The Onion Wars - 1

Alex opened the door of his Austin mansion in response to a persistently ringing doorbell. He didn’t sleep well at night and decided to stay in bed later than usual. He had nowhere to go after yesterday’s bad news. He hardly managed to pull his silk bathrobe and tie it around his stout short body. Whatever hair he had left on his balding head was disheveled.

“Coming, coming!” he barked in his trademark raspy and rusty voice. “Stop ringing the bell!”

He opened the door and saw a man in his thirties in a strange green and black uniform he’d never seen before. The name tag read “Ben Collins.”

“Alex Jones?” the man asked.

“Yes, who’s asking?” Alex said grumpily.

“I’m your new boss. Time to go to work!” the man said both cheerfully and seriously at the same time.

“To work? I have no place to work anymore!” Alex yelled, and lost his breath with the realization. He started to gasp like fish out of water.

“But you do,” the man said calmly. “Here’s the court order.”

He handed Alex a piece of paper. Alex took a deep breath and read through it, trying to calm down.

“The Onion Wars???” he finally barked. As he looked up, he finally saw a company SUV with the big green and black logo that read “The Onion Wars.” The same logo was on the man’s shirt.

“Yes, indeed, The Onion Wars,” the man said calmly, smiling at Alex. “We wanted to keep the name recognizable, to avoid the costs of complete rebranding.”

“You must be fucking kidding me! Not only you took my entire company and my life, now I’m supposed to work for you???”

“Just carrying out the court order!” the man said almost cheerfully. “Since everything we bought of Infowars is nowhere close to one and a half billion you owe to the Sandy Hook families, the court resolved that you will be working for us until you pay off the rest. At a court-mandated salary of seventy thousand dollars a year you will be likely working for us for the rest of your life.”

“Seventy thousand a year??” Jones repeated incredulously. “How am I supposed to live on this? My mortgage on this house alone is twenty thousand a month!”

“Oh, this house will be confiscated as well, toward paying off your debts.”

“What??? No one can confiscate this house! It’s not even mine! My wife owns it!”

“Oh, didn’t you just say that you were the one paying the mortgage on it?”

“And I am, as any good husband would!”

“Well, Alex – I hope you don’t mind me calling you Alex since I’m your boss – the house issue will be also resolved through court. Right now, we need to get to work, per court instructions,” Ben said and took the paper from Jones’ hand.

“My lawyers are appealing your auction buy,” Alex barked. “You’ve rigged the auction! I’ll get my Infowars back from you!”

“That might very well be, Alex, and we will comply with the court order when or if it comes. For now, however, the auction results are in force, and you are working for us starting today. I’ll give you fifteen minutes to get ready.”

He said it in a tone that did not suggest any objections. Alex looked at him and said, “I can’t do that in fifteen minutes! Haven’t had my coffee and shower yet.”

“I’ll wait for you to take a shower. Plenty of coffee in the office,” the man said, inviting himself into Alex’s mansion.

Alex went upstairs, took his robe off, and stepped into the shower. There was no way he could be done in fifteen minutes. He was not going to change his daily routine, he thought, taking his sweet time washing and grooming his meaty body with the products that Infowars pedaled to its viewers for longevity and masculinity. He usually spent an hour only on that. Ben will have to wait.

Fifteen minutes later, the water in the shower suddenly shut off. Jones was still in a layer of foamy body wash when he saw Ben walking into his bathroom, handing him the towel, “I told you fifteen minutes. Please get dressed, we are already being late!”

“But…”

“No ‘buts,’ Alex, get dressed and let’s get going!” Ben repeated, giving a quick glance at Jones’ manhood. He immediately turned away and smirked into his sleeve.

Five minutes later, grumpy and unhappy Jones descended the stairs into his mansion’s lobby where Ben was still waiting, sitting on a sofa and scrolling through his phone.

“So what’s my job at your Onion Wars?” Jones asked, getting into the company car.

“You will see, it’s not that hard but involves a lot of research and…” Ben paused, searching for words.

“Development? I love R&D!” Jones barked, thinking that it may not be that bad after all.

“No, it's more like R&R, Research and Repair,” Ben responded. “You’ll understand when we get there.”

Part 2 is here:

Part 3: