The Early Bird Catches the Big Mac

It was 3:45 a.m. and Joe couldn't sleep. The sun hadn't even considered waking up yet, and it would be at least an hour before the first bird would utter its shrill chirp. For now the world was a dark, soundless, and private place for any creature that happened to be awake to notice.

A strange excitement buzzed in Joe's brain as he lay underneath his bed covers. This was unusual. Joe was no morning person. At least, not in his adult life. Joe could remember back to a time when he was very young. When things were different. It was that time when the restless energy of youth called, and all those underage had to answer. Sometimes Joe would wake up when there wasn't yet anything to watch on TV. He would wait patiently, reading a book, or making himself some oatmeal, until the channels started blinking to life, waking up from their static blizzards. Whatever they were showing was not really important. Cartoons were preferred - but anything felt special, somehow privileged, because chances were that very few others out there were watching. Even the exercise programs - Joe coveted them all.

Joe was a fat kid. Somewhere in his freshman year of college he straightened himself out, though, and he had become something of a health nut ever since. In tandem with becoming more healthy in body, it went unnoticed to Joe, at least on the conscious level, that he was also becoming more scared in his soul. Two weeks before his high school graduation, Joe had buried his father. It was a terrible cancer that had done his old man in, and the third of its kind Joe had the sorrowful opportunity of witnessing in his young life. He had images permanently seared into his brain matter of his father's shriveled body, his oddly taught skin that made him look both younger and sicker at the same time. To Joe, it was the ugliest way a decent person could go.

In high school Joe kept a pack of Marlboro reds tucked in his pocket at all times. He'd light up with his friends after school outside the local McDonald's. Then they'd eat at that McDonald's - whatever their adolescent gullets craved, they were too young to give a shit. An extra 1/4 pounder for dessert after that Big Mac you just sucked down, on top of that medium fries and Coke Classic? No problem, friend. Gluttony was, after all, doubly useful at such an age as an effective deterrent against all the beer that was to be bought illicitly after leaving Mack D's. Don't knock that extra 1/4 pounder with cheese, pal - it's going to save you its weight in embarrassment (God-forbid you find magic marker on your face in the morning). Two evils, each working hard to cancel the other one out. Real teenage beauty.

Joe felt feelings he hadn't had in years coarse through his veins. He was up early and feeling like the best thing in the world right now would be to hop in his car, throw on the heater, get some smooth jazz on that radio and cruise until dawn.

Joe soon found himself behind the wheel of his car. He felt that old, tingly feeling he used to get as a kid. He felt like the world was all his.

And, Dear God, he felt like a Big Mac.

There was a McDonald's nearby, he knew that. He'd never been to it, but he remembered seeing its lights on at all hours driving by on his way home from a friend's place or a sporting event that had gone into overtime.

There was a 7-11 next to the McDonald's. Joe had forgotten about it until he saw the colored lights while pulling into the Mickey-D's parking lot. Joe craved a cigarette badly. It was true then, he thought. It was a physical addiction you never really, truly, could get rid of, huh. Here was the proof. After all these years, and Joe felt like rewarding his discovery with the most appropriate plaudit.

Joe didn't think. It was too early in the morning for thought. He marched into 7-11, plunked down a $10 bill, collecting his Marley reds and change. He eagerly unwrapped the cellophane from the cigarette box like a kid at Christmas as he exited the door, the bell dinging above his head.

Joe stood in the moonlight, his breath pluming smoke into the crisp evening air. It was so darn quiet. Before Joe knew it, the cigarette was already gone to its nub. He was walking when he threw the smoke away. Joe barged through the doors of McDonald's...

As he sat under the bright flourescents, munching on his Big Mac, Joe began to come down from his lapse. Thoughts of cancer metastasizing in his lungs, working in diabolical concert with all that McDonald's burger-grease, hardening like air-exposed plaster in the arterial walls of his heart scared him sober.

Joe felt all of a sudden disgusted. He forced himself to mash what was left of his food back into its wrapper, and back into the paper bag from whence it came. Joe stood up and threw it all into the gaping mouth of the restaurant garbage can.

Driving back home, Joe felt hungover. Instead of feeling spry and on top of the world such as he had at the onset of his very early morning, he now felt weak and fat. Gross and disgusting. Was this just an isolated event, he began to wonder, or is it the beginning of a manifest destiny journey down the horrible yellow brick road to a carcinogenic demise?

Joe was almost home as these thoughts barraged his weary brain. He could at least flop on his bed soon and leave it all for the next day's worries. He was getting very tired. It was 4:58 a.m. and worrying about one's penultimate demise, Joe realized, could take a lot out of a body.

The steering wheel leaped from Joe's hand. The car shook as the force underneath it bucked back and forth. His foot instinctively moved to the brake, putting the car to a stop in the middle of the deserted highway that was now shaking back and forth.

It was an earthquake. Joe could see the street signs react to the violent jerking of the ground below them. Trees creaked and debris bounced along the surface of the pavement like a massive game of Bed Bugs.

It was a big one.

After the initial shock wore off, Joe realized the shaker had found him in what was likely one of the safest places he could possibly be. He was unharmed, right as rain in his car on the empty pre-dawn freeway. To be certain, the experience was still teasing at his nerves for the rest of the drive home, but he had ridden out the event without consequence, and that was the main thing.

Joe pulled up to his place. He stared at it through his car window.

The second floor had caved into the first, where Joe's bedroom used to be.

The collapse had probably killed the others inside. Joe supposed there was a slight chance they could be alive and trapped in the rubble, and realized he had better set about to investigate, just in case. In a way it was kind of a good thing. He knew full well he could use the exercise, and the fresh air he would take as a fitting bonus.

BFF

It was like I was addicted to them. They were my best friends. Dale, Benny, and Earnest.

Those guys were the best.

Then I moved away. I was forced to find new friends. The friends I found were far-reaching and plentiful. I wouldn't go so far as to credit myself for being extra-charismatic. But, I did get along with people and I found a lot of them interesting. Of course none were like my previous comrades. Nobody is the same. But there was a category difference between my new friends and my old ones. It was definitely noticeable. I don't know if it was the continental divide, or a completely independent cultural schism of some kind.

We had fun. For sure. I had awesome memories of throwing stuff at people with them:

When I was eight years old, Dale and I hucked snow balls at cars every winter. One day a car stopped, backed up, the driver got out and came after us. We ran all the way back to Dale's house. When I met John, Ned and Buster we enjoyed good times too.

Instead of snow, Ned would drive as John, me, and Buster would shoot the hell out of the neighborhood houses.

We weren't crazy. We didn't want to get caught by the cops and get sent to the chair for murder in the first; our ammunition of choice were paint balls.

But, still. It pissed people off.

One time, recently, the four of us took money from a bank that wasn't ours (the money, not the bank). We actually didn't have accounts at the bank, that was part of the plan. They didn't know us, and we didn't know them. Amazingly we got away with the heist. I didn't plot it, not at all. I followed directions like I was told, but heck if I knew that the operation was being run responsibly. I just hoped, and worked hard, and trusted deeply in those guys. And it worked out. It was solid. We were all solid.

Then things got totally fucked right after that. That fucking party, man. Holy Christ on a cross. It was the most Goddamn awful, hellish experience I could have ever thought possible.

I came home from work. Granted it was Friday, but I still wouldn't have expected my buddies to have organized a surprise party for me. They did, though. We filled up on beer, pizza and smoked some kind of cakey, yellow substance through an aluminum can with holes Ned poked in the top.

I felt really funny. What was that stuff? I'd never considered that question before putting flame to breath. I laugh when I remember how I thought, at the time, that was the worst I was going to probably have to deal with at that point in the evening. It wasn't. Not even close.

John grabbed his forehead. The motion was like someone whose Halloween mask had come unhitched. He looked at me, a strange awkward fear in his eyes. Buster and Ned looked from him to I. Ned was doing a good job of lying with his eyes. Buster - on the other hand - absolutely went deep space nine. It rose up in him. Probably because he was the smart one, smart because he knew the jig was up and gone first and decided immediately to make the very most of it.

Buster laughed in my face as he grabbed into the hair on the top of his head, just above his forehead. Buster pulled his skin apart, splitting it open like a Ziploc bag.

That's when the horrorshow peaked. I've never seen anything more ghastly. Where men stood, beasts emerged. They who were my good friends bled at the seams as dark, slimy, hard-shelled carcasses emerged from the brittle, torn dermis that for all I knew was as fake as a fruit roll-up. Tentacles and lobster-like antenna arched out and tasted their good friend while I screamed and laughed maniacally, knowing I'd be going from enjoying my last simple laughs to being painfully eaten alive by my best buds in mere moments. I understood, though. Seriously, I did. You forget these guys were my best pals. Without the need for words I knew they had held back as long as they could, but in the end they did what they had to do, and I totally respect that. Buster got the first bite in. John next, and I know Ned ate me too but I lost consciousness after that, thank God.

It Stays In Vegas

You know the saying: What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas. Mike McKenney thought he knew what it meant too. He had swept many an atrocity under the nicotine caked rugs of several hotels up and down the famous Las Vegas strip over the past ten years. It had been a tradition of his ever since he had cheated on his first girlfriend when he was twenty-six. He had had an especially good night gambling, having turned a reluctant $20 bill into $396 worth of chips at the Pai Gow Poker tables.

He was in town for a friend’s bachelor party, and had felt shy and uncomfortable when the strippers showed up, so he went downstairs to play some cards. Eight free drinks later at the Pai Gow table and Mike was feeling altogether different.

He had returned to the room a bit late – the strippers had left, but only just. One of them was walking toward him down the hall. Mike found he was still in a betting mood, but because he wasn’t seated at the Pai Gow table anymore he had to make up his own kind of gamble: he bet himself that if he could convince this girl to sleep with him for no money down he would come back to Las Vegas once a year and repeat his actions. It might become his own, personal tradition.

Mike was a good-looking young man with a charming sparkle in his eye. He was also smart enough to treat the stripper unlike one. He took his time, wooed her with his sense of fun and mystery, and forgot all about his girlfriend, Mandy. Mandy was probably back in L.A. asleep in her bed, totally and blissfully unaware of Mike’s actions.

The stripper was charmed, but not that charmed – she would sleep with Mike, but only as a business transaction. Mike, uninterested, instead asked her where she recommended he might find someone who would sleep with him for his preferred rate. The stripper smiled, “Crash a wedding,” she said.

It was brilliant and common sense. Mike went to his room and ten minutes later emerged wearing his best clothes, doused with his best cologne. He headed to the chapel in the lobby of his hotel and waited. It wasn’t an hour before he had targeted a gaggle of intoxicated young girls in their early twenties. One of them was getting hitched to a man who looked entirely out of place with them. Mike got on the man’s good side and subsequently wooed one of the young woman’s friends back to his hotel room. After some very wild and dirty Vegas-inspired coitus, the girl admitted to Mike that she had a boyfriend back wherever she was from, asking him if he believed in the rule of Vegas. She looked so vulnerable in that moment. Mike responded with confidence, “Absolutely. What happens here, stays here.” She smiled and they took advantage of one another once more before she left his room the next morning.

What a wonderful place on earth this is, Mike thought as he gorged on his champagne buffet breakfast. Perhaps it was some kind of cracked, American logic but Mike felt he was onto something profound – sinning might just be okay so long as it’s kept in its right and proper place… this place. It had been carved out of the lifeless desert specifically for the purpose of compartmentalizing the worst of everything. Go back home and be a saint, and you could always come back here, do whatever crazy awful thing you wanted to do and still get into Heaven. That was the deal. And if you stuck to it you could find a way to live with your whole self, warts and all – 100% guilt free, just don’t forget to tip your waitress.

Mike might have become a preacher had he not discovered the City of Sin. He was a man of excessive conviction. When he found something he liked he committed to it fully. And he loved Las Vegas. He was truly in now, to let it ride.

Even though he didn’t bed down the stripper, Mike decided he would come back year after year anyway. From then on it was always by himself. He had broken up with Mandy six months after his return from that initial trip but it was for reasons completely unrelated to what had happened there in Vegas. Mandy never found out Mike’s secret and she never would. Nor would the next three girlfriends. Nor would his wife, Laura.

This year was the first time Mike had been to Vegas as a married man. He had vowed to himself that he would never cheat on Laura since marrying her. It was different inside the county lines of Las Vegas, though. Here was a no man’s land to Mike. It didn’t really exist.

He had told Laura he was going on a business trip. It was a convenient lie, as he was always going out of town on business anyway and this was just for the weekend. He didn’t even need to lie about where it was that he was going – his company had sent him to Vegas several times over the past few years since he had met Laura.

Mike crashed another fly-by-night wedding, as was by now his traditional routine. The girl was gorgeous. What’s more she was around for the whole weekend. Mike was feeling up for more than just one night with her, so it worked out perfectly.

Or so Mike believed.

Saturday afternoon, while enjoying a particularly lucrative game of Pai Gow, Mike was approached by two men dressed in suits. They asked Mike to come with. They were emotionless, which made it harder to argue with them as they dragged him away from his winning game. Mike found himself being led to a side hall, that led to a side elevator, that opened up to a very drab and less than enticing row of corporate offices.

Mike was brought to a room where he was seated in a chair facing a desk. Mike remembered thinking the only thing nice about the room was its wallpaper and only because it looked new. Unlike the rest of Las Vegas, this particular nook or crannie was not designed to please. The two men that had led him there left him alone and a couple minutes later another man entered. He looked slick. His combed back hair was probably fake and his skin was so tan it was scary.

Without a word, the man turned on a television bolted to the wall behind him. Mike found himself audience to a collage history. It was an assortment of video clips, all of Mike, having sex in various hotel rooms with the various women he had encountered over all those years.

It was astounding. How could anyone have collected all of these incidents? They didn’t even take place in the same hotel! What was this?!

Mike was too awed to be worried immediately. In fact, he was rather impressed – the situation was so improbable it was actually kind of funny to him. That was until the man explained the deal to Mike: These tapes would be mailed to Laura unless Mike came back, every year as he had been. He could sleep with whomever he wanted, the man didn’t care about that stuff. Mike just had to play Pai Gow – or any of the tables – until he was down at least $500 per visit. He had to come once a year, and lose a half grand every year or his new wife would find out just what Mike had left behind in Vegas to fester in his absence.

Mike was indeed surprised that anyone would go to such measures for only $500 per year. But then, he had always wondered how they were always throwing up such tall casinos in this town, and reasoned there must be enough other schmucks out there like him, following that by now familiar creed to make it worth the city’s while. Mike figured it wasn’t really that much trouble on their end, if one thought about it. They simply watched, took note, and made you play their game. That’s really how it all worked in Las Vegas. The house always won in the end if you were fool to stick around at the table for long enough.

Sitting in that chair, Mike felt that familiar feeling that Vegas was done with him – for now, at least. That Sunday morning feeling of dread and disgust. He felt the urge to get the hell out, get back to normalcy and forget all about Las Vegas until he had ignored it long enough that it seemed new and dazzling all over again. That was the other thing about the place, of course – like a card it always turned over, and you just couldn’t resist wondering what would turn up when it did. The first time, and every time.

-A. Daltas, April 6 2008: Las Vegas, NV

The Psychiatrist

As Harold pushed the button for the fifth floor, the guilt rose up to a fever pitch. What gave him the right? We all have problems, he thought. He was fortunate that his work had provided an excellent health care plan that Harold had taken full advantage of over his many years of loyal service. But this was getting out of hand, he thought. He pushed back the sudden wave of sickness churning in the pit of his stomach, trying to focus on the larger problems. He prepared for what he had to say to the Psychiatrist.

The elevator door dinged, rolling open as Harold stepped off onto the fifth floor of the modest but well positioned Santa Monica apartment complex. Lots of shrinks kept their offices at home, he pondered. He walked along some old brown carpeting until he reached the door for 515.

He knocked. And waited.

In less than ten seconds the door opened to a kindly man in his sixties, who threw his hand out with assured but gentle strength. "Harold?"

Harold nodded.

"Dr. Frank. C'mon in." Harold felt awful as he crossed the threshold. There was no turning back now.

The apartment looked like a bachelor pad. A very nice one, to be sure, with a flat screen TV in the living room where Harold would be giving his full disclosure. Harold sat down in a plush chair as Dr. Frank sat across from him. "Can I get you anything? Water? Coffee?" The gesture was meant to make Harold feel welcome but it had a reverse effect, instead serving to fuel his immense guilt for even being here.

"No thanks," Harold said. Dr. Frank smiled - not offended in the slightest. "Stop me anytime if you change your mind. Do you want to get started?" Harold's eyes drifted to the brand new box of Kleenex strategically placed on the coffee table in front of him. Oh boy. Harold closed his eyes, and decided to just dive in and get this visit over with...

Harold let out all the pent up frustrations that had been festering inside of him over the last year. He told Dr. Frank about the ski fall that nearly left him paralyzed, and how his back had never been the same. His doctor told him he could look forward to a hellish old age for it, as the discs in his spine deteriorated to geriatric jelly. He lamented about how sometimes it was far, far better not to know certain things - especially the ones he had no control over. He told the psychiatrist about his ex-wife who had recently left him for another man. He told him about turning 40, and what mind job that was, figuring he might get himself kicked out by this guy who was at least a couple decades older (that's what I'd do if some young, punk kid came in here whining about 'getting old', Harold thought). But Dr. Frank gave not the slightest hint of contempt. Only concern and empathy and a desire to help was apparent in his demeanor. It felt great to get it all out. Harold badly needed this therapy session. He began to settle in and really dig deep.

He went to the dark places. He told Dr. Frank the things that no human being should hear. Harold worked in politics and thought that although it was more than socially acceptable - if not outright encouraged - to see shrinks in these modern times, he couldn't help but dread that somehow he might screw himself over if he didn't edit at least some of what he was saying. He had done that in the past with the other shrinks. But Dr. Frank made Harold feel particularly comfortable. Harold let every last bit out, like wringing out a wet rag until every last drop of saccharine spilled out onto Dr. Frank's nice Santa Monica floor...

Harold woke up from the trance on his own. He felt amazing. He realized with sudden clarity how badly he had needed this session. He looked back at Dr. Frank to thank him and to excuse himself. Dr. Frank stared back with that Pope-like smile. Harold was amazed at how well Dr. Frank had held up. No one could bullshit that well, Harold was confident. This made Harold feel a lot better. Dr. Frank might just stick around, he hoped.

Harold thanked Dr. Frank and even had the boldness to ask for a cup of water before leaving. Dr. Frank couldn't have been more obliging.

As soon as the door shut behind him, Harold felt another tiny wave of fear bubble up. What if? He pushed it back down. Not this time, he thought. Today you are going to enjoy your life and not worry so much about others. Maybe - he hoped - this could be the first of many such days? Could it? Was Dr. Frank really that special? Harold took these thoughts with him as he exited the apartment complex and was hit immediately by the sweet smelling Spring air. The warm sun felt particularly good on his skin as Harold walked to his car. He got in, took another refreshing breath, and drove off feeling absolutely spectacular; it was amazing how one could wake up feeling like Cancer itself, and a few hours later emerge a new man. Harold looked forward to getting to the office so he could call Dr. Frank and schedule the next appointment.

Upstairs, Dr. Frank's smile had faded. He looked sick and pale as he sat in his chair with a vacant look on his face. He stared out his sliding door window at the palm trees, wavering in the wind.

Dr. Frank pushed himself up onto his feet, his mouth falling open as if it had come unhinged, and would never shut properly again. As he passed by the land phone he decided he would take it off the receiver.

The sliding glass door coasted open on its track soundlessly. It was contrasted sharply by the heavy slap that Dr. Frank's body made against the concrete walkway below.

Harold was in for more disappointment.