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Dog Days Eeny The heat adds a layer, a weight that has no number. Tired becomes a more accepted excuse for everything. So when someone asks an on-the-nose question in a meeting and I have to take more than three seconds to compile a multi-pronged answer, it just won’t do. There are some things I need to know right now, and some things I can definitely afford to forget. Rearrange your thinking cap, flip everything on its head - ‘obtaining time, this might take some data’ - is the quick ‘done by five if that’s your measure’ that can be repackaged through the markets as a meme-growth-stock and I can be backshorting it by the time I’ve landed on the Spanish coast. Checking my phone as I’m holding onto the railing with one hand, even though two is technically required on this automated section that is taking me through browning burbs and flashing red city centres. Despite the speed I pay a premium to keep my connection firm and robust, so there is growing anger inside of me and my investments as I am repeatedly told that the network is down, down, all the way down. This will not do. You get to a certain point and you see that everything is at risk of going down like a line of dominos and making sure that doesn’t happen is why you’re here…and why you deserve the big bucks, no matter what kind of rabble argument will be made. Even when I arrive at the jet port it’s spurting download rates and bleeding out battery power. Hardware in the heat. Always in these supposedly perfect storms of course. Could do it the old fashioned way, skip the Arranger. Call around, hop in a car and yell out the window as we go past the downer-hoods. You got psychological space, right? You aren’t using it for anything worthwhile? Are you really going to need all your childhood memories this weekend? I would be sweating buckets every time I roll down the window because goddamns it’s hot. But that must be the way. Some things just can’t be done as well inside, even in one of the biomes that can be just like the great outdoors but set to a much more reasonable temp. Because my dog can definitely tell the difference. I don’t like being further than a two minute walk from man’s best friend, and through the right connections I can technically classify as support animal dependent. My wife and I raise purebred sheepdogs out of the city, but we aren’t too discerning, there’s two or three wonderful mutts we have up there, too. My favourite right now is the six year old lab retriever by my side as I dial up the guy who is going to help me get through the meeting that will determine just what grade of steak I’ll be eating through the winter (and which bones my furry associate can gnaw on). He can get me the finest containers in the Sprawl, the sort that won’t get their brains blown out during the three days I need their craniums to stay in one piece. Doesn’t even lock ‘em up either, let’s them free range around their neighbourhood, I can follow around the tag on the app. A link that is more than just skin, bone, and brain tissue, because he or she knows what I might not want to share with any loved one or co-worker. Good luck trying to unload that onto a competitor or suspicious spouse, though. The Arranger keeps a close eye and can pop a key vein remotely at any time it looks like their employees are going rogue. And of course they don’t know what’s been downloaded into the container’s head. But it won’t even be our little secret into the long red sunset, because after the work is done and the proper data is returned to sender, the only ones who will know everything is myself and the canine at my feet who is panting amicably half listening to my convo. Still have to keep that little bit of skin five cents behind the ear completely clear to tap the pad, which always gives me a psychosomatic jolt. Being drained like a pool at the end of the season. Hours and days briefly disappearing, just the knowledge you did it on your ID. Always a risk, but I want that lobster bisque. I’m ready. Meeny When a whale calls you best pick up. I don’t even bother with names when they show up on the phone, it’s just a big fish on the line. (Yeah, I know whales ain’t fish) Most newbies talk about this like they’re trying to kill a guy, which I mean, if that’s they’re goal, wrong number, goodbye, that’s a mess of different trouble, I’m hanging up and hacking into my own phone to scrub that call from ever coming through. (I got a guy who taught it to me as favour for something) Now doing this kind of storage transfer isn’t illegal in the way the people that paid attention in school would say it is, but it’s red tape that can really kick you in the performance review and bonus qualification rounds. Like drugs in sports, you just can’t be obviously stupid or stupidly obvious about it. You don’t have the time or the capacity to remember everything you want, but you do have the time and capacity to farm out a solution if medical technology safely permits (and ‘safely’ in the sense there are obvious risks, just like an investment that can also strike it hot). I got competitors who take that meditative, harmonious approach, where you play up ‘clearing your head’ like it’s a trip to the spa. I don’t mind catering to the Type-A business crowd. A lot more high strung teeth grinders, but at least they pay quickly and reliably. Their temporary co-workers, though, the guys I got on my books, is a whole other sob story. One poor, need money-so-fucking-bad-even-sex-work-can’t-cover-quick-enough sap is as good as another, right? What’s the difference? Heh. It makes all the difference in the world. If it was as easy as the big spenders wanted it to be, I’d be out of a job. They don’t got the time for that, they don’t got the time for a lot of things. I work for a lot of pricks who treat their horses better than their spouses or subordinates. But I’m not like that. I got a list. Sure everyone who does any sort of business has a list, but I treat my contacts like family. I break bread with them regularly so they can give me names and numbers of those needing to bankroll a found weekend or feeling the squeeze at the end of the month. A real sunburning month. Get in my car in my garage, get out of in the car in the building’s underground parking garage. I can’t remember the last time I’ve been outside, and seeing people sweat in the street and practically throw themselves into any sliver of shade, I got no rush to experience it firsthand this summer. But I do worry about what the climate is doing to my employees. I don’t even call ‘em ‘containers’, that’s so cheap and I don’t do cheap. I try to keep ‘em separate, based on certain gigs. These are contract negotiation guys. These are the medical school exam guys. These are the lines of crypto-code guys. These are the backup lines of crypto-guys, 15% discount, you know how it is and if you don’t know how it is then I can’t help you. There is always a bit of hype that can flip the rates at the last minute. And the real pros and know it and prepare accordingly. You can put a price on anything, until you can’t, and then you can again. I got a trick knee to know when to gather up the rest of the best. I’ve got a reputation to maintain. Nothing is one hundred percent but no need for unnecessary risks, either. Safety is up there among my top priorities. Haven’t had a seizure or aneurysm since we’ve switch to the double lattice silicone. No one bleeds out who stays calm and comes in clean. I’ll turn away people who are clearly fucked up from feet to forehead, even if they were my best guys two weeks ago. You don’t come to the office if you can’t go green for the spit and swab. Them’s the breaks. And I’m looking for a break in the heat wave because since that’s when the whales want to take a load off their minds in more ways than one, and I need fully functioning guys who won’t go down with sunstroke. My conversation with the client is quick and to the point but I can sniff the desperation hidden behind every curt word, even as they pet their fucking dog in the middle of it. A round of applesauce for keeping it together, it’s gotten you this far, clearly. Being in transit makes it hard, and they almost apologize for it, saying that they ‘acknowledge the challenges and appreciate me going the extra mile and a half.’ All I heard was that I could charge more for ‘consulting fees’ and ‘additional maintenance services’. Made three calls at the same time and the job goes to the first guy that picks up. Nice luck, it’s a face I kinda recognize and doesn’t look that doped up at all. I give him a two sentence rundown and a chance to line up his receiver with the side of his head before asking everyone’s favourite question: Ready? Miney Look at me. Look at meeeeeeeeee. I don’t need you to remember you’re not even supposed to remember yeah yeah but at least look once all right? Treat me more than a still selfie… He called but I was busy because it’s busy sometimes, sometimes all the time, and I was pushing my way out of the line because I was only in it for somebody else who will owe me big in a good big way two sunsets from now. But getting this gig is bigger than the guy who would owe me big if I stayed in line, so now come on answer, come on notice the call, come on look at me. I wish my ring wasn’t whatever tone he made it on his phone, I wish it was me talking to him already, me talking about myself, about what I can do. I can get it done. I have a schedule. You have that schedule. Four days to be ready get it done, three days to get fucked. And day one back from fucked is a half throw away, but that’s gotta be that way. You almost hope you don’t get a call on that first day back but if you do you don’t say no, you gotta take it, you gotta be that fucking guy for the fucking guy no matter how shit you’re still feeling. And I’m feeling it now. Was real good stuff, was on my back in seconds watching the ceiling ripple and my muscles didn’t know nothin’ but love-cum-love. In the early years the hours lasted for days but now it’s like fucking minutes before the shit - even the good shit - wears off. And once it does I bail on the room, no point paying an extra hour for these pods if I’m not a flying orgasm like I should be. Instead I’m a walking headache and it’s half past ballsweat out. And five minutes out from that I’m standing in the coupon line for me and Meech, because nothing ever changes. Until everything must go, and I seen it go right out their fucking eyes, nose, mouth and ears. Rivers of blood like that biblical shit. They say it doesn’t happen, that it has everything to do with whatever the fuck the ‘container’ was doing in their free and personal time, but that’s bullshit. That’s when the phone rings because of course when start I railing against it all, it all wants something from me. I bail on the line and don’t feel bad about Meech, he was always going to be the friend that would have your back until he got that face and then it was countdown to when he was going to go through your pockets when you were changing pants. Last week I swore he was even following me, sniffing around for any hint of the coupons the last time I stood for the humble pie handout. Everyone gripes the coupon lines but everyone helped fuck the digital distribution over by hacking it mercilessly. From up on penthouse high it was fucking ‘toldja’ on all the news clips. They think you’ve always been like this. That you’ve never tried eating grass fed beef or reclining a soft shape recliner. Well I’ve seen the other side of the shining mountain and it’s covered in turds. They’re just as scummy as addicted as everyone else. They have the same excuse as me and Meech and Jane and Gluck and every other stupid world face: It always gets broken and it was never my fault. But here we are, picking up and smiling to my occasional boss and agreeing to fucked up things about brain transfer. For good goddamn money. You can tell some people just became dumps for the same whales. But not me, not yet. Lock into the visor. Hold onto every single symbol dancing across the glass. The ‘prove your a human’ test is about the alphabet. Great, drive the nails in. Sometimes a ghost of a human. Sometimes it’s easier that way. And because of the fucking heat the power’s brownin’ and the connection rate is dipping like my vitals. I don’t need this. Fuck it. I want this. Fuck ‘em. But yeah. I’m ready. Moe Woof.
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The hand of fate is caught in the car door of destiny. | |||