Plasma Cat

Ch. 1: A World of Shit

Money was broke. He could blame his boss, or his landlord, or the laundromat that raised its prices to seven dollars a load, or the stinking vending machine that robbed him of ten dollars, or the ticket he got from the city of Los Angeles for running a red light on his bike, or the guy who stole his bike, or the massive dark void of competing potential workers who had unfairly stolen his career by knowing someone he didn't know, or the general economic slowdown caused by overpopulation, mechanization, environmental degradation, poor government policies, short-term business practices, unwise investments, and interest payments. Or he could blame himself, which is what he chose to do.

It was hard for Money to really put his finger on when everything went wrong. In the short term the decision to stay in Los Angeles was probably a poor one. Everyone knew that the cost of living in tinsel town was way too high for anyone without a career to afford, and yet he stubbornly refused to leave even after searching unsuccessfully for a year for an occupation that could pay the bills. He should have left after he had been laid off from his job at the local grocery store two months ago, after his boss told him that he could only afford to keep one employee and Felicita had two kids to feed. He had stupidly assumed that he could get another job, even though his last one had him burning through his savings as all the money he earned went towards rent. A smarter man would have left the Big Orange, but not Money. He stayed put and went broke.

But maybe, he thought to himself, it wouldn't have made a difference. Perhaps he was already doomed when he set out to emulate his father and become a helicopter pilot, only to realize far too late that the path his father had taken, the military, had long ago replaced all of their helicopters with drones. He should have realized that such a dream was unobtainable and shouldn't have wasted two years learning how to fly in the vain hope that it would help him get a job. Perhaps he was doomed when he didn't get better grades in high school, or elementary school, or maybe it was when he fought with that one kid in kindergarten. Maybe that kid would have been his friend and offered him a job later in life.

In any case, Money was broke. He supposed it really didn't matter what went wrong, since something clearly did go wrong and it was too late to do anything about it. And so he looked over his options. He could look for work. He could ask his father for help. He could become a bank robber, crisscrossing the country with a submachine gun in one hand and sacks of stolen cash in the other, speeding through the night in a stolen Audi as the feds chased him down the sleepy interstates that stretched across the land. Or he could starve.

Money mulled that thought over as he slowly ate his last Aycici Bar, the crinkling of the wrapper serving as a constant reminder that there were only a few bites left. He sat on a bench in a local park, his gaze shifting between two men flying a drone overhead and a small camp of homeless individuals sleeping under a tree. He'd have to ask his father for help. He didn't have a choice. He hated to do it, but what else could he do?

Perhaps he could join a band of African mercenaries. He couldn't handle a gun and had no combat experience, but he could fly their helicopters. Assuming they had helicopters. Preferably Bell JetRangers.

Or maybe he could join the circus. He could already imagine what the advertisement would look like, "Come and See the AMAZING Money the Madman! Watch as he flies a helicopter upside down through a rotating ring of fire! Truly impossible feats that must be seen to be believed!"

Once he snapped back to reality, he got up and walked to his father's retirement home.

His father had been forty-two when he had adopted him, he was now sixty. He suffered from a heart attack when Money was fourteen, and ever since then he had trouble walking. Money's adopted sister, twenty years his senior, had taken care of her dad for most of Money's teenage years, but when she moved to Australia with her husband a couple of years ago she had no choice but to stick him in a home. He didn't seem to mind, as long as they let him smoke, drink, and occasionally get into fist fights with a Marine over which channel the group would watch.