“So he’s suicidal? Why the hell is he coming on the show then?” Harry Shannon straightened his silver tie, winking at himself in the vanity.

“He’s sad, that’s his thing. You know that. He was in that sad movie, won a Golden Globe. No Oscar, though.” Yara Yasmin brushed off Shannon’s shoulders, looked at herself and the late night host in the vanity mirror. Harry’s hair plugs formed a crew cut, with Yara’s weave of straight black Indian symmetrically framing their faces, we could be so beautiful, thought Yara, but we won’t. 

“Even if the guest star was suicidal, the show will be a hit. It’s always a hit, Harry,” Yara gave him just enough verbiage to exude a positive exterior for his nationwide audience.

“As long as you can get him to make a funny quip, make fun of you a little bit. I mean, you’re so positive, he’s gonna be negative, and we told his agent, no jokes about suicide, no rehab talk, he can’t pull off a Robert Downey Jr. just yet.” 

“Jesus, are we assholes?” 

“We’re in this industry.” 

“Okay, well, what’s James King’s true desire? Is he like a Buddhist?” 

“Maybe after therapy. He’s probably godless, if he’s acting and suicidal.” 

“Yeah, that’s true. Cool to be an atheist until you get sad. Then you start questioning someone, turns out to be god. Would you look at that? He’s gracious today.” 

He noticed Alaa down the hall, a quiet intern editing bumpers and decided to mess with him. "The chubster’s back, huh?" The intern, Alaa, was incredibly thin. Harry Shannon once heard him talking down his former fat self in the mirror. Harry loved to spy on his employees while defecating loudly, usually his indicator that he heard your entire bathroom monologue. 

"So Allah, god, huh? Lofty parents, I'd say.” He laughed at himself. Alaa hesitated, and laughed, crying internally about his own personal projects he wasn’t accomplishing, taking his bosses abuse, daily.

“It means honor, and lots of things," Alaa slightly hissing, Harry perceived disrespect, insubordination, and his employee’s personal ire. He gave the chubsters a chance. Well, Yara's assistant, Jackie, interviewed him, and even after all her hard work to hire him, this little fatty was going to give him lip?

“Listen, Alaa, yeah that’s right, the white man knows your name is different, it’s a joke. That’s what we do here, for a living, we tell jokes, if you’re always rolling your eyes, you’ll never laugh!” He slammed his hand on Alaa’s shoulder, patting him vigorously. Alaa smiled as quickly as possible, then frowned because he thought he smiled too fast, and then smiled again, all while Harry grinned, his eyes forever squinting, judging. Yara grabbed him to talk James King, The Tourniquets, and Tonight’s one thousand three hundred and ninety third show. 

***

“We only have King tonight, Jesus, what is Jackie doing? It’s simple, two guests, music OR comedy. God, I hate when she tries to pitch music and comedy. She acts like it’s a brand new idea. How much white noise can a man take?” Harry walked past the cast of Complete Control, a new multicam sitcom that was sure to sell. In it, two Midwestern white women catch their husbands having affairs, and move to New York City. They take complete control of the city.

He wanted to sleep with Cady Harris, an actual Midwestern white woman who took control of NYC, landing auditions right out of acting school. Her costar, Juliette Tachel, was a French-Englishwoman who faked a vague American accent. There was also Joseph Tyler, Hamza Ali, and Wanda Sharone, all co-stars who initially laugh at the two women, before becoming charmed and forever hanging out with them in a bar or coffee shop. The show was pitched as “Friends meets How I Met Your Mother.”

Harry pretended to whisper to Yara, and then exclaimed, “Cady! Cady, well, don’t you look wonderful today?” 

She smiled, an uncomfortable smile, but she was much subtler in her vexation than Alaa. A trained actress.

“Thank you, Harry, you’re so kind.” She tried to walk away, but he gently tapped her shoulder. “Hey, how about being a guest on our show tonight? After your show, come to mine, it’s just across the hall.” She knew he just meant her, but also knew she couldn’t say no. 

“Oh sure, we’d love to!” The whole cast started to clap and cheer, besides Tachel and Sharone, the other actors, had little to no exposure. Tonight wasn’t the most popular talk show, but the clips on the internet were sure to solidify them in culture. 

Harry smiled, defeated. 

***

Harry's dressing room was filled with flowers and chocolates from hopeful agents and actors, tracksuits from multiple athletic companies that he never wore as well as his best suits, which were all of them, and self help books. Harry thought any other kind of literature was for losers and people who were full of themselves; what was really left to learn from fiction and essays when you became an adult?

"We went from one guest to six. Are you happy now, Harry?"

"Oh, by the skin of my teeth, I could always fake it." Yara laughed genuinely. She was one of the only people who truly found him funny. They were infatuated with each other, but too vain to be in love.

"And these Tourniquets … what are they like?"

"I don't know, Amber and Alaa called them adjacent music. Young people think they can just say things, and we'll understand."

"Yara, you're just forty, that's still young. If you dropped dead right now, you would have died young."

 "So you're saying that only in death can I retain my youth?"

"That's pretty much how it works after 30. Okay, adjacent music, six sitcom actors, and suicidal mediocrity. Sounds like Tonight." 

***

“Mr. King, your jawline is divine, might I say, and that wispy hair, wow! Wish my hair could still do that. Of course, I always cut it short. I’m not really the tatted type of guy, no ink under this suit!” Shannon smiled and patted his blazer as he chuckled, King sitting still and frowning. 

“That’s nice, Harry, that’s nice of you to say. I think I’m just a little nervous for tonight. I hate promoting, I just want to do my work, play my guitar, use my platform for …” 

“Play your guitar, huh? You know there’s a band playing tonight, Umm, Tourniquets, The Tourniquets.” 

“Yeah. Not such a fan anymore.” 

“Ooo, I’m so hot, but you’re so cool!” He snapped finger guns at James King, still frowning. “Can we talk about something real? Our platforms?” James wiped his fingers down his leather jacket, sepia, he didn’t want to come off too tough at the television studio. 

“Right now? What’s real to you, James?” Harry took a Pilot pen out of his mug splayed with a picture of his face, spun it between his fingers, and tapped it twice on the table. 

“Art, Harry, and people. Since we’re not on camera, can I be a little critical?” Harry thought of what Yara had said earlier about young people just saying things, and older folks just having to understand. He squinted at King, and frowned, since they were off camera. 

“Sure, candid. You want to be candid. But if you think I don’t know what you’re going to say, trust me buddy, you’re not the first ARTIST who came in here. And you’re going to ask me about art? About platforms? I spend every day promoting art, I hate art. I don’t consume art, I promote it. I use my platform. With this show! You want to be real? Do your job, and kill yourself off camera.”

James King stared listlessly, thinking he could have a dialogue. Harry Shannon took out his journal, wrote down 1 hour till hair and makeup, and shooed him away. 

***

Alaa was a production intern, but acted as everyone’s assistant, because he said yes to everything. Amber, an editor on the understaffed show, was just given the ability to pick musicians. The previous person left to play bass in a post punk band called Twelve Gauge. 

“Amber, umm, adjacent? You wrote that in the notes? You couldn’t just write … rock?”

“It’s adjacent to hardcore punk, they used to be a hardcore punk band!” 

“They’re still a hardcore punk band, according to, you know, Wikipedia.”

“Fuck Wikipedia, I’m telling you what the streets, I mean, you know the internet is saying.” 

“Okay, well, what’s their music like?” 

“Adjacent, Alaa. Can you make my lower thirds tonight? I have the files for their logo, as well as his first sketch. He's going to talk to The Eternal Nerd tonight, so get that one, with the glasses. I mean, it’s all in the same folder, pretty self explanatory. Video in video, sound in sound.” Amber put on her golden browline glasses, and herded Alaa into the editing bay. A cold dark corner at the end of the hall. Before Alaa was around, this was Amber’s abode, the troll of Tonight, but he gave her an out. She went to hang out with The Tourniquets and Tonight’s house band, The Max Dienneman Ensemble.

***

Complete Control filming under way. The director asked Juliette Tachel if she could take some elocution classes, Tachel storming out in response. The director murmured, “White girls” under his breath, and quickly rewrote the scene on the spot. 

“Okay, instead of Juliette’s scene … it seems genderless, Hamza? Can you say the line, you’re a real American, so no lessons for you.” He laughed, but the cast found him a humorless tyrant. If he wasn’t union, they would have had him fired, but he signed a contract, and they were sad at their own powerlessness in the face of documents. Actors live and breathe to exist as conduits of their own selfishness with no need for accountability, something a contract very much enforces. 

Hamza got up. Usually, his character, Jay Patel, an ex-engineer who’s decided to join the sad world of stand up comedians, was comic relief. Hamza was happy he didn’t have to fake an accent, but being a brown man as comic relief felt strange to him. Usually, his character would propose an inane idea, and the cast would say “Jay!” while the camera zoomed in on his face, hands on both cheeks like an Indian Macaluay Culkin.

“Okay, umm … Grace … Grace.” Usually continuity was figured out in the writers room, but because of the temperamental nature of Complete Control’s director and cast, Grace Lee often was on set as script supervisor. She was hired from her personal work, described to the showrunner as “poignant absurdist dramas on Korean-American upbringing,” which didn’t interest him; he just wanted an artist so broke, they would listen to him and do whatever the show required. This was her first paid, consistent writing job but felt that she would never be a real writer because she was always babysitting. 

“I think if instead of Corey’s scene where she admits she misses Michigan … it can be a scene where Jay misses India.” 

“My character was raised in New York, though. Mine and Wanda’s characters are the only ones really from New York, so why would I miss a place I haven’t been? Jay barely mentions his culture, unless it’s to make the white characters feel silly. And that kinda feels like they’re laughing at Jay, not them …”

“Oh, don’t complain, Mohammed. Just be happy you’re getting another scene, while Frenchie rubs one out in the bathroom, or whatever it is she does when she does this crap. Juliette Tachel played Mary Shelley, Juliette Tachel, Queen Macbeth, white girl does well, a stride for feminism. Please. Hamza, do it for me. Think of it this way. They don’t give that white boy as many scenes as you, big brown man!” Wanda was older, and used to being a token. She thought working sitcoms was easy, and didn’t mind the exploitation, because she legitimately used the money to move her family from the middle class to a comfort for which they were eternally grateful. She knew Hamza was frustrated, but knew that the network and producers saw a brown man like him as expendable. If he wasn’t careful at his job, Jay would be rewritten and replaced by any “minority they could find”, the direct words of NBS higher-ups, not Wanda’s. 

“Just listen, Hamza, this isn’t any real art.” 

The director smiled, offended he wasn’t considered an artist, because he genuinely thought Wanda Sharone was one of the funniest people he had ever worked with, and thought the respect was mutual. “So just say, ‘It’s just like the cow my Auntie had in the village.’ You think we could use a light chuckle during that part?” 

Hamza was crushed, he knew the cow was a reference to a former Green Bay Packer Teddy Hemstreet, his Wisconsin origins, and his crush on Cady Harris’s character, who wasn’t in the scene, but still, the Indian cow free association he perceived was too much. 

“Okay, okay, start from the top. From, ‘You’re Teddy Hemstreet, former Green Bay Packer, ten time Super Bowl winner, what are you doing on the Lower East Side?’ Then Teddy, you’re like, ‘Blah, Blah, Wisconsin, cheese factory, laugh track, actually here to meet Cady, she’s a cheesehead too,’ then, Wanda…” 

“‘You’re just a cowhead?’ You want me to say, ‘She’s just a cowhead?’ Wait, no that doesn’t make sense, I don’t gotta say shit.” Wanda Sharone laughed, happy her scene had her sitting at the bar. Light work.

“Right, Wanda, you’re good. Okay, Hamza, just say ‘It’s just like the cow my Auntie had in the village.’ Or … Grace, ‘you’re a cow like my auntie…’ Camera 3, can you just get a nice Medium shot of him, and just say that line…” 

“You’re a cow like my auntie!” 

Wanda Sharone laughed as Hamza Ali sighed. The director was pleased with himself.

***

Tachel ran to the bathroom, shared with Tonight’s staff. She hated that she somehow landed on American sitcoms after all that work in the theater. She looked at her reflection, running the bathroom water lukewarm. 

“Juliette, Juliette, Juliette!” Her accent pervading, she was used to forcing her vague, worldly accent. In reality, her mouth was heavily French.

“They don’t like how you speak? Oh, you’re such a cow, Cady, Cady’s a big cow, and the skinny French girl, who is more beautiful, who is more experienced, who has worked with Daniel Day Lewis and James King! Why!” She slapped herself staring at the mirror, pulled her scarf taut around her neck, loosened as she gasped, then stroked her hair, happy she was a natural blonde, unlike Cady. 

Harry Shannon sat on the toilet, not doing his business as loudly as if it was one of his staff members talking themselves down in the mirror. He was intimidated by Juliette, and knew someone of her status had to have the fears she was espousing. He was glad to be right, but tried to make sure he wasn’t splashing around. He fumbled his phone to the floor. 

“Huh? Isn’t this the ladies’ bathroom?” 

Flushing, Harry got up, adjusted his tie, smiled, and opened the bathroom stall. 

“No, we’re genderless here at the National Broadcasting System. Sorry, sorry. Hey, don’t be so down! I get bumped all the time, have to say dumb things on national television, pretty much every single night.”

“Yes, but that is your job. That is what you chose.” 

Harry usually didn’t let himself be offended by an attractive woman, but the intimidation mixed with the bad taste he had in his mouth from telling James King to stay in his lane caused him to snap. “Listen, this is what you chose, too. For almost 100 years now, NBS has had programming to keep the American people calm. It’s TV, and let me tell you, TV will tell you the truth more than any other business, and somehow, you’ll still feel like you’re in the dark.” 

“In the dark? Mr. Shannon, I hope you know, I won’t be on your show tonight. I know what you are.”

“You being on Complete Control is the world telling you that it’s time to stop taking yourself so seriously. Smile, you’re on TV!” 

***

Matthew Fischman and Max Dienemann snorted two lines of Trenton's finest Columbia export, both of them coming to work together from down the shore. 

“Buddy … Buddy … What the fuck do you do here, again? I know you’re John’s kid…fucking rich psycho.” Dienemann paradiddling with a drumstick and his right hand. 

“Mr. Dienemann, come on! I’m the The Eternal Nerd… guy. Dad got me the job. He's on the board at NBS.”

“I know he’s on the board, he’s got the planes, he’s got the guns, he’s got the connections. I know John.” He watched Matthew snort a tiny line, hold it in, and swallow his spit.

“People say I’m a nepobaby or whatever, but that’s antisemitic.” 

“Hey, I’m a Jew too man, I got here by being chosen. That, and spirit.” He put three more lines on the glass table, pulled out a baggie of iridescent silver-pink powder, mixing the drugs, and successively snorted each line rapidly. 

“You probably shouldn’t be doing cocaine with a 22-year-old.” 

“Jesus, you’re 22! Ahh!” He sniffed quickly and wiped his nose. Matthew attempted another small line, Max hitting him on the back, wagging his finger no, and pointed to a key on the table with crusted white teeth. Matthew's eyes dilated as he dipped into the cocaine baggie several times.

“When I was 22, I was sitting in Asbury Park, playing my bongos on the beach. What a fucking hippie, am I right?” Max Dienemann slapped Fischman on the back. 

“But at least I wasn’t a nerd like you. Why are you calling it cocaine? What are you, a cop? You need to tell me if you’re a cop, punk.” 

“Hey, I just told you.” Matthew was shaking, hoping Dienemann would at least offer him another bump. “You’re right, I shouldn’t do ‘cocaine’ with you.” He kept his fingers up as he airquoted, and went to poke Matthew's eyes, stopping right before the iris. 

“Am I really a nerd? I work in entertainment …” Amber walked in, holding a clipboard, angrily glaring at Matthew.

“Matthew, you useless fuck. You came here with Daddy’s word you’d work hard, like he did. From his bootstraps, he became a TV executive. He tells everyone that at orientation, which you didn’t have to go to. Where are The Tourniquets, you child?” Amber abused Matthew regularly, as suggested by Harry Shannon, treating him like an assistant, even though he acted on the show. 

“I said, the only way that kid is going to work for me is if I get to make fun of him on national television, and you know what, his sadist father loved it. He’s a snot nosed punk, He grew up on the Upper West Side, he lives at a house down the shore with walls around it. When the hurricanes hit, that shit just stands there! Just stands there … NBS edits the footage of their house intact out of the news. Like are you kidding me?” Harry felt Matthew deserved nothing, making sure his staff understood the hierarchy. 

“They’re … coming, they’re coming back! I don’t know, one of them said something about going to get some halal … I thought halal was like kosher.” The Tourniquets smoked Matthew's weed and coerced him into ordering an Uber to a random cross street just ten blocks uptown. The singer felt it was justified as Matthew annoyed him, telling the whole band he “basically hung out with rockstars for a living.” 

“Jesus, you got him tweaking Maxy! They’re at a street cart! They have a sound check! Matthew, what the hell! Max, alright, just go find your band, get 'em up there, Jesus, Matthew, I should strangle you with your father’s ties!” Amber grabbed him by the collar, Matthew legitimately scared of her. “They’re already out there, you didn’t check the stage, Ambo?” 

***

“You guys are new to New York City?” Ahmed Uddin, squeezing white sauce onto a chicken and rice platter. 

“You sure no hot? Actually, definitely not hot!” He inspected The Tourniquets, maybe the scary bald one would like it hot, but not any of the other soft bellies. 

“Nah, man. Just the white.” 

“Just the white … alright. What, you are some kind of artists?” Ahmed finished his bottle, blindly reached into his refrigerator for another, and accidentally squeezed hot sauce over two of the five platters. The Tourniquets didn’t notice. Ahmed quickly pinched the tins closed, putting the spicy accidents on the bottom of the bag. 

“No, We’re playing on TV. Tonight with Harry Shannon.” 

“Harry Shannon! Big time New York City guy, that’s a big deal. You are doing good.” 

“We’re living some dream.” 

“Ah, this whole life is a dream. Memories come, and go, and somehow, you’re here.” Ahmed had a quick flashback as he handed the bag to Corey, their lead singer, of handing a bag of food to Max Dienemann, further uptown, twenty five years earlier. 

“Ahmed, Ahmed, you don’t give a fuck if I play my snare with the Rastafarians out here huh? That continuous roll ….” 

“I like it! It makes the office workers walk away, sometimes, the Indian ones want to talk to me too much.” 

“What, you’re not Indian?” 

“No, Bangladesh. But, it’s just, they act like I don’t have things.” 

“You have everything, Ahmed. Why did George Harrison even have that concert if you weren’t hot? The hot! You got the hotness, my friend!” He drummed a continuous roll, in time with Makonnen Iqbal, wearing his snare everyday, never speaking to anyone but Rastafari visitors and Dienemann. 

Makonnen’s drum roll continued from the subway below. Corey thanked Ahmed for the food, and gathered the adjacent members. 

“Okay, Dillon … Dillon, Tyler, and Paul … Are you guys ready? For a real halal? Can’t get this shit in the Midwest. Twelve Gauge Michelle told me about this food.” Corey was excited about everything in New York, and felt he had to express the novelty of every situation. He would exaggerate Ahmed’s accent to his girlfriend later on the phone, telling her that some terrorist food was good. 

“This is some random cart on the sidewalk. You can get chicken and rice in the midwest. And halal food. You just don’t try ethnic food at home. Michelle’s some transplant dude, quit her day job like that, to play in that band? You saw her place. Plus, she told us not to get ‘too friendly’.” From one of the Dillons, tired of his singer’s fleeting crush on every woman he ever met. She didn’t feel the same, and had enough money to have no taste.

Paul noticed the hot sauce on the two platters and started to make a fuss towards Ahmed. Ahmed, in embarrassment, pretended he didn’t know any English, telling these white boys in Bangla to leave him alone, just eat the food. Corey tried to make him answer in English, saying they just had a whole conversation. When approached again, he yelled incomprehensible Bangla, and was blindly supported by his customers at the time, two Kolkata Bengalis who thought it would be okay to yell at these drab and dirty Midwesterners. 

Ahmed served his cousin brothers, shut the window on his cart, and turned the radio to a station blaring an old Mukesh song performed by Raj Kapoor. The Tourniquets ordered a ride back to NBS studios. 

***

Teddy Hemstreet and Hamza’s scene was the last scene of the day. The showrunner and director reprimanded Tachel’s agent, while Ali and Hemstreet waited in the Tonight green room.

“This girl, she storms out, she makes a scene, can’t even finish the scene … Listen, Angelica, we don’t know if she’s worth it. We understand star power, but she’s temperamental, and that attitude isn’t worth any kind of performance she delivers on. If you’re going to be a diva, at least follow through, you know? Okay, okay … finish out through midseason, see how she does … okay, well, I guess I’ll talk to her.” They came to the green room to vet Hemstreet and Hamza for the interview. 

“Don’t reveal anything about the show, don’t talk about Tachel, because it was in her contract that her life must be private, don’t talk over Cady. She’s the real star guys, now, Teddy, you’ve won the Super Bowl. You can do what you want, but still, remember that Tonight … ha, that’s funny,” They left the green room mid sentence, spotting Tachel walking away. 

“Oh Madame Juliette!” 

As they left the room, Hemstreet scoffed. 

“Those guys are the worst.” 

“You can say that.” 

“Ah yeah, bound by the written word? Wouldn’t know what that feels like … except when I get paid, brother. This gig paying you well?” 

“Wish I listened to my mom.” 

“Yeah, what she want you to do? Be a doctor … engineer. Bet you got a brother who does something like that. You look like a shameful guy.” 

“I look like a shameful guy? Well, I guess to some extent all brown people have shame.” 

“Wouldn’t know anything about that. Shame is for everyone. But it’s your job not to let it become like … your whole thing, man. I’ve been a guest star on a bunch of these random shows, and let me tell you, you’re the first guy I ever met that hassled his director. Listen to me man. You should know the expectations.” Teddy put his giant arm around Hamza’s wiry frame.

“What’s that? What do you know about expectations?” Hamza attempted to push off Teddy’s hand, squeezing his shoulder, but scared himself when he noticed his hand looked like a child’s in comparison.

“Are you kidding me? At a certain point, a bunch of fucking Wisconsinites relied on me. Miners, freight guys, cow farmers, man, literal cow farmers, messaging me on social media, sending me letters. And thank god the Packers are a great team, cause I would’ve let all those people down. And then what? They go to work without a winning team? We’re a big team, but it’s because the people we play for, those are some of the true salt of the earth. Not like a New York team, not like any big city team.”

“We have blue collar workers here, man.”

“Alright, brother man. Be that way.” 

Harry Shannon walked in, confused at the two men embracing each other, secretly reeling that Teddy Hemstreet was in the green room. He couldn’t say no to him, as well. He pictured Teddy’s wideframe bending Cady’s slim thick body, both naked. He smiled widely at Hemstreet holding Ali, who finally got the nerve to push his hand off his shoulder. 

“So, you two are fast friends, I see, how nice … that’s TV for you. And Teddy Hemstreet, the Pacman! I see you on everyone else’s show besides mine. Do I finally get to be graced with your presence tonight? Isn’t that funny?” 

***

Harry practiced his monologue in the mirror, texting Yara anxiously about Hemstreet’s presence on the show. 

“Hello! No, too loud, and welcome to …. Tonight. God, Hello and welcome … maybe I should just say Tonight … Okay…On Tonight! No … what the hell is wrong with me?” 

Looking at his phone, “Yara … please … make sure Teddy … Hemstreet … doesn’t sit close to Cady … Harris. Trying to … do something.”

An immediate reply, “No, Harry. It’s clear she doesn’t want anything to do with you. Please don’t harass her, you already cheated on one woman, publicly. Don’t make me deal with a scandal.”

“A scandal, me?” Smiling, Yara was the only person who could tell him what to do, without inciting his calm rage. 

“Okay, I don’t know why this kid wrote me an intro, I always just ask for the meat … Let’s try this. ‘The President has said there’s a new weapon in the domestic terror war, a weapon that can pinpoint the latitude and longitude’ … latitude and longitude? This joke is already dead. What the fuck is the domestic terror war? The audience won’t boo because they’re so bored.” He crossed out the measurement terms, replacing them with location.

“The President has a new weapon that pinpoints your location, and shoots you from the sky. God, this already isn’t funny. The jokes about his wife watching him from the sky? Oh man, amateur hour over here. Alright, what’s the next one?”

Harry inspected his teeth in the vanity mirror, encased in a golden bezel, arabesque curves and loops surrounding his face.

“Minty … Minty, what am I doing? My teeth … my teeth are perfect. Okay, an Israel and Palestine joke? Two state … solution, more like your mom’s … pollution. I’m rhyming now? And a your mom joke?” He fervently texted Yara, asking to meet his three writers, Veena, Josh, and Chad. 

***

“Ever since our announcer quit, Max D. has been yelling from the pit. You can’t hear him, but during the title cards, he says every one of your names, screams it while he’s drumming. I don’t know what’s wrong with that big blonde buffoon.” Harry musing on the chuckling from the audience during the previous night’s monologue, “Why can’t it be like this? Oh yeah, because I wrote it, and I guess I’ll write it again, stupid writers, stupid kids trying to make it. Never going to get the best gig on TV. My job.”

“Our announcer quit, got replaced by artificial intelligence, otherwise known as our … writers.” More laughter, prompted by the LAUGH NOW sign. He didn’t want an applause sign, Harry Shannon wanted you to laugh.

“No but seriously, he really got replaced, and he can say whatever you want. Or she. Or they. Or We.” LAUGH NOW shining red neon on black cherrywood, laughter forced from the audience. Harry didn’t care.

“Today in the news,” the crowd booing, as the warm up comedian always warned them, “Harry doesn’t like politics. He doesn’t understand them. Don’t involve him in any! Please, if he mentions the words news, the president, the cabinet, any war, any protest, any occupation … Please! Boo! Then laugh! That’s how you deal with his politics. Remember his occupation. Not that you can talk to him. Don’t talk, just laugh, he’s the funny man.”

Harry forgot the rest of last night’s monologue, and just saw the crowd laughing. Applause was okay if it was accompanied by laughter, he just didn’t want to ask for claps. But laughs? In this world, people need to laugh. Max Dienemann and Harry always finished the monologue with a back and forth. He forgot the second half, but he remembered their banter.

“The Max Dienemann Ensemble everyone, Max, Take it away!”

“Take what away?” 

“Start … Start the show,” Harry pointing slightly to the right from his waist, a sign to quickly switch on the sign. Laughter, “Thank you everyone.”

“Harry, What’s there to take away? There’s nothing here. 1, 2, 3, 4!” The Max Dienemann Ensemble played a cover of “Police & Thieves” by Junior Murvin, broken up with drum solos and brass interludes.

***

Now I got a job, 

But it don’t pay, 

I need new clothes, 

I need somewhere to stay, 

Dienemann kicked the eternal nerd out of his dressing room to listen to "London Calling," tired of the nervousness and chattery nature cocaine inspired in the young man, “Fuck outta here, boss. Shouldn’t you rehearse?” While Amber ran around, scrambling as The Tourniquets were stuck in traffic, Dienemann knew he probably didn’t have to do a sound check.

“I’ve been playing with these guys 30 years and she thinks we need to practice, us? You didn’t stand by me, no way!” Singing along to Strummer and Jones, he imagined Makonnen Iqbal, the drugs failing to keep him awake, as he closed his eyes in minor hallucination. He spoke to an imaginary Iqbal as a neon outline in the darkness of his psyche. 

“Remember when those boys came to New York? And we wanted to protest the Balkan war, I mean, we didn’t even know who the fuck a Balkan was, but then they said, The Iron Lady wouldn’t like that. That’s the difference between the Brits and us, huh, my king?” 

The imaginary lambent Rastafarian answered, sleighting him openly as he would in real life.

“This never happened, Maximilian. And, see you here, still wasting time. This world has been fighting one big war. But you’re playing for the big man, now?” 

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, Makonnen. I know I said I would always be pure, but when the network offered me that deal.” 

“Stop making up situations. Just like this one.” 

“I know, this is what I do.” He opened his eyes, Makonnen now turning from a neon outline to a corporeal image, sitting on the couch next to him. 

“I told you, wherever you go, I’ll be there. You can always come back.” 

Dienemann poured out his tiny baggy on the table, his hallucination blowing away the substance, disappearing in the dressing room. 

***

 “Hi. Mr. Shannon. My dad said to give you this tie, it’s red. He said you would understand. Umm, I’m sorry.” Matthew looked down at his shoes and Harry’s loafers, pale gray with a pewter-blue buckle. He wore hi-top Converse, Shannon really wanted to lean into the classic nerd image, like a white Jew Urkel, for the defamation of his friend’s son. 

“You should be sorry. And yes, I do understand. Your dad and I once got caught without our clothes, and well, I’m sure you can imagine the rest.” He held up the tie, balled up, and then quickly whipped Matthew in the face.

“Ow! Harry …” 

“Hey, what did I say?” Harry almost grabbed Matthew by the collar, but then remembered he wasn’t alone and was getting sidetracked. Veena Sharmeen was going over lines with Fischman before Harry interrupted them. 

“Hey, Harry, monologue’s good, huh? Chad’s standup has been killing it in the clubs, on the internet.”

“He wrote those jokes, huh? You hired a guy named Chad? Miss loud and proud Indian American.”

Harry knew Veena from his own stand up days, where he remembers her giggling loudly as he told one of his famous prop jokes. He brought a pen attached to a beaded metal string from the bank, starting his set by saying he had just come from the bank. Always killed the room. Veena told jokes about being an Indian American who was deeply disturbed by her own upbringing. She did pretty well, too; her stand up success led to writing for both Tonight and Complete Control.

“Harry, don’t do that … and the smile. I miss when you were legally able to frown. What’s wrong with Chad?”

“What are these jokes, Veena? I like your stuff, I mean, I don’t want to go full edge, that’s not my brand, but this stuff … it’s like if you took the TV dinner version of our jokes. It’s not the best work you’ve allowed into my hands.” Harry was a strange employer, he was mostly afraid that if he was curt with Veena, she would get her followers to annoy him on social media. 

The Max Dienemann Tonight Experience lazily sat with their phones and instruments around their neck, the keyboard player laying on his bench. The bassist, Jeremiah Verazzano, inquired about Dienemann, knowing full well that they were just going to wing it, as they often did. 

“Hey, Harry. Maxy out of commission again?” Jeremiah plucked the strings on his bass, sloppily playing Motorhead by Motorhead. 

“I don’t know, Jerry. You’re the one in his band, to be honest, I just wait till you guys stop.” The keyboard player, Samurai Domino, once the leader of his own jazz quintet, lighting a joint as he laid supine. 

“Samurai … why not play something sweet?” 

Domino played a melancholic Montgomery-Ward bridge, Jeremiah’s Lemmy suddenly swinging bebop, bouncing on a melody inspired by boredom and gazing at Tonight’s set, New York City’s sky shaded an ombre from magenta to fuschia with a leaden blue horizon leading to a white night sky, the stars gold pixels on wallpaper, the pitchblack skyline silhouette extending from the Statue of Liberty to the Freedom Tower, with Tonight in serif font encased in an anthropomorphic crescent moon giggling with muscular arms, one on the mouth, one pointing at Harry’s desk, gunmetal silver with the edges encased in onyx, framing the entire desk to remove the glare; Harry experimented with the idea of glare as a punchline, thinking it would be okay if the audience went blind from laughing, because that moon is crying, and if they can’t laugh, they should be crying. Flawed logic, but my logic, Harry thought. 

Veena reigned in Matthew as Chad and Josh came in, laughing about something that already annoyed Harry. 

“Hey, it’s the white boys!” They stopped laughing, both often reprimanded by Shannon for being fucks. “Harry, listen, the monologue, I know it’s weak, I can already see in your eyes…” Harry raised one eye at Josh, and Chad swore his other eye moved just to look at him. 

“Hey, Harry, We haven’t formally met, I’m such a big fan, and if my jokes were too…”

“Listen, the same rules that Matthew follows apply to you as well. Don’t ever call me Harry, again.” 

“Okay, Mr. Shannon.” 

“Actually, I have a new rule for you. You want to keep working here?” 

“Yes, of course, honestly, NBS and Tonight are treating me so well, and I can work harder, I’m sorry, I…”

“Stop talking. It’s Sir Harry Shannon to you. Not Harry. Definitely not Harry. You call me Harry, boom, 86. Not Mr. Shannon. 86ed. The full title. Sir … Now say it with me Charlie.” 

“It’s Cha…” 

“Obviously, I don’t give a fuck. Now repeat after me if you want to keep your job. Sir…” 

“Sir…” 

“Harry…” 

“Harry.” 

“The greatest of all time. The kids abbreviate that to G.O.A.T. but I don’t like to be compared to husbandry.” 

“The greatest of all time.” 

“No. Sir Harry ‘The Greatest of All Time, and I am not an animal, so you better not give me any more weak jokes’ Shannon.” He flicked the index cards, the corners spinning and cutting Chad’s cheek.

***

King and Tachel sat in the green room. Cady decided she didn’t even want to do the show. She knew he had quick, salacious intent. She didn’t care for him, and knew whoever was working the show would just deal. Alaa had finished all the lower thirds, Cady’s name coming off as too big because her name was only four letters. He reduced and resized for a half hour. 

Hamza decided to leave as well, Hemstreet annoying him, with the showrunner kindly suggesting he leaves anyway. Besides Tachel, Hamza was definitely up after midseason. He’d displace the brown man quick in the story, Jay moving back to India, maybe even dying. His outburst with the director was enough, and he felt Jay was a weak character, written at the suggestion of Veena. He’d just give her another character, maybe even a woman this time.

Hamza found Ahmed outside, still listening to Shankar-Jaikishan compositions, dragging his cart uptown, just in case any of those white boys had some nonsense friends, now evenly saucing two platters, 50/50 white to red, to an Arab couple, arguing with each other on whether they should watch this tv show or that one. They vaguely recognized Hamza from Complete Control. 

“You’re the Indian guy on that show!” The woman adjusted her hijab, making sure the strands of hair were pushed away from her eyes. 

“Yeah, the … I mean, it’s fine. It’s good. I’m happy they’re giving our people some opportunities.” The man looked away from Hamza’s face, ashamed that he barely recognized the actor. “Are we the same people? You’re Arabs, I’m some Indian mutt.” 

“Well, you don’t have to be rude.” 

They walked away, saying who the hell cared about that show anyway, it was for white people. Ahmed waved Hamza to come closer in Bangla, Asho, softly. 

“Tume ke korteso?” Ahmed wondered what Hamza was doing, but Hamza didn’t understand. 

“What? Just because we’re both brown, doesn’t mean I'm gonna understand any gibberish you say.” 

Ahmed was offended by the term gibberish. He remembered his village in Barisal, in former East Pakistan, people seizing guns from the West Pakistani police force. He remembered how fervently he felt about having to speak Urdu, about his friends getting killed, about indiscriminate violence. He didn’t believe Bangladesh gained true freedom from the liberation war, but his Bangla was not gibberish. 

“What’s wrong with you? You just lose your job or something?” As with The Tourniquets, he shut his cart, the radio blaring an advertisement for half off lachha parathas at the Kapoor Cash & Carry.

***

“What’s this about killing yourself, James? You’re not like me, You’ve been doing so well.” Juliette and James were friends, often hanging out in clubs where no one could find them, they enjoyed normal conversations, as they were performing all of the time. 

“It’s all conflated, Juliette. Really, I’m fine.” He wiped his pants down, looked at her, mouthing it will be fine, it’s just television. He could always predict what was wrong with her, and for that, they were the best of friends. They were both gifted enough to leave their families at 18, playing Imogen and Posthumus Leonatus in a traveling troupe that modernized Shakespeare a la Baz Luhrrman’s Romeo + Juliet. They kept the iambic pentameter, but modernized the setting and costumes.

“Don’t you remember Cherie telling us we’d never get this far? That our time was ending? Too many white faces on screen?” 

“‘Too many white faces on screen.’ Heard she’s rapping as Harriet Tubman in a local theater. Wish she was right, but they never get tired. It’s terrible, really.” 

“Terrible, okay, Mr. King, Mr. runs away from sets to drift in his desert, you’re happy. Don’t let this fakeness get to you, it’s not your fault this is all based on misinterpretation.” 

“Misinterpretation? Juliette, circles, it’s circles we do around our own state of being, around what we really care about, and people are out there. Why not starve myself?” James moved away from her, putting his feet on the table, stretching out and cursing Harry Shannon. 

“Mans really yelled at me. And what can I say? He doesn’t want to listen, he doesn’t want to speak with his platform. You know, Carson had leaders of the civil rights movement.” 

“Well, all movements are done now. In America? Please, James, don’t be idealistic. Even now, these protests will fizzle. You’ll see. All movements become T-shirts here. And I think Carson or whoever had people on television contributed.” Juliette was happy, talking to her co-actors forced her to compartmentalize her knowledge, and the way she spoke. With James, she was not perceived as pretentious for big ideas or words. He just enjoyed her perspective.

“And what about Cavett, Dick Cavett? He could really get people to talk.” 

“Yet he got canceled, and moved to public broadcasting, a shocker. The Americans don’t want to think! You’ve talked about him before, you’re still a huge … erm …how you say … nerd.” She slapped his shoulder with a pamphlet all guests of Tonight received, a history of Harry Shannon, the skyscraper, and NBS.

***

John Fischman, Executive Producer of Tonight and Corporate Liaison for NBS International, reprimanded his son after rehearsal, slapping and holding his face cupped between his fingers. 

“You’re a little bastard, you know that, right?” John slapped him again. 

“I don’t want Harry to ever tell me you’re talking back to him. You fail out of a community college, you barely finished high school, and you’re constantly asking for money. You know your grandfather died in the Holocaust? I’m a fucking miracle. You?” Matthew was crying, used to the abuse from his father, in reality, he was mostly a nice, young man who was just too used to the comforts money provided. 

“Until you can get your own job, your own degree, your own career, and you need my help, you’re going to do what Harry says. He makes fun of you, but you’re on TV right? Don’t you understand leverage, Matthew?!” He slapped him red, breaking his taped up prop glasses. His landline buzzed, a weighted ballpoint pen leaning on the glowing button, automatically answering the phone with the speaker on. A robotic voice was heard on the line saying letters and numbers, then abruptly hanging up. John let go of his son, and hugged him, suddenly sobbing and apologizing. 

“Matthew, we’re going to take the copter.” 

*** 

Wanda followed Hamza out of the building, lightly chiding yet pleading he stays for the interview.

“It’ll be good for you, Mohammed!”

Hamza looked back and walked faster towards Ahmed’s cart, Wanda watching him be humiliated by two ethnic groups. Hamza sat near the foliage outside of the NBS Tower, digging his palms into the concrete bench. 

“Did that feel good, Hamza? Now you don’t got shit, your people hate you, and you couldn’t even buy some cheap food!” Wanda laughed at him, sad they wouldn’t be working together. 

“Look, I left on my own. They can’t just fire me, they won’t.” 

“I’m enough diversity. People get mad when they see your face, Hamza. Hey, don’t look at me like that, that’s just how it goes! They look and just see someone who isn’t grateful enough. They just got past the point of making sure I was grateful, now they’re just scared I’ll be offended. Y’all haven’t gotten there yet.” Through this cold analysis of the American psyche, Wanda remained cheerful, happy she was getting some sun before the interview, happy she was gainfully employed. 

“Gotten … what? I should have just worked for the government, you know, I was going for my Civil Engineering degree before I got into plays. Had an offer lined up for me at DOD. But, I didn’t take it. I was offered a good acting job, and since then, I’ve been getting good acting jobs, but still, I feel some strange feeling when I do all this. Like they don’t want me … I guess you’re right, they just want me to be a scientist. I’ll be like Matt, The Eternal Nerd, whether I like it or not.” Hamza dug his hands into his thighs, kneading his jeans, making the premade hole bigger, exposing the scraggly hairs. 

“Hamza, I worked for the NSA before I started doing my stand up. The National Security Agency, Mohammed. Trying to capture people like you, shit.” Wanda’s phone vibrated, an UNKNOWN NUMBER flashing on the screen. She hung up. 

“Jesus, I can’t believe I couldn’t just keep my mouth shut.” Hamza was now hungry, Ahmed sleeping with the radio broadcasting a Bengali News Channel that spoke half in Bangla and half in English. King, boro veedesh actor, static, strike, hunger. The radio died, Ahmed's snore stronger in the silence.

“The NSA, Wanda? That’s intense.” Her phone rang again, and this time, she picked up. “What, you never read my Wikipedia, Hamza? Hold on.” Wanda listened to a voice on the other line without saying anything. 

***

Yara handed Harry a flash drive, telling him that it was definitely the one. Some of his best stand up routines, sets taken off the internet, because of the “pansies typing away on their keyboards.”

“You know, it’s not off the internet like you think, Harry. It’s just a little hard to find, and the comments are usually turned off. Your fans love you. Did you even look?” 

“Why would I do work that all of you are paid to do? The show is my gig, and I need this to make sure it’s all smooth. Now, put it on my TV, please, why are you handing me this little piece of plastic?” He threw the USB stick at her, Yara catching it without fail. 

“Harry, careful.” She stuck the stick in the smart TV, found the file on the homepage, all to Harry’s amazement. 

“Wow, you really know how to use all this stuff.” 

“It’s not hard. My grandmother does this, she was the one who told me, maybe I should get a computer TV, she said.” 

“I miss the tubes, I liked how I looked on one of those things. I felt the proper distance from my nationwide audience. In the studio? Adore them. They’re alive, they’re present. Now I look up a video of me on the internet, and I have to see how these poor idiots feel? About me? Analyzing me? Essays? I don’t want that. Yara, where’s the unconditional love?” Harry saw a text from a new number, telling him to fuck off, and enjoy the B-list foreigner and small dick sadboy. He deleted the text.

“Your mom and dad died a long time ago, Harry. Why do you need to watch this again?” 

“Because this kid you hired is terrible at writing jokes, Amber’s running around looking for that band, who I listened to, and let me tell you, I am not impressed. It’s not punk rock, it’s mediocre rock and roll. If you’re gonna sell out, learn how to sing, don't do that high pitched nasally voice. I think Cady denied me outright, like what did I do? Just be nice? Is she not going to be on the show? And where’s the chubby little assistant? He makes me feel good. What did you ask me? Oh yeah, I’m watching this because it makes me feel good. And apparently, tonight is supposed to be terrible. I’m terrible.” 

Yara laughed uncontrollably, used to Harry’s personal self-deprecating nature, their most intimate moments, since he usually just smiled and agreed most of the time, with the occasional outburst. He wouldn’t dare yell at Yara. 

***

“World peace, world peace, that’s what we want right …” Harry waited for some agreement from the audience. 

“And we just bombed Iraq, and again, people are talking about the war machine. Somebody in the street just screamed at me. Just screamed, didn’t say anything. They said to me, ‘How dare you?’” The audience started to make noise, Harry’s cadence got the crowd going. He slowed down at the end of all of his sentences, an immediate formula for humor. 

“This one lady yelled at me and said, ‘You’re comfortable because of American Imperialism’ … American Imperialism? So you’re telling me Dubya … dubya, dubya, dubya,” swaying left to right each time he said W, the crowd’s laughter rising with each movement.

“Dubya is the king of America? So, what does that make the White House a fucking castle? I mean … I guess it is.” The audience’s laughter started to drown out Harry’s voice on the video, a conversion to digital from an amateur analog video recorder; there was no mic audio. Just a camcorder’s muffled external factory microphone, overwhelmed by the laughter in static. 

“So I’m comfortable because Americans bomb everything, you name it, we’ll bomb it … This kid asked me, so you’re okay with American Imperialism? Just okay with it? Getting all in my face while I was just trying to observe.” 

Slight snickers sustained from around the crowd, they were waiting to get hit with whatever Harry had in his pocket. 

“So I told him…” Already laughing, “Of course I’m okay with it! I live here, don’t I? Whatever they do, as long as I can do this!” He stuck both his middle fingers up at the audience, all flipping him off right back, a call and response Harry had established during his early stand up routine. Harry curled up laughing in a fetal position, something he made sure no one saw, even Yara. He felt effete, and knew that if anyone ever caught him looking like a baby, that would be the immediate image they thought of whenever he came to mind. 

***

Alaa, done with editing for the night, found Ahmed’s cart outside of NBS Tower. Amber checked his work while the band got comfortable, barging into the editing bay and asking her for bottles of water. Amber told the band to shut up and wait to be on TV.

Ahmed inspected Alaa, and thought he looked just like the boys he just served, another drab and dirty midwesterner, but not a white boy; an Arab, probably. 

“What, you are? Hmm, Muslim?” Looking at his debit card, wondering how many muslims lived in Ohio or Michigan, “ Of course, Alaa, assalamualaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh. You’re Jordanian, some kind of arabi?” 

“No, I’m Palestinian. But I came here from Ohio, was born there.” 

“Ah Mashallah, Mashallah. Are you praying for your family?” 

“I try to. My job holds me back from thinking about anything else. And now, I look up to the sky, and wonder, I know it’s Allah I’m supposed to trust, but we all pray for them. I know you do, too. We all do. I can’t do that at my job, but I’m not even religious. But why would I pray? But they don’t want it. They don’t want me.” 

“Who is they? Eektu pagal.” Ahmed packed Alaa a complimentary lamb kebab beside his platter, thinking he was probably stressed, but mostly a good boy with a calm temperament. He didn’t even mind his soft agnosticism. 

“I’m just saying things. They don’t notice me, at all. I made all these little films, and for years now, I listen to a person who listens to a person. We have no creative input.” Alaa became comfortable with Ahmed quickly, realizing he was the first person to listen to him in months. 

“Maybe you need to build these things? Jobs take a long time. You could always sell some chicken rice. Good food makes people happy. Nothing wrong with it, baba.” He looked at Alaa, and sadly smiled. 

“You’ll get through it. Whatever you are doing, always think it is a step, a road you are on. And sometimes there’s traffic.” Ahmed pulled out a can of coke, and gave that to Ala as well.

“Thank you, Uncle.”

The snare drum rolled up the stairway from the NBS Tower subway stop, between 48th and 6th, Makonnen Iqbal led a sweltering, eclectic group of people, chanting for their country to stop occupying their land. Ahmed apologized to Alaa, and told him to go back to work. He bolted his cart to the back of his 2002 desert sand Toyota Camry, and drove into impending gridlock. 

***

“Where the hell has Jackie been? She books James King, and that’s it? Ever since COVID started, she hasn’t come back. Says she’s spending time with her kids. She hates her kids. During the last christmas party, I actually saw Mama Santa slap her child elf.” The timeline reflected on Amber’s glasses, making small cuts from the beginning and end of footage of Harry on the street, asking people what they thought about him. He made sure anyone who said anything too reductive didn’t get on TV, or just stopped talking to the person mid-interview. Amber thought the whole segment could have just been Harry refusing to hear anything negative said about him, with quick cuts of critique intercut. He made sure that didn’t happen.

Alaa gave Amber the platter as well as his phone, showing a picture of both of their bosses, Jackie Pitkin, in Hawaii, playfully sitting above a man whose face was buried in the sand. 

“Here, we get the same thing. Also, did you read the caption? ‘He hustles and grinds so I can take my time.’ Who do you think that is?” He pointed at the man with one hand, while opening his platter with the other. 

“I don’t know … Harry? God, it’s Harry. I don’t want to think about that!” Alaa sat down smiling with a grimace, a schadenfreude he was happy to share with Amber. 

“Okay, Harry fucks anything. He should be glad there are no young women on this staff, they’d eat him alive.” Amber pulled off the plastic cover without uncrimping the sides, rice overflowing in the small explosion. 

“You’re a young woman, Amber. Also, if I’m going to be in here, you can’t get rice on the keyboard. But also, looks like Jackie is in the Maldives. Her last email had some automatic tag from the internet cafe she was in, Addu City Networks, too.” He showed her Jackie, again on the beach.

“She’s not coming back, and she’s going to keep making more money than us. How’s that feel?” Alaa grew a tongue after Ahmed gave him all that extra food.

“How it’s always felt. And don’t tell me what to do with my keyboard, Alaa.” 

***

“Mr. King, wait!” James turned around, sweating in hunger. He took in fluids, but refused solid food. Still, he was misunderstood. 

“Who are you?” 

“Chad Baisley. New writer here, just got reamed, literally by Harry,” pointing to the papercut on his face as a badge of honor. 

“He cut you?” 

“No, not like that!” Chad was happy, even though he just whined to Veena about disrespect. What could he do? He felt disrespected and honored. 

“Well, this show, Harry’s just…” 

“Yeah, really something special. We were trying to figure out talking points, but the whole … suicide thing made it hard. Maybe just talk about your old movies. I heard Harry say he wanted to tell a story about how broody you were at some awards ceremony.” 

“Yes, he was probably smiling, ear to ear.” 

Chad was practicing the same smile on, “Are you really going to off yourself?” 

“I don’t think I’ll need to. Chad, right?” He put his hand out. Chad awkwardly slapped the offered handshake. 

***

Yara looked at her watch, admiring the dial encrusted with diamonds, forgetting why she was checking the time in the precious gemstones. She admired herself in that moment, in many moments, coddling Harry, accosting lower level employees. As Veena opened the door, she broke her stare, remembering why she was checking the time.

"Veena, I don't have time, Maxy D. is nowhere to be found. They said he would come, and he’s just nowhere to be found … according to my phone. I don’t know, Amber is dealing with it, and I’m supposed to be stressed for Harry, not you Veena. No time.” Aiming and pointing her watch at Veena's face, Veena wasn’t even sure why she wanted to talk to her about workplace abuse. She didn’t like how Harry dealt with Chad earlier. She liked him because he was well meaning, and wanted to see if his jokes, while bad, could push Harry towards the greater good. She admired his naivety hidden under that bro-ey exterior, and was upset Harry was mean to him. 

“Veena, you can’t complain about this crap to me. If Harry doesn’t like him, Harry doesn’t like him. And honey, I’m supposed to care about Maxy being AWOL, what are they going to do without a drummer? But … he’ll show up.”

“Yara … why do you just listen to him and him only?” 

“Girl, look at this watch, now either find Maxy or take your complaint to HR, I don’t have time for this.” 

Yara left Veena speechless, who knew Harry could do whatever he wanted, and didn’t even know why she bothered talking to Yara. She watched Yara scream at Amber and The Tourniquets, following her like a pack of blind dogs. Yara sent her to Harry’s office screaming that of course she had lost Max, ugly girls are never reliable, while the band cowered behind Amber. Harry and Veena heard her, Veena taking it personally, and crying as she walked back to Complete Control’s writers room.

“Max is gone? No, you fucking white boy from the Midwest, don’t even look at me, you can’t drum with his band, play your nonsense later. And don’t give me that look like, well, Max Dienemann is a white man, too, I don’t want to see your punk ass in his throne. He is a legend, he is husbandry, Yes, I know I’m white! Amber! get this band out of my office, and find MAX!” 

***

Running through the streets the people had taken over, Ahmed abandoning his gold Toyota to march, Wanda pulling Hamza by the wrist, telling him to hurry up, the writers laughing while Veena makes Ali choke on a mango through one of Ali’s final lines, Grace Lee thinking of law school, King passed out in the bathroom, next to Tachel hanging, Teddy Hemstreet fulfilling fantasy, Amber frantic, Jackie, relaxing while earning, Yara distracted, The Ensemble and The Tourniquets jamming while waiting to be on TV, Twelve Gauge replacing their budget instruments with Michelle’s trust, Joseph Tyler, grateful and not present, Harry Shannon, crying and reliving his past, the helicopter crashing, Alaa watching the crowd, happy work was done, upset with himself that he didn’t even know why these people were protesting, running through the streets, he spotted Max Dienemann, playing his snare drum in line with Iqbal. Cars followed Ahmed, abandoned. The binding light of heaven consumed all.