On the bandstand. Moo Goo Gai Pan. From the best chinese restaurant in the land: whaattt!
Lol, good ol' Brown Sugar throwback classic.
Ok, that had nothing to do w/ the short story I'm posting =P
Here's the first short story I'm posting called HUMP. (don't forget to leave comments: bad, good or indifferent. i love them all!) The story's inspired by Erykah Badu's "That Hump". If you haven't heard it you should listen to it.
Zora stood outside the office building trying to get the last pulls of her cigarette before her fingers succumbed to frost bite. It was bad enough it was her last cigarette, but she couldn’t even enjoy it properly. She dragged too hard on the cigarette and started with that deep bronchial cough of hers. She’d been meaning to get that checked out, but Lord knows she didn’t have the time. Her eyes stung from the new wind as she tossed the hot filter into the gutter. Instead of going inside she stared at the place where her cigarette had gone. The more she looked the more her eyes stung, but now tears were forming along the bottom lid. She’d tossed her cigarette in the gutter, just like life had done with her. She wondered if life had done it just as carelessly and routine as she just had, or had it taken more careful planning?
The alarm on her little flip phone beeped off and broke her trance. Ten minutes was going by faster and faster these days. She willed her tears to evaporate before going any further. The hard breath from her nose clouded the air. She turned the collar up on her fall jacket and braced her bare knuckles against the wind for the walk back around the corner to the office building entrance.
“Hey, Zora girl, how’s it hanging?”
The alarm on her little flip phone beeped off and broke her trance. Ten minutes was going by faster and faster these days. She willed her tears to evaporate before going any further. The hard breath from her nose clouded the air. She turned the collar up on her fall jacket and braced her bare knuckles against the wind for the walk back around the corner to the office building entrance.
“Hey, Zora girl, how’s it hanging?”
Zora glanced up and saw Rick looking at her with an expectant smile. Rick the salesman. Rick the widowed father of two. Rick the subtly handsome man who, after 43 years of living, Zora found herself as shy as a lamb around. It was times like these when she wished she could wear something better to work. Maybe then she could reciprocate one of these damn smiles Rick was always handing out.
“It’s ok. Just about to start work.”
“Oh I‘m getting back from lunch… I had to eat at the deli alone.”
“Well maybe you’ll ask a coworker or somebody next time and you won’t be alone. Isn’t that what people do?”
Zora’s deadpan voice made Rick chuckle. She was definitely one hard rose to pick. “Yes, I guess they do.” He held the door open for her and let others follow her in before he went in himself. While everyone walked to the bank of elevators he saw her disappear into a stairwell and knew she’d be going to the basement. Her swampland, as he’d overheard her saying.
“Rick, man, you coming?”
He turned his head and acknowledged Brett with a smile. In the lift Brett started talking about that day’s impossible quota and how he planned to put a sledgehammer through it. Rick looked at the stairwell door and had the same thought.
“It’s ok. Just about to start work.”
“Oh I‘m getting back from lunch… I had to eat at the deli alone.”
“Well maybe you’ll ask a coworker or somebody next time and you won’t be alone. Isn’t that what people do?”
Zora’s deadpan voice made Rick chuckle. She was definitely one hard rose to pick. “Yes, I guess they do.” He held the door open for her and let others follow her in before he went in himself. While everyone walked to the bank of elevators he saw her disappear into a stairwell and knew she’d be going to the basement. Her swampland, as he’d overheard her saying.
“Rick, man, you coming?”
He turned his head and acknowledged Brett with a smile. In the lift Brett started talking about that day’s impossible quota and how he planned to put a sledgehammer through it. Rick looked at the stairwell door and had the same thought.
----------------------------
Zora didn’t have time to workout. Zora didn’t have time to take bubble baths, cook extravagant meals, or kick back and read a book. Hell, she didn’t have time to make a pot of coffee in the morning. She didn’t even have time to sit down in between jobs and switch her brain from stadium vendor to janitor to nanny. The only thing she had time to do was keep on pushing. She didn’t even know what she was pushing for anymore; she just knew that if she stopped pushing everything would surely crush her down until she couldn’t discern herself from a sad ass piece of road kill. She most certainly didn’t have time for that.
“Zora I need you on three, four, and five today. And make sure you go all the way to the back of five because, as you can see, Merlinda called out sick today, so she can’t do it. I‘ve already got Marisol on one and two.”
She probably called out sick of this job. But Zora didn’t mind so much. The more time she spent at work the less time she had to spend at home. With the kids she bore. With the kids she resented. With the kids who didn’t have a care in the world. Who could up and quit their little Mickey D’s jobs without wondering how to house and feed two other people while they looked for a new job.
Zora sent her cleaning cart up to the third floor on the service elevator and walked herself up the back stairs. This would be her workout.
She started humming There Were No Mirrors in my Nana’s House as she climbed. That was another reason she opted to take this route instead. No damn mirrors or reflector panels or security cameras looking at her face. She looked at her face as little as possible and kept her head down to afford others the same luxury. She knew her face. She saw it when she closed her eyes. She saw it when she stared at a blank wall. The skin was still soft, but it was old skin. People had always told her she looked younger than she really was, but she doubted that was true any more. Her face was gaunt. The skin caved into her cheeks and drooped dejectedly everywhere else. The years of smoking had put a stain on her teeth. There was enough space between some of them to fit a toothpick and then some comfortably. The only blessing there was that those were more in the back. She’d been meaning to set up a dental appointment, but she didn’t have the time.
The push-bar on the third floor door made a loud clap as the door opened into the stairwell. Bernita and Renee’s heels clopped onto the landing, and then up a flight of stairs. The clopping seemed to add a melody to their conversation:
“Well did you hear? They’re probably going to let some people go at the end of the month. The sales team’ll get hit for sure.”
“Yeah, girl, I heard. That’s why I can’t work in sales. You don’t put them numbers up and all of a sudden you can’t afford your damn car note. It’s a mess.”
“You don’t have to tell me. These customers get on my last damn nerve, but customer service is job security like a mother fucker. All I have to do is say, ‘Hi; yes ma’am; no ma’am; goodbye,’ and, boom! I’ve got a job!”
“Oh, but don’t forget the new one: ‘Thank you for calling Cablevision; please hold for a survey to rate how I treated you!’ Ugh, girl you know I hate that part. Who the hell wants to stay on a phone and rate how someone treated them? I feel like I’m asking for charity.”
“Yeah, but all you have to do is think of those benefits and you’ll be good to go!”
The conversation faded away as the women entered the door for the fourth floor and Zora made her way onto the third. The service elevator had probably been sitting there for five minutes. The five-o-clock rush to leave work was crowding at the elevators and she wished she could be a part of it. Those ungrateful hussies in the stairwell didn’t know how good they had it. A cushy job where they got to sit down for 8 hours and talk to people about nonsensical things and make 14 dollars an hour while doing it. All their friends were around them keeping them entertained all day. They put up pictures of loved ones to keep them motivated. They could afford to wear nice little office clothes.
At Cablevision one had to have a year of call center experience or a college degree in order to get hired. Zora had neither. She got knocked up around the same time she graduated high school and thought she’d fare better as a full time mom living off her amazing and devoted boyfriend, Corey. Corey was sure to do something great with his life. He was about the most handsome thing walking around Snyder High. He knew it. She knew it. Everyone knew it. Back then she was nothing to shake a stick at herself, but she still felt lucky to be chosen by him. He just had that quality about him like whatever reality he wanted his life to be he made it that way. He made the elements bend to his will. The fates bowed to him.
“Corey, baby, guess what?”
“Mmm. What’s that?” Corey asked in between nibbling on her lips.
“I missed my period last month and this one.”
“Oh, good. I thought you had been happy for the past two months straight with no breaks in between!” More kissing. Chuckling from him. Giggling from her.
“You so damn silly, boy! Anyway, don’t you know what that means?” Zora was just about in heaven. She felt so alive around him and this was sure to cement their relationship. Maybe they’d have a summer wedding.
“It means this neck of yours is tasting better than I remember. Mmm!”
Zora squirmed away from the tickling sensation as he kept a hold on her so she wouldn’t fall off the sofa. “No, silly. It means we’re gonna have us a little Corey Junior!” His hand stilled on her thigh. “Or I guess if it’s a girl she can be Coretta; but I really hope it’s a boy.” She was breathing fast and hard from excitement and from trying to get away. Once she calmed down a bit she realized that her breathing was the only sound she was actually hearing.
“Baby?” She looked up at his set jaw with a crease in her brow. Her beloved seemed to lock up with rigor mortis. “Baby, stop playing. Say something.”
Corey removed his hand from her thigh. An instant later he had pushed himself to the opposite end of the couch and his face was twisted up into the kind of disdain Zora had never seen on him before. “You know I don’t want no kids, Z. How could you get pregnant?”
Zora pulled herself upright into her corner and pulled her sweater closed over her dress. “What do you mean? I didn’t do it on purpose.”
“I didn’t say that. I just mean… We only did it once without a condom.”
“Well as far as I know there isn’t a requirement for how many times you have to do it before you get pregnant.”
“Z, I don’t have times for your funny little games. I can’t have no fucking kids, man. I’m going to college on a football scholarship. I’m not gonna have time to take care of no baby.”
“Well I mean, I would mostly take care of the baby. And then you could come home at night and I’ll have a hot dinner for you, and you can just kiss the baby and hold him for a few minutes. He’ll probably be asleep most of the time anyway.” She couldn’t tell if she was working harder to convince him or herself. “Oh, baby, you’re being silly. You know we’d make a wonderful family. You’re just nervous about being a good daddy, is all.”
“Zora I need you on three, four, and five today. And make sure you go all the way to the back of five because, as you can see, Merlinda called out sick today, so she can’t do it. I‘ve already got Marisol on one and two.”
She probably called out sick of this job. But Zora didn’t mind so much. The more time she spent at work the less time she had to spend at home. With the kids she bore. With the kids she resented. With the kids who didn’t have a care in the world. Who could up and quit their little Mickey D’s jobs without wondering how to house and feed two other people while they looked for a new job.
Zora sent her cleaning cart up to the third floor on the service elevator and walked herself up the back stairs. This would be her workout.
She started humming There Were No Mirrors in my Nana’s House as she climbed. That was another reason she opted to take this route instead. No damn mirrors or reflector panels or security cameras looking at her face. She looked at her face as little as possible and kept her head down to afford others the same luxury. She knew her face. She saw it when she closed her eyes. She saw it when she stared at a blank wall. The skin was still soft, but it was old skin. People had always told her she looked younger than she really was, but she doubted that was true any more. Her face was gaunt. The skin caved into her cheeks and drooped dejectedly everywhere else. The years of smoking had put a stain on her teeth. There was enough space between some of them to fit a toothpick and then some comfortably. The only blessing there was that those were more in the back. She’d been meaning to set up a dental appointment, but she didn’t have the time.
The push-bar on the third floor door made a loud clap as the door opened into the stairwell. Bernita and Renee’s heels clopped onto the landing, and then up a flight of stairs. The clopping seemed to add a melody to their conversation:
“Well did you hear? They’re probably going to let some people go at the end of the month. The sales team’ll get hit for sure.”
“Yeah, girl, I heard. That’s why I can’t work in sales. You don’t put them numbers up and all of a sudden you can’t afford your damn car note. It’s a mess.”
“You don’t have to tell me. These customers get on my last damn nerve, but customer service is job security like a mother fucker. All I have to do is say, ‘Hi; yes ma’am; no ma’am; goodbye,’ and, boom! I’ve got a job!”
“Oh, but don’t forget the new one: ‘Thank you for calling Cablevision; please hold for a survey to rate how I treated you!’ Ugh, girl you know I hate that part. Who the hell wants to stay on a phone and rate how someone treated them? I feel like I’m asking for charity.”
“Yeah, but all you have to do is think of those benefits and you’ll be good to go!”
The conversation faded away as the women entered the door for the fourth floor and Zora made her way onto the third. The service elevator had probably been sitting there for five minutes. The five-o-clock rush to leave work was crowding at the elevators and she wished she could be a part of it. Those ungrateful hussies in the stairwell didn’t know how good they had it. A cushy job where they got to sit down for 8 hours and talk to people about nonsensical things and make 14 dollars an hour while doing it. All their friends were around them keeping them entertained all day. They put up pictures of loved ones to keep them motivated. They could afford to wear nice little office clothes.
At Cablevision one had to have a year of call center experience or a college degree in order to get hired. Zora had neither. She got knocked up around the same time she graduated high school and thought she’d fare better as a full time mom living off her amazing and devoted boyfriend, Corey. Corey was sure to do something great with his life. He was about the most handsome thing walking around Snyder High. He knew it. She knew it. Everyone knew it. Back then she was nothing to shake a stick at herself, but she still felt lucky to be chosen by him. He just had that quality about him like whatever reality he wanted his life to be he made it that way. He made the elements bend to his will. The fates bowed to him.
“Corey, baby, guess what?”
“Mmm. What’s that?” Corey asked in between nibbling on her lips.
“I missed my period last month and this one.”
“Oh, good. I thought you had been happy for the past two months straight with no breaks in between!” More kissing. Chuckling from him. Giggling from her.
“You so damn silly, boy! Anyway, don’t you know what that means?” Zora was just about in heaven. She felt so alive around him and this was sure to cement their relationship. Maybe they’d have a summer wedding.
“It means this neck of yours is tasting better than I remember. Mmm!”
Zora squirmed away from the tickling sensation as he kept a hold on her so she wouldn’t fall off the sofa. “No, silly. It means we’re gonna have us a little Corey Junior!” His hand stilled on her thigh. “Or I guess if it’s a girl she can be Coretta; but I really hope it’s a boy.” She was breathing fast and hard from excitement and from trying to get away. Once she calmed down a bit she realized that her breathing was the only sound she was actually hearing.
“Baby?” She looked up at his set jaw with a crease in her brow. Her beloved seemed to lock up with rigor mortis. “Baby, stop playing. Say something.”
Corey removed his hand from her thigh. An instant later he had pushed himself to the opposite end of the couch and his face was twisted up into the kind of disdain Zora had never seen on him before. “You know I don’t want no kids, Z. How could you get pregnant?”
Zora pulled herself upright into her corner and pulled her sweater closed over her dress. “What do you mean? I didn’t do it on purpose.”
“I didn’t say that. I just mean… We only did it once without a condom.”
“Well as far as I know there isn’t a requirement for how many times you have to do it before you get pregnant.”
“Z, I don’t have times for your funny little games. I can’t have no fucking kids, man. I’m going to college on a football scholarship. I’m not gonna have time to take care of no baby.”
“Well I mean, I would mostly take care of the baby. And then you could come home at night and I’ll have a hot dinner for you, and you can just kiss the baby and hold him for a few minutes. He’ll probably be asleep most of the time anyway.” She couldn’t tell if she was working harder to convince him or herself. “Oh, baby, you’re being silly. You know we’d make a wonderful family. You’re just nervous about being a good daddy, is all.”
And so it was. Zora kept the baby, knowing that Corey would come around some day. Some day became eventually became never. Her dream summer wedding didn’t happen. Corey came around less and less, saying that classes and practice were getting the best of him. Soon her ninth month was upon her and she hadn’t seen him at all. His parents never called to check in on her. Her parents let her know the weight of parenthood would be on her. And to top it off she’d had a girl. A girl she’d named Cori Sampson in honor of the father. If he ever did come back Zora wanted him to immediately know that Cori was his.
Corey Sampson hadn’t shown his face in 25 years. Come to think of it, she hadn’t seen Cori Sampson in a year or two either. She was off “bettering herself” and turning her nose up at Zora. Zora didn’t care, though. She didn’t have time to care. That was one less ungrateful mouth to feed.
Zora had time to clean. Each night at work she’d play a game with herself to keep the cleaning interesting. Sometimes she’d start with trash, then go on to sinks, toilets, and finish out with floors. Sometimes she’d do a relay to see how fast she could get sinks done compared to toilets. Sometimes she’d count how many times she could flush the toilet and watch the sickening swirl before she felt like she wanted to stick her own damn head down the drain.
The Sony walkman rescued from the junk drawer in the kitchen needed only a new set of dollar store batteries and it was back to operational. Whitney Houston’s “I’m Your Baby Tonight” poured through the earmuff speakers. Zora disappeared into a fantasy set up by Whitney. The third floor was no longer a bathroom, a break room, and a trash bag at every other cubicle. It was a deserted plain where characters appeared and acted out each story that Whitney sang about, then disappeared when the track changed. Only in the space between was Zora reminded of exactly where she was and what her purpose there was: to serve others by cleaning up after them for they could not clean up after themselves. But she was only reminded for a few seconds, before it was on to the next whirlwind fantasy.
Zora was a sex driven female who wanted to take her man to the heights of pleasure in “I’m Your Baby Tonight”; she crooned and told that man that everything he’d done for her hadn’t gone unnoticed and she appreciated everything he did to keep her feeling like the strong woman she was in “All the Man That I Need”; reassurance of her love and devotion to him, because of how long she’d waited for him, came in “I Belong to You”. She finished out the third floor with “I’m Knockin’”, telling whoever was at the other side of the door that she was coming through to get whatever love he may have to offer her.
She continued her journey of cleanliness on the fourth floor with Tevin Campbell’s I’m Ready tape, and the fifth floor with En Vogue’s Funky Divas. Her “Give It Up, Turn It Loose” whirlwind got interrupted by a tape jam.
“Damn,” she cussed to herself.
Rick looked up from his phone call thinking he was hearing things. The whir of his chair gave him away as he rotated to look at the crestfallen janitor behind him. Except now she was trying to change her face to a look of nonchalance now that she was being watched. The tapping in his ear made him snap back to face his desk.
“Hello? Hello?… Yes, of course I’m still here, I apologize… No, we very much appreciate your business here at Cablevision Mister,” he glanced at the screen and winced, “Ojamadube…. Absolutely, if you’ll let me place you on a one to two minute hold I would be happy to take care of that… Thank you so much, sir, please hold.” The whirring came again, but this time Zora was off to the left changing out garbage bags. There was no point trying to get her to come to him.
Plastic rustled in Zora’s ear. She would have preferred to hear En Vogue talk about how yesterday their problems seemed long gone, but she was scared to even touch the tape in the deck. It looked like it would snap for no reason at all, and she didn’t have time to put herself through that right now. Another bag rustled on the side of her. One that she wasn’t holding. Rick was holding it. The apology in his eyes was for the garbage in his hand. It only had one coffee cup.
“Look, I know you get mad when you have to switch bags and there’s hardly any garbage, so I took out one of the steps and brought the trash to you.” His ever-present smile was lopsided, but genuine. When he’d first started chatting her up here and there Zora though he was mocking her.
She accepted the bag without a word and added it to her growing collection; she did manage a polite lip movement that would have to suffice as an appreciative smile. Rustle. Silence. Rustle.
“What time do you get off tonight?”
Zora furrowed her brow. Where was this heading? “Ten-o-clock… I work part time.” Well he didn’t ask you that, did he, Z?
“Oh, I guess that’s why I don’t see you when I leave. I get off at nine. The babysitter gets off at nine-thirty,” he coughed over his chuckle. Was that his best on-the-spot joke?
“Oh.”
Rick cleared his throat. “Look, Zora, if you want me to leave you be just say the word.”
The sad breath Zora let out of her nose made Rick put his hands up in surrender. “Hey, don’t worry about it. Don’t worry, I’m a brother that can take a hint. Here, let me get back on this call and let you do your thing.” Rick backpedaled to his seat and sat down. Who knows what Mr. Oja-baba-bibbidyboo had asked him to do before the hold. It really didn’t matter at this point. “Hey, thank you so much for holding. I’ve got that all squared away for you. The technician will come to install on Wednesday morning between eight and eleven a.m.” Rick felt Zora’s proximity as she inserted a new bag in his waste bin. He felt it best that he not look down.
Zora didn’t have time to feel bad about their awkward encounter. She didn’t have time to be regretful that she didn’t say what she’d meant to say to him, instead of letting him assume the worst. She didn’t have time to mentally explore the possibility of a world where there existed a Rick & Zora together. All she had time to do was finish out the fifth floor and find out what else her supervisor needed her to do. And go home and get some semblance of rest before she had to wake up to baby sit for the Johnsons tomorrow.
All she had time to do was get over this hump in her life. Maybe then she’d feel better.
Hope you liked it! Thanks for reading, folks!
Good stuff. Really enjoyed it.
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