Elimination Night - By Anonymous Page 0,43

of the Coeur D’Alene chapter of the Aryan Nations. Indeed, if it hadn’t been for Icon’s security detail, Joey’s record company might have already been enjoying the spoils of a posthumous album release.

By inflicting such a dramatic injury on Joey, however, the Idaho Klansman had actually done Icon a huge favor. Without the assault, the show would have been looking at a shut-up-and-go-away settlement on the scale of Bibi’s salary. But now they had leverage: the attempted murder of a celebrity judge. Plus, Miss “I Da Ho” herself—she had in fact only ever won a minor village pageant—apparently didn’t share her father’s politics, and had no interest in punishing Joey.

The matter was resolved privately, in a matter of days.

That wasn’t the end of Joey’s issues with young female contestants, however.

Oh, no.

It quickly emerged that Joey’s indiscretions hadn’t been limited to Miss “I Da Ho.” He had also been exchanging direct messages on Twitter with several other female contestants (had he searched for their accounts, or had they followed him first?), providing them with both his cell phone number and Twitpics of his bulging underwear, taken from under the judges’ desk. All had responded in kind, so Joey had scheduled each of them to visit his room, at fifteen-minute intervals, that very same night. It was hard not to be impressed by the man’s ambition. It was also hard not to wonder how he could manage such a back-to-back operation at the age of sixty-two, without either surgical or chemical assistance. This question was never answered, however, because someone in Rabbit’s human resources department (a.k.a. Team Joeysitter) noticed what was going on—they were already in crisis mode after the whole beauty queen affair—and dispatched an emergency task force to the scene. Joey’s phone was confiscated, his Twitter account deleted, and he was ordered by Sir Harold Killoch to attend today’s “fraternization seminar” at The Lot. For good measure, the other judges and key members of Icon’s staff were ordered to go, too.

And now… well, here we were.

Being the last to arrive, Mitch and I took seats at the rear. Bibi was to our left, a few rows forward, obscured partially by Teddy, and engrossed in her phone. Looking closely, I noticed that she had the Face-Time app running, and was actually examining herself in the screen. Len was visible only via his Merm, which was wobbling around somewhere near the front, next to Maria and Ed (or that’s what I assumed, as Ed’s head didn’t reach the top of his chair).

We waited.

And waited.

And—

At last, the house lights dimmed, the stage lights brightened, and in an unmistakable glow of smugness, our “fraternization coach” appeared. “My name’s Andy,” he announced unnecessarily (it was written in blue marker on his circular name tag). “And I know what y’all are thinking: I’m here to judge. Well, bad news, folks”—cheesy smile—“the only judges in this room are sitting right in front of me here. I’m here to inform. To guide. Think of me as a resource.”

Andy was unbearable, this much was already clear.

He went on: “Now, what I’m going to talk about today is what we at Rabbit call fraternization.”

“You mean screwin’?” interrupted Joey.

Oh, God. I closed my eyes.

“Ha-ha,” said Andy, nervously running a fleshy hand through his overly product-enhanced hair.

“Call it what it fuckin’ is, man,” said Joey, disgust in his voice. “I fuckin’ hate—”

“We call it fraternization,” Andy reiterated, a little testily. “Now, what does fraternization mean, exactly?”

Joey snorted with contempt and began to shuffle boisterously in his seat.

“Well, folks, if you look it up in the ol’ dictionary,” Andy continued, reaching behind him to pick up a heavy black volume from the table behind him. “It says, ‘To associate or mingle as brothers with a hostile group, especially when directly against military orders.’”

Andy made a hokey face to illustrate confusion.

“Now, we’re not all brothers here, are we?” he continued, in the tone of a preschool teacher breaking up a fight over a jigsaw puzzle. “And we sure as heck ain’t running an ‘army’! Also, I wouldn’t suggest for one second that the wonderful, talented contestants on Project Icon are your enemy. No, sir! Nevertheless, you have to understand, if ANYTHING that could be deemed ‘inappropriate’ goes on between any of YOU and any of your subordinates—i.e., the contestants—then you’re putting both yourself and the Rabbit network in DIRE JEOPARDY.”

Andy went on like this for three hours. He passed around leaflets featuring stock photographs of men and women in “uncomfortable” workplace situations. He used