Time. Beyond the gods and their eternal houses of immaculate promise lies the fortitude of time and the undeniable realization that its effects are the only truths that are assured us. And to each of us there will always be a time that we are locked into, as if it were some secret survivor trapped within the wreckage.

I can recall, with surprising clarity, the life I led beneath the shadows of the atomic clock. Pressed hard against the cold tiled floors of a sixth-grade classroom grinning at the futility of surviving some nuclear baptism, the truths of time are evident. Lock-jawed to the wrists of millions we were terminally bound to, despite the countdown. No matter the endless plagues of madness that creep in and out of your day-to-day life. After everything, even the splitting of impossible tiny components, time will carry on. Which must lead most to wonder whether or not time existed before we gave it a proper name and some moving parts.

Somewhere, beyond the expanding universe, there must surely exist a bottomless well of time that has yet to be tampered with. It moves neither forward nor back. Undefined, it simply is.

And so, as our clocks march towards the birth of a new era of imbalances, I find myself amused by the myriad of predictions that have been tossed around like they possess even an ounce of reliability. If there is anything in this world that I’d enjoy more than witnessing the end of the world it would definitely have to be watching a world assume that it was coming to an end.

It wasn’t too long ago that millions of us used to lament about whether or not some anxiety-ridden Russian sub skipper would snap and take matters into his own hands. Somewhere, deep within the frozen waters of the North Pacific, he would launch a heavy rain of molecular obedience and then simply slump in his chair as all those years of back tension seeped out of his body. He would retire to his quarters, rapt in wonderment of knowing the future, and sleep soundly for the first time since childhood. And as his slumber took hold the rest of us would awake to the paralyzing realization that the sunrise had come too early, as the futile droning of the emergency broadcast system played itself out in the background.

It always perplexed me that such a warning system should be based upon such an annoying sound. In the event of a nuclear attack I always thought it more appropriate for a calm voice to break the airwaves and repeat a single, solitary sentence: Good morning sunshine, time to go.
In the time it takes a fork to drop from your hand to the floor everything within a fifty-mile radius is liquified. Beyond that, everything is hit by a shock-wave and crushed like a beer can, not to mention spontaneously bursting into flames. So much for that important informational segment that’s supposed to follow the dog-whistle portion of the broadcast. Thankfully, the dogs would make it to the minimum safe distance in time.

After living with the possibility of hell-fire raining from the sky, it baffles me to think that I would ever allow something as infantile as the disablement of a bank machine to get the better of me. Looking at the alternatives, I’d rather have all the computers in the world crash than have several hundred kilotons of sugar-coated plutonium sprinkled on my Raisin Bran.

The most recent doomsday scenario was almost desirable. All the computers seizing up in the first moments of the new millennium. No more phones to answer, no more answering machines to answer them for us. Planes, keeping with the extinction rate of their biological relations, plummeting from the skies, destroying numerous multiplexes, strip malls, and prefab townhouse complexes. Traffic lights worldwide going dark, leaving millions wondering who has the right of way. Billions will attempt to skip town for the countryside before realizing too late that gas station pumps, along with most things, don’t work. Faced with this new and frightening dilemma, we would have been forced to turn to those countries too underdeveloped and impoverished to know the luxury of mechanized transport to teach us how to get from point A to point B. No more all-terrain vehicles. No more armoured transports. No more armour. Everything, and anything, that you’ve come to rely on would be gone.

There was a time when your entire financial life was kept within the safe confines of a tiny little booklet that was updated by hand (human hands, no less). Little good your bankcard would do you then. We would be forced to return to the barter system. Which means that your two-thousand-dollar VCR is worthless and that old bike you haven’t used since 1978 is worth its weight in gold (gold being four cans of beans, a loaf of bread, and possibly a couple sticks of Juicy Fruit).

“Too far, too fast,� my grandfather used to say all the time. Born in 1913, he used to drive a horse-drawn delivery carriage when he was a milkman. He was in the air force in World War II, following which he graduated to a delivery truck. If he were still alive and in the delivery business today most people from his childhood probably would have assumed that he’d be driving some form of flying delivery vehicle.
According to most works of science fiction from days past we were supposed to be living on the moon by now and eating steaks in pill form. But that’s not the case. Instead we’ve decided to turn to increasing our conveniences. And though that might somehow lead you to assume that being the masters of our own destiny should encompass both possibilities, I can assure you that one deters the other.

As we expand our ability to achieve greater levels of convenience we decrease our seldom-used ability of actually progressing. Instead of going back to the moon repeatedly, we turned our attention to making television remote controls more difficult to operate than spacecraft. We haven’t been back to the moon in quite a while. I wonder why that is? Maybe someone thought Done that. But you know what. I sure do wish there was a universal controller that operated my TV, VCR, and stereo all at the same time. That’s not to say that there aren’t a million things that couldn’t be better right here at home.

Who needs to go to the moon when you can starve to death in the very same country that brought you such excitements as the Apollo project?

But thankfully Sega came out with a new platform because things in the home-entertainment world were starting to get stale. Just like all that unused bread that we heap into dumpsters at the end of every week. Oh my, a guilty First-Worlder indeed Mr. Good.

The future’s always been tricky like that. It’s the one thing that everyone strives to prepare for but can never really take when it arrives. The future is time’s true face. Because like time it remains undetermined and wholly represented by nothing more than a word and the unshakable fact that it’s lying in wait, spiced with rumour. Time is time because without a name it would only be recognized by the fact that, throughout most of the world, light appears every morning and disappears every night. So it’s only logical that it has a name. Add to that the fact that we’ve decided to chop each day up into a variety of different representations of time, and you’ve got predictability. There will always be a three o’clock after two o’clock. Human beings love that sort of thing. So instead of just living our lives not knowing when McDonald’s stops serving breakfast, we thought it prudent to make sure that we could get there in time to enjoy their sausage and egg McMuffins.

The future, which is nothing more than our concept of regulated time waiting to occur, is necessary to ensure that you can loosely predict when you’re probably going to need to start using Depends. Age reflects the effects of time, so it’s safe to assume that in the future you’ll look and feel older. But is that time, or is it nothing more than the effects of the earth’s gravity coupled with the inescapable wear and tear of our body-machines?

Without the future represented, we would be able to continually enjoy those things that are locked into a specific section of the year. Like the fact that the football season begins in August and ends in May. Without having compartmentalized the future, no one would know when these things were supposed to end. Thus, Premiership Football all year round. I like that. I like it a lot.

The future is quite a personal affair, making any attempt to reflect on its impending state quite pointless. Because you and I will always see it differently, as will our children. The future is nothing more than what you think it should be. And the disappointing feature about that is that it rarely becomes all that you hoped it would.

When I was a boy I used to pace around the living room at night because the thought of being vaporized by some horrific device of incomprehensible destruction loomed over me like a wounded tiger. Being an avid student of 20th century history I was always cognizant of the adage that to ensure peace one prepares for war. But somehow, at that age, the truth of it mattered little to me. My entire childhood, as may be the case with some of you, was spent wondering just how stupid we could be given the opportunity. It’s easy to rationalize the numbers behind such idiocy. Victory means very little when all is lost in the attempt. I used to wonder if the Russians knew that. Just a foolish boy, sometimes I lost sight of the fact that all people, in their own way, knew that had we been dumb enough to do it then we would have become that which we’d spent numerous millennia trying to convince ourselves that we weren’t.

Rule 1: Everybody gets a shit kicking.

Maybe just to ensure that you don’t spend your life thinking you’re better than those who get shit-kicked every day of theirs.

Rule 2: Morality extends no further than acceptability.

You will go as far as you’re willing to go. One man’s evil is another man’s amusement park.

Rule 3: Ignorance belittles those around you more than it does yourself.

Ignorance and the Ebola virus are comparable in three respects:

1] They’re both invisible
2] They’re both infectious
3] And they both kill

Rule 4: Infinity is unimaginable. So imagine reduction.

If heaven can be found in the sky’s reflection off of calm waters then it’s a shame that it’s too polluted to swim in.

Rule 5: Prisons do not exist without capitulation.

Between the bars there is nothing. Look close enough and you’ll realize that there’s more nothing than bars.

Rule 6: Time is greater than suffering.

Those who we pity in our time pity us in another.

Rule 7: Power begets fools. Fools beget power.

Thinking that one can control that which cannot be controlled attracts fools like a magnet. Enough so that, in a short period of time, the epicenter becomes an institution of them.

Rule 8: Death is the working class’s luxury.

Some people take vacations. Others spend their lives working towards a prolonged leave of absence.

Rule 9: Tomorrow is the cause of today’s nothing.

The promises of tomorrow reduce the chances of today.

Rule 10: We do not exist.

If proven otherwise, explain yourself.

Rule 11: Myths are nothing more than easy truths for idiots.

The need to offer easy answers to the general populace only reflects its inability to think independently.

Rule 12: Assume only that you know nothing. Within silences you will learn what you need to know.

The difference between knowing and assuming is vast. To assume is to fail miserably at acting intelligent enough to know when to keep your mouth shut.

Rule 13: The past is a minefield. Follow only those footsteps that do not end at the edge of large holes.

To ignore the past it is to prolong its mistakes.

Rule 14: The world is not your oyster.

Prying it open ruins your chances of putting it back.

Rule 15: No one remembers who you weren’t. Just who you were.

The realization of your true self far outweighs the consequences of unpopularity.

Rule 16: Supreme beings are kind of like pets. They make you feel better when no one else will listen. Strangely enough, neither can respond.

The need for something more than yourself ultimately diminishes the need for yourself.

Rule 17: Freedom is just a word.

If freedom is fraught with regulations then why not just call it regulated freedom and stop trying to convince yourself otherwise.

Rule 18: The pressure of being has no remedy. Just placebos.

If guilt and fear were currencies then we would have all started our own religions to capitalize on them by now.

Rule 19: The truth is versed in versions, not nobility.

If the truth were noble we would never have bothered inventing a device that can evaporate an entire city in under a minute.

Rule 20: The future is X-Rated.

Expect to be pleasantly underwhelmed.

It was in some rat-infested flophouse in Calcutta if my memory serves me correctly. I was lying in a dirty, sweat-soaked bed, dimed on opium, when there came a knock at the door. I got up and went over to see who it was. It’s not like I hadn’t met talking animals before that night. There was that time in Shanghai when I had a four-hour conversation with two mice and what appeared to be a badger. I later convinced myself that it was all just a dream because it was unlikely that a badger would be on vacation in China with two mice. And then there was that time with Todd in Vegas when we were held captive by a porn star and two strippers. They had a snake. And I’m pretty sure that it could talk. But there again I can’t be 100 percent sure that it actually could. A lot of weird things happened that night and a talking snake wouldn’t have been the weirdest.

I got out of bed, went over to the door, opened it, and stood there gazing down at a mongoose wearing a safari get-up and tinted glasses. And that’s how I know it wasn’t a dream: none of the other talking animals I’ve come across ever had luggage.

His name was Basle. Basle Montcliff the Third. And he was passing through to Southeast Asia on a hunting expedition. Basle was a professional tracker and killer of snakes. The kind of expert that had spent a lifetime doing his job meticulously.

Now I’ll admit that I had my doubts about the entire thing at first. After all, I was so high on opium at the time that my own mother could have come to the door and I probably wouldn’t have recognized her. Then again, there was the off chance that the mongoose was my mother.

The strangest thing about the incident was that Basle seemed like the kind of fellow that commonly lodged at far better establishments than the one in which our conversation took place. His refinement dictated better surroundings. I, on the other hand, am at my best whilst doused with shit.

There have been stranger times I’m told. I’ve been assured by some of my closer friends that, on occasion, I have indulged in far more perplexing behaviour than speaking with animals. As one might suspect, I really have no recollection of such activities and can therefore not comment. But I’m convinced that half of what they tell me is accurate and the other half is crap. But that doesn’t mean to say that talking with animals is an irregular thing for me to do. Since my encounter with Basle I talk to them all the time. Like the night I spent in Hanoi with a tiger named Henbob and his elephant friend, Dalafoo. Excellent characters both. Dalafoo, for example, spent most of his life serving the indigenous mountain folk of the interior before escaping into the wilds. An elder statesman of the wilderness community in Southeast Asia, he was a survivor of both the French and American wars. Sadly, he was hit by a vegetable truck some months after our meeting and left lame. Henbob, in an attempt to save his friend, tried in vain to rescue the ailing Dalafoo from the clutches of the poorly equipped Vietnamese Veterinarian Society. But alas, too little too late I’m afraid. Dalafoo died some weeks later, leaving Henbob no choice but to attack some field workers out of frustration and face certain death at the hands of professional wild-game hunters such as Mr. Montcliff. Is it just coincidence that I am able to speak with animals whilst on opium? Maybe. But I firmly believe that if I were to give it up long enough to spend a handful of hours sober I would still have the ability, and privilege, of conversing with my animal friends. Rather, it is the ability that causes the opium. Therein lies the strange balancing act that is my life. Not all things are as easily explained as VCR instructions.

Multiple homicide. Always annoying when it comes to that uncomfortable time between your arraignment and your trial. It’s during this particular stretch that most defendants begin to slip a little and those guilty feelings begin to surface. And let’s face it, you damn well knew what you were doing so don’t try to convince me otherwise. They’re gonna hook you up to a polygraph and get what they want so there ain’t any use practising your poker face. It may have been enough to convince all those college girls to help you look for your lost dog in the woods but it doesn’t fly when it comes to “the machine.�

But don’t panic just yet. You’re still miles from the maximum wing and years from the big gas up. There’s gonna be weeks of debating your mental state as it is, not to mention the fact that your lawyer will probably be able to fend off the district attorney with promises of a full confession that you’ll provide once they have a deal to let you do your time in a loony bin instead of a prison. If that fails then there’s always the chance that you could conveniently remember where you left some bodies or that there were actually more names on your kill sheet than originally thought.

Such tactics are commonplace in these situations. Lawyers need to exhaust these options so it looks like they did their best before they admit to you that you’re fucked and you’re gonna get shot up with enough wacky juice to light up a medium-sized town.

This is where I come in. I’m the ray of sunshine in your otherwise abysmal and rotting inner hell. So relax and just do what I tell you to do and everything will be okay. It’s no secret that temporary insanity is the most widespread cause for juries doubting all sanity-based cases these days. Temporary insanity is a contradiction in terms. To be insane temporarily is to admit that you’re actually sane most of the time. Who, in their right mind, is gonna believe that? “Yes, I did gun down eight people in a fast-food restaurant, but I wasn’t myself at the time, because my dad didn’t take me to ball games when I was a kid and my boss puts too much pressure on me, so I snapped there for a second, but I feel better now.�’ You are fucking nuts. You can forget about any jury taking you seriously when it comes to weak-ass defensive shit like that. They’ll send you to prison simply because you thought they were stupid enough to buy that.

But there is hope. And it comes disguised as many voices and a complicated mosaic of inner turmoil and struggle. Psychiatrists call this particular malady “multiple personality disorder.� Welcome to the psychological land of milk and honey, all six of you.

So I’m gonna walk you through this step by step. But it’s important to remember some things while we’re going through this so you don’t get ahead of yourself. First of all, I’m no shrink. Far from it. So don’t blame me if you don’t have what it takes to pull this off. I’m just giving you the background. Everything after that is up to you. Secondly, always remember to put your own personal spin on all of this. You’ll come to the realization that it’s much easier to create your own alternate self than it is to copy my examples directly.

There are typically two or more different personalities involved. So, depending on your retention and standards of precision, you’ll want to choose a number that’s right for you. Take this into account though. The two personalities thing is always weak. If you only have one alternate personality to fall back on it’s not so easy to convince a jury that you had absolutely no control over your actions. Theoretically it shouldn’t matter, but there’s something about the number two that just doesn’t fly with juries. As far as they’re concerned it just doesn’t make sense for one personality to be fully in control a part of the time and another to be in control the rest of the time. This is possible of course, but to a bunch of relatively sane people who most likely just want to see you fry it’s a little sketchy.

Two personalities can easily be diagnosed as “a split personality� and that’s just not the game we’re playing here. So introduce another personality, or voice, into the mix and you’ve got yourself a mediator of sorts. This represents an inner struggle between the “good� you and the “evil� you. Call it what you like, this third voice is your best way to confuse the issue by turning a half-ass defensive grasp at straws into what appears to be a complex and quite involved psychiatric condition.

Once a jury is confronted with any aspect of confusion, such as the kind created by three independent personalities, you’ll begin to realize that they’re just as confused as you allegedly were when you killed those people. And that’s the crucial element. Once they equate the complexity of that confusion with their own thought processes then you’re halfway to home.

The other half of a winning strategy relies solely on your ability to perform. You have to act the part to such a degree of precision and detail that there can be no doubts. No prosecutor should be able to find holes in your performance. I have to emphasize: if, at any time, you slip up and do something that might indicate that there are discrepancies in your mental deficiency then there’s no getting the loony train back on the tracks. You are, for lack of a better phrase, completely and utterly fucked.

So after you’ve decided on your strategy, start living the part immediately. Don’t wait until you get into the courtroom to start working all those newly devised inner voices. Don’t even tell your lawyer what you’re doing. It’ll be better if he or she doesn’t know. Your lawyer will begin to see signs of your malady and will, hopefully, request a court-appointed psychiatrist to come in and evaluate you. If you can convince a shrink then you can convince anyone. But before we continue let’s be clear: it’s highly unlikely that this particular method is going to get you off free and clear. The best you can hope for is a verdict of guilty by reason of insanity. If you’re going to try and convince a jury that you committed a horrific crime because there are a multitude of other people living in your head then there’s no way they’re going to let you walk.

You should take some time now to decide what you want to do. If you are lucky enough to be sent to a mental institution for the criminally insane instead of death row then you’re going to have to feign this illness for many, many years to come. And, if there comes a time when they discover that you were bullshitting, then they’ll probably put you on an express elevator to hell. You might be an evil genius, but it’s a pretty big undertaking. So take a second and mull it over.

This section is going to give you a little insight into how one goes about creating a believable façade. These are just examples, mind you, so remember that you’re going to want to create your own profile. For my profile I decided to go with five personalities: Little Johnny, Pete, Bob, Steve, and Omen-Damien. Using these five different personalities I’ll hopefully be able to provide you with a good example of how best to utilize this mental construct.

Little Johnny: This is the part of your personality that represents you when you were a child. Maybe daddy beat you with a pipe wrench, maybe mommy locked you in the basement for the winter, your choice. But there’s a better than even chance that you actually did suffer through some form of child abuse (or, according to those politically correct types, you wouldn’t be in this mess in the first place). Slip into this personality when you’re being threatened. Try your best to act like you’re nine years old again and scared shitless. Crying can also come in handy. This is the personality that you use to evade any line of questioning that causes anxiety. Either this one or the violent one.

Pete: The trick to this personality is that it doesn’t know there are other people living in your head. Pete thinks he is sane and doesn’t understand why all of this is happening to him. As far as he’s concerned he just woke up with blood all over his clothes and couldn’t figure out where it came from.

Bob: This is the irrational personality. You’ll most likely want to make Bob somewhat illogical, quick to violence, and impervious to physical posturing by others. This is the personality that likes physicality (such as rape, bludgeoning a victim, or dominating them in some overtly brutish way). If the whole thing (the trial, the questions, whatever) starts getting to you, you can always use this personality to strike back. Simply fly off the handle and attack the prosecutor. There’s nothing better than being tackled to the ground as some maniac and coming up Pete. Works every time.

Steve: Every psychotic killer needs their charming side. Charisma isn’t always a given when it comes to criminals, but for some reason mass murderers seem to have the market cornered. This is the personality that lures, persuades, tempts, and baffles. Steve will show no sign of intent and will always come across as being almost too friendly. Of course, the goal of this personality is usually to slowly strangle his victims while listening to Barry White and drinking boxed wine. This personality can be useful and harmful. A killer yes, but always sexually motivated. Rape is out of the question, by the way. Steve is too good to stoop so low. He’s actually able to score before he gets to the killing part. Hence the term “lady killer.� Use Steve if there’s a female on the prosecution’s team. It’ll start to creep people out before long and will provide you with hours of endless fun.

Omen-Damien: Those that possess a limited intellect dare not attempt to utilize this last personality for fear of making those of us that are evil geniuses look bad. This is the hidden voice that controls the vocal voices. Typically, this personality has constructed the others to provide a buffer between it and what it sees as “accountability.� As far as Omen-Damien is concerned he was brilliant enough to get the others to do the dirty work. Whether it be Steve or Bob it doesn’t really matter. On occasion Omen-Damien will pop up and do some of the dirty work himself, but only when the situation calls for something artistic, precise, or expedient. This is the personality you’ll want to use to baffle people. Using big words and comparing murder to art is always a sure-fire way to make the whole thing hit home. You can use this personality to call up the others if you like. But make sure it’s the only one that has direct contact with them. The other four should not realize that they’re a part of a much bigger picture. The only personality that Damien will not attempt to contact is Pete. Pete is off limits because he’s useful in times of crisis. It’s always good to keep someone around that doesn’t know anything and Omen-Damien realizes this. Shrinks will be trying to pull him out in an attempt to gain some insight into methodology and intent. Give them nothing! Make sure you never answer any question without being evasive and egomaniacal. Unless, that is, you are stupid enough to be tricked. If so, you’re done for.

You might want to spend some time reading a variety of books about criminal insanity and psychological methods of discovery. You also might want to think about injuring yourself on a regular basis to reinforce the fact that you’re nuts. There’s nothing better than hitting your head against a wall for a while until blood is drawn to make others wonder if you’re going to try and bite their ears off. That said, I can only wish you the best of luck in your endeavour. I’m confident that you’ll do just fine. Look at me. I’m living proof that it can work. Instead of spending the rest of my life in prison I get to spend it loaded up on drugs in a mental institution for the criminally insane. At least I get to be examined and interviewed by a whole bunch of sexy female grad students a couple times a year. Ahhh. Now doesn’t that bring back some memories.

Strange things happen all the time. Even stranger things than this. Just last week they found some guy in Oregon in his bathroom with a garden hose stuck up his ass. He thought it felt good when he turned the water on. He forgot that the rules of pressure rarely conform to the rules of pleasure. So there he was. Dead. With a green garden hose stuck in his ass. When his wife found him she wasn’t too sure what to make of it. She was extremely saddened because they had two kids and bills to pay and all that. And she was extremely saddened because she had a deep-seated thing for kink but thought her husband was one of those “by the book� kind of guys. You think you know someone and then one day you realize that all the while you could have been taking home plumbing to new heights.

That’s not to say that Debbie Parks was a sex fiend or anything. Well, at least not when she was sober. Debbie was one of those young girls that suffered from what is known as “a split weekend personality.� Most of the time she was just a regular high-school kid. But on the weekends she tended to turn into someone completely different. And that someone was so drastically different from her usual self that it led some to believe that she was easily influenced. That’s how the whole thing happened. But let me make something clear right now. There’s tragedy and then there’s a tragedy. This was neither. What happened to Debbie was nothing short of the universal definition of “oddity.� That’s the only way to say it without sounding callous.

Debbie was known to be somewhat of a lush on weekends. It was one of those things that wasn’t all that out of the ordinary for a girl her age. The weekends were for partying and everyone did it. Debbie’s problem was that she was a horrible drunk. And by horrible I’m implying that she did things without thinking about them first. Most of the things were just stupid, crazy things that kids tend to do when they’re plastered and feeling somewhat free-spirited. Things like truth or dare, streaking, skinny dipping, and the old “locked in the closet� trick. Debbie did them all and regretted it each time. Every Monday morning she’d walk through the doors at school and hear whispers about her weekend escapades. All the guys loved her because they could get her to take her clothes off in front of everyone at the drop of a hat and all the girls hated her because they didn’t have the guts to. She wasn’t a slut, contrary to the reputation people foisted upon her. Debbie had only ever slept with one boy. And that was when her family went to Disney World. It was one of those last-minute deals when you know you’re never going to see the person again because you’re too young, live too far away, and know in the back of your head that given time you’d probably become quite annoyed by them. So she was rather good about things of that nature. But that doesn’t mean that she wouldn’t get naked and slip into an outdoor hot tub filled with cherry Jell-O in the dead of winter now does it?

And that’s exactly how Debbie met her end. Face down in a frozen, cherry Jell-O-filled hot tub. It’s how the tub got filled with Jell-O that’s interesting. You wouldn’t have any interest in reading this story if it was simply about some poor girl that drowned. It’s no different than some kids re-enacting Full Metal Jacket in the hallways of their school in some white, suburban enclave. You’re glued to your TV because you think “Oh my god! How could this happen? Why did this happen! Whose fault is it?!� wa, wa, fucking wa. Three hundred people get hacked to bits in their sleep in some village in North Africa and it gets a blurb in the newspaper. But when something happens in the quiet confines of our perfect little world then it’s a sure-fire sign that chaos is about to break loose in the streets and Satan is possessing the children. The only thing that it is a reflection of is our society’s egomania. We figure we’re so socially superior to everyone else that things of that nature should be uncommon. What we forget is that, like in every great society, the barbarians will one day be at our gates and we will slip quietly into the confines of some coffee-table book about ancient civilizations. And like those civilizations we were just as violently prolific as we were creative, ingenious, and compassionate. Because it all comes in a neat little package that has yet to be altered during our tenure on this rock. Welcome to life in the blind man’s utopia. Retain ticket stub for possible refund.

But that doesn’t explain how a hot tub got filled with Jell-O. It’s quite simple really. All it takes is for your parents to go out of town for two weeks, filling the hot tub with clean, boiling water, adding multiple packs of cherry Jell-O, and allowing the freezing effects of mother nature to run their course. The secret ingredient, of course, would be the eight large bottles of vodka that you also threw in. Presto! Instant drunksicle. So the next thing you do is decide to throw the biggest party of the year and invite the whole school. As the night progresses everyone munches on the Jell-O and gets really hammered. This leads to all kinds of strange events, including the part where someone dares Debbie Parks to get naked and jump into the hot tub filled with the Jell-O. She’s very drunk by that point and ends up going in rather awkwardly and with some momentum. This causes her to hit her head, but she pops up just the same with a big smile on her face and everyone cheers. Debbie starts munching on the stuff while she’s in there and eventually everyone decides they’re cold and goes back inside. Debbie remains in the hot tub. Then she starts to feel a little woozy. Maybe because she’s drunk, maybe because she’s got a concussion. She passes out, her body temperature has melted the Jell-O enough so that there’s some liquid in there and her head slips beneath the surface. And you’ve got yourself one frozen dead girl Jell-O cake.

About ten minutes later some guy who had wandered outside to relieve himself happened to notice that there was a naked girl in the middle of the party’s booze supply. It would definitely mark the end of the night’s proceedings and our boy didn’t want that to happen. There was a girl inside that he was convinced wanted to sleep with him. He was mistaken of course, and quite intoxicated, so he just went back inside and didn’t mention that Debbie Parks was frozen-dead within the icky confines of a hot tub filled with vodka laced cherry Jell-O. Debbie’s body remained there for twenty more minutes before it was discovered by two girls who had ventured out onto the back porch to smoke.

That’s how Debbie Parks drowned in cherry Jell-O. Sad but true. At her funeral nobody knew what to make of her death. Her parents were the most distraught and confused, seeing as their little baby’s booze-soaked corpse had been pulled from a frozen tub of fruitiness. The youngsters of the town learned a valuable lesson that day as well. They realized that going too far was something that wasn’t always a controllable experiment. After a certain critical mass is reached a whole set of volatile factors begin to alter the experiment. This leads to the creation of chaos. It’s an equation that can be applied to much more than just a girl drowning in cherry Jell-O. It’s something that engulfs us all as time passes and makes fools of us without our knowing. And in the end we become so accustomed to seeing ourselves as fools that we think nothing of it. Either that or it’s merely a fable about how not to freeze alcohol-infused gelatin in anything larger than a footbath.

Yeah, it’s a tricky business all right. You’ve got to watch it when your stomach tells you to do one thing and your insatiable need to cut loose and go off tells you to do something else. You might find yourself waking up on some tennis court somewhere in hockey pants with some half-naked chick who’s collapsed in a puddle of her own vomit on the other side of the net. I speak only from experience here kids.

There are always going to be good, solid reasons for not doing a variety of extremely stupid things. Things like sitting in a lawn chair on your seventeenth birthday and drinking ten beers before deciding you have to ride your ten-speed to the store to get tomato juice. You should know better. But something in our nature disappears when inebriation takes hold. We are diminished in a way that mocks us and turns us into those people that stand sidestage during festival performances repeatedly shouting, “PLAY SOME FUCKING HIP!� You know who they are. They’re the ones who have hockey hair but don’t play hockey. They’re the reason classic-rock stations flourish in this backwater country of ours. We could have been so much better than this if only beer wasn’t our national pastime. But that’s not the point. The point is NOT to abuse the secret powers of motion sickness pills. They look harmless enough, all beige and pleasant. But I assure you, they are not so benign. Take care to read the following research carefully. It might just save your life someday.

Research Key:

MSP shall represent “Motion Sickness Pill(s)� throughout.
MSPI shall represent “Motion Sickness Pill Inebriation� throughout.
DE shall stand for “Delusional Episode� throughout.

1) Sex and Motion Sickness Pills

I cannot stress this enough: if you’re going to abuse MSP and expect to have sex you’ll be in for some pleasant and not-so-pleasant surprises. The upside to sex while suffering from MSPI only applies to males. There is a better than fifty percent chance that your staying power will be increased by at least eight to ten minutes. Unfortunately, due to the fact that I am not a woman, I cannot comment on any positives to the female sexual experience during MSPI. The negatives, on the other hand, are far more varied and troubling. There is approximately a forty percent chance that you’ll succumb to the effects of fatigue long before anything even happens. There is also roughly a ten percent chance that you will have a DE involving the person you are with. This usually involves your partner appearing to be a giant lizard of some kind. There is also the possibility that sexual stimulation might be reduced if massive amounts of alcohol have been consumed along with the MSP. In such cases it is highly unlikely that you’ll be able to stand or focus, let alone have sex with a living person. Corpses, on the other hand, don’t tend to move so they’re a little easier to manipulate. If it comes to sex with the dead I wouldn’t worry about it too much. You’ll probably be so out of it that you’ll be experiencing a permanent DE and will most likely think you’re manhandling Carol Alt. (Carol, dear, if you read this don’t be angry: literary license and all.)

2) Operating Complicated Machinery and Appliances

By far this is the most dangerous aspect of MSPI. Attempting to drive a car, work a washing machine, or bake cookies can turn into acts that rival the dangers of walking through a minefield. There is nothing worse for people suffering from MSPI than trying to drive a car, train, boat, plane, or zeppelin. The effects of MSP can vary in such circumstances but the most common ones are as follows:

a) Double vision.
b) Loss of depth perception.
c) Loss of peripheral vision.
d) The effects of altitude are diminished.
e) Having no sense of whether you are horizontal or vertical.
f) The delusion that you are Aqua Man.
g) You will most likely NOT look good doing it.
h) Onboard stereo manipulation while moving is unlikely.
i) Comprehending the difference between D, R, and P will be impossible. They will all appear to be the letter Q.

When it comes to operating household appliances you’ve got to remember some fundamental things. Electricity, heat, and extreme cold are usually involved (radiation and extremely fast-moving dangerous parts being a close second). You should note that the following effects may occur while attempting appliance use:

a) A complete loss of vision (but that’s usually because you’ve simply forgotten to turn the lights on).
b) The inability to feel pain caused by extreme heat, such as sticking a hot iron to your forehead.
c) The inability to detect extreme cold or freezer burn.
d) The inability to properly manipulate door knobs, handles, or buttons of any kind.
e) The overwhelming desire to flip over the lawnmower while it’s running and stare at the blades as they whip around.
f) Operating any kind of power drill or tool will usually cause seizures.
g) Locating ON-OFF buttons is near-impossible.

3) Speech and Motion Sickness Pills

Most people have difficulty speaking as it is, let alone doing it while using MSP. It’s safe to say that you probably won’t be making much sense while under the effects of the pills. Although in rare instances, you might find yourself saying things that far surpass the intelligence that you display on a regular basis. In such cases I strongly suggest that you just go with it. Because let’s face it, when are you going to sound that articulate again?

That said, ninety-nine percent of the time you’ll probably encounter slurred speech and a complete loss of any vocabulary that consists of three syllables or more. This will reduce your ability to communicate to the lowest possible levels, leaving you with the mental prowess of a two-year-old. Such effects are bound to wear off in anywhere from four to six hours, though some people might experience a prolonged speech problem for up to three days depending on whether or not they’ve mixed their MSP with other drugs. If this occurs try to remain calm and, preferably, locked in a room without windows, sharp objects, or lava lamps.

Anyone who bothers to abuse MSP is going to have to live with the fact that speech difficulties are just par for the course. There’s really nothing you can do about it, so just relax and try your best to nod and smile when someone says something to you. The fact that your inner monologue is just as poor as your outer one will be freaking you out enough as it is. So trying to make sense of anything will simply be a waste of your time.

4) The Effects of MSP Abuse on Personal and Working Relationships

Make no mistake about it, it’s going to be a rough ride. If you’ve come to the decision that MSP are going to be a permanent part of your life then you’re going to have to deal with a few facts. First, you can forget about entering into, or remaining in, any kind of romantic relationship. There’s just no way that someone else is going to be able to put up with your habit. There is always the chance that you’ll stumble across a fellow MSP user and life will be grand, but it’s unlikely. It’ll start out alright at first. You’ll just do it on the weekends and everything will seem okay. But as time passes your significant other will begin to notice some ugly changes in you and will eventually call it quits. So you’re going to have to decide pretty quick: the pills or the person?

Hiding a MSP habit from co-workers will also be impossible. There’s just no way to keep something like that hidden for long. So you’ve got two choices. Either you throw yourself down some stairs while on the job and get worker’s comp or start enjoying the benefits of welfare. There’s no way you’ll be able to function at work after a thirty-six-hour MSP binge. No one said that substance abuse was going to be easy. So, once again, you’re going to have to make a choice: MSP or employment? Your call.

5) Mixing Your MSP With Other Substances

It’s a well-known fact that the effects of MSP start to wear off after a while if you’re doing them straight. The next step is to start mixing them with other substances to elevate their potential. The most common mixer is alcohol, preferably hard liquor. Most hardcore MSP addicts will usually mix their pills with either whiskey or vodka. You should stay away from rum, gin, wine, and beer as these tend to make the ride either too rough or not rough enough. If you’re new to the experience you should know one thing though: no MSP user ever takes more than one pill when mixing with booze. It’s just foolishness. Well, the whole thing is foolishness really, so whatever.

When it comes to mixing MSP with other drugs I’m at a loss. It’s an extremely dangerous practice to say the least. One of two things is going to happen in such circumstances. One: you’re going to go way too low, or Two: you’re going to go way too high. Let’s just say that there’s a difference between the normal MSP addict and those who are destructive. If you’re going to bother making the most of an over-the-counter drug then why fuck about with ones that aren’t.

When it comes to mixing with other over-the-counter drugs (and prescription drugs) here’s a short list of ones that are okay (and may even enhance things a bit).

-Nyquil (never Dayquil)
-Zithromax (250 mgs and up)
-Zopiclone (preferably less that 7.5 mgs)
-Cefaclor (250 mgs and up)
-Ciprofloxacin (500 mgs standard)
-Co Actifed syrup
-Ether
-Mescalin

Like so many eyeballs glued to the sloppy remains of some car crash victim, it’s safe to say that your double globes will find their way back here. I’ve been waiting for you to evaporate, like an assassin who realizes too late that escape was never assured but rather implied to heighten resolve. And therein lies the entertainment. The lion and the malnourished Christian playing back and forth. One too stupid to realize he can’t win and one too realistic to allow him to. It perplexes me sometimes, the reasons for choosing which houses to trick-or-treat at and which houses not to. Within the most brightly lit lies the cold heart of some frail, old, discontented granny who has laboured ceaselessly to produce caramel apples with surprise centres. For all those years she put up with those damn kids running through her flowerbeds. Just one bite and you’ll agree, modern medicine never looked so good. No tongue, no problem. If they can teach those stupid chimps to sign then you should have no trouble. So maybe you never did take the time to run it through your mainframe and you just hit every house you could. Treats, after all, are what it’s all about. Eventually you’ll wind up here. Everyone comes by sooner or later. Simply because I leave the lights off.

Another year, another fifty-two weeks wondering where fifty of them went. I’ve been better than this and I’ve been worse. But who’s keeping score? Maybe I’m trapped in a jar, you’re in grade six, and it’s science period. Maybe I’m creepy and maybe I’m beautiful. Maybe you should just check your damn textbook and see what it says. Because I’ve been wondering about that myself.

And that place which gave you your bearings will always reside within you complete. And of those places and circumstances, only those that offered resistance to one’s being will ever produce individuals worth their words. —Harper Grey

Step One: Life is like bread. It’s great at first, but as time passes it gets harder.

Eli was very quiet. And by quiet I’m saying that he never spoke, not that he was soft spoken. In fact Eli didn’t utter a word to another living thing until he was almost seven years old. And he did so only to get the attention of a dog so that it did not get hit by an oncoming car. There are events in every life that shape individuality. If that dog had heard Eli in time, it probably would have moved out of the road. But as it happened, the dog did not hear him. And Eli would not speak again until he was seventeen. What was the point?

Eli Lemski was the sort who went undetected by social radar. Raised by his father, an obsessive-compulsive aeronautical engineer, Eli spent most of his childhood sitting in various rooms starring at them. By the time he was twenty-one there wasn’t one millimetre of those rooms that he hadn’t spent fourteen hours looking at without moving. This, of course, made him one of the most observant people of all time. And though Eli would spend most of his life searching for his one true worldly gift, it always escaped him that his power of observation was it. The downside, of course, is that amazing powers of observation only pay if you decide to count cards at Blackjack tables. Eli’s alternative, as it turned out, was much worse.

Due to the fact that Mr. Lemski worked primarily on military contracts, Eli and his father spent a great deal of time moving from one place to another. And as Eli’s speech problem worsened it didn’t make sense to Mr. Lemski that Eli should attend regular schools. Being the egoist that he was, he assumed that his son had inherited his intellect and wouldn’t need to waste his time in the company of troglodytes. So Eli took to getting an education through the mail. It was soon apparent that Eli was not the prodigy his father thought him to be. Eli squeaked through his scholastic career and received his high school diploma in a large manila envelope. And although the water damage to that envelope had turned most of the diploma into an incoherent mess, Eli was still able to make out the two most important words on it. And those were Eli Lemski.

As this story’s narrator (and participant), I always find it strange that a man like Leo Lemski (PhD), would have the gall to think his son as brilliant as himself and yet allow him to get an education by correspondence. When I first met Mr. Lemski I realized immediately that this was the kind of man who couldn’t care less whether or not Eli did anything at all with his life. He was so entirely self-absorbed that he rarely spoke to his son, let alone give a damn whether or not he excelled at anything. But he used to love using Eli’s mediocrity as an excuse to blow off steam. And due to the fact that Eli never raised his voice in his own defense, it just made it all the easier. Neither Leo or Eli were big men. They were slight, gangly creatures with sunken eyes and hands that seemed too large for their arms. But unlike his father, Eli was not an awkward person. He was graceful and moved as though he was trying to elude some unseen force that constantly stalked him. That was the thing I noticed about him when we first met. That and the fact that he could shoot a pistol like no one I had ever seen. And that’s where I come into it. I was the one who took Eli to the shooting range that afternoon when we were both twenty-one. My father, unlike Leo Lemski, was not an engineering genius. My father was a test pilot and then later an air force liaison. Before he died he worked with Leo on a couple of projects. That’s how I came to meet Eli. One morning my father asked me if I would take Eli with me to the shooting range as a favour to Leo. I was staying with him during spring break and was due back at college a couple of days later. So, since the base was just as boring as every other airbase in the world, I figured it couldn’t hurt. My dad warned me that Eli didn’t talk much but I wasn’t prepared for what I found when I met him. Of all the people in this world and out of it, Eli Lemski only chose to talk to two of them: myself and his mother, Irene. The difference was that I was alive at the time whereas Irene hadn’t been for almost nineteen years. Beats me why.

I should clear something up before you start to get the wrong impression. Even though I was taking Eli to a shooting range it does not mean that I am, or was, a proponent of firearms. Truth be told I’d have them all melted down and turned into candleholders given the chance. During my four years at Stanford an ex-girlfriend of mine was killed by a guy at a house party. He thought the handgun that he found in a dresser drawer wasn’t loaded. In a haze of cocaine and tequila he squeezed the trigger and sent two bullets through the bedroom wall and into the living room, killing my friend and injuring another. He would serve nine months of an involuntary manslaughter plea. Sometimes having influential parents and lawyers can get you out of most anything. The dead are rarely afforded the luxury of afterthought in such circumstances. The court saw no reason to ruin the boy’s life over what they deemed an accident. Had it been their daughter, I’m sure they would have felt different. So let’s just say that I’m not fond of guns. Even before that I could never stand them. But growing up in a military family you have little choice as a boy. If your father wants you to learn to shoot, then you shut the hell up and you do it. Because sometimes the fear you have of disappointing your father is stronger than your convictions. So I did what I always did. I went and shot off some rounds at the range so the good o’ boys down there could tell my dad that they’d seen me. And on that particular occasion I just so happened to bring along a treat for them. Eli Lemski.

There are certain things in this world that when the right people do them they just seem natural, like driving or cooking or sex. Eli Lemski was a natural marksman. He could hit anything at any range as long as the weapon could perform the task. The day that I picked him up I was initially a little peeved at my father for making me take him. Of course I pictured him as being just another air force brat. But I would understand what my father was talking about the moment that he came out of his front door. He was dressed in a white button-down short-sleeve shirt, dark brown pants, and brown leather shoes. His hair was parted on the side, pasted to his head with pomade, and he wore large-rimmed glasses that were far too big for his face. In all the years I knew him, Eli always wore exactly the same thing, which he owned in triplicate (or at least I hoped he did). But put a gun in that boy’s hands and it was like watching God creating and recreating the world. When we got to the range he stood with his hands pressed over his ears as I shot my father’s .45. The noise bothered him so much that he went and stood in the parking lot and still would not take his hands away from his ears. But after a while he inched his way back inside and got close enough that I eventually offered him the gun. He meagerly pointed it at the target and looked as if the weight of it would topple him. And then he shot off five rounds right on top of each other without so much as blinking. His body didn’t even seem to move. The flurry of reports brought over some of the regulars and we just stood there and watched him fire clip after clip. All afternoon he hit nothing but chests and heads. It was one of the most bizarre things that I have ever witnessed.

That was my first encounter with Eli Lemski. After I finished the semester at Stanford I returned to Texas in the summer of 1982 and spent a great deal of time with Eli. I even got him to talk to me a little. But that summer was the last time that I would see him for almost five years. The next time we’d run into each other would be in a Manhattan alleyway. I was puking and Eli, well, Eli was working.

Step Two: Cancelling yourself because you’ve been stolen.

After I graduated from Stanford I spent some time working in the Bay area before I realized that I was getting nowhere and didn’t like myself much. So I did what every good American kid does. I fucked off. I travelled the country in search of that thing that America is supposed to be. You never find it of course, but at least it made me realize that the “thing� everyone’s always talking about never really existed. It’s just Saturday Evening Post memorabilia bullshit. How in the hell do we have a country where the cradle of our government and historical fortitude exists in a vacuum with the highest crime rate in the union? Figure me that one. The First World is a farce. It’s a comedy about a comedy where perfection re-enacts day-to-day life and then feeds itself to the populace and convinces it that it’s a reflection of continental reality. Everything’s okay. Everything is always okay. I’m sure there will come a time when our greatness resembles that great snake which feasts upon its own tail because there is nothing left for it to eat. We will consume ourselves through consumption. That’s what I learned in the two years that I travelled America. That it’s kidding itself. That and the fact that I should have just stayed in San Francisco and stopped complaining.

But that’s how I ended up in New York. A friend of mine from college was in advertising out there and I looked him up. At the time I was a broke, backpacking, hippie. I explained to him what I’d been up to and it didn’t seem to bother him much. You can never tell how people from your past are going to react when you show up penniless on their doorstep and they’re well off. He was one of the many who fell victim to the success equals happiness equation. He and his wife had matching Mercedes with signature plates. One was “Jack B� and the other was “Tara B�. And despite my disdain at the time for such nonsense I wasn’t about to mention it. His sofa was the most comfortable thing I’d slept on in months. Of course he’d changed since school, as most people tend to. There was no point telling them that at the time, mind you, but it’s the truth of things. So enjoy your youth while you have it. Because despite your unwavering opinions and views you will change into something later in life that will not understand why music has to be so damn loud.

So there I was. Showered, shaved and ready to hit the town. Jack had made reservations at an upscale place near the park and it conveniently worked out to be Tara’s bridge night so it was just he and I. We had dinner and then got drunk at a nearby bar. That’s when I began to realize that everything in Jack’s life wasn’t as perfect as he would have liked it to seem. There were affairs with younger women, borderline alcoholism, flirtations with financial disaster. Tara knew nothing about any of it of course. Wives in situations like that rarely do. They just keep doing whatever it is that they do and don’t stop to consider much. Because there’s always another Jack out there. And like most, Jack was good for ten years of ignorant bliss. But that’s how I ran into Eli again. Puking my guts out in the alley next to the bar.

It’s to be expected that people you knew in your youth will become something in their later life that will change your opinion of them. Take Jack. I would have never thought that he’d move to New York and spend his days driving between Manhattan and Jersey, hopelessly grasping for the illusory gold ring. In school he was the sort that spent the majority of his time drinking beer and sleeping. Most things are rarely what they seem. And as for the future, well, it never is. So there I was, puking my guts out in an alley when I caught a glimpse of someone clambering down a fire escape. Now the fact that I was in New York sobered me somewhat. When figures jump from fire escapes in alleyways you tend to get a little wary. It wasn’t until I heard my name that I calmed down enough to turn around and see who it was. And of course, it was Eli. He was standing there with a strange grin on his face, and I say strange only because I had never seen him smile or make any other facial gestures of any kind. He was wearing what he usually wore accompanied by a beige trench coat, tied tightly at the waist. At first I thought there was a design on the coat. And then I realized that it was blood. A great deal of blood. So I did what anyone in my position would have done. I puked some more.

Unfortunately Eli wasn’t in the mood to stand around while I did. By the time I realized what was happening I was being shoved into the back seat of a car half a block away. Jack was nowhere to be seen; though I would later learn that he had met a young accounting intern and had spent the night wallowing in her arms. Coincidentally, Tara had been doing the same thing back in Jersey. Turns out that she had been sleeping with some famous attorney from Philadelphia for years. But that comes later. At the time I was concerned that Jack wouldn’t let me stay with him if I was rude enough to skip out on him. I was lying in the back seat of what I thought was Eli’s car when we came to a stop and Eli motioned for me to stay put. Chancing a quick peek out the front windshield, I realized that we were somewhere near the water, but where I couldn’t be sure. Some time passed before Eli returned and pulled me from the backseat only to shove me into another car. He then proceeded to pour gasoline in his car and set fire to it. And that’s all I remember about that night. When I woke up the next morning I was lying on a sofa in a small apartment somewhere in the Bronx. Eli was sitting at a small table drinking a cup of what I guessed to be coffee and cleaning a variety of handguns.

Oh God. What had I done.

Step Three: Strange things happen to ordinary people and vice versa.

If he had become a cop or a soldier I could have stomached it a little easier. But there was no way that I could ever come to terms with the fact that he actually killed people for money. This was the same guy who hadn’t uttered a word in decade in succession. But that’s exactly what he did. He killed people for money. He had convinced himself that he’d found his one true worldly gift. And to Eli that was all that mattered. The ridiculous thing about it was that he didn’t much like what he did. He didn’t enjoy his work and didn’t really have the mentality required to forgo the anxieties that came with it. But he had convinced himself that there was nothing else in the world that he could do as well. And, like so many others, he just accepted it. It might sound strange to you but it really isn’t all that abnormal. People spend decades doing the nine-to-five thing and hate every second of it. But they never do anything about it because they convince themselves that there isn’t anything better within their reach. So they’re comfortable with the fact that they know their job and can do it well enough to remain somewhat unconscious day in and day out. The problem with that kind of thinking is that it always ends up creeping into every other aspect of your life. Now I’m not saying that there aren’t exceptions. In lower class situations you do what you have to do. Most of the time you just don’t have any choice in the matter. That may be difficult for some of you to swallow but it’s the truth. Industrialists, social leftists, whomever, can go on about this and that but it matters little. Anyone who can afford the luxury of waxing intellectual on the subject simply isn’t in that position. There is no dishonor in spending a life providing for your family. There is no dishonour in doing work that others might consider beneath them or trivial. There are hundreds of millions that do those jobs and are happy that they have them. That’s the stoic simplicity of the blue-collar existence. Making the world go round was never that easy. But someone’s got to do it.

Everyone gets a turn at bat. Hit anything.

So that’s how I found Eli. Trapped in a line of work that he didn’t particularly like but was good at. Beside that he hadn’t changed much. When work came in someone would give him a call. Sometimes, if he was lucky, there was a reason. But Eli didn’t much care about reasons. As far as he was concerned he had found his one true gift and that was good enough for him. But as I sat there I couldn’t quite put all the pieces together. How does the introverted son of an egomaniacal engineer go from a life of quite redundancy to one of a hit man? For the life of me I couldn’t figure it. So I decided to be blunt and just asked Eli to tell me. Which he did.

It all started the year my father died. Eli was still living with his dad and was working part time at the shooting range. From what I could gather he took the job so that he could shoot after work for free. Later that year Leo Lemski suffered a stroke and Eli was forced to put him in a home. It never ceases to amaze me how things always come around. I’m sure that if Leo had given a damn about his son, then maybe Eli would have taken care of him. But Eli had no reservations about dumping his dad off in some home. As far as he was concerned he was just some stranger that yelled at him. Eli ended up getting a job stocking shelves at a supermarket in Houston and got a small place of his own. At the end of that year he had saved up enough money to buy a used car and decided to give up his apartment in favour of living in the car. He said he did it primarily to save money but I would venture to guess that it was either the apartment or the car. So Eli was working at the supermarket and living in his car. Ain’t it just like fate to make that decision seem poignant when it was nothing more than a fluke. One night Eli left work late and was searching for a place to pull over for the night and sleep. He was driving around at about 2 am when he came to a hard stop at a red light. This caused a great deal of crap to come flying up from the backseat and fill the passenger side of the car. So Eli started to throw stuff into the backseat. And that’s when it happened. Parked on the other side of the street there was a van. And in the van there was a big guy sitting in the driver’s seat. The rear doors of the van were open and just as Eli’s eyes came upon them he saw another man hit a woman and then throw her into the back of the van.

Eli’s first reaction was to say something. But remembering the whole dog incident from his youth he decided not to bother. Maybe the girl would be alright if he kept his mouth shut. He was good at keeping his mouth shut. Unfortunately, the large guy sitting in the driver’s seat of the van noticed that Eli had seen what was going on. So he decided to get out of the van and walk over to the passenger side window of Eli’s car. Now, any normal person would have hit the gas and gotten out of there. But Eli just froze. The guy started banging on the window and kept yelling “you didn’t see nothin’ you little shit!� Now if Eli had simply nodded, his head it might have ended there. But Eli didn’t. He just sat there looking from the guy pounding on the window to the other guy standing at the back of the van. And that’s when the big guy decided to smash Eli’s window. The rest happened so fast that Eli couldn’t really go into much detail. All that he could recall was that he went for his gun in the glove box, chambered a round and fired through the broken window. The big guy fell to the ground and the guy behind the van went for something. What that turned out to be was a semi-automatic riffle.

Eli didn’t know that of course. He was lost in some strange mental time warp that had taken control of his body, superseding the authority of his rationale. His primary reaction to the man’s movement was to get out of the driver’s side door and stay crouched behind his car. Luckily it was the right decision. After producing the rifle, the guy emptied and entire clip into Eli’s car. But seeing as the guy couldn’t shoot for shit, he didn’t hit the gas tank. He just took out all the windows and put some holes in the quarter panels. Eli was hit in the leg by a bullet that ricocheted off the pavement under the car and caught him in the thigh. Eli’s reaction was to come straight up and return fire through the blown out backseat windows. And like I’ve said throughout this story, Eli was the best shot that I have ever seen. He took him with two shots to the side of the head and that was that. The light turned green, sirens popped up in the distance and Eli realized that there was a hole in his leg, prompting him to do the decent thing. Pass out.

It doesn’t end there, mind you. As it turned out, the girl that had been thrown into the back of the van was the runaway daughter of a New Orleans gangster. It seems that daughter and father had had an argument several months earlier and she had left New Orleans for Houston with some biker. Broke, and accustomed to feeding a hefty drug habit, she soon turned to prostitution and wound up working for the two guys that Eli had shot dead. When the police showed up they questioned the girl, who went to great lengths to make Eli appear her savior. The whole thing was chalked up to self-defense since the cops were familiar with the two dead pimps and didn’t really give a damn either way. Eli’s gun was conveniently misplaced by an officer and the girl, after being identified, was sent back to New Orleans. So now you’ve got this gangster who’s been reunited with his only child after several months of worrying and wondering where she was, and on top of it all, he learns that some complete stranger saved her life. The fact that she left out the part about being a prostitute had little to do with the fact that the man felt indebted to Eli. So he decided to do something about it. And you know gangsters. When they set their minds to something, well…

The world of crime works in a very specific way. If you’ve got enough pull you can find out just about anything you need to. A phone call is made from New Orleans to Dallas, from Dallas to an individual on the Houston PD, the chain is then reversed. And, after the delivery of a sound beating to a daughter, a member of the New Orleans mob sends a couple of guys to Houston to pay Eli a visit. It’s as simple as that. When Eli was released from the hospital a week later he was met by two men who ushered him into the back of a car. At first Eli was a little concerned that the men were affiliated with the two guys that he had shot and it was curtains. But after one of the men explained the whole thing to him he found it considerably easier to relax. Eli had no thoughts either way about organized crime. During the time that I spent with him it seemed to me that he always gave people the benefit of the doubt, no matter their position in life. So he wasn’t all that against the fact that he was being flown to New Orleans mere hours after being wheeled out of a hospital door. After all, we’re talking about a guy who stocked shelves at a supermarket and lived in his car. So Eli got on the plane, flew to Louisiana and met the gangster. And that’s where his life took a turn for the worse as the gangster’s idea of repaying Eli was to give him a job. And because it paid better than stocking shelves, Eli wasted no time in accepting it.

At first Eli did menial things like the opening of car doors, transporting goods, what have you. It wasn’t until the summer of the next year that he was invited along to “go see about a guy�. It was in Baton Rouge on a rainy night that Eli Lemski took part in his first professional killing. He was only the driver but that’s all it would take to get him started. Once his knowledge of guns became apparent to his co-workers he started seeing about more guys. By the winter of that same year Eli was seeing about a lot of people.

As mentioned earlier, the world of crime has specific ways of doing things. There were those in New Orleans that didn’t like the fact that an outsider had moved from errand-boy to the guy who saw about people in a little over a year. They were concerned that their superior had become too attached to a kid who, it has to be said, was an outsider. So after the boss was tipped off that someone was going to try and get rid of Eli, he decided to do the decent thing. After all, Eli had saved his daughter’s life and that meant more to him than it did to those around him. So he sent Eli to Chicago and set him free.

It was in the Windy City that Eli became an independent, or contract-killer. Because of his affiliation with the mob in New Orleans he got enough work to build up a decent sized clientele. And like any business, that’s how the cream rises to the top. Eli was efficient and extremely thorough. And because he tended to keep his mouth shut most of the time those who employed him got the impression that he had been doing this sort of thing for much longer than he had been. Eli’s lack of verbalization gave him that whole no-nonsense hit man kind of quality. It made him seem dangerous and unpredictable. Not that anyone in their right mind would ever consider Eli dangerous if they saw a picture of him. But if you knew what he did for a living and met him, you’d understand. His business flourished as word spread, and like some hip new bistro, Eli became the go-to-guy for all the jobs that no one else would touch. And he pulled them off, as if born to it.

So that’s how he ended up in New York. After he got too large for Chicago, so much so that the police were watching his apartment, he decided to pack it in and move to New York. And that’s where he was when I met up with him. Standing quietly in the middle of a shit storm.

Step Four: There’s always something better out there. It’s in here that’s the problem.

I spent the better part of two weeks with Eli after heading back to Jack’s to get my things. He really didn’t notice that I was leaving since he and Tara had both decided to simultaneously confess to their affairs. Jack’s life went into the shitter and I took a cab to the Bronx to stay with Eli. And it was during those weeks that I found myself for the first time. In a small, lonely apartment in the middle of a mass of humanity. It was there I realized that I, myself, would be the only one accountable for my own happiness. Everything and everyone else just didn’t matter somehow. And through that I discovered that eventually I would have to make sure that they did.

Eli spent most of his time just sitting in the kitchen looking out the window. I found it sad that he had lived a life inside himself and surfaced only to find a hideous reality in which he found little comfort. Of all the people I’ve known in my life Eli deserved the greatest amount of happiness. Simply because he never asked for anything. Simply because nothing was ever asked. There was a time when I used to dream that Eli had settled down and got married. He’d bring his kids over to my place and we’d sit around and talk about sports and politics and life. But I always awoke to the realization that Eli killed people for a living and would never know the simple pleasures of such activities. And you know, somewhere in there I realized that there isn’t anything premeditated about us, even though we do our best to convince ourselves otherwise. There’s just a long fly ball to center field and the sun’s in your eyes. So maybe you come up with the ball, maybe you don’t. The only thing that separates us as human beings is the specifics of the play. Everyone’s got their concerns. Maybe you’re going back for that ball and there are runners in scoring position and your team’s down a run. Maybe the bases are empty and it’s only the second. It doesn’t really matter in the end. It’s whether you catch the ball or not that matters. Because that’s just you, singularly, tested by both the ball and yourself. The sun’s just in your head. So let it go.

For those two weeks I spent a great deal of time trying to figure out what to do next. Eli’s situation, though giving me ample excuses to wax poetic on life and its mysteries, was nonetheless making me uncomfortable. So at the end of those two weeks I decided that my great American adventure had come to an end. I rationalized this by telling myself I had uncovered everything that I had set out to find. It was a lie of course, but then again what isn’t these days. I came to the conclusion that I’d head back to San Francisco and give writing a serious go, even though I had a degree in biology and didn’t know the first thing about publishing and the rest of it. So I left Eli standing at the door to his apartment block and got in a cab. He waved a slight wave and quickly walked back inside. I continued on to Newark and then home to Austin for a while before returning to the coast. My mother had been kind enough to spring for my flights, so I couldn’t refuse a quick stopover at home to appease her never-ending complaints that I rarely endeavour, to visit or call. And that was the last I saw of Eli Lemski. We never crossed paths again.

Step Five: Guts enough to swallow hard and just do what you have to.

As I sit here years later I am comforted by the fact that I took the time to explain myself. My wife often asks me whether or not I’m contented with the fact that I write children’s books for a living and I always reply, “it’s better than stocking shelves in a Houston supermarket�. Of course, she has no idea what I mean when I say that, and I’ve never told her the whole truth about Eli and what he did. A few years ago I published my first work of adult fiction entitled Street Oracle. During my research for that book I decided to look up Eli, as one of the characters was loosely based on him. To my dismay I came across his name in the archives of a New Jersey newspaper. His body had been discovered in a dumpster next to a high school. He had been shot in the head. It’s something I try not to visualize but often do. I wonder whether his eyes were open or closed. Because it makes me depressed to think that, even in death, he was robbed of his one true worldly gift. The power of observation. And it seems strange to me that for someone who was so observant he could never see that it was always right in front of him the whole time. Maybe if I hadn’t taken him to the shooting range that day he’d still be alive. Blaming myself always seems easier than looking for another reason, even if it’s just a blind alley. That way a part of him remains in me and I remember everything. Because remembering is important. Maybe of the utmost importance. The thing that burns me the most is that for someone like Eli there are never any easy roads or happy endings. Life just happens like it’s paint by numbers and you only have one colour. So now I write books for kids and my biggest critics are my two daughters. And you know, that ain’t so bad. So this one’s for Eli Lemski. And maybe a little for me as well.

Once there lived a boy who loved to look outside of his window. And on the other side of that window was a world filled with secrets that only he knew of. He stayed inside his house so that he could watch all the other people stumble over and around all of his secrets. And it made him smile because only he could see them.

Rest easy people.

I’m coming to you via remote. It’s dark, and as I type this by the light offered up from the beaming headlights of passing cars, I am reminded of stranger times. Back in the primeval age of drunken consciousness when all things seemed do-able and everything was botched. All those years of near-perfect disaster have come rushing back to me as I pull my sleeping bag close around my shoulders and roll down the window to get some air. There isn’t anything more glorious than lying in the back seat of a rented Ford Explorer. Especially when I consider that it’s worth more than what my parents paid to build their house. But in defense of the truck, it does have four-wheel drive. That would have come in handy, I suppose, since Dad built the house on a swamp.

This morning I brushed my teeth and washed up at a gas station. There was a line-up, so I sat there slowly sipping a bad cup of coffee and tried to look somewhat cheerful about the entire affair. This half-ass attempt was, of course, prompted by the fact that I was the only one in line that had a brand new sport-utility vehicle parked ten feet away. But, to my credit, I’m a rock musician and looking like reheated shit was working to my advantage. This made those around me feel at ease and led to numerous conversations about the ever-inflating costs of Aqua Velva, shoe polish, and cooking sherry.

That aside, it was a decent morning altogether. Because there ain’t nothing like hanging out with a bunch of guys that remember what the world was like when man had yet to walk on the moon and those in it weren’t wise to the fun and games of using social erosion as a limitless excuse.

Leonard Cohen may have indirectly summarized such remnants of our beguiling past as beautiful losers. And that really pisses me off. Primarily because I didn’t coin the phrase and, secondarily, because they made me feel as if I’d missed something valuable. It’s one thing to deliberate hopelessness in the pages of some beat poet hard cover collector’s edition. It is entirely something else to witness those who can convince themselves of hopefulness faced with its impossibility. Perhaps, if you’re so inclined, you might buy someone with nothing left to lose a bad cup of coffee and figure out what it is that we’ve been taking for granted all this time.

To hear some of the gas station boys tell it you’d think that we were intended to roam unhindered and unhunted. Maybe that’s why the aboriginal peoples had it so good before we introduced them to liquor and stole their land. I dunno. I can’t really make that kind of a comparison when I’m whipping around in a brand new S.U.V. And even though I often wonder if any of the great spirits know my mind I would never be presumptuous enough to assume that they really give a shit. Not anymore. Not after all this. Back seats are uncomfortable. Reading that back I have just realized that unhunted is not a real word. It damn well should be.

This evening I discovered, to my simultaneous delight and embarrassment, that the back seats fold down and allow you to use the rear cargo area for a variety of things. Sleeping is one of them. A short list of others would include: 1] small fondue get-togethers 2] nothing larger than a threesome 3] mousetrap 4] smoking meats, fish, and other seafoods 5] a blind for hunting water fowl 6] using the vehicle as a getaway device if engaged in rifle hunting anything besides water fowl 7] bullshitting thousands of people on a monthly basis via the internet.

I’ve always dreamed of living in an RV. I can see it all now—satellite, a big screen, bunk beds, and an ever-expanding front and back yard. Willie Nelson’s got it right. He lives in a huge motor home. And all those girls he’s loved before, well, they’ve been inside it.

But that’s not to say that I wouldn’t love to settle down one day and do all those things that one is expected to do around my age. You know, the big equation of life. It looks something like this:

M + Wf + H + S.U.V. + Dt = K + MD + C.A.O.A

Now if you’re wondering what all that means then I’ll run you through it. M stands for MAN or ME (substitute W for M if you’re a female). Wf would stand for “wife� (or husband, though you might want to change that to Hd. For those out there that enjoy fast cars and big diamond thingies you might consider just using a $). H is for HOUSE. S.U.V., as used earlier, stands for SPORT-UTILITY VEHICLE. You’ll need one to look the part.

Minivans will also do. Dt stands for DEBT. Debt is what you get in when you accumulate the first three parts of the equation. Added together, these five factors result in the following: K is obviously for kids (unless you happen to have a thing for collecting rare Kraftwerk vinyl). MD would symbolize MORE DEBT. This is one thing in life that most people can count on. There will always be more debt. The fact that you now have kids just makes it more and more like a landslide. You’ll begin to have dreams about falling off cliffs and balconies and landing on huge spikes. And finally we come to C.A.O.A which stands for COPIUS AMOUNTS OF ADVIL. You can substitute another pain reliever for Advil if you prefer something else. And that, friends, is the equation of life.

But I’m not so sure I’m geared up for it. I’ve always hoped to meet a woman that might plan a bank heist with me and be prepared to do the time if we got caught. After ten or twenty years we could try it again. If we get away with it then we could bum around a country with no extradition treaties until we were forced to return and do it again.

And I’m not talking about some hack job either. I’m talking about a skillfully planned and executed theft that may or may not include hostages, result in causing bodily harm and/or sacrificing a team member. That’s the kind of woman I’m looking for. But women like that don’t exist. Not ones that would do the whole thing wearing a Budweiser bikini and a diving mask. God damn that would be sexy.

So I figure I’ll do the RV thing for a while. I doubt I’ll buy, but I wouldn’t mind whipping around for six months living in various campgrounds. There’s nothing better than the smell of cheap coffee and bacon and eggs when you’re living in the middle of nowhere. In my entire life breakfast has never smelt as good as it does when I’m camping. Not that living in a luxury RV is camping.

Maybe I could use the RV as a mobile command centre and travel around recruiting a team for the bank heist. I could even booby-trap it like Max’s Charger in The Road Warrior.

For now, I’m living in a sort-of-truck (I like that better than sport-utility vehicle) and trying my best to eat at least one green thing a day.
It horrifies my mother to no end. You’d think she could find something better to worry about than me not eating enough vegetables. My brother Chris spends one half of every year submerged under the surface of the ocean. He’s a diver. You’d think that would occupy her. Instead I need to eat beets. Because beets are good for you. I agree, actually. I love beets, just not when my mom’s around.

The other night at dinner she decided to tell my brother that she spent most of the ’70s on Valium. Of course my brother and I were born in ’71 and ’72 (respectively), so it concerned him a little.

You know, she’s still good. She had him going for a good half hour before she started laughing. I walked into the kitchen afterwards and she started laughing again.

“What made you think of Valium anyway?� I said.

“I don’t know, maybe it was all that Valium I took,� she said.

I’m not entirely sure whether or not my mother spent the entire decade on Valium. It seemed to me that she was kidding when she tortured my brother with it, but when she said it to me I began to think there was some truth to it.

My family’s known for being good bullshitters. It’s the ability to con and confuse someone with complete crap to such an extent that they don’t know if you’re telling the truth anymore. The trick is to make sure there’s enough truth mixed in with the bullshit that when you’re spinning it you look like you believe it yourself.

It’s not the story or how it’s told. It’s if your face is telling the same thing as your mouth. And that’s how I became such a smart-ass. It’s in the genes.

Everything you are came from somewhere else. Most of the time it takes people years to come to terms with the fact that a large part of their being is rooted in something undesirable. Take my family for instance. My dad’s side are asses and my mom’s are smart. Put the two together and you can see how I was afflicted with my current condition.

Luckily my old man is the black sheep of his family and an exception to the “Rule Of Goods.� He’s somewhat of a wise man. Next to the shopping-cart guy from Uridian 15 he’s the wisest man I know.

But I digress. My original point is that you inherit certain things that have undesirable origins. I’m a smart ass because of an unlikely genealogical combination. Being a smart-ass is to be dualistic. To be one you must accept both parts. If you’re going to be smart then you’ve got to deal with the fact that you’re an ass as well. Sometimes you discover that you’re more smart than ass. Most of the time it’s the other way around. It took me a long time to realize that. But I finally did. In the back of a rented sort-of-truck no less.

I like outer space. I like it because we don’t know a whole lot about it: a bullshitter’s paradise. I could make up a whole load of crap about outer space right now and half of you would believe it.

So here’s the outer space story then…

There once was a man who had a giant ship made out of cheese. It was cheddar cheese, the kind that’s orange and so hard that it can cut glass. It made him unstoppable. All the other space pilots wanted to be him and all the ladies wanted him. He was a legend in his own time.

Until one day he came upon a huge flying toaster and learned that all things, at a specific temperature relative to their molecular composition, tend to liquify. This principle includes very hard cheeses. So the guy with the orange-cheese ship was no longer the king shit. The toaster ship guy was the king shit. And he was a legend in his own time. Because there’s nothing tougher than a toaster ship. And all the space pilots wanted to be him and all the ladies wanted their muffins heated.

And then one day another guy with a ship that shot ice beams decided to do battle with the toaster guy. There was a huge fight and the ice ship won because every time he fired his ice beams at the toaster ship it would cloud over toaster-boy’s windows and he couldn’t see. Evaporation and condensation can be a bitch like that.

The toaster guy wasn’t defeated because the ice beams were more powerful than his toaster ship. He lost because his windows fogged over and he flew into a huge asteroid and blew up. So the ice guy became a legend in his own time and all the space pilots wanted to be him and all the ladies went out and rented 9 1/2 Weeks, and so on.

Until one day some wise-ass came along with a ship made completely out of vodka and kicked his ass. But instead of becoming a legend in his own time and banging every girl at the space station he just collected up the remnants of the ice man’s ship and spent eternity drinking vodka sevens on the rocks.

The truck goes back to the rental place on Friday morning and then I get on a plane and fly somewhere. Where exactly I’m not sure. It would seem that I rarely know the answer to that question anymore. And that’s beginning to scare me. If you have any idea where it is that I’m going please drop me a line and fill me in. I’d love to know the future. Even if it’s just the past all dressed up to make whatever comes next look good.

Were I allowed to do anything I wanted in one day, I would:

1. Fly 500 Etheopian children to North America, give them all tasers and drop them off in front a Super Value.
2. Buy the Bud Girls some good beer.
3. Buy Disneyland and replace Mickey as the official mascot with a guy dressed up like Michael Myers.
4. Purchase the USS Independence and enter the America’s Cup.
5. Rebuild the Canada Arm in the space shuttle so that every time it’s deployed it gives the world the finger.
6. Build an indoor water slide park so immense that it could be viewed from space by the naked eye.
7. Bring back J.P. Patches.
8. Get The Bat moved from Canada’s Wonderland to my backyard.
9. Bring back One Ton Bubble Gum.
10. Buy the Arsenal Gunners.
11. Replace every gun on earth with those plastic guns that fire ping pong balls and proceed to start a world war.

Invaluable Inventions Of The 20th Century: numbers 49 through 86

49. Etch-A-Sketch
50. The Slip & Slide
51. Deprivation chambers
52. Total Control
53. Lawn mowers that you can drive
54. Soap on a rope
55. Television
56. Television trays
57. Television dinners
58. Bank Shot
59. Lite-Brite
60. Those things you stick at the end of corn on the cob so you don’t burn your hands
61. Clear plastic clothing
62. Hot Shots
63. X-ray glasses (don’t kid yourself, the government has had them for years)
64. The invisible dog on a leash
65. Velcro-up sneakers
66. Roller derby
67. Any kind of half-assed, secretly self serving ‘People’s’ Revolution’
68. Particle accelerators
69. Coin operated vibrating beds
70. Parachutes
71. Parachute pants
72. The Clapper
73. Watches that glow in the dark
74. Condoms that glow in the dark
75. Glow in the dark condoms that tell time
76. The ‘Do It Yourself Backyard Bomb Shelter Kit’
77. Crazy Straws
78. The Mega Track 2000
79. Those sprinklers that go t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhht-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t
80. Bumper Pool
81. I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter
82. The electric bull
83. Cars with ejection seats
84. Blitzkrieg
85. Anti-bacterial fruit & vegetable soap
86. Lawn darts

Immeasurable Losses Of The 20th Century: numbers 4 through 6

4. The element of surprise
5. Your imagination
6. I’ve forgotten six