Processed Cheese

by Stephen Wright

Genres: Literary Fiction; Satire; Black Humor

Synopsis

From a writer hailed as "astonishing," the savagely funny story of a couple who unexpectedly come into some money in an America deranged by Mammon (Toni Morrison)

A bag of money drops out of the sky, literally, into the path of a cash-starved citizen named Graveyard. He carries it home to his wife, Ambience, and they embark on the adventure of their lives, finally able to have everything they've always deserved: cars, guns, games, jewels, clothes — and of course sex, travel, and time with friends and family. There is no limit except their imagination and the hours in the day, and even those seem to be subject to their control.Of course, the owner of the bag is searching for it, and will do whatever is necessary to get it back. And of course, these new riches change everything — and nothing at all.Stephen Wright has woven out of the language, images, and stories of our wealth-obsessed culture a novel of once-in-a-generation vitality and inventiveness. Darkly hilarious, Processed Cheese is both satire and serious as death. It's a road novel, a family story, and a last-girl-standing thriller. With the clarity of a Swift or a Melville, Wright has created a funhouse-mirror drama that puts all the chips on the table, every bullet in the clip, down to the last breathtaking moment.

Release date: January 21, 2020

Publisher: Little, Brown and Company

Print pages: 400

Sample

Chapter 1

The day was hot. The sky was blue. Graveyard was tired. He’d been pounding the pavement for hours. He was looking for work. He had no job. He had no money. He was flat broke. You know how that is. Sweetbreads and applesauce, he said to himself, I need some cash real bad.

Just then a big canvas bag came sailing down out of nowhere and crashed into the sidewalk inches from his feet. Graveyard looked up. The tall buildings looked silently down. The bag sat upright in the middle of the bright, astonishing day. People walked around as if nothing had happened. Clams and sourdough, he said to himself, I coulda been killed. Graveyard knelt down. He tried to open the bag. It was fastened at the top by a lot of tricked-out leather and metal doohickeys. He had trouble making his fingers work. Everything around him looked like a mirage. Hard melons and soda water, he said to himself, I coulda been killed. And this time he really believed it. He focused his mind. He focused his fingers. He tried to open the bag again. He unbuckled the buckles. He unstrapped the straps. He looked inside. His mind went around like a pinwheel. The bag was packed to the brim with plastic-wrapped bricks of fresh one-hundred-dollar bills. He buckled the buckles. He strapped up the straps. People walked around as if nothing had happened. Graveyard felt drunk. Then he felt hellasmacked. Then he felt like he was going to have a heart attack or something. Slowly, he got to his feet. Slowly, he picked up the bag. It was big. It was heavy. It was like trying to pick up a child who didn’t want to be picked up. He pretended to look calm. Then, without a glance in any direction, he just rushed off up the street. Just rushed off. Hugging the bag to his chest. As if it were his. As if it had always been his.

  

Ambience was in bed. In the current era she was almost always in bed. She wasn’t sick. She wasn’t tired. She just wasn’t feeling good about herself. She’d been feeling this way for a long time now. She didn’t know why.

This was a good day. So far. She’d only cried once. Even if it had lasted on and off for more than three hours. She wiped her face with her blue sob rag. It was actually a prayer cloth she’d ordered once from a televangelist who was a dead ringer for BubbleWrap, the famous stand-up comic. To Ambience, tears were sacred. They were the juice life squeezed out of you.

She was propped up on giant pillows a rancid shade of orange she couldn’t quite believe was decorating her life at the moment. She was watching television. Whenever she was down she watched television. Lots of television. E. coli contaminations. School shootings. Child predators. Any television.

Right now the set was tuned to The Go-Boom Hour on The Happy Channel. Sixty crankin’ minutes of all kinds of crap being blown up in super x-mo. Her favorite segment was the ratings blockbuster “Exploding Cart O’ Meat.” The detonated beef seemed to actually blossom. Like flowers.

Her good buddy on these daily voyages on a mattress was her aloof cat, NippersPumpkinClaws. Nippers lay sprawled at the foot of the bed in a careless bundle of regal grandeur. His whiskey-colored face fixed in a permanent expression of sour disapproval. Was there any pleasing this cat? Not likely. And the slightest movement Ambience made was instantly absorbed into those spooky green owl-like eyes. Not that Ambience even moved around all that much. A trip to the john was a regular safari. Her favorite animal, in fact, was the turtle. For all the obvious reasons. She wanted to be a turtle in her next life. Or even in this one.

She was nibbling on something sweet and sticky she had found in an uncovered bowl in the refrigerator. One of Graveyard’s dubious leftovers. She didn’t know what it was, but it tasted good. Was it good for her? She didn’t know. How many things could a person worry about in a day?

She was also—the ever-dutiful multitasker—leafing through a week-old edition of one of the last hard-copy newspapers, The Mammoth City Muffler (“If It Ain’t In The Muffler, It Ain’t The Truth”). Every now and then she liked actually holding the news between her hands. She liked rattling its pages. It seemed more real, more true. She never knew much about what was going on in the world outside her head. Mostly, she didn’t care. Why should she? Sometimes, though, she did feel a bit squidgy about being so dumb. But then, any time she made the rare effort to actually find out what was going on in the world outside her head, she only found the same stuff that had been going on the last time she had dared to look. People screwing each other, people screwing each other over, people screwing each other up.

These were not good things to be saying to oneself. They gave her a bad case of the hurries. Like there was a secret sender planted somewhere deep inside her, hacking into her system an endless stream of malware to make her sick. She’d been searching for the Off switch for years. No luck. Other not-so-good things to say to oneself: Am I fat? How are we going to pay next month’s rent? Why do I have to die?

Suddenly Nippers’s head jerked up and froze. All fine feline attention converging on the open doorway and beyond. Then, in a furry blur, the cat was gone over the edge and under the bed. That was easy to read. Graveyard was home. Nippers didn’t trust Graveyard. Graveyard didn’t trust Nippers. They had a dysfunctional relationship.

Then there he was, filling the doorway and grinning. Seriously grinning. This surprised Ambience. She hadn’t seen Graveyard so much as smile in…well, she didn’t know how long. These were not smiley times.

“What’s with you?” she said. He looked exactly like the “damn fool” her father had always claimed he was.

Graveyard held up a dirty old canvas sack. Grinning and grinning.

“You got a job,” she said. “As a mailman.” She could believe just about anything about him at this point.

The bag thudded to the floor. “You know I can’t work for the government,” he said.

“Why not?” She hated it when people made grand pronouncements about themselves. They were almost always lying.

“Principles,” Graveyard said.

“Don’t make me laugh,” she said. Then she laughed.

“You’ll see,” he said. “Oh, boy, will you see.”

He bent over. He opened the bag. A lot easier the second time around. He pulled out a brick. He tossed the brick onto the bed. “Choke on this,” he said.

Ambience studied the curious object for a moment. Then she picked it up. She looked at it in her hand. She looked at it from top to bottom. She looked at it from side to side. She lifted it to her nose and smelled it. “Is this real?” she said.

Graveyard was busy opening several packs of money with his teeth. He appeared to be swept up in the sort of common frenzy usually induced by a visit from the landlord or a call from a collection agency. “As real as a six a.m. knock on the door,” he said. He kissed the stack of bills in his right hand. He kissed the stack of bills in his left hand. “Sweeter than the pope’s ring,” he said. He thrust a stack up to her mouth. “You kiss,” he said.

So she did.

“Lick,” he said.

So she did. And it was icky and gross, but she couldn’t help herself—she began to experience the first flickerings of heat from down in her boiler room. And that was good.

Then Ambience picked up the knife lying on the nightstand among her various prescription vials, her various combs and brushes, and her collection of various small stones and rock chips no one but her knew what the hell to make of. The knife was long and thin and impressively glittery. It had a handle made of narwhal horn. She kept it nearby because she was afraid of things in the dark. And a lot of things in the light, too.

This was an important distinction. The knife had once belonged to ThreeWood, an old boyfriend of hers who had used it to threaten her and to open new DVDs. He also once used it to open both wrists and bleed to death on her birthday, an occasion she had not really celebrated since. It was still quite sharp. The blade slipped easily into the plastic-wrapped brick. Then, in a blink, hundreds of hundreds were spilling across her lap. Like she had just given birth to a green mess of fresh cash.

For the moment, Graveyard was totally gooned. Wrapped hopelessly into the bouquets of pretty currency clutched tightly in each fist. Had he leaned over, opened his mouth, and actually begun chewing on the crispy stuff, it would not have surprised Ambience. He didn’t look like himself anymore. He looked like someone who had forgotten who he was.

Ambience picked up some bills, let them slide through her fingers. She picked them up, let them slide. She tossed the bills into the air. They fluttered down like leaves. Like petals. Like promises.

Now Graveyard was stuffing hundreds down into the crotch of his pants. He was making a bulge out of bucks. He posed sideways in front of her. “How do I look?” he said.

Ambience gave him a courtesy glance. “Savage,” she said. She began gathering up the bills scattered among the sheets. “All right,” she said, “we’ve had our fun. Whose money is it?”

Graveyard was studying himself in the full-length mirror behind the door. “Whose do you think it is, sweet taffy?”

“Tell me.”

Graveyard rolled up some bills and stuck them in his nostrils and both ears. “Look at me,” he said. “I’m Mister Moolah.” He held up his hands, palms outward, hundreds between his fingers. Then he began hopping mechanically from one foot to the other, doing that silly dance of his he sometimes used to try to tease her into sex when she would almost rather be sticking hot pins into her eyeballs. Sometimes, though, his ploy worked. Sometimes, strangely enough, silliness was sexy. Not today.

“Don’t make me scream,” she said.

“Good,” he said. He sat down on the edge of the bed. “Now that I’ve got your attention, pick a card, any card.” He extended a fan of pristine bills in her direction. “C’mon, luscious lady, whaddya want, whaddya need?”

Ambience was starting to feel the first flickering stages of her famous jalapeño belly. Last time she’d had jalapeño belly she was convinced she was pregnant and Graveyard had kept her up all night plotting how they could sell the baby (jokingly, of course, he said later) to a couple of sterile millionaires for a bag of beans that might, just might, redeem their paltry lives.

“Tell me one thing,” she said. “Are we in more trouble now than we’ve ever been before?”

“No,” he said. Then he paused. “At least I don’t think so.”

“You didn’t jack it?”

“Are you kidding? I wouldn’t know where to go to even look at an amount of money this large, let alone boost it.”

“You didn’t scheme it?”

“Do you believe I’m that smart?”

“No.”

“I didn’t think so.”

“You and Herringbone didn’t run these off on that fancy SecondGenerationBestGeneration copier of his? And thinking what? How punk it would be to make your own money? I can hear him now.”

“It may be punk, but that’s not what happened.”

“Then tell me.”

So he did.

“I’m going to sit here,” said Ambience, when he was done, “and I’m going to wait and no one’s going to leave this room until you explain to me just where this fucking money really came from and I don’t care how long it takes.”

Graveyard told her again.

“I said I would wait.”

“It’s the truth.”

“From the sky?”

“Yes.”

“From the Chicken Little sky?”

“Yes.”

“Chicken Little was a chicken,” said Ambience. “A fairy-tale chicken. And nothing fell anyway.”

“Or did it?” He waved the paper proof in her face.

“I don’t know,” she said. “It’s got to be somebody’s.”

“It is,” he said. “Ours.”

“Somebody who’s not gonna be too happy they don’t have it anymore.”

“Maybe it fell out of a plane.”

“What? The money plane?”

“We don’t know what’s going on up there. Probably tons of cash every day flying right over our ignorant heads. Or maybe it just fell out an open window.”

“Sure. Or was pushed. Maybe it even jumped. It couldn’t take it anymore. It was heartbroken. Unloved, unwanted, nothing to buy in this cruel, cruel world.”

She gave Graveyard her pointy look. “Are you sure you weren’t followed?”

“I took three different cabs. In three different directions.”

“You took cabs?”

“Today was one day I figured I could afford it.”

“How much you think is in there?” She eyed the bag as if it were radioactive.

“Oh, well, considering the magnitude of the denominations, the volume of the bag, I’d say what we have here is, roughly, about an even gazillion dollars, give or take a bazillion or two.”

“And how many pissed-off nut jobs running around looking for it?”

“I’ll buy more guns.” Graveyard had a special locked closet in their apartment where he stored his precious weapons collection. No one was allowed in there. Especially not Nippers.

“Seriously,” she said.

“Lots of guns.”

Money is a magnet for guns, Ambience said to herself. She hoped that wasn’t true.

Graveyard took a single banknote and held it up over his head. He pretended to stare through it. “Know what this is?” he said. “This is a window. A magic window. Know what I can see through it? The future. Guess the color of our future, beefcheeks.”

“Uh, green?”

“Four-leaf clover, Statue of Liberty, traffic-go-light green.” He stood, unzipped his pants, let them drop to the floor.

“What are you doing?” said Ambience.

“Getting clean.” He stepped out of his underwear. He peeled off his shirt. He picked up handfuls of bills. He began rubbing them vigorously all over his body. As though he were showering and money were soap.

In spite of herself, Ambience was amused. Graveyard hadn’t looked this fine to her in years. She could see the molecules dancing across the surface of his skin. The sight felt good. It made something in the dark inside of her break, come apart in a soft rain of little sparkly pieces. That felt good, too.

Graveyard was laughing and rubbing and, frankly, growing visibly erect. “Washing out the past,” he said. “The grime of history. My history. Your history. This is Day One. Understand?”

She understood.

He wrapped a roll of bills around his penis and pretended to fuck it.

Ambience enjoyed the show. She hadn’t felt this nice since Grandma FlightSuit died and left her exactly $7,346.12 no one knew she even had. That was the money Ambience used to get herself a boob job. That had made her happy, too.

“Come over here,” she said, “and stick that big nasty thing inside me.”

So he did.

It was the best orgasm either of them had ever had.

Chapter 3

MisterMenu sat in the shade of the popcorn tree on the grand terrace of his duplex penthouse. He lived high atop the Eyedropper Building, fifty-two stories above the hullabaloo. He had a view of the ReadyToWear River. He had a view of the LookAway Harbor. He had a view of other buildings. He had lots of views. And he’d paid plenty for ’em, too.

He was sipping goosenut water out of what was called a libation vessel back in the old coca-leaf-and-obsidian-knife times. At least that’s what the glossy catalog claimed. The “vessel” had been purchased at auction from the fabled house of SoBuyMe for—never mind how much. More than you got. How badly you want a stinky old cup used in certain “dark and cruel practices,” anyway? People back then actually loved to attend spectacles of public bloodletting. And they went as often as they could. The shows made them feel cozy and prosperous.

MisterMenu was obviously prosperous. Did he feel cozy? What was the question again? He had his bloated income. He had his hot wife. He had his extravagant digs. He had other properties in other places. He had big monies deposited in this bank and in that bank. He had fancy cars. He had fancy boats. He had rare masterworks by both Wisenheimer and Mucilage. He had two beautiful, relatively obedient daughters. Chrysalis went to Mistletoe College. NoDeposit went to LayAbout University. He had his foxy live-in maid, Mix’N’Match. He had his foxy live-away mistress, Chloride. Whenever he wanted lipstick on his dick, he checked in with Mix’N’Match. When he wanted a finger up his ass, he stuck with Chloride. He was a very busy man. He didn’t like to look at himself as wealthy, though he was—fantastically so. That was crass. He regarded himself as exceptional. And he was. And a prominent member of the exceptional class.

So what was he doing home in the middle of the afternoon? Guess. He was already stepping out of his pants as he came off the elevator. But the wide, open spaces of his big, big apartment were disappointingly empty. Where was Mix’N’Match? Probably out hunting and gathering for tonight’s dinner. He’d wait.

So here he was, then, on the terrace in his underwear. His laptop on his lap. He clicked. He stroked a couple of keys. He stared at the screen. The markets went up. The markets went down. The money went round and round. Not that MisterMenu had anything to worry about. He was founder, president, and CEO of NationalProcedures, a division of GlobularSystems, which was an affiliate of TheConsternationGroup, a branch of ProjectileStrategies, which was a wholly owned subsidiary of Divinicom, which owned everything. World economies could crash and burn. MisterMenu’s financials were always sound. Count on it.

Slight problem: the job was mostly all headwork. Mostly all numbers. The numbers skittered around in there like fireflies in the dark. MisterMenu loved his job. Didn’t everyone? But the whole enterprise was so damn abstract. So invisible. And he, so he told himself, was such a sensuous guy. He liked objects, the world of things. He liked to look at things. He liked to touch things. He liked to surround himself with things, especially things that provided tangible evidence of his kickin’ success in life. And what could be more tangible than actual money in its actual grubby ink-on-paper three-dimensional format? Bags of real money, positioned at strategic intervals throughout his rooms, offered a specific comfort and solidity he’d been unable to find anywhere else. He liked to look at them. He liked to touch them. Visitors to the penthouse often mistook the upright, bulging sacks for pieces of pop sculpture, amusing works of contemporary art. Which, of course, they were.

Now, though, the moving lights on the screen momentarily commanded his attention. He clicked. He stared. He clicked again. A dozen more bags. Just like that.

Suddenly, he looked up. MissusMenu had abruptly materialized in the open doorway. She was a former supermodel, aspiring actressette, and the face of CellarDoorCosmetics. She maintained her unearthly gorgeosity through a combination of sheer will and the frequent application of fresh banknotes. She always looked good.

“What are you doing here?” she said. She had just come from IMeMine. Later, she would go to TheHouseOfFineness. In between, she had planned on a long, lazy session of intense masturbation. Her best parts were already tingling. Shopping for new clothes, trying on new clothes, simply being near new clothes always made her feel so insanely horny. Now this. Fatboy was home.

“Don’t start,” said MisterMenu. He recognized the voice she was doing. He’d heard it before. Too many times before.

MissusMenu glared at him for a moment. Then she wheeled about and went click-clacking away. In another moment she was back again.

“And why,” she said, “are you sitting out here in full view of the entire world in your underwear?” Now she was doing her are-you-really-a-moron-or-what? voice.

“I was hot.”

She glared at him. Her eyes like cinders. She turned and left.

MisterMenu had MissusMenu problems. He wasn’t always sure exactly what those problems were, but obviously there were a lot of them. Once he and MissusMenu had actually liked each other. Really. Now, not so much. What had happened? He didn’t know.

He went back to his clicking and stroking. Streaming numbers, bar graphs, pie charts were instantly replaced by a low-resolution image of a room, a bed, a woman asleep. Her name was Linoleum, and this was her site. One of MisterMenu’s favorites.

He was an annual subscriber. If she were awake right now, he’d probably order her to do something NSFW with some hard vegetables, a couple of eggs, and a few clothespins. And she’d do it, too. There was a reason hers was one of the top ten highest-grossing sites in the overheated virtual sex slave community. He watched her sleep. He imagined lying down next to her. He imagined and imagined.

“What are you doing now?” said MissusMenu. She was back.

MisterMenu hit a key. The screen flipped to pictures of foreign people rioting in a foreign place. “Checking up on the news,” he said. Study Says: Excessive Blinking Causes Cancer of the Eyelid.

“What’s with the mess in the kitchen?” said MissusMenu.

“What mess?”

“The half-eaten melon on the counter. The broken crystal in the sink. The sticky red stuff all over the floor.”

“MerryberryConserve,” he said. “From the untrammeled, unpolluted slopes of the majestic Polyhedral Mountains.”

“Why didn’t you clean it up?”

“Leave it for Mix’N’Match.”

“You know this is her day off.”

“I know no such thing.”

“Her schedule’s been posted on the front of the refrigerator for the past three goddamn years.”

“She can clean it up tomorrow.” MisterMenu hated conversations like this. Hated them. They were too slippery-sliddery. With few handholds and no safety net.

“Or you can do it now,” said MissusMenu.

“I don’t think so.”

“Why not?”

“I’m busy.”

“Doing what?”

“Making money, what do you think? Making money for you, my sweet.”

“I refuse to spend the night lying there in bed awake, thinking about those globs of jelly stuck to my floor.”

“It’s not jelly,” said MisterMenu. “It’s conserve.”

“Do you have any idea how angry you make me? Any idea at all?”

“I was merely stating a fact.”

“The entire kitchen will be overrun with cockroaches by morning.”

MisterMenu emitted the short bark that passed for laughter with him. “Are you serious? On the fifty-second floor? What do they do, take the elevator up?”

“I saw at least a dozen running under the stove last week.”

“You were probably hallucinating.”

“They carry thirty-one different types of infectious disease. Thirty-one.”

“Who says?”

“I saw it on the internoodle.”

“Oh,” said MisterMenu, “then of course it must be true.”

“I hate you,” said MissusMenu. She went back inside and reappeared a moment later, clutching a bulging duffel of cash.

“Don’t.” He got up out of his chair to take control of this ridiculous situation.

MissusMenu went to the MuscleBarn every morning, no matter what. Of course, she had a bangin’ body. And if she wanted to beat her husband to a pulp, she probably could. So hefting a sack of money and hurling it at his head was a cinch. But the toss was high and wide. MisterMenu reached up to make a dramatic catch, but his hands couldn’t get a grip, and the bag was merely deflected. It flew over the parapet. It flew out into the anonymous city.

“Do you know how much was in that bag?”

“I couldn’t care less.”

“I’m sure you couldn’t.” He picked up the nearest phone. “You wouldn’t know the value of an umbrella in the middle of a shitstorm.” He spoke into the phone. “Yes, WindSock, this is MisterMenu. We’ve had a bit of a mishap up here. Yes. A large canvas bag has accidentally fallen from our terrace and I wonder if you could possibly go out and retrieve it for us. Yes, that’s right. On the Q side near the intersection with J. And WindSock, let me know if anyone was hurt. We don’t want any unpleasant repercussions over this. Thank you.” He put the phone down. He looked at his wife. She looked back at him. He really wanted to hit her. Bad. But he’d paid too much for that face to wreck it himself.

“We’ll be lucky if no one was killed,” he said.

“I hope they all were,” said MissusMenu. “I hope everyone walking innocently down the block was killed. And I hope everyone who wasn’t killed was maimed and crippled. By your money falling on their heads.”

“If that bag is lost…”

“Oh, what do you care? One bag. One pathetic bag. It means nothing. None of them means anything. Here, let’s toss another one over.” She advanced on an untouched bag in the corner by the popcorn tree. “Feed it to the sharks,” she said. “Feed all of it to the fucking sharks.” She picked the bag up and began carrying it toward the parapet. MisterMenu grabbed her by the arm.

“What’s wrong with you?” he said. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”

“Taking out the trash,” she said. She tried to pull away from him. He held on.

They wrestled. The bag fell to the floor. They wrestled some more. Not very serious wrestling, but MisterMenu still had some surprising strength in those untoned limbs. He managed to get a leg behind her and push her back down hard onto the MercyMe outdoor sectional they had once had sex on one distant memorable night. He stood panting over her.

“You’re making me sweat,” he said. “I don’t like to sweat.”

“Actually feeling something for a change? Unpleasant, isn’t it?”

“I hope for your sake that that money has not gone missing.”

“Yeah?” said MissusMenu. “What then? Tell me. I want to know.”

“I might get angry.”

“You don’t frighten me.”

“That may not be the most productive position to be in.”

“Is that a threat?”

“Take it how you will.”

“You know, at first, I thought you were just ignorant, and then, after a while, I thought you were stupid, but now, you know, I see you’re just plain evil. You’re MisterBullshit. You should change your name.”

“You’re the one who needs a name change. To MissusWhateverYouWantToPutInHere.”

“I’d clean you out. You know that.”

“The prenup is fireproof, waterproof, bulletproof, and witchproof.”

“I hate you.”

“So you mentioned.” MisterMenu went back to his chair, sat down, picked up his laptop, and clicked. Linoleum was awake. He wondered what she smelled like.

MissusMenu sat up and reached around under the sofa for one of her heels, which had come off during the struggle. She slipped the shoe back on and stood up and walked away without a word. She slammed the terrace door behind her as hard as she could. The glass panel exploded in a spectacular shower of shards and splinters. Was that her life tinkling in pieces to the floor?

“Go kill some roaches,” said MisterMenu. “Kill ’em dead.”

Chapter 4

“So,” said Ambience, “how long you think we can go without sleep?”

The shades were pulled. The curtains were drawn. Was it light outside? Was it dark? Who knew? Who cared?

“Beats me,” said Graveyard. He hit Pause on the clicker. The electronic squall of digitized mayhem abruptly ceased. They were watching Eschatology Force II: Cry Me A River. (Even better than the original.) They were watching the movie on their brand new 103-inch HootchieCootchie flat screen. The picture was so sharp and clear it made real reality look muddy and out of focus. “What day’s today?”

“I forget,” said Ambience. She was slumped in the corner in her favorite puffy chair. She was scarfing down an entire carton of Pat & Pending’s RoyaleMuddyDrawerSurprise. “What day’d you find the money?” She licked the spoon. It was chocolicious.

On her feet was a brand new pair of eight-hundred-dollar Loubotomy fuck-me stilettos. She couldn’t take them off. She couldn’t stop looking at them.

“I guess,” said Graveyard, “that would had to have been Mannaday. Then came Doughday, Endsday, and Skrilladay, so that means this must be Cheddarday.” He took the roll of bills in his fist and rubbed the paper edges back and forth across the stubble on his cheek. His hand now always seemed to be clutching a roll of bills. Like a good luck charm. Or a lollipop. “So, my treat, I’d guess we’ve been up for what—five, six days?”

“We must have slept sometime, but I don’t remember doing it.”

“What do you care? This is us now. We’re off the clock. We’re not in time anymore. We’re flying above it.” At the moment he lay sprawled across the black buttery expanse of a brand new emperor-length arcadian leather sofa that had cost twice as much as all their old furniture put together. Strapped to his left wrist was his latest prime purchase, a brand new glittery watch. And not just any watch. This was a signature Tri-Gem Elaboration from PattyCake, Ltd., featuring the exclusive anthracite and freshwater pearl dial and scratch-resistant blue platinum casing engineered to withstand not only the inconveniences of deep space exploration but also high-speed impacts of up to two hundred miles per hour. He couldn’t stop looking at it.

“I think there were some missing periods somewhere in there,” said Ambience. “I don’t like missing periods.” She paused. “Hey, I made a pun. I never make a pun.”

“See? It’s working already.”

“What’s working?”

“Why, the wunnerful, wunnerful, fabulous, fantastical mojo of money. From now on our l