Chapter 1

I stood there in the shower as the water drained away.
I couldn't help but wonder, as I am sure so many men have wondered, whether
or not my penis would fit in the drain, if it would feel good if I turned the
water on and if I'd have to use some sort of lubrication, not so much for fitting
but just for fun.
I waited too long.
Far too long.
The curtain was open.
"Martin, whatcha doin'?" Andrew asked.
"Uh...." I replied in what will henceforth be known as 'witty quip of the day #1'
"How long have you been standing there?" I asked
"Long enough to become uncomfortable watching you have impure thoughts about the drainage system of the house."
"Great."
My penis and I stepped out of the shower and grabbed a towel.
"I'll be in my room."
"Sure thing. I've got the new issue of Plumber's Monthly downstairs. Yeah, I know, no interruptions."
Great. If Andrew’s sense of humor had gone kinky, his meds weren’t clicking. Work was definitely preferable to home in that case.
*
“And all I’m saying is that its possible to see pipes, and plumbing in specific as somehow Goddess Worship related. Its like a metaphysical, endless vaginal tunnel, bending in every which way. Like a constant source of exploration”
“Or, alternately, it could just be a way to make poo be gone.”
“Yes, well…”
“Read the next letter.”
I reached for the pile while Dennis, my partner, stared out the window of our office.
I hated that.
We both paid equally for the workspace, but he got the window. But, then again, he was the genius that made this whole scam work. He always knew the Question.
“From Susan in Minneapolis, spelled with two Ls, by the way. Blah blah blah…lesbian…blah blah blah love of my life…blah blah blah…’My lover won’t go down on me’. Well, that just about writes the show itself, doesn’t it?”
“Sure does. Let me introduce you to my friend the FCC.”
“Granted. But we’ve gotten away with some pretty sketchy stuff on that 3am show in Detroit.”
“Aren’t they still on double-secret probation?”
“Another 3 months, but this is rating gold!”
“Only if they solve the problem ‘on-air’.”
“OK, ok, ok, you win. But what’s the Question?”
Dennis began to think. Usually he had one right off the top of his head, but this concept he’d dismissed so out of hand his brain hadn’t even started running on the problem.
That was pretty much our job. Finding insanity to put on various small-time talk shows around the country (and expanding into the UK). I went through 100s of letters and emails in search of usuable fodder and Dennis would come up with the Question, the one thing that would send one of the guest absolutely over the edge in some way and turn what MIGHT have been a real talk show into some sort of circus. That crap you see at 3pm is a joke. This is the hard stuff.
I waited.
Dennis turned in his chair and said, “How long have you been cheating with a guy?”.
“Really? You think???”
“Doesn’t matter. Its probably true, though. 50 bucks says this lover plays a pattern. Gets a guy. Falls in love. Gets treated like shit. Runs off, or is dumped. Finds a girl to take her in. Lives there for a while. Finds another guy. Dumps girl for guy. Sort of a semi-pro lesbian.”
“Nice. Very nice.”
“Run that by Detroit.”
I put the letter in the ‘Possible’ pile and marked it for Detroit. I’d definitely be watching that one.
Sooner or later, Shlockarama was going to get us an Emmy. Though I’m not sure they had an Emmy for ‘casting’.
“Next one: Annie from Delaware: ‘My child has Tourette’s Syndrome’”
“Really? You think that’s gonna fill up a slot?”
“Nah, I’d just never heard of a kid with Tourette’s before.”
“Next.”
“Susan, single mother from Salt Lake City, Utah: My gay daughter is now my straight son and sleeping with his sister.”
“GOLD! So long as we can pack the audience with Mormons.”
“Obviously. And the Question?”
“Well, I’d need to look over some demographics, but I’d guess ‘How long have you been sleeping with your now-straight-son?’.”
“Oh, very good! How’d you figure?”
“She made a point of stating she was a single mother. The detachment from her daughter being gay, then adding on the sex change which just moves her/him further away from Mommy, and then the prescence of a what we can assume is a very sexual man in the house, well, whats a lonely woman to do?”
“Do you really sleep at night?”
“No, not much.”
“OK, here’s a local guy. Oh, yeah, I remember this one. ‘I was dead. Now I’m not’. That’s it.”
“Really?” Dennis smirked and spun slowly in his chair.
“What?” Dennis never smirked and spun slowly in his chair.
There was a long silence as he spun around and around. The smirk turned into a smile. That’s something else I don’t generally get from Dennis. It was uncomfortable to say the least. Insects don’t smile. Fish don’t smile. Automatic transmissions don’t smile. I categorize Dennis in with these.
“Get in touch with him.”
“Why? He’s obviously a loon. I don’t even know how he got into the ‘review’ pile. Anyways, you couldn’t fill a show with that. What could you possibly ask him? I guess we could use him as a 5 minute filler. That’s all the gag’s good for.”
“Just trust me,” as his non-mamallian smile continued to beam.
“Fuck off,” reptilian defensive brain kicking in, “You want him, YOU interview him.”
“I can’t. I know too much.”
With that, I could not argue.
“OK, next letter…”
“No. No more letters. Go start on this now.”
“Now?? But we’ve only gone through…”
“This is important. This is Big Time.”
“Fine. But I get raped or leprosy or anything more severe than mind-numbingly bored with this guy,, I’m coming for your ass.”
I really wished he stop with that smile.

I took the little ‘work’ we’d done out to Megan. She was one of the few luxuries we’d decided upon. That, a gorgeous front office and a very plush interview room. Everything else was barebones. You don’t need much to do what we do.
Megan was filing, or pretending to file.
I watched for a moment, enjoying the view of her near-inappropriately short skirt and legs. I heard the soft whirring of the motion sensitive webcams as they followed her back to the front desk. While she’d started as a luxury, she’d ended up generating a fair amount of revenue. The audience she’d gained online was massive. It took us a while to ‘fine tune’ her, but we’d gotten it down to a very specific, and very indulgent audience.
“Megan, I’ve got a few things for you.”
She turned in her chair, legs spread just a little too wide, and certainly not for my benefit, a slight rip in her tights at her upper thigh. We’d discovered that was a money-maker.
Glancing down at the tear, I mouthed “Nice one”
Her wet, blood red lips were equally silent with “Thanks, I thought I’d gone too long without showing that bit”.
Needless to say, the girl got a serious raise once she got into the swing of things.
“I need you to get these folks in here for interviews. Place the tickets on the generic account. We’ll bill out later to whoever picks them up. And this last guy, get him in first. Dennis has a hard-on for him.”
She glanced at the letter.
“I’m pretty sure the dead get hard-ons for a while. Rigor Mortis and all.”
Her easter-candy-pink tounge fluttered out ever-so-briefly along her lips.
A big raise.
“Hows the fan mail going?”
“Oh, some VERY good offers this week. One guy would like me to come over and change his diaper…”
“He’s writing again?? I thought you…”
“Nono, new guy. Apparently this is quite the thing. Another one wants me to meet his sister. I’m not sure if I’m flattered, confused or afraid.”
Personally, I’d like to be there for that.
“And I’ve been getting a rush on ‘furries’. That’s sort of new.”
“Furries? Yeah, that makes sense. There’s some new app out there that overlays a furry costume over anyone on the screen. Its pretty impressive.”
“Should I even ask how you know that?” she whispers.
I pay good money for those whispers.

I blush and whisper back, “Research. Its all research.”
“Uh-huh,” she smiles, and blood red nails tear the nylon a bit more.
I spend a delicious, dizzy moment wondering if I’ll fall over and crack my skull open. I recover just in time.
“Tease.”
“Hey, I guarantee that our hits just went up 10%.”
Big Raise.
I sigh.
“So I’m just a tool. I knew it.”
“Ain’t we all, baby?”

Half-staggering back to our office, I start up a notes document.
1) Furries. We absolutely must develop a show around furries.
2) Can we get some of our web clientele to be on one of the locals? Would Megan be willing to meet with them in front of the audience? Maybe the audience could vote for who gets a date with her. Note: Equip Megan with a stun-gun. Or a full-fledged cattle-prod.
3) Mother’s Day is coming up. Percolate some ideas.

“I said now,” Dennis prodded.
“I’ve got Megan calling him.”
“No, go meet him. Now.”
“I frickin’ can’t. We don’t even have his address. Just a phone number.”
“My pretty brightboy, why do you think we have the internet? Do a reverse look-up on his number.”
“You’ve spent time as a stalker, haven’t you?”
“I’ll never tell.”
A couple dozen clicks later and I had our dead man’s address.
“I gotta say, I’m still not thrilled about this.”
Little had changed in 15 minutes.
“I gotta say, I still don’t care. Look, just trust me on this one. Chances are its nothing. But I’ve been hearing things. Reading things. Seeing things. If its real, its VERY real.”
“Dennis, none of our clients WANT real. They want human cartoons. They want advanced super-marionettes. They leave real to the shows with budgets that are on while people are awake.”
“Martin, have I ever been wrong? Have I ever asked you for anything?”
“One: No. Two: outside of the 4000 dollar chair, the laptop that even I don’t know the price for, and that Australian bassoon…”
“Didgeridoo. That was for my snoring.”
“…Didgeridoo? Then no.”
“I’m only saying that I know from whence I speak. This could be…special.”
A word I don’t often hear from Dennis.
“Alright, I’m going. Oh, and give Megan a raise.”
“Always.”
We pride ourselves on appreciating good employees.

Blackouts can be problematic.
“Martin?”
“Yes, Andrew?”
“Its OK to open your eyes now.”
“Liar.”
“Seriously. There’s little, if any, extraneous blood or bodily fluids. No one else is around. The only discernable aberration is, well, you.”
“In what way am I…uh…aberrating?”
“You are sleeping upsidedown on the stairs.”
“Ah. That explains the muscle aches I’m currently cataloging.”
This was SOP for me. Always, before opening my eyes, I try to take a sort of physical inventory.
“So its OK to open your eyes now.”
“I’m still not sure that’s a good idea.”
“Why not?”
“Well, I’m not positive how I got here in the first place.”
“Oh, like that’s new.”
“No, I don’t mean I don’t remember my last drink.”
“You do?”
“No, of course not. But whats strange is I don’t remember my first drink.”
“Ah.”
“Indeed.”
“Troubling.”
“Indeed.”
The conversation was surprisingly pithy, all things considered.
The silence was comforting.
“In what way will not opening your eyes help with this situation?”
“It probably won’t. However, right now I’m hovering in a sort of undefined neutrality. So long as I don’t open my eyes, nothing happens. Or, more importantly, I don’t have to contemplate the past…um…what time is it?”
“2:17 PM.”
I did some nimble math.
“I don’t have to contemplate the past 26 hours.”
“So, you started drinking at lunch?”
I watched the phosphorous lightshow playing on the inside of my eyelids.
“Well, I remember sitting down for lunch.”
“Where?”
“Some dive. Near the Museum stop.”
“Lets try a bit more.”
“Don’t you have something more important to do than pester someone who is so obviously and fundamentally broken?”
“Not really. My meds are working well today. Plus, I can’t find any squirrels.”
“Lovely. Just when I need you in a fugue state, you are impressively lucid and focused.”
“We’re pretty special, aren’t we?”
“Indeed.”
“Now, what were you doing down near Museum?”
“Uh, I’m not sure. I…ok, I was looking for this guy.”
“You were trying to score?”
“No,no. We got a letter. At work. Some guy. Dennis got all hopped up on it. Made me go find him.”
“Did you find him?”
“No. I found the address but he wasn’t home.”
“See, now we’re getting somewhere.”
“Interesting definition.”
“Now, you found the address, but he wasn’t home. What did you do next?”
“Well, I was hungry and went to the bar.”
“And started drinking.”
“I don’t think so.”
“You were drunk. Your last memory is you sitting in a bar. Ipso Facto, you began drinking at the bar.”
“I don’t deny that the theory is attractive.”
“You sure you don’t want to open your eyes?”
“No,no, its quite pretty in here.”
“So you don’t remember starting to drink.”
“Nope.”
“Did you talk to anyone at the bar?”
“No. Wait. No.”
“’Wait’?”
“Well, there was this guy. Crazy guy. Just talking to himself. Some sort of weird chant.”
“A chant?”
“Yeah, like…like one long continuous sentence. I remember being bored and annoyed and listening in and never…ever…hearing anything that might sound like a period.”
“How long were you there?”
“I don’t know. That’s all I remember. I remember listening to this guy and then…the stairs and you waking me up and me obviously hung over.”
“OK. I think I am beginning to see the problem with this line of questioning.”
“Good. So am I.”
“Yes?”
“You keep asking questions.”
“No.”
“No?”
“No. We’ve been assuming you are hung over, and therefore you were drinking.”
“Well, you can hardly fault us for that. The empirical evidence does seem to imply…”
“Yes. But other evidence seems to contradict that likelihood. Therefor, we must question our assumptions in order to resolve that contradiction.”
“Have I mentioned my head hurts and you aren’t helping?”
“You are laying upside-down on the stairs and refuse to open your eyes. Until that situation changes, I’m driving.”
I thought about that for a moment but couldn’t find a flaw in his logic. Plus, anything that might mean I wasn’t a complete ass last night was a welcome presence.

“My bad. Please continue.”
“Actually, continuing is a bad idea. We’re starting over.”
“Excellent. It was oodles of monkey fun the first time.” My sarcasm lobe is always functioning.
“Well, we may have made a big mistake the first time through. The assumption was that you were drunk and passed out.”
“Correct.”
“Well, is that assumption holding up to the evidence? Run through the inventory. Are you dehydrated?”
“No more than usual.”
“Yeah, you REALLY have to drink more water. How about headache?”
“No, just where my head is on the edge of the stair.”
“Which we can assume is due to the fall that placed you where you are now. Stomach? Is it upset?”
“Some, but I think I’m just hungry.”
“OK, so you don’t have any evidence of a hangover, and the house isn’t trashed and you don’t appear to be particularly bedraggled.”
I felt breath on my face.
“Nor do you reek of booze, nor bar-smoke. Now, what conclusion does this lead us to?”
I thought for a moment.
“That I wasn’t out drinking?”
“And?”
”That I’m not hung-over?”
“And, most importantly?”
“Uh…”
“That its OK to open your eyes.”
“No.”
“No?”
“No. I still don’t know what happened. Plus, there’s a lovely lightshow going on right now.”
“Granted, we have not progressed towards a final summary of the night’s activities, but we now have the possibility of going down the right trail. It seems to me that this will require a greater amount of focus and investigation than usual. That means your level of participation will need to rise. We may even require a certain amount of travel.”
“Ugh.” (witty quip of the day #2)
“Indeed. And, if you concur, then there’s only one logical next step.”
I opened my eyes.
It was…unpleasant. Not that I wasn’t used to coming to upside-down, but letting the rather harsh light of the hallway replace the soothing phosphorous glow I’d been enjoying must have jump-started some heretofor sleeping synapses and I became very aware of the throbbing lump on my brow. I continued to lay there for a moment, then tumbled down the last three steps and rolled to my feet.
“Impressive,” commented Andrew in his monotone-lucid way.
“Thanks. “
“It would appear, then, that we have an agenda for today.”
“’We’?”
“My doctor says structure is good for me. Our path has a beginning and an end. All we need is a middle. That’s a foundation upon which we can build the world of the past 26 hours. Its good to build worlds. Sometimes. Or so I am told.”
“So this is a sort of cognitive therapy for you? When did my life become your rorshach test?”
“When did we meet?”
“You certainly know how to make a guy feel special.”
“Well, if you aren’t interested in figuring out where more than a day of your life went…”
I took a moment to weigh the pros and cons of this plan. Ignorance is bliss vs. being prepared for getting served with a warrant. Plausible deniability vs. knowing if I needed to go into hiding.
“If this goes badly, do you know where I can find underground?”
“’Underground’?”
“As in ‘I need to go underground for a few months’. That sort of underground.”
“No. But I know people who do. I take it you are interested in further investigation. Let us begin.”
“I have a bad feeling where we’re going to start.”
“Well, you said you were hungry.”