Life at the Sentient Bean / Only Dip-Shits Buy Vowels

Hair a Stax. Their a Stax. Everywhere a Stax Stax.- Pyoter Bierbuston Symes - 21st Century Children's Rhyme

Wild hair syndrome was the first clue of trouble on the way. Restless leg syndrome was a blip on the statistician's bell curve compared to this. Generational disagreements on hair arrangements where one consistent pattern throughout human history. But this wild hair was alien. Sentient. Consumed with consumerism even more than us. Prolific in it's reproduction. Much more so than we, who had evolved into a world of pleasure sublimating our desires while avoiding the millennium of resultant offspring. So the alien hair truly went wild. Eliminating all that stood in it’s way from its consumption and reproduction. Where this alien hairy entity literally flopped down was in it’s inability to stack things on top of other things. An area we humans perfected beyond any alien follicles dreams.





Some of our brain trust surmised this was due to the invaders intergalactic travels which deprived it of the clear understanding that we instinctively knew as up and or down. But with those assumptions that lobe of our brain trust merely demonstrated their lack of a clear understanding of the stacking process we use. Up down sideways and building on idea after idea were the inherent telos of stacking.





How the alien hair was able to abscond with centuries of stax, the mechanics of the pilfering, and the hairs real designs have been lost to antiquity as of now. I alone, who was Shanghaied onto an alien ship and became the recipient of the inherent space time continuum slope displacement can conjecture that the plundering of earth's stax began with a dubious undemocratic yet technically legal election of the Wild Hair Syndrome personified to one of the most powerful thrones on the 21st Century globe. Hindsight allows me to correctly identify it as a throne because what I now know, which few knew then, was the empire was being sacked from within and the hair had already won.





They took our structures and dismantled and loaded them on their vast space barges. Complex machines of any kind were confiscated.They uploaded every bit of data on the planet that had been neatly stacked as ones and zeroes on stacked silicon chips, then seized the stacked chips which they admired so. The Hair thought us quite clever apes for that one. Big haired Balkanized models were most coveted by The Hair, even though it was a vagary of language that led them to covet our Eastern European women whom were recklessly referred to as stacked. So the women were stacked on The Hairs space treasure barges as well. My attempt to cling on to my dear Lorilita, quite the Eastern Promises prize herself resulted in my surreptitious Shanghaiing. She was worth it and my resultant survival to tell this tale is in great part a result of my cellular drive to do the reproduction tango with her most exquisite foreign frame.





When I returned I found a land where most of the remaining humans lived humbly, happily, creatively, and baldly in a clean, beautiful, peaceful existence where basic needs were provided for through the modest labors of each other. Bosco’s, as they were called by the remaining wild hair overlords who had almost entirely brushed themselves to the extinction tipping point through their worship of competition, exploitation, and prideful violence as they spent their time trying to usurp each other’s Stax. The thing was the Stax were few and far between as the Staxmeisters of the earlier days refused to forgive the debt of the now leveraged stacked stuff that had disappeared up the gravity well with our Wild Haired invaders.





But centuries of custom and conditioning set us against each other trying to collect from each other on things that were no longer ours. What once was considered our best Angels became our clear and present devils. Our still unbridled drive to consume more than the next human, reproduce more than the next human, eliminating anything that interfered with those cellular commands just so we could stack more things on top of other things than the being next to us was still paramount in out globally bifurcated brains. Our alien Hair conquers, being more advanced and beyond mere corporeal stacking, should have known better. But our elected hair monster was the personification of all our worst angels and only propounded the misguided myth that only he could create great stacks; forgetting that you have to be able to sell that stack of hooey to somebody for it to have any kind of inherent value. Since nobody had nothing anymore but their wits and their souls; the once agreed upon legal tender was not worth the paper it was no longer printed on. It was all just data on the stacked silicon chips that had gone up the gravity well in a puff of anti gravity bravado.






Where have all the vowels gone?
Whr hv ll th vwls gn.



The servers were overloaded. Too much text. Not enough storage. What seemed like a good idea at the time came back and bit us again. First great idea was dropping the first two digits of the year. We freaked out when the century rolled over on us.


Then storage was cheap. Soon in the 21st Century so much datum was being stored the earth was covered in servers. The heat changed the climate. The climate changed us. We changed the language. That changed the way we think.


Nw hr w r.

All the way to the loss of the analog I.


W dnt nd n stnkn vwls.


Language became so short hand that all vowels became extinct. Every so often a heretic would strive to reintroduce the I. But soon they would be heaved off the network of life.



All that aside I still had to invoice Cyrus Plush before he flew the coop. I'll deal with the missing vowels, and Fang Fang Wu later.

Life at the Sentient Bean / Melee

By the time I entered I could see Bannister was trying hard to control himself as he asked for apparently not the first time, “Can you give me a clue just what you feel it is lacking?”

With that Cyrus saw me and said, “Finally, someone who understands what this music needs?”

“Alright Cyrus, lets go give it a listen,” Cyrus picked at my shoulder like I was a cuddle stone as we went off to audio land. There were plenty of mirrors in there so I knew he would be distracted while I told the mixers in private to pitch the music up a half step and play it louder. That would keep Cyrus busy for a while. I could wangle the real issue from Banister while he was occupied with his tin bird brain ears. Now for some quality B and M pacification.

Bannister and Mora were in conference looking none too happy. The Chinese censors were coming over. Apparently they take their fish seriously and wanted to review our perhaps overly sexualized fishy character for sanitizing.

“But we bribed them already.” Mora was seething.

“So we will bribe them again.” Bannister said coolly. Once we get this product rolling out, it will fly off shelves in the overseas market alone. Not to mention if they still maintain this political Kabuki ban here; the black market proceeds will have Cyrus up to his beak in seeds. But where is Fang Fang Wu?”

“I don’t know. I am going to talk to Suki tonight and see what she knows.” was my first offering in this round of deep conference.

“So then what? I mean, what are you going to do?” Bannister said in his ever practical manner.

“First thing is go and zap my invoice to you so you can pay promptly before leaving.” I said with a smile and started heading towards my office.

“I mean about Fang Fang,” he said in an apparent attempt to delay the inevitable billing.

“Collect from you and then go find her. The question is which one of those things will be more difficult.”

Bannister just rolled his eyes. Aurora Mora was trying to sneak out of the room. “I haven’t forgotten you either Aurora.” I said over my shoulder and closed my office door.

Behind that office door is where this story started:

I am the moral hazard. The risk the money lenders use to foist their canard to justify usurious rates and divine right to reap prophets. I did not set out to exemplify and justify their mean spirited ways; but here I am.- Pyoter Bierbuston Symes ~ 21st Century Saying

There were doors behind doors of the pantry doors. A door that led to a staircase up. A door that led to a door to the porch and then out. All doors where I never knew there were doors. But when my son said he saw a girl with immaculately combed floor length silky black hair sweep her way out of one of those doors that I knew not of, I knew who she was and I knew why the cold chill of my blood pumped through me. I had been here before and yet I had never been here before.

It had been an ongoing dream place that had manifested itself in my sleep many times. I knew there were chambers back there . I knew it would be filled with space that I craved. Space that was once mine, but no longer is. Filled with plush comfy furniture. As upkeep bills kept rising, that part of my brain; my house, my life had been walled off. Shut down. Substantively and existentially as well. But the part of my cellular structure that thrived on consumption screamed out to eliminate those barriers so I could stack more items within those walls. On those walls. Around those walls. Never mind that it has been decades since I needed such luxuries. Less the time that I even wanted those luxuries. Until recently I had eliminated all such perceptual stackings.

But what of that son of mine? He would be about my age right now. If he had survived. I would like to see how my recombined stacked DNA had turned out. Perhaps some records still were held from before the hair plundering began. I departed right after it was clear that the Stax Lords resplendent in the comb over copycat hair had prevailed.

Life at the Sentient Bean / Gaping Maw

I walked back through the Mediatrix ruined lobby of the building and beckoned the elevator and boarded upon its speedy arrival. As the elevator doors closed I reflected.

I had enjoyed my time away from this circus. But now I am back into promoting the hypnotization of millions via bouncy signals to our upper atmosphere and back. I now had a greater appreciation for the gaping maw of consumerism. I had originally been an unwitting part of the ploy but now I was firmly ensconced in it. I knew both backs of the beast these days.

I had stared into the eyes of the slobbering beast. Felt the allure. Allowed myself to be enveloped in the lushness of the tight and slippery sliding slope. I plunged in plumbing depths of debt so deep without realizing where I had prodded. Feeling secure while balance sheets still showed black, yet cognizant of many factors only marginally acknowledged, but still denied. As the siren song of “we need this” and “I want that” to fill my empty and miserable life, I only found that it was never enough. More was needed to continue to keep the beast happy. To feel it’s naked warmth beside me in the cold black night of trying to understand why, why, why I was doing what I was doing, doing, doing. My head was filled with the platitudes I thought I was foisting on others for a payout, but while foisting it on them those platitudes were wheedling there wormy wanton way into my monkey brain. Driving deep to that tiny reptile that lives within us all.

So I kept plunging in deeper and deeper. With every orifice splitting insertion while still not realizing that the slobbering full figured personification of rampant consumerism was only spreading her legs and lips to swallow me up whole with the designs to squeeze me out, cum and all onto the pavement of life. With the dribble of my essence being lapped up as collateral. The prime directive was:

I want more,

I need more,

I will not be happy until  I have more.

I will grind and swirl to drain everything last drip I can because without all these things I might feel as nothing and acknowledge that I am just an animal that has learned to stack things on top of other things and then tell others about that stack.

So my ultimate contribution was to breed more consumers in training. I was surprised but I made do. All under the slobbering consummate consuming cunt, the base fruits of my burning lust learned their lessons well. Wanting the constant distraction of being plugged into something as often as possible, just like I did, so that they would not miss a single bulletin of what they should be wanting today. Desires tailored to keep things just out of reach enough to create more minions that contribute to the wreckage of over consumption for the landed to feast upon. A whole society based on consumption and constant endeavors to get others to want more as well. The mountains of goods and services continued and we stopped making things of worth. Instead doing what we could to sell things to each other, pat ourselves on the back, and then buy more things we really didn’t want or need to fill our empty lives, to have more things to stack on top of other things.

So we partied, fucked, drank, ate, eliminated things that made us unhappy or gave us pain, and then fucked and ate some more until we start thinking there might be something  better to eat, fuck, or eliminated around the next bend. Besides this one is all spent and is just a twisted smoking heap of rubbish anyway. What was I thinking settling for this.

The elevator announced my floor number.

Time to start stacking.

Like the debts stacking before the Chinese cornered the market on our health insurance racket. They proudly had our country now and told us it was time to turn our heads and cough, The Right Wing Oligarch shutdown of our government was just what the new founded Chinese Oligarchs were waiting for. The Wingers, Baggers, and inadvertent Trumpsters opened the door and we all flowed into the dumpster of Empires. Just as I flowed out into the melee beyond.

When the doors of the elevator opened I could tell by the sounds coming from the suite that things have gone from bad to worse.

“The music is all wrong” Cyrus was squawking.

Life at the Sentient Bean / Fish on the Brain

Cyrus strutted in with those words. I swear he dressed and moved more and more like a parakeet every time I saw him. Which was rather disconcerting considering  he was a very large and a very rich man. But there he was in a powder blue suit, the whitest shirt I had seen in years, and a mottled grey bow tie. Perhaps his morphing into a bird had something to do with his fish fixation of late, but a clear theme had emerged with his work. At his side was Aurora Mora and it dawned on me where I had just seen that face and figure. The animators had used her to model our fishy temptress in the spot. Cyrus’s motivations and drives were generally as confused as the confused and obfuscated messages we were foisting on the public.

“You need to get Fang Fang back lads, she never would have let you stray as far from the fishy trail as you had in that last cut.” Cyrus whistled as he found the mirror in the room and he moved his head jerkily as he admired his beloved.

He was right of course. Having the Fangster shacked up with Cyrus was a great source of insider information. She would give us a heads up in the night after Cyrus had one of his brain storms. We would be well on the way before he even arrived at the suite. Fang Fang also would take great delight in describing Plush's mating rituals which often involved him brainstorming current campaign ideas while doing “unspeakable things to my person” as Fang would put it. She claimed to suffer through it, but the look in her eye belied the suffering point.

All I know is when she fled Cyrus and begged me to hide her she was not the same Fang Fang Wu from Buffalo that I had met in the alley behind the Sentient Bean. She had sharpened edges upon return. Sure she still portrayed the tough worldly smart aleck oriental female delight in public, but the softer private side of her had disappeared after Cyrus. The only glimpse was in her dreams and nightmares. Only then could I see the original little Wu’ster, But after waking up shivering she would collect herself and not ever let the inner little girl out to play anymore.

Bannister was talking budget with Aurora, because nobody talked dollars with Cyrus. Bannister had that producer middle man hat on now so I knew the rest of the day would be one of:  “How much will this cost?, What is taking so long? I’m not paying for that.”

But that’s OK. We would make our dough by marking up the lunch order. Bread and Circuses should have been Cyrus’s middle name.

Cyrus was done at the mirror, so he began to chirp about the ramifications of the research into the meme of fish. I knew my headache would get much worse as this little diatribe began.

“Fish lads. It goes back to the beginning, where we all began. We all are just chock full of former fish molecules. Damn it! The very core of our brain goes back to when we were all fish. Swimming and reproducing in that primordial soup. It is in our very core. We see these creatures fluttering around, and since we know they won’t eat us, or at least most of them won’t, all it does is engage our breeding instinct. Yes. Three responses. Either we want to eat them, fuck them, or if they stand in the way of our eating and fucking, eliminate them. In this film we are going for the big ol’ randy flounder response in us. Whether they know it or not, people watching this fish will feel invigorated, they will want energy. Energy provided by the caffeine in our illustrious beverage. The alcohol will tear down their inhibitions. Their public persona will become radiant, wide awake, and most the uninhibited little beasts we can be. Shivery and shimmering with moist viscous exteriors, rubbing membrane against membrane coating each other with our own special brand of sputum. Thats what we are selling. Selling the sizzle, not the steak. Any knucklehead can drink whiskey with a cola back. We are selling the ultimate combo platter. Heaped high with promise of immersion into that great ecstasy. Now get on with it! Aurora!! Deep conference.”

Banister in his best cover your own ass moment asked again, “Cyrus, are you sure we don’t need to add a disclaimer mentioning the other ingredients in our product?”

“Tut tut my dear boy. That is so 20th century of you.”

With that Cyrus toddled towards the conference room with Aurora Mora in tow and shut the door.

“Chop chop, wicky wicky,” announced Bannister. “You heard the man”

As we worked only once did a disheveled and wobbly kneed Aurora exit the room to provide the lunch order. “Are you sure you don’t need Cyrus out here yet,” she asked hopefully. I shook my head. Aurora sighed and resignedly returned to the conference room.

Before lunch arrived we had a surprise visitor. It was non other than Suki Su Wu.

“Have any of you heard from Fang Fang,” she asked in a highly disconcerted tone as she scanned the room.

“Last I saw she was busy humping a slot machine.” I said with trepidation.

Suki looked disgusted and then cast her eye’s down in the oriental shame ploy I recognized from her sister. I knew when she would look up from that feint I was in big trouble.

Life at the Sentient Bean / Suite Fang Fang Wu

Suite Fang Fang Wu


As I arrived all was quiet in the suite. A large room with numerous work stations scattered about. One corner was for the graphic pukes with the 3D, 2D, and Holographic rendering power. We needed all of that now since so much footage was no longer shot live, but we still needed to create many options for the endless game of “what if” that we play while shilling for the advancement of our clients market share.

The Omnibus Suite was often like a three ring circus, or gladiator arena, depending on the mood of the project. Then you had the audio stations where the engineers hunkered down and finely stroked the many layers of audio in their virtual reality helmets that simulated the surround of a perfectly tuned room. Of course final mix was still done in an open air room so all concerned could make snarky comments to each other even though the helmets would give a truer rendering of real world conditions. Then there were the numerous uplink channels and their operators who knew the ins and “pouts” of each distribution channel Even the Chinese couldn’t bring about cohesive standardization. But that was good for all concerned because it kept more people busy trying to figure out how to deliver the message in an optimal stream.

Now there was just the whir of the fans and pumps for liquid cooled processors that were always working, even when idle on our projects, so every nanosecond of their adding machine power could be used somewhere, by somebody, for something; when they were not adding things up for me. A world in the ether of the “intervent” needed more power all the time, just like we all have learned to need. More, more, more. Ideally more of what we were about to tell you from this arena of desires. My clients were telling you what you want and not what their competitors were telling you that you wanted. What you wanted was immaterial. You probably don’t know anyway.

This suite also had the memories of the time Fang Fang was an apprentice here after I got her a job tossing this crap around rather than the crap she tossed around for the Labrador Retrieval Waste and Recycle.

It was an interesting, busy, and all around entertaining time for all. Clients loved the Fangster. After she worked with us for a while I really had to wonder what she was doing as a garbage gal, or shall we say waste removal specialist. Naw, the Chinese didn’t go in for that politically correct nanny state bullshit we were regurgitating at the end of the last and the beginning of the new century. We were back to smoking, swearing, and being much more honest with each other. The ancient culture of China with it’s traditional roles actually helped all of us to stop sweating the small stuff. Of course even the enlightened can’t escape a primates natural distrust of the other. It is wired into our DNA. Only the millennium of stacked ideas and civilized cooperation, layer upon layer of “you shoulds and should nots” through the ages masked it now. First to protect ourselves from the other, then to sell the other what we were selling, made it worth our while to get along with each other and thrive as a species.

Fang Fang thrived in the post hell holes of shilling for international concerns like it was a long lost vocation. After all multi national corporations were people too. But the first time Cyrus Plush moon walked into the room and perched in his usual place next to the mirror that changed. Fang Fang could smell money and immediately she began combining the efficiency of her role in the post suite with the oriental feminine charm no Xirong can ever completely ignore. The Wu’ster utilized skills from previous employment and stuck out her can. Cyrus nearly fell from his perch when his beak hawked out her form and for the first time completely ignored his own reflection. Well, for a moment or two.

I don’t even remember what project we were working on. They all blend into one another. Some sort of useless product that in essence made the buyer feel better than the monkey next door till the monkey down the street bought the newer better more expensive model. But as usual the message we were delivering had to be delivered in the most hypnotic, convoluted, and cleverly obfuscated package meant to worm it’s way into the psyche of even the most thick skulled consumer. No need to discriminate if the viewer could ever afford the doodad, we were motivating them to be productive enough to at least keep the landed gentry in the style to which they felt themselves entitled, never mind if the poor bastard chasing our floozied up carrot ever reached the promised reward. As long as they believed they had a chance we could soak up their hard earned shekels like a Sham Wow. Well on the day Cyrus and Fang Fang met I remember wondering which one of these two was the floozied up carrot on a stick  and which was the donkey in hot pursuit.

On that day in the suite we finished up the project quickly with Cyrus’s object of distraction keeping his bird brain occupied elsewhere. Now what shinny object can I use to distract him with today while we deal with “The Night of the Walking Drunks” campaign.

Just then Bannister burst in to the suite with the obligatory two questions.

“Are we done yet?” and “Whats for lunch?”

Let the games begin.

Life at the Sentient Bean / Mediatrix

Mediatrix



My favorite quality Mediatrx had was the fact that no matter how many times I rode with him, he always acted like it was our first time meeting. I was never sure if it was an act, or if it was from his early childhood diet of schmeat. Yep, the old beaker bacon. That was back when we first started growing our animal products, and we had to try them on someone. His country drew the short straw of that global lottery. It was a great idea. Eating flesh that had never, sweated, shat, or peed seemed like a good idea at the time. But when the side effects became apparent the Archetypes had to administer a forgetfulness pharmaceutical to spare the survivors the recollections of the disaster. Good things we cleared that up before that little snafu got to much publicity. So with the blessings of the Marquis De Bob, it was swept under the public rug, which was only shaken occasionally by a few of the politically embarrassed crackpots and conspiracy theorists which were quickly discredited by the ever present media. The poison will never out if if we refuse to know about it.

Even so Mediatrix was always plugged in and as a victim of exploitive experimentation he knew better than to believe most of the fear driving drivel. HIs cab was a rolling hot spot. Sure the world was covered by the ubiquitous G-10 network, but with the ludicrous encryption and sub networks Mediatrix’s cab was plugged into places even the Chinese couldn’t track you on the infernal net. So I used the time to check e-mail for any heads up that Bannister might have about the coming assignment. The world of commerce never slept. Only I did. When I wasn’t awake that is. But being awake was never the easy row to hoe. There was peace from time to time mostly when I pushed myself away from the treadmill and stopped thinking of more and bigger things to take care of the things I thought I had. That was no longer for me.

   But eating was always a pressing problem and since most these days did their tricks for food having long given up the illusion of carrot and stick. No longer were we fooled by the promise of a fine retirement funded from the life time of labor, The reality that those assets were quickly drained away by the privatize entitlement scams that sank in even to your the densest of the masses. We are all dumb money now.

   The e-mail came from Bannister and the news was not good. Cyrus Plush was coming to the session. Although I knew that turn of events would pad the hours considerably for my billing, it would be painful spending that much time in the room with Cyrus perched like a Budgie behind me fretting and a pacing only to stop occasionally to admire himself in the mirror and perhaps ordering in for more cuttlebones to sharpen his beak on. So will my next hours be.

But I do not enjoy it as much as I once had.

Life at the Sentient Bean / Sally

Sally


“Hello Sally” I said feeling like I was being sized up. For what I did not know. Well Fang Fang strolled up to me in her dirty Golden jump suit which was about five sizes to big  clomping over in work boots that seemed just as huge for her tiny frame. Even under the outsized Labrador Retrieval unform her surprisingly well defined feminine keyster was apparent. She aimed her butt in my general direction and said, “Fulfill first part of contract before moving to second part round eye.”

Well it seemed like a good idea. What could a little playful slap and tickle hurt. So I wound up and swung but she deftly maneuvered out of the way and said, “Not so fast G.I.”  G.I. was how the new Chinese immigrant overlords referred to us natives and stood for, Globally Indentured. They had learned lessons of history from the colonialists well and were enjoying their new roles.

 “How do I know where you been. I find you hanging out in the alley. Could be you live here.” Fang Fang said with a sly smile.  Before I could reply she demanded, “You buy me coffee now.” The little one was all about control so while lust filled visions and carnal possibilities surfaced from the reptilian part of my brain courtesy of my D.N.A. any sense, good bad or indifferent, was swiftly snatched away. I agreed.

Meanwhile the traffic was still blocked in the alleyway by the garbage truck. But Golden Retrieval employees were fearless when it came to local ordinances and rules. Never mind the honking horns. Once the other drivers saw the little operator strolling into the coffee shop with me they meekly reversed course and found alternative routes. It was White Lotus land now, and  Fang Fang knew it..

As I gallantly gestured for the little lady to enter the Sentient Bean before me I slapped that delightful behind and said, “So what’ll ya have Sally.” She gave a giggle akin to a child’s and then menacingly mumbled something in her native tongue which I didn’t quite catch. But I sure caught it later.

As we tumbled into the back of the Sentient Bean the Beard chimed in when he saw Fang Fang, “Hallo Sally, did you make it through the “Of Human Bondage” chapter in Spinoza’s “Ethics” yet?”

“Who have time for that crap, I too busy trying to save the world through recycling” retorted the Fangster then added, “Most of it is junk you transplanted  Euro Trash bought on credit, and pitched when it no longer was shinney and new.”

Now, I have to ask myself why she spoke that way since I would eventually find that she was born and raised in Buffalo NY. Just passing for advantage maybe.

Fang Fang Wu was a mystery through and through.

Life at the Sentient Bean / Casino

Casino

The last time I saw Fang Fang Wu she was physically and verbally assaulting a slot machine. At four foot eleven you may think  the Fangster would be easy to trifle with. That would be a serious miscalculation. But ask any slot machine, or dealer, car or otherwise and they will turn pale at the mention of this little force of nature.  Once her cold black eyes caught you, caught you were. Well I had to try to wrestle her away from the machine, because management was moving in the forces to stop her from trying to rip the arm off of the one armed bandit, but she knew it was payday and she was there to collect.

At this point she had mounted the machine and seemed to be trying to hump a payoff out of the machine while gibbering in what she claimed was her native tongue. I could never confirm nor deny that fact. This gave security pause since the violence had turned into something the guests pay for as a floor show. Then those glinting black eyes turned to me. She just threw me a hundred dollar bill and screamed. “YOU PLAY THAT MACHINE NOW”, and pointed  to Cleopatra across the room. I found this strange because she had sold everything thing I had and we were living in my 1966 Pontiac Star Chief Executive. No reasoning with her now. She was a woman, and while in the grips of warfare with the slot machine Buddha of her desires, now  was not trifling time.

Instead I realized that enough was enough, and having some money for gas I decided  this would be my cue to move on. A hundred bucks was more cash than I had seen since the credit card crisis sunk  the major banks into the black hole of derivative divine divergence, or whatever excuse for dodging moral hazard they were using that day. Better put, you can’t get blood from a stone. We were all squatting by the side of the economic road rubbing rocks in our heads for entertainment since it was what we could afford now that no one could say the magic words “charge it.” Nobody was making anything, and nobody was getting paid to advise us what to do with our no longer liquid brokerage assets. We have been trickled upon and could no longer find anyone else to trickle on. Monetarily speaking we were fucked. White Lotus had become a reality, but not as anticipated in the nineteen fifties. As few things had.

But I should have known I was fucked when I first laid eyes on Fang Fang Wu. She was a driver for Golden Labrador Retrieval Waste and Recycle , and was thumping a dumpster into the hopper, humming Bang a Gong in the key of “O”, when she turned around and saw me smoking a cigarette at the back door of the “Sentient Bean”

She whistled through the gap in her front teeth and exclaimed in the unforgivable voice of hers,

 “Well slap my ass and call me Sally “

Life at the Sentient Bean / Police

Police

  I entered the sadly paint encrusted door at the Sentient Bean which gave up the throwback tinkle of a bell. I was determined to choke down my first cup of joe for the day. The Beard served it up adding the usual dose of existential insolence I had grown to expect from Jeemarie Bingalangbang. But as one of his hero’s would so clearly respond, “Such things cannot be sufficiently despised,” so I tossed him the spondulix, grunted, snatched the brew, and retreated to my favorite hovel of the premises. I think back in the fifties the Sentient Bean had been one of those Armenian restaurants. Booths built into the wall with an onion dome frame and a decidedly casbah motif of lattice work in extended base relief. You never knew what was on this side of the wall but fortunately on the other side of the lattice.I know I did not want to know.

  Outside an undercover police car went squealing down the street. I have to wonder why after the name calling of the nineteen sixties they would design and operate their siren in such a way as to sound like the squealing of a pig as they race down the street. I guess even the authorities have a sense of humor. Like the words they left out on the side of their marked car doors that say “To Serve and Protect”. The missing words are To Serve those that have And Protect them from those that haven’t. As I saw  them skitter down the street I was relieved that they didnt squeal to a stop in front of this establishment. I was much to distracted to spend an hour obfuscating with them down at the station while I waited for my mouthpiece to make an appearance.

It may seem like idle paranoia, but since the naught twelve election of the wrong rominee we were quickly sold the full loss of all but the most obvious civil liberties. Even those only went to the highest bidder. But that is freedoms under the bridge now, Still you had to be aware that you could end up being detained indefinitely if you posed even an imaginary risk to the wrong connected corporation

The Bean had the usual crowd resplendent with the the glowering beard behind the counter. Jeemarie was of the long time disenfranchised, but he had held on the the viable, albeit anemic cash flow of The Sentient Bean. Like it’s name it was aware of it self without having a clue why. But it had become a comfortable habit for years and I liked it.

I settled down to the problem of the moment that was all consuming my caffeine charged monkey brain.

  “Where are you Fang Fang Wu?”