by Mark Tufo
“Lexus, Mercedes, Fred, come on! I’ve got Happy Meals,” the mother of the year yelled.
All three stopped, even Lexus with what appeared to be the mid-section of a cockroach halfway to her mouth. The offending insect was discarded and rapidly forgotten as Lexus screamed merrily about getting a princess toy. My earlier jollity was completely destroyed as I stepped up to the counter. A sad faced man named Don (his name tag identified him as the shift supervisor) greeted me. I was to learn rather quickly that Don’s day had pretty much paralleled my own (except for the part about losing his job, but that part would come later after I left.)
“Sir, how may I help you?” Don asked, doing his best to hold on to what little remained of his dignity.
I’m not proud of some of the things I have done in my life. You could count this encounter as one of them. I am one of those people that is quick to anger and then let slide something that should have never left my brain to begin with. Quick to react, slow to think. Unfortunately this was something my Nicole had picked up on early in life. She would scream bloody murder and I would come running. Justin usually became the hapless victim in this game as I would punish him before I even knew what was going on. If my daughter wrote that story she could probably call it ‘The Manipulation of Michael Talbot.’ And then the worst part of this whole affair would be the swallowing of my pride and then admitting to my son that I was wrong. This was a shortcoming that had been a work in progress with me for years. That day I slid a long way back down the progress path.
Maybe it was the way he looked so pathetic, like he had already given up, that made me act the way I did. Maybe it was a baser evolutionary thing like the strong dominating the weak. I’m not saying I was right or trying to justify my actions, I’m just making an observation. You can be the judge if you want. But remember, I had just lost my job, my wife was pissed at me, it was 102 degrees out, Samir and his partner in crime Becka had conspired to make my trip to a fast food restaurant into an epic adventure worthy of any M. Night Shyamalan movie. I had ketchup half way up my pants. My expensive shoes were ruined. A giant fat lady wanted to eat me. I had just witnessed the singular most disgusting culinary experience in my life and now Don the Defeated was going to champion my cause? I think not.
All of this was going through my head as I formulated my reply to Don. “Fuck you!” Yep that’s how I started off. Proud? Not a chance. Don’s demeanor dipped even a little farther, but I thought I caught a glimpse of something else. I think my words sparked a flame of defiance in him.
“Sir?” he asked incredulously. Don’s day had been shit thus far, but I was the first to cross the usually uncrossable unseen civilized barrier.
I knew in my heart of hearts that ‘fuck you’ was as inappropriate a response as I could go with, except maybe something about his mother. But again my emotions were ruling my higher functioning. So when I told him to ‘Go fuck yourself!’ I had once again taken a giant step against mankind. I’ll give it to the guy though, he wasn’t quite ready to throw the towel in yet and step down into the primordial soup with me.
“Sir, if you could just please keep your voice down and keep the language more appropriate I think we can resolve whatever problem you may be having.”
At this point my loftier self was actually able to step away from the situation and take a more objective look at what was happening here from Don’s point of view. Some ketchup stained guy that appeared to have just smoked some bad crack comes into a family oriented restaurant throwing profanity around like a hooker throws pussy around at a dentist convention. That Don hadn’t gone screaming into the rear of the store looking for a weapon was a testament to his inner strength, OR more likely I wasn’t the first person that had come in after dealing with the dynamic duo of dipshits at the drive thru.
His words were actually having the desired effect. He had not escalated the confrontation. The more time he was giving me to reflect on my actions the better able I was to bridle my mental state, such as it was. I actually might have been able to salvage this encounter, if Becka’s pimply-faced countenance hadn’t taken this inopportune time to peek out from her workstation.
“Oh shit Tonya. The half-wit came in the store! You should see his clothes, he looks like he’s eaten but couldn’t tell exactly where his mouth was. I know, right?" She laughed. “He’s got ketchup all down his legs! It’s hilarious, Tonya. Hold on, I’m going to take a picture and send it to you.”
Becka began to walk out from behind her work window, her phone lining up to take my most unflattering photograph since the DMV.
“Becka,” Don began. “Don’t you have some work you could be doing?”
‘Oh please,’ her expression dripped scorn. The sour look did little to dissuade Becka from her present course of action. I was too shocked to do anything as Becka took not one but three pictures of me. I heard later that at least two of them ended up on the Internet.
Don and I both shared a moment of commiseration as we stared at the retreating form of the laughing Becka. “I’m sending it now Tonya, let me know when you get it! GET OUT!” she shrieked. “Bobby Ricci asked you out?!” The rest of the stimulating teenage-ese dialog was lost to us as Don and I again resumed our parley.
“You could start helping me, by firing her.” I pointed vehemently to where the demon spawn had retreated.
“She’s the best of the last seven people I’ve had working there,” Don answered me back, his tone laced with dejection.
And just like that the heat of my anger ebbed. Don was as much if not more of a victim in this whole affair than I was. He had been dealing with irate customers seemingly his entire professional life.
“Samir!” one of the fry cooks shouted from behind us. “What the hell is a fried salad wrap with M&M’s?”
Don put his hands over his face. If he had access to anything sharper than a plastic butter knife I think he would have taken the opportunity to perform hari-kari on himself.
I wanted this encounter to be over with and get out of here before it got any more bizarre. Sometimes I amaze myself with my flashes of prophecy. “Listen,” I said hopefully. “I just want to get my order and get out of here.” Don didn’t respond, and I somehow took that as a good sign. “Okay,” I said, nervously licking my lips. “I’d like to get two Quarter Pounders with cheese meals, a crispy chicken sandwich meal, two Big Mac meals, and the two cheeseburger meal with extra pickles. Oh yeah and all of them with Coke is fine.” Don still hadn’t moved, not to even put my order into the not-so-idiot proof picture-laden register. At first I was sort of impressed that he would have the ability to memorize my whole order. Still nothing was happening. “Don?” I asked cautiously.
“YOU WANT! YOU WANT! What the fuck about what I want!” he screamed. The entire restaurant stopped and stared, even the nearly useless work staff. “You think I want to manage a bunch of zit pocked, hormone infused, spoiled brats that would rather be at home jerking off than making an honest living? And do you think I can get any of them to wash their hands after they’re in the bathroom for a half an hour doing God knows what?” I heard distant retching as one of the customers realized what they might be eating. One of the sandwich assemblers laughed out loud as he realized that he had just been called out. I noticed with disdain the nearly full box of sani-gloves next to his workstation that were going completely unused.
Customers began to leave in droves as if they could sense the oncoming explosion, why had my prophetic self picked this time to desert. Of my entire order why he focused on this next part I’ll never know.
“You want some extra fucking pickles?!” he yelled.
I nodded dumbly, eyes wide open along with my gaping mouth.
“I’ve got your fucking extra pickles right here!”
I can’t express to you how relieved I was when he didn’t pull his pants down and expose his ‘male pickle’ to me. My respite was short lived though as he picked up a ten pound jar of pickle slices and began to hurl handfuls of the
tangy sandwich slices at me. I stood dumbfounded as the rippled briny preserves slapped against my entire body. I guess I should be glad they were the sandwich slice variety as opposed to the spears. (Poor joke, I know but how much further into absurdity could I travel.) I walked out of the store under a hail of fire, slices stuck to my face, neck and head. The sun began to instantly brown them as I dazedly strode to my car. I cannot recall the rest of the ride home. It wasn’t until I walked in the back door and Tracy ‘greeted’ me, that the day began to come back into focus.
“Where’s the food?” she shot out, her initial anger at my becoming unemployed still highly evident. As she began to look closer at the near comatose expression on my face, the ketchup on my pants and shoes and the pickle slices that dripped to the floor her demeanor changed. “Oh, Talbot, how do you get into these messes?” I would have aimlessly argued that I had nothing to do with it, but her ensuing laughter was like the siren call to sailors of lore. I joined in with her wholeheartedly. After heavy moments of out-of-control laughter we locked into a vinegar infused kiss that temporarily made all of our earthly concerns melt away. For twenty beats of my heart, the entire day had been worth the pay out.
CHAPTER 17 Journal Entry Fifteen
“You’re probably right,” I said, answering her original question back in the here and now. But I still looked longingly at the rapidly departing, true King of Hamburgers. My heavy sigh went unnoticed or ignored, didn’t really matter which, I wasn’t getting any golden bronzed dipped in sunlight French fries no matter how much I pouted.
We were still hours away from Carol’s and the weakened winter sunlight was doing its best to retreat into the west ahead of the frigid night. We had some choices, none of them particularly grand. We could push on through the night and get to Carol’s in the blackest part of the evening. My feelings were that entering into that nightmare during the brightest part of the day might make it minutely more palatable. So we could cross off option number one. Number two consisted of pulling off to the shoulder of the road and sleeping in the car, but one look at the depleted gas tank gauge revealed that we would not be able to keep the car and subsequently the heater running for the entire night. Of the ‘choices’ we were contending with, we would have to pick the one that was the least unsavory. That doesn’t mean it was a good choice, just better than the rest. It’s like the choice to eat chocolate covered ants or caviar. They’re both choices but they both suck. Kind of like having to vote for either candidate in a presidential race, no matter which way you go you’re guaranteed taxes will increase and the winner will blame the losing parties’ ineptitude for the necessity of the increase.
Option three involved pulling off the highway, getting some much needed gas and finding some sort of safe haven to sleep the night away. Our luck at safe havens had been largely devoid these last few nights. I had my doubts that would turn around tonight. I pulled the van over and waited for Brendon to come up alongside. I laid out all my thoughts, hoping that someone might potentially have a better idea or possibly dissuade me from my present course of action. I’m a control freak in the strongest sense of the phrase but only insofar as a situation can be controlled. I’ve yet to come across a zombie that ‘heeled’ when I told it to.
“How long would it take to get to Mom’s?” Tracy asked with a strange mixture of hope and resignation.
“Shit, maybe four hours,” I said rubbing my eyes. “I’m exhausted though and we’ll still need to pull over somewhere and get gas.”
“What about finding a motel or something like that?” Brendon asked. “We could stay on the second floor, there’s usually only one or two stair cases that we would have to defend.”
What he omitted, probably unintentionally, is that one or two staircases meant only one or two escape routes. Our lives depended on me always keeping vigilant. But it was still a decent idea. We had to stop, that was not the issue. We might as well be as comfortable as humanly possible, while we were still humans.
The stress I felt everyone exuding was tangible. It had a texture, a thickness to it. When we were moving we were safe. Every time we stopped the danger caught up to us. Only Justin and Tommy thought stopping was a good idea.
My hope was that Justin wanted to stop to give his low grade fever a chance to dissipate. I would not dwell any longer on any wild theories that I could not prove, but could still feel, in the depths of my soul. Damn it, the warring factions in me were mere children throwing stones compared to what was going on in his head. He might be the biggest threat to all of our survivals and he was my son. My soul wept, my essence raged, but nothing changed.
“Ryan says something about a lantern being on,” Tommy said, his eyebrows pinched in a frown as he tried to make sense of his ‘seer’s’ words.
You could hear a pin drop or Jen peeing a few feet away, you decide which descriptor fits. They were both accurate if not both politically correct. However, I don’t think this was going to be on any ACLU docket in the foreseeable future.
“What’d I miss?” Jen asked as she came back, wiping her hands clean with some snow.
BT gave her the short version. “Brendon thinks we should stay at a motel and Tommy says there’s a street light on somewhere.”
She looked as confused as the rest of us, but she recovered a lot faster than any of us. She leaned her head into the minivan.
“Hi Tommy,” Jen said with a smile. Tommy blushed. “Whatcha got there?”
“Triple berry Pop-Tart with peanut butter frosting,” he said proudly.
“Dad,” Travis entreated. “You said we were out of Pop-Tarts.”
I shrugged my shoulders. “Wait.” Now I leaned my head into the minivan. “Did you say peanut butter frosting?”
“Uh huh,” Tommy said, shifting uncomfortably as he noticed that everyone was looking at him.
“Did you spread peanut butter on your Pop-Tart, Tommy?” I asked.
He looked at me like I was crazy. His eyes rolled as he answered me. “We don’t even have any peanut butter, Mr. T.”
“But Pop-Tarts never made a peanut butter frosted variety, Tommy,” I stated.
“Oh forget the Pop-Tarts, Talbot,” Jen hushed me.
(I let it go then but I haven’t forgotten about them yet, and I can guarantee when the savage vestiges of Alzheimer’s are rendering my mind into brain flavored oat meal and I am slinging my own shit against the walls that I’ll remember triple berry Pop-Tarts with peanut butter frosting. Oh you dear reader can be assured that after Jen got her answers I checked that Pop-Tart out and it was indeed the flavor he described. Not that the kid had ever lied but maybe he got confused. He hadn’t.)
“Okay let me get this straight, Brendon says ‘motel’ and Tommy says ‘street light is on,’ right?” Jen asked.
Nicole clarified with “Lantern, he said a lantern was on, not a street light.”
“Let’s go, we’ve got a motel to find,” Jen said with a huge smile on her face.
“Um, any chance you could let the rest of us know what mystery you figured out?” BT asked.
“Come on in, we’ll leave the light on for you,” Jen beamed.
“Huh?” BT asked.
Tommy, around mouthfuls of an impossibly flavored snack, nodded fervently in agreement.
“The old Motel 6 catch phrase,” I wrapped up.
“Exactly,” Jen said. “Let’s go, I’m freezing.”
Nobody needed any more persuading than that.
Within twenty minutes we came up on a viable choice for our overnight stay, even if there wasn’t a Dunkin’ Donuts. Beresford South Dakota was about to become our home away from home, at least for the night. It was by far the prettiest place we had stopped thus far in our journey, with its tree lined streets and the pond in the center of town. But pretty doesn’t equate to safe. It was a given that zombies travel to where the food is. So by pure theory alone small towns should be the first places to become devoid of the offending vermin. Like flesh eating locusts, they plunder
and pillage the local resources and move on. They don’t hunker down and make roots. Can’t really cultivate a human farm, can you? And then I shuddered as I thought about The Matrix. Okay, but that was about machines harvesting humans for energy. If I come across penned up humans with zombie cowboys, my tentative grip on the fringes of sanity will be forever frayed. I shook my head, trying my best to dislodge the offending vision. Like this shit isn’t bad enough I’ve got to try and drum up even more exciting scenarios. ‘Ah what I’d do for a nuclear bomb.’
“A nuclear what?” my wife asked. Her contortion of fear was clearly outlined.
“Did I say that out loud?” I asked, clearly confused. When had I last let the inner thoughts of my unkempt mind out for all to see? My inner trappings were not a pretty place and I always made a careful case to make sure that my mind was shuttered against even the most curious onlookers. Tracy had long ago learned to not try and find out what I was thinking. My sometimes candid answers more often than not left her confused, concerned and just plain weirded out. Honest to God, I used to think that everybody thought the way I did, and were just as good at hiding it as I was. That however wasn’t the case. My depths of paranoia, conspiracy and psychosis approached and most likely surpassed levels that should have been medicated away. But it was these same ‘malfunctions’ of my mind that had kept my family thus far safe and sound. If I had really been able to ‘realize’ my dream though, we would be riding this out in style in some giant underground shelter. I envy all of you that had the resources to pull that off.
“Look, the light is on!” Tommy said excitedly.
And it was. The chill of icy fingers that ran up my spine was back and it was corpse cold. I shuddered involuntarily. Nobody but Tommy saw good in the stupid little hundred-watt bulb, shining bright through the twilight.
