wherein she braked hard, scrubbed her speed, and cut left onto the highway's far right and slowest lane. Looking in her rear view, but appearing to look straight ahead to give no insight into her strategy, she saw Cuddy's Escalade merge into the lane she drove in several hundred yards back. "Loser," she spoke aloud, as she watched Cuddy through her mirror. Pointing at Cuddy, her finger bumped the mirror at each word, "You, are, a, fucking, loser. Loser!"

In front of Mary a woman drove a modest Camry with two toddlers in the back seat. Mary pulled up a couple inches from the rear bumper. The lady easily had fifty feet of open space before the car in front of her. Mary yelled at the woman, "Focus. Use your mental toughness." Mary flashed her lights and then honked her horn. Normally, Mary would have tapped the women's rear bumper to alert her to the fact that it was rush hour, but she didn't want to deal with getting the inevitable scuff buffed out of her front bumper. Finally, a football field ahead and to the right, was another entrance ramp with a dedicated lane for traffic merging onto the highway.

Mary pulled hard right into the ramp's entrance lane and cut off a couple cars trying to merge onto the highway. Horns wailed. She floored the accelerator and sped around the right side of the young mother in the Toyota. "Asshole!" she mouthed as she looked at the mother. Then, seeing the kids in the back seat, she corrected herself, "Assholes!"

With the ramp's entrance lane closing out, Mary decided to floor it and race down the right shoulder. As she ran out of lane, and entered the shoulder, the back end of the car broke right. Mary expertly steered into the skid and returned the vehicle to its intended path. Her car continued to increase its speed. On the shoulder, a couple hundred feet ahead, sat a car with its hood up. Mary skimmed inches from the broken down car, forcing the driver examining his front left wheel to jump out of the way to avoid being hit.

Cutting left, Mary re-entered the lane she started in, and easily one hundred feet in front of Cuddy. Then, seeing an opening and hoping to further her lead, she cut two lanes to her left and was unexpectedly forced to slam on her brakes. The lane she'd pulled into was at a standstill, and Mary skidded onto the left shoulder to avoid rear ending the car in front of her. "Motherfucker!"

Cuddy saw the sucker hole Mary jumped into, but elected to stay in the far right lane. Typically the slowest lane, he saw a bend in the road and intuition told him as the cars followed the left breaking curve their density would force them to brake. There were too many cars for a given space. In the right lane he whisked past Mary at a blistering twenty miles per hour. "Who's in the pole position now? Huh? It's the Big Man," he yelled inside his car, while he made sure to stare straight ahead and give no insight to his strategy.

Mary sat on the left hand shoulder waiting for traffic to move forward and allow her to reenter the lane. "Fucking assholes," she swore in frustration as she waited. Without turning her head, Mary saw Cuddy go by on the right. "Motherfucker!" she wailed on her horn, a futile cry to get traffic moving. A hint of alarm creeped into her voice as PIGMAN drove away, "Motherfucker!"

As Cuddy widened the gap, Mary floored the accelerator and pinned the clutch. She pointed the wheels straight. Near the red line she let the clutch go, and shot like a rocket down the left shoulder. A risky move to be sure, but her only option. Accelerating by powers of ten - 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, 80, 90 miles per hour, she finally found an opening in the left most lane, cut hard right, and exited the shoulder. Now back in the flow of traffic, she saw an opening to her right and took it. In the center lane she surged forward. Cuddy's truck was less than a dozen feet ahead.

With a few miles to go Cuddy was still gliding down the right hand lane. As he reveled in his lead, he alternately drummed an imaginary kit, clubbing the dash with his meaty paws for emphasis, and stuck power chords on his air guitar as he belted the lyrics to, I Wish I Were a Woman (So I Could Go Out With A Guy Like Me). He'd seen Mary come close, but not pass him. She rode inches off the bumper of the car in front of her looking for a chance to pass.

Pinned by Cuddy on the right and the jammed lane to her left, Mary had lost control of her destiny. She flicked her windshield wipers on and off, flashed her lights, and wrestled with how to free herself from her quandary. The rods in her engine stood on the edge of being thrown as she played with the throttle, clutch engaged and waiting to spring.

Looking forward, Cuddy saw he was about to lose the upper hand. A Yugo driven half on the right lane and half on the shoulder, hazards on, drivers hand pressed outward against the windshield, was about to force him to break. His truck was too wide to squeeze around the Yugo, and Mary now boxed him out of the middle lane. "Horse's ass," he screamed as Mary went by. KLASSY stole away, now the odds on favorite to win.

Passing the Yugo, Mary noticed the driver's right hand holding the windshield in place, glass undulating under the force of the wind. As she passed, she gave him a piece of friendly, collegial advice. "Have some fucking pride." She took a second look at the driver, and when she realized it was Mike, the new CFO, rephrased her words of wisdom, "Have some self respect you human piece of shit." She closed with, "Fucking loser," and raced ahead.

With the noise in the car Mike couldn't hear anything, and thought Mary was wishing him luck. He nodded appreciatively. He was surprised she recognized him. When Mike drove the Yugo he sought anonymity and always wore a baseball hat, pulled low, and oversized sunglasses. Face hidden, he then slouched low in the driver's seat and blocked as much of the side windows as possible with the sun visor. He was used to honks of support from the like downtrodden. Those traveling in Renaults, Volares, and Cimarrons, often gave him the thumbs up sign. Perhaps he'd misread Mary, and she really was a good person. This was the first favorable experience he'd had with someone driving a fancy BMW.

Well ahead of Cuddy, Mary again taxed the engine and charged within inches of the rear bumper of the car now in her path. Scuff notwithstanding she tapped his rear bumper once and yelled out the window, "It's the vertical pedal on the right. Move it asshole." The driver of the Taurus put on his turn indicator and began to work his way to the shoulder to report the accident. He assumed Mary would join him. Mary screamed an unintelligible string of profanities as she flew past.

Certain she'd beat Cuddy to the exit ramp, Mary lit a celebratory cigarette. An occasional smoker, she wielded an expert's deftness at violently flicking the butt, and rarely missed her intended target. Two drags in, Mary opened the sun roof and flicked the lit cigarette up and out.

Cuddy saw the inbound projectile but was unable to avoid it. The cigarette landed in an explosion of embers in the direct center of his hood, where it lay unreachable and inexplicably pinned by the varied forces of gravity and wind. Horns cried out, as Cuddy frantically jerked the steering wheel and jumped in and out of lanes in a futile effort to dislodge Mary's detritus. Cuddy's efforts were to no avail. The cigarette burned slowly and a pencil eraser sized bubble of paint rose up on the truck's hood. Cuddy rolled his window down, hoping to dislodge it and prevent further damage, but the combination of his undersized arms and enormous belly kept him from ridding his ride of the offensive matter. The cigarette remained where it landed, causing further damage, as he raced for second place.

At the end of the highway portion of the commute, Mary took the exit ramp at eighty miles per hour and floored it at the turn's apex. The car stuck like glue and effortlessly rocketed to one hundred miles per hour. It was the first time she'd hit triple digits on the inbound commute. Scrubbing speed, she downshifted on the city street, and then floored the accelerator. The car's back end skidded loudly as she turned into G.O.D.'s main entrance.

On G.O.D.'s campus, Mary accelerated as she drove diagonally across the staff lot. She beeped her horn to scatter the employees from her path. Victory certain, she pulled into the executive lot and in a celebratory move parked crosswise, thereby removing from play the two most coveted parking spots. "Touche, douchebag!" she shouted at the nowhere to be seen Cuddy. Winning felt so good she repeated herself, "Touche, douchebag!" Reinforcing her win, she stuck her hand out the sunroof and gave the nowhere to be seen Cuddy the finger.

Car parked, Mary hurriedly ran to the covered bridge before Cuddy saw her. It was important Cuddy thought she had been here for a long time, and the ass whooping she dealt him a good one. Her lathered horse sat in the stable, engine clinking and popping as it cooled. In a few hours, her trusty steed would be called on to reverse the commute and return her home.

Sixty seconds after Mary parked, and fifteen seconds after she ran into the building, Cuddy pulled into the main entrance. He pitched his McDonalds trash from the window as he too raced diagonally across the employee lot, scattering employees to and fro. Cuddy didn't honk. He figured he'd hit who he hit, and he liked the look in the employees eyes when whoever lay in his path realized he wasn't going to break and dove for safety at the last minute.

Pulling into the executive lot Cuddy cried out his signature phrase, "Horse's ass!" when he noticed Mary had taken the spot next to Doug, and blocked the next most coveted spot. "Well played sister." Cuddy wasn't above giving credit where credit was due. Cuddy parked in the third most preferred spot, twenty feet from Mary's car, furious at the impact this might have on his career.

The Escalade's engine turned off, Cuddy opened the door and worked his belly from under the steering wheel. As he sat sideways in his seat, spindly legs sticking straight out, he slid off the seat and fell the eight inches to the ground. An audible umph rang out upon impact, and the truck shook mightily as the front left shock was un-weighted and the vehicle rocked to and fro. Cuddy straightened himself and smoothed the front of his trousers.

Resigned to having lost, Cuddy walked toward Mary's car thinking he'd hock a giant milk shake loogie on her windshield. He was working up the phlegm to leave the mother of all lung boogers, whose removal at day's end would require an ice scraper, when fortune unexpectedly reversed itself. On the ground sat Mary's four thousand dollar Hermes gloves. In her haste to avoid any contact with Cuddy, she'd accidentally dropped them onto the ground when she jumped from her car.

Cuddy bent down in excitement, tearing his pants as he did so, and in a swift and hurried motion, while pretending to tie his shoe, cut the thumbs off both of her gloves. He was one of the few executives in America who kept a knife on his belt. He pocketed the thumbs, a voyeuristic souvenir to relive the moment, and returned the gloves to where he'd found them. And, "What the hell," he thought, as he spat on Mary's driver side window.

Fifteen minutes after Mary and Cuddy entered the building, Mike pulled into the staff lot. The lot had filled quickly, and few spots remained. As he aimlessly circled the lot, hoping to find a spot to park, Cuddy's trash bag became stuck under the Yugo's front axle. The trash dragged noisily, a noticeable impediment to the car's travel. Mike wasn't concerned that he'd lost five miles per hour off the car's top end with the bag wedged underneath, he was happy he'd made it to work alive. Mike found the morning work commute perilous, and with that in mind bowed his head and gave thanks to Saint Frances.

Chapter Twenty Two

Walking into the building, Mike again elected to take the stairs as the lobby stood packed with employees waiting the appropriate elevator. A few minutes later, with sweat running down the small of his back, he stepped from the stairway onto the sixth floor where his first shock of the day awaited.

Directly in front of Mike, and bent over with one leg resting on a chair in a scene reminiscent of a dog pissing, was Cuddy. Cuddy's suit trousers were ripped through the crotch and what probably started life as a pair of giant tighty-whities, now gray and stained like a cheap hotel bed sheet, adorned Cuddy's huge rear end. Behind him, and between his legs, squatted Wilma. She wore a mask of horror on her face and held a stapler in her hand.

As Mike tried to sneak by, thinking no explanation necessary as both were consenting adults, Cuddy caught sight of him. Unprompted, Cuddy explained that when he bent down to tie his shoe in the parking lot he ripped his pants inside seam up and around the horn and clear down to the other knee. Wilma was now repairing the tear with a stapler.

Mike nodded curtly, appreciative at the information, and walked away slowly.

Cuddy wasn't done his explanation, "It's all this muscle I'm packing on." Then, to try and make light of the situation, he made a loud ask of Wilma, "Express them glands while you're back there sister, and ease the pressure a bit." Wilma stifled a cry and turned her head far to the right to avoid looking at what she was stapling.

Walking into his office to the fading guffaws of Cuddy, Mike found a red and gold foil envelope on his desk. His second shock of the day, and it wasn't even lunch. Mike looked in surprise at the envelope and contemplated the unfathomable, "No way! Doug is going to have a second holiday party!" Mike tore open the envelope and confirmed his guess. At six in the evening, on Friday, December 22, 2006, all employees were expected at Doug's home for G.O.D.'s Second Annual Holiday Party. Mike wasn't certain which was the bigger surprise; seeing Cuddy's rear end through his threadbare underwear; or, Doug holding another holiday party after what happened a year ago.

Last year's holiday party started on a high note, but broke bad in the middle of Doug's morale speech. Running late from a basketball game at the Robert Taylor Homes, whose tough urban youth played year round on outdoor courts without nets on the baskets, Doug plagiarized the lion's share of his address from the famous Vince Lombardi speech, What it Takes to be Number One. He found the speech on the back of a box of cereal. In fact, the only change Doug made was to replace the words, football team, with the word, pharmacy.

Cereal box in hand, and mid-way through the party, Doug stood to address the employees. To gather all about, he chinked his cocktail with a spoon. Aspen stood at his side, smiling vacantly and staring unfocused into the distance. Her preferred cocktail, The Wife #4, comprised of equal parts vodka and valium, was kicking in. She liked that the synergistic depressants helped her ignore the fundamental disconnect in her marriage; she thought Doug would warm to the idea of a fourth wife; and, he thought she'd get less crazy.

Queued for the obligatory pep talk, Doug's employees formed a wide semi-circle and gave him a forum from which he could address the group. Doug began, "Thank you for joining me in celebrating G.O.D.'s tremendous future. We've done well, but you have more work to get the stock price where I need it." At his mention of the stock, many of the staff elbowed one another and snickered. They were well aware of Doug's troubles with the IRS, and his plan to jump ship the minute the stock price was high enough. Doug then began to recite Lombardi's speech. As he read, he struggled to concentrate and misspoke several times. His attention was drawn to the actions at the back of the room.

Doug was distracted and concerned with the group of teens and pre-teens that stood at the opposite end of the room, in the middle of which was the nefarious Romulus. He'd heard of Mary's child's impulse control disorder, but had never witnessed it firsthand. Doug hated all children, and instinctively knew he hated none more than Mary's untamed spawn. The children who had clustered about Romulus were engrossed in a fevered and intense discussion; their hushed voices were urgent but inaudible. As the group of children nodded in unison, a wayward and rough looking boy handed Romulus a five dollar bill. He and Romulus shook hands. The others in the group nodded in approval, and several patted Romulus on the back as they wished him luck. Clearly, something bad was about to go down.

Doug read faster. His sentences strung into an unintelligible blur as he hurried to finish, and hoped to avert whatever disaster lay ahead. On the last paragraph, and almost done his speech, Doug glanced up and realized he wouldn't finish in time.

Romulus cracked his knuckles and stepped from the group of children. He walked behind the couch at the other end of the room, dropped his pants, and defecated effortlessly. The entire scene took less than fifteen seconds.

Doug began to fumble his words, unable to concentrate given the desecration he had just witnessed.

Aspen pointed dumbfounded at the scene, her mouth agape. "Dith he juth shpth bhampp bith couth?" she slurred.

"If you're asking, 'Did that barn animal just shit behind the couch,' then yes, he just shat behind our couch." Doug's voice rose as the injustice began to register. "He shat on our priceless oriental rugs to be more precise!"

"Heeth an artith. A brilliant artith. Thaths modern art." Before Aspen could clap and give this brilliant modern artist his due accolades, the room started to spin and she grabbed hold of Doug's elbow to keep from crashing to the ground.

Out from behind the couch walked Mary's feral six year-old with his pants around his ankles. In his right hand he carried a wad of napkins. Oblivious, or unconcerned, Romulus moved through the crowd and scanned the wall of people for his mother. Nonplussed at not seeing his mother he walked up to Doug, turned around, and bent over. He held his hand with the napkins behind him, looked at Doug between his legs, and loudly demanded, "Wipe me, bitch!"

From the audience, an audible gasp was soon followed by uncontrolled laugher. The laughter grew as Romulus began to back up and aim for Doug's knee. Doug shrieked hysterically for someone, anyone, to give this barn animal to his mother.

Unfortunately, Mary wasn't at the party. In an effort to create the illusion of attending a party at which she was certain her fugly staff would be present, and she saw no upside, she had dropped her son off and then gone on to meet her girlfriends for margaritas. Mary was pretty liquored up when she finally elected to answer her phone and told Doug's housekeeper to call her husband and he'd come get the little rascal. Laughing at the events described to her over the phone, Mary ended the call, "Isn't he just a precious angel sent from heaven?"

The images nearly all in attendance remember from the first holiday party were the feral child bending over in front of Doug, and his ass finally being wiped in the middle of the front yard by Mary's milquetoast husband. As his father wiped his behind, Romulus bowed deep, like a maestro to his audience. The children clapped raucously. Many cried out, "Bravo." Several of the girls in the group threw roses, whose thorns had been stripped from their stems. The flowers were stolen from the vases that decorated the party. Romulus, very pleased with himself, held up his five dollars for all to see.

Doug hated the holiday party, and especially hated people walking around his house touching his stuff and dirtying the place. This hatred of personal space violation extended to his office and his private elevator. The consultants argued vehemently for Doug to hold another party in a goodwill effort to squeak a little more performance out of the company, and, pray God, get the options back in the money. As unpleasant as having employees in his residence was, the thought of cashing out was too enticing to say no. So, with a large thumb worn spreadsheet in front of him, showing the after tax payout for various stock prices, Doug reluctantly agreed to a second holiday party.

After last year's disaster, Doug mandated he wouldn't attend. "No Goddamn way I'm taking part in the party. Children trying to wipe their ass on my custom made Italian suit. Screw that." The consultants agreed that might be more than any CEO could brave, and offered to function as greeters and create the illusion that Doug was hosting the party. Compromise reached, Doug would be in the theater room on the third floor in his silk pajamas with his basketball friends while the party took place below. He was also clear that if the options weren't in the money by year's end the consulting gig was up, and he'd find someone else to surreptitiously run the company. And more importantly, he'd have no mercy to anyone who soiled his beloved Persian carpets.

Chapter Twenty Three

Unprompted, and to explain her jubilant mood, Helen spoke to Rico who followed close behind her. "That's the best I've slept in months. I had the most realistic dream. I dreamt of owls, snow white arctic owls. It's so strange, since I've only seen them in National Geographic or on the Discovery Channel. In my dream, I followed them down a long, empty gravel road framed on either side by tall trees. It was at day's end. The sun was about to set, and as it disappeared behind the earth I flew silently alongside the owls. I'm not sure where we were going."

Rico listened without comment and followed Helen through the living room. As he passed, he noticed the coffee table in front of the couch had been cleared of last night's food and drink, and the blanket that he'd covered Helen with had been neatly folded and nested into the corner of an armchair. From the little speakers that sat in the built-in book shelves on either side of the large stone fireplace, alternative music played from a local college radio station. Rico didn't recognize the artist. A large candle burned on the fireplace's mantle, and the room smelled of cedar.

They walked on and into the kitchen. The kitchen's southern exposure filled the room with sunlight. Outside the window sat the leafless tree that had been struck and killed by lightning. In the center of the kitchen was an older dinette set, circa 1960. The refrigerator and range looked to be new but made in a retro style, both in light pastels. The refrigerator was covered in pictures of Helen and her friends and family. Small magnets held an array of pre-school finger paintings to the fridge door.

Inside the kitchen, Helen turned to face Rico, and made him an offer, "I'm cooking breakfast. What would you say to bacon, eggs and potatoes?

"I'd say that sounds great."

"You can regale me with tales of your childhood as I cook. Coffee?"

"Coffee would be great. Black please. I need to call work and let them know I won't be in." Rico dialed the cell phone cradled in his hand, and a couple seconds later mumbled a lame excuse about car troubles and that he'd likely miss work, again. The call didn't take long, and with his phone stowed in his pocket Rico told the story of his youth. He began with the talent show story and then shared random tales of growing up in Chicago, the most notable of which was his breaking into the Lincoln Park Zoo late at night to feed the animals. With Helen's back to him, as she cooked, he told the story of Alan jumping to his death.

Other than to clarify the details on Alan's jump, Helen didn't say much. She listened intently as he talked, and occasionally encouraged him to elaborate with a nod of her head or an open ended question. After a while, she turned around and set two plates on the table. As she set them down, she continued her reputation of starting conversations in which the other person might, or might not, be required to participate.

"You know what I need?"

"Other than the obvious?"

"Yes, other than the obvious. I'm going to need a bitchin' grave stone like Old Joe Clark's." Helen spoke in a deep cowboy like voice, "'Here lies a shiftless and rough mountaineer whose enemies were legion. He was murdered.' That's not right for me, but I definitely need something that makes people remember me."

"I'm sure people will remember you." Looking intently at Helen, and anxious to move to a more positive topic, Rico commented on the Italian motorcycle logo on her shirt, "Ducati?"

"Yeah. I was learning to ride at the time I got sick. I had even gotten my license, but I never really had a chance to ride. It's kind of funny what little say we have in how our lives turn out. I thought it would be fun to zip around town on a motorcycle. For running errands and meeting friends, I thought it would be the perfect solution. No hassles parking, none of the risk of highways or suburban soccer moms. I keep thinking I'll go for a quick ride, even though I'm not supposed to drive. What am I going to do, kill myself? Ha!"

"I rode for a few years right after high school, but eventually sold my bike. I really miss it, but I couldn't afford a bike and a car, and it's tough to rely solely on a bike. It's not very practical with guitars and amplifiers, hence the chi-mo van."

"Chi-mo?"

"Child molester," Rico clarified. "Are you finished?"

"Yes. My appetite isn't what it used to be." While Rico had wolfed through his plate, savoring the salty, buttery flavor of eggs cooked in bacon grease, Mary had eaten about a quarter of hers, then set her knife and fork parallel on her plate signaling she was done.

Rico stood, stacked the plates on top of each other and carried them to the sink where he quickly rinsed them before setting them in the dishwasher. He grabbed the coffee pot and offered Helen a refill. She declined, and he refilled his cup. As he sat back down he thanked Helen profusely and looked at his watch. "I should probably be on my way."

"You're not heading downtown by chance?"

"I am. Do you need a ride?"

"Oh my God, I would love a ride. I hate calling for a cab. The cabbies always assume I've lost my license for DUI. A very suburban thing to do, and no I've not lost my license, and I don't live in the freaking suburbs."

"I don't think this is Chicago."

"This is Chicago. You don't believe me? I'll show you my tax bill." Helen poked him in the shoulder to emphasize her point.

"No worries. Where can I drop you?"

"I need to go to Northwestern Hospital, or you can drop me by your place and I'll catch a cab closer to downtown."

"It's no problem. I'll drop you at the hospital. Are you ready now?"

"Two minutes."

Rico walked into the living room and waited by the front door. A couple minutes later, as promised, Helen walked up and asked, "Ready?"

Rico nodded he was ready, and they both left the house. As they walked down the short sidewalk, and passed the garage, Helen took a quick detour and walked up to the keypad on side of the garage's door. "I need to set the trash out, the garbage gets picked up today."

The garage door opened noisily, and Helen walked in to pick up a small bag of trash, which looked as if it had been hastily pitched from the door that opened off the kitchen. Inside, near the garbage bag, sat an early 1970s Honda CB750 motorcycle. The vintage bike had a slabby metal tank and spoke wheels. It was from a time in motorcycle design that favored straight lines and simple, geometric shapes. The bike looked to be in great condition with no obvious scratches or dents, and the vinyl covering the seat was shiny and without cuts.

"I thought you had a Ducati?"

"Sadly, no. This is my Dad's old bike. He gave it to me if I promised never to go above 35 miles per hour, ride during daylight hours, and always wear a helmet. I agreed and had it tuned up, got plates, and insurance. Then, wham! It's been sitting here for a while."

"Does it run?"

"It should. It hasn't been started in a while, but I had it hooked to a charger to keep the battery from going to zero. I unhooked it a couple of weeks ago, when I realized I wasn't ever going to ride it."

"I say we take it."

"What? No, that's a bad idea. That is a really bad idea." Helen waved her hands dismissively.

"Let's take the bike. You drive and if something gets squirrely I can take over from the back. I've no interest in going to my apartment. I might have mentioned my unemployed roommate."

"You are serious. You'd do that? How are you going to get home?"

"It'll be a blast. I haven't been on a bike in years. Plus, it's a bluebird day, and I've already called in sick. This has to be a record breaker." Rico leaned back and let the sun shine fully on his face. "It's got to be headed well into the 70s. What am I going to do, hide in my bedroom all day? Or, sleep in my van? We'll ride back together, and then I'll take off."

"I've only got one helmet."

"Screw the helmets. I say the odds of dying on a bike while driving with a terminal illness and a delinquent musician are zero. It's a no-helmet day."

"Okay, then. Are you riding in the track suit?" she asked, hopeful he'd say no.

"Hell yes. I need my flip flops to complete the look."

"Which is?"

"Southside Boston. The look conveys myriad meanings. I'm gainfully employed in illegal activities, ready to mall walk at a moment's notice, however, if pressed to meet at a casino, my resort wear would be welcome, appropriate, and without pretense."

"In an Adidas track suit. Really?"

"I favor Adidas over Nike, which I find too corporate, and well ahead of Puma which I find lacks vision. Regarding flip flops, I opt for flat black, no ornamentation, and find myself brand neutral."

"I see. You put a lot of thought into that look of yours." It was the second time Rico had seen Helen truly laugh. "Can you drive in flip flops if you have to?"

"Probably. I've never tried, but I'm sure it's been done before. On a planet with six billion people hasn't everything been done once?"

Having agreed on the course of action, Helen walked over to the bike and turned the key. She pressed the ignition button and the bike hesitated, but then fired up. The garage filled with blue smoke. Both Helen and Rico waved their hands in front of their faces to clear the air.

Laughing as she went, Helen mounted the bike, raised the kickstand, and scooted the bike out of the garage. Astride the motorcycle she shouted the code to close the garage to Rico. Helen pulled in the clutch and put the bike in gear. The bike jumped a few inches forward when the gears engaged. She then slowly drove down the driveway where she stopped, facing the opposite direction of Rico's van.

Rico closed the door, and then slowly jogged to the van to get his flip flops. He walked to the bike, unfolded the passenger's foot pegs, and hopped aboard.

"We're off, like honeymooner's pajamas!" cried out Helen.

'No, like a prom dress!" answered Rico. Rico wasn't sure what he'd do when Helen got to the hospital, and it wasn't clear how long she'd be there, but he figured they'd work it out when they got there.

As they drove, pedestrians and fellow drivers paused and took notice. A petite redhead in cowboy boots with a backwards baseball cap and mirrored aviators commanded an old motorcycle, upon which the tall, lanky, blonde passenger wore a track suit, flip flops, and wayfarers. Her driving, which was far from flawless, added to the spectacle; she missed shifts, throttled a disengaged engine, and nearly tipped over from turning too slowly. Even with those mishaps, the bike never stalled and her most egregious act was probably shifting before the revolutions warranted; the bike bucking in protest until Rico reached around and hurried the throttle.

Mid-morning found the secondary streets without much traffic, and Helen honored the promise to her father as she rolled along closer to thirty miles per hour than the permitted thirty five. Rico sat on the back digging the sunshine, exhilaration of motorcycle travel, and simple joy of play hooky. Working their way east, they eventually ran out of land and merged onto Lake Shore Drive. Helen drove in the middle lane at the pace she was comfortable. Cars flew by them on either side. With the downtown immediately ahead she worked her way onto Inner Lake Shore Drive and from there to the northernmost end of Michigan Avenue. Even with their circuitous route Helen found herself a half hour early. At the Saks Fifth Avenue, her waypoint to turn left to the parking garage, she continued past the hospital. Rico thought she was about to miss the turn and nudged her, but Helen wanted to drive the whole magnificent mile.

Rico sat back and watched the world go by. He'd never ridden down Michigan Avenue in the middle of a workday on the back of a motorcycle. Helen drove to Millenium Park and finagled a u-turn. As the bike started to stall, Rico screamed for her to gun it, and both of them laughed as car horns blared and brakes squealed. As she passed the park a second time, she told Rico she wanted to have a picnic.

"Are you sure?" He thought it was a good idea, too. The weather was unbelievable.

"Yeah. It's probably the last picnic I'll have with winter on its way."

Headed north now, back the direction from which they'd just driven, Helen turned right, and a couple hundred feet up pulled into the parking garage. A sign sat at the garage's entrance indicating no motorcycles. Helen ignored the sign. The garage had long ago fired the attendants, so no one tried to stop her. She parked the bike, and Rico gave her his cell phone number and told her to call him when she was done. In the interim, he planned to walk over to the bakery and read a newspaper. He'd also pick up something for the picnic.

About ninety minutes later Rico's phone rang, and Rico asked Helen what she wanted for lunch. He bought boxed lunches and met her back at the motorcycle. They then drove to Millennium park and found an unoccupied bench. Sitting with their lunches in their laps, they looked out onto the lake. The mooring balls were void of boats this late in the season, but several powerboats could be seen plying the water, likely men fishing for salmon and lake trout.

"Let me ask you," Rico began in a manner more typical of Helen. "If you were going to a desert island what five albums would you take with you?" Rico asked because it had always proven to be a good conversation starter, and he really wanted to tell Helen what he'd take with him. 'Desert island picks' was a difficult topic to introduce into most conversations.

Helen turned and looked at Rico. He hadn't realized she was crying. "I'm not going to a desert island. I'm dying. At least I am if the drugs don't work."

Hours later, with the sun beginning to nest on the western horizon and a chill growing in the air, Rico and Helen pulled back into the driveway of Helen's house. After the picnic, Helen's spirits rallied and they spent the day cruising around the city. They visited Printer's Row, River North, Bucktown, Logan Square, Old Town, and Lincoln Park, stopping as they saw fit and browsing boutique clothing and music stores, and dining, indiscriminately, on coffee, French fries (or freedom fries as Helen declared), and milk shakes.

Back where the day began, Rico waited as Helen fumbled to open the garage. It took a few tries, but eventually the door opened and Rico returned the bike to where the adventure had started, albeit facing the opposite direction.

As Rico stepped from the bike Helen spoke, "I've got a proposition I want you to consider. You can stay here in the guest room rent free. In return, I need you to drive me to my appointments, at least those when you're not at work, and bring me my medication. There is an extra bedroom and a separate bathroom with shower and tub." Helen worked to sell him on the idea, "You save money and can safely butter your toast."

"Men take baths? Rico joked, then addressed Helen's question, "Are you sure you want that imposition? You've got a lot going on."

"I'm serious. It'll be a big help, and it will give my parents piece of mind to know I'm not alone. Honestly, it'll be nice to have someone to talk to, and be here in case. And, yes, men take baths."

"Okay. Do you care if I stay tonight?"

"No. That would be wonderful. Do you need to run home and get anything?"

"I've got everything I need in the van. I'll stop by tomorrow and clear out my stuff. I'm still a little traumatized by Batman and Robin. Let's give it another twenty four hours before I revisit the crime scene."

Rico moved the van into the driveway and brought in a couple boxes of clothes, his toiletries, and an acoustic guitar. He set everything into the extra bedroom, within which Helen had stacked a handful of towels and washcloths. The room was spacious and nicely decorated. Rico liked that it wasn't a repurposed kids room or part time office.

For all the women Rico had slept with, he had, for the most part, judiciously avoided the 'L' word, and had never used it as a key to open a girl's legs. Among the many ironies in Rico's life, his being a musician that had never fallen in love was the most incongruous. When he started to fall in love with Helen, and first told her that he loved her, it was a lot like swallowing a fishing hook. At first it felt a little strange on his tongue, metallic, awkward, and dangerous. But, as the hook worked its way to the back of his throat, then down his gullet, it was easier to swallow than to try and pull out. Now the hook was set so deep that the thought of being without her drew the monofilament tight, and readied the hook to tear through his insides and rip out his heart.

Deeply in love, Rico and Helen settled into an easy rhythm and found comfort in each other's company. The seriousness of their relationship measured by the calm they found in the quiet spaces between their conversations. As promised, Rico shuttled Helen to her appointments, dropped her at the bus she took to work, and brought her drugs home with him. At day's end, he regaled her with stories from work. Helen laughed in stitches as she followed the war between Cuddy and Mary, and the collateral damage suffered by Shap. Most nights they cooked and ate together. When Rico came home late after a show, Helen was up, waiting to talk about what went well and what didn't, and to push him to play the music he wrote. On weekends, and as the weather warmed, they took the motorcycle and drove to the farmers market and the used record shops. On their journeys, they stopped and breakfasted at the hole in the wall diners Rico seemed to know all over the city.

Life was good, time passed quickly, and they worked to ignore the elephant in the room.

Chapter Twenty Four

Doug lived in Naperville, a far western Chicago suburb, and didn't concern himself with the logistical burden he imposed on his employees when he dictated a six pm start to the mandatory holiday party on Friday. Friday rush hour in Chicago is considered among the worst in the nation, and those whose attendance was required bitched about the need to begin their weekend commuting in rush hour traffic. They also bitched about having to use a vacation day to allow the three hours it required to travel the thirty odd miles from Chicago, where the majority of them lived. Leaving from work wasn't an option; G.O.D.'s office and the party were at opposite sides of the city. Doug's impetus for the early start was to ensure everyone was out of his house by ten pm. This would allow the cleaning crew time to restore his home to its original state before midnight. He had no intention of waking to a messy house.

As the party-goers arrived, they drove into the private gated community of the upscale, exclusive subdivision that held Doug's home. The home, nested in a cul-de-sac, was palatial and extravagantly decorated for the evening's festivities. Distinguishing it, from the mansions to either side, were several tall pines strung with lights. Inside, giant metallic globes hung from the ceiling and complimented the spruce trees that were tastefully draped in garland throughout the home. Poinsettias, a mix of red and white, sat as centerpieces on the tables and let the party a festive air.

Doug had outsourced the decorating, much to the chagrin of Aspen who had argued for, and lost, an opportunity to showcase seasonal modern art. She'd hope to center the party's decorations on a life sized paper-mache sculpture of a skinny, heroin addicted Santa she'd recently added to her collection. Her decorating plan also involved hanging lights, in the shape of hypodermic needles, from latex rubber tubing over the fireplace. On the front yard, Aspen saw a manger scene recast as an open air drug market, with baby Jesus sold into slavery to fund Mary's habit. When Doug asked the Magic 8 Ball whether playing out the junkie Christmas theme would raise the stock, the 8 Ball provided clear direction, "My reply is no." Skinny Santa and his accoutrements sat hidden in a closet, and more traditional decorations were used.

The employees entered the house on the first of four floors. To the right of the main entrance was a spacious, formal ballroom that easily accommodated two hundred people. Throughout the rooms, chefs manned various dining stations; rolling sushi, carving beef, offering vegetarian entries and doling out pastries. Connected to the ballroom, through a set of French doors, was a large lounge with billiard table, bar, and an assortment of leather couches.

Mike suffered car trouble and arrived late to the party. At the front door, he received an overly warm and plastic welcome from several of the consultants that constantly hung around the sixth floor. The consultants asked Mike his name, checked it on the clipboard they carried, and thanked him for the tremendous job he was doing. The consultants made it clear Doug was somewhere in the party mingling, but in the unlikely event Mike didn't happen upon him to please consider this greeting as coming directly from Doug. Before Mike was allowed to enter he was asked to initial the party roster, and formally recognize that he had been the beneficiary of Doug's warm welcome. Mike wrote his initials at the X.

As he'd made clear, Doug never planned to attend the party. While his employees walked through his front door, Doug was comfortably reclining in the third floor den in his silk pajamas. With Doug were a bunch of guys from the projects with whom he played basketball. Whenever Aspen was out of town Doug invited the crew over to hang and watch TV. With Aspen pissed off her decorating theme had been vetoed, she'd booked herself, and Ed, her favorite barista, on a modern art junket across South America.

Inside the den, within which Doug and his homies relaxed, were three widescreen TVs lined horizontally across from an oversized u-shaped couch. Simultaneously playing on the TVs were a low budget blackxploitation porn movie, a college basketball game, and the golf channel. Club music pulsed from massive speakers in the corner and drowned out the TVs. Domino's pizza boxes littered the room, and each of the men held either a bottle of Cristal champagne or quart bottle of malt liquor. Two of the guys at the far end of the couch, brims of their baseball hats set at a cockeyed angle over their ears, lit a joint and began passing it around.

With the weed headed his way, Doug sighed contentedly, "Now this is a holiday party."

One of the unemployed urban youth at the end of the couch echoed Doug's sentiments. He spoke with the smoke deep in his lungs, his voice barely audible, and smiled as he exhaled, "You got that right Old White Money."

Two floors below, Mike moved past the anteroom and found both the ballroom and adjoining lounge crowded. The few employees who'd missed last year's theatrics weren't about to miss the possibility of a second coming. Oldie hits pulsed through the room as the guests mingled. To the music, a handful of Mary's fugly sales team awkwardly danced on the parquet flooring nearest the DJ. The talk at the party seemed to center around G.O.D.'s key competitor. Earlier that day the competition's management team had begun acquiring small regional players in an effort to corner the Midwest market.

Jostling through the crowd Mike emerged from a throng of employees and ran headlong into Cuddy and his wife. Cliff-like in their presence, they blocked further passage as they stood before him in matching sweaters, boldly bejeweled with Christmas appliqués. At their feet were the pugs, clad in like sweaters and sporting antlers. As Mike stood and tried to figure out how to navigate the obstacle, the pugs jumped onto Mike's legs and began dry humping him. Mike rid himself of one dog, only to have the other latch back on. Working to strike the balance between cordial and a speedy getaway to escape the oversexed canines, Mike asked Cuddy, "Did you hear about the competitions move this morning?"

"What did that hoochie mama do know?" Cuddy answered, distracted with something stuck on his hand. He rolled whatever troubled him around with his thumb and down to the tip of his finger.

"No. Not Mary. I mean our competition. The company we fight with for customers."

"I have no idea what you're talking about. Quit screwing around. What did Mary do?" Cuddy flicked whatever was attached to his finger, and something small and grey flew by Mike's head.

"Seriously, the competition bought a key stake in a regional player. It gives them a significant advantage on price and market presence. If we move quickly, we can pick up the last regional player and parry their move." Walking through the party, Mike overhead a like conversation and used his parroting skills to sound informed.

Cuddy lost interest in the conversation and began scanning the room. In the far corner, whispering back and forth, were Mary and Shap. To Mary's side, held by his wrist, was Mary's persona non grata son. Adonus was not in attendance. Mary had ordered him to stay home and make whatever repairs he could to Romulus' room; their son was not taking well to captivity. Looking up, Mary saw Cuddy staring at her and gave Cuddy the finger, not the subliminal finger in which she pretends to rub part of her face with her middle finger, but a full on fuck you.

Cuddy leaned far back, bent his knees and pretended to masturbate. Ripples shook his jowly cheeks as his right arm jerked frantically back and forth. He ended his performance by exhaling wetly, "Phhttt," and spraying Mary with his imaginary ejaculate.

Irene kicked him in the shin, "Quit cheating on me." Then she shouted at Mary, loud enough that all in the room could hear, "Don't you try and steal my man. I see what you like." Irene pointed at a group of Mary's sales team which included Pie Hole, Possum Face, and the Blob. Like a rhinoceros, Irene pawed at the ground with her left foot, a final warning before she charged.

Possum Face overhead Irene, and whispered to Pie Hole and the Blob, "That explains everything; she's got the hots for us. It's no wonder she hired us. It's for the sex. She's jones'n for the bone." Possum Face caught Mary's eye and winked.

Pie Hole weighed in, "I'd hit that from behind," he pointed his thumb at Mary, like he was hitchhiking, "If she begged me."

Pie Hole, Possum Face, and the Blob, all snickered, now under the belief their boss, Mary, wanted to sleep with them.

Mary blinked in shock as she tried to undo everything she'd seen and heard the last few minutes. Below Mary, and unflinching as he stared at the pugs, was the boy. The child twirled like a leashed serval, with his eyes rolled back in his head as he sought his escape from Mary's viselike grasp. Like an animal caught in a trap, Romulus's own bite marks marred the palms of his hand.

Cuddy looked at Romulus' hands, then at his hands, and then at the hands of his wife. Working his way backward in time, he realized he'd intended to get a drink when Mike distracted him. Without excusing himself from his conversation with Mike he walked over to the bar and cut to the front of the line.

"Two glasses of white zinfandel," he demanded from the barkeep.

"Sir, we're serving either a 1994 Opus One noted for its complex nose of lead pencil, toasty oak, violets, and black currants, or a  2006 Chateau de Beaucastel Chateauneuf du Pape Blanc Vieilles Vignes, noted for its smoky pear and apricot aromas. We've also a full complement of domestic and imported beers and complete liquor service." The consultants who had organized the party were among the best in the world at spending their client's money, and since they were required to be at the party for its duration went top shelf.

"Horse's ass. Give me two glasses of the Oh Piss." As Cuddy spoke, his head shook in disappointment that a fancy party like this didn't serve white zinfandel. "What about Cold Duck, ya'll got some Cold Duck?"

"No sir, only the wines I've described."

As Cuddy stood, impatiently drumming his fingers on the bar top, the sommelier carefully poured the expensive red from the decanter within which it had been breathing into two oversized grand cru glasses. The pour was exact and caring, leaving the appropriate space for the bouquet to develop. The sommelier then delicately lifted the leaded crystal glasses by their stems and passed them to Cuddy. Within, sat some of the finest wine the Napa valley had ever produced.

Cuddy grabbed the glasses, inserting his thumbs into their bowls, and returned them to where they'd just been filled. "Boy, pass me that bottle of cherries."

"You would like the jar of maraschino cherries, sir?" The barkeep struggled to process the request. He couldn't imagine why the fat man wanted the sickly sweet cherries.

"Yeah. The cherries you use on ice cream sundaes, dipshit." Cuddy licked the wine from his thumbs as he spoke.

Having received the quart of cherries from the sommelier Cuddy unscrewed the top and stuck his hand as far into the jar as was possible. He wrestled out as many cherries as his meaty fist could hold. Cherry juice dripping from his hand he dropped about half the cherries into each of the glasses. Next, using his index finger and middle finger as a screen over the top of the jar, he filled the wine glasses to the top with the maraschino cherry juice. The wine glasses looked like lava lamps as the cherries floated within the red liquid. As Cuddy set the nearly empty quart jar back on the bar he looked at the barkeep. "Ya'll be running low on cherries." Cuddy wiped his hands on his pants and moved to find Irene.

The drama at the holiday party began innocently enough. In a manner consistent with matter in a closed container, eventually all molecules collide. Roughly ninety minutes into the party, when everyone was deep into their cocktails, Mary and Cuddy ran into each other at opposite sides of the same dining station. In tow were their respective entourages; Mary dragged her child by the wrist, with Shap close behind; Cuddy was accompanied by his wife and pugs.

"Mary," Cuddy said unenthusiastically. He elected to forego recognition of Shap. Seeing Romulus sizing him up, Cuddy stepped back. Because Cuddy had spent his formative years on a working farm, he had an intuitive understanding of animals and knew this child was not to be trifled with.

"Cuddy," Mary spoke with disgust, and a hint of inquisitiveness. She was puzzled by the strange cocktails Cuddy and Irene held. Mary wasn't sure if she should throw a temper tantrum - Cuddy had something she didn't.

Uncomfortable in each other's presence, Mary and Cuddy floundered for conversation and a standoff ensued. Cuddy had no intention of leaving the dining station empty handed, and Mary wouldn't consider the weakness leaving first would imply. As they stood, silently sizing each other up, a small group of children approached Romulus.

From the pack of children that now surrounded Romulus, the wayward and surly teen who had negotiated last year's spectacle held five dollars in his hand. The teen leaned in and spoke quietly in Romulus ear. Romulus listened earnestly and then pointed at one of the two pugs. Several other kids in the group shook their head in disagreement and pointed instead at the couch, the scene of last year's debasement. The teen shook his head no. He again pointed at the pugs, adamant whatever villainous plans lay ahead include the antlered canines. Romulus nodded and asked a clarifying question. The teen shook his head yes and handed Romulus the five dollar bill. They vigorously shook hands and the teen wished him luck. Upon the teen's return to the large group of children, who had observed the negotiations at a distance, he was swarmed with questions. He didn't answer, but instead led the group a safe distance away and told them to watch. Romulus cracked his knuckles and bowed. The maestro was about to perform.

Over stimulated at the smell of food, and with a new and palpable tension in the air, the pugs jumped onto the serving station. The chef immediately tapped Cuddy on the shoulder, pointed at the dogs, and gestured wildly for Cuddy to remove them from the food area. "Monsieur, non, please the dog must not be on the table," said the chef emphatically. In their excitement, the dogs stepped all over the beef that had just been carved. Cuddy stood watching the pugs but made no effort to shoo them from the dining station. The chef repeated himself and urged Cuddy to remove the offending creatures, "Monsieur, non. Please, the dogs must not be on the table."

Cuddy gingerly lifted the pugs from the table and set them on the floor. Upon being set down, Cuddy patted each on the head and gave them a large piece of steak. "Good boy," he said, positively reinforcing their behavior. The dogs circled excitedly, eyeing the table above as they readied to jump back up.

As the pugs prepared a second assault, Mike stepped towards Mary and offered his hand. He thought he might be able to patch things up. Their relationship had been noticeably strained since she'd first demanded his allegiance undermining Cuddy. Mary's mouth turned into a frown as she extended her hand, and when she shook his hand she didn't exert the crushing force Mike expected, but strangely kept her thumb nested against its palm. Mike wondered if this was the secret greeting of some hidden penis society.

The strange handshake and its hidden organ implications set Mike's thoughts racing. Mike envisioned Mary straddling the barrel of a tank as she screamed, "Fuck, yeah!", crashed through the front door at work, and smiled at the havoc she would wreak with the weapon between her legs. Her strange behavior was explained when Mike realized Mary was wearing thumb-less leather gloves, and was hiding her thumbs to avoid revealing this. Mike returned to reality to find the pugs had jumped on the table a second time.

More forcibly than before, and gesturing wildly with his hands, the Chef demanded, in his snooty French accent, the dogs be removed from the serving station. Mary snickered at Cuddy's scolding. Cuddy removed the dogs and rewarded them with another treat.

Nervous in the continued and pained silence Irene attempted a conversation with Shap. As she spoke, staring at the purple welts on his forehead with her good eye, she stepped in front of him and blocked his exit. Her giant, fifty gallon drum of a belly, made escape impossible. Pointing at the circle on his head, she spoke with a thick Texas drawl, "The big man didn't mean you no disrespect. He simply can't tell you people apart, and he figured branding you would simplify identifying the leader. Wasn't done in spite, purely a matter of convenience. Done all the time to cattle in Texas."

Cuddy, overhearing the conversation, nodded in agreement. "It's true, ya'll look alike. I don't rightly know how you tell yourselves apart. Wonder you know which one you're married to and what kids is yours."

Before Shap could scream, "What people!" the pugs jumped on the dining table a third time. This elicited the most severe reprimand yet, from the chef. "Monsieur! S'il vous plait, the dog must not be on the table. This I have told you twice before." The pugs ran roughshod over the dining station, snapping up bits of food and drooling as they forced into their mouths all they could before their return to the floor.

Cuddy turned to tell the chef to mind his own business, "Pugs is just hungry like everybody else."

With Mary's attention diverted by the pending hostilities, Romulus broke free, stepped directly behind Pugsly, and buried his middle finger fully into the dog's butthole. The dog's guttural howl shook the wall. Cuddy stared in horror. Mary yelled, "Fuck!" The chef removed his apron, threw it to the ground in disgust, and declared his station closed. The children at the far end of the room offered a polite golf clap, nodded in admiration. "Bravo!" they cried out, "Bravo!"

With all eyes in the room upon them, and the room reduced to absolute silence, Cuddy struck first. "Your son stuck his finger up my dog's butt? Up his butt! Who does that?" Cuddy recast Romulus' assault on Pugsly by fashioning a butthole from the index finger and thumb of his left hand, and violating it with the pinky of his other hand. He turned to his left, and right, to show everyone what had happened.

"Look at my fucking son's finger. It's covered in dog shit you asshole. What kind of fuck-job brings a dog to the office holiday party?" Mary stepped to put the dining station between them.

Rico leaned into Nels, concerned with the grammatical accuracy of Mary's statement, and quietly asked, "Wouldn't it be son's fucking finger?"

"Good question. It depends on which fucks – the son or the finger. Both are equally effective." After a moment's reflection, Nels agreed, "I think you might have the preferred phrasing."

Holding her son's soiled hand by the wrist, as if pointing a gun, Mary lunged. She wiped her son's finger down Cuddy's sweater. A singular brown streak now marred Santa, and what might be Rudolph.

Inexplicably, Cuddy raised the sweater to his nose and sniffed. His face scrunched in anger. "Horse's ass!" Cuddy cried out as if shot, "Horse's ass!"

Still holding her son's hand, Mary tried to wipe the finger on Irene. Irene jumped back, surprisingly deft for a boozy three hundred pounder, and barely avoided the intended desecration of Ms. Clause. The excitement caused Irene's lame eye to spin aimlessly in its socket.

The crowd "oohed" at the breach in protocol. Even mob bosses know women and kids are off limits. The crowd took a further step back, not wanting to share Cuddy's fate. Mary's unpredictability, as evidenced by the attack on the misses, put all on edge.

Cuddy attempted to jump over the table and stab Mary in the ear with the carrot he was eating. His attempt ended in dismal failure, with him stuck like a whale suspended by its belly. Unable to free himself, his short arms wind milled in the air and his feet kicked uselessly. In his rage he swung wildly, but found himself a good half a foot short of reaching Mary. The table groaned in protest.

Mary stepped back a few inches from the hands of the beached whale, calmly reached into her purse, and pulled out a small aerosol canister. She smiled as she sprayed Cuddy in the eyes with Binaca. She sprayed him a good long time. Her breath management system again proved itself in the defeat of ugly.

Cuddy writhed in agony as he cried out for help, "I'm stuck. I've been blinded."

Terrified at the war above them, and hoping to avoid further violation, Pugsly sought shelter under the table that held Cuddy hostage. The table creaked and moaned as Cuddy rocked back and forth and tried to get free. As his efforts intensified, Cuddy's weight proved no match for the table. The table groaned a final time and then crashed loudly to the floor. A loud pop emanated from underneath the smashed table, and like a catsup packet under foot red splatter shot out. Alas, Pugsly was no more and Doug's carpets were once again soiled, as death visited the holiday party.

With the dining station flattened to the floor, Shap stepped in to try and pull Mary back. Mary kicked him in the shin. Doubled over to rub his shin as he hopped on one leg, Romulus stuck the finger that had been in the dog deep into Shaps eye. Shap swore, and in an effort to escape inadvertently pushed Mary away from Cuddy.

Cuddy fought to stand on the demolished table, unaware his beloved Pugsly was entombed beneath. Broken dishes, meat, and culinary tools, littered the ground. As soon as Nels saw Shap step in to break Mary and Cuddy up, Nels moved in front of Cuddy and Irene. As he did so, the remaining pug began dry humping his leg. Undaunted, Nels spread his hands wide and told Cuddy and Irene to step back. For a fleeting instant, Nels felt like the elephant trainer at Barnum and Bailey's. Under his breath he muttered, "Bad elephants, bad." Nels then retrieved the flattened pug. At the sight of their beloved Pugsly, Cuddy and Irene broke down and began to cry.

Relegated to opposite ends of the banquet hall, Mary and Cuddy continued to glare at one another. The party split into allegiances as the Operations team surrounded Cuddy, and the world's ugliest Sales team surrounded Mary. Within Mary's cluster a small group gathered around Shap and administered to his eye. Mary screamed for someone to tape a bag around Romulus's hand. Mary's husband would deal with the clean up when she got home. Minutes later the consultants blew their referee whistles' indicating the party was ending. The consultants then began to shoo the employees to the door and out of Doug's house.

The party over, Mary sat in her sedan seething while the child bounced trampoline like on the tiny backseat, his right hand hermetically sealed within a zip lock bag duct taped to his wrist. Mary floored the accelerator. The wheels squealed and the car raced forward. The sudden jump forward caught Romulus off guard, and he found himself pinned above the seats and against the rear window. The circular drive forced Mary to pass the front door she'd just left. As she neared the head of the turn, Cuddy stepped to the edge of the drive with Irene at his side and the remaining pug on a short leash. Mary slammed the brakes, sending Romulus through the air and into the rear of the seats where he fell onto the floor mats. Leaning into the passenger seat baring her teeth, Mary gave Cuddy the finger for the second time that night.

Standing quickly, like mother like son, Romulus followed Mary's lead and gave Cuddy, and Irene, the finger. He flipped them off Johnny Cash style; bent slightly at the waist with his arm fully extended and parallel to the floor. Romulus' teeth snarled in rage as he offered his tainted middle finger, captured in the Ziploc baggy, to Cuddy and Irene.

Mary stomped the accelerator, spinning the back wheels, and Cuddy's eyes widened with fear. Mary aimed for the remaining pug. Cuddy snapped the leash, and popped Scootch off the driveway just in time. The pug sailed through the air as the car flew by, and landed forcibly against Irene's shins.

Drunk on maraschino cherry juice and red wine, and still reeling from Pugsly's demise, the attempt on Scootch's life proved too much. Irene bent at the waist and vomited. In doing so, she instinctively stuck her hands in front of her mouth in a last ditch effort at emetic avoidance. The barf hit her hands and blew back onto her face and hair. Red maraschino cherry chunks stood in sharp relief to the brown stew that covered her. The remaining pug, Scootch, looked up, saw her vomit covered owner, and dead brother Pugsly squashed flat and upside down in the purse, and fainted.

Cuddy tallied the damage on his chubby fingers; a dead pug, an unconscious pug, a vomit dipped wife, and a desecrated priceless holiday sweater. Cuddy wedged Scootch into the bag containing Pugsly, and guided his wife by her elbow to their SUV. He vowed vengeance, and seeing Shap's car steered Irene toward it.

A few minutes later, and nearly blind in his left eye, Shap hopped on his good leg to his car. He clumsily got in, started the car, and away he drove. Shap couldn't escape the holiday party soon enough.

Unbeknownst to Shap and hidden from approaching traffic, Officer Nonutz waited. Twice Nonutz had apprehended the cop hating, Taliban loving, scumbag. Nonutz had watched enough Fox News to know the predictable ways of the deviant foreign mind. Nonutz wasn't certain where in the criminal evolution this perp was, but he knew he was dealing with a work in progress. As the familiar Toyota rolled past, well under the posted 35 miles per hour speed limit, it became clear to Nonutz that this terrorist was well past all things un-American. Nonutz had a bona fide, altar boy loving pedophile on his hands.

As Shap approached the spot where he'd twice been pulled over, his tic involuntarily started. "Almost home, almost home," he thought. Suddenly red and blue lights lit up the back of his car. Shap didn't pull over. He slammed the brakes on, and with the car still rolling jumped out. He hopped on his good leg as fast as he could manage, through the drainage ditch to the right of the road and into the subdivision.

From behind him Officer Nonutz ordered, "Freeze you cop hating, Taliban scum, pedophile pervert, son of a bitch. Stop or I'll shoot. I mean it, stop, or I'll shoot. As God is my witness, and my savior, I will discharge my sidearm. You Bin Laden loving scum will not ruin our suburbs and rape our children. I am preparing to fire."

Shap hopped like a one legged kangaroo, hoping to put as much distance between he and the fascist cop as quickly as possible. Shap was a stickler for details and corrected him as he fled, "I was born in Detroit you asshole. I'm Indian." Then, as a point of further clarification, he added, "Native American, not from India."

Nonutz took a deep breath and began to wrestle his pistol from its holster. After a half dozen tries the gun came free. As he aimed in Shap's general direction, prepared for the terrifying report and violence of the gun firing, the gun flapped in his hand like a fish fresh from the river. Nonutz turned away from the direction the gun pointed and buried his face into the crook of his elbow. He stuck a finger from his unarmed hand in his ear. With his eyes and ears safely covered, and facing the opposite direction of his target, Nonutz emptied his service revolver. He squeezed the trigger until all the bullets had been expended and the hammer clicked on spent shells.

In Shap's first turn of good fortune this night, Nonutz was known for three things at the department; his wordy nature, his unwillingness to pursue, and his poor aim. To date Nonutz had hidden from his fellow cops whatever hex like spell kept him from predictably un-holstering his side arm.

Shap heard the bullets fly past, but none found its mark. Far to his left, a tool shed succumbed to the barrage of fire, and a sole shot ricocheted off the John Deere lawn mower contained within. House lights began to flip on, and Nonutz ran back to his squad car.

Hours later, having hid beneath an upside down kiddy pool in the freezing night, Shap returned to find his car where he'd left it. On his car's trunk he found a previously unseen, ManBoyLoveAssociation sticker. He also found his car adorned with parking tickets. They sat stuffed under the windshield wipers and flapped in the wind. "Cuddy!" Shap raised his fists in rage.

Chapter Twenty Five

Monday morning found the employees gathered outside the elevators, gushing about the events of the holiday party, and pointing excitedly at the monitors. General consensus was Mary had outplayed Cuddy, again. The few who skipped the party quietly cursed themselves. The party exceeded everyone's expectations, and last year's, "Wipe me, bitch!" was deemed no contest. Rubbing salt in the wounds of those not in attendance, the corporate televisions flashed pictures of Friday's night's festivities; the boy violating the pug, the crashed dining station, Mary kicking Shap, and Irene dripping in vomit. Into a number of the pictures Doug had been poorly photo-shopped. In the doctored shots, Doug's head looked to be the size of an Easter Island obelisk.

Aiming to time his arrival with an empty lobby, Doug strode through the back entrance and into the milling crowd. The unexpected mob caught Doug off-guard. With the exception of some random, the employees were always at their desks by nine fifteen in the morning and Doug could be assured of quiet travels. Doug grew anxious as the security man readied his elevator.

In an effort to avoid conversation while he waited, Doug focused his attention on the monitors all were watching. Previously oblivious to the happenings at his house, Doug now stood and watched the disturbing images from Friday night's holiday party. Speaking to no one in particular, he asked, "What the hell is that boy doing to that dog?" Doug walked around the velvet rope and into his private elevator, sat down, and hid his face in his hands. He wondered at what point he had assumed command of the ugliest workforce in America.

At about the time Doug was reaching into the bottom drawer of his desk for the bottle of rescue bourbon stashed there, Mary and Cuddy resumed fighting. Mary screamed from her office for Shap, and Barry, the company's legal counsel, to get their fucking asses in her office. From her tone they could tell she was in rare form, and planning an offensive. She wanted Barry by her side to provide guidance during the sure to be tense phone call.

Shap, now wearing an eye patch and navigating with crutches, began the slow and deliberate walk to Mary's office. As he lumbered down the hall, he stopped to chat with Wilma and give his body a needed rest. Standing before Wilma's desk, nodding blankly at some inane comment, the high pitched whistle of the inbound could be heard.

Thwack! Against Shap's right temple a dart landed. With his right eye bandaged, he never had a chance. Thinking it a joke, Wilma giggled, stood up, and quickly popped the dart off his head. She handed it to Shap. Shap now sported another purple welt on his head. Resigned to his fate, he continued to Mary's office.

"Christ Shap, you look like shit," Mary greeted him.

Barry echoed Mary's sentiments, "Tonto, you really look like you've been rode hard and put away wet."

With his head covered in black and blue circles, nervous tic, and crutches, Shap nodded in agreement at what both claimed was true. He lacked the willpower to verbalize his misery, or explain what had just happened. In Mary's office, Shap found himself harried at the thought of it all and uncertain whether Mary, or Cuddy, posed the greater risk to his well being.

Mary engaged the speaker on her phone and began pounding on the numbered keys. Cuddy could hear Mary dialing through the wall. Their offices were next door to one another.

Cuddy answered before the first ring. "Murderer!" he accused.

"Listen to me, you fucking twat. You don't intimidate me."

Barry quickly covered the speaker phone. "You can't use twat. It was made clear at the Approved Words summit. Twat is not permitted in business meetings. They expect next year it will be, but for the time being it's a breach of etiquette and a terminable offense."

Mary nodded and covered the speaker phone, "What about cunt? Can I use cunt?"

Cuddy blabbered on about the injustice and denigration his lovely Irene had been faced to endure, while Mary waited Barry's sage counsel.

Barry answered, "You can definitely use cunt, but no adjective. If you use it in an e-mail definitely lower case. No italics, bold or underline."

As Cuddy droned on, Mary penciled the word, "Dickhead?"

"Much better," Barry whispered, and then provided additional insight, "Dickhead should always be your first choice." Barry had no doubt he provided significant value as chancellor. It was clear without him Mary would have fumbled for word choice, thereby creating the type of gap that loses control of the speaker phone, and ergo the conversation.

"Okay," Mary re-phrased, as she cut Cuddy off mid-sentence, "listen you fucking, dickhead cunt."

Barry cut in, again covering the microphone, "No adjectives before cunt. Remember?" It wasn't out of the realm of the possible that Barry's guidance had just saved Mary from being terminated with cause.

Marry course corrected, "I mean cunt. You cunt. My gifted son has an impulse control disorder. You think you're going to screw me out of my bonus? I'm telling you to sign-off on the system requirements."

Encouraged that his counsel was well received, Barry continued to nod vigorously and provide additional encouragement, "Nice. Excellent phrasing. Really, very well said. You," he pointed at Mary and nodded vigorously, "are a born leader."

"Your son raped my dog. The dog you murdered. You defaced a priceless holiday sweater. The other pug won't walk by children. She hears a child she sits. How am I supposed to walk her? Huh? Your bonus? What about my bonus?"

"I can't help it your wife sits like a dog."

"The dog sits when kids walk by you dumbass, not my wife."

"Your wife is a dog!" Wrinkles stood out on Mary's forehead. A sure tell a fit was about to get thrown. "Quit hiring the ugly ones, take my picture off the TV and sign-off on the system." Her voice grew shrill, "I want the thumbs of my Goddamn gloves returned!" Mary pounded her desk in frustration and caught herself just before she slid off her chair and onto the floor. "And fix my fucking chair!"

"Not a chance, you killed Pugsly!" Cuddy answered in a rare, implied confession. At the mention of Pugsly, Cuddy started bawling and hung up. His head rested on the edge of his desk, and onto the stained carpet beneath his tears fell.

About a half hour after the call, composure restored, Cuddy called Wayne. He told Wayne to place no parking signs in front of Mary and Shap's cars, and have their cars towed. Wayne did as he was told.

Walking into the parking lot at day's end, Mary found the spot void of her car, and went postal. Fists balled at her sides, and eyes rolled back in her head, she shook with anger and vowed vengeance. It was time for Cuddy to die.

Shap didn't really care. He'd decided after driving to work this morning to leave the car in the lot and commute on his daughter's bike. It wasn't worth getting shot, and his daughter had outgrown the bike and wouldn't miss it. He did, however, toward day's end and after everyone had left the floor, revisit Cuddy's office and piss all over Cuddy's desk and chair. Unlike the last time he'd used Cuddy's office as a restroom Shap had been planning this, and in anticipation had eaten nothing except asparagus soup, grilled asparagus, and asparagus salad, for the last forty eight hours. He whistled as he peed, balanced on his good leg.

Chapter Twenty Six

Helen sat on the examination table in a paper robe, feet dangling in mid-air as she swung them back and forth with nervous energy. On the plastic visitor's chair to her side sat Rico, knee jack-hammering up and down as he too sought to channel his anxiety. As his leg bounced, Rico flipped through an out of date news magazine, alternately setting it down only to pick it back up again. They awaited Helen's most recent test results, and to know whether the medications were working. After ten minutes of waiting, and knowing that with each passing minute they were sixty seconds closer to learning Helen's fate, the agonizing entered the realm of excruciating. Just when it seemed they couldn't last another minute before they were sick to their stomachs, the doctor rapped the door with his knuckles and entered. Rico and Helen sat up straight, and hurriedly offered up one more prayer to whoever might be listening.

The doctor shook Rico's hand as he spoke, "The test results are good, very good. The drugs are holding things at bay." Helen exhaled loudly as the tension ran from her body. She began to cry softly. "We see no progression on the scans, and your blood counts are normal. You are a rock star!" He looked at the medical records contained in Helen's file, made a short note, and closed the manila folder. He held the folder to his chest, both arms crossed over it in a bear hug, as if someone might try to pry it from him and change the joyful news contained within.

Helen smiled, shaking at the good news as a tear rolled down her cheek. "I'm cured?"

"I wouldn't say cured. It's more like the disease isn't advancing, and that's a lot to be thankful for. I'd say your prayers have been answered just in time for Christmas."

"For how long?" Rico asked.

"No one knows. I have some patients that have gone ten years without getting sicker. We treat it like a chronic condition. They work and get on with their lives." He patted her knee, "Go on, get out of here, and I'll see you in six months. Make sure you take the drugs as prescribed."

"Just the pills? No more injections?"

"Just the pills. I'll see you in June unless something changes."

Helen clapped her hands in celebration, her confidence buoyed by the doctor's reassurance in scheduling her next exam so far out, and her release from the weekly infusions that had consumed so much of her time since her diagnosis. Rico stood and hugged her.

Back in the parking garage and sitting inside Rico's van, Helen declared that she was absolutely craving Vietnamese food. Rico looked at her pensively, "Craving? That's a term pregnant women use."

She leaned in and kissed him on the cheek. "Well, it is possible lover, but no I'm not pregnant I'm just craving Vietnamese food." They'd been living together for a couple of months, and now shared her bedroom. Diagnosis aside she looked fantastic, her skin was smooth and flawless, and she was fit. She'd been running and lifting weights, almost daily, and the results showed. The side effects from the drugs hadn't been as severe as she'd been told to expect, in fact, she tolerated the treatment with almost no negative reactions. With the exception of a persistent itch she'd tried to quell in a bath of colloidal oatmeal, and a little dizziness, so far she'd emerged relatively unscathed.

Rico drove to a popular Vietnamese restaurant, off Lincoln Avenue, on route to Helen's home where they ordered more food than the waitress recommended. It was later than they realized, almost eight pm, by the time they finished dinner. As Rico settled up on the bill he casually commented he might write a song called, "Cravings," about how a restaurant is closed when the protagonist finally reaches it, but she can see the diners finishing their meals through the window.

Weeks before Rico had asked Helen what she thought of his music. Helen didn't answer directly, and told him that she'd need to think about it. She'd done the thinking she needed to do, and with her head tilted a little left of center she answered the question he'd asked her with a question, "Rico you like to write songs about loss, but what have you experienced? You need suffering and sorrow to have something of importance to say. All art, of any meaningful caliber, is grounded in misery and struggle. What well do you have to draw from?"

Rico thought about her question. "My high school girl friend ran off with the guitarist for Skinny Puppy. That hurt."

"Seriously? That's the best you got?"

"My dad passed a few years ago, but he was in his late nineties."

"Okay that's a start. Bono has certainly worked that vein. How did he die?"

"Quietly in his sleep. He drove a tour bus of Japanese tourists over a cliff in the Grand Canyon." Rico fiddled with a smiling skull ring he wore on his right hand, an early Christmas present from Helen. His shortage of hardship wasn't something that he had considered, and it hadn't occurred to him how little drama and tragedy he'd faced in his life. Other than his father he'd never lost a close friend or faced a serious illness.

"Come on, that isn't true," Helen challenged. She held her smart phone out, ready to check the facts of Rico's story.

"It's one hundred percent true. Google, 'Octogenarian narcoleptic sends bus of Japanese tourons into Grand Canyon.' The police showed us the video from the closed circuit TV. There's good old pops sleeping like a baby, not a care in the world, as he misses the turn and drives right on over the cliff. Behind him are half a hundred Japanese tourists, snapping their camera's, clutching their Louis Vuitton bags, and screaming in hysterics as they fall the half mile to the bottom of the canyon."

"If you want to be a musician you need to write about what you know, and to become an important artist you need to understand love, loss and death. As a musician you have the chops. I've heard you play, and I know what I'm talking about. I've been around this industry my whole life. My dad was a very successful agent, and, from a young age, I was schooled to recognize talent. It's as an artist you struggle, not as a musician. They aren't the same. You're destined for more than three chord snappy little pop songs."

"I like a hooky two minute pop song."

"Everybody does, and I'm not saying you can't write those, but to evolve you need to widen your life experiences, let a little hardship into your life. Pen something your idols would be proud of."

"You try it. Put your heart in your hand, hold it out, and say, 'Here, take a bite.'" Rico held his cupped hands before him. He didn't perceive Helen's comments to be maligned or antagonistic, and he listened closely to what she had to say. Rico didn't generally cotton to other's critiques of his music, but Helen's perspective was important. It was the one person's opinion that he cared about, and deep down he knew she was right.

"You asked me my opinion on your music. I'm not going to comment on how well you play covers. We both know you can rock the covers. Regarding the music you write, you're overplaying to compensate for your lack of something to say. It's the spaces between the notes that are as important as the notes themselves. It's the contrast; life and death, love and loss, noise and silence. The contrast draws them, makes the audience lean in. The songs you've written are good, but they aren't great. You can write great music."

"You really think so?"

"I do. I'm not saying it's easy. It's an art form that dismisses the uncommitted, the dabbler, and the hobbyist. In the world of rock and roll, you're much better off pouring your heart on the stage than you are delivering a technically perfect performance." She squeezed Rico's forearm, "I've heard you come close with your more recent material."

"I'll think about what you said." Rico reflected on the songs he'd started writing since he'd met Helen. They all dealt with the tragedy of dying young. It was the best stuff he'd ever written.

"Anyway, I want to celebrate today's good news." Helen looked deep into Rico's eyes, "Who knows what tomorrow brings, and you owe me a Christmas present. Your guitar is in the van, and we're going to a bar a friend of mine runs. I want to hear you play from the heart. That'll be my Christmas present."

"I'm not ready. You said the songs aren't great."

"You are ready, and your songs are very good. They are very, very good. Remember how you talked me into driving the motorcycle? Well it's your turn to let me talk you into something."

"Where are we going?" Rico rubbed his hands together, nervous as he left his comfort zone. "Are you still pissed about the royalty fees?"

"Rico, I don't care about royalty fees or performing rights organizations. It's a freaking job. I care about you." She reached out and took his hands in hers. "My friend, Slick, a reformed scum bag, runs a creative space called, Kill Your Television. It's open mic night tonight, and he lets the artists play five song sets. No covers allowed. It will be packed, and we need to get there to sign up before all the early slots fill, and we're hanging around till three in the morning."

"I don't want to play some B-grade amateur's open mic with a bunch of kids from School of Rock. No thank you." Rico tried to weasel his way out.

"B-grade? Billy Corgan and Jeff Tweedy were there last week trying out new material. The Jayhawks drove down to get some time in front of a live audience before they announce they put the band back together. There are a couple of young girls, Arden and Emma, who have been working on their first release. Rick Rubin has asked to produce them. You might have heard of him?" She tapped his hand, teasingly. "He flew in for last week's open mic. A year ago Ray Davies played for an hour. It was the one time I saw Slick make an exception to his five song set."

"I don't know."

"Say yes." Helen answered in pun. It was a song from one of Rico's favorite artists, Elliott Smith.

"You told me when we first met that you had no idea who Elliott Smith was. You called him Eric. I want to point out you bamboozled me the first night we met, and I tried to school you on American Idol."

Helen laughed, "What's a girl to do? There was no way I was letting you go!" Then more seriously she added, "For the first time I'm starting to understand my path in life. I know this will sound corny, but I think my calling is to have you tell my story."

"Oh, what the hell, I'll play."

Rico pulled a pen from his pocket and began to noodle out a set list. Helen leaned over the table nodding yes, and no, and helping him arrange the order. Then she made him write a second list. If the act before his was raucous and loud, she wanted him to open quietly. If the reverse was true, he was to open with a barn burner. Under no circumstances was he to play two songs in a row in the same key, and tire the audience's ears. "It's all about contrast," she reminded him. He didn't realize how deep Helen's musical knowledge was, and had never heard of, Kill Your Television.

Chapter Twenty Seven

The next morning, Rico walked into his office to find a corporate communication memo sitting on his desk chair. Rico picked the flier up hesitantly. Historically these communications meant less pay, and or more hassle, and were dropped late at night when confrontation between upper management and the staff was least likely to occur. As predicted, the flier announced G.O.D.'s pride in the implementation of two new programs.

The first program was a change to improve the patient experience and empower the patients with their healthcare: G.O.D. Helps Those Who Help Themselves. The thinly veiled and cryptic description formalized Doug's plans to outsource quality control, and make patients responsible that the medication they received was, in fact, what was prescribed by their doctors.

The second half of the flier dealt with an internal program to reduce worker stress by decreasing vacation days: Spend More Time with G.O.D. According to the human resources department unused vacations, and planning time off from work, were a major cause of employee stress. In an effort to reduce anxiety in their employee's lives, Doug and company elected to cut the staff's paid time off by fifty percent. An asterisked footnote indicated that the change in vacation policy would not result in any additional pay or sick days.

As he threw the flier into the trash, Rico's phone rang. "This is Rico."

"Rico, its Nels. You got time to go through the sales reports?" As Rico had promised Nels, the sure fire, one hundred percent guaranteed, money making business proposition was paying off.

"Sure, come on down."

Nels sat across from Rico and opened the binder that contained the receipts from their secret business. Suddenly, a rebellious mob formed outside Rico's door chanting, "No cuts! No cuts!" The unruly crowd held the corporate flier, announcing the cuts in paid time off, before them. Historically Nels would have led the protest, but, with the secret business doing as well as it was, he didn't want anything screwing up his plans to drain his trust. With that motivation, he stood and impulsively addressed the crowd, "What are the two things you want more than anything?"

"Money and time off," yelled the unruly mob in disjointed anger, thrusting their protest signs up and down. Nels recognized a lot of the signs from previous rallies he'd led against management. His favorite was the Banksy rip-off: I'm Just Here for the Violence.

Nels wasn't intimidated. "No. You'll waste the money, and vacation is a proven cause of stress." He waved his hands dismissively at the thought they knew what they wanted. He'd led dozens of these marches and rarely knew what he wanted. Mostly he just liked to march and toss computers out of windows.

"Then what do we want?" the mob demanded.

"You want to get high, and you want to get laid. We all do. It's the fabric of our being." Pausing for maximum effect, he continued, "In lieu of vacation time I formally announce the Stoners & Boners incentive plan." He clapped at his declaration, and the crowd responded wildly, nodding in approval and cheering for this out of the box thinker as they anxiously awaited details on the enticingly named plan.

Nels went on, "The top performers can use Rico's van to make love or get a buzz on while they're at work. Think about it." Then slowly, jabbing the air for emphasis, he restated his announcement, "The Man is paying you to get laid and get high. That's an incentive plan. Huh? Who isn't willing to trade a few vacation days for Stoners & Boners?"

The crowd cheered in support of Nels impromptu program. Several began to chant, "G.O.D. is great! G.O.D. is great!"

At the mention of his van, Rico rushed from his chair. He had been caught off guard by Nels spontaneous speech and the role his van played in it. Pushing Nels to the side Rico addressed the crowd, and modified the program, "In trying times one must remain principled. Standards people, we need standards. I want to dedicate the four twenty conference room and not my van." The crowd cheered and ran back to their cubicles, all hoping to be the day's top performer.

With the crowd departed Nels and Rico returned to reviewing their business' monthly sales, and updating its general ledger. They were shocked to see how much money they were making. "Hot damn!" they sang out when they tallied the sales through the seventeenth of the month, "two hundred and eighty three thousand dollars!"

Updates to the ledger completed, Nels quickly gathered up the receipts as the proof of income his parents demanded. As he was about to leave the office he turned and looked at Rico, "We are really doing God's work here."

Rico couldn't have agreed more.

Chapter Twenty Eight

Mary pulled into her driveway a little after seven pm, and broke to a hard stop before she ran into the garage door. She left the car parked haphazardly across the drive and walked up the short path to her front door. She whistled as she went, and when she opened the front door she was greeted by the smell of a home cooked meal.

Adonus had spent the day cooking pot roast, mashed potatoes, and glazed carrots. For dessert, he'd cooked an apple pie, and then rallied the energy for homemade vanilla ice cream. He loved to cook, and had enjoyed the day spent in the kitchen with the windows open and a slight breeze. In the kitchen he was able to keep Romulus both entertained and contained. This was important since Romulus had been suspended the previous day. As Adonus cooked, Romulus sat on the floor, chef's knife in hand, and carved his initials in the wooden floor.

Romulus was suspended when he delivered a swift, bone jarring kick to the ass of the redheaded principal when she bent down to tie a child's shoe in the middle of the hall. It wasn't National Kick a Ginger Day, but Romulus knew these opportunities didn't present themselves very often, and an eighth grader had bet him $5 he didn't have balls. Not only did he have the balls he now had Abe Lincoln. As soon as she righted herself, bruised coccyx to be sure, Romulus was paraded down to the office, and Adonus promptly notified to come and pick up the nefarious Romulus.

For Romulus this was business as usual, and Adonus arrived to find him bored to tears and complaining there was nothing fun to do at school. As he signed Romulus out, Adonus handed the principal a form letter he always kept on his person. The letter explained Romulus' impulse control disorder, and, in scientific jargon explained why Romulus really couldn't be held accountable for whatever transgression had transpired. The letter also served as a court ordered injunction prohibiting the school from suspending, or expelling, the gifted and spirited child. The principal sighed in resignation, and placed the letter into Romulus' permanent file wherein it joined the previous eleven letters, thereby rounding to an even, and easily quoted, dozen letters. As they readied to go, the principal grabbed hold of Adonus' sleeve and begged, "Please, just one day, keep him home one day. Don't bring him here tomorrow, anywhere but here. Maybe you could turn him loose in Alaska, or a national park?" Adonus agreed to keep him home for one day.

An hour after Mary walked through the front door, and well into the second bottle of wine, the meal was finished. The number of times the family dined together could be counted on two hands. With the meal completed, the three stared silently at the dirty dishes. Conversation wasn't the family's strong suit, but Mary was unable to contain her joy and in an effort to engage spoke, "How are your parents Adonus? Are they well?" Mary lit a post-meal cigarette and leaned far back into her chair waiting for an answer.

Adonus didn't respond immediately, even after all this time he still struggled to remember he wasn't Philbert. When he finally realized it was his question to field he hurried to answer before Mary turned violent, "Yes, they are quite well."

Normally news of his parent's well-being sent Mary into a depressive funk, but tonight was different, and she smiled, "That's nice."

The room stood silent until Mary spoke again, "Romulus did you enjoy your special vacation day?"

Uncomfortable at being restricted in his chair, Romulus' body shook with nervous energy. His foot rocked back and forth, and his head bobbed up and down.

Mary took Romulus' restlessness for a yes, "That's nice. You're a precious angel sent from heaven, and precious angels need days off, every now and again."

Mary took a final and heavy drag on her cigarette and exhaled through her nose. Smoke pooled on the table in curlicues as she stabbed the butt into a small pile of mashed potatoes she'd left on her plate for this express purpose. She then cheerily announced, "Time for bed Romulus. Tomorrow you can return to school!"

Romulus scampered down the hall with Adonus close behind. From the hall Adonus gently locked Romulus inside his room. For several years the doorknobs to Romulus' door had been reversed, and now locked from the hallway. The impetus for flipping the doorknobs, and containing Romulus in his room, was the night they found Romulus chasing their wedding present, an exotic bengal cat, with a samurai sword. Awakened in the middle of the night from their Ambien induced sleep by the clamor, Adonus and Mary found Romulus standing on a kitchen chair, sword in hand, and the terrified animal cornered on the top of the refrigerator. Based on the overturned furniture, and chandelier that had been torn from the ceiling, it appeared the fracas had been going on for several hours. When they realized that with a little more time Romulus would have figured out how to open the lock that kept the sword in the scabbard, and the cat alive, they called the handyman.

While Adonus cleared the dishes, Mary stood and walked down the hall to Romulus' room. Marking a rare event, a one hundred year storm, Mary twisted the doorknob to Romulus' room and entered to tuck him into bed. Inside, and from the corner of the room farthest the bed, Romulus stared nervously at Mary. Unaccustomed to parental attention, he panted anxiously, his tongue visible as it rested on the teeth of his lower jaw.

As she entered Romulus' lair, Mary found feathers spilled about. It was as if a pillow had been sent through a wood chipper. The feathers covered the ground to ankle height and floated freely in the air, swirling with the air currents as she moved. Mary had no idea where Romulus' slept. His mattress had fallen partially off the bed and now lay half on the floor. In its plunge, it appeared to have taken the night table with it, which lay tipped over at the side of his bed.

It wasn't clear what reparations Adonus had left unfinished in Romulus' room, nearly eight months ago, and what damage was recent. The evidence at hand all pointed to Romulus' having attempted another escape: the carpet was torn back in three of the room's four corners, fist size holes were punched in the plaster board; and, bite marks circled the edges of the larger holes. Without explanation a set of lawn jarts stuck in the ceiling.

Good mood buoyed by the liquor, Mary decided to read her son a story before tucking him in for the night. "Come on Romulus jump up on your bed, and I'll read you your favorite night time story." Mary trued the mattress to the bed, and righted the night stand. Her tidying complete, Romulus leapt from a farther distance than Mary would have thought him capable.

Mary sat down on the bed next to him, and began reading him his favorite story: Green Peace, Big Fat Liars. As Mary moved to finish, with the penultimate line, "And that's why the world doesn't need whales," Romulus joined her for the closing sentence, "They dirty the oceans."

Romulus commented on how happy his Mommy looked. In response, Mary pinched his nose playfully and asked, "Do you know why I'm so very happy?"

"No Mommy. Tell me."

Mary sat her tumbler of scotch on the small night table, rested her forearms on her knees, and blew her bangs from her face. She turned to look Romulus directly in the eyes, and, with a smile she couldn't contain on her lips, told him why. "Mommy is so happy because tomorrow she is going to kill that fat fucker that Mommy hates more than anything in the world. I'm going mono-y-mono with the pig man."

"Awesome. For five dollars I could kill him for you."

"Ooh, aren't you precious. That's sweet, but Mommy's going to spend her money on cocktails." She patted his leg to show him Mommy's plan was going to make everything okay. "This is Mommy's special present to herself." When she reconsidered the merits of what she had set out to do she corrected herself, "To all of mankind, really."

The next morning Mary woke, excited the day she would kill Cuddy had finally arrived. Today was G.O.D.'s golf outing. Mary's original plan was to kill Cuddy sometime back in the fall. Twice she had planned his death. Initially, after he cut the thumbs from her gloves, and, subsequently, when he towed her car. Upon further consideration, she figured Cuddy would pack on an extra thirty pounds over the winter, and that weight would be the difference between life and death. She hung a large calendar in her office, circled the magical day as if Advent approached, and marked time's passage with a big X.

Mary had planned the golf event solely to facilitate Cuddy's demise. To that end she had selected the day with the statistical probability of having the highest heat index in the summer, and she had made certain the resort offered neither carts nor caddies. After the ridiculous money spent on the holiday party it was easy to convince The Board that no carts or caddies be allowed in an effort to contain costs. She'd persuasively argued to run the outing with a regular start, not the more traditional shotgun start. Her rationale to The Board for the regular start was they would have more time, with fewer employees, at the clubhouse bar post play. She'd researched and secured the C.I.A. issued golf balls that would make cheating impossible. The exact whereabouts and movement of the golf balls was automatically plotted on GPS software. It was impossible to cheat and not get caught. Lastly, she made certain Cuddy's foursome played last, with her foursome teeing off immediately beforehand.

She dressed quickly, and stuffed three bags of jumbo marshmallows into her golf bag. As she readied herself for the day she thought how apropos Cuddy's death by means of sweetened paste confection would be. She knew with certainty you couldn't fight bacon boy head on, and instead elected to employ a judo-like approach and use his size against him. As a backup plan she shoved her pink handled, Jesus approved, pistol into her purse.

In a strange paradox G.O.D. tolerated no cheating during its annual golf outing. A guaranteed terminable offense if you were caught misrepresenting your score. The draconian rule stemmed from Doug's loss a couple years ago to a low level service rep. Unknown to Doug the rep had played on the pro-am circuit for a season and hadn't cheated. Doug was certain he lost by the even dozen strokes due to the reps dishonest count and vowed to never let that happen again.

As Mary hoped, it was the first dangerously hot day of the year, a combination of sweltering, desert like heat and rain forest level humidity. News stations interrupted their regularly scheduled programming to warn of the heat index and high ozone levels. It was the weather Enron longed for in the good old days; the old and infirm dependent on air conditioners to stay alive, and the energy to run those life saving devices sold at a premium over the suggested retail price.

Cuddy pulled into the large gravel lot of the country club, a little after nine in the morning, parked, and dropped from the Escalade onto the gravel below. In the spirit of the game he wore pink plaid knickers, knee socks, saddle golf shoes, and a straw fedora. It wasn't even late morning and he was sweating profusely. Beneath the silk, white short sleeve polo, he wore a graphic tee shirt whose advertisement bled thru. In bold brown letters the ambiguous marketing slogan of a virtually unknown gambling site, whose double entendre stymied its growth, shown clearly on Cuddy's chest: The King of the Double Flush.

While Cuddy practiced on the putting green, Mary arrived and parked. Exiting her vehicle she sought to tie up the final details in her plan. Mary approached a random manager who was giving the day's work instructions to the groundskeeper staff. Walking between the manager and his staff, Mary pointed excitedly at Cuddy as she addressed the group. She let them know, in no uncertain terms, exactly what was expected, "You see that fat fucking pork sausage with the High School Musical IV hat? Cuddy Chorizo. He has a do not resuscitate order. I want to be fucking clear. The Boston Butt drops to the ground, you stand and watch. Take a picture if you want, but no extraordinary measures."

Confused, and non English speaking, the manager answered, "Si mucho." The manager nodded his head slowly for emphasis. From her frantic tone, he assumed she was asking if the very fat man looked like a sausage with Zac Efron's hat. Mary walked away thinking she'd done what she could do, now let the cards play out. After all, she had a backup plan in her purse.

The twenty board members and sixty employees in attendance gathered at a large bell well behind the first tee. The rules of golf were summarily reviewed, and each employee was given their tee times and a handful of CIA golf balls. Doug spoke to the group before the match started, "This fabulous game is not to be sullied with the indignation of false scores. If you're caught lying, you'll be fired!"

Being of Scottish descent, Cuddy cheered wildly. To Cuddy it was unthinkable anyone would cheat at golf, or not complete a round regardless of conditions. Better to die, club in hand, than quit mid-round.

The game would be played with a regular start. Groups of four would begin as soon as the group in front of them was out of striking distance. Behind Mary's back, Cuddy had argued for and won the right to fire a shotgun to commence play. His weapon of choice was a double barreled ten gauge goose gun, whose firing was completely unnecessary given all employees started at the first tee. Cuddy scanned the crowd. He planned to fire from his hip, and if the opportunity presented itself Mary's untimely demise would come off as an accident. Any jury would have a reasonable doubt.

As Cuddy raised the shotgun and prepared to fire, Mary squatted, pistol in hand, and hid behind her golf bag. Mary knew to be nowhere in sight if Cuddy was armed, but was prepared to return fire if need be. Rumors abounded on Cuddy's family's affinity for explosives, and when she put herself in his shoes, as gross as she thought that idea was, she knew she'd fire the gun at him. Smiling wildly, Cuddy fired both barrels. Boom!! Car alarms rang. Employees screamed, "Holy shit!" and covered their ears a moment too late. A sole goose, the mate of the goose Rico had bludgeoned, fell from the sky. The Chairman nodded in appreciation of Cuddy's marksmanship, "That's some cold shit."

The Chairman played first, and as he stepped to the tee all talk stopped. As he stood and stared out at the verdant fairway, in his beltless trousers and matching sport coat, both in a blue and white, diamond checkered pattern, all eyes fell on him. Beneath the jacket, his silk white shirt played the perfect complement to his white, patent leather golf shoes. Impervious to the sun's heat and gravity's reign The Chairman teed off. He didn't require practice swings, and his shot was crushing and effortless. He drove the ball hundreds of yards down the fairway to lie perfectly near the green.

As the ball disappeared Sue cheered. Animated, with her hands over her head, she jumped up and down. As she jumped, her halter top struggled to contain its contents and the globes of her ass slipped seductively from the bottom of her too short shorts. Seeing Sue, Mary smiled approvingly. This was exactly the standard she wanted for Sales.

With the ball no longer visible, The Chairman turned to face Sue and smacked the outside of his leg with his driver, as if it were a riding crop. "Giddy up."

Sue bent at the waist, slapped her ass with her hand, and answered him, "Ride em, cowboy." Together, they walked down the fairway. As they went, The Chairman spun his pocket watch from its fob and looked a Crumb cartoon come to life: 'Keep on Truckin'.

With The Chairman and Sue long gone the The Board organized into five foursomes and teed off. Their play was hurried and without discipline as they sought to get to the bar as quickly as possible. After The Board, the employees played by seniority and department.

A little before eleven in the morning, Mary's group teed off. She'd paired herself with the aforementioned former pro, and two other golfers she knew to be the best in the company. Either of whom could easily win today's play if they didn't hold back to avoid embarrassing upper management. All three had long drives that ended within yards of each other in the middle of the fairway. Mary drove last. Her much shorter shot fell in play but far to the right. Mary urged the group to play on, and she would catch up. By design, as they left the tee, this was the last Mary would see of her golf mates.

Finally, Cuddy's group, the last group of the day, teed off. With Cuddy, Mary paired the three employees that she knew hated Cuddy nearly as much as she did: Nels, Shap and Wilma. Wilma hit first, a crisp drive down the middle of the fairway leaving her well positioned for the second shot. Shap played next. He'd worked at the local university's golf course growing up and hit a shot nearly identical to Wilma's, but ten yards further up the fairway. Nels played last. He'd spent his formative years at his family's country club in Glencoe and spanked the ball equidistant to Shap. All three complimented each other on the start of what they hoped to be a fabulous round.

Cuddy went last. He played golf as a poor substitute for shinty and favored a running approach to his tee shots; a spastic, pigeon toed affair absent any athleticism. Surprisingly, Cuddy made contact with the ball more often than not and was prone to hitting the ball long distances. With no control, he spent an inordinate amount of time trying to find his ball. After placing the ball on the tee he walked a few yards back, cried out in Dougish, and charged. Nels, Shap, and Wilma, stood in shock, mouths open. None of them had any idea what he was screaming about, where the ball went, or that you could do that in golf.

Nels, Shap and Wilma left the tee, and conspired to leave Cuddy behind. That was the last Cuddy saw of his golf mates on the course. Mary deliberately played slowly, and waved Nels, Shap and Wilma through. The three-some acquiesced, and quickly caught up to Mary's tee mates on the second hole wherein the two groups of three decided to play together. Neither group wanted the day ruined by playing with Cuddy or Mary. The six-some decided they'd play competitively through the 17th hole, and then screw their scores so as not to embarrass their bosses.

The series of events perfectly orchestrated and in place, Mary was the sole golfer ahead of Cuddy. For Mary's plan to work it was important that Cuddy be the last player on the course. Mary, golf bag in tow and three bags of jumbo marshmallows stuffed in her pockets, walked to the second tee. At each tee the course had provided a large cooler of water and iced tea. Mary pulled the drain plugs on each after taking a long drink.

Mary drove her ball from the second tee. As she walked to the ball she discretely flicked marshmallows, hand low and to the side, to both sides of the fairway. Her exceptional ability to flick, honed with her cigarette habit and unnatural hand strength, sent the marshmallows thirty or forty yards. Mary's plan was working perfectly. The temperature had rocketed into the red zone, with nearly one hundred percent humidity. The weatherman now advised against any outdoor activity.

Nearly a half hour after he'd set out, and drenched in sweat, Cuddy reached the second tee. The heat was stifling, and the sun had yet to show its true power. From the tops of trees, cicadas sang their droning chorus. Cuddy labored to set his golf bag down, breathing heavily and nearly tripping over as he did so. He was dizzy from the heat. Stumbling, he walked to get a glass of water, only to find the coolers bone dry.

Alone, he teed his ball up, walked several yards back, charged, and hit his second drive of the day. At the end of his swing he faced the opposite direction the ball travelled. Cuddy turned around and raised his hand to shield his eyes from the blinding light of the sun. As he squinted, he looked down the fairway and wondered where the hell his ball went. White balls littered the fairway. "Horse's ass!" he mumbled, as the severity of the situation dawned on him; he'd have to check each one to figure out which was his ball.

Mary continued to scatter marshmallows, and drain the refreshment coolers, through all eighteen holes. On the final green she hid behind a small bush and glassed the fairway with a pair of traveler's binoculars. As she spied, Cuddy labored up and down the seventeenth fairway, to and fro, to find his ball. He looked to be in a bad state; the armpits of his shirts were soaked in sweat to the point that the stains met in the middle of his belly; his pants were wet from crotch to knees; his shoes sloshed in sweat as he stumbled forward; and, his face was covered in a gritty white residue. As he approached the eighteenth hole he had walked almost 40 miles. On the last hole Cuddy teed his ball up and prepared to charge, but before he drove the ball he felt a strange arrhythmia in his chest. His heart skipped beats like crazy. Mary watched him utter a final squeal, clutch his chest, and fall face first to the ground. His hands did not rise to break his fall, and the earth shook when the five hundred pound Cuddy landed. She swore she could hear the death rattle in his breath. Mary putted out, and ran to the clubhouse to celebrate.

In the clubhouse, Mary lit into her first cocktail, certain her plan had worked and that Cuddy lay dead on the course. A rare smile graced her lips. She generously extended her glass to clink cheers with her co-workers, "Bottoms up motherfuckers!" She knocked glasses with the women who stood to her right, and liquor splashed everywhere.

"Bottoms up," her co-workers echoed, anxiously looking for an excuse to escape Mary's presence.

Mary finished her cocktail in a hurried gulp, and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. She abruptly left her co-workers and walked to the bar for another cocktail. Fresh drink in hand, Mary stood and downed her second drink at the bar. She drank with her head as far back as her neck allowed, and the glass nearly vertical. Mid-way through her drink, as the liquor disappeared down her gullet, Mary made eye contact with the bartender, pointed emphatically at the glass from which she drank, and ordered her next round. When she emptied her second drink, she threw her arm down to her side and splashed the squeezed lime and ice cubes violently off the carpet. She voiced an enthusiastic, "Fuck yeah!" and took her third cocktail from the bartender without as much as thanks.

Fresh drink in hand, Mary walked from the bar to rub shoulders with several members of The Board, who spoke in low voices by the large window that overlooked the eighteenth hole. Unfortunately, The Chairman and Sue were gone long before Mary entered the clubhouse. All that testified to their having been at today's event were a lipstick stained martini glass and half a dozen empty high ball glasses. Doug too was nowhere to be seen. He stormed off in a huff after The Chairman handily beat him. Mary wanted to make it clear to whichever board members she could corner that she was the ideal candidate to succeed Doug. As she walked up, hoping to gain favor by offering a stellar down shirting, several of the men pointed out the window at the small hill that split the final fairway a quarter mile from where they stood.

Straining to see what they were all looking at, Mary's brow furrowed and a frown stained her lips. She spoke a barely audible, "No fucking way," and unconsciously shattered the glass in her hand. Liquor, citrus, and ice, splashed everywhere.

From the farthest reaches of the final fairway, and barely visible from the window, a vision in pink crawled over the hill. Sunburned as a lobster, and with his head appearing strangely shrunken was Cuddy. As he crawled on his belly, dragging his golf bag behind, he continued to play. In his left hand he held a golf club with which he smacked a golf ball a few yards at a time. His score would break four hundred.

At nearly ten in the evening, with the sun set and the staff waiting anxiously for the party to end, Cuddy stumbled into the clubhouse. His breathing was shallow, his pulse was rapid, and grass stains ran from the top of his shirt through his knees. He smelled like a potato fresh from the field. In his right hand he held a decimated score card upon which a score of 432 was recorded. In the air conditioned club house Cuddy fell into the first chair he found and immediately began to drink pitchers of water. After several gallons of water his head returned to its normal size. While he rehydrated the consultants checked his score against that recorded on the computer. The numbers agreed and provided no argument for Cuddy's immediate termination.

As he composed himself, Cuddy sat surrounded by employees and board members anxious to hear his tale of extreme golf, and the life skills that kept him alive. As Cuddy prattled on about the importance his fitness program played in his survival, Mary stood silent and in despair. Crestfallen, she stoically walked to retrieve the purse she'd left at the table and resigned herself to Plan B. Purse in hand she returned to the back of the crowd that had gathered around Cuddy. Holding the purse in front of her with her left hand, Mary slipped her right hand into the purse and nosed around until she found the handle of the revolver. She squared the pistol in her hand and removed the safety. Loaded gun in hand, and hidden within the purse, she then moved slightly to her left wherein she held a direct line of fire. Even dehydrated he would be hard to miss.

As she began to pull the pistol from the purse the groundskeeper she had explicitly instructed to avoid any and all resuscitative efforts quickly stepped to her right and gently circled her wrist with his hand, thereby keeping the pistol hidden in the purse. In a hushed voice he whispered in Mary's ear, "El hombre de cerdo no se puede matar la mano de mi hombre." Mary did not speak Spanish, but instinctively knew he was right: The pig man cannot be killed by man's hand.

Mary released her grip on the pistol and looked the grounds keeper in the eyes. She nodded knowingly as tears streamed down her face and she turned and slowly walked to the door. Fat and ugly had won, once again, in America.

Chapter Twenty Nine

Helen's disease didn't progress in a linear fashion, and as the nights began to grow longer she stopped responding to the medicines and her conditioned deteriorated quickly. The first noticeable changes were the loss of her peripheral vision and a struggle to remember words. For the name she'd have spoken weeks before she began to substitute, "those things," "you know what I mean," and "that guy". She smiled to cover her lapses, scared as the darkness closed in, and her mind began to falter.

With her mind and eyesight failing, she started to lose control over the muscles on the left side of her body. More often than not, she was unaware the coffee she held in her hand had spilled to the floor, naïve as her arm straightened under gravity's pull. In a state of rapid decline, and adding to the severity of the situation, weight began to fall off her already thin body. Her bones now jutted from her skin. With the muscle and fat no longer providing any cushion, she bruised at the slightest touch and began, for the first time, to look gravely ill. A grimace of pain began now showed on her face, a sharp contrast to her sunny disposition. As Helen's decline hastened she began to quit the living, sleeping more, and often falling asleep in the middle of dinner or mid-conversation. She slowly came to terms with the finality of the situation.

As the drugs failed, Rico quit performing and invested his time in researching treatment options. He spent hundreds of hours on the internet. He had Helen's tests, scans, and biopsies, sent to the leading medical institutions around the country for second and third opinions. In the end, he learned they weren't coining new science to save Helen. It didn't work that way. You had whatever drugs or treatments the FDA approved, and a handful of clinical trials for which you might, or might not, qualify. Consensus from the health care professionals Rico reached out to was unanimous, "They were out of options and time to let nature to take its course." In Rico's mind's eye he could see the doctors on the phone with him, scratching the ground with their feet, like Chicken Little, as they shared the bad news and hurried to end the call.

Rico wouldn't give up, and still took Helen for motorcycle rides on the weekends. The two tethered by a large canvas belt Rico adapted for this express purpose. Helen never tired of the big loop, and it was a sad milestone when Rico realized she could no longer keep her feet on the passenger pegs as he drove; the motorcycle was now too dangerous for them to ride. After the motorcycle they took to walking, with Helen leaning on him heavily to keep from falling. Her left leg flopping forward without control, her body in a state of arrested free fall, as Rico held her to keep her from crashing to the ground. Onlookers often commented on the, "Drunk, crazy lady."

Helen's parents, family, and friends, came to visit as often as they could afford. Before the disease's rapid progression, Helen, and her company, would sit up late waiting for Rico to race home after playing a set at Kill Your Television. The house crowded and filled with laughter and tears as they reminisced. In the morning late breakfasts, slowly lingered over, as new pots of coffee were made and Rico feigned illness or car trouble to cut work and spend time with Helen and her guests. As each visit came to a close, a desperate sadness descended, only to be followed by awkward goodbyes. Her friends and family struggled with what to say, as the likelihood of seeing Helen alive again diminished with each passing day.

Rico constantly nagged her to drink the nutrition supplements and milk shakes he brought her each day, in a vain attempt to put weight back on her frail frame and give her the strength to keep up the fight. His hope that he might indefinitely postpone the inevitable shattered when he came home after a show and found Helen lying face down outside her front door. His heart raced as he dropped the groceries and guitar he carried and ran to her side. Rolling her over, he found her conscious but bleeding and confused. A jagged gash ran down the left side of her forehead and blood covered her face. Shaking with fear Rico carried her back into the house and sat her gently on the couch. She weighed almost nothing.

He struggled with the decision of whether to call 911, knowing once admitted she'd likely die in the hospital. To comfort her, as he sorted out what he should do, he soaked a washcloth in hot water and washed the blood from her face. As he nested Helen's head in his hand, and gently cleaned her wound, she revived and the confusion temporarily left her. Helen explained that she'd gone onto the porch to pick up a package, and while bending down, and unable to see out her left eye, she slammed her head into the corner of the brick pillar. Rico nodded in understanding. In an effort to comfort her, Rico downplayed the obvious tell of the disease's progression and told her he'd done the same thing a hundred times before. Helen smiled, grasping at the straws of hope Rico threw.

With the groceries and guitar still in the front yard, Rico sat by her side and nursed her late into the night. As she began to doze off, he untied her shoes and pulled them off. On her left heel he noticed a crack, two inches and almost to the bone. A side effect of the steroids they'd prescribed to keep the swelling down. Rico started to cry when he realized Helen's strength. She'd never complained about her foot.

The next day Rico took her to see the favorite of her many doctors, the doctor who'd previously given them so much hope with the test results that showed the disease at a standstill. Walking into the exam room, with Rico supporting nearly all her weight, Rico noticed the doctor's concern at Helen's rapid deterioration. The doctor took his flashlight and looked into her eyes. As he examined her motor reflexes and balance he gave her three words – pizza, blue and fifteen - and told her in a minute he'd ask her to repeat them. A couple minutes later he asked her to repeat the words. Helen looked at the ground, embarrassed she couldn't remember what he was talking about. As the doctor explained there was nothing left for science to offer, Helen fell asleep. The doctor spoke to Rico in a low voice, "She is actively dying. She does not have much time left. She should stop taking the drugs, at which point she'll rebound a little, but her journey will end soon. It's time to call Hospice. I'm so sorry." Rico called Helen's parents later that day, while she slept on the couch, and shared the doctor's prognosis.

Three weeks later, and after a late show, Rico walked in the home to find Helen sitting at the table with a small cup of tea in front of her. Surprisingly coherent, she smiled warmly when Rico walked into the kitchen. For a moment, she looked like the Helen of old. As the doctor predicted her mental faculties had temporarily come back and it was clear she'd been rehearsing what she wanted to say. In front of her sat a small notebook with crib notes, the words misspelled and disjointed. Looking at her notes and worried the window of lucidity would close, Helen started awkwardly, "With different circumstances it might have been a very happy ending for us, but I'm losing the plot and I'm almost out of time. I've marked a date on the calendar. I'll bet you a dollar I can make it that long." She tried to shake Rico's hand, and be funny, but her hand flopped uselessly to the side. It made them both sad that she could no longer make such a simple ask of her body.

Rico didn't want to bet against her and tears rolled down his face as he heard her out. "I want to spend as much time with you as I can. I don't want to die in a hospital; I want to die in my own home. I'm not going to be a miracle survivor. I'll be gone soon." She paused, absorbing the enormity of what she'd just said. "Oh my God, I'm going to be plant food!" She was laughing and crying at the same time, "You're welcome to stay here until my parent's sell the house. They know how kind you've been and I've told them my wish you be allowed to stay." As Rico fought back the tears, Helen made her last ask of him, "Maybe you'll write a song about us someday. If you do, promise me that you'll play it at my funeral. Promise me, please?"

"I promise."

"I love you."

"I love you, too."

Done speaking she held her hand out for Rico to help her rise from the chair. Tears streamed down both of their faces and they hugged tightly, sobbing. A half hour later Rico helped her to bed. Her mind fogged as she lay down and she withdrew within herself and dozed off. Rico spent the night holding her and crying intermittently.

Chapter Thirty

With only a few weeks before the Board Meeting at which Mike, Cuddy, and Mary, were to present their results, Shap called Mike to ask for his help in working out a détente between the warring parties. It was pretty clear to Shap that he, along with Cuddy, Mary, and Mike, were going to lose their jobs if they didn't finish the tasks Doug assigned. Without computers, it was obvious the system project remained incomplete. No computers also meant there were no reports, so no one knew whether Cuddy's plan to drive productivity, by forcing the consumption of office supplies, was working, or where they stood against bad debt. G.O.D. had not produced a financial report since Mary castrated the computer.

Regardless of the pending consequences, Mary and Cuddy were making no effort to work together, and as always Mike remained clueless. Having grown up in Detroit, Shap was well versed in unemployment, and with the economy in its current state he knew it could be years before he found another job. As unrewarding and degrading as he found working for G.O.D., he wanted to avoid being fired. Mike answered on the first ring.

"Mike, you must be the change you wish to see."

"Shap?" Mike asked concerned he might have been caught playing on the Internet. He quickly checked behind him to make certain no one was watching him fritter the morning away, and then closed out of Facebook. From his desk he pulled a yo-yo and began to play quietly.

"Peace is a very complicated concept. All I am saying is let's give peace a chance. When the rich wage war, the poor die. We've got to resolve this war between Cuddy and Mary before we are all fired. Seek me on four, in the southeast corner."

"Wait. Aren't you on the sixth floor? You want me to come down? You're not making a lot of sense. We're all going to get fired? Why are we all getting fired?" Mike began to panic that his senior management run might be coming to a close.

"It's far out man. Cuddy had Wayne move me back to four. He's hell bent on figuring out who keeps pissing all over his office so he's rotating people on and off of six. He's trying to solve the problem by process of elimination, so to speak."

"I didn't realize someone was pissing all over his office, but that goes a long way towards explaining that weird smell. I'll be right there." The thought of continuing to live in his parent's basement, absent income and sex, while driving the Yugo, was more than Mike could endure, and he agreed to meet, even if it meant he might be asked to do something.

"Groovy," Shap ended the call.

Stepping off the elevator, Mike was taken by how different the fourth floor was. There were no computers and the office supplies that hindered passage for the last ten months, or so, were down to a few neatly stacked boxes in the corner. The click clack of typewriters echoed down the halls. From a turntable and speakers in the corner, the psychedelic, bluesy, stoner rock of Robin Trower boomed. The atmosphere was smoky from the stick incense that burned within a half dozen glasses liberated from the cafeteria. Much of the staff was wearing bandana headbands, bell bottom jeans, and jean jackets. At the end of the hallway, an employee fed a stack of computer punch cards into a card reader.

"Christ," Mike thought, "it's 1969 down here."

A couple of employees walked by Mike, and as they passed they asked Mike, "Can you dig it?"

"Dig it!" Mike answered. Turning to watch them walk away, Mike noticed the taller of the two had a giant pink comb in his back pocket. Both wore their hair in huge afros.

Orienting himself after exiting the elevator, Mike turned and began walking toward Shap's office. As he passed a large conference room two young customer reps, a guy and gal, opened the door unexpectedly and stumbled into the hall. Her hair was mussed, blouse unbuttoned a button beyond business casual, and her bra looked undone. She was wearing hot pants and go-go boots. He looked slightly catatonic, and the smell of sex on the two was pronounced. Seeing Mike the guy nodded coyly, and reached back to flip the vacancy sign to vacant. Turning around the guy swatted the girl on the ass, and then chased her down the hall. Both giggled as they ran.

As Mike watched the late morning lovers run down the hall, three guys walked toward the now vacant room. Mike wouldn't testify in court, but he was pretty certain the guy at the tail of the group was hiding a bong under his coat. The guy that maybe had a bong entered the room last, flipped the sign to occupied, and closed the door. Mike was not aware of the new incentive program Nels had dreamed up: Stoners & Boners.

Moving past the conference room Mike found Shap's office in the southeast corner and knocked on the door frame. The door had been removed and in its place hung a row of light reflecting glass beads. Shap was holed up and sitting cross legged on the floor in a lotus position, a sitar in his lap. His hands rested comfortably on the inside of his knees, palms up. Shap's eyes were closed, and he didn't stir when Mike knocked.

Mike knocked again. At the second knock Shap opened his eyes and nodded slowly. The office was barely lit. In the darkness, Mike saw a girl's sting ray bike in the corner. On Shap's desk sat a brass Buddha, next to which burned several incense cones which filled the office with hazy, strawberry scented smoke. The walls were decorated with black light posters, two of which Mike recognized from his childhood; a hippie caterpillar on a mushroom, and Bruce Lee Enter the Dragon. On the bookshelf a lava lamp bubbled and bathed the room in a red hue. Not certain if Shap was stoned, or exiting a dream, Mike asked, "Shap, may I come in?"

"Enter my brother."

"What are you doing on the floor?"

"Seeking calm in a storm," Shap answered enigmatically.

"Are you stoned?"

"No Mike, but as a top performer I could be."

"What's going on? What's happened to the fourth floor?"

Shap answered as if he'd been preparing for the question. "When Mary killed the computers it led to a more primal state. A de-evolution, if you will. Without the computers, nobody could play their music. To right that wrong, Nels dragged in an old turntable and set of speakers along with a couple of milk crates jammed with vinyl LPs. About a week after the music started Wilma dropped off a couple boxes of incense she found in her mother's garage. I guess her mom and dad used to run an old head shop. Soon after, everyone piled on and started shopping at vintage retail shops. I'm not sure where all the black light posters came from or the lava lamps. They were here when Wayne moved me in." Shap set the sitar down, leaned to his right and lit another cone of incense. "Our working conditions influence who we are, and what we become."

The obvious suddenly dawned on Mike, "It's like 1969. You've become a hippie! Oh my god, you're a hippie!"

"Down here we're all hippies, man."

"What happened to the computers?"

"In an effort to force Cuddy's surrender Mary tore the plug from the server's cord rendering the computers useless," Shap answered, not fully out of his dream state. "The computers housed the customers, prescriptions, financials, reports, and clinical data. You probably don't remember, being a busy executive, but a couple months ago you signed a purchase order for a few thousand gross of punch cards and a punch card reader. It was for about five grand. Today, we manage our business with punch cards."

Mike remembered. Other than read the neatly summarized totals on a series of reports when he first became CFO, it was the only thing he'd done since replacing Alan.

"Punch cards? The punch cards they used for programming in the seventies?"

"The same. It's extremely and surprisingly effective. Operations have it down to a science. They publish an updated guide every other day that lists the patients needing medication and the data we need to collect to provide pharma. As they work the service reps punch the data into the card. No programming is required, no business requirements, no testing, and no test cases. They simply list the questions, and the reps punch out the appropriate chads on the card when they talk to the patients or doctors. At day's end we load the cards into the card reader and print the reports we need for the next day."

Mike stood in wonder at the simplicity of their solution. "Why are we spending millions on a computer system when we can manage the business on a few thousand dollars worth of punch cards and card readers?"

"I'm not blessed with an executive mind. I don't know. Anyway, that's beside the point. This battle between Cuddy and Mary is going to cost us all our jobs. We've got to figure out a compromise that gets Mary what she wants, Cuddy what he wants, and lets us go back to our normal day to day. Or at least as normal as it will ever be around here. Doug's not a bluffer. He will fire us to save his ass."

"What does everyone want?" Mike asked. He was clueless, and growing concerned Shap expected his insight.

Shap explained the obvious, "Mary wants Cuddy to quit hiring ugly sales reps. She also needs him to sign-off on the computer system. She's sick of seeing embarrassing shots of her on the monitors. And crazy pissed about the thumbs on her French gloves. She wants them back."

"Cuddy s convinced if he signs off on the system Mary will become the next CEO. She already parks right next to Doug." Mike objected.

"Doug's not going anywhere, he owes the IRS millions. He'll be here forever, or, on the off chance the stock price rises, Cuddy has enough options and he can retire. We must switch Human Resources and Information Technology and restore balance." Shap shivered at the idea he expressed next. "I must face my karma and go back to working for Cuddy. Then, maybe, he'll stop hazing me. Mary can work with HR to hire who she wants. Cuddy doesn't have any open positions he's trying to fill, he only wants HR to bust Mary's balls. With IT under Cuddy's control he'll sign-off on the system, and that'll keep Mary from getting full credit. If they split the credit neither will change their position for the top spot."

Mike shook his head implying it wouldn't work. "He won't sign-off until it manages customer pets, and I don't think anyone is going to fund the do-over. Customer pets are the wave of the future. "The ridiculousness of the requirement was lost on Mike.

"I talked to the junior consultant. The former high school intern, who looks like he stays out all night partying. He's the one who recommended changing the company's name and holding the holiday parties. He also installed The Hand Job. Anyway, he said customer debts, not pets. The system already does that. It tracks patient receivables. I told him to talk to Doug and tell him that he meant debt, not pet. The IT project is done. It was done when Doug refused to sign-off. It's been done for over a year."

Mike smiled at the possibility Shap had solved what seemed an insurmountable problem. "You called because you needed my insight into the business problem, and my help convincing Mary and Cuddy?"

"No." Shap was well aware Mike was absent any influential powers and not exceptionally bright. "What I really need is a ride. This meeting must be offsite. Anything in the building is going to foster their posturing and will never get this conflict resolved." Pointing at his daughter's bike in the corner Shap explained, "Situations beyond my control have forced me to embrace alternative transportation. I've booked a lunch reservation at Bistro de Champagne, the spendy French bistro downtown. Cuddy's not known for a discriminating palate, and if it's expensive and French Mary will be sure to attend."

Mike wrung his heads together, excited at finally having something of value to do at work. He also hoped this would tip the scales in his favor at his annual review. Wikipedia did not mention car service as a standard job responsibility of the CFO, and he felt he should receive extra compensation for going above and beyond the call of duty.

Shap extended his hand and Mike pulled him to a standing position. Mike noticed Shap's head was covered in perfectly spherical purple splotches. Mike pointed quizzically at Shap's head. Shap shook his head no. He didn't want to discuss whatever events had led to his spotted appearance. To change the topic Shap moved to the second reason he'd called Mike. He wanted Mike to type up the terms of the treaty.

Mike squirmed at the thought of work and accountability. "You want me to type the treaty? How long is it? Do CFOs do a lot of clerical work?" As enthusiastic as Mike was moments ago at having something of value to do at work, he quickly reconsidered his position; it might simply be better to hang around, learn French, and play with his yo-yo.

Handing Mike a single page of neatly hand written notes, Shap answered, "It's a page. Don't think, just type. CFOs do that all the time. It'll take you five minutes. And take this typewriter, you'll need it. The computers don't work." Shap told Mike he'd stop by after he met with Mary and Cuddy, and confirm they were willing to meet for lunch. He'd also let Mike know if there were any last minute changes to the treaty.

Mike headed back to the staircase, typewriter under his arm. As he walked, he considered the demands he'd make on G.O.D. Carrying a typewriter was also clearly outside his job description. On the way he passed the Stoner & Boners conference room. The pungent smell of pot hung in the air, yet the three employees Mike had passed earlier were nowhere to be seen.

Looking in the room, Mike noticed the conference table and chairs were missing. In their place sat a cluster of large bean bag chairs and oversized pillows. On the white board, "Whatchoo talkin' 'bout Willis?" was asked in rainbow letters. It looked as if someone had held a stack of markers in one hand when they wrote. On the wall farthest the door someone had written on the paper easel in bold strokes with purple ink, "Stoners & Boners is a privilege, clean up your mess." Crossed out were the alternate endings the author had considered, including; Clean up after you; Clean up after yourselves; and, Wipe up whatever you get on the carpet. Given a say in the matter, Mike would have definitely gone with alternate ending number three: Clean up whatever you get on the carpet.

Mike walked up the two sets of stairs to his floor and re-entered the calm atmosphere of the executive floor. Exiting the staircase, he elected to walk the long way around the floor to avoid Mary's office. He then cut through the pantry to hide from Doug, who was running toward the elevator dribbling a basketball. Per their agreement, it was Shap's job to corral Cuddy and Mary and get them to the lunch. Mike would focus on driving to the meeting and typing the treaty. With Doug gone, Mike resumed his journey only to find himself quickly ducking into an open office to hide from Cuddy, who ran by, low to the ground, on his way to the vending machine.

At about the time Mike was entering his office, Shap paused a couple dozen feet from Cuddy's door. Shap braced himself as he summoned the courage necessary to approach the pig man in his sty. As he steeled his nerves, his nose wrinkled like a rabbit, his right eye scrunched, and his tongue stuck out the side of his mouth. Shap proceeded, only to find Cuddy's office door closed. This was unfortunate. Shap was hoping for an informal interaction. Shap knocked.

"Hold your britches. I'm putting my pants on."

Shap stood quietly in the hall. While he waited, his face involuntarily and spasmodically contorted and he tried not to lose his nerve. It was in Shap's best interest to give Cuddy whatever time he needed. A couple minutes later, the door flew open and Cuddy's enormous head filled the doorway; a pink Good & Plenty stuck to the side of his head. The office reeked of urine, and behind Cuddy the Health Builder clinked and popped as the bearings cooled.

"Get in here Injun, no sense standing in the hall like a dolt." As he spoke, Cuddy stepped behind his desk, flopped into his chair, and propped his feet up on his desk. "Let the little piggies breathe. Now what do you want, boy?"

Cuddy didn't invite him to sit so Shap stood. As Shap tried to decide the best approach to get Cuddy to lunch he struggled for focus. Cuddy's socks were riddled with holes, from which his toes protruded. Hanging from the wall behind Cuddy was a stuffed pug. The dog was strangely deformed and looked to be the canine equivalent of a pressed rose. The dog gazed skyward; its last moments captured forever in a terrified look of shock and awe on the little mug. Shap assumed it was the pug from the party and with that in mind laid out why he'd knocked on Cuddy's door, "Cuddy we need you and Mary to enter a truce. We're all going to lose our jobs if we don't deliver on Doug's directives."

Spinning quickly around, feet now off the desk, Cuddy pointed at the pancaked version of man's best friend. Tears began to fall from his eyes. "She killed my best friend. She murdered Pugsly."

"Cuddy, you and I both know you landed on the dog."

"She made me do it."

"We're not bringing the dog back. He's in a better place."

"Pugsly," Cuddy corrected.

"We're not bringing Pugsly back," Shap restated. "But I can guarantee it's a tough job market, and none of us will be the richer if we're fired."

Between the restaurant tab, QVC channel, mortgage on the McMansion, and his and hers matching Escalades, Cuddy struggled to make ends meet. Cuddy turned to face Shap, "What are you proposing, boy?" He returned his feet to his desk and waited Shap's answer.

"You, Mary, and I, meet for lunch and work this out. I'm typing up the terms of the treaty. You and Mary read and agree to the terms, and we spend the next few weeks completing the goals Doug outlined."

"No way I'm having lunch with that murderer."

"We'll pay for your lunch."

"You'll pay? I want two lunches."

"Fine, you can have two lunches."

"I want my priceless holiday sweater cleaned."

"Bring in the receipt and we'll pay for that too."

"This is the office of the COO, not a public restroom. I want whoever is pissing in my office to stop." Cuddy's eyes again welled with tears. As Cuddy fought to keep from crying, Shap realized the pink hockey pucks stacked in the corners of the office were urinal cakes.

"I'll see what can be done about the urination."

"Alright, I'll meet. Where and when?"

"One pm sharp. It's on Lincoln Avenue. The restaurant is called Bistro de Champagne. I'll ask Wilma to give you a map." Relieved that Cuddy had agreed, Shap turned about face and quickly left Cuddy's office. In the hallway Shap ducked his head and ran to minimize the chance of being shot with the dart gun. A dart whizzed by and missed him by inches.

Shap caught Wilma at her desk filing her nails. "Can you print out and give Cuddy the directions to Bistro de Champagne? We're meeting for lunch." Shap looked behind him, nervous another dart was soon to follow.

Wilma frowned cautiously, "The computers don't work, but I can e-mail his Blackberry with the directions from my iPhone. I'm not going into his office. I keep catching him in his tighty-whities, and it smells so nasty in there. I don't make the kind of money that warrants intimacy with Cuddy. For Christ's sake, I stapled the crotch of his pants." She balled her fist and pressed it tightly to her mouth. "Have mercy," she begged.

"Okay, e-mail him. But, call to make sure he knows how to open the e-mail. Maybe you could hand write the directions and throw them into his office as a paper airplane?"

"I'll do my best, but I'm not walking to the door if the plane doesn't make it."

"Deal."

Having secured Cuddy's commitment to engage in peace talks, Shap decided to check on Mike. History had shown that Mike overpromised and under delivered, and Shap wanted to make certain the treaty was typed and ready for signature. As Shap had guessed Mike sat staring out the window, mindlessly playing with a paddle ball, and muttering French phrases. The handwritten treaty sat in the corner of Mike's desk, as did the unused typewriter.

"Mike, how is the typing of the treaty going?"

"Excellent, I'm getting right on it."

"That needs to be ready when we leave, and you need to add a clause outlining the cessation of urination in Cuddy's office." Mike looked perplexed not understanding Shap's directions. Shap wrote the specifics down and then drew a line with an arrow indicating where this clause should appear in the final document. "I'll let you know if anything comes out of the meeting with Mary as well."

Shap left Mike's office and walked down the hall to Mary's office. He found Mary sitting at her desk, thumbing through a fashion magazine. Shap knocked on the door, and Mary looked up, clearly perturbed at the interruption. "What the fuck do you want? I'm in the middle of something."

Shap explained his proposal to which Mary responded with a litany of curse words, the most frequent of which was her much loved F-bomb. At the end of her tirade Mary agreed. She didn't want to wait for the passing of Adonus's parent's before she upgraded the bengal for an actual African wild cat. Her participation, however, came with three conditions.

Mary leaned forward in her seat and poked Shap hard in the chest, a stabbing jab from her index finger, "First, I'm not buying Cuddy's lunch. I'll be no party to the continued fattening of America. "Second," she jabbed Shap again as she wriggled to keep from sliding off the front of her chair, "I'm not sitting across from the human garbage disposal." Then, poking him a third time, she poured on the demands, "I want the Goddamn thumbs of my gloves returned. I don't want to be on the corporate TV unless I approve it, and," having slid to the front of her seat and about to fall to the ground, Mary jumped up to untangle her pantyhose and left her unfinished sentence hanging in the air, "I want my fucking chair fixed!"

Shap left Mary's office rubbing his chest and returned to check on Mike. Everything was as before with the treaty still waiting to be typed. "Mike this needs to be ready when we leave and you need to add some clauses for Mary."

Mike looked nervous at the change in scope. "A lot more typing? Christ almighty Shap you're becoming a taskmaster. I don't know if I can get all this done in time."

"Don't worry, I'll write everything down." Shap wrote down the specifics and drew a line with an arrow indicating where they should appear in the final document. "Call me in fifteen minutes and we'll sort out the drive downtown." Shap left Mike's office, concerned the treaty wouldn't be typed in time for the meeting.

A little after eleven, Mike sat on the corner of his desk and dialed Shap. He was anxious to leave the office, and planning to go directly home after lunch. The sooner he finished lunch, the sooner he'd be in front of the TV in his parent's basement. On the third ring Shap picked up, "Shap, why do you always answer on the third ring?"

"The first ring could be a wrong number. The second ring tells me that the phone is likely for me and I rise from the lotus position. At the third ring I reach the phone," Shap answered languorously, his persona again influenced by the working conditions on the fourth floor.

"My car isn't safe above forty miles an hour and we've got to drive downtown so we need to leave ASAP."

"Five minutes, man. Right on," Shap confirmed.

Realizing he'd forgotten to type up the treaty, and with only a few minutes before he'd need to meet Shap in the lobby, Mike found himself cornered like a rat and forced to perform. He yelled for Wilma. She joined him in his office, sat in his chair, and typed the charter that would establish peace in the hallowed halls of corporate America. As she typed Mike stood idly by and played with his paddle ball. When she finished typing, Mike tore the page from the typewriter and shoved it into his briefcase. Bag in hand he then ran to the stairway and down the stairs.

Mike exited the bottom of the stairwell to find Shap in the middle of the lobby with one hand balancing his daughter's pink stingray, the other holding his computer bag. Shap rang the little pink bell on the bike's handlebars absent mindedly. At Mike's approach, Shap asked if there was room for the bike.

"Yeah, no problem." If it was an adult's bike it'd never fit, but Mike figured the kid's bike could sit in the Yugo's diminutive hatchback, or it could sit half in the hatchback and half out the back window.

Leaving the building Mike exited through the revolving doors. Right behind him Shap hit the handicap button for the side door and wheeled out the bike. They quickly walked to Mike's car. They wouldn't get a second chance at brokering peace in time to complete the goals they'd been given. Upon reaching Mike's car it took a couple minutes of fumbling, but they were able to wedge the bike half in the car. The handlebars and basket rested on the outside of the hatchback door. With the bike taking up the back, Shap sat in the passenger seat and set the computer bag on his lap. With no other option, Mike gave Shap his bag as well. Squished beneath both bags, Shap could hardly be seen.

Mike started the car and was about to shift into drive when he placed his hand on Shap's forearm, "Shap, let us pray before we undertake highway travel."

Shap wasn't particularly religious, but understood the importance of prayer in conjunction with the daily commute. Shap often prayed before he drove given his repeated encounters with the law, and nodded his head affirmatively.

The car idled roughly as Mike prayed, "Dear Gods above please allow this soviet era terra-plane, assembled by workers likely held at gunpoint, to grant safe travels."

Shap closed the prayer, "Amen."

Mike stepped on the accelerator, the car sputtered forward, and they began the long dangerous journey downtown. As they pulled from the lot Mike told Shap if he could spare a hand they could accelerate to forty miles per hour, but he needed him to help push the windshield outwards to keep it in place. Given the state of affairs Shap felt it a reasonable request and pressed his left hand to the windshield. Working together they sped to a heady forty two miles per hour. Driving down the highway, half in the right lane and half on the shoulder with the hazard lights flashing while their hands pinned the windshield in place, they finally reached their exit and pulled from the highway. At the tail of the exit Mike stopped for the red light, looked over at Shap, and commented how well the drive had gone.

Shap looked to be in shock. Mike's repeated exposure had acclimatized him to highway travel in the Yugo. Shap wasn't used to the horns, obscene gestures, and profanity, aimed at those that impede progress on the nation's highway system. Most disturbing to Shap were the drivers of minivans. The blue-green Dodge Caravan, from which all three blonde hair, blue eyed toddlers, the mom and grandmother, gave them the finger burned in Shap's mind. He'd have loved to have returned fire and given them the finger back, but keeping the windshield in place and briefcases from blowing out the back window required both hands.

Mike's prayer worked, granting safe passage on the highway. At the light, however, the car would not budge. Horns began to blare, and Mike stepped from the car to open the hood and begin the diagnostic process. The engine didn't appear to have anything wrong; at least nothing was on fire and it hadn't fallen from the car. He jiggled a few wires and returned to the driver's seat. The car would not move.

Shap pointed at the fuel gauge: Empty. Mike addressed the Yugo's issues in the order with which they were likely to kill him and at the bottom of the long list he'd overlooked the obvious. They had about three miles to go and it was twenty minutes before the appointed time at which they'd agreed to meet. There was no way Cuddy and Mary would hang around waiting for them.

Shap looked at Mike, "Let us take the bike."

Mike nodded his concurrence. It really was the only option.

With the Yugo now pushed onto the shoulder, Shap and Mike, dressed in nearly identical dark pinstripe suits with red ties and white shirts, straddled the pink stingray bike. Shap asked for Mike's participation in prayer and spoke solemnly for the second time that day to the Gods, "Dear Gods we thank you for our safe travels to date, and beseech of you continued safe travels."

Mike shouted fervently at the blue sky, "We beseech you!" then sat on the banana seat and leaned against the sissy bar.

Shap stood to pedal. As Shap pedaled, Mike's legs stuck out to either side of the bike in an inverted V to keep his feet from dragging on the ground. Shap rocked the bike back and forth as he pedaled, accelerating slowly, and clearing the sidewalk of all pedestrians. Mike flipped his tie over his shoulder and it trailed behind and flapped in the wind.

Almost twenty minutes later Shap skidded to a stop in front of the restaurant's main entrance. A busy lunch spot, their arrival caused a lull in conversation from the large group standing on the sidewalk waiting to be seated. It wasn't everyday two men in matching business suits arrived at an expensive French restaurant on a girl's pink bike. Before Shap could explain to the crowd what was going on, Cuddy and Mary approached. They eyed each other cautiously and Cuddy reached forward to shake her hand.

As Cuddy extended his hand to Mary, he noticed that she was looking at his behind. Thinking her look of disgust a question, Cuddy explained what was going on. "The curse is killing me, I been itching like a sum bitch. I didn't face this demon before I nearly died on the golf course. Gift of life appears to be the gift of a scratchy bung hole." Of late, and in arguably his least flattering move to date, Cuddy had begun to strap an inflatable, tartan patterned, hemorrhoid donut to the back of his pants as a means of managing whatever bottom troubles his large carcass had succumbed to on the golf course.

Mary couldn't believe she was touching his hand without a latex glove. Her discomfort caused her to squeeze tighter than normal, and she heard bones pop in Cuddy's hand. Cuddy's head turned bright red.

Shap ushered them inside. It was necessary to keep the momentum in these types of situations. At the reservations desk the maître d' looked suspiciously at the strange group. Shap spoke quickly, "We have a reservation for four, at one pm. The first name is Shap."

The maitre d' slowly ran his finger down the spiraled register, and tapped the book twice when he found Shap's name midway down the page. Realizing passage through the crowded restaurant likely to be problematic the maitre d asked, in a snooty French accent, "Monsieur would you like to check your inflatable donut?"

"Hell no, boy! It isn't for pleasure. I got the curse." Cuddy had taken an instant dislike to the maitre d. He looked suspiciously like the man at Doug's holiday party who had worked the dining station that killed his beloved Pugsly. That man, who might be this man, was already listed in Cuddy's, Mighty List of Slights.

"I see." The maitre d' held his hand up, palm facing Cuddy to discourage further elaboration. He then turned to Shap, his eyes drawn to the purple circles that adorned Shap's head, "Sir, would you like to check the child's bicycle?" Shap didn't have a lock and had brought the bicycle into the crowded restaurant with him, jostling patrons from his path.

"Yes, please."

The bike safely stowed in the coat room, claim check in hand, Mike, Shap, Mary, and Cuddy, followed the maitre d to their table. As Cuddy waddled his donut bounced off the backs of those dining, knocking food from forks and spilling drink from glasses. As they went all eyes fell on this motley crew, and conversation ceased.

As previously agreed Cuddy, Mary, and Mike, sat on the same side of the table with Mike between the warring parties. Shap sat directly across from Mike. When all were seated the waiter approached, introduced himself, doled out the menus, and explained the daily specials.

Menu in hand, Mary ordered quickly. She planned to make this lunch as quick and painless as possible. "I'll have a croquet madame, without the egg."

"Tres bien. Un croquet monsieur," the waiter politely corrected.

Mary dropped the menu loudly on the table. "What the fuck do I look like? A man?" She grabbed her tits and squeezed them at the now mortified waiter. "You see these funbags, dickhead?"

"Pardon madame", the waiter whispered urgently, hoping to avoid any escalation of the misunderstanding. "The croquet monsieur is the same sandwich as the croquet madame absent the egg."

Mary wasn't finished, "And don't go sticking your dick in my mashed potatoes, or French fries or any of my Goddamn food for that matter." At this point all conversation in the restaurant ground to a halt. With all eyes focused on Mary she pulled her lipstick and compact from her purse. As she applied her lipstick she smiled at herself in the small round mirror, thrilled to be the center of attention.

Mike knew better than to demean the wait staff. Whatever went in your mouth was in their immediate control. Year's before Mike had been fired from a bartending stint at Captain Parrots, a cheesy chain that catered to suburbanites visiting downtown Chicago. The faux Caribbean bar looped Jimmy Buffet and showcased an upside down margarita. Mike had been the bartender on duty when a group of rowdy twenty something young professionals began giving him shit for not having a real job. The protagonist wouldn't let it go and to get them off his back Mike offered the group free upside down margaritas. The group lined up in sets of two and sat side by side in matching barber chairs. With the chairs fully reclined, and their heads slightly below horizontal, Mike draped a large white towel over their eyes to protect them from the concoction he would mix directly into their mouths. Blinded, and with their mouth wide open, Mike poured tequila, a fruit juice mix, a splash of salt, and a squeezed lime into their mouth.

The odd numbered group ended with the protagonist as the last to go. By this time a large group had formed to watch. In the chair, eyes covered with a towel and mouth open like a baby bird, sat the leader of the pricks. As the seconds passed, and anticipation grew, the leader opened his mouth wider and wider. Instead of a margarita, Mike dropped a giant, raw bratwurst into his mouth. In life, few things are as certain as the response that is received when tubed meat, especially pork, is shoved deep into the mouths of the unsuspecting. Gagging, as he scrambled from the chair, the leader ran headlong into a large load bearing wooden post. He slipped to the ground, unconscious as blood streamed from his forehead. From across the bar Mike's Manager watched; there would be no severance pay.

With this in mind, Mike politely ordered the steak frites in perfect French. At thirty six bucks he was glad he wasn't paying. Shap followed suit and nodded knowingly at Mike. He too was glad they would be sticking this meal to the G.O.D.

Cuddy grew uneasy when it came time for him to order. The menu was in French and he wanted two chicken sandwiches akin to those served at Kentucky Fried Chicken. A supersized portion that included four chicken patties and two buns integrated into one offering. Rather than misspeak, and end up with something he didn't want, Cuddy felt a short dramatic mime performance would best communicate his order. With his thumbs tucked under his armpits, elbows flapping, Cuddy bobbed his head to and fro. He pecked at the menu with his nose as he flapped his elbows up and down. The bounce of the inflatable donut added to the overall effect, providing a vertical dimension and loud plastic squeak to the world's first five hundred pound chicken. Terrified and confused, but assuming the fat man was attempting to order some form of chicken the waiter spoke, "I speak English."

Cuddy stopped his performance and explained his vision of French bistro food. The waiter cautioned he wasn't certain if the widow maker was possible, but agreed to let the chef know.

As the waiter walked away, Cuddy cupped his mouth, "Bring extra catsup, and show the love on them fries, boy."

The waiter gone, Shap called the meeting to order and quickly summarized the reason all four were gathered. He repeated himself several times in his opening remarks, reiterating the need for a peace accord if they had any hope of remaining employed. "It's a bitch of an economy, and Doug will fire us all if the goals he outlined are not met by the time we convene at the upcoming Board Meeting."

Cuddy and Mary stared in silence neither agreeing, nor disagreeing, with Shap's assessment of the situation. In front of Shap sat the document Wilma had typed up that outlined the terms of the treaty. Shap verbalized the key points one at a time, beginning with the IT project.

"First, Cuddy will sign-off on the new system. Operations will not be required to use the new system, however, computers will be returned to the employee's desks to create the illusion of a company that runs on computers.

Second, Cuddy will not feature pictures, videos, or any likeness of Mary on the monitors unless Mary has pre-approved; Cuddy will have Wayne fix Mary's chair so the seat is horizontal to the ground; Cuddy will use best efforts to persuade whomever has the thumbs of Mary's gloves to return them to Mary.

Third, Mary will use best efforts to dissuade whoever is responsible for pissing in Cuddy's office from continuing to do so."

Unable to control herself, Mary snickered when the topic of pissing in Cuddy's office was raised. Cuddy glared to his left, his hypotheses proven wrong. "Horse's ass," he muttered. He thought it was either Doug pissing in his office, or Doug and the cleaning crew.

Shap retuned to the topic at hand. "Fourth, Mary will assume responsibility for Human Resources. Cuddy will assume responsibility for IT.

"Fifth, Cuddy will park in the spot on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, the first and third weeks of the month, and Tuesday and Thursday the second and fourth weeks of the month. Mary will park in the spot on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, the second and fourth weeks of the month, and Tuesday and Thursday the first and third weeks of the month.

And finally, Cuddy and Mary will cease all hazing of Shappa, including but not limited to unauthorized application of bumper stickers to his automobile and the use of dart guns."

Pointing across the table at Shap, Cuddy reacted to the final term of the treaty, "I never shot that little injun in my life. I been unjustly accused." Cuddy's eyes blinked open and closed as they shifted left and right. He was a terrible liar. As he squirmed nervously, the waiter hastily dropped off their food.

"Alright, alright, I'll amend the final point to indicate your denial." Scribbling with a ball point pen, Shap modified the document and added, "Cuddy vehemently denies he is responsible for shooting me with a dart gun, but in the interest of peace has agreed to the term and conditions." Shap initialed the modification, Cuddy and Mary signed the treaty, and an accord was reached.

Cuddy, Mary, and Shap, it appeared, would meet the goals given by Doug and likely keep their jobs. With the signed document sitting in front of him, Mike suddenly remembered Doug had assigned him the task of reducing bad debt. "What about bad debt? How do we fix that?" asked Mike, when he realized his problems weren't addressed in the treaty and remained unsolved.

Cuddy answered with his mouth full of food, "Bad debt ain't my problem, boy."

Mike looked at Mary, hoping for some help. Mary answered his stare, "What the fuck you looking at? Bad debt is certainly not my problem."

Finally, Mike looked at Shap who responded, "Sadly Mike, my powers aren't infinite. You'll need to figure that out yourself. If I start today, I'll be lucky to have some rudimentary financials in time for the Board Meeting."

Their food now on the table they ate in silence. The accord didn't mandate chit chat.

Suddenly, in a concerned voice as she held her plate up for all to see, Mary asked the room at large, "Motherfucker! Does that look like somebody stuck their dick in my potatoes?"

Mike stood alone now, with no plan to reduce bad debt, and it looked like his senior management run was rapidly coming to a close. In the near term, he'd need to see if Cuddy, or Mary, would loan him a few dollars for gas since he and Shap had spent all their cash on lunch. As it turned out, Mary and Cuddy wouldn't loan him any money, and Mike quietly resigned himself to the long ride home on the back of Shap's daughter's bike.

Chapter Thirty One

As Shap pedaled into G.O.D.'s parking lot, with Mike on the back of the bike, Rico walked through the front door of Helen's house and called her name. It was rare Helen wasn't sitting in the living room waiting to greet him, and when he received no reply he ran into the kitchen thinking she might have fallen asleep in her favorite chair. She'd grown very fond of staring at the lightning struck tree that sat a half dozen feet from her kitchen window. He found her chair empty.

Her father, who had flown in a couple days prior, spoke from the back of the house, "She's sleeping. She didn't get out of bed today."

Helen's father joined him in the kitchen, and Rico pulled a couple of beers from the fridge and opened them. They stood opposite each other. Her father spoke first, "This is the end, isn't it?"

"I think so. She's never spent an entire day in bed."

"I couldn't wake her."

"What would be the point?"

"Could I impose on you to drive me to the church up the street? I'd like a little time to myself."

"Of course, anything I can do." Rico finished his beer in a single pull and set the empty bottle in the sink.

Dropping her father at the empty church, Rico waited until he was certain the church doors opened and then called out, "I'll be back in an hour, if you're not outside I'll come back an hour after that. You know the house number if you need to call." Helen's father disappeared into the church. He looked shrunken, and smaller than Rico remembered him to be.

Back at the house Rico found a dollar bill on the kitchen table. It wasn't there when he had left; at least he didn't remember it being there. When he saw the dollar, a sadness he didn't know existed welled up within him and he ran to the bedroom, hoping against all logic that Helen was awake. He found their room as he'd left it in the morning.

Her clothes were in the closet, shoes scattered throughout the floor. She didn't need them any longer. Weeks earlier she'd asked him to donate her clothes to a local charity. She'd started to stuff everything she owned into trash bags to make it easier for Rico, but he'd begged her to stop. It was too sad to bear, and he promised he'd see her wishes carried out. On the bed, at peace at last, lay Helen. She had lost the bet and died alone in the house. Men tend to die with their families surrounding them, and women when no one is around. Helen was no exception. Rico sat and held her hand as it grew cold. Finally, the phone rang. He'd forgotten to pick up her father.

"Forget about me?"

"I'm sorry, I'll be right there. I have some bad news." Rico had no idea how to soften the blow, "Helen passed." He pulled the sheet up to cover Helen.

Helen's father cried openly. He didn't ask any details.

Rico hung up the phone, too numb to cry. For today he was all cried out and knew if he lay on the couch it'd be months before he got on with his life, at which time he'd surely be unemployed. His health benefits didn't recognize the grief of losing his best friend, and he'd never felt this alone in his life. He drove to pick up her father and called Hospice when they got back to the house.

Hospice coordinated the pick-up of her body, and its cremation. After Helen was loaded in the hearse, her father left for the airport and last flight home. He wanted to tell his wife, Helen's mother, in person. He'd call Rico with details about the memorial service, when the arrangements were final.

Alone, Rico returned to the kitchen and fell heavily into her favorite chair. The silence was deafening, and the tinnitus that he never seemed to notice when Helen was around rang uncomfortably. Tiredness overcame him, making the smallest of tasks feel insurmountable. He sat with his elbow on the table, and his head crookedly balanced against the fist of his right hand. He hurt to his core from heartache. As he stared out the window, a thousand yards in the distance, he pondered the unanswerable question, "What were the odds he'd finally fall in love and the girl would die a year after they met?" For the last couple of weeks he longed to talk to her, but the disease had taken away his mischievous, fun loving Helen. For the past half a week, she was unable to answer yes, or no, to the simplest of questions during the few hours a day she was awake.

Later, anxious and uncomfortable at being alone, and without the energy to cook, Rico stood in the kitchen eating dinner; crackers from the box. Afterwards, in a sorry attempt to manage his grief, he returned to the kitchen table and sat drinking beer he couldn't taste. He'd quit smoking pot a few weeks before. He couldn't handle getting stoned when Helen fought to remember the simplest of words or carry on the most elementary of conversations.

In a fog he walked into the next room, uncased his guitar, and returned to the kitchen table. To distract himself he sat and worked on his music. He spent a long time working out the lyrics and chords which best expressed his overwhelmingly sad emotions. In the middle of the night, as he finished the song he'd started the first time he met Helen, he heard a strange noise coming from the backyard.

Sitting in the lightning struck tree, and hooting at the window, was an Arctic owl. Rico stood, guitar in hand, and looked at the owl a long time. Uncertain if the bird would fly away Rico figured he would open the window slightly and play the song he'd just finished writing. The owl hooted wildly, and Rico played that song, and a handful of other songs he'd recently written, the rest of the night. Around four in the morning, at the first tell of daybreak, the owl flew away.

With the sun fully raised, Rico grew concerned that sitting in Helen's house alone all day would lead to unhealthy choices. As miserable as his job was it would keep him occupied and he decided it was in his best interest to go to work. On the drive in he made a resolution. He was done with G.O.D. Life was short and fickle and he'd been treating music as an avocation for years, his music career stuck in neutral as life went by. He was going to commit to being a musician and see where it would take him. At work he reconnected with his agent, with whom he'd been notably remiss in staying in touch as Helen's condition worsened, and asked him to book him into whatever he could. Where and when didn't matter.

At day's end, Rico returned to the table where he'd spent the last night. A little after sundown, after having dozed off in the kitchen chair, he was again woken by the owl which sat, as it had the night before, in the tree. Rico worked through the night penning and refining his songs, voicing and re-voicing the chords, modifying the progressions, laboring over the verses, framing the chorus and bridges. As daybreak approached he opened the window and played the magical owl the seven new songs he'd worked out. The owl hooted wildly, and like the night before flew off as dawn approached. Without intending to, Rico dozed off for a few hours as the sun slowly rose in the sky.

Rico returned to work, forty eight hours after Helen's passing, absent a shower and dressed in the previous day's clothes. Early in the afternoon his agent called back and let him know he'd booked him as a replacement for a like act that had quit at the last minute. Elaborating on why, the agent explained the poor man was suffering from, 'exhaustion,' and had to check into, 'the nervous hospital'.

Rico would be playing a twenty seven show tour across the country. It wouldn't be arenas, but state fairs and street festivals. Among the stops was the infamous Toad Suck Daze in Arkansas; aptly named for the locals that stood around sucking down booze until they swelled up like toads. Around six o'clock, Rico woke to found he'd fallen asleep with his head on the keyboard; hundreds of pages of the letter K unintentionally typed on the computer screen. He hurriedly gathered his things and began the drive back to Helen's.

As Rico pulled onto Helen's street, a utility company truck pulled from her driveway. Inside the truck, the workers were covered in wood chips. Rico ran into the house, looked out the kitchen window, and saw that the lightning struck tree had been cut down.

Chapter Thirty Two

At the far end of the sixth floor, near Doug's office, sat the Board Room. Unlike the majority of the rooms in the building, the Board Room was tasteful, ridiculously expensive, and of exceptional caliber. In the room's center was a large conference table; an exquisite piece of art honed from a single Redwood tree felled in the eighteenth century, recovered from the bottom of a river at great peril, then kiln dried and hand crafted to serve as altar for G.O.D.'s annual Board Meeting. The shareholders paid well into the six figures for this masterpiece that comfortably sat fifty in the stately Eames armchairs that surrounded it. On the room's north side was a podium and projection screen, and on the south side a kitchen and fully stocked bar. A large counter of imported Italian marble, decorated with ornate relief carvings, separated the food and drink from the meeting area. Rhythmically spaced on the walls surrounding the table were hand blown glass sconces. The sconces threw a soft, diffuse light that was, by design, exceptionally kind to the liver spotted, wrinkled skin of The Board.

Around the table for the meeting sat The Board. Their hands folded as if in prayer, their shoulders hunched, and eyes blood shot. From beneath the suits that contained their crozzled hearts their bony shoulders poked. Most had tumblers of hard liquor in front of them and many held unlit cigarettes. Crotchety and sullen, they flavored the room with bad temper, naïve to the miracle of their consciousness and the statistical improbability of having lived this long. Their lifetimes of SPF free sun, three martini lunches, incessant smoking, and red meat, should have put them in the grave long ago. Miracles aside, they were collectively angry at the world given the possibility of a decrease in their personal wealth. With the stock in free fall since they'd last met (over two years since Alan's death resulted in the cancellation of the 2006 Board Meeting) none expect good news at today's meeting. At this point in their lives little upside existed.

At the head of the table, and opposite the podium, sat The Chairman. Dressed for the occasion, he wore a powder blue tuxedo with satin lapels, mint green vest, bow tie, and ruffle front tuxedo shirt. Resting against the table next to him was his rare and distinguished walking stick, with cobra shaped handle of twenty four carat gold. As always his afro reached skyward. With his head backlit by the sconces, and bathed in heavenly light, he appeared like a solar corona.

The Chairman's frown made it clear that he was angered by what he read in the newspaper he held. Reflected from his sunglasses was the cause of his consternation, The Chicago Tribune's November 30, 2007 headline: G.O.D. What Is Going On? Beneath the headline was a motif of pictures. The first was Alan falling from the 6th floor, taken from a security camera that inadvertently captured the event. Immediately below was a picture of a handful of firefighters, dressed in biohazard suits, dragging Evil Kitty from the building by a long rope. Next was a grainy black and white photo from a police surveillance camera of Shap's car adorned with a ManBoyLoveAssociation sticker. Lastly, there was a photo of Doug sitting on the tenement housings basketball court with a 40oz can of King Cobra malt liquor in his right hand while he held court over a rough looking mob of urban youth.

The Chairman folded the newspaper, tossed it in down in disgust, and rapped his walking stick loudly on the table signaling he was ready for the meeting to begin. It was fifteen minutes after the meetings scheduled start time and with Doug nowhere to be found The Chairman had grown tired of waiting. As he pounded the table all seats, save four, were taken. Pissed off that he would have to run the meeting, he ordered the barkeep to switch the chair nearest him for the circular waste basket.

As the barkeep swapped out the chair, Cuddy, Mike, and Mary, stood in a single file line in the doorway, nervously waiting admission by invitation. With Cuddy at the head of the line, Mike and Mary could not be seen from the room. As the three were about to enter Doug turned the corner at the end of the hall sprinting for the Board Room. He wore a bright blue Adidas track suit, and white terry cloth sweatbands on his head and wrists. Around his neck was a thick gold necklace. He'd forgotten today's meeting until Wilma called him at the basketball courts.

Doug pushed the three aside without paying them any attention, and ran to claim the seat nearest The Chairman. Offered no alternative, he sat in the wastebasket with his chin inches above the table. As he fought to keep from sliding to the bottom of the receptacle, The Chairman angrily tossed the newspaper at him.

Doug had not seen the article, and struggled to determine whether it was a good thing, or it was a bad thing, he was on the Tribune's front page. To answer the question he surreptitiously shook the Magic 8 Ball and learned it was a bad thing, a very bad thing. He slid deeper into the trash vessel.

Doug's situation went from bad to worse when several advertising circulars slipped from the newspaper. Before him now lay ads for Wal-Mart, Costco, and BestBuy. Doug flashed back to the IRS agent's threat, nearly a year and a half ago, "One slip up and that melon will be tattooed with the logo of the highest paying big box retailer." Doug's mood soured perceptibly when he considered the possibility, "Always Low Prices," might be with him forever and he barked at the three still waiting in the doorway, "Find a seat." Having paid them no notice when he ran into the room, he was not prepared for the parade that lay ahead.

To Doug's dismay, Cuddy entered in a kilt with his inflatable tartan hemorrhoid donut strapped to the back. He'd embraced his Scottish heritage and dressed for St. Andrew's Day, November 30, which coincided with today's Board Meeting. From the t-shirt Cuddy wore beneath his white dress shirt, the words SPAM bled. As Cuddy waddled to his seat he found the passageway too narrow to accommodate, and his donut alternately bounced off the backs of the heads of those seated and the wall. Disrupting everyone in his path Cuddy explained in his big Nebraska voice his predicament, as he slowly made his way, "Gift of life is the curse of a scratchy bung hole."

Staring blankly into space, and no longer hidden behind Cuddy, Mike bounced a pink spongy ball off a paddle in rote repetition. He counted aloud, "Sixty, sixty one." Cuddy's entrance jarred him to the present, and caused him to miss. To manage the butterflies growing in his stomach as the day of reckoning approached he'd recently started playing paddle ball. The simplistic and mindless nature of the game suited his personality as he memorized the conjugation of French verbs, alone and in his office. Unprepared for Cuddy's sudden departure, Mike fumbled to hide the paddle ball in his front left pocket as he walked into the room.

Alone now in the hallway, Mary allowed the necessary amount of time to create the tension for a dramatic entrance. Uncertain what to wear, and concerned Cuddy would be the center of attention with his tartan donut, Mary had spent the week consulting Sue. Finally, she and Sue agreed on the outfit that most effectively demonstrated her team spirit, yet allowed her opportunity to show off her corporate assets. To that end, Mary wore her high school cheerleading outfit and highest heels. Her chest stretched the white sweater tight, upon which the team's mascot, Cougars, was written in red cursive letters. Her skirt barely covered her ass.

Doug scanned the room for his consultants, but, like Jesus abandoned by his disciples in his time of need, found only unfriendly faces. With the consultants nowhere to be found, he spoke as Cuddy, Mike, and Mary, clumsily settled in, "Last time we met I gave you specific assignments. To my right sits your termination letter, and to my left sits your bonus check. You're getting one or the other."

Mike was confused. The only thing sitting in front of Doug was the newspaper The Chairman had angrily pitched at him. Mike figured he must be talking metaphorically, but decided to withhold his clarifying question. As Mike pondered the differences in metaphorical, rhetorical, and literal his presence in the room startled the wizened racist seated mid-table who feared all change.

As if awoken from a deep sleep, the hateful old man sat up straight, and pointed at Mike. "Who the fuck are you? What happened to the little CFO? The mean little asshole that proclaimed himself exalted? He's the only one that understood me." As he shouted, his bald pate, with tufts of overgrown hair on the sides of his head and bushy moustache, created the illusion of an angry Koala bear.

Doug raised his hand, signaling he'd take this one, "You mean Alan. Alan wasn't exalted. At least I don't think he was; I didn't go to the funeral. Anyway, the evil dwarf jumped and Mike's his replacement." Doug appreciated a question to which he knew the answer, and his mood brightened. Later questions might require an understanding of the inner machinations of the company and prove impossible to answer. Doug knew it was always best to establish credibility as quickly as possible and when opportunity allowed, even if you were sitting in a trash can.

"Mike?" The Racist pointed at Mike while speaking to Doug, "He looks Greek. Greeks are a dirty people that discount the benefits of daily bathing." The old man turned in his seat to face Mike, and challenged, "Are you Greek?"

"Greek! Greek! Greek!" Mike's situational echolalia answered for him as he fought to gain control and provide the correct answer, "No, I'm Irish." Mike imagined The Racist wearing an early nineteenth century German Imperial Prussian military hat with a spike sticking from its top and a Nazi pin on his jacket's lapel. Mike was certain The Racists declarations would have sounded better in German.

"Christ," The Racist slapped the table in frustration "The Irish are a race prone to drunkenness. At least Napoleon was financially minded. Why can't you find one from the continent?" He lashed out at Doug. "Island people inbreed. It's not their fault, it's the island. It's a matter of supply and demand." Rambling he continued, "I'll take Irish over English any day. What's so difficult about oral hygiene?" The Racist seemed convinced England was a breeding ground for halitosis. His xenophobic hate appeared boundless and to include many topics.

Mary nodded overenthusiastically at the mention of the importance of oral hygiene, hoping to build allies in her relentless battle against ugly and its many forms.

Mike discretely cupped his hands in front of his face and checked his breath.

As The Racist changed course and attacked Polish cuisine, Wayne entered, uninvited, and gave Cuddy what looked like a handful of dirty napkins. Wayne and Cuddy conspired, whispering back and forth. As Wayne shook his head no, and righted himself to exit, Cuddy shoved the papers into the back pocket of his kilt.

"Who the hell are you?" demanded The Racist, alarmed for a second time by an unfamiliar person.

"Wayne. I run Facilities, and I'm the volunteer Fire Marshal."

"Wayne? Jesus F Christ, that's the most common name of serial killers. Are you a serial killer?"

Wayne looked nervous, "No sir, never convicted."

"Huh." A lengthy pause as The Racist processed Wayne's response.

Wayne, excited at being spoken to by someone other than Cuddy, and well aware today was the Day of Atonement, spoke before The Racist could continue his line of questioning. "How much do you hope that godforsaken system project is finished? You take it up the ass twice and piss away a hundred million you better learn to keep it clean. It ain't done you might consider installing bidets."

The Racist grew excited by the hateful talk and leaned forward. "Don't forget The Debacle." As he spoke, he pounded the table with his fist.

Wayne pointed at Doug, "He screwed the pooch and played catcher in that disaster too."

Doug's eyes widened with fear. Even the Volunteer Fire Marshall knew the extent of his leadership mishaps.

Cuddy grew concerned Wayne might outshine him and broke into the conversation, "We wuz in France and Irene asked about experiencing the bidet. Man at the front desk told her best thing might be if she did a hand stand in the shower. My Irene doing a hand stand, you imagine that?" Cuddy stroked his chin as he pondered the merits, and considerable risks, of inverting Irene in the shower. "France, them's a sexually liberated people?" he asked the room at large.

"They are a people prone to perversions and deviant sexual behavior," answered The Racist.

"You really are a useless piece of shit," attacked The Racists neighbor, another old man previously unheard from and tethered to an oxygen tank. His outburst left him gasping for air, and he worked to control his breathing.

"Useless piece of shit? You know nothing of the value I bring," The Racist challenged. He pointed antagonistically at his nemesis with gout stricken, palsied fingers, "Nothing, you little turd."

"You're a hateful little coward."

As the exchange escalated The Racist fumbled blindly with his left hand under the table. He searched for the green oxygen canister that kept his rival alive. Upon locating the canister, he gave the valve atop a quick twist to the right and slowed the flow of its life giving oxygen. The old man's face took on a blue pallor, and he sucked loudly on his dentures as he struggled for air.

Doug nodded in approval. It was in his best interest The Board not form alliances given they often culminate in leadership changes. He then interrupted the escalating argument, to get the meeting back on track. "Cuddy you were given responsibility for improving employee productivity. What do you have?"

As Doug worked to refocus the meeting the old men gave each other the finger and stared angrily. They mumbled and plotted.

The Racist loudly called out, "Idiot," as he considered the merits of closing the valve entirely.

The old man wheezed, "Moron," in response. His eyelids fluttered as he fought for consciousness, and his breath whistled over his dentures.

Cuddy fought to stand. His tartan, hemorrhoid donut was wedged deep into the seat, and extraction was noisy and with effort. Once he'd freed himself he walked to the front of the room to address the group. The donut rubbed the wall loudly as he went, and passing the old man tethered to the oxygen tank Cuddy forcibly knocked the back of his chair.

Jarred at the unexpected, and with half the oxygen he required to remain conscious, the old man tipped face first onto the table. His forehead clunked loudly on impact, and as he lay motionless with his nose squashed flat, a pool of drool began to form. All seated ignored his lifeless form. They were anxious to avoid any further delays in knowing the impact today's meeting would have on their net worth.

At the podium Cuddy began without establishing any context or restatement of the goal he'd been assigned, "Doug, I'm driving employee productivity by forcing office supplies on them. Productive employees generate important documents, and if you produce important documents the inescapable truth is you need binder clips. Staples are directionally correct, but binder clips is so much more informative."

The Racist nodded his concurrence, "Makes perfect sense."

Encouraged by The Racist, Cuddy elaborated, "Thick documents cannot be stapled, and unproductive employees simply don't consume office supplies. You print orders you burn through print toner."

The other members of The Board angrily looked at Doug for explanation on why the little time they had left in life was being wasted by the fat man's cryptic and nonsensical speech. Doug buried his face in his left hand and angrily asked, "Cuddy, do you have a presentation?"

From his back pocket Cuddy produced the stack of wadded sheets, with hand written numbers scribbled incomprehensibly across the back, that Wayne handed him minutes ago. The papers were marred by ketchup, coffee, and mustard stains. Cuddy stepped forward, and Doug instinctively drew his hand away from the packet Cuddy tried to foist onto him.

Doug grew frustrated, "What did you base this on?"

"Pig farming. It's what I know."

"Are you mentally retarded?"

"Me? Retarded? Ha! That's a good one. No, I'm high functioning. Way high functioning." Cuddy stuck his hand far above his head, marking the imaginary line of his test results. "I was tested a lot as a kid." With that declaration Cuddy reached deep into the front of his kilt and withdrew the papers Mungo, his father, had given him long ago that proved he was absent retardation. He held the thick and tattered mess out for anyone that was so inclined to take and read. Cuddy's offer was met with a response common to the homeless and mentally ill as those nearest Cuddy stared vacantly at the ground, or fumbled with their Blackberries and smart phones. The remaining Board members continued to glare angrily at Doug.

"What the hell likens pig farming to running a specialty pharmacy?"

A small spot appeared on the front of Cuddy's kilt, contrasting mightily with the red pattern. As a bully Cuddy didn't fare well under cross examination. Cuddy's porcine stare meant none of this was processing, and he covered the expanding pee spot, Adam and Eve style, with the soiled papers as he hopped anxiously in place. His rear end began to itch.

"Your Chief Operating Officer appears to have peed himself." The Chairman commented loudly, rapping the table with his walking stick for emphasis and pointing the stick at Cuddy's crotch.

Unable to contain himself any longer, Cuddy gave into the curse and shoved his right arm inside the back of his kilt. He scratched mightily, his face going slack in ecstasy as he violently clawed at his rear end and the source of his misery.

Doug shifted his focus. "Mary, what have you got?" His voice edged toward hysteria, "Cuddy sit down!"

In an attempt to save face Cuddy asked, "You don't want to discuss my ideas for operant conditioning?" The ferociousness of Cuddy's scratching had abated, but his hand was still inside the back of his kilt and he still pawed at himself.

"Sit down!"

The Racist looked up, clearly intrigued. If it wasn't for Doug screaming, he'd welcome a candid discourse on the financial merits of operant conditioning. Not willing to be silenced without his say, he spoke his mind, "You need to consider proven ideas."

Doug yelled a third time for Cuddy to sit. The Racist let it go and made a note in his portfolio to reconvene the topic in twelve months. Moments later, having pondered Cuddy's idea, The Racist added a second note: Calculate the value of water boarding hourly employees. Begin with a small pilot project to prove the concept.

Mary waited until Cuddy passed and she could safely move to the front of the room without risk of bumping his donut. As Cuddy flopped down loudly, Mary stood and walked to the podium. As she crossed the room, The Racist elbowed his neighbor, a previously unheard from board member, and while pointing at Mary's ass commented loudly, "That's what I'm talking about."

Inspired by the sexual harassment, and hoping to recapture whatever attention Cuddy might have stolen by wetting himself, Mary intentionally dropped the remote that controlled the projector. Facing The Board she dropped down until she sat atop her heels with her legs splayed open. As she coyly covered her fish whistle with her presentation, she retrieved the remote. The stripper 101 move worked as intended and The Board cheered wildly.

"Damn that's a foxy mama! Weren't we going to install a fitness pole?" The Racist asked the group, concerned a project so germane to the Board's welfare could have gone unfinished. He rubbed his chin as he tried to remember to whom that job had been assigned.

Basking in The Board's attention, with her palms flat on the floor, Mary straightened her legs until she was bent fully at the waist and tossed her hair. The Board cheered. Nodding demurely in appreciation of The Board's recognition, she ran her hands up the inside of her legs and returned to a standing position.

A boisterous round of applause followed as The Board slapped the table, hooting and hollering. The Board fumbled in their wallets for dollar bills, unsure how far this might go but prepared nonetheless. As an encore Mary skillfully connected her laptop to the projector, and voila, her presentation appeared on the giant screen. The Board again clapped raucously in appreciation. To the last man at the table, none were able to work the fancy controls that projected computers onto the screen, dimmed the lights, or lowered the window shades.

To clarify the directives he'd given Mary, and avoid a repeat of Cuddy's performance, Doug clarified the goal he'd given her, "Mary, I wanted the IT project completed." Doug sat nervously, expecting his second face in hands situation to unfold at any moment.

Mary nodded to confirm she understood, and began her presentation. Her first slide outlined the objectives she was given, the back story on the IT project, and the effort to complete. Mary summarized succinctly, "Finish the IT project. Cuddy couldn't do it. Alan couldn't do it." She spoke in short and declarative sentences, the majority of her mental capacity focused on keeping the F-bomb from her report.

"Doug the computer system is in production. We've completed that goal." Her second slide was a sole word: DONE. Below the word 'DONE' were photo-shopped pictures of Cuddy, the old CIO, Srini, Alan, Shap, and Mike. Each of them wore identical t-shirts with the words, I Suck. Above them was a picture of Mary, in a bikini, holding a sign: I Win. I Win.

"None of the computers are plugged in. How the hell is the system in production?" the Chairman challenged menacingly. He sipped at his tumbler of scotch and blew a large cloud of smoke as he waited an answer. His spies, which operated deep in the organization, were his only source of truth to G.O.D.'s doings and he was well aware of the project's status.

"It is in production, I mean loaded on the production server so that if the employees wanted to use computers they could. Cuddy signed off." Mary pointed accusingly at Cuddy.

"But no one is using it?" Doug asked incredulously, his voice rising. He wasn't aware G.O.D. didn't run on computers. Long ago he'd given up checking the stock price.

"No. Ironically, we are a lot more efficient without computers. The computer system was an impediment to progress. It took more time for screens to load and navigate than it did to work the orders manually. We're doing better off the punch cards and typewriters. Everyone is assigned a set of patients, the work is organized based on the follow up date, and the reps only worry about the information they need to get the job done. They're free to go when the day's orders are shipped, which means most of them are out of here by three pm." Mary read verbatim from the index card Shap had given her which explained why G.O.D. didn't need computers. Then in the interests of full disclosure Mary hurriedly added, "Ohh, and I accidentally tore the plug from the power cord so we can't plug the server in, or turn it on. But, Shap's going to fix that." Mary curtsied awkwardly and moved to her final slide.

On her last slide Mary expected to find a picture of her sitting in Doug's office, as G.O.D.'s new CEO. Mary pressed the page down button, and as the second slide dissolved to the third a giant penis appeared on the screen. The penis was smashed flat on the copier glass from which the slide was taken, and, unlike noted celebrities, the penis bore no distinguishing marks, and, therefore, no way to know its provenance.

The chain of custody for Mary's presentation was too convoluted to identify the perpetrator. Mary had written the slides out, given them to Shap, then to Wilma, and finally to Doug. There was always a question of Romulus' motivations, and she had noticed a $5 bill on his dresser. All involved had reason to sabotage her presentation. Mary's only certainty was that it wasn't her penis boldly displayed in the Board Room.

The board howled in appreciation, several standing as they clapped.

Cuddy scrambled to stand, but became stuck in a quasi seated position. His donut held him fast. He pointed at the screen. "I knew it. She's a hoochie mama!" He pointed at Mike, accusingly, "I told you boy we should have castrated her."

Much of The Board nodded in agreement. It had long been suspected Mary had the biggest balls in the company.

The Racist stood awkwardly, like a vintage steam shovel raising its rusty boom, and announced, "Now excuse me while I whip this out." He was ready to verify his worth on The Board by showing the size of his penis. If she wanted a sword fight, by God he'd give her a sword fight. This wouldn't be the first time he unzipped in the Board Room to prove he belonged.

As The Racist fumbled with his pants, ready to prove his penis Board Room worthy, Doug appealed to whatever shred of humanity his heart might contain, "Stop! I beg of you!" Sitting in the trash can put Doug at eye level with The Racist's crotch, and Doug hoped to avoid the embarrassment of the old man's shriveled manhood dangling in his face.

With his belt undone and knobby fingers working to undo the top and hardest button to unbutton, The Chairman rapped The Racist in the head with a hard, swift blow from his walking stick. "Sit down you old fool, and button your pants. I don't know why I suffer your sorry ass. Love your brother. That's what I preach."

The Racist did as he was told, rubbing the knobby bump that rose up on his scalp.

Mary looked at the giant penis, glowered, and pointed at Cuddy. Her eyes narrowed and her chest heaved as the hate within her welled up. "You motherfucker the truce is off. It was you that pissed during my All Hands Call! I'm going to fucking kill you!" Mary raised her hands in front of her, prepared to strangle the pig man and complete what she'd hoped to accomplish on the golf course a half year ago.

"Bring it you hoochie mama." Cuddy brandished the rolled up papers that proved he was absent retardation as if they were a sword. He swiped wildly at the air, slashing back and forth. "Bring it!"

Mary leapt, hands outstretched. She soared over the table, hoping to strangle her nemesis.

As she flew, Cuddy drew his paper sword back, ready to strike.

Before Cuddy could deal what he hoped would be the fatal blow, or Mary could strangle Cuddy and eradicate ugly at its source, The Chairman smote them both with his walking stick. He swung with conviction and smacked Cuddy in the forehead, then, off the rebound, he knocked Mary.

Cuddy slumped back in his chair semiconscious.

Mary flew into her chair in a similar state, albeit upside down, with her panties where her head should have been. Mary's legs were now bent over the back of the chair, her knees pressed against her ears, and her stomach covered by her skirt. Had she been fully conscious she would have wished for her old office chair, and the chance to slide off, fall to the ground, and remove the vessel of her femininity from the Board Room.

"Ahh!"Doug moaned, a subconscious declaration all control had now been lost. His certainty he was soon to have Wal-Mart tattooed on his head triggered a kamikaze move sure to end the meeting, and his career. "Mike, did we meet our financial projections?"

The Board leaned in, hungrily waiting the answer to Doug's question. The Chairman anxiously palmed the cobra's head in anticipation. The Racist rubbed the knot on his head. Cuddy and Mary moaned. Doug bowed his head and prayed for salvation.

Seeing all those that stood and spoke struck down by The Chairman, Mike placed his paddleboard atop his head and fastened it in place. He used the elastic string as a chin strap. It would be his only defense against the cobra handled walking stick. The pink rubber ball dangled inches in front of him, bumping his nose as he walked to the front of the room. At the podium he switched Mary's laptop for his own. Again, The Board murmured appreciatively at the demonstration of technical savvy.

"Did we meet our financial goals!" Mike parroted back, terrified as he stood flat footed before The Board. "Did we meet our financial goals!" On the screen a simple chart. The x axis measured time, and the y axis measured dollars. Three lines were plotted; revenue, cost, and profit. Unbelievably, the slope of all three lines was positive. Sales and profits were up.

"We're up 35%?" Doug asked, seeking confirmation he'd correctly read the profit line on the chart.

"We're up 35%!"

"I swear to God I will strap a parachute on you and throw you from the window if you're lying. "You're certain we're up 35%."

The Chairman drew back his stick, ready to strike should the ninth commandment be broken.

"We're up 35%!" Mike repeated catatonically. He tilted his head, hoping to absorb as much of The Chairman's blow as possible, should it come, with the paddleboard.

Doug adjusted himself to keep from falling to the bottom of the trash can, very pleased with himself, and spoke declaratively, "My prayers have been answered! That's how I roll, bitches."

"That's how I roll, bitches!" Mike echoed.

The Chairman eased back into his chair and smiled. G.O.D. was back in the money. With pride, gluttony and wrath struck down, at least temporarily, greed sitting in the wastebasket, sloth cowering, envy buried in his un-deployed executive parachute, and lust sharing his bed, his work here was done. "Amen," he said quietly, "seven out of seven, that ain't bad, and that's how I roll, bitches."

Cries of, "good job," "well done," and "well played," came forth.

Mike stood as dumb as a statue before The Board; his only testament to consciousness was his blinking eyes. Had he been able to address the crowd he might have shared how unlikely it was a business without computers, run by a CEO who doesn't speak to his staff and whose CFO jumped to his death while the COO and VP of Sales live in an open state of war, would exceed expectations. He also might have explained that had Doug not misheard the consultant and confused, "patient pet," with, "patient debt," G.O.D.'s computer system would have been done a long time ago. Not that G.O.D. needed a new computer system.

It is unlikely he would have explained that it was Rico and Nels that made G.O.D. profitable. Like Jesus feeding the multitudes with seven fish and two loaves, Rico and Nels sold the office supplies Cuddy inundated them with from a white tent in the parking lot. The money they made was used to help the less fortunate pay the co-pays for their medications. The first beneficiary had been Helen, her $12,000 bill paid long ago. That they'd robbed Peter to pay Paul didn't matter, for The Board could once again revel in their declaration to Wall Street: They'd reduced bad debt.

It is certain Mike would not have shared details on the Stoners & Boners incentive plan, or that Nels had successfully drained his trust and moved to Sun Valley, Idaho where he currently dated an A-list actress while he planned the Occupy Chicago movement.

Now that the good news had been shared, lighters and matches went to work lighting the cigarettes that had been held in check for the last half hour. Smiles all around as the mood in the Board Room brightened and the room filled with smoke. The Chairman looked back at the wait staff watching in shock, held his right hand up, twirled his index finger high in the air, and called forth another round. "Pour em long," he ordered, jubilant in his increased wealth. Disco music pulsed from the ceilings speakers.

"What's going on with spending? Why are we spending so much on office supplies? We're out of control on spending?" Doug demanded of anyone willing to listen as he tried to absorb the information on Mike's slide, and show his worth as CEO. It didn't make any sense they were spending hundreds of thousands of dollars a month on office supplies, and Doug didn't connect Cuddy's earlier comments to the chart in front of him.

"We're out of control on spending!" Mike was locked into robotic responses. As he stood in front of the room a waiter approached him and pressed a tumbler of single malt scotch into his right hand.

The Chairman nodded in approval at the good tidings Mike had brought, "Drink up. I want you start parking in the executive lot. Park next him, park in the spot." He poked Doug in the shoulder with his storied stick.

"The spot!" Mike answered.

Cuddy, now fully conscious, responded before Doug could continue his line of questioning, "I'm bringing the hammer down." Cuddy pointed his index finger emphatically at the ground. "Zero is how much we're spending on office supplies starting now! Zero!"

Triggered by the downward movement as he violently pointed at the ground, Cuddy's hemorrhoid donut began to leak. The air exited, as if from a whoopee cushion. A deafening, "phhhattt," sound filled the room, drowning out the disco music which still played. This went on for several minutes, during which time no one dared speak. In the process, as the donut deflated, Cuddy sank four inches.

While Doug stared blankly at Cuddy, The Chairman leaned in and sternly ordered Doug to, "Make it stop."

When it looked like the air had run out, Doug resumed, "I want to thank you for your significant contributions." Cuddy's donut wasn't done yet, a small vestige remained, the release of which echoed off the walls. Doug told Cuddy to make sure the donut was dead.

Cuddy wiggled his fanny to make sure, and nodded that all was as it should be.

Doug began again, "You'll receive your bonus checks and I want to congratulate you on a job well done. It's your teamwork that makes this possible. Teamwork is everything; teamwork and professionalism. Try to use the computer system. We spent over $100 million on it. Oh, and Cuddy, quit pissing away money on office supplies."

Unprompted, The Board broke into a rousing chorus of, For He's a Jolly Good Fellow. At the end of the first chorus, Doug, heady, overconfident, and very pleased with himself, cried out for all to hear, "Let's buy a competitor!" A rowdy and positive response as drinks spilled and The Board congratulated one another, and gurgled in ecstasy at all the money they made off G.O.D.

Awakened by the air that blew in her face from Cuddy's donut, Mary twisted and returned to a more traditional seated position. Overhearing The Chairman's mandate that Mike now park in the spot, her eyes rolled back in her head, and with the whites of her eyes showing she began to chant demonically, "I want tribute, pay me tribute you motherfuckers." She rubbed the knot on her head as she repeated her new catch phrase.

With Mary chanting, The Board quietly began to excuse themselves to go to the bathroom. As they fled they clutched their Blackberries and smart phones in their sweaty palms. From the bathroom stalls, cryptic texts of, "Buy, buy, buy," were placed to distant in laws.

Left at the table, and with the room cleared of all except Mary, the unconscious old man, still face down on the table, began to blow baby-like bubbles into the puddle of drool within which he lay.

Epilogue

Mike

Several weeks after the Board Meeting, Mike walked through his parents' front door and found his father sitting in the large recliner in the living room reading Tortilla Flat, a bottle of beer at his side. Thumb tacked to the basement door leading down to Mike's room was a thin envelope, on G.O.D.'s letterhead, addressed to Mike. Mike walked to the door, and as he worked to remove the thumbtack and free the letter his father spoke what both were thinking, "Looks like you got fired, again." History had shown the family that mailings, in which the envelope outweighed its contents, were bad news.

Letter in hand, Mike sat down on the couch and responded to his father's comment, "You have got to be kidding me." Mike tore the letter open and it appeared his father was correct. The first words on the page stung, "We regret to inform you." Without reading further he dropped the letter to his side. Mike could not believe it. Fired? How could they fire him? He was the darling of the Board Meeting? His father extended his hand, and Mike crossed the room to give him the letter. Returning to the couch, Mike slouched low in defeat.

Scanning the letter quickly, his father shook his head in disbelief, and said, "Impossible." He tossed the letter back to Mike.

Absent any aerodynamics, the letter fluttered in the air, widely missed its mark, and landed behind the couch. Mike exhaled loudly in anticipation of the effort needed to retrieve the letter, and with exaggerated effort stood. Facing backwards as he kneeled on the cushions, Mike pawed at the ground behind the couch. Mike's fingertips were barely able to reach the letter and with repeated attempts he was able to spin it to a position in which he could make out what was written. With his head pressed painfully against the wall, and looking sideways to see through the gap between the wall and the back of the couch, Mike read G.O.D.'s letter with one eye.

Dear Mike:

We regret to inform you,

you have been incorrectly compensated.

Your change in job grade from ANALSYT to EXALTED CHIEF FINANCIAL OFFICER makes your annual salary $485,000, plus annual bonus of $350,000 and stock options to be determined.

You will see the aforementioned amount deposited in your bank account on your regularly scheduled pay cycle.

Sincerely,

G.O.D.

Today was payday. Mike feverishly worked a small calculator that sat on a table near the couch. If Mike's estimates were correct, he would have about $625,000 in his checking account, or $624,000 more than he expected twenty minutes ago.

Turning around, Mike found his father engrossed in Steinbeck. A single sentence escaped his father's lips as he prepared to turn the page, "I'm changing the locks." Mike's father then set the novel down, and took out the phone book whose yellow pages sat opened to the Locksmith section in anticipation of this day. Mike's dad found the same locksmith Nel's parents used, and was happy to learn the Slacker Offspring Special had been extended due to its popularity.

With the change in pay Mike assumed he'd see a like change in vacation time, and immediately called Wilma. "Wilma, how much vacation do I get?"

"Well Mike, I am not certain, but it's of paramount importance the executive mind is well rested and ready for deep thought when it is called upon. Most of the execs get fourteen weeks paid time off, plus the holidays."

Mike jumped up and down in excitement. "Excellent. This is most excellent. I'll be resting my exceptional, executive mind for several weeks."

The next forty eight hours were a blur. First, Mike drove the Yugo to the local Toyota dealer and bought a 4-Runner. He was done driving the smallest, slowest, and most dangerous car in the Midwest. In the negotiations the salesman laughed hard enough to spit coffee from his nose when Mike mentioned trade in value. Insult turned to injury when the Yugo wouldn't start and the dealer tacked on a $250 littering fee.

Behind the wheel of his new truck, Mike returned home and found his father true to his word. Mike's house key no longer opened the front door. Neatly piled on the front porch, and caringly covered with an old blanket, were Mike's belongings. Next to his belongings his dogs waited patiently. Mike shoved everything in the back of the 4 Runner, except the dogs which be put in the back seat, and decided to drive to Colorado. He figured he'd ski out the tail end of the season while he prepared his executive mind to be called on later in the year. Most people incorrectly assumed the big powder days hit in mid-winter. They were wrong, the big storms hit in the spring.

Mike drove seventeen hours straight through, including and without realization within a hundred miles of Cuddy's childhood home. As he pulled off I-70, and onto I-40 where he would cross Berthoud Pass, the snow started in earnest. As he crossed the divide the falling snow rendered the mountain pass nearly invisible. Ninety minutes, and twenty miles, later he took a left at the first light in town, and pulled into the parking lot of the Swedish Lodge. As he unloaded his truck the temperatures continued to drop, and the snow fell harder. The skiing would be incredible in the morning.

Waking the next day, Mike grabbed a quick breakfast and cup of coffee and headed to the hill. He wasn't early enough for first tracks, and the ski patrol poached those anyway, but he'd get sloppy seconds. After a few runs and late in the morning, with his appetite for untracked snow whetted but not satisfied, Mike decided to leave the resort and ski down the side-country to the highway. At the highway's edge he would hitchhike back to the resort. It was commonly done, but not without risk.

Mike exited the boundary gate on the side of the hill and left the ski area. He moved quickly through the steep terrain. As he came upon the first glade of trees he scrubbed his speed, and began picking his way carefully between the lodge pole pines. The trick was to focus on the openings, not the trees. As humans we tend to go where we look. As the terrain steepened, and trees tightened, Mike caught the outside edge of his ski, fell, and slid head first down the hill.

The slide ended with Mike upside down in a tree well; a nearly inescapable trap formed around the base of evergreen trees in areas of prodigious snow. As Mike floundered, upside down in the unconsolidated snow, his airways became blocked and he lost consciousness. In the time it would take to drown in a pond, Mike was dead. His last words echoed in the empty forest, "Are you kidding me? Are you kidding me? Are you kidding me?"

Doug

Doug sat in his office secretly dribbling a basketball under his desk with one hand while he worked the Magic 8 Ball with the other. With his options back in the money, and the window during which insiders are legally permitted to trade about to open, he sought guidance on whether he should cash out, and go full time on the public basketball courts, or ride out his proclamation that G.O.D. should buy a competitor. More and more, he was becoming increasingly convinced he could become one of the better hoops players in the tenement housing system if he had more time to practice. The kids he played against were unemployed and spent the entire day shooting hoops. It really wasn't fair he had to work. It gave the kids had an unfair advantage.

As he wrestled with his decision, hoping for guidance from the Magic 8 Ball, Wilma knocked lightly on his door, stuck her head in his office, and cheerily announced, "Mike's dead. Do you want lunch brought in?" Doug looked up and smiled broadly, it was obvious at the end of the Board Meeting Mike was soon to replace him. The Board was still taking about Mike's sublime presentation. Doug let her know with that kernel of knowledge he wasn't on planning to stick around for lunch.

While Doug struggled with how to replace Mike, with someone just a little less perfect, he stood and headed to his elevator. Leaving his office, he grabbed the Wall Street Journal on the corner of his desk, and jammed the Magic 8 Ball in his pocket. He hated to be caught near his employees without a ready distraction to ward off unwanted conversation, or his proven management tool.

Just like Doug feared, a group of employees had formed by the elevator banks waiting to go to lunch. As Doug approached he raised the newspaper, held it fully apart with both hands, and buried his head to the crease. Only the most obtuse employee would interrupt a man so deeply focused on important business matters. Walking forward, blind to the situation at hand, Doug approached his private elevator. Doug then readied to step around what he thought was the velvet rope that cordoned off his private means of escape from the unwashed masses.

The employees cried out, "Mr. Doug! Mr. Doug!"

"Assholes," he mumbled in reply.

The shouts grew increasingly frantic, "Mr. Doug! Mr. Doug!"

In response, Doug forced his head deeper into the newspaper, took a final step, and inadvertently fell down the elevator shaft to his death. The employees were shouting to warn him of the caution tape that was intended to prevent entrance to the elevator, which stood with its doors opened and shaft exposed.

Gravity is a cruel mistress, and the much taller Doug reached the first floor in the same amount of time it took the much smaller Alan to reach the parking lot. Absent vagaries in wind resistance, mass falls at 9.8 meters per second squared. Doug's fall formally ended his reign of terror, and the G.O.D. Helps Those Who Help Themselves program was quietly discontinued.

From The Board's perspective, the biggest issue the company faced with Doug's death was the cancellation of the corporate insurance policy. As they would learn, all the large insurers had a, 'two and out,' policy regarding executive death by rapid deceleration trauma. G.O.D. now needed to relocate to a one story or below ground operation. The Board also needed to deal with filling the now vacant CEO position, as well as the CFO position. Unfortunately, Mike, the obvious choice as CEO, wasn't available.

The Chairman called Shap, told him to run The Hand Job, and identify the new CEO and CFO. Shap promised to get back to him by day's end.

Mary

Inspired by the vintage black and white picture of Phyllis Gordon window shopping in downtown London in the nineteen sixties that she held in her hand, Mary felt compelled to recreate the scene's grandeur. In the photo, the leggy model wore a cheetah fur coat while she walked her pet cheetah on a leash.

More and more, Mary's bengal, a domesticated house cat bred to look exotic, was falling short in the glamour department. The cat was afflicted with insufferable hair balls, and spent the days hiding under the furniture from Romulus. On the leash, the animal fought mightily until it lost consciousness and fell to the ground with its tongue sticking out. Then, twitching as the sympathetic muscles re-engaged and breathing resumed, it woke to fight the leash once again and cough forth another hairball. Mary decided bigger and more exotic was better. It was her destiny to walk down Michigan Avenue's magnificent mile with a true wild cat in tow.

With the HR organization now under her control, Mary orchestrated the trade of a handful of her sales team to an unscrupulous regional circus looking to grow its sideshows. The circus happened to have an extra cheetah. The animal was large, by cheetah standards, and weighed almost one hundred fifty pounds. Captured in adolescence the animal had not taken to captivity or people. On the day of the trade Mary loaded a handful of the promised fuglies into the corporate van and drove to an empty parking lot on the outskirts of Gary, Indiana. The swap was made.

With the transaction completed, and with the brace of fuglies now employed by the circus, Mary raced for downtown Chicago and a chance to parade along its central boulevard before the shops closed. An omen ignored, the cheetah bounced like a racquetball off the walls and ceiling of the van while Mary sped along.

Mary pulled off the highway, and worked her way across town and to the shopping district. With an easy fifteen minutes of driving left, she looked at her watch and realized there wouldn't be time to find parking before the shops closed for the evening. Rather than park in the self-pay garage she decided to abandon the van on Michigan Avenue, in front of the NBC auxiliary studio. Mary was certain she'd make the news.

Stepping from the van she ran to the cargo doors at the back and pulled them open. In the far corner sat her kitty. Mary reached in, grabbed the leash, and hauled the animal from the van. From her experience a cat on a leash choked itself until it became manageable. As Mary began to drag the cheetah down the sidewalk a large crowd immediately formed. The cheetah didn't take to the leash, and dug in to keep from being pulled. Mary's plan to window shop immediately turned into a tug of war, and battle of wills with the cat.

From within the news studio a couple of news anchors looked out, saw the sidewalks blocked with people, and hurriedly sent forth a couple of cameramen to film what they instinctively knew to be the news story of the night they could see the headline: Cougar and Cheetah on the Prowl. Meow! The anchors were also very confident that if things went as they expected they would soon be witnessing the next viral YouTube video.

Basking in the attention, Mary played to the crowd and spontaneously named her new pet Freckles.

Terrified in the urban setting, and tethered to its tormenter, the cat stood with its hackles raised, ears pinned back, and teeth exposed. A final warning, the cat swiped wildly at the air as it hissed.

When one of the hundreds of people watching loudly commented it looked like the animal didn't like what was going on, Mary answered, "Freckles loves me, everyone does." To show her love, Mary tugged on the leash.

The cheetah leaped onto Mary's face and in an instant irreversibly disfigured her. With her nose, ears, and scalp ripped off, Mary looked like a jack-o-lantern.

A couple of months later, after Mary's release from the hospital, Adonus' parents passed. Adonus furtively deposited the estate check in a secret Swiss account, filed for divorce, and quietly disappeared. He also went back to using his Christian name, Philbert.

Out of money and looks, and absent a husband to pay the bills, the now unemployed Mary reached out to the man that had given her the cheetah seeking employment as a circus freak. Today, Mary sits in front of a large burlap tent as, "The Terrifying Pumpkin Lady," selling tickets to the freak show emporium that serves to employ nearly all her former sales team.

Romulus' whereabouts is unknown.

Shappa

Officer Nonutz patiently sat and read the Chicago Tribune. Mary's story had made the headlines. The man Nonutz hunted was a sustained plague on America's liberties and the good people of this Chicago suburb. He knew this foreign scum to be a crafty and deviant adversary, who was not afraid to broadcast his allegiance to terror, hatred of law enforcement, and sexual appetite for boys. To date, Nonutz's efforts were of mixed success. He'd successfully shot the scumbag with a Taser, but six times missed the shifty bastard with his sidearm. The latter resulted in an Internal Affairs investigation, which ended with his requisite attendance at three months of marksmanship training. It had been months since he'd seen his quarry, during which time he'd met the court ordered firearm requirements by honing his skills on vaguely ethnic, black and white, silhouettes.

Sitting in his squad car, slightly below the crest in the road and on the right shoulder so as to be hidden from view, Nonutz heard what he thought to be a military jet approaching. The noise grew to an ear splitting volume. Terrified, Nonutz looked left and right, up and down, to find its source. Nonutz caught the first glimpse of the airborne missile through the squad car's passenger side mirror. From behind him, and over the top of the small rise in the road, came the sonic fuck you.

Barely six inches to Nonutz's left flew Shap, airborne in his new Porsche. The Porsche's wheels chirped noisily on re-entry, and left thick tire marks on the tarmac. Nonutz didn't know whether to shit or go blind. The car racing away reminded him of his wife; it was wider in the hips than it was tall.

A half mile up, on the next rise, Shap stopped and stepped from the car to taunt the officer. Standing in the middle of the road, Shap looked directly at Nonutz and gave him the finger with both hands; the old school double barrel.

Nonutz began to perspire as he fumbled to free his pistol from its holster. In the middle of Shap's forehead gleamed the target that haunted Nonutz's dreams. Shaking and sweating, straightening his leg and pushing off the floorboard to improve his leverage, he tugged to free his gun before the perp disappeared and with him the opportunity for justice. Since his initial encounter with Shap, Nonutz had replaced his six shot revolver with a modern, large capacity Glock semi-automatic; the first choice of law enforcement, drug dealers, and sociopaths, the world over. In hindsight, Nonutz realized he might not be in this position if he'd unleashed a dozen more rounds. The gun wouldn't budge, and he cursed loudly. His marksmanship training presumed he could unholster his sidearm.

As he jerked the gun frantically up and down and side to side, with both hands, the gun unexpectedly discharged. The bullet disappeared into the dashboard and pinged off the engine. As the cabin filled with the acrid scent of cordite, sparks flew from the radio and set fire to the passenger seat. The fire grew quickly. Soon the seat was engulfed in flames and visibility in the cabin reduced to zero. Nonutz, fearing for his life, threw his door open to escape.

The motion of opening the door popped the gun from his holster, where it disappeared into the now raging fire. Alive, but unarmed, Nonutz ran across the road to hide in the ditch. The fire triggered the remaining bullets from the gun. Eighteen shots later Nonutz looked up to see his squad car burnt to the ground, and Shap shaking his head in disgust.

Shap hopped back in his car and took off. Proudly displayed below the rear spoiler of Shap's new red Porsche, and the GTS letters proclaiming 500 hp, was the vanity plate: COPSSUCK.

Life wasn't bad as G.O.D.'s new CEO.

Cuddy

So much good news had Cuddy giddy. He cheered when he heard Mike had died. It was clear at the end of the last Board Meeting that Mike stood on the precipice of being the next CEO. He entered a state of extended exuberance when he learned Doug too had died. Finally, when he learned of Mary's tragedy, the emotions became so overwhelming he publicly wet himself, again.

Certain he'd be the next president, Cuddy had been sitting at his desk impatiently waiting for the phone to ring. Just when he was about to give up hope, he spied an exotic sports car entering the executive parking lot. "Could it be a key member of The Board had been dispatched to announce his promotion?" he wondered. As he pondered the significance of the red sports car his phone rang. Wilma informed he was being summoned to Doug's old office. "Hallelujah!" he declared as he grabbed his clothes off The Chubby. He'd worked out earlier in the day, and hastily fumbled to put his pants back on.

Running down the hall, his body like two pounds of jelly in a one pound bag, he burst into Doug's office without knocking. His momentum carried him further than anticipated and he came to a stop with his belly bumping the desk. From behind Doug's old desk sat Shap, the keys to his Porsche casually tossed on the desk, but manipulated so the word Porsche was visible from the hallway.

Cuddy was dumbfounded, but before he could ask what was going on Shap pulled open the top drawer of his new desk and removed a small plastic dart gun.

In a seamless motion, Shap jumped into a wide stance, and, holding the gun with both hands, skillfully shot Cuddy in the middle of the forehead. Thwack!

Shap hopped on the top of the desk, ripped the dart from Cuddy's fat bald head, and screamed, "You work for me Piggie." Shap laughed maniacally at his change in fortune, "Mwahhaha mwahhaha."

Cuddy ran from the office and drove straight home. On the drive he was met with more bad news. A giant billboard proclaimed: Hot Dogs Cause Butt Cancer. The end of the world was at hand. He drove faster.

Walking in his house in the middle of the afternoon Cuddy found Irene sprawled on the couch watching daytime soap operas. A mostly eaten box of chocolates lay on her belly, and dozens of foil wrappers littered the surrounding area with several caught in the waist band of her elasticized pants. Irene looked up, and immediately understand the implications of Cuddy's branding, "Oh my God, the purple circle of shame! No! Is this the end of our dream? Will we never get to Houston?" She bowed her head and cried at the thought of never returning to Texas, where she and Cuddy would be surrounded with a world of like sized people, and the most chain restaurants per capita anywhere in the world.

Cuddy's chivalry kicked in, "No, we're going to redeem ourselves. Mungo went home, our dream lives, and tonight we are born again. We're heading downtown. We're gonna win us the Lobster Jaw."

Tears streamed down her cheeks, as Irene answered Cuddy's challenge, "We can do it. The manager told me once, isn't nobody more deserving of the Lobster Jaw than me 'n you." Cuddy nodded enthusiastically for the manager had told him the same thing.

Cuddy and Irene piled into Cuddy's Escalade and headed to their old stomping ground, hoping to regain their last shred of dignity. As they drove Cher's, If I Could Turn Back Time, blared from the loudspeakers. Cuddy and Irene sang along, hoping to make it so.

Hours later, trophies in hand after a hard night of drinking and eating in which they'd laid siege to the appetizer bar with a fury that required the manager to warn the other patrons repeatedly, "Keep your hands and feet away from all moving parts," the couple stood at the El stop for the train that would take them uptown for more.

While they waited for the train, an immediate and incontestable need to piss hit Cuddy. Standing on the platform, blind drunk, Cuddy unzipped his pants. With his hands in his pockets and spine bent in a pronounced, 'S', Cuddy blissfully voided his bladder and sent a golden stream arcing skyward. Cuddy fell into such rapture at the relief, that he became unaware he was about to pee on the electrified third rail. The instant Cuddy's urine struck the rail he was electrocuted. The electricity fused Cuddy into an exact, life sized replica of The Chubby.

Irene bent at the waist and vomited.

As steam rose from Cuddy's fedora, and the smells of bacon and vomit permeated the air, the rats, which hid in the platforms furthest recesses, hungrily smacked their jaws.

The Chairman

The Chairman sat in front of the oversized fireplace in the library of his lakeshore mansion late in the evening. A small wood fire burned. Throughout the room were some of the world's rarest and most expensive antiquities. On the ceiling overhead was an exact replica of the Sistine Chapel's creation of Adam. The fresco's artists were flown from Italy, and housed for the three years it took to complete. On the library's walls were hundreds of photos of The Chairman with heads of state. In the photos, Nixon through Obama, Khrushchev through Putin, The Chairman never seemed to age and always favored the outlandish dress of the 1970s. The only indication of time passing was the evolution of the afro. Every year it gained an inch.

Over the fireplace's mantle ran a series of pictures of The Chairman clowning with the Pope. In some pictures The Chairman wore the Pope's hat, both laughing and holding large steins of beer in their hands. In others, they pretended to sword fight. The Chairman brandished his walking stick while his Holiness parried with his staff. In the picture farthest to the right, they fished for bass from a small rowboat. While they tended their fishing poles, half eaten Velveeta and Wonder Bread sandwiches rested on their laps. His appointment as Chairman of G.O.D. was a favor to his good friend, and G.O.D.'s biggest investor, The Pope.

The Chairman gazed in introspection at the fire, when the butler gently knocked on the library door and announced his entry. He presented The Chairman a red rotary phone nested on a silver platter, and stated the obvious, "Sir, you're needed."

The Chairman took the phone and dismissed the butler. Before taking the call he drank from the snifter of a rare brandy that sat to his side. The brandy melted like liquid caramel in his mouth, and he nodded his head in satisfaction. Then, phone to his ear, he announced himself, "Sup Fool?"

He listened without interrupting, then after a few minutes spoke, "I'm from Detroit. We all black and we can all dance. I'll answer my country's calling, Mr. President." He hung up and patted his lap.

Sue rose from the couch upon which she reclined. A rare smile graced The Chairman's lips as she crossed the room to sit on his lap. They both wore fur pajamas.

Twelve hours later The Chairman stood, dazzling and impressive, in front of a row of TV cameras and a large crowd. He wore a neon orange, double breasted suit, custom tailored by Dege and Skinner in central London's Savile Row. Prices at this storied and venerable establishment were only given upon request. Here, Kings and Sultans shopped by royal appointment. Below the suit he wore a like colored silk shirt and tie. In his right hand he held his Cobra walking stick. As always, his afro reached skyward, perfect in its symmetry.

The TV crew counted him in, "Three, two, one, and we are live!" The director quickly stepped to the side, the camera operators zoomed in, and the action cut to The Chairman.

"Whose name should you know?" The Chairman asked in his melodious voice, and then answered his own question, "The Chairman." A pregnant pause followed. "Welcome to Soul Train, where you can bet your last money it's gonna be a stone, gas honey." He pointed his walking stick at the camera. "It's the hippest trip in America, and I'm your new host."

Perfectly timed to start at the end of his opening comments, James Brown's, "Papa's Got a Brand New Bag," rang from the speakers. With the music blasting, Wilma and Sue, previously unseen, emerged from behind The Chairman; Sue to the right and Wilma, G.O.D.'s new CFO, to the left. They danced the, "shopping cart," imaginary items tossed in the imaginary cart they pushed before them. Behind each of them followed a long line of Soul Train dancers.

In the gulf between the now stopped dancers, The Chairman stood on the side farthest the camera. He placed his right hand behind the back of his neck, and then, elbow bent, emulated the impact arm of an irrigation sprinkler. His left hand pointed in the direction the water traveled. As he sprinkled, the crowd cheered wildly.

Rico

After Helen's passing, Rico travelled to California to attend her memorial service. It was a terribly sad affair, at which he played several of the songs he'd written about her. Helen had asked him to do this as a special favor, and he kept his promise. Later that day, he, and a small group of her friends and family hiked to the top of a small mountain where they scattered Helen's ashes. He thought that might see the magical owl on the summit, but he did not. Afterwards, drained of emotion, he and Helen's father flew back to Chicago.

In Chicago, they spent the week donating Helen's possessions to the charities she specified. They gave everything away; clothes, furniture, art, dishes. At week's end, the home was nearly vacant. All that remained was a bed in the guest bedroom, a chest of drawers, and a couch. It was hard work and the physical labor and long days helped dull the pain. Rico took the motorcycle for one last sentimental ride, and then listed it on e-Bay where it quickly sold.

With the house empty Helen's father readied to fly home, but before he left for the airport he made one final ask of Rico. "Helen told me you're pretty good. At the guitar, I mean."

"That's kind of you to say."

"I liked what you played at her service. You got a few extra CDs that I could take with me? I'm making no promises. It's been a long, long time since I've been in the game, but I've still got some friends in pretty high places."

Rico thanked him, told him whatever help he could offer he'd surely take, and gave him a handful of CDs. The CDs contained demos from Rico's first album, written entirely during the time he was with Helen. At the door, with the cab waiting anxiously in the drive, Helen's father offered Rico his hand. Rico hugged him instead, and Helen's father returned the hug. Her father smiled sadly, "I'm not sure if we'll see each other again."

"Who knows? I'll think of your daughter every day, the rest of my life."

"Me too," said Helen's father, and he turned and walked to the cab.

Finding fatigue his only anesthetic, Rico then readied the house for sale. Helen hadn't asked him to do this, nor had her father, but he struggled to fill the vacuum that came when he was no longer Helen's partner and caregiver. As his new tonic he mowed the lawn, cleaned the windows, repainted the house, and cleaned the carpets. The real estate agent placed a For Sale sign in the front yard. With the home void of Helen and her possessions, Rico no longer stayed there, and took to sleeping in his van or crashing on friend's couches. Several weeks later the house sold, and formally closed a chapter in his life.

Rico hadn't been at work much since Helen's passing, and his resignation was no surprise. The day after the house sold Rico walked from G.O.D., cardboard box in hand. Inside the box were his personal effects; a picture of Helen and him on the motorcycle, a stack of CDs, and a book on cooking waterfowl that he'd received as a joke. Rico wasn't sure how this was going end, but, for now, he had a slew of shows lined up, and a little money saved. He was determined to pursue his musical career full time until he either quit the dream, or made it. "Toad Suck Daze, here I come," he thought.

Pulling from the parking lot Rico flipped on the radio, and for the first time in his life heard his music. It was the song from his eponymously named debut, the same song he'd started writing the first night he met Helen, and one of the songs he played at her service. It was also on the CD he gave her father. Driving into the sunset he thought of what a kick Helen would have gotten out of hearing their song, or seeing herself laughing on her motorcycle on the album's cover.

Wayne

It turned out the old racist was right about one thing. Chicago's finest charged Wayne with a series of grisly murders when they found dismembered body parts scattered throughout the backyard, and buried deep in the crawl space, of his small Schaumburg home.

Wayne currently sits in the Cook County jail awaiting trial; where all suspects are presumed innocent until proven guilty.

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