The Syndicate

By Jon Fussell

1

And Into the Lions Den

It wasn’t dark ……. necessarily; more auburn than anything, With fragmented blotches of cerulean paste being exposed between voids in the stocky, molasses cloud of red/ebony pulp smoke.

Teetering out of the giant pipes like some phantasmagoric freight train.

The old mill still huffing along after all these years; erected in the heart of the depression, however in hell many years ago it was when this monstrous architecture of pipes and brick spit out its first inexorable clouds into the then cobalt air. And my how that dark-brick phoenix of a structure has out lived the best of them. An old, dead, long forgotten man stirs in his grave: The years laid-waste there, working through immoral conditions in bitter desperation. Swarthy, Untamed and boasting small echoes of whom have it the worst.

Still to this day do they stand, sulking in the lot, over-worked and stripped of their prime (innate sense of duty picked clean by the buzzards of inhuman task.) You can see them blinking their eye whites from under the black feculent mask of soot and sod that they all share in displaying, so all on-lookers can gawk and unintentionally be thankful for what they have. It is as proof, not of their dedication, but of their madness that they stand during their ten-minute break, only to go back and work for eight hours straight without the plausibility of an intermission. More likely, it is a fusion of madness and pride that they stand; I suppose, not letting the bloated proprietors win the upper hand, over a battle that has already been decreed.

Standing out by the coal in the rail-yard………..by the trash, legions of them, great armies of them; looking down at the barbaric ground littered with dirt , debris and blood-unshorn, then back at the factory still pumping out that ungodly smoke, with the spring insects lapping at the mouth of the visceral pipes. They stand, in the shadows of the bohemian trash heap…. Silent, or occasionally kicking a rock in disapproval.

The inevitable whistle rings; to which they flick their cigarettes in an almost precise sequence, acknowledging of what intercourse lies in the waiting, then settle back into the charted future of routine. Marching back to their posts with heads held high like soldiers proud to die for their country, …but less eager.

These imperious scales have to be shed before entering the layman’s industrial pantheon; a common law among these mal-kinsman. Supposing you were an omnipotent, all-seeing deus-ex-machina, you would witness a grave testament to the decomposition of a man: From when the whistle blows to when they reach the clock-in wheel, they are different men, they have shed layers and layers of reason, self-worth and have regressed back to a more fitting stature in their animalistic nature, the role of bestial survival. A kind of man that would stone you for taking pity, but crucify you for not……. Ungoverned, cocky, tarnished, savage,……..Godless.

Or at least that’s how it all appeared to Mr. Orson P. Wright ; so youthful and brimming with contempt, starring cock-eyed out at the mass of workers covered in black. Once again overanalyzing the helix in which he was the only focal point, all else negated as side-thought. Yet it is to be expected of a young scholar, fountaining with educated anger and morbid ambition. Finding the fiction of thought to be a far more competent cannon, than that of the lurid real worlds. And there was Orson hunched behind an old run down chain-link fence, just at the edge of the workers domain. In the reflection of the giant cloud that emphasized his gaunt and pallid features, with his skintight Grey suit bound to his body so candidly, as enigmatic panoply. His Second-Hand Store briefcase swaying artlessly in his emaciated right hand, as he peered out over the trash and into the valley of these over-worked lions, who didn’t give Orson even the slightest glance of an acknowledgment; Which might of been expected, to someone with greater rational. Quite obviously to these dwarfed giants Orson P.Wright was nothing but a mere microcosm of the millions of spectators ignored in the years gone down with the mill. He was nothing extra-ordinary that they would go out of their way to stop their war and glance over. Which bothered Orson immensely, tacking another group to the long list of people who would eventually be sorry for not recognizing the gift he possessed at first meeting. And how (if ever seeing them again) he would secretly be touting a vengeful message of "see what you’ve missed out on" and then go about his way, smug as a spoiled child.

He scratched/pulled at his collar and adjusted his pant leg, staunch and tawdry, in his awkward suit that was sewn to body in pitiful servitude. His thoughts beseeched back to why in fact he was here, casting unanswered looks to the lions of task and feeling under-gunned in all the motion afoot. He motioned his head up to the concrete monstrosity next door, with its lugubrious sign occasionally quaking in the infectious breeze, yielding some rusted letters spelling out:

THE HARRISBURG SYNDICATE

Kill Devil Hills, NC.

And then something below it that was vined over in rust. A building that would hopefully enclose him (at least for awhile anyway) with title of job.

It looked almost peaceful from the outside and compared to the battle next door, it was. With its tepid windows and three average industrial stories perceptibly vacant to the novice’s eye…The pulp mill began to sputter a little and then belted out a stentorian cacophony – shattering any thought that might be radiating in Orsons pensive mind. Amusedly only startling him, for the lions kept at unflinching posts carrying out their battle, and the cows across the separation of street mooed and swished their tails uncaringly. The industrial farmers in denim-overalls don’t miss a beat trudging at the maternal utter to obey Americas coveting cry of Supply Vs Demand.

As Orsons anxiety mushroomed, in accordance with the in-between time slipping away. Moving faster than his motivation, his hands began sweating, shaking, mutating into independent bodies in motion. All from a familiar lacking of a certain intake that would, under these circumstances hammer out the kinks and tremors in his mania. Indeed this what not the time, but his body was in forlorn need. His hands shaking more violently as they moved from beyond his deepest control (A motor skill ransacked by the onslaught of shameful substance usage and irrational paranoia) as impulsive as they had came, they left, and imbedded another thorn of fear into Orsons baobab-tree mind. Could he control them when the time came for the interview? Would the interviewer smell the liquor on his breath, if he were to remedy the situation right here and now? He weighed the options, pretending to be giving them all equal, un-biased chances. When in reality he knew what exactly what he would do. It would have been quite obvious if you were living in the realm of an addiction. Where the circumspection of ones health is a tactless adversary in contrast to the acclamation of ones habits, …to which Orson is a flesh and bone showcase. Furthering that this was not the time for Orson to be concerned with his health and general well being; that wouldn’t tax his neurotic paranoia until late in the night, dry of ideas, letting out tumultuous sighs and furnishing his muse with cognition’s of death and disease. No, this was not the time for that fervored vice to take hold. He always was a great student, best of all to the cockatrice inside him. She schooled him well on the topic of abscess.

The time was at hand – to act…or…to refrain. Obeying readily, he hoisted his prudent briefcase on top of one of the hampered wood-posts that barely held the fallen chain-link from the ground, by insufficient means of bent and corroded nails. He shuffled his hooks inside his insipid briefcase that quaintly held his four recommendations from his professors at college, a nearly empty pack of cigarettes bought earlier that morning, a book of matches taken from some unremembered night on the town, with himself. And the object in mind; an ordinary bottle hiding in the depths of the briefcase (purposefully hidden…in unreasonable fear that someone might find it) delicately wrapped in a frayed, white dishtowel. He surveyed the landscape in search of someone surveying back. With no visible eyes upon him, he wrapped his tentacles round’ the solitary bottle, lifted his coat up over his head, and acted as he had learned. It felt as if a piece of himself was rekindled when that warm liquid hit its mark in the central nervous system…As if the barriers had come down, and was now ready to return to thinking prolifically. He surveyed the landscape again, just to make sure that he was still an unmade man, and he was. He stuffed the bottle back into his briefcase, obtaining his other addiction…and the fire to light it.

With conventional plumes of smoke ascending from Orsons liquored orifice, he dumped the now futile match into the rubble at his feet. Stamping his foot over it once – just for amusement. In process the wood-post that his unaccompanied luggage rested on gave in at the base and sent the contents of his briefcase to ground in a small poof of dust. Some of the lions were close enough to catch wind of this little melodrama; now quick to the guns of acknowledgment, for the sole reason of being able to, simply put: feel authority over someone, and then punctuate that to the nth degree. In turn they gave little sardonic cheers and demoralizing snickers as Orson scrambled in the dirt for his possessions, and most importantly his cherished bottle. Clumsily stuffing the contents back into his briefcase and swiping the dirt away from its fake black leather.

His temper ruffled, he rifled through a battery of idiosyncratic put-downs and parables, not finding any to his liking he looked away, then glanced down at his wrist; only to appear purposeful, never actually looking at the time...yet, how could he? He has no watch.

2

The Greased Wheel

Orson Phillipe Wright, as he is known to the seven degrees of people that connect him to the world that he doesn’t know at all. Quick-windedly sped through his Idea of how the discourse of questions might unravel:

" Mighty fine to meet your acquaintance sir, Indeed…oh yes, yes, yes found the place with no considerable problem, well,…..Uh-huh, right, yes sir, well I thank you for your complements sir…. Wow, really sir…well I‘ve never thought of myself as a…"

But this was wasn’t the first time that Orson had rehearsed this monologue. He had obsessed with its exact details of when and why he should say what and presumptuously just what the questions might be. For weeks now, analyzing every detail of the fictitious future like some modern day drunken Nostradamus, with only his own future in mind.

"Yes, well the reason I believe I could be a very strong asset to this fine company is…"

his confidence in his answers now seemed to wane off into the great graveyard of his forgotten merit. But it was only the night before last, that he assured himself over and over that they were the most professional and intellectual dissertation answers possible. He delved further into his recanted thoughts,

" That’ll never do! Maybe if I…ah, the hell with it, ….fuck those animals, they only want productivity and wouldn’t know creativity if it were crawling up their swinish ass!".

But this wasn’t said in full poignancy; Orson now feeling a little more testable and lighter in the feet, he let out a small laugh to himself about his immature syntax. Abruptly looking around to see if anyone might have taken note of his unnoticeable display…then laughed again out of odd juxtaposition.

For the moment it seemed that Orsons mental beasts where on the decline, and slightly muted inside the shell of his inebriated synapses. The foolproof union to a laded state where he could acknowledge his progress, be sustained with his accomplishments and generally take on the world with a more vivacious disposition. Superior to that of the frantic, over-pessimistic state of his sobriety, which lately, (out of the collegiate mind occupier and all) has become less and less. It wasn’t always like this; there was a point when Orson had the strength to not do the willing act that he so loved. He would go weekdays in a frenzy of deadlines to serve the greater, higher education boot camp, then have the stereotypical collegiate weekend of "well-deserved" vomiting and "blacking-out"-which is slang for having a few too many. But now, along the crowded lines of present day; his voice of reason struck in by the denomination of his now uncontrollable state; Including the detriment of his introverted boredom and personal mis-attempts that set their seed deep into the hopes of Orson and assailed his thoughts with spells of futility. His greatest fear morphing from – unrecognization of his talents - to –actually having to stop how is, to get what he wants. Average life was as good as being dead to Orsons all or nothing processes…and this was not taken lightly. He’d find himself progressively blocking all out, one by one, away from his mirage if they didn’t support his vermicular lifestyle in some irrational way; his friends, his family, even his lust conciliators – their relationship being forfeited to the iron fortress of his habits. He could be so cold and thoughtless when it came to relationships with his human surrounds.

It was no more than a few months ago, in which he had shunned these people from his physical existence, like the self-defeating recluse he is. Now truly alone, sitting in his armless rocking chair from all of dawn to dark, then vice versa. Even though he could not tell what time of day it might be, with big black sheets nailed to the windows blocking out the crisis of productive daylight. Creating himself an ambiance equal to night, trying monotonously to match his vain and frivolous emotions. Tainting himself with oral injection after injection of his own liquid hope. Under the darkness of his room, his face still manifesting a clearly visible scarlet hue, as he sat, slowly rocking back and forth in that decrepit grandmother chair; babbling to himself different exerts of feral prose and almost undecipherable dialogues. Pieces that he believed would be part of some zenith of all books that he indeed would write someday…. someday when he was different, or in different surrounds; but for now raving about it and mentally chiseling out the most minute details of all the characters that would be in his modern day bible was as far as it could be recognized in solidity.

"Chapter six……no seven,… the mason emerges from…..no,….the woodworker emerges from the forest… reaches the awed group huddled at the edge of the mount …worshipping...at the prophets callused feet, as he stood dictating his truth…..with arms out shadowing them from the sun; their attention following every enunciation the prophet makes;…..the woodworker,…who is angered by the prophets words, interrupts – ‘nay! God is not in the unattainable heavens!, he is in the woods with axe and mule’…subplot: the woodworker is stoned for hieracy…..yes, ha, phum,…..where was I?,….oh..wait… no..oh yes, chapter ten opening paragraph ---

‘ whatcha’ say?’-

‘ I said it’s like goats in a cage….’

‘ Whut’?’

‘ You know, either lockin’ horns or typically fucking each other ’

‘ Is dat’ it? ’

‘ Is there more to say? ’

Chapter two, verse twelve…..no,no,no much too soon,…. chapter four?…..yes?…no, it will conflict with third paragraph argument over a rotten loaf of bread with the number two slow, gluttonous, over-ripe comically foolish fat man, nah……..too crass…no that will….yes,yes chapter five, verse twenty six will work perfectly!……ha,ha,ha…..wait….what?…what was I saying?…."

his talk was about as solid as the drink he loved,….more than writing, which he was never any good at anyway. "Writer" had become the title he believed would best suit him, and that people would automatically think that there is more to him, if he were to call himself it. Never did he really love writing or post great abilities in the subject; yes, he was always more interested in the way people would rank and envy him due to that self-avowed title.

It was his mother who said it best (drunk out of her mind) " that boy of mine sure as…. (a cough)…sure as hell-fire ain’t no writer,…but there ain’t nothing out there that’ll get him to stop ". He cringed as he thought of his mothers slurring dictation…his memory stretching back years ago when he had eavesdropped on one of her alcohol-fueled tantrums. She (fading in and out of consciousness) was propped against the kitchen wall pressing the phone betwixt her ear and the wallpaper, for she was too tired to stand unassisted and too drunk to lie down. Full of contempt and displeasure as she commented on how her son was "makin’ the wrong decisions, for his self " and most hurtfully "ain’t no writer"; those words seemed to haunt Orson and played in an incessant loop in his mind. And it was just the night before when he, engulfed in a familiar wave of pathos,…. - "Not a writer!? - I’ll show her, all show them all!,…and then we’ll see whose who!"- he spat into the subdued hem of his alien apartment,…..As he forged his professors names on the neatly fabricated recommendations.