Bo Channels walked into the office with his shoulders slumped.

Mr. Margarit: “Sit down, Bo. Wha–, you need coffee or something?”

Bo sat down, perked himself up. “No, no. I’m good, thanks.”

“OK, now, Bo, today is the day, the day you’ve been putting off and keep trying to reschedule for what, like six years now? You know why we kept rescheduling you at all? We had an office pool going. Frankly, man, I think your best days are over. That Pulitzer put a weight around your ankles, man. Now you can’t even come up with a good video game idea.” He chortled. “Oh man.”

Bo’s face was apoplectic. His chest was slowly rising like he was about to burst. His eyes widened. The sides of his mouth went down. He popped: “Slake Rake!”

“A whazza?”

Bo looked around, head beginning to shake. He stood up abruptly and Mr. Margarite leaned back, eyes squinting. Bo began using his hands, like a mime, pulling the air to keep going. “A . . . slake rake,” he mimicked the motion of using a rake. “You, uh, use the rake to uh, rake the slake.” He stopped, stood up, smiled. He scratched his head. “It’s ironic.”

“You want a video game in today’s market that is simple, stupid shit, call it ironic, and expect people to pay 60 bucks for dat?”

Bo was sweating now, not meeting Mr. Margarite’s eyes, instead searching the bottoms of the walls for clues, or looking for mice.

Mr. Margarit: “Let me ask you a question, Bo. Do you ever play video games?”

“No man, my world is pixelated enough, man.” Bo’s hands were sweaty so he wiped them on the sides of his jacket.

Mr. Margarit flipped a switch under his desk and several fans popped up on both sides of his desk. They both rotated to face the center: Bo. Bo’s eyelids fluttered in joy, the sweat being gently swept from his brow.

Mr. Margarit: “Are you on drugs?”

“No,” Bo said. “Ok, thanks for the fan. How about this: A story about a man in the future who, uh, has to escape something on earth, so signs up for a terrible mystery job on the last outpost.”

“Last outpost?”

“Yes, the last outpost between the manned universe and the unmanned universe. Of course I guess you would have several last outposts in several directions eventually, but for now there’s just one. The last outpost.”

“What happens there?”

“Well, there would be different stories, er, versions: the official government version, and folk tale versions: from one human to another.”

“The truth is bad?”

“Yes, if it was Disneyland there would be no drama, right?”

Mr. Margarit: “Disneyland is a lot richer than you are.”

“Nobody goes to Disneyland to read.”

“You’re proposing to read this video game?”

Bo: “Doesn’t a new age, a modern age video game need a great story? Zelda? Bioshock? Yes?”

“Zelda, Bioshock and Slake Rake?”

Bo sat back down. “Forget that. I have social problems.” He wiped his forehead with the back of his hand. “Whew, thanks again for those fans. Those things are nifty.”

“So what happens in your story: bad things happen, like what? And how does he fight back? Is it like Half Life?”

“I don’t know yet. But it will be somewhat dark. Not as dark as the Blood Meridian, but dark.”

Mr. Margarit: “All drama is dark before the ending – it’s called act two.”

Bo: “You know what? Fuck you, man. I won a fucking Pulitzer. You peddle Pacman. Give me a fuckin’ break you fuckin’ bonehead. You wanna be the first developer to label your game as being written by a Pulitzer-prizewinning author or not? Because that’s what you’re paying for, finally. And we both know it. So let’s just cut the shit and agree on a concept, OK? Or I’m going to EA, you fucking bitch.”

Mr Margarit drummed his fingers together. “Yes, the Post it is, then. You flesh it out and I’ll put a team on it.”

“Thank you,” Bo said, then left. Once hitting the street he fished a J out of his pocket and lit it, took a long suck. He thought of something and had a good laugh. Slake Rake. He took out a phone and dialed, put it to his ear. “Hey baby,” he said. “Guess who’s going to be eating again?”

It was a roof and a bed: the Publix Hotel in Chinatown, formerly, for they have since closed it. Introduced to it by fellow fishermen just off the boat from Alaska. Well, maybe not ‘fisherman’, but they all lived on the boat, and worked on it, and worked with fish – in the bowels of the ship in the factory, which was a little different than being a ‘fisherman’, technically.

He was poor. He had nothing. But he had his youth, and a hell of a lot of energy. And even a mite of an ego. He had probably reached his lowest low: attempting to walk to the nearest mountain so he could starve there, and only getting so far as Elliott Bay Park, demoralized by how far away those mountaintops actually were.

The Asian lady at the bait shop: “Yes?”

“How far away are those mountains there?”

She looks. “Far.”

“Will this path take me there?”

“No, you have to drive. You have to take roads.”

Going south to Elliott Bay Books in Pioneer Square and looking for their copy of How We Die – because he wanted it to be as painless as possible, of course. But he didn’t have enough cash for the pills. And for meals. He had maybe 8 bucks. Maybe. So he slept in the park that nite, waking up one time when someone walked close to him, looking him over. When the intruder saw he was awake he asked him what time it was. Deep into the nite. “Dunno,” the one laying down said. “I don’t have a watch.” What do the homeless need with watches?

Finally, it takes a lot of guts to take one’s life. And maybe more than one tries, more than a several resolves. That day had been possibly the worst tho, walking around looking at everybody knowing they wouldn’t lift a finger to save him. That he was hungry. He was young and maybe dumb but hell man, letting him die for his past mistakes was harsh. This was a cold society. This was a cold world. It is a lesson everyone should know.

So in the morning, unmolested except maybe the damage to his eyes done by keeping his contacts in too long (he had no backup glasses and didn’t want to be blind in the nite), he went back to the youth hostel, put some money in a locker to keep his stuff, and trudged it down to Laborready, where he got a job moving someone’s stuff from one nice house to the other, riding in the back of a pickup truck with other Mexicans also helping with the move. That nite, he went back to the hostel with some cash, got his stuff out of the locker, and gorged himself on a beer and a sandwich, knowing he had a bed to sleep in that nite. He wrote feverishly in his notebook, believing that one day he would be a famous writer, and all these expierences would help shape that.

Later, when a fisherman tried to wake him while he was sleeping in the low bunk on another ship, he woke up with his fist clenched – a common habit probably for anyone who has ever slept in a park.

Nobody cares about you. But offing yourself would be a big mess and a real pain in the ass. Living is always better. Better than nothing. Having lungs and being able to breathe is probably the best thing of all, which is probably why some people meditate?

After the first boat he had a room at the Publix, for 60 dollars a week. It was a small coffin-shaped room with a sink and a mirror, and old set of wooden drawers, and a twin bed with an iron cast headboard. Asian ladies came in every morning to clean and change the sheets. There were bathrooms down the hall. It was wise to wear flip-flips when you utilized the shower. It was heaven. It was all his. Nobody bugged him, and he read for hours. There was often gunfire and loud drunks out the window, but that only added to the excitement of the experience.

This room he imagined Henry Miller staying in. There was an ancient sign on the back of the door in twenties font; he often thought about taking it. Out the window before the area was built up he could see the Sound. He could walk to Pioneer Square in the morning and got bottomless coffee from the cafe in the basement of Elliott Bay Books for one dollar and then sit in the back reading the New York Times. He had not actually developed yet a keenness for politics, but he had also never actually been so deprived before. At this time, he could only decipher the Arts pages. Coffee helped. He wrote feverishly in his notebook. One day he would be a famous writer.

Instead, he is a stupid blogger, writing this. Sucker.

He is tall, British. His suit is impeccably devised. He is standing, looking off, one hand in pocket. He turns to face us. He smiles, “Hello. Didn’t see you come in.”

He walks to us.

He puts both his hands about a foot from his body on each side, palms facing out. “Welcome. This is a place for hash and bits. Slash and hits. Stash and tits.”

He stops, looks off. “Words have become boring, eh? Stories too predictable, eh? All the usual complaints . . . ”

He walks away a few paces. “Not that we can do anything about it.”

Turns to us again, “But we can try.”

He motions to something or someone out of our sight: “Cue the donkey lady.”

He looks, “Sorry?” We hear mumbling. The Narrator nods and looks back at us. “No sight gags, today, I’m afraid.”

He points in all directions. “But in these areas, here, here and here. But mostly above us, in the future, and below us, for the past, several wannabe wordsmiths will come in here and try and share their wares.

“Obviously, you are a tough audience.

“We are prepared for that. But don’t worry–when we say we know you’re a jaded audience and we’re prepared for it, we’re not thinking of anything gross or purely scatalogical as an antidote for that. No, no, for the record, we here–this ensemble all–are one hundred percent opposed to the new genre known as ‘torture porn.’ Yes, and even for a 420 wannabe flick like the latest from Harold and Kumar – also known as the Wackily Ethnically-Diverse Potheads – to begin it with a bathroom joke is . . . disappointing. Why does modern movie pot humor have to be so low?

“What will we attempt to do to ply you out of your media-engorged sophistication?

“Frankly, I have no idea. But it won’t include any dream sequences with midgets, that’s for sure. Think of this as a big tent dedicated to the exploration of anti-cliches. Or, something like that.”

A bar appears on the right and our Narrator sidles up to it. A bartender appears behind. “Lemon Drop, please,” our narrator sez.

The waiter pours the Stoli and assorted parts into a stainless steel container and begins to shake. The narrator waits. The bartender finishes shaking, opens the top of the mixer and pours the contents into a waiting reverse pyramid glass. He puts the mixer down and pushes the now brimming glass across the bar to our narrator, who picks it up and takes a big sip.

“On second thought,” he says to us. “I’m not promising anything.

“Stay at your leisure and browse . . . or not.” He goes back to his drink, his shoulders now slumping. “I could really give a shit.”

Slick N’ Dirty
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