The Egotist Read online

  I am that one. I stand alone.

  BOOK NINE

  MONEY

  The Big Book of Lies

  For the past few months, all I’ve been doing is working on Lemus’ stupid book. As his contractually-obligated agent and editor, I felt it was my duty to help him get his manuscript off the ground.

  With the help of John Liggins, we acquired a copyright for the story. With the assistance of the last of the prison money, we created about seventy copies of the manuscript, including real nice back and front thick-paper covers, which were light blue. We then spent what was pretty much the last of my money shipping the book off to exactly fifty different publishing houses.

  Wondering how it did? Well, you go down to your corner bookstore and look under the prison smut section and I think you’ll find your answer. He ended up naming it Cell 52, despite my best arguments to call it Big Duke Gets It All, referring to the main character’s promiscuous nature and successful track record. Bestseller list? Not quite, but the thing is definitely selling to somebody. Frustrated house wives, closet homosexuals, sensitive bikers, who knows? But somebody is definitely buying it. More recently the film rights were sold to a movie studio, and now Lemus is really making some money. Of course, as his agent and editor (although I am, technically, no longer his agent nor his editor, having since been dismissed), I received my thirty percent (which turned out to be more like ten percent, but I took it), for which he graciously wrote me a personal check. I don’t know if it’s really ten percent, but it’s quite handsome, and I’m not one to barter finances with friends.

  With his success a lock, Lemus has finally moved out of my apartment. Although I’ll miss him, I’m glad he’s gone. Of course, his new place is a lot nicer than mine, and I am considering moving in with him despite his encouragement otherwise.

  Lemus also bought a new car, a big truck, and even went so far as to get insurance for it. It must be costing him a fortune. He bought a brand new computer with a fancy, expensive word processing program, and is already beginning work on the sequel to Cell 52. I can only hope he doesn’t call it Cell 53. I haven’t read any of it, I’m not sure if I’m even going to be allowed to. To be honest, after reading and re-reading the first one five or six times I’m not sure I could ever read the words “prison got a man lonely” again.

  Admittedly, I’m glad for Lemus. It’s about time something went right for him, and maybe this will compensate for all the times he got beat up, turned down, fired, cut off, cut down, ripped, insulted, shamed, and ridiculed during most of our pre-adult years. I certainly hope it will, anyway, although that is a heap of stuff to eradicate.

  So now I’m alone again.

  I thought he’d never leave, et cetera, et cetera . . .

  I decide to call my good friend John Liggins for a drink, but he’s not home. I would call Marie, but I know she’s working out on some shoot somewhere, putting makeup on somebody, or whatever it is she does. What a lost cause that relationship is . . . nothing but trouble.

  Even worse, I’ve invested all my Lemus money, and the litigation from the suit against my attacker is tied-up in the proverbial madly unreeling beurocratic red-tape dispenser. So now I’m crippled, bored, and broke. Horray for me.

  I watch TV, but I hate TV, so I quickly turn it off. I’ve read every book I own, most of them twice, but I don’t feel much like reading, anyway. If I had any money, I’d go buy myself a beer. I ponder the concept of going down and trying to bum beers off people, then toss it away. It just seems too pathetic.

  Biting the bullet, I call Lemus. Writing or not, everybody needs to take a break.

  “Lemus, it’s W.”

  “Hey, what’s up, man?”

  “Yes, what’s up. What are you doing?”

  “Oh, just working, you know? They want this book done really fast, so I’m just trying to crank it out.”

  I want to point out how strange my friend Lemus has become. After his prison time, he seemed hard. He talked rough, he was bigger, he had an edge. Now, with the book out, it was like old Lemus again. Sardonic, sure, but not violent. No edge. He was an interesting study, my friend. That, of course, assuming anyone would ever care enough to study Lemus.

  “Anyone get raped yet?”

  “Mmm, yeah, about five minutes before you called.”

  “Isn’t it hard to write all that stuff?”

  “No, not really. It’s really just an art form, you know? Like I told you before.”

  I didn’t write down the details of the conversation he’s mentioning, but believe me, it was forgettable.

  “Art, huh?”

  “Yep. I’m getting really good at the details of it . . .”

  “Oh no, that’s good, Lemus. I don’t want to hear about it. Your writing gives me the willies.”

  “Okay, okay. So what are you up to?”

  “Well, I thought you’d like to take a break and go to the bar with me. Buy me some beers with all that money.”

  “You broke already?”

  “No, I just got it all saved away. I ain’t spending it like you.”

  “Yeah, my car’s running sweet, though.”

  “That’s good.”

  “Yeah,” he pauses, and I can hear a struggle in his tiny little head. When it came to rape, he was creative as hell. Trying to get out of a social engagement, however, was a much different type of lying.

  “See, I’d get a drink with you, but I’ve really got to finish a big part I’m writing right now.”

  I couldn’t believe how desperate I was, but I swallowed my mind and made the suggestion I hadn’t dared yet make.

  “Well, you could bring the book down to the bar and I could read it while we drank. You know, give you input like on the first one.”

  There is a pause on the other end of the phone.

  “What?” I say, perturbed at the silence.

  “Well, Tommy said I probably shouldn’t let anyone else change it except for me or him. He says it will make a tighter book that won’t need as much, uh, re-writing when it’s all through. So, thanks, but no thanks.”

  “I see.”

  “Don’t be pissed. Let’s have that beer tomorrow night, I’ll make a point of it.”

  “Eh, don’t do me any favors.”

  “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  “Whatever.”

  I hang up. What a waste of the time of a dime.

  As I mentioned, I do have that money saved up, though. All stored away in a CD, making sixteen percent. Of course, I can’t touch it for five years, but I’ll be rich. I just need to get through the next five years, then I’ll take all my money, buy some stocks, and let the green feel the pain for awhile. It’s a good plan, and it excites me.

  Feeling better, I decide to go to the bar and mooch drinks off of strangers.

  Filthy, Stinking, Rotten Greed

  Stupid, rotten, greedy bastards! Everybody’s got money, everybody’s going places, everybody’s got a new car, new home, new boat, trailer, tool shed, baby carriage, college education. Who cares! Who really gives? Not me, I don’t care. For all I care, all of you stupid money-grubbing government-funded toe-sucking charity donors can drop dead into the blah blah!

  Nobody wants to give anymore. It’s all take, take, take, take, take, take, take. That’s all anybody cares about. Oh, hello, how much can I take from you? Well, let’s see, I don’t know you, so I’ll take your uninsured car, your apartment, your furniture, your life savings, your mother, the kitchen sink, the shirt off your skinny-ass back and, ooh! - hand me that stack of books behind you, will you? My FAT-ASS kid will love trying to read those while he EATS the pages and FARTS and slobbers all over every single one of them. Yes, yes, this is wonderful!

  It’s all about money, nowadays. What ever happened to compassion? Friendship? Human contact? When’s the last time you got a pat on the back without someone turning around and taking your last dime for the effort? The point is so real that it’s right in front of your face! It’s like a b
rick, swinging at you, about to knock your nose up into your brain. We’re all doomed!

  Whatever happened to the American Way? Corporate America has stunned us all, turning us into the ravaging animals that we have become. It’s all about the “ladder” now; before it was all about the “slide.” No one’s having fun, everyone’s achieving. Well I don’t want to achieve! I want to hang out, do nothing, and get paid for it! If I wanted to achieve I would have gotten a diploma. I would have stayed in that genetic alterations plant we call college if I had wanted to achieve. I’ve got nothing to be ashamed of. If I want to live on the streets, I can do so. I want people to pay for my drinks while I talk to their kids. I’ll tell the kids funny stories, and I’ll be the funny-story guy who sits on the street. All the kids will come and I’ll be in the newspaper, then I’ll get a movie deal, and I’ll be played by Ernest Borgnine. It will be called The Witty Bum.

  I’m so numb right now from all of my misfortune that I don’t know where to begin. I feel like I should be doing something but I don’t know what it is. I know I have to go to work tomorrow, and I think I have another birthday coming up. Of course, I need a place to sleep, but I’m sure Lemus will come through on that one. He owes me one for making him rich and successful.

  I haven’t heard from John Liggins in a while, and I’m wondering what he’s up to. I never trusted that guy. Never know what he’s doing. He doesn’t take me out anymore - we don’t hang out. He stopped buying me drinks at the bar, saying insidious things like, “I ain’t buying you drinks forever” and “What’s up with the hair, W.?”

  Stupid. It all goes back to greed. He’s used me up and has thrown me away like some sort of cheap suit. Wear me and tear me, but don’t bother to repair me! Story of my life. Always being used. Lemus? Used me. Liggins? Used me. Marie? Would use me if she had any brains in her head. Father? Used me big-time. Sister? Are you kidding? Used my dying body to patch things up in her own life, then cast me away like a twelve-sided Dungeons and Dragons die. Nobody plays that game anymore. Now it’s all computers - ooh, ahh.

  Big neon signs flash the buzz words: Greed. Selfishness. Egotism. Bitterness. Cunning. Hypocrisy.

  Oh, hello, Alien being, welcome to planet Earth, I’m so sorry you’re stuck here. We’d be nice to you but we’re all too horrible, we’re all those words you see above you, written in the clouds of our ever-expansive skies. By the way, don’t get used to the atmosphere, because our greed is driving our capitalist nature to the absolute breaking point and we’ll be lucky if we don’t look like freakin’ Mars in a few hundred years. Enjoy your stay on Planet Death spooky green thing!

  I’ve thought many times that I am a being alone in this universe, that time and space travel through my body alone, and that all human Will and Power are mine to wield and do with as I please. I see myself as a man alone on a desolate planet, picking up small rocks, examining them, and then casting them away into darkness. Maybe I will build a rock hut, maybe not. I could probably slap two rocks together to form fire, or I could not. If I was hungry, I’d throw a rock at a small beast and knock it cold, start a fire, and eat it. All is neutral and passive and controlled.

  But now I realize that the vision is false. I am not alone on this planet.

  Buzzing around me are tiny bugs, too small to see, but they’re there. They don’t bother me, they just watch me. As I sleep and it suits them, they settle upon my skin and suck out my blood like little mosquitoes. Then, one day, for no reason at all, I sleep again just like any other sleep. But instead of just one or two bugs sucking on me, there are like millions of them! They cover me like a bug blanket, and they suck and they suck and they suck. When they’re done, all the bugs are fat and juiced-up, and they sort of sputter away, leaving me. Me, the skeleton with flesh.

  When I wake, there is nothing left of me but bones, eyeballs, teeth, hair, and skin. I am a grotesque thing. I try to stand and walk, but I’m too weak. I try to throw a rock at a passing beast so that I may feed, but I have no strength to throw. I try to start a fire, but cannot. I am a useless, used thing . . . left to die.

  It’s what I am. A dreadful, tired thing. A shell of a human being. Worthless, alone, cold, hungry, and dying. They say no man is alone who has his thoughts, and my thoughts I will never sell. No matter how desperate I get. I will not allow the greed to infiltrate me, to obsess me. Me and my thoughts have got a lot of thinking to do, and on this cold night I feel fortunate only in that, and that alone.

  Aisles

  Having moved in with Lemus and securely fastened away all of my money, I felt that I had no other option than to turn my life into the Poseidon Adventure and complete the capsulation. I decided to quit my job.

  Sure, the grocery store won’t be the same without me. After years of dedicated service, my pay had risen to the point where throwing it away was a ridiculous concept. After all, where else was I going to be able to work forty-hour weeks for a frothy paycheck of well over four hundred dollars? That’s right: anywhere.

  So, after a week of stealing everything in sight, from frozen turkeys to engine oil to bottles of scotch and cases of beer, I decide to call it quits. The stealing had actually gotten so bad that one night I stacked Lemus’ brand new truck so full of goods that we ran out of room. Thievery is never something to be proud of, but whatever, they owed me. But all things considered, it’s time to move on.

  Entering work on my final day fills me with a certain air I can’t quite place. Walking through those front doors, striding through the strips of plastic that lead into the gray surroundings of “the back,” shimmying into my apron . . . is it unbridled arrogance? Hard to tell. Superiority? Benevolence? Definitely not that. Maybe false benevolence, sort of a faux good will.

  All smiles and waves, smiles and waves. Every punch of the price clicker sends a sensuous chill through me, and I strive to do my very best work on this, my last day.

  The eggs are shelved the way the boss has always wanted them to be, but which I have never before bothered to do: dates are revolved - freshest in the back, oldest in the front.

  Shelving the paper towels is almost surreal. It is so quiet as I slide them one onto another, their plastic wrapping shielding them, making them more stack-friendly. I make sure every label is turned out so the consumer can easily identify them. It’s perfect.

  I bag. I never bag! I’ve never wanted to . . . but tonight, I bag. Up here in front, smiling at each customer, placing the hard items on the bottom, crushable items on the top. Frozen items? Separate bag. Toiletries? Separate bag. It is good. I even smile at the register girl I slept with a long time ago then didn’t speak to for about six months. Heck, she isn’t so bad. Nothing is,. Not tonight.

  Sure, I’ve thought of lighting the place on fire. Leaving my mark. I have even thought of other things - booby-trap type stuff. Never really followed through with it, though. For some reason I never found the heart for it.

  Later in the evening, near closing time, I share a beer in the cooler with Miguel, my stocking buddy. We’ve never really gotten along, not to say that we don’t like each other, but I really don’t know his language and he barely knows mine. Still, we share a six-pack of the finest imports a dumpy neighborhood market can offer, and it’s fine. Afterwards, he offers me a stick of gum. I refuse politely, enjoying the defiant odor on my breath.

  Having done most of my work, I decide to spend some time with the aisles. I have spent a lot of time in these aisles, and I know them like the back of my hand. Standing at the head of Aisle Two, I ponder all of the destructive and horrifying things I can do to the place before I depart. Of course, it will have to look completely accidental - I can’t afford to give up my final paycheck, even though I have enough food stocked up at home for a month.

  The store is so empty tonight. It always is on Tuesdays . . . don’t know why. I can walk down the aisles quietly, reflecting, pondering, wondering what this place will become without me.

  Lifeless things, the aisles, the products. Lines an
d lines of dead branding. Tombs of soap and scouring pads, cheese cloths and bar-b-que sticks. It’s sad in a way, and a bit mystical. I think that if I ever write a fictional piece, it will be about a grocery store. Maybe because I have spent so much time in one, but also because of the mysterious qualities it offers.

  A grocery store is a giant feeding bin of sorts. People scurry in and pick up the products off the shelves, put them into baskets, allow themselves to be funneled through thin lines where their products will be conglomerated and checked, then they scurry out. When it’s dark, behind the scenes, the shelves wondrously regenerate the life-giving items, so the people will come back . . . wanting more.

  Yes, it is all very interesting. In a way, I am like the silver men of my dreams, scouring the waste land, creating life, continuing the circle. It’s all so grand and peculiar that it almost brings tears to my eyes as I straighten the piss-poor selection of office supplies we keep in Aisle Eight.

  There are no shadows in the grocery store, everything is evenly lit. So artificial, and yet so vital, so nurturing. There are no shadows.

  Later on, I talk one of the register girls into letting me ring up some customers, it being my last day and all. It’s amazing! What fun - it almost makes me think of trying a new career in the goods emporium marketplace. I wait on exactly ten customers and cleanly steal about fifty dollars from the register for my trouble. It’s a learning experience, I admit, but the money is so . . . handy. While ringing up the customers, I ask for more money than they owe, just by a couple of dollars or so, to cover my theft. I don’t really want to get what’s-her-name in trouble for having a short register, seeing how she’s nice enough to let me run it while she smokes.