The words, black, against a bright white spotlight: THE SOLUTION. I have seen it everywhere. The morning I finally quit my job at Korpu Korp I'd seen it on the back page of the paper (a quarter fold ad), on a big billboard by the highway, also a bumper sticker stuck to an old VW beetle: THE SOLUTION.

I'm not into these self-help gimmicks. I don't follow gurus. I'm not a scientologist. I'm not a Catholic confessing in a box to a pedophile or a Jew on the couch telling secrets to a psychiatrist. I can keep it inside. I don't have too much guilt, and what I've got I can keep to myself.

That day though, I'd finally had enough. It's pointless; pointless work and I hate it.

I'd imagined it a lot of different ways, but how I finally did it was to go in nice and normal like, just as usual. And then as soon as Sanchez told me to do something I refused. I just acted distracted and said offhand: “Screw you.”

He turned bright red. Told me he was writing me up for insubordination. I told him not to strain his wrist.

I put my things in a box and finished my coffee. I walked out and left my name badge on my desk. Everybody was watching me and whispering to each other.

At first my car wouldn't start, but nobody was out there. I popped open the hood and removed the air cleaner from the carburetor and it started right up. I put all of that back together and got out on the road.

Over the radio, a voice announced: “When you've tried everything else and you've given up, give in and get THE SOLUTION.”

I wondered how long they've been offering this? Has anyone done it? Have I heard people talking about it? Probably a cult.

They've got all the answers, I'll bet.

The station played ‘Misunderstanding' by Genesis, and I shut it off.

I drove past all of the Fresno exits. I got gas in Madera and I kept right on driving past Visalia. When I drove through downtown Tulare I thought I might be going too far.

I don't have a wife or kids. It was easy to keep going. I got off Highway 99.

Where am I going? I thought that a lot. About the road and about my life.

I took 65 to Porterville and parked my car along the sleepy main street. I sat for a while in it and then I got out and threw the keys to my apartment and the car into a bush next to the El Tapatio Mexican restaurant around the corner on Orange.

I browsed in a used bookstore and bought an HP Lovecraft paperback I had as a kid. I slid it into my back pocket like the old days. Next door in an antique store I bought some old Savage Sword of Conan magazines, and I rolled them in my hands like I used to. I asked the old guy behind the counter if he had any antique firearms.

He looked me over pretty good.

“What are you lookin' for?” he asked.

“Security,” I replied.

He took me into the back room next to an incredibly ornate and complicated china case and sat an old .22 caliber pistol, a revolver, on a black felt mat.

“Saturday night special. The firing pin sticks a little. $80 and I never saw it before if you come back or get in trouble with it.”

###

It felt heavy in my pocket walking around. I found a gun shop a few stores down, and I bought .22 short rounds.

I sat in the park there under a tree and dry fired the gun at a sign that read THE SOLUTION and the pin stuck. I managed to pop it back. I got a small screwdriver from a hardware store and some sandpaper for a few more bucks. I sat in the bus station and disassembled the gun and sanded on the pin a bit, put it back together. I wandered back over to the park and I tried it again. Perfect. I loaded it up.

I walked around packing heat. I strolled back past my lonely, abandoned car. There was something stuck under the windshield wiper, paper. I unfolded it.

THE SOLUTION

I turned it over and wrote a letter to my Mom with the Parker pen from my pocket. One of the last Made In The USA. I folded that up and I walked down to the little rural post office. I bought a pre-stamped envelope and mailed it, an undiscovered felon for bringing a loaded, concealed weapon into a government building.

I took the bus to the end of the line, which was the bus terminal.

I paid too much for a cheeseburger that I didn't want. When I put the money down, a business card fell out of my wallet. It had a girl's name, ‘Melanie', written on the back, but no number. It wasn't my handwriting. On the front: THE SOLUTION. And a toll-free number.

Back at the park, I contemplated suicide. I contemplated murder and robbery and vigilantism and vandalism and home invasion. I wished I could shoot a hole in the moon to leave some kind of a mark. Evidence that I had lived at all. That I was alive, and that I had thought and dreamed under the same stars.

I thought about the end of my days; of what would happen after.

All this speculation brought my mind back around to THE SOLUTION. The number. I found a payphone, clunked in the change; and I dialed it. A female answered, almost out of breath, I thought, but then calm as she spoke again.

“Are you looking for SOLUTION?” she asked. The syntax threw me.

“Uh, yeah… I… I've tried everything else and I've given up.”

“Then give in!” she laughed. “What's your location?”

I told her I was in Porterville.

“We have an office there,” she said confidently.

“You do?” I asked. “It's kind of out of the way.”

“We're nationwide,” she told me.

I got the address and directions. She said they were closed, but that she could call over and ask if someone was in the office who could see me. I told her I was calling from a payphone and that she couldn't call me back. That I'd make my way over and see if anyone was there.

It was pretty dark by then. When I got to the address, it was just a little hole-in-the-wall place. Not like a religious center at all. Not even cultish. But the nearer I got to the building the more it seemed like I was entering ground zero of SOLUTION merchandising. The words were everywhere.

As I stood around out front checking the place over, the porch light came on. After a minute I went up to the door and knocked. A pretty girl answered.

“Did you call the hotline?”

“I did.” I told her.

“Oh, okay!” she said. “Come on in. Sit down. I'm sorry about the clutter around here. This is just a business office. We're going to open a center here soon, but for now we just have this place. I can take care of you though. I was here doing some billing when the operator called and said you were coming by. You lucked out! Have you used it before?”

I was mystified, awaiting the answer. I shook my head no. She got excited.

“Your first time! You'll be so happy! It'll change your life!”

I couldn't wait.

The office was cramped, with a lot of THE SOLUTION advertising material stacked about.

“Where did it start?” I asked her.

She seemed somewhat taken aback.

“Wow, uh…” she thought it over. “Well, with ritual sacrifice, I guess.”

“Ritual sacrifice?” I asked.

“Yes, sure.” she said. “They'd burn up the offerings after the killing and the ashes and animal fats would accumulate around the bases of the alters. Those are the main ingredients for the simplest version. It probably happened that way. How much would you like?”

She opened a six jug box of liquid detergent, simply labeled SOLUTION.

 “Your whites will never be whiter!”

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