Dick by Law (11 page)

 

*****

Chapter 2
5

Two Days Later

Belle
Mere
, P
ennsylvania

At first, Simon had no idea
that
the
very first
lecture
of his tour
was going to
turn into
a tra
in wreck. As he stood on
stage in front of seven-hundred-some students
at Belle Mere College
, he had no clue
he was racing toward a pivotal moment.

He didn't realize he was heading for the moment when everything
would
start to go wrong for him
.

Oblivious to the impending
crash
, Simon paced the stage and savored his latest leap into the spotlight. He felt like a star as he gazed out at the sea of
responsive
young faces
, all in their late teens or early twenties
. It
was
like a rock concert after all
, at least a little...at least to him.
Lecturing, even at a small
rural
school like Belle Mere,
barely an hour away from Melville,
was a thrill.

Ishi felt the same way. Though she wasn't there
now
because she had
a sketch artist gig
in court, she'd sent him off like a real rock star that morning.

He felt like he could do no wrong.

"...and that's why I think
we need the dick registration act." As Simon said it,
the crowd erupted in
cheers and
applause.
"We need to stop the dicks from
terrorizing
us without fear of
consequence
. We need to
restore
civility
to
civilization
." The crowd clapped louder
. "We need to
expose
the face of the
enemy
."
With that, every person in the audience shot from their seats to join the standing ovation.

Almost
every person joined the ovation, that is.

At first, Simon was too busy basking in the
love fest
to notice anyone
breaking from the herd.
H
e didn't spot the
three guys and one girl
moving toward the stage, two from each of the front corners of the audience.

He didn't notice them until they were right in front of the stage, and by then it was too late.

Looking down
, Simon saw the two guys to the right of him first
. They both wore
sunglasses,
white
ball caps
,
and zippered red track suits with
white
piping...and they both had big pot bellies. In fact, the other two breakaways had the same kind of bellies, along with i
dentical caps
, sunglasses,
and track suits. Simon's first thought was that they were part of some kind of sports team.

But he changed his mind when he saw the one guy's belly move. It didn't just shift a little as he walked, it
squirmed.
And it
kept
squirming as Simon watched.

A
larms
went off
in Simon's head,
but it was too late. As he stood there, gaping at the guy's squirming belly under the track suit, an unexpected sound filtered over the cheers and applause...the sound of something ripping apart.

The sound was coming from directly above him.

When the ripping noise crackled overhead, Simon looked straight up. Squinting into the lighting grid, he saw what looked like a huge burlap
sack
hanging among the rafters. A
thin
seam opened up along the bottom of the
sack
as Simon watched, and some kind of tiny particles trickle
d
out.

The particles pattered onto the stage around him like sand. Simon shielded his eyes
, quickly realizing he
had to
get away
...but the burlap sack let go before he could
take a step
.
He
barely managed to duck as the sackful of s
andy
stuff dumped over him from above, falling in a great, dusty cascade.

The
particles stung as they
pelted
his head, neck, and shoulders.
He kept his eyes pinched tightly shut and held his breath against the
acrid
dust, but he still swallowed enough that it made him choke.

Then
, with a last rattling trickle, the
worst of the shower
was over. Coughing and gagging, Simon opened his eyes...and saw
that
the red-track-suited foursome were standing on the stage in front of him.

They all took
off their ball caps
at once.
Smoothly, they turned each cap inside-out, exposing a flesh-colored lining.
When t
hey stretched out the lining, extending it to its full height of three feet
,
Simon could see what the lining was supposed to look like.

The ball caps had become
penis hats
. When the foursome put them back on, they had giant
dicks
on their heads.

And that wasn't the end of it. Next, the four unzipped the tops of their track suit
s, exposing identical
black
t-shirts
with the word "DICK" in white letters across the chest.

One of the guys--short and stocky, with shaggy black hair
and a beard
--leaned down and grabbed the microphone
from the floor
, wh
ere it
had fallen during the shower of sand. Straightening, he turned with the mic in his hands and shouted at the audience.

"I am a
dick
!" said the guy. "
Deal
with it!"

The audience was mostly
stunned and
silent...
and then there were some boos. The guy with the mic laughed and let out a shrill war whoop.

"Better to be a
dick
than a
pussy
!" The guy whipped around and pointed at Simon. "
If you're a
pussy
like
him
, all you
get
outta life is
cat litter
."

Simon looked at the pile of particles around him. So
that's
what it was.
They'd dumped
cat litter
on him.

"
Dicks
will
never
die!" said the guy with the mic. His three partners cheered and pumped
their
fists in the air. "We
rule
the fuckin'
world
."

The boos in the audience grew louder and more widespread.
It was then that
Simon saw
five
security guards burst through the doors at the rear of the auditorium.

"And the harder you try to get us to
register
," said the
head
dick, "the
harder
we're gonna make life for all you
pussies
!"

With that, the
head
dick unzipped his track suit further, reached into his big belly...and pulled out a
cat
. A live
cat
.

The other three dicks did the same, and then they all hoisted their cats overhead.

"Down with
pussies!
" The four of them said it in unison. "Up with
dicks!
"

Then, they turned and threw the cats at Simon. He jumped back, but two still hit him, yowling as they bounced off and landed in the litter pile.

"You pussies
deserve
each other!" said
Head D
ick.

"Mee-owww!" said the other three dicks.

"We represent P.U.D.--the People's Union of Dicks!" Head Dick swept an index finger across the crowd. "And we're putting you
pussies
on
notice
!
Fuck
your dick registration act! Fuck
D.I.L.L.
! Don't fuck with us
dicks
if you know what's
good
for you!"

By now, the security guards were running down the aisles. Simon heard the wail of approaching sirens.

But
the
Head Dick wasn't done yet. "
And remember to watch
Dick Life
, premiering Sunday on Testosterone TV! Now
fuck off,
you
pussies!
"

With that, he and the other three dicks split up and ran off the stage
, whooping
.
The five s
ecurity
guards
split up too and
charged after them
, one guard per
dick except for the Head Dick, who got two.

That left Simon standing
onstage
in a pile of cat litter, staring out at the crowd. One question spun in his brain like a weather vane in a hurricane
, whirling at such high speed it turned invisible to the naked eye.

What do I do now?

Here's an idea
. Let's
at least mak
e half an effort to hold on to the tiniest
shred of dignity.

Simon stepped forward and bent down to pick up the mic where
the
Head Dick had dropped it.
Taking a deep breath
, he lifted the mic to his lips
, looked out over the audience,
and spoke.

"Okay, gang." Simon smirked.
He hoped no one would notice that he was shaking.
"I think we know where to start our
dick list
."

To his relief, the crowd roared with laughter. Maybe, he thought,
they might think it had all been part of the act. Maybe
he could still get away
with
ou
t looking like a completely humiliated moron.
Maybe, the whole
bizarre scene would still play out in his favor somehow.

He just had to hope for the best
.

 

*****

Chapter 2
6

One Week Later

Melville
, Pennsylvania

It had been a week since the disastrous lecture at Belle Mere. Simon was on the sofa
in his living room, working on his laptop, when the latest package arrived.

Josie dropped the big, colorful
bag
on the living room floor with a thud.
"
Should I
put it with the others
, Boss?
"
She wiped her hands on her faded denim shirt, then cracked her knuckles.

Simon glanced at the huge bag
on the floor
and sighed. An image of an orange-furred tabby cat stared back at him
from the front of the package
.

How many bags like this had he gotten in the week since Belle Mere?
One
hundred?
Two hundred?
How many
more
bags were the dicks going to send him?

How many more bags of
cat litter
would they send to his house before the joke ran out of steam?

"More donations for the animal shelter!" Simon
waved his hand and tried to laugh off the latest arrival
. "Chuck it in the garage with the rest."

Josie dragged the bag of litter out the front door. "Got a hell of a pile out there, Boss! They just keep coming!"

"Thank God we have so many pet-lovin' people in the world," said Simon, though of course the bags of litter weren't
coming from pet lovers at all.

They were
reminders of
P.U.D.'s cat litter stunt at Simon's lecture.
They were messages from dicks.

Some of the bags were scrawled with notes
in thick
black marker--"YOU PUSSY!" or "DICK POWER!" or "PUSSIES SUCK!" Some
were marked with obscene cartoons or
defaced photos of Simon. And then there were the plain plastic garbage bags tossed on Simon's lawn from passing cars, the bags that were loaded with
used
cat litter.

Not that Simon was letting it bother him
...much
.
He was much too busy for that, what with all the
irons he had in the fire.

One minute after Josie dragged out the bag of litter, Chip hauled in another one. "How many times do we have to
tell
these dicks? Send bags of
money
."

"They're as
good
as bags of money," said Simon. "The more they send, the more they raise awareness of
dicks
like
them
. The better our chances of getting
the
dick registration act
passed by
Congress
.
"

"You said it, Sime!" Chip grinned
as he hauled out the sack of litter.
The
word "Dick" was printed in red on the chest of his
bright green t-shirt
, in the middle of a circle with a diagonal line slashed through it.
"We've got it
in
the
bag
already!"

Just then, Ankha trudged in from the kitchen with a phone in each hand
, a tattered black dress draped over her scrawny form,
and a scowl on her face. "Looking for early Christmas gift ideas for me, Simon?" She gave the phones an angry shake. "I've got two words for you:
unlisted
number
."

"No surrender, Ankha!" Simon shook his head and kept typing on the laptop. "We have to keep the lines of communication open
. We can't let the dicks win.
"

"You mean they haven't already?" said Ankha. "Because it sure
feels
like it
when I spend all day
answering one dickheaded
crank call after another
.
"

"
We can't run a charity with an unlisted number," said Simon. "We need to keep up the flow of donations for
In¢entive$
."

"That's just it." Ankha dropped the phones on the sofa beside Simon. "We haven't had a phone donation in
three days.
"

Simon looked up from the laptop...then looked back down and resumed typing. "We need to convert more dicks to donors," he said. "
Tell them
In¢entive$
fired
me
for being a
pussy
, and all donations from now on will go toward junior dick education camps."

"You want me to
lie
?" said Ankha. "To a bunch of hostile
dicks
?"

"Till you're blue in the face and your nose is six feet long,"
said Simon.
"And don't forget to ask for the three-digit security code off the backs of the
ir
credit cards."

Ankha sighed and picked up the phones. "
These people are starting to turn
me
into a dick.
How's that for irony?
" One of the phones rang, and she
raised it to her ear
to take the
call.

"I'm taking you for ice cream tonight," said Simon. "Best anti-dick medicine
in the world!" Even as he spoke, he kept typing, adding new words to the
document on the screen. He was work
ing on his
Dick
ed Off
book, hauling ass to get it done by the de
adline
. He'd contracted to deliver the book two weeks after his meeting with Jim Gable of Lightborne Books--in other words, four days from now.

Simon typed like a man
possessed
.
Take that, dicks!
P.U.D.'s kitty litter ambush had backfired. Instead of bullying him
into backing down, they'd kicked him into his highest gear yet
.

"Pizza's in the house!" Chip barreled through the front door and held it open.
"Dinner is served!"

A stack of pizza boxes followed, carried by Ishi. "I expect a major tip for t
his delivery!
"

"Do we
look
like major tippers?" Chip swept the boxes from Ishi's hands and headed for the kitchen
with them
. "We were hoping
you
would tip
us
."

"Welcome to the non-profit
snake pit
." Josie pushed through the front door
behind Ishi
and followed the pizzas. "Have you considered making a donation to
In¢entive$
? How about if you forget the bill, and we'll call it even?"

"I'll talk to your boss here."
As Ishi strolled toward the sofa, she straightened her top, a long-sleeved lavender tee with a scoop neck and swirling purple designs.
"Maybe we can work something out
," she said as she drifted down beside Simon.

Simon typed more words on the laptop. "We can pay you in cat litter. We've got
lots
of cat litter."

"
You
know how to pay me back." Ishi snaked an arm around him and snuggled close. "And by that, I mean you owe me a night out.
Where're you taking me
?"

"A grand premiere!" said Simon. "All new, never-before-seen, sure to evoke a strong emotional reaction. And the best part is, we don't even have to leave this
sofa
."

Ishi slumped. "Ah, come on, Simon. Please don't make me watch it."

"It's all about vigilance, Ishi," said Simon. "How can we defeat
the enemy if we don't watch their
reality TV show?"

"When's
the train wreck
start?" Chip ambled into the room with a slice of pizza in both hands, talking with his mouth full.

"The little dick's on the seven, and the big dick's on the eleven," Josie said from the kitchen. "So
it starts in
five minutes!"

Ishi's fingertips settled on Simon's wrist. She spoke softly, for his ears only. "You do
n't need to watch this.
"

"We need to see what they're doing so we can plan
our
show." Simon stopped typing and took Ishi's hand. "Speaking of, what's the latest on that?"

Ishi sighed. "The network liked our proposal, but they have some
notes
.
There's a teleconference in two days."

"Shit." Simon shook his head and looked away. "
Dick Life
premieres tonight, and
our
show's
still in the
talking stage
."

"We're doing
great
, if you ask me." Ishi sounded indignant. "We're
lucky
they're
interested
, Simon."

"I know, I know." Simon grabbed the remote control from the coffee table and switched on the TV. "I just feel like they're stealing our momentum. We're playing catch-up."

"
Your Hollywood
agent
's an A-lister
," said Ishi. "
As for your east coast agent, if you're not
happy
with her, I'll cut her
loose
.
"
Tugging her arm out from behind him, she folded her arms over her chest and leaned away from him.

Simon blew out his breath and
put his hand on her shoulder
. "You're doing great. I'm sorry.
It's not your fault.
I'm just venting."

"So let's go out," said Ishi. "It'll do you good to take your mind off things."

"But I have to see the show," said Simon. "And finish the book. And
I'm
going to D.C. with Buck Brooklyn tomorrow. And then there's
In¢entive$
and the estate auction for Jim Lassiter..."

"
Listen." Ishi locked eyes with him.
Her expression was serious.
"You need a break." She lowered her voice. "Not to mention, we've hardly seen each other outside of work since the stunt at Belle Mere College."

"Geez, Ishi." Simon
scowled and tossed his head
. "We've been kind of
busy
, haven't we?"

Ishi leaned closer
, still looking grim
. "Do you know what separates us from the dicks of the world, Simon?"

Simon shrugged.
"Compassion? Courtesy?
Tolerance?
"

"
Patience
," said Ishi. "So I'm telling you it's time to
throttle back
, and that's an
order
."

Before Simon could answer, Chip grabbed the remote control from his hand. "It's on! Turn it up!"

The TV volume climbed fast, and a raucous rock 'n' roll theme song filled the room.
What filled the screen was this: a shot of a man, filmed from above and behind, standing
on a towering stone outcropping in the middle of canyon country. He wore a black tuxedo and stood proudly with
his
hands on
his
hips, surveying the
land around him under a red
and
orange
sun
set
.

"Oh no," said Chip. "Oh
fuck
no."

Josie plunked
herself down on the recliner, arms full of pizza boxes.
"It's him, isn't it?"

The view on the screen changed, dropping lower and rotating around the man in the tux.
Simon finally
recognized him...
then immediately
wished
he h
adn't.

The man was burly, with
black
B
rillo pad hair. In the reddish light of sunset, his
pitted
face looked even
rosier
than usual.

"That asshole!" said Josie.

"Fuckin' piece of shit!" said Chip.

"This oughtta be interesting." Ankha drifted in and sat cross-legged on the floor
, drooping pizza in hand
. "And by interesting, I mean fucked up beyond all recognition."

Just then, the music dipped, and a familiar voice began a narration over the scene. "My name is
Horne Shaw
," said the voice. "And I am
the first legally-recogniz
ed
dick
in the world."

"Can you
believe
this?" said Chip.
"They've got him lookin' like a fuckin'
movie star
."