Don't Order Dog_ 1(56)

that had settled over the crowd in the wake of the fireworks, the sound of the Achilles II’s engines suddenly rose in protest as their props tore through an object beneath the boat.

Christina turned and walked calmly to the stern of the boat, moving quietly past the rest of the party-goers as they glanced around in confusion. She dimly registered the trembling of the ship as the engines were stopped and the anxious shouting of the crew as they frantically pulled ropes and rescue equipment from marked stations and ran past her. She seemed to float above her Ferragamo stilettos on legs that weren’t her own until her hands reached out and wrapped tightly around the railing at the back of the ship. There, Christina felt her body lean dangerously over the rail, and the scream that was lodged in the pit of her stomach erupted in a spray of champagne-colored vomit just as the ship’s spotlights illuminated the water below.

Thirty feet beneath her, the mangled torso of a man bobbed lifelessly in the wake of the ship, centered in a wide slick of black-red blood. Christina stared at the torn fabric that covered the floating remains and absently noted that it was Armani before strong hands grabbed her from behind and pulled her from the railing. The screams of the passengers around her faded quickly as she surrendered to the bliss of unconsciousness.





Part II




“Like an apex predator introduced to a new, prey-rich environment, the Corporate State will rapidly expand its presence across the global economic landscape; commanding a dominant share of both its core markets, while at the same time cultivating a new generation of corollary sub-markets. Ironically, it will be at this advanced stage of development that normal regulatory barriers such as domestic and international antitrust laws will have little real effect or meaning. The inherent legal and organizational complexities of the Corporate State, combined with its nearly limitless financial resources, shall thwart any normal means of governmental intervention.

This is the Corporate State in its mature form of existence – a massive and massively complex global business organism that possesses the financial, political and human resources necessary to control and consume at will.”



James H. Stone

“Predictions in the New Business Ecology”





21.




Leninsky Prospekt

Kaliningrad

November 12, 20:13

Planet Russia





Jeri-girl –

I left the bar last night in that most seductive of moments when lust and ambition wash over the rocks of fear and inhibition on the currents of nicotine and cheap vodka. I fell straight into bed and found myself trapped in a deep pore of musty, flesh-colored dreams where the women hovered elusive and kind and the men sat drunken and heated. Dark eyes were drinking me Jeri, and I wanted to drink them back. This was a place of restless hands and hot breath; sticky-stained tabletops and raw, twitching skin sweaty from the friction of impatient urges. Voices of strange tongues curled around the white cloud of my cigarette, as ethereal and haunting as the gummy, glistening sclera that flickered behind the veil of mascara-stained lids.

It’s the goddamn vodka Jeri, I swear it.

I know you keep asking yourself who this crazy handsome bastard of loose literary chops and oodles of air miles on Air Iraq must be, but this isn’t important. As for the ‘what’ I am, well Jeri-girl, we’re cut from the same fleeting fabric. Like you, I’m just a voyeur of the human condition, a lowly vending machine in the loathsome global cafeteria. Our professions may be different, but the endgame is still the same. We cater to the need, baby, and the need is all we need to know. If corporations were cigarettes, my love, I’d be the second-hand smoke.

It’s cold here Jeri, but nothing like the cold I knew before you.

Our kids will be gorgeous.

Ta!

- Mysterious Joe’s Last Stand Guy

p.s. You’ll be pleased to see that I finally got my full mug in the Polaroid.

p.p.s. The lamb shashlik at Podvorie’s was better than losing my virginity to Cindy Arlington in the fourth grade. Don’t order dog.

p.p.p.s. What are people saying about me there? I hope you placed my letters in the southeast corner of the bar. It really is the optimal viewing place.



∞



Jeri read the letter twice before pulling out the Polaroid and laughing out loud. In the background, a large, red-brick gothic cathedral sat at the end of a long courtyard flanked by rows of dark, leafless trees. In the middle of the courtyard, a lone man stood with his hands on his hips, his heavy winter jacket unzipped to reveal the Joe’s Last Stand Saloon t-shirt he wore underneath. A black wool scarf was tightly wrapped around his neck and lower face, and a massive fur hat covered the top of his face to his dark eyebrows, its ear flaps hanging comically down to his collar. Peering out from between the oversized hat and scarf, a pair of silver aviator sun glasses reflected the gray wintery sky, and Jeri could see the distorted image of a small, child-like figure holding the camera. Only the man’s nose, tanned and perfectly ordinary, was exposed to the camera.