5.

The next day Marty was checking into work and walking with the paper cup of coffee he’d bought at the storeroom vending machine when he saw Kirby, the new stocker--a nerdy guy with an acne problem and barely enough muscle on his body to hold himself erect. Kirby was quickly chewing a Butterfinger candy bar by a dolly that held boxes of the same candy.

“You stealing candy?” asked Marty with indignity.

“I paid for it!” said Kirby, his head thrust up as he crumpled the wrapper deep into his hand then shoved it in his jeans pocket.

“Yeah, you paid for it--that’s why you’re hiding the wrapper,” said Marty.

“Look--all the fellas get a candy bar now and then. They’re fucking everywhere! We’ve got too much in this store as it is.” His spine was hunched at the top where it met his neck, and his thin body trembled as if it were created with faulty architecture.

“Listen,” said Marty--“I won’t tell. But I need something in return.” Suddenly he realized the young man might think he meant sex, and he felt a tinge of humiliation. “This is how it is,” he said--“I’m due for a random drug test pretty soon. Just piss into a suntan lotion bottle and bring it to me tomorrow. Make sure there’s no goddamn suntan lotion in it though, and bring it and I’ll stuff it in the front of my drawers and keep it there till my bell tolls.”

Kirby opened his mouth cautiously, then shut it again, then reopened it. Finally he said, “Sure. No problem. Why a suntan lotion bottle?”

“They’re flat,” said Marty. “They fit right in front under your fly.”

The next day Kirby did bring it, but it had no cap. In the storeroom he handed it to Marty and said, “Damn I was careful not to spill it--it was a fucking hassle not to spill the shit.”

“Why in hell didn’t you just cap it?” said Marty.

Kirby only stared at him with a look that said he was just now asking himself the same question.

Marty took it and went to find the sunscreen in the storeroom. When he found it he saw a crate of the bottles on a dolly that already had the plastic torn open. He reached for a bottle to take the cap then saw a lone cap discarded on the floor, of the very brand Kirby had used to hold his urine. “The dumb son of a bitch,” he said. He picked up the cap Kirby had removed when he stole the bottle and fitted it back on.

Marty kept the urine bottle behind the front of his pants for so long that he got used to feeling it there, and removing it when he got off work became like a comfortable ritual in the way a white collar worker removes his tie on the drive home. Finally the bell did toll for him, and he moved into the restroom, with his supervisor behind his back, and poured the urine into the little cup from the suntan lotion bottle with no problem. When his supervisor took it into his latex-gloved hand he said something that sounded like “Humph”. But he didn’t say anything else, and Marty wasn’t sure what that “Humph” had meant at all.

Three days later Marty checked into work and his supervisor called him into the office. “We need a talk,” he said.

“Is this about that Doris guy again?” asked Marty. “ ’Cause I haven’t said a word to him--I mean her--since that last time and--” He stopped.

Perhaps a month ago there was a transsexual cashier hired, at least 6'2? with a dark square jaw, a linebacker’s shoulders, and two silicone double D breasts. She wore long skirts and blouses to work, and somehow ended up with the staid name “Doris” instead of the colorful names transsexuals usually choose. Marty had gone up to her one day when it was slow for him on the floor, and had said, “You know, you’re not fooling anyone.” She’d said, “I’m not trying to fool anyone.” “Well I just want to let you know; they all call you ‘her’--but you’re not fooling anyone.” He had received a reprimand for his comments at the time.

But now he realized it wasn’t the transsexual that this was about. His boss had an almost sympathetic tone toward him. It was like what happens when people turn from being plain assholes to being mentally ill. When they are assholes to the degree that it’s pathological, you are more concerned about them than pissed off at them. Marty knew he’d gone from fucking up bad enough to get yelled at to the next degree--he’d fucked up bad enough to garner sympathy.

Marty sat, nervous, across from him and his supervisor (Franklin) began to talk about how in this life we all make mistakes, that a lot of us need help and that if we’re willing to ask for it we can remedy our errors and get back into a good life. Drugs, Franklin said, can never be a good life so long as we’re chained by addiction, etc. Marty knew what this was about now. Kirby’s urine was dirty.

“How long have you been shooting heroin?” asked Franklin now.

“I . . . I don’t shoot heroin,” said Marty. He knew it: his job was gone.

“We want to help you,” said Franklin. “You’ve been relatively functional here, and we could stand to keep you around. There’s a drug program on Vine Street; I’m going to get you signed up. If you follow the treatment program we can keep you on here, but you’re on notice that if you slip back into shooting up we can’t keep you. It would do a disservice to your health as much as to us.”

Marty was boggled. What in hell could he do? To keep his job he’d have to take methadone and get addicted to it even though he’d never done heroin in his life. But if he told his boss that it wasn’t his urine he’d be just as fucked.

His mind raced. He trembled and sweated. Moistness dripped down his armpits and beaded on his forehead. He suddenly felt like his every motion and twitch of his face was the subject of an intense scrutiny.

Abruptly, he leaped at his boss across the desk, knocking over pens and papers and a black and white rolodex. His boss merely moved his plastic blue chair slightly to the left and it was enough to land Marty on the floor beside him. Marty then stood up, trembling wildly, and they both noticed that he’d wet his pants. Urine dripped out into a puddle at the cuff of his pants. “I wanted--I wanted to quit another way,” he said sheepishly. “I wanted to tell you off and quit and enjoy it.” He wasn’t sure what he was saying. He thought it must have been that he wanted to tell his boss off in full glory and go out blazing.

The sun had dried most of the urine by the time he got off the bus that took him home. His job was gone but he had stopped panicking and he knew he’d have a month or so of unemployment. He was feeling better now. He’d have a month of unemployment and time to work on 10,000 PSI.

When he stepped through the apartment threshold he saw Alex sinking a bong on the couch. The smoke made a thick cloud in the red colored plastic of the bong then shot out into his lungs when Alex lifted his finger off the air release.

Alex had a fit of coughing and couldn’t hold the smoke. It filled the air in plumes of sweet fragrance.

“I lost my job,” said Marty.

“You believe in munchkins?” asked Alex.

“Munchkins?”

“You know. Like from that yellow brick road movie. People hardly three feet tall. You believe they exist?”

“Midgets,” said Marty. “They’re called midgets, or dwarves. They do exist.”

Alex burst out laughing. “You believe in dwarves? Like in fairy tales? You’re a fucking numbskull man!”

“I lost my job,” said Marty again, and he sat down on the couch and reached out toward Alex for the bong.