Hey Joe

American Dream Job

Thanks to the overwhelming response to last week's story, you lucky people are being treated to another slice of literary excellence.

I wrote this story shortly after my first lay-off, back in the early years of the new century.

 

American Dream Job

 

Here’s a little story if you’re interested. It offers no great moral impact or earth shattering revelations. It’s just a little tale about how a lost man found his way. That man, by the way, was me.

About 2 years ago just when I getting ready to slide, ever so undignified, into 40, I suddenly found myself out of a job. After 14 years with the same company I was kicked to the curb like so much recycling. “Thanks for your time. We appreciate your efforts but we’ve decided to change direction. Best of luck to you.”

Immediately thereafter began the well-meaning annotations of family and friends: “It was meant to be. The right job for you is out there. It will happen for you one day. If you don’t get this job then it wasn’t meant to be.”

Bullshit, all of it. Right job my ass. There is no such thing. Not when your fate is subjected to the bone rolls and tarot card readings of some Corporate America middle manager. When any day you may suddenly find yourself being escorted to the parking lot holding a cardboard box full of family snapshots, a potted plant and the loose change from your drawer as security locks the doors behind you.

Those first few months I spent a lot of time at home. I got back in touch with my inner-Merry Maid and reacquainted myself with that hose-laden contraption known as the vacuum cleaner, and her second cousin the Swiffer Sweeper. Between spit-shining the chrome accent pieces in the bathroom and hunting down dust bunnies, I surfed the web and caught up on my movie watching.

And so it was that one darkening February afternoon Netflix delivered American Beauty, the academy award winner from 2000 starring Kevin Spacey and Annette Benning. You remember; Spacey won for best actor and Benning lost out to that horse-faced Hillary Swank?

Anyway, Spacey plays a 40-something schlub that gets canned from his job after years of devoted service. Sound like anyone we know? The difference is that Spacey welcomes his new situation, and begins to discover that his whole life is one big pile of dog shit. And thus he begins a quest to rid himself of the shackles that he’s allowed himself to wear for the past twenty years. I was absolutely captivated. And just as Ricky Fitts becomes Lester Burnham’s personal hero, so Lester became mine. I took a vow right there in the BarcaLounger ® that as God as my witness my next job was going to have the least amount of stress and responsibility possible.

The Bellhop

I discovered some time ago that the achieves at the SoMa Literary Review had gone bye-bye. This sucks ass because I had a couple of short stories that had been published there. It was kind of cool to be able to refer someone to an actual website rather than a personal blog. It sort of carried a little more sway. 

Be that as it may, I thought I'd republish some of those stories here because, well it's been a few years and frankly I've got nothing new to post. A few folks have bitched about the lack of content here as of late. Maybe this will shut them up.

With that, I give you The Bellhop. And my apologizes for the lack of sway.

 

The Bellhop

 

“You wouldn’t believe some of the shit that takes place in these big hotels.” The Bellhop said as he lit his second cigarette. He offered one to the new guy as they stood out back on the loading dock.  “I’ve worked here almost eight years now. I’ve been offered other jobs, “better” jobs they say. More money and all that shit but those other jobs don’t offer what this one does. Stories. Bellhops and room service attendants; the best jobs in the place for a writer.”

“How long will you be staying with us, Mr. Jacobs?” asked the hotel desk clerk

“As long as it takes to finish my business.” The man answered.

Jacobs, a well trimmed man in his late thirties with thick, shoulder length brown hair, smiled at the desk clerk, a pretty young thing of twenty-two. He leaned on the counter, casually flirting with her without even being aware of it.

The clerk handed him a key on a diamond shaped plastic ring. Jacob’s enjoyed the old fashioned touch of an actual key instead of a plastic card.

“The bellhop will bring your suitcase up in a few minutes Mr. Jacobs. You’ll be in room 1256 and the elevators are around the corner to your right. Enjoy your stay.”

Jacobs took the key and picked up his well-worn leather satchel leaving the large black suitcase at the front desk As he walked to the elevator he passed an open door leading to the loading dock where several hotel employees idled during their break. The smell of cigarettes, caught in the slight draft created as he passed the door, followed him to the elevator. Despite seven smoke-free years he still missed his cigarettes and had recently fallen off the nicotine wagon. He entered the elevator and pushed the button for the twelfth floor.

The new guy puffed thoughtfully on his cigarette while the Bellhop sucked greedily on his own. He’d become used to smoking them quickly in order to squeeze at least two into his ten-minute break.

“I’m telling you man, the shit that goes on in this place is amazing. A few months ago some big corporate blow got jacked by a couple of ten-dollar whores in one of the suites. Duct taped the poor bastard to one of those Roman column things they’ve got up there. Took his clothes, his wallet, his car, everything. I got the honor of cutting him loose when the maid found him the next morning. Ha! He was so fucked over trying to figure out how the hell he was going to get home without his wife catching on. I mean he had SHIT! Stark-fuckin’-naked. It was beautiful. The GM loaned him some clothes out of the housekeeping stash and added an extra hundred to his bill to front him some dough just so he could get some cloths and a cab home. This is AFTER he explained to the police what happened. God only knows what story he gave his wife.”

The Bellhop doubled over with laughter as the new guy finished his smoke and dropped it in the dented aluminum ashtray. He stood near the edge of the loading dock and surveyed the parking lot.

“I sure hope I don’t have to wait eight years for something interesting to happen around here,” he said. He turned and headed back inside punching the time clock mounted just inside the door.

A Warm Thanksgiving

Yeah, I posted this a couple of years ago, but how many short stories can I write that revolve around Thanksgiving? Hope you enjoy yours.

 

 

A Warm Thanksgiving

The scent of roasting turkey filled the small, kitchen. Streams of condensed steam from the simmering vegetables ran down the front window, dripping and pooling along the discolored caulking of the cracked, porcelain sink.

She pulled a dishcloth from a bin under the sink and wiped the moisture away from the glass as a battered, blue Volkswagen Squareback pulled up in front of the house. She watched the occupants talking amongst themselves, making no move to exit the car.

“Are they here?” Her husband had come up behind her and was resting his hands on her shoulders.

“Yes, but they’re just sitting in the car.”

He turned his attention to the vegetables, lowing the flame that licked the copper bottom of the pan.

“This is going to be hard for them,” he said.

“Hard for all of us.”

A door opened and the eldest daughter helped the old man out, gripping him under his arm, using the running board for balance. Still in her grip and with an effort the old man moved slowly up the walkway using two canes. 

Leaving Las Vegas - by force.

 

Ben Nutty Slings the Blues

 

Ben Nutty’s pockets bulged with quarters, dimes and nickels, giving him a jingly, lop-sided gait as he lurched off of a Southwest Airlines jet at the Las Vegas International Airport.

The trip from California, though only a short flight, had been rather stressful. Ben’s wife, Leena, had been hoping for a warm, relaxing desert weekend helping her mother celebrate a milestone birthday, but Ben, currently between freelance gigs and with little else to do since losing his corporate communications job nearly two years prior, had somehow convinced her to allow him to tag along.

 “Perhaps I’ll hear the siren song of the creative muse amongst the wail and clatter of the slot machines,” Ben had said, hoping his colorful prose would convince her he meant business.

 “Just remember that we’re going for mom, not so that you can chase your ‘muse,’” Leena had told him, already beginning to regret her decision.   

 “Of course, of course, the old dear will be first in my thoughts the entire weekend,” Ben assured her.

 Ben had agreed to handle the travel arrangements, and hence they found themselves sprinting through the Oakland airport five-minutes prior to departure. Once on-board, while Leena struggled to accommodate her carry-on luggage, Ben sat mulling over potential cocktail orders and eye-balling the still-boarding passengers in search of a suitable third seatmate for their row.

 “Ah, she’s perfect,” thought Ben, as a young woman of indeterminate Asian lineage made her way down the aisle. At about 110 pounds she fit the key factor Ben sought in a seatmate. That she be attractive was a less important, albeit hopeful attribute, however one of his numerous phobias was to be wedged beside a thick, malodorous individual. The young lady heading toward him was far from thick, and, in Ben’s mind, exuded a soft hint of cherries and almonds.

P5K

A friend requested that I repost this story. It was originally published at the SoMa Literary Review, but for some reason or another they've pulled down their archives. I'm told that they will eventually be available again but IT IS NOT THIS DAY.

So, anyway, for those of you who are interested, here you go.

 

 

P5K

By Joe Romano

 

 

“Damn, that only leaves me with two kills.”

 

The body of a middle-aged businessman lay slumped over the wheel of his Lexus, the front end of which had been crushed into a perfect V against a traffic pole.  Blood flowed steadily from a marble sized hole at his left temple and quite freely from the grapefruit sized exit wound on his right.  The offender’s still squawking cell phone lay at his feet. 

 

“Mark?  Mark are you still there?”  Mark didn’t answer.

 

Jesse leaned against a newspaper rack on the corner and lit a cigarette. “Where are those guys?” he said to Hal.  “I’m going to be late for work again.”  He checked his weapon, a Beretta 9mm, standard issue from the Department of P5K. “Two rounds left.  I’ll never make it.” he thought.  “I’ll need to buy more from someone.”

As Jessie mentally flipped through the conscientious objectors that he knew, one of the local clean up vans pulled to the curb across the street. Two technicians sat in the van smoking and laughing about something Jessie could not hear. Hal also lit a cigarette and squatting down catcher style scanned the newspaper headlines through the plastic box.

Justice is Served

 

I know you've missed him. Well miss no longer. Today is the third installment of The Ben Nutty Stories.

In case you missed the first two stories, Ben Nutty Goes Shopping and Ben Nutty's Comeback, why simply click on the links and enjoy.

And now I give you:

Justice is Served

Ben Nutty pulled up at the local courthouse. He’d recently accepted a part-time gig that required his rubbing elbows with the great unwashed in the county records department. But times could hardly be called robust since he’d been canned from his corporate communications job, and the phone had not exactly been ringing off the hook with freelance offers.  

Predisposed to frugality, Ben bypasses the available metered parking directly in front of the records department, circling the adjacent parking lot in his rattling Toyota in search of a vacant, gratuitous, space. Passing through, and exiting the far end of the parking lot, he finds an empty spot on a side street, and maneuvers his sputtering heap between to colossal SUV’s, the resulting dings to their chrome bumpers barely discernible even in direct sunlight.

Ben slings his computer laden backpack over his shoulders and begins trudging the 200-yards back to the records bureau. He enters the building to discover the usual long line of “customers,” the disheveled and potentially dangerous, waiting to speak to a clerk of the court. Ben excuses his way toward the back of the 8x10 room, claiming the only available piece of countertop, and wedges himself between the heating vent and a sizable, well-suited, but rather pungent gentleman, reviewing a court file.

Ben Nutty's Comeback

 

Today is the second offering in the Ben Nutty series. Relax, there's only one more story, unless I get around to finishing #4.

 

 Ben Nutty's Comeback

 

Career Day Today!

The sign hung in front of the local middle school attended by Ben’s son. It was approximately 9:00 AM on Tuesday morning. Ben had dropped his son off an hour earlier and now, as a surprise to the boy, he’d returned to participate as a guest speaker at the Career Day festivities.

“He’ll be so excited!” Ben said to himself as he parked his sputtering heap in the school’s parking lot. Ben had learned of career day the week before when, while searching for loose change in his son's backpack, he'd discovered a flyer buried under a week-old salami on wheat. Fortunately he’d found it just before the volunteer deadline.

“I’m a communications professional,” Ben had told the principal when he’d called last week to offer his services. “You could say that the written word is my ball of wax.”  He then proceeded to regale her with tales from the world of corporate communications, a world where up until 18-months ago, Ben had been a mover and a shaker.

“I’ve pretty much done it all, communications-wise,” Ben had told her. “Press releases, customer letters, talking points. I’ve done your basic fluff pieces for the corporate magazine; who’s getting married, who’s having a baby, that sort of thing.  Folks love to read their name in the company publication, I can tell you!”

“Yes, that sounds fine, Mr. Nutty. But tell me again who your son is? We don’t have a ‘Nutty” in our student body.”

“Oh. Yes, well both of my children have chosen to take their mother’s maiden name, for reasons I can’t disclose.”

Ben Nutty Goes Shopping

He was a writer but he had never written much, nor even read all the 'originals' he worked from, because it made his head bang to read much. But the good old silent days you got somebody's plot and a smart secretary and gulped Benzedrine 'structure' at her six or eight hours every week. The director took care of the gags. After talkies came he always teamed up with some man who wrote dialogue. Some young man who liked to work - From "A Man in the Way", by F. Scott Fitzgerald.

If you've never read The Pat Hobby Stories, by F.Scott Fitzgerald you are doing yourself a disservice. Toward the end of his career, and basically his life, FSF found himself laboring on screenplays in Hollywood for MGM. Based on his movie industry experiences Fitzgerald invented the character of Pat Hobby, an alcoholic hack who'd once been "a good man for structure" during the silent ages, but who now spent most of his time hanging around the studios, picking up the occasional "polish job" for $250 a week.

Fitzgerald wrote 17 Pat Hobby stories that ran in Esquire Magazine from January 1940 to May of 1941, the last five running after his death in December of 1940. Ben Nutty, and his stories, are my tribute to FSF, and the incomparable Pat Hobby.

_____________________________________________________________________________________

 

Ben Nutty Goes Shopping

Ben Nutty scanned the aisles at the grocery store. He’d come in for cat litter but got side-tracked by the colorful signs advertising the week’s specials.

Wheat Thins were on sale; buy 1-get 1 free. Ben couldn’t resist Wheat Thins, and enjoyed snacking on them late at night when he had trouble sleeping, which was often since the free-lance writing jobs had dried up. Ben had been a big-wheel in the corporate communications arena back in the early part of the decade, but the sinking economy, coupled by the real estate sink hole, had left him once again riding the down elevator, a cardboard box of his “personal possessions” in his arms. Now he spent his time pecking out blog posts at $15 a pop and hunting up advertorial work.

A young woman was pushing her cart down the aisle toward Ben, her corpulent young boy lying motionless on the cart’s bottom rack like a sack of dog chow. Ben tipped his gray, Target® fedora at her and smiled. She did not smile back.

“This is an excellent sale on Wheat Thins,” Ben said, hazarding an ice breaker.

“My husband and I prefer Cheez It,” she responded. The boy farted his response, while rotating on the rack like a chicken in a rotisserie.  

Channeling Kerouac

I'm a bit under the weather today so here's a piece I came across while searching through some old files. I wrote this a few years ago after visiting the SF Public Library to see the original scroll of On the Road.

 

Colt squatted on his haunches, his back against the grimy, piss-stained concrete wall, coughing through his first cigarette of the morning. The ally behind the Grove St. Art Gallery and the office supply store had provided a night's shelter from the winds that now shook the potted trees in their large concrete planter boxes at the mouth of the ally.

He fit his bedroll into his rucksack and fished the deep pockets of his khakis for loose change; $1.87, enough for coffee and maybe some of yesterday's pie if the diner hadn't tossed it yet, but he'd have to hurry.

Hefting his rucksack he darted out of the ally and up Larkin St. to the Main Library. The public buildings had to allow access to the bathrooms, and he slipped past the day guard who eyed him with contempt but said nothing. Looks did not bother Colt anymore. Just another pair of eyes in a face he'd never see again.

The library bathroom was a popular spot for the Civic Center locals, but smells did not bother Colt anymore either. He took up a spot at an empty sink and stripped off his shirt to take his paper towel bath. With another wet towel he rubbed his face and teeth, then drank several cold handfuls before rinsing and spitting into the rusty sink; digging into his pack beneath the nickel notebooks and pencils for his last semi-clean shirt before running wet fingers through his tangle of greasy hair. Unable to locate his razor since he'd left the Y in Bakersfield three days ago, he would once again have to forego shaving. He studied himself in the mirror and frowned. A few days beard made him look mean. Not good when trying to score a hand out or a ride.

The bathroom was starting to take on more of Larkin Street's regulars so Colt grabbed a few handfuls of paper towel, stuffed them into his pack and made for the door. Heading for the stairs he paused and glanced into the Jewett Gallery, currently displaying thirty-six feet of Jack Kerouac's original manuscript of On the Road. Hovering around the long, glass display case were several college kids; wannabe hipsters complete with notebooks in the pockets of their expensive leather jackets. Colt smiled to himself and shook his head. Shifting the rucksack on his shoulders he turned and headed up the stairs. The guard tracked him with bored eyes until Colt pushed through the glass doors onto Grove Street. He hung a left on Hyde and ducked into the Sugar Plum Coffee shop.

"Cup of coffee-black," he said to the young Asian woman behind the counter, "And a slice of pie if you have any left."

The Bellhop – A short story

My recent fiction posting, A Warm Thanksgiving, got me re-reading a few of the other stories I've had posted on the SoMa Literary Review. One in particular, The Bellhop, still cracks me up.

Originally posted on this blog in April of 2006, back when I had only 2-3 readers as opposed to the 6-7 that I have today, I thought it was worth a rerun. I don't write much fiction, so any feedback is welcome.

And so ladies and gentlemen, without further ado, I give you The Bellhop.

    

"You wouldn't believe some of the shit that takes place in these big hotels." The Bellhop said as he lit his second cigarette. He offered one to the new guy as they stood out back on the loading dock. "I've worked here almost eight years now. I've been offered other jobs, better jobs they say. More money and all that shit, but those other jobs don't offer what this one does; stories; bellhops and room service attendants – the best jobs in the place for a writer."

***

"How long will you be staying with us, Mr. Jacobs?" asked the hotel desk clerk.

"As long as it takes to finish my business." The man answered.

Jacobs, a well trimmed man in his late thirties with thick, shoulder length brown hair, smiled at the desk clerk, a pretty young thing of twenty-two. He leaned on the counter, casually flirting with her without even being aware of it. The clerk handed him a key on a diamond shaped plastic ring. Jacob's enjoyed the old fashioned touch of an actual key instead of a plastic card.

"The bellhop will bring your suitcase up in a few minutes Mr. Jacobs. You'll be in room 1256. The elevators are around the corner to your right. Enjoy your stay."

Read the rest of The Bellhop.