Can I? (843 hits)
Category: UberMadness! EntryRating: 2 on 6 reviews (Rate this item) (V)
Submitted by Loren (View user info) at 2004-10-24 21:57:17 EDT
This post was an official UberMadness! entry. Click here to view the original matchup.
"Son of a bitch!" George yanked the steering wheel to his left, barely clearing the offending vehicle and simultaneously displaying a large middle finger from his right hand firmly in the direction of the elderly driver who had just cut him off, and was now speeding along the 45 mph access road at a whopping 12 mph.
"What in the hell business does a 200 year-old man have behind the wheel of a car?" He growled to himself. "Fucking hell."
30 minutes later, and with his blood pressure elevated to one-seventy over one-twenty, George pulled in to parking lot A and silenced the engine of his '98 Honda. Damn I miss that car, he thought, as he remembered the torque when he so much as tapped the gas pedal of his Lexus turbo. Hell, I enjoyed that ride.
Fucking prick is probably curled up in bed with *his* newspaper, he thought of his boss as he rolled up the New York Times Sunday edition, routinely tucking it under his arm as he strolled slowly toward the lobby entrance, recanting random scenes from Office Space.
He held his briefcase up to the electronic entry system and the doors unlocked with a small click.
And so did his briefcase.
October was a beautiful month. Brisk winds and clear blue skies were the recipe for his favorite weather. Today he could have done without the wind.
Fifteen minutes later, when George felt confident that the contents of his briefcase were recovered, he instinctually wiped the sweat off his forehead with the cuff of his jacket, and dumped a quarter of a cup of still scalding coffee from his travel mug down the side of his neck.
George sat in his chair and wheeled over to a clear space on his L-shaped desk. He opened his briefcase, emptying its contents and spreading them as much as the space would allow. Page by page he reorganized the paperwork of his life, at least as he knew it now. Office memos, crumpled lotto tickets, pay-stubs not nearly matching what he raked in prior to his .com disaster, and Wall Street Journal articles from the days when he could boast about his portfolio, which the attacks of 9-11 had rapidly depleted.
Then there it was - the manila envelope - the one he had been trying to bury, in more ways than just in his briefcase.
Can I do this? Can I? He thought. He had already started the day in fine form, so what the hell, he decided. It was time. He bended back the envelope's metal tabs, slipped the flap's hole over them and spilled out the glossy photos.
Laura's image in each one - a Laura he very suddenly looked upon as a total stranger. While he wasn't really surprised at what the pictures showed, he was surprised at intense pain that shot through him as he looked at the now undeniable proof. He had only hoped against hope he was wrong at the time he hired the young private detective to follow her.
"Sir, can I offer you a little somethin' I've learned from this job? Nine times out of ten, when someone hires me on matters of suspicion, so to speak, they already have their answer - inside. If it's photo album material you're after though, I'll take your money, no problem." George remembered the detective saying.
"No shit asshole," George thought. Wishing now he had said it to the detective. His stomach clenched and he pushed the stack aside and continued reorganizing his briefcase.
Keep. Toss. Keep. Toss. Fucking memos. I don't know why I even pretend to pay attention to them, company moral-boosting picnic in the parking lot? I'd rather lick dog shit from the tread on my tires... Gummy Bears, or rather one giant Gummy Bear, keep. Lotto tickets... one number circled here, two there, none there... last night's ticket. Where's that newspaper, no harm in another disappointment.
*****
George turned off copy machine, buttoned his still damp over coat, picked up his briefcase, which was now void of all but a manila envelope, and walked out of the office building in a mental haze that made him feel as if he was ten feet off the ground, and in danger of tripping over his newly acquired, Giraffe-like legs with every step he took.
He drove slowly and carefully home, paying no mind to the "it's-Sunday-I-need-to-go-to-the-pharmacy-for-Ben-Gay" population flooding the roadways and threatening to create a blood bath at every intersection and crosswalk. Thoughts of the past five years with Laura steadily flowed before his mind's eye.
Had he been in so much denial as to render him blind? He realized now that she stayed with him when things went to shit - at first because she believed he would pick himself up quickly and regain his financial status, but when that didn't happen, she had became more and more distant, emotionally and physically. He assumed now that she had remained only for lack of a back-up plan.
He had felt guilty. He believed he had become less of a man than he was when she first chose him. He could see it in her eyes and feel it in her touch, both growing colder with each passing month. During one of their recent drunken arguments Laura had broken down and screamed, "Stop feeding me your crap! You aren't going to be anything more than you are right now. You CAN'T DO IT!" He had felt ashamed, and realized now how he had been clinging to her like a lifeline, the only connection he had to any remaining sense of his self-worth.
It was all so clear now. All that time she was just looking for her next meal ticket. She was ashamed of him. It shouldn't have, and in hindsight, it didn't surprise him when the sex stopped and made way for countless excuses months ago. Her affection had depleted with his bank account. He had stopped asking. She had stopped making excuses. Seemed fair enough.
*****
Laura arrived home early that Sunday evening from a busy day of errands, salon appointments, and fucking. She slipped on her engagement ring and stepped into a dark apartment. Dark, save the lone dining room table chandelier, which illuminated an assortment of papers, neatly arranged in the middle of the table.
"Odd choice for a centerpiece George." She called out as she put her bags down, checked her lipstick, and smoothed her hair in the hall mirror. She continued down the hall, hiding the disappointment she felt that he hadn't still been at work.
She eyed the papers on the dining room table as she headed toward the kitchen and stopped. Turning slowly, she frowned in confusion. Confusion quickly turned to disbelief, and then to fear when she saw the images in the windows of the photographs.
Without touching anything, her eyes traveled to single sheet of paper just beyond the photographs, where the black and white copied images displayed a collage of a torn newspaper clipping of the prior night's winning lottery numbers - boasting an eighteen million dollar prize, a lottery ticket branded with George's signature last night's date and the six matching numbers, and a handwritten note which read, "Maybe I couldn't do it. But I can now, can't I? Now I can do it all."
User Reviews
Submitted by Rookie (user info) at 2005-05-19 22:29:48 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Die bitch die.
Submitted by rad1101 (user info) at 2005-05-08 13:10:48 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by YELLOW-MAN (user info) at 2005-05-08 13:03:54 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
sure why not
Submitted by c1ndy (user info) at 2005-05-08 13:03:52 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
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Submitted by howto (user info) at 2005-05-08 12:52:54 EDT (#)
Ranking: -2
You may!
Submitted by youarsoghey (user info) at 2005-01-16 11:39:33 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
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