Chapter 8

"Aw Christ, it's the creepy fuck," muttered the Worker who apparently doesn't deserve a name. He was sitting in the cafeteria of Braggart Big Damn Rail when Edguy Dithers happened to walk up, looking like he wanted to exposit again.

"...made me a VP. VP, can you believe it? I'm in charge of Operations now, whatever that means. I remember last time I came down here, just after getting promoted, everyone was looking at me. It felt weird..." Dithers had been learning from Daffy the skill of blathering pointlessly about himself to strangers.

"But it's all worth it to be near Daffy," Dithers said, getting all dreamy again. "Or it would be if I ever saw her anymore. She must be really busy. She moved me to her old office though, so I get her chair..." And his eyes took on a far-off look of perversity.

He had more to say of course. So much more with so little point but it's not like anyone cares about Edguy Dithers.

So let's get back to Daffy! She sat in her new office, admiring it's barrenness as reflective of her inner life. She'd set it up for no sensible reason to personally head the new Jon Gort Line - previously known as the Rio Norte.

Tim and Daffy had a minor tiff over that name. Was that in the last chapter? No, it was cut for pacing and sanity purposes. Bad sign this thing is turning meta and we're not even a third of the way through...

Anyway, Daffy was interrupted from feeling all pleased with herself by the post-it note reminding her to get her solipsistic ass to the airport. She had to fly back out to Colorado, where the Gort Line actually was. Still, she took her sweet goddamn time as it allowed her some navel-gazing concerning her own transparent fetishism of trains steaming through tunnels.

In her limited mind, she liked to dress up this fixation of hers in high-minded baloney. Liked to view her love of big, thrusting metal things and her love of that love and how she loved to love that love was all together the height of Man's consciousness - even though she was a woman. So clearly she needed a man to play engineer, if ya catch my drift. Not Franky - for entirely philosophical and platonic reasons, not his obvious disinterest - and surprisingly not Spank Rearend though Daffy wouldn't mind taking a ride on his Gort Line.

No, her ideal man was so ideal he didn't exist! She bravely displayed all the romantic discernment of a middle-aged virgin jacking off to Wonder Woman in his mom's basement.

And then some guy almost knocked on the front door - which she could somehow see from her office. The incident isn't quite as long here because I'm not gratuitously padding the narrative like Alisa Rosenbaum.

*    *    *

"Hey! I'm back!"

Snarkin, so help me...

"And I get a mine! Well, I still think of it as your mine, Spank. We're friends like that."

"No!" Spank said. "Either I own something or I don't!"

Poor Spank Rearend was too depressed to think in anything but the most didactic terms. Well, he really couldn't think any other way even at the best of times but now he was being a goddamn baby about it.

"Stupid government, telling me what I can and can't own..." he grumbled.

"Be fair, Spank," Snarkin said gently. "You couldn't expect to hold onto it with all those safety violations."

"But they weren't violations! Not until that mean law got passed!"

"I don't think you understand how laws work..."

It was no use of course. Spank was determined to sulk over his slap on the wrist, despite the poor condition of the mine and his years of skimping on the most basic safety standards. Really, it wasn't worth half of what Snarkin paid for it in the mandated deal.

"Wait, what!?"

And, though it's certainly common practice, Spank Rearend was far too densely literal-minded to contrive some "silent partner" arrangement with Saul Snarkin. He could only repeat in dull whine, "Either I own something or I don't..."

"You know, I'm having second thoughts about this whole thing. I mean, from what I read in the report and what the narrator is saying, this is looking like a real stinker of a deal."

Not that Spank was listening. He was remembering a preacher talking about how altruism is good and Spank dumbly associated that with what he was experiencing now. Therefore, altruism was actually bad and God is a jerk.

"How does that even work?"

Snarkin, one more fourth wall breach and I'll stick you with the d'Ano mine too.

"Alright! Jesus!"

"I just can't stand the thought of anyone over me," Spank blathered on with ridiculous self-absorption. "Being overpowered, dominated, tied up and whipped - I just can't stomach it! At least on the receiving end..."

"Spank, I don't particularly want to know why you'd use those specific terms," Snarkin said, "but you're blowing this way out of proportion. I own the mine now, sure, but I'm not going to cut you off or anything."

"I wish I could believe that," Spank said with ponderous seriousness. "But I cannot hold to the mere words of friends. Just facts."

"You sound like the villain in a Dickens novel."

And Spank sold a coal mine to some other guy with mostly the same dithering back and forth which has been cut here because it blows more than usual.

Rearend felt very emo about all of this, crying into his expensive scotch and cursing the evils of the world that would strip him of ownership of something he'd never paid much attention to anyway. At least he had the Jon Gort Line with its shiny green and blue girders - yes, that was the color - shining with their shininess in the Colorado sun. So this lead him naturally to call up Edguy Dithers and ask him to breakfast!

Borges couldn't make sense of this plot...

"Good mornin', Ed! I'm in a hurry so ya mind if I talk while eating?" Spank didn't wait for a response. Just started shoveling food into his mouth.

Dithers might have said something if he weren't feeling irrationally guilty for Spank's current woes. Though it was lessened somewhat upon experiencing the Greatness that was sitting across from Spank Rearend. It was saw awe inspiring and triumphant, Dithers didn't realize Rearend had stolen his omelet.

"So how's Braggart Big Damn Rail doing?" Spank asked, spitting egg and cheese about.

"Well, not too good. Issues with our payroll and such..." Dithers politely didn't mention people just wouldn't buy tickets to ride on some untested hoodoo metal.

"And you know your payment for my spankmeum is due next month?"

"Yeah..."

"Well, how about a moratorsis or whatever? I agree to extend the payment date until, say, six months after the Gort Line opens?"

"Golly Mr. Rearend, that would be swell!"

And it would be the same sort of friendly gentleman's agreement proposed to Spank just a few paragraphs ago but that was different because someone else suggested it. When you're Spank Rearend, morality is all about your personal preference. Because that's the objective way to do it.

"Excellent! I'll send the new papers on over once their drawn up," Spank said before snatching up Edguy's coffee. "You've got the makings of a good businessman, Ed, because you do what I say."

"We really owe you, Mr. Rearend."

"No you don't! I'm just being rationally selfish - if I collect now, you'll go under and I'll lose my only buyer!"

"But wouldn't that be the natural outcome in a free market?" Edguy asked, displaying uncharacteristic critical thought.

"Of course not!"

"Well, that's all I needed!"

Rearend had more to say - like how it wasn't charity because he was making money he didn't want - but it's so nonsensical and self-parodying on its own that I have nothing to work with.

Meanwhiles, people were talking smack about the new spankmeum railroad because, seriously, blue and green! It looked like the hull of a hundred year old shipwreck! Add in the fact that even Rearend's own R&D people were coming forward and admitting they had no idea if this alloy was appropriate for railroads and people were understandably put off.

Through all this, Tim Braggart tried to affect some control over the impending ruin of his family business but found Daffy had stonewalled him at every turn. When a rumor cropped up that a spankmeum bridge had collapsed, he got the runaround from his own employees out in Colorado - said they "Can't afford to get on Miss Braggart's bad side!" - before finally giving up and calling the local police. They confirmed three people had died but couldn't divulge their names yet, procedure and all.

It was another week until Tim did learn ho they were - Charles Geertz, Adam Curren, and Henry Taylor. He personally wrote letters to each family, expressing his sorrow for their loss and assurance that all life insurance policies through the company would be honored.

The way Daffy was taking things, he feared he'd be making that promise to more and more people...

Daffy herself was having trouble finding clients, let alone engineers, for her vanity project. A representative from the Local 317 even came by her office to express as politely as possible that no engineer worth his coveralls would go anywhere near the Gort Line.

"Get out! You're fired!" Daffy shouted back at him.

"Ma'am, I don't work for you."

"Well get out all the same! I won't have you telling me what I can and can't do!"

"I'm not doing that at all, ma'am. I'm just informing you our members have no interest in operating the Gort Line."

"Put it in writing!"

"Excuse me?"

"You want to control other people and control me by controlling people! You want me to create jobs but you want to forbid me from making those jobs require any -"

"Look, we're not forbidding you anything. There's no legal way we could do such a thing, even if we wanted to. I'm just here to tell you that if you want to run any trains on this Gort Line, you're running them without the 317."

Daffy had more circular logic to screech at him but the gentleman took his leave, having no patience for her crap.

Of course, Daffy soon found that not being able to draw from the largest engineers union in the country meant she had exactly zero people to run her trains. "Well screw those commie bastards! I'll just ask for volunteers!"

Nobody wanted to volunteer. Daffy could have gotten some by offering substantially more compensation for what everyone and their dog viewed as a needlessly risky venture but she had a pathological aversion to "wasting good money on the lice."

Fortunately, America still had plenty of undocumented workers who would take dangerous jobs for insultingly substandard pay. Sure they had no proper training or experience in such a vocation but Daffy found if she shouted "La migra!" at the right times they could learn awful fast.

And on the eve of the opening of the Jon Gort Line, Daffy gave a press conference to assuage the justified fears of the public - and maybe finally get enough people buying tickets to justify the huge investment. Her opening speech consisted of opining on the awesomeness and shininess of spankmeum and how it was totally better than all that collectivist steel and iron. Daffy assumed this would be sufficient for people because she was very stupid.

"But what about the tensile strength of the alloy?"

"What about the documented deaths during construction?"

"What about rumors you couldn't find real engineers and hired illegal immigrants you found in a back lot?"

"Shut up! You're all fired!" Daffy cried. She ran away before anyone could point out they didn't work for her.

The day came and both Daffy Braggart and Spank Rearend were among the first - and only - to board the very first train on the Jon Gort Line. They spent far too much time making googley eyes at each other, Daffy thinking about how only a person thoroughly absorbed in their own Greatness could be worthy of such Greatness and Spank thinking about pie. As the train steamed out of the station and onto the alien-looking hoodoo alloy, they smiled at each other, seeing only themselves reflected back... and died in screaming, fiery agony because you can't just build everything out of a single type of metal that you think is neat.

Or they would have if there was anything logical about this story. No, the lucky idiots made it from one end of the line to the other without incident, even across the bridge that had already claim the lives of so many too-poor-to-be-important people.

Another batch of reporters was waiting to meet the ditzy duo when the disembarked. There were many questions but one in particular stood out - "So are you going to allow a thorough scientific study of spankmeum?"

"Why would I ever do that?" Spank Rearend asked incredulously. "You saw it yourself - the rail held!"

"But for how long? What about environmental stresses?"

"The man who taught people to make a printing press," said Rearend, "how did he know it?"

"What the hell does that even mean!?"

All through the commotion, Daffy stared longingly at Spank. And Edguy - he appeared somehow! - stared longingly at Daffy. And the narrator stared longingly at a revolver. And Spank would've stared longingly at himself if there were a mirror handy.

His metal worked! Her Gort Line worked! Happy days all around! And there were the investors in the Gort Line - other rich idiots in expensive suits who paid people to do the real work.

From among them came Enis Buyit, "Great job, the two of you! Because it's not like all the foundry workers and railroad engineers had anything to do with it."

"Of course not!" Daffy and Spank replied in sickening harmony.

"You two should crash at my place tonight since the nearest town is two hours away."

And the new line ended there, in the middle of fucking nowhere.

"Wait'll you see my new process for extracting oil from shale!" Buyit babbled to them on the trip to his house, like a kid wanting to show off his Lego robot.

Not that Spank and Daffy were really paying attention. Their minds were elsewhere though curiously both on Spank. Once they were stowed in one of Buyit's guest rooms, Spank turned to Daffy and said all sexily, "Drop your socks and touch your toes. I'm gonna show you where the wild goose goes!"

And they had the sort of rough, clothes-ripping sex that would excite someone with a rape fetish. I am not describing it.

Chapter 7

Daffy Braggart stood atop an ill-defined structure, looking down on the Buyit oil fields. In the distance the sun hit a spot of metal, making it look like a lit torch - which if it were would have horrifying and hilarious consequences. Because, you know, oil!

Far down below her - where they belonged! - were the faceless laborers laying the tracks and switches of newly delivered spankmeum. That's why McNam had quit by the way. He'd taken one look at the shiny new metal and said, "Are you fucking kidding me!?"

So Daffy had been forced to hire another contractor. An older, squishier gentleman she didn't want to ride like a pony who protested a little - "Are you sure this is durable enough for trains?" - but still agreed to do the job when Daffy offered three times the going rate. Tim's groans had been audible from neighboring buildings back at the Braggart office.

But even getting three times his requested pay, this new contractor - this Niels guy - just couldn't meet Daffy's ridiculously overblown expectations. "Why has construction stopped?" she demanded when construction had stopped.

"Sorry, Miss Braggart, but drill heads wear out fast. Especially in this rock."

Why there's such deep-drilling going on for a frickin' railroad is because they had to build a bridge. Why rail layers are pulling double duty building a bridge is because Daffy was too stupid to take all these things into account. But, again, let's just go with it...

"That is unacceptable!" Daffy had said to Niels with all her haughty idiocy. "You're just not trying hard enough!"

"Uh, ma'am, the success of an engineering endeavor is not wholly dependent on elbow grease."

As she stared blankly at him, he clarified, "The drill heads are shot and I can't move forward until new ones arrive."

"It's taking too long," Daffy said dismissively. "Use the spankmeum."

"Use the -!? Miss Braggart, even if we weren't already laying the spankmeum as rail - making it all spoken for, as it were - we are not in any way equipped out here to cast new drill heads!"

"Then we'll order them from Spank himself!" declared Daffy.

"Okay, let me see if I understand what you're asking... You want us to go faster, so we should order brand new, un-cast drill heads from this Rearend guy - from across the country - and wait for that to be delivered rather than use the drill heads already on order which - even factoring in shipping delays - would still arrive sooner?"

"I'm paying for the track so I'll pay for the new drill heads!"

Niels had been in this business thirty years. He didn't much care to strap some rich idiots vanity alloy to his equipment but with how much this Braggart nutjob was paying, he reasoned it would be an affordable risk. The customer is always right after all - even when they're pants-crappingly wrong.

And he really wanted to avoid another lecture from Daffy on the wonders of spankmeum. That line she always finished with - "...And a spankmeum butt-plug is like having white-hot joy itself embedded in your anus!" - had given him nightmares for a week.

So construction ground on - and the original drill heads did arrive before the spankmeum. Niels quietly continued to use those, rather than subject his own business to some loopy science experiment. Still, he fared batter than the other engineers Daffy began bringing in to design this project. Halfway through it's completion.

Apparently time doesn't exist if you're an Objectivist...

The first engineer presented what he felt to be his finest work to Daffy Braggart. She sneered at it. "I expected some new means of construction to properly honor this new metal!"

"But engineering doesn't work like that," the first engineer tried to explain. "You go with what works best, and this does. It's got a nearly perfect history, it's stable but basic enough -"

"Next!"

It had been hard work, dismissing all those professionals. "I want it to last five years longer!"

"Well, if we reinforce with steel -"

"No! Spankmeum!"

"But that won't-"

"You're fired!"

So many who couldn't grasp the Greatness of Spank's new metal. So many concerned with swishy collectivist ideas like "physics."

"Miss, I think we'll need a different alloy for -"

"The hell we do! More spankmeum! More and more spaknmeum!"

Only by sheer force of personality - meaning an extended tantrum - did Daffy get her way. It was a unique skill she'd developed in kindergarten to make others give her their juice boxes.

And it was paying off. Down below her was the furious work of third-rate sheister engineers, employing hordes of underpayed illegals to make the dream of one Daffy Braggart come true!

Which promptly collapsed because structural engineering requires more than self-importance.

...

...

...Hah! Just kidding! We're not getting out of this mess that easy!

As the author wept at his unending torment, Ennis Buyit happened to appear to engage Daffy in a pointless conversation for the purpose of bitching about Niels. After Buyit left, Niels showed up to bitch about Buyit. Then Daffy went back to her trailer so she could BAWWWWW! all over her Livejournal like the spoiled pinhead she is. And when she was finished, who should be outside to meet her than the one and only Spank Rearend!

Rearend had driven all that unspecified distance to see Daffy of course. Driven in his long, sleek convertible that was definitely not compensating for anything. As always, he was heroically absorbed in his own Greatness and didn't notice Daffy's approach.

"Spank?" she asked... Not like that.

With Heroic Willpower! the other rich idiot tore himself away from himself to address Daffy. "Well, I wondered if I would run into you here," he said with poorly feigned nonchalance.

Daffy felt all a flutter like the silly bimbo she is. "No one told me you were here. I'll have to fire someone later..."

"Oh, I was just coming out to see how my new metal's doing," Spank explained. "Not to see you of course. I haven't been, like, out here to Colorado six times in secret because I'm stalking you or anything. I just care about metal."

Daffy found it so sexy when a man didn't care about her, just hard rigid alloy jutting into the air. "I was just discussing ordering more spankmeum. At some point in the past."

"It'll cost you more," Spank said. "I'm not doing you any special favors just because you're the only one in the world buying my shiny new metal."

"Oh, I wouldn't expect you to," Daffy said. His disdain exhilarated her! "But will it get here in time?"

"I'll work my minions to death to ensure it does," reassured Spank.

"You know, I have my own ideas on how to build your bridge. Want to see my etchings?"

"Sure!"

So he showed her his etchings. Yes, they're both that dumb.

They mooned over each other some more, all the passion of a moldy sock. "But is there any other reason you came all this way?" Daffy asked hoping for Spank to sexily rebuff her again.

He didn't disappoint. "I'm taking a look at a copper mine out here too. Because those are still a profitable venture in 21st century America."

"Why don't you get copper from Franky's - I mean, the d'Ano mine?"

Spank looked uncomfortable for the first time. "I don't know... That guy makes me feel funny..."

"I know what you mean," Daffy said, turning away to hide her spreading grin.

"But when I buy it, I might need a branch line," he said.

"Oh Spank! I'd be happy to lay one for you!" Daffy just got more and more turned on the less he displayed any interest for her beyond the utilitarian. Almost as much as impersonal business transactions. "I love being out here, you know. So much building and mining and drilling goes on..."

"I know what you mean," agreed Spank. "It's a welcome change from the rest of the country."

And that made Daffy sad. "Spank, what's wrong with the world? Why can't things be Great anymore?"

"I learned in school it's because the sun is slowly going out, so everything grows cold and stops." Spank Rearend smoked ALOT of pot all through school so his recollections were fuzzy at best. "But I always figured we could make a new sun."

"Really? Me too!"

Smiling, Spank pointed out to a distant column of smoke from the Buyit oil fields. "And there it is being made!"

Though how petroleum would supplant the gigaton-scale fusion reactor of the sun wasn't something either bothered to think abou -

Wait. Column of smoke? Oil fields!?

Rather than address the potential oil fire, Daffy asked Spank about his car. "Is that a Hamhock Motors, uh, thing?"

"Why yes. Yes it is," Spank replied, always happy to show off his things. "I'm not actually driving back to wherever I live. It's being shipped and I'm taking my own plane."

Daffy was enthralled with his conspicuous display of disposable income.

"And I'm actually not going home just yet," Spank continued. "I'm going to Minnesota."

Daffy scrunched up her nose the way whiny airheads do when they're confused. "Minnesota? But it's full of lice!"

"Holy crap, it is!?"

"Well, not lice lice but, like, poor people and stuff."

"Oh. Well, I guess that's bearable."

And so Spank drove off, having not really advanced the plot and Daffy drove herself to the other airport or something while thinking about how wicked hot Spank was but she couldn't get a flight back home because Tim had been there and gotten the last ticket. Despite that not really being how airports work.

"Curse him!" she said. "He's not even in this part of the narrative!"

"Yes I am!" Tim corrected her.

Because they were now both back in New York. In car. And in a hurry to get somewhere.

"Damn, who needs transitions when you can warp time and space?"

Now don't you start!

Their car was blocked at seemingly every intersection due to the copious construction products, repairing the old streets.

"This wouldn't happen if they'd just let someone with vision build roads," Daffy said petulantly.

"Daffs, I could explain - again - how no single individual has the time or money to maintain something so necessary to everyone as the friggin' roads but seeing as you ignore me anyway how about some exposition? Like what you're going to tell them about your precious magic metal?"

"It's not mine!" Daffy said defensively. "It's Spank's metal!"

"Which makes me wonder why they don't ask him about the damn thing..."

A dreamy look in her eyes, Daffy curtly explained, "Because he couldn't be bothered with the concerns of others."

"He sounds like such a lovely sociopath."

They were on their way to see the National Metals Committee - one of those smaller federal bodies dedicated to regulation. And one of the few that actually did their jobs.

And they were mighty cheesed off at Braggart Big Damn Rail laying track with a new and completely untested alloy.

"Do you want to bury this company? Forgive me for asking but I really wonder sometimes."

"And why are you so scared, Tim," Daffy asked because she thought it sounded clever.

"Oh gee, let me think - because the feds could fine us somewhere in the tens of millions, because we could get sued by every single customer for reckless endangerment, because if this while thing goes 'tits up' as Boyle has so eloquently put it we'll be out not just what we wasted on this vanity project of Rearend's but any possible damage to our existing equipment!"

Daffy found her brother so tiring. He didn't understand rules only applied to other people... Of course, from her perspective he was a other. So did that mean the rules did apply to him.

"Ouch, philosophy hurts my head," Daffy said. "I'm going to get a cup of coffee."

"But we're in a moving car!"

Fortunately, Daffy Braggart is immune to logic.

She found her way into a diner. "Bring me coffee, manservant!"

"A spat-in cup a' joe it is," said the waitress.

Now settled with her coffee and self-importance - just like back in college! - she looked around at the other patrons. Old, greasy, and oh so poor.

"So this guy, he's goin' on about 'What is the porpoise of life?'"

"The porpoise? Ain't that a fish?"

"Somethin' like that. I didn't get it either."

"Wasn't that same guy goin' on about Gort was it?"

That got her attention. And the attentions of someone else.

"I know that Gort feller!" declared a harmless lunatic. "Saw him fly to the Moon, I did! He brought back the infinity cheese!"

Daffy found this to be very significant...

But enough of that. We've got an awfully long and just plain awful chapter to finish.

Spank Rearend was sitting in his office wondering if he should invest in some transitions when some big nosed freak came in.

"Mr. Rearend?" asked the freak. "I'm Dr. Rowling from DOI."

Only with Great and Heroic Effort did Spank recall this was the guy coming by from the government. "I suppose you're here to tell me how to run my business?"

Dr. Rowling sighed. Apparently Rearend was one of those types. "No, not in so many words... Mr. Rearend, may I sit?"

"No."

"...Okay. My concern isn't how you run your business but that you follow existing regulations. There are standards for massive public works as this Rio Norte line and these bridges -"

"There's nothing public about it!" snapped Rearend testily.

"It's public enough. It crosses public land and our citizens will naturally use it once construction is complete. My concern, that is my department's concern is that your new, uh, alloy..."

"Spankmeum!" Spank declared proudly.

"Um, yes... That it's suitable for these purposes."

"I don't need other people telling what I can and can't do with my own metal!"

"You do if public safety is related. And it's very related on a railroad."

"No!"

"But for god's sake man! There's not even any evidence it can support a train!"

"No! No! No!" Spank plugged his ears. "My metal is shiny and it'll work because it's shiny! You're fired!"

"But I don't work for you..."

*    *    *

Daffy was sulking because her contractors had reneged on the switch and signal orders. Just because she called them lice and threw peanuts at them was no excuse to be walking out on her, Daffy Braggart!

Of course that wasn't the only excuse. "I refuse to work with that crap!" said Lester Moen.

"What, the switches?"

"No, that 'spankmeum' stuff. It's a damned nightmare. I mean, it turns green when it gets cold! What the hell sorta metal turns green!?"

"An awesome metal," said Daffy with snotty superiority.

"Yeah, well you can keep it 'cause I'm done."

Daffy didn't understand. Why would anyone turn down an opportunity to work with Spank's glorious spankmeum? It couldn't be anything wrong with the metal itself... no, it had to be something wrong with Moen. He was just too scared of Great new things - like spankmeum! - and was running away.

"Well fine," she snapped. "You just can't handle spankmeum!"

But Moen had already left.

Returning to her office - because that didn't happen in her office - she encountered Edguy Dithers again looking like he had horrible news.

"Horrible news, Daffy." Hey! I was right! "The National Metallurgical Institute just put out a warning against using spankmeum! They say it's not safe for construction or manufacturing or even being near in a light rain."

"Well they can't get away with that! I'll go yell some sense into them right now! Teleport!"

And with a burst of brimstone, Daffy Braggart appeared at the Institutes new Hampshire office to pester some more people who have real jobs. Striding through the front door, she let loose - "Do you realize what it says in your statement? Do you know the unfounded claims you're making against Spank's spankmeum?"

"I'm just the receptionist, ma'am," replied the lady at the front desk. "If you'd like to meet with someone, I could call to see if they're taking visitors."

Daffy wouldn't wait of course. Spotting someone she recognized, she shot  off - "Dr. Stieg!"

Dr. Stieg recognized her. Unfortunately. "Oh, Ms... Braggart, is it?"

"Why did you publish this slander against spankmeum?"

"Ms. Braggart, slander is spoken. In print it's libel. And what we published was neither because it's true."

"But you said spankmeum -"

Weary, having just gotten off the phone with the man himself, "Mr. Rearend's alloy is unstable and would make for poor structures of any sort. That's the science of it. I'm sorry Ms. Braggart but these things don't take personal feelings into account. Good day."

And he was gone before this could devolve into another repetitive back and forth about a made up metal.

Daffy was confused - as usual - but soon angered. All these people with their fancy degrees, they were just jealous of Spank! He'd done something great and they just couldn't wait to tear him down! How typical of these lesser classes! "I'll show them! I'll build every new line of Braggart Big Damn Rail with spankmeum! I'll tear up the old lines just to lay more spankmeum! And I'm renaming the Rio Norte the Jon Gort Line!"

Distantly, Tim Braggart was getting one hell of an ulcer.

And so am I. Let's finish it now before I have to type spankmeum any more tonight.

"Don't I have another scene in this chapter?"

Tim, do you really want to argue with your sister again about spankmeum? And get the same result as everyone else?

"...I'll see you next week."

Chapter 6

Spank Rearend sulked before the mirror, wishing he could find some way to turn off his Great Mind. He put so much into wishing it that it did in fact happen quite easily - but he was too preoccupied on thinking about not thinking to notice.

Tonight, he faced the long-dreaded anniversary party with his wife Lily. Accursed woman! How could she expect him to be concerned with her after so many long days of watching other people work? He already bought her things and... well, bought her things. Now she expected he ignore his own Greatness for a whole evening just because they'd sworn to have and hold each other until death and stuff.

She could be so selfish sometimes...

But Rearend was used to such disregards of his Greatness. At least he told himself as much - that he understood how lesser minds looked up to him in envy, how the whole world wanted him to be ashamed for making a fortune with his Great Ideas - especially his own "family," whatever that was. His mother would yell at him for pausing in the middle of a conversation to think about his stock options or Lily would interrupt his thoughts on shiny metals to ask if he "like" what she did with the furniture over here or Bill would pester him again with what he "promised" to do nearly a year ago. Couldn't they all leave him alone in his Greatness while also politely appreciating it and praising him?

It's not that he had anything but his Great Ideas... and heaps of money... and invitations to all the best parties... and ridiculous influence in Washington thanks to politicians who fell over each other to coddle his business... but none of that got to the important thing - Spank Rearend's inherent Greatness, driven by the great Ideas he paid other people to carry out.

And now they - the big scary They of jealously not-Great types -  wanted to limit it! He'd briefly glanced at some newspaper article going over new industrial regulations being mulled over by Congress. Loads of lazy, non-Great nonsense like "limiting environmental damage" and "preventing worker dismemberment" - as if a Great Man such as Rearend could still be Great under such restrictions. It's like they didn't even want his shiny new Spankmeum! Like they couldn't appreciate its shinyness! Like they -

"Mister Rearend?"

Spank jumped up, almost striking his head on the fancy, low-hanging light fixtures above the mirror - pure spankmeum of course! - "Miguel! Why are you interrupting me!?"

Miguel, one of the many lowly non-Greats to whom Spank granted the privilege of upkeep in his home, replied, "Your wife asked me to check on you. She's worried 'cause you still haven't come down for the party."

With Great solemnity, Rearend brushed past the lesser creature, saying, "Oh Miguel, I don't expect a simple Mexican to understand what is being asked of me."

Miguel waited until his employer was safely out of earshot before muttering, "I'm Honduran you stupid culero..."

At the foot of the stairs stood Lily, smiling in that sweetly submissive way of hers. Spank was disappointed to see she wasn't wearing the chain but then again, probably better to keep such things private. For now.

She wordlessly lead him back to the party where a throng had gathered around some pencil-neck - "...To measure space coordinates and instants of time, rigid measuring rods and clocks are required. On the other hand, to measure momenta and energies, devices are necessary with movable parts to absorb the impact of the test object and to indicate the size of its momentum..."

Dammit! Lily had gone and invited another insufferable know-it-all!

"But then how do we know what's true?" someone asked the know-it-all.

"Well, that all depends on what you mean by 'true,'" he explained. "How concrete an explanation are you looking for? Because there's only so much that can be said with certainty. And that's still just observation - if you mean 'true' in the more nebulous sense of 'Truth' then that's more a subject for philosophy than quantum mechanics."

It was that awful Professor Pritchard. Spank never could understand why Lily liked having him around - he always looked so shabby, always munched away on the horse derv's like they were there to be eaten, always had some fancy flim-flam full of math he was trying to push on people.

"It sounds like you're saying nothing can be known," someone said to Pritchard. "Like it's all relative."

Pritchard politely finished chewing a canape before answering, "Sort of. But I'd only say so in regards to particles - and then only because our understanding of such things is still in it's infancy. That was the whole point of Schrodinger's thought experiment with the cat being dead and not-dead simultaneously. It's supposed to sound counterintuitve because our models are still incomplete. Kind of like missing links in evolution, which is still a big 'T' Theory because so much evidence exists in support. Funny thing - evolution is the harder to observe but is better understood than gravity!" And to illustrate, Pritchard tossed a grape into the air and caught it in his mouth. "Hey, that finally worked!"

Everyone had a good chuckle at the good professor's antics - except Spank Rearend. He couldn't get into the jovial social mood, couldn't see what was so cute about Pritchard's relativism, couldn't relate to anyone as a person really but only as an intrusion on or reflector of his own Greatness. He was a solipsistic moron like that.

Rearend turned away from the sickening display - all those people happy and enjoying themselves with something not directly involving him - and went out to the veranda. He liked that little spot because it was outside the house, Lily's house. She picked it out and did all the decorating. Spank would've been happy with just a shiny little fort to play in. Or an office, since he had a pathological fixation on the drudgery of administrative work.

Jesus this is bad... Okay, enough scene setting. He bumps into Daffy Braggart.

"Whoa! Hi there!"

"Where did I come from?"

"I guess my wife invited you."

"Why would she do that? And where exactly are our respective homes in relation to one another?"

"That's a very good question but I'm getting word from the author that we're displaying too much self-awareness and lucidity so MY METAL IS AWESOME!"

"Ooh, me love you long time!"

Anyway, back to the party.

Daffy was there with her brother Tim - whom Lily did invite. Tim would've liked to avoid the whole fiasco but felt it necessary to at least get a look at the man he'd been forced into business with. So far, Mrs. Rearend was pleasant and engaging.

"Where is your husband?" asked Tim. "I've been dying to meet him."

Lily's smile became a little strained. "He was here just a moment ago -"

And he was back, feeling refreshed after a good ego-stroking.

No, not like that! That comes later...

"Mister Rearend, on behalf of Braggart Big Damn Rail allow me to wish you and your wife a happy anniversary."

"Is that what this is all about?" asked Spank, genuinely perplexed because he could never remember anything not having to do with his shiny spankmeum for more than five minutes like an autistic man-child.

"Yes dear," Lily explained with the patience of a saint. "We've been over this..."

"Spank!" shouted a drunken voice, causing all in attendance to wince - especially Lily.

Bursting into the previous awkward conversation was Ralph Banks, a third-string journo who'd once written a book on the American metal industry. Spank always remembered that - with spite - because Banks had so little to say about Rearend Metals. Why, it only got a measly chapter!

"Great party, you two!" Ralph said. "Here's to the both of ya, and many happy -"

"Excuse me," Spank cut in icily. "But what about me?"

"Pardon?"

"You're toasting the two of us, but Lily's never done anything. Why aren't you just toasting me?"

Lily stared at the floor, flush with embarrassment. Tim Braggart stared on in shock and disgust - and also wondering how he would ever rescue his company from this narcissistic blowhard. That "spankmeum" crap was probably made of butter!

"Y'know what? Just get out!" Spank had devolved into full tantrum mode. "Get out of my house!"

Because now he considered it his house. Because it was convenient.

Ralph staggered away. Some other guests had taken note of Spank's outburst but were now politely - and pointedly - ignoring the couple. All save for one guest who was all too amused at the proceedings...

Francisco Domingo Carlo Banana Fana bo Binko d'Ano The Third! And no, I never get tired of that name.

Franky meandered into the clutch of people still surrounding Professor Pritchard. "So what's his superposition?" he asked. He thought it was clever.

"Oh, that all depends on the variables," Pritchard said. Raising his glass, "Namely booze!" and laughed good naturedly. Because genuinely smart people are gregarious and well-adjusted. Awkward loners just have overly-complicated masturbation rituals.

And yes, that was directed at you.

Franky laughed along with everyone, in a sneeringly superior way. "I couldn't help overhearing you earlier - you really believe nothing can be determined?"

"Well, like I said, as relating to quantu -"

"'Cause I happen to be an alum of your current employer and I was taught something awfully different. I was taught that things can be determined with certainty."

"And how is that?"

"Lookin'." And d'Ano smiled with palpable smugness.

"Exactly right," Pritchard replied, unruffled. "But how are you observing?"

"Huh?"

"Well, I can certainly look at you and say, 'This is Franky d'Ano,' but I can't say anything about your wave function. It's not like I can see subatomic particles with just my eyeballs."

"Well then how do you know they're even there?" asked d'Ano snootily.

"Good question," Pritchard said. "And it sure is fun finding out!"

Franky scoffed, excusing himself haughtily and sashaying up to the Rearends and Braggarts. "Honestly, I don't know why you invite such gauche folks," he said to no one in particular.

It took considerable effort for Tim Braggart to keep himself in control. After the report on d'Ano's mine came out, Tim had been preparing legal action against the reckless fop to salvage a little of what Braggart Big Damn Rail had sunk into that fraud. He didn't care to give d'Ano any ammunition for when it all went to trial.

"Aw, what's the matter, darling?" d'Ano asked Tim. "Not happy to see me?"

"Not particularly, no." And to Lily, "If you'll excuse me..." He stalked off to the clutch of people surrounding Pritchard.

Franky pouted, "He just can't take a joke."

"He does have reason though," Lily said timidly. "I mean, your actions... that is..."

"Sweety, if I bothered to think about how my actions affect people I'd never have any fun," Franky said flippantly.

Meanwhiles, Daffy had been idling on the wings of the action wondering just why she was in this scene. So I passed her the cue card - To see Spank, you idiot!

"Of course! I'm here to Spank!"

No, for Spank. This time.

Daffy couldn't help admiring Rearend's heroic disregard for others. Truly it was a Great man who could fuss around about only himself like some myopic toddler. Daffy could see so much of herself in Spank, which was of course the only metric by which she cared to measure other people. But that's all the plot she gets - back to Franky and Spanky!

Because Spank was having a similar reaction to d'Ano. He felt his heart - and other parts of his anatomy - swell with affection for the swishy Mexican as he nattered on -

"...just can't be bothered with it. I mean, like, I have enough to do just taking care of myself so why should anyone else matter? What makes them so much more special than me?"

It was a philosophy Rearend could get behind, since he assumed himself to be very special.

There was more, something about the "wip hand" that made Spank smile more and Lily look very nervous but that's the jist of it - yay me, boo you. The guiding ethic of a four-year-old, dressed up in fancy rationalizations thanks to an expensive education paid for by family wealth.

As Franky took his fabulousness elsewhere and Spank waddled off to do some more self-indulgent navel-gazing, Daffy came stumbling up to him, babbling, "That Pritchard sure is an ass. He talks like a looter."

She wasn't sure why she said this but fortunately for her it flattered Spank to hear someone else repeat his own thoughts - even if "looter" had never occurred to him in the narrative but fuck it, let's go with it. "Yes, he does. But Lily invited him, not me."

"Oh, I would never assume you would make such a mistake!"

"Good. Because I totally wouldn't make a mistake."

And they stared vacantly into each other's eyes while the guests were talking about pirates. Yes, pirates!

"I heard another food shipment was attacked."

"It was that guy, what's his name..."

"Rancor. Rancor Dumassjerk."

"It's an appropriate name. Can you imagine? Sinking ships carrying food?"

"Does he think people want to suffer? That it's good for them?"

"Maybe he's really that Jon Gort fellow?"

That name got Daffy to look away from Spank's dreamy eyes. "What was that!?"

The guest, an old woman, turned to Daffy. "Gort? Oh, some rich fool. Claimed he was going off to find Atlantis on his yacht and just disappeared."

"Now that's just silly," said Pritchard. "Mythology isn't my discipline and even I know the Greeks never thought of Atlantis as an actual place. It was a thought experiment, just like Schrodinger's Cat."

"Really?"

"Well, not just like it. Schrodinger was illustrating existing unknowns while I believe the point of Atlantis was as a hypothetical perfect polity tha -"

"Aw that tears it!" bellowed Rearend. Storming up to Pritchard, he let loose a volley. "I've been listening to you flip-flop all night and I've got some things to say! For starters, I know where things are 'cause I can see them and existence totally exists! A is A, jerkface!"

"And a tautology is a tautology," Pritchard replied calmly.

Daffy was all a tingle at seeing Spank yell at someone - and at the story of this Jon Gort. Just pretend he's been mentioned before in the narrative.

She thought only a Great man would have the Greatness to go seeking something as Great as Atlantis. Especially if it involved the total disregard for such collectivist nonsense as "history" and "scientific reality." She remembered a cartoon from childhood that said Atlantis was the home of hero-spirits and as the thought filled her with the comforting warmth of nostalgia she reasoned it had to be absolutely true. It might be worth it to find this Gort...

But she could settle for Spank in the meantime. He'd walked back across the room from telling Pritchard what was. "Say, you wanna get together and bang sometime?"

"Okey dokey!"

Chapter 5

An unspecified time after the previous chapter, Edguy Dithers came into Daffy Braggart's office holding a newspaper and looking sad.

Daffy didn't notice at first because Ed looked sad so much now and it's not like she ever bothered with the feelings of others. Because only hers were real.

"Uh, Daffy?" he said after a while. "I don't know if you've read this. It's about the d'Ano mine."

"Franky?" Daffy perked up. "Give it here!" and she snatched the paper out of his hands.

Expecting to read that the looters had nationalized the mine, Daffy was shocked - shocked! - to see instead a report title "Copper Magnate a Total Fraud" which detailed for several pages how one Francisco Domingo Carlo Banana Fana bo Binko d'Ano The Third had falsified records and shipments for years, swindling both clients and investors out of millions of dollars.

"I guess Tim was right," Ed said meekly.

"The hell he was!" snarled Daffy. Shaking the newspaper in her hand, she declared, "This is clearly a smear campaign! The looters found Franky had moved everything of value out of the mine and now they're trying to discredit him!"

Ed said placatingly, "I suppose that makes sense..."

No it doesn't.

"Call his hotel in New York!" Daffy ordered. "I want to speak with him as soon as I'm done with my 10:15!"

Her 10:15 being another hour or so of ogling buildings, fitting them into the sort of convoluted and overwrought fantasy view of the world that only a goddamn idiot could appreciate.

She also took the time to muse on what she knew of Franky, how he unlike so many others was deserving of a fortune because he'd wanted it. And he'd look past petty meaningless things - like DUIs - and instead focus on the bigger picture of Great Things. And other longwinded stuff that flattered Daffy's solipsism.

...Though there is that insistence of hers that the two hadn't spoken in years. Have to do something with that - and also since this chapter won't actually advance the plot, just delve into the sordid sex fantasies of an ugly chick.

The Braggart's had known the d'Anos long before Daffy and Franky ever met. We're retconning here, but they met as pretentious teenagers who would talk high-mindedly to each other, usually with Tim off to the side wasting time with another economics textbook. They crafted adorable pet names for each other - "Hi, Frito!" "Wuttup, Slag?" - and would skip rocks across the foreheads of poor people.

In Franky, Daffy had found what she would call a kindred spirit if she weren't so literal minded about everything. The brother she should have had, maybe. Or the boyfriend she desperately craved. He had all the best qualities of a man - angular cheeks and nose, finely manicured fingers, fabulous fashion sense - but most importantly, he joined her in the most important of life's vocations...

Pissing off Tim.

"I'm gonna buy my way into Heaven, bitch!" Franky would always say. Tim sure hated that - he'd launch off into a ponderous explanation of things like "centuries of philosophical investigation" and "That's assuming there's anything such as Heaven, and that it would take your currency."

"I'll pay in gold," Franky replied dismissively. "All those old saint people love the tacky shit."

Daffy adored these exchanges because she was much too stupid to understand the nuances.

Still more? Okay - Daffy and Franky kept up their awkward, non-romantic friendship well into college. Daffy had no patience for all the professors with their insistence on "study" and "critical thinking" so she frequently found aggravatingly platonic relief in Franky's presence. He was a man who understood Greatness was an intrinsic quality, not something developed through arduous work along the course of a lifetime. No, one could just have lots of money. And money equals Great.

And then one day, they just stopped talking. It happens but Daffy always assigned unnecessary layers of significance to anything that happened in her petty, vacuous life - so she let out a girlish squeal of delight when Ed called from the other room, "He's on line 1!"

Daffy snatched up the receiver and delivered a stream of joyful nonsense before noticing she wasn't connected. Punching the button for the line, she could finally say, "Frito, is that you!?"

"Sure is, Slag!" came the flamboyant voice of Franky. "Wanna come out for dinner? I am in some fabulous Manhattan digs!"

"Oh, of course Franky!" Daffy said.

So she travelled to a hotel in New York. What, you're still expecting real transitions?

Daffy met her long lost - friend? acquaintance? awkward romantic interest? - in a fabulous suite in one of New York's most expensive hotels. Truly the mark of a Great Man with Great Things that he could potentially stick in Daffy.

But now we're getting ahead of ourselves...

"Wuttup, Slag?" he greeted as Daffy entered the suite.

"Oh Frito!" she exclaimed because that's an exclamation point. "I heard about your mine. Clearly it's a smear campaign by those dirty looters and -"

"Oh I'm not sweating over that," Franky said, sauntering across to the well stocked bar. "What's your poison? Don't be shy, this and more is all paid for."

"Oh, I'll have whatever you're having."

"Cosmo it is!"

No, she didn't get it.

As he mixed the drink, Franky continued, "I've got some killer plans lined up, Slag. Just killer! You should really think about ditching that ho-hum railroad and joining me."

Daffy was torn - leave Braggart Big Damn Rail? It was her life! Or it was the only thing in her atomized life she could point to as self-validating. That and Franky.

She sunk into a luxurious couch - because luxury indicates intrinsic worth - "I could never do that. Even having to fight Tim to get anything Great done it's all I've ever wanted..." she let the "Besides you!" hang unspoken, hoping Franky would get the hint.

"Sweety, you work too hard," Franky said obliviously as he handed her the fruity drink. "Take a holiday! Take several!"

"But if I don't have the railroad, what's my purpose?" Daffy asked, a leading question.

And it worked. "You don't need all that, Daffs. You're awesome just the way you are!"

That's why Daffy felt such fondness for Franky - his constant stream of hollow validations. "You're a good friend, Frito," she said, the "And more?" hopefully implied as always.

"Well, just so you know you can drop that anytime and come find me. I don't expect it'll be hard."

And it wasn't. Because after the abrupt end of that scene, d'Ano was all over the gossip pages for some time afterwards - since time in this ridiculous tale is handled so clumsily. Just go with it. Daffy read article after article about the flamboyant hedonism now indulged by d'Ano on his roivate yacht in international waters, stories of cocaine and sodomy so absurd one would think they were concieved in the feverish mind of a narcissistic dweeb with no friends.

"It's a trick," Daffy said to no one who cared. "Franky's playing a trick. He isn't really a playboy squandering his family fortune, he just wants everyone to think he is!"

Keep telling yourself that, Daffs...

Seriously, nothing fucking happened in this chapter! You can't have character development when your characters are just mouthpieces for two-dimensional moralizing!

Chapter 4

Daffy stared at the building before her, wondering at the great motive power needed to keep it unmoving. Not sure if that's "motive" in the sense of human desire or "motive" in the sense of motorized energy to produce movement. For an unmoving building... It all makes a sort of sense if you're an idiot.

She'd just returned from a train car factory not important enough to warrant a joke name where she'd spent the better part of two hours with the executive. Not that she remembered much from the two hours. He'd been saying something that didn't answer the questions she didn't bother to ask. The one moment that stuck out her memory was when they'd passed some rotting piece of machinery. At that point she'd made up her mind to hate both the factory and the executive because only their lack of will could account for the condition of this particular machine. Because in Daffy's view of the world, entropy doesn't exist.

Back in her office, Daffy found her staff had left for the day - except for Edguy Dithers, as always. She made a mental note to harangue the rest of her underlings for their blatant lack of will-to-please-her.

Dithers was in poor spirits. "McNam quit!" he wailed, looking up at Daffy like a child that just discovered Santa Clause was both a fraud and passed out drunk under the Christmas tree again.

"What's that?" Daffy asked, being too preoccupied with herself to really hear him.

"McNam, our contractor," Dithers explained. "He just up and quit!"

"But he can't do that!" protested Daffy. "I need him for the Rio Norte line!"

Dithers just looked at her with that pathetic quality of his - what she'd seen in him that one time she hit his pet turtle with a croquet mallet. At least this time he was upset over something important...

Daffy was beside herself with grief. First broken machines and now this? It was turning into one rotten day. The sort of day when she needed buildings, needed to look at their great unmoving motives and such, thrusting deep into the sky...

"Uh, Daffy?"

She'd been staring off into space again. "Never interrupt me, Ed!" she snapped.

"Sorry but... you weren't actually doing anything."

"I'll tell you if I'm doing something or not!"

And now holy shit elipses!

.    .    .

Yes they are.

Daffy walked the streets, posters and billboards depicting narratively convenient movies and books along with a drunken couple who were clearly having a blast with life but not in the way Daffy would prefer, which made them bad. Daffy didn't want to look at another woman's heaving bosom because it was too debased, too confusing, and too starkly reminded her of the fact she wasn't getting any tonight.

Arriving home, she put on a Dick Holey record to soothe her nerves. It was music of Greatness, very individual Greatness because Holey had not been constrained by such diminishing things as "rhyme" or "meter" or "carrying a goddamn tune." The apartment filled with the sort of caterwauling so celebrated by people without musical skill who still want to feel special on the topic.

Dick holey had once given a performance. Only the one, it had been sold out months in advance and when the curtains rose, Holey stood on stage surrounded by the many instruments he abused in the studio... and did nothing. For three hours. The unscrupulous lice had been so astonished by such a Bold and Great move! "Dick Holey is an overrated, untalented dickhead!" declared every music critic in every publication for about a week before the world collectively lost its patience with the antics of another hack hiding behind "avante garde" and dropped the story forever.

But Daffy knew better. She knew all those lesser people couldn't appreciate the Truth and Beauty of Dick Holey's music. And Holey had known it himself, that's why he hadn't bothered performing. The audience had just paid extortionate ticket fees to see his one and only concert - what did he owe them anyway?

And he'd just up and disappeared not much long after that. No more Dick, no more concertos... except that tune Daffy could've sworn she heard in the first chapter.

Putting it out of her mind - an exceptionally easy task! - Daffy opened up a newspaper. And promptly threw it across the room like a spaz. Why would she do such a thing?

Because emblazoned across the cover which she hadn't noticed until just now despite it sitting out for quite some time was the face of Francisco Domingo Carlo Banana Fana bo Binko d'Ano The Third!

Picking it up again, Daffy read that Franky was up in New York this week. Some high society type was suing or counter-suing for divorce because she claimed they'd been having affair. Why the hell would anyone want to travel across the country to bear witness to that!?

That's just what the reporter had asked d'Ano, who answered, "Honey, I'm just here to watch the fireworks! Want some popcorn?"

Daffy found that sort of childish frivolity so very admirable. It's what had drawn her to Franky so many years ago in the first place... That and the desired qualities she projected onto him because she lacked the social awareness to read people properly.

It was one of the many things Tim was considering about his sister the following morning - oh hey, a real transition!

Tim Braggart sat in his apartment, too tired to do anything because he'd been too worried to properly sleep. After Daffy had slipped into one of her characteristic nombrilismeRearend deal.

To his shock and horror, he found Daffy had not only sealed the deal from every legal angle - she displayed annoying savant-like skill at causing these problems - but also that the Mexican government had "nationalized" the Sanspantalons line.

Talk about a bad joke - nationalized! The Great Recession had been global after all, and some countries were less ruled by governments these days than by whoever could buy off the most police and army officers... like d'Ano. Tim couldn't shake the irrational suspicion Daffy had conspired with him to get rid of something she'd always hated for seemingly no reason.

Tim had a meeting with the board that day. Not just to determine how they would recover the proprietary electric technology - being much too early in development to be released to the general market - but also how to handle Daffy. Tim found it more and more difficult to cover for Daffy's blunders and a few on the board were pressing to have her removed outright.

Rationally, it was the correct thing to do. Ethically, Tim just couldn't justify throwing his own sister under the bus in such a way...

Herman Doyle was waiting to meet Tim Braggart when he arrived later. Yes, we're again dispensing with proper transitions.

"Jesus, you look like hammered shit!" exclaimed Doyle.

"Good to see you too," Tim said. "I would ask why but I think I already know..."

Doyle looked away, embarrassed. "Just heard there was gonna be a vote on your sister today -"

"I'm not mad at you, Herman," Tim explained patiently. "But whoever leaked that is gonna have Holy Hell to pay."

Doyle didn't have anything to say to that. He couldn't remember ever having seen Tim Braggart angry.

Tim didn't add anything else, just entered the office and began the long elevator ride to his own office. Herman Doyle, upon further consideration, did not follow.

The board meeting proved to be a messy affair, more so than Tim had expected. Three hours of back and forth - "She's a Braggart and has every right to direct this company!" "She has no right to crash everything for the rest of us!" "How does someone end up a co-CEO anyway!?"

The pro-Daffy camp offered weak arguments, all of them reliant on the stipulations of the Old Man's will. The anti-Daffy camp countered that she'd been the cause of every major loss over the past seven years. Which was absolutely true. Tim, as reluctant leader of the few moderates, found himself counseling not to keep Daffy in her position but rather not to reprimand her too harshly.

"She is still a part of this company," Tim argued, though with little conviction.

"And what if she destroys this company?"

"Have you seen the press release for this 'Spankmeum' crap? 'A Spankmeum toilet seat is the least icy to the posterior on a brisk morning.' Who even thinks of things like that!?"

And on and on. When the vote finally came, it split down the middle between leaving Daffy in her place or ejecting her immediately. Tim, the future of the company weighing heavily on his mind, found himself casting a vote in his sister's favor. He could feel new grudges forming among the board, against each other and against him in particular...

The Sanspantalons matter was a little easier to resolve. Thanks to Braggart Big Damn Rail's good relations with both Federal regulators and Congress, they were getting unprecedented assistance form the State Department not only to recover their property but to also ensure the financial security of their Mexican employees. Tim would've liked to press for some means of getting them across the border, get them proper jobs and green cards, but some things were sadly outside the range of possibilities.

Elsewhere in the sprawling Braggart offices, Daffy went about her usual bullshit in total obliviousness to the difficulties she was causing for everyone else. Not that she would care of course - what were the pragmatic concerns of others when measured against the Great and Bold daydreams of Daffy Braggart?

Well, sometimes the plot interrupted her... She learned that a certain regulation she didn't entire;y understand had just gone into effect - and shut down a rival railroad. While usually Daffy would cackle with glee at the thought of a competitor closing their operations, she remembered this one as a man with a square jaw and angular crotch, so she dropped what little she was actually doing in the office to run off and see him.

I think I got a defective printing because this is seriously how bad the transitions are...

Daffy arrived in the office of Fingo-Dingo Rail's owner Danny Conman, a man she'd looked up to for years because of his brilliance at managing a railroad. Sure he didn't know the first thing about history, science, math, or ethics but those trains of his were always so shiny - he had to be doing something right!

Until this latest regulation. Suddenly it was against the rules to run a train without routine maintenance! Did those lice in DC think Great Folk like Daffy and Danny were made of money!? Sure, a few Fingo-Dingo trains had derailed and burst into flames but Danny Conman had made some record profits!

"Dan, you've got to fight this!" Daffy declared as she burst into his office.

Conman was in the process of shredding incriminating documents and stuffing cash into a suitcase. "Who the fuck are you and how did you get past security!?"

"Daffy Braggart!" she declared, taking a moment to pose. "Co-CEO of Braggart Big Damn Rail and I'm here to help you fight this -"

"Waitaminute, you're from Braggart Big Damn Rail? The bastards who took my Rio Norte line?"

Daffy paused in mid-monologue. She'd forgotten all about that... "Uh, er, that's different. Somehow."

Conartist shook his head. "Fuck it. That's your albatross now."

The wheels slowly turned in Daffy's head. That was how they'd acquired Rio Norte in the first place, government redistribution of the Fingo-Dingo lines. Which made Daffy one of the looters! Oh no!

"Unclean! Unclean!" Daffy wailed, fleeing from the office.

Danny stared after her. "Man, bitches be crazy," he said to himself. Making one last look around, he snatched up the suitcase full of the profits he'd made from rampant downsizing and murdering his own company. As he fished a bottle of Cialis out of his desk, he said, "Thailand here I come!"

Chapter 3

The room resembled a cellar - low-cielinged and somewhat dank. It sat atop the roof of a skyscraper. Within were four men in red leather chairs at a wide table.

"What jackass designed this place anyway?" asked Doyle. "I feel like I'm in a urethra!"

"Braggart Senior went a bit eccentric in his later years," conceded Tim Braggart. "I've been trying to have this place renovated - or just walled off - but Daffy really does have equal say in every single company decision. And she seems to like it."

"No offense Tim," Doyle said, "but that sister of yours is a goddamn liability in every sense."

"I do take take offense," Time replied stiffly. "Daffy and I may not get along some times - or most times - but she's still blood. Never forget that."

Also at the table were Saul Snarkin and Mister Not Appearing In This Parody. "Well, she is why we're all here," said Snarkin. "Okay, so now I have a place in the narrative?"

Yes you do. And please stop breaking the fourth wall.

"Right, the metals situation," Tim said. "I don't mind telling you all, I'm very uncomfortable with Daffy's insistence on shifting all of Braggart Big Damn Rail's rails over to this untested alloy, this - What's it called again?"

"'Spankmeum,'" Snarkin said with visible discomfort. "And please, Tim - please! - don't make me explain that word..."

"Is it at least safe?" Tim asked. "That's what I'd like to know. My trains will be running on it and all, I think I have a right to know some technical details."

"Spank still won't release it for third-party testing," Saul explained. "He says other people 'wouldn't understand.'"

"What is he, a fucking twelve-year-old!?" demanded Doyle. "Tim, I'm sorry for overstepping before but I have to say again - and I say this as your friend - you're sister's inviting disaster!"

"And it won't be the first time," Tim explained evenly. "She put the company through much worse and we're still standing."

"Luck don't always last..." Doyle muttered to himself.

"Saul, is there anything you can do?" Tim asked, pointedly ignoring Doyle. "Any way your friends in Washington can... I hate to say this..."

"They can't put the brakes on this," Snarkin explained glumly. "Rearend's not taking his ore from the government surplus anymore. At least not for this."

"Then how the hell is he making it?" Doyle asked. "Iron veins don't just grow back overnight - and everything not already owned by the Feds or, er..."

"Or you?" prompted Tim Braggart, just a little judgementally.

"Or me, right," conceded Doyle. "Everything else was sold off to the Saudi's during that Shrub guy's term. Little pssiant traitor, auctioning off the US of A while no one was lookin' -"

"Herman," said Tim, using Doyle's first name for the first time in the narrative, "as much as I enjoy your rants, it doesn't really resolve this situation."

Rearend building a "wonder metal" that prompted one to wonder if it even worked... Daffy tying Braggart Big Damn Rail to this "Spankmeum" in flagrant disregard of the board and her own brother... And all in a dicey economic environment. They'd all just survived the last Great Recession and now these people were coming in and risking everything over what struck Tim and the author as some overblown ego trip.

"At least you still have your interest in the Sanspantalons mine," Snarkin offered.

"That doesn't really cheer me up, " said Tim. "The numbers coming out of there... I don't know. It's just fishy that this place that's been occupied for over half a century could still have so much copper. The Mexican government never bothers to investigate this sort of thing, they're all too busy fighting the Zetas."

"Hey, that reminds me!" broke in Doyle. "I was down on your Sanspantolons line recently and it was the weirdest damn thing but the train was near silent."

Tim brightened for the first time that evening, "Oh, that's our new electric model! No oil, no emissions, and about thirty-three percent faster."

"That's some hot shit!" declared Doyle.

"Thanks... I think," replied Tim. "It's not in full production yet but I've been putting together a five-year plan with the board to go all electric with our trains. It'll bring down our maintenance and fuel coasts exponentially." Then, losing a little of this good mood, "If Daffy doesn't run us into the ground first."

The other men nodded in solidarity. A waiter - because this was apparently a restaurant - brought them drinks.

"Well, here's to family," offered Doyle, raising his highball. "Can't live with 'em, can't kill 'em."
Snarking and Braggart raised their drinks as well - a mojito and club soda respectively.

"I gotta say, Tim," Doyle said after sipping his drink, "I can't believe you never hit the sauce, dealing with that sister of yours."

"Our father was a pretty serious alcoholic," explained Tim. "I don't ever want to go down that road - especially since that's probably why he left half the company to Daffy."

The men had a good laugh at that. A small one but in difficult times one takes what one can get.
As they left the building - whether a restaurant or bar or whatever - Braggart stiffly buttoned his coat and said. "I should really go back to the office. Maybe talk some sense into Daffy."

"Best of luck," said Snarkin.

"You'll fuckin' need it," added Doyle.

Tim nodded and began the long walk back to Braggart Big Damn Rail's offices. He liked walking - it felt honest - and it gave him time to think. Tim couldn't help but wonder about his sister Daffy - if she would have devolved into such a brutish, narcissistic freak if only Father had been more affectionate. He'd doted on her, but only in the most disconnected and material sense. Or maybe not even any parent's love could've saved Daffy from what she became. A psychological mystery that ached Tim to his core.

And now for a different scene!
　
Even as little girl, Daffy Braggart knew - just knew! - that one day she would own a railroad herself. Her father's to be exact. She'd read his will. "Someday, this shall all be mine!" she'd declare, standing on the tracks and shaking her little fist. Then one of her many high-priced caretakers would have to snatch her out of the way of an oncoming train because she also believed at the time she could stop them with her mind. She'd mostly given up on that part.

She had always liked the railroad and not just because she could order everyone around, being the boss's daughter and all. No, she'd liked it for the much higher and sublime aspect of how everyone had to do what she said. As she grew, she drew closer to the mighty trains thundering through tunnels, going chugg-chugga-chugga and every blast of the whistle an ejaculation of joy! Of, uh, man's progress and stuff. That sorta high-minded philosophizing. The fact that Daffy became fond of having her own private car in her pubescent years is entirely coincidental...

Though not all happy memories. Others, not recognizing how special she was, had said at times "You're a self-absorbed little brat, you know that?" And worst of all, Daddy couldn't always fire people who said such things! No, Daffy had to endure the slings and arrows against her perfect character from these much more limited "teachers" and "professors" and "truant officers" who so clearly just envied her will to claim the spoils promised in Daddy's will.

And claim it she did. The last words her father spoke to her were, "Where the fuck's my vico -" and then there'd been some coughing and wheezing and he'd slumped over. Daffy spent fifteen minutes looking for whatever that "vico" was before calling in a servant to find it for her. Said servant then broke the news to her of Daddy's death.

She was heart-broken, sure, but now the railroad was hers!

...And Tim's. She'd never understood that. Tim had no will and he was always fussing with boring stuff like "finances" and "administration." She suspected he didn't even properly love trains!

Such heresies might be exceptable though - if Tim and the board hadn't tried to block her every endever! She knewknew what was right for it. If given a free hand, she would build rails all the way to the stars. Literally - that was one of her proposals but it was shot down over such fussy, cowardly excuses as "impossibly expensive" and "physics doesn't even work that way."

So she'd been relegated to the background for so very long, ver voice ignored and her great ideas dismissed by clearly weaker intellects. How she had seethed and cursed them until the fateful day she encountered another so like herself in inherent greatness - Francisco Domingo Carlo Banana Fana bo Binko d'Ano The Third! Franky for short.

Daffy first met him when Braggart Big Damn Rail acquired the Sanspantolons line. It ran through the territory owned by the d'Ano family, right by their old copper mine and Tim had suggested someone go down there for a meet and greet. Daffy naturally leapt at the chance and was halfway to the d'Ano estate before anyone could tell her about the unanimous board decision she be kept home so as "not to fuck anything up this time" as it said under the company letterhead.

The d'Ano estate rested on a hill not too far from the mine and high above the fecund slums of its workers. Daffy had fretted when she saw such squaler but brightened up when brought into the shiny expanse of Franky's home. He'd greeted her in a gold trimmed suit because gold is important. They'd runk themselves silly that night, bonding over their shared rightness in all things - such as the necessity of Great Individuals with Great Ideas and the inherent Greatness of shiny things.

So the Sanspantolons deal had gone swimmingly and now Braggart Big Damn Rail owned substantial stock in the d'Ano mine - though Tim continually expressed reservations. He'd met Franky of course, he should've been more confident! All the reports showed considerable stores of copper were being extracted from the mine, even if it did seem to go missing quite often in transit. "That's just Mexico, " Franky had reassured them.

And then Tim had to go and run his ridiculous science experiment along the Sanspantolons line! His precious electric train with it's "low carbon footrpint" and "low maintenance costs" and "unrivaled dependability." And it just hummed along like a giant roomba! How could it even be considered a proper train without a steam whistle?

Well, she'd show Tim. And the board too! She'd reasoned out a fantastic rebirth of the Rio Norte line, all thanks to Spank Rearend's new alloy. Now there was a Great Idea Man. He'd understood Daffy's own Greatness and promised her the first batch of Spankmeum for her rail. She was lost in thought of how Great all this combined Greatness would be when her brother came into her office.

"Daffy," he said carefully. "I'd like to talk to you some more about this deal with Rearend."
She didn't look at him. She was too busy admiring the huge train time-table that dominated the wall of her office.

"I'm still not comfortable with this. The board's not comfortable. And I'm not sure who leaked this to our engineers but they sure as hell aren't comfortable."

"I am not concerned with the comfort of others," Daffy declared.

"But you are concerned with the company, aren't you?" pressed Tim. "Our company?"

She glowered at him. He'd struck a nerve and he knew it. Tim undertsood his sister felt resentful at sharing the family business. Why he didn't know but it had certainly caused conflict in the past.

"I let you play with that electric train in Mexico," she said in a huff. "So I'd say it's my turn to make a decision."

"Play with? Daffy, that prototype could revolutinize our whole industry!"

"It's dumb," Daffy flatly declared.

"And you thought Brave New World was dumb because you couldn't finish it," Tim replied, more sharply than he'd intended. He knew better than anyone how insecure Daffy was of her own intellectual capabilities and he wanted to kick himself for stooping so low.

She didn't rise to it though. Instead, she absently mused, "I suppose we could use it to run some of the d'Ano copper."

"If it ever gets delivered..."

"What?"

Tim, ever the patient brother, tried to explain, "That's another thing. I know you're fond of Mister d'Ano -"

"Franky and I haven't spoken in years!"

"...Right. But I'm really starting to wonder about his business. It's doing well on paper but half of that is insurance for 'stolen' shipments."

"Well, Mexicans don't want to work," Daffy said.

"Stealing a couple tons of copper sounds like plenty of work," Tim replied. "But that's just it - I have my doubts that copper was even there to steal in the first place."

Daffy shot him a glance, "What do you mean!?"

"I think, and this is just a theory," Tim said slowly, "but Mister d'Ano might be 'cooking the books' as they say."
Daffy stared at him blankly.

"Falsifying reports?"

Still not getting it.

"...Daffy, he's lying. He's not producing any copper."

Now she was scandalized! "That can't be true! Franky wouldn't do such a thing!"

"Honestly, I always had my suspicions of his operation," Tim explained, settling into a chair opposite Daffy's desk. "And that's all it is now but I've been looking into hiring a PI firm to take a closer look."

Shocked, saddned - and angered - Daffy moved to dismiss Tim's allegations. "Hmph, If he's not reporting everything clearly it must be to throw the looters off when they nationalize his mine!"

Tim couldn't help breaking out in laughter at that. "He owns half of Mexico City, Daf'. I think he's safe."

He had more to say but Daffy couldn't hear him. How could he doubt Franky's clear Greatness? Why, the same way he doubted Daffy's own Greatness at every turn. Not being Great himself, her brother clearly envied the Greatness of others and obsessed over how to bring them down. She was just about to tell him so when she noticed he'd left fifteen minutes ago and she was staring off into space again.

After puttering at her desk - looking busy but mostly rolling over how she totally would've told off Tim earlier - Daffy left the offices of Braggart Big Damn Rail, pausing by the office of Edguy Dithers just long enough to get him flashing her that dopey grin.

She liked Edguy. He knew his place.

Outside, she passed the huge bronze statue of the company founder - Big Bob Braggart. She'd never met him of course, he'd been long dead by the time she was born into the Braggart family, but she couldn't help feeling they were kindred spirits. That Big Bob had been the sort of Great Man who builds railroads with underpaid immigrants. That he put his Great Ideas into practice without any stupid brothers getting in the way of his Greatness. That he - ooh, a penny!

Daffy also stopped in her favorite convenience store for a pack of smokes. She liked the feel of slumming and paying less. She also really liked smoking because it made her look cool. Sure, all those government scientists said it was bad for you but what did scientists know anyway?

"Ring this up, peon," she said to the clerk.

"Yesss, Misss Daffy..." the clerk, the same stooped and oily man who alwasy worked this store replied. "Ohh, such a good choiccce... I jussst love cccigarattesss... 'Cause of the fire!"

"Yes, it's a perfect symbol of Man's mastery over the elements," Daffy said, oblivious to this guy's creepiness. "And it looks really cool."

Elsewhere - because transitions are hard so fuck 'em - Edguy Dithers ate his dinner in the office break room. He'd stayed late for... Well, to get a look at Dafy of course. Sweet, sweet Daffy...

He sat across from one of the many mechanics who also stayed late, working on the Braggart engines. Dithers had questioned Tim's insistence on such generous over time pay but had to reluctantly admit it paid off. Not all of these workers stayed late but the ones who did put in one hell of an effort.

"Are you as excited about the Rio Norte as I am?" Dithers asked the worker.

The worker scowled. "You mean the one they're laying with that whackadoo metal? I thank Christ I won't be on it!"

Edguy was surprised at this. Did this worker not know it was Daffy's plan? "Well, I'm sure Da - uh, Miss Braggart wouldn't have bought the Spankmeum without good reason."

The worker just scoffed.

"She's really very smart," Edguy protested. "All she thinks about is the railroad. When she's not here she's just at home, listening to records." His eyes glazed over, "A highball in one languid hand, a perfect cigarette in the other, knee cocked just so over the sofa..."

"No offense pal but you're fucking creepy."

Chapter 2

A long, steel-ribbed train thundered through the dusk, panting its steam into the dim light while far in the background - as though this were a movie or something - one would be able to see the great forges and thrusting, uh, stuff of Rearend Metals!

Within the train sat an economist and a reporter not important enough for names. The economist, one of the rare few who could actually do math and wasn't enamored with the stuffed suits of the business world, mused to the reporter, "Why the hell is he converting over to this new metal? It's untested, it's unknown, it could have all the construction applications of aluminum!"

The reporter, another rarity among his breed as he did not feel compelled to repeat the lies of the powerful without commentary, replied, "Because a sucker's born every minute."

The two not-named voices of reason commiserated as such as the train thrust - er, drove through yet another yielding tunnel and out of sight of the narrative which is much more concerned with the hot flashes and oozing money shots of Rearend Metals' nifty new product in the forges. The men working said forges, many of them dedicated and supporting families, are also not worth commentary beyond the window dressing they provide for the impressively industrious picture we paint here of their boss, a very very tall man in a trench coat with a harsh face. Ugly but in a sexy way. Yes, we have come to Spank Rearend!

He stood rigidly, overseeing all with his very deep and important scowl. Occasionally the men doing the real work would look up but he would not look back. They didn't deserve it. No, they were only forging his brilliant new metal. They didn't think of it in the first place!

And Rearend did. He distinctly remembered a cocktail party he'd been at some time ago when he'd declared, "Wouldn't it be awesome to make a metal that could do anything? And was really shiny!?" He'd vomited on a fern not long after that and the rest of the evening was hazy... But not much long after, his extensive R&D team had presented him with a new alloy they'd produced by accident one night when mixing together scrap for the hell of it. Rearend knew that this here was the Great Metal his Great Mind had conceived of after all those highballs.

Because it was shiny. Rearend had gazed upon himself, reflected in its shinyness and declared, "I shall call it... Spankmeum!"

And there below, his peons were butting his Great Big Idea into production. Spankmeum forges as far as the eye could see! Rearend would be grinning like an idiot if he weren't busy looking all somber and important.
His R&D team had protested - as those who lacked vision always do. "Sir, we don't fully understand its properties!"

Well rot them, because Rearend understood. He had consciously decided this new metal, this Spankmeum, would revitalize the flagging Rearend Metals and conscious decisions were more than enough to produce material results. Oh, how those of lesser intellect had been crying that he would fail from day one. How Rearend Metals would collapse any day.

Rearend had shown them! He and he alone - with the help of some generous government subsidies - had put the lowly peasants of this town back to work in his forges and factories - which he'd inherited from his father and grandfather as the metal industry hasn't been known as a place for start-ups in sixty or seventy years. And now, with them doing all the work, he would unleash his Spankmeum across the country!

But poor Spank felt just so tuckered out from being so up in himself. Turning about purposely, he walked out of his poorly set office or factory scene and strode purposely down the sidewalk to his purposeful house with purpose.

But Rearend felt all that purpose perturbed as he reflected - "Oh right! I have a wife!" Not a woman he loved but simply "a wife" as that was just such a conventional and icky sounding word. Why couldn't he have something more like a "lover" or a proper "sub"? Not that his wife didn't do her wifely duties... but Spank couldn't help feeling she didn't appreciate his greatness. None of the common rabble really did. Why, were he do march up to one the many faceless nobodies he found himself among and demand "Look at me!" they probably wouldn't grasp the significance of him, Spank Rearend!

Inside his not so purposeful anymore house, Spank was surprised to meet not just his wife Lily but also his mother, brother Bill, and British author Philip Larkin - what the hell is he doing here!?

"You read that wrong. I'm Paul Larkin."

Well, alright. How 'bout we call you "Snarkin"?

"Fuck you, buddy!"

Snarkin it is.

So - Lily, Bill, Snarkin, and Spank's mother had all been sitting in the living room having a deep philosophical discussion about plumbing when Spank came in to give them something much better to talk about. Himself.

"Dear, we were worried about you," his mother, or maybe Lily said. Spank never good differentiate between concerned womanly voices because women don't really matter.

"Oh, I was just at the factory. Or maybe it's the forge. We were pouring..." and here Spank trailed off, mind too caught up in the image of that hot, molten Spankmeum splattering all over the yielding molds...

"Well you could've called," his mother - he was sure this time - protested. "Could've called, could've called..." she muttered mostly to herself.

"Mom, how did you get out of the home?" Spank demanded.

"She's just visiting, dear," Lily said, trying to calm him. "So is Saul," because that's Snarkin's first name now.

"Really?" asked Rearend with genuinely hurt surprise. "You're not here for anything else?"

"Nope. Just came buy to say 'hello' to everyone," Snarking replied. "And I don't care for that name."

Shush.

Rearend felt ill. The grand day of his grand new project and none of these people - who didn't really matter that much to him of course, that would be irrational and non-individualy - they didn't seem to care.

It put him in a funk, which Lily tried to draw him out of - "Have you eaten? I'm so sorry but you missed dinner here."
And she was sorry. Lily tried to be a good and devoted wife, even doing the chores and the cooking so Spank wouldn't have to "soil their domicile" as he put it with hired help. Which they could afford in spades.

"I wasn't hungry," Spank replied. Or maybe lied - no, martinis didn't count as a dinner, even if he'd had enough to constitute one in volume.

"You spend an awful lot of time at the factory," Bill said.

"Because I like it!"

"I'd like just watching other people work too," Bill retorted.

Fighting anger, Rearend told himself that this was Bill's form of solicit... solicin... of being a jerk-face!. They were all trying to show concern for him but concern is for the weak and Spank Rearend wasn't weak!

But he wished they'd ask him something important - like how fantastic was his fantastic new Spankmeum? Couldn't they look past their petty concerns and focus on his achievement?

"You could have called," his mother continued to harp. "You could have texted. Hell, even I know how to do that! Then you wouldn't have missed Mrs. Beeker. She's been running a metal-working class at the local middle school and so wanted to talk to you, get you to come around and talk to her kids. They all really look up to you for some reason."

Spank scowled - because scowls are sexy! - and pondered what his mother said. A woman doing metalwork? Absurd! "Well I'm sorry I missed her," he said without a shred of sincerity.

"No you're not," his mother grumbled. "You're never sorry about anything. I bet you're not even sorry your own wife had to plan everything for the tenth on her own."

"Tenth? Tenth of what?" demanded Rearend. Something that involved him? Finally, a topic that mattered!

"It's nothing, really," Lily protested. "I didn't want to bother him with it because I know he's only concerned about business and it's non-commercial."

"Non-commercial? Than what's the point?"

"...It's our anniversary," Lily said softly.

Now this, Spank suspected, was certainly some sort of guilt trip. She clearly wanted more shiny baubles and hoped to shame him into providing them in front of others. She assumed the repressive social norms of marriage and how human beings show affection to each other would force him into it! Well, he didn't feel shame. He didn't feel anything, except a little gas, but still produced something for her from his pocket. "Here! I made you a chain! Happy annunservicey!"

"Anniversary..."

"That too!"

As she accepted the shiny chain - shiny because it was made with fantastic Spankmeum - Lily softly asked, "Is... Is this for later?"

"Of course."

Her shoulders slumping, her eyes dropping to the floor, Lily said with great resignation, "I'll get out the KY and the leather chaps."

"Oh, that's just nasty!"

Shut up, Snarkin.
　
Pleased with himself - as usual - Rearend took off his caught and sat down by the fire place some ways off. He mused how they could all be so blind to what made him great, why they should acknowledge his greatness, and caught bits of their conversation because it directly involved him.

"I can't believe I ever crapped that out."

"Mother! Please!" Lily had a surprisingly good relationship with her mother-in-law. Misery loves company afterall and loving Spank Rearend was a misery on both a physical and emotional scaleEmotionally, he was closed off and dense to her concerns and affections.

Physically, he usually ignored the safe word...

Snarkin left the group to approach Spank. "I have word from your man in Washington," he said. "So wait, I did come for a reason?"

Seems so...

"And what does my man say?" asked Spank.

"That you're not very popular at the moment," Snarkin explained. "It's this new alloy of yours, it's a total unkown and you know how the Pentagon feels about unknowns when it comes to their contracts."

"I'm not doing this to be popular," Spank said petulantly. A transparent lie.

"Sure, right, but you are doing it to make money?" Snarkin asked.

"I'm doing it for the principle of being able to make money!" Rearend declared self-righteously.

"What the hell does that even mean!?"

"Something entirely different from what you said!"

Bill interrupted them, "I hate to bring this up but unlike Saul here, I know perfectly well that I came here for a reason."
Straightening up all important like, Rearend replied, "Of course you did."

"Oh, so you remember your promise?"

"...Promise?"

"Of your donation to the Prosperity Foundation?"

Spank stared at his brother dumbly.

"Spank, I asked you months ago if you wanted to chip in anything, get a nice tax write-off, and you said 'sure!' You haven't given me anything though. Were you just drunk then?"

Spank was flabbergasted! How dare his brother demand money he'd promised to pay! "Well, I only said that to make you happy."

"So... That means you were drunk and didn't mean it?"

"I wanted to make you happy," insisted Rearend. "I don't care who it goes to."

"Yeah, I remember you said the same thing back when I was..." Bill let his past drug abuse and general misdeeds linger. When he'd been a hopeless junkie, his brother had happily lended him money. Now that he was clean and running one of the biggest private philanthropies in the world he got the damn run-around. "So just so we're clear, you don't feel like donating anything? Because I'm fine either way?"

Rising from his seat, exhausted at dealing with all these lesser intellects. He said ponderously, "I want to help you Bill, if only you could help yourself. I honestly don't know what you're getting at because you clearly don't desire it as strongly as I desire my metals." And he left them there, in the wake of his greatness.

"Your brother's kind of a dickweed," Snarkin said once Rearend was out of earshot.

"You don't know the half of it!" siad Rearend's mother. "Bill, remember when I first started giving him an allowance? The ungrateful little brat said he didn't owe me anything for it! I cut him off when he wouldn't take the trash out, just mucked around with his Play-Doh, and he copped an atitude about how I was opressing his expression or some nonsense!"

While those three commiserated on what an overblown prick Spank Rearend really was, Lily sat silent. Oh, they didn't know Spank as well as she did. She knew he was one of those strong personalities, always working - though how was never really clear in Spank's case. He mostly gave long drunken speeches to his employees. But Lily knew he wasn't the horrible things they were calling him. Really.

And she knew, from how upset Spank Rearend had seemed when he walked out, that tonight was going to sting...