Grey

Yacht. Across from the red-haired host, Milo Holly, who was dressed in his whites and captain’s hat, sat Father in a green paisley jacket with large holes cut so that his black-painted nipples showed through like cartoon eyes. On his head he wore what looked like a rubber tire tread of a hat, and from both ears hung miniature crystal chandeliers. Usually his costumes were copies of his latest favorite Ultra band.

“It’s all about love,” said Father, the chandeliers jingled like wind chimes when he moved. “We make a product we love for clients we love. We do it to help all the families we love. It’s in everything RiverGroup does. Love is our basic thing.”

“It’s all hate,” I complained, with a roll of my eyes.

“But with the RiverGroup security stuff in everything, shouldn’t we be worried about freeboots jumping out all over the place?” Milo Holly laughed as though it was supposed to be a joke, but he looked anxious.

“No!” said Father, smiling as though it were absurd.

“Nothing to worry about.

Everything’s right back to our normal super-secure and super-protected… you know… normal.” He smiled again.

Harder.

“Really.

Everything’s perfect.”

“Maybe not perfect,” said Milo. “I mean Michael was shot. The merger-marriage between you guys and MKG was cancelled. And your stock is sinking fast.”

“RiverGroup has had a rough couple of days, but we’re stronger than ever.”

Milo eyed the camera, coyly. “And I saw a report that you got an implausibly big pimple on your ass!”

“Oh yeah,” said Father playing along, as the audience howled.

“Mount Fuji!

Snow-capped and everything!”

As the laugher died away, Father said, “Back to

the freeboot

shit for a second… remember kids, bad shits come along. But the lesson is even if RiverGroup—the code bastards of system security—can be hit, just think how much worse it would have been if you’d been using the flimsy crap MKG sells!”

Milo smiled stiffly. “It was implausibly tragic,” he said, as if afraid to insult a potential sponsor.

“It was much worse that that! It was Fifty Layers of Bitch.” Father leaned forward and popped Milo’s shoulder with a friendly punch. “That’s my new favorite song.”

“We could tell,” said Milo, rubbing his arm. “But you’re right, that band, Sister Revolver’s Tongue, is completely implausible!” To the camera, he said, “Hey everybody, let’s see a clip of their newest Ultra epic.”

Three men, dressed like Father and wielding chrome guitars, tore down a city street, smashing car windshields, storefronts,

women

with strollers. One began singing and screeching as though he were being cut in half. A chrome guitar hit him in the face. Then the three men were bashing each other until they were covered with blood.

“That’s so Ultra you have to puke over the poop deck!” gushed Milo. “Or poop over the puke deck! But, wow!

Implausible.

I love the Tongue!” After he had caught his breath, he shrugged and added, “Too bad they’re all busted up and in comas now.”

Father’s head was still bouncing to the rhythm. “When I was a kid,” he said, apropos of nothing, “I used to whack off and keep my semen in a jar in the fridge.”

I let my head fall back. Did he have to say bizarre and disgusting things like that to the world? Didn’t he care what they thought?

“Wait, Mom!” shouted Milo as he whipped off his captain’s hat. “Don’t drink that! That’s not the coconut milk!”

The audience roared.

Father, who seemed taken aback, as if he’d had other plans for his story, said, “Yeah… coconut milk… funny! Anyway,” he flicked a hand at one of his chandeliers, “I’m here to plug our new promotion date. Tonight, eight o’clock, my son will be going out with Elle of Ribo-Kool. She’s the hot granddaughter of Konrad Kez, that dead quadrillionaire. And she’s blazing.”

“I’ll be watching,” said Milo. “She’s the one who sat on that camera yesterday at a press conference. Talk about a debutante ball!”

“And,” continued Father, as the audience whooped and hollered, “

our

big, new product show will be the day after tomorrow. By then, I expect Michael and Elle will be fucking like a couple of dirty, rabid skunks, if you know what I mean!”

“Oh, yeah!” said Milo, as he stood and did a few hip thrusts, “I think I know what you mean!” Next he shook hands with Father, and read a list of some of the top channels covering the date.

“That’s enough of that!” I said.

“I agree,” said Joelene. “But let’s see what the buzz is like.”

“Do we have to?”

“

It’s

background,” she said, as she switched the channel to a show called Intellectuals and Soup. Two women and two men dressed as if they were at a mad tea party sat around a gold-leaf rococo table before steaming bowls.

A chubby woman, with warm brown eyes, covered in a mass of pink soap bubbles and a wide, crimson- feathered hat, said, “I feel for Nora. Her story is the modern tragedy. But I can’t believe Michael is so fickle and shallow to be interested in Elle Kez.”

“Indeed,” said a man wearing an azure bowtie with the wingspan of a goose and a matching striped morning jacket, “I’d not heard of Elle Kez before, but she is simply dreadful. She can’t act, sing, or keep on her God-awful clothes for more than three minutes.” Grainy, obviously stolen pictures of her nude body flashed on screen. “She has none of the blood or breeding of Michael Rivers or any real members of the families. Granddaughter of the wealthy and admired, if dead, Konrad Kez or not, I say she’s a degenerate prostitute with a dripping nose. And as for the firm she represents, Ribo-Kool is an absolute nothing from somewhere in the dregs of America-3. I can’t find any references to them before a week ago. How RiverGroup could be planning to merge with them is completely beyond understanding.”

“So,” said Pink Hat, lifting a spoonful of shellfish bisque, “you think it’s another of the ever-increasingly sad and bizarre schemes from his father, Hiro Rivers?

“I do,” said Bow Tie.

“My problem is,” continued Pink Hat, “if Michael doesn’t stand up against his father this

time

, I’m afraid I’m going to be quite disappointed. He is only nineteen, but it’s time he asserted himself.” She stuck the spoon in her mouth. “Mmm!” she said.

“So creamy and divine!

The salty shark semen is succulent, but it doesn’t overpower the denatured rhubarb leaves either!”

“What is this?” I asked Joelene. “Who are they?”

“They’re better spoken than most channel talents,” she said.

A bearded man in a brown beret spoke slowly, as if each of his words were bubbling up from the center of the Earth. “If RiverGroup can’t protect Michael, no merger of any sort will help them win back customers. I am switching away from RiverGroup products. I believe the death knell has rung.”

“If Ribo-Kool,” said Bow Tie, “has a real solution, which I greatly doubt, it might stave off a complete collapse.” He tasted a dab of his soup and said, “Oh! Such an incredible, rich yet pungent mouth-feel! Like swallowing used velvet panties.”

I asked Joelene, “Do you know Ribo-Kool?”

“No,” she said. “It was quite a surprise. Your father… and others… are difficult to predict.”

“I feel for poor Michael,” said another woman. She wore what looked like an iron bra and an intricately carved glass bowl over her head. “I was so sure he would finally lose his virginity with Nora. And I was so looking forward to

it,

I’m embarrassed to admit it.” She laughed and fogged the glass in front of her face.

Bow Tie dabbed the corners of his mouth with a matching striped napkin and turned toward the glass bowl woman.

“Must we always,” he said, with a chuckle that made the wings of his bow tie quiver, “lower ourselves with this sensational tripe?”

“I would love to lower myself!” said Pink Hat, angrily, as a creamy drip undulated down her three chins. “I understand that Michael has got a beautiful penis, as proud, strong, and pure as a wild Arabian!”

“Indeed,” said Iron Bra from behind her fogged glass, “I have studied his dancing outfits from the rages, and he’s definitely bombastic down there.”