CHAPTER 20
To: Steve Garcia
From:
[email protected] Steve,
Sorry, I don’t have anything new for you on the FTG. Honestly, I didn’t spend any time this week looking.
I gotta tell ya Steve, I think you’re laying too many eggs out on this one. No one’s really interested. Well, we’re all interested, but not enough to be a part of this big campaign. I admit, I thought it was cool when they got the lawyers on your ass, like we’d found something, but then I thought about it some more, and it’s obvious that we haven’t found anything, and we’re not going to. They’re probably not hiding anything. They just don’t want their donors’ names posted on the web. It’s bad PR.
If you ask me, I think you should consider dropping this whole FTG thing. I don’t think it’s good for your column or your site. Just get back to commenting on the wrestling, man. It’s what you’re good at.
Nick
Steve closed the email. He wouldn’t reply. This just sucked.
Nick was his most reliable email resource for tips and tidbits. If Nick wasn’t interested then no one was.
Only four days had passed since Steve had been served by the 8th Circuit Court of Illinois, and already his campaign against the FTG was dead. He had sent an email to his most loyal supporters on Tuesday morning, begging them for whatever info they could gather on the FTG, and had received a resounding nothing. Nick, reliable Nick from Long Beach, who owned the largest collection of Indie Wrestling Bootlegs in America, was the only one to respond.
Steve slouched in his chair. The fat on his belly rolled out from under his T-shirt like a balloon being squeezed. What the hell was he doing?
In high school, Steve was an honor student. He graduated thirteenth in a class of four hundred. He could have been number one if he’d wanted it. His only B’s were in his senior year, when he had discovered ditching and apathy.
He went to Northeastern Illinois University on a presidential scholarship, which he lost in his sophomore year, after two semesters on academic probation and his fourth change of major (Engineering to Business to Economics to Communications). His remaining three years at NIU were financed out of his mother’s checking account, which was filled mostly with child support payments from his father.
Steve’s parents divorced when he was twelve. His father, a certified financial planner, had decided to replace his current wife with a client he had been sleeping with for two years. As an only child, Steve suffered the feelings of responsibility and guilt that might be expected. As a very intelligent only child, he used those feelings to exploit his father for a loot. Between the finalization of the divorce and Steve’s thirteenth birthday, his father bought him a bicycle, a Bowie knife, a twenty-inch television, a VCR, a Nintendo, eleven Nintendo games, and a set of golf clubs. The next year saw a Super Nintendo, a 3-wheel all-terrain vehicle, and a computer. As the years passed, and Steve became increasingly belligerent toward his father, the presents became even more extravagant. On Steve’s sixteenth birthday, his father took him to the Ford dealership and told him to pick a truck. Steve picked an Explorer. When he wrecked the Explorer a year later (he ran a stop sign and found a Chevy Caprice in his passenger seat), his father bought him another one.
Steve lived at home during college, and upon graduation decided to take a summer off before venturing out into the real world. Two years later, that summer still hadn’t ended.
At twenty-four, Steve was no longer eligible to be the object of legally enforced child support payments, but the money kept coming. Steve’s father had a lifetime of guilt and a pile of money. Steve’s mother didn’t mind getting the checks at all.
Sometimes Steve wondered if his mother wanted him to remain a loser because she liked that he was a disappointment to his father.
Steve’s five-year high school reunion had just passed. He hadn’t attended. Many of those people had kids by now. They all had real jobs. Some of them probably had good jobs.
At one time Steve had a good group of friends. They were all misfits and nerds, but they stuck together and had fun. Kyle, Austin, Andrew, Zack, and Irene were their names. The group had formed in middle school by default, the six least popular kids, and had remained close through their senior year. They played Dungeons and Dragons at lunchtime; they went to movies together; they talked about books, video games, and television. College broke the group apart, sending them all over the country, and Steve had lost touch with all of them.
Sometimes he thought about looking them up, especially Irene. Irene, what a waste. Irene had been confined to thick glasses since childhood, and was scourged with acne in adolescence, but was brilliant, and nice. Looking back, Steve could safely say that he had loved her since seventh grade. But he had never said anything. Back then, it wasn’t even an option. Social misfits aren’t allowed to date until college, when their peers are finally adult enough to let them lead normal lives.
College was too late. Irene went away to Carnegie Mellon to study computer science. Steve never made an effort to stay in touch. No doubt she had found someone already. Someone worthy of her. Someone who had a job.
Steve opened his Internet browser and went to a popular jobs search site. He did a search on “All Jobs” in “Greater Chicago”. Twenty-nine thousand matches came up. Out of twenty-nine thousand there should be at least one good job.
Telemarketing, receptionist, truck driver, telemarketing, telemarketing, home-based business (read email spammer), commission based sales, telemarketing, telemarketing, what would Irene think of him if he took one of these jobs? What the fuck was he qualified for anyway? His resume was blank.
Maybe it was time to go back to school. Maybe graduate school. Maybe he could become a professor. Maybe he could write a screenplay.
The futility of these thoughts was more than Steve could bear. His heart started racing. Maybe it was time to take a nap.
The email icon appeared in the corner of his screen. Thank God.
Steve opened his email.
To: Steve Garcia
From:
[email protected] Dear Steve,
Keep digging into the backgrounds of the FTG’s donors. This is where you’ll find the good stuff. Trust me.
Anonymous
Steve clicked on “Reply.”
To:
[email protected] From: Steve Garcia
Dear Anonymous,
Do you have anything more to add?
He clicked on send. Probably one of his readers just yanking his chain. Nick was right, this FTG crusade was ruining Steve’s reputation on the Internet. It was time to bag it. Hell, it was time to bag the whole thing.
He thought about the self-help gurus on TV, who all had some story about hitting rock bottom before they turned their lives around and made a fortune. Maybe this was Steve’s time. Maybe this was rock bottom. He could drop the column, and the life associated with it right now. He could just stop, no explanation, no apology, no warning, just stop the column, quit watching wrestling, get a job, move out, get in shape, get a girlfriend, get married, have kids, live a normal life. It wasn’t too late. By the time he was thirty, he could be caught up with the rest of his generation.
Another email icon appeared in the corner of the screen.
To: Steve Garcia
From:
[email protected] Dear Steve,
Here’s something to whet your appetite.
Check it out.
Anonymous
Attached was a PDF file named Saxon Fund Prospectus.
Steve double-clicked to open the file. It was a 30-page document. The design was Spartan, with black text on a white background, and no graphics or font highlights to assist in the reading. The document was amateur, nothing like one would expect from a corporation, who would at least put their logo on the front page. Mr. Anonymous was definitely someone fucking around with him.
/> The table of contents wasn’t even in hypertext. He’d have to go page by page to sort through this thing.
Page One was headed, “About the Fund.”
The Saxon Fund was created in 1999 to serve high-end, invitation-only clients. The Fund is managed by Payne Shaiman and seeks out the strongest growth investments for--
Blah, blah that was enough of that. Why did he get this? This was the most boring prank Steve had ever heard of. Page Two was headed, “Investments”. It was a slew of financial gobbledy-gook. Risk/Reward ratios, Earning Per Share requirements, stocks, bonds, commercial paper. Steve scanned through the next five pages, seeing nothing of interest. Page Seven was headed with “Clients”.
The Saxon Fund serves high-end investors who seek a low-risk environment for long-term growth and wish to partner with respected investment strategists
Steve’s eyes involuntarily shot to the middle of the page. Andrew Smith. Jonathan Taylor. Jeremy Washington. Peter Jackson. These four names were listed sequentially in the middle of a long list. These four names were burned into his brain. He had typed each of them into every search engine on the web, in every combination and advanced search algorithm he could think of, and had found nothing. Andrew Smith and Jonathan Taylor were the founders of Americans For Productive & Responsible Entertainment & Media. Jeremy Washington and Peter Jackson were behind The Betsy Piper Foundation. These were the largest donors to the Family Television Group.
How could this be the first time he had seen this? The names were right in a row. Surely one of the search engines would have seen...
“Wait a minute,” Steve said aloud. He rolled his eyes and shook his head. Of course. A hastily thrown-together site. An anonymous email. Someone had put a lot of effort into this prank.
Steve opened a new browser window and went to www.fwyn.com, his favorite search engine. The “Find What You Need” logo was decked out in Mexican garb to celebrate Cinco de Mayo. Steve typed in “Andrew Smith Jonathan Taylor Jeremy Washington Peter Jackson” and clicked search.
“No documents found.”
He knew that would be the case. He had done that search before. He typed in “The Saxon Fund” and clicked search.
“No documents found.”
This had to be a hoax. What kind of investment fund doesn’t have a web site?
A fund that has something to hide.
Steve went back to the email from Mr. Anonymous. He clicked Reply.
To:
[email protected] From: Steve Garcia
Dear Anonymous,
I’ve gone through this document and believe I’ve found what I’m supposed to see. Can you tell me more?
Steve Garcia
He clicked Send, then went back to the Saxon Fund document for a thorough reading of the whole thing.