Blood Is Payment, and Life

Occasionally, I write an essay for a friend in order to get them through a difficult course and charge a nominal fee. This is one of them. I risk posting it here but I feel I have to, for it did come from me and sums up what I feel about not only history but the institution of education as well. That institution is run by sour old bastards whose balls have dried up probably due to fear. I understand that. I sympathize with that. I try not to spend too much time thinking about what sort of damage I may have done to my own life by writing letters like this. I only hope that one day it amounts to something more that an afterthought skimmed by readers looking for a quick argument.

The world as we know it today was born during the 1300 C.E. period to the 1700 C.E. period. Before those times of black plague and the seesaw effect of declining China and rising Europe any student finds that the troubles of that day are not different from the troubles of now. The Christians and Muslims fought each other for not just land but followers, flexing muscle in order to sway the herd. A group of farmers believing in one god collided with a group of sailors believing in another god; they saw land and found it good, therefore they shed blood to control the lands. In gaining the lands they forced their morals upon the people, some of whom agreed and some of whom did not agree. Fighting ensued.


Same as it ever was. In history, fighting is always the deciding factor. It has little to do with who has the money or who has the goods or even who has the land. The end always goes to the one who has the will and the soldiers and the weapons. This has never proved wrong. There are no facts supporting the idea that the weaker muscle controls the stronger muscle in any case for the statement makes no sense. Hours of research are spent to create arguments supporting differing sides of the political science when all that really matters is who has the weapons. This is an ugly truth but it is nevertheless true. And it will not change.


In answering these questions this one came last. I realized something—historical examples and sufficient detail from the text must be used to support...what? Any new idea? Just reading the text and using the internet for research to write a run-of-the-mill essay explaining the same picture of brain fodder anyone else could describe with a thesaurus and wi-fi seems pointless to me, not to mention exhausting. History shows that the influence of trade over the course of years is controlled by the ones who are willing to shed the most blood. For all the banter and think-tanks this is now and will always remain the truth.

What is most sad is the fact that students who have read these facts and reported them with essays will not state this plainly. There is always the risk of a bad grade, and spreading truth is never worth that. Where history is concerned it is if only due to the simple fact that history is made through war, blood, drive, and the ability to suck down the fear of consequence when it comes to going off the beaten path and blazing a trail. Sometimes, however, that is what must be done.

In researching this time period one will find evidence of a world being born. Burma, the Jewish nations, India, China, Europe, even America—all of these nations struggled during this time period to make a name for themselves. They all made respective names the same way, through blood and the diplomacy that comes after the blood has been spilled. Those names have not fared well, so here we are today, still spilling blood in the hopes of creating newer, smaller names and keeping good the larger, more popular names. Rather than proving knowledge of the times, dates, and names important in these motions it is better to educate new minds in ways of repaving the way, not with blood, but with something else as yet unfound.

Ye Fucking Gods #5632

A horrible bald bastard recently did his level best to make my wife and I homeless. This after I filled out the online application that got his foot in the door so he could have a nice, cushy job at the hospital. Cooked his dinner. Washed his dishes. I tried to help him in every way I could think to help and the motherfucker decided that wasn't good enough because I have too much stuff. He didn't like seeing my stuff in his house. You may think there is more to this but there is not. Some people are just that asshole.

So far the wife and I have managed to stay head above homelessness. It has been hell, going from a friend's house to a hotel room inhabited by the dregs of society; crack heads, dealers, killers and swine of every type. Nobody gave us any static so I cannot bitch too much. We'd still be there if we'd have been able to afford the exorbitant $750.00 a month rent, but we just couldn't--a waitress and an up and coming writer do not make for wealthy partners. We don't have much but we do have friends and our hope for a brighter future. Sometimes that has to be enough.

Right now we are living with good people--my surrogate sister and her two kids, and her husband--a good-hearted, no-nonsense Canuck. I'd be lying if I did not admit the whole scenario has an inspiring sort of novelty of the type I can use, the sort that brings about great tales such as Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath. I would also be lying if I said I would not trade in that inspiration for a sense of security, the type of security I enjoyed while writing Polarity. Those were good days, relaxing and drinking and writing my ass off with stars in my eyes. But that is not the way things are. Instead, we live in a place full of raucous laughs and much alcohol, the joviality only marred by a sense of underlying paranoia that things could change for the worse at any given moment. Silent moments of a sort of group-prayer where all involved do not know the others pray as well but the energies join and maybe each one of us feels a little less of the existential terror threatening to throw the killswitch.

With all of this come to pass, I haven't given a good goddamn about world affairs, and I don't know when I will again. Chances are it will not be too far in the future. And I just signed another contract today...I think there will be more to come.

The Fountainhead is Cracked and Crumbling

Jackass hilarity: The American government, through USAID spent 1.6 million dollars on a
project called "ZunZuneo" in order to help spur the Cubans into ousting their own totalitarian government. Meanwhile, the United States itself teeters on the verge of becoming a Third World country. The job market is fictitious. Civil unrest is rampant, evidenced bysuch actings-out as razor blades appearing on monkey bars and veterans going mad, mowing down citizens and then themselves. The Affordable Care Act isn't affordable, freedom isn't free and neither is speech--it is the ultimate irony that what we say and do in our own country while on the internet is closely monitored and scrutinized, then silently punished with red flags and black marks aside our social security numbers while our government sets aside precious monies to aid Cuban subversives in raging against their own vicious machine. Further precious monies are spent on sneaking in illegal immigrants and motions for war in eastern Europe. Drug cartels are funded and crucified in the popular media to perpetuate the War on Drugs, and none of this puppeteering is helping Average American Joe and Jill.


Instead, if the average person wants to work they must say farewell to their family and slave for minimum wage and shit benefits some 75 hours a week, unless, of course, they are willing to rack up tens of thousands of dollars in debt attending a college that will feed them nothing but cram courses, technical schools geared not toward your advancement, but toward your failure and their fat wallet. Excessively stupider laws are passed in order to nullify the tax return and embrace socialism, businesses continue to outsource high-dollar jobs to the afforementioned un-American countries, and anyone who mentions these important, terrifying things, myself included, is herded together with the rest of the uipstart buffalo and ran off the cliff to be broken and skinned on the craggy, scabrous lands of economic collateral damage. The government's standpoint these days is: "Fuck our own people, whiny little shits that they are. Let's help these other people."


Ayn Rand, one of the biggest mouths for capitalism wrote the epic novel The Fountainhead
in order to clarify the reasons behind the notion that those who bring in the money are far more important than the proletarian to a nation's economic structure. Yesterday I spent time thinking about that book and had a donkey kick moment of clarity--our leaders are no longer interested in bringing in the money. They are more concerned with shoveling the money into other, non-American countries, spending our tax dollars on building economies in the middle east, Mexico, and soon the Ukraine (if we get our war) and Cuba. It is cause to wonder if Big Capital is not seeking a new home.


Perhaps it would be better if these swine did leave and we were relegated to a third world country. If they all just got the fuck out of their own accord we would be forced to act, and that might remind
the population what it means to be an American. We have forgotten. Our forefathers would not have tolerated this quagmire, even if it is one of merely passive oppression. No, they would have stood up and kicked some ass, never mind the possible consequence of imprisonment or even death for they realized something we the People no longer realize--great needs outweigh individual desire in times of tyranny.


Unfortunately the media and the technological age has softened us into a society of whiny, spoiled brat children. It has been called the "Me" generation, a group of self-absorbed passive/aggressive 18-35 year old pussies. My age group wouldn't know a good fight if it kicked them in the face, and if it did, chances are the better part of us would just lay down and cry and be pissed on.


In fact, fuck chances are. That is exactly what is happening. Hopefully soon the next corner will turn. I'm waiting for it. My generation needs to eat itself. If it did, it would get sick to its stomach and vomit itself out and then finally see itself for what it is, a group that wants to be leashed and led, whipped and beaten because it has absolutely no identity of its own, a crowd of walking commercials. Those with identity and self-respect have beliefs, and they stand of for those beliefs, damning the consequences. I've been committing slow social suicide with my writings for the past twelve years with the hope that the right people will read these rants and band together, jumping up with the goal of ousting these parasitic fatback Sultan-esque motherfuckers hoarding American money in order to piss it away on outside interests. My efforts have not worked. The failure is part mine, but also part yours.


You must get sick and look at yourselves in the obsidian mirror of your own bile. If the picture is disgusting it should be changed.


No economy survives when the money goes outside of it. Would you throw your paycheck out the door to blow away in the wind and be picked up by some vagabond? No. But you work and live and speak and even die in support of a government that is doing exactly that. It is sickening and it needs to stop. So stop it. Use all possible means.

Ring Around the Red Rosie: The Next War

The madness in the Ukraine continues. 


There is a significant difference between Russian protestors and American protestors. We lay down in traffic. These fuckers lay siege. It makes me wonder just how serious anyone in America is about initiating government change. These protestors went apeshit after learning that Ukrainan president Viktor Yanukovych cut a deal with Putin to kill their agreements with the EU for cheaper Natural Gas.One protestor from the Right Sector was shot to death, and the carnage began. American government does worse--trading off freedoms for big business deals--and no one gives a fuck.  The question here is one of passion: do we have any here in America?


Also--the sanctions will increase until subservience improves. America is afraid of Russia "driving a wedge" between American and European trade. Why? What is the fear? There is no good reason for this fear. It is high school cheerleader clique mentality. The only good reason for trade to
falter is a lack of decent product, and maybe that's the real fear. Perhaps we're afraid that someone might tell Europe they're getting screwed. Otherwise, all you have is the worry that somehow Russia will convince Europe that we are not the cool kids anymore and they will stop associating with us. That's a bullshit worry.


Or at least, it should be. At the present moment, this limp administration lacks lustre of any sort. There is something lame and drab about American leadership these days. Our people are going through a horrible social burnout due to over stimulation brought on by too many idiot voices, wannabe-revolutionaries doing nothing aside from laying down in traffic while wearing the plastic visage of a man who thought that the Catholic church was too lenient and Facebook reactionaries liking and un-liking memes posted about distracting non-issues, or even real issues without suggesting alternate routes. The onus of any protest is to have a suggestion for alternate routes rather than to just act or merely type out on account of unreasonable fears of coming change. The problem in America is just that--no one has any suggestions. We bitch for the sake of bitching. We protest to get on television. We just want to be a part of something and it makes no difference what that thing is. As soon as the next big thing comes along, the memes will change. People do this when they're bored, or when they have no anchor, and this administration has none. Our country is a barnacle-encrusted ship drifting along a tumultuous sea with no port in sight and an ever-more angry, scurvy-brained crew.


But fear not, the government has the cure. The same fantastic, time-honored cure to bad domestic relations and a worse economy: war. A repeat of the old Cold war only this time it may not be so cold. People have already forgotten about Iran, and this is a bad idea. Iran has not forgotten about us just because they're being quiet. Eventually Russia is going to get angry and start growling, and Iran will growl along with them. Like with Germany and Italy and Japan, it will be Russia and Iran on the assault and when no one is paying attention, a hard Pearl Harbor-style slap from China will come. At least, that's how it would be if we were all just playing a game of Risk. This knowledge will bring people together the same way it did when we turned a blind eye to the cocksuckers that blew up the World Trade Center. We are expected to turn a blind eye to the next attack. There will be one, not today, not tomorrow, but in my lifetime.


This is the world we leave to our children and people want to know why I refuse to procreate.


Is there a solution? Yes. Stop applying this "fuck with them you fuckin' with us" gangster mentality to an area of life where those with power are supposed to have reached psychological maturity. The Ukraine and other countries can take care of themselves, probably much better than we can take care of them.  At least their protestors have balls and direction, something ours have lacked since the early seventies.


The bottom line: America would like to see Europe less dependent on Moscow for energy. Speculation: America would like to see Europe more dependent on American-controlled
energy coming from Moscow. Another president motioning to start a war he can't finish. These fucked up presidents unable to do anything for our country starting wars under the auspices of benefitting another country should be imprisoned. Soldiers--do you want to fight for that? No one overseas is fucking with our freedom. In fact, I cannot think of a single moment in my lifetime where American freedom was threatened by any other source aside from the American government.


Now there is something worth making into a meme. 

R.I.P. WHARGOUL

I was fourteen when I fell in love with GWAR. That was a long time ago, I hate to say it was a lifetime ago. The music was a constant in my life. They are the only band I've gotten into fights over. I even went to jail over them once. We GWAR fans are fanatics, make no mistake. Being that as it is, yesterday was a tragic days for those of us who loved not only GWAR but DBX and SLAVE PIT TV as well. Yesterday, Dave Brockie died. He was only 50.


Over the years I have heard many rumors about Dave Brockie and in part I came here to dispel the stupider of them. I have decided not to. I think Dave would have liked it better to have everyone think that he was whatever the fuck they think he was. And if he wouldn't have, Oderus would have. I will say that the man was a genius poet regardless of what the myopic masses think, their vision pressed too firmly to the frontlines to see where the truth lives in the middle. Also, he was and will remain the most innovative artist of my generation. My parents had KISS and we had GWAR.


How did he die?


How the fuck do you think he died? Probably with a needle in his arm or a dollar bill up nose, both full of some illicit substance, searching for his lost guitar amongst the fodder of numerous forgotten debauch. I only hope some cocksucker didn't sell him a hot shot. Anyone who can find pictures of the genius's corpse should post them all over the internet forthwith. Normally I wouldn't say something like this, but once again, I'm sure Dave would have wanted it that way. He was a pretty limitless guy. He represented the destruction of puritanical views. I like that. There's nothing quite as pathetic or hypocritical as living like a fucking puritan and Dave Brockie make a killing from taking a giant shit all over that life.


At the end of the day, he had more balls than you, and that is why his death should be written about time and time again. Even Christ would agree: "Dave could have done it better."


Farewell, King Queen. You will be missed. Enjoy the Great Krak-Down in the Sky.

The American Media Has Cancer

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The Era of the Facebook Reactionary

These days, everyone is a political pundit. For the past four years Facebook has been rife with would-be Hunter S. Thompsons posting poorly written expositions about pols that serve more to polarize the nation than anything else. Partisanship bred of half-literate internet trolls divides the nation further than Fox News and MSNBC and hammers home the goal of the government; to stultify civilian progress. In the scramble to sound smart, people alienate and insult one another. This doesn't help.


These individuals think they're doing something good, but they never stop to ask themselves: what is the goal? Is it to spread awareness or to proselytize? Or is it just prideful banter, small people straining to sound intelligent, usually fucking up the facts and confusing people? These wannabe reporters get it wrong but no one bothers to check their facts and soon this speculative fiction will be known as the facts much the same as Ebonics has made a place for itself into newer editions of the dictionary. Just as those jumbles are not words the spittle is not factual.


It is gossip and dubious babble at best and at its worst it causes an epidemic of self-righteous stupidity. People talk of Obama, thanks to the internet, as if he is the first president to cause the economic problems of today. Far from it. None of today's problems are new. They are just versions of the same old bullshit--World Police 7.0 or The Grapes of Wrath 2014. We have been feuding with the Middle East, vying for oil profits since the late 1940's. Our World Police action started the moment we got involved in World War One, taking until World War Two to mature. The Treasury Department has had its hand in raping economic profits and controlling both opinion and action since 1901, maturing fully with the Prohibition. Businessmen have been wasting goods that could go to feed the needy since farming became a for-profit enterprise. Obviously neither Obama, Bush, or that earlier devil, Nixon, held the presidency during these eras.


Getting personal:


Your vote has not counted since the nineteenth century, when politicians decided that you were too stupid to vote for yourselves and created the Electoral College. And that is really why the EC came to be, even though it is written that the "average person is not well-enough informed" to vote for themselves. Translation: "Shitkicking Farmer Joes don't know jack about how government works--let's just allow them to keep thinking it matters when they hit the ballot box."


Upton Sinclaire had a lot to say about poor work conditions and poor pay in his book The Jungle, which told the story of the Chicago Stockyards in a time before child labor laws or health standards. I could go on, but brevity is the name of the game in these days of ADHD. Anyone who wants more facts can use the internet to find them if they care to.


All government here, overseas, and everywhere else is, always has been, and always will be nothing more than a gigantic piss-take. It's a mirage. An unfair game in which a group of like-minded, nepotism-placed used car salesmen vie for power and favor and money. The big names have been at the top since the start and even though they let the occasional newcomer like Obama through the door to throw the public off their fetid stench, the rules are really being made by names like Rockefeller and Rothschild. The general public really doesn't even know who the true leaders of the "free" world are or where they sit because the general public never sees them, and the general public never will.


It is better this way. This way, the true bastards of the game are never seen or held accountable for anything. The Congress, who really do nothing aside from stamp papers they don't even read, never minding the fact that these papers are new laws, can only be blamed for laziness and carelessness. The President doesn't even know what fucking day it is. Everything he says is written for him. The people you want to blame, the ones who are really ruining everything are almost impossible to find. For them, it is better this way. You cannot kill an illusion.


If you're going to post lengthy "comments" about the power struggle, know why you're doing it. It is, after all, not all bad. Sometimes, you folks actually catch a break and mass-gripe about a real issue,(and no, it isn't Health Care. Sorry, but that, like Gun Control and Abortion, is a cunt's issue) causing the Elite to back off and not mass-exterminate in order to meet their 500,000,000 total population mark. Just take care not to further the polarization. Once you start losing friends and calling everyone a motherfucker, you chalk up a loss for yourself and a win for J.P. Fatback.

'Beetus Burger with a side of Bypass Fries

I wrote this to Bruni a moment ago. You recall last week I spoke of him dying. I know many other diabetics who are killing themselves slowly, and not with cigarettes, booze, or drugs, but with fucking food.

"Seems to me diabetics are food junkies, with the same yen for food that other junkies have for poison. No one seems to realize that food is just as deadly. Just because there's not a commercial for it doesn't make it any less bad.

"CHEESEBURGERS ARE BULLIES.

"Wouldn't that make an excellent commercial? Catching a beat down from the Golden Arches? Mayor McCheese slipping himself like a velveteen lover into your palms? Or better, one of those "I'm dead now" commercials that have become so popular being that anyone who remembers Yul Brenner is dead, but for high-cholesterol foods. It's funny to me how media still thinks anyone gives a shit. People don't continue smoking or drinking or drugging or gorging just because they don't know it is bad. They do it because they know and don't give a fuck. I mean, YOLO man, YOLO."

Begs a question, doesn't it? Why isn't there a media frenzy over gluttony? It is perfectly fine to feed ourselves and our children 20,000 calorie EnormoBurgers with a side of Bypass Fries at McInsulin's or Fatfuck's House of High Blood Pressure. Come on down to Artery King and Die Your Way! Try the new bread-and cheese-block 600 cheeser at Greasies! Load yourself up on fatty shit until your sweat is thick enough to aid in baking cookies. Squeeze your arm note the lard the consistency of toothpaste oozing out of gaping pores. Uses: Baking, Frying, Masturbatory Lubricant. My child has pink lungs and a heart that looks like a Grade Q cut of steak, something with a count like 22/78 instead of the other way around. Adults who have never smoked a cigarette or touched a drink but still can't put their clothes on without panting like a hound on a hot summer's day. Certain foods do this to people, so why isn't there a scream happening? Where's the TRUTH commercial for this?


Indulgence causes disease. Decadence. Period. There's no difference between one set of indulgences or another. Drinking 60 glasses of water a day can kill you.


The next time you see a fat fuck proselytizing about the dangers of smoking or drinking, refer their gelatinous ass here. I've got some fun facts for them, and am preparing a course on ways around the 1800 calorie-a-day diabetic diet. It involves a FlexPen and four times the normal amount of insulin. And if you think that will kill a person outright, I've got a few folks I'd like you to meet. The point is nobody gives a fuck, which is fine with me, so can someone please tell the goddamn hippies in the media to get their stupid commercials off my prime time? Cable costs way too much to have my ears and eyes raped by images of people with half their faces cut off because they smoked cigarettes. I'd like to tell those fucks that my grandmother smoked four packs a day, drank like a sailor and ate bucketloads of pills and lived to be a ripe old and decent looking 86 years old. Put that in dredlock, hippie.


Until next time. Enjoy that sextuple cheeseburger, and don't forget to wash it down with whiskey and OC.

The Pointlessness of Morality

It has been a long time since I sat to write something and just froze. I've heard a lot of writers talk about dancing on the keys, the song of the keys, rhythms of the keys, but all of this is junk. There is no magical song in the keys. The song is in the head so if the head is in a bad spot or worse on pause there will be no harmony. My head is in a bad place. This is what I get for not writing on my own work before reading someone else's. A bad choice. I meant to write about what a cesspit the Trenton Taco Bell is but I'm not going to do that anymore. Those unorganized individuals mean nothing to me in light of the two things I just found out because I read before I wrote.


When you reach your mid-thirties something fucked up happens. People you care about begin to expire. Not die, exactly, but expire, like dairy products. We all have a date stamped on us, one we cannot see, and when it comes around, that's just that. By the time a person is thirty-five or so their parents are reaching the golden years, their grandparents are probably dead (region has a little to do with this--here in the south I've met 37 year old grandparents) and a handful of the people they grew up with are dead from either an accident or bad cards. It's just time. The blank, smooth stone face of time, neither smiling or frowning, merely existing on a plane of absolute zero. Moving without moving. Killing indiscriminately.


My grandmother died last year. My mother tore an artery in her neck last year. My best friend, really the one person who has endured the most ruthless and vile and elated moments of my life, fits of pique, temper, bile, laughing, chicanery, anything I in my lunacy could toss at him is now suffering from pancreatitis. Going the way of Bill Hicks. And right as soon as he started to taste success. I've always referred to God as The Comic in the Sky, and if this isn't divine humor I don't know what is. I'm talking about someone who has followed every rule of society where I have held every rule in disdain, stayed drug-free where I have ingested every fucking substance in the book, enough to make William S. Burroughs proud, saved every possible penny, paid every debt, respected where I have scorned, been my polar opposite, this fucking guy is dying and I am in perfect health. I don't have so much as a bad tooth. Touch of gingivitis.


I've been stabbed, shot at, beaten, jailed, poisoned myself in every way and John Bruni hasn't done a single bit of that shit but I barely have arthritis. I felt shitty two days ago because I had stomach flu, but I'm all better now. He gets a touch of the stomach flu and it turns out to be a rotten pancreas as stiff as the fucking Blarney Stone on a hot August night. I should be dead, probably in many sets of eyes don't deserve to live but this cat is the one lying on a hospital bed pumped full of Dilaudid. And he'd just paid off his student loans. I didn't even start giving a shit about mine until they ate my taxes this year. Though this isn't funny to me and I doubt it is funny to any of you I'm sure it is hilarious to the Big Bastard in the Sky. Seems to fit.


So, kids, it just goes to show, if you stay away from cigarettes, drugs, alcohol (mostly) and loose women, eat all your lima beans, go to school on time, finish all of your homework, honor thy mother and father (or thy grandparents, as it might be) it still won't mean a goddamn fucking thing because when your genetic code decides to break down on you that's just it and all this social nonsense about right and wrong amounts to a grand total of fuck all. If you won't take it from me and Bruni, take it from Nietzsche. Every college respects him.

Polarity: Chapter Three

A whipsaw of adrenaline exploded in Mizik’s gut, sending him off and running much like a greyhound does after hearing the shot of the starting gun. A wet squeak of friction came from the dew-kissed grass sliding against the smooth sole of his Thom McAnn’s. His belly ablaze, he did not feel his own motion; the yellow side of the house and the white picket fence of the neighbor’s porch and the back yard playground before him all seemed to rush along his vision, the house and porch diminishing; the playground getting closer. A chain-link fence fake- protected the playground from

intruders.

Adrenaline turned into panic as the fence appeared at its full seven-feet. Mizik felt his feet leave the ground, one after the other, and he reached out to grab the fence’s top bar; his right hand found the mark, the left hand missing it by inches, fingers sliding from the bar and down the links. A sound of doom escaped his lips, but his fingers clenched, finding purchase in the diamond shapes caused by the wrapping of wrought-iron links around one another. Holding on was not the end of the game; climbing followed.

His feet did not fit in those diamond shaped holes the way they had when he had been a wiry little squirt playing neighborhood tag. The wet, flat soles of his dress shoes lacked any sort of traction, so he tried to kick, slipping and almost losing his grip on the links and the top bar. He made the fence bend by pushing with his legs. This move gave him a bit more leverage, bringing the top bar of the fence an inch or two closer to his stupid hand. Someone behind him laughed and someone else hollered out commands and Mizik made another grab with his left hand for the top bar, this time achieving his goal.

He did a clumsy but successful pull-up, screaming with effort. Once he had the bar at his waist, he flipped forward, landing his heels in the grass of the playground, over-extending his wrongly bent arms. He let go so as not to dislocate his shoulders, and his backside dropped down to the ground, getting wet.

He began to get up, scrambling and shifting his balance from hand-to-knee-to-feet. Behind him, the fence made two ching! sounds, the second one reminiscent of a hard-coiled spring. He took one step and two tentacles wrapped around him while a pile of muscles crashed into his back, their too-heavy weight causing his diaphragm to clench and his wind to flee and his balance to give up the fight, sending he and the pile of muscles into the moist, overgrown grass. Damn. He loved this suit.

The pile of muscles disappeared, a sweet relief, and Mizik attempted to breathe. "Stay on the ground! Hands behind your back, don’t you move, motherfucker!"

How the hell did this cop figure Mizik to put his arms behind his back when the officer had told Mizik not to move? Police really did not make sense when they gave certain commands, and Mizik wondered if they realized this or not. No matter, for Mizik could not move his arms. The useless things were like al dente pasta noodles, flopping off his back and back to the ground. Growling, the officer grabbed Mizik’s arms and shoved them against Mizik’s back; the officer laid a knee on them. A noise like the air unzipping vibrated; zip-tie handcuffs. How about that. This cop was hi-tech. Efficient, too. Mizik did not hear heavy respiration; the officer had made short work of Mizik without getting winded.

An engine roared from somewhere. "What the fuck?" the officer said. Mizik knew why and had to hold back a laugh. The P.I. had fled. The officer began cursing in Spanish, calling Price something that came off as both angry and romantic. Had Mizik known any Spanish, he would have just found the comment ugly.

The officer took a stronghold on the nape of Mizik’s neck, the steel fingers crushing meat against spine, stinging like five agitated wasps. The officer began leading Mizik to a latched door in the fence, saying, "If this is padlocked I’m going to throw you over to the other side, pendejo." Mizik strained to see the latch, praying. He could see a lump of steel dangling and jutting out from the middle of the fence at the latch, but it looked old and broken.

"You’re lucky," the officer said.

"Jesus, you’re like a mad dog," Mizik said.

The officer cranked his wrist, bringing Mizik’s face down to his. "Do NOT smart off," he said. His eyes were ancient brown stones set in a young face, probably late-twenties; a few years younger than Mizik. The officer reached up to his chest, mashing a button on the box all police clipped to their uniforms, the one that helped call for backup. Mizik thought it was called a ‘squawk box’, or something.

"Base, this is Echo Five. I have a suspect in custody . . . judging by the look of him, this is the caller. His nose may be broken . . . don’t want an ambulance." The officer grinned at Mizik, who huffed. The officer continued: "Suspect tried to run, uh . . . other suspect fled the scene, is not in custody, repeat, I do not have the other suspect in custody. Suspect two driving a white Honda Accord, maybe 1992 model." The officer stopped, thinking. "Suspect two claimed to be a private investigator. Need backup." He released the button and removed the padlock from the latch, opening the fence.

"Excuse me officer, what’s going on here?" A man asked from behind them. Mizik looked and saw two children, a boy and a girl, standing next to the tall man as they stood rapt in their own backyard.

"Nothing sir," the officer said. "Sorry about your fence." The part of the fence that the officer had leaped from to tackle Mizik had been irreparably bent.

"Don’t worry about it," the man said. "Whatever it takes to catch a crook." The man laid his hands gently on both of his children, and led them back inside of the house. Mizik thought that if this had been his yard, he would have told the officer that he, Mizik, planned to bill the city for the damages.

2

Officer Moreno slammed the stupid businessman against the rear bumper of the squad car, banging the rich guero’s thighs against the chrome. The cochino cried out – good. Moreno flat-palmed his back, bending him over, and sent him face-first into the white, steel trunk of the cruiser. The pendejo began babbling a bunch of nonsense about lawyers. Chistes, for sure. Lawyers did not work hard to help a flight risk.

"You got anything in your pockets that’ll stick me?" Moreno asked. The man stayed quiet. "If I get stuck it’s gonna be bad for you, comprendes?"

"There’s nothing." Moreno reached into his back pockets, removing a leather wallet. He tossed it on the trunk, and reached into the man’s front pockets, finding only keys, which he also threw on top of the trunk. Moreno patted down the man’s chest, feeling nothing on the man’s torso. "I’m going to frisk your legs and if you fucking kick me . . . ." Moreno set about that task. He found nothing, and the man did not try to kick him.

Moreno grabbed the man by the back of his collar, pulling him around to the back door of the cruiser. He opened the door with his free hand. "Get in," he said. "Watch your head." The man’s head wound up banging against the lip of the car’s roof, as many heads of uncooperative suspects had before. Moreno smiled. He slammed the door, walking around to the back of the car and picking up the man’s wallet.

He flipped the wallet open, seeing the ID almost right away. Another car pulled up, stopped, and two officers got out, stretching languidly. Moreno scoffed. "Who you got there?" the driver, Officer Bates, asked.

"Mason Mizik," Moreno said. "Anyone else coming?"

"Just me n Pullman. You want I should run that name? Mizik?"

Moreno nodded, handing over the wallet. "Have Pullman search that vehicle. I’ll find out who lives here." Moreno left the two officers to their work, walking up to the front door of the yellow house. He rang the doorbell. After waiting a few minutes, he balled up a fist and cop-knocked on the door, slamming his fist against the thick wood, intending to give the impression to any tenants within that a battering ram worked to break the door into small pieces.

"Easton Police, open the fucking door, now." No answer. Moreno knew someone as in there. Otherwise, why had Mizik been visiting? He sighed, shaking his head. Without a warrant, no options remained, not yet. He turned to the SUV, seeing Bates and Pullman about their search.

"Got anything?" Moreno asked. He hoped for dope. If there were drugs in the car, he could kick in the door and own that house.

"Nothing except this case," Bates said, holding up what appeared to be a laptop computer case. Who had the damn laptop? The private investigator. Pedazo de cabrón.

"Yeah, Mizik said that P.I. was trying to steal his laptop," Moreno said.

"P.I.? Like a private eye?"

No, like pussy invader, you stupid fuck. "Yeah. The other guy, the one who got away. He offered to help me chase Mizik. I take off he turns tail and escapes while I’m focusing on the other fucker."

"That’s kinda funny," Pullman said.

"Bates, what you find on Mizik?" Moreno asked, ignoring Pullman.

Bates scratched his nose. "Uh. Well, he works for Loomis Industries, no priors. I guess he’s some kind of engineer, or some shit. I hate to see his lawyer."

"Won’t be any lawyers," Moreno said.

"Makes ya say that?" Pullman asked. Christ, that guy was stupid.

"You think Loomis is gonna spring for a lawyer for a guy they sicced a private eye on? No way."

Bates and Pullman looked at each other. Bates shrugged, walking back to his cruiser. Pullman began to follow him.

Moreno shifted his eyes to Mizik, wriggling around in the back of Moreno’s cruiser, trying to get comfortable. Why had he tried to run? Fear? The guy did not have much of a chin. Moreno’s mother always said that one should never trust a man with a weak chin, and Moreno agreed. Chinless people often ended up being jotos like Mizik. Moreno spat, turning back to Bates and Pullman, who were both getting back in their cruiser.

"Hey. I want you two to find out who lives here."

"We can’t bust down the door."

"Did I ask you to bust down the door?" Moreno clenched his fists, crossing his arms and hiding his fists under his armpits. "Of course I can’t break down the door. I was hoping you guys would find some dope on Mizik. I can, though, have you run this address so I can find out who lives here."

"My RMS isn’t working," Bates said.

"Bullshit."

"No, for real. It’s on the fritz. I’ll look it up at the station."

Moreno wanted to scream, pull his gun, and fire off into Bates’ chest, sending a big, bloody package of dipshit white-boy organs and bones into a gory palette of flesh colors pattering to the pavement. He could see it in his mind, but the fantasy would have to do, for now. Mierda, if Moreno made detective these two buffoons would not be giving him a bunch of lame excuses. Yesterday he had taken the written test, and when the results came in, putting up with shit like this from dumbasses like Bates and Pullman would be a memory.

"Just see what you can do," Moreno said.

"We can leave a note," Pullman said. He got into the car with Bates, laughing. Moreno watched them drive away, wishing he had a rocket launcher.

3

What a shitty day. Things had gone from bad to worse so fast that Mizik could not make any sense of the events leading up to his sitting in the back of a police car. One minute he had been copying certain important notations from Bunting in his own laptop, the next he found himself beaten senseless by some junky who claimed to be a private investigator, and now he was here, arrested, zip-cuffed and altogether discomfited. A hard-working member of the (upper) middle-class should not have to undergo such indignities. The cop had physically assaulted him. The true criminal, the thief, got away adding insult to injury. And an immigrant prepared to take him to jail. Maybe even an illegal one. The immigrant got into the car and grabbed his radio to tell dispatch his intentions. Mizik interrupted.

"You know, I called you guys. That other guy, that professed private investigator, he beat me. And tried to steal my laptop."

The immigrant continued to speak, ignoring Mizik.

"Excuse me sir," Mizik said. "I’m talking to you."

"Shut up." The immigrant finished talking to dispatch and hung up the radio.

"You ran," the immigrant said. "Why did you do that? If you stayed still, you wouldn’t be here. No dope on you, so why run?"

"What are you going to do about the thief?"

"What I can. Why don’t you tell me why you think he stole your laptop? Who is he? What’d he want? Maybe you stole it from him, and he was getting it back."

"That’s false. I don’t know who he is, or what he could want. A terrorist maybe."

"Right, because you’re a weapons engineer, no?" The immigrant laughed. "That’s a good joke."

"I am a weapons engineer. There are some specs on that laptop. Terrorists would want those."

"You’re lying."

True. Lying made Mizik’s body hot and his insides crawl with sizzling nervous adrenaline. But there was no way he was going to tell this Mexican anything else about the contents of his laptop. He would never tell any cop, to be fair. Unless they used torture. Good thing he did not live in Syria. But still. Rather than lie, Mizik got the idea to simply limit his answers. And try not to get hot.

"What’s your name?"

"Moreno."

"Can I see your birth certificate?"

The car wobbled a little, and Moreno, laughing to near tears, straightened it out. He began to cough, blinking his eyes one at a time. When the car was again pointing forward and easy to control, he wiped the tears of shocked humor from his eyes.

"Holy shit, I busted Donald Trump, a fucking Minuteman maybe. My birth certificate. Are you serious, guey?

"You know what I think? I think Loomis hired him to find out if you had some information you were not supposed to have. I think maybe you were selling this information to the guy you went to see."

"He’s just a friend."

"I think that’s why he wouldn’t come outside. I know he was home, dude. I know. And I know I’m gonna question him. I’m gonna bring him in and he’s going to tell me everything you won’t."

Now, Mizik decided it was his turn to laugh. He guffawed, leaning forward, resting his head on the mesh partition between him and Moreno for a moment. He leaned back before Moreno could order him to, letting his laughter taper off as he rested against the seat. Mizik retorted with a parry of his own. "I have the right to remain silent," he said.

"I think," Moreno said, "the private investigator took your laptop because you have something on it that Loomis hired him to find. Maybe you stole it from them. But you’re dirty, amigo. It’s written all over your face."

"Loomis would never hire someone like that. The guy’s a junky. You could tell. His nostrils were full of orange boogers."

"Orange boogers?"

"Yeah. I don’t know what it was."

Moreno rolled his shoulders, dipping his head, his eyes on the road. Mizik hoped his comment about the boogers had the immigrant contemplating the importance of the orange powder dotting the sinuses of the private investigator. If Mizik could only be proven the victim of a junked-out thief perhaps his lawyer could get the charges lessened if not altogether dropped.

Nevertheless, fear crept by degrees into Mizik; jail lie ahead. Would they give him his own cell, or cast him into what the television programs called "G.P."? He would be locked up with a bunch of feral, ink-covered men, and they would all want some soft, white hands to touch their pricks. Mizik prayed for the second time that day, petitioning THE LORD to please make this cop soften and see value in Mizik’s statement. Did he have to go to jail? Is that what God wanted? Could He not touch Officer Moreno’s hard, law-dog’s heart?

"Do I have to go to jail?"

"Yes, you do. You ran from me. That’s a felony.

"But they’ll eat me up in there."

Moreno scoffed. "Could be they have better things to do."

Mizik wriggled, trying again to get comfortable. His wrists were sore and stinging, trussed behind his back, straining his shoulders any time he tried to rest his back and neck against the seat. Did a wetness coat his wrists? If he bled, by God, he could shout police brutality. And there would be Hell to pay.

Damn right. It was called a cock in the ass. Mizik’s.

"Officer Moreno, maybe if I tell you what I think the guy wanted, you’ll let me off with a ticket, or something?"

"No. But you can save yourself a lot of time, and maybe I can get you locked up in segregation, until you can see a judge."

"I’ll make bail before then. I can pay it right now."

"I’m not setting your bail. It’s a Felony charge. You can’t I-Bond out on a Felony. You have to see a judge. So probably you can pay your bail by Monday, if they’re not all fishing."

Fishing? For real? "No kidding."

"No kidding. They like to fish. It gets them away from people like you for awhile."

Three or four days in jail. Seriously? Mizik did not think so. The private eye had to have been after the list of names on the hard drive of the laptop, and the Manifesto, written by Mason Mizik and William Bunting, stored on the thumb drive, the names of individuals sympathetic to their cause rested in type. The Manifesto, if read, could be considered a sort of terroristic threat. Thus, Mizik and Bunting had already done enough to land the both of them in jail for a really long time. Bunting would get him out faster than what this beaner claimed.

Loomis Industrial had a Grand Plan. When the big-suits jabbered on and on about the particulars of this mandate, any listening could hear the capital letters in their pompous voices. Mizik and Bunting did not agree with their designs, but at work let on nothing; outside of work they talked about it, plotting what sorts of actions they may take to thwart Loomis’ scheme, a scheme that would further ruin the economy for guys all the way into Mizik’s tax-bracket, but leave the "one-percenters" filthy rich and overflowing with slave labor. They wrote the particulars of these conversations, and some philosophies, into the Manifesto.

It did make sense for Loomis to send a private investigator after Mizik. Why they had chosen a junky, Mizik did not know, but that aside Loomis must have sure knowledge that Mizik, at least, plotted against them and that he may have a cabal of like-minded, equally important employees copacetic to his subversion. He bet that Loomis also knew about Bunting, bio-weapons engineer, and that made him sensitive for he could easily become more of a liability than Mizik. Bunting was talented at organizing teams. He had been doing it for years and his teams came up with some of the more interesting weapons specifications and schematics, a few things that had gone to Area 51 and a few things, with Bunting’s aid, that had gone to Plum Island. Loomis could not send the cops after these guys. Maybe not even someone respectable, like a Pinkerton. They could afford the Pinkertons. Instead, they send that other guy.

Of course, he had gotten away and Mizik was here, so did it matter? Perhaps Loomis would spring Mizik, rather than have Mizik talk to the police about . . . what exactly? No. They were going to be angry. He had nothing on them the cops would want. They were going to let him be raped.

Goddammit, he was going to be violated by some gangbanger. Or group of gangbangers.

No. Being Bunting’s golden boy, he had a chance. As the North Side gradually gave way from the polished, rich houses and hardware stores to the cracked concrete labyrinth and liquor stores of the West Side, Mizik resolved to wait it out. If he went to Federal prison rather than county jail, he had no chance, because it would be a sentence of years rather than days, and his buttocks would be calloused by the time he made parole, if he could manage living until then.

Stop thinking that way. Bunting could not afford Mizik landing in Federal prison.

Moreno turned down Elliot Street, driving them south, to the Lower West Side, where Ballard County Jail loomed hungrily at the edge of the City, like a brickwork ogre squatting at the caste-system borderlands. Mizik had never been there. He imagined twenty-foot high fences whose top bars were guarded by serrated spirals of Concertina wire and stern guards with high-powered rifles and night vision scopes stationed in stone towers. The building itself would be a damp, sweating castle.

"Will I get medical attention?"

"It’s possible," Moreno said. He drove slow like a delivery boy. Maybe he had run out of questions for the time being. Or maybe he wanted to torture his captive by creeping closer to the ogre, not a detention center but the giant stomach of a bigger beast. Moreno looked stiffer than before. Mizik figured the immigrant had a hard dick in the presence of something wicked and indispensable to his very job. The slimy, gutting sensation burned now in Mizik’s throat, and he practiced not-crying for the remainder of the drive to jail.

Polarity: Chapter Two

Price hated stakeouts. Many of his colleagues did not understand this loathing; they were of the opinion that stakeouts were the job. Price opined that the job entailed making his living nailing dumb asses to the wall. Not sitting in a balls-hot vehicle and watching the world go by while waiting for some mark to make a move. Come out of the car when the mark did do something stupid and try to be quick with the camera or even the fist if the situation called for such action, and his sleeping legs may buckle from being in one position for too long, or he may trip over his own two stupid feet, having temporarily forgotten how to walk. It sucked.


Worse, he always had to bring a receptacle for urine, preferably a two-liter bottle, something he could cap off so he didn’t knock it over and have a car that stank of uric acid and salt leaving him sitting next to his own greasy piss for hours and hours. Fine company, piss. So, no. Fuck stakeouts. They were a means to an end, not the whole goddamn job.


The dough kept him going. Price made a decent take for catching the wife’s infidelity or the supposed cripple working on his car while he told the insurance company sob-lies of an injured back. Most of the insurance companies and pissed off CEOs paid pretty well, but sometimes--like this time--he got a big gig from a major industrial corporation. Loomis Industrial had quoted Price one hundred dollars an hour to make find out if one of their top engineers had a side-gig selling specs for weapons manufacture on the black market. Evidently Greg Evans, CEO of Loomis, believed a cabal operated just under his feet though he could not prove it. So far, only gossip worked for evidence. But Evans had his suspicions. Price watched that suspicion right now.


Mason Mizik.


Ten minutes ago, Mizik had parked his Escalade in the driveway of an individual Price suspected to be in cahoots with Mizik. Price had done some research on the motherfucker. A few phone calls got him a name. William Bunting, clean as a virgin’s clitoris. Price was not, at least not right now, interested in Bunting. He only waited for Mizik to come out of the house and get in his car.


Price crushed an orange pill with his cigarette lighter, the powder spreading nicely on to a compact mirror Price kept for this express purpose. Adderall tasted like rotten sugar when snorted, and made his boogers look like Tang, but damn if they did not keep him sharp as a tack. He was addicted to the damn things, but so what? Whatever it took to get the job done. Fuck social taboos. Hell, the whole enterprise was a taboo, going under the cops, going after people because they were breaking other people’s laws, but not society’s; well, that made the client something of a contractor, did it not? Price valued such altruism, especially regarding his own wallet.


He wanted to turn on the radio so he could stop thinking about pointless crap. He could not, for that may draw attention to him. Fuck.


He began getting hard. Fucking drugs. They always did that to him. No matter, his penis would go back down soon as long as he did not think about--


Mizik came outside, carrying a laptop case. The man made few mistakes and always had that damn laptop in a hardshell case. Price knew that the case held every shred of evidence the company needed to nail Mizik and pay Price. He thought he might bill Evans for an extra hour due to the pain in the ass that stupid laptop caused. Ever try to photograph the inside of a closed laptop? Impossible.


Screw it. Time to take action. Price got out of the car, but slowly, so his legs would get the hint.


“Woof! Hey, buddy! Yeah, you sir. I need some help.”


Mizik saw Price coming and began frantically fumbling in his Jos. A. Bank pants for his car keys. Fumbling, Mizik blinked, and shook his head. Then, he reached out and pressed a button on the door of the Escolade. Dumb ass. He’d forgotten that the vehicle opened with the push of a button as long as the keys were within a few feet of the door. The luxury SUV blinked and beeped, and Mizik threw the door open.


But Price closed in with feline speed. “Oh, come on,” he said. “Please. I need a jump.”     


Mizik stared now, having stopped in his tracks. He looked terrified.


“Sir, come on. I mean, this is suburbia. What am I going to do to you?” Did that argument suck? Who cares? Price stopped his approach short of getting in Mizik’s car. Mizik hung his head and fetched a sigh. Mizik raised his head to Price, who formed his eyebrows into an A-shape.


The mark, feeling backed into a corner, gave the lame excuse: “I don’t have any jumper cables.”


Price reached out to Mizik, maybe to put a hand on the man’s shoulder, unnerving Mizik into jumping toward the passenger seat. Could be, the idiot thought he could escape into the leather if he tried hard enough. Rabbit-ass businessman. Scared of his damn shadow. It figured.

2

“Where you headed, bro?” Price asked. Mizik sweated, clutching his encased laptop to his chest and scooting ever closer toward the passenger seat.  Almost in the shotgun seat, half an ass-cheek on the console, Mizik grabbed the door handle to make a break for freedom. “You don’t need a jump,” he said.


“Don’t even try it,” Price said. He allowed the grin he had been suppressing to take control of his face, making him feel like a shark. “Do you mind?” he asked Mizik. Getting into drivers’ seat, he forced Mizik to scoot the rest of the way over.


“Police,” Mizik said.


“No, I’m not a cop. What you got in there pal?” Price pointed at the laptop. “You’re acting like it’s your Precious, or something.”


“This is attempted . . . Grand Theft Auto.”


Price looked around for traffic. There was none. “Easy, fella,” he said. “You’re gonna bust a vocal cord. Show me what you got on that laptop, and I’ll go away.”


Mizik punched Price in the jaw, a soft, pathetic collision; the tougher man knew Mizik had pulled his punch at the end, as if he were afraid to hurt his very attacker. Price reached over and whapped a callused palm across Mizik’s temple.


“Bells a’ringin now,” he said. “Gimme the case.”


“No.” Mustering all his grit, Mizik brought a closed fist down on Price’s balls.


“You . . . oh, you sonofabitch,” Price said. “Now it’s gonna . . . augh.” Mizik went for the door handle again as expected, and Price snatched Mizik’s ear before the rabbit could so much as swing out one of his thin legs. Price yanked Mizik back almost fast enough to rip away the shell-pink shape of acoustic cartilage.


“You know how it gets up in your guts?” Price asked. “Makes you feel like you got to shit.” Mizik, sweating and whimpering, tried to nod. Price let go of him, satisfied Mizik had forsaken trying to escape. He tilted his head back and gave a snort. Mizik squinted, looking up Price’s nose.


“Why are your boogers orange?” Mizik asked.


Price broke Mizik’s nose with a hard, fast jab. Mizik began to howl, and Price slapped him in the mouth. Mizik began crying with his mouth open, his throat making no sound. Blood coursed freely down Mizik’s undoubtedly expensive button down dress shirt.


“Jesus,” Price said. He took the laptop case and inspected its foam rubber sides, shocked.  “I can just unzip this? This whole time I’d been sure you had a hardshell briefcase or some shit.”


“By node! U bwoke it! Bwood aw over!”


“By node I did and if you don’t open this goddamn case I’ll rip the whole beak off your face.” Price was sick of fucking around. He wanted to get out of here. By now, with this weasel’s screaming, someone must have called the cops. Could he get away with lifting the laptop? No. Because Mizik would just say he’d been mugged by a crazy man, and Price would look like a marauder. Mizik scrambled to unzip the case. Good.


“You can’t just assault peepow. I’ll bress charges.”


“Go ahead.”


Inside the case lay a state-of-the-art, twelve-gig laptop. Now, he just had to get the password out of Mizik. Price opened the laptop and pressed the power button. After a light sigh from the underside of the laptop, the screen came on and requested a password.


“Password,” Price said.


“No.”


Price reached for Mizik’s nose. Mizik shrank back, throwing his hands up in defense. Price grabbed his left wrist, wrenching and locking the hand toward the wrist in a paintbrush hold. Mizik screamed. “I’m calling the police!”


“Call the cops, Mason. Go ahead. But first, password, or I’ll break this, too.”


“It’s hexagram42,” Mizik said. Price let go of Mizik’s wrist with a smile, and punched in the password. It worked. The screen came up, with a background pattern of spheres as decorum, dotted by icons. A few of them looked interesting, but there was no time to inspect their various avenues. Mizik waved his hand across the screen of his smart phone.


“Any other passwords I don’t know about?” Price asked. Mizik shook his head. “There better not be. Because I’m going to scope this out, bud. Make no mistake.”


“We’ll see,” Mizik said. He put his smart phone to his ear. Price wanted to leave, or beat Mizik some more so that the soft man could not make the call, but his inner voice--the one that made any investigator worth their salt--told him that possessing the laptop required he stay and watch the magic unfold.

3

Most people think that when the police answer a call, they show up on location fast, with blazing red and blue lights, and wailing sirens. This is false. What really happens is far less dramatic. They arrive in silence. Their cruisers are mouse-quiet and when they brake, the engine breathes rather than rumbles while idling, and the lights and sirens are off.


Price saw the police arrive on scene, but neither he nor Mizik heard them over Mizik’s high-pitched, petulant whining. Price was, for his own part, glad that the cops came when they did, because he was about to elbow Mizik in the gut so the wimpy bastard would lose the wind to yell. No air equals no bitching. Fuck the extra charge of aggravated assault. He wanted to go home after this, call Evans and put an end to this case. His chances of doing such were far better if the cops did not see him using Mizik’s ass to play Kick the Can.


“Mizik, shut up. The cops are here.”


“No! Wait, what? Fuck you.”


“Fuck me?” Price asked. “Shit, you called them.” He got out of the vehicle.


“Ungh,” Mizik said.


Price sighed, folding his hands at his chest and saying; “You know they’re going to want to see that laptop, yeah?” Mizik closed his mouth.  


Mizik turned his head toward the open drivers’ side door, jumped out of the shotgun seat and began walking around the vehicle, intending to close the laptop Price had left open on the seat.


Price wondered why Mizik bothered to so much as exit the vehicle. The cops were here and they hated it when people took off walking once they arrived. Once again, rabbit-ass businessman. He had no idea how to conduct himself around police.


Price heard the door slam as the policeman got out of his car. He was of Mexican descent. Good. Mexican cops were a whole lot of fun. They liked to kick ass almost as much as the black cops.


“Sir, stop walking,” the officer said. His hand fell to his sidearm. Mizik took two more steps, his head bowed toward the ground as if he thought this might make him invisible. The posture would not help if the cop decided to shoot him in the calf, which he certainly would if Mizik did not comply. “Sir,” the officer said. Price recognized the Voice of Authority. The one that said ‘I’m through being polite’.


Mizik’s lower lip quivered like a wobbling clam. He looked like a spoiled little girl. Trying to suck up his emotions, his features accused Price of this new trouble, like it had been Price who had called the police, and not he. Mizik seemed to believe that Price had been remiss in not informing Mizik that once the police were on any scene, all present parties were considered guilty, and candidates for arrest. Well, fuck that. Mizik ought to have known the cardinal rule of the Shady: never call the police.


Still approaching, in the grass now, the officer instructed Mizik to step around to the back of the vehicle. Mizik tensed. Price could read that clenching of the muscles, saying “cut and run” to their owner. Wouldn’t that be hilarious, if Mizik cut and ran? Shit, it’d be a godsend, and Price began willing Mizik to do exactly that, to run.


A dull throb began pulsing in Price’s temples. The officer’s jackboots rustled the grass, soon to clang on the pavement of the driveway. Mizik was running out of time. Go. Come on. Go, you fucker.


“Sir,” the officer said, “you are not following my instructions. I want you to slowly walk around to the back of your vehicle and--SHIT!”


Price did not know whether his will worked in this case but Mizik shot off toward the back of the yard like a crazed cat on cocaine. “Stop,” the officer said. Whipping his head toward Price.


“Well, come on, let’s get him,” Price said.


The officer remained still, now looking only at Mizik, who was still within view.


“I’m a private eye. I’ll help you,” Price said. Knowing the time to think about it, or call for backup had passed, the officer bolted after Mizik, passing Price and leaving a light, pleasant breeze smelling faintly of Axe. Price started running after the officer. Both of them could see Mizik struggling in a poor effort to scale a seven-foot high chain-link fence of the common sort found in any suburban back yard.


Still running, the officer jerked his head left, to see if Price still followed. Price did, and seeing that, the officer pumped his legs harder, hell-bent for businessman.


Price dug in his heels; bending his knees and turning his head, he switched directions. He booked back to Mizik’s SUV, to the open laptop lying on the drivers’ seat. Its screen was black now, the computer having gone into sleep mode. Price reached out, and with only a split-second stop, he shut the laptop and took it.


In that second, he caught a glimpse of something next to the open carrying case on the floor, a small black thumb of technology. Yes. Score one external drive, a storage tool capable of holding a few gigs of useful information within its tiny shell. Price leaned over, firing his arm out as if throwing a punch, snatching the little guy from the floor.


He pocketed the thumb drive, simultaneously removing his car keys. They jingled at the end of a beer-bottle keychain as he ran so hard to his car that he slammed against the door before opening it. Dropping the laptop into the side-seat, amongst the McWrappers and the closed two-liter bottle of urine, ass found drivers’ seat; slamming the key into the ignition, he turned the crank, starting the car. The four cylinder awoke, barking and growling to life. Price gassed it, hoping that the officer was still occupied, maybe grappling with Mizik.


Throwing the automatic drive select to D-1, he found himself almost rooting for Mizik to get away. The car picked up speed, and Price shifted into D-2, gaining extra pick-up out of the engine. By the time he was shifting into D-4, the little Honda cruising almost up to seventy-five. Price pumped the brakes, spinning the steering wheel left, going into a controllable skid that fired him on to a side street, and out of view of the Mexican officer, should he be already leading Mizik back to the squad car. Price picked up speed again, using the same maneuvers to get the hell out of that suburban dream and on to the main road, where he would hit the freeway and be four towns away before the officer could so much as report a runner.


The little Honda had balls, if properly coaxed. Price checked his rearview once before hitting the freeway. No cops. After navigating the exit and seeing the freeway more or less clear--rush hour would have just ended by now--he floored it, hitting one-twenty and keeping it there. Any faster, and the car’s computer would shut down the engine. Four minutes and three towns later, Price eased off the gas, slowing down to a respectable, less conspicuous sixty-five miles per hour. Petting the steering wheel, he slowed his breathing, catching his wind.


He took the next exit, pulling into a KFC on the left side of the road. He pulled around the back of the restaurant, parking alongside of a dumpster opposite the street. He left the engine running, unbuckling his seatbelt. He knew he could not stay long or some half-smart manager may suspect him of drug activity, and call the police. Screw that action. It had not been long enough between excitements, for Christ’s sake.


Goddamn, had all that really worked? The officer was going to remember his face. How many private investigators were there in the city? How many of them had worked for the force in a previous life? Surely more than Price. Hope floated in his head again, doing everything to will the officer to not recall Price’s visage.


Running had been stupid. Now, he faced a charge of felonious evasion. Damn dirty drugs. They were the whole reason he had to run. Price opened the console, reaching for his bottle of pills. The label-free bottle did not belong to James Price. Each one of those orange bastards is a felony unto itself, Price knew. He would take the one over the other. Yet, the real bitch of everything lay within the fact that he could not go to Loomis Industrial, find Evans, and get paid though he now had the laptop Evans asked him to confiscate. By the time he got there the fucking cops would be waiting for him. Surely Mizik had spilled the beans by now. There was no way that soft fuck had managed to evade that fit, sawed-off responding officer.


Price had only one place to go, so he would go there, to her, and she would berate him for stupidity, but take him into their home, and other points of entry.


What a fucking life. Price pulled out his phone and began punching in a text message.