The Way of The Rat

The train at 4:30 in the morning, though for him it was still the day before, was a stark reminder that he was now part of something else entirely than he had been before. Coming back from work and going to his home meant a lay over in the city then 10 stops to home. All in all it wan’t as bad as he’d thought.

Headphones securely plugged into his ears, he’d adjust them every couple of minutes. “These damned things never fit my ears.” He said to himself of the inner ear suction cups that held them in place. They worked good enough though. Served their purpose. Which was to drown out the drunken conversation of the riders around him. If not he’d quickly find himself hating them. Wishing they would ride in silence. And who was he to ruin their fun. They were the reason he could afford to make the move. Might as well, let them be, submerse himself in music and wind down from another day of toil.

The train lurched to a halt. One more stop til the city transition. He got up as the train took motion again, and stood in front of the door. There was a subtle anticipation that came with the wait for the last stop. This was where they all wanted to get off. Getting stuck behind four meandering drunks might have been torture. Just breaking into a full sprint when the door opened had ever been a fight not to do. “Remain, composed.” he told himself, “You can’t go running around like a lunatic through the subway.”

No matter how much energy he still had from his night’s work It just wouldn’t look cool. And eventually they’d all be waiting for the train on the next platform, what would is gain stepping achieve? No it was best to just leave ahead of everyone and walk briskly toward the next platform and wait.

It seemed like there was a lot more waiting going on these days for him. Waiting for trains, waiting for the weekend, waiting for people to get back to him, waiting for customers. Most of all waiting for change, some breaking tempest to sweep away the monotony and prove to him that life was more than a series of pauses punctuated by things he spent his time waiting for.

The platform smelled like piss. He wondered how they cleaned these things. Then he wondered, “Do they clean these things?” No matter the nose only senses change and soon the piss smell was as normal as burned tires on the highway. For a minute he missed Ohio, no maybe he just missed the highway. Mental note on a summer road trip.

Something shot out of the corner of his eye. He was extra wary this time of night, there was an adrenal reaction to everything this time of night. Every bump, every motion, stare, step and noise registered at a heightened level. He laughed, a rat. On the tracks, or in between them was drinking from a puddle. Scraping it together, just like him. The way of the rat, get the cheese, avoid the trap. Pretty much how it was going for him too.

The connecting train pulled in, the was an attention in everyone’s stature. Like a hundred zombies had smelled brains. The doors opened and he stepped in. Cozied himself in a corner and leaned back. The headphones slid out again, he cursed and adjusted them. He could hear himself breathe in-between songs.

The fireman sat down across from him. That’s what he called his man in his mind. He was not in fact a fireman in occupation, nor was he incendiary. His hair was bright orange. His serious, tired look and nearly cartoonish features made him look like a Marvel comics X-men villain. That’s when he realized, he was in New York City. Actually he had known all along he was in New York City, but it was only now that he put together that this was where the characters in the comics he read growing up lived. There was a profound moment of nostalgia for those afternoons in sixth grade reading Spider-man and X-men. Dreaming of this impossible landscape that they had their adventures in. And here was this caricature of a man across from him … the fireman. Their glances crossed either other, and they nodded solemnly. He wondered if that moment of kinship was due to them being the only two sober ones in the car.

The train stopped. Fireman got up and out. The song changed in the headphones. He heard his breath again. Another stop and he got up. The station stop was packed with people getting off and leaving the train. He could hear a shriek over his headphones but kept walking in the cluttered station. Everyone shuffled over. It was a rat running the length of the station on the platform. It run toward him and then stopped and turned. It looked like it had seen him and then changed its direction, it’s way. It turned and ran the way it had come. He ascended the stairs and made his walk home, a block from the station. Four drunks meandered in his way for the full block walk home. He got in flipped on the light and there sat toilet paper he asked his roommate to grab for him to pick up while she was out. On top of the package was a homemade peanut butter cookie.

He took off his shoes, put his bag down and sat on the bed. He ate the cookie, took a shower and went to sleep.

Redhanded pt 1

Late July 2000.

For most of the night I was dressed in black, crouched behind a tree while the enemy stalked all around me. Occasionally, I’d bring my gun to bare fire off a few well placed rounds and move to a new location.  It was a casual thing.  I didn’t really have my mind in the firefight that was going on around me.  Bigger problems were going down in the background.

I moved with a silence through the woods.  Shadows spun about me.  That was the closest to “the shit” I’d ever get.  I was 20 and things had been complicated for a long time.  This was easy, move-in, remove enemy agents and wait.  Waiting was easy.  Being passive was not so easy.  In the background, this was just a distraction, merely a charade to put my mind away from the real threat.

For just a second, I lost myself in the void completely.  The bushes moved and the enemy sprung out firing from hidden spots.

An Ambush!  Of course!

And with that the game was over.  Laser Tag guns blazed into the air.  We packed up and got into the cars.  Into the air conditioning.  For a minute I thought to myself, maybe everything’s gonna ok.  It’s been three days.  In a week I’ll be in Belgium.  I’ll work on my rating with side events, compete in the main team event at Worlds.  With a little bit of luck and some other less savory measures, I should walk with a few thousand dollars.  What can I say, things were simpler then.

Then my Qualcom 1920 rang.  It was Fred.  I toyed with the idea of putting this off until the morning.  After all, I’d avoided contact for three days.  It was 12:30am.  He’d never believe that I was asleep.  I’d been up from 5pm to 7am for the last 5 months.  Sleeping schedules don’t just change out of the blue.  It’s time to face the music.  “Hello, Fred.  Any news?”

“It’s over, Zac. They have everything.  Sprocket’s death-threat email didn’t help, but they had everything every match-up, everything.  We can’t even appeal.  You and I got five years, Sprocket and John got two.”

“That’s pretty much it then.”  It didn’t even feel real.  I was floating outside of the situation.  This had to be happening to someone else.  “It was Black wasn’t it?”

“Of course, it was Black!” Fred sounded like he was gonna rip the phone out of the wall. “What the fuck were you thinking trusting him?”

I hung up the phone, there would be time to deal with Fred later and the cell reception could cut off at any minute in the Pine Barrens.  I turned off my phone.  It was time to think about how to make sure I kept my job…

Guilt.

Most of us carry some of it like a monkey on our back.  We try to hide our shame or mask it with a smile or a joke.  A lot of it is really self imposed.  I always wondered what was worse: the crime or the punishment you put yourself through after you committed the crime.  Everyone has some sort of conscience, and we all create our own brand of hell in between the genesis of our sin and it’s illumination to the rest of the waking world.  I was certainly no exception to the rule.

But the devil drives us on.  We covet the information.  And we keep it from prying eyes.  In our care the guilt grows and we have no choice but to find another place for it to live.  We’re left with a couple of opinions.  We can go mad in our silence, and let the guilt eat us from the inside until we no longer are the persons that existed before.  We can find a bigger place for it to live.  This involves moving to a new town or state.   With enough room some guilt will just belly up and die after a while.

We can also take the third option:  Tell someone else, confess and hope that they keep the guilt to themselves.

Even when taking the third option though we know that our punishment is merely around the corner.  Perhaps on the surface we hope that our confessor will absolve us of the guilt and that we can go on living a normal guilt-free life, but there stirs another feeling deep inside the mind of the guilty.  The hope that we will be caught, chance that we will be brought to justice and the universe will be set right again.  Only when those fires of justice baptize us could we begin to feel that life could proceed at a normal pace.

It’s the measure of strength in a person when they choose the catharsis of Justice to the inferno of Silence.  Those silent folks are just made of sterner stuff.  They have the courage and the constitution of stomach to deal with the guilt longer than I did.  But I’m better for the speed at which I took my decent.

I was barely affected negatively for the crime I committed.

What was my crime you ask?  There was more than one.  The list if left to single accounts would span a great length indeed.  Let’s make it simple.  I was a liar first and foremost.  I was a false prophet a conspirator.  In the end an anti-hero.  I was a card cheat.  Just a simple sleight of hand and a few clicks of the computer set me down a path that changed the way the game was played, and changed my life forever.

It started simply enough in 1995.  A fifteen year old freshman in highschool, I was starting to enter tht awkward stage that most folks grow out of around 20-21 years old.  To my credit I think I’ve done a pretty good job of stretching out the phase for the last 15 years.  There’s no real end in sight, either. I was into comics and video games and Dungeons & Dragons.  Not a whole lot has changed.  I still min/max D&D characters and I play video games.  These days I write comics as well as read them.

So, high school is obviously not the place to celebrate ones diversity from the crowd.  I confess I wasn’t the most well received member of the graduating class of 1999.  Between a solid addiction to reading the funny books and playing Magic: The Gathering, it’s not like I was destined to become the all star quarterback type.  In fact, I was much happier to just me left alone, or maybe gracelessly talk to girls at the mall.  I reveled in the anonymity that I had.  I picked up a part time job at the local comic shop in 10th grade and met a group of people that I could begin to fit in with in the upper left corner of the Deptford mall.

For what it’s worth high school seems a blur now.  Though, I know I felt every day like I was on the rack.  I think it was early 10th grade when I went to my first sanctioned tournament.  I had been “invited” by Grey Matter Conventions to compete in a Pro Tour Qualifier for Pro Tour Los Angeles.  Invited! Someone had sought me out to compete in a pro event!  Later, I found out they just sent out a blast of junk mail to every registered DCI member in the tri-State area.

The DCI?  Oh, so the the game Magic: The Gathering had a governing body of rules “Lawyers” that judged the game when a tournament was being played.  Duelist Convocation International.  I couldn’t even tell you what that means.  And I always thought it was sort of strange that the company that made the game didn’t just have the judges run under the same banner of the company itself.  I’m no businessman though so maybe it had to do with taxes or something like that.  I’ll probably never fine out.

Anyhow, The DCI was how you played in Sanctioned Events.  The prizes were generally more cards and one lucky card flopper got a spot in the Pro Tour in LA.  Pro Tours were big money.  Thousands of dollars handed out!   And for those under sixteen there was the Super Series that put money toward college.

I say all that to say this:  It was by far the most social thing I’d done in my entire life.  My dad, who was constantly under the impression I was anti-social actually paid my entry fee and drove my friends and I to Race Street in Philadelphia.

My first time alone in the big city.  I showed up signed in and began what was the most nerve racking experience of my then very short life.  Five hours later I was 0-5 and I was sitting across from this stinky over weight indian guy that had fashioned some “lucky cards” that he had in large plastic sleeves next to his deck.  Each of the card had some cut out of a dirty magazine in the spaces were the illustration for the card ought to have been.  I wish I could say that was the weirdest thing I dealt with that day.

Even after going 1-6 in the swiss rounds, I fostered the hope that somehow I’d move on to the top 16 elimination round.  That hope was quickly dashed though.  I spent the rest of the day with my friends, trading and playing with the new cards that we bought that day.  It was a weird thing looking back. We all realized how strange a lot of these other people were and we realized that ( or I did at least) we weren’t as strange as we thought we were.  There were some real wacky cats out there.  Still that didn’t sour us on the game itself.  It made us love it!  Finally, we had a place to not be judged, we could talk about games and music and school, and not feel like we were being overheard by people who would make us feel bad about ourselves.

Raisins of Gluttony (pt 3)

That tension had strained us both while we traveled.  Both knowing, but never saying what the other felt.  Of course everyone else saw it.  Maybe it was the least apparent to us.  It had been, at least.  Like anything tense and taught, once it snapped everything was laid bare.

 

Relieved by this revelation, I told you my thoughts, and recounted our meeting.  How I had always pined for you, since our first meeting.  My attempts at friendship, thrice spurned.  How only after I had moved on that you became my friend.  The first three tries had been a farce, a chance to get you into bed.  I was a wolf and you a sheep.  But you saw through them.  Then you reached out to me, I suppose some part of me had forgotten or was interested in other pursuits.
Our friendship remained pure and plutonic, but there was a always something lurching in the depths of our minds, my mind at least.  Too often, our paths would chance to cross.  Our sentences would be finished by the other, and though you found me eccentric and garish at times, you admitted that there was a “sweet sincere truth” to me.
In those days, you would laugh when I told you about my fears.  You chided me for what sounded like childish concern for conspiracy and contingency.  But when it all came crumbling down, you saw me for what I was, no longer a skeptic with a sardonic distaste for the government, I had become the clear-headed eye in the storm that washed around as the world spun out of control.
I confessed my love for you that night.  You said nothing and made no promises.  I decided that this was good for now.  You were all I had and I you.  Besides, I never believed in ghosts and I didn’t think anyone could take you from me.  I was content for the first time since the fall.  I thought to myself if the world had to end to bring us together then I would be Nero.  Damn the world! Let her burn!
When I woke, the next day you were already up.  You had made a chore of settling into this place.  I had my doubts but you seemed happy so I consented to staying in Homer.  In my mind I saw our future, living in this small village.  Our children growing up here, us growing old sitting on rocking chairs til the sun went down.  It was a nice little life I imagined.  You handed me a coffee.

A Legend (in my mind)…or Legends of the Dork Knight

It was a Saturday afternoon in December, maybe it was late November, either way the Mall was packed that day.  Holiday shopping season was in full swing.  I remember the store was over staffed.  Marc, the manager, didn’t mind.  He was happy to have everyone there and we were happy to be there.  The store was packed with customers, one-timers in for the holiday season, people we’d never see again, and regulars that were in everyday.

We sold comics, sure but it was more like a cult, no secret handshakes or funny bird calls, no decoder rings, just like minded people hanging out, shooting the shit about whether or not Planetary was going to come out on time this month. And perhaps Prince or Joe Jackson was on the CD player.

The regulars hated the one timers and the one timers resented the regulars.  Most dad’s and mom’s that came into the store were wary.  They’d wanted sons who played football and daughters on the cheerleading squad.  What they got instead were Star Wars fans and Batman devotees.  Tough luck, I say.  I guess I sort of resented the one timers too.

This particular day, I was on wander duty.  Marc and John had the registers (we just installed a second because it was so busy this year).  Bryan was on wander duty too.  Wander duty meant you blended in with the customers, if they stopped to pick up something of interest you’d fan that flame.

Bryan was great at this.  He used to get kid’s 10-15 so excited about Warhammer and Dungeons & Dragons that their parent’s would often have them leave while they purchased box sets and expansions that ranged in the hundreds of dollars.  The man was a master.  But at the time the real money laid in CCGs.  Collectible Card Games.  That was my realm.

Magic: The Gathering, Star Wars, Legend of the Five Rings, Overpower, and yea Pokemon had just come out.  This Pokemon fad was the “gateway drug” card game.  It subverted 5 year old PeeWee football heroes into future Magic: The Gathering Pro Tour wannabes.  It was a plague that spread through the middle schools like small pox with the native americans.  And us Comic Store Guys, we were Columbuses and Pizzaros.

So, wander duty was going well, Bryan and I were having fun.  When you like what you do it doesn’t feel like work.  Life as a Comic Shop Clerk couldn’t get any finer.  So John went to lunch or something, maybe he was in the back eating on the comic bins.  I took 2nd register.  By now the store was packed, but it was manageable with one register.  Marc was swift enough on it, anyhow, he could run the whole place.  Marc’s expertise was comics though, and while the late 90′s saw a huge resurgence in the popularity of “funny books”, they just couldn’t compete to the financial success of CCGs and games like Warhammer.

Marc was lost when it came to this stuff.  Most of the comic guys had already picked up their weekly fix by Friday morning (which was two days after the day when comics are released.)  The weekends were for gamers.  And Marc knew this, so Bryan and I did was we do best: played games, and got people excited about those games.

Just so you can get a quick idea of the people in the store, the employees:  Marc(at the register) sort had this Chris Isaak thing going on with his hair.  Bryan (chilling by the comic bins) was a big dude, burly.  He probably had a beard around then, he was definitely wearing a Harley Davidson leather bandana thing on this head.  John was the shortest, he was always smiling and having these intense happy moments when he came to some conclusion about comics or games that mirrored real life.  “Ergo, hot chicks are like 10th level Fighters…1st edition rules of course” was one of John’s favored lines.  John sort of looked like a Hobbit, except he was eating lo mien.  And I looked a lot like I do now.  I was skinnier, but I was 6’1″ bespeckled and wearing a comic book tee shirt unironicly, my jeans were much looser fitting (as was the style back then).

So now you have us in your minds eye: Legends Deptford Comic Stop #7.  We were a ragtag group of dudes in our late teens and early 20′s.  TOP OF THE WORLD.  Anyhow, this day, something happened.  Something that we still laugh about whenever we get together.

In walks this cat, wearing a black Rolling Stones shirt with a PacSun bag.  I vividly remember that bag and the shirt.  It was the full on embodiment of contrast, The Rolling Stones, and preppy beachwear.  Only it was matched by the stark difference in the brightness of the bag and the utter blackness of that shirt, it was the one with the mouth in red.  Mustard, blackness, and ketchup, you could see this guy coming a mile away.  I suppose that was his bad.  I wasn’t as detail oriented then as I am now.  Which says something for this outfit that ten years later I still remember it.

He walked in, I greeted him and then realizing he was probably just browsing, I moved on to other more promising customers.  I did get close enough to see his bag was empty.  I wasn’t too worried about that though.  He moved toward the RPG (Role Playing Games) books and I settled on him knowing what ever he was looking for.

“Zac.” Bryan called me across the store.  I walked over.

“What’s up, Big Bry.”  Everyone called him Big Bry, there was another Brian that hung out in the store but not often enough when Bryan was there to make a nickname a thing of convenience.  He was big and his name was Bryan.  That’s just how it was. So, Big Bry.

“Zac, what do bulldogs do?”  He asked me.

I smiled, I thought he was telling me a joke.  Bryan, when you first met him, you’d think he was gonna beat you up.  Then he opens his mouth, he was a warm dude, very funny and prone to yell out things like “JEAN CLAUDE VAN DAMMIT, YOU RANDY SAVAGES!”  So I thought this was a joke.

“They slobber all over the place and have nasal problems.”  In truth I probably said nothing of the sort, but this is my memory I’m allowed to change a few things to make myself sound cool.  Don’t let it fool you though, I was a huge awkward geek.  But, had I said that it would have been backed with facts.  My Grandmother had a bulldog, he had nasal issues and slobber.  Lots of slobber.

“No like Spike on Tom & Jerry.”  Bryan said.  Ok this was serious.  We went right to a mainstream cartoon reference, this was not a laughing matter, he wanted me to understand something of importance.

“They guard things.” I kept my voice down.  I knew something was up and he wasn’t talking at full-on Big Bry bravado.  So the game was afoot.  I gathered that much.

“Yea.” He pointed to the guy in the Rolling Stones shirt.  “Bulldog that guy.”  He winked at me.

“Got it!”  I nodded.  This was my thing.  Skinny and a bit of a skulk, I was the perfect candidate for the job.  I was stealthy and elfish already, a natural rogue.  Bryan had recent degreed that I hit level 4 in real life and could modify an attribute.  My official dexterity was now at 16.  That’s a +3 to all stealth, acrobatics and dodge checks!  I was the Grey Mouser.

The guy in the Rolling Stones t-shirt was handling a full box of Star Wars cards (Retail Value: $106).  I decided to just make my presence felt and hopefully avoid the situation entirely.  If he knows he’s being watched, then he’s not gonna try to steal anything.

“Could I ring that up for you?  Maybe just hold it behind the counter while you look around?”  I held out my hand for the box.

“Oh, no thanks.”  He put the Box back on the shelf.  I figured that was it.  He’d been marked and knew the jig was up.  He’ll move to another store a better easier target.  Spencer’s Gifts perhaps or the Hot Topic.  I didn’t care, I just didn’t want him stealing from a locally owned independent comic shop, and not mine for certain.  In this, I was resolute.  I think all comic shop clerks, the ones that have watched Clerks, Mallrats and Empire Records (which means all of us) feel this way.

“Zac!”  I turned Marc beckoned.

“Sup, Boss.”  I chimed.

“Don’t call me, Boss.”  Marc was like Perry White of the Daily Planet sometimes, except he was obsessed with Prince instead of Elvis.  “I’m gonna find some stock in the back.”  That was code for he was gonna use the bathroom.  I nodded and took the register.  John was still chowing down on the lo mien. Bryan was pretending to be an Orc with a few gamers.  That left me to a twofold task: ring up customers and watch our friend in the Rolling Stones shirt.  Easy.  I didn’t even need to take my eyes off him to use the register.

One of our regulars came up.  And asked for her comics for the week.  We kept the comics for regular customers behind the register.  This meant that I’d have to swing around for just a second to turn my back on Mr. Rolling Stones shirt/PacSun Bag. He was near the exit over by the toys, giving me a dirty look, because he knew I was onto him.

In the mere second, it took me to turn and hand the comics to regular, he had vanished.  I was relieved at first.  Good riddance.  Then it struck me.  Such a quick departure seemed suspect.  I scanned the toys.  Something was off.  Something was missing, I’d seen that section of the store from the register everyday for 3 years.  And there was an aberration in my memory of how it should look.

“Fuck! Bry, he took the Cantina Dancers Box set!  BULLDOG!”  I hurdled the counter.  It’s important to note that I yelled “BULLDOG!” because spike would also chase down Tom in the cartoons, it was the other thing a bulldog does.  I could hear Bryan saying something but I was on the chase.  Now Really this whole exchange took me two or three minutes to realize.  I had at least rung up two customers.

(Let me take this moment in the middle of the story to let you on to the fact that the item he took, the Cantina Dancers booze set was a worthless toy.  It house three female Star Wars aliens dressed like Hoboken skanks.  No self respecting collector even wanted this item.  We reduced the price to $3.  This Ludite could have asked for the thing and we would have given it to him as a joke.  Back to the story…)

I panicked, we were close to an exit.  He could be gone.  But if that was the case, he was gone.  I might as well check the rest of the mall.  We were in the counter at the 2nd level (This is where all comic shops go in malls. We are the red-headed bastard child, the illegitimate son of the Milkman.  Comic store customers don’t come to the mall to shop, they come to hang out.  So they stick us in the counter and hope that the punishment doesn’t go unnoticed).

What that meant is that I had a lot of ground to cover in a very small amount of time.  I had one advantage.  If he was still in the mall, he could only go in one direction.  Two Floors 78 stores and 18 kiosks, this was my mall, I knew every inch.  I could move through the crowds like a ghost and there was no way he was going to get away.  If he was still here.

The mall was packed.  I scanned every store on the top level up to the middle.  Every one a guy in his twenties wearing a Rolling Stones t-shirt could enter without looking like a weirdo.  That was a drastic cutdown in my search.

I was trying to get in his head.  If I was this guy I’d want to put distance between myself and the store.  No way I’d be cornered in a store, there would be no way out.  Also, I would switch floors.  With all the escalators on this end of the mall going up until the food court that meant a switch in the center of the mall.

I rushed to the gaping hole that over looks “Santa’s Workshop”.  The world was a blur.  Time was of the essence and I was running out quickly.  I started to lose my resolve.

Then I spotted him!  Diagonal from my position on the first floor, he was next to another toy kiosk.  Of course.  Kiosks are hard to watch, they only had one employee and if he/she was on one side then the other side was unprotected.  As such, the girl at the kiosk was a sitting duck.  I ran to the stairs that lead to the first floor.  I bounded down all four flights like an acrobat.  He was mine!  Dead to rights.

I landed like a cat on the ground floor of the mall, stood and moved in silence toward Rolling Stones t-shirt/PacSun bag.  The box set was there, sitting in his bag.  Guilty!  This is where I came to the conclusion of Who the fuck do I think I am?  Sure, I found him and sure he had the item but like a dog chasing a car, what the Hell can I do once I catch him?

That’s when he took a couple of things from the toy kiosk and put them into the PacSun bag!  All doubt faded, I was the law.  I moved toward him.  He looked around, presumably to make sure no one saw.  That’s when he spotted me. His face dropped.  I bet he thought, “The fucking comic shop guy, REALLY?!”  I smiled like a wolf and the sheep turned quickly away.  The chase was back on and the trail was hotter than ever.

He went from a brisk walk to a jog, but the magnitude of the crowd at the mall was too much to move swiftly.  I was content to walk quickly.  My plan was to get him in the parking lot, I guess, kick his ass and return the goods.  Zac Clark: Hero of the Day!  Best to keep it simple.

He broke into a run, pushing people out of the way.  He created a hole for me to follow and I took a faster pace.  But again, it was a simple waiting game.  No moves till he’s outside told myself.  I steeled up all my rage, and a calm jog was my pace.  Imagine Pepe Lepew and the Lady Cat he’s always after.  I know I’m fast, faster than the Rolling Stones t-shirt.  He knew it too.  He turned, I could see the fear in his eyes.  I could taste it like a steak.

This continued.  I’d come closer, he turned, and then pushed farther.  I smiled, calm in my confidence.  Closer. Turn. Push. Smile.

That’s when Marc jumped him from behind, pushed him to the wall and shouted, “Did you think you’d get away?”  Marc was like Batman.  He came out of nowhere.  Mall security saw the ruckus and asked what was going on.  “This asshole,” Marc pushed his forearm under his chin putting the guy against the wall, making sure he wasn’t going anywhere, “stole from my store!”

“And I saw him take stuff from the kiosk back there!” I felt like I had to add something.  I wanted to come off as cool and as hardboiled as Marc, but I just ended up looking like his sidekick.  I did all the work!

The mall cops took him in.  Marc shouted at him, “Not in our store, buddy!”

Afterwards Marc told me that he’d heard Bryan yelling as he was finishing up in the bathroom and he rushed out.  Bryan told him what happened and he went to chase me down, and bring me back to the store.  Probably to lecture me about leaving the store.  He spotted me as I saw the thief.  He went from mild mannered comic store manager to super hero.  “I cut him off at the pass.  Classic western strategy!”  Marc had a thing for spaghetti westerns.

I laughed then, “I can’t believe you said, ‘Did you think you’d get away?’. That was too much!”  Marc laughed, he told me it seemed like the right thing to say.  We walked back to the store, a crime fighting superhero team.  I think he even bought the sidekick some Chick-Fila.  Ideally, he did at least.  Number One Value sized no pickle and a Cherry Coke.  Bryan gave me a +1 to Intelligence and was now level 5 as well!  I’m not sure I remember what said but it was likely to include the words “Vis-a-vis and whetherto.”

Looking back, I really miss those silly moments.  We were all just geeks trying to figure out what and who we were.  Marc was the coolest guy I knew in those days, and the rest of the staff wasn’t too far behind.  We didn’t do too much with the ladies except Marc, he had a steady girlfriend (I remember how magical and impossible Mel seemed) but when someone rolled a twenty (naturally, of course) or answered some impossible question about the first appearance of who ever in Amazing Spectacle #16 we all celebrated.  Those cats were and still are family to me.  The store closed in 2005, but our friendships and our Legend (the name of the comic shop was apropos of all the crap we got into) remain an indelible mark on my youth, in a good way.

The Mark

(I’m working on a series of 600 {or less} word stories.  Some of them will become serials while other will be a shot in the dark one time only thinger.  Here is my first.)

 

The bar was mostly crowded. This is where the players who thought they were big time hung out in New Shanghai.

“He’s here.”  Leroy said, clutching his skull.

“You go cover the back.  If he sees there’s two of us, ain’t no telling what he’ll do.  We don’t want this one to run.”  Glen turned and shoed Leroy out the door.

Glen scanned the room.  Table games lined the back and the center had the card games.  That’s where he’d be.  Trying to blend in with the masses.  Glen spotted him alone at a booth, faced toward the door, watching all along.

No sense in pretending to be sly, Glen decided, the mark had nowhere to go.

“Evening, Rico.  Nice seeing you in this dive.”  Glen brushed the rim of his porkpie in salute.

“Don’t act like you don’t know that I don’t know you’ve been following my trail all over town.  And take off those damned implants.  I’m wearing a dampener, you might as well get comfy.”  Rico smiled.  He cocked his blaster under the table and made sure Glen heard the loud click sound.

 

 

Many patrons in the bar turned their heads.  When they heard no blast they went back to their games.

Glen stopped, then smiled.  Negotiations had begun.  “Deal’em!”  He put his hat on the table and ripped the psionic implants from his neck port.  “I’m clean.”

Rico, chuckled.  “What are the stakes?  I know what I win, but what happens when you loose?”

“I won’t loose.”

Glen stared at Rico.  Rico was human.  Humans, pure humans, weren’t good for much.  They couldn’t read minds, their brains couldn’t handle astro-travel calculations, and they were no good in a fight.  But they could breed.  Post Humans, extra-sapiens, those who opted for enhancements just didn’t have the “knack” for fathering children.  This was becoming a problem.

Glen’s bosses were men of vision.  Wealthy men who rebuilt the metropolises after the Cataclysm.  They watched the population slip.  Panic buttons where hit and men like Larry and Glen were sent out to find the Breeders.  The last true humans were the final hope to set mankind’s prolific pace back on track.  Every birth counted.

Glen’s employers paid for breeders.  They paid well. The future belonged to the post humans, these baseline pipsqueaks were a dirty necessity.  That’s how Glen saw it.

“I want 30 minutes.”  Rico put the gun on the table and shuffled the deck.

“10.”

“25!”

“15.”

“Done!” The cards were dealt.

Glen looked at his hole cards.  Seven of Spades, and Nine of Clubs.  It wouldn’t due to bluff.  Rico had been on tilt for months.  They’d see every card.  He was sure.  The bet started at $200. Rico called.

The flop came down.  Ace of Clubs, Five of Hearts, Eight of Diamonds.  Glen was on a draw. Fifteen Minutes and out $1500.  He muttered something about “honor among thieves”.

“Is that some kind of tell?” Rico said.  Obviously he paired up.

The Turn: Ace of Diamonds.

Glen sighed

“All in.” Rico said.

“Call, $1300” Glen stood, cards exposed.

The River: Six of Hearts.

Glen smiled.  “That was anticlimactic.”  He grabbed Rico’s arm.

Rico shot the rest of the cards at Glen.  He ran free. Glen plugged into the Psi-amp and put on this porkpie

“Leroy, we have a runner.” Glen walked to the door.

“Leroy stepped in front and leveled Rico in one hit.  He landed against the bar.  Glen cuffed him.  “Nothing to see here.  Go back to your fun.”  The three of them left.  Rico was out, slung over Leroy’s shoulder.

(I think we’ll here more from Rico before this is over.)

On Death, Conduits, Gods and Oedipus

Jack hadn’t believed in god until recently. He had been the type of man to just believe in himself. It wasn’t so much that he had a spiritual epiphany or that he had felt the call of piety. Simply, one day a voice appeared inside of Jack’s head and uttered the words. “I’m am the spirit of a dying god, in your tongue Ishtar is the closest you could come you pronouncing it without going mad. You know this to be true.”

And he certainly did know it to be true. In Jack’s opinion, Ishtar was not just a loud talker but an inappropriately close one too. He often thanked god, not the one in his head or even the other more well known one that he didn’t really believe in, just the one you thank when you set about thanking god, the god of “thank yous” he supposed. He thanked this thank you god that he could not smell Ishtar’s breath. Dying God breath likely smelled insidious he guessed.

Ishtar began as a fount of advice. Often this advice was unwarranted and came generally at in opportune times. Jack learned to not trust the advice after a short stint in Atlantic City at a poker table. Ishtar hadn’t known any better than Jack if that man had been bluffing, until he laid down the full house, and it was utterly apparent that either Ishtar was in league with the man at the other end of the table with the clear green visor, or she just had no bloody knack for gambling. As such, Jack tended to not gamble or listen to advice freely handed out by expiring immortals.

Jack found a common ground with Ishtar as time carried on. Ishtar accepted Jack’s mind for a final resting place, after all. He decided if his head was gong to be an old folk’s home for a god he might as well make nice. As a result they watched a lot of movies together. Ishtar had a fondness for epics and Charlton Heston. Planet of the Apes was one of her favorites, as was The Ten Commandments. “I knew Moses. Though he certainly did not look like that.”

Jack accepted that she was going to talk during the films they watched. He felt most of the time she could add an interesting point of view to the film or give him some poignant insight into the history of the film’s fictional era.

It wasn’t until Ishtar was quite sure of her impeding demise that she struck a deal with Jack. Jack knew well enough to not strike deals with silver tongued devils. But no rules had ever been written about bargaining with gods, and not defunct gods to boot. The terms were fair enough, so he agreed to the deal. She even made him type up a contract, though she couldn’t sign it. He insisted that if she wanted he could be given power of attorney to sign the document for her. She agreed.

The lawyers gave him a strange look when he asked to be given rights of estate over the “voice in his head”, but they accepted his money all the same. They were lawyers, after all.

With the particulars of signing the indenture taken care of they settled on terms. Ishtar had something of value: Knowledge. Jack had nothing more than time and proficiency with a typewriter. Ishtar found the trade off agreeable. She was the source and he was the conduit. They set about writing the secret histories of Ur, Lost Books of Alexandria, the Tragedies of Atlantis. These were the stories she had witnessed first hand. She told him of the antediluvian races and their decadent fall from grace.

Jack set about putting these stories into his own words. The first series was 2000 pages and 7 era’s thick. Jack sold it to a publisher for a barely a red cent. Royalties soon came tumbling in, though. He rose to fame as an authority on clandestine ancient knowledge.

Jack would have enjoyed his success but he was too caught up in his agreement. Ishtar would spend the night weaving the stories into his dreams and the day reciting the cantos of antiquity. In the time between Jack was writing.

Ishtar was a slave driver. Only after a volume was complete did Jack know true rest. Ishtar would give him leave for two weeks. He took it upon himself to use this time to socialize.

Divine knowledge will change a man. Jack’s demeanor transformed with the celestial cognition he took on. He found that it was hard to relate with his society after his time spent with Ishtar. Her stories took hold of his life. Her tragedies were heart breaking, her romances enthralling, the adventures were without compare. Normal life just couldn’t come close to that of a god.

Jack became despondent. Women had been his prime vice before the god’s voice had made itself apparent. They held no interest for him now. Jack felt a sense of something greater, something more ideal than each girl he met. They could never know or understand what Ishtar had passed unto him.

His friends would never understand his burden, he couldn’t explain it if he tried. There was a god dying inside of him that was sharing the cosmic secrets and the untold history of not just this universe but of all realities. He became consumed with his charge.

Seven volumes in as many years. Jack’s fame peaked just as Ishtar passed away. He final word echoed in his head. He was left in the wake of her death with every comfort known. No condolence could quell the pain and emptiness of the void she left in his mind. She had been his Calliope, His Helen and his Athena. Without her voice he was merely another talentless stenographer, just a plagiarizing hack without the story inside to let out.

Jack tried everything he could to fight off the pain. His therapist suggested that Ishtar was a mental hallucination. Some extension of his mother personified in his mind as an impossible lover, and that the stories where his all along. He had created this personality to compensate for some Oedipal guilt. Jack promptly quit going to therapy.

Jack survived Ishtar by four months. When he died it was a welcome relief. The bleakness of mundane life had been his slow murderer. He spent the days of his life working on his final book: a memoir of his time living under the voice of a fading deity. It sold the least of all his books, which was his greatest fear. Without Ishtar he was merely an empty trench waiting to be filled. It was safe to say he died believing in something much more than himself.

The Raisins of Gluttony (pt 2)

It the Kittatinny Mountains were snow packed that November.  There was a peace on the train during that time.  The cars were crowded but there was something in the air in the start of the trip, something new.  We were hungry for a change.  I was sick of trying to hack it in New York’s fashion industry, the opportunity to be pushed in a direction otherwise was a breath of mountain air.  You were happy to leave the city too.  “I can write from anywhere.” you told me.  And you proved it on a daily basis.  I still read the journals you kept and the stories you wrote in the margins.

When the train broke down near Pittsburgh we took to our luck and decided to just walk the next thirty some odd miles of Pennsylvania back country.  I told to that if we just took a straight shoot we could make it in two days of easy travel.  Most of the other passengers stayed with the train.  I wonder what became of them.

As for us, days of travel was an understatement.  I didn’t account for the tunnels the trains bore through the mountains.  We were’t equipped for mountain climbing.  So we traveled south by foot and came to Homer City.  The sign said, “A Wonderful Place to live and Grow-up.”  We snickered at the sign, but considered the town’s name a good omen as we too had begun our Odyssey.

We stepped into the general store, and to our surprise it was stocked to the gils.  Had the panic been in vain?  The owner told us that most of the stock came from local small farmers, which explained the abundance of the store.  Money was no good there though.  If we wanted to trade he’d have a look at our wares.  We had nothing to speak of.

I never invested myself in a trade.  Woodworking had long since been in my family’s blood, but I never took the time to learn it.  But you, had something.  “I tell stories.” you told the man.  And we have news from back East.  I almost laughed, surely they couldn’t care about a girl’s fictions or news from a place they’d never seen.  Oh how wrong I was.

Before I could say a word, the man asked where we were from “back east.”  When I puffed my chest and said New York, he told us to wait right there.  Within minutes he was one the phone an actual lan line, talking to different people telling them he had to “real live New Yorkers” in the store.

Those were our salad days.  The town had been pretty much cut off from the outside world these last weeks.  Our presence was welcomed with gifts and food, they even gave us a place to stay.  I took odd jobs around town repairing what I could.  I purchased a belt and a set of tools.  I remarked how very much this was like the old days when traveling storytellers made their way across the country side entertaining and selling their services.

We had found a new way to live.  You telling stories and me climbing ladders.  That Friday night the whole of town, some 200 people, came out to a stage I helped build and you read from your journal.  You had read stories of adventure and of mystery, scary stories, tales of love, comedies and tragedies. I had never seen you read aloud before.  You took on the roles of your characters.  Everyone had a different voice.

There was a look in your eyes in that time.  We left as friends, and even when I convinced you to leave with me, I had hoped for more than that.  That night we drank our fill and when the town went to sleep we were too excited to join them.  I hadn’t realized you had this power.  This gift of story.

When you told the man at the store you could tell stories I thought to myself, whatever gets us a loaf of bread and some meat for the night.  We were doing good.  We were thriving.  Under the candlelight I kissed you that night.  Our passions met like two lions on the savannah.  We had been together for weeks, but there was an unspoken aloneness too.

The Raisins of Gluttony

(Lately my short stories have begun to take a turn for the … preachy I suppose. This is the start of a little post apocalyptic piece I’m fooling around with. I plan on working on it more today but in the mean time. Enjoy, or take warning. I’m not quite sure just yet.)

Most of us didn’t stand a chance. We couldn’t have. Things got out of control too quick. Everything crashed. Money vanished, food production vanished, and then sanity went right with it. The business savvy brokers and math smart accountants were no longer needed. The time for talking and counting had come to an end.

It was slow at first. Supermarkets ran out of eggs or they didn’t have bread, but the government assured us these “delays” in shipping would right themselves. It was a matter of fixing the system. But there was no way to replace a commodity that we based our lives on. You can’t take the the diary from a cake and hope to think it will rise in the oven, and that was the only plan. It was good enough to distract us while the powers that be made for the high ground.

Our contingency as a society had been that if oil had ever become scarce we would just switch. Like it was that easy. We would just walk over to the wall flip a breaker and the sun would do all the work. Simple as pie. No. That pipe-dream died years ago. It died with our hope that we could thrive as we had, without oil. It died along with 70% of the world. On the bright side poverty was no longer a problem, in a barter system the poor don’t last long.

Five years, it seems like ages ago. Once the markets drained and the Chinese take-out places all closed up, I knew it was time to get moving. The trains still worked then. Most of the infrastructure has fallen to decay now. I convinced you that we should go south. We hated the New York winters, and without much idea of whether or not the heat would still be around the next year south seemed like a solid plan.

Memphis seemed as good a place as any. You liked the idea, we joked about how this was what all those talks of zombie apocalypse and what if’s had boiled down too. Even then your spirits were high. So we packed what we could carry on our backs. I sold my electronics for a pittance. Little use we’ll have of these things once we really get out.

You packed light, a few pairs of jeans two pairs of shoes, couple of short sleeves, couple of long sleeves and one dress. I argued with you about that dress, but you insisted. And one book, Watership Down. I took what I thought would be of use: My hatchet, a pocket knife, jeans, t-shirts everything else I wore. You made me pack my good shirt and slacks, even though I protested. Ultimately though, I caved. You always had that way about you, I was helpless against you. Looking back I was helpless against a lot of things those days.

The train was packed south. This scared me but I knew I had to be strong, I had to keep steady and stern for you. You hadn’t been ready to leave. I promised I’d take care of you. I know what I’m doing i said to you. You trusted me to keep you safe. I grew up that day. I put away my toys and my games and I sought to live by the boy scout motto again. “Be Prepared.” We squeezed into a standing room only car and made our way first west then south.

eBooks: In defense of the Medium

As the kind of guy that collects books, like actually looks in stores for first editions of books I really love this may come as a shock to you: I embrace the digital books medium with open arms. I have the below discussion at least once a week. You see I own an iPad. I read all my books on it now. I do however have two bookshelves that are my collection. People like me are a rarity. Actually, if you ask around every asshole that ever read Catcher in the Rye has a goddamned opinion they’d like to share on the subject. And to almost everyone that has ever said to me after I tell them that in 15 years or maybe less paper books will be for collectors only, “Ill be one of those collectors.” I sincerely hope you pass away in the next 15 years.

I can’t abide out and out pretension for the sake of itself! It’s stupid, selfish and ultimately destructive behavior. Let’s not mention a waste of my precious time. So the conversation goes like this. “Oh, you have an iPad… That’s like a big iPhone right?”

Normally, I’m all too happy to show it off if Im not writing or reading on it. Let’s face it in a couple years everyone’s gonna have one, they’ll be like iPods. Ever have a conversation about why own an iPod in the last two years with anyone within 20 years of my age (30).   No.  you know why? Everyone’s got one. Mark my words tablets are the new hot. You’ll have one eventually or you’ll be that weirdo on the NJTransit bus with the laptop, Cd Walkman, reading a paper hard back and carrying a bag the size of a middle-aged woman’s ass around. So I don’t mind being a fount on knowledge if I’m asked.

So like I said, I dig the way the convo begins but I’m wary of a possible argument starting.

The next question after I tell them why I was able to justify spending $600 or so dollars on it (Portfolio for photos to show clients and writing) is “Is that it? I’m not a writer or a photographer, I’d never use one.” I reply about all the cool stuff it does like games, organizing my info, and then I say that I read on it. “Oh I could never read a whole book on that it hurts my eyes.”

At this point the conversation takes an awful turn.

Now it’s my job to defend eBooks, to some pseudo-intellectual house wife in her mid 40s that prolly hasn’t read a fucking book since college. What I want to say is “Fuck off you aged dinosaur! I’ll be laughing when you’re dead (as well as reading about the arson online from a digital news source).” But normally I’m working a bar and that’s just plain rude. I quell my baser urge to skull fuck the stupid out of this woman (it could just as easily be a man, it just happens that the last battle was with a middle aged woman). After several labored breaths, I unclench my fists and say “My eyes are pretty shitty,” point to my coke bottle, feather weight, black rim, plain as the nose on my GD face, specs, “and I’ve read several books on it, no complaints here.”

Thwarted, but compelled by her resistance to change she mutters the dumbest excuse I’ve ever heard. “I like the way the paper feels!”

Now, I worked in a Comic shop for five years. I remember the first graphic novel I read: Preacher, Ancient History. I know what that book smells like. Trades have a smell. Memory is tied to olfactory sense, so I understand there are qualities printed books have that eBooks can not have. But the way it feels? It’s a fucking book lady, you read a book you do not fondle a book. And if you do, fuck, what library do you belong to, I’m not joining that one. GROSS.

Getting passed that ludicrous point, I continue, to remind her that shell have at her disposal many times more books on this than the number she would molest herself with in a lifetime.

“I don’t know (the only smart thing to come out of her mouth in the last 20 years, she’s right she does not know), I like having a collection I can see and pick from.”

Yea, you stupid sod, it does that. There’s a bloody scrollable page of your books it’s like a book shelf, but get this: it’s digital. That excuse might work for a guy my age that actually can impress numbers of the opposite sex, with the size of his book collection. But let’s face it, your kids are too busy resenting you and playing video games, your husband prays you’ll die in a fire so he can trade up for a newer sleeker model. And if you’re single the only way you’re getting anyone, aside from a herd of lonely stray cats, into your home is with a pint of whiskey or a rag covered in Chloroform. Either way, the books won’t mean shit. You might as well show them your digital book shelf at that point.

“I just like knowing how close I am to finishing a book. I can tell by how many pages are left.”

Fuck! Are you kidding me? Do you think they didn’t think of that? There’s a page count on the bottom that even changes based on how big the letters are you shriveled dumb bitch. It will even give you a percent if you’re a numbers person, I know you aren’t a numbers person, but fuck it I’ll throw that in there just to sake my own weird fascination with stats.

After having shut down every stupid reason for not going with an eReader you hit me with. “What about book stores?”

Really? Do you really care about the plight of the average Barnes & Noble employee, and don’t pretend you only buy books at mom and pop indie book shops. You ain’t that cool. You know what’ll happen? The same goddamned thing that happened to the music industry. Those stupid elitist people in control of want you read and what gets sold… The middlemen, reps, that job dies out. Like the A&R industry is dying out. Fuck those parasites. (By the way if you happen to be in publishing, Hi, love you cats, keep fighting the good fight! Working on a book right now gimme a shout I’ll send you a sample: TheRoboticNeurotic@gmail.com)

So then I break it down.

Infinite Books. Free public domain books. Reading without a stupid light in bed. Power to the reader. Reconstruction of a broken industry. And finally, Im a writer, some ePublishers pay up to 33% in sales to the writer! That’s big! No paper means not having to pay for shelving, delivery, construction and materials, that money comes back to the creative force that made it happen. i.e.: me

She responds with “What about book signings?”

Hell, I’ll sign your iPad. But really who gives a fuck about book signings, how about book readings. That’s why I go to book signings, to hear how the author wanted you to read it. Not to stand in line so I can clamor over so poor bastard that will spell my name with a fucking “h” if I don’t tell him otherwise. Go die in a fire.

So in conclusion, argue all you like, listen to your record player in your model-t wash your clothes by hand and cook your food over a fire you fucking caveman. You probably haven’t read a book in 20 years why am I trying to appeal this concept to you. Oh, yea… I’m an argumentative asshole.

Zac Clark
The Robotic Neurotic

NaNoWriMo

Nanowrimo

So I’m steady into day 3 of National Novel Writing Month. Last year’s piss poor attempt is far in the distance as I check the rearview, buckle the seatbelt and pound on the gas. Actually let’s be honest Im not wearing a seat belt, and Im steering the car with a pair of bungie cords as I stand on the roof laughing like a deranged maniac.

Last year’s failure inspired me to take writing a bit more seriously. I broke from my other blogs and focused my efforts on fiction. After some limited success and a bit of ego stroking from my friends, I decided I’d need a real plan of attack if I wanted to succeed where I failed before.

50000 words in 30 days. Broken down that’s a little less that 1700 words a day. Now that I know how much I need a day. I need an idea. I spent the last three month brain storming scenarios that would make a good story. Something with enough depth to cover more than 10 pages. I’d need characters, settings, problems… With an s. And I’d need to focus on the details. I spent a year writing asides, focusing on a voice.

Knowing that this first character would likely just be an extension of who I am, I’d like him to be more than just someone you relate to. I want you to laugh when he laughs, cringe when he gets hurt. I want you to cuss when he steps in dog shit.

Now, filling up space making up a story about myself should be that hard, but how about I set it in the future. Why, anything can happen in the future! The possibilities are rather endless. If it takes place in the future less include robots. I like robots and you should too. If not, fuck it, hate the robots. They stole your jobs after all. They don’t even need jobs.

Now that the world exists the world needs a voice. It has to feel like something. There has to be some kind of collective unconscious. What do I want that to be? How about I show my overwhelming disgust towards modern society, and the day to day grind of the average 9 to 5er? Will this be too preachy. Will it come off at elitist? Probably. So let’s couple in that post 9/11 xenophobia.

Ok now I have plenty to go off on a tangent with. The most important question comes to light. First person, or third person. I decided third, I don’t want it to get too personal… Folks might start to think I’ve been living in the future or something. I certainly haven’t, thank you very much.

And that’s pretty much it. I’m writing to entertain, but I want you to get a little something out of it as well. So, until I get to at least 10000 word all I’m gonna give you is my mindset. I need these breaks to recharge the spirit. I’m half way there now. Wish me luck

Zachary Clark
The Robotic Neurotic