MisterMenu sat in the shade of the popcorn tree on the grand terrace of his duplex penthouse. He lived high atop the Eyedropper Building, fifty-two stories above the hullabaloo. He had a view of the ReadyToWear River. He had a view of the LookAway Harbor. He had a view of other buildings. He had lots of views. And he’d paid plenty for ’em, too.
He was sipping goosenut water out of what was called a libation vessel back in the old coca-leaf-and-obsidian-knife times. At least that’s what the glossy catalog claimed. The “vessel” had been purchased at auction from the fabled house of SoBuyMe for—never mind how much. More than you got. How badly you want a stinky old cup used in certain “dark and cruel practices,” anyway? People back then actually loved to attend spectacles of public bloodletting. And they went as often as they could. The shows made them feel cozy and prosperous.
MisterMenu was obviously prosperous. Did he feel cozy? What was the question again? He had his bloated income. He had his hot wife. He had his extravagant digs. He had other properties in other places. He had big monies deposited in this bank and in that bank. He had fancy cars. He had fancy boats. He had rare masterworks by both Wisenheimer and Mucilage. He had two beautiful, relatively obedient daughters. Chrysalis went to Mistletoe College. NoDeposit went to LayAbout University. He had his foxy live-in maid, Mix’N’Match. He had his foxy live-away mistress, Chloride. Whenever he wanted lipstick on his dick, he checked in with Mix’N’Match. When he wanted a finger up his ass, he stuck with Chloride. He was a very busy man. He didn’t like to look at himself as wealthy, though he was—fantastically so. That was crass. He regarded himself as exceptional. And he was. And a prominent member of the exceptional class.
So what was he doing home in the middle of the afternoon? Guess. He was already stepping out of his pants as he came off the elevator. But the wide, open spaces of his big, big apartment were disappointingly empty. Where was Mix’N’Match? Probably out hunting and gathering for tonight’s dinner. He’d wait.
So here he was, then, on the terrace in his underwear. His laptop on his lap. He clicked. He stroked a couple of keys. He stared at the screen. The markets went up. The markets went down. The money went round and round. Not that MisterMenu had anything to worry about. He was founder, president, and CEO of NationalProcedures, a division of GlobularSystems, which was an affiliate of TheConsternationGroup, a branch of ProjectileStrategies, which was a wholly owned subsidiary of Divinicom, which owned everything. World economies could crash and burn. MisterMenu’s financials were always sound. Count on it.
Slight problem: the job was mostly all headwork. Mostly all numbers. The numbers skittered around in there like fireflies in the dark. MisterMenu loved his job. Didn’t everyone? But the whole enterprise was so damn abstract. So invisible. And he, so he told himself, was such a sensuous guy. He liked objects, the world of things. He liked to look at things. He liked to touch things. He liked to surround himself with things, especially things that provided tangible evidence of his kickin’ success in life. And what could be more tangible than actual money in its actual grubby ink-on-paper three-dimensional format? Bags of real money, positioned at strategic intervals throughout his rooms, offered a specific comfort and solidity he’d been unable to find anywhere else. He liked to look at them. He liked to touch them. Visitors to the penthouse often mistook the upright, bulging sacks for pieces of pop sculpture, amusing works of contemporary art. Which, of course, they were.
Now, though, the moving lights on the screen momentarily commanded his attention. He clicked. He stared. He clicked again. A dozen more bags. Just like that.
Suddenly, he looked up. MissusMenu had abruptly materialized in the open doorway. She was a former supermodel, aspiring actressette, and the face of CellarDoorCosmetics. She maintained her unearthly gorgeosity through a combination of sheer will and the frequent application of fresh banknotes. She always looked good.
“What are you doing here?” she said. She had just come from IMeMine. Later, she would go to TheHouseOfFineness. In between, she had planned on a long, lazy session of intense masturbation. Her best parts were already tingling. Shopping for new clothes, trying on new clothes, simply being near new clothes always made her feel so insanely horny. Now this. Fatboy was home.
“Don’t start,” said MisterMenu. He recognized the voice she was doing. He’d heard it before. Too many times before.
MissusMenu glared at him for a moment. Then she wheeled about and went click-clacking away. In another moment she was back again.
“And why,” she said, “are you sitting out here in full view of the entire world in your underwear?” Now she was doing her are-you-really-a-moron-or-what? voice.
“I was hot.”
She glared at him. Her eyes like cinders. She turned and left.
MisterMenu had MissusMenu problems. He wasn’t always sure exactly what those problems were, but obviously there were a lot of them. Once he and MissusMenu had actually liked each other. Really. Now, not so much. What had happened? He didn’t know.
He went back to his clicking and stroking. Streaming numbers, bar graphs, pie charts were instantly replaced by a low-resolution image of a room, a bed, a woman asleep. Her name was Linoleum, and this was her site. One of MisterMenu’s favorites.
He was an annual subscriber. If she were awake right now, he’d probably order her to do something NSFW with some hard vegetables, a couple of eggs, and a few clothespins. And she’d do it, too. There was a reason hers was one of the top ten highest-grossing sites in the overheated virtual sex slave community. He watched her sleep. He imagined lying down next to her. He imagined and imagined.
“What are you doing now?” said MissusMenu. She was back.
MisterMenu hit a key. The screen flipped to pictures of foreign people rioting in a foreign place. “Checking up on the news,” he said. Study Says: Excessive Blinking Causes Cancer of the Eyelid.
“What’s with the mess in the kitchen?” said MissusMenu.
“What mess?”
“The half-eaten melon on the counter. The broken crystal in the sink. The sticky red stuff all over the floor.”
“MerryberryConserve,” he said. “From the untrammeled, unpolluted slopes of the majestic Polyhedral Mountains.”
“Why didn’t you clean it up?”
“Leave it for Mix’N’Match.”
“You know this is her day off.”
“I know no such thing.”
“Her schedule’s been posted on the front of the refrigerator for the past three goddamn years.”
“She can clean it up tomorrow.” MisterMenu hated conversations like this. Hated them. They were too slippery-sliddery. With few handholds and no safety net.
“Or you can do it now,” said MissusMenu.
“I don’t think so.”
“Why not?”
“I’m busy.”
“Doing what?”
“Making money, what do you think? Making money for you, my sweet.”
“I refuse to spend the night lying there in bed awake, thinking about those globs of jelly stuck to my floor.”
“It’s not jelly,” said MisterMenu. “It’s conserve.”
“Do you have any idea how angry you make me? Any idea at all?”
“I was merely stating a fact.”
“The entire kitchen will be overrun with cockroaches by morning.”
MisterMenu emitted the short bark that passed for laughter with him. “Are you serious? On the fifty-second floor? What do they do, take the elevator up?”
“I saw at least a dozen running under the stove last week.”
“You were probably hallucinating.”
“They carry thirty-one different types of infectious disease. Thirty-one.”
“Who says?”
“I saw it on the internoodle.”
“Oh,” said MisterMenu, “then of course it must be true.”
“I hate you,” said MissusMenu. She went back inside and reappeared a moment later, clutching a bulging duffel of cash.
“Don’t.” He got up out of his chair to take control of this ridiculous situation.
MissusMenu went to the MuscleBarn every morning, no matter what. Of course, she had a bangin’ body. And if she wanted to beat her husband to a pulp, she probably could. So hefting a sack of money and hurling it at his head was a cinch. But the toss was high and wide. MisterMenu reached up to make a dramatic catch, but his hands couldn’t get a grip, and the bag was merely deflected. It flew over the parapet. It flew out into the anonymous city.
“Do you know how much was in that bag?”
“I couldn’t care less.”
“I’m sure you couldn’t.” He picked up the nearest phone. “You wouldn’t know the value of an umbrella in the middle of a shitstorm.” He spoke into the phone. “Yes, WindSock, this is MisterMenu. We’ve had a bit of a mishap up here. Yes. A large canvas bag has accidentally fallen from our terrace and I wonder if you could possibly go out and retrieve it for us. Yes, that’s right. On the Q side near the intersection with J. And WindSock, let me know if anyone was hurt. We don’t want any unpleasant repercussions over this. Thank you.” He put the phone down. He looked at his wife. She looked back at him. He really wanted to hit her. Bad. But he’d paid too much for that face to wreck it himself.
“We’ll be lucky if no one was killed,” he said.
“I hope they all were,” said MissusMenu. “I hope everyone walking innocently down the block was killed. And I hope everyone who wasn’t killed was maimed and crippled. By your money falling on their heads.”
“If that bag is lost…”
“Oh, what do you care? One bag. One pathetic bag. It means nothing. None of them means anything. Here, let’s toss another one over.” She advanced on an untouched bag in the corner by the popcorn tree. “Feed it to the sharks,” she said. “Feed all of it to the fucking sharks.” She picked the bag up and began carrying it toward the parapet. MisterMenu grabbed her by the arm.
“What’s wrong with you?” he said. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”
“Taking out the trash,” she said. She tried to pull away from him. He held on.
They wrestled. The bag fell to the floor. They wrestled some more. Not very serious wrestling, but MisterMenu still had some surprising strength in those untoned limbs. He managed to get a leg behind her and push her back down hard onto the MercyMe outdoor sectional they had once had sex on one distant memorable night. He stood panting over her.
“You’re making me sweat,” he said. “I don’t like to sweat.”
“Actually feeling something for a change? Unpleasant, isn’t it?”
“I hope for your sake that that money has not gone missing.”
“Yeah?” said MissusMenu. “What then? Tell me. I want to know.”
“I might get angry.”
“You don’t frighten me.”
“That may not be the most productive position to be in.”
“Is that a threat?”
“Take it how you will.”
“You know, at first, I thought you were just ignorant, and then, after a while, I thought you were stupid, but now, you know, I see you’re just plain evil. You’re MisterBullshit. You should change your name.”
“You’re the one who needs a name change. To MissusWhateverYouWantToPutInHere.”
“I’d clean you out. You know that.”
“The prenup is fireproof, waterproof, bulletproof, and witchproof.”
“I hate you.”
“So you mentioned.” MisterMenu went back to his chair, sat down, picked up his laptop, and clicked. Linoleum was awake. He wondered what she smelled like.
MissusMenu sat up and reached around under the sofa for one of her heels, which had come off during the struggle. She slipped the shoe back on and stood up and walked away without a word. She slammed the terrace door behind her as hard as she could. The glass panel exploded in a spectacular shower of shards and splinters. Was that her life tinkling in pieces to the floor?
“Go kill some roaches,” said MisterMenu. “Kill ’em dead.”