This longer than my last story so forgive me. ):
Like Clockwork
Like clockwork, Daisy would wake me up every morning at 4:32 a.m. to be let outside. She would come into my room and put her cold, wet nose far enough into my ear so that her sniffing would sound like the wings of some great mythical creature whose body was too big for its wings, so it had to flap with more force than all of the other great mythical creatures to stay airborne. If I would try to ignore her, she would bark, making the giant creature roar inside of my ear. It was quite unpleasant. I had no choice but to let her out every morning. Why she never awoke the King, I’m not sure.
The King was the man I rented my room from. He was a lumpy, middle-aged man with thinning brown hair, thickening brown nose hair, and brown eyes hidden behind spectacles that seemed much too large for his lined face. In the truest sense, he stood in when placed in a crowd. And he was a prick. His name was Thomason Thumb, but he required me to address him using nothing less than a regal title. In return, I was allowed to keep my Star Wars posters pinned to my wall, though I’m not sure why he would mind them being there in the first place. They covered the chipped paint and gaping holes quite nicely.
On the morning of July 17th, Daisy woke me up at 4:32 a.m., like clockwork. I stumbled to the back door to let her out, then I returned to my futon to go back to sleep. Considering how tired I was, it took a while to drift off. The faucet was leaking again. Drip drip drip. How annoying.
The sound of dripping water turned out to be blood dripping from the fangs of my friend Francis. “Would you like some?” he asked. “You must be feeling drained by now.”
“No, thank you,” I replied, “I’ve discovered something better. It’s called tomato juice. Pretty much the same thing. There’s so much sodium that it just makes me thirstier, but that’s the great thing about it.”
“Really? I’ll have to try it some time. Ah, shit. The sun’s coming up. We better leave-”
“WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU?”
“Whazza…?”
Like clockwork, the King had woken me with that same sweetly serene voice that had woken me every morning at 7:00 a.m. for the last six years. I had no need for an alarm clock.
“What the hell’d you do with Daisy?”
Rubbing my eyes, I croaked, “I let her out. She told me she wanted to go out.”
The King looked down upon me, his brow furrowed, his voice booming, “So you speak dog, do you?”
“No, I don’t understand dog. She wasn’t speaking dog… she was speaking Turkish.”
“MY DOG DOESN’T SPEAK PEOPLE LANGUAGES!”
“It wasn’t a people language… It was the language of turkeys. Get it? Turkish. We both
gobble.”
The King’s brow furrowed so deeply, it was in danger of going into his mouth. Through gritted teeth he said, “Who do you think you are, touching my dog without my permission?”
“I didn’t touch her. Besides, she woke me up to let her out. She would have started barking and tearing stuff up if I hadn’t abided. I can’t help it. She comes into my room every morning.”
“Then lock your damn door!”
I would have gladly locked my door had there been a doorknob on it.
“Yes, Sire.”
Taken aback by my lack of resistance, the King stood there, his mouth hanging open stupidly, ready for more yelling, bumbled a bit, then said, “If you touch my dog again, I’ll kill you,” before leaving the room.
He said that every morning.
“See you at work,” I called after him as I got up to get dressed. We worked in the same office building, the headquarters of a major fast food company. It’s much less exciting than it sounds.
I clipped my walkie-talkie to my belt loop, and pulled my jumpsuit over my clothes. It was required of security guards to wear charcoal-grey jumpsuits, though this seemed to me like a major tactical disadvantage, seeing as our jumpsuits had no pockets or holsters for weapons or anything of the sort. What good were unarmed security guards? Then again, what good were security guards for fast food executives? Who could hate Lactose Tyrant enough to decide it’s worth it to destroy the people responsible for it? Well… I suppose the hundreds of people across the country who had tried suing the company over food poisoning charges might have been a bit upset. Maybe. Good thing the business owners thought ahead and bought metal detectors.
That’s where my job was. It involved standing at the main entrance of the building next to the oldest metal detector I’ve ever seen. The outer shell of the contraption was made of yellowing plastic that was broken in several places. At the top of it, there were three LEDs lined up horizontally- green, yellow, and red- just like a stop light. Green meant no metal and it had a small smiley face printed on the bulb, red meant metal, and I have no idea what yellow meant. I don’t think it mattered too much though. Of my six years at the side of that metal detector, the only LED to ever light up was the green one.
I suppose the metal detector, in its old age, needed some backup in checking bags. That’s where I came in.
It was my job to check every single bag of every single person who wanted to enter the building. It was tedious, repetitive, monotonous work. Though it was a bit awkward to search through the possessions of strangers, it was also rather enlightening. For instance, Greenie (thusly named for her pretty emerald eyes), who usually arrived for work around 9:00 possessed the air of a hard woman. She walked at a brisk pace in her pantsuit; her brown hair tightly pulled up into a bun, her glasses accentuating her likeness to a stereotypical “sexy librarian” of male fantasy who gets straight to business and doesn’t put up with anyone else’s nonsense. However, upon searching through her bag, I’ve found things I hadn’t expected to find, including a diary with a cute teddy bear on the cover, the business cards of a psychiatric office with dates of upcoming appointments scribbled on them, and, once, an unfilled prescription for Zoloft. Every morning, I would give her a small smile, which she never returned, but which I’m sure she appreciated.
After Greenie would come Dirty Dan, who seemed to never take showers, yet always seemed to have hand sanitizer in his bag; Mr. Facelift, who was in a constant state of denial; Destructor, who was always singing Metallica; Movie Mom, who seemed to bear resemblance to Angelina Jolie, Julia Roberts, and Natalie Portman all at once; and Fiber Guy, who carried enough magazines to hold his interest throughout the duration of several days’ defecation sessions.
My least favorite employee to search was Lame-ass Franklin Ramsey. He was the only employee aside from the King who had ever given me his actual name. Every single day, like clockwork, he arrived at 9:15 a.m. wearing the same brown suit, a toupee that didn’t quite match his eyebrows, and a green bowtie that, matched with his brown suit, looked like a solitary patch of grass growing out of otherwise dead, barren earth. He always carried two bags; the first was a laptop case that held a Dell computer so old that it could be traced back to the “Dude, you should have bought a Dell!” days. The other was a brief case that always held the same pair of socks with buffalo pictures stitched into them, a tooth brush, and a completely unnecessary comb.
“Hey there, Dedalus!”
My name is not Dedalus Diggle. That is the name I gave to Franklin when he asked for it the first day I started working here. I immediately got the impression that this was not a man I’d want to associate myself with. Everything about Franklin Ramsey, from his overenthusiastic smile to his buffalo socks, screamed out dorkiness. He was the type of guy who had no friends, but didn’t realize he had no friends. No, that’s not the type of guy I’d want to be seen socializing with.
So I told him my name was Dedalus Diggle. I got it from Harry Potter, a series that has sold over 400 million books all over the world, a series I was sure everyone had read. But it seemed that Franklin didn’t read. Actually, I wasn't sure he was literate at all considering he never once noticed the name on my name tag was not the one he knew.
This man was just annoying to look at. He reeked of boredom. The most interesting thing about him was his son Calrisian, whom he occasionally brought to work with him. What was so interesting about Calrisian, aside from his person name, was that he was the most uninteresting six-year-old I’ve ever known. He never spoke. He never smiled. He never moved unless he had to. He just stood there. Children nearing the end of the preoperational stage of development should be asking a million questions, running up and down the hallways, talking about fire trucks, etc. Calrisian just stood there. It wasn’t right.
“Hey, Franklin. Hey, Calrisian.”
Franklin made to hand me his laptop bag. I really didn’t feel like looking at his crap again that day. I decided to throw him a bone. Make him feel like he has friends.
“It’s okay, Franklin. I know you’re good. Come on through the detector.”
He beamed at me and walked through with his son. Ironically, the only other man I knew in this building was in line right behind Franklin.
“Good morning, your majesty,” I bowed as the King walked through. His eyes narrowed, but he said nothing. I watched him follow Franklin (who was nudging Calrisian along) up to the third floor where I knew them to both work in the finance department. I kept thinking about the name Calrisian. It was so silly, but I knew it from somewhere….
Around 10:00 was my usual down time- right after work starts and right before lunch begins. It was the perfect time for meatloaf, but I never had any meatloaf, so I just took a seat and considered myself and my life, as I did every day at this time, like clockwork. Did I truly serve any purpose in this life other than to let Daisy outside in the morning? It all seemed so trivial. I looked up and that green smiley face looked back down at me.
“What are you so happy about? You don’t even have ears.”
Hmm… That might actually be nice, I thought to myself. No demonic dog noses or early-morning shouting or lame-ass friendly greetings to listen to.
As I began to consider this, my theory that a life without ears would be much easier was confirmed by muffled screaming emanating from my crotch.
“ALPHA FIVE! YOUR ASSISTANCE IS NEEDED ON THE THIRD FLOOR IMMEDIATELY!”
I groaned, patting the walkie-talkie beneath my jumpsuit. Someone had probably come to work drunk again, and they needed me to walk him to his taxi. I got up and started to make my way over there.
The moment I exited the elevator, however, I witnessed a scene that I must admit came as a shock to me.
Franklin Ramsey was standing on a table, swinging his briefcase about, screaming obscenities at everyone in the room.
“I’M TIRED OF THIS! YOU PEOPLE TREAT ME LIKE SHIT AND ALL I’VE EVER DONE IS TRY TO BE FRIENDLY! YOU ARE ALL HORRIBLE PEOPLE! IF I KNEW WHERE TO BUY ANVILS, I’D SET ONE WITH- WITH A BOMB STRAPPED TO IT ABOVE EACH OF YOUR CHAIRS AND… AND DROP THEM ALL AT THE SAME TIME!”
Some people were laughing, but Franklin didn’t seem to notice. I walked into the office and my supervisor, the man who had radioed me, was standing in the door way. As soon as he saw me, he yelled, “Get him out of here NOW!” He looked at me furiously, as if this had been my fault, and he walked off, presumably back to his office.
I decided to go about this as tactfully as possible. I edged into the room and said softly, “Uhhh… Hey, Frank. I understand you’re having some sort of fit here. That’s okay. That’s super cool. Super cool with me. Yeah… But uh… Frank, I’m going to have to ask you to come down. Come on, we’ll talk. I’m here, buddy.”
Franklin looked down at me, red in the face, shaking with rage.
“YOU ARE NOT MY BUDDY! YOU ARE JUST AS BAD AS THE REST OF THEM! ON YOUR FIRST DAY HERE I THOUGHT YOU COULD USE A FRIEND! I REACHED OUT! I ASKED YOU YOUR NAME AND YOU GAVE ME A BULLCRAP HARRY POTTER NAME! AS IF I HAVEN’T READ HARRY POTTER! THAT SERIES HAS SOLD OVER 400 MILLION BOOKS! WHO HASN’T READ IT? YOUR DAMN NAME TAG SAYS STEVE! I SEE IT EVERY SINGLE DAY, YOU DUMBLEFACE OF CRAP!”
With every word he shouted, a vein in his neck pulsed more violently. Before I could think of anything to do, Franklin had opened up his briefcase and pulled out not a pair of buffalo socks, but a 13-inch long, fully automatic submachine gun. An Uzi. Lame-ass Franklin Ramsey had just pulled an Uzi out of his briefcase, and he was pointing it at me.
Everyone in the room screamed and scattered to find cover. Just as I leapt behind a nearby desk, Franklin pulled the trigger, putting six hundred holes per minute in the wall in front of which I had been standing a split second earlier.
“What the hell is wrong with you?” A familiar voice yelled into my right ear.
“Whazza?”
“Why the hell did you let him get in here with a machine gun? Aren’t you supposed to be checking bags? What the hell is wrong with you?”
I looked back at an absolutely terrified Thomason Thumb who seemed to have jumped behind this desk at precisely the same moment as I, and in spite of myself, I allowed a grin to briefly flash across my face. It was glorious to see the least powerful, most undeniably common man put into this situation and brought back down to Earth. On the other side of the King was a dumbstruck Greenie, her beautiful eyes wide, staring up at Franklin with awe- amazement even. There was no trace of fear in her countenance.
I turned back to the King.
“I blame you, sire. You’re our treasurer, are you not! You could have scrounged up some money for a working metal detector, couldn’t you?”
“AGH! There’s no room for finger-pointing-“
I had stopped listening. I threw my hand down to grab my walkie-talkie, but something was wrong. There was fabric in between my hand and my radio.
“Damn jumpsuit!” I yelled.
I began to fiddle with the outline of my walkie-talkie, trying to find the appropriate button through my uniform, the King screaming frantically at me as more gunshots were fired around the room.
I finally found a button that I could only hope controlled the talkie part of the walkie-talkie, squeezed it, and screamed down at my crotch, “ALL TEAMS! THERE’S A GUN ON THE THIRD FLOOR!”
There was static before a muffled response came, “You’re having fun at the thrift store? Sweet! We’re on our way!”
“What? No! STUPID JUMPSUIT!”
“Steve! You know him, right? Talk to him! Get us out of this! You’re the only one who can!”
The King made a decent point. I had never seen Franklin interact with anyone other than myself and his son. Where was his son anyway? I looked around the room for him. After a moment, I spotted him sitting in a corner. Just sitting. No screaming or panicking or anything. He was just sitting there with that creepy, blank expression.
Then I felt a surge of inspiration.
I stood up to see that Franklin was now stomping on the desk like a child, his bowtie askew, his toupee on the ground nearby. He was still screaming.
“…AND YOU NEED LIVE AMMUNITION TO WAKE YOU UP! MAYBE A FEW BULLETS WILL HELP YOU UNDERSTAND HOW TERRIBLE LIFE REALLY IS, YOU UNEARTHLY CRABLIZARDS-“
“FRANKLIN! Look! I just want to talk, okay.”
He wheeled around on the desk, his eyes wide, his mouth agape, his teeth bared like a wild animal’s. It was pathetic. You know how they say it’s always the ones you least expect? Well, looking back, I have no idea why I never saw this coming. The guy was exactly the type to go off the deep end. He led a failed life. I had to say something- anything to make him think his life was worth something.
“Franklin! Come on, man. You can’t do this! Think about your child! You have a SON! Do you know what that means?”
Franklin’s face regained a bit of its humanity at this.
“It means that at some point in your life, you got laid! Your life can’t be a complete failu-“
“No, you idiot!” the King whispered from behind our hiding desk, and I noticed Franklin had stopped screaming. For the first time since I had come upstairs, he seemed at a loss for words. However, all of the rage that had left his face a second ago returned in a flash.
“What I mean to say is that you’ve got to think of your son! How is he going to be a success in life with a father who-“
“He’s NOT going to be a success in life! Look at him! He just sits there! Kids bully him and make fun of his name every day! Six years ago, I thought naming my son after a Star Wars character would be cool, but it was so stup-“
“Lando CALRISIAN! THAT’S RIGHT! Lando’s last name is CALRISIAN! I’ve been calling him Lando Jones for years, but I knew that never sounded right! Shit! Your son’s named after fudging LANDO! That is the coolest shit I have EVER HEARD!”
“What? No it’s not! It’s Star Wars-”
“Which is only the coolest thing ever! I wish my name were Calrisian! That’s so much cooler than Steve! Steve is a nasty-ass name. fudge, dude. You know about my boy Harry and you named your son after Lando? That is badass! Hey, do you wanna go get a beer?”
Franklin’s face became blank. I couldn’t tell what he was thinking. But then that overenthusiastic smile came back to his face. Apparently, that was all he needed. I felt kind of bad that he needed to bring an SMG to the faces of his coworkers to get it. He let his gun fall to his side, and right as he attempted to step down from the desk, four men in charcoal-grey jumpsuits tackled him simultaneously.
Apparently, some of the security guards had indeed understood my crotch shout.
I couldn’t let this happen. After six years of resenting this man, I had just discovered how awesome he was.
“You’re going away for a long time, buddy-“
“Wait! He’s not in this alone! I helped him. I intentionally didn’t check his briefcase so he could come in and launch this attack. I’m just as guilty as he is.”
And that’s that.
I was taken away with Lame-ass Franklin Ramsey, put in front of a judge, and convicted.
Thomason Thumb lost his job and is being put on trial because, as it turns out, he had been giving himself a pay raise every few months, paying no attention to the needs of the company, directing all of its money to benefit himself. Because of him, Lactose Tyrant was serving low-quality meats containing salmonella, and the company could not afford sufficient resources to operate properly. The company almost collapsed.
Of course, that was great for Calrisian, who is now living with his mother. It turns out, first graders love Rambo-like feats, and upon hearing of Franklin’s one-man mission to eradicate members of the organization that was poisoning America, they stopped making fun of his name, and he is now quite popular.
As for Franklin and I, we are cell mates, and we’re as happy as two straight men living in prison together could be. His smile is no longer weird and overenthusiastic. It’s genuine happiness. And it’s not all my doing. He has been receiving many visits from Greenie, whom he told me he plans to go get a cup of coffee with in ten to fifteen years.
I’ve got solid walls, the pipes don’t drip, there are no noses in my ear, the door locks (perhaps a bit too well), and, like clockwork, we are served meatloaf at 10:00 am every single day. It’s perfect.
People call this prison, but I disagree. I’m not locked out from the rest of the world. The rest of the world is locked out of this cell- my home.
Like Clockwork
Like clockwork, Daisy would wake me up every morning at 4:32 a.m. to be let outside. She would come into my room and put her cold, wet nose far enough into my ear so that her sniffing would sound like the wings of some great mythical creature whose body was too big for its wings, so it had to flap with more force than all of the other great mythical creatures to stay airborne. If I would try to ignore her, she would bark, making the giant creature roar inside of my ear. It was quite unpleasant. I had no choice but to let her out every morning. Why she never awoke the King, I’m not sure.
The King was the man I rented my room from. He was a lumpy, middle-aged man with thinning brown hair, thickening brown nose hair, and brown eyes hidden behind spectacles that seemed much too large for his lined face. In the truest sense, he stood in when placed in a crowd. And he was a prick. His name was Thomason Thumb, but he required me to address him using nothing less than a regal title. In return, I was allowed to keep my Star Wars posters pinned to my wall, though I’m not sure why he would mind them being there in the first place. They covered the chipped paint and gaping holes quite nicely.
On the morning of July 17th, Daisy woke me up at 4:32 a.m., like clockwork. I stumbled to the back door to let her out, then I returned to my futon to go back to sleep. Considering how tired I was, it took a while to drift off. The faucet was leaking again. Drip drip drip. How annoying.
The sound of dripping water turned out to be blood dripping from the fangs of my friend Francis. “Would you like some?” he asked. “You must be feeling drained by now.”
“No, thank you,” I replied, “I’ve discovered something better. It’s called tomato juice. Pretty much the same thing. There’s so much sodium that it just makes me thirstier, but that’s the great thing about it.”
“Really? I’ll have to try it some time. Ah, shit. The sun’s coming up. We better leave-”
“WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU?”
“Whazza…?”
Like clockwork, the King had woken me with that same sweetly serene voice that had woken me every morning at 7:00 a.m. for the last six years. I had no need for an alarm clock.
“What the hell’d you do with Daisy?”
Rubbing my eyes, I croaked, “I let her out. She told me she wanted to go out.”
The King looked down upon me, his brow furrowed, his voice booming, “So you speak dog, do you?”
“No, I don’t understand dog. She wasn’t speaking dog… she was speaking Turkish.”
“MY DOG DOESN’T SPEAK PEOPLE LANGUAGES!”
“It wasn’t a people language… It was the language of turkeys. Get it? Turkish. We both
gobble.”
The King’s brow furrowed so deeply, it was in danger of going into his mouth. Through gritted teeth he said, “Who do you think you are, touching my dog without my permission?”
“I didn’t touch her. Besides, she woke me up to let her out. She would have started barking and tearing stuff up if I hadn’t abided. I can’t help it. She comes into my room every morning.”
“Then lock your damn door!”
I would have gladly locked my door had there been a doorknob on it.
“Yes, Sire.”
Taken aback by my lack of resistance, the King stood there, his mouth hanging open stupidly, ready for more yelling, bumbled a bit, then said, “If you touch my dog again, I’ll kill you,” before leaving the room.
He said that every morning.
“See you at work,” I called after him as I got up to get dressed. We worked in the same office building, the headquarters of a major fast food company. It’s much less exciting than it sounds.
I clipped my walkie-talkie to my belt loop, and pulled my jumpsuit over my clothes. It was required of security guards to wear charcoal-grey jumpsuits, though this seemed to me like a major tactical disadvantage, seeing as our jumpsuits had no pockets or holsters for weapons or anything of the sort. What good were unarmed security guards? Then again, what good were security guards for fast food executives? Who could hate Lactose Tyrant enough to decide it’s worth it to destroy the people responsible for it? Well… I suppose the hundreds of people across the country who had tried suing the company over food poisoning charges might have been a bit upset. Maybe. Good thing the business owners thought ahead and bought metal detectors.
That’s where my job was. It involved standing at the main entrance of the building next to the oldest metal detector I’ve ever seen. The outer shell of the contraption was made of yellowing plastic that was broken in several places. At the top of it, there were three LEDs lined up horizontally- green, yellow, and red- just like a stop light. Green meant no metal and it had a small smiley face printed on the bulb, red meant metal, and I have no idea what yellow meant. I don’t think it mattered too much though. Of my six years at the side of that metal detector, the only LED to ever light up was the green one.
I suppose the metal detector, in its old age, needed some backup in checking bags. That’s where I came in.
It was my job to check every single bag of every single person who wanted to enter the building. It was tedious, repetitive, monotonous work. Though it was a bit awkward to search through the possessions of strangers, it was also rather enlightening. For instance, Greenie (thusly named for her pretty emerald eyes), who usually arrived for work around 9:00 possessed the air of a hard woman. She walked at a brisk pace in her pantsuit; her brown hair tightly pulled up into a bun, her glasses accentuating her likeness to a stereotypical “sexy librarian” of male fantasy who gets straight to business and doesn’t put up with anyone else’s nonsense. However, upon searching through her bag, I’ve found things I hadn’t expected to find, including a diary with a cute teddy bear on the cover, the business cards of a psychiatric office with dates of upcoming appointments scribbled on them, and, once, an unfilled prescription for Zoloft. Every morning, I would give her a small smile, which she never returned, but which I’m sure she appreciated.
After Greenie would come Dirty Dan, who seemed to never take showers, yet always seemed to have hand sanitizer in his bag; Mr. Facelift, who was in a constant state of denial; Destructor, who was always singing Metallica; Movie Mom, who seemed to bear resemblance to Angelina Jolie, Julia Roberts, and Natalie Portman all at once; and Fiber Guy, who carried enough magazines to hold his interest throughout the duration of several days’ defecation sessions.
My least favorite employee to search was Lame-ass Franklin Ramsey. He was the only employee aside from the King who had ever given me his actual name. Every single day, like clockwork, he arrived at 9:15 a.m. wearing the same brown suit, a toupee that didn’t quite match his eyebrows, and a green bowtie that, matched with his brown suit, looked like a solitary patch of grass growing out of otherwise dead, barren earth. He always carried two bags; the first was a laptop case that held a Dell computer so old that it could be traced back to the “Dude, you should have bought a Dell!” days. The other was a brief case that always held the same pair of socks with buffalo pictures stitched into them, a tooth brush, and a completely unnecessary comb.
“Hey there, Dedalus!”
My name is not Dedalus Diggle. That is the name I gave to Franklin when he asked for it the first day I started working here. I immediately got the impression that this was not a man I’d want to associate myself with. Everything about Franklin Ramsey, from his overenthusiastic smile to his buffalo socks, screamed out dorkiness. He was the type of guy who had no friends, but didn’t realize he had no friends. No, that’s not the type of guy I’d want to be seen socializing with.
So I told him my name was Dedalus Diggle. I got it from Harry Potter, a series that has sold over 400 million books all over the world, a series I was sure everyone had read. But it seemed that Franklin didn’t read. Actually, I wasn't sure he was literate at all considering he never once noticed the name on my name tag was not the one he knew.
This man was just annoying to look at. He reeked of boredom. The most interesting thing about him was his son Calrisian, whom he occasionally brought to work with him. What was so interesting about Calrisian, aside from his person name, was that he was the most uninteresting six-year-old I’ve ever known. He never spoke. He never smiled. He never moved unless he had to. He just stood there. Children nearing the end of the preoperational stage of development should be asking a million questions, running up and down the hallways, talking about fire trucks, etc. Calrisian just stood there. It wasn’t right.
“Hey, Franklin. Hey, Calrisian.”
Franklin made to hand me his laptop bag. I really didn’t feel like looking at his crap again that day. I decided to throw him a bone. Make him feel like he has friends.
“It’s okay, Franklin. I know you’re good. Come on through the detector.”
He beamed at me and walked through with his son. Ironically, the only other man I knew in this building was in line right behind Franklin.
“Good morning, your majesty,” I bowed as the King walked through. His eyes narrowed, but he said nothing. I watched him follow Franklin (who was nudging Calrisian along) up to the third floor where I knew them to both work in the finance department. I kept thinking about the name Calrisian. It was so silly, but I knew it from somewhere….
Around 10:00 was my usual down time- right after work starts and right before lunch begins. It was the perfect time for meatloaf, but I never had any meatloaf, so I just took a seat and considered myself and my life, as I did every day at this time, like clockwork. Did I truly serve any purpose in this life other than to let Daisy outside in the morning? It all seemed so trivial. I looked up and that green smiley face looked back down at me.
“What are you so happy about? You don’t even have ears.”
Hmm… That might actually be nice, I thought to myself. No demonic dog noses or early-morning shouting or lame-ass friendly greetings to listen to.
As I began to consider this, my theory that a life without ears would be much easier was confirmed by muffled screaming emanating from my crotch.
“ALPHA FIVE! YOUR ASSISTANCE IS NEEDED ON THE THIRD FLOOR IMMEDIATELY!”
I groaned, patting the walkie-talkie beneath my jumpsuit. Someone had probably come to work drunk again, and they needed me to walk him to his taxi. I got up and started to make my way over there.
The moment I exited the elevator, however, I witnessed a scene that I must admit came as a shock to me.
Franklin Ramsey was standing on a table, swinging his briefcase about, screaming obscenities at everyone in the room.
“I’M TIRED OF THIS! YOU PEOPLE TREAT ME LIKE SHIT AND ALL I’VE EVER DONE IS TRY TO BE FRIENDLY! YOU ARE ALL HORRIBLE PEOPLE! IF I KNEW WHERE TO BUY ANVILS, I’D SET ONE WITH- WITH A BOMB STRAPPED TO IT ABOVE EACH OF YOUR CHAIRS AND… AND DROP THEM ALL AT THE SAME TIME!”
Some people were laughing, but Franklin didn’t seem to notice. I walked into the office and my supervisor, the man who had radioed me, was standing in the door way. As soon as he saw me, he yelled, “Get him out of here NOW!” He looked at me furiously, as if this had been my fault, and he walked off, presumably back to his office.
I decided to go about this as tactfully as possible. I edged into the room and said softly, “Uhhh… Hey, Frank. I understand you’re having some sort of fit here. That’s okay. That’s super cool. Super cool with me. Yeah… But uh… Frank, I’m going to have to ask you to come down. Come on, we’ll talk. I’m here, buddy.”
Franklin looked down at me, red in the face, shaking with rage.
“YOU ARE NOT MY BUDDY! YOU ARE JUST AS BAD AS THE REST OF THEM! ON YOUR FIRST DAY HERE I THOUGHT YOU COULD USE A FRIEND! I REACHED OUT! I ASKED YOU YOUR NAME AND YOU GAVE ME A BULLCRAP HARRY POTTER NAME! AS IF I HAVEN’T READ HARRY POTTER! THAT SERIES HAS SOLD OVER 400 MILLION BOOKS! WHO HASN’T READ IT? YOUR DAMN NAME TAG SAYS STEVE! I SEE IT EVERY SINGLE DAY, YOU DUMBLEFACE OF CRAP!”
With every word he shouted, a vein in his neck pulsed more violently. Before I could think of anything to do, Franklin had opened up his briefcase and pulled out not a pair of buffalo socks, but a 13-inch long, fully automatic submachine gun. An Uzi. Lame-ass Franklin Ramsey had just pulled an Uzi out of his briefcase, and he was pointing it at me.
Everyone in the room screamed and scattered to find cover. Just as I leapt behind a nearby desk, Franklin pulled the trigger, putting six hundred holes per minute in the wall in front of which I had been standing a split second earlier.
“What the hell is wrong with you?” A familiar voice yelled into my right ear.
“Whazza?”
“Why the hell did you let him get in here with a machine gun? Aren’t you supposed to be checking bags? What the hell is wrong with you?”
I looked back at an absolutely terrified Thomason Thumb who seemed to have jumped behind this desk at precisely the same moment as I, and in spite of myself, I allowed a grin to briefly flash across my face. It was glorious to see the least powerful, most undeniably common man put into this situation and brought back down to Earth. On the other side of the King was a dumbstruck Greenie, her beautiful eyes wide, staring up at Franklin with awe- amazement even. There was no trace of fear in her countenance.
I turned back to the King.
“I blame you, sire. You’re our treasurer, are you not! You could have scrounged up some money for a working metal detector, couldn’t you?”
“AGH! There’s no room for finger-pointing-“
I had stopped listening. I threw my hand down to grab my walkie-talkie, but something was wrong. There was fabric in between my hand and my radio.
“Damn jumpsuit!” I yelled.
I began to fiddle with the outline of my walkie-talkie, trying to find the appropriate button through my uniform, the King screaming frantically at me as more gunshots were fired around the room.
I finally found a button that I could only hope controlled the talkie part of the walkie-talkie, squeezed it, and screamed down at my crotch, “ALL TEAMS! THERE’S A GUN ON THE THIRD FLOOR!”
There was static before a muffled response came, “You’re having fun at the thrift store? Sweet! We’re on our way!”
“What? No! STUPID JUMPSUIT!”
“Steve! You know him, right? Talk to him! Get us out of this! You’re the only one who can!”
The King made a decent point. I had never seen Franklin interact with anyone other than myself and his son. Where was his son anyway? I looked around the room for him. After a moment, I spotted him sitting in a corner. Just sitting. No screaming or panicking or anything. He was just sitting there with that creepy, blank expression.
Then I felt a surge of inspiration.
I stood up to see that Franklin was now stomping on the desk like a child, his bowtie askew, his toupee on the ground nearby. He was still screaming.
“…AND YOU NEED LIVE AMMUNITION TO WAKE YOU UP! MAYBE A FEW BULLETS WILL HELP YOU UNDERSTAND HOW TERRIBLE LIFE REALLY IS, YOU UNEARTHLY CRABLIZARDS-“
“FRANKLIN! Look! I just want to talk, okay.”
He wheeled around on the desk, his eyes wide, his mouth agape, his teeth bared like a wild animal’s. It was pathetic. You know how they say it’s always the ones you least expect? Well, looking back, I have no idea why I never saw this coming. The guy was exactly the type to go off the deep end. He led a failed life. I had to say something- anything to make him think his life was worth something.
“Franklin! Come on, man. You can’t do this! Think about your child! You have a SON! Do you know what that means?”
Franklin’s face regained a bit of its humanity at this.
“It means that at some point in your life, you got laid! Your life can’t be a complete failu-“
“No, you idiot!” the King whispered from behind our hiding desk, and I noticed Franklin had stopped screaming. For the first time since I had come upstairs, he seemed at a loss for words. However, all of the rage that had left his face a second ago returned in a flash.
“What I mean to say is that you’ve got to think of your son! How is he going to be a success in life with a father who-“
“He’s NOT going to be a success in life! Look at him! He just sits there! Kids bully him and make fun of his name every day! Six years ago, I thought naming my son after a Star Wars character would be cool, but it was so stup-“
“Lando CALRISIAN! THAT’S RIGHT! Lando’s last name is CALRISIAN! I’ve been calling him Lando Jones for years, but I knew that never sounded right! Shit! Your son’s named after fudging LANDO! That is the coolest shit I have EVER HEARD!”
“What? No it’s not! It’s Star Wars-”
“Which is only the coolest thing ever! I wish my name were Calrisian! That’s so much cooler than Steve! Steve is a nasty-ass name. fudge, dude. You know about my boy Harry and you named your son after Lando? That is badass! Hey, do you wanna go get a beer?”
Franklin’s face became blank. I couldn’t tell what he was thinking. But then that overenthusiastic smile came back to his face. Apparently, that was all he needed. I felt kind of bad that he needed to bring an SMG to the faces of his coworkers to get it. He let his gun fall to his side, and right as he attempted to step down from the desk, four men in charcoal-grey jumpsuits tackled him simultaneously.
Apparently, some of the security guards had indeed understood my crotch shout.
I couldn’t let this happen. After six years of resenting this man, I had just discovered how awesome he was.
“You’re going away for a long time, buddy-“
“Wait! He’s not in this alone! I helped him. I intentionally didn’t check his briefcase so he could come in and launch this attack. I’m just as guilty as he is.”
And that’s that.
I was taken away with Lame-ass Franklin Ramsey, put in front of a judge, and convicted.
Thomason Thumb lost his job and is being put on trial because, as it turns out, he had been giving himself a pay raise every few months, paying no attention to the needs of the company, directing all of its money to benefit himself. Because of him, Lactose Tyrant was serving low-quality meats containing salmonella, and the company could not afford sufficient resources to operate properly. The company almost collapsed.
Of course, that was great for Calrisian, who is now living with his mother. It turns out, first graders love Rambo-like feats, and upon hearing of Franklin’s one-man mission to eradicate members of the organization that was poisoning America, they stopped making fun of his name, and he is now quite popular.
As for Franklin and I, we are cell mates, and we’re as happy as two straight men living in prison together could be. His smile is no longer weird and overenthusiastic. It’s genuine happiness. And it’s not all my doing. He has been receiving many visits from Greenie, whom he told me he plans to go get a cup of coffee with in ten to fifteen years.
I’ve got solid walls, the pipes don’t drip, there are no noses in my ear, the door locks (perhaps a bit too well), and, like clockwork, we are served meatloaf at 10:00 am every single day. It’s perfect.
People call this prison, but I disagree. I’m not locked out from the rest of the world. The rest of the world is locked out of this cell- my home.
