Thinking the way I've been thinking and behaving the way I've been behaving has been good to me. I'm getting more respect and I'm getting what I want. My nagging conscience died- and for that I'm grateful. It took some boozin' and some one-night stands (-non-paid of course, all for the pleasure, hun-) but it fizzled out like a soda fountain drink left out too long.

I haven't seen 3rdPlanet or LaughWithMe and that's good. I also refuse to even think about Jen.

It's been great.

My apartment is done up real nice. The boys down at the club are treating me better than they ever have.

Chilly came up to me the other night and was real complimentary. I'm thinking he's been appreciative of the cash flow.

In fact, I have a new client tonight. I've never heard of him, but the word on the street is this john is loaded.

Funny how things always seem to snowball around you when you least need the pressure. Just when you think you’re free and clear, bam, it hits you like a wrecking ball on some idle Tuesday after a night out with the “boys“.

Tonight was the night, I dressed up in my best suit that didn’t tell everyone that I was some goon, took extra care when doing my hair instead of just slapping grease in it, and even asked advice on what sort of bouquet to get at the floral shop. Even Tootboy raised a curious eyebrow which seemed more like a furry caterpillar wrestling with his forehead for space to breathe. But I didn’t care, I felt like I was 15 again and approaching the opposite wall where all the gals sat. This time though, my friends weren’t double dog daring me and making bets, I wanted this. No… I needed this.

How I sat all those nights and just watched her without rushing up there and taking her in my arms, holding her hoping that oblivion would just wrap us in a warm blanket and tuck us away in each others arms forever more, well, its beyond me. Her eyes, her voice, the way she swept the floor without moving a muscle, it kept me up at night. Her sounds barraging my mind the way the ocean surf constantly laps at the land, like it was trying to lovingly and desperately convince it to fall back into its depths. Just staring into her face, like an endless…

“Mason!” a voice rang out like a lightning bolt disturbing a lazy pond on a hot summer afternoon. I snapped back to the world and found AskJesse’s eyes waiting for me. One of the few times you’d probably ever see them filled with actual concern and not just dismissing the situation as somebody else’s problem.

“C’mon man, you didn’t come all this way to slump to the floor in some messy heap that no dame would even consider taking a first glance, let alone a second!”

Suddenly I felt like my father was there watching out for me. Good ol’ AskJesse, the man has seen more than most of the “fellas” have, and yet he’s considered not much more than some sort of fixture placed in the back ground. Maybe that’s what he’s strived for all this time.

“Sorry, sorry, I guess I was just getting lost there for a bit.” I didn’t feel like myself, couldn’t even whip back some sort of smart-ass comment. And he knew it.

“You know,” and he slowly pulled my glass of brandy away, just enough to let me grab it if I really wanted too, but I was happy that it was on its way out, “You don’t need any liquid courage for this, you just need to be you.”

For a second there I thought I could just jump up and hug the man, I don’t know if it was the stress or the liquor or both, but for a moment I remembered what it was like having a friend again. Instead I just smiled and asked for a glass of straight seltzer water. That bitter liquid would surely flush most, if not all the “liquid courage” away. Hopefully I wouldn’t get sick though, last thing I wanted to come across to DepthWithin was some sort of drunken lush.

As I forced down the second glass of filthy bubble drink, she came out on stage. Drinks or no drinks, I still couldn’t help but swagger a bit in my stool. The last night I was sitting in this exact spot, probably sticking out like a sore thumb for the most part, she glanced my way and smiled. I’m sure everyone would’ve just said it was just her being nice, but I swear, I could’ve died a happy man that night. And here I was, doubtlessly looking like some stray dog whose been fed one too many times, coming back for more, hoping that it just wasn’t some sort of fluke!

Her voice sailed across the room like a cool breeze sweeps across a still forest, the room just seemed to suddenly stir with bewilderment at what just assailed their senses. I collected myself and took a few deep breaths. Could I really do this, what if she said no? What if she didn’t?

Finally, I decided that after her set was done, I would ask her… what? To come to a movie with me? Or perhaps she would like a drink? Suddenly I felt like some pimp trying to swoon some poor, naïve school girl into his “service”.

I started talking to myself unknowingly, the jitters suddenly getting to me, “I’ll just go tell her the truth. I’ll say ‘Hey there, I’m Mason, and I’ve been to every one of your shows’, no, no… ‘Hi, I’m Mason and I love the way you sing’, no, ‘like the way you sing’… noooooo. Ach, alright, here we go… ‘Hi there, you probably know who I am, but I’d just like to introduce…’…. ECH!” Suddenly I felt like I could down a whole bottle of brandy in all of my nervousness. I’ve been at the receiving point of countless guns, seen more death than most soldiers across the ocean have, and here I am, faltering at an introduction to some lass.

Then I realized I had been staring at her for awhile now, and she looked up at me like she had before. Everything I was worrying about seemed to just fall away like a morning dew fell off of a tulip. Good gravy, what sort of sap had I become? Tulips?

She suddenly blushed and faltered a bit in her song, and my heart fluttered. The way it beat so fast, I’m sure it could’ve powered the entire city of Chicago on New Year's night! I didn’t even realize that I was slipping out of my seat again when I felt AskJesse’s arm snag me and set me up right again. Some tough guy I was. I couldn’t help think then that pops would’ve been proud of me here, at this moment.

I am sort of glad I never took over the “business”. TattooedJen’s dad had taken a liking to me, why I don’t know. I can only think it was because I was one of the few honest guys out there, one of the few men he could actually trust. After awhile he became like the father I never had, and I think I became like a second son to him. Even SocalChris became like a brother to me, a big brother who always seemed to watch out for me. They both took me under their wings and taught me every trick of the trade they knew. Later I realized they did this not so much as they wanted me to become one of the best the town had ever seen, but more because they never wanted me to get hurt by one of the other baboons out there.

Then all of a sudden TattooedJen’s father had died, and Socal had gotten put away right afterwards. Everyone seemed to look at me to take over the business, but there was no way I could. It wasn’t so much as I’d be looking over my shoulder every minute, but I wasn’t cut out for that sort of job. I was too much of a softy to even do half the things that this business needed to get done. I’m pretty sure both Socal and his pops would’ve rather not see me go down that road, so I just let Chilly slide in and ascend to the top. At least this way he thought I did him a favor and I didn’t have to worry about kicking the can so early.

She was close to finishing her set and I had started to straighten myself out. I fixed up my bowtie and unruffled the wrinkles from my suit. I tried to fluff the bouquet a little bit but only succeeded in stripping a few petals from the flowers. My “liquid courage” had more than faded, though I still wish it was there none the less.

She had started on her last song when I saw a pair of headlights pull up through the snow fall outside the window. I didn’t think much of it at first, then I suddenly felt my heart shrink. He got out today. I had forgotten. My only friend, my best friend.

Then life came crashing around me. I remembered how TattooedJen seemingly broke her thing with Nomad, and right after Nomad came carousing into Chilly’s in some spiffy get-up like she owned the place. And how Scattermuse had grown distant and suspiciously reclusive apart from Chilly’s uncanny good spirits. 3rdPlanet’s sudden rocket and digression among Chilly’s ranks of “girls“, the type of gals who’d send shivers up any man's spine. And Shiny’s plight and sacrifice, trying to stop a juggernaut from corrupting the woman he loved. And this was all the tip of the iceberg. Who knew how far it reached under the waves.

I watched through the window as the headlights stayed on and the wipers frantically tried to clear the windshield. At the same time, DepthWithin finished her last song and smiled once again at me, if not a little more sheepishly. I blushed, but quickly recovered and composed myself, stood up and strode for the backstage. I hope they stay out in the car for a little while more.

I never will forget that day. The day all our lives changed forever: December 7, 1941. At first, it was just backlash. My store, Crimson's Mercantile, felt the effects immediately. You could practically hear the whispers, "That's the store belonging to that cat married to that Jap woman. We don't want to go in there anymore." It wasn't even an organized boycott. It didn't have to be.

Then poonannypie opened his store. Couldn't blame him, really. What can be more American than capitalizing on the misfortune of others? Here was someone that could run a business and not be accused of being a "Jap lover." It was all duck soup for him. But somehow or another, I kept my business afloat. I tried almost every gimmick I could to get them to come. Cutting prices, handing out flyers, and even buying ad space on the wall of laughwithme's restroom.

The worst was yet to come. It was difficult continuing to keep things afloat for my wife pvc3  and  Sandyquill. The depression seemed to be hitting me and my family at the same time that everyone else seemed to be getting out of it. But then, last year, everything truly went south.

Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066, which in effect destroyed my family. Pvc3 was rounded up along with Sandyquill and shipped to Tule Lake. As for my son theRacket, we already had our falling out before the start of the war. We had visited his grandparents in Osaka when he was 15, and he felt as if he was closer to the culture of his mother's family. I wanted him to learn to manage the store, but he blew town at 17. Last his mother heard from him, he was hopping a freight ship to Japan before the war started. I tried my best to instill in that boy the idea of being American and supporting a family. But he had to be different. About the only trait he inherited from me was stubborness. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to have served him well in this case; especially since last I heard he has claimed allegiance to Emperor Hirohito.

Life was so different in the early days. I remember when I held the position as the chaffeur to the U.S. ambassador to Japan back in the Coolidge administration. I spent many days in Japan, and it was there that I met the most lovely woman I have ever seen: the woman who would become my wife, PVC3. It was difficult trying to court her. Her family didn't like me, especially her father. He accused me of just looking for a geisha. He thought PVC3 could do better than a lowly chaffeur, even one with as an important passenger as I had. But eventually, my stubborness and strong will paid off. She was mine. I had to promise her father that she would never suffer and I would provide for her. Little did I know that was a promise out of my control to keep.

I thought moving to America and opening the store would be the best thing in the world to happen to us. The births of theRacket followed by Sandyquill only seemed to confirm that. But the winds of war can change everything.

Now I sit in my store waiting for a better day to come. The house our family lived in was sold and I now live in an apartment above the store. My wife and daughter know nothing but prison walls thanks to that detestable old fool Roosevelt, and my life is spent continuing to keep everything going in the face of rations and my estranged family. I'm not even able to visit them, and the worst part is that my son is a traitor despite all my best efforts.