Terminal Limits - Nano 2012

[joegoda]

10493 / 50000 words. 21% done!

Arnie shrugged.  "They've killed for less, Brenin."  She sat down at the opposite side of the tiny kitchen table and aimed her baby blues at me.  "They've made people disappear for the rest of their life for less."

"Yeah, okay." I said, looking deep into my coffee cup to avoid looking deep anywhere else.  "I'm as familiar with Gitmo as the next guy…"

"More so than the next guy," Arnie said, "from what I've read.  And I've read a lot."

"But," I continued, ignoring her, "that still doesn't explain why I'm so important."

Actually, it kind of did.  Her mention of Gitmo was the hole card that triggered a cold running river of… not fear… more like that feeling you get when you've had that dream where you walk around naked and are late for those midterms.  Except you realize that you are awake, you are late for the midterms and you are naked.  The last time I had that feeling a doctor was telling me that my baby brother Fred, my last living relative, had stomach cancer.  That was when I quit selling folks on the idea that they needed stuff they didn't need, that the Government was really working for you, and that places like Guantanamo Bay were necessary for our protection.  There was a time, not so long ago, that everything I wrote made me money and every word I wrote convinced people; as in We The People, what was right, what was good, and what was necessary.

I wasn't just an Ad Man, I was THE Ad Man.  Top dog, head honcho.  I could name my price and often did and just as often it was paid.  Funny thing though… when the last relative dies of cancer, things quit being so humorous. Life takes a serious turn away from what your average Joe thinks of as serious stuff.  Job, money, house, relationships.  Not as serious as just getting on with life and living it for all you can get out of it.  For the last five years, I've been having a hell of a time avoiding what everyone else thinks of as serious stuff.  I'm not THE Ad Man any more.  I'm just Harry Brenin, a very rich bum, a well-traveled bum.

Back in 2018, I had a tiny little apartment, I drove a vintage 1973 green Volkswagen beetle, and I had dreams of playing the guitar.  I had been married twice, and two times is enough for anybody.  Once should be enough, but marriage is like bad soup.  Sometimes you have to try it again just to prove to yourself how bad it was the first time.  I was still friends with one of my exes.  The other, the first one I married had passed away from a heart attack in 2013.  I miss her sometimes.  Hell, I miss the other one sometimes and there are some times I wish I wasn't such a bastard that folks would actually give me a second chance.  Sometimes I wish I wasn't such a coward that I would actually ask for one.

I got out of the ad biz because I hated it.  I hated the falseness of it, and after Freddy died, I hated it even more.  I was good at it. No, I was the best at it, because I understood the lies that people wanted to believe.  There was some twitch in my brain, be it genetics or organic damage due to being beaten as a kid, that let me know exactly what it was that needed to be said to make any situation believable.  Maybe it came from having to deal with alcoholic parents who had to be told what they wanted to hear so they wouldn't wake you up at three am with a belt.

Oh, that's not to say that I got away with murder as a kid. My mom could tell, with about 80 percent accuracy, when I was bullshitting.  My dad wasn't quite as good, but he knew the lies better than half the time.   And I learned as a young teenager that a trained policeman can spot a lie pretty darn well.

Your average person, though.  They'll believe something if it's seasoned with the right amount of emotive color, with the right touch of pathos and just a dash of humor.  Sometimes it's black humor.  Sometimes it's not pathos.  Sometimes its drop dead beauty, like the bright flash of red from a crimson rose that reflects on the skin of a Washington Red Delicious apple.  It's all packaging, tonality, and emotion.

I forget the man who said it, but the phrase I like best is "If you find out what motivates a person and use it to your advantage, that person will follow you into hell and back." Maybe it was a P.T. Barnum thing.  I don't think so.  Barnum wasn't as big a humbug as they think.

But I digress. 

Arnie pretty much told me what I just told you; including blowing some serious smoke up my skirt about how the Government wants to use my talents for their own ends, if they didn't kill me first.  Some happy crap about how this 'reform' is a bad thing for the government and the country as a whole.  How I should let the 'We the People' know the 'truth'.

 Arnie's group was pretty small, from what I could see.  It was her, her friend Old Tom, who wasn't really her father, and her absentee father who really was.  Her father, that is.  And absent for a reason.

He was in jail.  Prison to be more exact.  He was sharing a cell in Sing-sing to be even more exact than that.

Arnie swears he's been framed.  Says he didn't murder six people including two bank guards.  She says there weren't any finger prints on the guns that matched her father because her father woudn't have used a gun.  He would have just strangled or knifed them.  Guns, said she, wasn't her father's style.

Her father was a bad ass, she admitted.  An A number one person of the undesirable persuasion, who deserved to be locked up and away for any number of various crimes that he had committed during Arnie's short life.  However, she swears, the last three years of his prison life were for a crime he never committed.

"None of that matters, Brenin."  Arnie lit up a cigarette, something which was unusual to see any more.  Most states had banned smoking outdoors, in public places, in cars, in private places.  Hell, the only place a person could smoke was in a designated smoke hole.  A person couldn't even smoke in their own home. 

I wanted one so bad, to feel the smoke as it rolled back against my throat.  I'd given up smokes five years ago, and if I even picked one up, I'd undo five years of reminding myself everyday what killed my family.

"None of that matters because my dad, Joseph Franklin Harrington, is going to be president."

Oh?

"Joseph Harrington."  I searched my brain for the name and came up empty.  "Sorry, doesn't ring a bell."

Arnie gave me a go to hell look, went over to the tiny avocado colored fridge and pulled out a gallon of milk.  There wasn't a label on the jug, so I assumed it was milk.  She caught me looking at her while she was drinking straight, without a glass.

"What?" Her tone was brittle, maybe a bit angry.  "You never heard of milk before, either?  Does a body good, you know."

"I'm just surprised that you have a refrigerator and that you have milk."  I turned away in my chair, focusing on the cup of coffee in my hand.  Milk wasn't an easy commodity to come across in 2018. 

From behind me, I could hear the smugness.  "We know a farmer."  Okay, so maybe her group just grew by one.

In fact, I did know Joseph Franklin Harrington.    I was one of the few people who were able to actually interview him before he want to prison. 

He was convicted of the cold-blooded murder of 14 people who were doing nothing more than minding their own business at a subway stop.  The prosecution painted a picture of a mad man who showed up on that fateful day in February and opened fire with an automatic weapon.  5 men, 6 women and three children died that day from multiple gunshots.  The prosecution showed that some of the victims were shot twice by an assailant who was standing over them.

Joseph Franklin Harrington professed his innocence all the way through the ordeal, and professed it again afterwards, on national television.

His last words, before being led to the bus that took him away were, "I'm innocent of this crime.  If you want to find the killer who did this, look no further than the white house."

Pretty strong words for a man who had just been tried and convicted.   Had the world been just a bit more cruel, those words could have been interpreted as treason, and Joseph Franklin Harrington would have disappeared into that black hole that was Gitmo, never to have been seen or heard from again.

Joe had a problem.  He looked the part.  Six foot nine inches of solid muscle, bald head, earrings,  piercings, tattoos that said 'Mother' on one arm and 'Fuck the establishment' on the other.  Dark hair, glowing dark Manson like eyes, beard and mustache made him the poster child for 'I did the horrible crime, yes I did.'

Even the best ad man wouldn't have been able to get him out of this scrape.  Not that I didn't try.  He and I met the May after the murders.  He was being kept in a solitary cell in a fancy prison that I can't talk about.  There were three catered meals a day and it was one of those places that you hear about that might have been a resort if all the guests didn't wear orange jumpsuits and weren't allowed to use anything sharper than then their wit.

I was taken through three checkpoints, searched at the first and the second, and given my writing implements at the third.  I wasn't allowed to use my own, I couldn't record anything electronically, I couldn't use my laptop or take any pictures at all.  I was given a sharpie pen and a big chief tablet, just like I used in kinnygarten.  That was what I was going to write my interview of the century on.

Joe Harrington was way, way back towards the part of the building where they stored stuff at.  Far away from the other prisoners, he had his own gray little cell that smelled of cleaning agents and frustrated fear and anger.

Two guards, Frick and Frack,  escorted me through the building.  They looked like each other, wearing sour expressions of having to see too much in their short lives and they were both armed heavily with weapons I don't even know what to call them.  Guns, pistols, cannons?  Stunners?  A combination of some sort of bayonet, Taser, fletch gun thingy.  Star wars could have used these things.

We came to the very end of a long hallways that had maybe a dozen doors, all closed.  There was a single door at the end of the hallway and there was a tiny window just over my head.  I'm five six, so that doesn't take much.  I would have had to stand on my tiptoes to look through it.  There was the obligatory food slot about waist high. 

Somewhere there is somebody whose job is to cut those slots.  That's all he does, I imagine.  All day long.  No worries, just cuts slots, takes him his pay, gets up and does it all again the next day.  Lucky bastard.

Frick, the tall blonde one with the evil Germanic scowl on his face, unlocked the three locks that held the door closed against the monster within.  The other guard stood about ten feet back with his pistol thing drawn, aiming at the door.  Or maybe aiming at me, in case I decided to overpower them with my Big Chief and sharpie.

The door swung open, squeaking as expected and I could see the gloom inside.  Frack, the other tall blonde with the evil Germanic scowl on his face called into the cell.  His voice was surprisingly pleasant and deep, rich like a good stew.  He could have done radio if he had a better attitude.

"Prisoner 5691269, you have a visitor. Please stand with your face against the wall and your hands behind you."

I was surprised he said please.  Really I was.  I almost expected a Tase first, talk later sort of operation.

A few seconds passed and Frack went into the cell.  The dim light showed a bunk and a table and a figure, tall and… well, tall standing against the other wall with his back toward us.  Frack pulled out the zip ties that took the place of handcuffs and zipped three of them, redundantly, around the man's big wrists.  If Joe Harrington had not have been so friggin big and so friggin scary, even from the back, I would have thought it was a bit of over kill.

Frack said, "Prisoner 5691269, you may now, please, take a seat at the table, with your ankles against the legs of the chair."

He was one seriously scary looking guy, all bulging muscles and scowls and attitude, and he turned around slowly so the full effect of his scariness could be felt.  It was like watching a darkened and muscular avalanche moving down a mountain, aimed right at your head.  Deer meet headlights.

Joe shambled to the table near the bunk and sat down, gingerly.  Frack ducked slightly as he put the zip ties around Joe's ankles, tying him to the chair legs.  When Frack bent down, I heard Frick shift a bit, and I knew he was tensing up, getting that firearm ready to do its science fiction best, just in case anything should happen.

Of course, nothing happened; or else I wouldn't be here to talk about it.

After Frack was satisfied that Prisoner 5691269 was secure and wouldn't be able to take my Big Chief from me, he motioned me in.

"Mister Brenin, you take the other chair."  To me, he didn't say please.  "If you need us, we'll be right outside the door.  The door will remain open. We will hear everything you say."

Right outside the door means they would have more time to aim and fire, if something bad were to happen.  I felt so blessed.

I took the only other chair in the room. A straight backed affair with any idea of comfort removed from its utilitarian style.  Take the basic concept of a chair, make it out of solid steel, paint it gray andbolt it to the floor  and you will have the chair I sat it.

There was no pitcher of water on the table.  No glasses.  Nothing in the cell except me, this table and two chairs, a bunk as pretty as the chairs, a toilet which doubled as a sink I guess, and that was it.  I felt it was pretty extreme, even considering Joseph's crime.

I took a moment and looked at Joseph Franklin Harrington, the murderer.  I took in his scars, his grizzled greying hair, his scruffy beard and the various bits of metal attached to his face.  I looked at his mouth, which seemed to be in a permanent position of frown, and then I looked at his eyes.

They were grey.  Like the cell.  Like the table and chairs.  These eyes contained no hope, no spark, no light reflecting back at me.  They were the eyes one can see if one looks at the pictures of prisoners in a world war two concentration camp.  They were the eyes of the doomed.  And they stared, unblinking, at me.

I cleared my throat and tried to speak.  My voice came out as a strangled squeak.  Not the best first impression, I admit.  I cleared my throat once more and tried again.

"Thank you for seeing me, Mister Harrington."  I didn't extend my hand to shake his because that would have made me look dumber than I already felt.

I waited for him to respond.  He didn't.  He just continued to stare at me from his gray depths.

I cleared my throat again.  I wish there had been water or something.  A beer.  Whiskey.  Cyanide.  Anything.  I tried again.

"I was sent by the North American Public Media to get  your side of the story, Mister Harrington.  This isn't my normal job.  Normally I do advertising work.  I was picked to talk to you so that I could… um… put a positive spin…."  My voice ran out.  I realized how stupid I was sounding.

NAPM had paid me a lot of money for this interview.  I had refused the first three times they had asked.  I didn't need the money, and I didn't need the work.  What hooked me in the end was this:  There was word on the street, my contact at NAPM said, that Harrington was innocent.  That he was sitting in this cell because the government needed a patsy.  Hell, I figured at the very least I would get a book deal and maybe a movie deal out of it.  Yeah, it wasn't greed that put me here.  It was ego.

"I want to tell your story," I told him, earnestly. "There are rumors that you're innocent."

"Rumorths, hell."  Joe blew a raspberry at the idea.  The sound startled me.  His voice was deep and dark.  If you could give voice to one of those old time coal burning furnaces, that would be the voice that rumbled from the man.  That wasn't what startled me, though.  I'd heard deep voices before.  Darth Vader, for example.

No, what startled me was the raspberry.  Joseph Harrington put his lips together and blew out with enough force that I received a quick bath.  Think Daffy Duck.  Think Sylvester the cat.  Joseph Harrington had a lisp.  A bad one.  Bad enough that when he said the TH in a word, it spit all over the place, and his tongue protruded just a bit from his mouth.

"There'ths no rumorths, dumbaths."  He leaned back and appeared to relax in his chair.  "It'ths the truth.  I didn't kill anybody."

It was odd, the easy way he said this.  I guess he had just said it so many times and had never been believed that it didn't matter.  It was just part of the thing, his conviction and his sentence and his eventual execution.

"Mister Harrington," I began again and he cut me off.

"Call me Joe, dumbaths."

"I'll call you Joe, Joe, if you call me Harry."  I wiped my face.  "And quit spitting on me."  Okay, see, it pisses me off when someone calls me a dumbass.  Not that I haven't been one on a few occasions, I just don't like to be reminded of it.  And, need I remind you that he was tied up.  Easy to be brave to someone who's tied up. 

"Harry."  Joe's deep bass rumbled the name out slowly, like a dump truck rumbling downhill.  "Sucks to have that name, doesn't it?  I thought Joe was bad.  Ordinary.  Nothing fancy about either of those names, except the only thing that can be pinned on me is being named Joe.  Harry can be all sorts of things."

His lisp magically disappeared. Hmm.

"So, Joe.  You say you're innocent…" I began, and the sob cut me off again.

"I am innocent, dumbass."

"Yeah?" I was starting to get heated.  "If I'm the dumbass, why is it that I can walk out of here and you can't?  Tell me that.  I'm just trying to get your side of the story.  Hell, I might even be able to get some of my friends to dig into this conspiracy theory of yours and then who knows what might happen. Maybe we'll get  your conviction overturned.  Dumbass.  Maybe I can actually help you."

Joe straightened as much as he could and his head snapped back as if he had been slapped.  His eyes narrowed and his eyes flashed, showing life for the first time.  I had pissed him off, for a change.

"What the hell can you do about it," he snarled my name, "Harry?"  He coughed up a ball of snot and spat it toward the toilet.  "What, are you some big shot somewhere who has friends that can buck the entire fuckin' government?  No?  You are, Harry, a little piss ant reporter thinking that getting a story with Joseph fuckin' Harrington is gonna fix your career.  Don't act tough with me, little man.  I've seen tougher women than you."

I sat quietly staring at Joseph Franklin Harrington.  I was no longer intimidated by the man.  Yeah, I seriously doubted we would ever sit over a friendly beer and he could snap me in half if he wasn't chained to the chair and table.  But the man was afraid, man.  He was positive that he was at the end of his rope, he was sure that he was going to die for what he didn't do, and though he had given up hope, he hadn't given up fear.  I'd seen that fear before.  I'd had that fear before.

"Joe," I said quietly after a few moments. "I don't have to be here.  I'm not a piss ant reporter.  I am the fucking Media, and I can paint you as a saint or a sinner.  My name is Harry Brenin.  Ever heard of it?  No?  Not once?"

I continued to talk to him quietly, calmly.  "You know those advertisements for pretty fuckin' much everything that is on the 'net, on tv, on radio?   You know those things that tell you what to deodorant to buy, what tv shows to watch, what car to drive, where to shop, bank, eat, sleep… those things that have been telling people how to fuckin' live forever and ever amen?"

I waited for an answer.  I waited because I didn't care.  Joe just stared at me, anger and hurt and fear and all sorts of things glaring out from his eyes, his face.  I waited long enough for me and then I asked him, "You want a drink of water?  Maybe some tea?"

He snorted.  "Sure, dumbass. Tea would be real nice.  Maybe some ice too.  We folks here in hell love that stuff."

"Don't call me dumbass." I stood up from my chair and walked to the door.  I knocked on it and Frick opened it.

"Trouble, Mister Brenin?"  He was ready, weapon pulled.

"No trouble, really," I told him calmly, showing my hands were empty of anything threatening. "We'd just like some ice tea in here." 

Frack pulled back as if I was a snake.  "Excuse me?"  He was shocked by the request.

"Ice tea," I explained.  "Two glasses, one picture, a bit of water with tea in it, and some ice to cool it.  We'd like to have some."

"I'm sorry, Mister Brenin," Frick said behind Frack.  "That's not going to happen.  We have explicit orders not to leave this area while you are here."

I sighed.  "Boys, you have radios.  Radio to the kitchen or commissary or lunchroom or whatever you got here for some tea.  Please.  With ice."  I was trying to be nice.  I was trying not to lose my patience.  Frick and Frack were only government employees, after all.  Paid to shoot, not to think.

"Um."  Frack looked uncertain.

"I don’t know if we have authorization, sir." Frick was standing his ground.

"I could speak to the Governor about it, if you'd like."  I smiled gently.  "We've been pretty good friends for a while now."  And it was true.  I helped get him elected.

I could tell that the boys weren't buying it.  They just stood there with the determined "Ain't gonna happen" look on their young, young faces.

"Look," I said, sighing again.  "Can I borrow your talkie for a second?"  They looked dubiously at each other.  "Hey, if it will make you feel better, you can both hold your guns on me.  If I make a wrong move, you can fire and I won't even be around to complain.  Deal?"

It was an impasse for a bit until Frack made and executive decision.  That boy might grow up to be…  well, maybe not anymore, but he could have been President.  He handed me the business end of his talkie.

"I press here and it gets me to… who?"  I asked.

"Our boss.  Murray. Head guard."  Frack said.

"This is not a good idea, sir." Frick was trying to hold his ground. "Murray is not a very happy man."

"It's just an idea, neither good nor bad," I said as I pressed the talk button.  "Hello?"

"What the hell is that?"  The voice that came back at me was full of crackle and static, angry, and was quite possibly born that way.  It sounded like it belonged to a six foot ball of anger with a full beard and uncut hair.  A bit on the baritone leading toward tenor.  This man is definitely a Murray. "Who the hell is this?"

"Who the hell is this?" I asked pleasantly.

"Thomas," the voice said crackly, "if this is a joke, you're getting your asshole handed to you with your pink slip."

I looked at Frack and asked him if he was Thomas.  He nodded, grimly.  "I'm so sorry," I told him sincerely.

I pressed the button again and said, "Hey, hey, Murray," as if quieting a small child.  "No need for that sort of language.  This is Harry Brenin, down here with Joseph Harrington.  We'd like some tea please."

"Who?"  Murray had not chilled one bit.  I could see, in my imagination, the veins standing on the speakers forehead and the steam coming out of his ears.  I was, sadistically, starting to enjoy this.

"Harry Brenin," I said with a smile.  "Friend of Governor Martin.  Helped him get re-elected.  Babysat his daughter Susan when she was tiny. I'm down here with Joe Harrington and it's pretty stuffy in the cell, sir.  We'd like some iced tea, please."

"Oh?" Sarcasm dripped from the speaker.  "And folks in hell want ice cubes! Give the mike back to Thomas, jackass."

Jackass?  Who talks like that anymore?  Dumbass is bad enough, but jackass?

"Look, Murray," I was still calm but beginning the pink rise up to red hot.  "You know the Governor?  No?  Well, I do.  Joseph Harrington may be a convicted criminal stuck in this shoebox you call a cell, but I'm not.  I can walk out of here and go straight to Oliver Martin's Mansion, tickle the chin of his daughter, Susan, hug his wife and even kiss her cheek.  And then I'm going to talk to Oliver.  And guess what I'm going to talk about, Murray?  I'm going to talk to him about a  head guard named Murray, who wouldn't stoop to something so civil as providing iced tea to a guest of this fine facility, and instead called said guest a jackass in the most insulting tones imaginable.  And after that, Murray, guess who will be getting their asshole handed to them with their pink slip?  Not gonna be our boy Thomas here, I can tell you that."

I waited.  Not a sound was heard, neither a peep nor a crackle came from the talkie, though there may have been some smoke. 

I clicked the button again.  "We'd like some iced tea, please."

A different voice, calmer, younger sounding responded.  "Yes, sir.  We're seeing to it right away."

Startled it wasn't Murray, I asked, "Who is this?"

"Freddy Johnson, sir.  Mister Bluto's assistant."

Mister Bluto?  His name was Murray Bluto?  No wonder he was pissed all the time.

"Freddy, what happened to Murray?  We were getting along so well."

"Um…"  Freddy was sounding uncertain.  "It appears that Mister Bluto has had maybe a stroke?  Maybe a… a heart attack?  We're not really sure, sir.  He turned really red, started foaming at the mouth and dropped like a rock to the floor, twitching."

"My God, Freddy! That's terrible," I responded.  I sincerely hoped it was the man's bacon fat and fried egg diet that had done this, rather than me.  I had too much sin on my hands as it was.

"Yes, it is." He sounded distracted. "The doctor just came in, sir.  I have to go.  You're tea will be there shortly."  The talkie went dead.

Stunned I handed the mike back to Frack who was shaking.  I looked amazedly at his partner, Frick, who was also shaking.  They both sounded like steam kettles not quite at the whistling state.

They were laughing.  Life is cruel, it goes without saying.

"Gentlemen," I said, with reproach in my voice.  Or tried to have reproach in my voice.  "Your boss may have been a bastard, but really?  What if he dies?"

Doing their best to pull themselves together, Frack choked back his mirth long enough to say  "That would, indeed, be a terrible thing, sir."

Which started them laughing all over again.

Sweet mother of God.  And that, ladies and gentlemen is the power of advertising.