"You want to be a rockstar, you have to act like a rockstar!" he screamed, grabbing the back of the seat of the passenger in front of him. He violently shook the headrest as he barked over and over, "We're going to die! We're going to die!"
The other passengers screamed as the plane ascended toward the clouds. Grant laughed at their sudden distress. He laughed like the fucking madman he was with his peacock hair and his leather pants and his tattoos and his goddamn arrogance. For a quick moment, I thought about how I'd always wanted a tattoo but never had the guts to go through with it. I could hear the flight attendant and her big tits screaming too. She was screaming for her life. I wondered if she had any tattoos hidden on her body as the pressure change from the plane's ascension enhanced the already swollen state of my consciousness. And all I could eventually think about and see was the darkness. My vision faded and it became cold and dark and quiet and still. It became as dark and still and cold as a winter night in the Texas Hill Country.
6.
Before I even begin to continue, I must inform you that this is a dream sequence. Now, I know a lot of authors use various techniques to communicate a dream sequence without actually telling you it is a dream sequence. But I think that's complete shit. Really, it is. For instance, an author may use italics and start writing like this. And it would have to take a fucking genius to realize that something was different about the story, right? Or they may start writing in a different tense, so Simon would have to relay how he feels in the third person instead of actually speaking for himself, which is complete crap too. I'm not going to try to fool you with a bunch of bullshit; we've come too far for that. I know you are much smarter than that. It's true. So I'm just going to come out and say it. This is a dream sequence! And it will remain a dream sequence until I tell you otherwise. OK? All right.
Now, I don't remember much around the time I blacked out except that Grant was screaming like a complete idiot. I mean, what was he thinking? I'm sure the other passengers thought he was some kind of terrorist or something and pulled a Todd Beamer and kicked the shit out of him. If that happened then Grant deserved it, what, with his arrogant attitude and his goddamn tattoos all over his arms and neck and his crazy jumping and screaming. He really did deserve it.
Anyway, I started to dream about the job I had before I got my publishing deal. I don't know about you but when I dream, I'm completely aware of the fact that I'm dreaming. I know some people say they don't remember their dreams much and shit like that. But I do. Not only do I remember them but I'm aware that I'm dreaming when I am dreaming. Pretty crazy, huh? It's true. And when I said earlier that you had to dream to be alive, I didn't mean this kind of dream, the sleeping-kind. When I said that, I meant dreaming about your future. You know, having a plan for yourself - a dream. These other kinds of dreams, the ones in your sleep, well, everybody has those. And if someone tells you they don't dream in their sleep, they're full of shit. And you tell them they are full of shit. Most people are anyway.
OK, so I started dreaming about the place I used to work at. It was a company called TechForce. They designed probes and processors and all kinds of technology nonsense. I was one of their network-administrator-slaves. I supported the local area network and would help the other idiots that called themselves employees. It drove me absolutely crazy, especially since all I wanted to do was write for a living. But I had to support the wife and the kids and writing wasn't putting food on the table at that time. The TechForce job was my bread and butter.
One of the duties I had was to read over these performance reports that the network servers would cough up. They were these huge fucking reports that seemed like a thousand pages long that went into bandwidth usage and packet collisions and all sorts of technological shit that I didn't give a goddamn flip about. But my boss made me read through them and look for (what did he call them?) anomalies. I didn't actually care about anomalies. If I could connect to the network, then as far as I was concerned it worked. Who cared about this other crap? Nobody, that's who.
So the dream started with these goddamn reports. Except instead of having to read one of them, I was getting hundreds of them delivered to me, all of them a thousand fucking pages long and big as a phone book. It was driving me mad and they kept coming. I could barely start reading one before another goddamn report showed up. I'd place them on my desk, trying to be neat and orderly about it, but they kept coming. This office clerk brought them to me. In the dream, I really hated this guy. I wanted to kick him in the nuts for piling all of those goddamn reports on my desk.
"Where do you want these new reports, Simon?" he'd ask me. He had a squeaky little voice, kind of like a mouse squeak. He had a small, button nose and long, skinny teeth. He looked like a rat without fur wearing a short-sleeved oxford with a sock tie. I hated that rat clerk.
I looked around my desk for some free space for the new report but there wasn't any free space. I mean, with all the reports he kept bringing me, I ran out of goddamn room on my desk. It was completely full of these bullshit reports. The only room left was where my radio and coffee cup were and I wasn't going to give up that valuable real estate. That just wouldn't do. The only free space was on the floor.
"Set them down here," I told him, pointing to the floor.
"Here?" he asked.
"That's fine."
The rat clerk set the report on the floor and was gone as quick as he arrived. He was a quick little rat bastard.
All I could think about was that my boss was trying to kill me, what, with all of these goddamn reports piling up all over the goddamn place and the anomalies and the packet collisions and all the shit I didn't care about. I mean, how did they expect me to finish reading one when another would show up before I could finish? I kept thinking that they didn't pay me enough to kill me like that. I really didn't have a very good salary. In fact, it was complete crap. I could barely feed and clothe my kids. And how did they expect me to give money to my wife so she could buy me all the preppy, department store bullshit that she was obsessed with? It was a constant struggle with my salary. It's true.
I was shuffling through the reports like a madman, trying to finish one before another would arrive. But they kept coming and coming. It was driving me completely fucking bonkers. As I shuffled through the papers, I sliced the tips of my fingers. You know, I was getting those tiny yet extremely painful paper cuts there on the tips of my fingers. The pain became almost more than I could bear. But I continued on because of my kids. Their little brown eyes watched me from a picture taped to my computer monitor. One of the perks about the job (besides the fact that they were trying to kill me) was the insurance benefits. There was a time when I didn't have insurance for my family and my Sammie got a fever and almost died. It was horrible. Sammie (if you didn't know) is my son. He's four now and he's a little genius. He really is. He's already reading books and helping me with balancing my checkbook. It's true. I also have a daughter. Her name is Jessica but we call her Jessie. She'll be two soon. She's a genius too but in an artistic kind of way. You can show her a painting by a master like Monet and give her a pile of crayons and a piece of paper and she'll copy it exactly like she sees it. It's really amazing. Both of my kids are geniuses. My wife and I are really lucky. But anyway, the job I had before this one didn't offer insurance so when Sammie got sick, I was in a real financial bind, not having insurance and all. So I was grateful for that, the insurance that is, not the bind.
So I was shuffling through the reports, getting paper cuts and trying to stay alive, when someone tapped my shoulder and interrupted me. It was my fucking boss, Mr. Folsom. God, I hated that man more than anything in the goddamn world. I really did. He was the one that made me read these stupid reports. I hated him for that, especially since they kept coming and coming. But you know what I hated about him the most? He had this lazy eye, this really loose, twitchy, lazy eye. As he thought of hellish things to say and do to me, his eye twitched independently from the rest of his face, bulgin
g and turning toward the God that had maimed him. When his goddamn eye would start to twitch all over the place, I couldn't look at him. Just the thought of his twitching eye turned my stomach.
"Simon, it has been brought to my attention that you are lagging behind in your work," he said to me, with gobs of spittle raining down on my desk. And his eye, that twitchy thing, spinning all over the goddamn place. It drove me crazy. "Your efficient co-workers seem to complete twice as much work as you do, with little complaint."
I couldn't look him in the face because of that twitchy eye of his. I had to look at the floor when I spoke to him. "Mr. Folsom, I'm working as fast as I can. But I truly believe that if you assigned me duties that utilized my mind..."
"Simon, we do not pay you to think. We pay you to complete your work," he proclaimed, stepping back and forth like a demented drill sergeant, spitting showers of pungent saliva. His spit smelled like coffee and halitosis and decay and donuts and death. It made me sick to my stomach. "If you cannot complete your work, then you have no place here at TechForce."
A stack of papers appeared in his goddamn hands and he set them on the floor next to the other stack. He didn't even ask me if he could set them down. He just did. He was such a jerk that way, always doing stuff without asking me first.
"As you may well know, there have been rumors that TechForce may be reducing its workforce in the near future. Well, unfortunately, that rumor has turned out to be true. And I have been asked by upper management to recommend employees that I deem appropriate to let go..."
"Mr. Folsom, I..."
"Did I give you permission to speak?" he asked, his bulging eye peering at me.
"No, sir."
The rat clerk appeared with another stack of papers and handed them to Mr. Folsom. He thanked the rat clerk and set them on the floor next to the other two stacks without asking me. The clerk vanished with a POOF. There was actually a little cloud that poofed when he disappeared, like in the cartoons. Mr. Folsom placed his hands on his hips as his demented mind churned. His lazy eye bulged and turned red, spinning inward as if looking straight into his goddamn brain.
"If you do not show visible signs of improvement today, I will find it necessary to recommend that you be let go with future workforce reductions."
I sat there silently. I didn't know what to say. And it wasn't like I could look him in the face or anything, not with that goddamn eye spinning all around and driving me insane and his stinking spit flying all over my desk. He was really driving me crazy. Plus, I was thinking about Jessie and Sammie and how they needed insurance. I love my kids, you know.
"Feel fortunate that I haven't let you go sooner," he said, rubbing his lazy eye with his index finger. A small droplet of blood trickled from the corner of his eye as he rubbed it, falling like a crimson tear. I didn't know at first that it was coming from his eye since I was staring at the floor like a goddamn little girl. But once I saw it hit the floor, I had to look up. I mean, wouldn't you look up if you saw a drop of blood hit the floor? That's some strange shit, you know? So I finally looked at him and the blood was shooting from his eye like it was a goddamn geyser. "And let that be a lesson to you."
"Yes, sir," I replied. The blood geyser mesmerized me. It was spraying all over. I examined my own eyes, making sure they weren't shooting blood all over the goddamn place too. They weren't. They were normal (of course). I closed them and rubbed them a final time, just to make sure they were really OK. And when I opened them again, Mr. Folsom was gone. But he left behind two more reports on the floor. He couldn't just leave me with what I already had, the bastard. He had to leave two more. I really hated him. It's true.
The rat clerk appeared again with a new stack of papers as well. I hated him too. I hated them both. I was wishing they would go fuck each other.
"Where do you want them?" he asked. I didn't know what to say. I was speechless, what, with the blood everywhere and the stinking spit and the rat clerk and the reports piled from here to fucking eternity. I really felt like I was going mad.
The rat clerk repeated, over and over, "Simon, are you OK? Simon? Simon? Are you all right? Can you hear me?"
And I kept thinking to myself, of course I can hear you. I'm sitting right in front of you, aren't I, you rat bastard?
7.
"Simon, are you OK? Simon? Simon? Are you all right? Can you hear me?"
I slowly opened my eyes. I couldn't believe it but I was looking up at the goddamn ceiling. I didn't know where I was but I definitely wasn't on the plane anymore. I didn't hear Grant screaming like an idiot. I didn't hear the passengers screaming. I didn't hear the flight attendant with the big tits screaming. All I could hear was this voice. It was familiar as hell but I felt groggy and woozy. For some reason, I didn't care to find out who it was. All I knew was that my head hurt. It felt like I had been slugged with a sledgehammer. And the ceiling was really filthy. I mean, the panels were really dingy and dusty and gray. Someone should have gotten up there to clean that shit.
"Where am I? Did the plane crash?" I asked. Sometimes, I can act really stupid, you know? This time was no exception.
"Nope. The plane landed safe and sound," the voice replied.
"Am I dead? Is this heaven?" I didn't know if I was dreaming anymore or not. I was a real mess. It's true
"I sure hope not. Being trapped in an airport for eternity seems more like hell than heaven to me."
I found the strength to turn my head to see who was talking to me. A chubby and kind face, familiar yet not too familiar, stared right back at me. Just what I needed, someone else staring at me. I examined the face for a bit, the lines, the contours, and knew I had seen that face before. It was right on the tip of my tongue, you know. But I also had this sledgehammer headache. It was effecting my mental abilities.
"I know I haven't changed that much since we were kids. Just a few life-reaffirming weight shifts and a bit of hair loss from stress," he said.
"Jason?" I asked. I felted relieved. For a second, I really did think that I was in heaven. What a bummer that would have been, especially since I hadn't seen the fruits of my labor yet. You know, my book and publishing deal and all. I was glad to see his face. "For a minute, I thought I was done for."
There was another man there with him but I didn't know who he was. He didn't look familiar. Jason told him something like it was OK now and that he'd take care of it. The guy left really fast like he had been kept there against his will for an extremely long time. I hate impatient people, especially when you really need help from them. They're a real pain in the ass. It's true.
"When I saw the police rush onto the tarmac, I feared the worst. You know, terrorists and all."
"Grant, you insane bastard," I whispered to myself.
"What was that?" Jason asked.
"Oh, nothing."
"Anyway, they must have looked through your wallet and gotten your name because when they were carrying you off the plane, they saw my sign with your name on it. They carried you right to me. For a split second, I thought you were dead."
"Carrying me?" I asked.
"They said some kid went insane, screaming or something, and the flight attendants had to subdue him. They wanted to lock him in the restroom but the door was locked. That's where they found you, locked inside and passed right out on the floor. You must have blacked out or something."
"I don't remember," I said. I attempted to sit up. The sledgehammer ache swelled inside my head. I dropped my aching head in my hands. "The last thing I remember was the singer signing an autograph and this crazy dream about my boss ..."
"I guess this is what famous writers do, huh? Get drunk and pass out on airplanes, like famous actors and all."
"I wasn't drunk. I took a pill that this bartender gave me."
"Popping pills? Even better," Jason said, helping me to my feet. "Come on, let's get out of here. They wanted a doctor to look at you but I told them I'd take care of you. I had to sign a waiver and all so I wouldn't sue them if
something was wrong with you."
I stood on my wobbly legs and patted myself down, checking personal inventory, you know. I had my wallet - check. I had my watch - check. My nuts were still hanging - check. I looked around for my carry-on bags and backpack and I didn't see them. For a quick moment, I felt an insane amount of panic. My chest felt like it was going to collapse and my heart started to race out of control. I was having a goddamn anxiety attack.
"Jason, where's my backpack?!" I asked, frustrated and worried. "My manuscript is in there! I can't lose it! It's my everything!"
"Calm down, Simon. It's right over here."
Jason led me over to the outer row of chairs that delineated the waiting area from the main walkway of the airport terminal. My carry-on bags were there in a small pile, obviously thrown there carelessly by someone who did not realize who I was. I shuffled through my bags to find my backpack, which I quickly slipped on over my shoulders, secure and safe. I would have gone ballistic if something had happened to my backpack. I don't know exactly what I would have done but it would have been pretty fucking crazy. It's true. Jason leaned down for my other bags.
"Don't worry, I'll get these. But please tell me you're not epileptic or something. I mean, this isn't going to happen again, the passing out and all. You'll freak my kids out if they find you in the bathroom passed out or something."
"No, Jason. I'll be OK. I promise."
"All right. Then let's go get the rest of your luggage."
We left the waiting area and walked down the terminal hallway toward the luggage pick-up. We walked side by side, quietly and awkwardly, recovering from a bizarre introduction after several years apart. It was strange seeing Jason again. I mean, we kept in touch and all but I hadn't actually seen him in a very long time. My mental image of him was stuck in the early part of my teenage years. That was a long, long time ago. Like I said, he looked familiar to me when I first saw him. But at the same time, he didn't. It's kind of hard to describe.
The Meteoric Rise of Simon Burchwood Page 5
