The Market
The place: Zig’s, a restaurant bar in Alexandria off of Duke Street. The time: 9:30 P.M., the night before Valentine’s day – Friday the 13th. An ominous set up but it seems to be the right condition for a Valentine’s Day auction. The place is packed with horny singles flocking at the bar and groping couples bumping and grinding in front of the main stage. There’s smoke everywhere, of course, but it’s not enough to cloud the bluish television which occasionally squeaks out cheers from a Lakers game. The Dreamscape Project isn’t going to perform for another hour, so everyone is kicking back with beers or buffalo wings in the meantime.
Parties of two or more sit at every table, but there’s one table in the front occupied by a lone middle-aged man in a wheelchair. The monstrous silhouette of the wheelchair partially (thankfully) obscures the couples that are making out or engaged in frantic hands-on expeditions. His waitress seems sympathetic enough: she asks again and again “are you doing okay? Are you all alone?” The man’s replies are hard to hear over the buzzing of the restaurant crowd, but he’s here to see the meat market, too. He slowly sips a Corona from time to time, resting the glass bottle on the table with a clink, and he often stares into the distance as he toys with a curly fry on his plate. Sometimes it’s a blood-red, crinkled napkin he fiddles with, and at one point he even pulls out a tiny palm computer befitting of a member of Star Trek.
His wheelchair is also something of futuristic proportions. Industrial-strength, black carbon-coated wheels twist and turn, and the righthand armrest hosts a curious joystick - a joystick surrounded by blinking lights as colorful as the lights in Zig’s. Rocko perks up to the attention to his chair. “You think that’s cool? Check this out,” and with a deft twist of the joystick his chair rocks in all directions. For an instant, instead of the lone engineer named Rocko, a mischievous elf-boy with squinting eyes and dainty nose revels in Santa’s carnival throne. With another push of the button, the wheelchair flickers hazard signals and the elf morphs into the robot named Number 5 doing his dance in the movie Short Circuit. “I can’t stay long,” Rocko confesses. “I’m not sure if I’ll get to see the last band.”
The lights dim and all attention, including Rocko’s, zaps toward the front stage. The Dreamscape Project is finally on. Keith, the longhaired lead singer clad in a slouchy t-shirt and worn converses, approaches the microphone and after a few off-tune guitar-plucks says, “don’t worry guys, this isn’t the actual song.” His voice is commanding yet warm in true gameshow-host style.
“As you know, tonight will be our auction for Valentine’s Day where we will auction off our own fan base - that’s right, our own fan base – to raise profits for the band to go onto the upcoming Battle of the Bands. If you don’t have a date or if you just want someone to wash your car on Valentine’s Day, or even if you just want the opportunity to say ‘you’re my bitch’, then this auction’s for you. And you said we wouldn’t sell out…” Keith shakes his head and rolls his eyes, eliciting conspiratorial laughter from the crowd.
“I promise, this time, not to do any talking for the first half hour. No jokes, there will be no merry-making, okay? This is going to be hard, I’m not sure if I can do this since it’s never worked before-“
“Talking! Shut up! You’re still talking!” a random male voice shouts.
The band plays for half-an-hour and then, as scheduled, the auction begins. The bassist and drummer keep a funky background beat going.
Keith entreats Zig’s crowd for silence. “Shhh!...Who’s gonna make the opportunity? Who’s gonna be the first sacrifice? Who’s gonna be it?”
The crowd, massed against the stage, cheers as it parts for a bald, short man in his twenties wearing a dress shirt and khakis. He struts toward the stage with a wide smile on his face. His name is Dale.
“So Dale, can you tell them a little bit about yourself?” The microphone exchanges hands.
“You’ll find out later.”
“…you will find out later.” The crowd clamors for more of Dale’s sultry secrets. “Told, told like a true sex machine. Folks, this is Dale. This fine specimen of a man is now available to you the general public. We’ll start the bidding at…fifty cents.”
“One dollar!!” another random male voice shouts.
“Because it is a human life and human life is precious…let’s start…at five dollars. You got that, right? Five dollars isn’t bad. Can we get five dollars for Dale – and Dale will show you what he can do later. Come on, who wants Dale? Ah, we got five from the big man in the back – that’s what I like to see!” Some girls whooped and the band drummer giggled.
“Don’t be ashamed – love is love! We’ve got five, gimme six dollars, six dollars gimme seven, we’ve got seven, alright seven dollars – can we find a woman for the love of God - seven dollars, seven come on eight - eight, no eight come on – what? Can Dave do anything?…um, I dunno, maybe – I’ll ask. Do you have any special talents? Can you shake it like a Polaroid picture?” Dale obligingly hits the floor and pumps out a few pushups. The crowd feverishly pushes in. Shouts for “more!” drown out the remaining squeaks from the televisions.
“Ladies and gentlemen, seven dollars, still seven dollars….seven dollars going once. Wait - I got an eight…”
“Twenty!”
“Wait, you, did you say twenty? What did she- Are you saying you want twenty? Are you serious or are you just saying that? Are you doing twenty dollars or not? No folks, you are not allowed to bid down. She’s saying no he says yes…sir, you better, wait, there was a twenty – I saw that. This is your last chance, yes or no-” Dale strips off his shirt.
“So we still got eight, eight with Kate. Eight going once, going twice, eight going three times…Sold for eight dollars! Okay, Dale, now go collect the money for us and go sit with your sugar mama now.”
For a moment, the crowd buzz returns to pre-auction volume just long enough to hear the absence of the clink of Rocko’s beer bottle. He never finished his fries. The buzz soon fires up again, heralding the next auction, and the crowd, eyes shining with a joy that could only accompany a cannibal feasting, lunges toward the stage and raises its hands in urgent prayer for a new victim.
