Wackos to Obliterate: Book Three (Chapter 9)

Gerold (aka Jäger Corps), one of Rick’s cohort of trolls, posted a jpeg on Jimmy’s page. “How’s this snap for showing the ol’ black magic is gone from that skinny ol’ bag,” he wrote. He had attended the Dogs concert in Indianapolis and planned to get shots of Ryuji to use as ammunition in taunting Jimmy, the poor kid who had posted pictures of Ryuji on his SNS page. Since that day, Jimmy was added to the sites they’d frequent, but Gerold harassed the young man more than the rest of the cohort. In his obsession, he even went beyond just trolling and paid to see the Dogs when they got their closest to Centerville. It was almost sold out, but he was able to get a seat way in the back. He took a digital camera with a mini zoom because he’d be too far from the stage to get good shots with a smart phone. He strapped it to his leg as a precaution since devices like cameras were sometimes prohibited at concerts he had attended decades before.

As it so happened, Sophie rather than Ryuji showed up. He decided to post her pictures on the website anyway, even though Jimmy seemed to have a crush on Ryuji. A TRinket is a TRinket, after all.

“No more magic, but definitely old and a bag,” Jäger Corps wrote. He switched to another keyboard and Kona Prince added, “Too bad Ryuji wasn’t there. Little Jimmy would love to bend over for another snapshot of his darling.”

“Up the bunghole, huh?” Jäger Corps asked.

“Big time, from the Kamikaze Kid,” Kona Prince wrote.

Jäger Corps taunted, “Hey Jimmy, don’t you wanna come out and play?”

“Not when the only eye candy is that worn out, group-groping whore.”

“Who, Sophie Choice?” Jäger Corps asked.

Kona Prince replied, “Hell, she’d choose your dog if she could.”

“No way, my puppy won’t stick it in that drug-addled, black bitch,” Jäger Corps wrote.

“Sounds a little racist to me, JC,” Kona wrote.

“Just talking about dog breeds, son. Take your head out of the gutter. Don’t do like Jimmy who wants to destroy our country with drugs and anal probes,” Jäger Corps rattled on.

Of course, Jim Wales could delete these posts from his page or tag them as abusive, both of which he did daily; even so, they’d come back as different “friends” and they’d be supported by others who’d go on in a similar vein.

Consensus probably is that the best solution would be to quit using social media. In fact he did stop watching his site, but within a few days some of his classmates started to kid him about what they had read online. To investigate, he checked out his SNS page and found it deluged with crap written by people in the “Jäger Corps” tone.

All in all, the best solution might be to shut down his site altogether, but knew he would be out of “the loop” for so much. He decided if he would frequently check his site, he could delete (or at least ‘hide’) most of the worst comments. Therefore, he spent quite a lot of time clicking on his SNS page more often than before this harassment started. Doing so, he was exposed to a massive number of comments about how he wanted to be reamed from behind by the Kamikaze deviant, morality-hater, demon, poisoner of our culture, ad infinitum.

One thing he knew not to do was to respond directly to one of these hate-speech rants. No matter how many times one of his pictures was altered and repasted to show him “doing it with” or “having it done by” Ryuji, he didn’t write back. He just removed it from his page. Of course, this didn’t mean it was gone since he knew you could ‘follow’ the posters to their pages and keep seeing what they posted about the Jimmy / Ryuji saga. This then could be shared and reposted to Jimmy.

Shortly after the first posting of Ryuji’s pictures on Jimmy’s page, Malcolm, Ryuji and the IT people at Summit would follow the progression of what went down concerning Jimmy Wales. Ryuji could see how much Jimmy was suffering, so he decided to contact him. He was curious to find out what motivated Jimmy to take the original pictures in front of the studio, but mostly, he wanted to see how the kid was holding up under the continual abuse from trolls.

Ryuji clicked the ‘message’ button on Jimmy’s site and wrote, “I’ve noticed how much shit you’ve been going through. Contact me, Ryuji.” This started a private chat between the two that resulted in Ryuji inviting him to come to Cincinnati since that would be the last time Ryuji would play in the Midwest for a while.

“It’s the least I can do to thank you for taking all the crap thrown at you,” Ryuji said, looking across the table at the rotund, pimply teenager of Celtic ancestry whose single attempt at being cool was a chaotic, semi-punk haircut with two or three different shades of red and brown scattered about. They were having lunch in an organic sandwich shop that was located rather close to both the photography studio and Jimmy’s high school. It seemed strange for him to accept Jimmy’s suggestion to meet at this shop since Ryuji was an avid duck hunter, but he knew from Jimmy’s page that he had gone vegan about a year ago; besides, “organic” didn’t mean just vegetarian: they had chicken and pork on the menu.

“It would be cool to see the Dogs perform. The reviews have been fantastic,” Jimmy said as he readjusted his ‘Garden Pizza Panini’ for another bite, making sure this time the sautéed onions and mushrooms wouldn’t slip around too much in the tomato sauce and fall out again.

An attractive, thin woman in her early thirties walked up to the table with a pitcher of herbal tea. “How’s the sandwich, Jimmy?” she asked as she poured each of them tea.

“It’s a little slippery but very tasty,” he said, smiling at the cute face framed by wavy, light-brown hair.

“I take it, you come here often?” Ryuji asked Jimmy as he nodded to the waitress who he took to be the wife of the tall, dark-haired dude with trimmed beard who was busy behind the counter in the back of this small, informal restaurant with a half dozen mismatched tables that looked like they had been purchased at flea markets and garage sales.

“Pretty frequently since my school’s just a couple of blocks from here.”

“As a senior, you got a pretty light load, huh?” Ryuji asked, having remembered seeing he wrote that on his SNS page.

“Yeah, I only had two classes today.”

The young woman walked around making sure the other ten or so customers had enough tea, and then she circled back to their table. “You know, I hate to hassle you, but isn’t your last name Matsuoka?”

Ryuji immediately regretted meeting in a shop with a youngish clientele who might be keeping up with the madness surrounding the TRinkets. “Why do you want to know?” he asked with a tone he hoped would convey annoyance. He glanced over to Jimmy who had started smiling as though he was proud to be in the presence of a celebrity.

The woman was a little surprised at his tone but decided to continue. “You run Matsuoka Photography, right?”

“Uh huh.”

She called out to the man behind the counter. “Ted, you’re right.”

“I’ll be right there,” he replied, smiling at his wife.

“We’ve been meaning to drop by to get an estimate for our brochure,” she explained as her husband walked over.

“Yeah, we saw in your shop window the sign about designing business brochures,” Ted said once he got to the table. “We’ve been too busy, lazy or both to go to your studio, but our current one needs an upgrade to something more professional looking.”

“My partner is the one you need to talk with concerning designs. Let me know when you’d like to have him drop by,” Ryuji said, both relieved and disappointed that TRinket popularity was not ubiquitous.

Once they stepped outside, however, ubiquity must have been achieved since two jock-looking dudes from Jimmy’s school immediately spotted them walking toward Ryuji’s pickup, which was parked a little down from the restaurant.

“Hey, Jimmy, you with another anus pumper?” the taller and stockier of the two called out.

The other tapped his friend on the shoulder. “It’s the faggot Jap from the TRinkets!” They pulled out their smart phones. “You take pictures, I’ll film.”

Ryuji and Jimmy dashed to the pickup. “Shitheads,” Ryuji said as he fumbled with his keys, wishing he hadn’t been so cheap and gotten the model with the push-button fob. Instead, he had to open Jimmy’s door first and rushed over to the driver’s side. Luckily, Jimmy was quick, unlocked it for him, and then ducked down in the seat to avoid having too many pictures taken of him with Ryuji. “Fuckoff you assholes,” Ryuji said as he flipped them off while backing up out of the space.

“Sorry man, I should’ve figured some other seniors would have pretty light schedules, too,” Jimmy said, holding his hands in front of his face in a praying gesture as though he were asking for forgiveness.

“Am I ‘Dear Abby’ or what?” Trink asked as he checked his email.

Madelyn brushed her black hair, recently cut in a boyish, pixie style. “That’s a flash from the distant past: Dear Abby?”

Trink looked at the smirk on her thin lips and frowned. “Who the hell do people write to nowadays for advice? I guess me, huh? Ryuji wants to know if it’s okay to invite another person to the next concert.”

“Didn’t he already invite an old couple he knew? Anyway, let’s deal with that later, we’re late,” she said, shooing him away from the laptop that sat on the old teacher’s desk. A few other pieces were put away in a storage locker, but most of it remained with the house since memorabilia owned by a celebrity would contribute to a higher selling price. Their most favorite pieces, like the bed and sofa, were here in the bedroom they occupied at the Mardens’.

Within fifteen minutes, they sat in a small meeting room with Clive Milbank the financial planner who played a crucial part in their becoming victims of one of the worst frauds to hit retirement and hedge funds in history. There were over 20,000 investors around the world affected by the scam.

“The two of you were members of the 13% who were directly invested in a feeder fund, our institution’s fund that in turn invested in Forest. Such direct feeder fund investments are considered ‘one tier’ away from Forest. Evaluating these is rather straightforward for the investigators to assess. Surprisingly, over one half of the investments were two tiers away and another fourth or more were three tiers away,” the puffy faced, orange-toned man rattled on while looking with his pale, blue eyes across the dark-wood table.

As always, Trink could not help but compare the atmosphere of this money man with a stereotypical Republican politician in Washington. “So, you’re saying we have more than a good chance in getting a substantial share of our money back once the assets of the hedge fund are distributed to the victims.”

Clive smiled at the two of them seemingly pleased at how relaxed they appeared compared to the past several times they met. His smile vanished, though, as he noticed a smirk forming on Madelyn’s pretty, boyish face. He recalled an embarrassing time in their house (before it had to be sold) when he ate some snacks Madelyn prepared laced with marijuana.

“Could you please answer my husband?” The smirk on her face was partnered with a cold, businesslike tone.

“I’m saying, yes, that is more possible than for the people in the second, third, or fourth tier situations. Even so, these legal battles take a long …”

Trink interrupted him by saying, “It’ll be more than a couple of years before we receive jack.”

Madelyn shook her head in agreement. “I read in an article from some financial magazine, the past week or so, that the losses claimed are more than eight times the assets of the fund.”

“Actually, some estimate most victims would each get approximately 10.5 cents per dollar of loss,” Clive said, looking at the couple and wondering who would explode first.

Trink glared at this supposed expert whom they relied on to help manage their finances. He wanted to leap up and pull the sleazy bastard across the table, and kick some sense into this dipshit. Instead he said, “I remember less than a half year ago you assured us that even if the charges of fraud stuck, our money was insured.”

Madelyn sat back in her chair, crossed her legs under a long, flowery skirt and shook her head. “Yep, that’s what I recall.”

“I apologize, but I misspoke. I didn’t mean that it was insured for the full amount, but rather …”

“But rather, we’ll be dead before we see any of it,” Trink replied. Clive looked down at the table for a few moments while they watched him look as though he was ruminating over what direction to proceed.

When he finally did speak, he said, “I’ve heard that it may be possible to repurchase your house.”

“Huh?!” Madelyn was shocked at the ludicrous turn this meeting was taking. “So, where do you suppose we’ll get the money?” She said in a sarcastically sing-song way; knowing where his train of thought was heading - having realized the actual reason he asked to meet with them.

“And I’m sure the asking price is a couple of hundred thousand dollars more than we got for it,” Trink said, looking at Madelyn.

“The popularity of the group is just phenomenal! You realize that if you get back your home, its value will be astronomical in the near future; that is, if you ever consider reselling it. I mean, it could be promoted as the location where your current hits were formed. It is, after all, where the group got back together, right?” Clive asked, with an expression of veneration covering his follow-the-gravy-train face.

Trink stared at him. “Where the fuck did you read that? Actually, I don’t care where you got that bullshit. I’m just amazed you’ve got the fuckin’ gall to bring this up after informing us that your last bit of advice had wiped us out.” He looked at Madelyn, nodded toward the door, got up and started walking out.

“It’s really an opportunity that you shouldn’t pass up,” Clive said in his high-pitched alto.

“You buy it then, you asshole,” Madelyn said, before walking out the door Trink held open for her.