My first artificial girlfriend (mistakes were made).

 

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Updated Ontological Primitives.

There is, at just this moment, a 'chain of demand', such that each of our silent runners is obligated to return, shortly before midnight, and confirm, for the sake of some person's ample well being, that all of our shunted fairy-wheels were returned to their place of honour with all pitiable threads barely intact. I hasten to grip the face of a demiological turncoat who has absorbed next to nothing of our atomic fiber theories even while barely making bold with a lionized sister or two. His wheel is in my cistern and I'm slyly aghast at his motley choices when singed materials come into play. What business is it of his to determine where my filmy discharge gets its lacquered patina? It suits our group if he all but shouts his bequest into the wizened eyes of our trip-mounted non-standard sentry decoy. We like to get him all the time and, even if coöperation is the order of the day, no power on Earth can stop us if we decide to alter our celebratory gait in response to any of his locally sourced oxidized jelly-smears. He is known to pander to our older groups who make up the bastard's share of your normative evaguation plantlet.

I am filing a 'misery sisters' request anomaly with the Board in charge of dispensing olfactory pining rods throughout the Greater St Purvis area. They tell me that by one or two minutes past our due date, we should expect a stipulation to unfold in our overcrating which could prevent leaks to concerned parties and bring our threat assessment to an astonishing Level Zero! And this doesn't even BEGIN(!) to add a compromised zest to purgetarian marriages near Slocum's Hut, Montana and the surrounding witless projection imbroglio. 

Dad's last request to your Mother and I was to shore up our fanciest fences and prepare for an onslaught of deracinated transom whisks. In addition, he asked that he not be named in a faithless lawsuit to be outlined in our Farber's Release Testament. This should continue well in to the coming Holiday Weekend. In the absence of a letter bearing your plagiarized signature recipe, we expect that not less than three of our marginalized Sons of Opulence will be detained in a brace of inflatable district lounge markers. You will find my leading candlefuck ensconced at the midpoint of our reconstructive salad phase. Please try to look in this direction when you hear your name shunted beyond all reason. This will insure a debatable period of unconnected sleep annoyment. Has it ever been any less different? No. 

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Has anyone heard anything about this?

 

I've been told that we'll each be allowed to purchase a chair in real time as conditions permit due to an unforeseen weapons alert on our side of the eternal divide. This pits man against cousin but still enables both sides to break into three halves, provided all enjoyment is engaged while crises unfold at a steadfast rate. The arrival of our skin treatment plan is anticipated throughout the Colony and I will seek a waiver through my person's counterpart in a room not designed with any type of abatement in mind. One of my first firings upon arrival was an Iranian gentleman long known as a mascot of the Luther Vandross Society. He appealed to our group's Activities Director with a Guild sponsorship tattoo in the form of a marvelous specimen of intractable youth. The bargain seemed to be that he would gum up the works on our behalf and I would arrange for his stepson, then a promising lad of thirty-seven, to work during off hours in the sandlot down on Bank Street.

There's a kid down there who, quite literally, had a wallet thrown at him when he went to proofread some copy as a favor to a former friend whose sister I used to date in Ft Dix, New Jersey. Even though he had hair down to here, people still wondered if he wasn't 'all there'. I would take them aside one  by one and demand to know if they'd ever wondered about a little thing that I'd rather not go into at this very moment. They turned to me, as if to a real person, and relayed to me in excruciating detail their plans for the domination of every conceivable battle space. I took a sip of my iced tea, thought for a few seconds and decided to throw them a bone in the only way I know how. They took to it like dogs to water. And ever since then, whenever I need anything, I call one of the executives I met before the War and invite them over to the house to exchange points of view in an eminently candid, yet mature, manner. This is why anyone whose quandary is up for grabs is urged on most local shows to act as if they were about to receive some sensible advice from an unusual source of infernal racket. It will help to keep them young in spirit, if not always the sharpest bulb in the drawer. You've got this. 

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What's become of the 'fabled' Crandake?

 

There's a well roasted crandake, swaddled in its original planter's foil, gathering fumes, sitting in the trunk of our '74 Chrysler New Yorker. My wife and I are set to leave once I find my hat, shave and adorn the babysitter with a much needed optical starter shoe. Our focus is on setting up an emergency field operation in the Coastal area near where we were both born over seventy-five years ago. My pancid is groomed and even the neighbor's troubled officemate has agreed to see that our pond is winnowed to a silvery drop to be delivered with fully documented provenance to the Ike Henry Company upon our deaths in a Springtime explosion of unnatural colors. The trails leading to and through our association with the legacy of Nancy Sinatra are winding and opaque, but in the end offer no relief to the Family of Nations.

As I lifted my wife's head from its place of honor on a medium bedaddled storycord, you can be sure that I said the word that all persons of honor are obligated to pronounce with utmost care. Her clothing is gathered in a formal basket and I am 'up to here' with insolent messages to inscribe on bits of foodstuff that we're leaving to our natural born enemies for their (hopefully) amused perusal. It's remarkable that, even with the advance of years, my stake in the future of the lesser races shines brightly for all to marvel at, even while issuing terse bromides prior to the ensuing melee. I can't get out fast enough. This is what I've waited my whole life for, and now, I'll be lucky if I can crawl through a spandrel of flaps and recover my once pleasant pouch which gives strength to the glowering groomers.

By the sheer luck of the draw, as fate would have it, our Local Assembly has sent word that I am summoned to appear without portfolio to assume a position only rarely documented among otherwise reprehensible nitwits. My wife makes her feelings known, and, for all anyone can tell, she will soon be making a move in a footward direction with a guttural feeling tone that few can match. This could be the spark that sets aflame a lifetime of anpectral becindered breeding wands. I am certain to swallow more than one rumored geo-engineered harker's flume and even the false bill which frames my crested morning groat is beginning to smell of dinch oxides and obligated semen. This is when all friendly patter nixes the roofside and our home in the poach is sprayed with untold gallons of copper-scented gesso. My pewter balsom stand is chained to the underside of a chipper mantel and now, finally, I've remembered the name that I've struggled with my entire life. And, believe you me, it's not something I'm proud of, despite what you may think. Yes. 

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Revelation of the Faces.

 

The Faces at Le Trambeau are to be revealed in a timing sequence first initiated at a semi-annual Approval Board last June 16th. Our rounded sub-group has already been absorbed into a denaturing detail, the remaining members of which are seemingly out of step with the priorities expressly denounced by the outgoing adminigestion. The contents of a letter in our files are to be shared on a need-to-know basis with anyone whose payments exceed the merest guideline set in sand by our third-ranking officient while scouting the grounds for discarded embattlement liners.

While the Faces are considered a National Treasure, no one who has arrived at our complex in the last three years has shone the slightest compunction when it comes to expressing anti-social niceties in lieu of phantom exposures of our primal offense allotment. This has got to stop. At the earliest opportunity. For this reason we believe that you, with your airtight composure, might be able to move the needle into a position which gives us breathing room while our sadistic Client List is opened for inspection by the precious few of our lads to escape the wiles of a certain Ms Antoinetta Pfizblunk. She has the eyes to prove anything that I care to throw on the table absent an outbreak of crosstalk in our sedulous Canberra outflow. We can hide each of the tricks you'll need to prevent a dry heat from overcoming the assembled hordes of entitled hypocrites.

Once we're certain that you've settled in and require no additional supplies, a drastic Southern wind will be your clue that the time is right to deploy one or more deputies to mount an attack on rueful icebreakers who are indebted to our station in their personal Key of Life. This will help secure our lock on backwards-facing prairie terminoids which we have good reason to believe are behind a fallacious campaign of critical panty theory. Those boys fly low over our house when all else fails to gel at the random touch. What we wouldn't give to arrange for our showrunners to contract an infectious agent in the course of their abdominal near-term queefing lark! I wouldn't put it past them to wait inside a slo-mo room and bite their time just to see if it works. Nothing should be offered if we can't round up a paltry omplet or two. This way no one on our team will notice if you accidentally-on purpose sail into a fanking bourse. I will tell you when you need to get ready. Until then, please wait near the end of my wagon. Everyone will help pull you into position.  Who is that?

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Precession to a Ritual.

 

In the days leading up to the Ritual of the Golden Paper, we seek to remain gently ballasted with the crimpings only observed on-spec when minor children are involved. If not, we go about our lives as if everything on the surface is subject to its own command. But deep in our collective marrow, where compliance suits compulsion to a radio-mounted 'T', we attempt to formulate the least common one-syllable question ever conceived. It begins in the way which is guaranteed to elicit little impetuosity and even less annoyance. Which is all to the good, since time is short, and, once the shooting starts, it's anyone's bargain as to who gets to stick around without causing undue alarm in a long forgotten depository.

Our friends are in the business of giving us 'moral support' if nothing else. And by that I mean we haven't seen them for months. This can't help but bring on uncalled for remarks when a date is finally set. Until then, no one is urged to remain patient, for in that lies the quickest route to  certain disappointment. I wouldn't want the person who will one day marry my infant daughter to have any misconceptions about where I stand with respect to the adisability of appearing well prepared for the occurrence of 'less-than-optimal' events, things, places and (most especially) people. Look, if anyone knows how tough it can get out there, it would be me. So, I can well understand that in your current mindset, there's not likely to be even a hair's breadth of daylight between your position and that of an at-large individual when it comes to sabotaging my career. Jealousy is a very jealous master, but so is something else.

This is where bargaining comes down to the wire and anyone who still insists on holding their own could get caught out with no flotation device in sight. In the event that you should find yourself lying down face-first in my foyer, here's what I want you to do: You should immediately make certain that I've received whatever diminutive tokens come to mind when I make a brief remark. Failing that, it could well be that I've reached a 'decision point' and all idle banter is a strictly 'no-go' program. I will be offering plasmic rebates to those whose footwear most closely coincides with prevailing industry standards. As my common-law husband Kevin Moffit is fond of saying, 'what is it that makes you think there's something I should know about?'. And, when he says that, what do you think I do? I'll tell you EXACTLY what I do: I leave speculation to all the invidious nincompoops out there and go straight to the heart of the matter. Which, for the most part, involves trying to convey an attitude of innocent circularity. This meshes well with some of our senior people, as they've already made it plain that I'm on the chopping block  for being kept around after everything 'goes dark'. And, if this sounds 'too good to be true', then you don't know the half of it, and probably never will. God. 

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Filamental Stability Agreement.

 

The stability of our modern filament is something most of us can agree upon, even if we've spent not a little time overseas. My wife seems to have a habit whereby she takes it upon herself, lengthwise as is her wont, but normally the longitudinal routine is one for the dumper. In my own way, I want to give our neighbors time to adjust to a novel configuration. With every fiber of my sheeting, I feel put out that no one was able to foresee our forced removal to a landlocked jurisdiction. The air in those parts has a well-described tendency to hasten a drying action in an aphasic skin condition. All of us were fooled, therefore there wasn't even one on-boarded person who took steps. Or took any of this seriously at all. And this was even before I collapsed on the sidewalk in front of the Courthouse. I had gone there to collect a statement from a Rabbi who moved too slowly for most of us. His very speech patterns betrayed his guilt to even the most stultified of us. I can only thank my God for failing to keep his word.

You asked about that. Yes, it was lit quite brightly. But my feet were already dangling dangerously close to an infant power structure. The cries that you could hear at night would make your blood crawl. And by that I don't mean to indicate any resistance to facing an ever changing situation. Even a stack of patterns in my crawlspace no longer gives us the courage we need to eviscerate a sullen witness. When his hands shake, all our cherished formulae reveal themselves as uncanny in their proflimancy. If you are unwilling to perform a mild act of heavy lifting, then we're afraid that any excuse you proffer may prove useless in the end. The end of what? Could we for once not 'go there'? But I'm afraid we must.

Look, this is for the good of ALL of our children. They will risk their daily protein allotment to secure even one or two more seconds of a churlish ballyhoo. I have supervised their role-playing condiments and continue to sacrifice what little I have left to see them enter a voluntary program. The brown-haired one is starting to ask questions. The other two prefer to be left in a shallow netherworld where likeminded sandbots are heard to hum a chalented frill. In any cave where you can still find yourself silenced, a world of fascinating crud awaits the discerning nincompoop. In their own way, they pout and squirm, and yet, in all that, they take no quarter. Why? Because it fits their notion of lovable bastards to a 'T'. And, you don't have to take my word for it. Just ask one of the people who you knew a long time ago. They aren't my type but I've heard you had some luck. Until recently, that is. More on that later. Scoop. 

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It goes without saying . . ....

 

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If anyone doubts the truthfulness of this account, they'll only have themselves to blame if [DELETED].

 

I'll be very straightforward about this. There's a woman I've been having difficulties with for the past three or four days. There's every indication that she is serious and I may have to move very slowly to avoid repercussions. Her hands are everywhere, but still, no one feels safe without first checking the floors, ceilings and walls and where they meet. The corner is never an effective location from which to launch a meandering tirade. Why? Because, silly, that's where she waits through the night for larger forces to enact impecunious deeds. On behalf of the Advisory Committee, I am empowered to reduce all resisters to temporary ash. The heaps you see in our freezer are proof that life can sometimes be less than a smooth ride through a 'magical' countryside. For all I know, you've decided to join them while I was on vacation. Any excuse to get out of lugging my stuff will suit you just fine, is that it?

The woman in question is thirty-four years old, has auburn hair, wears see-through contact lenses and, through all this, has maintained a steady focus on overcoming a mild odor problem. It is a well documented fact that her blood type is O negative. She feels not a little pride when she thinks of the progress she's made. Her husband, Jim Bifford, has been living a lie for lo these many years. He's been pretending since Day One that he wasn't Hispanic. Through DNA forensics, we've determined that his maternal grandmother grew up in Peru and was raised by an Austrian father and a Paraguayan mother.

The woman first came on to my radar when we were co-assigned to the Security Detail at the US consulate in Leningrad, USSR on June 12, 1967 at 10:47 AM. Later that same day it was discovered that she had stolen the remainder of my fabric softener from the utility locker that I shared with her as a matter of course. Of course the denial was equal parts fulsome and lunk-headed. I'd had enough. So I got in my car and drove down to the Jersey Shore. By the time I got there, it was after midnight and everyone was asleep. To say they were 'tuckered out' would be an understatement. I tried whistling, but that didn't do the trick. Then I set a few small fires to see if I could get a rise out of some of these jerks. The next day I submitted my papers and was granted a full let-down. In hindsight, it seems that some folks got the wrong idea. I knew she had it coming, I just didn't see how. Let's see if you have a clearer idea now, shall we?

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Pending Excavation: Report.

 

There's a pending excavation in my segment for which I can only feel a larger-than-life trepidation, even though I've been preparing for the prior three or four minutes. The blond woman, who everyone believes used to date my podiatrist, is passing out sheets from dog-eared hymnals bearing a single non-integral number. They seem to enjoy grabbing the sheets and using them for various fun and games, all the while knowing that someone has worked very hard to make sure that all contingencies have been provided for, taking into account each person's individual dietary needs and restrictions. When I enter one of the shelters, she sees me and immediately scrounges for a bit of dough that may have fallen by the wayside when no one was any the wiser. I think later that I'll give her a 'G' for trying. But first I have to get a hold of one of the guys who made her cry at bedtime the night before I flew in from the Coast.

When my older sister married one of the Helmer boys (the younger one, I think), I approached Barry Schiffman to see if he could arrange for a group of average looking young organ donors to put in an appearance at a guest shot I was making at the Hotel where the wedding would go on to be canceled. Before this could be seen for what it was, I named the tallest of the donors to my Honorary Commission on Judicial Ethics. When I made the move he was confined to a convalescent facility for naturalized immigrants. His wife was expecting their second child and had become impossible to deal with due to her position on gun control, abortion and homosexual agriculture. Now it was my turn to turn heads while I walked my dog in the rain on St Patrick's Day.

When I got back and spoke very softly into one of the improvised ears it had been my choice to embellish at cost, I noticed that a bland shade had been placed across my cubby hole and I no longer had access to a vat of accelerants I'd been saving for my upcoming spree. People had always doubted my dedication to duty even though personal hygiene was never an issue. In fact, the personal 'Best in Office' award had been mine for five years running. Some of us had caused a loop to become caught in a ratchet, much to the consternation of our local person. We didn't think twice since his hair was never anything to write home about, if you can catch my drift. Once he appeared in my den after midnight early Wednesday morning, I asked if I could help him settle into a better rhythm of give-and-take and come-and-go. He replied with a shrug and a muffled cry for help. I appealed to his person to be there in the morning after I broke my foot in a pick-up basketball game. He even sat near me later that Summer at the Stadium when my wife served me with papers. I dropped a pencil accidentally-on-purpose and now, wouldn't you know it, my chiropractor has suffered a nervous breakdown. It's his own fault if you ask me, not that you would,... but still. 

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Could there be ANYONE to the Left of me?

 

My political affiliations and proclivities have been called into serious question. This does not bode well for our movement.

Could there be anyone left who no longer appreciates the sensation which courses sublimely as most 'things' of value start to give way? 

We will each append our bids with a mixture of desuetude and macaransis. Only a tantalizing brunette is to be permitted access to an underwater hiding place should our previous owner decide to issue a faulty coupon in lieu of a sanitized beefing terp. The gate in the center of the window is scheduled to be adjusted to admit no solemn notes unless the inductee has pre-installed a fanning unit on a floor other than the one which he or she has abandoned before a likely person returns from the Airport with a fresh sensing apparatus, if that. It doesn't take much to creep through a hutch with a diamond blade and instruct a teenage bride in the hard truths of conjugal living. They could give you an insincere hug or possibly present you with a mug of warm, potable liquid. It'll be fun to see what happens.  As for me, I'll be downstairs monitoring your movements with a finely calibrated sense of outrage.

At the edge of combat, the most common complaint is that a colleague's footwear has left initialized nano-scaled prints on the lower part of a particle-board wall at the insistence of one who refuses all entreaties to silently observe patience-free protocols. It could be something as mundane as a lowly houseplant. If you take your good, sweet time at the entrance, we will have every right to band together during the evening hours and see to it that you are impelled to answer for my many deficits. Those on your team have had a hand in each and every instance of my Leader being led into unintentional perfidy until someone got the bright idea to call the State Police in Moline, Illinois. To say that some of us have a fondness for toast of all kinds could lessen racial tensions in the Nuclear Highway Administration [NHA] writ large. If anyone decides to use a 'gravelly' voice as per our instructions, they should also limit their reliance on any sort of mystification. It just makes for a more accurate dump site.

The goal of our entire table-setting scheme is to see to it that one or more of the tesseracts are found within a fortnight of a genuine birthing opportunity. A dream which prevails at the expense of a non-obvious tension-release formula is always preferable to the discovery of a pell-mell inscription on the leader-board of costly compliance procedures. You will know them by the way they slip into position with only the barest of movements. A bit of schmutz on a floorboard is never what gets one through a difficult apostomy. Their seats are in alignment. The coats are 'to die for'. And all their ringed patterns bring gypsum icons to a prestigious, if finicky, boil.  When we count down by threes from ten thousand eight hundred and twenty-six, this should give you enough time to enjoin a solipsistic nomad to fake an intuitive awareness of seasonal cropland referrals. Does this make me want to eat you? Yes, but . . ....

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This is what happens when aggrievement is righteously earned.

 

Jaran Pesmo felt genuinely aggrieved. All morning he'd been taking down small pieces of chalk and placing them in appropriately spaced Dixie cups which he'd bought just for this. And now the wife, whose name he'd only recently purchased in an online auction, took actions that perturbed him. Once his English had failed him, he sought a helping hand at a market near a River underneath a bridge. A bridge, I might add, in desperate need of emergency repairs. Yet everyone felt perfectly okay plowing on through as if someone else could be expected to bear the superlative brunt if worse came to worse. Jaran watched closely to avoid common mistakes. Also to blend in. Even the clothes he wore testified to this in spades. You get the picture. Not everyone does. Try me.

I managed to enroll the wife in a ring-toss intramural dispute while their kids were kept busy in the basement of one of our foremost Major Leabers. Each was designed to incorporate a spoonful of Special Liquid. They knew that if they could go the distance, then I would make sure the parents were awarded custody of a titanium interval desk. It would allow their competitive traits to bloom quite produndantly. We've all known people like that. They ask if you'd like one. You start to move your hand. They back up and try again. Rinse and repeat. All goes well if it starts with persons deciding to pretend to make a bold commitment to appearing effortful. We're glad when recalcitrant busybodies start to see it our way. It will go easier if you join them for a drink in our cellar.

Once Jaran had searched through all of his unbreakable line items, I felt it was time to look directly between his eyes and ask him if he really wanted to go through with this. Or even something vaguely similar. He replied that since the wife had taken to ducts like a floor to water, he'd had to rethink his plans and try to not come up wanting for air in all the wrong places. I knew that he had a chronic knee problem and his place in the Program was at serious risk. We decided to approve his removal to Hawthorne State where there were trained spatialists. Before he was transposed, his remaining underlings expressed the wish to see him in his own wagon. Unfortunately his number had been lost in the War, so we had to make do with an Ivan Cart with the wrong code on each side. It served everyone right. Each of the kids was given a jumper. The wife was gifted a Committee all her own. I took my sweet time before refilling the Delta. The house was sold to a Junior Minister. Despite what anyone might think they've forgotten, no one ever got caught. It was that kind of year. 

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Credit Where Credit Is Due.

 

Now, when the Tembulants are fingered for a Livable Cities Proclamation, their first order of business will be to snare a recording of a pond in the wee hours and perform visual demonstrations, as if any were ever needed. As one of their Captains has assured us, if any harm is encouraged beyond the bordering area, we should call a trembling person in from the street level and go easy. Because not all situations end up in the papers. A lot of them, in fact, don't even make onto a major floor. With the rapid pace being what it is, any of us who looks to find solace in the arc of a misplaced order of numbers cannot be expected to remove recalcitrant call-banners. And that's even before a tower erupts in fissures of bonded mental telergy. Give them credit for scrying. Please.

You will find a sky-blue vanity table employed as a safety lake in our version of night-wide blanking. Whenever it festers more minutely than one rather boldly slotted employee, our training powder is to be dispensed in the form of nano-scale threads of a divergent order. If going into a station field during a humidity stronghold helps a witness recall an important detail, then our ten-fold paper loops can be expected to hold further unbounded names in an old fashioned cellular binder. You will be able to find each rivulet while a room is bathed in temperate semi-darkness. If a moderately priced dessert topping is in your future, it can help your stomache achieve a rare equilibrium. A person who is an enthusiast of gray-scale sexual disasters should be encouraged to partition each liminal bantustan in thrice weekly step-fields. They will only rain if a conical tube is broken from within a shackled sack. You're welcome.

This is when prayer often enters the picture. Only a wide-angle landscape format could do justice to our fervent jostling. With the smallest of straps deployed directly beneath an oblique angle of winning flesh, any and all markings not highlighted with a velour consignment may bring out one of our number for a devout curtain pressure milab. It remains to be determined whether or if one of the parents on the scene is invited to sip a comforting warm beverage near a gigantic magnet. At this time three years ago, all the hair fell out. Directly onto a Native American Burial Mound. No one was laughing then, we can assure you. If anyone decides that they might like to continue, an appointment will be entertained. Thank you.

_______________________- 

This doesn't mean that we're not still friends.

 

One of us likes to think about the time we went away. The other feels the weight of personal history as it takes its inevitable toll. When anyone issues a muffled whimper a hard choice could be in order. But for us to be able to leak salient details, then a series of coded taps on the partition could be our ticket into a structure of carefree support. I tell them all the time that one of our fondest memories is capping a lid in place and hearing the very satisfying click which accompanies the operation. If I recall correctly, I was wearing teal blue shorts, a beige turtleneck sweater and an Oxnard blazer. She stroked my hand in a way which made all the difference to my final adjustment. Anyone who insisted on arguing about the placement of printed cloths directly underneath critical modules would have to find a new activity with which to wile away the empty hours of their lives.

I'd been up since dawn and my  wife had come down with a minor condition. On my way to the courthouse, I rolled up on an incident already in progress. I secured the perimeter while my partner began attending cooking classes at the local Extension. Everyone I knew started to look at him like he was some kind of irresponsible lunatic. This was totally uncalled for. When I got to my feet and made a very careful decision to walk into town under my own power, it was all I could do to not seek revenge on a trusted family member. If there's one thing I know, it's how to get along with people who have trouble understanding their deepest motivations. For example, this guy called my show the other night and said he had a run-in with a very tough broad down by the waterfront. I told him to pipe down and stop acting like a first-class, grade A, jerk.

Do you think it's likely that anyone in your circle of acquaintanceships could ever see their way clear to have an honest discussion about minority-majority outreach after I'd left the room in a huff? I ask because one of my least ornery former classmates has asked to be given the run of the place while I do a few errands downtown. He says he won't be but a minute and meanwhile I have a rather distressing rash on the inside of my left eyelid. Some crybabies might not see the connection, but that would be on them, not me. For those who would (metaphorically) give their right arm to walk in the footsteps of our finest marketing honcho, I have no advice to share.  

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The following account may resolve some of your heretofore unanswered questions.

 

We have gone over and over end-of-conflict high points, and we're still not convinced that our actions played any part in the atrocious smell associated with a reasonable outcome. I liked to play up my involvement with some of the lads from down the way while my wife stuck to her guns and never for one moment admitted that she'd seen anything unusual, or even revolting. I find it odd that when she speaks with that voice of hers, people can be counted upon to crowd into a room with a very low, if artificial, ceiling. This one was constructed with aggregated wax cylinders. I could tell from the way her eyes moved back and forth from inside her compartment that someone close by had committed to a course of error prone activity. I thought I could identify the party by a stain near an end table. It's the kind of thing which had his name all over it. There wasn't any choice.

I found his home address in the booklet handed to us by an underemployed hostage negotiator during off-hours at a defunct candy operation on the Mainland. The place wasn't hard to find. Even in the late '80s people seemed to have a 'thing' for isolated numbers. And, when we're talking actual musical notes, then the lion's share of accolades are fully impressed on the Nation's wingates. He greeted me in a bathrobe at 1:13 AM from a bench in City Hall Park. I was still working nights at the Eichenwald Mattress Factory, but the connection was okay. We chatted for a while about this and that, but, for some non-obvious reason he just wasn't buying it. I helped him move his luggage down from the third floor so we could pack in peace. From the way he talked, I could tell that he wondered whether my younger sister had been sterilized, even though he never mentioned her directly. I remember that I once saw him accept an award on behalf of someone else at a local ceremony. Suddenly, the alleged 'facts' I'd been given just didn't add up. Not only was I having difficulty breathing, but I was also somewhat thirsty. You can always tell by the way people walk whether or not they've been betrayed by a total stranger.

Once he'd absconded with my share of the proceeds, there was enough to go on. He vowed that a dash of corn powder would help the mush rise. I kept my eye on him while my wife sashayed through the upstairs corridor, checking each door in turn. After the third go-round, I grabbed her wrist and demanded answers. She poo-pooed my seizures. I made a silent plea for help. By this time the man had already gone native and was sleeping like an innocent baby. I pulled the rug out from under him and threw him under the bus. He reacted in a way I'll never forget. I trusted him to keep us safe. From where I stood on the second floor balcony, it appeared that most of our neighbors had gone to a lot of trouble to make us feel at home. We'd only moved there the year before, but, this was just too much. I felt I had no choice but to arrange for a few 'suspicious' fires. The impact was even felt in experimental pedagogical circles. 

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Why not let's grease the skids with a bit o' false modesty, shall we?

 

It's just not true that I risked my life to save a shy person from the consequences of his inadequate personality. What I did, though, was hover silently in the background, let him get his footing, and then compensate his enablers commensurate with their stake in the final outcome. No one knows better than a kid from the South Side what it takes to live an entire life free of chemical infusions. During the lean years, one of us always felt free to create a very large circle inside of which we would routinely vanquish thrill-seekers everywhere. The problem was, some of them had just returned from the Interior Theater and required immediate attention. A few would claim to feel a mystical pain. I used a device on loan from the Agriculture Department to root out the spots where their parents had hidden their collections. With that in hand, I felt we had enough to go on. I wouldn't put my foot in one, but that doesn't mean I'm any taller than the next guy, despite what you may have heard.

Ivandola Crepatura was the name I was given. This person was reputed to be all but totally bereft of retinues and could only continue if we agreed to begin an imaginary exercise program. In earnest this time, if nothing else. So, I suited up, swept some odd wrappers through an antique frame and, for the first time in my life felt the pressure release itself from my ever expanding bilge-line. Anyone who was known to scamper could now be held for up to forty-eight hours, no questions asked, no answers given. I  could put one in a headlock myself, if needs be. Instead I sold my vintage corduroy sweatpants on Ebay for a sweet fiver and started to fix up my place. I was expecting a load of them to take advantage of my offer. And not a moment too soon! Within a month there was a plaque at the base of a statue. Staffers young and old would repair to a dusty lounge to relive the glory days of just a few weeks prior. Now that I'd lost vertical function, everyone felt free to lie about my age in the gutter press.

When you live in such a way that constant intrusions become a thing of the past, it's time to ask yourself a very pointed question. However, if like me you never had much to do with yourself beyond mandatory mirror-time, then you could ill afford a moment to reflect on where you'd be if the game became transparently artificial in a depleted nonce. Because, after all these years, what would it take to get you involved in our experimental surgery protocols? The benefits are second to none, but if I were you, I wouldn't let that stop me from pretending to lurk within striking distance of a disgraced tenant advocate. And, if you think you might find one in a rock-bottom railyard, think again, my friend. Consider long and hard if this is what you want on your gravestone. Because, like it or not, not one of my customers can be trusted to canvas an entire area without air support on the topside. And that's only the beginning. With truth on your side, no one can sneak a bitter spool of thread into your portfolio, beyond what your random Chairperson might think appropriate. And then some. (It's okay to look now.) 

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A fully vetted account of likely events.

 

I am carefully warming a pretend dish inside the sanitizer. Just to the right of the sanitizer, you'll find a precious booklet decked out with commemorative stickers. My step-brother waits outside. His curb is still littered with detritus. I'm done making calls, the likes of which have kept some folks active for days. I have been warned to not attempt to relive vaunted moments. This seems like a good time to circulate photos for maximal effect. The habits of our elders provide no excuses when our own regulations are on the line. I have taken some myself. The impact was nil, but no one ever said boo about the incandescent sound values which would erupt in  a shallow quarter. People are better off when they believe something is being done. In their own name or not, you'll know them by the way the powder snakes across the parking lot in their stead. No use giving up the ghost if even one child can be saved. Or, at least that's what they want me to say to avoid subliminal repercussions. It will all come out.

As I try to lead our newest trainees in a Festival Song, the structural integrity of the Rec Center is called into question. I lead the last available witness to describe the process whereby most of us can expect to be shunted. As he gently delivers his remarks, I can't shake the feeling that one of us has swallowed a bill of goods, hook, line and sinker. He sits in the back seat of my sedan while I confer with a veteran officer. The officer lays it on the line pure and simple: there's no choice but to get this kid to the hospital on the double. If I told you right now that I was somehow totally ignorant of the fact that this guy was lying through his teeth, then you'd have every right to call me on my shit. But since I have no intention of laying out an entire panoply, maybe you should just relax for once in your life, okay?

So, once we were certain that our names had achieved pride of place on a transnational waiting list, I felt that I could now guarantee no less than six period-perfect lineaments would be deposited in our duty locker. It's all we would ever need to start enhancing our appearances before one or more mobility-challenged miscreants had absorbed all the lessons and made a clean break. My own timing had been decidedly 'off'. There was a noticeable snapping sensation in my left foot, which wouldn't earn me any plaudits from accessorized bensonites. I felt certain that a person in my position could no longer afford any cracks in my probationary heptacion. What with all the runaways in our midst, someone would have to speak ground-level truth or expect to find an anonymous note in their folder. I outright refuse to hold our leaders hostage to contemporary fashion trends. If anyone doesn't like the looks of this, then I've got news for them. As for the rest of you, please.

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