MITZI MAGEE IS HERE!

SHE’S HOT! SHE’S FAST! SHE’S SEXY! AND SHE’S SPAYED!
When small town reporter Ed Magee wrote his latest small town story for his small town newspaper he knew he was onto something big! Maybe the biggest story of his life! But even Ed didn’t know he’d just written a life-altering article, even Ed wasn’t prepared for the reaction from his small town boss and editor-- who read the piece, smiled up at Ed, patted him on the back, and fired him immediately! 

BUT WHEN THINGS GET TOUGH—THE TOUGH GET GOING!
And Ed went straight to the top! The top of Topeka Blvd to Elsie’s Bar, and trusted friend and ally Jack Daniels! He was dead drunk in fifteen minutes! Yet no amount of alcohol could blur the vision of loveliness sitting down on the stool beside him…the soft, raven hair, the luscious red lips, grab-me dress and hypnotic eyes… that beckoned and teased a mesmerized Ed with bold and provocative promises! How could he know this dark witch was drawing him into a forbidden world of sinister pleasure and unearthly desires, a vortex of unearthly sensations more outrageously voluptuous than his wildest dreams! How could he possibly know this shadowy seductress would vanish in a huff and stick him with the tab?

THAT’S WHEN THINGS GET REALLY HOT!
Beaten? Down trodden? Fired from his job and jilted at the bar? Maybe. But that didn’t mean Ed Magee wasn’t suicidal. He trudged back to his little two room dump to lick his wounds…never dreaming, never conceiving, that someone would be there waiting to lick them for him. Waiting to lick him all over! The raven-haired seductress from the bar? No. The pert young secretary from his ex-job? No. The middle-aged landlord with the mustache and the tattoo on her left arm? No. She would come later at the first of the month. What awaited Ed now in his humble, rent-tardy bungalow was the last person on this Earth Ed Magee expected to see: his old boss and editor from the small town paper!

BACK ON TOP!
Ed had barely gotten the top back on the can of month-old Spam when he saw the figure waiting quietly on his living room couch. What was his old newspaper boss doing here--having just fired him an hour earlier? More importantly, how had he gotten in through the locked door? More importantly than that, what was he doing wearing Ed’s own suit? Even still more importantly why were his ex-bosses’ eyes glowing red now like a bat’s and when had he acquired those shiny white fangs? And why was he leaping across the room now to bury those fangs in Ed’s throat? All the while muttering about how vampires were taking over the town…in fact, the whole world! And would Ed be interesting in joining the movement? And would there be medical benefits, Ed wonders, if you’re already dead? And would the stacked brunette at the bar be there? And whose poodle just crashed through the living room window behind Ed’s ex-boss…and why did it have fiery red eyes and glistening fangs too! And who’s going to pay for that window when the landlord shows?

THE CURSE
Ed cursed himself for not paying the cable bill and keeping up with CNN--clearly there was a lot more going on in the world than he was privy to. But in the next few seconds, Ed Magee, ex-newspaper reporter and sometimes moderate-to-heavy drinker, would discover not only just how nightmarishly unbelievable the world had become, how there was a war going on that would put every person on Earth in peril, but that to fight that war--even without a job---he’d not only have to put his very soul at peril, but somehow afford a dog license!

CAN YOUR NERVES STAND THE STRAIN?
Can any sane person remain sane under the ceaseless horror awaiting him in the nerve-shattering pages of this novel? Only to realize he’s been totally ripped off because the real answers don’t come until well into the series’ third book! Only you, and millions like you—no, billions like you--can know the answers to these questions…questions that demand yet more answers that in return require yet more questions!

THE THEORY OF NOTHING

I’m writing this under the sometimes hallucinatory influence of a protracted case of mono, so you’ll just have to forgive all the typos, misspellings and the fact much of it makes little or no sense.

So, this Catholic priest is driving home from the church one night when he suddenly realizes he’s forgotten to say his Mass. Pulling to the side of the road, he cuts the engine but finds the car’s interior lights burned out. So he turns on the headlights, gets out, comes around, kneels down and reads scripture by the high beams. A passing motorist spies him, slows down and hails the priest. “Boy,” he yells, “that must be one hell of a good book!”

If there’s anything more annoying than a religious zealot, it’s an astrophysicist.

They’re both so neurotically myopic. (Don’t look it up—it’s just a fancy word for “near-sighted.)

Could things be worse? Congress is nuts, the President is ineffectual, the world economy is broke, climate change may be beyond repair…and now Stephen W. Hawking has proved there is no God. This from the guy who, in 2002, was convinced that if we can ever truly find a theory for everything, “it would be the ultimate triumph of human reason; for then we should know the mind of God.” What?

Anyway, I guess this means we’re all atheists, or at least Stephen is.

Personally I have great respect for atheists, though I don’t necessarily count myself among them. It isn’t just the brevity, you know; it takes a certain amount of guts to believe there’s no one looking after us, no afterlife, that all is simply a cosmic crap shoot. It’s a lot easier to believe in God than not; at least those that do believe appear to sleep better at night. Of course, there’s that old foxhole adage. You know, the one about there being no atheists in them? Have you ever been in military combat? Have you ever watched a man die, or think he was going to die, in front of you? I have. And yep, they all say the same thing: “Please God, no,” or “Please God, help me,” or words to that effect. The phrase was rampant during WWII, “Please God, help me,” being second only to “Mamma!” just before the injured G.I. went into shock or died or both.

But, I suppose, that may be simply the old “fight or flight” thing, built into all things animal. I mean, when you see your intestines spread out on the dirt in front of you, who you gonna call? And, hey, for all I know God might be “Mamma.”

So. How did Mr. Hawking and most of the rest of the scientific community arrive at this theory/truism about no God? That’s simple. Mathematics! What, you didn’t know everything can be explained by math? Hey, grow up, there are great truths therein. Especially if you believe in physics. No, particularly if you believe in physics. Math works. Numbers don’t lie. Physics work, too. And who, beyond some insane Creationist, doesn’t believe in physics?

Yeah, I admire the hell out of atheists, but it pales beside my respect for religious scientists.  Those dudes are way out there. How do you even keep two such antithetical concepts balanced in your mind at the same time and call yourself anything?

Let’s talk about that. We’ll start with that age old story we’ve all heard:

A father is fishing with his son at a river. “Dad, where does the river come from?” the boy asks. “Why, from the rain,” dad answers. “Where does the rain come from?” the boy persists (you can see where this is going) and old dad, who knows his high school physics, replies, “Why, from the sun. It heats the oceans and lakes and creates rain-producing clouds.”  “So where’s the sun come from?” Dad is scratching his head at this point. Hmmm…something about hydrogen atoms… And junior’s already got his next question ready: “Where do hydrogen atoms come from?” Which-- when I was a boy--is the place Dad usually turned the conversation to the finer points of bass fishing.

Fortunately, a lot of dads today know the answer to sonny’s question. Hydrogen came from the Big Bang. Along with everything else. Now some bright kid, in this endless game of chicken-before-the-egg might well ask: “So--what came before the Big Bang?” Good question. And, until fairly recently, unanswerable. But that was before we discovered Black Holes. And how Black Holes are related to the Big Bang. One of the chief relationships being that of Time. Which is to say, in a Black Hole Time stops; or, if you prefer, doesn’t exist. Therefore, there can be no God.  Why? Because, there would have been no time in which God could have created the Universe. So the answer to what came before the Big Bang? NOTHING.

And the Universe, or universes, happened not by a thinking, sentient being--divine or otherwise--but by pure random chance. Cosmic luck. Or unluck if you don’t happen to like being alive. (Don’t worry, it doesn’t last--even the Ice Capades eventually end.)

Even today no one doubts that Einstein was a genius and that E = MC2 was a masterpiece of modern physics. What eventually became into doubt was physics itself.  Classical physics, that is. E=MC2 works fine for the world we “know”; that is, the world we all walk around and work and play in. The problem is it begins to fall apart at the subatomic level, the main culprit here being gravity. Way down below at the most tiny levels, things just don’t work like they do in the bigger world. Yet to have a Theory of Everything, the smallest things of life should dovetail with the biggest; but they don’t.  So Max Plank came along in 1900 and created quantum mechanics, which attempted to explain the behavior of matter and its interaction with energy on the scale of atoms and atomic particles. Plank devised the first model that was able to explain the full spectrum of thermal radiation; by using a set of harmonic oscillators his model showed that thermal radiation existed in equilibrium. The energy of each oscillator was “quantized”, the energy for each proportional to the frequency of the oscillator. The Plank constant: E=nhf, where n = 1,2,3. For this he won the Nobel Prize of 1918. So, was Einstein wrong? Well…not exactly; more like incomplete. Plank’s view of his own discovery was that quantization was purely a mathematical trick. Einstein took it to another level, suggesting it was not just a trick but that energy in a beam of light occurs in individual packets, which we now call photons. The energy of a single photon is given by its frequency multiplied by Plank’s constant: E = hf. Unfortunately, Einstein died never truly believing in the potential of quantum mechanics. Ever his worst critic, Einstein even admitted that the cosmological constant he introduced when trying to make a static model of the universe was the biggest mistake of his life.

None of which solved the problem that while classical relativity and quantum mechanics seem to coincide just fine on a “real-life” level, quantum (without which we would have no computers, or iPods or just about anything else discovered in recent years) just makes no sense at all. As Richard Feynman once remarked: “quantum mechanics deals with nature as she is absurd.” We still don’t comprehend quantum gravity even though we use it every day, or even which theory combines it with general relativity. This is where the stoic field of science engages in a whole lot of assuming. And, perhaps, even some fantasizing regarding time.

The history of the universe in real time, for instance, appears to start at some minimum size, equal to the maximum size of the history of what we’ll call “imaginary” time. The universe would then expand in real time like the expanding balloon “inflation,” model, grow to a very large size, then collapse again into the so-called “singularity” (Big Bang) where it began. Singularity insists the universe must have a beginning as described by quantum theory, therefore the universe could be finite in imaginary time, but without boundaries or singularities. Say, what? However, in the real time in which we live, there will still appear to be singularities. Right. I’ve got a headache.

This suggests that imaginary time is actually fundamental time, and what we call real time is just some crap we made up. In real time, the universe has a beginning and an end at singularities that form a boundary to space-time and at which the laws of science break down. But in imaginary time there are no singularities or boundaries. Keep in mind that a scientific theory is just a mathematical model we use to describe what we observe. It only exists in our minds.

Which brings us to the Heisenberg uncertainty principle. You may remember it from Spielberg’s Jurassic Park where Jeff Goldblum refers to it as the inability to observe something without changing it. Quantum mechanics shows that certain pairs of physical properties, like position and speed, cannot both be known to arbitrary precision; in other words, the more precisely one property is known, the less precisely the other can be known. The uncertainty principle shows mathematically that the product of the uncertainty in the position and momentum of a particle (momentum is velocity multiplied by mass) could never be less than a certain value, and that this value is related to Planks constant. Now I have a migraine.

What this pesky uncertain principle seems to imply is that the early universe could not have been uniform, at least not completely. There had to have been uncertainties or fluctuations in both the positions and velocities of particles. During the universe’s initial rapid expansion (inflation model), the uniformities would have been amplified until big enough to form the origin of the galaxies. So—all the complicated structures in the universe could be explained by the no-boundary aspects of its condition and the uncertainty principle of quantum mechanics.

And here’s the clincher. If space and time formed a closed surface without boundary it might make for some kind of definitive answer to whom or what exactly created it.

It’s generally accepted that the universe was allowed to evolve according to a set of laws, and that God did not intervene to break the laws. But the laws tell us nothing of what the universe would have looked like when it began. If one believes the universe was created by a singularity, one could also suppose that it was created by some outside force. But if the universe is really completely self-contained with no boundary or edge, it would have been neither created nor could it be destroyed, right? It would just…be.

So, why the need for God? Where is He in all this?

In fact, where is a complete unified theory of the universe? Is it all just fantasy, even as you and I, programmed perhaps by a superior form of homo sapien from some far away future or another dimension? Are we not, in fact, made of space dust-- but of (shudder) nothing?

Of course, this whole thing presupposes that the human mind is capable of even comprehending nothing-- something I’m not so sure about. I mean, if we’re only able to imagine five to seven objects at the same time in our minds, how can we ever hope to imagine something as implacably oblique as nothing? Even unconscious, even in our dreams, we live in a world of somethings. Again, you smarter folks feel free to weigh in here; I’m just a writer/artist behind in my income taxes.

Also there’s that term “random chance” theory of creation. By definition doesn’t that imply there’s something to be random about?

Between the Hubble space telescope and the Hadron Collider, however, we may well be on our way to knowing some very big answers very soon. Even any day now. In the meantime, what I’m experiencing here in my own tiny laymen’s mind is less and less a discrepancy between science and religion and more and more a commonality. To wit:

RELIGION: Can’t explain the Universe, so call it God. SCIENCE: Can’t explain nothing, so call it physics.

Einstein, who knew a thing or two, said: Religion without science is blind; and Science without religion is crippled.”  I’ll leave you to chew on that for a moment.

Lest anyone think I’m being hard on science, let me say unequivocally that I bow to no man in my respect for Stephen Hawking. I’m also aware of the fact that if I had been born with an exceptionally brilliant brain only to find the other physical parts of me slowly dwindling away, I might be a tad cynical about the concept of a loving God…might also be of a mind to pursue science instead of religion and tell God to stuff it. In short, pursue complicated mathematical theorems that took my mind off my depressing physical state rather than sitting there paying homage to something that defies definition and reason yet has the gall to resign me to a wheelchair and a voice like a strangled duck.

Which brings us back to the equality of scientists and theologians: the similar degrees of passion with which they pursue their so-called “opposing” vocations. Along with their tendency to be blind to anything ambiguous or abstract. But can we really blame them? Whether scientist or Methodist, somewhere past the age of, say 55, you really don’t want someone walking up and telling you that the thing you’ve spent your lifetime chasing after is pure baloney. It’s withering. And here is where science may appear, at least, to have the upper hand. Math and science do work, at least within the limitations of our human brains. Nothing is more addictive than problem solving once you get the swing of it; sports and TV pale by comparison. You also, inevitably, reach a place where you are, well…smarter than most people around you. Which can lead to a sense of elitism, which can lead to envy in others. And we know how much the Bible hates that. Indeed, it isn’t just the constant new discoveries that science affords, it’s those times scientists, for all their laborious calculations, can’t quite make the math work, the logic and physics fit. Like a game of chess, the more probabilities, the more frustrating the solution. But it’s also a scientist’s salvation: they don’t have time to sit around and feel sorry for themselves, they’re way too busy being convinced they’re pursuing a higher calling. I don’t know the ratio of depression in scientists but I’d wager it’s less than that of dentists.  Dentists apparently have the corner on suicide. Don’t ask.

Religion, on the other hand, can appear to be the easy way out.

Can’t figure it out? —ask God. Life treating you badly? – trust in God. Terrified of death? --hang with The Big Guy. Sick of Congress? —well, let’s don’t get carried away here, some things even God can’t fix.

I’m also ignorant of the ratio of suicide/depression in theologians, though I’m guessing it’s pretty low unless, somewhere along the way, one experiences a crisis of faith. Interestingly, theologians and artists pursue the same abstract lines of thought. Yet mortality in artists is infamously high, as is alcoholism. The blank page can be a terrible thing to face every day. Also, art may be a vaunted commodity but it never healed anyone or found any new planets; it’s basically a lonely, self-involved, self-serving pursuit wholly without rules or borders (like the universe?). No rules, in fact, are among the highest principals of art. Like scientists, artists share the isolationism of being ahead of the average mind. But scientists, at least, can compare notes, mingle and argue the same basic theories. The singular artist, however, constantly alone in his mind, wrestling with a boundless world of pure abstract imagination in a galaxy of ego…well, we all know what happen to Van Gogh.

Conversely (there’s always a damn “conversely”) even the most hard-nosed, pragmatic scientist will admit that some of the greatest advances in their field have were made through lateral thinking and the use of pure imagination, even flights of fancy—things that cannot be calculated, tested, written down or pigeonholed. They spring, sometimes fully blown, from the art of taking the abstract and making it cohesive. So. If religion and art follow similar paths of intuitive thought, how can science be a science?

 In any case, none of this diminishes or lessens the impact of what seems to be a basic human need for God, the atavistic craving for some kind of divine spirit inhabiting all of us. The foxhole thing again. God is the Santa Claus of our adulthood. We’d all like to believe. As we’d all like to be handsome or rich. Which again—for me--draws parallels between religion and science and maybe explains why some scientists still cling to religion. Can even hard science—the vast majority of which is rampant with pure theory anyway—ever really be proven? Can the existence of a God ever truly be unproven? Believing in God is a little like believing in flying saucers: you can’t prove it one way or the other—which is why the fountain of all great religions is, of course, faith. In fact, the point of all religion. And science major or not, we all rely, to a lesser or greater degree, on faith. We have faith we’ll get that raise. We have faith our spouse won’t cheat on us. I have faith I’ll finish this sentence and live to see tomorrow; I certainly can’t prove it. Assuming is a big part of what allows us to get onto the next nanosecond of existence. Is anyone ever truly agnostic? Or bi-sexual?

Science or religion? Religion or science? Science and religion? -- where do you stand? There’s no questioning the human propensity for both: humans have a nascent desire for some form of security, but are at the same time boundlessly curious, ever testing security’s limits. Can science and religion be opposite sides of the same coin? Where, then, does that leave art?

On the other hand, as science itself suggests, is there really such a thing as existence at all in the common sense of the term? Do we—or does anything –truly “exist”, unless someone is there to observe it/us? Do our wives and children disappear as surely as the idea of God the moment our backs are turned? Scary stuff.

There is one last form of refuge, of course.

Philosophy. In which you need neither science nor religion nor art, though they’re not necessarily mutually exclusive.

Cogito ergo sum. “I think, therefore I am.”

When French philosopher Descartes examined his beliefs he found it is impossible to doubt that he existed. Even if there was a so-called “deceiving god,” one’s belief in his own existence would be secure, for how could one be deceived unless one existed in order to be deceived? How can something spring from nothing?

But even philosophy may not get us off the hook. Consider the nature of the step from Descartes “I am thinking” to “I exist.” The contention is that this is a syllogistic inference; it appears to require the extra premise: “Whatever has the property of thinking exists,” something good old Descartes failed to justify. The Danish philosopher Kierkegaard argues that Descartes already pre-supposes the existence of “I”, and therefore concluding with existence is logically trivial. Descartes is merely “developing the content of a concept”, namely that the “I”, which already exists, thinks. To Kierkegaard, the proper logical flow of argument is that existence is already assumed or presupposed in order for thinking to occur, not that existence is concluded from that thinking. Oh, well…not surprising, I suppose, considering how the French regard Jerry Lewis.

Philosophy does have a great edge here, though. There are lots of regions in mathematics but mainly two that concern modern science: Euclidian and quantum mechanics. But hell, you can be philosophical about damn near anything. On the other hand, maybe that’s not such a plus.

Philosophy, in its own way, can be as dizzying as mathematics. There are many levels but for our purposes we’ll stick to the most commonly warring factions: the dualists and idealists, who believe that minds are made up of non-physical substance usually referred to as consciousness, and the materialists, who hold that what we normally think of as mental substance is ultimately physical matter. I once watched a materialist attempt to explore certain regions of the human brain in an attempt to explain the soul. It was a hoot.

Gottfried Leibniz believed that the mental world was built up of monads, mental objects that are not part of physical world. Monism (any philosophical view which holds that there is unity in a given field of inquiry), may be theologically syncretic by proposing that there is one God who has many manifestation in the diverse religious traditions. Dualism (a state of two parts or co-eternal binary opposition—in science the dichotomy between the observer and the observed) denotes co-eternal binary opposition, a meaning preserved in metaphysical and philosophical duality but diluted in general or common usages. Pluralism (the doctrine of multiplicity and the opposition of both monism and dualism) holds that many basic substances make up reality, whereas monism believes existence to be a single substance—matter or mind—and dualism believes two substances, such as matter and mind, to be necessary.)

Philosophy, as mentioned, is not exactly a stranger to religion.  Some examples:

Buddhist philosophy, which is suspicious of ontology. The Buddha himself as well as his disciples discouraged ontological theorizing for its own sake. Pluralism and monism are speculative views, the former associated with nihilism and the latter similar to or associated with eternalism. In Buddhist philosophy, the ultimate nature of the world is described as emptiness, which is inseparable from sensorial objects or anything else. Zen teaches that “All is One and All is Different.” I’ve no idea what that doctrine means.

Christianity maintains the Creator-creature distinction as fundamental. God created the universe ex nihilo and not from Himself, nor within Himself. So don’t confuse the creator with creation. He transcends it (metaphysical dualism—see Genesis); God’s desire was for intimate contact with his own creation. Some believe Christian metaphysics are dualistic because they describe the Creator’s transcendence of creation but they also reject the idea that it is eternally struggling with other equal powers such as Satan. Augustine argued that evil is not the opposite of good, but rather the absence of good, something that itself does not have existence. C.S. Lewis described evil as a parasite, something that cannot exist without good to provide it with existence.

Judaism holds that God is held to be immanent within creation for two interrelated reasons: a very strong Jewish belief that the Divine life-force which brings the universe into existence must constantly be present. Were it to forsake the universe for even an instant, it would revert to a state of utter nothingness (oh dear, the word again!) as before creation. Secondly, Judaism holds as axiomatic that God is an absolute unity and that He is Perfectly Simple. If His sustaining power is within nature, then His essence is also within nature. Still with me?

Islamic belief holds that “To God belongs the East and the West. Wheresoever you look is the face of God.” The Qur’an provides a monist image of God by describing reality as a unified whole, with God being a single concept that would describe or ascribe all exiting things. “He is the First and the Last, the Outward and the Inward. He is the Knower of everything.

Baha’i teachings include a strong emphasis on social and ethical issues. There are a number of foundational texts that have been described as mystical. The Seven Valleys is considered Baha’u’llah’s “greatest mystical composition.” It was written to a follower of Sufism, in the style of ‘Attar, a Muslim poet, and sets forth the stages of the soul’s journey towards God. The Hidden Words, another of Baha’u’llah’s books, contains 153 short passages in which Baha’u’llah takes the basic essence of certain spiritual truth and writes them in brief form.  

When I was a young man in college, philosophy was the “in” thing. Anybody professing to attain true coolness could not graduate without at least a rudimentary course in philosophy. Halcyon days.

Alas, philosophy has slipped in stature from the public consciousness of late, or maybe more precisely been “eaten” by the scientific community. The “in” thing now is to develop new theories to describe what the universe is rather than to ask why. Today’s philosophers have a pretty rough time keeping up with the advances in scientific theories. Indeed, science has become so mathematically and technically confounding hardly anyone but a specialist can hope to grasp it. Wittgenstein, the most famous philosopher of the century, finally admitted “The sole remaining task for philosophy is the analysis of language.” Yipe! What would Aristotle have thought?

As a kid, I went to church every Sunday, without fail. Or rather my mother made me. Ten o’clock services coincided with The Adventures of Superman on TV so you can guess where my loyalties lay. But religion, like philosophy, began to fade from the American Dream in the Sixties for my parents and most Americans. Some of this may have been the increase in mixed marriages and thus couple’s early exposure; Judaism has been particularly hard hit on the ascetic level and race-wise, and thanks to American and Japanese tourism, we’ve all but managed to wipe out the true Hawaiians. But all in all, by mid-century, the nation simply seemed to become a more secular place. I’m not sure anyone knows the real answer, though I have my personal suspicions. It probably began sometime around the assassination of President Kennedy in 1963, then got a big boost with the April 8, 1966 cover of Time magazine asking in bold red letters against a stark black background (the only time in history the periodical has ever had a non-image cover) “Is God Dead?” This was the brain-child of editor Otto Fuerbringer, who caught a lot of heat from readers and clergymen and also sold a lot of copies, even though the article itself, “Toward a Hidden God” only briefly mentioned the so-called “God Is Dead” movement. The thrust of the issue was the supposed problems facing modern theologians in making God relevant to an increasingly secular society. Science, it was felt, had all but eliminated the need for religion to explain the natural world; God simply took up less and less time in people’s daily lives. Various scholars were brought in and included the application of contemporary philosophy to the field of theology and a more “personalized” and individualistic approach to religion. In truth the magazine’s cover alone was probably the major cause of all the ruckus. In 2008, the Los Angeles Times named the issue among “10 magazine covers that shook the world.” Not to be outdone, second stringer Newsweek as late as 2009 ran an almost exact clone of the Time cover graphics announcing “The Decline and Fall of Christian America.” Better late than never, I guess.

In any case, what Time didn’t perhaps begin, the murder of Robert Kennedy and Dr. King combined with the nation-ripping war in Vietnam and President Nixon’s outsing eventually helped end. Disillusionment stalked the land. Religion may have remained a number of things, but hip wasn’t one of them.

In the end perhaps philosophy wins out. There either is or isn’t a God, but only those already dead know the answer. Or do they?

Wouldn’t it be just devilishly awful if, in fact, there is indeed a God who watches over us all now and takes care of us in his golden kingdom afterwards, but you can only get there if you believe? Otherwise, it’s the black nothingness of an empty cosmos for your sad ass.

On the other hand, obliteration may have its finer points: what we can’t be conscious for or comprehend can’t hurt us. And do we really want to meet up again with Aunt Tessie and Uncle Gus? When his local clergyman visited W. C. Fields on his death bed, the priest was amazed to find Fields reading the Bible. “What on Earth are you doing!” the priest declared. “Looking for loopholes!”  Fields replied.

Maybe there are some. It’s like the time the little boy asked his own reverend if there was really a Hell. “We know there is a Hell,” the good reverend replied, “because the Bible tells us so. But as God is all-forgiving, there’s probably no one in it.”

Why does my mind keep trying to form an analogy here with the recent debacle in Congress over the debt limit? Two factions, supposedly united under the same cause, behaving like selfish, self-serving children…whose biggest responsibility was only the entire nation—no, let’s face it, the entire world.

There’s a terrific little Stanley Kramer film starring Spencer Tracy called Inherit the Wind worth your attention. It’s a parable based on the play by Jerome Lawrence and Robert Lee, a fictionalized account of the Scope “Monkey” trials of 1925. The play was conceived as a response to the hysterics of 1950’s McCarthyism--a trait it shares with another film, High Noon—and is critical of creationism. Tracy plays defense council Henry Drummond (patterned after real life Clarence Darrow), Frederic March prosecutor Matthew Harrison (real life William Jennings Bryan).  Gene Kelly plays E. K. Hornbeck (Henry Mencken) of the Baltimore Herald, who has personally seen to it that Drummond comes to town to represent the teacher in the case, Hornbeck’s newspaper and radio network providing nationwide coverage of a minor legal matter that would soon became a national sensation. All the stars’ parts are marvelous and the movie is packed with terrific scenes, especially when Drummond--backed into a corner by judge and jury--is forced to put Brady himself on the witness stand. Brady wins the trial but Tracy as Drummond wins the day by driving home the point that teacher Cates, like anyone else, demands the right to think for himself and teach science over creationism if he wishes.

For me, the best part of the film comes at the denouement when Tracy and Kelly are alone in the courtroom after the trial. A self-professed elitist and cynic (and presumably atheist) Kelly regales Tracy for showing March for the pious buffoon he is, and congratulates Tracy, who he feels is the true winner. The voice of reason throughout the film, Kelly (and we) are surprised when Tracy admonishes the newspaper man and actually defends the pious March. “He was a great man in his day,” Tracy says, “until he began to look for God too high up and too far away.” Kelly is shocked to find there might be any kind of religious streak in the science-minded Tracy, who has just fought a long trial decrying creationism. But Tracy only shakes his head sadly at Kelly. “What the hell are you?” he asks Kelly. “You don’t believe in anyone or anything, care about anyone or anything but yourself. And when you die, you’ll be all alone with your cynicism and disbelief, no friend or relative or anyone to come to your funeral.”

A sobered Kelly looks initially thoughtful for a moment-- but finally smiles back at Tracy. “No,” he replies, “you’ll be there-- defending my right to be alone.”

Kelly leaves and Tracy is alone to pack up. On the desk before him are the two books that formed the basis of the trial: Darwin’s Origin of the Species and the Holy Bible.  Tracy picks up the two books, one in either hand.

As a fifteen year old, comprehending most of what I just saw, I waited on the edge of my seat hardly breathing, waiting to see which book Tracy would take home with him. I mean, Spencer Tracy!--our greatest actor and everybody’s surrogate father; he even looked a little like the way I imagined God would.

Tracy looks at both books in his hands a moment, finally smiles, slaps the two books together under his arm, and walks out of the courtroom.

 

END OF AN ERA?

No, I’m not talking about the Harry Potter franchise, though I’m sure a lot more people are concerned (or at least aware) of that ephemeral phe-nom than the far more reaching one at hand.

And I’m not talking about (Christ, I hope I’m not!) the Aug 3^rd deadline the President and Congress have given themselves--and the economy of the world—to prevent the entire planet from falling apart financially, although I suppose that takes precedence over just about everything else.

As I write this (Sunday 11:52 PT) we shall all know by 5. p.m. today whether the country’s 2^nd largest bookseller is still a viable entity or, like one of its most famous products, gone with the wind.

The company, Borders Books, which has been with us and a big part of my life since 1971, was close to approval on an agreed upon deal with Najafi Cos. for $215 million and an assumption of $220 million in debt in bankruptcy proceedings for some time now. But the deal seems to have gone south. The Ann Arbor based bookseller faced objection to the agreed upon Najafi as creditors, siting that Najafi could merely buy assets and liquidate Border Books. Creditors warmed to another bid from liquidators Hilco Merchant Resources and Gordon Brothers, feeling it was a stronger move; apparently it involved more cash than the offer from Najafi. Creditors had banked on Najafi submitting a higher counter bid, but none has been forthcoming; Najafi is standing tough. And as a result, Borders could be through for good. Not just the cutting back of another 200 stores as it did earlier this year when filing for bankruptcy, but through…gone, zip, nada. Borders claims it will accept bids until 5p.m. today but there is a strong general feeling that in the end—of a true era—it will close its remaining 400 doors next week.

So what do you care, Bruce? you’re saying--you’ve been flogging your own digital books on this blog for months now.  Well, a few of you are saying that; most of you surely have seen the writing on the wall for some time now: hardcover book sales are falling, digital books and ereaders are climbing, and with even Barnes and Noble searching around for a buyer, it’s pretty obvious the brick and mortar stores, with the possible exception of the big boxers like Walmart, etc., are a thing of the past. At least book-wise.

I suppose it was inevitable.

Like the price of gas and global warming and a fun little thing called the San Diego Comic Con, which went from a one room operation in the 70’s for comic book sellers and buyers, to a leviathan of mostly movie-related commerce and elbow-pushing greed by the beginning of this century. Like the death of the LP, the eight track, the CD (and mostly) the DVD… in favor of the Great God Streaming.

It makes sense, even if—perhaps in a nostalgic sort of way—it depresses some of us. Netflix may have pissed off a lot of customers when it raised its prices recently, but you really can’t blame them from trying to get out from under the smothering postal system and join the streaming future. It’s the best of times, it’s the worst of times. Technology is an ever-changing marvel that keeps us communicating in ways never dreamed of, adds tons to our convenience even while purchasing prices of its myriad gadgets drop. Technology in in. It even saves lives. It’s what will get us to Mars. Technology is soaring! Even if we all are out of work. And broke. And scared. Some of us homeless and really scared.

But we tighten our belts and solider on, right? Yeah, that’s why as soon as our old cell phone or computer or MP3 player breaks we throw it away and buy the new more expensive one. Always got money for that! Why? Because…we are mad. Even while inching toward the real Depression our penny-pinching, tight-ass, frugal ole parents and grandparents all warned us about.

But all good things come to an end, as someone very wise or very obvious once observed. Strange I’ve never heard the counterphrase: “All Bad Things Come to an End.”  And I suppose I can (like I have a choice!) live with the ever-changing gotta-have-the- newest-tech-toy mentality. Apple doesn’t make us buy this shit, you know.

But I, for one, shall miss bookstores.

I’ve haunted them all my life, grew up with them, saw them go from grubby little strange-smelling mom and pop operations to the glory of mammoth, unending cyclopean football fields  of real, tangible books—all shapes, all sizes-- where you could virtually browse away an entire afternoon and have some pretty decent coffee in the interim. Hell, you were even encouraged to sit down and read for free, despite the clear eventuality of some coffee being spilt on some pages. And let’s not even get into the lavish art books! All in one place. I remember my first Waldenbooks: it was like: they finally got it right! Book lovers heaven! Oh sure, for the more esoteric stuff you still had to haunt the dingy privately owned outlets or drop into a Half Price store now and again, but all in all it was manna from heaven. And—for me—Borders was the manniest.

Something stuffy and off-putting about Barnes and Noble, I could never put my finger on it. The layout, the snotty escalators, the stern-looking staff, the completely lame-ass magazine section, the feeling that, okay the chairs are there, but we’d really prefer you bought the damn thing and moved on, this ain’t a friggin’ library y’know! Barnes and Noble was your English teacher; Borders was the kid you lit cherry bombs with. Their CEO, unfortunately, was wayyy out to lunch. No Kindle-like ereader? C’mon, you’re not even trying to move ahead!

But I shall miss it. More than most things.

But then, I miss the San Diego of the 1980’s before The Gas Lamp Quarter closed down all the tattoo parlors and you could drive anywhere at any time of day with little traffic-- and even if housing was overpriced you could certainly rent nearly anywhere—‘cept maybe La Jolla. I miss Christmas. Let’s don’t get into that one. I miss having fewer TV channel choices for free. I miss summer movies for grownup before JAWS turned the season into blockbuster time—though in comparison to current offerings, JAWS now looks like a work of popcorn genius. I miss having a global enemy that could blow your own country off the face of the Earth but was at least reasonably sane! I miss driving. Just about everywhere.

But that hardcover book, that I will miss most. The way it felt in my hands, the heft…the smell of the fresh cracked page, like that new car smell only farrrr cheaper. The dust jackets—oh, yeah, the dust jackets—will miss them a lot! The knowledge that even though clearly mass produced, your personal copy was somehow just an nth distinct from all others. The way they looked lined up on a shelf. A warm look.  An intelligent look. A friendly, stroll over and grab one down look. Maybe there was that mustard stain on page 38, but it was your mustard stain. And lend them? Not on your life. These weren’t pieces of disposable property to bandy about, these were old friends. In many ways more dependable than the live ones. Yes, we had to box them, yes, we had to haul them, mile after mile, state after state. But no matter how strangely unlived-in each new house or apartment felt at first, the old familiar books helped make them quickly and reassuringly comfortable.

Perhaps most of all, especially if you didn’t take care of them, books aged…just like you did. Yet there was something comforting in the knowledge they’d outlive you, preserving your invisible fingerprints, invisible aura long after you’d departed. Even the paperbacks. They weren’t merely a commodity, they were—or could be when done well—an art form.

And now, like much of my hair and most of my jawline, they’re disappearing.

Okay, this is getting maudlin. It’s just paper, right? Quit sounding so goddamn acquisitive, Jones. Take a walk. On the beach. Soon as the 405 reopens…

Because the IMPORTANT thing is the writing itself! Not the silly-ass delivery system? Right? Right?

Of course.

Still…

…that Borders Iced Chai…

SOMETHING WAITS NOW AVAILABLE IN KINDLE FORMAT!

 

My new collection of short stories, SOMETHING WAITS, is now available on Amazon.com in Kindle format. If you don’t own a Kindle you can get the app for your PC, iPhone, iPad, Sylvania TV with Halo-Lite, whatever. Soon to be available on iBooks as well.

Except—

--it isn’t really my book. It’s YOUR book. You made it happen by your terrific response to the “pre-release” of some of the stories on my blog, and for the faithful purchasing of my other ebooks, THE DEADENDERS, SHIMMER and THE TARN. And for that I thank you from the bottom of my cuffs. Give yourselves a big hand!

I do hope you enjoy all the stories collected in SOMETHING WAITS…there’s quite a few more where those came from. In the meantime, there’s more Jones coming your way this summer in the form of a very special project even I am sworn to secrecy about…but I’ll reveal this much: it’s a concept totally unlike anything seen before and may just be the ultimate summer read!

Again, my heartfelt thanks for your continued support of my efforts!

Happy Nightmares! 

 

 

http://www.amazon.com/SOMETHING-WAITS-ebook/dp/B0056IC0XG/ref=sr_1_1?s=digita...

 

FREE SHORT STORY—“MEMBERS ONLY”

I’ve talked with my wife and my psychiatrist and my dog and they’ve agreed I should indeed release these stories in book form—or ebook form--all together in one nifty package. The book will be entitled: Something Waits. It should be up and running on Amazon within a week or so. Meanwhile, here is your final freebie from that much larger collection.

For those keeping track of such things, this story--the last one I’m formatting for Something Waits--was also the last one to appear in the original 1987 Twisted Tales trade paperback. It’s only the second time the story has seen print and wasn’t originally intended for that first collection. Back then, going over the material for Twisted Tales, I decided a couple of pieces might not be palatable to 1980’s reader’s tastes, some being derived from hairy chested men’s magazines of the decade before, a little raw around the edges for a family-oriented publishing house like Blackthorne. That none of them feels that way now is, I suppose, a sign of the times. But removing those stories, I felt, made that first collection slightly wanting in word count. It needed one more tale to fatten up the book. So I sat down in 1987 just before publication and penned (in long hand in those days) a story I’d been meaning to get to for ages. And that’s the one that follows.

As stated, many of the stories for this present iteration were taken (and refurbished in some cases) from the above mentioned Twisted Tales--but not all. Some that appeared in the old collection were left out of this new collection because I wanted the new book to lean most heavily toward my mystery/horror yarns (with the exception of Pride of the Fleet, I guess). In their place I’ve included some new stories—to my mind—some of my best.

Over the years I’ve gotten a lot of kind requests from fans to reprint the Twisted Tales short story collection in its original form. I often seriously considered it. That volume is long out of print and had a somewhat limited run to begin with. Some out there weren’t even aware of the stories, then or now. But after a time I realized their relative scarcity—including the terrific Richard Corben illustrations inside—lent a kind of nostalgic mystique to that first collection I hated to tarnish. Some people actually collect my stuff and might not be thrilled with the idea of making it readily available again.  

Also, I was never very thrilled with the ongoing confusion generated by Twisted Tales the prose short story collection, and Twisted Tales the comic books. They had little to do with each other except having been authored by the same writer, but the identical titles sometimes caused trouble. EBay hopefuls sometimes purchased a book of short stories while expecting a stack of comics—and vice versa. To eliminate the problem this time out, I updated not only the stories themselves but the title as well. Adding the new tales to this latest collection further distances the two editions and offer a nice bonus to you faithful readers of this blog.

So, what you will hold in your hands (or Kindle, or Nook) with Something Waits is not a clone of Twisted Tales. Several stories from that now rare collection not included here are: Roomers, Jessie’s Friend, Black Death, etc. If you want to read those nightmares, you’ll need to dig up a battered copy of Twisted Tales online or at Half Price Books.  Or, if this volume proves popular, wait until they’re included in yet another compendium of my early New York scribblings.

Meanwhile, here’s one more freebie. Then if you crave more Jones, buy the very reasonably priced Something Waits on Amazon. And you won’t offend me in the least if you download copies of my novels like The Deadenders or Shimmer  or The Tarn while you’re there. Send one to a friend, they make dandy Christmas presents or…funeral tokens, or something:  the gifts that keep on giving. Not unlike those to be found in private little clubs like the one below, that caters somewhat exclusively to

 

                                                            MEMBERS ONLY 

                                                              ______________________

                                                                    Bruce Jones

 

Mr. Conway had passed the little shop a thousand times without once thinking about it.

This does not mean he wasn’t aware of it. He was. He didn’t, in fact, much like it. But he didn’t think about it, didn’t dwell on it, because cold weather was cold weather and restless nights were restless nights and little porno shops at Central and Sixth were whatever in heaven’s name they were supposed to be and there was nothing much you could do about such things. Something about freedom of the press, Mr. Conway supposed.

So he ignored the freezing Chicago winters, suffered though the acid indigestion that too many bottles of Sominex can provide, and drove airily past the dun colored little porno shop. Every day. On his way to work.

Except today.

Today he pulled before the red street light that shared the corner with the dingy little shop as usual. Glanced casually askance at the shop’s front and the clumsy attempts at rhetorical seduction (Beaver Books! Nudes! Must be 17!) and snorted self-sanctification. What was the world coming to? Turned back in disgust to appraise the red light—now turning green—he  depressed the pedal and shot away. About two yards. After which the car stalled a moment, then quietly died.

“Oh for God—“  Mr. Conway twisted the silvery ignition key again. Nothing. He twisted it three more times, imploring nonexistent vehicle deities, twisted some more, cursed nonexistent vehicle deities, cursed the guy behind him leaning on his horn obnoxiously, finally flopped back impotently behind the wheel in resigned defeat. The street light turned red again. The guy behind him kept leaning on his horn. Mr. Conway twisted at the stupid key again, banged his knuckles furiously against the wheel, finally rolled down his window to Arctic winds and signaled the jerk behind him around with a freezing arm. Retrieved his cell phone from his expensive Armani overcoat and punched in The Auto Club. Noticed the little screen was blinking up apologetically at him: BATTERY NEEDS CHARGING.

Well, he was going to be late for work, that was obvious.

Not, he supposed, that it mattered a great deal. He’d hand trained his hand-picked staff to practically run the place without him. Wasn’t he, after all, the boss? Didn’t he own the most successful advertising agency in Chicago? Didn’t he still gross millions annually while the rest of the country wallowed in recession? Damn right he did.

So a little stalled Boxter problem on a Wednesday morning of a slow work financial week was, in the scheme of things, hardly a crisis. He’d simply have to find a phone somewhere, call the Auto Club. Be on his way again before lunch. Meanwhile, Stan, his partner and right hand, could watch the store. Run the store if it came to that. Stan was a miracle. Stan was the greatest sales representative Mr. Conway had ever seen—ever hired. That was six years ago this month. In the interim months of remarkable growth, Stan had gotten out there in the field, dazzled and tap danced and secured clients like crazy, furnishing Conway and Associates with some of its highest paying accounts. Microsoft? Was it really true their company represented Microsoft now? Damn right it was. And wunderkind Stan Waterman was largely responsible.  Had they made the cover of both Fortune and Time in the same week? Damn right they had, while continuing, in these economically challenged times, to run roughshod over the competition. Which is why Conway and Associates had gladly altered the logo on its company stationary to Conway and Waterman Associates, simultaneously cementing not only a new family member but a new family of blue chip accounts and Dow Jones averages. Oh, C. J. Conway knew how to pick ‘em, all right, where to find ‘em. Instinct,  that was the answer. Like his father before him. He could find talent. He could find a panther eating licorice in a coal bin at midnight, as they laughed with him and patted his back at company parties. He could find anything.

But he couldn’t find a phone.

Not anywhere on the entire rundown, disheveled, freezing-ass block. Maybe because most of the block was boarded up or vanished under the wrecking ball. There was the greasy little Mexican grill way down on the corner; they had a phone, one of those old fashioned wall jobs with a rotary dial that was quaint as hell but kept spitting his quarters back indignantly.

Two blocks he wandered through the slush and cold and still could not locate a phone. A pizza parlor he tried had one, but not for customer;, a dry cleaner had one but the phone company had shut them down, business was bad. A Chinese restaurant certainly had one but they didn’t speak a word of English no matter how insistent his gestures.

He wandered on through high drifts and crusted slush until his new $250.00 shoes were wet, his toes calcified and he was right back where he started beside his inert Boxter, which now had a ticket under the front wiper. He’d tried every store and shop in a three block radius. Except one.

Funny thing was, he’d never been in one.

No, wait, there was that time in the 70’s when Izzy Bickford and he had gotten faced in school and stumbled into that little joint south of Bridgeport, what was the name of that joint? Anyway, he’d been too out of it to remember much about the experience. And now…well, now what was the point? Any twelve year old kid with access to a computer could download more pink, slippery flesh and heaving chests than all the remaining little walk-in sex stores in North America put together. What was surprising was that the dun little shop was still here at all, even on this rundown street. It couldn’t even lay claim to being shabby chic anymore. By its sheer ubiquitous presence, porno had become sooo last year. That a specialty shop like this one could even exist was more eye-opening than anything within its grimy little walls. To say nothing of being an outdated eyesore to the community. Certainly not a place for a successful, well-known CEO like himself; there were certain standards to which he must adhere. Being caught in this dump wouldn’t be considered embarrassing; it would be considered feeble-minded. The place was an anachronism.

So, naturally, they had a phone. 

“Sure, mister, help yourself! On the wall over there!”

The man behind the scarred counter was grinning, for no reason apparent, like a Cheshire cat. Neanderthal.

Mr. Conway regarded the hand-worn receiver of the old black rotary phone with a jaundiced eye; probably swimming with herpes viruses in a hole like this. Christ, what a way to start the week.

But it worked. The filthy thing worked and the Auto Club would be glad to come out and peek at his car. Only thing was, everyone in the Windy City was having car troubles today in this inclement weather, it might take them a little while. Like two hours, actually.

Fine. Great. He couldn’t go back to his car because the heater wouldn’t run. He couldn’t hang around the Chinese or Mexican places because it had begun to snow again and his feet were already freezing. He was going to have to stand around this little snatch-happy hellhole surrounded by rack upon rack of coagulated flesh and engorged orifices. It was that or call Stan at the office and Stan was always working a client at lunch hour. He could try a cab, but then he wouldn’t be around when the Auto Club finally got there.

He looked up quickly as the shop door dinged and a woman in her twenties breezed in. A woman! In this clit pit! And she was actually scanning the merchandise! Mr. Conway couldn’t believe it. It was…it was…

…it was embarrassing. May as well admit it. Passé or not, porn could still be embarrassing, still had that going for it. Good for you, he thought, turning his back on the woman and pulling up his collar, power to the peter! He headed for the door.

It only took one short blast of cutting, icy wind.

In a moment, he was back inside the stuffy little shop, back to the embarrassing woman, back to staring out miserably at the blowing snow and struggling traffic. He dug his hands in his coat pockets, leaned hunched up against the jamb, and wiggled his toes, trying to reclaim some circulation there. Okay, fine. He’d stay right here in the doorway! He still had his brain! He could work anywhere! He could work on the Brewster account in his head, lay out the whole campaign! Filth and embarrassing lady at his back, clean white flakes at his front.

Except he didn’t want to think about the Brewster account. It was…messy business, the Brewster account. Something he’d been putting off now for some time. They kept phoning the office, lauding him to the skies, assuring him that Conway and Waterman was the only advertising firm they’d even consider trusting their very special needs with. And he kept putting them off. Stalling for time. Pleading over-commitment.

Not so in the beginning. When he’d first heard of the Brewster thing, he’d done backflips, lifted his wife in the air and regaled her about how it was the greatest thing since sliced bread. Brewster Foods was a major breakfast cereal company with a small wing in the bakery goods arena. While hardly competitive with the likes of General Mills, they did well enough regionally and were even considering expanding their confectionary market. But that was the least of it. Some egghead lab genius who had never contributed much before beyond a new way to thicken malt had come up with this ‘safe cigarette’ brainchild. It was a product made entirely of natural ingredients! And, most importantly, it really tasted like a cigarette! Yet it was tar and nicotine free! The thing even contained properties that were good for you for chrissake! It only needed a sophisticated, trendy ad campaign of the kind Conway and Waterman Associates were famous for.

“A thing like this,” he’d told his wife ecstatically, “could put us ahead of Young and Rubicam! It could take off like a rocket, cover the globe in a matter of weeks! We could retire on the first year’s profits alone!” And he’d landed the account himself, all by his lonesome, hadn’t even told Stan about it, let alone the staff. He wanted to wait until it was sewn up, then spring the surprise.

Sounded so good. Until that dark (very dark) night when he was seated alone before the bedroom hearth, toasting the crackling flames with a glass of his best champagne, and his cell phone had burred beside him. And a low, whispery voice that could not be recognized and would not be recognized said the words that made all that expensive champagne go sour in Mr. Conway’s mouth. “The safe cigarette is death.” Click

That was all. But that was enough. Enough to prompt Mr. Conway to break every rule in the book and have one of the precious ‘safe cigarette’ highly guarded prototypes spirited away from Brewster Labs and into the hands of a college buddy and corporate chemist. Where it was analyzed from one nicotine-free millimeter to the next. And yes, it proved to indeed be tar-free and carbon-monoxide free, and yes, it was composed almost entirely of natural food products that would harm not a hair on anyone’s head. Until you lit it. Then, you had, oh…a seventy/thirty chance of contracting irreversible lung and heart damage within six years.

And it had been such an expensive bottle of champagne.

So now he was trapped: either keep his mouth shut and sign with Brewster for the campaign—thus exposing millions of innocent smokers to a probable and lingering death and his soul to perdition’s flames—or say no to Brewster and watch about a billion bucks fall into someone else’s less moral advertising lap. I may be a so-called advertising Czar, Mr. Conway reminded himself, but I’m not a man completely without principle.

He blinked out at the snow. Well, this was getting him nowhere. Take the plunge or cut bait. This damn Brewster thing was giving him acid indigestion. Maybe a heart attack at his age. The doctor had warned him…

He watched absently as a cement truck ground its way through the traffic. Carrying foundation cement to some suburban mall site, no doubt, some glass enclosed, temperature controlled, antiseptically designed marvel that would soon fill up with yet more Starbucks, yet more Gameco’s, restaurants, department store anchors. Some of which owed their success to one or more TV spots Conway and Waterman had created. Great country, America. Make a smart man rich. Halleluiah.

Mr. Conway consulted his watch. Still a minimum of an hour and a half before the Auto Club worked him into their schedule. He leaned back against the weathered door jamb and closed his eyes. I feel very old just now, he thought, very tired…

It wasn’t always so. Those early years before Stan Waterman joined the company, for instance--years when Mr. Conway had drummed up all the clients himself, run all the paper work, hell, even swept the damn office. Lots of waiting around in doorway then too, hopeful waiting, in doorways and austere little foyers on hard plastic seats. Lots of long, unending hours, nights away from home in crummy hotels. He found himself grinning remembering it. He and Althea had only just met, two kids fresh from school, full of ambition, piss and vinegar. Working hard and spending every spare second together. He grinned wider, recalling Althea when her hair was long, free of gray, remembering  the two of them overlooking the twinkling Chicago lake… the back seat of his old Dodge, its window steamed opaque. It may not have been much of a car, much of an apartment, but how they’d made love in those days…how they’d made love…

He snapped from reverie, looked down at his watch again. Still over an hour to go.

All right, he’d fought it long enough. He hadn’t built one of the most successful ad agencies in the country by standing around doing nothing. He had a curiosity like anyone else—better than most. If there was nothing but this seedy little porno shop to appraise then he’d by God appraise it! You can learn from anything; his dad had taught him that. To hell with public image: he was stuck here and he had to stretch his legs, get that damn Brewster thing off his mind! He turned in the doorway and faced the dark little orifice. Snorted a silent laugh. What an apropos metaphor: ‘dark little orifice.’

The man behind the counter looked up from his copy of Reader’s Digest. “Need to make another call?”

Was that sarcasm in his voice? Did other patrons use the phone as an excuse to come in here, peruse the pink-fleshed pamphlets and sticky-paged smut?

“Just…browsing,” Mr. Conway muttered.

“Help yourself.”

And he did. Up and down the aisles, over and around the racks. And, while there was actually a modicum of variation in this athletic coupling, even a distinguishable categorizing of preferences and practices, it all became pretty redundant after a while. Pretty predictable. And in the end, pretty “—boring.”

“How’s that?” from the counter man.

Mr. Conway looked up in surprise, unaware he’d spoken aloud. “Nothing. Talking to myself.”

But the counter man had heard. “Bored, you say? Seen the retro peep shows in the back? Only a quarter.”

Peep shows?

And now he saw it, the little curtained doorway against the back wall and the hand lettered sign nailed above it: ADULT MOVIES 25 CENTS! Retro, indeed, at that price!

His hand dipped involuntarily into his tailored slacks, fondled the change there. Yes, he had a quarter or two…

What the hell. He nodded rueful thanks at the counter man and pushed through the threadbare curtain.

It was even worse in here, this narrow hallway with the red painted doors and the red colored bulbs stationed above them. It was dark and dank and smelled like urine and something else. All the doors were closed. But only some of the bulbs above them were lit. Presumably a lit bulb meant an occupied room. He stood there in the narrow, plank wood aisle between the rows of doors under the hellish red glow of the bulbs and felt like an idiot. Worse: a pervert. He needed to get out of here.

But he’d come this far…

He selected an unlit door—number 14—sighed admonishment at himself and entered. There were no interior lights and in the musky tightness he could only just make out the length of wooden bench at the opposite end of a short cubicle, on which he was, presumably, to sit. He closed the door behind him, stepped gingerly across the sticky floor and parked himself philosophically on the bench, back to the wall. He was now facing the inside of the door across from him. Now what? Darkness pressed against him. To whom did he give his quarter? His pupil receding, he glimpsed a glowing swatch of chrome to his immediate right: a coin box. It was the old diner-style table juke box idea. He fingered the metallic surface, searching in braille for a friendly slot, found one, and sacrificed his quarter. He had a sudden almost amusing thought: one-millionth part of the vast Microsoft account allotted to watching dirty movies; please enter that into accounting, Miss Linquist.

The coin rattled, clinked; a distant whirring filled the cubicle, followed by a yellow shaft of light stabbing above his head. An incredibly freckled young woman appeared on the back of the door. No, she wasn’t freckled, it was the watermarks and stains on the worn, endlessly run 8mm film loop.

The woman was seated at an old wooden desk, poring over a stack of papers. There was a strategically positioned American flag beside the desk but other than that only a blank, curtained background…so it took him a moment to realize this was supposed to represent a school setting, a teacher at her desk. A man in his mid-twenties wearing a high school sweater entered frame right. He approached the desk and handed the young teacher his test paper. The young teacher appraised it, looked appalled, slashed a red pen across it and soundlessly reprimanded the ‘student’ with over-theatrical gestures. The young man hung his head. The picture jumped a splice—blurred, composed itself again. Now the young man was turning about before the desk, the teacher ordering him to lower his trousers. When he did, the mortified teacher picked up a short ruler and addressed the young man’s backside. She lifted the ruler. The images flickered a moment and went black. End of show.

Mr. Conway blinked in darkness. Was he really supposed to waste another quarter on this? He consulted the luminous dial of his thinly sleek Movada: still at least an hour before Auto Club Time. Yes, he’d waste another quarter.

Rattle, click, whir.

The young man was punished as predicted. Then, for reasons not immediately clear, was ordered by the teacher to turn around and be rewarded. The teacher knelt, covered her mouth with dismay and delight at what loomed before her. She shook her finger at the naughty thing and scolded it, as if it possessed an intelligence separate from the young man’s. Then she put down her ruler, leaned forward and addressed the young man’s front side. The film flickered and went dark. Mr. Conway was out of both quarters and patience. He heaved himself from the wooden bench, crossed the sticky floor and pushed dismissively at the red-painted door, the bulb above it winking out appropriately.

A furtive figure with waxy, wary features and a long topcoat was waiting in the narrow hallway impatiently a few doors down. He was rocking on the balls of his feet, humming incoherently to himself and nodding his head anxiously. Mr. Conway stepped past, gave the man a wide berth. The man on rocking and nodding at no one until Mr. Conway had moved further down the aisle--then darted through door 14. The red bulb winked on and, for all Mr. Conway knew, the man was nodding and rocking still inside the little cubicle at the teacher and her ruler. Rattle, click, whir.

Mr. Conway sighed and pushed through the worn curtain in comparative brightness. Back in the racks and magazines and pamphlets and glass cases with various colors and lengths of rubbery “marital aids.” He stood about a moment, first on one foot, then the other. There was nothing else to see now, he’d seen it all. The man at the counter looked up from his Reader’s Digest smiling. “More quarters?”

Mr. Conway rolled his eyes. “No thank you.”

He turned toward the shop door and the promise of freezing blasts, when he happened to notice for the first time another door in the shop. It stood in a small shadowed alcove to the right of the cashier counter. Another hand lettered sign adorned it: MEMBERS ONLY. The door was closed.

Mr. Conway paused. “What’s that?” he gestured.

The man behind the counter grinned companionably. “What’s what?”

Mr. Conway pointed. “That door to the right of you.”

The man behind the counter didn’t look and didn’t stop grinning. “Oh, that. That’s for members only.”

Mr. Conway closed his eyes a moment, summoned patience quietly, opened them again. “I can see that. What’s it for?”

The counter man’s grin seemed frozen in place. “Oh, you wouldn’t be interested in that.”

Indeed.

“Perhaps I would,” Mr. Conway informed him, then added an indifferent shrug to underscore the perhaps.

Still grinning, the counter man shook his head. “Naw, I don’t think so.”

This was absurd. Ridiculous. Screw this jerk.

Mr. Conway marched to the door, hauled it open, already squinting anticipation at the expected blast.

“Come back and see us, now!” from the counter.

The frigid blast came but with less intensity. The sun was out, the sky beginning to blue. The Auto Club man was waiting for him at the curb. “Got over sooner than we thought!”

Mr. Conway didn’t bother concealing his relief.

The Auto Club man looked past Mr. Conway at the winking neon of the dun colored little shop; then he looked back at Mr. Conway. Now the Auto Club was grinning…not unlike the man behind the counter. Mr. Conway rolled his eyes.

* * *

Back at the office he sat in his private oak paneled sanctum at his burled wood desk and stared out the window at the city below.

It was about all he did these days. The staff had grown large and capable and the business nearly ran itself under Stan Waterman’s masterful hand. And that was fine. That was what success was all about, right? Wasn’t he, after all, the boss? Didn’t he own the most successful advertising company in Chicago? Didn’t he gross millions annually? Damn right he did.

So what if things got a tad tedious now and then? That was the price of success. Everything had its price, he supposed, even success.

Too bad Stan wasn’t around today, though. He missed Stan sometimes, missed his lousy office jokes cribbed the previous night from Jay Leno Show. They used to take lunch together all the time in the old days, or sit around Stan’s office spit-balling little local accounts sometimes just for the sheer hell of it. Small time stuff.  Fun stuff. That little hardware store client had been fun, talking the ego-driven store owner into appearing in his own TV spot for “audience recognition.” Right. You couldn’t even understand the moron when he did remember his lines. But, of course, using the owner saved them the money of hiring real talent. They’d laughed about it for weeks.

There were no more little accounts now. Stan was always gone in the afternoons, schmoozing some hot client across town or across the country, putting together the next boffo presentation. Stan was a genius. And a good friend. They’d been so excited that day—long ago now—when he’d landed their first major account: Pillsbury. They partied all weekend with the wives. Funny. In some ways it had been more exciting coming in to work when they were poor and struggling, when the whole thing was a game. “We’ll keep doing it until it’s not fun anymore!” Stan had laughed.

At home, later, Mr. Conway sat in front of the TV.

It was about all he did with his evenings these days. Althea was out and about at one of her meetings. Noon time and evenings, out at her meetings. What were they? —fundraisers or something, a chance for her to mingle with the beautiful people, get half lit. Another price of success: lose your wife to the bright lights, big city. Seemed like they hardly spoke anymore. Seemed like they hardly saw each other anymore. Certainly never made love anymore.

Well, they were older, that was to be expected. People don’t make whoopie as often once the kids had grown and gone off to college, off to their own lives. The parents settled into a slower, more comfortable pace, a more predictable routine. A good book would do just about as well after a hard day at work. Right?

Right? He wasn’t so sure somehow. He still wanted to make love sometimes, still found his wife attractive, older or not. He heard himself sniggle before the TV now: maybe he should rent an old school desk, give her a ruler, see what would happen! He could imagine the expression on Althea’s face—or lack of one. Might be worth it, though, if he could stop laughing long enough to explain it to her. Except.

Except she was never around anymore to laugh with. Always those damn fundraisers, social obligations. Oh well, hell. He was no spring chicken anymore. No more all-nighters like when they were first married. By the time ten o’clock rolled around these days he was beginning to lose steam. He wasn’t eighteen anymore.

It was enough just to lie in bed before the TV and occasionally catch one of his own spots. Still gave him a little thrill seeing the major campaigns all dressed up and ready for primetime. Ford. Prudential. And he was generally pleased with their current look since they’d brought that hot West Coast art director on board. Oh, it wasn’t exactly the look he would have used, but Stan seemed to think it was more cutting edge than the old stuff. You had to keep up. Couldn’t lag behind, appear dated. That was why he and Stan had always been successful, not afraid to bend to young ideas, take risks. He sat there now under the TV’s glow and thought: what was behind that little MEMBERS ONLY sign anyway?

Strange thing to have hanging in a porn shop. ‘Members’ only? What members? What could a little dump like that possibly show to customers that wasn’t already out on the front racks? What were they doing, attempting to appeal to a higher clientele? What the hell did that character behind the counter know about higher clienteles? He could show them a thing or two about higher clienteles!

Whatever it was it wasn’t that engorged pink mess out front; that stuff was about as arousing as a gynecological convention. No. It had to something else entirely. Something completely different. But what? He was only interested because he was in a creative field himself, had a natural inclination for the imaginative…

Mr. Conway glanced at his watch, sighed, heaved up and turned off the downstairs TV. He trudged to the bedroom and the upstairs TV. He clicked it on, watched the stock reports while undressing, flopped atop the duvet and channel surfed awhile with the remote.

Real girls maybe? Is that what they had behind that closed door? Yes. Perhaps. Bring in more business.

No, that didn’t make sense. That would make it a nightclub and they’d have to have a license for that along with a whole other set of hassles from the city. Dump like that could never afford it. Kiddy porn? Hmmm. No, that was worse. That was guaranteed jail time. And that guy behind the counter didn’t look stupid. Smarmy little smile, maybe, but not stupid.

Wait a minute! Maybe it was one of those—what did they all them, those godawful movies you used to hear about in the ‘70’s? Snuff films? That was it! The little grease ball at the counter had a projector set up in the back of the store for a bunch of psycho perverts sweating and twitching and getting off on people killing each other!

No, no, hold on. Surely the police would be on to that sooner or later too. Especially with that little alcove door so recklessly flaunting its MEMBERS ONLY sign.

He snorted and shrugged it off, killed the TV, the nightstand light and turned over, fluffing his pillow. No point in waiting up for Althea. Probably out on the lake somewhere, big yacht bash with the mayor. He closed his eyes, snuggled down, waited for sleep.

The smile on that little jerk behind the counter… like he knew something Mr. Conway didn’t know himself. Impudent asshole. He could buy that crummy little hole in the wall a hundred times over, put in a real store, dress up the street, get rid of the sleaze. Maybe he’d speak to Althea about it, her buddy the mayor. Might be good PR for the firm. Maybe even contribute some company money to that rundown block, a pro bono thing. Smarmy little grinning prick. What the hell did guys like that do for a life?

Althea got home at ten.

Mr. Conway was almost asleep but her perfume woke him.

“Did you have a good day?” she asked—her usual while undressing.

“All right, I guess,” from his pillow.

“That’s nice.”

He watched her. Two children, eighteen years of marriage—and she still had a figure. Not the same figure but definitely a figure. Remarkable. The expensive spas and occasional lifts didn’t hurt, he supposed, but still…

“The Brewster people called again,” he remarked, watching her graceful back.

“Oh? What did you tell them?”

He sighed. “I didn’t take the call.”

She slid heavy silk over still-firm breasts. “Oh, darling, why don’t us just take the bloody account?”

It surprised him—her tone. Impatient. Maybe a little dismissive. “It’s a question of morals, Althea. The product is potentially dangerous.”

She tossed her slim shoulders. “All cigarettes are potentially dangerous, that hasn’t stopped you before.”

He stuck his hands behind his head. “This is different. They want this marketed specifically as a safe cigarette, that’s the whole point. There isn’t a campaign without it. I don’t want to be responsible for duping millions of nicotine-happy teens with something they think is harmless. Anyway, morals or not, we’d be creating a potential climate for hefty libel suits down the road.” He sighed heavily. “Just doesn’t feel right.”

She slid her long legs in next to him and reached for her light. “They’d sue Brewster Foods, dear, not Conway and Waterman.”

“That’s not the point.”

She yawned, “Okay.” She said nothing more and he let it go. He still hadn’t told Stan about the Brewster thing; maybe it was just as well. He lay against the warm, perfumed length of her and listened to her breathing grow regular. In a moment she was asleep, soughing gently.

“Althea? How would you feel about spanking me with a ruler, then sucking me off? Only swallowing this time?”

He said it to the dark, to the walls.

He drifted off himself a few minutes later, thinking about the little alcove door with the MEMBERS ONLY sign. Maybe it was a joke. A play on words. ‘Members’ as in ‘penises.’ Did that make sense? He was snoring himself before he’d decided.

* * *

Thursday morning Jack Binder of Binder Plumbing called and suggested lunch.

The Binder account had been an early one, a low-paying one for the firm, but it had helped keep Conway Associates eating during the lean years. Mr. Conway believed it was important to remember your beginnings and those that began with you, so he accepted the invitation to lunch, suggesting they dine at the Chinese restaurant where nobody spoke English he’d recently discovered.

That was his excuse.

The truth was, immediately after they’d finished eating and waved good-bye and let’s-do-it-again at the corner, Mr. Conway walked briskly the two blocks to the corner where his car had been stalled the day before, and directly into the dingy little porno shop.

“Nuther phone call?” grinned the counter man.

Mr. Conway countered the counter man’s grin with one of his own. “How does one become a member?” he demanded, nodding at the little alcove door.

“Member?”

“Come on.”

The counter man held his grin. “Oh, that.”

“Is there a fee? A membership tariff of some kind?”

The counter man shook his head. “No membership fee.”

“It’s free then? All right, I’d like to join.”

The counter man put down his Reader’s Digest. “Join what?”

Mr. Conway gestured impatiently. “The club, the club! Or whatever it is you’ve got back there.”

Facetious eyes studied him. “You wanna join somethin’ you don’t even know what it is?”

Mr. Conway rocked once irritably on the balls of his feet. “Let’s just say my curiosity’s aroused.”

“Yeah? That’s what’s aroused?”

“Very cute. Come on, what do you say?”

Now the counter man turned at last, slowly and deliberately as though seeing Mr. Conway for the first time. He studied the door in question. Then he looked back and studied Mr. Conway a long moment. “Naww…you ain’t ready for that yet.”

Mr. Conway raised up on his toes again, cleared his throat indignantly. “Aren’t you a little presumptuous? How exactly does one qualify for admittance?”

The counter man cocked his head reflectively, looked Mr. Conway up and down unhurriedly. “Well now, you might call it intuition. I can always tell about potential members.” He turned leisurely in his chair and gave Mr. Conway the once-over one more time--from his Brooks Brothers tie to his Andre Bellini shoes. “A fella has a certain look.”

“And--?”

He shook his head. “You ain’t got the look.” The grinned widened. “No offense.”

“Now listen—“

“Try cubicle 12.”

“I’ve already admired your retro peep show.”

“Not number 12 you ain’t.”

“I’d prefer the members only club, thank-you.”

“Sorry. Maybe some other time. We don’t let just anyone in. Try number 12, we guarantee satisfaction!”

What am I doing? he thought with some amazement, standing here in this sleaze hole on my lunch hour talking to this grinning idiot about peep show rooms! I should get out of here!

So he did. But not before investigating cubicle 12.

It was an experience. The girl was nothing special. But the guy! He could only have been a circus performer—a sideshow freak. Such convolution, such gymnastics! Mr. Conway had never seen the like. Triple-jointed is what the guy must have been. It was a truly educational experience. Mr. Conway was tempted to applaud after his last quarter finished the reel.

But it wasn’t what he’d come to see.

“Do I qualify for membership now?” he addressed the man behind the counter.

The grin was really getting on his nerves. “Come back some other time!”

“Don’t think I don’t know what you’re up to! Don’t think I just fell off the turnip truck—I’m a man of means, a man with more money, more connections, more…everything than you could begin to conceive in your wildest dreams!”

“That’s nice.” Grin.

“I was pulling bait and switch tactics when you were still in your Buster Browns! I know how to prime a customer, dangle a carrot, tease the mark, slam shut the trap and close the deal! I’ve been up against the best, pal, the very best! There’s nothing a punk like you could teach me! Now I want to see what’s behind that door!”

“Fine. No problem. But some other time.”

Mr. Conway rocked righteously on his heels. “Impudent little slug! I won’t be back!”

* * *

He came back every day for the next month.

And always the answer was the same: polite, congenial, unhurried but firm. “You ain’t quite ready yet.”

The little door, the dangling sign, haunted his dreams. Both the day and night variety. He saw the dangling sign at the office.  He saw it superimposed over the TV screen at night. He saw it in the faces of his employees, in his won ton soup, in the silk luster of his wife’s evening gown. He fantasized about it when he should have been working, conjuring every conceivable scenario, every possible image of defilement and debauchery, every imaginable tableau of rampant licentious libertinage.

But none of these, he knew, were the answer to the mystery, the secret. Something extraordinary lay beyond the flaking veneer of that warped little door. Something he could wonder about forever and never know until he saw. There was a kind of crude genius at work here, a subliminal sort of hypnosis, and only those deemed privileged were rewarded. Only the elite.

Mr. Conway was one of the elite. He could sense it, feel it in his bones, always had. He’d been born one of the elite, the privileged, the inheritor of greatness and greatly coveted secrets. He just couldn’t convince the grinning man behind the counter. Not yet…

* * *

He became a man obsessed.

He was nearing the point of drastic action: sneaking down the darkened block at night, forcing entry into the filthy little hole, revealing what lay hidden behind the little door under the reproachful eye of the full moon. He actually felt cunning enough to pull it off; but that wasn’t the way, he knew. In some cosmic way he understood that this was a privileged event, a trust to be earned. A road paved with patience.

One bright, sunny but typically dull Tuesday afternoon several months later, he had an inspiration. Why not make this Tuesday different? Break routine! Skip lunch, forget all about Conway and Waterman Associates, forget all about the dingy little porno shop on the corner,  jump in his car, whisk himself home without so much as a phone call ahead and surprise Althea with dinner at the most expensive, secluded hideaway in town! They hadn’t done that years, and she used to adore that kind of spontaneous frivolity…before the company had become the center of his life, filled his every waking hour, turned him, perhaps, into a husband that didn’t deserve her. It was a splendid idea.

The problem was, by the time he arrived home to their nine room mansion, Althea was already eating. Only she wasn’t alone and she wasn’t doing it in the dining room exactly. She was doing it in the swimming pool with Mr. Conway’s trusted friend and partner Stan Waterman.

The pool was just off the driveway so Mr. Conway had a front row seat of the entire show in vivid, commercial-free detail. He never would have believed his wife was such a…gourmet. She certainly had a surprisingly healthy appetite. Perhaps the most tragic thing was that all the splashing and huffing wasn’t what bothered him most—or even that it was his best friend and business partner providing the smorgasbord. It was the fact that Stan had apparently been frittering away his afternoons this way for some time now, frolicking with his supposedly jaded, un-passionate wife instead out cementing deals. That’s what bothered him the most, and that Mr. Conway found sad.

He sat there for a long time in his beautiful Boxter and watched them. Eventually he realized the main reason the scene was so arresting was he’d seen it before, or at least some variation of it. Then it came to him. His business partner was using the same contorted gymnastic techniques as that guy in the film behind door 12! It was amazing! He really had it down! Ole Stan must have watched that film a hundred times inside that sweaty little cubicle! Mr. Conway couldn’t understand why he and his partner hadn’t crossed paths before now under the grinning man’s counter! Trouble was--he had to admit--ole Stan was pretty good. Althea certainly seemed to think so.

The rest of scene played out like a bad B movie. The Boxter screeched to the edge of the pool, Mr. Conway leapt out, Althea shrieked piercingly, Stan leapt around the water like hooked carp searching for his bathing suit, Mr. Conway chasing him with the aluminum pool skimmer.

Afterward, Mr. Conway went for a long walk.

But not to the little porno shop. He didn’t even think about that. He thought about his childhood mostly, how comparatively happy that had been, in contrast to the last few years of what had become—he had to face it—the lifeless corpse of a marriage. And he felt himself grow bitter inside, laughing a mirthless laugh, shaking a mortified head. Goddamn Stan Waterman: no wonder the bastard never had lunch with him anymore…

Later that night at home, as he was turning down the bed in the guest room, tossing back his third vodka gimlet and allowing himself to visualize the first vague images of what would doubtless prove a phenomenally costly divorce, the phone rang. It was Stan Waterman and he wanted to apologize. He’d had a few gimlets himself, apparently.

“Stan, go fuck yourself.”

“Please, I don’t want to dissolve the partnership!”

“Stan, the partnership is dissolved.”

“No, please. It’s a big mistake doing that, trust me.”

“Trust you?”

“Please.”

“Blow me.”

He started to hang up , then—probably because the vodka was making him feel perverse—he added a parting shot: “By the way, your technique isn’t half as good as that guy in room 12.”

There was a sobering pause from Stan’s end. Then: “You saw the film?”

“The guy had it all over you, Waterman. Good-bye.”

“Wait! Listen, there’s something I’ve got to ask you! That little alcove door to the right of the counter, the one marked ‘members only,’ did…did you get inside it?”

“Did you?”

“No.”

“Good-bye, Stan.”

Well, that was some consolation at least: the cuckolding bastard had never seen the inside of the mysterious little cubicle. At least that hadn’t been taken from him! He snapped shut his cellular and sat there staring at it. But by God, he’d see it! And he’d see it tonight! And he wouldn’t take no for an answer! He’d taken enough shit today!

Mr. Conway dressed quickly, strangely steady on his feet and clear-headed after three vodka gimlets, and passed his wife’s door on his way downstairs.

“Darling, I’d like to talk with you—“

He hardly heard her. He was on a mission.

* * *

He arrived after midnight but the shop was open 24 hours, so that was fine.

He pushed through the front door, marched straight to the wood counter and the grinning face behind it. His voice was level, controlled, but adamant. “I want to---“

“—join the Members Only Club,” grinned the Cheshire face, “of course. We’re all ready for you, Mr. Conway, step right this way!”

‘Mr. Conway’? Had he ever mentioned his name?

The counter man stepped to the door with the little hand-lettered sign and placed his fingers on the silvery knob. He turned. “One hundred dollars, please.”

He’d expected something like this. All right. He was prepared. He’d pay, gladly. Nothing was going to prevent him from stepping through that paint-flaking door, even if he found only an empty, cobwebbed room.

And that’s about what he found. That, a single straight-backed metal chair, and a portable, glass beaded home movie screen atop a crooked stand. The counter man gestured toward the metal chair. “The feature will begin in a moment.  Popcorn?”  And he snorted a laugh.

“Just get on with it!” Mr. Conway snorted back, seating himself imperiously.

The counter man exited. In a moment the room went dark. There was faint, familiar whir, and the screen grew bright. The lighting and sets seemed Spartan even by grindhouse standards. The girl wasn’t even pretty. She wore a plan gingham dress and a plain, even old-fashioned, hairstyle. And a very plain smile. Her figure was…well, plain.

She stood in an ordinary little apartment kitchen preparing what appeared to be a simple evening meal. Nothing fancy here either, not even particularly healthy food: the old-fashioned meat and potatoes variety as opposed to the vegetarian dishes he had forced on himself in recent years. After the meal was prepared (and it took some time, during which the hard metal chair grew even harder) she brought it smiling into a modest dining area and placed it on a modest walnut table before the camera. She lit a candle, unfastened her apron, and then—to his further amazement—sat down, dished herself a portion and began eating.

This also took some time.

Mr. Conway cleared his throat impatiently, craned over his shoulder at the mote-dancing cone of light behind him. The projectionist and/or counter man were not to be seen in the gloom.

After dinner, the girl cleaned the dishes, winked at the camera with a warm smile, and moved into the modest living room where she relieved the hall closet of a sweater. If Mr. Conway thought he was about to witness a strip tease, he was wrong. She merely put the sweater on over her dress and left the apartment. The screen went dark momentarily.

Mr. Conway squirmed in the metal chair. What the hell was this leading up to?

When the camera next picked her up, the girl was walking in a city park at night. She trailed the shore of a dark expanse of lake, the moonlight silvered on its still waters. The stars were out, millions of them, and they twinkled jewel-like overhead. Occasionally the girl would turn and smile at a couple passing her on the park walkway, holding hands, heads together, taking their time, stealing a kiss between lamplights.

After a time, she came upon an empty bench facing the lake. She sat down. The camera sat down beside her. She looked out at the lake. The stars were diamonds in the clear air, reflected in her glistening eyes, which really weren’t that unattractive in close shots. She sat gazing contentedly at the lake for the next twenty minutes.

Then she turned to the camera, smiled warmly again, and mouthed three simple words. Mr. Conway couldn’t quite make out what they were. In a moment, the screen went dark. The lights came up. The counter man stood grinning from the doorway behind the projector.

Mr. Conway stared back, incredulous. “That’s it?”

The grin never faltered. “That’s it!”

“A hundred dollars for a walk in the park with a homely girl!”

“Don’t forget the dinner and lake.”

“A hundred dollars!”

The counter man shrugged. “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” Mr. Conway stood up fast, fists clenched at his sides. “I want my money back!”

The inevitable shaking of the head. “Club dues are non-refundable.”

Mr. Conway started to steam…then settled down, nodded contemptuously, wryly. “So that’s it, huh? That’s the scam: lure a guy with vague promises and sly innuendo, get him worked up for months, then rip him off! Is that how you keep this little dump operating, off the money from gullible slobs like me?”

“You’re among our most valued clientele, Mr. Conway.”

“I’ll bet I am.”

He shouldered past the grinning face and stalked to the shop door. He felt…strange inside.

“I’m having dinner with the police commissioner tomorrow night,” he said authoritatively. It sounded about as pertinent as it did likely.

“Bon appetite!” from the counter man.

Mr. Conway slammed the door behind him.

* * *

Things were even worse the next day.

He arrived at the office early, bent on setting the wheels of partnership dissolution grinding. He was greeted by looks of sheepish guilt from most of his staff amid a sea of cardboard boxes. The boxes were slowly being filled by the staff with their personal effects. For one ludicrous moment, he thought Stan had gone completely crazy and fired everyone in the office; then the awful truth became apparent. Stan was leaving all right, and taking the staff with him. And from the looks on their faces, it was a voluntary decision.

It wasn’t until that moment he understood the depth of Stan Waterman’s deviousness…and his height within the firm. Who, after all, dealt with all the major clients day after day, having carefully, skillfully built up a personal relationship with them through the years, ate dinners at their homes, knew all their kids by name? And what self-respecting office employee wouldn’t go with the player who held all the most marbles--and the contacts to secure more marbles? The answer was confirmed a few minutes later when Mr. Conway found himself alone in a desert of empty desks and cubicles.

He went to his own office and sat down in his leather chair, sat down very hard. He stared out the window. A skeleton crew of old timers had remained loyally behind, but he was essentially alone in the building and assumed—if he hadn’t completely lost his edge-- just about wiped out financially. So this is what Stan had meant on the phone when describing the break-up as a ‘big mistake.’ His mistake, not Stan’s.

He called his secretary to order lunch in, but his secretary had defected too. He called his lawyer and his lawyer was just sick about the whole thing, just really broken up because gosh he’d known Mr. Conway for years even before Stan had joined the firm--but when faced with the choice of going with the most assets the ugly truth was, Stan simply had more—

Mr. Conway hung up.

He stared out the window. Even after the sun began to set. He was, most likely, ruined.

Funny, then, in the midst of all this, he should be thinking about the girl in the film. The plain girl in the plain gingham dress with the plain but somehow sincere smile. She wasn’t pretty, that girl. But she’d had nice eyes…

* * *

He found more packing going on at home.

Althea wasn’t going to wait around and endure all the gory details of a divorce, he could handle that. She had friends in Jamaica. She’d phone him.

The house was quite still without her but that was nothing new. He sat staring at the Jay Leno Show silently, seeing only two soft brown eyes, a gingham dress, a lake, and stars that twinkled restfully, peacefully off its mirrored surface. Althea and he had walked beside a lake like that once, in another time, another world. It was what he was thinking about when he finally dozed off. It was, in fact, what allowed him to doze off.

He woke the next morning knowing exactly what he would do, what he must do. It was the next logical step in his life, perhaps even a preordained one. And he didn’t even have to go into the office to do it. He phoned Brewster Foods right there in his bedroom.

“Conway here, Mr. Brewster. Sorry it took so long to get back to you. Yes, we’d like to begin work on the Safety Cigarette campaign right away. We’re very excited about it.”

After that he called his office and told the remaining staff all about the account. It felt good to get it off his chest finally. They were very excited too. Then, he dressed, drank a glass of orange juice and headed in. Strange how good he felt despite all the recent upheaval in his life. He felt relaxed, almost peaceful. When he arrived at the office it was to a chorus of cheers. We’ll show Waterman what a Conway and Associates campaign can do! This was a slam dunk! Why, the account was so big they’d have to hire a new art director immediately!

He interviewed one that very day, took him to lunch at the Chinese restaurant where no one spoke English, an affable young man from L.A., full of daring new L.A. ideas. They shook hands at the corner and the young man started work that afternoon. Mr. Conway didn’t join him back at the office, though; he walked down the street a couple of blocks from the restaurant.

“I want to see the film again,” he told the man behind the counter.

“Great film, isn’t it!” the man grinned. “Only one in the whole place I still look at. Reminds me of my first wife!”

“I’d like to see it again, please.”

“Why certainly, Mr. Conway, you’re a member now!”

He stepped to the door and paused beside the silvery knob. “Two hundred dollars, please.”

Mr. Conway went pallid. “Two hundred! That’s highway robbery!”

“That’s the price.”

Mr. Conway stamped his foot. “It’s ridiculous! I won’t pay it!” And he turned on his heel and stalked to the door and slammed it behind him.

He went back, of course. Again and again, week after week, month after month, to sit on the bench beside the girl and watch the lake… watch the diamond stars reflect on its surface. Even though the price doubled with every visit and he spent a small fortune in the process. He had to. It was the only way he could sleep at night. Besides, wasn’t he, after all, the boss? Hadn’t he just sewed up the most important advertising campaign in history? Wouldn’t it gross millions of dollar annually?

Damn right it would.

 

Copyright 2011 Bruce Jones Associates, Inc.