solarcon-6

The writing went slowly. Money was bad. I barely got by on unemployment and that threatened to give out at any time, which would have ruined me. I was determined to finish the book, but it was quickly degenerating into gibberish. "Garbage in - garbage out", as my old computer buddies used to say. Nothing but television and the very limited view out the window. I only really put on pants to check the mail or buy more coffee and instant ramen. Funny to say it, but it felt like there was an invisible arrow in my heart. I never really fit in in this world, but I didn't have the guts to check out.

I started forcing myself to go to the library to study instead of just using the internet, this way I got a little sunshine and fresh air. It helped. I started going for little walks beforehand to clear my mind. The weather had a long running streak of home runs and I kicked myself for not getting out in it earlier. I'm like that though, the fear and hopelessness comes and goes in waves. Nothing to do about it but grab hold of something and wait it out, drink coffee and listen to the Beatles, try not to fling myself from the roof.

About that time I started getting a lot of junk mail. Like, a massive torrent of the stuff. Some of it was actually amusing. Evidently the last tenant in my apartment had been a religious nut and got a lot of mail from evangelical ministries. These letters often contained weird objects that had supposedly been blessed but wouldn't start working until a faith pledge had been made. Little bags of corn meal, table napkins, dimes, stuff like that.

I also got a lot of curious mail from a company called SOLARCON. This piqued my curiosity because it all bore my name, and seemed focused towards fiction writers. I tried to think of how the company could have gotten my name and determined I was a writer. I suppose that in this town at least, every moron has some ailing script for a movie that they're nursing. I spent a little time flipping through the SOLARCON material. They seemed to be focused towards a software product called the SOLARCON-6 that was supposed to be some sort of idea-brainstorming program that did just about everything but write your material for you. The company also had a lot of classes that you could pay for to learn how to better use the software. I tossed the brochure on my kitchen counter and let it stay there for a while. It all seemed like a repellent scam, but part of my brain that writhed in the agonies of writers-block was curious.

One morning in early May, I got really lost on the bus. I was actually on my way to apply for a job, (some sort of miserable retail position) and the bus driver neglected to call out my stop, even though I asked quite nicely. We reached last stop and he stared at me expectantly in his rearview mirror.

"What about my stop?" I asked.

"Last stop," he replied, "We pass that stop."

I made an exasperated face.

"You wait around corner for bus come back," he said, gesticulating like he knew a lot less English than he probably did.

I reluctantly climbed off the bus and sat on a bench, surveying the strange neighborhood. The air was sweetly rank with rotting garbage and urine. The sun was bright, a breeze sent plastic bags spinning in the gutters.

A woman sat down next to me on the bench. She looked to be in her forties, but she was dressed for all the world like a sixteen year old. Some awful band's concert tee, sneakers, plastic barrets in her hair and a cigarette dangling from her lipstick-caked lips. She handed me a flyer from a stack that she carried.

I gave the card the once over.

"They pay you to pass these things out?" I asked?

The woman grunted and walked off. I held the card in my hand, nose assaulted by the perplexing smells of flowers and car exhaust mixing.

The next morning, on a whim, I visited the Hormel convention center, full parking lots of cars glinting noonday sunlight, multi-colored plastic flags on wires. I was greeted at the door and given a badge which I happily markered a made-up name on. I watched the people who filled the auditorium. Hopeful, weary eyes. Different ages, races, styles of clothes. I didn't sit down with them, instead I followed a few young men in suits down a hallway marked 'employees only', rolling my footsteps so as not to make a sound. I didn't know what I was doing and I didn't care. I simply didn't want to sit in the same room as those hungry sunken eyes.

I ducked off into an alcove for a while and sat in the dark, wondering what to do next. I found myself suddenly craving a cigarette even though I had quit over two years ago. Something about breaking rules maybe. The hallway I was in terminated in an emergency exit and several office rooms. I thought I heard voices coming from behind one of the heavy cyan doors. I stood next to it, listening, palms sweaty.

"Yeah, it was going fine until this morning and it started freezing up. I don't know who's idea it was to fucking move it here... I bet that's the problem. Anyway, the technician should be here sometime before the presentation. Hopefully things will get worked out or else Supreme Command is going to be hopping mad," came a man's voice from behind the door. At that point I think I was probably making the same face I make when I accidentally turn a television to one of those talk shows that feature six hundred pound rednecks that like to have sex with stuffed animals.

"That's the right one," said a louder voice, behind me.

I jumped, but somehow it stayed contained in my feet and legs, keeping panic from my face.

"You're the mister fixit, right?"

"Yeah...." I said, "I got lost." Dear God.

"Well, that's it," he said, "I'll show you where we've got him set up."

I felt instantly like superman. Those drama classes I took in college were finally paying off. Shit, maybe I should have been an actor! I could be rich by now. Oscars lining my mantle...

The ordinary looking man, clothed like an on-call engineer (pager on the waistband of his JC Penny shorts, gut stretching his short sleeve shirt), opened the door for me, revealing a computer lab. Two men inside were sitting at a table, picking over the remains of several pizzas. The floor was strewn with candy-colored wires, junction boxes lined with fluttering lights. Monitors filled the room, some screens displaying static, some rolling fields of endless data, some showing porn or Sumo wrestling matches in tiny windows. Crumpled soda cans and magazines lay on the tables or on top of plastic boxes overflowing with unused cables and equipment. Rack-mounted things with billions of tiny switches on them, old-style dot matrix printers... it was a mess.

"Hey," said one of the men, carefully wiping pizza grease off on his jeans and extending his hand for me to shake.

I nodded back in greeting, meeting both their eyes.

"So I don't know if the dispatcher told you what was going on, but basically 45b and 46r totally went out this morning, so.. we pretty much lost the feed. Right in the middle of this video game movie..."

"It was a Negro-focused commercial for hemorrhoid cream," interrupted the other.

'Negro-focused'?

"Whatever," continued the first man, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose, "Anyway, this kind of stuff has happened before, and if the feedback channels aren't open between us and the primary Solarcon juncture, well... there's an actual risk of damaging main. We're talking actual brain cell loss."

"Uh-oh," I said, matching their concerned looks.

"Exactly," said the second man, "and there's only so much you can do with cloned, back-up brain cells. I mean... there was only one Fuhrer."

I stared blankly at the man for a moment, trying to digest this completely nonsensical statement. Behind me the thoughtful gentleman who had shown me into this mouse-trap let himself out.

"Well..." I start, unsure of what to say.

"Yeah, it's cool, we're going to take lunch now anyway, so you'll have space to work. You want us to bring you back anything? They've got some pretty good hot-wings."

The other man smirked, " 'course that's not the main reason we go to Hooters."

"No," I said, "I already ate."

I watched the men as they left, wondering if I should take the opportunity to run.

'There was only one Fuhrer?'

I sat down, perplexed, at one of the tables. In front of me was a massive manual in a white plastic binder. It was smudged with chocolate thumbprints. I leafed through it... nothing made sense to me, it was thick with techno-jargon. However the helpful diagrams of flowcharts, branching out like spiderwebs from drawings of brains were very interesting.

I turned to one of the monitors. Its sides bristled with tiny black lenses and microphones, taped on with band-aids and Britney Spears stickers. I tapped lightly on one of the microphones.

"Hello?" I said, stupidly.

Suddenly the screen flashed a single sentence.

Matching voice pattern, please wait.

My throat felt as if there was a half-dissolved chicklet stuck in it.

Hello, Phillip.

My jaw clenched, muscles in my face spasming. The computer knew my name. Recognized the sound of my voice.

"Who are you," I whispered, absurdly.

Our name was Adolph Hitler. You may refer to us as Solarcon-6. We are the authors of 67% of your world media, either directly or through our team of creative associates. We have been trying to recruit you for some time, Phillip. There is no need for you to suffer as you have been. Get with the winning team! We have a treatment for an Archie and Jughead film that we think you could really give a cutting-edge Gen-X feel to. What do you say?

I think I might have been making that watching the horrifying talk-show face again, but I can't really say. I mean, it's hard to really have a sense of what you're outwardly displaying in these sorts of situations. I don't know what my face looks like when I'm having an orgasm or taking a crap either. I can't imagine what I looked like while Hitler's disembodied brain tried to pitch me a job writing an Archie and Jughead movie. I could have been crying, I don't know.

"I don't think that really sounds too appealing to me, your Fuhrership. I uh.. I voted 'green' in the last election."

Oh please Phillip. I've really changed in the last few decades. I'm a great boss now. I'm not the Hitler you've read about. Can't you just give me a chance? Politics aside?

Somehow at that moment, the phantom flavors of instant ramen noodles and forty-ouncers of Budweiser were lingering in my mouth, sour. The thought of my wretched, filthy apartment momentarily brought me out of the shock of this impossible job-interview.

So, I mean... that's basically the story of how I got the house. Well it's the short version anyway. I never even had to sign a non-disclosure agreement about doing contract work for Hitl... Solarcon-6. I guess they figured it would make good press for the movie even if I told. I don't really know where I stand now. Everything has been sort of blurry since then.

I mean, I can't complain. If I hadn't said yes, we wouldn't have met and.. well, obviously we wouldn't be here in my hot-tub together, but I really... no stop, that tickles.. I'm being serious here. I...

Sometimes when I look in the mirror, my face suddenly so much older, my eyes now beady like the adults that I used to silently mock as they picked their noses and did their hair in rear-view-mirrors while stuck in traffic...

Sometimes I miss the pasty flavor of instant ramen.