The Egotist Read online

  I almost spit up the repulsion that is colliding in my throat, and my fingers dig into my palms as I make the attempt to go the extra mile.

  “I know Sharon, I know . . .”

  “It’s Karen.”

  “I know, I know . . .” I say, cursing the slip, scrambling to find a solution.

  Silently at first, and then more audibly, I break down crying. Immediately I stuff my face into her shoulder, wetting her cheap Mervyn’s suit with my crocodile tears.

  “I know,“ I sob, feeling her hand push into my hair, attempting to soothe me.

  I feel victory wash over me, and I think of myself as a salesman closing the deal, the chef finishing his finest dish, the jockey stretching his steed across the finish line, the assassin seeing the target in the cross-hairs. I am invincible, magnificent, and tragic. I am a hero, a Greek God, a work of art. As I cry into her shoulder, she hushes me softly, and I can’t help but wonder how she’d be in bed. As I pull away from her, I wipe my eyes with my dress shirt, silently cursing myself for getting the shirt messier than it already was.

  “Karen?” I say, focusing to get the name right, “I was wondering if maybe later we could talk. I don’t know, maybe get a drink after work or something?” I smile at her, showing her that I’m relaxing and becoming a really swell guy.

  I almost croak when she gives me a big smile back with ‘yes’ written all over her face. She puts a hand up to my cheek, moves it gently under my eye. “Sure W., that’d be cool. I’m glad this turned out the way it did. I admit, it’s like you’ve turned over a new leaf.” She pauses briefly. “Listen, I’ve got to get back to work, and so do you. Let’s figure it out later, okay?”

  “Okay,” I say happily. “Thanks a lot Karen - you’re being, well . . . really, really cool.”

  I see her eyes pause and I wonder for a moment if I’ve laid it on too thick, but just as quickly they glaze over again to that normal stupid stare, and she just smiles and walks away. My eyes follow her as she leaves, and for some reason I think of Sherry the Porn Queen, with her crappy CDs and her smut magazines. Maybe it’s her hips, I think, then shrug it off. I have a lot of work to do, and it’s not for this loser company.

  As I leave the small mail room where what’s-her-name and I had our talk, I see one of the executives walk by.

  “Hey Boss,” I say, smiling my fanciest smile.

  The man nods viciously, all but patting my butt and stuffing a ten dollar bill into my waist band as he passes.

  What a joke, I think. Their egos will be their demise and their fears my paycheck. As the system comes crashing down around them it will be all they can do to stumble unevenly as I propel myself through the slop, holding a golden saber and a shield of silver, waving to them like a god passing over his minions in their eternal purgatories.

  Later, I smile as I fax Lemus. On the cover page I write that I have completed the project. My job now is to wait for Lemus’ document to come through, and then I’ll be halfway home.

  I find myself becoming slowly impressed with the functionality of all the office mechanisms. A few minutes later, the machine whines as the reply fax appears. I look over my shoulder and see no one. I quickly take the document and head into the copy room, where my great heaving mother awaits her parturition.

  A Thought on Writers

  Unlike the genius conception of Mr. Thornton’s auto-biographical novel Getting Rich, I find it hard to understand the overall personae of writers. At least with Thornton you can say to yourself, yeah, he slept with a lot of women. Sure, he’s a scum bag. But you know what? I know what he is. I know he’s dirt. It’s right here in black and white! No allusions to mystic personalities, no melodramatic lifestyle, no blandering, slathering, goopy drip-droppy text about moral experiences he never had or personal insights he’s making up completely. He slept with rich women! He’s writing a book about it! God bless him and all like him!

  I’m tired of the sensational lifestyle of the conventional writer. I’m sick of hearing about how Poe was a freak and L. Ron Hubbard beat his wife, tied her up and injected her with mysterious chemicals. So what if Salinger’s in hiding? Who really cares? Not me, I’m sick of it. Give me good old American apple-pie Thornton any day over these psychotic weirdoes - like Stephen King, who lives in some bizarre home in Maine of all places. Who the hell’s scared of Maine? You know his kids are creepy.

  It’s almost as if someone created this style guide for writers a long time ago and now all these pretty-boy Yale/Princeton/Harvard/Stanford graduates have to get all “weird” so they can fit the mold. I mean, Hemingway kills himself after writing about Paris this, drunk that. He spends his life fabricating all of these “abnormalities” - they were such productions. Why do it? Probably because he was the most normal guy who ever wrote a word and he had to do something wacked in order to keep face with the other writers. Bullfighting, my ass.

  And what’s his name . . . Thomas Pynchon, him and his recluse buddy William Wharton . . . who cares? Like you guys are so swamped by media attention and the public? C’mon. I mean, if you gotta be slinky and freaky to be an established voice in literature, who needs it? I sure don’t want to go live in the hills somewhere just so I can publish a couple of story books. Is this what happens to hickory sticks when they get famous?

  Maybe writers are just a little bit retarded. Has anyone ever checked that out? Maybe part of the writer’s brain, the part which allows for literacy, also impedes upon that other part of the brain which translates social graces.

  All I know is that these anti-social cranks need to get on with it. I wish the world were filled with Abraham Lincolns and Fyodor Dostoyevskys - sure they were writers, but they were also men of their times. They knew how to fill a space with their assiduous presence. They were men of action, they defined their places, they are the bookmarks in the historic pages of the volume on human life and the prerequisite for all men who follow. They were writers: mad, passionate, overbearing, cruel, and indefinable. They were the elite, they were proud, they were classically ostentatious.

  So for all those who crawl into pigeonholes, for all those who psyche up to be what their delusions of grandeur have created for them, I say only one word:

  Poppycock!

  And Poppycock! And Poppycock!

  Ethics of Duplication

  I make approximately five hundred copies of the mock manifesto my friend has written, and I shove them all into a box and put the box under my desk. No one notices . . . no one cares. Everyone continues to bustle and staple about the carpeted office, paying me no heed. The person who gives me work to do hasn’t even gotten back from lunch yet, and I’m sure she’s most likely forgotten I’m even here.

  The day ends without much ado, and I proceed home so I can call Lemus and deliver the box.

  He comes over about twenty minutes later, and I can tell he’s excited. He opens up the box and pulls out a few copies of the letter he faxed me at work.

  “It’s brilliant, W.! Absolutely brilliant!” he says ecstatically, reading the letter over again and over again. “We’re going to be rich men, you and me. I guarantee you this is going to work.”

  “All right,” I say soothingly, “it looks good so far, I admit.” I pause. “So, let’s go down the list here. You have the P.O. Box, right?”

  He nods.

  I continue. “And you have access to the books so we can stuff the flyers, correct?”

  He nods again. “Yes,” he says. He then begins to pace and speak as if he’s Sherlock Holmes ticking off the facts.

  “I’ve got access to the store after hours. I’m going to say that I want to finish inventory at night because I have an engagement to attend in the afternoon - they always let people do that sort of stuff. Then, we go in and stuff all the books with these flyers. My God W., how many are in here?”

  “About five hundred,” I say, “give or take a few. I posted a couple on a billboard in the main area of our office. No one saw me do it, and I figure we’d get a hea
d start on it.”

  He’s ecstatic. “Yes, yes . . . it’s brilliant. If this thing pays off like it I think it will, we’ll be rolling in it in no time.”

  “Now, Lemus, there is one other thing.”

  “What?”

  “Well, we have to show that we are a legitimate organization, or I think we could get arrested.”

  “What do you mean?” His smile falters.

  “What I mean is that you can’t just have people send you money in support of an organization and then just go spend the money on beer and cigars. Understand? We have to be, on the surface anyway, legitimate. Just in case we ever get audited. Plus, don’t forget, we are going to have to pay some sort of tax on this stuff . . . what?”

  Lemus is shaking his head voraciously at me. His face is slightly ashen and he looks like he just ate something from the rear of my fridge. I think about what I’ve said and see no problem with it. The law is the law, and the last thing I want to do is to go to jail over some stupid idea that I didn’t even come up with myself.

  “No way W., no way. That’s not the way I’m running things.”

  “Oh, so you’re running things?” I say.

  “That’s right,” he says, his eyes like little hot coals.

  His intensity level is up, no doubt about that. Despite his size, Lemus can be an intimidating figure if he chooses to be. It’s his unpredictability that worries me. When he gets geared-up, you never know what’s going to happen. So I decide to hear him through, giving him a little nod to go ahead.

  “Here’s the deal, we’re going to distribute these flyers in the way I told you about. I’m going to begin to collect the checks from the P.O. Box which I set up in my name. Once I start receiving money, I’ll give you your percentage for the work you’ve done and for your continuing support to my cause.”

  “Some cause,” I say indifferently.

  He gives me that coal-eyes glare again and continues. I have never seem my friend so enthusiastic.

  “Whatever,“ he says, “you know what I mean.” His eyes soften and he becomes old Lemus again, and I know he’s coming down from where he was, but I stay cautious.

  “Look W., this is going to be sweet for both of us. I mean, check this out,“ he hands me a flyer, “do you see your name on here anywhere? And you know that your name isn’t associated with the P.O. Box, and if you don’t believe me, go over there and see for yourself. You know where it is.”

  “I believe you Lemus, okay already . . .”

  “Well, then, what are you worried about? I’ve got it under control. If this thing even works - and who really knows for sure if it will - and something does go wrong for whatever reason, I’ll take the heat. It’s on my shoulders, okay amigo? Comprende?”

  “Comprende, Lemus,” I say, leaving it alone. He’s right, I suppose. It’s his head on the chopping block, not mine. Of course, the possibility is there that he could crack under pressure and give my name . . . but I don’t think so. Lemus is one of those guys who would probably thrive under interrogation, spitting in the face of the corrupt general as the single bulb floats frighteningly through the dark air of the underground room.

  I laugh nervously, quietly cussing myself out for getting worried about something that is never going to work anyway. It just goes to show how paranoid the government has gotten everyone, including me. It’s so you can’t take a pee anymore without wondering who’s watching you from behind the mirror.

  That night, Lemus and I go into the bookstore after it’s been closed. We take out our box of flyers, quickly folding each of the papers in half. That done, we move like lice, stuffing the PLV propaganda into the middle of every copy of Mr. James Thornton’s book, Getting Rich. Never have a couple of schmucks so quickly accessed thousands of dumb American minds.

  BOOK THREE

  WAR

  The Apocalyptic Emotion

  Snip ‘n’ Save. Scratch ‘n’ Sniff. Cut ‘n’ Paste. Lock ‘n’ Load. Rock ‘n’ Roll. Nuts ‘n’ Honey. Men ‘n’ Women. Girls ‘n’ Boys. Cats ‘n’ Dogs. Birds ‘n’ Bees.

  So many accomplices to so many crimes. So many hands being held with white gloves and striped suits and black hats. So many things happening . . . who can keep track? Who wants to?

  Who’s going to keep score when the last shot goes through the hoop and the last baseball gets thrown? Are you and your wife compiling emotions? Are you and your friends categorizing each other’s inconsistencies? Are you and your lover counting your blessings while your accountant counts your coins and your lawyer counts your words and your therapist counts your thoughts and your mother counts your days and your father counts your faults and your dog counts your steps?

  “Who’s keeping track of everything?” I shout. I’m so overwhelmed . . . so tired. I can’t keep it up, I can’t keep track. I can’t keep counting.

  The numbers whiz by in my head and, while I think about the clear blue sky, for one second, everything comes into focus. But then I look down, and I see reds and yellows, skirts and pants, shoes and socks and cigarettes and hats and cars and buildings and sidewalks and flat carpeting and stereo speakers and dying plants and cutting grass and dripping faucets. I stop for just one second and listen as I’m barraged by sounds. I cover my ears and I moan. I shut my eyes tight and think about the blue sky, or a piece of white paper, or the pure simplicity of a glowing triangle with its clear, pointing indication that only says up or down - depending on which floor I need to go to.

  I feel the need for a bean-on-strings machine that will keep track of it all for me - for both of us. Because you can’t keep track either, can you? No, I don’t think you can. And when we’re old, who will help us then?

  My eyes burn and my throat clenches with the invisible hand of anguish when I think of all the things I will be held accountable for, all the things I’ve missed. The things I didn’t see go by, or the things I couldn’t hear because I wasn’t listening.

  What’s that you say? I didn’t get that, I’m sorry, can you repeat it? No, I was trying to listen, I just . . .

  Well, if that’s how you feel about it then screw you! I’ve got my own life to live . . . you think I don’t have enough to listen to already!

  Can’t you hear the traffic outside! Don’t you see the movement all around you? Don’t touch me . . . I don’t want you near me. Get out, I can’t take it.

  There’s too much . . . too much.

  The Great Debaser

  I pretend to speak a foreign language, something close to French, I believe, to the person at the Information desk while I wait for my friend Lemus. I’ve been waiting a few minutes, and the fellow before me seems a bit over-anxious to be helpful. I don’t like it. I don’t trust him. No one is happy working at a bookstore.

  Lemus comes and I begin to speak to him in English right away, catching the confused embarrassment of the person at the Information counter in the corner of my eye. I giggle to myself as I recall bits of the previous conversation when the smiling buffoon just grinned stupidly at me while asking me to repeat things like “Bette dos augu,” hoping desperately to accomplish a translation. Stupid.

  Lemus looks tired and I wonder if all this business has taken its toll on him. It’s been two days since we stuffed the books with the flyers, and so far there has been no controversy, no burning flags or attacks on the convents . . . all is at peace.

  “You don’t look so good Lemus,” I say off-handedly.

  “Well, I haven’t been sleeping much . . .” he says.

  “Are you worried?”

  “No, no, not that. I’ve been going out at night,” he says, bringing his voice down and shifting his eyes around a bit.

  I’ve known Lemus for quite some time now, and I’ve never known him as the “going out at night” type.

  “What are you getting at, Lemus?” I say.

  “It’s like this, W., I’ve been going out with the flyers, ya know. Trying to create a stir,” he says, his voice breaking as a golfball of excitement bou
nces around in his shiny head.

  “Uh-huh . . . and just where have you been stirring, my friend?” I begin to wonder why I even came to the bookstore today; in retrospect it seems a waste of time. Friends can certainly be burdensome.

  “Well, I started at some of the nearby bus stops. I taped them up onto the plastic walls that surround the benches, you know. Then, I went to a few bars where yuppie-types hang out, thinking they were a good target audience for the PLV.”

  “I see.”

  “Yes, yes . . . then I did something odd. Oh, I don’t know, I think you could say it was sort of divine inspiration,” he says brazenly, smiling to himself and looking rather elfish.

  “And what was that, Lemus?” I say, trying desperately hard to appear interested.

  “Well, I happened to be walking by this church. On a whim, I went in . . . you know those big community bulletin boards they’ve got hanging around?”

  “Lemus, you didn’t,” I say, honestly shocked.

  “Yes, I did, actually. Not only one church, but by the end of the night, I had visited almost ten churches located in and around the vicinity of this place and my own home. Catholic, Lutheran, Mormon, Jewish - it didn’t matter. They always leave the doors open in a lot of those places, did you know that?”

  “Maybe around here they do, but not where I grew up,” I say, stunned by his information. And yet, I can’t help thinking to myself how genius it really is. There are two things I always equated with houses of worship: money and hostility. If this plan is going to work, we’ll need plenty of both. Now if we could just get some good old-fashioned paranoia going, we’d be catching fire.

  “Tell me, Lemus, how many of the books did you sell today? The ones with the leaflet in them?”