12: 12 - 12

12 - 12 - 12

Book 2 of John Rachel’s

End-of-the-World Trilogy

by

John Rachel

Special Smashwords Edition

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to others. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should go to a commercial vendor and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of the author.

Published by

Literary Vagabond Books

Los Angeles • Osaka

literaryvagabond.com

12-12-12

2nd Edition

Copyright © 2015

by John D Rachel

eBook ISBN: 978-1-310-23026-4

Names, characters, and incidents depicted in this book are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, except where clearly indicated, is entirely coincidental and beyond the intent of the author or the publisher. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system currently available or developed in the future, without permission in writing from the publisher.

Cover Art by Muriel ‘Kitty’ Orton

The critics can’t stop talking about 12-12-12!

"12-12-12 posits that America is in decline.

It is more a work that stands as proof that

American literary arts are in decline."

(London-Manchester Raconteur)

"11-11-11 was evidence that the author was

unhinged. 12-12-12 is certain proof that the

writings of John Rachel are dangerous.

We say enough is enough!"

(St. Louis Literary Review)

"It’s hard to make a valid case in a free society for

censorship. Having said that, this book should be

banned and the author subjected to a lifetime

of solitary confinement in a nation where

torture is common practice."

(New England Journal of Aesthetics)

"Why would the CIA allow this sort of vile, slanderous

rubbish to continue to be available in America?

It seems worth the price of a Predator Drone to

keep John Rachel from subjecting us to any

more of his insulting and subversive work,

masquerading as literary fiction."

(L.A. Contemporary Magazine of the Arts)

"This is what you get when psychosis is mistaken for creativity."

(Chicago Journal of Arts and Science)

"The author lives overseas. That’s because if he ever steps

foot in America again, he’ll be drawn, quartered, and left

for the flies to finish off on the National Mall."

(Miami Sentinel Post)

"Kids of America: There’s a lesson in 12-12-12. This is your

brain on meth, marijuana, glue, and Godless television."

(Tennesse Televangelist Report)

12 - 12 - 12

John Rachel

Who was it who said?: I never metaphor I wasn’t against.

W.C. Fields? Yogi Berra? It was some combative malcontent, to be sure.

The events described in this book are not ‘literally’ what happened in 2012. But taken in their entirety as a metaphor, they are not more implausible than what actually took place. Nor are they less implausible.

2012 was the year America played a game of chicken with destiny itself.

Everyone like it or not was on board for the ride. The pedal was to the metal. People hung on for dear life and hoped for the best. Everyone truly wanted to believe that those behind the wheel knew what they were doing.

But even the most foolhardy gamblers weren’t making bets. They knew a single unwavering truth …

Destiny never blinks.

Twenty-three year-old Noah Tass, like most ordinary Americans, was trying in the midst of all of the chaos, corruption, and incompetence, to just live his life — have his own little piece of the pie and a few laughs along the way.

He thought he had conquered the main obstacle to happiness and a brilliant future, by escaping Pulnick, Missouri, his home town in the hayseed heartland of America. Yes, at last he said good-bye to this oozing pimple on the sanctimonious face of Bible-belt America, where he had grown up and spent most of his life.

Of course, little did he know that taking this simple step would thrust him into a bizarre, life-threatening vortex of events — one drama of many many, to be sure — unfolding in an America that was broken, and sure to make things worse by trying to fix it.

Destiny never blinks.

But it does occasionally cut loose with a thunderous belly laugh.

Acknowledgements:

First, I'd wholeheartedly like to thank the fictional citizens of the fictional town of Pulnick for their unparalleled hospitality and valuable assistance during the writing of this book. For a place which doesn't exist and which therefore I've never been, I feel like I have lived there all my life and now have a second home to which I can comfortably return anytime.

I want to profoundly thank my best friend and constant companion Masumi Nishida for her encouragement and faith in me, and her magnificent role as teacher and guide in my discovering the wonders of Japan and Japanese culture.

For their inestimable contributions to my literary and intellectual development, and my current tentative grasp on reality, I wish to express my appreciation and awe to: Tom Robbins, Woody Allen, Kurt Vonnegut, Stanislaw Lem, Chuck Palahniuk, Christopher Moore, Charles Bukowski, Jerzy Kosinski, Bertrand Russell, Noam Chomsky, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Neil Postman, and Jared Diamond.

For their continuing friendship and support, I extend my heartfelt gratitude to Judy Rachel, Randy Calligan, Mickey Eres Finn, Travis Rood, Ron Ruiz, Gilly Adkins, Russ Swider, Nicholas Penrake, Jeff J. Brown, Randolph Winters, and Alex Malherbe.

Lastly but certainly not leastly, for their belief in me and their unwavering enthusiasm, much gratitude and heartfelt wet willies go out to my untiring publisher Literary Vagabond Books, specifically the svelte and droll head of that organization, Sybil Fairbanks, and my new editor there, Evelyn Ishimoto, who despite never having bothered to learn English has done a marvelous job on this challenging book. Both of you are studies in and witness to the irrepressible power of the human imagination.

Table of Contents

Prologue

Chapter 1: November 28 …

Think Globally, Act Locally

The Best Laid Plans

No Forwarding Address

A Deep Learning Curve

Man In The Mirror

Chapter 2: December 26 …

Good-Bye For Beginners

Motorcycles

Planes, Boats and Trains

Leave The Driving To Us

Scene Of The Crime

Chapter 3: January 16 …

MLK For Dummies

Area 51

State of the Union

Notes From The Underground

Some of My Best Animals Are Friends

Chapter 4: February 14 …

Good News Bad News

Life In A Nuclear Honeycomb

Hammer Time

School of Hard Knocks

Uncle Sam’s Family-Friendly Money Stores

Chapter 5: March 10 …

Red Clay and Catfish

The Big Cough

Déjà Vu Amour De Vous

Brain Drain

Visions of Joanna

Chapter 6: April 1 …

The Little Engine That Could

A Story Without An Ending

Confrontation and Conundrum

I.O.U.

Bee Keepers

Chapter 7: May 5 …

On The Road

Feed Me, Seymour!

City of Angels

Keep Portland Weird

The Job Market

Chapter 8: June 3 …

Shallow End Of The Pool

Déjà Vu All Over Again

Notes From The Underground II

Whistleblower

Shear Bliss

Chapter 9: June 25 …

Message In A Bottle

Down Is Up

The Motown Sound

Lot 49

Dollar For Dollar

Chapter 10: July 16 …

Crazy Is The New Desperate

Up On Cripple Creek

Three Mile Island

The Poison Pill of Paternalism

Atomic Man and His Two-Headed Turtle

Chapter 11: August 9 …

Iran So Far Away

Burners Without Borders

The World On A String

Zeitgeist

Behind Closed Doors

Chapter 12: September 7 …

Habeas Corpse

The Situation Room

Order Out Of Chaos

Fool On The Hill

Force Field Of Dreams

Chapter 13: October 2 …

The Greatest Story Ever Told

A Yawn of Cosmic Proportions

Gold Standard

Eyes Wide Shut

Panic!

Chapter 14: November 9 …

Green Tambourine

Christian Nation

Bad News Begins Where Bad News Ends

No Child’s Behind Left

Pure Genius

Chapter 15: November 22 …

Will There Be A Christmas?

A Simple Promise

The Best Intentions

Top Ten Reasons

They Blinded Me With Science!

Chapter 16: December 12 …

Five Stages of Death

All The President’s Men

In The Name Of The Father

History Doesn’t Repeat Itself … It Stutters

Godzilla Meets Bambi

More Books by John Rachel

About the Author

Legal Notices and Disclaimers

I know that I am mortal by

nature, and ephemeral; but when I trace, at my

pleasure, the windings to and fro of the heavenly bodies, I no

longer touch Earth with my feet: I stand in the presence

of Zeus himself and take my fill of ambrosia.

- Ptolemy (2nd Century)

•

The End Of The World

Quite unexpectedly, as Vasserot

The armless ambidextrian was lighting

A match between his great and second toe,

And Ralph the lion was engaged in biting

The neck of Madame Sossman while the drum

Pointed, and Teeny was about to cough

In waltz-time swinging Jocko by the thumb

Quite unexpectedly the top blew off:

And there, there overhead, there, there hung over

Those thousands of white faces, those dazed eyes,

There in the starless dark, the poise, the hover,

There with vast wings across the cancelled skies,

There in the sudden blackness the black pall

Of nothing, nothing, nothing -- nothing at all.

- Archibald MacLeish (20th Century)

•

The only thing as effective as great satire

at mocking the human condition is reality itself

Which is why sometimes you can’t tell them apart.

- John Rachel (21st Century)

Prologue

The world would finally end. For sure this time!

Not like all those other times.

Or the last time.

Really.

Chapter One

November 28 …

Think Globally, Act Locally

Maybe the globe was heating up. But from what he could tell, Fairbanks had yet to emerge from the last Ice Age.

Noah had been warned. By his friend Jeff Duncan.

Well…not exactly warned. Mocked was more like it.

Fairbanks? As in Alaska? Smart move. This time of year I hear it’s minus 120 degrees. That’s on a warm day. Dude. You’re retarded!

Scientists could prove that the planet was in general warming up and would eventually be as inhabitable as the 8th Circle of Dante’s Inferno. But Alaska was certainly doing its best to buck the trend.

It was really cold!!

So the first thing Noah did upon arriving …

Actually, it was the second thing he did. The first thing was to take an enormous, holistic dump in the first restroom he could find, after urgently mincing from the plane into the terminal. Apparently, the square of chocolate that came with his coach class airline dinner of meat loaf and side of peach slime and pears, was not a dessert confectionary but a complimentary sample of Exlax®.

Now personally lighter by about the same amount his baggage weighed, the second thing Noah did was to dash across the twenty feet of frozen tundra between the arrivals exit and the curb, jump into a taxi and through chattering teeth instruct the driver to take him to any place where he could buy some warm clothes. This turned out to be Big Ray’s All Weather Outfitters, by reputation the best place in town to get heavy-duty clothing and related gear for the severe winter months.

After spending over $400 on everything he thought he could possibly need to keep his body temperature from plunging to the level of a cryogenic barrel of liquid nitrogen, he jumped back into the waiting taxi and headed to the Polar Bear Motel, the place he had booked on the internet before leaving Pulnick. Conveniently it was only a few blocks further down the road.

It was touted on its website to be the best hotel or motel in Fairbanks - cuddly as a bear cub — didn’t bears carry rabies?

Noah wasn’t in any position to know if its claim of ultimate superiority was true or not, but it certainly was the best hotel or motel he had ever stayed in. In fact, pathetic as it was for him to admit, it was the only hotel or motel he had ever stayed in.

He had definitely missed out on a lot in his 23 years and counting. Just about everything. But that was now about to change. Here he was in a new city. A different state. Considering how distant and remote Alaska was, he was in a different part of the world!

It had been a long struggle. He had taken some hits along the way but he was on the mend and the scars were minimal. As far as he could tell anyway.

It had taken about two weeks for the shock of the double funeral of his mother and sister to fade to an amorphous background emptiness — less a sense of loss than just the awareness of a void. A characterless void which had no promise of ever being filled. He could deal with a void. After all, it had been the defining principle in his life up till now.

Noah felt it was time to move on. He knew he had to. He inhaled. He cracked his knuckles. Thrust out his chest. This was it. There was no looking back. What was there to look back at?

And yes … he had a plan.

It was a simple and elegant plan.

It was elegant because it was so simple.

The plan?

He’d get the hell out of Pulnick, Missouri — heartland of the hayseed and the hopeless, the land that time and certainly progress forgot — and go somewhere where he could get a running start on a whole new life.

That was all the plan he felt he needed.

From the start, he had ruled out a number of options. A number had ruled him out.

He wasn’t psychologically prepared for the intensity and sprawl of urban life. Then again, seen one corn field you’ve seen them all. He hated bamboo huts on stilts. He couldn’t speak Cambodian or Chinese. He had never seen a crocodile or palm tree. He liked the idea of flush toilets. He didn’t have a passport. He had a feeling he was allergic to goat meat. He didn’t know how to surf or ride a mule. He would stick hand grenades in his ears before he’d listen to a southern drawl.

This created some boundaries. Narrowed the choices quite a bit.

So …

He’d stay in America. But not in the center. No big cities. The deep south was out.

There were of course the financial considerations. Noah had saved what he could but didn’t have all that much money.

Obviously, he’d have to get a job.

That could be a problem. Especially in this economy. The news was pretty bad all around. Jobs were scarce. It was a buyer’s market. And they weren’t buying.

His resumé — if you could call it that — was as interesting as the liner bag for frozen vegetables. On the other hand: He was young, energetic, determined, focused. A hard worker. He got along with people. Even worthless dorks. He had had a lot of practice there.

He pulled up the U.S. Department of Labor web page and looked at the charts.

Unemployment nationally was still officially hovering around 11%. The real number was probably more like 25%. The hopes for improvement anytime soon inhabited the spongy psychic zone between wishful thinking and pure delusion.

Some states were worse off than others.

Nevada and California were at the top, both with over 14% officially unemployed. Lots of sunburned chaps with ‘Will work for food!’ signs on the freeway ramps. On the other end of the scale was Nebraska, North and South Dakota, all under 5%. They at least appeared to have some jobs. But ugh! More flatlands with Bible-thumping bumpkins riding tractors. No thanks!

Then he spotted it.

Statistically sandwiched right between Utah and Montana with an unemployment rate at a mere 7.5%, was the mysterious land of Eskimos, polar bears, continental glaciers, salmon the size of seals, whales the size of trains, bridges to nowhere, and of course … oil fields!

Alaska.

Noah had always heard and read interesting things about Alaska. It was home to some of the purest, most pristine land on the planet. Some areas were so unsullied and remote they could only be reached by foot, parachute or dogsled. Alaska had an extremely low population density, meaning that like Missouri, there was still room to stretch your legs. While things were a bit pricey because so much had to be transported from elsewhere — orange groves and live chickens didn’t do well there — there was no sales or income tax. The state was flush from all the money it made on oil. Moreover, the U.S. Congress in its infinite wisdom and complete insensitivity to environmental concerns had just opened up vast new tracts to exploration and drilling. That meant jobs!

Noah could picture it: Him right there in the thick of the action, a crew of hardy grizzled men guiding a massive drill bit into the ground, a giant industrial phallus plunging into the loins of Mother Nature herself to suck out the thick precious blood of her punctured pubis, that black gold which fed America’s ongoing junkie relationship with fossil fuel. Noah in a hard hat, his white muscle-tee streaked with oil, globules of the prized ejaculated petroleum in his hair. Maybe he’d take up chewing tobacco and grow a beard. Plus, according to the internet, the wages they paid to even mere laborers in Prudhoe Bay on the North Slope was four or five times what he could make anywhere in Missouri.

Noah was instantly hooked. His hunger for a change, the trauma of the last several months, the narcotic stupor of life in America in confused and contradictory times, all combined to replace conundrum with cockamamie conviction. Wearing the cement shoes that was growing up in Pulnick, he slogged through his personal river of ignorance and waded wistfully into the waterfall of wishful thinking, transported by translucent fantasies of his new life in the Great White North.

Alaska, the 49th state.

Final frontier of American soil.

Inviolate bulwark of the American Dream.

Open invitation and promise of discovery and adventure.

Spacious, fresh, untamed, vistas stretching to the very edge of the universe.

Poised on top of the world peering into infinite new possibilities.

Workplace for the body and playground for the soul.

Work hard, play hard, become a real man.

Hey! Try today’s drink special.

Life on the rocks!

The Best Laid Plans

It was all well and good. Promising. Exciting. Fantasies are a beautiful thing.

Unfortunately, reality isn’t always a willing accomplice.

Noah lasted less than a month.

First off, it really was cold! No two ways about it. It was cold beyond anything he could have imagined. On top of that, he kept getting reminded that winter was officially almost a month away.

"It’s still fall. We’re having a heat wave. Wait until the Christmas holidays hit. Then it’ll be cold."

He had on arrival geared up with the warmest clothing money could buy. He kept telling himself he could tough it out. A lot of people did. There were 35,000+ living there in Fairbanks. Over a quarter million in Anchorage. Alaska itself? Pushing three quarters of a million. If they could do it, so could he. He would get used to having his breath freeze in mid-air and crumble like broken glass to the pavement every time he exhaled. Perhaps there was some advantage he hadn’t thought of to having his piss solidify mid-flight into a delicate arch of yellow crystal.

He figured he could get himself to listen to reason.

Once his ears thawed out.

Even more inauspicious to his dream of nestling himself in the purity and endless vistas of the Alaskan tundra and embracing the frozen frontier of the American Dream, he got his ass kicked twice in his first three days there.

The first time he was just walking down the street a block from the Polar Bear Motel. This was not some slum area, Eskimo Inuit ghetto, impoverished Indian reservation, or roughneck frontier camp. This was downtown Fairbanks, actually a respectable part of town. The motel was only a few blocks from City Hall and sat across from Fort Wainwright, the U.S. Army base. Noah had gone out to buy some finger food, munchies, and since he was in the mood to relax, maybe a six-pack of beer. He headed over to Jones Ice Factory, a nearby convenience store. Completely out of nowhere came four thugs who spent thirty seconds amusing themselves by beating the shit out of him. They then disappeared as fast as they had arrived. He was winded — he took three solid punches in the solar plexus — shaken, and probably a little bruised. But there were no cuts and he was sure nothing had been broken.

He was pissed! But what was even more disturbing was that the whole incident seemed so random. So stupid. So utterly senseless. They didn’t rob him, taunt him, call him any racial epithets, sell him into slavery, or do a deliverance on him. They just used him for a punching bag. What was the point? Maybe the gym was closed?

The second time he took a beating, he was making small talk with a waitress at a local Fairbanks tavern and ran afoul of someone claiming to be her boyfriend. The guy looked like a cross between Abdullah the Butcher and a Congolese silverback gorilla. It didn’t go well. Noah even had bananas with him. He had just taken a taxi to buy some food from Fred Meyer, the main supermarket on the other side of town. Who would have thought? Bananas in Alaska! Not that they made any difference. Abdullah the silverback was not hungry and didn’t make any sounds that resembled English. Negotiations went nowhere. Noah’s peace offering went out through the front door in a trajectory parallel to his. He and his two bags of groceries stopped skidding in the no parking zone at the curb directly in front of the tavern, ironically named Phil’s - The Friendliest Watering Hole in Fairbanks. Noah managed to stuff most everything back in the plastic bags just as a foot on the end of a tree trunk careened off his chest up into his jaw. It was the first time he had ever seen Northern Lights.

Then there was his rotten luck finding a job.

In a place where there is always a shortage for bodies to do the many grueling jobs in the oilfields — generally requiring muscle more than brains — he basically was laughed out of one employment office after another. Noah was not slight or skinny or physically unimpressive at 5' 11" and 186 pounds. But next to the giant blocks of meat that inhabited these parts, he looked like a pigmy dwarf.

So, wussy boy, are you wearing a training bra under that shirt? Har har har! That was the VP of Human Resources for Pioneer Range Petroleum, an enormous chunk of protoplasm stuffed into an executive office chair that strained to hold up his 330 pound bulk. The guy apparently fancied himself a sit-down comedian. I’d like to say we had some place to put you but I’m afraid that we’ve already got someone to fold the dungarees. But be sure to check back. Say maybe in about ten years.

Noah made the rounds. Big companies, medium-sized and tiny companies. Start-ups. There was certainly a lot of activity up here, but nothing for him.

He decided to consider alternatives. Even if the oil riggers didn’t want him, there had to be something he could do.

There were no internet cafés per se in Fairbanks. But there were a few restaurants and coffee shops which had free public terminals, requiring naturally a food or beverage purchase. Connection speed was archaic and there was always a 30-minute limit. But it was good enough. He drank a lot of bad coffee, ate some of the worst pie he had ever tasted, and typed away.

The State of Alaska had an employment site. Their job listings were quite an eclectic mix. He searched and wrote as fast as he could in a pocket-size spiral notebook, until a waitress or manager would start to give him the evil eye. Or simply just come over and unplug the computer.

His first interview was as a soup and salad prep person. He had never done food service, so that was a non-starter. Next he went in for an opening as a metal shop custodian at a small factory making custom steel and aluminum machine components. He would be sweeping floors, and collecting shavings and scraps by going around with a wheelbarrow, long heavy-duty tongs and a curly hook. After explaining that anyone but a quadriplegic or a complete moron could do the job, the hiring manager then informed Noah he couldn’t hire him.

I see you’re from out of town. I’m looking for a local boy. Sorry about that.

What? Being from Missouri made Noah an illegal alien?

The following morning, Noah applied for a job as a stocker in an auto parts store. The pay sucked but it was at least something. Since he knew the difference between a spark plug and a can of engine oil and had opposable thumbs, he figured there would be no problem.

There was a problem.

You’ve only been here for two weeks? I gotta hire someone with some history. Someone established. You know? If you haven’t lived here for at least five years, I can’t touch you.

So much for being an auto parts gopher.

Then he noticed in one of the local shopper ad weeklies that Fred Meyer — the biggest supermarket in town! — needed someone to work the loading dock, exactly what he had done at Walmart. He had been to the store a few times. It was part of a major chain with over 130 stores in the Pacific Northwest and Alaska.

This could be perfect. Maybe they’d even give him benefits. Overtime. Health insurance.

Guess again.

Well, Mr. Bass. I see here that—

It’s Tass. Noah Tass. From Pulnick, Missouri.

The hiring manager seemed very put off that Noah thought he should get his name right. Not exactly a difficult name. Four letters. T-A-S-S. The guy looked to be in his fifties and had the air of someone who had been passed over many times before landing his current powerhouse position as an acting assistant manager of human resources in an unglamorous everything store sitting on a lifeless grey wasteland of permafrost. He glared at Noah over his half-glasses, disgorged a thick guttural ‘harumph’, dramatically straightened the tie he was wearing which must have been the rage when Jimmy Carter was President, then continued.

As I was saying, I see you have two years experience working for one of our inferior competitors.

Walmart.

Yes. Walmart. A Walmart in Center, Missouri. Wherever that is. The hiring policies for this organization are established at our headquarters in Portland, Oregon. This particular job requires a minimum of three years credible experience. I thank you for your time.

No handshake. No phony smile. The man briskly walked to the office door and with his dull eyes fixed on some imaginary point on the fake pine wall opposite him held it open. Noah felt a rush of air and heard a muted thud as the door slammed behind him.

The administrative assistant smiled a warm Alaska homespun smile over a can of Diet Coke as Noah slipped past her desk.

Merry Christmas, Mr. Bass.

Ridiculous! Three years credible experience.

What? He needed accreditation and tenure to pick up a box and put it on a dolly?

The same thing went on for almost three weeks. He never gave up hope but certainly was becoming discouraged. To really make it annoying, the rejections were almost all tagged with a holiday smile and seasonally affected effervescence: ‘You have a Merry Christmas now!’

Merry Christmas? Excuse me? I’m living in a motel room the size of a bird feeder, I can’t get a job, I can’t talk to a girl without getting my ass kicked, I can’t drink a beer without the can freezing to my lips, I’m going through money faster than Joan Rivers goes through cosmetic surgeons. When people hear I’m from the lower 48 they want to see my passport, my mother is dead, my sister is dead, my friend Phil who I grew up with is dead, even Michael fucking Jackson is dead!

Merry Christmas?

The final straw arrived December 22nd.

Everything in Alaska is big. So it was a big straw — a really big straw — about the size of a giant sequoia.

Over the course of the day, Noah had been to three more places looking for a job.

The first was a pool hall. The sign said Pick Your Pockets Billiards & Pinball with Pinball sloppily taken out of the equation using black spray paint. Sal, the owner of the place, who appeared to still be teething and apparently was coming up on the day at the end of each year when he washed his hair, had just filled the job.

Sorry, man. I just hired a blond chick with these gigantic tits. Never had a girl work here. Until now! Should be totally fuckin’ awesome! He held his hands out in front of his chest like he was gripping two halves of a watermelon. His face spread into a wet, gummy, toothless grin. Be cool, dude! Come back and shoot some 8-ball. Half-price on your first game.

Wow! How could Noah refuse an offer like that? Especially factoring in the blond with the gigantic tits. This city sure rocked!

Next he headed across town. Way out on the far side of the airport. This was for a tow truck driving job. No experience necessary. That didn’t sound right. But he could play along.

Big Badger Road Service was in a standalone corrugated sheet metal building with four road service trucks in a line parked out front. The man behind the counter looked like a miniature of Paul Bunyon. Imagine someone with the beard, the square lumberjack hat, the plaid shirt and suspenders, jeans, buckskin boots, but only 5’2" tall. And instead of a blue ox named Babe, sitting beside him a blue terrier — the dog was actually dyed blue. The pathetic little creature had on a giant collar and heavy metal name tag which kept him anchored to the floor like a ball-and-chain, inscribed with the name Babe.

Noah couldn’t decide. Was this guy kooky, kinky or crazy? Whichever it was, Noah apparently didn’t fit into his meticulously crafted fantasy world. The bad Xerox of Bunyan claimed Noah needed a special license to drive a tow truck. Without this license, he couldn’t offer him the job.

Noah was positive when he had researched it on the internet before even phoning the place, that there was no mention of needing a special license. But it didn’t matter whether he had gotten it wrong or the guy was just blowing him off, he wasn’t getting the job. Another lead ended up being a big waste of time, and in this case, a big bundle of taxi fare.

To round off the day, in a cloying toast to his utter failure, he went for an interview at the Regal Cinemas Goldstream 16 movie theaters, a chain cineplex which, on the bright side, conveniently was on the way back to his motel. He had seen the job posted in a laundromat. There were no specifics, so Noah figured he would be doing whatever people did who worked in movie theaters — taking tickets, cleaning up, putting soap in the restroom dispensers, making sure no one was jerking off in the back of the theater during an R-rated film.

He waited for over an hour before they took him into a small office next to one of the projection booths. The girl behind the desk couldn’t have been a day over sixteen. She looked very uneasy and chewed her gum with an anxious urgency. For this interview, they must have pulled her away from stocking the candy bars at the concessions counter.

Have you worked at a movie theater before?

No.

Do you have any felony convictions? Like … have you been in jail?

No.

Noah noticed she kept looking just to her right at something in the top drawer of the desk. Then he realized she must be reading from a script. At least she could read.

So, Noah. I guess it’s alright if I call you that. He nodded, though she never looked up. What are your long-term career goals?

Hmm. Excellent question! He should definitely give this some serious thought. He was after all interviewing for a job scraping chewing gum off of the bottom of theater seats.

Yes. Very good. I’m glad you asked. I’m sure that since you already have a job here, you can appreciate how I have spent most of my life fantasizing about working at a movie theater, especially a modern one like this, with 12 theaters running movies which appeal to the whole family. I picture myself making popcorn for the first ten or fifteen years. Hopefully, at some point during that time, I would be put in charge not just of popping the corn but also melting the butter, thus being responsible for the entire process of making butter popcorn for our valued customers, available in small, medium, large, giant, and family-size tubs. I could go on. But I’m sure by now you realize that I’m a pretty ambitious guy with my sights set on the stars.

Probably not the most diplomatic answer he could have given. It was highly likely that this 16-year old Disney child, product of a cultural vacuum that definitely gave Pulnick’s a run for its money, had not developed a very keen sense of irony. Not that it mattered. He wasn’t going to get the job. While he was talking, he couldn’t help but notice that this jettisoned pupa of Taylor Swift sitting in front of him was doodling on a job application. His job application. From where he sat, it looked like she was drawing hearts and inscribing someone’s name in each one with a flowery cursive. Biff or Bill or Bilf — Bilf? … boys I’d like to fuck?

Almost a minute went by before she realized Noah had stopped talking. She had halted her gum-chewing and proceeded to blow a decent size bubble. As the bubble grew larger, her eyes widened at the prospect of it popping and covering her face with the sweet gooey stuff. Finally, while peering over the top of the pink globe, she noticed Noah sitting there and was reminded that she was in the middle of conducting a job interview. The bubble popped and with deft sweeping motions she nudged it back into her mouth with her pert, highly dexterous pubescent tongue.

I see. I see. Very good.

How much does this job pay? I was hoping for somewhere between $50 and $100 an hour.

That caught her with her panties down. The ones with the Pokémon characters.

Well … not quite … I mean. We can talk about it. Thank you so much for your time.

She stood up and smiled professionally. Or what passed for her best imitation of smiling professionally, garnered from hours of watching NBC’s The Office instead of doing her homework.

Ah! That was his cue. Time to go. He was getting good at this interviewing thing.

But Noah didn’t respond per the tacit rules of engagement. Instead of immediately standing up, he went down to his knees on the floor directly in front of the desk. He bent over and rubbing it with big sweeping motions, kissed the carpet. He then abruptly straightened back up, raised his trembling hands to the sky, and rolled his eyes back in his head. He could have been channeling Charles Manson.

"Thank you, God! Thank you for this interview. Thank you for 3-D movies. Thank you for bubble gum, for red licorice. Thank you for the earth, the sky, Halley’s Comet, the Van Allen radiation belts. Thank you for saving the little polar bear cubs stranded on the melting ice packs. Yes, thank you Lord, for … for … everything!! And … and … and … God bless America!"

He finally stood up and dragging his left leg like it was paralyzed, made his way to the door. Just as he stepped out of the tiny office, he heard the young girl’s voice.

You have a Merry Christmas now!

It was already dark when he climbed back in the taxi. He was not in a good mood.

His driver dropped him back at the motel. Noah shelled out $65.75, since he had hired the taxi for almost the entire day. That included a $5 tip. The driver stared at the five in his hand like he was looking at a dog turd, finally looked up and glared at Noah with contempt, then practically did a wheelie out of the parking lot. Noah held his breath to avoid inhaling the cloud of burnt tire rubber.

He pulled out his key as he walked up to his room, but when he arrived at the door, it was already open. He could immediately see that someone had broken in! His stuff was strewn all over the place.

He made a quick inventory. Only a few things were gone. Nothing important. Fortunately, he had brought all of his cash and credit cards with him, stuffed in a money belt inside his canvas-colored briefs.

One of the room’s wall prints, a cheap reproduction of a horrible painting by some nameless no-talent