1
It’s not an epigraph but the uttermost warning to the over-pedantic eggheads trained to sniff out anachronisms, stylistic lacunae, regressions from the sacrosanct spelling rules and other trifles like the use of anti-normative 4-xyz-letter lexicon.
‘Most Esteemed High-Muckety-Muck, would you kindly shut this book and peruse the title once again, please? Think it over before coming back if you areready to put at risk the sanity you need for getting on in your world so far away from our day to day life...’
His viber bleated its antediluvian yawps because V didn’t give an eff about tweaking the factory settings in his electronic devices and/or household appliances. The manufacturer’s vanilla defaults, staple chow from the microwave, amiable blondes were just fine to go on with, why to ask for more?He’s not racing after the mainstream frills in things of common usage. The simpler, the better was his long-standing life motto. He’s not a nitpicker to wrinkle his nose in the attitude of a seasoned geek because of the already mentioned eff not given about the cutting-edge trends and opinions entertained in the crowd of enlightened mudaks.
Not that V pulled for return to Nature – back to caves, and stone axes drastically simplifying your views and values. Not yet. He simply kept away from buying selfie sticks, and scalp ticklers, and stuff like, well, you know. And even though not affiliated with any branch of the cult of Simpletonians maintaining that Simplicity is the ticket to your peace of mind, deep in his heart he agreed to their Ace argument—you certainly would watch a windmill up the hill on a breezeless day much longer than a remote control on your lap in a sudden blackout. Simple machines do have some charm about them, if you think of it.
However, opening paragraphs are not the right spot to pump up sermonizing. It’s a discourtesy towards unsuspecting reader in their expectation for the initial rush of adrenaline by the sixth line, at most, thru their system... Now, V, reach for your non-tweaked stone ax! Do something! Act, V, act!
He grabbed his Samsung from its prostrate position upon the desktop to slightly tap the “answer” sign. Huge pan-cake of a map diffused over the screen whose edges cut away the ears. The caller, in a well-trained manner, kept the phone too close to his phiz, like, it was a hanky for him to sneeze out his yesterday’s cold, the very next sec, ‘Apch!. Aapch!. CHWHOO! This motherfuc...Apch!. Aapch!.’, and so on.
However, in a perfect state of health. It’s just his simple trick to hide from the contacts the bumped up protuberances of his ears.
How do you like the gull?Blessed with so generous handout by Nature he could long ago become a megastar in movie comedies. Yeah. Cooler than Mr. Bim. Or Bum? But certainly not Bam… though, on the second thought… hmm.
Yep. V obviously has ditched film-going for some stretch already.
“Shame on you, Mr. Moron! Still stuck in your quaggy complexes? Scumbag teener! With your God-sent edges you should be running forthe second-term presidency by now! What a compelling image! The ears so attentive, pleasantly round, warmhearted ears they are! A catchy slogan for your preelection picture, like, “We can hear the voice of the people!”, and no dirty tricks with ballot boxes at polling stations, like end-day blackouts, are needed.”
None of that told V to the face in Samsung, he merely thought it to it. Healing anyone’s psychic traumas caused by agonizing procrastinations with getting rid of their virginity within the framework of society demands to be quick at it and become a clear-cut market-target fully pruned to be compliant with the political dictate to succumb and uphold the all-accepting dumbness was not his job. Even less would V pick up the role of the voice crying in the wilderness. That’s why he simply said:
‘Hello, Lex. What’s up?’
‘Hi, V. Still toiling for half a zilch? Wish it left you be or had munched you to mash, that your silly hope to rip a lincoln off theprozza.com. Typing a ton of hooey per day for a goose egg in the buff, hah? Forget it, bro! They’re pulling only for their mobsters, alphabetically. You’re no relative there. Quit ramming down Ku Klux Klan.’
‘For prozzas I care no more than for pizzas, Mein Herr. They’re a simple tool for me to whet my skills and personal style. A propos, their Challenge of Month is a good spur to get over the common writer’s barrier, “Half kingdom for a plot! All topics are sucked overdry. A-fucking-priori!”, but there you don’t strain yourself, “Hi, scribblers, here the theme for you. Saddle up!” The guy collecting more likes gets $100. Pretty simple.’
‘Don’t plague neither you nor the keyboard. How much green have you corralled from those monthly races so far? Come on! You spend on doping more than the prize itself!’
‘A couple of times I was in the leading group of 20.’
‘Wow! Attaboy! And 20 racers at the start, right?’
‘See, the audience is different. They think along the lines fixed by Disneyland and Steven King, the slightest step aside fires off their emergency brake. Every single like got there is a beam of hope for us to understand each other over the barriers which divide our nations by the endemic peculiarities in our respective debilities.’
‘Here! Here! Aye and yep! Over again! Seems like in madhouses for their privileged cuckoos the patients are taken out to frisk in the Internet. That’s the origin of the couple of inadequate likes you’ve raked up. Or, maybe, from rehabs. Hold out, bro! Our objective is not money but the principle, right? And then, what is a piece of paper $100 worth? It won’t burden your pocket for any longer that the first maverick blonde in you way, will it not?’
‘Shut the fountain of your sermon, Padre.’
’Well, to put it short, there’s a friendly offer to you, V. Some real something. Nobody would ditch such a deal even convulsing in St. Vitus dance, V. It’s a bonanza, some fucking oil fields. BP and Shell would tear hair from each other scrambling for the exclusive right to hummer lullabies on you 8 nights a week. Improvising jazz, follow me?
‘What?! Drilling their wells in my private parts? Screw you, oilman!’’
‘Come on, man. I was purely metaphorical… The matter is, such a chance comes your way once in life-span.’
‘A-ha! I dig it now. On taking a shot at metaphorical shit of that bonanza you’ve completely forgotten that I’m straight.’
‘Since when?’
‘I see. The stuff turned way too strong for you. Call me tomorrow on your return from the strawberry fields.’
‘Wait-wait-wait! I mean business!’
‘Then talk business instead of balling it up with goofy drivel of an upstart pimp.’
‘Well, look… There’s some stuff that’ll make you famous, V. Like those celebrities – Joyce or Pynchon, or Hemingway.’
‘The third guy you mentioned. Who? Again?’
‘Hemingway? I be damned if I know. My ex-girlfriend was once a month drenching the paperback of his with her tears.’
‘Girls and books? Things incompatible. You’re still not quite steady on your pins. Moreover, the mankind en masse have given books up… So you felt jealous and memorized the guy’s name?’
‘A girl from the hinterland might very well keep an extra Ace or two up her sleeve, believe me, buddy. Anyway… I’ve got a big file whose content will shatter the world in three days at most. Only the hot thing is waiting for a lover boy to edit it, to sign with his name, and become famous overnight. Catching the perspective up?’
‘OK, I’m in. Just for the sake of saving old man Lex from OD. Drop the file to my email box.’
‘Nah, handsome. Forget it I don’t have anything to do with emails.’
Which is absolutely true. For some time already Lex has grown too concerned about his personal data privacy and stuff, you know. His case acquired the look of an unhealthy aggravation. Hopelessly stranded the guy is, nautically speaking. You might one whole week wheedle of him something as innocent as, ‘Hi. Catch the link: http://sweet-granny/bedtime-tales-for-grand-kids/introduction.html’, before he freak-and-feints out at the last moment. Maybe, because of his employment at some hazy firm working for the government.
A row of squat buildings behind the steely mesh of high fencing, the guarded iron gate, thick growth of surveillance cams, grim Rottweilers walking their trainers three times a day about the outside parking lot.
The best way to make Lex shut his non-stop jingling yack is to ask how was his work today and—abruptly—you’re blessed with a ten-minute break, as a minimum. Not a peep. Lex all in thoughts. Full of gloom, shut up, introvert.
Seems, like the fate of that Jewish couple impressed him deeply, nice people also worked for the government before were roasted in the chair for leaking the know-how and formulas of A-bomb to the Soviets.
‘Take it easy, I was kidding. Don’t wet your bed tonight. There-there, kid. Say, what is your want?’
’How about 2 pm at Uncle Tom’s Cabin? Suits you?.
A guy need a heart of stone to say “nah!”to their old-time buddy? Except for that onetime nymphomaniacal slut on the throne of the Russian Empire? She instructed it were your enemies and not friends to be hold close to your bosom so as to feel the slightest movement of their souls and thought and whatever else would spring up. Though cunning, foolish was the bitch. It’s your friends who you should keep your eye on, 24/7. It’s they who know your weak spots better than even you yourself. They will not miss, their stab would be smack into, precise and to the hilt.
O! Brutus! And you too…
Some goofy gander, ain’t it? Your friends are the best at croaking you. Rest in peace, stupid asshole.
‘By me, it’s okay’, said V.
* * *