Happy Mutant Baby Pills by Jerry Stahl Page B

more. And didn’t mind a bit. I was bored, I was hoarse, I was losing my family and wasting my entire fucking life, but I was high .
    So I ignored Harold’s public dickishness. Just let it go. I remembered now how my ex-coworker got maudlin when the opiates faded—that he was just lonely, and no doubt self-conscious about a toast-colored lip herpes. The Chomsky faces made him comfy and anonymous among the Occupy Crowd. Where everybody else was in V for Vendetta Guy Fawkes masks.
    â€œSo, you know Bruckheimer, huh?” Not that was I even semi-interested, but I needed to keep Harold engaged. We had nowhere to stay, besides this motel.
    â€œYeah, I met him,” he said. “Once. I got the call. It was exciting. But I was worried, too. ’Cause I thought it was a CSI thing. Back then CSI Vegas was super hot, and JB and the genius who dreamed it up—dude was a jitney driver on the Strip, regular guy—were all over the news.”
    As he talked he turned the red balloons the dope had come in inside out, smearing any residual tar on the edge of his spoon. “They shot the show out of a studio in Santa Clarita, so I figured I’d have to go to Santa Clarita. Where all the white supremacists live. You don’t want to be a black kid wearing a hoodie in Santa Clarita. Up there, Trayvon Martin wouldn’t have made the news. They got guys wear white hoods to pick up Bud and chips at the 7-Eleven. But turns out they weren’t calling about a CSI -type deal; it was something else. So instead of having to suck fumes up the 5 from LA, this one day I got to go to Jerry’s office in Santa Monica, a converted airplane hangar with some kind of World War One plane hanging from the ceiling by a wire. The way the place was set up, the Sopwith Camel, or whatever it was, dangled right above the guest waiting area, over a big white couch low to the floor. So low you couldn’t turn your head without bumping your kneecaps. Plus you knew, under the Airplane of Damocles, if there was an earthquake you’d be the first to go. The wire would probably snap and you’d be splacked underneath, one of those embarrassing deaths, you know? Like the guy who jumps out of a building and pancakes another guy taking a leak when he lands. Die with a dick in your hands, where’s the dignity?”
    â€œDepends whose dick,” I said.
    â€œYour own, obviously.”
    â€œObviously.” The last thing I wanted was to annoy Harold. I remembered my mission. “So, uh, why were you seeing Bruckheimer again?”
    â€œWell, it was kind of just that one time. And not just Bruckheimer. Michael Bay was there. You know, the Transformers guy? Bad Boys One and Two ?”
    â€œAll classics,” I said.
    â€œExactly,” he said, “Bay wanted to hear about self-heating shaving cream. The kind that gets hot on your face? It’s a chemical thing. I guess he wanted to use it in a script.”
    â€œAnd you know about it how? You were a chemistry major?”
    â€œMy father invented the shit. He flunked out of dermatology school. Came up with hot gel and sold the formula to Gillette. It was my first techno-copy. Dad made me write it thirty-seven times.” Here he recited, voice dope-froggy like a white James Earl Jones. “The heat source in the new self-heating shaving cream is a chemical reaction involving hydrogen peroxide and a reducing agent. A small polyethylene bottle filled with hydrogen peroxide is placed inside the aerosol can, followed by a propellant. Not only is it safe, it’s convenient, and saves more time for the things that matter . . .”
    I chimed in: “Cut to fresh-shaved handsome guy smooching his pretty girl.”
    Harold snorted—that’s how he laughed. “Go ahead, laugh it up, big shot. I think Bay actually wanted my father. But when he Googled thermal shaving cream he got me.”
    Nora didn’t say anything. Just sat on