Previous chapters:
Chapter One: Georgie
Chapter Two: Guns, Blurbs, and Steal
Chapter Three: Big Jugs and the Hairy Arm
Chapter Four: Sophia, the Pain in My Chest, Part 1
Chapter Five: Dead Man Under the Table
Chapter Six Part 1: Drunk John
I see Justin out on the back deck, which is good because we have to have a serious talk. He’s the commander, so it’s his right to change the plan, but he could have given me a heads up.
The glass door to the deck is locked. Justin is at the far end of it, looking away from me, out toward the train tracks below. I knock. He doesn’t seem to have heard me. I knock again, harder. Nothing. Maybe he’s wearing headphones.
I have to calm down, so it’s time to take inventory in my safe, and I notice that I’ve left it open which is very unlike me. I have publicly emasculated many an Indian contractor who has done the database equivalent of it because I have no tolerance for people who are lax about security. So many of these guys think it’s fine to store encryption keys in the same database they’re encrypting, never change passwords (duh), or leave backups unencrypted. What’s the use of having the best security in the world if you are careless and leave gaping holes in your defenses? I learned that lesson the hard way when one of our trading databases was compromised by hackers from Ukraine. In response to this, I implemented strict guidelines for all database passwords. From that point on, all passwords had to be randomly generated and contain special characters, upper and lowercase alphanumerics, and be 32 characters long. No copying and pasting either; I forced them to type in all 32 characters each time they logged in. People grumbled about the change for months, but in the end, they adhered to the rules because they had no choice. I convinced my boss’ boss that anyone who did not adhere to the new password rules should be fired. After a couple of Indian contractors were shit-canned (which pussy Mark Cancer was against) it was smooth sailing. It shouldn’t have come to that because no one in any IT department wants to assume the liability of compromising a company’s database. That’s a fuck up that will follow you around like the National Sex Offender Registry. Data is king and whoever owns the data holds the power, and if a company is careless with their data they will cease to exist. I must admit that it was a real drag using those long, complicated passwords, so I made myself a backdoor (let the peasants follow the rules). Someday I’ll have to get around to putting our database server somewhere that’s not publicly accessible, and I’ve already sworn off surfing the web from it, especially those websites that ask you to download software that scans your hard drive to see if you’re an instant winner in the Ukrainian National Lottery.
I should’ve followed the rules with my own safe because leaving it open is inexcusable. I pull the door to my safe open and stick my head in and breathe deeply. I love the smell of it, that fresh polymer smell. It’s the “walking into a Radio Shack” smell or “Best Buy” smell or “most stores at the mall” smell. It’s Christmas morning and the smell of new toys. It’s the smell of firsts like your first new car, your first cassette player, your first computer, your first VCR and DVD player and wireless router.
My gun safe has the smell in spades, mostly due to the synthetic fibers of the carpet that lines it. It blends so deliciously with the smells of steel, silver, gold, gun oil and lube. Looking at my guns makes my balls tingle, like I’m going over a steep hill in my car on a country road. It’s the feeling of being totally secure that causes a jittery feeling in your gut, like nothing can hurt you ever, not ISIS, not my neighbors, not even Obama and my government. I look upon the awesomeness of the arsenal I’ve painstakingly built over the years and I get the same feeling I get walking around the King of Prussia Mall at Christmas time, where anything you want is there for the buying. The mall is all the proof you need that capitalism really is the unknown ideal, made visible and known to all.
I take the Glock 23 out of its case because it is my favorite handgun even though I carry the 26 with me at all times. I like the 23 because it can be used both as an open and concealed weapon and its .40 caliber round has a better ballistic profile than a .45, with more stopping power than a 9×19mm, which is what the 26 houses. The gun is loaded as is every gun in the safe.
I pull back the slide and release it. The room just got brighter. I stand and point the gun at Hairy Arm’s wall with a quick motion. I’ll bet the .40 caliber round could penetrate this poorly constructed wall between us. There’s supposed to be a firewall between our houses, but judging by how much sound comes through the wall, I’d say that it is not up to fire code and is therefore easily penetrable.
I hear someone on the other side of the wall and I follow the sound with the barrel of the gun. Whoever is on the other side of it has no idea that I could end him with a well-placed shot at any time and it thrills me to no end.
I’m pretty confident that the 23 will do the job, but I can’t leave anything to chance. When Justin and I breach Hairy Arm’s perimeter and enter his bedroom on the other side of this wall, we’ll need cover, someone in my bedroom who can fire through the wall to neutralize everyone on the other side. We now have enough people to have one act as “God,” a badass crack shot who can take people out through walls. With Gilder and the drunk waste of skin downstairs, the pickin’s are slim, but they still represent two warm bodies. I don’t know who it should be. Sadly, neither seems capable. Maybe fate will make the decision. This is a last resort contingency, but one that must be planned for. It would certainly mean my death as well as Justin’s.
I take the Remington 870 shotgun out of the safe, empty the shells, and reload them. I pump the forestock to put a fresh shell in the chamber. It seems to stick a little. I should’ve had these guns cleaned beforehand, but it’s too late to do it now.
I pull all of my precious metals out of the safe to take inventory. There should be 25 gold Canadian Maple Leaf coins, 12 silver bars (100oz), and 375 silver Canadian Maple Leaf coins.
All metal amounts check out.
Sometimes when I’m done counting, I give myself a treasure bath and dump the coins over my head while I’m in the bathtub. Among other things it is a measure of my commitment because scrubbing your junk with sharply minted pieces of metal is not for the faint of heart. I don’t care if I scuff them up—the coins, I mean—because I’m not a coin collector. I’m only interested in the commodity value. Speaking of which, dare I check the spot prices again? Of course I will, I’m a glutton for punishment, but ever hopeful.
Now it’s time for my true motivation: watching the footage from 9/11, especially the jumpers. What I can’t stop thinking about is two hours earlier in each of these people’s lives. I picture them getting ready for work, brushing their teeth, having breakfast, reading the paper, and taking the train into Manhattan. The next thing they know they have to decide whether they will be burned to death or jump to their deaths, stepping out into empty space and feeling that sensation in the stomach as they rapidly accelerate toward the ground. I try to picture what I would do. Would I stare at the ground rushing toward me or turn my body around and fall backwards so I can’t see it coming? What would it feel like standing on the edge and looking down from one thousand feet? I feel I owe it to the victims to experience it as best I can. The only comparable thing I can think of is putting a loaded gun into my mouth. The only thing that might be like inching toward the edge of the building is inching my finger closer and closer to the trigger. On the edge of the South Tower, I might have worried that my foot might slip, just as my finger might slip as it rests directly on the trigger.
“Excuse me,” says a clear and confident voice. “Are you OK?”
I turn toward the door and catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror across from my bed. I slowly take the gun out of my mouth and turn toward the man I recognize as the drunk from under the table. He walks into my room.
“Cool gun,” he says. “Are you an actor?”
“What?”
“Were you acting out a scene from something? Maybe from ‘The Deer Hunter’?”
“No, I was just trying to give myself a little mental goose.”
“Oh.” He takes a swig of beer from Justin’s 64 ounce beer stein he nicknamed General Ripper because it holds his precious fluids. “To stay frosty?”
“Something like that,” I say.
“I came up to see if you’re OK,” he says. “Has the cake hit you yet?”
“No, I think it’s a dud.”
“Ingesting drugs through your GI track takes a lot longer, plus you’re a really big guy.”
I can’t believe how clear-headed he seems.
“Great Golden Ass, by the way,” he says, holding up the stein. “I went to get some at Wegman’s last week, but they were out.”
Drunkie doesn’t know it, but they ran out because of Justin.
“It’s my favorite summer beer,” he says, and then chugs from the stein as if it were filled with water. He’s drinking this stuff too fast.
“So I hear you were a professional wrestler,” he says. “Justin told me on the drive up.”
He remembers the drive up?
“Yeah, that’s right,” I say.
“What was your name?” He pours more golden liquid down his throat. He’s not drinking. He’s pouring.
“My ring name was Roto-Rooter Man.”
“You’re kidding?” he says, beaming.
“No, it’s true,” I say. “I used to tell my opponents that I was going to clean their pipes.”
He bursts out laughing, but in a way that kind of irritates me.
“You promised them a sexual release?”
“A what?”
“‘Clean their pipes.’ That means that you are going to give them a sexual release. Didn’t you know that?”
“Yeah I knew that. It was a joke.”
“Right, right,” he says. “I get you. It’s as if to say, ‘This whole thing’s a joke, so why not be over the top about it.’” He takes another long swallow. Somehow watching him drink Justin’s beer out of Justin’s favorite mug is starting to bother me.
“What whole thing’s a joke?” I ask.
“You know,” he says dismissively, “a joke because the whole thing is phony.”
“Phony?”
“Yeah.”
He laps from the stein like a dog who doesn’t know he’s irritated his master. But it’s time to keep a cool head. There’s no room for unnecessary drama today.
“It wasn’t all fake,” I say. I didn’t want to sound defensive, but I did somehow.
“Oh sure it was,” he says.
He drinks away without a care in the world. He can’t hear “Dirt” by Alice in Chains playing in my head. I hear it clearly, as clearly as if it were cranked through my Bose speaker downstairs.
“Have you ever seen a match?”
He chuckles. “Actually, I’m sad to say that I have. A friend of mine dragged me to a match between two girls wrestling in a ring full of blueberry pies for Pay Per View. I felt really sorry for them because the MC kept holding up signs telling us to call them whores. It was the most degrading thing I’ve ever seen. It made me realize how badly women are still treated, especially when you get a mob of drunk guys together.”
“Have you ever been to a real professional wrestling match.”
“Isn’t that an oxymoron?”
“Isn’t what an oxymoron?”
“Mentioning the word ‘real’ and ‘professional wrestling’ in the same sentence.”
“Because it’s fake?”
“Yes.”
“But you’ve never been to a match?”
“No, I went to college.”
“Oh, you did?” I wipe my ass with guys like this. “Where did you go?”
“MainLine U.”
“Yeah?”
“Guilty as charged. Where’d you go?”
“I didn’t go to college.”
Dead silence.
“Oh,” he says finally.
He looks at me stupidly, holding Justin’s beer stein, drinking Justin’s beer in my room, with a tuft of brown hair sticking up from his faggoty little visor. Didn’t his mommy ever teach him that you shouldn’t insult your host, especially when he’s built like a gorilla on three kinds of steroids?
“Well, there certainly are a lot of good-looking girls there,” I say.
“There are,” he replies, as if the fact that he went to school with hot chicks says something positive about his character.
“There are lots of them. But most of the girls I knew were from money and really fake. Hey, maybe they could appreciate professional wrestling.”
“As a former wrestler, I can tell you that not all of it was fake.”
“You’re making liberal use of the word ‘wrestler’.”
“I’m serious. Some of it was very real.”
“Like what?”
“Like the chokeholds. I would think a man who likes to drink as much as you do has been put in a few chokeholds.”
“Nope.”
“Never by a bouncer you pissed off?”
“I’m a pretty mellow drunk.”
It’s easy to be mellow when you’re passed out cold.
“That is amazing,” I say. “Well, would you care to experience one?”
I take a step toward him.
“You want to put me in a chokehold?”
He takes a step away from me.
“Just to show you that it’s not fake.”
“That’s sound kind of extreme.”
“Don’t you want to experience it?”
“Not really. If I want to pass out, I’ll just drink more of this,” he says, holding up the empty stein.
“Put the beer stein down.”
“This looks valuable,” he says. “I promise I won’t drop it.” Clever drunk. Unfortunately for him, I’m willing to sacrifice anything of Justin’s to make a point.
“It is valuable,” I say. It’s heavy, too. Drunkie has to use two hands just to hold it. It would probably put a dent in the floor if he dropped it, but I can’t chance it cracking.
“I won’t do it till you pass out,” I say. “I won’t even apply much pressure.”
I am amused by the look on his face as he realizes that I’ve backed him into a corner. He looks around and then up at me and smiles pathetically. He’s not as confident and smiley anymore. There is a very uncomfortable silence that I love.
“What do you say?” I ask, getting in even closer. “I’ll just show you how I would put someone in a chokehold, and then after that you can have a couple more Asses. You’d like to have more Golden Ass, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Well that’s only going to happen if you let me show you how real the chokeholds were, since you called us professional wrestlers a bunch of phonies.”
“Oh, I didn’t mean it like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like, you know, I hope I didn’t offend you or anything. I didn’t mean to if I did.”
“Do I look offended?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, I’m not. I’m giving you an opportunity to experience something new. It’s not like I’m asking you to let me tase you.”
What Drunkie doesn’t know is that my taser is within arm’s reach, in the top drawer of my dresser. He was either going to get a chokehold or the taser, so I chose the chokehold because I’m in the mood for something more hands-on.
“I don’t know,” he says. He looks a little scared.
“You said Golden Ass is your favorite summertime beer. Plus, Wegman’s is all out of it and who knows when they’re going to get more. That Roman brewery doesn’t put out a large volume. Those dagos aren’t like the Germans or Dutch. They know nothing of schedules. Who knows when they’ll get around to making more. Fortunately, Justin and I have a tendency to stockpile supplies, and he has stockpiled enough Golden Ass to keep you well lit from now till Christmas. I’ll even give you some to take home.”
He hands me the stein and I put it on my dresser.
“Can I take home a case—”
Before he can finish, I grab him and put him in my favorite chokehold, one I call the Lavalier because I used it so effectively on pussy fraternity boys when I used to bounce at MainLine bars. There was nothing better than choking out those entitled, cocky pricks right in front of their girlfriends.
The hold is a rear naked blood choke, and if properly applied it can cause the subject to pass out in a matter of seconds. I forgot how quickly it works, so Drunk John’s unconscious body now dangles from my hangman’s noose of a triangular lock. I release him, but instead of collapsing straight down, he somehow remains rigid and standing, falls forward and puts his head through the bottom of my bedroom wall near the door. The guy’s probably used to passing out while standing up and I should’ve taken that into consideration. For a second I’m afraid he’s dead until I hear him start to snore again. I never thought I’d be relieved to hear that sound. I pull his head out of the wall and hear forceful sniffing, and I laugh because for a second I think Drunk John is trying to sniff the sheetrock powder. But the sniffing is not coming from him, it’s coming from downstairs.
I pick Drunkie up and lay him on my bed, then grab the Remington from the floor and put it in his grip. I point the gun at the wall I share with Hairy Arm. I’ll come back when he’s conscious again to explain his new duty.
Forceful sniffing echoes through the hallway. I hear footsteps on the stairs. Georgie is soon standing before me.
