Published by Floyd County Moonshine Vol.8.1
Any Damned Thing
Leo puked a little, swallowed it and washed it down with the remnants of last night’s last beer. It was a buck-seventy-nine brown-bagged Icehouse forty, three quarters full, flat and room temperature. He grimaced then turned it up again. Leo liked the Icehouse. He didn’t like it the way you like a good bourbon. He liked it the way a carpenter likes a framing hammer. It’s not worth a shit for finish work, but it’ll drive the hell out of a sixteen penny nail and it feels good swinging it. Functionally speaking, it was the best bang for the buck. Five-point-five percent alcohol by volume, it was buzzing on a budget and not half bad once you got past the taste and the shits. Leo didn’t mind the shits. He didn’t think about the shits. Leo was used to shit. Beer shits, shitty apartment, shitty job, shitty life.
It was morning and music blared from the bathroom. Country. Old school stuff. The crappy clock radio speaker struggled with the volume and spat out a mix of George Jones, distortion and static that echoed off the tile. He’d tried the clock all over the apartment. There was a nightstand by the bed, but he slept on the couch. There was a table by the couch, but the snooze button didn’t exactly encourage punctuality. The kitchen counter was too close to the fridge and there wasn’t an outlet in the hallway. The bathroom had been his last resort. The clock, a vintage GE wood-grained model half the size of a shoebox, sat on the counter between a Best Western embossed ashtray and a bottle of peppermint schnapps and plugged into an outlet behind the towel rack. The bathroom amplified the radio’s tinny combo of sound and spewed it into the rest of the apartment. Leo hated the alarm. He’d learned to sleep through beeps and buzzes. He slept through classic, college, and progressive rock, sports talk, market speculation, and eventually, preachers and politics. He slept through so much Spanish radio he picked up a bit of the language. La Sabrosita radio de la mañana. AM 810. Pura Raza! But there was no sleeping through WSM. Fifty thousand clear channel watts of AM cousin-fucker country served up every morning like shit on toast. Leo hated country music. He hated it enough that he’d roll off the couch and stumble to the bathroom make it stop.
Today, Leo finished last night’s beer before he stumbled to the bathroom to stop the noise and curse the music. He checked the mirror, turned on the shower, sat on the toilet and lit a smoke. Steam filled the room, the mirror fogged, and Leo sat and smoked and waited for the burning fury of too much liquid and too little food. He watched the steam condense on the cold white tile and stream down the wall into tiny puddles that disappeared into the grout. He remembered his mother complaining about irregularity and tried to remember his last solid shit. The meds backed her up so bad toward the end that they’d removed her colon. She lasted a week. He’d seen the bill – fifty grand. Fifty fucking grand so that shriveled up old woman could shit through a tube her last week on earth. He would’ve pulled the plug himself if he’d had a chance. He could’ve saved someone a shitload of time and money. He smiled at the thought. “Shitload,” he said. “No pun intended.” His own diagnosis had been an accident. He’d run into a fist and was in for stitches and a possible concussion. Had he been sober or conscious he would’ve refused treatment. Instead he woke to some zit faced doctor jabbering on about treatments and outcomes and best courses of action. Leo asked, “What the fuck’s a pancreas, Doogie?” then signed the waiver and walked out.
It came on suddenly, violently, and he swore as sweat streamed down his face and his cramping bowels evacuated the previous day’s drink. Oh sweet fucking Christ, he’d say. He muttered filth and sacrilege until it stopped, then dropped the smoke between his legs, flushed and stepped into the shower. Moments later he stepped out dripping and pulled a once-white towel off the hook behind the door, fished a smoke from the pack on the counter and walked to the den.
The TV was on but muted and Leo stood and read the captions before eventually finding the remote. He upped the volume, watched the weather and finished his smoke before pulling on a pair of crumpled jeans. The traffic chick was droning on about the normally busy roads being busy normally busy. Volume was picking up on the interstates, she said. “No shit,” he said. He walked to the bathroom, pulled a travel-sized deodorant from a drawer and applied it liberally. He checked his face, brushed his teeth and turned up the schnapps. He rinsed, gargled and swallowed and repeated the process a couple of times (Leo believed in proper oral hygiene) before he pulled a clean shirt from the pile on his bed and slid sockless into his canvas All Stars. On the way out he checked his backpack then walked to the road.
The bus was early so Leo stood at the curb and smoked with Zeke, the bus driver. Zeke was black and near sixty with silver sideburns and eyebrows, shined shoes and razor sharp creases in his pants. Leo thought he looked like something out of an old movie but didn’t know which one and never brought it up. A small group of passengers gathered at the stop and waited for Zeke to crush out his Kool and board the bus. He nodded and smiled politely as they shuffled and struggled with bags and backpacks and coffee cups and all the other shit they couldn’t leave at home. Zeke eventually dropped his smoke through a storm drain, climbed inside the bus and the herd of commuters waiting to start their day moved toward the door.
Ms. Johnson needed a full bench for her ass and another one for the collection of crap she carried. She used a thirty-one day discount pass which meant old or disabled. Leo didn’t peg her for a senior and wondered what was wrong with her besides fat and bitchy. She stuck her card in the reader, found a seat and worried over her assortment of Kroger bags and bullshit until she got off at Jefferson. Kenny D. smelled like urine and paid with change. He worked for Goodwill or ARC or one of those places that exists only to employ the otherwise unemployable. Leo would greet him each morning with, Hey Kenny, what’s the D. for? Kenny’s reply changed daily and depended on his mood. Delicious, he’d say, or Delightful, or none of your Damned business. Naomi and Jennifer wore plaid and headphones and used a twenty- ride student pass. They went to the magnet school off of Charlotte Pike near the projects. The area was a part of Nashville’s urban renewal and the new housing had green grass, a pastel paint scheme and working street lights. They were pretty projects, but still the fucking projects. The makeover just made it a nice looking place to score some smack or get a two-dollar blow job from some scabbed-over, paint-huffing whore. Leo figured sticking a school for academically gifted kids down there made sense. Nothing says Stay in school, kids! like a playground full of degenerate drug addicts and a constant police presence.
The regulars were the regulars. Armani Suit worked at the courthouse and boarded each day with a cup of Starbucks, the Times and a 20-Ride Local pass. His wife dropped him at the stop every morning and he’d ride into town scanning the stock page and sipping whatever guys with huge paychecks and tiny carbon footprints sip. Along the way they’d pick up Shouldn’t Wear Spandex and her brood of snotty screaming kids. She’d shove the herd down the aisle and dig through her Hefty-sized size purse for the 7-Day Unlimited while screaming apologies and orders to no one in particular. Mexican Couple and MC Hammer Pants boarded in front of the Section 8 apartments at 40th Ave. about halfway in and paid cash. The Khaki Connection boarded at the Park-n-Ride with 5-Day Commuter passes while making meaningless small talk about whatever sport was in season. Leo thought they looked like a Macy’s ad with their pinpoint oxfords, flawless smiles, and closeted homosexuality. They’d scatter after they scanned their passes and sit, heads down, phones in hand, until Commerce where they’d regroup and say things like How ‘bout that game? as they poured out of the bus.
The irregulars were constant and varied. They’d climb on board, nervous and scanning as if on Recon. They’d squeak out stupid questions like Does this bus go downtown? and Zeke would politely point at the sign above their heads flashing Downtown via Deadrick. Most had correct change. Once seated they’d watch the window and the press pad above it as if traveling at light speed, fearful that their stop would fly by unnoticed. They’d clutch their belongings in their laps with heads and arms through shoulder straps. They’d exit, feeling for their wallets and looking for the delousing chamber.
Leo got off downtown. As he passed, Zeke said, See you tomorrow. Leo nodded and said, “It’s my last day,” then walked to the market. He bought a paper and a coffee then found a bench outside. The downtown station was air-conditioned making it the summer home of Nashville’s homeless. Armed security would flush them from the bathrooms and benches at regular intervals creating a migratory pattern of panhandlers and crazies shuffling out of the station and around the block, past the library and the Baptist church, bumming change and cigarettes as they went. They didn’t approach Leo. They watched from a distance as he dumped the coffee and replaced it with Old Crow. They watched him toss the bottle into the trash and walk off sipping eighty-proof whiskey from a Styrofoam cup with a plastic no-spill lid.
At a quarter to eight Leo scanned his badge and stepped into the lobby, paper under his arm, backpack over his shoulder and cup in hand. He took the elevator to the fourth floor, finished his drink, popped a Breath Saver and stepped into the pit. The Suits lived on three, tech and accounting were up on five, but four was Support. With its wall-to-wall cubes, coffee-stained carpet and manufactured white noise, four was a fluorescent, bubbling shithole. They tried to disguise it with motivational posters and charts, but as Leo said, a painted Port-A-John is still full of shit. He made his way through the maze of cubes, past his manager (who checked her watch) and the lingering stench of her old lady perfume to cube 117A, a six-by-six square of taupe and brown containing a chair, computer, a phone and a headset. The overheads and drawers were empty and the desktop calendar was a month out of date. Company policies and support scripts were push-pinned to the walls along with a tropical island photo that’d been ripped out of a magazine. The place smelled like burnt popcorn and Indian food, as had all the places Leo worked. It was the smell of the new American dream – microwave challenged morons and socially inept but brilliant foreigners who smell of cologne and curry. Leo dropped the backpack on the desk, sat and read the sports page.
At eight twenty-two his manager stopped by. Her perfume got there a full minute before she arrived. It’s eight twenty-two, she said. Leo folded the paper and confirmed the time on his monitor. They stared in silence for a moment. Shift starts at eight, she said and glared at him down her beaklike nose. He hated her. He hated the way she hurried everywhere and the sound her hose made as her fat thighs rubbed together. He hated the way her oversized mouth made her beady little eyes look littler and beadier. He hated the way she wore sweaters in the summer and kept a blanket in her cube that she’d drape over her legs in the winter. He hated the way she’d been promoted by some lesbian because she sure as shit didn’t sleep her way to the top with any self-respecting man. He especially hated the way she smelled. Like a funeral home – sickly sweet, like old women, White Shoulders and death. He hated everything about her, but he picked up his headset and logged into the phone.
“Thanks for calling customer support, this is Leonard. How may I help you?” His first call was a Pakistani with a heavy accent. Login issue. Leo disconnected. “I’m not here to teach the language,” he’d say. The Mexicans would put their kids on the phone to translate and the Asians would make an effort, but the damned Pakis were nothing but piss and gibberish. They’d call and scream and demand until he hung up or blind transferred them into oblivion. His second call was a geriatric old man who shouldn’t have been on the computer in the first damned place. Leo advised him to call his grandkids and disconnected. At eight forty-one, he went to the break room, bought a Coke, poured half of it out and went back to his cube. At eight forty-seven he fished three airplane bottles of Bacardi from his backpack and refilled the can. The booze was gone by nine-fifteen and so was Leo.
What are you doing? she said. He laughed when he saw her. She’d cocked her head, puzzled, and Leo thought she looked like a greyhound. Leo removed his headset and smiled. What are you doing? She repeated it, hissing. The look on her face said shock and disgust and confusion and Leo thought she was going to cry so he waited for it. Shock turned to rage and her cheeks flushed and her horribly oversized mouth was a flat line that made Leo laugh again because she looked like a smiley :-|. She stood at the cubicle opening, blotchy, enraged, reeking and waiting for an answer. She hissed at him again. Answer me. What are you doing?
“Any damned thing I want,” he said.
She stormed off. Leo grabbed his backpack and followed. HR was on three and she was in hurry so she hit the door and took the stairs. Leo found her cubicle and took a seat. He rummaged through the backpack, produced two small bottles of Cuervo and turned them up. He let out an audible ahhhh then belched quietly with a smile. He sat head back, eyes closed and listened to the clatter of the room. Then he pissed himself. He smiled and reclined as he let go, soaking his pants and her seat. He spun the chair, legs splayed and laughing, spraying the small cube until he slowed to a stop. Drops of urine gave way to gravity and trickled down her filing cabinet and trash can and disappeared into the carpet.
He heard them coming. He could hear the swishy friction from her hose as she hurried along. He could hear them saying things like he this, and he that, and I this and I that. They were planning their attack as they rounded the corner and shushed down the aisle toward 117A. He smiled at them as they passed and she smiled back before she realized something was amiss and stopped short, causing the posse of HR enforcers to bump and collide and rear-end each other in the narrow aisle.
You are in…she stopped mid-sentence when she saw him. Soiled, delirious, and laughing, he spun the chair. Her face went crimson and her beady eyes burned above her beakish nose and enormous over-sized mouthful of teeth. She was shaking. The HR goons went white with fear and hatred. They stood open-mouthed, staring in disbelief and Leo thought they looked like mourners around an open casket and he wondered if he looked natural. They never saw him pull the gun from the backpack. His manager gasped, frozen and pale, and her grotesque mouth gaped in disbelief. Leo smiled, put the shiny chrome barrel against the roof of his mouth and pulled the trigger.
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