I spoke with my niece some two months ago. I call her Deuce, Elaine Hopson II. I told her I had been writing a story inspired by the short stories she had let me read which were always so...real. She stated, "I'll be right over to get it Uncle Meredith!" Sure as she has ever been, a young lady of her word, I Love that young lady. She's in graduate school getting her Masters in English. Well, she called me back not three hours later saying, "When are you going to be finished with this Unc? I can't wait to read the rest of it," she said. "Soon Deuce. Soon," I said while smiling thinking of her lovely smile. "Well, promise that I will be the first to read it! Okay, Unc?" She said. "You will," I said. "Promise? Cause Neda is a bad girl! That story's the shit! Damn! Get finished sooner than soon! Kay?" She said excitedly. "I promise. Hollah back at me when you have the time," I said. "Fo sho! I love you Uncle Meredith," she said. "And I love you too Deuce. I'll hollah!" I said and we both rang off.
I hope you all like it My Dear Sweet Sistahs and Brothahs as she did or does. I'll finish it soon for all of you who do. I have a promise to keep for Deuce's sake. And here it be...
THE BEGINNING
(PSALM)
It’s easy being in and out of love at the same time. Anybody will tell you that one who has had the same feeling. All you want is the truth. That’s all. Good. Bad and everything in between. You see, people want to put a good face on things, and sure those same things may be hard at the time one gets them off their given shoulders but there is always a calm before and after a storm. A blissful refreshing air that fills the senses and the nose. But, and its always that but that gets in the way. People absolutely try to avoid inclement weather no matter what they do, but how can one judge what is beautiful weather without those cloudy rain washed skies, filled with thunderclaps and lightening? There is something to say about taking a raincoat and going out in the wetness, or just going out just like you are and walking under the angry heavens. Letting the rain wash over all of your body. Thinking about what is going on, being one with the environment. One has to get there proverbial feet wet, or how could one wash said feet, analogous spirit? Sometimes how I wish and hope for rain, to nourish the roots of my atrophied soul, so I may grow. And that’s where our little story starts…
ALWAYS SUNSHINE
CHAPTER I
It was raining outside, he looked at the gray day and hated having to go to work, but he had to for solvency sake. He had been broke so many times he couldn’t even count. Depending on people and those same people always making him pay in one way or another, every time he lost a little bit of himself, having to pacify, being a person who was seen but not to be heard.
You see it starts with something trivial, then when you look up that little voice has caused a reverberating echo which subsequently starts the avalanche and you had not a clue that minutia of what was said would cause such an outcome but with time you learn, just like any natural catastrophe you learn through experiences and time. And it doesn’t take a long time either. A human Geiger counter, calibrating every time an avalanche begins and ends, taking notations, extrapolating information and finally coming up with data which makes all the sense in the world, the solution being, “With silence, no avalanche will ever start.”
And he guessed that’s what he learned more than anything in the world, that with the knowledge of aforementioned data, he could get along with anyone he had to stay with until he had gotten on his feet. And with his hard head, that was sometimes a very difficult thing to do; alas, he did learn. Get along, or get the fuck out! His mantra when the little voice was expelled and he knew the subsequent fallout or outcome would be imminent. But sometimes he also learned that even when he had spoken in his little voice and the rumble started he could stave off the natural disaster with not saying another word, just by being silent. Wanting to have independent thoughts while being dependent was not conducive to said living conditions. No, one had to meld into one’s environment that another one let them stay or be in, and become a fixture in the environment, like a sofa, a comfortable chair…something comforting and nice to be around, stand up with the little time one had in said environment so the human fixture would not be purged. But just like any other fixture, it wore on him, he started eroding ever so slightly with every passing day which happens no matter the organic entity.
He smiled at the rain coming down, he loved the rain, he was used to the rain, it was his home. Rainy days seemed perpetual to him since his Father’s then his Mother’s passing. He learned to stop hating rainy days, learned to treat them like sunny days, because the rainy days had their moments of splendor, as crazy as that sounded to him. But it was true. He had learned how to love unconditionally in the rain, learned how to be a humble human being in the rain, learned how to cope in and with the rain and learned how to say goodbye in the rain.
He closed his eyes with a smile still on his face, thinking, wishing, and hoping. But all of those three things added up to nothing because he could not change the past, the only thing he could do was to keep keeping on. Live for no other reason because there was no other option save for the alternative which would come in its own time. For now, he lived, albeit, minute by minute, because he also learned during all the rainy days, he never knew what life would bring him the next minute. He lived this way because he figured he would be here longer in minutes than years and in his own reasoning, beating the odds and life itself with his final aggregate after his life had passed. Yes, minutes were a better tally than years, years were too damn long, too damn variant.
Chapter II (NEDA)
She had awakened to find herself in darkness, a little light flowing through her balcony’s doors. She wasn’t lonely just kind of disoriented from the long day she had. She shook her head from the absence of just now remembering of what happened when she had gotten home from work. Just being tired, that’s all she could attributed to, just fucking tired. And she guessed and surmised that she was tired, tired of working a nine to five and wondering when it would end. The only thing she could think of was that it would only end when she was six feet under like her parents that spent their whole life slaving, like she surely did everyday. There was no end to it. She looked up at her white ceilings in her two bedroom apartment, and thought again, when will it end? Oh, she was tired. Real tired. Was this the only thing she had to look forward to for the rest of her life? She definitely hoped not, but it was written in the cards a long time ago thousands of years before she was born. She had nothing to do with how life was and is. But she knew she could make her own life easier, facilitate her to some extent where she could sit back and relax, chill for awhile, think and vacate from the commoners that thought that life was nothing but work. Work, she had come to find out was a four letter word also, like, shit, damn, fuck, piss, life, evil…fuck it, it was all the same to her. Critical, it was getting serious.
She closed her eyes, just thinking about this life. No escape, a prison amongst the sky and the deep blue oceans, a globe of vacancy; an earth that has never given to the beings which had slaved to make it what it is outside her apartment walls and mind. She remembered her ex-husband, didn’t have a clue. He, thinking that his labor and his small mind would get him anyplace, the place where he eventually wanted to be working hard. She had found a long ago, that shit just wasn’t true, far from it. Filled with fillers that she was still coming up with to bring about some type of reasoning the justification of why some have and most don’t? And she didn’t and she couldn’t do a damn thing about it. Oh, she had heard all the good speak about busting your hump and one day…one day my ass, she thought to herself and continued staring at the various vague textures that she could make out on her ceiling with the little light from the post lights outside in the courtyard finding its way through her horizontal blinds. Sunrise not too far to awaken another day, a day she wished she could just close her eyes again and sleep. But she couldn’t do it, the Little One had to be awakened, and what a chore that was. Had to damn well lift her out of the bed to make her open her eyes, then after a little while of holding her she would be in full swing damn near bouncing off the damn walls, until the medication she would give her every morning would kick in, then it would be more tolerable until they shuffled to the Little One’s bus stop, and she could come back and maybe catch a forty-five minute nap until she had to do the same routine over again, go to work, get off, pick her child up from after school care, bring her home, both of them eat, remind her child of the homework, after giving her child a bath, getting the child in bed by 8:30 then she would have time to herself to sip some coffee and wish for a break in this monotonous life, then go to bed herself and when the alarm clock would sound start the shit all over again. Endless.
Happiness, what was it? She could only say now that she laid in the early break of morning, she honestly could say she was happy when she was in high school. Shit was out of fucking order but it made hella since. What seemed chaotic now seemed as tranquil and serene as the beautiful sunset she viewed along the lake in Cleveland that one spring day she had traveled through there while she drove the many highways getting away for awhile for life. She took out her camera and used up a whole roll of film on that sunset as it dropped in the paint stroked orange and red sky the sun was highlighting with its rays. Seemed as long ago as when she was a child yet happened only some four years ago when her marriage was horrible. Contemplating time and time again to free herself from her co-dependent state, and finally some three years later, making her way to the prison wall and going over, finally liberated, the bob-wire scraping her up some but it was worth it. If it had razor thin wire on the barbs she would have damned near killed herself going over. She couldn’t take it any longer under any circumstances no more. Uh-uh! She smiled now while she thought, dreading to start another day. The travails that had brought her to this point in her life
Chapter III (JACK)
There’s nothing to say really. When he looked at everything that was in front of him and now that he sat back and looked at his marriage, now near divorce. All he could do was to look down at the paper that needed to be signed lying in front of him which needed to be witnessed in front of the mediator and his soon to be ex-spouse, saying to himself, “Just sign the damn thing!” But he was having trouble, picking his left hand up, then having to pick the pen up, he could probably do both actions but he knew eventually that would lead him to why he did both of those actions, and he didn’t honestly think he could do the third action once the other two had been carried out, what his reasonable mind was telling him to do, “Just sign the damn thing!”...
Chapter IV
And since he lived minute by minute, it was 5:59am and if he didn’t get started in the next minute his ass would be late for work
It took him a good hour and a half to get ready. He didn’t know why, maybe some type of OCD he was carrying around for years. Usually he would wake at 4:49 but today when he had awakened it was raining and he just lay there enjoying the sounds of the rain and thinking. He had ironed his clothes the previous night so all he had to do was to drink his coffee, smoke cigarettes until the urge for him to shit would come; then he would take a shower, dress and be out the door. It was a kind of a ritual with him. He couldn’t possibly take a shower before he had a bowel movement. He had done that before and had to jump his ass back into the shower after the stool had passed. He had found out in the morning all he had to do was to have time to drink a couple of cups of coffee along with five to six cigarettes; and voila, the pressure would come; splish, splash! And the day was starting off right. If he did not shit before he went to work, he would have to hold it until he had gotten off and that just wasn’t comfortable at all. No, feeling bloated all day, sitting at a desk because he just couldn’t shit just anywhere, wasn’t a good thing at all. He only shat where he lived or was able to spend the night, where he considered his home. He didn’t know where this practice had started but that was just the way that his system worked. Now, if he had the runs…well…that was an exception, he wasn’t gonna go around with shit in his drawers all day, niggah had his limits.
The rain was still coming down when he left out of his apartment complex at 7:45 . It only took him five minutes to get to work, he only living less than a mile from his job. He lived in downtown Indianapolis . His work was also located in downtown Indianapolis . Sometimes he would walk to work if he got up at the usual time but today he had taken the time to soak in his environment; so he had to drive to get there on time. He wished that Neda would be there but he knew she had an appointment with the mediator for her dissolution of marriage; so his morning would suck until she arrived. She was a hoot. She would say any damn thing she wanted to say but somehow she would get away with it to whomever she spoke with; he was fond of her very much. She was the type of woman he wanted to smoke some good green with and listen to her life's story. She was someone he always wanted to be like, a free spirit. Plus she wasn’t hard on the eyes at all. She was a white woman but a very cool one. He knew she probably grew up with or around Black people. She would crack him up when she would say, “Psalm, you are a cool mother fucker man! A cool mother fucker!”
And as he pulled into the parking garage he was hoping she would not be too long in coming in. Blue Mondays and shit. And people called in claims by the truckload on a Monday. She would make the day tolerable to say the least. “Neda if you can hear me girl? Hurray your ass up! Make my fuckin day! Please!” He said to himself as he passed through the doors of his job, shaking the rain off just a little and hit the elevator “UP” button. Got in, hit six. And closed his eyes preparing himself for a long ass day.
Chapter V
…He loved her. No doubt about that! Drink her dirty bath water and then some. But he knew the gig was up! No doubt about that either. He remembered when he was trying to get himself some, that night; that’s what he called it now, “That Night,” when things had gotten to the point there was no hope, no real reason to try to get her to stay or to try to make her love him. She had said with frustration, “Look Jack! I don’t want to fuck you anymore! Shit turns my stomach something terrible! I just can’t do it any longer! Damn!” He was shocked. More than shocked, she hadn’t said make love to you anymore or any other politically correct discreet put down, no she said the word, fuck! Harsh words. Meaningful words for sure. Then he remembered her continuing, “Look, you can go and fuck anybody you want, I just can’t fuck you anymore!” And he couldn’t believe it, there it was again, fuck? What the fuck? His head was spinning. Hit his ass right in the solar-plexus! He remembered the Batman series when they would put the words up on the screen, “Pow! Whappp!...” He saw another one as clear as he did when he used to watch them as a child, “Oooomph!” Hurt like hell! He wanted to throw up, he was feeling so nauseous! And she just couldn’t stop there she continued, “Look, that’s why I suck your dick all the time. But I can’t even stomach that any longer. Taking you fifteen to thirty minutes to get off! My jaws just can’t take it any longer nor can I live with myself! I love you, I just don’t love or like fucking or sucking you anymore! I mean, we can stay married and shit. I love being married but you need to find somebody else to feed your needs because I’m done with that shit!” And with that she went out of the bedroom and left him there with a stiff member getting ever so flaccid quickly; reminding him of the Pac-Man sound, “Whurrrr-whurrr-whurr-whomp-whomp!” You’re done son! Game over! He was up all that night thinking. It never occurred to him that a year and a half had past without he and his wife having any type of coital activity. He would perform cunnilingus on her and he was sure she would have an orgasm and then he would try to mount her and she would stop him and say, “It’s my turn.” Performing fellatio on him until he was satisfied and weak, both afterward going to sleep. He had missed coital activity but now he realized what was going on all along, “I don’t want to fuck you anymore!” Just now she expressed
it to him in a way he could not blow off any longer. He kind of smiled about the last thought, that sour pun that just went through his mind. But he had to smile about it given the circumstance because he didn’t mean to think up the witticism but maybe it was apropos, some type of cruel serendipitous happenstance of conscience thought.
Here he was a year and a half later trying to pick up the damn pen. When he first got married he believed like his Mom and Dad believed, “…for better or worse; richer or poorer…until death due us part…” And all the other vows contained therein The Good Book he had taken in front of God and Man. And he guessed he would not be sitting here if he would have taken her up on her offer to go and meet his sexual needs elsewhere. That Night was not the only time she had stated that to him, she had said it to him on several of conversations later and she was serious as cancer. But he was a man and she was his wife and he for damn sure was going to make love to his wife. And he remembered expressing those same words to her and she said, “Well then…Fuck it! I’m leaving your ass!”
“Why? What the fuck is wrong with me? What the fuck is wrong with you? And when did all of this happen? Who the fuck are you fucking?” He said
“Typical goddamned male response! I should have expected with your manly man ass! You had not a clue Jack of the signs…”
“Oh, so you are fucking someone else,” he said cutting her off.
“Will you please let me finish my statement before you interject! Just like I said before typical male response! As I was saying, before I was so rudely interrupted, you didn’t see the signs and you didn’t give a damn Jack! After Sarah was born something happened, I don’t know what it was, but I just didn’t have any sexual feelings. For some reason I just didn’t want to have sex, it had nothing to do with you it was just something within me. I don’t know what it was. Maybe it was some type of post-partum depression or some shit! We didn’t have any money back then, we were living paycheck to paycheck so we couldn’t afford for me to go see a doctor or therapist. If you don’t remember, you and I had no health insurance and John and Sarah were on Medicaid. And there you were always trying to put your dick in my face or fuck me. And since I am your wife I felt obligated to have sex with you but I didn’t enjoy it at all. Do you really think I wanted to fake it until, for some miracle, I snapped out of it and now see you as the sexual lovely creature I used to perceive you as before. I was telling you over and over the many times we did it that I didn’t want to do it and you just had to force the issue and I felt obligated because I am your wife. Somehow I started hating you for that because you never asked me what was the matter? You just wanted to get what you wanted, or get what you thought was your possession and damn what I was feeling! I’m a human being damnit! And through the last five, really seven years of our marriage I have been terribly depressed. And as far as sex with you I don’t want to do it because I hate it. I hate it because you never took the time to ask me. I feel dirty somehow for doing it the many times over the years and felt as though I had no name, no identity, no human characteristic
whatsoever save for being Your Wife and doing my wifely duties no matter how I feel or felt. Don’t you understand?” She said.
“No I don’t understand at all…”
“Mr. Officer…Mr. Officer.” The mediator, James Jones, said.
“Jack! Jack! What the hell’s wrong with you?” Neda asked irritatingly.
“Yes?” Jack responded trying to orient himself.
“The document Mr. Officer. Mrs. Officer and I have been sitting here for at least three minutes. She has not contested anything she has given all of the possessions the both of you acquired together to you. All you have to do is sign the document. Unless there is something not present that needs to be addressed?” The mediator said.
Jack looked up again at his soon to be ex-wife and the mediator with tears starting to come down his face and said, “I don’t think I can do it.”
“I’ll be shit!” Neda shouted in disgust.
Chapter VI
At the exact time Psalm was thinking about Neda, Neda was getting pissed; from her toes on up to the ends of her curly tresses. She had gotten to the mediator’s office on time, 7:30 by some grace of God because Sarah had a bad fuckin morning. But she would have been damned if her daughter was going to drag ass today like she usually did so Neda
would have to take her to school after missing the bus. Hell no! “You’re going to get on that bus today child! Hook or crook, your Father is done!” She’d been waiting too long for this day, and today was today of liberation! “Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty…Free at last!”
But Sarah calmed down after about fifteen minutes of taking the Concerta. Then it was smooth sailing except for the minor usual complaints from Sarah. She got her on the bus, she had already taken a shower before she woke Sarah up, she was dressed even. Imagine that. So today started off like it should have, and the rain didn't bother her at all on her way downtown. It could have been a deluge coming down and it wouldn't have mattered, soon as that mother fucker signed the paper, the sun was going to shine, through those clouds which hung ominously above her as she drove, shinin on her white ass.
But things never went that smoothly. She knew freedom came with a price. Always has and it always will. Here this bastard is just sitting up there looking down at the damn paper. Hadn't even picked up the pen yet. What the fuck? "Pick up the pen and sign it fucker! Pick it the fuck up! Or I'll pick it up my damn self and sign it for you!" She was thinking in her head going batshit from this scene before her. What the hell did he do go to sleep? She looked down at her watch, she didn't really care what time it was she just needed something to do before she blew the fuck up! She was at number eight and trying her damndest not to get to number ten because the time bomb in her would explode and it wouldn't be nothin nice. Nothin nice at all.
She remembered when she was tired, just tired of sucking his damn dick. She had gotten to that point because she couldn't stand him being inside of her, she couldn't bare to look at him, gruntin and sweatin on her, not givin a damn that she wanted to be anywhere but where she was, lying with her legs apart and he inside her. Started making her nauseous, for real. Then she came up with the idea of just jerking and sucking him off, but that started taking it's toll. She started feeling like a prostitute each time she did it because she wasn't nor didn't get anything out of it. Her hands and mouth on auto-pilot as her mind was off to the places she wanted to visit with Sarah: Ireland, Italy, Montreal...when she ran out of the places she wanted to visit, to see and to experience, even going as far as to look up places on the Internet to keep her mind from being in the moment, between his legs, she probably thought of every city and town in the world over the past three years, the night before she told him, she knew it would be the last time sucking his damn dick! The reality started sinking in of what she was doing and how she felt doing it and she said for the first time in her mind, and it was such a calming force and voice, "Fuck this shit! Get a good one mother fucker because this will be the last with me! I's gives a damn!" She just wanted to be anyplace but in the same room with him touching her or she having to touch him.
And the next night, when he tried like usual to fuck her, she was so curt it even shocked her how it came out. But she didn't care any longer. She had to find herself. She had to feel again, with or without him. So be it! A-the-fuck-men!...
She looked down at her watch again, a minute and some change had passed. What the fuck is wrong with him? Just sign the damn paper damnit! She was at number nine, still holding it together. But the notch was perilously approaching ten! The fuck! Sign the damn paper! This is why she decided to leave him too. Couldn't make a decision to save his life. Wanted to take his time and life passing so quickly bye. He would listen to her about finances, the running of the household...but when it came down to the bedroom that's where his listening stopped and his other head kicked in.
But he learned. Learned in a very bad way she remembered like it was yesterday she had said to him, "Look Jack! I don't want to Fuck you anymore! That's what it feels like I'm doing, fucking! Feel like some damn prostitute! Shit turns and has been turning my stomach for years now! I just can't take it any longer!" And the look on his face was worth every damn word. Do I have your attention now mother fucker, Mister gottah get my rocks off at any cost because I'm your wife and you can fuck me any time you damn well please? Well I got some more for yah! "Damn this thing here and you! Look you can go and fuck anybody you want, just don't try this shit with me any more. I can't fuck or suck you one more time! We can stay married, I like being married. But this sex business with you...Ugh!" And with that she walked her ass out of the bedroom and slept on the couch, and did so until she left that ass! Oh, yes she did!
He just had to keep pushing the issue the next two weeks. Asking her different things in conversations, well really arguments, thats all they had after that; pure, unadulterated, mean spirited arguments. Saying to her in so many words, you're my wife and Im going to fuck you whenever I please because you are my wife and I can! Shiiiit! She had enough of that shit! And she had said so coldly, with finality, "Well then...fuck you! Fuck this marriage! Fuck your nasty dick and your god-awful smelly hairy balls! Just fuck it! I'm leaving your sorry ass!" Which a year of separation and...
"Mr. Officer? Mr. Officer?" James Jones, the mediator said.
Neda instantly looked down at her watch again, what the fuck man? What did he do, fall asleep or some shit. Didn't even budge from the man calling him. Fuck this, wake your ass up or quit daydreaming whatever you doing! Neda's patience were gone.
"Jack! Jack! What the hell's Wrong with you?" She asked ready to reach over and slap some sense or life into him just long enough so he could sign the paper then he could go back to sleep, daydream, jack-off she didn't give a damn! Just sign the damn paper!
"Yes?" Jack said looking all spaced out and shit. The fuck's wrong with him?
"The document Mr. Officer. Mrs. Officer and I have been sitting her for at least three minutes. She has not contested anything. She has given all of the possessions the both of you acquired together to you. All you have to do is sign the document. Unless there is something not present that needs to be addressed?" The mediator said.
Addressed? Nothing else better not need to be, "Addressed?" Neda said to herself with derision. Fuck that! He should have thought of that shit in the last six months, Indiana and their, "Thinking over period" or what ever they called that stupid shit. She had thought about it for the past eight years. She didn't need anymore time to wonder if she was doing the right thing or not! Hunh! Damn that! Neda was at nine point five! And there he goes again with that weird look on his face, Neda thought. Just sign the damn paper and be done with this! He looked at her. Then looked at the mediator. Then, oh Lord, she noticed the tears!
"I don't think I can do it." Jack said.
Hello, number Ten!
"I'll be shit!" Neda stated in disgust. Stood up quickly and just as quickly began to lunge over the table at her soon to be, maybe dead, ex-husband...
Chapter VII
“Thank you for calling Encompass, this is Psalm. How may I facilitate you today?” He said, wanting to gag. He looked at the little icon of the clock on his computer screen, 8:25 AM . The sixth captured call he had received since arriving at eight o’clock , when he first put his headset on, signed in and hit the “READY IN,” icon and the first little beep sounded in his right ear preparing him that a call was coming to him. The other five were all the same, property damage. There had been a terrible wind and thunderstorm in the state of Florida , and the Call Center in that region was getting inundated with claim calls so they were being rerouted to the Indianapolis Call Center . It was going to be a long day indeed.
He usually would look at the local and national news so he would know what his day was going to be like based on any natural disasters, or severe weather that had happened Sunday, since Saturdays the four regional Call Centers located in the various regions of the country were open, Sundays the company being closed. Sunday had not been a good day at all in the southeast, they had gotten hammered by a tropical storm which affected the state where his employer wrote the most policies; ergo, claims were coming in by, literally, the thousands. Even the Unit Managers allocated to be on the phone, which he was very pleased with, “Get some you!”
He looked directly at the cubicle station across from him, empty. Wondering where in the world Neda was? They usually, even on days like this, would make it more tolerable of a
horrendous phone day, by giving each other known eye contact. Maybe rolling their eyes at one another and each understanding what the other was going through, then smiling at one another, still servicing the call. Shaking their heads at one another saying with non-verbal understood communication, “This mah fuckah needs tah quit it!” Or, “I can’t believe this insurer? Wait until I tell you about this!” All he could do today until she arrived was to just hang the fuck on and try his best to give “Quality Customer Service,” without going the fuck off at the irrational claimants pounding him and his other co-workers with unrealistic expected callbacks from the claim representatives. It was balls to the walls today and everyone, including the claimants, was going to hurt.
Between his third and forth call, he had taken a little bit of extra ACW, After Call Work, to take a look at his email and found out that the region was already deemed a CAT. Which meant was considered a catastrophe, which meant major losses, which meant Encompass was not too pleased with the amount of money they would deal out in the next day, weeks or months subsequently. They were trying to mitigate their damages too. Already holding meetings to see what they could screw the insurers out of, what they were due, based on their individual damages to the plethora of abodes and properties. A Cat team had already been assembled and had been sent into the region assessing damages and probably writing checks to the various claimants.
He was on autopilot, listening and typing. The various screens he had to pull up to input the claims into the computer were very user friendly, automatically tabbing to the next space crucial to be filled in. He looked at the small icon of time again, 8:30 AM as he gave the insurer the proper callback information, within 24 hours, but he knew that was a joke. The various claim reps like everybody else at old Encompass was getting their asses taxed, underpaid and overworked. The mah fuckahs would be lucky if they got a callback within 48 hours. But that wasn’t his job, his job was doing what he was doing, customer service; ergo, good speak; ergo, pacifying his ass off. “…And thank you for calling Encompass.” He hit “Ready Out.” Looked at the time, 8:32 AM . “Where in the fuck was Neda,” he asked himself as he did his ACW, finishing up entering the claim into the computer. He had about another hour and a half until his scheduled break, fuck that! He needed one now, needed nicotine like nobody’s business that was for sure! He hoped Neda would be in before too long, he didn’t know how much longer he could hold it together. He closed his eyes hard, then opened them. Hit the “READY IN,” button. No sooner he did that, the beep sounded. “Thank you for calling Encompass. This is Psalm. How may I assist you today?” Shit! Would it ever end? And as the insurer started giving him their information on their claim he started thinking, “My ass has to start looking for another gig! I can’t take this shit too much longer! And Neda would you please get here-the-fuck-soon!”
Chapter VIII
At the exact time Neda lunged, two things happened. The first, Jack reacted like a cat and got as far away from the table and Neda’s fury as he possibly could get because he had seen that fury and his wife, well soon to be ex-wife, was a formidable force, very. The second thing that transpired was James Jones was taken aback. He had witnessed some shit in his four years of doing this boring ass, but now not so boring, job. The quickness and agility of the woman astonished him. He was almost speechless but he managed to yell out, “I need ah officer! I need ah officer!” But for those two actions, especially the last, Jack would have been carried out on a stretcher either dead or half dead Neda would never know, because as soon as she heard the mediator hollering in mortification those two statements, which took her off guard because she had never heard her married name used in that fashion, she had jerked around to see if he was serious, and he was and she broke down on the table and started laughing raucously.
James Jones was totally perplexed looking at this stunning woman, who just a second ago was going to tear her significant other a new asshole, now she lie on the conference table rolling unabashedly with childish laughter. With tears rolling out of her eyes no less! Total madness! He wasn’t paid enough for this insanity! He looked at Jack and Jack looked at James Jones with a look that said, “What can I tell yah?” And since James Jones had gotten no comfort from Jack he turned back to the Beautiful woman rollicking. James Jones thought he was in a dream. Total craziness.
James Jones finally got his composure back, he had to bring a certain sense of closure to this lunacy. So he straightened his sport jacket and said, “Mrs. Officer this is totally inappropriate! Totally! And if this continues, I must seek outside aide in a law enforcement official to bring to rest this dissolution swiftly!”
Neda heard the words and stopped laughing instantly. Now that’s what I’m talking about, she thought. Bring in the whole fucking IMPD and then some. Shit, she was tired. Been workin Monday through Friday at Encompass, then at Clip-N-Snip on Saturday and Sunday just to make ends meet. And this fool fuckin 'round! She slid off the table and slipped on her shoes which she inadvertently or purposefully had flipped off.
Then looked at James Jones calmly and said, “Eight years mother fucker. Eight years. Do you understand James? Then six more months to bring an end to this shit. And you sit there talking about “addressed?” Nothing the fuck needs to be fucking addressed with your stupid ass, fucked up, gay, pink bow tie on. I want the fuck out. Do you understand me James? If bringing, as you call, a law enforcement official into this room to facilitate this bastard signing this fucking piece of paper? Then I proffer you go get one, two, three, or however many expeditiously. And let me get along with my life. But if he doesn’t sign that goddamned paper in the next five minutes, the whole Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department will not be able to stop me from what I need to do. “There is no fury like a woman scorned,” and the depths of hell will arise in this very office.”
Neda calmly sat back into the chair from whence she had jumped out of, and set coolly, looking straight ahead, out the window, at downtown Indianapolis, at freedom, just beyond her grasp; while the gatekeeper jiggled his keys; and she ready to pounce the fuck out of the cage, as soon as he put the key into the lock. The tumblers turning and signed the damn paper. And if he didn’t…well…there would be hell to pay! He best believe that shit! Hell-to-fucking-pay!
Chapter IX (Sarah)
“Sarah, now pay attention now,” Ms. Flanders, Sarah’s second grade teacher, said for the third time in the last 15 minutes and most of the girls and little boys in the class giggled very quietly.
“Oh, Pooh,” Sarah said under her breath. She used the word all the time when she was frustrated, mad or disappointed. She always liked the sound of it somehow. It came out so smoothly and effortlessly, plus she never had gotten in trouble for using it. It was her little bad word, which every one accepted and no one used it like her. It was her word. And she indulged in it whenever she felt it appropriate, which was often.
“Pooh,” again she stated a little more softer under her breath, as she looked down at her fingernails, picking at them as for something to do with her hands. Hands, she oft times found very hard to keep still, her feet as well, and her legs…well…really her whole body. Something always had to be moving for some reason. She never understood it. But for her it was quite normal. Why wouldn’t those things always want to move? She often times asked herself rhetorically. That’s why she had joints and muscles. Parts of the body were made to be moved, not stay idle, or why would she have joints and muscles? Like her mouth? What good was her voice if she couldn’t use it? Why did she even learn how to talk if she couldn’t say what she wanted to say when she wanted to? It just didn’t make any sense to her. Everyone always telling her to calm down, sit down, stay quiet, pay attention…Oh, pooh she thought and smiled ever so slightly, amusing herself, oblivious now to what was going on around her.
Chapter X (Peter)
“What’s your name again,” He asked sitting in her barber’s chair liking the hell at what he was looking at. But she didn’t know it. They never knew it. He prided himself on it. He had one word to tell these other inferior, pitiful souls: construction.
“Neda,” she informed him as she put the hair drop cloth around his neck, securing it with a barbering pin, so that the loose cut hair would not get on his clothes or between is clothes or on his skin. “I know! I heard it all believe me,” she said in the good natured way she always possessed.
“I understand,” he stated being the con artist that he was so adept at. Reel these stupid fucking bitches in and then feed the need. It was like four play, shit better than that, it was orgasmic! “My name is Peter. Can you imagine what I went through in high school? It was criminal, let me tell yah.” He stated like an adept actor playing his perspective role extemporaneously.
“Right! You understand then!” She said as she smoothed out the hair cloth making sure no hair would get on any part of his skin or inside his shirt. “Everybody thinking it is pronounced, Neadah, like head, but with an N and an Ah at the end! You know what I mean?” She said getting ready like she usually did for the consultation to see how this client wanted his hair to be cut.
Speaking of head, cause it was the third time she commented on how nicely shaped his head was proportioned to his body, he thought, I need mine polished right now! And kind of laughed to him self because he was God, this sheep, well ewe, had no idea what God had planned for her. It was written in the good book so long ago, as soon as he felt the power he needed to enact upon her. Oh, Sweet lovely child of mine! Yes, you will serve me well, he thought to himself while keeping that same convincing, charming, “Oh, look at me. I’m so non-threatening," eminence about him, which he had honed over the past five years.
“Interesting,” he said, “But pronounced Need-ah! Like I Need-ah shave. Or in this case, I Need-Ah haircut.”
“You got it man. But however people say it either correctly or incorrectly it’s alright with me because when I was old enough to realize the problem, I knew my name was going to be a problem. You know what I mean? So screw it!” She said after taking the last stroke of her fine toothed comb through his hair and addressing him so he may tell her how he would like his hair cut.
“I definitely understand, Need-ah. Think about Peter and how cruel junior high and my high school cohorts could have been?” He said amicably. “It wasn’t a pleasant experience at all,” he said even though his was nee Adam Odom Leary. People calling him AOL and asking him questions about, “Why is your service so slow?” Very funny mother fuckers. But those were people he worked with, that knew him so he would give a good hearty guffaw, being as normal and as good natured as he could be. But to this Angel, he would be good old Irish Peter McLeary. Close enough where he wouldn’t slip up and forget the bait he had to lay out to reel this Indiana catch in.
He was a professional angler. Men would ask all the time, given the kind of men that he had met on the numerous construction sites he had been on, “You do any fishing AOL?” He would smile inwardly, he being God only knowing the true meaning of his response, “I absolutely love it. I call myself a quasi-professional of the sport, if you will.” Would be his retort at the plethora of times he was asked. The women he had met working on the various construction sites did not come close to the Angels he had to possess and send to his pure Heaven. Devils incarnate! But this one…she would be a fine catch indeed. She was thick, maybe outweighing him by five or ten pounds or so, and she definitely was taller than he, maybe five-ten, five-eleven. He was five-eight and in his wet clothes would only get, if he were lucky, close to 155 pounds. But he wasn’t worried about controlling her, what was God without wrath? She would just have to feel his wrath like all of the rest if she did not succumb to his heavenly presence, then he would have to result to his ominous strength and power. He ruled supreme.
“So how do you want your hair cut Peter?” she asked still smiling. And he noticed the green mischievous eyes this woman named Need-ah possessed, dancing with malfeasance.
“Well Need-ah. Cut it kind of close on the sides, leave the length on top as it is. And trim up the back a little but don’t take too much off.” He said.
“So…you wannah keep the Mullet?” She asked without a hint of sarcasm. But he snapped his head in her direction just the same and narrowed his eyes just slightly as she just looked at him waiting. He noticed she wasn’t being condescending to him so he said, “Is that what my hairstyle has become? I’m sorry I spend so long away from my wife and children trying to provide the best way I can, I guess I’m not up on the latest hairstyles.”
“Listen,” Neda started, “Whatever you want. I’m not trying to bust your balls or anything like that Peter, but just in case you didn’t know, mullets have been out of style for some time now but hey, maybe they’ll make a swift comeback. You know what I’m sayin? So, I just want to make sure, short on the sides, just trim the top and I don’t dare mess with the back?”
“Could you do that for me Neda? That would be just fine.” He said.
“Mullet you want? A mullet you get. You know what I mean?” Neda said and began doing what she was trained to do, to cut hair and reserve the damn anachronistic style this Peter, should be named Dick, was requiring her to do sans her barbering judgment.
“Thank you Neda,” he said. Thinking she was going to have to pay dearly for her transgressions of questioning God.
He made small talk as she cut here and there. He had found out she was a nearly divorced woman. She had only one child; who, every Friday was picked up at after school care by her Grandmother to let Neda have some time to her self. She was an open book just talking freely because just like any professional angler, one had to know the various bait to use to lure and catch the prize fish. And this one was going to be a prize catch.
The one thing he found out assuredly was that women being single parents were rabbits of habits; could set your clock to their rituals. It had been two weeks surveying Neda. He looked down at his watch, 7:10am . He looked up, and what do you know? Neda and her child going to the bus stop and the bus idling there while other children got on the school bus. Her daughter, Sarah, he thinks was her name, if he could remember correctly, walking hand and hand with Neda. He also noticed that Neda already had on her work clothes which meant she was going in early. Yes, today was going to be her judgment day. And he damned well prayed she was waiting to meet his equal.
Chapter XI
Jack knew as soon as it came out of his mouth and the response he heard, that Neda was ready to hurt somebody. His soon to be ex-wife had a terrible temper and could knock a motha-fuckah out. For real!
“I’ll be shit,” is what he heard and he also did two things: One, he got the fuck out of the chair. And two, got as far as he possibly could away, in the confines of the room, from his soon to be ex-wife's wrath. Because if Neda got to him he knew from two, early in their marriage, incidences that Neda was not to be fucked with and he might have to find a weapon, a chair to throw at her or something, to at least incapacitate her, if he could be so lucky.
The first incident happened just one month into their marriage. He was jaw jacking to her that, “No wife of mine is going to be coming in all hours of the night all the time!”
”It’s not all the time Jack. It was with my girlfriends. I just need to get away sometimes and be around women. You want to watch teevee, talk about sports, talk about godforsaken hunting and if all else fails the ubiquitous, “Let’s go have sex.” So romantic.”
“Fuck you! You better start respecting me as a man!”
“Don’t start this. Please. I’m tired. You’re probably tired. Let’s just go to bed. Okay?”
He remembering being so incensed by her not respecting the things he was telling her about and she acting like he hadn’t said a thing, so he said, “Fuck that! You are my wife and you are not running the streets like some whore.” But for the last part he probably would have been fine. He still thought about that night, when he found out about a woman’s strength. He remembered seeing her eyes turn a fluorescent green, almost unreal, but he didn’t notice it until it was too late.
She had closed the distance between the two of them, now she, instead of being across the room by the front door; she stood three feet from him, looking him almost eye to eye. Eyes blazing, he thinking her eyes looked so sexy. But kept with the hard role. She said calmly, “Jack, don’t you ever insinuate or say anything to the like again about me. Do you understand me Jack?”
The fuck she thinks she is? Fuck you, he thought to himself. The nerve, a wife being so disrespectful to her husband, a man of course being the head of the household, naturally and biblically. “Well that’s what you are acting like, a bitch and a whore,” and as he said the last five words, he had leaned forward and pointed at her, taking his index finger and jabbing it into her left shoulder two times, after bitch and after whore, for emphasis sake. He had not realized that with the two pokes Neda had closed the space to under two feet that stood in between them.
“Jack. Let me tell you three things. And please take note of the three things I’m getting ready to inform you of learning how to treat me. Okay," She began so calmly. "First, don’t ever call me a bitch again. Second, don’t ever call me a whore again or any other vile name. My name is Neda and I should be addressed as such. The third, and the most important thing is, don’t ever touch me again while you are mad or upset. You keep those three things in mind and you won’t get hurt.”
Hurt? Was she out of her mind? She was as tall as he but he had about fifty more pounds of flesh and muscle on her. Plus he was a man and ain’t no damn woman was ever going to beat him. Soon as she threw a punch he would just subdue her, hold onto her until she got over the silly notion she could actually hurt him. She needed to be taught a lesson, and his Daddy often told him that with women, “You got to train them often and early. After that you won’t have any problems out of 'em.”
And let the lesson one begin. He didn’t have to lean over this time; she was a little closer for some reason. So he stuck out his index finger and was extending his right hand to jab as he started to say, “Okay, you are a bitch,” he felt his index finger touch her shoulder then a second later he realized his index finger somehow was pointing back at him at an impossible grotesque angle. And a millisecond after the thought the pain came shooting up his arm and that was when he realized Neda had broken his index finger. Before he could get a good scream out from the pain, because he was going to scream, just like a woman because the pain was horrible, never had felt anything like it in his life, she had stepped in, he saw her forearm cock back and just as swiftly plow into his chest sending him backwards onto the floor, the scream stopped momentarily from the breath expelled from his lungs by Neda’s blow and follow threw. Then it all just went black.
Next thing he knew he was in the emergency room at Johnson County Memorial, looking up at the insanely bright lights, thinking, someone needs to dim the fuck out of these lights! And my fuckin right hand is killing me!
Chapter XII
Neda had went from number ten to zero in no time at all. She just stared out the window at the Indianapolis rain soaked skies, thinking. Still aware of her surroundings, using her peripheries to calculate her environment like she always did. Jack over to her left still looking at her hesitantly wondering if she would pounce on his ass if he relaxed. She wanted to give him a smirk but today wasn’t the day for that shit, straight business today, no time to enjoy herself one last time. Old Mr. Jones finally sitting his ass down feeling confident things would go smoothly now the tension had come and gone but Jack knew better. But he didn’t have anything to worry about as long as he set his ass down and signed the damn paper. If not, Neda would be at number ten in no time flat and fire and brimstone would rain down in this very room, and hell would be doled out in the form of a five-eight one-hundred and forty pound hurricane named Neda. Shiiiit! They better recognize. She was thinking of all of the different scenarios that could be played out and calculating her plans for every single one of them. But she knew, if he did not sign that fuckin paper she would go to jail today. Oh, yes she would, because someone was going to get disfigured and it wasn’t going to be her, she knew that in her heart.
To take her mind off the situation at hand she started thinking of Psalm. He was a funny mother fucker. She almost smiled thinking of him. She was smitten with him. No man had ever made her feel the way he did. Something Beautifully tingly happened to her when he was around her or like now, when she thought of him. He was a special man. Many times in the last six months she had fantasized of him just taking her in his arms and making love to her. Usually men would disgust her because she knew all wanted one thing, to get in her pants. But not him. She never caught him even glancing at her ample bosom or apple bottom derriere. He would lock eyes with her in conversation and she just found that…well…sexy as hell. He was a confident man, a very handsome man but had not a clue of how attractive he really was. Which made him even more attractive and sexy to her. White or Black, any woman would be attracted to him. And she had to stifle a smile again so the business at hand would be finalized. So she could get on with her life. So she could get to know that Beautiful man like she always wanted to since meeting him. Made her warm all over. Fine ass man. Uhm!
Jack had not set his ass down yet. And Neda’s ire was starting to rise, albeit, slowly. She was at maybe number two. “Just calm your ass down girl. Be cool! Everything will be all right!” She kept saying over and over in her mind. Because everything would be just fine. If he would just sign the goddamned paper! As she edged over to number three.
(to be continued…)
Peace! More to come...
