Get Up and GO!

Chapter 1: Dan

Chapter 1: DanThere was a blast of static, a fury of applause, then silence. There was nothing else that existed for Dan at that moment except his little two-bedroom house in a boring West Texas suburb and the six inches in front of his face. He was a middle-aged Asian American normie with unkempt hair, OK posture, and a decent collection of direct button-up J-Crew button-ups with slacks to match. He wore slip-on shoes and always paid his parking tickets. At barbeques, he only ever had two light beers. He had never slept naked, skinny-dipped, or ridden a horse. Life was something Dan went through, not something he was particularly keen on living.

"I like to keep a low profile," Dan often said. "Live in the moment but never spontaneous."

Dan's eyes fluttered and he stared at the TV screen. It was midnight on a weekday. Dan had been there before. As Dan sloppily chewed his bran cereal - Marci, his Girlfriend, forbid him from eating ice cream anymore on account of getting fat - he felt next to nothing. He was bored and exhausted but couldn't fall asleep. Dan flicked the channel to an infomercial, trying not to go to the darkest corners of his mind. He was trying not to, only told Dan that those places were, in fact, there. In those dark corners lay ideas, ideas like if he dozed off, tomorrow would just be like today and the day before that and thus, the day after and so on. Dan didn't know how to escape.

He changed the channel again and still felt nothing. Isn't that what television is supposed to do? Entertain? Dan changes the channel to find every single one is static. He tried to push himself up from the couch, but suddenly the cushions grabbed at his arms and wrapped around his legs. Dan screamed for Marci, called for anybody, but his cries were drowned out by a booming voice erupting from the television. The TV clicked to a crystal-clear channel. It revealed a pair of chattering teeth with a black backdrop. All Dan could do was motionlessly watch and listen.

"How many times have you said that you HATE YOUR LIFE!" the chattering teeth screamed at Dan. "Probably more times than you would admit!"

Dan looked around the living room for something to save him. He saw a framed photo of him and his girlfriend, Marci. Both of their faces were muted and forlorn. For some reason, a toaster was between the two of them. Dan quickly shifted his eyes to a dead plant on the windowsill, then a clean empty, solitary plate on the dining room table, then finally to the kitchen. The faucet was running, steamrolling up into the air. Dan tried to stand to turn it off, but he couldn't move. He had the usual, bland feeling of wasting water when suddenly the voice from the TV shouted at him once again.

"But what if you were offered the chance at a dream job, a fabulous new home, a sweet ride, a new look, a whole new you?"

"But…what if…is there?" Dan blubbered.

"A what?" the chattering teeth snapped. "Spit it out!"

"A… what's the word? Has to do with fish…"

"You are useless!"

"Hey now," Dan said, trying to defend himself.

"Do you mean the catch? Of course, there's always a catch. Life is a catch. You have to know when to catch it when the opportunity is thrown at you. Glove, no glove, you have to catch the thing. The catch is you have to leave right now, leave everyone you know and love behind. If I offered you that chance, would you be ready to Get Up and Go?"

"I…" Dan began to say.

"Hesitation! Disqualified!" the chattering teeth screamed.

"Wait!"

Dan snapped awake deep in his cubicle. He looked around, utterly confused and disorientated. Spittle oozed down his face.

"What the…what happened?" Dan asked aloud.

Dan realized his strange vision had been a dream. It had all been so real: the chattering teeth, how the teeth criticized him, and that infamous tag line, Get Up and Go. Before he had time to understand what happened, he was immediately overwhelmed by the stench of burnt coffee, felt static electricity running through his skin, and the taste of lemon Pledge on his tongue. He blinked one, two, three times to get himself fully aware of his surroundings when he noticed people walking by his cube. He caught his name with the title "Accounting" underneath of it. Then, he saw the time. Five o'clock - closing time.

"Everyone's leaving for the day," he muttered to under his breath.

"Duh, Dan!" Harry, the guy on the other side of the cubicle, laughed. "Get your head out of the clouds!"

As quickly as he could, Dan gathered his book bag and coat to follow the crowd downstairs. In the elevator, Dan experienced flashes of shrieking, chattering teeth, and feeling paralyzed. He touched his legs, and he squeezed his elbows. He even squatted a little to make sure that he could move. A fellow employee eyed him down.

"Can you stop?" they asked. "You're hitting my arm."

"Sorry," Dan said meekly. "Just making sure I'm here."

A few of the other employees' eyes widened and mouthed nuts.

Out of the office and on the street, Dan and the rest of the firm's employees watched as a squad of cop cars blaring sirens red and blue followed by a motorcade of news and film crew vans barreled toward them.

"What the hell?" an employee that smelled like bologna asked.

"I don't know," the lady that always hogged the Cheeze-it's suggested.

"Maybe terrorists?" the guy with six different emails offered.

Dan said nothing. He had nothing to say. This had been true for a very long time.

After the cops wrap their yellow tape around cars, trees, mailboxes, and defunct lamp posts, the film crews spill out of their vans only to focus on Dan.

"Uh…" Dan said, chaotic and confused.

He looks like a botched fast-food wrapper on a hot Sunday afternoon, used and taking up space no one wants bu,t, for some reason, they're still mad that it's being used.

Welby Clark, a striking sixtyfive-year-old man, jumps out of the unmarked van. He's got tight thighs and electric yellow sneakers on. His hair is in a puffy brown afro. His teeth are bleached white, punching against his bronzed skin. When he rips the secret skin off of the film crew van, the name GET UP AND GO is revealed. Before Dan can even read a word, Welby is right in ins to face.

"Dan Ho, Lung! Do you know who I am?... Do you know why I'm here?"

Dan blushes from the sudden attention to him. Why would anyone care about old Dan Ho Lung? He feels something stirring and popping in his stomach, then a terrible pressure on his colon. This always happens when he gets nervous. Welby continues to stare at him, and then WHAM, Dan recognizes Welby for who he is!

"you…" Dan says, a pained expression building on his face. "You're from that TV show! Yeah! I've seen you before!"

The pain in his rectum subsides. Dan's about to admit that he's always wanted to meet, but before he can, Welby thrusts his arm back at a billboard. It unfurls a vast, two-story re-print of Dan's letter he mailed long ago.

"Do you recognize this?"

Dan is speechless.

"You sent this letter to our show some months ago," Welby explains. "How your current job "sucks the life out of you" and that your home life isn't much better."

Dan blushes and looks around at the other employees of the firm. Their faces are pinched in anger, while some are slightly envious. Luckily, Dan doesn't spot his boss….

A meek, blubbering begins to whisper out of Dan's mouth, but no words. He's paralyzed with the truth. More and more people were spilling out of the firm to see what all the commotion was about, which brought only more eyes on Dan's damning letter. He could hear their murmurs surrounding him like a hang of hornets.

What have I done? Thought Dan.

"Don't look so worried dear Dan," Welby putting a hand on his shoulder. Dan leaned into his secure embrace. "I'm here to give you a chance at a new job, a dream home, a new life. But you have to right now. Leave EVERYONE you know and love behind…Dan Ho Lung…Are you ready to Get UP and GO?

The firm, encircling them now, went wild.

"Go Dan GO!!!" they chanted.

Dan was so overcome by the moment; he was unable to stay in it. As the crowd cheered GO DAN GO, his thoughts drifted to his horrible past.

Dan saw himself hunched over in his boring cubicle surrounded by more booths, surrounded by more and more stalls. The mundane setting was stifling and depressing. Everyone around him was eating boring lunches like pre-made salads and tuna out of the can. No one talked to each other. They didn't even look at each other.

Then, Dan saw the one thing he loved in his life, besides his girlfriend: a picture of a motorcycle on his cubicle wall next to a calendar. Bright red numbers slowly edged upward showing how much he had saved and how much longer he had to go to buy his dream one. This was one of Dan's dreams: to be a motorcycle guy.

Suddenly, Dan remembered one of his co-workers dropped a plate of food in Dan's lap. It was Dan's lunch he'd been microwaving in the lunchroom. It was half-eaten.

"Not funny, guys!" Dan shouted.

"It's hilarious…EVERY time!" Dan's coworkers laughed as they feasted on the other half of his lunch.

Dan ignored his coworkers, hungry and ashamed, left with nothing left to do but continued working as he swiped his lunch into the wastebasket.

Dan's memories shifted to himself in front of a client. He remembered the man: tall, mean-looking, with a vicious chip on his shoulder.

There was a pile of the mean man's documents on Dan's desk. A cold cup of coffee rested by Dan's ancient computer. The coffee cup read "I hate…" with no given day.

"Looks like this year you owe the IRS $2,740." Dan looked up at the man absently. "Does that sound, right?"

"No!" the man bellowed. "That can't be right. You made a mistake. Your kind always does. Damn it! I'll kill you! I'll kill you!"

Then, another memory flashed across Dan's mind. He was in front of another client. This one was fifty, overweight, and a single mother with two kids she brought along for some reason.

"You owe $4,050," Dan explained.

"I'll kill you…" the woman murmured. She leaned closer into Dan. "Then I'll eat you!"

Again, his memory snapped to another client, a drugged-out, gangly prostitute. She smelled of chicken hearts and cigarettes mixed with stale vodka.

"Looking over your tax documents here…Miss…Puss Sai Galore. Um, I, well, are you sure this expense for crack pipes is something you want to claim?"

She blew a snot rocket on Dan's office floor and lit up a cigarette.

"You can't…" Dan started to say.

"You know," the prostitute said, cutting him off. "I could have claimed the actual drugs I buy, but I didn't want to raise any red flags. So, let's just go with the pipes. Oooh, did I give you the receipt for the needles and syringes?"

One more client popped into Dan's memory. He can't help it. There are so many that plague his history, and he can't seem to let them go, even in the best moment of his sad life.

"What do you mean because I don't have an income, I can't get a refund? I smell racial profiling!"

"But you're white…" Dan says, confusedly staring at her skin.

The client bolted up out of her seat. "That's racism!"

Then Dan's flashback shifted to him walking out of the office, depressed and exhausted. Dark, sad, bags bulged underneath his dead eyes. He remembered feeling like it had been just another mundane, repetitive soul-sucking day at the office. He had nothing to look forward to and nothing to be proud of. As the sun beat down on him like a drum, Dan waited for his carpool by the curb. He couldn't even afford a car. Then, his carpool of co-workers flew by him, laughing and cracking beers

"HEY!" Dan screamed at them. "YOU FORGOT ABOUT ME!"

Dan's screams traveled through the air, through the car window, and into the ear of the driver. He slapped at himself as if trying to kill a fly. Everyone laughed as beer suds smacked their lips. The driver looked around at everyone.

"Are we forgetting something? I feel like we are."

One of the employees scrunched his face. "Yeah, I feel like I left something. Maybe it was my briefcase or something dumb like that?"

"No," another guy said. "It's in the back." He turned. "Right there."

The driver started to see Dan in his head: his doofus face, his dull, dead eyes, and his sad, morose face.

"I think we forgot to snag…"

"Hey!" one of the passengers shouted. "Let's go to HOOTERS for wings! It's two for one drink Tuesday too!"

Everyone in the car screamed, "YEAHHHHHH."

Dan's sad image instantly faded away in the driver's mind and was replaced by a voluptuous HOOTER'S girl with a tight-fitting red onesie and bodacious breasts serving his wings.

"Let's go!" the driver screamed in ecstasy.

With a cell phone in his hand and rain clouds, Dan started to gather around his sad, round head, had no other choice.

"I should call a cab," Dan reluctantly began to say when he received a text.

Your service is cut

Because …

No payment means

No call!

Dan inhaled, knowing he deserved those brutal words, though he wished they were just a little bit softer. He took the hits of oncoming rain on his back as he earned it. Never did he think to stop for an umbrella and headed home. Finally, the vision as clear as day in his mind, Dan walked in waterlogged and crazy. When he looked around, he saw knick-knacks and cluttered shelves encircled him.

Dan, out of need and security, asked aloud, "Marci, you home?"

No answer. Dan assumed she was asleep. He kicked off his shoes and rested his ass on his couch. For a second, he thought of nothing. Nothing. Then, he craved a bite. As he got up for some kind of chip, Dan heard something in the other room.

Marci's on the computer down in their den. It smelled like stale electricity. Somewhere, bland music was playing, but no one noticed it.

"Holy hell," Dan said. "There you are…I missed the carpool, and then I tried to call, and then…"

Marci brought up her hand. "Wait!"

Marci pressed her face close to the computer she was typing on. She was buying something.

"There we are! I got it. It's mine!"

Dan tried to reiterate that he was home and needed comfort, but it only came out in meek pathetic mumbles.

"What are you saying, Pumpkin?" Marci asked, using that nickname for Dan when she wants to tame him. "I got what I wanted!"

"I was trying to say, for the sake of me," Dan pleaded. "I missed my carpool, and I tried to get a hold of someone, but my phone service was cut off!"

Marcie turned her gaze back to the computer purposely not looking at Dan because she knew she spent the money for the phone bill on needless stuff for herself. For a moment, she felt guilty enough to confess her sins to Dan, but…

A UPS driver knocked on the door. Marci ran for it and opened it for him. His shoulders were broad and square. He worked out. The look on his face was bland like he had been on the job too long.

"Marci?" the UPS driver asked from outside.

"That's me!" Marci exclaimed.

The UPS driver handed her several packages. Marci ran off, dancing around the living room like a fairy, excited to see that all of her things have arrived.

Once it looked like it was everything, Dan started to close the door. Dan remembered he didn't like how Marci was admiring the UPS driver's frame.

"Oh, I'm not leaving. There are more," the UPS driver said sadly.

"What the…" Dan groaned.

He looked outside to see a second UPS worker unloading piles and piles of more boxes from the trunk. Dan's stomach sunk. What in the world was going on? He remembered thinking. What was all of this stuff? They are marked with many different names like sss, HSN, and others that he had never even seen before.

"MARCI!" Dan screamed. "What is all this junk?"

Marci came scampering back and smiled at the second driver, who flexed as he dropped more and more packages at their front door.

"This is nothing," the one driver said to the other one. "Should have seen the delivery I made last month. Tons more than this!"

"I work ALL day at the worst job on the planet, and I get s**t on by my dipshit co-workers," Dan said, berating Marci. "I buy the cheapest lunch I can to save money, and you go and do this behind my back, and for what?"

Marci pouted. "Hey, I work too."

"Working at the Dollar Store where you buy two dollars' worth of stuff for every dollar you make is not working, is it?!" Dan exhaled and tried to calm down in front of the two strangers continuing to unload Marci's packages. "I gave up a career at NASA so we could move here to be close to your family, not mine. Instead of calculating rocket launchers, I'm calculating tax returns. I gave up my dreams so I could put every penny into paying for food and expenses. My big splurge of the day is a coffee and bagel, yet you are always spending our money on junk we don't need.""Every penny? Every penny!" Marci raised her voice, a vindictive quality coming over her tone. "What about your little motorcycle fantasy-fund you keep hiding away? I've seen the box. That's a mid-life crisis if I've ever seen one! "Ohhh, you mean the fund that I've been building up with a few dollars every week, the fund that I have to dip into every time you spend our money…no MY MONEY on crap like this?" Dan threw his arms wide to survey all the boxes. "I got NO car. I got NO phone…"Suddenly, all the lights in the house turned off. Marci screamed and tried to jump into the arms of one of the UPS drivers. He put up his arms and ran back to his truck. "There goes my motorcycle fantasy…" Dan sighed, watching a utility truck pull away from their power box.Dan stormed off to his secret closet and pulled out the secret stash of money meant solely for him and his dreams. He kissed the package as a little tear fell from his face. Dan didn't want to do it, but he knew he had to. "Hey, Pumpkin!" Marci hissed at Dan as he stomped out the front door, past the drivers and all of Marci's junk. "Where are you going?""We can't stay in the dark!" Dan bellowed, waving his arms around at the deadlights.Dan gazed at all the boxes piling up, unable to bear the sight of them. All of my savings, Dan remembered thinking. All of it was gone to waste. Another small tear fell from his shaking eyes. He noticed the head UPS driver staring at him, so he quickly wiped it away and continued. All those memories, all those horrible experiences, swirled around in Dan's mind when suddenly, they vanished. He was back to the present. Dan felt the sun warm on his cheeks. He looked around and saw the countless faces he recognized from his office.Dan was back in his body. There in front of him was Welby. All of his coworkers and bosses were staring at him expectantly. Dan felt tremendous pressure from everyone, but he didn't know why or what for. Welby was smiling his infamous smile. "One-minute left, Mr. Ho Lung," Welby said. "One more minute to make your decision. Are you here with us? Time to make a decision.His co-workers were cheering and chanting GO DAN GO!Everything came back to Dan. He knew what he needed to do. Nothing could hold him back - not his job, not Marci, not money - to decide his NEW future."That's 59 seconds more than I need," Dan said triumphantly. "Get me the heck out of here!"