The Umpire Has No Clothes

by Walter Witty

  See Spot run.

  Go, boy.

  TOPSPIN– Explosive extra revolutions a ball takes on when the Top Player wants to surprise and confound His opponents, line judges, hecklers, and ball boys. (See also Neutron Star.)

  TRIPLE PLAY– Selling a season ticket, plus a hot dog and fries, (and also a tee shirt with the team logo & slogan “I’m With Stupid”) to the same lemming.

  UFO– Short for “Unidentified Frying Object.” This could be just about any hot food item, or even that blurred electric fry pan streaking toward your head from your angry wife, after you’ve just told her you’re going to your favorite sports bar instead of cleaning the garage.

  UPPER CLASS– These are rich, privileged hotsie-totsies who are in a secret war with the middle class. To keep the war secret, an elitist is instructed never to say something like “My grandfather was King of Liechtenstein,” or go on to describe growing up in a castle with a moat, drawbridge, six suits of armor, and thirty personal servants. Other embellishments to avoid are:

  * “Granny played gin rummy with Queen Victoria.”

  * “Our family psychiatrist was Freud himself.”

  * “Before I was 21 I’d been on 18 boxes of cereal. . .including Muselix.”

  * “We were so rich our butler drove a 1936 Auburn Speedster and had a winery in the Napa Valley he’d never seen.”

  Such showy displays will not only cause the Trilateralist Commission to frown on you, but you may be audited by level five Masons or level six Scientologists. The only exception to this is if you’re a football star, in which case you can browbeat agents on Millionaire Listings all you like, demanding that they not waste your time. . . (after which there may be questions raised later by color commentators about your sense of color coordination.)

  URANUS– Seventh planet from the sun, pronounced YUR-un-nus, not YER-Anus. Uranus is the farthest planet that can be seen without really good sports binoculars, about 1.78 billion miles out, a distance that takes light about the length of an incredibly close tennis match to travel, but only if both players take all their time outs to curse the line judge and heckle the ball boys.

  VIDEO GAMING– The preferred pastime of Senators while waiting to vote on increasing the debt ceiling.

  VOTING BOOTHS– Gym lockers at Augusta National, in a place where sex jokes have only recently been reduced to whispers.

  WAR– A game no one can win, although referees whose favorite song is “I think I can, I think I can” (i.e. national anthems) pass out medals for individual skirmishes (battles) nonetheless. These medals are often made of the metal Unobtainium.

  WASHINGTON DC– The city that inspired Grand Theft Auto. The games most often played on the Hill now involve drinks on the House, imbribing in the Senate, and moonshine for the cameras. Rum runners (known as lobbyists or carpetbaggers) drive around like they own the place, running down all the little guys.

  WHOLE NEW BALL GAME– Change that hasn’t been implemented in way too long a time (albeit promised) due to an inability to think outside the box or bun. As a phrase used by sports or political commentators, however, it means either “the same old piece of (see SHIT) game” (or burger) or “meet the new boss, same as the old boss” (or President.)

  WORLD CUP– Alternate name for “TrampleFest.”

  WRITER– A masochist poker player with delusions of grandeur. (Unless the word “Bestselling” appears before it, in which case a member of the Top 100, who gets 99% of the money, while the Bottom 1,000,000 share the remaining 1% between them.) Note: If you’d like to be in the Top 100, like James Patterson, here is the 10 Steps you’ll need to follow just to qualify: STEP 1) Start by thinking in short sentences. (Turn corners sharply. Make entrances sudden. Exit quickly and quietly. Think scary thoughts. Laugh with sinister glee. Slurp your food.) CHAPTER 2) Develop a demented philosophy of life–-if only to express to your alter ego while staring into the mirror. CHAPTER 3) Stop eating oatmeal. Try prunes instead. CHAPTER 4) Avoid using big words like “mellifluous” or “dysphasic,” which might make critics happy, but won’t keep you on anyone’s recommended beach reading list. CHAPTER 5) Stop blinking. CHAPTER 6) When all eyes are on you, wink. CHAPTER 7) Buy a large, shiny knife. CHAPTER 8) When you go to the post office, imagine actually going postal. CHAPTER 9) Develop a taste for organ meats, particular the brains of readers. CHAPTER 10) Hire an agent willing to do “whatever it takes.” (Ray Lewis and Latrell Sprewell and Michael Irvin, if not O.J., are available.)

  X GAMES– An X-rated version of the Olympics, more in keeping with the original Games. (Note: During the 2016 Rio games, those displaced from slums will compete in their own arena. Gladiator tridents and swords will be allowed in all tournaments, including cycling and chess. A special Mayan ball court will be installed in which tacklers can legally impale anyone who runs out of bounds on purpose to stop the hourglass. In addition, soothsayers and astrology-loving cosmetologists will have their own jewelry booths, while Satan worshipers, Bigfoot documentary producers, and members of the Top 500 Hollywood graphic novel adapters will give lectures on product placement and padding expense accounts. A vacant lot the size of Cleveland will be provided for the caravan of gas guzzling Winnebagos and camper vans anticipated, their pilgrimage to the official Olympics in vain due to sold out tickets. Finally, televangelists and Nigerian scam artists will compete to see who can decapitate the most victims in two minutes. Coke, of course, will sponsor.)

  ZEUS– The supreme ruler of heaven and earth from Mt. Olympus. Overthrew his father Cronus for control of the big screen and remote. Often cheated on his wife Hera, and was once forced to turn a lover into a cow to disguise her. Zeus might also have turned a cow into a Jessica Simpson look-alike, as in “moooove over, Extreme Makeover,” but we’ll never know since Homer was under threat of eternal damnation for writing any more . . .or possibly loss of his box seat at the XXX Games (where heretics were staked onto giant wooden X’s and burned alive if they didn’t recant their belief that the XXX Games were barbaric, and then compose a verse in perfect iambic pentameter for the original XXX Games Grog commercial explaining Y it was so good. . .without putting anyone to Zzzzzzz.)

  CREDITS

  I would like to thank Dick Cheney and Barry Bonds for giving me the courage to say, “Aw, hell with it,” and just scribble this shock-and-awe-shucks memoir that flies in the face of discretion like a pop fly in a Neiman Marcus parking lot. (Sorry about the rejected heart, Dick. We’ll never forgive you.) And Bob Costas for advice on how to pretend that what I’m saying is actually important. Also, Jack Nicholson for lessons on the proper use of a 9 iron in traffic. My literary inspiration for this book includes those great writers Joel Osteen, Rush Limbaugh, and Alfred E. Newman. THE SECRET also played a part in revealing to me the truth that there is no secret to happiness other than to stop wanting so much stuff that you’re featured on Hoarders and Storage Hunters. (Although I do hope you tell your friends about this book so I can afford my Fregoli Delusion medical treatments.) Thanks for all the rotten fish, folks. I wish you great success as you now attempt to apply what you’ve learned here in order to prevent divorce, or at least carry on a conversation with those invisible non-addicts (especially female) that you’d like to impress from time to time as you putter your way toward that scary Clown at the end of the 18th green (i.e. tunnel.) Be seeing you.

  FREGOLI DELUSION— The delusion of doubles, a rare disorder in which a person holds the delusional belief that different people are in fact a single person who changes appearance or is in disguise.

  (Walter Witty is the alter-egomaniac of Jonathan Lowe, whose novels include Postmarked for Death, The Instant Celebrity, The Methuselah Gene, and The Miraculous Plot of Leiter & Lott.)

  A Preview of The Methuselah Gene

  1

  I felt my stomach growl. The early June sun hadn’t visibly appeared, but was already spreading orange marmalade and butter onto the crusty horizon. Then, three miles from downtown Alexandria, in the middle of a field
where a dairy farm had once been, the Tactar Pharmaceuticals plant suddenly loomed above the hill beyond the city. The three story glass and steel structure appeared dark, except for a few lights on the second floor. Its silhouette was haloed by a streak of distant clouds that caught the doomed colors of morning.

  I parked in my usual spot, and surveyed the other cars already there. Half a dozen in the half light, not counting two plant security vehicles. Ominously, there were three police cruisers, flashers off since this was a private lot off a private road. Getting out, I looked up to tally the office lights in the administration section of the building . . .

  My own office, Jeffers’ office, and two others. So Winsdon had not been summoned—yet. Jeffers was keeping this low key, whatever it was.

  I took the elevator, utilizing my security badge. After emitting a ping, the elevator’s stainless steel doors whispered open on the second floor. Treading along the hallway like a burglar might, I felt my heartbeat quicken in my temples. Then, with unusual trepidation, I approached the open door of my own office, and stuck my head inside to see Jeffers waiting for me just outside the entrance to the lab. The V.P. wore a blue pullover sports shirt, and sneakers, as though late for an early round of golf at his country club. Two uniformed officers stood at the shattered window behind him, where a plainclothes detective took a fingerprint sample.

  “Sir?” I said.

  Jeffers whirled. Staring directly at me, as if at a recalcitrant son returning to the scene of some embarrassing indiscretion, he addressed the officers behind him. “He’s here,” was all Jeffers said.

  This time it was clearly different. The conference table had a towel laid across part of its mahogany surface, on top of which had been placed a tray of Danish pastries, a couple basic Krispy Kremes, and a coffee urn. It was 7:45 a.m. now, and other employees had already begun shuffling past the slightly open door on the way to their own offices. Only I, Jeffers, a detective named Schimmer, and a sullen Kevin Connolly remained in the room. We served ourselves with the aid of paper napkins. Were we waiting for Winsdon? I dreaded asking, and so remained silent until Jeffers answered my question by shutting the door on the hallway.

  We all sat. Jeffers took Winsdon’s usual seat at the head of the table. Schimmer took out his note pad, and clicked his pen to the ready. Connolly cocked his head as though detecting the high pitched sound of a dog whistle. Then Jeffers frowned and looked at me steadily, a peculiar light in his eyes. “Who knew about this on the outside, Alan?”

  I found that a perplexed agitation had gripped me. I glanced from side to side, then down at my Danish in disbelief. I picked it up, wondering whether to eat it or throw it at some hidden target. “Well . . . no one, sir,” I muttered. “I did write an article, as you know, but it was short on specifics, and only hinted at what we might be doing. In the future, I mean.” I took an experimental bite of the roll, then followed it with a sip of strong, acidic coffee.

  I met Jeffers’ frozen gaze, and Schimmer’s. The detective’s pen hovered over his pad. Glances were exchanged between Connolly and Schimmer. Finally Jeffers lifted and then lowered his own cup. “Industrial espionage from a spy in our ranks, is that what you’re saying?”

  I chewed and swallowed, ignorant of taste but thankful for the cover of food as an interrogation aid. I tried to remain calm. “I’m not . . . saying anything, sir. But it is possible, isn’t it?”

  The others stared at me. They looked dubious.

  Then Jeffers nodded with thoughtful deliberation. “Point of entry was made with a glass cutter. Alarm bypassed, because we’re talking the second floor. No prints, though. And the guard somehow missed it all, too. So you think it didn’t happen that way?”

  I shrugged and swallowed nervously. “Unless someone talked. Doesn’t seem likely to me someone would bring a ladder here in the middle of the night. Did you check to see if the glass was cut from the inside or not?”

  Schimmer straightened. “It was made from the outside,” the detective declared. “But the other window could have been opened to do it.”

  Jeffers confirmed his assent with a nod. “So it’s possible someone was planning to change jobs, Alan. Someone covering himself by stealing the data files on your gene research, and destroying all the computer backup. We know it’s not Jim Baxter, now.” He paused, and leaned forward. His eyes narrowed painfully, as if he were undergoing a prostate exam. “Who else would do that, do you think?”

  I grinned in shocked reflex. “Not me, if that’s what you mean.” I tilted up my coffee cup slightly, my sip sounding like a slurp in the silence that followed.

  After a moment, Jeffers finally leaned back, and picked up his own cup. “Help us to understand why you’re not involved in this, would you, Alan?”

  “Well, it’s crazy, that’s why,” I told him. “What would I gain?”

  “How about an upfront bonus?” Connolly suggested. “Preliminary patent process hadn’t even begun.”

  I set down my cup a little too hard, letting out what must have seemed to them like a cackle. “I can’t believe this. You’re accusing me? I couldn’t get away with something like this.”

  Connolly was unfazed. “Maybe you just sold the process to the highest bidder,” he postulated. “Eli Lilly or Warner-Lambert?”

  I couldn’t help laughing. “What? I thought the project was a failure.”

  “We’re not accusing you of anything, Alan,” Jeffers conceded, then examined his manicured nails. “It’s all rather academic at this point, anyway.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Slowly, the three men exchanged glances, as if trying to decide who should break the news to me. The thing I’d obviously missed. Jeffers, as boss, was unanimously nominated by default. “There’s been an . . . accident.”

  I stared at them each in turn, in dumbfounded incomprehension. I felt as if I’d never known these men. Any of them. Like I’d just been ushered into an airport conference room, where these FBI agents and FAA investigators suspected I am the one who had checked six pounds of C4 shaped like a Grecian urn onto a plane that would carry their children across the ocean. “Accident?”

  At lunchtime I drove Darryl out of the plant parking lot toward a restaurant downtown, so we could talk. On the way I was expecting Darryl to complain about having to ask his wife to drive him to work that morning. But he didn’t. Instead, he wanted to know why all the secrecy about the cops leaving the plant when he arrived. I didn’t reply at first, taking the turn roughly onto the public road fronting the Tactar plant. Then, when he persisted in asking me what was wrong, and what I knew, I finally said, “It’s all for nothing. A year’s work, down the tubes. And what do I get for it? A reassignment to Hepker’s division. But hell—maybe the world needs a better headache remedy. I know I do.”

  Darryl stared at me dumbly. “How’s that?”

  “They call it pain management. Should be a blast. Hepker’s division is researching a less expensive non-opiate to ease the suffering of cancer patients, who might not be dying at all if the FDA wasn’t twiddling its thumbs and diddling its—”

  “You’re serious?” Darryl interjected. “You’ve been reassigned?”

  “That’s a big ten-four, good buddy.”

  “But why, for God’s sake?” He paused, then his eyes widened with the terrible light of connection. “The police . . . you . . .”

  “It wasn’t me. But whoever it was, they had great timing.” I explained the theft, fumbling my way to the bitter end, although I left out the twisting climax.

  “But why the reassignment, then?” Darryl wanted to know. “Don’t you have notes on your gene research? Can’t you reassemble the work you’ve done?”

  I thought about what I might have at home, against strict company regulations. Something I hadn’t mentioned to Jeffers and his detective. “Possibly,” I confessed, “but I doubt it. In any event, I shouldn’t be talking about it.”

  “Never stopped you before.”

  I glared at him
in a returning flash of frustration, taking Van Buren street without slowing down. “There’s been an accident, okay? An ‘incident.’ Let’s leave it at that.”

  “You mean involving the theft?”

  “No, no, no, I mean involving my canceled project. Seems one of my lab techs heard about our cancellation, and apparently injected himself with the formulation. Last night, in fact.”

  “What happened?”

  “I can’t talk about it.” I roared around another corner, this time running a red light to do it. The car’s left wheels spun, making the Cavalier’s frame shudder.

  Darryl put one hand on the dash to brace himself. “Hey, hey, you wanna have a real accident, right here and now? Or will it be labeled an ‘incident?’”

  I stepped on the gas to straighten out. “Look,” I said, “last night I went out.”

  “You did?” Darryl seemed surprised.

  “Yeah, a big night out. So no alibi, unless you count fifteen minutes talking to a resident of Tatooine in a coffee bar. And I think I was being followed, too.”

  “Followed? You? By who?”

  “Who knows? But I think somebody’s been watching me. They must have been. And now my project has been canceled for sure because the FDA would certainly succumb to pressure, after this incident. I doubt that they’ll even allow me to find out exactly what caused this, or if it’s a fluke. What do you think?”

  “Hey, don’t ask me—I’m just a computer programmer. Plus I don’t know what the hell you’re blabbing about.”