July, 2033

There's something mondogrenous about the air in this place. Everything suggests something else behind it. Or it reminds you of something else and your mind wanders to your memories of that thing and some new series of thoughts will politely, politely, will require your attention to study this new thing and sure enough you forget the thing you originally wanted to start. 

It feels like we're living on the fucking moon sometimes. 

Whenever we fill-out the daily check-in reports intended to gain a better growing assessment of our moods, my whole upperbody starts to clench eggszept it never finishes, like there'd be a million glittering nailheads pocking-up my back if I could crane my neck that far. (You'd see some crazy schmuck wandering the halls with his head at a 3/4s-angle like you couldn't tell if'n his manufacturer was still in the process of completion or had some minor adjustment to perform...) 

No, I don't really think I'm a robot. (No, I don't really think...) My thoughts do feel very old in here sometimes, though. They're like if you ever found dirt in the rug of a new apartment: everything seems distinct but it doesn't really have any life. I don't want to get into some long thing about plastic, check-in, punchout existences -- fuck of fuck knows there's been enough... "subtle griping" on that particular subject of First World (First Class) Horseshit. What I mean to say is.... 

I don't know what I mean to say. I'm in here because of a violent episode. (I'm not usually a violent person.) I mean, I don't hurt animals. I'm not overtly cruel to old people -- whatever baggage & excrement they're humping around in those choked-up brains of theirs... I stabbed a coworker, in his lefthand, with a pen; I was holding him by the wrist with the hand that wasn't holding the pen, and this schmuck of an asscloud was junking-up the air with his needy, excessive paranoia while most of us -- I like to tell myself at least -- are just doing our best to sell food and guns and drugs and roads and what else to each other and hope society does its thing, more or less. 

I don't mean to condone workplace violence, I just think if the party in question leaves you no better option...well..."make love." 

**** 

I suppose sooner-than-later is a good time to talk about the origination of the New Life Center. 

Technically, they began before America was even a country, when Navajo and Cherokee and various native tribes wandered and settled and regenerated the land for so many centuries while Greece & Rome fell to the barbarians whose descendants were likely among the tallest castle-builders of Medieval Europe. 

You remember, there are no Catholics before Christians, no Christians before Jews, no Jews before Israelites: There was no New Life Church/Center previous to the rampant, if pitiful, series of interpersonal disasters full of stale, hardfukt' Missionaries and Slick T.V. Preachers clinging desperately to a faith that has yet to discern the "ancient" miracle recipe that shuts the fuck up in a snake and renders plain water to have alcoholic content.... 

....Where was I. 

Well... For whatever reason people agree with or what's actually accurate, our beloved ancestors and anyone else alive 20 years ago, when then-president-elect Donald "Ho'mey"(*) Trump was put to rest while sleeping by a party that has never come forward nor been pursued by anyone after save the most hysterical, needy, excessively codependent fucks in existence (IMO). Vance took over, ran it tenably, if underwhelming in that way that makes me feel like we haven't lost much, but a valuable opportunity seems to've walked away on a trillion invisible ants... 

(*) correct pronunciation unknown 

Then, what is referred to as the Slow Riots if they are referred to at all, began. And the country didn't stop, per se, as I have personally either overheard or been told in face-to-face conversation: What happened was, manufacturing was semi-permanently delayed and so the surplus gradually disseminated to nothing... People made do with less and things rarely glimpsed since 1910 took a regular/routine role in everyday life. 

There was still violence and disease and genuine contempt and fashionable contempt but there was also this quiet feeling that the affairs of America on the Earth were approaching some natural, anarchic-democratic community of healthy competition and trade. 

If not for the hysterical claims that the NLC & its representatives made in the first four years of this decade, our country might very well be about ten (10) years ahead in invention, engineering, manufacturing, distribution & trade. Tough shit, as they say.  

**** 

How I Got Here 

I have some chemical-dependency issues (formerly drugs & alcohol issues) by way of I have a habit that I like to chew nicotine-gum with my daily allowance of THC gum. And I'll mix it with booze when there's booze to be found. (Beer's never quite got along with my guts and I'm really not sure why or I'd likely drink that by the barrel if'n it was around.) 

I had so many coworkers who hated this. We used to have meetings about it every month or two. Like, whichever department store or kitchen or supermarket I was working in would schedule some high-school-assembly-hall style affair to discuss company policies in a large room with a wooden table we all sat around and they'd initiate things like the meeting was for everybody except after the first ten minutes or so, when they'd fired 15 neurons and everyone else could still spell their own names without getting bored, they'd everything left on old Randal Fincher. ...And at first I dismissed my thoughts as paranoid. Then, after a job or two of this, and getting progressively annoyed and, maybe, disquieting in some unreasonable way, I started speaking back to it. 

This led to much trouble. 

I started getting little notes put next to my permanent-file. 

It followed me forever, as they say. 

Finally, in the last place where I was working, this cuntcock of a demimonde of a half/schmuck just kept yikyakking in my stupid ear and, well, "make love." 

**** 

So there's this new groupleader in our post-breakfast sessions named Jerry. No one likes Jerry.   

I mean, if I'm being blunt about this, none of us cares all that much about any of the counselors they get to do these things. And it's not like it's because we want them to have better teaching/counseling certificates or we all care exactly what clothes they've got on that day or how they comb their hair. If age has anything to do with it, maybe we're all 5 yrs. late for where we should be in life, or ten years early for something better that has got to replace this cut & paste sorry horseshit they've just been rewording since Prohibition. (I mean, fucking Prohibition & the Stock Market: if you can't see where hubris is positively fucking untenable for the average American since at least the 1920s, surely there had been enough examples in history after (to remind you of the ones before) that said individual responsibility and competent parenting would solve most of this if every delinquent shittard of a man-dible didn't get equal-say to every last single mother, estranged father, drug-addict, and compulsive masturbator they could broadcast their voices to.... 

No one likes Jerry. Every day he's here is virtually identical to the last time he was here except for maybe the wind is slightly different. He says every word with this slick, slimey tone of voice like it's meant to be that way and everything we say is either unheard, misheard, or somehow not within bounds of some grammatical rule that you couldn't draw out on a fucking chalkboard. (Buffalo's buffalo buffalo can't touch his hyeroglyphic idiocy.) 

It gets to me... 

Here's an example. 

So the four of us (me/Randal, the guy that reminds me slightly of Dan Hedaya and I keep forgetting to ask his name or I feel embarrassed right before I think to ask it, another guy named Tom who doesn't say much, and another guy named Benny who doesn't say much either, but has these really thoughtfully-worded questions to things when Jerry brings it out of him at whichever random moment) and Jerry are in Group the other day. 

Jerry does his big entrance of looking cheery and lackadaisical like some excised-character in a Yorgos Lanthimos film (god, he's brilliant) and takes off that wasted-looking bucket hat and his fried-up crappy hair that looks like he just let robot-caterpillars sprayed with nair walk all over his dome, and asks the four of us if we're ready to start in a 30 ft. x 15 ft. conference room where we're already sitting down and waiting for Jerry to start handing out the daily assessment/question sheets. 

The guy who looks like Dan Hedaya gets his first since he's closest to the part of the table where Jerry has taken his swivel-chair from a corner of the room, passes the rest along, and has this look in his eyes like either he's going to spontaneously disintegrate back into nothingness if he plays his cards right or wait for a better option to come along. 

Tom gets his and says nothing and passes the papers to me and I give the last one to Benny. 

Calm and sincere as you can imagine: "Has everyone got today's sheet?" 

I mean, we're fucking looking at him. Even the Dan Hedaya guy makes some eye-contact. 

"Good." He continues: "I believe...we were talking about essentials the last time I was here. Now..." He flips through some notes in his binder. "Now, I don't remember what the consensus was. Shoulda took some notes, huh? Well. Just the same, let's talk about essentials. As in, what are our essentials." 

Essentials. If I had a phone and some permission I'd doublecheck the definition for that. I'd settle for an old school paper dictionary if they didn't perpetually go missing. Whatever Jerry's about to say about it, I'm sure it's at least 3/4s wrong. 

It feels like he catches me when I'm just looking at the paper and thinking: I've learned since it has something to do with how the insular-routing cortices recapitulate the frontal lobe into some indefinite state-of-alert. (*It's from when the average person lived in jungles and that and things were a lot less controlled than they would be in cities.) 

"Randal. Something on your mind?" 

"Uh..." 

"No secrets, Randal. Come on," he plains his right hand over the above-ground caterpillar-graveyard he has for a hair-do, "no secrets." 

"Uh..." I look like the second unlucky character in a Joseph Conrad novel ruminating on the first unlucky character in a Joseph Conrad novel. "I don't know." 

"Just fill out the sheet, Randal. You can go back to your...," he waves a hand towards me, "pagan samadhi some other time." 

The other three guys don't say anything. 

Jerry studies them for the briefest second with something between parental concern and predatory lust. (On my life. It's a look for some people.) "Okay..." 

"So an essential is something that cannot be done without. It can apply to anything. Ink in a pen, for instance, is essential to writing with a pen. Or the cardboard tubes inside of t.p. are essential to the t.p. You get the hang of it?" 

Something in this last sentence -- I think the word 'hang'-- gets to the Dan-guy: his whole crazy face lifts like some perfect-humanoid hot-air balloon and you just slightly feel some of the pressure and air go out of the room. Me and Tom are quiet. Benny says: "Excuse me, sir, why do we hang these?" 

"Where do you hang them?" 

"No, sir. You said we hang these. Why am I hanging?" 

Something in Jerry goes slack. "Hey, listen guys I'm sorry. I think I've got some other appointments today. I shouldn'tive scheduled this." 

I raise my hand. "So...you're leaving?" 

"Well, not leaving..." 

"We usually fill them out the same who'sever here and then you're supposed to collect them and read them, or you have to come back some other time and then read them then." 

"Whoa...," like I just sung Subterranean Homesick Blues in 4 seconds flat. And I can't stop looking at that mess he's carrying around on top of his neck. "Let's do that." 

He stands up. The room fills with stink. He puts his things together and while the four of us begin scratching our letters and answers on the sheets ole Jerry Ratbaum has assembled what needs assembling for the moment and makes his way to the door, pauses at the door, opens it just slightly, and says how he'll see us all in a couple days or so to make up for all this and we just continue working on our assessments. 

"Okay." 

He leaves. 

**** 

Why I Was Moved To A Different Institution  

Wait again. There are two other major things I need to pull down & apart, as it were, for this to make sense like it should before I tell you about the one (1) time I attempted anything like, what I still consider, to be some form of justifiable homicide. (I mean, Caterpillar-head is still alive as far as I'm writing this.)  

I'm officially not supposed to, or not allowed to say this but I'm the son of John Figler, who you might remember was killed during the tragedy that was, that is in memory, the American Night of the Long Knives. (*I won't list off every variation since.) I don't care to either indulge/bore you with the details. I will take offense if you just shout random words like 'knife' or 'where are all the hoody-stabbies'. For some reason, I always chuckle or end up breaking out in gloriously stupid laughter if someone makes an effort to go some yards past that. 

Well, that was about nine (9) years ago, and with the other major thing I think is a little important in my explanation of trying to make Jerry a swiss-Jerry I'll quickly add here that this was during the two-year period when what we consider now as Functioning America was in the process of selling Hawaii and Alaska to some tourist company located in a doubtfully-recorded part of Southeastern Asia. 

Unless some other agreement has been made in the years since that has earned its fixedway in the course of things then America is of one piece (more or less) and contains 48 states, with slightly less miles from the coasts it started with then when Columbus showed up. 

Okay, then. 

So, during the last group meeting we had, the one where I punctured Jerry Ratbaum in his scary guts with a ballpoint-pen (with the inkstraw in its closed position) I was sitting on the eastside of the conference-table and Jerry was sitting at the north-head of the table, where he usually does; Henry (the Dan Hedaya-looking guy) and Tom were sitting in the chairs closest to mine; and I guess since he showed up a couple minutes late-- Benny just took a seat next to the empty one next to Jerry. 

Jerry had this new pleather briefcase. It was sitting on the table in front of him and he opened it up like some mold-soaked Arc of the Covenant. He took out some papers, slid the briefcase away from him...and tapped the sheaf of papers on the table and it made some kind of a disturbance in my ears, in every nerve of my body, and I just tried to endure it and dismiss it. 

More than once during the meeting, he'd pause in what he was saying to look around the room (or pretend to look around the room) and his eyes would stop on me, they'd feel like you were being studied by someone who'd forcibly inserted dirty purple marbles into his eye-sockets in front of you and insisting that you tell them you thought that they were genuine. 

I forget it word-for-word now but the meeting went for about 20-odd minutes with the typical driptrap of helping us to help ourselves (live in an institutional building for some indefinite amount of time before our counselors and so forth deem us ready to re-enter the open world). And Jerry had control of the room with his "deftly" prepared lecture/essay on essentials and who we were and what he could do for us. 

For some reason, I'm not sure it's right, I hear that word 'do' as testo di cazzo would say it sometimes in some auto-playback recesses of my cerebrum. 

At any rate... 

He got through with the basic/initial stuff of any meeting, good or bad, sorted a few of his things, and opened up the table for questions. Of course, we were all reluctant to volunteer. I like to talk, I hate being interrupted: especially repeatedly, especially moreso when it's strategic, and then it gets worse as the person interrupting turns into something approaching-passionate about their interruptions; if I can't talk normally, for myself, I won't. 

Nor do I hold Henry, Tom or Benny in anyway responsible for not preventing me from what.... 

Benny had asked something to the effect of: If there is no window, what do we look through? (I'm not making this up.) 

This confused Jerry. "Well," he said, searching for some ineffable words that only skated at the distances reaches of his consciousness. "Well." 

Benny just sat there, looking at him and not looking at him. 

"Well," continued Jerry, "there are a lot of different kinds of windows. I guess anything you could..." 

And Benny just sat there. 

Tom would look at Jerry, look at Benny, look at the wall. For a moment I thought he'd look at me next but I guess that wasn't part of the plan or whatever reflexive-anatomy was going inside him. 

"...Sex is a window, isn't it?" Like you can fuck one? "Sex might be the only window. That is, for recovery or anything else." Some quiet flash of a Satan I don't believe in. "Yeah, Benny, that was a good one." 

And Benny just sat there. 

He reset his composure and turned at me where I was sitting as far away from him as I could and he started to speak, hiss, really, "Randal." His eyes like go-beads and his warped mouth around that cosmetically bulbous nose. I thought he licked his lips. "Why don't you tell us what you think a window is?" Then he folded his forearms on the table and leaned towards me on his elbows. 

That's when I lost it. It may have happened very fast but I remember almost in slow-motion pushing my chair back from the table and then standing very, very straight and I stood/stepped backwards onto the chair, then forward onto the conference-table, walked across it, stood over Jerry (while Benny did his thing) and I looked down at Jerry for a moment, just a moment, before deftly hopping down beside him where he sat in his favorite swivel-chair, I grabbed him by the posterior-collar of his shirt, pulled him up, and stabbed him the first time with the pen. 

Needless to say, it got pretty bad. 

No one even interrupted me. I blasted the instrument into a few different points in his abdomen and he squeezed tighter & tighter into himself and after the fourth or fifth assault I pulled the pen out for the last time, let go of him, walked to the only door that went in-and-out of the conference room, opened it, walked through, walked up to the check-in desk, and gently set the bloody evidence in front of the nice lady on the phone. 

Go through channels if you really think this is my fault. 

I'll hear it. 

--Nov. 2nd, 2036 

****