9.2
When they had returned to Segue-La, they found Bill screaming into his cell phone. Rupert offered to put her can of vegetables away, to which she nodded her ascent without looking at him, making it clear that their equal social time was over. He heaved a relieved sigh.
From the kitchen, he could hear Bill.
“Do you guys know anything about what’s going on with the Virtual Murder Station network? . . . the VMS4 and VBOV network being down. Don’t transfer me again. It’s been down for four days. I heard they arrested two people so fa—What do you mean it’s not an emergency? What the fuck else is 911 for? . . . go outside? . . . I don’t read books, lady, Congressman what’s-his-face said they make you gay.” Pause. “Not books? Just standardized testing…?”
Bill hung up, frustrated. Rupert heard the sound of a beanbag being kicked and thought: At least it wasn’t Steve Perry. Then it hit him that Bill had called 911 because his VMS4 wasn’t working.
He was pretty sure that was illegal. Or something.
10.1
Fulva dropped Rupert off at the Royal Courtyard Econo-Regency Chalet, waited an awkward and excruciating amount of time expecting to be invited in, snorted in exasperation, then sped off angrily when he’d yawned, stretched, and said: “Boy, is it late.” It was 8:30pm.
As he walked into the building and past the front desk, he and Angel made eye contact. She beamed an exaggerated smile at him until he crossed the lobby and entered the corridor for his room. He thought maybe it had gotten colder and darker since the afternoon, if that was possible. When he got into his room, he basked in the warmth from the heater he’d turned on before he’d left for his hapless trip to Florida Fried Gator. His stomach growled and he told it to fuck itself—he was done for the day.
A green light flashed on the corded motel phone that sat on the nightstand between the two Queen beds. Rupert picked up the receiver and pressed the retrieve message button. After a few beeps and other noises he didn’t recognize as normal, there was Leenda’s voice.
“Hey Rupert, it’s Leenda. I asked Pyrdewy for your number, I hope you don’t mind. He told me to keep your ass in line. I’m not sure he was joking.” She laughed too loud. Stanley was right, but Rupert thought it was endearing, despite having to pull the receiver away from his ear.
“Anyway, I’m just checking up, wondering how you were settling in. I know you just got in today and haven’t done much, but, well, yeah. Oh hey! I might get a gig down there soon. A burial mound. Close to where you are, I think. That’d be cool, huh? We could get dinner.”
Rupert felt fluttery for a moment. He couldn’t quite tell if it was Leenda or the fact that he was starving. Perhaps his blood sugar was plummeting. That seemed most likely.
“Okay, hopefully I’ll talk to you soon. Or, you could give me a call. Whatever.”
She left her number and Rupert played the message back again. Then he listened to it five more times, but he didn’t write down the number. He knew he wouldn’t call her back; he didn’t have the balls. He did, though, have the balls and other accouterments to masturbate thinking about her. He also knew how to strip an electric clock or other small appliance to get a low-level jolt, but he was too tired to bother, and he needed the one on the nightstand for an alarm.
When he finished, he enjoyed a brief moment of peace before the guilt and irritation set in.
Rupert sighed and lay there on the bed, limp in his own mess, mind blank. They say the state of entropy was at its lowest and slowest rate immediately following the Big Bang, is at its fastest and highest rate around the phenomenon of black holes, and, theory holds, would return to a slower, lower rate upon the Big Crunch, when the Universe has expanded to such an extent that it collapses in on itself and starts anew. This dictated Rupert’s personal theory of intimate, physical human relationships, which, despite his age, and due to his anxiety, remained predominantly untested. At least, not tested under ideal circumstances.
Rupert’s day-to-day baseline state resembled that of a black hole and the longer he stayed in that state, the further and faster his health and general emotional wellbeing declined, whereas in the direct aftermath of climaxing—his own personal Big Bang—this deterioration exhibited a noticeable decrease, for a moment. This meant that Rupert jerked off as often as possible, not necessarily from an addiction to the sensation, but because of this theory. Furthermore, while the Big Bang was exemplified in the orgasm, mutual intercourse—combined, synchronized orgasm with a partner, preferably one that was dear to you—was embodied by the Big Crunch, that colossal expansion, and ultimate collapse into a shared zero space, thus recreating the Universe, or, to be more accurate, creating a new one—a cosmic Adam and Eve whose offspring was nothing but themselves sharing the same expanse of nothingness, a joint pinpoint of nil, Rupert’s definition of Humanity. The result of this common explosion—the anticipation and, indeed, struggle to achieve the Big Crunch between two persons—is, again, a slowing of entropy; not positive order, but a decelerating of the inevitable disorder.
Rupert wasn’t sure he believed in negentropy, but he hoped that the inescapable descent into his own individual chaos could, at the very least, be put off a bit longer. This sounded to him both enormously romantic and decidedly self-serving, but then, he wasn’t sure how to separate the two, nor that it should be separated. What could be more self-serving than to love the one that loves you best?
Rupert used to use this brief, static period of peace between entropy and negentropy to consider this very theory, but hadn’t in a long while. Today, he did. He didn’t think it was an original theory, but he believed, in reality, it applied to him; he practiced it and pinned his hopes on it.
Then, in the predictable guilt-irritation phase, he started to doze, which was when he did his best scheming. He thought about the Crack Planet gig. What was he doing? He was going to start selling tickets to Crack Planet. And this got him closer to integrating with Methheads how? Well, Bill and Osceola were without a doubt Methheads. Maybe Fulva, but she was almost functional. Jesus seemed clean, which Rupert was thankful for. He’d only been here for a day. It felt like a week—he was exhausted, but then being around people, strangers in particular—strange strangers at that—exhausted him. He needed to relax.
He cleaned himself up and put himself away, then lay down again. Deep breathing. Focused on the breath. In. Out. In. Out. Meditate. Meditate.
Three minutes later he had a complete selling and marketing plan for the SIKildo Crack Planet Travel Agency, a subsidiary of SIKildo Industries.
Then the phone rang next to his head and he instinctively rolled off the bed, hitting the floor with a 235-pound thump.
“Fuck.”
Maybe it was Leenda again. He pushed through his initial reaction to let it ring and scrambled back over the bed, placing his knee in a cold, wet spot he’d missed during clean-up.
“Fuck.”
He slammed his hand down onto the receiver, then paused. One big, deep breath . . . and release. He picked it up.
“Hello?”
“Rupe.” Pyrdewy.
“Fuck.”
“What? Report.”
“Report? I just got here.”
“You’ve been there for hours. What the hell are you doing on the Spliphsonian dime?” Pyrdewy’s voice was more irritating through a thousand miles of wire.
“Well . . . well . . . actually, Mr. Pyrdewy . . . ” Rupert stammered.
“Well, what, Rupe? Spit it out.”
Rupert proceeded to explain his day after having arrived at the Royal Courtyard Econo-Regency Chalet, leaving out the too-weird parts, which meant it took about fifteen words, total.
“Golden fucking tickets? Crack Planet? What the fuck are you doing?”
Rupert thought the director of a prestigious museum swore a lot more than he’d have expected.
“Leave that shit alone and do your fucking job, if you still want to keep your job. The mop and bucket await you, bucko.”
Bucko? Is that racist? No, I don’t think s—
“Yes, Mr. Pyrdewy.” Rupert should have stressed how tweaked out these people were. Next time. He was about to say something else but realized Pyrdewy had ended the phone call. Before hanging up himself, Rupert heard a weird double-click, which he thought was odd, but it had been an odd day, so he dismissed it.
Do his job. The thought of infiltrating some big meth operation made him feel sick. Like, throw-up sick. And somehow, he felt like he was on the right track with these people.
It had become clear throughout the day that among this community of low-rent meth royalty, he was downright normal, something he’d never felt in any kind of social or professional situation. He decided to follow through with it and see where it went, if he could hold Pyrdewy off for a little bit. Besides, he had a business plan, and being very self-reflective, Rupert knew this approach would fulfill his psychological need to appear not just competent, not only possessing a level of social prowess, but launching straight into upward social mobility. He’d start with the competency. He held onto it like a life preserver.
Rupert looked at the red digital clock on the entertainment center next to a television he would never use. 9:06pm. He had time. He dug through his duffle bag for his laptop, some writing tablets, anything he’d need to get this down. He sat at the tiny table and went to work. Two hours and a daunting three-block walk to the Konko’s Kopy Kenter later—Rupert tried to explain to the employee why the “Kenter” didn’t work, but he didn’t get it and exhibited an off-putting emotional attachment to the KKK logo—he had some charts, some graphs, enough handouts for everyone. And then he went to bed.
As he turned out the light, the phone rang.
“Fuck.” He answered it. “What?”
“Nighty night, ese.” Jesus laughed.
“How did you even get this number?”
“I can’t believe you don’t have a cell phone, bro.”
Rupert hated the phone, corded or otherwise. He hated calling and being called, hated talking on it without the benefit of facial expressions and gestures to interpret what the hell other people wanted from you.
“I called the front desk,” Jesus explained. “You’re, like, one of three people staying there.”
Rupert sighed. “What?”
“Picking you up at 8:00 am. Be ready.”
“What, to sell tickets?”
“Crackheads get up as early as their hunger wakes them, and that can be very early indeed.”
“Yeah, but we can’t do that first thing. We need to go back to Segue-La. I have a plan.”
“A plan.”
“It’s awesome. They’ll love it.”
“It better be and they’d better love it, or Fulva’s gonna be pissed we lost selling time. The thirst monsters are thirstiest when they first come to.”
“It’ll be good,” Rupert said, a sliver of doubt snaking its way around his lumbar vertebrae and threatening to climb.
“Muy-mucho groovy,” Jesus said. “Goodnight.”
As Rupert hung up, it occurred to him that he was nervous about giving a marketing presentation to a bunch of drug addicts who had a monkey named Steve Perry, carried around a rubber “whackin’ dick,” and whose favorite film appeared to be the Polonia Brothers’ Splatter Farm.
That was some bleak shit.
Sock it to me...