Brenda

by Lee Ellis

  “I don’t know. Why wouldn’t it?”

  “You’re joking, right?” The referee looked at Jacob in disbelief, and you could see the faith in humanity fall from his face when he realized he wasn’t. “Look, I can’t just let you show up and start officiating games, alright?”

  “Why not?”

  “Are you serious right now?” the referee asked for some reason, considering that it should have been obvious that Jacob was not an ordinary man to conform to ordinary social norms, and was deadly serious in his pursuit to referee the little shit fucks, and also that the author needed him to do so to advance the plot. “You have to be certified to referee in this league, alright?”

  “Why?”

  “Look, I don’t have time to talk about this with you,” the referee said, and turned to walk away, but stopped when he realized that Jacob was the main character here, and he needed to referee the football game, and that the narrator was probably not somebody the ugly, overweight referee really wanted to piss off. “Alright, fine. First off, we need to know that you know the rules.”

  “Why? They’re kids. It’s not like they’ll know if we mess them up.”

  “No, but the whole point of this league is to teach the kids the rules,” the divorced referee said, rubbing his bald head. “We need to know that you know them. Secondly, we need to know that you know what to do out there. You know, your responsibilities and what not?”

  “I know what I’m doing,” Jacob said with a smug smirk. “I’m watching the little shit kickers play football, and periodically throwing that yellow thing.”

  “No, it’s more than that. You have to know where to be on the field so that you’re in position to see the play. You need to know what your responsibilities are, and what to look for on the plays.”

  “I look for kids being little fuck nuggets. How hard could it be?”

  The referee sighed. “Finally, and most importantly, you need to be cleared to work with kids. You know, pass a background check to make sure you aren’t a sex offender or something, and that you don’t say things like fuck nuggets around the children. Make sure that you’re fit to work with children.”

  “Dude, I can work with kids. I’m not a fucking retard, or a diddler, or any of that shit. I’m an excellent role model. I mean, technically, yes, I am a sex offender, but look, that was just one big misunderstanding. If Becky’s mom would just have kept her big mouth shut, everybody would have forgotten about it by now anyway.”

  “I’m sorry. I can’t help you,” the divorced father of two said, probably pissed off that his wife had left him with his children, who refused to even speak to him because of the miserable, pathetic human being that he was. Then the dickhead started to walk away, probably to eat another cannoli and masturbate in a port-a-potty. That fucker, ruining our plans to have Jacob referee a pee wee game.

  “Look, come on,” Jacob pleaded, grabbing the referee on the shoulder. “Can’t you just make an exception here? Help me out, man.”

  “No. You have to go through the proper channels. Now, if you’ll please let me go.”

  “Listen to me, you son of a bitch,” Jacob said, grabbing the front of the referee’s zebra shirt. “If you don’t let me officiate a game, I swear to God I will go over there to that cemetery across the street, and I will pee on your father’s grave.”

  The referee brushed Jacob’s hand off and crossed his puny little frog arms, probably in a failed attempt to look intimidating. “My father’s still alive, asshole.”

  “Then I’ll pee on your grandfather’s grave. Yeah that’s it. Your grandfather’s grave and on your father’s face.”

  “And how are you going to do that?”

  “Well, with my dick. I thought that was obvious. How else would I do it?”

  “No, I mean, you don’t know my grandfather’s name.”

  “Uh, you don’t know that.”

  “Yes I do,” the referee said. “That’s why I’m being referred to as the referee instead of by name.”

  “Well, fine. I’ll just keep peeing on graves until I find it. Will that make you happy?”

  “Honestly, odds are you’ll be arrested before you get to it.”

  “Actually,” Jacob said, scratching his chin with a quizzical expression on his face, “I pee on a lot of graves, so there’s a pretty good chance I’ve already peed on it. Now, about the game you want me to referee.”

  “Look, let me be perfectly clear. There is no way in hell I’m letting you anywhere near any of these children,” Mr. Inflexible said, wagging his finger in Jacob’s face like he probably wags his wang in the children’s faces after the games. That pedophile. He turned and started to walk toward the fields, but since I’m writing this story, after two steps he grabbed his chest and fell to the ground dead, like a dead dumb dick. A younger, more handsome referee then picked up his clipboard and smiled at Jacob.

  “Mr. Stanton, we’d love to have your help. You’re needed on field three.”

  “What’s up guys?” Jacob said to the other two officials in his crew as he walked across the field. “Looks like I’m your new referee.”

  “You? What happened to Tommy?”

  “Who’s Tommy?”

  “The referee with the clipboard. He was supposed to work this game with us.”

  “Oh yeah, Tommy. Yeah, he had a stroke.”

  “I thought it was a heart attack.”

  Jacob shrugged. “Stroke, heart attack, whatever. Point is he’s dead. I’m the new guy.”

  “Alright, well, I’m Rich, this here is Bob,” Rich said, having a boring and unoriginal name, though not so boring as his partner. Seriously, Bob? Is there any more generic name out there?

  “Cool, cool. Hey, do you happen to know Tommy’s last name? I need it for, uh, reasons. You know, legitimate ones.”

  “Uh, it’s Penspoake. Why do you need to know?” Rich asked, refusing to mind his own fucking business.

  “No reason. I’m certainly not planning on urinating on his grave along with the graves of any relatives of his I can find, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

  “It wasn’t what I was thinking, but it is now,” Rich said.

  “Yeah, that never would have crossed my mind, but now I’m pretty sure that’s what you’re planning on doing,” Bob chimed in, as if anyone cared what his stupid face had to say.

  “I’ll pee on your face,” Jacob said under his breath.

  “What was that?” Bob asked.

  “I said, ‘let’s get this game going’. Come on. Football.”

  “Wait a second. Do you know your assignments?” Rich asked.

  “What are assignments?”

  “Jesus Christ,” Rich said, visibly frustrated, but willing to tolerate Jacob because he knew that standing in the way of Jacob refereeing a football game was the leading cause of heart attacks in men his age. “Look, just go call the game how you see it, but mostly stay out of the way. We’ll take care of most of it, and help you along the way as you need it. Alright?”

  “Jacob! What are you doing?” Rich said, interrupting a rather pleasant fantasy Jacob was having about one of the mothers, or possibly a much older sister, in the crowd.

  “Huh? Oh I was checking out that MILF in the stands,” Jacob said with a bob of his head in the direction of said MILF. “Nice, right?”

  “Damn it, Jacob,” Rich said, swearing in front of the kids and their families like that. Then, realizing that they were at a pee wee football game and not a brothel, he lowered his voice to a more appropriate volume. “Damn it, Jacob, we’re in the middle of a football game here. You’re supposed to be paying attention to what’s going on on the field.”

  “Why?”

  “Because that’s your job.”

  “No, my job is an assistant manager or day manager or typist or some shit over at LDC.”

  Rich let out a deep sigh. It was a sound Jacob heard quite often. “Look, just watch the game, and let us know if you see anything illegal, okay?”


  Jacob snapped his fingers and pointed at Rich. “Janitor. That’s what I do. I’m a janitor.”

  Rich rolled his eyes and ran back into position. Jacob sighed and watched as the one little un-athletic retard snapped the ball slowly and clumsily to the other clumsy fucktard, who almost dropped the ball in handing off to some other jagweed, who could barely run in all the equipment he was wearing, ambling forward like some kind of mentally defunct robot. Seriously, I can’t articulate how ridiculous these little idiots looked. Anyway, the little idiot with the ball ran up to the offensive line, who looked more like they were holding hands and dancing with the defenders than blocking them, and broke a few tackles, or to be more accurate a few defenders bounced off him and missed tackles, because they were slow and not athletic and sucked. As he started to break free, the one kid on defense who seemed to have any actual skill at this got a running start and nailed the kid with a hard, high tackle.

  “Oh ho, boom, bitch,” Jacob laughed, running up to the play and looking at the runner still on the ground. “Man, you just got jacked up.”

  The kid continued to lay motionless on the ground, and after a moment Rich came in. Looking down at the kid, Rich motioned for a time out, then waved for help from the sidelines.

  “What are you doing?” Jacob asked, looking at Rich, who had a somber expression on his face. “Cheer up and let’s get this show on the road.”

  “Jacob, this kid is really hurt.”

  “So?” Jacob shrugged. “Scrape him off the field and let the rest of us get on with our lives. Just because one little weenie gets hurt is no reason for the rest of us to stop everything.”

  “Jacob, it doesn’t work that way. We can’t move the kid until he gets checked out.”

  “Sure we can.” Before anyone could stop him, because Jacob was not the type of guy to stop and listen to advice or think before he acted, Jacob leaned over and picked the kid up by his shoulder pads and belt. He carried him over to the sideline and dropped him at his parent’s feet, then whipped out his dick and pissed on the kid for good measure. Then he made his way to the middle of the field as the rest of the officiating crew and most of the teams stared at him with their mouths open.

  “Alright, people, let’s play some football,” Jacob said, motioning for the game to continue.

  At halftime, Jacob stood on the sidelines with a cup of clear liquid from a cooler on the sideline when Rich walked up to him.

  “Hey Rich, good first half buddy,” Jacob said, taking a sip. “Man, this vodka is really weak.”

  “That’s water, Jacob. Listen, we need to talk.”

  “Really? You have to put up with these little duck lovers all day, and you give me water to drink? Seriously, dude, what the fuck is wrong with you?”

  “I should be asking you the same thing,” Rich said with the prudish look of a prudish prude on his face. “You do realize that cooler is for the kids, right?”

  “So? Rich, there’s a whole cooler full of it here. I don’t think the kids need all of it. Unless they’re alcoholics or something. Wait, is this a league for little addict kids?”

  “No. What I meant is why would you think we’d be giving the kids a cooler full of vodka?”

  Jacob shrugged. “You’re doing this all day, and frankly it’s boring as shit. I thought maybe giving the kids something to drink might make it more entertaining.”

  “Damn it, Jacob, some of us actually enjoy doing this, you know.”

  “No, you don’t.”

  “No, we don’t,” Rich sighed, “but that doesn’t mean we’d give the kids alcohol. This is what we need to talk about Jacob.”

  “What? Just because I’m a janitor you assume I must be an alcoholic. Do you have any idea how offensive that is?”

  “No, Jacob, I mean your treatment of the kids. It’s inappropriate.”

  “Well, to be fair, I didn’t know the kids were alcoholics when I tried to give them the vodka.”

  “No, Jacob.”

  “It seems that’s something you should have mentioned.”

  “No, Jacob, the kids aren’t alcoholics. They’re kids for Christ’s sake. Just because they aren’t alcoholics doesn’t mean we’re going to give them hard liquor. Besides, why would you assume a bunch of ten year olds are alcoholics?”

  Jacob shrugged. “Ever been to Ireland?”

  “Jacob, you know, I think it’s best that you just left.”

  “What? Why?”

  “Are you serious right now?” Rich asked, staring at Jacob in disbelief. “You can’t be a pee wee official and treat kids the way you do. You’re clearly unqualified.”

  “What? How so?”

  “Well, there’s the fact that you just spent the last five minutes talking about giving the children hard liquor.”

  “I had to. Kids hate beer, everyone knows that.”

  Rich sighed and rolled his eyes.

  “Look, Rich,” Jacob said putting his hands on Rich’s shoulder. “I talked about it, but I didn’t do it. You can’t fire me for something I didn’t actually do.”

  “Sure I can. Besides, you aren’t getting paid for this, so I can send you home for pretty much any reason I want. And it’s not just the alcohol thing. Your behavior that entire half was inappropriate.”

  “What? Give one example.”

  “Well, for example, it’s generally frowned upon to run up to a kid after he got hit and yell ‘Boom, bitch’.”

  “It was a nice hit.”

  “Especially when the kid is hurt.”

  “Well, excuse me for being enthusiastic.”

  “And when a kid is injured, you can’t move him.”

  “Little fucktard was lying in the field of play, holding everyone else up,” Jacob chuckled. “What was I supposed to do, leave him in the middle of the field?”

  “Yes, damn it. Leave him there until he gets proper medical attention, in case he has some kind of neck injury.”

  “And what are the other kids supposed to do? They’re kids. They don’t have attention spans. If we make them wait, they may get bored and wander off. Then they’ll get kidnapped and raped. So excuse me for trying to stop the children from getting raped, Rich.”

  “I don’t think that was ever likely to happen. At all.”

  “Whatever. Besides, it’s not like he had a neck injury, you over protective fuck.”

  “Yes, Jacob, he did.”

  “Alright, well I’m sorry, okay? Jeez, you’d think the kid died or something.”

  “He did.”

  “Oh. Well, what, like you’ve never accidentally killed a kid before.”

  “Uh, no. No I haven’t. And I certainly didn’t expose myself and urinate on the child’s still warm corpse in front of his friends and family.”

  “My bad.”

  “Jacob, just leave.”

  “Fine. But I’m taking the vodka cooler with me,” Jacob said, picking up the water cooler and walking off in the sunset.

  “How was your officiating job, sir?” Reginald asked, greeting Jacob as he returned to his apartment triumphant with his vodka water cooler.

  “I got kicked out after a half.”

  “Wow. You lasted an entire half, sir. That’s longer than I expected. So, what happened, sir?”

  Jacob opened the fridge and started eating a piece of leftover pizza. “Killed a kid and urinated on his corpse.”

  “So, par for the course then, sir?”

  “Pretty much.”

  “Well, did you at least enjoy yourself, sir?”

  “Well, peeing on the kid was cool, but other than that, not really. It definitely wasn’t worth killing the head referee over.”

  “You killed the head referee, sir?”

  “Not me. The narrator did. To make sure that I got to officiate a game.”

  “Hmm. Seems like a bit of an overreaction, sir.”

  “I know, right. He was such a nice guy, too.”

  “I know, sir. I knew him, somehow. He was fit and good-looking
as well.”

  “Yeah, and he had a young wife and two young children who loved him. Now that he’s gone, they’ll have to fend for themselves. The mother will probably go into prostitution, which will make ends meet for a while, but not too long. Eventually, the kids will have to be sold to a sweatshop.”

  “What a shame,” Reginald said, shaking his head. “They’ll probably get maimed for life, and even if they don’t, they’re looking at cancer and a variety of other chronic diseases. Their lives are pretty much ruined, sir. And they’ll undoubtedly become wife-beating alcoholics, so you can forget about their wives and children having decent lives. And for what, sir?”

  “A football game,” Jacob said, sighing in despair. “A fucking football game. A man dead, all those lives ruined, just so I could officiate a fucking football game. What kind of monster does something like that?”

  “I know, sir. What a dick.”

  Chapter 12-Jacob is Late to a Meeting.

  Jacob sat down in a chair in the lobby of the LDC building and went about playing on his phone as he sipped his coffee. He’d overslept his alarm, but since he didn’t have any meetings scheduled for another half hour, rather than come into his office late, he had decided to just wait it out, walk into the meeting and claim that he’d been in early but had had to step out for a short time if anyone called him on it.

  “Hello.” A voice interrupted his phone gazing and he looked up to see Brenda take the seat next to him. “What’s up?”

  “Not much. I, uh, had to step out for a while, then I have a meeting starting in a few minutes, so I figured it’d be a waste of time to head to my office. So I figured I’d just hang out here and check my messages and what not,” Jacob said, deciding this bumbling bunch of nonsense sounded better than admitting that he was avoiding work. “What are you up to?”

  “Avoiding work,” Brenda said.

  “Awesome,” Jacob said, looking Brenda up and down for signs that she was sexually attracted to him, which was difficult since Jacob had no idea what he was looking for. “Oh, hey, how was your weekend?”