AIRTEL TO [REDACTED]

RE: THE ECON-MODEL

Our country’s economy consists of simultaneous flows of production, distribution, consumption, and investment. If these elements, including labor and human functions, are assigned a numerical value in like units of measure, then this flow can be further represented by a current flow in a circuit, and its behavior can be predicted and manipulated with useful precision. The three ideal passive energy components of electro-mechanics; the capacitor, the resistor, and the inductor correspond to the three ideal passive energy components of economics known as the industries of capital, goods, and services. Economic capacitance represents the storage of capital in one form or another. Economic conductance represents the level of conductance of materials for the production of goods. Economic inductance represents the inertia of economic value in motion. This is a population phenomenon known as services. [CONCLUDED]

As I promised in my last correspondence, I will now finish the story I started.

When I arrived at my illustrious case file’s suite he was wearing nothing but a robe, his hair was wild, his face pale. The lady of the night was conspicuously absent from the scene. My anxiety had reached a new high. I asked him what the problem was and his response was to spread open his robe and bare his body to me like a declaration. Not a sight for the faint of heart and definitely not for a surprise viewing in the middle of the night. The problem was that he had taken some kind of pre-patent virility pills around sunset and the reaction he had anticipated was not coming quick enough. So, about half an hour later, he took another one. When this still failed to yield results he assumed that this off-label alternative was less potent than prescription grade and proceeded to take several at once. He wasn’t sure how many but made a guess of four or five more. Seven hours after his first pill, he was still good to go, which was extremely evident as he told his story as he had never tied his robe back up once he’d opened it. He thought a depressant might help, but having none, he opted to quickly drink four or five tumblers of whisky. Nothing happened, and he said it was becoming painful. What led him to call me was the lady’s suggestion that he call a doctor. He’d had no intention of calling a doctor and instead wanted me to call one and pretend that I was the one suffering the ailment. So, I called down to the concierge who wanted to know why I needed a doctor and if he could be of any help. He then wanted to know my affliction so could direct me to the right sort of doctor. Meanwhile, I had him right next to me and I'm trapped inhaling his stink while he keeps asking me what the concierge and then doctor are saying. After I told the concierge that I had overdosed on generic penis pills he gave me the number of someone who could help. The number goes to an answering service so I leave a message explaining my problem with my sat number because he didn’t want it coming to the hotel rotary. So we waited. And waited. First standing, then sitting. He went to check on the girl, who had been hiding out in the next room. Probably mid-twenties, but no darkness or makeup could hide her hard life, and being with him was not going to make it any better. We waited two more hours with no change to his condition. Finally, the doctor calls and I have to pretend I am some freak hopped up on dick pills who's been stuck with an erection for eight hours. Meanwhile, he’s constantly asking what the doctor is saying. It gets to the point where I can’t hear either of them. I turn to him and say, “He says he’ll need to insert a needle into your penis to drain the blood.” It was the only time I was ever able to shut him up, and it’s a fond memory. I get off the phone and inform him that the doctor suggested using ice, nodding to the bucket on the nightstand. I tell him to soak it in ice until it goes down. He asks me to do it for him, which I refuse in no uncertain terms. He does convince me to stay to make sure the remedy works and to take him to the doctor if not. He grabs a washcloth, fills it with ice, and settles in. The first touch brings out a primal scream in him and the girl in the next room. She rushes out, fully dressed, takes one look at the situation, and heads for the door. Within fifteen minutes the swelling is down and he’s back to normal. Normal for him meaning blustery, arrogant, and drunk. I tell him I’ll see him in the morning and leave. In the morning I found him waiting for me in the office. He actually looked healthy. It was amazing to me that he could drink as much as he did day and night, and go through what he had the previous night and still look right and ready to do it all over again. He launched into a spiel about how he learned something from what happened the night before and that he was going to seriously reassess his life. I assumed that meant he would cut back on the indulgences or something. This was supposed to be the last he would spend in the office, so special arrangements had been made for lunch. People wanted to be with him, but most important in Auview, be seen with him. These were the situations he thrived on. As disgusting as he could be in close quarters, he was the complete opposite in public. He wanted lunch at the Cremorne, which you’ll perhaps remember, is a place dear to my heart. The whole party was on the patio and he was charming and gracious and remarkably poised when it came to his drinking. I realized later that this kind of thing was all the “work” he did anymore and to him, it was a performance. Most of the people there hadn’t seen him all week, so this is what their image of him was. He played it perfectly and his presence was commanding. He portrayed his stereotype and it was truly endearing to watch, even if only for lunch. The fun started on the way back to the office. As soon as we were in the auto he started drinking. Before lunch, he had barked at the office aides for his afternoon bottle of scotch, and apparently, he’d ordered it to be delivered to my vehicle. Before I’d turned the motor the bottle was out of the bag, uncapped, and a few swallows short. The ride back was surreal. He replayed lunch out loud for me despite my being right there the entire time. After every sentence came a swallow of whisky and by the time we got back to the office the bottle was empty. He thought he may stay a day over, so he asked me to take him by the liquor store before dropping him off at his hotel. Of course, that became a small dinner at the little place in his hotel. I had been ecstatic by this point in the week. Only one more day, a trip to the train station, and he would be gone.

Midnight phone calls are always bad. People wobble out of taverns, drunk drivers take wrong turns. Someone is in jail, or about to be, or needs a ride. Or both. The noise on the other end of the call that night was deafening, and he was even louder. He was always nearly shouting any time he spoke on a phone, and the riotous environment he was in had him reaching painful proportions. He needed me, he said, to come right over because there was an emergency, and that since I had done so well last night, I should be able to help on this night. Oh, and on my way over I should pick up some booze as well. I told him every store was closed now, and he screamed that booze was needed and to use my imagination. As I’ve said before, this happened early in my career. I would probably never take this kind of abuse anymore. I say probably because you just never know sometimes what you will do. Back then I was as intimidated by the Directory as I was by members of the Old Families. I also very much believed in the aims of the Directory and was quite overzealous to be a part of the progress. Anyway.

I ransacked the bar at my place and gathered up my liquor bottles. A bottle of brandy broke somewhere in between, but the smell was actually pleasant for a while. When I got to the hotel it was well past valet hours, so I lugged my brandy-soaked box of liquor down the street with the smell trailing me like wisteria. I could hear the party while the lift was still rising. I cannot imagine anyone on the surrounding floors avoided hearing it. Granted, if anyone had come to the door he would have told them to fuck off, and the management was not going to call the police. The door was propped open with a lost stiletto. When I walked into the room the temperature felt twenty degrees warmer than the hallway and a fog of smoke hung over the room. There were about ten people there. Several aging men stood and sprawled in various stages of drunkenness and undress. There were four much younger women, and looked as if they were there because they were paid to be. As I looked again at the men I recognized two of them immediately. One was another intimidating Midland figure. The other was someone whose presence floored me. One of those names held in esteem since long before I was born. I did not really comprehend what I was seeing because the scene was meant for twenty years past when they were all in their prime. That night they were not in their prime and not suitable to rule at all. The other men I did not recognize but they were all people from His past whose Houses were still in place. The “emergency” was only that the bartender that the hotel had provided had finished their shift and they needed a replacement. So for about two hours, I played the bartender. I also watched a bunch of old men grope, fondle, and make fools of themselves around women that were, in some cases, a third of their age as well as a third of their size. My bartending duties ended when I was informed that I needed to chauffeur some of the men and whichever of the women they dragged home with them. I was also to pick up a new box of very specific cigars on my way back. When I got back to the hotel, He, one of his cronies I didn’t know, and the “hero” were all sitting around in their small clothes eating breakfast. There were at least two living legends eating plates of eggs from their laps with their bare and dirty hands. Spilling their breakfasts, swearing, telling stories, and looking nothing like nobility while also speaking grandly about how much the women had loved them that night. I left the cigars and went home. A few hours later I pried myself out of bed and returned to the hotel. His train ticket was already secured, all I had to do was get him there. He was up and waiting in a fresh suit with flawless hair. We spent a couple of uneventful hours together and then I escorted him to the train station. I said goodbye and never expected to hear from him again. He called me about a week later. For the next year or so I was on his call list in what seemed a bi-weekly schedule. The calls would come at any time of day, depending on where he was and what he was doing. I had become part of his stories. To this day he still calls, but only about every four or five months. When that line buzzes and I hear him yelling at someone before he even says hello, I think about that week and how much of a window it was into the Old Family System. Everything is fake, an act, but at the same time everything is viscerally real. Sometimes you want the illusion to remain. To leave the curtain where it falls and resist the urge to take a peek. That way you don’t have to see an icon is really a drunk old man with fried egg spilled down his shirt. That week changed me in ways I didn’t comprehend at the time, but that lead me to being what I am now.