vr
a novel
Scott Alexander Gabriel Reiss
February 2000
This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidental.
From: SAGReiss
Date: 17 February 2000
Subject: The White Berlingo
The phone rang at four o'clock on November twenty-first. My father said
it was time to go, for both of us. We scattered like bowling pins. She had
hidden the car. "Daniel, je peux te parler une minute?" He must have sensed
something was up. He led me to the terrasse where we lit up smokes. "You
know I've been staying at my father's. Well his wife thinks it would be best
if we left, immediately. Do you think I could rent a car somewhere?" He asked
a few questions. Under the circumstances this was inevitable. I thought he
was fairly discrete. At eight o'clock I was at the airport behind the wheel
of a French station wagon. I had no idea where I was going. The first thing
I did was drop a lit cigarette between my legs. I knocked it away while swerving
towards a concrete girder. I wove back into the lane. The cigarette disappeared
under the seat. "No problem," I thought lighting up another. I stopped at
the pub in Bet Shemesh and called my father. He explained that this was to
be a commando raid, rush in, grab my bags, which I had not unpacked from the
week-end, and leave. He wasn't going to leave until the next day. I spent
a month at the home of my uncle Leibel's (Benny) late mother-in-law. It's
kind of a crash pad. No one really lives there. They are pieds-noirs, Algerians
not Indians. They speak French. I still don't know why I got kicked out of
there. My subtle charm seems to be lost on members of my family, to whom I
appear hostile and indigent. At work we celebrated Y2k by exploding our brand
new Microsoft Outlook e-mail software. We crashed the whole server by sending
out a few thousand tasteless greeting card attachments. I was then moved
to my uncle Isaac's. My father, by then moved back home, drove me, and we
stopped at a grocery store. I paid for my food. The cashier called the manager.
He said I'd given her a counterfeit hundred-virgin bill. My father went crazy.
He demanded that they return the bill to him. Tense negociations ensued.
He told them to call the cops. I watched, amused. They agreed to exchange
the bill for a new one. They wanted to see my ID. I politely refused, while
my father screamed at them to call the police immediately. We never even
thought to look at the bill, which by now my father had pocketed. When we
got to Isaac's, he asked to see it. It was a very bad fake, a photocopy job
using cheap paper. The next day I tried to give it back to the bank I had
gotten it from. They didn't want anything to do with me. I decided not to
push the point.
Part Two: Open the Casbah
I'm sitting on a black leather swivel-chair given to me by Ortra for the
new year. I spent four hours yesterday putting together the Computer Desk
and Hutch from Office Depot that came with it. Bucephalus seems strange to
me after two months on the run typing all day on the company 'puters. They've
given me a new one, which is pretty good, fast. Nichelle would be proud of
me. I've finally learned about directories and folders and subfolders and
right clicking and options and preferences. You geeks know all this shit,
and much more, but I've never given it much thought. As the Webmaster, though,
I really am supposed to understand this shit. My new 'puter is in English,
so I can actually try things and learn something, and am running out of excuses
for my ignorance. I have succeeded in downloading a couple of things. One
thing that even some of you might find useful. It's a better kind of Babelfish
called Balylon. I also downloaded ICQ for my uncle, but I couldn't get Netmeeting
to work for him. I moved on Wednesday. The flat is small, between forty and
fifty square meters, but the building is new. It's right near the Tikva market,
where I went shopping yesterday. I think I overpaid for everything. I'm not
very good at haggling. I'm ashamed to ask how much something costs, but there
are no price tags. If I think it's too much, I walk out. This is a breach
of etiquette in the Middle East. That would be a last-ditch negociating tactic,
but I think it's an insult if one really means to leave. I'm trying to get
settled in, but I don't know where a department store might be, if there is
such a thing in Israel. Nichelle can tell you how good I am at shopping. But
I like this place, and I think I can afford it. I bought a bottle of fifty-virgin
whisky (That's about US$12. As a Scottish bartender once told me: "There's
no such thing as a bad scotch.") and asked the shopkeeper to order pastis
for me. I have missed you, my friends. I shall try to get laid or something
to amuse you. I am, after all, a professional. I think about the audience.
There is a girl at work who is absolutely desperate for a cock, but I've
been fending her off. Once she knows I've moved into my own place, she'll
probably ask to see it. If she steps foot in this place, I'll have to fuck
her. I feel bad about it already. Oh well. It will be her fault. I've done
everything I could to discourage her. I'm writing this offline on 5 February
2000.
RECTVM VINVM
Scott Alexander Gabriel Reiss
From: SAGReiss
Date: 18 February 2000
Subject: Screaming
The man on the telephone screamed at me in Hebrew for five minutes before
I could speak. I felt a keen moral advantage: "I'm sorry, but I don't understand
Hebrew." I thought maybe he had had a stroke. He didn't speak. Then he became
flustered: "Do you understand English," he asked me in Hebrew. "Ken." He asked
me who I was, and who Edi was. I said: "Edi is the exhibition manager. I
write his e-mail." I didn't want to say that Edi didn't have a 'puter. Edi,
an old Bulgarian, has an intuitive understanding of e-mail, far better than
my bosses who use it every day. They cannot understand why I snarl and whine
about faxed menus and rooming lists and PDF read-fucking-only files. Then
they wonder why our web site looks like shit. No one seems to appreciate the
difference between mechanical and electronic text. Anyway the gentleman on
the phone was the president or chairman or local God of one of our events,
to whom I had accidentally sent an offer to sell a booth at the exhibition.
He asked me to transfer him to Edi, but I have no intuitive understanding
of the telephone, so I accidentally hung up on him. I think he was unhappy.
The Old Man screamed at Edi, since I was clearly innocent of all charges.
Me and Edi were trying not to laugh. Edi writes me Bulgarian messages transcribed
in the Roman alphabet and I type them and send them. We have a good relationship.
I was also abused by some asshole called Steen in Denmark. He's all pissed
off about his web site. They keep making changes and wonder why I don't fix
everything and publish it. The managers don't seem too excited about the problem.
Of course I can't tell them that our whole site is a fucking disaster. I
believe the reason is frames, java and those stupid fucking blinking pictures
and animated text. Todd, whose site seems to have become some kind of BBS,
is right. Everything should be written in HTML, no frames, fuck you, low tech
works best. But this asshole in Denmark is using Netscape for Macintosh, and
he wonders why it keeps crashing. Buy a fucking real 'puter, you prick. Anyway,
the day ended well for me. I sold twenty rooms at the Laromme Hotel to a
girl named Antonella in Roma. She was very happy. There is no place to sleep
in Jerusalem on 17-22 September 2000. I like some of these cunts, at least
the ones who read their e-mail. I hate everyone who either reads, writes
or even thinks about faxes. Dr. Frenchman tells me that the slits who work
in travel agencies in France are hot babes. I talked to one on the phone
the other day. She sounded like she was taking it up the ass while she was
talking to me. But you all know about Dr. Frenchman. He's a pervert.
RECTVM VINVM
Scott Alexander Gabriel Reiss
From: SAGReiss
Date: 19 February 2000
Subject: Bouncing Checks
Nursing a vicious white wine hangover, I was awoken by the landlord's father,
who had come to tell me that my check for 11,010.60 virgins had been returned
for the second time. At least that's what I understood with my keen linguistic
insight, as he doesn't speak English. People don't generally arouse me out
of a devestating fight with my arteries to give me good news. I showed him
my bank statement, where I had noticed that the check had been returned the
first time. There was plenty of cash. I told him something like: "I go to
bank. I say: 'What problem? Lots money.' He say: '[whatever a banker might
say in such a situation]'." I had asked my boss about it: "Is this some kind
of Israeli joke?" "It's perhaps a technical problem." "What do you mean a
technical problem? I have the money. It's not a spelling bee." The landlord's
father asked me to give him another check. I smiled. I guess my expression
said something like: "Bro, I understand we've got a problem here, but technically
I don't know who the fuck you are, so if you don't give me back the first
check, there's no way in hell I'm writing you another one." He seemed to understand
my facial expression. He said he'll be back tomorrow with the check. I told
him: "While you're at it can you fix the fucking fridge?" I've had it turned
off now for days. It keeps freezing my food, even on the lowest setting.
Food is an ugly subject to think about today. Last night I severely undercooked
an artichoke. Then I tried to make a fish of some indeterminate nature and
severely burnt and undercooked that, though that wasn't my fault. The burners
don't have a low setting. In fact everything in this house seems to be the
wrong temperature, including the hot water, which I usually forget to turn
on until it's too late. Last night was madness. In a drunken stupor I tried
to follow scaredycat's instructions for downloading and installing speak freely
so that we could have phone sex. I almost got it to work, but I think there's
something wrong with my microphone, such as I'm not sure where to plug the
piece of shit in. Altogether it wasn't a great day. And today I'm suffering
from the aftermath.
From: SAGReiss
Date: 19 February 2000
Subject: The Ghana Delegation
Our tourism trade show IMTM 2000 (here, as perhaps elsewhere, everything
this year is know as 2000) attracted the interest of some gentlemen in Ghana.
Ghana is one fo the half a dozen nations from which it is very hard to get
a visa to Israel. Romania is another, but I find that weird because there
are a lot of Romanian Jews living here. Nevertheless one of the old timers
at work, himself a Romanian, told me that he once had a tour of forty Romanians,
but only ten showed up for the departure flight. I've heard similar tales
about India. But it's a tiny country which has just absorbed a million immigrants
from Russia, thirty percent of whom, according to popular (unsubstantiated)
estimates, do not have the requisite one Jewish grandparent. Of course who
is Jewish, for what and for whom is always an open question here. There is
no civil marriage, divorce or burial in Israel, so none of the Ethiopians
and few of the Russians will ever be able to get married here. They'll have
to fly to Cyprus. Unless of course these laws change, which they probably
will. Anyway I'm getting distracted. Lambda has been fucking up all day. I
cooked my second artichoke for forty-five minutes on the recommendation of
Rombauer and it was good. My appetite (except sexual) seems to be disappearing.
I cook shit, but then I can't finish my plate. I keep making smaller and smaller
meals, but I still can't seem to eat. I think I should fuck this girl at
work with ex-post-facto haste. I'll think of something. A tender little piece
would do me well. She looks juicy. I just can't bring myself to do it because
of my overwhelming feelings of guilt. Whatever, no one cares about my love
life. Let's move on. So what I wanted to say is that the Ghanans wanted to
participate in our Mediterranean Tourism show, not that Ghana is exactly
on the Mediterranean, but who cares? They kept e-mailing, faxing and calling
us. Finally they made a swift bank transfer of sevent thousand virgins and
change to Citybank, who forwarded the cash to us. We promptly resold the
forty-two square meters of exhibition space to, of all people, the Palestinian
delegation, I guess on the assumption that they would never get the visas.
Indeed they did not. So the Managing Director dictates an e-mail to me telling
the Ghanans that they can forget about getting their money back. He just
wanted to steal it. He told me to sign Edi's name, but I asked him if he
was sure about that. I wanted to shame him. He told me to sign it Lior Gelfand,
Managing Director. If he's going to steal from the fucking impovrished nigger
Africans, at least he can do it in his own name. I don't look forward to
dealing with this Danish prick tomorrow. I'm sure he's got another fifty
changes he wants me to make on his site. If he can't make up his fucking
mind, the damned thing will never be finished. Not to mention that he keeps
fucking with the budget, which is totally out of my control, thankfully.
I'm still tired and hangedover. I need to remember not to drink white wine.
RECTVM VINVM
Scott Alexander Gabriel Reiss
From: SAGReiss
Date: 22 February 2000
Subject: 69 Faxes
I had a bad case of the shakes by ten o'clock. The boss felt bad about it:
"Je te fais chier avec ce truc?" "Oui." But the bastard still couldn't leave
me alone. I figured out a decent way to do the hundred "personalized" e-mail
messages. (I had told Nichelle it was going to be a bad day. The degenerative
illness of personalized service has spread East from America to Israel. Nichelle
joked: "Maybe you should personalize your letters to the list." "But then
I'd have to fax them and send a hard copy too, as I do at work, and file printed
copies of all three in a three-ring binder." I was not joking. We use technology
to work with monstrous inefficiency.) I couldn't get MS Outlook's cheap mail
merge to work, but it was just possible, using the hyperlinks in my Word
database and juggling multiple copy-and-pastes, to work fast. And here he
comes to my desk holding a fax and asking me to take care of it. "Daniel,
that's the fax of the same document you forwarded to me by e-mail. I've already
dealt with it." Now please leave me alone. I raced through the e-mail. Then
I did a mail merge for the faxes. Something went wrong. The printer kept
giving me bad memory messages, but it wasn't a huge document by any means.
So I tried printing a few pages at a time, and the thing wouldn't print at
all. I redid the mail merge three times, with the same unsatisfactory results.
Finally I realized that the mail merge's sections were confusing the page
specifications in the print command. I printed the whole sixty-fucking-nine
pages one by one using "current page" and scrolling down page by page. By
this time I was half insane. I was standing at the fax machine sending this
mindless junk mail. The boss said: "Elles sont pas signees. C'est pas joli."
"Vas-y toi." ["Sign them yourself."] When I've got some time I'll scan his
signature, so that we can have truly personalized service. I took my petty
little office worker's revenge. I left all the important shit sitting in his
mailbox, only doing the really useless mundane stuff he had told me to do.
And I told the girls that I couldn't help them, which was true because I
spent the whole day fucking with stupid shit. I left at half past five, even
though I had vowed to leave at five on the dot. If he's nice to me, maybe
I'll make him a new fax template, since he's been crying about the old one
I made. It doesn't list "incentives" as one of our company's services. That's
his special turf, his privileged domain. I can understand that. It's a lot
more money for a lot less work than the conferences. I'm sure this is very
interesting to all of you. Well, there don't seem to be any neighborhood bars
in Israel, so I never see or hear anything interesting. I regret restaurant
work. It was a lot funnier. For all the shit I put up with there, I wrote
some fine e-mail about the Sheraton Hotel in Syracuse. Life in the office
doesn't agree with me.
RECTVM VINVM
Scott Alexander Gabriel Reiss
From: SAGReiss
Date: 25 February 2000
Subject: Risotto con Pollo
In my mailbox at work is twenty or thirty page fax of an Excel file. The
lady who put it there is in for a little surprise on Sunday morning. I've
had some trouble with her. I don't think she even knows that I saved her title.
There was a little conspiracy to change it on the web site. (She couldn't
find the power button on a 'puter, so we can do what we like with her title.
I refused. The boss told me: "You received a direct order from Lior." "Pour
l'instant Lior m'a rien dit." Indeed Lior had said not a word to me, so the
directness of the order was highly debatable. I flat-out refused. I said:
"I'll have to talk to Zvi [the Old Man]." (Daniel, of course, could have done
it himself. He may have, for all I know. I haven't checked lately. I probably
should look at the site of which I am the webmaster, but the thing is too
fucking slow for my taste.) So I prepared a little fake e-mail (fake in the
sense that I had no intention of ever sending it) and put it on the Old Man's
desk with a note in pen: "I was told to make this change. I thought I should
check with you first." He went beserk. "Who told you to do that?" I pointed
a thumb at the boss's office. I've got my strategy down pretty well, until
I get fired, of course. Keep the Old Man happy. He loves me. Don't worry
about the boss. We bicker like hens. He drives me crazy, but I do the work.
He has what the French call "des relations passionnelles" with everyone,
the Israeli suppliers he screams at on the phone, the French customers whose
ass he kisses on the phone, the employees, except me because I treat him
like shit, his wife, who screams at him on the phone. He is really rude to
her: "What do you want?" "#$(%&) (*#&$) ^@^%@$) (^#% () *&#@%_*
(&$@#&" "OK, bye." This up until the day she gave birth and beginning
again the next day. If she isn't fucking someone else, then she's too ugly
or too stupid. Anyway, I've boiled the nasty bits of the chicken to make a
stock. (Well, not all the nasty bits. The butcher asked me something. I said
OK. I thought he was going to cut off the head and feet, which I really didn't
need, but he took a flame thrower to the dead bird. I thought this might
be some primitive cooking method, but now I'm not sure. He didn't cook it.
Maybe it's some primitive religious ritual. Then he asked me something else.
I said OK. Then he cut off the head and feet, gutted it and left me just
what I wanted, all in nice, user-friendly pieces, which is great since I've
got no oven. So I boiled the neck and gibblets, saving the liver for an appetizer.
I'm hoping I can talk my way into a little saffron at the Oriental Spices
Shop, which would be a lot easier if scaredycat would wake up and tell me how
to say it in Hebrew. I've got parsley, basil, lemon and ferocious hot peppers,
so my options are open.
RECTVM VINVM
Scott Alexander Gabriel Reiss
From: SAGReiss
Date: 28 February 2000
Subject: Your Travel Agent
When I sat down in the Managing Director's office with the Managing Director
and the Assistant Managing Director, his brother, I knew something was dreadfully
wrong. I felt that emptiness in the stomach, which also comes from waking
up early, eating a light breakfast and packing a salad and bread and fruit
and yoghurt for lunch, which I bring, not in an official Beavis and Butthead
2000 lunch box, but in a plastic bag because I don't think Israelis get too
excited about American-style consumerism, but why shouldn't I have an L.L.
Beane twelve-compartment food management system capable of keeping tomato
soup at ninety-five degrees centigrade next to beer at four degrees centigrade
with a microwave oven and expresso machine installed in easy-to-use side panels?
Anyway I knew it was over once again, just as I'd gotten settled down and
paid six month's rent in advance. "How do you feel about your work?" I knew
what was coming. I thought: "Don't these Israeli pigs usually close the fucking
door before they tell someone he's sacked?" I harbor strong feelings of guilt
and rage, as some of you may know, but the truth is I don't give a fuck about
my job. It pays the bills, and only because I work thirty hours of OT per
month. He began to babble on about teamwork and synergy, just the kind of
drivel someone who's being fired wants to hear. Anyway what they wanted was
for me to learn how to be a travel agent, not to fire me. They want to give
me a raise. This is so fucking silly. Me? A travel agent? Of all the crazy
shit I've heard, this is the worst. I'd rather be a bartender in Cairo. I
bet housing is more affordable. Anyway the first bit is easy. All I have
to do is memorize a Hebrew interface DOS program called either Gilboa or
Galore, which is what travel agents use. I am, after all, the webmaster. I
have a capacious memory. But then I actually have to book hotels, tours, hookers
and God knows what else for actual people, real beasts who might do horrible
things such as call me on the phone, which isn't likely because I'll only
deal with incoming. The travel agents call. The vulgar have to pay their
own phone bills. I'm going to do all the booking for a conference entitled,
well I can't remember what the fuck it's called. (That way you can avoid
the fucking idiot frames.) Then type <Ctrl f> and type <rose>
and you'll find the name of the conference. I'll be dealing with all kinds
of poofters from Holland, or fucking wacky scientist horticulturists from
England. I think it's a small conference, though. I'm hoping for about fifty
people, so I can give them truly personalized service. Except the ones who
fax me, of course. They move to the bottom of the pile. These idiots don't
know what they're dealing with. I can't even make a phone call. First, I forget
to dial 9 to get out. Then I forget or mess up the area code. By this time
I've already forgotten why I'm calling. Then I get some stupid recording in
Hebrew that I can't understand. By the time I get through to someone I'm so
flustered and overwhelmed with shame that I can't speak properly. I've simply
got to get laid. I need something to take my mind off of so much failure.
RECTVM VINVM
Scott Alexander Gabriel Reiss
December 1999
March 2000
vr: 2000
