Getting Started
≈(ģ)
“Dude! I have got the greatest idea!” We were sitting in my tiny bedroom in my mother’s house. It was a warm evening in the summer in a small, Texas town, the name of which I have sworn never to speak again.
“Tell me dude!” I said. Mark looked excited. I knew it had to be a good one.
“Well, you know how California is full of joiners, right?”
“Yeah,” I said, adding under my breath, “buncha worthless, feculent…”
“So, dude, here’s what I’m thinking— we move to California…”
“Bluhh…” I sneered.
“And start a street gang…”
“Hmm?”
“Which we then turn into a personal army…”
“Ohh…?”
“To get me elected as governor…”
“Ha, ha.”
“Then president…”
“Cool…”
“And then use my power to take over the world!”
“Yes!”
“And John,” he said, “I want you to be my right hand man!”
“That’s perfect,” I said, rising from my seat on the corner of the bed. Of course, I knew exactly what I would do if I were second in command to the most powerful man on earth… but you’ll have to find out later.
By the way, if you haven’t managed to guess by now, I’m John; and I don’t like talking about myself, but you people will be wanting character descriptions and if I put them in later, you will already have had your own made up, and they’ll be wrong—completely— and then you’ll get all self conscious and then go read some other story, which probably won’t be as good as this.
So, anyway— Mark is short with dark hair, and I’m tall with long, bushy, blond hair. Stop laughing, you assholes; it distracts me.
To make a long, boring story short and boring, we eventually made it to California, where we bought a folding card table and some poster board and set up shop on the corner two streets that both had stupid names which made me mad.
“So how you gonna hook ‘em?” I asked Mark, glancing inquisitively at him. It was sort of a test, because if he couldn’t win people over, he’d never be a good leader.
“We get them with some phony cause that sounds all…”
“Media friendly?”
“Yeah. Oh, wait…” he reached below the table and put on an oddly carved wooden mask. It was painted black with purple embellishments.
“What’s that for?”
“To hide my identity. So I can run for governor later.”
“Aaahh…”
. . .
“Hey, here comes somebody!” mark said, straightening his abstract mask up and trying to look dignified. “Go talk to him, dude.”
“Eahh, I hate talking to people. You do it. It’ll be good practice.”
The guy was passing so we had to act, quick. Standing on his chair to make up for the height difference, Mark held out his hand forcefully in the universal signal for halt.
“HALT.”
I stood up beside Mark, folding my arms and glaring at the stranger like a hawk who hates whatever he’s glaring at. The bewildered man just stood still for a moment.
“WILL YOU BE THE FIRST?” Mark asked, lowering his hand as if to the grasp the man’s.
“The first what?” said the guy.
“HAVE YOU EVER FELT SOMETHING MISSING IN YOUR LIFE?”
“No, not really,” the guy answered.
“Uuh, well DO YOU JUST NEED A CHANGE OF SCENERY?”
“No.”
“. . . HAVE YOU EVER WANTED TO MAKE A DIFFERENCE?”
“…yeah!” he said as slow realization dawned on him.
“THEN JOIN MY PRIVATE INTEREST GROUP, AND TOGETHER WE WILL CHANGE THE WORLD!”
“…what’s a private interest group?”
Mark seemed to be struggling now. I bet he thought for sure he had the guy…
“Have you ever seen Fight Club?” I asked. The guy’s face lit up.
“Yes! I’ll do it!”
I’m just gonna gloss over the boring parts, but sooner or later we managed to get around a thousand people. With Mark at the helm under the mysterious moniker of “Maskerson,” and I playing the role of figurehead leader, we were all ready to get our plan for rule underway…
This chapter was pretty boring, but I’m just getting things out of the way. The real crazy crap doesn’t start happening till much later.
Check the subtitle, people; it’s a prequel.
