You will recall that the wise men brought to the baby Jesus gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. What is not recorded is that Joseph and Mary were savvy investors. They sold the frankincense and myrrh for more gold and then invested that gold into bonds, which Jesus could cash in when he turned thirteen (the age of majority in ancient Israel). 

We know that when Jesus was still an infant, the family relocated to Egypt. Not so widely known is that, while there, Joseph and Mary got in on the ground floor of a pyramid scheme. Fortunately, on a tip-off from the archangel Gabriel they pulled out and returned to Israel before the whole thing collapsed. 

The gospels are silent about the next few years of Jesus’ life, but from biblical scholarship and archeological evidence we can surmise the family did quite well (Gabriel really was a first-rate financial advisor—better than Edward Jones and Chuck Schwab combined. His divine connections gave him an insider-trading edge). They enrolled young Jesus in a carpentry apprenticeship, a very lucrative market back in those days when not nearly as many things had been built yet. 

We have exactly one story of Jesus’ adolescence on record. The Gospel of Luke tells that when he was twelve, he wandered off and his frantic parents spent three days looking for him. They needn’t have worried: Jesus was already pounding the pavement (or the dirt, as the case may be) to “be about [his] Father’s business.” They found him in the temple, talking with doctors about short sales and high-yield commodities. 

After this incident, the Bible passes over Jesus’ teens and twenties. However, we can assert with some confidence that he established a thriving home furnishings business. Branching out, he also had some success with a winery that had incredibly low overhead. Around 28 A.D. there was a market downturn, but by this time Jesus was already semi-retired. He sold off his interest in the companies and embarked on a new career as motivational speaker/life planner/King of Kings. 

The rest is public record. He spent forty days in the desert planning his business model and getting to know the competition. One major competitor tried to sway him to come work for his well-established firm, but Jesus was nothing if not a rugged individualist and entrepreneur, and he flatly refused the tempting offer.

 After the forty-day cleansing retreat, Jesus pulled himself up by his bootstraps (or sandal straps, as the case may be) and set out to implement the first phase of his business plan. First he approached some independent contractors, saying “Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men”—thereby recruiting his marketing department. Within three years, his teachings were spreading throughout Judea faster than What Color is Your Camel and Who Moved My Goat Cheese. He preached the mustard-seed investment strategy; he applied compound-interest principles to the multiplication of loaves and fishes; he memorably demonstrated the power of being buoyed up by liquid assets.

It is well documented how Jesus’ treasurer staged a hostile take-over and tried to oust Jesus from his own corporation. This is when the brilliant business acumen of Jesus really shined—of course he knew what his junior partner was up to, and miraculously turned the situation to his advantage. He arose stronger than ever. Even board members who had denied him or written him off for dead came around, more loyal than ever. Despite heavy death taxes, he was able to leave an inheritance to his followers. 

With the cross as Jesus’ new company logo, the rest is marketing history. The business that Jesus established is still going strong. Two thousand years on, people are writing out checks totaling billions to Christ Conglomerate’s innumerable subsidiaries around the globe. 

Initially some scratched their heads at his willingness to heal and perform other miracles for customers who obviously could not afford to pay for his services. In retrospect it was a stroke of genius—the first century equivalent of free content to draw in new followers. 

Perhaps, if we choose the right words and re-invest the scriptures with conservative, capitalistic meanings, we will then be able to appeal to the Bible to show that the Invisible Hand of the market is the hand of God. Everything, even grace, can be bought and traded and sold. And, according to this new interpretation, Jesus was, and is, and always will be Lord of Lords and CEO of CEOs.

————

Nicholas Ozment’s work has appeared in Weird Tales, Mythic Delirium, Dreams & Nightmares, The Smoking Poet, and numerous other publications. He once sent a koala–Pow!–straight to the moon.

Beloved Papa, 

I am ever so delighted to find myself in Amsterdam at the dawn of the new age of floral wealth! Every person I greet in the city squares is aglow with the bright future of tulips and Dutch trade. I have heard stories in the salons that the Ottoman Sultan himself is investing most of his personal fortune in Dutch tulips! Although I intended only a short sojourn before beginning my studies at Leiden University, my plans have changed. I have become apprenticed to a merchant here in Amsterdam and shall represent him in his trade discussions with his British counterparts.  In return for his professional company, I have signed a contract pledging £10,000, which is the reason for my missive.  I am approximately £9,990 short on my commitment.  Please send a sealed note of guarantee for that amount to the address on this letter. I assure you it will be a wise investment. A month ago, a mere 40 bulbs sold for 100,000 Dutch guilders. There could be no safer investment than in tulips and your child’s future in commerce.

As always, I remain your loving son,

James Worthington 

— 

August 1, 1720 

Dearest Father, 

What a thrill it is to be in London – the center of commerce – at the beginning of a new world built by the buyers and sellers of stock!  In every corner of the city, from the noblest Duke to the lowliest stable boy, every person is seized by the prospect of wealth and ownership.  From what I have heard, King George himself has invested most of his personal fortune in the stock of the South Sea Company.  Although I intended only a short day trip to London while taking a break from my studies at Cambridge, my plans have changed.  I have become apprenticed to a stockbroker here in London and shall assist him in investing in the multitude of new corporations blooming in this age of wealth.  In return for his professional favor, I have signed a contract pledging him £25,000, which is the reason for this letter.  I am approximately £24,990 short on my commitment.  Please send a letter guaranteeing this amount to the return address on my envelope.  I promise you it is a wise investment.  Just yesterday, the price of a share of South Sea stock sold for £1,000. I have it on good authority that the price will only go up! And I shall have access to even more profitable ventures. I am exploring a purchase of a very exciting corporation, which advertises itself as “a company for carrying out an undertaking of great advantage, but nobody to know what it is.”  Such opportunties are ours for the taking, Father, if you will but trust me today. 

Your grateful and respectful son,

George Worthington

— 

October 10, 2005 

Dear Dad,

Greetings from Las Vegas – the center of the new world of cash!  The real estate in this place is skyrocketing.  I’m telling you, Dad, every card shark, loan shark, show girl, playgirl, pole dancer, exotic dancer, hooker, stripper, waiter, and teenager has purchased an interest in land.  It doesn’t matter if it’s for casinos or condos, that’s where the money is.  I heard that Bill Gates has sold all his Microsoft stock to invest in Vegas real estate.  Now, I know that I was only supposed to stay for Columbus Day weekend before heading back to Stanford, but this place is exploding. I have already signed a letter of intent with a real estate developer to assist with his newest project on the Strip, pledging $80,000, which is the reason for my letter.  I’m currently $79,500 short.  Please send me the $80,000 you would have spent on my schooling as one lump sum now.  I guarantee I can give it back to you in six months, plus interest.  This is the new economy, and we can take advantage of it! 

Peace,

Jon Worthington

— 

July 22, 2030 

Hey Pops, 

A big “What up!” from Beijing, the epicenter of global money and power.  Everyone here is talking about the foundation of the world’s economy for the next thirty years: Peking duck.  As I’m sure you know, the world has embraced a new food revolution that will change the way we eat and live.  Peking duck is at the forefront of that.  From the littlest Communist Party member in elementary school to the most influential government official, everyone here is pouring their life savings into Peking duck exports.  I’ve even heard that Chinese President Yao has invested most of the country’s cash reserves into duck.  And, Pops, we can invest in it too.  I’ve decided to drop out of Beijing University and work for a firm founded by a chef/exporter.  I have signed a contract with him agreeing that, in return for a share of his profits, I will give him $1 million up front, which is the reason for this written message.  I am $999,000 short of my commitment.  Please deposit $1 million into my Sino-American Bank of Asia account.  I promise that I’ll pay you back double – you won’t be sorry! 

Your loving son,

Tre Worthington

————

Before he became the Boy from Nowhere – the One Who Walked In, the First and Last and Only, who lived a thousand years – he was just a little boy in New Hampshire, named John. John Frank Weaver. You can follow his plans to introduce his unborn child to culture at Content Based Dad. His right hand writes about life as a sock puppet on Twitter.

“It’s extremely perplexing,” said JPMorgan Senior Analyst Roger Newman. “Every time we feel like we have a good grasp of what the Dao Jones really is, it turns out that we really don’t know it at all. Quite frankly, I’m not even certain we’ve correctly named it.”

Despite the confusion experienced by most traders, one analyst, Lou Zu, has thrived on the current market conditions. When asked for the secret behind his success, he informed reporters, “Success is as dangerous as failure. Hope is as hollow as fear.” Before he could be pressed to explain his comments, he disappeared to the West atop a water buffalo.

————

David Snyder is a graduate student at Emerson College in Boston. His work has appeared in Coal City Review and Meeting House. When not writing humor, he seeks out the most godawful movies Netflix has to offer.

No longer will voyeurs witness couples (or larger groups) move from meeting on a front porch—after one of the women bends over to retrieve something she dropped (besides her dignity)—into the bedroom for hardcore action. Instead of fast-paced sex romps and fake tits, viewers will be entertained by awkward arrivals at a first date where the man is uncertain if protocol calls for a handshake, a hug or a kiss. The stilted dialogue during an episode of Monogamy will vary little from the banal observations during a pornographic film, except the actors will discuss economic growth instead, and how excited it makes them.

Family Limited® operates on three proselytizing networks and hopes to capture an audience for extended viewing. Charles Biggs, one of the show’s producers notes, “If people can stand to watch Kate Plus 8, they’ll watch this too.”

Men won’t merely tune in for five minutes to see a quickie. The show’s programmers hope to capture couples and older children with stunning displays of everyday life. One week they’ll watch the monogamous couple argue over who should do what to clean up after dinner. The tension will be broken by clumsy smiling as they brush their teeth later. Another week they’ll hear the couple discussing work woes, tempered by sharing plans for vacation and lost childhood dreams.

“What we’ve learned from watching pornography,” adds Biggs, “is that people like to see shots of faces at the end of the scene, and I can’t think of anything that would capture more attention than the look of disappointment on a woman’s face as she considers what she might have done differently with her life.”

In the season finale, the couple will fulfill their marriage vows and their procreative duty to God. Most of the episode will center on the decision-making process of the couple, their fears about their fitness to be parents, and a few niggling remarks about couples they know with children, inviting chuckles. “If they can do it…” says the husband, leaving the answer to his wife, who leans in to kiss him. This will be followed by inadequate, fumbling foreplay.

“What people really want to see is old-fashioned missionary sex, and we won’t hold back,” promises Fred Wallis, the show’s creator. The final shots (which hint at the possibility of female orgasm) will be shown through opaque curtains billowing back and forth.

If the show’s revenues match expectations, season two will explore the changes both partners experience during pregnancy, and the temporary shifting of roles, though the husband will make clear that when the child is born he wants dinner on the table at six o’clock.

Fred Wallis sees it as an opportunity not only to return morality to America, but also to explore the broader world. “We may show child brides in remote corners of the world, just to see how other countries make it work.” Wallis also hinted at his desire to understand adoptive families, to see if love can transcend biology.

Of course there will be no depiction of gay marriage. As Wallis notes, “There’s not really a stable market for that.”

 ————

Matt Kolbet teaches and writes near Portland, Oregon. His work has appeared in Defenestration twice before, as well as The American Drivel Review, Clockwise Cat, and Sideshow Mirrors. He is in a monogamous relationship that defies filming.

Okay, the tape’s rolling. So how did you find yourself surveilling the hotel room in Phoenix?

One of our men was meeting with a big-time American dealer. Our agent was posing as a Mexican drug baron looking to unload an enormous quantity of coke. The dealer was this dirtbag who sold to kids in the Tuscon area. We’d been trying to nab him for two years.

So you’re monitoring the room from the one next door and…

The door squeaks open and I look over at my partner and I say “Okay, game time, were on.” I put on my headphones and look into the monitors – we’ve got four cameras plus audio – and all of a sudden I’m like what the fuck?…

It’s not your people?

Yeah that, plus the pair entering the room are celebrities. We’re talking public figures, big time politicians to be exact.

How big time?

Like you couldn’t get any-fucking-bigger big time. This wasn’t some school board meeting.

Can you name them?

Are you kidding? I might work for the government but I’m not stupid. I spill names, I’ll end up with sewn down eyelids and a coffin. I’m just giving you a starting point here. You’re the journalist.

Okay, can you at least describe them?

Yeah. The guy was this old codger with a ridiculous combover. One cheek was puffed out like he was a squirrel collecting nuts for the winter. Walked with a small limp. At first I thought the woman with him was some high-priced call girl or a TV anchor, the way she was dressed. But then I recognized her as a rising conservative star. She’s wearing this tight red dress and is manicured beyond belief with shiny lip gloss. She’s also wearing these small, square glasses with no rims.

So what happened next?

Well, the woman went into the bathroom and the geezer started fiddling with this big suitcase he was carrying. He gets it open and drags out five racks made out of bamboo poles connected by wire. He snaps the pieces together into what appears to be a cage. Then he takes off his clothes, sits down on the floor, and lowers the cage over himself.

He’s thinking inside the box.

No doubt. So the bathroom door opens and the woman comes out. She’s still dressed the same, but now she’s drowning in eye shadow and wearing these monstrous heels. She walks over to the geezer’s suitcase, reaches down, and hits a button on a small boom box. The machine starts playing If You Think I’m Sexy.

So now you’ve got your own burlesque show.

More like comedy show. Anyway, the woman breaks into this slow, grinding tease while the codger stares with anticipation through the bars of his cage. This goes on for about three minutes. Funny thing is, the woman gets down to wearing only heels but the guy’s still as limp as the housing market.

Why do you think that was?

No idea. Maybe because she kept saying “You betcha.” So the woman digs into the suitcase and grabs a packet of something. She rips it open with her teeth and pours a few pills onto a table. Then she leans over and starts crushing up the pills with this huge wedding ring. Mind you, she’s still swinging her ass while she works, trying to keep the heat up.

All of a sudden the guy lets out a yell, casts the cage off Conan-style, and bounds up to the table. He yells “Outta the way bitch!” and presses a finger to his nose. Then he leans down and snorts the line.

Did the drug work?

Let me put it this way. After what happened next I went out and bought Chiagra stock. Pure magic. Get this – the guy lines up behind the woman and starts going for it. She reaches out and squeezes a bible with one hand and a Mr Coffee with the other. Things heat up into this fevered thrashing and the geezer’s pouring out sweat like a flash flood. Then he lets out a grunt, thrusts his hips, and the glasses literally fly off the woman’s face. She gasps, rears her head back, and screams “Drill baby, drill!”

Jesus.

And then, bam, it’s over. The two separate from each other like nothing happened, stroll over to their clothes, and re-dress. Then they sit on a couch and stare at the wall across the room. She starts gibbering something about why the constitution should be replaced by the bible. Before she’s even done the geezer starts into this lecture about how we could have won in Vietnam if everyone cared more about America. It was bizarre, the two of them in their separate little wacko-worlds. It was like they couldn’t give two shits about each other.

What did you do then?

Well, at first I sat there thinking that if either of these two ever get more power than they have now, we are screwed. Like, time-to-emigrate screwed.

So the geezer stands up, mutters something about having to give a speech about “goddamned immigrants”, and rambles out of the room. No “thanks, that was great” or “see ya”, he just leaves. The woman spends five minutes primping her hair and then follows him.

Crap, I need to get back to work.

One last question. What’s Chiagra?

It’s this Chinese Viagra knockoff. My partner zoomed the camera in when the lady was chopping up the pills. He saw the label. I’ll tell ya, the stuff’s amazing. Get this – when the geezer walked out of the room I noticed a tent in his pants. Fifteen minutes after the first round and he’s ready to go again! Amazing. By the way, I caught a video of his immigration speech. It was ninety-eight degrees outside and he’s up on stage wearing a trench coat.

That alone should make it obvious why I had to contact you.

———–

Thomas Sullivan‘s writing has appeared in Word Riot and 3AM Magazine, among others. He is the author of Life In The Slow Lane, a comic memoir about teaching drivers education. For info on this title, and to view more of Thomas’ writing, please visit his author website at http://thomassullivanhumor.com.

I know Hillary Rodham Clinton penned a popular document entitled It Takes a Village, but you should know that was just a book, not a bill she submitted to Congress.  I don’t subscribe to this philosophy.  I think if it only took you and your partner to conceive the child, it should only take you to raise it.  I didn’t get to have the orgasm (or at the very least a cessation of loneliness), why am I stuck with the child?

I know what you’re thinking–that I’m just some misanthrope who hates kids.  It certainly helps that my womb is empty; the organ is mostly decorative.  Still I do not indiscriminately despise kids.  I devoted my Wednesday nights to the single season of the CBS series Kid Nation, but you’re highly mistaken if you think your spawns are of Kid Nation stock.  Those minors established a government in the desert, killed chickens, and made each other feel better, quite a bit more than dropping a napkin into a receptacle.  They accomplished such feats in their diapers, they cut their own umbilical cords, and most importantly, they had the kind of parents with the discretion to ship them off to an adult-less region of the country.  I had the option of tuning in, rather than having the spectacle forced on me.  Here you are, staging your little production in such a way that you simultaneously block the trashcan and the exit.  You have to know.

Yet you look at me with that smile and that twinkle in your eye like you think I’m in on it with you, like we’re both humoring these sweet, innocent minds.  I am not your accomplice; if it were the proper season, I would passive aggressively remark on the fictitious nature of Santa Claus.  Then I might twinkle back at you.  In fact if you want me to offer any applause for your children’s most recent accomplishment of food-wrapper disposal, expect nothing more than a slow, sarcastic clap accompanied by a cold, derisive expression.  That’s the kind of first I want to be a part of.

I’m sure you’ll say, “We have to teach them, love them, nurture them because they’re the next generation of leaders.”  Take a look at our current generation of leaders; it’s not exactly an investment that inspires confidence.  You might even point out that I’ll be dependent on these children when I’m old and infirm, but considering most of my peers are still living at home, playing Xbox and sucking the life out of their parents, I’m not exactly counting on the next generation which will likely have more distracting and enthralling consoles.  You may demand, you may cry out: What about posterity?  To which I will ask, in the words of Grouch Marx: “What’s posterity ever done for me?”

———–

Patricia Mitchell did not realize how boring she was until she had to write a biography of herself.  She thanks Defenestration for inflicting this painful truth on her fragile ego.  Her work appears on McSweeney’s Internet Tendency.

Okay, so maybe Don’t Wake Daddy was Parker Brothers.  And maybe you’re now both subsidiaries of the larger parent company Hasbro. I think my point is still valid.  Any parent wanting to instill a healthy dread of failure in their one-or-more children age ranged six-to-adult need only to pick up a copy of Operation. One wrong move and any surgeon-to-be gets an earful of electrical cacophony.  A lesson in upward-downward class mobility and the fragility of the American Myth can by found in the cruel cardboard folds of any Chutes and Ladders board.  Guess Who propagates a superficial, image-conscious worldview—while Twister openly mocks the awkward, invalid, and colorblind.        

Whether or not you intended them to, your products have served as pre-packaged lessons in Hobbesian social-contract theory and advocated cutthroat foreign and domestic policies to the children of the world for years.  Don’t Wake Daddy?  Fear the sleeping giant that is isolationist America.  Don’t Break The Ice?  Consider your very own jingle: 

Innocent enough, until one considers that the bear in question means, in fact, a bear economic market.  How much of his or her integral workforce can a player let go before the entire market crashes?  Where is a game highlighting our country’s dependence on the uniquely skilled worker?  Just smash away at those ice blocks, never minding the many social and economic benefits of a homegrown labor force.   

Battleship’s agenda is bent on impressing in the player the western world’s increasing dependence on the military-industrial complex. 

The Game of Life shoots players down a path towards a career, a family, an insurance plan that—in all probability—they never wanted in the first place.  They didn’t ask to be born and now they’re afraid to die, hurtling and slaving towards retirement and death hoping to rack up more money than their fellow players, as if this will somehow save them? The cold reality of the fact being that we all die alone! Horrible! Horribly Alone!
 … 

Excuse me. 

So what do I want?     

I’ve some ideas of my own I’d like to see made into board games.  The first: a Candyland-Risk crossover in which players vie for militaristic control for a magical land made of sugar and confection.  Additionally, I’d like animation rights for any and all Candyland Risk characters (including but not limited to: Ho Chi Mint, King Kandy Kaiser Wilhelm, and Lord Licorice, Elector of the Palatine), a cut in the Candyland-Risk theme park, and an executive producer/creator credit on the children’s television show. 

Aside from that? A lifetime supply of Hungry Hungry Hippos marbles, or else I’ll go public. 

————

Drew Dickerson is an 18 year old writer out of Atlanta, Georgia.  His work within the short story discipline was recently recognized by the National Foundation for the Advancement of the Arts’s YoungARTS program and he was a 2010 Presidential Scholar in the Arts candidate.  Additionally, his one-act play—Where in the World is G. Gordon Liddy?, a theatre of the absurd piece about the Watergate Scandal—was recently put on at The Earl Smith Strand Theatre in Marietta, Georgia.  He plans to attend the University of Georgia next year.

BAT-APOLOGY

Good evening.

Earlier today, in Gotham District Court, I was forced to respond to questions that no superhero would want to answer. The questions focussed on what I now admit was…an inappropriate relationship I had with my crime-fighting intern, Robin.

This type of involvement with my young sidekick represents a personal failure for me, especially since it resulted in pain for the two people I care about most in the world—my butler Alfred and Commissioner Gordon. 

While I take full responsibility for my actions, I would like now to forever put to rest certain wild stories about me which have been circulating in the tabloid press.

–Yes, I use certain gadgets of my own invention in my work—the Bat-rope, Bat-copter, etc., but there is no, I repeat, no such thing as a Bat-tickler. 

–At no time did I ever ask Robin to lie, except as regards our secret identities. 

–I know of no orgies that took place at Justice League of America meetings. Every superhero I met there is, as far as I know, an upstanding citizen. The Flash, whom I am proud to refer to as a friend, has beaten his addiction to amphetamines. 

–I have never met Lois Lane, Lana Lang, or the Bionic Woman, despite the repeated linkage of their names with mine in the press. The photograph purporting to show me naked, trussed up with Wonder Woman’s golden lariat, is an obvious phony. 

–I have never huffed kryptonite. 

–The Green Lantern and I are just friends.  

Now, in the interest of complete candor, I would like to say a few words about some reported incidents in which I was culpable. 

–In an earlier deposition, I answered a question concerning my whereabouts at a certain point in time by saying that Robin and I were “enjoying ourselves on the cape.” While my answer was legally correct, I regret that it was misinterpreted by some people to mean that my sidekick and I were vacationing at some peninsular resort. The Batcape in question has been sent out for DNA analysis. 

–On three occasions in 2005 I chose to ignore Bat-signal beacons from Commissioner Gordon because I wanted to stay home and watch reruns of The X-Files. I regret this. 

–The recent refurbishment of the Bat-cave was, in part, paid for by funds solicited by Alfred from Chinese businessmen, but at the time I had no idea they were henchmen of the evil Penguin! 

–I am now aware that emissions from the Batmobile do not meet government guidelines. I am working on a Batalytic converter. 

–Although he is a nefarious evil-doer and consummate over-actor, I now admit freely that The Riddler has always cracked me up. 

Finally, before I sign off, I must say that it is true that I appeared at several crime-fighting emergencies wearing Batgirl’s uniform. Mine was being dry-cleaned, I swear!

 ————

Jay Morris is a graduate of LaSalle University, where he was awarded a scholarship for creative writing. He has published dozens of stories in various literary magazines, including Philadelphia Stories and Zahir. He has also written one play, Rude Baby, which was recently produced, and worked for a time as a joke writer for Jay Leno. His new humor book, Uncle Jay’s Unreliable Almanac, is available at Amazon.

In his 1972 self-published memoir, “Neil Armstrong Is A Big Fat Liar,” Weinreb explained his “Eureka” moment, similar to the one in which he first teamed up tongue, salami and a pork cutlet to create the Galento sandwich:

Escape velocity: that was the equation the space program focused on, the basket our rocket scientists put all their deviled eggs in. While our fancy schmancy scientists worked on “escape velocity,” I worked around it.

In a nutshell Weinreb, an amateur science buff and weekend magician, knew that it takes 35,000 pounds of thrust per unit to escape Earth’s gravity; yet once in space, momentum requires the tiniest fraction of that output. Simply put, 90-percent of a rocket existed only to achieve escape velocity, requiring vast quantities of fuel — after which those lower stages were discarded like sardine bones. To Weinreb, this was disproportionately unsatisfying, like serving a sandwich with more bread than meat, and no pickle. His solution: lighter-than-air balloons to lift a capsule into the stratosphere, where a fraction of the fuel required for lift-off would propel it into space, and to the moon. Unless, of course, it exploded.

Weinreb set about building a prototype, procuring a vintage bathysphere cheaply from a man with too much nitrogen in his brain. Airtight and capable of surviving the crushing pressures of the deep, the steel chamber was further modified to withstand the shock of rocket propulsion and a possible rough landing. (He also put up some curtains.) But numerous technical and financial setbacks delayed his progress until April of 1969, when Weinreb further postponed his launch to attend Opening Day at Shea Stadium, a game the Mets lost to the woeful Expos, 11-10, despite scoring four runs in the bottom of the ninth. Disgusted by the disappointing start to what would surely be another hapless season by New York’s Metropolitans, Weinreb headed home and gassed up his balloons.

(As improbable as his story seems in the recounting, newspapers from the morning following his evening launch relate eyewitness accounts of an “unidentified flying object” drifting across the Queens horizon before achieving a vertical trajectory; there is also a report from a commercial Pan Am flight taking off from La Guardia Airport, whose pilot insisted a UFO had passed close enough for him to glimpse a large, ugly cat through a curtained porthole window.)

Weinreb wrote of his and Max’s ascent into the stratosphere, where he ejected the balloons that had carried him aloft and ignited the single rocket engine that would “free me from the miserly grip of Earth’s gravitational pull, propelling me into orbit, and history. Unless, or course, it exploded.”

With a catatonic Max for company, Weinreb settled in for the long journey to the moon, where, he explained in his book, they would be stranded. He had known all along that a return trip was impossible (the one advantage he was willing to concede to the NASA mission). However, his goal was simply to be the first man on the moon; after that, he would be happy for as long as his air held out, expecting his remains to be discovered by a shocked Apollo 11 crew or, if not them, future moon missions, or even visitors from other galaxies resembling characters out of Arthur C. Clarke, or mollusks.

The journey through space had its moments of wonder but was not altogether pleasant. Weightlessness produced in Max a bewildered state accompanied by near-constant mewling and the ejection at regular intervals of vomitous hairballs. Weinreb too upchucked the unsatisfying bologna paste he’d created himself, having mashed and squeezed a variety of deli meats into sausage skins. Both eventually grew accustomed to their weightless state and the serial vomiting became less frequent, although hairballs and globs of bologna paste commingled in the air like giant, bloated mosquitoes, and the smell of human and cat waste grew oppressive. After several days under conditions that would repel a cockroach, Weinreb was grateful to feel the tug of the moon.

Deploying his parachutes over the Sea of Tranquility, Weinreb was surprised to discover that, even under the lighter gravity of the moon, those chutes failed to slow his descent as much as he had hoped. He’d calculated his impact to be roughly equivalent to dropping off the roof of his garage (something he had attempted as a boy of ten, wearing a towel for a hero’s cape and escaping with minor injuries, except those later visited upon him by his father); instead, he’d plummeted like a falling piano. Fearing he might have broken bones, Weinreb lay inside his vessel for several long hours, gazing out his porthole window at the amazing lunar landscape outside and thinking, I made it to the moon. God, it stinks in here.

As he prepared to explore the lunar surface, climbing into the vintage diver’s suit that caused him to resemble an aquarium toy designed to amuse fish, he realized he’d made one great miscalculation: he had failed to account for an airlock. He couldn’t open the hatch without expelling his oxygen, and killing Max; yet he was determined that he hadn’t come all this way to die inside his tiny vessel. So, Weinreb wrote, he shared some bologna paste with Max and took a nap.

When he awoke hours later, Weinreb was surprised to find Max dead. Perhaps the vomiting of countless hairballs had proven too much for him, or maybe it was the bologna paste. He ultimately decided that Max had died purposefully, as if by willfully ingesting a cyanide mouse, so Weinreb could exit the bathysphere without remorse. Which Weinreb did. Venting the oxygen from inside his steel chamber, he opened the hatch and stepped onto the lunar surface. “One small step,” Weinreb thought. “I should have gone to the bathroom.”

Fillmore Weinreb wandered as far as his air-hose would allow, knelt, and carefully buried the remains of Max, first cat on the moon. He offered a Kaddish and, rising to his feet, was surprised to come helmet-to-helmet with Neil Armstrong. But not nearly as surprised as Commander Armstrong to find a Queens delicatessen owner in a deep sea diver’s suit on the moon.

Weinreb wrote about what happened next:

Reports to Mission Control of my presence on the moon were initially greeted with concern for Armstrong and Aldrin – that perhaps their suits were leaking oxygen, causing the shared religious hallucination of finding a Jew on the moon. Eventually Nixon administration insiders were briefed, and it was agreed to bring me home in secrecy. Calculations were made for my additional weight and, despite my protestations and allergy to Tang, I was squeezed uncomfortably between Aldrin and astronaut Collins for the journey home.

Weinreb claims to have been whisked to a covert prison cell located inside the pelvis of the Lincoln Monument, where he was offered a lifetime federal tax exemption in exchange for his silence, “for the good of the nation.” When it was further suggested that the same result could be achieved with his disappearance, Weinreb elected the course of a patriot.

But the decision would gnaw at him, starting with the launch of Apollo 12, whose real mission Weinreb knew was to erase all physical evidence of his lunar visit. And over the next few years, as the wonder of Apollo and Woodstock and the Amazin’ Mets gave way to Watergate, odd-and-even gas lines and the break-up of Steppenwolf, Weinreb’s disillusionment led him to damn the consequences, and self-publish the memoir of his improbable journey.

The publication of “Neil Armstrong Is A Big Fat Liar” might have passed unnoticed had it not been for a booking mix-up at the syndicated Mike Douglas Show in February of 1972. Instead of Phil Weinstein, the plate spinner, a booker had mistakenly contacted Fillmore Weinreb, the crackpot author. Further benefiting from the high ratings generated by co-hosts John Lennon and Yoko Ono (with whom he would form a life-long friendship), Weinreb told his incredible tale to an audience of millions.

In the ensuing weeks, Weinreb found himself embraced by Americans increasingly distrustful of authority in the era of Nixonian paranoia. He appeared on Sunday Morning with Charles Kuralt; drunkenly flirted with Phyllis Schlafly on Playboy After Dark; and, mistaking Tom Snyder’s booming laugh for ridicule, punched the Tomorrow host in the face before storming off the set. Whatever plans the United States government might have had for the disposition of Fillmore Weinreb, his sudden disappearance was no longer an option.

Despite government denials and Armstrong’s refusal to comment, Weinreb pressed his case for years. In 1976 he even granted an interview to the Soviet newspaper, Pravda. Later realizing he’d been duped in a propaganda move to subvert America’s patriotic celebration of its bicentennial, and the movie Rocky, Weinreb issued a retraction of his claim and withdrew from the public eye. He refused further comment up to his death this week at the age of 78. It’s rumored that the reclusive Armstrong attended the private service, in disguise; although it remains unclear whether he might have done so out of respect for a peer with whom he shared an historic moment, or to be sure he was dead.

Over the years circumstantial evidence has surfaced to support portions of Weinreb’s story, including his government file released to a Huffington Post reporter under the Freedom of Information Act containing CIA and FBI documents from the summer of 1969 blacked out with the fervor of a graffiti artist trying to cover a wall. He had also earned a place on President Nixon’s “enemies list,” and it has been speculated that the missing eighteen-and-a-half minutes from the Nixon tapes had nothing to do with the Watergate break-in but were related instead to a recent Weinreb appearance on “Laugh-In” in support of Pat Paulsen’s candidacy for president.

Regardless of the validity of Weinreb’s claim, or the circumstances of his subsequent recant, there is one final passage in his long out-of-print book that could someday prove conclusively the veracity of his tale:

Whatever you believe, there’s one irrefutable fact that Apollo couldn’t cover up, because I never told them: someday, some schmendrick looking for moon rocks is going to do a little digging around Mare Tranquillitatus, and find Max. At first, they’ll think they’ve discovered an alien life-form… but when they figure out it’s really a common housecat, they are going to plotz.

————

Ken Pisani writes and produces for television and has earned two Emmy nominations. (He remains bitter about losing.) He has optioned features and sold network pilots, events that expired with little fanfare. Ken also dabbles as a playwright and is a published fiction author. His short story, “My Brother Died And All I Got Was This Lousy T-Shirt,” was collected in the anthology More Tonto Short Stories, published last year in the U.S. and U.K. An earlier effort, “The Failing,” was a short fiction winner at Cedar Hill Press in 2007. The windfall from both those literary triumphs will offer small comfort in retirement. Ken is a former cartoonist, art director, stand-up comic, and sports producer. Let’s face it, some people have a career path, Ken’s resume is more like the trail of a serial killer— appearing random and chaotic but on closer examination, arbitrary and confused. A former New Yorker, Ken currently lives in Los Angeles with his beautiful wife, Amanda, and is allergic to dogs. To enjoy more of Ken’s writing (such as it is), visit eatthepoor.com, where Ken blogs occasionally if not lucidly about the economy, politics, media, and other topics of little interest.

I appreciate your e-mail protesting the C you received on your midterm exam. I know it must have taken a lot of courage to write me. (Of course, it would have taken even more courage to confront me in person, but whatever. Not everyone has gumption.)

I read your argument word for word. (Well, kind of. A lot of it was whiny, I’m-entitled-to-whatever-I-want blather, so you’ll forgive me if I skipped those parts.)

You made many good points, and I considered them carefully. You said the test was too broad in scope; that not enough time was allotted for completion; that some of the material wasn’t covered in class. You also claimed a C would wreck your GPA, and that your scholarship hinges on your academic performance.

Yes, good points, in all. I can assure you I pondered over them extensively, and after much debate — two minutes — I reached my conclusion: 

The C will stand.

I know: you probably think I’m obtuse, obstinate and oblivious to your plight. But I think a lesson needs to be learned here. This is a teachable moment.

Greg, my young friend: there’s no shame in a C. 

In college, as in life, only the best and brightest achieve excellence. You know these people: they’re the ones who become leaders, executives and professors. The world looks to them for guidance and wisdom. 

And then you have the idiots, who fail miserably at everything. They’re the screw-ups; the ne’er-do-wells. The world looks to them to scrub toilets: a perfect metaphor for their existence.

The rest — the vast majority, and a category into which you fall — are average. They neither excel nor founder. They simply exist and lead ordinary, uneventful lives. The world looks to them for nothing, for they have nothing special to give. 

As children, we’re coddled into adulthood. We’re told we can be anything we want — even the president of the United States. But of course, it isn’t true. Limitations are imposed on us — not by outside circumstances, but rather by ourselves. 

Allow me to rephrase: Some people lack the brains, the strength and the ambition to excel in this world. 

What no one’s told you, Greg, is that you’re average. Your midterm score reflects that. I’ve seen many students like you over the years: students who are blissfully unaware of their own shortcomings; students who still believe in the childhood notion that the world is theirs, if only they work hard enough. 

The sad truth is, no matter how hard you work, you’ll always be ordinary. It’s in your nature. After all, you’re a C student.  

I offer a quick glimpse of your future: 

You’ll survive my course. Your final grade, most likely, will be a C. You’ll go on to graduate with a 2.5 GPA. You’ll enter the world and confront its seemingly endless landscape. 

You’ll have ambitious career goals, but they won’t work out. You’ll have to live in your parents’ basement until you find some sort of job, which you will, eventually. You won’t like it, but you’ll take it. And you’ll try to convince yourself that it’s only temporary, that you’ll move on as soon as another opportunity presents itself. 

It never will. 

So you’ll keep on working. You’ll try to climb the corporate ladder, but you’ll hit a ceiling. You’ll stagnate in your position, but it’ll be all you have. 

At some point you’ll meet a woman — she won’t be the love of your life, but she’ll do — and you’ll buy a medium-sized house in a medium-sized neighborhood. You’ll drive a medium-sized car. You’ll probably be earning a median wage. 

And then you’ll have children. 

You’ll have big dreams for them. You’ll imagine their futures as bright and unlimited, filled with success and happiness. No one, you’ll think, ever could be as special or as gifted as your children. 

But then they’ll mature, and you’ll see they’re not so special. They’ll bring home disappointing report cards. They’ll be accepted to mediocre colleges. 

And you’ll watch in dismay as they forge a life not of unparalleled success, but rather of bland mediocrity: the very life you accepted for yourself and wanted so much for them to avoid. 

Do you see what I’m saying, Greg? Your midterm C isn’t a reflection of your academic performance — it’s a reflection of your very existence. 

Sure, I could inflate your grade, but what would be the point? You can dress a peasant in silk: he won’t become wealthy. You can give a hag makeup: she won’t become beautiful. You can give a toilet-scrubber a book: he won’t become smarter. 

My goal here isn’t to make you bitter, or depressed. My goal is to make you come to terms with yourself. 

There’s no shame in being average. Indeed, without everyday, ordinary people, how would the world survive? 

Think of the world as an anthill. Of all the ants, there’s only one standout: the queen. The rest are workers. They’re all the same, more or less: they’re all average. Yet without the workers, how would the queen survive? 

Does that make you feel better? 

So, yes, Greg: the C will stand. And with your grade, I hope you embrace your place in life. You and millions like you play a vital role in our world. Cherish your role — savor it, even. But never, ever be ashamed of it. Every anthill needs its workers, after all.  

My goal in life always has been to educate young minds. I hope I have done that here. 

Cheers, 

Professor Harold L. Dawson, III, Ph.D. 

P.S. 

My best wishes for a successful future. Hah! Just kidding. Seriously though, if you want extra credit, see me after class. I can give you a C+ if you’ll scrub my toilet.

———-

Allen Coyle is a freelance writer living in Reno. His dream is to patent the world’s first time machine and travel one minute into the future, so he’ll always be one step ahead of himself.