He locked the front door after him and walked down the porch stairs. His Camry was parked by the mailbox, the 'twat' scratched into the passenger's side door glinting with morning dew. The insurance adjuster had said the paperwork for repairing the paint would take time to process. Ben Sabatini, the adjuster, had been one of Martin's chief tormentors in high school. Martin was under the impression that the man was deliberately taking his time.
The vandalism had occurred last week. Martin had left the house, much as he was doing this morning, only to find his car had been defiled. Evie's laughter still gurgled in his ear as he thought about the incident.
The policeman who took the report had stated, 'Obviously, this was done by someone who knows you.'
Martin switched his briefcase to his other hand as he walked down the driveway. A light rain started to fall, tickling the end of his nose. He looked at the flowers in the yard – strangely, Evie was an excellent gardener. The front lawn was bordered by all kinds of exotic blooms. Before the gardening club had asked her to leave, then kicked her out, Evie had been the top ribbonholder in the state for her colorful peonies.
Martin used his key to unlock the Camry by hand (he had read somewhere that remote-key unlocking caused testicular cancer) and tossed his briefcase into the back seat. He was halfway in the car when he noticed that something was wrong with the front end. Slowly, he walked round and saw that the bumper had practically been ripped off.
'Damn,' he mumbled. He glanced back at the house and saw the curtain twitch in the front room. Unbidden, Evie's laughter filled his ears. 'Of course it was done by someone who knows him,' she had told the cop who had taken the report. 'Have you ever seen a bigger twat in your life?'
He was not up for another humiliating police report and Ben Sabatini had stopped returning his calls on the 'twat'. There was no reason to believe this time would be any different. With both hands, Martin pulled on the plastic bumper, bending the hanging piece back and forth until it snapped in two. He did not notice the blood on his hands until he put the damaged bumper in the trunk. Thin lines, almost like paper cuts, crisscrossed his palms. Martin took his handkerchief out of his pocket and wiped his hands. He did not need to look at the house to know that his mother was watching.
Had he not read Tom Clancy shortly after rereading Fatal Vision, the blood on Martin's hands might have triggered the memory that Jeffrey MacDonald, the subject of that true-crime classic, had been convicted of massacring his entire family based on the blood evidence found at the scene of the crime. Instead, his mind was filled with visions of Clancy hero Jack Ryan assassinating the more than likely drunken hood who had slammed into the front bumper of Martin's Camry.
Glancing over his shoulder for snipers, Martin opened the door and got into the car.
We Meet Martin's Co-Workers, or the Hell
That is Martin's Working Life
Southern Toilet Supply had started as a family business almost sixty years ago. Over the years, the Southern compound had spread from a single metal building to a large, modern factory. In the late nineties, a German company had bought the plant. Spreckels Reinigungsmittel und Papier was also a family-owned company, though they treated their new families about as well as Evie treated Martin, which was to say they fired half the staff the day after the papers were signed. The Germans seldom showed up in person, but they sent daily missives to Norton Shaw, demanding higher results in broken English.
'Why is it so that the 2300 cannot reach with the higher levels of salesmanship?'
It had to be said that industrial-sized toilet paper rolls were not a hard sell, but the standards of the Southern Superroll 2300 were not the same as a Scott 500 or, the gold standard in public toilet supply, the Georgia Pacific 2-92. Users of the 2300 often reported early breakage in the first wipe, followed by catastrophic breakdowns in subsequent wiping. Test groups had quit in the middle, forgoing their fifty dollars for want of better hygiene. This hadn't been an issue during the early days of toilet supply. No one had yet done the math to realize that the thinner the paper, the more squares you had to use. While this had proved to be a winning scenario for Southern for many years, lately the customer had started catching on. Why spend eight dollars on a cheap roll of paper that lasts one day when you can spend ten on one that lasts for two?
Even the bathrooms at Southern Toilet Supply did not use their own product, a fact which Martin knew because his desk was conveniently located by the women's bathroom and he saw them taking their own rolls in and out, right under management's eye. Martin had never been a tattler, so he kept his mouth shut. As a matter of fact, he kept his mouth shut about a lot of things he saw happening in the office, most of which would have gotten any number of his tormentors fired. Such was his lot in life: he was too noble for his own good.
He slowed the Camry as he pulled up to the gate. The security guard sat in his little booth watching the morning news. Martin caught a whiff of marijuana as he drove by the open window, but he kept his eyes trained ahead, looking for a parking space amongst the sea of pick-up trucks and SUVs. When he had first bought his Camry someone had remarked that it looked like the new girl on the football team.
Martin's hands had stopped bleeding on the short ride to work. He put a corner of his handkerchief into his mouth to wet it, then wiped some of the blood off the steering wheel. The faux leather would not yield. He would have to get some kind of cleaner. Southern CleanAway was rated for cleaning up biohazards. He would get one of the sample bottles and take care of the mess after lunch.
'Lunch,' he mumbled. He had forgotten to bring his bag lunch.
Martin got out of the car and used the key to lock the door. Then, he saw his briefcase was still in the car, so he unlocked it again.
'Hey, Beak!'
Martin felt his shoulders rise up.
'Beak!' Daryl Matheson had been greeting Martin in this manner every morning since third grade, when Martin had first transferred into Tucker Elementary School. His father had just died, forcing Evie to move the family to a less desirable part of town. Martin had fantasized that his new school would offer new opportunities for friendship and popularity unfathomable at his previous school.
Martin was wrong.
'Beak? Hey, Beak? What's up?'
He would keep calling until Martin answered him. According to Taking the Bully by the Horns, this was a recognizable pattern. Daryl did not want to be openly disliked because it would mean that he was a bad person. So long as Martin responded to him, Daryl could continue his fantasy that a 36-year-old man who lived with his mother enjoyed being called 'Beak'.
'Beak? Beak, what up? What's going on, man?'
'Hey, Daryl,' Martin said. Daryl flashed a satisfied smile and punched him in the arm so hard that Martin dropped his briefcase. Papers scattered and Martin grabbed for them, trying to keep the order.
Daryl squatted down, but made no effort to help. 'You've got blood on your hands.'
Martin realized that he was right. The cuts from the plastic bumper had opened up again. He reached for his handkerchief, but remembered he had shoved it in the glove compartment of the car.
Martin muttered, 'What a mess,' as he tried to stack the pages without transferring blood on to them. He saw graphs and pie charts, his grueling work for his presentation at the Toilet Supply Industry Trade Show made visible.
Daryl moved on to more interesting things. 'Damn, man, somebody hit your car.'
'I know.'
'The whole half of the front bumper is missing.'
'I know.'
'That's going to be expensive. Worse than the "twat", even. Hey, when are you gonna get that fixed?'
Martin felt one of his back molars move as he bit down too hard.
'Beak?' Daryl was squatting in front of the bumper. He was dressed in gray coveralls, his name emblazoned in red script over his heart. Daryl worked on the assembly line as a quality checker. Every tenth bottle of Urine-B-Gone had to be spray-tested. For eight hours a day, the man g
rabbed bottles and pumped their triggers until a thin stream of blue liquid shot out, and yet Martin – who worked in an office and had to wear ties to work – was considered the loser.
'I filed a report,' he lied. He shoved the rest of the papers into his briefcase. 'The police are taking these injustices very seriously.'
'You know who you should use?' Daryl stood As Martin did. 'Ben Sabatini. He got me fixed real good on my truck. Remember I scraped against that tree and it cut a line into the paint? He had me fixed up the next day. Got one'a them Chrysler 500s as a loaner. Damn, them things are sweet! Ben even worked it so I didn't have to pay my deductible.'
Martin stood there. He really didn't know what to say. 'We should get to work.'
'Yeah,' Daryl agreed. 'Let me know if you need Ben's number. Best guy in the business.'
'Thank you,' Martin responded, gripping his briefcase handle so hard that he felt sweat dripping down his fingers.
Daryl glanced down at Martin's hand. 'You're bleeding again, man.'
'Yeah,' Martin agreed. 'I'll take care of it.'
The two men split – Daryl toward the factory entrance, Martin toward the front office. Instead of going to his desk, Martin went to the men's room. He washed his hands, wondering what kind of diseases the open wounds were exposing him to. The employees were expected to clean up after themselves, so the resulting lack of cleanliness was unsurprising.
He found a bottle of CleanAway in a cabinet by the door. Martin sprayed some on to a paper towel and tried to clean the handle of his briefcase. To his dismay, the leather started to come off. He stopped rubbing immediately, but the chemical kept eating into the handle. He was reminded of a beetle on a corpse as the fake leather started to peel back, exposing the bone white of the plastic underneath. This would have been fascinating but for the fact that Martin had paid almost three hundred dollars for the briefcase.
Tentatively, he touched the exposed edge of the plastic handle. It was sharp as a knife, able to make a thin surface cut into the pad of his finger. Martin watched blood seep out from the flesh. Death from a thousand cuts.
Martin had never been good at cursing, despite Evie's excellent example. He mumbled under his breath as he left the bathroom and walked through the factory floor, briefcase held close to his chest with both arms. The machinery was not yet running, so he could hear his footsteps echoing around him. He took a detour down a long row of shelving to avoid Daryl, past the stacks of plastic Sani-Lady sanitary disposal units, then went out the back door.
There was a bubbling stream behind the building, tall trees swaying in the wind. During his early years at Southern, Martin had often come out here for a break, taking advantage of the solitude. Now that there was no smoking allowed in the building, that small slice of peace was gone. This was where everyone went during their breaks, as evidenced by the thousands of cigarette butts that littered the concrete. A dilapidated picnic table had two coffee cans full of more cigarette butts. Martin had proposed several weeks ago that a section of the area be cordoned off for non-smokers. His suggestion had been met with the type of ridicule he had come to expect. His insistence that the suggestion box was meant to be anonymous had only made them laugh harder.
The Dumpster was usually overflowing, so he was surprised to find that it had been emptied. Martin opened the briefcase and took out his report, two pens, his business cards and a yellow legal pad, all of which he placed on the only semiclean part of the concrete he could find. He tried to open the Dumpster's metal door, but it was rusted shut. The top was at least four feet above his head. Martin glanced around, then spread his legs and tossed the briefcase granny-style into the air. It went straight up, then straight back down. He nearly tripped over his own feet to get out of the way as it hurtled toward his face. Martin cursed and tried again, pushing up on the corners, trying to concentrate his aim. This time, the briefcase ended up at his feet, the corner collapsing against the concrete.
He stood there, hands on his hips, feeling a lifetime of failure starting to bubble up into his chest as he stared at the briefcase on the ground. It wasn't just that he'd been duped into paying leather prices for a vinyl. It was the 'twat' on his car. It was the damaged bumper. It was Daryl calling him Beak, and his mother's Munchausen by gay Proxy.
Martin kicked the briefcase. The release felt so good that he kicked it again. Soon, he was jumping up and down on the briefcase, smashing it to pieces. He scooped up the mangled case and slammed it into the side of the Dumpster several times before exhaustion took over. Martin bent at the waist, panting. He was sweating in his pea coat. Rivulets of perspiration slid down his back.
The door opened. One of the line workers stood there, a cigarette in her mouth, lighter in her hands. They had never been formally introduced, yet the woman felt familiar enough with him to ask, 'What the hell are you doing?'
'Mind your own darn' business,' he said, scooping up the pieces of the broken case. He glanced up at the Dumpster, but did not dare try another attempt with a witness. He picked up his report and the other items, then walked around the building. Several minutes later, he found himself at his car. He unlocked the trunk and put the tattered briefcase beside the broken bumper. Martin looked up at the cloudy, gray sky. Two strikes already and it wasn't even nine o'clock. What could possibly be the third?
Suddenly, the clouds moved, a ray of sun peeking out. Martin closed his eyes against the light. Without warning, the joyful tones of the Harlem Gospel Choir filled his ears. '"Lord, lift me up! Take me hi-yi-yi-igher!"'
The singing abruptly stopped as the engine was cut on the black Monte Carlo that had pulled up beside Martin's Camry.
'Whatchu doin', fool?' Unique Jones slammed the car door, her keys jingling in one hand, a tall Dunkin' Donuts mocha latte in the other. Her purse was the size of a feed sack; the strap cut into the fleshy part of her exposed shoulder. Despite the chill in the air, she was wearing a tight-fitting, bright orange sundress with matching orange shoes. Unique was a large black woman who liked to offset her dark skin with colorful scarves and glittery fingernail polish. Sometimes, she wore a turban around her head. Other days, she let her intricately braided hair dangle around her shoulders. She had terrified Martin from the day she had first walked into the building.
Martin stammered, 'I-I-I—'
'Hush up, doughboy. We got work to do.'
She talked to him like she was his boss, when in fact the opposite was true. The only time she had shown him any respect was when she had interviewed for the job. 'It's Unique with an accent on the "e",' she had politely corrected him. Martin had glanced down at her application where she had written her name, Unique Jones, wondering which 'e' she could mean. He was befuddled. Was it French? Jo-naise, perhaps?
'You-nee-kay,' she had explained, laughing, 'That's all right, baby, nobody gets it at first, but once they do, they never forget.'
He had smiled at her, thinking that this was the first time he had been called 'baby' without the implicit pejorative. One of the few things Martin could remember about his father was a joke he liked to tell: How do you catch a unique rabbit? Unique up on it.
This Unique was a high school drop-out who hadn't even bothered to get her GED. She had one month from a secretarial school under her belt and two months of accounting school. 'I learned everything I needed,' she told him. 'You either got it up here or you don't.' She tapped her temple on this last part, and Martin noticed the gold dollar-sign appliqué on the glossy red fingernail of her index finger.
'We're doing a lot of interviews,' he told her, which was actually a lie. He had reserved the office conference room weeks ago when he placed the ad, expecting back-to-back interviews. He had read up on Interviews for Dummies so he could ask salient questions such as, 'What are some of your best features?' or, 'If I asked a close friend to name one of your flaws, what would it be?'
The only other applicant had been a man who had shown up an hour late and yelled at Martin that he could not be expected to punch a tim
eclock; a startling statement, considering that none of the office staff were expected to clock in.
'How many interviews you got?' Unique asked.
'Well, I . . . uh . . .' Martin felt his throat work as he swallowed. 'Many. Several-many.' He pronounced the words as if they were hyphenated, and she had narrowed her eyes as if she could see straight into his soul.
She had shaken her head. 'Nuh-uh,' she insisted. 'You're going to give me the job now. I can't go home and wait by the phone. I got other responsibilities.'
'I just—'
'What time you want me to show up? Don't say eight, 'cause this kind of beautiful don't happen without a little help in the morning. You know what I mean?' She had flicked back her braided hair on that last remark. The way the beads rattled against each other reminded Martin of the time he had found a rattlesnake in his bunk at summer camp. Granted, it turned out to be a fake (a revelation unfortunately not reached before Martin had alerted the entire compound to the dangerous creature), but the beads in its tail rattled the same.
She was fishing around in her purse for her keys as Martin tried to explain that all front office employees were expected to be at their desks by eight-thirty sharp. 'I'll see you around nine on Friday,' she told him, standing. 'I gotta take off early, though, 'cause my niece is in town. All right? I'll see ya then.'
She was gone before he could answer, her halfempty Dunkin' Donuts mocha latte leaving a ring on the conference-room table. Her scent still filled the room – a sickly sweet concoction like candy floss and Coca-Cola that competed with the disturbing, yeasty odor that had come as she uncrossed her legs. This lady fug was what had stuck with Martin, and he caught a whiff of it even now as Unique headed across the parking lot.
'You gonna get that "twat" off your car?' she asked.
Martin had to jog to keep up with her. For a large woman, she moved with amazing speed.
'I've put a call into—'
'Sabatini ain't gonna help you, fool. He was laughing so hard when he came out here I half expected a brick to drop out of his pants.'