State of Nature

I’m the last bloke you’d think would know any philosophy: never a day of uni in my life. But I know a bit about the one true philosopher of our time, old Tom Hobbes.

Acquired my knowledge as a lad, good thirty years ago. “Advanced” for my age, I was. Would go into a pub, usually get told to leave. But one night got served straight off. 

Barman’s drawing my half when bird next to me says, “Make it a pint.”

Smiling she says, “I’m a nihilist,” me with no clue what she means. 

She sees that, says, “Sorry, studying philosophy at uni.”  

She’s twenty. I can’t believe my luck. We get pissed. 

Next morning I wake up in her bedsit. She’s sitting up, sheet pulled up to cover herself. Me wondering why she bothers since I’ve seen it all. Or would have, night before. I can’t remember how she looks, so maybe there’s sense in her covering up. 

I say, “Last night’s a blur, so we do it again this morning it’ll be like the first time.”  

I laugh thinking that was a good one. She nods the sort of nod that means she’s not listening, and her smile from the pub is gone. I think Bloody hell, now that she sees me in the full light of day. . .  

I come clean, say, “I’m fifteen but no way you could have known, that’s on me.” 

Her smile comes back. She lowers the sheet. Lovely jog to the memory, that was. Tells me she knew I was a baby, had only been pondering her hangover. 

She says, “Sod your age,” and, “Danny, right?” 

I say, “Close, luv.” 

I call her luv because I’m fucked if I can remember her name. 

I say, “It’s Davy.”

Sliding down on the bed I say, “But you call me whatever long as you call me for mealtime.”

After a minute she says something I can’t make out because she’s got my ears clamped. But the calm way she says it, like she’s ordering breakfast in the same place she goes every morning, tells me I’m not doing a proper job. Takes practice, I guess.

She says, “No worries, Danny or Davy, come on up here.”  

I obey. Kiss her mouth wondering what she tastes more, herself or the skinful I’d had night before, not just coming out of my mouth but out of every pore. Whatever she tastes she doesn’t mind.

The kiss finally over I say, “So that’s it, sod the law?”    

She says, “Give it a minute, sod more than the law.”  

I wasn’t hard all the way till she said that.   

“Yeah, sod the law,” she says. “State of nature’s coming, and in such condition, there is no place for industry; because the fruit thereof is uncertain: and consequently no culture of the earth; no. . .”

I try to kiss her mouth again but she says, “Clever bloke you should know about, Thomas Hobbes.”

I say, “Professor of yours?” 

She says, “Look him up,” and, “Abridged version for you: in the state of nature there is no society; and continual fear, and danger of violent death; and the life of man is solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.” 

I say, “You going to flip over?” and she says, “Didn’t I say give it a minute?” 

She says, “Anyway, I promise you the state of nature’s coming.”

Not long after I did what she told me, looked up Hobbes. Seemed like bollocks.

Till the oceans started rising.

***

Thirty years after my unusual lesson in philosophy, I pissed off for the States. If the planet was drowning, better to be somewhere with more land. It would take longer to go under. Immigration ban didn’t frighten me because by that time, amidst the general chaos, passports had become incidental and enforcement at ports of entry was slipshod. It was mostly vigilante, meaning that as long as you were white and you sounded American, you were safe. I can do a number of Yank accents. I chose Midwest.

Enforcement at the ports was a joke. I brought in an old Westley Richards droplock double rifle in my luggage. Knew I’d find use for it. Bloke can always find use for a rifle. 

Course, you could still ask why not stick to dry ground in the middle of the States instead of heading for California. But I never thought about putting down roots there, with less ground all the time where they could get a purchase. My thinking was that California had been rich, so all the posh people fleeing to high ground would have left loads of swag. Help myself, then piss off to dry, beautiful Montana was my plan.

Took over a place in this sodding ghost town. Assumed I had no neighbors. Then evening came, lights went on at a place a couple of hundred meters away. Could have moved, but I decided to observe through the glasses first. Thought I might as well stay put unless they were going to give me trouble. 

Old chap, young woman. His daughter, I think, come at no small risk to herself to talk him into moving. Wouldn’t have been the first old chap to insist on staying in a doomed house he’d lived in forever.

Next day old chap’s on his deck with a rifle, blasting away at a wolf well out of range. He’s bloody starkers. I think, Off his head, and his daughter has to tolerate it. 

Then she prances out onto the deck also not wearing a stitch. Strokes the rifle barrel, then starts stroking elsewhere. Then decides more than stroking’s needed. Use your imagination.

But it’s no good. He hangs his head, that not being the only thing left hanging. She goes back in the house.  

Need to meet them, I thought. And once I had, him saying their names were Frank and Ludmilla Pride and she was his third wife, the way she looked at me told me she was aching for a younger bloke. I’m thinking he’d introduced her as his third wife to hint that he’s got one who looks like this now, imagine the women he had when he was younger.  

I think, Not sure you could have done better. And, You’re young no more, lad.          

Anyway, he’s doing all the talking. But finally he says, “This man’s no danger to you, Ludmilla, you can talk.”  

She says, “Is pleasure to meet you,” in an accent you’d have needed a chainsaw to cut. He says he’d brought her to the States right before the ban on immigration passed. So I understood why he’d told her not to worry about me: I hadn’t used my phony Yank accent. I also understood why she’d stayed with him in this ghost town instead of heading inland where the younger blokes were, but also where the hordes wouldn’t give a toss that she was legal. They hear her and know she’s a foreigner, she’s done.   

We chatted more. Frank said he’d been mayor of the city when it was a city. 

“Practically Mayor for Life,” he said.

That made me curious. But truth is that after we parted ways, I thought more about Ludmilla than about Frank. 

Anyway, place I’d taken over happened to be near the city library. I thought one day I’d have a snoop around. Never been a reader, but you never know. I didn’t have to break in: the staff had fled without bothering to lock up.    

I poked about and came across the old newspapers. I recalled “Mayor for Life” and thought I’d see what there was to read about Frank. There was loads. 

City, when it really was a city, had an interesting story too. And Frank’s own story tied up with it.     

***

Frank Pride had liked to boast about his success in the stock market. And he liked to say that a winner in business would also be a winner in politics. 

Critics said he’d been lucky to exit the market just before it crashed in 2002 and 2007, and lucky to jump back in as it was about to tick up.  

“You know what makes someone a critic of me?” he liked to say when he was campaigning for mayor. “Not being as rich as I am.” 

Ecstatic applause.

“History teaches that markets rise and fall. You’ve heard about the first-ever market bubble, the one for tulips that burst four hundred years ago? I learned that markets rise and fall from my old Dutch uncle who got out of tulips at the right time back in 1637.”

Frank must have been proud of that joke, knowing he was the last forty-five-year-old man in the world that anyone would mistake for four hundred. Losing his hair, but fit. And his wife gave proof of his vigor. He would deliver his tulip line and then turn to where Wife Number Two, the former Olga Orlova, a beauty barely half his age, was sitting. Frank would present her with a fresh tulip. 

“History also teaches,” he’d add after kissing her, “that the oceans rise and fall.”

He would scan his audience for the right face before delivering his next line. 

“Sir, you remember when a morning stroll could take you from Alaska to Russia?”

A smile would spread across the face of the chosen old geezer.

“But don’t try that now unless you’re from Galilee,” Frank would smile back.

He would pause for laughter.   

“And Mr.”. . . (he’d pause again so the old chap could shout his name) “you also remember the Ice Age. So you’ve learned that the climate changes and oceans rise and fall, just like my Dutch uncle learned that markets rise and fall. And I say now’s the time to be smart about rising and falling ocean levels, so we can profit from them just like we profit from rising and falling markets. I say we unincorporate Beach Flats now before the ocean covers it. Then we reincorporate later after the ocean has washed away the mess!”    

Frank would have to shout so that his audience could hear him over their cheers.

***

The Beach Flats neighborhood was cut in half by a river that flowed from the mountains to the sea. The first people to live there after the Ohlone Indians were Italian fishing families, with some Portuguese mixed in. Some of those families built restaurants. As the waters got fished out, the restaurants remained. Every one of the restaurants lining the pier was either Italian or Portuguese. 

By the time there was no more fishing you’d have seen, if you looked back toward land from the pier, Beach Heights North on your left and Beach Heights South on your right. The ocean views made this real estate to kill for. 

A time came when the rich people on Beach Heights decided to buy enough of Beach Flats to make room for an amusement park. This would bring money into a neighborhood that would never see fishing money again. The new park straddled the river and it had a roller coaster, like every amusement park. But what made the reputation of this particular park was the river. From the bridge connecting the two halves of the park you could look down on “mermaids,” girls paid to swim back and forth under the bridge.

Eventually, the park suffered from mismanagement. Best example: the “adult swims,” when the mermaids swam naked and admission to the park doubled and by paying double again you could swim with them. Absolutely my cup of tea, I don’t mind saying. But amusement parks do best when Mum and the kiddies feel comfortable. 

The adult swims finally went away. But they’d polluted the atmosphere, making it welcoming to every sort of sleaze. In particular, the old Beach Flats Italian and Portuguese families had been replaced by a new “demographic,” if you get my meaning. Heights people looked down on Flats people in more way than one. 

So Beach Heights fell in love with Frank’s plan to unincorporate Beach Flats. Its “demographic” would have to provide for themselves the services that Beach Heights and the rest of the city had got fed up paying for.   

“Low moral values keep the Beach Flats property values low,” Frank would say. “I’m going to let the ocean scrub the filth out of there. Then, when the time is right, I’ll go back in to build great moral values and great property values.”              

As for the pier thrusting from Beach Flats deep into the bay, Frank’s plan was not to unincorporate. The money saved by unincorporating the Flats would pay for new access roads and bridges to the pier, bypassing the Flats. Direct access from the Flats would be denied. Though some people said that new access roads and bridges wouldn’t save the pier from rising ocean levels, Frank had an answer. The savings from unincorporating the Flats would pay for construction of a sturdier, taller pier. 

There were happy memories of the glory days of the pier’s Italian and Portuguese restaurants, but good families had stopped going because they didn’t like passing through Beach Flats. However, Frank’s plan was to take apart the old restaurants plank by plank and put them back together on the new pier, far above the waves. 

Diners who didn’t want to think about Beach Flats would have their view of it blocked by a wall of steel and concrete. Nothing excited the crowds at Frank’s rallies as much as watching him get worked up about the wall.

***

Long after the end of his third term as mayor, Frank planned to celebrate his seventy-fifth birthday with his wife. I wondered how much he had to celebrate.

During the thirty years since he’d first become mayor, the ocean had submerged Beach Flats, driving out the old “demographic” like rats from a sinking ship. But then the ocean had submerged the pier, meaning the old one. New access roads and bridges had been affordable, but it turned out that the new pier hadn’t. The ocean had gone on to submerge also Beach Heights North and Beach Heights South and nearly all of the rest of Frank’s city. He’d moved several miles inland while the rest of the population had moved farther inland still, to places like Minneapolis and Missoula. 

Why hadn’t Frank gone, too? Concern for Ludmilla’s safety? Perhaps. But my guess is that stubbornness had to be a big part of it. Same stubbornness that had made him stick to his guns about rising and falling ocean levels even when scientists told him there was no evidence that the falling would start soon enough.

I went looking for Frank and Ludmilla on his birthday. My lorry was loaded. I wanted company for the drive to Montana.

But would she go with me to where her not being a proper Yank would be an issue? I’d need to show her I could protect her, be hard in more ways than one.   

Frank and Ludmilla had their guns and I had my Westley Richards.       

“Bulls and bears,” Frank said. “Never saw them in the old days.”

He always talked about the sodding bulls and bears. Story was, a rancher who’d left for the Midwest had abandoned his cattle, bulls included. And what with depopulation, the grizzlies had come back. You never dared go walking without a gun. 

“You going to shoot something for your birthday dinner?” I said. 

“I used to like turducken on my birthday,” he said. “You know turducken?”

I shook my head.

“A chicken stuffed inside a duck stuffed inside a turkey and cooked that way. You slice it and get the meat of all three birds at once.”

Frank beamed.

“How about stuffing a bull inside a bear,” he said. “Or a bear inside a bull?”

Ludmilla shook her head. They had no staff to do the work.   

I was tired of small talk. I knew I was taking a gamble since I might have misjudged her attachment to him. But I’d made up my mind. 

Thinking of old Tom Hobbes and the state of nature, I raised my Westley Richards and emptied it into Frank’s chest.

I looked at Ludmilla. Maybe she didn’t like having blood sprayed all over her.   

She looked down at herself. I held my breath. 

She smiled. I let out my breath. 

“Come to Montana with me,” I said. “I can protect you.”

“I need a shower first.”

I had an idea.

“How about we go tomorrow? While you shower, I shoot a bull and a bear. We’ll do the stuffing together. Curious to taste it.”

She nodded.   

A Man Walks Into a Bar

I had been in Irish bars in America, and a few in Dublin, but I had never been in a bar before like Harrington’s. 

I had visited a female friend who lived in another town. I had arrived on a Friday evening. I had expected to stay the weekend at her apartment, but was kicked out early on Saturday afternoon. Permanently. I won’t go into details as to why this occurred. Lets just say that neither one of us was without faults.

I had time to kill before my train home and good reason to drink. Harrington’s was near the station. I went in to get mellow. 

It was in some ways a typical neighborhood bar. It was dark. The walls and floors were faded wood with faded stains. Not many people attempted eye contact.

I took a seat at the bar and ordered a draft beer from the bartender. There was a bowl of salted nuts and a bowl of salted pretzels for sharing, items intended to stimulate thirst. There was also a bowl of dry cereal with multicolored marshmallow bits in it.

I asked the bartender about the cereal when he plopped a frothing mug in front of me.

“What’s that for?”

“To keep the leprechauns away.”

“You’re joking,” I said. “There’s no such thing.”

“Oh there is. Believe me. My family’s been under a curse from them for centuries.”

“Really? And this cereal scares them off?”

“No. It helps us pick them out of the crowd. If a short fellow, or a lass, comes in here, especially if he or she has a brogue or reddish hair, and eats only marshmallows from the bowl, we have good reason to suspect it’s a leprechaun.”

“That doesn’t seem a logical test. I would think there would be something more magical involving iron horse shoes or the like.”

“You’d be surprised how susceptible leprechauns are to modern advertising. The ad campaign for this cereal has taught them to believe that it is a prized food for them. That’s what advertising does. It creates the need then you are stuck with the need.”

“This cereal is advertised in Ireland?”

“Doesn’t need to be,” he said. “There are plenty of leprechauns in America.”

“How do they get here?”

“Stowaways. They hide in the luggage of tourists coming back from the Emerald Isle. Once here they set up home and breed like any other immigrant. The one’s born here are a bit taller due to the diet. They’re partial to those Mc burgers and green milkshakes truth be told. Some even intermix with the locals. In the old days we would just keep an eye on anyone under four foot tall who came in. Now we have to check out anyone under five foot five.”

I was glad to be five nine.

I asked, “Are there any other tell tale signs that a customer is a leprechaun?”

“They only order whiskey. Never beer or a cocktail.”

“For sure?” I asked.

“Dead sure,” said the bartender.

“Do they cause any trouble when they come in?”

“The sure do. They have a tendency to puke all over the bar, piss on the bathroom, and skip out without paying.”

“Don’t other customers do that?”

“On occasion, but leprechauns dance a jig on the sidewalk and jeer you through the window before disappearing in a puff of smoke.”

“Smoke?”

“Weed or cigarettes. No clay pipes. America changes people.”

“While bothersome that doesn’t seem so bad a curses go.”

“You’re not a bartender and you’re not a Harrington. You have not grown up with tales from great grandparents, grandparents and parents about the annoying antics of leprechauns. It gets to you. Hits you in your pride. Hits you in your wallet. I keep a shotgun under the bar loaded with rock salt. They move so fast I’ve never hit one. Maybe winged one, but she just stuck out her tongue and kept dancing on the sidewalk.”

“How did the curse start?”

“As I was told it started over a hundred years ago, back in Ireland. My great great great was a part owner of a pub in County Kildare. He was known for his drinking and for his strong bladder. He had some bad habits. The worst was that he hit the product. A wee nip here and there. Something you shouldn’t do if you run a bar. Eats away the profits. One slow night, he did much more drinking than pouring. After closing up he was heading home across a field. There was a pile of large stones that had been there for ever and a tall, wide tree that had been there close to forever. My ancestor’s bladder, which was large and could hold a lot, suggested that he empty it. The tree looked like a good spot. My ancestor undid his buttons and lifted his hose out. He sprayed gold all over that tree. He just kept going and going. Although he did not know it, a leprechaun lived under that tree, a leprechaun that was well connected in leprechaun circles. That leprechaun noticed a trickle leaking through his ceiling that fast became a flood. He rushed out to confront the man damaging his home, but my ancestor just laughed at the leprechauns threats and shaking fists. He kept on letting all that gold stream out, much of it on the hat and clothes and face of that leprechaun. The wee man, I mean the leprechaun not my ancestor, was angry but could do nothing about it because of the religious medals my ancestor was wearing. Still, he put a curse, a wide and lasting curse, on my sacred ancestor and all his descendants.”

“And the curse was…”

“I don’t know what the words were. Probably said in Gaelic or another tongue anyway. But I know the result. The leprechaun knew my ancestor was barman. It was stuff a barman hates. Vomit on the floor of the bar, piss on the floor of the bathroom, and unpaid tabs.”

I was about to tell the bartender that he was serving baloney, or should I say blarney, when a smallish man, no bigger than five foot two, with a pale face and red freckles came into the bar. The bartender eyed the new arrival with suspicion, but said nothing. The new customer sat down at the bar two seats away from me.

The man called out to the bartender, “Give me a shot of Jameson.”

“Are your sure of that?” replied the bartender. “We have a special on Guiness. Draft. Three bucks a mug.”

“No thank you,” said the new customer. “I’m more of a whiskey man.”

“Suit yourself,” the bartender replied. He wiped down the counter with a brown rag, using this more or less as an excuse to lean over the bar and sneak a better look at the man. When the bartender straightened up he looked at me and touched his nose.

I snuck a glance at the character. I didn’t see anything particularly odd about him until I saw his socks. Green socks. Emerald green. This suggested bad fashion sense to me, not evidence of the guest being a leprechaun. He notice me and winked. I turned away, focusing on my drink.

The bartender set a bowl of cereal and a bowl of salted nut on the counter next to the man. Then went to pour a shot.

There was a mirror on the wall behind the bar. I could tell the bartender was watching the man while trying not to be obvious about it. This of course made it even more obvious.

I tried watching the little man out of the corner of my eye, curious to see if he would reach for the nuts or the cereal. The little man seemed to ignore both bowls next to him. I noticed all the marshmallow shapes in the cereal. I was relieved when the man glanced at the bowls, reached over and took a handful of nuts.

The bartender had taken his time getting the shot for his customer, but finally put it down in front of him. 

“Six bucks,” the bartender said.

“Can I run a tab?” asked the man.

“No tabs. Cash now.”

“No problem.”

The little man pulled a wallet out of his back pocket, He took six crisp dollar bills from the wallet and placed them on the counter.

“Here you go.”

The bartender seemed to relax. He reached for the money.

What happened next was a blur. The little man downed the shot in one gulp and slammed the shot glass on the counter. The sound froze the bartender for a moment. One of the man’s hands snatched the money back from the bartender while the other moved across the bowl of cereal. When the hand left the cereal bowl all of the marshmallows were gone.

The little man jumped down from his stool, shoved the marshmallows in his mouth with one hand and the dollars in a pocket with the other. He jumped back further from the bar and did a little dance. Then he threw up on the floor. 

The bartender reached for his shotgun. As he did so the door to the men’s room at the back of the bar began to open. 

The leprechaun whipped his cock out of his pants and let loose a stream of golden piss. It jetted across the room, winding around wooden pillars and startled customers. It dodged the customer coming out of the men’s room and splattered on the bathroom floor before the door had a chance to swing shut. 

The bartender aimed the shotgun and fired. The blast of rock salt his the leprechaun in the chest, propelling him into the air. It landed hard on the floor, but popped to its feet right away.

“So it was and so it will ever be,” it laughed.

The bartender let out another blast.

“Get out you bastard. May all your gold turn to rot.”

“Fine with me,” said the leprechaun. “I traded it all for crypto.”

The leprechaun ran out the door of the bar with his cock still hanging out. He did not pause to do another dance or shout more rude remarks. Instead it took off down the sidewalk. 

This showed that the bartender’s information about leprechauns was not necessarily correct. I wondered if he would update his check list.

The bartender ran out of the bar and chased after leprechaun. No one was tending the bar.

I left a tip on the counter and prepared to leave. I had seen enough. I figured someone must have called the police about the shotgun going off. It didn’t matter that it was rock salt. The police wouldn’t like it. I didn’t want to be there when the police arrived. I didn’t want them to make me miss my train. And I didn’t want them to ask me any questions. That usually led to trouble.

As I got up to leave I noticed no one else in the joint seemed upset. I asked an old man seated further down the bar why no one showed any surprise or concern.

He replied, “Most of us are regulars. Seen it all before. Something like this happens a few times a year. It’s part of the charm of the place. Where else can you see such a show?”

I asked about the cops. He told me no one bothers to call them anymore.

One after another the regulars helped themselves to free drinks. Not a lot. Most just topped off what they already had.

“It’s a tradition now,” said the old man. “Whenever there’s a leprechaun incident. The surveillance camera doesn’t work and the owner blames any losses on leprechauns, and none of us says otherwise.”

I wished I had known that sooner. Still, I thought it was time for me to leave, and best that I do so before the bartender returned. I grabbed some marshmallows from one of the bowls on the counter. And some of the nuts. I l left the cereal. I stuffed them in one of my pockets as something salty and something sweet to chew on later. Then I climbed over the bar and took a bottle of the good stuff. Then I decided to go for two. I stuck both bottles in my travel bag.

I left the bar and walked to the train station, just as fast as my legs would carry me. That’s kind of fast. Believe me. I can walk rather quickly. Almost a blur. 

My father, all six five of him, used to say, “You have to keep changing. Adapt. Move with the times.” I’ve always tried to do so.

My mother used to say, “No matter how much you change, never forget where you came from.”

I never have. I always listened to my momma. All four foot five of her.

The Narc in the Cupboard

Zack woke in a haze. It was hard to focus. The prior night had been wild from what he could remember. All he knew now was that he had to get up. It was necessary.

He went to the bathroom, emptied his bladder and took a dump. That was enough work to put him in a mood to go back to bed on most mornings, but not today. He had other needs to fill.

He touched soap and ran water over his hands. He called this washing. 

There was a dirty cup on the sink. He filled it and drank it down. His mouth was still dry and pasty. He filled and drained another glass. His mouth still didn’t feel right. He considered brushing. He didn’t see any toothpaste laying about. He looked around and couldn’t find a tube anywhere. Then he remembered he was out of toothpaste. He had meant to get some at the store yesterday. And the day before that.

Zack dipped a toothbrush in the soap dish. The soap was still damp from washing his hands. It would do.

His mouth felt a little better, but his belly was saying other things. A rumbling in his stomach told him to eat, but a rumbling lower down in his guts told him he would need to shit again, real soon. The signal from down below took precedence.

A half hour later his hands were clean again. The bathroom stank, but he could live with it. It smelled worse on most days.

He needed something to eat. His stomach was bossing him about. It would have to be something easy, something even he could not mess up. His head was in worse shape than his asshole was. It had been a late night.

He went to the small kitchen in his apartment, opened a cabinet and took out a box of cereal, all oats and sugary sweetness. He took a half empty bottle of milk from the refrigerator. He placed both items on the kitchen table. He took a spoon from a drawer, and reached up to another cabinet at eye level, next to the stove, to get a bowl. He opened the cabinet and stopped. All the shelves had been removed from the cabinet and all the plates, cups and bowls that had been inside were missing. Instead, a short man with mirrored sun glasses, a waist length leather jacket, jeans and army boots was curled up inside. The man’s chin was tucked to his chest. His shoulders rested against one side of the cabinet. His knees were bent and cramped against his body, almost touching his mustache. 

“I’m just a dream,” the man said. “Close the cabinet and go about your business.”

“Ah, I can’t. I need a bowl for my cereal. What did you do with my bowls?”

“Everything that was in the cabinet, including the shelves, is in a box under the kitchen table.”

“Why did you put them there?”

“I didn’t put them there. You must have done it and forgotten about it.”

“I didn’t do it. The plates were there yesterday. You must have moved everything.”

“I couldn’t have moved anything. I’m not really here. I’m a dream. An illusion.”

“I don’t know about that. You look pretty real.” Zack noticed the man had a lanyard around his neck with a photo I.D.. Zack’s vision was blurry but he thought he could make out the word ‘Police.’

“You and your friends got real high last night. You haven’t come down yet.”

“Do you have a warrant or a court order saying you can be here?”

“Of course not. I’m not really here. You’re imagining it because you have a guilty conscience.”

“What do you mean?”

“Come on. You know you met with that dude in the parking lot. The guy had something in the trunk of his car, a big package wrapped in a black plastic trash bag. He let you open the bag. You stuck your finger inside, then put your finger on your tongue. You exchanged a few words and you gave him a big roll of bills. He checked the roll and put it in his pocket. You took the bag, put in your car and headed home.”

“Man, it’s like you were there. Have you been following me?”

“I couldn’t have been following you. I don’t exist. I’m all in your head.”

“What did I do when I came home? I’m having a hard time remembering.”

“You carefully unwrapped the package, divided the contents, and used a scale to weigh out and fill small zip lock bags. When you were done, you put all the small bags in a shoe box and hid them under some sweaters in your bedroom closet. Then you called some of your friends to come over and party with the leftovers.”

“Are you sure you weren’t really there? You remember more about last night than I do.”

“I am you, in a sense. I’m in your head.”

“Okay, so if you’re me, tell me what happened after my friends came over?”

“You all drank a lot, snorted, shot up, and took some pills. One of the girls who came kept you busy while your friend Phil searched your apartment. Then you drank more with your friends and did some more stuff. Finally, you passed out.”

“Really? I can’t remember most of that, especially Phil searching my apartment.”

“You were busy getting laid. After you passed out Phil went through your bedroom. He found your stash, took most of it and all the cash you had. He also found the gun you bought last week at the playground.”

“Shit! Phil did all that? Why didn’t any of my other friends stop him?”

“They were all in on it. Phil gave them a cut.”

“Damn those mother fuckers. I’m going to kill them all.” 

“How? You don’t have a gun anymore and you have no cash to buy one.”

“Damn it. Damn it. They were supposed to be my friends.”

“How can someone in your business have true friends, especially as a freelancer. You have many more enemies than friends. At least they decided not to kill you.”

“They were going to kill me?”

“Phil wanted to put a pillow over your face while you were unconscious, but your other friends wouldn’t go along with it.”

“I guess they’re not that bad, except for Phil.”

“Nah, the others figured you’d be killed by the loan shark you borrowed money from to start up your business, since you won’t be able to make any payments now. No need for them to get involved.”

“Mother fuckers. Those fucking mother fuckers. What should I do?”

The man in the cabinet pulled out a typed statement and handed it to Zack along with a pen.

“Just sign this statement. I’ll take care of the rest.”

“How can you help? You told me you don’t exist?”

“I don’t exist, but, you can think of me in some ways as your fairy godfather. You sign this, date it and go back to bed. I will magically take care of the rest. Best of all, I’ll keep you safe.”

“Safe?”

“Safe from Phil, your friends, and that loan shark. I believe their names are all in the statement. But it would help if you could write in the name of the guy you bought the stuff from.”

“That’ll help?”

“You will sleep easier.”

“And what about my kitchen? Who will put all this stuff back in the cabinet?”

“Don’t worry about it. After you sign the statement, and go back to bed, everything will be fine. Sleep for an hour or two. Take a pill if it helps. “

“Okay, if you say so. But you’re really me, right?”

“That’s right. I’m part of you. Your conscience and your higher self.”

“Higher than I am now?”

“You’ll never know.”

Narcotics and the organized crime unit made the arrests, fourteen in total. Zack denied signing any statement, but a figment of his imagination had suggested he put his thumbprint on the paper in addition to his autograph.

There were some questions about the arrests. Captain Davis from Narcotics defended his diminutive operator to Chief Inspector Morton and the DA.

“Detective Smalls is a good officer. Honest as they come, and dedicated. His methods may be a bit unorthodox but he gets results.”

“Well,” said the DA, who had his doubts, “Lets just hope the evidence he obtained doesn’t get thrown out by a judge this time.