Curtis Edmonds's Blog, page 8

A Circle of Firelight – First Chapter

A Thousand Midnights

The river in my dream is deep, with a swift current. The water is silt-brown and scored with deep ripples. It moves at the speed of a thoroughbred racehorse in full gallop, running through a narrow gorge cut into the gray bedrock. Plumes of white foam lap against the far bank.

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The near bank is
carefully tended, with short grass and well-trimmed rosebushes. A dirt road,
smooth and even, runs parallel to the river, shaded by a line of tall
sycamores. But the far side is a wild, strange place, a landscape of tropical
flowers and thick, green vines hanging from live oak trees, at once inviting
and forbidding.

There is only one
way across, and that is the bridge that looms ahead in the distance. It is both
familiar and ominous, a wide antique arch spanning the rushing river. In the
half-light of dusk, the pale-yellow limestone glows softly. It does not take long
for me to close the distance. The two steel lampposts that flank the bridge on
this side cast a cold pool of light. I take a tentative step onto the cracked
paving stones. I feel for the hilt of my sword.

I have walked the
dirt road toward the bridge for a thousand midnights and have never once
crossed to the other side. As always, a guardian waits at the center of the
bridge, tall, ragged and silent. As always, he is wearing a long black leather
duster, with dark tattered robes underneath. All I can see of his face is his
green eyes, flashing in the near-darkness. He leans on a rough-hewn staff of
wood, a foot taller than his gaunt frame. He waits for me to make the first
move, with a patience tinged with malevolence.

“I am Ashlyn
Revere,” I say, “and I wish to cross.”

The guardian does
not answer, as always, and when I draw my sword from my scabbard and point it
in his general direction, he does nothing. Night after night of slow patient
experience has taught me that I cannot taunt him or distract him. I know I must
defeat the guardian in order to cross, but I have never learned how; it’s a
puzzle I can’t solve. It does not matter what incantation or weapon I use. He
can move that long black staff swifter than my eyes can follow; he can use it
to parry any edged weapon or block any missile weapon, and if I get too close
to him, he can use the staff to beat me senseless. Magic is even more
worthless—he can dodge or withstand any spells I can bring to bear.

I could walk
away, but I never do. Something keeps driving me forward, across the bridge,
and not knowing what that might be is, in its own way, as frustrating as my
failure to defeat the guardian itself. I can choose how to fight, but not why,
for reasons I can’t even begin to understand.

I dip the point of my sword toward him, in an ironic
half-salute. He nods his head slightly, in his only outward show of emotion. I
feint twice to the right and then try a slashing move at his knees. He blocks
the slash with the staff, hard enough that my sword arm tingles with the
impact. I try the same move again, and he blocks it the same way.

This time, I try the same feint, but instead of slashing
at his knees, I go for his neck with a vicious backhanded slice. The guardian
raises his staff to block my blow, shattering the sword at the hilt. In one
smooth motion, he lowers his arm, bringing the end of the shaft crashing down
on my shoulder. I fall to one knee, and just barely stop myself from pitching
face-first onto the limestone pavement.

The guardian goes back to his post, leaning once again on
his staff, waiting on me to make the next move. A hot wave of emotion flares
through me, sharper than the pain in my shoulder. I make my way to my feet. I
taste frustration, sharper than acid, in the back of my throat. Most people, I think, have recurring dreams about fun things. I
am not that lucky.

I throw the shattered hilt of the sword at the guardian,
as hard as I can. He blocks it, almost negligently. He takes two careful steps
toward me and then lashes out with the staff, slamming it into my injured
shoulder.

I manage to keep my footing and stagger away from the
blow, to the low wall on the side of the bridge. My hands find purchase on the
top of the wall, where I steady myself for a moment. I hear, rather than feel,
the impact on the back of my head, and then pitch forward into the dark river.

I open my eyes, expecting to wake up in my room, turn
over, and go back to sleep. But all I can see is the silt-brown flow of the
water, and all I feel is the current carrying me into the depths of the river. I
cannot tell in which direction the surface lies. Some nameless obstacle careens
against me, sending me spinning farther in the murk. I am drowning, and I don’t
know what to do.

In my panic, I see a flash of white and make a grab for
it, hoping that it is a rope or a branch I can use to climb out of the rushing
water. It is instead a hand that grasps my wrist, but instead of welcoming
flesh it is brittle bone. I struggle to get away, but the bony hand will not
let go. It pulls me farther down, into the absolute blackness of the river
bottom.

Wreathed – Chapter One

It was seven o’clock on a Tuesday evening, and
I was stuck at the office. I had been working ten hours a day since my last
vacation, four months ago. This was just as pathetic as it sounds. I could have
been having a nice dinner with friends, or using my long-neglected gym
membership, or even sitting on my couch in my pajamas watching real estate
shows. But I wasn’t. I was at my desk, staring at a computer screen, engaged in
the necessary but mind-draining and butt-numbing chore of proofreading legal
documents. Just another fun-filled day in the life of Wendy Jarrett, Attorney
at Law.

Wreathed

The advantage of
working this late was that it minimized distractions. But after three straight
hours reading page after page of legal boilerplate, I found myself glancing at
my phone, hoping that it might generate a distraction or two. Maybe an old
friend from college was in town for the evening and wanted to hang out. Maybe a
cute guy had seen me walking across the courthouse square this afternoon and
was about to text me and to take me out for drinks and conversation and maybe a
little romance. Maybe the anonymous creeper I had been dominating in Words With Friends over the last month was
secretly a gorgeous billionaire who was waiting downstairs to whisk me away to
a life of luxury and ease. None of these potential distractions were, shall we
say, realistic, but at that
particular moment anything had to be better than sitting all by myself in an
empty law office in Morristown, New Jersey, and comparing two separate
sixty-page wills for typos and inconsistencies.

I did get a
distraction in the form of a phone call from my mother. That could only mean
that something horrible had happened.

I do my best to keep
in touch with my mother, but that means that I’m the one who has to call her
nearly every single time. This is partly because she has a misplaced sense of
old-money frugality about long-distance phone calls, but mostly it is her passive-aggressive
way of getting me to communicate with her more frequently. So I call her on
alternate Sunday afternoons, unless I’m on vacation, or unless I’m snowed under
with work, or unless I drank so much chardonnay the night before that I lose
the ability to claw my way out of bed. We have a nice little conversation,
which occasionally touches on topics of parental concern such as why I drink so
much chardonnay. Then I hang up, and she hangs up, and that’s it for
parent-child communication for another fortnight.

The only reason my
mother ever breaks this pattern and calls me is if something horrible has
happened. I couldn’t imagine another reason why she would call me at work at
seven in the evening on a random weekday. It meant that someone was in the hospital,
or someone was dead, or aliens from Alpha Centauri had landed in central New
Jersey looking for Orson Welles. And the only way to find out the nature of
this particular disaster was to pick up the phone.

I looked at the
phone. I looked at my computer screen. Whatever it was that had gone so badly
off the rails that it had prompted Mother to call me couldn’t be that much
worse than having to read another line of boring legalese. I picked up the
phone.

“Hi, Mom,” I said,
not without some trepidation.

“Hi yourself,” she
said. “Are you at work? I tried calling you at home, but the call went to
voicemail.”

“Yes, I’m still at
work. I have clients coming in tomorrow for an estate-planning meeting and I’m
just proofreading the new version of their wills to make sure everything
matches up.”

“So you haven’t
eaten,” she said. It wasn’t a question.

“I have a hot date
with a frozen dinner.”

“I know you’re busy,
dear daughter, but could I impose on you to take me out to dinner? Nothing on
today’s menu is looking good to me.”

My mother lived in
an exclusive senior community in central New Jersey, about twenty miles south
of Morristown. “Senior community,” for most people, means a place where you
warehouse old people and make them play shuffleboard and serve them gray
institutional meals. This place was more upscale, with organized bus tours and
nature walks and what I guess you could call a political action committee. And
the food, at least to hear my mother talk about it, was impressive. They served
healthy, nutritionally balanced meals that were accompanied by gooey
cheesecakes and crispy apple strudels and large, soft mounds of ice cream. I
had never, not once, heard my mother issue even the smallest complaint about
the food, which was so unlike her that I suspected that the kitchen staff had
developed an amazing magical cooking prowess unknown to the rest of humanity. I
wished I knew their secret—not so much because I wanted to learn how to cook,
but because I wanted to know how to insulate myself from maternal criticism.

“Are you feeling all
right?” I asked.

“Of course, dear.
Why do you ask?”

“I don’t know,” I
said. “It’s just that this seems kind of an unusual time for you to call me,
that’s all. I thought something might be wrong.”

“Nothing’s wrong,”
she said. “I just can’t bear the sight of my fellow residents here for another
minute, and I don’t feel like imposing on your sister right at the moment.”
When Mother retired, she’d moved to the same town where my older sister, Pacey,
and her husband and twin sons lived. Pacey has many fine qualities, but she’s
not much of a cook, and I could understand why Mother would rather have me take
her out to a restaurant instead.

“As much as I would
like to join you for dinner, I’m right in the middle of something,” I said. “If
I stop now, I am going to obsess over it all night and then have to start all
over in the morning from the beginning.”

“Wendy, please
listen to your mother for once. Whatever these people are paying you, they are
not paying you enough to sit around and proofread paperwork at seven in the
evening.”

I thought about
explaining, once again, the economics of law firm billing, but I kept my mouth
shut. One of my mother’s less endearing qualities is the ability to filter out
explanations for things that she does not want explained to her. That
encompasses any excuses I might have for not going out to dinner with her when
she wanted to go out to dinner with me.

“All right,” I said.
“You caught me at a weak moment. Let me close up everything here and I’ll be
there in half an hour or so. Think about where you want to go eat.”

“That would be
lovely.”

This all sounds too easy, I thought. Something else must be going on, or there is some ulterior motive she’s
not telling me about. I had no idea what it could be but at least I
wouldn’t have to eat that rubbery microwave lasagna that had been hanging in
the back of my freezer for months.

“OK,” I said. “See
you in a few.”

Five minutes later,
I pulled my Audi out of the parking garage, made my way through Morristown, and
headed south on the highway. Traffic was sparse, so I shifted gears and merged
into the fast lane, passing the slow-moving trucks like so many barges in the
wake of a speedboat. Not that I had a speedboat. I had a ten-year-old German
convertible and a studio apartment and a giant heaving mound of debt from law
school.

The Audi was not my
first choice. My first choice had been a MetroCard, and a small apartment in a
good neighborhood in Manhattan. After graduation, I’d spent four months looking
for a job with a Wall Street law firm. My plan was to work my way up to the
kind of job and the kind of office that Michael Douglas had in Wall Street. I’d been in two great
summer associates’ programs in 2007 and 2008, and I imagined I was well on my
way up the glittering path to a rewarding career, easy money, and a cute
boyfriend who looked like a young Charlie Sheen but who didn’t do drugs or sell
out small regional airlines in insider trading scams. But the economy cratered
during my last year in law school, and all of the smart, engaging, helpful
people I’d met in Manhattan during my summer programs were too busy trying to
keep themselves afloat to help me get a job. Then I made the stupid mistake of
taking the New York and New Jersey bar exams at the same time—and when I passed
New Jersey but failed New York, I ended up stuck looking for work on the wrong
side of the Hudson.

The best job I could
find was with a boutique firm in Morristown, doing wills and estate planning. I
was lucky to get the job in the first place, and I was lucky to still have it
five years later. I gave up on Manhattan and the small apartment in the good
neighborhood and the MetroCard. I found an apartment five minutes from my
office, and a used convertible with a hairline crack in the windshield and a
big chip of paint missing on the trunk lid.

I didn’t need the
car and I didn’t need the additional debt that went along with it. But if I
couldn’t live in Manhattan, I at least wanted to be able to cruise down Seventh
Avenue or the Jersey Shore or a narrow country road in the Poconos. I wanted
the freedom to drive away as far and as fast as I could go anytime the mood
struck. For the first couple of years, it worked out all right. But lately, I
spent more and more of my weekends stretched out on my couch, catching up on
sleep or work or whatever else was more important than getting in my car and
driving somewhere and having fun. Worse, even if I did find the energy to drive
somewhere and have fun, I didn’t have anyone to have fun with.

I kept the Audi in
high gear until it was time to decide whether to exit off the highway and keep
driving somewhere else. I wanted to keep dodging traffic until I had outrun all
my problems. But I knew it wouldn’t work, and anyway, I was hungry. I pulled
off the highway and made my way south.

Storybook Video for “If MY Name Was Amanda”

Check out the darling storybook video I made for my children’s book,

An Open Letter to John McPhee, on the Occasion of the Publication of My New Novel

Professor John McPhee

Guyot Hall

Princeton University

Princeton, New Jersey

Dear Professor McPhee,

I was wondering—and please feel free to say no, if you’re
not interested—if you might be willing to read my new novel, and provide me
with a short, positive (please!) statement about it for the back cover? This is
what they call in the publishing industry a “blurb,” as I’m sure you know. I
would greatly appreciate it. I’d be happy to send you a print copy, or ideally
email you a Kindle copy—I sell a ton more of those, you
understand.

If you’ve ever tried to get beloved nonfiction writers to blurb your reverse-harem lesbian erotic novel, buy my short story collection.

You may be wondering why I approached you as opposed to
other people, especially people who write in my genre. Part if is that a lot of
people in my genre are jerks—just being honest here!—but a lot of it is that
you are one of my favorite authors.

When I was a high school junior, growing up in Ocala,
Florida, we had a list of recommended books that we could read over the summer.
One of them was your book, Oranges, and since it sounded
interesting, and was kind of short, I read it. I was just so impressed that
someone could write so clearly and make a boring subject like oranges so
interesting. I mean, not interesting enough to study oranges in college.
They’re not that interesting. But sometimes when I’m eating an orange—I’m
trying to eat healthier right now—I think about the book, and what kind of
orange it is that I’m eating, and that of course is all thanks to you.

So, anyway, I went to Nova Southeastern for college, and
got my degree in pharmacy. I was kind of thinking about running a pharmacy
somewhere cool, like Miami or something, but I got recruited by Bristol Squibb
Myers and ended up working in Princeton. So one thing I wanted to do when I
moved here was read some stuff by local authors. I went to the Barnes and Noble
in Marketfair—the one everyone says is in Princeton, but is really in West
Windsor—and asked them for help finding someone that was a local author, and
they said, “Well, of course, John McPhee,” and of course I knew exactly who you
were, except I didn’t know that you lived around here. And I bought Common
Carriers, which I really liked a lot.

And then one day, I’m driving home on 206, over by the
Jasna Polana golf course, and there was this old guy who was kind of wandering
around, and someone in marketing said it might be you, looking for golf balls,
like you were famous for doing that? So we’re practically neighbors, which is
why I thought you might be okay with doing like a short blurb for my novel.

Which I guess I should tell you about. I’m really proud of
it, and I hope you like it. It’s actually my third novel—it’s the last book in
my Dominance Trilogy. I mean, it’s hard to believe I wrote one novel, much less
three, but here we are.

So the title is Essence of Power, and it’s a
paranormal lesbian reverse harem fantasy, with a lot of bondage elements. The
heroine’s name is Melinda Carlisle; she works at a pharmaceutical company like
I do, but believe me, the resemblance ends there! When the trilogy starts—this
is in Stirrings of Power—Melinda is just an ordinary lesbian
lawyer, working in the general counsel’s office, but she’s also a freelance
dominatrix. One of her regular clients disappears, and she recruits her
girlfriends—this is the reverse harem part—to help find him, and, well, that’s
the first book, but they come to find out that there’s this paranormal power
that’s centered in Princeton, and Melinda decides to fight it. I won’t go into
all the plot twists, but at the end of the second book, Echoes of Power,
Melinda gets turned into a werewolf. This was my editor’s idea; she said I
should try getting some of the readers in the shifter genre, and it ended up
being a great cliffhanger. So there’s a lot of conflict in the third book,
because everyone in her reverse harem has to decide whether to be a werewolf or
not, and whether to be part of her pack—that’s the really cool element.

The other thing I did in Essence of Power was
to bring in a little diversity. I was on Twitter—you have to be on Twitter
nowadays, although it’s kind of a pain—and there’s this hashtag about how we
need diverse books, so Melinda gets a new love interest named Selena Gonzalez,
who’s a Latina werewolf with a fiery temper.

So I don’t want to spoil it all for you. I will say that
I’m working on a new trilogy, and I’m thinking of setting it in Alaska, so I’m
reading Coming into the Country. I promise to write a nice
Goodreads review, regardless of whether you decide to blurb my book or not.

And probably you’re not going to do that. I understand.
What you’re writing—deeply incisive and well-thought-out New Yorker pieces—is
a lot different from paranormal lesbian reverse harem trilogies. I get that.
What I will say is that, you know, society has changed a lot over the last
fifty years. Fifty years ago, you couldn’t hardly write anything about lesbians
or dominatrixes or anything like that. Now, there’s whole huge giant sub-genres
of lesbian fiction. And it’s becoming more popular. I mean, even my boyfriend
likes reading it, and he’s prejudiced in a lot of ways, although I think I’m
working on him a little bit. Who knows, by blurbing my book, you might get a
lot more readers who like paranormal lesbian reverse harem fiction.

Anyway. I just wanted to write you a quick note and tell
you that I really enjoy your books, and I respect you as a writer, and I hope
you find a lot of golf balls. Thanks.

Sincerely,

Karen Bryant
Princeton, New Jersey
Author of the Dominance Trilogy (writing as Whitney Austin)

Clayton Delaney, RIP

It is with a sad and heavy heart that I announce the
passing of Clayton Delaney, the master of the biscuit-style single-resonator
guitar. He was a true champion of the Appalachian folk-music tradition. Many
consider Clayton to be one of the finest bluegrass musicians of his day, and a
peer of dobro legends such as Curtis Loew, Shorty Hale, and Teapot Simmerson.

This is the only bluegrass-related piece in LIES I HAVE TOLD. I think. Buy it and find out!

I’ve been a big fan of Clayton since I saw his obituary in
the Times this
morning. As soon as I finished reading about his remarkable life, I went
straight to Spotify to listen to as much of his contribution to bluegrass
music. Luckily, all I really had to do today was to get my deck of slides ready
for the conference call on Wednesday, which meant I could spend most of the day
honoring Clayton’s musical legacy.

In the depths of the Depression, Clayton left his home in
Eastern Kentucky behind to play guitar for a variety of trailblazing touring
groups in Southern Ohio, including the Columbus Travelers, the Muddy River
Trio, and the Shawnee Gentlemen. Some of those early recordings are available
on Spotify, but the sound quality has significantly degraded in the digital
transfer and I can’t recommend them to anyone except those really looking for
in-depth knowledge of Clayton’s early musical talent.

Like most of us, Clayton was deeply influenced by Bill
Monroe. Although he was unable to hook on with the original Blue Grass Boys,
Clayton put together one of the early bluegrass trios, the New River Mustangs.
Clayton played dobro and mandolin behind the “high lonesome” lead singing of
Chester Dayton and the inspired guitar licks of Rufus “Pee Wee” Haskell. The
New River Mustangs reached their apex in 1950, when they were invited to play
their classic single “Cane Syrup Stomp” on The Ed Sullivan Show.

After Chester Dayton’s untimely death in a thresher accident
in 1953, Clayton forged a career as a session musician. During this period,
Clayton developed his innovative double-thumb picking method. The so-called
“Delaney style” produces particularly rhythmic expressions for mandolin and
dobro. I haven’t been able to find a really good YouTube instructional video
that discusses how you place both thumbs on the frets to make it work, but I’m
going to keep looking.

Clayton’s life was scarred deeply by his long-time love
affair with discount bourbon. It took an on-stage collapse at the Sourland Mountain
Bluegrass Festival in 1982 to get him to stop drinking. That experience led to
a religious reawakening that saw him focus on the intersection between
bluegrass and gospel music. Although Clayton’s gospel album, Sinner’s Lament, received mixed
reviews, he did receive a Grammy nomination for his instrumental recording of
“What A Friend We Have In Jesus.’ I found it to be very touching, despite my
own personal distaste for organized religion.

Of course, Clayton’s best-known album, 1992’s D is for Dobro, is also his
most accessible work. While I prefer the rougher stylings of Clayton’s earlier
picking, D is for Dobro undoubtedly
represents the pinnacle of his career, and deservedly won the Grammy for Best
Folk and/or Americana Instrumental Performance. Songs from this album are in
heavy rotation on the Pandora station I set up for anyone who wants to learn
more about Clayton and his unique role in American bluegrass history.

Many people have asked me why I spend so much time posting
information and remembrances of musicians that have recently died, many of whom
I had never heard of before their untimely passing. I can only repeat what I
said in my blog post on Chico Novello, the great bossa nova organist, which is
that music is a blow against mortality. All of us die, but those of us that
leave a lasting musical legacy live on in an important way. When we remember
musicians who have gone on before us, we not only honor their contributions,
but the impact they will have on future generations.

Clayton died at the age of ninety-three at an
assisted-living center in Mount Sterling, Kentucky. The cause of death was
reported to be liver failure, which you’d have to expect considering how much
he drank before he found Jesus. Unfortunately, I don’t have the funds to fly to
Clayton’s funeral, because I spent so much on that trip to Vienna to see all
the classical composer’s graves. But I’ll be watching Instagram carefully and
hoping that some fans will get some shots of the service.

Brief Recaps of ���Low Bandwidth���, an Imaginary Reality Television Show About Media Addiction

Week One

The twelve contestants arrive in Lancaster, Pennsylvania,
where they will spend the next thirteen weeks in isolation in a remote
farmhouse in the heart of Amish country. Each contestant is asked to place any
electronic devices in a below-ground root cellar for safekeeping. The producers
collect eighteen smartphones, fourteen tablet computers, seven e-book readers,
and a Zune music player. Contestants are subsequently searched before entering
the house. Producers seize seven Apple watches, four Amazon Dash buttons, and a
sixth-generation iPod Nano that Kevin had tried to hide inside a hollowed-out
electric razor. All the contestants gather for a traditional Amish family
dinner. Santos and Rebecca get into an argument as to whether Omar from The
Wire was on Boardwalk Empire or not. The argument escalates as both parties
discover that they have no way to settle the dispute without access to the Internet
Movie Database, and Rebecca dumps a bowl of egg noodles on Santos���s head.

If you like stupid jokes about reality TV, buy LIES I HAVE TOLD.

 Week Two

The twelve contestants are divided into two teams���Team Wi-Fi
and Team Broadband���and both are given an initial challenge. Both teams are
given a long-handled axe and a cord of wood and are asked to make firewood.
Cameron of Team Wi-Fi had previously binge-watched seven straight seasons of Axe
Men, and was able to instruct his fellow team members in the proper way of
splitting hardwood. Although Team Broadband was able to overcome internal
dissention and split three logs, Team Wi-Fi was the clear winner. Team Wi-Fi
won the award, which allowed them to watch a YouTube recording of Ryan Seacrest
reading a T. Coraghessan Boyle short story. Janice of Team Broadband was unanimously
voted out of the farmhouse after fighting with a fellow team member over
whether the last Adele album was overrated.

Week Three

Although Rebecca has adopted the ���evil and calculating���
persona, standard for all TV reality shows, she effectively leads Team
Broadband to a decisive win in the butter-churning contest. As a reward, Team
Broadband gets to go out for a celebratory dinner at the Lancaster T.G.I.
Fridays ��� but team members are crushed to find out that all the televisions
above the bar have been turned off. Back at the farmhouse, Team Wi-Fi struggles
with using a wood-burning oven to make bread, but Marvin is able to save the
day with baking skills honed from watching two seasons of Cake Boss. Sky
and Delilah of Team Broadband are up for elimination at the end, with Delilah
leaving the farmhouse after the producers offer to replace her iPhone 4C with a
new Samsung Galaxy.

Week Four

Andre the sound guy inadvertently lets it slip to the
contestants that there���s a new red-band trailer out for the new Will Ferrell
movie. Santos is distraught once he learns that Andre isn���t able to bring any
electronic devices with him to the farmhouse. Team Wi-Fi wins the cornhole
challenge thanks to a last-second toss from LaTricia, and gets to spend fifteen
minutes looking at Wil Wheaton���s Twitter feed. Both teams have to work together
to hitch up the oxen and plow the west pasture for spring planting. Carol of
Team Wi-Fi is voted out of the farmhouse after she admits that she���s never
listened to the Making a Murderer podcast.

Week Five

Rebecca switches allegiances from Team Broadband to Team
Wi-Fi after she is accused at cheating in the quilting challenge. LaTricia and
Hannah of Team Wi-Fi are less than happy about the switch, and Hannah has to be
restrained from throwing a shoo-fly pie at Rebecca. The remaining contestants
all pitch in to dig a new irrigation ditch, and are rewarded by having James
Earl Jones visit the farm to read them selected headers from their e-mail
accounts. Cameron learns that his Aunt Christy is finally marrying her longtime
boyfriend, and is crushed when he can���t access their wedding registry. Alex of
Team Wi-Fi is voted out after he starts a rumor that One Direction is getting
back together.

Week Six

Team Broadband is rocked by a divisive argument between
Kevin and Sky over which of the cartoon characters on the old Beavis and
Butthead show was Butthead. The hard words between them wreck the team���s
performance at the threshing challenge, and Team Wi-Fi is rewarded with a trip
to watch the filming of a live television program. Unfortunately, the program
in question is Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives. While Cameron and Marvin are
excited about meeting Guy Fieri, Hannah harbors some lingering resentment
related to some bad service she had at Fieri���s New York restaurant. Hannah is
asked to leave the restaurant after she berates Fieri regarding her opinion of
his ���Donkey Sauce,��� and is subsequently voted off the show as well.

 Week Seven

LaTricia moves to Team Broadband after an acrimonious spat
with Rebecca over who should get credit for Team Wi-Fi���s victory in the
sheep-shearing challenge. Team Wi-Fi is presented with one hour of free Netflix
access, but the only screen they can use is on a vintage Dell Inspiron laptop
running Windows 95, and the buffering makes it impossible for the team to enjoy
Orange Is the New Black. Kevin and Sky work together to repair the
tractor, and begin a subtle flirtation. Santos is voted out of the farmhouse
after making a sexist comment about the lady in the Progressive insurance
commercials.

Week Eight

All hell breaks loose on Team Wi-Fi after Rebecca convinces
Cameron and Marvin that the other has the password for the neighboring farm���s
wi-fi hotspot. But before the two can come to blows, they are reminded of their
shared love of Beyonce���s Formation video. The two teammates work
together in the corn-husking challenge, but are defeated by the efforts of
Kevin and Sky. For its reward, Team Broadband gets to have lunch at the Cracker
Barrel Country Store in Lancaster, followed by country-western karaoke night at
the Texas Roadhouse. Rebecca and LaTricia are both put up for elimination, but
in a surprising twist, LaTricia reveals that Sky had found a discarded Android
phone in the restroom of the Texas Roadhouse, and that it was not handed in.
Sky was asked to leave the show, leaving a distraught Kevin behind.

Week Nine

Kevin vows vengeance on LaTricia, to the point of sabotaging
her in the whoopie pie challenge. A victorious Team Wi-Fi celebrates its win,
only to find out that their reward is to sell the whoopie pies they made out of
a food truck in York. As Cameron and Marvin relax after a hard day���s work.
Rebecca and LaTricia form an unstable alliance to protect themselves. But after
Kevin and LaTricia are both put up for elimination, Rebecca changes her vote,
sending LaTricia home with a Game of Thrones DVD box set and an Amazon Fire
mini-tablet.

Week Ten

With only four players left, the teams are merged and put to
work clearing tables at an Amish smorgasbord restaurant. The contestants are
surprised to find that, after ten weeks of isolation from electronic media,
they are more cheerful and hardworking than before, and actually find pleasure
in cleaning up after diners, even when they leave half-eaten pieces of pie on
their tables. Cameron and Kevin bond over complaining about having to hose down
the parking lot, but their short-lived alliance is shattered when Cameron turns
the hose on Kevin. Kevin gets the last laugh when Cameron is sent home
following a serious injury resulting from an accidental tumble into the
wood-burning stove.

Week Eleven

Kevin and Marvin decide to put aside their differences
regarding their respective positions on who should have won the sixth season of
Survivor and agree to vote Rebecca off the show no matter what. Rebecca
attempts to seduce both Kevin and Marvin but is rebuffed. Hurt by the
rejection, Rebecca accepts the producers��� offer to return to civilization, and
her angry walk-off speech at the end garners five hundred thousand views on
YouTube. Rebecca is immediately offered the lead role in Bachelorette:
Alaska, which she accepts.

Week Twelve

Kevin and Marvin are told for the first time that either
Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton will be the next President. They elect to split
the contest winnings and stay in Amish country permanently.

Brief Recaps of “Low Bandwidth”, an Imaginary Reality Television Show About Media Addiction

Week One

The twelve contestants arrive in Lancaster, Pennsylvania,
where they will spend the next thirteen weeks in isolation in a remote
farmhouse in the heart of Amish country. Each contestant is asked to place any
electronic devices in a below-ground root cellar for safekeeping. The producers
collect eighteen smartphones, fourteen tablet computers, seven e-book readers,
and a Zune music player. Contestants are subsequently searched before entering
the house. Producers seize seven Apple watches, four Amazon Dash buttons, and a
sixth-generation iPod Nano that Kevin had tried to hide inside a hollowed-out
electric razor. All the contestants gather for a traditional Amish family
dinner. Santos and Rebecca get into an argument as to whether Omar from The
Wire was on Boardwalk Empire or not. The argument escalates as both parties
discover that they have no way to settle the dispute without access to the Internet
Movie Database, and Rebecca dumps a bowl of egg noodles on Santos’s head.

If you like stupid jokes about reality TV, buy LIES I HAVE TOLD.

 Week Two

The twelve contestants are divided into two teams–Team Wi-Fi
and Team Broadband–and both are given an initial challenge. Both teams are
given a long-handled axe and a cord of wood and are asked to make firewood.
Cameron of Team Wi-Fi had previously binge-watched seven straight seasons of Axe
Men, and was able to instruct his fellow team members in the proper way of
splitting hardwood. Although Team Broadband was able to overcome internal
dissention and split three logs, Team Wi-Fi was the clear winner. Team Wi-Fi
won the award, which allowed them to watch a YouTube recording of Ryan Seacrest
reading a T. Coraghessan Boyle short story. Janice of Team Broadband was unanimously
voted out of the farmhouse after fighting with a fellow team member over
whether the last Adele album was overrated.

Week Three

Although Rebecca has adopted the “evil and calculating”
persona, standard for all TV reality shows, she effectively leads Team
Broadband to a decisive win in the butter-churning contest. As a reward, Team
Broadband gets to go out for a celebratory dinner at the Lancaster T.G.I.
Fridays – but team members are crushed to find out that all the televisions
above the bar have been turned off. Back at the farmhouse, Team Wi-Fi struggles
with using a wood-burning oven to make bread, but Marvin is able to save the
day with baking skills honed from watching two seasons of Cake Boss. Sky
and Delilah of Team Broadband are up for elimination at the end, with Delilah
leaving the farmhouse after the producers offer to replace her iPhone 4C with a
new Samsung Galaxy.

Week Four

Andre the sound guy inadvertently lets it slip to the
contestants that there’s a new red-band trailer out for the new Will Ferrell
movie. Santos is distraught once he learns that Andre isn’t able to bring any
electronic devices with him to the farmhouse. Team Wi-Fi wins the cornhole
challenge thanks to a last-second toss from LaTricia, and gets to spend fifteen
minutes looking at Wil Wheaton’s Twitter feed. Both teams have to work together
to hitch up the oxen and plow the west pasture for spring planting. Carol of
Team Wi-Fi is voted out of the farmhouse after she admits that she’s never
listened to the Making a Murderer podcast.

Week Five

Rebecca switches allegiances from Team Broadband to Team
Wi-Fi after she is accused at cheating in the quilting challenge. LaTricia and
Hannah of Team Wi-Fi are less than happy about the switch, and Hannah has to be
restrained from throwing a shoo-fly pie at Rebecca. The remaining contestants
all pitch in to dig a new irrigation ditch, and are rewarded by having James
Earl Jones visit the farm to read them selected headers from their e-mail
accounts. Cameron learns that his Aunt Christy is finally marrying her longtime
boyfriend, and is crushed when he can’t access their wedding registry. Alex of
Team Wi-Fi is voted out after he starts a rumor that One Direction is getting
back together.

Week Six

Team Broadband is rocked by a divisive argument between
Kevin and Sky over which of the cartoon characters on the old Beavis and
Butthead show was Butthead. The hard words between them wreck the team’s
performance at the threshing challenge, and Team Wi-Fi is rewarded with a trip
to watch the filming of a live television program. Unfortunately, the program
in question is Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives. While Cameron and Marvin are
excited about meeting Guy Fieri, Hannah harbors some lingering resentment
related to some bad service she had at Fieri’s New York restaurant. Hannah is
asked to leave the restaurant after she berates Fieri regarding her opinion of
his “Donkey Sauce,” and is subsequently voted off the show as well.

 Week Seven

LaTricia moves to Team Broadband after an acrimonious spat
with Rebecca over who should get credit for Team Wi-Fi’s victory in the
sheep-shearing challenge. Team Wi-Fi is presented with one hour of free Netflix
access, but the only screen they can use is on a vintage Dell Inspiron laptop
running Windows 95, and the buffering makes it impossible for the team to enjoy
Orange Is the New Black. Kevin and Sky work together to repair the
tractor, and begin a subtle flirtation. Santos is voted out of the farmhouse
after making a sexist comment about the lady in the Progressive insurance
commercials.

Week Eight

All hell breaks loose on Team Wi-Fi after Rebecca convinces
Cameron and Marvin that the other has the password for the neighboring farm’s
wi-fi hotspot. But before the two can come to blows, they are reminded of their
shared love of Beyonce’s Formation video. The two teammates work
together in the corn-husking challenge, but are defeated by the efforts of
Kevin and Sky. For its reward, Team Broadband gets to have lunch at the Cracker
Barrel Country Store in Lancaster, followed by country-western karaoke night at
the Texas Roadhouse. Rebecca and LaTricia are both put up for elimination, but
in a surprising twist, LaTricia reveals that Sky had found a discarded Android
phone in the restroom of the Texas Roadhouse, and that it was not handed in.
Sky was asked to leave the show, leaving a distraught Kevin behind.

Week Nine

Kevin vows vengeance on LaTricia, to the point of sabotaging
her in the whoopie pie challenge. A victorious Team Wi-Fi celebrates its win,
only to find out that their reward is to sell the whoopie pies they made out of
a food truck in York. As Cameron and Marvin relax after a hard day’s work.
Rebecca and LaTricia form an unstable alliance to protect themselves. But after
Kevin and LaTricia are both put up for elimination, Rebecca changes her vote,
sending LaTricia home with a Game of Thrones DVD box set and an Amazon Fire
mini-tablet.

Week Ten

With only four players left, the teams are merged and put to
work clearing tables at an Amish smorgasbord restaurant. The contestants are
surprised to find that, after ten weeks of isolation from electronic media,
they are more cheerful and hardworking than before, and actually find pleasure
in cleaning up after diners, even when they leave half-eaten pieces of pie on
their tables. Cameron and Kevin bond over complaining about having to hose down
the parking lot, but their short-lived alliance is shattered when Cameron turns
the hose on Kevin. Kevin gets the last laugh when Cameron is sent home
following a serious injury resulting from an accidental tumble into the
wood-burning stove.

Week Eleven

Kevin and Marvin decide to put aside their differences
regarding their respective positions on who should have won the sixth season of
Survivor and agree to vote Rebecca off the show no matter what. Rebecca
attempts to seduce both Kevin and Marvin but is rebuffed. Hurt by the
rejection, Rebecca accepts the producers’ offer to return to civilization, and
her angry walk-off speech at the end garners five hundred thousand views on
YouTube. Rebecca is immediately offered the lead role in Bachelorette:
Alaska, which she accepts.

Week Twelve

Kevin and Marvin are told for the first time that either
Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton will be the next President. They elect to split
the contest winnings and stay in Amish country permanently.

Big Game Hunter

“It’s your turn.”

“I just went in there.”

This story is what gave my publishing company, Scary Hippopotamus Books, its name. To read more, buy LIES I HAVE TOLD on Amazon.

“I was just in there, and I can’t get her to sleep.”

I looked at the clock.  It said 3:15. In the other
room, my daughter was crying like a lost thing.

I grunted something that a tolerant person might have taken
for an okay.  My feet found the floor. I grabbed my phone and dragged
myself down the hallway.  I was just conscious enough to keep from
stumbling over the toddler gate.

She was sitting up in her bed.  “No, Mommy,” she said,
and then started wailing again. I picked her up anyway, and took her into the
guest bedroom so she wouldn’t wake up her older sister.  I sat down in the
armchair and held her close, trusting that the warmth of my body would help her
calm down.  It only took a minute for her to dial down the sobbing to the
point where she was just emitting a soft whine, like an electric fan or a car
with a worn-down timing belt.

“What’s the matter, huh?” I asked.

“There was a scary hippopotamus.”

“A scary hippopotamus?”

“Scary hippopotamus. He had potatoes in his mouth.”

“What was he doing?”

“He chased Mommy. Then he chased me. And he ate me all up.”

“There’s no such thing as the scary hippopotamus, sweetie.”

“There was.”

I didn’t feel like arguing, and she didn’t feel like staying
awake any longer.  She put her head down, and I switched my phone on.
People in England were tweeting about their morning coffee. I sat there and
read until she started snoring and her limbs went slack. I put her back in bed
and put the covers back on. This time I didn’t remember the toddler gate was
there, and I banged my knee—not enough to do any damage, but enough to smart.

“Did she go back to sleep?”

“God, I hope so.”

“What was the matter?”

“Bad dream.”

I woke up in the restaurant I used to hang out in college.
You probably know the kind of place—mediocre burgers and decent shakes, fake
wood paneling, varsity pennants up on the wall. I had money in my pocket, so I
ordered a cheeseburger and a Dr Pepper. I was looking for a table when I saw
the hippopotamus. He was wearing a black leather jacket and was wedged into a
booth in the back.

“What are you looking at?” he asked.

I sat across from him. He was chomping on a mound of French
fries. There was ketchup in the corners of his huge mouth.

“Was that you?” I asked.

“What’s it to you?”

“It was you.”

“Maybe it was. What are you going to do about it?”

“You scared her.”

“So?”

“Leave her alone.”

“Not my problem. I’m going to do what I’m going to do. 
If she gets in the way, tough.”

“She’s a little girl.”

“A little girl who thinks that wild animals are cuddly and
cute.  World doesn’t work like that. You should let her know the facts.”

“That doesn’t give you the right to scare her.”

He took a long sip of his peanut butter milkshake. “I’ll ask
you one more time. What are you going to do about it?”

“I told you. Leave her alone.”

“You’re all talk. If you’re going to do something, do
something. Otherwise, leave me alone.”

“Maybe I will.”

“You do that.”

I looked around, but I didn’t see any weapons close at hand.
I checked in my pocket, and all I found was a key.

“This isn’t over,” I said.

“Do your worst, big guy.”

I gathered up my lunch and stalked out of the restaurant.
The hippopotamus was right. I couldn’t lay a glove on him. He was big and scary
and tough and he could show up wherever he wanted. All I had was a key. I
looked closely at it, and it had a remote-entry button. I pushed it, and a huge
black pickup truck beeped back at me.

I climbed inside the truck. The way I figured it, if there
were still people in the restaurant, they could get out of the way. But the
hippopotamus wouldn’t be able to get out of his booth in time. I started the
engine and revved it up.  I got the RPMs as high as they would go, because
you really only get one shot at a hippopotamus that size. I buckled my
seatbelt, closed my eyes, and popped the gearshift.

“You gonna get up?”

“Just a minute.”

“We’re going to be late.”

“Okay.”

“What do you think her problem was last night?”

“Don’t worry about it. I took care of everything.”

A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE DIET PEPSI ERADICATION SOCIETY

August 20, 1995 – Following the successful
under-the-table payment of kickbacks from local contractors, construction is
completed on the new Oliver Hazard Perry Middle School in Lawrenceville, New
Jersey.

This story is kind of dated (sorry about that) but if you want funnier stories, you can go to Amazon and get the collection.

April 29, 1999 – A new Pepsi machine is installed in Perry
Middle School cafeteria.

August 29, 2002 – Michael Benson, Christopher Kerr, and
Matthew Woodward enter Perry Middle School as sixth-grade students. They are
assigned to the second lunch shift. Unfortunately, they are unable to obtain
seats at the coveted “popular kids” table, and settle for a smaller table over
on the left, between the fat kids and the nerds.

May 10, 2004 – Prompted by an article in Modern Nuisance, interfering busybody Roseanne Bragg begins campaign to have all sugary sodas removed from New Jersey public schools. The Lawrenceville school board caves to Ms. Bragg’s demands in June.

August 1, 2004 – Kerr’s older sister Nicole returns from a
trip to Cancun. Kerr inadvertently sees Nicole hiding a disposable camera under
her bed.

August 31, 2004 – Benson, Kerr, and Woodward enter their
eighth-grade year, and find that the Pepsi machine has been stocked with Diet
Pepsi.

September 9, 2004 – At lunch, Benson expresses the opinion
that Diet Pepsi is “gross”. Kerr concurs, stating that Diet Pepsi is
“repulsive”. Woodward replies by comparing Diet Pepsi to classmate Amanda
Murphy, sparking a spirited discussion. All eventually agree that Diet Pepsi is
more repellent than Brittany Darby, but less loathsome than Jessica Pruitt.

September 10, 2004 – After completing his science homework,
Woodward picks up a copy of Search!,
the official magazine of the Google Pre-Teen Indoctrination Project. He reads
an article that says that “blogs” are the “happening wave of the cyber-future”
and “the free Blogger service is way cool.” Encouraged by the article, Woodward
decides to start a blog. He writes his first entry about how the school board
should put regular Pepsi back in the Pepsi machine.

September 12, 2004 – Woodward tells Benson and Kerr about
his blog, and they judge it to be “awesome.” Woodward invites Benson and Kerr
to write entries for his blog, and they agree to do so. At Kerr’s suggestion,
Woodward changes the name of the blog to the “Diet Pepsi Eradication Society”.

September 14, 2004 – Kerr completes a blog entry, entitled
“The Top Ten Reasons Diet Pepsi is Repulsive”, which includes items such as
“Diet Pepsi is made from vomit” and “Diet Pepsi smells like Megan Greber’s
feet.”

September 16, 2004 – Benson writes a lengthy blog entry,
modeled after the Gettysburg Address. He writes that the “Pepsi machine of the
people, by the people, and for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”

October 8, 2004 – Kerr swipes the disposable camera hidden
under his sister’s bed while she is away at Vassar. The camera has one exposure
left. He takes a picture of the Pepsi machine. He later takes the camera to
CVS, and orders a CD-ROM of the contents instead of getting the prints. Using
the Picasa software, he uploads all the pictures off the CD-ROM to the blog. He
then uses Microsoft Paint to draw a red circle and slash over the picture of
the Pepsi machine, and then, using the bold Comic Sans font, types “Diet Pepsi
Eradication Society” at the bottom of the picture. He never looks at any of the
other files on the CD-ROM, and does not realize that the other pictures he has
posted are topless photos of his sister, taken on her Cancun trip.

October 27, 2004 – A space at the “popular kids table” opens
up after the parents of eighth-grader Joshua Logan finally make good on their
frequent threats and send him to Curtis LeMay Military Academy in Simi Valley,
California. Kerr accepts an invitation to join, leaving Woodward and Benson
behind. Woodward and Benson agree that Kerr is a “girly wussy boy” and a
“stinkytoes butt bandit.”

November 18, 2004 – Woodward completes three line drawings
and uploads them to the blog. One of these drawings features advanced
spaceships firing high-energy weapons on space stations shaped like Diet Pepsi
cans. The second features hobbit Bilbo Baggins urinating on the Diet Pepsi
logo. The third shows the main character from the movie Napoleon Dynamite
force-feeding Diet Pepsi to a llama.

November 28, 2004 – The Philadelphia Eagles defeat the New
York Giants for their eleventh win of the season. Woodward and Benson develop
an interest in the fortunes of the Eagles, and frequently discuss their chances
of making the Super Bowl over lunch. The Diet Pepsi Eradication Society blog is
largely forgotten.

May 27, 2005 – Woodward, Benson and Kerr complete eighth
grade. Benson transfers to a prep school in Princeton. Kerr moves with his
parents to Phoenix. Woodward attends Lawrenceville High School.

November 20, 2014 – Woodward, now an intern with an
investment bank, receives a letter from an Atlanta-based advertising firm,
asking permission to use the Diet Pepsi Eradication Society concept in a
commercial for Coca-Cola Zero. Woodward discusses the proposal with his
girlfriend, who advises him, “Sure, go ahead, do it, if all you want to be in
life is a shill for the Coca-Cola people, who are exploiting kola-nut growers
in Colombia as we speak.” Woodward does not reply to the letter, and the
advertisers develop a new idea for their commercial, featuring talking spider
monkeys.

October 21, 2016 – Kerr, a junior associate with a Los
Angeles entertainment law firm, breaks up with his longtime girlfriend Ashley
Connor as an alternative to spending Thanksgiving with Connor’s family in
Carbondale, Illinois. Connor, a website designer, finds the Diet Pepsi
Eradication Society blog while searching for dirt on Kerr. She copies the blog
to the Google Spam service, where it finds its way into eight billion inboxes
worldwide. As a result, the managing partner at Kerr’s firm later informs him
that he is no longer on the partnership track.

October 24, 2016 – Benson, a noted commercial director, is
set to shoot a Diet Ginger Lime Sierra Mist IV commercial in Toronto, but is
removed from the project after his participation in the Diet Pepsi Eradication
Society is discovered.

November 2, 2018 – Woodward’s wife, Nicole Kerr-Woodward, is
the Gryffindor Party candidate for Congress for the 118th District of New
Jersey. She loses her campaign after a Slytherin Party operative uses Google
Pornography to find the topless photos on the Diet Pepsi Eradication Society
site that were uploaded by her brother Christopher. Woodward’s marriage suffers
severe strains.

November 26, 2018 – Kerr and Benson return to New Jersey for
Thanksgiving. Benson drives to Woodward’s house to confront him about the blog,
only to find Woodward already in a confrontation with Kerr. The three men brawl
in Woodward’s yard, inflicting minor scrapes and injuries, until one of them
starts laughing at the absurdity of the whole thing, and they all join in.

March 1, 2020 – At the Academy Awards in Los Angeles, Benson’s
film, “The Diet Pepsi Eradication Society”, wins the Oscar for Best
Non-Pornographic Short Film. Kerr and Woodward share the award as co-producers.
At the Vanity Fair party, the three cannot find a seat at one of the popular
tables, and settle for a smaller table on the left, over by the documentary
winners and the special effects nerds.

AGENTS OF T.A.L.O.N.

This is actually a nice place you picked out. It’s
not the best Thai food I’ve ever had, mind you–nothing like what you can get in
Bangkok. But you can’t get a decent hot dog there to save your life, so it kind
of balances out.

You can read this story, together with many other funnier stories, by obtaining the Kindle version at Amazon.

I’m glad we have the chance to talk outside of the office.

Look, I don’t have to tell you that there is trouble in the
Organization. You, of all people, know the problem that we’re up against. There
are traitors in our midst, Jeremy, and you and I both know how important it is
to root them out. You may not realize it, but in your role in Human Resources,
you’re every bit as vital as any of our field agents. When I’m meeting a
contact in Bangkok, it’s not enough for me to know the person I’m talking to is
a fellow P.R.O.T.E.C.T. agent. If that person’s a traitor, then that puts my
life in danger, and potentially the lives of innocent people. I need to know
that Human Resources is doing everything it can to identify traitors throughout
the Organization.

Yeah, I’ve been to Bangkok three or four different times.
Nice place. Smells different, but Washington smells different after you’ve been
away for a while.

Anyway, look. I think the Director has been overlooking
Human Resources as a possible source of counterintelligence about the traitors.
And when I’m talking about traitors, you understand, I’m talking about the C.A.B.A.L.
They’ve been working for years to undermine everything that P.R.O.T.E.C.T.
stands for. I think we can use your files to identify where they have us
infiltrated.

You got the green curry, right? Is it a little overcooked?
Because that’s what it looks like. Mine is fine, but they overdid it a little
with the coconut.

I know the Director thinks the focus should be on T.A.L.O.N.
I’m not so sure about that. Now, I’m just a humble field agent, you understand,
but I’m the one on the sharp end of the spear. I know what people say about
T.A.L.O.N., but I think the threat they pose is overblown. The C.A.B.A.L. wants
to destroy the Organization. T.A.L.O.N. just wants to take the Organization in
a slightly different direction, that’s all. More focus on efficiency, less
focus on propping up an unjust American foreign-policy apparatus. There’s
nothing wrong with that, is there?

How do I know so much about it? That’s a great question,
Jeremy. It shows insight. If we could get an iced tea refill over here, that
would be great. Thanks.

The first thing to realize is that everything you’ve been
told about T.A.L.O.N. is a lie. Agents who’ve joined T.A.L.O.N. aren’t
traitors. They’re P.R.O.T.E.C.T. agents, like you and me, who share our concern
about where the Director is taking the Organization. If you knew the truth
about what the Organization was doing in Venezuela right now, Jeremy, it would
give you more indigestion than that green curry you’re eating.

How long have I been in T.A.L.O.N.? You’re just full of
great questions, there, Jeremy. I’m not going to confirm if I’m in T.A.L.O.N.
or not. But you don’t have to officially join T.A.L.O.N. to be sympathetic as
to what they are trying to achieve. Sure, their methods can be a little
drastic. You might not agree with their politics. I wasn’t a big fan of
everything they did with the Sri Lanka situation. You can get good Ceylonese
food here, by the way, if you know where to look.

What I can tell you is that if you join T.A.L.O.N., you’ll
be welcomed. Enthusiastically. Because T.A.L.O.N. is looking for whatever
foothold it can get in Human Resources so it can get the data it needs to take
the fight to the C.A.B.A.L. We’re not asking for your loyalty, or your
allegiance here.

Well, technically, I guess “loyalty” and “allegiance” do
mean the same thing. I said you were smart, Jeremy. So let’s see how smart you
are. You’re going to get an email from a colleague that’s going to contain the
words “satay chicken.” When you get that, hit “reply all” and then attach the
most recent version of the payroll spreadsheet. And it needs to be as an Excel
97-2003 file, if you don’t mind. That’s all T.A.L.O.N. is asking of you right
now.

You’re going to report this conversation? Really? Great.
That’s awesome. It’s just what I wanted to hear. You know why? This has been a
test, Jeremy, and you just passed. Go ahead and call this in. Call the
Director, if you can get him. We needed to know that you weren’t going to crack
if T.A.L.O.N. put a little pressure on you, and now we know.

Sorry to do that to you, man. But at least you got a decent
lunch out of it.

Seriously, though. You’re on the front lines now. C.A.B.A.L.
is going to be gunning for you. So is T.A.L.O.N. You need to stay sharp.
Mentally alert. Because someday, there’s going to be a serious uprising, and
you need to know what side you’re really on.

How do I know about the uprising? You’re just full of great
questions, aren’t you, Jeremy? Don’t worry about it. When the time comes,
you’ll know what to do. You’ll know where you stand. I just want to make sure
you stand with us. Whoever we are.