This is a message to you, my friend. If we were walking down an alley right now I might whisper, "Psst...Hey pal, over here."  We're not doing that this time.  Men cornered with bad news about love do bad things, and parts of me still ache from the last gentleman I approached in the classic fashion.  Undoubtedly, it's raining on your side of town.  Some habits are hard to break, but I'm learning.   That's why we're talking across space right now.  In a little while you'll stop and think you're imagining some awfully strange shit, but you're not imagining.   So listen up.

I'm a life interpreter, a radio gathering snatches of conversations, love songs.  I'm predisposed towards the feminine, understanding women -- not everything, just their disappointments.  I'm a scientist of disappointment.  That's me!  I know what Martha means when she leans against a wall and sighs, that she knows for you drinking is like catching flies, that the mood you seek to trap escapes your grasp and lands on shit.   But that's not why she left.  She left because you kept calling her your girlfriend, as if you wanted to say girlfriend more than have a girlfriend, specifically her.  You're a rotten bastard.

But you're an important man.  You may not realize it, but we have information that the son you were to conceive with Martha was to be -- no, not Jesus, asshole!   However, do you realize the Vatican has vaults filled with fake news coverage of Christ's return, in case the bombs start falling and nothing happens?  That for the same reason prominent evangelists keep to-do lists in their wallets, underneath the condoms?  Ah, the mystery of sin.  That's what they call heartfelt desire.

Listen, you and Martha have special talents.  You watched Meet the Press together, for God's sake.  With more nurturing and supportive  parents, you might have met in the Nigerian embassy as diplomats.  Really.  I've seen the charts.  You would have been a British ambassador, no doubt.  Like father, like son!   Instead, you're an embarrasment.  But we'll change all that.

Take your shoes off and relax.  Stop looking at the phone because she won't call.   Turn off that FM station; you're too smart to listen to that lite music bullshit.   It's all biology.  Stop crying.  Shut up.

Forgive me.  I've got an awful job.  I'm a weird fucker.  When I was a kid I picked up radio transmissions filled with insomniac suffering.  In high school, I predicted which of my friends' girlfriends would cheat and why.  I suffered many black eyes.  I have been mistaken as the in-the-know gay friend of numerous ex-fiancees.  Long story short, one day my door spins off the hinges and some trenchcoat fuck says, "Come on, Gilroy.  You love America, right?" 

I joined the ranks of one thousand sensitive federal employees.  I wasn't one of them, but it takes a lot for straightlaced dependable types to reach the top of the career ladder and learn that the religious underpinnings of their ethical behavior are bullshit.   Why did Hannsen, a good and faithful Catholic, spy?  Because they tried to show him how the end would come and the only way it could be avoided.  Certain people can't handle it when you kick out their props.  They rain shit on everybody.   But the vast majority keep it together.  Brave men and women.  The best.   They trained me well...me, a civilian jackoff with a bizarre but necessary skill.

You wanna save the world?  We need that kid.

In eighteen to twenty years a team of diplomats and scientists will break the news to the major parties in the Middle East:  It's all or nothing.  They'll lay it on the table, that history's a screenplay we've been following word for word like shitty actors, a script for a sweeping religious epic with a tragic ending.   It will be demonstrated that (1) if you tell a kid he's an evil little fucker for 20 years, you've got a problem and (2) that if you tell a planet it's evil for all of history, you've got a slightly bigger problem.  That is, that the world will end exactly as predicted, a self-fulfilling prophesy of the fatal variety. 

Am I coming on all film noir?  Good.  Let me adjust the contrast and brightness.   We need more shadows.

It will take the most diplomatic motherfuckers the world has ever known to deliver this information.  How will they do it?  Hell, I don't know.  Once upon a time you had to organize the chimps, get the hairy bastards to settle down and quit beating each other over the heads with rocks.  Somebody had to lay a few rules down, but why should one ape listen to the next?  What you needed was, voila, a king.   "Why should I listen to him?"  "He's king, that's why."   Somebody had to explain it, some salesman ape with diplomatic skills and a string of bananas 80 miles long.  Then, things got a little better.  Chimps said, "Hey, things did get better.  He must be king."  Self-fulfilling prophesy.

Well, here we are at the other end of the spectrum.  Now, with the stuff we scraped off your sheets last week, we know you've got the DNA for the kid we need.  Don't worry, it ain't science fiction.  If I had the time, I'd set you straight to sleep with the truth. 

Here's the deal.  Every Monday, Martha goes to Red Lobster, orders the Neptune platter and reads the New Yorker.  So that's what you're gonna do.  You'll even have the New Yorker under your arm; it'll look like a real funny coincidence and give her a reason to touch your arm and laugh.  You'll sit down together, share dinner and discuss the insider report on the Defense Department.  That said and done, you'll wait awkwardly over strawberry shortcake.  Don't get creative:  I'll tell you what to say.  You'll go home with her.  It will be that time of month and she'll say, "We don't have to worry."  You'll say, "Are you sure?"   You won't be sure because we've checked things out.  Due to certain micro-gravitational factors things will -- How should I put it? -- stick around long enough for the crucial moment.

Are you in? Just remember, no pressure, but if you fuck this up, the world ends.    See you at Red Lobster.

***

Remember the flies, okay?  Trying to catch this moment, or seal it, glue it in its tracks, freeze and stun it, trap and smush it in your hand, will fail.  You will only get drunk.  But I see you're on your fourth gin and tonic and yes she's counting.   Well, wouldn't you?  She knows what happens when -- but then I guess you're nervous. 

Listen, don't think about what I told you.  It's not that big of a deal.  So the world ends?  Hey, you were gonna die anyway, right?  As the former Pakistani army chief said, "Look, I don't know what you're worried about. You can die crossing the street, hit by a car, or you could die in a nuclear war. You've got to die someday anyway."  So forget about the end of the world and just don't get drunk, okay?

There: She touched you on your arm and laughed.  You know what that means.  It always meant the same thing before, whether she was touching you or every other fucking guy on the planet. 


Stay  in the moment.  Let the flies buzz about the room.  She's laughing harder now, remembering the always-only-briefly-appearing good side of your nature.   Remember that look?  First love.  What little did she know at first and how poorly she remembers now.  But listen: These attractions happen.  Fact of the matter is the differences between you two are exactly what will mesh into the negotiating nature of your offspring.  All is well.  We are in fortunate territory where maps give bloom to secret treasures.

The world, if it knew, would pat you on the back.  The flies are in their element, free of all those rules of fight that burden us, zipping through time and space with food and shit on their tiny feet. 

Clink!  A toast to you, my friend.  Things are looking good.  Let her talk herself right into bed with you.  And when it's over, for God's sake let her snore in peace so that we may all one day share the peace of the world.  Yea, let us bow our heads, halleluleh, amen.

***

Shut up with that.  Can't you hear yourself?

"God, get off!" 

Nothing new there; she's always blunt.  Well, what the hell did I just tell you?   That's it.  Blew it again.  See the way she's looking at you, like this was all a terrible mistake and you're still a fucking loon?  Now she's pushing you out of her apartment.  Again.

Remember when I said this was about the end of the world?  I was kidding.  Had to say it to get you here.  You can't think for yourself, remember?  Newspaper headlines, the TV, radio, they all run together.  They're static soup and I'm the spoon.

I bet she's pregnant.  That was my plan all along.  I'm good with dates and her cycles always came like clockwork, so it wasn't much of a leap.  Maybe she'll marry you now and get your goddamn mum off both our backs.  That's a twist, huh, the guy trapping the girl?  This being the anniversary of your relationship, and the very day you proposed last year, of course she felt romantic.  Oh, and Red Lobster?   Thanks for following her all those months, champ.

But I see you're turning around.  Where the hell are you going, you evil little fucker?

***

Now listen: That wasn't me talking.  I know it's a long walk home and you left your car in the parking garage by the Red Lobster because you thought letting her drive would expedite things and yes you did your part to save the world, but listen: They used you, the bastards.  They mixed up our signals because now they're changing their minds.   Goddamn it, the fuckers can't make a decision.  The problem is you've got these fundamentalists in there and they say, "Well, maybe what you claim is true about every other religion, but ours could be the exception, couldn't it?"   Sure, it could be.  And I've got Neptune moons for nuts.  The fact is they scrambled my voice, mixed it up with the other and tossed it all like a goddam Caesar salad.  "I don't like me greens," your father would say.

That girl loved you but you made it goddamn hard on her.  Maybe she's pregnant, maybe she ain't.  Hell, you could adopt.  You could buy a cat.  Fact of the matter is --

Okay.  Now that's a siren.  Here's what you do: Run.

***

Look, I know we've been tough on you but listen, listen, like the general said, we all gotta die of something, right? 

Now see here, what he says and what I say are two different things. 

That's right but then again, remember it's him that got you in trouble. 

Bullshit. 

Did you ever think to yourself that you don't really have a self?

That is funny, what he said. 

Yes, it is. 

Matter of fact, I thought my lies were better than his, with better lines, funnier. 

What about the cat thing? 

Oh, the cat -- yes, that was very funny. 

Because even you should have known. 

Yes, even you. 

Well, we'll both keep you company. 

That's right, we will. 

We're here for you. 

What else are we gonna do? 

I'm with him. 

And I'm with him. 

We're all a team. 

We're in this together. 

We'll stick by you. 

Stick, get it? 

Anyway, here it comes. 

Yes, it smells good. 

The Neptune platter always does! 

I so love the smell of butter. 

I wonder if they'll grind the pepper on the salad? 

Wonderful choice. 

Yes, it will make a lovely last meal,  Gilroy. 

It certainly will, Gilroy. 

Say, why do we sound British? 

He's on to us.

Oh, shush, you English ponce.  Look at that fly. 

Mercy me, he just caught it.

Of all the moments to catch!