3.2
It should take about three minutes walking at a normal, relaxed pace to get from Pyrdewy’s office door to the front entrance of the Spliphsonian, elevator ride included. It took Rupert a half an hour of elevator riding, hall walking, and stair climbing to finally find himself confronted by the large stone crawfish that ushered visitors down the steps and back out into the streets of our nation’s capital. He hadn’t run into Leenda again, and he was both relieved and disappointed. The disappointed part felt new.
But soon he was back at his apartment, making a batch of his favorite comfort food: an entire package of angel hair pasta slathered in a half-stick of butter, swimming in three 15-ounce cans of plain tomato sauce. Like a buttery pasta soup. Even at this stage of life—forty-two—he processed garbage pretty well, maintaining a reasonable waistline, and therefore had yet to address his food issues and problems with impulse control.
The D.E.A.T.H. folder was still in his cross-body bag, now slung over the back of a chair flanking his two-person dining set. Rupert’s apartment did not look like that of a shut-in. It was neat, not too much stuff, but not sparse. Wooden floors, hemp rugs, shelves and shelves of books, low, warm lighting. He liked to consider all of his furnishings handmade, because he ordered it all online and assembled it himself, rather than have extra people in his life to interact with.
Rupert’s dream home was a fake castle he saw once driving through Berkley Springs, WV. It was, in actuality, a large mansion in the shape of a castle built by some old rich guy to woo some young chick who wanted to be a princess. Presumably, things had gone sour in the six years it took to build and when he died not long before the completion of his princess’s perfect little castle, he stipulated in his will that she would get nothing unless she finished the building (which she did and then she blew through the rest of his estate. She moved to a tiny house in 1909 and raised chickens before one of her offspring whisked her off to Idaho to spend the rest of her days wondering what life would have been like had she just been a better sort of person—turns out, the joke’s on everyone. The Universe doesn’t give a shit).
Rupert didn’t think about that much, though he figured maybe relationships in general were problematic. He thought the stone turret kicked ass. He’d never been inside, but he’d seen pictures. Cush. He’d have filled it with books and dim table lamps.
He tested a strand of pasta for readiness, deemed it so, then set himself up at the table with his pasta soup, a massive glass of water, and a half-glass of pink grapefruit juice to follow up. He liked to stay hydrated. Now, the folder was out of the cross-body bag and in front of him, getting splattered with sauce as he slurped up noodles.
The study, as laid out here, bore little resemblance to the one he’d been helping Stanley with, however, much to his surprise, and shameless glee, it involved many more entropic ideas than Stanley had been willing to consider and allow. But they were small details, theoretical, and not remotely applicable.
The pasta gone and the water glass empty, he then grabbed the folder and his grapefruit juice, relocated to the sofa, stretched out his long legs, and flipped through the pages one more time.
So, basically, Rupert’s job (if he wanted to keep his job in the form that it was) was to observe and collect data on the social interactions within the addict communities from which the “workers” that participated in the D.E.A.T.H. program came. The part that almost sounded like a proper study was: 1) to see how well the addicts took to certain types of work, and 2) which types would be most productive to society and could be optimized for addict participation, while at the same time, 3) benefiting the addict to the highest extent possible. This almost sounded reasonable, and entirely typical of the Federal Government—do good works, but not without benefiting The State first. Rupert was instructed to observe any entropic patterns that might emerge within the program’s execution so that it might be better designed to avoid chaos.
Avoid chaos, he thought. That’s rich.
Rupert would have to somehow infiltrate the society—societies?—of Meth- and Crackheads. Where?
Sarasota County, Florida.
He shuddered. He’d seen the headlines: “Florida Man Claims Wife Abducted by Holograms;” “Florida Man Arrested for Urinating on Waitress at Nightclub;” “Florida Man Attacks Mom’s Boyfriend with Samurai Sword Over Missing Can of Shrimp.” You couldn’t make this shit up, so of course it would be Florida.
Rupert tossed the file onto the floor and thought, emptying his glass of juice. He felt that the author of the file must have been tipped off on what a social idiot Rupert was, because some of the language sounded as if they’d met before it was written. It stressed that, no, Rupert could not ingratiate himself to small time cookers; he had to get into the larger super lab operations. It wasn’t explicit in the file, but meager information peppered throughout—stupidly, in Rupert’s opinion—indicated that part of the program was also a front for the DEA to identify and bust big pushers. Why, if Pyrdewy felt so charitable, would he risk the program to have it potentially exposed as a meth/crack Donnie Brasco operation? Rupert doubted Pyrdewy cared, but more rewards for the Feds meant more funds from the program. And, apparently, despite his conservatism, he liked government money when it suited his needs.
None of this felt safe, and worse, it left Rupert open to all sorts of clinical social anxiety scenarios. The file itself read as if answering every possible protestation Rupert could have (and, evidently, Pyrdewy didn’t like black folks protesting). Infiltration meant finding out how they lived, not just how they worked, so it would have to be up close and personal. It also required the actual recruitment of addicts for the program, which was a big nope for Rupert. He didn’t like to talk to the cashier at the store when stocking up on tomato sauce. So, going undercover in the workspace of the program wasn’t good enough to gather the information the study required. He must gain their complete trust, out there, “in the wild” (the file read). He was to report at regular intervals to Pyrdewy the activities of the leaders of the group or groups. It was all in order to better improve the D.E.A.T.H. program and, thus, better improve the lives of these “poor, lost sonsofbitches.” (Rupert wondered exactly who revised this study and whether or not Pyrdewy was in any way qualified to do so. He suspected the red-faced carbuncle of holding an MBA, despite presumably-failed mandatory ethics classes.)
Rupert’s mind ached, so he pushed all the papers off the sofa, pulled a pillow over his head, and slept. He was not at all equipped to do any of this.
When he woke, it was dark, so he melted down into a medium-sized anxiety attack—muscles tense, chest tight, hands shaking. The one-way ticket to Sarasota in the file put him at the airport at 4am. It was only nine o’clock in the evening, so he still had time to pack, think as well as he could, and consider if maybe mopping floors wasn’t such a bad job. It was certain to give him a first hand look at individual mental and emotional entropy, but then, he was already a veteran of personal experience.
Lee Harper Oswald 
Sock it to me...