by J. Thorn
“As my body started breaking down and her mind starting going, the pull of the greed lessened. No, it didn’t lessen. My ability to slake its thirst did. After retirement, I couldn’t keep up with the newest electronics. Think I had one of the first cellular phones, but never went past that. No computers or laptops. Couldn’t get the women no more, neither. Right before I retired I managed to find enough in our savings to splurge on three call girls. That was some night, although my parts ain’t what they used to be and I spent most of the time watching them enjoy each other. Either way, it was money well spent and the last of the sexual urges I could satisfy with my old bones.
“I didn’t stop with the cars. Got a new one every other year, each one bigger and more loaded than the last. Had me a Caddy, Lincoln, a couple of Oldsmobiles. The cars they used to call tanks meant something. Not every skirt in town had an SUV. If you had power windows, you were somebody. Then again, I’m not sure how much it all mattered. Greed had me by the balls so tight that for the last few years of my life the car sat in the garage six days a week. Sundays I took it to church along with a sister and a sister-in-law. Greed had me collect gas money from them. How’s that, son? How’s that for being a dickheaded cheapskate?
“Your grandma had lost it by then. Her mind flew the coop long ago, and the family pretended there was still some essence of her left in that broken body. They’d say things like, ‘Nana seems better today. She called me by name.’ Guess when you can’t remember the names of your kids no more, getting one right out of sheer luck is a ‘good day.’ Point is, I was free of her scrutiny, her fucking judgment. She knew better than to confront me on my consumption, so she bundled it up in neat little packages, dispensing it at times that would make it impossible for me to smack her in the mouth. By the end, she lost that too. I got tired of cleaning her shit off the walls, forcing her to change her fucking underwear, or helping her get in the bathtub. Ain’t nothing loving about a loss of dignity.
“I thought on many a night about the handgun I kept under the floorboards in the bedroom. Thought I could arrange it to be a suicide. Shit, I’ll bet I coulda put it in her hand and told her to do it and she would have. Your ma is the only thing that stopped me. That was my oasis, my one place of refuge from the curse Gaki laid on me. My only daughter was my light. I could see the pain in her eyes when she saw your grandmother, drool running down her face, passing the most violent gas you could possibly smell. Yep, your ma still loved her ma, and for that reason alone I couldn’t release my wife from the disease that ate away at her brain. Your mother had hope, and that would outrun the greed by just a bit.
“Of course, even hope dies. We were both in the home by then. It took me all of two weeks to realize what a shithole that place was. Didn’t matter that it was run by the church or that it got state funds. Nothing but skin, bones, and death walked those halls, and the assholes in the blue garbs knew it. They knew they would outlast every motherfucker in the joint, could punch ’em, kick ’em, starve ’em. Whatever. I think it was worse for me because my brain was still straight. Your grandma was long gone, lying in a grave that happened to be covered with a soiled sheet. I remember the time, towards the end, when your mother brought you and the other grandkids in to see us. She couldn’t even talk at that point, just stared at the ceiling waiting for death. But you guys stayed in her room a helluva lot longer than you did mine. I wasn’t bitter about it. I knew my days was numbered, too, but it sure told me what my greed had done. You showed her rotted brain more love than mine.
“One of the orderlies came in on a muggy, summer morning to tell me she was gone. Can you believe I couldn’t even get a wet eye? Over sixty years of marriage and all I felt was relief. Like I said, she wasn’t nothing but a shell by then. Guess I did my grieving long before that morning.”
Drew shook and his heartbeat quickened. His eyeballs popped back and forth, trying to fight their way through the night.
“We only got a short time left. I’m guessing by now you know where this is going, which is why your body is trying to wake you up. Self-preservation kicking in. I got so good at smelling that during the war that I could shoot a gook dead ‘fore my crosshairs ever found his slant-eyed face.
“Don’t know how it all works. Shit. I don’t know how none of it works. What I do know is that I came out of that jungle afflicted by something I didn’t have going in. Some soldiers left an arm, a leg, or their life in the sweltering jungles of the Pacific. I left my future. I got tagged by fucking Gaki and that bastard bided his time. He let me get back to the real world, make some money, get a slice of the American Dream. And then he called in the chips. Thing of it is, I don’t think I fulfilled my duty. Some of them Japs called it dharma. Heard ’em talking about it at one of the POW camps we set up on Okinawa. Don’t remember exactly what it means, but I know it came from the Hindus or the Buddhists or one of them dark-skinned monkeys. Means something like duty, or obligation. I used to call greed my dharma, like it was some special condition that I had. I imagined going on the talk shows with my dharma.
“Gaki never came back, but his mark never left me. The greed manifests itself according to the individual. Gaki is the avatar, the representation of it. I think I saw him the way the Japs did, eating shit, never satiated. I saw him as that pathetic creature doomed to consume without hope of being content. I’m guessing that’s how you’re gonna see him, too.”
Drew shook. A moan slipped from the corner of his mouth.
“I know you felt him. Those nights, listening to the wind rattle the windows or the temperature tweaking the floorboards. That was Gaki. I know it. You know it. He’s coming for you, and you know what he wants. My greed ate me alive, but I think your vice is deeper, a red gash deep in the flesh that won’t stop bleeding no matter what you do.
“Now that I’m gone, I have a feeling that whatever being rules this plane will put me somewhere, with an emaciated body, tiny mouth, and the inability to satiate my lusts. I’m the new Gaki, but not your Gaki. You get your own, son. You get yer own.
“You’re about out of time with me. I did what I could, what I had to. You should know that I did like ya. Those times I took you golfing, we enjoyed ourselves. Getting a burger at the clubhouse and sneaking you a sip of my beer, that was good times. But it’s all about business now. Shit, you’ve known you’ve been infected for a while. All I’m doing is making it all official. A receding widow’s peak ain’t all you’re inheriting from me, Drew.
“Gaki got his eye on you. You’re the new ‘eater of shit.’ Do what you can to save your family ‘cause there sure as hell ain’t no hope for your soul.”
***
Drew hit the sleep button on his alarm clock three times before Molly shook him by the shoulder. Her fingers felt like roach clips connected to a car battery. He cursed under his breath and pulled the comforter over his head.
“Hon, you’re going to be late.”
“Not going in today.”
Molly sat up and rubbed her eyes. “You never miss work.”
“Leave me the fuck alone.”
Molly stood and wrapped her robe around her waist. She paused, and then thought better of speaking. She shut the bedroom door behind her and went downstairs to halt the marshmallow-and-peanut-butter breakfast the kids had made.
Drew rolled onto his back. Every muscle in his body hurt. His eyelids closed over balls of fire and his throat closed, struggling to swallow what little saliva remained. He looked at the alarm clock and then at the phone. With trembling fingers, Drew snagged the phone from the cradle. He lifted it to his ear until the buzz of the dial tone threatened to split his skull in two.
“Fuck it,” he said, sliding his legs out of bed. The pain in his head came a half-second later and almost knocked him to the floor. “Just be stuck with the cold bitch all day if I lay here.”
The realization motivated Drew. He dressed and drove on autopilot to the office, determined to suffer through the day. Cars honked and pedestrians stuffed in
winter coats like emperor penguins sauntered through crosswalks. Drew considered plowing through a throng of them a block from the office, but decided not to after considering the amount of paperwork it would cause.
“Drivers got no rights,” he said aloud. “Idiots think they can walk out in front of a four-ton beast and not get hit. If I can find one texting, I might be able to argue it was his fault for not paying attention.”
Drew saw a vision of a hipster in tight jeans and Italian loafers floating over the hood. He saw the man’s phone smashing off the windshield before the impact knocked the beret from his head. He smiled. The light turned green, keeping the throngs out of the grid and on the curb until the symbol changed again to a white hand flashing.
Drew made it to the front door of the office. He gave the receptionist the usual smile and imagined what it would be like to fuck her from behind, his fist balled with a handful of her blonde hair, yanking her back into position at the end of each thrust.
The coffee machine light blinked “brewing.” Drew slammed his mug on the counter and cursed. “Which of these motherfuckers had the balls to empty the pot? Rude pricks.”
The women in the cubicles closest to the break room looked up, more from the tone of his words as they could not quite make out what he was saying.
He abandoned the idea of another cup of coffee and walked toward his desk. Drew looked to the right and noticed that Brian’s monitor was dark, like the entrance to a deep cave. Drew sat down and hit the icon to bring up his e-mail client. He scanned through ten or fifteen subject lines, skipping them all until his eyes fixed on one toward the bottom that read “Out.” He clicked on the subject line and brought up the message in a full window.
Dude,
Feeling like total shit today. Gonna stay home and watch porn. Tried calling Johnson but got his vm. Please tell me that fucker ain’t out again today. Hoping to be in tomorrow. Need a solid from ya. Can you please fax Bill at Diversicorp? Yeah, I know he’s my client but I need your help. I left a contract on my desk that I had planned on sending this morning. It expires at 5:00 p.m. All you have to do is send it to the number on the cover page.
Rock,
Brian
Drew leaned back in his chair and looked at Brian’s desk. He saw the document Brian mentioned in the e-mail. He looked back at his screen to the time column.
8:37 p.m.
He scratched his head.
He wrote the sick e-mail last night?
Drew picked up the documents and walked to the fax machine next to the receptionist’s desk. He managed to slide in another sexual fantasy about her while waiting for the fax-machine-confirmation page to print.
He waded through a handful of other e-mails and looked at the clock. It wasn’t even past ten and he felt as though he had been in the office for the past seven years. The clacking of keyboards rattled his skull, and the phony, syrupy greetings of cold calls made him want to vomit. Drew put a set of ear buds into his ears. He pulled up the media-player app on his computer and scrolled through the selections until he found Kill ’Em All, the loudest, meanest, most intense Metallica album recorded. Even the rapid-fire guitar work and caterwauling of James Hetfield could not keep the office noise from penetrating his ears. Drew threw the ear buds down on the desk and snarled. Someone had left the coffee-machine burner running and the bitter, harsh aroma of burnt coffee flooded his nostrils. He broke out in a cold sweat and his hands shook as if being flooded with electricity.
“Are you okay?”
Drew turned, leveling the full fury of his thoughts on the college intern that stood behind the mail cart, retracting a hand that seconds before had been extended toward him with three envelopes.
“I’m fine,” he replied, taking a deep breath in an attempt to stave off the sensory overload of the office.
“You’re all pasty and sweating.”
Drew straightened his sleeves and tucked a lock of hair behind each ear. He smiled and shook his head like a master amused by the foolish questions of his apprentice. “Deadlines. You’ll have ’em too if they hire you on. Careful what you wish for.”
The woman frowned and Drew did everything he could to keep from punching her in the face. He balled his fists and used his right foot to fasten his left to the floor.
“I’m not afraid of deadlines. My professor for the night class said—”
Drew sat down and began opening his interoffice mail while the intern rambled on. He swiveled his chair and imagined crushing her beneath his heels, grinding her face into a pulpy mess that would need to be shampooed out of the industrially gray carpet.
She pushed the cart down the aisle, shaking her head. Drew watched her go and dreamt of stabbing her in the back. Nobody would miss that sorry bitch and her fucking man-calves, he thought.
Drew looked up and swore the entire office was staring at him. The men and women in the cubicles dropped papers. One man put his arm around the intern, trying to comfort her sobs. Drew realized he had spoken the words out loud. He looked at Johnson’s office and noticed the door was dark again.
“Looks like I need to call it a day,” he said, his voice wavering on an upward swing of thin optimism. No one in the office moved and nobody came to his desk. I can smell their fear. They think I’m a loose cannon.
He folded his coat over one arm and hit the power button on the computer. Drew scribbled a few lines on a Post-it note and stuck the yellow sheet to his monitor.
“Gone home. Sick. Will check e-mail tonight.”
That’s more information than they deserve, he thought.
He tossed the cold coffee from his mug into the sink of the break room and left it sitting on the counter. It would no doubt earn Drew a written chastisement from the night crew about leaving messes for them to clean. He did not care.
Let ’em earn their keep like everyone else in this fucking prison.
He passed through the office and gave an obligatory wave to the few that he did not despise. Drew winked at the receptionist on the way out. Although she wore a hands-free headset on the opposite ear, he knew she was involved in a conversation.
“Got yer back, sweetheart,” he said.
Trapped by the conversation, she could do nothing but wrinkle her nose and shake her head at the obtuse, and yet slightly cryptic, comment.
Drew drove his car as fast as he could. He ignored most traffic lights and stopped once long enough to fish through the backseat for a CD wallet embedded underneath the passenger seat. It came up with an audible pop, covered in the remains of sticky lollipops and dried soda. He unzipped the wallet and flipped through the variety of heavy-metal recordings, smirking at them and reminiscing like they were long-lost friends. He found another Metallica CD and pushed it toward the slit in the dash. The motor came to life, grabbed the CD, and pulled it inside. Drew cranked the volume knob as high as it would go while putting the car in drive and punching the gas pedal to the floor. He crested the hill overlooking his housing plan and turned right toward his street. The road was empty except for a random garbage can lolling along the curb where the garbage man left it to the mercy of the wind. Children were at school and parents were at work. The neighborhood felt ancient, old, and as though it was hiding something from the universe. Drew slowed the car and looked at each living-room window as he drove past. He saw no signs of life, no movement.
He pulled into his driveway behind Molly’s car. He put the car in park and waited until the verse of “Harvester of Sorrow” ended before turning the ignition off. Drew listened to the pings of the engine underneath the hood, the only sound made in the dead of the midmorning neighborhood.
***
Drew walked to the back door and slid his key into the lock. It clicked open after shedding a thin layer of ice deposited on the tumbler. He looked at the keypad to the right of the garage door. It sat there, dark smudges where hands had lifted the lid countless times to punch in the security code.
Nope. Not going to give her a heads-up on this.
Gonna find out what the fuck she does all day long when I’m serving time in my cubicle and the kids are at school.
He pushed the door far enough to crack the seal, feeling the dry warmth of the kitchen wash over his face. Drew slid through the door sideways and slipped his shoes off. They tumbled to the tile floor, the sound muffled by an entrance rug near the kitchen table. Drew paused, listening to the cranky motor of the refrigerator. The rest of the house remained silent.
Drew shed his coat and left it on the floor next to his shoes. He heard a squeak. The muffled sound was a familiar one. He heard it every night when Molly went upstairs to bed as he remained on the couch reading or watching television. They bought the mattress with wedding money, its springs holding out through two conceptions and thirteen years. The metal frame of the king-sized bed sat on oak hardwood floors. Any movement on the bed resulted in noises like a gerbil caught in its exercise wheel. Drew looked at the time on the microwave. He looked outside and back to the LED numbers. 12:37.
What the hell is she doing in bed?
He walked into the living room and sat on the love seat. The bed squealed in random bursts, like Molly was having a nightmare, wrestling with the comforter.
Drew’s heart thundered in his chest until he could feel it in his ears. The bed upstairs squeaked again. The heater kicked on and the blower now competed with the refrigerator motor for the noisiest device in the house. Drew sat back and rubbed his forehead with one hand. He stood with his feet glued to the hardwood.
“Nothing good will come of it. Leave. Go back to the office and then talk about it once you’ve calmed down or doused yourself with Jack Daniels. Don’t do it, man.”
He wiped a tear from one eye and shook his head. Drew wanted to scream, to rip a hole in reality and crawl through, to be embraced by an eternal, suffocating darkness. Disobeying a direct order from his brain, and not heeding his own mental warning, Drew placed his right foot on the steps, beginning the ascent to the master bedroom and everything that might come after.