CHICAGO, IL -

I received an email Monday from Igor Anatsko.

I was at work and found it just sitting there, four emails deep in my inbox and sandwiched between identical responses about how the Cleveland Browns just dumped their hometown quarterback.

Igor’s surprise email read, verbatim:

Well, okay then.

The Third Act.

I didn’t think we were going to get there, but we did.

I mean, the message certainly reads like the beginning of a third act, I’d say.

It’s like turning to page sixty-five and reading that the elusive bad guy has reached out to his pursuer for any number of reasons.

The language of Igor’s email is movie-worthy itself: direct, missing words, almost threatening and sounding wonderfully Russian.

He wanted to proseed.

Sure, I responded, I’d like the money.

I typed my work address and sent it out.

His one line response: “All right then.”

No signature.

Just “All right then.”

An hour later I received a message from another person Igor had been skirting. Someone who had been keeping me updated on all the threats and emails and calls she has made to our Russian friend.

She got the same exact email, but it read “$750″ where mine read “$500.”

She demanded the check be sent priority mail.

So the villain has some cash now.

And maybe a heavy heart.

And maybe this tale can finally end.

Or perhaps this is where the thing finally gets good and Igor shows up at my building.

He corners me in an elevator.

He’s got a gun in his jacket pocket.

He shows me the handle, that’s how I know.

We reach the top floor after unloading seven oblivious people all wearing headphones and sunglasses along the way.

I’m led out.

Igor points to the right, then down a long hall, and then he yanks my security badge from my belt to wave it in front of a little black box next to a door.

We enter, Igor jabbing the back of my head with an open hand.

He swears in Russian.

He tells me in English that he was just swearing in Russian, that’s how I know.

Inside the room there are two buckets, one filled with dry cement and the other with water.

I quickly kick the bucket with the powdery cement over and Igor gets pissed.

Really pissed.

And then, with the gun raising and cocking with those famous cocking noises, Igor spits to his right.

He squints, you can hear an elevator ping…

…And then someone from the mail room just hand delivers me the check?

Hmm.

Just like that?

That’s how it ends?

I get a certified check with watermarks and small green and red and blue fibers embedded?

The end?

All right then.

I got my money.

After 11 months, I got my money.

That woman got her money, too.

This check comes at a particularly good time, though.

My iPod, for the umpteenth time in three years, is on the fritz.

“My iPod is such a piece of shit,” I said Tuesday evening to my roommate, setting the 2004-dated-on-the-back player on my desk with a sigh.

“You always say that,” he said. “What’s it doing now?”

“It’s doing something different now. For the past two weeks it’s been pausing itself randomly, and always always always within the first five seconds of a song. I mean, this thing is really a piece of shit. And you know that the right earbud is screwed up, too. All scratchy and can’t handle any bass.”

“You’ve said that.”

“Such a piece of shit.”

So with Igor’s dirty (I assume) money I bought a new iPod.

An 80 GB iPod classic.

Hopefully it’s not a piece of shit.

In an attempt to set things right with my old iPod, I wanted to destroy it.

For it’s uncooperative spinning hard drive.

For it’s ability to stop working for a month even though I nurse it and pet it and tell it that today’s going to be a good day.

For it’s blinking Apple logo.

Impatient to think of anything kind of clever to do with it, I did this:

I would like to have that moment back.

Something about it was lacking.

I’d like to make it more dramatic.

Something that involved a skyscraper, a bucket of dry cement, or Igor’s front door.

But, in my movie, that’s the end.

Or is it?

I just received this message on Tuesday, posted at the bottom on the second Igor essay:

“I have a lot of information on Igor. There are complaints pending in the Illinois Department of Labor against him and his company (Gnxpert) for very large sums of money that the IL Attorney General has just taken over. With your cooperation, you may not get your money back, but they may “pay” for it by being prosecuted criminally. All interested parties or who have additional info on Gnxpert can contact me at tylerjeno@gmail.com. I would very much appreciate your help.
-Becky”

I hate sequels.

PRODUCER - Ruperto Biegel

ASSOCIATE PRODUCER - Ruperto Biegel

PRODUCTION PRODUCER - Ruperto Biegel

SCRIPT - Greg Boose and Igor Anatsko

DIRECTOR - Ruperto Biegel

DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY - Ruperto Biegel

GAFFER - Ruperto Biegel

2nd GAFFER - Ruperto Biegel

ANIMAL HANDLER - Ruperto Biegel

INTERN - Ruperto Biegel

JOKE - Old

NARRATOR - Morgan Freeman

FILM FOOTAGE COURTESY OF - Film Archives

www.gregboose.com

This entry was posted on Friday, September 14th, 2007 at 7:20 am and is filed under Assholes, Criminals, Jobs, Money, Movies, Personal. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.