35) Saturday, February 15th: 1:02 PM – “Movin’ Merch!”
Kristi Chaine’s office at the FCC was,
as opposed to sweaty, noisy GIGA-Plex, a cold (but
humid) low-pressure zone…. David Lee cooling
his heels in the uncomfortable chair in front of her big Art Deco desk while
she took a call, replied mostly in grunts, finally saying “All right,” and hung
up. David pretended disinterest, the
right thing to do, as the Research Manger looked up, wanting to vent…
“That was
Vern. (David nodded.) Nakonset Park
wasn’t the only anti-transition demonstration; the crazies have been out of
their padded cells all over the fuckin’ country! In Cleveland and Hartford,
Phoenix and Memphis and Boise… all these shitholes where people were throwing
rocks at us. In fuckin’ Boise!”
“Maybe they ran out of potatoes,” David couldn’t help but crack.
“Funny! Well… this has to have had a progression, and
we are at the top of the curve. It’s
that fuckin’ game,” Kristi buried her head in her hands, “…Vern says all of the
protests will go away Monday, and people will get used to the facts of life…”
“At least the
Oscar riots will be more, uh… fabulous?” he ventured, earning his superior’s
venomous glare.
“You’re in a
strange mood, being as a few million people you don’t even know would like
nothing better than to kill you…”
“I did what I
could. I wrote memos. So did Pete Myers, even Jack,” David pointed
out, “…somebody I don’t even know saw there was a big pile of money waiting to
be snatched, and then to hell with all of our research and the public…”
“Vern is
convinced that the only bad part is all the rumors and disinformation out
there… what our former President used to call the fake news… and the new fellow
who screwed him has a strategy to counteract.
Radio! Talk radio…”
“Go back to
1932? Well, some people might buy it, some won’t… might be interesting, though, when they
bring back those old fashioned serials,” David ventured, “…like the original
Superman, Lone Ranger…”
“Vern’s lost his mind!” Kristi wailed, “…and so have you, if you think people who aren’t
stone conspiracy freaks in camo are going back to radio!”
“The shadow
knows, mwoo hoo hah hah! So who’s who,
now?” David grew serious. “I did what I
had to do… you all but fired me.”
“I was only
keeping Vern happy. I wouldn’t
have. I need you…”
“And you?” David
said, “…and Vern?”
Kristi
laughed. “That’s… where did you hear
that? Ridiculous. And, if anything did happen, it would have been business and it’s
none of your business…”
“Just
business?” And they were still staring
at each other, when Quentin Sills bustled in, each recovering to snap, in
unison: “What?”
“That was… you
know… on the line? Those silly bastards
set the Los Angeles office on fire. The
President is concerned…”
“Wow!” Kristi answered, but softly.
“Californs…”
David shrugged.
¾ ¾ ¾
“And
still they keep on coming!” Mark-down Mark Tenison marveled.
The line of shoppers outside Giga-Plex had
never lessened, despite the miserable weather… Captain Capps worked out a deal
with Ghanoush, long-distance, to keep the overflow
penned up in snaky lines within the vacant CD store until they could be let in
by their sixes or eights once an equal number of suckers had been through the
registers, paid and left. Some of the
temps had worked out, some hadn’t. The skinny,
fake Rastaman jumped off the loading dock at noon,
never returning. And it had been after
one when the stockroom foreman, Taylor, finally stumbled in. Mark… fuming… a GP security temp and one of
the Screaming Eagles escorted him to the loading dock, whose overseer now was,
to all intents and purposes, the kid, Craig Synch. Pressured as he was, Tenison
had to admit Craig hadn’t done that bad a job.
Up in the crane, easing a
pallet bearing half a dozen boxed 56’s towards the floor, Tom Eppert watched the tardy foreman and boss argue.
“Tell you, man,
had a doctor’s appointment…” Taylor’s whine was more like a high-speed drill,
striking metal, that carried all the way up to the maze of catwalks, steam
pipes and vents beneath the Mall’s roof, eighty feet above the ground “…got
h-hurt on the job…”
“Your toe!” Tenison
scoffed. “What really happened… running
short on Oxy?”
“Hey, catch your foot
under one of them smart refrigerators, Mark, see how you like it…” the foreman shot back. “Haven’t decided whether or not I should
sue…”
“And this doctor
gave you… pills…”
“For pain…”
Taylor answered, truculent. “I gotta prescription, nothin’ wrong
with that. I got some rights, you know…”
“Yeah, pain pills.”
The manager blew his whistle for attention – Craig, wet and
shivering, ducked in from the parking lot where he and one of the temporary
Mexicans had been trying to fit a sixty inch set through a sixty-one inch
S.U.V. door. The rest of the crew –
out-to-lunch Marko excepted – stopped what they were
doing to listen…
“Listen up, you
clowns!” the manager brayed. “This is
Taylor… he’s the foreman, back here, but he’s shitfaced…”
“Ain’t had a drop…” Taylor protested.
“Says he needs pills for the toe he busted yesterday, dropping something on it
that he shouldn’t have. Clumsy. We don’t do clumsy at Giga-Plex. We want hard
workers who do their job right, so I am putting you on notice that we may be
looking for a permanent hire or two after this for whomever goes the extra
mile. I ain’t
sending him home, cause of the backup, but
Tom Eppert
leaned over and waved, shouting down.
“Gotcha!”
In a better world, Tom knew, the manager would’ve offered him
something… even fifty cents more, an hour, but now Mark Tenison
owed him, and Tom meant to
collect. Forget a measly nineteen inch
projection bonus, he’d go for a 27, plasma too.
He’d seen
Ray paying off the press and other parasites hanging round the loading dock
that morning… now he was getting the
hang of how things worked around Giga-Plex. High atop his extendible throne, he saw
Taylor pivot, stagger to the door of the loading dock and vomit profusely.
That was
just fine with him, too. He was high
above the stink.
¾ ¾ ¾ ¾ ¾ ¾ ¾ ¾ ¾ ¾ ¾
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