The shit really flies, with lawsuits and countersuits between Soiree and Zamazda
Meanwhile, What If magazine sticks to its editorial guns
After a week, Soiree fires Zamazda from his English-language school, and is beside himself raving in his penthouse, lost for words at how Zamazda, no sooner than he started his employment at Soiree’s school, went from client to client telling them to deal only with him, trying to either push Soiree out of his own business or start a rival English-teaching company by stealing Soiree’s clients, leaving Soiree and everything he’d built in near ruins.
As a result of Zamazda’s ambitious recklessness, spearheaded by his unmitigated vainglory, Soiree is desperately salvaging what’s left of his school, while Zamazda has nothing, although he is so outrageously arrogant, that he is incapable of recognizing the moral depravity of his actions, being absolutely convinced that he is in the right.
Soiree has filed a lawsuit against Zamazda for compensatory damages for economic losses to his school, but Zamazda immediately hit back, not only filing an answer denying Soiree’s claims, but slapping Soiree with a countersuit for hedonic damages, including for mental and emotional pain and suffering, loss of amenity, loss of reputation (Reputation!, Soiree screams… Amenity!…), and loss of enjoyment of life, among many other losses.
Not only that, but Zamazda wrote Soiree a letter, saying that his father has so much money that he would bury Soiree in pleadings, cross-complaints and countermotions to the extent needed, without limitation, and then some, until Soiree was dead.
You are a substantial and dangerous oil slick on the New Jersey Turnpike and I intend to scrape you off along the way to all my desired exits, Zamazda wrote Soiree in the missive of fearless pettiness, nastiness and arrogance that brought out the best of the buried writer in him.
Meanwhile, a photograph of Soiree together with Zamazda and two young Ukrainian white chicks, one of whom was purportedly Zamazda’s wife, which Soiree will never completely believe, at the Valentine’s Day dinner for VIPs, especially Kyiv-based expats grown used to throwing their imagined weight around this embattled hapless little town, made it successfully into What If magazine precisely one week after the infamous fete, thanks to the sincere and unselfish efforts of the photographer who remembered Soiree and his emotionally charged plea that the photographer use every means at his disposal to get that photo into that magazine.
Shit! That photo’s going to play right into the hands of Zamazda and make it look like I offered him a job in my Stately School of English Languages as a sincere gesture in a festive atmosphere under congenial, positive and auspicious circumstances.
Soiree Letter No. 1 to What If, in part:
And so, under the circumstances, I respectfully request that you make every best effort to get rid of the photo in question in every issue of your magazine. However, since I realize that is physically impossible, particularly since many of those issues have already been consumed by readers, then I request that you reissue the edition, but without the photograph, saying in big bold letters on the cover that this issue replaces the other issue, which was a mistake.
What If Response Letter No. 1 to Soiree, in part:
So, as you can see, Mr. Soiree, while we understand your situation and respect your status as our long-time reader, under the circumstances, What If is neither able to take sides in your dispute with Zippy Zamazda, who is also a long-time patron of our publication, nor reissue the edition of What If in question, as that would go against our policy of never doing anything like that. Sorry, and good luck!!!
Soiree Letter No. 2 to What If, in part:
You have to issue a correction and say the photo was photoshopped by you, depicting an occurrence that never happened. I demand it, and further inaction on your part will call forth dire actions by me. You have been warned.
What If Response Letter No. 2 to Soiree, in part:
Don’t you dare threaten us! We are keeping this absurd letter you wrote for the record, because what you are demanding is that What If 1. lie about itself, as we never photoshop anything, except our rented models every once in a while, when they turn out to be less than our aesthetic ideal, and 2. lie, by saying a situation that happened, i.e., you and Mr. Zamazda sitting together at the Valentine’s Day celebration, didn’t happen.
But in case you haven’t noticed, we’re not in the business of changing this great country, with its proud, wonderful, intelligent people and the most beautiful women in the world, back into a totalitarian state! So you better watch whom you threaten, unless you want trouble and another lawsuit on your hands to match the one from Mr. Zamazda. We’ve got powerful friends and contacts who like our work, since it satisfies their needs and interests, and they’ll help and financially back us against you if that proves necessary.
Soiree Letter No. 3 to What If, in part:
I don’t know what got into me. Please, understand me and what I’m going through. I’m under tremendous stress and didn’t know what I was saying. Of course I realize you can’t say you faked the photo. But please, please, I beg you, issue a correction saying it was a mistake.
What If Response Letter No. 3 to Soiree, in part:
What do you mean by ‘mistake’? That your meeting with Mr. Zamazda at the Valentine’s Day table was a mistake? That’s absurd! Your meeting with him is your problem, and no concern of ours.
Soiree Letter No. 4 to What If, in part:
…that you put the photo in by mistake.
What If Response Letter No. 4 to Soiree, in part:
That’s ridiculous! How can a photo that we’ve decided should go into our magazine be a mistake? Besides, in this business, there’s no such thing as publishing corrections for photos. Sure, if the caption in the photo was wrong, then we’d be obligated to correct it, but since there were no mistakes in that respect, you can’t hold us to any correction. We are saving these letters for the record.
Soiree Letter No. 5 to What If, in full:
That’s it, you sons of bitches – I’m suing!
What If Response Letter No. 5 to Soiree, also in full:
Yeah, like we’re really scared. Go ahead, sue… and see what happens.
Filed by Jack Step, April 6, 2013