Processed cheese, p.8
Processed Cheese, page 8
Everyone outside today looked bright and vivid. Everyone looked new, as if they had just been freshly minted. All their edges had been enhanced. A remarkable sight he’d never really experienced before. He didn’t know it was possible for skin and hair to appear so well packaged. Today everyone looked famous. Even the well-scrubbed hipsters stuffing their faces at fenced-in sidewalk tables outside the Colloidium appeared to be actually enjoying their lives. Graveyard’d sit down and join them, order something obscenely pricey, like the cup of a half dozen handpicked duffelberries for $17.95 or the Standing Water Consommé for twenty-five dollars, but he was in no mood for sitting or eating. He needed to get out of his neighborhood, where everything reminded him of something in his life he didn’t want to be reminded of.
He needed to travel to another country. He hailed a cab—he could afford it—and hopped uptown to the exotic TooGoodForYou district. Formerly the Forbidden Zone, now his favorite twenty blocks. Except for the occasional flash of fine tailoring, folks here looked pretty much like folks anywhere. They just had fatter wallets. And skinnier bodies. And noses expertly tuned for grace and comfort. Even the streets seemed air-conditioned. Veteran residents of these consecrated blocks had always known what Graveyard had just learned: happiness is a warm coat of money. A thick, a doubly thick coat. To live here, which admittedly might be fun, he’d still need another bag or two or three of the long green. Wait—what was he saying? He’d need a virtual bombardment of bags. An intense carpet bombing. What he could do now, though, was wander around the antechambers of the wealthy, soaking up the gravid atmosphere where everyone who was rich and well tended was looking at everyone else who was rich and well tended and disapproving of what they saw. Graveyard fit right in. He looked in a window. I can buy this, he said to himself. He looked in that window. I can buy that, he said to himself. And sometimes, just to prove he could, he rushed into a store and bought something he couldn’t give a rat’s ass about simply because it was priced beyond all limits of reason. What pleasure that gave him.
And there were real famous people, too, all over the place. On just this one afternoon he saw Cartwheel and FancyPants. They were holding hands. Must’ve patched things up since that very public brawl last spring on the island of Boolaboola. Graveyard had seen the full story on the celeb-besotted InYourEar cable channel. He liked to pretend otherwise, but to be embarrassingly candid, that’s where he got most of his news. He saw OverAge. He was wearing white shorts. He had a rally-red tattoo on his right calf depicting a devil nun with horns and a tail giving the finger with one hand and smoking a cigarette with the other. Who would’ve thunk? And he saw NasalBags. All alone and in disguise. The phony beard looked so phony it couldn’t possibly be fooling anyone. With his dough you’d think he could afford to have a makeup artist on staff who could do him up in a professional camera-ready manner.
All around him hard-charging exceptionals babbled away to one another in a medley of foreign tongues. Graveyard was lucky to even recognize the accents, let alone understand the words themselves. This was a space where money in all its wondrous incarnations came to mingle with other monies.
Graveyard went into I$Me. A leather-scented store for the privileged that sold pricey stuff the privileged couldn’t get anywhere else. Graveyard bought a set of sterling silver corn holders and a platinum pen that wrote upside down and under water and a liquid clock, an assemblage of glass cylinders containing varying amounts of different colored fluids Graveyard hadn’t a clue how to read. Very chic. And who said the exceptionals had no taste?
Rounding a corner, Graveyard was abruptly confronted by a camera crew, a mob, a story in progress, lights and microphones trained on a hapless uniformed doorman. He recognized the luxury building everyone was gathered in front of. It was the famous MontMont, which, Graveyard happened to know—he was a treasury of pop trivia—housed the palatial quarters of both SprinkledCupcake and LowToleranceComponent. What’s going on? he asked a bystander. Turned out this particular building also contained the three-story digs of super financier AluminumCliff. Apparently, he’d been pretty bad lately. Another one of those tedious scandals the megarich were always getting wrapped up in. It was either sex or it was money or it was sex and money combined in salaciously inventive ways. Graveyard moved on.
Ambience was on his mind. He was worried. He didn’t like the direction she seemed to be going in. The dollar high was fading much too quickly. Too much talk about not being worthy of all this good luck. It was starting to bring him down, too. Now she wanted something. She wanted to be surprised. But by what? What could she possibly want that she hadn’t gotten for herself in the last two weeks?
Bang, zoom. It hit him out of the blue. A car. A brand new car. Like right now. He wanted a car. She wanted a car. They both needed a car. He flagged a cab and rode right on over to the classy showrooms on the far west West Side, which were full of obscenely priced engineering marvels designed just for people-like-you. The sales staff took him for a messenger or a delivery guy. What with the long unwashed hair, the torn jeans, the scuffed hip-hop sneakers and all. He hadn’t yet converted his wardrobe to suit his present circumstances. But he asked to see the best, and, reluctantly, they showed him the best. I’ll take this one, he said. I’ll pay in cash, he said. All four of his pockets were stuffed with the sweet green that puts a smile on everyone’s face. He signed the paperwork. He drove the car off the lot. What was he feeling? A sensation beyond words. Chicken feet and razor clams, Graveyard said to himself.
Now he needed a drink. He headed downtown and ended, as on some level he always knew he would, back in his own hood, headed inexorably toward Why?, his favorite bar. And even here in his (relatively) low-rent pretend “ghetto” the day’s good fortune continued dispensing its welcome smiles. There was, astonishingly, an open parking space waiting just for him three blocks from the bar, directly in front of the WiltedLettuce grocery store. And perched atop a trash can in his usual spot was the store’s unofficial greeter, an apparently homeless man whose name, even after exchanging hellos with him for more than six or seven years, Graveyard still did not know. “All we ask is a penny,” the man said. “No one should go hungry.” Graveyard always gave him something, dutifully emptying his pockets of whatever change he happened to be carrying that day. This day, though, was this day. He gave him paper. One whole pocket’s worth of paper. “Thank you, kind sir,” the man said. Which is what he always said. But the startled expression on his face was not what his face usually expressed. “Bless you,” he said. “You’re welcome,” Graveyard said. Immediately saying to himself, this guy probably lives in a fine apartment better than mine and takes a monthlong vacation to BurnishMe Island every winter. Graveyard couldn’t help it. He was as human as everyone else passing by, running the same thoughts through his overloaded noggin.
Why? was a second home to Graveyard, the adult equivalent of a kids’ backyard clubhouse. He knew the owners and everyone who worked there, including the kitchen crew, and most of the regulars. He knew both bartenders, MasterPlaster and EndZone. MasterPlaster was writing a screenplay about a zombie hospital where damaged zombies went to have other zombies put them back together again. She was also a serious ballroom dancer. EndZone was a wannabe actress when she wasn’t an actual pourer of drinks. She was currently appearing in the infamous Panties in a Bunch at the Crumpled Door, a hundred-seat theater a couple of blocks away. She was topless through most of the second act for reasons no one quite comprehended but could still appreciate. Sometimes MasterPlaster and EndZone went home together after work. Sometimes they didn’t. Graveyard also knew most of the rest of the waitstaff—P, Q, and R. They were all just marking time.
And wouldn’t you know it, the first people he saw coming through the door were the very rub-a-dub-dub LimitedEdition and the reliably “as is” PocketPool.
“Hey,” said LimitedEdition. “There he is, the Man Who Wasn’t Here. Long time no see.”
“Yeah? I been around.”
“Haven’t seen you in days.”
“I been busy.”
“Busy? Doing what?”
“Shopping,” said Graveyard.
“Shopping? You kidding me?”
“It’s my new hobby.”
“I think what we probably got here is a case of the ol’ Mr. Pussywhipped,” said PocketPool.
“You should be so lucky,” said Graveyard.
“So what’d you buy, shopping?” said LimitedEdition.
“Odds and ends.”
“Anything you care to share with your good buds?”
“Ends and odds.”
“Thought you were having trouble meeting the monthly nut,” said PocketPool.
“I was, but, lucky for us, Ambience has come into a little unexpected legacy.”
“How little?” said PocketPool.
“Ambience and money are like oil and water,” said LimitedEdition. “How’d she manage to get her fingers on a dollar without it getting away?”
“Well, you’re not gonna believe this, but a rich uncle died.”
Everyone laughed.
“Really? Like in the movies?”
“Just like.”
“So how much?”
“That’s her business. Ask her.”
“Where is that girl, anyway? Haven’t seen her around much, either.”
“She’s been out buying neon beer signs and antique medical equipment. She wants to redecorate the apartment.”
“Into what—Dr. Ygor’s underground med lab?”
“She likes to entertain her eye.”
“Why not a whole new apartment?” said PocketPool.
“We’re considering.”
“Then this must be more than a little little money.”
“A little more.”
“Substantially more.”
“In that general area.”
“You’re not gonna tell me, are you?”
“Don’t believe I am, no.”
“Well, then, the least you could do is buy all us luckless deadbeats a round of drinks.”
“My pleasure,” said Graveyard.
So he did. A shot of BlackPeat and a beer back for all. Then he did it again. Then he lost count. Everyone got drunk, and those who were already drunk got drunker.
“Why couldn’t this happen to me?” said PocketPool. “Nothing ever happens to me.”
Not true. Stuff had been happening to PocketPool his whole life. Only problem: hardly any of it was good.
“What are you talking about?” said LimitedEdition. “You won the lottery.”
“Yeah. Once.”
“Still, a win’s a win.”
“Yeah. Fifty dollars of win.”
“Well, that’s fifty you didn’t have before.”
“And by the next day, fifty I’d never see again.”
“Don’t blame us if you’re so careless with your dough.”
“You ever think about how much money there is in the whole wide world?” said PocketPool.
“No.”
“Well, think about it sometime. It’s a lot.”
“So?”
“So why isn’t more of it flowing in my general direction?”
“Cause you just haven’t lived the right and just life. Only those who deserve the money get the money. You know that. The foundation of the culture.”
“So I’m not worthy?”
“Apparently not.”
“And I am,” said Graveyard.
“Apparently, yes.”
“Well, what a crappy way to divvy up the goods.”
“You got a better way?”
“Yeah,” said PocketPool. “Everyone gets what they need. Not what they want, what they need. There’s plenty to go around.”
“And who would be in charge of this magical redistribution?”
“Benevolent souls who dress in rags and live in caves on faraway mountains.”
“There you go. Problem solved.”
“And how much would you expect to take home under this new regime?” said Graveyard.
“Oh, only a couple million or three.”
Everyone laughed again. Loudly.
“Well,” said PocketPool. “It’s what I need.”
You never heard such laughter.
PocketPool had a few issues. Drug issues, mostly. He’d experimented, dabbled, and indulged from the eighth grade on. He’d never met a drug he didn’t like. He didn’t know why. His favorites were Luridonin and OverEasy. Luridonin made his head feel as if it were packed in gunpowder. OverEasy made him feel like an egg. They were his real friends. They’d never let him down. In fact, he wished that at least one of them was with him right now.
“Anyone seen Five Wet Rats on a Log?” said LimitedEdition.
“Is that the one about the plot to corner the world market in pandemonium?” said Graveyard.
“Yeah.”
“What’s pandemonium?” said PocketPool.
“It’s some kind of sacred mineral that’s inside every cell phone, every computer, every electronic device.”
“Corner that and you control everything.”
“That’s why the evil Dr. Vitus and his hunchbacked minions are busy kidnapping, torturing, and assassinating every Quasiland government official whose face they don’t like. Quasiland’s the place where this pandemonium is dug out of the ground by the oppressed masses.”
“Who are the wet rats?”
“They’re the elite force of do-gooder ex-cons sent into Quasiland to liberate our pandemonium. We want our pandemonium, and we want it now. Get the fuck out of our way.”
“Don’t tell me. The leader of the pack is none other than BurlyMuffins.”
“Fresh from saving the world in Interstitial.”
“Isn’t he getting a bit old for the muscle-and-gun routine?”
“It’s called experience.”
“Have you checked out his face lately? He looks like a practice dummy for plastic surgery students.”
“Who’s the babe?” said PocketPool.
“VernalMist,” said LimitedEdition.
Everyone groaned in unison. Which is what everyone was supposed to do whenever this particular actress was mentioned.
“You haven’t lived till you’ve seen her suck the poison out of BurlyMuffins’s trigger finger. Dr. Vitus, see, shoots a dart from his badass helmet gun. Happens to hit our hero right on that delicate spot. And boy, does she know how to work a finger. Disappointment is, there’s been some obvious editing.”
“Maybe we’ll get to see the whole thing on the DVD extras,” said PocketPool.
“One can only hope,” said Graveyard.
“Oh, no,” said LimitedEdition. “Don’t try and pretend you’re above it all. You’ll be drooling over that scene same as the rest of us.”
Graveyard looked at LimitedEdition. Then he smiled with his eyes. “All right,” he said. “Got me.”
Graveyard and LimitedEdition had known each other since their fabled-in-their-own-minds brew-and-smoke days back at old Tip O’ The Wedge High. They never got in any actual trouble anyone ever found out about. Well, except for that time they pranked the school. Snuck in one night and proceeded to glue about two hundred in nickels, dimes, and quarters to the floor of the main hallway and another two hundred in dollar bills to the ceiling. With a scattering of tens and twenties at strategic intervals just to make it interesting. When school opened in the morning, the ensuing melee resulted in multiple bruises and contusions and a couple of torn fingernails and one broken arm. Everyone involved was suspended and barred from attending the prom. They held their own prom in the back room of WoeIsMe’s BakeShack. Superior refreshments for all. And everyone in attendance had sex of one kind or another before the night was through. School-day memories.
LimitedEdition worked at StandUpAndCheer in computer cubicle Q5872Y. They were the gold standard in wealth management. They took your money, rubbed it up against other people’s money, and ringadingding, the stuff multiplied like bacteria. More sugar for everybody. LimitedEdition’s job was to sit and stare at a screen for ten, eleven, twelve hours a day. When the majority of numbers on the screen had a little + sign in front of them, LimitedEdition could go home. You can imagine how many days a year he got home early. Graveyard worked there once, too. He lasted about a week. His head always felt as if there were a thick, tight belt wrapped around it and as if at the end of each hour the belt were systematically tightened a notch. Graveyard felt that way on a lot of jobs.
“Shouldn’t you guys be at work or something?” said Graveyard.
“It’s Saturday,” said PocketPool.
“Oh.”
“How could you possibly not know that?”
“Men of leisure don’t have to know the day of the week. In fact, men of leisure don’t want to know the day of the week.”
“One less aggravation,” said LimitedEdition.
“Yes, and isn’t it interesting that how much dough you have or don’t have affects your perception of time?”
“So how does time look to you now, Mr. Aristocrat?”
“It goes slower and I’ve got more of it.”
“Money in the bank.”
“Bingo.”
“Effigy’s getting fat,” said PocketPool, just to say something, let everyone know he was still there, still in the game. He pointed to the television screen up behind the bar. “Fat and old. Look at her.” It was the video for “Cat In A Box.” She was dressed in body-tight snakeskin and writhing around on a metal grate suspended over the CGI flames of an impressively phony CGI hell. Every male gaze in the bar zeroed in on the dancing screen in the way testosterone-flooded eyes everywhere tended to do whenever Effigy’s image, in any medium, was placed directly before them.
