I’m pissed at myself for sleeping in, I mean, how fucking lame, so I jump in the shower then swiftly dress. I’ve got time to quickly check my emails. Fuck me, I cringe as I see that one Sorenson sent me last night. And she at least has a friend, though heaven knows what this Kim chick is like.
Fuck her. I’ve more important correspondence to be getting on with.
To: michelleparish@lifeparishioners.com
From: lucypattybrennan@hardass.com
Subject: So Good To Hear From You!
Michelle,
Can’t even begin to tell you how juiced I am about you getting back to me. My life has gotten a shitload weirder since the incident. I have a manager! And I’ve a woman from VH1 TV who’s signing me up to do this makeover show for fat suburbanites who’ve let themselves go. It sounds pretty much like what I do now, but only to camera and on a fucking cruise boat! I know, right? The thing is, they’ve lined up some preening hair, cosmetics, and clothes guy to partner me. My warning bells kind of went off. I don’t want them launching the career of the unemployable faggot son of some TV company exec on the back of my heroic actions, right? LOL!
Not all good, though. A fascist prick running for office down here, Quist his name is, has me on his radar. Turns out the gunman was a kid who had been abused by pedophiles and went under the causeway where those perverts live and started shooting them up. Good luck to him, but like, hello, I was meant to know that? It’s all getting sick, but not in a good way.
Please advise!
Oh, and representation, have you heard of Valerie Mercando? What’s she like?
Oh, FINALLY, and you wouldn’t believe that one of my clients now is this self-styled “artist” girl, the one who witnessed the bridge incident. She sought me out. Creepy or what?
Best,
Lucy x
As I hit the send button, I realize that my nails, clicking on the keyboard, are getting too long. I’m scrolling through my inbox and back to Sorenson’s weird animal pictures website. Then I think I really should go, but to my delight, a reply comes right back!
To: lucypattybrennan@hardass.com
From: michelleparish@lifeparishioners.com
Subject: So Good To Hear From You!
Lucy,
Great to hear from you again, and delighted that things are working out so well. VH1 is an awesome channel, and they will give you a great profile. Of course, the right collaborators are important, but this is a golden opportunity! Bite their hand off! BUT leave the negotiations to your rep.
Which bring us on to representation. Yes, Valerie Mercando is very good. She’ll be able to handle all the VH1 negotiations.
Clients are clients, I don’t think it’s important where they come from, as long as there is mutual respect and the proper boundaries are observed.
Yes, I heard that politicians were trying to use your case to gain leverage. Don’t worry, that will blow over, but I’m sure your PR person will tell you that.
Well done! I’m excited for you!
Best,
Michelle
PS Did you try out Morning Pages?
I’m so buzzed, and get right on to Valerie.
To: valeriemercando@mercandoprinc.com cc: themlajtempleton@vh1.com
From: lucypattybrennan@hardass.com
Subject: Let’s Do It!
Dear Valerie,
After sound advice from my trusted friend and confidante, Michelle Parish, I’m writing to formally confirm that you are indeed the best person to represent me. I’m copying Thelma Templeton of VH1 into this email.
Let’s get the ball rolling and kick some serious ass!
Best,
Lucy x
In my postage-stamp kitchen area I mix and down a protein shake. Emerging into the sunshine, I’m ready to bust the chops of any asshole who comes into my space, but the paparazzi seem to have vanished again. Striding across Flamingo Park, I head toward the gym. A couple of guys in their twenties are running and one stops, pulling himself up on the bar by the basketball courts. He does seven pull-ups, struggles on number eight, fails on nine. I get straight on it. — Here’s how it’s done, I say, knocking out a dozen, finishing the twelfth as strong as when I started the first, then doing the same number of chin-ups, beaten by nothing other than the clock.
— Wow. . the guy says.
— It’s all in the breathing, I tell him. — If you’re doing pull-ups, your grip should be slightly wider than your shoulder. For chin-ups, the underhand grip, keep them around shoulder width.
T2 style! Sarah Fucking Connor! Joan Fucking Jett!
When I get to the gym, Marge’s already there, and she’s stretching out. She’s getting the stink-eye from Toby, the fag receptionist, who describes himself as a DJ, because they let him occasionally spin his flouncy, ambient, antimusic, antilife CDs when the joint is empty. When it fills with suburban housewives, he has to cede his place to Coldplay and Maroon 5 mixes, and I’ve even grown to accept those wrist-slash inducers as a blessed relief to his tepid shit. I swear my ass turns to peat bog at the very sight of that pretentious, bitter queer. His earshot makes me instinctively drop my vowels into Southie caricature. Heavy-muscled and cut in typical South Beach pseudo-homo style, he’s blissfully unaware as he pops his steroids and presses his one-fifty that a throwaway jab would bust his faggot nose and have him in counseling for years, spilling bucketloads of pansy tears. — You’ve been in the news again, he announces, then his head swivels to a mounted screen. — Oh, look. He points at the TV.
Joel Quist is on the screen. He’s running for office on every hate-and-fear policy you can think of, and shit-talking every alternative:
Terrorism: killing innocent Americans
Gun controclass="underline" killing innocent Americans who can’t protect themselves
Higher taxes for the super-rich instead of bailouts: killing innocent Americans
Not killing Arabs: killing innocent Americans
Abortion: killing innocent Americans (before they’re born)
Gay marriage: sodomizing, then killing, innocent Americans
I’m on his radar and it sucks. Oh shit: now my big oval mouth is gaping and stupefied into the camera, like Marge’s when confronted by a treadmill. I signal for her to pick up the bell weights, but I can’t keep my eyes off the screen. All I needed to say was, “Of course male victims of sexual violence have the right to self-defense. This is appropriate when they are being attacked. Mr. McCandless wasn’t being attacked, he was pursuing two unarmed men, and shooting at them. If he was the victim of a previous crime then we have a criminal justice system that exists to deal with such cases.” But that ship, the vessel of reason, has long fucking sailed.
Thorpe appears, and he’s making that very point, but in his rambling, pontificating, lecturing, half-assed way. You can tell that everybody hates him. He’s slippery and effete. He’s a fucking lawyer.
Man the fuck up!
— Right Marge, get that fifteen-pound kettlebell and gimme four sets of swing and squat, twelve reps per set!
Quist cuts right in over the protesting Thorpe, who is waved down by the anchor, a guy this time, though he still looks like he wants to take the dribbling snail of this semi-continent old fuck into his tight, priggish mouth. — Well, I am all for the rule of law, as is well known by my voting record on such issues, especially when you compare it to Mr. Thorpe’s one of mollycoddling the criminal element in our society. .