Holy Shit!

CHAPTER 1

Things couldn’t get much worse, but Harvey was going to give it a shot anyway.

What Futterman needed now, what every cell in his wrecked body desperately cried out for was one tall, stiff cocktail. No mixer, no glass, no time to break the ice. This was a problem he knew could be easily solved, and like an errant teenager with his first prostitute, the inevitability of impending union drove him nearly into a frenzy.

He entered the house through the side door and headed straight for the kitchen cupboard. Finding his friend, his only true friend in times of crisis, the lonely scientist reached out for a warm embrace.

Black label Johnny, he sighed, You know how to make those peacock feathers plume again. He tore the cap off, sucking at the neck until it was half empty. That he regarded the bottle as half empty had nothing to do with pessimism: like all vessels, he knew it was going to get emptier before it got full again. Maybe more than he had deserved, Harvey had suffered.

Good Lord, he cried. What have I done to deserve this? What could have been the justification for this enormous boil on the ass of my life?

Chalk one up to a monolithic, godless boredom. Chalk one up to Pandora and her heavyweight box. Chalk one up to his own monstrous ego. He was almost out of chalk. He took one more violent pull from the murky bottle, and collapsed on the fading linoleum, amid spots of ketchup and tufts of his refugee hair. When he awoke three hours later to find himself dying, he cracked a smile for the first time in weeks.

But that would not be his fate. For Harvey, death would not come as easily as some. Still later, with pain beating like a thousand tympanis on his skull, he peeled himself off the floor, tearing that odd bond created when skin, sweat and linoleum combine. He was reminded of the time he had gone to a party and passed out on the toilet: the angry guests pounding at the door caused him to jump so abruptly that he tore a layer of skin from his buttocks.

So many fond memories, he said. Perhaps there will be more, and I will be a richer man for them. Perhaps rich enough to afford a bottle of sleeping pills and a package of single-edged razors.

The ringing of the doorbell snapped him out of his reverie.

Who could that be at this hour? he said, though it was well into the afternoon. Harvey shuffled to the door and opened it.

Hiya Harv. Bob here.

I can see that. This is reality, not a video game. In reality, you exist. You have shape, form, annoyance. In reality there are consequences. You have chosen to bother me. And behold, I am bothered.

Um, yeah, Bob floundered, trying to make sense of Harvey’s diatribe, Well, just wanted to know if you wanted some chocolate sandwiches. We’re barbecuing over at our house and there’s plenty to go around. I know you’ve been feeling bad lately.

Harvey’s eyes fell out of focus and then came back again.

And how would you know that?

Well, there’s the crying and screaming. And your yard. I had a hard time getting to the front door.

Listen to me, scalawag, he said, My problems are mine, not yours. I’m sure you have plenty of your own regardless. Regarding your dinner party, however, I must decline. But should you find a good bottle of scotch, please bring it to me at once. It might have a bad effect on your feeble mind. As your accidental friend, I insist on protecting you from probable brain death.

That’s nice of you, Doc, Bob replied, touched, My folks never cared about me like that. Did I ever show you the scar I got when my dad forgot to tie up the new dog? Here, check it out—

I think I’ve already seen enough of your deformities. Now, please go away.

The door slammed and Dr. Harvey Futterman returned to his kitchen, feeling somewhat better.

Bob walked down the narrow lane that separated his buddy Harvey’s house from his own. He wished he knew what Harvey was talking about, but Harvey was such a smart guy, while he—he was below average. Below average was what they called him, but he knew exactly what they meant by that. Well, he didn’t know exactly what they meant, but he had a pretty good idea.

Anyway, Harvey always seemed to look out for him in times of trouble, and that made him happy. There was the time he was getting his head pounded on the sidewalk by the neighborhood bully, and Harvey said he’d call the police if they didn’t keep the noise down. Boy did that ever save him. Or that other time, when he was flunking out of high school, and he asked Harvey to help him and Harvey said, Why don’t you just give up? Yeah. Give up. That was the best advice anyone ever gave him. Now he didn’t have to go to school anymore. His life was perfect: lackadaisical days of Nintendo, bong loads, videotape rentals, and orange-colored snack foods. His idea of heaven. Well, except for his nagging foster parents and the fact that he was always completely broke.

When he got back to his house, his friends were already breaking stuff.

Hey! What are you doing? My folks’ll kill me! He yelled, stepping over a pile of burnt toast and into the living room.

Bob’s foster parents were gone for the holidays and his friends had moved in temporarily to keep him company and also to eat his food. Wade, an overweight Cambodian with long, greasy hair looked up and answered him casually, "Hey relax, Bobbo. We were watching VTV and they had this special on Violence in the Animal Kingdom, and, well, Trusty freaked out and pissed on the TV. It doesn’t work, so we came up with this great idea on how to get a new one. You said your folks hated this dinette set anyways."

I never said that. I said they hate when I use it. They love that dinette set.

Oh, whoops. Well, check it out, man. We’re going to build a really awesome stage out of all the wood. Then we’re gonna put on a puppet show at the New Year’s Day Parade in two weeks. I hear the handouts are phenomenal. My brother Ed set up his drums there last year and made a hundred dollars. And that was from a guy who wanted him to stop.

Wow! Bob burst out, now visibly excited, forgetting about the damage, That’s a lot of money! But what’re you gonna do about puppets?

We made a whole bunch out of your Dad’s socks, Wade exulted proudly, Show him Leonard.

The scrawny mess of bones, acne and rags that was Leonard held up a sad assortment of dirty, holey white socks upon which he had drawn faces with a permanent marker. For hair, he cut fur from Bob’s foster dog Trusty and pasted it on top, while the wardrobe came from the doll collection of Bob’s foster sister.

Awesome! exclaimed Bob.

Now all we need is some stuff for them to say. Like, a story, man, said Leonard in a deep baritone that didn’t match his tiny frame.

A story, said Bob dreamily, tapping his temple and smiling. "Leave that to me, man. I could write a great story."

Bob walked over to the stereo system, which neither Trusty nor his friends seemed to have damaged, and switched it on loud so that it could be heard against the construction going on in his living room. He always thought better when there was music on, and sometimes wondered if maybe there was some connection between music and how smart you were. Musicians, Bob knew, were the smartest people around.

Bob figured that since there were thousands of languages in the world, and music was the universal language, and language was what made us smarter than the animals, then—well, that meant that musicians spoke thousands of languages and were pretty fucking smart too.

With the stereo blasting out the twanging sounds of a live blues performance, Bob sat down with a crayon and wrote a story on an empty donut box. As he wrote he felt a remarkable, unfamiliar sensation, that the universe was writing through him, filling his head with words and guiding his knobby fingers without his input. His crayon flowed freely against the cardboard as if taking dictation from a higher source—albeit a higher source that suffered severe spelling and grammar problems.

•

Deaf Lemon Hopkins was relaxing in the studio of local radio station KBLU, having just finished a rousing live performance (his manager assured him that he sounded particularly grand). Meanwhile, a crowd of admirers mulled about, pointing at him and nodding, trying to communicate through exaggerated lip movements which made it even harder to figure out what they were saying. For Hopkins, times like these only underscored the advantages the legion of blind blues musicians enjoyed. While blindness was like being at a party where everyone else is invisible, deafness felt like a party where only you were invisible. Years prior, before the car accident that robbed him of his hearing, he heard it said that deafness was much more difficult to cope with than a loss of eyesight, but he didn’t believe it. Now he understood. Everyone always assumed that sight was the most important of the senses, but if that were true, Deaf Lemon reasoned, we’d have lids on our ears as well.

For most of his career, Hopkins had been thuddingly unsuccessful. Until very recently, his biggest gig occurred when he performed for the Existentially Challenged Society of America, receiving a standing ovation from a crowd of handicapped people who admired his courage, and (for those who weren’t blind) his leopard-skin blazer.

Only more recently, when the Aurally Challenged Society of America (a subsidiary) set aside a large portion of their annual budget to buy enough records to get him on the local charts did he actually make a name for himself. They felt that Hopkins had been discriminated against unfairly because of his deafness. If anything, they argued, his will to accomplish the impossible was reason enough for any underdog-loving American to rush out and buy his new record (which was also being distributed by the Society).

Their plan worked, and soon, substantial numbers of deaf people across the nation were playing Hopkins’ record at absurd volumes in a futile attempt to hear it.

No one knew who it was buying the records at first, so his initial modest success was mysterious to him as it was to others. But soon enough, interpreting it as some kind of fad, disc jockeys around the country began adding the song to their playlists and in no time fashionable people everywhere clamored for it. He knew his burgeoning success defied all logic, but, since when did the success of a fashion, an ideology or a religion have anything to do with logic? Thus, Deaf Lemon Hopkins became not only a shoo-in for the Existentially Challenged Society of America’s Existentially Challenged Citizen of the Year, but also the first notable deaf musician since Beethoven.

Of course, Reading Your Lips, Baby was a terrible record. It wasn’t that Hopkins sang particularly off-key. He would never be so audacious to attempt singing actual notes, but if one has a mouth, one can warble. And as far as warbling went, Deaf Lemon had some talent. It didn’t bother him that as an art form, the warble had its limitations. Still, the way he figured it, music was equal parts melody, harmony, and whore money, so the world better pay up because at that moment he was a jiggy gigolo gigging at the top of his game.

If there was one thing that was still getting him down, however, it was that his shameful yet universal fantasy—to have his name chanted mindlessly by crowds of people smitten with adoration—had finally come true, yet he was unable to hear any of it.

After the radio gig, he sat patiently through interviews with various journalists, who all fired the same questions at him: how do you explain your runaway success, are you going to tour, can you understand what I’m saying or do you need an interpreter, where’d you get that great blazer, can you hear yourself sing, are you going to make a video with subtitles, and on and on. The question that most intrigued, as well as dismayed him was when are you going to release your next album? Truth was, he had no real desire to do anything but enjoy his success for a while and then buy a house in the Caribbean somewhere. Down deep, way behind his shattered eardrums he knew that his accomplishment was just some colossal cosmic error, and that his luck couldn’t last. He knew that the masses that now revered him would very soon reject him. He didn’t want to be lolling around looking like a chump when it happened. Let a few more bucks roll in and then roll on, boy, he thought to himself. Before you get rolled over. Maybe you could even stage your own death like Jim Morrison was said to have done. Go down in history as some sort of mysterious legend. A deaf John Henry, with an axe instead of a hammer.

Finally the interviews were over, and a striking young female journalist strolled over to him and smiled. He smiled back. She had a dark tan, a mass of hair sprayed so high and wide it was surely a fire hazard, lips full as a holiday turkey, and flesh arranged so neatly on her long frame one could practically see the hand of God, or at least his scalpel. All this bounty was draped in less material one might find on an average Christmas present.

She placed a hand that was strictly business on his shoulder looked at him soberly. She spoke with her lips only, I’m going to straddle your mouth. He felt a rush flood through his body, and then checked it. She might have actually said, I’m going to shatter your myth. He wasn’t sure. Most people didn’t realize that they moved their mouths differently when they weren’t speaking out loud. That’s why most lip-synchers looked so stupid, and also why at that moment he wasn’t sure if he was about to get the lay of his life, or shit on by some second-rate rag.

It wasn’t until the crowd had dispersed and she was leading him by the hand out to her car that he knew for sure. She stopped, touched his face gently and told him, apparently in total earnestness, Lemon, you are going to be a god. And I’m going to help you.

Then she curled her tongue deep into his left ear.

After the exquisite rush of ecstasy passed, Deaf Lemon Hopkins asked her who she was. She explained that she was applying for the position of his manager, lover and guardian angel.

Well, said Hopkins politely, I’d have to think it over. I presume you’d get fifteen percent.

Later, in bed, when Deaf Lemon tried to test their working relationship, she declined to accommodate him to her full capacity.

What’s wrong? Hopkins protested.

Fifteen percent is only a tip, she declared, then laughed and pulled him in as deep as he could go.

•

Architecturally, the VTV Metro Plaza Building looked exactly as Gareth Schlechtmann felt it should: like a giant missile about to hurtle into the stratosphere and beyond—one which would most likely tear out a huge chunk of the earth’s crust with it when it took off, along with any nearby urban sprawl or living debris caught unawares. A more traditional interpretation might have been that it looked like an enormous penis; a tremendous phallus that could never fail, could never be bowed or brought down. Unlike his own, of course, but that was the beauty of metaphor. With enough money behind it, a good metaphor could render reality totally irrelevant.

Gazing up at the monolith from Wilshire Boulevard, he realized just how complete his vision of the new world was about to become. VTV, originally decried as the most self-serving, base form of commercial exploitation since the establishment of the Catholic Church had, under Schlechtmann’s guidance, managed to trample every and all legal challenges of obscenity, slander, invasion of privacy, and pandering. Even incitement to rioting had been thrown out of court. He never expected anything else. From the beginning it had been clear where television was heading. There was no doubt that sooner or later someone would merely give the people what they wanted, and what they wanted was darkness, depravity, and death. It made their grey realities look so much brighter in comparison.

It was exactly eight o’clock when he entered the palatial offices of VTV, bearing the demeanor of a good and just king. This was part of the intricate design of his life. He knew from a young age that when you consider yourself royalty, others will also, and that despite its perch above the animal kingdom, the vast majority of men were only slightly more evolved than their animal predecessors.

That phrase, power to the people made him laugh. The notion that society had been moving toward some kind of enlightened democratic egalitarianism had only been the grandest of fibs. Unlike the middle ages, great numbers of men were now able to believe what they liked without fear of the rack, but confronted with the horror of endless and stultifying possibility, they now had no idea what to believe. So they turned from the light, buried themselves in superstition, simulation, the somatic. And in so doing they proved they had truly not progressed much past the ignorance of the ancestors.

Here was their vaunted democratic egalitarianism. Power to the peephole. The human soul writ large, in blackest ink, a reptile howl transmitted into endless depths of our empty spaces. All Gareth did was provide the channel.

May I take your coat, Mr. Schlechtmann?

Of course, Mary. And for the last time, please call me Gareth. VTV is a team, you know, and you’re just as important as anyone around here.

Mary Kay Parker blushed violently. Thank you Gareth. That’s very sweet, she said. What a kind man he was, she thought. Just so good to all his employees and always there with advice when you needed it. A man like that should be president, no matter what those awful news magazines say about him. She watched his reflection in the glass as he walked into his massive office and sighed. It didn’t hurt that he was drop-dead gorgeous.

Among the notes on his desk was a slip from his vice president, Johanness Barth. It was scribbled furiously in thick black marker and read,

Dammit Gareth, what the frig are we going to do about that twerp Futterman? If we don’t figure out a plan of action soon, we’re in deep crud!

— J.B.

It killed Schlechtmann the way a big, gruff rhinoceros of a man like Barth could be so emphatic all the time and still manage to avoid using proper swear words. Barth felt that cursing showed poor manners, and despite the fact that he was second-in-command at a place like VTV (All Violence, All the Time), he insisted that he was nevertheless composed of the staunchest moral fiber. His philosophy was that it was not important what you did, for all people were equal parts good and bad. What mattered was how you did it. It wasn’t reason that set us apart from the animals, he insisted. It was style.

That a man so huge and frightening could give a damn about style or philosophy for that matter seemed odd at first, but Barth was nothing if not ethical. Violence, in his opinion, was the highest realization of style because it was the only thing that never went out of style. Except for a few insipid love stories here and there, all human culture had been one big obsession with violence, aggression and death. Its religion, its philosophy, its history and its literature all reflected this. VTV was only a mirror of that culture, maybe the truest mirror of all, minus the opiated whitewash. Life had been preserved by war, defined by death and exalted by suffering. What could be more sublime than violence? Surely not peace and love. Peace and love were only fleeting analgesics. They always received far less of our attention.

Five seconds after Gareth buzzed Johanness’ office, the hulk crashed into the room. He was far more fleet of foot than his size suggested.

Blast it, Gareth, we’re frigged, he spat, taking the cigar out of his mouth. Schlechtmann thought it looked like one of those scrawny ladies’ cigarettes in his mammoth paw.

The creep appears to have dropped off the face of the earth, Barth howled. He won’t answer his phone, and every time we send a car around to his house, no one’s home. Looks like he skipped town. Or he may be up to something.

Did you try forcible entry? Schlechtmann asked, lighting up a Dunhill. His fumes twisted around the fumes coming from Johanness’ cigar, producing a neat double-helix that disappeared into the vent overhead. Had he been paying attention, he might have enjoyed the metaphor: a DNA strand that robbed life instead of recording it. Both were important elements of his new project.

Every time we meant to, there were always too many nosy kids around. That block is teeming with them. Your man Cain was accosted by a gang of them when he tried to jimmy the back door lock. They swiped his wallet, too. One of the neighbors said he hoped Futterman would get it over with and do himself in. Said the man had become a shameful wreck. Screaming and breaking things. Passing out in his driveway.

That doesn’t surprise me, Gareth said, blowing a huge smoke ring, watching it expand and finally break. The fragile circle of life.

Nor I, the big V.P. agreed.

Well, why don’t you put Cain on his trail. It’s the best we can do for now. He’s got to realize that he squeals, he goes down with us.

Right. I’m on it, he said. As suddenly as he came, he disappeared.

Gareth sat for a moment and contemplated the situation. He was right on the cusp of releasing a breakthrough in modern media: an interactive version of his network, featuring the amazing new immersive technology Futterman pioneered. With the amount of capital invested, he couldn’t afford to have anything get out to the press or the police or anybody. Dr. Futterman was the only person alive who could possibly sabotage his plans, but he wasn’t even sure how much the flaky scientist actually knew. Sure, he was smart, but savvy? Those types rarely were. Schlechtmann had done everything he could to shield him from what was really going on, but in the end that proved impossible. Futterman was such a cocky, insensitive bastard that he figured he’d be cool about the whole thing. He was wrong. Still, some intuition told him that the scientist would be found by the authorities in a few days, the victim of an apparent suicide. Who knows? Maybe Futterman would even do it himself, and Cain wouldn’t have to get his hands dirty. Cain had been working too hard lately.

Mr. Schlecht—I mean, Gareth, it’s your press agent on three, Mary Kay Parker said through the intercom.

Thanks Mary, Gareth said, punching the button, Hironemous. It’s about time. What do you have for me?

It’s a big one Gare. I’ve got you on Brokaw.

"Fine work, compadré."

You didn’t put the down payment on my new convertible for nothing, Hironemous Wurst cackled, then coughed. The station will send a crew next Thursday at two.

A.M. or P.M.?

Hey, not everybody works as hard as you, Gare. Over and out.

"Cíao," replied Schlechtmann, switching to another line and buzzing Cain’s office.

Cain.

Mister boss man. Who can I do for you?

Gareth laughed politely despite the fact that the joke was so painfully old. No one today Cain. But I need you to get me what you can on Brokaw. He’s coming in next Thursday for a piece. That gives you six working days to put together an angle. Can you do it?

Well, I just got a big project from Barth, but I don’t see why I can’t handle both. It’s only that dumpy scientist, after all.

I’m sure it’ll be no problem for you. Watch your wallet this time.

Ouch, groaned Cain. When I find the kid who did that, I’m gonna tear his lungs…

That’ll be all Cain.

Right-o, mister boss man.

•

Creeping along in the shadows of night, the hero lurked, a supernaturally enhanced ear following the strains of evening voices. But for the dim streetlights, it was pitch black along the boulevard. Still, he could see everything as if it were broad daylight. Blessed with the power of invisibility, none could see him. A stranger drew near, and the hero intentionally grazed him with his shoulder.

What the—watch where you’re going you little freak! cried the man.

The invisibility was working perfectly. Had the stranger actually seen him, he would never have mistaken the hero for little. The hero was humongous.

He could see himself, however, and couldn’t help gazing down every so often to witness his gargantuan muscles bulge, twitch and twitter. He admired his belt which contained the ingenious inventions of his own devising. He appreciated the way his Muchosuit accentuated the size of his genitals. There was no one who could stop his juggernaut, and no one whom he would not rescue if need be.

The world was becoming a dark place, but in the darkest of times there have always been those who fight for moral justice and individual freedom. The hero was the latest in a long line of these crusaders: Hercules, Robin Hood, The Lone Ranger, Superman. Like heroes of old, someday people would recount tales of Muchoman in executive chambers and around dining room tables. Until that day, he would remain selflessly content battling the forces of evil, cutting his teeth on society’s bad apples and making the world a genuinely better place to live.

He whirled around. His supersensitive hearing had picked up the cry of someone in peril! Following the sound to an apartment building, he ran an enormous distance in the blink of an eye.

A young lady in distress!

Charging up the stairs and bursting into the empty apartment, he discovered the helpless citizen yelling from behind a locked door. Easily, he could break it down, but he wouldn’t take a chance with even a single life.

Instead, he inquired what it was the screaming woman needed. Was she being held at gunpoint? Had she been assaulted in her own home? Was she grievously ill and in need of assistance?

Pleadingly, she told him of her plight.

Ah, thought the crusader: a simple solution. One which he could fulfill immediately.

I will help you at once, madam!

Wait! she cried, "Who the