Billy Joel's fingers/token friend who's dead

So one day on his way to work this guy takes a dive in front of an oncoming train. Maybe he's fallen asleep mid-step (reasonable in the early rush) or given up (reasonable on way to boring job as a middle manager). What's certain is that the guy comes to and he's a ghost floating above this black and white sign that reads Broadway-Lafayette, looking at himself dead smushed split apart on the ground.

The guy floats up off the track and past the platform where folks are already gathering to gape and freak, floats up out through people toward the exit. From a pedestrian perspective, he's glad to discover, New York subways properly accommodate those who float. It's something he hadn't noticed.

The light hits his eyes like he's hung over but also like it won't stick, like it's going through him. When he gets home no one's there and he hangs out in the kids' rooms a while, thinking how their eyes light up unconditionally when they see him, thinking about his wife when she has something teasing to say to him that reads him too well to deny but still cuts a little but in the end is mostly just funny and goddamn when someone gets you. It hits him what he's done and he tries to conjure some way to get back to life with them but he-of-course-cannot reverse-the-cruel-ravages-of-time-Janus-though-he-may-be.

No one's ever home and every day the guy tries to occupy himself with something different, turns on the radio to listen to that bitch Imus and thinks about the off-season moves of the Yankees or those other jokers, thinks about football and hockey and what a poor substitute they are for the timeless evening of a decent ballgame and the kids arguing through the walls of their adjacent rooms. The leaves are everywhere, instant bullshit metaphors that they are and he makes himself a sandwich, puts on an old Billy Joel record (Piano Man I think), watches daytime TV. But no matter what he does, he's back to thinking about his wife and kids, wondering if their purgatory (if necessary) will be the same as his and how to occupy that time in the meantime. And sometimes his old friends, his mom, his brothers and sisters.

No one ever comes home and whenever he goes out it's fun, I mean, he can go to the movies and see concerts or Yankee games for free, sneak into people's hotel rooms while they're sleeping and watch them sleep or fuck or fight undetected. He can float above the city, its lights curving effortlessly into the sky at night like staccato pounding through Billy Joel's fingers, out over the cold fuck Atlantic, out into space. He's a master, he's in control, like Joe Torre or Derek Jeter or the Babe, or even Billy Joel himself.

It's always bothered me, man, that you turned out to be the token friend who's dead. It bothers me because your work track reminds me so much of my own, because your detachment from the day-to-day is something I find so intuitive. It bothers me because you were trying to cut your cholesterol, because you had little ones to live for, because there was so much that you seemed into, even though there was obviously so much you couldn't even pretend to give a shit about.

It bothers me because you gave me your records, and I just thought you'd given them up for CDs.

what we expect when we talk about expecting

first trimester (0 - 14 weeks): Baby may occasionally react to specific meals with belches or hiccups; on occasion a tiny "fuck yeah!" rings forth. small hairs produce wolfman-like appearance. is small enough to leave your body on stealth excursions, e.g. for barbecue wings or midnight movies. does not yet see ghosts nor communicate with them. baby should not operate heavy machinery or use the internet unsupervised during this period.

second trimester (15 - 26 weeks): You are going to be hungry as shit now. Example: you may eat a dog or other mammal whole. baby's hiccups, more active now, are capable of triggering world disasters, e.g. floods, wars, famine. now has capacity to yell "motherfucker!" at room volume in quiet or awkward situations. may briefly become a fan of the Dallas Cowboys; typically recedes as a normal part of your child's mental development. first traces of cynicism (sample conversation: You: Baby, how do you feel about the recent national election? Baby:____ You: I mean, will Obama run the country like he ran his campaign? Baby: (may kick) You: But seriously, come on, level with me here. Baby: As long as you view Obama in a ruling class context, you won't be disappointed.) Later, baby may express profound hope about the glacial thawing of our racist national heart, tempered by reminders of imminent bombing, etc.

third trimester (27 - 40 weeks): Baby now capable of revealing your innermost thoughts in stealth calls to your parents, friends, or the national media. typical in-flight wing span now exceeds three feet. baby is typically born during this period, a simple and foolproof process after which follows tidal waves, tsunamis, the complete redrawing of the national map with texas occupying the area formerly known as canada and ohio greedily occupying the rest, the reversal and/or multiplication of gravity to several times its intensity, dizziness, hallucinations, vomiting, waves of confusion and happiness and telegraphic love, a scrambling of the periodic table whereby unstable elements occupy the first 12 elements and form the others when fed after midnight. during this time tic-tac-toe may become an immanently winnable game for you or your partner. relatives reappear. marital conversations reduced to grunts, sighs, and storming out of the room (helps to prevent an immediate second child which christ knows you could not handle at this point).

Baby may exhibit alien vampire tendencies and attempt to drain mother of all bodily fluid. also may develop acne but should not at this point be left unattended overnight.

radio

We weren't sure if it was at 12:01 a.m. or 5:59, some time before we woke up for sure, but that day the radio broadcasted only good news. It was the kind of thing you noticed right away in the relieved tone of the announcers.

By the time we'd had our coffee my wife and I were feeling pretty good. The baby seemed to pick up on it as well and he just sat there, smiling. As an experiment we kept moving him to different positions to see if he'd get pissed but he just wouldn't stop smiling. Upside down, smile. Sideways, lying on his stomach, on top of the cat, sitting in the refrigerator. All smiles.

We kept switching stations but no matter where we looked we couldn't find bad news. On the conservative station a Mexican man had legally immigrated and gone on to success as CEO of an environmentally-friendly burger chain. On the lefty ones it was Hugo Chavez's birthday and he was unstoppable, giving out free kittens for each of the world's citizens, postage paid. NPR was doing a 24-hour Car Talk marathon. In sports, the Phillies had won the World Series.

The news was so good that I worried we might be hallucinating. At lunch I asked my wife to feel my chest, which had this strange new feeling, kind of queasy, kind of nervous, but it made me smile. I asked my wife what it was. "That's hope, honey," she said, like talking to an toddler. But she was still smiling too.

By 3 p.m. we were happier than our first date and the neighbors had stopped by and we were all sharing stories. You could picture the radio waves going out all over the place, like friendly ghosts.

That night the kid fell asleep early and she and I made spaghetti and lit candles and talked to each other like real people, the radio still going in the background. When we went to bed the good news continued unabated and we went down to sleep knowing all was good in the world forever amen.

In the dead middle of the night my wife woke me up crying. In a minute we both were, then the pumpkin too. We switched the radio back on, waiting for the other shoe to drop.

layoffs

call half of your staff into the main conference room, let your HR director explain things in calm perfect resource-speak and then fire her too while someone changes the locks. pay and then fire the locksmith and have them all thrown out into the parking lot and sprayed with a firehose by the security consultants.

pile the unused aeron chairs in an empty conference room until its full of them. empty chairs have sad old memories, sagging marks from sagging people, dead dreams, amusing enough. but these tangled chairs are also actually a form of competition; if something goes wrong and a competitor buys you out they'll never be able to untangle the chairs and suddenly they're paying rent on a room they can't use.

assemble your remaining staff each morning for 8:00 a.m check-ins. pace the room, filing your nails with a machete. reveal nothing.

don't lay off by merit. keep the managers who botched it up for now but pick their lackeys off at random, using percentile dice or the I-Ching. after you've fired half the staff, hire ten new people at higher salaries to break the spirits of the rest. wear a bandolier festooned with human skulls.

when plotting layoffs, don't think people, think strategy. consider office layout, an even gender balance, two by two. if this downturn for some reason features an apocalypse, will your organization be prepared to propagate the species? consider both your situation as chief executive but also that of your chosen successor. castrate or drug other males. police your brood. kill your successor, planting his head on a pike in front of your office to warn pretenders to the throne. think of your employees as potential followers in the dusty haze that will follow the great war. fill the supply room with bottled water, TV dinners, and a trusty cyanide supply, just in case. in case they come for you.

perhaps you've gotten a bit paranoid, alone in your office late at night, drunk in the dead new york quiet. but it's sort of nice, isn't it, how every one else has gone home. now you don't have to draw the shades or lock your office door. unlock the secret vault and review the dog-eared pages of your great plan. if the market continues its descent you can fire them all, and the last man standing will be you: master of the universe.

caffeine paranoia

the kind of doom and gloom week for quick spirals of paranoid thinking, e.g.:

a) total economic collapse perhaps more palatable than second Mets collapse?

b) assets perhaps best converted into canned food?

c) nonprofit fundraising perhaps not first profession to prosper in the new world?

d) south jersey perhaps too populated to protect family?

e) vast array of guns friend has been quietly gathering in his basement perhaps not scary, so much as lending library or nest egg to build a new community on?

definitely need a good night's sleep.