As I hung a right onto the Strip, I was greeted by the unavoidable spectacle of advertising for the new season of America's Got Talent. A giant poster of the judging panel had been unfurled down the nine-storey wall of the building where I worked. The judges towered over me like titans, their broad grins seemingly mocking my inability to smile. This was the way they had chosen to respond to my polite email, not with an equally polite response, but with a direct attack; one that had been launched against me with the full consent of my employers.
As I stared back at the poster, fighting the urge to vomit, the figures came to life and began to taunt me:
“I have literally farted better songs,” sneered Simon Cowell, objectively.
"Russell,” said Heidi Klum as she looked me sincerely in the eye. “If I walked in the manner described in your song, it would be like this:”
Her expression twisted as if she was attempting to wring all of the beauty from her face. Contorting her tremoring arms, she sank down into a half-squat and began to lurch around like someone with severe muscular dystrophy. Behind her, Howie Mandel glowered at me with palpable Canadian menace.
“Man, who is this jive ass?" enquired Terry Crews in a thick Harlem accent, brandishing his silver-topped pimping cane towards my face.
“Hey ese,” whispered Sofia Vergara, as she leaned forward and beckoned towards me. “Look behind you.”
I turned around. A rusting, beat-up car with raised suspension was crawling slowly along the Strip. A man with a heavily prison-tattooed face leaned out through the dusty passenger-side window.
"Eh Greer. Why don't suck on a big donkey dick, ese?”
"No thanks. I already fucked your mother last night,” I replied.
The man ducked back inside the car, which accelerated away in an oily cloud of tire smoke.
I heard hurried footsteps approaching and turned around to see a wide-eyed man in a cheap suit running towards me, his neck-tie flapping.
"Do you know who that was?” he asked incredulously.
I shook my head.
“That was the leader of MS-13. You must have some powerful enemies, my friend.”
“Let's just say I've rocked a few boats,” I replied.
“I'm Keith,” said the man, extending one glistening palm. “I'm currently the top lawyer in my short-stay motel. You're Russell Greer. Together we are going to take America's Got Talent for every last cent.”
