Uncle Empire

By Joe Dillingham

The Ferret—he insisted on being called The Ferret, having eschewed the name his mother, that fucking bitch, gave him—dug through the garbage can at the Union Square McDonald's looking for Monopoly pieces on discarded French fry cartons and Big Mac wrappers to complete his collection and win the money-car-trip-thing that was the grand prize. In his pocket he had three of the four railroads, a Baltic thing, some Pennsylvanias, maybe a Lightworks, and a Broadway. The piece he really needed was Park Place, but the chances of that happening were slim at best. He knew that. He'd accepted it. Yet his dream burned brighter than ever.

At a table on the side of the restaurant, two girls too high to keep their eyes open spoke in some meandering gobbledygook that might've been English and involved a lot of open mouth staring and repetition of the phrase, "Totally, I know, ohmigawd." Somewhere below the surface of his perception, he recognized that they were talking about some performance of something that the little one had meant to go to but had missed and the taller one with the big teeth and excruciatingly poor diction was assuring her that it was, like, totally fine, I know, ohmigawd. He imagined finding a particularly ripe piece of trash and throwing it at them, but was unable to find the bravery to make it real.

Throughout his life, people had made fun of The Ferret's particularly feminine and dainty wrists, hands, and legs, but he'd fucking show those cunts when he found the other half of the holy Broadway/Park Place dichotomy. They would never know what he would do with the winnings. He might buy himself an island, or learn to fly jets, or become a secret agent, or have his brain implanted into a robot killing machine. It didn't matter because those stupid stoned bitches would never know what goddamn happened to the Ferret when he won the big prize because he was so mysterious. Mysterious. That was how the motherfucking Ferret ran his business.

Deep beneath the remains of a Shamrock Shake the Ferret felt the unmistakable tab of an unpulled game piece waiting for him to reveal its Milton Bradley magic beneath. He managed to get three of his slender lady fingers around the French fry carton on which the piece was affixed, and gave a gentle tug. His arm was buried deep inside the overstuffed trash bin, as if he were birthing the golden calf of Babylon. But nothing moved. His dainty hand came out of the garbage with only a soggy piece of cardboard to show for his effort. "Fuck!" he yelled, eliciting the stares of employees and other customers. "What the fuck are you guys looking at?" he offered in retort to the people now staring at him. "This is McDonald's. Stop staring." Most people decided that he was probably more trouble than was worth their time, so they turned back to their fried chicken and soy paste giblets and imitation potato strands.

He walked over to the table where the two stoned girls were drooling and sat down. "Don't mind me. I'm busy," he told them. They both spent an un-insignificant amount of energy trying to wrap their brains around the fact that this man with his arms covered in putrid fast food had just sat down at their table. Unable to comprehend anything this out of the ordinary, their brains played the best trick they knew and erased The Ferret from reality.

The Ferret pulled a pile of game pieces from his overcoat and then fished the tattered paper board from his back pants pocket. He spilled the pieces across the table and pushed the girls' food out of his way. They did not seem to notice, and, if they had, they could not muster the focus to care. Like a brook, they babbled on.

He turned his attention to the French fry carton on their table. "You girls are clearly too fucked up to know what's about to happen, but let me tell you anyway," he said. "Right now I am going to pull this little tab and on the other side of this lightly laminated little piece of paper there is going to be a fucking Park Place piece and it's going to have a little blue bar and I am going to combine it with this piece"—he held out the Broadway for their edification—"and I am going to win whatever the big prize is. I have been looking all over the city for this piece and it's here. I know it. I know it. You girls, you girls are going to be able to say that you saw the world change. You are going to be able to say that you saw me, The Ferret, the motherfucking FERRET, change the world. You are going to tell your grandchildren and the men you sleep with and the boys and girls and women and men and janitors and teachers and bartenders and firemen and policemen and actors and televisions and walls and rooms and the sky that you saw the world change in this McDonald's at this fucking moment. Seriously. Right now."

He pulled off the game piece and turned it over. It was Broadway.

Silent for a few seconds longer than he should have been, The Ferret broke down and sobbed, sobbed like a little girl. He put his head on the table and his tears flowed and washed the loose game pieces onto the floor. The taller girl turned toward him and reached out her hand and touched his hair.

"Does your hair always just stick up like this? It's so weird. Ohmigawd."