by Mark Tufo
Even with Brendon traveling at a steady 70 miles per hour, I was out of the van and massaging my offending calf before Brendon even came into sight on the horizon.
“Jesus Mike, what the hell are you doing?” Jen asked as she came out of the van.
I looked over to Brendon; he looked strained. Pushing the non-aerodynamic brick down the highway at speeds he didn’t feel comfortable with had made him break out in a sweat.
“Sorry man,” I said to him.
“It’s nothing,” he lied as he pulled his fingers off the steering wheel.
“Dad, you don’t look good,” Nicole said with concern.
Justin smiled from the rear seat in the van.
“It doesn’t matter,” I said bleakly.
“What doesn’t matter Mike?” Tracy asked as she came up beside me.
“All of this, none of this. No matter how hard we run, no matter where we go, they’ll still come. There’ll come a time, no matter what I do, I won’t be able to stop them from taking you, any of you.”
“Mike, it’s not just you,” BT said tenderly. (I wasn’t going to add this part but it’s part of the story and it only scratches on the outer corners of breaking the Man Code.) He had come out and was actually giving me a hug. “We’re in this together. We’ll look out for each other. I would no sooner let anything happen to any of your kin than I would let something happen to myself.”
He was big enough to be my dad when I was maybe 5 or 6 years old, the proportion was correct. I lived that lie for a few more seconds as I collected my despair, and didn’t so much dispose of it as try and compartmentalize it. I could tell it was surging and would soon leak from under the door of my makeshift compartment and probably out through the keyhole, but for now I had gained a measure of composure and was once again ready to face the world, for the most part.
“Tracy, you want to drive?” I asked her. It was then I think everyone must have thought I had finally given up. I looked around the somber group. “What? My knee is killing me.”
“Uh huh,” BT said as he got back into the van.
That was mostly true, but there was still a part of me that might have relished the thought of screaming off the road at a buck twenty and plowing into a utility pole. I would not give my pursuers that satisfaction. Someone was going to catch a lot of lead for pushing me this hard, and maybe an arrow or two for good measure.
Tracy drove well, which in itself was something of a feat. Normally the only way she got behind the wheel with me in the car was when I was entirely too inebriated or had suffered one of my many varied injuries. Under either circumstance I didn’t give a rat’s ass on how she got me to where we were going. I can’t even begin to relate to you in this narrative how many times the kids had come home from somewhere where their mom had driven them and had horror stories about this and that person being cut off, semi’s turning over and small planes bursting into flame. I think there was even something in there about a dam bursting but that might possibly have been an over-exaggeration. I dozed in and out of a fitful sleep. My mood fluctuating between pissed off at my lot in life and happy that I wasn’t being pissed on. Basically, varying degrees of suckydom.
Tracy kept to a geriatric pace of 55ish. It wasn’t that the conditions merited the reduction in speed, I’m just not so sure how willing she was to get to where we were going. It’s all great in the abstract. ‘I’m going to save my mom!’ but when you get down to the nitty gritty and you realize that you haven’t heard anything in weeks from your 79 year old mom, who lives alone on a farm in North Dakota in one of the coldest winters in recorded history during an outbreak of zombieism, reality begins to make a weight of its own. Like a dying star, it creates its own mass and sucks everything, including your inner light, into it. The odds were about as great as winning the lottery that we would find Carol, hale of health.
“You want me to take over driving?” I asked her.
Tracy turned to me. Grim determination and concern mixed in with a heavy dose of anxiety spilled out of her features. “Do you mind? I don’t feel right driving without you bleeding.” We both laughed, the tiny little release of endorphins was like a surge of adrenaline to my flagging spirits.
Ten minutes and a bunch of potty breaks later we were back on the road. The natural order of the universe was restored as I cruised down the highway at a more respectable 75 mph. Any faster than that and the Terrible Teal machine began to shudder in protest. How I had got this bucket to 120 was beyond my comprehension.
My stomach grumbled as we passed one of those blue highway information signs. You know the kind that tell you gas, food and lodging are up ahead. This one had the big ‘M’ logo for McDonald’s on it. A quarter pounder with cheese, large fries and a thirst quenching Coke sounded like the best thing in the world.
“Oh man, I could go for a juicy Quarter Pounder, aw man with that dripping cheese and sesame seed bun. I’d put a layer of golden French fries on top of the cheese and I’d eat that thing in like a minute in a half.” I know Henry understood what I was talking about because his head was tilted and he had a little drool coming out of his maw. I scratched his head. “You know what I’m talking about, don’t you my good boy.” His small tail wagged vigorously, the better to disperse the deadly gas that exuded from his kiester. “Henry! You’re ruining my fantasy,” I said. The van swerved as I did my best to find the electric window control. I was frantic, the edges of my vision were beginning to blur as I held on tight to the only good air within breathable proximity.
“Oh God, Talbot! Did you run over a zombie?” BT said sitting bolt upright from his nap. Not a pleasant way to return to the world of the awoken. “I can’t breathe,” he hitched.
Tommy smiled as he stuffed two mini-marshmallows up his nose. “Iths noth so badth.”
Tracy once again saved the day as all the windows in the van simultaneously rolled down. Brendon’s van swayed slightly as they passed through the toxic cloud that leaked out from our van. I’d freeze to death before I had to breathe in another piece of Henry’s airified excrement. It was another two or three miles before the last remnants of Henry’s oily feculence made rolling the windows up a doable possibility. It still smelled like dirty feet and burnt Fritos but it was passable. All thoughts of food had been wiped cleanly from my mind.
But again back to the basics, I’m a guy. If not in survival mode (and then sometimes even then) my mind has about three factors that contend with each other. Hunker down ladies because if you’re reading this with your man in some safe zone. I am about to give you all the knowledge you will ever need. If ten thoughts were to pass through your man’s mind it would look like this: sex, sex, sex, food, sex, sex, football, sex, food, sleep, sex. (Did you count? I really put down 11 thoughts. Yup, that’s how important sex is to us.) We’ll only sleep if you’re not offering sex or a sandwich. All that other bullshit we used to do in our ‘regular’ lives, like going to work, or painting the bathroom, or going to the fucking art museum, or seeing ANY chick flick, we did that so we could POSSIBLY get into your pants. Plain and simple. I don’t at this point see any reason to mince words. We love sex in all its pure and depraved forms. Why this most basic of all animalistic rituals has thus far mostly eluded the feminine persuasion is beyond me. I would clean gutters in a hail storm, in my underwear at midnight, if it meant I MIGHT get to have sex. (I’d do all of the above BUT in my regular clothes for an awesome Philly Cheese steak.) And that, my dear lady survivors, is ALL you will ever need to know about that big, dumb, hairy animal snoring next to you. Sorry guys, I didn’t mean to let the cat out of the bag, but rapid procreation might be the only way we can stave off extinction.
“Don’t you remember what happened the last time you went to McDonald’s?” Tracy asked, circling back to my initial intercourse. (Doesn’t seem like the right word to use here, but somehow it does.)
“What about… oh yeah,” I answered.
CHAPTER 16 – THE CUT AWAY
It was a brutally
hot day in July when I received my layoff notice. I had immediately called Tracy to let her know that she needed to stop the order we had put in for the hot tub in the backyard. I could ‘feel’ the tension and anger that she emitted right through the phone. “Fine,” she had answered me in the curt tone that drove me friggen nuts. (In a bad way.)
“Everything alright?” I asked like an idiot.
“Everything’s peachy,” she had replied. (Just so you know ‘peachy’ means anything but.) “The kids want McDonald’s for dinner, and Nicole and Brendon are over.”
Now was not the time, but I really wanted to tell her that maybe we should start to tighten the belt up a little. “The usual?” I asked abashed.
“What do you think?” she said, and then she hung up.
I would have smashed my phone against a wall if I had the income to replace it. I was screaming in my head. ‘FUCK does she think I fired myself! Yeah it must be all my FUCKEN fault!’ It was with this attitude that I rolled on up to the McDonald’s drive thru. You kind of see where this is going? Okay, just a little backfill so you can really get a grasp of where I’m coming from. During my Marine Corps days I worked on an airfield and because of this I had lost no small measure of my hearing. Couple that with a cheap ass speaker system at any fast food drive thru and we were already in the midst of a communication barrier. Add to the fact that on that fateful night, Samir from the Great Republic of India had just got off a plane from his native country and had begun working the ‘hole’ as they call the place where your drive thru order is taken.
The dialog you are about to read is after I had put my order in for the third time, and Samir had botched it for the third time.
“No, listen! I want a fucking Quarter Pounder with cheese AND FUCKING extra pickles!”
“You would like a cheeseburger with no cheese then sir?”
“Are you fucking with me?” I was near screaming. “A fucking cheeseburger without cheese is a hamburger, where the fuck are you from?” Although it would have been impossible not to tell where he was from, unless of course you have not used ANY customer support line in the last five years.
“I am from Bangladesh, sir.”
“You don’t say?! Listen, I want a Quarter Pounder with cheese and extra pickles.”
“Okay a large French fried with mustard then?”
“Do you smoke crack, Babaganoush?”
“Samir, sir.”
“What?”
My name is Samir, sir. And no, I have never smoked anything sir.”
“Oh for the love of all that is holy.”
“Would you like to pray sir?”
I just wanted to back the car up and drive forward, running over the speaker. I couldn’t stop looking at the box like it and not money was the root of all evil in the world.
“Sir, I have your order for four Mint McShakes, two small Dr. Pepper’s, a cheeseburger with no cheese, two Quarter Pounders with cheese, one with extra onions and one without buns, a girl toy Chicken McNugget Happy Meal with apple slices, two Big McMacs and eighteen super-sized french fries with mustard.”
Not one order, not one fucking order was right. I had nothing left, Samir had beaten me.
“Is that not correct sir?” When I did not answer him, he finished. “That will be $52.75 sir.”
I was numb as I pulled my car up to the first window, groping for my wallet. The next car in the growing line pulled up to the box, even from this distance, I could hear that I had in no way been singled out.
“NO! Not a McFlurrie with bacon!”
I pulled up to the first window, hoping beyond hope that I would find an ally to help me through these troubling times. Pimply faced ‘Becka’ was not going to be that person. She was busy talking to, I believe, ‘Tonya’ about what a jerk some guy named Spence was, through her Bluetooth headset.
She didn’t so much as look at me when she fairly demanded the money. “That’s 52.75, oh my gawd he’s the biggest jerk ever.”
“Excuse me miss?”
“So then he says to me, ‘Did you see what Darla was wearing?’ And I’m like why would I care what that beeyotch had on.” She rethrust her hand out seeking something I wasn’t willing to entrust to her.
“Excuse me miss?” I asked again, I would have had an easier time getting a response from Samir. I shuddered at that thought.
When Becka realized that I hadn’t paid yet, she finally looked at me with that condescending teenager look that says I know everything and why are you still breathing? Don’t you have a coffin to fill? (I hate teenage girls, is there any species more foreign on this planet?)
“That’s 52.75,” she said again, this time with less veneer. Not that she was laying the ‘nice’ on too heavy to begin with.
“Miss, I had some problems with the drive through.”
Apparently Tonya came back with some profound insight, because Becka once again completely forgot that I existed. “I know, right?!” she replied excitedly, looking off into the distance.
How could Samir all of a sudden become the good employee in all of this? At least he paid me attention even if he had no clue.
“Yeah, so then I sort of… oh wait, Tonya,” she said, turning to me again. “This guy is at my window and won’t leave. Yeah I don’t think he has any money. Oh gross, Tonya! No, he’s not cute, he’s like 65 or something.”
Did she think I couldn’t hear her end of the conversation? Did she care? 65? And I am kind of cute…aren’t I? Why am I letting Becka make me doubt everything that I am? The human ego is very delicate, more like a thin-skinned tomato than the hardy coconut. It can be bruised easily with little more than some mishandling.
“Miss,” I said. “My order isn’t right.”
“Hold on Tonya. Didn’t you just make it at the speaker? Gad, Tonya, some of these people can be such dolts,” she finished, looking straight at me.
Did she think she was texting? This couldn’t be happening, could it? I was on Punk’d or something. Someone must be making a YouTube video. “Where’s the camera?” I asked in the hopes that this was some masterful prank and not the true state of the world.
“No he’s still here. I think he may be a ‘tard.’”
“Are you fucking kidding me? What is your problem?” Bruised ego or not, there was only so much I could take.
“Geez, there’s no reason to get all hostile and stuff, it’s not my fault you couldn’t make your order right the first time.”
I would have peeled away leaving a trail of rubber, but that’s not really a specialty of Jeeps. I did drive away from the window and I did entertain the thought of just leaving and trying my luck at Burger King. Odds were today though that I would encounter more of the same. Had I the clairvoyance to have checked my horoscope this morning I would have known how this day was going to turn out. It read just one word ‘HIDE.’
If I went home now, empty handed, Tracy would make Becka’s mishandling of my ego seem like a feather’s caress. Nearly every fiber of my being revolted at the thought of going into the lion’s den unarmed. I parked the car, stepped out and onto five or six ketchup packets that had been strategically placed for just this effect. Red sticky liquid nearly made it to the knee of my tan Dockers, my expensive Italian leather shoes looking like I had just followed OJ through a crime scene. Ronald McDonald mocked me with his feral grin, sitting on his bench all smug and self-centered.
Two of the largest women I had ever seen in my life nearly bowled me over as I tried to gain entrance into the inner sanctum of absurdity. Twins they were, but not of the ‘Doublemint’ variety. One was swathed in head to toe spandex. Anything resembling my appetite was lost. Her sister had on a skirt that struggled for all it was worth to stay attached at the seams. The skirt barely covered massive varicose stained thighs. It looked like the world’s most detailed map had been tattooed on her, but I really had my doubts that it led to anything resembling treasure.
“Oh, he looks good enough to eat,” I heard one of the sisters m
urmur to the other.
The other sister placed her hand to her mouth and tittered. She looked about as dainty as a hippo.
Like I said though, egos are fragile and tender. As easily as they can be broken they can be propped up. Now I wouldn’t touch either one of these girls with a stick to see if they were alive, but still, at least one of them thought I was cute. Does ‘good enough to eat’ equal cute? It did in my world.
“Ladies,” I said with my cheesiest grin as I held the door open. This time they both tittered. I felt magnanimous. I didn’t have the slightest clue then that in just a few short months I was going to expend a magazine of high caliber rounds into each corpulent sibling.
It was with this much-improved demeanor that I walked into the restaurant and up to the counter. My mood was only slightly diminished as I felt the tackiness of my red sauce covered shoe as it tried to adhere itself to the less than sanitary flooring. One young harried mother was at the counter ordering, two of her children were running around like they had just sucked down a couple of Red Bulls. Her third child was busy picking up errant French fries that had ended up on the deck. I cringed as she placed these ‘floor prizes’ into her mouth.
“Lexus!” The mother screamed. “Stop that, I’m ordering your supper right now!”
Wait, so she wasn’t upset that ‘Lexus’ was eating food off of a disgusting floor, but rather that she would ruin her appetite? Lexus didn’t heed her mother’s words as she placed another dirt encrusted something into her mouth. I don’t think it was a French fry but I tell myself that it was, so that I can make it through the day without dry-heaving. The germaphobe in me would have had to disown this kid if she was mine.