Little Straws

                                             Little Straws

       Benjamin Pickett finish his morning cup of coffee, and sits at the kitchen table minutely studying the coffee grounds peppered on the bottom of the cup.  He does it to avoid eye contact with his wife Dotty who is, at that moment, haranguing their two surly teenage sons for committing some trivial sin of the day.  Frustrated from their apparent indifference, she turns to seek other prey and focuses on Benjamin.  “If you’re going by the travel agency, could you please confirm the time of departure.  I called twice and they put me on hold, twice; I’m not taking that from anybody, least of all from those people.  And, after this, we are not to go to that travel agency ever again, even if it was the last one on earth.”

            “No, Dotty, we will not go to that agency again”, he answers softly.

            “And please don’t buy that flight insurance like you did the last time.  What were you thinking?  Who benefits other than your shiftless brother and that girl friend of his?  You think for one minute any of us would have survived a plane crash?”  She looks to see if the boys were listening. They weren’t.  “And speaking of your brother Fred, what does he do all day, anyway?  Since he’s moved here from California, he’s been popping in and out of here like a lost pigeon. Why hasn’t he got a job?  There’s something about him you’re hiding from me, isn’t there?  I wouldn’t be surprise if he’s an ex-convict.  Is he Ben?  He’s sure sneaky looking enough, and all those tatoos.”  She pauses and scrutinizes Benjamin.  “Frankly, I don’t believe he’s your brother.  He’s so much larger than you...so much better looking.”

            Not waiting for a reply, she turns her attention back to the teenagers who were stealthy creeping toward an exit.  “Stop right there”, Dotty strolls around the counter and menacingly approach the two, “I expect to see report cards when I get back from work.  You both look surprise.  Didn’t think I knew about it, did you?” she says, with repress glee.  “I also know about your hacker friends, so I’m checking with your teachers to verify each grade, got that?”   Thrusting out, she abruptly yanks a strand of hair from both their heads. “Ow”, they cry in unison.  “See, I haven’t lost my touch.”  She holds the strands of hair up toward the light. “Anything you want to add before they leave, Ben?” She is speaking to an empty chair.  Ben has slipped out the side door.

            Benjamin wraps his overcoat smugly around his body as he walks toward the detached garage.  Ice and snow covers the ground. The day is heavy with gray frost and the air glows with the stillness of a coming storm.  As he crunches his way on the pea gravel path, he can still hear Dotty acrimoniously informing him of her pregnancy, “Now, we got another one coming, and I got to walk like a stupid penguin for nine months. Guess whose fault that is, you dick,” followed by a hard slap on his head before he could duck behind a pillow.  Dotty is a practicing Catholic, so an abortion was never an option.

      Benjamin rarely made love to his wife and was dumbfounded to hear of her pregnancy. Dotty has metamorphosed through the years from hippie slim to middle age chubby and was perpetually on a diet, leaving her even hungrier and angrier and very much undesirable in her present form. In college, where they had met, she had already displayed a truculent nature that was delightfully adorable…at the time.  The foul language spewing from her full lips made her sexy, and her professed ultra-liberalism seemed to include the area of the bedroom.  A change took place after they were married; she slowly transformed into a termagant with piano legs.

       He steps into the ice-cold garage, switches on the neon lights hanging over a scarred work table. It hums back an irritating welcome. The garage is in its usual grimy disorder.  He glances up at the foggy mass of cobwebs draping the rafters and wonders how on earth could spiders survive in such frigid conditions.  And what in God’s name do they eat?  There certainly weren’t any insects flying around in this ice cave.  He squeezes his thumb and forefinger together on the bridge of his nose and bows his head for a moment.  His old station wagon sits next to his wife’s new Japanese import, which she never lets him drive. He gets into the station wagon, cranks up the engine and presses the remote.  The asthmatic garage door slowly wrenches open revealing, in jerky increments, a wide expanse of pure white, dazzling glare.  Reaching into the glove compartment, he takes out his sun glasses and puts them on.  He slowly backs out of the garage and rolls down the driveway into the street. Shifting gears, he lunges toward an expressway jam with a motoring herd of preoccupied commuters, just like himself, anxious to arrive to a place where they will be just as anxious to leave at the end of the day.

     When he was a boy, he was shy and frail for his age.  Being shy and frail invited taunts and stronger peers made his young life a series of little traumas.   He survived by playing dead.  His alcoholic father and mother, standing in the sidelines, became part of his disinterested audience.  His younger brother Fred was the jock in his family and the favorite son.  Everybody liked Fred and he traded heavily on that.  He owed everybody money when he moved out of town yet he was still missed.   Know one was aware when Benjamin left town and he was not missed.

     During college, he never smoked pot, nor tried drugs, just claimed he did. To identify with the only students who would associate with him, the radical left, he neglected bodily hygiene; didn’t shave, nor cut his hair, nor washed himself.  He even slept with his clothes on. On the campus, he hid behind the strong ones who blocked the policemen’s truncheons with their forearms.  Others did sit-ins and took the crushing surge of the fire hoses that slammed them against walls and floors.  Benjamin was assigned to benign tasks like poster hanging, passing out leaflets, or answering telephones.  They had him pegged

     The impending trip to Mexico with Dotty was Benjamin’s penitence for impregnating his wife. He imagines himself lying on the beaches of Cancun with the sea breezes blowing on his face.  He would run through the white heated sand and let himself be enveloped like a cocoon by the soft, humid air.  But his delicate capsule would be incinerated by a conflagration of burning lava flowing down ceaselessly from the mouth of his ever complaining wife.  It would never end.  There would be no place to hide especially on those open expanses of bare sand.                 

      And his children. What happened to them?  Now in their teens, they treated him like an inanimate object forever standing in a foyer. When did he arrive at that heart wrenching conclusion, or was it a revelation, that he no longer loved them?  They are never seen except during meals when they would slink out of their rooms and, even then, they would just sit and watch the kitchen television while an insipid dinner was being served and eaten.  On weekends, when he was home, the children would be spending their time at ‘friends’ and his wife would go to his widowed sister-in-law “to keep her from committing suicide,” as she puts it. He often ended up eating alone.

            Years before, he had some idea that they should all sit down together during the dinner hour and discuss the day’s events.  The idea came from an advertisement on a born-again Christian channel; it suggested that family members talking to each other would strengthen relationships, bring family members closer together.  He insisted that they begin this tradition.  Somewhere, very early in the game, the talk quickly petered out, the closeness never materialized, and the neon screen ingratiated itself back to its religious prominence.   

     People who knew Benjamin said he suffered from low self-esteem, and did so, politely.  His doctor thought he displayed a classical case of mild depression and prescribed pills that he never took.  So it was not surprising that he made no friends, being that he was so introverted.  His brother Fred, on the other hand, never seemed to lack of friends.  He had charisma, said Benjamin.  He was a bum, said Dotty.

     Mile after mile, the old station wagon passes nearly identical houses, pastel colored, and with identical red tiled roofs half covered with snow. This is the same route he took, day after day, year after year; there seemed to be safety in sameness.  He arrives at the commuter train station, parks his car on the icy black asphalt that has just been cleared of slushy brown snow, locks his car door and, with a sigh, measures his steps toward the station’s entrance. 

      The newsstand rises up from the middle of the concrete platform like a color montage about to make sail.  It sells the standard confectioneries, packaged foods, carbonated drinks, journals, smut magazine, and a multitude of national and local newspapers. Over the façade of the stall hangs a green and white striped canvas awning streaked with suburban soot.  Benjamin had passed the stall hundreds of time but had never patronized it.  He never reads while on the train, nor had he a sweet tooth, nor a passing hunger for stale sandwiches, sandwiches he visualized as mummified meat and bread entombed in a thin plastic sarcophagus.

     Normally, he would immediately get on the train that was waiting in the station, acquire a seat next to a window (If there was one vacant), and, for the entire trip, watch the passing scenery, never turning his head and never acknowledging the existence of others.  But on this day, he would do something out of the ordinary, something with a little panache!  Today, for no particular reason, he decides to buy a newspaper. And why not?  He will buy a newspaper and read it on the train.  He looks up and takes a deep breath.  The clouds are thinning, revealing patches of rich cobalt blues.  It might turn out to be a glorious day after all!

       As he approaches the stall, he notes with mounting discomfort that, behind the counter, the vendor is blind and in dire need of dental work.  On closer inspection, he sees that the vendor’s eyes have pink pupils and both his legs are amputated at the knees.  The vendor sits on a worn leather cushion fasten with metal brads to the top of a wooden stool.  Cotton stuffing was quietly exploding from the cushion’s duct taped seams like white puffy entrails.  He feels a little self-righteous indignation that this vendor did not wear dark glasses to hide his grossly disfigured eyes.  No consideration for the public, he thinks.  Still, his aversion toward the physically handicapped shouldn’t cloud his positive day.  With stoic fortitude and pose indifference he places some coins on a tray and selects a morning newspaper. 

            “That’ll be seventy five cents, mister,“ growls the vendor.

            Benjamin is startle that the blind vendor could even speak.  “That’s what I put in the plate,” he replies defensively.

            “No, you didn’t.  I only heard a quarter.”

            “No, I dropped a fifty cent piece and then a quarter.  The fifty cent piece landed on a dollar bill and you probably didn’t hear it,” he explains.

            “Didn’t hear it, huh?” The vendor’s voice became louder.  “Listen, mister, I can hear the air whistling pass the boogers in your nose.  Don’t tell me I didn’t hear it.  Now, be nice and pay what you owe.”

            It is the morning rush hour. People, waiting for their train, stop their milling about and begin circling, glancing furtively at the unfolding drama like curious gazelles.  Benjamin hears their tongues softly clucking and feels their squinting eyes scrutinizing every inch of him, noting his every flaw, his every weakness. He is in grammar school again and the bullies are unzipping his fly.  He begins to feel the humid flush of body heat rising underneath his overcoat, through the crack of his shirt collar, gliding up his neck, flowing past his chin and enveloping his face.  He faintly senses damp droplets of perspiration forming under his armpits and slowly trickling down the side of his ribs.  “I’m terribly, terribly sorry, but I did give you your money.  I dropped it right there on the plate…I have witnesses…”  He frantically looks around and sees now how foolish his statement must have sounded, but he valiantly presses on.  After all, the man is blind and cripple, what possible physical harm can a blind man missing both legs do to him?  ” …And I’m not that kind of person who would go around cheating people out of nickels and dimes,  as you can plainly see ,  I…  I…”  It was just a slip of the tongue, a faux pas.

            “You shit,” screams the vendor, “you like making jokes outta blind guys like me, huh, do you?  I get it… you wanna get your jollies off a blind guy, is that it?  Is that what you want, huh?  You prick!  Well, here take it, you son of a bitch, take it all.”  The vendor sweeps his white cane across the counter, knocking over the change plate that lands with a loud metallic clatter, scattering paper money and coins over a wide area.  It is amazing, notes Benjamin in a daze, how so many coins can drop from so far a height and end up rolling on its edges.  Stunned by the vendor’s quick reaction, Benjamin covers his face with his hands.   Everyone is staring at him!  A fleeting sense of incontinence is developing; he imagines a dark stain slowly spreading down the front of his trousers!

      To his immense relief, a uniformed guard, sauntering through the crowd, reaches the scene, and surveys the concrete floor.

            “Now why did you go and do that for, Jake?”  The guard kneels down and begins picking up the coins.  “Give me hand, here, will you, mister?”  He is addressing Benjamin from his crouched position.  As Benjamin stoops down, the guard whispers, “You gotta forgive him, he has these bad days and he flares up”. 

The vendor continues to rant while he swings his cane back and forth in front of him.  “I want you to arrest that son of a bitch.  He tried to steal from a blind man.  He got no respect for us handicapped people, but I caught him, I caught that son of a bitch red handed.”

“What did he try to steal?” asks the guard, patiently.

“Money, that’s what.  He didn’t put enough money on the plate.  That asshole tried to short change me because I’m blind,” shouts the vendor heatedly.  "I want you to arrest him.  I want him locked up!"  There is a tittering of laughter from the amused crowd

“Now, Jake, you know I can’t arrest the man just because you think he shortchanged you.  How much do you think he owes you?” ask the guard.

“He shortchanged me fifty cents.”

The guard takes Benjamin aside and causally looks over at the group of commuters who were relishing this welcome aberration from their dreary routine.  “Look, mister, it’s gonna be a long day for the both of us.  Why don’t you do us all a favor and give the man his fifty cents.”

“But I did pay the man!”  sputters Benjamin.  “I dropped the money on the plate, in spite of what he says.”

“No one is saying you didn’t,” says the guard, glaring at him.  The guard’s attitude is turning sour.

Benjamin is mortified.  The onus is being place entirely on him!  But rather than exacerbate the situation, he reaches into his pocket (praying to God that it isn’t damp, for he hadn’t looked yet) and hands a coin to the vendor.  The vendor snatches it with a victorious sneer, and in that instant, Benjamin realizes that the vendor is not totally blind. The guard begins making small talk with the vendor, ignoring Benjamin completely.  The small crowd begins to disperse and the street drama slowly drains down a black hole.  As he boards the security of the train, he discovers that he has left the contentious newspaper on the counter of the newsstand.  So much for panache: the castration was complete!

 He sits next to a window and stares out during the entire commute.  He watches his reflection flittering over hills and gullies, whizzing by the silent landscapes, flashing by rows and rows of telephone poles.  He watches the shadow of the train, jumping and twisting along the gravel bed, desperately keeping pace with its source, flickering with each wooden tie, rushing by in a blur of colors in tempo with the measured clacking of the wheels.  And then the scenery abruptly vanishes and all life is submerged into the inky blackness of a tunnel.  His reflection suddenly delineates and leaps out from the window pane, stark, and grotesque, bathe in bloodless neon lights; the face, so morose, so wretched!  It moves, it talks, it will even grovel for you.  And then the blackness explodes and metastasizes instantly into the most brilliant kaleidoscope of landscapes, whirling by in streams of reds, browns and yellows.  He vanishes.  He no longer exists.  Benjamin bites his lip, lowers his head and begins to sob.  It was the little straws that broke the camels back.  

 

                                                                       II

 

      Benjamin was employed as one of many assistant accountants in a small corporation that imported cheap garments from the Far East.  He has never met or has ever seen the Asian owners but he minded his own business, was paid the standard rate, received the standard benefits and was never asked to do anything illegal.

His office was located in the basement of a converted warehouse by the rail yards.  It was the only office in the entire basement, the rest of the space was crowded with packing crates of all sizes stacked to the ceiling.  The place smelled of mildew and Lysol, but he didn’t mind. Solitude and the coziness of the office was what he wanted.  This isolation was broken rarely by the mail clerk, and often by Mr. Grunther, his immediate supervisor.  Mr. Grunther would drop in routinely and stay for a few derisive words.

     “Jesus, you look terrible.  Had a rough commute, or did you have trouble making your wife come?” asks Grunther, grinning and leaning on the office door.  "Well listen up, butt head.  This is in regards to the recent cut backs by the head office, meaning some of us will have to pick up some of the slack…”  He stares at Benjamin’s hunched form as he rattles on.

Benjamin, sitting at his desk, says nothing.  He was already depressed about the unsettling rumors of massive layoffs. He had buried the rumor into the far recesses of his mind, and it was nearly forgotten until Grunther referred to it obliquely.  When he had interviewed for this position over a decade ago, Grunther was in search of the perfect subservient whipping boy and, in the course of many interviews, he found Benjamin.  It was Benjamin’s first and only job out of college.

 “…and I’ve got you down to cover for Wong, who’s at the main office now.  Hey!  You listening?  You look like you’d just died from something.”  He pauses and looks both ways to assure himself that they were alone.  Then he says, “It’s sure funny how that Chinaman moved up so quickly, huh?  Here, I’ve been, working steady for nearly fifteen years, and those guys in the front office don’t even know I exist.  Wong’s been here, what, three years?  And you, you’ve been with me for how long?  Now, here he is, his yellow ass being promoted pass all of us, and do you know why?  Because those slant eyes up there are promoting their own kind, those bunch of fuckers.”  A thick blue vein began to pulsate on Grunther’s forehead and he begins rubbing his temples with his fingers.  “Getting a fuckin’ headache,” he growls.

 “Look, there isn’t much to it, and you get to leave a few minutes early.”  He walks up and lays a black shoebox on Benjamin’s desk.  It has NIKE written in bold red letters on the cover of the box.  “And maybe with the extra time, you could get on with one of those black whores on Third Street, get them to give you a little head before you head for home.  Give you a little head… head for home… get it?  Get it?  Heh, heh”.  Benjamin does not smile.  “Suit yourself,” mutters Grunther, “the deal is you pick up the miscellaneous receipts from payroll on Fridays at four and take it to the bank.  While at the bank, you pick up the cash and deliver it to payroll: it’s not a big amount, so we don’t call out the armored car, in case you’re wondering. Payroll will fill you in with the rest.  Any questions?”

"Yes, what’s in this?” asks Benjamin, as he removes the lid off the shoebox.  In side the box is an oil stained, brown paper bag and a worn leather holster with a metal belt clip.  He lifts the brown bag and feels the ominous weight of its contents.  He empties the bag and a, blue-black, short barrel revolver, wrapped in a red oil rag, slides out and clatters on the scarred desk. They both stare in silence. Then Benjamin looks up and says, “Would I really be needing this?  I mean, do I have to carry a gun?  I don’t remember Wong ever carrying a gun when he went to payroll.”

“You never lifted his coat,” says Grunther mildly.  “Insurance policy says you have to….payroll will fix you up with a license.   And if you don’t know how to use it, don’t worry, neither did Wong.”

 After Grunther leaves, Benjamin sits and stares at the sculptured black metallic instrument lying on his desk.  He has never touched a gun before. He has seen them up close when they were worn by policemen.  Those shiny black dangerous revolvers of the city police with their butts sticking prominently out of the leather holsters is what he remembers.  They stormed in, during the protest sit-ins, to batter students with hard rubber truncheons while he stood watching quietly from behind the barricade.  The images of those long metallic barrels and white ivory handles (or were they plastic?), made an impression.  Slowly he rises to his feet and walks around the desk, never taking his eyes off the thing; the thing that, by company mandate, now belongs completely to him.

He leans over and with his middle finger and thumb gently picks up the gun by its trigger guard and studies it.  He is thinking, this instrument can turn living into dead instantaneously. It can reach out and terrify the most powerful of men and silence the most vocal of adversaries with just the gentlest pull…no… with just the threat of a forefinger.  And the sweet pungent scent of machine oil rising from the short barrel smells wonderful.

It never occurred to him to own a gun, or to carry it concealed, yet here is an instrument that could have protected him from harm, be his friend, right the wrongs he had suffered, and cause enduring pain to all his enemies.  And all this could be done…with impunity and from a distance.  That was the beauty of it.  He could make people do anything he wanted or suffer the consequence..  And it was so portable for such a huge potential threat!

He lays the cold metal pistol onto the palm of his right hand.  To his surprise, it is warm to the touch and heavy like pure gold.  He sticks the gun into his waistband like he has seen in the movies.  Feeling giddy and excited, he tries a few quick draws, pulling up his shirt in the process.  Tucking in his shirt, he clips on the belt holster, pulls the gun from his waistband and shoves it into the leather holster with a flourish. It fits snugly.  With it in place, Benjamin begins to experience this profound sense of well being, a sense that he had never felt in his entire life, a fulfillment of his soul, so complete, that it took his breath away.  He never took illegal drugs, he is thinking.  Perhaps he should have….if this is what it feels like, to be omnipotent.

 Much later this morning, Benjamin finds himself approaching Grunther’s office which is on the first floor.  He rarely had reason to go there since his interview twelve years before.  He approaches the secretary and asks if Grunther is in.

“He’s busy right now,” she says, without looking up, “so please be seated and, oh, do you have and appointment?”

Benjamin ignores her and walks into the inner office. The secretary, suddenly aware of this breach of office etiquette, rushes behind him, protesting.  Grunther, sitting behind his desk, looks up startled.

“Yes?  What is it?”  He looks at Benjamin as if seeing him for the first time. Grunther cannot remember the last time he saw Benjamin in his office. “It’s alright, Carol, I’ll handle it.”  The flustered secretary backs out, reluctantly closing the door behind her.

Benjamin speaks in a quiet monotone, “This will only take a second.” He leans forward placing his open palms on Grunther’s desk. “I just want you to know that I don’t appreciate your comments about my wife, nor comments on my private sex life.  It’s just none of your goddamn business and if you persist, I will feel obligated to do something about it….something drastic.  I hope I am making myself clear, for both our sakes.  It would be tragic if you are not clear on this.  Well, are you?”

Grunther hesitates and swallows.  This little prick has lost it, he is thinking. Shit!  He’s wearing the gun I just gave him!  Sonofabitch got it in the holster.  Grunther’s mind begins to race as he sucks in the air. He has read of employees going off the deep end and shooting their bosses, but it never occurred to him that it could happen here!  And it was happening, here, right now!  His spine begins to tighten up and he feels the blood from his head draining down his neck.  The room becomes unbearably warm.  He grips the arms of the chair and tries to get up but realizes his feet are paralyzed;  they’re asleep!  So he sits there, petrified, perspiring freely, with fleeting thoughts of a possible stomach wound, HIS stomach wound,  caused by this…this impossible pipsqueak.

Survival instinct forces his dry vocal cords to activate and he croaks out, “Benny, Benny, Benny, hey, you know I was just kiddin’, no offense, but I never thought it bothered you.  You…you never said anything. Now, admit it…you never did say anything.  Come on, you know how I am. If I knew you felt that way, I would’ve never ...never...uh, honest.  Look, it’s not gonna happen again, I promise., I got you fuckin’ upset, so, tell you what, why don’t you take the rest of the day off, and I’ll cover for you.  Will that fix it?  Will that be okay?”

     Benjamin does not reply.  He just stands there for several long seconds and stares at Grunther’s sweaty outstretch hand.  Ignoring it, he slowly turns and walks out leaving the door open and Grunther drench with perspiration.

     There is no euphoria.  No.  Being treated with respect will be a common occurrence, and he will treat it as such.  He is mildly surprise that his heart is not pounding nor his underarms wet.  Maybe I should turn around, go back and shoot him, he thinks… shoot him right in his pink mouth, knock out a few teeth, maybe.  A need arises to shoot the gun, to empty out the cylinder in a burst of shots.   He promises himself to look for a shooting range as soon as he can.  It may just be a lot of fun shooting off that pistol. Now, he will have something to do, somewhere to go during the weekends besides staying in the house and feeling sorry for his existence.

     He springs out into the street and begins walking toward the train terminal.  The sun is again peaking through the clouds, shadows drifts in and around the buildings sliding down onto the pavements and hip hopping over to oblivion.  Benjamin is thinking how resplendent that is.   There is a slight breeze brushing against his face as he walks briskly along.  He begins to laugh as he raises both arms and quickens his pace, turning his walk into a trot, chasing his shadow in the snow. …   He spies a yellow cab. The street is fairly empty now; few people walk around an industrial neighborhood during the mid-day.  He raises his arm with forefinger pointed to the sky, and the cab pulls to the curb.

Benjamin yanks open the rear door while glancing at the rear tire.

“Hey, I think you got a flat in the making.”

The driver sticks his head out the window, “No crap?”

“Well, look for yourself, I’m getting another cab,” and with that he slams the car door shut while the cab driver gets out to have a look.  With a swift motion, Benjamin pulls out his gun and points it level with the face of the bent over cab driver who is totally shocked, not so much at the gun, but at the harmless looking man who is holding the instrument.  It is so unexpected.

“Put your hands on your head and get down on your knees before I shoot them off,” he says calmly.

“Sure, sure mister.  Anything you say,” The cab driver lowers his head, pleading, there is now terror. “Hey I got family, so please, give me a break. You can have anything you want.  I’m the last guy that’s ever gonna give you any trouble, I really mean it, the very last guy”.

Benjamin thanks the driver, gets into the driver’s seat and drives off, leaving the cab driver kneeling on the sidewalk in shock.  Heading towards the train station, he spies the bank.  He had always admired the front façade of that particular institution which he passes numerous times a week.  The radio in the cab begins frantically calling out numbers and requesting a response.  The driver probably notified the company when he was picking up the fare and he hadn’t relayed back a coded signal.  Benjamin pulls up on the white zone in front of the bank and gets out.  He walks casually pass the guard, takes several envelopes from the customer’s table and gets into line.  Stepping up to the counter, he slips the gun from its’ holster, and places it underneath the envelopes with the tip of the barrel peeking out and pointed towards the tellers stomach.  He didn’t care if he was observed or not.

“Put all your money you have in the drawer, please, and place it in these envelopes, then hand it to me as you fill each one up.  Don’t put in the red dye capsules because I’m going to press each envelope when you hand them over.”  He read that somewhere, “and if the dye ejects I will shoot you and your nearest  co-workers.  And you know who the management will blame for that.  Do it slowly now, don’t drop anything, …and you are having a good time so please smile. “

“I am smiling, sir, and I’m going to do everything you say”, whispers the female teller as she nervously begins slipping the contents of her money drawer into the bank envelopes.  She later told investigators that she had no idea what the person really looked like.  The robber was of average height, she thought, and his face so unremarkable that she couldn’t even help the sketch artist.  She later became a prime suspect.  An insider job, they would say. Benjamin gathers up the envelopes and warns the teller not to give an alarm.  He tells her that he would hate to kill that old guard standing at the entrance and that would be her fault entirely.

Benjamin again walks pass the guard who is pacing back and forth in front of the exit.  The guard has his hands clasp behind his back and his head up, studying the plaster molding on the ceiling.  It must be excruciating to have such a boring job, Benjamin is thinking.  Come to think of it, I have such a boring job.  He slips back into the taxi and slowly drives to the train station's parking lot, just a mile from the bank.  Less than twenty minutes has past, from the time he left Grunther’s office, to the time he arrives at the parking lot.  He is astonished that so much was done, and so much had changed in such a short period of time.  Einstein was wrong.  Time really lengthens when you’re having fun.  In the parking lot, he empties the envelopes on the car seat and counts the bills.  It comes to approximately sixty three hundred dollars.  Sirens are screaming in the distance.  Benjamin wrongly assumes that it is a response to the bank robbery but instead it is the police coming to investigate an assault complaint called in by Grunther.

There was a worn leather valise stuck in between the seats.  He pulls it out, opens it, and discovers the cabby’s lunch.  He is delighted. Taking the food out, he replaces it with the paper currency which he stuffs into the separate compartments.  He also eats the lunch, which is an egg salad sandwich with lots of mayonnaise, red lettuce and a sliced dill pickle.  There is also a small tomato, a small bag of potato chips, a green chili pepper, and a nudity magazine wrap around a cold can of beer.  Must’ve packed it himself, notes Benjamin.  Good lunch.  A whole lot better than what Dotty would have packed him.  Come to think of it, she stopped packing his lunch years ago when he mentioned that having peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for lunch daily, and washing it down with instant coffee wasn’t exactly appetizing.  She exploded and hissed, “Well, little man, if you don’t like it, pack your own goddamn lunch.  Believe me, when I tell you that I’ve got better things to do than serve you hand and foot.”

From that day, Benjamin skipped lunch and, over the years, lost a few pounds in the process.  Now and then he would go to the cafeteria on the second floor, but co-workers would see him eating alone, while they were in cozy cliques, laughing and talking and giving him pitiful glances.  He would go only when he hadn’t had dinner the night before, which was often.  Well, that phase will end, he thinks to himself.  He reflects that if the worst happens, prison food wouldn’t be half bad and he would be eating regularly.

Leaving the cab and strolling into the terminal building, he wound look neither left nor right.  He would go home and pack his things and maybe leave a note to Dotty.  Did he owe her that much? Did he really care if she lives or dies?  No, I don’t owe her anything, he is thinking.  He definitely would not miss her…or his kids.  Accepting this, he feels elated.

He boards the train without incident, and meditates during the entire trip.  As the train approaches his station, Benjamin begins to observe how different the place is at this time of day.  In all the years of commuting, he has never arrived this early, it has always been in the late evening, at the peak of the rush hour when it was noisy and crowded. The place appears nearly deserted now.  His eyes scan the entire platform and finally rest on the newsstand.  The vendor appears to be taking a nap, sitting up. Benjamin glances around.  There is no one in a guard’s uniform, not nearing the lunch hour.  Benjamin knows what he has to do.

“Hi, remember me?” says Benjamin, cheerfully, as he walks up to the counter.  The vendor is startled out of his stupor, unfolds his arms and looks around with his head slightly cocked.  Benjamin takes a newspaper off the rack and quickly rolls it up.

“What can I get for you, mister?  Need somethin’?  I got it all here,” says the vendor, half awake.

“No, no, I don’t need anything, except a piece of you,” Benjamin says it with a smile.

“What did you say? A piece of what?” asks the vendor, not quite comprehending.

“I said I wanted a piece of you. That’s what I said,” and with that pronouncement Benjamin lifts the hinged counter top, steps behind the counter and in one swift motion, grabs the vendor and slams him to the floor.  The vendor lands with a thud on his amputated thighs before he rolls over on his back and begins gasping in shock.  Next to the high stool was a portable heater humming and glowing red.  Benjamin kneels down, putting his full weight on the vendor’s chest and arm, pinning him to the floor.  Without hesitating, he jams the rolled up newspaper into the vendor’s open mouth and holds it there, muffling his screams.  With the other hand, he lifts the heater by its handle and lays the face of the heater on top of the vendor’s open palm.  The length of the vendor’s back arch with spasmodic jerks and the stumps of his thighs wiggles frantically from the burning of his flesh.  Tears are rolling from his pink glazed eyes and gagging sounds are erupting from the top end of the newsprint.

After a few seconds,  Benjamin lifts the heater and places it next to the vendor’s ear causing the vendor to jerk his head away in terror.

“Now you listen good, you blind motherfucker.”  Benjamin had never, in his life, used the ‘mother’ word but he always wanted to, and now it seems most appropriate.  “I’m going to let you live with just a blistered hand, you miserable piece of shit.  But if I ever, if I EVER hear you reporting this, I will come after you, you blind sonofabitch, when you least expect it, and slice off your fingers, one by one, you understand me?  Nod, if you understand me.”  The vendor nods his tear streaked head and begins to shiver violently.

Benjamin rises from his crouch position and calmly brushes himself off.  A stray customer comes up to the stand and Benjamin takes the money and makes change from the cash register.  Only the correct change was accepted on the metal dish displayed.  As the customer walks away, he asks, “What’s happened to old Jake?”

“Oh, he’s out sick, today..”  Benjamin says to the retreating figurer. The whimpering sounds from the vendor, lying on the floor of the stall, are drowned out by the station’s routine noises.  Benjamin watches as the customer walks some distance, then raises his foot and stomps on the vendor’s other hand.  The vendor screams.  “That’s for moaning.” 

Walking off the station platform toward the parking lot, Benjamin marvels at the beauty of the overcast sky and how fresh the air.  It is still late in the morning when he gets into his car and drives straight to his bank.

Dotty and he had several joint accounts.  Benjamin never bothered with it nor was he even aware of how much each account contained.  He let Dotty handle all the finances in the family.  Every time he inquired about the accounts, she would snap back with "What do you want to know for?  You going somewhere?”  Well, NOW he is going somewhere, and he giggles.  He is astonished to learn that there are over thirty thousand dollars total in all the accounts.  He withdraws the whole amount and deposits it in another checking account in his name only. He encounters no problems; the bank manager knew him by sight. The reason he gives for such a large transaction is that he is going to speculate in the booming stock market.  The bank manager cautions him about the dangers of speculation, and asks if he would care to speculate with their bank. 

The next stop is at the travel agency where he tells the agent to cancel the trip, and to arrange for just one seat on a one way flight to Mexico and could the date of departure be tomorrow?  “No problem,” says the agent after checking with his computer.  “Good”, says Benjamin.

The house is quiet and empty when Benjamin drives up.  Dotty is at work at Newfields department store.  She is a store detective, and the hours are long due to the approaching holidays and the growing menace of shoplifters.  Dotty is considered by many to be very capable in her position, and she never carried nor owned a gun.  Those who work with her said that she didn’t need one.

Benjamin goes through the house looking for anything he might need in his self-imposed exile.  Something in the recess of his mind tells him that he is never coming back. He doesn’t know why but he is grieved by the thought.  Finding nothing, he begins climbing the stairs to the second floor.  He knew where Dotty kept his passport.  Mustn’t forget that.  He was going to pack light, just T-shirts and shorts.  He could buy what he needed when he landed in Mexico.      

Suddenly there is a thump.  He freezes mid-way. There are voices coming from his bedroom.  It can’t be Dotty; it is a man’s voice.  A burglar?  He feels excited, a burglar in this house!  Well, he is thinking, as he carefully pulls the revolver from it’s holster, let’s see what we have here. He raises the gun and cocks the hammer back. His adrenaline begins to pop open his sinuses and he fully inhales.  He feels exhilarated.  He tiptoes up the rest of the stairs and breathlessly stands in front of the bedroom door.  It becomes quiet.  Perhaps he was heard?  He stops for a moment in front of the closed door, he feels the pulse aside his neck throbbing.  He steps back, braces himself, and then smashes the door open with one swift kick.  He rushes in gripping the revolver with both hands at arms length, and pointing it straight ahead, just like in the movies!  He is all set to shoot the first thing that moves. He is all powerful!  He is to be feared! He is the king!

 

       After the inquest, the coroner’s office declared that it may be a strong case for manslaughter.  Although what Fred was doing, when surprised by Benjamin, was morally wrong, it was not a capital crime.  You don’t shoot your brother for sleeping with your wife.  But for Fred to be hitting his brother’s head with a baseball bat, killing him, because he thought Benjamin was a burglar, that was another matter.  “If it wasn’t for that goddamn gun,  I don’t think I would’ve swung so hard,” sobbed Fred.  “It was the first goddamn thing through the door and it happened so quick.  What was I suppose to do?”  Tears dripped down his chin.  “What the hell was he doing with it anyway, and what was he doing home so early?  My brother never fired a gun in his life.  He was afraid of guns.  Hell, man, he was afraid of everything.  Maybe...maybe  he thought  the gun would make a man outta him?”

“And chicken’s got lips.” piped up Dotty.