 
Memory 2.0

William White-acre

copyright 2017 by William White-acre

Smashwords Edition

*other books by the author:

Surrounded By Mythology

I, The Hero

True For X

Forgotten Faces

A Rush Of Silence

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Chapter 1 Grokked

Chapter 2 Collective Indiscipline = Mating

Chapter 3 The Pull Matches The Push

Chapter 4 Cri De Coeur

Chapter 5 Post Modernism

Chapter 6 Epilogue

Chapter 7 Addendum

MEMORY 2.0

Memory, hither come,

And tune your merry notes;

And, while upon the wind

Your music floats

-William Blake

Song: Memory Hither Come

Chapter 1 Grokked

He had called it grokking, or something like that. I wasn't much of a fan of science fiction so I didn't know who Heinlein even was. Stupid me. In the Sci-fi orbit it meant something along the lines of: the observer becomes a part of the observed. Say what? Einstein made more sense. Okay, so science wasn't my best subject when I was in school. Hey, I was a Literature major, which meant that I didn't want to have to actually understand Physics and Math, and the science fiction genre wasn't my thing; of course I wasn't actually alone out there since our country of recent usually scores in the middle of the pack when it comes to world wide science scores. Gone are the days when the US routinely kicks ass in that realm. It has been a long time since we sent a man to the moon, you know.

"If chosen, you will be embarking on a journey...one that will be...well...defined by the historical coda that is embedded in your memories," he stated, raising his voice a little so we could all hear what he was saying. Hissing murmurs rippled through the audience. "But then there will be that good old quantum leap thing and you will be cruising along in a world or universe that's been enhanced by my little addition to the cerebral mix."

Really, echoed in my head, said in a fine sardonic voice. Who is this guy? was my next thought. He was, so I judged, to be in his early forties, tall, with a bald head. Check that, he had a shaved head, possibly as an attempt to ward off looking bald. Despite the testimonials offered by the ad world, and false claims not withstanding, drugs or creams didn't cure men's baldness. You could read all those labels on the side of the box, the ones that told you that you could apply liberally at night and wake up the next morning looking like a sheep in the Highlands of Scotland, come sunup you still were going to have a shiny pate in the mirror. I know of what I speak. Being in my mid-twenties I rest comfortably in the sweet spot of the future hair loss category.

Our speaker for the day was no other than Dr Rony Wertheimer. Oh, okay, so you haven't heard of him either, but he is big stuff in the science community--and rich as hell. He drives a Rolls, when he's not tooling around on his custom built motorcycle, painted pearl white. He's got horses too, because he plays polo on weekends up in Palm Beach County. Lives in Golden Isles, beach side of course. I know all this because the guy next to me at the meeting told me, filling me in on all of his bio, a little to much fawning for my liking by the way.

Sure the good doctor had been profiled in Forbes, or was it Bloomberg? He was a polymath kind of guy, with a big brain, which he needed, apparently, to count all of the money he had made from some of the patents he had on meds and inventions. By trade, he was supposed to be an evolutionary psychiatrist and what that is I haven't a clue. The psychiatrist part I get but the evolutionary bit is confusing. Anyway, he was also into some pretty high tech things too, like fancy software that did sophisticated whoop-de-do. The guy sitting next to me wasn't sure what his net worth was but it was safe to say he could probably buy the Bahamas if he wanted to, and that was almost an exact quote from the immediate seat mate to my left who had overheard us talking and felt like he had to add his two cents worth.

So there I was sandwiched in between two devotees of Dr Wertheimer listening to their guru go on about some pretty strange if not bizarre ideas and thinking that I might be having an out of body experience. That's right, you know, when you feel like just maybe one of your more realistic dreams was the director's cut version, where it goes on longer and gets progressively weirder as your REMS rev up more and more. I just wanted to wake up. Actually, what I really wanted to do was turn back the clock just a wee bit and not have answered an advertisement on the Science America website.

I was easy pickings, really. I was broke. Not down and out broke, mind you, but pretty damn close. Fortunately, there were no kids or angry ex wives in the picture. Well, one but she wasn't standing in line with her hand out. She was a Cubanita--enough said. Emotional. Latin. Vindictive. Not for nothing did they conquer most of South America, if I'm thinking historically.

I had almost called it off after realizing that I, me, your average every day Anglo was going to be spending lots and lots of days eating medianoches with the in-laws, while they conversed in Spanish and I choked on greasy pig. Okay, I know I should have known going in that there would be this cross-cultural exchange going on for the rest of my life. Holidays came around all the time, not to mention weekends down in Miami-Dade County, at the homestead, with the Tias and Tios. Then again my bride to be was native born, right at Baptist Hospital. Although her English was perfect, with only a trace of a pinched watered down Iberian accent, (twice removed), something peculiar to South Florida if you must know, she still harbored an unhealthy hatred of that bearded maniac down in Cuba. Surely my cracker roots up in the pan handle, so close to Dixie yet so far away, could withstand the cultural assault on my sense of flag and country.

That would be me I'm talking about, not my relatives. Ma and Pa, Floridians through and through, who could trace their Sunshine State heritage back to before the Seminole Wars, when Blacks and Indians were both thought to be unwelcome guests in the nation the Europeans had so painstakingly carved out of the wilderness and their hides. I wasn't like them, not precisely anyway. I didn't have any residual allegiance to the Stars and Bars and I certainly realized that the Union had won in a rout by the end. History had no accidents. I learned that in the one or two history courses I took while compiling enough credits to graduate with a BA from the University of Florida, where, coincidentally, I met my future wife not to be.

She was pretty and from down there, in South Florida, a place that proved the Florida peninsula was a big place because the distance from Tallahassee to Miami was more than just miles on a map or hours in a car driving. If my father had his way he would have built a really tall, hurricane proof fence across the state, slicing through right about Orlando. Anything south of there would have to be called something else, preferably in Spanish to denote that it didn't belong and shouldn't be included as a star on the flag.

You can imagine how it went when I first brought my Latina home to meet the parents. It sure amused my older brother, who thought nothing of recording it on video for the hilarity of it all, something to play back again and again for laughs. My sister, again older, the one who purportedly was the liberal in the family, me being basically agnostic when it came to politics, lost her progressiveness once she realized her little brother might one day be bringing some or several mixed breeds into the world. Multiculturalism looked good on paper when it was somebody else's family being bracketed by the next ten year census.

"She's nice and all," my live-and-let-live sister whispered to me not ten minutes after she met my new girl friend, "but do you really think it'll work out?" I smiled at her, confident that she wasn't being bigoted but rather long sighted and wanted to give me a heads up about all of the future hassles that I was in for. Not so, she went on to add, glancing around so she wouldn't be overheard, "Think about the kids."

It just so happened that I had thought about the kids, as in my Cuban girl friend wanted lots of them. I'm exaggerating but she had gone on record saying that she wanted to have at least three, holding up her hand with the first three digits for emphasis. I had joked that I didn't like uneven numbers and how about a nice round four. She didn't see the humor. I believe it was right about then that I realized that she, her and I, weren't a good match. Maybe. I still tossed around the idea of our, you know, love conquering all in marriage. I did say she was good looking, right? Bedroom gymnastics were good as well. (Like hearing orgiastic exhortations in Spanish wasn't a turn on. You don't have to be bilingual for that. I'm just saying.) I wondered if the children quotient was negotiable or not. Have one kid and try it out. If we like it we can progress to the next level.

Wouldn't work, for many reasons, not the least of which she was obstinate and--I'm just going to say it--crazy. Her idea of compromise was for me to curl up in a ball and cry out for mercy. Hey, weren't Latin men supposed to be in the driver's seat? South of the border didn't the men rule? Women were an appendage of sorts. Mothers. Quiet sisters. Sometimes secret lovers. Always in a subordinate role. Down there was the birth place of the Madonna complex, right? You know, where the man can do anything he wants and the woman has to remain loyal no matter what. Was I wrong about that? Apparently.

Our relationship, in due time, say right after graduation to be precise, solidified; but not after I had committed to moving to South Florida for the duration. Stupid me, I manage to land a job right out of college, putting my worthless degree to good work by working in an Ad agency in Fort Lauderdale. It was small time stuff for the most part, you know, radio spots and things like that. Hey, I helped write an ad for the Miami Heat basketball team! Majoring in English does have its advantages.

On a parallel track was "mi mujer," who really didn't like me calling her that, probably because whenever I used Spanish words I came out sounding like Ricky Ricardo, or, as she put it: "You sound like Ricky Retardo." I guess I probably did. That was for the most part inconsequential in the scheme of things. Me doing a bad impression of a guy from a TV show that aired forty or fifty years ago was the least of our problems.

"You mean to tell me you spent all of your money--again!" was how we usually began most of our conversations in those last few months before the official separation. After those worry free days at UF, I had migrated south and rented a shoe box apartment in a shithole town called Pembroke Pines, one of those exurban towns that the only reason for being in existence was to provide housing for all of the people who couldn't find a place to live somewhere else. To my dismay, I moved south to find that the end of Florida was one teeming mass of humanity. I was, at heart, a country boy, where we actually did still drive down country roads where you might on any given day either run over an armadillo or alligator, take your pick.

"I had unexpected expenses," I whined by way of explaining my empty pockets. What I didn't tell her was the untidy fact that I had discovered pari-mutuel betting. Who knew? I had always been one to get in on football pools, thinking myself able through astute observation to divine what team was going to beat the spread. The Gators were in the SEC, where real football is played, so there was plenty of opportunities to cash in because the Gatornation extended far and wide and there was a sucker born every minute. I will confess to betting against the home team and wasn't particularly proud of this sacrilege. Then again, I was rational and didn't let school pride get in the way of a big payout. It served me well through my college career. A man has college loans to repay, you know.

Playing the ponies, as the saying goes, never registered with me before. We lived in the Panhandle and except for some lame greyhound track in Pensacola there just wasn't all that much interest in plunking down the bucks to watch animals run in circles. In fact, in my neck of the woods religion held sway, where red faced men stood behind the pulpit and told us (ordered) not to sin each and every Sunday. My parents were there to offer reinforcement the rest of the week. Every Protestant fiber in my parent's body screamed Calvinism, which meant the world we lived and breathed in had rules and regulations handed down by the voice of God. Grant me this morsel of hyperbole, want you. Then again, we kids came in for some mildly brutal whippings for our transgressions, the very same acts that might have gotten my father, the ordained punisher, into hot water with most authorities in other municipalities. Not that we rose up to any movie of the week on Lifetime or anything.

It was just so easy down in South Florida to part with you money, especially when you thought you were able to interpret animals' karma. I jest. I will say that my handicapping leaned towards the Animal Planet end of things, you know, that is to say I believed I was simpatico with anorexic canines and muscle bound equines. Embarrassingly, I wasn't on any drugs either.

I had stopped by the dog track on my way home to my shithole apartment one day on a lark. Time had gotten away from me and I was working late in the office. Besides, I didn't want to head on home where my relatively recent "trial separation" had left me with a few sticks of furniture, as in mattress on the floor, the wife having taken the great bed we bought from some local furniture big box store, and nothing in the fridge. I didn't even have a TV. She took the big screen TV too. I had been reduced to watching old TV shows through the Internet on my laptop. She had even transferred the Netflix account to her new place in the next county.

Early evening Florida was pushing the heat away as I turned onto Pembroke Road and right there on my left was an oddly shaped building illuminated to the hilt. I passed by the place all the time and never gave it a thought. South Florida was, for the most part, a dreary expanse of ugly functional architecture that blended together like a paint by the numbers landscape painting. Saying that it lacked any character would be doing it a favor.

On this particular occasion those lights and the peculiarly sweeping facade of the track looked inviting. It had been a long day, one in which I had a verbal smack down with my boss over some copy I had submitted about, of all things, gambling. This type of gambling was of the casino kind, which was controlled by the local native Americans, the Seminoles, I think. They had a large casino on their sacred land out in the Everglades, or close enough. Everybody in America was gambling it seemed, from wizened retirees sitting on their asses playing the slots to wanta-bees thinking they could beat the house at 21, and that didn't include the pros, the sharks who camped out at poker tables all night long. This as a nation was our dubious renaissance, from riverboat floating casinos in the heartland to expiring Indian reservations trying to save what they had left by erecting a pre-fab gambling hall, we Americans were getting our gambling on and that doesn't even include Powerball mania.

Casinos weren't for me, oddly enough. I mean gambling is gambling, right? For most, I guess. I didn't fit that profile. The casino was closed in, claustrophobic, and smoky as hell, giving it a spruced up character as the outer ring of hell. I liked being outside, in the cheap seats, watching domesticated wildlife run for their supper. I could have been a poster boy for some PETA campaign. Hell, I could have written the copy, bringing a whole new meaning to write what you know.

Not that this particular gambling outlet didn't have pretensions of being a casino. Back in 2006 the Florida legislature gave the okay to allow slots and card games at the pari-mutuel viper pits around the state, turning their collective back on the Bible thumping dickheads who usually backed the Republicans in the voting booth. Politics could be messy, with all the back stabbing and all. The track had been built way back in 1934 and renovated over the years to keep up with the times. For years the betting business had been dwindling as more and more people were distracted by other, you know, distractions. The other avenues for gambling was supposed to save the industry, so the gambling interest's lobbyists claimed.

Now you had penny ante gambling grafted onto the dog racing scene, making for a hybrid creation that was best not photographed, if you know what I mean. Slot machines didn't make for exactly an upswing in the clientele. It only shifted the old farts from outside to inside for the most part. Plying hungry machines with money, plastic or otherwise, wasn't glamorous by just about anybody's estimation. Adding lame floor shows with Carnival Cruise Line reject entertainers wasn't helping either. Oh, don't forget the fancy restaurant with the chef, you know, what's his name. It all made for a sad, depressing scene.

So there I was driving in the large parking lot, skipping the convenient valet parking, as I headed for the outskirts of the parking spaces. There was a muted buzz in the air, like maybe something was afoot. What? I didn't know because I had never been to a pari-mutuel betting establishment before. Betting on animals, however you examined it, seemed, you know, decadent. Having equine and canine entertainment was very Roman in a way. Yeah, we were advanced enough, so secure in our civilizational fortitude that we could allow ourselves to make wagers on cuddly and beautiful members of the animal kingdom. Could have been worse, right? We could have been shooting them.

I had never seen a grey hound up close before, or from far away for that matter. I had seen the ads around town blaring just how much fun it was to see a dog run around in circles while you emptied your wallet. Fun for the whole family. Who were they kidding? That ad campaign had been a bust, by the way, brought down by the inconvenient fact that only aging degenerates attended the meets. Oh sure, there were a few younger ones hanging around, but they only served to prove the rule.

I paid for general admission, handing over a few bucks to an octogenarian behind the window, who snorted an inaudible reply when I asked how long the races went on. A cigarette was dangling precariously from her lips, with a bright red lip stick ring around the filter. Pressing on, I refused a handicap sheet from some greasy looking guy, who looked like he was at least two hours away from his next methadone dose. He shrugged and muttered something under his breath.

Once inside the strange looking building I could see that some clearly utilitarian thought had gone into the design of the dog track. It was semi-open air and gave you the feeling that you might be able to park a Boeing 757 inside. I had arrived mid-meet so the floor was littered with abandoned, that is discarded betting tickets, evidence that losers were in abundant supply. Looking out at that expanse of litter, everyone printed with numbers and names of hope and expectation, I realized that gambling was a, you know, dirty enterprise. It was all about someone deriving pleasure from probability. I'm sure some shrink, say like the good Dr Wertheimer, could put a better more concrete spin on it but "it" would amount to the same disheartening reality.

The track did have its own sort of beauty though, like a computer generated painting maybe, where the foreground was constantly changing with the background. No, I wasn't on anything. I couldn't afford it. My job, such as it was, paid squat; but in this crumbling economy I wasn't complaining. Florida's workforce was barely hanging on, where the unemployment number scared economists to death. Something was coming home to roost after all those years of imaginary expansion had blown up, leaving all of us gasping and wondering why and how it had all gone wrong. Then we elected a guy who was a white collar criminal because a tiny percentage of Floridians, enough to put him over the top, thought he was going to bring his business acumen into play and straighten out the whole mess. Huh? Pay attention. The guy ripped off the government for bundles of cash.

And cash was still flowing through the coffers of the betting biz, despite what they were calling the Great Recession. I guess like the World Wars they are going to have to start putting a number behind them. This particular track, the Hollywood Greyhound Race Track slash Mardi Gras Casino had a capacity of 25,000 (losers) spectators. We could all sit, or stand, there and watch the speed demons of the canine world race around a 1372 foot sand and marl track, that was 22 feet wide, giving the dumb dogs enough room to stretch out as they pursued their prey for 5/16 of mile, or 3/8, even 7/16. Something like that anyway, I was never too good with fractions. It could have been worse, it might have been laid out with the metric system.

Stuffed into this particular gambling zeitgeist was the added layer of table games, where they had some 1300 slots and maybe 30 tables, not to mention the poker rooms. When hitting on all cylinders the place could suck plenty of money out of the rubes' pockets before they even realized it. Then again, that was the intent, right? Part with your money. It was good for the State of Florida because revenue was to be gained by all of the monetary depravity going on.

Little did I know that would be my very own reality in due time. I would own it, just like George and Toni or Slim Jim and Blooper, a quartet of friends I would soon cultivate. They would take me under their collected wing like the long lost grandson they never had. Well, to be accurate, Toni had two grandsons, but they seldom came into contact with her if they could help it. All four of them had been coming to bet on the "mutts," as Slim Jim was fond of calling the greyhounds, for over ten years. Now, comfortably nestled in the twilight years of their retirements, they didn't have much else in their lives. All of them, except George, who had a small condo in Dania Beach, lived not two or three blocks from the track. At night they could even hear the announcer calling a race from their living rooms. As with a lot in South Florida, zoning laws were for suckers, so you got residential neighborhoods cheek and jowl with gambling places or strip clubs, maybe even a cock fighting pit. Don't laugh. We are talking about a very strong south of the border vibe.

I had met them the very first night. They were all sitting around nursing a few beers while they looked over a racing form they had all pitched in to buy, collectively deciding on the next quinella, exacta, or trifecta. Since they were getting by on Social Security and not much else, every penny helped. Then what were they doing gambling, you might want to know? I was too embarrassed to ask. They never bet much any way and always pooled their winnings in order to keep the good times rolling.

Toni, the only female in the group, actually pinched my cheek when I slipped into a conversation, asking them all about the nuances of betting on lean creatures that sped around the oval at the speed of light. "You remind me of my grandson, Timmy," she cooed, looking me up and down, surveying my physique. "Don't you ever eat nothin'?" was her follow up comment. "Leave him alone, you old bat," Slim Jim piped up, rolling his eyes. Then George interjected: "Are we bettin' or what?" To be answered by the fourth member of the quartet, Blooper with: "Skip this race...there all dogs anyway." No one laughed at his lame joke, something I suspected he had used plenty of times before.

We were sitting in the cheap seats outside. The weather was nice, with only a slight breeze blowing in off the ocean a few miles to the east. I could actually make out a few stars in the distance; not easy to do, by the way, because the track was lit up like a carnival ride. Up above us, in the club seats, the more discerning pari-mutuel cognoscenti were enjoying climate control viewing while they ate dinner. Dinner? Who came to a place like this to eat out? echoed in my mind. What, did they have a world renowned chef on staff? Did watching skinny dogs race around and around improve the digestion?

This was indeed a strange world I had stumbled on. Although the crowd was sparse, and leaned heavily towards Heaven's waiting room types, they were never the less an energetic bunch once the race got under way, yelling and calling out to their picks to win, place, show. Once the race was over there would be this instant deflation for most of the patrons, while a few would whoop for joy at their instant windfall. It was all elemental in its way, something a team of psychologists (and maybe sociologists since most of the people attending could scarcely afford this source of entertainment) would find fertile ground to study. Surely some government entity might pony up the funds to do a sponsored study, one that would end up on the nightly news, wedged in between the traffic rage shooting on 95 and the Dolphins new spin on why they suck, again. Seventy-five percent of seniors living near a race track bet sixty-three percent of their Social Security check on gambling, so the anchor would intone, clucking his or her tongue disapprovingly.

"Whatch ya got in the next race?" Blooper wanted to know, glancing over Toni's shoulder at the race form. He scratched his three day old beard with his right hand, while he adjusted his glasses so he could see through the bi-focal portals in the lenses with his left.

The group called him Blooper because his last name was too hard to pronounce and he absolutely hated his first name: Mortimer. Really, his parents went there. Got to wonder what was going on when that came down in the maternity ward or where ever. I can only imagine the hospital official's face when she was told to affix that name to the birth certificate. Are you sure? they were probably thinking. His last name was Russian and was a stream of mis-matching consonants and vowels that was hurtful to the tongue to speak. In time, it was whittled down to Blooper by the group. He seemed, by all appearances, to like the name; probably the first time in his life that he didn't mind being addressed by a nick name.

He was, I'm estimating since he had fought in the Korean War, (not that he liked to talk about it), in his 80's, and was remarkably fit. In between races sometimes he would do jumping jacks, even counting them out. The others in the group called him a show off but he didn't mind. Said it kept his blood going. I suppose so.

Although he had an unpronounceable Slavic name, his parents had immigrated to the US from England, hence the name Mortimer I guess. He was born in Boston but left when he was a boy to go live in Buffalo, New York. His father had been an engineer, or something along those lines, who worked for the water department. Receiving these people's life stories came in fits and starts, delivered as side notes to the present. Unlike a lot of old folks these guys didn't want to dwell too much on the past.

Blooper was a widower, with two children that he didn't talk to very often, something that didn't seem to bother him all that much. Both of them lived out of state and only visited him on rare occasions. "They got their lives and I got mine," he was fond of saying, scrunching up his face to let me know that he didn't want to talk about it.

"Hey, this dog's name is Winkie," Toni called out gleefully, pointing to the name in the third race. "Gotta bet that one!" she bellowed out, shaking her head yes. The others grunted then glanced at each other. She had named her cat Winkie because it had a slightly deformed right eye that made it look like it was winking at you. As you could probably surmise, she had told me all about the cat, a stray she had adopted, even providing a photo from her purse to show me. Toni's picks were almost never right. She bet on whims and nothing more. While the others believed themselves to be rational handicappers, as they poured over the previous race results and looked for any edge they could to improve the odds, it was all, you know, folly. There was nothing scientific and certainly not reasonable about betting on a dog chasing a mechanical rabbit around an oval track. I really don't think any form of logic could be brought to bear, if I'm going to be pretentious about it.

Toni, my least favorite because she treated me like the son she never had, always quick with criticisms about my work and love life, was the only native born Floridian of the group. She was pushing 80 and as the years mounted up so did the layers of make-up, as if by applying more she could ward off the advance of time itself. She had been born and raised right in Miami, back in the day when it was a sleepy burg with a Southern veneer. She could remember when on Miami Beach she had seen signs in the window of the beach hotels saying: No dogs. No Negroes. No Jews.

I tried to imagine what her reaction to seeing such signs would have been at the time. Toni was, like me, a cracker. Her parents had come to Florida with the Flagler rail road, working to bring comfort to the WASP rich set who thought the American semi-tropics were the place to be when it was cold up north. She had probably thought it was funny. The laugh was on her though because before long the demographics swung the other way and the Jews took up residence there in overwhelming numbers. Then, of course, came the Cubans.

Toni was divorced--twice--and had been "forever," as she put it. She lived the closest to the track in a tiny house on a side street in a neighborhood that was rapidly deteriorating. At one time it had been a quaint little slice of Hollywood, Florida, where the blend was equally distributed among working people and retirees. Now, you know, it was a way station for every immigrant passing through South Florida, with cheap rents and unsavory land lords. "I'm gonna die in that house," she was proud of saying, like it was a badge of honor to be going down with the ship. I had once asked her if the house held fond memories for her and she had replied, after giving me once of those cinematic withering stares: "Are you nuts? My second husband bought the damn place--not me!"

"I'm going to place the bets," Slim Jim announced, struggling to his feet and grabbing his cane, one of those modern, no nonsense types that were metal and had a four prong footprint for better stability. When I first met the group he had complained to me about how Medicare had screwed up and made him pay for the privilege of using it. He had raging arthritis in his joints that made him groan in pain on a regular basis. The others were used to his audible complaints by now but it took a little bit before I too generally ignored them.

"Coming, kid?" he wanted to know, waving his cane in my direction. I nodded yes and fell in beside him, as we made our way to the betting windows. He was going to show me the ropes, or, more accurately, pave the way for my ruin. "Who do you like in this race?" he asked over his shoulder, as he pushed his way through a group of French Canadian tourists, who were gesticulating excitedly about one of their friends having just won. Slim Jim grunted ominously and gave them a look, one that said: Big deal.

He was, as he liked to refer to himself as, older than old. He was Jewish, but twice removed, so he said, not bothering to explain what exactly that meant. Slim Jim was from Baltimore, by way of New York. He still had a slight Bronx accent, or was it Brooklyn? He didn't like to talk much about his past, except to say that there was no way there were going to bury him in this "shithole." His love/hate relationship with the Sunshine State dominated his thinking, for the most part. If your ever heard the expression "vent your spleen" then you've probably met Slim Jim. There wasn't a ten minute span spent with him that he didn't criticize something about the local environs, from the "crappy" restaurants to the "nincompoops" who don't speak English to the "idiot" drivers to the "screwy" weather.

His name was Jim and he was slim. Do the math. He said people had been calling him that since he couldn't remember when. He liked the moniker apparently since he introduced himself as such. Okay, I thought, as I gripped his hand in a brief handshake. He looked up at me and grinned from behind a well managed mustache that descended just the least beyond the corners of his mouth. I immediately thought he looked like some aging confidence man, dressed in his pressed slacks and dress shirt. All he needed was a fedora to complete the look.

"You got our winners?" we were greeted with once we returned from placing our bets, tickets clutched in hand. Slim Jim nodded and handed a ticket to George, who palmed it quickly after glancing at it. "I gotta a good feeling," he sang out, chuckling. Of course, as I was to soon find out, he always had a good feeling. Unfortunately, the good feeling seldom translated into winnings.

George was an odd creature. He was the youngest, maybe just hitting 70, and dressed like a slumming professor. He was the only one of the group who still worked, although part time at a hotel on the beach, at the front desk. The hotel trade had actually been his career, which he retired from officially a few years back, before deciding to work part time doing the same thing he did for over thirty years because he was bored sitting around his condo.

Also, and this is big, he smoked a pipe. I couldn't remember the last time I ever saw anyone smoke a pipe. In fact, the only people who were using pipes nowadays were the ones in crack houses sucking on makeshift tools for delivery devices, if you know what I mean. A pipe, really. Of the group, he was the only who smoked, all the others having been warned off by busybody doctors telling them they were going to die. You're kidding, was their collective response, but they dutifully quit. Being that they were from that generation where everybody was poisoning themselves and the surrounding air with contaminated smoke, it was a coup for the medical community to get them to give up the evil weed. And now, inveterate non-smokers that they were, they complained to George about the pipe smoking every chance they got, which was often because he puffed on his pipe non-stop during the race sessions. At first, I didn't mind the aroma of baking, fruity smells wafting on the night air but in due time it did make me nauseous, like smelling a thousand burning scented candles stuck up you nose. I exaggerate, a little.

That first evening with my new friends went smoothly enough. I actually won a few bucks too. Afterwards, as we were walking back to our cars in the parking lot, I glanced back at them piling into Slim Jim's rusted Chevrolet, with the expired tags because he said he couldn't be bothered to pay for the current sticker if he was going to be dying soon anyway. His logic had an almost refreshing resonance in its nihilism, reminding me of one of my college courses about philosophy something or other, where many men had tried to write about our nebulous existentialist time on earth and he had nailed it with just one comment. Car pooling to the track, now that warms my heart, I said to myself, laughing. They drove away and through the open car window I could hear Slim Jim ordering his passengers not to get anything on the upholstery or else.

I was all of twenty-five years old, three short months from being 26. Had it come to this? I wondered. I was a college graduate, with a job. I was a copywriter, even if I did work for a lame ad company and wasn't too proud of it. Sure I had college loans to pay off, with an interest rate ticking like a time bomb but, dammit, I had a future, one potentially failed marriage not withstanding. I might have a career if I could get past that squeamish feeling I got every time I wrote copy for a product I knew was unadulterated bullshit. That wasn't insurmountable. I worked with a woman, early thirties, who just mentally held her nose and pulled the trigger. So what if you were urging people subliminally to buy crap. That was the unsuspecting mark's fault for not truly paying attention, right? Didn't they know better than to not tune out advertisements? Duh. Hear a commercial on radio, change the channel. Use that button on the remote when you see some play acting come on telling you to part with your money to do something you don't really be needing to do. DVR's were invented for this very reason, didn't you hear?

BLOCK IT ALL OUT, like the bumper sticker I saw just the other day screamed. I had to speed up to see who was driving a car with such a monstrously intuitive message on its bumper. As I drew along side I glanced over and saw that a girl was driving, a twenty something, like me. Probably graduated with a worthless degree too. Now she was human prey for the rest of us. We all were. Society had reached a pinnacle some century before and was now drawing in on itself, so said some pundit I'm sure, or it could have been a comedian. It was kind of funny, you know. I wanted to say something to her when we stopped at the next light but she was busy texting away, locked into a message war with somebody about something. Her fingers furiously plied the virtual key board, then she sighed and let out a low rumbling scream, short but vivid. The light changed and she floored it, with her little mini-cooper springing forward and she was gone.

I pictured her still living at home, with two concerned parents, the ones who were undoubtedly still making payments on her boutique car with the faux racing stripes. At least I was spared that indignity. My car, such as it was, had been bought straight up; of course it was also over five years old and produced snickers at times whenever it got any where near a Valet parking stand. It was made in Korea and wasn't even manufactured by that country's better known car maker. It was, all in all, the anti-chick magnet. Smelled too, like rotten eggs or fallout from a volcano vent because the catalytic converter was on its way out, with asphyxiation on the horizon.

Didn't matter. Not to me. I wasn't proud. Okay, sure, I would have liked to be driving a new more suitably cool car, one where when I pulled into the car wash the attendants would want to wipe it down as they passed comments about its attributes. The car culture wasn't my thing though. My Cubanita was much more attuned to such things than me (I). Thanks to Papi, she drove a shiny little sporty Japanese car with a garish paint job that only someone with bad taste would like. She said it was distinctive. I would have liked to say it was pure ugliness, but diplomatically agreed. Oh, and she wouldn't let me drive it because she said I was a lousy driver. This from a woman who often was behind the wheel while simultaneously talking on the phone, putting on makeup, changing the radio station from one Latin music station to the next, all while hopped up on cafe cubano. You can take the girl out of South Florida but...you get the idea.

By the time I got to know my little quartet of aging degenerates, I had already headed down a one way street to marital oblivion, even if it was only pending. We hadn't really talked all that much about the actual act of getting divorced. We had only been married a few short years. It was more of a virtual thing, with her delving into websites for info about this and that, all sectioned and bracketed for easy reading. I didn't know there was so much minutiae involved in de-intertwining two lives with the imprimatur of the State. It seemed all so, you know, official--or is final the word I'm looking for?

It made me think back to those heady days before we got married. Of course, I was the man, so I was absolved of most of the nitty gritty aspects of holy matrimony. The powers that be, some time long ago, had decided that the bride had to not only foot the bill for the ensuing madness but arrange just about everything too. Where had women's liberation fallen down on the job, huh? Come on, equal rights count for something. Glass ceilings. ERA. You got the vote and you didn't think to remove that little onerous part about getting married. Why don't they just bring back the dowry. Wait, having the bride's family spring for the wedding is kind of like a dowry really.

Fortunately for me this was the case because my family was poor. When I say poor I mean they were the working poor, which means they worked, got paid, and never had much to show for it. My parent's finances were easy to figure out because they only had a savings account and it never got past the low thousands, real low. To them, there were more important things in life, like breathing I guess. Though they did raise three kids; how I will never know. More on that later.

Me and my Cubanita had never gotten past the initial stages of discussion about walking down the aisle. Oh there had been some post-coital mentions, ones that really shouldn't have counted if the truth most be known. No, you can't hold a man responsible for anything he agrees to in those moments of residual bliss. Later, though, she would insert wedding hints into the conversation, not unlike verbal land mines that I would have to tip toe around.

I will say right here and now I wasn't against marriage in all of its conventional trappings. Was I? Truthfully, I hadn't given it that much thought. As I hadn't given fatherhood much thought either. Hey, I was graduating from college. What did I want to know about the strait jacket that awaited me down the road? Wife. Kids. Mortgage. God, was that a trifecta.

It wasn't that I couldn't be, or at least play, the responsible type. I had worked my way through college, while most of my friends got to be flexible about the party/study balance, often times leaning towards the former over the latter. Not me. I held down a job on campus, skipping out on the festivities that UF was justly famous for. My track record was sound, in its way.

There was always that next step though. It was quite the chasm to cross. Listen to me talk about sharing a life with another person you love like it was a sentence from a judge on high. Speaking of that, one of my dorm mates had asked me: "Are you high?" He was referring to my future nuptials because he was totally incredulous that anyone our age would even contemplate getting married yet. We were young and we were also graduating into the worse job market in a couple decades. It was a waste land out there for young people in debt to their eyeballs. You knew it was bad when your best move after marching across that stage to pick up your sheepskin was to keep marching right down to a recruiter's office and sign up for the military. At least they made good on their promise to employ you for X number of years, if you could overlook that inconvenient stay in Afghanistan or whatever armpit nation the President saw fit to plant the flag.

Four years of college prepared you for a lot of things but getting married wasn't one of them. To a man, all of my college friends told me that yeah she was hot but getting married--dude? Put it on the back burner for a while.

Then there was the religion thing. Oh boy, did that open up a hornet's nest of recriminations, whispered and otherwise from my parents. We were Baptists, of the southern variety. There might have been a feel good detente between the Catholics and the hard line Protestants in the Republican party, all in the name of the anti-abortion crusade, but when it came to stepping beyond breaking bread with the Roman brood, that was a different matter.

"Are you going to have to kiss the priest's ring?" so my mother asked me, quote unquote. Yeah, mom, right after I make a pilgrimage to the Vatican to take a bath in Holy Water.

"They do things differently," was my father's one input, a man of few words as usual.

Differently? Same Jesus, right? So what if they got arthritis in their knees from kneeling and tended to give credence to a division of labor when it came to saintly miracle workers. Like my politics, I was agnostic when it came to religion. Who knew what lurked out there? I would rather just cower under the covers--philosophically anyway, when it came to figuring out the end of the world stuff. It didn't offend me all that much if she insisted that a guy wearing a dress preside over our holy matrimonial bonding. The end result was the same. We had a civil and religious commitment, one that blended together and said unequivocally that when and if the time came it was going to be a pain in the ass to undo what had been, in the eyes of the law, done. Simple. I prided myself on looking at things from all angles and coming up with the best vector. Call it my Living Theorem, my contribution to modern man's burgeoning and problematic take on getting by.

My Cubanita could have her day in church, a lovely one by the way and not some modern, hideous replica of a contemporary wet dream by a frustrated architect with holy aspirations. I mean did he, or she, think by devising a architectural statement devoid of historical connection they would somehow curry favor with the powers that be? I ask you. Give me something that harkens back to a day when church's were defined by an elementary steeple, American version, or lots and lots of grimy stone piled on top of each other, European version. I must have seen a life time's share of the latter when I spent a summer kicking it in the Old Country. More on that later.

Like I said, she was doing all the prep work for the big day. She had picked the church, and the priest obviously. My Protestant fore bearers would have to be appeased by some verbal sleight of hand but it would get done. The family, my family, would have to be convinced to get in the car and drive south of Orlando, something they had (believe it or not) never done before, crossing that imaginary line into the bowels of all that was insane to them. Cubans, PR's, any number of South Americans, Haitians, Islanders, Euros, displaced Jews, Democrats, they were all waiting to take a bite out of their psyche. I couldn't wait.

Somehow I felt like I was going along for the ride. I was detached. Even though there were plenty of weekends with the prospective in-laws, I still wasn't connecting with any of it. I might have well been a character in a really bad play. There I would be huddled together with the Cuban contingent, while they chattered in and out of English and Spanish, stuffed with food I couldn't identify or pronounce, and couldn't help feel like I might have been some Peace Corp worker in the early stages of his mission overseas to save whatever tribe it was that needed saving. In time, with lots and lots of practice, I might even learn the local dialect, along with how to stomach the oily bowel churning local comidas.

Without fail, so it seemed, I would feel a twinge of momentary embarrassment as I offered up a perfunctory greeting in Spanish, followed by a grin for the person receiving my silly attempt at bringing elementary linguistics to bear, usually my Cubanita's grandparents, abuelo and abuela, because they still clung to the home language even though they had been in their adopted country since the Carter Administration. They would give me quizzical looks, where I could literally look into their wrinkled faces and count all the years that bastard Castro had taken away from them. I sympathized but still wondered why so many of them hadn't thought to stay and fight for their country instead of fleeing north into the arms of the disinterested gringos. I would like to think that I would have stuck around and put up a fight but then again I'm, on a very basic level, lazy. What would my theorem have dictated to do? So maybe not. It was easier to check out where the alligators live.

I will say I grew to hate, if not detest, those weekend get together's, often spending half the week days devising excuses not to attend. It never worked. My Cubanita was persuasive, in the extreme. I was weak too. Down to Miami-Dade County we would head. My stomach would already start some pre-gastronomical crabbing, getting a head start on the assault that was coming. All of that Spanish phraseology that I had been practicing during the week would be tumbling around in my brain, thudding up against my dislike of the language in general, thwarted by my incredibly dense memory banks which were incapable of remembering where and when the verb did what. I knew if I made an attempt I would come off like some functioning idiot, both stupid and patronizing at the same time. It wasn't a confidence builder, to say the least.

My Cubanita was no help either. She would chide me for not attempting to learn her native language, a hand me down remember from a Spanish Empire long since extinguished. Then when I did butcher the Iberian derivative she found it somehow offensive, like I was mocking her and a long line of Romance language practitioners. I wasn't. Really. I actually thought I was being polite in a weird sort of social way. Hey, I could mangle specific gender traps built into the language as well as the next guy. Besides, they, the Cubans, didn't really appreciate it when Anglos knew the lingo because it took away their secret code. Using and understanding Spanish was an asset for them, like spoken cryptology. You could ridicule lots of people and get away with it, immune, leaving the fair haired idiots to their all encompassing incomprehension. No comprendo was a phrase I knew all too well.

Matters were made worse by the inconvenient fact that the Cubans were the Lord and Masters of South Florida, especially in Miami-Dade County. The Cuban Revolution hadn't stopped at the shores of the island of Cuban apparently. No, it traveled north ninety miles and washed up around Biscayne Bay. Took a little while, but they did it; through some ingenious Sturm und Drang (translate that to Spanish) PR the Cuban exile community convinced everyone that they were just chillin' here in America before they returned due south to seize what had been illegally taken from them. Okay. We are stilling waiting for that reverse flotilla, by the way.

Meanwhile, they infiltrated every aspect of the local culture and made it their own. Miami--Mi-am-muh--of yesterday disappeared, replaced by different music and another view of government. Not that there wasn't some pain along the way. The crackers and then the northern transplants squealed some, complaining about the over all change in atmosphere, from sleepy semi-tropics to noisy incomprehensible chatter. The changing vibe was reinforced by several waves of entitled Cubans, who were given plenty of governmental encouraging from the guilty Democrats who felt bad about the whole Bay of Pigs thing, while the Republicans took the opportunity to make a voting block for life out of the newly minted citizens rabid about punishing the bearded guy back in their homeland.

Inexplicably, they were made heroes, these exiles and extended family. Why? No one really knew. It was a visceral feeling, I guess. They had been dealt a bad hand. Some maniacal and brutal dictator had shone them the door because they didn't want to participate in the new government plan. FYI, it happens all the time. Check it out. South America in particular is fertile territory for ideological upheaval, which usually ends up in somebody getting the short end of the stick, as in screwed. Lives are lost, often times in heinous displays of cruelty. I'm not sure we should be celebrating the fact that someone absconded out the side door because they didn't have the fortitude to stick around and put up some resistance. Think about that for a moment. We are congratulating a group of people for running away from a fight. Nice pacifist sentiment but not good for the future of, you know, national resolve.

So my take on the Cuban situation was kind of contrarian, or let's call it anathema. You didn't walk around the streets of Miami trumpeting that theory, not if you didn't want to encounter some difficulties. Deep into my short marriage, if that makes sense, I let my foolhardy spirit get the better of me and actually offered up my view of the entire Cuban contemporary historical fantasy to my Cubanita, the one that includes how they are going to sooner or later take back their country. Didn't go well.

"I hate you," she spat out, glaring at me, hands on hips.

This, I might say here, was her usual rejoinder to what I might say at this juncture in our discourse. It had spiraled down to that, like something circling the toilet. Our marriage was definitely going down the tubes. She had begun calling me curse words in Spanish, most of them centered around the word for homosexual, one of the few words of profanity in that foreign language that I knew. The others flew over and around my comprehension, making her verbal assault all the more laughable, which I usually did, laugh that is. This would make her even angrier, if possible.

"The feeling is mutual," I would toss back at her in my best cinematic tone of voice, with a faint smile.

Then she would resort to her ace in the hole and say: "If you are so macho why aren't you fighting in Iraq or Afghanistan?" This interrogative was usually followed up with a knowing grin, as if to say she knew where my weak spot was.

She had a point of course. Who was I to impugn anybody's sense of national defense? I wasn't part of the less than one percent in America who were laying it on the line to defend the homeland. Not even close. The closest I every got to being a patriot with those kind of chops was when I watched the military channel on TV. It was nice to see where most of our tax money was being spent. I did have an excuse though and it was in the form of my father, a Viet Nam vet who thought war was an evil plan by the government to cull the herd. It's a long story I might get into later on in the book. Suffice to say I wasn't encouraged to enlist.

"They take women too, you know," I replied, adding foolishly, "oh, that's right, you Cubans don't believe in fighting for your country."

Projectiles came next. Anything within reach was a potential missile, which she would hurl with uncanny accuracy. I have a few scars on my forehead to prove it. Nothing was safe. She once tossed a serving bowl given to us as a wedding gift from her favorite Tia. It glanced off my head and shattered on the floor. It was expensive, if I remember correctly. She didn't miss a beat, but just kept latching onto to things to throw: coffee cup, apple, my e-reader (still under warranty), a shoe, hi-heel type she paid way too much for, touristy paper weight from our one trip to the Virgin Islands we used to hold down the monthly bills, can of beans of South American origin, with all of the writing on the label in Spanish, plantain, extra green of course, bag of potato chips, which popped open in flight half way to target, softball, the one I bought when I thought I might play in a local league formed just for us uncoordinated idiots who thought we had missed out on the jock experience back in High School, and lastly a flashlight that had been sitting on the kitchen counter ever since the last Hurricane blew through town.

Fun times for all. That she had a volatile temper was legendary. Me, not so much. Maybe it was because I was the youngest of three kids, and was used to being, you know, picked on, made me easy going. It could have been a gene passed down by my mother, who was all Zen about everything, from religious conflict to familial problems to putting up with a husband who was, by general consensus, a jack-ass. Anyway, I dodged the in-coming munitions and held my tongue. At that stage anything else said was totally counter productive, to say the least.

Nobody ever suspects things will get this bad, this messy when they get married. You walk down that aisle, nervous as hell, and put your shaky faith in something as nebulous as the concept of love. Sure, like that was legitimate. Fondness. Desire. Need. Insanity, maybe. Love, I don't think so. Two humans can swap plenty of items, from saliva to pin numbers, but love is like describing the soul. Really. I know they have been blabbing about it since before Plato, calling it all sorts of grandiose things, but it is still a hazy idea that gives ideation a bad name. Cynical me likes to use it in my work, with the copy writing. Lean on it because everybody thinks it is a desirable goal, an end game that we can all aspire to.

Did I ever love my Cubanita? Sure, why not? There might have been a moment or two there when we merged our two disparate lineages and created a bond of some description or other. Heretofore, that is in the early stages of our mating dance, we interlocked some really heat seeking desire. Maybe that was love. We certainly were on the same page. Ginned up on some potent post-adolescent hormones, secreted away on a large University campus, freed from two decades of parental restrictions, there was plenty of love to go around, fueled further by beer and weed. Then the wedding vows had to interrupt the pure carnal pursuit of it all. That is when the love switch was supposed to be flipped, I guess.

We had no children, thank god. Although my Cubanita paid lip service to the Church, taking most commands from Rome as the Gospel, she ignored the contraception one. The Bishops could take a hike on that business. Not that children weren't in the game plan, just on her time table and not some old dude's high on incense smoke. The twin evils of the Catholic brain trust were contraception and abortion, two proscribed acts that certainly had a lot to do with each other. Duh. Take one to prevent the other. Made sense to me, but then I didn't reside in a world where men wearing loud colors while conversing in a dead language told me what to do.

Conception was a holy act, so said a man who was abstinent, and it started when that egg and the sperm first shake hands. Biological arguments aside, I was decidedly libertarian when it came to being told what I could do with my ejaculate. So was she when it came right down to it. Such was the state of modern religion in America, a place where you could pick and choose what you wanted to theologically adhere to. Wasn't that what freedom was all about? Joking aside, we had a few scares and close calls, none of which burned us. We both wanted to be parents but when we were ready.

Like I said, good thing about being parents because our marriage had become the Theatre of the Absurd, a play with no final act. That's not true. There was a conclusion on the way, one neatly spelled out in pithy legalese, stamped and signed. The forms were eventually delivered to me, overnighted, signature required. Took me about ten seconds to sign them. There would be no more weekends with the in-laws, with me standing in the living room in their house in Kendall, staring at the photos of my Cubanita at her Quince, right next to a picture of Ronald Reagan shaking hands with Papi at some local function. Damn, was he proud of that photograph.

Chapter 2 Collective Indiscipline = Mating

I've gotten off track here. Back to Doctor Wertheimer for a moment, the evolutionary psychiatrist, Harvard trained, neuroanatomist, by way of Cornell. Maybe it was Penn, some Ivy League college. After answering the web ad I was contacted by a woman with a squeaky voice and a nose ring. Not exactly professional in appearance but apparently one of the good doctor's worker drones, of which he had plenty. She was doing her doctorate in some really bizarre field, so strange that I couldn't possibly explain it to you, except to say it had to do with quarks. Feel free to say: "Huh?"

She contacted me on Skype, where I got a good glimpse of her ashen complexion looming on my lap top monitor, the result of hours and hours of time spent in the lab, so I guessed. I was given a short interview and something like a pop quiz, or at least it felt like one. She asked me about my past relationships and how much I remembered about them.

I told her, not without a snicker, (which she frowned at), that I was all of twenty-five years old and had had only a few relationships to speak of. This opened up a different set of questions. I could see her looking down at some notes as she plowed through the questionnaire, stopping here and there to tick off the appropriate boxes.

All in all she seemed bored by the exercise. I tried to imagine her in her lab, wearing the obligatory white coat, with beakers and flasks bubbling all around her. In the background there would be worker bees passing back and forth, carrying trays of specimens for the next experiments. The clock would be ticking because they were all working on a government grant that ran out at the end of the month. Modern civilization was at stake, it's survival that is. The next great discovery was just around the corner. Her reward would be the cover of Scientific American, where she would be feted as the new wunderkind, nose ring, tatts, and all. Remuneration would follow in the form of corporate gigs, probably in some glass tower out in California. She would land a teaching slot at Cal Tech too.

"Do you remember how long that relationship lasted?" she wanted to know, as she drummed her pen on the table and squinted into the web cam, shifting in her seat which brought her face ever closer to the screen.

"Two years, I think," I answered, thinking back and smiling at the memory of my High School girl friend. "She was my first girl friend, real girl friend."

Screwing up her face for a moment, she asked in a voice fringed with alarm: "So you've had imaginary girl friends before?"

I laughed because it was, you know, preposterous, then replied, "Yeah, right."

"Well, have you? I mean that's a deal breaker if you have," she informed me, grimacing at the thought of having conducted an interview for nothing.

"Are you kidding me? No, I haven't had imaginary girl friends before...or ever," I stated emphatically. "What kind of nutcase do you think I am?" My question hung in the air for a moment as we exchanged glances over the web cam. Her face had gone blurry for a moment while she shifted in her chair. I suppose the answer to my question was that I was some loser who contacted study sites on the Internet and wanted to sign up for some weirded out science experiment. We both had an idea what kind of person I was.

She let me off the hook and diplomatically announced: "We're done here. We'll be contacting you soon...by email."

"So what can I expect if you guys decide to--" I started to ask but she was gone, having signed off with a quick push of the button.

What the fuck am I doing? pushed its way into my mind, quickly followed by some booming laughs. Normally, as it went, I didn't embarrass all that easily, but this time around I felt like an idiot. Desperate people do desperate things, so said somebody somewhere in history, right? I needed money and Miss Nose ring was my gateway to ten thousand dollars tax free. Well, you were supposed to claim it on your taxes. That lump sum would go a long way towards providing me with what I needed, like rent money for instance. Ten grand! It doesn't seem possible.

Damn those emaciated canines, they had sucked my wallet dry. A curse on Toni, Slim Jim, George, and Blooper. How come they never ran out of money? I wondered. Actually they did, because they were perpetually grubbing for "coin," as Slim Jim liked to call it. The only difference between me and them was they knew how to live off of practically nothing, while I couldn't go one day, for instance, without slurping down several Starbuck's creations. The surly barristers all knew me by my first name, as they plied me with caffeine while the meter was ticking on my wallet.

"Thrown like carrion into a pit," so said the good doctor that first day of orientation. He was joking but some of us weren't so sure. In time, we would all come to realize that Dr. Wertheimer was a jokester and who wouldn't be if you were worth millions? It kind of made laughing easier, or as he might put it: Good for the mental equilibrium; and yes he did actually say that phrase, a lot. He said plenty of things like that, all meant to convey to us laymen that he was dumbing down his delivery so we mortals could understand.

I shouldn't say that. The good doc didn't come off as the pretentious type. Not really. He wore jeans and even flip flops, while discoursing on procedural memory and pivot points, that sweet spot in life where fate and circumstance align. It made for a night watching the Science Channel, sort of like that anyway. The man's brain was crammed with so much knowledge that it tended to seep out without him being able to steer it effectively. Must be nice, especially since I often times can't remember what I had for breakfast.

Dr Wertheimer had a legion of minions working for him, some there for the bucks and some there just to bask in his glow. He got some of the quirky types too, the ones who thought by being near him they could transcend to the next level. What that level was could have been anybody's guess. These people were definitely working on a different plane. Their lives revolved around the upper rings of consciousness, or so said my seat mate to my right that day of orientation. He said it with just the right amount of awe. Me, personally, I had never reserved anything near that kind of reverence for anything, or anybody. Oh, alright, I had once worshipped the leader of a little known band, one of those groups that excel on the Internet but never quite manage to translate it into legitimate ticket sales. Their music was affectionately called "experimental" and leaned heavily on modern jazz infused with the alternative scene. I was crushed when he died in a car accident high on some synthetic drug nobody had ever heard of. Even in death he was original. It must be remembered that I was a sophomore in High School and lived in a butthole town in the South, so my form of rebellion was shaped by the circumstances.

So I sort of understood where they were coming from. Not really. Rich guys made me nervous. They had won the probability lottery and thought they were distinct and should be worshipped. I guess not all of them were like that but enough of them were that you could make an accurate generalization. That Apple guy had been a shithead, right? As a human being he didn't quite measure up but it didn't stop people from bowing down to him and calling him this and that, all the while wetting their pants over his accomplishments. The amount in your bank account was inversely related to your standing on the humanity scale.

"This is like scaffolding for the cerebral circuits," the good doctor announced, grinning. There were nods all around, except from me because I had spied nose ring girl come into the room and realized she was kind of hot. Later on, after me and the good doctor had an intense discussion about a business model of his, one that included his brand name clinics all around the world so the populace could safely live alternate lives, he would consult me about some new financial moves he was going to be going after, winking at me as if I was in on the deal. Why he chose me to confide these morsels of Wall Street shaking instruments I don't know. The only thing I could think of he had mistakenly confused my profession with that of a MBA dickhead. I could no more tell him about financial wizardry than I could conduct a conversation about quantum mechanics.

Nose ring girl was now passing in and out of the rows handing out a syllabus for us newbies, noviates for the next generation of human living. There was going to be a new way of entertaining the human mind and we were on the ground floor, looking up. She stopped in front of me and I smiled at her as she handed me the form. Unfortunately she looked right through me while she moved down the aisle. Hey, didn't we have a moment on skype? I wanted to shout out. We hadn't of course and I realized that but a guy can dream. Weren't we there for the dreams anyway? We were, in a manner of speaking.

I had noticed she had a tiny flower tattoo on the back of her hand and was thinking about that when the good doctor started in on a power point presentation. It was supposed to bring us up to speed about everything we would be doing during the study, from the duration of the thing to what exactly it was expected to accomplish. Fascinating stuff: all about the brain and how it stores practical knowledge and has to authenticate previous experience etc. I did say I wasn't into science in a big way, right? This presentation was pulling me back into those uncomfortable days of college, where you were sitting in a lecture you were forced to take to graduate and most everybody around you understood what was going on except you. I'm sure you've been there.

"We will be delving into the time point one area and then the time point two area," the good doctor informed us. "These will correspond with different aspects of your life...like a novel maybe," he added hopefully, looking around the room at our eager faces. He paused for a moment, then continued: "Time is nothing but a convenient fiction. The spectrum that a life is has no chronometer, if you will. Further, data as stimuli doesn't match up...link, with reality. Does our perception exist outside our minds?"

The question hung in the air. Most of us weren't sure if it was rhetorical or not. One guy in the front called out: "Is that the tree in the woods thing?" We all laughed, including the good doctor. Nose ring girl rolled her eyes and leaned over to whisper something to another of the worker bees standing off to the side.

"Don't think so," Dr Wertheimer replied, rubbing his shaved head with both hands, almost like he was annoyed to have to tell a bunch of low level intelligence people the new facts of life. "Let me just say here and now--and I hope I'm not stepping on anyone's theological toes right now--you people will be your own gods, with a small g." And a hubbub arose, so some 19th century novelist might write. "Calm down, there's nothing sacrilegious here. It's an apotheosis thing. Right? Do you follow me? You will all be a creator," he boasted, unable to control his excitement at the prospect of reorienting a bunch of people's lives forever.

"I could go on forever but just let me distill it down to some basic facts on a philosophical and scientific level," he explained, moving to front center of the room. "It is a matter of spatial scale. The world we live in," he said, smiling at the thought, "begins with the atom--" Nose ring girl cleared her throat and Dr Wertheimer looked over and smiled back at her. "Excuse me, I stand corrected, the neutrino. You have this incredibly small bit of matter and then the impossibly large and expanding universe. You people are in the middle. Listen, you are limited by your basic physiology, held back because your senses and your brain don't compute certain things--like UV wavelengths or infrared information. We humans are limited, for sure.

"Not now though," he sang out, clapping his hands in front of him. "We here at Somnium have made that break through we have always needed. You can now be equipped to use your brain to enter into a different realm." Hubbub again, including me, like anybody wouldn't be intrigued by this. "I am going to sound wonky for a minute but the concept of umwelt with objective reality has just been expanded."

"I knew it!" my seat mate to my left exclaimed excitedly, reaching over my lap to high five the guy on my right.

"This goes even beyond umgebung too," the good doctor sang out, while he did a little impromptu dance, showing that intelligence and dancing aren't necessarily linked.

"Umge-what?" I said aloud, looking around, not even trying to conceal my confused look. Sounds like Tarzan speak, I was thinking, as I looked across the room to see what nose ring girl was doing. She had a smirk on her face and was motioning for one of the minions to turn up the good doctor's mic.

"Listen, listen, hold it down," he scolded us gently, smiling. "You don't have to be a semiotic theories maven to understand this stuff, people. Trust me on this, my friends, we have been living in a half blind state for too long. Sensory impoverishment kinda sucks. Am I right?" Judging from the roar of the crowd, he was. "Sooner or later we all suffer from quotidian thinking and it retards us--the human race. I just needed to tinker with the new software everybody already possesses and it is right in their brain. That's where you come in."

We do? I was thinking. Admittedly I hadn't really read all the disclaimers on the website. Who does? I mean when that window pops up giving you the option to accept or decline how many of you actually take the time to read the fucking thing? Not many. I got bored half way down the first page. All I wanted was to get my hands on ten grand. They could have fried my brains in organic, expeller pressed sunflower oil for all I cared. Then again, you only have one brain and mine isn't exactly always running on all cylinders. It would be nice to maintain the little that I do have.

So red flags were being belatedly raised. At this point I hadn't signed up, not officially anyway. The papers that nose ring girl had handed out had several spots where you had to put your signature, all witnessed of course. Added to that bit of legal trappings was the non-disclosure form. Oh yeah, Dr Rony Wertheimer had been burned before by blabbermouthed guinea pigs who told the world what he was up to. Don't you run to the media you little weasels, so I imagined him thinking, you know, with one of those thought bubbles over his bald (shaven) head. By the way, the guy had all the money in the world, couldn't he have gotten hair transplants or something? His high priced lawyers had come up with an airtight disclosure form, one that made it okay for him to have you killed if you showed up on CNN dissing his experiments.

I couldn't really blame the guy. Then again, how much money do you have to have? I mean does it become a mania or something with these guys? They have to have the biggest jet, the fastest car, the youngest wife. It all comes with the territory. They live and exist in a different universe from the rest of us. When your net worth is north of some small countries around the world you have a totally unique view of what is what. That's the only explanation I can think of for continuing to be a money grubbing asshole.

"It is a post modernist world, people," the good doctor continued, smiling, which looked more like a leer. "The replica is more real than the original in this brave new world." My seat mates whooped in tandem, grinning at each other. What were these guys on, I wondered? "Pre-conceived notions become the blueprint."

Someone in the back stood up and asked a question that I couldn't hear. Interrupting the master took balls, I was thinking, turning around in my seat to take a look at the person who was so bold. It was a short guy, late forties or early fifties, a living and talking part and parcel of the statistical slot reserved for the older set. It was, after all, a study and there would have to be a control group, with old and young representatives of the homo sapien species. Right? The FDA had certain rules to follow before they handed over their imprimatur and let the populace partake in the goodies Dr Wertheimer was providing, for a fee of course. There were hoops to jump through even if most governmental regs had been watered down over the years. Thank you my fellow libertarians for that.

The good doctor cocked one ear in the man's direction, cupping it with his hand. He nodded a few times and glanced over at nose ring girl. I probably wouldn't have been surprised if he gave her the high sign that unleashed the dogs. Several burly security guards would suddenly appear and the guy in the back would be dragged away, maybe even zapped with a taser. My fellow attendees would sit there startled but mute. We were all good authoritarians when push came to shove.

"I see where you are going with this," the good doctor interjected, holding his hand up for the man to stop talking. The man did, abruptly. "He wants to know about any side effects from the experiment regimen. Good question."

"Who is that guy?" one of my seat mates wanted to know, as he craned his neck to get a look at the person with the temerity to ask a question of the god in the room.

"Listen, we have tested it thoroughly for over a year. The lab discipline has been intense," Dr Wertheimer explained, walking closer to the audience to make eye contact. "This has probably been our most...most studied pharmaceutical. There have been severe controls placed on ever aspect of the research evolution. Alpha to Zeta, people, my staff have done the work needed to bring this...this gift to the public."

"Gift?" I muttered and the seat mate to my right shot me a look of disapproval. Is this what it was like to be in Germany, circa 1930's? I wondered.

"I have corralled symbolic abstraction and mapped it--sort of," the good doctor boasted, grinning again. "Of course, truthfully, it's your memories that sets the framework...that fleshes out the virtual world--"

"Like a video game," someone in front suggested.

Dr Wertheimer seemed to recoil for an instant, before saying: "God no, I wouldn't characterize this advancement that way at all." He seemed offended that anyone would compare his work to some sloppy code writing done by a mal-adjusted tweeb locked in his basement with too much RAM to work with. The guy who had injected his comment shrunk down in his seat, trying to disappear entirely. "Video games are so yesterday, people!" the good doctor shouted out, laughing.

Everyone cheered for no reason at all. I sat there feeling uneasy. This whole enterprise was supposed to be simple. I sign on the dotted line. I put up with some inconvenience. I get paid cash. After that I resist the urge to blow my windfall on gambling and instead pay my mounting overdue bills. The last stage was difficult but the others were supposed to be a no brainer. Now I had to think about this new wrinkle a little bit. Pills, memories, and a bunch of words I wasn't even sure about crowded into my decision making process. I was slipping into a bad mood and didn't want to really be sitting there listening to some rich guy try to convince me to sign up for the unknowable.

"You wouldn't know it but your brain--your mind--stores meta knowledge that can offer up an avalanche of imagination," Dr Wertheimer was now saying, adopting more of a cheerleader mode, not that he needed to with this crowd.

I wasn't totally convinced though. On the website, bare bones by the way, as if this guy couldn't afford to hire the very best website designer, it had gone on about discovering new horizons. It all sounded, to me anyway, like some really bad sales pitch you might hear at one of those real estate mindfucks, where they lure you in with some shitty gifts and then hammer you with the hard sell. Hey, I was in the business of convincing people to do things. I knew of what I speak.

There on the website, complete with a photo of said doctor, a picture that looked dated, like maybe from his days as an actual practicing doctor, it told all of us suckers about expanding our "mental universe." Okay. Like I said, if not for my money problems I wouldn't have taken a second look at that crap they were peddling.

There were lots and lots of medical--pseudo and otherwise--jargon inserted in the script, all the better to hoodwink the unsuspecting. They didn't need to bother because most of the people in that room were on board with whatever got them closer to Dr Wertheimer; as if by being in close proximity some of his Midas touch was going to rub off on them. People really are stupid when it comes right down to it.

I read through the provided information on the website, twice, and still didn't have a clue what they were attempting to do. Of course I was blinded by the little item on the second page, at the bottom, that spoke to the lump sum end of things. They could have been shooting lightning bolts through my anus and I wouldn't have opted out. I exaggerate, but only slightly.

Now, though, I was up against the decision making time. All around me almost everyone, except for the old guy in the back who was worried about varied side effects ruining the remaining years on his life, had already inked the deal. They just wanted to get on with it, let the good times roll. I had, by simple math and a modicum of luck, almost sixty years ahead of me to look forward to. I didn't need some weirded out affliction, you know, afflicting me as I slipped into senior senility. At the very least they could spell out what precisely might go wrong if it did. How about a tidy list of ailments that might befall me, and the others. Statistically speaking, what were the chances that I might wake up one day howling like a werewolf at the new moon? Got to ask. Further more, any dysfunction to look forward to? You know what I mean, in the nether regions.

"Have you ever heard of a guy named Derek Parfit?" the good doctor was asking now, peering around the room at all of the eager faces. "Doesn't matter," he said, waving the thought away with a flick of his hand. "He's some Philosopher, and I use the term loosely here, who got everything upside down. I mean his ideas are weak but he does raise some questions about ourselves. He talks about a continuity of memories and other nonsense." Tittering undulated through the audience, obviously enjoying their hero slamming another big brained personage. "Anyway, what I do here with this drug and my newly discovered method is establish a competing virtual in your brain from existing memories that are already there. Got that?"

Lots of nodding all around me told him that they did. I didn't. Not at all. My brain, and my memories, belonged to me and shouldn't be tampered with. Why hadn't they said all of this bullshit on their website, I asked myself, silently of course, better not to disturb the buzz my immediate neighbors were enjoying. Besides, didn't acid back in the day do a lot of what the good doctor was going on about? Sure, there was an entire generation, my parents to be exact (just not mine), who "dropped" pills or licked cellophane or whatever it was they did in order to escape their own minds. Do I have that right? I know they tried to do something with the chemical. Shit, even the government got in on it by conducting secret tests with the drug. That's right, unsuspecting losers were made to swallow the crap so their "trips" could be recorded. As far as I know nobody ever saw god or anything. Waste of time.

Dr Wertheimer paused for a second, trying to catch his breath for the final countdown to the closing, as he paced back and forth a few times. A hush had settled over the room. We could hear his flip flops pattering back and forth and yes the man worth billions was wearing plastic shoes even you can buy at the local Walgreens. A genius has to let his feet breathe, right? It was a tiny bit disconcerting to see a man worth so much wearing cheap footwear he bought at a store where he could easily with a phone call buy the whole chain of stores, be it Walgreens, CVS, you pick. Meanwhile, nose ring girl was busy adjusting the picture on the screen, a macro shot of the wiring of the brain. Where oh where were all of our memories stored?

"I will be like a demiurge to all of you," he pronounced and now I began to get that feeling all of those people down in the sweltering jungles of South America must have gotten when Reverend Jones told them to trust him. Needless to say, that didn't bring it into focus for yours truly. My seat mates were glowing right about this point, as if they had been impregnated by the godhead. For those people who didn't spend their time reading up on the Greek school of philosophy, which was probably almost all of us, the demiurge concept was all about the creator. Couldn't argue that, I thought, after the seat mate on my left filled me in on what the word meant. The good doctor was beginning to give megalomania a bad name.

"All you experience here is not only hidden in the midst of the future but it is an entirely hypothetical future, one that your brain is going to fashion out of neurons on steroids.

You guys will be going to a place where the moon is always full." he assured us, whatever that meant. "Imagine that!" he exclaimed, finishing with a verbal flourish.

I was doing just that: imagine. What I was imagining, besides nose ring girl wearing only her freshly dry cleaned lab coat and nothing more, was me going bonkers on some drug this guy cooked up in between intervals of insanity laced visions. Oh yeah, he was going to mentally maim us all and get away with it. Everyone knew the rich never paid for their crimes. It had been well documented. Our nation was a two-tiered democracy, with one set of rules for them and the left overs for the rest of us. Our brains, to him, were like computer code to be tinkered with so he could amuse himself. I mean after you buy a giant house, yacht, a dozen cars, airplane, and half of Congress what's left to do with your time?

"In conclusion," Dr Wertheimer announced, "you will need to sign what we call a Ulysses contract, after that dude in the Trojan War, where you want to control the future or something like that. Okay-okay, it's a fancy way of saying you can't hold us responsible if you go off the deep end. Something along those lines."

No problem, doc. Almost to a man (there were an almost equal number of women present) rose and headed towards the front, contracts in hand. They converged on the good doctor, as nose ring girl and a few other lab weanies tried to intervene or at least stop their progress or slow it down. They were all wanting to talk to the great man and, with luck, even shake his hand, something they could bore their grand children with on the down the road, providing the study didn't disrupt their brains and or functioning parts. I, along with the old dude in the back, sat there mentally mumbling to ourselves.

"Aren't you going to talk to him?" my seat mate on the left wanted to know, as he pushed his way forward.

He wasn't waiting for my reply so I didn't bother to answer. The seat mate on my right was long gone, like being shot out of a cannon. I could see him edging his way ever closer to the front. I glanced behind me and saw the old guy crumple up his contract and shake his head disgustedly. He exited out a side door in the back. His memories would remain intact, lodged comfortably in the recesses of his brain. We were not all our own personal god. Science couldn't be the creator, even if it was within the confines of a lab setting. Controlled environments didn't count, or so said Dr Wertheimer, wanting to ease any theological hangovers his godlike construction might cause some people in the audience. God can stay on his side of the fence. We humans have the right (privilege) of reworking His handiwork if we want to.

I didn't think the good doctor needed to bother. He was preaching to the choir here. These people would have stripped off their clothes and staked themselves to a fire ant colony if he asked them to. Mind expansion came at a cost, so they believed. Like with religion, you had to have faith, or, actually, possess it, like a family heirloom, something that you really didn't want to part with. I wasn't one of them. In fact, I was what they mildly detested, a, using their very own lexicon, "moneran." Translation: one celled organism. Their sense of humor was undeveloped, in my opinion; but that was just the point, my opinion didn't matter.

Unbeknownst to me I had stumbled on another subset of America. They lived right under the surface of discovery. I'm joking, partially. Oh, these guys did exist alright. They were the ones surrounded with tech products, the ones who read certain magazines and got what they were writing about. I'm hesitant to call them misfits but they weren't a good fit in most of society. They believed in conspiracy theories and had created entire dialogues in their minds for when they had their third kind encounter. They also believed it was going to happen sooner or later. There was an underground out there populated by these people.

Dr Werheimer, for better or worse, validated them. He was one of them; although he might take issue with that characterization. The man had been a player even before all of his riches. These people, not so much. The word maladjusted was concocted just for them. All walks of life were represented by them but they all shared the same oddness gene, a trait that made them perfectly suited for IT, chemical engineering, or maybe microbiology. I generalize of course but the trend was there, built in by better brain circuitry and a stunted emotional state because of basic strangeness grafted onto their personalities by societal norms they didn't conform to.

Nose ring girl, for instance, was an outlier, the exception that proves the rule. She was attractive, confident, and could easily straddle both worlds that existed out there. Her cool factor came from being intelligent enough for her own intelligence. Her beauty didn't hurt either. Good looks was like having a diplomatic passport. You didn't need to apply for visas to get to where you wanted to go. That she gave off that edginess aura made her all the more potent as a social traveler. Like I said, she was the exception.

What did this all mean though? Nothing, really. I still needed the money. I owed several friends a bundle I was ashamed to even think about. My next step was a loan shark and there were plenty of them always circling around the track. I slowly got to my feet and decided to walk to the back of the room so I could think for a minute. In front, Dr Wertheimer was getting pawed by his fans. Nose ring girl was being buried by a paper slide of forms. As I was walking by where the old guy had been sitting I looked down and saw a piece of the contract he tore up sitting on his chair. He had scribbled across the bottom of the contract in really big block letters: LACUNAE. I stared at it for a moment, trying to remember what it meant or if I had ever seen the word before. Now I was more confused.

So now I was part of a select fraternity, if you want to call it that. There were twenty of us test subjects, equally divided between female and male. No sexism here. Our ages ranged from twenty-one all the way up to fifty-nine, a guy, who was ex-military by the look of him. He still had one of those haircuts with the sides shorn close and a little strip of stubble on top. His eyes were intense, like he was trying to see right through you. I imagine he had been special ops and had killed his share of bad guys. Physically, he was maintaining his fighting weight and often wore tank top t-shirts to show the rest of us that he was no stranger to the weight room. The youngest, at twenty-one, was a girl, recently graduated from the U, as those dickheads at the University of Miami liked to call it. She was overweight and had close cropped hair that she had foolishly dyed platinum. Must have been one of those spur of the moment decisions, the ones that make you regret ever having a thought in your head. She looked like an obese manikin you might see in a chic boutique on Ocean Drive, that is if you were living in an upside down world where black is white and I think you get the picture.

Our exposure to each other in the study group was minimalized because it wasn't germane to the ongoing research at hand. In fact, we were discouraged from interacting anymore than was necessary. This study was all about the individual and his or her mind. We were cerebral puppets and not much more. The nitty-gritty of what was to take place happened in our brains, which would be catalogued by a squad of lab techs and spreadsheet wranglers. That would all come later as the good doctor compiled all the vital stats and made them readable for the government hounds from the FDA and whatever government agency had provenance over such things.

The orientation time wasn't going to be our only exposure to Dr. Wertheimer. He was a hands on type, always buzzing around micro managing away, too paranoid to let even the tiniest detail go unattended. You couldn't fault him, you know, because his formula for success had been damn successful.

I had reluctantly signed the contract and handed it over to nose ring girl, who snorted her approval before disappearing through a side door with a stack of papers under her arm. After the obligatory physical I would be, more or less, property of the Somnium Corporation, with CEO and all around poobah or overlord Dr Rony Wertheimer as my new master. Did this untidy fact make me nervous? Hell yes. Dr W was one of those types with what other people call raw intelligence. I don't know what that means really but it sounds ominously potent, like living under a Czar or Sultan. Full disclosure, I barely got in UF, and we're not talking about MIT here; so I was dealing from the bottom of the deck in this situation and had to lean on instinct for help.

That the good doctor was a world class narcissist was a given, but he didn't possess that unseemly trait of disregarding other people's feelings so many of them have. I would go on to talk to him on probably a dozen occasions and he almost always appeared to be attentive. He didn't come off as a snob either, even though his credit limit allowed him to be. Perhaps it was his upbringing, that is two parents who were hopelessly mired in the middle-class and stuck in a small town near the Great Lakes. "Jews among a vast sea of Gentiles," was how he phrased his childhood.

I learned all of this later on, back at my apartment as I googled away. How had I missed this guy, I asked myself? He was a shooting star, no, a comet, with page after page of hits, everything from his two marriages to a stake in several Pro Sports teams. The man was a dynamo. His lodestar had been an invention a decade before, something so complex that after I read about it for a half an hour I still didn't understand what it did. The military did apparently because he was given a massive contract to build more of them. This fattened his bank account to the point that the good doctor would never again have to rely on seed funding for any of his future projects. He was, as one of my fellow study stooges said, "Independent of his Independence." Not funny but very astute.

What defines men with egos like the good doctor is usually hubris, as in lots of it. They are proud of what they have accomplished, sometimes neurotically so. He possessed plenty of pride but he was different from other asshole titans out there because he didn't seem to have a circle of friends around him, a coterie of loyal and slavish underlings who always had his back when things went south. He was a loner in that respect.

I read the man's bio, studiously noting that he had done the national tour of academically muscle bound colleges: Stanford, undergrad-Harvard, post-graduate, first MA- University of Chicago, medical degree-Duke, doctorate-Columbia. The man was a walking billboard for higher education. He could have written a Lonely Planet version of what to expect at this or that college. Being an itinerant student kept him attune to what was out there in the tech sphere, as well as any of novel newness that was blossoming. He didn't neglect Europe either, making time in his busy schedule to lecture at Oxford and LSE in London.

Added to that were stints with think tanks, the ones that had mammoth influence in Washington. It seemed like the only thing he hadn't done was cure cancer, not yet anyway. He did devise a medical device that made it easier to spot tumors or operate on them, something like that. Fuck, he was even captain of the Stanford tennis team. Was there anything this guy couldn't do?

Yeah, keep a marriage going, evidently. He was on his third wife, the predecessors having walked away with a bundle of cash. This time around he was trying out a foreign born one, who was a good decade his junior. She was an administrator with one of those UN sponsored groups, the ones that are perpetually trying to save the world from itself. Googled her too. She was from some eastern Euro country, blond (natural), tall, and quite good looking. They had a bi-continental relationship going on, made easier by the good doc's fleet of jets I imagine.

The first two wives were mostly out of the public eye and I was willing to bet they had signed off on some pretty stringent pre-nup, a binding document that made it near to impossible for them to be spouting off in the media about her former married life. There were no snarky comments on the net about what went wrong with their marriages, no tell-alls. Neither wife showed up on any women's talk shows to dish on what it was like to live with the second richest man in the universe. Money will seal lips, so it seems.

Not that any dirt on Dr Wertheimer interested me. Gossip was unproductive. I just needed to pass the physical and get through the study. I had plans. Reform was in my future. There were meetings to go to for people like me. I was suffering from a sickness. Yes, it was a medically recognized malady, at least by the mental health profession anyway.

Fortunately the meet was winding down at the dog track. I was preparing to part ways with my geriatric posse. Unbelievably, we had exchanged digits. That's right, I would be at my desk at work, plugging away on another ridiculous ad campaign, and my cell would ring. I'd look over and see Slim Jim's face pop up on the screen, the picture I'd taken at the track one day when we were waiting for the track to be dragged. They were mostly Luddites when it came to the tech world but loved my camera phone, plastering my gallery file with dozens of photos of themselves. In a weak moment I had relented and posted their wrinkled mugs to their phone numbers. There's nothing like minding your own business and getting a phone call with their old faces attached.

Once, before my Cubanita had disappeared on me for good, we were sitting in a restaurant on the beach, trying to rekindle what both of us deep down realized was beyond help, and my phone rang. It was sitting on the table where I had placed it because I was wearing some tight jeans and the pockets were too shallow. Up pops Toni's kabuki face. My Cubanita glanced over at the screen then picked up the phone before I could grab it. "Who is that?" she demanded to know, laughing. "Nobody," I told her, snatching the phone away from her and ignoring the call. "Is that your grandmother?" I had to think fast because she knew nothing of my other life, the one at the track, with my circle of aging and dying friends. "Yeah, no, it's an aunt," I lied, adding unconvincingly, "she calls me all the time to complain." "About what?" she asked, already losing interest in the topic. "Dying," I replied.

No harm, no foul, that's what I like to say. She switched to what was on the menu and my secret life stayed secret. Yeah, so what if I was blowing too much money on dogs running around in a circle and had four friends to help me do it. Would it make it any better if they were twenty something's like me? Doubt it. Degeneracy didn't respect any age spans as far as I knew. I think it was right about then, at that moment, when I was stretching all boundaries of rationalization, that I realized I needed to get some help.

GA to the rescue. There were signs erected near all of the gambling spots around the state telling us weak minded fools where they could get help. I think it was written into the laws, something to appease the more religious members of the legislature. It was supposed to make it okay to gamble as long as you had access to an umbrella group of support groups. Show up. Talk it out. Don't ever pluck that money out of your pocket for illicit gambling again. Only it wasn't illicit anymore. Not by a long shot. Gambling had taken root everywhere, from office pools betting on football games to daily pick 'em lotteries to horse and dogs to poker to slots to blackjack to lowly games of bingo. Everybody it seemed wanted to score.

The genie was out of the bottle. Once that revenue started filling up the municipal coffers there was no going back. Man was hardwired to play the percentages. It was an evolutionary mechanism of some sort. Give the people what they want. They did. And now the nation was alive with bells and whistles going off. Power ball gripped dozens of States with its mania. Lottery pots grew and the fantasy of riches proliferated. We all wanted on the ride.

Yet I wanted off that ride. I drove into the parking lot at the dog track and parked a couple rows over from Blooper's car. It was his turn to drive the car pool. This was going to be my last night with the dogs. I was at first going to just give them a call, let them know that I was out, done. Then I thought I owed them at least a last visit. We had spent the last few months together. A friendship had formed. I had taken lunches with them, individually and as a group. Toni had coerced me into fixing her bathroom sink. Slim Jim and I had taken a field trip down to Homestead so he could visit an old friend. He had asked me because he didn't feel comfortable driving long distances. George had comped me a ticket to a show at the hotel he worked at, some variety extravaganza with the headliner being a washed up magician who used to have gigs in Vegas. We sat in the audience laughing like two kids skipping school. It was fun, like having a second father with a different lineage.

I liked these people. They were waiting for death and they were cranky a lot of the time but they gave me something I was lacking. Although several of my college friends lived in the area I was seeing less and less of them. They were entering into relationships and involved in blossoming careers. Our schedules didn't mesh most of the time. Who am I kidding? It could have just been the gambling, like a junkie who hangs with other junkies.

It was a warm night for the time of the year, sticky as usual. The crowd was sparse, even in the lame casino, where I saw only a few oldsters working the slots and no one at the tables. I made my way outside, waving at one of the attendants who of course knew me by now. That was another blow to endure. I was now a regular. God the humiliation kept piling up.

"Hey, it's the kid," George sang out. He always called me that and I had grown accustomed to it.

"How much we down?" I asked good naturedly, smiling, regretting that I was going to have to lower the boom on them and announce my premature retirement from betting.

"Breaking even," Blooper piped up, smacking my hand playfully, something I had taught him to do, our form of weird male bonding.

"Where you been?" Toni asked accusingly, eyeing me for a minute. "I tried to call you but you didn't pick up."

"So now he's your boy friend," Slim Jim called out from a few seats away, laughing. "Be careful, boy, she's hard on men."

"Shut up you old coot," she shot back at him, making a face. "I needed somebody to do an errand for me."

"When don't you need somebody to do an errand for you?" Blooper wanted to know and they all laughed together.

I was back in the groove again. It wouldn't be long before I would be placing bets with money I couldn't afford to lose. The cycle never stopped. Time to be strong. Say your good-byes, a voice in my head ordered. Another disembodied voice whispered in my ear, telling me to bet one more time for old time's sake. What's the harm in it? Go with the flow. Listen to your mantra.

"I've been busy--that's all," I told her, trying to sound sincere.

"He's young, Toni, leave him alone," Slim Jim suggested, as he ran his finger across the racing form. "Got a good one in the sixth race...named Pinch me."

"What?" Blooper asked, shaking his head no. "You picked the last race, moron. The dog is still running. Look, I think I see him going down Pembroke Road."

"Very funny," Slim Jim muttered. "No wonder your parents named you Mortimer."

"Them's fightin' words," Blooper joked and the two men stood up and squared off, throwing a few shadow boxing punches.

"Sit down, you two geezers, you'll get us thrown out of here," Toni protested, shaking her head disgustingly. "You are too old to be acting like children."

"Hey, anybody want to head over to the paddock area?" George asked, looking hopefully in my direction. "I want to take a look at a dog in the next race...called Green light."

"Sure," I volunteered quickly, wanting to try out my separation speech on him first, before I sprung it on the rest of them.

Slim Jim and Blooper were pointing at the tote board and arguing over their last bet, I could hear Blooper telling Slim Jim that he needed new glasses because he had gotten the odds all screwed up. Boy I was going to miss this, I thought.

"Hey, I talked to my lead out friend and he told me that--" Toni started to say.

"You're friend's a cretin," Blooper said over his shoulder. "He wouldn't know a good racing dog if--"

"Like you would," she shot back, exhaling loudly. "Every time you pick a dog it gets a bad draw."

"Like you can do anything about that," he stated, throwing up his hands. "Did you forget to take your meds today, Grannie?"

"Look," Slim Jim almost shouted out, "Shooting Star is a scratch. Told you that dog looked sickly."

"Oh, now you're a vet," Toni needled, laughing.

We left them squabbling among themselves and headed down to the paddock. This was one of my favorite things about the racing experience. It was here you got to see the streamlined canines up close, while the staff weighed the dogs and were checked to see if the tatts on the dogs matched with the official state listing. Scandals in the past had precipitated organized measures be instituted to ensure there was no shenanigans when it came to staging a sanctioned race. The kennels had a reason to enforce the rules. Grey hounds cost money. They were an investment and investments had to be protected. It also gave the betting public a warm and fuzzy feeling when they were assured no dogs were being substituted.

You could stand close to the paddock area and view the goings on through large windows. The dogs were surprisingly muscular once you saw them up close, with haunches that bulged with muscle. Some of them tipped the scales at over ninety pounds, yet they were gentle as lambs, even though they were made to wear cage muzzles. After the strict whelping process, they were raised around people all the time and were socialized to expect crowds and noise. Their brain functioned in one direction and that was to run. It was simple instinct, bred into them over the eons. You had to marvel at a species structured to fly like the wind yet still remain on the ground.

"I like number 3 in the fifth," George told me, pointing. "History's a little shabby but man look at those legs. There running him at--"

"Hey, George, listen," I interrupted abruptly, wanting to launch into my prepared spiel before I lost my nerve, "I got something to tell you."

"Yeah, what? I ain't got any extra money, you know," he said defensively, stepping back a step. "Tapped out for the month...really."

"No it's not that," I told him, stifling a snicker because the five of us were forever borrowing a few bucks among ourselves, with nobody ever bothering to keep a running ledger going. "I'm giving it up."

At first I thought he hadn't heard me then he finally said, "Heard that before."

"No, I am," I insisted. "I took stock of where I was heading and decided it was for the best. Best for me," I added as a way of qualifying my statement. I didn't in any way want them to think I was judging their chosen hobby.

"Blah blah, heard it before, like I said," he repeated, bending down to get a different angle of the dog. "If I had a nickel for every time I heard somebody tell me that I'd be owning one of these dogs."

"It's true," I assured him solemnly, like one of my lives was ending and another might be starting.

"Bullshit, kid," he said, staring at me for a moment. "You'll get over it. So, what do ya think about this one here? Good hind legs or what?"

I just shook my head and realized it was going to be harder than I thought to extricate myself from this parallel world I existed in. People do live separate lives, so I've read, you know, with bigamists and all. Some criminals look like upstanding citizens but they aren't. Under cover cops exist in two worlds. Why couldn't I? Oh, right, because I don't have any money, a voice said in my head, echoing loudly.

I trudged back up to where the others were sitting in the stands, defeated. Even though I intended on attempting another good-bye scenario I knew it was hopeless. None of them would take me seriously. To them, I might have been younger but I was still hooked. Penny ante gambling had taken hold and was roosting in my consciousness. It was intractable. All those signs, with the warnings and offers of help, were fashioned just for people like me. I could have written the copy myself in fact. It takes an addict to know an addict, or something like that.

At least, to date, my small time career hadn't taken a hit. I showed up everyday, on time. My boss was a prick, with a Napoleon complex, but he mostly left me alone. I didn't join in when the staff mocked him behind his back, calling him a little turd and worse. He brought some derision on himself by wearing impossibly tacky suits and cheap ties, all set off by a spiky hair style that he thought was concealing his rapidly vanishing hair. The man was approaching forty fast and his hair line and waist line seemed to be inversely related. Beer will do that, to the latter not the former.

He had been the one to hire me, another UF alum. I had an in because one Gator had contacted another Gator and it went from there. We were from the same fraternity, one of the lesser known ones on campus that got all of the left overs from the more established and popular houses. We had a pretty complete inferiority complex about our position in the campus pecking order but we didn't let it get in the way when it came to partying. Now that ludicrous hazing I had endured so many years before had paid off.

My interview had gone great, with us talking about the upcoming football season and what the likelihood we could come out on top once again in the SEC. We were deluding ourselves but it made for some quick bonding, two former Gators reliving the glory of those championship years with Jesus Christ's understudy at the helm. Small talk had turned in a flash to work responsibilities and I was on the team, which was scary because I didn't have a clue about the advertising business, except to say that it sucked. Bending people's minds and wills for the sheer venality of a profit margin seemed, you know, awful.

"When can you start?" was my new boss's question, as he stood up to shake my hand.

Wow, I was thinking, so all that money spent at the bursar did pay off. "Tomorrow."

"Good man!" my new boss exclaimed, beaming, as he gently patted his spiky hair with the glistening gobs of gel. "Talk to Sarah, she'll get you wired up so you'll be ready to contribute right out of the gate. You are going to love it here."

I returned his earnest handshake and immediately doubted what he said. Dude, I just need a job to keep the creditors at bay, I wanted to say to him to let this new working relationship start out on an honest note. Really, you think I want to work at this shithole? Sure, can't wait to pound out some copy for the next car commercial or exterminator spot. Won't I feel proud?

"Sounds good," I mumbled, glancing at the poster on his wall of the past glory of the University, with big bold letters letting everyone know that we had been national champs. It was a bygone era but not all that long ago. Still, it was ancient history but the rush lived on with some of the alumnae, me included.

The next day found me reporting to work bright and early. I got to meet the creative team, or so they were called, three people including me. Did I say this was a small agency? There was Sarah, the receptionist slash art director and Lazar, the other copywriter. He was Haitian and she was from up north. They too had gone to UF. Lazar had even played on the soccer team until he blew out his knee in a game against FSU. Soccer didn't really count as a sport to most of us at the college but he had been an athlete in a high powered University system. That counted for something.

Both of them had moved to Florida when they were in their tweens, brought by parents looking for better opportunities. Lazar had snuck in, literally, by boat, while Sarah had arrived in the backseat of her parent's used car, which broke down in Delray Beach; and that is where her parents stayed. Eventually got jobs working for the city, with a pension. Lazar's parents eked out a living in Broward County doing menial labor. If not for soccer, he too would have been stuck on the bottom rung in the economy. A scholarship got him out and away and his UF legacy secured the ad job. He was good with languages so he was our go to guy when clients needed a bi-lingual slant to their ad campaigns.

All in all, we were small time, very small, since we worked out of an industrial park that appeared to be half abandoned. It had a fancy name, with attributes that had no bearing on life in South Florida, and looked (especially after dark) like one of those places you might stage a cheap horror film that might air on Netflix streaming. It gave Sarah the creeps most of the time since half of the offices were empty and every time the wind blew there would be all of these weird noises and sounds. Right behind the single story building was a narrow canal that fed into the intercoastal, but it gave the area absolutely no charm. Quite the opposite, it was choked with trash, plastic bags from Costco, rusting grocery shopping carts spirited away from Publix, and floating plastic bottles of every description. It also smelled like shit.

From time to time you would see egrets or those other big ass birds walking along the shore picking at the trash and it would make the scene all the more sad. Oh yeah, one day we arrived at work and there were a dozen cop cars clogging up the parking lot. A homeless man who had taken refuge behind the building in a makeshift tent made from discarded blue tarps, the ones people were always laying down on their roofs after the latest hurricane took their shingles off, had found a dead, half decomposed body. That wasn't what Sarah needed to hear about.

The cops questioned us individually, as if we were part time murderers. We joked about it later, agreeing that in the future we could use some of their inane questions in an ad campaign, like: Would you say that you ever notice what goes on here after hours? We had a good laugh about it for at least a month after it happened. None of us had the guts to put it out there though, fearing the boss would have our ass for being so insensitive. It turned out the body was that of a young girl who had apparently overdosed on something and fallen in the canal.

"Life is fragile," was how Sarah summed it up. Indeed. Lazar then told us he had seen plenty of dead bodies growing up in Haiti, which put it into a new (warped) perspective. Ironically, just the next week or so we got an account for the local cemetery. They had been in business for over fifty years and lots and lots of bodies on hand. Our jokes about that fell flat, proving that even we weren't that craven. The owner of the cemetery was a young guy who had inherited the biz from his parents and wanted us to punch up the copy, make it more modern. Modern? we wondered. Didn't death sell itself? It was a TV ad so we had to bring in an outside contractor to finish the filming because the boss was too cheap to spring for an in house media department. When I first saw the ad on TV I was at a bar drinking alone. No one in the bar noticed the commercial. I sat there looking at the TV screen, hearing my words filter into my consciousness, while I sat there staring at my beer glass. It was eerie, and depressing. The young guy who was now running the cemetery tried to sell all of us a plot, telling us he would give us a group rate. We all took a pass.

"What took you two so long?" Toni wanted to know in her usual crabby tone.

"Gotta look over the dogs don't we?" George replied, shrugging his shoulders.

I sat down next to Blooper, who was busy circling his picks in the coming races. Slim Jim was talking to a couple, tourists from Europe, telling them where the best restaurants were and to not bother seeing the Everglades. They protested, saying in heavy German accents that they wanted to see the alligators. "Krauts," Slim Jim uttered under his breath, shooting me a look that said Blooper was an idiot for even talking to them.

Down on the track the leaders were parading the dogs in the next race. Knots of people had converged by the railing to get a closer look. You could see the dogs getting excited, sensing that the start was closing in. One of the dogs was straining against his leash and jumping up. Suddenly the very act of betting on freakishly fast dogs seemed somehow insane. There was an entire industry built around them, providing jobs and fortunes. It didn't make any sense, like all the philosophers in history had missed out on why man with a capital M was, basically, an idiot. I can remember Hemingway waxing poetical about horse racing and, admittedly, they were a more noble beast, but still, betting on animals. Where did it all go wrong, right?

"I feel a winner!" Toni sang out, something she did before almost all of the races.

"Don't jinx it, stupid," Blooper scolded, tapping her on the head. She slapped his hand away and he added: "We're doomed."

"What color blanket we running?" Slim Jim asked no one in particular. "Where's my binocs?"

The dogs were stuffed into the row of starting boxes. I felt that tiny bit of adrenaline slip into my blood stream that I always felt right when the race was about to start. There was trouble with the third dog and a short delay. Everyone's attention turned to the track. Then the dogs burst out of the boxes and chased after the mechanical lure as it wheeled around the track. I watched them leave the first turn and head down the back stretch. The grey hound was a unique breed in the canine world. It had more fast twitch muscle than other dogs and an evolutionary hic-up in that it ran with a double suspension gallop because of extreme flexibility in its spine. The only animal faster on earth was the cheetah.

Cheering followed the packs progress around the oval and began increasing as they ran towards the finish. It would all be over in a flash of mottled color, as the dogs streaked over the finish line then suddenly halted almost in reverse acceleration. They had been trained since they were puppies and its was woven into their instincts now. The cheering was quickly replaced by a deflated group moan of disappointment. This is worse than crack, I thought, realizing that the high only lasted seconds at best, then you were left with instantaneous remorse. Another moment of your life had been devoted to reducing the weight of your wallet.

"What happened?" George wanted to know, as if any of us had an answer. "That dog looked perfect...perfect," he stated, letting his voice trail off as he glanced up at the tote board.

"And the losing streak continues," Blooper said in a sing song voice, chuckling. "I guess I don't eat out this week."

This is your entertainment, I thought, looking back up at the club house. At least they have lived a full life or as close to one as you are probably going to get, I told myself. I'm in my twenties. There are decades stretching out before me. Now if that isn't depressing nothing is.

"Come on kid," George called out, motioning for me to follow him. "We got a quinella working."

I stood up and announced in the most even voice I could muster: "Listen up, group. I'm out. Done. I've decided to do something else with my time and it starts right now. Sorry, but this is something I have to do."

"What'd he say?" Toni asked, looking confused.

"Something about leaving," Blooper answered, rolling the racing form up, something he did every time they were at the track, even though Toni ordered him not to because she hated unrolling it in order to read it.

"The kid is giving up the track," George explained. "Told me about it down at the paddock but I thought he was joking. Really, you out?"

"Gotta do it," I said, trying to inject some reverse bravado into my farewell speech.

"You're crazy," Toni called out, wagging her finger at me. "We're like family. You can't leave us."

"Leave the boy alone," Blooper said, walking over to shake my hand. "It's been nice knowing you. We're gonna miss you, youngblood--right?" He turned to the others for a moment. "I mean, hell, we might not last another month...any of us."

"Speak for yourself," Slim Jim interjected, wobbling on his cane for a moment. "I, for one, intend on dying right here placing my last bet and that ain't gonna be for some time."

"How many medications are you taking?" George asked pointedly, laughing. "Don't forget, we've all seen your pill dispenser, the one you got free from Medicare." They all laughed. "We're all going to miss you, kid."

Now this was turning out to be a sob fest, something I hadn't anticipated. I really thought they would just wave good-bye and tell me to get lost. These weren't sentimental type people, far from it. They lived on a steady diet of cynicism to go along with the aches and pains, chased by any number of meds. In their old age they had accepted the vagaries of life and decided to go along for the ride as long as they possibly could. Emotions were for lightweights, the ones who couldn't accept life on its terms. They all ascribed to the maxim: You go with the hand life's dealt you. We young people were almost diametrically opposite in our confrontational thinking because we thought life owed us. Who was going to miss whom, I wondered?

Toni then approached and placed a wet kiss on my cheek, while the others gathered around me. We had an embarrassing group hug. Several people in the next row were looking at us, staring. It was a spectacle. Tears were actually welling up in my eyes. I had Toni's garish lip stick smeared on my cheek. George hugged me and I could smell the pipe tobacco on his shirt. The track announcer was telling everyone about a scratch in the next race. I had a hollow feeling in the pit of my stomach, as a small voice in my head was whispering about how pathetic I was, repeating the humiliating fact that these people were some of my best friends in South Florida. For the last few months I had spent more time with them than with my colleagues during after work hours. All my buds from college had disappeared off the radar screen. Fundamentally, I was alone, with them, as they waited to welcome death. Weren't there plays written about this? Some school of literature must have delved into the phenomenon before; or it could have been a modern (contemporary) predicament. Generational displacement: Read about it in the next issue of Rolling Stone.

I drove home, sniffling as I went. My empty apartment, in more ways than one since I barely had any furniture after my Cubanita absconded with most of it, including my collection of UF beer mugs--now that was a slam, waited for me. She didn't even drink beer. It would have even been nice to have some indifferent cat hanging around to ignore me. What I had were more bills waiting, rapacious reminders that I really needed that ten grand. I plopped down in front of my little TV, 25 inch, the one that used to be in the bedroom before you know who appropriated my big screen monster, and went in search of solace at the far reaches of satellite land. Nothing. No channels appeared as I furiously flicked the remote. Then it dawned on me that I hadn't paid the bill. Next, it would be the electricity. At least my cell phone minutes were paid for since I had switched to pay-as-you-go.

Chapter 3 The Pull Matches The Push

I had been a responsible person all my life, really. In fact, my mother used to use me as an example of what my siblings should strive to be like. I didn't get into trouble at school, if you don't count that one time. I never had to be told to clean my room, which I shared with my brother. My side of the room was always tidy, as was my section in the closet. I mowed the lawn without being told to. On and on, every aspect of my family life had me as the paragon in the middle. My father and I never got into it, like my brother and him used to, even coming to blows on more than one occasion. Mom didn't have to play referee between us and she certainly didn't get into hostile arguments that escalated into shouting matches as she did with my sister.

How had I not paid my cable bill? It boggled my mind. In college, I had held not one but two jobs, one on campus and one off in order to pay the bills. It wasn't me calling home to beg for money, like you know who. Oh yeah, there wasn't any late night phone calls from the local police station informing my parents that they might want to think about getting a lawyer. Fortunately my brother only had to do community service after he was arrested for vandalizing some business in town. Still cost bucks my parents really didn't have. Now I couldn't even pay the rent. Ironically, my brother and sister were now upstanding citizens, with families and jobs. My parents would be dismayed, disappointed, and pissed off if they knew what I had become. It was disheartening, like in a bad movie when the protagonist drags down the script. In the end, so it mostly goes, they are usually redeemed.

My redemption started and ended with me completing the memory study. Oh it was called a memory study but it was much more than that. They had to call it something. Actually it had a subtitle, something along the lines of: the purveyance of CS21 on the hippocampus and frontal lobe. Sure it made little if no sense to the lay man, but to Dr Wertheimer and company it made all the sense in the world. They were going after a Holy Grail here, one that would reap mucho bucks and bring the populace untold amounts of joy. Oh please, let me write the copy for this drug if and when it is successful.

I was now a study subject, with the patient number 77-HJ. Remember that, so I was told, more like ordered. Everything from the moment the study got under way would be catalogued, filed, recorded, and photographed. Big Brother was watching, always. Cameras were mounted everywhere, except the bathrooms, I hope. We were lucky, though, because I was told by nose ring girl that some of the studies were locked down types, where the subjects never got to leave the premises. Gulp, now that sounded invasive.

Not that the premises were all that bad. They weren't. The good doctor had purchased an old technical college a few blocks from the beach and converted it into a lab with housing. He didn't like taking half measures so he bought all the surrounding land too. It was, basically, one of those contemporary eyesores that take up space in all of America, with dreary, unimaginative architecture that proves the human mind can be dull. I mean everything about the two story building screamed temporary, like there was no way it would be standing in the next century, or even the next decade. From the weather stained gray exterior, with the narrow windows, to the flat roof, and the utilitarian interior painted an off white, neatly divided into a cross section of boxed and squared rooms, there was nothing remotely inspiring about the structure. The best thing that could have happened to the building was the next hurricane might blow it down.

Once inside, passing by the security guard, a rotating cadre of off duty police officers, you entered a world of, you know, science. There was a little sign on the wall across from the front door announcing you were on Somnium's turf, but it was understated and could have been easily overlooked. A receptionist's desk was front and center, manned by a gay guy, who when he opened his mouth let it known what team he was playing for. He was courteous but officious, speaking in short sentences that instantly got to the point. It let you know immediately that wasting time was not going to happen once you passed the threshold. He wore one of those phone headsets, and apparently didn't like to sit down all that much because he roamed the lobby room constantly, gesticulating as he talked on the phone, forever standing guard over the good doctor's operations. It was obvious from the start he was another loyal drone for the cause. Shares in the company will instill that, I guess.

When I first stepped inside, crossing the Rubicon you might say, I noticed the smell right away. It wasn't really an odor per se as much as no odor. Dr Wertheimer had a thing about clean air and had installed some industrial strength air cleaners through out the building. It was pristine, as if you were smelling the first air on earth. Everything in the structure had been cleaned with green bio this or that cleansers too. Any and all bacteria had been banished, leaving behind the residue of an indoor environmental utopia. Couldn't fault a man for wanting that.

WHAT UNDERGIRDS THE SUPERSTRUCTURE RETAINS THE STRENGTH was embossed on one of the walls in the entranceway and immediately I knew it must have been one of Dr Wertheimer's aphorisms. All cult leaders had to be good at distilling down their bullshit into one liners. It made for better and easier manipulation. Like I didn't know that. It was my business. Advertising and authoritarian slobbering went hand in hand. Iconography was propaganda converted into symbols. The human mind, and I didn't need an assemblage of condescending psychologists to tell me this, was forever in search of the next anchor, something to keep it from drifting away. We all wanted to be told the score.

I, Harrison Jamison, do certify that I am here at the Somnium study facility to undertake, or thus began my quest to be ten thousand dollars richer. Once again I was made to sign a document upon entering the study. These people must have kept their lawyers busy writing up all of these disclaimer forms and whatnot. I mean, really, give it a rest. We had already been dutifully humiliated. Yes, we are losers here to make some money. If science takes a leap forward, all the better. On top of that they attached one of those plastic bracelets hospitals use around my right wrist and told me to make sure the information was accurate. I double checked and then told them it was my name and the last four digits of my social.

After seeing the looks on most of my fellow study subjects I just knew most of them thought what they were doing was for the betterment of mankind and not to pay for that latest Mac product or trip to Europe they were always wanting to go on. It had been, more or less, a soft sell by the good doctor but there were overtones too, ones that subliminally informed us that we were going to benefit not only ourselves but everybody else on the planet. The world as we know it was going to change and we had helped to make that happen. I wasn't buying it though.

What's the word? Trepidation. That's was what I was feeling when I walked in that morning for my first session. I had gotten my packet emailed to me. It was some twenty pages long and had all the do's and don'ts that the study allowed for, or didn't allow for. Everything was strictly controlled by the government, I got that, but did we really have to adhere to some of the rules? Like, for instance, no mouthwash should be orally administered on the day of your session, quote unquote, huh? It had something to do with extraneous chemicals being introduced into the body that might interfere with the administered drug. Okay, made sense.

We, our vessels, had to be pristine, or close to it. There couldn't be any unknown variables screwing up the works. So, we were expected to arrive sans breakfast on the day of our sessions. Breakfast would be supplied at the facility. They would provide a good wholesome breakfast, which included dry toast, skim milk, and a hard boiled egg, all organic. I don't know about you but I am a coffee and Danish kind of guy, maybe a bagel but ladled with butter and jelly. As to be expected, there was plenty of grumbling going on about the coffee prohibition. Get this, they checked too. A pre-breakfast blood drawing was taken to see whether or not caffeine was coursing through your veins. You weren't going to be able to stop by Starbucks on the way and quaff down a latte and expect to fool anybody. In fact, two people were immediately eliminated the first week because of their coffee habit. It didn't matter because they had anticipated that and signed on extra subjects to serve as alternates. They knew what they were doing.

Experience had taught them how weak humans really are. Dr Wertheimer, control freak that he was, also did all of his own lab work on premises. He had long ago figured out that everything should be done in house so as to maintain control. Got to admire a man who doesn't trust anybody, I guess. If any thing was to go wrong he wanted to be able to fix it as soon as possible. Nothing was perfect but he sure wanted to make it as trouble free as possible.

That first day I was led into a side room and told to have a seat. It was another sterile room like all the others, painted a glaring, glossy white, with ugly gray speckled tile that gleamed in the fluorescent light. Later I would learn a cleaning crew swept through at night and sterilized everything. The crew was well paid and had all been vetted, even given background checks in an attempt to thwart any industrial espionage. The good doctor was taking no chances. Once, maybe five years ago, he had been burned by some mole in his organization who walked away with some vital info on a thumb drive. After that he hired an IT crew to keeps tabs on all computer related stuff. It wasn't easy being so successful at what you did.

It was a small room, with four folding chairs lined up along one wall. As with most of the building, the walls were bare. Apparently Dr Wertheimer thought hanging some posters or cheesy cheap paintings was too distracting. Visual deprivation was a small price to pay to bring in the needed results.

It's funny, but when you sit in a room for even a short period of time your mind is soon starved for stimuli. Sure seemed that way as I sat there letting my eyes wander around the small room. It was also cold in there. The AC must have been cranking away, everyday. All of the staff wore sweaters, even in the summer. I'd hate to see the FPL bill for this place, I was thinking when another side door opened. In came a guy, dressed in pastel green, like most of the others, except for the ones who were higher up in the pecking order, who wore Easter egg purple. He was pushing a cart with my meager breakfast on top. He rolled the cart up to where I was sitting and told me I had fifteen minutes to chow down, while he stood there and made sure I ate it all.

I choked down the organic cuisine. Just as my mind began to grasp what it was really like to be a human lab rat waiting for the next experiment, nose ring girl, who was her usual charming self, stepped into the room and stood there for a moment consulting her tablet, muttering under her breath. I didn't know if I should stand up or remain sitting. She tapped the tablet a few times. More muttering. She hadn't even acknowledged that I was in the room. Man, this woman needs to be socialized, I thought.

"Jamison, Harrison, 77-HJ, ready?" she asked, looking up from the tablet.

"I guess so," I said hesitantly, standing up.

She tapped a few more times on the tablet then said, "You will be referred to as 77-HJ from this point onward, understood?"

"What?" I asked, which I thought was a reasonable enough interrogative at that point.

She gave me a look, one that said she was wondering whether or not I was stupid, then barked, "Like a serial number."

"You can't just call me by my first name?"

"You do realize that this is a study and not a social event, right?" she wanted to know, as she glanced at the attendant. He snickered at her comment like a good suck up.

"I understand that it seems pretty impersonal," I said, forcing a smile.

She looked down at her tablet for a moment, frowned, then started typing, as she said, "I am sorry your feelings are hurt but that is how we do things here. So now we are going to take some blood, for a blood test, urine sample, and then you will be slotted for the next stage of the study."

Slotted? I wanted to ask but thought better of it. I watched her type away and would later on find out that every study subject is graded on how they act during the study. Get a bad grade and you would never be a study subject for Dr Wertheimer again. You were expected, evidently, to be docile and not ask questions. The only thing that separated us from your ordinary white lab rat was we had the capability of speech. Sad but true.

"I'm as ready as I will ever be," I said, trying to sound congenial.

"And you haven't had any coffee, correct?"

"Nope," I told her, grinning, determined to make friends. Behind me the attendant gave her the high sign, giving me the okay for having eaten all of my food. "I'm stuffed," I joked which, predictably, fell flat.

"Follow me," she ordered and we were off, passing through another side door and into a room that closely resembled some doctor's office. I could see a BP machine, one of those that takes your blood pressure and the tech doesn't have to do anything. There was a chair to one side, with the wide padded arm rest for drawing blood. A digital scale stood against the other wall, next to a roll cart full of medical paraphernalia. This was the place for the pre-session exam, where your vitals would be taken and catalogued, along with the blood letting. If your vitals fluctuated wildly you were out, relieved of your humanitarian duty. The test subject couldn't be squirrelly in any way. Your baseline particulars had already been established so a certain barometer had to be maintained. One guy after me, who I spoke with out in the parking lot, was so nervous his BP shot up whenever he got near the lab and he was asked to leave the study. Compensation, zero. All he took away from the experience was seeing how a lab rat lives. "Sample," she ordered, pointing to a bathroom off to the side.

"Okay," I muttered, walking into the bathroom, where another male staffer was waiting, specimen cup in hand. He handed it to me and stood guard, watching, making sure I did indeed deposit my urine in the cup. I stood for a moment, dick in hand, trying to pee. It wasn't easy, especially with an audience.

Mission accomplished, I was directed back to yet another room, where another attendant, this one female, in pastel green, smiled at me and told me to hop on the scale. I did as told, minus any small talk. I was learning the ropes. Next, my BP. Holding steady, apparently because no sirens went off. She did a cursory look into my eyes with a flash light, an added precaution because I was about to turn my brains into hash. Just kidding. Yet we were there to alter the cerebral waltz in some way or another. Then came the distasteful part, the blood drawing. Not for the squeamish, which was me. I steadied myself mentally, as she quickly applied the rubber tourniquet, slopping alcohol on the spot where my vein seemed the most prominent.

Nose ring girl and her exchanged study experiment small talk heavy on the jargon and then she went back to her tablet. I really wanted to ask her if she was playing a video game but held my tongue like the model test subject. In went the needle and out came my rich, red blood. It bubbled and flowed into the test tube. At least I knew I was caffeine free, judging by the headache that had seeped in behind my eyes; and the hard boiled egg was sitting in my stomach like a rock. I hated eggs of every description. They were an alarming yellow color, slimy, and chickens waiting to happen. They had that really giant yuck factor for me.

"All done," she announced, pivoting in her sensible tennis shoes, the ones that were covered by those disposable booties some hospitals make you wear when you are visiting the IC ward.

"This way," nose ring girl told me, disappearing out another side door.

"Quite a maze you got here, huh," I offered, trying to make nice.

She grunted and slid her hand over the screen of the tablet several times, stopping to type again. We had stopped at yet another door. I was wondering if it was possible to get snow blindness from looking at all of the white walls, when she said, "Here. 77 dash HJ, the next step is about to take place so we will need for you to disrobe and leave your clothes in the provided locker. I will be back in a few minutes to see how you are progressing."

Progressing? I was asking myself, before saying: "In here?" She nodded, again bordering on exasperation. "I change into something else and you'll come and get me?"

She scrunched up her face for a moment, as she looked down at her tablet for an instant, then stated: "That's right. In this room. Remove your clothes. Change into the scrubs provided. Leave your street clothes in the locker. I will come and get you."

And she was gone, hurrying down the hall and disappearing into another side door. I stood there trying to collect my thoughts. There had been so many side doors and rooms I couldn't flee if I wanted to--and part of me did. How in the hell would I ever find my way out? Would they even let me out? It could have been like one of those horror films, you know, that always seem to take place in abandoned hospitals. Of course this place wasn't abandoned though. Then again, I wasn't safe with these people. They could have drugged me with the food I ate and the next thing I know I'm waking up on some slab waiting to be cut open. My body parts would be disposed of out in the Everglades, gator bait. Don't be an idiot, I told myself, going into the locker room as told.

I changed into the scrubs, an alarming banana color, and stood there waiting. My bare feet felt cold on the gleaming tile floor. I felt somehow unclean, probably because everything else in the facility was so sterile. Looking around, checking for concealed cameras in the ceiling, I smelled my armpits, checking for any unpleasant odor. I had been perspiring just a little bit from my nervousness. Could they kick me out of the study for smelling funky?

Nose ring girl stuck her head in the door and asked: "Ready?"

"Let's do this," I declared in my best cinematic tone, only I couldn't pull it off because my voice wavered, revealing my anxiety.

"You could have left your socks on...and there are slip on sandals there for you to wear, you know," she chided, making a face, like she might be talking to a child, a really dumb, slow learning child.

I slipped on the issued sandals, expensive ones by the way, that I hoped to be able to keep when I finished the study. Only the best for Dr Wertheimer's lab rats. She led me down the hall and through a few more rooms, stopping here and there to check in with some more staff members, more from the pastel scrub brigade. Nose ring girl grunted to their responses to her questions and moved on, always tapping away on her tablet. As I walked behind her I took notice of her slim figure in her lab coat, the signature piece of clothing that signified where her standing was in the hierarchy. It was pretty obvious she was all that because everybody seemed to be frightened of her. Hey, I was too.

We finally ended up in some Frankensteinian laboratory, only minus the retractable roof to better catch the lightening bolts from the latest brewing storm. There were plenty of machines lined up around an operating room type bed, with lights blinking on their displays. Think about all of those UFO movies where an earthling gets abducted and then probed to within an inch of his or her life, then multiply that by five and you got the picture of what it looked like to me when I first saw where the sessions, all thirteen of them, were going to be held. Oh shit, was my first response, quickly followed by get me the hell out of here, exclamation point. Beyond that reaction, I wanted to break down crying, blubbering my way to freedom. Please, please don't stick anything where it don't belong, echoed in my head.

I had been briefed about what to expect and I had read all the orientation form, but you are never ready for the unknown. Nose ring girl went over to a staffer and was consulting about something she was pointing out on her tablet. I counted no less than four staff members loitering, eager to get to work on their next victim. Then I noticed a peculiar smell. It smelled like...like cinnamon. Not bad, like one of those Cinnabon stores. One of the staffers latched onto my arm and guided me over to the operating table that wasn't really an operating table. She smiled and asked if I was doing all right. I nodded yes and reluctantly let myself be dragged towards my doom.

Yet another staff member said in almost a whisper that he needed to set up an IV. IV? I thought, trying to remember if I had read about that in the orientation form. He told me to relax. I felt him tugging at my right arm and smelled alcohol mingling with the cinnamon scent, then the prick of a needle in my vein. I flinched involuntarily and felt my arm being held tight.

"Are you guys into aromatherapy?" I joked but got no response.

Dr Wertheimer then made an appearance, arriving like a Star actor on the set. Everyone seemed to pause for a moment as they were fighting the urge to genuflect. I jest, a little. Nose ring girl was on him immediately, tossing around statistics but he didn't seem to be paying attention. He was focusing in on a machine to my right, punching buttons and mumbling. One of the staff wheeled over a cart, as another one was telling me to lie down, on my back, with my hands at my sides. Someone else asked me if I wanted a blanket. Hell yes, I was thinking since it felt like it might be in the forties in the ersatz OR. I told them I was a little bit chilly. They tucked a nice soft blanket around me and positioned my head just right.

Nose ring girl's face loomed, as she said, "We are going to strap you down--it is for your own protection." Several straps were affixed across my abdomen and legs. Now I was completely at their mercy. "Let us know if the straps are too tight."

I tried to raise my head but someone held it in place, gently but firmly. Medical jargon filtered into my consciousness, scary but soothing at the same time. The good doctor ordered someone to adjust a machine on my left. I could hear the hum of electronics in my ears, a symphony of forbidden technology. Then the lights were lowered, leaving only a disconcerting dimness. Instrument lights twinkled in the semi-darkness.

"Are you seven, seven, HJ?" a woman's voice wanted to know.

"I guess so," I answered, forcing a laugh.

"Match the chart," nose ring girl ordered, as I felt someone tug on my wrist, reading aloud my name and social. "We're good."

"We are going to administer the drug into your nose and then you are to hold your breath for fifteen seconds," I heard Dr Wertheimer say, as he busied himself at the roll away cart. More jargon filled the room. "After you take the dose we are going to give you a mild sedative to relax you. Okay?"

"We are going to want you to breathe in when we insert the inhaler," a staff member explained, squeezing my arm lightly. "I will spray two doses in each nostril. Try not to breathe in too hard because it will make you choke. We can't have that. The medicine has to go up and in. Okay?" In the background I could hear the good doctor and nose ring girl conferring. "Here we go."

A nozzle was slowly inserted into my right nostril and I felt a gooey wetness course up my nasal passages. I tried not to gag but the sensation was slightly unpleasant, like snorting something that didn't belong there. I was asked if I was doing all right. Then the nozzle was in my left nostril and again I breathed slowly and held my breath. The back of my throat tickled and I tried not to cough.

"Hold it in as long as you can," nose ring girl ordered.

"You're doing great," someone else called out.

"Now we're going to inject the sedative," I was informed. "Just relax. Stay calm."

"Bon voyage," was the last thing I heard, as I drifted off, embarking on my journey.

Time had become elastic, while my brain settled into another dimension, or at least it seemed that way. It was like being in a dream except that there was another level of awareness, an awareness that almost acted like a joy stick. In traditional dreams, you are at the mercy of firing synapses and wildly unpredictable circumstances that are invariably out of your control, even psychologically punitive. I wasn't up on my string theory or Einstein fantasies but this was a cerebral Disney World, complete with 3-D Google earth and penetrating color schemes.

It was time travel all taking place in your own brain. Cinematic memories brought to life in a virtual world that had taken the next step, more flesh and blood then avatar. Dr Wertheimer had undersold this experience. Carnivals were less life like. Unlike with dreams, you were your own narrator, where theological free will had been realized. My destiny could be shaped and devised. You were plugged into a universe that was bounded by the parameters of your own memories but that could be manipulated within the confines of remembered stimuli.

The gateway was brokered by the first memory that popped, leaving you with a god's decision making prowess. Now I knew what he meant by playing the creator. It was like being a novelist in real time, except that there was no time and space to speak of. Your new world existed on a different plane altogether, one that defied the most elementary laws of physics, among other things. The space/time continuum was no longer a backbone to the structure that made up your existence. Psychology and the physical sciences had been rendered irrelevant. Like being weightless almost and able to ignore gravity.

During orientation I remembered Dr Wertheimer saying something along the lines of: "You will feel in your mind an almost imperceptible kinesthetic energy, like muscles straining. Don't be alarmed about it. That's normal." Normal? We were way beyond that now, as I floated in and out of vivid scenes, where colors attached themselves to objects before taking on different hues altogether. This must be what tripping is like, I said aloud, then noticed my voice, that I was actually speaking aloud. Unlike in dream sequences, I was actually functioning as I would back on earth. I say back on earth because this was definitely an other worldly experience.

My mind was now taking a glide path to a landing, passing through some puffy clouds that only Florida could produce, billowing giants lingering in the atmosphere, clinging to near space. I had seen them all my life, pinned to sea level, while the atmosphere sucked up moisture and created monsters in the sky. At first I was disappointed because I was hoping to be transported to, at the very least, maybe the Riviera. Take in the sights. See some topless sunbathers. Go slumming with the Euro trash while I worked on my tan. Then I noticed something different about my surroundings.

First off, my family was there, circa the late 90's, no, check that, right after 9-11. The damn buildings were coming down again on TV, again and again, like we couldn't suck up enough grief and amazement. The country was in shock and then mourning. Why us? How had some desert dwellers done this? What do we do now? We were all collectively wringing our hands as a nation; before the revenge factor kicked in of course.

Bellicose rhetoric came from the White House, telling all who were listening that there was going to be hell to pay. The might of the US armed forces was coming your way. We had bombs. We had special forces. We even had a President who didn't care if he indiscriminately used everything at his disposal. The populace wanted blood. We had to avenge those innocent people who died in that collapsing building. The twin towers continued to come down on an endless loop. Over and over, we got to see what some evil ingenuity could do. People in power, suddenly wise, talked of asymmetrical warfare and how we were going to have to adapt. Fuck that, said the citizenry. Bomb the crap out of them. That's what we do best.

I was on the sidelines, still in High School. My older brother, on the cusp of manhood, or at least having just been graduated from High School, took a pass on the whole patriotic fervor. He thought about it for a moment, a long one. Recruiters were busy signing up recruits for the War on Terror, newly minted by the administration in power. It was another world war, not one of those chump change types, like Viet Nam, where we fought against proxies who really (really) didn't want to be subjugated. The geo-political power axis was straight forward: kill some terrorists. They, luckily, even had a name they went by, like a club of homicidal lunatics who found the time to prop up their heinous acts and couch it in religious overtones. My brother, after consulting my father, elected to go to college instead. Good thing, because the powers that be soon took a fork in the road and missed the target, ending up in the Iraq desert. Close but not really.

My father was a Viet Nam vet, having returned from that woe begotten conflict a broken man, or, at least, a changed one. He had gone off to fight the Communist menace only to find that corporate America had found a way to make money on political shenanigans. He had been duped, so he told my brother, admonishing him for even thinking of putting his life on the line for the government. Dad had gone off to war a staunch Democrat and returned a raving libertarian; at least he voted routinely independent there after. He didn't talk about his experience in a Southeast Asia hellhole very much. You didn't seen him affixing one of those bumper stickers fashioned in the campaign colors from the war on his car. There were no reunions to go to, where he could sit around and reminisce about killing gooks and hey weren't those business girls fun. He just wanted to forget it ever happened.

I had seen some of the few photos from that period in my father's life and there I was again looking down at them because I was standing in my parent's house. I had just materialized and nobody was the wiser. Even my clothes were different. I could hear my mother's voice calling out for us all to come to dinner. My god, I suddenly realized, it was Thanksgiving.

This was the worst holiday, not the least of which my mother was a terrible cook. She might have been born and raised in the South but she just didn't get the fat injected, sugar coated cooking gene handed down over the generations. Her food, not to belabor the point too much, was bland and embarrassingly healthy. It didn't clog our veins with cholesterol and wasn't going to lead us down the path to Type I or II diabetes. It might not have been made from scratch but it spared us any number of chronic conditions down the road. Thanks for that.

I sniffed for a second, just to confirm my suspicions and yes I did smell pumpkin pie, one thing she could bake and we all liked. Then suddenly I was in a headlock and being dragged into the dining room by my brother, home from college, his freshman year at University of Central Florida. The slacker had barely passed admissions. Now this was unjust punishment, taking me back to my past, especially a past I particularly disliked. This was a bad dream, a nightmare.

"Hey, little brother, let's get some of that good eatin'," my brother joked, letting me go. Although we were the same size, he always managed to kick my ass on a regular basis.

"I...I think I need to go to the bathroom," I stuttered out, confused, as I tried to get my mental footing.

"Okay," my brother said, laughing, "you can go pee pee now."

I staggered to the bathroom and closed the door behind me. I looked in the mirror and saw my adolescent face, with sparse stubble gathering around my chin area. I had been a late bloomer and didn't have to shave on a daily schedule until I was out of college. Then I looked around the bathroom and saw the usual, my sisters collection of shampoos stacked neatly on a shelf by the bathtub. We had only one bathroom. She was forever rotating shampoos to wash her shoulder length hair, leaving an inch of fruity smelling residue in a half dozen bottles. Every few months my father would sweep in and yank them out of circulation, depositing them in the trash, as my sister complained about her not being finished with that particular product. My dad would snort and carry out his cruel mission, undeterred by his daughters entreaties.

There it was, I thought, as I looked over at the toilet seat with the fuzzy pink fabric covering, one of two my mother used to make the bathroom look, you know, ridiculous. The other cover had bright flowers sewn on it and was also pink, better to not disturb the decor color scheme. It had to match the pink shower curtain and hand towels. Really, were we going to ever be candidates for the cover of House and Gardens? A can of aerosol spray for the stench my brother was famous for leaving sat on the sink counter. I chuckled at how many times he had made the bathroom off limits for hours after one of his notorious dumps.

I sniffed again and there it was, the usual trace of a moldy smell. The house was going on thirty years old and feeling it's age. Florida's rampant humidity was hard on everything, making permanence only a mirage. My dreams had never been so detailed before, I thought, looking in the mirror again. I could see a pimple forming on my chin. Quickly I rifled through the drawers and came up with my trusty Clearasil, half used. I dabbed some on for old time's sake. Still had that same peculiar smell.

I was noticing my senses had been heightened, especially my olfactory one. Must be because the drug was administered through my nose, I thought, putting the acne medication away. This is weird, I told my reflection in the mirror. I am embedded in my memories like it was real time and I am cognizant of it. They hadn't told me that back at orientation. Maybe I wasn't listening. I had tuned most of it out. It was like going to a boring lecture back in college.

There was a knock on the door and I heard my sister ask: "Are you alive in there? Mom wants you to come to dinner right now."

"I'll be there in a minute," I called out, running the water in the sink.

"Aunt Joan and Uncle Silas are here," she told me and I heard her walk away.

"Crap," I told myself in the mirror. They were two of my least favorite relatives. They lived in Pensacola and were a pain in the ass. "Shit, I hope my cousins aren't here too," I muttered, turning off the water. I tried to think, remember, exactly what Thanksgiving this was, my junior year or senior year in High School. It made a difference because at one of them my Uncle had had a heart attack right at the dining room table.

Didn't die or anything, but the ambulance had to take him away. He had complained half through the Thanksgiving meal, between gulps of my mothers bland mashed potatoes, that his chest was hurting. We kids had exchanged glances, believing it to be my mother's unpalatable food. Heartburn would have been a natural occurrences since she liked to mask her ineptitude in the kitchen with any number of spices. My dad had suggested Tums, something he usually waited to down when the meals were over. Then Uncle Silas turned kind of ashen and said he couldn't breathe.

Well, it was a memorable meal. Uncle Silas was my mother's brother. They were from the religious side of the family, the ones who liked to Bible thump and hold their sermons in revival tents. My grand parents on her side of the family were itinerant farmers at one time, before my grand dad found preaching the gospel was easier on his back. As a little girl, my mother had traveled all over the South, holing up in out of the way places so her father could bring Jesus to the towns people. It was honest work in that they weren't really cheating anybody, except maybe deceiving them into believing there was going to be a better life at the end of the road. Aunt Joan had been brought into the fold after meeting Uncle Silas. She had been one of those people who were non-committal about accepting the Lord. Somehow he convinced her it was a good idea.

Uncle Silas hadn't followed in his father's footsteps though but became a mortician instead. In a way he was there to guide people in the right direction when it came time to cash in their souls. He was moderately successful, especially when compared to us, and had a nice place over in Escambia County. As I was coming out of the bath room I had a horrible thought: what if my memories steer me towards that time spent at Uncle Silas' mortuary. It had been two weeks of sphincter tightening unpleasantness that me and my brother had to endure.

We were only ten or eleven and my mother had gotten sick, a minor cancer scare at the time. She was in the hospital for a week and my dad had shipped us boys off to Uncle Silas and Aunt Joan's house, while my sister stayed with his sister in Fort Walton Beach. We clearly got shafted, because while our sister was frolicking at the white sand beaches of the Panhandle, we were made to clean the inner sanctum of the mortuary. Yes, that does mean what you think it does. My uncle was big on having his underlings do chores, including my two in great cousins, boy and girl, who had intimate knowledge of how to get out of said chores. As you might have guessed, we had to do the disagreeable work ourselves.

"This is fucked up," I can remember my brother saying, while we scrubbed the floor, gagging at the odor, a stew of unmentionable chemicals, and wondering whether or not any of the dead bodies were going to come back to life. That's right, there were corpses present, silent witnesses or overseers to our shoddy labor practices. Let me say here, although reluctantly, it was all I could do to keep my brother from molesting the dearly departed. Wait, let me rephrase that. He wasn't attacking them sexually in any way but he did have this compunction about poking them in the face, insisting that they weren't really dead people but only plastic replicas. As if, I had to tell him, over and over again. He was of the young person's opinion that death was all a ruse, something the old people could entertain themselves with. I did say my brother wasn't all that bright, didn't I?

"There he is!" so announced my Uncle Silas, in his booming voice because, after all, the guy was six foot three or so and weighed in at 230, before the Thanksgiving meal. "Getting big, I see."

Big, I thought, smirking, which was a stretch since I seemed to have been stuck at five foot nine ever since I was a freshman in High School. Then I realized I had a slight problem. I would have to interact with these beings, these avatars of my memories with the godlike advantage of foreknowledge. Cool, I told myself, then thought better of it because I was going to have to think on a dual track, that is simultaneously maintain the memory script and keep my working bit of clairvoyance to a minimum. It wouldn't do for me to be speaking both parts, you know, where I anticipate everything that was going to happen. Might be fun but would that upset the time continuum apple cart? No, this wasn't time travel. I couldn't possibly alter history. This was like a reading, with all the cast of characters sitting around to go over what the play write has written. Something approaching that anyway.

"Hi, Uncle Silas," I announced cheerfully, thinking: Don't think I haven't forgotten what you made us do back in that house of horrors of yours.

"'Bout time," my dad chimed in, giving me the evil eye.

Then I remembered we always had to say Grace when Aunt Joan and Uncle Silas were in the house. Other times we skipped that little detail completely, having given it up long ago under pressure from us indolent kids and my apathetic father. My mother would say an abbreviated form of it under her breath, hoping that it would keep her in good graces with the Lord. Oh she did continue to go to church, attending a more established version of Christianity offered by some Baptist down the way. My father, the war veteran and keeper of scores, thought any and all religion was "damn stupid." The man had seen a Buddhist monk set himself on fire in downtown Saigon, proof, to him, that religion was bad for civilization as a whole. It didn't help that the monk was protesting him and his kind for being in their country. That one act of extreme civil disobedience did more than most everything else to color my dad's vision of the world, I think.

"Mom wants you to say Grace," my mettlesome brother stated, trying to conceal his grin but not succeeding.

"Mind your manners," my dad warned, glowering in my brother's direction, reminding me of the time the two of them got into a fist fight one Christmas dinner, sending the ham half way across the dining room.

"Dear Lord," Uncle Silas began, and we all lapsed into silence.

To my unmitigated horror, I now realized that this was the meal where Uncle Silas took a ride in the ambulance. I remembered because he had said Grace that day, a long winded screed that touched on all of the topics we sinners needed to work on in order to lift off to heaven, preferably right from his mortuary. Yep, I glanced around the table and saw that my sister was wearing a low cut blouse, the one that my father had forbidden her to wear in public. Somehow it was okay to wear it around the house though. It was no big deal since she had barely a B cup going on. I think the push up bra was still on the drawing board at this juncture, if I'm not mistaken. Added to the inappropriate décolletage were ever so tight jeans that did highlight her better lower half. I know because one of my friends was always telling me my sister had a nice ass. I hadn't noticed.

If my calculations were correct, Uncle Silas was about ten minutes away from that expensive ride in the ambulance. Yeah, right between servings of greasy gravy and overcooked sweet potato. We were just minutes away from one big bummer. Aunt Joan was going to have to lean on her religion and we were going to get an unexpected break from my mother's awful cuisine, fondly known as early American/southern frozen entree delight. There would be momentary chaos, followed by a 911 call. The neighbors were about to be treated by screaming sirens and the sight of a large man being manhandled down our front steps on a gurney by two bored EMTs who were pissed off about having to work on Thanksgiving.

Later, after all of the commotion had died down, and the adults had made their way to the nearest emergency room at the hospital, we kids devoured the pumpkin pie, emptying an entire can of whip cream in the process; of course half of the whipped cream ended up in each other's faces in a mock battle of air compressed goodness. We paid dearly for that later when our dad returned and saw that only scant shards remained of the pie. By then we had collectively chipped in to wipe up the whipped cream evidence still lingering on kitchen appliances. We had a lot to be thankful for and one was the fact that our father didn't beat the crap out of us when he got back. He just looked at the empty pie pan and shook his head solemnly, like he was giving the pumpkin pie its last rights. After that, he retreated to the living room to watch football. We couldn't believe our luck. We went unscathed.

Did I have to be a detached participant, I wondered, as I stood there in the kitchen doorway stealing glances of my dad lounging in his favorite easy chair? Maybe I could tweak the outcome a little, play havoc with the proceedings. Make my brother have the heart attack would be a good start. I couldn't do that to my brother, mostly because I didn't know how to do that. Dr Wertheimer, where are you when I need you? This carnival ride you've invented is seriously inbred. You need to add some different levels of activity. My instilled free will should include going rogue if I want to. Diversification was always the name of the game. I'm almost positive people weren't going to like trolling through memory lane without some levers to pull. It was a good thing this project was still at the Beta stage.

"Harrison," my dad suddenly bellowed out, "get me a beer, would you?"

Suddenly I was back in the clouds, rising, like a balloon, slowly but inexorably. Down below I could see the Florida peninsula. It looked like one of those photos taken from space. A nauseous feeling swept over me and I felt a subtle stabbing in my arm. The crystal blue sky was changing. It was getting darker. I kept blinking, furiously blinking, in an attempt to bring back the light.

"He's back," I heard a voice sing out.

I opened my eyes to see Dr. Wertheimer's face looming. Nose ring girl was looking at her tablet, feeding the good doctor my vitals. One of the staff was prodding my arm where the IV had been inserted. Another one said that I was shivering and they spread another blanket on top of me. I could now hear machines beeping. The overhead light seemed to penetrate right into my eyes. Words of encouragement collected around my brain. I was struggling to comprehend for a moment and then a flood gate seemed to be opened and I grasped where I was.

"Fucking hell," I called out groggily, my tongue thick and unsure.

"Put that down," Dr Wertheimer announced and they all laughed. "Welcome back, 77-HR, how was it?"

For a moment I gathered up my thoughts then replied, "Weird. Saw my parents...family. It was Thanksgiving. Some pretty strange shit."

"Good," Dr Wertheimer stated, walking over to one of the machines and fiddling with some dials. "Debrief him now and then put him in recovery. Don't forget to record all of it. Nothing is too trivial. Right?" They acknowledged what he had ordered and he was gone. Poof, he disappeared out another damn side door in the maze.

"Feeling okay?" nose ring girl wanted to know, as she tapped away on her tablet. "Tell us all about your journey--leave nothing out. Include any unpleasant...things too. Treat us like you might be writing a diary. This is important for the study. It will be vital information."

I looked at her for a moment, then glanced around the room. The staff was busy cleaning up, returning things to their rightful place. A machine was turned off and its steady hum died away. The Cinnabon smell was back. Nose ring girl leaned in to hear what I had to say.

"It was kind of a nightmare with a small n," I told her, swallowing hard and clutching at my throat.

"Here," she offered, handing me one of those cups with a twist straw. "Drink. The meds will make your throat dry. That's normal."

"Normal, " I said, shaking my head. "There was nothing normal about it. I got to see my uncle almost die again. Is this what you guys are trying to develop? Not gonna work. I'm telling you that right now. Shit, you aren't going to be able to give this crap away. Believe me."

Nose ring girl was taking notes, while a recorder took it all in. A staff person approached her and she waved them away, the irritation showing on her face. I imagined the staff hated her and talked about her behind her back, saying she was Dr Wertheimer's little bitch and other things. A side door opened and I could see a guy standing in the doorway, waiting.

"We have to take you into recovery now but I'm going to stay with you. I want you to keep telling me about your experience. Don't leave any detail out," she informed me, as they wheeled me into another room. "We are going to take your vitals again and then monitor you."

"Sounds good," I mumbled, as I sipped the water from the cup, letting the water cascade down my throat.

Thus ended my first session, leaving me with some unanswered questions and a slight headache. Lucky me, I was in the twenty percent who got headaches from the drug. Other than that, I was fine. My mind had been played with but I didn't seem to be suffering any side affects. Down the road, who knew? In a few years time I might wake up one day and feel the urge to become a mortician, or revival preacher. There was really no way of telling what these sessions might be doing to me. I was taking, without a doubt, the ultimate gamble. You could play the ponies or you could sit at a blackjack table, feed the slots, try to beat the spread, but it didn't compare to shuffling the deck with your health. I was just a little bit closer to my jackpot though. If they wanted to cerebrally reunite me with my family, then I was willing to take the risk that it was going to fry my brain.

I sound cavalier now but it wasn't quite that way then. I drove back to my apartment after they had released me, confident that I wasn't going to keel over, and sat in my living room staring at the far wall. Any more stimuli seemed painful. I just wanted to gear down for a while. This lasted an hour, when I was interrupted by a staff person from Somnium. They were checking in on me. I was supposed to answer a few predetermined questions. I passed and they told me to call if anything turned south and that I had another session appointment the next week, same day same time. I hung up and went back to staring at the blank wall.

You know how you feel when you've done some serious physical exertion, totally wiped. I was mentally wiped. If this is going to be what it's like after taking the drug then they had a real problems on their hands. Nobody was going to want to feel like this every time they brain traveled. I was exhausted and kind of despondent. No, wait, I don't think that is quite the word I'm looking for. I wasn't really depressed or anything, not that I was jumping up and down for joy either. It was a specialized sensation, one that seemed to suck the life out of me, like being bonked and need of Gatorade.

I did feel thirsty. Unfortunately for me there was nada in my fridge. Grocery shopping, for me, was a hit or miss proposition most times. My diet leaned towards the convenient and the really convenient, which left me most times agonizing over the least nutritional suspect on the local spectrum of fast food emporiums. Reading their menus was similar to reading your own death sentence. Synthetic food was all it was, the end product of some really satanic lab work by people who should have been ashamed of putting their degrees to work in such a way. Eating chemical experiments in colorful packaging wasn't my idea of forwarding the species. We were all going to die of horrible chronic diseases that seemed to be metastasizing exponentially across the land. I was holding up my end, even as I detested myself for it.

I did eat fruit once in a while, but even that was sprayed with pesticides that were probably reducing my manhood by the bite, if not totally screwing up my endocrine system. You couldn't even drink the water anymore. I bought bottled and that's supposed to have questionable hormone altering chemicals embedded in the plastic. The modern world was full of pitfalls for everyone. Throughout history civilizations had closed in on themselves, either by fucked up politics or inadequate health initiatives. The American Southwest had plenty of examples of not so ancient people disappearing, poof, right off the map.

My mind seemed to be whirling as I sat there enduring the gloom. Before, it had shut down but now it was like I had done a line; not that I had ever partaken in coke. I had, of course, but only once and that is the truth. Couldn't afford the splurge of a casual drug habit. Weed, E, and the other less socially acceptable drugs, they were all luxury items. If I partook, it was at a party where the product was community property. That explained, I was beginning to feel energized. My down time was receding rapidly. I'll have to tell them about this development, especially since I was supposed to keep a diary of my experience for later reference. Dr Wertheimer liked to be thorough.

Then I was hungry too, ravenous. I marched into the kitchen and searched through the bare cupboards, if I might use a weird word from some bad English novel. I opened and slammed the doors and had a hopeful look in the refrigerator. Nothing doing. The entire inventory included: A half empty ketchup bottle, empty pickle jar, with some scary looking left over brine, small yogurt container where the expiration date had passed almost a month before and the contents were ripe for biological warfare, a few packets of soy sauce from an Asian take out down the street, a fusion of Thai, Indonesian, and Hmong cuisine, a shriveled up green pepper from when I thought I was going to be eating more salad, soon abandoned after I discovered that making a salad actually required some work, and a greasy paper bag empty except for the few remaining shards from a donut. That was the fridge. The cabinets held less, just an overturned bottle of olive oil, which left a hefty stain and festering smell, a can of cocktail onions for all those martinis I was once going to whip up when I thought I might want to be more suave since I was an ad man, two twin cans of something but I couldn't read the labels because they were in Spanish, and I didn't have a can opener anyway, and lastly a box of saltine crackers that was unfortunately empty. I was fucked.

In my new found bachelorhood I was a total failure, a non-functioning human being. I couldn't imagine how I was managing to hold down a job. My co-workers were probably wondering the same thing since they were having to pick up the slack for my frequent absences. Sarah and Lazar had been busting their humps to keep everything going. To date, they had kept the boss off my ass. I kept telling myself I would buckle down after I finished up the study and got my finances back in order.

There was a knock at the door, bewildered, I sneaked up to the peep hole to see who could be knocking on my door. My few friends always called first and I knew it wasn't any of my family members. I looked out and saw a guy standing on the landing. He seemed out of breath because I lived on the third floor of a elevator less building. Florida code didn't require one if you kept the structure under four floors. Don't ask me what genius came up with that regulation. Someone bought off by the developers obviously. I squinted and could now see that it was a pizza delivery guy from Dominos. What? Must have the wrong address I thought, as I opened the door a crack.

"Large, Brooklyn style," the guy barked at me, finally catching his breath. He looked like he had been eating too much of the inventory where he worked.

"Sorry, dude, got the wrong address," I told him, sniffing the air for the tell tale scent of just baked pie.

He looked at a receipt attached to the box and said, "Says right here." He held the box closer to the door. "That's you, right?"

I opened the door all the way and read the piece of paper on the box. "I think somebody punked you guys," I offered, salivating at the smell. He said something inaudible and started to whip out his cell phone. "I'll tell you what. I'm starving...I'll just take it anyway."

"Sounds good to me," he exclaimed, smiling. I pulled out my wallet and saw that it was empty, bare. Embarrassed, I started to make up an excuse but he said, "Been taken care of, it was ordered on line with a credit card."

"Sweet," I muttered, retreating back into my apartment to scrounge up a tip. I pulled out a few drawers in the kitchen and found a dollar in change, then I remembered I had a Tupperware container of dollar coins I had tossed in there to get them out of my pockets. I handed over a few to the pizza guy and he gave me a strange look, like maybe I was trying to pass off some foreign currency or something. "Legal tender," I told him, smiling, grabbing the pizza box out of his hand and shutting the door.

Pizza aroma seeped into my apartment as I opened the box and plucked out a slice. As I sat there chewing away I began to think about the turn of events. He had said the pizza was ordered on line. By whom? I wondered, thinking just maybe Somnium was doing me a good turn for being such a model study subject. Sure, that's preposterous, I thought. I finished two slices as I pondered my new found meal and then decided to get on my lap top to check my browser history. There it was. I had googled Dominos and then ordered a pizza. I had absolutely no recollection of doing it. Now I was going to have to write this down in my diary, my log book, the one with the faux leather cover the good doctor had issued me. Short term memory loss, check. Bells were going to go off up and down those sterile, immaculately cleaned hallways for sure.

And then my cell phone rang, more minutes down the drain. Just as I was collecting my thoughts about the study and committing them to paper, I'm interrupted. To my surprise it was my co-worker, Sarah. This was an odd occurrence. We almost never called each other outside of work. Socially, the three of us had only gotten a beer together maybe a half dozen times, and even that had been brief interludes before heading home. It wasn't that we didn't get along really, but more like our orbits didn't interlock, even though we were all approximately the same age.

I was the only native born Floridian of the group so perhaps that had something to do with our work lives not extending past the front door to our shop. Lazar had literally washed up on shore as a young kid and Sarah was from up north somewhere. As further proof that I didn't know her very well I didn't really even know where she was from. New Jersey? New Hampshire? I think it had a new in it somewhere. The one thing we had in common was our alma mater.

She was the only person in our little group who actually had any experience in the ad game. I don't know what her major in college had been but she was hard wired for advertising, attuned to trends and things like that, attributes that you needed to have in order to be successful in the field. Brief, the summary for market research, button, levity added at the end of TV commercials, buy, ad time, mnemonic, for branding, pod, spots in sequence during a commercial break, super, the graphics almost every ad needed, Sarah was on top of all that. In fact, I didn't know why she was working with us because she was way more competent than either me or Lazar.

"Watch you doing?" she wanted to know. I didn't answer at first because I was still trying to figure out why she was calling me. "It's Sarah. Remember me?"

"Oh, hi," I finally replied, staring down at the pizza box where I had almost finished off the whole large pie. "Something wrong?"

"Wrong?" she said quizzically and in the background I could hear a man's voice asking her if she wanted any more ice cream. "No, I just called to check in with you. Lazar and I are worried about you, dude."

Personally, I hated when girls used the word "dude," especially when they were addressing another female. Saying it to a guy didn't make it any better, really, but it wasn't quite as bad. I was guilty of using the word myself but males at least had proprietary rights to it. Then I got to thinking about ice cream and realized I had forgotten to look in the freezer for any food.

"I'm sitting here finishing up a pizza," I told her, suppressing a burp. "It's another exciting night here at chez Jamison."

"Sounds like it," she chirped as the clatter of spoon to bowl echoed in my ear. "I'll take the B and J, hon, and nuke it for a few."

Sarah and I, if you boiled it down to its essence, weren't bosom buddies because she had a live in boy friend and had been locked in to the relationship for going on three years. It was a post-college relationship that, unbelievably, began after she hooked up with some dating service that our shop had been doing an ad campaign for. The tag line was: Sometimes you can receive the biggest reaction from the briefest contact. I kid you not. It was Lazar's contribution, not mine. For some reason the website, touch.com, had beau coup UF alumni. She had revealed this factoid to me on day one, laughing, slightly embarrassed by how she had found romance. I imagined them settling down at night, side by side in bed, both wearing gator paraphernalia. They probably made that silly gator motion, extending your arms and clamping them together to simulate a gator's jaws, after they had sex.

She was good looking, brunette and lithe, with a wonderful laugh, a sort of muted cackle that only a pretty girl could get away with. It was her sense of humor that I liked most about her though. I could see him filling in the dating service questionnaire and writing in: A sense of humor is the most important thing I look for in a girl friend. It wasn't really. Like most men, he didn't actually listen when he talked to the opposite sex. It wasn't mandatory. The cynosure (look it up) was always the man. I don't make the rules. However, with Sarah, a sense of humor was vital in the every day give and take of an office life. That was necessary in order to bring in another inane ad project, something that invariably sucked the life out of you.

Sarah wasn't a work wife either, not in the classic sense. They were more a trio than a couple, like a geometric equation. In order for one to function the other two had to be included. That was one of the reasons her calling me seemed out of place. I could hear her boy friend in the background so I knew she wasn't violating any boundaries. It was touching that she seemed concerned about me.

"I'm doing a study," I blurted out unexpectedly, regretting it immediately.

"A what?" she wanted to know and I could hear her slurping up some ice cream.

I paused for a moment and then cursed under my breath. Although you weren't prohibited from mentioning being in the study I didn't want to face any shit storm of ridicule that might be unleashed. Participating in a study of any kind smacked of desperation, even mental instability. Most drug studies were attended by, you know, those people on the bottom rung. Okay, some of them were filled out by people suffering from this or that malady and wanted to see if the new wonder drug would help their disease. I get that. Still, it wasn't something you wanted to include in your next CV. I mean come on.

"A study," I repeated, smacking the side of my head. "It's being conducted by Dr. Rony Wertheimer," I explained, resorting to name dropping and hoping that she had heard of him.

"Are you shittin' me?" she exclaimed. "The Dr. Rony Wertheimer?" I could hear her boy friend say something in the back ground and she repeated: "Yeah, that Dr. Rony Wertheimer. No, we aren't doing ads for him, dummy. Harrison said he is doing a study with him."

This back and forth continued for a moment and I screeched into the phone: "Hello! I'm burning minutes here."

"Oh, sorry about that," she apologized. "So tell me all about it."

I did, at least as much as I could without being sued by the Somnium Corporation. She oohed and ahhed, as she transferred what I was saying to her boy friend until he insisted she put me on speaker phone. Then I had an audience so I embellished this and that a little bit, keeping it all specifically vague enough to pass legal muster. They were impressed, as much by the pay out at the end of the study as the instrumentality of being at the business end of a scientific experiment. So now I was a minor league hero to them, two obvious Wertheimer groupies. Yet I still didn't get the idolatry and its origins, not to mention rationale.

"That's why I've been missing in action at work lately," I lied, not being man enough to reveal my miserable financial straights.

"Don't worry about it," she stated, scoffing. "Are you kidding? This is a chance of a life time. I wish you had told me about it."

"Me too," her boy friend chimed in. I thought about him for a moment, having only met him briefly once before. He was one of those buff characters, with a work out schedule drilled into the data base of his smart phone, always concerned about missing a session at the gym. He seemed harmless though, even if he could probably dead lift me over his head--no problem. "You got to tell us how it turns out, man."

"I'll let you know," I told them, knowing full well any info was not going to be coming forthwith, if at all. A cone of silence would be dropped over me for the rest of my life. I would be mute, as the good doctor made another billion. Small price to pay so mankind can get in touch with their inner brain.

Chapter 4 Cri de Coeur

Part 1

Here we go again, I was thinking as I drove up to the study site. It had been a week since my last session. My short term memory had solidified and I could actually remember taking a shower that morning. At work, I had new found respect. Sarah had filled Lazar in on my adventure and he too wet his pants when he found out who I was hangin' with. Was I the only person in the Western Hemisphere who hadn't heard of Dr. Wertheimer? It seemed so. I would liked to have taken an informal poll but I had more pressing matters to attend to.

As this was my second go round I knew what to expect and didn't have the shield of ignorance to protect me. Now I knew that I was going to have to eat an awful breakfast, strip in front of a staffer, get gunk squirted up my nose, and last but not least see my family up close in a period setting. I really didn't want to do it again. I had the kind of dread you could write an Edgar Allen Poe novel around. In fact, those characters in his books had it easy in comparison.

In I went. There was the unsmiling receptionist. Yep, no smell. White on white walls. Pristine environment. Gag inducing breakfast. Humiliating strip tease. Trip to Cinnabon land. Less than gentle poke in the arm. Machines on parade, with requisite noises. Not to be forgotten, nose ring girl in the house. This time around she had a different nose ring jutting out of her nostril. Last time it had been a subtle little gold number but this time it was a green pseudo gem ostensibly posing as an emerald. It was a statement of some sort, I guess.

The room was buzzing when I came in and I'm not talking about the A I machine wanta-bees. Apparently the previous temporary tenant had experienced some difficulties during their inward flight home or where ever their memories took them. I overheard a staff member trading shop talk as I was led in, something I was most definitely not supposed to hear. They clammed up as soon as they saw that I was in earshot, but I could see little tufts of hair still clinging to those little electrode tabs they attach to your skull, so they can monitor your brain waves while you coast through memory hell. Somebody had been in a hurry to rip them off his or her head as they headed for the door.

It was obvious something had gone on because the gurney was askew and the IV line was still swinging in the air, sort of like an update to Poe's pendulum meme. One of the machines was doing a cantankerous version of electronica music until a staffer reached over and hastily reprogrammed it, settling it down to a low droning but not reassuring hum. Nose ring girl was furious at somebody, as she tapped away on her tablet and barked orders simultaneously. One staff member slunk out of the room, probably to never be seen again. Gator bait might be in her future for sure. At this juncture, I didn't doubt that the good doctor could disappear people. The rich did have more resources at their disposal, so I had been told by my father from an early age, a man who had worked his entire life and never made more than thirty thousand dollars a year. That was a different story, and would come later.

The room was finally brought under control, as I stood there looking for any tell tale signs of blood splatters, thinking the worse, like just maybe the study subject's head had exploded. Then again, wouldn't there be brain remnants clinging here and there? You didn't have to be a forensic guy to see something had occurred that rattled the loyal minions, the usually implacable staff of automatrons.

"Everything okay?" I asked, trying to keep my voice from quaking.

No answer. A yawning silence, except for the low decibel cacophony of machinery belches, filled the room. Nose ring girl signaled with her eyes to a staff member to get me in position. It was best to keep pressing forward, always looking to the future, even if I was about to commute to the past. Such a pleasant conundrum: The past is the future. It was like retrofitting in reverse. Hard to grasp because it is so counter intuitive. Freud had spent decades having patients recline and relive the past but he had been hopelessly tied to verbal cues and other silly and hazy personal histories; the fool. Why go through all those trap doors when all you had to do was juice up somebody's nostrils, the convenient conduit to the cerebral spaghetti contained in the skull, and grease the way to retro-happiness.

Are you serious? echoed in my head as I was strapped in. The other victim's fear and loathing is still palpable, dammit. Slow down! Let's talk about this. Naturally, I didn't say any of this, but instead focused on my prize, the pot at the end of the rainbow. Desperation makes you do insane things.

Then Dr. Wertheimer swept into the room, the General in charge, and announced: "Did we just have a heuristic event?"

"A what?" I cried out, finally finding my voice.

He ignored me and turned to nose ring girl, who looked up from her omnipresent tablet and mumbled something. They immediately put their heads together, while the other staffers went about their business, which was, you know, making sure I was ready for the next voyage into the mind. One tech grabbed my arm and set out to insert the IV, securing it with some tape. Another one was involved in resetting one of the machines, pushing buttons, nodding his head as he went, counting off a silent check list. Suddenly I felt the cold in the room pressing in on me. As if she had read my mind, a staff member spread a blanket over me, smiling, making nonsensical small talk.

"Re-align the markers," the good doctor barked, flicking his hand in the direction of the machines. "Let's get it right this time."

This time, screamed in my head, as a staffer removed the monitor electrodes on my chest and then reapplied them. Machines were rebooted. Gurgling electronics came back to life. Out of the corner of my eye I could see the cart being rolled into place next to me and Dr. Wertheimer was fingering a syringe, holding it up to the light. What ever the cinnamon laced aromatherapy was supposed to do it wasn't working on me.

"What's going on?" I asked, raising my head up off the gurney pillow.

A staff member none too gently pulled my head back down, while the good doctor leaned over and said: "The countdown is under way...77-HJ. There's nothing to worry about. Just relax. Breathe normally." Again with the inhaler and the snorting. The goo traveled slowly up my nostrils. Then I could feel the staffer at my arm and knew the sedative was in route. "For Christ's sake let's not have another flame out like the last one again," was the last thing I heard as my consciousness faded away.

I was enveloped in altocumulus clouds, harbingers of rain, and knew where I was heading. I was a Google-earth embed, on assignment in Florida. Central Florida came into view. Below was the colossus of Disney World, with a few lakes glistening in the morning sun. A blast of humidity whacked me and I could feel the heat rising. The flat lying peninsula lay below, pockmarked with its history of citrus fruit producers, Bible believers, questionable Southern hospitality, get rich schemes, and towns called: Eustis, Palatka, Deltona, and Apopka. I, myself, had been born and raised in just such a town, wedged comfortably between Lake City and Tallahassee. They all shared one thing in common and that was a despicable past, one steeped in the horrors of Jim Crow laws enacted with undisguised glee. Places where the KKK took root and was welcome.

Although it was another century, and long after the War Between The States, old habits died hard. Race never went away. It was only mitigated, buffed around the edges to give a more smooth civil discourse. This was my second voyage and like a prospective pilot taking flight lessons I was beginning to inculcate some of the trappings that went with the experience. Like, oh shit, I'm returning to the scene of my crimes.

We were southerners, my family and I, even though we kids thought of ourselves as somehow free agents, as in your garden variety Stateless individual. My brother, and certainly not my sister, didn't run around with Rebel flags plastered on our cars; although there were people in our small town who did. Also, we didn't hold a simmering grudge against the Yankees for destroying our way of life, you know, before, back then. Again, there were people in our town who did, subconsciously and otherwise. My parents weren't dyed in the wool apologists either. We had those too. In fact, there was a chapter of an organization called Our Heritage right on Main Street, right in the back room of the local Chamber of Commerce. They held bi-monthly meetings, complete with potluck dinners and an annual summer picnic. There was even a parade where the kids were encouraged to drag out all the Confederate paraphernalia they could find. Winners for the best costume received an authentic war bond from the Confederate States of America or some such Dixie kitsch.

To my father's credit, he never permitted us to participate in the nonsense, telling us that everybody should just get over it. I always thought it was odd that the American South was thought to be so overwhelmingly patriotic when the nation cranked up any war effort because most times Southerners were borderline treasonous when it came to their loyalties. That my parents were luke warm about their whole Rebel identity thing was remarkable since their parents, my grand parents, were your typical yahoos. I can remember seeing Civil War memorabilia around their houses, with the usual tag line: The South Shall Rise Again. It wouldn't of course. Slavery, if not anything else, proved to be just too damn inefficient for the modern world, ethics and morality aside, naturally.

My grand parents dropped the N word more times than was socially comfortable; but my parents abstained for the most part, buffeted by the Civil Rights Movement during their youth. Not that my parents went unscathed by the societal turmoil. As kids, they witnessed Jim Crow in action, with the segregated schools, buses, and even water fountains. In some ways it was apartheid lite, except for all those inconvenient and impromptu spasms of applied justice, namely lynching's. You might not think of Florida when you are informed about the brutal slayings of black men across the South, but the Sunshine State had its fair share, over a hundred from the late 1800's to the mid 1900's.

There are cases on record that defy any attempts at retelling. In one instance, an entire town, Rosewood, was wiped out, burned down, as wholesale slaughter of Blacks occurred. It was murder on a scale that speaks of systematic genocide. I knew this growing up, as did all of my classmates and friends. It was our shared guilt, a historical mistake that lived on in our genes. Our immediate relatives had facilitated and even participated in collective homicide. I didn't know if PTSD could be fostered by past mistakes but if it was possible then a lot of my friends and family were in trouble. Trauma could be generational, I guess. There were wars in the Balkans that reached back in history for evil sustenance, a catalyst for current atrocities.

Once when my brother and I were snooping around in my grandfather's attic, on my dad's side of the family, we came across a box of photographs. They were those black and white snap shots, with the corrugated white edges and usually looked like something from your nearest Museum of History. The quality of the photos was bad and the photographer had been an amateur but the picture's content left nothing ambiguous for the imagination to grasp.

"Check this out," my brother exclaimed, holding up the offending piece of ancestral lore.

"What the fuck," I gasped, staring at the photograph.

Religious minded people would have to deduce from photos such as this that there was going to be standing room only in hell when the time came for thousands of souls in TX, LA., Miss., AL, GA, SC, NC, VA, and FL. I apologize if I left any offenders out. AK? OK? You know who you are. It was one of the delicious ironies of living in the South that on any given Sunday churches on every corner would resound with gospel songs, all calling out to Jesus, asking for forgiveness for their sins. Mortal sin was definitely on the agenda, couched in sociopathic acts committed against another race. I often wondered if the Christian god shook his head in disgust at his creation, as his terrestrial offspring went on about their business of fucking up his masterpiece. Divinity doesn't include disappointment.

"They hung the guy," my brother said in a whisper, staring at the figure in the photo, now quite dead, hanging from a rope with his head at an impossibly odd angle. In the background of the picture you could see a group of people looking up, apparently admiring their handiwork.

"Man, do you think one of those guys is Grandpa?" I wanted to know, grabbing the photo to have a better look.

"No way," my brother stated, adding, "he's not like that."

He was, or, at least, had been once in his life. He still maintained that Blacks were inferior in every way, from intelligence to morals, which was particularly galling coming from the likes of his ilk. Sure he had toned down his rhetoric over the years but if a magic wand was waved and we reverted back to the 1950's I'm almost positive it would be his face in that crowd emotionally deflated after the lynching. Were they? I mean what feelings are going on there after you've witnessed a lynching? Do you go home and tell the wife about your day? I got off early from work to go hang some nigger, what's for dinner? Would somebody say that? There are so many questions to ask. Caught up in the murderous moment, how much conscience came into play? Did all sense of right and wrong flicker a few times then extinguish itself? Mob rule, that was it.

I'm no psychologist or anthropologist but where does a society impetus like that even get started? Fear, it was fear, some might say, as if that was in any way explanatory. It certainly didn't absolve anybody. These mobs killed innocent men, boys sometimes. Strung them up, leaving them to dangle in the wind, while they nursed psychic wounds. Remember, this was almost a hundred years after the Civil War. That is a century, if you're not counting. Are you kidding me?

"Look," my brother said solemnly, turning the photograph over and handing it back to me.

Someone had put the date on the back and where it had been taken. I looked at my brother and then tossed the photo back at him. What a family heir loom for us. I could go on one of those shows, you know, where some expert tells you how much your family junk is worth. How much can I get for a photograph, mint condition, twentieth century vintage, of a negro being lynched? Put it up for auction maybe. At a Klu Klux Klan conference. American Nazi Party meeting.

"We should burn it," I suggested.

"I bet he has other pictures in here too," my brother announced, a little too excitedly for my liking.

I shouldn't have been surprised. A neighbor, two houses down, an old guy, with a full mane of white hair, had been (or still was) a wizard or imperial something or other in the Klan. I never actually saw him burn a cross on anybody's lawn or anything but it was well known the he had done his time on the racial front, the wrong side. I could see him erecting a tall wooden cross then setting it on fire. When we were kids he always scared us. On Halloween nobody wanted to go to his house for trick or treating. Kept a Doberman dog chained to a stake out behind his house. My dad detested the man, calling him a draft dodger. He had apparently gotten out of the Viet Nam War because of hemorrhoids, something lame like that. To his credit (discredit) he didn't try to hide his predilections, often times passing out a business card with his KKK affiliation embossed right on it.

Once, long ago, before my father told him if he ever stepped foot on his property again he would kick his ass, the man had left one of his KKK bulletins on our screen door. It was the usual claptrap about racial harmony and how it wasn't supposed to be like that. Whites were superior and that was how God intended it to be; that would be the Christian god everyone was praying to when they saw fit. At the end of the execrable piece of you know what, our neighbor had written an editorial or what passed as one in his journalistic world. In it, he had written that lynching's, in the recent past, were necessary to enforce the new Jim Crow laws, a mechanism to make Blacks aware of their position in the post-emancipation order. That was certainly a novel way of looking at things.

That foolishness about the 14th and 15th Amendments to the Constitution should just be ignored. That was for them up north, so they could sleep better at night. Down here, in the South, we're going to take a pass on all that legal malarkey. Due process, equal protection, right to vote, not anymore. I refer you back to the lynching's part. Losing a war doesn't mean you have to be defeated. Then he got all lawyerly and brought in Plessy v Ferguson, telling anyone who read his garbage that back in 1896 the Supreme Court, SOTUS, got it right, mostly. He crowed about the 8 to 1 vote making it acceptable to be separate but equal. This ludicrous and socially harmful ruling set off over sixty years of Jim Crow laws, making it just fine to discriminate and divide the races. Feel free to throw up.

It took days for my nausea to subside after seeing that photo and I never looked at my grand father the same again. Oddly, he had an acquaintance, a black man, that he kind of hung out with. They were an unusual pair, two members of a bygone era. They would actually go down to the river and fish together, sitting for hours in the oppressive heat, all to bring home some ugly-ass mostly inedible fish. I couldn't imagine what they had in common, except that they were both participants in one of our nation's evolving civil rights debacle. They had been on the front lines, across from each other obviously and now, like two aging warriors, had settled into a functioning catatonic state of denial. What else could it be?

I mean my grand father had been on the other side of the divide, one of the ones who perpetrated the misbegotten deeds. The black man, named Hurley, had probably been denied just about every natural born right throughout his life, victim of a thorough ass kicking. It didn't make sense on so many levels. I would have thought he'd be bitter, pissed off, ever ready to get some pay back. I guess not.

Out the back door my grand father would go, fishing pole in hand. My grand mother would hand him his lunch box, with ice water on board. He would mutter something about having to meet Hurley at the bridge and be off. I often wondered if Hurley's wife was sending him off in the same way. Maybe she was saying: "You old damn fool, going off with that cracker. Got no sense." Anyway, they would rendezvous at the river bed and re-enact their own version of some warped out Mark Twain scenario, two separate worlds not colliding for the duration.

Here's the thing. I often wondered if my grand father would be a stand up guy and come to Hurley's defense if and when there was a freakish return to the scenes of their youth. As the noose was tightened around Hurley's neck would my grand father step forward and make an impassioned speech against the vileness of what was about to happen. Once there was hate in your heart did it ever subside? Years, decades, did they reshape the outlines of your morality? Conscientious backsliding could easily happen. A person might revert back to the simplicity of heinous values even though they have been rebuked by the passing of time and opprobrium.

How had my grand father compartmentalized his two worlds, the one where he proudly displayed the Stars and Bars in his living room and the one in which he maintained a friendship with a black man who had suffered through the remnants of the vaunted Confederacy? I would never know because I could never bring myself to ask him. You know you hear about those people who catalogue verbal history, listening as ordinary people recount their experiences during whatever epoch that is being researched. My grand father would have been a good candidate for that research. He remembered almost everything it seemed. I could imagine him regaling the interviewer with tales from that dark past of the recent South, spellbinding accounts of what went down, almost like a mafia character revealing the wise guy's secrets.

Hurley died a few years ago and my grand father was the only white person to show up at the funeral. He stood there side by side with the family and sang some gospel songs in his scratchy baritone, unashamed by his past. I could only imagine what the other mourners were thinking. They buried him with his favorite fishing pole, so I was told by my grand father, not without a hitch in his voice and a tear in his eye. I was touched, but only momentarily simply because I couldn't process the before and after picture. Where was this basic civility back then? Where? How had a man who counted among his friends those who had tied those ropes, tightened those nooses, and destroyed those lives, gotten to this point?

Coming in for a landing, I was thinking, as the clouds parted and there was my town, good old Bethel, Florida. It was named after some village in Israel mentioned in the Bible, Old Testament. Good thing, because it was full of churches of every description. It was a minor miracle in itself that we children hadn't been somehow co-opted all those years by some denomination or another. Through elementary osmosis you might pick up some stray bits of homily just by walking down the road on any given Sunday.

Again, I attribute me and my siblings entrenched humanism to my father's attitude about religion, especially organized. The man had once cursed out an Army chaplain because he was saying it was alright to kill the enemy. The chaplain also mentioned some tidbits about the Viet Cong being unworthy of their god, being that they were heathens. I'm paraphrasing here obviously. My father's war stories were few and far between, or whatever the expression is and we kids didn't pay attention all that much. My dad was an enlisted man and the military preacher was an officer, so there was that, of course. I suppose he got in trouble but he wasn't court martialed or anything along those lines. I think his basic point was that man didn't need, or, in his case, really desire, a masking of death on the battlefield. It was, in his words, pretty straight forward. You killed another human being. Just leave your god out of it. I did say that my dad was kind of a first string existentialist, one of those guys who don't trouble themselves with nuance.

OMG, as I might write on my twitter account if I still had one-- having given it up when I realized that I was publicly broadcasting the length and breadth of my mundane life, a fate no one should have to endure, I was about to land in my old High School. It was old too, built back in 1921. We were the Marauders, named after some Confederate officer, who bushwacked the Federals throughout the Civil War simply because he intuitively knew that asymmetrical warfare was preferable to getting your teeth kicked in by an army superior in numbers. Really. That the namesake didn't have anything to do with any of the Florida campaigns didn't seem to matter. He had been a cool historical figure and that was that. We boys liked the connection; the girls weren't impressed. He was a Rebel that kicked Union ass and took no prisoners. Southern pride was always in need of being stroked.

Almost instantly I realized what was up. It was a fateful day during my sophomore year. I had survived my freshman year unscathed for the most part and was embarking on my High School career with promise at my back. My brother had been popular before me and my sister was in her senior year, also popular. The path had been blazed. The one set back was I didn't quite measure up as an athlete, not quite, as in zero prospects of me being on any team, much less the varsity. I was going to have to ride the coat tails of my siblings and try to cultivate some kind of image: joker, class president, magician, I didn't know.

At our school there were cliques as with all High Schools, with jocks, dweebs, stoners, and the rest. I had no real natural niche to fall into. Sports, like I said, weren't an option, computer clubs weren't on my agenda, I wasn't going to be asked to join the honor society any time soon, and I didn't do all that many drugs. We did have a minuscule surf culture but they were roundly ridiculed for being posers who couldn't even make it to the ocean which was a good few hour drive away. This left me with being neutral, like Switzerland, where I got along with everybody. My motto was: Don't offend anyone, which I didn't for the most part. I deflected insults easily in my attempt to go along and get along. Need a confidant, I can do that. Want to bitch about something, I'll listen. Drinking buddy, I'm there.

It worked out pretty well for about a year an half. I was cruising along just fine. I was my sister's little brother, the sister who was a cheer leader, with a boy friend on the football and basketball team. I was innocuous in that way all little brother's can be if they want to be. I could be that guy. Upper classmen, girls in this case, mussed my hair and told me I was cute. Seniors acknowledged me in the hallways because they knew who my sister was. I wasn't one of the guys but then again I wasn't a pariah either. It was sort of a twilight existence that wasn't, while tolerable, inhospitable for an adolescent trying to survive in the cruel confines of teenage angst.

On the day in question, I had arrived at school a little bit late. I had almost missed the bus and then there had been an accident and, anyway, I came into homeroom out of breath. So far so good.

Carly Henry is whispering to a girl next to her. They are giggling. Mrs. Bolton is calling out the roll. Scotty Bowles is making faces at Carly. She sticks out her tongue. He shoots her the finger.

I hear my name being called and I call out present. I'm back, lodged in that in between world where I am enacting and re-enacting simultaneously, as if my mind is on cruise control. Past and present are softly colliding, merging really, leaving maybe a two second delay. Now I know why the study subjects are getting nauseous. It's like being sea sick. Your mind's equilibrium is trying to settle down while it smooth's out the currents of competing stimuli. You are not really an actor here, with set lines to read. It is more like you are editing a narration.

"Sit down!" the teacher shouts out and we all laugh. An unruly student, who's name I can't remember, is sticking his fist in another students face and telling him he was going to "mess him up." I realize now what is going to happen. In less than an hour there was going to be a small scale race riot at my High School and I am at ground zero.

Angry words are exchanged between a white kid and a black kid, two players on the JV football team. They are teammates but from different socio-economic spheres. The white kid, Judd Canton, plays linebacker and the black kid, Latrel Morris, plays offensive tackle. They are big kids, muscle bound, and full of testosterone. Due to football practice they are used to banging heads and don't have the slightest compunction about transferring their aggression off the field. This is not going to be pretty.

The bell is ringing. Students are heading to their next class, streaming out the door. Out in the hallway the dust up resumes, with Latrel getting in Judd's face, two amped up teenagers with something to prove. Almost immediately they are surrounded by onlookers, some egging them on. The worst part is I know what is going to happen. I've seen this movie.

"Mutterfuckin' punk," Latrel begins with a carefully orchestrated venom in his voice, bumping Judd's chest with his, like two rutting barnyard animals.

"You're the bitch," Judd counters, clinching his fists at his sides.

My High School, unlike many in the South, is still integrated. After desegregation many southern white families elected to put their kids in parochial schools or transport them to other schools with a, you know, lighter shade of enrollment. This left hundreds of schools racially unbalanced, effectively returning the Public Schools back to a segregated plateau. Not my alma mater. We were a poor district with, of course, poor people, the very ones who couldn't afford to send their kids any where else for their education. The demo, at that time, was split 65/45, white to black. For the most part, harmony prevailed between the races, with only a few disturbances along the way.

It was coming. I felt it. For years afterwards I wouldn't be able to answer why I did it. My legs are moving. My mouth is opening. "You guys shouldn't be doing this," I hear myself saying, the words echoing in my ears, as they would for months after the fact.

I'm grabbing Latrel by the arm, pulling, trying to intervene. Oh god, Judd is cocking his arm. I'm not going to be able to stop it. Not again. The punch flies by my head and lands on the side of Latrel's face. My grasp has thrown him off balance already. He's going down.

Mere seconds pass and then the melee begins. Scuffles break out all around me. Then I'm tackled from behind and sent into one of the lockers head first. The words of the doctor are dredged up from my supercharged memory banks: "Your son has a mild concussion."

Screams resound up and down the hallway. Atavistic grunts are followed by the pitiless sound of smacking flesh, bone crushing punches, and bestial profanity. Moments later I know I am going to pass out, but before I do I see Judd topple over with two black guys on top of him. Scores, from off and on the football field, are being settled. The aggression is the culmination of social and athletic grievances. The pressure cooker of the High School milieu makes it all the more volatile.

Cinematic time races forward and I'm waking up in the ER with my mother standing over me peering down. I'm blinking, blinking away the pain in the side of my head where it made contact with the locker. She's talking but I can't seem to understand her. On two different tracks my brain is interpreting the source of the pain, giving me a double whammy of hurt. I feel the pain and I'm remembering the pain at the same time. Einstein didn't have anything to say about that. Neither did the good doctor.

"Why were you fighting?" my mother wants to know. "It doesn't make any sense." Turning to the nurse, she continues, "He's a good boy." She doesn't really care, as she goes about her business. I'm just another corporeal entity to carry out her duties on, something she spent a large chunk of her life training for. Everything else is extraneous.

"Little brother, who knew you had it in you," my older brother is saying, as he practices a few shadow box moves.

"Shut up," my mother orders. Turning back to me she exclaims: "Wait til your father gets here."

Her ominous words drift into my comprehension as if on time delay. I rearrange them in my brain then say, "I'm thirsty." The nurse hands me a cup of water and tells me to drink slowly. I smile to myself as I remember that my father will turn out to be unconcerned by my fisticuffs. Even though I will maintain throughout that I was just trying to break up the fight. His boys will be boys attitude will infuriate my mother.

What will piss off my dad is the hospital bill, in particular the unnecessary tests and the high deductible. This he will let me know is criminal. We kids are on his health insurance policy but at a high monthly premium. It is his contention that we are not getting "our bang for the buck." The Byzantine rules of the health care mess makes him even more cynical than he already is and he is a world class cynic. I hate that I have contributed to his bitterness towards, you know, everything.

I was uniquely prepared for what comes next, since I lived it. Two days later I would be suspended for instigating a minor league race riot. In the heat of the moment, with competing eye witness accounts, I was thought to have been ganging up on Latrel, two on one. Two white guys beating up on a black guy. The hallway then erupted, with each member of their constituency pitching in to defend themselves. I was flabbergasted, shocked, having gone from peace maker to vile race baiter almost instantly. Like I was some standard bearer for the white supremacists, really.

Racial tension simmered for weeks, months after that fight in the hallway. Finally, after living the life of a pariah for days on end, Latrel rescued me from my predicament. After all, I had stepped into the fracas simply because he and I were old friends, having known each other since we were in grade school. I had intervened to reason with him, not for any other reason. I didn't want him to take a beating or get suspended or whatever. Admittedly, I hadn't thought it through.

It wasn't pleasant being Public Enemy number one. Most of the whites thought I had embroiled the school in a needless racial controversy and the blacks thought I had been intent on subjugating their race in some form or other. Time would pass and I would take my social lumps but with Latrel's testimonials along the way I would recover, physically and socially. Not that there weren't some post fight skirmishes, proving that we southerners weren't far from the Plantation scheme, which stretched out around us its invisible tentacles, keeping the community, black and white, bound together in a perverted dance of sociological weirdness.

Like the first session, "the mental voyage" in Dr. Wertheimer's words, I had to get my bearings. Memories could be similar to a movie, with scenes folding into streams of comprehension. There was going to be a period of disassociation attached to your perception, while you merged with the past. "Ever see a Dali painting?" the good doctor had asked back in orientation, smirking. "Kinda like that come to life." It was then that we lab rats knew he must have sampled his own formula.

Only a person who had experienced the "voyage" knew what it was like. You really couldn't describe the sensations you were undergoing. No way. It was a singular experience. We were now members of an exclusive club. Not that that gave you piece of mind.

Speaking of mind, my was still whirling, shifting gears. Oh boy, I was getting a two-fer. We had been briefed on this phenomenon. It happened on occasion. The brain coughed up another memory to latch onto and off you went. It was like being on a carnival ride that automatically switched you to another one when it stopped, from the Ferris wheel to the tilt-a-whirl. Not fun. Cerebral impulses had to be reprogrammed as you shed one setting and assimilated another. It was similar to reverse engineering a reverie, Dr. Wertheimer's description, not mine.

I seemed to be shivering almost as if I was undergoing the first stages of hypothermia. I felt my teeth chattering almost as if I was one of those cartoon characters, with the exaggerated set of teeth that are in hyperdrive. Nobody warned me about this new wrinkle. Oh fuck, now I've got some serious vertigo going on. That whole Dali reference is making sense to me because everybody and everything is doing a slow motion melt down like in his paintings. Jesus, I hope I don't puke.

My mind just did a jump edit or whatever you want to call it. I'm looking at...at a Burger King. I hate Burger King. Shit, I'm getting a bad feeling. I can smell fries, and burgers broiling, flame broiling like it says in all their commercials, as if that was some sort of selling point. I'm in line, behind a family, parents and two obnoxious kids. They are whining about not getting what they want to eat. No, its about getting the meal that comes with a toy, something like that. Two boys, brothers, both sniveling little turds. Why am I so hostile? The mother is ordering for the family, taking control of the dubious nutritional onslaught that is about to be ladled on them. Whoppers all around, with fries and soft drinks. The youngest is clinging to his dad's pant leg, blubbering about not being able to get a toy. Dad's doing a remarkable job of ignoring his son, while mom places their order with precision, right down to the extra onions. The entire family is a future group heart attack waiting to happen.

It's my turn. I don't know what to order. I haven't been in a Burger King in over five years. Really. My particular poison usually runs towards the Golden Arches, their ersatz chicken. The person behind me, a tall black guy, is grumbling because I am taking too long to order. My Doppelganger in my brain is taking over: "I'll have the fish sandwich." Fish? I don't like fish, do I, did I? I can't remember. My brain's getting overloaded with two narrations competing for space. "Diet coke." I didn't just order that. Diet coke, what a weanie. Am I watching my weight. Are you kidding? The fish alone's packing over 600 calories, with a blood pressure raising 900 plus sodium content. I know that now but not back then, stupid, one self tells the other in a silent give and take in the recesses of my brain.

I finally realize why I am there. I'm pathetic. Hormonal overdrive has led me into the fast food wasteland to see Becky Norris, blond, blue eyed, beautiful Becky. Ms Norris, the sixteen year old, soon to be seventeen, siren has been calling out to me for months now. I realize it is the end of my junior year in High School, a minute wedge of time in my memory has dredged up this encounter.

"Aren't you in my History class?" I hear Becky ask me, as she hands over my fish dinner, with a coquettish smile.

"Yeah," I mumble, as the black guy behind me snorts derisively, knowing full well that I ain't no player, "guilty as charged." This statement is as stupid as it sounds and she screws up her pretty face for a moment. "I...I wanted--"

"Thanks for coming to BK," she sings out, locking her eyes onto the next customer, the obvious recipient of good customer service training, minimizing contact with the public beyond the vital commerce involved.

I'm walking away with my meal on one of those plastic trays, the one with the mustard stain in the corner and a stray burned french fry stuck to the edge. I was there to make contact, to talk to the girl I had been admiring from a distance ever since the last semester, having fallen in love with her around Halloween. That's when I saw her at a party wearing a Snow White costume. She had applied generous layers of white makeup on her face and was dressed in that vaguely Bohemian get-up like in the cartoon, I guess. She had plopped a black wig on her head to hide her blondness. Man, she looked hot.

Bopping female cartoon characters aside, I had some full on desire working. Truth be known, she was out of my league, barely. True, I was scraping the bottom of the social circles at my High School, despite having two popular older siblings. Not being an athlete and a little short on the academics fire works, I was just struggling to be relevant to anybody. It was all I could do to avoid becoming a lost stoner, one of the ones who had thrown it all in and said fuck all of this. Adolescent nihilism was easy to do, real easy. I knew kids like that. They hung around unpopulated areas and smoked their brains out, leaving behind human husks devoid of just about every thing. Shit, they were barely functioning members of the society and if you took away their basic carbon existence you were left with nothing, nada.

To date, I had one girl friend to my name and even that was debatable. Back in my freshman year I had hooked up with a girl, a recent transplant from Tampa, so she was easy pickings. Her name was Dolly and she was dumb as a stump, having been relegated to the Special Ed purgatory at my school. She was the product of a single mother home, the father having taken up residence at Raiford, the notorious Florida penitentiary. He was serving life to whenever his appeals ran out and they could stick the needle in his arm for killing a bank teller during an armed robbery that had gone really (really) wrong. Although he claimed the gun had gone off accidentally it didn't sway anybody in the court room, especially the jury. I suppose it didn't help that he had murdered a woman with four kids and a husband that was serving in the military over in Iraq. Patriotism sneaked into the courtroom and simple sorrow over the widowers plight worked to get him sentenced in no time at all. The appeals process gave him a tenuous hold on life, that and the hope that Florida would one day soon abandon that eye for an eye process of jurisprudence. Good luck with that.

Anyway, Dolly was, basically, toxic, even though she wasn't bad looking and didn't seem to mind giving impromptu anatomy lessons in out of the way places. Like under the bleachers on the football field. It was instructive for a male who was just discovering the intricacies of cup size and all. Having a father waiting on death row didn't make you all that popular so she was glad for my attention. So it worked out for both of us, as we derived something needed out of the short term relationship: she got some attention to help with her low self esteem and I got hasty hand jobs while she partially disrobed. The symmetry was perfect, that is until she suddenly moved away, spirited away by her mother who had landed a job in Fort Walton Beach.

That Halloween night I was on the prowl, horny, and eager to find another human hand to service my needs besides my own. I didn't aim very high. Sexual intercourse would have been fantastic but seemingly unattainable. The girls at my High School were far from defenders of their purity but they did require any suitors to be, at least, on the same social footing as they were. That hitch left me with girls like aforementioned Dolly and there were only so many death row daughters to go around.

Call me ambitious but I wanted to step up in the world, you know, and see what it was like to procure a sentient response from some female who was above my station. A guy can dream. I had to start somewhere and saw my chance as she was heading towards me in route to the bathroom. My costume for the evening was hand made and drew on the viewer's use of some pretty strong imagination. After being stymied for a week or more pre-Halloween, I had decided to go as a character from a cable TV show where the protagonist was an avenging serial killer. It was lame and had me explaining who exactly I was supposed to be for most of the night. Somehow carrying a large plastic knife and splattering blood on my white coat didn't produce the desired effect.

"Excuse me," she said, as she slipped by, resting her hand on my forearm for a minute to avoid stumbling over some guy dressed as Ironman who had passed out on the floor. His Wal-mart mask was askew and you could just make out where he had thrown up in the mask. She recognized him and looked and stated for my benefit: "Does Ironman get hangovers?"

We chuckled knowingly together, like we had just shared an earth shattering witticism. I looked down at the jackass on the floor, some guy I now realized was a friend of my brother's and replied in a suave tone: "I'll guess we'll find out in the morning."

Now this was neither suave or clever, even idiotic, but I smiled anyway, as she raised her eyebrows, crinkled up her nose and left me in her wake of penetrating perfume. I had watched her disappear down the hall and go into the bathroom, the one that reeked of weed smoke and vomit. If not anything else here in faux Dixie, we knew how to party, land of my father's generation band Lynyrd Skynyrd and the largest outdoor cocktail party when rivals University of Georgia and UF play football. Large scale debauchery is something to be proud of.

After that brief encounter I had been obsessed with her. Being a stalker comes easy when teenage hormones rule, believe me. We had one class together, History. I would sit towards the back, keeping my usual low profile. Sitting in the back afforded me a better view of her too since she liked to sit in the front. In between bouts of a literary induced coma, as the teacher, Mrs. Baldwin, not one known to fire up the old brain pan over musty words of long dead writers, droned on about some hidden meanings embedded in the pages of the assigned work, I would steal looks at her, fully appreciative of the prevalent custom of the time when it came to what the girls were wearing in public. Somewhere along the line putting the female figure on display had become acceptable and we boys sure weren't complaining. Exposed midriffs, short skirts, easy views of budding cleavages, it all worked to present an everyday extemporaneous burlesque show.

Becky wasn't top tier on the popularity circuit at High School, yet. She was working her way up, even though she had designs on going to college and actually studying something. Communications, to be precise. It was her aspiration to one day be a media talking head. One can dream. As dreams went, it could have been worse. I knew girls in my little shithole town who wanted to be alive long enough to get married and have children; anything reaching beyond that scope was gravy. Admittedly, there is nothing wrong with wanting to be a mom, and a wife, but the horizon is, you know, limited. Prospects were restricted by our socio-economic environment and an all around general lack of role models. Our parents were working "folk" who feared God and thought living life meant securing a life insurance policy that would cover the incidentals later on when their health had declined or they were dead.

It was a tidy view of the world that began with the grinding and unrelenting weight of an insufficient pay check and ended with payments that came bundled with bone crushing interest. A bleak world it was, interspersed with some moments of joy, but quickly followed by inclement weather and yawning catastrophe. I know I'm painting an exaggerated picture here and I apologize, but it was mostly true. My father, for instance, has maybe a thousand dollars in the bank. He is years away from retiring from a job that is systematically reducing his benefits every moment he breathes and will probably have nothing when he gets to that magic number that Social Security kicks in to bequeath to him a pittance. Did I tell you his job has no retirement plan? Just a 401K that is uncomfortably linked to the vagaries of a mendacious and unpredictable Wall Street. Fun times.

My mother is in worse shape. Enough said, except to say that there will be generational conflict down the road when my less than noble cohorts finally find out that we are going to have to foot the bill for all of those geezers walking in our midst. I'm almost sure there must be a science fiction book out there written about this stuff. If not, then there will probably be one soon. This is one of those seminal moments in history, like when the Romans eventually figured out that they couldn't subjugate everybody or the Persians finally stopped laughing at some dude calling himself Alexander the Great. It happens.

My Becky wanted out. Simply put, she wished for something better than glomming onto someone's warmed over ideal. Children, in-laws, dead-end real estate, that didn't interest her. Bright lights and frequent flyer miles did. Sounded good to me. Our world was an insular one, bordered by fading bigotry and dried up expectations. The United States of America, for all we really knew, was some concept, a hazy civics lesson to give only a passing glance. Washington DC was the capital, right? I'm joking. Most of us could probably name two thirds of the State capitals and might even know who our elected officials were. That wasn't really the point though. What went on out there in the beyond was inconsequential to us mostly because we weren't concerned about any of it. Listen, it is almost like an existential exercise, one where the participant isn't really even participating. If you don't pay attention does it even actually happen? Something like that.

We weren't paying attention. If it fell outside the confines of football and maybe, at times, basketball, then it was extracurricular activity. Sure some of us payed attention when there was a national election or a Hurricane was bearing down on our town, but that was temporary. Otherwise, we let the fossilization takes its course. Eons from now archeologists will dig down and see that we enjoyed our processed food and discarded way too many old refrigerators, not to mention rusting cars, and conclude that we were a sub-strata of the overall civilization, an offshoot, the lost link between the time when mankind entered its stage of culinary self-destruction and wanton disregard for self-preservation. Our brains will be found to have shrunk, receded, until a pronounced regression had set in in a downward devolutionary spiral. The gift of speech will have disappeared, replaced by rapid eye movements from watching too many ridiculous reality shows on TV, a mind so blunted by dull stimuli that other people's banal lives will seem to be enviable. In summation, we will be fat, short homo sapiens with no cerebral output what so ever.

Fuck me, I'm sitting by the family, the quartet of slow suicide victims who were in front of me in line; death by greasy food. The little kid, the little brother, is blowing into his straw, making that bubbling sound that amuses all annoying kids, while the other brother is sucking ketchup right out of the plastic packet. The kids at the next table are throwing food at each other. Modern parents don't know how to discipline their kids. Years of the legal system brainwashing them into not abusing their offspring have created a generation of little entitled monsters, who all instinctual know they are above the law or outside the law or something. You can see it in their beady little eyes. The mother is offering a lame ultimatum, something about not being able to use their XBox. The two little asswipes are unimpressed by this line of punitive control and continue on. A tiny tub of hot sauce flies by me and lands on the floor. The dad looks at me for a minute then lapses back into his pro forma apathy. I wonder if I can manhandle my memory and walk over to apply some good old fashioned ass whipping. Would that be transforming my memory into fantasy? The etiquette of my memory travel is uncertain at this point; although the good doctor has encouraged us to be bold, creative, and intrepid--quote unquote.

How does one do that when you are under the influence of some untested drug? Good question, of which Dr. Wertheimer didn't really have an answer. We were supposed to be his test pilots. That's right, we were at the controls but we didn't have a clue how to operate the machinery. It wasn't confidence building to know that he was expecting all of us to blaze a path into the unknown. Like astronauts before us, we were going to that final (final) frontier. Space was easy. The brain was where the action was.

Such bravado might have existed with some of us lab rats but not with me. Refer to the part where I am there only for the money. Adventurer I wasn't. Not by any stretch of the imagination. Having scrambled eggs for brains after this experiment was the only thing I was willing to risk. Explorers throughout history had been motivated by glory, among other things, and I didn't share in their ego sucking personality trait. Low-key was my middle name. Now I was expected to turn the dials, tweak this or that, all in order to expand the parameters of the experiment--I don't think so.

There was a rush of wind or at least it felt like that. I knew that sensation. My time was up, like a ride at an amusement park. The squeals of mild terror were receding. Soon I would see the ride attendant come into view as my body readjusted to mother earth's atmosphere. Another mission accomplished.

"Check his vitals," I heard nose ring girl order in that familiar nasal twang of hers.

"BP is normal," a staffer called out.

"The wave line is holding," someone else added.

I blinked a few times and then saw the overhead lights come into view, undulating at first, then slowly stabilizing. Back to the land of cinnamon, I thought, grinning to myself. I could feel the restraints attached to my wrists and ankles and felt the usual nausea ebbing away. It was going to be good to be back to my miserable earthbound life.

"Pulse is still running high," nose ring girl barked out, moving to my side with her omnipresent tablet in hand. "Keep monitoring that, okay?"

Somebody grunted in response then I saw Dr. Wertheimer's face looming over me. He was smiling. I saw his lips moving but couldn't understand what he was saying. He was nodding at me as he slapped the business end of a stethoscope to my chest. He seemed to be mumbling to himself.

"Thirsty," I managed to croak out and was immediately given a cup of Gatorade with a sippy straw. Actually is wasn't Gatorade but it tasted like it to me, it being a concoction devised by the good doctor to ease the electrolytes in my body back to what they should be. Evidently, these sessions were like a workout with a sadistic personal trainer, as they depleted the mineral stores of your system.

"Sip it slowly," a staffer stated in a paternal voice, squeezing my arm lightly for reassurance purposes, I guess.

"After you have been cleared I need to talk to you," the good doctor says to me, disappearing out a side door.

Immediately I'm thinking I did something wrong and my payout is going to be docked. I can imagine him telling me that I am a horrible test pilot, too timid, so we are going to have to half your payout for being a chickenshit. Five thousand dollars still sounds nice but not nearly enough. I will have to tell him I can change, be bold, be...be what ever he wants me to be. I am definitely not above groveling.

"The doctor wants to see you," nose ring girl informs me after the after session checklist has been completed. "I'll take you to him."

Needless to say, this sounds ominous as shit. I'm going to be benched, maybe even cut, if I might use a sports metaphor that I have no right using. I follow behind her down one hallway that gives way to another, all the time wondering how in the hell they don't get lost in this maze of white on white paint. I bet you could get snow blindness if you stayed in here long enough, I think about saying to her, trying to break the building tension, but change my mind when she arrives at a door.

"You would make a great tour guide," I quip and she grimaces openly, as if I might have kicked her in the shins or something.

She then grabs my wrist and starts taking my pulse. It is the first time she has ever touched me. Her fingers are cold, cold as her personality which seems befitting. She checks her digital watch, counting off the heartbeats. My legs feel wobbly but I remember that it was the same thing last time around and think nothing of it. In fact, last time it took me all day to fully recover; not that I included that in my lab journal for fear of being singled out as unfit for duty. Nose ring girl drops my wrist and taps on her tablet, then stares at the screen for a minute. I glance over her shoulder and see that she is looking at a whole battery of results, all graphed out in squiggly lines and numbers. I realize that her entire life revolves around computerized diagrams and almost feel sorry for her.

"You are good to go," she mutters, opening the door and stepping back. I give her a quick salute and she about faces to walk away.

"77-HJ," Dr. Wertheimer calls out, "have a seat."

Is this the inner sanctum, I wonder, stealing quick glances around the office, afraid to be caught trespassing? There was a desk, non-descript from any office supply store, two chairs, cheap, bare walls except for a dry erase board covered in incomprehensible scribbling, and a TV monitor. From this perch he could tune into whatever was going on in the facility by bringing up an image on the monitor. It wasn't exactly mission control but it was wired for action. The good doctor was clacking away on his lap top, pausing, then clacking away again as more inspiration hit him. So I imagined anyway.

"Spartan, I like that," I offered, smirking, as I sat down. "No clutter to--"

"Do the twelve-twelve," he ordered into one of those creepy blue tooth things and I realized that he wasn't even paying attention to me. He signed off his phone call gruffly then said to me: "Feeling okay?"

Dr. Wertheimer, if not anything else, got to the point fairly rapidly. The man was a modern day robber baron so he knew how to make the earth shake. I read that line in a magazine after I found out who was running the study so I can't take credit for it. I knew he could make me shake.

"Tired," I replied, deciding to keep my answers short, not unlike being questioned by a hostile prosecutor.

"Perfectly normal," he informed me, gazing at his lap top screen again for a moment. "I think our postprandial approach might have to be altered."

"Post...what?"

He ignored my comment and continued, "This enterprise has a lot to do with texture."

"Texture," I mumbled, now sounding like a parrot trying to improve his vocabulary.

"The brain is elastic, able to take on all kinds of tasks but often it is about changing the calculus," he explained by way of no explanation at all, proving to me and the world at large that he truly was part of the cognoscenti and the rest of us weren't. "In religious terms it is akin to an ecclesiastical...ecclesiastical bonding. We are attempting to delve into another universe and it has a vastly different set of...of tenets. So much so that it would totally boggle any social scientist's mind. I mean, truly, we are going beyond any paradox that has ever existed before. Real new frontier dimensions. Those receptors in the brain hold little deposits of dramas and comedies--that's what memories are. Yet dreams are nothing but a screwed up paradox. Memories are culled then reshaped to create baffling Felliniesque absurdities. These sessions weren't vivid dreams you were having. Not even close. They were like some sort of recreation. Understand?"

I didn't of course but nodded yes and said, "Sounds reasonable."

He stared at me for a moment. By the way, that's another thing rich people think they can get away with, staring unabashedly at anybody they want to. Then he fiddled with his lap top again and took a call on his head set, while I sat there trying to figure out what he was trying to say to me. You know when you try not to appear stupid for fear of being thought to be stupid, that was what I was desperately trying to do.

"Look, you will feel, in your mind, an almost imperceptible kinesthetic sensation," he told me, staring again. "Almost like a muscle straining. Don't be alarmed by that. That's normal. I know it is going to feel otherwise but you have to go with it because that is what is going to take you to the next level."

"So there is a next level?" I exclaimed, surprised.

He gave me a look like I was a complete idiot and said, "Yeah." He clacked on his lap top for a moment then stood up and walked over to the grease board for a minute to consult some formulas written there. Turning back to me, he said, "You should be at that plateau at right about this juncture in your sessions. Of course some people fight it too much and it retards their progress." He thought for a moment, poking at the board, mentally tossing around the numbers presumably. "One more session and then we are going to have to reassess your...your position."

This sounded too much like a soft kiss off to me, so I countered, "I'm trying to get with the program." This statement sounded dumb as hell. I then said: "Maybe the memories are too emotional for my mind to give me any leeway to continue or--"

"Emotional," he spat out, shaking his head. "That's what it is all about, 77-HJ. Right. This is the horizon that you should be shooting for. It will open up for you a vast array of options. Don't resist. You are knocking on the door. Next, you have to open that door. Walk in. See that other dimension. This is going to make 3D look like something from the last century. Trust me."

Trust me, there it was again. I didn't trust this guy. Maybe those other fuckers did but not me.

He might have been a rock star out there in the high finance and visionary world yet that didn't impress me all that much. Being other worldly rich didn't translate to being reliable when it came time to tell the truth; quite the opposite most of the time, so says some research I read about just recently in the newspaper, an article that included the word "execrable" to describe some researcher's evaluation of the data surrounding the wealthy.
Part 2

Back to my apartment after the one on one with the god in residence at Somnium. I was shaken by the little mash up, I admit it. The guy scared me and I was certainly intimidated by his pedigree. I'm human. It was decompression time again. I had called in sick for work ahead of time because I knew I would need time alone. My co-workers were understanding since they knew what I was up to in my spare time, you know, being a lab rat to the stars.

Mail check at my apartment building, another reminder that my life was on edge and I was barely hanging on. Although I had pared my life down to the basics, I still had bills to pay. I knew as soon as I opened that mail box and looked inside I could cue the sturm und drang music score again. I was a simple guy, single, yet I still had bills mounting up. There was nothing extravagant about me. My gambling problem was under control for the time being and I didn't really blow money anywhere else. There was no going to the clubs and hanging out. I didn't buy expensive clothes, as more than one person had pointed out, including Toni, who thought I dressed like a "hobo". The food I consumed was marginal, leaning towards incomplete meals with no forays to pricey restaurants. There were no big ticket items sucking up interest on my credit cards. Blame it on the bipolar economy, you know, the one that affords those at the top the rewards of luxury, while the rest of us bushwhack through the weeds created by rampant inequality. Next stop: turning into a full on anarchist.

I couldn't do that. Not me. I was in the advertising business for fuck's sake. I made the wheels keep turning, even if the tires needed to be rotated and balanced. Automotive metaphors, really, from a guy who lets his car go ten thousand miles between oil changes. Truthfully, I wasn't wired to not follow the rules, no matter how inequitable they might be. It was bred into me, my father's baked in cynicism notwithstanding. We in the South liked to play by the rules, even if we made them up along the way. I know, I know, there was that nasty bit of secessionism back in the day but we still were congenitally unable to thumb our noses at standing procedures. We might have been called the Rebels but we were, in reality, just trying to keep the status quo the status quo no matter what. Slavery might have been totally inefficient but it was our way of life. Jim Crow sure was inconvenient, especially for a large segment of the society, but it worked for us. No, I was going to go down with the ship even if it meant drowning in debt. I won't even try to defend that mixed up metaphor.

My living room was dark, like I wanted it. I wasn't hungry, not this time. Cable was still turned off but I didn't need it. Through the window I could see the dying light being extinguished out over the Everglades in a burst of color enhanced by the billowing clouds. I had rented this particular apartment for the simple reason it had a view of the man made lake. Lakeside, at the time it seemed desirable, even romantic. My Cubanita had liked it immediately. I wasn't sold on the increase in rent just to be able to look at some putrid looking water pumped in from the glades. As usual, she got her way and we moved in. For the first few weeks we would sit out on the balcony and have a drink as we soaked up the atmosphere. This is what passed as enjoying nature by us, admittedly a pathetic attempt at being outdoorsy. It was the closest we were ever going to get to nature because she absolutely hated anything to do with all things outside of the house. Bugs, sweat, dirt, they were all included on the list of undesirables. You can put cooking and cleaning on that list too, by the way. Her world revolved around air conditioning so this, as can be expected, ruled out even going to the beach. Hello, we were living in Florida.

Now I was saddled with an overpriced apartment, with a view of some crappy glorified pond, a body of water that now had refuse sprouting up among the run away vegetation, to include abandoned shopping carts, car tires, a dead cat, and a rusting BMX bicycle. I was waiting to spy my first dead body floating by. At first, when I was charged up about our first place together, I had even entertained the thought of buying a telescope so I could play astronomer and discover new galaxies. That dream died after the first few nights spent on the balcony sucking down beers and playing patty cake with all the mosquitoes that were doing dive bomb runs on any exposed skin. If that wasn't bad enough we had no-see-ums competing for our blood too. Everyone knew that Florida, and particularly the Everglades, was an entomologist's wet dream come true. The River of Grass was an incubator for every blood sucking insect on the charts.

We soon retreated to the safety of our living room and only looked out the balcony sliding doors to admire the scenery, such as it was. I'm not going to even mention the smells, an odor you might associate with decaying flesh. Man was not meant to inhabit an area any where near the glades. That was an absolute that should have never been breached. Full disclosure, I had worked on an ad campaign that was designed to encourage people to move further and further westward, taking human habitation right up to the swamp's edge. Selling someone on the virtues of living knee deep in muck was a heavy lift.

The all encompassing blackness would soon arrive as the dying sun slipped over the horizon. It would be solid dark out there in Florida's wilderness, home to hungry alligators, panthers, bears, and now, thanks to some stupid-ass snake owners, (who had released their pets into the glades after they became too difficult to handle), block long pythons. It was a watery predatorscape equal to none. Now I'm boasting about the questionable attributes of the Everglades. That study was crippling my powers of reason.

My mind had been trying to avoid thinking about my sessions at Somnium, an attempt by some sort of built in mental defense mechanism to protect me from harsh realities that might brush up against my sanity. What I am doing is truly insane, I told myself, as I sat on my second hand couch, (La Cubanita had taken the good one), and wondered about the content of my memories. They were vivid during the sessions but disjointed, like a bad graduate student's class project in film school. The good doctor had assured me they would smooth out over time, assemble into a narrative that followed a structured path. Somehow I doubted that. Dreams, memories, they were made for confusion inducing headaches.

The study had been set up with the intent that each subject would have no contact with any other. You were out there on an island, alone to do combat with yourself. It was structured that way so each individual wouldn't influence the other. For me, I would have liked to have been able to call another lab rat and compare notes, something that might aid us in our quest to not go crazy. PTSD could result from some of the stuff we were involved in. Now that I think of it, Dr. Wertheimer had mentioned PTSD in his orientation and how they might be able to use the drug to treat the disorder by introducing combat veterans to the worst moments of their lives, like retroactively kicking them in the nuts, cerebrally speaking of course. I couldn't imagine anybody wanting to drop in again on a fire fight or bomb blast etc. It sounded pretty nutty to me.

My own personal experience had me baffled. For the most part it was elementary humiliation territory. On the embarrassment scale it didn't even register; although I would be lying if I didn't admit that my High School days as crucible did affect me to some degree. Everybody carries something away from those four years and they do tend to linger around for a good many years afterwards. Then again, I hadn't killed anybody back then, accidentally or otherwise. I'm happy to report no crimes committed in my file. It was, fundamentally, a vanilla life. Maybe that was why I was having no luck with the journeys into my mind, my past.

Note to self, ask the good doctor about that very thing. Puzzle no more. I am one boring dude with nothing to dredge up. Your stupid drug is only going to work on convicts and wounded vets, or maybe mental patients too. Not much of a market for that, bro. I suppose you could milk the VA to pad your profit margin, might even be able to offer an IPO. Don't give up now.

I did want to know where the Becky plotline was taking me though. There wasn't much of an incubus angle working there. At least I didn't think there was. Becky and I had parted ways on amicable terms, with her supposedly going off to Emory, on scholarship thankfully, and me going to UF. We were two potential success stories for our little burg; although she crash landed back in Bethel due to unwarranted love and inconsistent birth control. I can still remember the hometown rag writing about her receiving her full ride to Emory. It was an arcane scholarship nobody ever hears about, buried in the back of one of those books you can buy that tells you what obscure personage offers up some bucks for a disadvantaged High School scholar who meets their strange criterion to attend college. Becky applied and got the prize, while I worked on campus for four years and became an indentured slave for the rest of my life with massive student loans. I owe the government and they own me.

There is no drama here, I was thinking, as I sat in the total darkness, beer in hand. The staff at Somnium had warned me off alcohol for twenty four hours after the session but I felt like cheating on that restriction. At least I wasn't snorting up blow or smoking weed, right? There are levels of compliance. Besides, I was of the opinion that this drug and this study were destined for the dustbin of pharmacology, to never be spoken of again. Dr. Wertheimer may have come up against it this time.

Becky Norris. My mind reached back and sketched out the pretty girl that I knew. Sixteen, going on seventeen, that was like a Greek idealized vision, if I'm not mistaken. That might have been boys but you get the youthful part. Young, with a supple sense of immortality. I think somebody wrote that once, probably Oscar Wilde, the reprobate. A teenage girl, on the cusp of losing her innocence had been my last destination. Jesus, this avenue of mental pursuit could have been simply a matter of me being horny. A biological imprint may have been over reacting. Possible. I was a guy in my mid-twenties, living alone, after a breakup, who needed carnal sustenance. Talk about a cliche, really.

Let's see, I had visited with my relatives at Thanksgiving, relived a brawl in my High School hallway, and got a boner over some girl I used to date. If there was a pattern forming I couldn't fathom what in the hell it was. Unless it was the time I almost flunked my driver test at the DMV. Oh no, not the time I farted in my history class when I was giving an oral presentation. That was crippling emotionally.

The good doctor had spoken with me about guiding the session, using my brain waves to go beyond being just an "interlocutor," his words not mine because I can't even pronounce it. I had to be more proactive. To hear him tell it sounded like some annoying infomercial, where I was supposed to be the dickhead trying to persuade whoever was watching to whip out their credit card and call the number on the bottom of the screen. He wanted me to be the grand master in other words, I guess. I was the creator of my own video game and had the keys to all the levels. Rack up a bigger and bigger score, something nobody else can compete with. He did say things like that and I'm not paraphrasing too much. The man was a first class huckster. Don't tell my friends that because they think he not only walks on water but he invented it too.

I had lost my cable after being behind on the bills but I still had my back up plan when it came to accessing the outside world. My neighbor had an unsecured Internet portal, thank god. She was clueless when it came to the IT world and let her DSL wide open. On and off for the last few weeks I had been poaching off her wifi, sneaking on and off the network to surf the Internet. I knew it was stealing, and pretty unneighborly, but I was at a disadvantage. You can't really live in the modern world and not be able to get on line. Not possible. It was like trying to exist without electricity.

Besides, and yes I am rationalizing here, I wasn't doing any harm. It wasn't as if I was hogging all her bandwidth or anything. I wasn't downloading porn. I wasn't trolling for the next hacker's banquet. Without a doubt I wasn't tech savvy enough to be devising any Trojan horses or worms, even benign spyware. I just wanted to connect with a few sites to check into Dr. W. For some reason, apathy I guess, I hadn't thoroughly vetted the guy before I signed on to the study. Laziness mostly prevented me from doing the necessary background work but it was also the nagging sense that I didn't have much of a choice anyway so why bother. I didn't really want to find out any info that might thwart, in my mind, what I had to do. Ignorance really can be therapeutic, believe me. I know because I rely on it more than I like to admit to myself.

I had googled him before and, apparently, who hadn't because he was right up there with some of those brainless celebs, the ones who bring home giant pay checks for doing ridiculously unimportant work. In the carousal of society they should be below even ad guys. They are America's version of royalty so they command lots of space in the media. There was page after page with entries about the good doctor, from his charitable deeds all the way to obscure data points dedicated to how much of an A-hole he was. Notoriety came with being famous and, evidently, infamous. I wanted more, something that delved into the underpinnings of his personal philosophy.

At my work, we always had a consistent method when it came to satisfying a new client. Background was vital and Sarah was superb at compiling it. Lazar and I always told her that she should be a PI for the way she dug deep and revealed just about everything about the subject. I had to marvel at the way she could work the Internet to her advantage. Taking a cue from her, I pulled back the layers of information and found a book written by a woman who had known the good doctor since he was just an undergraduate trying to figure out what the world had in store for him--and us, as it turned out. I quickly downloaded it from the local library to my ereader.

She was his age, maybe a year or two older, and wise to the way the world of the powerful functioned. The name of the book was: Virulently Venal. As you can see, she liked to get to the point immediately. It seems she worked on Wall Street doing various work loads, before she moved on to a Hedge Fund and then an International Bank, and slummed it for a while in some Government entity too. She was well versed in the financial end of things and had seen it all. During the debacle back in 2008 she had been on deck when the ship started listing badly and sank. That part of her book was interesting, especially since she named names and didn't try to absolve her own personal involvement in the financial fiasco. Like the rest of the cast of thieves, she walked away mostly unscathed, with her pockets full of loot.

Those chapters I breezed through. The story had been told. All of the rest of us had gotten "reemed." The biggest crime of the past few centuries, if not in history, and nobody's doing a perp walk. Please, tell me the game isn't rigged. Throughout all of this calamity, as lives were being systematically ruined, a feeble light was being shed on the new breed of wealthy. You know who they are. They are the ones out there creating wealth for themselves in epic proportions. Surprise, surprise, Dr. Wertheimer was one of them. Oh, okay, he had made his bundle devising some products that actually helped mankind; unlike many of the wolves on the Street who were only fabricating methods to make more money with the least amount of input, sort of like some reverse form of labor.

The writer said the jury was out on whether or not the good doctor was as greedy or as socially worthless as the rest of the crooks. I wasn't so sure. It was obvious by her writing that she still harbored some fondness for him because they had been friends back in those formative years in college. I didn't have that connection to him. Far from it. There did seem to be a tripwire guys like him tripped that made them trigger an insatiable need for more and more money. As an outsider it seemed almost pathological. I mean doesn't there come a time when you look out over your vast array of riches and think: I've got enough? We should all experience that scenario.

All of this info was vital but it was some of the quotes she included in the chapter about Dr. W that struck a nerve. "Emotional pain and elemental fear are working in tandem," she quoted him as saying to her during one of their frequent brain storming sessions. I could picture him saying that, as he gave me that little squint of his, pursing his lips, while his big brain whirled away. Her book was turning out to be a treasure trove of material that gave me insight into his mindset. As an ad stooge, I had to instinctually know what made people do the things they did. We were amateur psychologists using that discipline to mind bend a little bit. For me, the salient formula went something like: e-pain/fear = events/in life.

Odious, rapacious, her words for the one percent, were accurate, as far as I was concerned. That she was also applying them to the good doctor was kind of a shock. After being around him for less than five minutes I got this puppet master vibe. He was pulling the strings and we were all dancing. Judging by what I saw at the orientation most of the puppets didn't mind being yanked around. I did. Not that I was one to stand up and, you know, make a stand. I seethed inside, chafing at the idea that I was being openly manipulated. Most of us get used to it though. It is embedded in our daily lives. We wake up each day and serve other people in one way or another, from that suspect breakfast we eat in the morning to the time we fall asleep watching TV at night. We are bombarded by products that influence our lives and they are all manufactured by companies where somebody is getting that giant pay out.

The rich are telling us what they want us to hear and selling it as an individualist's viewpoint. That's a nice trick. Let's face it, we are all being sold something, that's the corporate way. Believe me, I know. Your browser history will dictate what Google wants you to learn about any given subject matter. Pin point delivery, that was how a friend of mine described it to me, like it was a good thing. What generally resulted was a guy in Ohio might get a different result from somebody in Utah. It's about filters, of every description, but they all share the common function of parsing your personal data and making it marketable. We are all a commodity, a piece of data to be sold and resold. Too bad Marx didn't live in another century or he could have written about that too.

I guess it all gets back to the fact that we have a symbiotic relationship with the ubur rich, so the author of the book was trying to get at. To which I say: Yeah, they own us. As an example, let me go back to Google, the leviathan of the internet world. I grant you that it is a corporation, publicly traded, but is still providing a few dudes with some mountains of cash. When you do a search they foist on you the results from their proprietary algorithm that tells you what they think you need to know. Kind of like paternalism gone wild. It has all been personalized for your benefit by where and what you've done on the Internet. If you are getting that Big Brother creepy feeling right about now, you should. You are only an individual in the narrow sense of the word. You are more like an entry, with bytes that reveal everything about you, all the better to sell you something.

Maybe Ayn Rand had it all right after all. Salesmen are the real heroes. Companies sell to us, we sell ourselves, even clergyman sell a higher power so we can all purchase a ticket to heaven. Dr. Wertheimer was selling another dimension, a tiny world in which you could simultaneously be yourself and someone new, like a film within a film. It was the reality genre on steroids, where you could participate in the script writing yourself.

The good doctor's post session pep talk had urged me to "curve the recollection," and bend it to my advantage. Easier thought than accomplished. "Portents are your enemy," he had told me, pointing back at the grease board, like I knew what all those equations meant. I had to diminish their power. Now I knew why Dr. W spoke of the best study participant as being a great "adaptionist." At the time, smiling to myself, I had thought the man was superb at coining new words, a most excellent neologist.

None of this mattered. Rich. Poor. Exploitation. They were all words that didn't register all that much when you have no choice. I remember Blooper saying to me in one of his more lucid moments: "Life is not about the choices you make as much as its about how many you have to make." I remember just standing there and gawking at him. Our relationship didn't usually include philo 101 proclamations. I had smiled back at him and he had just shrugged, pleased by his summation of existential pitfalls we all have to negotiate. As one final note on the subject, the rich, obviously, have a menu of choices they can make. The rest of us, not so much.

Speaking of rich, and the not so rich, I was weak. We had been having a particularly difficult few days at work. A client, some dickhead who owned a local business, kept changing his mind about one of our projects. He was in his early thirties and owned a few car places in Fort Lauderdale. He had been with us for a few years and had always been satisfied with our work, but now that he had a new wife, with an attitude apparently, he wasn't on board with what we were offering up. Sarah had locked horns with the wife two or three times and came away fuming about the encounters. The wife was some twenty-something from up north somewhere and had, evidently, taken it as her life's mission to run her husband's life.

Although she knew nothing of the car business, or advertising, she wanted to stick her nose into the process. We did have a process, as hard as that might be to believe. We might have been a small market shop but we did adhere to some kind of organization, even if, for the most part, it was free form most of the time. Our boss gave us a lot of freedom to "work your magic." He did this for two basic reasons: one, he didn't have a creative bone in his body and deferred to us, and two, he didn't give a shit the majority of the time. Unlike a lot of the ad jockeys out there, he had fallen ass backwards into the job after he inherited the shop from his brother, who had died from cancer prematurely. The three of us made the place go.

Anyway, the week had been stressful for me because I was coming off the study session hassle, and knew I had another one coming up, and the ad campaign wasn't going very well. Car commercials, as you already know, are annoying. They are so annoying that most people would rather swallow oven cleaner than listen to or see one. This particular spot was supposed to be on TV and it had been slotted to star the owner of the dealership. I know, we were reaching. Having an owner appear in ads was old school but statistics showed that it did indeed produce results. The trouble was you had to have an owner who was either, at first blush, likeable or he or she had to be willing to make a fool of them self to create some buzz about said craziness. Again, this had proven to be successful over and over.

The owner of this dealership was neither. That is, he had no charisma and wasn't willing to appear in a chicken suit or whatever and jump around spouting out ridiculous copy. We were stymied. No matter how much Sarah tried to cajole him into doing the bit he wasn't going for it. I couldn't blame him really. I wouldn't run around some car lot screaming about this or that to sell some cars either. This is where the new wife stepped in. She wanted to do the spot, in a bikini. We had been informed of this special development by phone. Sarah took the call and Lazar and me were treated to her rolling her eyes and making faces as the wife sprung this new wrinkle on us. The wife wanted fresh copy for her to recite to the camera, while she pranced around the car lot in heels and a handkerchief sized bathing suit that they would even be embarrassed to wear down on South Beach.

"Is she nuts?" Lazar wanted to know, laughing.

"Did you run it by the boss?" I asked Sarah, who was busy dabbing at her eyes from the rib straining laughter.

"Do we have to?" she exclaimed, in between gasps, as she tried to catch her breath. "Listen, why don't we just set it up and watch what happens. Yeah, we can film it on a weekend when it's real busy. It should bring in a lot of foot traffic."

"She's got a nice body, you know," Lazar stated, scratching his chin, lost in thought. "It might work out."

I had looked at him, suppressed a chuckle, then said, "Are we talking thong here?"

"Yes, heavens yes," Sarah declared, squelching another laugh. "She can start inside the building then strut out while she's delivering her lines. Okay, that's good. Then she can stop at one of the cars and sprawl out onto the hood and say...say: 'If you buy this car I will take off my top.'"

"No, no," Lazar interrupted, quoting in a girlish voice: "Buy this car today and I will give you a hand job in the backseat."

"Handjob," I broke in, "that's not going to get it done."

"How about blow job?" Sarah chimed in.

"No...no, I got it," Lazar said. "She can say: If you buy today I'll go home with you."

"Please," Sarah said with mock disdain. "She should--"

"Wait, it's more subtle that way. I mean you have her in her slutty bikini, in heels, so you get the smell of promise and--"

"Smell of something," I muttered.

Lazar pointed at me and laughed then continued, "Then you get pay off with the prospect of future sexual relations."

"Sexual relations," Sarah stated, "is that what you guys are calling it now?"

"I got it," I announced, getting into the spirit, "how about a big sign, real big, that says: Buy today, fuck today."

The two of them laughed, then Sarah said, "Can't confuse the semantics. Fuck is a loaded word, remember? It can mean intercourse or you are getting fucked. Don't want to harm the product, right?" We laughed. "No, gotta stay away from that. Better to have the missus offer the allure of hooking up."

"Whatta you bet she has some nasty tatts?" Lazar offered, snickering. "We should set up a pool. Yeah, place bets on where they are on her body and what they are. I'm saying there has to be a flower somewhere."

"You think," Sarah spat out, shaking her head. "I'm going to go with a Chinese symbol...on her ankle, no butt cheek."

"Okay, and she thinks it says something like...like World Peace but it actually says...you know, moo shu or egg roll."

"No way," Lazar exclaimed, clapping his hands together. "She's too classy for that. No, she's got to have an abstract tatt, something that is ambiguous but cool."

"Like what?" Sarah asked, making a face. "She looks like a gold digging Ho to me." We all laughed. "She found somebody to lay the golden egg for her. I'm gonna say she has some kind of webbing on her body, spider webbing, with a spider too. Hey, maybe it's around her V-j-jay."

This banter was soothing for us, therapeutic in that way plenty of office workers resort to in order to ward off the absurdity of their jobs. It was unproductive but it got us to the next stage, which was finishing the copy. The wife did do the spot in her bikini and the sales numbers did rise. Everybody was happy. The ad world is like that. You have touchstones that juice people, like awe, anxiety, anger, the three a's. Add to that happiness, maybe. These emotions help you steer their reactions. Guess what tops them all. That would be sex, of course. Skank in a bikini lights up the neurons.

I knew what I was about at work. The three of us weren't there to fashion a new reality for the public, but rather we wanted to use synonyms to influence the demand side to drive the supply side. We were the true job creators, or so said Lazar, beaming with a sly smile. It was true, in its way. If you were able to manage perception then you could dictate what the client wanted. Want to buy this or that? We can lead you in the right direction; and that is down the path to purchasing our benefactor's products. You buy, we get paid. Consumption is the backbone of every civilization.

"Monetize the content," as Sarah like to say, her being the only one of our group who actually had any advertising training. We didn't know what it meant, Lazar and I, but it sounded good to say. "Every thing is malleable," was another highbrow thing she liked to spout out, always with a grin. It was all about bolstering our bundle of irrationalities. We humans are easily conned, persuaded to do just about anything, e.g. witness all those idiots who sign on to selling products that are based on a pyramid model. I'm talking about you Amway. That right there shows all of our pathetic human proclivities in a nutshell.

Although I often felt drained after another day of soul stealing work of advertising sorcery, one day I was feeling more depleted than usual. Yes, the car dealership ads had come off okay and we had made another customer ecstatic about making money, but it didn't help your sense of self worth all that much. Being disillusioned came with breathing in the matrix of the modern world. My parent's generation had rebelled against it, the general all around feeling of displacement. The much maligned hippie movement, I think, was trying to make sense of the house of mirrors their parents had designed and handed over to them. Something like that.

After a day at the office, where Lazar and I had sat at our desks for hours trading ideas about a new ad campaign about the virtues of one type of pest control over another, it felt like the spark of life itself had been sucked out of me. Even Lazar, who was usually upbeat almost every day, seemed drained by another day of "anti-creation," as he liked to put it, because we weren't actually being destructive, not in the classic sense of the word. He had told me he was heading home to get drunk, to which I seconded the motion. As I headed home I found myself gravitating towards George's condo near the beach. I don't know why. I just felt that I needed to talk to somebody and he had been my closest friend of the quartet from the dog track.

I pulled into the parking lot of his place tucked away on a side street of a small town that the rest of South Florida seemed to forget about. The only noteworthy thing about the city was it being home to IGFA, the Fishing Hall of Fame and Museum. If that doesn't put you on the map nothing will. Oh, another strange historical item was the fact that it was founded by a bunch of Danes. How Danish people ended up in Florida I couldn't imagine. It also had a Jai-Alai fronton.

I knew nothing about the game of Jai-Alai. It was yet another avenue to lose your money at in South Florida. The whole area seemed to be set up to enable one type of gambling or another to tempt you. Horses, dogs, cards, slots, NBA, NFL, Major League baseball, NHL, and some Hispanic guys wearing goofy helmets and padded vests tossing a pelota around at 100 miles an hour. This was the very definition of true madness.

My gambling wasn't universal. That is to say I didn't derive pleasure out of the elemental act of placing bets on anything. I was "discerning" in my specific affliction, as Sarah liked to say. As in: "So, you think the client is going to be discerning about this?" This was usually said with about as snarky a voice as she could muster. As if to say that nobody thinks about these things. I had no insight into my newfound failing. None. Gambling was a sickness, so said plenty of psychologists, but then again they would because it only fortifies their profession's hold on the rest of us. The more psychological problems you can outline and give a name to the better your bank statements are going to look. Right?

There have been studies that show gambling has a neurological component to it. The brain does light up when you place that bet, on whatever venue, and hopefully get that reward. Actually, some data shows that just making bets redlines the cerebral cortex in some way. It is almost like seeing porn, as if gamblers couldn't get any more disgusting.

I was reformed, though. No stray thoughts of barking dogs whipping around the track had even entered my consciousness. I had banished all that from my mind, like it never even happened. I hadn't hung out with that geriatric quartet. Are you kidding me? I am in my twenties. Young. Vibrant. Newly single. My life stretched out before me, some fifty years or so, if I keep the caloric intake under control and stay out of the sun. What would I be doing with a bunch of old farts anyway?

The door bell didn't work. I pushed it again. Nothing. It seemed to be stuck, so I knocked on the door. Inside, I could hear a dog yapping away, a little one, with territorial issues. The dog's barking drew closer to the other side of the door and I could hear tiny nails scratching on the wood. That's going to leave a nasty mark on the paint, I thought. Then the door opened and George was smiling at me.

"I rang the bell but it didn't work," I told him, pointing to the buzzer on the wall.

"Salt air and humidity have taken their toll," he informed me, pushing the buzzer a few times. "It's all corroded. Drawback of living near the beach."

"Yeah," I agreed, now feeling awkward, especially since the dog was now chewing on my shoe and snarling.

"Jasmine!" he shouted out, bending over to retrieve the little mutt. "Got her at the animal shelter," he explained, holding the little monster up for me to admire. "I was actually going to get one of those greyhound rescues but they are just too big...expensive to feed."

"Yeah," I said, laughing, "I just thought I'd drop in on you to see what's going on. I should have called but I was passing by and--"

"No problem," he chortled, motioning for me to follow him inside. "I was wondering what you were up to."

I stepped inside and felt the oppressive wave of humid heat hit me full in the face. Like many of the older people in Florida, George kept his AC set impossibly high, like he was going to be raising bananas in his living room. It was environmentally responsible, you know, but physiologically crushing, forcing the body to endure sweat drenched sheets at night and arm pit staining during the day. Little Jasmine's tongue was hanging out from all the exertion of defending her turf. She sat on George's lap glaring at me.

The decor in George's condo was delightfully minimalist, with only some bits of furniture to function. It wasn't going to win him any awards but at least he was going against the grain and not filling every square foot of space in a room like so many other elderly. The furniture was wonderfully mismatched, giving the place the look of a mad scientist being put in charge of a Crate and Barrel show room. I sat down on a curving single chair with a plastic covering. It was a good thing I was wearing long pants because my legs would have stuck fast to the upholstery from the oppressive heat, which was making it difficult to even breathe. Over head a ceiling fan was puttering along, wobbling, trying to beat back the dense air. We were on the top floor at least and I could just make out the ocean in the distance, glimmering in the rising heat.

"Seen the others lately?" I wanted to know, wiping some gathering sweat off my forehead.

"I saw Slim Jim yesterday," he answered, rubbing Jasmine's neck, who glanced up at him and then back at me, on guard for any attack from this stranger in her midst. "Want something to drink? I have some beer, I think."

Beer sounded like liquid nirvana at that moment, something to ward off my demise as I melted into the area rug at my feet, one of those faux oriental rugs they sell at even Home Depot. I could just make out a stain where, I imagine, the little bitch had left a deposit. "Yeah, that sounds great!" I said a little too eagerly.

"I only have domestic," he said in an exaggerated accent, smiling at me.

"No problem," I told him, silently begging him to hurry up before I expire.

He carried the little monster with him into the kitchen and I could hear him opening and closing the fridge. Then he was pulling out beer mugs. I thought of telling him I would drink it out of the bottle, probably pour half of it over my head but he was back with a frosted mug full of beer. Such a host.

He handed me the mug of beer and clinked it lightly with his and said, "A toast." He didn't say anything more and sat back down, repositioning the dog in his lap. Now I know why they call them lap dogs, I thought. We were silent for a moment. I had been to his condo once before, briefly. We had stopped by on our way to the track. He hadn't really invited me in so I stood just inside the front door, staring at a framed poster of some Opera or Broadway play. It looked old, weathered. Probably got it at a yard sale, I told myself. The only other picture on the wall was of a seascape. He had told me proudly that it had been painted by some traveling painters called the Highwaymen, black guys, who had a following. The painting was supposed to be valuable, in time.

Art, I wasn't much of a fan. I didn't have anything hanging on my walls, unless you count the cheap calendar I tacked up by the kitchen. It came in the mail from my insurance agent and had stupid cartoons for each month, that and the company's logo emblazoned all over it so I wouldn't forget how generous they had been to give me a calendar gratis. My Cubanita had made me hang some photos but she had taken all of them with her when she fled. It didn't matter anyway because most of them were black and white photos of Cuba. They were given to her by her mother and depicted life in Cuba before they ran away from Castro. I suppose they were supposed to represent some of her family history. I thought they were depressing.

George was a strange creature all around. In good shape for his age, he kept fit by walking on the broadwalk every day at the beach. Everyday, without fail, so he told me at least a dozen times. It came off as a boast but with George it didn't sound obnoxious because he was the type of guy that you couldn't dislike. That was probably why he was so good at his job manning the front desk at the hotel. Dealing with the public came naturally to him.

Of the quartet, he was the only one who had gone to college, graduating with a degree in history, or maybe it was sociology. Didn't matter, so he told me, since he ended up working in the hospitality biz anyway. He had made a career of kissing irate people's asses for decades. That takes a special personality. You have to be able to sublimate all that built up rage at having to deal with dickheads who think they deserve to be treated like royalty. I don't know how they do it, personally, because I know I wouldn't be able to . No way. George had actually graduated from Amherst or one of those other fancy colleges with a small campus and a big pedigree. I think his family had all been intellectuals or whatever passes as one in America.

He had never been married. I suppose he could have been gay but he didn't display any overt sign of being on that side of the ledger. He never came on to me and there weren't any statues of naked boys in his foyer or man on man flagrante delicto action photos. I'm joking. I'm from that generation that just shrugs when you mention your sexual inclination. Boy-boy, girl-girl, something in between, biology evolves. Our latitudinarian attitudes don't necessarily come from our parents but mostly from movies and TV shows, venues that some time ago added sexual orientation to the menu so they could expand their plotlines. Besides, it was your working order of verite, right? Gays aren't going anywhere and have been here since civilization took off. Kind of like holding back a flood with your hands.

Not that George couldn't uncork some pithy statements to show his educational bona fides, like: South Florida, as with the Central and Gulf Coast areas, has become an agglomeration of people, thousands and thousands wedged together in a death grip, each one deriving sustenance from the next. Satellite dishes sprout, (his personal pet peeve), and eateries bloom, all in advance of more and more commerce, the underpinnings of all modern society. I am able to write that verbatim since he said it while I was adding a message to my smart phone and his mini-harangue was picked up by my microphone. He was telling me this at the track one day after he had experienced an exhausting six or seven hours dealing with some pesky regulations his condo board had handed down. The usually unflappable George was livid and wanted to challenge the association president to a duel. Actually, I think he said he was going to invite him downstairs, by the pool, so he could punch him in the face. It might have been fun to see two old farts, mano a mano, trading blows. Ultimate Fighting, senior citizen style. Tune in, HBO, right after the early bird dinner.

"Now that you are here, you know what we should do?" he asked, directing his question at his stupid, little dog. "We should slip on over to the fronton. Yeah, see what's going on with the Basques."

I knew he was talking about Jai Alai, something I knew nothing much about, except that it was played by some foreigners and was more art form than sport. It was an acquired taste. You bet on a game, a game played with a concrete hard pelota that the players whipped along at incredible speeds. Think handball for the truly insane. I couldn't imagine where anybody got the idea. Then again, weren't all sports preoccupied with some kind of ball? You kicked it. Tossed it. Hurled it. Whacked at it. Smacked it. Swung at it. Bounced it. Some were inflated. Others weren't. Aerodynamics almost always played a role. As I said before, me and sports weren't all that familiar. I was one of those guys who hung back during PE, hoping that the world would tilt on its axis and I would be allowed out of participating in whatever death defying sport the teacher had in mind for the day.

I will also go on record saying that calling events you bet on, legally, as sanctioned by the State, sports was silly, stupid even. Sure those little jockeys did a masterful job atop panting beasts going over forty miles per hour but calling what they did an athletic endeavor was a stretch. They were more like stewards than athletes. Same goes for Jai Alai players. They were guys with a specific skill that suckers placed bets on. To be fair, golfers, football players, (Europe and US version), basketball players, et. al, were only highly paid actors in a fast moving drama. There were people out there betting on them too, only it wasn't legal in most locales. I guess what I'm saying is that sports in general are a ludicrous display of physical ability that, inexplicably, the public values. You know, Henry the VIII was a good tennis player, for what that's worth.

"I...I have been on my best behavior," I told him, trying to sound resolute, in control.

George stared at me for a moment, as he stroked his dog's neck, then said, "I don't see any harm in taking a little peek."

Of course I knew what that meant. It was code for denying what you knew you were doing. Every gambler has told himself that at one time or another in their sordid gambling career. The mind has to be massaged, or, you know, manipulated in order for it to keep on functioning. Freud, or somebody, called it a defense mechanism and none of us could get by without utilizing that little feature. I recognized what I was doing. Knew full well that the little bit of cash in my wallet was going to be sucked dry as I bet on swarthy men dancing around a massive three sided court. I only hoped that I wouldn't succumb to my urges and hit the ATM.

Being with George, as we made our way to the fronton, driving in his car--at his insistence--a block long Cadillac in pristine condition, I had to laugh at myself. I didn't know if it was unusual for a person to realize that they are peculiar. Plenty of people throughout my life had told me as much but when it registers with yourself then it tends to add another level of peculiarity. Hanging with old people, George in particular, framed me in a way which left little room for misunderstanding. I had once, or twice, mentioned to my co-workers that I spent time with the quartet and got the expected looks, you know, that told me I was strange.

Speaking of strange, you should have seen what George was wearing. Like plenty of oldsters, he had been forced to buy clothes off the rack that, due to the fashion industry's preoccupation with youth, catered to the latest trends. In this case it was the hip-hop venue that had morphed into a bleached out white people's world. He had on ghetto shorts that reached down below his knees and looked like he had shrunk inside them they were so baggy. Complementing the look was a pair of black dress socks and cheap leather loafers. Up top he was wearing a pastel blue ban-lon shirt with a faded logo of some previous hotel he had worked at in years gone by. That he looked slightly ridiculous didn't seem to register with him at all. Old age had few advantages but, for men, it meant you no longer had to try in public. As your moments on earth dwindled, an inverse relationship began with your appearance. Grains of sand in the hour glass counted down your life, while you adopted a "fuck it" attitude. It was the only justice you could embrace.

Hanging with George translated, to me, as: None of that mattered. Not anymore. I was my own man, a guy who found different avenues to walk down. That sounded like some fucked up copy I would write, something Sarah would roll her eyes at and Lazar try to translate into another Romance language. With George, he had that out of the norm (to me) demeanor that seems to say to the world: I got all day. I don't mean in a nasty, sarcastic tone either but in a pleasant sing-song one, by a person content with what's in store for them.

"Pretty pensive today," George called out, almost shouting over the vintage rock and roll blasting out of his radio tuned to some dying radio station that, remarkably, I had landed an ad account with from a cold call. We three were expected to not only write the slop that passed as advertising but to land accounts too. Try calling around and telling a small business that you could increase their bottom line if only they would buy some air time and let me speak to the consumers out there. It was unnerving and I absolutely detested it. He sang along with the lyrics for a minute then said, "This baby glides along like a magic carpet ride."

People who were proud of their cars made me anxious, as if they were so emotionally invested in a hunk of metal and plastic it ruled their lives. I smiled back at him and ignored his question, then said, "I've never even been to see Jai Alai before."

He shot me a look and said, "You are going to love it. Trust me, kid. Some of these guys are phenomenal athletes. You'll see."

I immediately doubted that. Guys jacking a ball out of a basket hooked to their arms seemed more ludicrous than even lacrosse. It had taken me many (many) years to make peace with the idea of football, basketball, and baseball, the big three. I couldn't see me suddenly embracing some twilight sport played by tenement immigrants from a country nobody ever heard of. That would take some doing. Not that these guys didn't have their fans. They did. Of course, most of them were losers who placed bets on which way a pelota would bounce.

"Are the rules difficult to follow?" I asked just because I felt like I had to keep the conversation going.

"Nah," he shot back, waving my question away with his hand, as he punched his horn several times and yelled out the window at one of his neighbors, giving the man a quick salute. "Former Marine," he explained, adding, "wounded, twice." I raised my eyebrows and looked back at the guy walking along the sidewalk. He seemed to be wobbling a little bit and I thought about suggesting we offer him a ride. George picked up on my thoughts and declared: "Likes to walk. Always refuses when I offer him a lift. Great guy."

"Really," I mumbled, turning back around.

"Still writing that crapola?" he suddenly asked me, eyeing me for a second before looking back at the road.

"Yeah," I muttered, managing to compact as much defensiveness in one word as I could. We had had this conversation before, with George being more judgmental than usual. It reminded me of my last blow up with the Cubanita. It had been our usual verbal dance around the obvious, which was the dissolution of our short lived marriage. The battle lines had been well drawn already. The last few months of our living together had been like some kind of trench warfare, with each side conquering territory to only lose it the next day. On her way out the door she had told me that all I did in life was produce more consumerism. As slams went, it was pretty lame. Okay, I worked in advertising, what else you got? Besides, this took some monumental gall coming from a woman who owned no less than two dozen pairs of shoes, with accessories to match. In fact, the full line of her attire had relegated me to using a hall closet since there was no more room left in the master one.

"Why don't you write a book?" he wanted to know and this was a new tack from him. Before, the criticism, while not exactly withering, had been to the point. I didn't know what to say so he said: "You would probably make a good author."

Prescient indeed, as I think now, not that the I have lived up to his estimation. I also didn't file away his comment for later digestion, to only dredge it up for inspiration. The book you are reading now came into being after some other events in my life precipitated some kind of a response, not unlike a literary passive/aggressive reflex.

We pulled up to the fronton, right to the valet parking. This was out of character for George. The quartet never sprung for any extras, always shaving off costs whenever possible, making more use of their dwindling dollars. Then I realized he knew the valet captain, who worked at the hotel, one of the legions of disadvantaged in the new economy working two jobs to make ends meet. They exchanged friendly hellos and George's car was whisked away, after he told the Captain to be gentle with his ride. We left the boiling heat outside and entered the fronton.

It was yet another gambling venue and although it had a different waging trajectory it was still built principally to separate you from your cash. That was the one inviolate rule. You came. You lost. They win. You lose. Very simple arithmetic. Gambling was an absolute all the philosophers could get behind. I can remember a professor back in college telling the story about Schopenhauer, the dour, little turd from Germany. Apparently, as legend goes, the big brained dickhead would eat at the same restaurant everyday and place a silent wager. He would lay a Deutsche Mark on the table and bet that the soldiers, officers, sitting at the next table would sit down and complete their lunch without discussing the attributes of the fairer sex. Their comments were probably X-rated, if they had that sort of thing in 19th century Deutschland. Men being men, Arthur never lost that personal bet. That wasn't a bet. Come on. The little weasel never would have forked over the coin if and when the officers sat down to banter about Copernicus or the cost of weinerschnitzel in Hamburg. Right?

What I am saying is gambling had costs, to the individual and the society at large. At the one meeting I had attended with the Gamblers Anonymous crowd, you know, where the self-righteous leader of the group droned on about how we were all suffering from Impulse-Control Disorder, I heard all about the 12 steps to freedom. You, the miserable miscreant, were going to be finally free of disease. Oh yes, we were suffering from a disease that even the heralded DSM IV says is real. That's right, they had a criterion for the pathology, with things like: preoccupied with gambling, repeated efforts to stop, trying to score that last score to break even, committing illegal acts in order to pay for some more gambling sprees, and making relationships fragment because you have to have that next fix, that next whiff of winning as you beat the spread or make a pick.

My marriage had disintegrated but it wasn't really the gambling that was the catalyst. Most of my gambling came post-breakup. In fact, I maintain that she drove me to a life of plunging my guts out at the dog track. Yes, I only went to the track because of her and how she had mangled my emotions. Making excuses might as well be included on that psychologist's list. Crap, now that I think of it there is a Gam-Anon organization just for the relative's of gamblers. The thought that I might some day impact my family was horrifying. I couldn't imagine being on the phone begging my parents for some bucks to pay off my gambling debts. Beseeching my siblings for aid is just as mortifying.

Gamblers Anonymous was an organization with a noble mission, even if the questionnaire you have to fill out is, you know, weird. Not weird really but...what's the word? Axiomatic. I mean how about this one: 8. After a win did you have a strong urge to return and win more? Yeah! Kind of the point. Number 4: Have you ever felt remorse after gambling? Only when I lose. Question 15 was tailor made for me. Have you ever gambled to escape worry, trouble, boredom or loneliness? Hell, yeah! Did gambling cause you to have difficulty in sleeping? Number 17 had me pegged too.

What did all of this mean, besides the fact that I was seriously fucked up? I don't know except to say that I was a late bloomer. That's not true, either. Gambling happens, and besides the fact that it sounds like an inane bumper sticker, it does. One day you are blissfully unaware that there are people out there in the real world plunking down their money in any number of ways and the next you are elbowing them out of the way to place that next bet on the dog (horse, team, whatever) in a crazed frenzy to follow your next hunch. It is an unreal sensation to be in hyperdrive, with your senses elevated, carrying out the ritual that will only bring you more hardship.

Lecture over, I was following George into the large building. It was dark inside and kind of cozy for such a large place, massive really. Any gambling arena, of whatever stripe, exudes the same quiet malevolence; even though it might be bubbling below the surface. You, the gambler, are tantalized subliminally, as a constant bombardment of pending gratification lingers like radioactive fallout. The hapless victim has entered a realm of no deterrents, rendering you helpless to your over riding whims, as an armada of devices wait for you to succumb. It is said that humanity has a fatal flaw, and that is its propensity to wage war: Crusades, 30 years War, WWI and WWII, Korean War, Viet Nam, Bosnia, Iraq, Afghanistan. Need I say more? However, there is that other standout flaw and that is the desire to score by placing a wager of any kind.

Remember, gambling is a disease, with no operational vaccine. It is the manifestation of depravity, so said the guy conducting the GA meeting I went to, the only one. He also said that gamblers are tragedy on the installment plan. Okay, the guy was a blow hard, or maybe a failed poet, but he had a point which was hard to dispute. I might have been small time as a bettor, more of a social gambler, not hard core like some people were. That didn't mean I wasn't going to suffer down the road. Hey, I was the guy who had signed on to some crazy study just so I could make some money to pay my bills. I certainly fit into some of those cubby holes the psychologist like to use when it came to classifying all of my brethren out there losing their pay checks every week.

We were a fraternity all right, one with a not too exclusive membership. It was easy to pledge, especially now that America had eased over to our side by permitting gambling in one shape or form on just about every street corner. Vegas, that decadent shit hole, was winning the culture war. From State run lotteries to riverboat casinos, to betting on March Madness, to the Native Americans getting their revenge on the white man by opening up reservation born casinos to your granny talking up the spread on the next Monday Night Football game, we were now a nation of beady eyed, contemptible addicts. Morality, so it turns out, is totally flexible. Raking in your winnings make religion obsolete, at least temporarily.

"Looks like something from a bad science fiction movie," I whispered to George, not wanting any of the other gamblers to overhear my rookie comments.

"Huh?" George shot over his shoulder, shaking the hand of one of the ushers and exchanging hellos, telling me that he had passed this way before.

I pointed at the court and repeated, "You know, one of those movies where they stage a sport so the violence craved populace can get off on it."

"Put it in your book," he exclaimed, tossing the topic away with a wave of his hand, as he headed to our seats.

"Book," I muttered, then remembered that he suggested that I write one. I stood there for a moment and watched a stocky man hurl a ball a thousand miles an hour, as he seemed to collapse to the floor from his effort. Then I realized it was part of his move, utilizing human mechanics to get the most torque on the ball. The crowd erupted and I asked, "Did they score a point or something?" A few people looked over at me and gave me a look, one that told me I was a rube, a newbie.

"Sit down," George ordered, embarrassed by being in the presence of some tourist.

I sat down, apologizing under my breath. While George exchanged some info with a man in the row in front of us, I took in my surroundings, marveling at the set up. Amphitheater style arranged seats looked onto a wide sweeping three sided court, with high reaching walls. Between the spectators and the players was a hanging net to prevent any errant tosses from beaning one of us. The principle of the game was relatively simple. You tried to get your opponent to miss catching one of your tosses. Truthfully, the game was boring. It's very simplicity didn't come with any elegance. I don't know what those guys in Basque country were thinking but the game itself might be fun to play but as a spectator sport, not so much.

The players might be clocking speeds of 180 mph when they hurl the pelota and all but it still gets old fast. Then again, that is beside the point. We were there to gamble. I suppose it would be nice to know at least some rudimentary rules about the game. Didn't matter. Those men in their silly helmets and padded outfits were there so we could cross that imaginary threshold. Gratification was at hand.

I held out for about ten minutes, sitting there, on my wallet, watching swarthy men grunt as they scampered around the oversized court and the audience vocally urged fate to be kind. Back in the fold, so the look on George's face told me, while I succumbed to the siren call. I let him guide me. Some guide, we lost, and lost again. Again. Then we won. Won. Lost. Lost. I didn't keep count. The money in my pocket did. My one moral victory was I didn't pull out my ATM card. I called it quits.

"I'm done," I told George, slumping over in my seat, defeated, drained by my losses and the creeping feeling that I was weak, unable to muster up enough will power to fend off that charge again, the irrepressible sensation that gambling always brought.

"I stink today," he called out, loud enough for the people all around us to hear. A few gave him knowing looks and some others snarled, muttering under their breath. The down side of gambling was visceral. "I can't wait to the track opens again," he announced. "Talk to any of them lately?" he suddenly wanted to know.

"No, you guys are a bad influence," I told him, only half joking. "Toni did call me once and left this rambling message on my voice mail."

"She's a good one for that," he exclaimed, laughing.

The games continued, short bursts of activity, with almost a languorous pace for such a swift sport. The players dashed here and there, catching and hurling, like an opera, with exaggerated movements and outsized emotions. I kind of disliked the action, you know, preferring the atmosphere at the dog track. The fronton, although relatively in good repair, seemed somehow seedy. There wasn't much of an audience and the empty seats seemed to make for a sense of growing despair. I'm being hyperbolic of course but it still gave off a bad vibe. To our immediate right two men were locked into a heated conversation, in Spanish, about who knew what. One of them was gesticulating wildly and using some choice curse words I had often heard my Cubanita use when we were locked in our usual verbal battles.

George didn't seem to notice. Like most everybody else in South Florida who didn't speak Spanish, he had long ago learned to ignore a foreign language being spoken in his midst. The tongue of Iberia, an altered version anyway, was so omnipresent no one noticed much anymore. Florida's lower region was de facto a bilingual State, only a large portion of the inhabitants hadn't bothered to assimilate the other language; and it worked either way, from English to Spanish or Spanish to English. An unsteady truce had been established between the respective camps, with each side choosing to overlook the other's shortcomings. It was possible to exist in the community easily without ever having to cross over to the other's side of things. Some of my Cubanita's relatives spoke not a word of English beyond thank you and good-bye. Me, I spoke all of five or six words of Spanish before I had exhausted my Iberian language vocabulary.

As for George, working in the hospitality industry, he could probably check a person into a room, secure their credit card information, and bid them a great vacation in three or four languages. Not that he was going to be offered any gigs as a translator at the UN anytime soon. Those minimal skills came with the job description. Foreign language phonics were expected if you were going to be working in a tourist land that saw plenty of Euros and South Americans appearing at your front desk. I had once seen George in action at his hotel as he tried to shoehorn Spanish into the conversation with a man from Brazil. Romance languages might have the same family tree but once you get out on one of those linguistic limbs they don't always make any sense. The Brazilian kept up a rapid fire staccato of Portuguese, all the while puzzled by George's responses. It all made for some great Comedy Central moments.

A pelota pinged off the gargantuan wall and headed towards a player, who maneuvered around to return it. Next to me, George was muttering to himself, distracted by his last bet. I was tapped out, having lost too much already. I wanted to go. A few rows back a couple was arguing, a black man and a white woman. I heard her tell him to go fuck himself, twice. He had laughed at her, calling her the predictable "Ho." This comment wasn't well received. Then I heard a loud smacking noise and him crying out: "Bitch, get back here!" Again, George didn't seem to notice. Maybe he's going deaf, I thought, watching for his reaction to the latest goings on. Nothing.

I was now convinced I had been delivered to Gambling Purgatory. Wait, maybe George was suffering from what they call in combat Condition Black. It is when the soldier suddenly loses all ability to move from a rush of fear. Only this time he lost all his motor movements from being exposed to a deadly case of boring gambling venue. No, this was definitely GP, gambling purgatory. That's right, wayward gamblers are punished for being inconsiderate dickheads and self-absorbed jackasses. All of those times you blew off the rent, spent the grocery money, forgot your mother's mother's day gift, defunded the Christmas fund, took little junior's graduation stipend, and on and on has finally come back to bite you in the ass.

All of these losers around me were in the same boat. We were all going to have to sit here and watch some indifferent men throw a ball around until the end of time. This was existentialism turned upside down or maybe Camus was running the show. He was probably sitting up there in the front office of the fronton staring at the security cameras, snickering, mumbling in French. George was working for him. He had the fancy degree from one of those smug colleges up north. Yeah, this was my punishment.

"How much longer you plan on staying?" I asked him in my best whine, subtle but effective.

"It seems dead today," he said without looking over, as he stared at the game in progress. The pelota sailed through the air and was caught in a cuesta, soon to be redirected back to where it had come. Now I could see that the game of Jai Alai was a substitute for that whole Myth of Sisyphus concept, you know, a perpetual ball breaking task that got you no where. "My favorite player is not playing today."

You have a favorite player? I wanted to ask but didn't. Instead, I announced, "That's too bad."

He didn't noticed my sarcastic tone and declared with a straight face: "I'm exhausted from watching these guys run around."

Back to the caddy, thank god. I now had no money for fast food and therefore no dinner. My nutrition, as usual, was at low ebb, despite what Dr. W had warned me about, telling me that I had to stay up with my health throughout the study. It was vitally important. I got that. Then again, did I?

I knew the other dweebs were all about that, one having lectured me on my lack of "nutritional awareness". Fuck him. The print out menu they had given me hadn't even made it to my car. I tossed in the trash can on the way out. It was some kind of carb intensive diet, something that was supposed to get us all on the same page, nutritionally. Why didn't you screen for vegans then? That's right, go on down to the nearest Whole Foods' parking lot and kidnap some of their customers. You are sure to land more than a few vegetable loving types.

Fortunately, good old George came to my rescue by suggesting we swing by his hotel and score on some free food. He had an in with the chef there and had an open invite to sneak into the kitchen and scarf up some of his latest creations. Sounded pretty good to me. So we headed to the beach, passing by a few bicyclists making their way to the sun and sand. Out towards the west, where my stinking apartment was, the one that was now barely one notch above a hellish refuge, clouds were building up. The baking heat was sucking moisture up from the River of Grass. On twitter, just the day before, a friend living in Colorado (Wyoming?) tweeted about how cool it was there in his mountain redoubt. Yes, he actually called it that, the shit. I tweeted back that I hoped he got raped by a rabid bear. True to form, George was cruising down the highway, sans AC, windows down, letting the humidity invade the interior of the car in its mission to have my underwear a sopping mess by the time we arrived.

We pulled into the hotel and George waved at the valet parkers, who smiled back. Having a rapport with valet parkers all across the land was beneficial. Smiling away, we waltzed in the front door. It was one of those hotels that were built so high the foundation seemed to be groaning under the weight. Didn't the engineers who dreamed up this deathtrap know they were building literally on sand, you know, the very same sand that gets washed out to sea every second of every day? All their abstruse calculations hadn't taken into account the shifting foundation? Huh? What do I know?

George glad handed a few people like some pol in an election year. Hotels are similar to electoral districts if you think about it. They are a microcosm of the world out there, with a hierarchy that exists in the real world. This is what George informed me anyway, as we made our way down to the nether regions of the hotel, in route to the kitchen. He had launched into one of his philosophical jags, going on about how the GM can be like a benevolent dictator and some other historical references thrown in to let me know he read The Rise and Fall of the Holy Roman Empire. I hadn't, by the way. I did see some show on HBO, I think, about the decadence and general all around back stabbing (sometimes in the front too) of Caesar and company. There was a lot of fornication, some of it crossing familial propriety, and violence. Rome seemed to live pretty much by the sword, when they weren't pigging out and getting wasted on wine. Must have had some raging hangovers.

The aroma of the kitchen preceded our arrival to the nerve center of where all the culinary magic came from. The kitchen was insanely busy, with the staff running in every direction while the head chef barked out orders. I wasn't too familiar with the machinations of an actual kitchen. My mother had been an out of the box cook, the type that puts her faith in the wisdom of corporate science and how they bring it all together. You know, ingredients and precise measurements make for the best combination. She could have blown a thousand kisses at her meals and they weren't going to possess a whole lot of love in them. Mac and cheese, hamburger helper, and those pre-concocted dinners that all you got to do is nuke them were her forte. Dessert came frozen, usually in pie form that took the barest minimum to prepare. I did say my mom worked long hours outside the home.

My Cubanita only liked to venture into the kitchen in order to turn on Mr. Coffee in the morning and she didn't even do that once we got one of those pre-timed magic machines that turn themselves on in the A.M. She didn't even prep the damn thing the night before, I did. We ate out almost all the time and the other times we ordered in. Her mother did send over care packages once in a while, something usually centered around porcine byproducts. Now I was treated to how the other half lives, the ones who could afford the steep rates of this hotel.

"Where you been?" the chef wanted to know, pointing a large knife in George's direction.

"Here and there," George said in what can best be described as a jaunty tone of voice.

"We play chess...tomorrow, yes?" the chef queried, taking the knife and poking it into a very large side of meat. "Prepare this, please," he ordered, looking in the direction of some guy who seemed to be cowering in the background. "And do it the right way, yes." I was trying to pick up on his strange accent, which seemed to be a mixture of gnarled French and Queens, New York. "Let's go, my little darlings...we are behind schedule."

"Got something for us?" George asked in what I took to be something of a presumptuous tone.

The chef looked me up and down for a minute, squinting, then swiped the knife in his hand with a rag he had draped over his right shoulder. Someone cursed to my right, then pushed by me impatiently, carrying a slab of beef over their shoulder. I was quickly discovering that the behind the scenes activity of preparing a five star meal was best kept behind the scenes. It was an ugly process to bring high caliber cuisine to life. What went on before that food got to your table should be disconnected from the dining experience.

"Who is this?" he asked, jerking his head in my direction, forcing me to look away as I was sizing up the guy. Early sixties, short, surprising amount of hair peeking out from under his chef's cap, one of those ridiculous looking ones that are pleated and flop over to one side, I visually catalogued.

"That's Harrison...a gambling buddy I told you about before," George replied, with just a trace of impatience in his voice.

The chef took this bit of information in for a moment then declared with a flourish: "I am making a very special treat!" He winked at George. I suddenly got the disturbing notion that the two of them might have been tenderizing meat together on their days off. "Very spee-shall."

Well, it might have been just that, rich, buttery, artery clogging, but no big deal. Ultimately, when you broke it all down, food descending the alimentary canal did the trick. I know there were more than several cable TV shows devoted to the culinary arts but, really, it was food. Orgasmic or not, it eventually got digested and pooped out. Think physiology, not how that new creation from the labs of McDonald's is going to taste. Bad example. That's not even really food, per se, but an agglomeration of chemicals masquerading as a food product. To be safe, just call it a food by-product and thank god you live in a country where corporations are subsidized by government subsidies and can bring you gut busting meals that defy inflation.

I've gotten off track. We sat down at a small table just outside the chef's office. The maelstrom of activity continued around us unabated, a whirl wind of waiters, sous chefs, cooks, preparers, et al. There was a continual cacophony of shouts, from waiters and waitresses looking for orders to cranky preparers crying out for more carrots, onions, and some ingredients I had never heard of. George sat back and looked pleased with himself. Hotel life was his milieu, so the frenchie chef might say, pursing his lips to add just the right accent on the word, not unlike he might add some little known spice to one of his divine creations. They really did approach their job like it was an art form. Again with the art.

"Not bad," I said to George, raising my head up just long enough to get the words out. I didn't know what it was, and didn't care, but it was damn good. It was something from the meat family but I didn't really want to know anything about its providence. Didn't matter. I hadn't eaten anything remotely approaching this quality since...ever.

"When the chef comes over tell him its fantastic," George said in a whisper, looking around to make sure the chef wasn't within earshot.

"I can do that," I told him, smiling, wiping some sauce off my chin that had dribbled out. Maybe I might have to reassess my view of all those maniacal "foodies" out there, I thought.

It didn't take long for the chef to wander over, shouting orders as he went. Behind him I could see several people rolling their eyes at the kitchen martinet, then quickly get back to work. Meal times meant the frenetic pace didn't slacken. Everybody had a job to do. Military precision was less organized. These people had it all wired.

"Well?" the chef exclaimed, laying his hand on George's shoulder.

George shot me a quick look and I replied: "This is fantastic!"

George smiled at me and the chef said, "Damn right it is. Whatz did you tink?"

I figured I had done my duty and plowed onward, digging into some exquisitely arranged vegetables on my plate, outlined by some piquant sauce that had roused my curiosity . I detected onions of course and some savory spice I couldn't describe. I was on a roll and then made the mistake of asking for a roll, or bread, if you have it. The French call it: faux pas. The chef called it something else all together and I don't know what exactly it was because it was in French. The next thing I know he is in my face, nose to nose, (garlic breath, by the way), and telling me I don't deserve his creation. He whisked the plate away and tossed it across the room. It clattered across one of the prep tables, teetered for a moment on the edge, then plunged to the floor and broke into several pieces. Remarkably, no one in the kitchen missed a beat. Apparently chef's are allowed to be mercurial, even crazy, as long as they produce a meal.

"What the fuck!" I cried out, trying to swallow my last morsel and talk at the same time.

"George, you bring me a Philistine," he said menacingly, stepping back to glare at me. "I should kill him. It would be best for society. Yes?"

"That would be a no, if you are asking," I joked, laughing.

"Get out!" he then roared.

"What, no dessert," I wanted to know, giggling. "How about a sandwich to go--you know, on bread?"

This comment enraged him even more and he produced one of his Wusthof specials and waved it around, shouting: "Out! Out!"

George latched onto my arm and dragged me out. He hurried me down the back hallways, turning here and there, until we popped back up into the main lobby. Hotels really were subterranean mazes behind the scenes. He was red in the face, partially from us making our escape and the rest from anger.

"I didn't know you could be so boorish," George hissed at me, attracting the attention of several nearby hotel guests. "I told you to compliment him and--"

"I thought I did," I protested.

"It is going to take some doing for me to get back into his good graces," he said, directing his comment to the ceiling. "What an ordeal."

"All I did was ask for bread for fucks sake," I muttered. "How was I to know he was such a sensitive dude?"

"He's a chef," George exclaimed, as if I was totally clueless. "They are all borderline crazy."

"Talk about taking yourself too seriously," I said, shaking my head in disbelief.

"Bread?" George repeated, looking at me. "The man is not a baker, Harrison. Think about it."

"Hey, I thought bread would go good with that tasty sauce," I offered, still trying to defend my actions. "Like I knew he was going to go off on me. I mean, really."

"You really are young," George told me, frowning. "Come on, let's get out of here before he sends some vigilantes after you."
Part 3

I got my text message, right on time. A couple of days before my next session at Somnium they would contact me to let me know not to forget to show up. I was also reminded to lay off alcohol and herbal supplements of any kind. Drugs were verboten too, of course. They screened our blood every time we went in for a session so you weren't going to get away with any sampling of weed, or anything else for that matter. In fact, as rumors at the study site were saying, one study participant had already been tossed out for taking some over the counter sleep meds, you know, the ones that ease the pain while they put you out for the night.

I was supposed to text them back to let them know that I was still alive. Between the texting and the emails and the actual phone calls, they kept tabs on your every move. It seemed like that anyway. Dr. W wasn't going to have any fuck ups. The study was going to pass all the stringent measures the government insisted on. It was the difference between him making another billion and him wasting a bundle of cash on a failed experiment. The man was taking no chances.

I didn't blame him for being cautious. Then again, it was in his best interest. I'm sure some of those big brain economists have a term for self-interest determining an outcome in a controlled economic model. We guinea pigs all wanted to remain safe. At least most of us did. I'm sure there were a few who would lay down their lives for the good doctor. He did seemed to be surrounded by sycophants. We Americans had this hereditary desire to please the rich; or at the very least we thought they were better than us. Money begets control, that was what my father liked to say, with a sneer. Which was usually followed by a tirade against the corporations and the Viet Nam War etc., etc. It wasn't pretty.

I lived in a State that elected a governor who was a bandit. The man had been fined a fortune for some less than legal maneuvering around Health care provisions the Feds said were questionable. He had become way rich by bilking the US Government out of tax payers money and only gotten a hefty fine, like maybe he had gone over the speed limit or something. He could afford it, the levied fine. Then he becomes governor. Florida had always been the bastion of the short con. People came here to score, from disreputable land deals to Medicare swindles. The bigger the haul the less likely you are going to go to jail. The Sunshine State needed to be placed on the FBI's most wanted list.

My sessions were eating into my personal time at work. Sarah and Lazar were still covering for me though, which made it easier to avoid being called into the office by my boss. He was clueless anyway. If we brought in the copy he didn't care what we did. I would call Sarah and remind her about my Wednesday appointment and she would usually gush about Dr. Wertheimer again, telling me she was envious. I would accept her fawning with some well pronounced muttering, trying to keep my disbelief at her sycophancy to a minimum and get off the phone as quickly as possible. I knew when I did show back up at work she would be all over me, peppering me with questions about how it went. Lazar, for his part, would sit back and let her do the interrogating, hanging on my responses like his life depended on it. They were both pretty shameless, now that I think of it.

Dread was building up inside me as I drove to the facility. The AC in my aging car was straining even though it was early in the morning. The demonic Floridian summer was upon us, sending all sensible Floridians to the air conditioned environment that ruled our lives. As I pulled into the parking lot I saw plumes of vaporous smoke pouring out of my AC vents. I cursed and smacked the steering wheel, realizing, from past experience, that something was failing in my AC unit. Evaporator, condenser, leaks, a harvest moon, who knew? What I did know was I didn't have any money to have it repaired. This time of year we scurried from air conditioned apartment to air conditioned car to air conditioned office, and back again. Life outside the AC zone was like exiting a hermetically sealed pod on Mercury without a space suit. You were going to expire, reduced to a puddle of sweat that would take hours to evaporate.

I did have a fantasy of heading up North or out West. Pack up my rusted car, sans AC, and go. The specifics of the fantasy weren't all that developed but it was as potent as any X-rated one, minus the happy ending. It usually didn't take me long to realize that I wouldn't get very far, probably about as far as my parent's house. Let it be said that I wasn't the pioneer type. If I had been around back in the 17 and 18 hundreds, and everybody else was like me, America wouldn't have expanded much past the NJ Turnpike. We would all be hugging the coast line.

Like I said, the dread was back. Mentally, I tried to make light of it, even though I knew it was becoming more and more of a problem. Really. I mean it was starting to make me queasy, like being sea sick. All I could think of was yet another memory, in full bloom, cluttering up my mind's eye. I called it that but it really wasn't the same. It was more like having your home movies digitalized, put into an IV and then injected into your vein. LSD was probably gentler.

I sat in my hot car for a minute trying to calm my nerves. Adrenaline seemed to be spiking because my right hand was shaking slightly, just a hint of a tremor. Not good, I thought. One of the staffers was probably going to notice and then they would want to do a full work up, putting my adrenal glands under the microscope, literally. Who knew what these people were capable of? I could see them dissecting a live person. Nose ring would be standing there, I-Pad in hand, checking out an illustration of the human body, issuing commands. Do this. Do that. Is he still alive? That would be the last thing I ever heard. Her scratching, annoying voice would echo in my head as I expired on the examining table. The staff would harvest my organs, putting them up on e-Bay for top dollar, then fry the rest of my body and spread the ashes on some tomato fields down in Homestead after dark.

The dour and sour receptionist looked up and frowned at me, then returned to manning the phone. It was starting all over again. On with the plastic disposable bracelet, the one that told all concerned who I was: 77-HJ. Put on the scrubs. Eat the awful breakfast. Suppress the mounting trepidation. Don't think about the pending memory journey.

A staffer led me back into the study room. The machines were humming. Nose ring girl showed up, I-pad in hand, and shouted across the room: "No...no, he is in the 201 cohort." The staffer next to me raised his eyebrows and shot me a look of pity, laced with mild anger. At least that is what it looked like. Oh, great, now I was one of those guys, the ones who were ruining the study. I didn't want to end up a failed cohort in the study. Although I was in it for the money, something in me wanted to please the good doctor and, alternately, help mankind. Okay, that last part was pure, unadulterated bullshit but a man can delude himself when he wants to.

Nose ring girl had me pegged. I was a trouble maker or, at least, a slacker. Other people in the study were probably cruising along, progressing faster. They could control their memories, orient them. I wasn't even sure if I wanted that. My storehouse of memories weren't, on average, all that wonderful. Even my sexual conquests were minor and weren't going to bring me all that much pleasure. My first time had been a disaster, for me and her. Other memories usually centered around my family. Oh, I forgot, there were my college years but they too were weak in the fun zone department.

I might have stumbled onto a fatal flaw in Dr. W's brilliant design. What if people didn't want to revisit their past? It happens, especially if you are like me and can't guide the process. No one wants to end up reliving their horrible prom night or that time they laid down that loud fart in math class. I'm pretty sure no one wants to be strapped into dad's car again as they skid into the neighbor's oak tree after drinking too many tequila shots, coming away with whiplash or worse. The possibilities were endless. I don't have any readily available data to back it up but just maybe the average person has more bad memories than good. Then what? The APA might be interested. They could use it as a tool when psychologists want to correct mental disorders that can't be corrected otherwise.

Man, my mind was whirling at the time. They strapped me on the gurney. Be determined, I told myself. You can do this. More self-help lunacy filtered into my mind. The good doctor had told me to let my mind adjust and soon I would be able to control my memories like you select movies in the Your Queue section on Netflix. That's actually what he said. Even billionaires have to watch movies at home. That seemed preposterous to me but I was willing to give it a try.

A staffer gave the signal and I was fully hooked up. Here comes the goo up my nose, I thought, closing my eyes. Very soon I would be back in the clouds with a lightly based nausea washing over me. The flying sensation always frightened me. I wouldn't make much of a Superman, zipping around, suspended thousands of feet in the air. It was disorienting, making me wonder if angels ever got airsick. I'm joking. Angels, really?

Oh boy, I thought, as I saw South Florida come into view, this is going to be a contemporary memory. Won't that be fun? Fuck, it's the lead up to my wedding day, I realized. My Cubanita, half dressed, getting ready for work is screeching at me. I'm on the toilet, my temporary refuge, reading a three week old Newsweek magazine.

"Did you hear me?" she wants to know, as she bangs a few shelves closed in the bedroom.

The bathroom is right off the bedroom in our small apartment, the architects apparently deciding that any entertaining you plan to do will have to take into account that all of your guests will get a brief tour of your boudoir in route to relieve themselves. The bathroom door is only half closed, a mediated compromise we have worked out after a couple of years of cohabitating. Me, I was an open door guy, modesty having been forfeited long ago after living with too many siblings and one bathroom. Her, she didn't even like to undress in front of me most of the time. To date, we hadn't even showered together. Draw your own conclusions, please.

"Yes, I did," I say, trying not to sound too testy. My new resolution, one of many that week, was to diffuse any potential arguments before they got started; and believe me it was just like demolition work.

"Well?" she shoots back, anger rising in her voice.

Now I'm in a tricky situation because I lied. I hadn't heard a word she said. I was reading an article about monkeys somewhere in Europe that had been taught to play musical instruments. No apologies, I was intrigued. Wait, I could get out of this. My twin guided memory knew the answer. That's right, it was like cheating during a game show.

The other me stammered but I took over and said: "I called them about it yesterday and they said they would call me back today." Pleased with myself, I flushed the toilet in triumph.

I was days away from this young man's crucible. Getting married, how and why had the custom ever gotten off the ground? That is a question all you researchers should be blowing government money on. We are talking some serious commitment here, like a lifetime, if you throw out the divorce side show. Two human beings are going to sign on the dotted line, stand up in front of a bunch of relatives and friends and give the thumbs up, then proceed to share space for a better part of a century. Like that sounds logical.

La Cubanita, being the bride, picked the venue, that being a Catholic church from her youth. She was only nominally a Catholic, having long ago winnowed down her belief to coincide with the more prominent holy days. Her mother though was still in the fold and chose to believe not only in Jesus Christ but the imaginary world in which her daughter took confession on a regular basis and wasn't gobbling down contraceptives. The parish priest was enlisted to bring us two together in holy matrimony, even though I had ancestors who liked to not only read the Bible but thump it a lot too. Ecumenical detente had been reached some time before though and a treaty between our disparate religions was agreed on.

I, by the way, didn't add to any of the machinations behind the scenes. My only contribution was to shrug and tell my bride to be that I didn't really give a fuck where we got married and that religion was mostly irrelevant. I told this to her, with the unspoken agreement that it wouldn't filter down to her family, or mine. My family didn't hear of it but hers did. La Cubanita had blabbed it one day after we had one of our rotating arguments, the ones that usually centered on getting married or the actual act itself. The concept, hazy as it was to a guy in his early twenties, I was down with. It was the physical act and all the trappings that created all the problems.

It was bad enough having to play grown up and do what was expected of you but when you add another layer of ethnic differences then calling it problematic doesn't begin to describe how it was. I was going to have to convince my parents to travel south, to the land of swaying palms and rum soaked accents, and meet up with the other side. Marriage really is a union of familial interests. You know how it was back in the monarchy days, with the Kings and Queens. Alliances have to be forged. England and Spain have to stand together, for strength, power.

I wasn't Henry and she wasn't Catharine, or whatever her name was, but we did have to negotiate through some gnarly shoals. For one, the language barrier, and that is on my parents side of things. They were crackers, if I'm being honest. Cubans, to them, were people who grew sugar cane and rolled cigars. Further more, they should be living on an island spending their days wondering why Columbus decided to stop there in route to India. They didn't wear their prejudice on their sleeves, thank god, but they did have a well defined opinion of what the next hurricane to come down the alley should do to South Florida.

The Cuban parents were equally biased towards some slivers of Americana they found backward and one step above white trash. They too were on their best behavior; not that they weren't able to voice their opinions in an open forum since it was in Spanish. I did catch a few stray words of, you know, opprobrium coming my parents way, all said with a polite grin. I should know, my Cubanita had said them plenty of times during our oral fisticuffs. It was all gut wrenching stuff, having to endure tightly wound etiquette with the gold at the end of the rainbow being a marriage license telling all the world that you now had to secure the services of a lawyer to undo what you have done.

My jaundiced view of marriage is understandable, right? I really didn't want to have to relive, in cerebral 3-D, my wedding vows. It was fertile ground for discomfort, all of those trapdoors you had to pass through: rehearsal dinner, wedding, reception, the aftermath. I had played travel agent and gotten my siblings and their respective love interests and my parents down south. It had taken me dozens of phone calls to get the logistics worked out. Hotels were found. Travel routes worked out. Tourist advice given even. It was all going to culminate in me standing up there in a really awful tux, try not to stutter, and deliver the lines that some priest with an accent so thick I couldn't tell if he was channeling some Dominican baseball player or trying out Esperanto. It had been a small victory to get him to conduct the service in English or at least a facsimile. The Cuban contingent, heavy with Tios and Abuelas, wanted their tongue to get the job done. La Cubanita had even broached the subject with me, offering to tutor me so I could at least phonetically get near the import of the words.

The Anglos, as we are called in these parts, won out. It was a Pyrrhic victory though. We still had to endure several days south of the border, as my brother called it. He was living in Jacksonville at the time and thought anything beyond a shouting distance of Georgia was foreign territory. As my family descended on South Florida I was made to play mental counselor with my Cubanita, letting her mounting madness grow in intensity the nearer we got to M-day, my new term for it. She was coming completely unhinged, more than usual.

"What, you haven't done anything about your parents' hotel rooms--argh!" she said one day, accosting me immediately when I stepped in the door, weary from another stint at the shop putting words to paper, beaten down by another installment of social futility and my part in it.

"Can I catch my breath--shit?" I mumbled, exhaling, trying to control my temper, not wanting to ignite yet another argument. We had been averaging a good two arguments a day for the last week in the run up to the big day, the biggest of our young lives, so several of my buds had informed me, chased with a hearty laugh.

"I gave you that sheet to follow," she protested, hands on hips, lips suitably snarled. "Did you even look at it?"

I had looked at it, committed it to memory, which was a good thing because I had promptly pitched it in the garbage when she wasn't looking. She had culled the list from some stupid website, the one that instructed you on how to survive your wedding. I had been easily singled out as a problem area of concern. The grooms usually were, so the website stated. It was nice to know I was holding up all male's instinctual recalcitrance when it came time to forfeit your freedom.

"I stored it right up here," I told her, tapping the side of my head.

She uttered something under her breath, in Spanish, then countered with: "I just know I am going to kill you before this all over."

"Please do," I told her, slurring my words on purpose in my usual coward's way in order to avoid her wrath.

"I'm going to the mall for some things. Keep your phone on in case I have to call you about something," she ordered, gathering up her purse and car keys. She gave me a peck on the cheek and flew out the door, answering her cell phone as she went. Out in the hall I could hear her conversing with one of her Cuban friends in a chaotic blend of English and Spanish. Then the clacking of her heels could be heard heading down the hallway towards the parking lot.

On our wedding day, as I woke up, alone--a little bit of silly prohibition instituted by her insane mother, who thought the bride and groom shouldn't be sleeping in the same bed pre-wedding day--I lay there looking up at the ceiling wondering if I could suddenly disappear. Admittedly, you know, plenty of prospective grooms feel this way on the morning of their wedding. Despite her parent's protestations, my Cubanita and me had already done a test drive. Like most Americans now, we chose to live together first before making that next step. It had been an uneven experience and that would be putting a favorable spin on it. It wasn't much fun playing house when you knew your future in-laws detested you.

First, I wasn't Cuban. Second, I wasn't Catholic. Third, I was shacking up with their little princess. Fourth, refer to the previous three. It didn't make for a promising start for a blissful marital union. So I really didn't want to get out of bed. Not at all. I couldn't face all those Cuban faces staring at me. For some, it was like their little chica was marrying Castro's cousin or something. What am I doing? rang in my ears while I was showering and getting ready. Although I wasn't supposed to see my soon to be bride before the ceremony there was no blockade against her phone calls, which were incessant and fucking annoying.

Then my brother showed up at the apartment, my best man. I had wanted to ask one of my college friends to do the honors but my mother kept advocating for him and I caved. Now I had to put up with his running commentary about my pending doom just a few short hours away. I should have known it was going to be excruciating after my brother got drunk at the rehearsal dinner and made a rambling toast that drifted into the absurd and ended up with him telling my Cubanita that she had a nice ass. Unfortunately, most of the toast was translated by various relatives positioned around the restaurant for the ones lucky enough to not speak Inglez. A minor blow-up occurred and a trading of words across tables. I manage to calm everyone down, thank god.

"Hey, dickless, you got your tux all ready and all?" my brother wanted to know, standing in the bathroom doorway coaching me on how I should shave. "Let's get this show on the road."

"I'm going as fast as I can," I said, irritable already.

"So this is where you bang that hot, Latin ass?" he announced, his voice drifting in from the bedroom, where he had gone to check himself out in the floor length mirror tacked to the back of the door.

"Are you sure mom and dad know how to get to the church?" I asked, fearing the worse, with them lost in Little Havana and ending up driving into the Miami River. I wiped off the last bit of shaving cream. I felt old, almost decrepit. Marriage was a milestone that felt like a mill stone. I had read that somewhere and couldn't remember where. Critical analysis of marriage was probably well represented by thinkers throughout history. The institution of marriage seemed, to a twenty-something, vaguely barbaric. It was an appendage of unheralded heraldry, I told myself, laughing as I looked closely in the mirror.

"What the fuck are you laughing at, dude?" my brother chastised. "You are getting married today. You have nothing to be laughing about."

Then we were in the car, his car, which was new. He had the AC blasting and I was still sweating, nervous sweat, that cascaded down from my armpits. I suddenly wished I had brought a towel or something to wipe away the body condensation that was telling me climatic change was straight ahead. In less than an hour probably my status would be forever altered. That wasn't true of course. What was done could be undone. Even though God and some degree of holiness had been brought into the equation it didn't mean it was sacrosanct, despite what the Church thought about the matter. Men in Rome might want to write in stone but their constituents preferred erasable ink.

Didn't matter though for the very real reason that there were over a hundred people showing up there to see you complete your vows. Civil, religious, personal, it all came together to form a bond. The fact that I was only really participating in the latter entry didn't change anything. Two people, a man and a woman, as the State liked to remind us, were one. No, that sounded preposterous, like some low rent spiritual shit. We were still going to be two separate entities but now we were going to have to adhere to a binary function, not unlike doubles in tennis.

This nonsense was what was coursing through my brain as my brother drove up to the church. He parked the car and I really didn't want to get out. A tiny voice in my head was demanding that I ask my brother to take me back home and I mean all the way home, right up the Florida Turnpike. Beg, if you have to. He's your brother. He will understand. Sure he's a simpleton but you can convince him to be an accomplice in your escape. That's right, escape is what it is.

None of that happened. My brother got out of the car, whistling, happy to be of assistance. He made a few smarmy dead man walking references and we entered the church. Catholic churches weren't my favorite, by the way. I found them...too ornamental, almost like they had been victimized by an overzealous interior decorator. With the burning candles and the guy hanging on the cross, it all seemed too baroque. I accepted the fact that the underpinnings of the religion centered on a crucifixion but their version was on steroids, agony personified. They wanted you to feel the pain, the actually lashes and nail insertions.

My brand of Christianity had cleaned it up a little bit. Our churches were sanitized to a certain degree. We didn't need visual aids when it came time to celebrate the fact that our savior had let himself get offed on the cross, left to perish from blood loss and devastating dehydration. Hanging around on a cross in the desert in the afternoon sun will do that. We didn't even do the blood and flesh aspect of communion. It was too...you know, close to the facts. Oh okay, it was cannibalistic. Inside my family's church it was minimalism maximized: some pews, a bare cross on the wall, an alter, and an organ. Music, for some unknown reason, was central to the Bible believing journey. Hymns had, apparently, replaced stone tablets for dissimulating the word, with a capital W.

"I wonder if they can turn the air up in here," I commented, as we made our way to the bullpen, a room designated for my prep work.

"You alright, bro?" my brother said, eyeing me more closely. "You look like you might pass out at any minute. Hey, do they have EMT's stationed at all these weddings?" he joked, chuckling, more to himself than me.

"There he is," my father announced, stepping in the small room to lend, ostensibly, moral support. "How you holding up? I can remember when I got married." He grimaced, then added, "You'll never forget this day."

"Way to go, dad," my brother chided. "You are suppose to build up his confidence, not shred it."

My dad waved away the criticism and said in a quiet tone of voice: "It's not all that apocalyptic, Harrison."

"Whoa, big word, dad," my brother called out from across the room, where he was snooping around some bookshelves.

I didn't need this, any of it. My idiot brother and my well meaning father, they were there for support. I got that, even if my brother might have been there to see me go down in flames. My mother and sister were out in the church, probably snickering together about the garish interior of the church, certain that their God wouldn't approve of such a weird accessorized version of Christianity. They were also still suffering from mild culture shock, being that they were almost the only Anglos in attendance, like albino creatures in a sea of varying shades of sepia.

La Cubanita was sequestered in another room, being fussed over by her mother and a sister or two. Even at this late hour she was still dissatisfied with her wedding dress. It had been a long, difficult road to the purchase of the gown. She had been a mental spastic about it for months, which felt like years, as she agonized over the one with the ridiculous train or the more modern one with the funky cowl. Oh yes, it was a hoody for brides. My input had been elicited numerous times and rejected routinely, being that I had been labeled, basically, an ignoramus who wouldn't know style if I fell over it. Something like that, I think, because I had long ago tuned her out during her quest to have the best wedding in the modern era.

Per usual, the brides maids dresses were atrocious looking, reminding you that taste is like an elusive animal in the wild. She had picked out a few of her harpy friends, of which I only knew one beyond the hello stage. Her name was Gina and she disliked me intensely. Oddly, she was the only Anglo represented in the bunch. Being a UF grad, we had butted heads for going on three years now. They were dorm mates back in college. Designating her the Maid of Honor had been a direct stab at me, so I reasoned. I couldn't remember how and why we had gotten off on the wrong foot but it was ancient history now.

"What are you doing answering her phone?" the voice demanded to know.

"I think you have the wrong number," I quipped, recognizing the voice immediately because it was burned into my brain after too many nights listening to her and my Cubanita jaw about the state of the world after several drinks.

"Don't hang up, you jerk," she scolded and even through the hum of the cell phone I could detect her hatred.

"She's in the shower," I told her, ready to hang up.

"Listen," she suddenly said, softening her voice a little, "how is she doing?"

The question sounded absurd to me but since she seemed to be trying her hand at appeasement I replied, "What do you mean?"

I heard her sigh then say, "This is all pretty stressful for her, you know."

For her? I thought then said, "I know."

"I just hope this all works out okay for you two," she announced, and I thought I heard her voice quiver slightly.

This was odd because she was, you know, a bitch. I mean the girl went through boy friends like tissue. The term high maintenance described her perfectly. If she hadn't been so good looking I could picture her living alone, surrounded by photos of herself. She was from the Tampa area and her family had money, old money, from some of the founding Floridians, I think. What her and my Cubanita had in common, beyond the fucked up sorority back in college, I couldn't imagine. There they were though, true friends. Gina had even relocated to South Florida, landing a job in some high finance firm. I had no idea what she did there, being that she had majored in one of the social sciences at UF. Probably gave the CEO a blow job to get hired.

No, that doesn't sound right. I always saw her as frigid or, at least, demanding to have sex only on her terms. Yeah, there would be prohibitions against this or that, with her on top and the clock running. Might be some whips too. But I'm getting off topic.

Cinema time oozed up and I was standing in front of everybody. La Cubanita was being walked down the aisle by her dutiful father. Mami was crying into her lace handkerchief, accompanied by a few Tias. I caught a glimpse of my mother, just a momentary sighting, and she had a bewildered look on her face, almost like she was witnessing some cultural rite of a lost tribe. Come on, mom, I want to shout out! Like you've never been to a wedding before. How about my sister's wedding? You know, where the groom and the best man got into a pre-ceremony brawl over a comment one of them had said about the Jacksonville Jags. Now that was fun.

My own best man, my brother, is making eyes at one of the bride's maids. I can only imagine he is thinking about some hot Latin sex coming his way if he works it right. The priest, padre, is beaming right next to me. I know he is keeping score, chalking up another marital victory for the Vatican, one less Protestant taken off the field. Soon he will be counseling my Cubanita to abandon the contraception's. Be fruitful. Multiply. That is the battle cry. My dad has a scowl on his face but then again he always has a scowl on his face. I just know he is trying to ward off flashbacks, visual blips in his brain having to do with chattering Viet Namese and exploding ordinance. Sis is shushing her little monsters, while her husband is checking out the second bride's maid from the left.

We are going old school. No self serving vows overlapping the usual pabulum. We had discussed it, briefly, and both of us were too apathetic to even come up with anything to add. It was comical, really, especially since I write copy for a living and couldn't dream up anything to say that would convince both the two of us and a church full of people that we were sincere about our union under God. God? I was more concerned about how much it was going to cost me to undo the I do. I was always a forward thinker.

I'm noticing, maybe for the first time, the priest has a slight stutter. It could have been his heavy accent that shielded it before. For some reason it is ringing in my ears and sounds like a Mina bird with the hiccups. I'm smiling, to myself, but I realize that it is more of a wide grin. I must look demonic to them, all those people out there. Some of them have to be thinking: What is he smiling about? This is serious stuff here. I listen hard, trying to see if I hear the word "loco" being hissed out in the audience. They are like an audience, really. Here to see the show. We should all link arms and dance, along with the priest, like in a musical, one of those inane shows you see on TV now. Life is all about singing and dancing, overlayed with stupid lyrics. We are all optimists deep inside.

Not my father. He is still scowling but only now he is directing his scowl at his grand kids, who are poking each other and griping about having to wear dress clothes and travel all the way down to South America. They aren't voicing those sentiments exactly but close. Their whines are reaching the other side of the divide. I just know my dad is going to smack somebody soon. My mother is ignoring everything. Her maternal responsibility seemed to stop, like a clock, when we all reached eighteen. Time served, was her motto. Propagation didn't include any long term indemnity. Right now I sense that she has mentally checked out. This wedding might as well have been staged for someone else's benefit.

My brother in law just licked his lips, supposedly in anticipation of some Cuban flan he thinks he might be sampling if he can arrange it. Sis, after two kids, has long ago given up on the marital bed aspect of marriage. I know this because I overheard her asking my mother for advice in the love making arena. The import of my mother's message was: close up shop. Nicely done, mom. My dad has had a reason to scowl all these years it turns out.

Jesus, I'm looking into my bride's eyes, as we are now face to face, with the little holy turd between us. His clacking accent is ringing in my ears. Those dark, almost black eyes are staring at me, like pools of gelatinous oil. Once I used to think her eyes were beautiful, but now they look viperous, warning me that she is poisonous. I also notice, for the first time all day, that she has on copious amounts of makeup and looks like a character in a second rate nursery rhyme. She is definitely playing the part of the wicked witch. Yet she is smiling at me. Through all of this, weeks and weeks of consciousness slaying stress, she can still smile. I have to think: Is that a good thing or a bad thing?

We have been sniping so much lately it has dinged our love pretty bad, leaving us spent, standing in our corners waiting for the bell to ring to resume the next round. I think I love her, or, at least, what constitutes the concept of love in the modern world. It has something to do with leaning on each other, right? I don't know. I really don't. I am a read the manual kind of guy and there isn't one. You meet. You exchange a salvo of information. You bond. You decide. I think we passed through those steps, at least marginally. Ultimately, and this is the dirty little secret that we share, we are doing what is expected of us.

I'm noticing that the church stinks. Not flat out stench, as in a garbage dump or anything, but like the smell you notice after you have microwaved some prepared meal in a sack, full of freeze dried spices that when nuked blend together and replicate a freshman High School science experiment gone bad. Call in the science teacher, maybe those guys from the nearest Hazmat team. I know I am imagining the odor. It has to be an olfactory hallucination of some sort. My stress has caused me to melt down a little bit. I'll be alright. Just follow what the little peasant priest is saying. Smile. Not too much. Nod. Read your lines. It will be over in a minute. Then you have the rest of your life to look forward to.

I do. I mean I do have the rest of my life to look forward to. Hopefully we will eventually move out of that shoe box we live in. One day I will get my own bathroom, with a magazine rack, where I can read magazines I want to read, like Maxim and Men's Health. I want to read about rock hard abs (and cocks but in a masculine tantric sex kind of way), as well as the right kind of electronics to buy to go with my European rocket sled motorcycle that I will use to zoom back and forth to our new house. The masculine overload will be appropriate in my domain, a place my wife will stay out of, except to clean it once a week. None of that is going to happen. I've never even been on a motorcycle and my abs aren't defined enough to notice and in fact they are invisible, buried under a few inches of well nourished flab. Not to say I'm portly or anything but lets just say the waist band on my Hanes underwear gets a work out.

She has just said: "I do." We pass a smile back and forth between us. What I wouldn't do right now to have the guts to turn to our audience and tell them: "I don't!" It wouldn't have to be emphatic or anything. I think they would get the idea real quick. Some might think--the ones that don't know me very well--I have a droll sense of humor. Very funny. Ha. Ha. Can we get on to the reception, hope you have plenty of booze. The padre might faint, collapsing into a puddle of black, as his soutane enveloped him in a protective barrier of piety. My brother, the best man, would probably call out some inappropriate profanity. My parents would shrug and wonder how long it was going to take them to round everyone up and head back up the turnpike. Sis would be too busy disciplining her little monsters to notice, while her lecherous husband would be pissed off because he just got aced out of some south of border groping during the reception.

And my blushing bride, but who could tell with all of the makeup she has on, cheeks so rosy they look like she just finished the giant slalom in Norway, what would be her response? I know the answer. She would kick me in the balls, using those expensive heels to plant a drop kick even Beckham could admire. My gonads would explode on impact and I would join the cast of Glee as the teacher with the angelic voice. Bedlam would break out right about then. Papi would want to rip my head off for having to spend so much money on the aborted wedding. Mami would be proved right all along about Anglos not being worth spit.

I would crawl off to the side, while my family headed for the exits, dashing to their cars and driving away, not stopping until they saw the signs to Disney World come into view. A few of the bride's maids would come over to add another kick or two to my prostrate body, particularly Gina, aiming one for my head. I would take the abuse, the scoundrel who gets what he deserves. The church would slowly empty out, as I lay there dying inside, bruised and battered, a castrati with a conscience. Then I would have the problem of, besides my lousy health insurance, the one with the impossibly high deductible, my domicile situation. I would have to slink home and retrieve my belongings without getting shot by her brothers or any other Cuban vigilantes that wanted to take out their frustrations with Castro on me. As surrogates go I wouldn't measure up but sometimes you have to make do.

Abscond away, that's what I would do, calling up Lazar and begging him to let me sleep on the couch for a few nights while I got my life back in order. He would curse in Creole but let me stay because, basically, he is a nice guy. I would have to tell him the story, let him live vicariously through my screwed up life. He would laugh and tell me I'm a nutcase, probably in several different languages, something he did when he got excited. Life would go on. I might walk funny for a few weeks and not be able to step into any of the Cuban enclaves for a long time, but it would pass. I would have dodged the proverbial bullet.

I know I'm not going to do that. That isn't me. Dr. Wertheimer's words drift into my consciousness, telling me to filter it out. Gain control, use it like a mantra. There were plenty of other words of instruction but I think you get the idea. So the good doctor goes on extended memory rides, big deal. He's such a genius, you know. Outside of my reclining presence a cadre of staffers were laboring away, eyeing monitors, checking my fluctuating vitals, hoping that I might improve my coefficients or so said one of the staff personnel just before I drifted away into memory land. Bunch of dickheads. I'd like to see them confront their memories. I bet some of them have some skeletons they don't want unearthed. Pimples in High School. Dropped pass in the homecoming game. Premature ejaculation, continually. Vaginal odor on that crucial third date. Mom's cancerous tumor. Busted for pissing in public. Embarrassing SAT scores that somebody posted on your Facebook page. I could go on.

There's the organ music. Fuck all, I'm married. We are exchanging a wet, sloppy kiss. Smiles all around, even my father is grinning for once. She is leading me down the aisle. Hand and hand we pass through the contingent of exiles, who reach out to touch her as we glide by. My sister stops scolding her little turds for a moment to reach out and give my arm a squeeze. We have never been close even though she is one notch above me in the sibling order. Her husband is still eyeing the bride's maid, fantasizing about some Latina action. I am being dragged along, which, in its way, is a metaphor for my life.

Out into the bright evil Floridian sunshine we go. I am blinded for a moment, shielding my eyes from the hostile solar attack. A car is waiting for us that some jackasses have festooned with streamers and witty bilingual sayings about our nuptials. Who in the fuck did that? I'm wondering. We are now officially a cliche. Wait. La Cubanita stops to toss the bouquet or whatever you call it. Jesus, get me out of here! I am screaming in my mind. She is throwing it over her head. I'm heading for the car, a limo that some uncle sprung for. The bouquet rises then spirals downward, where a gaggle of women and girls grapple to catch it. Is this for real? I ask myself, exchanging glances with the limo driver, an older gentlemen who looks like he stepped off the pages of a really bad Hemingway novel. As my new bride is climbing into the car, leaving behind squeals of anticipation behind her, I beg the gods for it all to be over.

"I think Marta caught it!" she is telling me excitedly, like I could give a shit. "Look, mira, they are all going nuts." She adds this last bit of commentary as we pull away from the curb, in route to the reception being held at a near by hotel ballroom, compliments of another relative. The Cuban network runs wide and deep. "Honey, we did it," she announces to the world, leaning over to give me a light kiss, just grazing my lips. "I thought we would never get through it," she declares, exhaling deeply.

"I think I need a drink," I say, more to myself than to her. I catch a glimpse of the limo driver grinning in the mirror. He has probably seen plenty of scenes just like this.

"There should be champagne in here somewhere," my Cubanita informs, laughing, as she searches around the back of the limo, before asking, in Spanish, were the bubbly is.

Man, I can't remember when I have seen her so happy before; of course I'm working on a double track here, two views of the same experience type of thing. Me, the tourist who is only visiting from the real world can only remember my Cubanita, the shrew, tossing off Spanish profanity like "You cabron!" or "What a pendejo you are." This version of her is laying back in the seat, dress up revealing her shapely legs (one of her best features by the way) and giving me a smoldering look.

The memory version of me is thinking: We did it. Yeah, we sure did, the tourist version is thinking, knowing full well what is down the road for us, weeks then months of acrimony before culminating in the big D. Here and now, charged with the happiness of the moment, both of us suddenly want to indulge in some backseat gymnastics.

The glass divider is going up, sealing us in our moving cubicle, alone together. I'm on her, grabbling with the barrier between that Latin pussy I know so well and my swollen appendage. We are laughing, spilling the bubbly recklessly. We don't care. Our youthful indiscretion is going to be rewarded by some aggressive sex, the first of our now legal union. In sin no more, I'm thinking, as the car swerves through traffic in route to the reception where all of our friends and relatives await our arrival.

Despite the fact that both of us know the limo driver is getting an ear full, we pant and grunt, creating a whole symphony of out of rhythm tunes. Usually, as it goes, our love making follows a well worn path to completion. Like most, we have become routinized in our pursuit of pleasure, even though we are young and haven't been co-habiting all that long. Our joint imaginations have been spent, if I might use that word so close to this context. Once you have initiated the new futon, kitchen table and counter, walk in shower, and the risqué move on the balcony at seven o'clock at night, as the sun sets over the Everglades, sexual matters settle into a truncated alphabet of the different aspects of human anatomy.

How had I forgotten about this?" I am asking myself, as we consummate the new marriage in a messy spillage on the expensive upholstery. Giddy with our new horizons, we just don't give a shit, really. She is laughing, as she downs another glass of champagne, while I try to tidy up with some napkins that are tucked away in a side drawer, along with some snacks. Moveable feast indeed, I mutter to myself, knowing full well my new bride doesn't care for Hemingway because he was, you know, a Commie lover and Fidel's butt buddy.

We hear the car coming to a stop. Voices from outside are penetrating our little private domain. So this is one small slice of what the rich live like, I'm thinking, gulping down the last bit of bubbly before we have to parade ourselves before our public. I could get use to this, what we now disparagingly call the 1 Percent. You just know that almost everybody you know would do anything to be in that demo. Class envy is instilled in us. It makes the exchange of morals all the more poignant and vital. It doesn't of course but those at that top will tell you that.

I know all of this simply because I am one of the messengers that perpetuates the status quo. My work is about feeding desire. We humans might be at the top of the food chain in the animal world but that doesn't absolve us from being animals. Living life, especially in the modern version, is comprised of a series of wants. Monkeys in a lab setting are focused on the attainment of food and sex, making them not all that much different from us. Through commerce, we have been conditioned to respond to demand curves, ones that are manipulated artificially by, on a small scale, me--and people of my ilk.

As Sarah patiently explained to me one slow day at the office, we are like microeconomists and we have our thumb on the scale. The concept of loss aversion works as an underlining stimulus for the buying public. Irrational decision making can be the underpinning factor for sales. We provide the mental cushion needed to take that last step, the impetus. In the end, we 99 percent are buying up all of the shit the 1 percent own. We will never own any of it but rather just, in a way, lease it.

All of this crap is filtering into tourist me's brain, while the other me is climbing out of the limo, flush with waning libido. La Cubanito is greeted by a gaggle of her friends and relatives, all girls excited by one of their number being married. The rite of passage penetrates to the morrow of their future expectations, along with motherhood. Husband, wife, children, the trifecta. My family is MIA, probably departed for the real Florida up north, leaving me with my evolving predicament. Let's face it, being married is one giant, fucking predicament.

"You look so beautiful," one of her harpies chirps, hugging and kissing my blushing bride. I can only hope they don't smell the sex on her, literally, because I'm almost positive I spilled some of my seed on her over priced Victoria Secret's undies.

Another one cries out: "I am so happy for you!" Then she switches gears and drifts into Spanish, gushing.

Tourist me is now remembering more things about that fateful day, apparently repressed. My brother, the asshole, is about to set himself up for a very long drive back home. It is going to involve a back stairway and pants around the ankles and smeared lipstick far from where it normally shows up. There are going to be some spiking anger, and tears, with my mom stepping in to smooth out the roiling waters. One of the less than circumspect bride's maids will be instantly coroneted as a "puta" by more than one wedding guest. I will be highly amused because, deep down, I don't really like my brother all that much, not to mention his kerfuffle will take the spotlight off of me on my day of legally defining bondage.

You know some of the rest of the story, I'm sure. If not anything else, we were predictable. There was the cake cutting episode, the toasts, the dancing with the bride and the father, her not me, bad food, with some sludge like flan that made one of my nephews sick to his stomach, all accompanied by some Cuban band that played--surprise--Cuban music. It was like having a wedding reception in Cuba, circa 1958. For a couple years afterwards, all I would have to do to my nephew was mention the reception and it would send him scurrying to the bathroom to ward off a round of puking. For me, I got an uneasy feeling in the pit of my stomach whenever my Cubanita would drag out the photos of the event, cheesy out of focus shots of happy ethnics drunk on cheap booze. It was much worse when she would crank up the videos, cinematic proof that I had a link to her through minute after minute of hang shaking camera angles with us as the stars in our own production.

"All of the stress was worth it," my bride is telling me, while I lead her around the dance floor, as we do a jerky waltz to inappropriate music that is almost demanding that we break into a salsa routine. It is pretty obvious that the closest I ever got to dancing skills was watching Dancing With The Stars. I would definitely be voted off first. She snuggles up close, so close I can smell the rum concoction she has been slurping down all night. "Harrison, I hope we did the right thing," she is telling me, practically the only lucid thing she has said in over an hour.

"We did, baby," I assure her, even if for the last two hours I have been waging war in my mind, trying to suppress any nasty premonitions that might worm their way into my thoughts.

Tourist me knows that we didn't, and the other me has his doubts, so now I have to take the good doctor's advice into account and try to merge the two disparate avenues of what some intellectual dickhead Literary professor might call "conceits." On the one hand happiness almost always is a project and on the other I am like the Angel of Death who knows the outcome before hand. The scythe is going to come down on us in due time. Can't think about that now though.

To my amazement, one of her ex boy friends cuts in, the butthole. He is Cuban and definitely the favored son when it came to her family. He should have been the one squiring their little princess around. The symmetry would have been better. He, being Cuban, could have offered up a few toasts in Spanish, throwing in some lines about the Old Country and how it was next to paradise. One uncle did just that, going on and on in a spasm of nostalgia, taking in all the touchstones, from Havana to some out of the way beach somewhere on that stupid island. Most of the people were swooning, dredging up memories of times gone by, except for the younger Cubans in attendance, who mostly went along for the old folks benefit. To them, Castro was some guy with a beard who liked to smoke cigars and steal their parent's lives right out from under them. Mostly they seemed to mentally shrug at the politics and go with their knee jerk reactions shaped by years of hearing their parent's rail against the tyrant only ninety miles away in the rum soaked Shangri-La.

I'm giving him the evil eye for a minute, but then relinquish my grip on my bride, letting him have a turn at what he is missing out on. Tourist me, you know, is telling the guy to take her, please. Go, have a life together, preferably with lots and lots of ninos. Live in Kendall, spend Sundays with her parents, or yours, roast a pig, talk about baseball, light another candle at the local church, hoping that God answers your prayers for Castro to get mange in his beard, whatever it takes to get you through the day as you listen to her bitching, daily. Watch her eventually get fat after too many medianoches. Spend one day every year at Calle Ocho, hot, sweaty, exhausted from Hispanic overload. I know. I experienced it, twice, being dragged there by my Cubanita, who got drunk and danced in the street to loud bands barely able to carry a tune.

As I walk away I hear: "You look hot." Oh yeah, check her panties where you might find some left over jizz, dude, I tell myself, smirking. I only have time to gloat for an instant before one of the bride's maids grabs me and insists on a dance. This is totally unexpected, for the other me, not the tourist me. I remember this moment. It was one of those creepy, I gotta get out of here moments that happen from time to time.

"Hey, Harry," she murmurs, pulling me in tight. (She never could get my name right, the cretin.) It doesn't take a breath analyzer to tell you that she is way over her limit. On a sad quotient scale, she is registering off the chart. "How's it going?" I am made uncomfortable instantly and would like to spin her around once or twice then let go, sending her careening into the tables by the side of the dance floor. I notice that her makeup isn't holding up too well and has started to disintegrate around the edges a little bit, giving her the look of a temp worker called in to do a carnival job. "What's it feel like being a married man?"

"Too early to tell," I reply, trying to pull away at least a safe distance. As it is I can feel her tits pushing up against me. I know that sensation. Been there, done that. A few years ago, in college, we had an impromptu wrestling match at a frat party. She was up for the weekend visiting and had, evidently, stored up a ton of energy in anticipation of letting loose. I had gotten in the way, targeted after she got wasted on some unnamed drug and jello shots. That I was her best friend's boy friend didn't register any more as she gave me a hasty physical exam, probing my pockets for any tell tale signs of life in my boxers. In the interest of helping me along, she had placed one of my hands on her breast with instructions to squeeze.

She is laughing at my weak attempt at being witty, while she cleaves to my body. We are now doing dancing intercourse, surrendering to the Latin beat pulsating out of the Cuban band's instruments. The other me is hoping that nobody is noticing our rendition of choreographed humping but the tourist me is enjoying the ride. Once, maybe two years ago, I had caught a glimpse of her coming out of the shower and was erection inducing impressed. She had dropped by and gone to the pool with my Cubanita. Afterwards, she asked to grab a shower before going on to where ever it was she was headed. My peeping had been totally innocent. I was just walking into the bedroom to get something out of my tiny Chester drawers. To this day, I didn't know whether or not she knew I had seen her toweling off. I suspected she did because she did seem to put on quite a show for my benefit, with lots of rubbing here and there, touching all of the money spots.

"You are going to be good to her, right?" she is asking me, which sounds ridiculous in light of the fact that she is molesting me in full view of every person in the room.

Then it comes to me, in a flash, one of those...those what did Dr. W call it? Those cognitive processes, that's it. He had told me to use my instincts to follow the contours of your memories, grab the initiative. If this was going to be a "do-over" then I might as well have fun with it. Right?

"Hey, listen, remember that time you were taking a shower at our place--after being at the pool?" I asked, letting the info filter through her inebriated brain. I could see her squinting, straining to make sense of what I was asking. Feeling the need to add some filler, bulk up the question a little bit, I continued, "You know, you were getting out of the shower...I came into the bed room...you were working the towel."

I could see tendrils of comprehension spread across her face, then she said, slurring her words: "Oh, yeah, you perve."

"I resent that," I countered playfully, giving her arm a little squeeze. She laughed and an on rush of boozy breath swept over my face.

"Did you enjoy the show?" she asked, giving me a wink, as she grabbed my ass cheek.

"I did," I said, raising one eye brow for effect. "Nice bod."

"Thank you," she cooed, finally releasing my butt cheek. "I work out."

"I could tell that," I said enthusiastically. "So it was for my benefit then?"

"What?" she said, already confused by the course of the conversation. "Oh, you mean...you mean with the strip tease?"

"To be accurate, it was a reverse strip tease," I told her, grinning.

"It was," she said, belching in my face.

"You were already naked, get it?" I said, wondering why sometimes I had to be so literal.

"Yeah, I was, wasn't I?" she exclaimed, laughing. "Did you like the show?"

Like most drunks, she was repeating herself now. I laughed along with her, as she pressed closer. Can a man get divorced on his wedding day, I wondered. Right now, at this very moment in my way too vivid memory, can I end it? That would save me years of conflict, agony, and zombie sex with a wife that doesn't give a shit about carnal fulfillment. This innocent, and admittedly drunk, bride's maid could be my ticket out, like a get out of jail free card. There might be some blowback of course but I can withstand a wee bit of public humiliation and opprobrium. Why not? Wait, was this what the good doctor had in mind? Was I supposed to over turn the apple cart or whatever the expression is? I didn't want to be a dysfunctional study subject. Not me. I had too many psychological shortcomings to be a fuck up. Deep down, I wanted to be a success.

"I did," I told her, whispering it in her ear, then giving the tiny appendage a quick lick.

She pulled back for a moment, startled. Even in her drunken haze she knew I had crossed the line. Then again, she had been playing grab ass with me in tune to the patter of the congas. "You have a hard on, don't you?"

This query was unexpected, if not correct. I grinned at her and said, "Like stone."

She giggled and pulled me tighter. What do I do now tumbled through my consciousness? I guess I could just whip it out, put it out there, let her do what she may. I had no real blueprint to go on, except maybe some porno films we use to play at the frat house back in college, the ones with the flimsy plots to set up the action, like horny housewife gets her plumbing checked out by the plumber or strict librarian gets tutored by big dick scholar in the stacks, near the Adult Fiction section.

None of that was going to happen, besides what if I have a wet dream or, in this case, a wet memory? Then what? All of the staffers would be witnesses to my personalized depravity. I don't care if it was in the interest of science. That would be too embarrassing. I can only imagine nose ring girl scolding me for being a pervert, using all of their hard work to pleasure myself. Dr. W would stroll into the lab and pronounce me a reprobate and order that I be put on some kind of drug that shrivels up my manhood into the size of a gerkin. Everyone would laugh, at my expense.

Then again, what the fuck did I care? If I can get a blow job right on this dance floor, in front of my new bride, with parents in attendance, go for it. Well, the parents part is a bit, you know, decadent. Yet, these people aren't real. They are nothing but props, avatars floating in and out of my cortex somewhere. You know what, I could kill them all, like that dickhead in the movie about the Cuban drug dealer, with Al Pacino in the lead part. Pacino, Cuban? Anyway, give me a machine gun and I could make this memory like a real video game, one that all gamers would wet their pants over. It is all about the violence. You can't deny that.

Being the center of attention wasn't, like, my thing, really. I was more of a behind the scenes guy. Making a public spectacle of yourself is hard work. Besides, I had yet to turn that cranial switch maneuver the good doctor was going on about. Nose ring girl's words echoed in my ears, telling me in that annoying nasal slightly accented twang: You have to break through that membrane. Your memories are nothing but data streams to be harvested. Yeah, right. I doubted you had even been on this ride before. Shit, I was still getting over the fact that she was originally from Brazil. With her blond hair and blue eyes, I thought she might have been from California. Must have been of German extraction, you know, a World War II war criminal descendant. That was South Florida for you. Anything was possible, from the Somalian taxi driver to the Romanian AC repairman to the Hmong bag boy at the grocery store to the Honduran waitress.

I needed to focus. Take in the rhythm of the Afro-Cuban beat. Go with it. You know you want to try it. Think about it, it is the essence of gambling, the exquisite emotion you feel at being incautious. The high will come, like another hit of the pipe or sticking a needle in your vein. Tourist Harrison knew the song was going to end soon and she would buss him on the cheek and walk away, with no one the wiser. It would forever be our little sordid secret, two people sharing in unrequited lust. Happens all the time. The mental snap shot of her toweling off in my bathroom would careen around my thoughts for years to come, even induce some surreptitious excursions to the bedroom to jack-off.

Why couldn't they have a manual I could follow? I silently asked, while she expertly gyrated to the beat in my arms. I glance around the dance floor and notice that nobody is watching. Nobody? How did I get away with this lascivious display? I can do this, I am telling myself. Concentrate. Block out the music for a moment. Then it comes, like a small scale metamorphosis. My brain waves are working in concert with the memory, overriding my actions. Damn, this is cool.

I will my body to switch positions, as I slowly move behind her, right in line with that luscious, pulsating Cuban culo (a). We are now joined together like two mating insects, as the music thumps along. I latch onto her boobs, using them as hand grips while I literally dry hump her butt. In all of my short life I have never been this vulgar and that includes serving drinks at a frat house function wearing only diapers. By way of explanation, I lost a bet.

People are noticing now, rapidly. It is almost as if we are wearing a neon sign that says: LOOK AT US SIMULATE A SEX ACT. It's too late for my partner to get off this ride. Clusters of dancers have stopped dancing and are watching us. We are now the only ones dancing, surrounded by gawkers unable to look away. I hear a few cat calls over the reverberating music. Some protestations are penetrating the music, competing with the warbling Spanish lyrics. And they say the Argentina tango is risqué.

Clearly I haven't thought this through. I have no second act, unless I intend on pulling up her dress and go for full on insertion. I'm an idiot. Was this supposed to accomplish something?

"You son of a bitch!" I hear behind me, the first hint that my live sex act is receiving unfavorable reviews. I'm getting yanked backwards, which sends my dance partner forward onto her face. The very angry face of my bride's older brother appears briefly in my line of vision, quickly followed by a well placed fist, which connects on the right side of my face. A flash of pain is rippling across my head, sending out tiny traces of discomfort. I'm feeling a punch land on my left rib cage. Then, of all times, I am remembering that La Cubanita's brother was a frustrated boxer in his younger days. He stills trains to keep in shape. All of those sweaty days and nights in the run down gym in Miami are paying off now. He is using my body as a punching bag, throwing out right crosses and lightning fast combinations. I just know somebody is filming this on their cell phones; fortunately that little bit of historical trivia doesn't matter in avatar world.

I can't ward off all the blows coming my way. Me and the older brother have a history. He seems to harbor a pathological hatred towards me, stemming, oddly enough, from our mutual colleges, his being the University of Miami and mine the UF. It is a rivalry born out of sports and boasting postures set in concrete after decades of won and lost records. I know, it is petty--and probably border line insane--but there it is. I usually don't participate in the chest thumping and National Championship comparisons, finding it, you know, juvenile. Trophy bragging is the least of my problems at the moment.

Through it all, the pummeling, I catch a glimpse of my new bride, frozen, mouth agape, passively watching me get the shit kicked out of me. Divine comeuppance, you might say. Thank god, some other wedding guests are trying to pull him off of me. He is now kicking me. A sharp toed dress shoe proves to be a good weapon, as he tattoos my ribs. I am writhing on the floor, crying out for help. From whom? Most of them would prefer to line up and take turns having a go at me. I have just defiled their princess, debased the institution of marriage in record time. Another blow lands on the side of my head. I am screaming out, demanding protection.

Almost like an auditory hallucination, I am hearing: Re-entry is imminent. Re-entry's happening. I have resorted to blubbering now in an improvised version of praying for deliverance from my own sins, as I squirm out of control, warding off imaginary punches and kicks. Then a curtain closes and the lights are glaring.

"Get ready, it's a bad one," one of the staffers shouts out, as he mans one of the blinking machines next to the gurney.

"Better call the doctor," someone else suggests, entering some new codes on a key board embedded in a portable computer spitting out reams of data.

I continue to ward off the blows, dodging, bobbing, and weaving as best I can under the restraints. Blood seems to be trickling out of my nose and my right eye can't seem to focus. Pain is stitched into my abdomen, rippling up and down my side. It feels like I just got run over by a bus.

"77-HJ...77HJ, can you hear me?" I hear somebody asking me. "77-HJ...Harrison," the voice asks again, abandoning protocol by using my first name. "I think he is unresponsive. Buzz Dr. Wertheimer."

My eyes are adjusting to the harsh light in the lab, a barrage of uncaring fluorescence. Ever so slowly my mind is reassembling stimuli, filling in the blanks. My muscles are still twitching uncontrollably.

"Turn that off, would you," I hear the good doctor say peevishly, motioning towards a repetitive alarm that has been going off for the last few minutes. "Vitals?" he commands, as the staffers recite numbers robotically. He nods and commands: "Everyone just do your job."

"A few blips, Doctor Wertheimer," I hear nose ring girl state, turning her I-pad so he can read the chart.

He stares at the numbers for an instant, then says, "Stay on it, people." My focus is slowly returning and the post session mild sedative is soothing my involuntary reactions. "Kind of atmospheric, huh?" the good doctor jokes, with his smile beaming close to my face.

"Pain," I manage to mumble, trying to move my arms that are still restrained.

"Purely psychic, 77-HJ, he calmly explains. "It will wear off when the drug does. Don't worry about it."

"It hurts," I tell him, wincing.

"I'm sure it does," he offers, turning his attention back to the staff for a moment. Looking back at me, he says, "You can tell me all about it at the debriefing. Right?" Before I can respond he pulls one of his disappearing acts through a side door.

Groggy doesn't begin to describe how I feel, as I mentally limp into recovery mode. Several staffers are at my side, passing back and forth incomprehensible jargon that sounds like some lost Slavic language to me. The pain that is supposed to subside is lingering, poking me here and there as if I am getting one harsh massage at the hands of a sadistic masseuse. Vocalizing my complaints isn't getting much results. One staff member, a woman still wearing some plastic safety glasses for some reason, nods in my direction and attempts to give me what passes for her as a sympathetic look. I beg for some pain relievers, hinting, hoping for some of the IV flowing type. No response.

"Has the data been collected?" nose ring girl demands to know and the other staffers jump to attention, spewing out information chock full of abbreviations and stilted initials. She frowns momentarily, consults her I-pad, and exclaims: "Let's go, people! You can do this."

Do what? tumbles around in my head, while I add a few more moans and groans for effect. I don't expect any sympathy from nose ring girl, the little Nazi reject. I can easily see her in a SS uniform, doling out misery as she compiles the pertinent data. One of her not so distant relatives probably spent the war years holed up in a concentration camp enacting evil experiments for the fatherland. Then again, what in the hell is she doing working for a Jew? I don't know. My mind is jumbled, frayed, and man does the side of my face hurt. I had never (ever) been in a fight before, if you don't count the times my brother used me as a practice dummy. The last fight I was involved in, like I detailed, I was just trying to break up or prevent. Love your fellow man. Peace. Can't we all get along? We might have become a warrior nation, or one at continual war, but I was pushing back against the aggressive pose.

No, I was chicken. I had been in close proximity to some scuffles in college, managing to escape harm and humiliation by either playing peacemaker or absconding undetected. As hard as it is to admit this, I was the only coward in the family. My dad was a war vet and my brother a standout on the football team, playing an under sized linebacker who tackled much larger players. Even my sister had her moments, once bitch slapping another girl in class over a verbal slight about her moral standards and the upkeep thereof. She won the resulting fight hands down, sending the girl over her desk backwards and would have probably done some significant damage if not for the late arriving teacher who broke the fight up. You didn't call my sister a slut and not expect repercussions. She got suspended for her principles, making it a clean sweep for the Jamison clan. My brother got kicked out for giving an upper classman two black eyes after he made an indecent remark about his girl friend.

"He's lucid, vitals good," I heard her comment into the side ear piece thing she used to stay in constant communication with the Man. Then she trailed off into whispers, as she looked back over her shoulder at me. Turning to the others, she stated: "He's coming." They all snapped to attention. "You've all checked your data points?" They nodded yes.

A door to my right opened and in walked the God of Somnium. He stopped short for a moment and fumbled in his pocket, producing his cell phone. Turning away from us, he spoke for a moment in a hushed tone. I made a face at nose ring girl and she frowned back at me, looking down at her I-pad. A machine behind me gurgled mechanically and a staffer hurried over to quiet it. I pulled at my restraints, wondering why they were still on. Shit, I hope I'm not a danger to anybody, I thought, remembering the scene in the lab room where it looked like a bomb had gone off after one of the study subjects had an episode.

"Right," the good doctor declared, stepping over next to the gurney. "Numbers are good?" Nose ring girl assured them they were, as he perused the chart for a moment, muttering to himself. "So, 77-HR, you have made a break through then?"

My throat was dry even though they had been given me plenty of fluids. I swallowed a few times then replied, "If you want to call it that. I mean--"

"Sure sounds like you attempted to take control of things," Dr. Wertheimer told me, while the others tittered in the background, forever on alert to be as sycophantic as possible.

"I told him before he has to act like a programmer," nose ring girl interjected, smiling in my direction like we were best buds.

"You are talking to a guy who doesn't even like to scan his computer for viruses," I joked, drawing a snicker or two from the others.

"You have been acting more like a curator before," Dr. Wertheimer stated, with an edge to his voice, bordering on dissatisfaction. "Yes, these are your memories but they aren't works of art either. They don't have to be handled with care."

"How in the hell do you know that?" I asked, letting a little bit of anger slip into my tone. My tiny little bit of recalcitrance produced a gasp from the gallery of staffers, and a loud sigh from nose ring girl like I was some school kid who wouldn't mind his manners in class. "With all due respect," I said, backpedaling somewhat, "I don't think any of you know what really is going on during these sessions. Not completely anyway."

A big, stinking silence fell over the recovery room. The effrontery, I could hear them all silently saying. You little turd, you think you something about anything, please. I did notice that the staff did tend to be a little on the arrogant side when it came to dealing with us study stooges, like we were one step above a monkey. Our emotions didn't seem to register with them most times. Just shut up and complete the study seemed to be the prevailing sentiment.

The good doctor sighed and said, now switching to his customary lecturing voice: "Memories can be like a jigsaw puzzle, so what the drug does is crystallize those traces of brain deposits and makes them whole."

"Okay," I muttered, knowing by now that when Dr. Wertheimer was in this mode it was best to get out of the way,

"At this stage, all of the timescale's have been collated--mentally--and you will be interacting with your own self, almost like one of those voice over narrators in a movie." Nose ring girl was nodding in the background, pretending that she was concerned about my immediate well being, when in fact she would have just as soon leave me strapped down on that gurney until they got what they wanted out of me. "You have to remember, this is like going from Newton to Einstein," he boasted, without nary a trace of humility sneaking into his tone.

"I am pretty sure Newton or Einstein didn't get the shit kicked out of them," I protested and heard a staff member behind me snicker.

"That is minor," he assured me, forcing a laugh. More tittering from his paid staff of suck ups. "I told you before. You have to be the creator--you are the creator of your own destiny when you are deep into a session. It can't be any other way. You are doing the coding here." He tapped the crown of my head. "Let it flow from the source but master it."

I was no scientist and certainly didn't think like one. Just maybe the good doctor was expecting too much from us, his study subjects. I mean, you know, we were there at Somnium for the simple reason we were ordinary. As one of my fellow attendees had said, still flush with excitement about being part of a ground breaking experiment: "Dreams will have their own logic!" Clearly, the guy was an idiot. He happened to be the same guy who tried to explain to me about the difference between post-modernism and post-structuralism, veering off into some crap about some unknown but influential French thinker. He was going on about schemata and modalities, while I sat there wondering what penalty I would have to pay if I smacked him across the face with my best bitch slap. If only people knew what you were thinking when you talked to them sometimes. As a side note, the guy dropped out or was forced out after week 2 because he was on meds that had been specifically forbidden. Probably from the psychiatric formulary.

"Not like I'm not trying," I whined, hoping that this latest slip up wasn't going to get me burned. I knew there was a group of alternates waiting to take over for anyone who got released from the contract. "I can do this," I announced unconvincingly, smiling weakly.

Dr. Wertheimer and nose ring girl exchanged their usual look, the one that said they thought they were dealing with morons but what are you going to do? They probably did that numerous times in a day, the burden extremely smart people have to carry in order to function in the real world where everyone else's IQ is sub-par. A staffer alerted nose ring girl about something and she turned her attention to a machine off to my right. What now? I wondered.

"Listen...77-HJ, this construct is about, more than anything else, your neurological reflexes getting a work out," the good doctor informed me, squeezing my arm half way affectionately, showing his paternal side for once. It was a different tack and I appreciated the effort, even if I knew he was probably conning me again. "You know the old saying: It works in the real world but does it work as a theory."

Everyone chuckled around me and I realized this was what passed as humor in their insulated culture, where they were inside the castle walls, constantly under siege by functioning idiots, trying to hold out. It was sad, in a way. Brainiacs are people too, you might see in one of the public service announcements. Be kind to them because they might just be discovering the next cure for your coming disease or don't bother them because they are hard at work on the new shiny tech object that is going to make your life so much easier. I don't know. They did seem to be a different species sometimes. Having more brain cells that are in working order didn't really make you super-handicapped in an upside down way.

I forced a laugh and said, "Good one, doc." He winced and I remembered that he hated it when I called him that, almost as if I was marginalizing him or something close to that. Yeah, he was a doctor, but he was so much more: inventor, rich, psychiatrist, rich, explorer, rich, writer, rich, pianist, rich, linguist, rich, and on and on. "Some of this seems kind of sketchy though." Another silence bomb was dropped on the room, only disturbed by the hum of the machines.

Dr. Wertheimer looked at me for a moment, then stated unequivocally: "There is nothing sinister going on here, 77-HJ. I really don't think you believe that."

I didn't, I guess; but then again Dr. W had been investigated by some governmental agency having to do with health studies. It was over five years ago. He had been exonerated, I think. It was in the papers, so some of my light Internet research told me. Apparently, according to the article, a study subject had sued Dr. Wertheimer and his parent company for unspecified abuses that occurred during the course of the experiment. The legal decision had been sealed by court order. Somebody got paid off. There were fines levied and a subsequent PR campaign to mitigate the damage done in the press. It would all blow over, resulting in the good doctor remaining the good doctor.

Rich guy buys off government, nothing to see here. One enterprising journalist from some minuscule blog had attempted to investigate but it went nowhere. He wasn't killed off in the dark of night, dying under mysterious circumstances. No, it was much more banal than that. He ended up working for one of Dr. Wertheimer's subsidiaries and living on a nice six figure income, with benefits. So the Internet gossip told me, proving that ever last one of us is a sell out.

"I don't know what to believe," I announced unadvisedly. My peripheral vision caught nose ring girl swiping her finger across her I-pad furiously in search of something. She might have been either looking for the lawyer on retainer for the day or trying to bring up her contacts for some south of the border hit man who might want a quick vacation to South Florida. Easy assignment. Lives alone. Out west. Drives a half broken down car that just might need new brakes. Lots of canals out in his neighborhood. Real deep too, with alligators. Just saying. A small voice in my head reminded me that I was still strapped in and wasn't going anywhere unless they said so. Not good.

"It seems like you have a certain solution horizon and are boxed in by it somewhat," the good doctor told me, now using his best solemn tone. "It happens to some people. I have figured that into the study. It is a known variable."

Somehow this sounded both explanatory and accusatory at the same time, leaving me stranded, lost for a response. I mumbled something then said a little bit louder, "Really." Of course it sounded perfectly stupid but it bought me time to say this: "You have a way with words." This response was only one notch above the previous one but I was at a loss.

"Let's see how you recover from this latest incident and we'll go from there," he declared, more to his staff than to me. Like most doctors, he had a singular way in dismissing his patients. It came out as the final word, almost Biblical in scope. I say this, so be it. It must have been what monarchs felt when they were sitting on their throne and made a proclamation.

"Still kind of hurtin' here," I offered, knowing that he was about to perform his disappearing act again.

He smiled back at me and said to nose ring girl, "Same protocol."

Poof, he was gone, vanishing through the side door again. I was beginning to believe that either he was nothing but a hologram or that the building was riddled with passageways like some bad mystery movie taking place in an old haunted mansion. Nose ring girl took over, barking out orders. Finally, the straps were removed. True to his word, the pain was subsiding, even though my head did still seem to ache. A passing staffer leaned over and whispered: "Tiger balm works wonders." What? She pantomimed a rubbing motion on her forehead. What the fuck is tiger balm? I wanted to ask but she went on about her business.

"This way," nose ring girl commanded, motioning with her free hand, while the other one cradled her beloved tech toy. "We are running behind schedule.

Great, now I'm screwing up the works, I thought, staggering behind her as she led me through the maze. I watched her shuffle along in front of me, tapping the ear piece several times and issuing orders as we went. She was a whirlwind of efficiency. I couldn't imagine what Dr W was paying her. It probably wasn't enough. Then again, he was probably hitting that, I thought, taking note of her ass wiggling as she sped along in her expensive running shoes that matched her scrubs. Did that nasty nose ring disturb the good doctor, face to face, while he bopped her young stuff? Probably traded shop talk during it, solving world problems in between pants, groans, and screams. Screamer, I didn't see her as the screamer type. No, she would be cool, collected, using just enough energy to arrive at an orgasm, if she even had them. She impressed me as the type who didn't find enough hours in the day to get what she wanted done. It would all be about precision. Sex would be pared down to the most efficient physical movements the human body would permit.

"Slow down for a minute," I complained, stopping to lean against the wall for a second. "I'm still kind of dizzy."

She exhaled and slowed to a stop, turning around, she exclaimed: "You are turning out to be a high maintenance subject." This was said as a threat, or so it seemed. She consulted her I-pad for a second then continued, "I don't think Dr. Wertheimer is going to keep carrying you."

I let the dizziness pass and replied, "He didn't seem too concerned about my performance to me."

She scoffed and said, "You don't know him."

"I bet you do," I said before thinking.

She looked at me coldly and tapped on her I-pad a few times. A call came through and she fielded it, telling someone to close out the data and do some other computer actions. Then she looked up at me and stated: "You won't bring this study down."

"You think I'm trying to disrupt the study? What ever gave you that crazy idea?" I asked, flabbergasted.

She thought this over for a moment then told me, "I didn't want you on the study list to begin with. I thought you were a...an interloper."

"Interloper," I said, laughing, because the word sounded funny in this context and way off from the truth. "True I'm in it for the money but I have never thought about in any way screwing up the study. Actually I can't believe you think that even. It seems to me you didn't like me from the very beginning, like you had a weird vendetta against me or something. I'm not kidding. You were acting that way."

She narrowed her eyes and semi-glared at me, something I had seen her do with the other staffers, a move that she used effectively to intimidate them. Then she spoke into her phone for a moment, consulting the damn I-pad again. A staff member hurried by us in the hallway, head down, probably hoping to pass by without being noticed by nose ring girl, the enforcer. Down at the end of the hall I caught a glimpse of the next study subject just entering the lab rooms, destined for the next memory trip.

"I didn't think of you one way or the other," she finally responded in a nasty voice. "Look, here at Somnium we have standards to upkeep, that's all. And, frankly, you were bumping up against the parameters of what we look for in a study subject."

"What? Let me guess, you are looking for slaves, right?" I remarked, half joking.

She made a face, then said, "That right there is what I am talking about. You aren't serious enough to be...to be a legitimate subject. We have to have people who have their head into it."

"Into what?" I asked, laughing.

She wagged her finger at me, then spat out: "You are this close to being axed from the program, 77-JH."

"HJ," I said, secretly happy that I had gotten her flustered. I knew she was the type to never want to lose control.

"What?"

"You inverted my initials," I explained, smirking.

"Oh brother," she muttered. "I've already got you on probation whether you know it or not. Dr. Wertheimer, for some reason, wanted to keep you on. If I had my way I--"

"I got it," I interrupted, shrugging my shoulders. "You have made you position abundantly clear. From now on I am going to tow the line. No more problems. I will be the model subject, master."

"See, right there, you are doing it again," she exclaimed, exasperation seeping into their voice. "You are the only one who is giving me trouble."

"You?"

"You know what I mean, the company," she corrected, throwing up her hands.

"And here all along I thought you liked me and were fighting the sexual tension between us," I stated, adding a laugh to show I was joking.

"How deluded are you anyway?" she said, snorting, as she tried to squelch a laugh.
Part 4

Debriefing over, I was released and told to rest and keep my cell phone on in case I needed to be contacted by Somnium. I was used to the routine now and didn't feel nearly as debilitated as I had before the other sessions. Still, I wasn't ready to go out and play a game of pick up basketball either. I cruised on back to my apartment, back to sit in the dark and let the drug dissipate. If there was going to be any advice I was going to be giving the good doctor it was that he had to work on the recovery aspect of taking his wonder potion. Even though side effects were a large part of big pharma's business plan they had to be minimized if they were going to pass muster with the public and the FDA.

My phone rings and I check and see that it is Sarah from work calling, probably itching to hear how the latest session went. I hesitate, debating whether or not to let it go to voice mail. Feeling bored, I answer it. Her way too chirpy voice penetrates my skull so I switch to speaker phone. In the background I hear Lazar calling out questions. The both of them are hopeless, I think. Why do people latch onto celebrity personas like a life preserver? Dr. Rony Wertheimer is a rock star to them, somebody who embodies almost everything they believe is worth worshipping. I just don't understand it, having never put anybody up on a pedestal before.

"Lazar wants to know if you had...had a 'recreational interlude,' whatever that is?" she asks me.

"Tell him no, I revisited one of the worst days of my life," I say, surprised by my anger.

"No, I am not putting him on speaker," she says testily to him. "Call him yourself."

"Guys, listen, I'm kind of tired after the session and all," I offer, trying to get her off the phone. "My body feels like I have the flu or something."

"Are you sure the drug they are giving you is safe?" she wants to know, returning to a theme she hits on frequently, that I might end up permanently disabled by the experimental drug. "Lazar just reminded me that Dr. Wertheimer wouldn't test anything if he didn't think it was safe to use."

I laugh and tell her: "I will talk to you tomorrow, in the morning. Bye now. Got to go."

"Wait, what happened on one of the worst days of your life?" she asks and I hear Lazar echo her question too.

"My wedding day," I inform her and hang up.

Wedding day, Thanksgiving, fight in school, it is becoming abundantly clear that some people, like me for instance, are going to be reliving unpleasant junctions in their lives when they take the drug. The chemical makeup of the drug is going to have to be tweaked to avoid that shortcoming. No one is going to want to walk down memory lane when it means they have to endure what they endured before. That fact I don't need research to tell me. If you have to become almost a licensed pilot to sit behind the controls and avoid turbulence then the learning curve is going to be too steep. It occurs to me that was why I was being kept in the study. I was one of the ones who couldn't negotiate the tight turns and curves necessary to bring temporary nirvana to the forefront.

The rush of that bowel movement which broke the four day constipation, the sex with the hot girl next door, shooting the winning free throw at Regionals, passing your driver's test, being accepted at the college of your choice, your first car, acing the job interview, vacation in Jamaica, she says yes, it's a son, the offer on the house was accepted, and so forth. Moments you might want to revel in one more time, twice more. I doubted anybody wanted to hear relatives whine or spouses bitch, not to mention getting the crabs again or head lice. No, flight plans were going to have to be filed.

That was where I came in on this project. Nose ring girl can go fuck herself. She couldn't ax me, no way. I was the stat that counted the most. Some people were predisposed towards happy memories, god bless them, but some weren't. It was the latter category that mattered the most because they were the ones who were going to ultimately hold things up. No governmental agency was going to look kindly on a regimen that produces bad results X number of times. Lawyers would be lining up out the door to take a whack at the good doctor. My client, your honor, has experienced irreparable harm. The man has had to face his mother in law repeatedly, seeing her taking a crap when he accidentally walked in on her during Christmas dinner. No man should have to see that over and over again. The judge agrees and down comes the gavel.

This secret nostrum up the nostrils would be tailor made for class action suits. People all across the country would have their minds vibrating from bad memories. It would become a national neurosis. TV pop psychologists would be on the air every night going on about how it is damaging our society. TLC would have a realty show in the works, one where the contestants would compete to recreate their worst memory. The Science channel would delve into the chemistry behind the drug, with computerized mock ups showing just what the brain is going through when a person snorts up the junk. The voice over would state the ominous facts, leaving nothing to the imagination. In vibrant color, 3D if you got the TV set, the computer rendition would scare the shit out of you. No one would ever want to do the drug. All of those memory parlors that were getting ready to set up shop around the country would be put on hold. No venture capital would be flowing out of Silicon Valley. Dr. Wertheimer would have to move to Singapore or maybe the Cayman Islands where he could sit vigil over his dwindling pile of cash.

A man can dream. Not that I didn't like the guy. Maybe not that much, I guess. He was rich and famous, I think he could get by on a few less millions. It would be his rep, the one left in tatters after all the bad press, that would hurt him the most. Dinged egos did the most damage, like losing the use of a limb. We little people couldn't relate to that. Our egos were downsized like everything else.

Again I was sitting in my dark apartment, like some maladjusted hermit. It was time to write in my journal, passing on my experience for future generations. Before long there would be a book written, with a movie to follow. We study subjects were pioneers on the cerebral front. Entertainment was about to take a quantum leap. Yeah, I was on the ground level of the next great past time for America, and eventually the world. Maybe the good doctor could let all of us buy in, score some cheap stock before it went through the roof. The IPO would be a staggering success, proving that whatever Dr. W touches turns to gold.

I was supposed to write out what memories I encounter, even encouraged to not leave any details out, then email it to some eager staffer just waiting to file it on the master disc somewhere or whatever media they were using to save the valuable data. Who was going to read this shit, I asked myself, as I reluctantly turned on my lap top, courtesy of my work since my lovely ex-wife took my outdated and cheapass Acer. The woman showed no mercy.

Surprisingly, I could write copy but I had a hard time committing any ideas beyond that to paper, figuratively speaking of course. Between the online billing, the ereaders, computers, and smart phones, my apartment was a paper desert; except for the one solitary faded menu stuck on the fridge from my favorite pizza place. Stop stalling, I crabbed at myself, looking around my barren apartment, now illuminated only by the LCD screen on my computer.

I could hear my neighbor's dog barking downstairs, faint, but still annoying. It seemed everyone in the complex had complained about the mutt. At least it was better than listening to my other neighbor's Country music blaring every morning. They were a shit kicking couple who had just moved here from Texas. She wore cowboy boots with shorts and he drove an oversized truck with the requisite Don't Mess With Texas bumper sticker. Unbelievably, they worked in the cruise ship industry, singing duets to drunk passengers hearing tone deaf twang music for the first time up close. At times I could hear them practicing in their apartment through the walls, with the incredibly asinine lyrics drifting through the vents and penetrating my space. Too much drinking, wife beating, love of country, it was always the same scenario enshrined in cow dung.

My avatar had just gotten beat up so I didn't really want to relive it again. My brief marriage was going to take a very long time to forget. It was like an open wound, even though, in retrospect, I had had some good times. Not many. Some. Unfortunately, divorce doesn't wipe it away. It lives on in little things, like the brush she left behind or the bottle of some Cuban spice stuck in the back of the fridge or the hand written note you found in the glove compartment she penned telling you she was going to the store for some milk. Little things do pop up here and there, which tend to make you wonder if she is going through the same portal of recollection. With her, probably not. She did escape, leaving our little nest behind. Presumably, I can only imagine, she has expunged just about everything about me in her life. I will forever be represented as those lost years, the ones where she went temporarily insane and married some Anglo hick from the South.

Two can play that game, I might declare, tossing out every tiny trace of her presence, right into the garbage. I could also have one of those idiotic burning ceremonies you might see in a chick flick. You know, where they gather up possessions from the pertinent personage and torch them with a cheap lighter from 7-11. Though it might sound like I did that, I didn't. That was way too ambitious for me. One grocery bag from Publix did the trick, even though my brother joked that I should treat the scene like a reverse forensic team and remove every single trace of the bitch, his words, not mine.

Tapping, I spilled out my session, determined to set the scene the best I could. If they wanted a Faulkner novel then I was going to give it to them, right down to the humiliating simulated copulation and my beat down. Somebody was going to get a laugh out of it if I couldn't. Nose ring girl could seethe, while she read my adjective heavy script, as I spelled out all of my miserable fucking life, double spaced but encrypted to keep out industrial snoops. FOR YOUR EYES ONLY. Somnium didn't take any chances.

I sensed that I didn't have to be obsequious around her anymore. They needed me as much as I needed them. What I was, in this little universe of pharma, was the embodiment of the data point that points to trouble. I was the one out of whatever variable, the guy who was going to prove to be problematic. The study numbers were going to be analyzed over and over again, put through computer models and speculated on by a battery of logicians. Safety came first. It didn't, really. What it was about was minimizing liability, keeping the legal wolves at bay.

I knew I couldn't have been the only one having problems with the drug. There had been the time recently when I entered the lab which was in total disarray, like a tornado had gone through. The staff had all been shell shocked, reeling, unable to draw on their training when the shit actually did hit the fan. Only Dr. W had displayed any professional aplomb, but then again he was a veteran huckster, who had been through the wars of lab work and all of their inherent mishaps. The man had done research on yapping high strung dogs and unpredictable monkeys. I can only imagine how many fuck ups he had go down while he was attempting to bring the next product to fruition.

I had heard nose ring girl that day when the lab was in chaos screaming out: "Ezekial...Staff...Ezekiel's wheel!" It had sounded odd at the time, like just maybe she was playing a practical joke on them. Ezekiel, I wondered, remembering it as one of the more unusual books of the Old Testament. Really, you are invoking scripture, I thought to myself, while around me the staffers grappled with their subsiding hysteria. Later on, as I thought about the situation more, I realized it was code, but for what? Nose ring girl was trying to get them to focus on what they were supposed to do at times like that. You just knew that Dr. Wertheimer was the type to be prepared for everything. Certainly they had been trained to expect the unexpected. I can only imagine what the staff went through in order to land their jobs in the first place. The screening process must have been intense, over layed with secrecy and a paranoia inducing brow beating about the company and its place in the greater good of all mankind. I'm joking, I think.

So there I was the next day at work, deep into an account we had just landed from a chain of mattress stores. Work helped me extend my mind out beyond the fact that I was locked into the study for another two months. Fortunately the time spent actually on the premises of Somnium was limited to once a week, but there was the almost constant contact from somebody there, by text or email. I had committed myself to being monitored 24/7.

"Quit complaining, bitch," Lazar said to me the next morning. "Lots of people would give their left nut to be doing what you are doing. Suck it up." He was talking to me from his desk, which was pushed up against mine in what passed as our office space. Sarah's desk was across the small room, facing the wall. She was busy typing up some copy she had worked on the night before at home. "Is that even existentially possible?" Lazar shouted out, laughing, using his one catch phrase that never seemed to not make Sarah laugh.

"I...I...forget about it," I sputtered, remembering that I wasn't permitted to actually say much about my sessions, not without some stringent laws being slapped against me.

"Leave him alone, Laz," Sarah called out over her shoulder, laughing, "the guy is doing the world a favor by giving up his body for science exploration. Cut him some slack, okay." They laughed together and she continued, "I think he is a modern day hero."

"Oh please, like the fucker doesn't suffer from too much self-aggrandizement already," Lazar shot back, giggling.

"You two guys suck, you know that," I protested.

"Hey, I got an idea for the new account," Sarah announced, turning in her swivel chair to face us. "We can have a guy, some nerdy dufus, be laying on a mattress doing a science study. He can be looking up at the ceiling and--"

"Very funny," I interjected, knowing where her comments were going. "You two are banned from my funeral. Got that? Both of you. When I die during this damn study there will be no eulogies from you two buttheads."

"Who said we would even give any?" Lazar countered. "Like we would even say anything...except for maybe something about you being a divorced loser who--"

"Doesn't do shit around here anymore," Sarah said with mock disdain. "How much longer are we going to have to carry the load for you around here anyway, loser?"

"All of this, right here, right now, you are going to live to regret what you said," I told them, laughing. "You won't be laughing when you see them lower me into the ground."

"If you think either one of us are going to drive up to Buttfuck, Florida for your funeral, then you are nuttier than I thought," Lazar declared, shaking his head and snickering. "Really, can you see us in his armpit hometown?"

"Yeah, I forgot how cosmopolitan you two are," I shot back, grinning. "Let's see, you came here right off a worm eaten boat and she got here in a rusted out shitbox down 95. Whoa, now there's two high class citizens."

We did this, the mindless banter. It usually got our creative juices going, or so said Sarah to the boss one day who overheard our conversational jousting and told us to shut the hell up. He was out of the office, off to have lunch with a secretary he picked up at a bar the week before and wasn't particular about his marital status. He had given us two days to come up with a presentation for the mattress people.

It had taken my head twice as long to clear after the session, longer than I had expected. Even that morning I felt uneasy, like I had taken too many of those over the counter sleep aids. It had taken three cups of coffee to clear the fog in my brain. I dutifully recorded that in my journal as I had been instructed to do. Nothing, apparently, was too trivial. That ten thousand dollar pot was beginning to look like slave labor wages. Between the physical hardship and the demanding think time, it was definitely closing in on minimum wage territory.

"Let's have a couple doing it on one of their mattresses in the store," Lazar suggested, smirking. "Hey, I got it, we could get that wife, you know, from the car dealership. Remember? She was hot."

"Okay," Sarah said, rolling her eyes, "right after we get fired for being morons."

"Prude," I stated, looking over at Lazar.

"Yeah, come on, Sarah. I know she would do it. She was an exhibitionist if ever there was one. We might have to recast her partner though. Nobody would want to see him naked. Gut," he explained, pointing at his own svelte frame.

"With mood music, of course," I added, trying to sound serious. "Should we have her on top?"

"I can actually fire you two. You do realize that, right?" Sarah exclaimed, trying not to laugh.

"Since when?" Lazar and I said in unison.

"Since I asked the boss to let me run the show around here," she responded, turning back to her laptop.

"So that would be a solid no on the copulation idea?" I said, grinning.

Without turning around, she shot me the finger and I went back to the blank screen on my laptop, while Lazar fiddled with a bobblehead doll of one of the Miami Heat players on his desk. More blood would be spilled out of my soul reservoir as I tried to think about what to write, something that would make a person want to go into a mattress store, this specific store, and purchase a mattress. I didn't have a clue about mattresses. My Cubanita had supplied ours, bought and delivered from a relative. Cubans seldom bought anything without utilizing a vast network of the extended family for connections. The woman had once gotten antibiotics for a pesky bladder infection from a pharmacy without having to go to a doctor first. I was skeptical she could pull it off but there the pills were on the kitchen table the next day, compliments of a cousin or uncle or somebody connected to the family. Presently, I was sleeping on a smelly futon I had gotten down by the curb, left by my next door neighbors when they left literally in the middle of the night, running out on their rent, gone to parts unknown. I only hoped it wasn't some animals excretion of some sort giving off the odor.

This was the nature of our work though. We were handed products to turn into items the public out there couldn't possibly function without. Now a mattress, that was relatively easy. We all had to sleep. To my surprise, after some cursory investigating on the net, they could be expensive, an expenditure not to be taken lightly. Also, they came with gimmicks, like ones that inflated and reclined, or other ones that were made of space age foam and claimed to be life extending.

Then again, they were like almost all of the products in the US. They were necessary, vital even. You can't do without a fucking motorized tooth brush, one with a tiny motor to do the work for you, you lazy shit. How about that food processor, even though your idea of preparing a meal requires you too input time on the microwave most meals. Sure you need it, especially for that occasion when you plan on following the recipe from the newest big mouthed chef, the meal that requires a good two hours prep time just to get the ingredients lined up. Uh huh, be sure to invite me over for that creation. Don't forget about that big screen TV, you know, the one big enough to see the tonsils on the next American Idol winner when she or he hits that high note to take the prize. We all need shit, and more shit, the more technologically advanced the better, even if we are never going to read the fifty page manual in order to figure out what button does what.

Call it human nature, the need for all of us to buy crap. When Lazar bellows out "Is that even existentially possible," it really means something along the lines that we all are incredibly gullible and desirous of another source of gratification. Please me. Please me. The Id is insatiable, so Sarah likes to say, but then again she did take that inane psyche course back in college and is forever referencing it five years later as if it was relevant. Maybe it is. I like to think it does have something to do with the libido. We all are wired to fornicate something. Bio imprints demand it, I guess. Some of us, if not all, are just guilty of a certain degree of transference when it comes to our buying habits. You see it with men and their cars or women and their clothes and so forth. Nothing groundbreaking about that.

We here at our shop just have to smooth the way, let the buyer suspend the biological pathways temporarily while we fill in the resulting void. Advertising is, as we know, the portal to our world. In some ways selling a mattress was way too easy. I mean it is right in the libido's wheelhouse, you know, almost like a franchise. Subliminal messages silently echo in the background telling you to supply the infrastructure for the fucking that you know you are going to have to do. Reproduction, however thwarted, is going to take place right here, on this pillow top platform. Embrace the concept. Insertion. Bodily fluids. (Scotch guard to the rescue.) No need to rotate or flip, latest in slumber technology. Frame included, with head board. Free delivery, tri-county area. Sale, today, set of sheets with purchase, Egyptian cotton, all the way from China. Interest free, one year.

"I need a new mattress," Lazar suddenly declares, looking at one of the brochures from the company we are representing. "Think I can get a discount?"

"Don't you Haitians sleep in hammocks?" I asked, glad to needle him back.

"I thought they were zombies," Sarah says over her shoulder, pecking away on her laptop.

"Do zombies ever sleep?" I ask, directing my question at her.

"Technically, they are dead, right?" she shoots back, still tapping away.

"You two do know that minorities are slowly taking over this country," Lazar counters.

"Are zombies considered a minority?" Sarah counters.

"Does a zombie have to put down on the census that he is a minority?" I add to the free associational banter.

"Listening to you two, I wish I was dead," Lazar exclaims.

"I wonder if a zombie can get life insurance," I mutter.

"The insurance companies would love that, right? I mean they are the undead." Sarah says.

Then we all say together: "Is that even existentially possible?"
Part 5

The week went by fast, too fast. I holed in my disgusting apartment when I wasn't at work, listening to my noisy neighbors and wishing I could be somewhere else. I fielded a call from someone who thought my wife was still, you know, my wife. He said she had expressed interest in a cruise to Mexico a while back. That was news to me. I gladly gave him her new number, always willing to give a greasy telemarketer a leg up in their quest to separate money from the unsuspecting. Cruise? Shit, my ex really did live a separate life from ours, I thought.

Summer was waning but you would never know it. Heat off the Everglades moved in like an advancing army across our little apartment complex, destroying everything in its path. I drove to work with an extra shirt because the AC in my car broke and there was no way I was going to be able to pay to have it fixed. By the time I got to work the interior of my car was way over the red line and just breathing had reached the critical stage. My co-workers, sympathetic as usual, mocked me ruthlessly, demonstrating that the haves and the have nots broke along the air conditioning lines. You existed by virtue of vaporous gas that refrigerated your environment. Everything beyond the boundaries of life giving AC rapidly perished. Then there was the humidity, like living in a tropical rain forest that continually blanketed you with moisture.

Heat, to me, being a native, was nothing new. Early on, when I was a kid, my dad had become an environmentalist, insisting on living without the aid of heat or AC. After the war, he had gone through several personality altering stages, from withdrawn and scary, to scary and engaged. He always seemed to maintain that wild eyed look, a quirk that worked in his favor at times and against him on other occasions. We spent some of those early summers hardly ever straying from the sweep of an oscillating fan, which only redistributed the dense, fetid air. My mother, fearful of her husband's mercurial moods, acquiesced, suffering along with us. In the winter, on those mostly rare cold days and nights, we would huddle around the stove my father had installed himself, punching a hole in the ceiling for the exhaust pipe. At night, it was like a slumber party, with we siblings sprawled out on the floor by the stove, while our parents slept in their bedroom under a mound of blankets embracing to keep warm.

Comfort was defined by the thermostat. I often joked that they should just build a dome over the state of Florida and get it over with. All of us lived in artificial environs anyway. It could be like that biosphere thing they built out in Arizona. Hey, it might even keep out hurricanes too, a double bonus.

Tomorrow was the next session. I had decided to treat myself for my evening meal and not succumb to my laziness and get take out or nuke a disgusting frozen dinner. I stopped by the grocery store on the way home from work, dashing into Publix to suck up the cold air. Traffic as usual, was murder, giving me an instant headache. Driving bumper to bumper with a bunch of cretins always put me in a bad mood, especially lately. With the windows down to ward off mounting suffocation, I was treated to all of the road sounds, as I was continually serenaded by hip-hop laced with disemboweling bass, overlayed with the brainwave interrupting syncopation of techno, spiced with gelatinous pop that made my teeth hurt. I had to sit there and take it, praying to make the next traffic light.

I actually bought a steak, on sale, and some fixings for a salad, along with a baked potato. It was, minus the wussy salad, a manly meal. I was in my twenties, I didn't care about nutrition. Clogged veins were in my future. It was time to live today. In the morning I was back to the bland breakfast and undoubtedly another horror trip. Being the numero uno coefficient, I had to hold up my end. If they wanted functioning insanity, I could do that. No problem. Maybe the good doctor could take me on tour to all of the science hotspots around the world: London, Berlin, Beijing, and Tel Aviv. Put me up on stage like some carny geek. There to demonstrate that the human mind can be totally fucked up and this drug will make it worse. To prove a point, of course.

For the last week I had been having on and off headaches. They were like drive by shootings, lightning quick but painful, streaking across my forehead before zipping out the back of my head. I had contacted Somnium and they had allowed me to take Tylenol, but it was worthless because the pain was so ephemeral by the time I took something it was gone, disappeared. I was beginning to think I was undergoing some sort of mild electro shock treatment. Really. Zap the guy, the one who is screwing up the study. Let's lobotomize him slowly, imperceptibly. Then when his mind is erased we can reconstruct it from scratch.

The smoky aroma of just fried steak filled my little apartment, which usually smelled like chemical residue from any number of pre-fab processed food. I had nuked the potato because I really didn't feel like waiting around for it to bake. I had even bought some sour cream to stuff into it, along with a bottle of salad dressing for the salad of lettuce, carrots, tomatoes, onions, and chic peas. Top Chef I wasn't but I was determined to stuff myself. Lately, so Sarah had informed me, I looked a little on the anorexic side. My pants did seem to be hanging on me. I had to keep my weight from falling too much since there were strict criteria to follow to stay in the study. Sudden weight loss meant certain dismissal.

Like a prize fighter who has just made weight, I dug in. The culinary arts weren't necessary when you are basically hungry, starving, hoping to stuff your face. Flavor was inversely related to hunger. I ate with abandon, so some bad writer might write. Meat. Potato. Salad. Reverse the order. I washed it down with a cold soft drink, being prohibited from any alcohol twenty-fours before the study session. Then I plowed on, on to my dessert, the one concession to store bought, a slice of cheese cake from the Publix deli.

Gluttony is rewarding. It is immediate. Being satiated beyond the limit is invigorating in a way. It leaves you with no other option. You have just transgressed under your own volition. It is a decision born out of a lack of control or discipline that gives you gratification. I didn't care. An abundance of calories gave me power, if only temporarily. Tomorrow I did combat with myself, again.

I had set the alarm early so I wouldn't be late. Tardiness could also get you dismissed, with your pay out being pro-rated. I didn't want to take any chances. Nothing now was going to keep me from scoring that ten thousand bucks. Nothing.

My resolve wilted as I came within sight of the Somnium building, the one that gave me so much trepidation. I saw the large sign out front, shining in the morning sunlight streaming from the east. Two staffers were talking by their cars in the parking lot, probably comparing stock options and discussing how rich they were going to become. I didn't recognize them but then again Dr. Wertheimer's pay roll was probably immense. The guy could hire anybody he wanted.

I climbed out of my heat box and changed my dripping wet t-shirt, putting on another one I had stashed in the backseat. Even my underwear was damp but I would have to live with that. I could see clouds already building up over the glades in the distance. Reluctantly, I walked to the front door, passing by the two staffers, who thankfully ignored me. One trait they seemed to share was a serious lack of personality, almost as if the good doctor had removed it from all of them. For all I knew they might be clones or automatrons of some kind, programmed to be efficient and nothing more.

Stepping inside, the air conditioned air filled my lungs, rejuvenating me slightly. I stood there for a moment to revive myself after the hot commute. The same receptionist looked up at me for an instant, then returned to talking on the phone, one of those blue tooth devices that make you look like a demented fool when you carry on a conversation. I noticed it didn't seem to be about Somnium business and wondered how he could be so brazen. I was sure they must monitor all of the calls coming in and going out. He suppressed a giggle and jotted something down on a piece of paper. Then he looked at me and motioned for me to go on through with a flick of his hand.

Prick, I thought, heading to the small dining area for my bland breakfast. A female staffer brought me a tray of unappetizing food and stood station nearby to make sure I ate it. There were no garbage cans in the room so what in the hell was I going to do with the food? I munched away at my breakfast, avoiding eye contact with her. A radio on her belt crackled a few times and she told who ever it was that we were on schedule. If only the military ran like this, I thought, struggling to get the hard boiled egg down.

Then, to my dismay, nose ring girl appeared, walking over to the staffer to pass on an order in a hissed whisper. She walked over and stood next to me, invading my space big time. So this is her new intimidation tactic, I wondered, looking up at her and smiling with a mouth full of food. She gave me a look that told me she thought I was disgusting.

"We're getting off to a good start today," I chirped, slurping my little container of vanilla pudding up noisily.

She ignored me for a moment, then said in her usual taciturn fashion: "Two minutes."

I looked up at her and said, "I'm not a speed eater, you know."

"One minute...and forty-five seconds," she stated, looking at her watch.

I scarfed up the remainder of my food and sat back, just in time apparently because she headed for a side door, motioning for me to follow. This was the fun part, when they drew blood, did a BP check, along with an EKG, and for some reason made me read from a printed sheet out loud. Passing me on to a male staffer, I was led into an adjoining bathroom and given a cup to piss in, while he kept a watchful eye on me. At first, I had been bladder shy about this arrangement. I didn't like even peeing at urinals most of the time and this was way worse. Finally I filled up the small cup and handed it to him. He took it in his gloved hand and ordered me to wash my hands and use soap.

Then I got my plastic bracelet, with 77-HJ in large block letters emblazoned on it. It was affixed to my wrist by yet another staffer, a girl with short pixie hair and a small tattoo inked into her neck. I asked her if it had hurt getting the tattoo and she acted like I hadn't said a thing, going on about her task then disappearing down the hall. I was beginning to think they hated us, really hated us lab rats; or maybe it was the whole lab orientation where the researchers never get attached to the animals they are using to test things on. It could be that. To them, we were less than human, non-entities, nothing but numbers on a graph. It would make their work all that much easier if we were expendable.

"It's a go," I heard nose ring girl say into her radio.

"Flight time!" I sang out, getting a sour look in return.

It seemed colder in the main lab room. A staff member led me over to the gurney to begin attaching the electrodes on my head and chest, while another one positioned me to attach the straps. I could hear the familiar hum of the numerous machines behind me, while a continuous stream of murmurs wafted through the almost frigid room. Nose ring girl was peering at her I-pad, mumbling to herself or she could have been talking into her headset, I couldn't tell. A blanket was thrown over me. They went through a pre-session check, counting off this and that as they went. I was really like a pilot, only one that doesn't have control of his own aircraft.

Suddenly I remembered the encounter I had with another study subject. It had happened after my second session. It was a female lab rat, vaguely pretty, thirtyish, mixed race. She had seen me getting in my car and, breaking the rules, approached me. We had been ordered not to interact with any one else in the study for fear of contaminating the other's expectations--or whatever. I knew she was the garrulous type though because during orientation she kept asking questions and trying to carry on a conversation with the other study members.

"You are in the study--right?" she called out to me over a few parked cars. I looked around to see if any Somnium security was watching us. "I saw you at orientation." I nodded yes. "Is this a trip or what?" she exclaimed excitedly. "I mean it has changed my whole life...top to bottom."

"It has," I muttered, incredulous.

"Hasn't it for you?" she wanted to know. Not waiting for my reply, she blurted out: "It is all so transcendental. The fugue like states I go into lead me to a new universe. You?"

"I wouldn't say that exactly," I explained, shrugging. "Maybe we shouldn't be discussing any of that."

"Oh, yeah, I guess not," she said in a whisper, holding her index finger up to her lips. Then she gave me a little wave and skipped into the building.

I could have been the only one in the study not having a good time, except for that guy who freaked out in the session before me and almost dismantled the whole lab like some berserk Frankenstein. For most, it seemed, this was like going on vacation. I guess, you know, that was the point of the drug, to make people feel some pleasure. What was that drug called in that book Brave New World? Everyone took it to get off and accept their lives for what they were. Knit that saying on a pillow or print it on a poster, with a wonderful seascape in the background of waves crashing on the beach. Once an ad man...you get it.

Oh boy, this is where Dr. Wertheimer himself showed up to oversee my launch. What an honor, I was thinking, with giant sarcasm quotations marks. This meant that he didn't trust his staff around me anymore and wanted to put his stamp on things personally. I was the proverbial problem child, the fuck up who needs to be watched closely so I won't get out of control. He was the stern task master, there to insure discipline is maintained, like an unruly inmate at a maximum level prison.

Nose ring girl snapped to attention and hurried over, holding up her stupid I-pad for him to see the numbers, the stats that held all of the details of my bodily functions. When you are hooked up to a half dozen medical machines there really isn't any secrets any more. Several other staffers busied themselves at their posts, stealing glances to see what the major domo was up to.

"So...Harrison," the good doctor intimated, breaking his own rules of the study by using my first name, "are you ready to progress today?"

Talk about a loaded question. I wasn't sure if I was ready for anything, much less this pending flight plan to yet another horror story from my past, one that he fully wanted me to manipulate to my advantage. Shouldn't our memories be sacrosanct, I wanted to quip but thought better of it and replied, "I hope so."

"Can we possibly muster just a little bit more positive emotion?" he wanted to know, leaning over to smile at me face to face, showing his world renowned bed side manner.

Over his shoulder I could just see nose ring girl and her facial expression told me that she would really like for me to comply and be a good study subject. Looking at her, I was now almost positive she and Dr. W were involved in some mind clearing sex in between blocks of time going over data. Yeah, he was getting blow jobs while he poured over stats on his lap top, urging her to be careful and not snag his pubic hair on that nasty nose ring. I was almost sure of it.

Not able to control herself any longer, she exclaimed, leaning over him: "When you get to the helix you have to know that is the time to prepare yourself and--"

Dr. Wertheimer held up his hand, like some scout leading troops across the prairie, and she shut up immediately, the impudent bitch. A smile spread across my face seeing her step back and resume her place with the other staffers. A few staff members smirked. At home, away from the Somnium building, they probably gossiped about her, exchanging lurid details about hearing muffled grunts and groans emanating from their boss's office. All work places were the same.

"What the fuck is a helix?" I asked, laughing. Nose ring girl, unable to give it up, motioned with her hand, demonstrating an object spiraling downward. She did seem to be speaking from experience so I had to hand it to her. She wasn't going solely for the a posteriori or is it the a priori aspect of the study? At some time she had sniffed up the shit and taken off to parts unknown, probably back to Brazil so she could practice goose stepping with her relatives.

"Listen, Harrison," the good doctor said in a composed tone, squeezing my arm for effect, "I need for you to strive for a sense of equipoise. Can you do that for me?"

"Maybe, if I knew what the word meant," I joked, grinning. My vocabulary was better than most but some words that came out of the doctor's mouth sent me scrambling to the dictionary on my smart phone.

He laughed and explained, "It is a concept...an idea that you have to merge the two parts of yourself. Understand?" I nodded that I did, even though I didn't, not wanting to appear the dunce in front of everybody. "Good. You need this equal distribution in order to control the events you are going to inevitably encounter."

"It is all about balance," nose ring girl interjected, quickly stepping back a step or two.

A look of annoyance passed over Dr. W's face for an instant, then he smiled again and said, "Think about yourself as being a superhero...like...like Batman or Spiderman."

"Huh?" I uttered, now totally confused.

He squeezed my arm again, smiled, and explained his point by saying: "You are mostly incognito during the memories but you have to take control in the background. Admittedly, it is a skill but you can learn it. Everybody does sooner or later. I did."

"So did I," nose ring girl added, stepping another step back.

The good doctor was beginning to look irritated by her interruptions and I knew she was in for some painful anal sex later on if she didn't stop interrupting. The two of them probably were into S and M anyway, with her wearing a black SS uniform, with fish net stockings. He was probably one of those type A guys who order people around all day then after hours need to be commanded by some dominatrix to get their heads right again. I don't pretend to know the dynamics of such a relationship, even though I had just gone through several years of ball breaking marriage. Just kidding.

"Think of it as a do-over for your memories only this time around you get to improve on them," Dr. W. offered, again with the little reassuring squeeze on my arm.

"I'll try," I said, not too convincingly, now tuned into the medicinal prospects of the gooey drug--and by the way they might want to improve on the deliver system method and not squirt gunk up people's noses--which would work wonders for psychological disorders. Having a person be able to confront their worst nightmares and change things might work wonders for their mental health. No more sitting on the couch whining about what mom and dad did to you when you were four. All you got to do is snort up some viscous crap and go back and rearrange things that happened to you. Brilliant, as they say.

"That is all we can expect of you, Harrison," the good doctor stated, when clearly his face was telling me that I was a malingering jackass, who was bringing down his empire session by session. This drug was the attractive gem that was going to make the cash register jingle for a very long time. What has fermented in your brain for one, two, a decade, will be the source of wealth for generations to come. You have a new set of challenges ahead of you. I know you will rise to the occasion," he said, sounding like a High School coach with his job on the line if he didn't win the big game. Did he really think pep talks would work on me? Who was he kidding? "Shall we get started?" he said rhetorically, and the staffers jumped into action.

Take off was moments away. Time to bring out the goo and syringe. Nose ring girl was in managerial mode, barking orders. The doctor was sticking around for liftoff this time. Mission control was on full alert. 77-HJ was going to make it to the moon and back and whatever NASA references I can't think of right now. A final check was performed. Out came the syringe. Up my nose the goop went. I was seconds away from either nirvana or another ring of hell.

I felt the usual tingling sensation in my nose at first, as the drug did its magic. This was usually followed by a slight queasiness, almost like when you take Vicodin or one of the synthetic opiates. It passes quickly though, leaving you with a vague feeling of what I can only describe as mild euphoria, like you don't give a shit what is going to happen. That too passes, unfortunately. I was going to suggest to the good doctor that he give all of us lab rats a strong dose of Xanax right before we lift off. Might help.

Again with the fucking clouds and the 360 view, like a sat image on google earth. Same approach. Down below I can see the orange groves. Below the flat ass topography of Florida is calling me like a horror film keening. Kidding. I love my home state. I've never lived any where else so what do I know? I think it's called stasis, where you remain in one place. My grand parents were born here. My parents were too. It was sad, in a way. The only relative I know who moved somewhere else is my uncle and he lives across the state line in Georgia. Bethel, my hometown, is straight ahead, with all twelve thousand souls ready to greet me again, the return of the less than prodigal son.

Crap, I'm feeling like you do when a plane comes in for a landing. My stomach is churning which reminds me: I wonder if I fart during these sessions. The gunk they put up my nose always makes me feel like I just ate a southwest breakfast burrito from Dunkin Donuts. They are deadly. Here comes the turbulence, as I pass through the memory barrier, so nose ring girl explained to me in laymen's terms I could understand.

Holy fuck! I'm at my Homecoming dance, senior year. I know this immediately because not ten feet away is standing Miss Rebecca (Becky) Norris, my future girl friend. About time I got to experience a fun memory. Even in that ridiculous dress she is looking pretty hot. What color is that exactly, puce? That is definitely messed up. I don't remember her wearing that. Must have blocked it out. Still got a nice body though and on display since the dress is way tight. Seventeen years old. Now this is veering into the blue side of things, right? Dr. Wertheimer is nothing but a porno mogul now, bringing sexual fantasies to life. He is going to put the Internet porn providers out of business.

What's that music? God, is that supposed to be rap? Were we lily white kids listening to deep urban garbage? Wait, that might be that ridiculous Cuban rapper, what's his name. Damn, I really don't remember listening to that crap. We had all of maybe five blacks at our High School, six counting one of the janitors. I exaggerate. There is nothing more pathetic than rural whites getting down with Afro-American tunes; unless its honkies twitching to some Latin dude playing at being hip-hop. Can you really even dance to this slop? Can white people even dance? So many questions.

Fortunately, I got a head start over everybody because I know how the night is going to go. For instance, I know that Lee Joiner and Bobby Winston are going to get into a fight over Trina Dewey. Right on the dance floor, prompting several teachers to try to break it up, resulting in Mrs. Goring (rhymes with boring and I know since I took her American History class) getting popped right in the nose, leaving a nice crimson stain on her apparently new dress. Man, I always felt sorry for the teachers who had to chaperon our sorry asses. We were all a bunch of dim witted dumb fucks.

Becky Norris, check her out. Blond. Slender, but with something to show. Nice smile. Smart, or maybe not since she did take up with me, a loser. Destined for great things. Not really. She would, I now know, go on to quit college and marry one Timmy Pope, a first class douche bag. In a few years time she will get pregnant, have a baby girl, then go on to be beaten on a regular basis and become a classic case of battered woman syndrome. Something like that anyway. It won't matter to me because by that time I will have gotten over her dumping me for the asshole. Sort of. Do you really ever get over your first love? Now I just sound like a girl.

There will be some fun times coming my way though, especially that time down by the river. It will be my first time, and hers, two hopelessly inept teenagers trying to complete the task, sans condom I might add. Don't try this at home, or anywhere. It was a moment that arrived unexpectedly and I wasn't prepared with the necessary accouterments needed for a safe sex experience. If you want me to do a PSA I will. Teenage hormones ruled, for both of us; although she had downed half a bottle of vodka before hand, right out of the bottle like some Cossack after a successful raiding party. I had only a beer or two but was always prepared to drop my pants, anytime, anywhere. Such is the power of the developing libido for teenage boys, who just want to stick it in somewhere.

Oh, I know how this is going to go. We had been circling each other for some time now. Saying hello in the hallways as we pass each other. Nodding to each other across the cafeteria, while she sat with her cabal of girl friends, gossiping and whatever else teenage girls do. We had that one geometry class together too, with our desks only a few feet away from each other, so close I could sniff up her cheap perfume easily or it could have been the shampoo she used to pamper those beautiful, long golden locks. No extensions for her, thank god. As a side note, I once had a date with a girl in college who had some of those creepy extensions, which reached down way past her shoulders. One night they got caught in my car door after we got wasted at a party. She fell down getting out of the car and ended up tearing out half of her hair. When she finally managed to stand up she looked like a poodle that had just been groomed by a lawn mower.

She was more popular than me, it goes without saying. Her clique was well established, with cheerleaders and other luminaries of the High School world. For some unknown reason she liked me. Call it pity or her feeling sorry for the odd kid nobody thought much about. I could have been a project for her, I don't know. What I did know that on this particular night the stars were going to align perfectly and I was going to pass that threshold and live the dream. I'm kidding, of course. I was actually going to get a classic case of the blue balls but nevertheless happy about it.

Here we go. My other self, the dufus me, doesn't know it but she is about to approach us...me...him. There, there is it, the quick brush of her hair with her hand, sweeping one side back. That means she has spotted me. She is smiling at me. I am smiling back, trying not to look demented and soil my underpants at the same time. I don't remember her wearing so much makeup but she is still hot.

"Hey, Harrison," she is saying to me, smiling, with the lights of the cafeteria where the dance is being held dancing in her eyes.

"Hi," I manage to say, noticing that in those heels we are almost the same height. Later those heels are going to prove to be problematic as she almost falls down the backstairs, where we have absconded to in order to get in some lung busting and probing kissing.

"Pretty lame, huh?" she states, referring to the dance and its atmosphere, presumably.

"Yeah," I concur, proving that I am incapable of being even a passable conversationalist. Now will come that uncomfortable lull, you know, where two people must stand guard over a yawning chasm hoping to find a way across; but I can do this. "How about that quiz in geometry?" Now, technically, this is an ass stupid thing to say. No one wants to talk about school necessarily when you don't have to but I had to come up with something that we both share in common. I could have talked about the weather or the commodity prices of the next orange crop, I guess. To my surprise, not now but before, she went with it.

"Yeah, Mr. Carter is a jerk for springing that on us, huh?" she offers, smiling back at me, shimmying ever so slightly in that tight dress stuffed expertly with a young girl's nubile body.

"How did you do on it?" I have to ask because we are now locked into a pattern that will have to play out before I move on to other topics.

She sighs and says, "I got a C. Can you believe it?"

I can't, really, because she is smarter than me (I) and I got a B. Dr. Wertheimer's words, exhortations really, are beginning to worm their way into my thoughts so I can't really enjoy this innocent interplay with the girl that I am going to be sharing the one milestone every young person dreams about. What does he want me to do? Should I tell her that we are one day going to be rolling around in the dirt by a river, panting, while I deflower her, snatching her virginity while we breathe up the musty swamp smells. No, I think not. I am going to enjoy this little bit of PG drama, savor it even.

"Want to dance?" I suddenly ask and even though I know I did this it still surprises me. It startles me for the simple reason that I don't dance. I mean I really don't dance, not even in front of the bathroom mirror all alone, with my cheap MP-3 player blasting. I don't care if I am drunk either. Never. Not in High School, and, later, not in college. It is not in me. My jock brother, even he dances, if you want to call it that. His spasmodic renderings are better than what I might dream up to do. As a genuine qualifier, I add, "If you can even dance to this crap."

She laughs and tells me in that little coquettish voice that I just know is going to make me jizz my pants, "I hate this music but we can try."

Try, isn't that a verb? It will be the operative word. Nervous, I escort her out onto the dance floor, too scared to look around for fear of seeing everyone looking at me, pointing, laughing. Come on, you've done this. Let her start. That's right. Okay. I like her sensuous undulation. I think that's what I would categorize that as; or, maybe it could be the dance of the seven veils from the Bible. Salome, book of Matthew, something about John the Baptist getting his head removed. I don't know. Besides, Becky went to a different church, the one down on Route 161, I think, with the sign out front that was always being changed according to the mood of the pastor. You know, God Delivers or Jesus Saves, short and to the point.

We jerk and slither, me the former, her the latter, until the song came mercifully to an end. Then we get to stand there and silently critique each other's moves on the dance floor. I can only imagine what she is thinking. Actually, I know, because a month into our little torrid relationship she tells me I can't dance and look like I'm on medication that is not working. This critical analysis comes after we are definitely sliding towards a split. After all, she has the real man of her dreams, a college jock from FSU, who not only is on the football team but comes from a family that owns half of Tallahassee. They meet when she goes to the Florida State campus to check things out. She falls in love and he knows a hottie when he sees one. That, you know, is the basis of true love.

Don't think about that now, butthead. Go with it. Enjoy, like a diner sitting down to a meal in a fine restaurant. Did I just compare my first love encounter to a dining experience? I have been in the ad game too long. Crap, here comes Wankle-Simmons, a hyphenated name for a total douchebag.

"Jamison, how they hanging?" he wants to know, poking me in the ribs, grinning.

"Oh, hey, Simmons," I reply, warding off his bony finger with my hand. This is not good and I can't believe I hadn't remembered this little side incident on my way to teenage bliss. Simmons is my own personal nemesis at school, a jackass of such large proportions that people would happily line up to bitch slap him if they could, even pay money for the privilege.

"Hey Beckster, looking smoking hot tonight, babe," he informs her, not even trying to keep his leering under control. It turns out they have a history, one stretching back to grade school. I get a vision of him yanking her pony tails or maybe pulling her underpants down on the play ground at recess. The two of them went to a religious school run by their church, where all of the students are taught that Republicans are an extension of the constitution.

She ignores him mostly at first then says only because she is excessively polite, "Hey."

"Why are you dancing with this shithead--lose a bet?" he quips, poking me again in the ribs.

There have been many nights I have gone to bed and spent over an hour trying to get to sleep but can't because I am devising ways in my head that I can get back at him. Almost all of the scenarios end up with him diseased. My brother counseled me to just kick his ass but he is a shade over six feet tall and although fairly skinny has that redneck wiry frame that could probably spell trouble if and when it ever came to any physical altercation. I can only imagine him taking a punch then raining blows down on my head, finally finishing me off with the knife he is undoubtedly carrying hidden on his person. Failing that, he would probably just go get one of his dozen guns and put a hole in me at a date and time of his choosing. I now know that he will end up in prison, doing ten to twenty for his liberal utilization of the stupid Stand Your Ground law and blowing away some guy in a bar over a bet on the Tampa Bay Bucs game, with the jury apparently not impressed with his testimony about how he feared for his life. At this juncture, that is little consolation.

Saved by the music, a slow song, as me and Becky pair up and literally dance away from Simmons, leaving him stranded there alone among a forest of couples swaying to the beat. Oh yeah, this is just about right. I'm smelling her shampoo again as she has moved in close, so close my raging erection threatens to interrupt our dance. All around us hormones are linking up, much to the chagrin of one of the chaperones, a Mr. Donaldson, the guy who teaches ninth grade English. He is from, originally, Alabama and has an accent you could slice with a butter knife. Lots of honey suckle went into producing such vowels and consonants. He is also a first class prick and doesn't think teenagers should be commingling, ever. It goes without saying he is a religious man who takes his scripture seriously, so seriously that he has been half heartedly reprimanded twice for insisting on bringing Jesus and company into the classroom. Not that the school board made up of ministers and deacons could give a shit.

Now this is a memory I can support, I tell myself, running my hand across her soft back, descending a bit, down towards that ass that I am going to be tapping in a few short weeks. Well, in the past I did. The duration of this session is going to prevent me from indulging in that pursuit. Still, it is nice to be back to experience that innocent connection between two kids on the cusp of being adults. Okay, it's nice to be in close proximity with a hot girl. There. I said it.

"What college are you going to?" she asks, pulling back a little bit to look me in the face.

"Don't know yet," I tell her, wanting to pull her back in close again. "I applied to UF and Central Florida."

"Nothing out of state?" she wants to know, crinkling up her eyes in that way that will forever be imprinted on my brain pan.

"Nah, my parents can't afford shit," I reply, then laugh. "Sorry about the language."

She laughs and says, "Don't worry about it. I applied to FSU, South Florida, and Emory."

"Emory," I repeat.

"It's in Atlanta, but it's kind of expensive," she tells me, cuddling up again.

Now we aren't really dancing as much as clinging to each other, like two dying patients at a ball in some hospital for terminal patients. We all are. The music oozes out of the speakers, drifting across the dance floor. I don't recognize the song. It is from some pop singer, a woman. The girls seem to know the lyrics. Most are lip syncing along. My music taste runs more to alternative, along as it isn't too far out of the mainstream.

Becky won't go to Emory, I know that now, even though she got accepted there. She will go to FSU, that worthless diploma mill. She will decide to go there to be with her future husband, the dickhead. Later, after two kids, two big fucking headaches, a husband who wails on her and cheats on her, and a part time job working at one of her husband's family businesses, she will be stuck in neutral, spinning her wheels in Bethel again. It will be an ignoble end to what was a promising start in life. I had actually been invited to the wedding, which was, you know, kind of strange. I don't know, do women invite their former boy friends to their weddings? You tell me. I didn't go anyway. My stupid sister did though. She knew Becky from something or other.

We are minutes away from that aforementioned fight breaking out between those two numbnuts. The five member police force of my hometown, six if you count the guy who volunteers to go on civilian patrol for the weekends, will all descend on the High School to restore order. It really is a slow night. By the time they get here we will be in a side hallway exchanging enough saliva to float a small speed boat. Breathing hard, panting really, I will get a feel of those luscious breasts I've been staring at for two years, with more adventures to come.

"Come on, Harrison," she is urging me, pulling me down the dark, abandoned hallway. This isn't me in any sense of the word. I don't get this lucky, ever. "Don't be chicken."

Now my manhood has been challenged and speaking of manhood I can hardly walk from the anatomically awkward positioning of my rock hard other manhood. The mechanics of biology never took into account the actual need to be ambulatory. I can only image cave men, or whatever our fore bearers were, didn't have to seek out a secluded location in order to get busy.

"What about the teachers?" I protest, looking over my shoulder, fearing at any moment we are going to be discovered and ordered back to the cafeteria. Wait, I know we don't get caught. Relax. This is like seeing a movie you've already seen before, you know, where you can anticipate the next scene and spoil it for everybody else.

Oh man, those lips are moist and tasty, with just the hint of some flavored lipstick or maybe chapstick, like having your sensuality with spices. I detect a definite slice of orange. Even now I am thinking she is nuts for doing this with me. I'm not worthy, as they say. Your inferiority complex is unbecoming, I tell my other self, me. Butch up. Enjoy the ride, dumb shit.

"Here let me unhook my bra," she is telling me and now I really am in a soft porno film, the ones that only give you a glimpse of what goes on behind closed doors.

"Okay," I murmur, startled by her aggressiveness. All along I had visions of Rebecca Norris being chaste or, at least, fundamentally pure. Then there is that first rush, the sensation of touching alabaster white skin, soft, supple, and attached to a human form. "Wow," I manage to say and my other self couldn't have said it better.

As odd as if might seem, the preliminaries are almost as exciting as the eventual culmination, even now years later. My teenage lust isn't abated or satiated of course but I have attained some form of pulsating nirvana. Do I dare? slips into my mind. Take the reins. Back then I had done nothing more than squeezed her tits like two prize melons at the county fair. Kneading. Rubbing. Marveling at their symmetry and preternatural pertness. Now, I could step up the progression a little bit by showing some of my hard earned moves after four years of college and several years of marriage. I was beyond the driver's permit stage.

"Oh my god," she calls out, and her words drift down the empty hallway like spectral whispers. Oh yeah, I have applied my patented tongue swirl to her rosebuds, that being her nipples, first one then the other. "Don't stop, Harrison."

I have no intention of stopping, I am thinking, before slurring in between tongue swipes, "I won't."

Okay, Dr. Wertheimer, I am going to have to edit my journal this time around. No one is going to want to know all the details about my sordid foray into teen sex. Come on, it can't possibly be scientifically pertinent, right? Study subject 77-HJ shows an unnatural propensity for libidinal surges and can't be relied on the cohort in which he has been assigned. I can only imagine one of your pimple faced minions writing that after he or she does her weekly evaluation, after they have masturbated to my truthful screed about teenagers in love and what lengths they will go to in order to accomplish said emotion.

What am I going to do with this new development though? All of the classrooms are locked. True there isn't anybody around and I know we don't get disturbed but what about the simple mechanics involved. It looks pretty hard down there on the just waxed tile floor--good job Mr. Reynolds by the way. Nobody works a floor buffer like you do. Blow job comes to mind, with her shouldering the hard work on her knees. Really, do you actually think young Becky wants to have your jizz in her face? Too soon? I could return the favor, before we do the big nasty. I am, if not anything else, a full service boy friend type. No resistance here. Or, and here is an idea, you could stick to the original script and not spoil the moment; but then again you have already transgressed.

Whoops, decision decided for me. Becky is on an exploratory expedition with her hand and is about to find my cock. Found it. Zippers going down. We have just flipped the calendar forward a wee bit. What was this girl learning in all those Bible vacation schools? She's a little clumsy but she's got the rudimentary idea. No stranger to Physics and the understanding of friction, is she. Damn body fluids are about to play a big part in the next step of our hallway interlude.

What? Wait. Come back! One more minute. Please.

"Get ready for the return," I hear nose ring girl order.

"Is he back?" the good doctor asks.

"Fuck," I scream out.

Then I hear laughter, muted but discernible through the haze of my comprehension. My disorientation is fading rapidly. The lights overhead come into view, causing me to blink and blink, trying to ward off the oppressive light. There is the familiar percolating machines in the background and nose ring girl's face looming over me.

"Vitals," she calls out.

"Welcome back," I hear Dr. Wertheimer say, as he forces one his best artificial smiles. "I trust your trip was a good one," he adds and I can almost see a wink-wink in his words.

"Why did you bring me back so soon?" I complain.

"We had you on a short leash today to monitor you," nose ring girl replies, tapping away on her fucking I-pad.

"Somebody's had a good time," one of the staffers announces, jerking his head at the stain appearing on my scrubs around my crotch area.

"Good, now we know you do possess some nice memories," Dr W tells me. "I guess I don't need to ask whether or not you found the point of intersection we talked about before. Looks like maybe you are just more careful about your journeys."

Even in my groggy state I detect his sarcasm, almost as if he is saying I am a slow learner. Everyone in the lab seems amused by me and my recent antics while under the influence of the wonder drug. Glad I could be of service to you all, I want to say but lie there, silent. I know any minute, once the built up adrenaline dissipates, I am going to feel exhausted. Already a slight headache has sneaked in behind my eyes.

"I saw my old girl friend," I inform them, why I don't know. They can all go fuck themselves for all I care. I am nothing but a statistic to them anyway, one that apparently has wet dreams. To my further embarrassment, my soiled pants will have to be sent to the laboratory to be analyzed. The assholes want to get the lab results on my semen. For what? They want to see whether or not the drug has penetrated my prostate, so nose ring girl tells me later on, speaking as if she is talking about the ingredients in a favorite recipe. These bunch of people really aren't normal or human even.

"That's interesting," the good doctor says to me condescendingly. "You know, 77-HJ, memories, when re-enacted in Somnium's induced environment, take on the aura of prophecy."

"They do," I say, trying to sound about as sardonic as possible, which goes right over all of their big heads. By the way, what happened to calling me Harrison? Now I am back to being numbers and letters on a graph. And you ever heard the word hubris? Look it up. You might find your picture next to the word, you pompous jackass.

We are off to the recovery room, without my pants, like I said before. Nose ring girl is accompanying me again so I must still be important enough to closely monitor. This debriefing is going to be particularly excruciating for me. Can't they have somebody else do it? I whine silently, as a staffer pushes me along still half way strapped onto the gurney. I watch the ceiling lights go by and wonder how much more of this I can take. Ten grand, dude, I keep thinking.

"Do the numbers," she tells the staff member, who ducks into a side door, disappearing like a ghost.

"How are my vitals?" I ask nose ring girl, even though I couldn't care less. She ignores me, while she slides her finger across her stupid I-pad about five or six times, muttering to herself. This girl really does need to be socialized, I am thinking. "Nice journey this time around," I offer, mustering up a pleasant tone.

She looks up from the I-pad and grunts, literally grunts, then says, "Good to know."

I stick my tongue out at her but she doesn't notice, as she is back to consulting her tablet again. Her radio crackles to life and she snatches it out of her lab coat pocket and barks several commands into it. There is a terse retort and she crabbily passes on another order. She clucks her tongue and shakes her head. Life is tough at Somnium, I want to say but think better of it and keep it to myself.

"I'm still strapped in, you know," I complain, craning my neck to look over at where she is standing.

Sighing, she says, "We wanted to be circumspect with you." Circumspect, I think, trying to remember if I had ever heard anyone actually use that in a sentence before. "You are on a different protocol now, 77-HJ. You know that, correct?"

"I do now," I tell her, laughing. "What does that mean anyway?"

She ignores me again, making me think about how nice it would be if you could just simply disregard what people say to you or filter out the things you didn't feel like answering. The world would be a different place. It might be debatable if it would be a better place though. In her world, she was like a regent, always in control of her surroundings, only answering to one higher power, like a second tier Hellenic goddess. Must be nice.

"You apparently had an incident," she said to me, waiting for my response, ready to make an entry in her tablet.

"Incident?" I muttered. "If you mean a sexual encounter then yes."

She tapped in something and asked, "Carnal?"

"What?"

Sighing again, she repeated, "Carnal. Was the incident...was it sexual in nature?"

"Hey, I just thought of something," I replied, smirking. "How recent can these memories be? I mean is it possible for me to have a session that is centered around, you know, the two of us?"

Almost recoiling, she exclaimed: "Don't be absurd."

"Say what? No, I mean is there some kind of fresh date or something? It must be possible to only go back to something that just happened, right? Once it has happened then it is, technically, a memory. I could have a session that takes up something that happened just yesterday."

She glowered at me for a moment, thinking, trying to gauge my intent, before replying, "The mind is a repository, a storehouse for everything that you experience. So yes it could happen but usually things that happened to you in years past take precedence. They seem to have more of a magnetism, that's the only way I can explain it."

"Has anybody ever had a session where they only travel back twenty-four hours or less?" I wanted to know.

"You know I can't answer that," she informed me in a stern voice. "All of our work is confidential."

"How about Dr. Wertheimer?"

"What about Dr. Wertheimer?"

"Has he ever had a session where you were the leading lady?" I asked, grinning.

"You are disgusting, you know that," she exclaimed, shaking her head. "I don't know why we keep you in the study."

"Are we back to that again? I thought we had gotten past that," I said, needling her.

Flustered, she said, "Let me get through these questions and you can be released. The sooner the better."

"Hey, before I forget. Do you want me to be specific when I write in my journal later on tonight. I mean do you want details?" I asked, giggling.

"Anybody ever tell you you act like a twelve year old?" she exclaimed.

"You're into twelve year old boys," I stated, giving her a disapproving look.

"I don't have to unstrap you, you know," she threatened. "It is in my power to have you held for observation. It's in your contract, jerk."

"That's your ancestors talking, right? Under that lab coat you are wearing a black uniform with those two squiggly symbols on the collar. Admit it," I taunted foolishly.

"Have it your way," she declared and exited in a huff, leaving me flat on my back, strapped in, for another two hours. She finally sent another staffer around to release me and to finish the interview.

I am my own worse enemy comes to mind or so I was thinking as I drove back to my apartment. My head had finally cleared, leaving me just a little bit queasy but still hungry. I stopped by a bagel place, an ersatz New York deli, on the way home to fuel up. I knew there was nothing back in my kitchen but a half empty box of vanilla wafers and a two day old carton of Chinese take-out smelling up my refrigerator. I had taken to living hand to mouth in the modern way, existing on boxed goods that came in smallish boxes and drive thru fare. I imagined that fugitives ate better.

To my surprise Lazar was waiting for me when I pulled up. He had only been to my place once before to watch a soccer game on ESPN. I had inadvisably let him talk me into watching it, which turned into three hours of stupefying boredom only relieved by the six or seven beers I drank. A big screen TV only made the world sport all the more excruciating, as foreigners dashed around kicking a ball across an immaculate field like dancing fairies. He kept up a running commentary, using his well versed expertise to fill me in on all of the sport's intricacies. There weren't many. You kicked a ball and avoided touching it like it might be carrying the Ebola virus. It was three hours of male bonding that I just wanted to flush down the memory hole; in fact, I hoped like hell that afternoon wouldn't be showing up in one of my sessions.

I saw him immediately as I was getting out my car, bagel and large soft drink in hand. This was awkward because I had a mild mania about eating in front of people. It's true. My ex had worked long hours with me to overcome it. As you can imagine, it made dining with friends kind of difficult. She had wanted me to go see a psychologist about it but we couldn't really afford it. I wasn't going to blow some bucks on seeing some jackass to tell him I had a phobia about stuffing food in my mouth in front of other people, unless they were in my immediate family. It seemed that if I knew a person well enough I could break bread with them but if they were only acquaintances then it caused me anxiety. Now you know. I'm weird.

Lazar and I were friends though, in a manner of speaking. We were colleagues who happen to have gone drinking together a few times. I did sleep at his place when my marriage was going through some growing pains, meeting his wife and kid. He had married an American black girl from Miami. It was an uneven fit. She came from Liberty City and still had some residue ghetto about her, which caused friction sometimes with his island roots. He had briefed me on all of this when I stayed over that first night, wanting to warn me that his wife might not like me on several different levels: redneck, single, unwanted houseguest, co-worker. I mentally catalogued what he briefed me on and acted accordingly. All went well enough, with aid from his young son, who thought I was just another play thing around the house, smacking me with one of his stuffed animals as I lay sleeping on the couch, among other things.

Even though, I silently asked myself: What the fuck is he doing here? He beamed that wonderful smile of his at me and met me half way in the parking lot. At that time of day a steady wave of heat was rising up off the asphalt, suffocating everything in its path. All I really wanted to do was eat my bagel, with cream cheese and then crash on my lumpy futon, with the blinds drawn and the lights off. It was my usual decompression after a session. Just leave me the hell alone.

"Dude, thought I would drop by and see how things went today!" he greeted me with, a little on the bubbly side for my liking. "Sarah says hi, by the way."

"Kinda wiped out--and hungry," I muttered, edging towards the steps to my apartment, wondering if it would be rude to tell him to get lost. What would nose ring girl do? She would ignore him, like he wasn't even there.

"I hear you," he said, slapping me on the back, as he followed me up the steps. "How did it go today?"

I didn't reply, not because I was rude or anything but because I felt light headed and I had another flight of stairs to go up. Lazar was chattering behind me, as I concentrated on each step. Up one more. One more. Finally I got to my landing and lurched towards my door, with him in tow, still going on about something.

Life restoring AC smacked me in the face and I sucked up the coolness, leaning against the wall for a moment. My apartment still smelled like microwaved dogshit, left over from the night before when I tried to heat up some putrefying Indian food a neighbor had bequeathed to me. The smell of curry had seemed to seep into every nook and cranny of my place. The neighbor, a woman approaching fifty, who lived alone, except for her two cats, offered me the food as I was going up the stairs. We had only talked a few times down by the mail boxes but she seemed to like me, telling me that I reminded her of her wayward son. I don't know, but maybe non-Indians shouldn't attempt to prepare Indian cuisine because it was awful, nothing more than spicy cardboard.

"Sorry about the smell," I apologized, noticing Lazar sniffing the air.

"What is that?"he wanted to know, holding his nose. "Smells like you've been cooking cats in here."

For an instant I had a terrible thought, one that had me imagining my neighbor utilizing bits and parts from the feline family in her creation from that sub-continent so far away. Reminder to self, check and see whether or not she still has two cats. "I think I have some of that Febreze shit around here somewhere. Between that and those fucking candles my wife was always filling the place with some kind of weird scent."

"Is this what they call Spartan living?" he quipped, laughing.

"I think they call it minimalism," I said over my shoulder, as I rummaged through some cabinets looking for some air freshener to spray. I found a can with a label that said: Ocean Breeze. It was one of those off brand types put out by one of the stores to compete with the brand names. I sprayed it a few times and almost instantly it went on a search and destroy mission in the kitchen, taking no prisoners.

"Fuck, that's worse," Lazar exclaimed, coughing. "Now it smells like you killed a cat on the beach."

"Then my work is done," I joked, bowing slightly. "Try breathing through your mouth."

"Whatever, dude," he told me, grinning. "I just came by to see how it went today. Make any progress?"

"Tell the truth, Sarah sent you to check up on me," I stated, eyeing him closely. "Don't lie."

"Okay, she did but I also wanted to know what happened," he confessed.

"You know I can't tell you anything," I protested. "The confidentiality agreement is air tight--believe me. Dr. W would drag me into court, no problem. Like I need attorney fees to deal with."

"Come on, who is going to know?" he said, turning to face me. "You've got to give me something to take back to Sarah. She's been hounding me about this fucking study from day one. The woman is obsessed--totally."

"What is it with you two anyway? Dr. Wertheimer is like a god to you two idiots," I told him, shaking my head. "Ever hear of the word overweening? It describes him perfectly."

"What the fuck does overweening mean?"

"It means the guy is an arrogant prick who happens to also be a con man too," I explained, spraying some more from the can, watching the aerosol particles descend through the air.

"The man's a genius, dumbfuck," Lazar shot back, walking over to my inert TV. He picked up the remote, then announced: "Hey, dude, your TV doesn't get any channels."

"No cable," I replied, feeling the stray tentacles of a head ache beginning.

"Yeah, right," he said, sitting down on my couch/bed and fingering the remote. "Seriously, you don't have any reception? That's messed up. No TV. How do you live without a TV? That's un...American."

"I watch shit on my laptop," I said in a defeated voice. "I'm broke, remember. I have now become officially subhuman."

He looked over at me and said, "You're not going to kill yourself or anything are you?"

"No, like I'm that desperate," I told him disdainfully.

"And you're not going to show up at the office one day guns blazing, right?" he asked in a serious tone. "I mean it, Harrison. I'm not going to end up on the evening news am I? Copywriter, former promising footballer shot down in cold blood by disgruntled co-worker. Please tell me that's not what's going on here."

"Fuck you," I stated, spraying the air freshener in his direction. "Unless this shit kills you--and it might--I don't think you have to worry."

"Now you've got me all depressed," he said solemnly, pulling out his phone and dialing Sarah's number. "Sarah, I'm over here at his place and the guy is fucking with my head." He held up his phone for a minute and took my photo. "Here, I'm sending this to you to show you what he looks like after Dr. Wertheimer gets through with him. No, you aren't on speaker phone. I'm not going to ask him that. No fucking way. That's his business. Ask him yourself if you want," he said, handing me his phone. "Sarah wants to ask you something," he muttered, making a circling motion with his finger around his ear.

"What?" I barked into the phone, now totally irritated. I was also hungry and the bagel was waiting in its bag.

"Harrison, I wanted to know whether or not you could introduce me to Dr. Wertheimer ," she asked hesitantly. "Before you say no I just wanted to meet him. There must be some way you could arrange it."

"Are you crazy," I spat out. "The man doesn't have time for me to bring around my friends so they can have a chat with him. He has a busy schedule that is never going to include me foisting my friends on him."

"I know, but there must be some way you could make it look like a...a happy accident. You know, I just happen to be there and bam! we are introduced. Easy."

"No it's not easy. Are you nuts or what? Besides, what good would it do you? So you could say you met the great Dr. Wertheimer, is that it? That is not ever going to happen."

"Don't be an asshole about it," she said almost angrily. "I just thought that--"

"You would waltz in and chat up one of the most renowned billionaires in the world, is that it? The two of you would maybe hit it off and you might be invited over to his mansion for dinner. Then maybe you would be jetting around the world on his private jet, hobnobbing with the upper crust, something like that?"

"Sure, you dick, that's what I was thinking of. Don't be so...so much of a...a buttface," she sputtered.

Realizing I might have gone a little too far, I backed off somewhat and offered, "Okay, I was slightly harsh there. I apologize but I just got back from the session and I'm tired and hungry and a headache is building deep in my skull."

"His place smells like ass," Lazar shouted out in the background. "Don't ever make me come here again, Sarah," he called out, using a mock voice of terror.

"We'll talk tomorrow," she intimated in a quiet voice. "Get some rest."

I handed the phone back to Lazar. He stood up and announced, "I'm out of here, dude. Don't think this hasn't been educational. I will forever cherish these moments."

"Which knee is your bad one because I want to know which one to kick right about now," I said, forcing a laugh.

"There's something wrong with you, bro," he shot back, laughing. "I am going to have the boss install a metal detector as soon as possible at work. You can't be trusted. I should call Homeland Security. You might be, like, one of those homegrown terrorists. I can definitely picture you holed up in the woods with your redneck survivalists buddies, living on canned beans and hate. Oh yeah, you fit the profile."

We laughed and I edged towards the door. He followed my lead and then stopped at the door and gave me a serious look, before giving me a quick hug. Surprised, I limply stood there. He opened the door and left. I stood there for a moment and listened to his footsteps going down the steps. Bathos, isn't that the word? Pathos? I don't know. I just felt drained, empty.

I stood at the counter in my kitchen, (no table) and slowly ate the bagel, which now tasted like dried up cinnamon toast. Soon I would be getting a call from Somnium, if they didn't just send a text message. Another entry would have to be worked on in my study journal, featuring the star appearance of Rebecca Norris. Becky, my god, my one true love. Is that right? Was she my one and only love in my young life? Shit, I sound like some character in a chic-flick movie.

Then again, I don't really count my marriage. In some ways it has been expunged from my brain. Not really, if you take into account my sessions at Somnium. Those memories are forever burned into my brain, hours and hours of agony on an endless loop. We did have some good times, I guess, but they seemed to be, in retrospect, minimal. We weren't a good fit, so my mother likes to say, secretly happy that I had jettisoned the foreigner in a legally binding way. My ex might have been born here in the USA but you couldn't convince my mother of that. She had always thought she was an alien. After living with her for several years so did I.

Disparate upbringings can create different outlooks, it goes without saying. I mean the woman had plenty of hang ups to begin with before you took her ethnicity into account. I doubt she was going to make anybody happy, and that includes herself. From the time she completed her quinceanera, with all the pomp and inauthentic circumstance until she graduated from college, she had been daddy's little girl. I had seen the photos, with the expensive gowns and tiaras. It looked creepy, like some ritual from a decadent society lost to history. Heaven help her next husband, who ever the poor fucker is. I can only imagine her Anglo experience would lead her to seek out someone from her community; but I can't imagine that making a whole lot of difference.

Not my problem now. I was free of that crap. On my own. Okay, it wasn't pretty. I lived like a functioning hermit. I was down to one friend from college, after two or three others had fled South Florida, unable to cope with the culture shock and uneasy feeling of living in a foreign country. My one friend lived in Fort Lauderdale and thought I was sliding into an advanced stage of irrelevancy; his words actually. He was an asshole, generally, but we had been friends since our first year in college, where we pledged the same fraternity together. On some levels I hated him, mostly because he had money and a job that didn't cause him to question his self-worth. The guy worked for some small company that was involved in designing medical equipment that, according to him, saved lives.

"Don't you wake up in the morning and ask yourself: 'Is what I do every day a betrayal of civilization?'" he asked me one night after we had just attended a Heat game and were winding down after a win at a local bar.

"What?" I queried, more because I was surprised by his question than because I hadn't heard what he said. He wasn't a guy who asked many philosophical questions. In fact, he was a dunce but happened to have an uncanny ability for sales, proving what my dad had always said that salesmen were born not trained.

He had looked over at me, clutching his expensive micro-brewed beer from some mountain state, and repeated: "You are part of the problem, Harrison. Come on, you brainwash people into buying shit for a living. That's gotta be demoralizing. Am I right? Don't you wake up in the morning afraid to even look in the bathroom mirror, like some kind of vampire?"

"What in the fuck are you talking about?" I shot back ineffectually, knowing full well that what he was saying was, at least, partially true. I didn't want to look at myself in the mirror very often. Even my wife at the time thought what I did was demeaning or, you know, deleterious for the common good.

"Is this you being coy?" he wanted to know, pointing his beer bottle at me, where I could just make out the pretentious label, reminding me that it cost fifty percent more than even a beer from Europe. He laughed, and continued, "I'm surprised you can even go out during the day."

His vampire theme struck him as funny and he chuckled, happy with his metaphor, while I sat there glumly assessing my chances of not getting into an argument. More and more I found myself, even back then, defending what I did. You would have thought I skinned animals for a living. Then again, as Sarah had told me on my first day at work, we provided a service, something that oiled the machinery that kept everything running. Something like that anyway, perhaps with a degree more articulation. She had also said on my inaugural day of work: "Independent of accuracy." She had told me to remember that, pointing to a homemade sign over her desk that screamed out those very words in big block letters. Get used to the concept. That is what we do here, in so many words. Later on, about three months or so later, I would put up my own sign, which read: TO THE POINT OF UNIQUENESS. That would be my contribution to the cause, illustrating that we had to park our integrity at the door when we entered the office. We were propagandists, nothing more, nothing less.

Despite the reader reading this, I am and have never been an aspiring writer, some loser bitter because some publishers never returned his calls. Not even close. I had trouble writing book reports back in the day, the tome like quality of this work notwithstanding. No, I was disillusioned simply for the reason that I had fucked up my life. I had a failed marriage. I was a degenerate gambler, with debts. I had a less than inspiring job, one that, by most metrics, was harmful to your kids. I also hated myself on a basic level.

Get a dog. Take up dancing. Volunteer. Treat yourself to a spa day. Go on a cruise. Most of all, stop feeling sorry for yourself. You have your health, such as it is. As an omnivore who will only not indulge in anything from the sushi spectrum, your blood pressure is holding and there isn't any diabetes in your family tree. Therefore, life is good. You might need a new car though, and some furniture.

I could easily distill my life down to such platitudes. People do it all the time. Hell, I know that because I sell them shit to make their miserable lives seem less so. Buy this. Make your life bearable for another twenty-four hours. In the end, we did live in blocks of time, sectioned for enduring. America, and I guess most other parts of the globe, existed to exist, so said the ever so wise Sarah, as she was talking me down off the ledge one day at work after we had been struggling with a radio spot for a local pawn shop. The entire dynamic hit me hard, mostly because I had been witness to what the end of the road looked like for some people, the same ones who washed up on the shores of greedy pawn shop owners.

To my fucking surprise one day at work Toni had called me up at the office, wanting to know if I would drive her someplace after I got off work. How she got my number at work I didn't know, except she was pretty resourceful. She had sold her car recently after she had a small accident in a parking lot, damaging the bumper on her five year old car. Unlike some of the other people of her age, she recognized when it was time to give up getting behind the wheel.

"Harrison, honey, I need a favor," I heard her gravelly voice say. In the background I could hear a lawn mower going and knew she must have conned somebody into mowing the lawn.

"What kind of favor?" I asked warily, fearing the worse. This was a woman who had once asked me to resurface her bathtub.

"It's just a little thing," she assured me. "I need for you to give me a lift to the store. None of the boys are available," she explained, referring to my old gambling buddies.

"Where to?" I wanted to know, trying to pin her down on exactly what it was she wanted me to do.

"It's only a couple blocks from my house," she explained, trying to sweeten the tone of her voice.

"I'll swing by on my way home," I told her, picturing her trying to walk to where ever it was she needed to go in the heat, then expiring on the sidewalk in route. Who needed that on their conscience?

She was waiting for me on her front porch when I pulled up, standing there holding an umbrella for shade from the sun. I honked the horn and she smiled, walking the walk of the elderly to my car. "Where you been?" she greeted me with. "It is hot as holy hell out here."

"Got caught in traffic," I told her, waiting for her to put on her seatbelt.

"Jeez, it's hotter in here, Harrison. What happened to your air-conditioning?" she spat out, giving me a wild look. "Open your damn wallet and get the AC fixed, idiot."

"Nice to see you too, Toni," I told her, forcing a laugh.

We drove over a few streets, with her telling me where to turn, finally ending up at a small strip mall with mostly empty store fronts. She told me where to park. I got out of the car and noticed right away it was a pawn shop, with a front sign in bright red letters letting the world know that you could redeem your dreams on the premises. It didn't say that precisely, I am paraphrasing here. Pawn shops were, though, the depository for everybody's shriveled up dreams. Make no mistake about that. I had always thought the proprietors were vultures, waiting for the right moment to pounce. No, pawn shop owners were worse than vultures because vultures waited until you were dead to carve up your carcass. They were bloodsuckers, who waited in their shops for the near destitute and desperate to show up.

"I think I lost ten pounds in the drive over here," she complained, climbing out of my car. "Why are these Jap cars so low to the ground?" she grumbled, wiping her face with a handkerchief she took out of her purse. "You comin'?"

"You want me to go in with you?" I asked, confused, thinking she probably wanted to have some privacy and might be embarrassed about having to go to a pawn shop.

"You are driving me home, right?" she wanted to know, turning to face me, hands on hips.

I nodded yes and we entered the shop. It was the usual pawn shop, complete with guitars hanging from the walls and a few pieces of lawn equipment too, bikes, expensive vacuum cleaners, amps, and various other items. Everyone of them had a story behind them.

"At least it's cool in here," I offered, trying to sound agreeable.

"It's called air conditioning," she said over her shoulder, shooting me a look that said I was beyond stupid.

There was a fat man standing behind the counter. He was wearing a t-shirt that had been stretched to its breaking point in order to cover his monumental gut. Across the front of the shirt was the logo for the pawn shop in royal blue ink. He was munching on Dorito chips and his fingers had turned a bright orange from the salsa residue. He had been eyeing us since we stepped into the store.

"Got something for me?" he announced, getting right to the point.

Toni glanced my way for a moment then turned back to him and said, "Do I ever."

The fat man snorted and muttered, "I bet."

This was a transaction I didn't want to observe. In every gamblers life there comes a time when they have to make this very visit. As a gambler, you will be broke sooner or later, necessitating dropping by a pawn shop to pawn something of value in order to get flush again. It is an inviolable law, trust me. To date, I hadn't had to do it and wasn't happy about having to witness Toni go through it. At least, for my sake, she seemed to have done this before and seemed placid about the prospect of being gutted by a less than ethical pawn shop goon and humiliated in the process.

Toni plopped her purse up on the counter and started digging through it. I had seen her do this act at the track so I knew it was going to take a little bit of time. She kept practically everything in her purse, from nail clippers to candy bars to old coupons for toothpaste to sun screen to take out menus from the Chinese restaurant in her neighborhood, to chewing gum, to old out of date mace, to expired AAA batteries, to even bullets from a gun one of her husbands gave her (and she pawned), to a stale and crumbling roll of Tums, to the jewelry she was bringing to the shop that day.

"Here," she declared, laying a gold necklace on the glass counter, where inside you could see hand guns of every description, from the most unsophisticated Saturday Night Special to a cannon sized Glock any bank robber would wet his pants over. Lined up next to the small arsenal were digital cameras and tablets, some, to my surprise, competitively priced. "My first husband gave me this, the moron. Said it was pure gold."

Fat man gave us a oh sure look, then picked up the necklace and fondled it for a moment, acting like he was weighing its heft in his meaty hand. "I'll be right back," he told us and disappeared in the back.

"I hate that guy," Toni leaned over and whispered, telling me inadvertently that she had done this before, probably numerous times. "Can a person explode if they get too fat?" she asked, snickering.

Right on cue, the fat guy returned and placed the necklace back on the counter and then pulled out a small calculator from his pants pocket. He tapped away for a minute, grunting, and mouthing out amounts. Toni gave me a look, frowning. The door to the shop opened and a kid came in, a teenager, carrying a cardboard box.

"I ain't buying any of your shit," the fat man called out and the teenager about faced and left, calling the guy a motherfucker under his breath but loud enough for him to hear. "Next time you come in here I'm calling the 5-Oh! Got it?"

"Another satisfied customer," Toni joked.

Fat guy gave her a cold look then said he would give her twenty bucks for the necklace, which made Toni step back, almost as if she had been smacked. "Best I can do, T," he exclaimed, poking at the necklace on the counter with a pudgy finger.

T, I thought. So she must come in here all the time. For some reason I had never thought about my elderly group of gambling buddies away from the track. They weren't rich, far from it. It had never occurred to me that they might be living this type of life in order to support their habit. It was disheartening, sad, and all around fucked up. If they wanted to make a public service announcement about gambling then all they had to do was show Toni hawking her belongings so she could go back to the track. It made me want to cry.

"I think all that fat is going to your brain," she told him, picking up the necklace. "I know what this damn necklace goes for, moron. Come on. I'm one of your best customers."

"I can't change the going value of things," he informed her, shaking his head no. He crossed his arms and rocked back on the balls of his feet for a moment, scanning his little domain. I wondered what it was like to be in control of people's lives like him. His tiny principality was predicated on monetary grief, where his distressed subjects were under his meaty thumb, with absolutely no leverage. I had finally found somebody who was more of a detriment to society than I was. Thieves might be up on a higher rung than this fat slob.

"Are you shitting me?" she shot back, settling into what was, evidently, their own little side show of haggling burlesque.

"I don't have time for this, T," he declared, stepping away from the counter to show that he was adamant about his decision.

"Look, chubby, you know and I know that you are going to give me more for this," she told him, holding up the necklace. "You will be able to sell this to the next colored guy looking to screw his girl friend who comes in here. Am I right?"

The fat man laughed at her comment and said, "Times are tough now."

"Bullshit," Toni spat out, dangling the necklace in her fingers. "This is clean merchandise. You know that it is."

He seemed to be thinking about it for a moment, then exclaimed, "Thirty, if you'll get out my store and not come back."

The emotion I was feeling at having to watch her expertly grovel made me ill, almost gnawing at my stomach like a bad case of reflux. Why did she have to call me? I silently whined. Something like this little emotionally charged interlude was going to scar me for life. I was forever going to be seeing her old face and that fucking necklace in her hand as she flashed it for this fat fuck to see. His words. Her words. It would be as if I had to attend a really bad play over and over again, where the dialogue stings your ears.

Their haggling continued, going on for another ten or fifteen minutes. Like a chess match where the players are hopelessly equal, they thrust and parried, until I had to walk outside. I didn't care if it was broiling out on the sidewalk. Just hearing them go at each other made me queasy. Part of me knew that might some day be me, helpless, locked into a verbal tug of war over ten or twenty bucks. Small amounts of cash would enable me, afford me that next trip to the track. The loss column never seemed to register. There was always another day, another race. Betting was forever. It was almost bacterial, able to mutate while it, essentially, stayed the same.

Toni finally appeared, motioning for me to get in the car, as if she had just robbed the place. Hurrying, she said, "Fat boy finally gave in but we better get out of here before he changes his mind."

"You got the money, what can he do now?" I wanted to know, starting up the car.

"Just drive, moron," she chided, counting the money again as we drove away.

"Aren't you kind of sad about selling something your husband gave you? I mean it must have some sentimental value," I said, sounding more sincere than I intended.

"Are you crazy? I found that damn thing on the sidewalk in front of Walgreens," she told me, laughing. "Who knows what the damn thing is worth."

Chapter 5 Post Modernism

Part 1

America can thank me, I say aloud to my empty apartment, my words echoing slightly against the bare walls. Two thirds of our economy runs on consumerism, actually hinges on it. Our busiest season is fast approaching, that being Christmas. Thanks to some English dude named Henry something, who more or less invented the Christmas card, Jesus' birthday has become a free for all in the merchandising world. We buy crap, succinctly put; and me and my comrades convince you to buy more. Somebody once said the mind is evanescent, continually bubbling, always in need of stimulation. Don't ask me who said it, probably Sarah in one of her more pensive moods, but the point is we are all susceptible to any and all outside influence. Like an elaborate quadrille, the consumer and the manufacturer lock arms and dance.

We spend most of our professional time devising ways to overcome any impregnable barriers that might get in our path. Be it subtlety or out and out glaring persuasion, we will find a way to put you into a buying trance. Have to. Our jobs depend on it. Jingles, print, spoken word, colors, black and white, we don't care what gets the job done. Call us assassins. Heartless, unless we need emotion to complete our task. Maudlin, we can do that. Bold, with a dash of the inappropriate, not a problem. Literary, we can do that to, that being my area of expertise, flexing my four years of reading the forgotten words of forgotten writers. Psychological blackmail, call in Sarah, equally adept at making you go through that apotheosis, changing into that person who chooses to disregard her mounting credit card debt to buy that next (new) product for Aunt Tilly or her inappreciative four year old. Need an ethnic slant, Lazar is on call, ever ready to bend the copy this way or that in order to make it appeal to Julio or maybe Toussaint.

My times at work were becoming excruciating for me. If not for the kindness and understanding of my fellow word slingers I would have gotten up from my cheap desk, a cast off from a Office Max 50 percent off sale, and walked out to the canal behind the building and thrown myself in. If I didn't drown I was pretty sure the toxicity of the foul water would have killed me, even if I would have had to linger near death in a local hospital for a few weeks, running up the bill to be left to the tax payers of Broward County.

Self pity isn't pretty and can metastasize quickly. Fortunately at work we were swamped with projects, rotating and juggling several important accounts. The boss had stuck his head in the door one day and told us to keep at it, which was the extent of his pep talk. From the other office he had also called out: "We need these accounts, you three, don't fuck it up!"

"Yes sir," Sarah had exclaimed, shooting him the finger with both hands.

"The Parker presentation is almost ready," Lazar called out, grabbing his crotch and making a face.

"I hope it's better than that last piece of shit you handed me," the boss warned, and then we could hear him talking on the phone with his latest mistress, a bleached blond waitress from Applebee's. She had stopped by the shop one day, still wearing her uniform. I couldn't help notice that she was a good ten years younger than him, with impossibly white teeth.

"Did you see her teeth?" I had asked the others, shaking my head in disbelief. "With teeth like that you would never need a flashlight."

Sarah laughed and said, "Occupational write-off."

"What?" Lazar asked, looking up from his copy.

"A waitress has to look good for the best tips," Sarah explained, grinning. "Nice nails. Hair done right. And a nice smile. Think about it, dummies. If you are a working in the wait staff end of employment, can' t you write off manicures and hair styling? It is part of your job description."

"What am I, a CPA?" I stated, laughing.

"No, you are a going to be a eunuch if you don't finish up that copy I asked for two days ago, jackass," she said, holding up a pair of scissors on her desk and snapping them a few times.

"Oh poor deluded, Sarah, you still think Harrison has a complete set of genitalia," Lazar joked, laughing.

"You would know," she shot back, smirking. "Must have had some fun times in the showers back at college after soccer practice."

"Now you are just piling on," he protested, while we all laughed then started making the stupid gator sign smacking our hands together.

My phone binged, letting me know I had a text from Somnium reminding me of my next session coming up tomorrow. Sarah looked over and smiled at me and I hoped she wasn't going to start in with the meeting Dr. Wertheimer thing again. I had put her off successfully but she was incorrigible about it, so much so that Lazar had begun to tease her whenever she mentioned him.

That morning we had pulled off a presentation with one of our potential clients, a business that had the promise of supplying a long term money train. The boss had been up in our faces all yesterday, threatening to fire all of us if we didn't land the account. In a way, I hoped that he would. Fatalism had begun to feel right to me. Ax me, a voice in my head told the boss whenever he came into the back office. Please. Put me out of my misery. Then I can retreat, head back up to North Florida and die a happy man in obscurity, forever a burden to my parents. That last part wasn't mentally satisfying but the rest was. I had crystal clear visions of me heading up I-75, with the moist, rancid air blowing in my open car windows, maybe some bad music blaring on the radio, and me drinking a cold one, traffic laws be damned. As an iconoclastic rebel I was pretty weak.

Back at it again. No food after twelve midnight, like I was really going to be stuffing my face at one or two in the morning. Water only, no coffee or tea. I know, I know the drill. Leave me alone, please. Up early. Don't shave, we aren't allowed to. It seems that shaving cream has now been disallowed. No deodorant, might have too much aluminum in it. Oh, and no mouthwash either. Toothpaste is okay apparently, as long as you use the brand they issued us, minus any whitening agents contained in the ingredients. Next thing I know I won't be able to breathe without using a gas mask.

The heat is just beginning to back off even if it is only marginally. We don't seem to have a winter anymore anyway, leaving us with a brief interlude of warm as opposed to hot weather. Already the dread is building as I drive to the place, inching down Sterling Road in bumper to bumper traffic. South Florida has become nothing but an undulating parking lot, so Lazar calls it, so I can't take credit for that particular description. Next to me, at the light, is a mini-van full of kids, with a harried looking mother yelling into her cell phone. Must be her day of the week to car pool. One of the kids in the back is furiously playing a game on his phone, while next to him the kid is sound asleep with his head propped up against the window. In the other seat a girl is sucking on a lollipop and twirling her hair around her finger.

Car exhaust is beginning to fill up my car and I have a scared thought, thinking that the carbon monoxide might show up on my morning blood test and get me disqualified. Finally, the light changes and I edge forward, deciding to make a daring move and cut across two lanes of traffic and take a short cut through a local neighborhood. It is a gamble. If I get caught by a school bus I will be forever stopping behind it while the bus picks up school kids. I don't care. I have to get moving or I will die by asphyxiation.

Happily, I make it, wedging in between two commuters too busy on their phones to notice that I am cutting them off, however briefly. They are in the usual morning commute trance anyway, bored, bordering on being comatose behind the wheel. Why do we do this? echoes in my mind. Commuting has to be the dumbest aspect of living in an ex urban area, sucking the very life out of you on a daily basis. My car chugs along, although with the windows down I can now hear every little mechanical noise that might spell trouble down the road for me. Could be a fraying fan belt, or maybe a valve about ready to burn up, or even the manifold seal finally fragmenting. I don't know anything about cars, except that they eat up most of your income sooner or later.

Freed from the serpentine gridlock, I head to my secret short cut and am happy to see that there are no buses blocking my path. I have to be careful though because cops sit on these side streets ready to write tickets for unsuspecting idiots like me trying to game the system by breaking away from the snarled traffic. Any traffic infraction would be crippling for me. I couldn't pay the fine and would have to forfeit my license. They might even impound my car. Then again, my car might be exempt because it is such a wreck. I have seen plenty of cops hiding out in driveways with their radar guns and on down the road another cop pulling over some sucker. Keep it on the speed limit, I tell myself, checking my mirrors religiously.

Finally, I pull into the Somnium's parking lot, exhausted. Why is it when you reach your destination there is no reward, just one big fucking, yawning void and the feeling that you have just squandered more of your pathetic life? Okay, that was slightly heavy handed but you get the picture. Unless you live near where you have to go and don't have to endure nerve jangling stop and go, along with a bunch of a-holes going in the same direction, you can't relate. Modern planners should spare us from this purgatory and bring relief to millions worldwide.

I don't want to sit in my car this time. I need to get inside and sniff up some cool, uncontaminated air. Give my lungs a break. Even if I'm early and have to sit there and look at that jerk-off receptionist's face, I will do it gladly. Besides, I happen to be hungry and can't wait to dig into that hard boiled egg and dried up toast.

Big surprise today for me. Something different. A new staffer, a women, mid-thirties, attractive in a semi-cougar way, hands me a questionnaire, with some thirty questions. I make small talk with her, admiring her cleavage showing in her designer mauve colored scrubs. She just started yesterday and loves it here at Somnium. Just by looking at the excitement in her eyes I can tell she is another Dr. Wertheimer drone, servile, with brains. Where does he find these people? I ask myself. Probably boinking her too.

Question one on the sheet of paper wants to know whether or not I am sleeping alright at night, which is a lot more neutral than question ten, which asks me about any sexual habits that might have been altered. What? Yeah, I've had these uncontrollable urges to fuck chickens, like a sexually deviant Colonel Sanders. The last question queries about any suggestions I might have to improve the study. I can only imagine everybody putting down the breakfast. How about an omelet bar?

I answer them all as truthfully as I can. I want the study to succeed. Science needs to advance, and we all need to embrace our memories. Don't laugh, if there had been an essay question tacked on at the end of the paper I would have probably written that; along with a suggestion to rip that stupid nose ring out of you know who's nose, immediately, while we all watch. It is a good thing they didn't ask me if I was having any sadistic thoughts.

One more wrinkle was also added to the prep before my next journey. Yet another staffer, a short, almost chubby guy, wheeled in one of those EKG machines and hooked me up, while he hummed to himself the whole time. I couldn't recognize the song but it was annoying anyway. He said all of two words to me, I think. All business. He could have been measuring the heart activity of a spider monkey for all he cared. When he was done he exited out a side door and was quickly replaced by another damn staffer, this time a skinny girl about my age, with, unlike most of the females at Somnium, way too much makeup on. If I didn't know better I might have thought she had just come from some kabuki dance lessons or something. Unlike her colleague, she was talkative, telling me all about her puppy she was trying to "potty train." I think they call it housebreak but who am I to quibble. The mutt was apparently pooping on the carpet by her bed, making for some nice odors wafting her way at night. Why are you telling me this echoed in my head?

She took my vitals and drew some blood, and she also checked my lungs. Breathe in. Exhale. Leaning over me I could smell, you know, what she had for breakfast: Mcmuffin, I would bet my life on it. The greasy aroma drifted out at me while she was giving her discourse on the stupid dog. My stomach was growling from lack of calories or at least the calories I was accustomed to taking in, which usually leaned towards sugar and fat content. She wiped her stethoscope off on the sleeve of her scrubs and smiled at me, telling me that I was ready to go. What she actually said was: "You are ready for lift-off!" I forced a smile back at her, wondering if I should tell her I didn't share in her enthusiasm, but thought better of it.

My day wouldn't be complete without a nose ring girl sighting. On cue, she walked in the room and told the staffer to move on. One on one again, I thought, hoping she wasn't going to induce a headache again. She paused by the door for a moment and consulted her tablet, swiping through a few pages. We avoided eye contact like two rival animals encroaching on each other's territory.

"I like what you've done with your hair," I finally said, noticing that she had pulled it back and clipped it into a folded over pony tail.

She looked up at me for an instant, then looked back down at the tablet and said, "Longer session today, 77-HJ. The stress level will be higher."

"How much longer?" I wanted to know.

She ignored my question and announced, "The meds will be dialed up a notch."

"In laymen's terms, please," I exclaimed, laughing nervously.

She thought for a moment, staring at me, then replied, "In metric?"

"I know a comedy club that has open mic Tuesdays, maybe you could give it a try," I shot back, making a face at her.

"Banter time is over, we have to keep on schedule," she declared, opening the door and motioning for me to get moving.

The countdown was under way. Me, the astronaut in this scenario, reluctantly submitted to the mission. I was strapped in, while the electrode thingees were attached. I recognized a familiar face among the staffers and he smiled back at me. For the most part, they were faceless drones. I wasn't even sure they were human. If anybody could design and build automatons it was the good doctor. Like in some Twilight Zone episode, they might all be robots...or clones...of himself. He just put different faces on them to hide the obvious physiological connection. They probably don't have any genitals, like a Barbie doll, not that I've looked. At night, they were all rounded up and stored in one of the back storage rooms. It made his payroll a breeze, no social security to take out or IRS declarations. Damn, he could even write off their depreciation at the end of the year. When I got nervous my mind always raced.

Strapped in, flat on my back, hooked up to whatever machines, I stared up at the ceiling. I wondered if experienced astronauts still got nervous before a launch. If you had traveled in space before, enduring the G's and usual scary fuck-ups that came with the job, did you always fear the worse? Did it ever become routine for you? How blasé could you be about being hurled into space on top of a mega-ton bomb? Not that I'm linking myself to what the astronauts do. I'm not. Still, I was a pioneer and I was taking a ride, if you know what I mean. I was going into inner space. If that term is not taken I want to claim it right now, so I can be known for something before I die.

Here comes the goo, administered by my friend with the welcoming smile. Probably gay. A gay clone or robot. That could be possible. I can just make out nose ring girl's face in the background. She is frowning at me, what a surprise. God, I hope I don't have a memory about her, even if it turns libidinous. Is that a word? The gunk is going right up my nose, straight to my brain. Lift off is imminent. I got that tickle deep in my forehead. My eyes are watering. Things are going blurry. I hope I don't jizz my pants again.

Think evocative, I tell myself ineffectually because now I am drifting in an ocean of emptiness. The feeling I feel is probably best described as torpid. Look it up. Wait, maybe numb is better. Each word is a permutation of the other, I tell myself, laughing silently. This time the take off went pretty damn smooth, not unlike getting high on some really good weed. My roommate in college was one of the hydroponic wizards who grew cannabis in confined spaces and brought in a tiny crop that when cured and whatnot leveled your senses. The finished product was so potent that I didn't even partake of it much because it was too, you know, effective. There is such a thing as too much of a good thing. My roommate was a strange dude anyway even before the added personality boost from illegally enhanced organic matter. He would say things like: It has gone beyond irremediable or It has to be reliably plumbed. It was as if you were listening to some 17th Century Vicar expound on transcendentalism. Other times, when he wasn't smoking weed he was mostly just a morbid guy trying to get into graduate school with the least amount of effort.

Oh yeah, here comes that corkscrew thing nose ring girl was talking about, leading me into my downward glide path. No friction from the atmosphere here though. The parting of the clouds, right on schedule. Shit, back in my hometown again. I was hoping for that time I went to Jax for the big game and I got lucky with a girl from Athens. We had inebriated, sloppy (unprotected) sex, even though she was rooting for the Bulldogs and I wasn't. No, I see a fire truck heading down Highway 15, siren wailing. Right on past the Wendy's...the Denny's (we didn't have an IHOP but we had a Waffle House)...Mexican place, that only the migrants ate at...and the Wal-mart. Don't worry, they ain't heading where I'm going because I've never had any mishaps that involved a fire. I'm safe on that score.

Man, I hope it's not that one Christmas when my sister told my parents she was pregnant, proving that she really didn't have any sense of the right timing. That Christmas my dad also decided to get drunk on his ass and pick a fight with our neighbor, Mr. Barry. The two of them absolutely hated each other. It was a visceral thing. I never could figure out what it was but I think it something to do with my mom. You don't like to think of your mom as a slut or anything but maybe in the past she got busy with Mr. Berry; it might have even been in a post wedding time frame. Thinking about your parents having an affair is, you know, vomit inducing.

I have seen pictures of my mom from back then. She was pretty good looking. My dad was away in the army. He fought in a war nobody hardly remembers or even cares about. Hey, it happens in the movies all the time. Lonely woman, away from the love of her life, on paper, gets horny. Handsome guy--and Mr. Barry wasn't bad looking--fills a need. It's a cliche. The fact that is your mom up their on the screen doesn't change the probabilities and or possibilities. My mom and Mr. Barry could have hooked up. I don't even want to think about any of that. Like I need years and years of therapy.

What ever it was between the two of them, my dad got a measure of revenge after he beat the shit out of our next door neighbor. He marched right over to his house, knocked on the door, said, so legend tells it, "Merry Christmas" and punched Mr. Barry right in the nose. Boom! Down he goes, right in front of his wife and kids. Unfortunately, Mr. Barry got back up and a small war broke out, with his wife and kids getting in the battle. By the time we got over there my dad had Mr. Barry pinned down by the dining room table with Mrs. Barry beating him over the head with a turkey leg. Half their dinner was splattered all over the walls. The Barry and Jamison families never spoke again. To this day.

As usual, I feel disoriented, what I imagine sinking in quicksand would be like. I know this will pass; it always does, leaving me with a slightly tranquil sensation. Then comes the fun part. Where will I end up? The good doctor definitely has to work on this aspect of his invention. People are going to have to be able to orient themselves easily and go off to places and times they relish returning to. Otherwise, it is a crap shoot.

My vision is beginning to clear. Here it comes, like I am some game show contestant and am about to see what is behind door number three. Alright! Sweet, sweet Becky is in my sights. Let's see, don't recognize what's going on just yet. Doesn't look familiar. Nice tight jeans though. Liking that. She's walking ahead of me. The scene is being crystallized. Crap, we are back in school.

"Wait up, Becky," I call out to her, with no reply. Oh, wait, we are fighting, are having a fight. Two stupid teenagers bickering about the travails of our young inconsequential lives.

She stops for a moment, turns, and states: "I told you I'm not talking to you until you apologize."

"About what?" I say to her back, as she ducks into her next class.

"Fuck," I mutter, realizing that I am in route to a math test in Mr. Carter's geometry class. I also know that I am going to flunk it big time, putting my whole future college career in serious jeopardy. This is not good. Then again, what do I care? I still got into college, despite what that old fart Carter said about me amounting to nothing if I didn't buckle down and pass his class. Who was he kidding? Like I use geometry every day.

I catch a glimpse of Becky disappearing into her classroom, trading a few greetings with the other students as she heads to her seat. Oh yeah, I remember now. We are fighting about...nothing. Of course I don't recall. Maybe the other me remembers but the tourist me doesn't. It has been lost to over a half decade of new memories piling up on top of everything else. I do remember we argued about the dumbest things, like all teenagers lost to their blossoming hormones. Maybe I forgot our one month anniversary, chuckle, chuckle. Could have been I made fun of one of her friends, which was, you know, easy to do. They were all small town girls with big dreams that didn't include staying in our shithole community. In the end, as I know now, none of them would get out. Take that, you bunch of moronic sluts.

I must say it brings on an almost warm emotion sitting here in my math class taking an exam that I don't give a shit about. No angst. No mental recriminations about how I am a loser. Best of all, I can sit here and stare at Marsha Meeples (real name) butt crack showing through that impossibly tight skirt she is wearing. My generation is the polar opposite of what ever the Victorian Age was, where showing an ankle was scandalous. Our girls like to put it on display, from bare mid-riffs, to painted on jeans, and on to ass showing skirts. Just looked up to see the teacher staring at me. That's right, shithead, you are going to die in this job, in this town, and probably in that cheap suit too. He frowns at me. I smile back at him. He is pointing to the test on my desk and mouthing out the words: Get to work, dumbass. Something like that anyway.

A year after I graduate the Principal will discover that Carter is a pervert, who secreted tiny cameras around his class room trained up the girl's skirts. This comes out after a janitor accidentally knocks one of the cameras off with his broom from underneath the teacher's desk. After a warrant is served up, they will find dozens and dozens of still shots, angled up all the way to plenty of unsuspecting who-hahs, proving that he knew his angles pretty well. The bastard was even selling them on the Internet. Probably whacked off to them every night. Now that is a disgusting thought.

Over to my right is Ray Knight, always liked that name, like some kind of Super hero. Ray Knight, able to use his mind to bend iron. Far from it though because poor old Ray is a simpleton. He also lives up to his redneck heritage by chewing on chaw, while he picks his nose. By the way, he hates me. I can see from my vantage point that he hasn't answered one single problem. He is actually doodling all over the test page. Mr. Carter, after he checks out his latest stash of pictures, is going to put a giant red F on his test. To which Ray will probably blow his nose on it. Whoops, Ray just looked over and gave me the finger.

Oh, okay, here is where the fun part comes in. Normally, since I'm scared shitless of him, I would just look away. Ray Knight is the kind of guy who carries a sawed off shotgun in his car, which is parked out in the parking lot, a ten year old Jeep covered in swamp mud after a weekend of slogging through the local bog. His idea of hunting is drinking a six pack of Buds then crashing through the brush firing off rounds at cypress trees, when migrant workers are in short supply. He once shot a pigeon that was sitting on the roll bar of his jeep, but not before it took a crap on his seat. I had reason to be afraid of somebody as crazy as him. Not now.

Tourist me wants to have some adventure. I mouth out the word: ASSHOLE. He is taken back for an instant. I have never stood up to his bullying before, remaining meek as possible without losing complete face. I can almost see the wheels turning in his bird brain at this new development. I don't think he is receiving my reaction very well.

"What are you two doing?" booms from the front of the room. Everyone in the class looks up from their tests. "You, Mr. Knight and Mr. Jamison, are we inconveniencing you?" the teacher asks snarkily.

This is my chance, so I reply in the best sarcastic tone I can muster: "Ray shot me the bird and I called him an asshole." A round of laughter ripples around the classroom, then dies off quickly when Mr. Carter purposely walks towards us. "Yeah," I continue, warming up to my act, "I looked over to see what the village idiot was doing with his test and he saw me looking at him." More tittering. "To me from here it looks like he is scribbling all over the test and couldn't give a shit about answering even one question."

"We'll see about that," the teacher says, walking over to Ray's desk and whisking away his test. "Mr. Knight, I would think you'd have more respect for yourself."

"Respect, the guy's a retard," I add to the commentary, laughing, as some oohhs undulate around the classroom, with some of the students thinking that just maybe I have completely lost my mind. A girl in front of me turns around and gives me a look that manages to say: Dude, are you crazy, this guy shoots cats for fun? I've gone too far now to stop, so I pile on with: "I mean, really, look at him. He is the perfect example of inbreeding in the back woods somewhere."

I can see that Mr. Carter is conflicted. Part of him is enjoying me eviscerate one of his worst students in front of everybody and another part of him cries out for some degree of professionalism. Professionalism wins out and he declares in his best teacher's voice: "That's enough, Harrison."

"Is it?" I query, smirking. "Don't you see that his eyes are too close together, like...like a opossum. The guy not only eats opossum but he looks like one too." This comment is met with a round of laughs, with some of the students even pointing at poor Ray, their tormentor since elementary school days. "Check it out, I will bet you that Ray's eyes are so close together he doesn't have any peripheral vision. Try it, Mr. Carter. Wave you hand by his head and see if he can detect any movement." A few students in the back are now close to rolling in the aisle, falling right out of their desks in a fit of laughter.

For some, if not all, I have become their champion. Ray Knight over the years has taken their lunch money, given them wedgies, stolen their homework, beat up their boy friends, run over their family dog, stuck their head in the toilet, and the list goes on. He is a bully's bully, backed up by his near psychotic disregard for rules, and or laws, as well as an arsenal of weapons on hand that he had no qualms about using. It is comeuppance time.

Not really. Unlike Ray, I can't back anything up, unless I have the good fortune to push him down some stairs from behind. He is, simply put, going to kick my ass and then probably use me for target practice with either his hunting bow or his favorite rifle, most likely both. I am looking into the maw of death. I think that's a word. Judging by the looks on all the student's faces, they think I've finally lost it. My death defying words linger in the classroom like an epitaph on a grave stone. It is getting very close to ass whipping time.

"You're dead," Ray states, a man of few words.

Picking up on that, I reply, "I bet your vocabulary doesn't extend beyond one hundred words, Ray, and that includes your own name." Snap, as they say. Burn. I am on a roll. This is the verbal smack down to end all. Ah, courage, what a concept, especially when it is all artificial.

"I am going to kill you," he says solemnly, like he was reciting a line from a really bad foreign film where the dialogue has been dubbed.

"You are a dumb hick who doesn't have enough brains to figure out what time it is," I say, looking around for the reaction from the class, but it is muted. Thinking, I add, "Your pet snake has more brains than you." More people laugh this time because he used to drive around with a pet constrictor snake wrapped around his neck, cooing into its face at stoplights, freaking out other motorists in the process. The snake finally slithered away and took up residence in the local swamp, happy to have the opportunity to screw up the ecology.

In rebuttal, Ray shouts out: "That snake was as smart as my dog, mutterfucker."

This produces laughter and I join in, before saying, "And that would make both of them smarter than you."

The breaking point has arrived. Ray Knight erstwhile Super Hero is out of his desk, trying to get at me but Mr. Carter blocks his path. Ray tries to push him aside, as I slip out of my desk and head for the front of the classroom, a strategic retreat. They scuffle for a minute, then Ray hurls Mr. Carter aside and is rushing towards me. A very tiny voice in my head is telling me that I am in for another beat down. Some idiots never learn.

Just as he is lunging for me, I side step out of the way and he falls over the teacher's desk. Mr. Carter is back on his feet, displaying pretty good agility for an old guy. He rushes forward and again attempts to regain control of his class. Hey, this should be a training seminar for all prospective teachers, I think, edging around to the other side of the desk. Ray is also back on his feet, fists clenched. He is almost pulsating with adrenaline fueled anger. If not for the teacher I would surely be a dead man.

"Ray...Ray," Mr. Carter calls out, holding up both of his hands in a stopping motion. "Calm down."

"I am going to cut him up into little pieces," Ray warns, which we all, particularly me, take as a not so idle threat. Ray would fit right in on one of those movies where waylaid tourists get butchered and eaten in some backwoods somewhere.

"I want you to calm down," Mr. Carter says, trying to sooth the violent beast.

Unfortunately, as beast whisperers go, Mr. Carter sucks. Ray is back on the attack, while Mr. Carter intercepts him again and the two of them struggle. Nothing like an opportunity, I think, edging over behind Mr. Carter and getting in a few cheap shots to Ray's face. Man that feels good, hitting the guy who once took a crap in my locker. A crap. I don't even know how he managed that. Ray screams out like a trapped animal. I tattoo his face again with some rabbit punches my brother once taught me, quick and surgical, two around the nose and for good measure two around the eyes. Down goes Mr. Carter as Ray hurls him over the desk to get at me. Damn, my knuckle hurts from hitting his orbital socket or whatever they call it. It hurts to hit somebody, revealing to me that fighting isn't a zero sum game at all.

"What the fuck?" I hear somebody say behind me and we all come to a standstill. Laying on the floor, between Mr. Carter and Ray, is one of Mr. Carter's spycam cameras. It got knocked off from underneath his desk. "Is that a webcam?" a girl calls out. My predicament seems to have been superceded by the revelation that the creepy old math teacher, with the sweaty arm pits and dandruff, just got busted.

Ray bends over and picks up the little camera, fondling it gingerly. Mr. Carter is totally unprepared for this turn of events. Classroom porn. Looking up girl's skirts. The realization is slowly taking hold of the classroom. An exclamation point is added by an Afro-American girl in the back row, who shouts out: "We been punked!" She doesn't know the half of it.

This is too delicious to believe. I turn to the classroom and tell them that Mr. Carter spanks it to all of the girl's privates, right on camera. Believers outnumber disbelievers, two to one. I elaborate, bringing in the commercial aspect as well. "Gross," a girl in the front intones, one who happens to be wearing a dress so short all of us boys have been giving her impromptu ocular GYN exams all morning. I tell her that she is on camera, on the hard drive. Men will be paying top dollar to rub one out while they look at her Wal-Mart panties, the pink ones with the little bows sewed on them. I get another gross, in chorus as a few more girls join in. The class clown yells out that it could have been worse, he could have been checking out the boys. He gets booed robustly.

"Quite the impasse we have here," I say to the class, while a few call out for Ray to kick his ass. A thought percolates in my brain that I might have gone too far this time. A man's life is in danger. Is it? The good doctor told me that there is a historical coda (his word) that drives your memories or what you remember. How does that apply here, I wonder? Think. What would he want me to do now? Let them lynch him, after all, it is in our DNA. He's the wrong color though, part of the tribe, so to speak. Might throw us off a little bit. Ray could just put him in the hospital. Hey, he has insurance, I think. All I know is that Ray has forgotten all about me for the moment. His inferior little brain can only process one thing at a time.

"Class, this is not what you think it is," Mr. Carter states, finally gathering up his tongue. "Ray, go back to your desk. You too, Harrison. I think I am going to cancel the exam for the day. So get out your textbooks and--"

"Hell no!" the black girl shouts out. "You gonna explain that camera thing, bitch."

Now everybody is shouting at the same time. Is this how lynch mobs start, I wonder? This is a crime against the community. We have the right to exercise our, you know, rights. Kidding. Then again, I don't care if Ray does pummel the prick, serves him right. I have a vested interest, of course, like survival.

We are all saved by the bell, especially Mr. Carter. Sort of. Three girls, a trio of good looking ones, have him cornered and are yelling at him, with one poking him with her french tips. He is backpedaling until he ends up against the front wall. Time for me to make my escape.

The hallways are choked with students heading to their next class. I blend in with the flow, ducking slightly so Ray can't see which way I went. Doesn't matter. The scene is over. I am beginning to get it. I am like a screenwriter, sort of. The script can be anything I want it to be, within reason. No, that's not right. Logic has become fungible in a way. I can mold mores and tenents simultaneously, and thank you for that sociological angle Professor Kinder from my second year at UF.

The good doctor is a sorcerer, truth be told. The godhead has forever been altered, if I might use some hyperbole, thank you Miss Peebles from my tenth grade English class for making me do my vocabulary study. Unfortunately, she isn't alive to accept my accolades any longer; died in a car crash. Drunk driver took her out. Head on. Messy, with a decapitation. Man, how can anybody be an EMT? Oh crap, what if I encounter somebody who I know is going to die during one of my sessions? How am I supposed to handle that? Mental note, ask Dr. W. about that eventuality. He will just tell me something about the prefrontal cortex, the area of the brain that controls concentration or decision making, maybe even insight, and of course your memory banks. Then there is the amygdala, a part of the brain that pulls the levers when you have fear reactions, like when you provoke a psychopath by humiliating him in front of his peers in math class. Something like that.

"Have fun with it," the good doctor actually once told me before my send off. Sure. There is nothing much fun about most of my memories. Angst, that's what they are all about. Teen-age emotional hell, and survival thereof. I know Somnium gave us psych and personality tests before we were selected to be lab rats, but I'm not at all certain they leveraged all their intelligence in the right direction. We might have serial killers getting goo injected up their noses, all so they can revisited their last kill site. It could happen. Like that wouldn't make for a great movie! Come on, rich tycoon, questionable experiment, girl with a nose ring and a bad South American accent, it writes itself.

The hallway is thinning out now. Mr. Belcher (like we didn't make fun of that name) is standing guard at the end of the hall. He is the vice-Principal and is, by any estimation, a dickhead. He once had a promising career as a Major League baseball player ahead of him but it all evaporated when he threw out his arm. Two surgeries later he found himself working his way up in the admin of a shithole High School, washed up, bitter, and balding. Not a good trifecta. To make matters worse, his wife left him and ran off with the manager of a Home Depot. Now he just stands around in the hallway yelling at kids for a living, thinking about that rookie bonus he squandered on a new ride and a down payment for the house he would never live in. As with most jocks, he reflexively disliked me, sensing that I had never been able to kick, throw, hit, or anything else when it came to a ball. I was one of them, the non-sports beings, people who haven't made a tackle, shot a free throw, stole a base, or done anything in the athletic arena.

"Harrison!" he shouts, training his beady eyes on me in the middle distance, as several other students scatter, glad they aren't being singled out. "Get your sorry ass over here, now."

"What can I do for you, Mr. Belcher?" I chirp, smiling, finally at ease with the powers that be in the school system.

My query takes him by surprise and I can see the wheels in his head churning away, before he states: "What you can do for me is get your foul smellin' rear end to class."

I just know everyone out there has wanted to tell somebody, some adult, from their High School days to shove it. It is a well worn fantasy. Remember the teacher who gave you a D on that mid-term, or how about that Principal, the one who suspended you for disrupting your class, causing your average to drop a letter grade, and so on.

Here goes: "Are you getting a pot belly, Mr. Belcher? Too many beers?"

His beady eyes are wide now, and he is what might be called flabbergasted, as he almost shouts out: "Mr. Jamison, do you have a death wish today?"

"Today?" I repeat, laughing. A few stragglers have stopped on the periphery to watch the spectacle. "I just thought it looked like a few of the buttons on your cheap shirt look like they might pop off at any moment." Tittering from the spectators. "Yeah, maybe it was too many greasy chicken wings. They can pack on the pounds." He's sputtering and I can physically see the anger rising. His beady eyes are slits now. "It looks like you let yourself go after bombing out of the big leagues and then your wife left you for some skinny dude over at the Depot. That must have stung a little bit, huh? Your wife was getting drilled by the guy who managed the tool department, right? Ouch, might need to down some beers after that happened."

This might sound cruel but this is a guy who once got mad at a girl at a party for dancing with another guy so he beat her dance partner senseless and threw him in the river. He almost drowned. Sympathy he doesn't deserve. He was an original A-hole who thought the world owed him.

"I am going to march you right down to the office, you prick," he tells me.

"Do you think your wife and the Home Depot guy were doing it in the Garden Department after hours, you know, on the lawn furniture?" I ask him, laughing. He is clenching his fists. If this were the cartoons smoke would be coming out of his ears. "Don't hold back. Tell us how it felt to be cuckolded by some weenie from a home improvement store. How you were made a fool of and your manhood was challenged. Please. Come on, Mr. Belcher."

Saved by old Mrs. Peterson, the office witch who has been at the school since before time. She's telling Mr. Belcher the Principal wants to see him. I am once again making my escape, on down the now empty hallways, except for two stoners who are lingering around the bathroom. Probably confused, lost, wondering which class they are supposed to be at. One of them is in my class so I tell him to follow me. He is a harmless nobody, destined to go live in Cocoa Beach, with his aunt. His parents are divorced and neither of them much wanted him round about the time he turned ten or eleven. I know this because he lives down the street from me. His house was the one that is always in disrepair, from a failing roof to a cracked and peeling paint job. Mommy was gone, off to live with her new boy friend somewhere down near Orlando. Daddy drank too much and was most times found passed out in his old GMC truck, the one with the mismatched fender panels, one blue and one red.

We are now off to Mrs. Walls' History class, my favorite for two reasons: a., the teacher is a hottie, and b., my one true love is there, Becky. They both compete for my attention. Not really. Mrs. Walls, like most hot women, knows I worship her and treats me accordingly, which is like a puppy dog. Becky, if memory serves me correctly, at this juncture in time, is cool towards me and hasn't warmed up yet.

"Good of you two to join us," the teacher announces, ladling on just the right amount of sarcasm. "We were just about to delve into the post World War II period. Please join us." On cue, the class giggles. Even the girls love Mrs. Walls, thinking her to be, you know, cool.

"Don't mind if we do," I say with an exaggerated stage voice but no ones laughs. A comedian I'm not. Stoner boy heads to his usual seat in the back of the class room, where he will successfully vegetate until which time he drops out of school, which is about three or four months later. I know now that he will disappear from our small slice of nirvana and never be heard from again. A friend of an acquaintance will inform me that he becomes a junky in New Orleans. Probably dead now.

Becky is front and center, the suck up, poseur. Lot a good it did you. No time for that now though. Lucky me, she is wearing a short dress. She really does have nice legs. Wait, Mrs. Walls is wearing one of her trademark sweaters that seemed to have been sprayed on her. Many a teenage boy (girls too for all I know) have gone to bed with that image in their head and your know what in their hand. It is her habit to teach on the move, seldom slowing down, like her metabolism is supercharged and she has to keep up her heart rate. Oddly, she talks slowly but keeps flitting here and there, making for a moving target. Doesn't matter, you can still zero in on her.

She is talking about the Nuremberg trials or something. I didn't listen then and I'm not listening now. I'm not listening to the content anyway, but I am watching her lips move. She has what they like to call rose bud lips, plump and inviting. Her lucky husband gets to kiss those lips, and have them do other things. He is a douche bag. Works at City Hall as a city planner. Talk about a joke. Our shithole town hardly needs somebody to plan anything. In fact, most of us would just as soon the place was unincorporated. We are all Tea Baggers, even me some of the time. Don't Tread On Me actually means leave my ass alone; that is until we need something, like government services, then we are all bitching about not having enough programs.

Oh, wait, I like this, when Mrs. Walls stops for a moment to give us all the "look." It is a cross between an Hawaiian Tropic swimsuit model smile and a nurse's display of compassion. I could be reading into it though. All the boys have hard ons and most of the girls are taking notes on what she is wearing, right down to her fake nail job, probably done at the local nail and spa run by Asians, comprising half of the Orientals in our small town, the other half being the family owners of the Chinese restaurant. How they ended up in our hick town I can't imagine. The demographics haven't changed all that much since the Civil War, except that we have Latino migrant workers filtering through seasonally, not staying long enough to turn up on the latest census. Soon, very soon, my hometown will have to give up its cracker roots and join the rest of the country and get browner. Not that I care. I am an equal opportunity hater.

Mrs. Walls is writing on the board now. We all get to focus in on her tight ass in those designer slacks that she probably bought on the Internet. To buy anything nice around here you would have to drive to either Tampa or maybe Tallahassee. The kid next to me is practically drooling and he is actually rubbing his crotch. The girl behind him just smacked him in the back of the head for his lewdness. Who knew High School History could be so much fun.

Time to check out what Becky is doing. She is scratching her cheek, right by that little mole that drives me crazy. She is taking notes, writing down all of the historical trivia in her impossibly neat handwriting. Full disclosure: I still have in my possession a few of her love notes, where she added little hearts and smiley faces. An epistolary masterpiece they weren't. I don't know why I kept them. They are old school. Now, you know, our communications are all stored on a SD card. Texts, tweets, emails, is that what future historians are going to have to wade through to flesh out a bio of so and so? On the fifth of January the President of the United States tweeted: Took a dump this morning while the Secret Service watched. I don't envy them. Historical references will forever be altered.

Something is happening. Colors...very bright colors...blinding light too. I need some sunglasses. Everything looks blurry, out of focus. I can still hear Mrs. Walls droning on about the Allied Forces, but all of the other students have gone pixelated. They are fragmenting all around me. This has never happened before. I don't remember the good doctor saying anything about this kind of disturbance in the force, if I might use Star Wars jargon for a minute. I don't seem to be moving but everyone around me is, like they are on fast forward and I'm not. It is almost as if my memories have been recorded on a DVR.

I was just settling in for my favorite class. Damn it! Bring back the floor show.

What's this? Jesus Christ, it's my baptismal day. Are you kidding me? For a month my parents fought over whether or not I should be baptized at all. Dad, in the no column. Mom, no son of mine is going to go through life unbaptized. We know who won out.

Shit, there is Pastor Getty doing his pious thing on the pulpit. Pastor Getty, all three hundred pounds of him, screaming to the heavens to save us from ourselves. We know what commandment he has been breaking and for a very long time. Flesh ripples up and down as his protestations grow louder, resounding off the walls of the small church my mother attends each and every Sunday, minus my father and most times us kids. My parents long ago made a pact and in that pact it was decided that each of their offspring would have the singular power to decide whether or not they wanted to be religious or to what degree they wanted to be religious. You guess how that turned out; although I will say that my sister does attend Sunday services but only sporadically, enough to assuage her fear of the unknown happening. My older brother elected to skip out on the whole formal religion thing, choosing instead to wait until he got to the Pearly Gates of Heaven to confront his creator.

Anyway, I am only seven years old in this scene, hardly adult enough to make any decisions on my own. I will say that I wasn't too happy about having to attend church services in a small confined space that smelled of Glade air freshener, cheap perfume, and body sweat, while we all sat there and watched a man who was fat enough to be a circus act. Pastor Getty knew his Bible of course, but didn't have a filter when it came time to organize his sermons or distill them down to an hour. Brevity wasn't his forte. His sermons stretched on beyond an hour most Sundays, and on one memorable (regrettable) Sabbath he went on about Paul and Peter for close to two and a half hours. Three quarters of the congregation had fallen off into deep naps, while the others were struggling with the early onset of raging hemorrhoids from sitting on those hard wooden pews for so long.

We kids squirmed, whined, and generally thought the adults were cruel for making us sit there and listen to a grotesquely obese man tell us we were all going to hell for our sins. Even small children have proportional sense and are able to see when they are being exploited, even if it is thought to be in their best interest. We weren't interested in the New or Old Testament all that much. If the Bible didn't proscribe against candy and cartoons, then leave us out of it. That was the general consensus, if I had taken a poll among my little peers. You adults can have the serious stuff where there is some heavy lifting involved. Don't covet your neighbor's ass, don't worship plastic idols or whatever, don't stick it where it don't belong, don't eat too much at the Chinese restaurant buffet and so on.

I thought I had repressed this memory. Oh crap, there's my mother, in her Sunday finest, and holding a camera. When did it become acceptable to take pictures of somebody getting dunked for the glory of God? This sucks. There's my fucking brother too, the shithead. And my sister. She's picking her nose, that's nice to see. Conspicuously absent is my father. After that war thing he says he doesn't need to be told about any God or Jesus. Says he will never step foot in a house of worship for as long as he lives. He even wrote out a will saying that under no circumstances should he have a funeral that is presided over by a minister, preacher, priest, pastor, or any man of the cloth. Those are his words, by the way. Man knows what he wants.

My mom, usually during one of their heated arguments, often threatens to have him buried with a Bible if his time comes first; to which my father usually says: "And I will come back and haunt the hell out of you until your dying day and then some." We kids know he is as good as his word.

I am dressed in new clothes bought just for the occasion. This experience has the feel of some NGEO program about odd societal rituals you might see in, you know, Armenia. It doesn't seem like modern day America would have something this stupid going on. We aren't exactly kissing snakes here but we sure might come off as peculiar. Fully clothed, I am going to walk down into a baptism pit and have a gigantic man dunk me in the water and call it holy. What? God/Jesus wants me to do this? In this case, he wants my parents to tell me to do it. I have to be honest. On my own, I am not doing this. I might do a nasty cannon ball in the baptism pool but I don't want to walk down those slippery steps in my clothes and have some guy half drown me. I'll take my chances. Keep my sins to the minimum.

This memory is different though. I am all of seven years old. Just a little shit, with a bad haircut by the way, compliments of my mother who thought I might look good with bangs. Just because she was in love with that stupid Beatle Paul doesn't mean I have to go around looking like some effeminate pussy. My dad is no help because he thinks it's funny for one of his sons to pose as a miniature Fab Four. God, I look like an idiot. And skinny. I don't remember looking so skinny before.

I have to go through this again. Doctor W. is definitely going to have to do something about this. Nobody is going to want to relive moments like this from their childhood: that first trip to the dentist, the first day of school, potty training, the list goes on. My sister is grinning at me, and pointing. Here it comes: Mom just smacked her hand for pointing. Now my dear sister is sticking her tongue out at me, while my brother is picking his nose, literally. As I said, my beloved father isn't even here. Probably sitting at home drinking beer and waiting for the Jags game to start; he absolutely detests the Dolphins and ignores the Bucs.

Me, personally, I'm not used to being a source of amusement. I am the kid nobody pays much attention to, totally eclipsed by my older siblings. In truth, I like it that way. I am like the serial killer who slips under the radar all the time, where no one can remember what he looked like. I'm joking.

"Children," one of the deacons is calling out, the same guy who is slipping it to the woman playing the organ on Sundays and several days a week his organ gets worked over. I know this now because he will be found dead in his car not seven years from this date in time. Foul play, so the police tell us. Really. What tipped you off? Was it the massive hole in the side of his head or was it the gray matter splattered all over the dash? Large caliber weapons tend to make a mess. Who did it? Don't know even now. My mother says to this day it was a vagrant who liked to hang out down under the rail road overpass. Sure. All transients are packin', mom. Sis thinks it was the organist's jealous husband, a known hunter who liked to bag his share of deer in and out of season; he was fond of his homemade venison jerky, disgustingly stinky and spicy. Good pick, sis. My brother never gave a shit who shot the Bible thumper and thought he probably got what he deserved. Dad, for his part, wished he had shot the sanctimonious, greasy hypocrite.

"I'm going first," a little girl next to me announces, grinning at me with her gap tooth smile. I remember her now. She gave my brother a handjob behind the bleachers after a football game.

Looking around, I lean over and whisper: "The preacher is going to diddle you when you are baptized."

"Is not," she protests, her eyes narrowing. "Jesus loves me," she offers, apropos of nothing.

"Jesus was a homo," I tell her, as her eyes widen in fear. "Why do you think he was always hanging around all those disciples? Think about it." I realize now that it must sound strange having a seven year old utilizing adult diction. "He was flaming. Took it up the ass."

There she goes, running away from me. I feel relatively safe being an asshole as a seven year old. Who is going to beat me up? Call me precocious. Everybody has a fantasy of being your adult self in your child body, like a retrospective fun house. I can tell all of you to go fuck yourselves, twice.

"Children," the adulterer is calling out again, "it's time to get in line." He herds us towards the drowning pool, drowning our sins that is. "Hush up now. Think of Jesus."

"I am thinking of John the Baptist," I exclaim a little too loudly, drawing stares from the others in line.

"That's good too, son," the deacon tells me, smiling. "We are all God's children."

"Look, Mrs. Jenkins isn't wearing any panties!" I shout out, loud enough for half the congregation to hear. Coming from a seven year old, in my cracking falsetto voice, it all seems comical, absurd. Of course I am drawing attention to the organist, who happens to be, kind of hot. Mid-thirties. Trim, probably lifting bibles all day. Nice, clean short hair style; no muss after those trysts in the back of the deacon's SUV. You know she has some pretty good dexterity with those digits after playing organ all the time, better to whack you off.

For once in church my brother is paying attention. He is grinning. My mother is horrified. Her little son is the devil incarnate. Sis is beyond shocked. Even her little tween brain knows something is up. The organist's husband, Mr. Jenkins, is apoplectic, with his eyes bulging out. He is clenching his meaty fists and mumbling. Already half the religious nuts in attendance know he is being cuckolded, again and again. Mrs. Jenkins is usually topic one on the gossip circuit. Even my tender seven year old ears have heard the tales of sweaty sex parked out in the swamp.

"Harrison," I hear my mother call out, stopping in mid-sentence, frozen by humiliation.

Now I feel like a jerk for exposing my mother to my licentious sense of humor. Still, she was making me go swimming completely clothed. An eye for an eye, ma. "The deacon has a hard on," I call out, pointing to the appropriate area of his anatomy, where he self-consciously and reflexively tries to cover himself. Some are laughing. Some aren't. I am a seven year old stand up comic, one of those breeds that likes to insult their audience. Insert my finger in a ring provided by the forefinger and thumb on my left hand, I shout: "This is what they like to do in his car." I distinctly hear an audible gasp from my mother. She will never be able to attend services here again, granting my dad his wish for her to give up religion.

"Boy!" deacon is shouting, wagging his finger at me. "You are possessed by the devil. Hear it? The boy is taken by a demon."

To my consternation, more than several congregants agree with this assessment, making my riff all the more risky. Onward, I shout back: "He makes her do anal intercourse," I declare, sounding like some sex therapist prodigy. "And she likes it." This is unfair, Mrs. Jenkins never did anything to me.

"Harrison, get down here right now," my mother demands.

"But mom, I haven't been saved yet," I call out, laughing. "I have too many sins not--"

"Shush," my mother cries out, which, as I know from experience, is usually followed by a smack to the posterior.

I am a seven year old provocateur. My adult mind is racing, while my little boy body is flinching. Mainly because another member of our church, a Mr. Totter, who runs the local Subway franchise and is a recovering drunk, two times over, has me in his grasp and is shaking me. Shaking children, I believe, is a southern thing. Sure we like to smack, pinch, spank, and generally terrorize the little ones, but the art of shaking a tiny individual has been perfected down this way.

I was in for a shaking, for sure. Then again my dad would probably get a laugh out of this. His son, the youngest, essentially sticking his tongue out at the religionists, as he calls them. Where are the video cameras when you need them? This is a You Tube moment if ever there was one. Wait, there is a proud parent filming over there, to the right of the baptismal. Everything is taped in our culture, from births to vile puke scenes to weddings to that time you porked that ugly girl you picked up at the fraternity mixer.

Chaos has gripped the church, which is, incidentally, in a store front strip mall. Very utilitarian. God, apparently, is okay with function over form if it gets the sinners to hear His Word. Me, I happen to like architecturally ambitious churches, even though America as a whole is kind of weak in that area. I'm sure some churches up north might pass muster but down this way we lean towards clapboard structures with fragile steeples that almost always blow down in the slightest breeze. This church doesn't even have that. It is a crap location made all the more sad by how the congregation tried to bump up the holiness by adding a painted on mural to the big plate glass window in the front. It was painted by some kid from my future High School and depicts the Last Supper in a less than flattering replica of DaVinci's work. If you look close enough, you can see the disciples are eating take out. Just kidding.

Thank God the codes in our small town aren't strictly enforced because the baptismal pool is definitely not up to standard. If the damn thing sprung a leak it would probably drown everybody in the church. I can't imagine how they got the damn thing in through the front doors. We children laugh every time we come to church. Quietly, not wanting to offend my mother, who spent several years searching for just the right church to attend. She wanted a certain degree of pious crap, one that reached the fervor and pitch she felt comfortable with. My mother, the holy roller. Yes, it is embarrassing. You never want to admit--to yourself or anyone else--that the woman who brought you into the world believes that very world is only six thousand years old, give or take a century or so, among other things that any sane person would find laughable. You know: water into wine, loafs of bread, stinky fish, resurrection, and even prohibition against whacking it.

"I think the devil's handiwork is present," so says the minister, who got his religious credentials the old fashioned way: by babbling scripture. Being self-taught, with no divinity school background, he tends to blame Lucifer for just about everything, from pimples to cancer and avarice on through to war. The avarice part is a sensitive area because making money doesn't really disqualify the good Christian from attaining those lofty heights. No, it actually makes you a better candidate, almost as if Jesus had been a multi-level marketing salesman or something. The fact that he was, basically, a beggar doesn't seem to register with this new breed of Christian. Having money in your coffers makes you somehow closer to God. It is that sort of dissonance that makes their particular brand of religion so rewarding, spiritually and monetarily.

Several people call out hearty "amen's," as they recoil from me. You can never be too sure if the devil might jump from person to person, like some mutating, communicable toxin. I just know everyone in that small church has seen some movie in the past where the little kid becomes possessed and wreaks havoc on the family and then the town. I am the villain in my own movie. A junior sized monster, absent the ominous sound track marking my every move. Scratch that. The organist is still actually playing some music in the back ground. Everybody probably thinks I am controlling her too.

"I am going to turn this water into blood," I cry out, raising my hands over my head in a posture I think closely approximates what some lunatic might do, regardless of age. Gasps all around. I am beginning to see what all the psychos find appealing about being fucking crazy. "Then I am going to put a pox on you." I don't know what that really means but have always thought it sounded creepy. Unspecified threats dealing with disgusting skin diseases always scares people.

"Run!" a man in the front pew, one of those suck up congregants who always have to sit up by the preacher and say way too many Hallelujahs and Amens, cries out.

"Stop! Wait!" the preacher shouts. "Jesus will save us." He breaks into some scripture that inexplicably deals with occasions such as this; of course the genius of the Bible is that it can be manipulated just about any which way you want it to. I once knew a person in college who told me that you could find Einstein's formulas embedded in the Bible. "We must force the devil out of this boy. Now!" His emphatic cry for deliverance from...me, does the trick. Everyone is staying put. Their Christian manhood has been challenged. The devil is about to face some good old fashioned southern tenacity.

"You are all pussies," I shout, trying to remember what that old movie the Exorcist's best lines were. It's not a good fit anyway. That was the Catholic preoccupation with going into hand to hand combat with the devil, complete with mumbled Latin and ancient rituals. We are all about bitch slapping the devil with the Bible, while we screech about fundamentalist irrelevancies and convoluted scripture. The devil won't even get a chance to show off with his command of foreign languages, however dead. "Jesus was a fag!" I shout, mumbling an apology to the gay community under my breath.

"Grab him," Mr. Subway declares in a funny high pitched voice full of adrenaline and trepidation.

"Your sandwiches suck," I tell him, dodging out of the way. Although I am only seven years old I now realize I have the dexterity and physical prowess of my chronological age.

"Got him," another parishioner cries out, latching onto my arm.

"Go fuck yourself," I say, spinning around and punching him full on in the face. He reels backwards, releasing me. "Come on, limp dicks, let's see what you got." The scramble is on. I push two of the baptismal candidates into the pool, as I jump down the stairs. They squeal as they plunged into the cold water. "Wash away those sins, suckers," I call over my shoulder, as I head for the organ set up on a small platform to the right of the altar. The organist screams. I grab her from behind and call out: "Want to know whose organ she's being playing after church hours? Can you guess?"

"Call the police!" a woman shouts, grabbing and pulling her two children tight against her, while her husband chases me around the church.

"What the fuck are the police going to do?" I call out, laughing. "I am the devil. They can't do anything to me, dumb fuck."

"Got you," a man calls out, clutching at me.

"Hey, fuckhead, eat this," I tell him, kicking him in the balls and then adding a kick to the shins too with my new pointy dress shoes--thanks mom. "I rule all of you! I will make you eat shit until you die horrible deaths."

"Harrison...stop it," my mother yells, while my siblings are in total shock. Their little brother has never caused anybody any trouble before. He is, besides the usual, the model child. Maybe his table manners could improve a bit but he has never abused any animals, always seems polite to adults, even makes his bed in the morning. "Jesus...Jesus, help us," my mother pleads, looking to the heavens or, in this case, the stained ceiling from the last hurricane to pass through our town that dumped over ten inches of rain in one hour.

"He can't help you, dumbass," I shout, regretting it immediately since my mother, minus the ridiculous insistence on attending a questionable church, has never done me much harm. I can't stop now though. This is something I have always wanted to do and that is strike fear in the hearts of those who believe in such silly crap. "I killed Jesus. I killed Jesus." This, as theological accuracy goes, isn't quite true but I am on a roll. "He was a Jewish hick who wouldn't give you the sweat off his balls if he showed up here today. Which he isn't. HE. IS. DEAD. Get it? Died on that fucking cross. He ain't coming back, dummies. The Romans hung him out to die. I am now your leader."

A few kids are crying. The older ones are, mostly, amused. Hey, it's a freak show. People pay good money for things like this.

"We must pray," the preacher's wife says solemnly, dropping to her knees, inciting at least a dozen other people to do so.

I run by her and muss her hair as she prays, squeezing her boob a little bit. Why not? I have to live up to the devil's standards. "I can't hear you," I call out, as I continue to run around the church. The men in the congregation are remarkably unathletic, having done little or no exercise since who knows when. Fast food and sedentary hours in front of the TV watching football have halved their life expectancy. "I am that I am," I bellow, now remembering a phrase God supposedly told Moses when he asked who the fuck God was; and this is what passed as sensible discourse back in Biblical days.

"Got 'em," says a Mr. Nickson, former basketball coach at the High School, forced to resign when it was discovered that he was siphoning off money from the school's athletic fund to buy a new fishing boat.

"I will curse your family," I threaten, squirming to get away, but he is strong and holding me tight.

"Let us pray...pray for this young man's soul," so says the preacher, wheezing, trying to catch his breath. He is breaking into a boilerplate prayer, one that must cover unexpected things like this. His eyes are closed and I can almost hear his heart working overtime to keep circulating in and around all of his fat cells. Other people are joining in now, heads bent in prayer. I see my mother down on her knees, while my siblings have recovered from their mutual shock and are now squelching laughter.

"I am Beelzebub," I shout out, only because I have always liked the sound of the name, like some medieval anti-hero type. "I will destroy all of you." Coming out of the mouth of a skinny seven year old this is more than comical. I am about as threatening as a wounded dove.

Anyway, the preacher launches into something from Peter: "Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour."

Me, I'm like a lion. The absurdity of that image makes me laugh, which comes out a little towards the demented side of the scale. A few women have taken to comforting my poor mother, who apparently gave birth to the anti-Christ. The wisdom of my spur of the moment folly is now starting to look somewhat ominous. This is the Bible belt, where they have no qualms about kissing snakes or ostracizing anyone they deem unfit to be a good Christian. They probably aren't even above some corporeal punishment if it suits their theological bent. I might be in for some stern corrective measures, as in something in the flammable category. I can see these people burning me at the stake, out back, behind the strip mall, in among the discarded worn tires and various rusting kitchen appliances dumped there over the years. No one would care. Who would know?

Seven year old boy disappears from small town in the Panhandle area of Florida. Abducted. Loving parents are distraught over their loss. Years ago some couple down in South Florida lost their son, kidnapped at a local mall, eventually to be found dead in a canal. Happens all the time. There are plenty of sickos out there looking for small children, further proof that we are a declining culture with a fragmenting society. Sounds like another TV movie in the making.

Then the church will have a terrible secret to keep. The preacher, the deacons, the organist, the choir that always manages to sing off key, my mother, my brother and sister, and everyone else in attendance that fateful day will be linked, all sharing a bond of criminality. I have seen enough awful movies to know someone will crack as soon as the next stranger wanders into town. It might be some bored journalist looking for a story or an ambitious assistant producer on a dying magazine TV show looking to make a name for himself. So, what really did happen to little Harrison Jamison? Tell me, speak into the microphone, please.

Saved again. I can feel the tentacles of reality reaching out to me. Everyone is beginning to fade from view. I am getting that odd sensation again, where my body feels like it is tingling all over. I am actually shivering now. Time to get in a parting shot, so I call out: "Father, why have you forsaken me? You shithead." My last glimpse of memoryland is of my mother's face, tears flowing down her face, as she mouths out: "Save him, Jesus."

"He's back," I hear nose ring girl casually tell the staff, as she pecks away at her I-pad. These flights have now become as routine as a non-stop from Denver to Dallas. Good to know. "Positions, now," she orders.

The return trajectory is always a little bit easier than the flight out for some reason. I can now feel my back against the gurney and the cold air of the lab room fills my lungs immediately, like breathing hard outdoors on a January morning. My eyes blink, as I squint against the harsh fluorescent light. My legs feel stiff and a slight headache is sneaking into my forehead area. Oddly, my hands are numb and then I remember that I was being held in a death grip right before I departed back to the real world. Must tell them about that, I remind myself, might be important information.

"BP is high," I hear one of the staffers call out.

"EKG is erratic," another one adds.

I see nose ring girl's face looming over me and she asks in a sweet tone of voice, totally incongruous with her personality: "Been causing trouble again, Harrison?" I notices she is grinning and has inexplicably used my first name. Something must be up. "I don't see any bruises."

My tongue, like usual, is thick and my throat is dry, so I mumble, "Born again."

She gives me a confused look and says, "Write it all down."

I give her a smile and reply, "I want to whisper it in your pretty little ear."

She grabs my bicep area and squeezes hard, before telling me in a hissed whisper: "You might not come back from your next session. Think about that."

Before I can say anything she is gone. Poof. Another disappearing act. My debriefing will be conducted by an underling, an overworked, underpaid staffer. Don't care, I tell myself. I am now closer to ten thousand bucks. One more step in the right direction, and they pay you in cash, so I was told by the ass wipe at the front desk. An armed guard appears carrying a bag of money and nose ring girl doles out the payout. It won't be long now.

Part 2

My life continued down the same path, which meant that I tried to stay ahead of the bill collectors and not get wigged out about being a deadbeat. Depression loomed. I had no health insurance to speak of except for a high deductible farce that paid for only the basic necessities, so I only hoped my health didn't go bust on me. Hey, I was twenty something, what did I have to worry about? Eat, work, get by, that was my mantra.

The work part was its usual annoying forty plus hours of soul sucking intellectual pursuit. The boss brought us new projects, with greedy clients attached, and we did our best to fool the buying public to part with the cash. Lazar and Sarah carried me for the most part. I can admit that. I contributed what I could but inspiration was negligible.

Then I faltered. I ran into Blooper and Slim Jim at the beach broadwalk in Hollywood. I hardly ever went to the beach anymore, becoming a true Floridian. The beach scene was strictly for the tourists, who flocked there to broil their skin and think they are on a real vacation. I just wanted a drink and stopped at a bar me and my ex used to go to before it all blew up. It was more of a local's place than a tourist trap.

Anyway, I had a bad day at work, where Sarah reamed me out for not finishing the copy that I was supposed to complete, leaving her to improvise in front of the client. Not good. I took my punishment and then left work to lick my wounds. Heading home, I impulsively decided to head to the beach. I hadn't been there since I went to the hotel with George. It was funny that the attraction that draws so many people to Florida I avoided like a disease.

"Harrison!" Blooper called out to me as I was ducking into the bar that was right on the broadwalk, "what are you doing here?"

Startled, surprised that someone I knew had seen me, I looked up to see Blooper and Slim Jim sitting on a bench facing the ocean, enjoying some old man time together. If you don't know, senior citizens will migrate to the beach just to sit and watch the ocean, as well as people watching too. Slim Jim and Blooper were world class watchers, spending half their time gazing at strangers going by. For hours, they will sit there burning up in the sun, waiting for death, or so they like to tell me, grinning impishly. Gaining age apparently gives you the opportunity to mock yourself with psychological impunity.

"Hey, guys, what's up?" I called out, crossing over the broadwalk, dodging some tourists on bicycles.

"Heading to the bar?" Blooper asked, pointing in the direction of the bar, where out on the veranda you could see a dozen or so people enjoying their booze.

"Need a drink today," I sang out. "Bad day at work. Got my ass chewed out by the boss," I explained, forcing a laugh.

They both nodded, laughed, and Blooper said, "I wish I could have a drink."

"Not that again," Slim Jim exclaimed, rolling his eyes. "We know, you have a bad stomach and the doctor says for you to stay away from just about everything."

"Reflux," Blooper corrected, patting his chest. "It ain't fun--trust me."

"Take another pill," Slim Jim said disdainfully. "Sit, youngster, tell us all your tales of woe."

I sat down in between them and unloaded. They were sympathetic in that way a casual friend can afford to be. My interests and their interests didn't intersect all that much beyond gambling. Still, they treated me like a friend and that counted for something, especially in my case where my circle of friends had dwindled down to almost no one. My one lone friend left from college had moved up the I to West Palm and we hardly even saw each other anymore. He had just embarked on a new marriage anyway and his wife didn't want any single guys around to tempt her husband.

I got the latest news about George and Toni from them and we reminisced about the old days at the track, like they had happened years ago and not just recently. As people flowed by us, we discussed what had been going on in our lives of recent. I told them about the study I was involved in, keeping details to a minimum. Both of them asked how they could score on something that sounded like "cake" money.

Sure it sounded like a big haul for doing nothing, but was it? I asked that very question almost every morning...afternoon...evening. In my way station out in the Everglades, an apartment that was becoming more and more oppressive, I was holding on, barely. I know I might be painting a dire picture here. I wasn't on the verge of suicide and I certainly wasn't facing stage 4 cancer or anything. My life, such as it was, had become the epitome of ordinary. I was like so many other people out there surviving in a society that didn't really value anything all that much. We were all--most anyway--punching the clock, waiting for the next season of our favorite TV show or opening day of baseball or checking the mail for that familiar tax refund check from the US Government. The calculus of living was simple.

I was in debt. Weren't we all? I owed, therefore I am. It might as well have been America's motto. Print it on our money, in giant embossed letters. Credit card bills defined us. I know because I got you to whip out the plastic for any number of products. The credit bureaus were the real arbiter's of living life. Your credit score was you. Mills, Smith, that guy Keynes everybody was always talking about, they wouldn't know what to think of what modern economics developed into. It had been bastardized, perverted by pulsating greed and a general all around disregard for values, especially if it had nothing to do with a given sum.

The facts on the ground didn't make me a raving socialist. I saw the need for commerce and the outlines of capitalism. I did. It made the society function, even if there were losers and winners along the way. I guess it was the over all level of winners to losers that made the difference. Call it the imbalance. It made for abuses. The social contract was verbal but yet thrived through written dictates. Social scientists could divulge all their secrets and it wasn't going to make it any better. America, and the industrialized world as a whole, was heading down hill, without brakes. I can't take credit for that comment. Lazar told me that one day at the office after we were deep into a brainstorm over how best to present the next product we were representing. He had said it with a smile but I sensed he truly believed what he was saying. The man was from Haiti, where he was lucky to live long enough to get out of his toddler stage.

"What are you going to do with all of that loot?" Slim Jim wanted to know, eyeing me for my response, perhaps imaging himself at the track flush with cash, betting big on all of the races.

I thought for a moment, then replied, "It's all been earmarked for bills--debts."

He looked bewildered for a moment, as if his mind couldn't process the thought of paying off his bills, then he muttered, "Damn shame."

Blooper offered: "Take a cruise. Blow the money in the casinos, kid."

"Young kids don't want to take a cruise, stupid," Slim Jim announced, shaking his head in disbelief. "Only old farts like us take a cruise. Am I right? Think about it, he's got options."

I didn't and said so. They both looked at me, giving me this infinite sad look, as if to say that I was beyond pathetic. I laughed, trying to hide my embarrassment. I was stuck in a scientific study of questionable merit, waiting for the payout, and then taking my well earned treasure to get back in the black or at least break even. That scenario didn't compute for either of them. Being flush was alien. Then again, they were degenerate gamblers and had spent the better part of their lives one step ahead of the next downturn.

"How's that Latin wife of yours doing?" Slim Jim wanted to know.

Blooper shot him a look then said in an exasperated tone: "Are you senile? The kid got divorced, remember? Jeez, get with it."

"Oh yeah, I forgot, sorry," Slim Jim apologized.

"No problem," I told him, trying to make him feel at ease. "Ancient history already."

"That's the attitude, kid," Blooper said, smacking my arm lightly. "Women. Can't live with 'em...can't live without them."

"Yeah, you know that is right," Slim Jim muttered, watching two female joggers run past . "Lots of jiggling," he called out but the two girls ignored him.

"Can't take him any where," Blooper called out for the girl's benefit, embarrassed.

"You two behave," I told them, standing up to go, not wanting them to suck me into a side trip to whatever gambling venue they might suggest, a quick field trip to the Hard Rock, midnight card game at one of their disreputable friend's place, maybe bingo at the local Catholic church. You couldn't trust them.

"Okay, kid, don't be a stranger," Slim Jim told me, holding out his hand.

"Yeah, I know the others would like to see you again," Blooper said, smiling. "Dog season is coming up, remember."

I shook my head no and said, "Part of my past."

"Heard that before," Slim Jim exclaimed, laughing. "You are going to be hearing barking in your sleep. Mark my words."

"Hope not," I stated, smiling, backing away, trying to disentangle myself as quickly as possible, fearful that I might backslide and be open to any suggestions.

I turned and walked away, dodging a few couples on the boardwalk walk pushing strollers, one with a wailing baby. Then I remembered that I had never gotten the drink I had wanted to get. Doesn't matter, keep moving, I told myself, as I headed back to my car. Back to my apartment near the River of Grass, the final outpost before you became gator bait, where just the day before the front page news in the Sun Sentinel was a story about an impossibly long python snake with fifty babies in his belly being snared by a fisherman. Even the ecosystem of South Florida was being corrupted. Soon we would all be returning to our natural state, one in which everybody would have to skin our own meals and become intimately familiar with the aroma of putrid swamp gas. Maybe those sessions at Somnium were starting to alter my mind, making my outlook all the more gloomy.

None of that mattered. So said the guy who was one hiccup away from being out on the street. Everyday I had a Greek chorus of creditors hounding me on the phone, through the mail, even in text messages. Some were full of phony congeniality, while others were abusive, all with the intent of getting me to stop being a deadbeat and pay up. I imagined them sitting there in their cubicles, list in hand, little dossiers on their next victim, maybe even with photos attached so they could better zero in on the target. They were all calculating, experienced at manipulation, and looking for that next bonus at landing some monetary redress. Are you going to pay your debt? We will take you to court. They will garnish your wages. Take your car. Siphon off your bank account. Ruin your life.

Get in line, was usually my first response. I didn't own anything worth a damn. My wages were low because we worked on a bonus basis and were paid, truth be known, off the books most of the time because the boss liked it that way so he could under report to the IRS. Court, are you kidding me? We were rapidly sliding back into 18th century Britain. Poor houses were right around the corner. My checking account had all of $187.92 in it, give or take a dime. You couldn't ruin my life anymore than it already was.

I had taken to flirting with one debt collector, a woman with a silky voice that had just a trace of Slavic overtones. I imagined her sitting in her office, short skirt, lace stockings, low cut blouse, with dyed blond hair and too much makeup. She would be hung over from partying the night before, trying desperately to forget that she spent all day wrenching funds out of out of luck losers. Her penance would be downing gallons of vodka and dancing the night away, then the next morning starting all over again.

At first she had tried to play enforcer, threatening me with everything short of her brother, Boris, showing up at my door with a baseball bat. Then, over time, after a few hours of telling me she would unleash the hounds of hell, trying to scare the shit out of me, she softened. I could hear it in her slightly husky voice from too much smoking. It was the inevitable nature of inevitability. She dealt with people all day who were dying a slow death financially and she was supposed to supply the last measure of indignity, with the hopes of not pushing them over the edge. Perhaps she had. Just maybe after a call from her someone had shed more tears, then walked out into traffic, right in front of the cross town bus. Lives were being systematically dismantled all across America. We had binged and now we were purging.

Sometimes I waited for my Svetlana call, wanting to hear her harangue me for being so irresponsible and a wart on our society. At times, it did seem like she was reading from a prepared script. In a wooden voice she would chide me, hitting all the talking points precisely, like she was learning another series of dialogue for the foreign language she was trying to assimilate into her brain so she could pass a test. Other times, I could hear her sigh and in that little sigh I could almost hear a cry for help, as if she wanted me to tell her it was okay for her to be harassing people all day in order for them to further destroy their insignificant lives.

"Where are you?" I would almost always ask, wanting to pinpoint her existence to better help me fantasize about her. New York City? She would be chic dressed in her knockoffs bought in Brooklyn at one of those places that specializes in selling counterfeit clothes. Chicago? Probably of Polish descent and her dad owns a butcher shop that sells Old Europe meat cuts. LA? From the Caucus area and misses wearing fur hats that nobody in LA would be caught dead wearing. The possibilities were endless. Of course she never answered me, always steering the conversation back to my debt and how I was going to make things right.

Other creditors were storm troopers who took no prisoners. Debt was a scourge to be eradicated, not unlike some inverted form of genocide. They were the shock troops who were going to get it done. Stamp out backsliding debtors. Make America whole again. They had a point. Massive volumes of debt was holding back the economy. Then again, it was like holding back a tidal wave with your fingers.

I had a running battle going on with some dickhead from some credit collector representing a company with the non-threatening name of: Pasture Ventures. Huh? I work at Pasture Ventures and no we don't rent out pastures or invest in them. What we do at my office is provide the very best retrieval methods in the business. Oh, so you are in the manure business. Not quite, but we do have to put up with a lot of shit.

He had a deep, sonorous voice and had probably been told he should have been on radio or something because he liked to over enunciate almost every word. It was like listening to Orson Welles speak. I know, because my dad had a CD of him doing that invasion from Mars thing and would put it on several times a year and listen to the whole show, while he laughed and laughed about how stupid the people in New Jersey and New York must have been. Martians, really, so he would almost shout out, taking another sip of his cheap bourbon, straight, without any sissy ice.

"Mr. Jamison, I am looking at your file and it shows you haven't responded to any of our letters...so we have been forced to take further action against you," he would say, almost verbatim every single time, so often that I was almost convinced that I was talking to an endless loop on some recording. "What are you going to do about this?"

This open ended question was also almost always his follow up question, to which I would invariably respond: "I'm getting some money together. Honest. It's coming." I was always obsequious simply because most of them scared the crap out of me, like their disembodied voices could reach through the phone and strangle me at any time. Not a fun feeling.

"You said that last time," he would counter, with his resonant voice echoing in my ear. "Do I need to remind you that our patience is running out?"

"Patience," I said, laughing, because these people had no patience. They were all about grappling with your emotions, picking, prodding, poking, anything to get you to comply. "I'm this close to bringing it home," I told him, while a tiny voice in my head screamed: Tell him to go fuck himself.

This verbal jousting was debilitating, among other things, like emotionally draining. I only wished I could be like some of my acquaintances who dodged, bobbed, weaved, until which time the collectors were worn down and gave up pursuing them. Not many did though. Persistence must have been the number one job requirement, that and the ability to be simultaneously rude and congenial. I could only imagine how those job interviews went. Come in. Sit down. Answer one question: Are you capable of being an asshole?

Then again, I had brought much of this on myself. Gambling will do that. Along with a credit card with a fluid credit limit. Some bank put their trust in you, a trust that included you making purchases with the intent of forever paying back the minimum, in perpetuity. It was a business plan that only some industrious mathematician could appreciate, as he or she watched the interest compound in the wrong direction for the consumer, as the issuing bank cleared out more space for the expected loot to mount up. Onerous interest payments made bank robbers look like upstanding citizens by comparison. Really, my electronic purchases and the resulting windfall for the bank would make a loan shark blush.

Still, I didn't need to have an ATM card with the overdraft protection, did I? You know, whoops, went over the limit again. No problem, we will just take it out of your credit card account. By that I mean we will tack it on to your already monstrous revolving account as we here at Fuck You Bank do cart wheels in between our cubicles while we watch your debt increase, multiplying like an out of control epidemic.

Our shared psychological failure was that we were all governed by the laws of chance, unable to break free of the need and desire to beat the odds. It could be a crippling flaw, for some of us anyway. Despite any legitimizing by some underemployed psychologists, some of you didn't fall victim to your own whims. Good for you. No harassing phone calls at all hours of the day. The social contract gets to stick around for another day or so. Yet, you know, people like me are shredding that contract little by little, until we will all be subservient to our functioning needs.

Bullshit aside, I hoped to pay it off or at least reduce the amount to the point I could spend a day free, with no fear of answering my phone. Let it go to voice mail, so said a few. Change your number. Leave the country. Kill yourself, with video and a link to You Tube. Thanks for the suggestions but that wouldn't solve my problem. Plenty of courts out there were eager to pass judgement. Some judges were close to being advocates for the banking industry. Having unpaid bills was un...American; of course these were the very same judges who probably cheated on their taxes and never saw a Republican they couldn't vote for. I generalize. Being debt free was my emancipation. Somehow those skinny dogs, and a wife skilled at leaving me with lingering debt, had eviscerated my life.

Chapter 6 Epilogue

Got the text reminding me of my next session at Somnium. Like I didn't remember. My sessions were seldom out of my thoughts. In fact, it dominated my insignificant life. Totally. I was beginning to have dreams about the place, with nose ring girl in a starring role; and unfortunately they weren't licentious enough. She was always fully clothed, and bitchy. Big surprise there.

At work, the three of were churning out the goods. The boss was happy, especially since he had a new play toy, some girl from, I think, Romania. Who knows? Everybody seemed to wash up on the beach in South Florida. The guy who installed my next door neighbor's sat. dish was from Somalia. Need more proof?

Sarah dropped a bomb on us one day in the office when she said she might be leaving the agency. Yeah, she was heading up north, to Philly or Providence, some place up there. Got a job doing grunt work for some TV station. So she hoped anyway. Her gator boy friend was holding her back. He didn't want to leave Florida--the weanie. Something told me she was going to pull the plug on that relationship anyway. Although she didn't like to readily admit it, she was ambitious and in that way that is surreptitious to the point of chicanery. I don't know what that means. I read that line somewhere. By the way, since I have been doing these sessions the strangest bits and pieces of my past readings have been popping up in my mind. Might be something the good doctor should look into. Another money maker. Memory improvement. Want to ace the SAT's? Can't remember those lyrics to songs from your youth? Always forgetting business associates names? Want to recall the phone number of that girl you met in the bar last week? Fear not. Do we have the pill for you. The copy writes itself.

Both Lazar and I know that the shop will come to a screeching halt without her. She runs the place. Not to mention she is border line brilliant. There, I said it. Don't tell her though. Looks. Brains. Youth. Perfect for hating. Only we don't. We like her and respect her. This sounds like a squishy testimonial.

Lazar, well he is sticking around. Wife. Kid. Semi-illegal. Black. Haitian. After his soccer career went south he is glad to be doing something else he is good at. He started pretty much from scratch. From nothing, comes something, which sounds like a tag line he might write. Then again, the guy knows what he is talking about on that score. He was born in the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. Although we both don't like to talk about it, we can't imagine the place operating without Sarah.

Nestled within the brain, only to reappear, is...don't ask me. I am getting traces of lyrics or poetry lacing my thoughts. While it is true I was a Lit major in college I was not what you might call a scholar. Quite the contrary, I can imagine plenty of my professors saying when and if they were interviewed in the future for a bio about their former student. They would probably mostly likely say: Who? I was the guy sitting in the back, head down, fearing exposure every minute of the class for being a fraud. I was only taking the courses because I couldn't decide what else to take. Academic inertia had set in almost immediately after stepping foot on campus. First off, I was just glad to having been accepted. Second, I didn't have any life plans to speak of, no goals. Doctor. Accountant. Lawyer. Psychologist. Teacher. Biologist. Never thought about it. Attending college was the goal. After that, what's next?

My parents had been no help. They were High School graduates and proud of it. College was a hazy concept, four more years of book learning that you had to pay for. Even though their generation had been the first to march off to higher learning in record numbers, they weren't included in the stats. Three out of five young people attended college in the 60's, the documentary might say. My parents represented those other two. So, culturally, I was blazing a new path in my family. That's not true. My two siblings had gone to college too, but they didn't finish. Brother, dropped out after one year of getting drunk and high almost every day. Sister, two years completed, then came matrimony, with a husband that was good with his hands and pipes in particular, as in plumbing.

I was no tradesman. I might have known which end of a screw driver to use but, honestly, not much more. If I had been somehow relegated to some 19th century apprenticeship somewhere I would have been flogged daily for being stupid and incompetent. College, for people like me, was the end of the road. After that, there was nothing else. I suppose I could have gone into the military but then again that would have required marching and calisthenics or some kind of bone crushing work out. Not for me. My idea of cardio was walking to the mailbox to check the mail. The only parts of my body that got regular exercise was my mouth and my fingers from using keyboards. No, I was useless by most measures.

As a side note, I can remember my Cubanita trying to get me to go to one of her Pilates classes. First of all, coed exercise classes are (and I am just going to say it) gay. Any guy who shows up at one of these estrogen combines should be held up for ridicule. Really. They should be made to wear flowered leotards. Anyway, I refused to go and she mocked me for not being secure in my level of masculinity. A real man would be able to attend a work out with a bunch of age defying females wearing next to nothing and not have his male ego dinged. I would tell her it was like watching soft porn, from warm up to cool down. Toned butts. Heaving bust lines. Suggestive stretching. Pelvic thrusts. It was no wonder back in the early days of VCR's guys yanked it to the latest in exercise videos. She would mock me as she headed out the door, determined to keep her large Latina rear end in shape.

Still no AC in my car. At stop lights I was continuing to get the looks of pity, like they had just discovered that I had some lingering disease. I did. It was called: poverty. Not that really. I was now the working poor. There were plenty of us. We went to work everyday and came home poorer. It was an experiment in economic devolution. Worse than being on a tread mill. At least then your progress stayed the same, never quite reaching into negative territory.

The final session loomed. Proving that he wasn't all that superstitious, the good doctor had slotted thirteen mind bending appointments with your past. We were the vanguard. Lucky us. The next trials were to be longer, with a variety of different trajectories. I wasn't interested though. This was about me, and the other stooges involved in this experiment in madness. I can be forgiven for being narcissistic. My ass was on the line. Not really. Come on. Nobody put a gun to my head and ordered me to sign on the dotted line. I could have done what every other American does and opted out and by the that I mean invest in the revolving account. Being a slave to interest has become the American way. Freedom translates to making the minimum payment, while you ignore just how much you are getting reamed.

Not for me. I wanted out. No more annoying phone calls, with threats of court dates looming if I didn't comply. I had been profligate, if I am using that word right. Sure I had gone on a binge, buying needless crap. Who hasn't? Tech toys, vacations to places that looked good in that magazine, adult play things like boats and motorcycles, dinners out to fancy restaurants, designer wear, to include those ridiculously priced sunglasses because somebody said the Seal team wore them (I'm talking about you Lazar), and on and on. Our closets were full to overflowing. Waist lines were expanding to accommodate all that calorie rich food that arrogant waiter was delivering to the table. Junk, stuff you didn't really need, was piling up. Hey, ever wonder why there are so many storage units around the country? That's because our garages are crammed to the ceiling with crap. Yard sale anybody?

Ten grand would pay down enough of my debt to free me; at least that is what I believed anyway. I had been on a buying diet for a while, leaving my credit cards at home, tucked away inside a drawer in the kitchen. The world hadn't come to an end. The economy hadn't contracted anymore than it already had. I was living hand to mouth, sort of. The balance sheet was correcting itself. My life might had been totally devoid of gratification but at least I was working towards being solvent. Other generations of Americans had been more circumspect about their own bottom line, where a person actually accumulated money in amounts that was then used to buy something, anything, everything. Impulse buying didn't exist because the commodity brokers out there hadn't dreamed up easy purchasing methods. Like that coat in the window--put it on layaway while you save up for it. Plastic money and the electronic magic that came with it facilitated our own demise. I just know somebody said that very thing somewhere, some place. Don't give me credit for it.

Fumes poured out of my car as I climbed out, having reached the Somnium parking lot after almost an hour of commute time. The weather was better now, only warm and not hot. The humidity levels had backed off too, dropping to the point that sweat only built up on my lower back and not my underwear. Driving with your windows down in South Florida was death defying. If the car exhaust didn't choke you to death the climate would sap the life out of you in no time. Humanity wasn't meant to endure a climatic inferno. Soon we would all perish, melting away into a puddle of liquefied carbon.

I see another lab rat exiting the building. He is an older guy. He's smiling, ten grand richer. This is his last session too. No scars to see, physically anyway. Who knows what his psyche is doing. Looks like he might be in his late 50's. Good head of hair, better than mine actually. Hey, maybe Dr. W's nose goo regrows hair. Probably. That would be his luck. Memory improvement and hair growth, a twofer. Call the 800 number to make your next reservation at one of the memory salons in your area or go to www.nosegoo.com. I would slay that copy.

He is smiling at me, and waving. I wave back. He is saying something. I am cupping my hand behind my right ear, listening. "Last session?" I nod yes. "Have a nice trip down memory lane!" he calls out. His happiness annoys me. Probably had mental excursions involving strip clubs and other side trips, wink...wink. No deaths. No bouts with the STD that required dual acting antibiotics. No memories of that time he got fired for watching porn at work on his computer.

That's not fair. Other people have a right to be happy. It can be unconditional. Half full. Half empty. You can guess what side of the ledger I am on. My personality leans towards sour but with a twist. I don't actively seek out to cause harm. I like to keep my bad juju to myself for the most part. It is all very Scottish, I guess. Bred into you by those cold Highland winds and eating things like greasy haggis. My Scottish heritage was so far removed I couldn't find Edinburgh on a map...of England.

New receptionist, a woman. The former receptionist had departed for parts unknown, presumably to be surly somewhere else. His replacement was an upgrade, full of smiles even if they were forced. Nice looking too.

My last breakfast and I may never eat a hard boiled egg again. Not crazy about toast either. Skim milk, I don't think so. Strawberry jelly, maybe. Nose ring girl has yet to make an appearance. With any luck, she has been deported, escorted to the Miami River and put on a slow boat to Brazil, by way of Devil's Island. No. To good to be true. I hear her whining voice out in the hallway. One more bite. Wash it down with the Evian water, one of the few perks.

"Is your name Harrison Jamison?" she is asking me.

"Who me?" I answer, laughing.

"Are you Harrison Jamison?" she repeats, annoyed, finger poised over her I-pad.

I realize she isn't joking around and that this is protocol on the last day of the study, the final check to see that there hasn't been an imposter filling in for me all along. I nod yes.

"Answer verbally, please," she barks at me, frowning.

Watch those frown lines, I think, then say, "That's me. I'm hurt that you don't recognize me after all the time we have spent together."

She ignores my comment, poking at the key board for a moment, then says, "Someone will come to get you in a minute."

"I am going to miss you," I call out to her departing form as she vanishes out a side door.

I hear the AC kick in, with the cold air tickling the vents over my head. It was cold in the summer at Somnium but now it is approaching meat locker status. I am almost sure that if I left any water in my glass it would soon become a nice chunk of ice. All the staff wear sweaters, with the Somnium logo, a new age looking design with some Greek god on it. Could be Roman. Norse? Hindu? Who knows.

A fresh face shows up to guide me to the testing room. Turn over at Somnium must be picking up or these are a new batch of clones just released from Dr. Wertheimer's laboratory. He is about my age but smarter, I guess. Probably went to MIT or some place where science is on par with football on campus. He would have worshipped the good doctor from the age of ten or eleven or whenever he went off to astronomy camp. His science fair experiment was featured on the Internet and landed him a future scholarship before he got his braces off. Unlike most of the other staffers he is talkative. That feature of his personality will wear off soon enough.

"Are we ready today?" he asks me in a voice that can best be compared to some troll for Scientology lessons.

"Last one," I tell him, nodding yes. "This is it."

"We appreciate your time and dedication," he tells me and I am so surprised by his congeniality I actually walk into the door frame. "You okay?" he wants to know with concern in his voice.

"Clumsy," I respond sheepishly. Must have been a new order passed down from on high. All employees will treat the lab animals like human beings. They are our bread and butter.

There isn't exactly a festive atmosphere in the lab room. It is business as usual. Ho-hum, just another warm body to hook up to the machines. It might be my last session but for them it continues. There will be more studies, with more lab rats. Dr. Wertheimer probably has dozens of new products in the pipeline to test. The man is indefatigable, or something like that. Obsessed might be a better word. He wants his image to be immortal. If that sounds like some bad opera that's because it sort of is. The man likes his money of course but he really likes to be able to control how his personal history or brand plays out on down the line. Must be weird to be preoccupied which shit like that.

A female staffer, with cold hands, guides me to the gurney, latching onto my arm in a death grip. I am all for women working out but do they have to be able to bench press two times their body weight? Kidding. Truthfully, they intimidate me because I am what you might call soft. Twenty years from now I will be that guy you see sitting in the mall eating the trendiest flavor of ice cream, two scoops, with sprinkles. That body mass index thing will feature me as the most likely candidate to expire before the year is over.

"We are going to apply some goop now," she tells me, squirting out the sticky crap so she can slap on the nodes. Fortunately for me I don't have a hairy chest. "Hope it's not to cold," she tells me, smiling briefly, while she gets me wired up.

"My last trip," I tell her for what reason I don't know. Most of the staffers could give a shit. Although they are paid exceedingly well they are still hourly drones, the same ones who can't wait to get off work and head on out to the rest of their nine to five lives. Okay, they are somewhat different and not like your average time clock puncher. "Hope it goes okay."

"Uh-huh," she mutters, already locked into her pre-flight schedule.

"Numbers," another staffer, a guy, calls out behind me out of view. Several staffers reply, ticking off a range of digits. "Good to go," he exclaims, clapping his hands unexpectedly.

Oh yeah, now the appearance of nose ring girl. She has a new hairdo going on, something I bet she regrets every morning when she looks in the mirror. It is one of those asymmetrical jobs, where only an anarchist might give you the thumbs up for deciding to hack off your hair and make it look like one of those avant garde art projects. She also is displaying a new tatt, right on the back of her left hand. Squinting, I see that it is a symbol of some sort. Probably druid. No, neo-Nazi, with the swastika altered to appear vaguely new age. Who knows? I can only imagine how many more tatts she has concealed under those scrubs.

Orders spew out of her mouth, as I notice she is also wearing a toned down shade of lip stick. Looking around the room, I notice that all the female staff don't wear any makeup. Most be a Somnium rule or something. All that makeup might have the potential to off-gas and plug up the AC filters. Nose ring girl is exempt since she is doing the owner. Whips. Chains. Gag balls. I don't want to get into that again.

"Are you going to be a good boy today?" she asks in a mommy's voice, one that might be talking to her two year old.

I look at her for a moment and say: "New tatt?"

She recoils for an instant then catches herself and replies, "I'm pretty sure that is none of your business."

"Is that the insignia for the Third Reich?" I ask boldly, grinning.

She leans in close, real close, and whispers, "I really hope I don't give you too much product. Wouldn't want you to go past the point of no return."

"Can you do that?" I sputter, now scared shitless.

She smiles back at me and reaches for the dreaded syringe with the goo. "Relax, Harrison, this isn't going to hurt at all."

My last stray bits of consciousness are devoted to thinking of ways I can hurt her, physically and otherwise. I imagine her staked to an ant hill with tons of red ants swarming all over her naked body. Then I get momentarily distracted thinking about her female body parts and lose my concentration. The last vestiges of conscious thought center on me introducing my...you get it.

Mother earth is left behind, again. I am a pro at this now but I still get queasy. I would have washed out of astronaut training in the first hour. Anybody feel like they have to throw up. I would raise my hand and be shown the door and booted out, literally. Lots of clouds this time around. Thick. Dark. Must be going to storm. Getting kind of bumpy, you know, like when the pilot comes on the intercom and tells you to buckle up and expect some turbulence. Experienced travelers will nod, familiar with the routine, as the wings jack up and down a few times, leaving your stomach in a free fall. Other people like me will expect the worst, fearing that their lives will end in a fiery crash, with the funeral director unable to even assemble one quarter of a complete body to intern in an expensive coffin. My mother will inevitably say that it is my soul that is the important part, while my dad will scoff and tell her that they should have left my remains at the crash site for future fertilizer.

What? I am sensing a modern memory coming on. This ain't North Florida. It's South Florida. OMG, as they say, I sure hope this memory ain't about La Cubanita. That would be just my luck. My last session and I have to put up with her surly Cuban crap.

Leveling off. Kind of smooth now. Serene even. Then again it is like landing at MIA, where the constant humidity does battle with the cold fuselage of the aircraft, filling the plane with a miasma of floating condensation, almost as if you were in a sauna going three hundred miles an hour or more. Welcome to Florida, hope you brought a life size sham wow.

Are you kidding me? I'm back at my apartment, the anti-man cave, totally devoid of any entertainment devices. An aroma is rising. More bad food from my neighbor, the lady from the mail boxes. She has taken me on as a project. She is a Jewish widow who has an estranged son. He lives somewhere out West. California maybe. Unfortunately for her she moved to these apartments after her husband kicked it, selling the house because it was just too big. Scored big. Got out before the real estate market cratered. Now she is left with an uninspiring apartment and a hefty bank account. Although she does seem to have a set of friends in the area she seems to be lonely. Something is missing in her life and all the cuisine assassinations in the world isn't going to alleviate it.

Anyway, last night she dropped by to give me her latest creation, something from Asia, I think. She told me but I was too busy trying to refuse the offer. She barged right in and plopped the dish down on my kitchen counter, clucking her tongue at the lack of cleanliness. That and the little detail about me not having any furniture. I played the good surrogate son and accepted the gift, even though I knew I was going to be depositing most of it in the dumpster out in the parking lot the next time I left the building.

She had nuked it in the microwave and now I had level 4 contamination going on. The smell seemed to be clinging to the walls even though I had sprayed almost an entire can of air freshener. Nice gesture by the way but not necessary. My diet had evolved to a notch below the carnivore's special. I still delved into the vegetable end of the spectrum but they were usually smothered in chemically laced sauces dreamed up by frustrated scientists who once they got their doctorates found out the only work they could find was with Big Agra and company. In secret labs around the country they experimented with vegetables like some behavioral anthropologist might with a primate. The American palate had become so used to synthetic food you could feed us anything as long as it was basted with artery clogging ingredients.

My dear neighbor, bless her heart, only used the freshest ingredients in combinations that, ultimately, were foreign to my taste buds. I, truthfully, can't remember what a fresh tomato tastes like. The closest I got to one was when I dumped half a jar of Ragu on my spaghetti. Sad, but true. Hey, we were the civilization that brought you pop tarts, which has to be the most worthless item of food stuff ever devised. Toast it and you get a hot slab of tasteless particle board. Eat it right out of the box and you end up with something akin to hard tack, so I imagine. If only the sailors in the 16th century had them on those interminable voyages around the Horn, maybe they wouldn't have succumbed to scurvy all the time.

She was harmless, my neighbor. Set adrift after the empty nest she shared with her husband had a change in status, she only wanted to mother somebody. As she told me, she had careened around the big house for almost a year and a half before she decided to give it up. Too many memories encased within the walls. While she told me this nugget of personal bio, I prayed she wasn't going to reveal any of those memories. She could be frank, blunt even. I had auditory visions of her telling me about the time she and her dearly departed husband got busy out by the pool or the time he bent her over the new patio furniture, as the pet dog looked on, bewildered, wondering whether or not one of his masters was being molested and if he should go into attack mode. She didn't reveal any of this aspect of her former life, only to say that her and hubby had been happy, if you know what I mean. Enough said.

Now she hated her apartment, even though it was large as apartments went and expensively furnished. Apartment living had come as a shock to her after having lived in a house for so very long. Noises was her chief complaint. All kinds of sounds emanated around the three story building, from the rattling and pinging plumbing to the kids riding their bikes in the breezeway downstairs to that weird guy on the second floor who liked to play Iranian pop songs, if there is such a thing, to the stray chorus of sexual congress (her words, said with a laugh), to the fucking yapping dog on the first floor to the weekend parties held down the hall, in the end apartment, that lasted from sundown to sunup routinely. It was a cacophony of annoyance.

On several occasions, at the mail boxes downstairs, she had voiced her disapproval, followed by the usual threat to move when her lease was up. She had the funds. Go, leave, never look back, was usually my advice, while silently I would plead for her to take me with her. Sure, why not? Buy a big place on the water in Fort Lauderdale and set me up in the cottage out back, by the speed boat docked there, the one you let me use whenever I want to. I will even eat your dinners, even if it is a dish from some lost tribe in Micronesia, complete with edible dried up banana leaves.

She had complained to the office so many times they filed all her complaints under C, for crazy woman. The two girls who worked in the office were used to being tag team bitches, fobbing the tenants off on the security detail, which was a sleepy eyed South American glad to having been lucky enough to escape the quiet war in his native Columbia. Noises, to him, usually centered around some sort of ordinance coming his way, quickly followed by a loss of life. Leftist. Right wing death squads. Unscrupulous politicians. Special Forces sent there by the US on the down low. Drug Lords. Native tribes handy with arrows dipped in poison derived from botanical offshoots in the jungle. Every day in America was a victory for him.

Unfortunately for him though she spoke enough Spanish to annoy him in his language. She had spent one of those vacations people with money and nothing else to do spend, traveling to Central America to immerse herself in the culture, including grammar mangling language instruction. It came in handy, particularly living in South Florida, where at any given time of the day there was a more than even chance you were going to run into somebody who didn't habla Inglez.

Didn't matter. Her pleading in Spanish accomplished little. The security guard's idea of applying security was to sit in his booth at the front gate and watch soccer matches on a small TV on a shelf below eye level so the tenants couldn't see that he wasn't much of a deterrent to crime or anything really. She had even tried to bribe him with treats from his home country. He would smile and tell her he would look into it. He didn't of course, seldom straying ten feet from his security booth.

I had been enlisted once to enforce the rules of the apartment complex. She had showed up at my door and begged me to go tell the son of a bitch on the first floor to "cool it" with the Latin music. Could have been Calypso fusion, I don't know. I was married at the time and La Cubanita stepped up for the cause. The two of them descended the stairs in tandem and did a full on assault of the guy's apartment. I could hear them shouting all the way on the top floor. Threats were passed around, as my wife got in his face, telling him that if he knew what was good for him he would turn his music down. Surprisingly, he did. She was good for something.

Unfortunately, there was just me now on the premises. I wasn't going to scare anybody. She would have done better to purchase a nasty poodle as a back up. Still, I was the only one available. Most people in America won't even open the doors anymore. Jesus Christ could show up, knock on the door, and the average American wouldn't get up off their couch. Besides, their favorite reality show might be on and they couldn't be bothered to even put it on pause to answer the door. Making me believe the Second Coming ain't coming.

"Harrison," I heard her say through the door, as I cowered on the other side, fearful that it might be some bold bill collector, on site, there to pry whatever money I had right out of my hands. "You there?"

Not to get too existential, but was I really there? I mean of course my body was standing there breathing and all but I wasn't really tuned into my surroundings. I had become pretty good at zoning out lately, like some sort of reverse meditation in which the individual denies his own existence. Works wonders for those times when you are going down a one way street and there are no left or right turns.

This memory was of recent vintage so I recognized what was going on almost immediately. My Jewish neighbor was about to rope me into some hostile encounter that I never would have jumped into on my own. Damn, why can't I have an interesting memory ride? Like that time at college when I hooked up with that girl from some sorority I can't remember the name of. She was drunk on tequila and afterwards threw up all over her roommate's bed, which was, I swear, not a reflection on my performance. The last part was, you know, anti-climatic, but she had been well versed in carnal gymnastics, having been a gymnast before a late growth spurt knocked her out of contention.

"What is it?" I asked through the door, hesitant, but unable to ignore her.

"Can you open the door?" she wanted to know, and I could hear her nails rippling across the metal door, the ones that she spent hundreds of dollars on every month in a long term quest to keep them forever glossy. Pink this week. Crimson the next. Natural. Pale blue? She personally kept the Asian ladies at the salon financially afloat.

Reluctantly, I open the door and peer out, then say, "Hey, what's going on?"

She sighs, then looks me up and down, clucking her tongue. "Did you eat that food I gave you yesterday?" she wants to know accusingly. "You aren't eating right. You can see it in your eyes."

"I just woke up," I reply, defending my morgue like appearance.

"You need vitamin D, Harry," she announces, wagging her finger at me. "Get out in the sun more, jeez. You do know you live in Florida, right? I mean, come on. Look at you. Vampires have more color."

"Thanks for the critique," I say sourly, wishing I could just close the door and fade back into my dark apartment. I had been watching some documentary on line about how Wall Street had screwed all of us and was, essentially, still lubing up our collective butt holes. "I was kind of doing something."

She snorts, knowing full well that I didn't do much of anything, and asks, "Hear that?"

Tourist me knows where this is going. Homeboy me is along for the ride, unaware that he is about to have one of those confrontations that will plague his mental well being or something like that. Life is just too fucked up to make it worse. Smile and don't create friction, that is the immutable law of physics. Get along. This usually translates to ignoring lots and lots of things, like dodging those bullets in the Matrix movie. Bend this way and then that way. Be really (really) flexible.

I am stepping out into the open hallway, the usual style of South Florida because all of the developers thought we inhabitants loved the omniscient heat so much we wanted it to greet us ever time we stepped out our front door; that and the fact that it was much cheaper not to enclose the hallways and have to then pay exorbitant monthly bills on AC. It is still light out, barely. I can smell the Everglades, the usual odor, a blend of rotting vegetation and alligator poop.

"What am I listening for?" I ask innocently, although I know damn well she is referring to my next door neighbors, the Texans. They are having one of their frequent blow-ups, the ones where he screams and she breaks things.

"Are you deaf?" she wants to know, sneering, giving me a look that says she thinks I am full of it.

"Friday night follies," I joke, now used to their routine.

"It's Saturday," she tells me, hands on hips, now snarling.

"I went for alliteration," I tell her but she isn't really listening to what I have to say.

"You know, he is going to hurt her one of these times. It's going to happen. Then what are you going to say?" she wants to know, eyeing me.

I look down the hall for a moment, like I'm thinking about doing something about the domestic disturbance in our midst, when actually I am thinking about returning to my documentary to see when and if middle class America is ever going to get their rewards. "Somebody should do something," I say lamely, meekly, if I am being honest.

"You think," she says, stepping closer, so close I can smell the remnants of her dinner: beef brisket, if I had to guess. Poking me in the chest, she says, "Let's go see what's going on."

"Call security," I tell her, which I take to be the responsible course of action.

"Jorge, what, are you nuts?" she responds, forcing a bitter laugh. "He won't even get out of his booth. No, we better do something."

"Call the cops," I suggest, another reasonable response.

"Yeah, right, it'll take them an hour to get here. By that time she might be dead," she states, looking down the hall.

I look out towards the Everglades, which are now almost all shrouded in darkness, except for a tiny sliver of sunset dying over the murky water. What did the early explorers think when they first saw the Glades, I wonder, especially after they had to slog through it. A loud crash resounds where apparently a plate has clattered up against the front door. I flinch and she gasps. We can hear him telling his wife that her days on earth are numbered or something to that effect, laced with profanity of course.

More yelling, spiced with abusive intent, as a poet might say. I know this couple only on the margins. You know how it is. They are my neighbors but by proximity only. We have exchanged pleasantries going up and down the steps and at the mail boxes. Once I even helped her carry some groceries up to her apartment; something I got grief for from La Cubanita because she thought I was flirting with the "Texas slut." To be accurate, she didn't come off as slutty in any way. She was pretty and had a nice twang to her accent but she wasn't strutting around in daisy dukes with pink cowboy boots, wearing see through blouses or anything. Not that that is my type. I didn't really have a type anyway, except to say that just about any reasonably attractive girl who gave me the time of day would be welcomed.

Her name was Tina, or was it Terri? Can't remember now and I know I couldn't remember then. She was friendly in that way Southern girls can be because it is bred into them to be nice, especially to men since they are going to be providing the bulk of your entertainment and wherewithal. Sounds sexist because it is. That doesn't mean it wasn't a fact. Smile, grin if you have to, and lick your lips might be what every mother in the South tells their daughters. I know my sister was instructed on the finer aspects of being the fairer sex by my mother, the erstwhile 60's standard bearer. Feminism was a lost art.

Tina (Terri) worked on the cruise ships as a singer, along with her cretin husband, who played the guitar and sang along during their musical sets. They were horrible and I know because on occasion I had heard them rehearsing next door. Like most modern buildings, our apartment complex was built to most of all maximize profits, therefore thin walls without a shred of sound proofing were cheaper. I could hear every chord he strummed on his git-tar, which unfortunately was electric and not acoustic. Their repertoire usually included the popular Nashville ditties but they also liked to slip in some of their own songs, which featured duets sticky with unrequited love and betrayal. In some of the more lighter episodes of my worthless marriage, La Cubanita and I used to perform our own personal karaoke on the other side of the wall, as we would lip sync along to their stupid lyrics.

They were worthy of ridicule, even if you allowed for the genre they were working in. Country music, to me, was below contempt. I said it. Even my father mocked it, choosing to cling to his ancient rock and roll, long ago corrupted by money and largesse. Mounds of cash, mansions, nubile groupies, cars that have price tags with lots and lots of zeros, it all worked together to undermine whatever credibility Rock ever had. Anyway, twang music was worse. Much. It had money, and mansions, and girls who spread their legs for an autograph, of course, but it was also determined to demonstrate that it was patriotic and the real America. God help us.

Most of the country artists were a step above morons, steeped in cultural ignorance to go along with their penchant for flag waving. War begot commerce and it all was for our collective freedom. Every time my father heard one of their chest thumping songs or saw the flag being waved by any Nashville troubadour he would snarl: "Wish I had my M-16 right about now. I'd put it on rock and roll and take out a few phony patriots." My mother would cluck her tongue and tell him to keep his sentiments to himself, that they were just proud to be Americans.

Were they? Proud to be American, I mean. They participated like the rest of us, raising families, buying shit, watching TV, fearing God, but did it really count? America had long ago been subdivided, like some mad developer with a master plan to finish the next, new development. Playground here. Little park there. County schools in the district. Mall nearby, with an Applebee's. We were all hurtling towards an apocalyptic finish, just trying to ignore the inevitable. In the end, religion would help some, booze and drugs others. Hick music would supply the soundtrack.

Of course this couple had two strikes against them. They were also from Texas, that beacon of festering ignorance and applied Republicanism. Florida was a petri dish for lunacy too but the Lone Star State was in a league all its own. These second rate country singers were a fine representation of what the southern lifestyle mixed with functioning insanity looks like.

His name was Bart and that I am sure of. He had shaken my hand (firmly) that first day I met him in the parking lot and announced: "Name's Bart...from Fort Worth." He had said it proudly, as if he was elucidating the fact that he was from TEXAS and should be afforded the obligatory respect that comes with it. I had blinked, surprised by the show of friendliness, something you seldom if ever saw in South Florida, and responded in a mumble my name. He had grinned back at me and asked where I was from. We exchanged brief bios, with him filling me in on the wonderful attributes of Dallas and its environs. I had informed him I was from the armpit of Florida and not too proud of my geographical roots. He laughed, showing me his tobacco stained teeth.

As we were walking into the building together I looked over at his truck and saw several bumper stickers, all lined up across the back bumper, neatly bracketing his politics and philosophy on life from left to right: Guns Save Lives...Don't Tread On Me...Choose Life...Ron Paul for President...Stand 4 Freedom...and of course Don't Mess with Texas. The guy was a jack-ass.

His idea of freedom came in a tidy bundle, a place where he could carry a gun and spout off about how the government was too big and intrusive, unless he needed it. I knew people like this. My hometown was populated by them, people so full of contradictions they didn't realize they were living in a world of compressed hate and excuses. Voices, loud and quiet, had told them their whole lives they were expected to do this or that and by the time they were adults their minds were so warped they didn't have the gift of logic anymore. They thought they were individualists, took unnatural pride in it, but what they really were was a bunch of small minded jerk-offs unable to think past three or four slogans and even those had to be repeated over and over so they wouldn't forget them.

Bart was the product of that type of conditioning. He lived his life within the boundaries of some idea about the US constitution, even if the document had lots of cobwebs clinging to it. Infringement of his rights was paramount to him. It was a world where the specter of big government loomed always so the individual had to forever be cognizant of the omnipresent imprint of expanding Washington. He was a libertarian with a hint of anarchist. This meant that he didn't trust anyone or anything beyond the end of the barrel to his gun (guns). You could never have too many. When--there was no if--it all came down he was going to be prepared. He saw himself as a character in the future re-make of Red Dawn, valiantly fighting against the machine, be it reborn Soviets, aliens from outer space or south of the border, any enemy of America. He would be on the front lines fighting back with his pistols and hunting rifles, popping away at presumably fighter aircraft and armored vehicles, along with battalions of uniformed intruders.

I knew this about him instinctually, having seen it before, but I also got an ear full in the time it took to walk up three flights of stairs. He harangued me on some Democrat, emphasis on the last syllable, plot to overthrow the Congress or infiltrate it or something along those lines. They, the liberals, were going to stage a "soft coup" and take it all over then install socialism in stages. "All our guns are going to be confiscated," he informed me angrily, fists clenched. I had glanced over at him, now afraid to disagree, even if I was slightly perturbed that he had lumped me in with the general gun toting masses. There were no guns tucked up under my pillow. I might have been the only man in South Florida not packing.

I nodded along with his diatribe against the invisible forces out there, even looking out into the middle distance once or twice to let him know I was on the look out. I wouldn't have been surprised to see him start foaming at the mouth any second. He had worked himself up pretty good and I attributed it to him having just been listening to right wing radio in his truck. In the parking lot I had heard some conservative weasel's voice oozing out the speakers in his truck as he pulled up, screeching on about how his listeners had to overthrow the current administration because they were bent on turning America into a godless cesspool of socialism, without guns. The last part had set Bart on edge. That was the trigger, the first step is to disarm the public and the next step is dictatorship. They go hand in hand.

When we finally got to our landing he had worked himself up into a simmering rage. How many angry people are there out there? I wondered, shuddering at the thought. Bart told me to drop by anytime they were there, in port so to speak, and have a beer. He had almost instantly switched gears, having gone from border line berserk to the friendly guy next door. I told him I would take him up on that offer, knowing full well there was no way in hell I ever would, with visions of me sitting down to a bag of pork rinds and Lone Star beer, while he told me about his new hand gun that could fire off thirty rounds with the new extended clip. He gave me a Hell, Yeah look and walked on into his apartment.

Now I was at his door knocking timidly, trying to play apartment cop. "Knock harder," the Jewess orders, poking me in the back with a bony finger. "You are a man, right?" I let her insult ride and knock again, harder. Nothing. "Hey, what's going on in there!" she shouts out, using me as a shield.

"Let me handle this," I tell her and she openly scoffs. I knock again and then bang louder. "Bart...hey buddy...open the door."

"His name is Bart?" she asks, laughing heartily.

The door is swinging open now and standing there, shirtless, looking like a character from one of those reality shows I never watch, the ones where IQ's match rating shares. He is drunk, dishelved, and in no mood for any interference from outsiders. In the background I get a glimpse of Tina (Terri) in her panties and bra. Apparently this particular fight has gotten underway while she was undressing. I know they are on their down time, home for a short leave from the cruise ship. Otherwise they are cruising the ocean, stuck in a claustrophobic cabin buried deep in the ship's bowels for weeks on end, only coming out to entertain drunken tourists ambivalent about Country music the media seems to think everybody is fond of. They sing of love, praying to god, and always about somebody being wronged, with a little subliminal message concerning the state of the state thrown in, particularly when they wedge in songs Bart has written. Doesn't matter since most of the audience are either sea sick or wasted on fruity drinks laced with cheap rum.

No wonder they get home and need to unwind by kicking the shit out of each other. Still, as the Jewess is reminding me, one day they are going to kill each other. I know this is possible, more than probable. I imagine they have guns stashed all over the apartment, never out of reach. You never know when the UN troops are going to break down the door and burst in firing. Got to be prepared. You are going to go down fighting, firing away, dying a true patriot's death defending the homeland.

"Whatch you need?" Bart is asking me, hand on the door knob, ready to slam it in my face, so I guess.

"Sorry, dude," I say, using the word I never actually use all that much and pretty much hate, hoping that it will endear me a little bit, "kind of noisy." I say this with what I surmise to be the right amount of sardonic tone, letting him know that I just want to defuse the mounting tension.

He mulls this over and now I can see he is pretty drunk and judging by the way she is staggering in the background so is she. Time on the open water, stuck on a ship with a bunch of gluttonous morons, must be difficult to take. Their off days are a time to decompress before they have to do it all over again. I can relate. Get drunk. Break a few dishes. Scream at each other. Have makeup sex. Do it all again.

"You better not be hitting your wife," the Jewess adds to the discussion.

"Who are you?" he wants to know, sneering.

"I live down the hall," she replies, coming from out behind me, getting bolder.

The old me doesn't know what goes down of course but the tourist me does. It is the usual dynamic. This is my last go round, final session. I know, generally, I have been a disappointment to Dr. W. I haven't been a star pupil, unable to progress all that much. In so many words he has let me know that other subjects are increasing their control more and more each session, able to spin out memories into multi-layered epics like dreaming Tolstoy's or at least that English chick who wrote those kid's books. Me, not so much. I am more like some loser taking a community college creative writing course, on line.

The study will survive with or without me. The good doctor is well on his way to scoring another billion. I have done my part, as small and insignificant as it is. Perhaps I wasn't a good candidate. I am the exception that proves the rule, or some such nonsense.

"He's just being an asshole, as usual," his wife chimes in, laughing in the background, still standing there half dressed, giving me an eye full.

"Shut the fuck up!" he shouts over his shoulder, smiling at us incongruously. Jerking his thumb in her direction, he says to us: "Must be her time of the month."

The Jewess takes offense at this and lets him know it. He gives her a look that manages to say simultaneously that he could give a shit what she thinks and fuck off. Nice trick. I stand there, immobile, wondering what to do next. Domestic situations, as every cop knows, are full of land mines, fraught with peril, you might say. Emotions are running wild. Logic is at a low ebb. Anger. Frustration. Resentment. Usually all accompanied by booze and drugs.

I don't care about any of this though. Tourist me is going to change it up. The real me just retreated, leaving the two of them to do battle, which went on for over two hours until they were both exhausted and passed out. So I surmise anyway. She was sporting a black eye the next day and half of his kitschy cowboy wardrobe was out on the lawn in the morning, soaking wet from the sprinklers, garish cowboy boots and all. I, frankly, had never seen boots with silver coins imbedded in the leather.

Apparently, it was the way they unwound, decompressed. Toss back a few, hurl a few insults, throw a punch, do it all over again. It worked for them. For me, I had grown tired of hearing them, from their nauseating twangs, which seemed to penetrate my apartment walls with ease, to their ridiculously stupid music, and onto them in general. It was like being in prison and having to listen to your cell mate talk about himself or whatever for the next 15 to life.

Besides that, they were from Texas. Go back. Ride the plains or whatever they have out there. Eat Tex-Mex. Listen to asinine music. Drill for oil. Invade Mexico, again. Worship Jesus. Get a Bush tattoo. Just leave.

"Honey," the Jewess called out to the urban cowboy's wife, "you shouldn't let him treat you that way." It was good, motherly advice but not received too well. "Just saying," she said, shrugging.

"Maybe you should pick on somebody your own size," I interjected, unable to control my self, the tourist one.

This comment was received differently by the cast of characters on hand. The Jewess took a step back and gave me a smile, one that managed to say: About time. Mr. Cowboy, Bart, sneered at me, then laughed, as if to ask: Like you? His wife came forward, shoving her husband aside and grinned at me, as if she wanted to let me know that she appreciated somebody sticking up for her honor. That's not what I had in mind but it worked for me; besides, I now got a good look at what a Texas lounge singer looked like minus the costume. Except for the distasteful tattoo peeking out from underneath the lingerie on her right breast, a cursive lettered name, past boy friend perhaps, offspring, favorite cocktail, or Texas historical figure I didn't know about. Member of the fateful few who stood at the Alamo? Other than that she was holding up well. Probably worked out in her little cabin aboard ship as an occupational boost to stay employed. Nobody wanted to see an overweight songstress on stage.

I could now see she was third level inebriated, a designation I borrowed from my brother, who had learned it during his short stint at college. It meant, if I understood him right, that you had passed the first two stages and were just about ready to either puke or pass out, maybe simultaneously do both. She leaned in to me, placing a hand on my forearm to steady herself, wordlessly encouraging me to defend her. I took it that anyway, as I then noticed that she was wearing a thong. Yep, there was another tattoo in place, right on her left cheek. More cursive, this time in what I took to be Spanish. Could have been Latin. Closer inspection told me that it was actually some sort of calligraphy and was more of a design than anything else.

The Jewess was taken back, for a moment. She was of the opinion that Southerners, particularly Texans, were mutants, best ignored if not disenfranchised from the human race all together. We, and I am including myself in that less than select sub-group, were a legacy left by the Civil War, the dregs of society. It would have been better if perhaps General Sherman had been allowed to complete his scorched earth policy and exterminate all of my ancestors and start over from scratch. Then again, I'm getting sidetracked.

"Put some clothes on," she commanded by way of strong suggestion, adding some Yiddish word I had never heard her use before but could only have been interpreted as dissatisfaction in the strongest terms.

"Fuck you," the Texas belle shot back, slurring her words, wobbly on her feet, grabbing my arm again for support. "Who asked you to come to my door and--"

"Lady's right," her husband barked out, "look at yourself."

Personally, I was doing plenty of looking. She had that light haired, downy, trail of wayward pubic hair sneaking up towards her belly button that I somehow found sexy. No waxing necessary. She also had a nice set too. I could imagine her in a strip club or maybe in one of those crappy neo-Vegas revues on board the ship, where the so called dancers prance around to aging show tunes half dressed in homage to what that city in the desert thinks is classy. They would be wearing foot high head pieces made of fake feathers, while their boobs were exposed in a display that would make a drunken Roman emperor blush.

I tried to imagine her on stage, in country costume, belting out weepy ballads, wearing a skirt so short her Brazilian wax job would be insufficient to hide the evidence. Horny husbands would be drooling in the front row, while their wives smacked them repeatedly for their uncouth display of public libido. She wouldn't be popular around the ship because of her high profile stage presence, with the wives hating her for her looks and fantasy inducing wack off sessions by their husbands. Cruise ships, who even came up with the idea? Let's stick a whole bunch of people on board a ship and sail around while they eat and drink themselves into a stupor. Apparently, whoever it was was a genius since the industry brought in billions.

I knew where all this was going of course. It was just another minuscule milestone in my uneventful life, something to forget about as more and more trivial events kept mounting up. That was, essentially, life. You could take all of the philosophers throughout history, line them up, and they wouldn't be able to provide a detailed account of what we, you and I, should get out of living life. It's true. Plato, Descartes, Russell, maybe throw in a German or two, they were all failures. Separate out the religious angle and what do you have? Zero.

No, I will tell you what you have. You have: Appearance is reality. That, my friend, is the modern mantra. Extravagance explains a lot, going a long way in detailing just how people are convinced to buy "bigger and more," as my boss likes to say. We are all part of the expanding universe. Yes, that's right. I am equating the ad biz to some grand philo scheme of things. It fits. Tightly. I might not be some Randian whacko but business is the superstructure for history and therefore humanity's march towards where ever it is we are going. Don't ask me where. Commerce is the engine. We are the fuel and as long as drones like me can effectively fetishize products, make them so appealing that there can be no substitute, then strap yourself in for the bumpy ride.

"Listen to your husband," the Jewess chimes in, adding under her breath, "tramp."

"I don't need some nosy Jew telling me what to do," she shoots back, bringing in the dual signifiers of religion and ethnicity.

My Jewish neighbor sputters for a moment and I interject: "Keep it civil, people." My sing song tone defuses the situation for an instant.

We catch our breath for a second, as out in the Glades the frogs are now croaking at a high pitch and alligators are beginning to prowl. Soon swarms of mosquitoes will have picked up on the carbon dioxide we are giving off and dive bomb for blood. Living so close to the expanse of smelly swamp we are always at peril.

"This is our business, so I'd appreciate it if you two would leave us alone," the husband states, which, oddly, sounds reasonable, if not border line polite.

I think about this for a minute. It is a domestic issue, one requiring finesse. Is it any of our business if he roughs up his wife? I mean, objectively, yes, I suppose. There is the pure physicality aspect. If it were two guys equally matched pounding each other would I care to intervene? Probably not, along as they didn't break through my wall in the process. Man against helpless woman comes into play, although I have seen her throw things with pretty good accuracy and she did say that she was on the soft ball team in High School. Infield? Outfield? Makes a difference in arm strength.

Then again we had seen bruises before and the screams alone would incite involvement just to stop the disturbing noise itself. It was a tough call, one that even trained and experienced police officers have trouble making. The guy did have guns too, as I said before. I could just see him standing out in the Glades popping off round after round, practicing rapid loading, ever ready to be, you know, ready. When the shit hit the fan he was going to go down blazing, spraying hot lead everywhere.

No, I had to do something, even if it was minimally effective. Besides, the Jewess demanded action. We were neighbors. That was what neighbors did. They actually didn't. Not anymore anyway. America had long ago devolved into family pods, separated from their neighborhood by technology in the form of instant entertainment. No one wanted to leave the couch when they were watching the DVR regurgitate their favorite TV show or walk away from that video game when they are about to hit their highest score or leave off writing in their blog that nobody reads or push away from the desk when they finally found a porn site they can trust with their credit card. Some form of enjoyment was there for the taking, leaving human interaction on the bottom end of things for the most part. Most people couldn't supply the name of their next door neighbor and if they could it was because they got his or her mail by mistake.

My Jewish neighbor was old school, in a way. She was concerned. Intervention had to be attempted. It was the code. Not my code, let's be honest here. Confrontation wasn't something I relished. Live and ignore, that was my working motto.

Tourist me started to think that it was time to go out with a bang. Old me was content with the status quo of: Keep it down, please, and try not to leave any marks--on her or the walls. Oh, and if you could point your Glock towards the ceiling at all times I'd appreciate it. These walls are paper thin and I don't want to be picking any rounds out of my ass cheeks. Thanks.

It had gone down before like the latter, with me asking them nicely to refrain from killing each other within earshot of my apartment, like maybe have all your arguments at sea, on the ship. You can scream and curse, even maim each other, then toss one another over the side. Your bodies can wash up on shore in Belize or where ever. Two more cruise ship workers lost to a watery grave. No one will care, least of all anybody in South Florida. We all generally hate the cruise industry. It is basically parasitic and run by rich dudes who don't give a shit about the US of A. They all run a floating fiefdom with hardly any regulations to adhere to and only stop counting their mountains of cash when a dozen or so passengers gets sick from some unknown virus lurking in among the pipes and passageways and it ends up on the local news. Especially when the news crew shows up dock side and takes video of disembarking tourists pale and near death, with all of them telling anyone who will listen that it was the worst experience of their entire life.

We had once pitched an ad campaign to one of the cruise ship titan's flunkies. It didn't go well. We were out of our element. It had been the brain child of our fearless leader, who wanted to step up his game a little bit, bat in the big leagues. It was a miracle we even got a foot in the door. They listened half heartedly, smiled politely, then patronized us for a few minutes, while a personal assistant showed us out the door. We came off amateurish, which we were. Lazar and I didn't give a crap but it bothered the third member of the trio so much that she couldn't sleep for a week, as she tossed around in her mind what had gone wrong. Wrong? We showed up with a pitch that leaned heavily on us play acting out the copy, like three High School thespians trying out for one of those ridiculous performing arts schools. We would have done better to dress up as the three stooges and gouged each other's eyes out with our fingers.

That was the problem though. I mean although I did have a built in prejudice against what they did it was the noise that bothered me. Loud music of whatever genre was bad but hearing two people locked into some coed no holds barred ultimate fighting was hard to take. It made you want to do something, anything to make it stop.

"Listen, Bart," I say with just the least bit of sarcasm slipping into my tone, "why don't you take this fucked up shit back to Texas and do us all a favor." This was a pretty good opening salvo. I turned to glance at the Jewess, who had stepped back a step or two, expecting the worse.

"What's that again?" he asked, placing a hand behind his right ear in a comical pose.

"He wants us to go back to Texas, dumb ass," his wife interjected helpfully, grinning. "I think he's sick of hearing us fight, honey."

"Is that right, babe," he says, glaring at me. "Well you know what you can do with your pussy ass...you can--"

"Let me stop you right there, Bart," I say, stepping closer, invading his space. "We've been listening to your country ass kicking your stupid wife for almost a year now and it ain't getting any better."

"Fuck you!" she shouts right into my face, so close her veneers are blinding me.

"Could you be more specific," I say only because I had always wanted to say that, apropos of nothing in particular.

She literally snorts in my face and droplets of saliva sweep across my nose, where I wipe them away with the back of my hand. The Jewess has latched onto my arm and is trying to extricate me from my suicide mission. I pull back.

"Got a death wish?" Bart wants to know, as he chest bumps me like in the movies.

Fearing a sucker punch coming, I knee him right in the nuts, swift and true. He bends over at the waist and is gasping for air. I immediately think: fighting a man is so easy. We are anatomically vulnerable at almost any time. The nutsack is the real Achilles heel. He is moaning and grasping his goods.

"You bastard!" she screams and punches me hard, right on the side of my head. Texas women apparently don't mess around with slaps. Her bony knuckles feel like needles against my temple area. "Are you okay, sweety?"

"Two seconds ago this jerkoff was abusing you, bitch," I cry out, rubbing the side of my face.

She turns her attention back to me and kicks me in the shin. I have a decision to make. I have never ever hit a woman before, even though there were plenty of times I wanted to pop La Cubanita. One well placed punch to her nose would have done it. Couldn't do it. Now, hey, what the hell.

"He is going to kill you," she declares, balling up her fists for another assault.

As she is winding up, I step closer and bitch slap her hard, right across the face, so hard a smear of makeup comes off on my palm. She recoils for a moment, startled by this turn of events. Then she regroups and is coming at me again. I side step her charge and trip her. She loses her balance and goes head first into the railing, saving her a fall from three stories up. She is bellowing out now, like a wounded animal or some kind of mythical beast maybe. Meanwhile, Bart has partially recovered and trying to get me in a head lock.

"What the fuck?" I cry out, surprised that he has recovered so quickly.

"Stop it!" the Jewess shouts.

"Should we call 911?" somebody on the second floor calls up to us.

"Yes! Yes!" the Jewess replies, retreating a few steps down the landing.

"Hold him, Bart," so says the lovely wife, now grappling with me like some half dressed participant in a jello wrestling competition.

I am fighting both of them now and doing fairly well, considering. Fortunately, Bart isn't up to full speed yet, so I punch him a few times after getting out of his head lock, right in the stomach and yes below the belt again. He collapses, bellowing in pain. The wife come in for a few slaps also as she tries to kick me in the balls but misses badly, nearly falling down. Who knew trading blows could be so much fun? In the very back of my brain a voice is saying: Somebody has to be recording this. If so, I will be front and center on You Tube in the morning.

"Help! Help!" the Jewess is screaming out, leaning over the railing to get somebody's attention. In the distance we can hear the sound of sirens blaring away. I am minutes away from being a potential crime blotter entry in the local paper. Man beats up neighbors. I am now a bad boy, something, in all honesty, I have always wanted to be. You know, the dickhead who causes trouble and couldn't care less. Being a small time socio-path is kind of a rush, like fleshing out Camu's warped philosophy.

"I am sick and tired of listening to your fucking bad country music," I shout out right into Bart's face, as I hold off his wife with one hand and shake my fist in his face. "You really suck as a musician, asshole." One more punch to the side of his face, right below the left eye socket, where I feel something crack. My knuckles hurt.

"You son of a bitch," the wife screams at me, while I hold her by her hair in what must look like some cartoon version of domestic fisticuffs.

Suddenly inspired, I grab them both by the hair and knock their heads together in homage to all the three stooges movies I had seen on one of those down the dial cable shows, all full of black and white physical maiming on cue. The sheer physicality of their manic slap-stick is genius or so said one of my frat brothers, a devotee of old comedy. Hey, I was stoned when I watched them.

"Ow!" they both cry out in harmony, making me laugh, as the Jewess flees down the landing, fearing I have completely lost it. I have. This is sheer, unadulterated madness. All of the pent up aggression after years of a lousy time spent as a teen-ager and then my irredeemable marriage comes to the surface. Me, the time bomb, has reached his limit. I will now exercise my god given right to go insane for just a little bit.

"Did that hurt?" I mock them, laughing in their faces. "You know what hurts? It's having to listen to your two morons sing, fuck, and fight all the time. God! Both of you should be murdered in your sleep. No, that would be too kind for you two losers. Hanging would be better. Every time you went off to work I hoped the damn ship would sink in the middle of the ocean. Then we would be rid of two fucking ass wipes for good."

Didn't realize I had so much pent up hatred for these two. It comes pouring out. Then again, they are only a small representation of what ails me. Like many, I hate myself or, at least, what I have become. So many of us are walking around out there in the real world who can't stomach ourselves, you know. True? Yeah, it is.

Whoops, the devoted wife has wriggled free. Those damn ugly ass extensions! They came off right in my hand. I am left holding some dyed second hand hair from who knows where. Looks like a weasel pelt or something. She is scampering away into the apartment. Bart is pretty much done for. He is actually whimpering now. I tell him now he has some new material for one of his insincere fucked up ballads. We'll call it: Neighborly Love or The Walls Are Too Thin or I Fought The Neighbor And The Neighbor Won.

"Bastard!" I hear her shout, right before the unmistakable sound of a gun shot, which envelopes me in instant pain, right in my chest area. Another gun blast but the round whistles by my head, in route to fall harmlessly in the Everglades. I suppose it might take out a dozing squirrel maybe.

"You crazy bitch," I call out, staggering back against the railing, refusing to believe that I am now another firearm statistic. She is taking Stand Your Ground implementation to its logical limit. "Fuck," I mutter, gripping my chest.

She is waving the hand gun now, triumphant, as she moves in for the kill. I can feel the hot steel barrel against my head and she is telling me that I am on a one way trip to hell. Very colorful. She is an entertainer.

"I got 'em, Bart," she informs her husband, by way of commentary, speaking over her shoulder, as she presses the gun barrel tighter against my forehead. "I am gonna splatter your brains all over the parking lot."

Through my wavering vision I see that she is packing a six shooter, just like in the Westerns. Must be a copy of what won the west, a working replica. Being Texans, they take Lone Star lore seriously. Really. I have just been shot by a country singer with a side arm the Texas Rangers might have used to hunt down the bad guys. C'mon. Let me update that. I have just been shot by a half dressed country music singer, female, with a Peace Maker. My tourist self has just delivered the script from a Elmore Leonard movie.

"Drop it," so declares a police officer, with gun drawn and itchy trigger finger flinching.

More cops are pouring into the parking lot below. I am glad to provide so much excitement for my bored neighbors. News choppers are buzzing overhead, with cameras trained on me and company. Viewers are seeing in real time my demise, and the pert, exposed bod of the most famous country singer you have never heard of. Sex appeal. Violence. Death on command. Ratings are going to climb.

Nervous EMT's are racing up the stairs, two at a time. They live for this action, tired of showing up at condos to ineffectually revive old farts hanging on to the last trace of their lives. This is much better than car crashes too, accidents where the fire department takes the glory by extracting bodies from mangled car metal. Suicide overdoses are no fun either, just a lot of puke and withering stares from pissed off or bewildered relatives.

"Place the gun on the ground, slowly," another cop is ordering her to do.

"He deserved it," she tells them by way of explanation. "Look what he did to my husband."

"I know but you have to put the gun down...now," the first cop on the scene commands in a slow methodical voice. "Just do what we say."

She is backing up and lowering the gun. Then she stoops to lay it on the cement. The two cops then rush her and fling her to the floor, face down. Hand cuffs are applied rapidly. She is back to screaming out, telling them they are a bunch of fascists. Fascists? Must be the Libertarian influence.

Two EMT's are on me now, easing me to the ground, working their magic. I feel my shirt being ripped open and some bandages being applied. They speak in short hand in hushed tones. An IV is up and running. Oxygen mask in place over my face. Blood percolates out of my mouth and fills the oxygen mask. One of them is on the radio, summoning an evac immediately. Death looms.

The pain before so intense has now subsided somewhat, leaving me with a dull ache in my chest like maybe I was having the worst heart burn of my young life, even worse than that time I ate some jalapeno peppers raw to win a bet. A conflagration was visited upon me, was how I described it later on and thereafter whenever it came up.

"Gotta move," one of the EMT's is announcing to the cops.

"Do it," an officer states, as he places Bart in handcuffs too. Can't be too careful. Don't know who the perps are in this fucked up situation. Sort it out later.

Even though I am spitting up blood I manage a chuckle or two. Tourist me knows that in a really short time I will be lifted up and away from this abject horror, almost as if it had all been a training exercise for the police department and emergency crew. Play acting. That's right. We got some off duty people to act out a scenario where you guys will encounter a crazy domestic scene gone bad. GSW. Gun on scene. Dicey perpetrators caught in the act. Response time check. See how you do.

Any time now I will feel that sensation I always feel. Like when you sense a movie is about to wrap it up and you will be able to stand up and stretch your legs, go to the bathroom, get something to drink. The import of the film will slowly but surely be lost to ongoing life, true life. Personal problems will supercede the hazy undefined aftermath of some culture bullshit. Human interest stories always lack the one human intimately connected. None of that matters. I am able to mold and shape the hypothetical, making it my own. As Dr. W likes to say: You are the sculptor.

WTF, a helicopter is hovering over me now, blowing shit in my face off the parking lot. A Burger King bag full of discarded containers sweeps past the gurney I am strapped to, quickly followed by a plastic bag from Albertson's. Two EMT's are hunched over as they guide me into the waiting chopper. They exchange stats and particulars with the staff on board the helicopter. I see one of them frown at the other, as if to say: Wasted trip, he's a goner. The pilot gets the all clear sign and we lift off, bank slightly, then head eastward. I get a quick glimpse of the glades below before we speed towards the nearest hospital.

There is radio chatter filling the cabin and I spit up more blood. The pain has increased again and I feel diabolically cold, freezer cold. We are fast approaching the landing pad on top of the hospital, marked in orange. Winds seem to buffet us as we land. Then the door is slid open and more medical staff appear. "Still conscious?" a young doctor asks, with incredulity filling his tone. I am whisked away to a waiting elevator, then down, down, and into an OR. More doctors are on hand. Medical jargon fills the air of the room, blending in with some machines burping out digital data. I hear heart mentioned more than once. A person wearing a surgical mask is leaning close to ask me questions. At least I think she is talking to me.

I am talking back to her, answering her questions. My vision is blurry and it feels like something is sitting on my chest, something really fucking heavy. My breathing is labored. My aches have aches.

"Gotta move, people," a doctor calls out, busying himself with a readout, mouthing the stats as he looks down the list. "I am not going to lose this guy!" he practically screams out.

Who are these people? my mind is asking, with the thought rattling around in my brain, leaving a weird mental aftertaste. Where is nose ring girl? The loyal robotic staffers? That air freshener smell? Cold AC? My session has to be over with. I felt the sensation, the one I've felt a dozen times before. I should be heading to recovery by now, ever closer to the prize. I don't hear the good doctor's voice either.

"Hey...hey, what's going on?" I manage to say in a strained voice.

"You are in good hands, Mr...Mr. Jamison," the masked nurse assures me and I can almost see her smiling behind the surgical mask.

Then again, I can't seem to see anything at all. It is almost like when you get your eyes dilated at the optometrist's office. "Got a lot of pain," I croak, trying to clutch at my chest but another nurse is holding them down and telling me not to move. "Can't breathe either," I say in a whisper through the oxygen mask.

"Don't even think about it," the doctor announces, motioning to someone off to my right. "Let's do this."

Do what? is about the last thing I remember thinking before sliding into unconsciousness. Confusion creates its own set of problems, as it leaves the brain to unscramble what has been scrambled. Almost three days later I awaken. Back from the dead.

The private hospital room is quiet, with lots of flowers and get well cards placed around the room. I am in first class accommodations for the very first time in my short life. Damn, I never even sprung for club seats at the track. This is how the one percent get well. What is the thread count on these sheets exactly? They feel gentle on my skin.

Then I notice a dull ache in my chest sneaking up on me, like a house cat approaching somebody's pet bird. My entire body feels stiff, wooden, and there is a really nasty taste in my mouth. On top of that, there is an invasive tube stuck up my urethra, penetrating my bladder. What the fuck? I know what this is, I tell myself. This is Dr. W's version of incarceration. Sure you get a nice place, with a bed that probably cost a few thousand, but there are penalties to pay. Who stuck this thing up my dick? I wonder, as I painfully reach around to check the other portal on the backside. All clear. Wait, I'm wearing some kind of diaper. Is this for real?

There ain't going to be any debriefing this time. Nose ring girl isn't on the premises. I am on my own, and, apparently, flat on my back in the hospital. It is like being in a movie that has gone straight to DVD or streaming, one in which the lead character has awakened to find his life over: Kafkaesque. I can hardly breathe or at least it hurts to breathe and my body is stiff as a board. I can only hope that I have passed--transitioned--into another memory. Wait, I don't have any memories like this. How can this be?

"How we doing today?" asks a nurse, fortyish, wearing sherbet orange scrubs. Orange? "Looks like your BP is good," she adds cheerfully, not even looking my way. I think the word is peremptorily. Like she has probably done a thousand or so times before. Another day on the job. "The doctor is stopping by soon." With that little morsel of info she is gone, vanishing, slipping out the door and leaving behind some noxious perfume that clings to the stagnant air.

This can't be real, I tell myself, looking around the room again. There are actually get well cards propped up on the nightstand, with balloons straining against their leases, rising to the ceiling. One has my name on it in silver letters. I can hear a buzz of activity out in the hallway, the usual sounds of healing being attempted in an effort to ward off death. Hospitals really are a depository of anticipation.

"There he is!" so announces Lazar, smiling, coming over to give me a quick fist bump.

"Remember us?" asks Sarah, back in town again after having left the state for a brief spell to try her hand at something different in the work department.

"Hey, you guys," I respond weakly, squirming in my bed, feeling the tube from the Foley bag shift around in my dick.

Lazar has been in communication with Sarah all along, texting, emailing, even calling. My near demise as brought them together again for this hospital visit. I don't know what to tell them simply because I don't know anything myself. I have been kept purposely uninformed by the staff at the hospital under the doctor's orders. It seems my health is still precarious enough to merit caution. No emotional triggers should be pulled. I am to be left in as close a placid state as they can manage. A shitload of drugs also help to keep me tranquil.

"What the fuck happened to you?" Lazar wants to know, laughing. "I mean, man, you go into a study and end up here." He gestures around the room. "Nice balloons."

Sarah shoots him a look of disapproval and says, "Don't listen to him--he's an idiot."

"Same old Sarah...some things never change," Lazar states, finding the remote to the TV and fondling it. "You get HBO?"

"That's Lazar," she says to me, leaning over to buss my cheek in a display of friendly affection that she has never displayed before. "Looks like they are taking good care of you in here. First class accommodations I see."

"We brought you some candy and some mags," Lazar says, as he sprints through the channels. "Mags...old school...haven't seen one in like a hundred years."

I know he is a confirmed techie and never reads anything unless it is on his tablet. He hands me several magazines and I see that they are some rags with celebs on the cover with blaring headlines about cheating and drug use. Lazar smirks as I look at them briefly. Sarah is perusing my collection of Get Well cards, mumbling to herself as she reads what is written on them.

"Grammar needs work," she says more to herself than to me.

"She was a school marm in a former life," Lazar quips, looking back at the TV screen.

"Thanks for coming to see me," I tell them, reaching out to touch Sarah's arm. "I don't even know what happened to me."

"What?" they say in unison.

"Yeah, I just woke up and was in this place," I tell them, shaking my head in disbelief. "Nobody has told me shit. The nurses just come in here, do their thing, then run out the door. It's weird."

"Yeah," Sarah says, hands on hips, adopting the posture I know well, signaling that she doesn't like what she is hearing. "Want me to find out what's what? I can do that. Like right now."

"Go girl," Lazar cracks, winking at me.

She looks at him then flips him off and says, "You are a patient here. You have rights, you know. I think they have patient advocates for this kind of crap. Right? Ask to see one...or...just tell the doctor you want answers--now."

"You almost died," Lazar exclaims and Sarah stares him down. "Well, he did."

"I did," I say, confused. "When?"

"Man, he's clueless," Lazar whispers too loudly.

"Shut the fuck up, Lazar," she tells him, reaching out to grasp my hand, the one without the IV inserted in the back near my wrist. "Listen, Hare, you got to talk to a lawyer about this. You got to--"

"Were you people cleared to come in here?" a nurse in the doorway booms out. "Who said you could visit. Family only."

"We are family," Lazar declares, giggling. "Long lost cousins...from the African side of the family."

"Very funny," the nurse says, adding, "get out, please."

"We were just leaving but I think you better tell him what's up or--"

"Miss, don't tell me how to do my job," the nurse insists indignantly. "Don't make me call security on your ass."

This is the new discourse in our society, I think, laughing. On down the road even the President of the United States is going to be talking trash, not to mention priests and rabbis, telling their congregations to: "Get down with God." Apparently, I am going to be alive to hear it. I have just dodged a bullet, as they say. Brought back from the dead--twice. Brief coma. Then on the road to recovery.

What happened though? The question lingers in my mind. While the nurse and Sarah argue, and Lazar continues to watch a show on TV dealing with some family somewhere involved in taxidermy, I try to piece together the events that preceded me ending up in the hospital. Everything is hazy after I entered Somnium for my last session. Pay day was right around the corner. One more walk down memory lane and I was going to score.

My two friends are here for me, even though they are more like co-workers. Sarah is standing her ground, actually getting right in the nurse's face. I can remember her words as if they were still ringing in my ears. Things like: You have to look for an apt symbol, that's what persuasion is all about or because it is as simple as cerebral versus intuition, that's what makes people think with their gut, not their brains. You have to tap into that...their desires. With Lazar adding, Utopia light. It is all about mental architecture, Sarah again. Break it down then break it up. We have to bring them to the product.

We at the shop instinctively knew about the conflict we all share, that of desire and reason. It was our job to make sure desire won out. Humans aren't rational beings. We aren't. Not really. We react to visceral images, especially if you live in a media heavy society, where your eye balls and ears are bombarded 24/7 with crap designed to ensure your decision making process has been corrupted. I am one of those corrupters. You all are the corruptees.

"Come on, Lazar, this bitch is crazy," Sarah calls out, pushing by the nurse as she heads out into the hall.

"Later, bro," he says to me, adding, "I guess we're out of here."

"Don't make me lock you down," the nurse says to me ominously. I think about asking what that means but think better of it. "The doctor's coming by soon." With that, she is gone. Again. Before the day is over I will be visited by several different nurses, all dropping by and staying just long enough to complete their task as if a time clock was running in the background.

One of the nurses tells me that my family has been by, back when I was, you know, incommunicado. My mother, so I'm told, cried non-stop. I can imagine her invoking her God to do something. It would be that whole deus ex machina thing working. God made it happen. Okay. Then again, she might say, you were doing the devil's work by messing with your mind. Science and my mother aren't friends. Since her schooling ended she has devolved into a person who thinks the Bible explains everything. I'm sure she has been thumbing through the Old and New Testament to find some trace of an explanation for my hospitalization. Good luck with that.

My father, on the other hand, would be pissed off because he had to drive hundreds of miles to see his dufus son, the one he always found odd. He would stand in the corner and try to be stoic, like a good soldier, even though he would like to rip all the IV's out of my arms, detach the wires, and transport me back up north to a more convenient location. Can't blame him for that.

My brother and sister would be bewildered at first, then annoyed. They would see me lying there like in some Lifetime movie and want to probably snap off the machines keeping me breathing. Call it a day. Win some lose some. My sister might shed a tear or two, but my brother definitely wouldn't. He would take a peek at my inert form and shake his head, all the while wondering if I had anything he might want. Big screen TV? Any Apple products? Car? Clothes? Then he would remember that I didn't have shit worth inheriting.

I don't really know if any of this really happened or not. Hey, I was out. Dead to the world. Maybe, just maybe, what ever occurred in my hospital room was captured by my sleeping brain, imprinted there for later retrieval, not unlike some security video. I might see them weeping over me. A family in the midst of a grief crisis. No, I don't think so.

I know my family. They are dysfunctional in that way every American family is today. Bred into them is a general sense of self-entitlement handed down by a culture that values all the wrong things. When social scientists talk about nature versus the outside influences they seldom if ever think about the corporate superstructure we all live within. They call the shots. We are nothing but vessels to be filled up with intent. My head hurts even writing about it.

Doctor W. once said to me during one of our debriefings: Man will one day understand an orthogonal approach to intelligent thinking. It goes beyond critical thinking." What that means is something like right angles at right angles, which is about as fucking confusing as it gets. Then he capped it off by telling me that human life is nothing but a string of digits, lurching from milestone to milestone.

I had my milestone, even if it almost cost me my life. Someone once said that it helps to be fictional. My new life was that as I lived and breathed it. I was one of the winners in Life's sweepstakes. Like a lottery winner. It didn't come easy though. Two years of a daily grind to regain my health, while some legal urchins clung to the good doctor's fortune.

Lawsuits are ugly affairs. It puts mankind on full display, giving greed a bad name. As a little background, two slimy characters showed up one day in my hospital room. You know when you see those ads on TV starring local lawyers eager to hear your tales of woe, while they check their manicured finger nails and nod along to the spoken tragedy. Usually it happens in their garishly decorated offices, adorned with framed newspaper articles about how their firm collected millions from company XYZ for their gross negligence. As you walk in the door the first thing you notice is the smell: greed. It makes mold smell of roses.

I got the treatment while lying in my hospital bed. How they got past the nurses I don't know, except that they might have come stocked with hundred dollar bills to pave the way. Louis and Charles, Louie and Charlie respectively, so they told me, handing over their business cards, duly embossed in some kind of font I had never seen before, almost like Sanskrit. They weren't from the near East though, unless you count the Northeast. I wasn't concerned about their ancestry so much as what they were doing there.

At first, I thought they might be there from the billing department of the hospital. It was time to pay the piper, Mr. Jamison. How would you like to pay for the exorbitant bill you have manage to run up? Check? MasterCard? We have a five percent discount for cold hard cash, no ones please. I had one of those worthless high deductible plans to cover me but they maxed out with a puny lifetime amount. I was probably on the hook for thousands and thousands. I was never going to be able to pay it off. I would have to work three jobs just to make the interest nut. Not dying had been a really bad career move.

"Not here for that," so said Louie with a trace of a Jersey accent, watered down after too many years sucking down overpriced drinks in SoBe. His slicked back hair was lending credence to a lot of stereotypes.

"Naw, we are here to talk to you about recompense," Charlie announced, also in a northeast corridor accent, but one that probably held allegiance to four leaf clovers and beans.

"Recompense?" I muttered, wishing that one of the hundreds of nurses would appear and turn off the machines that were keeping me afloat.

"Yeah, like you don't deserve it," Louie stated, nodding yes emphatically.

Who are these guys? filtered through my drugged brain. After all, I was just back from the dead. Heart complications. Busy operating room. Baffled doctors. I was a medical case destined for the AMA journals. Twenty-six year old male, reasonably healthy, enters ER presenting with myocardial infarction: shortness of breath, nausea, vomiting, palpitations, sweating, and full blown anxiety. Wait. This patient is babbling about having been shot, right in the chest. Point blank. G.S.W. Not one but two cardiologists on staff are puzzled by this mystery gun shot wound. Is this a stress induced heart attack? One of the doctors seems to remember reading about a study done in London concerning heart failure and fear, something like that. Come on, says the other doctor, making a face. No, it produces abnormal heart rhythms brought on by the brain stem being connected to the heart by autonomic nerve pathways. Sure.

One thing for certain, this patient is in heart failure, big time. Got to shock him with the defibrillator, twice. Touch and go. So young. Don't go towards the light. Actually, there never was any light, even though I technically flatlined a couple of times. No, there isn't a heaven out there waiting for you. No soft, welcoming illumination. Just blackness, darker than a cave. Trust me.

ICU came next after I was stabilized. They got my heart on track again with some skillful medical maneuvering and drugs. I was literally scared to death by my own mind or, in reality, imagination. Too creative perhaps. That's me. Another frustrated writer. Not content to write copy. Now, here I am prostrate in bed, recovering slowly, while the cash register rings up an ever growing tally.

"You guy's lawyers?" I ask warily.

They look at each other for an instant, then Louie says: "Yeah, here for you."

"Are we talking about a lawsuit?" I inquire, looking them up and down again.

"Of course," Charlie informs me, smiling broadly, cracking his knuckles in a display of creepy masculinity. "What that doctor did to you was criminal. You deserve to see him punished."

"Punished?" I mutter, picturing the good doctor being led away in handcuffs, off to jail. Then again, they aren't talking about that kind of punishment. They are referring to reaming him financially; of course they will be taking home a large portion of any settlement or punitive decisions handed down by a sympathetic jury. "You think I got a case?"

"Do you ever!" Louie says excitedly. "I checked out the contract you signed. It has lots of holes in it."

"How did you get my contract?" I wonder aloud, confused.

"Your sister gave it to us. Got it from the lap top in your apartment. Dr. Wertheimer needs to get better lawyers."

"Oh yeah, you could drive a truck through some of the...the contract language," Charlie announces, fingering the open box of chocolates by my bed. "You mind?" he wants to know, as he plucks a piece of candy out of the box and pops it in his mouth. "This is the good stuff. Expensive."

"We got him where we want him," Louie tells me, grinning. "They'll settle out of court. I guarantee it."

"Got that right," Charlie assures me. "Can't afford the bad press. No way. He has an image to keep up, right? Somn...Som...whatever it's called can't be dragged through the mud. The media will be biting his ass all day long if they get wind of what happened to you. The company won't last a month. Just think what the local press will do with something like this. They are already circling around like vultures." He laughed at the thought, then added, "You hit the jackpot, my friend."

I had. In a way. My last session had ended with me in physical meltdown. Simply put, I believed that I had been shot. As a result I had a heart attack, a massive one. It was as if I had really been shot at close range. Advised by the good doctor to take charge, I did, creating my own little reality. Before, after I had instigated my beat down during one of my previous sessions, in which I suffered a physical reaction, however psychologically based it was, should have been a tip off. Later, during the civil lawsuit proceedings, this would prove to be the deciding factor in me landing the big prize. Dr. Wertheimer, and Somnium, had recorded more than one bad reaction during the sessions by other study subjects. It was damning evidence of malpractice.

Although, as it turned out, I was the only one in the study to have such a violent and potentially life threatening reaction. Lucky me. Having a near death experience apparently qualifies you for "recompense." Lots of it. I stuck with Louie and Charlie even though they were nothing but bottom feeders, the kind of lawyers you might see advertised on bus benches. I was half way surprised that we hadn't done some of their advertising for them. They were our perfect clients: small time with money.

Louie and Charlie stuck it to Dr. W. Good. Right where it hurts, so Louie was fond of saying, with a giggle. They would get their cut. I would take the rest, along with the government. It was all very surreal. Somnium owed me and I owned them.

Having money does change you. I know that now. If it hadn't been for my sister I probably wouldn't have ever known how the one percent lived. The good doctor was putting me up in the hospital gratis, hoping to avoid any potential shit storms that might develop. Make the patient happy. Give him the very best care, even better than your average gold plated health insurance plan. Did I tell you that they had a chef cook my meals once I was able to eat again. Special nurses too; of course they were there to monitor me as much as the progress of my health. Dr. Wertheimer didn't like to leave anything to chance.

Pity him. He didn't think of my family. We were the working class, the ones always wishing for a piece of the ever shrinking pie. Lottery winner. Lawsuit victor. Same thing. Everyone of us wished for the time when we could redeem that special coupon. Cash in and then out. We hadn't been watching and reading all the celeb news for nothing. It was preparation for when we too would be able to buy a new car with cash or own two houses, paid for. Mortgages were for suckers. The trajectory of the middle class was determined by dreams deferred.

Utopia was mine. It took a year or so but I got it. It being an estate over looking the Pacific in Cali. Finally I had gone west of the mighty Mississippi. I now called anything east of the ocean back east. Millions will do that, deliver material nirvana to your doorstep, like the over worked UPS dude who delivers all the crap I buy for delivery because I can't be bothered to go to the mall. Sybarites like me can't be like you. I even had my car delivered, the third one, brought to me by an eager sales gal wearing a skirt so short I could see the fake jewels she had glued on her pubic area.

Life is good. I have decades to burn through my account, most of which is parked overseas, location top secret. Only me and my accountant know. My house sits on a hill with a view that extends all the way to maybe Hawaii. Speaking of Hawaii, I am thinking of buying a place there two. It is situated west of me. I almost never look east anymore.

My family still resides in that shit hole Florida. I bought them houses in locales of their choosing. My parents stayed put, unable to conceive of a life beyond the city limits of the town they had called home forever. Sis got a house in Tampa, choosing to move closer to a city atmosphere. My brother got a home on the river outside of Jax, a place to dock his boat so he could go cruising whenever he got the urge. He got a boat too, of course. My largesse made me feel powerful, like all one percenters feel when they are using their money to cement their control over their fiefdoms.

To many, I was now an apostate. I had taken Dr. Rony Wertheimer for a ride, stripped him of his invulnerability. Left him shaken, you know, because he had seldom been challenged successfully. While it was true he had been sued before and what corporate titan hasn't, it came with the job, I got to him. People get pissed off and sue. It happens. Often. That is why he had a battery of lawyers on retainer, ever ready to knock down any upstarts who might want to make headway against the man.

How had I won? I had two disreputable pit bulls on my side who didn't give a shit about his rep or what he stood for or even how much money he had. Not really. That last part they cared a lot about. It meant they had some deep (deep) pockets to go after. This was the Big Leagues for them. Before, they were store front attorneys, that is strip mall, who dealt with petty legal wins against locals without many resources. This time they were up against it--and they knew it. I stuck with them even after several other law firms contacted me, ones with a pedigree because I liked that they were small time. It made any legal victory all the more satisfying.

In reality, they didn't have all that much to do with the settlement going my way. It was a cut and dried case, with a defendant determined to contain the damage. Millions, maybe billions, hung in the balance. Logic dictated that it didn't make sense to go toe to toe in court with somebody who had been almost irreparably harmed by one of Somnium's pharma products. Whip out the check book. Legally insist on a signature firming up the non-disclosure section of the agreement. Sweep the rest under the rug. No one would be the wiser.

That made me a sell out. I will confess to that. If not anything else, I was a product of the modern culture, a place and locale that asks of the individual that he or she abandon any trace of principles and pocket the cash. I stuffed mine and I do feel guilty, at times, about that. Then I walk out on my patio and stare at the Pacific and most all of my integrity drifts away on the cool breeze coming up the coast.

The odd thing is almost no one blames me or offers up any criticism. We have all been co-opted, left to live by our own shriveled up values. Nobody takes a stand anymore. It is old school, thought to be naive if not fucking stupid. Get yours. They got theirs. Hey, I was no iconoclast or even a maverick. The status quo, in all of its damn parameters, was okay by me. Sure, I recognized the mushrooming inequality out there but as far as I could tell history was stuffed full of the same. Romans, Ottomans, those Cyrene dudes, they were all practicing corruption. Call it a confluence of factors. You might even label it compulsory. Our society in the 21st century had long ago passed the critical juncture. I had now added my little bit.

The social fabric has been shredded for over a generation or more, leaving us with warped concepts. Capitalism, with a capital C, has morphed into a rapacious entity with a total disregard for community that even divine intervention can't fix. We now serve consumption. Before, when the corporations worried about the ebb and flow of supply and demand not implanting reflexive purchasing mojo everywhere, we lived in a world of shared ethics bonded by societal connections. Now we live for representational brands. Tags on a product are the new golden calf, if I might use the Bible for a minute. My lasting contribution has been in a tiny way to establish the neat trick of convincing people they were individualists when they were actually a member of the herd, a clone. My little universe helped along the continuing decline. Regional ad gurus make it happen too. We all push it forward.

So I cashed out, like a river boat gambler reluctantly pulling the plug on a winning streak. In the process I had made a dent in Dr. W's aura of invincibility, even if it was, you know, tawdry and crass. I'm not proud. Lawsuits are like that. They bring to the surface all the least worthy attributes. Of course it, the success of the lawsuit, didn't shake the almost sacred oath of loyalty the good doctor commanded from his staff, his underlings. Even the ones who were on the scene of my disastrous final session compartmentalized in their minds what had happened, chalking it up to a blip in the progression of science. Really. They knew the next generation of nose goo would be improved, better to take the client to inner journeys unknown.

I didn't care about that part. I knew they were drones, well paid, highly educated, but nevertheless hopelessly obtuse about any complications that might arise. It was like dealing with a group of people diagnosed with deep seated Asperger's syndrome, totally unable to be sympathetic. I realized that about them early on. They were hardwired to not give two shits about the study subject, as they worshipped daily at the alter of Wertheimerism. I get that. Everybody has their poison they prefer.

I was to have one more encounter with the good doctor. It came at a deposition, held in downtown Miami at some high powered law firm, one of those that have originals on the walls and designer furniture. The receptionist spoke three languages and there was a view that on a clear day you could probably see all the way to the Bahamas. I could only imagine what the billing rate was, probably more than a large portion of the population's monthly mortgage.

While Louie and Charlie ogled the receptionist, I had a brief exchange with Dr. Wertheimer. He was nervous, which I had never seen before. It didn't look good on him. He was all about control. It was more than clear that he didn't want to be there. This legal kidnapping was excruciating for him. He had to be there. For a guy who didn't have to be anywhere he didn't want to be I guess it hurt, like a kick to the groin.

"Mr. Jamison," he greeted me coldly, glancing around the office, hoping to be rescued by some first, second, third year member of the law firm, maybe even a partner if they were available. I could only imagine he had been told to address me that way.

"Hey, doc," I said cheerfully, offering my hand. He shook it limply and stepped back, as his eyes darted around the spacious office. In the background I could hear Charlie's grating Boston accent asking the receptionist if he could get a cappuccino. "Nice view, huh?"

He looked over his shoulder at Biscayne Bay below and grunted, before saying: "You shouldn't be doing this."

The old good doctor was back, the one who thought that everything orbited him. I grinned at him and replied, "Seemed like the thing to do."

He muttered something under his breath then said, "You should think about the ramifications that might come from all of this."

I saw sweat building up on his forehead. I think it was right about then that I knew I was going to win this thing. This lawsuit scared the shit out of him. He probably had visions of seeing Congressional hearings being held, with clueless Congressman saying, on camera, that his nose spray made people blindingly stupid or maybe some FDA bureaucrat telling the committee statistics show that ten to thirty percent of the people who take this product will end up in the OR and then have cognitive development problems. My first week in ICU the staff thought I was doomed, destined for some kind of intellectual impairment. Private hospitals keep records too. All of this was potential evidence against Somnium.

This made me think of the time I had been in his office for one of the debriefings. He had a small plaque on his desk with this written on it: Ignorance will always outstrip knowledge. I thought at the time this was an odd thing to have on your desk in the inner sanctum of a place that was all about attaining knowledge. Later, after I thought about it, I realized the maxim was a bit of witticism or at least a warning to all of those doubters out there. The inside joke was of course Dr. Rony Wertheimer knew everything.

Well he didn't know how my lawsuit was going to play with the public. He was lucky I was easy. Other people--not many--might have nailed his balls to the wall, bringing down his kingdom. If anyone needed to be gutted it was probably him. Then again, he did have some worth while inventions. He was still a prick.

"I almost died," I said in almost a whisper.

He thought about this for a moment then replied, "You didn't do what I wanted of you. No one else has had the problem you encountered. With every scientific advance comes--"

One of the minions in the law office broke in and then escorted the good doctor away, off to the expansive conference room. It had a gigantic table and we got to sit across from each other. A large team of lawyers trickled into the room, where a stenographer waited, fingers poised to record all the words for the binding transcript. Louie and Charlie came in, joking, trying to prove that they belonged. They didn't. It didn't matter. My depo proved that Dr. w was on thin ice. It was risky letting this develop further. A shit storm was brewing.

Not that his team of lawyers didn't try to worm out of the predicament with novel legal approaches. As in, for instance, one of them trying to say that memory retrieval is low tech cognition, and reasoning comes from the other end of the scale. Yeah, right, it was the bottom half of my brain that caused all the problems and it shouldn't matter. Something like that. They floated several other things too but in the end they chose to settle out of court. Good thing. I don't think my duo of lawyers would have come off too well in a court setting. They came off like two used car salesman most of the time.

What the good doctor and his high priced lawyers couldn't overcome was all of the medical files sitting waiting to be exposed. I had been in the hospital for over a month and in the ICU unit for most of that time. It was touch and go for the first two weeks, with my family ready to make funeral arrangements at any time. Charlie and Louie were prepared to subpoena half the hospital staff and enter into evidence all of the medical stuff. On top of that they were prepping my family for the obligatory tearful testimony. I could only imagine my mother taking the witness stand and crying about losing her youngest. Between the medical evidence and the emotional appearance of my family members it might have been an easy win. Maybe not. Juries can be unpredictable some times.

Dr. Wertheimer didn't want to take the chance. Besides, settling out of court meant that he could control the outcome better, as in putting a clamp on any disclosure. There wasn't going to be the sight of me appearing on some TV show blabbing about what went on before and after I almost died as a result of one of his miracle drugs. Not going to happen. I wasn't going to be able to write a book about it either. Oh, wait, I did.

That would come later, after another study subject (with considerably more integrity) also had a crushingly bad reaction to his nasal goo. She couldn't be bought. She wasn't a sell out. Tons of cash didn't influence her all that much. Who knew people like that still existed? There would be a court case, with lots of publicity, most of it bad for Dr. W. Skeletons in his closet would tumble out, including some kinky stuff too. I might not be able to ever look at stuffed animals again, and feel free to use your imagination. The jury would deliver their verdict and it would all come out.

That's not my story though. The defendant, the good doctor, would try to massage the message, as they say, but it was over. He had finally run up against somebody who wasn't a sell out. Lurid details, along with some highly questionable scientific trials, would batter his empire. Many disciples would jump ship. True, some would stay on, clinging to their vision of a visionary. Men have flaws and, apparently, great men have really big ones.

There was talk of jail time to go along with the massive fines and pay outs. More people would get in line to sue the good doctor. It became a cottage industry for Louie and Charlie. They had the goose who laid the golden egg by the balls. Stock in all of the Wertheimer umbrella industries got legally battered. Wall Street recognized when somebody was in trouble. Dr. W's billions dwindled; but it was his crumbling rep that he was so devastated by. His ego couldn't withstand being marginalized. He was a living and breathing icon, a brand. Even though he called in some high caliber PR merchants it didn't help. Finally, he left town or, in this case, the country. Fled would be more accurate, washing up on the shores of who knows where. The man had homes all over the globe. Could be Europe. Maybe Australia. Some speculated it might even be his own island somewhere, a place where he was the sole government and he could never be extradited. That sounded right to me.

Wertheimandia. Wertheimland. Isle of Wertheimer. United State of Wertheimer. They all work for me. The rich play by different rules. I know, I am one of them now.

It's in vogue nowadays to pinpoint transformative things in human history, like how important ordinary everyday cinnamon was to international commerce in the 1800's. Yeah, it's true. Look it up. Apparently, so they say, people couldn't get enough spices, so much so that they became almost the coin of the realm. Something like that anyway. Spice was a dynasty maker. We are (of course) way past that today. Now we thrive on tech or the latest culinary dish or cocktail to motivate us to spur the economy forward. Call it evolutionary financial adaptation. People like the good doctor are the kings and queens of this advancement. Not that they deserve all that much credit.

As we lurch from civil improvement and on to the next best thing, we are shaping our mutual destiny. Right around the corner is the new improved version, something to make your life better for an instant or maybe more. Higher, better, even more colorful, you might as well mutter it in your sleep. Fueled by technology and fed by elusive satiety, we will all share in the common good--along as it can be bought and sold, preferably at a profit.

After I had recovered, a few months down the road, I had an unexpected phone call from George. It had been a long time since I last talked to him. He, and the group, didn't know anything of my near death experience. He had some bad news for me. Toni died. In her sleep. Blooper was supposed to pick her up for an outing they had planned and when he got no answer at the door he walked around her house to look in the windows.

"What a lucky soul, huh?" George said on the phone and I could almost hear the envy in his voice.

"Yeah, I guess so," I replied, unable to relate even though I had almost kicked it myself. It had always been a divide between us, our age difference. They were up against it, so Slim Jim was fond of saying. Being so close to dying made your outlook on life totally different than most. Me, I never thought of dying in any what might be called rational way. Why would I? I had years to live.

"I suppose we beat the odds makers this time," he said in almost a defeated tone.

"What do you mean?" I wanted to know, confused, knowing well how George almost always put things into a gambling context.

"You know, us guys in the group outlived her, Toni. Women are most times the ones who outlive men. Most times," he explained, sighing.

"Usually," I muttered, suddenly feeling sad and a sense of loss.

"Look, Harry, the funeral is in a couple days...so you wanta go with me?"

Did I? I mean did I want to go to the funeral? I didn't know how I felt about that. Lately, I had been sitting around my apartment, alone, with my laptop and minimal diversions. I lost my job because of the extensive convalescence involved and was living off the Somnium payout and some bucks Louie and Charlie had passed along because they were certain that I was a cash cow for them. Minutes, hours, days, weeks, and now months had passed with me holed up in my place. Next door I still got serenaded by the two yokels from Texas every week or so and my Jewish neighbor dropped by to have me taste another one of her weird creations. All had returned to normal, except that I was practically an invalid and had a long road of recovery ahead of me.

For two weeks my sister had stayed with me, sans kids, thank god. She turned out to be a surprisingly effective nurse, if not just a little bit heavy handed with the discipline. She made sure I took my pills and did my mild set of exercises that were supposed to get me back to good health. I was convinced the doctors didn't know shit about what caused my heart failure and were just making it up as they went along. I tried to read up on it on the Internet but it was so rare I got nowhere. I was unique and an anomaly. Great. Soon medical organizations would be knocking down my door to get at me for science's sake.

My mother called almost every day to check up on me, while my father in the background told her to get off the phone. Big brother texted once in a while, mostly to complain about whatever sports team of his had lost the week before. We had never been all that close anyway and it showed. If I had died he probably would have made an excuse not to attend the funeral or something.

Funeral. Yes, Toni. Was I even obligated to go? I wondered about it. She was a pain in the ass most of time and we had never been life long friends or anything. Really. What was the etiquette about such things? I had been to one funeral, no two, in my life, both relatives. There was a waxy corpse involved, with some incredibly inauthentic grieving by less than popular members of the Jamiston clan; then came some infighting over left behind inventory of belongings. Playwrights spent grueling hours writing stuff about this kind of thing.

I wasn't sure I wanted to see Toni propped up in a casket, with tons of makeup on and a serene smirk plastered on her face. It all seemed, besides anti-climatic, absurd. By her own admission, she didn't have many friends or relatives left. We would probably be the only ones there at the funeral, where we would have to listen to some for hire minister tell us God had a plan for our departed friend and other such nonsense. The funeral home would smell of cleanser and refrigerated death. A funeral director would be on hand to tell us he felt our pain, while he kept one eye on the clock because he had another pre-burial event going on in the next room. I would sit there the whole time thinking: You get paid for this?

"Where's it at?" I asked reasonably.

"The dog track," he answered.

I laughed and repeated, "Where?"

"You heard me, the dog track," George said, laughing uneasily. "The old bird already told Blooper what she wanted to be done. It's all pre-arranged. All you gotta do is show up. Come on, boy."

"That sounds like something she would do," I told him, giggling.

"She was cremated," he explained. "Now we got to spread her ashes on the track."

"I'll be there," I said.

The four of us showed up at the track, early. With urn in hand (actually Slim Jim was carrying it) we went down to the railing and checked to make sure nobody saw us doing the deed. With the exception of a nosy security guard, a guy we knew from being there all the time, the coast was clear. After Blooper told the security guard what we were doing, and he just shrugged, we gathered around the railing to deposit the contents on the dirt.

"Say something," Blooper said to George.

"Why me?" George protested.

"Because you're the smartest of us," Slim Jim stated.

"The kid is way smarter than me," George exclaimed, looking in my direction.

"Kid-smid, he is still wet behind the ears," Blooper declared and we all laughed.

"Okay, all I got to say is she was a crazy broad and a bad gambler but we were friends," George said, glancing over his shoulder to make sure no one was watching. "I don't really know what kind of religion she ascribed to, if any, but I only hope that where ever she ends up she doesn't piss them off like she did us half the time." We laughed together and I noticed that Slim Jim and Blooper were fighting back tears. "And...and if she goes to heaven I hope they have pari-mutuels for her to lose her money at."

"I hear ya," Blooper said, blowing his nose in a handkerchief he pulled from his pocket.

Feeling the need to say something, I said, "I won't miss her phone calls at all hours of the day asking me for favors but I will miss her fighting spirit."

"What the fuck does that mean?" Slim Jim exclaimed and again we all laughed together. "I'm gonna dump this shit if all of you don't mind." With that, he spread her ashes on the turf where all of her beloved dogs had run meet after meet for the last ten or twenty years. We stood there for a minute looking out over the infield then Slim Jim added, "Can you believe they put people's ashes in cheap ass cardboard boxes and charge you for it?"

"Let's go place a bet, you bunch of degenerates," George announced, and we made our way to the club house.

Didn't see any of them after that; although George did call me once to check up on me. I told him I was moving out West, way west, not the Gulf coast. He wished me well. I was glad for the permanent separation. I didn't want to entertain the thought of a dying Blooper or Slim Jim and certainly not George. I wanted to believe that they would always be at the track, placing bets, watching the dogs run. My expanding universe didn't include road blocks like death. The end of the road wasn't even on the horizon.

My race to riches wasn't smooth. I was a hated man in some quarters. Although the zealotry surrounding the Wertheimer cult had diminished that didn't mean there weren't plenty of the loons left out there. Google my name and you will find a butt load of derogatory blogs about me. To some, I was responsible for bringing him down. He had to flee the country because of me. Too bad, even if I can't take all the credit. My sister told me I should hire a body guard but I thought that was stupid. Whatever fatwa some nerds had come up with didn't scare me. Just to be safe, I do live in a gated community with my own personal security system in place. I also got a dog, a big, angry one; and I purchased a gun too.

Money brings you, among other things, paranoia. It's okay because you can afford it. Being rich means you can do a lot of things that are out of bounds for other lesser beings. For one, you can call people lesser beings. Two, I get to decide things without the aid of anybody else's input. That is a big plus. Gone are the days I have to worry about what anyone thinks about anything.

What I have found out in my west coast redoubt is there is an inverse proportionality to being well funded. It goes like this: the more money you have the shallower you get. Kidding aside, let me get to my conclusion. Thank god, you are probably saying. People say our world is an illusion, like in a dream or, better, a memory. Religion, philosophy, even science, tell us to embrace one thing or another and stay away from the abstract. I say you should embrace what you can, let it guide you if you must; but the culmination is what comes next and it will always establish a memory to be stored. Please don't exhume it. Leave it in peace, so it can marinate in all those cerebral juices. You will thank me for it.

Chapter 7 Addendum:

Let it be said: with my riches, my score, I have started an organization which tries to abide by the simple motto of more than the sum. Yes, we do rely on advertising to get our message across. You can file that under I for irony. It is a non-profit called Authentica and our mission is to separate our society, particularly America, from the clutches of corporate hegemony. Towards that end we are starting with the children simply because the adults are too far gone. Years and years of brainwashing influence has left their minds mush, pliable, easily manipulated. It is difficult to make any inroads with them. Lost cause for the most part.

We have established programs for parents to wean their kids off industrial strength gratification that is ingrained in every waking moment of a child's life. Sometimes sleeping moments if they go to sleep watching TV and are awash in commercials penetrating their consciousness. Believe me, it happens. We have a long, tough road ahead of all of us. Already my website is being attacked by corporate sponsored hackers and in the media. Bring it on, as they say.

In my corner I have a steel willed fighter, who doesn't like to lose. If you haven't guessed, I hired Sarah to run my little renegade operation. The David and Goliath nature of the struggle appealed to her, that and the fact that she can work out of her house, in her pajamas if she wants to. She also has a little one on the way and from personal experience knows just how insidious advertisements can be for the young. If you want to stop a thief, hire a thief, or something like that. I did. She is well prepared to take down the system in place. I hope so anyway. If not, at least it soothes my guilty mind to know I am trying to do something with all the money I have. By the way, I tried to sign up Lazar as well but he is now coaching soccer and teaching at a High School in, of all places, North Carolina. Good for him.

Of course just maybe this book will go along way towards that goal too. Since I'm not allowed legally to reveal or divulge the settlement terms--you know, let me just say I have the resources to do battle in the war on mind altering influences etc. Call me an amateur lobbyist for the good guys. Want to join the fight? Go to: www.authentica.org. We can use all the help we can get. Oh yeah, buy American and buy only what you need.
