Transcript of a phone call made at 3 a.m. last night.  
 
"This is the CIA.  How may I help you?"
 
"You got any spy jobs available?  I just saw that new Jamie Bond movie.  It was awesome.  I think I'd kick ass as a spy.  Hiyah! {sound of movement, possible acts of karate being performed, sound of a trash can being hit}"
 
"Sir, this number is..."
 
"I got skills like you wouldn't believe.  I broke into my neighbors house the other day.  They had no idea I was ever in there.  Jerked off to all kinds of stuff."

"I don't know what to say."
 
"Just direct my call to like whoever is in charge of like fucking spies.  I mean that number is probably supposed to be all secret and whatever, but I'm sure someone's gotta take the first call."
 
"Typically we don't take applications in this manner.  There's..."
 
"A procedure of some sort that probably involves a lot of bullshit I don't have time for. {sound of a lighter and indications speaker is smoking.}"
 
"Sir..."
 
"My name is Jon.  You don't have to call me sir."
 
"Jon."

"What's your name?"
 
"..."
 
"Come on."
 
"Mary."
 
"You sound pretty, Mary.  What they got you answering phones at 3 in the a.m.?"
 
"Everyone has a job to do."
 
"That's what I'm saying.  My job is sorely under utilizing my skill sets."
 
"And what do you do?"
 
"I paint the inside of houses.  我 想 吻 你 的 阴 道."
 
"Was that... was that Chinese?"
 
"I got the skills that kills.  I'm telling you.  You know what I just said?"
 
"No."
 
"Neither do I.  But that's not the point.  I can speak all kinds of language, especially the language of love.  Kiss kiss bang bang -- I'll spy your fucking ass off. So who do I talk to?  I'm ready to tux up and throw down."
 
"Sir, Jon, spying isn't like a James Bond movie."

"You a spy?"
 
"No, but..."
 
"Then you don't know.  Sorry to be rude, but it's just being honest.  Spies are all about secrecy so it's not like anybody really knows what their jobs are like. Ian Fleming was a spy, so I have to assume there is some honesty to the Bond books and by extension the movies as well. BAM!  How's that for thinking?!"
 
"There is a certain logic, I'll admit that.  However, there's no one with whom I can connect you."

"I may have been drinking, but that hasn't slowed me down.  You got someone.  Like an extension with a vaguely creepy set of numbers like 9942 or 7110."
 
"..."
 
"Look, Mary, I like you."

"I like you too, Jon, and I would like to help you out."

"Okay."
 
"But there's nothing I can do."

"..."
 
"I'm sorry."
 
"That's alright, Mary.  You did your best.  Maybe I'll just break into Langley.  That would do the trick."
 
"I don't think so.  In fact, I would advise you against that."
 
"Then that's what I'll do."

 "Jon.  Seriously.  Don't do that."
 
"See you real soon.  I'll brin ya a pizza."  {disconnects}
 
"Jon?  Jon?"
 
{dial tone}

The world persists, and as such the sun will rise on National Christmas Kick-Off Day.  
 
I have every intention of being optimistic.  There's always a good chance Uncle Jordan's eye won't shoot blood this
year like a grim turkey thermometer telling us all it's time to go.  Dad won't laugh till he almost pisses himself, especially as Cousin Will gets ever more nauseous tracing the line of shot eye blood to the cranberry sauce from which Aunt Beam is obliviously spooning a fourth helping.  Mom sitting demurely catatonic thanks to Fiorinal, Fluphenazine, and a jug of Carlo Rossi won't make anyone uncomfortable.  Particularly not when it happens to make her blink one eye at a time.  Granted, Cousin Myra will feel the need to make some observation no one wants like, "Should she be holding
  the carving knife?"  To which Mom will reply with a sunny smile, "Actus non facit reum nisi mens sit rea."  An act does not make a person guilty unless their mind is also guilty -- a good Catholic background gives anyone a smattering of Latin.  But this year we'll stop Mom from stabbing Myra.  Maybe one stab wound because no one'll expect Mom to fling herself so acrobatically across the table, but it's just Myra.
 
We'll adjourn from the dining to the living room for a quiet round of after dinner conversation and cocktails while pies cool in the kitchen.  Instead of the usual subtle speed drinking, we'll sip the booze down looking only to relax not numb ourselves to family; and we'll have a genuine conversation rather than a mining session.  
 
"So... how are things?"

"Is that the best you got?"

Sip, sip, guzzle, sip.  
 
Nay, nay.  It won't be like that.  It'll be more along the lines of:

"How have you been?"
 
"I've been great.  My menstrual lining is apparently building up instead of sloughing off, and that build up, apparently, is moving up my system, attaching itself to my intestines which is what's causing the gut pain I've been having -- the menstrual lining is pulling at my intestinal lining, sometimes ripping it off.  But the doctor gave me this prescription for Vicodin, so I'm sailing till surgery."

"You've got Vicodin?"
 
"You betcha. Have some."
 
"I think I will... thanks.  Happy Thanksgiving."
 
"Same to you."
 
It'll be a good time.  Not at all like last year.

PART  2:  Love the One You're With.
             
Through the crazy quilt of drunken recollections I remember closing the bar.  By the end of the night, despite her less savory qualities, Cherry Naturally was a young naked woman.  Regardless of how little I wanted to have sex with her she did evoke certain sexual desires.  The close of the evening exacerbated those desire as only leaving a bar alone can.  Consequently, I went straight home to pound on 3-2E.  The old man who lives there, whom I only know as Old Man, answered the door.  The smell of boiled cabbage and stale cigarette smoke hit me the face, making me long for a pint of Guinness, a smoke, and a Reuben sandwich.  Don’t ask.  Despite it being nearly four in the morning, he gestured for me to come inside. 
              
Old Man is a legend in my apartment building.  The elder tenants say he’s been there since 1902, and I confess, he doesn’t look a day over 89.  Wild rumors abound about him contacting the dead and creatures from the great beyond.  So, blind drunk, I thrust a handful near ten thousand dollars at him and said, “I wanna talk to somebody.”
             
“A lost love?” he said, donning a top hat and a necklace made of rat skulls.              
 
Yes is the short answer.  No is a lie.  We dated for several months back in college.  Every man has one woman who sets the bar for the rest of his life.  Dating, fucking, loving, all fall under the estimations established by that one woman.  The sad thing is this person is not usually who you end up with the rest of your life, even if you do stay together; nostalgia ruins more relationships than herpes.  But in any case, I loved her.  Right up to the moment she slipped out of mine and Steve’s hands while doing a keg-stand.  Broke her neck on the keg.  
             
Anyway, ten grand is a windfall to a Roger’s Park necromancer.  He offered to not only put me in contact with my lost love but to bring her back from the dead.  Upon hearing this I threw in 5k to keep from getting a shambling rotting corpse.  Old Man said with a grin, “You’re a savvy customer,” and started the ritual.  
              
At this point I feel the need to state there is no furniture in Old Man’s apartment.  Not even a pile of junk mail to use as a nest of some sort.  Yet, he said to take a seat and there was a seat, poofed! right behind me.  I mention this not out of wonder but envy.
            
On a dingy stove streaked with various greases, Old Man set a pot to boiling.  He mumbled some words that sounded like crackhead Latin as he stirred in sundry necromantic items.  Some I recognized.  Others I didn’t.  None looked appealing except for the oregano.  And maybe the fish eyes, depending on which fish. 
              
Slowly the steam rising from the pot changed colors gradually taking on a purple hue.  He carried the pot from the kitchen into the living room.  He poured the contents on the floor using them to form a circle.  
            
I breathed a sigh of relief, “Oh thank god.  I was afraid I’d have to drink that.”
             
Old Man said, “Not for this.  Although, in those cases I prefer to use an enema.  Gets it right into your system, and you don’t have to taste the pig anus.”  
             
The brew congealed into a solid ring.  It started to glow.  Most people might say with an eerie light, but it was no different than a purple glow stick poured on the floor.  What did make me flinch, however, was when strands of the solidified liquid snaked their way across the diameter.  Steadily more and more tendrils whipped from opposite sides till the whole circle filled in forming a glowing purple disc.  I could hear voices coming out of it.  Old Man muttered some more of that crackhead Latin and a hand shot up from the luminous puddle.  Old Man grabbed hold of it.  Then he hoisted out Jessica Rimbault.  
             
That’s when I told Old Man, Megan Swift was who I wanted. 
              
Apparently, Old Man was working off the snippets of coherent conversation we managed to have.  This amounted to things like“Jessica fucking… at her funeral.  I loved mxpliktick… I’m miserable serious.”  And, “garber Jessica.  Jessica Rimbault.  She knows.  Want her back…. fries.”  
              
So.  Yeah.  Jessica Rimbault was a friend of Megan’s whom I fucked at Megan’s funeral.  Sad people do strange things to not feel grief.  Sad drunk stoned people do strange things to not feel grief.  
              
It seemed wrong to just pitch Jessica back down the hole, but I think it was the tactless way Old Man shoved her back into the afterlife, sort of a shoulder check into the great beyond, that bothered me the most.  He murmured that crackhead Latin again and up came Megan.  The only problem is on her way up Megan passed Jessica on her way back.  Time in the land of the dead is a strange thing. The two had long enough to say hi and exchange a few particulars.  
              
Suffice it to say I’ve been locked out of my apartment by my recently resurrected girlfriend for having sex while she was dead.  At her funeral.  With her best friend.  
              
But we’ll work it out.  Life’s too short to stay angry, and nobody knows that better than the dead.

Part 1:  Profits of the Unusual

Todd Sellers had a bachelor party a few months back.  I don’t know why.  He isn’t getting married as far as I know. 
He just thought why not have one when there’s no fiancée to hurt.  Like if he decides he should fuck a stripper/hooker then no one gets wronged.  It’s actually a strange sort of forward thinking thoughtfulness.  He asked me, months ago, whether I’d come, and I said yes never thinking it would amount to anything.  Todd always has some kind of bizarre scheme that never goes further than an inebriated planning stage, like the time he wanted to traffic Russian hooker-wives in a pimped out submarine.  However, on this occasion, Todd somehow holds focus long enough to put together a party. Since Todd completing a plan is a miracle in and of itself, I decided why not, at the very least, stop by. What harm could there be glancing in on this ersatz bachelor party?  
             
And like most rhetorical questions the answer is not pleasant.  
             
Todd rented out some dive bar.  To get there you had to find this sliver of an alley that led below the Chicago River.  It was called Cutter’s Lounge, and I expected to find a room full of goths slicing themselves up as industrial music blared.  Oddly enough, even with water dripping from the ceiling, it seemed like my grandparent’s basement:  wood paneling every which way, musty old furniture, stools held together with duct tape, and a galaxy of low cost alcohol.  
              
At the point of my arrival Todd wasn’t drunk, just a bit stoned.  I bought him a shot and asked when everyone else was coming.  
              
“Soon,” he said slapping me on the back.  
             
Soon.  No word implies no one is comingmore.  However, after being just the two of us for close to a half hour, a pair of guys in skinny jeans arrived.  Todd introduced them as Salve and Mitch, two actors experimenting with a new form of acting they called reality stage.  Instead of following scripts the two performed lifestyles.  They knew a theater on Beckwith that occasionally rented them a night or two.  So far they’d done three plays with implicit titles such as Homosexual, Heroin, and Arsonist.  They were looking for a fourth concept but didn’t seem too receptive to my idea for Audience.    
             
Now, the next arrival turned out to be the first performer as well.  He came running into the place, charging all around the bar screaming louder than an ambulance siren, “AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!”
-- coming to a dead stop in front us saying flatly -- “I hate kids.”  
              
He launched right into a routine that mostly involved producing sex toys from thin air and telling dirty jokes.  He performed some balloon sculpting which I have to admit was fabulous.  You haven’t really seen female genitals until they’re composed of intertwining latex.  The sad thing is it took about fifteen minutes before anyone other than Todd knew Blerk the Clown was supposed to be here doing all this instead of being your everyday random sex themed party clown storming a bar.  I believe the Tribune did an article about them, wandering around the city desperate for work.  
             
The grand finale of Blerk’s -- excuse me, he insisted on us calling him by his full title, sometimes getting rather threatening about it -- the grand finale of Blerk the Clown’s act was to assemble a modular coffin from several beer boxes duct taped together.  He used the coffin to prestidigitate a stripper named Cherry Naturally.  She looked like Angelina Jolie with a heart surgery scare and a fresh knife wound in her thigh.  Two bullet hole scars pocked her stomach, and a tattoo covered her left arm depicting an orgy straight out of Hellraiser.  I know nothing of martial arts.  But when she said, “Who wants to feel sexed?”and Todd pointed right at me hollering like a carnival barker, “This guy!” I could have punched straight through his chest, ripping his heart out in one deft motion.  
             
Salve and Mitch threw down a trail of dollar bills which she shimmied along.  I’m certain some of those bills came from a Monopoly set, though Cherry didn’t seem to notice.  Or if she did, she didn’t mind.  She performed… bending and twisting as if unsure how to lower herself to the ground then deciding to stand up straight, lifting herself up by the breasts in order to do so, and eventually grinding on me, her pelvic bone knifing into my thigh. 
              
All the while the other guys cheered and threw handfuls of money at her.  At one point Todd became jealous as she wagged her ass in my face.  He shoved me out of the chair and took my place, never knowing how grateful I was.  
             
What struck me the most about the evening was the nonchalance with which the bartender took everything.  It’s made me more determined to return to Cutter’s Lounge as I assume something similar to this must happen with some frequency.  At the least, I have to get to know the bartender to learn how he became so inured to such bizarre things, though I’m afraid my discomfort might be more a sign of how sheltered my life really is more than anything else.  People throw around the phrase, “Now I’ve seen it all,” without ever realizing first how little they’ve actually seen.  This also disturbs me because it suggests I should be grateful to Todd for exposing me to something I probably never would have experienced on my own -- this is how people grow.  But all through the night the bartender barely batted an eye as Cherry Naturally stripped down to her naked vagina and proceeded to batter it with power tools. A dildo headed Sawsall.  Now I’ve seen it all.  The bartender?  He observed it like the act was old hat:  too familiar to be impressive.
             
As the night wore on the other guys got wilder.  They must have thrown down close to five thousand dollars enticing Cherry to ever greater and more graphic acts of sexual performance.  I won’t say that after sufficient amounts of booze I didn’t get more into the spirit of things.  What I won’t say is how much into the spirit.  Why not?  Because it has nothing to do -- I worked her with the Sawsall till she sprayed like a geyser.  I was not anticipating the geyser.  And I did laugh when it became clear neither was she.  No lies, Cherry smiled and said, “That only happens when I’m happy.”  We shared an awkward stare after that declaration.  
             
Blerk the Clown came in to check on Cherry every now and again, but for the most part he vanished into the shadows like Lamont Cranston.  One moment he was nowhere to be found. Then turn around and poof! Blerk the Clown standing right behind you.  He drank, shared in a few shot rounds, but mainly kept to himself.  No one minded.  Little details creep out of the blackout haze suggesting we should have been more attentive.  Like how his face paint kept changing as if he went to bathroom and put on a fresh face every half hour, each new look creepier than the last.  Or when he walked out of the bathroom with a syringe hanging out of one arm.  Things get obvious in hindsight.  
              
When we finally stopped lobbing wads of green at Cherry’s sticking vadge, she started to pack up shop.  In the midst of finding her wisps of lingerie and crating up her hybrid sex toy powertools, she called out, “Hey Blerk!  Got any meth left?”
            
“Blerk the Clown.  THE CLOWN!  How many times do I have to tell you?  It’s Blerk the Clown.”
             
I won’t regale you with a full recitation of the ensuing argument.  Suffice it to say a dispute began which culminated in Cherry breaking a bottle across Blerk the Clown’s face.  Fortunately for him the meth coursing through his veins prevented him from succumbing to the blow, and Blerk the Clown proceeded to magically produce a knife with which he chased Cherry Naturally around the room.  We -- Todd, Salve, Mitch, and I -- did nothing based on the hope this might all be part of some grand finale.  The bartender at last, rolling his eyes, came from around the bar to herd the two out with a shotgun.  
              
Things quieted down until we noticed Cherry Naturally had left behind the bag containing all of her cash.  The bartender noticed it first and said, “You wanna take it, just let me have a handful.”  So we did. We let him stick his hand in, and he kept however much he pulled out.  Looked like a sweet fistful to me.  
            
Now, we didn’t expect anything more than the cash we’d spent on Cherry and Blerk the Clown.  There was close to fifty thousand in that sack.  Upon realizing this the bartender, shotgun on the bar, insisted on being allowed another three handfuls.  We let him have four.  And a tip. I’ll always wonder why he didn’t rob us blind.  I feel the secret to contentment lies behind his lack of greed, yet another reason to go back to Cutter‘s Lounge.  
             
We split the rest three ways.  And then things got weird.