- Fischman!

He was behind me with a look I'd come to recognize.

- Go to the chair and tell Mr. Spangle what you've done.

The chair was the big yellow chair in Miss McCranley's office. She served as secretary to Principal Spangle, who attended Harvard with George Washington, the father of our nation who cut down the cherry tree and never told a lie.

- But what did I do, I asked.

Evelyn Rand's hand shot up in the back of the room.

- Mr. Haguel, she said, may I be excused? I don't feel good and I have to go to the nurse's office.

Evelyn was a quiet girl, with straight dark hair, who always seemed shocked when called on in class.

Mr. Haguel excused her, and on our way out, Evelyn asked me if I was really going to go to Miss McCranley's office to sit in the yellow chair or would I rather walk with her to the gym where we both know there wouldn't be a class during first period.

I never knew the girl could speak, but now I noticed that Rand had the beginnings of what could someday be a great set of tits. Sure, they were nothing like Kelly Seldon's, who was the first and only girl in our class to wear a bra, but there they were -- they existed -- and it occurred to me that if I played my cards right, I might find a way to brush up against them.

While Evelyn thanked me for holding open the door to the gym, I made my move -- an ugly, ungraceful piece of work that involved me hurling my body against hers as she passed so that my elbow would rub against her chest.

- What are you doing, she asked.

- I don't know, I shrugged, honest as the father of our nation.

- I think I know what you're doing.

We were alone in the gym.

- Do you want to go behind the bleachers, she asked.

It was dark behind the bleachers. Filled with dust and sleeping Dominicans hired by the school to fix all problems related to plumbing.

I followed Evelyn Rand behind the bleachers, deep behind the bleachers, into the cramped, darkness where we were alone.

- Do you want to see it, she asked.

I nodded, yes, yes, and God yes, and there, behind the bleachers, Evelyn Rand revealed to me the wonder that was her vagina.

It was a strange organ. An exposed cut in the flesh at the base between her legs. My first thought was the impossibility it presented to the overall design of the body: with a hole in the bottom, how is that everything doesn't fall out?

Evelyn lowered her panties until I backed away in fear. Then she raised them so I could regain the fortitude necessary for a closer look. She lowered and raised them. Lowered and raised, pulling me back and forth like I was attached to some strange system of pulleys and rubber bands that pulled and repelled me with each raising and lowering of her Hello Kitty briefs. We played this game for the rest of first period -- me watching, her lowering and raising. Lowering and raising. I was mesmerized.

- Tomorrow, I'll let you touch it.

The next day in Mr. Haguel's class, I threw a book at Jesse Krones, the class spaz, for no reason other than to get kicked out.

- Julius Fishman, yelled Haguel. To the chair!

I waited outside the door of the classroom. I stood for five minutes, staring in through the widow, but Evelyn Rand just sat there, twirling her pencil and avoiding my gaze. I made angry, evil faces in the window, until Mrs. Hild caught me in the hallway and dragged me to see Mr. Spangle.

I served detention that day at recess, which meant I had to sit in the corner while everyone else did their thing. There was Jessie Krones, heaving a kickball into the air then failing to catch it on its way down. Bobby Federman was the class bully, 10 years old and already close to six feet tall -- he and his crew were playing "asses up," a sadistic game that lacked defined rules but always seemed to end with one kid standing against a wall while everyone else wailed tennis balls at his genitals. The "Ara's" - Farrah, Tara, Jara, and Sarah -- engaged in their usual cruelty of finding a girl who wanted to join their clique, inviting her in, then tormenting her until she ran from them in a fit of tears. And in the center of it all, of course, was Matt Strunker, juggling a soccer ball up and down, alternating between his knees and able feet, golden locks bobbing in the air as his admirers admired on.

No sign of Evelyn Rand though. Not until I spotted, way across the other side of the gym, Parnell Walker Coleman walking out from behind the bleachers with a big goofy grin on his face. Sonofabitch, I thought. He's got my girl.

Parnell was the token negro in our class, and beside myself, the only other kid in the fifth grade at Horace Mann who was attending on a full scholarship. He had already cornered the market in stolen goods -- clothes, baseball cards, and electronics -- which he liberated from lockers and book bags then traded for comic books and candy. Now he was moving in on the Evelyn Rand show.

I confronted him after recess.

- You stay away from my girl, I said.

- Or else what?

- Or else we take it outside.

There's an old Jew with a kiosk at The Farmer's Market near my apartment. I handed him the watch and asked if he could replace the battery. He told me he was busy on account of the holidays and I should come back in a couple of hours. It was 1:50 in the afternoon. If I came back in two hours, I'd still have plenty time to hang myself before Intimate Relationship #9.5 came home from work. A body needs to dangle a good fifteen minutes for there to be no chance of resuscitation, and I didn't want IR#9.5 getting worked up trying to save me. I felt no malice toward her and only wanted to be out of the picture so she could return to her family and raise our unborn child in a better environment than I could provide.

I decided to see a movie to kill time. Nothing interested me at the multiplex, but I bought a ticket for Blood Diamond because it was about to start. It was a terrible film. The story felt like it had been concocted by mooshing together three articles in an issue of Vanity Fair: an expose of the diamond industry, a report on ecotourism destinations and a fluff piece about a Hollywood star who cares. The star is, of course, Leonardo DiCaprio, who hops and jumps about the frame with the frenetic grace of a wet marmot. Though better suited to playing a disgruntled figure skater, DiCaprio is somehow cast as a Rhodesian mercenary, who, over the course of the film, goes from being a racist soldier of fortune to a hero who will sacrifice his life to save a young black boy and bring down the biggest diamond company in the world. And in case we don't know what we should think of this unlikely scenario, the director, a talentless hack by the name of Ed Zwick, forces his actors to indicate what they are feeling at all times while providing a soundtrack that tells the audience exactly how it should react.

Blood Diamond is the kind of movie Hollywood makes in order to raise awareness about an issue. Or so they claim. In this case, the issue is conflict diamonds: stones used to fund both sides of various civil wars in Africa. According to the film, diamond companies mix conflict diamonds into their store of regular diamonds and release them into the market without notifying consumers of the blood spilled between their mining and their distribution. By making Blood Diamond, the actors, producers and Zwick get to show that Hollywood cares about the content of its movies and strives to educate audiences about parts of the world that hold our natural resources. I believe their motives, like those of Angelina Jolie and Madonna, are sincere in their desire to raise awareness. What I don't believe is that raising awareness is worth a rat's ass.

While watching the movie, I began to wonder when in the backsliding values of our country the definition of altruism became so watered down that it no longer involved sacrifice. In their attempt to raise awareness, the producers, actors and Zwick risk and sacrifice nothing -- especially not their eight figure salaries. They change the names of the diamond companies in the movie so that no slander suits could be levied against them. They don't shoot where it takes place in Sierra Leone, thereby supporting the local economy, because it would have been too dangerous and therefore uninsurable. They don't even take the time and effort to make the movie with artistic integrity or believable characters. In fact, it can be argued that movies like Blood Diamond do nothing to raise awareness about an issue because they place that issue in the context of a fantasy world where heroism is rewarded, good triumphs over evil and everything works out in the end.

"You're just a cynic," cries the voice of protest to my argument. "You think it's better to make movies out of comic book characters? Or art films composed of empty formalism? Or would you rather do nothing but sit there and criticize?" Quite the opposite. So angered was I by this film, so inspired to action by the drivel I had been subjected to in these final hours of my life, I decided the only sensible recourse was to use the last four hundred dollars in my checking account to buy IR#9.5 the biggest fucking conflict diamond I could find.

I approached the old Jew at the kiosk and made my demand. "I want a blood diamond," I said. "I want a stone that came into your possession at the expense of an African village. A gem that was mined by limbless children and trafficked by unsavory arms dealers. I want the bloodiest diamond my four hundred dollars can buy."

Behind his long gray beard, the old Jew, tall and rotund, frowned at my request.

"If you are looking for a cheap stone," he said, "I can show you some synthetic gems that only the most practiced eye could discern."

I told him that I was not looking for a cheap stone so much as I was looking for a stone with history. "A history of suffering," I said. "Because in these, the final hours of my life, I have come to realize that value is not determined by color, clarity and carat, but by risk, sacrifice and the shedding of blood."

The Jew smiled, revealing teeth that were yellow and rotten with decay. "I recognize you as a connoisseur," he said, "though of something much more perverse than precious stones. And whereas I do not do business in the kind of gem you are looking for -- at least not to my knowledge -- I do believe I have something that might be of interest to you."

He motioned to his wife to watch over the kiosk while he bent down to unlock a file cabinet behind the counter. Inside I could discern the first steps of a staircase that descended into the ground. It seemed too narrow a passage for the Jew's girth, and yet he maneuvered his body inside with great ease. "Come," he said, and I followed him into the darkness, spiraling beneath the market with one hand on his shoulder and the other grasping at the damp, stone wall. "A little further," he said, as I listened to the sound of his footfalls and a steady dribble of water on rock. "A little further," he said, as I became lost in the circular motion of our descent, wondering if we were actually moving downward, deeper into the Earth, or just spinning blindly in a pitch black room. "A little further," he said, as we reached the final step, where a faint light from a gas lamp revealed the contours of a room cluttered with antique furniture, curtains and tarnished Judaica. "A little further," he said as he took up the lamp and led me to another room, and then another, unlocking door after door to reveal more rooms filled with books and scrolls and broken tablets made from rock. "A little further," he said, and the old Jew handed me the lantern as he stooped to lift the sheet from a cracked wooden desk that stood at an angle on two uneven legs. He opened a drawer that was so small, it could only fit the bit of cloth the old Jew pulled from it.

"Have a look," he said, as he unwrapped the cloth to reveal an indistinct diamond, half the size of my pinky nail. "Hold it," he said, as I took it from him and rolled it about in the tips of my fingers. "Let me show you in the light," he said, as he held the lamp near my hand. "Now sit," he said, before collapsing his weight onto a dusty couch. I sank down onto a chair that seemed to slide beneath me the moment I considered sitting.

"We're due in February!"

"Wow," I said. "That's great."

"I can't wait to tell my parents!"

"I'm sure they'll be thrilled."

There I was talking to someone I'd known for years, someone I'd lived with and been in a relationship with for years, and I had never before seen this glassy-eyed look on her face. It was a look usually associated with young jihadis committed to blowing themselves up on a bus, or with malnourished Scientologists wandering Hollywood Boulevard offering free personality tests to baffled tourists. It was the look of someone who had taken faith in an entirely irrational belief: that these same parents, her parents, the mother who speaks about her daughter as if she were dead and the father who twice hired thugs to beat me, would suddenly rejoice upon hearing that their daughter was pregnant with my child. I understand that all parents, once they've reached that age, desire to be grandparents, but only insofar as their sons or daughters expect healthy and respectable offspring with a mate of whom they approve. Did IR#9.5 actually believe that her parents were going to forgive their grudge against me and accept me as one of their own just because one night their daughter and I were drunk enough to fuck but too drunk to remember our contraceptive responsibilities? How could she delude herself to such a horrible extent? And yet, judging by the tone of her voice and the gleefully stupid look on her face, IR#9.5 seemed to think that the phone call she would make to her parents would somehow go as it does in the movies or on television or in healthy families built around love, respect and understanding, instead of fear, prejudice and other evangelical values.

"That's wonderful!" her mother would say. "Oh, sweetheart, I'm so happy. Let me put your father on the phone. Honey, come quick, your daughter has news. Remember that Jew she brought to Thanksgiving last year? The one who showed up drunk and clogged the toilet? Who chewed with his mouth open, dropped his fork so he could peak under your niece's skirt and petted the dog in a suggestive manner? Who clearly had no money, no prospects for making money and no intention of ever having prospects for making money - yes, remember that virus your daughter introduced into our home in order to humiliate and get back at us for the wrongs we committed against her in her youth? Such wrongs as grounding her when she was 12 and got caught smoking with her friends? Or buying her a Volvo for her 16th birthday instead of the convertible she wanted? Our daughter, who has always despised us for raising her in the bosom of prosperity; for protecting her from poverty, disease and miscegenation; for showering her with love and affection even after she quit college to pursue a career on the stage - do whatever it is you want, my angel, my rosebud, Mommy and Daddy's little actress! We will always support you, dear, whatever career you choose, dear, even if it is clear to all and every that you lack the talent, the looks or the drive necessary for prospering in such a competitive field -- but come quick, honey, and pick up the phone! Our wonderful daughter, 37 years old now, an adult herself now, has made the very adult decision to enter the next stage of her very adult life. She has decided to eschew tradition, skip marriage, cut right to the chase, and to do so not with any of the nice boys from the club (who are no longer boys really, but men themselves now, with jobs and families and fortunes of their own now, with houses down the block - what houses! - I see them on their way to work, in their suits, a kiss for their wives as they descend their driveways, briefcases in tow, to provide wealth and security for their families, for their community, for the country they love) -- but our daughter has no interest in these young patriots and has instead decided to have her child, her firstborn, with that thing that floated here from the East, much like his shit floated onto my hall runner that fateful Thanksgiving Day. With that thing from New York our daughter has decided to couple and bear fruit. With that thing that shows none of the attributes of a human being other than his apparent ability to impregnate another human being, and not just any human being, mind you, but the very human being we hoped would bring meaning to our lives, who instead brings forth the mixed-blood child of a Jewish mongrel, polluting our line and forever sullying our family name. So pick up the phone, husband, and hear this wonderful news, straight from the mouth of the babe. Tell her how proud we are of her accomplishment. How grateful we are of this gift. How much we respect her choices, admire her decisions and look so forward to the miracle of this degenerate birth."

How else could her mother respond, and how could IR#9.5 imagine otherwise? Unless this was precisely the response she hoped for. Unless an angry and bitter response was the very aim of her carelessness -- or her very careful planning, for who's to say this pregnancy was truly the accident she claimed it to be? It certainly wasn't my idea to have a child, but convincing a 37 year old woman to have an abortion is no easy task. Especially IR#9.5, whom, I must admit, I had never seen looking so happy. Not even when we first met, before I had drained her of any hope and optimism, any feeling that the world was not the cruel and meaningless abyss that it so blatantly is - not even then had she ever glowed with the greasy luster she glowed with now, ordering herself a bacon burger, a waffle, a biscuit, a vanilla milkshake, a diet coke and a slice of pie. As if the reason for getting pregnant was to justify a guiltless eating binge, her face shining like that of a cultist-religious-zealot, enlightened by the seed that sat festering in her womb. You'd think she was pregnant with the child of God Himself and not the spawn of an unemployed writer living on the Hollywood skids.

"What about your career?" I asked, as she slurped the last clumps of her shake.

IR#9.5's favorite topic of conversation had always been her career. The woman had worked all of five days in the last ten years, and yet she could hold court for hours on the exhaustive research that went into every role. Roles that included the audience member with a question in an infomercial and a victim of strangulation on a cop show.

"I can still do voiceovers," she slurped. "And after the baby's born, I'll lose the weight and start auditioning again."

I didn't believe for a second that IR#9.5 wanted a baby. She just wanted to be pregnant. Wanted to see the mugs on her opponents as she strolled down Larchmont Boulevard in her maternity dress. "When are you due?" the competition would smile. And IR#9.5 could tell them. She could tell them when she was due, what method of childbirth she preferred and what names were being considered. And wasn't that what she really wanted? To make other women jealous? To create the illusion that she had found love? That she was worthy of love? That she was worthy of the attention she could never garner as an actress. That she could never garner from me. That she could never garner from her father, who found his other daughters more interesting, especially the middle one, who had developed perky little breasts at puberty, who may have been touched by the old man, one lonely night, in the bath, while her mother lay asleep in the next room. In their home, the accusations were echoed and denied for years. This Orange County Treasurer, friend of Oliver North, linked to missionary groups in oil-rich South American jungles, careful with his finances, careful in his council, careful in his testimony before Congress -- but careless one night with an eleven year old girl. So careless, in fact, that, years later, bribes would have to be paid to prevent her leaking it to the press, as she threatened, even though her mother never believed the scheming bitch was telling the truth!

And what effect did this have on IR#9.5, the youngest daughter, who normally would have benefited from the full range of her father's affections, but instead, due to the man's shame, he could never dote on her the way a father wants to dote on his youngest and most precious child? Compelled by these accusations, true or not, to deny, to ignore, to neglect his baby daughter. To turn away and re-enter the house every time she sunbathed by the pool, so that IR#9.5 became ashamed of her body and thought her body abhorrent to men. So that she began vomiting up her meals at the age of thirteen in order to have a body worthy of Daddy's attention, or so the shrinks would argue when her parents carried her 80-pound skeleton to that recovery center in Ojai. He never attended her swim meets, dance recitals or gymnastics tournaments. And then, even when she was older and he too feeble to ever accomplish anything untoward, he walked out again, this time from that production of Equus at Chapman University.

But it was not J-'s elderly neighbor who had knocked, it was, instead, a deliveryman carrying a small, coffin-shaped box of insubstantial weight. According to the postmark, the package had been sent from a city in China, the name of which J- did not recognize and could not pronounce.

"Are you certain you have the right address," he asked, but after the deliveryman provided sufficient confirmation, J- accepted the package and carried it into his living room, where, upon further inspection, he discovered the following note attached to its corrugated cardboard:

Dear J-,
Hope you enjoy the gift. They're the next 'big' thing!
Sincerely,
A-

Well it's about time, J- thought, relieved that his generosity was finally being acknowledged.

A- had been a classmate of J-'s from their days at The Academy. A decade after their graduation, the two men became re-acquainted at a reunion where A- approached J- and requested of him a certain favor. It was the type of favor that was strictly prohibited according to the bylaws of The Patent Office, but was, nonetheless, often performed in exchange for a small bribe. Though never by J-. Though well aware of the corruption quite common at The Patent Office (particularly among the poorly paid clerks whose prospects for promotion were in doubt), J- himself had never taken part in any illicit activities. In fact, he found it quite brazen of A- to ask such a favor, especially considering the sort of penalties he could have incurred should J- have turned him over to The Authorities.

But A- had always had a reputation for brazenness, both in his personal and in his professional life. It was his trademark. Something people admired about him. Brazenness was a quality J- liked to think he possessed as well though he never had an opportunity to express it. Instead, his reputation was for thoroughness and diligence, qualities that served him well and earned him his current position. Qualities that didn't make it easy for him to break the rules, though in the end, after much deliberation and for reasons which he did not at the time understand, J- did, eventually, grant the favor A- requested.

What J- did not do, however, having been a novice in matters of corruption, was ask for anything in return. Which isn't to say he didn't expect anything in return. Which isn't to say he didn't want anything in return. And in the coming year, when J- didn't receive so much as a phone call from A-, he began to suspect that he had made a grave mistake. He had made a moral compromise only to be taken advantage of by someone far more experienced in the world of duplicity. In retrospect, J- wished he had demanded compensation and negotiated a specific amount before doing the favor. Or just refused A- from the beginning. The whole fiasco bothered him even more when he heard rumors that A- was involved in an enormously lucrative enterprise while J- remained chained to his desk, working for the paltry salary of a clerk at The Patent Office.

After reading the note, J- ran it twice through his paper shredder in order to eliminate any trace of incriminating evidence. He jumbled the confetti in the trash and grabbed a knife from the kitchen drawer. He approached the strange, coffin-shaped box and thrust the blade into the corrugated cardboard.

"Dear God!" cried a voice from somewhere in the room.

J- jumped back and looked about his apartment searching for the source of this strange outburst. Must be my neighbor's television, he decided. He is hard of hearing and plays his set so loud.

Once more, J- stuck his knife into the package only to hear the same frightened voice scream out, "Please be careful!"

There was no mistaking it this time. Something in the box could speak!

Casting aside the knife, J- peeled open the cardboard box to reveal that inside, covered in packing foam, stood a pudgy little man no more than one-and-a-half feet tall wearing a tweed jacket with elbow patches and gray slacks held high by suspenders. He was a living, breathing man, ugly and curious, like nothing J- had ever seen. He wore a horsehair wig hastily sewn to his scalp and a striped tie too wide to be in fashion. Beads of sweat had collected on the little man's brow. Flecks of Styrofoam clung to his beard. And though he appeared to be a middle-aged little man, beyond 50 perhaps, the tags attached to his wrist would suggest he was brand new.

"What kind of a shit gift is this," J- asked.

The little man cleared his throat, licked his palm, and wiped it over his mussy coiffure. He thrust his stubby, little paw into one inside pocket of his jacket, then into the other, from which he produced a small sheaf of papers. He unfolded the sheaf several times and kept unfolding it until the papers reached the size of a small booklet.

"I am, good Sir," and here the little man cleared his throat again, "hm, hm... obliged to hand you this upon delivery."

He extended the booklet to J-, who, upon receiving it, read out loud the following title:

Congratulations on the purchase of your new homunculus!

The pages thereafter, printed in several languages, contained warranty information and instructions for care and maintenance. It was, as far as J- could tell, an owner's manual of sorts. An owner's manual for an homunculus. For some sort of pet given to him as a gift. Only there was nothing cute about this pet. Nothing cute about an ugly little man in a suit.

J- wondered if the homunculus was truly meant as a gift and not as some sort of an insult instead. He remembered that A- and he were hardly friends at The Academy. That A- was older and born of a family with a long tradition at the school. An elitist who rarely stooped to speak to an upstart like J-, unless it was to mock him or impress his friends with his ability to "communicate with the people."

But that was years ago, J- reasoned, and A- would never be so foolish as to think that the status he held over me then would still apply. Not after the favor I granted him from my station at The Patent Office.

But as J- stared down at the homunculus, twitching, clearing his throat, and patting down his hair with a slickened palm, his hypos began to get the better of him. He couldn't help thinking that A- was gloating over him. That he had given him this gift in order to call J- an ugly little man in a suit, a suck-up, too timid to ask for money in return for a favor. That this offered gift was a most malicious display of arrogance if ever there was one. That it represented an attack on J- and the entire tradition of The Patent Office - an intolerable affront to all that was decent in human behavior!

The homunculus cleared his throat again prompting J- to backhand him with a ferocity that sent the little man flying across the room and crashing into a bookshelf. Hoping to catch A- before he left his office, J- dialed his number and demanded the receptionist put him through. While on hold for what seemed an eternity, he jotted down on a pad some of the many things he wished to say should his old acquaintance have the courage to take the call. And if he couldn't get him on the phone, J- was fully prepared to speak his mind on voice mail, or in a strongly worded email that A- would not soon forget.

"Isn't it great," A- asked, when he finally took the call. "These babies are gonna sell like hotcakes! I'm gonna mass produce the things, market 'em up the wazoo and, in two years time, there's going to be one in every home in The Land!"

"Mass produce them," J- asked. A-'s excitement unnerved J-, catching him completely off-guard and forcing him to wonder if his initial reaction might have been inappropriate. "Do you mean to tell me that..."

"One of our R&D guys came up with the idea about a year ago," A- interrupted. "Yours is the latest prototype. Top of the line. A real beaut if I don't say so myself."

J- was baffled. He still suspected that A- was getting one over on him, but he couldn't think of a way to prove it. "Do you mind telling me first what in God's name it is," J- asked. "I mean, what is its purpose? What is one supposed to do with the thing?"

"Personally," A- replied, "I have mine sing to me. Turns out the sonofabitch is a heck of a baritone!" From the pit of his belly erupted a loud and raucous laugh.

J-, however, was not laughing. He still found no humor in the situation. "Do you mean to tell me you've given me a slave," he asked.

"Oh no, no. Not at all," his old acquaintance protested, ending his laughter in order to take on a tone of seriousness that expressed his disdain for the institution of slavery, long gone from The Land, though it had existed some time ago. "It's got to be human to be a slave. And this thing is definitely not human. At least not according to the patent on its manufacturing process." So that was the favor, J- realized. That was why A- needed me to move those papers at The Patent Office. "Of course if you don't like it, I can always take it back," A- added in a manner that suggested not only that J- was an ingrate but also an accomplice in a crime. "I just thought I owed you something. After all, you did make it possible for me to..."

J- cut him off rather than be reminded explicitly of the mistake he had made a year ago. The whole business was making him sick. If A- was telling the truth about the homunculus, then J-'s favor had been a key component in its manufacture. His transgression had a consequence, embodied in the form of an ugly little man in a suit. A soon-to-be mass produced ugly little man in a suit.

"I didn't mean to offend you," J- offered in a bewildered state of contrition. "It is a lovely gift." Though one that made him nauseous to look at. "Do I have to... feed or clean up after it?"

A- told him that the homunculus could pretty much take care of itself.

"And does it... have a name," J- asked.

"I don't know," A- replied. "Maybe you should ask." The homunculus stood facing the bookshelf, browsing through titles, pretending to ignore the conversation J- was having on the phone. "It is made from the root of mandrake and the sperm of hanged man," A- explained. "They are born of an ancient tradition and reconfigured to exist in the modern age. Consider yourself lucky that you're one of the chosen few who can have one before everyone else."

It occurred to J- that his old acquaintance could very well have lost his mind. How else to explain this delusional behavior? How else to explain why a person would invest what must have been millions of his own and other people's dollars in the hope that the general public would want to buy what was essentially a middle-aged midget? It occurred to J- that perhaps A- was no more malicious than he was brazen. Perhaps he was merely a misguided entrepreneur who had gone insane.

The two acquaintances made a non-formal, non-committal commitment to have lunch sometime in the near but not too-near future. They hung up their respective phones, A- so that he could get home to his wife and children, and J- so that he could return to his desk and finish typing his report. There was, however, the matter of dealing with the one-and-a-half foot man standing in J-'s living room. He walked to the bookshelf and asked the homunculus if he had a name.

"My name," answered the little man, twitching and clearing his throat, "hm, hm... as in the one which was given to me at the factory, hm ... or the plant, I should say..."

"Please," interrupted J-. "Just tell me your name."

The little man smiled and tilted his head obsequiously to the side. "My name is Randolph," he announced, clicking his heels and lengthening his posture. "Randolph, the homunculus!" He bowed and swung his arm in a flourish, then looked up sheepishly for approval.

"And is Randolph your Christian name," J- asked, unimpressed by the performance.

"Oh good heavans!" replied Randolph, with a laugh followed by another clearing of the throat. "It is a name, which I assure you, hm, hm... is neither Christian, Semitic, Mohammedan nor of any other particular denomination. It is my entire name. It is what I am called, hm, hm... though I'd be more than willing to change it hm... if that is what you require."

The little man forced a chuckle, but seeing no approval from his owner, allowed his gaze to fall downward in what might have been the saddest expression of defeat J- had ever seen. But it was not an expression that elicited any sympathy from J-. It elicited nothing but more nausea and frustration. For J- had not asked for this little man. He had not asked for this gift. Nearly half an hour had passed since the deliveryman knocked, and in that time, J- had made no progress on his report, and his position at The Patent Office was not so secure that he could afford to waste time on some toy -- especially not one that served no purpose other than to remind him of a crime he committed a year ago for which he could still serve a stiff sentence if caught. Deciding he was better off before ever having laid eyes on the damned thing, J- returned the little man to his cardboard coffin, sealed it up with duct tape, and placed it on the uppermost shelf of his closet where he kept old laptops and other objects he had no use for but wouldn't, for whatever reason, simply throw in the trash.

******

Clerks in The Patent Office are each expected to hand in one detailed analysis report (DAR) at the end of each and every week. The DAR's are then graded by the managers on a scale of one to six, with a "one" representing a failing mark and a "six" meaning the report is virtually perfect. As explained in The Patent Office Handbook (POH), any clerk who hands in a DAR that receives a grade of one will be immediately terminated. An accumulation of twos, i.e. two in the same month, is also enough to force a clerk into early retirement. Even a steady diet of threes and fours provides no guarantee that a clerk will keep his job. Indeed, the only way that a clerk can feel at all secure in his or her employment at The Patent Office is to score fours and fives (F&F's) with consistency on his or her DAR's.

But scoring F&F's is no easy task. F&F's require discipline, determination, and an unwavering mind-set, the scope of which is beyond the nature of the great majority of the population. And as for a six - well, that is nearly impossible to attain! Any time a clerk can "six" is cause for celebration in the office, not to mention a bonus and a good deal of envy amongst his or her peers. And if a clerk can score "repeat sixes," i.e. three in a month, the clerk, according to the rules outlined in POH, is to be immediately promoted (upon review) to the rank of "manager." In fact, repeat sixes is the only way (with exceptions) to be promoted to the rank of manager, which is why The Patent Office is often called a meritocracy (of sorts), and why each year thousands of graduates from The Academy apply there for a job.

It is also the reason why there are so few managers employed by The Patent Office and why their positions are so enormously coveted. Not that anyone knows what they do. Even the clerks who work in close proximity to them have no idea what goes on behind the closed doors of the managers' chambers. They know only that the managers are well paid; that they can get things done without going through normal bureaucratic channels; that they are the keepers of a great many secrets; and that the ladies of The Public Sector are eager to bequeath to them the treasures of their loins.

What it takes to write repeat sixes, thereby gaining promotion to the rank of manager, is the ever-present topic of discussion amongst the clerks of The Patent Office. But the criteria for evaluation remains an enigma to them. Sure, the managers provide rudimentary instructions. They issue copies of past fives and sixes in order to serve as guidelines and set parameters for quality. But reading a six, or even studying one in depth, is little help when it comes to actually creating one yourself. Clerks often turn in what they think is their best work only to get back scores of three or four, which is enough to make them wonder if there really is a standardized system by which they are being evaluated, and not some sinister machine spitting out arbitrary numbers.

There is even a story that circulates the office concerning a pair of clerks who were having an affair and who promised each other one evening that whoever was promoted first would tell the other "the secret of the sixes." As the story goes, it was the woman who first achieved promotion, and, thereafter, when her mate asked her to divulge the answer to the riddle, he received instead an icy reply that it was strictly forbidden for her to tell him anything other than what was contained in The Patent Office Handbook. When the clerk pushed the issue and demanded that his mate keep her end of their bedroom bargain, the newly promoted manager informed him that she would sooner end their relationship than respond to what he was asking. Even when the clerk's anger approached the threat of violence, the manager would only add that up until the very moment of her promotion, she had had every intention of telling him the secret, but that the knowledge of the secret had changed her -- "had transformed her understanding" -- to the extant that it was no longer possible to tell him and, indeed, that it would never, ever happen.

In pursuit of repeat sixes, J-, like most of his fellow clerks, kept long hours at the office and carried his work home with him, spending weekends and holidays staring at the screen of his laptop. He regularly pulled all-nighters at his desk, washing down amphetamines with coffee to keep himself awake, and even when he did get to bed, he often tossed and turned worrying about whether he had taken the right course in his writing, or whether his forays along the roads of style were leading him astray. He worried about whether or not he could keep up with his overly competitive rivals in the office. He worried that age was getting to him, slowing him down and sapping the very strength he needed to remain afloat. If a clerk was going to get promoted to manager, he usually did so within his first seven years. J- had been at it for ten, and though he scored F&F's with consistency, he felt no closer to repeat sixes than he did when he first started. And there were personal concerns as well. Work prevented J- from having anything resembling a social life. If things kept up the way they were, J- worried he would remain a permanent bachelor, stuck to his desk and its never ending pile of reports. If only I had more talent, he often wished. Or savvy. Or a different perspective. Or maybe if I just put a little more effort into it. But alas, nothing seemed to work.

One night, as J- lay in bed thinking about the report he would hand in in the morning, he heard a strange tapping noise emanating from the closet in his living room. It was Randolph, no doubt, probably clearing his throat as was his annoying habit. J- had not had any dealings with the homunculus since the day, several months prior, when he had first received him in the cardboard coffin. He had surmised, however, that Randolph had escaped his packaging and enjoyed the run of the house when home alone. The evidence was subtle but clear. There were chicken bones in the trash that had been broken open with their marrow sucked out; books had been rearranged on the shelves; and, at night, J- often heard noises in the bathroom as the little man moved through the ritual of his toilet. Since his mind was so completely occupied by work, J- didn't worry much about the homunculus' presence. He thought of Randolph as a leaky faucet, a sore shoulder or just some other nuisance that needed to be dealt with at some infinitely later time. This particular night, however, J- could not leave well enough alone. The noise was keeping him awake, and this particular night, J- wanted his sleep.

He threw off his covers, stumbled into the living room, and approached the closet door. He could hear Randolph's breath, some mumbling, and more of that strange tapping noise. J- was about to knock when it occurred to him that this was his house and he was damned if he had to knock on his door to be polite to an uninvited homunculus. Instead, he decided to yank the door open and catch the homunculus unawares. But in that moment, when he finally did yank the door open, it was not only the homunculus but J- who was caught unawares. Unawares and completely unprepared for the shocking sight that lay before him. For the closet bore no resemblance to the room as last J- saw it, several months prior, when he first condemned the little man to its uppermost shelf. Since then, the closet had been entirely transformed into a scaled-down replica of J-'s cubicle at The Patent Office. Even the furniture matched. Only upon closer inspection did J- realize that the swivel chair had been crafted from stapled shoeboxes; that the desk was made from the cardboard coffin Randolph had arrived in; that the lamp was actually an old, carved-up boot holding a hemp oil candle that Randolph must have taken from the cupboard.

"Come in, come in," he growled, knuckle-walking to the door to take my hand. Kenny had his jacket off, his simian breasts exposed beneath a custom shirt monogrammed at the cuff. I noticed black clumps on the window overlooking Wilshire Boulevard.

"I see you've been throwing your shit again."

"Eh," he dismissed with a wave, "associate pissed me off."

At Horace Mann, Kenny Gutstein had been a scholarship kid like me. Grew up in a development in the Bronx. Dirty white bricks and terraces with dead plants. A mezuzah on every door.

"What's wrong with your face," he asked.

"Dental problem."

He dipped his non-opposable thumb into a vat of Rogaine and smeared it onto his head. "If it's herpes, I got a doctor in K-town..."

"It's not herpes."

Like me, Kenny had grown up an angry child. Angry because the chicks at HM wouldn't look at him. Angry because he had to wear the same ratty, winter coat for years on end, even when it no longer fit and the goose down flew out the collar. But whereas my anger was tempered with the belief that I would someday overthrow the system with my Upper West Side liberal ideals, Kenny was from the Bronx and, therefore, suffered no utopian delusion about an egalitarian crusade that would rescue the world from greed and iniquity. Kenny's anger was an American anger, simple, Republican in nature, and bent on a vengeance he hoped to satisfy with an accumulation of money and pussy.

"You know you're being sued," he mentioned, his voice deep and mellifluous, a New York accent croaking with authority.

"The credit card thing," I asked.

"No." Ropes and a swinging tire hung from his ceiling. "Some clown named Juan Remarqo claims you've been ripping him off."

"Never heard of him," I said.

"He's with a big firm. Sold some screenplays. Has a deal at Fox."

"Can you take care of it?"

Kenny leaned forward, simmering on his haunches. "I'll make him wish he was never born."

In high school, Kenny joined the debate team, ran cross country and threw a fastball in the mid-eighties. He worked weekends at The Gap and busted his ass to earn a 3.0 at a school where a 3.0 was no easy feat. He needed a good score on his SAT's to land a scholarship to a college he could afford, but the poor bastard couldn't crack the test. No matter -- I took it for him. And during his junior year at Binghamton I took his LSAT's to get him into UCLA Law.

"I've been reading your blog," he said, kicking off his Testoni's so he could grip the desk with his feet. "I like the chapters about you, but Fish's childhood stuff is shit."

"I don't pay you for your creative input."

"Half the comments agree with me."

"The people commenting don't know where the story is going."

"And you do?"

Perhaps it was the anger that got Kenny moving backwards on the evolutionary chain. It started with a hunched posture and protruding brow. Then he went bald but gained the coarse, black thatch that covered his body from neck to toe. Then he made partner and began walking on all fours, leaning on his knuckles for support. I never knew whether the transformation was a medical condition or a professional choice, but either way, Kenny seemed oblivious to the humiliation it caused his family and friends. That or he didn't care. The women sure didn't. Hell, in Los Angeles the broads would fuck a reptile if it drove a Porsche, and Kenny drove an Aston Martin with a special compartment for his pistol and his coke. The kid who couldn't get laid in high school was now accompanied by a bevy of gazelle-thin ingénues at every premiere, six-feet tall and holding his hairy hand while his Ferragamo tie dragged along the red carpet.

"So what's the deal with Fischman," I asked.

"You're to provide him with a childhood. One chapter a month blogged online for a year. Like you've been doing. Only change the names so you don't get sued." With his foot, Kenny opened a drawer, pulled out a stack of paper and threw it at me. "Here. Sign it."

The stack contained thirty-odd pages, stark white except for the last where there was a line for my signature.

"This contract is blank," I said.

"Relax, will ya? I haven't had time."

"You want me to sign a blank contract?"

"I'll fill it in as we go."

"Will Fischman sign it blank too?"

Kenny rocked back and forth in his chair, a gesture showing frustration, or so I remembered from watching the Discovery Channel. He pushed a button on his console and called for an associate. Within seconds, the most frightened 30-year-old I'd ever seen entered the room and took a position by the desk.

"At this point, you'll write everything on the site while Fish provides page maintenance, advertising and PR to build up your traffic." He unbuckled his belt. "Once you have an audience, who's to say someone else can't imitate your style and write under your name?" He rolled onto his desk while the associate yanked off his pants. "As the site grows, you can hire a staff to churn out new material." The associate pulled Kenny's feet into the air, pulled off his diaper and wiped his ass. "Or have your fans submit chapters while you sit back and edit." He put a fresh diaper on my attorney. "Or get someone else to edit." I recognized his Harvard tie. "But you have to start it. Provide Fish with as much of a childhood as you can until he or someone else takes over."

I told Kenny I wasn't comfortable with other people writing under my name.

"Get used to it. Digital media is highly malleable. There's no way to protect it from being altered, copied and redistributed."

"I don't want anyone writing under my name," I held firm, "and I don't want anyone editing what I write. Fish and I agreed to this. I expect him to hold to what he agreed."

Kenny told the associate to get the fuck out of his sight. The man obliged, and Kenny leaped to the top of his desk where he began jumping up and down, feet pounding against metal to create a tumultuous din.

"If you're not satisfied with my approach to negotiating your contract, then I'd be happy to recommend an attorney who charges by the hour!"

He was always making this threat. Truth is, Kenny would have loved to drop me as a client. He worked at a 5% commission, and there was little profit in the deals I brought in. Every hour he spent with me was an hour he lost money.

"You don't need to remind me that I can find another attorney," I said. "Maybe one who doesn't break the law by brokering a deal between two parties he represents. Maybe one who took his own LSAT's and didn't cheat on the bar."

"Grrrrrrrrrrrr!" Kenny grabbed a rope and swung to the far corner of the room where he perched on a shelf, poised to pounce. "You talk to me that way in here? In my own Goddamn office!"

"I'm just reminding you of why I know I can trust you to deliver a contract in which I'll be fairly compensated."

Alan is a large man, black, early forties. Bald with a mustache. He keeps his appearance well enough that you wouldn't guess he lived in the alley behind my apartment.

"What do I do?" he asked.

I told him I didn't know.

"I don't know either."

I thought about buying Alan a bagel, but one bagel for him was one less for me, and I wasn't sure I had enough money to make it through the week. And Alan kind of annoyed me. He was always talking while I tried to read the racing form.

"Can you get me a job?" he asked.

"If I hear of anything."

I told Bart, owner and proprietor of The Blessed King Bagel Shop, about my conversation with Alan. I knew that Bart often hired some of the homeless in the area to wash dishes or clean up around the shop. That he let them use the shower in the back and gave them whatever bagels were left at the end of the day.

"Fuck 'em," said Bart. "He's a hypocrite."

"How so?" I asked.

"Did you know he wears a dress at night? All day long, he sits in my shop, and it's 'faggot this' and 'faggot that,' and then he puts on a dress and rides around town on his bike."

"What do you make of that?" I asked.

"I don't know."

Bart is an angry, potato-shaped man, who wears shorts with black socks and sandals beneath his apron. He is angry because he has to open his shop every morning at 2 AM to have the bagels ready for the people who line up to be contestants on The Price is Right. The line winds outside the CBS lot across the street from his store. Fans camp out into the wee hours of the morning wearing T-shirts that say "Pick me Bob" or "Omaha Loves Bob." The "Bob" they refer to is, of course, Bob Barker, long time host of The Price is Right, a staple on CBS morning television for the last 40 years. And therein lies the problem. Bart's livelihood depends on the people who line up for The Price is Right, but being that The Price is Right depends on the popularity of its star, Bob Barker, and being that Bob Barker is 85 years old -- Bart's livelihood is anything but secure.

"I got to sell this place before the fucker dies," Bart often tells me, but he can find no buyer. Add to that three ex-wives, a daughter in college, and a mother in a nursing home, and you can see the man's dilemma. "I got to get out of here," he says. "This place is a trap. This place isn't me." He insists the store barely breaks even. He never takes a day off. Not even a holiday. Once I saw a rabbi chastise him for remaining open on the Sabbath.

"Rabbi," said Bart, "I'll gladly close on shabbos if you pay me what I'd make if I stayed open."

What Bart really wants to do, more than anything in the world, is have his own radio show where he can talk about religion, specifically Hinduism, the faith he adopted after abandoning his Jewish roots. He often asks me, "How do I get my own show? When are you going to get me a show?"

And I always tell him the same thing: "Talk to Vince."

Vince is a regular at the bagel shop, a hunched man in a dark suit, who pulls up once a week in a black Mercedes on his way to work. He orders a scooped-out sesame bagel, toasted, with cream cheese and a cup of coffee. His cell phone is never away from his ear. Vince is a player in this town. The real thing. A successful Hollywood agent with an office on Wilshire Boulevard and a house in the hills. He's 60 years old and 15 minutes from a heart attack.

"Vince don't want to talk to me," Bart says. "Vince don't see nothing that's not two feet in front of his face."

Bart wants me to be on the radio show with him, but I want no part of it. For one thing, I've never been a fan of talk radio. For another, I think Bart is one of the worst talkers I've ever met. He repeats himself constantly, seldom argues coherently and crosses the line with women on a regular basis.

"We can tell people to stop listening to these wackos and evangelists," he says. "We can tell them to read the Vedas and the Bhagavad-Gita. To stop eating meat and foods that poison their souls."

One time I came into the bagel shop and Bart was washing coffee off his face because a lady had thrown her cup at him after he made an inappropriate comment.

"I hate this place," he said. "This place is a trap."

Alan's clothes were looking shabbier than usual, and he was rambling on about the government.

"They have a device that alters your perception of space and time," he said. "It leaves no physical marks that show evidence of torture."

According to Alan, this device (drug or machine, I didn't ask) can make a prisoner feel as if he has spent fifty years in solitary confinement when only an hour had actually passed.

"They use it in interrogations," he said. "They experimented on me when I was in the Army."

"You ain't ever been in no Army," Bart mumbled behind the counter.

According to Alan, this device could also be used to make a prince, somewhere in the Middle East, believe that he is living as a homeless black man in an alley in Los Angeles.

"No violation of the Geneva Convention," he said. "No marks or bruises. But it's torture, man. It's still torture."

I drive a truck for the coroner's office. Graveyard shift. I pick up four or five bodies a night. Most of the time, I work South Central and Watts, picking up a lot of OD's and retired gangbangers. When I arrive at the scene, there's a crowd that doesn't leave until I've zipped away the body and carried it to the back of the truck. The crowd has a certain respect for the jacket that reads "County Coroner." Maybe even a fear. My arrival signals the finality of the event. The end of the show.

After my shift, I eat my morning bagel at The Blessed King. I read the paper. Do the crossword puzzle and the Sudoko. Then I go home and sleep. My day begins again around dusk, when I eat an early supper. I read. I listen to music. I go for walks. Some nights, I watch the fights in Inglewood or throw away money at the track.

I started driving for the coroner's office nine years ago when I was studying law at UCLA. Back then, it was a way to pay for school. I could read between pick-ups and the schedule wouldn't interfere with my classes. But something I was seeing every night as I made my rounds affected my class work. I found it hard to reconcile the law that I heard spoken of in the lecture halls with the law that I witnessed nightly in the projects and the hospitals. On the freeways and the street. I became disillusioned with the law. Gradually, I stopped attending lectures and neglected my assignments. I separated myself from the other students. Eventually, I dropped out.

Years later, on my 32nd birthday, I put on my County Coroner windbreaker before driving to work and studied what I saw in the mirror. My skin was pale. My face thin. I was underweight with heavy bags under my eyes and gray hairs lingering about my temples. Long ago, I had ceased dating and speaking to friends. Long ago, I had ceased striving toward some social or financial goal. Instead, I'd become content to maintain what little I had. I had made the choice - though I don't recall making it - to observe from a distance. To contemplate without taking part. To create no victims and offer no assistance. I no longer needed to pick a side or force an issue. I no longer needed to leave some trace of my wanderings in the night. It was enough for me to provide this service. This humble and innocuous service. To pick up bodies. To pick up the discarded shell and move it to where the contestants couldn't see it, smell it, or trip over it, as they gamboled across the field. To pick up bodies -- and make death as if it were never there.

There were two Japanese across from me - one fat, one skinny. They appeared to be ventriloquists. Whenever one spoke, the other would move his lips. I suspected they had poisoned my sake.

Sitting next to me and controlling the conversation was my old friend, Arty from Philly. He appeared to be representing my interests. I gathered this from the fact that he was wearing a red track suit and a fake mustache. Better warn him about the sake, I thought. But how? Fat Man and Little Boy are watching my every move.

"Where is the restroom?" I asked. Unfortunately, my words didn't come out the way I'd intended. They sounded more like, "Camus was a French existentialist." The Japanese nodded and went back to listening to Arty. It seemed some sort of negotiation was taking place. They could have been discussing who would get the contract to build a two-billion-dollar 450-megawatt hydro-electric dam in Sumatra. Or a price for my kidneys.

Quietly, without attracting anyone's attention, I took the empty sake box near my plate and lowered it beneath the table. With my free hand, I undid my trousers and surreptitiously urinated into the box. Or onto Arty's leg. I couldn't really tell.

A screen wall slid open to reveal a beautiful Japanese woman in a kimono. I became aroused at the sight of her. Even though I was peeing.

"Freud would say," responded Arty to a question I didn't think I'd asked, "that there are similarities in culture between the Asian and the Jewish female. Both place a strong emphasis on education, achievement and expensive shoes. But unlike her Semitic counterpart, the Lady from Shanghai is recognized by her straight hair, slanted eye and slender buttock. Thus the Jewish male can accept in her the familiar comforts of a shared culture without the paranoid fear that he is fucking his mother."

The poison was allowing him to read my mind. It was also making the sushi swim around the table and argue amongst themselves in a language that can only be described as angry Yiddish.

Who are these Japanese, I wondered. Clearly, they want something from me, but what could I possibly have that is of any value? My mother always told me I had potential. Is that what they've come for? I better warn Arty.

'"They're after my potential," I whispered.

"Scoundrels!" Arty screamed, thrusting a chopstick in their direction. "You'll never get his potential without paying for it!"

There was pornographic anime playing on the TV in the limousine. The Japanese enjoyed it immensely.

"We have to be careful," I told Arty. "They've already got our shoes."

"Read it," he says.

I did and there was. The role of an offbeat Jewish attorney with an attitude. Had my name all over it. "And here's the kicker," says Arty. "It's already picked up for thirteen."

In layman's terms, that meant if I booked it, I'd get thirty grand for the pilot plus another thirty for each of the 13 episodes guaranteed by the network. That meant $420,000 for four months "work," a sum roughly equivalent to my entire net worth times 420,000. Plus I knew the playwright. I dare say the bastard even owed me one for saving a piece of shit he had running off-Broadway some fifteen years back. Things were looking good.

I called my agent's office first thing on a Thursday to tell him to get me the audition. Amy, his half-wit assistant, picked up the phone.

"Put Bernie on," I says.

"Can't."

"Why not?"

"He's in the hospital."

"What's he doing there?"

"Don't know."

"Oh Christ," I says. "Who's covering the Lonstein project?"

"Beats me."

Amy was a sensational fuck up. For five years she'd been in that office, and she still couldn't work the copier. Or the fax. Or even the fucking water cooler. At least once a week, I begged Bernie to fire her, but the old man wouldn't do it.

"Amy," I says real nice and slow, "can you please find out who the casting director is?"

"Sometimes," she says.

"Look at the breakdown."

"Nothing's broken," she says. "Except the water cooler."

"I know nothing's broken," and now I'm struggling to stop myself from going down there and smacking her across the head. "I'm talking about the breakdown -- the description that comes over the computer and tells you about the project."

"The computers don't tell me nothin'," she says. "They only talk to each other."

This was going nowhere. I hung up the phone and called Arty from Philly, thinking maybe he knew who the casting director was.

"Cheryl Zuckerman."

"Oh nuts," I says. "You think she'll remember?"

"What do you think?"

Years ago, at a rave, Cheryl Zuckerman bought $200 worth of ecstasy off me before blowing a pair of Persians in the bathroom. Though she initially blamed the incident on the drugs, the fact is I sold her aspirin, and by the time her friends told her she'd been had, Cheryl Zuckerman was already a Hollywood punch line. The woman swore an oath of vengeance against me, a vendetta that fueled a massive increase in her weight and a meteoric rise from the mailroom of Buchwald to the casting office at CBS. At 250 pounds of angry Jewish flesh, Cheryl Zuckerman stood as a formidable obstacle between me and the $420,000 I'd get if I booked that pilot. There was no way I'd get the audition through her, so I scoured an old address book to see if I still had Lonstein's home number. I did. I called it. Disconnected. I tried information on Fire Island, but they had no listing.

In music class, everyone laughed when Matt Strunker made a joke. I made a joke too, but no one laughed.

How come no one laughed at my joke? At North Meadow Pre-School, everyone laughed at my jokes, but at Horace Mann Barnard Elementary, nothing. I told the same joke Matt Strunker told, and still no one laughed. The music teacher told Mrs. Zimmer I was disruptive. Michael Hsu told her I copied Matt Strunker. Michael Hsu was a rat.

Mrs. Zimmer wrote my mother's name on an envelope and pinned it to my shirt. Before getting on the bus, I took off the envelope and dropped it on the ground.

Josh made fun of me the whole way home. I took a swing at him, but he was stronger than me. He beat me up in front of the other kids. I was crying when Clarissa picked us up at the bus stop. She asked Josh why he beat me up, and he told her to fuck off.

I was in her room playing with action figures when Mom got home. Josh was watching Happy Days in the living room. Clarissa told Mom what Josh did, and Mom got mad.

- Who taught you that kind of language? Who said you could pick on your brother in front of other kids? You should kiss your brother's feet -- five years old and he can already add and multiply numbers. He can do at five what you can't do at eight, you little retard. Do you enjoy being a retard? Look at me when I'm talking to you! Nothing but a lazy, stupid, worthless little retard since the day you were born. I'm ashamed you're my son. In fact, you're not my son. You're a mistake. A mix-up at the hospital. You're the abandoned love child of some Gypsy, junky whore who must have fucked every retard in the neighborhood. Where are you going? Don't you walk away when I'm talking to you!

Josh stomped to our room and slammed the door. Mom didn't like it when you slammed doors, so she followed him in and hit him. I put a pillow over my ears, but I could still hear her hitting him and still hear him screaming and crying when she hit him.

Mom came to the bedroom where I was holding the pillow over my ears and told me Josh wouldn't pick on me at school anymore. She said lots of kids get picked on when they start a new school. She said that when she was a girl, her family had to move all the time, and she was always starting over at new schools. Her and Nanna Ruth and Uncle Alfie would live in the back of whatever shop her father was working in, and when the shop closed, or Poppy Harry lost the job, they would move again. She said the neighborhoods were always rough, and the kids always picked on her. To make matters worse, she said, when she was a girl, one of her eyes was crossed and the doctor made her wear a patch. Becuase she could only see out of one eye, she couldn't catch a ball or play sports, and the other kids called her a pirate. One time an older boy told her she was the ugliest girl in school, and when she came home crying, Nanna Ruth told her the boy was right and beat her up for crying.

Mom took off her stockings and let me wear her shoes. She brushed my hair in the mirror and put lipstick on my mouth. She took a needle from her sewing kit and stuck it in my ear. Then she took an earring and stuck it in the hole she made with the needle. Then she stuck the needle in my other ear and put in another earring. Mom told me to make sure my hair covered my earrings so Daddy couldn't see them. She said the earrings would be our little secret.

Mrs. Zimmer asked the class what country we lived in, and Jenifer Cohen said we lived in America. Jenifer Cohen wore glasses. She was always the first to raise her hand when Mrs. Zimmer asked a question. I disliked her immensely.

Mrs. Zimmer corrected Jenifer Cohen and said we lived in the United States of America, which was founded in 1776 after the Declaration of Independence.

Mrs. Zimmer asked the class what state we lived in, and Matt Strunker said we lived in New York. Mrs. Zimmer said that there are fifty states in the United States of America and New York is one of them.

Then she asked what city we lived in, and I raised my hand.

- We live in New York City.

Mrs. Zimmer said that New York City used to belong to the Indians until the Dutch bought it for 24 dollars and an oak leaf.

- Wait a minute, said Kenny Gutstein. You tellin' me they bought all of New York for twenty bucks and a leaf?

Mrs. Zimmer told Kenny that if he had a question, he had to raise his hand. So Kenny raised his hand.

- That musta been one hell of a leaf!

Mrs. Zimmer told Kenny not to use the word hell. Then she said that at the time the Dutch bought New York, a leaf was very valuable.

- You're tellin' me!

Mrs. Zimmer reminded Kenny that, at the time, New York wasn't a city yet. It was just a forest.

- If it was a forest, said Kenny, you got to figure it had some trees. And if it had some trees, why the hell would they sell it for a leaf?

Mrs. Zimmer told Kenny he was being disruptive.

- But he has a point, I said.

Mrs. Zimmer told us that if we didn't behave, we would get detention. Detention meant you couldn't play at recess, so me and Kenny behaved.

I had a playdate with Nathan Pothearst after school. Nathan lived in a huge apartment on Central Park West. He had a big black poodle named Pounce that tackled me when I came in the door. Nathan didn't have to share a room with his brother like I did. He had his own room with a pinball machine and a TV. He even had his own refrigerator filled with Mellow Yellow and Mountain Dew.

Nathan fought in a southpaw style while I employed an orthodox stance. He used his height to his advantage and stuck out his glove to keep me from coming in. Nathan was a good fighter, but slow. It wasn't hard to slip his jab, come in past the gloves, and hook to the body. But then Nathan surprised me with a lead left that grazed my earring. I screamed in pain. Nathan's housekeeper ran in and looked at my ear. She said it looked infected. She called Nathan's father, and he came right home. Nathan's father called my father, and he came over too. They looked at my ears and shook their heads.

Dad took me to see Dr. Safir and Dr. Begun. They took out my earrings, stuck me with a needle and gave me a lollipop.

"You look like a corpse," I slurred.

She turned to me with a look that Mengele might have given a thalidomide baby. "Excuse me?"

"I said you look like a fucking corpse." I turned back drunk to my pint, and when next I looked in her direction, she spat a large clot of phlegm into my eye. By the time I wiped it away, she was gone.

Arty from Philly worked the bar when he wasn't getting paid to sit in the studio audience of a daytime talk show. He called me a week later.

"Remember that girl from the Burgundy Room?" he asked.

"Which one?"

"The one that spat in your eye."

"What about her?"

"She was in here again, asking about you. Her name is Faye."

That night, I went back to the Burgundy Room, and for my sins, so did Faye.

"You always introduce yourself to chicks by insulting them?" she asked.

"I've known llamas with more class than you."

"Llamas?"

"Yeah. Llamas."

"I don't get it."

Nothing worse than having to explain a joke in a loud and crowded bar. "Llamas," I said. "'Cause they spit."

"Oh," she replied. "That's funny." Only she wasn't laughing. She turned and walked some drinks to her friends, a necromantic crew of punk rock groupies probably conceived in the back of a touring van. They mocked the jukebox, scowled at boys, then zombied their way out the door. Before leaving, Faye told me where they were headed, but I didn't follow.

"I'm not one for the chase," I told her.

I wasn't always that way. During my college years, I pursued a beautiful, young virgin for the better part of three semesters. I woke every morning thinking of her. We made mix tapes for each other, wrote poems and love letters. We held hands in the bleachers at homecoming and pulled all-nighters studying for finals. Then she gave it up to a lacrosse player. Some cad she'd met that night who videotaped the encounter and posted the footage online. His camera work was a little verite for my taste, his editing too French new wave, and his lighting far from cinematic, but there was no denying it was a riveting piece of work. By revealing her unknowing in the sexual act, he had taken the woman I'd put on pedestal and reduced her to the frightened animal that she was. The animal that we all are when we're fucking. At least if we're doing it right. I must have watched that film a million times. Watched that preppy bastard fucking my girl, the one I thought I'd marry and live with the rest of my life. Watched it until I could only fantasize about her with him in the picture. I could never have fucked her the way he did. I didn't have it in me then. I didn't have the ability to even imagine being that brutal with a woman I was so madly in love with. And it was brutality she wanted. Brutality she needed from a man so that he could manage the rough surgery that he performed on her. It was a cruel lesson that sonofabitch taught me but one I needed to learn: one man's chase is always another's easy lay.

The next time I saw Faye was at the Ralph's supermarket on Third and La Brea. I was picking up toilet paper and beer at three in the morning when I nearly tripped over her, sprawled out in the condiment section, licking mustard off the back of her hand.

"How 'bout a ride?" she asked, and an hour later, we were sitting on the floor of her studio apartment, smoking black tar heroin off of aluminum foil. With "Performance" playing on the television set and the Velvet Underground hissing from the speakers, I can remember feeling that her hardwood floor was the most comfortable surface I'd ever collapsed on. That the towel she'd thrown on top of me was better than the childhood blankie I once held over my head to hide from monsters. I nodded into an opiate slumber, devoured in the belief that everything was alright, always had been, and always would be.

"What's going on here?" asked George, tucking the bag containing the videos he rented under his arm.

"Can you please sit down?" asked Caitlin. Her being the first to speak revealed that she was most likely the organizer of the event. "Your friends, family and I have something we'd like to share."

"I can see that," George replied. "And I'll gladly sit down when I know what this is all about."

"Please understand," said Arthur from Philadelphia. "This is no easier for us than it is for you. But we felt that if we didn't intervene now, things might get to the point where we could no longer stop you from destroying yourself."

So that's what this is, George realized. An intervention! He had heard of interventions before but had never actually seen one in the flesh: the strange combination of family, friends, and acquaintances; the us-against-you ambiance of the room; the obvious planning that had gone into it all. The only thing George couldn't figure out was why? What pattern of behavior had he established that warranted such an intrusive measure? Sure, he thought, I enjoy a cocktail now and then, but I'm hardly an alcoholic. And whatever experimenting I did with drugs all came to a halt when Caitlin informed me she disapproved of activities that could jeopardize her father's political ambitions. George didn't gamble, so he knew that wasn't it. He didn't engage in homosexuality, though he had always suspected Arthur of certain proclivities. He ate in moderation, spent in moderation, worked in moderation. In fact, in every way he could conceive at that moment, George Himmelman considered himself the Goldilocks of all things, his only addiction being a strict adherence to moderation itself.

"Though I have no doubt of your honorable intentions," George assured his uninvited guests, "I cannot think of one thing in the world I'm addicted to that would in any way require your taking such a drastic action on my behalf."

Roderick from the club stood and took charge of the room. "You're not alone," he asserted. "It wasn't long ago that I was in your position, being confronted by the people I love." His wife, Charla, nodded at his side. "It's natural to feel defensive and embarrassed. But with the right treatment and support, you can overcome this, George."

"Overcome what?" George asked, masking his indignation as best he could. "Seriously, now. I have no idea what you're talking about."

His father groaned as if to indicate the whole event was keeping him from some more urgent engagement. "You might as well come clean so we can get this over with, George."

"Get what over with? What are you talking about? What in God's name do you people think is wrong with me?"

"Oh for Chrissake," his mother blurted out. "You jerk off too much!"

"Dios mio," said Maria, crossing herself, as the room grew silent.

My God, George thought. Is that what this is about? Too much masturbation? George knew he enjoyed his daily dalliance with himself, but he never, in a million years, considered that his sessions had become so frequent as to warrant an intervention. He had never even heard of a masturbation addiction. He had always believed (as his health teacher back at Philips Exeter had taught) that masturbation did not cause blindness, hairy palms, or any other maladies. He believed that, apart from abstinence, it constituted the safest kind of sex there is. So what was the harm if he did masturbate a bit more than most? Which, in his mind, he did not. And who were these people to tell him what he could and couldn't do on his own time by his own hand? And how did they know what they knew? George thought he had always taken the necessary precautions to ensure his masturbatory life was a secret, hidden away from all around him. Who or what gave these people the idea that he was too prolific in his practice?

"You must be kidding," George laughed. "This is a joke! I hardly ever masturbate!"

It was Maria's turn to speak. "Please, Meester George," she said. " I washa you underwear since you twelve year old. Some-a-the-time, they-a so hard, I scractha myself on you boxer short." As if she were showing the jury exhibits A through F, Maria proceeded to hold up several pieces of George's soiled laundry, evidence for all in the room to see of the crimes committed against cotton.

"Fine," George responded. "I play with myself more than the next guy. But there's nothing chronic or dangerous about my habit. I mean, at least I've never done it in public and been arrested like Arthur."

"There's no reason to lash out," said his best friend.

"Can't you see your friend is trying to help you?" asked Caitlin. How unlike her to defend Arthur, thought George. Normally, she can't hide her contempt for the guy. Perhaps they bonded over their plan for my humiliation.

"How many times has it been?" asked Roderick. "How many times today?"

"Just once," George said. "This morning in the shower."

"Are you sure?"

George suddenly remembered an incident that occurred earlier in the day while he was eating lunch with a client. A waitress had walked by wearing a tight-fitting black skirt that inspired an interruption in the meeting and a brief sojourn to the restroom.

"Okay twice," George admitted, but no sooner had he spoken then he remembered another incident at work, wherein some spam arrived in his inbox advertising a new porn site that, as the email stated, "Could not be missed." And it could not be missed! After clicking the link, George told his secretary to hold all calls so that he could shut the blinds and do some quick handiwork into an outdated report.

"Three times," George admitted. "But that's highly unusual for me, and hardly enough to demand an outpouring such as this."

"But it's only six o'clock," slurred his mother. "The night is young."

"I'm not going to masturbate again tonight, Mother!"

Roderick asked him what it was he was concealing under his arm.

"What? This?" George asked, referring to the videos he was holding. "I just rented some new releases."

George's father took the tapes from his son. He read the titles out loud.

"Sodomania volumes one and two."

"It's a biblical epic," George replied.

"You should give her a call."

Arty from Philly told me about her. Tess was a friend of Arty's wife, Lauren. Actually, Lauren hated her. They swam together at Cornell where Tess had a reputation for being a frigid little bitch, moody and unpredictable. She was overly competitive, in and out of the water, rarely hung out with other swimmers, and sabotaged all attachments to the girls in her dorm.

"And she was always too busy!"

Too busy working towards her 4.0, too busy proving she was more than a pretty face with a great rack, too busy pursuing that job at Goldman Sachs where she knew she could out-hustle any of those limp-dick-prep-school faggots who dared meander across her path.

As luck would have it, one of those limp-dick-prep-school faggots did meander across her path, and he meandered with enough charm, enough swagger, and (of course) enough of Daddy's money to convince Tess it would be worth her while to follow him out to California, where he could pursue a career as a budding cinematographer.

But Hollywood proved too much for the limp-dick-prep-school faggot and his analyst girlfriend. Tess worked long hours around the schedule of the New York Stock Exchange, up at four in the morning, back in bed by eight o'clock at night. She wore navy blue pinstripes while the limp-dick-prep-school faggot wore a mesh trucker's hat and a Von Dutch sweatshirt. She read financials; he read screenplays. She made six figures; his parents cut him off. She took up kickboxing; he had affairs. She got cancer; he moved back east.

"You won't have to play games with her, wine her and dine her. She just wants to get laid, which -- let's face it, pal -- is pretty much all you want too."

Arty had a point. I wasn't exactly in "relationship condition." My clothes were shoddy. My gut stuck out. I had a bad haircut and a rotting tooth that was beginning to smell. A year had passed since my last date, and that one ended in a lawsuit. I had a job at the time working for an exterminator, setting traps for pests and rodents. It was disgraceful work. The kind you take when you have no pride, no hope, and no love for insects. My paychecks didn't even cover my bills let alone provide the cash necessary for taking a girl out for a "sit down" meal. I told Arty I wasn't interested, but when he left Tess' number on my couch, I didn't throw it away.

Two weeks later, I was getting hammered at a bar where my money's no good. I'd been listening to some tattooed blond ramble on for a couple of hours when, out of nowhere, she let it drop that her musician boyfriend was picking her up in fifteen minutes. I thanked her for wasting my time, then drunk-drove home through the skids of Hollywood. After browsing through some Internet porn that was becoming a little too familiar, I decided to give Tess a call. She picked up on the third ring, sounding like she'd been asleep.

"Hello?"

"Hey, it's Rodney." I was kicking myself for calling so late.

"Who?" She had the kind of voice you hear on those new-fangled fire alarm systems that warn you to remain calm as you exit the building.

"Rodney," I repeated. "Rodney Maciejewski. Arty told me I should give you a try."

"Arty?" she asked.

"Lauren's husband."

It took her a second.

"Oh." She didn't sound enthused.

"Anyway, there's a place by my house. It's open late if you want to get some coffee or something."

She paused. There was contempt in her pause.

"Why don't you just... come over."

I chugged the last beer in my fridge and drove a demolition derby to the West Side.

"Come in," she said as she opened the door, and right away, I could see Tess was in possession of an angry beauty, cold and unasked for. She was slender and petite, with ice-pick cheekbones under fierce brown eyes. Her skin would have been olive if she'd ever seen the sun.

"Tess, right?" I asked.

"Yes," she replied, turning her back as she walked into the living room. I watched her take the pillows off the couch and spread a white sheet across the cushions. I stared at her chest and the irregular triangle negotiated across her nightshirt, hanging by its vertex, formed from a bra-less and all too solitary breast.

"I'm Rodney," I said, still standing by the door. My name was of no interest to her.

"Do you have a condom?" she asked.

Jesus, I thought. Arty didn't lie. "Shouldn't we exchange pleasantries first?"

"Why?" she asked.

I laughed nervously as I approached the couch. I always expect a measure of disappointment when a woman opens the door to reveal me instead of something with an ironed shirt and a head of hair, but Tess' indifference was different. It seemed I was there to serve a purpose. Her purpose. I might as well have been delivering a pizza, and she was looking for exact change.

"Yeah," I said, moving next to her. My gut brushed lightly against her arm. "I have a condom."

With that, Tess Felice undid my pants and used her hand to get me aroused. I pulled out a rubber that had been in my wallet since the Clinton administration and rolled it onto my cock. Once she was sure everything was antiseptic, Tess turned around, lifted her nightshirt above her waist, and allowed me to enter her from behind. She held her balance with her right hand while using her left to rub and squeeze at her one remaining breast. When I put a clumsy hand on her hip, she shrugged it off with a wiggle. It took about fifteen minutes for us both to finish, after which Tess pulled down her nightshirt, stood up, and said something about having to get up in a few hours. I attempted to kiss her good-bye on the lips, but she gave me the cheek. In the course of the half hour or so we spent together, our eyes never met, and all told, I'd say our shared experience was about as intimate as a trip to an ATM.

Over the next several months, I made a series of visits to Tess' apartment, and each time, the night followed the same script. If I suggested we have dinner or a drink, she would make an excuse about needing sleep or not having enough time, and before long, we were doing it again on the couch. She showed no desire to reveal any details of her life and no curiosity concerning mine. Almost everything I knew about her, I knew from Arty and Lauren.

I looked through the peephole and saw a skinny Mexican kid standing in the rain with a package and an ipod.

"Can I help you," I asked as I opened the door.

"Are you Judd Trichter?"

I admitted I was.

"You've been served."

According to the documents, the law firm of Wolfowitz and Abramoff was suing me for $12,000 on a credit card debt that was three years past due.

I called my lawyer and old friend, Kenny Gutstein.

"You're bothering me with this shit in the middle of pilot season?"

I told him I didn't know what to do.

"Get a bankruptcy attorney."

"Obviously I can't afford one."

He sighed with contempt. "Fax the papers over, and I'll take a look."

"I love you, bubby."

He hung up.

The debt was something that had begun more than ten years ago, back when I was in college. I had given my father a credit card in my name because he couldn't have one in his own. Sidonia had been vociferous about not allowing my parents anywhere near my finances, but what could I do? He was my father.

Gutstein emailed me the address of a legal aid office in Inglewood:

go down there, get the forms, then file a response with the court in Bev Hills. admit nothing.

I had promised Tracy we would hang out after her shift so I picked her up from the internet cafe on my way to Inglewood. She read a dog-eared copy of Title I by Manuel Gurabo as we sat in the waiting room.

"How is it," I asked.

"You never read it?"

"Nope."

There was a sign on the wall that said what forms were required for A) child custody, B) domestic violence, or C) credit card debt. Three other victims of the court system were waiting in line before me. Judging by the state of their clothes, the color of their skin, and the number of small children they had in tow, I figured none of them would fair well from whatever process was being administered against them.

"Did Manuel Gurabo really used to come to your house," she asked. Tracy had read the rough draft of the first chapter of my Fischman blog, and this led her to begin educating herself about the great New Yorican playwright.

"He was friends with my mother," I said.

"And you remember him?"

"I'm not sure if I remember him, or if I remember the stories about his coming 'round."

We were helped by a bearded law school student doing a bit of pro bono work to fulfill his requirements at USC. He asked me if the credit card claim was legitimate, and I confessed that it was. He suggested I make a counter offer of $2,000 and hope for a settlement in the $7,000 to $9,000 range. Remembering Kenny's advice, I opted instead to deny the allegations and make a settlement offer of zero. The law school student advised me that I didn't have a case. He mentioned something about perjury. I told him he needn't worry because little Jewish attorney angels from New York would eventually come and save me.

And I'm one of the lucky ones.

So lucky I was recently hired to be a series regular on a new television show on a cable network. My contract guaranteed top billing, a salary in the low six, and a trailer next to the soundstage on a studio lot. The show was shit, but that's irrelevant. ALL shows are shit. No doubt, there are degrees of shit. There's the shit you wouldn't touch with a ten foot pole; the shit even flies wouldn't buzz around; the shit so fetid that some Amazonian microbe (AKA Bruckheimer) must have been involved in its production. But this was just your average, run-of-the-mill shit. Harmless shit, though nothing you'd put your nose to. It wasn't going to make me rich, or famous, and good God it wasn't going to convince anyone I was an artist, but if it employed me for two seasons before getting canceled, I'd make enough money to have health insurance for the next five years. I'd have something to point to at my ten-year college reunion that wouldn't make me look like a complete and total failure. I could get some clothes and pay off my debts, a reliable car, perhaps, and a new apartment where I wouldn't be privy to my neighbors' farts, snores, and sobs in the night. Perhaps I'd even go on a vacation for the first time since moving here. Perhaps I'd rouse Mother from her depression for a week.

Like I said, the job was shit... but it was shit that paid.

Two weeks ago, with four episodes in the can and the pilot yet to air, I was fired from the very piece of shit that had offered me, so temporarily, the promise of success.

"They tell you why?" I asked my manager.

"They said Eddy wanted to call you, but he's on The East Coast."

Eddy is the executive producer of the show. He was a very famous television actor in the eighties. I won't say his real name or describe him in much detail, but I will mention that he played a character who was really into magic, and every time he was on Johnny Carson or Letterman, he'd do some really lame magic trick that bored the studio audience to tears. Eddy showed me some of his magic on set, where it occurred to me that I was acting for free and getting paid to feign amusement at Eddy's pathetic attempts at prestidigitation.

"They tell you why?" I asked my manager.

"It was The Network's decision."

By placing the blame on The Network (a construct that exists beyond human culpability), the various bottom feeders who worked on the show and made the decision to fire my ass are able to protect themselves from any future retaliations that might follow should I ever find myself in a position of authority.

"They tell you why?" I asked my manager.

"Look," he sighed. "What's the difference?"

Thus it occurred that I was released from a series by no known person or persons for no given reason.

"Oh, honey, I'm so sorry."

How ironic that Intimate Relationship #9.5 would be the first to console me in my time of grief. Ironic because I had had every intention of dumping her ass and getting in on some of that famous pussy as soon as the show went to air. Of course, I never told her this, but having lived in this town for most of her adult life, she certainly knew the score. Why else would she have lied about being on the pill for the last three months? Before I booked the pilot, IR#9.5 would scowl at me if I even looked at her without a condom on, but after landing the role, I couldn't sleep for an hour without finding her on top of me, grunting and grinding at me with her crude babymaking technique. It was a terrifying perversion of the sexual act, and I'm lucky to have survived the experience without having spawned some unfortunate beast to whom I would have denied to its dying day that I ever knew its mother.

"They called my manager to ask what to do with my stuff," I said as I lay on the couch swigging a beer. I had neither shaved, showered, nor moved from the couch in a week.

"You should have them put everything in a box and ship it over," she suggested. "You shouldn't have to go back there."

I thought of the porno I left in the VCR in my trailer. The one I made on my own, featuring me and a pair of extras from episode two.

"No, I should go back," I said

IR#9.5 made me promise to control my temper when I returned to my former place of employment.

"Living well is the best revenge," she reminded me. "You take your lumps and you soldier on."

Actors are expected to have an unwavering confidence. We're expected to be gracious to the people who shit on us, the thinking being that one never knows how they'll make it up to us down the road. I've been in this business for eighteen years, so I speak from experience when I say that after they shit on you, they seldom send flowers, and they never do you any favors down the road.

And all it took me was nine years. Nine years staring at a computer screen, hacking away, racking my brain for the bon mot while fending off the money lenders, the bill collectors, the naysayers, the bookies, the dealers, the faithless family members, the agonizing bouts of writer's block, and the little voices in my head that said I couldn't do it. Well I could do it. I did do it. The proof was typed out on a blue rectangle of paper with four zeros after a prime number.

Nine long, angst-ridden years of never knowing if this day would come. Of always wondering, am I wasting my time? Am I wasting, in this airless room, the life that God has granted me? If there is a God. Nine years of rejection letters and unrequited phone calls, of rashy fingertips abrading against a keyboard and track pad, of sinking gut and soul atrophy, and all it took was a walk to the mailbox, an envelope from International Creative Management, and a check! God bless ICM and the hell they inhabit. Their money's good even if their word ain't. I know because of the check. Nine years. Nine goddamn years.

First person I called was my mother.

"How ya doin' Ma?"

"Oy," she said. "Your grandmother's driving me crazy. I don't know I can take it much longer. "

"I got news, Ma!"

"Your grandmother wants to see you."

The last time my grandmother saw me, she thought I was Adlai Stevenson and spat at me for losing the election.

"I think I'm gonna stay in LA for the summer, Ma."

"Then we're coming out to visit."

"I think I got a bad connection, Ma."

"I'm all alone," she cried. "I'm going to die alone like a filthy animal!"

I hung up the phone and walked to the bank to deposit the check lest it disintegrate from my staring at it. I felt its weight in my pocket pulling down the ass on my Levi's. Nine long and uncertain years. Like I'd been on death row and in my pocket was the Governor's pardon.

I took it to my favorite teller, an adorable senorita with a limp, with whom I had a long-standing flirtation. I got a real kick out of handing her the deposit slip. She was expecting the usual three or four hundred I get from the government, but when she saw those five figures of mercy, her painted eyebrows nearly jumped off her face.

"Struggling writer, huh?" she smiled.

"Ain't struggling today, baby doll."

I ate a twenty-dollar lunch and left a twenty-dollar tip. Nine years. Nine fucking years.

I was too wired to get any work done, so I called Intimate Relationship #9.5 to tell her the news.

"Great," she said, but I heard no smile in her voice. "Good for you."

"I thought maybe I could take you out tonight," I asked without really asking. "I thought maybe we could celebrate."

"Can't," she replied. "Got a date."

I told her she was damn right she got a date. "You got a date with me!"

And then IR #9.5 reminded me that she and I broke up a year ago. "And just 'cause we still fuck every now and then, doesn't mean I'm at your beck and call."

I promised her things would be different. "Don't you understand?" I asked. "I got a pocket full of confidence, and I'm ready to start considering thinking about commitment."

She hung up, but that was no surprise. IR #9.5 never wanted me to succeed. I'd known that about her a long time. It was why I cut her off in the first place. Or maybe she cut me off. Who remembers? Who cares? I couldn't burden myself with responsibilities to anything other than my craft. I was a writer, Goddamnit, and if she didn't understand that, then to hell with her!