Ignorance is Strength

Woke up the wee hours of Monday, showered and donned a black suit with black fedora. Looking quite like a cog at the Ministry of Information in Brazil. Laptop satchel and cup of coffee in hand I dart to the subway - hostile glances from the transient population as I march by the homeless shelter spilling out predawn breakfast scavengers.

Shot underground and rode BART to Daly City station - early morning commuters gazing around like sleepy turtles. I find the ominous structure and enter the sterile lobby long shadows of cold prison bar windows stretch across the green tile floor and up to the cold glare of the ashen receptionist. "40th floor." He wheezes with out a flick of emotion.

"Do you want to see my identification? Call up, let 'em know I'm here?"

He doesn't look at me - continues reading his reports, "I know you're here, Mr. Blasini. 40th floor."

The silent elevator ascends yellow lights flash across my face. Enter the long windowless hall - silent as a tomb. Suite 436. Knock-knock. Loud buzzer shocks me into focus and I enter the cavernous office.

In the spacious granite colored office furnished only with desk, file cabinet and guest chair - on the far wall looked like some kind of medieval torture rack with tubes and dials growing out of it's foreboding rust colored form - my publishing contact sits behind black contemporary desk cluttered with files, reports, photos. He looks like a diseased lizard - thin, pale, small glasses perched on the end of hawk-like nose. He looks up to me and without a smile or any emotional warmth gestures for me to sit in the overstuffed green velvet chair opposite him. I sit, remove my hat.

His boney face contorts into a smiling skull, "Glad, you could make it, Mr. Blasini. There are several items I wish to smooth out in relation to your contract with us."

My head starts to swim, go foggy - I cough and mumble, "Uhm...sure."

Two hours of contractual haggling and screaming and pleading - at one point on my knees sobbing like a child under that cold predatory stare long streams of my saliva and snot drip to the floor and onto his well polished shoes. I black out under his harsh and relentless whining. I wake up in a fetal position in the corner glistening in cold sweat, he standing over me with a contract as thick as a metropolitan phone book. He juts it into my face, "Very well - glad you see it our way. Sign here...here...here...here...here...please press harder...and here."

I pull my self up, shaking and wanting to puke. He puts an icy hand onto my shoulder, "Don't you have a plane to catch back to that quaint slum you chose to dwell?"

I fumble with my things and quietly leave the office not daring to look back in case his face is superimposed onto my retina.

I leave the building and head back to the hotel, grab my shit, and return to the airport. I sit staring at a huge fresco of Buck Rogers amid the roar of rushing jets. I smile.

I am finally a published writer...