Somewhere in New Jersey – Part 1

The Founder recently visited a pork store in New Jersey.  Inscribed on the lintel above the entrance door, he read Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch’intrate.  When he entered, a large man with a thick neck was standing behind the counter, wiping a knife blade.  ‘Sorry’, the Founder said.  ‘Do you have a bathroom for customers?  It was a long drive.’  The man lifted a board that opened a section of the counter and pointed to the back room with his knife.  ‘First door on your left’, he said.  ‘Watch your head.’

As he stepped up and into the restroom, the Founder thought of his partner, Beatrice.  When he told her that morning that he was going to Jersey to buy pork, she said that she thought he was crazy, but she loved him nonetheless.  He had loved her so much, he remembered, that when they first met, he had had her name tattooed to his penis.  It had been difficult for him to maintain the erection while the needle was inking the text, but he had managed to do so by thinking of her throughout the procedure.  Afterwards, when he was no longer erect, he saw that only a section of the tattoo reading ‘B-ice’ was legible.  The thought that she would always be part of him was profoundly comforting.

Because the restroom was underneath a staircase, the founder had to turn his head down and to the left when he stood in front of the urinal.  When he did that, he saw ‘B-ice’ tattooed to the penis of the man standing next to him.  For a second, he thought that his Beatrice was cheating on him, but he remembered that she was not that kind of woman.  The man was taller than him, brown-skinned with dreadlocks and a smile that seemed to surround him like a forcefield.

‘I see you have a girlfriend named Beatrice’, he said.

‘No, Mon’, the guy said.  He shook himself, zipped up and walked to the sink.  ‘Mine says, Be fabulous.  If you can’t be fabulous, be kind.  If you can’t be kind, be amazing.  If you can’t be amazing, at least, for God’s sake, be nice.’

‘What’s your name’, the Founder asked.

‘Vergil’.

‘Have you been here before?’

‘You’re not from New Jersey, are you’, Vergil said.  The Founder looked at him with a what-do-you-think-I-am look and said, ‘What do you think I am?’

‘You poor slob.’

‘Could you show me around?’

‘Of course.’

At the other side of the kitchen area, Vergil bent down to open a trap door.  The stairway that led into the floor was wide and zig-zaggy and lit by LED lights.  ‘What’s been bothering you lately’, Vergil said.

‘Quite a few things’, the Founder said.  ‘I own mobile home parks.  I could stick my hand through the face of a few legislators in Albany.’

‘We have some of those here.’

‘And people who flush baby wipes down their toilets and clog sewer baffles?  Fuggedaboudit.’  The last word slipped out, the way a pomegranate seed slips from between a child’s wet fingers.  the Founder had never used it before, and he was troubled by the way he had begun to talk.  He hoped that the New Jersey dialect would not stick.

‘They are like gnats down here’, Vergil said.  ‘But we have plenty of real gnats, too.’

‘Personal trainers?  People who charge you money to listen to them say, ‘Do a pushup’?  Who died and made space for them?’

The Founder slipped on a rock and Vergil grabbed his elbow.  He noticed that his grip steadied him, although he did not feel it.

‘Car salesmen’, the Founder said.  A drop of water fell from an overhead light and hit the founder’s nose.  That can’t be compliant with building codes, he thought. ‘If I buy a Ford, I want to buy it from Ford, not from some fuckhead in a toupee.  I mean, Musk is an asshole, but he knows how to sell cars.’

‘The cafeteria on the fourth level is run by car salesmen’, Vergil said.  ‘Don’t eat there.’

The Founder began to smell septic.  Next to the roadside, he saw a pile of baby wipes that had been pulled from the baffle of a septic tank as tall as him and twice as wide.  ‘And real estate agents’, he said.  ‘Don’t get me started about real estate agents.  I hope they put the trainee devils – the ones who can’t make a clean flesh cut – on them.’

‘We did that for a while’, Vergil said, ‘But it wasn’t fair to the staff’.

The First Circle

At the bottom of the stairs, they emerged onto a large plain illuminated by vapor lights.  A stocky bald man with yellow skin, one hair and three fingers sat eating a donut.

‘Hey, Homer’, Vergil said.

‘Tell me these eyes are fucking gray’, Homer said.  He flashed a picture on a cell phone toward Vergil.  ‘The egos I have to deal with.’  Vergil bent forward and peered at the screen. ‘I am showing a prospie around’, he said.

‘They don’t let me do that anymore’, Homer said.  ‘What’s your name?’

‘He’s Beatrice’s boyfriend.’

Homer raised his eyebrows and tried to look wise.  ‘Beatrice’, he said.  He hesitated for a second, unsure whether to make his next utterance a joke or a statement.  After the gears turned, he straightened his face and said, ‘You are a lucky man.’  His voice was deep and resonant.  The Founder thought that he might be stupid, in an idiot-savant sort of way.  He might – the Founder thought – be able to recite tens of thousands of lines of poetry from memory, but not be able to tie his shoe.  He might even open a steakhouse named Sir Loin.  As they walked away, the Founder told Vergil, ‘I thought he was blind’.

‘He is’, Vergil said.  ‘Too many donuts will do that to you.  He can’t see what color that lady’s eyes are.  He just doesn’t like people to know.’

‘It looks like a terraced funnel, what we are walking toward.’

‘You’re good.’

‘I know from underground.  I dig septic tanks, when I’m not dunning rednecks for money.’

‘Then this will be easy for you.’