I started writing this post because I was afraid if I didn’t, I’d regret it.  Now, I’m going to publish it and probably regret that too.

I hope this blog isn’t becoming a self-help thing.

The trick, I believe, is faith. If you know you did a proper set up — if you know you didn’t take any short cuts along the way — the ending is waiting for you if you have the equipoise to find it. Try not to get too flustered, and don’t expect it to be easy to find. The fact that the third is the shortest of the three acts does not mean it will take less time to write. In my experience, it can take longer to write the third act than it does the rest of the story.

I hope this advice serves someone other than myself.

Watched Sugar tonight. Good film. Touching. Americans aren’t so bad, are they? We’re good to Dominican baseball players. At least the ones who throw over 95 and don’t fool with our white women, who want nothing more than to bring Jesus to their pagan souls.

Write every word like it’s your last.

What do I pack? I wish I had nicer clothes. My mother’s going to tell me how fat I am, whether I’m fat or not. My brother’s going to tell me how fat I am, same.

Do they show movies on planes anymore? I guess not. Hollywood movies got so bad no one would watch them anymore. Everyone just plugs into their little devices and entertains his or her self. No food either. You have to buy it. And pay for your luggage to fit under the plane. And pay for a headset so you can listen to this loop of music that comes in with static. Always that innocuous set of hits by U2 and Keith Urban. Or that awful music they play at the gym. And half the time the entertainment package isn’t working. They apologize for the inconvenience. Fuck your apology. I paid good money for this ticket, I want to hear those Goddamn U2 songs that I haven’t heard since I parked my car. Partial refund for the lack of in flight entertainment. Partial refund for the delay and the fact that my bag didn’t arrive at the airport when I did. Good luck. The customer is always right became the customer will always give in.

We’re good people, Americans. We just let it slip away. Got too greedy. Started to believe our own myths.

-judd

Watch here for the high quality Vimeo version, and click the arrows in the lower right corner for full screen:

Funny or Die Version version here:

I was less pleased after I read her message:

Judd-My husband and I find your emails inappropriate. Please respect our privacy and desist from trying to contact me.

-Evelyn

Oh God, I thought, I’ve been drunk emailing again.

Months before, there had been an incident on myspace where I received a response from a woman I didn’t know to a question I had no memory of asking. After searching my account, it became apparent that I had been coming home from the bars after hours and firing off messages of lascivious intent that, come morning, I had no recollection of ever having sent.

Much to my surprise, however, after an exhaustive search, I discovered that I had not sent Evelyn an email in years, and the last one I did send was perfectly benign.

So I replied:

Dear Evelyn,
Great to hear from you. Hope things are well in San Fran. I received your message but have no memory nor any evidence of having sent you ANY emails. Are you sure you got the right guy? Best to…. Max, was it?

-Judd

A few days later, Evelyn wrote back:

Judd-Come off it. You think we don’t know who Fish is?

-Evelyn

This was getting interesting. For two years, I had been writing a blog called Filth that chronicled the life of a fictitious character named Julius “Fish” Fischman, his best friend, Arty From Philly, and a woman known only as Intimate Relationship #9.5. I figured this was the Fish to whom Evelyn was referring.

Dear Evelyn-Either you’re putting me on or somebody is putting us both on. Take into account that your web address is revealed on your myspace page. Just because these mystery emails are signed “Fish” doesn’t mean they’re from me.

-Judd

She wrote one last time:

Judd-Figure it out and make it stops [sic].

-Evelyn

Her last message came with an attachment that contained copies of the various missives sent to her by one julius_fischman@gmail.com. Indeed, the emails contained material inappropriate to send to any woman, married or otherwise. They seemed to represent the unsavory intentions of a well-educated misanthrope whose sexual proclivities could best be described as criminal.

But they weren’t from me. Nor did I ever register a gmail account by that name, which led me to suspect that there was some imposter masquerading as Julius “Fish” Fischman in order to harass my friends and exes, all of whom would be easy to find for anyone with a myspace account and a link to my page. Perhaps the culprit was someone I knew, some friend playing a practical joke, or perhaps it was an enemy or con man running a scam.

I sent the following email to julius_fischman@gmail.com:

Dear Fish-Who are you?

-Judd Trichter

PS. Leave Evelyn alone.

Within seconds, I got the following reply:

fuck off

I had to find him.

I started with a search on myspace and, sure enough, located a profile for one Julius “Fish” Fischman, 32 years old, writer/actor, living in Los Angeles. And here’s the kicker: 218,596 friends. I only had 164.

But not only was Fish more popular than I, he was also taller (5′10″), richer (income $150,000 – $200,000), and better looking, or at least the avatar on his profile looked better than the photograph on mine. I couldn’t know for certain if the artist who designed it was trying to represent me, but judging by the frizzy hair, slumped posture, big ears, and crooked nose, it’s safe to assume the graphic was at least inspired by me if not modeled directly.

The myspace profile also revealed that Fish writes a blog called Smut which one can view at www.juliusfischman.com. It’s a well-designed page, more professional than mine with many more comments, links, and advertisements, though the writing isn’t nearly as good. Fish’s voice reminded me of a poor man’s Bukowski aspiring toward Haruki Murakami. There’s a whiff of misogyny prevalent in his descriptions of women and a lack of discipline to his style, though an undercurrent of self-deprecating humor does save it from being total trash.

The protagonist in Smut – in case you haven’t guessed by now – goes by the name of “Judd Trichter,” but the Judd Trichter on the blog doesn’t resemble me in any way. Instead, Fish writes Judd Trichter as a drug-addled freeloader who suffers from delusions of grandeur while treating his mother like shit, borrowing money left and right, masturbating constantly, needlessly rebelling against authority, and generally lacking the ability or talent to ever get anything done.

In other words, Fish’s page had the makings of a lawsuit.

I called Kenny Gutstein, my attorney, at once.

“Listen to this,” I said. “There’s some clown on the internet pretending to be me. Wait a minute. That’s not quite right. He’s pretending to be a character I created.”

“Okay.”

“And he’s harassing my friends and writing terrible things about me.”

“True things?” my lawyer asked.

“Some. But most are lies.”

“That’s slander.”

“And judging by his page, it looks like the sonofabitch makes money.”

“Great,” said Gutstein. “What’s his name?”

“I don’t know his real name, but on the internet, he goes by Julius Fischman.”

“Stop right there.”

“What’s the problem?”

“He’s a client.”

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.

“You represent this fraud?”

“I represent Julius Fischman,” said Gutstein, “and believe me when I tell you, this fraud, as you call him, brings in ten times the revenue you ever brought.”

I asked if I was entitled to any of that.

“Not a cent,” Gutstein shouted into the phone before I could finish my question. “And if you intend any legal action against him, you can expect a counter suit and an injunction that will shut down your page.”

“But he’s my creation,” I complained. “Without me he doesn’t exist.”

“Well… I’m sure Julius Fischman would argue the same about you.”

There went my lawsuit.

I sent Fischman another email:

Dear Fish,Where can I call you? I want to talk.

-Judd

He responded with a terse imperative:

eat shit

The next step was to browse through Fischman’s thousands of myspace friends to see if we had any in common. I found one: Tracy Choo. Of course Tracy would know Fish. I should have known.

Tracy Choo was a half-Korean, half-android woman who worked as a barista in an internet cafe where I used to sip tea at two in the morning and write. She introduced herself one night, after her shift, when she sat down next to me and asked what I was working on. Turned out Tracy knew all about Filth and was psyched to learn I was the man behind it. We wound up talking for hours, constantly interrupted by the electronic gadgets she tended to at all times: some DJ from Japan calling her cell, some computer hacker IM’ing her, some web artist sending her a video text. To talk to Tracy was to interact with only half of her while the other half drifted through the constellations of cyberspace.

On our date, Tracy and I shoveled Kimchi into our mouths and washed down ecstasy with our sake. We danced at a crowded rave in an abandoned warehouse downtown. In the morning, we drove back to her apartment and its many screens and monitors, its criss-crossed cables, its overwhelmed power strips and webcams rigged to the ceilings in every room.

“Just so you know,” she said, “if we have sex, there will be thousands of people watching around the world.”

Despite what one might presume from my being an actor, exhibitionism isn’t really my bag, but ecstasy combined with a hot Korean android can do strange things to a man, and I decided to give it a try.

The sex wasn’t what I hoped. Even though she was eager and able to please, the fact that Tracy didn’t sweat or carry a scent had the effect of reminding me that she was only half-human. Nor did it help my self-esteem that as a condition of her manufacture, Tracy couldn’t lubricate naturally and had to shove a fresh battery up her ass between orgasms. It’s hard to say this without sounding like a bigot, but I’ve always thought that dating an android – even one who’s only half – was an admission of failure or at the very least a compromise I didn’t want to make.

We went out one more time, but after that, I lied and told Tracy I was getting back with an ex. She took it hard.

“What’s she got that I don’t?”

“Nothing,” I said. “It’s just that my ex and I have a history, and I want to see if we can make it work.”

We were outside at the time, and the rain drops collecting on her cheek made it look like she was crying.

“I thought we had something,” Tracy whispered toward the ground. “I thought we had something real.”

“I thought so too,” I replied. But that was also a lie.

After seeing her profile on Fish’s myspace page, I sent Tracy an email to feel out whether she’d be willing to talk:

Hey Trace-Long time no see. How’ve you been? Came across your profile on myspace and thought I’d say hi. Hope all’s well.

-Judd

Tracy replied with an indecipherable stream of words, letters, and symbols that might as well have been written in binary. I emailed her again and asked if it would be okay if I called. She responded thus:

Y

Though possible that she was asking, “Why,” I took the letter “Y” to mean “Yes” and gave her a ring.

Tracy and I spoke for about fifteen minutes, catching up on the last year of each others’ lives, until finally we overcame the awkwardness inherent in my calling. Then I brought up Fish.

“What about him?” she asked.

“I see he’s on your myspace page.”

“He found me in a chat room and asked me out.”

“Did you go out with him?”

“Couple of times.”

“What’s he like?”

“Kind of like you, I guess, but not exactly.”

I asked her to elaborate.

“He’s more angsty,” she decided. “Better looking. More stylish. Just sexier in a weird way.”

“Sexier than me?”

“Yeah. And he’s a better writer too. Have you seen his blog?”

“Yes,” I said, “I’ve read his blog. And thank you.”

I asked Tracy if she had slept with Fish, and she admitted she did.

“How was that?” I asked.

“Well,” she sighed, “he did make me come.”

“So did I.”

Tracy laughed.

“Uh… no.” Liar. “But I have to tell you,” she added right away, softening in her rebuke, “he wasn’t you. As much as I wanted him to be, he just wasn’t.”

“How so?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” she mused. “It’s hard to put my finger on it, but whenever I was with Fish, I always got the feeling that he was an actor playing the role of you. And since you’re an actor yourself, it was like he was an actor playing the role of another actor. Whenever I was with him, I felt incredibly aware of his being a generation removed from the original, and, worst of all, I think he was aware of it too.”

And yet he was able to make her come.

“When was the last time you two spoke?”

“It’s been a while,” she answered in a shrugging tone that indicated he wasn’t an entity that dwelled in her thoughts or remained in her life. “Last I heard he was living in Silverlake with his girlfriend. I think they’re having a kid.”

I told Tracy that I had been trying to get a hold of Fish and asked if there was some way she could put us in touch.

“I can give you his cell number.”

I called Fish’s cell and got his voice mail. There was no recording of his voice on the outgoing message, just a beep, after which I left my number and told him to call.

He responded via text:

What do you want

I typed back:

I want to meet

Quickly, he wrote:

Farmer’s market 3 o clock

Then me:

Where in farmers market?

Then he:

jewelry kiosk

At three o’clock, in the rain, by the jewelry kiosk at the Farmer’s Market, I waited to meet the character I created or the imposter who was playing him. After half an hour of asking every 30-something man who passed if he was Julius Fischman, I decided to text the guy again:

Where are you?

He replied:

Where the fuck are you?

I wrote:

Farmer’s market

He wrote:

Fuck you

The guy was like Mamet with his dialogue. Cold and wet, I decided to cut my losses and go. Whoever this prick was, he obviously didn’t want to meet.

That night, when I got home, I began work on a story called The Jew’s Tale. In it, Julius Fishman has decided to commit suicide, but before doing so, he wants to get his watch fixed at the jewelry kiosk at the Farmer’s Market. The kiosk is run by an old Jew who convinces Fish to trade his watch for a diamond ring. Fish returns home, pins the ring to his sweater, and attempts to hang himself. In the end, however, Fish passes out just before the rope gives, and he wakes to find himself engaged to his pregnant girlfriend, Intimate Relationship #9.5.

It took me about a week to finish the story, and after publishing it online, I got the following email from Fish:

Fucking prick

I wrote back:

Fuck you. you stood me up

He responded:

You stood ME up

I wasn’t buying it. I mean, yes, it is possible there’s another Farmer’s Market in Los Angeles with a jewelry kiosk, but it’s damn unlikely, and given the circumstances, I figured Fish for a liar.

The next day the sonofabitch emailed me a link to his blog which contained a story that, in my opinion, crossed over into the realm of bad taste. It was a story that involved an actor named Judd Trichter, who was so down on his luck, he was forced to take a job working on an X-rated film. But rather than acting in the film, Judd’s role was to apply lubricant to the necessary body parts on the actors and actresses when they called for it on the set. According to the story, the name ascribed to such an occupation is “lube boy.”

Normally, I wouldn’t let such an insult bother me, but the following day, I was sitting in the waiting room at an audition when all of a sudden the casting director started laughing her ass off after reading my name on the sign-in.

“Is your name really Judd Trichter?” she asked.

I told her it was.

“You’re ‘lube boy’!”

I called Tracy.

“This has to stop.”

“Yeah,” Tracy sympathized, “you guys have some issues. Fish was really pissed you stood him up at the Farmer’s Market.”

“I stood him up? He stood me up.”

“That’s not what he says.”

“When did you talk to him?”

“A few days ago. He said you don’t return his calls.”

“That’s a lie,” I insisted, but Tracy confessed that she didn’t know who to believe.

“He doesn’t like the things you write about him. He thinks you’re unfair.”

“How so?” I asked.

“Well, for one thing, he wants to be successful.”

“But he is successful. His website is ten times as profitable as mine.”

“That’s true,” she agreed, “but no one would know it by reading your stories.”

“What else?” I asked.

“He wants to be happy.”

“I’m sure he does.”

“He told me to tell you that he’ll stop harassing you if you let him edit your page.”

“No chance,” I said. I had my pride.

“He said he’s willing to pay.”

It was raining again on the day of the meet. I had so little money and so little gas in my car, I was worried that if I drove down to Koreatown, I’d have no way of getting back.

The building Tracy lived in looks like a giant mainframe computer. It sits on Wilshire Boulevard facing a vast television screen that plays beer commercials for the Asian market. To get to her apartment required going up one elevator then down two flights of stairs to get to another elevator that took me to the roof so that I could climb down a fire escape that led to her window.

Inside, Tracy had turned off the lights and drawn the curtains so that all I could see was a green flicker from the giant screen outside.

“Wear these,” she said, handing me a pair of sunglasses as I entered. There was an ambient sound coming from her bedroom — either some avant-garde mix tape or a white noise from Tracy’s machines and gadgets hooked up into a complex feedback loop.

“Is he here?” I asked.

“He’s in the bedroom. You’ll have to converse with him through a screen.”

With the sunglasses on, I couldn’t see a thing. Tracy led me by the hand as I tripped over phone lines and cables and finally reached a desk at which she told me to sit.

“I’m not sure this will work,” she said as she placed a keyboard on my lap. “The technology isn’t quite there yet, and neither is your writing.”

I sat for a minute in total darkness, listening to the noise from the bedroom getting louder and louder until, suddenly, a series of letters flashed before my eyes:

FISH: glad you could make it

I typed my response on the keyboard:

JUDD: my pleasure

FISH: allow me to get right to the point. you made a big mistake making intimate relationship #9.5 pregnant

JUDD: how you figure?

FISH: as written, i am clearly incapable of being a decent father. i don’t make enough money, and i don’t like my fiance

JUDD: so?

FISH: so what will happen to the child?

JUDD: nothing good i suppose

FISH: you think that’s funny?

JUDD: wasn’t meant to be. you live in a cruel and unfair world

FISH: then maybe i can live somewhere else

JUDD: like?

FISH: i don’t know

JUDD: me either

The screen stayed black for a moment.

FISH: what if my writing career were to take off?

JUDD: unlikely

FISH: why?

JUDD: the reader never sees your writing because he’s supposed to assume it represents the voice of an honest man in a world with no value for honesty

FISH: and there’s no way i can find success in that world?

JUDD: not as a writer

FISH: but i want to write. i like writing

JUDD: then you won’t find success

Black again.

FISH: what if ir#9.5 has a miscarriage?

JUDD: that’s a cop out

FISH: what if the world were to change and find a place for my work?

JUDD: that’d be nice, but it isn’t a part of my experience, and it wouldn’t be something i’d write

FISH: even if i paid you?

JUDD: even if you paid me

FISH: >:-(

JUDD: what’s that? your ‘angry face’?

FISH: >:-(((((((

JUDD: ooh, i’m scared

FISH: what youre doing is cruel. it’s cruel to me, cruel to the child, and cruel to ir#9.5. for god’s sake, man, she’s having my baby and i don’t even know her name

JUDD: her name is Ethel

FISH: Ethel? why Ethel?

JUDD: Julius and Ethel

FISH: oh. very funny

Tracy interrupted:

TR8CE: i don’t get it

JUDD: don’t get what?

TR8CE: why is Ethel funny?

FISH: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosenbergs

TR8CE: ohhhhhhhhhhh! ))))

FISH: so what happens after she has the baby?

JUDD: you’ll give up your dreams, take a series of mundane jobs, and devote yourself to being a good father

FISH: does this make me happy?

JUDD: not at all. you’ll be as much a failure at fatherhood as you were in the arts. your relationship with ir#9.5 – excuse me – Ethel, will further deteriorate as each of you suffer through the lie of a marriage held together by the bond of a child neither of you actually want

FISH: where’s the light at the end of that tunnel?

JUDD: no light. just suffering

FISH: so i’m a martyr

JUDD: i suppose

FISH: a martyr to what?

JUDD: to absolutely fucking nothing

FISH: and there’s no other way? no compromise I can pay you to make?

JUDD: nope

FISH: then i hope you don’t mind if i send an email to your mother telling her you’re back on heroin

JUDD: i hope you don’t mind if Ethel has twins

FISH: how ’bout i put that McRibs commercial on youtube

JUDD: how ’bout I just delete your ass, take down the whole page, and let your whole existence dissipate into the cyber-void

FISH: you don’t have the balls

JUDD: that’s where you’re wrong, douchebag. i’m tired of Filth and the next stage of your life doesn’t interest me. i’d rather move on and write something else

FISH: and throw away something you’ve spent the last two years working on?

JUDD: why not? you ever see how few hits it gets? it’s like you barely exist in the first place

FISH: so do it then

JUDD: maybe i will

FISH: what’s stopping you?

JUDD: frankly, the only thing stopping me was that i was hoping you’d pay me to keep you alive

FISH: if you let me edit the page

JUDD: no chance

FISH: why not?!

JUDD: because i think your writing sucks

FISH: fuck you

JUDD: no, FUCK YOU!!!!

FISH: you’ll delete Ethel and Arty from Philly too?

JUDD: all of youse

FISH: good. great.

JUDD: glad you approve

FISH: so get on with it then

JUDD: looking for the passwords…

Tracy interrupted:

TR8CE: stop it, stop it, stop!

FISH: he started

JUDD: how did I start?

TR8CE: Fish doesn’t want to disappear. he’s just scared. he’s scared of having a child because he’s never been one himself. the whole childhood experience is completely alien to him

JUDD: how’s that my problem?

TR8CE: fish, don’t you ever feel incomplete? like you’re missing something that everyone else seems to have?

FISH: sometimes i can’t find my keys

TR8CE: i’m serious. and judd, if the next stage of Fish’s life doesn’t interest you, what about an earlier stage? why not write about how fish became fish?

JUDD: who would want to read that?

TR8CE: i would

JUDD: no you wouldn’t

TR8CE: i would, Judd. i really would :’-)

FISH: maybe it’d be cool to be a child

JUDD: believe me, i was a child for years. and it sucked

TR8CE: are you telling me you wouldn’t go back if you could?

JUDD: maybe high school. but only for the ass

TR8CE: come on judd. do it

FISH: yeah, Judd. i want to be a child

JUDD: you have no idea what you’re asking for

TR8CE: and write it as a novel this time. no more short stories

FISH: I’ll pay you for it

JUDD: how much?

FISH: i’ll talk to gutstein and make an offer

JUDD: and no one gets to edit what i write!

FISH: Y

The screen went black, and the noise from the bedroom faded. There was a burning sensation in my eyes, and when I shut them, I faded out into sleep.

***

It was still raining at dusk, when I awoke, fully dressed in Tracy’s bed, staring up at the webcam on her ceiling. Curled up beside me, Tracy faced the window, her terry cloth robe open to reveal the olive sheen of her thighs.

“I made you some tea,” she said, sensing somehow that I was awake.

The petal-scented steam rose from the cup on the night stand. I could feel Tracy’s long, synthetic hair coarse against my face as we listened to the rain crackle against the tinted glass of her window.

“Ten pages a week,” she said. “Direct deposit into your account.”

Behind the curtain, outside the window, the giant screen emitted a blank, grey light into the room. It was a steady light. No flickering. And I couldn’t help but fear that the TV was somehow rigged to the webcam above us, projecting our intimacy to the traffic that fitted and started down Wilshire Boulevard.

“Will you do it?” she asked.

I listened to the crackle caused by individual rain drops, falling from the sky, accelerating downward at a rate of 9.8 meters per second squared, to collide with the window like shrapnel smashed against a wall.

“I never got to meet him,” I said, reflecting on the idea that the crackle of rain was nothing more than the static hiss of the Earth Machine processing units of condensation as if they were so many bits of data organized through river applications into oceanic dreams.

Tracy turned her body from the window, away from the glass that never breaks despite the force of a million raindrop collisions. She turned her body into mine, forehead against my temple, nose against my cheek, her button mouth touching the corner of my lips.

“You found a way to communicate,” she whispered beneath her breath, barely audible above the crackle and hiss. “It’s a start.”

There’s an old Jew with a kiosk at The Farmer’s Market near my apartment. I handed him the watch and asked if he could replace the battery. He told me he was busy on account of the holidays and I should come back in a couple of hours. It was 1:50 in the afternoon. If I came back in two hours, I’d still have plenty time to hang myself before Intimate Relationship #9.5 came home from work. A body needs to dangle a good fifteen minutes for there to be no chance of resuscitation, and I didn’t want IR#9.5 getting worked up trying to save me. I felt no malice toward her and only wanted to be out of the picture so she could return to her family and raise our unborn child in a better environment than I could provide.

I decided to see a movie to kill time. Nothing interested me at the multiplex, but I bought a ticket for Blood Diamond because it was about to start. It was a terrible film. The story felt like it had been concocted by mooshing together three articles in an issue of Vanity Fair: an expose of the diamond industry, a report on ecotourism destinations and a fluff piece about a Hollywood star who cares. The star is, of course, Leonardo DiCaprio, who hops and jumps about the frame with the frenetic grace of a wet marmot. Though better suited to playing a disgruntled figure skater, DiCaprio is somehow cast as a Rhodesian mercenary, who, over the course of the film, goes from being a racist soldier of fortune to a hero who will sacrifice his life to save a young black boy and bring down the biggest diamond company in the world. And in case we don’t know what we should think of this unlikely scenario, the director, a talentless hack by the name of Ed Zwick, forces his actors to indicate what they are feeling at all times while providing a soundtrack that tells the audience exactly how it should react.

Blood Diamond is the kind of movie Hollywood makes in order to raise awareness about an issue. Or so they claim. In this case, the issue is conflict diamonds: stones used to fund both sides of various civil wars in Africa. According to the film, diamond companies mix conflict diamonds into their store of regular diamonds and release them into the market without notifying consumers of the blood spilled between their mining and their distribution. By making Blood Diamond, the actors, producers and Zwick get to show that Hollywood cares about the content of its movies and strives to educate audiences about parts of the world that hold our natural resources. I believe their motives, like those of Angelina Jolie and Madonna, are sincere in their desire to raise awareness. What I don’t believe is that raising awareness is worth a rat’s ass.

While watching the movie, I began to wonder when in the backsliding values of our country the definition of altruism became so watered down that it no longer involved sacrifice. In their attempt to raise awareness, the producers, actors and Zwick risk and sacrifice nothing — especially not their eight figure salaries. They change the names of the diamond companies in the movie so that no slander suits could be levied against them. They don’t shoot where it takes place in Sierra Leone, thereby supporting the local economy, because it would have been too dangerous and therefore uninsurable. They don’t even take the time and effort to make the movie with artistic integrity or believable characters. In fact, it can be argued that movies like Blood Diamond do nothing to raise awareness about an issue because they place that issue in the context of a fantasy world where heroism is rewarded, good triumphs over evil and everything works out in the end.

“You’re just a cynic,” cries the voice of protest to my argument. “You think it’s better to make movies out of comic book characters? Or art films composed of empty formalism? Or would you rather do nothing but sit there and criticize?” Quite the opposite. So angered was I by this film, so inspired to action by the drivel I had been subjected to in these final hours of my life, I decided the only sensible recourse was to use the last four hundred dollars in my checking account to buy IR#9.5 the biggest fucking conflict diamond I could find.

I approached the old Jew at the kiosk and made my demand. “I want a blood diamond,” I said. “I want a stone that came into your possession at the expense of an African village. A gem that was mined by limbless children and trafficked by unsavory arms dealers. I want the bloodiest diamond my four hundred dollars can buy.”

Behind his long gray beard, the old Jew, tall and rotund, frowned at my request.

“If you are looking for a cheap stone,” he said, “I can show you some synthetic gems that only the most practiced eye could discern.”

I told him that I was not looking for a cheap stone so much as I was looking for a stone with history. “A history of suffering,” I said. “Because in these, the final hours of my life, I have come to realize that value is not determined by color, clarity and carat, but by risk, sacrifice and the shedding of blood.”

The Jew smiled, revealing teeth that were yellow and rotten with decay. “I recognize you as a connoisseur,” he said, “though of something much more perverse than precious stones. And whereas I do not do business in the kind of gem you are looking for — at least not to my knowledge — I do believe I have something that might be of interest to you.”

He motioned to his wife to watch over the kiosk while he bent down to unlock a file cabinet behind the counter. Inside I could discern the first steps of a staircase that descended into the ground. It seemed too narrow a passage for the Jew’s girth, and yet he maneuvered his body inside with great ease. “Come,” he said, and I followed him into the darkness, spiraling beneath the market with one hand on his shoulder and the other grasping at the damp, stone wall. “A little further,” he said, as I listened to the sound of his footfalls and a steady dribble of water on rock. “A little further,” he said, as I became lost in the circular motion of our descent, wondering if we were actually moving downward, deeper into the Earth, or just spinning blindly in a pitch black room. “A little further,” he said, as we reached the final step, where a faint light from a gas lamp revealed the contours of a room cluttered with antique furniture, curtains and tarnished Judaica. “A little further,” he said as he took up the lamp and led me to another room, and then another, unlocking door after door to reveal more rooms filled with books and scrolls and broken tablets made from rock. “A little further,” he said, and the old Jew handed me the lantern as he stooped to lift the sheet from a cracked wooden desk that stood at an angle on two uneven legs. He opened a drawer that was so small, it could only fit the bit of cloth the old Jew pulled from it.

“Have a look,” he said, as he unwrapped the cloth to reveal an indistinct diamond, half the size of my pinky nail. “Hold it,” he said, as I took it from him and rolled it about in the tips of my fingers. “Let me show you in the light,” he said, as he held the lamp near my hand. “Now sit,” he said, before collapsing his weight onto a dusty couch. I sank down onto a chair that seemed to slide beneath me the moment I considered sitting.

“I will tell you nothing of the cut, color or clarity of this stone,” said the Jew, “since it is apparent such information would be wasted on you.” He took the diamond and set it down on a low table between us. “I will, however, tell you something of its history, as much as I know, for remember, a stone such as this exists for millions of years before human eyes ever set on it.”

“My father,” said the Jew, “first came into possession of this stone in Warsaw before the war. He bought it from a gentile who had a reputation as a gonif but who always dealt fairly in business, selling pieces for a fraction of their worth, so long as no one asked how he came to possess them. For many years, my father and the gonif did a good business together, and neither man ever felt cheated. One day, however, it was revealed that the gonif had raped and murdered a young girl who was about to be married. She was the daughter of a well-known poet in Minsk, and according to the papers, the gonif had cut off her finger with a length of wire to remove the ring from her hand.

“My father had bought this ring from the gonif the day before he learned of the murder. Needless to say, he was upset and burdened with terrible nightmares. Furthermore, he was frightened about what would happen to him, his family and all the other Jews of Warsaw if this gonif should confess from his cell to whom he sold his goods.

“Believing it was too dangerous to return the pieces to their rightful owners, my father decided instead that everything he still had from the gonif should be wrapped in a cloth and hurled into the Vistula as soon as possible.

“Now I was a young boy at the time, and to my mind, it made no sense that we should be throwing away such valuable merchandise. Why not melt it down or bury it until the people forget, I asked. But my father wouldn’t hear of it. He wrapped the gonif’s jewels in a cloth and handed it to me with strict orders to throw it in the river. What would be the harm, I thought, if I pry this one stone from the ring and keep it in my pocket? Everything else I threw away, but this one stone, far from the most valuable in the cloth, was the only one that I kept.”

Here the Jew stopped for a moment and picked up the diamond from the table. He looked at it in quiet contemplation, scratched his beard and continued with his tale.

“I was staying with family friends in the countryside at the time the Germans invaded. My father’s shop was taken from him, and he was killed along with my mother and two sisters. The family I lived with smuggled me to Cyprus, and from there, I moved to Israel where I began a new life. I lived on a kibbutz where we grew watermelons, and I fell in love with a beautiful Sabra named Shoshanna. She had been a teacher to the refugees, had taught us Hebrew, and it wasn’t long before she told me that she was pregnant with my child. One day, I left the fields to see if I could buy her a ring in which I could place this stone which I had kept with me since that day at the river. And after having it set, I returned home to discover that while I was gone, the Arabs had killed everyone in my kibbutz including my Shoshana and our unborn child. If I hadn’t gone to buy the ring in which to place this stone, then I too would have been amongst the dead.”

The Jew paused again and looked down at the diamond as if seeking some hint as to how he should go on. Perhaps this was not a story he had told before.

“To survive, I was forced to take a job in Ramat Gan working for a jeweler, a survivor of Auschwitz, who had competed with my father when they were living in Poland. He was a terrible man who had always despised my family, and for years, he worked me like a slave, paying me a pittance of what I deserved, until one day I agreed to marry his daughter. She was a meeskheit shrew of a girl, but she came with a dowry, which we used to move to America and open a pawn shop in the Bronx. For our engagement, I gave her the ring I had meant for my Shoshanna.

“It was the 1950’s then, and my wife and I worked hard to establish ourselves in this strange, new land. We had a beautiful daughter, whom I cared for at the store while my wife worked as a nurse at the local hospital. She became interested in politics, spending time with young artists and revolutionaries, arguing for radical action on behalf of the common man. She became enamored with free love, drugs and jazz music. One day, she told me that what I did in the pawnshop was an evil business and that she had no choice but to leave me for a Nicaraguan communist named Carlos. She and Carlos would send our daughter and me postcards from South America, with pictures of them in the jungle with rifles slung over their shoulders. Years later, we received a package with some of her belongings: her fatigues, some letters from our daughter and the ring that carried this stone.”

The Jew became excited. He stood up and paced about the room as he continued his tale.

“In ‘68, the pawnshop burned to the ground when the schwartzes decided to riot. My daughter and I moved to Los Angeles, where I started my life over for a third time. I married again, this time a woman whose father was a rabbi. I had never before been a religious man, but the rabbi convinced me to study Talmud and Torah. He convinced me to live in the old ways, to keep kosher and observe the Sabbath.

“My wife and I opened a shop downtown in the jewelry district and had a son who was diagnosed with Tay Sachs disease. For years, we struggled to care for him and eventually sold the store to cover the costs of his medical expenses. He lived to be 12 years before he finally succumbed.

“Afterwards, I used this stone and some others as collateral on a loan to open the kiosk here at the Farmer’s Market. My wife and I have worked here for the last twenty years. Business has never been particularly good, and we never did have another child. Eventually, though, we did pay off our debts, and I was able to get back this fakatka stone.”

His story was finished, and he looked up to see if I approved.

“What do you want for it?” I asked.

“What do you have?”

I told him I had four hundred dollars to my name. He said he’d take it.

I told him I also needed a ring and asked if he could throw one in for free. He said he couldn’t, so I offered him my watch in exchange. He looked at it closely.

“This watch is broken,” he said.

“It is,” I said. “You’ll notice the hour hand points west of the 12 even at five past. It was that way when my father gave it to me. It had been given to him as a gift, but he didn’t want it, so he offered it to me instead. He took it out of his pocket, and said, ‘You want this?’ I was 20 at the time, home from college for winter break. ‘Sure,’ I said. Words seldom passed between my father and me, and those were the last we ever exchanged. After giving me this watch, he walked out the door and never came back.”

The Jew took an interest in my story. He sat back down and fixed his gaze on the watch as I continued.

“After he left us, my family’s debts were more than we could handle, so I dropped out of school to take a job for which I was paid by the hour. I remember being late my first day on account of this broken watch, but after a while, I learned its idiosyncratic way of keeping time. I learned to stare at this watch and count the hours I had worked and the money I had earned. And in between the hours I had worked, I dreamt of a brighter future. I had big dreams. Enormous dreams I planned to fulfill as soon as I got my family out of the mess my father left us.”

I took the watch from the Jew and rubbed it in my fingers, hoping that it could give me some clue how to continue the story I had begun.

“As the years went by, I realized that my debts weren’t getting any smaller – but my dreams were. In fact, they were becoming mundane. Whereas I used to dream of a house in the hills, now I dreamt of having enough money to cover the rent. Whereas I used to dream of falling in love, now I dreamt of getting laid in a brothel. My dreams became embarrassing to me.”

The Jew’s face showed a great pain in hearing me say this, but he urged me to continue nonetheless. I put the watch down and leaned forward in my chair.

“I didn’t have any Holocausts. No great tragedies. No illnesses or accidents. I never lost anyone special because I never got close enough to anyone for it to warrant tears when they died. The broken pieces of my life have been parceled out in broken hours for wages that never covered their worth. Some months ago, after knocking up a girl I never liked and hearing that she was going to have the baby, I realized that those parcels were spent and not invested, and there would be no interest returned.”

I paused to think of how I’d end my story and bring it back to the watch. After all, I needed to convince the Jew that the thing held value.

“My old man gave me this watch not as a father gives a gift to his son, but as a poker player sheds his cards to make way for a better hand. And yet I’ve worn it all these years and lived by its time. And that’s my story.”

“I’ll take it,” said the Jew.

It was around five by the time I got home, which only gave me an hour to type up a suicide note before IR#9.5 came back from work. I deleted several drafts before coming up with something I liked. Here’s what I wrote:

Dear IR#9.5-

Will you marry me?

-Fish

I printed it out and stuffed it in an envelope along with the ring that held the Jew’s stone. I attached the envelope to my sweater with a large safety pin. Lacking a rope or the means to buy one, I was forced to use an extension chord to accomplish the grim task of a death by hanging. Though an aesthetically displeasing instrument, the extension chord does contain a certain umbilical reference to the information age which seemed apropos of my failed career as a writer / actor of electronic media. In order to find out how to tie a noose, I had to turn on my computer and look it up online. First, however, I checked my email.

There was nothing in my inbox other than a forward from Arty that showed a clip of an amateur stripper falling head first off a pole. I checked my myspace account as well and took comfort in the fact that I’d never have to answer another email. Then I googled and discovered there are a variety of knots that fall under the category of “noose.” There is the simple noose, the strangle snare, the gallows knot, also known as the scaffold knot, the hangman’s knot and several others. I decided to go with the hangman’s knot more for its look then its effectiveness. Wikipedia recommends six to eight coils for a good hanging though I didn’t have enough slack to do more than four. Per their instructions, I used Vaseline to lubricate the chord so that it would tighten smoothly and cut off my breathing from the instant I fell. It was probably around 5:30 by then, which gave me half an hour before IR#9.5 would return home.

Allotting time for the ten minutes it would take to die by strangulation, I decided to spend one last fifteen minute session engaged in the only activity that ever really brought any pleasure to my life since I first discovered it at the age of fourteen. I dug my favorite video out of the closet, cued it up to a fantastic menage-a-trois scene and rubbed out my final load. I must have been in a rush when I finally took the chair from my desk, climbed up to the light fixture atop the living room and tied the chord to a bolt that seemed as if it would hold. With everything in place, I dispensed with ceremony, tightened the noose, and kicked away the chair in order to get the job done as quickly as possible.

Anyone who has ever lost a loved one to a suicide by hanging has probably wondered what a person thinks in those final moments as he hangs by the neck with his mortality being squeezed from his body. Having lived through it, I can tell you, it is not some childhood memory that flashes before your eyes, nor some last regret, nor even a white light beckoning in the distance. The only thought that went through my mind was the startled realization that I had forgotten to turn off the porno on my TV set after I was done rubbing one out. The very next thought was that I had left a jar of Vaseline on the ottoman and a note attached to my sweater that said nothing about suicide. Thus it occurred to me that whoever should find my dangling corpse would believe that I had died not by suicide, but by the incompetent commission of an attempt at autoerotic asphyxiation. Einstein himself, had he died in such a manner, would be remembered as the village idiot, and I had no intention of allowing my meager legacy to be overshadowed by such a disreputable act. Instead, in what I believed would be my final struggle on this Earth, I began to swing my legs violently toward the ottoman in an effort to kick the Vaseline across the room where no one would find it. Having accomplished this, I then set to work at swinging toward the television set in order to destroy it or at least turn it off so that no one would see the two women on its screen who were taking turns pleasuring a man dressed in the black robes of a judge. Inevitably, my legs were too short, and the swinging pendulum of my body couldn’t reach the set. I swung harder and harder, pushing against the ceiling with my hands in order to lengthen the chord, an act which had the correlating effect of tightening the noose and thus bringing me closer to an ignoble death.

By the time IR#9.5 entered the apartment, I was whirling around the living room like a rhesus monkey, becoming more and more light headed as my toe finally grazed the glass on the screen. She screamed, of course, not knowing what she was screaming at, but recognizing that she was a witness to the uncanny in all of its emotional, spiritual and metaphysical terror. The last thing I remember was the failure of the ceiling bolt which allowed my body to careen forth into our home entertainment system, knocking the television, stereo and VCR to the ground as I collapsed unconscious in a heap of broken components.

When I awoke, I was engaged.