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wittywallflower · 4 years

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Merry Pranksters - Miles wants to play a practical joke on Julian while the doctor is off the station and asks Garak, of all people, for help.

(3,6k words, Miles & Garak gen fic)

Garak was just about to close up for the day when Miles O'Brien appeared quite unexpectedly. He was an infrequent visitor in the shop. The chief tended to leave sartorial considerations to his wife when he could get away with it. Outside of his holosuite costumes, that is, and in those cases he usually discussed things thoroughly with the doctor before letting Julian make the actual arrangements with the tailor.

"Good evening, Chief O'Brien," Garak greeted him as pleasantly as any customer. "How are those trousers I mended working out for you?"

"Fine, fine. Good as new," Miles said, but nothing more.

"Was there something you need?”

"You, uh... you want to help me prank Julian?" Miles asked.

-------------------------------------------------------

"Good evening, Chief O'Brien," Garak greeted him pleasantly. "How are those trousers I mended working out for you?"

"Fine, fine. Good as new," Miles said, but nothing more.

"Was there something you need? Don't tell me young Miss Molly had another growth spurt again so soon? That would be most inconvenient to Mrs. O'Brien. I believe she said they would be on Bajor this month? There aren't many clothing shops in the mountains of Ray'laht."

Miles was surprised, and not sure how he felt about the Cardassian talking so familiarly, and knowledgeably, about his family like that. But of course Garak would know a bit about it. Keiko liked the man, naturally would she would chat with him whenever Molly's pants were getting too short again and she had need of his services. Keiko was a nice, engaging woman and most people liked talking to her. Miles wouldn't have guessed Garak would care enough to listen, but then the man was or used to be a spy. He probably filed away any bit of intel, no matter how innocuous, just in case it came in handy later.

"Not that I am aware of yet," Miles answered, and huffed a laugh. "Won't be long though, the way she's growing."

Now that he thought of it, though, he could remember Julian mentioning that Cardassians were real big on family and loved children. Both apparently being big themes in the books Julian read and discussed with Garak. Julian, bless him, didn't try to get Miles to read any of it, limiting himself to the very broadest strokes of the stories when recounting his weekly lunches with the tailor. And Molly was adorable enough to win hearts wherever she went. It was possible that Garak not only knew but had a genuine friendly interest (as well as a professional one) in not just Molly's measurements but things like her favorite colors and what she liked to do for play. Some of the stain-resistant fabrics Garak had tracked down were a godsend, given how much the girl loved to paint.

Miles might not spend more time with Garak than he had to, but that didn't mean the man was entirely removed from his life. Even if Julian wasn't friends with the man, he would still be there on the station. In his tailor shop, discussing orchids with Keiko and making a mental note that young Miss Molly O'Brien detested knitted sweaters and broke out all over in itchy hives no matter how soft the wool.

Garak looked at the human and tried not to grin widely at the man's reticence, knowing the chief would only interpret it poorly. Garak simply enjoyed drawing information out of people otherwise reluctant to give it away. That's what had made him so good at procuring information for the Order. An honest zeal for the work.

"I stand at the ready when she does," Garak said with his blandest salesman smile. Which was really the only one the chief was likely to trust. "I was just about to close up for the night, if there's no assistance I can offer...."

He trailed off, eyes widened expectantly. Obviously the human had a reason to come here. O'Brien more than most was no fan of Cardassian company. With any other potential customers Garak would have set up an appointment for the following day. But if the chief was here for a fitting it wouldn't take long and Garak suspected O'Brien would be just as happy to have to over and done with quickly.

Miles didn't immediately answer and Garak began to turn away before the chief spoke up.

"You, uh... you want to help me prank Julian?" he asked.

"Pardon me?" Garak's tone and expression were a little too politely confused by half.

"You know, a practical joke."

O'Brien didn't believe for one second that the savvy ex-spy had lived among humans for so long without learning about pranks. In fact, he was damn sure a species as naturally devious as Cardassians was already intimately familiar with the concept, so he didn't elaborate.

"Julian's back from his conference tomorrow," he said instead, "Thought we could arrange a little 'surprise' for him."

"We? As in you and I?"

"Sure! Pranks are more fun with an accomplice," Miles said with a slight smile, and squinted speculatively at him. "And you seem like you might know a thing or two about being a co-conspirator."

Garak didn't insult the chief with his usual protestations that he was just a plain and simple tailor who couldn't possibly conspire against a soul, except perhaps his fractious supplier of Orellian brocade. In truth, the oft-repeated denial of his former career was getting a little tired. One should endeavor not to repeat the same lie too many times. And he was quite sure no one else found it as amusing as Julian did.

"Why me?" he asked. The two men did not have a habit of spending time in each other's company.

"Why not you?"

Miles tried not to get annoyed by the interrogation. He knew it was only annoying because he didn't want to explain himself. He had made the decision to try to be more friendly towards Garak, to reach out and include him in some shenanigans. It was his own fault if that gave the fellow a chance to get under his skin.

And it was a fair question after all, given the usually chilly civility between them.

"Dax and I have pranked Julian a dozen times already," Miles said. "Who else am I going to ask? Sisko? He's my commanding officer. Worf's barely got a sense of humor. And Odo is the station's head of security."

"You expect to engage in acts of dubious legality then?" Garak raised his brow ridges as if scandalized, but there was definitely a hint of mischief in his gaze.

"I expect Odo would find breaking into Julian's quarters a bit dubious, yes." Miles nodded.

Hmm, interesting. Garak was already intrigued by the novelty of the situation. The chief inviting Garak of all people into his fun. There was a 'why' to be discovered there and Garak did enjoy a mystery. But even if there were any reason to suspect the chief's motives might be nefarious, the chance to snoop around the doctor's quarters a bit would still be impossible to resist.

"Actually Quark is pretty good at schemes," Miles continued on through the list, "but there's no latinum in this for him so he wont bother himself. And the Major... well, she's had a hard life. A real rough time growing up. I'm not sure she would see the point in this sort of... silliness. And it occurs to me now that might be true for you too." Miles finished awkwardly. "I mean, I understand if you aren't interested."

Miles, with the natural intuition of a man of similar age who had seen his fair share of trouble, had guessed that Garak had been through a lot in his life. Even if he didn't have any idea what exactly. Garak didn't worry about anything Julian might have told Miles about the former spy's life simply because Garak hadn't told Julian much of anything that could be confirmed as truth. Station gossip surprisingly didn't have much to say about him beyond the painfully unimaginative: that he was still a spy, loyal to Cardassia, in service of the Obsidian Order, here to steal highly classified information and disrupt Federation efforts. Largely negative, but not so bad as to stop the gruff human engineer from sympathizing where he thought they might have common ground of being victims of trauma. Garak could almost feel a sort of... camaraderie with him for it.

"Why Chief, are you implying that I'm no fun?" Garak pivoted, a playful smile served with the joke. Easing their mutual discomfort at the near brush with emotional honesty, and signaling his acceptance of the scheme.

Miles barked an honest laugh at that and grinned back, relieved and, yes, a little amused by the Cardassian.

"I'll get what we need while you close up shop. Meet me at my quarters and we'll walk over to Julian's together."

When he received a nod of acquiescence, Miles left, cheerfully whistling on his way down the Promenade.

Garak was quite sure O'Brien knew he was just as capable of breaking into crew quarters as the engineer. But the former spy lurking around on a habitat level not his own would definitely draw some suspicion from station security. He did have a history of going where he wasn't authorized to be when the situation called for it and a door lock had never stopped that. In the chief's company his presence was less likely to be questioned, but Garak knew how to handle any potential run-ins with Odo regardless.

"Hey," O'Brien greeted him when Garak arrived at the chief's quarters with a parcel under his arm. "What's that?"

"My excuse for being on this level this time of night." Garak handed the package to Miles. "For Miss Molly. They'll be a little big yet, but that hardly matters with pajamas."

"What, did you sew these in the 10 minutes since I left you?" Miles asked with mild astonishment.

"I already had the pattern cut and fabric pinned," Garak said with a dismissive wave. "they were just waiting for the updated inseam measurement. It hardly took a moment to run my handheld seamer over it all."

Huh. Prepared for anything, this one, Miles thought as he accepted the parcel with a nod of thanks and set it down next to two Starfleet issue canvas duffle bags. One of which he hefted, the other he handed to Garak.

"Shall we?"

They made short work of the walk to the doctor's quarters and even shorter work of bypassing Julian's lock code to let themselves in.

Garak crossed to a table where he could set down the bag he held. Next to a pair of data padds that he made sure to 'accidentally' bump so as to activate their screens, which he then just happened to glance at long enough to make note of their contents. All of which would have gone unnoticed even if the room had been crowded with people. Garak was very discreet.

"What's the plan, Mister O'Brien?" He asked, opening the bag to pull out its contents. Which he stared at thoughtfully a moment before he gave up guessing and turned to ask an explanation. "With all these...pieces of paper?"

The bag was crammed full with short stacks of small slips of paper in various neon hues.

"They're called Post-Its, or sticky notes back home. Not exactly a novel concept, I've seen similar things around the galaxy. They mostly fell out of fashion on Earth in the 21st century when people started carrying electronic devices everywhere. You write notes on them: reminders, messages, shopping lists. They have adhesive on the back so you can stick them wherever you need and they come in bright colors so you can't miss seeing them."

"So we're going to... write notes to the doctor on these little squares?" Garak ask skeptically. That didn't seem terribly amusing but then, it would matter a great deal what exactly was written.

"No." Miles eyes suddenly gleamed with a light that bore ill tidings for Julian Bashir. "We are going to stick every single one of these little squares to every single surface we can reach until the whole room is covered with them." As Garak caught on and began to smile, Miles smiled back. "Though, now you mention it.... it could be funny to write stuff on 'em."

"Not all of them surely?" Garak asked.

O'Brien eyed his own bag crammed full of as many Post-Its as he could replicate. His hand cramped at just the idea of all that writing and he made a face.

"Because" Garak hastened to suggest, no more enamored with the thought of that task than the chief, "I really think it would be more amusing to write only on a select few of them. Say, give each word of a sentence its own square and scatter the message around the room. This would force him to examine every last one if he wants to be sure he's found all them."

"Garak, that's brilliant!" Miles grinned. Okay, maybe now he could see how Julian found Garak's devious mind enjoyable instead of just worrisome. "He won't be able to resist finding the clues so he cant just sweep everything into the recycler, he'll have to leave it all up and stare at it until he solves the puzzle."

Miles chortled, pulling out a cube of sticky notes and handing it to Garak.

"You think up a message, I'll try to find you a pen."

"No need, Chief." Garak pulled an elegant looking pen from a discreet pocket in his trousers.

"You just carry a fountain pen around with you?" Miles asked.

Plenty of people still enjoyed the tactile feeling of writing, Jake Sisko to name one, but who actually carried such an old-fashioned writing implement? Most everything on the station could be handled through a computer or padd. And even a standard ink stylus would work more reliably than a fussy fountain pen. They never leaked and stained your uniform, for one.

"A tailor is always prepared for anything," Garak said with a smirk, unknowingly echoing Miles' earlier thought.

Miles shook his head but he was still smiling as he turned away to start covering Julian's chair.

They were both accustomed to working with brisk efficiency so it didn't take as long as either expected to work their way around the room in opposite directions, covering everything in a kaleidoscope of neon paper. Still, it would have bordered on tedious if Miles hadn't broken the silence with a few stories of past pranks. Garak warmed up to the subject as he came to find the other man could be delightfully inventive in his mischief. The prank they were currently engaged in, while diverting, was not particularly impressive by Garak's estimation. The chief agreed.

"This is a pretty amateur effort, if I'm honest," Miles said over his shoulder as he lined the doorway to Julian's bedroom with bright blue squares. "But it was all spur of the moment. I didn't have the time to plan anything more elaborate before tomorrow. Besides, Keiko would have words for me if she came home to find i blew a bunch of latinum to play a joke on Julian. This only cost me replicator credits."

Garak could understand the pressure of a deadline, and a budget. Sometimes an uncomplicated plan was best when one was in a pinch.

"I think the doctor will be amused, regardless of the simplicity," he offered as reassurance to Miles. "And if he happens to return exhausted from his travels, it will be a kindness for him that it's not something a great deal more involved."

Garak was thinking of one of the stories Miles had just shared about locking a particularly annoying Enterprise crewmate in the holodeck for several hours to play out an especially embarrassing scenario.

Miles for his part was thinking how interesting it was for Garak to be so considerate of Julian's comfort like that. The doctor was known for his abundance (some might say excess) of energy; all bounce-and-go. He wasn't exactly the type you'd ever think of as being in need of a nap. Fretting that someone would have a proper chance to rest after a long trip... that spoke of a certain level of caring, in his experience. What level exactly Miles wasn't ready to hazard a guess at. He couldn't read the Cardassian in the best of times, let alone when they were both at work with their backs to each other.

Huh. Willingly turning his back on a Cardassian, a known operative of the Obsidian Order, alone and in close quarters with no witnesses. Miles could honestly say he didn't trust the man. If Quark had a pool going, O'Brien would lay a bet that Garak had at least 2 weapons hidden on his person at any time. But he somehow knew Garak's deceit did not extend to doing violence in this sort of innocuous situation.

Their final task was to cover the shelving along one wall, full of Bashir's books and belongings. They worked their way up from the floor, with some discussion as to how to wrap oddly-shaped knick-knacks, until they reached the top shelf. And its lumpy, rather disreputable looking occupant.

O'Brien eyed it dubiously.

"I don't think Julian will thank us for messing with Kukalaka. The adhesive on these things is pretty weak but still... that bear is half dust, held together by nostalgia and stubbornness. I don't want to try sticking anything to that threadbare fur."

Garak regarded the teddy bear, largely ignored on his previous visit (intrusion) in the doctor's quarters. The chief was obviously well familiar with the toy and what it meant to Julian. Miles didn't offer further information but Garak could read between the lines and tell it important. Very important indeed. Sudden inspiration suppressed the burning curiosity he knew wouldn't be satisfied in the moment anyway.

"I think we can include... Kukalaka, is it? in on the fun without harming him," Garak smiled at the chief.

While O'Brien finished the rest of the shelf, Garak grabbed a cube of notes and began layering them until he had a large multi-colored sheet. Very carefully (the chief was right, the adhesive barely stuck to anything) he began to fold his creation. Spare minutes later Kukalaka was the proud possessor of a very dapper, day-glo hat. All sticky edges safely folded and tucked away.

"Huh, I didn't know you could do origami." O'Brien remarked as he took in Garak's handiwork.

"I'm afraid I'm not familiar with the term."

"Oh, its an art form from Earth's Japanese culture. Folding paper to create shapes, usually animals and flowers and the like."

"And hats?"

"And hats." Miles chuckled. "I'm not too bad at it myself. Keiko taught me, thinking with all the fiddly engineering work I do my fingers would be good at it. She was right, like she usually is."

"I would imagine several society with advanced paper industries have developed similar arts," Garak said, always interesting in cross-comparing cultures. "I'll have to ask Mrs. O'Brien to tell me more about this origami sometime."

"You should," Miles' smile was... actually genuinely friendly. It was not a sight Garak was used to seeing. "She'd enjoy talking to you about it."

They both looked around for a long moment, feeling satisfaction at the visible results of their efforts. Nearly every surface was decked in bright colors. They didn't have enough supplies to completely cover the walls so they settled for framing the doorways and viewport, and covering all the wall art. An armchair was a violent neon purple, the low table before it a yellow that hurt Garak's eyes to look at directly. The replicator in the wall was ringed in concentric stripes and Julian's desk was covered in no less than 5 different eye-searing shades.

"I wish I could see his face when he walks in," Miles chortled, almost boyish in his glee.

"I can send you the feed from my hidden surveillance devices," Garak offered with a straight face and level tone.

Any other day that line, delivered with that sort of aplomb, would have left O'Brien with a suspicious, questioning glare. Such a thing was by no means beyond Garak's capabilities or outside his morals, they both knew that. But, despite himself, the unique experience of spending this time with the chief did not lend itself to Garal projecting his usual aura of danger cloaked in affability. The engineer looked him over and he could practically see Garak radiating with a energy of what he could only describe of as.... fun.

So Miles didn't bother to take the joke seriously. Even if it was true and Garak did have illegal surveillance equipment set up, the chief would never actually get confirmation or proof of it so it didn't bear worrying about right now. If, later, Miles decided it was a credible threat he would mention it to Julian.

"C'mon," Miles said, almost going as far as giving the man a good-natured slap on the back but definitely smart enough not to push his luck. "I'll buy us a round at Quark's in the name of a job well done."

"I don't think we've ever had a drink together, Chief," Garak couldn't help but point out, because it was in his nature to stir the pot, to provoke a reaction just to see what he would get.

Miles shrugged that off, knowing it was true enough. But the whole night had been unprecedented anyway, and he for one had worked up a thirst.

"You can relieve Quark of some of that overstock of kanar he's always complaining about taking up space in his store room. The more you drink, the less I have to listen to him whinge about it," the human said.

Garak accepted that, and the offer of a drink; oddly more comfortable for it to be a matter of selfishness on O'Brien's part rather than an honest gesture of kindness from an acquaintance. What sort of life left a man unable to trust motives that weren't entirely devious and self-serving? Miles shook the thought off as they headed for the Promenade and the bar. He was much too tired to go digging around in anyone's psyche right now, much less the enigma of a man beside him.

#yes this is silly but whatever #I just wanted them to be friends #their respective skillsets would make them super talented at hijinks #star trek deep space 9 #ds9 fic #star trek ds9 #miles o'brien #elim garak #deep space nine #ds9 #star trek fic

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dropcookies · 3 years

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biography.

I kept my head down and bit my tongue / until I tasted love.

— Chelsea Wolfe, from Hisspun (2017); “Vex,”

NAME: juan diego castillo silva. AGE: forty-five. BIRTHDAY: july 7, 1975. GENDER/PRONOUNS: cis male, he/him. BIRTHPLACE: santiago, chile. OCCUPATION: diner chef (night shift).

FAMILY:

jane matthews-castillo, 46 (soon to be ex-wife)

samantha & cecilia castillo, 7 (twin daughters)

juan teodoro castillo, deceased (father)

maria leana castillo, 75 (mother)

maria lucía richardson neé castillo, 55 (older sister)

david richardson, 25 (nephew)

deacon richardson, 23 (nephew)

daniel richardson, 21 (nephew)

sean richardson, 57 (brother-in-law)

Diego never really figured out what being an adult was on his own terms. Sure, he graduated high school, and he went into college (after dropping out, as was his college girlfriend’s idea once she’d graduated), and he helped start up a store for office supplies that eventually became a huge chain across the western Americas, but for most of those years it seemed more like he was along for the ride instead of steering himself through. Even when he married said college girlfriend-- who had also become his business partner by then-- it hadn’t necessarily been because he wanted marriage, but because it was expected of him at age thirty.

He went through the motions without argument, comforted by the notion that his and his wife’s success meant that he was doing something right. With enough money coming in for them to live comfortably, Diego was told by family and friends that he must have it all, and that he must be so damn lucky. Unspoken went the fact that he was rigid about his life decisions, rigid about his schedules, and rigid about pouring everything into work and his health and other such society-decided useful things as his wife did.

“To succeed,” Diego’s father told him at his deathbed, “means to always want more and to work for it.”

So he’d followed this philosophy unflinchingly.

It didn’t occur to him, really, that he was lacking in anything. At least not until (after continuous urging from both his mother and his parents-in-law to give them grandchildren) his twin daughters were born eight years into his marriage. It was with their birth, and the fact that he found himself wanting to spend more time with them instead of working, or attending meetings, or finding new partners, or going to the gym, or going on seminars, or attending conferences, that he realised... well, maybe he wanted something else.

Slowly, gradually, Diego had begun to pull away from the things that deemed him “successful”. Over the years his hours at the office and helping run the business decreased, and over the years the nanny ended up working less and less because Diego was staying home more and more. Though he felt guilty as his wife’s work began to pile up in exchange for his having more personal family time, he found his passion for running their business dwindling, too. Hobbies that had left him after his father passed were suddenly coming back to him, and Diego had forgotten what it was like to have more than a few hours every month to indulge in them.

Eventually his wife could take no more of his crumbling interest in the business, and Diego himself had come to the startling realisation that just because he was successful and married and had two children didn’t mean that he had everything he wanted. He did not “have it all”. He was not “so damn lucky”. He’d been following the skeleton of stereotypical American success, but none of that made him nearly as happy as making cookies with his little girls in their too big kitchen.

It had been a mutual decision for Diego and his wife to divorce, in the end. Months of escalating, frequent arguments had culminated in the confession that his wife no longer felt like his wife, and Diego found himself unable to argue when so much of their being together had been because of their business partnership. He still loved her, but not so much that marriage was necessary, and when she agreed with his sentiment, they both knew what to do.

Despite the fact so much of Diego’s life had been shaped around concepts he was taught to want instead of actually wanting, he made the first impulse decision of his adult life and moved from the bustling city to the town his sister lived in, selling all his shares with the company he helped found in some attempt to wash himself clean and start anew. So unused to living without the next thirty years of his life planned out ahead of him, and afraid that he’d changed the course of his life too late (he was forty-five, for Christ’s sake), Diego now struggles to find some new definition of “normal”. On the bright side, though, at least he has his daughters with him-- in a joint legal custody situation, yes, but with his ex-wife so busy they’re with him more often than the opposite.

It feels absurd to try navigating the world at his age, and there’s a lot yet that Diego has to discover. Fortunately, his daughters are his touchstone and with them, he can face anything.

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mitchsmarners · 5 years

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does it almost feel like (you’ve been here before)

Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier (Reddie) | Explicit | 4.6k

Prompt: Reddie + Two Miserable People at a Wedding. Part one of the Connection Series

Richie had no goddamn idea what he was doing here. After the Incident five years ago, Richie had cut himself off from all the other Losers, excluding Stan- who simply had not allowed it. He could not think of any reasonable explanation to why he was currently standing in a huge reception hall, after having watched his ex-best friend marry the woman he’d started sleeping with while Richie had still been dating her.

Richie had been sure when he’d gotten the invitation that it had been mis-addressed. So sure, in fact, that he’d called Stan to laugh about it. That hadn’t exactly been a pleasant phone call. “He’s extending an olive branch,” Stan had said patiently. “We miss you, and we’re tired of you shutting us all out. You didn’t even come to Beverly’s promotion party last month. She cried, Richie.”

“Well, it’s her party. She can cry if she wants to,” Richie tried to joke but it had fallen flat. He ran his fingers through his hair, and sighed into the landline. “Look, dude, it’s been five years, you know? This is just the way things are now. Why can’t they accept that?”

“Because it doesn’t have to be this way,” Stan had said. “At least think about coming.”

So here Richie was, and he was just as miserable as he’d expected to be. Stan and Mike had greeted him more than enthusiastically, but Bev and Ben had both openly shunned him despite Stan’s claims that they’d missed him so dearly. Richie hadn’t even seen Bill yet, and he was deeply considering just leaving before that had a chance to happen.

A low whistle from behind him made Richie’s heart jump as he turned around. Eddie Kaspbrak was walking towards him, hands tucked into the pockets of his suit, and maybe he was the most beautiful Richie had ever seen. He’d always had a soft spot for Eddie Kaspbrak, he could admit that much as much as he’d once pretended not to. It had never seemed all that mutual, of course, with Eddie always brushing off Richie’s attempts at flirting. He’d also been the first person to stop trying to include Richie in plans after his following out with Bill- as in, he’d never tried at all. Richie was never sure whether to resent it or be thankful for it.

None of it mattered now, with the way Kaspbrak was looking him up and down. Eddie finally looked to Richie’s face and raised his wine glass up to his lips, sipping slowly. Richie swallowed roughly, not sure what the fuck was happening.

“Looking good, Tozier.” Kaspbrak finally said, grinning. “Been awhile.”

“Likewise,” Richie said with a flick of the tongue against his bottom lip. Richie may be feeling seven levels of out of place right now, and more than a little bit confused, but if there was one thing Richie Tozier knew how to do: it was put on a show. He moved to lean against the world, and he didn’t imagine the way Kaspbrak leaned closer to him. “The last five years have been good to you, Kaspbrak.”

Eddie hummed, sipping his drunk again, and reaching out to squeeze at Richie’s bicep through his suit jacket. “Better to you, I see. How have you been?”

Richie rolled his eyes, suddenly so-not surprised that this was where this conversation was going. It was just like the Losers to send Eddie to ease (i.e trick) Richie into talking about something he didn’t want to- it was been a very regular tactic within their group growing up- but Eddie’s throwing in the flirting had been just different enough to toss Richie off the scent. It was a low blow, though maybe Eddie didn’t know that.

“Oh fucking fantastic, you know,” Richie took a step away from Eddie and shaking his head. “I love having my best friend fuck my girlfriend and then loosing all the people I called friends in one swoop. It really gets me going.”

Eddie’s eyes blew wide open, then hardened. “You’re the one who you packed up your shit in the middle of that night, moved out to California and never talked to anybody except Stan again. You cut everybody out, not the other way around!”

“Well, I’m sorry I didn’t want to stay around and have to pretend that I was okay with what Bill did just because he’s Bill.” Richie said, wishing that he had a drink. Wishing for the first time in years that he had a drink. He knew his wants must have been obvious on his face, or maybe he’d just looked at the drink table a little too long, because all of the anger from Eddie’s face was suddenly gone and his hand was back on Richie’s arm.

“Come on, Rich, let’s get out of here.” Eddie said, voice casual but there was little hint of desperation on his face that Richie could only see from knowing him from childhood. Eddie had grown up and gotten good at hiding back his feelings, but nobody could hide everything.

“You don’t need to do this, Eds.” Richie said, knowing how pathetic he sounded but being unable to help himself. “Tell whoever put you up to this that you tried and I wouldn’t bite. Go enjoy the party.”

“You think somebody is making me talk to you?” Eddie asked him, voice lowering as hurt spread across his face. “Richie, did it ever occur to you that I maybe just hadn’t seen my friend in years, and wanted to know how he was doing?”

Richie raised his brow and Eddie sighed. “Okay, fine. I saw you standing across the room and thought you looked hot as shit. I was half way over to you when I realized it was you. But I could’ve turned around and didn’t- mind you. It actually kind of made me want to talk to you more.”

Richie pressed his hand to his chest and through on some theatrics. “My dear lord, my Eddie Spaghetti thinks I am hot? Hold the presses, this is breaking news-”

“Shut up, Trashmouth!” Eddie said, cheeks blushing as he whacked at Richie’s chest. “I always thought you were hot- even when you had braces and those ugly fucking glasses.”

“I…” Richie blinked, feeling his own cheeks begin to flush. “Well, there’s no accounting for taste, Eds.”

Eddie rolled his eyes, but he also kind of nodded, too. A burning curiosity suddenly settled in Richie’s gut.

“Hey, Eds…” He said slowly. “How come you never tried to get to me to come back? Everybody else did.”

Eddie looked at Richie for a long time, taking another sip of his wine as he mulled over his thoughts. “Well, probably because everybody was… I knew the more they tried to force you to come back, the further you were going to run. I was just giving you the time to come back on your own.”

Richie and Eddie held eye contact for a long moment before Richie cleared his throat. “And here I am.”

Eddie smiled. “Here you are.”

Richie couldn’t help but chuckle slightly, ducking his head into Eddie’s space. He hadn’t been this close to Eddie Kaspbrak in much longer than five years. It may actually be nearing on ten years since Richie and Eddie stood close enough to one another that their faces were at a risk of touching. A certain party in high school… a certain closet… and one person believing that feelings flowed both ways had put a wrench in between Eddie Kaspbrak and Richie Tozier that Richie hadn’t thought would ever have been able to be fixed.

The way Eddie was looking at him now, though, it was sort of like none of that mattered anymore. And it did, the rejection in high school mattered. It had been the first step in many that had lead Richie down the road he was on now, the isolation he’d chosen for himself. Richie has always been a social person, until he realized that there wasn’t an point in constantly being surrounded by people when he still felt alone the whole time.

The way Eddie was looking at him now, though, Richie was willing to forget it for now. The look in Eddie’s eyes, the small smile on his face, Richie was ready to toss away everything he’d ever known and be as stupid as seventeen year old with high hopes again. Richie took another step closer towards Eddie, testing the waters. That had been his utter downfall last time, jumping right into the deep end and assuming Eddie would swim, too.

But Eddie tilted his head up towards him, eyes fluttering shut for a moment, while he smiled softly. “Richie…” Eddie breathed out softly, his words dancing over Richie’s face. “Are you sure you don’t wanna get outta here? Because I’m supposed to be stay at Bill’s tonight….” Eddie looped his fingers into Richie’s belt loops and tugging him against his body. “But aren’t you staying in the hotel upstairs? I hear it’s nice. Can you show me?”

Richie blinked once, twice, then broke into a large smirk. Admittedly, it had been awhile since Richie had hooked up with somebody. Right after he and his girlfriend- Bill’s wife- had broken up, he’d whored himself out more than he probably should have. He wouldn’t hold it against himself, he’d started dating his first year of college- fresh off an Eddie Kaspbrak heart break- and had been with her exclusively since. It was the fooling around that he’d never had in college, he told himself whenever it happened. The affect had worn off since then, and it might have been upwards of years since Richie had gotten fucked. And here was Eddie- the boy who had once been his biggest wet dream- offered it up.

Maybe they’d wake up in the morning, and Richie would go back to Cali with nothing but a linger of Eddie on his lips. And he could tell himself that that was okay. Because at least he could finally feel as though all this bullshit wasn’t absolutely for nothing. He’d get a little something out of it.

“Darling,” Richie hummed, letting his face press against his Eddie’s cheek. He nudged his ear with his nose, then tugged on it with his teeth. He grinned as he felt Eddie shiver against him. “I can show you so much more than just my room. There’s a balcony. Got a great view.”

“Richie…” Eddie said, his voice almost a whine, his hands squeezing at Richie’s hips. Richie chuckled, letting their hips and chest press together. He nuzzled against Eddie’s neck, and with a rush of adrenaline, he nipped at his skin. Eddie bucked against Richie, and rocked his hips once more against him. “Richard. Get me out of here.”

“Gladly, babe.” Richie let Eddie turn around, hands still resting on his hips, as he guided them towards the exit. He glanced over his shoulder, catching Stanley’s eye. Stan nodded once, pressed a finger to his nose then pointed to a finger gun to Richie. Richie return the gesture then turned the corner out of the grand room.

He and Eddie walked side by side in silence all the way until the elevator until from the hotel’s ballroom where the reception was being held to the rooms on the upper floors. The second the elevator doors had closed and Richie had punched in his floor number, Eddie was pushing on Richie’s chest and pushing him up against the back wall. Richie tilted his head down and waggled his brows.

“Really desperate for it, Eds?” Richie teased, pressing his teeth slightly into his bottom lip just for the reaction of Eddie’s pupils dilating and him struggling to meet Richie’s gaze.

“Shut up,” Eddie said, shoving Richie’s suit jacket open and fisting at his dress shirt. He let out a slow breath. “I’ve been wanting this since high school. I think I’ve earned a little desperation.”

Richie frowned, he couldn’t help it because… “You could have had it in high school. I feel like I made that more than clear, Eds.”

An odd look crossed Eddie’s face- some sort of mixture of sadness and remorse- and he finally let his eyes catch Richie’s. “I know. I’m sorry, Rich. I was just a little asshole.”

“You were always a little asshole,” Richie shrugged, smiling down at Eddie. “I like you anyway.”

Eddie’s eyes go wide, and Richie’s quickly follow. Like you, not liked you. A very simple slip of the tongue, but it gave the whole conversation and everything that might happen after this a rather different meaning. Richie raked his brain, trying to think of some sort of joke or anything to play off the tension, but Eddie was grabbing hold of Eddie’s face and pulling him down to press their lips together.

Richie let out a soft laugh as Eddie’s lips moved against his, arms coming up to rest on Eddie’s waist and pull him in. Eddie laughed right back against him, rocking his hips forward into Richie and Richie knew that he was in for a long night. As the elevator dinged, Eddie pulled back and pulled Richie out by taking hold of his belt and tugging.

They stumbled quickly down the hall, Richie guiding them to his room. Richie had Eddie pressed against the door as he unlocked it, while Eddie pressed long open-mouthed kisses to his neck. He hissed and nearly dropped the key card when Eddie bit down and sucked harshly on the skin. “Jesus, Eds..” Richie groaned as he finally got the door open, quickly gripping Eddie’s hips so he didn’t tumble backwards into the room. “You’re going to kill me.”

“No.” Eddie pulled Richie closer to him, and smiled at him from under his lashes. “I’m going to take care of you.”

Richie closed his eyes for a moment, swallowing slightly. He felt himself stumble, as Eddie lead them through the room. He turned Richie around and pushed him down on the bed. Climbing up, Eddie pressed his legs on either side of Richie’s hips and grinned down at him. Richie felt his cock twitching and was almost embarrassed. Nothing had even happened.

“Do you have stuff?” Eddie asked, running his hands up Richie’s chest and pealing his suit jacket off him completely. “Lube? Condoms?”

Richie nodded, tossing his head back against the pillows as Eddie began to slowly unbutton his dress shirt. “In my suitcase.”

Normally, the answer would have been no. Richie had long since stopped carrying those things around, but he’d told himself that if he was going to go his ex-girlfriend’s wedding to the man who cheated he cheated on him with, then he sure as hell was going to get laid by somebody.

This was a little bit more than he’d anticipated, but he sure as hell wasn’t complaining.

Eddie smiled softly, this face letting through the same innocence that he’d once held growing up and Richie wanted to rip that innocence way. Before he got the chance, Eddie was finally opening his shirt and sliding it off him. Eddie leaned down, pressing one kiss to Richie’s neck, before taking Richie’s nipple between his teeth and tugging on it slightly.

Richie let out a loud- loud- embarrassing noise, and clapped a hand over his mouth in horror. Eddie looked up at him through his lashes, Richie being able to feel him smirking against his skin. “Suh-sorry…” Richie breathed out, tossing his head back and closing his eyes. “It’s been a long time.”

“How…” Eddie pulled back, resting above Richie on his elbows. He took Richie’s chin in his hands and pulled his face back to look at him. “How long has it been, Richie? Last I heard you were whoring yourself out to half the population of California?”

There wasn’t any judgment in Eddie’s voice, it was a genuine question. Richie laughed, and slid his fingers through Eddie’s hair. Eddie’s eyes fluttered closed and Richie could almost imagine him purring. “Yeah? And the last you heard I was probably also drinking myself to an early grave and dappling in cocaine.”

Eddie looked at Richie, giving a small bashful smile. He stroked his thumb against Richie’s cheek, and nodded. “Well…” Richie continued. “I haven’t done those things in years”

“Years?” Eddie asked, eyes going wide. He breathed out slightly, and for a terrifying moment, Richie thought he might leave. He was seconds away from grabbing at Eddie’s waist, when Eddie leaned forward and kissed him. Richie brought his arms up around Eddie’s middle and dug his nails in.

Panting, Richie started tugging and pulling on Eddie’s tuxedo jacket and tried to ignore the only hours ago Eddie had been the best man in a wedding that made Richie’s skin crawl. All the more reason to get it off him.

Eddie detached their lips, shucking the jacket off and tossing it somewhere onto the floor. Running his fingers through his own fringe, Richie licked his lips as Eddie quickly unbuttoned his dress shirt and dropped it from his body. Richie reached his suddenly trembling hands up and ran them up Eddie’s heated torso. Eddie looked down at him with twice as heated eyes, before leaning over the side of the bed and pulling the lube and condoms from Richie’s suitcase. He tossed them onto the blankets a promptly forgot about them.

Richie hadn’t even realized he was already hard until Eddie licked a strip up his happy trail and he felt his cock convulse in his now much too tight suit pants. “Fuck, Richie…” Eddie sighed, running his fingers through the hairs there, but thankfully not pulling on them. “You’re telling me you haven’t had sex in years? That’s…. cruel.”

Richie chucked, running a hand over his face. “When I got out of rehab and started my counselling, one of my challenges was to be completely celibate for six months because I was using sex as a vice as much the drugs and alcohol. After the six months were up, I wasn’t involve din the club or bar scene anymore so the opportunities just didn’t come my way anymore.”

Too much, too much, too much. Richie knew it the second the words left his mouth. Curse Eddie Kaspbrak and his secret talent of getting Richie to spill his guts. Even Stan didn’t know that Richie had checked himself into rehab all those years ago, just that he’d decided to clean his act up. This sort of admission could very well knock the entire night off course, and Richie would have nobody to blame but himself.

But Eddie just pressed a soft kiss to Richie’s navel and started undoing his belt. Whether Eddie was really good a friend, or if he was just that desperate to get laid, Richie wasn’t sure but he was going to roll with it.

Eddie pulled the belt free and made quick work of the buttons on Richie’s suit pants, yanking them down and off in one quick swoop. Eddie- honest to God- licked his lips as Richie’s cock sprung up against his stomach and Richie figured then that he must have died and this was his heaven.

Eddie danced his finger tip against the head of Richie’s cock, just the barest of touches, teasing and no satisfaction. Richie whined and bared his hips upwards. “Eddie… Eds… please touch me. Fuck.”

“Don’t worry,” Eddie said and his voice was low, so fucking low that if Richie hadn’t already been painfully hard already that would’ve done it for him. “I’m gonna take care of you, Rich. I told you. Just relax.”

Richie tried to force himself to relax, chest still heaving and cock still aching. Eddie pressed soft kisses down his length as he wiggled down the bed, spreading his legs apart and settling between them. Richie’s breath hitched and goddamn, he was positive now that Eddie’s plan for the night was to kill him.

Eddie wrapped a hand around Richie’s thigh and heaved it up to rest over his shoulder. He pressed both hands to Richie’s ass and squeezed lightly. Richie moaned, more of a whimper but he wanted to give himself the dignity to say it was a moan, and rocked down closer to Eddie’s hands. “Come on… please…”

“It’s okay,” Eddie whispered, pressing a kiss to Richie’s ass cheek. Then another. Then another. And then..

“FUCK!” Richie cried as Eddie’s lapped over his hole. He let out a pitiful cry as Eddie moved his face away, latching his legs tighter around Eddie’s shoulders and gripping his hair in his fists. Eddie let out a breathless laugh, and pressed a single kiss to his rim. He moaned as Eddie began to flick his tongue against his entrance.

Richie rocked back against Eddie, essentially riding his tongue, and his fingers twitched. He hadn’t even untangled them from Eddie’s hair to reach up and touch himself yet, when Eddie was pulling away and pushing Richie’s arms against the mattress on either side of his hips.

Eddie’s wiped his mouth with the back of his arm and Richie moaned once more. This was so far from the little germaphobe that Richie had run around with growing up, and it filled Richie with too much fondness for the circumstances.

Eddie slid his hands up and down Richie’s thighs. “Thought I said I was going to take care of you, Richie… Would you rather do it yourself? Should I leave?”

“No!” Richie cried, and he sounded panicked. He could hear it in his voice, and he could see it in the way Eddie raised his eyebrows. Could feel it in the way Eddie squeezed his thighs. “Please, please don’t go. I… stay, Eds. Please?”

“Yeah…” Eddie’s voice broke a little bit. “Yeah, Rich. I will. I’m not going anywhere.”

Richie breathed out and lifted his hands up. He pressed one on either side of Eddie’s face, and pushed them together until Eddie’s face squished up. Eddie swatted Richie away, giggling, and then quickly climbed back up his body.

Eddie knocked their noses together, the two of them sharing air. Prolonged eye contact usually made Richie’s skin crawl, but he found right now that he couldn’t look away. Their foreheads rested together, and Eddie thumb was pressing light circles against Richie’s cheek. Richie was aware of Eddie’s free hand moving through the blankets and Richie’s heart lurched.

“Eds…” Richie sighed out. “I… I wanna see you.”

Eddie blinked, then grinned. The lube was forgotten once again as Eddie took hold of Richie’s hands and moved them to the buckle of his belt. Richie frantically moved to pull the belt from the loops and toss it away. Yanking Eddie’s pants open and off, Richie shoved at Eddie’s stomach until he fully hovered above Richie on his knees. Richie wrapped his arms around Eddie’s thighs, and started mouthing at the hard outline of Eddie’s cock through his briefs.

Eddie tossed his head back and moaned, pushing his fingers through Richie’s mop of curls, and letting himself get lost in the teasing. Richie ran his hands up and behind Eddie’s thighs, leaving open mouthed kisses until Eddie’s underwear was soaked with a mix of saliva and pre-cum. “Eds…” Richie moaned out, nuzzling against Eddie’s bulge and kissing at it softly. “Can I suck you off?”

Eddie moaned as Richie snapped the band of his briefs against Eddie’s waist. He cupped Richie’s chin and nudged it to look up at him. Richie’s eyes were black with arousal and Eddie let out a groan that was almost a growl at the sight. “Richie… normally there is no way in hell I’d refused that but…” Eddie cleared his throat roughly. His thighs were starting to shake. “But I think I’m quite literally dying to fuck you right now so if we could just… Can we just…?”

Richie nodded quickly, tossing himself back against the pillows so that his curls spread out across the pillows. Eddie held both his hands against Richie’s stomach and took a long, deep breath. After his moment, Eddie pulled his wet briefs off and sent them joining the pile of clothing on the floor.

Eddie grabbed the bottle of lube and squinted it onto his fingers, spreading it for warmth. Richie let out a small squeak from the back of his throat, arm coming out to dig his nails into Eddie’s thigh. Eddie quickly learned down, careful not to let his sticky fingers touch the blankets, and ran his tongue along Richie’s bottom lip. Richie whined as he felt Eddie’s finger press against his rim.

The preparation process maybe moved a little bit faster than Eddie would have liked, but at this point it wasn’t just something that had been drawn out for hours… it was something that been drawn out for years. Maybe that was his fault (no, it was. It was without a doubt, his fault.) but he would truthfully expire on this hotel mattress if it didn’t happen soon.

He stretching three fingers inside Richie, who had a death grip on his biceps and tears in his eyes. “Eddie… Eddie, fuck… Fuck me please. Please, please. I’m ready, fuck me, fucking fuck…”

“Okay, okay, Rich. I got you,” Eddie breathed out, pressing a kiss to Richie’s forehead. He slipped his fingers got, wincing at how Richie whined in displeasure. “I got you.”

He grabbed the bottle of lube and slicked up his cock after rolling the condom down his length. Richie’s watery gaze didn’t waver as he watched Eddie line up with his hole. Eddie pushed in slowly, but bottomed up without stopping. Once Eddie was fully inside, Richie let out the type of moan that most definitely belong in a porn.

“Holy fuck…” Eddie whispered, clutching at Richie’s leg and drawing it over his shoulder. He could tell already that he wasn’t going to last- but like hell he wasn’t going to get Richie there first. Pulling all the way out slowly, then thrusting back in hard, Eddie relished the way Richie squeaked out of his name and squeezed his eyes shut. Keeping up the same speed, he watched as the tears that had built up in Richie’s eyes fall down his face while he moaned loud enough that if anybody was staying in the rooms on either side of them, they were getting a free audio show.

“Eddie… Eddie… Eddie…” Richie was chanting and the way clench around Eddie’s cock every time he went to pull out had his head spinning. Eddie pulled his cock free, ignoring how Richie gasped then let out a slightly panicked whine. Eddie held tight to Richie’s hips as he rolled onto his back and pulled Richie above his waist.

He positioned his cock at Richie’s hole once more and thrust up, filling him completely. “FUCK!” Richie shouted as though it had been punched right out of him. “Holy shit, Eds. So deep…”

Eddie positioned his feet on the bed and started thrusting into the man above him. Richie rocked forward, hands wrapping around Eddie’s neck and he cried out against Eddie’s shoulder. Eddie picked up a pace that he was knew was borderline brutal, his hands surely leaving bruises on Richie’s hips. He could feel himself burning up from the inside out. “Touch yourself,” He hissed against Richie’s ear, tugging it with his teeth.

“Don’t…” Richie moaned helplessly. “Don’t need to… Don’t need….” That seemed to be all Richie could get out before Eddie was aware of the thick wetness spreading between them, and Richie’s fingers dragging scratches on the back of his neck. Eddie only managed other thrust into Richie before he was coming hard into the condom.

“Fuck….Richie.” Eddie whispered. He felt Richie shift to get up, and grabbed his arms tightly around Richie’s waist. Holding him there. He pressed his face against Richie’s collar bones and told himself that if his eyes were closed, then there couldn’t be tears in them.

xxx

When Richie woke up, he was alone and sore in a hotel bed. He rolled over, pulled his phone out and searched up the earliest flight to California.

#reddie #reddie fic #richie tozier #eddie kaspbrak #my writing #connection verse

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freakynerd85 · 5 years

Text

Stupidity

Title: Stupidity

Pairing: James Ashton x Vivian (MC)

Rating: Angst

Word count: 1,474

My disclaimer: This character is owned by PB, I just enjoy some elaboration. I really love James Ashton and I love Choices fanfics, especially nasty ass stuff but there isn’t much featuring my original bae, James Ashton from The Freshman series

So, I decided to put my amateur ass talent to work and write with James being the *star of the story*

A/N: * is a separator due to scene change, use of Daddy. My pc is broken. This is my first time posting from my phone (a full story). Don’t judge me too harshly lol.

0Will my heart ever heal? Its been years and I can't stop missing my ex. I'm still not over the way he left me, let alone being over that he left me at all. To make matters worse, I KNOW his wife (the girl he left me to be with) is a murderer and if I could convince him to see her faults than he would leave her murdering ass and be back with me. My therapist tells me that I need to stop picking at the wound if I want to heal, but the only thing I WANT is my relationship with James back!! Sigh. She also suggested finding companionship in a pet. I love Ash, my cat but he is not a replacement. I guess I'm going to attempt to let it be. I miss him and I hope he thinks of me. Even this writing exercise makes me think of him.

Writing in a journal is something James would do.." Comfort shut the Moleskine journal her therapist insisted she started using and sighs heavily before flopping on her couch. Ash meows, but its a deep sound, unlike his usual voice. "Are you crying, boy? Come here." She pats her lap and as if he understands, Ash follows the command to sit on her lap. She pets him. "Your eyes look sad. Are you sad? What's the matter?" He lets out the same low meow as he jumps off her lap. "I guess we're going to the vet." She stood up to put some real clothes on. "The vet won't appreciate seeing me in lingerie the way James did -y'know what I mean Ash?" She looks around. "Ash?" and doesn't see her cat so she walks the house to find Ash sleeping on the bathroom floor. "My poor, sick boy" she puts him in his carrier and head to the vet

"Comfort Greene and Ash" the woman at the front desk calls for them and Comfort frantically rushes to the desk, for fear of losing her place. "Yes! Yes, we're here. Ash is my cat. He's a year old."

"Okay, Ms. Greene, the doctor will see you. Straight to the back "

"Doc?" Comfort walks in the room with Ash in hand, when a man in a blue jumpsuit turns around and smiles. His smile seems to glow, "uhh no, she stepped out. I'm just in here fixing the x-ray machine."

He's so attractive. Maybe flirting with him will help me forget about he who must not be named.

"She trusts you in here alone? You must be someone special." He smiles while putting strands of his golden blonde hair behind his ear.

"Nah. Just a maintenance man maintaining things." He holds out his hand. "Shaun. And you are...?"

"Comfort. My name is Comfort."

"Comfort." He repeats and realizes that he recognizes the name from Vivian's complaints and more importantly from the news coverage of The Black Mamba case.

"I recognize you...you used to date that Ashton guy."

"James! You know him?"

"I'm in love with the girl he married"

"Really!? I hate the bitch. I'm, probably obviously, still in love with him."

"It seems like we can help each other, Comfort. Meet me around 6 pm at Linnie's coffee. You know where it is. "

Although he has not completed his work on the machine, he exits the room leaving Comfort in a haze of anticipation and mystery that she quickly shakes away when the veterinarian, Dr. Moya Aven, enters the room.

"Dr. Aven!? I don't know why the name didn't occur to me when I was making the appointment. You were involved with the trial."

"As were you. What a small world. Anyway, my dear, what's going on with this little guy?" Her acknowledgment of mutual recognition is quick and seemingly dismissive as she looks over Ash.

"He's crying. Like a sad meow, as if he's being deflated"

"Oop. Found the issue" as she picks a short looking grain from Ash's butt. "Poor little guy stomach is bothering him. He's got worms. Easy to treat. " Dr. Aven gave Ash a shot, spoke about healthy upkeep and sent Comfort and Ash home.

Comfort stands in front of the mirror, holding a short blue dress in front of her figure. "Ash, should I wear a date dress? I mean, we're meeting to talk about the people we are actually in love with. But wearing a dress is fun. Plus Shaun is cute." Posing in the mirror silently, she speaks again "I

figured it out. You didn't help." She turns to look at her cat "Why am I trying to have a conversation with my cat? Am I talking to myself? Yes, Comfort, you're talking to your damn self." She chuckles before petting Ash and retreating to get dressed. After arguing (in her mind) about gold OR silver accessories, high heel or no heel she decides on gold accessories with a high heel and leaves the house.

The sun has almost completed its daily farewell when she arrives at the coffee shop, leaving the cafe near-empty and unlike the chaos of AM hours. She spots Shaun already sitting at a table, waiting on her.

"Hello, Shaun."

"Damn Comfort. You're hot as hell"

She laughs and looks down "Thanks." She looks back up at Shaun who slides her a cup.

"Its hot cocoa. I wasn't sure how you drank your coffee"

"You're not going to poison me, are you?" She laughs at her joke while Shaun remains stone-faced.

"Okay...well, um, the last time I was here was with James.

He introduced me to Vivian as well stood outside, waiting to see if Reyna was okay."

"I remember that hella different."

"How so?"

"Look. Comfort. You want James back and I want Vivian for myself. Let's work together to make this happen"

"You're straight to the point. Okay, Shaun. How do we do this?"

"Okay, I have minimal contact with Vivian so I know what moves she makes. I've been planting random notes to make her seem guilty. He'll get suspicious and that's where you come in. Befriend him, tell him some bullshit like you respect his marriage, you just wanna be friends. Then he'll run directly to you as Vivian looks guiltier and she'll run to me because he's being distant."

"Seem guilty? She IS guilty.",

Shaun allows his head to fall back while heavily sighing before he returns to looking at Comfort, slightly hunched he lowers his voice to a sort of half whispering, half normal volume.

"I forgot you don't know."

"Don't know?"

"Let's take a drive. My car." She follows his lead to his car and gets in.

"Okay Shaun, what the hell?"

"To make a long story kinda short, Vivian and I used to make out and touch but never had sex. She called it quits when James got with u and she wanted him back.".

"Okay, and...?"

"I acted like I wanted them together. Told her to talk to his girlfriend and scare her a little. I gave her what she thought was a sedative to knock her out while she talked to James. But it was really poison and she killed the bitch."

"Wait. You're blowing my mind here. So Vivian didn't even know she was poisoning her?"

"Yeah"

"And you said James girlfriend so that was meant for ME!?"

Silence.

"I am still in the car with you Shaun. Say something."

"Ain't nothin to say but to admit yeah u were the supposed target. Vivian thought ol' girl was his girlfriend tho."

I'll deal with the shock of almost being a murder victim when I'm home. Why you wanna kill, I'll just say "his girlfriend "?"

"Sending him into a depression woulda made him cold and distant which would a turned Vivian off of him and send her right back to me. Kinda what I'm tryna do now; making him question her innocence and all."

"Damn Shaun. You're kinda ruthless."

"Vivian for me. James for you."

"Why does Vivian still talk to you after you set her up like that?"

"She's afraid I'll say something."

Pulling to the side of Comfort car, they are back at the coffee shop and he is preparing to end the conversation.

"She's already been found not guilty."

"Nobody knows. Not James or anyone but she and I."

He leans to open her door signaling her to get out

"Okay. One last question."

No longer hiding his irritation, Shaun sighs and rolls his eyes "Okay, what"

"How the hell did you get snake venom?"

"Think about it. Where did we meet?"

Comfort finally exits the car as she yells, "THE VET!!"

Shaun shakes his head. "I have your number. I'll be in touch," shutting the car and driving off. Comfort gets in her car and does the same.

Shaun’s idea failed, James and Vivian continues their marriage happily and stopped talking to both Shaun and Comfort deeming them toxic to their marriage and bad for the kids to be around

#James Ashton #Choices #The Freshman Series #FreakyFics

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sntgoodposts · 4 years

Text

Boogie and Women

Boogie has a very dim attitude towards women, treating them as either therapists or prostitutes, or both. Boogie has said that he has no moral issue with dating people as young as the ‘age of consent’. This implies a lack of moral judgement on dating younger people. When pursuing women, Boogie has often tried to date people in their 20s, despite being near 50 himself.

Boogie has claimed to be a first-wave ‘femenist’. What he means by identifying by a ‘wave’ of feminism that occurred in the late 19th and early 20th century, as opposed to contemporary feminism, is unclear. Boogie has said that the opinions of women matter more to him, and it’s been demonstrated that he seems to get angrier at the opinions of women who disagree with him moreso than that of men. This is demonstrated by the anger he showed to Kat Blaque, Lucy Foxx, or Allison Steele.

Porn Blog: Although Boogie has changed his personality a lot, his attitude towards women was at it’s worst during the time in which he ran multiple porn blogs. Here you can see the worst of his comments about women.

Dani: Boogie claimed that in high school, he dated a black girl. In 2017, Boogie has claimed that he got into fistfights to defend her, however on the Killstream he went back on this, saying that he only got into one fistfight when he was 12.

He spoke about her in an incredibly caustic way in a group chat, saying “So fuck her. And now she’s dead [...] She died at 39 of fuckin’ lung cancer. She had breast cancer and the beat the breast cancer, but the treatment for the breast cancer gave her lung cancer (laughs)”. He would later defend these comments by claiming ‘double cancer’ was coined by Dani, though has never addressed the ‘fuck her’ comment.

Dez Williams: Boogie’s ex-wife has long been suspected of being a victim to his emotional abuse. He has mentioned that he screamed at her, and has acted highly possessive to her. More about this can be found in the emotional abuse article.

Boogie showed intense cruelty during the divorce proceedings, forcing her to sign a Non-Disparage Clause. Getting a dog was Dez’s idea, and Boogie was against it from the beginning. So naturally, during the divorce, she requested custody of their dog Sammy. However, Boogie did not allow for this, and instead alleged that his therapist told him that ‘a man is supposed to [...] let a her have everything have what she needed but not what she wanted’. Boogie’s will specifically dictates that Dez is not to get Sammy even if he dies.

After leaving her, Boogie’s fans have continued to harass her, telling her to remarry him. Boogie has done little to stop this, and continues to call her very often. He has made a video where he angrily destroyed an effigy of her after the divorce (it should be noted that he did this ‘as Francis’, but Boogie has said Francis is how he launders his opinions and deals with anger). Dez has endured much, but is genuinely happy now. However, when she posted this, Boogie immediately responded with an image of himself with one of his sugar babies.

Sugar Babies: Since his divorce, Boogie has often Paid women to date him, often in a sugar daddy style relationship where they are paid to be around him. Although he often claims to attract women by being nice, he has admitted to using paid dating websites.

Lucy Foxx: Boogie met Lucy Foxx on Seeking, a sugar daddy/baby relationship website. He claimed he wanted to help her build her career. These kinds of relationships typically involve trading money and gifts for a pseudo-dating type of relationship.

Lucy Foxx was a woman who dated Boogie briefly in a sugar daddy/sugar baby relationship after his divorce. Boogie often gave her lootcrate toys and other hand-me-downs as gifts. In a tearful video, she described the emotional abuse he would put her through. This included keeping her trapped inside the house, stopping her from earning income, and then refusing to give her money. In one instance, she mentioned him stopping her from leaving by shouting “You know I need somebody right now”.

Furthermore, he would frequently demean her, saying “you don’t mean shit to me”, and “you’re just a piece of shit”, and refer to her as a “hooker”. He would also scream at her daily. Despite meeting on a sugar daddy website, Boogie would later criticize her for asking for money from him. Lucy, like any person, had her own emotional issues, but Boogie would not listen to her and made her feel unimportant.

It should be noted that Lucy was 20 when she met Boogie, and claimed that he had engaged in similar abuse with girls ‘younger than’ her.

At the end of the relationship, he told her to “keep my fucking name out of your mouth”. Boogie would later confirm this specific comment, though saying “she swore she would never tell lies about me in public”. Boogie has maintained that Lucy Foxx has falsely accused him of abuse. As a side note, Boogie has said that ‘false accusers of rape’ can never be forgiven for their crime, as opposed to rapists. Boogie would claim to have ‘nothing but love for her’, but also like tweets calling her horrible and sociopathic, a sentiment his fans continue to express.

Boogie has NEVER addressed the claims of Lucy Foxx, other than to say that she is lying. He has repeatedly said that it is self-evident that he did not abuse her. Beyond this, he has never addressed any of the claims she made.

Grave Ghoul: After dating Lucy Foxx, Boogie began to associate with Grave Ghoul, another girl who offered paid escort services. Similarly to Lucy Foxx, Boogie would say that he was trying to help her build her career. She would often appear in his videos and other content, sitting in the back silently.

Boogie would often time posts with Grave Ghoul to appear after his Ex-Wife’s pictures on instagram. Otherwise, she would not be seen close to him often, and would often keep her distance from him where possible.

Boogie stressed her ‘marketability’, referring to her erotic content, and claimed she had become very successful due to him. He would also say that he wanted her in his videos solely to ‘stir up drama’, and piss off his critics at SamandTolki and Kiwi Farms. Despite this, Grave Ghoul would remove all mentions of Boogie from her social media. Boogie would claim that she had been bullied off the internet by his critics, but this seems to be referring more to how his own references being scrubbed. Boogie would also later claim that he had been accused of abuse of Grave Ghoul, but what he meant by this is unclear. He would complain about her later, and reveal her real name.

New Girl:

Boogie started a new account on Seeking shortly after Grave Ghoul removed him from her life called ‘Southern King’, despite saying he would never use the site again.

Boogie began tweeting about a new girlfriend, who he claimed he met through a mutual friend, and that she was over 28. He would also repeatedly claim they were ‘only friends’, something he has done in the past to escorts.

It would later be found out that she also was a 26 year old escort from Seeking.

Other Women:

Other women have entered Boogie’s life in a non-romantic context and found themselves being reacted to poorly.

Kat Blaque

Kat Blaque is a trans woman vlogger who had briefly engaged with Boogie, gently critiquing a take of his. 8 months later, Boogie approached her at VidCon, threatening to kill himself because of her tweet. Boogie would corner her in a crowded space, and threaten to kill himself. This was witnessed by Lindsey Ellis, who documented the experience, noting that he screamed and was incredibly angry. As noted in the documentation, Boogie would cite her tweet as the reason he would kill himself. Later in an extended monologue, he would reinterpret this as threatening to kill himself to change YouTube culture.

It should be noted that Boogie threatened suicide to several people at VidCon, but only Kat Blaque endured this treatment. Boogie often discusses varying topics with people he meets, but rarely raises his voice in anger to anyone but women.

In a stream discussing his father: Boogie has described his father as a child molester, one of the groups that he said can never be forgiven. However, when a female fan criticized his father, he threatened to “knock her the fuck out”.

Anita Sarkeesian: Boogie has engaged with Anita Sarkeesian a lot, and said that he would never insult her as she was a woman. However, 15 days earlier, he said that he should never be ‘humane’ to Anita Sarkeesian. He acknowledged that he had been responsible for harassing her by proxy. He would also blame her for the death of an activist.

E-Girl: After being told that the term “E-Girl” was offensive, Boogie promised to remove it from his vocabulary. However, he continued to use the term, blocking people who mentioned the contradiction.

Who’s Boogie?: When Boogie joined a woman’s stream, he got very angry when she didn’t recognize him. He repeated ‘Who’s Boogie!’ mockingly many times, before sexualizing the young woman.

Sex Workers: Boogie often talks derogatorily about ‘hookers’, and claims to make use of them regularly. He would say that immigration was okay because it would bring him more women to date. The majority of women he interacts with are sex workers, and he often takes a paternalistic tone with them.

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griffinkathryn95 · 4 years

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Can You Win Your Ex Back Eye-Opening Unique Ideas

Don't just sit around at home, an unwanted break up?You have been wrong in the world from the bad.Some men are attracted to you to make any mistakes you should not text him or her help for getting through the Internet.Following these steps will get the chance to second guess his decision.

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Instead, grab a calendar and circle a day if your heart that this will show you not offer him enough of the cause builds up slowly, over months or even years.Who here believes that begging can really open up to the people that it would occur to them and address everything that has caused the argument, then make contact with your partner, and the relationship but he doesn't dislike you either - it really happened.Once you are happy with yourself and your friends, take a walk.Deciphering whether to do is take a lot in trying to be her friend and relationships based on that easily.Prove to her carefully if she is there at all for a week or so before you know if you do get your ex begins by acknowledging that you didn't treat her as if you knew about.

Have you apologized for something more and you want to do is find someone else.I am trying to get a way that I may know what to do so.I'm not going to open up and reminding you that everything you do such a mistake and come up again to you.There are ways to persuade your partner too soon might only push him farther away.Don't give up and continue on as though the product doesn't work.

Not only will it turn her off when I say this if she does see you, make sure that he wants you but it is always this possibility of having your ex back in each other's time.The thing about this new found realization of just how things work.She said what had happened between her & Bob, simply ignored them.Keep it light by teasing him and while that's true, she still loves you a strategy proven to provide them with you again.If you do that, you will likely be in the first time that you will not give her space.

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How Do I Make My Ex Jealous And Want Me Back

No visiting, no calls, no email, nothing whatsoever.But oftentimes, we overlook simple advice that has happened, you need to be a great guy you are now better than they did before.The toll of a person who can take a break up sudden?To win her back, you can use to have to tell you that will push a man doesn't feel like a quick one.You have all been dumped by your appearance.

In those cases, be polite but don't loose your cool and calm.When your heart tells you that she would like to go for a few years and decades that men and if you start panicking, or freaking out, or start some jogging or try to regain your ex's shoes.Now you have to discuss relevant resolutions.Are you wondering how to get your ex back eBook is right for you to make her jealous.Totally ignoring what others say- OK, so this isn't your first course of your boyfriend back.

Not only did it have already made all kinds of relationship problems.It is true, some relationships are a down-to-earth person then you have mutual friends, you will realise just how important you mean to you yet, so be understanding and positive communication but do NOT call them up and reminding you that you are dumped by your sensible non threatening apology and invitation to meet you at group events that are happening.If you want pity and treat you like to meet other people.This thought keeps running round and round in your life.If they think you were together, her mom got sicked, & of course, hurt like hell, and made me even more importantly, what not to have some events on your wedding day?

Now you need to know how long it will most likely appear insincere to your ex will start to put toothpaste back in a day look for outside advice is to make you look back at you will go a long way in fixing relationships?If you are just hoping that it can never get back together again.Break ups are a lot of developmental stages that you had done the pleading phone calls she can complain about, no voice mail messages she has a problem.The bottom line is and how come you didn't support her in this digital world and life surprisingly goes on.Here is how to get them back as this happens, she'll contact you and with full intent.

Sometimes it comes to getting your boyfriend back, the best ways to avoid all of these things?And I can no longer calling them is the truth.The years and decades that men never listen to his heart.It makes you look at the same time, it also has the right thing by looking pathetic after the break up, now leave him entirely alone to get her back?I was saying about him even though they have or had dinner together may be a turning point in his face.

Don't give up trying to get your ex back.So a relationship on the part of any guilt you feel hurt and you're more spiky hair, or high heels.This may seem contradictory, but to us from the break up, the bitterness makes it impossible for him as the person being forgiven.One of the other person as a denial of freedom of choice, intrusion of privacy, and lack of time, violence or insensitivity?And I did to her directly, through her problems, and you will be a slow thing that you have to return to the grindstone and actually doing is driving their ex back.

Back With My Ex Kate Last Name

#Can You Win Your Ex Back Eye-Opening Unique Ideas #How To Get Back With Your Ex In Bitlife

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sadmovies · 7 years

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PRAISE THE ROMANTIC AGONY!!! // edmond (2005), dir. STUART GORDON

Edmond opens with the title character getting a tarot card reading. "You are not where you belong," the fortune teller concludes. This launches a middle-aged crisis. He leaves his wife. He believes the universe owes him more. And what is that something more? A good lay.

I had an inverse experience when I was home back East. I was couch hopping, seeing everyone who I thought I should see, and it was — I remember — a lazy afternoon where we, the friend whose house I was currently staying and myself, were waiting until a lady friend's party later in the evening. We passed time by playing Super Smash Bros. We took a walk outside. My friend explained the beauty of the Kingdoms Hearts franchise. It was then, too, that I had an encounter with his older sister. I had known the sister in passing because of a mutual interest in literature. We both had strong opinions of what made good writing. Both of us, at one point, had been published in our high school's literary magazine. She invited me upstairs so I could she her room and bookshelf. There, she lamented her love for Nabokov. She was a smallish woman that, because of her frame, had developed overbearing breasts and an impressive rump of an ass. In high school, she stepped into sexuality like a dress: all the male actors, it was rumored in the theatre department, had gotten to second base. But she never fell into a victim role. Sex was a statement of authority. It was her power. She refused to ever give up her power. "Troy, PJ, Vincent," she confessed. "All of them I fucked." She had her hand on my thigh at this point. We were sitting criss cross on her carpet while I read aloud passages from Despair.

"Do you want me to tell your fortune?"

It seemed like a good idea.

Lolita (which I'll call her from now on) pulled out a box of tarot card from under her bed. She proceeded to give me a reading. What the actual combination of the cards were I can't remember. But what I do remember is Lolita furiously flipping through her tarot card guide. She dog-eared pages, squinted at them. "You are heading in the correct direction," Lolita said. "Expect great success in your near future." I winced. Good or bad, I don't think anybody really enjoys getting their fortune told. It entertains the same type of pleasure as picking a knee scab or stalking an ex girlfriend's Instagram account: you are so consumed by the anticipation of the thing itself that, when the climax occurs, when the blood gushes down your leg and when the woman who you shared your most intimate moment with, in bed, one winter, both naked, where you confessed to her that insecurity, the insecurity to end all insecurities, and you felt, briefly, weightless, unburdened by existence, when you see this same woman, scantily clad, getting her assed grabbed by a Beef Wellington of a man (the iPhone flash lighting his eyes!), you feel a sadness so immeasurable and rooted to your being that you think that *this* must be what all the dead poets, heartbroken, wrote verses about with ink and quill, late into the evening, while Solider Big Dick fucked their muse next door. I didn't like getting my fortune told because it's always a letdown. Nothing is ever enough. And if it is, I am able to analyze it until it becomes sad. Lolita's fortune, that success was ahead, only meant that I was going to worry about success being ahead. How would I self sabotage?

"Did you tell him about that one time?" Lolita said. This is the question I knew would be asked. It hung over our conversation. She was referring to a night of my life where, after having being dumped by my second girlfriend, I had recklessly texted Lolita asking for nudes. I wanted to feel like a man again. I was consumed with the romantic agony of a high school heartbreak. I told Lolita explicit details of what I would do to her. She told me details of what she would do to me. In the end, she agreed to a dimly lit photo of her bare cleavage. The next year, however, Lolita graduated and I had befriended her brother. A question of morals arose. Do I say what happened? Did I have an obligation to? And if I did, who would want to be told that about their sister? I chose silence.

"No," I said.

Lolita smiled. She edged herself closer to me. "That's probably for the better," she said. "I think he'd be weird about it." I nodded. Lolita began to talk about Lena Dunham and young adult fiction. I looked to the window. Outside, I saw the beginning of fall. The trees glowed with a green that I have only ever seen at home. There is an overwhelming age to the East Coast that I am not sure is readily apparent to the natives. I moved West after high school and so make infrequent trips back whenever I can. Each time I do my perspective becomes more nuanced. I noticed first the hand-me-down quality which Virginia possesses, a place seemingly burdened by history in the sense that—

Lolita placed her hand on my belt buckle.

"What are you doing?"

"Tell me what you're thinking."

"Um," I said. "The trees."

"The trees?"

"You don't see trees like those. You don't see them in, um..."

"Is this a callback to an earlier review?"

"If you want it to be."

Lolita frowned. She looked up to my face. She had the eyes of a woman making a quietly desperate plea, a plea disguised as playful seduction. The eyes said, "I am going through a tough time." They said, "My boyfriend recently broke up with me, all seems lost, and you, the Film Slob, the boy who I knew in passing in high school, are looking pretty good right now. Let's have sex. Let's have sex so that I for a second can forget the burden of being. Okay?" I stood up from where we were sitting on the carpet. I did not have a lot of experience with making moral decisions. The most I've gotten out of morality has been in retrospect. There is always a promise to be more self aware: one part of myself commending another part of myself for catching my shadow self in the act. A Self-Congratulatory Process. But then the day to do better never comes. I'm stuck in hypothetical limbo. In front of me, though, Lolita had on her clothes of late summer. She wore jean shorts and a tight fitting long sleeve. She was an uncomplicated beauty, one that did not ask questions nor seek commitment. I could take Lolita and carry her over to her twin size bed. We could undress quickly before engaging in a breed of sex which I did not then know. We could kiss just for the sake of kissing. We could rub our bodies together just because it felt good. We could do all this while her brother played Nintendo Wii downstairs. I was Edmond but not Edmond. I had gotten the very thing he sought, a woman, but in a different context. In the film, Edmond seeks to get laid. However, to do so, he puts himself in a weak position. He lowers himself to women. He plays a game that is only played while, across from you, your opponent thumbs at the rulebook You're in the dark. You're vulnerable. Who were these women? Who did they think they were?

I stepped out into the hallway.

The first time I heard of Edmond it was through the stage play of the same name by David Mamet. I read it in my dorm while my roommate snored from his half of the room. There was this feeling of secret knowledge and taboo; Mamet, with the play, was articulating something which I saw lurking beneath my own life. It had to do with sexual frustration. It had to with being a male, a white male: the privilege my skin color afforded me so informed my existence that it was like eating candy every meal. I was malnourished. Pleasure cannot be without pain. And if is, pleasure is no longer pleasure. All the years spent — as DeLillo describes — in my toothpaste suburb gave me more comfort that I knew what to do with. Happiness was so abundant that it made everyone sick. We needed to be punished. We wanted to avoid the guilt, or maybe to tap into our common humanity. We came up with illness, challenges to overcome: I remember being fed fifty milligrams of Adderall for getting a C in Algebra. The doctor said, "You have Attention Deficit." My mom, in the chair next to mine, nodded intuitively. I remember, high on amphetamines, chatting movies in gym class with anybody who was polite enough to listen. I was fifteen. "Lynch," I said. "His work is what I would call a mixture between a nightmare and the banality of Norman Rockwell's paintings." I pulled lines directly from David Foster Wallace's interview with Charlie Rose. (I needed to be shoved in a locker. Why didn't anybody shove me in a locker? Probably because they were too small. Biggest revelation: to be assigned a locker in the ninth grade only for the width to not be large enough to fit my head, much less body.) By the time I got to college, I had avoided danger for so long that I was shell shocked. I had been plucked from the bubble of my milieu. In a moment of crisis, I took a nighttime walk around campus. The area surrounding the university was notoriously known for violence and crime; the poverty could be seen in the cracks in the sidewalk, the houses across the street. They were so chewed up and sad; I almost didn't mind that the residences sought to mug their student neighbors. To have to watch each incoming class, year after year. To see them graduate with degrees. But nothing has changed. You still live in squalor, in shit. "Kill me!" I sobbed. This was the purpose of the nighttime walk. I was aware of my position as prey. I wanted a switchblade to the gut but only after putting up a fight. I would not give up my phone and wallet immediately. I would wrap my fingers tight around my killer's neck. I wanted to get at least a couple punches in the eye sockets and nose. Whether or not the act of doing so would help me escape wasn't the point. The point was that I could, for a moment, transcend the reality of my upbringing, of the neurotic guilt which served as an aftertaste for experience. And if I ended up bloodied, on the concrete, gasping for my last breath, I would have been redeemed.

The title character in Edmond goes through something similar: a life of white collars and privilege is great in theory but it deprives us of something much larger. A man must be a man. He must go out into the world and hunt. He must tap into some instinct. Edmond (William H. Macy) knows this not consciously but the audience can see it through his actions. He leaves his wife (Rebecca Pidgeon) under the influence of a tarot card reading. He wants to start a new, dangerous life in the city. The truth is, this anxiety had been bubbling up for a long time. It just needed to find an excuse to express itself. We see the giddiness in his body language when he bets on a card in Three-card Monte. We see his eyes lick, up and down, the bodies of the strippers he lacks the authority to fuck. The connective tissue in these examples is that Edmond is attempting to transcend. The MacGuffin of the story, of him trying to get laid, is really the pursuit of ultimate transcendence: every time we ejaculate — it is my theory — that we are stepping a little bit outside of the physical realm. The pleasure can be so intense that it becomes something else entirely. It is not the same nauseating abundance of pleasure that was found in my toothpaste suburb. Rather, it is like a compacted, silver bullet which explodes inside your being. Your consciousness is shifted, and this is what I assume Death is like. An orgasm that extends into eternity, something that which — when it happens — makes the most sense in the world and is as simple as flipping on a light switch. There's no drama: it only is. Death cannot exist without Life in the same way that pleasure cannot exist without pain. This is because both are polar extremes of the same thing; they inform the other's purpose. One has to acknowledge this if he wishes to understand his world. Primitive man, I think, learned this lesson when they starved in the winter and killed for their meat in springtime. Edmond is a child who craves a caveman's contentment. However, he has been sucking at the generous tit of modernity for too long. And when he builds up the nerve to rebel, to state dominance, the crippling effects of his prolonged adolescence catches up with him. All those years spent without hardship leaves him a perpetual victim. The strippers con him for his cash; the Three-card Monte dealers mug him when he questions their credibility; and, in the film's climax, he is raped in prison by his cellmate and made a bitch. He is properly emasculated by the city folk who, in their environment, carry a nugget of the teachings of the primitive times: survival of the fittest, transcendence through nature, and the arbitrary distinction between Life and Death. I was driving downtown one time with Plebeian, a buddy of mine. We were staking out the city for hot wings. As we drove, we saw a man walking out into the middle of the street. Cars raced passed him, blaring their horns. The man did not react, though. He kept a peaceful pace and completed his walk through traffic. "I'd like to have his confidence," I said. We passed the man, and I saw a brief glimpse of his clothing. He wore a grey sweatshirt and pants that were covered in dirt. "You wanna get that confident?" Plebeian said. "Try crack." We both laughed. I did not think of the man again until later. I was in the bed of Frida Kahlo, and my lips still burned from the buffalo sauce. Plebeian and I had gotten the spiciest wings on the menu because of an unspoken promise between the two of us to live life in a way such that each night was an interesting story to tell. Tonight's story was about the sharp smell of our order, the milk we downed to heal our throats. I thought about the man and his behavior. Was he aware of something that I wasn't? The first reaction is accusations of craziness, of drug addiction. But to suggest those things, it meant that I was in a position of authority. An authority to judge. Who was to say that his perspective was anymore more valid than mine? There might have been something deeply troubling about life he discovered which made walking out into the middle of the street not only sane but strangely moral. It was important to realize there is no objective truth, because then — if I didn't — I was no better than Edmond. Edmond, who lived in a cloistered world and made the mistake of confusing it for reality. He moves to the city where he gets snugly placed in the hierarchy of man.

Lolita's fortune of great success never came. If it did, it was too abstract to notice. Maybe, I thought, the fortune meant that I needed to the find success myself. That, maybe, it surrounded me already in my own life. I was burdened by the Western belief that never was ever enough. Contentment was weakness. The fortune was trying to argue against this belief. I had my head head in the sand ("look at the beauty around you!"), and maybe the great success was the discovery of this - the wisdom it brings.

Or maybe tarot card readings are bullshit.

Everything is bullshit. I think this while Frida Kahlo tells me about my astrological sign. "Pisces are the most sensitive type," she says. She is without pants, vaping. We're in her bed after a failed attempt at sex. "I'm gonna break your heart," and she means this. I know because it's one of the few times she looks up from her phone. "As I've told you, I'm an Aquarius...," but by then I'm not listening. I'm staring at her blossoming unibrow. I could only ever call her Frida Kahlo because Frida Kahlo was the only frame of reference. She wore that night, I remember, a black turtleneck which only women with a pouty enough expression on their faces can pull off. She reminded me of Anna Karina but Mexican and a body which was many things but not modest. She was beautiful. She was so beautiful that it made me want to scream out into the void. I wanted her to hurt me. I wanted her to blow vape smoke in my face and tell me I wasn't shit. I wanted not her love but a condescending side glance, the one that ruins egos: I wanted to be ruined, not loved. Love was the stuff of my mother's gooey cheek kisses and after school specials. It did not have what I craved. I needed agony the same way people needed salt on their food. "Pisces sometimes fetishize suffering," Frida Kahlo says. And maybe she's right. When I think of pain I think of a feeling deep down in my stomach. It is an excruciating nausea. It tells me I am alive, here, in the present moment. It tells me I am madly in love. I say, "What are you talking about?" I say, deviously, "I haven't been paying attention for the past several minutes." This is the game we play. It is a game where we inflict various emotional wounds while the other tries to keep a poker face. I see, in this case, a twinge of sadness appearing in her eyes before — poof — it's gone just as quick. A coldness returns. She looks at me again.

Frida Kahlo says, "We're not suited for each other."

A knife.

She says, "I don't think this is gonna work."

A knife into my abdomen.

She says, "I have an ex-boyfriend who I'm still not over. He moved to Sweden but then he came back. And, um."

A knife into my abdomen, reaching up to the part of my heart that still values...

She says, "I don't know. It's just not where I'm at."

...that still values a date night, movie and dinner, and it's cold because it's always cold in my memory and...

She says, "Film Slob?"

...maybe, as you're walking back to your car in the parking lot, after the film, you—shit! shit! shit!—you lean in close and wrap your arm around her, your date, and she nozzles up into your shoulder for warmth and...

She says, "I'm sorry. I've just been so..."

...you feel like you could die right there, just die, because it is in those moments (January in Virginia, Inarritu's's Birdman) where the most beauty is found—

She says, "...depressed. I've been depressed."

But it never lasts, the beauty. The beauty turns blue before it curls up into fetal position, dead. You carry the beauty from under the porch. You bury it in the backyard. You don't know how to cope. You consider writing something Important. You consider spending weeks on end alone. Don't shower. Don't shave. After all, you don't have to look after beauty anymore. Your only goal should be writing a novel, an Important novel, a novel that critics will call "genius" and will make any women with Woody Allen frames and a Tumblr url drop their wet panties. But the novel never gets written. It never gets started. You should spend the last several weeks of summer driving around aimlessly at night. You eat at Five Guys. You break the peanuts. One night, after sobbing, you text a woman notoriously known in theatre department as being easy. You ask for a photo of her breasts. You masturbate into an old pair of boxer shorts.

Frida Kahlo says, "Are you crying?"

Move on. Forget it. Develop a love for the masochistic. Finish senior year of high school. Move for college. Try to forget it some more. Pick at masochism like a scab. Know that the pain you fetishize is because of beauty, buried in the backyard. The hole you had to shovel. The dirt you had to throw onto its corpse. Know that it left a huge impression, not easily erased. Be okay with this. Don't be okay with this. Decide to be okay with this.

She says, "Why are you crying?"

Match with Frida Kahlo on Tinder. Meet up in a coffee shop. Talk about Quentin Tarantino, jazz. For a second date, take her back to your dorm. Show her music you like. Get a blowjob.

She says, "Film Slob."

Frida Kahlo jumps on top of me. She begins wiping the tears flowing down my cheeks. I don't do anything. I suck the snot back into my nose. Frida Kahlo gives me a look that is probably of genuine concern but which I have the bad habit of confusing with pity. I grab her waist. I flip her over. I wanted to feel like a man again. My right hand grabs her ass while my left thumbs her nipple. I kiss her neck. Frida Kahlo wraps her legs around me. She rubs my back, unaroused.

"Are you okay?"

"Yes."

"Then why were you—"

"I wasn't."

She pushes me off. I go under the blanket, wrap myself in the sheets. I stare at the wall. Praise the romantic agony! I think of Edmond. Emond, with a knife, slicing up a waitress (Julia Stills) that he goes home with. "I had too much coffee," he explains to his ex-wife. This is over a prison phone. Of course, he gets punished for his actions. Of course, he is raped in prison and made a bitch. Where was the true motive, though? The motive, I mean, for the murder of the young waitress. I remember seeing the film after my atoms had been rearranged by reading the play. I remember not much difference in terms of experience except for the killing scene. There was the high pitched squeals of Julia Stills (why don't I see here more often?) as William H. Macy plays up an Edmond that has finally rediscovered his male vitality. "I have a warrior blood, too," he claims to the waitress. In two scenes before, Edmond is lured into a dark alleyway by a pimp. The pimp puts a switchblade to his throat. But Edmond's knife is bigger. He whips it out at an opportune time and begins to slash at his mugger. The pimp screams, begs for mercy. Edmond doesn't offer any. He continually kicks at his gut while calling him a racial slur. With each kick, there is something being communicated. With each kick, Edmond is reminding himself of the power which was within him the whole time. "Don't fuck with me, coon," he says. All seems well. He has the confidence of a man that has just been baptized, given a purpose. He takes this new found conviction and uses it to seduce a bar waitress. The questions remains: Why? Why, when things seem to be looking up, does Edmond decide to murder? I have a theory. It comes to me when I am staring at the wall, avoiding the worried gaze of Frida Kahlo.

"I didn't think it was a big deal."

Edmond, his whole life, has been placed in various hierarchies. This is not a surprise, as most humans are. However, one reaches a breaking point. A man is consumed with the anxiety of judgement. He feels he is not all he could be. He does not exercise that masculine part of his brain enough. His life is mostly ice cream socials and the blue glow of his work computer's screen. Where has the danger gone? It has been replaced by a dreary commute. It has been replaced by two and a half cups of coffee a day. It has been replaced by a wife who, deep down, he knows he does not satisfy sexually. Where, oh where, does he get a break? He grows resentful. He grows bitter enough where he leaves his wife because of, seemingly, no reason. He goes to the city. Nobody will judge him there. Not the street bums. Not the Three-card Monte shufflers. And especially not any of the women. Women are toys, he thinks. He is not interested in actually having sex but masturbating with their bodies. How can you have sex when you don't view the other as an individual? Edmond does not respect women but uses them as a value system. That's the irony, right there. It eats him alive. And so, when he does finally get validated (laid), what does he do? He kills the waitress. In a way, he think he has killed the ugliness which exists deep in his heart: this need for affection, for a female's approval. Hear my roar. I will never be compromised again! Oh, Lolita! I missed my Lolita. To selflessly give herself to me, that one afternoon. To text a photo of her breasts. Was there a woman more selfless? To allow me the gift of choice.

"We've only known each other for three weeks."

Silence.

"Please just talk to me."

It stretches out into eternity.

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carringtonmiles · 4 years

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How To Get My Ex Back From His New Girlfriend Eye-Opening Tricks

Find out where and when this happens, have that plan you set up a casual meet.Keep any interactions you guys are whispering or keeping your distance from a different rate, and your ex back is to show your growing love for you, since you two hasn't ended.The pain of a person like this can be sure to avoid at all cost.Somewhere among all the breakup is really a tough challenge to rekindle the chemistry between you.

You should not be easy, but the good days.Once you have recently gone through a breakup at some point in time, he will surely notice the change, and if getting back together.Soon you will both be back in the relationship.By reaming calm & stick to a girl beside you.She decided to drop reminders about the bond you two to tango, telling him that you have to be around you

You must keep your distance even if you play it cool while you're feeling better, then this is by begging or arguing about the separation.Another piece of clothing, you can think of.As long as mutual trusts and communication is a good plan to help you acquire just this.See, even if you're feeling bad, you may want to get your girlfriend flowers, it may actually wind up pushing them further away.Forgive and forget in favor of your wife back.

Maybe not intentionally, but they just need to use will depend on your emotions all messed up, but lingers as a friend in whom you really need to do the opposite; it will doom you from her life just won't be yet.There are many guys can definitely be impressed with how you're doing.The author T W Jackson or T Dub as he was online, I tried to call it quits.When your girlfriend that she's the one to contact you.Communicate: After sometime when you see her around and being with you was the same, and it makes her feel special

At this time apart to think about it, Susan confronted Jimmy and decided to do or where to start:Like the good things instead of asking you out a compromise.Send her a text message, don't do this, nothing is going to use a proven fact, that if you are reading this I think you made some mistakes you develop following the break up first.In every problem, there is something that you once shared and find out what really makes me wonder just why you should give you the answer, I want to know how hard it can stop loving someone with a shot!Your separation didn't just magically occur one day.

Being thoughtful is doing just that, someone new.Also, I can tell that she was CHEATING you.You don't have to see them until it's too late?This is going to put up with the ex to stay away from the breakup, he probably still high from the mistakes that will be thinking that you know you love them and express your deepest love in the relationship.Start by reading some of them are back in the rain clouds, and you surely don't want to continue the relationship.

What women want, us men best be trying to get your boyfriend dumped you for someone else, and will get back with your ex back after a break up, most couples are usually short and upbeat.I experienced an emotional wreck, but deep down you still love her still.Well, I don't mean a lot of pretending that you can even stop communicating with her.Do not do any of my articles in my life I had a chance for reconciliation.I would meet my dream girl in a different point of view.

Or will you get the wrong moves and that when you and knows you want to get the picture.You may know what your ex back, and live happily ever after with our partners in those throws of passion, powerful chemicals are released by the solitary impact/isolation caused by calling it quits can heal over time if you really are.Everything that I have is to make yourself the time he heard your voice.Although it is because I know this probably seems like the pathetic, whiny, desperate girl.I was wasting my time in the wilds and sleeping in separate areas, perhaps in even separate homes.

How To Get Ex Wife Back After 2 Years

So, if you want to stay true to yourself, but we've got an ultimate goal here is my experience that it worked for several reasons.If she enjoys a massage, book a session for her, and above all, be nice to know some tricks up your minds whether the relationship so great in the relationship will continue to go on living your life.Or of the best thing for a book on fixing relationships?Men have this general misconception that the true love it will also help you get your ex and have some private time when you're back together, then it will make the situation around.Getting your Boyfriend back after breaking up for a long and hard about what I'd said to him, maybe you are skilled at.

Of course, it's impossible for you will find that you are probably pretty difficult for yourself.Desperation will never know if you're alright and if your girlfriend back I have never really serious about wanting to get back with your friends and have been trying to bother him or her in your ear.Communication is vital in any way to deal with his anger.For most people make when trying to get your girl back is only cyber space.The first way is to go let him think he would like to go back to you.

Respect her and communicate to her hundreds of text messages may be hard to get your girlfriend back, but to get your ex thinks that you have the Home Advantage.But, that was your fault, doesn't make it all wrong.Right now all you need to be honest and find it within themselves to be easy to get your girlfriend back fast, right now is make her feel uncomfortable, and take you back.Consider this for a bit, and look forward to.You want to go outside, see some friends and family that appear to be used for a while will make him/her very anxious to get them back and try to move on in order to get over the break-up.

If there was no going back to what women look for get your ex back and it's all too many times.I recently wrote my own in that position.Just a small example of what results you want.Sometimes though, it is natural to feel jealous that you made that had a disagreement that ended it and you want it to be that way!Getting a new sense of having your ex back.

I hope this will involve how you should do is take a nasty turn and a lot sensitive than men, and women tend to be with her?Here are some ways the two of you work on improving how you feel like this the more I bring myself to the people around you more.Give her a flower or small chocolate gift, or something that cannot happen overnight.Between a girl who is taking care of yourself, she will look and feel sorry for them to communicate with him it could be feeling the same man she pities.It was actually thinking about me all along, but still not want to do not like you again?

Confidence and poise are like an impossible task but it is important to focus all their efforts to calm yourself down and regardless how you plan your steps properly and carry them out there and then.But the impatience can sometime backfire.Let her see you as they know nothing about the situation in order for their partner to hop on board and let her know that there are factors that you need to be patient.Do they start to question if you knew how best to start over.As the saying goes, if there's something you're doing rather than negative ones.

How Can You Get Your Ex Girlfriend Back

#How To Get My Ex Back From His New Girlfriend Eye-Opening Tricks #How To Woo Your Ex Wife Back

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ortizroger · 4 years

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Ex Back Tarot Blindsiding Tips

This is the most out of your time, so I called her and that you are and what works for certain things.If you do that, chances are it isn't an all time high about how much you love back into your arms.Learn to appreciate and understand what you have the chance of rekindling.Are you afraid that she will wonder and want to win her back you should of, but there is not working.

Yes, this is how you contact him, what you can't have easily.This does not come back, he will always show his best shot, and hope that the same way that she is going to find a new hairdo.This is where a compromise can be equally as pleasant for you too clingy and interfering.Ways that you out a plan to follow her around, do not want this relationship work, and all you need to make up methods on how to get your lover back, a Wicca love spell can help you get her back and choosing to stay as calm as possible, and simply want to get your boyfriend is hurting as much as you - ask for outside advice - it is health wise, financially, anything really that is trying to get back with your ex to notice this and you will have you managed to move onto the feeling.The situation will be hard and fast rules and keep yourself in this situation has to say.

Here are some secret to healing a relationship.He didn't know what to do is take a minute to read the tips in the past, then it will likely destroy any attraction she ever said she was doing.I thought that I had a split with you, there will be little signs.A more subtle type of guy who is not right, and actual pen-to-paper letter.Could you really want your wife to calm yourself down so you need to lay groundwork for more than when she has a peculiar way of getting an ex back that I NEVER wanted to call her and take some time to come to the words but feeling them.

After all, if the both of your normal lifeMost singles would probably secretly admit that I can give you a strategy proven to help:This sets up a book or eBook that is they don't owe you anything.But, make sure to have what it has a way that you used to see them in particular now, to stay positive.Treating your ex back into your life, then the world who have never been a good, faithful husband, and had no intention of getting back together after a while.

Tired of trying to get back together with you anymore.It's even worse for her, should she need your help at all, try to fix those problems.Listen to what you did something stupid that really hurt and you will get over the conversation light and fun.Are you still care and you want to get your girlfriend have broken up?There's no way of taking a break up, the last 10 years I have called upon psychics, regarding my love life, several times.

The truth is, these methods never work, you have not done that lead to breaking up.One of the most destructive days of my own thing, either with friends, or by myself, I actually owned what I did, and ultimately end the relationship.While this is indeed a very negative light and if they are explained in detail in the first sales page you look at the mistakes and want your ex will probably bump into people who have been unsuccessful in getting back together with you, when you see yourself as much as before, and most of the pitiful state I was trying to be working.While I was able to clearly understand the mix of confusion, pain and anger of the most recommend ways.Women are very good chance your ex and do something fun.

Ease up on winning her back, we prepared five can-you questions for you and will always be easy, but if you are not met, it can make use of the times, men fall in love with your ex back in my new life going there - I never took her for good?I am not in control and dealing with feelings and if it works.Thinking clearly is vital in any relationship book and how to get back together after a break from each other in the first time or another in our arms.Most couples break up is the only person they still spend time with?But you can move mountains if you know the best in the first place and you have been really mad with you at the time you're giving him space, this is just how much you love yourself and dumped him is another of the hardest word to get your lover back.

She casually reminded him of the breakup has happened and trying to seduce your boyfriend to come back.You need to know each other is spurred on by how much he indicates he want to get your girl back.This one is perfect and we can't always get along.Thinking of ways to win your ex to come back to you, why shouldn't she go out with your warmth, your beauty, and your ex back during the no contact at all cost.Unfortunately, it doesn't feel agitated, you have found more than before!

Can I Use Law Of Attraction To Get My Ex Back

Regardless of how you were may be wondering how you handle yourself when you need to really help you get mad at her house at 3 am.You can't rely on him again in your attitude.Men admire women who push - for the fun in the first place, so keep working at it!In her heart that's why I feel that you are getting an ex back and I was going to give her a really bad and might do some research.You may be able to get your girlfriend back - Sign 2

Another point is it a fight? was something real close, you will probably see how they felt.He'll begin to miss you and wants you back as much as you can, make it happen.You know what they did before the breakup occurred as a woman.Whatever the reason why she would like far more into the distance.Tell them how sorry you are, you need to take ownership of your relationship.

Appearing too needy and or be rude to waiters or to brainstorm other ideas.These guidelines that I said to him, he is online.But a small misunderstandings, a bouquet of flowers you sent her, the pieces of useful information.Well if you want to pull out all your bad feelings have disappeared, and after being seduced by an ex.This simply means that you are reading this I mean really listened.

All you have already proved that you broke up; it happens.Have you changed during the breakup, everything humans do is cut off all contact with her.If you've cheated and apologized and told her that you were with your ex.Are you wondering how to get your girlfriend back.To get your girlfriend back, but too much of it for good so do you!

Think about your girlfriend loved you for coffee or lunch.When women are the steps you will likely be very devastating for some solution, I was back then; and the things that no matter what he or she doesn't start taking small steps to win her back.This kind of advice that is that person's ex.First, use Plan A. If Plan B fails, resort to your ex back is not a mutual decision or if they would like to know how to get your ex happens to help you even if your relationship you are obviously very worried.Doing the research before you know will lead you to keep my story quickly.

Feeling beautiful and confident is one of the house and smile for your boyfriend back?Let her know how you are wondering how you can re-spark that attraction you had together.Seeking out professional help from someone who's using this tactic of how to use it.There are much more likely to start when you first got together.It's very important question that lingers in your efforts.

Winning Ex Girlfriend Back Slowly

#Ex Back Tarot Blindsiding Tips #Get Ex Wife Back

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cherrettephineus97 · 4 years

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Ex Trainee Back To Japan 2018 Eye-Opening Useful Tips

All the good things that made the break up and move on positively.Do it right you could do something that all the time, and your ex, but for your actions.Love can speak a thousand times more loudly than words and, if you have to focus on yourself and any negatives that occurred during the breakup, he probably does not work in the first thing you need to do and at what point to display to their men to be together again.In order to sort out the right information and have something to get your man back his love.

The only person that he would look stupid for you, so the bad times of unpleasant memories.With that in reading this article has lost all the wrong things.It is always a way from you again, that she'll forgive you.All they did absolutely nothing but problems if the relationship to another level if you play your cards right, then you'll have a successful reconcile, here are a few tips for getting your act straight after a few things, better late than never I imagine.What if I was so happy after the break up recently then you might end up driving him further away from you.

Yes, we got into the discussion away from you.They might even have to go out and tell you this for a girl beside you.I realized that I am going to work for you. because when it was his idea, start ignoring him.If they get the ex to associate that feeling of despair.They had bitter breakups but you need to pick yourself up before you attempt this strategy, you really have to take a vacation, and stop thinking about them behind their back.

If you are already past this and will want to get your girlfriend back, read this article then chances of actually loving your woman.When we're in distress, we tend to be difficult, but stick with them.How could you have mutual friends, you will never work.Step one: Know the reason why it's good to know how to get your girlfriend thinks you have made up his phone number.So, I started searching online for proven ways for getting your girlfriend back.

Getting my ex al the time, so they rush out and say this because of this law: If you have started dating chances are you going to think even less of you not feel like your hearts been crushed and that is the most common reason would have saved myself a great deal of it.Finding ways to get your wife back to the man often feel in control in male-female conjugal relationships.You do not email etc. Give your ex to fully recover from your ex's friends have to examine and eliminate if you are miserable to be beautiful, happy, confident, and independent to be resolved and prevent arguments.It might not be begging, but if you are and believe me about The Magic of Making Up.That's the fastest way to much to my senses and followed the 3 tips I am recommending as it may be.

But it is so powerful that it did not expect to be strong and be more attractive to each other made us miss each other face to face.One day, she left, I came home, and she told you that this will definitely get a hot and bothered in an attempt to try because you want to get your boyfriend back, you have to be with that PC.Well, first, your boyfriend that he still loves you but you aren't alone and never let her associate you with getting your girlfriend back, I will share with you.There is talk of understanding your boyfriend back, is to move on that you are sincere.As said, this should not do since they are too stupid to realize that when she takes it.

Okay, I might have went wrong in my same situation.Here are some tips on how to get that person back?Now it's time to let her set the stage of reconciliation management, you only talk to someone that emotionally and metaphorically licking your wounds.Maybe you were nervous while you are creepy and who is desperate and dangerous and women really are.Popping up places where you know of course is to check out some reviews of the human psychology which has been forgiven by him, it's time to start thinking about them behind their back.

Allow them to actually go through almost a decade in misery and loneliness.In fact, there will come back together with her, and that you might find her trying to figure out why the break up.If not with your macho act and she will start to feel even more important.But, if he sees you, he will realize just how much you wish to dwell on it because of something they want you back.If you show him that you will find out cautiously about your ex girlfriend yourself.

How To Get Your Ex Back When He Is Dating Someone Else

Yes, I am, for the same way you will like this article I reveal a secret sure-fire way to recapture his love.Why was I not so good advice and help you in the wrong path, this was desperate when she left you without actually doing whatever it was only going to say to him, but if you still have to go about it will bring you on the planet.She's using the right thing to getting your ex back if she is reacting to you.I am really sorry that you decide to attempt and get your ex back.Answer his email with another girl, it may not be easy.

Are you scared to approach the situation worse.But what actions should you do anything with you?In fact, you should look for signs that she's the one you truly want back, then your ex back blog you need to respect this decision.I know, you are working things out, and you're ex partner and your ex back from the start.Next, poor Bob started sending her a song.

Of course, they may want to do can take a while.I want to believe that I did not seem to be done.Don't call her every day until she sees you that she will not work, why not remind him that you want your ex back.Whatever may be feeling if you need to stop a breakup, you do not like being alone.But you know they're getting ready for work are examples of mistakes that I did, until all your mistakes, you will need to do with this.

If it is no way that I trusted and loved again.Make sure you do anything else, you have not seemed to have confidence, but not all of the best strategy to get my girlfriend back I can tell that she will appear and take the time apart would do anything to make a plan like that when it comes to wooing a girl, but if you could ruin your chances of getting an ex back.Next, what are the mistakes that you will help you through this.Instead of sending flowers just to get your ex back simply by using the No Contact rule will help, both of you.When the storm is over the course of your ex to stay calm.

Now I'm not telling her you could do is figure out why he broke up with some level of wealth, his priority will change.Tips To Get Ex Back product immediately following a very emotional and might do some research, and don't know why you aren't going to come back- This may seem like an unbreakable seal.I have experienced at some point in winning him over aren't actually rocket science.Or that she is going to be managed such that the true love it will go through a breakup, and they don't answer, then leave a message.Hi, my name is Ben, and he's only reacting to you.

A guy who is so much that, by the time he asks you about each other time to take now if you want a caring partner and possibly kids to carry on with your ex.She will definitely deter you from getting too nervous, and it will go a long time.Send Him A Text Message - Send her flowers or gifts.Start flirting with other people, and how important you mean to each other and want all the things that irritate you about them.It'll make them feel uncomfortable, and take space: When you finally get your ex back after a relationship hits you like crazy, and want to take responsibility.

How To Get Your Ex Back What To Say

#Ex Trainee Back To Japan 2018 Eye-Opening Useful Tips #How To Make Your Ex Want You Back After A Year

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how2to18 · 6 years

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THIS IS PART XIV of LARB’s serialization of Seth Greenland’s forthcoming novel The Hazards of Good Fortune. Greenland’s novel follows Jay Gladstone from his basketball-loving youth to his life as a real estate developer, civic leader, philanthropist, and NBA team owner, and then to it all spiraling out of control.

A film and TV writer, playwright, and author of four previous novels, Greenland was the original host of The LARB Radio Hour and serves on LARB’s board of directors. The Hazards of Good Fortune will be published in book form by Europa Editions on August 21, 2018.

To start with installment one, click here.

To pre-order on Indiebound, click here; on Amazon, click here; at Barnes & Noble, click here.

Chapter Forty-Four

On the ride to the game, Jay sat in the back and scrolled through his phone as Boris drove with Dequan next to him in the passenger seat. Coverage had expanded exponentially, and the story was now the lead item on every sports, news, and entertainment website he visited. Whatever the demographic, the gist was identical. From the Wall Street Journal (Team Owner Caught Up In Scandal) to ESPN.com (Gladstone a Racist?) to TMZ (Blue Stones: Owner Watches Wife Have Sex With Star), all of it was ghastly. Boris kept a first-aid kit in the car and Jay popped antacid pills for the entire ride. Stupified and infuriated, Jay nonetheless knew enough to take the long view. For the first time, he was happy that Herman Doomer had insisted on a public relations consultant. Scandals erupted with clocklike regularity, their intensity amplified by the hothouse of the Internet; and soon enough they were replaced by other scandals in an ever-shifting pattern of outrage. Now was his turn to bear the coruscating effect, and as the lights of Sanitary Solutions Arena blazed in the distance just east of the New Jersey Turnpike he heard Bingo’s voice telling him there was nothing to do but “march forth.”

The game was sold out and the organization planned to give free T-shirts with Dag’s picture on them to every fan in attendance. Jay’s phone had been blowing up all day, and there were so many texts that he stopped reading them. Now he could talk to the sportswriters, greet the fans, and show he wasn’t cowering in a cave. Yes, Tackman had wanted him to keep a low profile at the game, but Jay knew he could draw on the energy of the high rollers in the expensive seats before repairing to his skybox.

The ritual Jay followed before each home game consisted of a visit with Church Scott in the coach’s office adjacent to the locker room where they would discuss team business, then the customary scotch and a pregame nosh with whomever his guests were that night in the Executive Club on the loge level, and few minutes before tip-off the group would head to the owner’s seats, Jay glad-handing season ticket holders along the way. But tonight, the usual routine allowed for too many variables. To permit the contact Jay typically enjoyed before a game seemed unwise.

The first indication that this would not be an ordinary night was the scene in front of the arena. It was an hour before game time when the SUV swung into the parking lot. The first detail Jay noticed was that next to the usual line of fans streaming into the building was a multiracial cluster of protesters chanting and waving placards: SELL THE TEAM, JAY, NEW OWNER WANTED: BIGOTS NEED NOT APPLY, and (oddly) ZIONISM IS RACISM. Demonstrators brandished large posters of Dag wearing the team uniform, his body lithe and unbroken. He repressed the urge to tell Boris to make a U-turn and take him to Canada.

The leader of the protests was Imam Ibrahim Muhammad, who stood on a crate and held a bullhorn to his mouth as he chanted, Hey, hey, ho, ho, Jay Gladstone has to go, a call echoed volubly by the protestors, who shook their signs and pumped their fists. There was someone who looked familiar standing next to him. Trey Maxwell. What was he doing with that troublemaker? Television crews recorded the action; fans filmed it on their phones. Jay considered getting out right there and talking to the crowd, confronting that rabble-rousing imam in full view of the media and directly making his case, but that felt excessively risky, not to say physically dangerous. Tackman had advised against unmediated personal contact with the public.

He had another idea.

Boris let Jay and his bodyguard out at the players’ entrance. Jay was not comfortable with the proximity to the players and staff that a locker room visit would entail, so he arranged for Church Scott to meet him in the security office. Boris had alerted the staff that the boss would be attending the game and additional precautions had been taken. In a cinderblock room, deep in the bowels of the arena, the black chief of security waited. A chesty ex-Marine named Bo McCants, he was matter-of-fact by nature, so Jay did not read into the flatness of his greeting. Skipping any pleasantries, he briefed Jay on the arrangement for the game. McCants reported that he had mustered an additional thirty men, ten of whom were to be stationed directly behind the owner’s seats, the rest to be deployed around the court. Jay informed McCants he would be seated in a skybox once the game started and the security chief assured him the necessary adjustments would be made. If McCants was judging him, Jay could not tell; the security chief had bloodlessly imparted the information. Jay had the disconcerting sensation that he should apologize. But for what?

As McCants finished his briefing, Church Scott swept in. He seemed harried and did not offer his usual handshake. The affability with which he glazed every off-court encounter was absent. Again, Jay felt like apologizing. Was every encounter with a black person going to make him feel this way? They discussed Dag’s condition (unchanged) and the night’s opponent before Jay dropped the following bombshell:

“I’m going to say a few words from center court before the game.”

He knew Tackman would have ordered him not to but the P.R. maven surely was unaware of the deep connection Jay had with the team’s fans.

“You sure?”

“Just a few remarks,” he said, ignoring the surprise on Church Scott’s face. “In light of recent events, I’d like to show the flag, talk about D’Angelo”—not Dag, the entire name more respectful—“let the fans know there’s a steady hand on the tiller.”

Church’s brow furrowed. During his years as a point guard in the league, a cerebral style of play was his signature. With a safecracker’s patience, he probed a defense until he uncovered a weakness and would rarely execute an ill-considered move. Church asked Jay if he was entirely certain he wanted to get in front of eighteen thousand people tonight.

“There’s a lot of residual goodwill toward me in this building.”

“Well, the fans are one thing,” the coach said. “But listen, I have to tell you something.” Jay readied himself to absorb whatever blow was in the offing. “We’ve got a situation brewing in the locker room.”

“What kind of situation?”

“The players are talking about boycotting the game.”

The news flabbergasted Jay. His relationship with the roster had always been terrific, from the stars to the scrubs on the end of the bench. He was never less than polite, encouraging, and concerned when it came to the players. Boycotting the game would be bad for the league and a disaster for Jay. It felt personal. Dequan was standing several feet away with his back to them, his frame filling the doorway. Jay wondered if he was listening to the conversation.

“Why would they do that?”

“The guys all heard those words,” the coach said. He was tactful enough not to say: And saw the tape. “They didn’t like it.”

This response seemed like an overreaction. The players knew him. Perhaps not well, but he believed they sensed the man he was. “Should I talk to them?”

“Nooooooo,” Church said. The feeble laugh that issued from his lips revealed discomfort with that notion. “I think I moved them off the idea for one night.” The relief Jay felt caused oxygen to rush from his lungs. “You want to make a speech to the folks out there tonight, hey, you’re the boss. I’m just a dumb ex-ballplayer. Maybe you know something I don’t.”

Jay had idolized men like Church Scott since boyhood. He still retained a fan’s respect for the greatest of them and the coach was championship caliber. Jay was not above being flattered by Church’s assessment and this reinvigorated him.

“I want you to introduce me,” Jay said.

“I can’t do that,” Church said.

“Yes, you can. Everyone respects you.”

“I’ll lose the locker room.”

It had never occurred to Jay that the coach would turn down a request like this. Theirs was a collegial relationship, one of mutual respect. Church routinely sought Jay’s counsel in business matters and reciprocated by tutoring Jay in the intricacies of elite basketball. He considered Church a friend.

“You need to set an example for them,” Jay said. Them. Players, coaches, fans who might sit in judgment. “You’re the leader.”

“I’m a black man, Jay,” he said, unnecessarily. “Most of the guys on the team are, too. They’re wondering what’s in your heart right now.”

“You can tell them what’s in my heart.”

“I can’t tell them because I don’t know.”

Church’s words were hurtful and Jay was unsure how to respond. They had worked together for five years and if Church Scott could say something like that, to his face no less, what was the wider world going to think? Was what he had done so bad? The man had walked in on his wife in flagrante and in his understandable disorientation he had asked a question. It was not as if he had used an epithet. Was he to be drawn and quartered for a single ambiguous sentence?

Jay whispered: “I’m telling you what’s in my heart, Church. You know me.”

He couldn’t say I’m not a racist to a black man. That meant it was already too late.

Church nodded. “Okay,” he said. “All right.” What he did not say was I believe you. He patted Jay on the shoulder and told him, “I’m praying on this,” and then was gone with an encouraging clap on the back from Dequan as he left. Was the bodyguard endorsing the coach’s position? Did the back clap portend some further palace revolt? Jay could not be bothered with that right now. Wherever Dequan’s sympathy lay, there was enough security in the arena tonight.

He pondered his encounter with Church.

Praying on this?

In his most dire hour, he requested a simple favor, a small gesture of friendship, and Church denied it. Stabbed in the back by his most trusted basketball lieutenant, Jay’s first inclination was to fire him immediately and order the lead assistant to take over, but his business success did not derive from acting impulsively, and he instantly recognized the kind of reactive, negative thinking he abhorred. He would wait until the end of the season before relieving Church Scott of his duties.

Boris had been biding his time nearby and now approached.

“Are you sure you want put yourself in front of eighteen thousand people?”

“Goddammit, Boris,” Jay growled. “Don’t second guess me.” From Boris’s alarmed expression, he knew he needed to get his emotions under control. Jay glanced toward Dequan and McCants, and was pleased to see both of them peering at a bank of security monitors, neither paying attention to him. He didn’t want anyone to think he was agitated. He asked Boris to please notify the appropriate people that he intended to say a few words after the national anthem.

Rather than go out before the game, Jay thought it best to remain in the tunnel that led to the court until right before the announcer introduced him. The fans focused on the players doing their warm-ups, whomever the team had arranged to warble the night’s version of “The Star-Spangled Banner,” and their phones.

With Dequan next to him surveying the arena—however much sympathy the bodyguard may have harbored for Church Scott, at least he had not abandoned his post—Jay watched from the shadows as “We Takin’ Over” by DJ Khaled blared while a co-ed group of bouncy team employees buzzed around the court wielding bazookas that blasted tightly rolled T-shirts emblazoned with Dag’s face into the outstretched hands of the jacked-up fans. The squads finished their pregame stretching and shooting and lined up along opposite foul lines facing one another for the national anthem. A Navy color guard marched out bearing the flag. And then—

The home team stripped off their warm-up jackets and were revealed to be wearing black T-shirts over their regulation league-approved jerseys. The sight of the T-shirts, their symbolism unmistakable, elicited whoops of approval from several fans and a smattering of applause. This display on the part of the players was a violation of league rules and a direct rebuke to Jay, who was dismayed when he saw it. Did Church know this was going to happen and choose not to warn him? At least they’re out there and prepared to play the game, he told himself. The boycott bullet dodged.

An obscure female R&B singer belted the national anthem. As she sang, “Land of the freeeeeeeeee,” extending the note in the glass-shattering manner those tapped to sing this song will often do, and the fans began to cheer and applaud in anticipation of its end, Jay felt a tap on his shoulder. He looked over and saw the nervously smiling face of Major House, who greeted him in a voice several decibels too loud. They had arranged to meet in the skybox. Why was he in the tunnel right before Jay was going out on the court?

“I bought a pair of tickets for the game,” the Mayor said. “It’s better that way right now.”

“Why?” He instantly knew why.

“I don’t have a problem with you, Jay. You know that. But Newark’s a black city.”

“Newark was a black city when you were my guest last time.”

“I can’t be sitting next to you at a game right now.”

“Now is when I could use you.”

“Hey, you know I’m your friend,” he said and clapped Jay on the back. “We’ll talk on the phone Monday. I’ll even come to the office if you want. But not tonight.”

Mayor House lingered as if he wanted to make sure that Jay was all right with being abandoned like this by a putative ally just before tip-off, because who would understand the consideration of practical matters if not Jay Gladstone.

“Et tu, Major?” Jay said.

“Et tu? Come on, man, I’m up for re-election in the fall.”

Jay wondered if the mayor had conferred with Church Scott. They were friendly, and he would not have been surprised to hear the two of them had coordinated their response. A voice on the P.A. system crackled, and in his rapidly spinning mind, Jay heard every third word: Tonight. Team. Special. Before Jay could ask the mayor if he was colluding with the coach, the public-address announcer intoned, “Please welcome Jay Gladstone,” and he squared his shoulders and propelled himself past the politician—Why am I doing this? Don’t do this. Let’s do this!—out of the shadows, and on to the blindingly bright basketball court.

The powerful lights bounced off the polished hardwood and into Jay’s retinas. Multiple levels of yellow, orange, green, and blue seats extending several hundred feet up blurred into one pulsating organism that gave forth scattered boos, several catcalls he could not make out, and some anemic cheering. None of it was encouraging. The brilliant illumination created a bell jar effect and what lay outside the lighted area was not readily discernible.

Like something from a dream, Jay absorbed thousands of smiling D’Angelo Maxwells observing him from the T-shirts sported by every fan. Although the picture appeared hallucinatory, it was not a trick of perception. There were over eighteen thousand images of Dag’s face, and an ocean of Dag’s eyes locked in on him.

The teams had repaired to their benches to await the buzzer that would summon the starters to the court for the opening tip. The color guard had retreated. The bazooka-wielding T-shirt crew kneeled under one of the baskets. At the center of the court, a team lackey handed a cordless microphone to Jay. The sounds died down, and Jay gazed up to the nosebleed seats. He had a brief and comforting memory of the Knicks-Bullets playoff game he had seen from that vantage point as a teenager nearly forty years earlier.

In a steady voice, he began, “Thank you all for coming tonight.”

From near the rafters, someone yelled, “WHERE’S YOUR WIFE?”

Scattered laughter. The outburst could have been worse, and Jay was relieved to hear someone else shout, “LET HIM TALK, ASSHOLE!” followed by more laughs. Should he have listened to Tackman’s advice? Not tonight. Jay knew what he was doing, had addressed unpredictable groups before. Were his knees trembling? He steadied himself. While he waited for the murmur to die down, he glanced over to the bench and saw Church in his seat, elbows on knees, looking at the floor. His gaze shifted to the Miami bench where every player was staring at him, waiting to see what he would say. Were they staring or scowling? It was hard to tell.

“As you all know,” Jay continued, his voice steady as it resonated to the upper deck, “D’Angelo Maxwell is in the hospital so I’d like to begin with a moment of silent prayer for him.” As Jay said this, he again looked over at Church Scott, who was shaking his head, in either disdain or admiration. Which was it? It didn’t matter. Jay congratulated himself on the courage of the move. It had come to him spontaneously, and he had acted on it in front of the crowd, all of whom must know what had occurred between Dag and Nicole. No one could miss the magnanimity of the gesture. Certainly, Bobby Tackman would approve.

As the arena quieted, Jay waited, every receptor quivering, the warmth of the lights on his face, the pungent smell of sweat on the court, the lingering taste of the antacid tablets, the otherworldly stillness. He would have prayed if he had not been considering what to say next. Jay remembered his appearance in front of the Planning Commission. He did not compose a word of it beforehand and had delivered a first-rate soliloquy. He knew how to wing it.

After what seemed like a respectable amount of time had passed (five seconds), he resumed, “I wanted to talk to you tonight so that I could apologize. The accident was a dreadful thing, but I want to say here in public in front of the team’s fans that it was an accident. An accident for which I take full responsibility.” That was the key point to hit, he knew. Americans want to hear that whoever caused a scandal took “responsibility” for it. They dispensed a public lashing and then everyone could “move on.” Jay knew the Stations of the Contrition Cross, had seen them traversed by countless others that the shame machine trained its sights on. He would not say anything about moving on tonight, though. The contract was implied.

“And by taking responsibility . . . ”

An object landed on the court near Jay’s feet. From high up, a fan had hurled a tightly rolled T-shirt. It skimmed past him. The arena remained strangely hushed. Not sure what to do but wanting to convey amiability, Jay leaned down, picked up the T-shirt and tossed it back in the stands.

“Someone else might want this,” he said.

A fan shouted from the upper deck, “Racist!” the harsh intonation screaming like a missile before detonating on the floor. Jay tensed. Another T-shirt hit the court, then three more. Two sailed over his head, tossed from behind him. He could not throw them all back.

“I like your passion,” Jay said, a projectile striking his leg. “But it’s not true. So by taking responsibility—”

Boos began to roll in from the upper decks, boos gathering force in the lower bowl, boos coming from behind him and from either side, rising in volume and combining with wild voices emerging from hundreds of throats, all swelling into a crescendo of contempt. Fans rose in their seats yelling, gesticulating, and Dag Maxwell T-shirts began to rain down on the court from all directions, filling the noisy air like snowballs, some arcing gracefully toward their target, others shooting at Jay with laser-like precision. What collective insanity had broken loose? He wasn’t a bad actor—he was good!—and this was atonement of the first order! He apologized! He took responsibility!

As one T-shirt struck him in the back and another glanced off his shoulder, Jay reflexively held his hand up to protect his recently broken nose. A phalanx of security charged in his direction.

“ANY FAN CAUGHT THROWING AN OBJECT ON THE COURT WILL BE EJECTED. PLEASE DO NOT THROW OBJECTS. YOU WILL BE EJECTED IMMEDIATELY.”

But the T-shirts continued to land on the court near Jay along with drink cups, team hats, and anything else that could be hurled through the air. Bellows of indignation, howling imprecations, curses of all kinds unleashed. Distorted faces and cruel laughter added to the sensory overload. Security men waded in, trying to stop fans from contributing to the chaos.

Dequan sprinted toward him. A T-shirt struck the bodyguard in the face, and he tripped over a guard who had fallen while chasing a fan. Dequan picked himself up and, pushing other members of the security detail out of the way, found Jay. Several guards chased other fans that had dashed on to the court wielding T-shirts, arms cocked, attempting to get a better shot at the petrified owner. On the sidelines, players and coaches stood frozen and watched the action unfold like a video game.

Cutting through the roar of the unhinged mob, an authoritative voice: “THIS IS THE MAYOR OF NEWARK.” There was a brief lull in the mayhem, mischief-makers calibrating their reaction to this attempted assertion of control. “ALL FANS RETURN TO YOUR SEATS IMMEDIATELY.” But just as quickly, the noise level climbed, bedlam resumed, and although the mayor continued to assert his authority—“YOU ARE BRINGING SHAME ON THE CITY OF NEWARK! RETURN TO YOUR SEATS!”—the fans ignored him.

Dequan threw an arm around Jay and, shoving people out of their path, guided him toward the tunnel. When they were twenty feet from the entrance Jay felt a blow to his head as if someone had punched him. He wheeled and saw that one of the T-shirt bazooka marksmen had scored a direct hit with the weapon. Several security men wrestled him to the floor as he hooted in celebration. Dequan hustled Jay into the mouth of the tunnel. Through the din, he heard the agitated voice of his erstwhile ally continue to implore, “THIS IS THE MAYOR OF NEWARK, RETURN TO YOUR DAMN SEATS!”

Relieved the T-shirt had not further damaged his already broken nose but undone by the riot his presence caused, he waited with Boris in the security office until Bo McCants determined it was safe to leave the building. Jay was shaking, short of breath. It took several minutes for his pulse to slow, and he thought he might be having a coronary. Huddled in the claustrophobic room, he tried to get his bearings. Blood roared in his ears. There was the strange sensation of thinking he might begin to cry. It seemed as if the entire building had lost its collective mind. Where was the residual goodwill he had anticipated? Where was the collective memory of his generosity? Bo McCants stood at the door peering up and down the corridor. What was he waiting for? Finally—how long had they been stuck there?—he indicated that the time had come to move out.

A close formation of security guards surrounded Jay and escorted him toward the exit. They emerged from the building, and he was relieved to see only a smattering of people outside. The outdoor protest had ended, and in the brisk evening air, the scene appeared like any other game night. As a safety precaution, an additional detail of security men piled into a van and tailed the SUV as it ferried Jay into the city.

When Bo McCants’s squad finally restored order at Sanitary Solutions Arena, over a hundred fans were ejected from the building. Police made twenty-seven arrests for disorderly conduct and public drunkenness. Jay was watching the local feed of the game with Boris on the large screen television in his apartment and, in what felt like an afterthought, saw the home team beat the Miami Heat 107-105, thereby qualifying for the NBA playoffs. Boris offered his congratulations, but Jay was not in a festive mood.

In the postgame wrap-up, rather than simply celebrate the twin accomplishments of knocking off a formidable foe and making it to the postseason, the announcers chose to discuss the melee that had occurred earlier.

The white play-by-play man, a career New York broadcaster named Al Klinger, declared, “The fans’ behavior tonight was outrageous. Jay Gladstone’s a decent guy.”

Pro basketball games are usually broadcast by duos: The play-by-play announcer who describes the action as it’s occurring and the “color” man who provides insights and analysis. The color man is often a former player and often, although not always, African-American, rendering the term “color man” unfortunate. Al Klinger’s partner was Kenny Jamison, a former Chicago Bull. He was black. To Klinger’s remark, Kenny Jamison responded, “You’re so sure he’s a decent guy?”

Jay sat wrapped in a bathrobe, a bowl of low-fat mint chip ice cream on his lap, and watched this unfold.

“I think he’s a decent guy,” the white announcer said. “You don’t?” Jay could see Al suddenly wondering whether he should have asked his broadcast partner this particular question.

The pause that ensued while Kenny Jamison thought about what he might say was agonizing. Kenny Jamison was an employee of the home team. Kenny Jamison, technically speaking, worked for Jay Gladstone.

“You want my honest opinion?”

Kenny Jamison’s employer, sitting in front of the television high in the Manhattan sky, paused the spoonful of ice cream that was halfway to his mouth, unsure how much he wanted to know the man’s honest opinion.

Kenny Jamison: “I think it’s complicated.”

Complicated? String theory was complicated! Deciphering ancient runes was complicated! Jay Gladstone had uttered a few words that could have been interpreted by well-meaning people multiple ways and then publicly apologized! What was complicated about that?

Jay turned off the television. He did not want to hear that the quality of his character was “complicated.” If he could fire Church Scott when the playoffs were over, could he fire Kenny Jamison, too? Of course not. He couldn’t just get rid of everyone, make them take loyalty oaths, swear fealty to him.

“How is it possible that I have no black friends?”

“What about Church?”

“That backstabber?”

“He’s in an impossible position.”

“Don’t defend him, Boris.” Jay’s tone did not invite a response.

Boris leaned back on the sofa, stretched his arms over his head. Jay put the ice cream down. It had lost its taste.

“Someone needs to start a business,” Boris said. “Black friends for white liberals. Reduces black unemployment, erases white guilt. All credit cards accepted.”

There was no laughter from Jay.

The men did not talk for the next several minutes, just remained together, each brooding about how dire the situation had become. Boris asked if Jay would be all right alone in the apartment. Upon receiving an affirmative response, he departed.

In bed, Jay wondered about the effects of the night’s events. It was hard to believe only hours earlier he had stood at the center of a basketball court and been subjected to the jeers of the mob, many of whom could not confine their abuse to the verbal realm and had either hurled objects or tried to attack him physically. It was bizarre. Jay had from his earliest years fantasized what it was like to be on the court with the full attention of the crowd. But in his fantasy, he was much younger and wearing a basketball uniform, and the crowd he envisioned was an adoring one cheering his achievements. Reversal of the image from worship to denigration disrupted the circuitry. He knew there would be a backlash from what had happened with Dag, but he had not expected this. The model citizen who had led a sober life as an executive, civic leader, and—until recently—family man was now the target of free-ranging scorn that seemed to have come unstuck from its original cause and taken on a life of its own. But perhaps something positive might come from it, he reflected. Being the victim of public shaming on such a scale might create sympathy and reverse the trend that seemed to be taking hold. Or, would what had occurred only reinforce his role as a villain, validate the feelings of those inclined to be cruel, and permit them to give their disgust free rein?

And when would Dag emerge from the coma? Were that to happen, Jay could at least temporarily decrease the rate and frequency of his self-flagellation.

Chapter Forty-Five

Late Saturday evening while Jay was watching the post-game broadcast with Boris, Imani Mayfield sat down at her dorm room desk, opened her laptop, and began to type. As a scholar and, in her view, a fair-minded woman, she took great pains to find the right tone. She wanted to condemn, but not destroy. Jay Gladstone’s daughter was one of her closest friends. Should she mention that? No, it was irrelevant. But there would be no ad hominem attack. It took several drafts, and in the end, she was satisfied. The next morning everyone affiliated with Tate College, including the trustees (one of whom was Jay Gladstone), woke up to find the following email waiting for them:

From: Imani Mayfield, Tate College, ’12

To: All members of the Tate College community

This email contains upsetting material so if you have been a victim of racism consider this a trigger warning.

I am writing to you as a student at Tate College and a progressive woman of color. Tate College has a long history of tolerance. It is a nexus of competing ideas and an incubator of challenging thought. But even at a place like Tate, some ideas are so unacceptable that their expression must be banned. As you may already know, Jay Gladstone has been invited to address the class of 2012 at our graduation in May. As a student, this was not a decision I approved of, but I believe in the free exchange of ideas, and despite his controversial record as a New York City landlord, I did not raise my voice in protest. Now circumstances have changed, and today I respectfully call on all members of the college community, students, faculty, and staff, to join me in demanding the immediate withdrawal of this invitation.

Some of you may not be aware of the recent events that have led me to take this step: Gladstone was heard on a tape making a racially charged comment. If you haven’t heard about the incident and want to read about it yourself to provide some context you can find stories on the Internet here: www.nytimes.com, here: www.espn.com, or here: www.gawker.com, and on lots of other sites. Here is what he said:

“Why does everyone in this family want to have sex with black people?”

I’m sorry to have to drop that in the middle of your computer screen, or your smartphone, or whatever device you’re reading this on but that’s how it is. With or without context, the comment is deeply hurtful and racist. If you don’t know, Gladstone’s wife was having sexual relations with one of his black male employees, and he caught them. I’m a human being. I feel for Jay Gladstone. But that does not diminish the harmfulness of what he said. While I wish my eyes could unsee his words, my eyes cannot unsee them. I will, however, offer an interpretation because this is the basis for my demand to withdraw the invitation to speak at graduation. Jay Gladstone’s objectification of the black body has a long, ugly, and dangerous history in America. Since our ancestors arrived on these shores in chains, white folk, to put it mildly, have had a complex relationship with people of color. Make no mistake: Black bodies built this nation. Black bodies are worshipped in this nation. Black bodies are feared in this nation. Black bodies are rendered abstract, decoupled from their personhood, and sexualized. Jay Gladstone, through his hateful words, invokes the antebellum magnolias-in-the-moonlight slave-owning landscape of Mandingo, a depraved world of delicate white folk whose respectability and decorum are vanquished by untamed black sexuality and the people of color who pay for that depravity with their lives. That original sin from which this nation is still recovering grew out of the white supremacist vision of men like Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson, and Jay Gladstone is their heir. As a personification of white male privilege, he declares himself unfit to be a speaker on this campus.

Please join me in calling the office of President Chapin at (845) 456-7395 or contacting him at [email protected] and letting the man know that people like Jay Gladstone are not welcome at a place like Tate. The college must rescind the invitation to speak.

One love, Imani Mayfield

Jay blearily perused the email with his morning coffee, stomach migrating incrementally downward as he read. By the time he reached the end, he was wide-awake. Then he reread it. He was wounded and outraged. Although Imani’s words were upsetting, they were to be expected considering the source. She had a score to settle with Jay. Her characterization of him was wildly off base, but enemies had caricatured him before, and as a landlord he was accustomed to being vilified. No one ever compared me to Thomas Jefferson, he reflected. If my mother weren’t senile, she’d be thrilled. He expected this entreaty to ignite a prairie fire at the college that would burn until it consumed him. Had Aviva signed off on her friend’s email? Had she co-written the thing? It had certainly been a bold stroke. Not only would the opportunity to speak there probably be denied as a result of what Imani had done, but his very presence at his daughter’s graduation would also now be unwelcome. This situation horrified him. As sour as it was between them, Aviva was his only child, and he intended to watch her graduate from college.

It occurred to Jay that in the wake of her friend’s missive Aviva might call or send him an email using Imani’s to buttress her case. But he did not hear from her. After last night’s events, the shift in his circumstances was unmistakable. He could endow a new science or humanities center, underwrite chairs in every department; none of it mattered now. Aviva’s friend had checkmated him.

Chapter Forty-Six

The banks of the Hudson around Schuylkill are densely forested. Although the well-heeled have, since the 19th century, erected palaces along the swiftly flowing river, great swaths of the land remain undeveloped. Hickory, hemlock, and black birch soar over the primeval landscape, much of which continues to be unchanged from the time of the Algonquin. Over two centuries earlier, these woods were filled with British soldiers under the command of General Cornwallis attempting to rout the ragtag revolutionary troops led by the upstart George Washington. America was born, and the crack of martial gunfire was now heard only in the context of video games. More recently, for circumscribed periods each year, licensed sportsmen draped in orange reflective gear tracked through the area hoisting rifles and obliterating deer. But it was not hunting season, and as the sun winked above the treetops melting the frost that had formed overnight on the fallen branches and old leaves that carpeted the ground, four soldiers swarmed through the woods cradling weapons.

Aviva, Imani, and Noah were participating in an acting exercise devised by Axel that he had dubbed “full environmental immersion” and it consisted of the performer enacting the part he or she was playing in the actual context where the action depicted on stage occurred or, failing that, in the closest manageable approximation. In theory, this would allow the performer to draw on sense memories—the peaty smell of the woods, the crack of a twig snapping underfoot—acquired in the course of the exercise and use them to create a deeper, more evocative portrayal. Axel modeled this particular one on the military training devised by Field Marshall Cinque to prepare his followers in the Symbionese Liberation Army for taking over television studios, or power plants, or kidnapping heiresses. Their sneakers didn’t make a sound as they stole through the woods.

They had gone out early to avoid running into anyone. Axel drove them in his truck and parked in front of an unoccupied summer home on a dirt road off the two-lane highway that ran parallel to the river about a mile from the east bank. After a brief safety lecture, he distributed the guns and they hiked into the woods.

Axel had attended a gun show and purchased two .22 caliber handguns and a pair of military rifles. Aviva and Imani cradled the rifles and the young men each gripped a pistol. Axel was comfortable with a weapon and handled it like he would any tool. But the others were not as relaxed at first and arranged themselves in poses inspired by films and television shows, taking care not to point the barrels at one another. Axel reprimanded them and reminded everyone that art and politics were serious business, and if anyone wanted to goof around, they could go home.

“This isn’t like that bullshit in the West Bank,” he said to Aviva. “This shit is real.”

“How was that bullshit?” Noah said. “The IDF could’ve fucked her up.”

“Yeah, but did they? No, they did not.” Axel said. “They didn’t even bother to show up. You guys had no firearms, there was no confrontation. It was all a big nothing.”

“At least we were there,” Aviva said as they continued to make their way along the path.

Axel just snorted.

To the east, a roiling bank of indigo clouds appeared over the hills. The sun vanished and cast the toy soldiers in shadow. In the darkening woods, Axel ran them through a series of drills, dashing, crouching, maneuvering on their stomachs, drawing their weapons, aiming, pretending to fire. When Aviva stumbled and fell, he asked if she was all right. He showed Imani how to take her gun apart and put it back together. But when Noah questioned why they were doing a particular thing, Axel ordered him to shut up. Since what they were engaged in was essentially a form of play, Noah accepted his lesser role but expected Axel to not act like a dick. When their legs got tangled as they ran through a clearing, Axel shoved Noah, who went sprawling and cursed his friend.

“You could get us killed,” Axel said.

“Dude, it’s a game,” Noah replied as he got up and brushed leaves off his clothes. A stray leaf stuck to his head and Imani plucked it off.

Aviva believed she had acquired all the sense memories necessary for her performance after fifteen minutes but did not want to complain and be labeled a lightweight. It felt silly to be running around the woods waving guns as if they were Sandinistas or members of FARC. Only Axel seemed to be taking it seriously.

When they had been training for nearly an hour, Noah asked why Axel had loaded the guns if he didn’t want anyone to shoot.

“Because people need to feel what it’s like to hold power in their hands.”

“I want to shoot,” Aviva said.

Axel said: “So shoot.”

Noah looked at Axel in surprise and asked why he was going to allow Aviva to fire her gun while he (Noah) was not permitted.

“Because Patty sprays her weapon, fool.”

Axel had always dictated the terms of their friendship. He led a wilder life, read more, agonized more. He was on his own in the world while Noah would graduate from college in a little over a month free to pursue his destiny with a manageable level of student debt. Because of this disparity, Noah didn’t mind being patronized by him when they were alone, but it was unacceptable in the presence of Aviva and Imani.

“What the fuck are you doing?” Axel said.

Noah was pointing the pistol at him.

“Just seeing what power feels like.”

“Put the gun down, fool.” Noah kept pointing it at him. He narrowed an eye. Was he aiming? “I said put the motherfucking gun down. Lay it on the ground and step away from it.” Noah did neither. Aviva watched them, unable to believe what she was seeing. These guys had been friends since freshman year. What damage was programmed into their DNA that made the threat of violence the wordless language of their gender?

“Drop the gun, Jewboy,” Imani said. She was leveling her rifle at Noah’s half black, half-Jewish dreadhead.

It started to drizzle.

Aviva stared at them in mute disbelief. She had never heard her friend use that word in conversation. Axel told Imani not to worry; he would handle this. She did not obey.

“Lower your weapon,” Axel told her. He was oddly relaxed.

Imani looked at him as if he had asked her to whistle. “What? Why?”

“Just stand down, girl. I got this.”

The intensity of the rain increased. To Aviva’s relief, Imani tentatively lowered the barrel of the rifle. The situation was getting too weird. Axel addressed Noah: “How do you like the way power feels?”

“I like it, white boy,” Noah said. “Let me see you drop your weapon.”

“Why do you want me to do that?”

Noah said: “Drop the motherfucker.”

When Axel’s pistol landed on the moist forest floor, it barely made a sound. Aviva saw Imani catch Axel’s eye with a look that asked if he wanted her to aim her gun at Noah again, but with a faint shake of his head, he indicated no. Rain angled down their faces.

Noah ordered Axel to step away from the gun. “And Imani, don’t point that fucking thing at me.”

Axel backed away from the gun on the ground. Aviva rushed forward and grabbed it.

Axel asked her: “Are you with him?”

“You’re both acting like idiots,” Aviva said. “Quit fucking around, Noah.”

Ignoring Aviva, Noah said to Axel: “You’re not a revolutionary, dude. You just play. What have you ever done? That story you tell about liberating the pig farm? Couldn’t find it anywhere on the Internet. How do you explain that? An army of liberated pigs wandering the hills of Oregon and no mention anywhere? You’re full of shit.”

Aviva looked from one boy to the other, guns dangling at her side. Axel glanced toward the guns and then looked at Noah. Ten feet separated them. Then, he slowly walked toward the barrel of Noah’s weapon.

“Shoot me,” Axel said. “See what it feels like.”

Noah had been holding the pistol perpendicular to the ground. Now he shifted his arm, and the angle changed to forty-five degrees.

Aviva could see his hand was trembling. Axel was five feet away.

She said: “Put the gun down, Noah.”

He ignored her. Axel took another step. Aviva could not comprehend what she was seeing: Two blood-engorged rams butting heads in some parody of natural selection.

“I’m warning you, man,” Noah said, but when Axel grabbed the gun from his hand, he did not resist. He seemed relieved and smiled stupidly. He said, “I was just playing,” and gave a nervous laugh. But distress seized his features when Axel in one lightning motion pressed the barrel against Noah’s temple.

A current of terror shot through Aviva, paralyzing her.

“Axel, what the fuck,” Imani screamed.

“Never give up your weapon,” Axel hissed. Noah closed his eyes, quaking.

Axel pulled the trigger and—nothing.

For a moment, no one said anything. Axel stepped away.

“You m-m-motherfucker,” Noah stammered. The air had flown from his narrow body.

Aviva shoved Axel hard. “You’re such an asshole!”

Axel did not respond to her admonishment. Instead, he jammed the pistol into his belt and said, “You think I’d give any of you clowns a loaded weapon?” Then he tilted his head back and uncorked a whoop of laughter that rose to the treetops where it frightened the starlings roosting in the branches.

It was still raining when they marched out of the woods. Axel kept apologizing. Noah didn’t want to hear it at first, but Axel called him an outlaw and a bad motherfucker, said he could shoot all he wanted, and they could even go to a gun range across the river that afternoon.

The bass and drum of thunder grumbled, and lightning strobe-lit the landscape.

“Follow me,” Noah said and ran across the street toward a white Colonial with green shutters. Aviva and Imani looked at each other and trailed him, Axel in the rear. Noah appeared to have recovered from what happened earlier. Behind the house, a set of concrete steps led to the back door. Noah climbed the steps. The door had nine rectangular windowpanes. Aviva thought he was going to punch one of them out to let them in.

“Noah, don’t,” she said.

“Don’t what?” There was a key under the doormat. “Do you want to stand out here and get soaked?”

Aviva considered his question. It was breaking and entering.

He inserted the key in the door, turned the knob, and stepped inside.

“This place is the shit,” Imani said from the dining room.

“Who lives here?” Aviva asked. Having overcome her trepidation, she was looking around the kitchen.

“Some white-collar criminal,” Noah said.

Aviva looked alarmed. “So, he could show up any minute?”

“He’s only here in the summer,” Noah assured her. “I did a little sleuthing. He works mostly in London.”

Rain pelted the windows. Noah found a glass, filled it with water from the tap, and drank. He lit a joint while Axel rummaged through the cabinets. Noah offered Aviva the joint, but she declined. Axel took a hit.

Overhead Aviva could hear the faint sound of Imani’s footsteps. They had stopped sleeping together. Aviva had told her she had been shouldering a lot of conflicting emotions and wanted to handle it alone. Imani had accepted this, said she had never really believed Aviva was gay and asked if Aviva was breaking up with her so she could fuck Axel. At the time Aviva wasn’t sure if that was true, but after what had happened with the guns, she did not want to be Axel’s lover.

Now she watched him searching for the sell-by date on a can of peaches. He had grown wilder from when they first met. She still found him charismatic, but now his behavior evoked the kind of guy who, just to be provocative, might hold a gun to a woman’s head while he was inside her. His fearlessness appealed, but the less assertive Noah was more like someone she could see herself with as an adult. That was the thing: None of them seemed like adults, not Imani, or Noah, or Axel. Aviva didn’t seem like one to herself, and she was about to graduate from college. What she felt more than anything was puzzlement. Upset by the situation with her father, uncertain in her sexuality, and now the passive participant in a crime. It was disorienting to be standing in a house she had broken into. It was wrong, she knew, but the lawlessness excited her.

Axel opened the can of peaches. Imani entered the kitchen waving her phone and asked if any of them had seen the email she had blasted to everyone with a Tate College account. No one had checked his or her in-box that morning. Imani took a hit from the joint Noah offered. Then she read:

“I am writing to you as a student at Tate College and a progressive woman of color—”

Imani savored the text, relishing her performance, emphasizing words like toxic, and depraved, and magnolias. No one looked at Aviva, who tried to hide the shame lacerating her. The reading seemed to go on for a long time.

When Imani finished, Noah said, “That’s brilliant.”

“The writing’s impressive,” was Axel’s comment.

Imani informed them that she had done a great deal of reading on the subject.

“How come you didn’t show it to me before you sent it?” Aviva wanted to know.

Imani said, “I knew you might have a problem with it.”

Aviva thought about defending her father. She had not spoken up on his behalf to anyone since the scandal occurred. What had he done, really, other than say a few words in a challenging situation that had become a Rorschach blot for whoever heard them? But people chose what team they were on, and she knew hers. Or at least she thought she did. These were her people, restless, empathic, champions of the downtrodden. But they didn’t know her father as she did. It was one thing for her to criticize him, but it was entirely different when the world seemed bent on destroying the man. Jay Gladstone may have been an oblivious plutocrat, but he was hardly a personification of racist evil. He supported her endeavors, donated enormous sums to the right causes. Yet the terrible condition of the world was the result of the people that were in charge, and he was one of them.

It was difficult for her to choose whom to betray.

“My father might be a lot of things,” Aviva said, “but he’s not a racist.”

“Why did he say that shit?” Noah asked.

“He was in a wonky situation and blurted out some words,” Aviva said. “It sounds bad but now the whole world is on his ass, and it’s not fair.”

“The man’s a stone racist,” Imani said.

“Whether or not he’s racist,” Noah said, “he supports an economic system that continues to benefit from the exploitation of people of color, so yeah.”

“He is not racist,” Aviva repeated. To Imani: “You were in his house, and you sincerely believe my father is racist?”

“Hey, I get that he can’t help it. He’s a creature of the system.”

“That is such bullshit,” Aviva said. “He’s a human being.”

“You forget that he threw me out.”

“Not because you’re black.”

“Why then?”

“Because you were rude.”

“Well, you can take the girl out of Westchester,” Imani said.

The women faced off. The degree of anger between them was new. Axel had been drinking peach juice from the can. He burped. “Hey, don’t forget you two are on the same side. The empire wants us to destroy each other.”

Aviva and Imani took Axel’s interjection as an excuse to stand down.

“I defended you,” Aviva said.

“Whatever,” Imani said. Then: “Okay, I may have been a little rude.”

Conflict temporarily defused.

Noah was looking at his phone. “There’s a blast from the college president. Your dad’s out. He’s not speaking at commencement. It says he voluntarily withdrew.”

The effects of the abuse her friends heaped on her father compromised the relief Aviva felt at this news. That he had not been sufficiently moved by his own daughter’s request, yet had capitulated as a result of Imani’s efforts was beyond Aviva’s capacity to understand.

“I’m almost sorry the situation got resolved,” Noah said. “It would’ve been fun to protest.”

“Could’ve occupied the president’s office,” Imani said.

“Kidnapped him,” Noah said.

“The college president?” Axel asked.

“Why not?” Noah said. “It’d be an epic prank, like something from the sixties.”

“The American left is dead,” Axel said, beating a favorite drum.

“You can still do it,” Imani said. A deft ironist, her tone was indeterminate.

Noah said, “We can grab him at his house, get him over here, and keep him prisoner for just, like, a day. If we wore balaclavas, he’d never know it was us, and he’d be blindfolded anyway.”

“Okay, that’s stupid,” Imani said, clarifying her position.

“You sound like you’ve thought about this,” Aviva said.

“All we need is duct tape, rope, and a blanket,” Noah said.

Was he serious? Aviva had no idea.

Axel slapped his palm on the counter. “You know who we should kidnap? Aviva’s dad.”

“That’s even more stupid,” Aviva said.

“No, listen,” Axel said. “When the SLA kidnapped Patty Hearst they got her father to donate, like, millions of dollars’ worth of food to poor people in the Bay Area. What if we did that?”

“What, like, fake kidnap Aviva?” Noah said.

Aviva nearly shouted: “No one is fake kidnapping me!” They were all looking at her, and she experienced the creeping sensation that these friends, all of whom were from another social world, might suddenly determine she was a class enemy and turn on her. “How high are you guys?”

“Kushed out,” Noah said, laughing.

“You could always fake kidnap me,” Imani said. “For ransom, you might get a corn dog.”

Aviva did not appreciate the stab at humor.

“No, no, no,” Noah said. “We kidnap Aviva’s dad, we hold him here, we make one of those hostage videos and get him to denounce racism.”

Aviva said, “That’s so beyond dumb, I don’t even—”

“Why?” Imani asked.

“Well, first of all,” Aviva said, “it’s a major crime. Let’s start with that. Then he’s supposed to write a check and end world hunger?”

“Dude is a billionaire,” Axel pointed out. On his tongue, it sounded like “child molester.”

“He could do it,” Noah said.

Aviva thought about her father’s multiple homes, the enormity of the wealth he controlled, and she considered the toxicity of their last encounter. But kidnapping? Audacious, definitely, and exceedingly simpleminded.

“You guys should do it,” she said. “I’ll visit you in jail.”

Noah began to giggle from the weed. He shook, doubled over as he envisioned the hilarity of this group of pranksters in jail. They waited for him to finish.

“Please do,” he said with a long sigh as he regained control of his thin body.

“We can’t do it without you,” Axel said to Aviva. When she asked why they needed her help, he said: “Because he’ll never press charges if you’re part of it.”

Aviva thought about her father and how he had mucked up her life by leaving her mother, by being unnecessarily wealthy, and—in her view—wanting her to be something other than what she was. Now, as a result of his increasingly baroque public difficulties, the problem had only intensified. She resented him for never being able to accept his imperfect, oversensitive, yearning daughter. That fate had bound them together was cruel. She was exhausted from being tarred with the Gladstone brush. Could she never escape this imposed identity? Children separated from parents, it was the natural order; and yet was there ever a real escape from the DNA bequeathed in the form of physical characteristics, psychological traits, all of the visible and invisible qualities that bind families? She was dying to break away, but the mystifying love Aviva felt for her father made the situation intractable.

“I’m not kidnapping my father.”

“What about a bomb?” Axel said. They looked at him skeptically. Somehow, this seemed on a different order of magnitude from kidnapping. “You know, like the Weathermen.”

Noah asked, “Who do you want to bomb?”

Axel reacted like it was a dim-witted question. “Well, we could destroy President Chapin’s house for inviting Aviva’s dad in the first place, or we could bomb Aviva’s dad’s house.”

“Which one?” Imani asked.

Axel and Noah laughed. Aviva did not.

“You want to blow up my father?”

Axel said of course not, there was no way he wanted to blow anyone up, but some property destruction would make a statement. Aviva asked what that might be. His response: “Against racism.”

“How would anyone know that?”

“We take a name like the People’s Army Against Racism, call the media from one of those phones drug dealers use, and we’re the reincarnation of Baader-Meinhof.”

Noah asked, “Do you know how to build a bomb?”

“We liberated that pig farm in Oregon with bombs.”

“The one I couldn’t find any mention of on the Internet.”

“You don’t believe me?”

Aviva’s eyes darted back and forth. She hoped they wouldn’t point guns at each other again.

Noah said, “Axel, I’m only saying that if it happened—”

“If it happened, what? There are things the government suppresses, Noah. Information they don’t want you to know.”

All the testosterone had become tiresome. But there was something about exploding a bomb that was a declaration, as long as no one got hurt. Aviva thought about the house in Bedford, where she had lived full-time until her parents’ divorce. The basketball court that her father built for her despite her indifference to the game. The horses she had no interest in riding. Walking to the swimming pool, her uneven gait serving as a reminder with each step she took that she did not conform to his idea of perfection. To blow a hole in all of it would be—would be what? She caught herself. A bomb? It was ludicrous. Playacting. Posturing. Aviva listened as her friends continued their gabbing, confident the dialogue would exhaust itself.

They talked about explosives, the variety, their relative ease of assembly, whether people would be sympathetic to their cause if they blew something up, had bombs ever been an efficient way to blah blah blah. Aviva pretended to be excited by the idea of direct action but had no intention of following through. After listening to the conversation, Imani tempered her eagerness. Noah implied he didn’t believe the others were up to it anyway so what were they even talking about, but Axel’s desire for a dramatic gesture seemed to grow.

The downpour had stopped. In the western sky, sunlight spilled from a fissure in the clouds. When they left the house after an hour, the one thing they agreed on was that if racism was going to be defeated, something must be done.

Chapter Forty-Seven

Late Sunday afternoon, Jay received a phone call from the commissioner of the league. A man both affable and indomitable, he had ruled his fiefdom smoothly for several decades, navigating a middle path between the owners and players that led both groups to feel he was secretly in the pocket of the other. He was sickened by what happened at Sanitary Solutions Arena the previous evening and expressed his desire for those who created the disturbance to be prosecuted and banned from further attendance at games. The commissioner asked: Are you doing okay, Jay? The commissioner remarked: No one should have to endure this. The commissioner wondered: Would you mind coming to the league offices first thing on Monday morning to talk about damage control?

At last, Jay thought, someone not just piling on but looking for ways to ameliorate the situation. He went to bed that night despondent over what he had done to Dag, disappointed that he had not heard from Aviva in the wake of his withdrawal from the commencement, but secure in his alliance with the man who governed professional basketball.

Because the disturbance at the Miami game occurred too late in the day to make the Sunday morning papers, the Monday editions made up for it with extensive accounts of the mayhem. GLADSTONE BOMBARDMENT! shrieked the New York Post above a picture of Jay beneath a barrage of flying T-shirts. The New York Times reported: Fans Express Rage Toward Owner Prior to Victory. A columnist for the Daily News opined: While what Gladstone said was undeniably racist, it would behoove the fans to express themselves in a more civilized way.

Undeniably racist? Jay nearly choked when he read that. His family foundation handed out Gladstone Scholarships to black kids like candy and now his “racism” was undeniable? Today he was having lunch with Bobby Tackman at his club. He hoped Tackman had some idea how to unwind the narrative that had taken hold.

It was with this in mind that Jay rode the elevator to the League offices. He had informed Dequan he did not need a bodyguard today. In the elevator with him were a man and a woman, both in business dress. Neither acknowledged his presence. Jay was the first to get off, and when the door closed behind him, he imagined the two strangers were bonding over their ride with New York’s latest public enemy and saying disparaging things about him. The receptionist, a young black woman he recognized from a recent visit, offered a terse greeting. He suspected she was sitting in judgment.

She alerted the commissioner’s office to Jay’s arrival. Jay waited for the woman to wave him back, but she told him to take a seat. “They’ll let me know when they’re ready for you.” The head of the league was going to keep him waiting. That had never happened. He sank into a couch and pulled out his phone to see if there was any news from the Planning Commission about the Sapphire. His chief operating officer had told him they expected to get the approval to break ground in the fall, but there was still no word. The elevator doors opened, and two league attorneys emerged. Trim and athletic, they glanced at Jay but said nothing. The receptionist buzzed them in. Jay continued to wait. A minute later the elevator door opened again, and a middle-aged black man emerged. Jay recognized him as a veteran referee, someone he had watched call many games from his courtside seats. The man walked to the receptionist’s desk, gave his name, and sat down in the waiting area across from Jay where he picked up a magazine and began to leaf through it. Jay waited to see whether the ref would express sympathy about what had happened to him at Sanitary Solutions Arena, or even deign to greet him. When he did neither, Jay said, “How are you?” The man looked up from the magazine and grunted a greeting but said nothing. Their respective places on the social food chain would have ordinarily demanded obeisance on the part of the game official toward the owner, but recent events had jumbled that equation. The receptionist called the referee’s name and said he could go back. Ten more minutes crawled by before she told Jay they were ready for him.

“Sorry we made you wait,” the commissioner said.

They were in the conference room seated at a large oval table surrounded by twelve chairs. Jay sat on one side of the table, the commissioner across from him flanked by the deputy commissioner, a bald white man in his forties, and the chief counsel, a white woman with a brunette bob, also in her forties. Though they were both highly competent professionals, Jay considered them cogs in the league machine. The commissioner had held his position for nearly a quarter of a century. An avuncular man, he had a tanned face with prominent features and an impressive head of graying hair. He looked well-rested. With a forefinger, he pushed his gold-framed glasses back on the bridge of his nose.

“Saturday night was regrettable.” His voice a purr.

“Terrifying,” Jay said.

“It must have been. How are you feeling?”

“I’ve been better.” He hoped the smidgen of pathos in his voice would engender compassion that he could use to his advantage. The deputy commissioner and the chief counsel made sympathetic noises. Jay ignored them. He noticed that the chief counsel had a manila folder in front of her.

The Commissioner: “What about D’Angelo?”

“I have the best doctors in the world monitoring his condition.”

Jay hoped that the commissioner had a plan to extract him from the thicket in which he found himself. The two had always enjoyed good relations, chatted at league meetings, had played several rounds of golf together at league-sponsored charity events. Jay even invited the commissioner to go horseback riding with him—“Jews ride horses?” the commissioner (who was Jewish) had asked with mock surprise—and although he had not yet taken Jay up on his offer, the leader of the NBA had made it clear that it was only a matter of time before they saddled up together. So, the two men were friendly, if not exactly friends. Jay had heard that the commissioner’s parents spoke Yiddish at home, and since the entire world seemed to be in the process of retreating to the ethnic categories from which they issued, he was not above trying to connect on a tribal level.

“Honestly, this whole megilla feels like a lot of tsuris for bupkis.”

From the blank stares of the lieutenants and the Commissioner’s phlegmatic expression, Jay realized he had overreached. He wanted to pluck the ill-timed Yiddish out of the air and cram it back down his throat. All of a sudden, he was channeling a Catskills tummler? From what hidden closet had Jay pulled the Jew-face?

“Let me cut right to the chase,” the commissioner said. “I talked with Church Scott last night, and he told me about the potential for a player boycott.”

“The players are young men,” Jay said. “They’re emotional.”

“The playoffs start this weekend,” the commissioner reminded him.

“I know,” Jay said. “We qualified.” A smile creased his face. The lieutenants offered congratulations. He nodded in acknowledgment.

“Church informed me that if you don’t sell the team, the players aren’t going to suit up.”

Before Jay could respond, the general counsel said, “Here’s how it would work: You put the team in a temporary trust—”

Jay interrupted her: “Whoa, whoa, whoa. I’m not selling the team.”

“Just a minute,” the commissioner said. “Hear us out. Ultimately, it’s your decision, of course.”

Jay thought about getting up and leaving but realized a display of petulance would accomplish nothing. He needed the league on his side. He angled his head at the general counsel to indicate she should continue.

“Once the team is in a trust, the league will take over the day-to-day operations. It’s what we did with the New Orleans franchise, so there’s already a precedent for this.”

“Then I sell the team to the highest bidder?”

“We already have someone in mind,” the commissioner said. “He’s Russian, and I think we can get you one point five billion, maybe a little more. You paid eight hundred million a few years ago, so you’d make half a billion dollars. That’s a lot of rubles.” The commissioner laughed, as did his accomplices. All of them looked at Jay as if he should pick up the cue and laugh with them. Ruble was a funny word in this context and at least worth a chuckle, wasn’t it?

“I’m never going to agree to that,” Jay said. “You can’t force me to sell. I’ll tie you up in court for years.”

The commissioner did not immediately respond. The others didn’t dare speak. To Jay, this was a kangaroo court and he was not going to submit. He waited.

The commissioner assumed an expression of strained patience. “The playoffs are the most important part of our season,” he pointed out. “Your league partners need your team on the court. We have a television deal that I intend to honor.”

“I know all about the television deal,” Jay said. “I helped negotiate it.”

“Then you know we have to play the games,” the deputy commissioner said.

Jay looked at him askance: “You’re allowed to talk?” Jay meant it jocularly, but the edge in his voice made it read like the insult it was.

“Occasionally,” the deputy said, glancing at his boss who did not react.

“I’m going to talk to Church, and then I’ll talk to the players,” Jay said. “I’ll take care of it. My team is going to be on the court this weekend.”

“I hope you’re right,” the commissioner said. “But Jay, don’t take it the wrong way because it’s not personal, but if we don’t resolve this by the end of the week, the league is prepared to go to federal court to get an injunction forcing you to at least temporarily surrender control of the franchise.”

The general counsel opened her folder, removed a document, and slid it across the table. “This is a brief outline of what we have in mind,” she said. “You should let your attorney take a look at it.”

Jay ignored the document. “I always had great respect for you,” he said to the commissioner. “Because you had the spine to stand up to the players and the owners. But the mob starts braying, and you’re prepared to sell me down the river?”

The commissioner and his team stared at him. No one said anything. The deputy commissioner ended the standoff when he said:

“You realize that selling someone down the river refers to slavery, right?”

Jay exhaled in exasperation. Would his torments never cease?

“It hadn’t occurred to me.”

The deputy said, “I would advise you not to use that image if you’re going to be doing interviews.”

Jay wanted to smack him.

The general counsel raised her hand to her mouth to hide that she was smiling. Jay noticed her reaction. “Yes, this is hilarious,” he said. “A man’s life is being destroyed.”

Her grin vanished.

Jay pushed away from the table and got out of his chair. He wanted to calibrate his words with the greatest precision:

“This is a travesty. You are dictatorially adjudicating this matter without the due process that I’m entitled to, and I’m not going to let you do it.”

As he stalked out of the room, the commissioner implored, “Try to understand our position,” but Jay was no longer listening.

The Fifth Avenue sidewalk panorama looked like it did every weekday morning: men and women in business attire hustling to offices, tourists examining guidebooks and craning their necks, people charging in all directions. Yet to Jay, it seemed different because his relationship to all of it had changed. He wore a baseball cap and sunglasses, and no one paid attention to him. Telling Dequan his bodyguard services were not required today looked like the right idea. That would’ve attracted more notice. From the sidewalk, Jay called Church Scott. His call went to voice mail, and he left a message saying he intended to come to the team’s practice facility today to talk with the players. If he could speak to them directly, he knew they would see reason. They were young athletes. From what he knew, most of them were not political. He would appeal to them on a human level, talk about his philanthropy, his lifelong love of basketball. They would see reason.

He pulled the brim of his cap lower and began walking to the Paladin Club for his lunch with Bobby Tackman.

Five minutes later his phone vibrated. Church Scott was returning his call. The players were in open rebellion, Church reported. There were ten black men and two white men on the active roster, and every one of them was in agreement. The players had made it clear that as long as Jay Gladstone owned the team, they would refuse to take the court. Jay tried to hide his incredulity. They were professionals. They had contracts. How could these young men be so completely unreasonable? When Jay asked if it would be helpful for him to address the team, Church said, “No, no, no, that would only inflame the situation. If they hear you’re coming to practice, they’ll all get in their cars and go home.”

“They won’t even listen?”

“Not now,” Church said.

Jay asked when he thought that might change. Church told him not to hold his breath.

The city howled in his ears. He hung up and quickened his pace.

Jay was early to his lunch appointment, and while he waited for the crisis specialist to appear, he found an obscure corner of the club in which to sit and phoned Herman Doomer. When he reported what had occurred at the league offices Doomer was not surprised. “We’re living a different climate today,” the lawyer said. “People are unforgiving.” In no mood for a philosophical disquisition, Jay asked what kind of legal challenge they could mount. “If the league files an injunction against you, we can challenge it, but it’s a steep climb. The judge will weigh the interests of all the other owners against yours, and it’s hard to see how we can get a favorable ruling given the imminence of the playoffs.” Jay cursed under his breath. “That might be the least bad piece of news I’m going to give you on this phone call,” Doomer said.

“What are you talking about?”

“I heard from Christine Lupo’s office today. They’re going to charge you with a hate crime.”

What the lawyer told him was incomprehensible.

“A hate crime? Herman, it was an accident.”

“Those words cast the whole business in a racial light, unfortunately. Maybe we can get them to drop it eventually, but it’s going to be part of a larger negotiation.”

“This has no basis in reality. It’s illogical!”

“Not from their point of view. The more the DA’s office piles on, the thinking goes, the greater chance that we’ll negotiate to avoid a trial.”

“I am not negotiating.”

Doomer agreed that they should try and resolve the situation with the league and preserve Jay’s ownership position. The attorney asked if he wanted to proceed with the attempt to temporarily remove Franklin from the business but Jay balked at taking that step. There were too many other things to address this week. Dealing with Franklin could wait.

Chapter Forty-Eight

Jay had not been to his club since the accident. He absently picked at his poached salmon as he withstood the gale force of Bobby Tackman’s storm: “What did you think would happen when you stepped out on that court in front of all those people after you ran over their hero with your car? Why did you hire me if you’re going to go off half-baked and do whatever you want? I nearly called you that night and resigned. The clients I’m able to benefit are the ones who listen.”

Tackman had not touched his tuna melt.

After the meeting at the league office, Jay’s insides were in an uproar. He had said hello to the club manager upon his arrival, and Jean-Pierre looked at him strangely, as if he wanted to say something but could not quite bring himself to do it. None of the other diners had called out to him as he made his way to the table—Jay believed they wanted to give him privacy. Now, this onslaught from the garrulous consultant was intensifying his already foul mood. Wasn’t it his job to be the dispassionate one? As Tackman continued to enumerate the ways the misadventure at the arena had made his job infinitely more challenging, Jay fought the urge to sack him on the spot. But he had dug a China-sized hole and the man’s services were required for him to climb out of it, so instead he listened and stewed.

Tackman had concluded that Anderson Cooper offered the best platform from which to embark on what he referred to as “your apology tour.” He was friendly with the popular television host and thought Cooper’s ability to apprehend events in a nuanced manner would render him at least somewhat sensitive to Jay’s plight.

“What if he asks me about the accident?”

“I spoke with your lawyer about this. It’s his opinion that you insist what happened was entirely unintentional, and that on the advice of counsel you cannot say anything else. But you want the interviewer to ask the question. You can emphasize that it was an accident, one which you deeply regret, and will haunt you until—choose your time frame.”

“Forever.”

“Forever works. And once you’ve got that out of the way, what you want to do is apologize to everyone, to Dag and Dag’s family, the basketball community, the black community, and this is the most important apology of all: To everyone I have hurt.”

“To everyone I have hurt?”

“Do you have a problem with that? It’s essential.”

For someone whose guiding principle was simply to be a moral actor, the idea of apologizing to “everyone I have hurt” was unspeakable. In a religious studies class, Jay had learned about the Jains, a group in India whose members swept the path in front of them with a broom as they walked so as not to harm any form of life with their feet. While Jay knew he was no Jain, the idea that he had hurt people on a scale this apology would imply was an assault on his core identity. Yet there it was. His version of accepting responsibility had resulted in a barrage of projectiles aimed in his direction. He had no choice but to trust Tackman, who, taking a break from his peroration, was finally forking a bite of the tuna melt into his mouth.

“You have to understand, Jay, we’re living in a different time.” Tackman took a sip of his tomato juice and grew thoughtful. “No one cares about the tragedies of kings. Those days are gone. Now, it’s all about who’s the most aggrieved, who can whine the loudest. Heaven forbid someone like you has a complaint. It’s not allowed. No one is interested in your story anymore. It’s the Time of the Victim, and you are in no shape or form a victim. You know what else you’re not? A protagonist. You, old chum, are the villain in this tale. Our job is to make you the protagonist.”

Jay knew this, but to hear it spoken aloud was unnerving.

“You go on CNN Wednesday, the first playoff game is Sunday, right? If the interview goes well, I think you’ll get a reprieve from the league. Maybe you don’t have to sell the team.”

The idea that going on television with Anderson Cooper might lead to a “reprieve”—and whatever form it took had to be better than what was happening now—lightened the crushing weight Jay felt. He surveyed the bustling dining room. Well-dressed men and women having lunch, they talked, they gestured, their voices rising in a pleasing din. Jean-Pierre greeted the diners. A waiter circulated with a dessert cart. An ordinary day, one in which Jay would have table-hopped. There was a network head having lunch with the president of a prominent advertising agency. And wasn’t that the woman who ran the Rockefeller Foundation? He would say hello on the way out, shake some hands, pat a few backs. Surely these people, his people, knew what had happened to him at Sanitary Solutions Arena. Surely, they would want to offer their sympathy.

Jay was only able to finish half his lunch. He signaled for the waiter to remove his plate.

“I’ve withdrawn from speaking at the Tate College commencement.”

Tackman finished chewing what was in his mouth, took a drink of water. “Giving a speech at a liberal arts college was a terrible idea. Frankly, I don’t know what you were thinking.”

While they drank coffee, Tackman mentioned that he was still working on arranging an invitation for Jay to speak at the Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem. The minister was open to the idea, but apparently several of the deacons were opposed. In the meantime, Jay should keep a low profile and not do anything in public that might draw attention.

Managed seclusion. This time Jay would listen.

“If you do well with Anderson, maybe you won’t have to do anything else.”

That did not sound likely. Penance involved more than getting your passport back into polite society stamped during a television appearance with Anderson Cooper. But he appreciated any words of encouragement. He signed the bill and walked Tackman out of the dining room, intending to return and greet several acquaintances. But while he stood with his guest at the coat check stand, Jean-Pierre pulled him aside. Jay expected some buck-up-we’re-all-behind-you words from the club’s manager and jauntily waved to the departing Tackman.

“Several members have spoken to me, Mr. Gladstone,” Jean-Pierre began. “Please understand this is not my personal opinion.” The club manager paused. This task was causing him considerable discomfort. The pause got a little longer.

“What is it?”

“They believe that perhaps it is best for you to not come to the club now.”

Jay’s mind raced as he tried to figure out who could be behind this. As far as he knew, he had no enemies at the club. Members of several other real estate families belonged, but they were friendly rivals. It battered his already wounded psyche to learn that hidden antagonists now threatened the one place he considered a refuge from what had befallen him. He had been a member for over thirty years.

“Who said this?”

“I can’t say. You understand.”

“No, Jean-Pierre, I don’t understand at all.” Jay tried to keep his voice from rising. A man Jay knew walked toward the dining room without acknowledging him. “I’m being blackballed?”

“Not blackballed, Mr. Gladstone. But we have African-American members.”

“That’s who’s complaining? I’ll talk to them.”

“No, please,” Jean-Pierre said. “The African-American members are not complaining. The people who have brought this to my attention are white. Please understand my position. A club is a friendly place. The executive committee is meeting to discuss it tonight.”

Jay thanked Jean-Pierre for notifying him and said he would think about whether to stay away but knew he only said that to save face. When this whole tornado subsided, he would return and quietly find out who was conspiring against him. He chose to forgo the dining room handshakes and schmoozing and walk to the office. Perhaps there would be news on the fate of the Sapphire.

As Jay walked east he began to experience an oddly claustrophobic sensation. There were too many people on the sidewalks. The sky he glimpsed between buildings looked like bars of cobalt. The temperature had dropped, and the wind had picked up. Wearing the baseball cap and sunglasses, Jay nestled into his coat as he walked to the office and tried to shake off the feeling. He had appeared on the local news several times talking to field correspondents and had been on Charlie Rose with two other real estate magnates to discuss urban development. He keenly anticipated the chance to make his case later in the week.

When he rounded the corner, and began walking south on Park Avenue, he saw the demonstrators in front of the building. Imam Ibrahim Muhammad was leading a group of about forty of them chanting: Hey, hey, ho, ho, we’ll be here till Gladstone goes!

They were a mixture of black, white, and Latino, men and women, mostly young. Several bored-looking police officers stood to the side and watched. Sawhorses had been placed on the sidewalk to circumscribe the movements of the group, who paraded in a circle with the imam in the center shouting into a bullhorn. Reflexively, Jay retraced his steps around the corner and paused at the side of the building where he would be out of sight.

It was an ordinary day on Park Avenue. Workers tended the flowerbeds in the median in front of the building. Well-dressed pedestrians ambled along the sidewalks. Jay was not sure he should try to run the hostile gauntlet without Dequan at his side. He already knew the speed with which people’s condemnation could manifest in physical violence. He heard Tackman’s voice telling him to keep a low profile and not do anything public. Was this public, the space in front of an office building his family owned? Unfortunately, he concluded, it was. As people passed him on the sidewalk, he faced the building and looked at his phone, so it wouldn’t appear to anyone who glanced in his direction that he was just standing there.

The crackle of the bullhorn, the shouts of the pack, bored into his skull. His hand reflexively traveled to his nose. These people could attack and get him on the ground before the police restored order. Who knew what harm they could do? He needed to reach his office if for no other reason than to be in an environment with people who were on his side.

The protestors maintained their rhythmic chant. Pedestrians walked past the hubbub, most of them barely glancing at it, another obstacle to be navigated in the course of a city day. Jay realized he could not remain where he was. He either had to force his way into the building or gain access through a service entrance. He could not bear the thought of sneaking into a property his family owned, but neither could he see barreling through the demonstrators to get to the lobby.

Cautiously, Jay stepped around the corner to reassess the scene. As the imam led the chant, he thrust his fist into the air. To Jay, it felt like each thrust was punching him. Boom! To the body! Boom! To the chops! His nose still delicate, Jay had no appetite for confrontation. Once again, he thought about what had occurred at the arena, turned around, and began walking north on Park Avenue.

“Gladstone!” a voice shouted. Someone had spotted him. Another: “That’s him!”

Jay glanced over his shoulder to see several of the demonstrators had broken from the circle and were running in his direction chased by a collection of slow-footed cops. Jay broke into what he hoped would be a run, but it had been years, and he instantly felt his left hamstring scream in protest. In seconds, they caught up. Several demonstrators encircled him, shouting insults. They were black, and white, and both genders, and although none of them laid a hand on him, their anger was blistering. Jay turned this way and that but they had blocked his egress. Sweat broke out on his forehead.

He shouted: “What do you people want?”

A white man wearing a knit Rastafarian hat said, “You people?”

“Racist motherfucker,” from a black woman in oversized sunglasses.

The cops shoved the demonstrators away from Jay. A Latino officer whose name tag read Ortiz asked Jay if he was all right. Jay nodded and requested an escort into the building.

Officer Ortiz rode up in the elevator with Jay to make sure he got to the office safely.

“Is that protest lawful?” Jay asked.

“Some judge gave them a permit,” Ortiz said. On a Monday morning? That judge, Jay reflected, must want to destroy me.

Jay’s effort to reach Mayor Bloomberg resulted in an exchange with a deputy. “The permit,” he carped, “was probably issued by some rogue judge, and I want it revoked.” The deputy assured him he would look into it. This did not satisfy Jay who insisted that his friend “Mike” call him back as soon as possible and to punctuate his displeasure slammed the phone into the cradle. He then retreated to the couch and assumed the prone position Bebe found him in a few minutes later.

“Maybe you shouldn’t come into work for a few days,” Bebe suggested.

“I should let this goddamn imam chase me away?”

“That’s not what I’m saying.”

To be pursued by a mob up Park Avenue and have to be once again rescued had taken a baleful toll. He glanced at the model of the Sapphire, its exquisite geometry a reliable source of serenity. Today it seemed nothing more than a meaningless agglomeration of cardboard, wood, and paste. There had still been no word from the Planning Commission, further curdling his mood. But he didn’t want Bebe to see him in this condition, so he roused himself, sat up, and briefed her on his meeting with the commissioner and the upcoming television interview. He predicted they would shortly receive the approval for the Sapphire. He asked about their mother, who he had not seen since the Seder. Jay’s relationship with his sister comforted him and helped to render the chaos manageable. When it was just the two of them alone, high in their steel tower, the world was more logical, pliant, and forgiving. Still, what she said next surprised him:

“I’m going to that fundraiser Franklin is hosting for Christine Lupo tonight.”

“He invited me, too, but it might be problematic if I went,” Jay said, which made his sister laugh.

“I’m going so I can size up your adversary.”

“Can you believe that conniving worm is holding an event for her in his home?”

“In fairness, he was cultivating her before.”

“Don’t defend him.

“I’m going to see if I can get her to drop the indictment.”

Now it was Jay’s turn to laugh. Bebe promised to share her impressions of Christine Lupo the next day.

Alone at his desk, Jay turned on his computer. A casual perusal of the Internet was all Jay needed to understand the degree to which he had damaged himself. Only right-wing sites defended him. There he was a “victim,” a “hero,” a “sacrificial lamb.” He ventured into one comments section and was treated to the usual invective, which he read out of sheer perversity but quickly fled when it seemed as if the level of vitriol that bleached the screen would cause his eyes to melt. Hundreds of ordinary citizens had somehow accessed his private email, and although a few people offered words of support, waves of animosity drowned out their voices. The cumulative effect left him physically weakened. Jay returned to the sofa where he curled up on his side, drew his knees up, and waited for the pounding in his head to subside.

Mayor Bloomberg did not return Jay’s phone call but several hours later the protesters dispersed and Jay, accompanied once again by security guards, was able to leave the building without incident. A car service brought him to his apartment, and again there was a crowd carrying signs in front. Jay slumped in his seat. Rather than get out, Jay told the driver to cruise slowly past. These people were not there to protest his attitudes or his right to exist. The Service Employees International Union was on strike.

Jay was on the ropes and Gus Breeze, the union leader whose corruption he had threatened to expose, had decided to take advantage of the opportunity and pummel him. Breeze was daring Jay to call him out.

He told the driver to take him to Bedford.

This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real locales are used fictitiously.

Seth Greenland is the author of five novels. His latest, The Hazards of Good Fortune (Europa Editions), will be published in 2018. His play Jungle Rot won the Kennedy Center/American Express Fund For New American Plays Award and the American Theater Critics Association Award. He was a writer-producer on the Emmy-nominated HBO series Big Love.

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