revise

outside one of three area starbucks: two men with glaringly biblical first names (luke and john) have just sat down with their post-workout sugary coffee drinks. the drinks are loaded with not just sugar but an ungodly amount of calories--enough to reverse any good their workout may have done. the two men are cleanly spotted with sweat stains resembling crude land masses drawn by ancient cartographers--land masses that never existed except in the minds of the ancient cartographers who drew them and believed in their existence. both men have preternaturally perfect haircuts. as if eternally protected by a helmeted forcefield: their hair is unfazed by any sort of movement--any of the normal day-to-day stuff responsible for messing up the hair of so many others. though they are sweaty: they wear their sweat like an accessory, so matter-of-factly as to seem natural--totally innocuous and not at all offensive.

luke (the one with the dark hair) reaches into his gym bag and pulls out a store-bought plastic crown lined with plastic jewels. the crown is a gift for their friend tom who has recently taken to calling himself "the lord of lords and the king of kings."

"wait'll he sees this!" he says.

"yeah," john replies, "and check this out." here: john reaches into his gym bag and pulls out a sash with the words "lord of lords" printed on it.

a few weeks ago at a neighborhood cocktail party tom created a big to-to when through the mess of conservatively-behaved and conservatively-dressed party guests he found his way to the kitchen table in the middle of the throng and climbed up and announced that he was "the lord of lords and the kng of kings" and that, from now on, he'd like to be addressed as such. his wife (poor sharon) stood petrified by the dessert table in the corner as a few men, thinking quickly, dragged tom down from the table. "let's get some air, tom. what do you say?" they said, directing him to the front door. "there is nothing wrong with me," tom said, following the men outside as they clutched tom's arms. "you've had too much to drink, tom." they said. "come on. some air will you do you good." tom protested: "but i haven't had anything to drink. nothing at all. i don't understand why you're doing this. there's really no need. i said i'm the 'king of kings, the lord of lords' and i meant it. i am."

the next day, john phoned sharon, hoping to learn from her what had caused tom to act out the night before--thinking maybe tom had just had a bad day (something job-related, family-related, who knew?) and foreseeing the endpoint in their conversation--that moment of relief when sharon told him that tom was fine now and would he like to talk to him? no, that's ok. i'm just glad he's not crazy or something--that it's nothing serious. and he could hang up and then it would be something they could laugh about for the next three months--maybe make allusions to in christmas cards or gag e-mails but this moment never came. sharon said that tom was still claiming to be the king of kings, et. al. and that he'd stopped going to work, stopped doing anything, thinking it not fit for the king of kings to have to do anything but simply be. "that's terrible," john said. "i'll see if i can't talk some sense into him." sharon was crying. "it's just--so absurd. for a forty year-old man to be acting like this. i wonder if he hasn't had a stroke or something. they say you can have them and not even know it. i don't know if i should call a doctor or--i'd hate to call his mother. it would be so embarrassing for him once he finally snapped out of this. i'd hate for his family to think he was crazy." "don't worry. i'll take care of it," john said.