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# Part III #
We arrived later that evening at what appeared to be an abandoned warehouse. Lady Von Champion and I exited the limousine with Lydia not far behind, being sure to instruct the driver to keep the engine running.

"Lydia, where are we?" I asked, taking in our surroundings.

"Oakland," Lydia replied.

"I see," I said.

"And why have you taken us to Oakland, Lydia?"

"Well sir," she said hesitantly, "my cousin who went to art school recommended this event. She said it would be an 'inclusive safe space' with music and dancing."

"That sounds lovely, Lydia. Good work choosing someplace safe yet also.. what did you call it?"

"Inclusive, sir," Lydia said, eyeing a rat scurrying across the street with a full chicken wing in its mouth.

"Ah yes. So Lady Von Champion is allowed to party a bit as well.

"Umm"

"It takes all kinds, doesn't it, Lydia?"

"It certainly does, sir."

No sooner had she finished placating me than Lady Von Champion had bolted toward the rat, catching me off guard, causing me to lose my grip on her leash.

Lydia and I chased after Lady Von Champion, who followed the rat, who held on tight to the chicken wing as it galloped through the night. The rat ducked with the wing into an alley some ways off and we followed closely in hot pursuit.

Dead end.

It seemed we had the poor thing cornered. As Lady Von Champion searched wildly, barking her head off, Lydia and I attempted to get our bearings in the alley - a tight space, smelly, and uncomfortably dark.

"How can I help you," came a voice from the shadows.

Lady Von Champion investigated the sound and uncovered a small person underneath a pile of cardboard boxes. He rose to his feet with surprising grace and, placing his hand on Lady Von Champions forehead, calmed the barking dog instantly.

"Is she yours?" asked the small man, dressed head to toe in a black Under Armour track suit.

I acknowledged that she was.

"Beautiful animal," the small man said, tearing off a small portion of meat from a chicken wing he had tucked away in his pocket.

"Yes, I am learning a great deal from her," I told him.

"And why shouldn't you? All of our animal friends have so much to offer. From the mighty polar bear to the seemingly lowly sewer rat."

I nodded in agreement.

"You know, we humans often forget that we too are animals," the small man said.

"I've never forgotten that," I told him.

"I think about it all the time. It's funny you should say that because I was thinking about that very thing on the drive over here."

The small man smiled and gently placed the chicken wing back into his jacket pocket. The pursued rat from earlier emerged from the cardboard box pile and joined him his feet, squeaking somewhat timidly. Remarkably, Lady Von Champion did not bark at her prey. Instead, she set her head down and rested patiently. The small man offered a portion of chicken wing to the rat as well.

"I'm sorry, who are you?" asked Lydia, not impressed by this scene.

The small man wiped the chicken grease from his fingers on his track pants.

"My name is Preston Erstwhile the Third. But around here, people call me Li'l Binch."

"Wow," said Lydia, thinking she had heard the surname before.

The nickname she ignored. She braced herself for the man to offer his hand to shake, but no such offer came. Instead, he tore off another piece of chicken and ate it himself.

"Wow indeed," he said with a grin that unsettled Lydia deeply.

Li'l Binch and I continued discussing the wisdom of the animal kingdom, and it was at this point that Lydia began to wonder exactly why she was putting herself out for me to this degree. The truth is, she had no cousin who went to art school. All of her cousins studied economics and only listened to Josh Groban. She had simply searched for something that seemed trendy, although she felt uncomfortable with the subject and would be the first to admit she had little understanding of what was trendy at all. She liked it that way. She liked her old life. Apparently enough to put herself in this situation. But I was too far gone at this point, Lydia decided, and she had to recognize that her attempts to rescue me from myself were against her best interests.

It was time for Lydia to go.

She just didn't know how to leave.

Lydia told herself that after she had gotten me home safely, that would be it.

She would leave me in my office, with my peanut butter and my dog and in the care of another assistant, and she would move on, closing this chapter of her life and opening a new one.

Things go sideways sometimes.

He seemed to already have a tremendous effect on me, the two of us developing a solid rapport in our brief alley encounter, discussing energy fields or something like that.

I kept agreeing with whatever Li'l Binch said and he kept ripping off little pieces of chicken and feeding them to the dog and the rat.

Lydia interrupted us, suggesting that we get back to the party.

Li'l Binch said that was such a coincidence, because he would be performing there tonight.

Lydia asked him why he was out here in the alley instead of inside preparing, to which he responded "not all who wander are lost."

Lydia asked if that was from Lord of the Rings.

Li'l Binch said no, he'd just made that up.

"Nothing happens by accident," he assured me, stripping the last scrap of chicken off the bone and handing it over to me with a deep bow.

I accepted to offering most graciously and Li'l Binch escorted us to the warehouse, introducing us to all his friends. Everyone wanted to pet Lady Von Champion, who was remarkably easy going about it. I asked Lydia to arrange payment of $10,000 to each new person I'd met.

"Because it'll make their lives better," I told her.

Lydia pretended to take down each person's information and falsely assured them that they would be PayPal'd tomorrow.

"Do you guys want to do some drugs?" Li'l Binch whispered in my ear, while Lydia pretended to take down a name.

"Yes," I whispered back.

"What kind of drugs do you have?"

Li'l Binch dug through his pockets and produced a handful of pills.

"I have Tylenol PM, ibuprofen, Allign - that's a probiotic - ummm let's see ... some Benadryl."

"I have all those already," I told him.

"I also have MDMA."

I hadn't tried the last one. I told Li'l Binch it sounded good and that Lydia would send him a million dollars in the morning. Li'l Binch took my hand and instructed me to close my eyes. Lady Von Champion barked and Li'l Binch instructed her to do the same. Lydia looked up from the crowd to see Li'l Binch waving his hand across mine and Lady Von Champion's faces, muttering something in what seemed to be gibberish.

"Tonight is going to be fun," Li'l Binch told me, batting his eyelashes. Without warning, he kissed me, transferring a small pill onto my tongue with his.

Lydia looked up from the crowd and frowned.

"Fun," I said, swallowing the pill.

"I like to have fun."

The giveaways had begun to attract too large gathering clamoring for a handout. Lydiafinished pretending to take down the last of their information and broke away, but I, along with Lady Von Champion and Li'l Binch, was nowhere to be found.

This was less than ideal any way Lydia looked at it.

She searched through the warehouse, asking around for me, and was mostly met with suspicious looks. No one had seen an old man with a dog promising thousands of dollars to everyone he met.

Then music began to play from downstairs. People started heading downstairs. Lydia followed the sound to find a crowd watching a projected image on a large sheet. A small man wearing an upside down Guy Fawkes mask was standing behind a laptop, the video being projected onto him as he fiddled with knobs on a MIDI controller that didn't appear to be plugged into anything.

Lydia shoved her way through the crowd toward the stage to get a closer look. As she parted the audience sea, a familiar albeit distorted chorus echoed through the room.

"What ever happened to predictability?
The milkman, the paperboy, evening TV."

Reaching the front row, Lydia has a clear view of the performer behind the laptop, awash in the opening credits of Full House.

She confronted the small man.

"Where is he?" she demanded of the masked man, who continued to fiddler with the MIDI controller.

"Bitch, do you not see that I am busy at the moment?" he asked irritably.

"You aren't playing anything," Lydia said.

"Whatever this is, it's obviously pre-recorded. Now where is he? I know this is you. What did you do with him?"

The masked performer shuddered and gestured for Lydia to crouch with him behind his laptop, which she did reluctantly. Li'l Binch removed his mask and started in on Lydia.

"First of all, how dare you," he said.

"Parts of this set are pre-recorded, yes, but there are live elements. I know what you're going to say, the MIDI controller is unplugged. Of course it is, that's for show. I'm doing things on the laptop."

"Attack, decay, sustain, release," he said, waving his hands around passionately.

"See, right now, it's just the pre-recorded track playing and my performance is suffering right now due to your foolishness."

"I don't care about any of that," Lydia said.

"You called me a bitch, which I find incredibly offensive. Not to mention that you're the one who goes by Little Bitch yourself."

"Binch," Li'l Binch corrected her.

"What?"

"Li'l Binch," he said, putting his Guy Fawkes mask back on defiantly.

"Where is he?" Lydia asked again.

"Ok, look. Your man just needed some space."

Lydia scoffed.

"Space? That's unlikely. He always needs me."

Li'l Binch smirked, popping up from behind the table to make an adjustment to his track before returning. An episode of Full House began playing. Season 6 episode 22, the one where DJ's prom date abandons her after he is elected prom king.

"See, I had to cue that up on time otherwise it wouldn't have played right," Li'l Binch told Lydia.

"I'm sorry I underestimated how much artwork you're doing back here," Lydia apologized.

"But I need to know where my boss is."

"He's in the coat room with that dog. Upstairs, by the bathroom. I think he took something." Li'l Binch said.

"Now vamoose," he said, shooing me away from the laptop.

Lydia found me laying face down in a pile of jackets with Lady Von Champion licking the back of my head.

"Sir, it's me," Lydia said, catching herself before feeling too greatly relieved.

"Lydia?" I said, my voice muffled through a Jordache jean jacket.

"Yes, sir. Are you ok?" Lydia asked, sitting cautiously beside me on the bed.

I didn't respond immediately.

Lady Von Championed whimpered.

"Sir, I think we've made a mistake. I know you said you wanted to do something fun, but we shouldn't have come here tonight. I've been doing too much and it's not my place to interfere like this.

I didn't respond to this either, inhaling the cigarette fumes embedded in the jean jacket with a full breath.

"Let's get you home, what do you say?" Lydia asked, shaking my shoulder.

I sat up and faced her, taking her hand.

“Do you ever think about dying?” I asked.

"Sometimes," Lydia replied, hesitantly.

“I do too," I said.

"A lot, actually. Well, recently.”

Lydia sighed and tightened her grip on my hand.

“I bet it’s not so bad,” she said.

“Maybe a little scary though.”

"Scary how," I asked.

“Scary that you probably don’t come back.”

We shared a silence.

“But that shouldn’t be scary,” she said after a bit.

“But it is!” I said.

“Yeah," she said.

"But it's only scary when you think about it."

“It’s really just nothing,” she said.

“'Nothing' isn’t scary,” I said.

“No, not really,” she said.

“It’s just nothing.”

“'Nothing' means no more pain,” I said.

“No more pain is a happy ending."

Lydia smiled halfway.

I returned half of a smile.

We left the party with Lady Von Champion, rejoining our limousine, which took us through the night back across the bay.

Back in my office, Lydia filled Lady Von Champion's food dish and water bowl. I sat again at my desk, gazing out at the nighttime skyline.

"In regards to that one last favor, sir, is there anything else I can do for you?" Lydia asked.

"No," I said.

"Thank you, Lydia. Goodnight."

She turned to leave. I stopped her.

"Oh, there is actually one last thing," I asked.

"Yes?" Lydia said.

"I seem to have misplaced my jar of peanut butter."

Lydia returned and retrieved the half empty jar from my desk.

"Ah, there it is," I said, pulling a comb from my breast pocket and dipping it in the jar.

"Good luck, sir," Lydia said, closing the door behind her as I combed creamy peanut butter into my mustache.