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The Thin Man in Singapore Part I: Washing Ashore

Note: This is the first chapter of my upcoming novel, The Adventures of the Thin Man and Andrea. You can read a later chapter about the Thin Man’s romance with Vivian in Rome here:

The Thin Man in Rome, Part IV: Departing the Group, Vivian, Sex in the Shower

It’s predicted to rain on landing/ I predict we’ll have a drink

Paul Westerberg

Dateline Singapore: Late October

This little country, such an unlikely success story, such a strange winding of forces. The thin man has been on land for five weeks after his latest gig on the cruise ship, and though his stomach is still in limbo his sea legs have mostly subsided.

Now there is nothing more that the thin man wanted after washing up here earlier in the season then a long weekend. Say, five years. Five years in the hammock, five years frolicing with the lovely ladies at the bar. The occasional speedboat ride, a flyer or two over in Macau. Five years out of the swim of modern capitalism, if you can even call it that. Five years clean. That was the dream. Five weeks on land though and the thin man is looking for work, the money gone in a haze of long days and longer nights. Wine, women, song, and a speedboat ride or two will add up quick. C’est la vie partner. That’s what comes from burning holes up to heaven.

Still, the thin man has a few dollars in his pocket as he walks into a bar just outside of Chinatown. Halloween is approaching, and the proverbial Spooky Lady’s Sideshow is in full effect. The barmaids are Eyes and Baby, or is she Baby Blue? In any case, the thin man and Eyes make eyes, in an innocent way, so the story is told.

The thin man orders a Cognac and ambles over to the pool table where the nine ball is always on. Eyes sizes him up quick, guesses he can play a bit. A game is proposed, a game for two players.

But of course no game is really ever between two players alone. Baby’s watching—tough to tell her rooting interest. And, after Eyes breaks and a few balls fall, the bar as a whole starts tuning in to the frequencies of the game as the regulars make small talk and the travelers weak-tea passes at the local girls. Local girls are no push-over; sometimes folks get the wrong idea on that end. The thin man always did like the locals; heck, it’s part of the travelers’ creed. After all, everybody is a local somewhere. Certainly Eyes and Baby could take care of themselves.

Eyes missed and the thin man was able to sink a few easy balls before Eyes surged back, she’d been around more than she looked. She was an expert at drinking what the punter was drinking. That’s a key part of the art of the barmaid, an underrated profession at the best of times.

The game is nine ball, what else? Eight ball is for rookies, a southerners game. The thin man hails from the north; he knows a thing or two about sequencing. You see, the thin man had had a bit of a specialized role onboard the cruise ship where he had worked as a dealer in the casino. As a result, he also possesses some of the skills of a card shark, a mechanic. Sequencing goes with the territory of a mechanic, after all.

Mid-game and the thin man is beginning to fade a bit–the combination of Eyes’ eyes, and a cheeky Cognac or three is taking its toll. Eyes sinks the 8 and only the 9 ball is left. It’s a touch and go situation. The skeletons muse over the action with as much interest as they can muster from beyond the great blue veil. The couple on the rail stops sniffing whatever they are sniffing, and ask the thin man to join them for a round. No time for that. Cheeky Cognacs and beady cat eyes aside, a game is a game.

A couple of desultory shots bounce about as the players size each other up. Baby leans in; the skeletons whisper sweet somethings, even the bartender sneaks a peek. Everyone is getting paid, except the thin man. He is just there for the action.

Eyes edges the nine right up to the pocket, leaving the thin man a clean shot. He leans in from the left and drops it, silky smooth like. Baby claps and Eyes bats. Game over, though the thin man knows that Eyes could have had him the whole time. She was just being hospitable. A good host for a weary traveler.

The game over, the thin man’s thoughts turned to more practical considerations. He needs a place to stay, and though the nine ball had brought them all together, he didn’t think Eyes or Baby would necessarily take him in. He’d probably need to establish himself as a bit of a regular first before having a shot at any of that action. But the thin man is a gamer, constitutionally unable to categorize situations as problems. No problemo senor, no worries mate. He does, however, have a few issues, the first being he is unemployed and pretty much out of cash. So, he’s asked around, kept his ear to the wind. A fellow traveler there on the ship had turned him onto a broker of services of sorts, the kind of individual who specializes in assisting upstanding institutions with their shining mission statements and their CSR campaigns navigate the grey areas of competition and market position. He has the number for this broker in his pocket, and asks to use the bar phone to give him a call.

The broker picks up right away, saying “yeah, your buddy mentioned you might be looking for a little work. I think I can put something together.”

“That’s good,” says the thin man. “Any chance of a hotel for the night in the meantime?”

“Sure, said the broker. Head over to the 1887 in Chinatown. They’ll have a room in your name. What is it, by the way?”

“Let’s go with ‘Jack Bishop.'”

“That’ll work. I’ll meet you at breakfast at 8.”

The 1887 sounds incredible, thinks the thin man. Rock n’ roll.

to be continued…

Dedication: For Eyes. Long may you bat baby.

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On a Guy Called Whit (with a Cameo from Ambassador Rahm Emanuel)

New Note: I am republishing this piece for two reasons: First it’s been three years since I wrote it and it is one of my all time favorites. Second, as the title shows the politician Rahm Emmanuel makes a cameo and there is at least a possibility that he will run for President in 2028. This is a funny piece and it totally speaks for itself. I hope you like it.

Note: This is a piece about a guy called Whit. Over the past little while I’ve run into this guy in a couple of craft beer pubs in North and Central Kyoto. In a sense, it’s faithful to the original intention of thekyotokibbitzer—to check stuff out around the local area. Naturally, “local” is a highly fungible term, which is what makes it so excellent, but it feels good to get back to basics.

Interested readers may also want to revisit my earlier piece about my North Kyoto run-in with musician Damon Krukowski—currently a prominent critic of Spotify’s business practices, but formerly a dick to my face.

I met this guy called Whit at a Kyoto pub we’ll call T’s. T’s is owned and operated, naturally enough, by T. It’s a pretty nice place, although not everyone thinks T is a nice guy. He and I, though, rub along fine. T likes to wear sandals. So do I.

T’s seats about twenty-odd and lets people stand around without a chair, so it can get crowded. On the night I met Whit, though, it wasn’t. There was just me at the L-shaped corner near the entrance, Whit and three male friends at a table, a lone woman mid-bar, and a few other strays.

Whit and his buddies were winding things down, and before they paid, Whit sidled up to the lone woman.

“Genki desu ka?” he asked.

To understand what’s happening here, you need a little context on the phrase. Literally it means “are you cheerful?” but in practice it’s “how are you?” — a totally standard, everyday greeting. It is also, however, a classic Japanese pick-up line. Both the pickup artist and the garden-variety sleazeball deliver their “genki desu ka” with a little extra—an undertone, a wink, a leer.

This guy called Whit, I could see immediately, was leaning heavily into the leer.

I have no idea of how this guy called Whit would have fared with his approach if it had been allowed to develop because T himself came flying around the bar and snapped at Whit (in Japanese) “don’t talk to her, get away from her.” As a mere observer to the developing situation this seemed excessive, especially because T’s is the kind of place where fairly easy conversational congress between the sexes is not only tolerated but actually encouraged. T and his crew will proactively introduce men to women and women to men on the regular. Later in the evening, all sorts of events may transpire at T’s. So this was out of character for sure.

This guy called Whit was taken aback, and soft-pleaded with T to let him join the woman, however T was firm. “If you don’t go back to your table you will have to leave. If she comes to talk to you you can talk to her. Not before.” Again, I cannot stress enough how out of character this is for T’s, so naturally I was curious. I am not normally nosy, however when curious I can be. Whit took the L and slunk back to his table. His friends didn’t seem to have noticed the action, but I did, so I said to him, “hey man, that was pretty crazy. What did you do?” “Nothing,” said Whit, “I just wanted to talk to the lady.” “Yeah,” I said, “I’ve never seen T react that way.” “He just doesn’t like me,” said Whit, “maybe I’ll never come back here.”

Whit and his crew left shortly after and I asked T what was going on. “Whit always hits on women,” he explained, “I don’t like it.” “What about Philip?” I asked (“Philip” here being someone T and I both know), “Philip is always hitting on women too.” “Case by case,” said T, “case by case.” Case by case arguments are very hard to rebut as they index in advance their non-adherence to norms of “fairness” or “consistency.” Also, I knew nothing about Whit and was in no way invested in manning his corner. T and Whit have a history, I supposed, and T would not kick a customer out just because. Such was my first meeting with this guy called Whit.

Not long after this first meeting I was with a friend at a pub we will call K’s, which is in Central Kyoto. K’s is smaller than T’s, seating only about 8-10 inside with some flexible outdoor space as well. Unlike T’s, at K’s there is not much flirting and the like as the space just doesn’t really allow for it. I was there with a buddy and who should come in but this guy called Whit. Now I didn’t mention that at T’s Whit had an American accent. (I later learned he is from Philadelphia by way of San Fransciso.) However he rolled into K’s rocking a full-on British accent, and not a bad one at that. He was standing right next to me, and I did a double take. “That’s that guy called Whit,” I thought, “but it can’t be, Whit’s American.” I looked again. Definitely Whit.

So I asked him, “hey guy called Whit, what’s with the British accent?” He slipped back to his American accent, “oh yeah mate, that’s just something I do sometimes.” OK. We chatted a bit and it was clear that he didn’t recognize me. I reminded him of our meeting at T’s, and he recalled the incident. But I could tell he wouldn’t remember my name next time. He left K‘s after one beer.

My buddy hadn’t met this guy called Whit before, however I had already told him the story of his getting shit-canned at T’s. “That was the guy,” I told him, “the guy called Whit.” “What was with the British accent?”my buddy asked. “I don’t know, some kind of affectation. Maybe he lays it on when he tries to pick up women.” Just a guess on my part, but a pretty good one considering later events.

A few weeks later I was at a pub we will call M’s, also in North Kyoto with another friend we shall call “Philippe” in order to easily differentiate him from “Philip.” It was just before seven in the evening, when who should walk in but the guy called Whit with none other than the newly appointed United States Ambassador to Japan Rahm Emanuel and his wife Ann. They just strolled on in and it was clear that Whit was somehow chaperoning them. I stared over at Rahm Emanuel for a bit and then said “hey there Mr. Rahm Emanuel.” Rahm Emanuel (or just Rahm, as I like to call him) acknowledged his identity and he and I started chatting. At the same time Ann was chatting with old Philippe there at the bar. Before I said hello to Rahm I wondered what on earth he was doing with Whit. And then I thought well, I know Whit doesn’t have a job, he seems to frequent pubs all the time, probably he has some money somewhere, tech money or something. Maybe he’s some kind of VC and the Rahmster has gone out of his way to meet him in Kyoto. Implausible as this scenario seemed, I didn’t know what another explanation for this threesome could be. However, I was off-base.

Had this guy called Whit in fact been a prominent VC it would have added layers to my understanding of him for certain. So I asked him, “hey there guy called Whit, how do you know Rahm Emanuel?” “I just met him,” he replied, “across the street at L’s. We got to talking and I brought him over here.” (L’s is a cocktail bar I have never been too, which is 15 feet from K’s.) It turned out that Rahm and Ann were in Kyoto en route to Hiroshima where they were to visit the Hiroshima Peace Museum with none other than the Prime Minister of Japan. In the meantime here they were, hanging with Whit. Rahm explained the situation thusly: “here in Kyoto my minders let us off the leash so we can walk around freely. This would never happen in Tokyo, because we have security around us all the time.” He seemed genuinely happy to be minderless, and was as relaxed as could be at the bar. In no time he was dropping f-bombs, dapping up the waitresses, and asking me how to say things in Japanese. Rock and roll Rahm baby.

(As promised in the title, Rahm is only supposed to have a cameo in this story, however I have to recount our brief conversation about politics. After I introduced myself, Rahm asked me “are you on the team?” I understood him to mean was I a Democrat. I replied that I was basically on the team, but that I was kind of a left libertarian. “No such thing,” said Rahm. “Well then you’re looking at a unicorn baby,” said I.)

In any case, once I had gotten a bit of a feel for my new buddy Rahm I had to fill him in on something. “Hey Rahm, you know this guy called Whit likes to go into bars and put on a fake British accent?” Rahm didn’t miss a beat as he turned to Whit and, I swear, elbowed him in the ribs, saying “did that help you score buddy? Did you get across the finish line?” Rahm Emanuel, former chief of staff to President Obama, former Mayor of Chicago, and presently the honorable ambassador to Japan, had already grasped the essential nature of this guy called Whit. And he, for one anyway, had no issues with it.

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Craig Finn on Nightlife and Adult Relationships II: Killer Parties

Killer Parties (Live) — Nights That Almost Killed Us, Nights That Made Us

Note: This is the second part of our series on songs of The Hold Steady that take up the intertwined themes of nightlife and the complexities of adult relationships. Part I is available. This piece will deal with “Killer Parties,” specifically the live version from A Positive Rage.

“Killer Parties,” written by Craig Finn, closes Almost Killed Me (2003) and provides its title line. But the 2008 live version is the definitive one for me — a 10-minute slow burn that opens not with guitars but with an invocation. Finn’s spoken intro sets the terms for who this band is, who the audience is, and why these communal nights matter.

I. The Invocation

Before a single lyric, Finn does what Finn does: greets the tribe.

He jokes, he rambles, he self-deprecates, he misdirects — and then he lands it:

There’s so much joy in what we do up here. Thank you for sharing that joy with us.

That’s the thesis of The Hold Steady.
Everything else is commentary.

The band isn’t just a band; Finn isn’t just a frontman. The Hold Steady is a community, a lineage, a shared memory palace built out of long nights, near-misses, inside jokes, loud guitars, and people who actually want to be there.

When I saw them twice at the Brooklyn Bowl in 2018, I wrote:

Hold Steady fans are pretty much fanatics… They were super possessive of their space, they all seemed to know each other. One guy sized me up and said, “I want to not like you, but there’s some kind of aura around you, man.”

That’s the thing: the fans are a little cliquey, but the band itself is radically welcoming. Finn means it when he thanks people. He means it when he says he’s met half the room. He means it when he collapses the distinction between performer and audience:

“We are, and you are, The Hold Steady.”

That’s what the spoken intro really says.

II. Charlemagne and the Unsaid

The song opens with a classic Finn move — an elliptical report of something that happened, but we’re not going to get the details:

If they ask about Charlemagne,
be polite and keep it vague —
another lover lost to the restaurant raids.

Charlemagne is the old recurring character, drug-dealer-adjacent, always on the edge of calamity. Did he OD? Get busted? Get swallowed by his own myth?
Finn doesn’t tell you. He protects the dignity of the fallen.

This is identical in spirit to the opening of “A Bathtub in a Kitchen.”

I’ve known people like this. You’ve known people like this. Someone falls off the map, and when they resurface, it’s a new person in the same body. The specifics get blurry; the compassion gets sharper.

III. Leaving, Loving, Running

The next verses broaden out:

We left because we were young and in love.
We left because we needed space.
We left because we heard about this mythical country called the United States.

When Finn sings that line, he’s not being literal — he’s describing the classic American story: the pilgrimage to the realbig city. The wide open possibility. The idea that somewhere else — New York, especially — is where the real life is.

I relate.
I left my hometown and moved halfway across the world.
Finn moved from Minneapolis to New York; I moved from Spokane to Asia.
And like him, I sometimes feel pangs for what I missed.

But I needed space. I needed something bigger.

IV. Killer Parties

Then we hit the geography of sin:

Virginia for lovers.
Philly for brotherhood.
Pensacola for pills.
Ybor City for the nights that go too far.

And then the line we can quote directly:

“Killer parties almost killed me.”

Finn doesn’t romanticize this. He’s looking back at the nights that were ecstatic and dangerous at the same time. Nights that reshaped his body chemistry. Nights that made him who he is.

I’ve had my run at nightlife — nothing like Finn’s, but enough to understand the way one night can rewrite your wiring, for better or worse.

V. The Blur and the Transcendence

The final verses repeat themselves, because that’s how memory works:

We partied (I think?).
We departed from our bodies.
We woke up in Ybor City.

The nights are a blur — Finn partied but gets the details secondhand. What he does remember is the transcendence, the weightless moment when the body gives out and the self floats somewhere above it. And then the long, punishing hangover that follows.

For me, Ybor City has always functioned like El Dorado — the mythical endpoint of the American night. Maybe Finn has been there; maybe he hasn’t. Maybe you can only reach it by running the gauntlet of long days and longer nights. Maybe you can only get there by losing yourself a little too fully.

I’m not sure Ybor City would be good for me.

VI. The Ex-Introvert Who Still Wants the Night

And here’s where my story threads into the song:

I am an ex-introvert reinvented as an extrovert — something I’ve talked about with several friends. I’m too old for some of the clubbing I once did, but I still love the nightlife, still love running around, talking to strangers, seeing where the night wants to take me.

And it takes you to strange places.

I think this is the real theme of “Killer Parties”:
the appeal of the night, the call of the road, and the deep human need to leave the known world and find out what’s waiting elsewhere.

I return to this song in all kinds of circumstances — when I miss the road, when I need a reminder that the self is porous, when I want to remember what it felt like to be new somewhere.

VII. The Circle Closes: Community

And yet — for all the mythology and all the escapism — Finn always brings it back to community.

The Hold Steady isn’t just Finn narrating the lives of misfits. It’s Finn saying:

We survived the killer nights.
We made it home.
We found each other.

The live intro becomes the retrospective moral:

There’s so much joy in what we do up here.
Thank you for sharing that joy with us.

And so the whole arc — the wandering, the leaving, the nightlife, the blurring of memory, the near-death nights — ends where it must:

With the people who showed up.
The people who stayed.
The people in front of the stage.
The people who are, themselves, The Hold Steady.

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Craig Finn on Nightlife and Adult Relationships I: Most People are DJs

I. Setting the Frame — What the Song Is “About,” and What Finn Says It’s About

“Most People Are DJs” appears on Almost Killed Me (2003), track three if you don’t count the spoken prologue. If “Killer Parties” is the band’s thesis on community, “Most People Are DJs” is the thesis on the scene—why it’s fun, why it’s corrosive, and why it matters.

Finn himself once said:

“Just a reaction to life in NYC in the 2000s… The part I don’t get is when I get emails that start with ‘Come see me DJ’ and end with ‘Here is what I’m going to play…’ I think DJing, like rock criticism, tends to be a way for people to participate in the ‘scene’ without the risks to the ego that go along with producing art.”

His hedge—“Of course, I don’t apply this to all DJs”—isn’t convincing. And that’s okay. Artists don’t owe us diplomatic consensus statements. What he’s really saying is: there is a gap between creating and curating. Between risk and commentary. Between the ones who make things and the ones who play things.

Now: I don’t fully agree with him.
And that’s part of what makes this song fun to write about.

Because the truth is:
Finn is reacting to a very specific time and place—New York in the early 2000s—where the “scene” was swollen with people who wanted proximity to art more than they wanted the agony of making it.

But he also wrote a song so overflowing with confidence and adrenaline that, even if you disagree with the premise, the song still wins.

II. Alliteration, Lineage, and the New York Scene (Early 2000s)

One thing that hits immediately in “Most People Are DJs” is the density—the alliteration, the internal rhyme, the almost cartoonish velocity of the lines. Finn came out of Lifter Puller, a band whose songs were so tightly coiled with alliteration they were practically tongue-twisters set to guitars. That sonic fingerprint carries directly into Almost Killed Me.

“Jet skis into the jetty,”
“skipping off the good ship,”
“searching for the merchant”—
this is Finn still flexing the Lifter Puller muscle.

But something is different now.
A subtle pivot.

With The Hold Steady, the alliteration stops feeling like a hallucinatory fever dream and starts to feel like a narrator in full command of his mythmaking. LP was chaos; THS is authorship. LP was young-person disorientation; THS is a guy in his early thirties cataloguing his own survival.

And that survival intersects directly with Finn’s take on the early-millennium New York City “scene.”

If you didn’t live there then, it’s hard to reconstruct the vibe, but from the outside—I was never a New York resident, just a visitor—it felt like every bar and backroom was filled with:

  • people wanting to be seen
  • people curating themselves more than expressing themselves
  • self-mythologizing in real time
  • and a thousand micro-scenes stacked on top of each other

New York has always been a city where people come to reinvent themselves, but in the 2000s, with the rise of the internet, music blogs, Vice magazine, and the early social media era, there was suddenly an audience for every aesthetic micro-gesture. DJ nights proliferated not necessarily because people loved vinyl but because DJing let you participate in culture without risking the humiliation of failure that comes with creation.

Finn clearly bristled at this dynamic—at least enough to write this song about it.
But crucially: he’s not sneering. He’s needling.
He’s amused and annoyed in equal measure.

Because he had just spent years in a band (LP) that nearly no one outside Minneapolis cared about. He’d paid his dues in the purest sense—tiny clubs, no money, hardcore kids, bad drives, worse mornings—and so when he encountered the Manhattan version of a “scene,” it must have felt surreal. A party ecosystem where participation wasn’t dependent on talent or risk, just aesthetics.

And so the song becomes a little manifesto:

Some people create.
Most people curate.
I know which side I’m on.

But I don’t fully agree with Finn here. DJing, like criticism, can absolutely be an art. Plenty of DJs are actual geniuses of sequencing, mood, texture, and propulsion. And Finn’s own songs rely heavily on the idea that everyone constructs a soundtrack for their life. He lives inside the psychology of people who soundtrack their heartbreak, their addictions, their breakthroughs, their mistakes.

So his jab at DJs is both sincere and playful—an elbow thrown by someone who knows perfectly well that without DJs, nightlife wouldn’t exist.

Still, the tension is productive.
It pushes the song forward.
It gives it its bite.

This is where Finn’s shift from Lifter Puller to The Hold Steady becomes clear:
LP described nightlife as a labyrinth; THS describes it as a world he made it out of, barely, and will now narrate for the rest of us.

Almost Killed Me is a debut in name only—it’s actually a rebirth.

III. The Ice Machine, the Trash Bin, and the Myth of Mis-Spent Youth

If the early verses of “Most People Are DJs” sketch out the external landscape—Ybor City confetti, jet skis, five-second dealers, Phil Lynott doppelgängers—then the center of the song turns inward. The gaze shifts from the scene itself to the person who once tried to survive inside it.

And it starts with a line that sounds like a joke until it doesn’t:

“I was a teenage ice machine…”

It’s metaphorical, but also literal in the sideways way Finn always manages:
a kid who kept it cold, kept it contained, kept taking in whatever the night handed him. Drinking until he dreamed, and when he dreamed, dreaming only of the scene. It’s the way youth can feel like preparation for nightlife, not the other way around.

Then comes the image of the little lambs looking up at him—those younger kids just entering the arena. There’s no arrogance in it; it’s simply the moment you realize you’ve shifted from participant to veteran, from the kid on the floor to the older presence leaning against the bar. It’s an eerie, recognizable sensation for anyone who came up in tight little music worlds, whether Minneapolis hardcore or the DIY venues that orbit all cities.

And then the next admission hits harder:

“I was a Twin Cities trash bin…”

Here Finn stops ornamenting the story. He talks frankly about taking everything the scene gave him and jamming it into his system. He doesn’t romanticize those years—he frames them as messy, hungry, adrenaline-charged, and sometimes self-destructive. It’s the classic Hold Steady blend of humor, regret, and affection for the person he once was. Anyone who’s lived through their own version of that era understands the mixture of pride and embarrassment that comes with looking back.

Then the song shifts again, suddenly back in a room, back in a body:

“She got me cornered by the kitchen…”

It’s one of those instantly recognizable nightlife moments—some stranger with a lot on her mind talking too closely, too sincerely, in the wrong place at the wrong time. Finn’s response, “I’ll do anything but listen,” is both funny and revealing. It’s the impatience of a younger self who wants motion, wants noise, wants the next thing, not the emotional monologue of someone he’s just met.

But the real anchor of this section comes next:

“We’re hot soft spots on a hard rock planet.”

This is the line that echoes back to the earlier “tiny white specks” but deepens it. We may be insignificant on the grand scale, but we’re still soft, still human, still easily bruised. For all the bluster and late nights, there’s vulnerability baked into every corner of the scene. Finn recognizes it, even here, even in a song that pretends to be about DJs and parties.

And this middle section becomes the emotional axis for the entire track. The drug years, the clubs, the kitchens, the impatience, the kids, the tiny planets we all carried around–it’s Finn turning his own biography into something mythic and still somehow intimate. It’s the moment the song stops being an anecdote about nightlife and becomes a portrait of the person who lived it.

IV. “Teenage Ice Machine”: Finn’s Youth, My Youth, Everyone’s Youth

This is where the song really cracks open — the run of verses where Finn folds his own misspent youth into the larger portrait of nightlife. It’s the part where the memoirist in him steps forward.

“I was a teenage ice machine / I kept it cool in coolers and I drank until I dreamed…”

Finn describes his early years in Minneapolis with blunt clarity: he was taking whatever the night handed him, jamming it into his system, chasing scenes and dreams and any story worth telling. He’s frank about the drugs, the bravado, the hunger. And that image of “kids like little lambs looking up at me” shows the strange dynamic of growing older inside a scene — one day you realize the new kids think you know something. They think you’ve made it out of the maze.

And Finn knows these kids. He knows their impulsiveness, their devotion, their need to be part of something burning and bright. He knows it because he lived it.

“I was a Twin Cities trash bin / I did everything they’d give me…”

It’s funny, and a little raw — Finn admitting he was just shoveling it all in, whatever “it” was. And the lines about being cornered in the kitchen and doing “anything but listen” land perfectly. This is the social physics of nightlife: the way adrenaline and self-invention outrun patience or reflection. The kitchen confrontation is a tiny scene, but it captures the whole era — Finn always moving, always dodging, always hungry for the next thing, the next rush, the next room.

And then the knockout line:

“We’re hot soft spots on a hard rock planet.”

This connects back to the earlier perspective shift — from Minneapolis sidewalks to this tiny-blue-dot cosmic backdrop. It’s Finn’s version of existentialism: the world is hard, unforgiving, indifferent; we are temporary flashes of warmth against it. But the point isn’t despair. The point is urgency. You don’t get that many nights where it all lines up. You don’t get that many years where your body and your heart and your recklessness harmonize. You take the nights when they come.

This is where the song clicks for me. That line is the thesis.

V. “Everyone’s a Critic and Most People Are DJs”: The Thesis and the Tension

“Baby, take off your beret
Everyone’s a critic and most people are DJs
And everything gets played.”

This is the line that gives the song its name and its pulse. Finn has already sketched the landscape — Ybor City’s chaos, New York’s 2000s absurdities, his own Twin Cities coming-of-age — and now he turns outward, toward the observation that set this whole song off in the first place.

Finn has said himself that this was his early-2000s response to the particular New York ecosystem where everyone wanted to be adjacent to culture without the exposure of making anything. The emails that said “come see me DJ, here’s what I’m going to play,” the ubiquity of people who curated rather than created. And he delivers the line with this mixture of mockery and affection — like a guy who remembers how much he once needed subcultural scaffolding and who also knows how flimsy that scaffolding can be.

But I don’t totally agree with the dismissiveness, and that’s part of why the line hits so hard for me. I think critics can make art, and DJs — literal or metaphorical — can shape the emotional weather of a room. I DJ my own life, like anyone who uses music to modulate their mood or define a moment. Spotify is my deck. The commute is my booth. There’s a pleasure in that autonomy that isn’t fake or lesser, just different.

Still, I get Finn’s point. There’s a risk he’s insisting on: the risk of putting something authentic into the world, the risk of failing publicly, the risk of making something instead of just spinning something. And this is the part where he plants his flag:
he is a maker, not a curator.
And he’s calling out everyone else — kindly, but unmistakably.

The song is gentler than the critique. It’s not a scolding. It’s a reminder: life isn’t a playlist you assemble from the safety of the booth. You have to actually step into the room. You have to actually take the hit.

This is where the song becomes more than a snapshot of early-2000s New York. It’s a life instruction.

Get in the game.

Because eventually everything gets played — your choices, your nights out, the people you loved, the things you messed up, the mornings you woke up on the floor of a city you barely knew. And at the end of all that, you want to be able to say you did it, not that you watched someone else do it.

VI. The Night Rolls On

The final verse snaps everything into focus. Finn works backwards through the chain of a night out—doctor to drugs, packie to taxi, taxi to club—like retracing the evidence after the damage is done. It’s funny and a little grim, but honest: this is how people actually live when they’re young, restless, and trying to outrun something unnamed.

A thousand kids fall in love in these clubs; a thousand end up bleeding.
Two thousand don’t sleep; two thousand still feel pretty sweet.

That’s the gamble of the night. Always has been.

And this is where my own life sits closest to Finn’s. I’ve said before that I’m an ex-introvert reinvented as an extrovert, and the night has been part of that transformation. I’m long past the age where I should be closing clubs, but I still love the energy of being out in the world, meeting people, letting chance decide the direction. The night takes you to weird places, sometimes beautiful and sometimes sketchy, and if you’re wired like me—or like Finn—that current is hard to resist.

And then there’s Ybor City, which in the Finn cosmology feels half-real, half-mythic. A kind of El Dorado of the American night. Did he actually go there? Maybe. But in the logic of the song, it doesn’t matter. Ybor City is where you wake up when the night has taken you further than planned. A place that might kill you or crown you, or both. I’m not sure Ybor City would be good for me. I’m not sure it’s good for anyone.

But the truth is:
the pull of that world—the risk, the release, the possibility—is part of what makes these songs hit as hard as they do.

VII. Closing Thoughts

In the end, Most People Are DJs isn’t one of Finn’s masterpieces, but it doesn’t have to be. It’s a mission statement disguised as a party track. An early announcement that he wasn’t done writing about the night, about the kids who rush into it headlong, about the way music becomes a map for people who don’t quite know where they’re going but desperately want to get there fast.

The song is chaotic, generous, a little arrogant, and very alive—exactly what Almost Killed Me needed to be. It sketches the outlines of the universe Finn will later fill with addicts, romantics, bartenders, prophets, screwups, saints, and that long list of people who show up again and again in his songs because he sees them clearly. Because he was them once.

I keep returning to it not because it’s Finn at his deepest but because it’s Finn at his most open-throated:
young, wired, taking in the world at full volume.

It’s the sound of the door swinging open on everything that would follow—from the great epics (Separation Sunday, Stay Positive, Teeth Dreams) to the late-career short-story gems. You can hear the whole project of The Hold Steady rumbling under this song, even if Finn himself shrugs the song off as a joke at the expense of DJs and critics.

Maybe that’s the secret: sometimes the songs artists dismiss end up revealing more than the ones they cherish.

For me, this one captures something essential about the moment you step into the night—
when the lights go up, the bass starts running, and you feel, for just a second, like anything could happen.

It’s a snapshot of youth, of movement, of mischief and possibility.

And yeah—
I still feel pretty sweet.

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On Craig Finn’s “A Bathtub in the Kitchen”

I. Opening Notes

This is my third piece dealing with the songwriter Craig Finn. I wrote at length about his song “It’s Never Been a Fair Fight,” and a little more in my piece on Katie Park and The Bad Moves. Although my primary allegiance will always be to Dylan, if I am totally honest Finn is my favorite songwriter. Dylan is a transcendent force, world-historical, and therefore also sort of unapproachable. Finn is down-to-earth—I can imagine having a drink or three with Finn, whereas Dylan would probably have his hoodie up.

So, for the record: my favorite band is Luna, my favorite songwriter is Craig Finn, and the greatest is Dylan. My three favorite Finn songs are “It’s Never Been a Fair Fight,” “A Bathtub in the Kitchen,” and “Killer Parties.” This post takes a close look at “A Bathtub in the Kitchen,” with the aim of explicating both the song and Finn’s delivery.

II. Premise and Setup

“A Bathtub in the Kitchen” is track three on Craig Finn’s 2019 album I Need a New War, released by Partisan Records. For my money, it is not only the standout track on the record, but one of the three greatest songs of my all-time favorite songwriter. The song is ostensibly about an old friend of the narrator (I will refer to him as C.) called Francis, but it’s also about trying to make it in the big city, and about moving on from the past. Making it—or not making it—in the big city is a classic Finn theme.

III. Verse One — The Accident and the Past

The song opens with a report of an accident. The nature of the event is unspecified, but my best guess is an overdose.

The lightning clarity typical of Finn is all over these four lines. We learn that C. and Francis have a relationship shaded by deception, that they still move in overlapping circles, and that both originally came from somewhere else. The final line delivers one of those Finn-isms that cut both ways: city transplants trying to recreate a tiny town, while C. himself is still entangled in the very past he’s trying to escape.

IV. Verse Two — Money, Health, and Elegance

By the second part of the verse it seems Francis has recovered somewhat, and C. has met with him again.

Finn’s concision is astonishing. In eight lines we understand the dynamic completely: C. has money he could give, but knows it’s probably enabling; Francis is perhaps an addict, though neither man states it. We also glimpse Francis in better days—The Parkside, elegant companions, a life C. once aspired toward. And already C. is trying, gently, to pass responsibility to someone else.

This touches something universal: the friend who needs more than we can sustainably give. Or the times we’ve been that friend ourselves.

V. The Chorus — Youth, Longing, and New York

The chorus arrives, one of Finn’s most moving and beautiful. His voice rises on I was drinking, I was dancing, packed with emotion.

This is a flashback to young C. in New York—broke, naive, crashing on Francis’s couch. Finn underlines C.’s passivity three times: waiting, hoping, desperate for New York to ask me out. That phrasing is brilliant. It captures the essential vulnerability of arriving in New York with dreams, no plan, and a subway map.

The memory sends me to my own first visit to New York. Stepping out of the station at 42nd Street into the noise, I felt the shock of sensation—an energy I still feel every time I return. I’ve been to many great cities—Tokyo, London, Singapore, Amsterdam, Melbourne, Hong Kong, Kuala Lumpur—but there is nowhere like New York.

And in a city like that, it can be nearly impossible to get your footing. Everyone is already in motion. Finn evokes that perfectly.

VI. Verse Three — Present-Day Francis

Back to the present:

Francis has been in New York for twenty-three years, and C. nearly as long, since he knows the number by heart. The “bathtub in the kitchen” signals the classic New York starter apartment—a detail so iconic it becomes the song’s title. Francis still goes to the roof for better reception. Phones get disconnected. Life is fraying. C. registers all of this without overt judgment, but with distance. A sense of “there but for the grace of God go I.”

VII. Chorus Reprise — Guilt and Gratitude

The chorus returns with slight changes—“doing things I shouldn’t”—and doubled gratitude: Francis let me crash out on his couch. Repetition becomes confession.

My father read my “Fair Fight” draft and, not knowing anything about Craig Finn, immediately said he sensed a strong midwestern Catholic vibe. He was spot-on. Finn grew up Catholic in Minnesota; guilt, forgiveness, and redemption run through almost everything he writes.

There is also a phenomenal YouTube video of Finn performing this at the Murmrr Theatre, and during the post-chorus especially the performance takes on a spiritual intensity you can’t miss.

VIII. Post-Chorus — The Confession

The lines:

I can’t keep saying thank you, Francis…

These cut two ways. C. is saying:

  1. The couch surfing was long ago, and he has done what he can.
  2. And simultaneously: I’m not the person who can save you.

The confession is directed at Francis—but maybe just as much at himself.

IX. Verse Four — The Old Ropes and the New Distance

The final verse returns briefly to the past: Francis teaching C. how to navigate New York nightlife—befriend bartenders, tip big on the first round. These are the rules of the game. C. remembers them vividly.

Then we snap to the present: Francis’s job rumors, his terrible landlord, the $200 that will “help him breathe a bit easy.” And the repeated question: Francis, do you even have a plan? C. has given him money, but not much, and not with much faith. The trust between them has frayed into obligation.

X. Outro — The Spiritual Release

The outro repeats the confession. Again, it’s worth watching the Murmrr Theatre live version to feel how Finn leans into this. It becomes a kind of secular prayer, a release and a resignation all at once.

XI. Closing Thoughts

“A Bathtub in the Kitchen” is about youth and aging, about friendship and how it lasts and decays, about guilt and human selfishness in the face of real need. More than anything, it captures what it feels like to try to survive in New York.

I think this song, like “It’s Never Been a Fair Fight,” is more personal for Finn than some of his strictly narrative pieces. The narrator here has “made it.” Finn himself is an immigrant to New York, from Minnesota, and has sampled deeply from the nightlife he writes about. Few songwriters have chronicled nightlife with more range, consistency, or compassion.

Even if C. can’t keep saying thank you, I can. This song moves me in ways I’ve tried to describe here but still can’t fully encompass.

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Andrea’s Travels, Part I: The Flight to Seoul

She’s got the Eye of Fatima/ on the wall of her motel room.

Camper Van Beethoven

Dateline Buenos Aries: Friday Morning

The plane eases into its docking point, 15 minutes late. Andrea wasn’t fretting; she’d been around a bit and knew that things sometimes worked. Other times, well they didn’t.

She is not on the run, not exactly anyway. Nonetheless, the 27 hour trip from Buenos Aries to Seoul via Atlanta will put half a world of distance between her and M. Azur. Welcome distance for Andrea, as the formerly desultory attentions of her blue friend have recently taken a turn for the more incessant. In short, he’s been calling her daily, one thin pretext after another. “Everything’s thin,” she mused, and M. Azur could thin paint. A classy guy who makes decisions and implements is what she needs, not some milquetoast beta-male in the medical tubing industry.  For Christ’s sake already. So Seoul beckoned, and the plane, the plane was late.

Andrea scratches her nose, adjusts her glasses. The turnaround crew would need 20, 25 minutes minimum to turn the plane over for the flight. A quick scan of her messages shows three new bleats from her would-be paramour. Pretext, text, context—still a no. She could handle herself, could Andrea. “Many apologies, I have been so busy,” she texts. “Dinner meeting is not possible this week. Tubing sales are up—talk again.” M.Azur would be a blue mist in no time. Ground staff opens pre-boarding, and Andrea, zoned in section 4, makes a lateral move into zone 3 to make sure her carry-on has the room it needed. “Who’s better than me?”

Andrea settles into 14A, a window seat. Bottle of water, headphones and a sleeping mask. Structured correctly, a plane flight can be made to feel like an undersea journey. All it requires is a little imagination.

Andrea has all she needs to swim a little up there in the ether. Her phone is set to airplane mode and the seat next to her is vacant. Bonus, she tells herself. A non-descript business traveler has the aisle. He looks more like a brown than a blue. Won’t be an issue.

Andrea is a lady, a women really, somewhere in her later 20s, probably. We won’t ask. Attractive, but no waif, she enjoys fine dining and a glass or three of wine. When she drinks her cheeks get rosy red which accentuates her dimples. The gym is not the place to find a girl of her kind; the Mr. Blues of the world are advised to try the patisserie instead. Buy her a piece of pie. Cherry, lemon, coconut cream. Pumpkin, peach, pecan. Andrea might be a little picky with her guys; her pie game is more omnivorous.

Without really trying, she has the attention of a half-dozen men within a thirty-year age range, all of whom she deflects with the grace of a fencer. Buenos Aries, Rome, Tampa, Algiers it doesn’t seem to matter where she goes there will be a guy or two. Boys on board and boys on deck. What’s the opposite of a chick magnet? Andrea might not be quite that, but she has options. A passing funny thought, so she dials up an early Bitch Magnet record on her phone.  That was Sooyoung Park’s first band, pre-Seam. Little Park, big city, Korean heritage. Going to Seoul, apropos. Bitch Magnet rocks.

What does Andrea do? It’s a question she can’t quite answer herself. Broadly speaking, she is in sales, a cog in the vast machinery of deal making between multi-nationals. In other words, she is around transactions, helps to facilitate them. An “industry conference” awaits in Seoul. The Korean word for blue is “puleun.” Will there be any puleuns at the industry event? almost surely. Andrea sighs at the smallness of it all. White wine please, make it a double.

The plane is well up over the Pacific by now and Andrea is tipsy at thirty-thousand feet. Where is she really from? It would take a month of pies to get that out of her.  A month of pies and a month of Sundays. So we shall say she is post-racial, like the women in Code 46.

“In a dystopian future, insurance fraud investigator William Gold (Tim Robbins) arrives in Shanghai to investigate a forgery ring for “papelles,” futuristic passports that record people’s identities and genetics. Gold falls for Maria Gonzalez (Samantha Morton), the woman in charge of the forgeries.”

Is “topian” the opposite of dystopian, she wonders? Three drinks and an hour of Bitch Magnet in and she’s feeling a little topian herself. Andrea would be fine in the world of Code 46. Hell, she’d probably thrive.

to be continued…

Dedication: For a good friend who gave me some pieces. 

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The Thin Man in Rome, Part III: Reading Maya’s Chart

Dateline The Jazz Club: November 5th, 20:29

The saxophonist and theremin player jam for about fifteen minutes before taking a break. Nothing is announced, and the thin man can’t tell what’s going on. Was that the opening act? Are either of these players part of the trio? Where is the trio? Which if any of these people is Peter Andreessen? Information is thin. A guy in a black and white striped shirt brings out an electric organ and begins setting it up while the theremin player hits the bar. For a moment the thin man forgets about his assignment and just allows himself to enjoy the scene.

Maya is sitting with Philip, McKnight, and the other young man from before. This group as currently constructed does not look particularly permeable, so the thin man bides his time. After a while, the organ player starts playing a riff, high on the keyboard, lots of black keys. The saxophone player comes back out and act two of the show is underway. This duo is actually really good, and the thin man envies the organ player’s facility. The dude can play.

A few stools down from the thin man and Ali sits a woman with dark blonde hair, fully made up, wearing a fur shawl and spiky leather boots. She looks to be in her mid-40s, give or take a few years. She addresses herself to the thin man.

“Sit here,” she says, gesturing to the stool next to her.

The thin man considers this request. On the one hand, she doesn’t seem like his usual type, for another thing, he’s working. That said, the thin man is a gentleman of a kind, and doesn’t like to say no to ladies. He moves over to next to her.

“You’re not from here,” she says. Not a question.

“No. I just got in from Singapore.” This much is true.

“You’re cute,” she says. “Buy me a drink.”

“What would you like?”

“Manhattan. He knows how I like it,” she says, gesturing to the bartender. This woman, the thin man takes it, is a regular. “I’m Vivian,” she says.

“Jack Bishop,” says the thin man.

“Hi Jack Bishop,” she says and lays her right hand on his arm. “I’m glad I met you tonight.”

The thin man’s usual type she may not be, however she is a well-put together woman for sure and her initial moves seem pretty promising. The thin man takes her hand below the bar and they exchange smiles. The thin man sneaks a glance at Ali, but the driver’s face is impassive. Ali has seen it all—therefore sees nothing.

The organ and saxophone set turns out to be a longer than the first, and after about 20 minutes the thin man sees Maya heading back to the lobby, alone. Vivian is going to have to wait; he’ll be back later, if possible. He slides along the left side of the room back to the lobby where he finds Maya, smoking a menthol.

“May I join you,” he asks, taking out his American Spirits.

“Sure, want a light?”

“That would be fantastic.”

Maya lights the thin man’s cigarette as he looks around. The theremin player has established herself behind the merch table and there are about 20 different items for sale, CDs, vinyl, some kind of flash drive thing with music on it, etc. Peter Andreessen is one prolific individual, thinks the thin man, if there even is a Peter Andreessen. The thin man remembers that Philip had said that Maya liked action, and the plurality of merch choices gives him an idea.

“Want to play a game?” he asks Maya.

“What kind of game?”

The thin man takes her arm and steers her over to the merch table. “Pick a number between one and twenty.” The thin man knows that very few people, beautiful temptresses not excluded, can resist picking a number.

Maya flushes slightly. “14,” she says. “I like 14.”

“14 is my lucky number,” says the thin man. “Let’s count.” And he starts counting off the items from the top left one by one until he gets to 14.

“I’ll take this one,” he tells the theremin player. She looks at the CD and smiles. “That’s one of my favorites,” she says.

“I’m sure it’s awesome,” says the thin man. He pays for the record with some of Grey’s Euros and turns back to Maya.

“May I buy you a white lady madam?”

She laughs lightly.

“Are you trying to pick me up? Because you should know I’m taken.”

The thin man has already decided to take a direct approach.

“I’m not trying to pick you up,” he says. “I’m just hitting on you.”

Maya blushes outright. “Are you always so straightforward?”

“Just a straight arrow, that’s me.”

“Somehow I doubt that,” says Maya. But she stays put.

The thin man decides it’s time to tack back to safer ground.

“Have you known Alan long?” he asks, even though he has already gleaned this information from Philip.

“Sure, I’m his bae,” says Maya.

“What’s a bae?”

“It means before anyone else, silly.” Three weeks and already a bae? thinks the Thin Man.

“Oh, so you’ve been together a while then?”

“Actually no, I’m not really his bae. I’m just the slut on the side.”

Now this is information the thin man can get behind. Time to push his chips in.

“Do you have a cellphone?” he asks. Yes, she does.

“Let me borrow it for a second.” Maya looks at the thin man quizzically.

“What for?” she asks.

“I’ll do your chart. Do you know your birth time?”

“I think so. It’s like 1:34 in the morning.” Maya has her phone out and the thin man slides it into his own hands.

“May I open a browser?”

“I guess so,” says Maya. “I mean if you are going to do my chart and all.”

“What’s your birthday?”

“February 3rd, 1989.”

“Ah, an Aquarius. Figures.”

“What do you mean ‘figures’?” she asks, “what figures?”

“Well I just mean that you’re an air sign, which makes sense to me. I’m an air sign too. You think fast and move fast. I like that about you already.”

“Oh you do do you. Well we’ll see about that.” She pauses, and then, because having your chart read is just basically addictive, she asks, “What else do you see?”

The thin man points to the glyph representing Mars. “Mars is in your 6th house—that’s a strong placement for a career woman. I’d say you are a powerful force in your own sphere, am I right?”

Maya smiles coyly. “Maybe. Maybe I am. Is there anything else about my career?”

“Well Mars is square Venus in the 2nd house. That’s interesting. That could mean a lot of things. It might mean that your work life and love life are connected. Maybe there’s something there that’s being worked out.”

Now you might think that the thin man is playing it a little too fast and loose here, but he knows what he’s doing. He’s no expert in astrology, but he’d picked up a bit from a bartender called Jessica who he’d worked with back on the cruise ship. Jessica was a pro, and would read customers’ charts on the regular. The thin man had watched her performance many a time. From Jessica he knew that when reading someone’s chart you can basically say anything as long as you ground it in a little actual astrological theory. So it was with the Mars-Venus square, a perfect opening into Maya’s secret world.

“Are you suggesting I’m sleeping with my boss?“ she asks. “Because he’s not my boss. And anyway I’m barely sleeping with him.”

“I didn’t mean anything of the kind,” replies the thin man smoothly. “From looking at your chart I’d say it’s more like there is something in the realm of love that will be a turning point for you professionally one way or another. I’m not sure what that could be.”

“Oh my gosh, it’s exciting,” says Maya. “Tell me more about my chart.”

Running out of ideas, the thin man stalls. “Let me look more carefully. There’s a lot here.”

“Am I complex?” she asks.

“Very complex. Complex and deep I’d say. A lot of planets below the horizon.”

Before the thin man can delve further into the mysteries of Maya’s chart, two men approach. The one in front is heavyset and looks to be a native Italian. The other one is lighter with blonde hair and a slight sneer already in place. The thin man guesses he is from Northern Europe, Germany maybe. The heavyset man squares his stance just a foot or two from the thin man and Maya.

“You two are getting pretty cozy back here, aren’t you?”

“And this matters to you how exactly?” asks the thin man.

“She’s my sister,” says the man, “and I don’t want some creep like you hanging around her.”

The man was not Maya’s brother, this much the thin man knew. However he played along.

“You have a very interesting sister,” he says “do you know she’s a natal Aquarius?”

“How about this,” says the man, “how about you shut the fuck up and fuck off?”

“Now that’s not very nice,” says the thin man. “I thought we were just starting to get along.”

The blonde man steps forward. “We’re not asking twice pal,” he says. He’s seen one two many movies this guy. The thin man turns to Maya. “Looks like you got the manners in the family,” he says. But Maya turns away.

“I’m sorry,” she says. “I had probably better get back to my group.” Kin they may not be; however the men have some kind of hold over her, and she heads back to where the show is kicking off once again.

The thin man is prepared to beat a strategic retreat when the heavyset man starts in again.

“What were you doing on her phone?”

The thin man considers his response carefully. On the one hand he could tell the truth—we were just checking out her birth chart—but that might only further aggravate the man. The thin man guesses that these two are some kind of minders sent from Pelican corp. to keep an eye on Maya. They are probably worried about her phone containing sensitive information. Before the thin man can reply Mitchell Grey appears as if from nowhere.

“Is there some kind of a problem gentlemen?”

“No problem old timer,” says the heavyset man, “this guy was just hassling my sister.”

“I don’t think so,” says Grey. “I don’t think that is what was going on at all.” Grey may be in his sixties, but as he squares his shoulders and lifts his chin slightly it’s clear that he is not a guy to mess with. The heavyset man registers this, takes a beat. Slowly he pulls back the right flap of his jacket to reveal a gun on his hip.

“What’s that?” asks the thin man.

“It’s a gun.”

“Let me have it.”

The man barks out a laugh. “The fuuck are you two?”

“We’re not the guys you kill,” replies the thin man, “We’re the guys you buy.”

“Well, I’m the guy you kill,” says Grey, “but not tonight I think.”

The heavyset man has heard enough, and balls his fists, holding them slightly in front of his body. “You motherf…” he starts, but gets no further because Ali is already behind him and twists his right arm up behind his back, hard. The man yelps in pain and Ali slams him against the wall. The German takes a step back and raises his hands slightly as if in surrender, his sneer turned to fear.

“Looks like you’re outnumbered now,” says Grey as cool as can be. Why don’t you put it back in your pants and let’s go have a little talk.”

to be continued…

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The Thin Man in Rome, Part II: At the Jazz Club

My baby’s gonna pay for me.

The National

Dateline The Jazz Club: November 5th, 17:54

The thin man met Grey in the lobby as promised where Grey handed him several hundred Euros as well as some American dollars. “Just in case we get separated,” Grey said. The thin man could take care of himself ok at a poolside party in Singapore, however tonight’s action already felt a little different. He wondered if Grey was carrying a gun. Happy as he was to have the cash, the thin man hoped Grey would not stray too far afield. The driver had the car ready, and they drove the 20 minutes to the jazz club.

Once inside (the doors had actually soft-opened sometime before 18:00) the thin man takes the place in. It’s a pretty large club with a stage area at floor  in front, a bar to the left, and a sound booth in the middle with aisles on each side so that patrons can feed back into a lobby area where another bar is set-up, as well as space for the “merch table.”

There are already 20 or 30 people inside, drinking, talking, smoking. The thin man decides to buy a pack of cigarettes–cigarettes are a great ice breaker and the thin man will need to break some ice later on. He asks for American Spirits, purple, and the bartender hands them over.

“Who’s playing tonight?” asks the thin man in English.

“The Peter Andreessen Trio,” replies the bartender in the same language. “They are pretty popular, and a little far out.”

Far out, thinks the thin man. Far out is good. I can work with far out. He sees Grey across the room, sitting with two younger men. Neither of these looks much like a senior vice-president. The thin man starts to move toward the group but Grey shakes his head, almost imperceptibly. Guess we don’t know each other, thinks the thin man. Makes sense. He recalibrates mentally for a second–he’s just here to take in a little jazz and maybe hit on some women. Or one particular woman perhaps.

He orders a white lady, gin and Cointreau, on the rocks. The thin man is a dabbler, in life and in alcohol, and white ladies are there to be dabbled in. He starts to circulate, moving easily, just looking to make conversation. One of the men Grey had been talking to is at the back bar and the thin man approaches.

“Hi, I’m Jack.”

“Hey Jack,” says the man, “I’m Philip. You here for some jazz?” Philip has what sounds like an American accent, and the thin man guesses he works for Company X in some capacity.

“Sure am,” says the thin man. “I’m a big jazz fan, but I don’t know these guys tonight. Do you know anything about them?”

“Yeah, I saw them play before here in town. They’re from Norway and they’re pretty far out.”

“Cool,” says the thin man, “sounds like fun. Where are you from Philip?”

“From the USA man, Kentucky originally. But I’ve been living here in Rome for about two years.”

“What do you do?”

“I work for a company called Company X. I’m in the marketing department, and I report directly to a vice-president over here. It’s a pretty good gig.”

“Company X huh? I think I’ve heard of them. Aren’t they in talks to buy the Green Group or something?”

“Yeah, that’s right,” replies Philip. “You’re up to speed on the business news.”

“I dabble,” says the thin man, “but I don’t know much more than that. Is anyone else from your company going to be here tonight?”

“There should be a few of us, yeah. I think my boss is coming too, with his new girlfriend.” Philip leans closer to the thin man and says quietly “you gotta check this chick out man. She’s got it all going on. She’s called Maya and she just arrived in town like three weeks ago. My fuckin’ boss moves fast man.”

“It’s good to be the boss I guess,” says the thin man.

“Yeah man,” says Philip. “What ya drinking?”

“It’s called a white lady. You should order one too.”

“Maya’s a white lady too I think. Not really sure. I think she was in Eastern Europe before somewhere. Anyway, I should stop talking about Maya, it’s bad form I guess.”

The thin man laughed. “Not bad form at all. I’m interested. What does she do here in Rome?”

“I’m not really sure. She’s living at the Plaza, probably on my boss’ dime. I think she’s in corporate in some way. You can ask her yourself, she should be here soon.”

“I’d like to meet her,” said the thin man. “If you would be kind enough to make an introduction.”

“Sure thing. I’m not sure you’re her type but you never know. She likes action, and money.”

“Well I don’t have any money,” replies the thin man, “but maybe I can generate a little action. Let’s see how things go.”

The thin man and his new friend chat a little more, before a woman who looks to be in her early thirties comes in with an older man in a suit with no necktie. The suit looks sharp, maybe not as sharp as our driver’s outfit, but sharp, however the man inside it looks like he’s got some things going on. His hair is slightly out of place and he looks around the club rapidly. He’s a little jumpy. The woman is dressed in a stunning black dress with a fur coat on top, kitten heels, and a necklace with an inset ruby. Philip waves at them and they wave back. This must be Maya, thinks the thin man. Very intriguing.

As Maya checks her coat, the VP approaches the bar.

“Good to see you Philip,” he says. “Maya was running a little late as usual and I was afraid we’d miss the first part of the show. What are you drinking?”

“It’s called a white lady,” says Philip, “he turned me on to it.” Philip gestures toward the thin man who has already turned slightly to face the duo. The VP offers his hand to the thin man.

“Alan McKnight,” he says, “white ladies eh?”

“Jack Bishop,” says the thin man. “Yes sir, there is nothing more satisfying than a white lady after a long day.”

“I have no doubt,” says McKnight, “but I think I’ll just have a beer. Maya might try one of those though, she like her fancy cocktails.”

His beer arrives as Maya comes over to join the group. She glances at the thin man before turning to McKnight.

“Buy me a martini darling. Two olives.” She speaks with the absolute assurance of someone who never has to pay her own way.

As the bartender is mixing her martini a few notes from a saxophone drift back from the area of the stage. The band is setting up, testing instruments.

“I won’t even have time to enjoy my beer before the show starts,” complains McKnight. “I wish you didn’t take so long to get ready honey.”

Maya turns up her nose–McKnight’s salvo doesn’t even merit a reply. The thin man still hasn’t been introduced to Maya, so he comes one step closer and says “hi I’m Jack. I was just chatting with Philip before you guys came in. Philip says you’re new to Rome?”

“This time around, yes,” she says. “I used to live here though, so I know the city.”

“How long will you be staying?” asks the thin man.

“As long as he’ll have me,” she replies, turning to McKnight. “Right darling?”

McKnight is not paying attention. “Uh, right, uh huh.”

“I said you’re going to keep me around aren’t you?”

“Of course I am.” McKnight has regained his focus. “You know how much I treasure you honey.”

The thin man finds all this talk pretty banal, but it does provide some insight into Maya and McKnight’s relationship. McKnight might well treasure her, however he is also clearly unhappy with certain aspects of their relationship. In addition, he is continuing to look around as if he was expecting someone or something. The thin man wonders if McKnight has a suspicion that all was not what it seemed with Maya. He might realize this on an instinctual level without guessing, for example, that she might be a corporate spy.

“Shall we go up front? The show’s about to start,” says Philip.

The group takes their drinks and moves past the sound booth to get a good view of the stage. The thin man looks around surreptitiously but sees no sign of Grey. He does see the driver however, leaning against the inside bar and smoking a cigarette. The thin man makes a strategic decision to separate temporary from the Company X crew. If he’s going to make a move on Maya tonight it’s better that he approaches from a more oblique angle anyway.

The thin man walks across to the bar and stands next to the driver. Although Grey had indicated that the he should act like a stranger, the room is filling up and he feels like a little chat can’t hurt anything. He keeps his voice low though, just as a matter of tradecraft.

“I didn’t get your name before,” says the thin man. “Mine’s Jack.”

“Ali,” says the man. “Making any progress?” He is apparently entirely up to speed with this evening’s operation.

“Hard to say. I’ll need more time. Do you work for Company X as well?”

“Not I,” says Ali in perfectly inflected English. “Grey doesn’t either, really. We’re contractors.”

“I see. Have you worked together long?”

Ali looks at the thin man and pauses. For just a second the thin man sees something flash in the man’s eyes, something close to sadness. Then it’s gone, and the man says matter of factly, “I’ve known Grey for thirty years. We’re partners.”

All of the sudden a tallish women comes on stage and, without a word, begins playing what looks to the thin man like a mini-theremin. The keening notes of this unusual instrument fill the room, and Ali looks at the thin man with a slight smile and shrugs. Mini-theremin may or may be not be Ali’s cup of tea, but he’s a gamer, and the thin man feels warmly toward him. The theremin player starts ramping things up and a second musician joins her on stage and, again without a word, begins playing the saxophone, loudly and erratically. The show has begun.

to be continued…

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The Thin Man in Singapore Part V: Alice’s Birthday and a Guardian Angel

You clean yourself to meet/ a man who isn’t me/ you’re putting on a shirt/ a shirt I’ll never see/ ’cause you’re too smart to remember/ you’re too smart/ lucky you

The National

Dateline Singapore: November 3rd, 13:06

The phone rings, jarring the thin man out of sleep. “Where the/ what the/ who the…” Images in shards–his grandmother’s house and he is six, sun streaming through a late afternoon window. He rolls over. No by god, a bed, an adult body within. He picks up the phone. “Uh huh?”

“It’s Alejandro. Your passport will be ready tomorrow morning and you’re on an Emirates flight to Rome via Dubai tomorrow at 9 PM. In the meantime Alice is having a birthday party and you’re invited.”

“Alice?”

“Miller’s secretary. You might have heard the rumors, but she’s a cool cat and it’ll be fun. 17:00 at Chijmes. Be there.”

“Seriously? I don’t know Alice and, I’d rather just rest up you know.”

“Not an option. You’re not invited, more required. From Miller directly. Buck up man and see you at 5.”

Holy Jesus, another evening. The thin man rises, splashes cold water on his face and when this doesn’t do the trick, fills the sink with cold water and plunges his face into the water, eyes wide open. He exhales; water goes everywhere. He dabs at it with a hand towel. Breakfast is long over–lunch is a maybe. 20 minutes later he has showered and shaved and limps downstairs.

“Lunch is still open?”

The man’s smile masks a scowl. Rolling into a buffet that closes at 14:00 at 13:46 is no way to endear yourself to staff. He takes a seat by the window, wanders the buffet. Two bowls of mushroom soup, two watermelon juices, a roll with butter, salmon sashimi and an Americano. Vague feelings of humanity follow.

On his phone the thin man peruses “The Essentials of Casino Game Design” as he eats. This is more out of habit than interest–he has no desire to re-enter the gambling demi-monde. Reflex is a bitch though. The waiter circles, pressing his point from 5 feet away. “I got you babe,” thinks the thin man. He makes marginal eye contact, figures he has another 20 minutes give or take. He resolves to relax into the spacetime as fully as possible before the waiter pulls rank. He has no desire to make trouble but at the same time, a customer is a customer and soup is soup. A game for two players. Eventually, he makes his move before the waiter is forced to make his.

“On my room please, 727,” he says, with studied nonchalance. Everything takes all afternoon.

The thin man has a number of flaws but he does clean up well. That’s a skill, a blessing, a bonus. Re-showered, shaved, and an app-assisted breathing exercise later, he shows at Chijmes on time and on point. Miller himself greets him with a slap on the back.

“Mr. Bishop, your work is appreciated. Much appreciated. I heard that you will be staying with the firm. Rome is beautiful this time of year. You are a lucky man.”

“It is my pleasure to be of service.” The thin man is not serious, yet not unserious. The work is the work and he has no other. “Anyway, happy birthday to Alice hey?”

“Hehe, haha. Alice, yes,” salivates Miller.

Another day, another passport thinks the thin man. Several people he doesn’t know are there. The crew moves to an outdoor restaurant; the usual wrangling over orders ensues and Long Island Ice Teas appear. There is no drink more perfectly positioned to cause trouble than a Long Island Ice Tea. The thin man downs two before the Nachos arrive. A waitress circles. “White or red,” she asks. “Both please” replies the thin man. It’s early and he has no intention of sticking with this group after dinner. Why not make the most of the moment.

The food is a B at best, but the drinks are loaded. The sun shines in the late evening. The usual Singapore rain squall has not appeared today. 6 PM, the magical hour, and the thin man begins to fade into the perfect liminality that only occurs between drinks three and four.

Titters from Alice. Winks from Alejandro. Miller sits straight up, what a spine. The thin man is bored. Time passes; the sun sets.

“One more?” asks Miller.

“How about the hotel bar?”asks the thin man. The sooner near home the better. Miller covers the bill and tracks are made.

The thin man and crew enter the bar and the mood is boisterous. The thin man feels as thin as paper. He needs an ally. As his party makes its way to a table, he approaches the barmaid. Her tag identifies her as “May.” Always approach service workers with kindness and respect–they get so little of it so it goes a long way.

“Good evening May. My friends and I are looking to enjoy the bar tonight. Only, I have been on the road for weeks and I’m a little tired.” He slips her a $50 bill. “I know bars don’t love to serve water, but if you could keep an eye on me and refill my water glass I’d be in your debt.”

May looks him up and down.

“No problem. Rely on me.”

The thin man makes it to the booth where Company X holds court. Miller and Alice’s hands dance a protracted duet. Alejandro sits a foot away, just keeping an eye on things.

A round of drinks, another. May keeps her end of things and the thin man hydrates, for a while. A woman called Marta had introduced herself at dinner and slides into the booth next to the thin man.

“How do you know Alice?” she asks.

“I don’t.”

“Oh. I have a bet with Jeffrey over there. He thinks you are on his team.”

“On his team?”

“You know,” she drops into a stage whisper, “Jeffrey likes men.”

“I see. I don’t have a team,” replies the thin man. “I’m a free agent.”

“Not so fast,” interjects Alejandro, who seems to register everything that is said at the table. “You are on our team. You have a contract.”

“A contract? I haven’t seen anything like that. And besides I don’t see how that would be possible. Text is dead, or that’s what I’ve heard.”

“Don’t mind him,” says Alejandro, “he likes being heavily humorous.”

Marta doesn’t seem to mind. Somehow her arms and legs are entangled with the Thin Man’s. How does that even happen? he thinks. He’s lost the touch he never had, but matters seems to be progressing anyway. Amazing. He hears Jeffrey calling for champagne. Now, even from deep in a haze the thin man knows that ordering a bottle of champagne in a hotel bar is not exactly value for money. A commotion is taking place across the bar. Men from the Green Group are hassling the bar staff, something has gone wrong with an order they allege. The Thin Man swivels his head around to take a look and his mind recedes into fantasy:

Shut your traps and stop hassling the waiter! We’re trying to enjoy a birthday! And if I have to tell you again, we’re gonna take it outside and I’m gonna show you what it’s like! You understand me? Now, shut your mouths or I’ll shut’em for ya, and if you think I’m kidding, just try me. Try me. Because I would love it!

He glances at the bar, catches May’s eye. She shakes her head imperceptibly, reading his mind. Absurd ideas of accosting the group and defending her honor recede. He breathes a sigh of relief.

A second bottle of champagne arrives, a third. We are at the stage of the evening where petty arguments break out all of the sudden, and are as quickly forgotten. The thin man, Marta and the sofa seem to have merged into a single entity. This is pleasant.

He snaps back into consciousness. The party seems to have thinned out. Miller and Alice are gone. Alejandro gets up to leave and Jeffrey waives off his efforts to pay. It’s true Alejandro drank only club soda. A steady hand, this guy. He leans over to the thin man, lets him know his passport will arrive in the morning.

“We’ll be in touch.”

“Oh good.” It’s all he can think of to say. He sees 120 Singapore dollars on the table, begins to calculate. The bill will be a lot higher than that. What’s happened here is he has fallen prey to the cruel economics of party leaving whereby early leavers underestimate their impact on the total bill. Marta is warm but the future is cold. It’ll be him and Jeffrey splitting the bill.

“Maybe we should call it an evening,” he says. He draws himself to his feet, a mighty effort, and approaches May. “What do we owe?”

“It’s all taken care of,” she says.

“Miller paid on his way out?”

She shakes her head, whispers in his ear, “your bill was charged to the Green Group. They probably won’t know the difference and if they do, they check out the day after tomorrow so…” May places her index finger on thin man’s lips and presses gently. He goggles, is in love.

“You are an angel,” he says.

“Shhh, silly. You’ll get me in trouble.”

He circles back to the table. “The bill is paid,” he tells Marta and Jeffrey. “Leave the cash as a tip.” They don’t bat an eye–too far gone to care. “I told you he isn’t on your team,” says Marta. “I win the bet.”

“It’s too early to tell,” says Jeffrey.

The thin man gives Marta a kiss goodnight. “I’ve got to fly tomorrow.”

“I know.” Theirs was an encounter based in a specific locale, a specific moment. Some encounters are like that.

Dateline Singapore: November 4th, 10:00

Ah the Sabbath. The thin man had managed to set his alarm for 10:30 but it’s not needed. The phone rings at 10 AM, and the receptionist tells him he’s been cleared for a late check out of 17:00. How did that happen? She doesn’t know. “It says right here sir.” 11 hours before the flight. What would a human do with 11 hours, he thinks? He takes a swim, showers, eats mushroom soup and indulges in a few slices of roast beef this time. He remembers a much loved song:

I’m so sorry but the motorcade will have to go around me this time/ ’cause God is on my side

That’s attitude. He tries to summon 1/10th of that mood, says a little prayer to his angels. On the way back to room 727 a maid smiles at him. “You must be the British gentleman,” she says.

“Oh, why is that?”

“Because your room, it’s so neat and clean.”

British rooms are neat and clean? That’s news to the thin man. Am I British, he wonders? The reason his room is clean is because there’s next to nothing in it.

“Thank you. Have a wonderful day.”

“You too sir.” There is nothing that he has ever done in his life to deserve such respect, he feels. Life is good.

Under his door there is a manila envelope. Inside is a passport in the name of Jack Bishop and $3000. There is also an index card with a phone number. At the bottom of the card he reads “May.” Life is good? Hell, god is good man. The thin man smiles and packs his valise. 8 hours later he is airborne en route to Rome.

to be continued…

Dedication: For Mint.

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The Thin Man in Singapore Part IV: Marcus

Señor, señor, I can see that painted wagon
Smell the tail of the dragon
I can’t stand the suspense here anymore
Can you tell me who to contact here, señor?

Bob Dylan

Dateline The Alligator Pear: November 2nd, 16:25

The thin man met the accountants for an early drink at the Alligator Pear as promised. They drank Mojitos, a ridiculous drink that is invariably watered down. The thin man had a vodka and soda, a safe choice ahead of what could be a long night.

The mood of the men swung between giddy and glum. One of them was on some kind of app, choosing an escort for later on. The men advised him on his choice with the surgical precision of serious professionals. The thin man hoped that he could be as precise in his own operation tonight.

“Did you folks get wristbands yet?” a waiter in his early 20s asked. They hadn’t, so they did. Yes, the event security is poor, but to be fair they all looked the part of party goers. And so they were. All going to the party.

The party must have been paid for weeks ago because all the stops were turned out. A full bar, lobster tails, sushi, fondue, steak tartare, champagne. Sometimes the best way to look prosperous is to look prosperous. The guests were high in no time. The future was unwritten, terrifying. All they had was tonight.

Nursing his second vodka and soda, the thin man scoped out the scene. Anderson was not present, nor was Rink. The highest ranking Green Grouper seemed to be a regional vice-president called Lewis. It was he that gave the toast, “to a glorious future, the Green Group!” Salut. Lewis was in his early 40s, too young and too on the spot. The thin man needed someone older, someone with less to lose.

Outside on the pool deck a group of three men had lit up cigars. This was surely against regulations, however a payment must have passed under the table, either that or tonight was one of those nights were regulations just weren’t in effect. Regulations are like that, even in Singapore. They are human created and human maintained. Or, in this case, not.

Cigar smokers, mused the thin man. Cigar smokers tend toward the genial and the venial. Toward the cynical and the amoral. Toward the reckless and the egotistical. In that moment, he loved cigar smokers. Cigar smokers were excellent. The only issue was he might have to have one too.

He approaches the group a little gingerly. The move here is a little different than cozying up to the accountants. There he wanted to be taken in as a peer and fit in. Here, his role is of the acolyte, the younger man. Now which one is our mark? Individual one appears in his mid-sixties, and sports a brown jacket that is at least three years past its prime. His feet are shuffling an alcoholics’ shuffle. No thank you. Individual two is in his 50s dressed in a tux. Hair slicked back with pomade, a little glassy eyed. A greaser who got lucky. No.

The third man, however, is of a different type. Also in his 60s, he wears a pale red sweater over a tieless pink shirt. He is handsome for his age, white hair adding a touch of distinction. He is slightly overweight but in a way that suggests ease not sloth. The thin man cages a cigar from the brown jacket, lights it, and stares into the middle distance. A few puffs later he casually turns to the man in the red sweater.

“Jack,” he says, “quite a view eh?”

“Marcus,” says the man, “view of the end of the world if you ask me.”

“The company? The rumors?”

“Rumors? Boy, ain’t no rumors about it. We’ve got a ringside seat on the Titanic.” His laugh is actually merry. The thin man is elated, an emotion he subsumes into wide-eyed curiosity. He wills himself to look 10 years younger, like we said, an acolyte.

“I heard Rink is making his move by Monday,” says the thin man. He has heard no such thing, it just makes sense in context.

“Made his move already. Anderson is bleeding like a stuck pig. Rink will announce the coup on Monday at the latest. The wires may have it before then.”

The thin man is getting warm. He turns gently to face Marcus, cutting off communication lines with the other men. Drink in his right, he stretchres his left arm out part way as if he is about to put his arm around the older man. But not quite. It’s all in the mechanics. Marcus takes a few steps away from the edge of the pool and toward a padded bench for two.

“Can I get you another drink, sir?” asks the thin man.

“You sit with me boy,” says Marcus. “Drinks are his job.” He gestures to the young waiter. “Two Gibsons, and make ’em strong.” At they sit the Thin Man channels “boy.”

“So Rink will really pull it off eh? That should get us right back on track.” Fishing.

“Balls boy. Back on track! Anderson siphoned so much money out of the company that Rink will have to go hat in hand to Company X. Won’t have a choice.”

“Oh, the merger? I forgot about that. Well, we should get a good price right? I mean, our fundamentals are still strong.”

“Fundamentals? Boy what have you been smoking? Anyway, Rink doesn’t want to lead Green Group any more than I do. He’ll sell and take a pretty title, head off to the desert on his dune buggy.”

“At a good price, of course.”

“Phah, he’d like 60% on the dollar and would die for 51%.”

“I see. And what would he take?”

“45%. Lot of whores out there on the dunes boy. Rink’s no dummy.”

“Naturally. And what will you do sir, once the ship has sailed?

“Fuck off to Venice and blow the lot. Or, stick around and see how things develop.” Marcus leans in close to the thin man. “Do pass that on to your paymasters, will you? Marcus is ready to play ball. Marcus knows where the bodies are buried and where the light shines.” He puts his arm around the thin man, paternally which just the slightest touch of menace. “Take care of old Marcus, eh kid?”

The man knew, or guessed. The thin man draws a breathe to recalibrate. “I’ll see what I can do.” And he meant it.

Dateline The Street Outside the Swissotel: November 2nd, 16:25

It is still early-ish and the thin man has what he needs. He decides to phone Alejandro, and makes sure to exit the hotel and walk around the corner before he places the call. Alejandro picks up on the second ring, and the thin man fills him in on the basics. Alejandro tells him to come to the office, gives an address. It is a 10 minute taxi ride. The taxi driver is an ex-policeman. “I drive for my enjoyment and because it gets me out of the house,” he explains. I could drive a taxi, thinks the thin man, there are plenty of worse ways to earn a living.

Alejandro meets him at the door and escorts him through building security. The security guard asks for the thin man for ID and Alejandro shakes his head vigorously. His whole being shakes with indignation.

“We are going to the 14th floor,” he hisses with equal parts insistence and menace. “The 14th floor.” The guard, recognizing a losing hand when he sees one, waves them through.

“That reminds me, says the thin man,” I need a passport. The company can take care of that yes?”

“Sure,” says Alejandro. “As long as you’re willing to take a job overseas we can provide identification. Are you still Jack Bishop?

“Yes.”

“OK Mr. Bishop. Let’s go make the report and see where else you might be of use in this little world of ours.”

On the 14th floor the team is waiting, 11 people strong. The man in the middle crosses the room and shakes the thin man’s hand. “I’m Mr. Miller, Head of Operations for the region,” he says. “I hear you have some news for us?”

“Yes. Anderson’s a dead duck. Rink will have control by early next week. He’ll take a haircut on the shares and a sinecure. You’re good to go.”

“How much of a haircut?” asks Miller?

“Offer him 41%,” replied the thin man. It’s a brutal lowball, and the thin man feels great saying it.

A man in a yellow jacket pipes up from the left corner. “41% is nothing. We’ll risk poisoning the negotiations entirely with such a number. Where is your information from?”

“The information is sound.”

“Who did you have to deep throat then,” asks the man in yellow.

“I’m sorry, who are you?”

“I’m director of security. It’s my job to assess risk.”

Standing in a fucking room on the 14th floor. The ocean is a great place to watch movies, and the thin man had seen his share. He turns to Miller. “I came here because Alejandro asked me to. He asked me for a favor.” He points to the security man. “I said, the real favor, follow my advice and fire his fuckin’ ass because a loser is a loser.”

You can hear a pin drop. “41% percent,” repeated the thin man. “Thank you for this opportunity. And, there is a man called Marcus, as in Aurelius. He’s an asset.” He’s bone tired as he turned to walk out the door.

Alejandro tags behind. “Well done, well done. Miller is pleased.” Alejandro possessed the eternal skill of reading the boss’ moods from micro-inflections, a true corporate survival skill.

“Thanks,” says the thin man. “When is the earliest I could get that passport?”

“Day or two. Let me get into it.” The black market economy is a marvel of efficiency, thinks the Thin Man. To live outside the law you must be honest. “And you’ll be available for international work?”

“I’m available.”

“Then we are all good.”

“See you on the dunes partner,” says the thin man. Alejandro’s look is quizzical.

“Sorry, inside joke.”

“Yeah, inside to you and you alone.”

“See you around,” says the thin man. What he means is, “it’s funny to me,” but he doesn’t want to push it. He staggers back home in a second taxi, making no eye contact until he is safely ensconced in his room. He manages to take his shoes off, and doesn’t even text Desiree before he passes out.

Dedication: I had a cigar once.

to be continued…