Lurkers Read online

  ‘Ah. That would be federal requirements—’

  ‘If it’s a federal law,’ I told him, ‘It’ll be in the US Code. Is it for example before or after eleven point four thirty-two: impersonating a public servant, including but not limited to the impersonation of counsel for the state; that is...,’ I said slowly as I brought up the law itself on the laptop, ‘“A person commits a misdemeanour if he or she falsely pretends to hold a position in the public service with purpose to induce another to submit to such pretended official authority or otherwise to act in reliance upon that pretence to his or her prejudice”. It must be later than Section Eleven, huh.’

  ‘I’m not—’ he began.

  I cut him off: ‘Let’s not go over the list of things you’re not; I’m just asking for the sake of millions of fans which federal law, which itself must be in the US Code, which I can look up here and now, outlaws undercooked meat. Got any idea?’

  ‘Look: I’m just upholding corporate policy.’

  ‘No: upholding corporate policy would be telling me that corporate policy above and beyond compulsory law disallowed undercooked meat; impersonating a lawyer and misinforming the public of federal statutes would be a different activity.’

  ‘I’m sorry you feel that way.’

  ‘And I’m sorry you defrauded on our established contract, offered, considered, and accepted, whereupon a representative of your uncommonly misinformative corporation had agreed heretofore to prepare and deliver an undercooked double cheeseburger with fries. The catsup was a loophole; we can discuss the availability of malt vinegar for the fries at a later time.’

  ‘If my server contracted to undercook a burger, then she’s fired.’

  ‘Cool. I assume the employee handbook explicitly and in no uncertain terms relayed the information that undercooked burgers were to be denied at point of sale, so she’ll have no reason to sue you for many millions of dollars.’

  The bald parts of his head, sweating now, resembled a shallow oilspill; astonishingly, HippyGuy never noticed and called the EPA to have the guy arrested for murdering dustmites. ‘Well,’ he decided, ‘Thanks for stopping in; please don’t return; I’ll comp your bill and inform the police that you’re now trespassing.’

  ‘I disagree,’ I said, pulling up the restaurant’s website, ‘Ahem. “Unlimited refills”—and some idiot trademarked that—“on coffee, tea, and softdrinks, for as long as you enjoy your stay”. My enjoyment has only just begun. Whether you bill me for my coffee has no pertinent effects on my ability, having entered and been seated amidst reasonable expectations of delightful service, to hang out enjoying my experience until hell freezes over.’

  ‘We could debate that point,’ he said, nearly sounding intelligent.

  ‘We could, and I’d love to: another burst of footage recorded to a secured server illustrating a shiftmanager misrepresenting law and corporate policy for hours and hours. I can add a laughtrack if no one in our studio audience happens to get the joke.’

  ‘Okay, look: what if I go get you your burger the way you want it, don’t fire the waitress, and just forget the whole thing.’

  ‘Then you’ll be back at par: doing the job you’re supposed to be doing isn’t precisely doing me a favour. Do your job, and, what I’ll do is upload what we have here, showing without prejudice that you’re a complete and total idiot, along with the happy ending that you grew the hell up and stopped pretending—for however a fleeting moment—that you were better than any customer ever to come in here, let alone me. We good?’

  He said nothing for three seconds—a lifetime on a phonecam; then: ‘I’ll have your burger remade.’ And he left.

  ‘Thankalord!’ George called.

  ‘Don’t thank me,’ I said, ‘Just doing my job.’

  I didn’t need a laughtrack after all. Once the commotion died down, I killed the recording and sent it to my site.

  FOURTEEN

  The downside to extorting someone into doing what you tell him to do is that he tends to take things literally. Meaning that my hairdried cheeseburger may in fact have been entirely raw. The cheese was unmelted and cold. The meat, which I now know was maybe seventy percent lean, was therefore thirty percent unheated fat. It was like ChapStick pâté. ‘Seller too literal,’ I told Leslie and Chuck, ‘Would not buy again.’

  ‘That’s really sick,’ Leslie said, watching me eat this cold lump of raw cow.

  ‘Want some?’ I asked.

  She frowned at her taco salad, apparently debating whether to try eating any more of it.

  ‘Meat is murder,’ HippyChick lied, no longer content to sit quietly interfacing her aura.

  ‘Mo is mot,’ I said, chewing the raw meat to the minimal extent that it needed to be chewed at all before swallowing most of it, the buttery residue of fat lining my throat—possibly to this day—notwithstanding.

  ‘How can you eat that,’ HippyGuy asked, probably rhetorically; but what would I know.

  ‘I’m evolved,’ I told him.

  ‘Did you know,’ HippyChick offered, ‘that the only reason meat has flavour is that, when the animal is murdered, uric acid spreads to every cell in its body? You’re eating cowpiss. You’re okay with that?’

  ‘Agooawy,’ I said, still eating, ‘I gig gow gad.’ Swallowing, I reiterated: ‘I did know that, actually; except that, by definition, the only animals able to be murdered are humans. And only by other humans. And also only by other humans convicted of the crime of murder above more boring forms of homicide like manslaughter in a court of law. That aside: yeah, it’s uric acid; I know.’

  ‘Just because it’s not illegal doesn’t make it not murder,’ HippyChick said.

  ‘Actually, that’s exactly what it does. All people presumed innocent until proved guilty in a court of law, no suspect can be regarded guilty of any crime without due process, including the right to trial as defended by counsel to be judged by a jury of his peers. It’s like science, except you don’t get paid for it.’

  ‘So it’s not murder until you’ve gone to court and been found guilty?’ HippyChick asked, ‘That’s stupid.’

  ‘That’s America. Don’t like it? Get out. You’re too late for the Soviet Union, but a number of Asian countries still regard suspects as guilty until executed.’

  ‘Execution is murder too,’ HippyGuy said.

  ‘Not in point of legal fact,’ I said, ‘Again, prior to trial and conviction for the charge of murder, an unresolved homicide can’t be promoted to murder. There are other factors: defence, combat, et cetera. For my next amazing trick: soldiers killed in Iraq—or anywhere else—aren’t murdered either; in legal terms, they’re actually destroyed, being military equipment.’

  ‘This isn’t about laws,’ HippyChick said—her version apparently of whatever, ‘It’s about ethics.’

  ‘Which are subjective, open to individual interpretation and proclivities, and as unenforceable as the equally bullshit counterargument that abortion is murder.’

  ‘Abortion isn’t murder because it’s the woman’s choice,’ HippyGuy said.

  ‘Dying in Iraq isn’t murder because it’s the soldier’s choice,’ I said.

  ‘Tell that to Cindy Sheehan’s son,’ HippyChick said in the same tone in which HippyGuy had told me to tell things to extinct passenger pigeons.

  ‘Think it would help?’ I asked, ‘I’d heard he was dead. Of course, there are those who’d tell me I could tell him anyway, through prayer or something. So let’s try that. “Hey, Dead Kid: Hi; heard you reenlisted, as an adult, legally allowed to make your own decisions and came down with a bit of death fighting for your country; your country being not my country, I officially have no opinion on the matter, but I suspect that a number of Americans appreciate your sacrifice; PS, if you’re able, please haunt your mother until or unless she learns to stop lying that the army killed her child, on the offchance you’re not already a bit insulted by the defamatory implication that you were a fucking toddler; amen and pass the ammunition”. Okay?�
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  ‘It’s all a joke to you, isn’t it,’ HippyGuy said, trying to look...maybe amazed, and maybe offended; mostly, he just looked stupid and perplexed, as always.

  ‘Most of it; yeah.’

  ‘How do you even live with yourself.’

  ‘Practise,’ I said.

  ‘So, you don’t think it’s wrong to send soldiers to their death,’ he said; he didn’t even try to make it a question.

  ‘That’s not really the issue. The issue is whether it’s wrong to call all forms of death “murder”. And, according to the dictionary, it is. But, here’s a question for you: is it wrong to let people kill themselves?’

  ‘What’s that got to do with anything.’

  ‘At least as much as your question about sending soldiers to die.’

  ‘I don’t see how,’ he defied.

  ‘Answer the question, and you will.’

  ‘Okay. Sure. If someone makes the rational decision to end his or her life, then who are we to stand in his or her way.’

  ‘Yeah. First: this goofy “hizoror” pronoun? Let’s not. The human animal is as a matter of simple convention indicated by male pronouns, just like ships are indicated by female ones; if you’re not talking about some hypothetical ship as a “heeorshee”, you’re being at best hypocritical and at worst hypocritical and also illiterate.’

  ‘Whatever.’

  ‘Yeah. Now. Does the ethical allowance for someone to kill himself change if he happens to be in the army. The UCMJ aside, has a soldier got the same ethical right to die as a guy riddled with cancer in a nursing home. Yes or no.’

  ‘Well, yeah; but—’

  ‘I’m good with “yeah”. Now. Is anyone in the army, right now today, who never wanted to be there. Yes or no.’

  ‘Yeah. Anyone who was drafted by the fascist—’

  ‘Name one. And, before mistaking yourself for someone smart, remember that you’re naming someone in the army today who was drafted.’

  ‘Well, just...anyone who was drafted into the army.’

  ‘So, those guys drafted in, like, nineteen seventy-three who for the last thirty-odd years have totally forgotten not to reenlist every few years.’

  ‘Well, I mean...okay, but....’

  ‘Right. So. No one in the army, today, is there against at least his recent will. I’ll allow that a few guys might have realised since joining in the last few years that the army’s really not for them; but I won’t pretend that anyone drafted in the seventies is still in the service, who doesn’t want to be there.’

  ‘But you’re agreeing that people joining in the last couple years might not want to be there,’ he said.

  ‘Yeah. And that’s a pity. It’s a pity they didn’t know what they were getting into before signing a contract. But whose fault is that.’

  ‘Probably the recruiter’s.’

  ‘The recruiter caused them to sign contracts without reading them? Someone signing a contract without reading it first is anything but at fault?’

  ‘Recruiters lie. They tell you it’s okay to sign the contract, because it won’t apply to you.’

  ‘If they tell me that, I tell them to go to hell. If they tell you that, I could see where you might be stupid enough to fall for it.’

  ‘Okay, but, signing the contract isn’t agreeing to die.’

  ‘So, you didn’t read the contract,’ I said, ‘I did. It’s right there, boldfaced and CapsLocked to stand the hell out. By joining the army, you stand every chance of going the hell to war; in the event of a war, your tour of duty may be extended through the end of the sixth month following the end of that war. Now we just have to find for “war”; think it sounds maybe a little deadly?’

  ‘It’s still not a contract to kill yourself.’

  ‘It’s a contract to become military gear, which may be used in any way allowed by the Uniform Code of Military Justice, which—yeah—includes going to war in one piece and coming back in several. No one’s stupid enough to think otherwise. Not even you. Which means that you’re now holding out only to avoid conceding that you were laughably fucking wrong. A soldier sent to war and killed in action is not murdered, either by his country utilising him as General Issue Equipment, nor by the adversarial army utilising him as target practise. Not by law, and not by logic.’

  ‘That doesn’t mean they have to be sent to their deaths in an illegal war for oil,’ he said.

  ‘They don’t have to join the army at all,’ I countered, ‘And no one’s sending troops to their death in an illegal war for oil; that’s just stupid. Troops are used as sparingly as possible, because the army are having serious trouble replacing the dead ones; the war’s not illegal according to the American constitution; and, really, it’s not about oil and never was, not that fighting the war exclusively for oil would be unprecedented or even the wrong thing to do.’

  ‘Whatever.’

  ‘I win again,’ I said to no one much at all.

  In American Gods, Neil Gaiman’s character Shadow observed that worldwide lulls in conversation tended to occur at twenty past or twenty till the hour. Maybe so. But this one happened at 12.49. It was broken after a few seconds by HippyChick disacknowledging that HippyGuy had just lost the argument she wanted to maintain.

  ‘All life is precious,’ she lied, ‘even if it’s a soldier.’

  ‘Yeah,’ I said, playing along sarcastically, ‘You’re all special and unique snowflakes: probably in my way, in my driveway, and about to get pushed the hell out into the street.’

  ‘What made you so bitter,’ she asked.

  ‘What made you so content,’ I counterasked, ‘There are two important differences between us. One is that I’ve already researched and dismissed the meaningless bullshit you still whimper about—evil imperial cartels and whatever other makebelieve you ultimately blame on global warming. The other is that the actual problems in the world, remaining after I’ve repudiated your happymoron distractions, are specific enough that I can usually blame individuals over safe, anonymous masses like republicans and CEOs and anyone else you can hide from with a hastily added “present company excluded”. It’s the basic difference between prejudice and judgment: I could at a glance look at you with your hemp burlap cavemanwear and presume that you’re some class of idiot; instead, I reserve that judgment until you’ve blathered enough to justify your largely unjustifiable existence to remove all doubt.’

  ‘I dress like this because I’m a free spirit,’ she said, missing the point and supporting it at the same time.

  ‘Yeah. Here’s why that’s a brainless collection of words. Spirits being unevidenced, even allowing that they’d be some form of energy, energy being neither created nor destroyed but converted from matter, nothing in the universe is free: if you were or had a spirit, it would necessarily exist or occur at the cost of the matter lost in transition from its former state to yours. That said: energetic states have no need for clothes, appropriate or not; which is not incidentally permission to stop wearing them, since you look like a dehydrated condor and I’m in no hurry to see the rest of that.’

  ‘I mean,’ she said, ‘that I’m a free spirit because I’m not constrained by rules.’

  ‘Yeah. The fashion police are mythical too. Sadly enough.’

  ‘The fashion police,’ HippyGuy said, ‘You haven’t got much room to talk: you’re wearing a TShirt with a gold coin on it. What is that, some hiphop thing?’

  ‘Totally,’ I said, ‘Alice Cooper, nineteen seventy-three. Maybe you’ve heard of him: he was that guy who saw the hippies being boring and trite and waged a war against them, countering their unworkable peace’n’love shit with dead babies and necrophilia.’

  ‘Dead baby jokes are stupid,’ HippyGuy said.

  ‘Which would matter if anyone had brought them up,’ I told him.

  ‘You just did.’

  I told Chuck: ‘I need to be less optimistic when talking to idiots.’ He nodded knowingly.

  ‘How many dead babies can you fit
in a car,’ Hutch called.

  ‘Me?’ I asked, ‘Or you.’

  ‘Well, no: it’s a joke.’

  ‘So, you then.’

  ‘You’re talking to Hutch,’ Leslie told me.

  ‘The hippies lowered my standards. I’m okay now.’

  ‘Give up?’ Hutch asked.

  ‘In more ways than you could guess.’

  ‘Two in front, three in back, and a million in the ashtray.’

  ‘You couldn’t fit a dead baby in an ashtray, Idiot.’

  ‘Oh. Yeah. The ashtray ones are foetuses.’

  ‘Foeti aren’t babies,’ I said, ‘That’s why they’re foeti.’

  ‘That’s not babies anyway,’ HippyGuy said, ‘It’s jews.’

  ‘Whoa,’ I said, a bit amazed, ‘You’re actually okay with, like, IsraeliAmerican jokes?’

  ‘Uh...no,’ he covered, ‘I wouldn’t joke about the oppression of, uh, IsraeliAm—’

  ‘I would,’ I said, ‘Whether they’re oppressed or not. Mostly because I don’t denigrate cultures into special needs victims. If the state of being jewish makes one too fragile to survive a joke, something bigger and badder is gonna come along and exterminate them anyway.’

  ‘That doesn’t mean you have to be mean to them.’

  ‘But it does make it harmless. Being nice to people is a defensive act of selfpreservation. Trying to preserve myself against a group of people too weak to survive jokes and meanness is effort I never needed to expend. If they can take a joke, then we’re okay; if they can’t take a joke...when it kills them, I can probably blame their demise on a coincidental high wind or something.’

  ‘Oh, so you’d be okay with British jokes,’ HippyGuy guessed.

  ‘Sure,’ I said, ‘If they’re funny.’

  ‘So I could joke about your teeth.’

  ‘By all means. My teeth being better than yours, I can’t wait to hear your archaic misunderstanding of English pirates having rotted their teeth by overcorrecting for scurvy. Go.’

  ‘Well, see, because, if you’re British, then your teeth are bad.’

  ‘Faulty syllogism,’ I said, ‘I live in the US and I can afford dentists; also, being under two hundred years old, I’m not morally opposed to oral hygiene.’