Sins of the Flesch: The Vice of Extramusical Dalliance
Owen
Owen was the first person I ever saw when I walked into the museum, and knowing nothing else but this first impression I could immediately tell that here was a guy who took his job way, way to seriously. He was dressed in a full-length black leather trench coat which was tied S&M tight around his Tweedledum body. He was wearing the blackest sunglasses I’d ever seen, and he had a greaseball pony tail dangling off the back of his goateed head that was a good two and a half feet long. A few things were immediately apparent. He was going to incredible lengths to look like a badass, and he had seen the Matrix about seventy times and didn’t get that it wasn’t a theoretical physics documentary.
Look, I understand that this is a museum and there is some really expensive shit inside. I get it. You have to have security for the jewels and the Zulu shit. But the stone cold reality of the situation is that this is a fucking children's museum. Busloads of kids come in every day, wander around, scream, go to the planetarium, and eat a tater tot shaped like a dinosaur foot on the way out the fucking door before they go ride the ten foot high steel stegosaurus replica out front, desperately slide off its back when their bare skin touches the 1000 degree metal, and impale themselves on the tail spikes. Yes, it happened once. I asked why the museum doesn’t put up a sign that says, “fuck off of the stegosaurus” next to it to avoid this problem in the future. The response was that if you put up a sign then you have acknowledged that it is dangerous and are therefore aware of a problem. Then, whether they should be playing on it or not, if they kill themselves their parents can sue because you obviously knew it was a danger to the public. If you completely ignore it you can deny everything. Also, "shut the fuck up."
Me: Hey, is that a screaming and bleeding child desperately trying to pull itself off the sculpture outside? We should go help him.
Fat Doug: Sit down new fish, you need to learn to relax.
Rick: Also, shut the fuck up.
Seemed like sound logic.
Understanding this attitude is critically important to understanding how incredibly fucking cake this job was. See, most of the people who worked security at the museum were either old retired police officers, old retired Marine Corps veterans who fought in Korea, or both. These people had had very, very difficult circumstances to deal with in their previous careers, and wanted nothing more than to be put out to a pasture filled with doughnuts and free coffee, take a short walk in a climate controlled environment twice a day, and occasionally yell at children if they were in a good mood, whatever the standard for "good mood" was. Most of them were bitter and divorced, and their reward was a pension so pathetic that they were forced to go and get a part time job at the age of 70 just to make ends meet. To give you a better sense of the flavor of these gentlemen, here are some excerpts from actual conversations I had with some of them.
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Me: (Talking to a former detective about his crime scene experience) What’s the worst thing you ever had to deal with?
Detective John: Dead children. There was one lady who gave her baby a bath and then put it in the microwave to dry it off. I don’t even know what they did with her. The strange thing is that she seemed to think it was a perfectly reasonable thing to do.
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Incidentally, I thought this was probably fictitious until eleven years later when I picked up a copy of Time Magazine at the optometrist and read an article entitled "Ten Most Sadistic Women of the Last Fifty Years." Correct story, correct city, correct timeframe—everything. He was the first detective on the scene and helped bag it up. I had taken the fact that he never looked up from his crossword and the casual bite he took of his powdered doughnut while he mused over the story as evidence of fiction...
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Me: Man it’s fucking freezing out here. What took you so long to get down to the dock to let me in?
Frank: (A veteran) Because I lost seven toes in Korea. Don’t whine to me about being cold, pussy.
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Me: Holy shit, you were shot?
Officer Kasey: Yeah, twice. Once in the elbow and once in the…rear end. I don’t tell people about that one much. We were responding to a domestic violence complaint because some dude beat up his girlfriend. So when we go to arrest him, and the woman he was beating up comes out of the back room screaming, ’You can’t take my man! Don’t take my man!’, pulls out a gun and shoots me in the butt. Needless to say, my partner shot them both. What I never could figure out was, SHE’S THE ONE WHO CALLED US.
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So you see what we are dealing with here. At this point Fat Doug piped up and said, “if you have to shoot someone you’d better make sure they’re dead. The stack of paper work is only about half as high as if you wound them because Internal Affairs only gets your side of the story.”
The foil in this department to the muttering herd of retired rodeo bulls was a group of three of us younger guys who wanted a simple job to make ends meet while we were finishing our degrees. I remember my interview well, and it broke down into roughly three categories:
1. Be mildly entertaining to have around, and don't ruin anyone’s day unless they weren’t human. It was made clear that I—being young—fell into that category, along with everyone else who set foot in the building.
2. Don't eat the doughnuts and don’t drink the last of the coffee.
3. Listen to their war stories and look interested. That took no effort whatsoever.
For all practical senses those were all just riders on the primary legislation of “shut the fuck up". They could not stress that enough. What I eventually figured out was that the interview was largely a talk therapy session for them because of lingering PTSD (Post-traumatic “shut-the-fuck-up” disorder) brought on by a high school kid they hired a few years back. My understanding is that his tenure ended when they cornered him in the freeze-drying room and informed him he could either quit or have his mouth sown shut with his own public hair, and they were extremely dubious about extending the first courtesy lest any of them should ever see him again. That was how Detective John explained it to me anyway, and I figured most of it was the exaggeration hating people brought out in them. Cut to a month later.
Me: Hey Frank, remember when Detective John said you guys told that kid to quit or you’d sew his mouth shut with pubes? Is that what really happened?
Frank: No.
Me: Yeah, I didn’t th...
Frank: It was in the cold storage locker where they kill the insects on confiscated fur coats. John’s memory isn’t what it used to be.
Me: Pwah?
Frank: We’ve all seen a lot of dead people. It’s very important you remember that.
Needless to say, my interview lasted about two minutes before they gave me a job because I look like Timmy from Lassie, except I also pay taxes to support their Medicaid and Social Security checks. Michael was probably my best friend there, and he was great because of his ability to say anything convincingly if he wanted to win an argument whether he was bullshitting or not. Law school, obviously. Michael’s father was a pilot, so he got to fly a lot of places for free. One day in the Atlanta airport when he was twelve, he stole some stupid little keychain from a gift shop, and his dad found out about it when he saw him playing with it back home in Texas. His dad put him right back on a plane, made him fly back to Atlanta by himself, go to the shop, call his dad on his cell phone and hand it to the clerk, return the item, and then publicly recite a five minute long pre-written statement about what he stole and why he was a bad child who would probably end up in jail if he doesn’t straighten the fuck out. The clerk apparently laughed so hard he was barely was able to function. Then he got back on a plane and flew home, where his dad screamed at him for two hours and grounded him for a month. Convinced his dad overreacted, Michael maintained by way of a lengthy, convoluted argument that he was somehow entitled to this object rather than admit his guilt, and I think he’s working for a big firm now and makes well into the six figure range.
The point of talking about all those people first was to make it possible to believe that someone like Owen could slip through the cracks without being outed as crazy and drug away in a coat. He was pretty quiet most of the time in the interest of preserving his belief that he was Morphius. With the exception of being the victim of an occasional backhand comment about his body odor, he was generally left alone as long as he did his job. This lack of oversight for a borderline personality does carry its risks, as the difference between Bozo’s Circus and Pogo’s Circus is that Bob Bell and John Wayne Gacy disagreed about whether the red ball goes on your nose or in your mouth. However, after talking to Owen for three minutes I could see why everyone was willing to roll the dice and avoid the issue. At least being raped and murdered came with a guarantee of eventual silence.
Overall, Owen ended up falling on the benign side of this equation. No matter how extreme his delusions of grandeur may be, he could never escape the fact that deep down he was really just a big pussy, and as a result, Michael and I increasingly interacted with him because the investment virtually guaranteed an entertainment payout. In any conversation, the first few nuggets of information you would get from Owen once he decided to break his museum ninja guardian code of badass silence would typically come out in the form of “I know a guy” stories. Ridiculous stories. Stories no thinking human being would possibly believe even if Jesus Christ was telling it.
For instance.
One day the three of us are sitting in the back at the end of the day flagrantly not doing our jobs and drinking the last of the coffee. All the guests have left, and we are trying to avoid being seen so the old dudes have to shut the place down for us. At this point, Michael says,
“Hey, I watched Enter the Dragon last night. That movie is badass.”
Me: Love that movie. A week ago I read that he could knock a guy down with a punch that started just one inch away.
Michael: What? No way.
Owen: It’s true. There are guys who can kill you with one finger.
Me: Whaaat? Bullshit Owen. If Bruce Lee can’t kill you with a fist to the sternum then one finger sure as hell isn’t going to do anything unless you send it burrowing through their eyeball and into their brain stem.
Owen No, it’s true. There are guys who know the exact pressure point to hit that will instantly paralyze you and stop your heart. They’re called ‘cord cutters’.
Michael: Dude, shut the fuck up. Did you learn that between two and five in the morning on Cartoon Network?
Owen: They can! I know this guy who is a [whatever-eth degree black belt in Kim Chi Show Wang] who can paralyze your whole…body…just by touching you...with…one…finger. I saw him do it.
The Italics are Owen’s, not mine, by the way. Whenever he was saying the most ludicrous part of his contention, he would slow down his speech, stare right into your eyes with an expression which could easily be mistaken for forcing a deeply impacted bowel movement, and emphasize each word as carefully as possible. If you have to say it’s the Champagne of Beers…well, you get the idea.
I, however, could not possibly be more happy about that face, because it means Michael’s point of no return had been passed and Owen was going over the falls in a barrel. If there’s one thing Michael can’t stand it’s someone dumber than him (most people) talking complete shit (like Owen). I lean back and take a sip of coffee, and watch as Michael calmly and methodically pushes Owen’s logic center of the brain back and forth like a tire swing. Per the usual pattern, Owen would regress farther and farther away from the details of the offending statement without ever fully abandoning his initial position. Tuning back in.
Michael: No—you ass—you did not see that.
Owen: Yes I did. He’s a friend of mine and he owns a dojo.
Michael: Where is this dojo. (I am using a period instead of a question mark because it’s not really a question.)
Owen It’s over near the Blockbuster on Clement St.
Michael: Fine. We’re going. I want to see this guy.
Owen: Well...he’s usually teaching. We can’t just walk in.
Micheal: You said this guy was your friend. I’ll wait. I want to learn how to kill people with my pinky finger while I sip a cup of tea and read the morning paper. Starting with you.
Owen: I didn’t say he’s my friend, he’s just kind of a friend. I mean, he’s a sensei at the dojo. It would be disrespectful.
Michael: No shit. So now this “friend” is just some dude you saw one time. I bet it wasn’t even in a dojo either.
Me: Why the fuck would a martial arts master who can kill you with a finger work in a shitty building on Clement St.? Shouldn’t he be training monks in Tibet?
Owen: Listen, I swear to god this guy can kill you with one finger. I saw him do a demonstration.
Michael So let me get this straight. You saw him do a demonstration…where he killed a guy.
Owen: Well...I mean...obviously not kill somebody. He did a kata that showed us how it works. I could kill you now if I wanted to.
Michael: Let me guess. This was at the mall, wasn’t it.
Owen: No! It was at a martial arts convention!
Me: Right. At the mall.
Owen: Fuck you, asshole! And it doesn’t matter! This guy is so fast that you might not even see what he did. Look, I have done extensive martial arts training and I have a black belt equivalent (I’ll explain that in future posts) in four different forms of martial arts. I have trained myself through meditation to move faster than bullets. These guys are for real.
Michael: Woah, woah, woah. Back up a tick, dumbass. You…can dodge a bullet.
Owen: Yes.
Micheal… (His silence indicated he was already calculating how to kill Owen and get away with it.)
Me: Dude, come on. Seriously.
Michael: Right? Listen to yourself. You are actually going to put that out there?
Owen: Absolutely. I could dodge a bullet from like ten feet away.
Me: Maybe this is way off base here, but the fact that you’re alive leads me to believe you’ve never actually practiced this.
Owen: I’ve trained with shurikens and sais.
Me: Or met Michael.
Michael: Alright then, let’s do a little test right now. I’m going to take this pencil and throw it at you. You can stand ten feet away. If you can dodge a throwing star—which you can’t—then this should be a piece of cake.
Owen: Bring it on.
After a few minutes of bickering, they settle on the distance. Michael gets ready to throw, and Owen adopts the most inauthentic, anime crane-kick martial arts pose I’ve ever seen. Right at that moment, Chad, our boss walked in.
Chad doesn’t particularly like Owen because Owen doesn’t shower and he fucking stinks most of the time. To the point where Chad eventually had so many complaints from the other guards that he had to have an intervention. Chad hates this kind of thing, because it means he has to pause the Sopranos, and put down his double-meat double-cheese no-vegetable monster sub from Quizno’s for something other than taking a shitChad handled it as delicately as he knew how. Or maybe cared to. Actually, he was probably really pissed off.
“Look Owen, I’m going to level with you. You fucking stink, OK? I can smell your balls from here. I’m sending you home and you have to take a fucking shower before you come back. I don’t mean today, I mean ever. I swear to god, if we have to have this conversation again I’m going to pack you into the smallest plexiglass reptile box we have and let you pickle to death in your own cheese. Got it? And squirt some goddamn hand sanitizer on that chair before you go.”
So with that in mind, back to our little event.
Chad: (Grunting) What the hell are you three assholes doing in here? Get to work.
Michael: Owen said he can dodge a bullet. I’m going to throw this pencil at him to prove him wrong.
Chad: ...
Michael: Sooooooooooooooo....
Chad: Do it.
With giddy glee, Michael rears back, and before he even lets go of the pencil Owen attempts to hurl himself out of the way like Raggedy Andy flying out of a cement mixer . Seeing this, Michael’s delivery changes from baseball pitcher to discus thrower, easily closing half the distance between them, and throws the pencil so hard that his feet leave the ground and the forward motion of his arm cleared four and three-quarters of the remaining five feet between them. He may as well have stabbed him in the armpit.
Owen: OOOOWWWWW!!!! Fuck, man!
Michael: I told you. You can’t dodge shit.
Owen: What the fuck?! I told you I could dodge it from ten feet away, not right next to me!
Michael: Whatever. You said you could dodge it and you couldn’t. You are full of shit.
Owen: I said BULLET! Katanas are a totally different technique.
Michael: Whatever. You said you could dodge it and you couldn’t. You are full of shit.
Me: Based on that little demonstration, I assume you mean katanas ‘have’ a technique.
Owen: Shut the fuck up. You didn’t do it right.
Michael: Whatever. You said you could dodge it and you couldn’t. You are full of shit.
One of the entertaining/infuriating things about Michael is that once he gets something on you, whether it’s justified or not, he will hound you from that position like a third grader on the playground for the rest of your life.
Owen: Goddamnit, you didn’t do it right! If you shot a bullet at me it would leave from ten feet away, not right next to me.
Me: OK—seriously—cut the shit, Owen. Do you have any idea how fast a bullet is moving? You’d be dead before the casing cleared the chamber.
Owen: (Looking exasperated) Well…you don’t actually dodge the bullet from the second it leaves the gun barrel. I mean, I can’t but there are people who can. What I would do is watch for when you finger starts pulling the trigger and then I’d already be moving out of the way.
Michael: See!I told you so! You never said shit about watching me pull the trigger! So what the fuck would you do in this NEW instance to get out of the way of the bullet, Mr. Miyagi?
Owen: Here, I’ll show you how it works. Watch this.
Owen gets himself set like before and does a ridiculous little hip turn that moves him to one side, and sticks one of his arms out a bit. At this point Chad walks off.
Owen: There, see that? I turn to the side, and the bullet would hit me in the wrist instead of the body. I still get hit, but it’s much safer.
Michael: What!? Why the fuck would you do that? If you are fast enough to get your fat ass out of the way, why the hell wouldn’t you get your fat fucking wrist out of the way too? That’s fucking idiotic!
Owen: I told you I could dodge a bullet. Ben, you see what I’m talking about right?
Me: Look dude, I’m not getting....
Michael: Fuck you. You can’t dodge a pencil, and you can’t dodge a bullet. If you really want to try it again let’s compromise and I’ll throw the stapler at you. I’ll even stand over here. (This is long before Dodgeball, came out. The stapler just happened to be there.)
Owen: Do it right this time.
At this point I get the fuck out of the way. Right or wrong, the look in both their eyes told me this had escalated, and I don’t want to get hit by a three pound chunk of metal flying across the room at 200 mph even if I have a much better chance of dodging it than Owen does. To his credit, Michael did back off on the fastball quite a bit—probably because, unlike Owen, he knows that“tort” doesn’t refer to a breakfast pastry. Besides, I think deep down he would be willing to let it go if the alternative is paying an insurance carrier fifteen grand in medical compensation. So he gives it a light lob, and Owen, writhing around like an earthworm in the way you would absolutely not expect a martial arts master to behave, barely, and I mean BARELY...manages to get his all of himself out of the way.
Owen See! I told you! I have amazing reflexes!
Michael (looking half-heartedly annoyed) Whatever, I almost hit you. If that was a bullet you’d be crying like a little bitch right now.
Owen: Yeah right. You couldn’t hit me if you tried. I only did what was absolutely necessary to get out of the way. Martial arts is about not wasting energy.
Me: Chriiiist….
Suddenly Chad reappears. We assume that we have fucked around long enough and this is the end of the line for procrastination. We could not have been more wrong.
Chad: So you can dodge a bullet, huh? Alright smartass, let’s find out.
Chad reaches into his pants, pulls out a loaded .38 and points it directly at Ian’s forehead.
Michael: YEEEEEESSSS! OH GOD, YEEEEEESSSS!
Chad: Say when, fatbody.
Owen: Woah man, woah@ Hey, I said that OTHER PEOPLE can do this! There’s really only, like, three martial arts masters in the world who can do it! I can’t do it every time!
Me: “Every time”? How about, “never”, dumbass.
Michael: Oh, what’s up now bitch! I thought you did this shit at the mall every day? Dodge that bullet, Owen! Come on, you said you could, so man up and prove me wrong!
Chad: Say when, boy.
Owen: No! Shit, stop man! Fuck! OK, shit! All I meant was that there are people who can do it, not that I can do it! And I already proved you wrong Michael, so shut the fuck up!
Michael: My balls are so empty I won’t be able to jerk off for a week now! You fucking worthless piece of fuckless SHIT!”
Chad: (grunt) That’s what I thought. No go close up.
Chad walks off to his office, and Michael and I leave for our rounds.
Michael: You might want to check your pants before you leave the office. They look fuller than usual.
Owen: (talking to me as Michael walks out of earshot) See, there really are people can dodge bullets. I’ve seen it. What these guys do, is they…...................................................................
If I learned anything from the next twenty minutes of Owen following me like a dog from door to door explaining his bullshit, it’s that there is such a thing as being too nice to people.
OTHER PIECES IN THE SERIES
Literature, Humor: Sins of the Flesch: The Vice of Extramusical Dalliance—Prologue
Literature, Humor: Sins of the Flesch: The Vice of Extramusical Dalliance—The Security Guard Years pt 1: Rick
Literature, Humor: Sins of the Flesch: The Vice of Extramusical Dalliance—The Security Guard Years pt 2: Owen
Literature, Humor: Sins of the Flesch: The Vice of Extramusical Dalliance—The Security Guard Years pt. 3: Owen Eats Habaneros for Breakfast
Literature, Humor: Sins of the Flesch: The Vice of Extramusical Dalliance—The Security Guard Years pt. 4: Rick Explains how to Kill People