A job offer
Mac needed my services, and I was happy to oblige.
When Mac Sitko emailed me to schedule a Zoom call for exactly midnight on Monday night, I wasn’t all that surprised: it wasn’t unusual for the Polish troublemaker to wake me in the dead of night, panting, to ask me about trivial matters, or to talk about how guilty he felt toward this or that person, often for no good reason. Besides, this time he’d given me a few hours’ notice, which allowed me to prepare properly: I’d gone to the supermarket and picked up a couple of nice pints of craft beer, chilled, and had chosen the right cigarettes. Smoking only a few cigarettes a year (at most one every two months), i can draw from my collection of brands no longer on the market: I was torn between Amadis and Black Death, but obviously I went for the former.
Anyway, after strategically placing my glass, ashtray, and webcam, the moment to connect arrived. The contrast between the two Zoom windows couldn’t have been more striking: in the light of my lamp, with my cheap clothes, I looked like a night watchman on the verge of falling asleep. The professional LED lights Mac uses to floodlight his collection of metal sculptures (which he proudly refers to as “my garden”) on the other hand, made it seem like broad daylight where he was, to the point that we looked like we were in two different time zones.
After the initial pleasantries, Mac quickly got to the point: he wanted to propose that I work with him on a Gonzo journalism publication, the “NOPE Journal.” I didn’t have the heart to tell him that I found the name absolutely ridiculous, nothing I could even dare to approve. But the thing was, the proposal genuinely interested me, so I gladly accepted.
The very moment I embraced the proposal, Mac’s expression changed radically. He leaned closer to the webcam, tilting his head slightly. His expression reminded me of Cain, or rather, the virtual projection of Cain, the villain from RoboCop 2: a criminal chosen to be turned into a cyborg precisely because of his narcissism, which he displays on screen a second before killing Angie.
“You accept just like that?”
That was his question, to which I didn’t reply. I wanted to keep my cards close for a few more minutes, so he leaned back in his chair and wrapped it up: “Didrik, this will be about writing about going to the shitter as if you were going to Jerusalem, you realize that?” And grinding his teeth, he reached out to end the video call with his mouse.
I had a restless night. The example he’d given was utterly silly, but paired with the seriousness of his expression caused a deep cognitive dissonance in me. Was that exactly the effect he wanted to achieve? I usually trusted Mac’s instincts; there had to be more to that sentence. I started thinking: the shitter. Sure, when someone writes something, they think about writing about distant lands, dragons, beautiful exotic women, not the shitter.
One seeks to open perspectives, not to close them, like going to the confinment of the shitter.
I got up, ran to grab some notebooks, and started jotting down notes. Man naturally seeks to expand. To conquer, to possess, to travel. I put on one of those headlamps used for jogging and began feeling the grout lines of the ceramic tile floor. I had understood that somehow the answer had to be there, and I found it.
True strength lies in compressing, not expanding. I stood up, I took off the headlamp and stayed in the dark for a few minutes. Exactly three cars passed, and in the distance I heard a police car speeding somewhere in the dark of night.
Then I went to the window and discovered that everything I needed was right there, within reach.
I had to discover profound and intimate truths within small spaces. I had to attain knowledge without crossing the threshold of home. And it couldn’t be boring, repetitive work, no, quite the opposite: exotic journeys, fucking vampires, mass murders, they had to be sealed back up and investigated with surgical precision, right there, on the doormat.
So I went to the window. I hesitated for a moment before reaching it. Would I be able to master such a vantage point? Would I disappoint Mac? Christ Almighty, I thought, there were so many variables, but no, I had to go on. And once I reached the window, I found my sacred fire. I understood exactly that a hostile territory awaited to be mastered with my analytical tools.
I grabbed a chair; it was almost dawn. I chose a comfortable position, a Moleskine, and a Pilot rollerball pen, my favorite.
I would spend the entire next day observing my neighbor and send my notes to Mac.
I had to do what needed to be done.
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Just a couple of guys going crazy together.
Love your slippers. Rad. Bold.