Lick Your Neighbor
Page 7
Randy sat in his station wagon in the police station’s back parking lot, putting all his strength into turning the ignition. The car refused to start.
He banged on the dash.
“Start, you indifferent bastard!”
* * *
On the other side of the building, Dale walked out of the station accompanied by Truax. Dale’s lip was busted, his hair tussled, shirt untucked, and his hand empty of a certain pair of imaginary lips.
“Your lawyer said he’d pull the car around,” Truax said. “Need anything from me before I go? Swift kick in the crotch, atomic wedgie, anything like that?”
“No I’m good.”
“Maybe next time.”
Truax went back inside as Dale collapsed onto a bench by the curb.
* * *
Behind the station, Randy’s wagon sat unattended. The key was still in the ignition, but the door was wide open.
Out from the trees that bordered the lot came a furious huffing and puffing as Randy hurtled forward at full sprint, wielding a large tree branch and screaming his head off. He thrashed the back of the car mercilessly with the branch, as if he was giving the car a good spanking. If the wagon could have talked it would have said things such as “Ouch” and “Hey cut that out.”
“Take that!” Randy screamed. “And that! And some of that!”
Randy’s relationship with his car was similar to many a man’s relationship with God. He knew the car existed and that it had the power to do certain things that would make his life easier. It just chose not to.
Randy thrashed away until he ran out of breath. Then, panting, he stopped, turned and walked a few steps away, changed his mind, spun around, and went back at the car with renewed vengeance.
* * *
Ten minutes later, as Dale was about to call Andie to pick him up, he heard the all too familiar sound of Randy’s Oldsmobile rumbling in the distance like thunder. The car came screeching around the corner, spewing thick black smoke like a volcano, and rattling as if every single screw holding it together was loose.
Dale nearly wet himself as the car flew over the curb and screeched to a halt just a couple feet in front of him. Randy kicked open the passenger door and shouted, “Get in!” over the sounds of Peter Cetera’s “Glory of Love” blaring from the radio.
“What the hell is wrong with you? You almost killed me!”
“We have to get you out of here,” Randy warned. “You’re in great danger.”
“We’re in front of a police station. What could possibly happen?”
Randy reached into an old box of donuts on the passenger seat, pulled out the last Bavarian Cream, and threw it at Dale, hitting him in the nose.
“Fool!” Randy shouted. “You’re a damned fool!”
“Ow!” Rubbing his nose, Dale reached down and picked up the donut. “What the hell is this, a donut? How old is it? It’s hard as a rock.”
“Old enough to know the difference between friend and foe.”
Dale looked down at the hardened, crusty object in his hand. All its friends and family long since eaten by a merciless giant, there was a certain loneliness to this sole survivor. Even the smidgen of cream, poking out the side, looked sad. It reminded Dale of the little pearl of saliva that had always nested in the corner of his late Grandfather’s lips.
“Don’t you see?” Randy said. “The police are probably in on it. Look up on the roof, is there a sniper up there? My God I think I see one! Take cover!”
Dale tossed the donut aside and dove behind the bench.
Randy reached under the seat, felt his way through a forest of empty Big Gulps, and pulled out a pair of toy plastic binoculars.
“Wait, wait, wait. False alarm. It’s a pigeon.”
Dale brushed himself off. “Just give me a ride to work and don’t say another word to me.”
“Yes, yes, of course. Just get in!”
Dale got into the car, crushing the empty box of donuts. He didn’t even have the door shut before Randy hit the gas and sent the car flying back off the curb and spinning onto the street.
Dale braced himself. “Slow down! There is no need for this.”
“No need? A rough beast, its hour come round at last, slouches towards Duxbury, and you say there’s no need?”
“Don’t talk like that. Nobody understands you when you say crap like that.”
“So you want the bad news in the King’s English, eh?”
“No, I don’t want it at all,” Dale said. “I want silence.”
“This morning I had homefries for breakfast. Do you know what that means?”
“It means you’re a fat bastard who’s getting fatter.”
“Wrong!” Randy shouted. “It means that there’s something funny in the wind. I have had hashbrowns for breakfast every day for the past twenty-three years. Twenty-three years to the day. Twenty-three, two plus three. What’s that equal?”
“Five.”
“Exactly! Five! Strange things always happen in fives, multiples of five, or in some direct or indirect relationship to five. It’s the Law of Fives! Quick, what’s today’s date.
“The twenty-fifth.”
Randy slammed his fist on the dash. “Bingo! Don’t you see what’s going on here? It’s obvious!”
Dale looked at Randy like it wasn’t obvious.
“Life has a certain order to it, Dale. A certain routine, right? Day in and day out, same shit different day. But every now and then, things get a little wonky. A man is born who says he’s the son of God, a mustached dictator decides to take over the world, a comet slams into the ocean, there are no hashbrowns for breakfast, chaos! How do these things happen? Man created society, with its rules and regulations, to keep chaos out, but chaos is sneaky. It seeps in through the cracks in the wall of order we built up around us. And my pituitary gland tells me that you made a crack!”
“Your pituitary gland?” Dale asked.
“Yes. The pituitary is our last remaining link to the chaotic soup that the universe was created with. It can sense when chaos is near. And right now my pituitary is throbbing.”
“If you don’t start making sense I’m going to jump out the window.”
“Have you ever heard of the U.S. Poultry & Egg Association?” Randy asked.
“I work for Ferdue,” Dale said, “I know what the PEA is. They lobby for the poultry industry.”
“Sure they do.”
Randy winked at Dale. Dale held back the urge to punch him in the face.
“What would you say,” Randy asked, “if I told you that I know a man who used to work for the PEA? A troubled man, haunted by demons, scarred on both the inside and outside. A man who spends most of his days in a pub, drinking away painful memories he refuses to confront. What would you say if I told you this man’s name was Mr. Feathers? And that one night, five years ago, he leaned across the bar, put his head in my lap and said, ‘I haven’t had a good night’s sleep in over a decade.’ I asked him why. He replied, ‘Because of the Auwaog. They won’t let me sleep. They wouldn’t let you sleep either, if you knew.’ Then he puked on my shoes and passed out in my crotch.”
“Are you taking me to see this guy?”
“Maybe.”
“Let me out. Stop the car!”
Dale rolled down the window and started to crawl out. Randy grabbed him by the belt.
“Are you crazy?”
“Crazy?” Dale came back in. “You’re blowing through stop signs and red lights like a bat out of Hell and you’re asking me if I’m crazy? Are you out of your friggin HOLY CRAP WHAT ARE YOU DOING?”
Randy turned off the road and onto someone’s driveway, swerved onto their lawn, and proceeded to drive through a string of backyards.
“We need to stay off the main roads as much as possible. Keeping a low profile is key in these situations. Trust me, I know what I’m doing.”
Randy took his eyes off the lawn for a second to send another reassuring wink Dale’s way. It didn’t ma
ke Dale feel any better about the situation, especially since the car had just bulldozed through a full clothesline. The wet clothes stuck to the windshield completely blocking the view.
There was much screaming, some wild turning of the steering wheel this way and that, a three-hundred and sixty degree spin, a jump, a thump, and finally a calm silence as the car sat still in a small above-ground swimming pool.
Randy turned on the wipers to clear the clothes away as water spilled into the car through the windows.
“Maybe this was a mistake.”
“Maybe?”
“This is an above-ground pool, right?” Randy asked.
“Looks like it.”
“Thank God for that.”
“Why?”
The sides of the pools burst apart, sending the water flooding over the lawn.
“That’s why.”
Dale, his clothes completely soaked, got out of the car and slammed the door.
“Wait! Where are you going?”
“Randy, I need to go to work. I’m already incredibly late. I can walk from here.”
Dale slish-sloshed his way back to the road.
Randy called after him, “Wait! We must speak with Mr. Feathers. Your life depends on it!”
“No it doesn’t! My life depends on getting away from you, Randy. You’re like a wild animal and you should be in a cage. Or at least on a leash.”
“I’m telling you, Dale, when you wrote that article you let the chaos in! Things will only get worse! I can sense it deep within my pituitary! And my pituitary doesn’t lie!”
Dale kept walking.
“Dale, wait!” Randy tried to start the car, but again it refused to catch. “Dale! You’re in grave danger! Dale!”
Dale wasn’t listening. He was walking up the road, trying to think of a good excuse for why he was so late to work. But he kept getting distracted, thinking about that old donut Randy had thrown at him.
Oh you old donut
With tough skin immune to all
Teach me your wise ways
10
Candy, Pie and Hugs
IT WAS LATE MORNING IN THE Ferdue corporate offices, the chitchat trickling down as the early morning coffee wore off and people took a deep breath, rubbed their hands together, and began to get down to business.
No one in the marketing department noticed Dale come in late. They were all too busy concocting better ways to sell poultry. Dale looked through the glass walls of the Conference Room and saw one of his co-workers writing on a dry erase board in broad strokes. Four others were seated at the conference table. The man at the board sketched a formula:
Everyone at the table shot a hand high in the air.
Dale, still damp from the pool, walked briskly through the office with his head down, trying to make it look like he was busy and didn’t have time to chit chat. The safety of his tiny cubicle shone to him like a beacon in the night.
At last. Dale collapsed into his chair and fell forward, letting his head hit the desk. He was almost asleep when his cubicle neighbor Beth got a phone call.
“Hello? Oh hey, Mom. Yeah Jack’s coming home with me. Thursday morning. No we’ll spend the night at your house. What? Are you kidding me? We live together, Mom. We sleep in the same bed every night. What did Dad say? No heavy petting under his roof? What does that even mean? Tell him that Jack doesn’t pet me, I’m not a goddamn dog. I’ll curse if I want to! Put Dad on. Put him on. Just do it! Hey, Daddy. So Mom says that Jack and I have to sleep in separate rooms over Thanksgiving and…what is it with you and the petting? Okay, kids these days most certainly do not lay around petting each other in bed all night. Why don’t you just say it. Say the word, Dad. Stop being a prude and say the word you really mean. The ‘F’ word. Stop talking about Jack petting me! Because it’s disturbing. Okay you know what, you know what, Dad? Maybe if you’d spend less time piddling around in the garage and more time petting Mom she wouldn’t have to drink so much!”
Dale quickly composed his first email of the day:
____________________
From: Dale Alden
To: Beth Mill
Subject: Decibel level
Hi Beth,
Happy day before Thanksgiving!
Hey, just wanted to let you know that you talk kind of LOUD on the phone. It’s more shouting than talking really. It’s no biggie. I’m actually quite impressed with your lung capacity. BUT…I’ve had a rough morning and would appreciate it if you could lower your voice a few decibels.
A good way to keep the decibels down and out of other people’s airspace, I find, is to use email instead of the phone (e.g. as I am doing right now.) Just a suggestion!
If you would like to discuss more ways in which we can keep the decibels down I’d be happy to do so with you…over email of course ;)
Thanks a bunch!
Dale
____________________
From: Beth Mill
To: Dale Alden
Subject: Re: Decibel level
Dale,
Eat a dick, you Gus-murdering asshole.
Best,
Beth
____________________
Dale’s jaw fell open. How did she know? And if she knew…did everyone know?
Dale peeked his head over the top of the cubicle and looked around. The five people in his immediate area all stopped what they were doing to shoot Dale menacing looks.
A young temp standing by the copier mouthed “I hate you.”
Frank Edwards and Rob Richards, two former starting defensive lineman for Duxbury High, stood together at the copy machine, each slowly pounding a fist into an open hand.
A UPS deliveryman, package tucked under one arm, pointed first to his own eyes and then to Dale in the silent military signal for “I see you”.
Finally, standing in front of a file cabinet, was Edna Jacobs. At seventy-two years old, she was the oldest and most beloved employee in the history of the company. Every Monday, Edna made tea and brought in homemade scones, blackberry preserves, and clotted cream for the entire office. Whenever it was someone’s birthday, she was the one who’d bake them a cake and give them a scarf or sweater that she knitted herself. She also had an endless supply of stale peppermint candies in her pocket. It was impossible to make eye contact with Edna and not walk away happily sucking on one.
Edna was the office grandmother. And on that day, at that moment, Grandma was giving Dale not one, but two, middle fingers.
Dale slowly lowered back down into his cubicle.
On his computer screen was a new email. It was from his direct supervisor, Ted Yacker, Chief Public Relations Officer.
____________________
From: Ted Yacker
To: Dale Alden
Subject: Urgent
Dale,
See me.
Best,
Ted
____________________
Ted’s office was located just a few feet from Dale’s cubicle, so in order to see Ted sitting in his office, all Dale had to do was simply stand up and look over his cubicle wall. So Dale stood up, “saw” Ted, and with no desire to talk to his boss at the moment, he composed his second email of the day.
____________________
From: Dale Alden
To: Ted Yacker
Subject: Re: Urgent
Ted,
I saw you.
Dale
____________________
From: Ted Yacker
To: Dale Alden
Subject: Re: Re: Urgent
Dale,
What?
Best,
Ted
____________________
From: Dale Alden
To: Ted Yacker
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Urgent
Ted,
I saw you in your office. Did you see me?
Dale
____________________
From: Ted Yacker
To: Dale Alden
Subject: Re: Re: Re
: Re: Urgent
Dale,
What the hell are you talking about? See you where?
Best,
Ted
____________________
From: Dale Alden
To: Ted Yacker
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Urgent
Ted,
See me when I saw you.
Dale
____________________
From: Ted Yacker
To: Dale Alden
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Urgent
Dale,
I want to see you in my office.
Best,
Ted
____________________
From: Dale Alden
To: Ted Yacker
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Urgent
Ted,
Gotcha. While I’m in your office, are you going to come over here so you can get a good look at me in your office?
Dale
PS- Does this mean I’m getting my own office!?!