INVIDIO FAST

         A car sped by and vomited a wave of rainwater out the gutter. Invidio Fast caught the wave in his back and braced himself against the impact. The diminutive man shivered within the cold, wet cocoon his clothes had been reduced to. Only the tops of his scuffed wingtips remained dry under the umbrella provided by his orbicular belly. He fought to keep his neck from bowing under the dampened weight of his thick mesh of beard. The precipitation mingled with the dank urban air and Invidio bristled at the sting inside his wide spherical nose.
         The city of Madsen, New Jersey was uniquely antagonistic that night. There was not only the splash-by from the passing car and the ceaseless rain. In the process of buying his subway pass the vending machine had eaten Invidio’s first five dollars. He was forced to break a sawbuck for the second ticket and fill his pocket with the resultant change, which was mostly comprised of dimes. On the subway Invidio had found himself sandwiched between a panhandling hippie emanating a funk of patchouli and cloves and a morbidly obese woman badly in need of a decongestant. He had been forced to endure a few moments of agony after his desperate squirming had caused him to sit on his testicles. Upon exiting the subway he had been beset by a six-year old boy who expected the dwarfish Invidio Fast to grant him a wish. Upon calmly explaining to the disagreeable cherub that he was not in fact a magical being of slight stature, the boy’s mother, a scowling harpy of an insufferable temperament, ordered him to humor the boy. Invidio promptly blessed the boy with a long life free of injustice or indignity. As he continued toward his destination, his trouser pocket full of dimes, Invidio had taken comfort in the knowledge that his wish would not come true.
         He now stood before a gargantuan brownstone. It was architecturally authoritative and its accompanying masonry stood as a bulwark against any who would dare to interrupt the inviolable sanctity of the happy homes within. Invidio blinked away the drops of water falling through his bushy eyebrows. He stood at the foot of a marble planter, peeped between the twin yews standing guard and through the window beyond. The kitchen was florid and sumptuously autumnal in flavor, equally capable of entertaining a gathering of the hoi polloi or preparing a simple meal for an intimate family. Invidio saw the man in the kitchen ladle piping broth into a bowl, retrieve a spoon from a drawer and exit the room.
         Invidio Fast had first encountered the name Moses Olpian one morning two weeks previous. He had been sitting at his simple reconditioned desk reading the latest news stories from his favorite sites, the mouse in one hand and his fault-riddled mug of coffee in the other. An attempted escape from the nearby McKeever Correctional Facility had resulted in the death of two prisoners and the recapture of Babyface Paskind. Convicted on six counts of mass poaching and sentenced to no less than eighteen years, Babyface’s lawyer was quoted in the Associated Press piece:

Mr. Paskind’s attempted egress was a direct result of a cruel and unusual punishment handed down by Judge Olpian. In no other court would a judge find my client’s punishment to be commensurate with his crime. And anyone who is the least bit familiar with Judge Olpian’s years on the bench is well aware of His Honor’s draconian tendencies.

         Invidio’s curiosity had been piqued. He googled the name and had soon found a photo of Moses Olpian. The photo depicted a man seemingly forged from bronze. His lightly salted hair cast a metallic glow. The sheen from his Rolex cast flair into the lens of the camera. His suit was immaculately tailored and revealed a man of fifty-six fit enough for one thirty years his junior. It was his face, however, that had caught Invidio’s imagination. Olpian’s cheekbones stood in relief amidst the tanned skin of his chiseled face. His blue-gray eyes revealed a razor-sharp constitution. His jaw line was transplanted from the bust of an antiquarian statesman. Invidio had looked upon the face of a man who could spin the world against its axis. His subsequent research had borne out Invidio’s initial impression. Moses Olpian’s many years on the bench had made him a local celebrity across the tri-state area and a source of legendary hyperbole throughout the entire legal profession. His encyclopedic acumen was well documented and it had flawlessly ensured that not one of his imaginatively punitive sentences would be overturned on appeal. He had been called before the Bar Association on two separate occasions for alleged abuses of his judicial authority and had twice walked away not only free of censure but smelling of roses. Death threats were not uncommon and he had survived one previous attempt on his. But Olpian was known not just for his iron-fisted enforcement of the law but for his ceaseless adherence to its spirit as well. Overzealous prosecutors who did not wish to see their cases thrown out proceeded cautiously in his courtroom. Olpian crushed assaults on the liberties of even the most unapologetic defendants with extreme prejudice. He was known to reduce lesser prosecutors to tears and had once sent a young assistant district attorney fiending for a high-profile conviction running from the courtroom. Moses Olpian was a respected and feared paragon of judicial sovereignty.
         Invidio Fast, his eyes cutting through the statical downpour, shadowed the paragon outside his home as he made his way from the window of the kitchen to the window of the den. He saw the robust warmth of the room vibrating with pine, green and gold. The floor-to-ceiling bookcases stentorianly lined the back wall. The shelves were full of years of rhetoric. It was almost uncannily similar to what he had pictured. In the center of the room stood a hospital bed affixed to a score of tanks and machines. In the bed slept a seven-year old girl with a porcelain face covered by an oxygen mask. He watched Olpian gingerly close the door to the den and sit beside the hospital bed. He watched Olpian set the bowl of broth on a hospital tray before the girl. Invidio watched him take the little girl’s hand, bow his head, and plant on it the slightest feathery kiss. Through the rushing sheets of rain Invidio Fast saw Moses Olpian raise his head as a single tear escaped the jurist’s eye. The honeycomb glow from inside poured through the panes of glass. Invidio’s whiskers stretched into an upside-down arch. His smile peaked through the hair. The diminutive man turned and started down the street, secure in the knowledge that in twenty-four hours he would be standing a little taller.

         It was ninety-five degrees and the previous night’s rain was turning the day into an ungodly schvitz. The atmosphere waved and trailed above the street. Each car and big rig zooming past the chandelier outlet slapped Invidio with a noxious gust of hot exhaust. His fuzzy camel suit provided little protection and, in fact, threatened the onset of heat stroke. Invidio relied on licking the sweat from his lips for hydration. His boss, a swarthy man of indeterminate Eastern European extraction, fed his beloved malamute bottled Evian out the palm of his hand.
         “Mr. Cicadas,” Invidio started, his voice muffled by the layers of cotton ensconcing his head, “perchance would you be inclined to part with a single bottle of water? I am prepared to provide fair remuneration.”
         “No!” barked Cicadas in his unidentifiable accent. “Bottles for puppy. You use sink – later. Now you juggle.” With that Cicadas retired inside the store.
         For the past thirty minutes Invidio had been performing card tricks. Before that he had been making balloon animals. He was a certifiable mediocrity at both skills and his fat fuzzy camel hooves made both activities significantly more challenging. Now he was juggling – first baseballs, then bananas, then iPhones. He was careful with the various props. Cicadas had made it known that he would garnish Invidio’s wages if he were to drop the iPhones or lose the baseballs or eat the bananas. Invidio had once asked, “Mr. Cicadas, the bananas with which I entertain the goodly passers-by unfailingly wilt and over-ripen in the blistering forge of the sun. And as you know, said bananas are, alas, rendered useless for the following day’s merriment. For Sol Invictus is a fickle master and takes life as easily as he gifts it. Owing to such, might I have your permission to augment my daily repast with the fruit before they go the way of poor foolish Icarus’s wings?”
         “No!” Cicadas had barked. “You eat this,” and had slapped into Invidio’s beseeching hands two antacid tablets and a pushpin.
         The day was a largely uneventful one for Invidio. He took his spot outside the front door of the chandelier outlet at precisely nine-thirty and proceeded to pant and perspire inside his velutinous tomb. One car brimming with proud suburban ennui after another zoomed past him during the slower periods of traffic. During the periods of heavier volume cars would form a trundling parade of oblivious steel. Invidio waved at each of them. Most motorists never deigned to look at the pitiful little man in the suit. Invidio knew that if one was to meet his cartoonishly large eyes, that motorist would feel compelled to wave back. They would hate to let the pitiful little man’s torturous and ignominious work go to waste. But what an imposition, shaming innocent people going about their day into buying a chandelier. How else to afford this pitiful little man in the camel suit his dignity? No. Better to simply avoid eye contact.
         Parents would deposit their ill-behaved children onto his back and, in accordance with Cicadas’s orders, Invidio would give them camel rides. The kids would whip him with their hands, pantomiming what they had seen on television, while their parents would pose to him the most earnest questions, like: “Is it hard for little people to shop for clothes?” Older children and young adults sauntered past and shouted their typical brand of encouragement: “Faster, Camel!” “Stop hogging all the water, Camel!” “Suck my dick, Camel!” “Fucking raghead!” Invidio took only scant comfort in the protection the camel suit provided from spit, sundries, and assorted solid projectiles. It was his responsibility on his day off to clean the remnants of whatever had been lobbed at him throughout the week. Invidio took every slight, intentional or otherwise, in stride. Everyone values their dignity, he thought. But some have to go in search of theirs.
         At five o’ clock, one hour before Invidio’s shift ended, a 1988 Grand National turned into the parking lot, nearly jumping the curb in the process, and broke with a screech just in front of Invidio. A simian-looking creature with tattoos running the length of his neck and an assortment of unorthodox piercings, was behind the wheel. The passenger-side door swung open and out stepped Cicadas’s daughter. She was sixteen-going-on-thirty and looked the part. From afar one could almost mistake her shorts for a bikini bottom and up close they looked primed to tear. Her tank top bore a striking resemblance to a loincloth and it amply displayed her fittingly ample breasts. Invidio could not help but notice the slightest penumbra of areola peeking out the top of the shirt yet again. Same nipple, different day. Invidio liked to refer to it as Kilroy – at least he would have had he known anyone with which to share the joke.
         Cicadas’s daughter closed the door and the car sped to the other end of the parking lot. As she approached Invidio, her legs visibly undulating like rubber bands, she lilted, “Hi, Invidio.”
         Invidio replied chivalrously, “Good afternoon, Miss Nuzzles.”
         Nuzzles stopped and expelled a single breathy chortle. “When are you going introduce me to your girlfriend?”
         Invidio blushed behind his mask. “Miss Nuzzles, the transparency of your jest bellies the formidability of your faculties. You know that, come six of the clock, I will retire to my domicile sans paramour.”
         Invidio watched Nuzzles start toward him, mischievously planting one long toned leg before the other with each accentuated sashay of her hips. “I don’t believe that,” she intoned. “I’ve seen you out of costume. You’re telling me the girls can’t see what a catch you are?”
         Invidio bowed his camel head and quietly said, “Tragically the entirety of the fairer sex does not share your talent for badinage or flattery.”
         “It’s only flattery if you’re lying.”
         Invidio tensed within his costume. “You are too kind, Miss Nuzzles.”
         Nuzzles gently laid her hands on his furry chest. “I like when you call me, ‘Miss Nuzzles.’”
         Invidio raised his head by an inch. “Do you?”
         Nuzzles bit her lower lip. “I like when you talk to me.”
         “Pray tell why, Miss Nuzzles.”
         “I like your big words. Even the ones I don’t know.”
          “It would be my privilege and honor to augment your vocabulary were you so inclined.”
          “You like talking to me?” Nuzzles asked through pursed lips.
          “I do.”
         “Do you like when I talk to you?” she asked.
          Invidio looked into her eyes from behind his laughably simplistic visage of a camel. “Were I flanked by Venus, Ishtar and Scheherezade; I would think only of you, Nuzzles.”
          Nuzzles giggled, then whipped around her head to face the parking lot. She cried out, “Drew!”
          The Cro-Magnon from the Grand National marched up to them. He grabbed Nuzzles by the arm without stopping and continued toward the chandelier outlet, pulling the girl with him. “C’mon,” he said. “I want to play with your tits some more.”
          Invidio watched them disappear into the store. He had allowed the little harlot to manipulate him again. He knew he would fall for her game again. That was when Invidio reminded himself that, like many others, he had to fight for his pride. Unlike others, however, he was uniquely gifted for capturing his pride. He had mastered his talent long ago. He had used it many times and he would use it again that night.
         He felt something the size of a soda can collide with the back of his head and heard a male voice scream, “Fuck your mother, you humpbacked dune coon!”

          The Madsen Municipal Courthouse stood stoically atop Truburgh Hill, casting its sovereignty across the city like the shadow of a cloud. It’s Doric columns stood like clenched forearms that had punched their way out of the earth and broken through the planet’s dermis. The marble statues of gargoyles and gods exhaled authority and blew the air clear of pollution. The stone walks ambled down the hill with the alacrity of a valley’s brook. Finely carpentered benches nestled beneath the yews and acanthus ran along their sides. The walks lead to the two vast parking lots. They were empty, as were the parking lots save a solitary BMW.
          The orange moon loomed in the ink black sky over the city as Invidio spotted Olpian’s car. The judge had parked in an isolated corner under a canopy of hawthorn branches. Invidio slowly crossed the parking lot on his squat legs. As he neared Olpian’s car, he saw the judge sobbing into his open tremulous hands.
          Invidio knocked on the window. Olpian’s weathered tear-streaked face popped up to meet Invidio’s. The bearded little man smiled compassionately. “May I be of any assistance, good sir?”
          Olpian composed himself with a single sniffle. “No. Thank you,” he said and looked away.
          “You say that with utmost certainty?”
          Olpian nodded his head. “Yes.”
          “Might you possess the magnanimity to confide in yours truly the most trivial vagary as to your ailment? My pardons ad infinitum. But in excess of a fortnight nary a wink will Morpheus bestow if I must remain aloof.”
          Olpian blinked back more tears. He stared at nothing through the front windshield. Finally he replied, “It’s not my ailment.”
          “One for whom you love,” Invidio gently offered.
          Olpian nodded.
          “A child?”
          Olpian swallowed hard, and nodded.
          “Mayhaps I can be of benefit.”
          Olpian sniffled again. “You have some miracle drug I don’t know about?”
          Invidio smiled. “One might employ stranger monikers.”
          For the first time since Invidio had knocked on the window Olpian raised his head and met the little man’s gaze. His eyes narrowed angrily. “What?” he growled.
          Invidio saw Olpian’s face start to contort and straightened his posture, his palm over his heart. “Cruelties are anathema, sir. I speak sincerely.”
          Invidio jumped back as Olpian thrust open the car door. The jurist marched up and towered over the homuncular man. “I am the last person in this world you want to mark for this con and this is the worst time in the world for you to try it!”
          Invidio supplicated himself, his pants tearing as his knees hit the asphalt, and implored, “Not one thought is divorced further from my countenance and no material need change hands.”
          “Get away from my car before I kick the piss out of you!”
          Olpian turned back toward his car.
          Invidio yelped, “The only tithe be your dignity!”
          Olpian stopped and looked back over his shoulder. “My what?”
          “Your dignity and naught a scruple more. What patriarch worth his salt would not give as much for kith and kin?”
          Olpian regarded Invidio for a split second. “Get out of here,” he snapped and turned back to his car.
          “Sir!”
          “Leave! Now!”
          Olpian put one foot into his car.
          “Would you have a filicide on your soul?” Invidio shouted.
          Olpian stopped.
          Invidio watched the man’s face redden and his pupils dilate with rage. “Your retreat is tantamount to such. But all that is required to evade said calamity is your most rudimentary acquiescence.”
          Invidio stared into Olpian’s homicidal eyes. The desperate man was not moving. He was barely breathing.
          “Your Honor,” Invidio began, “I know of your vocation. I know of the accolades bequeathed in recognition of your mastery. I know your currency is facts and doubts – as is mine. As evidenced by your lachrymals, the sincerity of your sorrow is a fact. As evidenced by your admission, your beloved progeny’s infirmity is a fact. My possession of an effectual remedy you may doubt. That my stated price for such a remedy cannot possibly bring further infliction to the child or greater despondency to you and yours, however, is an inexorable fact. If the suffering of this child would evoke such lamentations, is it not a reasonable assumption that you would suffer any indignity to ensure the youngling’s revivification?”
          Olpian’s face remained hard, calcified by anger and fear. Hector stared back at him through an interminable silence.
          A car engine turned over at the opposite end of the parking lot.
          Invidio saw Olpian blink.
          “Fine,” said Olpian. “Keep my dignity and save my girl.”
          Invidio smiled.
          “Now fuck off!” Olpian fell into the car and quickly sped away.

          It was four days after his encounter with Olpian. Invidio was enjoying his morning constitutional before leaving for work. He was almost surprised when he stumbled across the headline: OLPIAN CRACKS. Invidio read the story.

Following three days of increasingly erratic behavior, Judge Moses Olpian has resigned from his position as Superior Court Judge for the county and city of Madsen. Judge Olpian’s attorney gave no explanation for his client’s sudden breakdown. The sudden change in the honorable judge’s behavior began on the morning of Tuesday the 3rd, when during a routine preliminary hearing, Judge Olpian, repeatedly and without prompting, confessed to a number of embarrassing sexual peccadilloes from his collegiate career, including an admission of a particularly scandalous experiment with homosexuality. The following day witnessed His Honor render a judgment, not in English, but in what he claimed to be the mating call of the West Indian sabre-toothed seahorse. Judge Olpian’s public collapse culminated yesterday when he was suddenly struck by an uncontrollable bout of diarrhea.

          Olpian’s breakdown, the story continued, coincided remarkably with the miraculous recovery of his seven-year old daughter from a lethal undiagnosed illness.
          Invidio Fast beamed as he read the story. It would be another two weeks before he would have to enter into a bargain with another powerful man. Two weeks before he would have to clean the camel suit himself.