Just Another Job

by Casey Peterson

  Chris shambled past his wife but stopped when her hand grabbed his shoulder. She turned him around and pulled him close to her.

  “Where are my hugs and kisses,” she said.

  “I might be all out. They’re in such high demand right now from your son and daughter.”

  “No they aren’t,” said Louise from the other room.

  “Well, with prices falling I should hand them out now,” said Chris.

  Sadie kissed her husband long and embraced him even longer.

  In the kitchen, Chris rummaged through the refrigerator for the parts of a quick sandwich. Louise and Gerry finished their desserts at the white dining table while monitoring their father’s movements.

  “Why were you home so late, Dad?” asked Gerry.

  “Not you too. I just got done telling your mom the whole epic tale.”

  “It can’t be that long. Come on…” said Louise.

  “To put it simply and heroically, I saved a boy’s life today. There you heard it and it’s the truth. Ask everyone you see. I’m sure it will be on the news tonight and all over the internet tomorrow or reversed,” said Chris.

  “Okay,” said Louise. “Please be home for dinner tomorrow. The tomatoes were like charcoal.”

  Sadie walked in. “It added flavor, thank you very much. Besides tomorrow’s Friday.”

  Gerry turned his head sharply from his mom to his dad. Chris did the same turn to look his son in the eyes. Then they both shouted in unison, “Pizza Night!”

  “Okay, okay,” said Sadie. “Kiss your dad goodnight.”

  Louise and Gerry dumped their plates in the sink and then walked back to their father to say goodnight. Chris pushed his chair out from the table and pulled each of them in at the same time.

  “I love you both this much,” said Chris, as he squeezed them tightly.

  “Ow!” said both children with a slight giggle.

  “Love you too, Dad,” said Louise, and left for her room.

  “Love you too. You need to finish reading The Graveyard Book with me,” said Gerry.

  “I thought you were reading it on your own,” said Chris.

  “I want to hear the voices,” said Gerry.

  “You get him for fifteen minutes and then he has to read to me. I want to hear the voices for my book too,” said Sadie.

  Gerry raced to his room. Sadie slinked over to her sitting husband and draped her arms and head on his shoulders.

  “I think you missed me,” said Chris.

  “Never,” said Sadie, but then abruptly stood up. “Especially with that pickle breath. Ugh. Hurry up and eat. Your son’s waiting.”

  “That’s the smell of desire.”

  “Then desire yourself.”

  No matter how much excitement Chris put into his voice work, it only took a couple minutes to knock Gerry out. Chris tucked his son in and instinctively went to check on his daughter. Chris barely got his head around Louise’s door when she called from her bed.

  “I’m almost done. Five minutes max.”

  “Just don’t forget to turn out your light,” said Chris.

  “I don’t forget. I just fall asleep.”

  “Totally,” said Chris, drooping his mouth and rolling his eyes in as overstated a form as possible, which elicited a small chuckle from the teenager. He then made his way down the hall, touching various picture frames hanging on the walls.

  Sadie waited in bed, tucked in with her favorite blanket and iPad. Chris crawled over her legs to get to his side of the bed and bumped her hand.

  “I thought you wanted me to read to you?” said Chris.

  “You took forever. I had to do something with myself.”

  “Good. I’m going to read my book.”

  “No. You can still read to me.”

  Sadie dropped the iPad onto her bedside table and turned to her husband. Her eyes opened wide. He groaned in understanding, grabbed the book off his table, thumbed through the pages unnecessarily, and then turned to where they left off.

  “’The Little Hangletons all agreed –“’

  “You’re going to stay home tomorrow, right?”

  “It’s Friday. I’ll be done early.”

  “We should start a Harry Potter marathon again.”

  “I don’t know how to break this to you honey, but Hogwarts is fake. Dumbledore was brought up on charges of conspiracy to corrupt the youth. Come on. The kids are getting burned out on them.”

  “So. It’s good for them. They shouldn’t always get what they want.”

  Chris stared at his wife, waiting for her to finish interrupting. She stared back and Chris imagined a flood of thoughts walled up behind her forehead. The dam would burst sooner or later. He just had to wait it out, but she squinted her eyes as if she saw the plan formulating in his head. It could have been a staring contest for the ages. Yet Sadie switched tactics and poked Chris under the rib.

  “Hey. Do you want me to continue or not?” said Chris.

  “I want you to talk to me. I didn’t see you all day.”

  “I know, but it was an emergency.”

  “That doesn’t matter. You’re here now. You can talk to me now.”

  Closing the book, Chris stalled for time to think. Sadie usually broke the silence and he would catch on to her conversation. She waited for him this time. He started lamely.

  “I can’t believe I didn’t get her signature. I don’t want to go to her house and have her thank me or anything.”

  “Uh-huh. She should thank you. That was a pretty big deal that you did that, but I don’t want to talk about that. Take a sick day tomorrow. Come on, please.”

  “I only have so many. And I have to get her signature.”

  “Uhh. It’s all about you. When are you going to quit your job and stay home with us all day? You know you want to.”

  Chris couldn’t help laughing at her fake tantrum.

  “I’m serious,” said Sadie.

  “I know you are. You tell me this once a month.”

  “Come on. Just quit. We’ll figure something out. You always talk about writing. Come on.” Sadie grabbed Chris’s sleeve and shook it roughly. “Dig out those stories you wrote me when we were dating. Or the ones you made up for the kids.”

  “I don’t have time and we wouldn’t be able to survive if I just quit all of a sudden. This is a horrible plan.”

  “You so have time, especially if you stopped working out with Frank. I’ll still love you if you don’t have a six-pack.”

  “It’s not about a six-pack. It’s about staying healthy. I don’t want to leave you and the kids at fifty cause of a heart attack.”

  “Stop over exaggerating. You are healthy. I can’t even tell you have muscles with the stupid extra-large polo they make you wear to work. You just do it to hang out with Frank.”

  A shuffling of leaves outside caught Chris’s attention. He used it as an excuse to stop the conversation and walked over to the window. Nothing but a slight wind and streetlights creeped across the road. Sadie wouldn’t let him end the topic just yet.

  “Just imagine staying at home and writing in the mornings then spending the rest of the day with us.”

  “Of course that sounds great, but we need money. Money to keep our home and buy things with.”

  “Think about it.”

  Chris sighed deeply before responding. “Well your little booty’s gonna help me dig them out of the garage this weekend.”

  “Okay.” Sadie gave Chris her ‘I got what I wanted’ smile.

  Chris pretended to give his best glare. So Sadie puckered her lips to mend his broken will. Chris switched tactics and quickly rolled on top of her to pin her to the bed, but Sadie defended herself with a sharp poke into his ribs. Squealing and playful shouts of ‘no’ ensued from the wrestling match.

  “Some of us are trying to sleep!” came from down the hall.

  “Then turn off your light, energy waster!” said Chris.

  “I didn’t forget!” said Louise.<
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  Chapter Three

  The alarm sat silent and had been silent for close to five years. Instead, Chris’s cell phone buzzed and beeped on the table next to his sleeping head. Monday through Friday, Frank woke Chris with encouraging text messages like: “Wake up fuck head,” “Better be at your front door,” “I’ll honk until you show. Don’t care how mad Sadie gets,” and “Get ready to have your ass kicked.”

  Usually a couple of miles to warm up and then an hour or two of weights marked the men’s typical morning. Frank hated working out alone and Chris needed someone to push him. It was a perfect match.

  A black pickup parked in front of Chris’s house with a slight squeal of the breaks. Chris jumped from the kitchen and out the front door. He raised his hand to signal Frank, who had his hand ready to slam the horn. Chris turned to lock the door and realized he had his coffee ready to go, but no keys. He ran inside and as he put his hand down on the keys, Frank tapped the horn to make a quick series of short and long bursts. The annoyance made it easily through the open windows of the house and Sadie reacted even while half asleep.

  “Gonna kill him!”

  “Love you, honey,” said Chris, and jumped out the front door one more time.

  Frank sat smiling and sipping on his own coffee when Chris hauled himself in.

  “What’d she say this time?” asked Frank, and then gunned the pickup down the street.

  “That she’s going to kill you. I’d be careful. She might actually go through with it one of these days.”

  “Ha. She’s more dramatic than me.”

  “I forgot my keys. You didn’t have to wake her up.”

  “She’s probably back to sleep already. It’s good for her anyways. She should work out with us too.”

  “She says she gets enough exercise getting the kids to school and yelling at you, of course.”

  Frank chuckled. “Did you see the new video? Of course not. You were probably looking up trade rumors again. Who fucking cares? Just watch the damn game and be happy.”

  “I think your hair actually turns redder when you give me such sage advice. Or did you just dye it again?”

  Frank punched him in the arm. “You know it’s my natural color.”

  “Relax, I’m just saying you can do better than the Molly Ringwald look.”

  Frank’s chuckle turned into a full out laugh that almost covered up his response, “You fuckin’ shit.”

  A few stray cars littered the parking lot of the gym. Frank parked to the side next to the dirt path that looped around a man-made lake and a miniature park. They never used the running machines in the gym. It was a waste in both their eyes to run in-place in an air conditioned building when real dirt, trees, and water could surround their exercise. But for after running, you couldn’t beat top of the line free weights and machines.

  After a few quick stretches, Frank pulled out his phone, tapped the screen a couple times, and thrust it under Chris’s nose.

  “Again?” asked Chris.

  “It’s a new one. Hurry up. I’m gonna start without you.”

  Chris pressed play and watched. A twenty something man was talking excitedly into the camera. He kept swinging his arms around and then pointed to his knuckles. The camera zoomed in, but there was nothing out of the ordinary. A brick wall stood behind the young man and the camera zoomed in on this too. Then the camera pulled back to show off the wild gestures of the subject. The man finally appeared ready. He clenched his hand into a fist and pulled his arm back farther than necessary. He gave a gleeful look back at the camera and then shot his hand straight into the wall. A small explosion went off. Dust filled the screen, but dissipated quickly. The man jumped in place repeatedly while pointing at a giant hole in the brick wall. The camera zoomed in again to show broken bricks and dust that used to be bricks covering the floor on the other side of the wall. The man shoved his super powered knuckles into the camera’s view again and the video stopped.

  “Nice magic show,” said Chris, and handed the phone back.

  “I’m telling you it’s real and it’s all over the internet. Everyone is talking about it and there are rumors that these aren’t the only two.”

  “Yep. Those internet rumors are great news sources. Are you thinking we should invest in the spandex industry or something?”

  Frank gave up. “Let’s go.”

  Sweat dripped from Chris and Frank into the dirt path as they stretched again to cool down from the run. Chris thought of the videos, the boy that broke his leg, the signature he needed, and then if anyone else would break their hand trying to punch a wall. Why did Frank believe these were real? You could do anything with special effects even at home with a basic computer.

  “Get your eyes out of the dirt. We have twenty minutes to run through our circuit,” said Frank.

  Just under that twenty minute goal, Frank led Chris out of the gym and back to the truck. The two typically sat silent during the trip back, but Frank couldn’t hold it in.

  “It would be so awesome to have that kind of power.”

  “Yeah, I bet our boys would love it too.”

  “Real, live superheroes.”

  “You know, though, Louise would just complain, ‘While you were out fighting crime, Mom had to cook dinner again.”’

  The conversation ended with Chris’s house in view. Frank parked and grunted a distracted ‘see you at work’ while Chris trotted out of the pickup. Sadie ushered the kids around the house in stations. Louise got her ten minutes to primp, Gerry five to clean up his room and then everyone met at the table for breakfast.

  “Put your phone away,” said Sadie to Chris.

  “Put your phone away,” mimicked Chris. Sadie gave him a look fueled by an early morning honking. Chris added, “Louise.”

  “I don’t have my phone out, Dad.”

  “Oh really? Because I know how quick you can be. Phone out texting one second and then – bam – in your back pocket the next. You’re probably even faster than the Flash now.”

  Louise rolled her eyes as blatantly as possible.

  “Bang,” said Gerry, and pretended to pull out a phone and put it back in his pocket as fast as he could.

  “You drive me crazy,” said Sadie.

  After breakfast, Chris showered, dressed, and made his rounds for goodbyes. Sadie was always last.

  “You can still call in sick.” Sadie smirked, knowing it was a long shot.

  “It’s Friday. I’ll be home early. You’ll hardly know I was gone.”

  “I always know when you’re gone. At least pick up the pizza on your way home.”

  She kissed her husband and allowed him to leave.

  Chris’s local, retail X-Tech covered a quarter of the shopping strip area off the freeway. This was the first of many that spanned across North America west of the Mississippi and was less than five minutes from their downtown headquarters. A garish grey building with a fifty foot red x planted in the direct center marked the employment of hundreds of locals. The community embraced the cheap DVDs, LED TVs, internet/cable installations and the opportunity to work for a secure company that offered health and stock benefits. Like too many other college graduates, Chris and Frank needed an income fast even if it had nothing to do with what they spent years of schooling on.

  Most of the employees walked through the main entrance directly under the crossing steel beams that formed the giant x. Chris had the luxury of strolling in through the back along with the four other field tech supporters. He parked the X-Tech pickup in its designated space, which allowed customers easy viewing of the writing stenciled on the doors, “Home Tech Support from the Experts.”

  Inside the back room, Steve and Jack doodled at the break table to pass the time until their shift started. Chris made eye contact and nodded, then sat down to check his phone. A door opened and a head peeked in.

  “Chris, I need to see you,” said Len.

  “Sure thing Mr. Tesa,” said Chris.

  Steve and Jack stopped f
or a moment at the surprise visit from their manager and watched Chris stroll out of the break room to Len Tesa’s office. Chris felt the eyes on his back.

  “It’s cool. I forgot to get a signature and… hey don’t forget to make the caricature of me, with roller skates… on the boardwalk. Thanks guys,” said Chris to reassure them. They nodded at the anticlimactic answer.

  The office shared the same grey walls as the rest of the store and was bare except for a college degree framed behind the desk. Len motioned Chris to sit down across from him. As he sat, Chris flipped the silent button on his phone that had already been hastily stuffed in his pocket when Len originally intruded into the break room. There wouldn’t be enough time to check for any football trade updates thought Chris, as he prepared to hear from his manager about forgetting the signature.

  “You probably know why I called you in to talk,” said Len.

  “Yeah, I’ll go back and get her signature during my lunch. It was a bit crazy yesterday.”

  “I can guess. She called to thank you for your actions. And as helpful as you were for her… it was not the right action to take.”

  “I probably should have called an ambulance, I know, but she said they couldn’t afford it.”

  “That would have been the best thing to do, but as we both know you didn’t do that. Instead you put X-Tech in jeopardy of a major lawsuit. As you may remember, X-Tech purchases insurance for home tech workers only. You are not allowed to transport anyone in an X-Tech pickup, especially a woman with two minors.”

  “She’s suing you?”

  “No, but we can’t take the risk of something like this happening again. And as much as we appreciate your years of service, we have to let you go for this breach of conduct.”

  “What? She’s not suing and you’re going to fire me because I helped her?”

  “Unfortunately, yes.”

  “What?!”

  Len stood up and put forward his hand. Chris stared at it confused trying to decide what to do. The wait was too long so Len pulled his hand back and walked around the desk to open the door. There was nothing left to look at and Chris broke out of his trance. He wanted to sit longer as a form of protest, but turned to see Len half smiling and waiting by the open door. Chris jumped from the chair and pulled the keys out of his pocket to make a fast escape.