You Only Live Once

by Haris Orkin

  ~Haris

  Message from the Author

  Dear Reader,

  I was a shy, skinny, bookish, bespectacled, and insecure twelve old living in the suburbs of Chicago when I first realized what I wanted to be when I grew up. I wanted to be Alexander Mundy in It Takes a Thief. I wanted to be Illya Kuryakin in The Man from Uncle. I wanted to be part of the Mission Impossible team. I wanted to be Jim West, Derek Flint, and Matt Helm. I wanted to be James Bond.

  Those men had no fear. They knew karate and could scuba dive and rock climb and sky dive and ski and shoot the eye out of a flea at fifty yards. They were confident in any situation and were comfortable in their own skin. I think that was the biggest wish fulfillment fantasy of all for an awkward pre-teen struggling through puberty, and that’s what inspired You Only Live Once.

  At twelve I was terrified of girls. I was always picked last in gym class. I lived a life of perpetual embarrassment. In hindsight, that’s probably how most twelve year olds feel, but at the time, I didn’t know that. So I started lifting weights. I became a gymnast. I boxed. I studied karate. I became a rock climber and learned to ski and scuba dive. I even studied in London for a year and traveled the world. But I never did become an international super spy.

  Instead I became a screenwriter and game writer, creating wish fulfillment fantasies for other nerdy twelve year olds. Thank you for indulging in my fantasies. I hope you enjoyed the journey. I do believe Mr. Flynn is just getting started.

  Please connect with me on Twitter and Facebook and feel free to ask me anything. This is a two way conversation.

  ~Haris Orkin

  And now, a sneak peek at Flynn’s next escapade in…

  Chapter 1

  Flynn was outnumbered and unarmed and he knew they’d show no mercy. His footfalls echoed off the high cinderblock walls as he raced down the wide corridor. Sweat drenched his face and burned his eyes, causing his glasses to slip down his nose. He tried metal door after metal door, but none would open. Cold fear squeezed his heart as his pursuers closed the distance between them. Their shoes echoed louder as Flynn moved slower, his legs now rubbery, heavy and numb.

  He rounded a corner, slid on the slippery linoleum, bumped into the wall, and tripped over a box. The floor flew up and smashed him in the face. On his hands and knees, struggling to catch his breath, Flynn forced himself to stand. He had nothing left. No strength. No fight. He rolled over on his back, a dog offering his belly.

  Submitting.

  Surrendering.

  And that’s when he saw a way out.

  An air vent high on the wall had a tiny gap at the top, two screws loose. He pushed himself to his feet, reached up and worked his fingers under the curled edge. He pulled down hard and bent it with the full force of his two hundred and forty-seven pounds.

  His enemies drew closer, their footfalls echoing louder. The air vent rested shoulder high. Flynn backed up to take a short running start. He sprinted and leaped headfirst into the hole, kicking his feet to propel himself forward. His sweaty hands scrabbled for purchase as he fought to pull himself deeper into the vent. Just a little farther and he’d be out of reach. They might not even see him. They might run right past him. All he had to do was wriggle forward, but it was a tight fit. No room for a grown man to stand or crouch or even crawl.

  Flynn undulated like a dolphin to inch himself in, but he was not a petite man. Before he made it very far, he squeaked to a painful stop. At one time, Flynn was lean and wiry and tightly muscled, but those muscles now hid beneath fifty pounds of fat. Most of that weight collected in his belly and butt and it was his ample ass that couldn’t squeeze past the aluminum ductwork. The friction pulled his shorts down, exposing the pale flesh of his buttocks. The sound produced by his scraping skin was like a squeegee on glass.

  “There! There he is!” shouted one of Flynn’s pursuers. He sounded no older than seventeen.

  His partner in crime laughed with glee. “What the hell’s he doing in there?”

  The third kid clapped his hands with excitement. “Fat ass on a stick is stuck! Grab ‘em by his ankles!”

  Hands locked onto both his ankles. He tried to kick free as they laughed and tugged, the hair on his derriere pulled tight, trapped between flesh and metal.

  “Stop it! Stop it!” Flynn shouted, his voice echoing in the duct work.

  “Pants ‘em!” the second kid screamed as the others laughed.

  A breeze blasted his butt as they yanked his shorts down to his ankles. His neck and face burned with embarrassment. Tears filled his eyes.

  “Please… Please.”

  His tormentors just laughed harder. That laughter brought up memories of ancient junior high school humiliations. The wedgies. The Indian burns. The noogies. On the school bus. In the locker room. On the playground at recess. Back then every day was a nightmare. The only peace he found was in the classroom. And even there he suffered daily embarrassment and shame.

  Of all his tormentors, one in particular never stopped taunting him. Never stopped riding him. Never stopped belittling him. This voice was impossible to escape, because this voice resided in Flynn’s own head. You’re worthless. Useless. Fat. Stupid. Ugly. Unlovable. All his other tormentors only confirmed what that voice already knew.

  Flynn was hopelessly wedged in the vent. They pulled off his shoes and socks and tickled his feet and slapped him on the ass.

  Finally, a fourth voice shouted over all the mocking laughter. This one was older and deeper and had an Armenian accent. “What do you boys think you’re doing?”

  The three adolescents tormenting Flynn sprinted away, their laughter and footsteps fading off as they fled. Flynn’s rescuer didn’t pursue them.

  “Jimmy! You okay in there?”

  “Mr. Papazian?” came Flynn’s hollow response, plaintive and ashamed.

  “Those boys are a menace. I can’t even remember how many times I kicked them out of the galleria.”

  “Can you get me out of here?”

  “Of course.” Warm hands grasped his ankles and Mr. Papazian pulled. “Boy, you’re really stuck in there.”

  “I know.”

  “You push and I’ll pull.” Papazian pulled. Flynn didn’t budge. “Are you pushing?”

  “I’m pushing.”

  Papazian grunted and pulled again, but Flynn remained stuck. “Shit!” Papazian was already out of breath. “Try to stay calm while I go get some help.”

  “Please don’t leave me,” Flynn’s sad voice echoed in the ductwork.

  “I’ll be right back, Jimmy. I promise.”

  “No, wait! My shorts! Can you please pull them up?”

  “Of course. Yeah, let me just…pardon my reach.”

  “Ow.”

  “Sorry.”

  “It pinches.”

  “Yeah, that’s as far as they go.”

  Another voice joined the conversation. “Papazian? Who the hell is that?” The higher pitched voice belonged to a middle-aged Hispanic man.

  “It’s Jimmy. Can you give me a hand?”

  “What’s he doing in the vent?”

  “He was trying to get away from those young hooligans. Don’t just stand there, Rodriguez! Help me pull him out!”

  Two sets of hands grabbed Flynn’s ankles and pulled. At first Flynn didn’t move, but then the two men put their backs into it. Flynn’s flesh squeaked as his buttocks squished back through the ductwork and finally, he was free.

  Flynn quickly pulled up his bright red shorts and pulled his tight, striped polyester shirt (red, white, blue, and yellow) down over his generous gut. He wiped the sweat off his face with a sleeve and smiled at his rescuers.

  “Thank you.” Flynn’s voice was gentle and tentative with the generic accent of a native Angelino.

  Balding with bushy eyebrows and a pencil-thin mustache, Papazian wore the ill-fitting uniform of a mall security guard. Rodriguez stood a half a foot shorter and fifty pounds chubbier and wore the disheveled brown outfit of a main
tenance man.

  Flynn smoothed back his hair. “My hat!” he spun around, looking at the ground in a panic. He peered in the open vent, but his hat wasn’t there either. “I lost my Hot Dog on a Stick hat!”

  “Can’t you get another hat?” Papazian asked.

  “Mrs. McKinney will dock me for that!”

  “Over there,” Rodriguez said. It lay a few feet away, next to a pile of empty boxes.

  Mr. Papazian picked it up and handed it to Flynn. Bent and misshapen, someone had obviously stepped on it. “Jimmy, you’re a grown man. You need to stand up for yourself.”

  Flynn blinked away tears and tried to fluff up his hat before putting it on his head. “I don’t know why they keep bothering me. I’ve never done anything to them.”

  “Pendejos like that feed on fear. Papazian is right. You can’t run from them,” Rodriguez said.

  “Maybe it’s time to find a new job. Something more dignified than Hot Dog on a Stick. I’m not sure it’s appropriate for a man your age.”

  “He’s right, my friend.” Rodriguez agreed. “It’s hard to get respect when you’re wearing tiny red shorts and a stupid poofy hat.”

  “Where am I going to find another job?” Flynn sounded like he might start crying again. “No one wants to hire someone like me. Someone who was…who is…”

  “You don’t seem all that crazy to me, ese. You do look like you put on a few pounds recently,” Rodriguez said.

  “I eat when I’m anxious.”

  Papazian nodded. “Look, I get it. But you’re still a relatively young man. Barely middle-aged. If you lost some weight maybe you’d feel better about yourself. You might even find someone who wants to go out with you.”

  “Don’t be getting his hopes up, man,” Rodriguez warned.

  “I’m just saying.”

  “And I’m just saying don’t get his hopes up.”

  Chapter 2

  During the depths of the Great Depression, a massive earthquake rocked Southern California. Schools were hit hardest and city officials decided to build a park on the beach; a place for all the displaced kids to play. The site chosen was just south of Santa Monica Pier. Known by locals as Mussel Beach, out of work vaudeville jugglers and acrobats often practiced in the new park and before long Mussel Beach became known as Muscle Beach.

  After World War II, thousands of veterans flooded Southern California, buying up little bungalows with G.I. Bill benefits. By 1946 as many as ten thousand sun worshipers crowded Muscle Beach each day. Some of those lifting and flexing included Jack LaLanne, Joe Gold, and Steve Reeves, who later played Hercules in the movies.

  It seemed a perfect place to sell hot dogs, and that’s just what Dave Barham decided to do. Using his mom’s secret cornbread recipe, Dave created the very first Hot Dog on a Stick. He took his new culinary innovation to county fairs and then later expanded into another new concept called the shopping mall. Eventually, Hot Dog on a Stick was ubiquitous in food courts from Rancho Cucamonga to Seoul, Korea.

  In 1998, when Jenny McKinney was fifteen, she took a job with Hot Dog on a Stick. She started as a counter girl and worked her way through high school and community college deep-frying dogs and hand stomping lemonade. Eventually, she became a cashier and then an assistant manager and then the general manager of the Glendale Galleria location.

  Hot Dog on a Stick gave Jenny a future and she wanted to use her position and hard-earned wisdom to help others lift themselves up; not just feckless high schoolers, but anyone left behind by society. She contacted the city and told them she wanted to help those less fortunate. So, they connected her with various social welfare agencies, and she hired whoever she could. Some were intellectually and developmentally challenged, some were on parole, some were recovering from catastrophic injuries or alcoholism or drug addiction, and some, like James Flynn, were trying to overcome mental illness and make a new life for themselves.

  Mrs. McKinney sat at her cluttered desk in the tiny back office and glowered at a teary-eyed Flynn. His Hot Dog on a Stick hat sat crooked on his head, bent and misshapen and decorated with a dirty footprint.

  “You know the rule,” she said.

  “Your hat is never allowed to leave the store,” Flynn replied.

  “Do you know why?”

  Flynn wiped a tear away and shook his head. “Not really.”

  “Because they are coveted. They are special. Just like this place is. That’s why we want to share it with people like you, Jimmy. People having difficulties. People who have lost their way. There are rules to follow and if you follow them, you will find success. I did and I’m no one special. I was a “C” student with a bad attitude and no self-esteem. But Hot Dog on a Stick taught me discipline and the benefit of hard work. It taught me how to deal with the public and to be empathetic, because you never know what kind of day someone else is having. They may have lost their job. May have lost a loved one.”

  “I know what that’s like.”

  “I know you do and that’s why I want you to learn the lessons this place can teach you.”

  “I really appreciate you bringing me in, Mrs. McKinney.”

  “You are part of the Hot Dog on a Stick family now and we take care of our own. Do you know the names of the boys who were harassing you?”

  “I don’t.”

  “I know you’re afraid, but you don’t have to be. If you see those boys again, you tell me, okay?”

  Flynn nodded.

  “No one deserves to be treated like they treated you. Everyone deserves respect and that means you also need to respect yourself. Take responsibility to be who you want to be. Do you know who you want to be, Jimmy?”

  “Not really.”

  “Someday you will, but it’s a journey. And part of taking responsibility is taking good care of yourself. Being smart. Healthy. Which means you need to start watching what you eat. A Hot Dog on a Stick is a delicious treat, but too much of a good thing can often be a bad thing. I know there’s a lot of temptation here, but we mustn’t succumb to our base appetites. Do you know what the good book says about that?”

  “Not really.”

  “Lead us not into temptation and deliver us from evil.”

  “Okay.”

  Mrs. McKinney looked Flynn over from head to toe. He self-consciously tugged his top down over his gut. “Let’s get you a new uniform that fits you properly and a brand-new hat.”

  “Thank you, Mrs. McKinney.”

  “Don’t thank me. You’ll be paying for it out of your next paycheck. How’s life at the group home?”

  “Good.”

  “Wonderful. That’s why we do this, so people like you can become self-reliant, self-sufficient, tax-paying citizens. When you can take care of yourself, then you can take care of others. That’s what we do. We pay it forward. And expand the circle of kindness.” Mrs. Kinney scraped back her chair and stood. “Punch in and get to work. That lemonade isn’t going to hand stomp itself.”

  Flynn cut lemons as Ashley, Becky, and Emma worked the front counter. Ashley was a petite Filipina with long dark hair and glasses. Becky was blonde, perky, pretty, and sarcastic. Emma had a tattoo of Pikachu on her ankle, a tiny gold stud in her nose, and purple highlights in her dirty-blond hair.

  When Flynn first met them, they all put on happy smiles, but it was obvious they wanted nothing to do with him. Flynn struggled to make small talk, and they did their best to ignore him. He could tell they didn’t understand why a thirty-seven-year-old man would want to work at Hot Dog on a Stick. He wondered if they knew he was living in a halfway house for the mentally ill.

  His shyness around them pained him. His left eye would sometimes twitch, and his constant discomfort made it difficult to breathe. He often had to use an asthma inhaler. All three girls seemed so sophisticated. So much smarter than him. Quicker. Faster. Funnier. They would talk amongst themselves and laugh and Flynn would want to join the conversation, but he never knew what to say. He would stutter and mumble and when he did g
et the occasional word in, they would stare him like he was a talking dog. He vaguely remembered a version of himself that was so much more confident and comfortable in his own skin. But that self-assured part of his personality had disappeared, leaving him to fend for himself in a cold and unforgiving world.

  Ashley trained Flynn. She showed him how to properly cut lemons and stomp lemonade. It was his least favorite part of the job. He often nervously gnawed on his nails, so his cuticles were cracked and often bled. The lemon juice irritated the broken skin and would squirt in his eyes and burn.

  When he had fifty lemons cut into quarters, he’d put them in a large plastic bucket and plunge a metal masher into the mix to hand stomp them. Ashley told Flynn to move the masher through the lemons with a thrusting, circular motion, up and over and up and down until the bucket made a sound like a heartbeat. Flynn would mash and mash and mash for what seemed like forever. The sharp citrus smell would get up his nose and he’d struggle not to sneeze, because one time he did and had to throw out all fifty lemons and start again.

  This was Flynn’s seventh week at Hot Dog on a Stick, but he still didn’t feel like he belonged. The shifts would change and so would the girls, but Flynn always got stuck cutting lemons. He much preferred putting wieners on sticks, dipping them in the corn bread batter, and plunging them into the hot oil. He found the ritual oddly satisfying, but he rarely had the opportunity as he was always relegated to lemonade stomping duty.

  While Ashley and Emma mostly ignored Flynn, Becky taunted him.

  “Jimmy!” Becky held up one of the wieners on a stick. “Look at the size of this wiener!”

  Heat rose on his neck as Ashley giggled. Becky stuck out her tongue and pretended to lick the flaccid wiener. Ashley cackled with laughter.

  “You are so bad,” Emma said.

  Becky approached Jimmy with the wiener on a stick. “Jimmy knows I’m just teasing.” She offered it to Flynn. “Do you want to hold it?

  “No, thank you.”

  “Why don’t you put it in? I know you want to.”