Sleeping Giant
By: RJ Lopez
Smashwords Edition 2
Copyright 2010 RJ Lopez
Smashwords Edition, License Notes
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~~~~Acknowledgements~~~~
Without my family and friends this story wouldn’t have been possible. I’d like to sincerely thank anyone who ever helped push me to write or inspired me for even a single line in the story. This is by far the longest work I’ve been committed to, and would like to thank everyone who was there as I worked my way through the story. I would especially like to thank Tanya Bechara for the amazing cover and for inspiring me to take the story in new directions. I’d also like to thank Dianne Allenberg for pushing me to finish my work and giving me the motivation I needed to make this story everything it could be.
~~~~The City Sleeps ~~~~
I didn’t want it to come down to this. I don’t understand how I could’ve let it get to this point. I tried so hard to climb out of these feelings. I try so hard…but I just can’t get away from it.
I don’t want this anymore. I’ve had too much. It’s buried inside and I know it; but there’s no cure for what’s tearing it’s way out of me. No quick fix for what’s about to break down the dam…
A knock pulls me away from my thoughts. I look around my cramped apartment. Wrinkled clothing, battered used books, and empty food wrappers cover most of the floor. Nothing of any interest or meaning is in the apartment besides an old weathered laptop on the bed. The windows have never been washed and the light filtering through the grime takes on the dirty brown color as it washes into the living room. I look through the peephole and see the face of my next-door neighbor standing in the hallway. He knocks again loudly, nervously shuffling his feet as he looks down at them blankly. I sigh softly as I open the door.
He’s a simpleton, the kind of person who is inherently good-natured about being utterly useless. His sickly sweet nature reminds me of a dog who never learned to go outside to pee because you felt too bad scolding him as a puppy. It’s not really his fault he never learned any better but you still want to smack him when he wets the carpet.
“I’ve got a problem I need your opinion on. Can I come in?”
There’s no ‘hello’ or even a ‘hey’ just right into ‘I’ve got a problem’. For some reason he feels that our casual ‘friendship’ means I want to be drowned in his tears every time something goes wrong in his life…translation he swings by almost everyday. Even when I pretend that I’m not home I’ve heard him come by ten minutes later to knock again. It’s pathetic. He drones on and on about his latest business partner, who’s failed to do anything but rob him blind; and, how he thinks his “girlfriend” doesn’t care about him anymore. The entire time I’ve known him he’s failed to realize, I really don’t care about his problems.
“Why can’t I just find someone that doesn’t want to steal from me? Between rebuilding the little that I’m ever able to save, and taking Sara out I’m barely getting by. I don’t know how long I can keep things going at this rate.”
I’m dying inside and fighting back the urge to jump onto him and scream in his face. The urge to grab him and beat some sense into him so strong, but do I do it? No. All I can do is shrug and motion for him to come inside. If I’m going to listen to this mindless babble I’m at least going to sit down for it. I learned a long time ago trying to brush him off only prolongs the torture. He plops down on my couch and the aging legs creak in protest. His fat form is barely contained by his wrinkled shirt, the buttons look as if they can burst off at any moment, and they’re barely better than the shoes he has so casually propped on top of my table.
“Maybe you need to talk to a more successful publisher and convince him to invest in you. Show him some of the works you’ve got ready for press, and try to get some help putting it out there.”
His face morphs from blank stupidity into pure bewilderment.
“What do you mean? I do everything my book about small business recommends. I’ve been to workshops and lectures and they all say I’m just a step away from hitting it big. All the consultants I’ve hired think I’m almost there.”
“I’m just thinking that maybe, just maybe, sending out mailers and posting flyers aren’t the best ways to find an honest partner. The book you read is an old ‘how-to’ book you found at the bottom of a box in a used bookstore. Maybe it’s not the best thing to try and run your business by, and how successful are those people giving those talks you swear by.”
The look on his face is almost worth the torture of having to put up with him. He’s dumbfounded, completely and utterly floored. He’s stupid enough to think this is a revolutionary idea, and doesn’t realize he should be ashamed for not knowing this years ago. His face quickly turns back into a look of worry, he refuses to see a good idea and work with it. He has to be miserable.
“Right…maybe I’ll look into that latter…but then I still have to deal with Sara…”
“One problem at a time. Go to your lawyer, get away from your partner, start looking for a real one. Deal with Sara later.”
“But…”
Idiot.
“No Franklin, worry about your business so you can still be in a position to afford having a problem with Sara.”
The logic is finally dawning on the pile of mush he calls a brain, and I can tell that he almost comprehends what I’m saying. You can almost see the light turning on behind the vodka-induced haze.
“Right”
I get up and open the door; I feel a chill from a blast of cold air sailing through the hallway window. He walks out, turning to wave to me like a child. I lean my head against the closed door and look down at the couch. It feels like time for a nap.
I lay down slowly, feeling exhausted from my experience with him. It takes so much out of me to let him walk through the door.
How can he be so content with his life? How can he not see how meaningless he really is? Can he really be so dense that he thinks his problems are normal? Does he think his failures and shortcomings are ‘just the way it is,’ the natural lay of the world?
He has know there’s a better way to live than the way he’s been trying. When he goes to meet other publishers, carefully counting the money in his wallet before he orders while they carelessly hand the waiter bills telling them to keep the change he has to see the difference. He HAS to know. How can he not see the problem when he has to decide between buying food for the day or a trinket for his whore “girlfriend”.
None of his friends are any better than him, or they wouldn’t be his friends. There has to be some way to show him how things really are. I must be able to do something to get him to stop bothering me.
What if I can’t? What if his life’s the same as everyone else’s? What if he doesn’t know how bad his life is, because there’s just….just nothing better? The entire world’s caught up in mediocrity and existing for no other reason than because it can?
No. That can’t be true.
There are lives better than his. Mine certainly is. There are plenty of other happy people who’ve found success at what they do. They use their skills. They have purpose. They have meaning. Their lives have value and worth.
Those people have found someway to give their life meaning. They’ve taken potential and created something…something he can’t. His publishing company destroys more than creates. He keeps all his authors locked in bitter obscurity because they don’t realize he’s a sinking ship. Poor students, recent graduates, uneducated novices who pour their soul into their works and sign with him because they don’t know any better. Too excited by the prospect of sitting in a coffee shop and turning to the person to their right to inform them they’re “a writer”. He could have one of the world’s modern classics buried away in a stack of novels he’ll never read because he can’t understand their message.
He’s nothing. He just…is… but why? Why is he here if he serves no purpose? What right does he have to…to do…anything…or even to…to be here? Do I have the right to answer that?
Do I know better than the random collection of cells that gathered together decades ago to create him? Could his parents have taken one look at him fresh out of the womb, seen the obvious failure he’d become and just…thrown him away?
Should they have?
Mankind used to be sink or swim. Survive or be left out for the wolves. Would he have survived the Stone Age? Or would they have known better and rather than coddle him toss him into a lake.
It seems so obvious. Why waste the time and energy on something that obviously had no potential.
I stand. I’m excited. The energy is rapidly building in my chest and I can feel it spilling over into my little room. The room seems more claustrophobic than it had been before; it’s almost oppressively small now as every wrapper and overturned book seems like a boulder.
He has no potential…he doesn’t deserve anything...he’s just a waste, a drain…there’s no redeeming him…you can’t save someone like him from himself…but there’s no way to…no other way…he can’t do anything himself, he can’t change...someone else would have to…
I walk over to the window and face my reflection. I can see the people in the street, and can almost see them bending under the weight of his crimes. Their shoulders hunched forward from the weight of his burden, heads hanging low, oblivious to what’s oppressing them.
You don’t have a choice. You have to...
I look at my reflection excitedly. I can see it, the low glow burning within me, buried deep after so long, but beginning to show a small glint in my eyes.
A…hero…
I grab my jacket and rush for the door. I hurry down the stairs passing another tenant from down the hall and nod quickly as he avoids eye contact with me.
Down on the street I realize I picked the wrong time to leave. The cold air has turned frigid and it’s about to rain. I have no umbrella, and the school down the road just got released. Masses of children are rushing past me to go back home and glue themselves to the T.V., desperate to surrender more of their brain cells to it.
The sight of their happy faces makes me sick inside.
I’m sick from the thought that Franklin’s mediocrity is damning them to a bleaker future, sucking potential out of the world like black hole. Taking something someone could work so hard and slave over, only to be buried in a stack. A void their potential is sucked into, never to escape. I’m sick his existence hurts their chance for a better life, a better job, a better tomorrow, a better hour at home. Sick with myself for not dealing with him yet.
I have to…But can I?
Yes.
I have to...I must…
I’m past the school now…thankfully, and I’m close to my destination. I always end up here on these walks. The older warehouse district is just coming up into my view. I can see the workers scurrying to keep busy so they earn their minimum wage pay before they have to go stand in line at the soup kitchen in the middle of the district with the rest of their family.
The buildings have a calming effect on me. They’re everything that is wrong with this city. Great big buildings with limitless possibilities for anything to happen inside, but in the end they’re utterly worthless. Everyone who saw them stab into the sky must have stupidly thought “What great development, what progress!” but where’s that progress now? Derelict buildings for the dregs of society to use as refuges from the snow and rain. Buildings with chipped paint and dirty broken windows stand next to freshly painted buildings. Neither holds anything of value inside, both are owned by the same fools who think they’ll be valuable in the future, ignoring the fact they’ve been saying that for five years.
Here.
Yes. I’ll bring him here. How?
His business.
Here? Not an office?
He’s too stupid to notice.
And when he’s here?
Then do the deed. A gun? No, too easy to trace and hard to get. A knife? No, I’m a hero not a mugger. A bat, pipe? Too thuggish. A rope? No, the fat fuck would take too long to strangle. An axe? Too crude…
I’m taking the wrong approach to this. It can’t leave any suspicion on me. It has to seem like an accident. I need to decide where, before how. It has to be perfect.
I glance around the warehouses standing before me, and realize I’ve wandered deeper into the district than I thought. My thoughts have taken me almost all the way into the heart of the urban decay; this is the place. It makes too much sense, it just feels…right. But where? The clouds are dark overhead and finally the cold rain begins to pour from them. I rush out of the street into the first open door way and look up at the fading sign above the door.
Here.
An abandoned warehouse an electronics company built to store their over-priced and unwanted creations.
The door’s locked. I’ll have to go around to the side and force my way in like a bum.
I walk to the side entrance, luckily someone has already done the work for me and the door is cracked open. I enter the main warehouse, careful to not touch anything with my hand, and see it. It’s perfect, like walking into a church. The sound of the rain falling against the roof fills the whole building as if an audience of people applauding my decision. The light filtering in from the windows shifts slightly as I walk across the worn and weather cement floor slowly.
Leading to the manager’s office is a long high stairwell. The stairs are made of cast iron; they’re sharp and steep, probably from before the war. All I’d have to do is lead the drunk up to the office and push him down the stairs. If it’s not enough he’ll get dealt with by one of the pieces of wood laying on the floor from the crates the company never bothered to clean out before leaving.
I’ll bring him here. I’ll start to clear the brush in a forest of dead buildings and give it another chance at life. I have to be sure. This is a man’s life…but how much is his life even worth? No. I’m sure of it, this is the only way. It makes perfect sense, it’s so utilitarian, so basic and instinctive. When the world’s at a turning point you can’t let yourself be dragged down by the dead weight. If he doesn’t add anything and only takes or hurts when so many people need help right, when they all need a chance he needs to be taken out of the equation. Why keep feeding the bear that’s eventually going to eat you?
The world’s at a crossroads. Every other day there’s some new crises that puts us on the brink of destruction, and he does nothing to solve the problem. He only creates new ones. It’s simple economics. When the world is at the brink the dead weight needs to be tossed over the side. Failed businesses that keep getting help, programs too inefficient to do anything but exist, and even people who just take and poison.
It’s just a matter of time until everyone else sees the necessity of what I’m doing. Until they thank me for clearing the way.
I turn around and walk out of the building back towards my apartment. Nothing seems to be different. The street’s still crowded, the sounds just as roaring, the rain just as cold, and the people rush by all the same; but that’ll change soon. Soon they’ll all be safe. I’ll protect them.
He doesn’t deserve to be here anymore. I’ll do it. I’ll do it now. The sooner the better, the quicker I can correct nature’s mistake. He’ll finally be doing something that will help the world. Even if it is only dying.
I’m at the dreary door of my building; there’s a faint pulsing glow coming from the other side, seeping out towards me from the doorframe. The glow's just bright enough to be a different enough from the rest of the world, to stand out, but not enough to be completely cut off from it. So close but so distant.
As I walk up the stairs I hear him. He’s mumbling drunkenly to the other tenants. Going room to room trying to talk coherently to anyone who’ll listen. This would be the time if any. The moment is hot, and everyone would be glad to be rid of him. I may not even have to push him down the stairs; he’s drunk enough to fall without a hand.
I smile widely at him as I ascend the final stair and step onto the landing.
“Franklin.” I say loudly to him to get his attention away from the quiet student who lives on the floor.
He looks my way and smiles back drunkenly. The smell of the cheap vodka he poured down his throat races out toward me. I feel repulsed as it assaults my senses. This is right. What I’m about to do is right. The bastard is piss-face drunk only after having decided to fix his life. He tries to shuffle towards me but is stopped by his own lack of coordination.
“I’m so glad you’re here! I need t-to talk to you about somethin’ important. I went to go celebrate the new plan we came up with this mornin’ with a lil’ drink, and everything was fine until it fell a-apart.”
“What happened?”
“I
found Sara with another man…I-I don’t think…I can’t get her
back this time…not a-again…”
This is it.
Hailey, the mousey student from down the hall he was bothering, looks at me gratefully with her doe eyes, and quickly closes her door, retreating back to her world of books and truths.
“You know I’m going to help however I can. I’m already a step ahead of you, I was out earlier thinking about your problems and came up with something really great.”
“What! I knew you of all people would be able to do somethin’. W-What have you done?”
Pathetic. I see no open doors or shadows of nosy neighbors hiding behind their doors. It’s time to set into motion the final act.
“I’ve found an investor. I couldn’t stand by and let your world come apart. I made some calls of my own. But he has to meet with you now, before he leaves for a trip to the East.”
He drunkenly looks at me with a bright grin. His face’s brightened, the combination of a fool’s hopes and the redness from drinking. There’s something in his eyes that I can’t identify. A fleeting look of insight that quickly dies, pulled down by the weight of the vodka down into oblivion.
“Then we go now.”
I’m almost worried by this sudden clarity, and unexpected moment of sobriety. It’s just a passing moment. He walks towards the stairs of the building and stumbles again, barely able to control himself as he walks down to the bottom door. The simpleton, if only he knew.
A fresh blast of cold air hits us as we leave the apartment building, and I begin to lead him to his final destination. He trails behind me slightly not able to keep up with me because of the vodka. I can see the breath leave his lips in the cold air as he labors to try and keep pace with me. We pass the schoolyard and there are still some children playing under the awning, waiting for their parents to make the drive to get them. He stops to at the gate of the school and looks at them smiling.
“One day…one of my own…”
If this fool ever had a child and passed on his genes, then that’d be all the proof I’d need to know there is no God.
I motion for him to follow me again, and we begin to see the rising roofs of the warehouses in the distance. The area is just as dirty and abandoned as it had been earlier, but that will change soon. When I free the world from him, he’ll stop sucking the potential out of everything; and life will flood back into these battered buildings.
I see the door to the warehouse I had chosen. Still undisturbed from when I left last, but I can see the faintest glow coming from the doorframe, beckoning us to enter. The world’s way of screaming out to me to carry out my plan and to save it. I can’t let him walk out of this place…
“Are you sure this is the right place?”
Hurry. He’s starting to sober.
I look back at him from the doorway, and see that he’s stopped behind me. His speech is no longer slow or slurred, and he’s looking at the building apprehensively.
“This is the address he gave me. You know I wouldn’t lead you wrong.”
“I know.”
Poor bastard I almost feel bad for him. He didn’t pick to have a wasted life…but I can’t let him keep drowning the world…
The look of caution leaves his face, and I can almost feel him put himself into my hands as he steps forward. I turn away from him and walk into the warehouse. I hear his slow steps behind me and I point up to the manager’s office.
“He must be waiting there for us.”
I cross the warehouse floor, careful not to step on anything for fear of an unpleasant surprise waiting for me beneath the trash. I ascend the stairs, walking faster than he can, and I reach the top of the landing as he barely reaches the bottom of the staircase.
This is it. The moment I’ve been waiting for is seconds away. The world will be saved in a heartbeat, and I can barely control myself. The feeling of energy flowing through my body is cool and calming. The hard pounding of the rain on the metal roof has become a steady rhythm, matching the beat of my pounding heart. This is right. This is the sign, I’m meant to complete my plan.
I look down at him and see him holding the rail so he can walk up. Maybe he’s not as sober as I had thought...
“Is he up there?”
“Yeah. Just waiting inside.”
Fool.
He takes the last step onto the landing and I turn to face him. His eyes still can’t focus completely, but it’s enough to show he recognizes the office is barren and vacant.
“Where’d he go?”
“Idiot.”
I can’t wait anymore. I step towards him and push him with all my might. The look in his eyes is of pure bewilderment and his jaw drops in shock. His whole face screams of silent horror as he flails for the railing to catch himself, but all his hands find is nothingness.
He finally makes contact with the cold metal stairwell. The railing that he had reached for safety now finds him with cold cruelty. The side of his head makes a loud crack as it slams into the rail. He goes limp as he hits the bottom step and slides down to the floor.
I walk to the bottom of the steps and stand over his crumpled body. He’s dead. There’s no doubt. There’s too much blood pouring from his body for him to have survived. I slowly kneel next to him, careful not to get his tainted blood on myself, and feel for a pulse. There is none. I look into his eyes, and there’s no trace of life left in them. I’ve done it.
I stand up again and step over his body, walking towards the door of the warehouse. The handle of the door is glowing still, but leading outside now. I look around as I step onto the street and see nothing but the dirty panes of empty warehouses looking back at me. I walk past the schoolyard, and the final straggler is finally leaving as the sun begins to peak through the clearing rainclouds gracefully. I protected those kids future from him. Even now as they sit in front of the television and let it wash over them, I’ve given them a chance they don’t know about yet. An opportunity to do something special when they finally become unplugged from the haze they live in and see the chance I’ve given them.
When I get to the apartment I see my door handle is still glowing, but the faint pulsing glow has become frenzied. I walk into the apartment and the energy still hasn’t left me from earlier; it’s filling the room around me and becoming oppressive again. I open the window and look down to see a pleasing sight of a laughing family walking down the street towards the park.
I did that. I made them smile and laugh. I look at the clock sitting on my desk. It’s almost time for me to leave for my appointment. I walk into the bedroom and pull open the closet door to see my other attire hanging proudly in the closet. I pull on the button up shirt and slacks, and feel alien in them.
This isn’t right. Something’s still off. I rid the world from his stupidity…things should have changed. The energy I was feeling earlier has slowed to a steady pulse in my body. I feel charged but I still feel distant from the clothes I just put on. Maybe there just hasn’t been enough time for his poison to filter out.
I stride out of the apartment and head away from the warehouse district. Instead I head toward the heart of the city, towards the university. Even though I know where I’m going you’d be able to tell you were getting closer to the school without realizing it. Newer apartments and chain stores are replacing the rundown apartment buildings and delis. Gourmet coffee houses, chic clothing stores, and trendy bars are replacing the dives and rundown buildings I live by. Even the rundown street is improving in character as the potholes and cracked sidewalks become replaced with freshly laid asphalt and cement.
The hustle of the students trying to get to their dorms from their last class has always intrigued me, even when I was a part of it. There’s really not matter how special they make think they are they’re really only taking one of the few options available to them.
They all run back to their rooms to sit, do work, and forget about the lecture they just left and “relax” with their friends. Even though those activities mainly consist of sitting around and chattering about mind numbingly unimportant details about each other that everyone ignores until it’s their turn to speak. They’re on cruise control and don’t even realize it. Going through life without trying too hard, having just enough lucky and tough breaks to make them think they’re actually living. These are the ones I have to wake up. I had to get rid of him for them. I had to make the light at the en of the tunnel cut through the haze of mediocrity they’re so used to expecting.
They can go down the same path the idiot took and go through the motions of not failing out of school while they drink themselves to oblivion using their youth as excuse. If it was good enough for the movies and Hollywood stars why wouldn’t it work in real life? Why wouldn’t the vodka swigging, beer chugging kid who can barely remember his own name get the dream job and girl?
Even more amusing are the ones who see the descent into the rat race and try to escape by pouring themselves in endless activities to keep moving faster than their fall. If it got them through high school and the horrors of adolescence it must work in college. But when they emerge from their room the purpose is always the same regardless of whatever they’re pretending to pay attention to, just some weak attempt to find themselves.
I couldn’t stand it. The false pretenses that everyone lived under to make the situation bearable made me sick. I survived but then…I had to get out, there was no denying what could happen if I stayed. But even from a distance some appearances still have to be maintained.
I turn onto the street I was looking for, just off the main campus drag but still rundown enough to warrant being called a dive despite the astronomical rent the owners must charge. As I walk into the room the aromas of fresh Chinese food attack my stomach. I’m starving. My mind must have been ignoring my body while I was preoccupied earlier.
I walk over to the bright faces that are smiling at me and waving me over from a small table.
My friends…
I walk towards my seat at the table and smile at everyone. Handshakes and hugs all around, and a menu’s handed to me as I take my seat. I glance at the faces around me, and listen to the idle chitchat I walked in on. The chatter flows from one subject to another, but the themes remain the same. Graduation’s approaching and job offers are starting to come in; it’s new and exciting but everyone’s worried. They want the perks of working at a top firm but aren’t ready to shed the shield of college life. Not quite ready to burst that bubble. I’ve always wondered at what moment do you realize you’ve sold out, and at what moment do just not care anymore. The job you took so you could move out of the low-end student housing and into an IKEA furnished studio apartment stops being that thing you do while your other friends are in class and becomes so much more.
Matt turns to ask my opinion on the paper our senile professor presented the day before.
“To be honest, I thought it was insightful to a point, but still meaningless. You can’t apply what he said to world that we live in.”
“I was talking to the new doctoral student, Simon Heller, and he thought it was a great idea that could be the stepping stone to a big change in the academic worlds view on the core of modern ethics and morality.”
“I don’t see how that even matters. The academic community’s opinion is meaningless. No matter what they say, it’ll just be buried as a footnote in the seventy-eighth edition of a random ethics textbook that no one reads. The response and the counter-response papers will all be tucked away into the vaults of university libraries, and never be seen again. At least not by anyone besides pretentious pricks like Simon Heller.”
“Well he thought it doesn’t have to be known by the public to have an effect, only by the policy makers. I mean that’s why we all came to a top university isn’t it?”
“If the public doesn’t know, then what’s the point? Perpetuating the elitism of the intellectuals? If it’s not practical for bettering the world, then it’s not necessary. It’s that type of thinking that got us dragged into these endless wars that are draining the country and killing off our society.”
“Well I don’t know…he just…”
“He just was being another preacher who can’t see that the world needs action, not another theory.”
He could never do what I’ve done. His kind is why fools were able to drown the world in their stupidity for so long. He’s educated enough to look down on the world, but not to save it. They all stood on their ivory pedestals for too long, locked away in their towers they’ve forgotten about the real world. What use is unlocking higher truths if you don’t tell anyone the meaning of it all.
“At some point all great actions were just an idea. Everything was an idea locked in someone’s head about what could be done. Getting validation from the academic community lets you take the next step forward to acting.”
“What step? To be published in an obscure journal that no one has heard of, let alone read? How does that accomplish anything for the world? The world needed to be saved and all Cooper did was spit out an idea that was doomed to fail because the world won’t even know it exists.”
My friend Steve, an engineering major, who I’m surprised to see away from his girlfriend for the night, interrupts Matt as he begins to respond.
“Well you’re both in luck. I invited Simon to eat with us tonight, and he just walked in the door. At least now he can defend himself from you.”
I turn around and there he is. The typical pseudo-intellectual graduate student walks towards our table with a stupid picture perfect grin frozen onto his face. He’s got the perfectly tussled hair that probably took half an hour to do so it’d look like he spent no time on it. The alternative square thick rimmed glasses placed perfectly on his face. It all makes me want to break his nose.
I had heard about him before I had been at this table. He’s the perfect person to uphold the mantle of the elitism and stay self-righteous the whole time he’s doing it. The clean-cut asshole that’s done everything he could so he’d be considered better than everyone else, except for actually doing anything better then someone else.
I could have been this bastard. I would have been…
I look up at him and realize how much I despise what he is. The world could have been better off so much sooner if his kind had gotten off their pompous asses and done something besides talk. They’re next in line to step onto the ivory pedestals, but they change nothing when they finally ascent to the top.
I start right into him as he sits down in the chair opposite of me.
“So Simon, we were just talking about you and your opinion about Cooper’s ethics paper.”
He looks at me with a confident smirk on his face, but his eyes betray his surprise for a fleeting moment. The bastard quickly loses the surprised look, and smugly glances around the table before looking back at me. Letting his audience focus their attention on him before he graces us with a response.
“Well I think it was a fascinating article, and could really be a step towards redefining the academic community’s current train of thought.”
“But what would that accomplish? All you would be doing is sharing a theory with other intellectuals who won’t share this idea with the public because they won’t think they could handle redefining their ideas on ethics. That’s if they even admit to the fact they even have their own ethical codes.”
“Well it’d be a step towards educating the leaders of the masses.”
WASP prick.
“The masses don’t need to be educated? Society as a whole isn’t worthy of improvement, only your select few are?”
“Well they are the only ones who will really understand what needs to be done. They’ll take the steps forward that have to be taken to improve the lifestyle of the masses. Look at the philosophers of the past, Nietzsche didn’t write for his next-door neighbors. ”
“You think people can’t see for themselves that there are problems. They don’t know the world needs improvement? Why do you think we have a democracy?”
“Since the masses are the ones who are causing the erosion of this world, why should we let them know anything? They’re lucky enough that the enlightened even bother to try and fix the messes they make. Professor Cooper isn’t obligated to spend his time researching for hours on end, and I’m not obligated to be there with him buried in the archives; but, we still did it, and they should be grateful for it. As for democracy, don’t even pretend to be that naïve. We both damn well know how the system works, and we should be glad the rest of the country hasn’t caught on yet.”
Jackass.
“You mean the world is being led by a select educated few, but problems only exist because everyone under them ruins their plans? You know that’s not true. What he needs to do is go make a new theory on ethics that that cuts to the core of the ethics of the everyday man and the real world; and then the two of you can graciously bestow this knowledge on the masses. Millions of lives are determined by a single man who had been chosen by a handful of people, because that select few doesn’t think the people know what they want in their lives. The world is out of balance and needs to be saved from the grip of autocracy.”
The waiter walks up the table, and nervously interrupts to take our orders. We must be getting loud if a career waiter like him is shifting his weight trying to get out of our way quickly.
The whole idea that only a certain few deserve to have the world saved for them is why people like that drunk were able to pollute the world. Why bother trying to show them light, if they would scurry away back to the darkness? The world deserved to be saved from that harsh a fate. The world isn’t just a pulpit for the few to stand from while looking down at the rest of humanity.
It shouldn’t have been up to me to save the world. After so many years there should have been someone before me. But no, the selfish bastards stayed up on their mountain choosing to not do anything but watch.
“Look lets be honest now. When has educating the common man ever done anything positive? Teach the slaves to read in America and a civil war breaks out, give the Russian peasants a limited constitution and within two years every legitimate leader is dead or in a Siberian labor camp, or let women leave the kitchen to enter the workforce and the family unit has failed. It just doesn’t work, the masses have proven themselves too irresponsible.”
Ignorant ass.
“Are you listening to yourself talk? Really think about what you just said. You’re trying to argue that giving knowledge and power to the everyday man brings upon society’s downfall. Where do you think innovation and creation comes from?”
“The truth of the matter is, there are certain rules by which we must abide by if we want the world we live in to keep working. And if anyone should listen to themselves talk that’d be you. What makes you so special just because you can connect the dots between a few generalizations?”
The waiter bringing the food over to the table cuts off my rebuttal. I look at the food, back at him, and I’m about to respond to him when I feel a hand touch my elbow.
I look over and see Sonia shaking her head at me. Maybe this isn’t the time and place to be debating this particular topic. I offer a weak smile and turn back to the plate of rice and beer in front of me, careful not to look back at Simon.
The conversation is wandering again between the latest reports of the terrors of the East, and the tragedies at home. There’s an unending stream of horror stories pouring from the latest news broadcast, and everyone is appalled but the atrocities of the day, but not enough to stop talking about them. I’m glad to be away from all this mindless chatter now. It’s the same conversation over and over again. Everyone knows how the others are going to react before they even start talking, feigning interest until it’s their turn to say something.
Simon’s preaching again about the slow de-evolution of our society and they’re all nodding silently, reveling in horror at a brilliant mind’s predictions. Silently standing by again as they let him remount his fucking pedestal.
**
Uniformed police officers mill around the blood soaked body lying in front of them on the warehouse floor. Two men dressed in dark rumpled suits walk across the warehouse floor towards the door to the outside. Both are aged with hard and weathered faces, they walk with the slow confident stride of veterans untouched by the sight they’re leaving behind. They step out onto street and light cigarettes before leaning against their dark sedan. The sun is starting to rise in the distance but can’t pierce past the early morning fog from the bay and towering roofs of the warehouses.
“What do you think Peter? Wandering drunk who had an accident?”
“If it was just a bum yeah, but something’s off. Business card says he’s owner of a publishing company. What’s he doing in this part of town alone?”
“We both smelled enough vodka on him to know he had to be trashed. The autopsy will probably end up showing he was pretty well liquored up. He could have just been slumming it, been kicked out of wherever he was, and had an accident while wandering alone. Who knows maybe he was interested in the building if he’s got a company.”
“Something about this seems off John. What’s a publisher doing this far in the warehouse district that liquored up? Even if he’s slumming it he’s not going to fit in at a working class bar around here. Where’s the real estate agent if he was looking at the building? He came from somewhere, but what was he even doing here.”
“Fine, but we’re off the clock in an hour. We shoulda been late on this and let the next pair of on calls pick it up. Lets go get some coffee while we write some of the report up, and deal with this tomorrow when we hear back from the coroner.”
The two detectives throw their cigarettes on the ground as they get into the car and slowly edge out onto the street as they pull away from the warehouse.
**
Fuck. My head hurts. I look around to see where I am; I’m back in my apartment. Last night became a blur after more and more drinks arrived at the table. Sonia wouldn’t let me start my argument again, no matter how pompous the asshole was acting, so I kept drinking. At least Steve got sick of his preaching too, and stood up against his bullshit, but that suck up Matt just kept cutting him down for Simon. You could even tell he enjoyed being the puppet master, smirking as Matt did his dirty work, prodding him just when things had almost calmed down.
I get up and stretch my tired and aching body. I try to think back to what happened after we left the restaurant. The haze of the alcohol still hasn’t left me, and my thinking is slow and muddy.
What did I do after we finished dinner? When did I even leave? Why does my body hurt so much? What did I do? My memory remains murky and unhelpful as I try to piece the night back together, all I can see are flashes of faces arguing and drinking.
I shake my head, walk to the shower, and turn it on. The water is cold but warming as I test the temperature against my hand, the perfect hangover remedy. I strip and enter the shower, letting the warmth overcome my sore muscles. I really don’t know why my arms hurt so much.
Does it really matter why I feel sore? I probably just did something stupid while drunkenly wandering back home. I can’t think of anything I did after walking out of the restaurant.
Fuck it. Not like it matters, I probably just fell. Today’s an important day. The first day in a whole new world, today things are going to be different.
**
The two detectives are standing on the edge of an embankment, watching divers struggle to free a body from the reeds trapping it partially submerged in the water of the river. The divers are struggling as the current is running strong and refuses to help while they untangle the reeds. The divers finally free the body from the reeds and pull it out onto the waiting coroner’s gurney.
The detectives walk to the body and retrieve the wallet from the man’s pants. Peter scribbles the information from his ID in his notepad before putting the wallet back with the body. He nods to the waiting men, and they load the body into the back of the van to head toward the city morgue.
Peter takes off his gloves, and looks over at his partner. He studies him for a moment before turning towards their parked car and slowly heading off towards it. John looks at Peter walking away and starts to follow him to the car, both ignore the barrage of questions being called out from the reporters and news crews standing behind the nearby caution tape.
Both men open their door to the car, but neither gets in. John looks over at Peter who’s leaning on the driver side, lighting a cigarette. He motions towards Peter for the pack and Peter tosses it across the roof of the car to him. He pulls one out and lights it with a lighter from his pocket. Peter takes a long slow pull while looking out at the river, before he turns back to John.
“Well?”
“Well I think we shoulda turned off our phones during that coffee. An hour left and we pick up two dead fucks because Captain America here has to keep his fucking phone on. We’ll know more soon. He looked like he’d been worked over, but forensics said the rain last night washed away anything that’d show he’d even been dropped in the river here.”
“Let’s go talk to the publisher’s neighbors before we head back in for medical reports on him and the floater.”
“Our shift ending means nothing?”
“Not when the lieutenant tells us to make at least some prelims with OT approved to get us started before it goes cold.”
“Fine. You know these vultures got here pretty fast. I wonder if all the news channels keep vans on call for when we pull bodies out of the river.”
“Probably. Nothing stops the tv channel from flicking like “Body Pulled From River”. They’ve probably got more photos of the body than we do. It’s morbid but you know people love to see it all. They’ll cringe and turn their heads but you know out of the corner of their eye they’re trying to see something.”
“Vultures.”
The two toss their cigarettes on the ground before getting into the car. Peter guides the car out onto the street, away from the crowd of people standing at the scene and heads westbound towards the university.
**
--God I hope he’s okay. He wouldn’t share my cab…I should have made him…he was so drunk last night…please let him have made it home...--
I can barely move. Showering was a bad idea. It felt so good for the twenty minutes I was in there, but now that I’m back on the bed it all just hurts that much more. Maybe I should take another shower so the pain goes away. I shouldn’t, it’ll just hurt more when I get back out. Maybe I’ll take a pain killer and then shower again so when I’m done the medicine will have taken over.
What the fuck did I do last night? My hand’s scraped and swollen, and my shoulder’s on fire. What did I fall on?
What time is it? Shit. I missed work. At least now I have time to shower again and make this goddamn pain go away. Then I can go back to bed…but it’d be such a waste of this new day…oh well. The idiot’s gone and not coming back anytime soon. I’ll have time to enjoy the fruit of my labor.
A gentle knock on the door distracts me from my thoughts. I pull a pair of pants on from the floor and grab a clean shirt from the closet.
“Hold on.”
I walk over to the door and undo the lock. I open the door and see Sonia standing in the hallway with a relieved look on her face.
--Thank you.--
Why is she here…she shouldn’t be this close…
“Hi.”
“Hi…”
I shouldn’t have opened the door without looking. Maybe if I just stand here and don’t talk she’ll leave and not see my mess of a life.
“Can I come in?”
Can’t catch a break.
“Uhhh…I was just on my way out. Did you need anything important?”
--He’s running again.--
“I wanted to talk to you about last night. I don’t understand why you had to go after Simon that way.”
“Oh. I didn’t know I wasn’t allowed to voice my opinion, especially when the guy is sitting across the table from me and looking at me.”
“Well maybe he was looking at you because he realized what a hypocrite you are. You’re a graduate student at a major university harping on how useless the academic community is. While you’re sitting at a table of future professionals and academics!”
“Those people are nothing like me! They could never do anything of any importance if they keep looking at the world like some fucking puzzle they have to solve. How’s Steve going to build a building if he stares at his calculator all day and never goes out to a site and realizes the area he’s building in never gets sunlight and an all glass building will lead to everyone jumping out the fucking window with depression?”
“Are you listening to yourself? You sound absolutely ridiculous right now.”
“It makes perfect sense. I defy you to prove my logic wrong. How will Matt be a successful therapist if he keeps sucking onto every idea some guy in a book writes two thousand miles away if he ignores his patients’ actual needs. What’ll happen if he doesn’t throw the book out the window every once in a while? How’s he supposed to help anyone if he can’t see past the textbook diagnosis and look at the patient as a person. How’s he going to get a teacher motivated again by prescribing anti-depressants?”
“You’re always talking about the real world and unlocking potential, but what are you doing to help? You’re at the same parties, lectures, and dinners sitting with the rest of us useless academics. What makes you so much better?”
“Something you can’t understand. Something you’ve never been able to see. I’ve got a lot to do today. You need to go. I’ve got potential to unlock.”
She nods her head in understanding, but I can tell that she’s hurt. I walk out the door to the stairway and watch her walk down towards the street. I’m about to call out and tell her that it was nice to see her, tell her anything to make her not worry, when the sound of a door opening distracts me.
I glance over to see the student I saved from the drunkard yesterday. She gives me an awkward smile, before glancing down at the floor as she quickly walks past me in Sonia’s wake. I turn around to go back into my apartment, and hear her scurry down the stairs towards the door so she can go to class. I walk past her door to mine, and see a low glow coming from inside her apartment as I step into my own. I blink quickly and the glow fades away.
I don’t understand how she can be so anxious to learn ideas and virtues from tomes almost as old as the bones of their long past writers. What’s to be gained now from studying the works of Socrates and countless other dead philosophers? Why focus so much on the past when there’s so much to do to prepare for tomorrow? I almost wish she had been there while I talked to Sonia.
I lie back down on the couch, and start to stare off at the ceiling, losing myself in my thoughts again.
What’s there to be gained from her? She’s just as bad as that fucking prick from last night. What’s worse though, is that she’ll never admit to her role like he does. Under the veil of the subculture and the protection of liberal watchdogs, she’ll do as much damage as the very people she supposedly opposes.
She’ll protest the corruption of our leaders, and all the while stand against the reform minded lobbyists, claiming they’re just another tool for the minority to become as corrupt as the majority. She’ll look at the moral decline of our society, and instead of trying to join productive public awareness groups fighting against world hunger or AIDS she’ll say their funding needs to be sent to fund a committee against over extending funds. The worst that she will do, is wail that higher education is becoming stagnant and claim students lack the drive to stand for what they believe in, all the while entering into a professorship to preach the same principles she learned thirty years prior and fail anyone who disagrees with her preaching.
Is the left any better than the right, simply because it’s the left? Do the blows to society do less damage coming from the minority rather than the majority? Should she be able to uphold this veil?
Is that why there’s been no change yet? Is my work not done yet?
I should have been able to tell if my work was done. I shouldn’t have felt pain this morning when I woke up. If I had freed the world, then I should have freed it from pain. Does her hypocrisy need to be torn away?
Fuck. It has to be. I can’t protect them from idiocy and let them be victim to her lies.
Hailey has to be dealt with. I can’t let her pull the world down into her lies and hypocrisy. He did his damage far too long, I won’t let her begin hers. I have to finish what I’ve begun.
But will it ever end? It has to. There can’t be a never-ending supply of these people. I’ll finish my work when I’ve freed the world from her. I have to save the world from what she’ll become. What would the point of having killed that stupid drunk, if I leave her?
“She has to go.”
A sudden loud knock as I pronounce these fateful words surprises me for an instant. I turn and look at the door. Who could be here now? There’s no one…
I walk to the door and look through the peephole to see two men standing in the doorway. Both are weathered and older, though one looks bored while he leans on the wall, and the other is looking intently at the door as if he can see through it and is looking at me.
**
The door opens to reveal the two detectives standing on the other side. Both study him for a moment, as they size up who they are dealing with. The man standing on the opposite side of the doorway is completely average. His height and build aren’t special in anyway. His face is the same as a thousand others; his features are unremarkable to either detective. There are no distinguishing marks on his face, no recognizable eyes, and his hair is of a plain and average sort not styled in some unique fashion. Even his clothing is typical of what a student is expected to have on, a pair of jeans and an old faded t-shirt that isn’t of the vintage variety, just weathered from wear.
Peter looks over at John who takes a step towards the door with his badge raised in his hand.
“Are you Mr. Miller?”
He takes a step back away from John’s advance while nodding his head slowly.
“Yes, what’s this about?”
“Mr. Miller, I’m Detective Peter Wintergreen and this is my partner John Hale. We’d like to talk to you about your neighbor Franklin Merriman.”
At the mention of Franklin’s name Miller takes another step backwards into his apartment. He nods, and pauses for another split-second before turning around motioning for the two detectives to follow him inside.
Fuck. What do they know?
There couldn’t have been any mistakes…I’ve never made any…it was perfect…it had to be…
The two detectives follow him into the apartment and close the door. Peter pulls out his notepad as they sit on the couch Miller motions towards. He takes a seat in a chair pulled next to the couch.
“I just saw him yesterday, he came by to my apartment to talk for a little while. Is there something wrong with him?”
“What did you two talk about?”
“Well I’d like to know why I’m being questioned before I say anything else. Do I need a lawyer? Is Frank okay?”
Peter starts respond to Miller, when John raises his hand to and cuts him off quickly.
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