What is each man but a spirit that has taken corporal form briefly and then disappears? What are men if not ghosts?
—Thomas Carlyle
Leaving the clinic, Buckaroo continued along a path that would have taken him past the bunkhouse and general store, horse stables and veterinary hospital, minigolf obstacle course, sweat lodge, food pantry, and petting zoo, and within sight of the cemetery and main gate, where Lonely Ranger and Buffalo Gal were on duty . . . reinforced by a network of CCTV cameras and aerial surveillance linked to the Institute’s sophisticated communications center. Without revealing the system’s technological prowess or its vulnerabilities, I simply will say that protecting the Institute and its working ranch and thousands of acres of desert wilderness was in many ways an impossible job even for a small army, which we plainly were not. On an average day—not counting tourists and hostel guests but including visiting scholars and preceptors of both the higher and lower faculties—our population hovered around four dozen; and perhaps half that number could be found weekly at Thursday Table, seated beneath Mrs. Johnson’s handcrafted whiskey-bottle chandelier in the great Gathering Hall, known also as the Hall of Heroes or the Hall of Ambassadors, where we typically ate, drank, reviewed the week’s events, and discussed needed modifications to our modus operandi. Depending on our mood and how much we imbibed, we might also perform little skits and extemporaneous impressions of one another or recite ribald limericks, while never failing to acknowledge random acts of kindness as well.
As I have mentioned, owing to the unique threat to the planet and our impending European tour, we had elected to combine Thursday Table with our annual regimental dinner and its long-standing custom of honoring our comrades, dead or living. Unspoken, of course, was the thought that this little reunion might be our last.
After the rising of the house and the awarding of medals—mostly barbed wire clusters for bravery—we were treated to a briefing from the editorial staff of the Institute’s newsletter concerning the government’s proposed nuclear waste dump on disputed Apache land and a projector display of our annual IRS form 990 and our capital campaign under Rule 506(c), after which the lord president pro tem (Papa Bear, in this particular instance) gaveled the meeting to order with a ramekin of hot sauce and at once threw the floor open to In Tray and Out Tray, a segment of time devoted to housekeeping and official business, yet proceeding always in accordance with Robert’s Rules. Among the first matters broached was the necessity of identifying who in our midst had brought in the onslaught of German cockroaches and who was the source of confidential information recently leaked to celebrity gossip magazines. (Might it even be the same person?) In addition there was news of recent skirmishes with cattle rustlers and the next day’s scheduled delivery of liquid helium to cool the Institute’s superconducting magnets, leading in turn to a frank discussion concerning our weekly natural disaster simulations, our educational film division and Junior Science Learning Kit giveaways around the globe, and our mobile library, help desk, 4-H Club, and job-training program right here at home (in accord with Buckaroo’s belief that teaching is the most effective form of charity). Next, we were all reminded of the importance of projecting a positive image of the Institute both on and off the clock and given an instructive talk on permaculture by Li’l Daughter—complete with a display of heirloom seeds—followed by a Q&A on hydroponics and the ideal growing medium for chili peppers and certain medicinal herbs.
Next came a status update on the endangered rusty-patched bumblebee and our lobbying efforts against neonicotinoid pesticides and a week’s worth of reports from our optical tracking facility, our E-2 Hawkeye, and our very large array astronomical radio observatory. These readings, taken from different angles, were strongly suggestive of a large stealth object approaching Earth; but, given the inconclusive data and lacking a suitable plan of action in any case, we moved on to an update of our various revenue-generation streams—e.g., flow charts of livestock and crop sales, royalties from our entertainment division, and scientific patents—which continued for no small period of time until Buckaroo announced, to much cheering and backslapping, “And a ten percent across-the-board pay increase, effective immediately!”
“Hear! Hear! For he’s a jolly good fellow . . . !”
Indeed, for what were we saving our endowment in these parlous times? If ever there was a rainy day, it was now. When our celebration became a little too rowdy, however, good Mrs. Johnson materialized to remind us, “But still no parking in the red zone! Or skateboarding! And the next one who throws crap down my disposal, I’ll hang from the highest tree!”
“Jail food!” someone muttered, but the source of the remark was never clear . . .
. . . as Mrs. Johnson rolled in a giant wheel of goat cheese and the discussion moved on to other matters: our creek drainage problems and trash and waste recycling; brief highlights of our individual and joint research projects; a feasibility study of a plan to convert the old wastewater holding tank into a swimming pool or a skate park for all ages—followed by a moment of respectful silence in memory of Pinky’s beloved redbone hound dog Lulu, killed by a big tom puma. Pinky in turn choked back tears and thanked everyone.
“He got mind control over her and dragged her down a thirty-foot rocky embankment,” he said. “Every dog needs a person in their life, and I’m so happy I could be that person in Lulu’s.”
“We’re happy, too,” said Li’l Daughter. “She was super friendly.”
Pecos then went over a list of odd jobs around the Institute that needed doing “in case anybody needs some extra spending money. I’m talking important work at the rate of twenty dollars in cash.”
Next up was Buckaroo with the eagerly awaited news of operationally ready dates for our long-awaited compact fusion reactor, our biosafety level 4 (BSL-4) laboratory / proton therapy center with a new underground hot room, and three more big-blade windmills. His patient efforts to give us a comprehensive understanding of the exciting new additions were undermined, however, by mundane complaints about long lines at our snack bar’s single microwave oven and unauthorized midnight refrigerator raids, the anonymous ownership of the abandoned sofa outside the gaming lounge, and the recent spate of fence cuttings and probes on our perimeter by suspected city slickers claiming to be itinerant sheep shearers. Directly this conversation concluded, Webmaster Jhonny reported on recent attempts to compromise our web server, and Leo the LEO discussed the troubling increase in unidentified drone activity in our airspace, leading to a suspicion among many of us that odd underground noises, heard in various locations but most conspicuously in the wine cellar, were interfering with the sleep patterns of humans and animals alike and perhaps portending an even more serious danger.
“Sappers? Tunnel rats?” suggested the Marchioness.
“I’m guessing moles or gophers overpowering our defenses,” Tommy argued. “Just yesterday I wrote a work order to check all battery-operated radon detectors and gopher spikes.”
The Marchioness shook her head, dissenting. “I mean the human kind of varmint, like those supposed Army Corps of Engineers and Bureau of Land Management impostors we keep spotting in the northwest arroyo behind the speedway . . .”
“Or that creepy panel truck with the revolving antenna on top and without plates,” said Mrs. Johnson. “Or those weirdos asking to lease our property for a Christmas tree farm.”
Since she chose to point fingers of blame, raucous debate of this matter went on for several minutes until a proposal was made to undertake a thorough review of our electromagnetic defense force and form a special volunteer committee of the most capable experts to address all physical threats—especially at this fraught moment in our history—and propose solutions, including improved air and water filtration systems, radon mitigation, and an integrated network of acoustic listening stations and seismic-sensitive weathercocks.
“The bunkhouse is sick with germs and chiggers and leaves a bad taste in my mouth—this is a proven fact,” Li’l Daughter said, citing comments by the Marchioness.
“But entirely fixable. Let’s see what the committee comes back with. Sorry about your pooch, Pinky,” Buckaroo said with honest concern before calling upon Quartermaster Honest Dan Cartwright to give a summary report (more flow charts) on the Institute’s assorted livestock populations, including our new ostriches, and our general store’s inventories of beans and salt pork, hot sauce, Folgers coffee, MREs, animal feed, propane, gasoline and diesel fuel, potable water, cotton bed sheets, groceries and kitchen supplies, adobe bricks and concrete masonry units (cement blocks), toilet paper, soap, baby formula, silver bullion, and ammunition.
Buckaroo then issued a call for a new volunteer calisthenics leader and a wheelwright / assistant blacksmith, before becoming embroiled in a discussion about a missing extension cord and the pros and cons of purchasing new dinette booths for the bunkhouse snack bar and a dozen office chairs of “rich Corinthian leather” for the library.
“Lots of goodies,” Tommy said, raising a valid complaint. “I know ‘rich’ Corinthian leather’s really just a stupid advert and nothing special, so why not get real Naugahyde? It’s longer lasting and strong as steel. And never mind the damn extension cord, what about the missing millions?”
“There are no missing millions,” Pecos assured him. “Honest Dan is sick and tired of the question, and he already explained to you . . .”
“Nothing but wild rumors. This is the fourth time you’ve asked me, Tommy,” a displeased Cartwright complained. “I didn’t earn my nickname for nothing. I’m as honest as the day is long, so why are you beating me up?”
“If you’ve nothing to worry about, why so tetchy?” Tommy muttered.
But now it was for the person at the head of the table—Buckaroo Banzai—to weigh in: “I appreciate your concern, Tommy. Nothing against Dan, who also does beautiful lapidary work, but it’s best not to wear blinders in these situations. Mrs. Johnson and Missing Person Greenberg will be going over the books with a fine-toothed comb in the coming days.”
His concerns thus eased, Tommy saw fit to flash his famous maniacal grin, while Pecos could not be silent in the face of such hypocrisy, saying, “Nothing wrong with pampering ourselves a little. Besides, you already have silk sheets, Tommy, and probably leather ones, too—paid for with the money you took from the community swear box!”
“Oh, hell no,” argued Tommy. “You mean the jam jar? That was for a new foosball table that was desperately needed! Buckaroo’s a witness of that . . .”
But Buckaroo merely scratched his head, leaving it to Mrs. Johnson to scowl and utter in protest, “And meanwhile I’m short staffed, busting my culinary butt, clipping coupons and saving pennies for a new spot welder and a new sewing machine motor . . . ?”
“I’ll work on your motor, Mrs. Johnson, once I fix your marred friction shifters,” offered Webmaster Jhonny. “I’ll even share my sewing kit until your machine is on the mend.”
“Thank you, Jhonny. Great way to be,” she gushed. “Computers, bicycles, appliances—you’re my handyman buddy, a real crowd pleaser.”
“No, Mrs. Johnson, the crowd pleaser is your sweet cupcakes that rule the rooster,” Jhonny said.
“You mean ‘the roost.’ But much obliged, Jhonny,” she replied.
By now we were hungry and thirsty and ready to cut loose. Buckaroo, as was customary, provided the itadakimasu prayer, and Red Jordan said Christian grace, after which we broke into toasts and a medley of silly songs, followed by a series of spontaneous musical jams, a mock awards ceremony (truncated when we ran out of medals and participation trophies), and irreverent speeches. As usual, we shared many a hearty belly laugh with our agent Jack Tarantulus, a large and expansive man and a storyteller of the first rank, who had flown in for the occasion and did his best to dampen our levity with a recurring gripe about Pope Innocent the Merca-tor.
“I’m about to nail down Old Spice for one of my athlete clients when all this satanic shite mysteriously goes viral, orchestrated by the World Crime League and the Vatican, claiming Old Spice is ‘of the devil’—the old lava boss himself. Then I had a cinch deal with Aqua Velva,” Jack was saying in his freewheeling manner, gesticulating wildly with a glass of Jacques Selosse in his hand and spilling nary a bubble. “Or at least I thought I had a deal . . . Perfect Tommy as the worldwide face of Aqua Velva! Then, the next thing I know I’m watching one of those louche tabloid news shows, and some blowhard is talking about Pope Innocent’s new endorsement deal as the new spokesman for Aqua Velva and his own signature cologne, Heaven Scent!”
“That was on Mona Peeptoe’s show,” I mentioned.
“Yeah, Mona Peeptoe’s Come Clean show. You would know, Reno,” Jack said bitterly. “I mean, this is the shite I have to put up with, people laughing behind my back when we gotta compete with the pope. What’s next, pope-endorsed jockstraps? Bread and circuses, children. Bread and circuses.”
“Blame Cardinal Baltazar,” said Buckaroo. “I’m sure these product endorsement deals weren’t the pope’s idea. Fact is, I don’t care for some of my own endorsements, although we put the money to a good cause.”
“Yeah . . . I blame Baltazar. I wouldn’t mind hurting his health. Thanks for letting me get it off my chest,” said Jack.
“Thank you, Jack,” replied Pecos, patting him on the knee.
But Jack wasn’t finished venting. “Him and his fat Vatican bank account . . . never mind the Cayman Islands and several tons of authentic Parmesan cheese he’s got stashed in a private safety-deposit vault. That stuff’s gold . . .”
It also happened that our attention was at that moment diverted by an audible spat between Pecos and Webmaster Jhonny, perhaps due to the language barrier and Jhonny’s weakness for charcoal-filtered bourbon.
“You have some gall, Jhonny, you stinker,” Pecos chided without interrupting her rhythmic drumming on a practice pad. “Out of neighborliness, I welcomed you as a friend, and you are dear to my heart, but I’ve had enough of your privacy violations and extreme eye contact and little pranks like unfastening my Velcro sneakers and messing with my candy stash in my locker. Oh, and your bug-eye sunglasses and Groucho eyebrows and blue hair aren’t as slick a disguise as you think. I’ve recognized your scented pomade peeking through my bed curtains—truly an identifying mark of a jackanapes, not to mention criminal etiquette.”
Jhonny accepted the criticism with humility and the added benefit that he seemed to enjoy it, saying, “Thank you, Pecos. Yes, neighborliness. I am complex of a man but with a good heart. I dance original and love a good party . . . even if drunken foolishness rankles me to no extent.”
“That’s for sure, Jhonny,” she agreed.
“God-fearing and a sense of humor, but deep as a redwood tree whose beauty you do not see,” he went on slurring, plainly under the influence. “Yet I submit my will to you and will always stand in your line of defense, even if I am hurting. I will take the hit and love you only in silence, even you are the light of my life, my beloved woman and my conscious [sic], without whom there is no existence worth living. I am sadly gone and have not been received your love [sic], for the pure fact maybe it is the wrong dream to be one with one another.”
“Aw, that’s so sweet, Jhonny, but also nothing short of ridiculous,” she said, alternately moved and puzzled by his heartfelt confession of love. “I can’t turn a blind eye to your games, and a few kind words don’t mean I’m interested in you romantically. You wear your heart on your sleeve, but you have odd ways of thinking and maybe aren’t the hotshot you think you are.”
Sensing all was not lost, he proceeded by reminding her, “We have traded wallet pics, on which you even wrote something on the back. Do you remember what?”
“No, I’m sorry, Jhonny. I don’t . . .”
“You wrote, ‘To a real gentleman.’ Later, you sent me many emojis when we farmed runes and settled Catan together on my custom gaming machine. We played canasta and poker for matchsticks and you let me pedi-paint your toes and troubleshoot your Go-Phone, while I let you into my fort built of pillows at scary movie night and darned your socks and broken belt loops . . . my golden dream lady, sugar and spice and everything nice. Let me put it this way: in the past when I have hugged you on Valentine Day, I have felt no bones, only a curvy curve figure and torrid muscle like a side of beef with very little adipose . . . so much awesomeness packed into your flannel Pendleton work shirt. So when sleeping in the bunk next to yours, at the peak of my alpha sexual meditation and dreaming you hoovering [sic] over me, I am not too pridefully [sic] to admit I have felt arousing and often counted your vertebraes and inhaled your hair and body spray fresh as green-cut grass, pining for you, dreaming of snapping your bra strap preliminary to a nursing relationship between your chests, because I sleep with nightmares . . .”
“That’s gross. You and your mommy issues, Jhonny,” Pecos replied with a frown. “The point is that you took advantage of me. And to think I held you in such high regard. Is everything you have ever said to me a lie? I feel used, Jhonny.”
“Yes, because you have been my guiding light and I have no couth and only I am to blame. Treated worthless in my native land where nothing ever happened, I summoned energy to write Mrs. Johnson and the admissions committee, who saw something in me. I arrived here for a year of internship and learning new surroundings and the following year won the international programming Olympiad. Then came the chance to reinvent myself and ply my skills in the Institute’s famous experimental lavatory [sic], even with nothing on my bank account, seeking only a positive prospective [sic] on life and adventures to be manifested with the great Buckaroo Banzai . . . able to learn jujitsu and healthy behaviors and meet a woman to suit my standard. Yet now I find myself lower than the station of dogs. Why did I ever dream how your velvet skin would be like to surrender and rise together [sic], pillow partners in purity, eternally forever in our happy home?”
“If wishes were fishes and pigs had wings,” Tommy hooted derisively.
“Sounds like your ego is doing all the talking, Jhonny. Cry me a river or a landfill,” said Pecos, unimpressed by his flowery speech.
In response, Jhonny swallowed a huge lump and poured out his heart: “Yes, my love be damned and buried. The compost pit is what I deserve, because you are the crème de la crème, so hot, and I am so not.”
“Enough self-loathing, Jhonny,” she pleaded. “I don’t like to see a man grovel.”
“Yes, your infinite wisdom . . . you have brought happiness to my life, even though I am nothing, only a sweater guy who loves you to the fullest. I try to use the right words but I am terrible at best, so I knit sweaters and enjoy to get dressed up . . .”
“You’re the king of sweaters, Jhonny . . . and I see no problem being keen on them,” she assured him. “I even gave you a sweater for Christmas, if you’ll remember. Maybe you are overthinking things a little.”
“Because I have search [sic] for you all my life,” he sobbed, “even if, as of recently, my soul is already crush [sic] and I am fallen from grace, so what is left to lose? So now I am out in the cold, destroy [sic] for no reason, shit out of luck, SOL, and will continue to be the odd loner. May God have pity on my soul if I am lie to you [sic] and have ever foul desires or think about undoing your Annie Oakley braids.”
“Nothing wrong with your soul, son,” Tommy butted in testily. “Pecos is a total phawking prize . . . Just knock the fire out of him, Pecos. Dump his weak BS.”
“Ha, ha, bipolar Tommy who cannot even spell BS,” cackled Jhonny.
“BS,” Tommy refuted him with a vengeance.
But full of liquid courage, Jhonny was now feeling his oats. “You should use a straw, Tommy, because you suck. Ha, ha, you gotta love it! I would call you butter but you are not on a roll!”
“Ha, ha, how about I give you some strawberries and bruises?” Tommy returned against what he saw as Jhonny’s growing impertinence. “You need to mute your spiel, buster, before I up the ante.”
“What does that supposed to mean? I will be beatened [sic], like back in my home country?”
“I see your point: right there at the top of your little pinhead,” jested Tommy. “Don’t worry, I won’t blame your mama for one bad seed . . .”
“Okay, Tammy! Tommy is Tammy, ha, ha! Don’t talk about my mama, Tammy!”
“Looks like I’ve turned Jhonny’s flank!” Tommy crowed in kind.
Things were indeed getting nasty . . . something that would have been perhaps laughable on a less solemn occasion but was plainly out of place under the circumstances. Still, neither man seemed ready to end the exchange of tawdry insults.
“Ha, ha. You are the cowardice psychotic [sic]. Please remove my skid marks from your dirty face, Tammy, or can I call you Patsy?”
“Try it, I’ll knock you on your funny bone! By which I mean the one in your pants!” threatened Tommy, who now feinted an aggressive move with his Martin guitar at Jhonny . . .
. . . who retaliated by hurling a feta-stuffed olive and announcing, “They call me the Webmaster: the coolest, realest [sic], baddest hombre this side west of the Pecos!”
As if moved to action by the mention of her eponymous river, Pecos ominously raised a plastic drumstick and prepared to hurl it like a spear at either of them, and in response Tommy jumped up onto the table and demonstrated a series of supposed fighting positions, shouting all the while, “Cat stance! Horse stance! Samurai stance!”
“How do we win?” I called out.
“We cheat!” yelled Tommy.
“Why do we use kicks?” I shouted back.
“The leg is longer and stronger, Reno! Train hard, fight easy!” he returned.
“What’s the strongest punch in jujitsu?”
“Reverse!” he cried loudly. “Recognize! React! Reverse!”
By now sharing in the fun, Pecos lowered her drumstick and shouted, “Where does danger come from?”
“From the left! From the right! Backlash!” Tommy yelled and, with another kick, fell off the table, thereby earning Buckaroo’s remonstrance.
“Tommy, good to know you’re awake, but please stop playing the fool. Why are you tilting at Jhonny?”
“I don’t know. Just kind of bored, I guess . . . sitting around, itching for some real action.”
“Be careful what you wish for, Tom,” Buckaroo warned. “Sounds like we’ve all got a touch of cabin fever. Including you, Jhonny, a deserving young man who I thought mature for your age, you’ve been on a downward path that seems to have spiraled. You need to stay focused on the job and forget your fascination with Pecos, which may be giving rise to a dishonest narrative. Remember, a little courtesy goes a long way in the workplace,” Buckaroo continued. “You seem to disrespect her boundaries, which amounts to a personal betrayal that can get you banned from the family or even put in check.”
“Put in check,” Jhonny repeated. “What means . . . ?”
“It’s bad,” I told him.
“It means you’re more than just an ugly eyesore,” contributed Tommy.
“Some people never come back,” added Pecos.
“You can’t expect any help,” Tommy said. “Leave us out of it.”
Amid our solemn looks and his own nervous breathing, Jhonny swallowed his pride and said contritely, “Yes, I want to just cry. It seems I have become a dreg [sic] on the Institute. I do not have all the brains, and by operating in love I seem to have awakened the sleeping giant of jealousy, in the meaning of human beings everywhere [sic]. Perhaps I saw her big earrings and took that as an invitation to a pity lay.”
“A pity lay?” Buckaroo said and continued to educate him. “Jhonny, this is the United States of America, where hoop earrings do not imply a willingness to give sexual favors. You didn’t ask Pecos how she felt and didn’t believe what she said beforehand, so it was an invasion of her privacy. You simply made assumptions because you believed she suited your purposes. Never mind that this isn’t the appropriate time for that—it’s unacceptable, like your habit of grabbing your crotch in public. The worst part is that you’re apt to ruin a good friendship, if not team chemistry and the orderly flow of things, which could result in our people getting hurt and your exile from our circle forever. And Tommy, once you take the bait and respond in kind to Jhonny’s teasing and name-calling, you give him control over you. Need I say more? Let’s give Pecos the closure she needs and move on. Let this be a turning point.”
“Yeah, let’s pump the brakes, boys,” Pecos suggested.
“Tommy is a donkey hole,” seethed Jhonny.
“Somebody give them a crying towel,” I said.
“Because Tommy is compulsed [sic] to push the hater button,” continued Jhonny, who likewise lowered his head in apparent repentance and murmured indistinctly something like the following. “So, alas . . . close but no cigars. I am sorry, Pecos. Even if I am false accused or loss good friends [sic], whatever you say, I am okay of it. I never was chase any woman [sic] and am still on a journey of opening up my heart to another, and I had a dream of giving you my promise ring and having childrens . . .”
“I’m anti-procreation, Jhonny, but let me see the ring,” said Pecos. “A diamond? Where’s that rock?”
“I must have left it in my other dungarees,” Jhonny replied, feeling his pockets.
“That there is funny. Whale of a tale, Jhonny Appleseed,” laughed Tommy . . .
. . . as Pecos clenched her jaw and said, “I accept your apology, Jhonny, but Buckaroo is right: you need to learn that there are boundaries, especially in our circle of trust. Otherwise, you can ride your high horse outta town.”
“Yes, I am a very talented and clever person with a higher mental capacity than ninety-nine percent and good hygiene,” Jhonny boasted, “but I have my limits in personal settings and sometimes I can become rageful. I joined the group to smash down the doors of stupidity, but I seem not to know when I am out of my depth. Forgive me for thinking you were in rut and desiring to be my Honey Bunches of Oats when I am about to bust a spring. Bad dog, Jhonny . . . no biscuit.”
“What? In a rut? I didn’t catch all of that,” she said, leaning in closer.
Nevertheless she seemed genuinely touched by his ungenuine show of remorse and returned to drumming on her practice pad, thereby earning Buckaroo’s praise.
“Thank you, Pecos,” he said. “You, too, Jhonny. You both raise good questions. Now that we’re all loosened up sufficiently, why not have our usual freewheeling get-acquainted round robin. Why did we all join up? What has brought us all here together . . . ? Let’s hear your stories. Jack, care to lead off? What brings you here today? Looking for excitement?”
Note: The immature or uninitiated reader may wish to skip ahead to chapter XIX, as the following section includes mostly unredacted material from my notes.
—Reno
“Excitement? Out here in cactus land? A heart attack would be more exciting. I’ll tell you what brought me: my Cessna jet parked out on the strip,” announced the ever-cynical Jumbo Jack Tarantulus, albeit with an affable smirk. “That, and these contracts in my pocket.”
“Same here. The hope of something more,” several of us agreed.
“Because I like to eat every day,” quipped Jumbo Jack.
“Right. The hope of something more,” we teased.
“Tired of feeling like a robot. I needed to cleanse, deprogram myself,” someone said.
“For the sunsets,” someone else contributed, garnering oohs and aahs of agreement.
“Sitting on the porch in our rocking chairs!”
“Thinker and problem solver,” said the next. “Just wanted a bigger skill set in my toolkit.”
“My blood pressure, morbid obesity,” piped up another. “Disappointment after disappointment in my life. Buckaroo told me to get in the saddle and throw away the Lipozene.”
“To take a stand for wildlife, all the critters whose backs are against the wall.”
“Positivity” . . . “soul renewal” . . . “unrequited love,” several answered.
“Level five executive consultant, then PTSD . . .”
“Mental illness is real.”
“Gotta agree.”
“One emotional meltdown after another. Then my food truck burned down and I would’ve been cooked without a small business loan from the Blue Blaze Opportunity Fund. Three years later I returned the loan with interest and decided to pay it forward and help others out, so here I am to right the scales of justice.”
“Me, too. Bad credit, along with a pet. Landlords treat you like you’re a parasite of society or a career criminal.”
“Pet interviews, ha, ha!”
“Or try having a therapy animal. People freak,” said another, showing off a tiny green reptile. “Like my little feller, Louie the Lizard. Is this the face of a societal drain or career criminal?”
“The exercise and advanced training techniques . . . the wide selection of sports, not to mention survival skills.”
“Collegiality and the free flow of information among other thought leaders,” someone pointed out.
“Thought leaders? Seriously? The desert echoes with laughter.”
“We’re not Olympians, just people leaving the light on for humanity.”
“All that stuff. It’s an awesome place with tons of incredible talent. Expect the impossible at the Banzai Institute!”
“Yes,” replied Li’l Daughter of the Rhine. “Like many of you, I was a troubled person, so when Buckaroo offered me an official chair at das Banzai Institut, of course I pulled up stakes . . .”
“Nothing more American than pulling up stakes,” someone pointed out.
“Yes, and forging a new path,” Li’l Daughter said. “An ausserordentlicher Professor at Heidelberg and later at die Max-Planck-Gesellschaft in Berlin, where Buckaroo saw me in a small role at die Staatsoper Unter den Linden, the State Opera, and encouraged me to come to America to hopefully set up an opera company here at the Banzai Institute and even to bring my cats.”
“I’ve heard you and your cats practicing,” various people said. “You hit some real high ones.”
“Yes, I was excited by this, since I was working long hours, probing deep into little microscopic things but eating a lot of white sugar and other trigger foods while losing sight of the larger picture and my health, part of a series of bad choices . . .”
“Amen . . . a ‘series of bad choices’ leading to a dead-end life,” said Pilgrim Woman, an Australian astronomer by training, or so she said.
“Life is a lesson. Poor decisions caught up with me, too,” admitted Honest Dan Cartwright. “Caltech, PhD, student loans, straight to rehab, so much anger inside. This place has been a lifeboat for me . . . painting, plumbing, laying floors and roofing, operating heavy equipment, working my way up to quartermaster because I’m good with numbers.”
“Numbers don’t lie. How about you, Hoppy?” Buckaroo asked our resident wrangler and chief ion collider engineer, Hoppalong Krilovsky. “Judging by your furry ushanka, I’d say you’re Russian or a trapper, right?”
“Black Russian,” said Hoppalong in his noticeably Slavic-accented English. “After American Civil War, bunch of former slaves volunteer to go to free republic of Liberia. But through crazy clerical error, we end up Siberia, instead.”
“Seriously, Hoppalong?” we queried him incredulously. “Siberia instead of Liberia? Sounds like a bad sitcom.”
With an ominous nod, he confirmed, “Free republic of Siberia, so help me, Black Jesus! Funny how switching little letter of alphabet changes not only one life, but lives of generations to come. So I grow up Russian and learn to ride and rope with Cossacks much like yourself, Buckaroo, but my love was always particle physics phenomenology. When my podruga bit me square in my ass and left me feeling blue and broke in university in Vladivostok, I sent in my application to Banzai Institute, just for hell of it . . . what to lose? Nichevo.”
“ ‘Blue and Broke in Vladivostok.’ Sounds like number one on the hit parade, a real toe tapper,” Pilgrim Woman chimed in.
“More like tearjerker,” Hoppalong replied. “Most exciting thing in Vladivostok is smoking cigarette,” he said. “Is kind of town full of money grubbers and bad food, but at least portions are small.”
“Unlike here, where portions are large,” someone pointed out, and we all agreed . . .
“Sounds familiar,” Red Jordan interjected. “I earned my Special Forces badge—SF A-team, combat engineer my MOS, mainly EOD—and went to war, was taken prisoner, freed myself, won a couple of medals, only to come home to court judgments in the thousands and the wolf at the door . . . thanks to my two-timing ex, whose drug-infested mouth I found on the repo man.”
“What’s the old saying? A ring can’t fill a hole,” Mrs. Johnson said.
Red did his best to laugh, and our new shooting instructor, Talla 12 de Pantalón, related her own war story: “Just out of high school, I was just another de las chicas en apuros, knocked up, no money. I was just lost. My boyfriend had joined the Marines, so I followed him, ended up loving it, and learned a lot that helped me deal with my anger. Everyone’s got a story to tell, and talking with them was better than any counselor. Semper Fi all the way, I made gunny sarge and wore the blood stripe proud as hell. Served in A-stan, PMI with BUD/S training in Coronado, attached to MARSOC, special operations. My new boyfriend couldn’t understand my postcombat stress migraines, why I couldn’t get back into cooking and cleaning or getting pregnant again . . . after helping bury little babies.”
Who could feel the impact of such hair-curling words without desiring to change the subject?
“That might affect you, all right,” Li’l Daughter said, clearing her throat. “Everybody seems a little uptight, so I’ll go next. Some of you have asked if I have an allergic reaction. The truth is, I have a rare condition of a brain too large for my noggin, causing headaches all my life and my odd bulging eyes. I went to the best specialists of Europe, all of whom ignored my complaint or said I was just wrapped too tight. But then I heard about Buckaroo, who opened a tiny invisible port in my skull and introduced peas and applesauce . . . which, when the peas absorbed the applesauce, expanded and stretched my cranial sutures and also made me realize that my real problem was not my big brain but a metaphorical hole in my heart, a lack of optimism and faith in humanity, something I was wanting and missing. So it was that I packed a small suitcase, left Max Planck, and came to stay at the Institute to begin riding bulls and studying bovine cloning.”
“Does anyone call you ‘pea brain’?” someone lamely quipped.
Another asked, “Is that why you always wear that rubber helmet?”
“One of the reasons,” Li’l Daughter replied with growing embarrassment.
“I had a similar problem, with a big ego and a swollen head,” someone else jumped in to say, “so Buckaroo put me in a helmet, too—a pressure hat.”
By now everyone seemed to want to talk at once.
“I think we’re all big brains here,” gushed someone intemperately.
“I think what we’re talking about is hiding in the shadows, scared of what might be waiting around the corner . . . namely, to be out in the sunshine and living life,” I volunteered.
“And maybe coming up with the next great idea to change the world,” Pecos added.
“Yes, you are right, Pecos,” said Li’l Daughter. “Isn’t that why we are all here? To set the world on fire? To elevate humanity?”
Others were more modest, repeating a by now familiar refrain of personal struggle.
“Maybe in the same place I was, bored, filthy, and broke, bad smoking habit and a rejected dissertation on quantum chromodynamics due to a certain retaliation,” said one of our young teaching interns. “Now I’m clean and stable and change clothes every day. More important, I got over my butt-hurt by catching the pedagogic bug. I really enjoy teaching the young ones.”
These sentiments were echoed also by others.
Then the Marchioness spoke up to say, “Whatever happened to morals and decency, simple things like courage, honor, and sportsmanship? A place where people’s best instincts are valued. I was Catherine of Aragon by way of Luxembourg, married to the great industrialist Wadsworth Longfellow and doyenne of snooty London high society. Even with the world on a silver platter, one day I realized I was tired of living happily ever after in a thousand-year-old fairy castle, on the dodge for billions in taxes. What I really wanted wasn’t gallant Prince Charming on a white charger but training quarter horses for barrel racing and perhaps even traveling to other dimensions someday. I guess I was tired of being spoiled and pampered and still wanting more . . . wanting to change the world rather than merely change the color of my hair.”
“Bully for you, Miss Silverspoon. Let them eat cakes. What’s really tiring is being dirt poor, ramen-noodle poor, and therefore treated like dirt,” confessed an irascible neighbor, who wishes to remain anonymous like most of the others. And so it continued, on around the table.
“Ramen-noodle poor, yes, yes!”
“Here’s my arc, from pole dancer to exploring the Poles, North and South, finding out there’s a whole lot of world out there that doesn’t involve showing cleavage, spending time in the pokey, or money-riding some spoon-fed rich guy . . . or gal.”
“Congratulations . . . I kind of went in reverse,” confessed the mysterious Missing Person Slim Greenberg. “If you saw me then, at first glance you’d see all the superficial markers of a great success, but inside I didn’t give a damn. I was lonely, cold, and burnt out. The funny thing is that the more I wanted to get shitcanned at the internet startup where I worked, the more I kept getting promoted . . . until one day I lost control. Everything went red and the rage took over.”
“Is that why they call you Missing Person? You had to go to ground? Duck out?”
“That pretty much sums it up,” he murmured contritely, so softly almost no one heard. “I did my time, paid my debt . . .”
“We believe you,” the Marchioness replied, turning to Papa Bear. “You wanted to say something, Papa, out of brotherly solidarity? How long were you in the nick?”
“Do I need to say?” said Papa Bear.
“Oh, do,” she pleaded.
“Two psych hospitalizations,” Papa Bear began. “Then I did fourteen tight, in San Quentin—long enough to teach myself the trivium and quadrivium and discover my love of Euclid—then a five-piece, with administrative segregation tacked on, for shivving my first prison wife when he wouldn’t wash my underwear and his mom stopped putting money on my books.”
“Wowser, prison norms are weird,” someone said amid a slew of similar comments.
“The blade cuts both ways,” Papa Bear declared cryptically. “We settled it later like adults. My incarceration did not define me, because I’m not the same person I was then.”
“None of us is,” someone else pointed out. “What the Institute is all about: transformation and second chances, expunctions of our mistakes. We’ve all got stuff on our backgrounds . . . done time or been tampered with, one way or another.”
“Sounds like me. I was on the design team of the F-35,” revealed Honest Dan. “I’d rather teach, but it’s all about the metrics.”
“You mean the metric system?” Tommy inquired mischievously.
“So tired of it being all about the metrics,” added another partner, “fighting for space and resources at State U even with eight thousand individual citations and an h-index of thirty-six . . . published in polymer-application trade magazines the same time I was rejected for tenure and told, ‘We were good before you got here’ . . . ha, ha. Then looking for work, pee-tested by drug court for three years, then told I’m a poor candidate for a slam-dunk job, then getting rejected even at the blood plasma center and absentee sperm bank . . .”
“The World Crime League is always hiring,” joked a relative newcomer known as the Last Mapuche, a Canadian snowbird who had arrived recently on a ten-thousand-dollar bicycle.
And on and on it went, tales of lopsided geniuses becoming poorer in cookie-cutter jobs before finding their true calling and personal fulfillment at the Banzai Institute.
“Hello, I’m an addict with six years’ clean time. Coming from academia with my credentials, I was given four choices at the employment office: call center or call girl, tortilla roller or door greeter. How pathetic is that?”
“Door-to-door junk mailer here, a thousand fliers a day for maybe five bucks an hour before I crashed and burned, ate a jar of mayo . . .”
“I made good money tutoring billionaires’ kids and even started a couple of enrichment camps. But I was rotting inside, shouting obscenities and within a couple of seconds of jumping off the Verrazano Bridge when Blue Blaze Brooklyn 2000 passed by and lured me down with a Buckaroo Banzai lanyard and key fob . . . not to mention the possibility of a new identity out west.”
“Same here,” confessed Colorado Belle. “I’m new. I come to you from Denver, Colorado, the Mile-High City, where I worked for animal causes, a Brechtian interactive theater troupe, and against the agents of evil. Thanks for being so awesome, all of you.”
When others returned the praise unduly, she changed gears, saying, “Unfortunately my own life was a lost cause: the original x-woman, because everyone tried to x me out, including myself. I drank cleaning supplies, tried to drown myself to get insurance money for my kid . . . survived a suicidal car wreck and an exploding meth house, lost my soul working for a multinational company that by proxy made me complicit in the deaths of millions. I’m a survivor but just barely: I cut vertical instead of horizontal, else I would have bled out. I was roommated with a psycho liar and stuck in a lease, so I moved out and lived in an outside porch and then a rabbit hutch, dreaming of the person I could be if I wasn’t the person I actually was. Wishing on a star and a ten-dollar rock, in other words . . . just another street rat sleeping under a bridge.”
“Greetings from the tent camp, fellow dweller,” someone offered . . .
. . . as Belle continued, “Small wonder I ended up a gutter tramp in tweaker town—a truck stop hooker and head junkie with only three teeth, then in the Castro sleeping in squats that didn’t pass the smell test before I found a home with a dom daddy in a swinging kink community. Lots of good and bad adventures. It was beautiful and it was filth. If I hadn’t gotten busted for banging an Elk in front of a Lions Club in Boise, I’d probably still be taking my love to town or else be a statistic by now. Still, I wouldn’t trade the experience for the world because it made me a better country singer and got me a record deal on Buckaroo’s label.”
Amid expressions of congratulations, she paused to add, “I see myself every day here at the rehab clinic, people of every description going hard on dope: cowboys, Apaches, truckers, businessmen, hipsters. We all know stories that would curl your hair, but with my new smile I can give them hope.”
“Ain’t no life like the low life,” Tommy remarked, ever the skeptic. “You say you lost your teeth. Then how did you open a gunpowder pouch in hardening camp? You need four front teeth, minimum.”
“The Institute provided me free dental implants and also free veneers. Thank you, Señor Dentista . . .”
“De nada, Belle,” replied Señor Dentista, whose own teeth were somewhat crenellated. “I got free male enhancements and no longer have to hide behind a wall of shame. And I give the same to the impotent. Love is still possible.”
“Love . . . good luck. Love is not the strongest drug. Ask anyone who ever loved a needle, or loved a needle freak. Love can’t fix it—that’s on the real,” said Papa Bear, speaking from sad experience.
“Peruvian snuff powder,” added another. “The white devil will clean break you.”
“In more ways than one. Your mouth makes a promise your body can’t keep,” agreed a neighbor.
“Don’t tell me about junk,” said High Sierra, our current shogi champion. “I worked on Wall Street in crypto, sitting in front of a light box and algorithms sixteen hours a day, doing nothing but making mega cash, plucking hairs out of my head. One night I just sat down on a sidewalk and ate tainted Halloween candy, thinking how many people I had scammed . . . lives destroyed . . . tired of the crap being shoved down all our throats . . . and I reached for the kill switch, flipped the safety off my repeating pistol.”
“Yet here you are. Aren’t you glad you didn’t . . . ?”
She nodded, elaborating, “Here I am, a certified master naturalist and Reiki teacher, because at the last moment I realized it wasn’t my life I wanted to end—it was just my lifestyle. Now I’m high on life.”
“We love you, High Sierra,” said Leo the LEO. “With me, I wanted to be a cop, even a top cop, until I opened my eyes and realized the whole justice system—er, the travesty-of-justice system—is a waste of time, a sick joke. Your day in court? Tough luck, the joke’s on you! Guilty or innocent doesn’t matter. Since I refused to squash the innocent and take kickbacks from the guilty, here I am, due to an array of factors including self-preservation.”
“You might say you saw the cop lights,” someone said.
Leo nodded and said, “I saw the bubble lights and put down the jelly doughnuts, that’s right. And thanks to the Institute’s vocational training program, I moved up from security to millwright and recently earned my diploma in Jet Car technology.”
“Hear, hear! Raise a ruckus for Leo! Congratulations!”
The Last Mapuche also nodded, saying: “No matter where we go, there we are with our truth. I came out here a Rousseauian, anarcho-primitivist Neopagan, wanting to get off the grid and visualizing a vast wilderness. I guess I was only half right.”
“For me, it was either here or back to the AA clubhouse,” revealed Colorado Belle. “Yet here I am, in charge of the Banzai basic clothing line and our celebrity-endorsed items with worldwide sales in eight figures last year. I nearly died in hardening camp and the purification rites but never looked back.”
“I nearly died for real, too,” Papa Bear revealed. “I keep giving my all, shaving my wool, only to get my heart ripped out and then blaming myself. Losing hope in love. Is ‘happily ever after’ even a thing anymore, or are there only workout buddies?”
“There’s nothing wrong with being a woolly bear,” more than one person said. “Looks and credentials don’t matter. It’s what’s inside that counts . . . being a good person of the earth.”
Someone else conspicuously cleared her throat and confessed, “Like Buckaroo says, everyone is fighting a battle and everyone is filling a void. Maybe my struggle is not on a par, being personally a vegan and also a waiter running hot wings to tables . . .”
Of all the comments, this one created possibly the biggest uproar.
“Umm, no . . . eww, the worst . . . no amount of greasy money is worth that! Is this something you even want to talk about?” many exclaimed with earnest disgust, causing the poor ex–table server to get up and leave the table.
Meanwhile, Sir Roger P——, a top international scientist and Distinguished Visiting Fellow (who wishes to remain anonymous), took a bite of blackened fish and spat it out, muttering, “My God, what child died and went into this deep-fried pig snout? Anyone know the secret code for a stomach pump? A culinary cry for help?”
Unaware that he was being watched by Mrs. Johnson—whose cooking had gained long ago the reputation of being beyond criticism—he continued, “As part of Mrs. Johnson’s ongoing war on constipation, there seems to be something hissing in my slop, none of which I ordered—”
“What’s that you say, motor mouth?” she fired back at the distinguished Englishman with a threatening wave of her cheese grater. “Words of wit, you wimpy little tenderfoot? You had the seafood captain’s platter, right? My catfish is good food.”
“Catfish is good food, Mrs. Johnson, but perhaps that is not a valid refutation, as catfish technically don’t live in the sea—they live on a farm,” the knight braved, pointing at his plate. “Also, I requested the butterfly shrimp and received these popcorn shrimp by mistake. Could I not have a bean burrito instead?”
“Maybe the butterflies weren’t biting, you frigging anarcho-Bolshevik,” fired back Mrs. Johnson, whereupon a timely under-the-table kick from Tommy saved the Englishman from further harm at her hands and prompted him to amend his remarks:
“Yes, maybe just a bit more tartar sauce and it will be fine,” he said hastily. “And everyone tells me I definitely need to try your famous expired-milk-and-graham-cracker pudding for dessert, Mrs. Johnson. I can’t wait to taste your special creamy creation.”
“There might not be enough for everyone, sugar face,” she replied archly, still eyeing him suspiciously but now smiling. “The slide rule may be mightier than the sword, but not Boss Mama Johnson’s butcher knife and melon baller. Ask me about my world-famous fried mountain oysters.”
“Please, not the melon baller—I beseech you, Mrs. Johnson!” the jittery Sir Roger begged. “Because you are merciful, thank you.”
“You’re hilarious,” Mrs. Johnson said.
“Could I have another glass of moo juice, ma’am?” Tommy tactfully interjected in a bid to distract Mrs. Johnson; but in this he failed, for she was not yet done with the knight.
“Because this is why your crazy ass is alone, Sir Roger. If you want your pudding, you’ve gotta eat your meat!”
“I’m trying to loosen up. Thank you, Mrs. Johnson,” Sir Roger persisted.
“I’ll see you in purification rites, if you last that long, but maybe you’d do better in a nursing home,” she warned, then turned to the rest of us. “And who left a hand grenade in my freezer? Rules are rules in this house. Want me to close the doors? I will, despite my record-setting success . . . !”
“How about shorter chow lines!” some brave soul piped up, a complaint instantly echoed by others.
“Lead or get out of the way! . . . Hear, hear! . . . Change starts with us! . . . Zero tolerance for frozen grenades, ha, ha! Down with hand grenade popsicles!” we bellowed over Mrs. Johnson’s threats, leaving her fuming and cursing like a truck driver.
“I hear you, Mrs. Johnson,” said Sir Roger, shoveling down his seafood hash. “And I believe I will have a glass of moo juice also, just like my colleague Perfect Tommy, along with another splash of the Pichon-Longueville Baron.”
“Work hard, party harder!” someone yelled.
“Viva the Institute!”
“Que viva! Progress over protocol!”
“Never bettered, never bested!” a fresh chant began. “A shovel and a shoulder to cry on, all the beans and bullets you can eat!”
“Banzai!”
“Banzai!”
“I came for the space travel because I believe space is our destiny . . .”
“Beats selling gym memberships to mouthy wimps with mental issues. So tired of the double talk, the work-life balance, temp-to-perm, manager-potential crap . . . like all these twenty-first-century jobs with no future . . . nothing but street smear under the boss man’s shoe. And bullshit negativity. Just turning into another rat-racer debt slave. They invite you in with a smile. Entry-level professional, they say—oh, sure—counting on you just being willfully stupid and in denial, cynical about your broken dreams and excuse making . . .”
“For sure. Try being a young rising star in complex systems by day, and by night a divorced adjunct prof working for formula and diaper money, just another broke-dick zombie with a pay-the-bills job . . . every day a self-hate crime. Not realizing one iota of a damn’s worth of my full potential in a beatnik coffeehouse . . . tired of deadbeat panhandlers wearing better shoes than my black supergrips . . .”
“Can’t fire me ’cause I’m not playing!”
“Winning!”
“And if you have a sense of humor, it’s even worse! Nobody gets sarcasm!”
“But why? Why is sarcasm so phawking hard?” someone else questioned.
And so on, each with a not dissimilar story: “I arrived here broke and with migraines so debilitating, I threw a childlike tantrum expecting pity. But I was in for a rude awakening, especially when Buckaroo found that I was being radio tracked and slowly poisoned by World Crime League electronic tattoos, which he removed. Now when I run a marathon or lay my head on my pillow at night without my brain in scanning mode, I thank heaven for the Banzai Institute and its support network, the best of the best, where the impossible becomes routine . . .”
Still another declared, “Sounds like. I came for a boob job and butt boosters, but then Buckaroo made me realize the foolishness of wanting manmade bolt-ons to attract a real man, so instead he wangled me a grant from the National Science Foundation for my revolutionary technique in gene transference . . .”
“I won the National Spelling Bee and a free ride for the Banzai Institute Semester at Sea program. That scholarship got my foot in the door and changed my life many years ago,” an older gentleman said, looking around at the many faces in the room . . . some familiar, some new. “Pretty select company.”
“I’ll say. I came for the Institute’s summer festival and music academy and never left except for three years with the Philadelphia Orchestra . . .”
“Same here. Eagle Scout competitive shooter, I won junior top prize for shooting clays and went on to the Olympics and a gold medal. But the steel guitar was always my first love. Unfortunately, I was super freckled . . . always insecure. Then the call from Buckaroo that changed my life . . .”
“My skin was messed up, too . . . acne, psoriasis . . . always working on either weight loss or fat acceptance, so I went crazy for tattoos and pretty much inked myself all over. But what was I trying to hide?”
“Was I bitter?” Honest Dan suddenly interjected with obvious intensity. “Damn right I was bitter, living in immiseration with nothing going for me except scratch-off tickets, but better a restless Socrates than a happy pig in slop . . . plus the pure baloney they feed you like unhealthy food, when you’re just another well-oiled lab drone chasing the rat wheel and trying to kiss up to penny-pinching bosses. Just so tired of living on the edge with no tomorrow, in a perpetual state of mediocrity, going nowhere and just waiting to die of ass cancer and not being able to afford a casket . . . chasing the proverbial mechanical rabbit around the proverbial track, just a number on a spreadsheet until I had a meltdown one day and happened to see Buckaroo on TV talking about Buckminster Fuller’s theory of precession, how positive motivation leads to positive effects and vice versa. Seeing that, I quit my dead-end job and immersed myself in my research that I had given up on as too mind blowing. Six months later Peking U called about my breakthroughs in superfluid vacuum theory and oscillatory dynamics, which eventually led me to observe a physical effect of deep meditation on quantum tunneling and randomly generated numbers, leading in turn to a couple of nice lottery prizes and gigs in Las Vegas and the Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research lab. But by then Buckaroo had already lured me here to the Institute. Like I told my old lady, I’m out the door to better things . . . a bigger stage, a bigger narrative.”
“Your old lady . . . ?”
“My mother.”
“I can relate,” said Li’l Daughter. “I thought I’d be married or at least chasing sunsets with the ‘one,’ instead of fishing for a guy with a job and decent credit and catching nothing but fake personas and taken men or guys with a lot of guns and heathen children, or STDs . . . scheiss terrible days, ha, ha . . .”
“Shitty, terrible days, ha, ha . . . luckily I can’t have sex, because it hurts. Small wonder I have trust and intimacy issues! Still, I count my blessings, lucky to be alive and living at the Banzai Institute . . .”
“I had big plans, too, but could never quite get rolling,” confessed the anonymous triple amputee in black who had arrived only recently in a hippie van with a hydraulic hoist. “But I vowed to die on my feet, joined the army, and passed the SFQC, then traveled the world for many years, played in a thrash metal band, did some octagon fighting and even a stint in the French Foreign Legion over in the Sudan, where I slept inside the gutted carcass of a camel and survived two bullet wounds, a blowgun dart, and numerous knifings from a hundred-some-odd modern-day slavers . . .”
“Not exactly a picnic,” I remarked.
“Not a picnic at all,” said the ex-Legionnaire, “but nothing compared to hitting the beaches of Italian Somaliland as a counterterrorism specialist or auditioning for the Hong Kong Cavaliers . . .”
“Italian Somaliland? The inside of a camel?” someone questioned. “That’s quite a struggle story.”
“Yep. I guess I’ve used eight of my nine lives and three of my four limbs,” said the new arrival.
“Scary.”
“Super scary,” said someone else, before posing a question to all: “What’s the scariest thing about coming to the Institute, everybody?”
“For me, learning to shoot a gun,” said a grubby stable hand whose nickname I no longer can recall.
“And running up mountains . . . the hardest of ways, loving and learning . . . from caterpillars to butterflies.”
“Oh my God, the screening process,” someone fondly reminisced. “Those grueling interviews and personality assessments! All those wacky questionnaires!”
Practically in unison, we screamed with laughter and shouted back, “Do you strongly agree? Somewhat agree? Not sure? Somewhat disagree or strongly disagree? A, B, C, or D?”
“How the phawk did we survive without losing our marbles? Or did we?”
“Team building! Character building! To go where none have gone! When the going gets tough—”
“On guard for Canada!” interjected the Last Mapuche, raising his goblet.
At this Buckaroo also had to chuckle, saying, “Pat yourselves on the back, people. Well done, well played!”