The Launch

Chapter Eight

I stop at Mom and Dad's place on the way to work to make sure our prisoner is comfortable and still secure. I open the front door very quietly and peek my head in to see if I can hear anything, but all is quiet. I close the door behind me, drape my coat over the banister and head down the stairs two at a time to take him by surprise. This would be the time he would jump out at me and clock me with a heavy book or something, so I have to be cautious.

"Ray?" I call out when I reach the bottom. "Up and at 'em, sunshine."

"What?" he says from the general area of the couch. I walk a couple of steps into the hallway and I can see his chain leads to the end of the couch, so I'm okay. He sits up and his head appears, hair sticking up in all directions. He rubs his eyes and yawns. "Shit, what time is it?"

"It's 8:15. You want some coffee?"

"Yeah. Definitely."

"Okay, I'll be right back."

"You got any cream this time?"

"No, I take it black, so I never thought of it."

"Can you get some? If I'm going to be here for awhile, I might as well have my damn coffee the way I like it."

"Don't be grumpy, sugar lips. I can get some creamer today if that will make you happy."

"Okay. Good."

I start making a list in my head of the things I'm going to have to shop for as I walk back up the stairs and start getting the coffee stuff out. I can hear Ray shuffling across to the bathroom and then the stream of his urine hitting the water in the toilet. It's all family here: no privacy. If he's going to be relatively docile, I think we can leave a loaf of bread with some peanut butter and jam and plastic knives down there so he can make himself a sandwich if he's hungry. I'll get mostly microwavable pasta dinners to be quick for JC and me to serve up during the week.

Once the coffee is done, I take two Styrofoam cups downstairs to the Ray zone, drop one off next to his couch and then take a seat on the one opposite. He picks up his coffee and I raise my cup to him. "Cheers."

"Yeah, whatever," he says. He is quite the grumpy looking bastard in his misfit navy blue tracksuit, rumpled hair, three day beard growth and puffy pink and scabbed face. Most of the swelling has gone down and now he just looks a bit bruised and scabby with a bit of sunburn. "So, today's the day everyone sees what you guys have been up to."

"Yep," I say. "This is the big day. That 'Daily Bread' guy will be pissed. But honestly, what were you thinking?"

"That one will sell. The writing is a little soft, but the art is good and it hits the demographic that editors want."

"What demographic? Day traders?"

He leans back with his coffee and gets comfortable. "The Financial Services industry employs about 55 million people in the U.S. alone, most of them in the sweet spot for advertisers: 25-35 year old urbanites with disposable income. You guys laugh at this stuff, but this is how newspaper editors think. As funny as Dilbert is, the main reason for his success is that he hits that same demographic dead in the nuts."

"And this is why all the yoga stuff."

"Exactly. Although it isn't as strong a correlation because it will hit so many hippies who ride their bikes to the Civil Liberties office or whatever and they wouldn't think of reading a newspaper."

"So you didn't think it would sell because hippies do yoga?"

"I don't know. But whatever. You guys are going to launch it, and we're doing the pilates thing now, so it will be a good experiment to see if I was wrong. We may learn something here."