All-Nighter

Episode One

Sammy

Okay, so I'm pretty much screwed -- yet again. Give me a break, I am not some idiot who lives with their mom in the spare bedroom until they are like fifty plus. I have some friends in real life, and admittedly a few probably not-so-real ones online. But don't get me wrong, I am not like a weirdo. You don't have to take it from me but you should. I haven't lied to you yet, right? I've seen stuff that would curl your damn hair like a chia pet. I don't know why this shit keeps happening to me. Hell, after West Virginia and all that crap that went on up there almost ten years ago, by now I think I've totally paid my dues. Hell, I moved the fuck away from those hills first chance I got. I figured that I'd let the locals handle the new mess -- despite all the news reports and newspaper stories, not all West Virginia folks are hopped up on major drugs, seeing that Moth-man dude in some drug induced haze! Besides I am pretty sure that there are some smart cops up there that can handle whatever is still going on after all the lies they told, how the epidemic was over and to continue on with our pathetic lives.

So naturally, with all that weird crap starting up again, I thought that it was finally my turn to be a snowbird. Besides, grandma has a killer guest bedroom suite with its own full bathroom and exit. Wipe that grin off your face. She's cool with me staying in there. I do all of her yard work and most of the grocery shopping while she heads over to play bingo or tosses away her money with craps over at the local casino. She seriously supports our local tribes damn well with gramps' death benefits. She claims she makes more than she donates, but I doubt it because she always comes home with handbags and other shit she 'has to have' at the time. I've yet to see a single bag that she bought hanging over her shoulder, even when she goes out on any of her local binge shopping trips to fill one of her closets. She does donate that stuff eventually, so I guess she's not like a hoarder.

But that's not what's important here. What it all comes down to is my desire to free myself from my petty humdrum puttering around the humid hell hole of a town and get out a bit. After one of grandma's heavy-handed hints about my staying inside in the air conditioning while others are out earning a decent living was getting old, I picked up the local rag she'd left out with my box of donuts. Subtle old lady, she left it folded open to the help wanted page, with a few key ads circled heavily in red Sharpie ink. The papers down here have more ads than real news, and don't even get me started on the obits. Damn, I truly think Florida should be called Hell's waiting room. Yeah, not Heaven cause it's too fucking hot here. What kind of place is it where everyone seems to think that seventy-degree weather is really cold? These fucking Floridians, that's who! Drops below eighty and out of the closets come the long pants, long sleeved shirts with winter jackets. And that's the most of the old folks. The college age girls wear Ugg boots with Daisy Duke shorts that have to be illegal and then a faux fur coat and hat! Really. No lie, don't look at me, just Google that shit.

So I find what sounds like a cool job in the weekend paper. No college degree needed, just the ability to stay up at night. For a minute I thought it was a set up for one of those rip off shows that make people lose it on camera and look like total fools. But I called the number listed and despite my freaking out, I decided to go to the interview. The next day I was getting edgy, but after all, the interview was set up and even with my growing concerns of being seen in the vague future on bad television -- that was pretty much all TV-- I thought it was pretty much a wash. Grandma even gave me the keys to her gas hog of a Lincoln. Four doors, white walls facing out and a dark silver or gray color depending on your point of view, it was quite something, right? Sweet ride if you are like, over fifty or sixty -- and like I said I'm I am not that old -- but I wasn't taking the Tri-Rail or the bus for an interview so beggars can't be choosy ya know?

I arrived around four -- my appointment was for four-thirty, but with the insane traffic I always head out earlier than needed. All it takes is one transplant from another country or someplace like New York and the entire commute gets landlocked playing bumper cars on the 95 for hours. I pulled into the parking lot and saw there were only two or three parked cars. There were like twenty or so parking spaces with the obligatory five handicapped spaces smack dab in the front of the building entrance. After eight or so months that I'd been down in Florida, I figured the only way you ever get parking anywhere near the front door is to have a blue placard or a wheelchair license plate. But even though the Lincoln has both, I didn't bother to pull into a spot. I was early and didn't want to be busted using the space. They are harsh about that in Florida.

And for once I actually remembered to crack the window on the driver's side of the car. I didn't feel like coming back and having the fucking palms of my hands sear to the steering wheel cause the temp gets like a hundred plus inside just with ten minutes of direct sun. Forget the dogs and kids left in the cars, I can tell you first hand that going back inside the car without thinking and touching that black, leather steering wheel cover, you will wish you'd died. For me there was no need for any public service show 'n tell with kids or puppies 'cause I knew it for a damn fact. Yeah, no lie, I can be a bit of an idiot without any help or witnesses. In Florida I had a clean start and I wasn't going back to West Virginia any time soon if I could help it.

Before getting out of the car, I grabbed up the resume my grandma had made for me at the local senior center. She said this sort of job with interviews scheduled usually didn't have basic blank employment forms to fill out, but liked to see a piece of paper with all your shit on it. She didn't actually say shit but 'career and schooling information' I know, same diff.

I didn't bother slicking my hair back or running a comb through it, because the second I left the cool comfort of the Lincoln's frosty a/c I damn near fell to my knees as that wall of heat and humidity hit me. The white, long sleeved, button-down, collared shirt my grandma bought for me to wear had lost all the lines of her iron, and stuck to me like a second, unforgiving cotton skin. My hair started to spring off my scalp in those little fucking curls that my grandma said reminded her of when I was a baby. Yeah, every guy wants to hear that after they are like, five or something from their grandma.

Shrugging my shoulders, I looked around the lot and saw that one of the license plates identified the driver as a former New Yorker. God, I prayed that its driver wasn't the gal who was going to be interviewing me. I hadn't spoken with Melissa who I was coming to see, but her receptionist who was some dude named Grant. I still wasn't sure if that was his first or last name. He wasn't a New Yorker, but sounded like somewhere in the Deep South with a few twangs and such, not as bad as the ones in West Virginia but still not East Coast. I pretty much found New Yorkers totally useless. They treated us folks from West Virginia like stupid fools who didn't know their asses from a hole in the ground. And mostly they'd be wrong, but a few memorable idiots had spoken up during national interviews, spouting alien abduction stories, making our state open game for the midnight talk show hosts and their brand of assholeness. Hell, is that even a word? Either way West Virginia looked like a state of morons, and the reporter assholes got great ratings being fucking jerks.

I got to the front door and quickly found out that it was locked. Before freaking out, I glanced around and saw off to the left there was a button with a small message above it saying, "Ring for admission." I pushed the button and waited. It was a minute before I heard the clunk sound of a latch being triggered. I looked up to the entryway and saw that there was a small lens that had been focused on me the whole time I stood there ringing. Huh, guess they didn't let just anybody inside. I tugged the right door open and walked in slowly. The air was beyond cool. I instantly wanted my own jacket from home that was packed somewhere in a box stored in grandma's garage rafters. It wasn't like she had any space left in the spacious two car garage with the size of her damn Lincoln. Once she opened up the door it took up nearly half a parking space. Serious steel on the car that I had to respect.

Shaking off the chill that ran down my back I went further into the office building. The inside of the lobby and waiting area looked like a damn meat locker. Silver, black and reds made up nearly everything I could see and it was just as cold. It had to be sixty degrees inside the building -- tops. I felt my cotton shirt slowly freezing in spots and that was not so cool. Even the big old clock over a huge desk was red with silver. The desk was killer gray granite and shiny. There was a chair but it had its tall black leather back to me so I couldn't see if there was somebody sitting there.

I cleared my throat and the chair spun around and this tiny guy was sitting there with a grin -- no teeth showing in his smile but it was like he wanted to make me feel safe. If that was the case it was an epic failure, since I just wanted to run out the door. He had some sort of device in his hands that wasn't a cell phone or a tablet but something that looked like a remote control. He glanced at me and asked, "Are you here for the four-thirty interview with Melissa?"

The voice clinched it. The dude was Grant who'd talked to me on the phone and my mind was still adjusting to his size. He wasn't like a little person, but at no more than five feet, the tall back on the chair really dwarfed him. He was wearing a dark blue-black suit with a tailored jacket and a red tie that looked like it cost more than my whole damn wardrobe -- including all my killer winter gear that wasn't cheap. His white shirt looked a hell of a lot better than my now limp shirt. I also knew why it was so cold in the building cause if I wore that many pieces of clothes I'd be melted before the day was over. Hell, I sure hoped I didn't have to wear a suit when working -- if I was hired -- because I didn't have anything but a navy blue sports jacket that my grandma had bought me over the holidays so she could take me out and not be embarrassed. She didn't say that -- but instead she said that she thought I'd look more distinguished with the jacket -- in fucking Florida -- and because I love my grandma, I thanked her and didn't say anything bad. All I could think was, who was she fooling? Like her seventy and eighty year old friends cared about what a grand kid wore to dinner? But she didn't ask too much from me and was nicer than my mom any day.