Before I begin, I would like it to be known that I never intended for things to end up this way. Truly. Whether through some twisted karmic entanglement or just my infamously bad luck, I’ve found myself in a predicament I could never have anticipated. That happens sometimes, I guess. The problem is, for me, it happened a few times all in a row…on what would inevitably become the worst and LAST day of my life.
Did you ever have a day where it seemed like every minute was an hour and every second that passed was worse than the one that came before? Yeah, this was one of those, and it started the very second I awoke. The new alarm I’d bought apparently startled my cat, who had been sleeping under the covers nestled behind my knees. I got an extra loud alarm, because I had been having trouble dragging myself out of bed in the morning and kept showing up late to work. So, unwilling to lose a job that I absolutely loathed, I went out and bought this alarm. It went off at exactly 4:30 am and my cat, Boots, absolutely freaked the fuck out.
Mind you, when I say she freaked out, I don’t mean in the normal cat way of yowling and hissing and jumping off the bed. No, that would have been a little annoying but also a little funny. I could live with that. What my cat did, the bitch, is to sink all of her claws into my calf and latch on to my ankle with her fangs. That cat bit the ever-loving SHIT out of me. I shouted and jumped out of bed, kicking my leg back and forth trying to dislodge the little dumbass. The cat jumped off on the fourth swing on my leg, just a millisecond before my foot made contact with my dresser and broke my pinky toe.
“God DAMN it!!”
I growled as I tried to simultaneously hold my throbbing foot with one hand and throw a pillow at the retreating feline. What I’d failed to note before attempting this maneuver was that I’d knocked over the glass of water on my nightstand. The water had splashed onto the hardwood floor right where I was standing. When I swung the pillow at the cat, the one foot I was balancing on slipped out from under me and I went flying cartoonishly up in the air before I came crashing down onto the floor next to my bed. The back of my head crashed into the hardwood floor with a loud THUD that dazed me and made my ears ring.
I just…laid there for a minute. Had I known that this would be the absolute highlight of my day, I’d probably have just decided to stay right there and try again tomorrow. But, completely oblivious to what the day held in store, I grumbled, rolled over, and pushed myself back up to my feet. The fall must have jostled something around in my guts because I had a sudden emergent need for the toilet. So, I grabbed my phone off the bedside table and hobbled over to the bathroom, pulled off my Fruit of the Looms and sat upon my throne. With a grunt, I pulled my foot up onto the knee of the opposite leg and inspected the damage to my toe. It was swollen and tender but otherwise seemed manageable. I could wiggle it, at least. I figured it would probably bother me for the rest of the week but a doctor would likely say there’s nothing for it. What are they going to do, put a cast on a pinky toe?
Letting out a slow steadying breath, I lowered my foot back to the floor and decided to scroll social media while I did my business. It took all of three upward swipes to come across a photo posted by my girlfriend’s best friend. The two of them were on a “girl trip” to some island, and yep – there she was. My girlfriend in a bikini, draped all over some Caribbean hunk like a crocheted blanket over the back of grandma’s couch. I tried to reason with myself for a moment that the girls were just having fun, but then I saw the look on her face, and I knew immediately what it meant. She used to look at me that way, once upon a time. I stared at the photo for probably another five minutes before I decided I’d done my duty and wiped myself clean.
Then I stood up and flushed the toilet. The bowl immediately began to fill and overflow. I jumped back to keep from getting toilet water on my feet and dropped my phone directly into the bowl. Splash. Nothing but net.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake!”
I grabbed the plunger and got to work on unclogging the toilet. Eventually the water slowly began to drain, leaving just my phone behind in a small amount of fresh water. I picked it up gingerly, trying to hold it by the tiniest fraction of its corner that I could manage, and laid it in the sink. Shaking my head, I got in the shower and turned it on. Rather than a warm, soothing stream of water, what emerged was a tepid trickle. I turned the knob back and forth in a feeble attempt to get the water running properly, but a loud racket from outside clued me in to why the plumbing was being wonky – the city was doing construction work again. God damn it. I should have guessed. I’d complained at least five times to them about starting their jackhammering so early in the morning and here they were, a week later, back at it again. I did my best to clean up using the scant water that flowed from the shower head and dried myself off. I’m pretty sure I never got all the soap rinsed off me.
At this point, though, it didn’t matter. A quick glance at my phone while I was drying off told me that if I didn’t haul ass, I was already going to be late for work. Again. Henry, my boss, was going to ream me out for sure. So, I got dressed as quickly as I could, brushed my teeth, and rushed out of the building. I was about halfway to my car when I passed the construction area that was making all the racket. They were working on water lines, as I’d expected. I swallowed down all the insults I wanted to fling their way and instead continued on to my parking spot where a manhole cover had been lifted at some point and then laid haphazardly back into place in front of my car. I caught the edge of it with my foot, stumbling forward and almost falling. My pinky toe screamed. I let out a muffled grunt in frustration and then just got into my car and drove to work, cursing for the entirety of the commute.
When I arrived, I hustled inside and – just as I was about to clock in for the day, thinking I’d evaded Henry’s attention – I heard him call out from behind me.
“Rockland! I need to see you in my office, for a moment.”
Rockland. I hated that name. Nobody called me that except him and my mother. Everyone else had just called me Rocky, which I also hated given the connection to a certain fictional boxer, but I could at least live with that one. To me, Rockland sounded like the name of some fancy camping gear outfitter. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath before turning toward Henry and nodding.
“Sure, boss. Be right there.”
When I reached his doorway, he beckoned me in and gestured for me to sit down.
“Rockland,” he started, setting my teeth on edge, “you’re late. This is the third time in the last two weeks. The fifth time this month.”
“Yes, sir. I’m sorry about that. It’s just that there’s construction going on right outside my house and this morning –” he cut me off by holding up a hand.
“I don’t need excuses, Rockland, I need employees who show up to work at the time that they are scheduled to work. Not people who just roll in whenever they feel like it.”
I looked at the clock. It was seven minutes past my start time. I’d clocked in maybe five minutes ago, meaning that I’d only been two minutes late. I sighed, wanting to argue that it was only two minutes and I could stay late to make up for it. But I knew where this was heading.
“Rockland, I’m going to have to let you go. You can see Janice on your way out to schedule pickup of your final pay check.”
I sat staring at the man, this corny little goofball who was sitting there in his stupid discount warehouse suit, wearing those idiotic round-framed glasses and looking like the most stereotypical middle management office worker of this century. I couldn’t see them now, but I knew he was also wearing those ridiculous, ill-fitting khaki Dockers and his precious little penny loafers. I thought about all of that and something in me just…snapped. I started to laugh. A quiet giggle at first, which quickly ascended to full blown guffaws.
“What are you laughing at?” Henry insisted. “This isn’t funny, Rockland.”
My fit of laughter died out as I wiped tears from my eyes.
“No, Henry, it’s not. Do you know what this is like? Being fired by the most mediocre human being on the face of the planet? God damn it, Henry. It’s actually amazing. Before I met you, I had no idea that people could be so aggressively average. It’s like someone filled a semi with 16 tons of mediocrity and ran you over with it.”
Henry was not amused.
“Ok, Rockland. I think it’s time you—”
“Don’t call me that. You know I go by Rocky,” I said. My voice was low. The laughter was gone.
“Rockland, if you don’t leave right now, I’m going to have security escort you out.”
Henry stood up and I followed him, pushing my chair back and surging forward so that our faces were inches apart.
“And if you don’t shut. The. Fuck. Up. I am going to rip that ugly ass wig off your goddamn head and staple it to the fucking wall. You just fired me, Henry. Do you know what that means?”
I grabbed him by the collar when he didn’t answer.
“Do you?”
He shook his head, his wide eyes locked on mine.
“It means you don’t get to tell me what to do anymore, you pompous prick.”
I let go of his shirt and backed off.
“I’ll leave, Henry. But I swear to god, if you ever see me on the street, in the grocery market, at the fucking dentist…turn around and put as much distance between us as humanly possible.”
Angry as I was, it felt good to finally put that little prick in his place. So good, in fact, that I barely reacted when I got outside and saw that someone had sideswiped my car, knocking the bumper loose. There was a note on the windshield with a twenty-dollar bill and the word ‘sorry’ in handwriting that suggested the author had never written anything before. I used that twenty dollars on two rolls of duct tape and a Monster Energy drink from the dollar store across the street. And you know what? Aside from the badly-taped bumper flapping in the wind, the commute home was honestly a very pleasant ride. I listened to and sang along with Tame Impala’s “Currents” album. Such a great album.
However, when I got back to my apartment, I felt that angry heat in my chest swell again. The construction zone had moved from halfway between the entrance to the building and my parking space to directly in front of my parking space. I don’t know if I was still hyped up from the confrontation with Henry, or the Monster Energy was putting in that work, but I slammed my car into park and got myself into a screaming match with the construction guy.
“I’m just doing my job here, pal. Whaddaya want from me?” he said with an accent straight out of a 90’s mob movie. I stepped over the manhole cover this time, which was now sitting off to the side of the open manhole.
“I want you to move all this shit so I can park my car! We have assigned parking here for a reason, asshole. I’ll be circling the block for hours trying to find another space!”
The man shrugged and started to walk away.
“Sounds like personal problems. I’m off the clock. Union rules say I can’t touch nothin’ til after lunch.”
I clenched my hands into fists, seething.
“Move this shit, now!” I yelled, impotently.
The guy just turned around and walked backward without breaking stride, and said, “Or what, pal?”
“I’ll fuck your mother! How about that?!”
He flipped me off. I flipped him off right back. He doubled up and gave me the finger with both hands at the same time. I returned the gesture. He snorted, shook his head, turned back around, and continued his trek toward the bodega.
I growled and let out an almost feral yell, then spun myself around, took a step…and fell straight into the open manhole. The last thing I remembered was thinking as I fell, God, I hope Boots didn’t see that. Then, there was nothing but the deep empty blackness.