In case you are reading this without my knowledge or after I'm dead, I feel that I must tell you that this is a book. Well, it's not quite a book yet, but hopefully this ROUGH start will eventually be transformed, through the dual miracles of my fingers tapping the keyboard and the inside workings of this computer. Anyway, I felt the need to clarify that, in case I'm no longer around to explain that this is a work of fiction and any resemblances to actual people or events is purely coincidental, and all that crap they put at the end of the screen credits at the movies. So, here it goes . . .
< There were two ways he could look at the situation, he told me, glancing nervously about the room. He had been trapped in a fucking bus in the "middle of fucking Michigan," as he put it, bound for the renowned historic city of Toledo. That's in Ohio, in case you didn't know, he informed me, then proceeded to go on a ten-minute tirade covering everything from the unfairness of giving all those "chinks and wetbacks and lazy fucking niggers" special scholarships and special benefits on the job and all on and on. What all this had to do with me I had no idea, but I let him ramble just the same. Even so, right about then I figured out that it was going to take more than a few minutes for him to relate his story, so I ordered another Grolsch for myself and a pitcher of Bud Lite for him. < While we were waiting for the drinks to arrive he lit up a cigarette, squinting to protect his eyes from the three inch flame that shot up from his Bic, appropiately decorated with a scantily clad Playboy bunny stamped onto the side. I leaned back in a futile attempt to dodge the cloud-like puff of smoke which he exhaled simultaneously from his nostrils and his mouth, saving the last bit in his lungs to blow a couple of smoke rings in the general direction of the bar, grinning at me out of the corner of his eye as he did so.
Cigarette smoke makes me nauseous--I mean REALLY nauseous, but I was determined to keep my lunch in my stomach for as long as I could stand it. This odd character, whose vocabulary would surpass many an English professor but who spent his life collecting tattoos and hanging out in dark, dingy bars with "the real people of this country" (He claimed to be a poet, too, but I haven't seen any evidence of that yet)and spoke in a slow East Texas drawl just might be the source, or at least point me to the source, that I needed to wrap up this case. < Case! Listen to me, I 'm starting to even sound like a detective! For the past few months, though, I've felt more like one than ever before. I've been querying here and there, searching for the tiny threads that would support the big threads which would tie the whole thing together when I finally took all the information to the York County district attorney. There I go again, sounding like a damned cop! I have to keep reminding myself that I'm not a cop, nor a detective, nor a private investigator. In reality, I'm only a reporter for the Boston Times, and my editor has been very patient with me--so far. We've been working together for twelve years now, and besides being my good friend, Al McGilly has learned to trust my instincts, and I usually come through. But this story deals with some very important people, and I've spent nearly two months on it already, so Al is getting a little antsy--it''s not his fault, though, since he gets the pressure from above, from the big boys. And they are not about to risk a big lawsuit and all sorts of negative publicity unless they have enough evidence to actually convict these unscrupulous mothers who were the main objects of my desire. So yesterday at lunch, over a corned beef on rye and a pitcher of Killian's Red, Al laid it out for me. "Get the facts, and get them fast," he told me in no uncertain terms, "or the boys in the penthouse suite are going to pull the plug on the whole deal." So I figured a few clouds of second-hand smoke would be much more agreeable than to get called upstairs and taken off the story or maybe even fired. < I've been living with this story, breathing it, eating it, and sleeping with it for two months, and I am just inches away from fitting the whole puzzle together . . . Okay, let's get back to this afternoon. Finally, our drinks arrived and Dallas Montana, a master storyteller and accomplished bull-shit artist, poured himself a glass of Bud, guzzled it down, poured another one, then sat back in his seat, let out a large sigh, then proceeded to spill his guts, which I'd been warned should be taken with a grain of salt, and maybe a little pepper, too, but for which I was desperate to pull a few grains of truth. "I don't mean to insult your intelligence or anything," he began, "but THE MEDIA has reminded us again and AGAIN how ignorant our children are and that 80 fucking percent of them couldn't tell the difference between Toledo and Cairo if you gave them a globe. But giving them a globe is illegal now, since by seeing the whole world as one unit, anybody with half a brain could figure out it had to have been made by God, since the only thing mankind had managed to build were a few puny structures which could be lowered to rubble in an instant with the tiniest of shifts of the earth's plates, or built 40 million dollar space ships so fragile that a defective gasket could cause them to blow to smithereens." "But God", he continued, "is not allowed to be even mentioned in any state institution, especially the schools, where the students were occupied with more practical matters, such as the need to put on surgical gloves before ramming their fist up their partner's ass to prevent him from giving you AIDS if he starts bleeding." "Anyway," he continued after polishing off another glass of draft, "I know I'm getting off the topic, but that's how fucking ridiculous this world has gotten in the last few years. You may ask why I sound so damned cynical. Well, you'd be fucking cynical too if you had to live your life getting blamed for every problem from urban deterioration to the lack of women writers represented in 17th century British literature. Damn, can I help it if I was born a dirty, low down, white middle-class male? Actually, this past year is the first one in several years that I have risen far enough above the poverty line to be considered "middle class." And besides that, I'm not really white! I swear they must have switched babies with some Puerto Rican lady in the hospital. Either that or the family joke that I was found under a rock was true. I can't wait until I make my first million so I can tell all those fuckers that I'm not white and I'm not middle-class so leave me the hell alone!" He took another long drink fom his glass, then squinted up at me to make sure I was still paying attention, then smashed the butt of his cigarette into the already full ashtray . I nodded my head, smiled, and grunted as if to say, "yes, I'm listening sir, please continue your fascinating tale." What I really wanted to say was something more like "Hurry up, asshole, I'm about to puke from all that stale smoke you keep blowing my way, my bladder is about to explode, and I'm not sure how long the batteries in my tape are going to last, so will you hurry the fuck up and get to the point?!?" <"Gollee gee and gosh darnit," he said suddenly, rising from his seat. "My sentiments exactly," I thought to myself., I'm sounding kind of angry, aren't I? I'm sorry--I'm really not like that, you know. My doctor says it's because I don't get angry at the right timeses; instead, I hold it all in until it festers and boils and then I get sick or drunk or hurt somebody because I can't stand the reality of feeling pain. I guess he's right, in a way, and that's why I tend to drown it out with other things. This world is such a fucking mess, it's hard to see the forest for the trees sometimes. "I know that's a cliche, fuckhead," I could almost swear I heard him thinking. He then excused himself and headed for the men's room. I was about to overflow any minute, but I took the opportunity to change the tape over and check the batteries on my tape recorder. "Well, you've succeeded pretty well, so far, you idiot," I chastised myself, glaring at the forty-five minutes of nothing I had gathered so far. I waited patiently for a few minutes, then a hollow feeling began to form in my stomach. I glanced at my wath; fifteen minutes had gone by. "That sneaky fucker!" I mumbled under my breath, accidently knocking a t-shirt under black leather vest type off balance on my way to the restroom. He glared at me but I didn't have time to mess with him, so I just muttered "Sorry, pal," and tossed a five on the table, saying "Here, go get yourself a couple of beers." He held up the five-spot like a trophy and he and his buddies got a good laugh out of it. I stumbled the rest of the way to the restroom, and sure enough, the sucker was gone! I cursed myself again for being so stupid, Saw the open window through which he had deluded me, then, realizing any attempt to catch up with him would be futile, walked over to the urinal and emptied my bladder. As I walked defeatedly out of the "Piss Hole," as someone had cleverly carved in the wall over the urinal, the bartender called over to me. "Hey, suit! Your name Andrews?" I nodded affirmatively. "You got a phone call." I made my way around the bar and picked up the phone, holding my other hand over my ear.
"Hello!" I half shouted over the din. "Who is it?"
"You don't have to shout, Andrews, it's me, Dallas.
"You son-of-a-bitch!" I replied. "Where the hell are you?" "Temper, temper," he spoke softly into the phone, in a sickening honey-sweet voice, "please don't speak to me that way, or I might not play with you anymore." There was an awkward pause. "Okay, what do you want?" I finally managed to spit out, trying like hell to keep the venom out of my voice. Well, that fifty was pretty nice this afternoon," he drawled, "but I know how much this story means to you."
"So whaddaya want," I asked, barely keeping myself under control.
"Oh, let's see," he began slowly, "if today was worth fifty, then tomorrow should be worth, let's say, a hundred." It wasn't a question, it was a demand.
"Well," I said, knowing he had me by the balls, but trying not to show it, "what if I don't think it's worth that much? How do I know you're not just snowin' me?"
"Oh, it will be, sweetie." See you tomorrow, same time, same place."
"You fucking sponge!" I screamed into the receiver.
It seemed like every face at the bar turned in my direction The phone clicked, and the dial tone buzzed in my ear for a moment until somebody tapped me on the shoulder.
"Hey, buddy! You done with the phone or what?"
I silently handed him the phone and wandered aimlessly over toward the front door. Following this lead was gonna take a while, I thought to myself, then began thinking up ways to stall Al and the boys upstairs. I wholeheartedly agreed whith him on that point--besides, this is my fucking book, and I can cry if I want to. If you didn't get that you're to young to be reading this, so go now and confess your infraction to you mommy and daddy; the meager punishment they will deal you will be far less injurious to your soul than if you were to continue reading this filth and have your world view corrupted. I wouldn't want to inflict that on you, and besides, in spite of my paternal advice, I frankly don't need to get blamed for something else; I do a good enough job at on my own). So anyway, if you're still following me, then I assume that you're either old or wisened or cold- hearted enough to go on, or you're one of those morbid voyeristic types who reads the stories about Madonna's lesbian lovers in The Enquirer or you just want to see how much dirt I'm really going to dig up by the end of this book. If you are, then sit back and enjoy, for you're in for a treat. It's not that I'm such a morbid type myself, it's just that life has taught me over and over again a couple of major lessons:
1) The more someone smiles, the more you have to have to watch your back.
2) Don't trust anybody--especially yourself.