All footage shot on April 8 at The Canyons, Utah.
 

To support this effort and as a way of better understanding both the zombie and climate change communities, I’ve started a new blog at Zombielanche.com. Check it out.

My short story, “Lovers’ Balk,” has been published in the latest issue (#67) of Spitball, which was mailed out today. ”Lovers’ Balk” is the story of a fantasy baseball geek who uses his player forecasting algorithm to find himself the perfect woman on the Internet.

Lovers’ Balk

Stephen Schtingenshreif, or Stevie Baseball as he was known to his loyal bloggers at welovethebrewcrew.com, had developed the perfect sabermetric model for forecasting the fortunes of major league hitters. He called it OPSMOPP: Official Prognostic Statistical Model of Outstanding Player Performance. Stevie Baseball had used OPSMOPP to successfully predict breakout seasons by several Major League talents. Starting in 2003, he’d ridden his superior statistical knowledge to three consecutive titles in the BBL (Blogosphere Baseball League—the fantasy baseball league of all fantasy baseball leagues, populated exclusively by baseball blogmasters).

The 2006 season, though, was different.

Stevie Baseball was a paranoid sort, prone to winning-streak socks. When he started loosing he went looking for a cause. He had prepared for the league in the same manner as the prior years but there was one significant personal difference in his life. In 2006, he had been without the good luck that seemed to follow his quietly contemptuous X. She had never expressed interest in baseball, never entered the room as he sat in his den with his back to the door, absorbed in Excel worksheets. Had her presence somehow contributed to his three-year winning streak? She’d moved out in March and he hadn’t sniffed .500 all season.

The way he was losing made it worse. A new owner, Rodney Estrogini, had stolen all of Stevie’s sleeper picks during their online draft. Estrogini had followed with a series of bold trades, creating a juggernaut the likes of which the BBL had never seen. Stevie found himself in uncomfortable territory: Last place, hoping for statistically impossible results from a crop of injured arms and underachieving bats.

Worst of all, Estrogini had picked out Stevie (who operated anonymously under the handle of LittleBoyBrew on the fantasy site), as a favorite subject of trash talking.

LittleBoyBrew,

If you were more of a man and less of a boy, maybe you’d stop looking at these Brewer rookies without falling in love. But as long as you continue to staff middle-infielders with sub-.320 OBP, well, I’ll be happy to keep kicking your ass all over the BBL.

Love,

Rodney Estrogini

Stevie needed to disengage from fantasy baseball for a while. He went looking for something else to occupy his statistically-needy brain.

He found it, late one night, after wasting untold hours looking for a date on myspace.

He’d made his way to a woman who listed snakes and babies as her two favorite things (Stevie’s two least favorite things). He felt like he’d taken a wrong turn into a bad neighborhood. Then it hit him: He could apply the same algorithms he used on fantasy baseball toward his search for Mrs. Stevie Baseball. That way he’d avoid all the wasted time searching so he could just focus on the wooing.

There was only one problem.

“You can’t tell me that the data you find on internet dating sites is clean,” Paid-Ro said one night over beers, after another unfortunate loss had knocked the Brewers five games south of the Wild Card. “It’s the equivalent of trying to project the major league performance of Cuban defectors. There’s no reliable data from those leagues.”

Stevie looked down his long, discerning nose at this dark man of unknown ethnic origin who threw around methodological statistical criticism like infielders lobbing pop ups during warmups at Miller Field. Stevie and Paid-Ro were co-blogmasters and both owners in the BBL. It had been Paid-Ro who sniffed out Rodney Estrogini as a fake. Estrogini? We’re being shown-up by a girl!

“Clearly I can’t make a perfect prediction,” Stevie said. “But this is a great way to separate the replacement-level dates from the real prospects.”

“Maybe…”

Paid-Ro’s unshakable integrity in the world of applied statistical theory had made him the logical person for Stevie to go to with his newest project, which he’d nicknamed BOPSMOPP (the B was for Babes).

“I don’t see a way around the data cleanliness issue,” Stevie said, hiding his nose in the schooner glass.

“We have to assume some level of accuracy as a baseline,” Paid-Ro said. “It’s not like we can audit all internet dating sites for accuracy.” He leaned back and folded his short, thick arms over his chest. Paid-Ro wore only Brewers t-shirts. His collection encompassed every uniform in the franchise’s history. On this day, he wore a Robin Yount knock-off jersey that he must have gotten at some first-10,000-through-the-gates giveaway in 1986.

“It’s not like we can tell if a girl is lying online,” Stevie said. “But that problem was already there. I think it will work.”

“Just so long as you know that OPSMOPP’s pick is only as good as that first faulty assumption,” Paid-Ro said.

Stevie Baseball smiled, showing the gap between his foremost upper teeth.

“First off, it’s not OPSMOPP. It’s BOPSMOPP. Second, I’m not about to let something like a little dirty data get in the way of the perfect catch.”

“You could use a good catch.”

They drank some beer.

“Did you see what Estrogini said?”

Stevie closed his eyes, wishing he could close his ears.

“’VORP-loving prima donna,’” Paid-Ro said. “Who talks shit that way?”

“Just quit talking ‘bout it, Paid-Ro.”

*            *            *

OSMOPP was beautifully simple. You could feed it all kinds of data and it would spit out a single number that quantified a numerical measure of a player’s future performance. Results were on a spectrum of -100 to 100, with Ted Williams coming the closest to 100 (93.82) and a backup second baseman from the 1977 Mariners named Davey Volks representing the extreme low-end, at -84.72. A quick glance at a player’s OPSMOPP number could give any sabermetrically-minded baseball fan a clean indication of future performance.

Now Stevie had recalibrated OPSMOPP to do the same for women; specifically, all of those currently posting their availability on the internet: MySpace, Match.com, Friendster, and even the fake sites run by identity thieves.  (He tried to get a Facebook account but, in the early days of Facebook, was a generation apart from even being eligible—“you’re way too old for Facebook,” said a 22-year-old he had enlisted for help.)

Stevie constrained his search to females in Wisconsin, so as not to get his hopes set too high on some damned Cubs fan, and he ruled out anyone over the age of 50 (at a lean 35, Stevie figured he could reasonably look 15 years in either direction without seeming overly fetished).

There were various subjective qualities that he wasn’t quite sure what to do with. Were blue eyes somehow more numerically valuable than green? Was a Badger alumnus somehow more attractive than a Golden Gopher? What about girls self-described as “fun-loving?” (What about the fun-hating ones?) Was BOSMOPP more interested in girls with slutty pictures posted, or those without? If a girl said she had an “average” body type, did that make her homely or humble?

Stevie decided on a few key principles. Education was good, as was singleness. And any hint of baseball fandom or blogging aptitude should be rewarded. And since he was the other person in the equation, he ran his own, newly-minted myspace profile through the algorithm as a point of comparison. Then he left the selection to BOSMOPP’s discretion.

*            *            *

Like many good sabermetric models, OSMOPP was capable of using statistics to make comparisons. That was how Stevie had known, as soon as 1999, that Albert Pujols would be tremendous. OSMOPP had looked at Pujols’ minor league stats and pegged him as a dead ringer for Frank Robinson and Hank Aaron.

He hadn’t counted on BOSMOPP comparing women to baseball players:

Name                                    Age             BOSMOPP Score            Comparable                        Source

Cindy Wordinger            29.4                        91.6                        Ted Williams                        match.com

Allison Bostox            25.1                        88.4                        Joe Dimaggio                        myspace.com

Gwen Slapsmata            37.2                        84.2                        Jason Giambi                        blogmate.com

There were others on the list, but none with a BOSMOPP score higher than 80. Stevie Baseball recognized a strong BOSMOPP bias for what it was: a good sign of quality and compatibility. He fired up the dating sites and set up some dates.

*            *            *

Cindy Wordinger showed up fashionably late—just three minutes after the agreed-upon 8:00 rendezvous at Moonrakers Pub and Grub. She wore jeans and a seasonally-appropriate t-shirt that hugged her breasts and waist and left Stevie feeling inadequate from the start. He was similarly attired—jeans and his favorite t-shirt. He’d had these shirts made special for a welovethebrewcrew fundraiser: a silk-screened picture of the infamous Randall-Simon-tripping-the-Italian-sausage-with-the-bat incident, with the headline plucked from one of Simon’s contrite post-Sausagegate interviews: “That wasn’t my intention in my heart for that to happen.”

The shirt was a litmus test of sorts. If Cindy thought it overly weird, he could safely walk away early. If she inquired, he’d know she was a keeper. If she said nothing at all, he would have to wait her out. And if she mentioned the Brewers recent addition of Chorizo to the sausage races, well, he’d know it was love at first site.

“Stevie?” she said, shyly tucking her cheek in her shoulder.

“Cindy,” he said, getting up from his chair to shake her hand. He gestured toward the seat opposite his. “Please.”

She giggled, a sound rich with sexual promise, and took a seat. As she slid the chair closer to the table he caught her eyes on the front of his shirt, saw the crinkle in her forehead. But she said nothing. So it’s going to be one of those, he thought.

“You find the place OK?” Stevie said.

“Oh yeah,” she said. “I’ve been here before to watch Brewers games.”

Stevie smiled, though he wasn’t overly impressed. He had sent her his blog url during the five-message back-and-forth that had led up to the date (at first on the dating site, then on personal emails). She claimed to be a late arrival to the Brew Crew, having grown up a Red Sox fan. Stevie tried not to hold this against her, even though he knew Red Sox fans to be among the most sycophantic sports microorganisms on the planet.

“You said you liked the Sox, though,” Stevie said, needing to scratch that itch.

Cindy didn’t shy away away from the question, again tucking her cheek in her shoulder.

“Well, yeah. I have to.”

“Why’s that,” Stevie said, as he caught the eye of the waitress from across the room. She started in their direction.

“Well, my grandpa played for them,” she said, shrugging. The shrug’s rehearsed quality told him that her grandpa was a name player.

“I’m a font of baseball trivia,” Stevie said. “Chances are I can recite his stat line.”

Her eyes downcast on the tabletop, Cindy spoke in a near whisper.

“My grandpa was Ted Williams,” she said.

This admission created an unusual conflict in Stevie.

On the one hand, it ignited a firestorm of moral outrage, as he harkened back to his blog rants over Ted Williams’s heirs cryogenically freezing the Great Man’s head.

On the other hand, it sparked the kind of libidinal overdrive that Stevie had never felt this side of 30. He wanted nothing more than to sire Cindy Wordinger’s children. Visions of .400-hitting offspring were enough to induce a cold sweat.

Fortunately, the waitress arrived and took their drink orders. Stevie was happy to hear Cindy order one of the big beers.

The time spent ordering gave Stevie a moment to decide to avoid any discussion of grandpa’s frozen head. After the waitress had cleared out. Stevie decided it was best if he didn’t beat around the bush.

“That’s about the sexiest thing I’ve ever heard,” he said. “You’ve got heroic blood beating in that heart of yours.” Cindy giggled again, with the same rippling sexuality. Stevie said a silent prayer of thanks to BOSMOPP.

They began to drink. By the bottom of the first big beer, Cindy’s hand had found its way into Stevie’s hand (which was clammy, though Cindy seemed not to notice). By the bottom of the second big beer she had scooted around to his side of the table so they could watch the scores come in on the ESPN ticker. It wasn’t until mid-way through the third, as Stevie was explaining how OSMOPP worked, that he balked.

“…the whole statistical revolution thing is so interesting,” Cindy said in response to his explanation of how OSMOPP worked. “I mean, I studied science at college, right? So I can appreciate how rare it is to find a scientific approach to a game. It’s why baseball is so much better than the other sports. If only the rest of life could be so, well, predictable.”

“I’d like to think it can be,” Stevie said. His arm draped over the back of Cindy’s chair; his hand rested on her shoulder. He could do no wrong. “That’s how I found you.”

He grinned. Cindy looked away from him to the ticker.

“What was that?” she said.

“See I had this statistical model for identifying the best players and I used it on all these girls’ profiles to find the perfect date.With a BOSMOPP score of 91.6, you are leading the league!”

Stevie pursed his lips, ready for the kiss. Which is why he couldn’t understand how, 30 seconds later, he found himself out on the street, running after a fleeing Cindy Wordinger, tears in her eyes. He grabbed her by the arm and she spun around and slapped him hard across the left cheek.

“You think I want to be objectified like that? Boiled down to some…some stat.  It was all about my grandpa after all, like it always is. A fucking baseball predictive model?”

“Cindy I’m…I’m sorry. I thought you’d be flattered.”

“Fucking Brew Crew hicks!” she screamed as she stormed off. Too shocked by the disparaging words, Stevie stalked inside to finish his beer, settle the tab, and watch the Brewers closer get blown up in the bottom of the ninth.

*            *            *

“Well I guess the lesson is pretty obvious,” Paid-Ro said at the end of their debriefing the next morning.

“Never tell the girls about BOSMOPP,” Stevie intoned for what must have been the hundredth time.

“If you’re going to talk baseball just keep it to the Wild Card race. Girls don’t care any further than that.”

“Rodney Estrogini does.”

“I never took you for self-punishing but whatever floats your boat.”

*            *            *

Allison Bostox had incredible raw stats and the best resume out there. She was five-foot nine, 120 pounds, graduated Phi Delta Kappa from the University of Wisconsin, made six figures annually, and was a member of every myspace.com group Stevie would ever want to puruse, including Brewer Girls, Badger Cheerleaders, and MENSA. She was only three degrees of myspace separation removed from several baseball fans Stevie knew personally. Stevie even found a connection between Allison and a girl someone in the BBL had once dated who allegedly had challenged this guy to a game of Strip Tecmo Bowl.

Stevie had appreciated Allison’s insistence (over email) that they visit a particular Irish Pub. Stevie always liked a girl with plans; he thought of himself as a talent without a manager, and the idea of a girl who would take charge appealed. He needed a Phil Garner to point him on his way.

He entered the Pub and was immediately greeted by a throng of people who all seemed to know one another, all of them ten years younger than him. At first Stevie thought he might have come to the wrong place, a belief that was reinforced after he’d made a lap of the bar and found not one solitary person. No one there was waiting for a blind date.

He made another lap and was ready to leave when someone called his name.  He looked up and saw her; recognition set in as he connected this bright person—the pronounced cheekbones and high-maintenance corporate hair—to the picture on her online profile. Allison Bostox.

He saw now how he’d missed her on his first lap through the pub. She wasn’t alone. Two other young women huddled with her. As Stevie reached the table, they both excused themselves.

“Allison?”

“Stevie?” She stood and shook his hand. It seemed a rehearsed motion. She’d told him during their email correspondence that she worked in sales for a software company.  She probably met new people all the time, giving each of them a private dose of the same perky hello.

“Nice to meet you,” he said. “Run into some friends of yours?”

“They were just keeping me company while I waited for you.”  She sat down, smoothing her mid-length skirt over her knees.

“So…” Stevie said, hoping she would take over. She did. Allison didn’t seem to have any problem talking about herself.

“I’m an AE for Beetlejuice Software. You know what that is, I’m sure. We’re the leading provider of wireless-enabled CRM for handhelds, PDAs, and Blackberries.”

“Right right.” Stevie hoped his ignorance wasn’t too obvious.

“…so you like the Brewers, and they’re one of our top clients. You know how in the box seats the waiters come and you order food there on the spot and they use a handheld computer to put in your order.?”

“Sure sure…”  Stevie had only sat in expensive seats once, when he shelled out for tickets on the first base line so he could see Yount’s last home game up close.

“That’s my deal, actually. The Brewers.” She held up her cell phone. “I’ve got Doug Melvin on speed dial. I mean I know I’m young but that’s what I love about sales. It’s all about results.”

About 45 minutes into the date, with Stevie not having contributed much of anything to the conversation other than polite nods a deceitful affirmation, Allison started receiving and replying to text messages. The silence during these moments told Stevie all he needed to know. While he sat with only his beer as company, a little blue light on Allison’s cell phone flickered incessantly.

Then someone (Stevie started to lose track of names) sat down and introduced herself as a close friend of Allison’s who’d posed in the same group Prom picture. Another claimed an old allegiance from the South Milwaukee High School track team. Then a small girl with a large purse arrived; she seemed to have the phone number of everyone Allison had ever met. They swapped digits for what must have been a half-hour. Finally, Stevie got up the nerve to ask Allison for some context.

“So how do you know her?”

Allison had not an ounce of shame.

“I went to high school with her.”

“Is there some kind of…party…going on here tonight?”

“It’s more of a mixer.” She took a long suck on her Long Island ice tea. “Oh look—it’s Angie!”

Word of who Stevie was—a total baseball nerd!—had spread among the classmates (after all, he was not from South Milwaukee High). Several people engaged him in unsolicited talk of the Brewers and their shaky bullpen. Meanwhile, Stevie found a new source of distraction. A tall, Aryan man with broad shoulders, large biceps, and a babyface. He sat at a distant table, alone, separated from Stevie and Allison by a river of mingling classmates. He took every opportunity to scowl across the crowd at Stevie, furiously polishing off pints. He lined the empty glasses up in a row at the edge of his table, counting scalps.

“Do you know that guy?” Stevie asked her, trying not to stare at the hostile fellow in the corner.

“He’s my ex-boyfriend, Zed,” she said.

“He looks like he wants to murder me,” Stevie says.

“He does,” she said. “He just texted about you.” She turned away from Stevie and back to the latest girlfriend who had come by for a visit.

Stevie recognized his cue to leave, but just as he gathered his things, he felt a presence above him. He looked up at Zed, who was as massive standing up as Stevie had feared.

“So you’re some kind of super Brewers fan,” he said.

Stevie had many flaws, but a lack of amicability was not one of them.

“Yeah, I love ‘em. I’m Stevie.” Zed eyed Stevie’s outstretched warily, as if it were a crack pipe.

“Who’s your favorite Brewer,” he said. Stevie saw Allison was again texting someone, and apparently not Zed.

“Other than Molitor and Robin Yount?” Stevie figured any fan worth his salt should be able to come up with someone more original. “I’d say Gorman Thomas.”

“I don’t even know who that is,” spat Zed.

“Bigtime slugger,” Stevie said, though he could tell that Zed didn’t care. All Zed wanted was an opening to begin kicking Stevie’s ass. “Who’s your favorite?” Stevie said.

The question seemed to soften Zed’s massive forehead.

“Jose Canseco,” he said.

Stevie opened his mouth to respond, to offer agreement, but he couldn’t. It was a betrayal of his fandom to allow this error to go unchallenged. Jose Canseco?

“Um, I’m sorry to tell you this, but Jose Canseco never played for the Brewers.”

Which created the opening Zed had been looking for.

“What are you saying?” He banged the table with his fists. “You saying I’m stupid?”

“No, I’m not saying you’re stupid, I’m saying-“

“You think I’m fucking stupid?”

“No, Zed, I-“

“You think I didn’t sit there and watch Jose Canseco? You saying I’m that stupid?” His jaw had a log boom quality; Stevie imagined breaking his hand against it if things came to blows (when things came to blows).

“No no no. But Jose Canseco never played for the Brewers. I’m sorry.”

Stevie realized he was shouting. Somehow he’d found his way to his feet. Stevie looked down, hoping to give Allison a polite see-ya before leaving the bar in one piece, which is when he realized she was gone. That’s when he ran for it. Zed cried out at him across the bar.

“Run you little bitch. Jose Canseco is a Brewer and you are a little bitch coward!”

*            *            *

“She’s an outlier—I still believe in BOSMOP,” Stevie said.

“So she sexted herself a new date?” Paid-Ro said. “I kind of figured the whole ‘sexting’ thing was actually bogus.”

“I can’t really blame her. She wasn’t going to go home with me or Zed.” He bit into the slice of cheese pizza.

“I can’t even believe that guy really thought Jose Canseco ever played for the Brewers. Say—you haven’t been on the site tonight, have you?”

“No. Why?” Dry throat.

“Oh, nothing, except Estrogini got four homers, four wins, and five steals and the night games haven’t even started yet.

*            *            *

Gwen Slapsmata was early, already sitting at the Blue Goose (right by the door) when Stevie walked in. He had hoped to have a moment to himself to get familiar with the surroundings and feel comfortable on this new turf. The last two dates had ended so abysmally.

Gwen was not nearly as voluptuous as Allison Bostox, nor as adorable as Cindy Wordinger. This was not to say she was homely—more like bookish: light wire-frame glasses, a bob, and a crooked little smile that might have seemed naughty on another face.

“I read your blog,” she said. “It’s really good. I read a lot of baseball blogs.”

“I hope you won’t take this the wrong way but you don’t seem like a baseball fan,” Stevie said. She wore a blue blouse and tan slacks and didn’t look all that sporty.

“Oh I hardly ever go to games,” she said, flashing the nerdy smile. “But I love reading all about baseball. Have you ever read The Biography of Roger Owens? He was the peanut guy at Dodger Stadium.”

Stevie knew she was showing off but he didn’t mind.

“I’m not so much into the history as much as the stats. I’ve got every Bill James Annual on a shelf by my bed.”

“Wow that’s hot!” she said, laughing. He knew this wasn’t what you’d call laughing with someone but he didn’t mind.

They ordered sandwiches. Stevie was glad when she asked only for water to drink. The booze hadn’t done him or his prospects much good on the prior dates.

“So you read about anything other than baseball?” Stevie said as they waited for the orders.

“The Civil War,” she said. “And I visit battlefields whenever I can.”

“Speaking of hot.” Now it was Stevie’s chance to laugh. He was glad to see Gwen didn’t seem to mind him poking fun.

The waitress brought them their sandwiches. Stevie’s club was of the overstuffed variety; he couldn’t really eat without making a mess. Gwen had ordered a simpler BLT. She kept her mouth sealed as she chewed, minimizing the crunching.

“So what do you think of this Internet dating thing?” Stevie said as he tried to clean a gloopy mustard spot from his shirt.

“Oh, I don’t know,” Gwen said, looking out the window. “Sometimes it works out. You seem OK. Not one of those guys out on some kind of fetish hunt.”

Stevie swallowed.

“Of course not,” he said.

“I dated this one guy who seemed really normal at first. We’d hung out four or five times when he asked me to get dressed up in this outfit so he could take pictures of me. I said no way. Then later I found out he had this photo album full of girls wearing this outfit. They all had glasses and looked like his ex. Damn perverts. You couldn’t do something like that before Match.com.”

“I suppose not.” Stevie went back to eating his sandwich and wondered what she would think of BOSMOPP.

“I do like the anonymity of the Internet,” Gwen said, now warmed up on the topic. “You like baseball, so you’ll appreciate this. I play in this fantasy baseball league. I know that probably seems weird. I’ve been playing for a while, and I’ve gotten pretty good at it. This one league I’m in, it’s some kind of experts league… There are all these agro guys and they take it really seriously. They keep players from year-to-year and talk lots of smack. Nobody uses their real names, which is fine with me. I don’t want to deal with their personalities—I just want to play. Anyway, I’m in first place and I can just tell they all hate me. Of course they think I’m a man.”

Stevie had stopped eating.

“What’s the name you made up?” he said.

“Oh…” She looked at him over her wire-frame glasses with flirty eyes. “Rodney Estrogini. Get it?”

“I get it,” Stevie said. He picked up his sandwich and tried to cram the whole thing into his mouth. He masticated turkey. This wasn’t lost on Gwen.

“What…did I strike a nerve there? You probably take your fantasy baseball really seriously.”

“Something like that,” he said with his mouth still full. He’d been feeling very attracted to Gwen up until then, and he had to admit there was a cruel side of him that wanted to bed her and then talk shit on the fantasy site. But mostly he just wanted to get out of paying for her lunch. And he had no interest in telling her that he was one of the agro fools from the BBL. After some serious chewing and brooding, Stevie concocted a better way out of the date.

“Sorry…I was just wondering, if you make up identities on your fantasy site, if maybe you do the same on blogmate.com.”

Gwen laughed. She pulled off her glasses and rubbed the bridge of her nose. Stevie was starting to see that the naughty smile was in fact the only thing true about her.

“Does it matter?” she said. “I mean, if I told you I was out looking for guys who play fantasy sports who I can sleep with and ditch, would it matter?”

“Is that what you’re doing?” Stevie said.

“Would it matter? I mean, let’s say I let you fuck me and then I ditched you. That would be fine, wouldn’t it? You’d be one fuck the wiser.”

“I’m looking for something more substantial than that,” Stevie said as the waitress cleared their plates.

“So, what, you think there’s love to be had on blogmate.com?”

She was teasing him, and enjoying the discomfort this caused. Stevie couldn’t help his reaction.

“Look, when I go looking for someone I’m not all about some gimmick. Same as my fantasy team: you look for someone who’s good short-term but will also be around, still knocking them out of the park at the end of the season. For every Gormon Thomas there are dozens of Mark Witten’s.”

“I’m so flattered,” Gwen said. “Maybe you should get the check.”

“That’s probably a good idea.”

*            *            *

“What’s your plan now?” Paid-Ro said. They sat on opposite ends of the couch from one another, watching the Brewers try to hold onto a late lead against the Cardinals. The Brewers had lost the last three games on walk-off homeruns but today at least were trying out a new closer.

“I was thinking maybe I ought to start gearing up for next season,” Stevie said.

“No more BOSMOPP?”

“Let’s just say that maybe there are better ways to go than algorithmically.”

“Maybe this Gwen isn’t so bad. You said she’s pretty? She doen’t even have to know it’s you on the BBL. Cause you know the more I think about it, the more I think that not getting regularly laid is the reason you are doing poorly in fantasy baseball. I think nerds like us need something other than baseball to fixate on every now and again.”

Stevie found this prospect somewhat exciting but didn’t say anything, because just then the new Brewer closer served up a breaking ball that didn’t break. Albert Pujos caught hold of it and sent it rocketing toward right field.

“Shit, not again,” Paid-Ro said. He was wearing his most optimistic t-shirt, sporting an oversized Brewers logo: “The Best Things Come to Those Who Wait.” The slogan ran from nipple to nipple in stenciled letters.

“Oh well,” Stevie said. “There’s always next season.”

THE END

Island Nation

When Stephen got home that night he found Daisy passed out on the antique couch. The living room was littered with another Arab Street haul. Colorful paper bags from mall fashion outlets and street vendors speckled the condo floor. Daisy had unwound a swath of pink bejeweled silk; it ran between the front door to the far wall and window.

Stephen wondered how Daisy managed to get all of it home. He imagined a moving truck following her down Singapore’s streets, gathering a payload of silks, scarves, and soaps.

“I’m home,” Stephen said, closing the front door and setting his briefcase there by the door. He was not quite handsome, but always presentable. Always clad in a nice suit and capable of tying a Windsor that didn’t loosen up over the day. He could play the part of banker.

Daisy stirred awake. Her Prada top bunched up, showing her midriff. Her beauty still startled him, especially when she was least aware of it: sleeping or cooking or too drunk on apple martinis to notice. They had been married a year, following a blitzkrieg courtship.

“How was your day?” Daisy yawned.

“Interesting,” Stephen said, picking his way across the living room to kiss her. Her mouth was warm and tasted of mottled gin. He noted the empty hi-ball glass beside the couch, its melted-ice remains.

“What was interesting about it?” she said, looking right at him. Stephen thought her turpentine eyes and white blond complexion were unique to Singapore, making her the most singular beauty in the small island nation. He allowed the beauty to distract him from the question, and she didn’t ask again.

He looked out the window. It had begun to grow dark. Already he could see the fingers of light that reached up to the 28^th floor each night. The convention center big screen reflected off the ivory monument to the civilian dead of the Japanese occupation. The lights were an unforeseen drawback of the condo’s prime location, one Stephen could never have anticipated the day he viewed it (after all, he only saw it in daylight).

“Get anything good?” Stephen said, weaving through the purchases toward the kitchen. He did not mean to sound judgmental, and wasn’t. He could afford it. The occasional spree was the price of her happiness. A commodities-future trader, he was still raking in the money faster than she could spend it. Or so it had seemed when he left for the bank that morning.

“It was a Taka day.” Daisy moved to get up, to give him the tour of her newly-had possessions. He stood in the kitchen door, holding a glass of water, watching her.

“Hundreds of malls in this city and you keep going back to that one.”

“You’re hilarious,” she said, waving him off. “Look at this.” She peeled off her top and slid her skirt down about her ankles. Stephen watched her with held breath as she picked up the swath of silk and wrapped it around her. While she managed to hide her near-nakedness, she couldn’t obscure the sensual lines of her hips and waist. She had become his embassy in this strange place. He needed this power of hers now more than ever.

“You are so stunning,” he said.

“I’m going to get it tailored tomorrow,” she said, smiling as she looked down at the way the silk wrapped around her body. “I would have done it today but I got tired.”

“I wish you had it already,” he said. “I’m taking you out tonight.”

“Where?”

“Anywhere you want.”

“Indian and then drinks on the quay?”

Stephen set down his glass and walked to her, held her. He felt the silk fall to the ground. His hands absorbed the cool of her back.

“What should I wear?” Her voice was soft and close to his ear.

“I like this outfit,” he said, speaking into her fragrant hair.

“Watch yourself!” she said, peeling away from him. “I just may go out like this.”

“How far do you think you’d last before they arrested us both?” Stephen said.

“You they’d get in thirty seconds.” She turned her back on him and started toward the bedroom. “I’m sure they know about all the laws you’ve been breaking.”

Stephen slumped back on the couch, listening to the sound of her in their bedroom: the closet opening, the sliding of hangers as she sifted through her options. A lovers’ joke. He knew exactly what laws she was talking about: those prohibiting certain sex acts, the kind of bedroom legislation built into the Singapore penal code. She wasn’t talking about securities law.

“Are you going to change or just wear the same suit you wore to work?” she shouted from the bedroom.

“I like this suit,” he shouted back.

“Me too. I just want to make sure I match.”

He got up and went to the kitchen. Daisy had left the gin out on the counter. He poured two glasses and brought them to the bedroom. She looked up at him as she began to zip herself into a little black number that he particularly liked. He felt a tickle of relief at the angle of her body as she reached back for the difficult zipper. He had this at least.

She went to the mirror. After some minor adjustment she nodded to herself. She left the mirror and accepted the drink.

“I realized something today,” she said, leading him back to the living room and resuming her reclined place on the couch.

“What was that?”

She took a long drink.

“I think I need to find somewhere I can volunteer. Riding for the Disabled or Habitat or something.”

“Oh?”

“Well, I appreciate how patient you’ve been with my shopping. But we both know what this is really all about.”

“We do?” Stephen knew but that didn’t mean he needed to say so. She was here for him, and couldn’t bear the place.

“You silly.” She shoved him playfully, nearly upending his drink. “I’m just lonely, that’s all. I don’t know anyone except you.”

He was about to remind her of the other expat wives she’d met via his work. She had deplored them and all that they represented: yoga at 10:00 am, addictive emailing, excessive talk of philanthropic exploits. But Stephen held his tongue, this time not in deference to Daisy’s dislikes. If his news got out he couldn’t say that any of those women would be willing to help his beautiful wife (who they all probably envied). Stephen went back to concentrating on Daisy.

“I want you to be happy here,” he said.

“Don’t get me wrong, darling. I love being here with you. But…”

“But you need your own life,” he said. “I couldn’t agree more.”

“I thought I liked you.” She set down her glass, which had somehow gone empty, and accosted him. Stephen managed to forget what was eating him. Instead he marveled at this woman in his arms and how lucky he had been to have found her. They came from similar families: well-to-do, well-educated, well-liked, well-established in their American east coast hometowns. They had met by chance, waiting for a Manhattan crosswalk to change; he had asked her the time and she had seen it for a line, and soon they were off to drinks and dinner and a date that would not end, not for six days straight. During that blissful blitz of laughter and reconstructing their congruent childhoods they both grew certain of their future together. The proposal had come easily, the families intermingling with ease. Her father was an insurance executive; his was a stockbroker. Both husband and wife had a shared understanding of what it meant to have such a breadwinner in the fold. Their serendipity had led them to Singapore, seeking fortune.

“I’m hungry,” she said, climbing off of him and pulling him up by the hand. “Should we make a booking at Song of India?”

“Yes, let’s.”

During the cab ride, left again to his thoughts and to the sobering effect of the air conditioner, Stephen felt a growing dread. The conversation that day with the bank’s vice-chairman ricocheted about his head.

Riskier than we’d realized.

Probably insolvent.

Bank’s future in jeopardy.

Freezing all trades until we get this cleared up.

Need to take corrective action in the next 24 hours.

It may already be too late.

Did you have any idea?

The answer to the last question was yes and no. There were emails, phone calls, disparate conversations that could be pieced together, sufficient to point a finger. What had seemed an innocent arbitrage might be something more. If they looked in the right places they would find where his own guilt resided. The prospect of discovery threatened to tear him away from this gorgeous creature now holding his hand.

At dinner, Daisy ordered more than they could reasonably eat. They picked from four exquisite dishes with affluent disregard for waste. It was one of the things Stephen liked about Daisy. So many of his contemporaries growing up were haunted by rich guilt, as though they would unmake who they were by feeling bad about it. Daisy had no such pretension.

What worried him, though—what he had to know tonight, once he built up the courage—was whether her affection for him was as boundless as he hoped.

He resolved to tell her over dessert about what had transpired.

When dessert came and went, he revised his deadline. Maybe over their nightcap.

He got the check and paid and again they were in a cab.

“Palais Renaissance,” Stephen said.

“Late night shopping, lah?”

They wound their way down Scotts Road and turned left onto Orchard Road. Daisy looked out the window with a slight smile as they passed Takashimaya, her favorite mall. “Taka’s” orange letters seemed to taunt Stephen, marking the resting place of many an ill-earned dollar. He looked instead to the sidewalks, crowded with urbanity. He noted a cab stand and the polite queue piled behind it as Singaporeans waited their turn.

“I heard today,” Daisy said, squeezing his hand, “that when they were first settling Singapore there was a tiger attack on average once a day. Isn’t that crazy?”

“It’s not New York, is it?” he said. Although in some senses it was New York, as western as any eastern city. He spoke English at work and it was the rare day when he felt even a moment of disorientation. The strict laws had never really bothered him, as they seemed to impose an order that squashed the Asian out of the place and left only capitalism: sterile, precise, and opportunistic. If not for the humidity he might have been back home. It was only when they left Singapore to travel that he felt himself in Asia, and that was vacation and not everyday life.

“I’ve never seen a tiger in this city!” Daisy said, laughing.

The talk of tigers again got him thinking of work. A small voice screamed out to him that he had better tell her soon. Better to be careful lest his life here be snatched away and carried off into the jungle.

“Singapore so wishes it was New York,” she said, laughing.

“We could always leave here,” he said, seeing a chance to back into the conversation.

“Right,” she said. She folded her arms and leaned on the door. “You are making way too much money here for us to leave.”

“You never know,” he said. “It can’t all last forever.”

“Whatever,” she said. “You like making it too much to stop.”

Stephen wasn’t sure what he was about as he took Daisy’s hand, helping her out of the cab, and led her inside Palais. Despite the blast of air conditioning, Stephen felt no comfort: he was deadset on a destination.

“What’s the hurry?”

“I want to get something for you,” he said.

The jewelry shop was not exclusive to Singapore (locations in New York, London, Tokyo). Stephen liked the place because he could be sure to find something that matched Daisy’s taste. Daisy laughed as he hauled her inside.

“You are on a mission!”

“We want something,” Stephen said. A well-manicured Chinese man in a black suit stood behind an elbow-height glass display counter. “Something for my beautiful wife.”

“Very pretty wife!” said the man. “If we lucky we find jewelry almost as pretty.”

He beckoned toward the glass case. Daisy leaned over it, not bothering to hide her smile. She wasn’t sure what was going on—if he wasn’t already her husband, she would swear Stephen was angling to propose—but she liked the attention.

The case contained antique necklaces and earrings, most of them set in silver. Daisy’s eyes went immediately to a simple silver chain hung with the biggest diamond she’d ever seen. Stephen noticed her holding her breath, her eyes locked on this singular piece. Before Daisy could breathe again he’d pointed to it and the man had pulled it from the case and handed it to Stephen, who unclasped the chain and secured it around Daisy’s delicate neck. He watched her forehead crinkle as she concentrated on what he was doing to her. Then her forehead smoothed. She turned toward the mirror and rolled her shoulders from side to side, taking it in from every angle.

“You look perfect,” he said, kissing her bare neck just above the chain. She smiled, still shocked over the pace of the transaction. She looked at him, breathless and confused. He had lavished her with gifts before but this…

It wasn’t until the man had swiped Stephen’s credit card and they were awaiting the confirmation from the bank that he recalled what he was about and why he was compulsively purchasing the biggest gemstone he could find. He swallowed hard. The longer he waited, the further the evening slipped away.

Stephen led her back the way they’d come and out into the sweltering night. They hailed a cab. Daisy touched one hand to the new necklace; with the other she put her hand on his. Again, Stephen struggled with what to say. He had nearly screwed up the courage to just blurt it out when they arrived at their destination, at the west end of Pagoda Street, at the mouth of the Chinatown Night Market.

Lanterns cast reddened hues. They walked, hand in hand, into the nightly throng of would-be buyers and local vendors peddling knickknacks and hand-carved children’s toys. The booths constricted the street; foot traffic could only limp along. The smells of the place were most evident—simmering poultry and basted seafood—and rose above the other sensual assaults: the shoulder-jostling of passersby, the obscene negotiations of Australian tourists, the pandering of shop-owners whose storefronts went untended, the humidity overlaying every movement, the shy winks of old women who seemed to recognize Stephen as one of the lucky ones, blessed by an abundance of beauty at his arm.

“Keep your eyes out,” Stephen said, “for something you really want.”

“Oh yeah?” Daisy feigned surprise, tilting her head and wandering her eyes across the market with all its possibilities. She touched her hand to the diamond at her sternum. “I thought you’d just gotten me something.”

“It’s a special night,” Stephen said, wishing he hadn’t. The walls of the corner he’d backed his way into kept growing higher, the angle of that corner more accute. What would it all mean when he told her he might be fired? For trading vaporous futures on the Singapore Exchange. For hiding his losses in accounts that had yet to be discovered but would be. What would she think of him when she saw that this night, like his whole career, was not quite as it seemed?

“Where’d you go off to, loverboy?” Her tone was light but when Stephen looked at her he saw the crease in her forehead, a band of worry that didn’t fit her splendor. She saw through him, almost to the truth. He had to do something soon.

Just before the market made a dogleg and turned onto Trengganu Street, Stephen spotted something hopeful. Just beyond the row of vendors he saw light reflecting off polished wood in a windowed storefront. He swung Daisy around by the arm and into the store, where a short Chinese woman was closing up shop. As they entered she scowled. Stephen thought she was about to shoo them out. Then, recognizing the affluence of their dress, the scowl became a smile.

“I closing,” she said. “You buy I stay open, lah.”

“Do you deliver?” Stephen said.

“Morning delivery, lah.”

“Stephen?”

He looked at his wife, who still stood in the doorway, one hand braced against the doorjamb. She was neither in nor out. He felt a flash of panic, seeing her there in one of her moments of unintended beauty, the angle of her arm and body set against the lantern-lit market. He wondered if, were he to tell her everything, she would flee the country with him. Right then. To Maldives or some other island without extradition. Leave it all behind and live off of his (not meager) savings.

He might have gone through with it, might have enacted his exit, but at that moment she was again by his side. Her light touch on his back was enough to propel him into purchasing an ornate antique loveseat that supposedly had once graced the bottoms of Chinese royalty.

They left the shop, the woman bowing in appreciation before locking the door behind them. Stephen forced a laugh: what else do you do after spending four figures on furniture?  Daisy looked at him, again puzzled, before laughing herself. Stephen was ashamed at the dissonance in the two laughs.

“How about we walk up to the quay for a nightcap?” he said.

“I’d just as soon take you home,” Daisy said, playing with the jewel that hung about her neck.

“We’ll make it quick,” Stephen said.

There was no doubt where they would go. Stephen had become a regular at Harry’s, and the bartenders knew him for what he was: a pleasant fellow who only occasionally got drunk and who always tipped well and sometimes bought rounds for the entire house.

The host led them to a well-fanned table in back. Daisy ordered a Tiger for him and a Singapore Sling for her. She absent-mindedly fanned herself with her hand as she surveyed the bar, which was crowded with Anglos, many still in their work clothes: loosened ties and sweat-damp sport coats.

Once they had their drinks, Daisy turned her full attention to Stephen.

“So what the hell is going on tonight? Where are you? When you came home you said your day was interesting. What happened?”

She wasn’t mad. Yet. Stephen could sense the skepticism—which she wore unnaturally—in her posture. Too rigid, bent too far toward him.

He wet his lips. It was the obvious opening. All he had to do was say it. Start talking and it would all fall out of his mouth, everything he’d held back these last few months as one lie became two, five, a hundred. Even if he had just ordered new furniture, it was not too late for them to leave the island. Even if he was fired tomorrow, it was not too late to tell her the truth.

“I…I came home and saw you asleep today and it was…I started thinking about what it would be like if I lost you…I guess I just got carried away.”

He knew about the sincerity registering in his eyes; he could see it reflected in Daisy’s softening expression. She shook her head, leaned across the table, and kissed him on the forehead.

“You idiot. You don’t have to spend all that money on me to show me you love me. You could never lose me. Not if you tried.”

Utterly defeated, Stephen finished his beer, ordered another, finished it quickly, and bought a final round for the rest of the bar. Then they were off again, her arm in his, walking on the wide promontory as the Singapore River slid by. She leaned into him, her eyes only partially open, ignoring the modern skyline and the cast-iron sculptures that decorated the walk. For this was all familiar now. Home for the first time.

“This place not so bad, lah,” Daisy said, laughing at her own faux Singlish.

When they had crossed the river and reached the condo and sized up where the new loveseat would go, it was with a sense of homecoming that Daisy had never before felt in this place, this city still thousands of miles from anything she knew. She pulled Stephen to bed and they exchanged whispers until sleep overtook them.

Stephen had enough of a hangover the next morning to compound his sense of guilt. He considered waking Daisy and telling her then but he could not interrupt the moment, for it was clear from her contented smile that Daisy’s evening was still alive in her dreams. He vowed to tell her if she woke before he left. He shaved and showered.  He put on the suit that made him feel the most invincible (the gunmetal gray pinstripes). Still she hadn’t woken. So he went off to work without disturbing her, catching a cab at the corner.

His office provided a stellar view: south, beyond the port and its countless containers stacked three- and five-high, each no bigger than playthings when viewed from his vantage. It had been hazy all week but today it was clear so that he could see out to sea, to the multitude of container ships waiting to enter the port.

He did not even hear them come in until someone cleared his throat. Stephen turned round. It was the vice-chairman.

“Carl,” Stephen said, standing with his usual decorum to shake the hand of the tall, steel-jowled German who had been the one to recruit him to the bank in the first place. But Carl did not shake hands, nor was he alone. The two bank security officers bore a severity that was unmistakably focused on Stephen. Suddenly he felt very foolish for even coming in this morning.

“We don’t know everything yet,” Carl said. “But we know enough.”

Stephen’s mouth dropped open.

“Why…what on earth do you mean?” He felt the same sincerity well up.

“The evidence is irrefutable. We have the electronic records. Your name is all over them.”

“But I don’t know what you mean! I-”

“We’re sorry, Stephen,” Carl said. “Everybody likes you and Daisy.”

He saw the security guards coming for him. He didn’t think much after that, he just did.

He picked up the chair he’d so recently occupied and flung it toward the window. The chair suspended in the air momentarily and Stephen could see the wheels and noticed they weren’t spinning. Then it collided with the window. Now there was a spiderweb of cracks.

Stephen sensed the guards reaching for him from across the desk. He stepped up on the air conditioning unit and flung himself at the center of the web. He felt the glass give way, the first hint of falling. Then his neck whipped forward as his momentum inverted, as he jerked back into the office, stopped short as hands gripped his suit jacket and pulled him inside. The guards were not delicate, allowing his legs to drag behind him as they hauled him backwards toward the office door. At first all he could see was the spiral-cracked window, the upended chair with its wheels still spinning. Then he saw beyond the office that was no longer his, to Daisy as she might be at that moment, sitting on their newly-delivered loveseat, still in her morning pajamas as she fondled the diamond around her neck, thinking fondly of him. He wished that she might stay that way.

Once a fad embraced only by the supremely talented or obscenely drunk, karaoke has crossed over to the big time in Seattle, drawing crowds from Ballard to the ID.

“Whoever invented karaoke should get the Nobel Peace Prize,” says Garnett Brooks, who bartends at the Crescent Lounge, also on Capitol Hill. “People feel like a million dollars coming off that stage.” (As a matter of fact, Osaka-born Daisuke Inoue, who invented karaoke in 1971, was awarded the Ig Nobel Peace Prize in 2004 by the Annals of Improbable Research.)

As the birthplace of Wiseguy, Seattle is now a target. Aramaic-speaking terrorists are plotting to take down the Emerald City.

Cody Fitzgerald doesn’t trust Wiseguy. He’s used to catching terrorists the old-fashioned way, using his own sweat and guile. He is bent on saving Seattle from an imminent attack. He’s up to the task, but can he keep from getting fired?

Wiseguy is a techno-thriller with dissident roots. It suggests near future consequences for America’s endless war on terror.