The Floating Studio

1 | As the bus entered Lincoln Tunnel, light snapped to darkness to reflect back the superimposed self-pity David Ingram had been projecting out its scuzzed window and upon the layered Manhattan acres he passed lacking opportunity. 11 | Seated behind him but through that same window, Byron Chianti watched the tunnel's pearlescent white bricks flicker red in warning from the traffic ahead. 20 | The bus bobbled as it bore out the tunnel, fighting against the current of suburban commuters merging onto the 495 helix so it could keep its route through lowlevel Weehawken. 30 | Until, by means of its wheezing pneumatics, it announced its Lincoln Harbor stop, lowering its chassis in mock reverence to the two men it discharged. 39 | After stepping off the bus, David stopped on River Road's curb in order to input his interview's address into his phone's map app, collate notecards for a final rehearsal, and collect his psychological bearings. 50 | Suddenly he was jostled forward by a man pushing past him with a true bearing and at the velocity of intent. 56 | Where after pursing his lips and rolling his eyes, David began walking in the same direction as the disruptive man ahead was heading. 63 | In between downward glances at his phone confirming his direction, David muttered snarky commentary on the man ahead's striving stride hermetically sealed from self-doubt, whose breezy swagger billowed through oversized black duck canvas coveralls—even as David subconsciously aped those same mannerisms. 80 | Byron suddenly felt eyes on him that were not his own. 83 | He turnt around to find a man behind him freeze mid-stride on the boardwalk, as if calcified from the shame of his own motion. 90 | He continued watching the man behind him until the accumulating heat of his unblinking recognition thawed this man into a spastic powerwalk across River Road, his hand partitioning face to avoid Byron's gaze as well as the oncoming bus they had both just exited. 105 | Pushed air from that passing bus provided David with the unfamiliar sensation of the wind being at his back. 111 | Crossing Harbor Boulevard in a half-stepped jog, he found refuge behind a tiled business foyer pillar mosaiced in the extinct trading vessels: 120 | Algonquin canoes, Tappan Zee purse-seiners, and war-effort triple tugs — that grew the waterfront's property value to the heights of attracting an international bank to squat its headquarters on its harbor. 131 | And only after waiting for what he estimated was sufficient time someone would take to bore themselves out of surveilling a nobody like himself, only then did David peer out from the pillar to find, through pockets of foot traffic, the man ahead's eyes still latched upon him. 145 | Seeing this, David entered into his bag of gestural camoflauge. Cuticles were inspected; earlobes pinched; hands shoved in pockets, he vaudvillianly rocked himself heel-to-toe. 157 | After a quick glance across the street to confirm he still hadn't shed the man ahead's gaze, David segued to light calisthenics, placing his right boot's heel atop a planter box mulched with crumpled, corrugated cigarette butts. 171 | In his effort to portray the stretch's versimilitude to the man ahead, to authenticate his dire need to keep limber during business hours, David stretched himself beyond comfort. 181 | Feeling a wince percolate, he turned away from the man ahead to shield any leaking weakness from being revealed. 187 | Then, like a horror movie where every television in the local electronics store's showcase window begins broadcasting the villain its protagonist had been fleeing, the man ahead's reflection kaleidoscopically refracted in the gridded windows in front of him. 199 | He continued watching as a man shaped like a squished orb entered the frame -- and who, after merging then uncoupling his image with the man ahead's in what David assumed was a handshake, pointed an outstretched arm in David's vicinity, as if confirming a hint to a hunt. 214 | And like prey paralyzing themselves to avoid a predator's instinct, David stayed froze in his pose while hush-grunting 220 | —So fucking stupid. 222 | At his elevated right boot; his judgment based not only on the two hours spent taking the Q to the A, then queuing in Port Authority's low-clearance parking garage depot huffing rush hour exhaust just to get over to fucking Jersey, 231 | time he could have spent grinding out disability disclosures and custom cover letters for that day's self-mandated twenty five job applications but moreso the two hundred dollar vintage redwings purchased for the sole purpose of this interview, a poser move if there ever were- 243 | A vibrating thigh sheared David from a trance spent staring at the sale sticker still stuck to his redwings' tongue. He removed the phone from his pocket. It was his map app asking him if he had arrived at his destination. 258 | After sheathing the phone back in his mesh basketball shorts' pocket, David turned back toward the boardwalk to watch the orbbed man dismissively flutter backhanded wrists in his direction, as if shooing a varmint of no consequence. 269 | And as he watched this man open the marina gate for the man ahead, David felt hope drain from heart to gut in a well worn rut formed over time, similar to how an eroded gulley becomes a gulch. 280 | Suddenly, a gust from an approaching high pressure system thrust back the gate's shutward momentum just before it clicked on its threshold to pivot open ninety degrees, 286 | its clang against the marina's retaining fence jarring David from his self-pitying stupor. 290 | As the gate wavered back toward its closed threshold, another gust fluttered it fully open again, as if anticipating David's objection that the distance was already too great to even try. 304 | Now filled with the belief that nature had become his bellhop, David sprinted toward the marina, red wings clomping at every bound until one wedged itself between the closing gate and the jamb's coiled frillwork. 315 | David clenched both safety railings as he descended down a bobbing catwalk sharply steepened by low tide. 321 | Walking atop floating docks snaking with wake, he scanned each vessel's stern decal yawing behind crisscrossing stern lines: Warrior Lush, Metis, Infinite West -- before he found his vessel's name -- The American Dream — and with it, the man ahead, who leaned against the vessel's bulkhead, eyes and mouth agog in overearnest surprise. 339 | —Hey howdy there! Sorry about all that back there just then, I guess I 342 | —That was back then. Now you're just there. 345 | —Sure, sure. So I guess we're both here for this intern influencer onboarding, huh? 349 | —Guess you better board then. 350 | —Yeah, I guess I, shwoopsies!!! 353 | Just as David's boot extended out from the pier with the rote familiarity of boarding a subway, cresting energy from the incoming tide yaw-yanked the vessel away so that what started as a simple step now demanded a leap of faith. 365 | And in a movement resembling a Jumpman or grand jete on a planet with a higher gravitational force, David transferred enough of his balance across for his body to board, but not enough for his dignity to join him, 376 | his trail boot clipped the teak gunnel upon entry so that he fell flailing upon the stern deck like a still-green catch. 385 | Still feeling his thud throb between his bone structure and the stern deck he now lay fetal on, David opened his eyes in a wince to find the man ahead standing over him, 392 | eclipsing the mid-day sun as if he was wearing his own shadow, blonde bangs fluttering seemingly with breath that had just been knocked out from him. 400 | —You must be David. 402 | As David's eyes squint flatter to determine whether the man ahead's tone indicated confirmation, inspiration, or accusation, the vessel's saloon door slid open against the bulkhead's bumper, breaking the silence. 413 | A thicketed gut sandwiched by the two bands of elasticized cotton it refused emerged out from its blackened doorway. 420 | Above it, ochered teeth widened disingenuously slowly, like a casting couch impresario who plum forgot he double-booked his afternoon audition. 428 | —Permission to board granted, heh. 431 | Captain Jim led both men into the vessel's saloon by turning his back and leaving them outside. 436 | Byron and David stepped into a room offering a head's worth of headroom and an arm's length of free movement -- 441 | barely enough to keep their personal space but not enough, as both men found out after Jim shut the saloon door behind them, to keep their personal smell. 449 | —Alright, alright, alright, so Cap! 452 | Byron's flip flop scuffed an indented floor seam which outlined the saloon's grey-green carpet similar to a singles tennis court. 459 | —We here to fix up this neat sportfishing yacht you got here or what? 462 | —Fix? 464 | Captain Jim stopped to wipe scoffed snot with a bent wrist. 467 | —You millennials couldn't fix shit if you gave it an enema. Know why? Cause to fix something you first gots to know it. And all you millennials know is what yous was taught. 475 | Matter facts I bet you two chucklefucks can't even tell me why we named this bitch the American Dream. 480 | —Probably because it's a late capitalist symbol of decadent consumption inaccessible to the common man just like the actual American Dream 485 | —Sure sure but like it's also about repowering that decadence. Like how Van der vyden lived through all that medieval suffering so he could express a level of detail previously unseen by man, 494 | and so like similarly our work here on the American Dream is our collective parthenogenic white wake heading out to the endless hopeless late capitalist horizon. 502 | —Fuck me Jesus. 504 | Captain Jim muttered as he straddled outside a corner of the salon carpet's squared outline. 509 | He stooped down to a three-point stance to pull a coach bolt burrowed in a patch of carpet as if it were a ripe rhizome, 515 | where he then deadlifted a floor section the size, shape, and weight of a wealthy man's headstone a foot off its frame. 521 | After briefly pausing in order to deliver a series of self-motivational grunts, Jim raised the hatch from ankle to shoulder level to swivel it past perpendicular so that it could lean at a ninety-five degree angle against teak trim that framed the portside window. 535 | —See this engines? 537 | Jim said through spent breath as he lifted one of his hands off his knee to grab a maglight off the portside windowsill, 543 | then strafe its light down to the open space below their feet and upon a refrigerator-sized engine block cocooned beneath networks of rusted pipes, arcing throttle cables, and tangles of braided fuel lines. 554 | —These engines are why we named this bitch the American Dream. Shit it's whys we even gots a American Dream in the first place. Because see these Detroit Diesels won us a war. 563 | —Which war? 564 | David snickered as he watched his redwing boot kick alpine green paint flakes off the top of the engine's heat exchanger. 570 | —Vietnam? 572 | —Victory... 573 | Captain Jim said in a soft shudder, 575 | —Victory was not possible in that theater. You know you millennials sure are some dumb shits. I bet you two couldn't count your nuts twice and come up with the same number both times! 584 | —We only counting nuts that hang Cap? Because I can't speak for my friend David here, but 589 | —Matter facts, your new boss Juug wanted me to first tell you how this influencer internship constipates you a little differently than your conventionalized job. 596 | But first, I think you twos need to learn a couple of three things about what America's all about. 600 | Eyes David rolled toward Byron in sarcastic solidarity found blinks bat toward Captain Jim in rapt attention. 608 | —Neat! 609 | —First off, America's all about working ugly. When we showed these Detroit Diesels off before D-Day, know what the Brits said? Said they looked bad, sounded worse, and vibrated enough to make their nuns uncomfortable. Just like Jim here hey! 620 | —They brought nuns to their military testing... 623 | —David, hush! We're learning about what Captain's America's all about! 627 | —Yeah well maybe looking at all these rusted dingleberries hanging off the engine's grundle doesn't really push my patriotic buttons. 632 | —Think he means the oilpan there, Cap. 634 | —See that's the problem with yous millennials. You care more about how things looks than how they work. Matter facts you're just like the nazis. 641 | See the nazis they built these sleek, highfalutenoogen engines for the war. 645 | Type of engine that tickled the eye's balls, sure, but when it came nut-cutting time, those brittle-dicked nazi engines couldn't fuck unless you trimmed their pewbes first. 654 | —And just for the record pube trimming is, or is not, standard maintenance on diesels? 659 | —See back then America was smart enough not to let looking good get in the way of working well. But you millennials don't know that. All you know is how to lose and look good doing it. 668 | It's like you forgot that there's a reason why winning and working are on the same page of the dictionary. 672 |— Know what Jim? 673 | David sniffed while shrugging his shoulders. 675 | —If you think you're just going to compare me, hell my whole generation to nazis well then respectfully you know, you got- 681 | —Got wha? Somethin comin to me? 683 | Captain Jim asked with threatening enthusiasm as he entered into David's personal space, lifting his heels so he could burrow the top of his skull into David's chin. 692 | —And is that something coming from you? 695 | —Hey Cap how about you get your face out of my friend's safe space there ok? 698 | —Got a better idea. How bout the tree of us head out to deep water and David can give what's coming to me out there? Take this from zero to a hundred fathoms real quick son. 707 | —Capital idea Cap! How bout it, David? 709 | —I, uh... 712 | A voice retreated with a body whose backtracking boot searched the vacated floor behind it for support. 717 | —guggh 718 | After watching David backstroke the air to reclaim balance already lost, Byron stepped on his friend's redwing boot's reinforced toe to lever him back upright. 725 | —I'm tellin yuz, you millennials're just like the nazis. They couldn't handle the threat of being taken to deep water neithers. 734 | Captain Jim raised his palms in mock surrender. 737 | —Just sayin! See they knew their high falutenoogen engines weren't built to handle all the chaos that deep water causes like how exhaust comes back up through engine's own intake valve, make it start gagging and stalling like David here. 750 | —Ok so did America figure out a cure for these deep water hiccups? I mean like did we engineer these Detroit Diesels to be able to drink from the rim of the oilpan or something? 759 | —You know. asking for a friend's engine. 761 | Captain Jim genuflected on the salon carpet and winnow his maglight beam onto a lever circlipped onto the engine's fuel governor that itself was bolted to a metal bracket etched with the words BATTLE MODE embossed in its own shadow. 773 | —See out in deep water, both sides were in the same boat chaos-wise. But while those Daimler dingoes tried to coddle chaos with their whisper-quiet engines, America we went and conquered it. 781 | Made it so that whenever the engine began to gag and doubt itself, an American patriot could flip that there Battle Mode switch and flood the whole engine with fuel. 789 | See by turning the wick up, you know redlining its work rate, you exsponge all that hot air, make it so that there's no room for doubt to creep into the engine. 796 | —Yeah sure but you know as I was doing some boat research for this position, I read that redlining an engine runs the risk of - 801 | —Run what risk? By running the damn engine? I mean fuck me Jesus son! 806 | —I think what David's asking, and frankly I myself am also curious about is when we do head to deep water as you've previously stipulated, like do we have your permission to flip Battle Mode? 815 | Because I think that could be this real neat allegorical way to show how millennials can use Likecoin to flip the switch on their outlook on the American- 822 | —You millennials! 824 | Captain Jim rattled outstretched index and pinky fingers between Byron and David. 829 | — I'm tellin yas, you're just like the nazis. Because see the nazis wouldn't push their engines without their captain's permission neithers. 835 | But guess wha. Instinct doesn't ask for permission. Know who said that son? 840 | —I, uh, Patton? 842 | —My daddy, right before he nutted me inside some bitch he picked up in Dieppe. And the only way he could get to dry land to get his dick wet was by flipping that there Battle Mode switch. 851 | —See that's what yous don't understand about the greatest generation. They didn't ask anyone's permission to be great, they went and took it by taking the action the moment demanded. 859 | —That is quite the origin story there, Cappie! 862 | —Yeah that's the other ting. America's about having a story. At least it used to be. 867 | But you millennials wouldn't know a story if you snorted it. I mean you there, what's your story? 871 | —Cap, if you knew my work, you'd know my story. 874 | —Fuck you know about work. You're a millennial! 876 | —Well I know that work is the engine which propels us closer to God. 880 | —The fuck you know about God! 882 | Captain Jim's palm raised sharply in a reverse karate chop. 885 | —Tell me the last time you heckled a gay or smeared shit on an abortion clinic's doorknob. That's what I thought. Ok, so yous there what's your story? 894 | —Me? 895 | —Fuck you mean me. You're the only other you in the room! 898 | —Ok sure uh, my story is, well and maybe it's just the osmosis of the moment being on the boat here, but I guess my story is that I'm a socioeconomic Odysseus in the sense that 906 | — Damnit son I said a story. Not a bunch of crap with fancy trimmings! Not some al-gore-called liberalature device. That's not a story. 914 | Captain Jim threw open the galley cabinet so he could grab a pint glass and a handle of Cadenhead Strathclyde thirty one. 920 | —Want a story here's a story. Matter facts whichever one of yous is supposed to be the writer here should write all this down. 928 | Captain Jim tipped the handle upside down so that the scotch's sloshing surface levelled with the horizon. 933 | —Story's about how my brother Juug and I took this here yacht right out from under this millennial gahgootz's dick. See this gahgootz, he bought this yacht to live on on the cheap. 941 | And so he brought Captain Jim on board to teach him how all these systems work. You writing this all down son? 947 | —Yeah sure, I uh, assuming that there's two o's, in 950 | —And so when this gagooch comes out from the salon to greet me I see that he's wearing these flag pants. Now these pants were very tight-fitting you see and the ting was, this guhgooch, he was uh, quite well built. 960 | Well built and wearing a pair of tight-fitting flag pants, you got all that?! 963 | —No sure yeah, I'm 966 | Captain Jim glared at David's right hand to confirm its progress. 970 | —No dammit don't just write what I'm saying! Christ I can do that! 975 | —Don't think that's entirely David's fault there, Cap. Took a drive by on his profile on the bus ride over says here he's a copywriter so maybe verbatim's is just how he's wired. 982 | —You think you can do better? 984 | David dropped the pad and pen on the work bench, as if they had suddenly become allergenic. 988 | —Don't let me hold you back! 990 | —Well, language isn't exactly what I consider an S-tier artistic medium. That said, I have previously written my own tombstones, 997 | so like my zero draft on this would be something like, like I don't know something like this millennial gagooch's patriotism was only matched by his endowment. 1005 | —This one. 1007 | Jim's right hand slowly formed, then shook, sideways devil's horns at Byron. 1012 | —Matter facts David, as you're writing this story you should probably take some notes from your friend here on how to write it. 1017 | —Look is there a particular reason why we're lingering on that part of the gagooch specifically because 1023 | —His dick's essential to the story David. It's like one of those McMuffin devices that those Hollywood writers all use. 1030 | Anyway so I hop on board and as we're leaving the marina I begin giving the gagooch the basic captain broilerplate, you know red right return right always has the right of way. 1038 | But then this gagooch, he begins questioning Captain Jim and all his infertile wisdom, starts squeezing my shoes asking me how to convert these Detroits to biodiesel meanwhiles he doesn't know his primary fuel filter from his secondary. 1050 | —Yeah but that's why the uh, the gahgooch hired you, right? To show him the ropes? 1057 | David's question was acknowledged only by the silence that followed it, until Byron softly squeezed his back while whispering 1063 | —Ropes are for fuck-trapezes, buddy. On these here boats, they're called lines. 1068 | —Thank you Bryan. And see worst of all was that the gahgooch had said this to me all patronizational like, like he already knew what to do out in deep water without ever having done it. 1077 | So I hailed Juug on sixty nine see he was already out on the hunting grounds on his submarine. 1081 | —Our new boss has a submarine? Wow, that is real neat! 1085 | —Yeah sos I hail him on channel sixty nine and I says to him now David be sure to write it all like I'm in a movie ok so I says to hims I says 1092 | Juug psht how about we take this gagooch to slip and fall school psht over and then Juug goes copy that psht damnit do I have to spell it out for you p s h t 1102 | —I think generally diegetic sounds are foleyed into the actual footage as opposed to written in the script but yes right there with you so after psht copy that psht then what. 1111 | —After about an hour or so, the guhgooch and I, we start feeling these waves slowly palpervating underneath the surface all sneaky like. You know like how if you slowly dump frogs into a pot of water, the water'll eventually boil? 1124 | —And then once the port engine started hiccuping on account of all the chaos, I mean holy shit, you should've seen this gagooch's face! 1131 | —Okay but then you helped the gagootz out, right? Told him about that Battle Mode switch you were just telling us about. 1137 | —Yeah, like as part of his whole slip en fall curriculum. 1139 | —Did the gagooch one better told him I'd go down to the engine room and flip the damn switch myself. Wha! You don't believe me? Go check the affadavid. 1147 | —No need sir. A captain's word is the fiberglass bond of the vessel he commands. 1151 | —But see what wasn't in the affadavid was that after I went down to the engine room, instead of flipping Battle Mode on the port engine, I flipped it on the starboard engine instead. 1160 | You know like help the engine that doesn't even need helping. And I mean you should've seen the gagootz's face when we started going round in circles in deep water like we's was some hooked tuna pinwheeling. 1170 | —Well maybe you can help David paint the picture of this gagooch's face, you know for the good of the story here. And if need be, I can call in a couple courtroom sketch artists who owe my uncle chits. 1179 | —I remembers his eyes were all wet and glossy, like how a swivel shines when you got a catch coming to the surface. 1185 | I remembers that because that's what Juug trained me to look for when we was starting out evicting all these darkies on our first properties, on account of how tough it was to see their faces after we shut the lights off on em. 1194 | —Point is once I saw the gloss in this gagootz's eyes I knew he'd be panicked enough to sign anything I'd put in front of him just like we did the darkies. 1202 | So when i seenst it, that's when I gave him this savage lien Juug had arthurized me to use and then I pointed this ballpoint pen at him, you know as like my poon. 1212 | —Think you mean salvage lien there, Cap. 1214 | —That the one where some gagooch's butt gets so puckered, he signs his boat over to whoever can save it? 1220 | —The very same. 1221 | —Wait ok so just so I'm clear here on all this, this uh, this gagooch, he panic-signed his boat over to you and your brother? The same people who caused the panic in the first place. 1229 | —Yep. 1230 | —I mean like can you do that? 1231 | —What do you mean can I do that?; I did do that!! The fuck you think I'm telling you the story in the first place! Because guess what, blow and behold the gahgooch signed the lien, yep whipped his dick out and everyting. 1241 | —Wait what was that again, I? 1244 | —Told you the gagooch's dick was essential to the story heh! 1248 | Captain Jim smacked David's back with such resuscitative force that it heimlicked the pen out from David's grip and down into the engine room's bilge. 1256 | —Yeah see your boss takes the whole John Handcock thing literally. Just take a look at this selfie I took at the savage lien signing ceremony the tree of us had out in deep water. 1264 | —Wow. that is one deflated buoy. Now look, Cap 1267 | Byron stopped to sand his nose's middle skin undercarriage with his thumb. 1270 | —Now I know your business ain't necessarily mine, but I gotta tell yuh, this savage lien swindle story of yours, it kind of feels too good to be true. 1277 | And as someone who's currently in protracted memoir negotiations with a number of talk shows and studios, it's been made clear to me that the market these days is more in the mood for stories that are too true to be good. 1286 | —The fuck you asking, son? 1289 | —Asking if you gave the gagootz his right of redemption. 1292 | Because last I checked, a salvage leen only entitles its holder to payment for services rendered, and that you can only seize the entire vessel in rem if this gagootz didn't actually remit payment for your time, resources, effort et cetera in rescuing the vessel. 1305 | —Look you'll have to talk to Canadian Les about all that. Alls I knows is after we invoiced the gagootz the fuel bill for the distance it took for Juug's submarine to get over to us, 1313 | I guess it was more than what the boat was worth or the millennial was worth, which I guess was more or less the same thing. 1318 | —Ok so you got the vessel but what about the gagootz? I mean now that he graduated from your slip n' fall school, what sort of opportunities are on his horizon? 1325 | —Yous millennials- 1327 | Captain Jim sarcastically wagged his head somberly. 1329 | —I'm telling yuh, you're just like the most famous nazi. Rather take your own life than take a damn life lesson. Yep went and rigged the block and tackle right there where you're standing. 1338 | —Wait, here? 1339 | —Yous standing anywhere else son? Yep day after the summary judgment Juug and I came through to claim the vessel. And I mean you should've seen this gagoot's face, it was the only part of him which wasn't swaying with the wake. 1351 | Not only that his flag pants were all crumpled at the ankles, had a copy of the savage lien sticking out from one pocket and in the other there was this crumpled up five-year plan to become this Captain Influencer and inspire millennials to live their best story voyages. 1367 | And that gagooch's crumpled up hope, that's where Juug got his whole cryptic currency idea for Likecoin. 1375 | —Well seeing as you went from one dead millennial on board to two live ones, I'd say the vision's clearly working here Cap. 1379 | Glad yous feel that way. Because your new boss wants you two to hop down into the engine room and take a selfie so we can post how fired up you two millennials are to work on board this here vessel the American Dream. 1385 | —On it, Cap. 1387 | —At once Byron lept down from the salon to land on the engine room floor in a squat. 1391 | Where, as if tugged by the gravity of Byron's motion, David sat down on the salon floor's exposed framework, dangling legs dipping into the engine room's darkened air. 1402 | —The fuck you doing the hokey dokey for, son? You either in or you're out. 1405 | —Sure but uh before I join my colleague down there and you know start getting some grease on my elbows I uh, I just want to loop back on that compensation question I brought up in my email reply. 1413 | —Got a better question, Cap. you got anything for us to work on while we're down here? Thinking maybe we go and turbocharge the pistons, you know get that engine of yours that's about what America's all about firing back up again. 1422 | —Fuck me Jesus. You don't turbocharge the pistons, you turbocharge the goddamned air! 1427 | Want some real work, fine. zincs are probably overdue for a swap after we ran the jenny all the way up here from Key West. 1433 | —Cap. did you just say zincs? 1436 | —Yeah so wha? You familiar with them? 1439 | —A passing familiarity, yes. My dead dad taught me that they make fuses out of weak metals like zinc in order to protect the more noble metals in the circuit. 1446 | —Yeah same thing here. Zincs're screwed onto all the metal on board to help starve off the saltwater corrosion on the more nobler metals stainless steel prop shaft copper oil cooler aluminum heat exchanger what have you 1455 | —Wow ok, so you mind cluing us into what these zincs look like, so we can get right to it? 1459 | —Just look for the weakest and most worthless thing on board. Just like you millennials heh! 1464 | —Much obliged Cap. Last question. Where'd you put the fresh zincs we're gonna need to swap into the engine ? 1470 | Captain Jim rapidly pat his torso as if it were infested, then shifted scrunched lips to the side of his mouth for a sitcom-length beat 1477 | before eyebrows shot up alongside an eurekaing index finger which curled in its descent behind and below raising hips clearing it for entry. 1484 | Where after several writhing peristaltic heaves, Jim pinched his inseam free from fupa so a metal cylindrical turd could fall through a diabetically-stretched ankle cuff to tumble upon salon carpet the dull grey-green of overcirculated money, 1497 | its momentum encouraged by a growing tide's soft yaw rolling it off the salon carpet and down onto the engine room floor to rattle back and forth between Byron's feet to the sound of a pill plinking against a turning roulette wheel 1509 | until a middle finger's snap severed the scene, its index finger aimed upward at Jim to pitch 1516 | —The hung man, who hung himself! How's that for a title to your story Jimbo? 1520 | And then at the end when the flag-pantsed gagooch begins to bitch about how there should be laws in America that protect him from your big bad savage lien we throw this wobbly focus past the gagootz's exposed grundle 1530 | so it locks onto our new boss Juug as he steps off his Russian friend's neat submarine to let this gagootz, and by proxy the viewer, know that he's not in America anymore, 1537 | you know because of that whole offshore loophole three miles out so like how bout it Cap? 1541 | —I gotta try and take a shit.

1 | Chaos; fate's yeast; the form of all matter as well as the agent of its forming; and that which we study in theory but suffer through in faith, began its siege on the men. 10 | A rolling wave softly jabbed the stern, squeaking stretching spring lines like birds heralding an oncoming storm. 17 | Right behind it, a gathered swell crossed the vessel athwartships to generate a violent yaw that to the three men aboard, felt as if a subway car's emergency stop had been triggered. 28 | Wrenches floated. Cabinets twerked. The portside hatch, the shape and weight of a wealthy man's headstone, 35 | tipped past its tipping point to fall back upon the floor's wooden substructure framing two heads ducking just beneath an impact that lacerated both men's bone marrow as they fell fetal to the engine room floor. 47 | Despite still feeling the impact's tremors shimmer between hatch, hull and himself, Byron quickly got off his own back. 53 | As he stood, he cracked the hatch open, its fire-retardant undercushion scraping his scalp. 58 | There he found Captain Jim sprawled and shivering on the galley's parquet floor, his sweatpants' elastic waistband squeezed beneath his flesh's apex like a geriatric cocktail waitress's tubetopped top. 70 | Byron knew a mammal's instinct is sharpest when threatened with death or humiliation, so he knew better than to watch Captain Jim wiggle-wallow on the galley floor as a means of generating enough momentum to fully roll from back to belly, 81 | stagger to his feet tucking flesh back into waistband, strafe his surroundings, find the eyes on him that weren't his own, and bullrush toward them with flushed jowls the color of cured meat. 92 | —Yous better watch your butts! 94 | Captain Jim shouted at the shutting hatch's snickering carpet. 97 | —Matter facts, think I'll keep yous twos down theres, till Juug gets over here. 101 | —Hey come on Jim! 103 | David pled up to the clattering tool boxes and sloshing oil buckets being shoved on the salon floor above him. 107 | —Can't see shit down here. 111 | The hatch cracked open to reveal a teal topsider below a grey sweatpant cuff stretched loose like undercooked bacon. 115 | —Let's sees if you can smell it. 118 | Both men watched the ankle cuff ripple before the hatch closed, wafting Jim's flatulence as well as the salon carpet's fetid foreclosed-roller-skating-rink odor into the darkened engine room. 127 | —Fuck's his deal? 128 | —Fuck's your deal? 130 | A triggered head snapped in Byron's direction was met by a thrusted white screen displaying search results for “david engram portforlio” . 135 | —The fuck's that mean! 137 | —Means you call yourself a writer, shit you're even posing with a goddamned typewriter in your profile picture here but then I look for your work and, and I mean holy shit you have Turkey Trot times on your first page! 146 | —So. 147 | —So life's so much better when you live it as a verb instead of a noun, you know that right? 151 | Like, I get it, you're well on your way to being the greatest writer who never wrote. But wouldn't it be a lot more rewarding if you, you know, became like that rare breed of writer who actually writes? 160 | —Rather be the rare breed of writer who actually earns. 163 | David watched the illuminated face in front of him turn concerned, as if a festering wound on his own face had just now revealed itself. 170 | —Okay well guess what? I searched you too while I was on the bus. Checked out your portfolio site after cross referencing your b e underscore chianti email on our interview confirmation. 179 | I know you searched me, dude. See I installed this neat api that notifies me whenever someone searches me. You'll see that I'm kind of this neat funhouse mirror that way. 187 | —Look point is maybe I'm just not on your creative level, okay? 190 | Like maybe not everyone has your killer portfolio with funhouse apis, or growling exhibits at PS1, or whatever that meta muerte motivational poster's of yours is about. 200 | —Creativity isn't measured in levels, my friend. Only energy. 203 | —Ok fine then maybe I need a spark. 206 | David said while flamingoing one red wing boot on his knee to pick underneath its folded-over ankle flaps. 210 | —Maybe after getting fired time and time again for being the noun you want to be, you get too burnt out to even verb anymore. 216 | —Know what's neat about these diesel engines? They don't need a spark to start. Yep just fuel and pressure. 220 | And as far as I'm concerned, I believe our pink mushy engines act in much the same- 224 | —Know what? You can save all that homespun bullshit for the interview later. 226 | —Do you even know what a spark is, dude? 228 | Byron spat into the port engine's bilge beneath its oilpan. 232 | —It's a handshake. Handshake between two terminals. One side's got too much energy and the other doesn't have enough, and they find a way to meet up. 239 | That's all all of it is, a difference in potentials. But see the only way the handshake happens is if there's a working load placed on the circuit. 245 | —So if you're actually serious about that spark how bout you and I get to placing a working load on ourselves and get to fixing up this here vessel the American Dream. 252 | —Yeah ok sure. You want to start working, even though we don't even know if we got the job yet? 255 | —The best way to get the job, is to do the job! 259 | —Yeah but we're stuck down here trapped in the dark? 261 | —The perfect environment to see your spark. 263 | —Yeah but you did hear Jim tell us how we're not going to get compensated for our work, right? 267 | —I mean I recall Jim telling us we're not going to get constipated for our work which I mean considering how blocked you are creatively might be the best thing for you, so 274 | —I, I honestly I don't get it. I mean you're an artist. You of all people should- 279 | —Hold on there, professor. Just to be clear. As an artist, I am all people! 283 | —Okay then you should understand that like working for free, or likes, or whatever, is beneath us. And that, that our work has intrinsic value 290 | —Well, not really because actually I did my first work for free, and blow and behold it ended up freeing me up to do all my other work. 297 | So if you think about it that way working for free isn't so bad when you're talking about your freedom. So like as a roundabout answer to your question about if this kind of work is beneath me I'd say no, not particularly. 305 | —Ok well maybe I can't afford to be unparticular about my work what with this traumatizing economy every time I log into my savings account balance looks like a hijacked airplane's altitude-the fuck are you doing, dude! 316 | David stooped down to shoo two hands clutching his ankles. Then, feeling himself lift off, he gripped the engine block for balance as his torso got turnt up above him. 326 | Getting you off your high horsepower silly! 329 | Byron grunted as he sprung from a squat to elevate David's achilles to his eye level. 332 | See nothing's ever beneath you when you're writing, or arting,or even finding your spark. 337 | Yes quite the inspirational titty-pincher. You can now help me get me up from here 341 | Sure but like I was thinking, like this flesh wheelbarrow we got going here is at the perfect angle to jumpspark the engine behind the oilpan. 347 | The fuck are you talking about; We don't even have the keys! 350 | Dude, fuck the keys! Just take a quick peek at how the battery's wired to the starter motor you'll see that all we need to do is- 355 | How bout you take a quick fuckin peek at how the battery's wired yourself? 358 | —I can't. 359 | —Why the fuck not? 360 | David's heels picked up a shudder forking off Byron's shoulders. 364 | Because I'm supporting you, silly! And to be honest considering I've got you in this compromising position, you're really not in the best position to get me to compromise on this. 370 | Fine fuck look I'll help you jump the engine, but you better get me out of here free me from being stuck here in the dark when we're done, okay? 375 | —Deal. 377 | —I'd make you shake on it but I guess that's out of the question. 379 | —What did I just say? The spark's the handshake. Shitty listeners make shitty writers David, you know that right? 383 | —Ok I can see you're rolling your eyes, good, now roll them a little further back behind you to find the starter motor, now see the two red studs sticking out? 390 | Ok now take this flat-head and lay its shaft on the big stud, then like hover its tip right above the smaller red sender stud and- 395 | —Look are you sure this won't ruin the engine? Because I can't really afford to fuck up a million dollar yacht not with my comma-less savings account 401 | —Ruin it? 402 | David felt Byron's scoff shoot down his torso. 405 | —How. By running it? Work is an engine's best maintenance, you know that right? 409 | —Why would I know that. 411 | —Look, all we're doing here is channeling energy that was meant to go to the engine in the first place. 416 | And actually if you think about it, jumpsparking the engine like this means there's less resistance in the circuit, on account of shortcutting that wiring up to the pilothouse ignition and back. 421 | —And you're sure all this is safe? Because I'm using this metal tip of this screwdriver to channel energy from this battery that's like about the size of a coffin meanwhile there's this puddle of coolant down here that's touching my neck. 431 | —Ok David got me there, bud. 433 | David felt his shins tilt in the same direction as Byron's swivelling torso. 437 | — Bergen county d.a. would squeeze my shoes something fierce if I put another battery splatter situation on her docket. 442 | Ah here we go! knew this would be on a boat somewhere. Here just slide this over the handle. 446 | —What, this koozie? 448 | —Yeah, that koozie! It's like the perfect prophlyactic for the job. 452 | Here let me kneel down flatten the angle for us here, now whatcha gonna wanna do is place the screwdriver shaft on the big stud that's wired to the positive terminal and then when you're ready, just tap the small sender stud with the tip there. 462 | Now there's gonna be some severe arcing, so you gotta make that connection with authority. No pussyfooting as Brian Eno would say, or come to think, he actually 468 | Gah! 470 | The whipcrack of sparks shot through both men's skulls as blue the hue of a new star lit the engine room in a flash. 477 | —Hey now! 478 | Byron shouted over a starter motor's gear engaging with the engine's flywheel, 482 | —Felt that in your cavity didn't ya! 484 | Pressing David's shins together to amplify his downward holler. 486 | —Ok yes great you can pull me out now. 488 | David shouted in sarcastic monotone below the glugging thrum of the engine hunting for its idle. 493 | —Hey, these are some neat boots you got. 495 | —Oh, so that's your angle? turn me upside down, then gank my new vintage redwings right out from over me? 499 | —Too bad they smell like someone else's sweat. 502 | —Ok well once you get me out from under here, I'll be sure to get to remedying that for you. 505 | —No yeah of course, but like just now I got this silly idea that maybe this is like the perfect time for you to start putting your own sweat equity in those soles of yours. 511 | You know pull yourself up by your own bootstraps, instead of begging the same person who put you down there in the first place. 515 | —Dude, are you gaslighting me? 518 | A flip-flopped foot flung itself bare to open a nearby toolbox. 521 | After feeling a dogbone socket wrench, Byron clenched his core, braced David's calves against his collarbones with one arm, then squat down on one leg so that his free hand could take the wrench from the prehensile foot clutching it. 534 | —I mean, if that's what it takes to fire you up, sure. 538 | —Stop fucking around, dude this engine's it's getting kinda hot this oil pan's starting to burn my chest. 540 | —Now don't fret; I got you, boss. 541 | —Don't fucking get me just, just get me the fuck out from underneath 545 | —From underneath yourself exactly, that's what I'm trying to do here, you know fire you up give you the spark that helps you get off your own back. 549 | Byron twisted the pressure gauge off the top of the engine's primary fuel filter; immediately, the odor of burnt rotten eggs leadened the air. 556 | After pulling a white bandana from his back pocket to thread it through the dogbone wrench's five-eights and nine sixteenths openings, 562 | Byron dipped his makeshift psalm into the open fuel canister's red font, touched the wad's dripping tip to his nose, third eye and both lymph nodes, then flicked down at David. 572 | —Fuck is that? Is that fuel?! 575 | —No, David. It's duende. 577 | —Is that that some sort of Mexican fuel! because it sure damn smells like 580 | —Yeah sort of. 582 | As he shouldered David's writhing calves, Byron felt an item cartwheel down his back that felt like his father's trickling fingers once did. 588 | Clenching his core and sphincter, he stooped down to scoop up a folded piece of paper sopped in diesel fuel. 593 | —Think of duende as like fuel for the fired, lubrication for your liberation, that sort of thing. 598 | —The fuck are you talking about? 600 | —Well I mean, that was the agreement, right? 602 | Byron asked as he flapped the wet paper unfurled. 605 | —To free yourself? 606 | —Man fuck the agreement! 607 | —Sure but like aren't you tired of being held hostage to your own sense of victimhood so that like whenever you're faced with some intense situation, your nuts always crawl back into your body cavity? 614 | —Damnit they're only 617 | choking on his own downward spittle. 618 | —They're only crawling into my body cavity because I'm upside 622 | Byron watched David glare pleadingly up at him, as if a marionette experiencing an existential crisis. 628 | —Dude please! The pistons, I can feel them through the oilpan they're 632 | —Hitting bottom dead center, yeah don't worry that's all part of the combustion process okay? 636 | Like I said, I'm gonna help you free yourself up and out of here and I'm a man of my work, because see my dead dad taught me you only need three things to free something stuck. heat, lubrication, and leverage. 645 | Now you're already underneath this hot engine and then that diesel you're wearing's looks like a pretty good lubricant, so all we need is to find a little leverage. 651 | Now where the fuck's that switch that got Cap's nuts all rustled? 656 | With his free hand, Byron strafed his smartphone's flashlight above an engine still hunting for idle. 660 | Finding BATTLE MODE etched on the fuel governor's mounting bracket, he placed his smartphone in an unhinged jaw, slid the flathead through the governor's circled-circlip to wedge into the bracket's bevelled L, 670 | Then, after bracing David's dangling lower half against his chest with one arm, yanked down on the screwdriver's handle in the manner of a slot jockey babysitting a toddler. 678 | Immediately unrestricted fuel flooded the piston's combustion chamber, triggering in the engine a manic crescendo which skipped all rpm octives in its rise from a passive glugging idle to an open-throttled roar, 690 | and whose six pistons in their downstrokes pummeled the torso clinging to the oilpan beneath it at thirty eight punches per second. 696 | And as he felt his redwings' rubber soles launch off Byron's ribs, David did in fact feel free, suspended in disbelief that he had taken the action that the moment demanded. 705 | That was, up until a dipstick's curled hilt violated David's falling ribcage at a sufficiently traumatic velocity that its impact triggered David's sympathetic nervous system to deliver the adrenaline, oxygenated dopamine, and motivational salience necessary for him to get off his own back and crab-walk out from underneath the oilpan on his own two fists. 725 | Kneading his eyes, David rose to his knees; where Byron discharged one last wet spurt from the fuel wad upon his third eye, 731 | as if training a rookie starlet not to prematurely wipe the canvas clean before her costar was finished. 737 | —The fuck is your problem! 739 | —Ok so get this, I'm thinking that my problem is actually your solution 743 | Byron stopped to stuff the soggy dieseled bandana into the engine's airbox, shutting it down. 747 | —Seems wild right? But don't worry, you'll see. 749 | —Damnit I can't see! 751 | David said as his knuckles tried to juice sight from eyelid rinds. 755 | —But I did. I saw that spark come out from the blacks behind your eyes back then just now. 759 | Saw that gloss, that gleam, your unspent soul weeping from you at your moment of crisis like, why it was just like Peter's eyes when Caravaggio hauled him upside down on the cross! 765 | See that gloss in our eyes, it's called vitreous, and that's the fuel that keeps us going even after we've been fired. 771 | Don't know if it's the fossilized bones of God or Satan, all we know is that each of us has got an ocean of the stuff inside us, just waiting to be used on our story voyage. 778 | —Then sail your own fucking seas. 780 | —Sure I mean like I have, that's my point like seeing your glossed eyes when you were down there all trapped and helpless upside down, it reminded me of my maiden voyage with vitreous. 787 | Now look I know what you're thinking. but like don't worry, I do have experience using bodily fluids as an artistic medium. 792 | —I'm not worried. Why would I worry when there's no fucking way I'm going to indulge in whatever this, this eye-fetish of yours is. 799 | —You know what? half of Brussels thought the same thing about Van der Vyden, thought he had an egg fetish as they watched him chase breaching hens at dawn. 805 | But see they didn't understand that that's what the work called for, that his sfumato's transition between light and shade demanded a tempera with piping fresh yolk. 811 | —I don't give a fuck if he fucked the hens! I mean holy shit, I could've died down there! 815 | —I mean sure but not really, because like did you know that vitreous resists death longer than anything else we got inside us? 820 |— Why would I know that. 822 | —Exactly see you and I, we can help each other out. Like I can help stir that glossy ink you got in the back of your eyes that you like didn't even know existed until today and in the process maybe you can like help me jumpspark my stalled brush. 831 | I mean just think, you and I two twin engines working together on the American Dream. 834 | —You and I? 835 | —Look don't get mad, ok? 837 | —There is no fucking you and I! just like there's no sfumato no jumpsparking brushes and certainly no goddamned deep water story voyage. 842 | —I mean sure like not yet, but know how you said you're this unemployed storyteller without a story to tell? 847 | Well like what better story is there than to take the American Dream out to deep water, you know where the water looks like tarnished gold and become this swashbuckling hero that you've obviously always 856 | —The fuck you call me? 857 | For David, no word possessed a greater delta between inward worship and outward revulsion. Standing up from his crouch, his head hit the closed hatch above him, rattling the toolboxes reinforcing their confinement. 868 | —A swashbuckling hero. Now look I know you feel like you can't rise to the occasion here 872 | Byron watched David listen intently as a means of getting closer to him. 876 | —But I'm super confident I can help draw it out of 878 | In a blink and still blinded, David lunged at Byron's throat, latching the webbed skin between index finger and thumb — that last part of our reptile selves — onto the first part of Byron's biblical self. 889 | —Damnit why? Why turn me upside down without my consent, redline the engine while basting me with fuel then after all that, call me some swashbuckling 898 | —What do you mean, why turn you upside 900 | With a locked arm, David walked the throat he held back until he felt Byron's skull thud against the generator's plastic shell. 906 | —You, you said you wanted a spark. 907 | —Damnit what spark? 911 | With one arm and in one motion, Byron flung a flicked flame from behind him to between them, its fluttering light sheening both men's torqued-jawed cheek pores as it cauterized David's forearm hair directly above it. 922 | —Now do you see? 924 | Byron said as his eyes flit to their conjoined shadow projected on the portside engine and auraed by squiggling air thickened by ambient diesel fumes. 931 | —The shadow is your spark, you see that, right? Wait wait wait maybe it's the spark is the shadow you're the writer so like which one's in active voice because like we want to set the right tone for our first work selfie together; hey don't roll your eyes 944 | With the petulance of a brat blowing out birthday candles in front of the only friend who brought cake, David snuffed out all light and shadow with a nasal scoff, the exact opposite of a snort.

1 | Seeping light from above snuffed out the darkness David had just breathed into existence. 5 | Feeling neck webs bulge against his palm, David watched the face in front of him strain up toward the narrow shaft of light sweeping over them as if suddenly photosynthetic. 14 | The ceiling then cracked beyond its crease of light to reveal a backlit, baggy-suited silhouette above them who laid a crowbar to the side, squat on his haunches, and extended both hands down as if an undertaker correcting a clerical error. 27 | —Heard you twos might be looking for some upward mobility. 30 | Startled by the pocky harmony of two clasping hands clapping, David pawed the air as he watched Byron leverage Juug to hoist himself up and out of the engine room until, turning back, he saw the hand above him recoil at the speed of a prank. 42 | —Smells positively carcinogenic down there. 45 | As he stood upright, Juug brushed fleeting creases off trousers the color of fresh concrete. 50 | —Like flesh being tested. So tell me, what caused all this chaos? 54 | —Don't ask me, I was taking a shit! 56 | Juug shut his eyes in a wince, then pinched a patch of forehead. 60 | —How about you down there. 62 | —Me? 64 | —Yeah, you. The only one still down there. 66 | —Uh sure see what, what had happened was... 68 | In his attempt to hoist himself out of the engine room, David placed all possible limb combinations on the salon floor at waist level, each of which sploot on its carpet already slicked by the diesel he dripped. 78 | —Byron and I, we were about to take a selfie in the engine room like Captain Jim here told us but then this big wave hit us, and I guess it like triggered the hatch to fall down- 85 | —Yeah but see just as the hatch was about to like scramble both our eggs, I went and drug David down into the engine room just in time. 92 | —Well, I must say, as your twoses superior, I can't help but feel responsible. 96 | Jim take a lap around the marina and find that wave. We owe it to both these boys to make sure that it'll never traumatize them again. 102 | —No look Mister Van Sant, the wave wasn't your fault; see I was doing some advance research to prepare for this opportunity working on your boat, and 109 | —Yacht. 110 | —Yacht yes, and I guess during low tide things can get pretty chaotic which is probably why the wave happened to hit us like it did. So me my perspective is we just chalk it up to the natural course of things, kind of like a learning experience for all involved parties. 121 | Byron watched Juug suppress a smirk through grit lips. 125 | —That's very mature of you, son. 127 | —Uh thanks, and besides like that wasn't even the traumatic part see after I got trapped down in the engine room, Byron here went and turnt me upside down, started basting me with fuel without my consent. 136 | —Baptizing. I was baptizing him with fuel, sir. And there was a reason, see I was trying to get David fired up for this neat new intern influencer opportunity you got for both of us on board here. 145 | —How the fuck does drenching me with fuel get me fired up? 149 | —I mean like how doesn't it? Look sir, you said it yourself in that email of yours, said you wanted a millennial with an inspirational story that can provide fuel for all the fired millennials out there, and I mean just look how combustible David is right now. 159 | —Didn't think you'd take my input so literally. 162 | —No sure but I mean like later on in that grovelling email of yours you get to talking about needing to get millennials on board with the american dream 168 | and then when I get to the marina I see this vessel that's named the american dream, I mean no traditional nautical punning or nothing! 174 | And then this writer comes on board to work with me-- so like you tell me how it's my fault I took everything so literally! 179 | Understood. We'll just swap David out and onboard another millennial that's more your- 183 | No it's all good. See I'm already learning from my friend David. See when we were down in the engine room he showed me how diesel is this neat great lubricant, I mean like look what just slid out of him as we were working! 191 | As he watched Byron pull out a sopping piece of folded corporate paper, David rapidly pat both mesh short pockets as if they were infested, then flamingoed his posture to pick at his right redwing's ankle flap. 202 | —This termination notice fell out of David here, and I think it's a nice little tittypinching add-on to your whole fuel for the fired metaphor, 209 | in that working for Likecoin lubes you up so that your prior failures and firings just slide right out of you. 213 | —Look Mister Van Sant, I don't know what he's talking about ok? All I know is that he's fucking crazy, turning me upside down down there in pitch dark talking about 220 | —Talking about Baselitz upending his whole perspective with working men from dresden, talking about rendering heroes marked in failure and resignation, that's what I'm- 226 | —But just to be clear, what he's holding it, it isn't a termination notice, it's a performance improvement plan which yes eventually led to a mutually agreed upon parting of ways but I only keep it on me to track my focused time, to improve what was noted as needing impr- 239 | —No it's a pink slip. see? 241 | —That, that's only because of that red fucking fuel you were flinging on me. 246 | —Sheesh, son. 247 | Juug winced with upturned palms, as if helpless to his own impending ruling. 252 | —I can't hire flammable people. Last thing I need is the state of New Jersey looking into my firing practices. 257 | —But you haven't really even hired me. 259 | —That's what makes this so difficult. 261 | —Sir... 262 | Byron paused to press pistoled index fingers against lips. 265 | —Now I know I'm just an intern which means your business ain't mine, but its probably worth mentioning that David here, he didn't actually really catch. 271 | —Catch? 273 | —As in fire. He's got no spark, see. felt it firsthand myself. Couldn't squeeze the seed out of his own adam's apple if he tried. 278 | —So? 280 | —So I'm thinking like why fire some burnt out millehnial if you know for a fact he lacks a spark, I mean shit those weak hands of his might as well be made of ash. 287 | —Son, did you just say ash? 289 | —Yes sir, I believe I 290 | —Well why didn't you say so?! 291 | Juug wiggled a wingtipped espadrille between David's palm and salon carpet the pale green-grey of overcirculated money 298 |where, with a quick flick, he snatched David's suspended hand by its wrist. 301 | —Duly noted, sir. 303 | —I tell you what... 304 | Juug said as he kneaded his grip into David's hand. 307 | —Used to be you'd only feel a grip this fetal after a lifetime of labor. But you millennials, I mean I really got to hand it to you. with your generation it's like the lack of work that wears you down. 316 | —You know hands how? 318 | Juug smirked as he dug a cigar out from sportcoat innards the pale purple of clenched butthole. 323 | —So few things are handmade anymore. 325 | He raised the cigar to his ear, rolling it between fingers equally thick. 329 | —Cigars, predatory lending. See this Upmann? This Upmann's one of the world's last handmade cigars. 335 | See even though all the other cigarmakers switched to rolling machines, Upmann stuck to his nuts. Built himself an empire with his own burnt out hands. 342 | —Hear that David? Upmann? Hands? Think it's a sign, buddy! 346 | —No, not his own hands. His owned hands. His hands' hands to be precise. 352 | See Upman went and taxidermied the hands of his sharecroppers, bound em up to create, how do you say like like a guide or 358 | —Like one of them handbooks? 360 | —That's right Jim. A handbook to beat the machines. A handbook to help predatory lenders like myself beat these big bad machine learnt mortgage brokers Christ, modularizing the whole damn seduction of a sale into a goddamned funnel. 373 | Actually shook the hands in the handbook myself when I visited Upmann's setup a few months back, no better inspiration for job creators than a plantation. 381 | —Thought you said you were a predatory lender. 384 | —Can't have one without the other because see even when all the other cigarmakers replaced hands that did everything with machines that did everything seperately Upmann, see, he kept his hands working. 392 | —Shit, sir, that's downright noble of the man. 394 | —Haven't thought about it that way son, but Upmann probably did feel that positively medieval feeling of seeing people as your property. 401 | Matter facts I heard nobility described once as having the wind at your back your entire life. 406 | —The homeless old breeze, if you will. 409 | —But see after Upman raised the price of his cigars, on account he was the only one still around who could sell them as handmade, his hands for whatever reason started to think their work had some worth. 417 | —Ok well what's wrong with taking a little pride in your 420 | Juug's index finger's knuckle banding the cigar jabbed against David's collarbone. 424 | —It wasn't their pride to take. All that pep to their step, all that gumption to their function, they embezzeled that from Upman. 431 | I mean holy shit that type of insolence never even occurs to a machine! 436 | —Insolence. 437 | —Yes insolence! The hands, they got uppity. Started building themselves up instead of building up Upmann. Started harvesting their own cigars, one of the hands went and taught himself legalese found out the sharecropping contract stipulated everything that grew from Upmann's land was Upmann's. 451 | So some of the hands started hauling in dead soil from outside the plantation while the others assigned to work Upmann's garden parties began picking up all the leftover stogie nibs and nubs to mulch into the dead foreign soil. Only took em three months to take their indoor grow outdoors. 464 | And damned if Upmann didn't spit out his cold brew julep one morning when he watched his hands taking turns holding these ten gallon box planters up to his morning light. 472 | Now even so, this really wasn't any skin off Upmann's dick see he knew ten gallon planters couldn't grow a girthy enough leaf as to be used for Upmann's patented fifty gauge cigars. But what they could produce is a simple five-gauge working man cigarillo. 486 | —Yeah didn't you tell me those cigars were only like an inch thick? You know like the size of these two millennialses dicks put together. 493 | —I only said some of that, Jim. But see Upman didn't need working man cigars or any of that crap with fancy trimmings. 499 | He just needed his hands to make the same luxurious high-gauge cigar all the machines were making, but with just enough of a veneer of humanity so he could sell it as handmade. So guess what Upmann did. 510 | —Applaud the ingenuity, You know cut the hands into the fold, some sort of land lease crop rotation play kinda like how craft beers are distributed 516 | —No. Fuck no. Upmann went and changed the contract so that it stipulated whatever the sun hit was his. 521 | Thought that would take the hands whole uplevelling idea down a peg but damn if one full moon's night Upman didn't spit out his cloudberry julep as he watched his hands back out there holding their ten gallon box planters up to the bright night sky. 533 | —Oh ho! So these are moon-grown cigars? Wow that's pretty neat, which explains your whole ashy hands kick you're on since the moon's surface is made of 540 | No, these aren't neat moongrown cigars! Know why? Because back then the law was such that only banded cigars could be sold on the island. Since the hands had no land, that meant no band. And no band means no branding. 551 | —But damned if Upmann didn't spit his boisenberry julep on his stevedore after he was told his quota to Ybor City was being dialed down in order to make room for boxes of working man cigars. 560 | See instead of making bands like everyone else, the hands went and crafted these mellifluous, effervescent cigar boxes handpainted with the stories of their collective struggle. 569 | —So guess what Upman did, son? 571 | —Who, me? Why would I- 575 | After ashing into David's palm, Juug picked pinked paper off the salon carpet , then dangled it in front of David with a lifted pinky as if a damsel trolling distress. 583 | —Oh because he fired them, okay; sure. 586 | —Damn straight! Went and burnt their whole uplevelling operation to the ground. 590 | —Put those hands out on their ass, I tell you what. 593 | —Yeah but he had to have destroyed his own crops in the process, right? Doesn't seem like some big brain move. 598 | —See that was Upman's genius. He understood that true wealth isn't about yield, but delta. 602 | I mean what's the point of making money if you can't make more of it than the other guy? 606 | —So he missed out on selling some cigars that year, so what. It just meant that he increased the gap between he and his hands. 612 | —Oh ho! So now I get how the ashy hands factor in! Just as burnt land sows more after the fire, so do the burnt hands reaping it. Pretty slick Mister Van Sant. ret-tay; prettay slick. 622 | And so I take it like just as the hands and Upman worked together to create that new line of handcrafted phoenix cigars you're holding, so shall the four of us come together and create the same upward mobility for millions of ashy-handed millennials like David here! 634 | —No. Fuck no! Upmann went and scooped all the ashes up before his hands had a chance to use it on their land. 640 | —Wait. He actually did that? 642 | —No, he didn't do it. He made his hands do it. Then he went and traded the whole pile of ash for one of those coal scrip machines so he could pay his hands to rebuild his plantation; but like with more affordable money than before. 653 | —You mean worse money. 655 | —Yes, worse money, that's well put, son. Like giving them the scent of earning without any substance behind it. 661 | Because see after his hands started redeeming their coal scrip at Upmann's First Company store, Upmann noticed that they finally lost their fires in their bellies, and started producing what Upman needed from them all along. 671 | Juug paused to pull a cigar cap wilted by drool out of his mouth before holding it at eye level in admiration. 676 | —The gumptionless cigar. Rolled with the repetitive focus of a machine, but with just the tiniest veneer of humanity, so it can be sold as handmade. 685 | —But how do you even know that it's 687 | —See that ash? 689 | Juug asked as he corralled David close while pirouetting the cigar between both their faces. 693 | That ash's from the coal scrip the hands rubbed onto the cigar as they rolled it. See you can see it all along the binding on the shoulder seams there. 701 | —Yeah, but who even wants to taste ash? I mean I guess it's an acquired- 705 | —See that was Upmann's genius. He acquired that taste. Got the island's moneymen to believe that ash was this luxurious binder, in that only in an Upmann could one taste human suffering in every puff. 715 | Then after he parceled out his plantation back to his homeless hands, he got the local politicians believing he was some big helping hand for the community. 723 | Even started accepting their handcrafted cigar boxes as a down payment for their mortgages. 728 | —Ok so he traded his burnt land for a bunch of boxes. Big deal. 732 | —Huge deal son because Upman saw those boxes as more than some cute titty-pinching trinket, but as a better way to tally taxes for his politicians now on his payroll. 740 | See by that point Upman was every politicians' wet dream. Not only was he the island's biggest job creator, with this mortgage play he was now its biggest housing provider. 747 | Meanwhiles the only thing his competition's housing is their rolling machines. 753 | Only took a couple legislative sessions to get his regulatory box bill passed. After that, Upman had the whole cigar industry by the short hairs. Got to the point where Upmann shut down his whole plantation operation so he could live out his boyhood dream of becoming a bank. 765 | —Sure, but the hands in the book, I still don't 768 | —Son are you my second wife? No? Okay then let me finish. The hands got all butt-hurt that after they bought Upmann's land, nothing was growing but Upman's business. 778 | Something about how the parking lot Upmann paved for his bank's home branch dammed up all the water that used to trickle down from the master's house and into the lowlands where the handses properties were. 788 | But, and see this is part of Upmann's benevolent genius, he gave his hands an out from twenty-nine more years of rolling leaves and making boxes on their barren borrowed land. 796 | All the hands had to do is head on over to Upmann's First National and put their hands on the lobby's lopping block and they were free and clear to roll as many working man cigars wherever they pleased. 805 | —Non-compete claws! Bet that's what Upmann called em. 808 | —And I got to admit, as I flipped over all those ashy hands bound up in Upmann's marbled lobby, my flag got a little unfurled thinking about all the burnt out millennial hands like David's here that can give me the veneer of humanity I need to beat these machine learnt mortgage brokers. 821 | Which is why, as Likecoin's first social sharecroppers, you twos will do likewise. Likes will be your leaves, content your filler, brotherhood your binder, as you two hands will roll me my gumptionless American Dream. 834 | —Wow ok so like how neat is this Mister Van Sant? Check this out 838 | With one hand, Byron coiled his smartphone in front of Juug as he pat his sportcoated trap muscle with the other. 843 | —Like you go and tell us this whole stemwinding story about your neat cigar fetish vision without even like knowing that David and I, we've rolling this whole time. 852 | —Just look at these hope-core videos David and I filmed while we were trapped down there in the dark. 855 | This first one's with that bright blue flash is fuck the keys start the engine talking about how Likecoin jumpsparks your financial engine. 861 | This next one flesh wheelbarrow got this wide-angle shot of holding David here you know so much depends on a sweaty grundle with hardworking Likecoiners oh and then this last one you know that selfie you wanted? 871 | See its David and I's two shadows projected on the engine here it's like only partially developed because David went and snuffed out my vision during the all important moment of recognition. 879 | —Yes, yes, yes! this is just the type of go-nowhere do-nothing inspirational content that the Likecoin platform needs. Now tomorrow I got a potential investor coming on board says he's a big millennial fan for whatever reason. 890 | So I need you two intern influencers to pick something on this yacht that's about what you millennials are all about. 896 | —Hey sure thing, boss. you mind leaving me that investment prospectus you got in your hand there? 901 | —You're an artist! the fuck you care about the financial ins and outs and what-have-yous. 905 | —Because my curiosity fuels my creativity. I mean take David here, the only way I could create all that hopecore content was by being curious about what he does and who he's about. 912 | —Fine, no skin off my dick. 915 | Juug blithely tossed a spiralled-spined mylar binder to Byron as if it were a chew toy before turning to David. 921 | —There an issue son? 923 | —Me? 924 | —Yeah you. The one looking at your boot scuffing the engine room floor as if some other job creator's gonna show up and tickle your balls better. 930 | —No of course not obviously definitely fired up about this gumptionless human veneer vision you've laid out. 936 | But just me personally I'd uh just like to maybe get a little more visibility into you know the uh, compensatory specifics of the role. 943 | —Son you'll have to be more specific. 945 | Just in terms of you know, whether or not this twelve week influencer internship is a paid- 949 | —Of course it's paid! 951 | Juug's yapping chuckle bopped the cigar against his nose, its tapped ash falling onto the soggy salon carpet the xanadu-taupe color of old money. 959 | —Paid in the sense that exposure is a currency 962 | —Exposure dollars! 964 | David and Byron harmonized at discordant enthusiasms. 967 | —That's right exposure's the one thing you millennials value more than money itself, ain't it? It's why I made Likecoin to be the only currency in the world that recognizes recognition. 976 | —Okay like initially I get paid in Likecoin but if I do a good enough job on this internship social sharecropping thing, eventually could there be an opportunity for a permanent 982 | —Follow? Well if you two outperform some key kpi's we can certainly consider that, David. And shoot we don't even give those out to our salaried employees. 990 | —Look I appreciate this opportunity Mister Van Sant, really I do, but the thing is, to be honest I uh, I'm barely making it in the city as it is and 998 | —Couldn't have said it better myself, son. Making it in the city is the american dream for you millennials, ain't it? And what better way to make it than by making it on this here vessel the American Dream! 1008 | —No, sure, but for me making it just means making next month's rent, and I can't really see how I can do that if I, if what I'm getting paid in isn't the same currency as what I need to pay out each month in order to 1018 | —Do me a favor son. 1020 | Juug said as he placed his hand on David's trap muscle. 1023 | —Take a look out that window. See that big green bitch over there? 1026 | —Uh, where? 1027 | —Fuck you mean, where? 1029 | Jim asked as he angrily backhanded the air in a reverse karate chop. 1033 | —You see another big green bitch out the window? 1035 | —Oh, the statue. 1037 | —That's right when the French sent her over to us, she had the complexion of one of Jim here's bowel movements. But after a few years of American-made exposure; now take a look at her. 1045 | —She's got that thick layer of turd and grease. 1048 | —See that's what exposure does for you in this country, makes your whole being green. Now are you going to let worrying about some roof over your head get in the way of that sort of exposure opportunity? 1058 | —Ok but I mean 1061 | A stroke of hair descended into a scratched scalp, then a scraped nape. 1065 | —Maybe if we were to use Byron and I's posts as an example of the earning potential here? You know just so I get a sense of the exchange rate between likecoins and dollars, 1074 | —Going rate's a penny an eyeball, son. 1076 | Now I'm already running late for a check-in with myself so if you think getting paid the old-fashioned way with tactile currency is gonna get you ahead in this country so be it. Jimbo! Peel off this one's earnings. 1086 | Like a sumo wrestler with jock itch, Jim dug into both sweatpants pockets while alternating lifted legs before producing a topknotted bag of pennies that he tossed at David, who caught it warm to the touch. 1097 | —If it's all the same sir I'd prefer to get paid in Likecoin. 1100 | Only way we get this country back to greatness is if we stop selling out to our own individual ambitions and buy into the collective vision of job creators such as yourself. 1107 | —Glad you feel that way, but I brought you two on as a package deal. See you? you're the one who millennials want to be. But your burnt out friend with the ashy hands? 1117 | Juug stopped to push smoke up through a jutting jaw which formed the shape of a snare trap in its waft against the salon ceiling. 1123 | —He's who they really are. 1125 | —Oh, come-on David! Puh-please, please? 1127 | —Before I give a definitive answer either way I, I think I should check my email as I do have a couple other employment irons in the fire as it were so to speak. 1135 | —We'll all be here waiting... 1137 | Captain Jim muttered. 1139 | —With bait on our breath. 1141 | David pulled his phone out from mesh basketball shorts, tapped open his email app, then tugged down his inbox to refresh its client. 1145 | There he watched the ooroboric sprite on his screen chase its tail in its search for any communication to plausibly latch his hope upon: 1155 | a creative director following up on his follow-up, a boilerplate solicitation from a recruiter, even a no-reply notifications that someone — anyone — had viewed his professional profile. 1164 | And as the screen's footer flashed “downloading 1 of 1”, David felt hope's tingling heat rise within him until the subject line “Byron Chianti wants to be friends with you” burrowed into his inbox. 1175 | Seeing this, David swallowed hard to push back down dignity yearning to breathe free, clicked his screen closed, and sighed in resignation.

1 | More than the petty lengths David travelled to deny any acknowledgment of Byron's existence — 5 | scraping his nose against the galley bulkhead so he could shimmy by in its narrow hallway with his head turned away, 10 | lifting the toolbox Byron was using as a footstool to browse but never use any tools as if it were an airport bookstore, 17 | and worst of all, unthawing the hot pockets Byron had left in the sink while he was in the head taking a shit — what Byron noticed most about David was his work. 26 | And more than the outcome of that work — Byron softly shook his head as he watched David horizontally suspend himself a foot above the engine room floor, 34 | raised calves pressing against the starboard engine block to thrust kegelling energy through his torso and out locked arms outstretched onto a pipe he held sheathed over the port engine's seacock's ball valve in a feckless attempt to move it clockwise from its nine-o-clock seizure — what intrigued Byron was how David approached his work. 51 | It was a whole ritual, initiated by David first putting the butts of both palms to his eye sockets, then slowly and dramatically wiping down his face with stippling fingers. 61 | He would then pull out his phone to open an app that, from Byron's vantage point, looked to be an egg timer rendered on some kind of red produce. 68 | Where after tapping its screen and returning his phone into his basketball shorts' mesh pocket, David would work on freeing the stuck seacock for roughly half an hour until his phone dinged. 76 | At which time David would climb out of the engine room and spend about five minutes bothering Byron standing in his direct line of sight looking unbothered. 85 | David's petty dawdling continued until his phone dinged again, at which time he wiped his face, tapped his phone, and the work circuit would begin anew. 94 | But what held Byron's attention through what was now David's fourth work period wasn't what he failed in doing, but rather what he failed to do. 100 | That is, not once while in the engine room did David remove his phone from his mesh shorts in order to check his feed, calm an alert, forward a meme, glance a reply, or share an update. 112 | Wondering that maybe David's discipline was untested; that man is only as focused as his social options, 118 | Byron pulled out his phone to plumb the depths of his focus by reminding him of his outstanding friendship request. 124 | Where, after hearing his request reverberate through the engine block, but fail to break David's plank-hover posture, 131 | Byron began strafing a hot pocket with his butane lighter schemingly slowly, in the manner of stroking a cheshire cat. 137 | David heard a muffled ding emerge from his shorts' mesh pocket. Having only recently conditioned himself to recognize the haptic nuances between the ding of a completed work unit and the thwong of a received email, the bloop of a reply, or the vibrating chime of a friendship request, he collapsed onto the engine room floor on knees and elbows. 157 | And after wiggling the pipe extension off a ball valve stuck in a horizontal position as if administering purgatorial judgment, 165 | David pushed against the prop shaft for leverage so he could shimmy out from the tight bulkhead space backwards on his belly. 171 | Sitting on his heels in a kneel, he reached back to pull out a piece of folded-over paper from his redwing boot's ankle flap. 179 | And after tallying his progress on the backside of Captain Jim's story notes, 183 | David pinched an indented palm and realized that the seacock had made more progress moving him than he, it. 189 | —Has anyone ever said that the way you work is fascinating? 191 | David glanced up to a frowning face above him nodding dastardly, squinted to sift the question's tone, then spat in the bilge. 198 | —No one's ever said anything about my work. 201 | —I mean the way you're just knuckling down there after being humiliated by your new boss, not gonna lie, it's pretty inspiring. 207 | —Look I just set this timer on my phone to twenty-five minutes, and work until the timer tells me not to. It's not a big deal. 215 | Byron blew on the steaming meat pastry, as if coaxing an ember. 217 | —I mean not yet it isn't! I mean I'd say your whole ding thing you got here is pavlovian, but I mean holy shit at least the dogs fought against their learned response every so often. 224 | —Maybe I'm trying to learn a learned response; ever think of that? 228 | —No. 230 | Byron's lower lip jutted out as his frown deepened. 233 | —But now I am. 234 | —Look it's called timeboxing okay, it's not like I invented it, goes all the way back to Ben Franklin. 238 | —Sure sure so you ever use this timeboxing thing to you know start a revolution, fight for your freedom, that sort of thing? 245 | —No. 246 | —Got it, so you're doing all this just so you can choose to work for pennies freeing the stuck seacocks of these rich fogey fucks? 252 | —Look, you heard Juug. We need to think up some show-and-tell titty-pincher for his investor meeting on how something on the boat represents what millennials are all about, 258 | Christ as if the totality of our generation can be reduced to some middle school metaphor. 263 | —Sure, but I mean the seacock? A little too on the dick there bub, don't you think? 266 | —No see I got to reading the engine manual, learned that the seacock sucks sea water to keep the engine cool through this constant flow state. 272 | —Ok, so? 274 | So you know our generation's kinda known for being cool, like in terms of setting the cultural discourse, and that collectively our creative flow state is what 280 | —Not sounding like that, we don't. Ok so like the main slide here is what? that millennials suck, but in ways that keep everything cool, that it? 286 | —No that's not how I'd characterize 288 | —I mean look Engram I'm all about championing the importance of flow state to this russian magnet investor as it pertains to bilateral trade policies, but like we can't champion shit, if the seacock's still stuck shut. 297 | —Fuck you think I've been doing down here! 300 | —David clenched the air with both fists, then spat in the bilge. 304 | —And besides, where the fuck is yore titty-pinching-millennial metaphor? 307 | Byron's coiled finger flicked a wintergreen paint fleck off the engine's heat exchanger. 311 | —It's tough, no doubt. I mean Cap said it himself, this detroit diesel's what America's greatest generation was all about but then like where do we fit in? 319 | Sure as shit ain't the governor, cause we'd distribute fuel a little more liberally than that fat fuck Punt up in Trenton. 324 | Could be the pistons, they do all the work plus they're all confined in this tight liner like you can make the connection all of us millennials cooped up in our housing situations basements efficiencies what have you but then like pistons are actually recognized as being an integral part to the engine. 337 | —Yeah and the next time someone says that millennials are integral to the economy'll be the first. 341 | —Not to mention just to film that sort of piston tittypincher, we'd have to unbolt the cylinder head off the block and detach all the fuel lines which would flat drench us in diesel. 349 | —Yeah. Can't have that. 351 | A snapping index finger pointed down at David in its downstroke. 355 | —Which reminds me, you should really think about tossing some of that fuel down the seacock's snout. 359 | I mean sure you got all that leverage but that's only one part of it, it's like my dead dad always used to say doesn't matter if you're freeing it or fucking it, you need three things heat, lubrication and leverage. 368 | Now you got the heat of work with that process of yours, and I like how you're getting more leverage with that pipe you're putting over it, but you're still lacking that last shot of lubrication to jar it all loose. 378 | —Look I'm sorry to hear about your father but I'm not sure how his advice applies to our 382 | —Wait wait wait wait wait maybe that's what we are, we're the fuel on the American Dream! I mean think about it. 385 | We're easily combustible, plus we're not like part of the system, we're just a resource the system consumes kinda like how we're being used in this economy. 392 | Plus it like ties into Juug's whole thing about Likecoin being fuel for the fired millennial, and like since you already smell like diesel we can make this be like some extrasensory titty-pincher for the russian magnet that's coming- 402 | —Damnit stop! 406 | A steel pipe tossed into the engine bilge ricocheted rastafaringly between the different noble metals comprising the prop shaft, sea strainer, and stuffing box. 414 | —Stop what? Me brainstorming neat ways to help us both out? 416 | —Damnit there is no us to help out! Now look I, I don't exactly know what your game is here, but 420 | —Oh you don't do you? And what game is that? What precisely don't you know about the nature of my game? 425 | David hoisted himself to the salon floor, pulling his phone out as he rose to his feet. 430 | And after swiping up, tapping twice, thumbing down, then tapping again, he stepped to Byron so he could shove his screen inches from his face. 437 | —David, I believe a millennial's net-worth starts with his net-work. And just as a rhizome adapts to environmental stresses, so shall the connections we'll make on the Likecoin platform be our generation's underground path to generational wealth. 447 |— Know what I believe? 449 | A phone flung into the top inside half of an open toolbox, toppling it backwards so that it shut upside down in a clatter. 455 | —Or what living in this goddamned city has forced me to believe? That with all these failings and firings, we, we fall through people too fast to become friends. 463 | And that these social media networking friendships you think are so neat have no real value, no connection no collaboration all they are, 470 | are fucking participation trophies that these rich fucks give the rest of us so we'll stand on the sidelines, while they're out there playing to win. 478 | Byron looked at David's face with the concern of someone evaluating an open wound.  481 | —Friends aren't trophies, David! They're mirrors. Mirrors that teach your soul how to grow. 485 | —So that's why you friended me. You think I have a stunted soul that it? 489 | —No like just that maybe a friend can like point out your blind spots in your body of work where you may be a little flabby production-wise. Now look don't get mad okay? 496 | —Damnit I'm not mad! I 499 | A recoiling jaw choked down a percolating gag. 501 | —You, you don't think I've tried? Dammit I've tried, okay, why do you think I started this cockamamie timeboxing process in the first place? 508 | Thought I could scale the ten thousand hour genius mountain twenty five minutes at a time, but then when I actually sat down at the typewriter I, I couldn't shake the feeling that I was writing off my back foot. 517 | —Oh ok, so like passive voice. 519 | —No not like passive voice! Like, like having no voice at all, the whole thing got so cringe I began to kneel down at my typewriter and pray before each work unit Christ that's how desperate I was. 528 | Then a couple weeks ago right as I got up from kneeling, I kind of came up out of myself realized what I was doing it, it wasn't even writing, all I was doing was, was boring God to like satisfy my own pride. 538 | And I guess that's when I decided that this whole writing thing wasn't worth doing. 541 | —But see, that right there's your problem. Instead of praying for your art, you should, you know like prey on it. Like murder and create, creative destruction that kind of thing. 548 | —What's there to destroy! I not only own nothing, I'm worth less, and all I got going for me are these two ashy hands 554 | David's clapped hands swivelled in the manner of a blackjack dealer wrapping up a shift. 558 | —Shit whole damn soul like like some cartoon character's still-standing soot after being blown to smithereens in this economy, so like you tell me what's there to destroy? 566 | —Yawn. 567 | —The fuck you say to me? 568 | —Yawn! Yawn dot com slash login dot a s p x. That's the site I'm looking at right now, dude. 574 | —Whatever dude. 576 | —See that? That right there's your problem. Your eyes. When you roll them you're unable to look at your life squarely, you know that right? 581 | Ever think that's maybe why you can't see why God's bored with you? 585 | —I don't know, you tell me! You're the fucking mirror! 587 | —Me my view of it is that you're a victim. I mean you're not: but I can see that you see yourself as one. Now you know why victimhood's boring? 594 | —Yeah, yeah because it's solipsistic. Everyone's got some trauma to take care of just like every day is someone's birthday. 599 | —What? No. Fuck no. Victimhood is boring because it's sinless! I mean why else you think God gave all his books to sinfluencers? 605 | —Plenty of virtuous characters in the Bible, Byron. 608 | I'm talking about vitreous not virtuous, dude. Don't worry I get same-sounding words confused too but since you're a writer you should probably get on top of that kind of stuff. 615 | So like here's a good way to remember. tax collector's least virtuous character in the Bible, right? 619 | But just head over to Arena Chapel and you'll see those eyes brimming with vitreous, just flat glossed with greed in the face of Christ then you'll see that that's who's making God nod. 628 | —Well good for God. 629 | —I'm not talking about God! 631 | Byron hushed with clenched eyes. 633 | —I'm talking about you. I mean like the Bible, that's like the world's most popular book. That's because we reed for two reasons, at least I do, to learn and have fun. And see sin does both! 642 | —Look I just told you I don't want to write I just want to do my job and for once try and work my way up 646 | —You mean do your internship. 648 | — Dammit you know what I mean! 649 | —Sure, I mean kinda do, but I kinda don't because since I've known you you've been focused either on how you were victimized in your last job or getting all hopeful about finding some paying job in the future. 659 | —But like ever think that you already have a job? And maybe that's why God's bored with you, because you're not really working the job that He hired you to do. 665 | —What? 666 | —Like maybe your job is Job. You know the story of Job? 670 | —No. 671 | —So this guy Job he goes and gets cosmologically fucked with even though he's all blameless and upright just like you are, and 676 | —Yes I know the story, no I don't think God's calling me to rehash some biblical yarn! 681 | —No I know but 682 | —No I know! I'd know! I'd fucking know if I'd been called because no one has, okay? And they haven't for more than a year. 689 | —Exactly that's my point, this is just like the story see when Job whined to his friends about his sores it's just like you whining to me all sore about your job situation. 696 | But see Job's friends wouldn't let him be a victim, not even by God. 700 | Because they knew that the only way Joeb would be able to live it through is if he kept his pride, you know, like his sin. 705 | And so his friends became this like healing mirror for Job, showed him that by that point all those sores he was bitching about weren't from God's given affliction but because he was still scratching them. 712 | And that if Job would just nut up and get back to working righteously, you know like get some sweat on his sores, they'd scab into callouses. 718 | Then over time the callousses would scar over and then Joeb'd have this neat distinguishing mark he could look at with pride for the rest of his life, you know as he wistfully remembered the time he rode out God's wrath. 727 | And guess what? Because Job listened to his friends and kept on working righteously, God was never bored with Job, yep He always kept tuning in to the Job show, and to show His gratitude guess what Job got in return? 739 | Byron flicked a backhanded wrist at David's flinching ribs. 743 | —Got his own wisdom book. 745 | —Great for Job. I appreciate the sinfluencing lesson Byron, certainly got a lot to chew on as I head back down to work on freeing up the seacock. 750 | —Dude, you're so missing the point. We don't learn from sin. God does. I mean like sin is how we make God self-aware, you know that right? 757 | But here's the thing, God can't learn from you, can't turn your page if you've already closed the book on yourself. 762 | A head lifted at the speed of something triggered conked the eraser end of the oil cooler's pencil zinc, cleaving it flush off its threads so that it fell to the engine room floor to the rattle of a rolled die. 772 | —And what book is that? 774 | David came up, rubbing the top of his head with the technique and rate of a man desperate to start a fire on his own scalp. 780 | —Tell me the precise nature of the book that I'm closing on myself! 783 | —Ok well like I know you haven't even cracked this investment prospectus booklet Juug gave us as inspiration. 788 | Because if you had you'd see how it's all right in front of us, I mean like look here on the front page where it says how content is king on the Likecoin platform that means you, right? 794 | since writers are the world's first content creators ever since like the Bible. 798 | — Why are you even reading that. Likecoin is just a fucking pyramid scheme, you know that right? 802 | —Well sort of more like a triangle because like see here where it says content creators earn Likecoin based on user's attention spent on their posts, and users earn Likecoin based on viewing ads attached to that created content? 812 | And then at the top of the triangle between the two you got these advertisers earning better roy on their brand investment I mean you said you were in advertising right? 818 | —It's not roy it's, it, actually it doesn't matter what it is because 822 | —Ok, so I'm learning. See you and I, we can 824 | —No you're not! You're not learning because there, there is no you and I. 828 | —No sure I mean not yet but like if we become these two great friends who start inspiring millennials with our neat new Likecoin partnerships 835 | —No not ever! Can't you see that none of this is about inspiring millennials? That Likecoin is just, just the same goddamned grift in a different garment? 842 | Just another shady way for those who've got the most to get more? 845 | —No I know, that's what I'm getting at. like see where they put all this language about how Likecoin was built to build up millennial equity? but you and I we both know that our boss Juug is really banking equity into some other shady investment on the side. 855 | —Ok, so? 857 | —So I was thinking we do the same thing here, you know like we create all this inspirational hopecore content, but really on the side, we'll be banking equity in our shadow narratives. 865 | —Banking equity in-our 867 | —Look don't get- 869 | —How can I not get mad? Christ, how can I not go mad? With with with your manic fucking ideas about shadow narratives and sinfluencing, but then when our boss is around, you shapeshift into this, this fucking fawning obsequiousness. 880 | —Ok well I'm like frustrated too! I mean I'm like burning some serious inspirational calories pitching you all these different ways to jumpspark your shadow, but you you choose to roll your eyes at like every opportunity. 888 | —Dammit why are you acting like I'm choosing all this?! Because I'm not. I'm not choosing to be sore, not choosing to close the book on myself, 894 | David picked the plastic bag of pennies off the work bench by its topknot. 899 | —And sure as fuck not choosing to work for goddamned pennies! 902 | He tossed the bag at Byron's feet with a halfhearted shortarm so that it landed on the salon floor's open ledge, 907 | where it rested for a dramatic beat before passing ferry wake nudged it off the wooden framework so that it fell upon the sheared zinc on the engine room floor, freeing its contents to the sound of a winning jackpot. 918 | —No but see it doesn't matter what you choose when you're chosen. 922 | Like Cap and Juug, they could've chosen anyone for this intern influencer job but they chose you and I for a reason just like God chose Job and Job's friends for a 928 | —Yeah you know why?! Know why they chose us Byron? Because we're replaceable. 931 | —Well that's just not true, David! 933 | —I mean maybe not for you! you and your snivelling, your social following all that's integral to this cockamaymie enterprise! 939 | That's because you're who millennials want to be. but see I'm not you! I'm who they really are. 943 | Which means if I try to sinfluence on the sly or bank some shadow equity in myself know what'll happen? Captain Jim will replace me. Yep just swap me out for another millennial like like, like 952 | Flustered, David kicked the zinc into the engine bilge in frustration. 956 | —like like that goddamned grotesque zinc demonstration of his. 959 | —Showing his ass.Yes. 961 | —Which by the way you said you'd handle. Told your neat new friend Captain Jim that you're just the man to swap the sacrificial zincs out because your dear old dead dad taught you all about how nobility works, alright? 970 | so instead of riding my ass about what I'm working on, how about you just focus on your own 974 | —That's it! David, you beige bitch, that's it! 976 | —Fuck you that's what? 978 | —The money in the mouth of the fish! Quick hand me a fistful of those pennies down there! 982 | —Fuck no dude those are mine. You chose to get paid in Likecoin, remember? 985 | —If the king takes tax from the conquered, then the sons are freed, you know that right? I mean holy shit Engram, don't you want to be a son to this country and not a slave? 992 | —Sure who doesn't but I don't see how these pennies will- 995 | —Oh ho! So now you're interested in my vision for all this? Ok then start reading off the mint years on those pennies on the floor there. 1000 | —Whatever they need to be picked up anyway I uh, here this one's kinda old think the year's twenty six or 1005 | —Toss it. 1006 | —Ok this one looks interesting, think it might be double stamped 1009 | —David, do I look like the Salon day Refuses ? No? Ok then don't tell me about the goddamned impressions, just read the goddamned year. 1016 | —Fine it's a nineteen sixty 1018 | —Toss it. 1020 | —Okay well looks like the rest of these are all newer from like the eighties and nineties so either get a little more specific in terms of what you want or 1024 | —Simple. I want the whole damn bag, Engram! 1028 | Byron said as his forearm swept the work bench clear. 1031 | —So do me a solid. scoop up some of those newer pennies, then toss me that vice grip down there in the toolbox along with that blue butane canister. 1040 | —Oh, so that's your millennial titty pincher! you're burning my hardearned pennies to get them fired up that it? 1044 | —Not burning 1045 | Byron said against the snap of a vice grip's corrugated jaw finding purchase on penny ridges, the click of a turning dial, and the roar of fully-released butane. 1053 | —Galvanizing. The first turn of the screw pays all debts. you know that, right?

1 | Juug cupped his hands to shield Ben Franklin's crisply undercirculated face against onshore wind the strength of an invisible hand brushing tears off a whiner's cheek. 9 | Holding the bill was a slender man whose sharkskin suit camoflauged him against sky the color of fresh concrete — until a flicked flame sheened him iridescent. 18 | After watching his fire find purchase upon the money, this man in the sharkskin suit clacked an emerald lacquered zippo closed against his hip, 25 | placed a yellow American Spirit between lips moisturized by caviar oil, and with puckered smirks, sucked heat from the smoldering currency to hasten its transition from cash to ash. 36 | —Go ahead, just pick any one of those buildings across the river there and tell me where their shadows are located. That's right, the ground floor. See that's the opportunity I'm- 44 | With one arm and in one motion, the man in the sharkskin suit waved off Juug's pitch while waving in a man with a lens around his neck who had been lingering in servitude's vicinity. 54 | A man who, after genuflecting on herringboned concrete, threw his focus between a backdrop of Midtown's skyline of tax shelters and a foregrounded flame forking off the money both men held until his lens locked in on the empty smiles of privileged men 68 | whose ebullience only spurts in the documented proximity to burnt fiat, game carcasses, and well-worn pornstars. 75 | After blessing the image shown to them in the dslr's lcd viewfinder, both men walked past the marina's gate and down its stainless steel catwalk sharply steepened by low tide; 84 | the result of Captain Jim consulting his tide tables before scheduling the meeting so that his brother would be able to make an entrance with the most gravitas possible. 93 | And so, like a wrestling heel entering the ring, Juug descended the catwalk, twirling his torso while thrusting both index fingers at the surrounding single-use brick buildings surrounding the marina as if pointing out rubes in the crowd. 106 | And as if his manager, Captain Jim rushed ahead to the vessel so he could pull its stern line closer to the finger pier to ease his wrestler's entry. 114 | The salon door whooshed open. Juug stepped inside, then flit down aviator glasses to reveal eyes already squinted into slits. 122 | —Welcome Likecoin investors. We've got the mettle, to meddle with your metal. 127 | —Yeah since you said you were bringing some important russian magnet on board David and I went and took some initiative comped up this banner, see there's something about the whole Russian punning tradition that I think transcends sociolinguistic barriers. 137 | —And I can see you're still chewing on the messaging so just letting you know I've got some strong alt lines we can quickly comp up, Byron's actually this neat one-stroke calligrapher, so it's not that big of a lift. 146 | —Jim. 147 | —With pleasure. 148 | Jim threshed the banner into tatters with several puerile rotary swipes, but not before tangling himself on the blue painter's tape joisting the banner to the ceiling. 157 | —Hey!!!!! 158 | Byron objected in a deep muffle. 159 | We were gonna use that for our portforlios! 161 | Juug stepped to Byron seated at the work bench, stooped, then sniffed; where, after a sitcom-length beat, Byron cough-burped out a dense plume that suggested a genie's impending arrival. 172 | —Excoose me! 174 | Juug ducked down beneath the high pressure system approaching him, along with Byron's dainty apology for it. 180 | Staying bent at the hip, he maximized his posture's yield to examine a work bench strewn with pennies stretched oblong like souvenir tokens. 187 | After a sneer and a snort, Juug bowd up, torqued his wingtips on the salon's grey-green carpet, and twirled back to the open salon door. 196 | —Welcome sir step right in to Likecoin's first selfie studio. Boys, head to the wet bar and whip up a dividend for our guest here. 203 | Seeing no progress on his command but a shared shrug, Juug sharply inhaled while slowly bisecting his torso with a flat left hand pointing skyward. 211 | —Cliquot with a splash of vodka 213 | he seethed through bared teeth. 215 | —And a dash of bitters! 217 | Then, in an attempt to reset his psyche, Juug pinched crowbar cufflinks with opposite hands to shrug a fresh fall from a sportcoat the ruby red of chapped butthole. 227 | —Now sir, I don't know how many properties you own here in America. 230 | Juug raised thatched fingers to serve as an momentary altar for his chin. 234 | —All I know is that you haven't taken a shit in any of them! 238 | —This metric, it is commonly used to evaluate potential investors in this country? 243 | —No no sir it, it's just my way of praising your investment acumen. Because look, we both know that when it comes to sheltering your wealth, New York City real estate is the stripper's tits. 253 | —Then we are in New Jersey, why? 255 | —Well sir I could say we're in New Jersey because your Midtown penthouses have constipated liquidity. 261 | Or I could say we're in New Jersey because the Southern District is gonna make you wear the brown hat if you keep borrowing against said property's fraudulent equity. 268 | But what I'm going to say instead is that we're in New Jersey to make people property again. 273 | —Make people property again. 276 | The man in the sharkskin suit's palette puckered each repeated phoneme. 280 | —Sounds like it should be printed on American ball cap, not investment prospectus. 284 | —Yes well see that's the thing. Property rarely undervalues itself. But see, people… 289 | Juug bobbed his right thumb at Byron and David behind him as if they were a game show's dud prizes. 294 | —People undervalue themselves all the time. See these two? Know what I'm paying them to work on this here yacht the American Dream? You'd guess money, wouldn't you. 303 | The man in the sharkskin suit wrinkled his lips as if waiting out a stubborn bowel movement. 308 | —Well guess again! I'm paying them in Likecoin, this new cryptocurrency that I created. 314 | See right there I'm saving eight nine bucks an hour on my overhead. And that labor play, that's just the appetizer in your Likecoin investment! 320 | —The amuse douche, if you will. 323 | —Actually in New Jersey… 325 | David held up an index finger with one hand as he thumbed his phone's screen with the other. 328 | —Says here that minimum wage in this state is actually eleven eighty five. 332 | —See the kid's making my point. These millennials, they know the price of everything and the value of nothing. Which is why America's already written off underwriting millennials. 341 | Because their generation, they do things that don't pay. Which is something you and I our generation, would never do. 346 | —There is no you and I, Mister Van Sant. 350 | The man in the sharkskin suit flicked his soul patch with his tongue's underbelly. 354 | —Not nyet. Just so I am clear, you want me to invest ten million dollars into people who do things that don't pay, as if I'm tossing table scraps to who-- David the doggie, and bow-wow Byron? 367 | A hand flung up in a reverse karate chop. 369 | —Pah! 370 | —Likecoin isn't table scraps. It's bait. Mortgage bait. Try and think of these fiduciaries as simple fisheries, each with their own species to harvest 379 | —Yes and I presume this is why you held our meeting today on this meager sportfisher and not, say, a helipadded fifty-five meter megayacht as men of our nobility deserve, to assist in making this strained analogy? 393 | —Well I just hope you read my prospectus as well as you're reading me, I tell you what! 397 | But yes see just as fisheries need to fill their respective quotas on pollack salmon fluke what have you, fiduciaries must do likewise with all their mortgage holdings jumbo, fixed-rate, et cetera 407 | But see here's the thing, over here on this side of the Behring, our mortgage fisheries take up half our goddamned gdp. See that's why I created Likecoin. 415 | So that real trophy hunter type investors like yourself can chum for these millennials a trophy species if there ever were one, not a lot of meat on their bones sure, but looks damned good when you're showing them off on your monthly quarterlies. 427 | —And after we bait these trophy millennials, this is where I presume the switch enters into your calculus? 434 | —Not a switch per se but a swap. See that's the genius of Likecoin, it's both the bait and the barrel, 441 | because once we show the market we got the right coordinates where millennials are surfacing up to the mortgage pool it'll be a goddamned feeding frenzy 447 | everything from derivatives to debentures I tell you what. And best part is all this'll be hidden behind my neat new shadow tranche I created for just this purpose, which don't worry is totally legal and definitely cool. 458 | —Shadow tranche. 460 | —That's right take a look at all those buildings across the hudson and tell me where their shadow starts? That's right the ground 466 | —Tell me Mister Van Sant. 468 | The man in the sharkskin suit approached the starboard window, then lowered a turnt torso so he could look up at what was his across the river. 475 | —Do you know why I collect all of these penthouses? 478 | —Not for the articles that's for fuck sure. 480 | —Jim please. Yes like I've said when it comes to tax shelters penthouses they're the stripper's tits no doubt but even Chesty Love got brought-back down to earth so to speak. 489 | —No not for shelter Mister Van Sant. For stature. I purchase these penthouses so I can, in the manner of regional parlance, stunt on American investors such as yourself. 499 | Now earlier, you tied my investment acumen to my bowel discipline within my properties. So when you suggest I invest in the ground floor of some hidden shadow investment, well I must ask you Mister Van Sant: 512 | how am I able to not take a shit in something which does not exist? 517 | —Damn, that's just one of those equinoxes we'll never know. 520 | —But see, that's what the southern district wants. They want your money to have an address. 524 | —Do not concern yourself with this, as I have on good authority that that particular constabulary has grown quite fond of plants. 531 | Now Mister Van Sant, constructing your country's upper crust has been of great value to me and my countrymen. 539 | So tell me, why shouldn't I simply keep dipping my investment beak into your penthouses and pied-a-terres much like those novelty drinking birds do? You have these carnival trinkets in your country, yes? 552 | —Because this country doesn't build buildings anymore. We just build levers and edges. 557 | —Wealth is fleeing to the margins, yes I subscribe to The Economist too Mister Van Sant. 562 | —No sir. Let me be clear. For men of means such as ourselves. Real wealth; is the very shrouding of it. 569 | The man in the sharkskin suit turned away to wrinkle his nose in a wince, as if just been made aware of a hygienic blind spot. 576 | And as he placed hands behind sharkskinned coattails so thumbs could contemplatively twiddle right and left revolutions, Juug took a step back with palms out, as if leaving a laboratory with a successful yet wobbling experiment. 589 | Ferry wake weighted from the day's first rush hour route sharply yawed the vessel, croaking the man in the sharkskin suit's crocodile instep. 596 | Looking down, he could see four shadows projected on the salon's grey-green carpet behind him. Two stretched themselves thin in an almost craven lunge toward him. 604 | In doing so, they loomed over the two other shadows proleteriatedly silhouetted by their rolled shirt sleeves and splayed shoelaces. The man in the sharkskin suit noticed that these shadows made no effort to move toward him, as if something stuck in place had made it sturdy. 620 | Flexed jowls whistled at a periodontic register to summon the man with a lens around his neck into the salon. Where, once within arm's reach, the man in the sharkskin suit snatched his paisley tie dangling between a lanyarded camera. 632 | After coiling it with one hand as if hand-reeling a catch to the surface, the man in the sharkskin suit pulled a pen from inside his sportcoat with the other, gnawed off its cap, and began scribbling differential equations upon the taut tie's white whorls. 646 | —Is that the ole rates of change growth and depletion you got there? Well if you're concerned about a collateral boom take it from me that the math works out on this Likecoin play sir. 654 | And if it doesn't, in a few months we'll just put the right men in Washington to make the math work. 658 | —You. 659 | —Me? 660 | —Yes you. With the exposed velcro on your tuxedo. 663 | —Whoops I uh, good looking out there. 665 | —Tell me son. What is your DTI? 668 | —Bit of an intimate question around these parts sir but despite a recent string of let's say foggy choices at Johnny Utah's, my latest battery of tests did in fact come back negative. 677 | The man in the sharkskin suit chuckled with the cute courtesy of being misunderstood by a toddler. 682 | —Excuse me. 683 | Byron thumbed his nose's undercarriage as he stepped into a billionaire's personal space. 687 | —Is there something amusing about having a clean dick? 690 | The man in the sharkskin suit wrung his patronizing smile wry. 694 | —Nyet. It is an admirable trait in both our lines of work. 698 | —The fuck you know about my work. 700 | A squared off loafer tip kicked the work bench from below to send pennies warped oblong airborn. Where after snatching one suspended in air, the man in the sharkskin suit pinched it by its melted ridges before poising it at eye level. 711 | —How you manipulate currency, it delights me. As if Lincoln posed for Munch, yes? 717 | —Yes well look closer and you'll see that penny was minted in nineteen eighty two. Now eighty two was a year of transition for both our nations, what with Breshnev dying and 725 | —Pah! Nothing more than a shuffling old man, clinging to power.  730 | —Exactly, which brings us to ole Ronnie over here on this side of the Behring. See Ronnie was up to his diaper in a recession, which meant he was getting a little desperate for some revenue to start trickling down from America's limp-dicked economic prostate. 740 | So Ronnie, he took the action the moment demanded, found a way to make money off how we made money. That's right, changed the entire constitution of our currency. 747 | —Went and replaced the copper in our pennies with zinc, a weaker and therefore less valuable metal. And best part is, Ronnie did it all by fiat. 755 | See which is why pennies minted before nineteen eighty two are known as two-cents because the copper inside- 759 | —is more valuable than the value it endorses. 762 | —Exactly sir! See my boss Juug here didn't think you'd understand my penny titty-pincher but I knew! I knew you don't become this bigtime aluminum magnet without understanding that some metals are just plain more noble than others, and that's just the way Ronnie and the good lord made it. 775 |— Now eighty two was also important because that's when we started minting millennials. 779 | With one arm, Byron corralled David's shoulders into a chummy scrunch, as his other hand cupped David's chin to squeeze both cheeks. 787 | —And I believe it's no coincidence that the same time America changed what was inside a penny, we changed what was inside a generation. 794 | Now our boss Juug tasked David and me here with picking something on this boat the American Dream that's about what the millennial generation's all about. 801 | And sure, we could've pitched you some titty-pincher on how millennials are some cool cultural seacock delivering the flow state keeping the American Dream's engines nice and cool, 808 | or maybe give you some self-grandizing speech that we're these hardworking pistons all hidden in some tight studio-sized liner. 815 | But then David here, he reminded me that that's how we see ourselves in the American Dream. But that's not how we're being used. 820 | I mean not really. Because like let's face it, we owe it to ourselves to talk to each other as dutch uncles about the millennial generation. 826 | I mean we're weak, we always fall victim to depressions, and we're easily manipulated to the point that our net worth's stretched out like that zinc penny you got in your hand there. 834 | The man in the sharkskin suit glanced at the flattened penny in his hand, blinked twice, and said nothing. 840 | Behind him, Juug twirled an horizontal index finger suggesting that if Byron was unspooling something, he was unspooling it too slowly. 847 | —Which then begs the question. If millennials are so weak and worthless, then why are the two of us even aboard this yacht in the first place and like breathing the same salty air as two global nobles such as yourselves? 859 | Byron straddled a corner of the floor hatch, then stooped down to grip a carriage bolt buried beneath grey-green carpet the color of old money to deadlift the floor hatch to knee-level. 869 | —Yep, lots of nobility on these yachts. 871 | Byron grunted as he jerked the hatch to shoulder level, wafting mold and mites to shimmer like pixie dust through shafts of golden hour light. 878 | Where, after resting the hatch upright against the portside window, Byron turned back holding a maglight near his ear to direct its winnowed light down to the engine below their feet. 887 | —Got your cast iron block, aluminum pistons, stainless steel prop shafts, there's even some copper in the heat exchanger. 893 | Thing is, these noble metals are not only surrounded by these two big battery banks, but also sloshing around in this brackish saltwater soup. 901 | Which means we got nobility, salinity, and electricity. Anyone know what that means? 905 | —Shit Byron, that's corrosion's favorite recipe! 908 | David said as he swung a rootin-tootin arm half-heartedly across his torso. 912 | —Yep just a matter of time before corrosion eats up these noble metals, just like it's a matter of time before corrosive influences eat up your foreign investments 920 | what with our country's saltiness against global nobles like yourself, not to mention an increasingly charged and polarized sociopolitical landscape. 926 | But wait, what's that screwed into the engine's oil cooler? 929 |— Gee I don't know, it looks kinda weak and worthless. But why ask me, I'm just a millennial. 934 | —Wait, why am I asking you when we got a goddamned captain on board with us? Hey Cap mind dropping some knowledge here about these pieces of metal that're screwed all in 941 | —Ok look before I say it's a zinc I just want to say that all these two noxious little faggots are doing is reinstigating something I already told them. 947 | —Thanks Cap, now why would 948 | —No one cared when Captain Jim talked about zincs a few days ago, but I guess now that we've got some metal magnet on board, zincs are now some big revelvetation. 957 | —Sure Cap now why would zinc, the weakest and least of all noble metals, a metal so worthless it devalues pennies, why would that metal be screwed all over this engine? 965 | —My egg's so scrambled, I don't know if I should give him an answer or if this is one of those meta-oracle questions. 970 | —Got it from here Cap, see a zinc's value is in its weakness. And that its lack of nobility is precisely what allows a zinc to be able to soak up electrical corrosion intended for all the nobler metals on board like the stainless steel prop shafts and copper-coiled oil coolers and so forth. 984 | Kinda genius right? How a flaw was engineered into function. And get this, they're not even called zincs on boats, they're called sacrificial zincs, you know as if the metal needed a reminder to know its role. 995 | Byron dug into his pocketwatch pocket to pull out a grey-pink cylinder cladded like a piece of pastel chalk left out in the rain. 1001 | —And see my boss, Mister Van Sant, he's got this crazy idea to apply the laws of metals to money, in that those who have it, should be protected by those who don't. 1009 | Now I know this is all somewhat abstract and complicated. So to demonstrate what I've done here is layer a bunch of these weak zinc millennial pennies together into a sacrificial zinc in much the same manner of how Likecoin will layer your laundering investment with a tranche of millennial social mortgages referenced in your investment prospectus 1026 | —Yes quite clever son but we really need to move on from this penny titty-pincher of yours. I'm sorry about this sir, these millennials, all they want to talk about is change. 1034 | —Wait wait wait wait wait. I haven't proven how millennials protect all your other financial instruments below the surface of all that dark pool financing that was referenced in the appendix 1042 | —This, it is not necessary. 1044 | The man in the sharkskin suit reassured Byron with a languid, backhanded wave. 1048 | Why make a man prove something to me; when I can simply pry it out of him. 1052 | —You sure? You don't seem like you're sure. 1054 | The man in the sharkskin suit's palm rolled deferentially open. 1058 | —Your adamance suggests you wish to wring this euphemism further. So you may proceed. 1064 | At this, Byron tore away his velcroed tuxedo with a stripper's elan, slid two cylindrical zincs in his swimwear's zip-tied holsters, 1071 | grabbed a cast iron adjustable pipe wrench from the work bench, ran out the salon door, and cannonballed over the stern. 1078 | —Now this! 1079 | The man in the sharkskin suit wrung open palms into fists. 1083 | —This is America's greatness! Men of action! 1087 | He exclaimed, giggling as he lifted his loafers at the hull vibrating beneath him, like a masochist stepping on hot coals. 1094 | —I have no idea where he is going next! 1096 | —Down. I'd assume. 1098 | Juug said, whisking uneasy chuckles into laughter that was making a meal of his investor meeting. 1103 | —Now look Kuvetli, how bout we just cut to the nut cutting here? 1106 | The man in the sharkskin suit's chortle deepened into a defensive snort, his nostrils flared below eyes flit between David and Juug. 1113 | —Don't worry Kuvetli your name's safe here. The one down below he's the one with the profile. 1118 | But this one's got absolutely zero in terms of name recognition. For our purposes here, he's more mannequin than man. 1124 | —Fine. Look Mister Van Sant, this Likecoin idea, it is fun sure. But fun is flimsy. And flimsy fails. 1133 | —You'd think so wouldn't you but just look at Battery Park City bobbing over my right shoulder. Because see if you layer enough cash, trash, and ash, you can bet your bottom nut that it'll support the American Dream. 1141 | —I'd rather bet neither testicle if I can help it, Mister Van Sant. Because if my investment here fails, the eleventh chapter in your country's insolvency canon makes it difficult for me to, how do I say this in common vernacular 1156 | —Make yourself whole, no look I get it. 1158 | —Good. So you get that to make this whole, I often find it necessary to take parts of people. 1163 | Kuvetli leaned in to peer unblinkingly at Juug, until it triggered a full facial wrinkle. 1169 | —Or maybe this one you leave alone. Keep being nosey with the grindstone as it were so that next time you pitch me a better investment than profiting off peasants. 1176 | —You know, a time like this I'm reminded of an old russian saying. Profiting off a poor man is as difficult as squeezing his liver to make turnip gazpacho. 1184 | —Tell me Mister Van Sant. Which oblast did this originate? 1189 | —Because look, you're right. Not a lot of net worth on these millennial boys' bones. 1194 | Juug quickly flicked David's flinching ribs. 1196 | —But their parents, see they're the ones who are fat, happy, and loaded. Forty times their kid's net worth on average, haven't seen that type of inequality in this country since separate but equal. 1205 | —Yes, a particularly cruel period in your nation's history. 1210 | —Yes, see you get it! That's what capitalism is, the continuation of cruelty by other means. 1215 | And you know what the first ingredient in cruelty is? Hope. Which is why I got these two spreading all this inspirational hopecore content about how all that's between them and the american dream is a couple Likecoin and their parent's signature. 1227 | And then when these millennials fail at their adjustable like social mortgage just like they've failed at everything else, that's when the fun begins, 1234 | cash in our leverage short the american dream and fucking foreclose on an entire goddamned generation I mean holy- 1240 | —Mister Van Sant. The glee with which you articulate how you will be profiting off the misery of your countrymen, it both troubles me and reassures me of your motives. 1250 | —Why sir, that's one of the nicest 1252 | A burbling surface disrupted their conversation. Both men turned toward the stern to see a hand clutching an eroded metal triumphantly emerge, as if it were a magician's filed-down shackle. 1264 | The rest of Byron's torso then bobbed to the surface, where after burp-vomiting brackish water where he tread, he butterfly stroked back toward the vessel. 1273 | Kuvetli met him at the swim step, hands pinching emerald bezel cufflinks off opposite wrists before pulling starched sleeves over sportcoat arms pushed to elbow. 1282 | Leaning over the gunwale, he extended his hand out, where he felt worn warm metal exchange in their wet clasp. 1288 | As Byron barrel rolled his hips over the teak gunnel to collapse onto the stern's fiberglass deck, Kuvetli rolled the pockmarked metal nub in one hand as if evaluating overripe produce. 1299 | He then removed a nose hair trimmer from his sportcoat's interior, slid open its plastic compartment, and tapped out its double-a battery. 1306 | Where, after inserting the battery into his lower lip as if it were a snuff pouch, Kuvetli licked the worn zinc for an uncomfortable length of time. 1314 | —See I knew you'd be able to see the value in these sacrificial zincs sir. I mean shit you can taste it. 1320 | And just as zincs are both the cheapest and most valuable investment a captain can make, investing in millennials like David and I will give you the same type of roy for captains of industry such as yourself. 1329 | —Well done, my friend. 1331 | Battery still bulging from bottom lip like a bullfrog, Kuvetli softly applauded without making a sound, his tongue flicking excess charge from his mouth like a snake smelling the air. 1341 | —But there is one flaw. 1343 | After hocking the battery overboard, Kuvetli lifted his subordinate's tie to daub spittle from both corners of his mouth. 1349 | —You do all this work to make this galvanic connection between valuable weak metal and valuable weak millennial. And nyet, you are clearly strong millennial. 1359 | —Well, my dead dad's body would be spinning in his grave if he heard anyone say that about his faggy meager artist son of his, that is to say if he still had one. 1367 | —No no I must give you credit my friend. You bend money, you dive into danger. You do all this, and nyet your partner, he has done nothing. 1375 | It is like you are all wet with inspiration like woman who knows her price, but your friend here is dry with doubt, like woman who questions her worth. 1383 | Kuvetli turned toward Juug. 1385 | —This is known in your country as the baiting of the switch, yes? 1389 | —Yes well I think what you mean to say is 1392 | —Mister Van Sant. You must have me confused for someone who means what they say. Me, I just say. And I say your weak millennial should install the weak metal. 1400 |— Well with your investment here today, we'd be able to expand this Likecoin proof of concept to other vessels where I'd be more than happy to toss David overboard into whichever body of water you so choose. 1409 | —No see Mister Van Sant, this here's a twin engine sportfisher. which means two sets of props, shafts, trim tabs everything. which means David can dive down, do the same thing I did, but on the starboard side, I mean so long as he's like down to do it? 1420 | After catching the penny zinc tossed to him, David felt the heat of ten eyes volley upon his person. 1426 | —Yeah well I'd totally be down to dive in but see thing is I, I don't really even have a suit. 1431 | —You think this is a suit? 1433 | Byron hushed through an unbroken smile. 1435 | —This is electrical tape and a maternity thong! 1438 | —Yeah, well maybe you should, you know. 1440 | as David's eyes flicked vertically. 1441 | —gather your belongings. 1443 | —Well maybe that's my point! Like maybe you need to let your own nuts hang for once, you know instead of looking out for everyone else's! 1449 | —Look Byron even if I wanted to 1450 | —You do. 1451 | —Sure, but I don't know how to even 1452 | —Youll know when you're down there! 1454 | —Yeah but did you know that there's all this hidden electrical danger beneath the surface? like last night after you told me about this cockamamie zinc plan of yours I did some research found out that just one stray electrical line in the water can 1464 | —Gentlemen! 1465 | Byron shouted over his shoulder as he hooked David's neck with his elbow's crook as a means of shepherding him toward the stern. 1471 | —I've prepared some latkes dipped in green pea compote in the salon. Go in grab a couple and I'll get you once David here's ready to dive in. 1478 | After watching the two men enter the salon, Byron turned his back to David. 1482 | With a hunched posture, he shrugged his shoulders as if trying to tear something in two, spat a piece of plastic off the starboard side, then turnt back thrusting a thumb and pinky to David's ear and lips. 1493 | —Your future you's on the line, David. Will you accept the charge? 1495 | —What? Why would my future me call collect? Is he somehow even more destitute than present me and had to like pawn off his smartphone? 1503 | After feeling a flick against his ribs, David followed Byron's bugged eyes darting downward to find white powder piled upon the side of his pinky. 1510 | —So you gonna answer the call or what? 1512 | —Wait is that? 1514 | —If by that, you mean that which willl get you to hold your nose, dive down, and take the action the moment demands, then yes David, it's that. 1519 | —Look Byron, I know what you're trying to do here, but 1521 | —No you don't! Because if you did, you'd have already done it. 1524 | Know what fine fine fine fuck it fine I can see it in those dry eyes of yours that you don't want it. but just remember that what you dismiss at first, usually becomes your last resort. 1533 | —Some fucking influencer, am i right? 1535 | Juug said while slapping Byron's back from behind, jostling powder off pinkie. 1539 | —See this just reinforces the lengths that these millennials aren't willing to go in order to win in the marketplace, 1545 | which is to say millennials like David will do whatever it takes to not do what it takes to take real ownership of the American Dream. 1551 | Now that said, if you do want to see someone else dive down there I'd be happy to swap David out for another weak millennial on my roster who's all too eager to 1559 | —Met-tel. meddle. 1561 | Kuvetli chuckled deflatedly while holding torn butcher paper, as if receiving a gag gift already unwrapped. 1567 | —The way you triple pun, it amuses me. As if Nabokov sold out to the oligarchs. 1573 | —Yeah well see while some writers like David here may feel that puns are cheap, but me I think only something as loose as a pun can suggest a much richer truth than we can ever articulate. 1582 | —Yes great well no richer truth than money, am I right? so how bout we take one last look at the tender, because it's as simple as it gets; 1588 | ten million of yours for one billion of mine. And remember that's on a cap of one point five billion Likecoin tokens. 1595 | Not only that, as a good faith gesture, I'll even throw in a non-diluted follow-on offering. 1600 | Kuvetli scrunched his upper lip as if waiting out a stubborn bowel movement. 1605 | —Feels like he doesn't believe us, Mister Van Zant. 1607 | —Yes thank you Byron, but how about letting the men with the money talk. 1610 | —I have money because I have Likecoin remember? Like remember in your prospectus when you said that Likecoin makes likes work like money? 1616 | —Fine yes, but this part right now doesn't concern you. 1620 | —Well I mean like if I'm the only one here who shares the concerns of our potential investor here, I think it kinda does. 1624 | because like after our new russian magnet friend buys a bunch of Likecoin, like how's he even gonna circulate it? Because he'd have too much, and David and I, we'd have too little. 1632 | —Yes that hasn't gone unnoticed. If you think you have a solve, then by all means. 1636 | —My solve is your solve, boss! You said it yourself when you said this vessel's your proof of concept; okay, well then let's prove that concept! 1642 | Let's sign over ownership of the american dream to our russian magnet friend so that when David and I rentovate it working for his Likecoin our neat new investor will be able to reap the after-improved value. 1652 | I mean we're out here talking about good faith gestures, then let's like really make one not like some slick, non-diluted gesture! 1659 | —This forty-five footer? Why son that's shamefully small for a man with his net worth. Why it'd be like putting ten pounds of his boar sausage into a five pound condom I mean am I right? 1668 | —Dictating my shame. How American. Tell me the shape of your strategy, son. 1673 | —For fuck sake he doesn't have one! 1676 | —My strategy shape's same as yours, boss. like look here in your prospectus where you talk about this neat earning triangle between users, content creators, and advertisers? 1683 | Well I was reading up on that yesterday when my friend David here starts complaining about how he's this victim of this rising inequality that's creating a millennial slave class 1691 | and so I got to thinking about how global nobles way back when used triangle trade to create the very first slave class in order to pluck out cotton which was like the most valuable resource at the time. 1700 | And in return for that cotton, these global nobles gave rum to the slave countries to like lubricate the triangle keep the slave flow running smooth. And so like you know that old saw about how economic history is boomed to repeat itself? 1712 | Because Likecoin's got a similar triangle trade vibe in that it'll help produce a millennial slave class that'll pluck out these social media eyeballs which are today's most valuable resource just like cotton used to be. 1721 | And like not only that, these slaves'll plant these plucked eyealls in this neat new walled likecoin garden our boss has set up, and all we millennial slaves need in return for our work is a dose of Likecoin which gives us all the dopamine of money, 1732 | but with none of the dough, just like rum did for those global nobles way back when. I mean holy shit, like how's that for an investment shape? 1739 | —Yes well my concern is that this og triangle trade you referenced, it took several generations to reap profitability. 1747 | —Well see that's the best part because each like on the platform is like its own microtransaction so that the more likes there are, the more it speeds up this transaction triangle so that it becomes this like vanishing point for your traceable money. 1758 | Now if you're concerned about being made whole from this risky initial investment check out this underwriting stupidlation in the prospectus where it says all rentovations must be completed within six months, 1767 | on account that these neat new social mortgages Mister Van Sant is gonna sell in phase two are these repurposed two hundred and three k loans. 1774 | Which means if David and I can't rentovate this vessel into a million dollar appraisal by say Labor day you can just swap in another social mortgage with some fresh new millennial on board you know like I just showed you with the sacrificial zincs down below. 1786 | I mean do you need me to dive down and prove it again on the starboard side because I still feel like you kinda still don't believe me 1791 | —God no, son! just keep your damn pants on please. Now look if transferring this vessel's title is what it takes to get you on board with Likecoin then handing over the american dream is no skin off my dick. 1801 | Now as far as the Likecoin tender itself, I'm assuming we want this to be a cash transaction for obvious tax avoidance reasons. 1807 | —Yes well; 1809 | Kuvetli pat his sheened suit as if it had suddenly become infested by insects. 1813 | —Unfortunately I cannot consummate the tender as of currently. Only when visiting Potrossian Boutique does my assistant Smerdykov here carry that amount of tactile fiat. 1824 | —Oh please no no no. physically exchanging currency, that's for primitive savages out on some island swapping wigwams for wampum. 1830 | We'll take the transaction offshore, where it's all very legal and totally cool. So how bout we pudder dare? 1835 | After watching Juug stab a hand into his personal space, Kuvetli raised a snapping right hand above and behind his right shoulder. 1842 | Suddenly, the man with a lens around his neck scurried out to the stern, produce the zoot of an unzipped bag, 1848 | then re-enter the salon with the same breeze he let in so he could place a saranwrapped white egg into Kuvetli's expecting palm with the pride of having just midwifed a chalk ostrich. 1857 |— Gotta admit I'm a little stumped here on your gift. See here in America powdered eggs are for the poor. 1862 | —This egg is not meant to be eaten Mister Van Sant, but rather consumed. 1868 | —Damn, this ruskie's just chuck full of equinoxes, ain't he? 1871 | —Perhaps I am best to gift directly to your workers as I believe this egg can be how should I call it, a participation trophy of sorts for our endeavor. 1880 | —Then you should definitely give it to these millennials. They love trophies. 1885 | —Very well. 1887 | Kuvetli extended the egg to Byron, who received it with wide eyes and outstretched hands as if a child's second eucharist. 1892 | —Consider this an up payment for our future success. 1896 | —Your gift honors us, sir. 1898 | Byron set the egg on the work bench, then lifted a bent wrist underneath his nose to stanch a salivating sniff. 1904 | —David and I, we'll be sure to put your gift to good use, you know like put our nose to the grindstone bump this vessel appraisal's up, stimulate your investment real nice. 1911 | —Yes well it is getting to be rush hour for the ferries, and that type of chaos doesn't sit well with men of our net worth, so how bout we head on out and tie one on over at Ruthless Chris? 1921 | The vessel yawed due to the four men's exiting momentum. Squealing spring lines accompanied the rattletrap clang of a floating pier's perforated hole grinding in its tidal rise against the concrete dock piling preventing it from floating away, 1934 | its rubber rollers stripping a strip of once-submerged mussels clean off concrete. 1940 | As David went into the salon to inspect the saranwrapped egg on the work bench, Byron stood on the stern to watch Juug's hand hover near his new investor's sharkskinned back at the distance of a prom queen's pity date, 1951 | while his own burgandy sportcoat flapped against gathering wind like a signal flag indicating dangerous cargo aboard. 1959 | —Hey! I just want to see it. 1960 | David said in response to Byron wrenching the egg out from his hands with the bratty indignance of a child taking a toy from a friend unable to unlock its capacity to entertain. 1968 | —Yeah well, I wanna smell it! 1969 | —Ok so that's what I thought this was. But why would that Russian 1971 | —What? a griffin's egg? Very observant, David. you noticed the scales, didn't you 1977 | Byron picked a pressed penny off the workbench, then genuflected near the egg to pick at clingwrap until an orifice tore free. 1982 | —You know why the great orthodox churches used griffin eggs? It was to keep the rats away from the holy oil. 1988 | —Why would I know that? And what are you even talking about talking about griffin eggs when we should be talking about the ramifications of 1992 | —Talking about the older materials shaping the new. 1995 | Byron used the pressed penny to chisel a white clump off the egg , guide that clump onto the handshake webbing between finger and thumb, then press to his flesh and turn clump into powder. 2003 | —Talking about the gift which unlocks our gifts! 2006 | Byron said while lifting his wrist behind dangling bangs to meet a nose with one nostril open to produce the sound of an abrupt staccatoed sniff 2013 | —Comeoneayea-hah! 2015 | His exclamation punctuated with a piston punching movement in the manner of an umpire's called third strike on a passive batter. 2022 | —So how bout a quick little whiffer picker upper there, Engram? 2024 | Byron asked with a smile the personification of a wagged tail beneath dilated black irises set against glossed brown pupils like a moneylender opening an empty, yet freshly oiled leather satchel for reimbursement. 2035 | —You know just a quick taste, so you can see how it smells. 2037 | —Uh, I'm good dude, I can smell it from here, smells like diesel fuel. 2041 | Ok so it smells like you I mean how neat is that? think it's a sign buddy! I mean arent you writers all about seeing the signs that are right in front of 2047 | —And what sign is that? Huh? Like what the fuck does some cocaine egg signify to me? 2051 | —Ok look you don't need to get so worked up and mad about it it's just drugs ok. 2055 | —Me? You're the one getting worked up about the stuff I mean didn't you just have that stuff on your pinkie when you offered it to me just then? 2060 | —I only pack a small snort on me in case of emergency. And like just because you have some doesn't mean you don't want some more. I mean that's what this country's all about, you know that right? 2068 | —Emergency? 2070 | —Your emergency ego, silly. Like remember how back then just now you held yourself back from diving into a new experience? 2074 | Well that was your emergency ego holding your personal development hostage at the expense of your physical survival but see that's what's great about this powder it's the tool we use to get leverage over our emergency ego just like yougot all these wrenches sockets screwdrivers on the boat here 2086 | —A tool? Thought you said this egg was a gift. 2088 | —It's the tool that unlocks your gift, silly. Now come on, just toss a toot in real quick. 2094 | —Look on some level I guess I can understand your passion for cocaine but you really don't need to get so close to me 2098 | —Hard disagree, David. Closer I get to you, the closer you'll get to being yourself. 2101 | — Yeah but you're talking in this rabid, intense way like only inches from my face, and I'm trying to subtly back away but every time I take a step backwards you just close the gap to the point that my back's now literally up against the wall ok so look 2110 | —No. 2112 | Byron removed headphones from his pocketwatch pocket, stuck its male end into his smartphone's audio input, its right bud backwards into his left ear, then, and in the manner of a doctor sharing his stethoscope with a skeptical patient, offered his left earbud to David. 2125 | —Just listen.

1 | —Pleasure, according to tonight's guest on Gavel to Babble, is the defining resource of our time. 6 | As one of America's foremost psychiatric disruptors, her insurgent Apply The High therapy is poised to grab an entire generation by the noses. 14 | But first, it must pass the FDA's smell test. I am pleased to have Doctor Joyce Neumann at this table. Welcome. 20 | —Thank you Glen, but that really wasn't the introduction we discussed on the ride over. 24 | —Yes, yes it wasn't. Now Doctor Neumann, before we talk about your therapy, let's talk about what's holding it back. 30 | Specifically this galling take from the fda's rejection letter quote while there is a clear need for anhedonic ptsd patients to rehabilitate neurological plasticity as a means of regaining creative fluency, 41 | that need does not override a century of American jurisprudence, nor the ethics in distributing a dangerous pleasure to vulnerable populations as Doctor Neumann's quote therapy unquote suggests unquote. 50 | —Yes well I think it'd be more productive if we began from the perspective of the patients themselves, instead of- 54 | —No no no no no if the fda wants to discuss the ethics in distributing dangerous pleasures to vulnerable populations, then let's discuss the ethics in distributing dangerous pleasures to vulnerable populations. 64 | Let's discuss the ethics in distributing the pleasure of recognition, our most dangerous pleasure to vulnerable children, making their bookshelves groan with trophies before they can even push out a pube. 74 | —Glen I'd really rather- 76 | —Then let's discuss how these plaque babies grow up with stunted grit before entering into a workforce where every corner office is slanging these rock star trophies in the shape of a rock-out hand 83 | —Dammit Glen I specifically told you 85 | —Which are themselves made out of rock! Corporate recognition is a forty six billion dollar industry, Doctor Neumann. And if you want to know why that is, just look at who it's directed at. 93 | —Yes Glen. millennials, the trophy generation. 96 | —The so-called trophy generation; called so by the same grooming boomers who're keeping them from competing in the marketplace. Who forcefeed them recognition as they starve them of compensation. 105 | —Can you at least attempt to pivot here? 107 | —And then, when these burnt out millennials are at the ends of their flaccid ropes and fallow tubes, you Doctor Neumann create a therapy that helps them hack their own pleasure centers. 116 | And then that's when the fda all of a sudden starts squeezing your psychopharmacological shoes. 120 | —Yes, well be that as it may 122 | —Which by the way, is exactly what butters the caviar bread of the North Jersey cartel. 126 | —What, squeezing psychopharmacological shoes? 129 | —Hacking pleasure centers! Cartel's running a goddamned trillion dollar supply chain of industrial sin in this country, advertisers executives distributors, I mean holy 136 | —Glen! 137 | —Wha! 139 | —If you would give me the courtesy of letting me finish, I may be more inclined to reciprocate the gesture later. 144 | Dead air audibly crackled in the intervening silence. 147 | —Baud's all yours, Doctor Neumann. 150 | —Thank you. Now for any bureaucratically-inclined listener who may be out there questioning the motives and methodologies behind pleasure-based creative remediation, I would ask- 158 | —you mean Apply the High. 159 | —Yes I would ask them to examine the board-certified logic behind stocking every oncology wing in this country flush with anabolic steroids. 165 | See we administer anavar and synthetic testosterone to cancer patients not so they can get a second callout at mister Olympia, but to build their body back to something approximating their pre-traumatic form. 176 | —Yeah, well tell that to that one-balled biker. 178 | —And in that same way, my patients are applying the high as you put it not so they can show at PS1 or get nominated for a national book award, but as a means of building themselves back to being. 186 | — Back to being what exactly, Doctor Neumann? 189 | — Of use. First to themselves, and then to the rest of the world. As opposed to being used by the world, which is what many of my patients disclose in their intake questionnaire in some form or fashion. 198 | —Let's loiter on that point for a bit Doctor Neumann. Because some have accused you of gratuitously spreading your diagnostic lips in order to accept any limpdicked unemployed millennial into your ptsd patient subset. 209 | —Glen we discussed this. Unemployment is an economic diagnosis. The clinical term is anhedonic. Which studies have shown is a key indicator of post traumatic stress, no matter what the actual precipitating 220 | —You say anhedonic, I say broke, back home and smoking chronic. Point is when we think about ptsd patients we think of veterans, rape victims, people who have you know, earned their trauma. 230 | So tell me Doctor Neumann, how have millennials earned their trauma? Because our bureaucratically-inclined listeners out there might just be thinking oh boo hoo, these poor millennials. 238 | —Well I'd agree with that characterization Glen. I mean when millennials possess twenty percent less equity than any other generation at their age while at the same time are at a twenty percent higher risk for suicides or overdoses, what else can you say but poor millennials? 250 | —But I was the one who said poor millennials Doctor Neumann. 252 | —Yes I'm aware. 253 | —Doctor Newman I'm not sure you understand the concept of a podcast. See you were brought on this program to share your truth, not to spit back whatever the host ejaculates like that one time you convinced me to play babybird. 263 | —Fine then how about American capitalism has traumatized an entire generation, how's that? That an original enough diagnosis of this country's neurosocioeconomic climate? 272 | —Well. Ladies and listeners, we have an early leader for our promotional soundbite. 276 | —Better yet, I'd argue that in some ways, these anhedonic millennials have it worse than clinically diagnosed ptsd patients who have, as you've said, earned their trauma. 284 | —Because unlike those patients, who we rightly sympathize with and honor their truths, traumatizers like systemic inequality and social oppression are often flung back in a millennial's face so they can be portrayed as some feckless victim of a victimless crime. 296 | I mean holy shit Glen, imagine telling a returning soldier struggling to pay rent to simply pull themselves up by their bootstraps. 303 | —millennials more deserving of a trauma diagnosis than veterans. Had I known you were going to bring these hot takes to the podcast Doctor Neumann, I'd have thrown our erotic tongs into the roadie cube. 312 | —Damnit Glen. Unlike how you negotiate plea deals, this isn't a pissing contest. Now it's not like I'm shooting from my cunt here. 319 | This is all based on sound neurological research. Primates suffering through poverty and its subsequent diminishment of social status have the same amount of damage to their dopamine receptors as those primates who have suffered through a clinically recognized traumatic event such as rape or violence. 333 | —All we are are stoned, traumatized apes. That it, Doctor Neumann? 338 | —And instead of dividing these patients into which subset deserves their diagnosis more, I'd rather talk about what's common to all ptsd patients. 345 | And that is what they resent most, even more than the traumatic event itself, is the victimhood that their trauma breeds within themselves. 352 | —Shit it's become a meme, the victimized millennial. 355 | —Yes and unless we provide patients with tools that can help them shed their sense of victimhood and take action on the world, a million more millennial lives will be lived at the depth of a meme. 365 | —And just to be clear here, you believe that tool to be cocaine. 368 | —Well I prefer to frame it as pleasure being the tool that induces a patient's flow state, which yes cocaine does act as a proxy for. 374 | —Spoken like you've recently had a litigator's dick in your mouth. 377 | —Oh for fuck sake Glen. 379 | —Look Joyce, I don't care if we're husband and wife outside this booth, inside it we owe it to our listeners to speak to each other like dutch uncles about what this Apply The High therapy really is. 387 | —Floor's yours, Barrister Grynspan. 389 | —Okay fine, well me personally I'd characterize it as an eightball for any millennial that's behind the eightball 394 | —That's not only too clever by half, but it completely overlooks the back half of a carefully crafted two-drug regimen that administers psilocybin after a patient's flow session so they can contextualize and synthesize their creative progress. 405 | —Oh okay sure! As if their seratonin sundae's not piled high enough, let's sprinkle a little cosmic dust on top! 411 | —It's not about getting these patients high, Glen. It's about getting them to take action and assert themselves in the cosmos by any means necessary because, 418 | and let me be professionally clear about this, passivity is a drug that's as potent as any plaque or powder out there. 423 | I've seen it. I've seen how passivity withers a patient's will, how it turns their minds brittle and souls bitter. 428 | How day by day, they become chronically addicted to the belief that their inner beings are being controlled by outside forces. 434 | —And I guess where I'm going out on a psychopharmacological limb here is that I'd rather my patients risk addiction to a drug which compels them to take action, than to stay passive and risk nothing else for the rest of their lives. 446 | —But unfortunately Doctor Neumann, your Apply The High therapy is itself in a state of passivity, in that its fate is being controlled by outside forces and other people. 453 | —Yes and you've sufficiently unpacked the FDA's stance here in your a block, so let's move on, counselor. 459 | —See that's the thing. These FDA pencildicks only see the world in doses and deltas. They don't understand that standardizing nose dosage is damn tough when it comes to this stuff. 468 | —Yes Glen, I fondly remember litigating the standardized length and girth of a line with you during the early days of this therapy. 474 | But as you know, since then we've established a baseline intake of twenty milligrams of cocaine per creative session, 480 | which we believe sufficiently stimulates a patient's flow state while still operating at a cardiological risk factor similar to what's chronically prescribed in amphetamine salts to millions of suburban teenagers. 490 | —And the delta? here meaning the improvement in a patient's flow state. 494 | —Yes I admit that finding a neurological metric for something that's as slippery as flow state has proven difficult. 499 | Standard issue psychiatric tools like journals and eeg paystees are insufficient, as they both intrude into, and distract from, the very mental state we are trying to track. 508 | And the inconclusivity of flow state research using these methods suggests that any psychiatric evaluation which relies on a patient's conscious effort to acknowledge their own subconscious flow state proves to be a monumental waste of time for all involved parties. 520 | Because of this, I've shifted my focus from the patient to their actualized productivity. 525 | And after burning some serious psychopharmacological calories, I've been able to simplify flow state into an equation where creative production is equal to pleasure consumed over time. 533 | And as you've referenced, now that we've been able to lock in the appropriate nose dosage as it were, now all we need is to identify the right time-based heuristic and I'm confident we'll 540 | —But the whole point of flow state is to forget that time exists. 543 | —Yes that's true Glen. Creation's eternal thrall, and so forth. 547 | —I know it's true because the opposite is true. Back when I was in-house at Murk, all I did was watch the clock at the corner of my monitor, collating my existence billable second by billable second! 556 | —Yes, well 558 | —I mean let's be honest here Doctor Neumann, the FDA wouldn't know flow state if it flew out their puckered buttholes. 562 | —Glen, I think we should give the FDA some credit, if only to put on a diplomatic veneer on what I feel has been a needlessly contentious dialogue. 569 | —The FDA's got enough of a credit line from Murk and the rest of the North Jersey cartel as it is Doctor Neumann. By the way, speaking of the North Jersey cartel, 575 | —Dammit Glen when are you not speaking of 578 | —Doctor Neumann if this Apply The High therapy were to gain some, let's call it efficacious traction, that is to say these millennials begin replacing their fourteen-day refills with eightballs, I mean boy howdy, that would really grab those North Jersey cartel fogeys by the ledger, wouldn't it? 591 | —I'm not trying to grab anybody by the ledger. All I'm trying to do is help those who- 595 | —Somewhat surprised the cartel hasn't tried to snuff ole Glen out yet, half expect some lab coat to sneak up behind me in some Parsippany parking garage and club me over the head with an omaha steak. 604 | —Look all I want is someone to give serious consideration to this therapy. Because I've seen it work. We both have. 610 | — Well let's talk about the first patient in whom we've seen this work, the so-called poster boy of Apply The High therapy who 614 | —Dammit Glen you're the only one who calls him that. And remember that we promised him 618 | —That true art rejects victimhood. remember it fondly Doctor Neumann, that's what I wanted to sidebar with you about because that was the moment when this therapy started, wouldn't you agree? 626 | —Remember we had come back from our anniversary dinner at Tilted Kilt and saw his art dealer's business card tacked to our front door along with a note suggesting that we should sell our kitchen table to cover his funeral costs. 635 | Remember he even wrote the damn tombstone himself talking about how his last work should be viewed through the same meta-muerte lens as his first one. 641 | And then when we walked in remember seeing him wobbling up there standing on the easel and that's when you started screaming true art rejects victimhood must've repeated the damn phrase for an hour, 650 | true art rejects victimhood true art rejects victimhood just screaming it over the wobbly easel legs screeching on the burled wood table. 656 | but then remember Joyce remember after I took out my emergency baggie from my sportcoat and dangled it at him like it was a calm doll, remember that that was the combination that got B to finally put some slack in his belt and start snorting his way to success! 667 | —For fuck's sake Glen. 669 | —Oh dry your ovaries Joyce. We both know these therapies need a sordid narrative in order to sell. 674 | —Damnit that boy has 676 | —You mean our boy. 678 | —He's had enough legal exposure as it is without you putting him up on a wanted poster for a therapy that's still very much illegal. 683 | —Well let's loiter on that thought for a beat Doctor Neumann. Because how is it that the law of the land of the free still bans the personal possession of powder. 690 | I mean like really. How is it that we've devoted a century's worth of jurisprudential energy toward churning citizens into felons? 697 | For the crime of possessing the same goddamned materials that have woven America's greatness I'm talking Cobain's dotted forearms, Edison's clotted nostrils, Clemens's puckering nutsack. 705 | —Quite the patchwork quilt you got there, Glen. 708 | —And for all the political titty-wringing around our war on drugs, you got the North Jersey cartel gobbling up three percent of our gdp like a goddamned defense contractor. 715 | But before drugs coddled capitalism, they cradled civilization isn't that right Doctor Neumann? 721 | —If that's what passes for a segue then yes Glen. Many if not most primitive societies treated psychoactive drugs such as psilocybin and the coca leaf not as a marketplace good but as a core social concept very much like ritual, religion and taboo. 733 | And like those concepts, were adopted independently and unanimously throughout the early world. 737 | —All we are, are stoned apes. that it Doctor Newman? 740 | —Yes well putting aside your mckenna fanboner, I am of the belief we should attribute our evolutionary leap to entheogenic drug consumption as no other psychological input could have induced a parthenogenesis of man's creative self and spark individual thought in early clan-driven societies, but that's clearly outside my purview as a psychiatric 755 | —Can't spell parthenogenesis without entheogenic drugs; that it Doctor Neumann? 759 | —Sure Glen but going back to your original question, for the better part of human civilization, psychoactive drugs withstood man's economic urge to truck and barter all the way up until the last gasps of imperialism. 770 | —That was where desperate empires began taxing indigenous drugs, for example the coca leaf, as a way of imposing a kind of war bond on the Mesoamerican tribes they themselves were warring with. 779 | Nations who interestingly enough responded by distributing the coca among themselves to generate socioeconomic energy for one last final uprising. 786 | —Exactly that's my point, America can learn from the rest of the Americas on social uses of the coca leaf. Like do you know about Al Bignon this economic botanist from Peru? 793 | —I know I specifically told you not to try and shoehorn his story into our interview. 797 | —No I know, but know what you call a lawyer who does what they're told? A paralegal. 801 | —Ok so back about a century ago, you know when coke was legal in this country, Murk was so desperate to find their pharmaceutical foothold they went down to south america to blast through the Andes so they could pillage that sweet sweet peruvian coca. 812 | But guess what Al Bignon did, Doctor Newman? 814 | —Why should I guess if I‘m the one who introduced you to his writings. 818 | —He made do with what was done to him. Yep he figured out that the soda ash leftover from all the blasted mountain ore could be used to refine the coca leaf. 824 | Not only that he then went around the country to teach his neat new refinement process to his fellow peasants so they could use it as a catalyst for upward mobility into the viceroyal economy. 832 | You know, teach a man to fishscale, feed him for life, that kind of thing. 836 | —Yeah sure Glen. Powder to the people. 839 | —And see, get this, Al had twice as much published articles as Freud, something that might interest you Doctor Newman as you're looking to get traction on your track. 845 | Matter facts one of his reports got all the way to the UN. One of the things he wrote really stuck with me is that freeing a society depends on three key elements 852 | —Glen. 853 | —Initiative culture and resources and guess what guess what Doctor Neumann cocaine is core to all three. 857 | I mean anyone who's ever done a bump or even just seen Scarface can make the connection to initiative and culture and then as far as resources like guess what kept the banks afloat during the last financial crisis? 867 | Yep that's right, white powder on the black market. 869 | —Glen! 870 | —wha? 871 | —Your producer, he's waving his hands and tapping his imaginary watch behind the glass there. 876 | —Well looks like that's all the time we have here today on Gavel to Babble. 878 | —For fuck sake Glen I specifically told you to pay for the full hour! That this was too important to squeeze your producer's shoes with whatever three sevenths of an hour bullshit like you bill your clients. 885 | —And in the interest of that time, I'll let you have the last word here Doctor Neumann. 889 | —Fine look above all else, I hope your listeners understand that pleasure based creative remediation therapy 893 | —Apply The High. 895 | —Yes fine Glen it, that my patients, we're not using pleasure as some toy, but rather as a tool that they can carry with them for the rest of, the fuck you snickering for? 904 | —Nothing. 906 | —No please speak on it. 908 | —When you say that pleasure isn't a toy but a tool Doctor Neumann it, it's just that the dremel wand and impact gun underneath our mattress suggest otherwise but that's neither 914 | Words suddenly silenced by the crackle of adhesive shearing off scalp follicles, then the thud and thwock of a palm pressing a hairpiece's acrylic undercarriage against soundproof glass. 925 | —Thank you, Doctor Joyce Neumann. It has certainly been my pleasure.

1 | —Objection! 2 | Glen lifted his eyes to Governor Punt, who loomed above his straphanging constituents from atop a train placard's purchased perch to make the all-caps argument 9 | FATHERS DON'T LET FAMILIES PLAY WITH ADDICTION 12 | on behalf of the client Punt shielded behind his right pinstriped shoulder: a prison-jumpsuit-orange pill canister, capless and toppled seemingly by its own emptiness, yet propped up by a gavel and rattle beneath it. 23 | —Calls for narrative response. 25 | After offering his muttered rebuttal, Glen stepped up to the placard to squint in its lower right corner. 31 | Finding BOUGHT AND PAID FOR BY MURK in the thinned typeface and scrunched kerning that characterize legally mandated disclosures, he rested his caseload against the train's door, 40 | clasped his right wrist with his left hand to peer out the train's scuzzed oval window framing cauliflower clouds parallaxing against a lower Manhattan skyline glinting recycled light. 50 | Suddenly, Weehawken's palisades sheared Glen's view with the severity of an attendant shutting a first-class curtain. 56 | Cragged rocks stacked like rows of trees were speckled with rust-ochred, restaurant-grade heating lamps and tarped shopping carts angled to the rock's base like game traps, 65 | this blurred landscape of exile punctured every half mile by industrial drain pipes whose runoff bleached the rock bald. 72 | Thudding boots bearing the weight of authority disturbed Glen's lucidity as they crescendoed up the train's corrugated rubber aisle. 79 | As he watched the oval windowpane milkily reflect a shape cloaked in the authoritative blue of oxygenless blood pass past him, a flickering hackle reminded Glen he lacked timestamped fare. 89 | He shrugged the feeling off the fall of his cream-with-rose windowpaned sportcoat in a shimmy, picked up his caseload, and began to tail the officer with a two-car cushion. 98 | Entering the swivel-bridge car, another hackle reminded him that the route was about to peel sharply south toward Lackawanna station. 105 | He then pressed his palm to the train's low ceiling, as if he were a waiter bussing his own balance, to peer over the swaying crowd just as the swivel-bridge's slinking accordion walls formed the right angle to surveill. 116 | And after clocking her jurisdictional shoulder patch as Pavonia-Newport Mall -- not New Jersey Transit Police -- Glen pursed a smirk through grit lips, as if winning a match by forfeit. 126 | His periphery still heightened from unspent adrenaline, Glen picked up eyes on him that were not his own. 133 | He turned to his left to find a man leaning bike and body against the train door's sign prohibiting both, grinning with criminal empathy. 139 | Glen flipped his business card over as he extended it so that before his potential client would search the name on the front, he would vibe with the motto on the back: 147 | “The law is a game to be played, not a God to be revered.” 151 | The train announced its arrival at its Lincoln Harbor stop with a ding-dee warning to those pedestrians playing palsied footsie with the station's crosswalk. 160 | Out its peeling doors a snapping hand's unfurling palm slapped the side of the other hand's fist at the rhythm of a nearby piledriver pounding piling. 167 | Walking past IBS's blue glass ziggurat headquarters, Glen spat derisively into a foyer planter mulched with cigarette butts. 175 | Arriving at the marina's gate, he put his finger on printer paper taped to and flapping against its beehived steel door to take in its 72-point warning — 183 | COMING SOON: ATMAN PROJECTS. NO TRUST PASSING 186 | with a nodding, conciliatory frown acknowledging there's no deeper truth than a mistake. 192 | Glen flung the salon door open with such cinematic panache that its impact against the bulkhead's rubber backstop pitched the vessel enough to wobble the saranwrapped egg balancing upright on the workbench. 203 | Like a parent seeing their toddler teeter, Glen lunged across the salon with outstretched arm cradles, his separate accordion briefcases jangling around each elbow's crook. 213 | Only after Glen reached within trolling distance did Byron casually secure the egg by tapping its top with a three-quarter socket. 219 | Seeing this, Glen bowed his posture, rested his caseload against the work bench, wiped lapels with both hands, and removed a retractable pen from inside his sportcoat to hold in a fist pressed against his jaw. 232 | He then began to circle the egg, highstepping over four horizontal legs heeled against the work bench. 238 | After clicking the pen open as if protracting a chin-claw, he flicked the egg's top with its tip to presumably calibrate its center of gravity. 246 | Finding a torn saran wrap swatch sealed haphazardly, he genuflected on the salon carpet, wafted hand from egg to nostril, then swivelled a disappointed torso to Byron like a father discovering their child had opened a present too early. 260 | —For Christ sake Glen, just have a toot 263 | —Now what kind of dad would I be if I snorted some dirty coke in front of my son here? 267 | Byron extended his smartphone at Glen, then swandove his index finger upon its screen. 272 | —Glen Grynszpan. You are...not the father! 277 | —Fucking Maury! 279 | Glen muttered against warbled whoops punctuating judgement. 282 | —Look B, as you know I only got ninety six billable quarter-hours in a day. And I'm spending most of them working this false light tort regarding that recent hit piece on me in the Weehawken Reporter so how about we 290 | —Oh yeah, what was that headline again? Local attorney fights waterfront erection? 295 | —And you sure as shit know you know I can't comment on pending litigation, so again, how about we just get to cleaning these here drugs. 301 | —You may approach the work bench, counselor. 303 | —Wait, first off where's the nail polish remover? I mean you guys did get the notarized memo I sent, right? 307 | —No. And why would we source the nail-polish remover? You're the one living with Mom. 311 | —Yeah well after our podcast, Joyce started marking the levels on all her nailcare bottles. Gawl! 317 | Glen shoved down locked arms and balled fists as he stomped on the salon's carpet. 321 | —Treats me like I'm in high school! And why is it always Mom with Joyce, but with Dad it's Glen huh, B? 326 |— Probably because you're my uncle. 328 | —Yeah. You're. As in were. 330 | Because look, just like aunt Joyce stepped up to be your forever mother I'm ready to step up too, B. To be honest, I contend I already have, I mean I've had as much of a hand in getting your career going as she has. 340 | Byron extended his phone back out at Glen's eye level, and tapped again. 344 | —Barrister Grynzspan. I have determined that was a lie. 348 | Glen winced, then clawed the air with both hands as if it were a stress ball. 353 | —Look B, let's get to the brass facts of the matter. We both know Papa Grinnie's toot clear float recipe calls for a heaping helping of nail polish remover. 360 | —Ok so what? You want me to knock on that tug's hull on the next slip over, see if they could spare a cup for our booger sugar, that it? 366 | —Thought you'd at least check the dockbox out there on the stern. 369 | —For nail polish remover? Didn't think the vessel's previous captain ran with that type of crowd. 374 | Glen lept out of the salon and onto the stern deck where, after flinging its dockbox open, he came back with the same breeze he let in, swishing a sloshing metal canister over his head as if it were a proselytizer's tambourine. 387 | —Acetone. Protector of pulses. Savior of stepped-on shit. Patron saint of sinii. 393 | —Hold up I mean I'm no like drug expert, but is it really that safe to use some boat chemical to clean this cocaine egg? 399 | —B looks like this new friend of yours needs a quick demo. You got some four hundred grit laying around here somewhere? 404 | —No. 405 | —No you don't have the sandpaper? Or no I shouldn't do the demo? Wait wait wait question withdrawn, just realized my stubble's grown out to about the same grit. 413 | After removing, then folding his sportcoat over a teak step on the pilothouse staircase, Glen flung his tie over his shoulder, dashed acetone on his palm, then dramatically splashed onto cheeks and chin as if advertising aftershave. 426 | —Now if acetone wasn't such a neat great cleaning agent, 431 | Glen bent his torso over the side of the stern deck as if seasick, wrapping shins around stainless steel rod holders jutting underneath the teak gunwale. 438 | —Glen. Whatever you're about to do you really don't have to do it. 441 | —Would I be able to do this? 443 | There Glen rubbed his chin back and forth against a swaying vessel while wake lapped the hull to douse scalp sutres exposed by gravity. 449 | —That hull's so damn clean, you can set your watch to it! Whoa there lil help there b? 457 | Byron somersaulted gum between tips of teeth for a dramatic beat before grabbing Glen by his starched cotton collar, and lever his torso upright. 465 | —I mean come over here take a look at how the acetone broke up the gunk on the hull! Now imagine what it'll do to the gunk in that egg of yours. 471 | No I mean really look you can't see from that angle,lean over the gunwale see for yourself. 475 | —No need unc. evidence is all over your chin. Matter facts if I didn't know better I'd say you've been stepping out on Joyce and letting missus claus take nightly sleigh rides on your face. 484 | —Well, for the record, it's your forever mother who taps out from that position before I do. Ok so now we got our acetone, so all we need is a sheaf of ten micron filter paper, a meyers beaker, a squeeze bottle, and a roll of autoclave tape. 496 | —Ok look we got your damn memo, but all we could find is some coffee filters, a turkey baster, and this mayor mccheese glass. No tape though. 503 | Glen paced in place while pinching his nostrils. 505 | —You check down in the engine room? 507 | —Did a total inventory stem to stern; all that's down there are a couple overlapping sets of sockets, a few screwdrivers, and some spare fuel filters. 513 | —Fuel filters, you say? 515 | With the earnest energy of a contestant on an obstacle-driven game show, Glen clean-and-jerked the salon's floor hatch, propped it at a 95-degree angle against the portside window, and lept down into the engine room below. 526 | Where he was not seen but heard by virtue of his wingtips landing upon the fiberglass floor in a flammed clack, the tinny clatter of rummaged tools, 534 | and the rip and the spit of a bit plastic pouch until two black bands emerged out from the hatch's hole to land at both men's feet like gifts from a wishing well. 543 | —Gaskets... 544 | Glen grunted as he clutched the salon cabinet's handle for leverage as he hauled himself back up to the salon floor. 550 | —Sealer of flow state. Favorite of flanges. Protector of pressure. 553 | —You need two of those there Glen? 556 | —Yeah, one for the drugs; one for my rug. Okay now wait 559 | Hands on head pinning his hairpiece back, Glen looked down at the engine room for a beat, then with waddling elbows, swivelled his torso between it and Byron. 568 | —Wait just one nonbillable second. B. I just realized this boat it ain't a sailboat. 573 | —Quite trenchant counselor. And to think all this time, David and I couldn't square the lack of sails on board. 578 | —Which means this is a powerboat. 580 | —Yes. 582 | —Which means big, deep cycle batteries. 583 | —Glen. 584 | —I mean when Joyce told me you got a gig working on some boat, thought it'd be some boomer's schooner. told her not to worry because batteries on those things are about the size of my lunchtime shits. 593 | but now after seeing the cubic inches on these diesels, I mean holy shit B, battery bank on board's got to be at least two eight ds, probably looking at upwards of two thousand cold cranking amps. 601 | —How bout instead of worrying about cranking amps, we start cleaning the crank out of this egg. 605 | —Ok, so you there, smells like you've been down in the engine room with him. I mean has B here seemed comfortable working near these two big batteries? 612 | —Comfortable? Yeah, he's comfortable! Comfortable enough to turn me upside down without my consent, comfortable enough to baste me with fuel, that comfortable enough for you? 618 | Glen pressed his palm to a breast pocket sewn shut. 622 | —Yes, that is comforting. I mean I don't want to embarrass you in front of yor new friend here B, but 627 | —Then don't. 628 | —David, I don't know if you know that your new friend here 630 | —He doesn't. 631 | —Okay ok I won't say nothing. 633 | —Thank you, I appreciate tha 634 | —Look all I'll say is that big batteries used to be a bit of a trigger for Byron here look don't get mad ok B because you know I've always had faith in you. 642 | I mean why else would I have bought the hashtag rights to battery bravery if not for this very moment right here? 646 | —Put your goddamned phone away Glen. 648 | —Oh come-on, b! 650 | —Don't come on me as if I'm Joyce. 654 | —Puh please-please B? Because let me tell you there's nothing better as a father figure than to share your son's growth with your family of followers. 658 | now wait a minute B don't get mad ok just talk to me, because real talk, the monthly retainers on these hashtags cost something fierce I tell you what I mean just daddy dialogue alone we're talking 668 | A slamming salon door momentarily shut the conversation, until a head wedged through the gap created in its recoil to shout 675 | —Want some daddy dialogue? Hey pops! your fucking wig's on backward! 678 | As stern lines cackled from the strain of Byron's exiting momentum, Glen peered into the galley microwave's black window to take in his reflection. 686 | —So, uh Glen, I was kinda wondering 688 | —Barrister Grinspan. 690 | Glen said while petulantly tapping the microwave window as if having paid for something which had not yet been vended. 696 | —Yeah sure uh Barrister Grynzspan I, well I'm kinda wondering how you know so much about 700 | —What, drugs? 702 | Suddenly, Glen snatched his hairpiece, catburgling his scalp without breaking gaze or posture. 708 | —I practice law in the state of New Jersey kid. That's how I know so much about drugs. 712 | —No, I, I was gonna say boats. like all that about cold cranking amps, fuel filter gaskets, nail polish remover in the dock box, like I've been reading some of the manuals on board here and it's kind of interest 721 | —Asked. 722 | Glen stopped to fully concentrate on torquing a head tonsured with wig tape one way while twirling the blonde hairpiece he held above in the opposite direction; 730 | a movement which, from David's vantage point, looked like a shar pay chasing its tail on a flesh-colored lazy susan. 736 | —And answered. 738 | Glen said as he rested hairpiece upon scalp with the cautious finality of a crane releasing a capstone, then clapped his hands clean. 745 | —Ok so you ready to help me scramble this here egg? 748 | —To be honest I don't know much about cleaning drugs, so I guess, you tell me. 752 |— No son, you tell me. Because proprietary knowledge of uncle grinnie's toot clear float recipe is conditionally contingent on your disclosure of any and all hearsay from yesterday's investor meeting. 762 | —Hearsay. And that means what, exactly? 764 | —Means what the fucking word says it means! So say what you heard, kid. 768 | —Yeah sure well I remember they talked about using Likecoin as the first step in building some development in this marina something called the Atman Projects. 775 | —Shit, son! 777 | Glen flung a backhand toward the bow. 779 | —I know that! It's on the goddamned sign out front! 782 | —Yeah ok well I mean when Byron was underwater, our boss Mister Van Sant 785 | —Juug. 787 | —Oh ok, so you do know him. 789 | —Know enough about him that we should dispense with the fucking honorifics. 792 | —ok fine well yeah Juug he was talking about how the end game of this Likecoin play was to like get millennial parents to cosign these social mortgages, something about tapping the American Dream dry one family tree at a time. 802 | —And to your recollection Juug was pitching this to his potential Likecoin investor, a man who B describes as, let me find my notes here, 808 | this neat russian zinc magnet who totally gets what you two're trying to do here on this here yacht the American Dream. 813 | —Yeah yeah right, now I remember Mister uh, Juug, he called him Kuvetli. 818 | —Kuvetli? 820 | Glen scrunched his face, then pinched a patch of forehead. 823 | —As in Mortimer Kuvetli? 825 | —Fuck if-I know; seems like you know the man better than I do. 827 | —Can't know a man like that. Asking to know a man like that is like asking money to know its maker. 832 | —Well I do know he didn't give any money to Juug. That was actually kind of the weird thing about it all, he got a billion likecoin plus the title to this boat, but nothing in return. 841 | —Except for this egg he gifted you. 843 | —Well yeah. He called it like this participation trophy, something about it being an up payment for our future success. 849 | Glen drifted pads of both palms down his face to stretch cheeks and chin like melted putty. 854 | —The mayor mccheese glass David, if you please. 856 | —Here. So why do we even need to clean this coke egg anyway? I mean it looks pretty white to me? 861 | —Always got to proofread pleasure's fine print, kid. 864 | After spitting inside the mayor mccheese glass, Glen contemplatively wiped its insides clean, his striped tie as a makeshift saloon rag. 872 | —I mean sure, this egg probably started out pure in peru. Coffee filter. But there's a lot of steps between there and here, and each one's got someone else adding a little more toxic shit to it. Gasket. 883 | Kind of like how your neat new boss Mister Van Sant is adding toxic shit to these social mortgages he's got you two touting 888 | —Wait. what kind of toxic shit? 890 | —Interest markups, lidor fees, adjustable rates based on prevailing markets that they themselves manipulate not to mention the dark pool derivatives 897 | —No, I mean the drugs. 899 | —Aspirin and baby laxative if you're lucky. Cattle dewormer and fent if you're not. 903 | —Cattle dewormer? 905 | —Don't fret, boss. This is why the good lord created Glen Grynzspan, so he could in turn create the toot clear float. 910 | So I got the coffee filter tight as a drum over the glass with this gasket, next I'm gonna break a piece off this egg and place it on top of the paper. 916 | Okay now here's the acetone canister and turkey baster for you to do the honors 922 | —Uh, what honors? 923 | —The honor of dipping thy psalter in thy font, and baptizing thy blow. 927 | —Ok, which means? 929 | —Just suck the acetone from the goddamned canister, and then squirt it on top of the powder. I mean gawl! 933 | —Dammit how should I know? 935 | —How shouldn't you? Cleaning drugs should be s i p for all you artists writers creative types. 940 | —Sip? 942 | —Standard insufflation procedure. 944 | —Fine look now that I actually know what to do, I can actually do it ok so I'll baste the damn powder with the turkey bwait, uh, Glen? 951 | —Hold on, kid. looking for a foil pan for us to put the 954 | —No Glen look! the powder, I think I squirt too much acetone on it, it it's all turning into a puddle. God dammit I knew I'd fuck this up somehow! 961 | —Jesus kid, have a little faith in the process. See it's already drying out. 966 | —Oh. Huh. 968 | —You know, puddles triggered Byron too for a minute there. Couldn't order any halal for the better part of a presidential administration. Something about the wet fried goat meat reminded him of his late father. 977 | —I uh, I'm sorry to hear that. 979 | —That's kind of you to say. Because I tell you what, missing out on Jersey City halal is no small sacrifice. 985 | And don't even get me started whenever Jiffy Lube had their quarterly battery blowout sale had to avoid seventy-eight altogether, added close to an hour to Joyce's therapy commute. 994 | —And Joyce is your wife? 995 | —Yep. No shame in it, you know. 997 | —What, having a wife? 999 | —Fuck no. Having a wife is all shame, son. Therapy. 1003 | —Yeah no sure, I mean with all the things that have gone wrong recently I, well I'd be crazy not to think something isn't wrong with me. 1110 | But it's not like I can afford to pay some therapist to help me figure out where I've gone wrong. 1015 | —Therapy isn't about paying some headshrinker to figure out where you went wrong. It's about investing in yourself so you can figure out how to get right. 1022 | —Well I don't think I can afford that either. 1025 | —Nonsense. A time-disciplined man like yourself should be up to his nuts in self-belief. 1030 | —A what? 1031 | —B tells me you live life two-fifths of an hour at a time. Me, I'm more on a sevenths-of-an-hour billing cadence but time-based hueristics sure are something, aren't they? 1037 | —Look I'll tell you what I already told Byron. I'm not going to be some lab rat for your Apply The High scheme. 1042 | Know what, you're right. 1044 | Glen used the back of the tuna filet knife to sweep cocaine at souffle consistency off the damp paper drummed over the glass rim, and into a nearby foil pan. 1052 | —You're not a lab rat. 1054 | Where, after firing off a gratuitously long unblinking glance at David, he muttered 1058 | —At least lab rats spin a wheel. 1060 | then returned to the work before him. rolling the gasket up and off Mayor MecCheese's glass rim, replacing the wet paper on top of the glass with a dry mental health intake form he brought for that express purpose, rerolling the gasket back over the glass's papered rim, 1073 | scooping a clump off the egg with a spoon which he then palsily drizzled on the paper's taut surface with the intensity and purpose of a confectioner staging on garnish; 1082 | Where, after firing another glance that ricocheted between David's eyes and the turkey bayster he held aloof at his hip, barrels of both nostrils shot a passive-aggressive nasal scoff. 1093 | And after David peevishly basted the powder with acetone, Glen filled the idle time waiting for the drug puddle to congeal with rehearsed pharma-psychoneurological talking points, 1102 | tapping the tuna filet knife caked in white residue to tap on various parts of his toupeed-skewed skull as if it were a lecture pointer until the puddle solidified to slurry that Glen could scrape off onto the pan; 1113 | and so both men repeated this work circuit until the saran-wrapped egg became soft white mush scattered in the foil pan. 1126 | —Now all we need to do is pop this wet white loaf in an oven set at two hundred degrees so it can dessicate. 1132 | —How long should that take, because I really do need to get back to Park Slope so I can hit my daily job application quota 1138 | —Just enough time to bend your ear on this Three's Bumpany miniseries I'm pitching on the early days of apply the high therapy. 1144 | Problem is all these tv studios are giving me some limpdicked headwinds talking about how they can't sell a family dramedy centered around a schedule one drug to their ad networks. 1152 | —What's that have to do with me. 1154 | —B mentioned you work in advertising, thinking once this white loaf's ready you and I can chop it up you know burn some narratological calories on how to square this circle of telling a family's story through the lines which bind them. 1164 | —Well B should have also mentioned I haven't worked in an agency for more than a year. Or for that matter anywhere else. 1169 | Actually which reminds me I heard you say on your podcast you used to work at Murk maybe you can get me an in there? Because I do have some pharmaceutical proofreading experience. 1176 | Raised eyebrows pushed Glen's hairpiece into retreat beneath an incredulously slacked jaw, as if David were a client declining to appeal his life sentence. 1185 | —The mind is a terrible thing to waste on the North Jersey cartel, you know that right? 1189 | Glen said as he opened the oven door. Steam smelling of burnt vodka singed David's nostrils in its flume up through an open galley hatch, its parallelogram of sunlight bobbing by virtue of the mid-morning's flood tide as it spotlit the foil pan Glen placed on the galley counter. 1206 | —Now David, before you, B, or anyone else ingests this heretofore product, it is my jurisfiduciary duty to expose myself to any potential insufflative harm. 1214 | —What? 1216 | David asked a man too enamored with the white clump he swished between fingers and thumb to answer. 1220 | Who, after leaning into limbo position while poising his pinched hand above a face peeling back below the horizon, 1226 | released the powder above his right nostril like an arcade claw over a prize chute, then produced the sound of a man gargling his own nose. 1234 | —Hoo doggie! 1236 | Glen exclaimed while jabberwockying himself upright. 1238 | —Now that there's some certified organic shit Bignon himself would be proud of. 1242 | —So I'm guessing that means the drugs are clean. 1245 | —Let's just say we are now free to season our holiday hams. 1247 | Glen said as he removed a digital scale from his starched shirt's front pocket. 1252 | —Now hand me that empty pan so we can see how much of the egg we got left after we scrambled all the adulterants out. 1258 | After zeroing out the scale with the empty pan, Glen switched in the pan filled with the white caked product, looked down on the scale's lcd screen, and, as if he were the owner of a record 4h hog, sheepishly scratched the back of his neck. 1272 | —Forty two grams, boy howdy that, that there's quite the uh, quite the 1276 | —Quite the what, jail sentence? I mean you are a lawyer, right? So you surely know that this egg no matter how much we clean it, that possessing it is, is 1283 | David stopped to pull out his phone and tap thumbs on its screen. 1288 | —a class B felony punishable by one to nine years in prison as it is in violation of 1292 | —New Jersey subscript two twenty dash sixteen. 1295 | Glen's nostrils audibly aired their frustration. 1297 | —Listen kid, just because you haven't let your nuts hang yet, don't try to shove mine back up into my body cavity. 1303 | —The fuck is with you Chiantis rooting for my balls to drop like, like I'm some fucking creative cinderella! 1309 | —Let's get one thing straight kid. I ain't a Chianti. I may represent em, even try to reproduce em on occasion, but me myself 1316 | —Ok well I'm not either! And I don't know how many times I need to tell you and your son or nephew or whoever Byron is to you that doing a bunch of blow won't change that. 1324 | —B doesn't want you to be him. Shit, most of the time, he doesn't want to be him. He just wants you to be who you can become. 1330 | —Well I don't think I can be that either. 1333 | —Oh ho that so? 1335 | Glen turned his back to David, hunching over himself in order to sprinkle powder on the inside of his outstretched pinky. 1341 | —Brring brring David, your future you is on the- 1343 | —He already refused the call, Glen. 1345 | David and Glen turned toward the salon door to find Byron slithering through the gap created from his exit's recoil. 1351 | —Sorry about all that back then just now, that was mad selfish of me to leave him unattended with you 1356 | —Hey no worries B I was just educating your friend here on the finer psychopharmacological points of 1360 | —I was talking about you, unc. 1362 | Byron vaulted down the staircase's parallel barred railing without touching its four stairs to land in the cramped galley, then remove a carbon steel painter's tool from a beige plastic bag jangling from his wrist, 1374 | where he leaned between the two men to scoop product from the pan, then sniff the tine's undercariage with the practiced elegance of a somallier sipping a ladle. 1383 | —Sorry David this one's all Apply the High all the time. Might as well get the goddamned phrase tattooed on his nut sack. 1389 | —Tell you what, if the image of me strapped to a dentist's chair with my sack spread taut if that's what it takes to change you and your friend here's decision calculus on applying the high two point o, why I'll clean the goddamned forceps myself is what I'll do. 1401 | —No look that's not necessary, I mean on some level I guess I appreciate both of you trying to get me to apply this therapy of yours but I, I just don't think it's for me right now. 1409 | —Exactly see Apply The High isn't for your present me but rather your future you! Why do you think I put him on the horn for you just then 1416 | —Ok well right now my focus is simply making enough rent for my present me to survive. So I think I'll just take my half of this scrambled drug egg and we can go our separate 1424 | —Your half? 1426 | Byron and Glen scoffed in two-part harmony. 1429 | Yeah my half. That russian gave the egg to both of us, didn't he? 1433 | —He didn't give it to us David. He gifted it to us. There is a difference, you know that right? 1437 | —Actually, no I don't know that. All I know is that this stuff has some serious street value because this one time at a party I paid someone twenty bucks for just one line, so 1444 | —Oh ho! So this powder's good enough to add value to the streets, but not good enough to add value to yourself? 1450 | —Dammit I already told you! I can't afford to add value to myself, at at least not right now not with this traumatizing economy, like have you seen the latest quarterly job 1458 | —David. If I may 1460 | Glen interjected with fused indexfinger-pistols pushing a caked nose into a snout. 1465 | —Now since you're not my client, I'm aware that your business isn't necessarily mine, at least not at this juncture. That said even so I do feel like it is in my boy B's interests to talk to you like a dutch uncle here as you consider your options. 1475 | Because look, I know a belt-and-suspendered soul when I see one. And after hearing from B that your story is that you don't have one, and then seeing your search results, or lack thereofs, 1484 | from my vantage point it looks as if this powder right here might just be your last best chance to assert yourself in the cosmos. 1489 | —Cosmos. 1490 | David scoffed, shook his head, then spat in the galley sink. 1495 | —Don't, don't talk to me about asserting myself in the cosmos. You kidding me?! Cosmos? I just hope I can assert myself on next month's rent check! 1502 | —Look David don't get mad on account of Glen like I said he's 1505 | —Fuck that. Let me talk to you like your dutch nephew for a sec here Barrister Grynspan because you're right, my business isn't yours. You know why? because there is no goddamned business! 1515 | I mean holy shit last week I got lucky enough to get to the third drink on a first date guess what? I wasn't thinking about asserting myself in the cosmos I was thinking how to close the deal after asking to split the tab damnit Byron please just stop with the motherfucking scraping! 1526 | Byron shrugged, then stuck the triangle scraper into the galley's white cabinets like a lumberjack at quitting time. 1532 | —Glen, can you give us the vessel. 1534 | —Sure B. Now as an attorney I cannot encourage the furtherance of a crime, but let me offer as a closing thought that as a practical matter, 1540 | consuming the evidence as opposed to selling it would give you let's call it pleasure's plausible deniability for lack of a 1546 | —Glen, we talked about this. Just be plain with your speech. 1549 | —You two simply vacuumed the whole egg mess up. See? 1553 | Glen's index finger tapped the side of his nose. 1556 | —And we are under zero obligation to divulge which appliance was used. 1560 | —Great Glen, we have been so advised. 1563 | After saluting both men with the tuna filet knife with such goofy ebullience that it detached several of his toupee sutres, Glen waddled backwards out the salon door dangling cupped palms between bowed thighs inferring a need to support overgrown testes. 1577 | Where, as soon as he fully crossed the entryway's threshold, Byron quickly shut the salon door, as if finally free of a varmint's presence. 1683 | —Let the straws fly high, gentlemen! 1686 | Came muffled behind the salon bulkhead door, its bobbing sill intermittently framing the top of Glen's scalp and a hand pinning hairpiece half-flapping against stiff headwinds, as if it were a hat.

1 | Caked white crags clung to a foil pan pivoting upward into an upright parallelogram. 5 | —Linger awhile! 6 | Byron asked as he balanced the pan on its lowest point with a finger on its highest point like a place-kicker's holder. 12 | — Linger awhile. 13 | — You know, help me jar it all loose. 14 | — Jar it all loose? 17 | With his free hand, Byron positioned his phone beneath the pan's bottom corner. He then picked up a triangle scraper, looked up at David, nodded downward, and began to tap scraper against screen in the manner of an expectant hockey stick on a power play. 29 | At this, David shot mocking air through his nose, the exact opposite of a snort, before knocking the back of the pan with a cusped, sarcastically limp knuckle. 38 | Suddenly, he felt his rolling eyes stop in their tracks to track white clumps pockmarked in sheen avalanche off the foil pan, onto the phone's black screen, where the painter's tool scything rocks into powder, sweeping powder into a pile, then sorting a part of that pile into two parallel lines. 55 | Byron dug out a rolled-up twenty from his jeans' pocketwatch pocket, then tilted the shivering bill in David's direction, as if it were a rookie money-lender's signing pen. 63 | — I uh, it's a little early for me. 67 | — Byron shrugged, then stuck the spiraled currency inside his snout. 71 | — Or maybe, it's a little too late. 73 | — Look Byron-I know what you're trying to do here-okay? 75 | — Yeah and what's that? 76 | — Well I don't know exactly what but it, it 78 | There he was interrupted by the sound of a man attempting to inhale his own nose. 82 | — It's almost like you're trying to tempt me into saving myself! 85 | — Ain't no all-most about it, Engram 88 | Byron said beneath a newton's cradle of dangling blond bangs swaying with and against the snort's momentum. 93 | — But look, if you're scared about that sort of thing, I get it. 95 | — Scared to what, save myself? Come on, that's silly. 98 | — It's not silly, silly! it's your soul! Overhauling something like that should pucker your butthole something fierce. Sure as shit puckered mine, I mean insofar what was left of 105 | — Dammit I'm not scared! It's just that, well maybe it's just not worth doing. 110 | — What, saving yourself? 112 | Byron looked at David with the concern of someone evaluating an open facial wound. 116 | — David my friend, nothing's worth doing until you've done it. Because it's in the act of doing, that we redeem the choice of the doer. 121 | Look, just because you're wearing duck canvas coveralls doesn't make these lunchpail tautologies of yours any more poignant. 127 | — No sure but like aren't you a little concerned you haven't really done anything on this here vessel the American Dream? Especially after we were given this neat gift by our new Russian investor? 133 | — Given this gift?! More like given this grift! 136 | I mean holy shit the fact you can't see this, you can't see how much of a fucking farce all this working for crypto and accepting drug eggs on this here neat vessel, the American fucking 144 | — Hey, don't get mad, ohkay? 146 | — Dammit-I'm not mad, I 148 | David stopped to stare at the white dashes and dots on the black screen, then blinked deeply and sporadically, as if a hostage communicating with the outside world. 156 | — When you're a kid, they make you feel like everything you do is worth doing. Shit, they give you trophies for doing it. 162 | But really all you're doing is participating in the same damn game as everyone else. Sixteen years playing the same damn bigoted game of low expectations until one day you get in a gown to hear some smarmy success story troll the class of who the fuck cares to go forth and do something worth doing. To hashtag run your race. 177 | — Okay but like see this line? This line can be 180 | — But when you finally get out into the world, all you can see are all the damn things that aren't worth doing. But you have to do them in order to survive. 187 | Which means you can't hashtag run your race because you're too busy running yourself into a rut filling up some rich fuck's sales funnel. 192 | —Yeah but like see this pile over here? Guess what piles are great for, Engram? That's right, filling in ruts so how about 197 | —So even if by sheer bumblefuck luck you find something that's actually worth doing, you can't do anything about it because you got to make your net worth worthy enough to own your own home, your own goddamned participation trophy in the goddamned American Dream. 209 | —Exactly and speaking of participation trophies, remember how that neat russian in the shiny suit said this here egg is our participation trophy? An up payment, if you will, for our future usses? 218 | Then one day some woman in hr who's wearing the same denim muumuu as your kindergarten teacher did when she gave you your first trophy gives you your last one putting you out to pasture while hashtagging you as found your finish line. 233 | —Well speaking of smiles, like see if I turn the ends up on this line here, like that's how this stuff can turn that mad frown of yours upside 236 | —Just stop! Stop pitching me about how this line can be the starting line for the rest of my life or that this line'll get my heart racing again or whatever titty-pinching argument you may have for 242 | No I mean sure, but like just to be clear that's not the part of you I want racing. 248 | Byron climbed on the galley counter to angle his maglight's so its kleiging light could throw a sharp dark silhouette against the galley's white cabinet as if it were a childhood portrait. 255 | —Now do you see? 256 | —See what, My shadow? You want me to snort this shit just so I can race my shadow? 260 | —Dammit Engram I want you to get out in front of it! Have you lead it for once, instead of having it lead you. 264 | — And where am I supposed to take it? Huh? I'm stuck here with you on the American Dream working for free. 269 | — Not for free David. For Likecoin. 271 | — Dammit Byron Likecoin is a scam! you know that, right? 273 | — Scams make the best stories, Engram. You know that, right? I mean, you tell me: are you like the rest of these fucking sluggers who think the only reason something's worth doing is if they're paid to do it? 282 | Or are you about the love of the game, about pushing yourself to pull it all off? 286 | — Pull what off? My fucking aorta? Maybe you should consider the fact that if you have to snort something to do something else maybe that thing's not worth doing in the first place. 294 | —Sure thing dude, once you consider the fact that maybe all you'll ever do with your life, is what they pay you to do. 298 | —But I'm not getting paid! 299 | —Exactly. So why'd you even take this job in the first place? 303 | —I, look I panicked okay? Started believing there weren't any other opportunities out there, nowhere else to place my hope, and then when I actually got a response to this Likecoin application I guess I took the bait is that what you wanted to hear? 314 | — I mean wow is this crazy or what because I used the same logic for my pleasure based creative rehabilitation. Like why would I even snort these fucking drugs in the first place? 322 | Byron tapped a white-residued triangle scraper against his temple. 325 | —Because I panicked. Started believing there weren't any other opportunities in here. Nowhere else to place my hope. And then after I got a response to my powder application, guess I took the bait too, same as you. 335 | —That is some specious fucking logic there Byron. 338 | —That's species logic, fool! All we are, are stoned apes, you know that right Engram? 344 | —I mean holy shit humans used pleasure to establish dominion over the planet, and you 're still flicking your dick about whether you should use pleasure to establish dominion over yourself? 350 | —Yeah, but… 352 | Like an offended ostrich, Byron torqued his torso and craned his neck down to confront David's avoidant eyes. 357 | —Yeah but, what. 359 | —Yeah, but aren't there serious side effects to doing a bunch of coke every day? 362 | —Dude. For anyone who takes their work seriously, life becomes a side effect, you know that right? I mean look man listen… 368 | Byron stopped to burrow both palm pads into his eye sockets, then drug them down over the flexed cheek of a clenched jaw, pinkie tips wiping rheum from his nostril crevices before pronating off squished lips into palms placed together in supplication. 381 | — Do the drugs or don't do them. You're gonna regret both, okay? Just don't not do drugs because you're coddling your future you! 387 | —See that's your problem, all this abstract future me shit makes this apply the high therapy sound like I'm selling a pyramid scheme to myself. 394 | — So you did read the National Geographic that I left out? 397 | — What? 398 | — On how the Incas made themselves make the pyramids? No? 400 | — No! 401 | Byron bounded into the head, flung open its medicine cabinet, then returned with a furled magazine in one hand while with the other rolling the twenty dollar bill on his jeans's corrugated hip seams 412 | —Look Byron 413 | —No just listen. 415 | Byron placed the index finger he raised to indicate that his consumption overrode David's objection against one nostril. 420 | Lodging the rerolled twenty in his other nostril, he stooped down to his phone's screen and ingested a three-inch line the yawing wake had jostled jagged into the lightning bolt shape of a bearish financial projection. 430 | —Hoo doggie! 432 | After attempting to clear his nasal passages with a clogged flatulent sound of a whoopie cushion exhaling underwater, Byron flipped the magazine unfurled over a bent leg lifted on the work bench in halftime-speech position. 445 | —On truth, sir, I detest it no less than anyone, but need forced me to chew it. Hear that David? Need. 451 | —Look I'll be sure to read the article on my bus ride back but I really need to make the five twenty or I'll have to wait a whole nother 455 | — Without coca, I would not be able to bear the burden. With it, I have the strength and vigor to undertake my labors. Hear that David? 461 | — Yes dammit I'm right here okay, there's no need to 463 | Byron placed the recoiled magazine to his mouth so he could amplify his recitation to a booming kazoo. 468 | —Strength and vigor to undertake my labors! 471 | — Know what? Maybe improved productivity under imperial rule doesn't really start my engine the way it starts yours. 476 | — The fuck you know about starting your engine? 478 | — Look it's a metaphor-okay? 480 | — And the fuck you know about metaphors? 482 | — Well despite my self-recriminations I am-uh 485 | — Nope no you're not. Said it yourself you don't write, you bore God. I mean holy shit David this stuff is a lot of things but boring ain't one of them. 490 | Unless we're talking septums, but that's why Glen cleaned all that gunk out of the coke in the first place see I got all your bases covered here. 495 | — Look, even if I wanted to 497 | — Oh ho! So you do want to? 500 | — That's my point, it doesn't matter what I want to do, what matters is that I can't afford to do it. 504 | — Nevermind that. leave it to me to turn that want into a wish. 507 | — A wish. 509 | —Yes a wish. I mean holy shit Engram the way you tell it you've been victimized by this economy so many times you deserve a wish same way an adolescent with relapsing luekemia does. 516 | — Look I already heard it from Glen, ok? How Apply The High is simply make a wish for adults and that just how every pediatric oncologist has John Cena on speed-dial, so should every psychiatric professional have, have 526 | — Juan Coca, sure. but did you know that wishes improve a child's quality of life in ways that ultimately produce better health outcomes? 533 | And that's not Glen, David, that's the goddamned New England Journal of Medicine. 536 | — Dammit Byron-I'm not a child. 538 | — That's what I'm trying to tell you. See this? 540 | With one hand and in one motion, Byron peeled a white clump the size of a pioneer's nugget off the foil pan to fling it against his forehead at a velocity that its disintegrated ricochet peppered David's face before falling onto the galley's parquet floor. 552 | —This right here will get you back to being one! Back when anything you did was worth doing. And before you got a trophy for doing it. I mean holy shit David, who doesn't want that wish? 560 | — Look I can see how badly you want to be my pity genie but I, I'm not some charity case okay? 566 | — First thing you've said yet I agree with. Then how bout a bet? 570 | —A bet. 571 | — Yeah like , I bet I can get your future you working for you, starting today! 573 | — Dude what does that even mean? Like all this carnival barking future me shit it makes this therapy of yours too abstract to even understand. 578 | — See that's why you're like the perfect patient, because this apply the high therapy hasn't had a present you that's as neurotic as you are. 585 | See, I see you. You don't think I do, but I do. I see how you've been marking up the captain's room mirror with those time tallies of yours you got what, eight of them today, that's like what, four hours of work? 595 | — Technically a little over three and a half but sure if you count the unconscious thought that goes into 599 | — Ok so I bet I can double that by getting your future you working for you, starting today. 602 | — Look I don't even know if my future me is going to be around here much longer. I just got notice that my landlord's selling his building over to some investment firm, 610 | which means I gotta find three months rent just to get into a new place which for me is like at least six straight weeks of freelance work, 617 | which means in order to keep future me from heading back to my parents with my dick between my wallet, present me needed to find a paying job two weeks ago. 623 | —So stay here. 625 | — here? You mean on the boat? 627 | — You see any other here, here Engram? I mean like who's stopping you? 630 | —Well probably the vessel's owner, who also happens to be the same guy who gave us this drug egg in the 635 | — You know, besides you. 637 | David blinked twice, crinkled his lips, then shrugged as if sloughing off a burden. 641 | —Shit. I guess nobody, now. 643 | — See I'm already solving problems for your future you. Now that said, I will need you to pledge some advance collateral. 647 | — Collateral for what. 649 | Byron smiled down at the pile of powder he slowly stirred with the painter's tool's tip. Then, and with the contemplative etiquette of a Sufi's spoon against saucer, he tapped his smartphone screen to free white residue from two of its tines. 662 | —The debt incurred. 663 | —Which means what. 665 | —Means how bout you put up your Likecoin share from all these hopecore posts we're about to shoot. 669 | —You do know Likecoin is worthless right? 671 | —And you've put a similar valuation on your future you. So like for Likecoin, I mean that sounds reasonable right? 676 | David slowly let air out his nose, as if deflating an item he was about to put away for a long time. 681 | — None of this sounds reasonable. 682 | —Yeah but like what else do you have to lose. 684 | — What do I have to lose? Well arterial lining, for one 688 | —Except, you know, who you've become. 690 | David looked down to Byron's black screen, its thin white line across its landscape a moonlit horizon on a night voyage. 695 | — Fine. look I'll do one. 697 | — He gonna do one! He gonna do one! That's what I'm talking about, when I talk about America 701 | — Can you please just calm down. Just make sure it's not a big one 705 | — Sure thing! Just a quick whiffer picker-upper. Let me pass you the green baton here while I go divvy out the right nose dosage. 710 | With unblinking eyes and unsettled breath, David twisted the rolled money tighter with both hands, shoved the green coil in his snout, and bowed down to the powder on the screen. 719 | where, with a sniff more snore than snort, David swept the powder off the screen and onto the galley floor. 725 | — Gonna need a little more urgency from you there, chief. 727 | — Fuck wait wait wait I think I can salvage most of it if I can just sort it on the floor here ah-jeez, damn sweaty hands, wait maybe if I just mush it into a wet ball and jam it up my nose it's still somewhat effective that way, right? 740 | Byron stooped on one knee to get at David's eye level, as if earning the trust of a toddler or golden retriever. 747 | — Dude you spilled like an allele's's worth of the egg. There's lots still left, ok? so no worries. 750 | — Look Byron I appreciate what you're trying to do but maybe all this is like a sign that 754 | — Fuck yeah it's a sign, it's a sign to stop putting powder on a pedestal. 758 | Drugs, they're like art or genitalia, like they're best approached as if they're approachable, you know that right? 763 | — No. but I guess I more or less get what you're 765 | — Now as far as technique, I've found that a good snort thought to have is to think of yourself as a referee right and you're using your nose to whistle a reverse foul on your brain, you know because instead of exhaling you're inhaling. 773 | — So you mean just breathe. 775 | —No I don't mean just breathe. I mean breathing at the velocity of intent! 778 | —Ok so how do I do that. 780 | —Just think about how different you'll be after the next breath you take. You're excited to meet that person yes? Your future you? 785 | —Yeah sure, but my hands, are they supposed to be shaking like this? 788 | —Not before you take the drugs, no. Here just cross them over your chest. You right, or left nostriled. 792 | —What? I I, I don't know I, I guess right. Wait so like right off the webbing of your hand? 797 | — Best way to find your reptile mind. 800 | Byron peeled David's coffin-armed torso at tango level with one arm, shouted 804 | —Hark! Let us make this farce our fate! 806 | then smothered powder into nostril with the other, as if stuffing something back in itsd rightful place. 811 | —Yowza. 813 |— More like yowza, bobauwza am I right! 815 | — Dude! what are you 817 | David asked the thumb and index finger pinching his voicebox. 819 | — Lymph nodes firing out good. Now let's see those black holes of yours. 823 | A cusped knuckle lifted a chin. 825 | — why, they're positively peristaltic! just pulsing to perform like a porn star's puckering 829 | — Wait, what? Let me see! 831 | David twirled himself in circles in his search for a reflective surface. Until, with his high's heightened periphery, he caught his own whirling blur in the medicine cabinet's mirror through the head's open door. 841 | Where, as if suddenly infused with ferromagneticism, David lept toward the mirror, shutting the head door behind him with his trail foot's achilles. 849 | —Just don't spit the drip there bud! 851 | Inside the closed head, David leaned closer to the mirror. Propped up by locked elbows, he clocked a distant speck of glossed light pass behind his eyes similar to seeing someone pass by a peephole from the outside looking in. 863 | After a series of blinks fluttered out his manic lucidity like someone changing a projector reel, David grunted a thick snort that jostled his skull. 872 | —Drip's the cherry on top of that seratonin sundae you got there! 876 | Just as Byron leaned into the head's door to place his ear upon it, he felt its swinging breeze sweep his bangs back with enough force that it flung him backwards. 883 | Teetering jabberwockingly back upright, he came upon David's outstretched phone's red timer set to twenty five minutes, then smiled with the soft solemnity of a leader concluding initiation rites. 894 | — Let us play.