Stumped

by Dick Gear

  Banging old chicks and then trading stories and laughing about it. Sometimes we even did it as a team and fucked them at the same time.

  “Just hanging out. They say I can go home next week probably.”

  Tad nods. “Good. You know how much tail you’re gonna get with this sob story about your hands, right?”

  “Um. Yeah, I suppose so.”

  “You suppose?” He laughs and opens a bag of Skittles. “It’s a damn goldmine.

  Old ladies will weep and then take a load right in the face.” He mimes a load spraying into some old chick’s eyes.

  I can’t really laugh. Not yet. I just try to smile a bit.

  He pops a skittle in his mouth and then holds the bag out toward me. “You want?”

  “No thanks.”

  “Dude, I’ll feed you. I don’t mind.”

  “It’s okay. Not hungry at the moment.”

  Tad sits back and watches the TV up on the wall. Oprah is interviewing Johnny Depp about Pirates of the Caribbean 7 or some shit.

  “Look man, what happened to you? Like, what really happened?”

  “I told you, I got jumped.”

  “In the alley by Josem’s Deli? Are you kidding me?” he laughs. “I know, bro. I know that’s your spot for bagging milfs and gilfs and shit.”

  “Yeah. So?”

  “So, tell me exactly what went down.” He’s staring at me now, his dark eyes intent.

  “I really don’t remember, bro.”

  “Bullshit. Don’t lie to me. Someone getting even with you for nailing their grandmother or something?”

  I react a little, involuntarily. He’s pretty damn close to knowing the truth. “I told you—“

  “Don’t fucking lie to me, man. This shit affects me, too. What if it’s someone that I sparked? We did a lot of teamwork and whatnot. I could be next. I like having my fucking hands.”

  “It’s not anyone you know. Now lay off me, asshole.”

  “Fine.” He throws a few skittles in his mouth and leaves.

  I’m released into the care of my mom and dad the following week. It sucks. The last thing I want is to be back under my parents’ roof, but that’s going to be how it is now.

  The days and weeks pass by in a haze of boringness and pain. Doing rehab on my injuries, being fitted for new prosthetic hands, sleeping, eating, listening to my parents bitch and moan at each other as usual.

  I almost prefer being at Katarina’s and Timmy’s house. At least there it was different.

  Tad and my other friends don’t visit me as much after awhile. I can tell that I creep them out with my fucked up hands and I don’t really laugh at their new stories. In fact, sometimes I kind of want to grab one of them and bring them up to that house and show them just how funny this shit is when you catch some payback.

  Maybe they sense my feelings, maybe they just get bored of me. Whatever it is, after awhile the only one who even calls me anymore is Tad.

  But what the hell can I do? My hands are still a mess, I’m using plastic hands that fit on over my stumps but they don’t really function like the robotic ones will when they’re ready.

  One day I’m sitting on the couch watching Clueless with Alicia Silverstone. I used to HATE this fucking movie, like, with a passion. I always liked Tarantino shit or Goodfellas or some sick Japanese horror movies. But now I’m not really too into that stuff. Having some sicko cut off your hands will do that to you.

  Anyway, I’m kind of into the movie, it’s the part where she starts becoming all charitable and shit. I’ve got a big smile plastered on my face and suddenly my cell rings.

  I look at it. It’s work.

  “Shit.” I sigh. “Ma!”

  She yells back from the other side of the house. “What?”

  “I got a phone call. I need you to help me answer it!”

  The phone keeps buzzing. Ma takes her time and finally comes in. “Who is it?”

  “None of your business. Just answer it and put the Bluetooth in my ear for me.”

  She does and then leaves, muttering.

  When I finally answer, it’s my boss, Jacko. His real name is Jack but we always call him Jacko. “Buddy, how you holding up?” he says.

  “Eh. Not too bad.” Damn, I really want to get back to the movie. The part where she gets her two nerdy teachers together is coming up.

  “Hey man, your disability is going to be up at the end of next month.”

  “Right. I forgot.”

  “And you said you’ll be getting your—whatever—the hands will be operable in like two or three months, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  I need my hands for my job. I do sales for a tech company and there’s a lot of typing and computer stuff along with phone work that require some hand coordination.

  “So we don’t want you to lose your job and insurance and everything,” Jacko says.

  “Right…”

  “If you feel up to it, corporate is cool with you coming in and just doing some odd jobs around here until you get your new hands.”

  I sigh. I’m not going to be able to enjoy Clueless now that I’ve got this on my mind. “What kind of odd jobs?”

  “Does it matter? You need the insurance.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Can you start coming in next week?”

  Alicia Silverstone is paused in mid-sentence on screen, her young pink face staring off into the distance. She’s wearing a beret or some shit and that little fat friend of hers is scowling at something. The one who became hot later in life—oh, right, Brittney Murphy.

  “So, can you do it Allen?”

  “Yes. I can do it. I don’t really have a choice.”

  “See you Monday then.”

  Monday comes along sooner than I’d have liked. Mom drives me into work, which is humiliating. More humiliating was last night, how I woke everyone up screaming at the top of my lungs. I was shouting, “don’t fuck me in the ass with a dildo!”

  I wonder if they know there’s more to the story than what I’ve admitted to…

  Before the whole kidnapping thing, I was a top salesman at Deretek. Deretek sells shit to other computer companies, but I won’t bore you with the details. Suffice it to say, they fucking love me there.

  And of course I fucked like eighty percent of the female employees, even the fat ones.

  When I get in, I see that my usual desk is being sat in by some douchey looking guy in a button-down shirt and tie. I head into Jacko’s office. Yes, I’m a bit self-conscious about my hands, or lack thereof. The prosthetics I’m wearing don’t really even look remotely real. People stare. Jacko’s staring right now. He gawks at my hands while saying hello.

  “Allen, my man! Good to see you!” He reaches out to shake my fake hand.

  “Dude are you stupid?” I say.

  “Sorry, I forgot…”

  “Whatever.”

  He gestures to the chair next to me. “Go ahead, sit—aw shit.”

  “What?”

  Jacko points to his hand. “Do you mind if I use mine?”

  “Use yours?”

  “Yeah, like does it offend you when I use my hands and shit? No offense meant.”

  “God you are a fucking tard, Jacko. Really, man.” I sit down and cross my legs.

  “You shouldn’t say ‘tard in the office, Allen.”

  “Since when?”

  He stares at me evenly. “In fact, you’re actually kind of lucky your hands got chopped off and whatnot.”

  “Oh, yeah, I’m really lucky.”

  “Like three days after the…the accident or whatever…a couple of chicks went to HR and filed sexual harassment complaints against you.”

  “WHAT?”

  “Three chick—girls—you know, ladies who work here..”

  “Jacko, you fucked almost the same ones that I did, man. And I get thrown under the fucking bus?”

  He holds up his hands and then looks sheepishly at them. “Sorry.” He puts them down.

&nb
sp; “I told you already, it doesn’t offend me when you use your hands. Okay?”

  “Okay, okay, chillax bro.”

  “So who went and filed?”

  “I can’t reveal their names…”

  “Fuck you, tell me.”

  “I can’t say…but I’ll use their…ahh…the little codenames, the ones we made up.”

  “Fine, fine. Tell me.” I wave my stump at him.

  “Horseface, Donkey, Chubbs.”

  “Samantha, Heather, Reeba.”

  He nods, his face dead serious. “But they backed off once we heard about the hand thing. Nobody wanted to go after a crip…you know…an injured party.”

  I sigh. “Whatever.”

  “My point is, Allen, you can’t be saying tard and shit all over the place. And we have to stop fucking the workers.”

  “Have you?”

  “Have I what?”

  “Stopped fucking the workers?”

  “I’m down to just one.” He leans back, pleased with himself.

  “Who?”

  He doesn’t answer. His eyes dart all over the place.

  I point my stump at him. “Which one, Jacko?”

  He shrugs. “It’s not important.”

  “Fucking tell me. Use the code.”

  “Chubbs.”

  I shake my head. “You idiot.”

  “Not cool. No more derogatory terms okay?”

  “What’s my job?”

  “And it’s especially important given your new position at the company.”

  “Just tell me.”

  “You’ll be assisting Eddie Mercanto.”

  “Who?”

  “You know, Unsteady Eddie?”

  I groan. Unsteady Eddie is the retarded guy who cleans the office. He walks around singing and emptying bins and shit, while we all laugh at him to his face.

  “I’m not doing that. Give me something else.”

  “There is nothing else.”

  “I’ll lick envelopes.”

  “We can’t afford to have someone holding them for you.”

  “Fine.” I stand up. “Where do I go?”

  Jacko runs a hand through his dark hair. “I think he’s on the fourth floor, eating his ham and cheese sandwich.”

  “You know what he eats?”

  “He tells me. Everyday. He doesn’t do that with you?”

  “Never.”

  “Maybe he doesn’t like you very much.”

  I don’t bother responding. I leave the room, all too aware of everyone’s eyes following me as I leave the office. None of my boys even say one word. Not T-Bone, Ray Ray, or Tommy Bones. They just stare at me. Fuckers.

  I go up to find Unsteady Eddie.

  He’s eating, finishing off his sandwich. The food is all over his face too, mayo and mustard, all of it. Of course, I’m even worse than him so I can’t really laugh about it like I used to. Nowadays someone has to feed me. Usually mom.

  Eddie’s all alone in the lunch room. When he sees me, his eyes widen.

  “Ah, ah, ah…ah, ah!” He yells, standing. Mayo is dripping down the corner of his mouth. “Ah!” He points. “Allen!”

  “Yup, it’s me all right.”

  Eddie is not only way retarded, he’s also Mexican or some shit. Totally foreign and short and kind of smelly, with a bad accent. He loves talking about The Fresh Prince of Bell Air. This is going to be hell.

  “Eddie, how’s it going?”

  He points at the empty brown bag and plastic wrapping on the table. “I was eating my sandwich, Allen.”

  “Yeah, I heard. Big news around the office. Word is it’s ham and cheese.”

  He nods and grins. Flecks of ham and bread hang on his giant yellow choppers.

  He’s also got a thick black mustache with some food in it.

  “Allen, you coming with me today?”

  “Yes, I’m working with you for awhile. Helping you.”

  He laughs and tries to give me a high-five. I show him my stump and he leans forward, stares wide eyed at the plastic hand that’s just hanging on to it, all crooked and shit.

  Eddie points. “What—what—what—“

  “I lost my hands, Ed.”

  “Where?”

  “What do you mean, where?”

  “Lose your hands?”

  “Yes.”

  “Where did you lose them, Allen?”

  “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me. I—they got cut off.”

  He just stares. “How?”

  “I don’t really remember.”

  Eddie looks at me with his dark brown retarded eyes. He smiles. “You don’t remember?”

  “Right. I can’t remember what happened to my hands. Some guys beat me up.”

  “You do too!”

  “Shut up, Eddie.”

  “YOU DO TOO KNOW!!” He shouts. His face is getting red.

  Goddamn nutcase. “Shut your mouth, bro.”

  “You know!” He grabs my wrist and starts pulling me towards him.

  “Dude, what the hell?” I rip myself away from his ultra-strong grip.

  He starts to calm down. He seems confused now. “Uh-oh. Got to get to cleaning!”

  “Right.”

  I follow him out of the lunchroom.

  Over the next week I follow Unsteady Eddie around like a pathetic sidekick. The thing is, I can’t really DO anything. They stuck me in this job so that I wouldn’t be fired.

  Eddie doesn’t care, and he doesn’t really need an assistant. So mostly he just talks and I listen.

  And everyone else avoids me. I mean, nobody will say even a word to me. Like I don’t exist. Fuck them. Most of those chicks I fucked and dropped loads in their stupid faces anyway.

  A funny thing happens one day.

  Me and Eddie are sitting in his little maintenance closet, he’s getting some garbage bags or some shit. And I start telling him what REALLY happened to me.

  What starts the whole thing is that I actually forget about my hand situation. I try to pick up a spray bottle because I know he needs a refill, and suddenly I realize my hands are GONE. Fucking gone forever. And I start crying and shit, snot running out of my nose.

  Eddie puts a smelly brown hand on my shoulder. “Hey, hey, All—Allen. What wrong man?”

  “Fuck it. Fuck it bro.” I blow my nose on my own shirt using my stump and teeth to kind of pull it close to my face.

  “You mad at me Allen?”

  “No. Why would I be mad at you?”

  “Because your hands.”

  “You didn’t do anything to my hands.”

  He cocks his head, smiles. “You remember!”

  “Dude, I don’t have fucking amnesia.”

  “What?”

  “I remember what happened to my hands. I know who cut them off, Eddie.”

  “Who?”

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  “WHO?”

  “Barack Obama.”

  He giggles. “That’s funny.”

  “Yeah, you get my jokes, don’t you?”

  He nods. “Tell me who,” he says again.

  Pushy fucker. But then I think about it. Look around. We’re in a smelly little closet. Me and a retarded dude. He’s never going to tell anyone, and even if he does, who would believe or even understand him?

  And it’s been eating at me. The dreams are getting worse and worse. Dreams—

  Christ, these are the worst nightmares I’ve ever had by far. Timmy and Katarina do shit to me at night in my head that’s a million times worse than what they actually did to me.

  It’s getting so I hardly can close my eyes anymore. I’m exhausted.

  “Eddie, let me tell you what happened bro.”

  “Okay Allen,” he grins.

  “I met a really old lady, and she took me back to her house and I started to fuck her.”

  Eddie’s laughing hysterically.

  “You ever fucked a real girl before?” I ask him.

  He smiles. “YES….”


  “I don’t believe it.”

  “Daddy took me to a lady.”

  “Prostitute? Okay, got it. Anyway, moving on, I was banging this old broad at her house. And right when I’m about to finish, her crazy friend comes in with a knife and cuts my fucking hand off.”

  Eddie’s face changes. His jaw drops open. “No!”

  “Yes, Eddie.”

  He stares at my hands. “Cut your hand off?”

  “And then they held me, they tied me to a bed and the old lady used a big black stick to fuck me in the ass. You hear me, Eddie? I got raped. And they cut my damn hands off.” I start to blubber.

  Next thing I know, Eddie is holding me close, bear-hugging me against his dark blue work shirt that smells like fresh garbage and urine. It doesn’t matter. I cry and weep and he comforts me like a little lamb.

  After that, me and Eddie are pretty much just like two peas in a pod. We eat together—Eddie holds my food for me—we work together, share inside jokes. I’m enjoying myself so much that I’m totally not expecting or even wanting a change in my work routine.

  And then Jacko calls me into his office one Friday afternoon.

  He motions for me to sit in the chair and close the door.

  “How’s things with you and Unsteady Eddie?”

  “His name is just plain Eddie.”

  “Oh.” Jacko purses his lips and nods as if he understands. But he doesn’t understand shit, not like Eddie does.

  “You still fucking the employees?” I ask.

  Jacko can’t meet my gaze. “None of your business.”

  “It’s not just Chubbs anymore. Your back on the sauce—you’re fucking a whole bunch of them aren’t you Jacko?”

  He grits his teeth. “What’s your problem Allen? You came in here with a fucking chip on your shoulder man. I brought you in to give you good news. We’re moving you back to sales.”

  “How? I can’t use my hands and the new prosthetics with the bionic parts won’t be here for at least another month.”

  “We’ll work it out. Corporate says they want you in management and we’ll have someone assisting you in the menial stuff you can’t do at the moment.”

  “Corporate said that? Why?”

  Jacko taps the desk, then gets up, stuffs his hands in his pockets and stares out the window. “Sales are way down. Ever since you left. Like we dropped off a fucking cliff.

  Unbelievable.”

  I can’t help but smile. “Weird.”