Fugue States Part I

Where Were You Now?

Stanley Reischer stood by the Metro doors gripping the stabilization bar as the breaks squelched harrowingly on the struts. He took the escalator to the mezzanine and retrieved a briefcase left for him by the wall and met Brenner in the plaza and they crossed the street to a restaurant they had previously agreed on.

"What do you mean a hundred?" Brenner's voice howled as he sat across from him at their window seat.

"I've got to be at the airport in two hours so we'll make this as expeditious as possible. If there are any questions you can call me." Reischer said and laid some papers from the briefcase on the table; non-disclosure agreements for front companies, data asset requests for data request lists. "What did you mean a hundred?" Brenner asked dogging him again for an answer. "They said two hundred million." Reischer scraped the icing from a desert noting his distaste for sour cream and said "There was an expansion, you're right but they're giving you crumbs. It was a mistake in my opinion and I'm doing you a favor by advising against it. It's lucrative but once you're in you don't get out."

"I want in and don't tell me that shit." Brenner insisted.

"Take the deal." Reischer said and closed the briefcase.

"Fuck you. I'm in."

Reischer studied a toasted almond as he rolled it between his fingers over Mignon and rosemary garnish. "Just ask Jamerson."

"Who? John Jamerson? Serves on the state judicial panel?

"The honorable Jamerson's not so honorable anymore."

"Why?"

"They lifted restrictions and ordered a warrant. Got him on conspiracy charges."

"Well" he said flipping through the papers "The guy was no angel."

"See, that's what I'm talking about; passivity in the face of such obvious collusive duplicity. He opened the briefcase again and handed him a stack of papers clipped together that included documents where Spencer was listed as 'respective parties' with an asterisk.

"File wrongful indictment."

"It's time-restrictive."

"Go to the papers, gain public sentiment. He's well known. It'll get out."

"It's out there. Where have you been? They don't care if a hundred percent of the population knows because what are they going to do about it? Exactly. Nothing. Once it seems inevitable you pacify them with a little smile and thumbs up and appeal to the narcissistic parts of the psyche and get them to say 'Ahh pfff. We're the good guys. He probably deserved it.' He looked up from the almond and raised an eyebrow "Ever read Lord of the Flies?"

I sat not so inconspicuously in the back of the restaurant wearing a black army surplus jacket and faded jeans scrubbed a recording of their conversation in an audio editing app taking out the background noise, bringing up the highs.

"Just ask Jamerson."

"Who? John Jamerson? Serves on the state judicial panel?"

"They lifted restrictions and ordered a warrant. Got him on conspiracy charges."

"Those big corporate bank accounts are no match for anybody clean." I may have said aloud as I looked through the window at the pedestrians under the buildings' glass-top marque. I knew the judge had skirted some lobbying laws for some people but I had always thought he was a reputable person at least as much as anyone could be in those circles.

"Some ancient beliefs assert that if you see yourself die in your dream it means you'll have long life." Ito said and both of us got out of our chairs at the sound of the oven going off and made our way to the kitchen through the strategically scattered tea lights on the tables. A boy came into the room who had a cataract that turned his entire eye solid white and Ito doctored it and wiped the area around it with a cloth. I showed him a trick where you raise your arm and put your hand on top of your head and it makes it impossible to remove it. I said "Take my arm." Ito continued with his train of thought "The idea was that if you go through it in the dream you don't have to go through it reality."