I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard that story plus the parts about his being an alcoholic. When you’re somebody’s avatar, you get to know her more than you’d like. It’s a Vulcan mind meld. Even when she’s in the bathroom, I can hear her farting and believe me, that’s not fun. She’s getting up in years and can barely make it from the bedroom to the kitchen without stopping, while I’m 29 and have competed in several triathlons, took first place in the Madrid games where the olive trees looked like stumps with black fingernails, which is to say I’m 5 feet 9 and in great physical shape, have long blonde hair that I hoist into a thick ponytail, and learned how to speak Spanish fluently but I already know Sanskrit and Aramaic and a little Russian.
Janeen was able to keep up until we got to Level 8. Now it takes days for her to get out of bed and make a move, and in the meantime, what can I did except just stay put? Says her daughter’s in graduate school and doesn’t want her to worry. Get this. Her daughter thinks the English guy is still around paying rent; he actually was the one who put Top Dog on Janeen’s computer. He wanted to show her what he did for a living.
Janeen had asked him, “Why do you want to leave the United States and work for Barclay’s when you can just keep telling these wonderful stories?”
He’d handed her the usual clap-trap about needing money.
The only thing I’ve got on my mind is dodging burning embers or getting smashed into toothpicks by Lord Grunion and his minions, little things like that. I’m not trying to demean what Janeen has to go through on a day-to-day. But there’s this game of survival, and how am I supposed to go head-to-head with Lord Grunion unless Janeen does something? I wish she would download the most current version of Top Dog Ramono. I’d be able to move more quickly. But to be totally honest, keeping her alive is my real mission because if her battery runs down, I’m dead in the water, never mind those clashing mountains. Her casa is my casa. You dig?