Lurkers Page 17

  ‘Yo: did you just call me a cock?’

  ‘Not actually,’ I said, ‘Though, now that you’ve brought it up, I suppose a case could be made.’

  ‘Four hours and five minutes!’

  The wigger looked back at George. ‘The fuck’s that guy doing,’ he asked, probably rhetorically.

  ‘I’ve hired him to perplex you minute by minute with large numbers,’ I said, ‘like “four” and “five”.’

  ‘Oh, you think you funny,’ the wigger said again.

  ‘I thought we’d covered that,’ I said, ‘But maybe not: yes, I think I’m funny; so do my readers; so, in fact, does the odd literary critic, if often for the wrong reasons. Do you think I’m funny? That’s all that’s really important, after all.’

  ‘Funny looking,’ he produced magically from his microscopic repertoire of precompiled templated insults; then he paused, possibly waiting for the known universe to chortle at the funny he’d made, or possibly to run that breathe in; breathe out subroutine he’d neglected for a few seconds while attempting to say words; if it was the latter, he may have succeeded.

  ‘Ah,’ I said, curiously disinterested in sending any more syllables wiggerward.

  The wigger’s brain apparently arrested nonetheless by that syllable, he stood there stupidly, breathing in and out, largely without making any respiratory mistakes, until George announced ‘four hours and four minutes!’

  The wigger turned to face George, possibly thinking lightly about trying to make some more of his meaningless noises in an eastwardly direction, never finding out whether he was capable of that before Jackson swaggered up to end any conflicts forthcoming.

  ‘Everything okay over here?’ Jackson asked no one specific.

  ‘Shit, no,’ the wigger lied, ‘This muhfugger be getting all up my grille, shit.’

  Jackson looked to me and I nodded. ‘Grilleupping as charged,’ I said, adding, ‘With intent to barbecue a moron’s credibility online.’ I wiggled the phonecam slightly to indicate my twitroasting strategy.

  Jackson smirked jacksonly at me and my phonecam, then addressed the wigger: ‘Let’s just have a seat and calm down before we do have a problem.’

  ‘You sayne this muhfugger ca’just record me a’he like online an’shit,’ the wigger inferred.

  ‘I’m saying,’ Jackson said sternly, ‘that it’s time for you to have a seat, before something happens to get my attention.’

  Dejected, the wigger limpstrutted the three metres back to his booth, one hand protecting his junk from fruitflies or something, and fell obstinately into his seat, mumbling something both incomprehensible and largely unthreatening, possible intent aside, in the direction of Jackson, myself, or both.

  To me, Jackson grinned casually and suggested ‘Turn that damn’ thing off, willya?’

  And there ended that videofile, at the first half of George’s announcement: ‘Four hours and three minutes!’

  In the next moment, Evanescence’s Bring Me to Life came across the XM, naturally forcing the wigger and his wiggette, by intellectual lack of alternate options, to dance badly in their seats in a meaningless defiance of authority, keeping eye contact with Jackson; it might be just as well that I didn’t film that: I’m never sure how accountable I really am for copyrighted content hitting me as background noise when I’m filming an idiot for exploitation on my website. That said, in the intellectually honest pursuit of the factuality of the circumstance: the little goof further squelched out ‘Wake me up!’ every time Paul McCoy screamed it within the song I may or may not be legally allowed to admit that I know exists without reproduction rights.

  Jackson returned to 11; George announced that we had ‘Four hours and two minutes!’ left; I went back to staring at the blinking cursor for a while.

  TWENTY

  ‘Three hours and forty-eight minutes!’ George announced, making it 2.20 in the morning. Making it also twenty minutes now since Jessica had sent the morons back to the lobby, before beginning to seat them in turn, before then asking what each officially sanctioned table would like to drink [before ignoring highlarious demands for various libations]; some of the drunks had drinks now, back in the formerly segregated nonsmoking section; the wigger and wiggette in 74 were of course still waiting for their beverages, being lower on the list than anyone in the sixties and fifties, who were also still waiting, those in the forties only now, after twenty minutes, getting theirs. The topic of actual food hadn’t yet been raised in any important way.

  Not that I blame Jessica for that, though I could justly blame Larry the Manager for hiding in the back with Minesweeper instead of coming out to meet the icky public and help her to do the impossible. I could really blame the anonymous dummy corporation, designed to wholly own the trademarked greasy spoon while removing itself by several layers of protocol from liability, for thinking liabilitilessly that a single waitress could functionally maintain a restaurant of thirty-five designated tables, each containing an average of three squealing idiots, all expecting everything they’d ever wanted in life, to the exclusion of the interests of the other thirty-four parties of approximately three squealing idiots each; I could blame them more identifiably if their dummy corporation didn’t by design employ lawyers fully capable of handing mine their collective asses after the fact; it’s unfair, and I think I should be entitled to large sacks of free money because of it.

  Jackson and Davis were keeping things largely under control, inasmuch as the situation remained controlled so long as drunk, squealing idiots trying to light cigarettes within the restaurant were reminded that a statelevel law prohibited the smoking of smokably smoky stuff in places able to contain antismokers, even if antismokers never actually entered those places as a matter of practise; bitter though I might be, Jackson and Davis, at least, seemed to have subscribed to my low opinion of those lying little activists, whether Jackson and Davis happened to smoke, personally, or not.

  ‘Three hours and forty-seven minutes!’ George called.

  ‘Would you shut the fuck up,’ the wigger demanded.

  ‘No shit,’ HippyGuy agreed.

  ‘Way to tolerate the diversity of the psychiatrically interesting,’ I muttered to the laptop; either HippyGuy didn’t hear me, or he was learning through painful negative reinforcement not to go into a battle of wits without a working brain to fall back on. So I kept typing—

  ‘Hey; yo!’

  —despite—

  ‘Hey; yo! Sir? Hey!’

  —noises out in the world—

  ‘Hey! Can you hear me! Hey!’

  —until I had to start filming again.

  ‘Hey!’ the idiot from 61 screeched again, now standing and approaching.

  ‘What,’ I demanded.

  ‘Hey: whatcha working on there.’

  ‘A letter of marque and reprisal,’ I said, ‘What’s your name.’

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘Your name,’ I clarified, ‘What is it; got any idea?’

  ‘My name?’ he asked stupidly.

  ‘That’s the one,’ I confirmed.

  He laughed uncertainly. ‘Why do you want to know that,’ he asked as if I hadn’t already told him at least once.

  ‘Complex reasons you haven’t understood to date,’ I said, ‘What do you want.’

  ‘What are you working on.’

  ‘A novel of a hundred thousand words no one in your family tree will ever prove capable of learning. Anything else before your intrusive idiocy spreads like a virus from my website to the entirety of the internet?’

  ‘Whoa; why the hostility.’

  ‘Because I’ve made it painfully clear that I don’t want you people talking to me while I’m working, if ever.’

  He seemed to consider that for a couple seconds before stumbling across something serving as a whole idea: ‘Well, you never told me that, did you.’

  ‘Being optimistic,’ I said, ‘I prefer it when people bothering me against my will meet or exceed my IQ; thusly I lump any given dozen of
you into a single, unfortunate entity.’

  He blinked vapidly. Once. Insofar as a single blink can betray vapidity.

  So I simplified the brainbreaking concept: ‘I saw no need in advance to initiate the conversation required to explain that I don’t wish to converse, While I’m Working.’

  Stunned for an instant of blissful silence, he then whimpered: ‘Well, all you had to do is say so!’

  ‘Is that all I had to do,’ I said, ‘Wow.’

  ‘We are so getting you a bodyguard,’ Leslie told me.

  ‘Three hours and forty-six minutes!’ called George.

  ‘Shut up,’ the wigger pleaded.

  ‘What’s with him,’ Sixty-one asked.

  ‘He’s counting down to the extinction of all things stupid,’ I said, ‘You’re in your final four hours to really shine before stampeding toward the tarpits.’

  ‘What is your problem,’ Sixty-one whined.

  ‘I’m working; you’re talking; working is more important, while incompatible with your ceaseless noise.’

  ‘Well, why are you working in a noisy restaurant, then.’

  ‘I can ignore the mindless noise until it goes “hey, hey, yo, hey, hi, hey, talk to me I suck”; then it gets on my unavailable nerves.’

  Jackson returned, less open to grinning this time. ‘Again?’

  ‘Hey,’ I said, ‘Gi’me ninety seconds to save and upload the video, and you can watch on my website that, again and always, I didn’t start it.’

  Turning his attention to Sixty-one, he ordered: ‘Sit down and stay there.’ To me, he added: ‘I get that you’re just reacting to these people in an admittedly legal fashion; but you really could be more polite about it, before one of them actually does shoot you.’

  ‘Consider it taken under advisement,’ I said; and I ended and uploaded the recording.

  ‘Three hours and forty-five minutes!’

  ‘Would you shut the fuck up,’ the wigger in 74 whimpered.

  ‘Hey!’ Jackson spat, ‘Howbout you shut the fuck up, before I hit you with disturbing the peace.’

  ‘Muhfugger here dis’in duh peace, nuh’me.’

  ‘And,’ Jackson added, no joking implied, ‘maybe a little public intox, too. You get me?’

  ‘I getcha,’ the wigger mumbled, adding hastily, ‘dumfuggenfascistfuggenpig.’

  ‘Y’know,’ Jackson said calmly and genially, ‘I don’t think I caught that. And I don’t think you want me to catch it if you say it again. Now, you just settle down, eat your food, and stay cool; next time I have to tell you that, my partner over there’ll be with me, ready to size you for a new pair of bracelets, right?’

  ‘How I s’pose eat my food, ain’t got none yet; shit: ain’t even got nuthun drink, yo.’

  Hooking a thumb into his bat utility belt opposite his Glock, Jackson leaned down into the wigger’s face—his grille, if you like—and told him plainly: ‘The waitress is very busy tonight; you need to grow up, calm down, and cut her some slack before that nastyassed breath of yours finds its way into a breathalyser and gets you a ride down to the drunktank. Are we clear now.’

  The wigger played it as cool as a white kid amidst a racial identity crisis can be for all of two seconds; then, meekly and barely loud enough for bats to hear: ‘I gotcha.’

  ‘Great!’ Jackson sang, straightening up again, massive grin occupying half his shiny brown face, ‘And you remember to have yourself a good, quiet, polite evening, Citisen!’ Turning to go and return to 11, Jackson gave me the grin too. ‘And, really, Man: knock it off with the camera and smartassed remarks; please; just while I’m here and can’t really deny seeing it.’

  I shrugged noncommittally.

  Shaking his head, Jackson returned to his coffee.

  ‘Three hours and forty-four minutes!’

  And I went back to failing overall to write a book about aliens invading to exterminate the stupid among us.

  TWENTY-ONE

  ‘Three hours and two minutes!’

  And George returned to watching the sprinkler above his seat for any dirty tricks it might have in store.

  Now that it was after three in the morning, Jessica finally got to 74 to ask the Wigger Party what they’d like to drink; being too stupid to enact any basic tactics of selfpreservation, they’d actually hung around for an hour, waiting while Jessica had got drinks and even meals out to the tables back on the more fashionable end of the restaurant—the side Larry the Manager could visit without injuring his fantastical selfimage too greatly, not that Larry had been seen since going on cinematic record to lie to me about federal laws. ‘Okay,’ she began, clearly exhausted some three hours before her shift would even begin to end, leaving only the task of cleaning up the entire building while the diurnal shift sat about, already on the clock, drinking coffee and juice and complaining that the place was always a mess when they arrived to sit about, already on the clock, drinking coffee and juice and complain, ‘What can I get you two to drink.’

  ‘Yo,’ Wigger croaked, halfway dehydrated and raspy from having told George to shut the fuck up once a minute for the last hour, ‘Y’all gots a manager here?’

  ‘So they tell me,’ Jessica said, ‘Drinks? Or not.’

  ‘Shit fuggen sucks,’ Wigger said.

  ‘No doubt,’ Wiggette agreed.

  ‘Look,’ Jessica said, ‘Maybe you missed the part where half the city showed up here in a single minute, an hour ago, when I’m the only one here—and I honestly don’t care anymore whether you missed that or not—but, now, I’m here, at your table, asking what you want to drink. So hit me: what the hell are you drinking tonight.’

  ‘Uh,’ Wigger stammered, somewhat obviously trying to decide whether pulling the shit he was about to pull would get his ass killed, and then pulling it anyway: ‘Uh, y’all gots, like, Colt Forty-five on tap?’ And a laugh like a Muppet ruled by committee to be too stupid to be allowed into Sesame Street—Aloysius Snuffleupagus’ mentally defective cousin, Hypomemonius, perhaps: Ull, I dunno...Bird...I’d gotsta think about that fer a long coupla decades....

  Jessica said, simply and without room for doubt anywhere in the universe: ‘No.’

  ‘The fuck wit dis here booshit,’ Wigger asked, doubtfully expecting an answer, ‘Take a Coke, sumpin, guess.’

  ‘Three hours and one minute!’

  Jessica ignored George, looking to the wiggette. ‘And you.’

  ‘Same; ’cept Cherry Coke.’

  ‘Not really the same,’ Jessica said, ‘but okay. You know what you’d like to order yet?’

  ‘Do I know—Bitch,’ Wigger made the mistake of blurting, ‘we been here a fuggen hour now; course we knows what we fuggen ord’rin. Shit.’

  ‘Which is?’ Jessica asked.

  ‘Uh...yo: get duh damn’ drinks and we thinkbout a while.’

  ‘Take your time,’ Jessica told him, striding toward the kitchen, grabbing my coffeepot along the way.

  ‘Hey, yo!’ Wigger screeched once she was out of the room, ‘Get some fried chicken, yo?’

  ‘We’re out!’ Jessica called from the coffeemaker, ‘Dinner ends at midnight!’

  ‘Fuggen shit,’ Wiggette—apparently the less mathematically inclined of the two—proposed, ‘Betcha we’d gots us some fried fuggen chicken, she done took our order when we fuggen got here.’

  ‘Three hours and zero minutes!’

  I saved untitled.doc and clicked the laptop shut. ‘Fuck it: I’m gonna risk it,’ I said. I hadn’t had a cigarette since the one I’d littered into the carpark in front of Jackson back before two, simply because going outside to smoke sounded like something of an advanced agreement to end up in a physical brawl. I got up and wandered out into the night, lighting up as I reached it.

  Ten seconds later, Jackson appeared, asking, ‘You suppose you got a spare one a’those?’

  ‘Didn’t know you smoked,’ I said, finding him a cigarette and passing it over along with my lighter.

  ‘I don’t, as a rule,’ he
said, ‘But, it’s a nice night out here, and—now, don’t take this wrong—you’re not a small guy, and I don’t doubt you can handle yourself—but there are some people back in there who might as soon wander out here to start some shit with you. So, they say there’s never a cop when you need one. Maybe that’s not always the case.’

  ‘Fair enough,’ I said, reclaiming my lighter.

  ‘Tell you what, though,’ he added, ‘That group in there tonight: I’m not sure they won’t fuck with you whether I’m standing out here or not. If I were you, I might think about kinda taking the long way home when you finally bounce outta here—don’t let none a’them follow you where you sleep, if you get me.’

  ‘Gotcha,’ I said, ‘Though I’m not too concerned.’

  ‘Prob’ly nothing to be concerned about,’ he agreed, ‘On the other hand, you just never can tell.’

  ‘Yeah. You get to live,’ I said.

  ‘How’s that?’

  ‘It’s nothing. Little bullshit list I keep of those I allow to live if and when I ever become the oligarch of the universe.’

  He puffed his cigarette and leaned in, smelling like a middleaged black guy on his seventeenth cup of coffee, with maybe a slight undertone of something stronger he’d sipped at since waking up tonight. ‘Okay: the what now?’

  ‘The guy who runs the universe,’ I said, ‘Kinda. If all rules were up to me to think up and enforce, a small percentage of people on this bothersome planet would survive.’