Everything was Beautiful and Nothing Hurt.

First new fiction in a while.  I kind of hate this piece after looking at it so much.  Still a work in progress.

Fired

Alex showered for five and half minutes, brushed every tooth, flossed, and measured out the mouthwash to the perfect recommended amount.

He dug through his drawers until he found an old, worn flip top lighter. He put on a shirt, a pair of pants and the tie he kept in a permanent Double Windsor. The tie was almost black, but for the diagonal charcoal-colored stripes.

Alex drew his breath in as he rounded the corner to his living room. His mother sat in the chair she never left with the same glaucoma-clouded gaze she had the morning before. Alex saw her and let out a sigh. She continued to stare at the TV as if Alex had never entered the room. Alex stared at her and said he was going to work. He said he wasn’t sure if he’d be home tonight. He said he was going to meet his girl. The TV blared.

Alex walked out his house and into his garage. He pulled to the end of the driveway and saw his mailbox full of messages from his girl. He smiled to himself. His shift started in fifteen minutes.

Alex drove to work. He thought of living in his own apartment. He thought of his girl. She was a couple inches shorter than him, a brunette and spoke a different language. He thought of what her tongue and lips felt like. He thought of having sex with her. He imagined pinning her against a wall and both of them climaxing at the same time. He struggled to keep his car straight as he saw himself fucking her at every conceivable angle. He parked in his usual spot. He hid his erection with his briefcase as he walked to his cubicle. He was late.

Alex stared at his computer screen for an hour. He began chewing a piece of gum. He played Solitaire for an hour. He took his fifteen minute break early and spent it masturbating in the janitor’s closet to the unfinished thoughts he’d had on the ride over. The noises he made as he came were hollow. He stood with his eyes closed, panting. A dim light entered the closet through a small eye level window. His semen dripped onto a bottle of turpentine. The bottle was three-quarters full, had a green cap, and was covered in markings meant to tell parents it would kill their babies if they drank it. He stared at it. He knelt down without pulling up his pants or underwear, undid the cap and stood back up. A drop of Alex landed in the bottle. The milky white mixed with the urine-colored fluid and disappeared. The closet smelled like pine cones now. Alex’s mouth twitched upward. He pulled his pants back up.

His cubicle was one of a dozen sets of four which made up the office floor. The opening to his cubicle faced into the aisle, into the opening of another cubicle. There were pictures of distant relatives fastened to the fiberglass and cardboard walls with colored tacks. Alex’s coworker looked at them when he wanted to feel someone loved him. There were constantly smiling bobble-heads Alex’s coworker periodically tapped. The rhythmic shaking reminded him he was in control. Alex’s eyes lingered on the framed motivational poster his coworker had decided to devote a wall to. It was a close-up of a lit match held by a calloused hand with the word “Passion” underneath it.

Alex did his job. Mail the company received went in one pile and mail it was sending out went into the other pile. Alex worked for a company hired out by larger companies to send out all their catalogs and advertisements. Alex chewed his gum and sorted junk mail. When the gum lost its flavor, Alex took it out of his mouth with his hand and went to stick it underneath his desk. His hand felt for a spot without a hardened mass of gum already stuck to it. It was all his gum. He couldn’t find a spot so he put the gum back in his mouth. Alex frowned. There were three hours left in his shift.

Alex finished his work. He stared at his coworker’s poster, at the match. He smiled at first. There were two hours left in his shift.

His gum had lost all its flavor. He reached in his pocket for another piece, the package was empty. He tossed his gum out. He’d have to get a new pack or he’d start getting cravings again. Everyone told him it was bad for him, but he liked it. It made him feel cool, despite everything. There was an hour left in his shift. He thought about meeting his girl again, it was a few hours away. His shift was over in thirty minutes.

The office was empty. His shift ended an hour ago. He was at his desk. The building was dark.

His shift ended three hours ago. Alex opened his briefcase. He shifted around the papers covering the bottle of wine. It was half empty. He set it on his desk. He slid the thin candles out of the pencil holders in his suitcase lid. He opened the bottom drawer of his desk and pulled out the two candle holders he kept there. They were the only things in the drawer. He ran his fingers through his hair. He fiddled with his charcoal tie. He pulled at the collar of his shirt and made sure his tie was on straight. He couldn’t take it off without messing it up, so he tightened it. His tie was choking him now.

He sat straight up in his chair. His head hurt from lack of nicotine. His left hand gripped the bottle of wine at the neck. His right hand dangled at his side. His shift ended six hours ago.

His head hurt and the bottle was almost empty. He lit the candles with the cigarette lighter he still kept in his pocket. Seven hours.

He took his head off of his desk and checked his watch. It was four thirty in the morning. It was almost time. He hoped this wouldn’t be like all the other times, this time he’d put more effort in to everything. He got her wine which means he had to say something.

The bottle was in his left hand. He stood in the building’s mail room. There was a large garage door for the deliveries that arrived on weekends. There was a small door next to that for the daily delivery. On the walls were the boxes labeled with the names of each employee. These were the boxes where Alex placed the mail he’d sorted in at the end of each work day. Alex’s box was somewhere in the middle. Alex switched the bottle from hand to hand. He kept it in his left He looked at his watch. It was three minutes past five.

She arrived at seven minutes past five, right when she always did. He first met her when he came in to work early, and forgot his key. She let him in using the key the building owner had given her to make deliveries. She smiled at him, she was so nice. Since then, he watched her from the window in the janitor’s closet. She came on Monday and Friday mornings, he always stayed at work for her. One time she looked up and caught him staring, she smiled at him again, that was the first time he’d masturbated in the closet.

“Hello.”

She held the letters outward and tried to smile. He fumbled with something on the other side of the door with his left hand. He reached out and took the letters, his hand shook.

He forced the words out. “I’m Alex.”

He stared at her. His hand trembled.

“No understand English, sir.”

“Please come in.”

“No entiendo.”

“You speak Spanish?”

“No entiendo.”

He stumbled forward. She took a step away and looked around, she saw the bottle of wine he was holding. He swung his arm around and the wine sloshed in the bottle.

“I got the wine for us. I even lit candles inside. We’ll just have a drink and talk. You let me in. You smiled at me. You’re a very nice person.”

She began to back away, he was confused. He knew he loved her. She must just be shy. He’d take care of her.

“Please don’t go. I’m sorry.”

She turned and walked back to her car.

“Wait.”

Alex closed the door. He finished the bottle and went back to his desk. He cried. His shift started in three hours.

He looked over at the poster. He saw the word printed on it. He looked at the empty bottle. He looked at the flame of the candles. He felt the gum under his desk. His eyes widened. He grabbed the bottle and got up from his chair. His shift started in two and a half hours.

He went to the janitor’s closet. He filled the wine bottle until it was half full with turpentine. The room smelled like him. He gagged. He shuddered and went back to his desk. His shift started in two hours.

He sat down in his chair. He took off his charcoal tie and shoved it into the open bottle. His neck felt better. He started to sweat. His shift started in an hour and a half.

Alex lit the end of his tie with the candle. It burned faster than he thought it would. He got up from his chair and held the cocktail in his left hand. He looked at his reflection in the glass bottle. His left arm shook. He dropped the bottle.

The bottle made a soft thump as it hit the carpet. It did not break. Alex stamped out his charcoal tie. He picked up the bottle and threw it in the trash. He slumped into his chair. His shift started in an hour.

Alex put the candle holders back inside his desk. He sat up in his chair and wiped his face. He took the poster off the wall and placed it flat over the top of the small garbage pail inside his cubicle. His shift started in thirty minutes.

His boss walked in.

“Hey Alex, you’re early. Forgot your tie tho.”

Alex nodded without looking up at him.

“Don’t worry about it, it’s Friday after all.”

His boss patted him on the back. Alex nodded and smiled.

“Keep up the good work.”

Alex’s shift started.

Something to read and think about over Thanksgiving, I hope. Another nonfiction piece published for posterity sake and for the general boosting of my ego. Lemme know what you think in the comments.

Average

There are so many things I wish I was instead of average. I wish there was one distinguishing feature about me. Something that would make people stop and stare or strike up a conversation. Nothing grotesque or debilitating mind you. No Phantom of the Opera-esque facial deformities or cleft palettes for this guy. But maybe some ambiguous facial scarring to give the impression I have a dark mysterious past wrought with violence and danger. Or even just a more prominent chin so my face doesn’t give the impression of freshly risen dough. I hear chicks dig those kinds of things. Some vaguely pseudo-scientific study has confirmed the fact, I’m sure. I read somewhere facial hair is a decent substitute for those of us lacking action hero jaw lines but no one has gotten laid with a mustache since the seventies and the best I can do below the mouth is exaggerated neck hair. Few know what it’s like to walk around with an Amish neck-beard that looks at home above a butter churn or in the front of a horse drawn carriage with a “slow vehicle” sign in the back.

Right-handed, five-foot-ten, and just over five and a half inches below the belt. Oh, and white. Whiter than Elton John running through the snow. If mayonnaise and tartar sauce had some sort of depraved self-aware condiment baby it would cringe at the mere idea of my paleness.

While I’ve always been average, there were times of distinction to note before I settled into true mediocrity. When they were picking teams for dodge ball in high school I was always middle of the road. Not last with the tragically overweight and socially inept, but most definitely not first with the already steroid enhanced future gym teachers and minor league athletes. My voice had dropped to an unsettlingly low octave for a fifteen year old, but I still maintained the hairless, scrawny stature of your average prepubescent male. Soon I realized if I yelled “pick-me” in the most commanding tone I could muster I could avoid the humiliation of being picked last. Eventually my stature evened out and everyone else’s vocal cords caught up, leaving me unremarkable once again.

Part of the my high school experience and the most important thing I learned in those four years was how to fit in. How to walk like a normal member of society (confidently, and with a purpose). How to talk like someone with a degree of social acumen (don’t confuse anyone, they react with anger and mean names). How to dress like you didn’t jump into your dryer and come out with whatever stuck to you (find the guy who gets laid the most and wear what he’s wearing). These are things I found myself doing to avoid getting chewed up and spit out by high school society. The things I did just to go from chronically picked on to face in the crowd. They worked.

Picture a grocery store check-out clerk. Now, put him in a sensible white shirt, black slacks with a few nondescript stains from dropping a bag of flour here and there, and a black tie he keeps pre-tied in a ragged excuse for a double Windsor knot so he can get a few extra minutes of sleep on early days. Picture him driving a white Toyota Corolla to work everyday with crank windows and a blown-out speaker system he plays the same radio station on the ten minute drive. He maintains a constant state of mediocrity. Not quite clean-shaven but definitely not looking like he should be cutting down trees and rolling logs instead of checking out groceries. His shirt is missing the last button, but he haphazardly tucks it in so you can’t tell. The top button is left undone for comfort’s sake and he only buttons it for the fifteen minutes his boss isn’t in his back room office masturbating. His hair is disheveled, but not in the elegant indie-rock front man kind of way, but the sticking up at odd angles Charles Manson mugshot type of way. You see him mechanically pushing shopping carts around a half empty parking lot for hours on end. Occasionally he takes one too many carts and ends up having to heave them in the proper direction or let go of the back and run forward to stop them from hitting an old lady in an electric scooter with a basket full of cat food for her twenty cats she thinks are her children. She probably eats the damn cat food herself. He smiled at the thought of her broken body in the middle of the asphalt. It is not the first time he has fantasized about enacting some sick form of revenge on a relatively innocent bystander.

“I don’t know what happened officer. One minute he was calling for a price check on my box of Fiber One and the next second he had ripped his shirt off and was climbing the display cases.”

“He had already thrown an entire case of prune juice at an old lady in a walker and hit an old man in the back of the knees with his own cane when three cops jumped on his back.”

“Right before those officers pepper sprayed him he was stalking through the aisles wielding a Swiffer WetJet like a halberd.”

I was “that guy” for two years and I’d like to kindly request of you the next time you go to your local grocery store you do your best to not set one of “those guys” off.

There is a terrifying moment in the life of every cashier, carriage boy and waiter where they are struck with the stark realization of how replaceable they are. They need only look around them and see a million walking mannequins modeled after themselves. Here and there a different wig or colored contact but all with a similar look in their eye and willingness to step in for you. My life was undeniably mundane. Get up. Go to school. Go to work. Go home. Go out with friends. Smoke weed in a fast food parking lot and then play video games. Go home again. Do homework. Sleep. This process played itself out daily, with minimal variation for longer than I cared to admit. This is the modern American suburban opera and I was playing the role of Suburban Teen #9,999,999. It wasn’t a speaking part.

It’s not that I didn’t realize this depressing truth, I just was content to ignore it for as long as possible. Perhaps because I was aware of what an uphill struggle getting out of averageness is. A stark realization we live in an era where everything you’ve ever thought, said or done has already been thought, said or done by someone else fifty years ago, and they did a better job of it. Throwing house parties when my parents left was done better in countless teen comedies my friends and I worshiped and related to as if they represented our actual lives in any way. My parents getting divorced was par for the course. I’d always wondered what took them so long and whether or not they’d held out for seventeen years to cling to some vestiges of individuality themselves, to not be like all the other parents. Hemingway and Cobain killed themselves better than I could or anyone else ever will, and I didn’t even own a shotgun. It’s all been done.

So now, you’re of course telling me to go do something different. Make a change. Get in a car, drive to New York, and rent a studio apartment and become some sort of freelancer, as if this hasn’t been done a million times before by a million angst ridden self-proclaimed artists. “What’s stopping you?” you’d ask of me. Stop complaining about how average you are and go do something to change it, you say. My response is, if it’s such a great idea, why haven’t you done it. I can tell you. You’re afraid to fail. God forbid you make it all the way to the city and find out you suck at whatever it is you do. You’re better off thinking you’re better than you are. Whatever it is you do, there’s a 99% chance there’s someone already there doing it better than you. The crippling fear of rejection and failure coupled with the unbearable desire to do something keeps you complacent. Keeps you “What-iffing” until you look down at your beer belly, feel the beginnings of male-pattern baldness and hear the walls of your cubicle closing in.

I’ve gotten to the point now where I’m begging for something terrible to happen to break the monotony. Something so awful I’m excused from small talk forever. I want to never talk about the weather, how my parents are doing or how my day has been ever again. I want to never have to use the word “fine” to describe a situation. “Fine” isn’t an emotion or a state of being, it’s nothing. It is “I don’t care and neither do you, so why are you asking me a boring question” in four letters. I’m hoping for bipolar disorder so I can never be “fine” again. Every manic depressive I meet is just much more interesting than I am. The last one I knew let her boyfriend beat up on her but wrote a hell of a short story. I periodically consider making a conscious and fully lucid choice to develop alcoholism just so I can have something to struggle against other that choosing which type of soda to drink for lunch. It worked for Hemingway, Fitzgerald and Joyce. Green Peace and the military both seem like fantastic options at this point as well, maybe I’ll do both. Grabbing a gun or a case of bottled water and heading off to foreign lands to kill/feed people seems like a viable solution to this problem, until I get back and become one of those assholes who thinks he’s better than everyone else because he’s seen a third world country. I’ll probably even tell people how much it “changed my life” and such.

“Changing your life” isn’t enough anymore, everyone’s had their life “changed” by something. No, now you need more than a life changing experience. You need to be famous. Lucky for you, it’s only a mouse click. In the age of the viral video, it seems all you have to do is tape yourself getting kicked in the balls in the most elaborate manner possible and you become an instant celebrity, whatever that means, I imagine a whole new set of problems. Is some idiot who knows how to string together a few dick jokes and use Windows Movie Maker a celebrity if a couple million people saw him on the internet? Is it better to be known as the guy who fell off his roof because his son managed to fire a golf ball into his man bits from forty yards away than not known at all?

It makes me think maybe I was better off as the mop-headed, glasses wearing nerd who spent all his free time playing video games or buried in a book. Although, I do get laid way more often now (Note: Any number is higher than zero).

Much of my time is devoted to reconciling my averageness by somehow fitting my B pluses, cliché summer jobs, and equally white brunette girlfriend into this ideal of uniqueness I’ve been made to feel is my American right. I find myself clinging to whatever detail about me I can rationalize as unique, whether or not it actually is. My girlfriend wears a hearing aid and nineteen years of artery clogging fried food haven’t caught up to me yet. Everyone’s trying to be a unique and beautiful snowflake. There is no such thing. We are at best a drop in a downpour. Either way you disappear when you hit the ground.