Day 37

Starting the novel for November thing.  Need 50,000 words over 30 days which averages out to 1666 words a day.  We can do this, guys.  Have no clue what my book is about though.  Oh well.

            The water had that dingy rusty pipe smell characteristic of pipes which were stagnant  In his younger years he thought the bromine tasted like chicken, and would drink as much of this water as possible.  It never made him sick.  Still, he emptied the bottle on the pavement.

            His name was Charles Lattimore.  He spent the 8 years before at a community college getting a degree in Liberal Arts.  He had no focus to this degree, and, appropriately, upon graduating he received no job offers.  His resume was not stacked with interesting volunteer work or internships, and he liked to think of himself as the kind of guy who flew by the seat of his pants.

            Placing his thermos and blue zipup lunch bag on the top of his 1995 Honda Civic (hell of a car), he slammed the drivers side door in the way where it would stay shut and not activate the inside chamber light.  After the door was closed, he pulled it back towards him and the beeping from inside stopped.  His name was personalized in the parking space, it said “Lattimore” in big cryptic letters, which looked to Charles like the etching on a tombstone. 

            It looked like everyone else was already inside getting set up.  He heard a slam from the other side of the spacious mall parking lot, and a geeky guy holding bifocles onto his face ran up to the glass building in compact strides.  Charles checked his itinerary.  “10 Oclock at the fabulous new Donsler Office Building”.  He did a double take, but it did say fabulous.  Precariously alone, he ran to catch up to the gentlemen with glasses.

            “Where have you BEEN?!” An effeminate male voice called as he opened the door.  The gentleman in question waved a white-gloved finger in the air, to the laughter of his admiring crowd of trainees.  Charles checked his watch which said 9:45.  He hurriedly assimilated with the rest of the group.

            “Now that we’re all settled in,” The guide began.  “You might be interested in knowing where you are going to be living for the next year.”  Charles forced out a laugh to what he thought was a joke, receiving dirty looks from the rest of the group who simultaneously all turned toward him. 

            “Not all of us are going to make it here at Donsler Enterprises,”  The man said to scattered applause, some people in the group realizing the underlying truth that they were in competition with each other.

            “Mr. Pulp is a pretty funny guy,”  An overweight man with a lab coat, pen protector, and khaki shorts nudged Charles.  “He may not seem like it, but he’s a real sport.”

            Charles didn’t know what to make of this comment.  They followed Mr. Pulp through a series of hallways, passing high-tech equipment Charles had no idea how to use.  Mr. Pulp repeatedly asked “Any questions?” at the end of each corridor, no one ventured throw a pebble into the crocodile creak.  He couldn’t be the only one here who had no idea what he was doing.

            “And this little baby,”  Mr. Pulp demonstrated on a centrifuge type of instrument.  “Well, it makes our job a lot easier. You may not know the results right away, but that’s ok!  Think of this as a visual memory machine, it let’s you know where you stopped, and holds the whole world in temporary stasis!”

            Charles noticed there were more machines than people.  He was tacitly accepting the fact that these more sciency looking folks would root him out in no time flat. 

            “Now, here’s my favorite part!”  Mr. Pulp opened a door at the end of a long zinc hallway with the back of his hand without turning away from his audience.  He pressed a button on the wall after everyone entered.  “This is your chance to show what you can do!  I’ll stand over here and observe, if anyone needs any help I’m here!”

            The button started a digital timer mounted on the wall.  The rest of the applicants descended onto the wide array of machinery in the room, handling petri dishes, twisting dials, turning knobs on large box shaped machines that to Charles looked straight out of campy B-movie schtick.  Charles stood alone on the black and white checkered floor next to the elevated platform that the experiments were taking place on. 

            “You look lost, young man!”  Mr. Pulp put his arm around Charles and led him to a vatt.  “We’ll get you started at the easiest part.  Where are your goggles and gloves?”

            Charles produced his elbow-high acryllic gloves and goggles, and struggled to pull them on with his teeth as Mr. Pulp looked on mortified.  “Wet behind the ears, but that’s ok!  Where did you go, a State University?”

            The jab deeply wounded Charles, who had failed out of State University and ended up at a technical school.  He wondered if all of the other students running around with the energy of chickens with their heads cut off but the focus of sharks which had smelled blood. 

            Charles tentatively picked up a test tube with his glove, gauging Mr. Pulp’s reaction.  Mr. Pulp shoved a tongs into Charles hand, standing behind him like he was practicing his golf swing.  Charles felt like he was being taught how to ride a bike.  He lowered the tube into a concentration of brightly colored goo, and removed it without having a clue what the next step was.

            A loud bang emitted from a mushroom shaped beaker, and a cloud of noxious yellow gas rose into the air, activating a sprinkler system.  “Everyone, drop what you are doing!”  Called Mr. Pulp.  “It’s a code red! “

            Pneumatic doorways opened upwards like refridgerator doors and revealed stairwells which led into complete darkness.  The group of trainees dropped their instruments in a frenzy and descended down the stairwell clad in their goggles and lab coats.  Mr. Pulp ran behind Charles, the last of the group to enter the stairwell, shooing him on. 

            “This was a great first day!”  Mr. Pulp stuck his feet into a hazmat suit.  “Zip me up, won’tcha Chuck?”

            Chuck zipped up the back of Mr. Pulps suit, who ran back up the stairway and into the thuck of the mess. 

            No one from the group was communicating with one another, and they ignored Charles’ presence altogether.  He removed his gloves and rested his goggles on the top of his head, retrieving change from his pocket for the vending machines.  The lower tunnel was lit by a line of flickering fluorescent lights, water dripped from holes in the ceiling, and on the opposite side a picnic table and bench sat by a series of vending machines.  This area looked like it was carved out of rock.

            The sole girl of the group, an angry young spark plug, sat across from Charles and he was unwrapping his Milky Way Bar.

            “Pulp’s a dick,”  She stated matter of factly.  “I don’t know shit about science.  They told me I was coming on as a general contractor.”

            Charles felt the burden removed from his shoulders at this admission.  “Yeah, I’m a visual arts major.”  Charles conceited.  She stared in an uninterrupted line at Charles’ face, and he nervously leaned away.

            Charles wasn’t a quiet guy, always.  When he was in a new situation and didn’t want to incriminate himself, he knew after the job at the trucking company to just mind his own business.

          “Those people will conspire against you,” He remembered hearing his grandpa tell him as they pulled into the circus parking lot.  “Coworkers could care less about your life or your well being.”  Pedestrians parted to each side of the lot as his over sized Plymouth Skylark came roaring through.  “You just gotta keep your fucking mouth shut, nothing good comes out of it.”

            The rest of the group members passed in a steady line and went through a door which must have led to stairs which must have led back to the surface level.  Charles rose and said to the girl, “Yeah, I guess he seems like a dick”, shrugging with a wry smile.  “But we’re not in this for fun.  Maybe he just takes his work seriously.”

            “Fuck you…” She paused to read his name tag.  “Chuck!  We’re supposed to be in this together.”

            Charles was applauded at the next station when he was able to get the thermometer to stand upright in a gelatinous cube.  He tried not to let the early success get to his head, as Mr. Pulp stood next to him and posed as if he were Vanna White.  Mr. Pulp paid him in cash at the end of the night, which was odd but Charles hadn’t kept a real job down before so he didn’t think too much of it. 

            Bosco the dog jumped up to greet Charles on his return home, yapping at him and occasionally biting.  Charles pushed the portly beagle off of him and microwaved a stuffed pepper burrito.  He realized he forgot to take the thermos or lunchbox in with him from on top of the car.  Looking out the window through the tree branches and leaves, he saw his Honda Civic with nothing sitting on top.

            It was a quiet night, like usual, just the way Charles liked it.  He’d sit on the couch and pet the dog, watch a couple of hours of All in the Family reruns and go to sleep. 

Teetering back on the reclining couch,  the phone started to ring.  Afraid of what it might be about, he thought for a second about letting it go to voice mail, staring intently at his Felix the Cat clock.  He sighed and picked up the receiver.  It was an automated call system from his job.