Too slow Johnny

By Matt Millham

Johnny ran hard past the salon where the fat ladies got their hair done, and the shop where he sometimes returned bottles, and the homeless guy who said inappropriate things to girls walking in skirts to the subway, noting that he was close to the bar where Phil the theater major had taken Linda out for drinks and bathroom intercourse. Before that, Linda had laughed at the note Johnny had sneaked into her notebook and showed it to Regina, who snickered. Then Linda ignored Johnny for the rest of the semester instead of saying one way or the other whether she’d ever go out with him.

Heather, she was no bathroom tramp and dream crusher. She’d opened the Valentine he left on her desk and checked the box under Yes and handed it to him in person, which he thought was brave. Johnny imagined the look Heather would give him when he handed her the pansies, which he tried hard not to ruin as he ran ran ran uptown. Maybe they’d hold hands.

Johnny pulled back his sleeve to check his watch and oh jeez it was already a minute after noon and he was late. She was probably there already ordering something sophisticated like cappuccino or chai. Maybe when she saw he wasn’t there she would pick up a newspaper and solve the crossword in pen, which she could do because she was so smart and gutsy. Maybe when she was sitting there alone some guy would ask is this seat taken and try to chat her up and she’d say no I’m waiting for the father of my future genius children to join me for conversation and a lot of enthusiastic hand holding.

Please, please wait, Johnny said out loud ignoring the crosswalk light at 25th telling him no don’t cross the street and a bicycle messenger gripped his hand brakes hard and swerved and called Johnny the R word and Johnny gave him the bird.

Oh jeez, Johnny’s heart skipped for his tardiness and death brush and the sweat that ran down the valley of his spine and stuck his shirt to his back messing up his outfit, which was new. He passed a pay phone and, whew, remembered Heather’s number was programmed in his phone and his ears got hot. He fished around his fanny pack, thumbed the four twice to get H for Heather and pushed his legs to go go go.

Dirty penny taste filled his mouth and he pressed the call button and smooshed the phone hard to his ear. One ring and Johnny was in the middle of 26th Street and the phone bounced off the cab’s windshield and he wrapped around the bumper, his feet underneath and his body flopped on the hood until the wheels locked and he slid off.

Oh man the flowers and where did his phone go and ouch these legs are, wow, Heather’s not going to want to look at that while gently sipping chai and holding hands. Who the heck is this guy with the histrionics and bug-eyes?

The driver squatted down next to Johnny saying what the hell were you thinking you stupid kid and somebody somewhere said that idiot just ran out into traffic and what the heck is he dumb?

Johnny’s mouth made a gurgling sound and his head throbbed and the words wouldn't come. I know. I’m sorry. I know.

Bartender

By Matt Millham

Did I tell you about Dad? Yeah? Well, listen anyway. I don’t have a lotta stories.

Dad spent thirteen years as a buttonhole associate at the plant. Drill holes all day is all he did, twelve, sixteen hours a day.

It was a, well, it was a bad effin life.

Other factories had automated buttonhole drilling. But there was Dad in front of this ridiculous buttonhole driller. More than a decade drilling holes in buttons with a – I think it was called a Thierssen Four-Hole Button Drilling Machine.

And there was this jerk-ass Thomas. Thomas the plant boss. Thomas the guy who stomped all over Dad’s dream of maybe one day being plant boss. Thomas was the owner’s kid. He was a know-nothing with a silver spoon and a hairlip and a history of totally ruining everybody’s goddamned day for no goddamned reason. Seriously.

Dad would come home from the plant all pissed and, man, I’d have to be on my Ps and effin Qs. My homework? Done. Dishes? You only don’t have those done one time and the wallop you get is enough to make you never step out line again, even if for, like, your pants are on effin fire or whatever.

So this jackass Thomas is like totally in Dad’s ass for not drilling holes fast enough even though Dad’s the fastest manual buttonhole driller outside of, like, China. This isn’t just, like, hyperbole. He was the buttonhole effin master. Fifty buttons a minute, I swear to effin Christ.

But Thomas is all in Dad’s ass, telling him he’s gonna be demoted to, like, acrylic stirrer, which is the worst job in the plant. That’s where you stir this vat of plastic that’s about to be buttons to keep it from coagulating or whatever? I mean, Dad had all he could do to keep from flying off the handle, what with his righteous temper, was no small effin feat. Check out this scar. That’s, I swear to God, it’s from my own goddamned backpack. Hit me right in the effin forehead. Bled like a shot rabbit. Dad was super apologetic.

So anyway, Dad had been in a bad way for years. He’d only kept it together because, well, who knows. He didn’t finish high school, you know? So, like, I guess he thought that if he left the plant he’d have no options? I mean, who’s gonna give a buttonhole-drilling dropout a job? Not in this town. And he was a single dad. So he was in a bad way and a little desperate.

But he had this idea he was gonna get back at Thomas. He hatched this all on his own. Didn’t tell an effin soul. It was all, like, this trickery in his head he just hatched all on his own.

It was, from what I know, supposed to all look like an accident. He had, like, kidney stones, and had to keep super hydrated all the time. So he had to pee about maybe every hour and a half or so. And Thomas, he was walking around the plant all day gettin’ in everybody’s business. So Dad’s idea was that he’d try to come across Thomas when that jerk was near the acrylic vat and, like, kind of accidentally trip him into it. It’d kill you real quick. That stuff is, like, a few hundred degrees.

Anyway, Dad didn’t pull it off. He flew down into the vat himself like a damned rock. Now I got his job. What a life, huh?