Chapter Two

Finding his work was no harder than a quick check of keys and work attire. Nametag for some movie rental place on some side street with minimal foot traffic, a true outsiders position. Walking to my bus stop is a slow process but something felt so damn good about walking to work with the keys to the place. I guess Scott was doing shift work because he had the keys sitting on his counter on a key ring. "See the last movie rental place in this city would get closed in 2013, but being it is 1998 I think I'll have enough time for a bit of fun." I reach into my pocket and pull out a pack of cigarettes and rest one on my lips. Loosely dangling with an independent agency all it's own. "You know somehow I forget I've never smoked before, not once. Even the sun feels kind of new in a hollow, papery kind of way. A whole new world of fun to explore." I spark the lighter and ignite the smoke resting in my mouth. And just like that, my second ever bus ride. "Now you can't smoke on the bus but prohibiting drinking is a real challenge for these people." I flick away my cigarette and load onto the bus.

Bright and loud, bustling with people, the walls were moist with their breath. The room was echoing with voices and sounds I don't think I've ever heard. Drunken grumbling, sickly smell, it was like death had foothold in the seat farthest to the back. Resting on someone's lap as they sit swaying and humming, moaning and groaning. Thick scraggly beard buried in a thick winter coat with a face just behind the shadow of the hood, scratched up pants and shoes ripped to pieces. You know a bum when you see one, but you don't see them like this often. That level of depressant melancholy, that air of loneliness that creeps up his throat until he downs it with his one cure all wrapped in a paper bag. I walk past the faces, the bodies and the shapes that I barely acknowledge. I don't think I could see anyone else on the bus, just him. I sit down right next to him, sure not to bump into his drink. He looks at me with bewildered terror, wide eyed and grumpy. Maybe scared I was a cop. I press my head against the back of the chair, and bask in the indignant attention of this half conscious creature. "Do you wanna share pal?" I ask. He grumbles loudly and stares hard.

"Who the fuck are you?"

"I'm the guy who's thirsty and wouldn't mind some company. That is of course, if you're interested."

He chuckles in that grumbly way I think I'm beginning to grow used to. It's a good thing that guy never ceases to surprise me on the things I can find in his jackets, otherwise I may have never gotten such a special moment. "Fuck man, j-j-just don't dri--drink it all man." He sways the bottle over in my general direction, unsure of exactly which shaky version of me was the one actually sitting next to me. Maybe he didn't know if I was here at all, but my buck knife and I were sure he was.

The moment it touched my tongue, it tasted like the most disgusting thing I've ever touched. Slowly sliding down into my stomach, my mouth caught fire and my throat fought violently with the urge to vomit up this borderline inconsumable drink. A strong swig and I sink into my seat, the terrifying realization that was sinking in was how strong this drink he clung to really was. I felt a pressure tighten around my heart with each laboured breath as I took another swig, and another. "Jesus fuck!" I stare outwards and feel the bus' gentle sway rock the churning agony of volatile substance in my stomach to some kind of a calm. " Uh-- Are you alr-- alri-- okay?" He asks with concern, I look up from the bottle with my own bewildered look of inhibited drunk. "I, uh-- I'm good man, first day at work." I pause and stare forwards, my sense of smell was returning as I reeled in from the last swig, and there returns that scent of death. But was it him I was smelling?

I felt disoriented and lost for a moment, so I leaned in and swigged again hard. "You good man? I couldn't, uh-- I couldn't imagine drinking anything, uh-- like this often. And you! You're sitting on a bus fucked up-- Fucked up already?" I drunkenly slur as carefully as I can. Coherence becomes an elusive mistress as liquor starts sinking in. He smiles at me and laughs, he laughs and laughs like he was hiding shitting his pants. More forced than sincere, it sounded almost bitter. "Fuck, is-- is-- is drinking on the-- the-- the bus not normal?" That knife felt dull in my pocket, felt pointless, felt rusted and weak; without any kind of a use here. "Pal-- Wait what's your name?" I force out. "Oh man I'm,-- I'm Jimmy man. Wha-- Why-- What's, what's your name friend?" I hand him back his bottle and pull myself out of the slump I'd sunken into. "Jimmy man, you wanna go get some food? Maybe have some company man?" And there it was, a real, sincere, and genuine response. A toothy grin.

The one thing you learn that's almost incoherently marvelous is how everyone seems to enjoy their food differently. Ever so slightly they have their own convictions on perfection, reflecting perfectly their oddly different personality. The woman in the booth beside us was eating a caesar salad and a tea. The man in front of us was eating a stack of pancakes drenched in maple syrup with whipped cream, a side of hashbrowns, bacon, and eggs with a coffee in front of his two kids eating a smaller version of this. And even they were eating it differently. One without hashbrowns, one without bacon and their pancakes drenched in cranberry sauce. You'd never know that the man's wife committed suicide 2 years ago, or the woman's boyfriend is fucking her sister, but right now their simply delving into their own creature comforts, quelling that empty space in all our hearts. "It sounds preachy I know, but then again, I envy this bunch. I couldn't be fucked to know what it is that would do the same for me. Nothing can really fill that void. I don't know how I like my eggs, and I don't know if I like them at all, but I have to watch Jimmy hear rip apart an omelette, french toast with whipped cream & maple syrup, washed down with a black coffee without sugar, spice, or anything nice."

I lean over to meet his face gawking hungrily at his food as he crams it down his face. He reaches down for his bottle from beside his foot, and before you knew it his coffee had become a whole lot more bitter. "Jim? What were we drinking again?" There were his eyes now, meeting mine the moment I asked. You have no idea how nice being listened to is, even when the person listening is a wino. "Gin man. Tast-- Tastes b-b-best with coffee though... For sure man, for sure."

"Jimmy, do you always drink your coffee with Gin?" His jaw stopped moving and the food sat flatly in it, floating in a pool of his own drool. You could nearly sense the discontent with having to talk as he could taste the mixture of cream, coffee, gin, syrup and food stimulating all of his taste buds. He chewed some more before swallowing hard, washing it down with a sip of his coffee before grumbling out, "How else do you drink coffee?" I smiled at him and the knife that was burning a whole in my jacket began to grow heavier and heavier. "Sorry, can you excuse me for a second Jimmy?" I stood up and headed out the front door, towards the alleyway beside this diner buried underneath another floor of this rental space in some lifeless downtown section of hell. I start down it and see a cat walking, slowly and calmly, with a level of majesty that was on par with a creature of such power. An alley cat soaked in filth and blood front scraps across the area calmly walking towards me with utter indifference.

I lower and smile at it, putting my left hand out for it to sniff. It begins to nuzzle up against the back of my palm and I can't help but feel a smile creep onto my face as I reach for the hammer beside me and bring it down on the cats head. One hit had it's head pressed down flat on the concrete, leg twitching, but the next two were for my own satisfaction. And after that it became a relentless assault as the emotions began to spill out violently, as I just as violently thrashed it's skull against the pavement. When I was done I stood up, tossed the hammer to my side and felt my bladder tugging at me. I tilt my head and smile as I unzip my fly, I hang my cock out to piss on the corpse and see a child staring at me from an apartment building above me. There was no judgment in his eyes, not a thought at all of such notions. No he was just watching a strange man mitterate upon the fresh corpse of an alley cat, indifferent and horribly infatuated with the act. I tilt my head at him with my crooked smile, and wave my hand haphazardly, as I feel my stream sway and begin to end. Once I had zipped up, I simply turned around and didn't look back on my way into the diner again.

"Now one important thing to know about Jimmy is he wasn't always a drunk. In fact he probably was something of some sort of importance to someone before he drank away his memories. And killing someone like that isn't wasting any life, it's ending misery. And I do not put down old dogs." The door closes behind me as I walk back in, and Jimmy is already half asleep, cradling his bottle in a booth just in view of everyone else here. "If this sounds like Jimmy doesn't give a shit, you've guessed correctly." I walk back to the booth and sit down in front of him before deciding what to do. There's so much I want to do, but can't. The waitress walked up to our table and in that moment, that flicker in me died. The motivation. "Do you have any more orders or are you ready to pay sir?" She says staring at Jimmy's motionless body drooling on the seat. I smile at her and the moment I meet her eyes, I know what I want to do.

"Jimmy," I start to try and find the words, "Jimmy do you have anywhere you need to be today?" Glazed over eyes meeting mine, barely open or conscious, and as he struggles up I see the look of content begin to drain in him. Skin greying by the minute. "I-- I, uh-- d-d-d--" He starts.

"It's okay Jimmy, don't worry." I put my hand on his shoulder with a smirk, "Do you wanna hang out at my store today?" A flicker of uncertainty in his eyes, slowly settling into unease. Trembling hands and flushed complexion, I am beginning to appear less and less what I seem. "There's a liquor store down the street from it, and a room for you to pass out in." I say. And there it was, a toothy, wide-eyed grin. In a heartbeat we were on the next bus.

"Now, the store that I 'own' is a movie rental store in 1998. Which is the equivalent of basically being a corner store clerk and a clerk at a movie theatre all in one." I begin making my way towards the back of the store. " This doesn't sound inherently terrible, until you realize you have to deal with all manner of cunts coming in asking: 'What would you suggest?', 'Is it any good?', or even worse than that 'Do you have this?'. I must be the luckiest guy in the world to have killed who I did." I watch glibly as Jimmy drunkenly stumbles into the back storeroom, unwittingly sprawling onto a 'bed' of food crates. "And worse than that are the bastards who come in to condescend about their movie opinions. And I will have you know, if I listen to one more self important asshole say 'The Godfather is the best movie of all time', I'll fucking shoot myself." I start up opening the store.

"The Godfather is one of the most boring movies in existence,--" The store explodes to life as I flick the power on. Sticky vending machines hissing at the back of the store, popcorn maker buzzing a low drone, burrowing in the back of your head. Cheap printed movie covers on clearly bootlegged movies filed in rows of importance and passerby preference. With a slight scent piss now gently creeping under your nose the closer you get to the washroom. " 'Oh, the horse head scene is so fucked u--' Oh blow it up your ass you sycophantic pantomime, regurgitating bullshit. They have no real taste, not to say the movie is inherently terrible, just that the fans aren't real or genuine. My question is when did the words of Copolla and Kubrick become gospel? Looking to the silver screen for morality and entertainment in a healthy helping of both, and walking away like nothing ever happened in this voyeuristic escapade. People live and die on the TV, Presidents are assassinated on channel 3, families dragged away at the border on channel 2, and if you're interested in a quick firebombing then feel free to direct yourself to channel 1--"

Stop. Earring, fanny pack, flannel and tight jeans. My eyes creep up in disgust, but the satisfaction alone when my eyes fix on the bow on his beanie, leaves me content to remain sitting. "Now watch, this fucker is going to walk up and ask for a copy of last year's big flop." Sitting, staring, waiting. Beading eyes watching him maneuver around the store, molesting the cases with his chubby pale hands and judgment behind his unfashionable sunglasses he decides to continue to wear indoors. "The real problem here isn't that he's horribly dressed, or carries an air of unwavering narcissism, but that he too is simply a symptom of the actual cause. Reactionary, not proactive to the current problem. Movies are made for people seeking cheap thrills and perverted fetishized violence without substance. One can't simply seek to find substance digging through entrails. Relying on pathetic genre tropes and shorthands that numb the audience to any sense of feeling is the most you can hope for with this mixed bag of crap the industry keeps churning out. Like an hour and a half coma for $10."

He meanders to the front and I rest my head in my hand with a skin deep smile. "How can I help you today, sir?" I muster.

"Do you guys have a copy of Batman and Robin?" He asks. I could feel loathing begin to grow in me towards this man as I grind my teeth in disgust.

"Yes." I say, before going entirely silent.

"Can you tell me where it is?" Annoyance forcing its way out as he asks.

"No." I respond with a wider, shit eating grin.

"Why's that?" He asks, now with a clear anger in his voice.

"Because," I lean in and smile, "I don't like you and your stupid fucking earring."

He just kind of stares at me with this degree of uncertainty, like I'd just cursed at him in Icelandic and began belly dancing on the spot. "Is that all, sir?" I ask before he starts towards the door. My awareness of the store becoming more crowded sent waves of hunger over me. Like hole that can't be filled but yearns to be. Yellow hair, brown hair, green eyes, blue, five foot five, four foot nothing, all shapes and sizes filling up the store.

"So, what exactly are the upsides of having a shit job like this? Well on the one hand I have a wide selection of people to meet. Like the four kids at the nudie section getting ready to steal a copy, or the lonely, mildly chubby and clearly self-loathing middle-aged man mouth breathing on the children show bootlegs." I say making my way around the store.

"You of course have to keep in mind with this kind, you really have to know how to deal with a body," I started refilling the soda fountain, "Now generally the route of disposing of a body is just burying it somewhere no one will find it, but that implies trusting society for an indefinite amount of time. No, there are four popular ways to deal with a corpse." Sticky soda splatters against the wall onto my shoes. "Fuck!" I say reaching for a paper-thin napkin with the hope of wiping it off. "Now on one hand: if you remove all the teeth, bash the face to the point of inscrutable indecipherability, and then remove the hands and feet and burn all the removed parts in a furnace, theoretically you should be fine just dumping it any old place. But there's the problem of do-gooders and fuckheads finding a stump in a shallow grave." I start making my way to the washroom past the shelves of H-I. The door swings behind me as I start for the first stalls plunger.

"Now the next best thing is a pig farm. This requires you starve 10-20 pigs for up to three weeks or slightly more for maximal effect." The smell of bleach fills the air, enveloping everything except the shit smell from the stall next to my head, "Ripping through skin and bone, which if not removed at first, you'll end up having to remove from the pig shit to burn. Remember, teeth have a record and so do bones to some degree." I make my way over to the next stall, cleaning products clad in one hand, scrub brush in the other.

"You could try simple dismemberment, but the problem with that is of course dealing with the pieces. Burning is obviously the most efficient route, but burial is generally the consensus that tends to get those few who can agree on it arrested. Burn them or feed them to other creatures. Otherwise route four is best." Fist clenched, scrubbing the floor while making my way to the last stall.

"Lastly, there are acids. Now acids have the problem of how strong they are, what grade of acidity and strength they are. Generally the easiest to get in large quantities is sulfuric acid because it's simply car battery acid boiled to the melting point of the other ingredients to separate the acid. After which you collect the amount and fill a plastic container to ultimately break down the body. The problem is the period it would take is generally much longer than any other method, though however the most thorough next to a pig farm." I start towards the sink, rinsing the cleaner off my hands. Barely functioning hand dryer blares loudly before I sit back at the register.

"Hey," The words slowly trailed to my ear, taking it's time to register. My heavy head sways deliriously in its direction, and there she was, put in my way. "Sorry to bother you, but I'm wondering if you guys have a copy of Cube? No where else seems to have it."

"Yeah of course we do," I say, eyeing the pile of movies she'd plopped on the counter, "My question is will Cube really help the vibe if you got Leaving Las Vegas and Logan's Run sandwiched in there?"

"Yeah but it was either Leaving Las Vegas or Face/Off, and--"

"--Travolta as Nick Cage is terrifying!" We finish in harmony. She lets out a soft laugh and I smile before darting my eyes at the inventory list.

"That's awesome, damn," She starts, but as her eyes meet mine my mouth turns to cotton. Conversations in my head, jokes battling for the most funny, stories battling for the most interesting; the wheels were turning, but not moving. Awkward silence was the only word to describe this moment, where a second drags on until it becomes a minute, and that minute becomes an hour. I look at her, ready to say anything, and finding no words to be right. She just smiles, "Still with a movie like Face/Off, you buy the ticket, you take the ride."

I stare with a kind of look of uncertainty, before laughing off the moment and moving on. "Thompson, eh? You gonna see Fear and Loathing in theatres this year?" I ask unsurely.

"I dunno, Where the Buffalos Roam just made Hunter into Carl from Caddyshack. Honestly I don't expect it to be much good."

"I got a feeling it might surprise you," I start as I begin ringing up her bill, "Surprise everybody for that matter." I mutter, handing her the receipt. I watch her until she's all the way gone, and then start my rounds around the store again.

"Another upside, lots of free time to watch movies on the barely functioning TV that's volume is always either entirely inaudible or painfully ear damaging with no in between," Ed Norton loudly blaring in the background, just slightly too loud to sit in the background.

"Downsides? Well the possibility of the hammer coming down at any moment is always dangling there. But then again, I have a feeling that this place isn't exactly a franchise business," Feet sticking with each step to soda soaked floors, with a nauseating sound following each step, "Oh might I add, food. I've never loathed food more than watching it drip from some fatty's mouth greasing the floor in a squishy layer of filth in the carpeted floors that your feet sink into."

"And of course, I have to serve people. Which is about as much fun as snapping a glass rod off in your urethra. Each a little gem of, indelicately put, apathy and misery, yearning for some kind of self image disproportionate to reality. Bad piercings, worse tattoos, crooked teeth, over-pronounced brows, each one with their own blemish they try so intensely to hide. only to accentuate it. How about the sweat coated loser in a tracksuit who has already given up on their afternoon workout to come rent a movie, and can't decide between Cock-Worshipping Cumsluts Vol. 3 and Juicy-Canadian-Beaver Eaters. Or even better, the lady walking up to the register pushing her stroller." I turn and smile, "Good afternoon, how can I help you?"

"Hi, I'm so sorry. My three year old has been yelling at us to get a copy of Rex's Playhouse since he saw the commercial on TV. But I'm not wasting thirty dollars on that, so please tell me you guys have a copy. I've been to two other places today and I just--" She starts before I cut her off.

"Don't worry at all ma'am, I just looked it up in the system and we should have it in the back. Can you give me one minute to go get it for you?" I say as politely as possible. She nods anxiously, and I make my way for the back. I close the door behind me and stop still. One one-thousand, two one-thousand, three one-thousand, four one-thousand. After almost a minute I open the door and head back behind the register. "Sorry ma'am, my manager just told me that it was supposed to come in today but was delayed. It should however be in tomorrow, if you'd like we have a home delivery service. I can bring it to you right once the order comes in." Grinning ear to ear, my best customer service face forward, trying to hide the giddy child-like glee behind my eyes while hoping I wouldn't explode into some kind of homicidal episode.

A look of relief washed over her face the moment the words left my mouth, "Thank fuck--" She stops and covers her mouth as she gently laughs, "Sorry, it's been a really long day." I hand her a sheet, busting at the seams with joy.

"No worries at all ma'am, just write down your name, address, and a time you'll be home and I'll be more than happy to bring it to you myself,--" Her eyes dart up and I stop myself, "It's been a long week for me too, but I kinda need these extra hours, ya know?" And with that the calm washed over her face, and in a few moments, she was off. One foot forward, with doe eyes and a clear conscience. "Have a nice day." I say as the door closes behind her.

"Now where was I?"