The sun blared through Malcolm’s window as he slapped through the air looking for
his alarm clock next to the bed – the dream clouding in his head. Slamming his hand
into the sleep timer, he rolled over with a grunt, grabbing at the end of the sheets.
He quickly wrapped himself into a burrito and tried to get back to sleep.
“Hey, asshole, go shower up, we work in an hour.” Steven said, rubbing his head.
“We’re gonna be late.”
Mal unfurled himself from the comforter to see his room, a warzone of beer bottles
and a dead handle of Captain from the night before. “Dude, how much did we drink
last night?” His head spun for a second from getting up too fast and he landed back
on the pillows.
Steven, still pirate-eyed and head pounding, began counting dried-up bottles.
“12…13… Dude, we’ll figure it out later.” Steven stood up from the cot Mal made for
him, a blanket strewn across his putrid blue carpet. “You know, I think a couch
would really tie your room together.”
“Hey man, if you want a bed you can crash at your house.” Mal grabbed a towel and
stumbled to his bathroom. He cranked the hot water and jumped in.
Mal scrubbed his shaggy hair as the crazy dream ate his thoughts. Even in his
dreams he couldn’t escape her clutches. She survived enough beer to drown a fish,
he thought, why did she ever make him care for her.
“Mal, let’s go!” Steven yelled from behind the door. “Seriously, trim up some other
morning, we gotta roll man!”
Mal stepped out of the bathroom, towel draped around his legs, dripping all over the
floor. Mal shook the water off at Steven and grabbed boxers and a pair of dirty blue
jeans.
“You know, this is why we can’t have nice things,” Steven said, wiping the water off
of his nose.
Mal thought for something clever to say back, but decided a half-naked shrug would
suffice. Pants flying at half-mast and rising, he leaned in to check Facebook and his
e-mails – no news is good news. He grabbed two aspirin from the nightstand and
popped them down. “Throw me my shirt,” Mal said tying up his shoes.
“What would you ever do without me?” Steven replied, throwing the blue polo at
Mal.
“Drink less, eat less, and have more girls over.” Mal fired back, pulling the shirt over
his head.
They jumped in the car and tore out of the driveway. Steven smacked the radio
volume down to nothing and rolled over to the window. “So I was thinking about
your problem, and I think I came up with something.”
“Oh yeah?” Mal pulled up to the red light. “What’s that?”
“Okay, so first off, you’re never going to date a co-worker again, right?”
“No, never again, I didn’t even want to this time, man. You know the saying, never
dip you pen in…”
“into the company vagina, yeah whatever.” Steven finished. Mal rolled his eyes as the
light turned green and they began making their way back up the highway. “But if
that’s what got you into this,” Steven continued, “maybe that will get you out?”
“Yeah, okay… If only we had another decent looking girl with us at Best Buy.
Unfortunately, we pretty much only cater to the odd and unsightly. D’You know
Deborah asked me if she could borrow my toothbrush?”
“Are you serious?”
“No lie. I’m telling you, Michelle was odd, but cute too. I guess that’s why she sucked
me in.”
“Don’t you mean sucked you o-“
Mal’s face fell flat as he stared at Steven.
“My bad. Touchy subject.” Steven smirked at his own wit, then turned back to the
window to see Best Buy towering over them. “Ah, the beast is back.”
Mal and Steven made their way to the automatic doors, Steven doing his Obi One
Kenobi impression to use the force to pry the doors open as usual. They stepped
inside and grabbed their headsets. Another day in hell, Mal thought. At least he was
working in the flat-screen section today; Michelle would be over in the games
department.
Why did he ever let her get into his head, he thought. After the divorce, dad had
always told him to never trust a woman, but he thought that was just another his
drunken misogynistic rants.
“Hey Mal, how’ve you been?” The sultry voice from around the corner spoke so
sweetly, yet so venomously. Mal felt his blood begin to freeze up.
“Fan-fucking-tastic,” Mal barked, “How are you?”
Michelle was slightly taken aback. She stepped around the corner up to Mal “Since
when do you swear at me?” she replied.
“Since you swung passed me in the arms of string-bean nerd-boy.”
“String-bean nerd-boy has a name, you know?”
“Oh yeah? I’m proud of him.” Mal replied, resetting the HDMI cables. Just go away, he
thought.
“Look, I said I’m sorry, but I told you I didn’t want anything serious.” Michelle was
now so close Mal could feel her breathe on his cheek. She pecked him on the lips,
putting her left hand on his bicep. Her short red hair shined in the stores flickering
fluorescent lighting. Her nightwalker skin so pale and soft that it made her steely
blue eyes pierce his gaze.
“Oh, you’ve been working out…”
She began to close in on his face once more when the headset interrupted.
“Cheating slut to the game department. Repeat: hussy bitch - game
department.”
Mal’s stone face broke into laughter as Michelle clicked her headset on, “en
route, ass bag.” She clicked turned her headset back off. “Does he fight all your
battles for you?”
In a fresh fit of anger, Michelle stormed away to her end of the store. Mal
smiled and turned around to watch a wall of TV’s to watch 17 different definitions of
the FSU/UF football game. Mal’s radio clicked on to Steven’s voice. “See, I told you,
you’d be nothing without me.”
“Touché sir, touché.”
Mal just started crawl back into his own head when a woman’s voice break his focus,
“What a bitch.”
“Oh, uhh. Hi, welcome to Best Buy, how may I help you?”
“You’re going to let her do that?” the girl replied, brushing her rich, brown bangs out
of her eye.
“I’m sorry?” Mal replied, completely off guard. “Do I know you?”
“Wow, I was hoping I was wrong, but you are a bitch.” She replied, smiling. “Why are
you apologizing to me?”
“I’m sor-. Okay. Let me try that again. Who are you and how may I help you?” Mal
said, studying the girl that just took a stab into his manhood. How was it that he
could strike fear into any guy his size, but it was always the dainty girls that could
knock him flat on his ass?
“Sarah. Sarah Hargreaves. Pleased to meet you, Bitch. Oh, wait.” Sarah grabs at Mal’s
nametag, running her finger over it. “Malcolm.”
“Uhh… Right. Nice to meet you too, Sarah. May I help you with a TV?”
“Sure, I want… that one.” Sarah looked and pointed at a 68-inch monstrosity. “Yeah. I
need it to compensate for the size of my wiener.” Her stern face nodded at the TV.
Mal’s eyes grew to quarter size as he stared, mouth agape, at this petite angel. Her
hair whipped as she turned back around to face him. Her pensive demeanor cracked
into laughter as she saw Mal’s face fold inward trying to take in what he just heard.
“Chill out dude, I’m not packing.” She laughed breaking the longest awkward pause
of Mal’s life. His face remained scrunched, still staring at the televisions. He tried
snap back into talking with this girl, but well, his teacher’s always had told him he
had an active imagination.
“So how do I look with a penis?” she asked annoyed. Mal was shaken back to
consciousness. He took a second to collect himself and tried to throw the charm
back on.
“Eh, not… not my type,” he stumbled. “I actually prefer my women, you know,
without extremities.”
“Huh, well that’s a plus.” Sarah said, gazing up at Mal’s green eyes, still wide from
shock. “Here sweetie,” Sarah walked over to the register and fed paper from the
receipt machine. With a quick rip, she wrote down her name and number and
handed it to Mal. “Call me when you want to forget about her.” Sarah turned and
walked to the front of the store without looking back. Mal felt like he’d just been in
the eye of a hurricane, houses and trees in frenzy around him, as he watched from
his tiny hole of perfection in the center of it all.
“Mal, I’m not gonna lie, that was completely adorable.” The headset rang in. Mal
turned and saw Steven in the middle of the store giving him a thumb up, the
proceeding to make out with his arms, mocking him. Beyond Steven stood Michelle,
irradiating anger. Even at a distance, those blue eyes seemed to claw inside of his
chest.
“Did I forget t-”?
“Oh yeah, Mal. Even management heard that one.” Steven replied, breaking in his
hyena giggles.
He’d been looking for a way to escape Michelle. The pit kept deepening, if last night
had taught him anything, it was that he couldn’t even rid himself from Michelle in
his dreams, nonetheless in his day-to day. Mal put his head on the podium and
waited for the shift to be over, staring at the tiny lifeline he was handed.
Mal dragged his feet to the computer and clocked-out for the day. Between
successfully avoiding Michelle all day and being the prod of headset-walkie jokes
and the crippling hangover, Mal was completely drained by 9:00. The door
whooshed open, by the help of Steven’s successful Jedi-mind tricks, and they made
their way to the Cobalt.
“And why haven’t you called her yet?” Steven asked, texting away.
“Isn’t there supposed to be like, a three day rule or something?” replied Mal, keeping
his head down. “If I call her tonight, wouldn’t I seem desperate?”
“You are desperate.” Steven replied. “Seriously, if you weren’t you wouldn’t have
spooned me last night.”
“That’s completely untrue.”
“You’re right, drunken gay spooning is definitely not desperate.” Steven continued,
without taking his eyes off the phone.
“I didn’t gay drunken spoon you!” Mal yelled, attracting the attention of half the
parking lot.
Steven smiled and held up his phone reading ‘Mal totally gay drunken-spooned me
last night.’ Steven kept his finger next to the send button and stared at Mal.
“Who are you sending that to?”
“Who aren’t I sending this to?” Steven replied, like a sheriff with his six-shooter,
Steven held his finger on the trigger, ready to pull.
“Fine, damn it. I’ll text her.” Mal typed up a generic ‘hey what’s up?’ and held it up to
Steven. “Happy?” Mal clicked send, and Steven put down the phone. As they got in
the car Mal got a text back saying ‘Meet at Java, the Hut @10:30.’
“Wow, she actually wants to go out with you. At… Java, the Hut?” Steven asked
excitedly. “Okay, when she dumps your ass, I call dibs.”
“Put the lightsaber away, Vader, she talked to me not you.”
After dropping Steven off at his house, Mal drove through the darkness to get to the
coffee shop. He felt a little hysterical, like this would soon turn into one of his bad
dreams, the road would become the dark void and the car would be trapped in
another Michelle-ran abyss.
Soon he pulled up to the coffee shop, he looked up to see a poorly lit Jabba the Hut
lounging in a cup of coffee. That’ll sell coffee, Mal thought. He walked inside and sat
at a table near a small wooden stage with a single barstool sitting on it.
Mal’s foot bounced nervously under the table, rattling the waiting glasses. His eyes
darted from corner to corner of the room, and back to the watch. 10:32, only two
minutes, he reassured himself, that’s hardly late.
The room was a thick haze of cigarette smoke peppered with art school types
and fake ID’s. The next act began his death-march to the stage, prodded by a table of
giggling girls. He was a poor excuse of a man, Mal thought. His plaid American Eagle
shirt Saran-wrapped to his chest nearly as tightly as his cut-off jean shorts. Jorts.
Curly brown hair streaked across his face as he stepped up to the stage with his
Starcaster slung across his back.
Jorts and an acoustic guitar; what the hell have I gotten myself into? Mal
thought. Jorts eased himself onto the barstool and pulled the mic in tight. He
brushed his hair out of his eyes and looked up into the light.
“My name is Lance, This song is called, ‘She Will Be Loved.’” Said the artist
formerly known as Jorts. The giggling gaggle of girls shrieked at this enlightening bit
of information as Mal’s head slipped into his palms. A douche covering Maroon 5,
why have I never come to this place before, Mal thought as he took a sip of his
mocha frappe.
Lance finished his cover, and with a hair-flip and several mind-numbing
screams from his flock of fanatics he was off the stage. Mal looked back at the clock
on the wall: 10:40. She wasn’t coming. She was just another let down. She was right,
she made him forget about Michelle, now he wondered how he’d messed this up.
The spotlight popped back on as an aging hipster, complete with blackrimmed square glasses and clothing consistent with a hobo walked on stage. “Thank
you guys for coming to Java the Hut’s Open Mic Night, our next act is Sarah
Hargreaves.”
Mal’s heart popped out of his chest for a brief second before he could
swallow it back again. Sarah glided across the stage, her pink scarf, a cape trailing
behind her black leather jacket. She stepped up to the microphone with a sheet of
paper and looked out to the crowd. She sifted through the crowd until she saw Mal
raising his glass to her. Her eyes sparked like a match, and the smile couldn’t help
but erupt from her face.
“Thank you, my name is Sarah, and I’ve written this for our friend Lance
here.” She motioned her right hand to the hipster-lumberjack who made his way
back to the giggling girls. Sarah smiled at him, his sheepish grin creeping from his
face.
She turned back to the crowd, “ I call it – ‘The Douche at the Party with the Acoustic
Guitar’.”
Mal gazed in wonder up at the stage at the brunette firecracker lighting up in
free verse rage. She’s not odd or unsightly at all, he thought, I bet she even has her
own toothbrush. Mal sat back in his chair, and sipped at his coffee.