Let’s Just Think, Okay, People?

12/27/05


I want to paint a little scene for you today, ladies and gentlemen. Call it an exercise in the worst case scenario.
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Jim awoke and knew something was amiss instinctively, that way you just somehow know the monster’s going to come popping out of the closet and devour the big-breasted heroine any minute and if he would just hurry up and get it over with you could comfortably swallow your overly masticated mouthful of popcorn without fear of choking to death from nervous tension. Upon cracking open one sleep-crusted eye, Jim found his closet much as it should be; open and packed full of clothing, most of which he’d never wear in public. So the closet wasn’t the problem. Not quite awake but conscious in that vaguely apprehensive way, Jim’s eyes wandered over to the digital clock beside his television and found its normally red eyes gone dark. There was enough sunlight coming through the dust-coated mini-blinds of his bedroom for him to read his watch. 8:51 a.m.

Adrenaline dumped into Jim’s bloodstream like ice water and it was a wonder he didn’t incur serious injury leaping out of bed like that. His thoughts went something like this:

Oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuckfuckfuck F-U-C-K!

Jim was late. It was the worst kind of late you can be; that not quite late yet but incapable of doing anything to ultimately prevent it kind of late. With his office located some ten miles across town the odds of our hero getting dressed and slathering his body with enough deodorant, cologne and mouthwash to kill any offensive odor and making it in to work by nine o’clock were just above impossible.

Dressed and reasonably clean after rubbing his terminally wrinkled clothes procured from the “not quite dirty enough to wash yet” pile with a dryer sheet, Jim found to his horror that he couldn’t find the mate to the only pair of black shoes he owned. In order not to look like a total douche-bag at work he’d have to strip off the black pants, belt and tie and find replacements not covered in something sticky.

“Damnit!” he shouted at his shoe as he flung it off into parts unknown to become lost along with its partner. Jim settled on a mildly inoffensive pair of sneakers; the ones with just a tiny smear of yellow paint from the cardboard Beatles submarine he’d created two years ago. Maybe he could avoid having the boss look at his shoes--ohyeahright! Fat chance with you sauntering in at, Jim checked his watch as he pulled into the parking lot of the office, nine goddamn twenty-five!

Apparently sometime in the night the power in his apartment had gone out, which wasn’t terribly uncommon. Jim wagered the electrical had been subcontracted out to a family of gophers with bad attitudes and rickets. That thought almost made him smile as he swung open the side door to his office and tried to calm down.

“Don’t want to go in there looking like a madman,” he said to himself before realizing the vaguely familiar--in the way that all people you see everyday but never speak to are vaguely familiar--and wildly attractive redhead from Corporate was standing in the hallway in front of him, waiting on the elevator. Jim opened his mouth to say something witty, failed and just sort of stood there until the car came, then stood there until she finally got off on three as he rocketed toward five in an elevator that rather sounded like someone beating a bag full of jaguars with a wrench. Am I crazy or did she smell the air while we were standing here? Jim wondered. God I hope these aren’t the pants I shit in a little the other day.

Finally on the fifth floor Jim made his way quickly past the first set of cubicles bound for his own department. The break room was on his way and Jim figured, hell, it’s already nine-thirty, might as well grab a cup of joe before the storm. He had reason to be worried; Jim’s boss had warned him on numerous occasions about his chronic tardiness--the man was a real stickler for being “…on time, every time!” and had threatened that, “One more offense, just one in the next six months and you’ll be finding a pink slip in your locker, feel me Jim?” That had been two weeks ago. Jim didn’t have a locker and kind of figured the pink slip was metaphorical, but the cold sweat on his forehead as he poured a black cup of burnt-smelling liquid into a Styrofoam cup told him he’d better do some fast talking if he wanted to remain gainfully employed.

Leaving the break room Jim almost collided with some asshole from down the hall. He managed to avoid the impact but this minor success was mitigated by the fact that fully half the cup of coffee sloshed out onto his shirt and scorched his left nipple, eliciting a comically girly shriek from between his lips.

The boss, when faced with this wrinkled, stained, truant employee smelling of fabric softener and something more sinister that may or may not have been fossilized excrement, was less than understanding. It took HR less time than he was in the office busily getting fired and just standing there taking it like some breed of spineless primate to pack up his belongings into an empty Coffee Mate shipping box. Odd how six years of a man’s life somewhere can amount to less than half a box of useless detritus.

Jim and his aching nipple drove aimlessly for awhile until, passing by a random greasy spoon with the amusing moniker of Slimmy’s Diner, Jim decided he was hungry and pulled through the alley to the parking lot out back. Jim was treated firsthand to the lifestyle of this socially and economically depressed part of town when he felt something small and hard press into his back.

After giving the robber his wallet--he wasn’t so upset about the thirty-some dollars in cash but there were some particularly irreplaceable photos in there--Jim found he wasn’t really hungry after all, and unless Slimmy’s took shells and beads as trade he hadn’t the funds to purchase nourishment anyway. It was then that Jim remembered the spare credit card he kept in the glove compartment. Thank God the asshole was just a small-time hood and hadn’t stolen his vehicle; not that anyone could fetch much for a 1987 LTD with a busted headlight.

One in the afternoon found Jim inside a dark bar not far from Slimmy’s where the air was stale tobacco smoke and onions and everything seemed to have a slight film on its surface. Jim didn’t care; at this point he would have sucked turpentine out of a mud puddle if it would help get numb. Two bourbon doubles did the trick nicely. He didn’t want to get completely sloppy, so after the second round Jim motioned to the bartender--a large, doughy ball of a man with a cartoon walrus mustache--that he was ready to pay his tab.

Alright, Jim thought, sitting outside on the curb, holding a wet paper towel from the gas station bathroom over his rapidly blackening eye, so maybe I should have made sure the credit card wasn’t cancelled, but I hardly think violence is a way to settle a disagreement. Then, for lack of anything better to do, Jim just threw his head back and screamed.

Jim was on his way home at one-thirty, just wanting to crawl into bed and sleep for about a week. That primal scream had popped something inside Jim’s head and his marbles were rolling around up there like…well, loose marbles. But at least he didn’t feel angry or sad or upset anymore; just sort of blown like a circuit in the wiring of his apartment.

He pulled to a stop, the first one to be caught by one of the longest lights in the city. Sitting there for a good four minutes, Jim was treated to a maniacally horrendous Creed song bellowing out of the pickup next to him. Finally, he thought as the left hand lane across from him started to go, we’re next; God this must be the longest light in history.

Jim’s light turned green, but things being as they were two cars rolled through the intersection still turning left in front of him. As the third car rolled--full on red, there was no yellow about it--Jim’s left eye twitched ever so slightly and his paint-stained sneaker slammed down on the gas, shooting across the intersection like a Detroit nightmare and slamming broadside into the third traffic offender, pushing both of them all the way through the lane and finally coming to rest against the middle partition in a screech of glass and steel.

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Just a little Afterward from the author here, ladies and gents. When you flagrantly and selfishly thumb your nose at the traffic laws of our fair city, remember that everyone is not as sane and forgiving as myself and MAYBE we don't like it when you ignore THE DAMN TRAFFIC LIGHTS! Fuckers.