#24
      The Richard Basehart Issue

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Company Man

     by Jenny Drummey

Bill Duncum pulled into the parking lot and dug in the ashtray for the dental floss. He had better be ready. He had better get himself cleaned up and quick. He needed this damn job bad.

He was wearing his lucky underwear.

It was 7:27 am and the sun through the filthy windshield stunned him, the streaks spreading the blinding rays further into his brain. At least his green pants were cleaner than normal.

It could have been a nice day.

He opened the dispenser and pulled out the minty string, wrapping it around his right index finger than his left, wondering why he had eaten two poppy seed bagels and an ear of corn for breakfast right before he was going in for his first interview in months.

He strained to release a stubborn seed from behind a bicuspid. Finally, it shot out into oblivion. He untangled the floss from his purpling fingers and dropped it out the window.

Then he saw the brownie on the passenger side floor. He forgot he bought it last night at the Quick Stop. Irresistible. He bent and retrieved it, then tore open the wrapper with his teeth as he stepped from the car.

Gooey, punctuated with walnuts.

Why couldn't he get a break, he wondered, as he wiped his hand on his pants and opened the door to what might be his new employer, Prestige Ink Supply. The floss, he noticed, was caught on his left shoe. He scraped it off on the threshold.

"How can I help you," a sallow, unfriendly woman behind a tall counter looked down at him, no question in her voice. From his position, he could look up into her nose. There was lipstick only on her upper lip.

"Hey there," he said, and tipped his cap, "I'm here to see Mr. Murphy about the shipping job."

She rolled her eyes.

"He'll be here in a little while." Then she turned her back to him and returned to doing nothing. She had had enough three days ago.

Bill looked around the room, tonguing a walnut tucked in his back molar. Could he really come here every goddamn day? Could he bring a thermos of grey, waxy coffee and put small boxes into larger boxes, label the boxes, stack the boxes and wait for them to be picked up by a man with a tight shirt and a hard mouth, each resenting the other because they were not a woman?

Maybe the guy would have a dog that took an instant dislike to him.

Meanwhile, outside, all of the world would be going past. He would miss ball games and short shorts, all-you-can-eat wings at Paper Moon, along with happy hour drafts for $1.25. All this effort for a meager paycheck and "stability," highly valued for some reason.

Bill thought: Maybe I like a surprise. Maybe I like to find brownies or half drunk bottles of scotch behind the toilet in the men's room. Maybe that's what makes my world go around.

He hesitated before lowering himself into the cracked plastic chair to wait. His ass hovered between committing to the interview and shooting out of there like a rocket.

Would this be just like his last job?

#

At TruCombs, his shift supervisor Johno had not hidden his indiscretions well. One morning he had moved into and out of the men's room with increasing frequency until Bill and his co-worker Adair became suspicious.

"That ain't no impatient bladder," Adair said under his breath.

The men sat across from the restroom door, watching Johno go in and out and become wobblier and wobblier over the course of the morning.

"We should go on strike," Adair said, as he tested the teeth on the world's greatest comb. A short, dark man, he was always fiddling with something which made this job perfect for him. Each day, hundreds of times, he struck his thumbs across the teeth, and had come to tell when a row was solid and unbreakable. He could feel the flaws too, a faulty tooth that would likely break off and bring TruCombs' shareholders' greatest fears to reality, by puncturing an eye, or damaging the skin of a newborn.

"Why does he get to have all the fun while we sit here and save their sorry asses?" Adair asked.

"What would a strike accomplish?" Bill asked. He knew Adair was one of those, but he was a decent guy to spend a day with if you had the most horrible boring job on the planet, the sole requirement of which was that you had thumbs.

Adair, unable to think of a response, changed the subject.

"Do you think your mom loved you? Cause my brother says you can tell by whether your clothes are wrinkled or not. Our clothes were always pressed. We looked sharp. He said, that's love. That seems too simple to me."

Bill didn't like the question. He hadn't seen his mother in he didn't know how long. She hadn't exactly sought him out either. Mutual disappointment didn't so much drive them apart as it did repel them into orbits around different planets.

She was nothing but a witness to him growing up and now that it was over, he didn't need her anymore.

#

"What about that strike?" Bill asked changing the subject, watching Johno once again passing into the men's room, eyes bloodshot, face red, sweating, eager.

"Yeah, we could do one, I guess. But not today - I got to get off tomorrow. I can't tell you why though." Adair winked and drew his thumb across another row of hot pink teeth. They snapped to attention. Adair knew that inspiring jealousy in someone else was the best proof that what he was doing actually had value.

Bill didn't ask. His boss's secret interested him far more than his co-worker's. He didn't have bad feelings towards Adair, but he didn't give a shit about what he did in his spare time.

They worked in silence for a while. The next time Johno exited the john and headed for his office, Bill stood up.

"I'm going in," he said.

He locked the door behind him and looked around the men's room. The half empty bottle, tucked behind the toilet, stuck out like a plain clothes policeman at a bus station. Why Johno left it in here, instead of just drinking it in his office, didn't make a lot of sense to Bill, but he didn't care.

Most of it went down smooth.

He stared at himself in the mirror. His shirt was more wrinkled than he thought possible. He could almost count his pores. His thumbs were calloused after only a few days here.

Ah, there it was, he thought as the warmth rose within him: The only love he really needed.

He heard someone turn the knob on the men's room door, and wiped his mouth on his sleeve, feeling great. Cocky even. Finally, this day, his last at TruCombs, was getting interesting.

Bill opened the door. He and Johno were the same height and could smell each other's breath.

Neither could remember who swung first.

#

Now, on the day of his latest interview, Bill's ass hovered. Did he really want to tie himself down so fast? Maybe he could get what they called freelance work. Be a consultant. That was it. He could set his own hours and be paid for his talents, and not commit to anything.

Maybe he could drive a bus.

The woman behind the counter belched indifferently and did not excuse herself. The phone rang in a way that Bill knew he could not bear to hear again.

There it was: He was up and out the door, peeling out of the parking lot, shooting into oblivion towards a bright new future, leaving a spot that, minutes later, Mr. Murphy pulled into. Mr. Murphy, an angry man with a silent temper, with a throbbing welt behind his left ear, looked about his spot suspiciously, noting a clear plastic wrapping and what looked like dental floss trailing into his place of business.

Mr. Murphy had waited for years to claim this spot as his own. When his boss had a heart attack, he got it. Then he waited for years for evidence that someone else had parked in it, so he could finally direct his merciless rage towards a deserving target.

Whoever left was lucky as hell, he thought.

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Jenny Drummey has been a poet, painter, pauper, musician and, in seventh grade, was the recipient of the Tom and Edna Beth Finkelstein Memorial Band Award. She sat at the feet of Toby Olson, Paul Russell, and Cornelius Eady while at the College of William and Mary and Temple University. She is currently a parrot adoption coordinator and technical writer who lives in Fairfax, Virginia.

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