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Post by Turn 360 and walk away on Nov 11, 2012 1:30:42 GMT -5
This is my name: Gregory Mitchell Larson. Gregory, after that sack of skin stapled to the couchwith his slicked-back hair and video camera and sweat and sex in the air that is my father or at least, that’s what Mom always said because he left before I knew him, Mitchell for his father, and Larson, because every fucker on the planet needs three names. Don’t bother Googling it. Nothing comes up. Nothing at all even registers on the radar for Greg Larson.
I have an excellent job as an account management representative for a major corporation – one you likely had the displeasure of working with today,
no less – and I am very sorry. Or, I would be sorry if I cared to be. Here, I usually say, “I have a job as an account management representative, but I’m working my way up to a career as a dishwasher.” I used to be an account service representative, until an outside consultant told my boss that we needed to manage our customers, not service them. The outside consultant called us whores and we all got new nametags.
These nametags all sound very happy. In bright, bold color they shout “HELLO! MY NAME IS” and “HOW MAY I ASSIST YOU TODAY?” and “PUT A BULLET IN MY BRAIN, PLEASE!” and my favorite, “I’M HERE TO MAKE YOUR DAY.” Because it wasn’t enough that we be happy to see our customers we are no longer allowed to service, I now must wear happy clothes with happy slogans and have at least one potted plant in my cubicle to distract the customer from how fucking miserable the entire building is. I have two potted plants. They create a calm atmosphere, which is what I need for my workplace because I suffer anxiety attacks. The plants are placed at each corner, and my ergonomic keyboard is right between them. I have an ergonomic keyboard because of a stress repetition injury. It’s sad that I have a stress repetition injury. It’s sad I can do something over and over again so much it causes me stress. And it’s sad that for all of this, insofar as my definition of success is applied,
I
Am
A
Success.
This is Janice. Janice has thick curly hair, pulled back ever so right like she read in one of her useless magazines. She does this because it told her to not let her dark hair frame her face in these summer months. It’s currently October. It’s the same reason she wears one specific shade of lipstick that is too bright for the grayness of this office. It’s the same reason I only wear ties in certain colors and patterns and fret every morning about which watch to wear. Janice likes wearing nice things to make up for her weight. But the jelly donuts she keeps stashed in her desk don’t care what her hair looks like. Janice has a stapler click, click, click that snaps shut, skewering papers or more often nothing at all, as she click, click, click walks between cubicles click, click, click. It is pink and it is loud and she uses it instead of periods in her sentences click
Today is Janice’s birthday. What that means in the corporate world is that we all have to stand around a card table in the break room and eatshitty cake from the grocery store down the street and pretend that, for five minutes, being around her doesn't lower our collective life expectancy. She cuts the cake, sticks her sausage finger in the frosting, and as the sugary glaze touches her tongue her eyes light up with excitement and she says “MMMmmmmm”.
This is Bernie. Bernie is my best friend. His cubicle is across from mine. He calls me “the man” and always wears red ties because he’s ago-getter. Bernie says he needs coffee to live and tries to throw wads of paper into my trashcan from his desk, and every time he makes it he says I shoulda gone pro. Bernie is currently seeing a girl and it’s getting pretty serious. He sees her every time he needs to leave the office. Bernie is gone today because he has a dentist appointment. Remember what I said?
This is Bernie screwing my girlfriend of 8 months as she shrieks in ecstasy on top of an IKEA dining table I picked up for a really good price. This is Bernie saying oh, shit as my girlfriend wraps her legs around him and holds him in and this is Bernie laying on top of her as the table leans dangerously to one side and the legs are bending and protesting and threatening to break.
This is Alisa. Alisa is my girlfriend. Alisa is also Bernie’s girl. She’s blonde. You don’t need to meet Alisa.
This is my life. And I’m feeling it being torn away from me one minute at a time.
Janice: “Jesus H. Christ click is that my expense report on your click desk?”
“Yeah, I was just about to-” I felt my blood pressure rising.
Janice: “Holy shit on a shingle, it is click I need that on my desk click by two o’clock click click click”
The episode subsided and I put the pills back without swallowing them. I suffer from anxiety attacks, remember?
I wonder if, when I was born, my father looked into my baby blue eyes and realized that he just helped produce the most insignificant fucker of the 20th century, and that’s why he doesn't give a shit. That’s why I don’t.
---
I’m not gay. I have a son. Let’s get that out of the way.
I only do the gay thing every once in a while, to reacquire my taste for the fairer sex. It keeps the novelty alive, stops me from taking girlish moans and nice tits bouncing and those long, fire engine red fingernails scratching my back for granted. Just once every year or two, I have to make myself just accept that hairy, shitty, ugly man ass.
It’s easy for a while. I can slick back my hair and untie the bathrobe as some Adonis-looking twink lays on the bed, and I jiggle the camera to make sure it’s on the tripod just right and pointed where it needs to be and I can pretend that there’s some whore that hasn’t made it up here to my penthouse yet, but I always start sweating somewhere between the camera and the big, heart-shaped bed, and the twink will always say something like “
are you nervous?” and I’ll say I’m just new to it and it’s dialogue like that, that line in particular, that turns an okay movie into one that people pay out the ass to see on the internet. The thing is, usually, I’ll mount the bed on my knees and I’ll start breathing a little heavier and for one second I just think “Put a fucking bullet in my brain”.
And then a perfect circle about half an inch wide opens up through the window, and the glass shatters and the Adonis-looking twink gags and instantly goes flaccid and I have a bullet in my brain.
---
“Did you hear what happened?” A blue-green colored, hairy beast whispered. A line of umbrellas shielded a group of people standing in a semi-circle around the grave. The rain was enough to soak the ground and cold enough to chill the mourners to the bone.
“They spend five hours trying to put his face back together so they could have an open casket,” said a small, light-skinned boy with fiery hair and freckles, a wooden doll that stood next to a pudgy, self-satisfied man in a blazer and muddy shoes that concluded “And the best we got was an urn with an old picture and a gold frame.”
“Can you imagine? The Cowboy, taken down. By a gun,” whispered a paper-like woman who’s skin was deathly white against the black dress, “He was supposed to be the best gun around...”
Animal sighed in agreement with The Widow’s revelation. The Puppetmaster said, as his dolls turned away and one 6-inch boy tugged at his pant leg, “They say the shot came from 3 miles away. You’d have to be better than Cowboy to make a shot like that.”
An older, dark-skinned fellow hobbled into the fringes of the group, his cane slipping in the wet grass, “I’ll take care of the estate. Relatives, that sort of thing.”
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Post by Turn 360 and walk away on Nov 11, 2012 1:51:40 GMT -5
“God damn it Greg, when are we gonna move so I can stop hearing that?”
It was 5:30 in the goddamn morning. Why the fuck won’t you let me sleep? “Hearing what, Ali?”
“You’re telling me you can’t hear that fucking train? You know, that one that runs TWO FEET from THE FUCKING WINDOW EVERY MORNING?”
“Yeah, just as soon as we can,” as soon as we can find something else to drown out your annoying fucking voice, “we’ll move.”
“Damn it, that’s what it always is with you. ‘as soon as. As soon as. As soon as.’ Don’t you ever actually do anything?”
Damn it, my alarm’s going off in less than an hour. “Um-hmm.”
“Shit, feed the cat. I’m getting up. I can’t sleep with all this shit I put up with in the air.”
Fuck you too, lady. “Alright.”
My head hits the pillow. The alarm clock goes off. I hit it with the back of my hand. Shower, shirt, tie, shoes. I had my very nice L.L. Bean moleskin satchel over my shoulder when I left that shitty apartment. I put my hand against the wooden guard rail on my way down the stoop. I pulled it off when I got a splinter jammed into my fingertip. When I pulled my hand off, the rail rattled and fell away from the concrete steps. I walked to the station and waited for my train to come with my eyes down and my hands shoved deep into my pockets.
Isn’t there someone in your life that you know would notice you, if only they saw you somewhere else? Don’t you wish that someone could see you in different circumstances, in a place where you weren't so lifeless and defeated…?
I gave Bernie a can of Coke from the fridge in the break room as we stood next to the water cooler, “You are the man,” he followed my eyes to Sandra, walking right past me and towards to the elevator. Chocolate hair, silky, running to her mid back. Golden skin. Perfect ass wiggling just so behind a tastefully tight skirt with no panty line. “Yeah, you should get that Greg. Oh yeah, you’d be the man.”
…But we all know that it won’t ever happen.
“Jesus Christ squatting on a popsicle click I told you to have that report to me click yesterday and yet, you have time to have a playdate at the water click cooler! You have two hours, Larson click Two hours click”
Janice follows me back to by desk. She was nagging. She always nags, but this time it was worse. This time I could see her jiggle with every knees-together step and that little turkey snood hanging off of her chin flap back and forth. It was getting louder and I couldn’t breath anymore and my heartwaspoundingandIcouldn’thinkandcouldn’thearand
“I’m sorry…”
“Damn right you’re sorry. Now, you have two hours click”
“I’m so sorry…” I swallowed my pills and leaned back, fanning myself with papers.
---
“Refill.”
“Mister Larson, back so soon?”
I was standing dejectedly at the pharmacy counter in my local Super Duper Mart. I considered for a moment that, instead of spending my time here, I could go out looking for a job.
“Yeah, work’s been a little extra stressful lately.”
“It’ll just be one minute.”
“Thank you.” For enabling this terrible, terrible addiction that will undoubtedly kill me off.
“Okay, that comes to fourteen ninety-five,” Bernie slams down a few cans of some God-awful energy drink next to the register, “Are you paying separately?”
“Yes,” Bernie says, scanning the shelf, and picking up and gently placing a package of condoms on top of the cans, “Watermelon. Chicks dig it,” he says with a wink. I’m very sure she does.
He checks his pockets, first his back, then all of them worriedly. “Oh, shit. I must have dropped my wallet somewhere…” He kicked it under the dining room table. I found it last night.
“So, are you…?” the pharmacist motioned to the pills and the drinks and the condoms with a circular wave, asking if they were together now.
“no, no, I can’t, really,” Bernie fumbles.
“Yeah. I got this,” I hand the pharmacist two twenties and Bernie takes his stuff.
“You are the man.” The man. Yeah, right, I’m the fucking man. “You know, I’ve been on, like, and energy drink cleanse lately. One of these for breakfast, pop two or three for lunch, and one more gets me through the night, no problem.” And then you die in your fucking sleep. Just drown it out. Or drown in it.
---
I always go by the ATM on my way home from the store. It makes it easy to keep track of my finances, the way a grown adult should.
___________________________________________________________
|................................WELCOME TO CAPITAL..............................|
|.............................................BANK........................................|
|...........................HOW MAY I HELP YOU TODAY?........................|
|..............................................................................DEPOSIT..| <__|
|...........................................................................WITHDRAW..| <__|
|..................................................................BALANCE INQUIRY..| <__|
|............................................................................................| <__|
|__________________________________________________________|
___________________________________________________________
|..........................................WITHDRAW...................................|
|.........................................HOW MUCH?..................................|
|............................................................................................|
|.....................................................................................$20..| <__|
|.....................................................................................$40..| <__|
|...................................................................................$100..| <__|
|.................................................................................OTHER..| <__|
|_________________________________________________________|
__________________________________________________________
|............................................ERROR.......................................|
|................................CANNOT WITHDRAW $40...........................|
|...........................................................................................|
|..................................INSUFFICIENT FUNDS.............................| <__|
|...........................................................................................| <__|
|...........................................................................................| <__|
|.....................................................................................OK..| <__|
|_________________________________________________________|
__________________________________________________________
|............................................ERROR.......................................|
|................................CANNOT WITHDRAW $20...........................|
|...........................................................................................|
|..................................INSUFFICIENT FUNDS.............................| <__|
|...........................................................................................| <__|
|...........................................................................................| <__|
|.....................................................................................OK..| <__|
|_________________________________________________________|
__________________________________________________________
|............................YOUR ACCOUNT BALANCE IS.........................|
|.............................................$15.42.....................................|
|...........................................................................................|
|.........................................THANK YOU..................................| <__|
|...........................................................................................| <__|
|..................................................................................NEXT..| <__|
|...........................................................................................| <__|
|_________________________________________________________|
__________________________________________________________
|..........................YOUR BEST FRIEND IS FUCKING.......................|
|....................................YOUR GIRLFRIEND...............................|
|...........................................................................................|
|...............................YOUR JOB IS A DEAD-END.........................| <__|
|..............................................................................ACCEPT..| <__|
|...........................................................................................| <__|
|...........................................................................................| <__|
|_________________________________________________________|
__________________________________________________________
|.......................................YOU ARE BROKE...............................|
|...............................................AND.......................................|
|.........................YOU ARE TOO MUCH OF A PUSSY......................|
|.......................TO DO ANYTHING ABOUT ANY OF IT....................| <__|
|...............................................................................ACCEPT..| <__|
|...................................................................................BACK..| <__|
|...........................................................................................| <__|
|_________________________________________________________|
“Hey, jackass!”
Fuck.
“I’m talking to you, masput!”
Walk faster. Eyes down. Hands in pockets. Walk faster. I don’t have time for
The beating was administered as usual. Four thugs around the corner from the tram stop. They’re only around a couple times per week; They’ve been there
since I’ve taken the train, probably longer. For one second, I stop thinking about the boot in my ribs and I reflect on who might have been in my place
before me. Joke’s on them, my wallet’s empty. One of them kicks my head.
Fucking ATM. And, do you know the best part about today is? We get to do it all again tomorrow.
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Post by Turn 360 and walk away on Nov 11, 2012 2:03:55 GMT -5
Think of the worst hangover you can remember having.
I made it to bed eventually. I woke up eventually. I went to work eventually. Janice got her chance to fuck with me eventually. I was staring at my computer screen. Google still didn’t seem to notice me. I was just staring at the flickering screen with my slackjawed gape.
Janice: “Mother Mary, Jesus, and Joseph click You can’t seem to finish my damn expense report click but you have time to visit with your friends all fucking click day click”
“What? I don’t even-”
“You have a click visitor in the click lobby click”
I wasn’t expecting anyone. Probably that bitch – what was her name? Alisa.
It wasn’t Alisa. In fact, it was her exact opposite. Short, dark hair, almost the same length as mine, swept sideways in front of her face. She had bronze skin, taught and held nicely in a pair of leather pants and matching jacket that helped in all the right ways. She had a button nose and pouty lips and I immediately felt myself get hard and black eyes that cut like a knife and how do I hide this thing shit.
“Hi, I’m Greg…”
“…Ory Mitchell Larson. Yeah, I know,” she finished, “Your father died last night.”
“Look, lady, I’m sorry. I don’t know you. I don’t even know my father. If you’re looking for someone to care about that asshole…”
“He was the greatest supervillain I knew…”
“…he was a fag and he never gave a shit…”
“…and possibly the greatest anyone knew, and the world will miss him.”
“…and I don’t give a – did you say ‘supervillain’?”
“Yes, Greg. The Cowboy was a god. He could have ruled the world, and you’re his son. We thought you should know.”
“’We’? Who’s ‘we’?”
“You’ll learn later, for now, duck!” and then a perfect circle about half an inch wide opens up through the window, and the glass shatters and Janice’s coffee cup falls in pieces from her hand and the woman pulled me to the ground as a bullet sails through the air, barely missing me damn it. She’s on top of me, breathing heavy and my mind, for just one second, travels down below my belt. From inside her jacket she produces a pair of gold-plated handguns and looks at me “can you shoot?”
I think for just one second about my raging hardon before
I shake my head. The woman rolls her eyes and pulls me up by my collar as she slinks up herself, like a cat, and tugs me along. “Stay low,” she says, “and listen to me.”
Stacks of papers were exploding above my head as shots flew past me. The woman fired back, mostly randomly. After an eternity we made it to the elevators and she hit the “down” button. I decided it would be prudent to continue to pound on the button in rapid-fire as we waited. By the time the doors slid open, my anxiety attack was in full swing and god damn it mymedicineisalthewayinmydeskandIcan’tbreathe…
“When the door opens, do not move.”
I was huddled against the sweat-soaked carpet and hoped she didn’t notice I had pissed myself. All I could manage was a slow, numb nod.
Bing!
And the doors slid open.
BLAM! BLAM! BLAM! BLAM!
And the back of the tiny pressboard and aluminum coffin had bullet holes where we probably would have been.
“Move!” and believe me, I did. I ran just behind her until I couldn’t feel my legs anymore and kept going as ricochets twanged all around my feetandshethrewmeintothebackofacar and myanxietyattackreachedacrescendoandIblackedout
---
“Wake the hell up.”
There was the familiar hum of flies orbiting around my head. I started flailing my arm at them, but they never backed off for more than a second.
“Motherfucker, get your shit together and get out.”
That’s not Alisa’s voice. ”Where am I?”
“You’re in a recovery room at NASRC,” the voice of the woman from the office.
“Nazrack?” I said, mimicking her.
“North American Strategic Research Center – and technically, it is his bed.”
I swung my legs around and pushed myself to my feet. The woman put a hand on my shoulder and steadied me, “And that is?”
“The headquarters for applied sciences in evil. Bad guy HQ in America, basically. I don’t believe we’ve officially met; I’m Jaguar. The big fella that kicked you out’s Wrecking Ball.”
He flopped down on the bed with a thunderous crash, “And don’t get in my way again or I’ll show you how I got that name.”
The door hissed and slid open to one side. From the other side hobbled a short man with dark skin and snowy hair, weighed to one side on top of a cane.
“Doc, good to see you,” Jaguar smirked.
“Ah, Gregory, you’re awake! And you’ve met some of your team, I see! Good, good.”
Jaguar motioned to the old man, “Gregory, this is the curator of NASRC. Also the mentor to almost everyone here and the genius behind everything in this hole, Doctor N Tropy.”
“’N’, for short. Come, Gregory. Please, allow me to show you around.”
NASRC felt alive with the scores occupying its halls, breathing hot, ragged breaths of work and sweat, smoke and slag, gears and springs and solder. The rooms were big and open and sealed with a glasslike plastic that was shiny and cold to the touch and showed everything on the other side in an almost silvery filter. At the end of a massive artery of a hallway large enough to drive trucks though, the corridor opened into an atrium that was in stark contrast to the maze of halls behind it. Dotted all along the walls of the giant dome were doors leading to the various catwalks, extending up the eight stories.
“One hundred feet,” N said, looking up at the catwalks and studying what almost looked like a space shuttle engine being assembled near the center of the dome.
“Wow,” I returned, still coming to terms with the vastness of it all. The slowly shuffling shag carpet of people on the ground floor all the way up to the sinewy crawls of people on the upper floors, and the massive machines interspersed like obelisks in the chaos.
“That there is one of my favorites. It’s a death ray I built that I’m quite fond of, one of my first creations. I found a way to bypass having an overload cell on the system; No overload cell means no self-destruct button, see?
“And that one in the back is a weather machine. Cliché, I know, but nonetheless effective. It’s much easier to have a giant flood maintain the status quo than actually going there, you understand.”
“No, actually, I don’t. Why not give some of the villages in North Africa some rain for a change if you can control the weather?”
“Dear boy, why do you think they’re in a perpetual drought? It’s a strategic advantage to us that our sister organization, ABRA,” N coughed and started for a moment, “the African Biological Research Administration, has a harder time with their job. I want to colonize Mars first.”
“Okay… and that?”
“The large blue tube houses about a million million nanites that are specially made to eat petroleum-based products such as gasoline and plastic, and the mook standing behind it is Alfred-5. There’s God knows how many Alfreds around here. They’re just big, death-bringing robots that also clean up and give good directions around the place.”
“N! How are you, my friend?” shouted a dog-like creature from one level up.
“Anubis! I did not expect to see you here! I am quite well, friend. And youself?”
“Wonderful! I’m looking into making a transfer. India is just is not doing it for me anymore. People around there used to be frightened of me, but once those damn Mercurians put my face up everywhere, it become more of a costume than anything.”
“Egypt was a strange time, indeed. I was working with the Mesoamericans myself, showing them how to cultivate corn around then. Also borrowed some of your pyramids, though I must say, your architects did a much better job of it. The limestone walls…”
“True my friend, but yours didn’t ruin your mystique.”
“Fair enough, Anubis. It was quite a pleasant surprise seeing you! I would love to stay and catch up, but I have a new fledgling in orientation today.” N took my shoulder and patted it, laughing as he spoke.
The dog man bowed his head, “Indeed! I hope we may do this again soon.”
“Don’t let the ‘god of death’ thing put you off, Gregory,” N said plaintively, “Anubis really is one of the friendliest here. Disregarding, you know, undead hordes and plagues and all.”
“He… That… He’s real?”
“Of course! What, do you believe all those stories were fiction?”
“Well… yeah.”
“Come, Gregory. I have something quite dear to me to show you.”
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Post by Turn 360 and walk away on Nov 11, 2012 2:13:49 GMT -5
The vault door sat huge and round and imposing, like the door of Jesus’ tomb, against the stainless steel wall. N tapped in it three times with his cane, and the tumblers sprang to life, whirring and clanking as the bolts disengaged and hissing and moaning as the structure swung open on hinges that seemed too small for how heavy the vault door must have been. N had taken me to a strange back room, lower-lit than the rest of the complex and certainly less used. In it were scattered remnants of projects, much like in the giant dome, but abandoned, scrapped, left for dead.
“There’s one item I keep back here,” N said deliberately as he walked that lopsided walk, “that’s hidden from everyone, and for good reason.” It was a swatch of cloth draped over a mannequin. The form was faceless, emotionless, and unposed. It was there for the cloth, not the other way around. That cloth,the sheet-sized thing, was red and emblazoned with a big yellow “S” inscribed in a diamond shape.
“What’s that?”
“This, Gregory, is a cape.”
---
Comic books, movies, radio shows. Those things used to be real. Way back in the day, back when still had the energy to go out in the field, Supervilliany was still an untested thing. Sure, we had our bad guys, but no one ever really aimed that high. Diamond thieving, building burning, destroying orphanages; the “bad guy” did that sort of thing. It was good… for a while. But it wasn’t too long before the “good guys” caught on. They’d just beat us to the punch. Someone on the street creates a freeze ray, they’d just wear neo-insulation high-polymer suits. Bad guy comes up with a theme character, good guy goes and puts on spandex and colorful underwear. It was an arms race of the most absurd kind, and you know what? We were losing.
Some of us woke up one day on our prison cots and realized that they were winning because they had their Leagues and their Teams and their Initiatives. They talked, they planned, and they worked together. So one day, a handful of my closest companions and myself formed this group. We called it the Syndicate of Evil, and we talked, we planned, and we finally figured out how to play well with others.
The original consortium consisted of Kwame, Mr. Ricktus, Denton, and me. After quite a while, we had recruited a sizeable force under our banner, and decided that it was time to do what we had been plotting with the beginning. The war a long one, and a hard one. It nearly wiped out everything, but in the end, we did it. We killed every superhero. We put them all in the ground. The world was ours.
To cement that victory, we got all the brains together and we built a machine (that I still have around here somewhere…) that erased human history. It was designed to, in a flash, make people forget there was ever a superhero or that things were ever different. It took humanity back to infancy and we raised it as our own. Thing is, it took quite a while to manifest (almost 700 years, I think) but it didn’t work perfectly. Those people that were supposed to have no functional memory or comprehension of heroes somehow… had some. It wasn’t perfect, but it was there, and they took those memories and they put them to paper. I remember killing a man who wore green and had a magic ring back then, and look, here he is again.
The point being, we were supposed to wipe everyone’s memory of the event. Now, there are only four people who still remember those notions, and you make five, Gregory. I kept this a souvenir of my last mission, but all hell would break loose if it somehow got out. I’m worried it would awaken those latent memories too well.
---
“These were your father’s, Gregory. Nickel-plated, gold-inlaid, cherrywood-trimmed, forty-five-ACP SIG Sauer GSRs; Made in America, if you can believe it,” N opened a wooden box and pushed it into my chest. I gingerly took the large, heavy matching handguns out and held them up in the light. Everyone was in an atrium overlooking the work floor of the dome. The buzzing flies that tormented me earlier remained on this floor, orbiting a trash bin that someone had placed to prop the door open.
“The Cowboy could conduct a symphony with these babies,” Jaguar said parenthetically, “And you will, too.”
“So, guys, this was nice and all, really, but you got the wrong guy. I’m no super assassin. I’ve never even held a gun.”
“Those aren’t panic attacks you suffer from, Gregory. You have an extraordinary ability to artificially increase your heart rate to unfathomable levels, flooding your system with endorphins, adrenaline. It slows down your perception of time. It increases your focus, stamina.
“Now, here’s a simple test. Take one of these guns, there you go, and you’re going to shoot the wings off of the flies.”
“Wait, what?”
“Shoot the wings. Off the flies.”
“I can’t even – I’ve never even held a gun before! I mean -”
“I am going to count to three,” Jaguar took the matching pistol and held it to my temple, “And then either you will pull your trigger, or I will pull mine.”
“One.”
“I don’t know! I can’t!”
“Two…”
“Gregory, listen to the nice lady with the gun please.”
Idon’tfuckingknowwhatthehellisgoingonIcan’tdothisshitI’mgonnadieI’mgonnadiefuck
“Three.”
BANG
BANG
BANG BANG
BANG BANGBANG
Click
Click click
Click
I stumbled back and leaned against the wall what the fuck just happened and slid down until I was sitting my heart’s going to explode and looked at the gun. N walked to the trashcan and bent down, and strode over to me. He grasped my hand and gently overturned his, dumping a number of wingless flies into my palm to meander drunkenly guess we should call them ‘walks’.
“What the…”
“You’re a born killer, Gregory,” N said as he handed me the second handgun and shifted his weight over his cane.
“You… You… Get the hell away from me!” I pointed it at him, felt the weight of it in my hand the cold sweat on my palm and swung it around.
“Gregory. You are surrounded by people who make a living killing people a lot tougher than yourself. If I were you, I’d keep the gun pointed at me.”
Fuck, he’s right, I zeroed in on N’s forehead, “Don’t follow me. I don’t know what you want with me. Just… just leave me alone!”
“Alright, Gregory. The door’s that way,” N said with an amused air as his hands were above his head.
“Excuse me, sorry,” I shouldered past Jaguar, backed away, and put the gun under the waist of my slacks, sprinting in any direction that seemed like an
exit.
---
Think of the worst hangover you can remember having.
I woke up eventually. Alisa chewed my ass out for not being home eventually. The only thing that wasn’t eventual was that I needed to shit, so I got up out of bed and went across the room to the bathroom eventually. For one second, I reflect on how I used to have a Hustler magazine where I currently house a stack of Ikea catalogues.
So, you know that feeling you get when something happens, and you swear it’s real until you wake up, and you’re so glad that it was just a dream?
As I undid my belt and dropped my pants to my ankles, something clattered to the ground with a decidedly metallic rattle.
This was nothing like that.
I picked it up and reflected into the nickel and gold and cherrywood, and just as I looked myself in the eyes, I hid it in the tank of the toilet.
So, you know that feeling that you get when something so fucked up happens, you just clench up and pretend nothing happened and your balls retreat as if you threw puberty in reverse and your shit crawls back up into your gut?
White shirt with an oxford pattern. Cornsilk yellow tie, diagonal stripes of white. Khaki slacks. Silver watch. Don’t forget to comb your hair, dumbass. Pens in pocket, and count the change for breakfast.
Yeah, it was more like that.
Riiiiiiiiiiiiing
Staring at a spreadsheet with numbers splashed across its face in an imposing wall of calculated guesses and approximates.
Riiiiiiiiiiiing
Bernie spins in his chair and swears when his knuckles collide with the edge of his desk.
Riiiiiiiiiiiing
I am vaguely aware of a clicking sound growing louder that means the succubus, Janice, is making her rounds.
Riiiiiiiiiiing
“Account management, this is Gregory,” As if I was bothered to listen to the cunt on the other end of the line.
…
“I understand that, ma’am.”
…
“If you recall, we are not held responsible…”
…
“Have a nice day ma’am.”
“You forgot something, Gregory click”
“Forgot what, Janice?”
“You forgot everything click Gregory click You are an absolute mess. Do you even wash your clothes click Of everything this company ever did click you are by far the greatest mistake we have ever made...”
“I’m sorry…” And here comes the panic attack…
“…Why do I even keep you around? You are absolutely click worthless click you do nothing! You’re a mistake click and I can’t keep you click around unless you…”
“Sssssssssssooooooooorrrrrrrryyyyyy…” The palpitations... Cold sweat... Her disgusting.. turkey snood or a neck... All three chins... Crushed feeling in my chest…
“…What in the click hell do you click have to say for yourself click”
“Ssssssssssssssss…”
“Do you say anything but ‘sorry’ click Or are you too click worthless to even–”
“Sssssssshut up. SHUT THE HELL UP!”
She was shocked. I could tell, because her drawn-on eyebrows jumped almost up to her hairline.
“YOU ARE FUCKING ANNOYING! YOU. You are a single iota of fucking irritation, a single point of pulsing agony and you need to stop!” I took a knee and held her stapler hand, mostly for the effect of looking so sincere, but also to shut it up, “We know. We know. Junior high was very hard for you. It’s hard for a lot of bigger girls. Yeah, we all know you keep a stash of donuts in your desk.
“But that’s no reason to take that pain out on your employees. And you know what? If you weren’t such a complete bitch, we’d feel sorry for you. We all would. We want to like you. But right now? I think I can speak for the whole office when I say: Go fuck yourself with a cactus.”
Janice was still shocked. I unplugged my ergonomic keyboard and tucked it under my arm and walked away before she had a chance to close her gaping mouth. Bernie was coming towards me from the other end. His eyes were just as wide and he was mouthing “ You are the man, you are the man, you are the man,” and as we drew nearer, it got audible. I stopped immediately in front of him.
“I’m the man?”
“You are the man.”
I took my keyboard and smashed him across the face with it. He crumpled to the ground and I picked up the half of the keyboard I wasn’t holding from the ground and stepped over him, “I am the man.”
On my way out of the office, I handed the bloody halves of the keyboard to the receptionist and walked to the bus stop.
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