Sympathetic Apathy - Tyler McAlister (best english novels to read txt) 📗

Sympathetic Apathy

  

"There has always been violence in art. There is violence in the Bible, violence in Homer, violence in Shakespeare, and many psychiatrists believe that it serves as a catharsis rather than a model."-Stanley Kubrick

Act I: Thomas Marcus

 

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Chapter 1: The Morning

 

It was just another average morning before work.  I woke up at seven o' clock as I did every day.  I ran through my morning routine as I did every day, I am Thomas Marcus, CEO of my family's company, and just about the only one who truly cares about it.  

After finishing everything I need to upstairs I head down to the kitchen to ready all the paper work I need.  I'm meeting a filmmaker today who's production is being funded by my company.  Not really my personal decision but my advisers said it'd be of good interest as it would open up more business oppertunities later on.  As I made my way to the kitchen there was a knock at the door.  The average person's first thought would be: Who the fuck is at my house this early in the morning uninvited?  

 

However, I know exactly who it is, and surely enough as I open the door, I'm correct.  It's my younger brother Raymond, dressed in a red shirt and black slacks, as always he's wearing that fucking stupid hat.  I gesture to him to come inside.  "Well good morning to you too", he says.  I inform him immediately that I do NOT have time for a conversation so he better just hurry up and tell me what I need to know.  

He asks me if I want to go see Stephen, Stephen is the youngest of us brothers, and he's been very sick for quite awhile now, he's in some sort of a coma while also battling heavy cancer.  It'd be pointless for me to put forth the extra effort to go see a person who isn't even there, I inform Raymond of this and make my way out of the door, for whatever reason, he follows.  

I've now popped in my headphones by this point to block him out, I'm playing Chris De Burgh's "The Lady in Red", Raymond is shouting some non sense at me by this point but I can no longer hear, I'm finally in my car but the bastard continues to persist.  I roll down my window and ask, "Can I help you?" "Thomas you need to go see your brother".  I tell him as an exiting sentence, "I'll go see my brother when he wakes up from his little nap", and make my exit.  

He shouts something as I drive away but I can't hear him by this point as my main focus right now is to get to work, I have a 10:45 meeting this morning with a Douglass Sherman, and hired gun working with a gang of rapscallons looking to make some money. That is where I need to be Raymond, THAT is where I need to be.

Chapter 2: The Office

 

As I make my way into the office I look around at all my employees, not knowing a single one of them by names.  As far my concern goes they're all pieces of money floating out of my pocket.  No time for thinking about them, I have to get to my office before I miss the appointment I have, I cross through the minature lobby area that we have right outside of my office where my secretary, Nancy, a 20 something year old woman sits at a wooden desk, taking calls for me, notfying me of appointments and so on.  

"Good morning mr. Marcus"!  I give her a cold gaze as I make my way into my office, what use would any sort of small talk do here?  That sort of thing is intended for friendly get togethers at a musty bar, or a family reuninion.  

I sit down in my chair, preparing for the daily stress of the day.  As I catch a glempse at the time. 10:43AM.  I get a buzz on my machine from Nancy saying "Sir, your 10:45 is here".  Send him in I tell her, and cancel my 11 o' clock, my initial 11 o' clock was to be a meeting with a charity orginizer, this was not a meeting put together by me but by that generous bastard Raymond.  The only some what useful sibling I have right now.  

My office door slowly swings open suddenly I see the face of a white man, a VERY white man, he's blonde hair blue eyes like you'd expect.  But he isn't entering the room, he's just leaning in and peering around at my office, "You Thomas"? he asks me.  I inform him that the dependancy of my indentity is on whether or not he's my 10:45, he begins to peer out the door, as if looking for someone to support him through this situation, by now I'm infuriated with this man's absolute bullshitting about in MY office, "IT'S A SIMPLE YES OR NO!" I scream at him, "Yes, yes that's me" he reports back to me, I command him to shut the door and stop letting out all the air.  

FINALLY he makes his way in, he's about 5'8" in height, wearing a grey muscle shirt with blue jeans and some tennis shoes. 

 

He has a seat in the chair infront of me, finally we can start the meeting, but before I even get a word out, he says "CEO huh?  wanna explain why your office looks like uh.. shit?"  How dare him?  Insult the interior of my office when he looks like he just got out junior high, or maybe work some fast food job, the chair he was sitting in is probably worth more then his house, I won't be assaulted by a peasant.  I ask him why some punk white kid like himself is getting involved with the people he is, when he looks like a fucking boy scout.  You can see in his face that this registered on an emotional level.  

I proceed with the meeting asking if he's going to be helping the band removes some diamonds from a dishonest bank who lost a fair share of my company's money last month.  The dazed look of confusion just tells me what kind of individual I'm dealing with.  This fucking idiot. "We're fucking stealing them!  What don't you fucking understand?!" I exclaimed at the poor fucker.  

I guess I thought I was speaking in my head but Douglass decides, we should start over, reintroduce ourselves.  After doing this I decide, I'm not the one he should be talking to, I'll have Nancy send him to our lead operater in the "illicit activities" department, Mason Porterfield, Mason, while not the leader of the group was the planning brain of the operations, making him a much more useful item in my eyes.  

After doing this, Douglass is now threatening me with the usage of a "Vincent".  Asking me things like "Do you know who I am?"  I certainly knew what he was going to be, dead, if he didn't get the fuck out of my office.  He can tell Vincent all he wants, I didn't even know who Vincent was.  

Finally he exits, but I still hear the faint cries coming from outside my office door.  I open it and there he is, talking on the phone to what I can only assume is "Vincent" after some more brief insults, he finally leaves.  Upon seeing the time I realized I must be going, I tell Nancy to tell any calls I get no, I proceed out of my office to meet this filmmaker I'm funding.  

Hopefully, he'll be a bit more stern then that of the soft fleshed individual I just came into contact with.  The drive over there is pleasant enough, Brad Mehldau's "Blame It on My Youth" blares out the speaker of my car, music is the only place that I find peace within this world of absent minded morons, I had been greeted with two of those just this morning, first my brother Raymond feels compelled to try to talk me into going and seeing out comatose state brother, next I'm confronted with a so called criminal who can't even pick up on the hint of "we're robbing a fucking bank".  But the momentary relaxtion wouldn't last very long as it was in the blink of an eye that I was at the movie studio, a building constructed of bricks with a sign on front that "Memento films".  I head for set B to meet this filmmaker.

Chapter 3: The Filmmaker

 

I enter the set and it looks more like a big theatre for plays or musicals, though the smell of wasted money was in the air, I was