To Jessica
(Anata ni muchu)
Printing and binding by the irrepressible Quinlan Faris
Salutes, friendly smiles and winks to Ian and Jeremy for their
contributions, and for humoring me.
And an infinite universe of thanks to Kathy for her support, patience, encouragement, invaluable running commentary, and brutal criticism. It hurt so good.
Once upon time, now lost somewhere long ago in the mists of history, there was a very important squirrel. His name was Timothy1.
To the ancient, dignified and mysterious history of squirrels, Timothy was of absolutely no relevance. No great squirrel savants have ever, or will ever recognize his cosmic importance, and he was not honored in this year's great annual Fall Rememberance/Nut Burying Festival.
To the great oral tradition of clicks and tiny wheezing squirrel story noises, Timothy was simply another anonymous Nut Digger (2nd Class) in the North Central Nut Mining region under the reign of King Nathan the Excitable.
To us however, Timothy holds a much deeper and personal significance. In Timothy's tragic death, a bold new step toward enlightenment and great Truth was made. This... is his story.
It was a terrifically beautiful spring day. A radiant, almost maniacally energetic sun shone, tossing piercing rays of light at the world through a crystalline sky. Gentle zephyrs wafted through the cheerful chorus of birds and bubbling brooks, a natural orchestral performance broken only by the monotonous work chants of the tens of thousands of squirrels enslaved in the dank gloom of the nut mines below.
"Pecans...pecans...mmmm..." cried thousands of tiny little voices, simultaneously, followed by the sound of thousands of tiny little pick axes breaking tiny little rocks.
Above ground, however, it was a still a very lovely spring day in the middle of the North Central Nut Mining region.
Timothy (our hero) was glad to see the enthusiastic April sun. He scampered down the beaten dirt path gaily, enjoying his annual 10 minute Fresh Air Break, feeling miles away from his oppressive labor in the fertile pecan mines within the bowels of the Earth.
*while the actual name of our historic squirrel is unknown, a suitably ethnic squirrel name has been selected and applied to our squirrel for a narrative purpose inscrutable to everyone except, perhaps, the author of this book. A million thoughts rushed through his mind. Would Wanda the Squirrel, his favorite work buddy, be having her annual 10 minutes of break at the same time as him? Would they bump into each other in the overworld? Would he be able to fulfill his monthly 2 ton quota of pecans without collapsing from exhaustion?
It was at this point that Timothy experienced the most fateful event in his short life. A dead oak tree, rotting with age, fell toward him, its enormous bulk blocking the path out in a dark shadow of death, hurtling downwards in an ever-accelerating arc of fatality. "Good Lord!" he thought. "Which way should I run? Left? Right? Forward? Backwards?" Too late. He was smashed flat, his tiny squirrel head crushed beneath the hard forest floor and the trunk of the tree. Ha ha.
Time passed. The Nutrageous Honor Guard, the ruthless iron fist of the squirrel aristocracy, put Timothy on their list of wanted subversives, but they never found him; his body, still accessible to the outside world, instead became a life-saving meal for a largish grey wolf.
This wolf, who had just been about to keel over from starvation, would later become the leader of an extremely influential pack of wolves. This pack (who had initially, in a mixture of sarcasm and pessimism, named themselves "The Not Very Influential Pack of Wolves") went on to drive a very large herd of confused caribou back south to very near the original location of Timothy's unfortunate demise.
It was here that the caribou were slaughtered by starving white settlers who regarded the appearance of caribou as an act of Providence. The settlers found some very charming bubbling brooks in the area of where they had cleaned and eaten their caribou, and instead of moving further north and west as they had originally planned, they settled right where they were.
Soon this camp became a small settlement, a settlement that remained small until a miraculous find of billions of delicious subterranean nuts turned it into a boom town overnight.
It was in this boom town that a man named Thomas J. Upjohn decided to found a University.
Introduction
Upjohn's school was called State University.
These days, State University has a current enrollment of 41,284 students, from all walks of life, parts of the world, and academic backgrounds. All of them have one thing in common; University classes. After that, something like 32,104 students enjoy college football. 29,460 are fond of drinking enormous amounts of alcohol. 24,962 enjoy attending parties, and something like 16,599 students have been lucky enough to participate in essentially random sexual encounters.
1411 students actually attend primarily to "learn". Any students not included in one or more of the previous categories are probably freshmen.
One hundred and fifty-two years ago, when State U. was founded, one might imagine that the Fathers of the University, at least ideally, had pictured a much different institution. Indeed, many of them had written deeply moving essays of the modern educational ideal that State U. would boldly embody.
These essays would generally begin something like this:
"In order that a more perfect body of knowledge may be formed for the betterment of Mankind, and the advancement of Science, I would propose the foundation of a new institution of learning on the scenic banks of Lake Michigan. Here, young scholars might draw inspiration and respite from the rigors of academia through beauty of Nature's surroundings, while the finest intellects in the western Hemisphere serve as both tutors and guides through the Realm of Knowledge."
And end up sounding something like this:
"Additionally, contributing investors to this noble enterprise of Knowledge should see something approaching or exceeding an annual 9.5% Rate of Return on initial monies deposited, based on projected tuition intake and comparisons drawn from other institutions of similar size and location."
And so, State University was founded. And the investors saw that it was Good.
Earlier in the evening, things had seemed confused, and the gentle tapping of shoes on concrete was a soothing contrast to 8 o'clock's screams. He could not remember exactly who had screamed, but the noises rang through his head again, rising up to drown out the concrete, the few passing cars, and the students quietly making their way back home. Tanaka-sensei was having the most incredible evening of his life; all the others would seem as pale reflections, when compared to October the 18th.
Tanaka-sensei left the quiet side street he had been journeying along, and turned instead onto the main trunk avenue that served as the backbone of the University. Here, there was more light, and more sound, but since it was a foggy weekday evening, everything managed to seem muted and somber, nonetheless.
What had he done? He couldn't remember anymore. He remembered throwing away a knife, and he remembered screams... His head hurt. He decided it would be a good idea to go to sleep.
In fact, she certainly would not have been walking with him tonight, if it were not for Them. This walk was necessary. They had arranged everything. And while the fees that They had commanded had been exorbitant, They inevitably got results.
And besides, her father was footing the bill. Ophelia checked her watch. 7:54. Six minutes until.
It was Richard broke the silence. "So... Ophelia. Listen. What's up?" He tried to look at her eyes, and failed.
"I don't know, Richard. I guess I feel like I've got a lot of things on my mind. You know, a lot of stuff we've never really... resolved." Her voice was icy, but it didn't need to be; Richard knew what was she was talking about, and the ice struck him as being a little melodramatic.
And while there was no way Richard could know this, he would learn a lot more about melodramatics before the evening was over.
"Ophelia...look. Listen. I'm sorry, allright? Haven't I already said that? What do you want, blood? Is that it?" He held out his wrists. "Go ahead! Cut away!" Ophelia smirked. "I mean... listen, I AM sorry. I... you know that I got out of hand. Okay? Is that good enough?"
Not good enough. Not even close.
Ophelia said nothing. Another moment passed before Richard turned on her with a question. "So why...So what makes you all of sudden want to talk to me now, huh?"
"Uhm.." Ophelia had a secret explanation to Richard's question, and it presently ran up to the two of them. The answer was a young oriental man of moderate height, dressed in blue jeans, blue shoes, and a blue sweater decorated with a flurry of white snowflakes.
"Konbanwa, Richard-san!" the oriental man exclaimed. He was Richard's Japanese class TA, and he was saying "Good evening!" in Japanese. "Konbanwa, Tanaka-sensei. Genki desuka?" Richard asked. He was returning the greeting, and inquiring as to his teacher's health. Tanaka-sensei then stabbed Richard in the gonads with a five-inch steak knife, and ran away. This was a severe breach of Japanese etiquette.
Translation is unnecessary.
As a rather startling amount of blood spilled onto the sidewalk, Ophelia knelt to Richard's prone, moaning, undeniably unhappy form. She decided that screaming would be a good idea, and did so.
It took quite a few interviews before anyone would say anything particularly quotable.
"Student council president? Like, that's too bad, I guess," said political science major Stacey Kowalawitz.
"Well, it wasn't like they stabbed a football player or anything, at least," said engineering student David Orson.
"Aw, crap, we're not going to have to go through elections again, are we?" asked math major Stanley Sensenmetzer.
The quote that was eventually used was actually said in an extremely sarcastic tone of voice, but because not indicating sarcasm as is easy as simply not mentioning it, the Free Press eventually chose to feature it. "I'm extremely sorry to hear of this senseless, brutal tragedy, particularly since student government's legendary efficiency will be impaired while a search for a successor takes place," said John Kloetz, a history major.
John Kloetz: history major, legendary dilettante, 99.98% sober. Most often spotted wearing the quiet sensible attire of the aspiring academic, he was today wearing a T-shirt that said "Here at State U., you're not just a number...you're a very large number!" His hair was straight, short, black, and slightly unkempt, with a few choice bits sticking nearly straight up. His eyes were brown pools of warmth, the single moderating influence on a face that was otherwise all angles and shadows.
The student reporter from the Free Press took note of none of this. They were irrelevant details.
Kloetz hated the Free Press. There were two things he hated more than the Free Press, and one of them was the Campus Gazette. There was one thing he hated more than the Campus Gazette, and that was the student government. Kloetz, it might be said by an optimist, was a bitter person.
John had also figured out that the Free Press would ignore his sarcasm and run his quote, but this revelation did not occur to him until the reporter had already left.
"Hi, guys!" said John, blithely ignoring the sarcastic chirp of the fire alarm. "Look!" he said. "I'm in the paper!" He waved the newspaper over his head for added emphasis.
Paul looked up from his magazine. "Yeah, I checked it out earlier...I'm assuming you were being sarcastic?"
"That was the idea. I'm kind of hoping that if any intelligent people accidentally read today's edition, they might get the original spirit of my quote..."
Tim had no opinion on the issue. He was frantically scrapping a mass of immolated eggs off of the pan before they could wreak further mischief.
"Hey, uh, Tim?"
"Yeah, John?"
"You may want to turn the burner on the bacon down a little."
The second floor alarm went off.
"Oh."
Tim turned the burner down and added another egg to the culinary graveyard that was Frying Pan #2. He then threw the egg empty container out.
Actually, the egg container was not really "thrown out" in the traditional sense. It was balancing on top of the two foot high obelisk of paper towels, empty TV dinner cartons, banana peels, and mysterious, formerly edible objects that protruded from the garbage can in a precarious mound.
Due to a momentary lapse in cosmic order, and in direct contradiction of the traditional understanding of gravity, this mound did not collapse.
But then reality reasserted itself all over the floor.
John noticed. "Jenga rule," he chirped.
"Shit."
Every garbage can has an original intended capacity. Through judicious use of stacking and balancing, however, certain male college students have made the breakthrough discovery that the act of wrapping up the garbage can not only be postponed, it can be postponed for a very long time.
Referencing to the 6th law (the law of Male Competition), this garbage stacking is glorified in an ongoing struggle of wit and talent as housemates stack and stack, with the buffoonish knocker-over of the glorious garbage pile being forced into the humiliation of both cleaning up the pile, and wrapping up the bag.
This is only a minor aspect of the joy of communal living.
"Hey John?" asked Paul.
"Yeah?"
"You got anything I can read?" While Paul didn't attend many classes, clean up after himself or actually move any more often than was absolutely necessary, he was a voracious reader.
John rummaged around his room, picking up books at random off the floor, until he found one he seemed to like. "Yeah. Okay, here's one for you. It's the, uh, `gigathriller of the information age'."
"What?"
"Well, that's what the review on the back says. Having read it, I'd just have to add that it gets a lot less thrilling once you've gotten through the first two-thirds. Still, I totally recommend it." John threw the paperback across the room in parabolic arc terminating at Paul's chest. With one hand, Paul snagged it from the air with the practiced nonchalance of a truly lazy person. He peered at the cover art.
"Who's the dude with the katana?"
"Hiro Protaganist. He's the main character, and he's a baaaad motherfucker."
"The main character's name is Protagonist? Hmm." As Paul started flipping through the book, selecting and reading random passages, John left the dilapidated living room, and went into the kitchen. John left the kitchen and went back into the dilapidated living room. John went back into the kitchen. John came back into the living room. Paul had a question.
"John? Uhhh..."
"I'm pacing because I'm thinking. I'm thinking...because I'm not drinking. I'm not drinking because I like to stay conscious because I like to think of different ways to make things blow up." John smiled. He was pretty pleased with his own logic.
"...and today's target is?" asked Paul, still lying on his back on the less hideous of the two sofas, dangling his legs over one of the sofa's semi-shredded arms.
"I'm not sure. Mimes? Financial aid administrators? Stand up comics? No! I have it. Folk Musicians!"
Paul suddenly sat up on the couch, as if the hand of The Lord had picked him up by the scruff of the neck. "John, you're a genius!"
"What's your point?"
"You just reminded me about the phone message I'm supposed to give you. How does the idea of destroying student government sound to you?"
"Jeez. Pretty good, why?"
"Someone called for you about that... Who was it..."
"I'd have an easier time telling you if I'd taken the call. Was it Hakim? Dave? Sara?"
"No, no... and no... it was a girl..."
"Well, we can rule out Diane, then..." A beat passed, and John perked up. "Was it Rachel?"
"No, it wasn't Rachel."
"Well, her roommate said she was going to call me back when she got off the other line, and she still hasn't..."
"That was last Tuesday, John."
"Well, yeah..."
Paul snapped his fingers. "Wait! I got it. Do you remember Ophelia at all?"
"Well, she called up this afternoon, and she said she wanted to talk to you about `busting up student government like a ripe watermelon'. She sounded pretty energized."
"Did she leave her number?"
"Yup Yup. 210-1939."
"Huh. Thanks..." John trailed off, and left the room. Three seconds later he was on the phone.
Two, one, zero, one, nine, three, nine. Ophelia.
A woman's voice. A little husky. "Hello?"
"Hi, is Ophelia there?"
"Hang on, I think she's in the shower..."
A pause, and a new voice. Clearer and higher.
"Hello?"
"Yeah, hi....Ophelia?"
"Oh! John, thanks for calling me back. How's it going?"
"Ah, not too bad. Boring mostly. Listen, Paul said that you want to start a crusade to kill student government..."
"`Crusade' might be kind of an excessive term, but yeah... pretty much... how's that sound to you?"
"Absolutely terrific! What's the plan?"
"A fine question. To tell the truth, it isn't even my plan at this point. I met some other guy who actually wants to put this thing together... he's going to run for president of student council and he wants to bring a bunch of people along... other than that, I think you should probably talk to him yourself, if you're interested in getting any more specifics."
"Who is he?"
"Do you remember Thomsen Gunnarsen from Poli-Sci 204?"
"Uhmm... Weird, paranoid, and possibly delusional?"
"Bingo. Be at his place this Saturday at 1pm. He's at...Apartment 104, 524 S. Main St."
"Ah. Okay. I'll be there."
The Japanese language is something of a linguistic novelty, with four distinct alphabets.
"Romaji" is nothing more than English letters spelling out Japanese words in a phonetic manner. It's sort of a pseudo-alphabet. "Hiragana" is the Japanese phonetic alphabet, featuring a mere 40 or so characters. "Katakana" is 40 or so phonetic characters used to spell out "loan words" from other languages, such as "Macudonarado" (McDonald's) "Garufarendo" (Girlfriend), or "Pen" (Pen).
John had all of these under control. No problem!
The "Kanji" are the fourth alphabet. Kanji are something like 40,000 different, elegant, exquisite and mind-numbingly complex characters. They're nice because you only need to know three or four thousand of them to read the paper in the morning.
John was supposed to know quite a lot of this alphabet. In reality, he knew only some of it. In Japan, there is no way this would be considered acceptable, and the test reflected this, much to John's dismay.
Simply expressed, seppuku is the respectable and honorable act of spilling out ones own innards with a sword. After this somewhat painful act, a close friend or comrade-in-arms traditionally beheads the victim to end the agony. The best sort of beheading cuts all the way to (but not through) the front of the neck, leaving the head attached to the body with a thin flap of skin.
As he walked home in a daze, he found himself wondering how Ophelia was doing with her midterms.
Despite the trauma of having recently seen her ex-boyfriend interact with a knife in an extremely unpleasant way, Ophelia took her midterms. If she took them now, she thought, the TAs and professors would have a really hard time grading her objectively.
She was taking humanities classes; this meant that if you wrote in English, in complete sentences, you were guaranteed at least a B/C on any given exam. If you could come up with an idea somehow relating to the class, and clothe it in the wispiest shred of logic, you'd be guaranteed at least a B. Beyond that, the ability to suck up or garner sympathy went a long way toward getting an "A". Ophelia was fairly popular with her TAs. Being at the scene of a gruesome, bloody, well-publicized maiming would undoubtedly shoot the sympathy levels through the roof.
Actually, this whole grading scheme was a seriously considered factor in the knife attack on Richard Naranyu. The police would never know.
Ophelia maintained a 4.0 throughout the semester.
"Oh, hi, John. Come in." Thomsen gestured at his apartment, a small, amazingly cluttered mixture of black furniture, ash trays in all shapes, sizes and states of fullness, empty liquor bottles, and skater magazines. A copy of Marx's Das Capital sat on the black steamer trunk in the center of the room. A life-sized dummy was strapped to the wall directly opposite the door, a black hood over its head, chains binding its legs together.
"Okay. Gimme the plan, Thomsen," commanded John. He was unimpressed by the dummy. He was in no mood to dick around. He had consumed too much caffeine.
Meanwhile, buried somewhere under a black bathrobe and a pile of New York Times back issues, Thomsen's CD player was generating some extremely unusual dancehall reggae music. "Biddee biddee meng meng," went the nasal voice on the CD. "Biddee biddee bong bong," it continued.
Thomsen's voice was nasal, too.
"Okay. Here is our plan. We are thinking that the student body at large is fed up with the incompetent uninspired leadership that is currently being provided. Naranyu's untimely and unfortunate maiming and resignation provides us, the lovably offbeat and daring underdogs, a chance to wage a no-holds-barred novelty campaign that will elect us to the highest offices on campus. We will be known as: Ten Fat Fingers."
"Gettin' haader, haader, to get across dee bodah," went the CD.
"Ah. And from there...?" asked John.
"And, uh, from there we proceed to rob the campus coffers blind, all the while telling the public about it in press releases. Hopefully we will also provide bread and circuses to the masses as well, as a diversionary tactic."
"Woom pem payo, woom pem pem pem-payo- ofizzit now zitz; woom pem payo, woom pem pem pem payo- I am about to expose it," went the CD.
"Auhm... Anyways. Yes. That's the plan," said Thomsen. He sounded distinctly unfired up.
"Out of all da people, me dey decided to pull over... take my shoe, run it tru da computer," continued the CD.
"Uh, Thomsen? Could you turn down the, uh, music, a bit?"
"Oh, sure." The CD faded into relative silence.
"It's an excellent plan," said John, brimming with enthusiasm, "and let me tell you why. It's an excellent plan because the current student council is chock-a-block with morons. It's an excellent plan because college bores me silly, and it sounds like this might be entertaining... and, finally, it's an excellent plan because I want to see how much we can embezzle from student government once we're elected.
"Aauhm.. so basically, you want to be elected to help people."
John seemed to be grinning more widely than the situation justified. "Exactly! Now, what's our strategy?"
"Well I was thinking that what we would do is project an extremely doctrinaire yet anachronistic authoritarian image of sexually deviant, fascist would-be-conquerers."
"and...?" John encouraged.
"And I've made some posters."
"Ah-hah.. Cool." Thomsen handed John a stack of posters, which he leafed through.
Ten Fat Fingers: This will hurt you more than it hurts us.
Accompanying Graphic: Han Solo, Princess Leia and Luke Skywalker being crushed in the trash compactor on the Death Star.
Ten Fat Fingers: We possess 3 tons of Sarin nerve gas.
Graphic: a corpse, flanked by photos of whimsical students making facial expressions of surprise.
Ten Fat Fingers: It is okay to fist.
Graphic: A giant cartoon fist.
"I'll give you one thing:" said John, "it's a lot better campaign than they usually run..."
"You like it?" asked Thomsen.
"It's definitely got possibilities... How many people have you got right now?"
"Counting myself?"
"Of course."
"About, uh...six." said Thomsen flatly.
"About five more than I expected," John conceded. "Excellent. Let's meet this Saturday. That work for ya?"
"Okay. Any time after 1 should be fine."
"Okay. I'll see you guys at The Burger Caper around 2pm. See if you can't bring some more posters or ideas or whatever. I'll see if I can bring some stuff too." John paused. "Are you psyched?"
Thomsen never looked psyched. For some reason, the emotion of excitement had been drained out of Thomsen at some point during his childhood, and had made a vow not to come back until he quit dressing in black leather and spikes. Thomsen looked decidedly un-psyched, but regardless, he gamely put his fist into the air and went: "Woop".
"Hello?"
"Hi, John. Hakim here. How's life?"
"Hakim! Not bad. How's it going for you?"
"Not bad, not bad at all. I just got struck by inspiration from God, and I had to call someone and share."
"By all means! Lay it on me!"
"Okay. Are you familiar with the effects of lactic acid and sugar when they are taken together in large quantities?"
"Not really... what kind of stuff happens?"
"Vomiting happens. Are you familiar with the fact that drinking contests and manly competitions are a popular way to have fun at parties?"
"Well, yeah..."
"Check this out, then. I start talking about how hard it is to drink a gallon of chocolate milk, and how I bet no-one could do it. To someone, probably someone drunk, this sounds like a really easy thing to do. I challenge them in a bet, bet $20, wait for them to spill chocolate milk like Niagara falls, and rake in the cash."
"That has to be the one of the most physically upsetting get-rich-quick schemes I have ever heard in my life."
"Literally, yeah. I'm pretty excited. So how're things with you?"
"Interesting that you ask. How would you feel about running for student government?"
There was a long pause on the line. "Well, answer these two questions for me, and I'll consider it. Question#1: what do I need to do? and Question #2: what's the point?"
"Answer #1: you only need to do whatever you feel like doing, and answer #2: we'll be dismantling student government in a most amusing and mischievous way. Plus there's embezzlement potential!"
"Hmm. Money is good. Optional effort is good. Are you having a meeting or something?"
"This Saturday, 2pm, at the Burger Caper."
"I'll be there."
Alan the TA presiding. No messing around. Lots of practice. Muy bueno.
Conjugation drills. Conversation exercises with partners.
Click. The clock moves. Click. It is 9:59.
More drills. Conjugate! Conjugate! Hyaah!
And then, the time drills.
It is 10:07. Ophelia tenses, staring at the clock. She already knows how to tell time in Spanish and she does not feel like learning it again.
Click. 10:09. Ophelia mentally rages at the clock. Hurry, damn you! Hurry!
Click. 10:10. Ophelia tries very hard not to think about the time. This fails.
I conjugate, you conjugate, she conjugates, we conjugate, they (familiar) conjugate, they (formal) conjugate.
10:40. A major temporal victory! And then...reading drills.
At this point Alan decided it was time to call on "Senor Dave", a lucky young beneficiary of the generous football scholarship program. "Senor Dave...Lea pagina cuarento y nueve."
Senor Dave shuffled through the pages of his text, until he came to the appropriate passage. "Uhh...Fuime al comedor, cu.. cuya puerta que da a la primera galeria cerre..cuidada.cuidadommhgh, para que los..."
This was Alan's cue. He snapped into action like a barracuda. "Wait. What was that?" All ambient noise in the room vanished, and a 10000 watt mental spotlight dropped on Senor "Dave".
Dave felt it. "Uhm...cuidadot...cuida..cuidadosadem.."
"A-WUBwubabwa? Uh-wuhbwubwah?" Alan repeated.
This was not helping Dave's concentration. "...cuid...cuidodat..cuidada.."
"Uhwub wubwah? Bwah bwubwah? Can you imagine going down to Mexico City and talking like that? Can you?" Alan paused. This felt good. "Can you Dave? Well I can. I can just see you going down there, and going `Abwuhwuhwuh,' and all the people on the street rejoicing! Yes, I can just see all the natives looking at you, saying to each other: `Hooray! Look, it's the dog people coming to save us!' Awubuhbwah bwah bwuh!"
The class was really enjoying this. This was pure gold.
"Abwuhabwuh, Dave? Si? Es verdad? ABWUBUBWA?"
Dave gaped at Alan. Poleaxed steer.
"Anyway," finished Alan, mercifully, "the word, kids, is cuidadosamente, and don't you forget it. Class dismissed."
The class filed out of the room, feeling collectively pretty good, with the notable exception of Senor Dave.
The answering machine kicked in.
"Hi there. John, Tim and Paul are all unable to come to the phone at the moment. For your listening enjoyment, however, may we present a song from the musical "Sound of Music", interrupted by a beating from an aluminum baseball bat." The voice began to sing. "Do, a deer, a female deer, Re, a golden dro-HOOHAUGH"
Beep.
Ophelia's voice.
"Uhhhm.... That's a FINE message, John. This is Ophelia. I was just calling to see how things went on Saturday, and maybe to see if we could get together and talk strategy... If you get home before-"
Whoops. This was worth the pain of being conscious. He picked up.
"Hi, Ophelia!"
"Oh! Hi, John.
"What's up?"
"Well, based on the assumption that you use your answering machine to screen calls to see if they're interesting, you've probably heard most of it..."
"Ah-hah! But you know what happens when you `assume'..."
"I make an ass out of `U'?"
"Yeah! And, uh...yeah."
"Mm-hmm." Ophelia was smiling, but fighting it. "So you want to go out and get some coffee together, or what?"
"What? I mean, yes!"
When John arrived at the cafe, it was almost completely empty. Glass-topped tables sat inert in the middle of the spacious room. The room was ringed by a border of booths, all deserted except for one.
Ophelia looked up just in time to see him enter. She waved at him in a winningly feminine way; elbow on the table, arm held vertical, fingers delicately fluttering for a just second, all accompanied by a bright smile. John walked over to the booth a little more quickly than he might have liked.
"Ophelia! How's it goin'?"
"Oh, pretty well. How're things with you?"
"Oh, okay. What've you been up to? Anything particularly thrilling?"
"Not as such. Let's see... I'm trying to write poetry... I'm attending classes, once in a while... I dunno. Life is a desert. I'm ready for action."
Ophelia seemed surprisingly tuned in. "What kind of poetry?"
"I just finished my first really long poem... It's sort of an epic critique of modern commercial culture. I'm fairly certain it's terrible..."
"I could confirm that for you, if you wanted. I used to edit a poetry review back in high school. But I'm sure it's good..."
"Well, I can get you a copy of it sometime..."
"Who're your influences?"
"Influences?" John grimaced. "I dunno. I like Coleridge. Keats. The Pixies..."
"Hey, have you ever heard Bossanova? There's some terrific stuff on there, as far as lyrical power goes..."
The waiter arrived. "Can I get you anything to start?"
"Coffee," said John.
"The same," said Ophelia.
"Cream!" said both of them.
The waiter smirked, and left.
"Excellent. You'll have to lend it to me!" John said.
"You're on. Okay, though. Business time. What did you think of Thomsen?"
John paused, for a moment, considering what level of tact he would utilize as he answered. "Well...he's a loon. He may very well be mentally unstable, and I would rather not even speculate on what his sexual preferences might be."
"So?"
"So he's perfect!"
Ophelia grinned. "That's what I thought. Did he give you a rundown of the strategy he's pushing, yet?"
The waiter returned with coffee. "Are you ready to order?"
John looked at Ophelia, who looked at the menu. "Coffee's fine for me." she said.
John blinked, and looked at his menu. He wasn't hungry. But you can't just walk into a cafe/restaurant with another person and then only order coffee. "I'll have the cheese quesadillas."
The waiter left.
"Anyway, yeah, he did... Too poster-oriented, I think. I have some clever additions, I think."
"Such as...?"
"Well, I'll do it this way. Let me define for you the difference between the student council's reelection strategy, and the correct strategy."
"You mean our strategy," said Ophelia.
"Exactly. The student council is basing its hopes for reelection on traditional political virtues, namely service to the constituency, idealistic values of advancing society's good and `cute', memorable slogans."
"Or so they say."
"Right. Basically, it's completely inappropriate for our setting, which is an American college campus in the 1990's. Their strategy counts upon students to be selfless, idealistic, and interested in student politics, much as the student council views itself. Right?"
"Well, yes... so?"
"So... The fact of the matter is, between 1 and 2 percent of the student population votes. Nobody cares. There are three important issues on this campus, I think... Yes. Three. They are: beer, the university football team, and lite beer. This will form the cornerstone of our movement."
"What will? Beer? Are we just going to say: `we endorse beer! love us!' and expect students to turn out in droves chanting our names?" Ophelia was going to obvious lengths to sound skeptical, but John thought he could sense a note of building enthusiasm in her voice. Maybe.
"No no no. You've got the right idea, but we're going one better than that. We are going to give them beer. We are going to say: `Look, we give you beer. You vote for us."
"Carefully keeping everything monosyllabic, of course."
"Of course. Can't discount the fraternity vote. Anyway, we'll then say: "And if you elect us, we 're gonna allocate half the student budget to providing yet more free beer.' And wham, we're in like Flynn."
"We can't say `allocate' though..."
"Yeah, whatever. We'll let the writers take a look at it and craft something coherent out of it. But I think we'll be rockin'."
"The `writers'?"
"Okay, me and you. Whaddya think, though?"
"I think we've got a shot." Ophelia raised her coffee mug into the air, boisterously. "To the election!"
"To the election!"
