Chapter One

This evening is not unlike any other that has preceded it in recent memory. The smell of vodka and regret permeates the room as my strained eyes remain fixated on the computer screen before me. The cursor blinks repeatedly on the top line of a blank word-processing document, serving as a low-fuel indicator for my parched creative tank. I gingerly tweeze the remnants of a poorly rolled joint from the ashtray and pull on the roach until my thumb starts to blister. George Costanza’s voice blares from the television in an adjacent room as the temptation of voluptuous lesbian nymphs being ass-rammed by a German Shepherd just one click of the mouse away further distracts my vagabond mind.
This has become a staple in my daily routine.
I think it’s safe to say the creative flame that once burned so ferociously in the crux of my gut has been extinguished. The light inside me, however unique it once was, has been dimmed by the collective mind I have embraced. I am, for all intents and purposes, useless to society. I have no special skills, no valuable experience, and I possess no advanced knowledge of any subject matter deemed relevant enough to warrant compensation. I am doomed to spend the remainder of my existence trapped in a six by nine-foot prison behind corkboard walls. My life sentence will be served delivering Power Point presentations to the warden, drunk off his own blood, in wrinkle-free Dockers and a burgundy power tie with a subtle geometric print.
Corporate culture is mind control. A hypnotic alpha state bordering on theta. A cult of zombie foot soldiers no longer able to critically evaluate, discern, or pass judgment from their own moral database on anything between the hours of nine to five. Independent thinking can be grounds for termination.
Ah, corporate culture, where checking my e-mail is generally the emotional and spiritual apex of my day, where I exchange strange queries with coworkers like If the Allman Brothers’ song “Midnight Rider” were a woman, would you have sex with her? Substitute “Midnight Rider” with Deep Purple’s “Perfect Strangers.” Nazareth’s “Hair of the Dog.” And so on.
In the present day, would you rather be Mick Mars and suffer from the degenerative rheumatoid disease, Ankylosing Spondylitis, or Vince Neil and be the Grand Marshal of the World’s Largest Chicken Dance?
That was the question to which I was responding two weeks ago, noshing on a shitty tarragon chicken salad sandwich from the Starbucks across the street, when I realized John Oliphant was peering over my shoulder.
John Oliphant. He’s the “warden” in my clever rhetoric, the Divisional Sales Manager, or DM, as they say in the industry. However, in my everyday life, I typically refer to him as the Antichrist.
“Can I see you in my office?” he says, the light on his Bluetooth earpiece blinking symbolically every five seconds like the homing device of a house arrest anklet.
Naturally, I follow like a trained dog chasing a Snausage. Like a convicted felon reporting to his parole officer.
Everything in his confines is made of oak, polished until it reflects light like the tinted rear windows of a limousine. His bookshelf is overflowing with titles like The Warren Buffett Way, The Art of the Deal, Lessons for Corporate America, How to Influence Others; bloated propaganda that I probably couldn’t read all the way through if there was a cage fighter holding a buck knife to my gizzard. Sitting on his ergonomic, leather-bound throne, our dark antagonist opens a manila folder and leafs through its contents, not making eye contact, his mouth not emitting a sound for a solid minute and a half. I gaze down at the image of my face reflected in the wood of his desk, my hand leaving a greasy palm print on the shiny lacquer, which slowly evaporates into nothing.
“I think you know why I called you in here,” he says, sucking air between his teeth mid-sentence.
Cue the piano outro to “Layla.” You can find me in the proverbial meat freezer.
I’m not sure how he has ascended the ladder of success in pharmaceutical sales. I wouldn’t buy a keychain off that ghoul. If he told me the sky is blue, I would be so skeptical as to go outside and look up to confirm his statement. I wouldn’t place my hand and apply pressure on his open wound if he was bleeding profusely from the abdomen. If I had a squirt gun filled with Hepatitis, he'd be the first person I'd shoot. Right in the white of the eye.
Now, back to the blank computer monitor. Back to the blinking cursor on the top left corner of a solid white screen. The goddamn paperclip with eyes and thick black eyebrows, its thin bottom wire tilted outward to resemble some sort of twisted smile, popping up on the bottom right every so often, asking if I need help.
Go Fuck Yourself, I type into its little text box.
I have grown numb and detached. If you were to hold one of those ghetto blasters I’d imagine were quite commonplace in Harlem breakdancing circles and Grandmaster Flash videos next to my ear and crank up Judas Priest’s “Hellbent for Leather,” it would have no effect on me. I feel like a fictional character played by Nicolas Cage, complete with lifeless facial expressions and monotone dialogue, in some hackneyed movie my girlfriend is making me suffer through, just waiting to have that cliché epiphany right before the end credits scroll down the screen. You get the point.