Processed Cheese: A Novel by Stephen Wright

Author:Stephen Wright [Wright, Stephen]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Little, Brown and Company
Published: 2020-01-20T23:00:00+00:00

Chapter 15

Blowing Chunks

That Monday the eleventh was not, for MisterMenu, at least, your typical blue Monday. NationalProcedures finally closed on the record-breaking SpiritualEquities deal and, frankly, had made a freaking killing, and an hour later he was informed he had won the monthly HoneyDrippers Screen Meet Lottery. He had forgotten he’d even entered the damn contest. And especially unusual for him, he’d even forgotten the precise amount he’d had to shell out for the privilege of claiming a ticket in the draw. He had to log in and check out the girl’s image again. He was sure she’d be predictably stunning. He did. She was. Her name was LavenderLips. Her favorite fruit: the banana. Her favorite snack: cherry popsicles. Yeah, right. Nevertheless, MisterMenu was very excited. The clock would begin ticking in a week, at 0800 next Monday. More than enough time to get a crackerjack construction team over to the recently vacated PeerlessPolicies warehouse on the Lower West Side and prepare a suitable enclosure. What was required was a very specific look. Simple, spare, clean. And the walls, including floor and ceiling, had to be white, blindingly white, immaculately white. A solid door with a solid lock. The bag of money, the bottles of water, the roll of paper towels, and the bucket would be delivered to the room the morning of LavenderLips’s arrival. He was guaranteed a full day with her, all the way until 1700—more than adequate to explore every twist and turn of your particular kink. He was very excited.

Meanwhile he had a company to run and money to make. Both occupations he could manage in his sleep and sometimes did. He’d had several transformational experiences while asleep, going into sleep, and coming out of sleep. He had not the slightest doubt it was a magical place, well worth visiting frequently, even if it did eat up unfortunate tons of precious moneymaking hours. Solution: make money while sleeping. Learn to put your money into dark warm humid places conducive to the care and propagation of those marvelous little green notes, places like PDQParaphernalia, BurningBushCache, and XYZNut, all of which he owned and, frankly, contributed to the steady, ludicrous growth of his numerous bank accounts at a rate far greater than anything he ever did here at NationalProcedures while awake. Go figure. If only the living, breathing side of life could be managed so lucratively. If only emotions were dollars and could generate profits. What an overlord of the psyche he could be, standing astride all that mess like a god. The phone buzzed. It was the president calling.

“Tell him I’m busy,” he said to PocketGuard, his administrative assistant for special assistance, whom he’d once had a fuck-buddy relationship with about three years ago. “Tell him I’m in a meeting, an important meeting, a very important meeting.”

“You know he won’t care. He’ll insist you take it anyway. Like he’s always done before.”

“Tell him I’m in the damn john.”

“But he knows you have a phone in there.”

“Fucking catacombs,” he said.

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