The Blow-Off by Jim Knipfel

Author:Jim Knipfel
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Paperbacks
Published: 2011-07-15T00:00:00+00:00

* * *

Eighteen

* * *

Sweating as he was, he marched to the office with an energy he hadn’t felt in years. It was rage more than anything, he recognized. Along the sidewalks down the commercial strip outside the building, the street vendors were out early, hawking Gowanus Beast T-shirts, bobbleheads, postcards, and jewelry.

Hank stopped in front of a table where a short, elderly Korean woman was offering eight different “Gowanus Beast” T-shirt designs.

“How do you do it?” Hank asked her. “I mean, how do you get this shit out so fast?”

“Large, extra-large only,” the woman said. “No extra-extra. Twenty dollar.”

Following the mayor’s speech, editorial writers and bloggers were beginning to expand and develop their theories not only concerning what the Gowanus Beast was but what it meant. Although it was clear to Hank that the monster was being used by the mass media and government officials as a distraction from more pressing but less exciting issues, suddenly it had become a symbol of those very issues. The pundits were out in force, pontificating over what it might represent in terms of the war, the economy, the national mood, the energy crisis, and the environment. Especially the environment, considering no matter whose jackass theory you accepted, the filthy, poisonous Gowanus Canal was connected with the Beast in some way. Either that or the government’s (nonexistent) animal research center out on Plum Island. Pretty much the same difference. It all left Hank fuming.

He said hello to Becky (who had deigned to start speaking with him again, apparently), snapped on his computer, and set to work. First thing he did was get online and start looking for the most ridiculous cryptozoology site he could find.

By four o’clock, after checking and rechecking everything he could think to check, and after reading it through three times, Hank was finished. His first feature, and it was a damn good one, if he said so himself.

Then he decided to give it one more read before passing it along to Nutskin. Hell, he had until five.

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