HOME DEPOT
PROFILES IN COURAGE
by
JESSE MYNER
THE HUMAN SIDE PRESS
2011
© 2011 by Jesse Myner
All Rights Reserved.
Printed in the United States of America.
CONTENTS
TED
FRANK
A CAR YOU DON'T DRIVE, A HOUSE YOU DON'T LIVE IN, A GIRLFRIEND YOU'VE NEVER KISSED
DAN
GARY
GEORGE & LESTER
SAM
KEN
FORKLIFT ACCIDENT
GREAT NEWS
PAULIE
HOWIE BLAKELY
HOWIE BLAKELY 2
TED 2
DOUG
FREIGHT TEAM UPDATE
GARY 2
DOUG 2 (supplemental)
FRANK 2
MACHINES
ORDER PICKER
REACH LIFT TRUCK
SMALL FORK LIFT
TED
They made Ted an assistant store manager. I don’t know why. Ted refused to write tags for the pallets he put up in the overhead. He claimed dyslexia. Anyone who wanted to know what was up there in the hardware aisle had to take the pallets down and sort through the boxes. It made for quite a lot of work for everyone. Ted made other claims, the most interesting being his ability to heal from wounds within hours. He claimed even the deepest gashes, requiring stitches, he could recover from quickly without any sign of injury. This Ted attributed to having an extra chromosome. The extra chromosome was discovered, he said, by doctors at the Chicago Zoo. He had gone to the zoo for a very special form of testing. This excess of chromosomes also may have affected his diet. Ted said his stomach could only digest raw meathe was unable to eat anything else. Ted was short and round yet said his body fat was at exactly 0%. He said he had been in a major high school football championship game and was headed directly for the NFL, bypassing college, had it not been for a serious injury. I assumed in those years he did not yet have the extra chromosome that allowed for quick healing.
FRANK
The first day I met Frank he told me about his prostate infection. Coffee, which he loved, made it worse. Then he told me about his wife leaving him. “There weren’t enough steaks in the fridge,” he said. She thinned down, spent all his money, and ran off with the fitness trainer. The trainer was a big, big guy but Frank said he’d take him. He wouldn’t kill him though. He’d bite off his nose or part of his cheek, so that every time the trainer looked in the mirror he would think of Frank. Frank wasn’t even sure they were fucking, but Frank didn’t like the trainer. He had snubbed Frank once when Frank had tried to be helpful regarding a problem with the trainer’s car.
Frank also said he would murder his wife. This was certain. He would kill her and we would read about it in the papers. He remembered finding all the sexy lingerie and asking her where it came from and she had lied to him. Imagine that, the woman he had been married to since they were nineteen. She wouldn’t even wear the lingerie for him. Imagine that. He would kill her slowly and it didn’t matter if he went to prison for it and it didn’t matter if their two daughters had no parents. “There is no greater feeling than killing someone who deserves to die,” said Frank.
Frank was bankrupted now and living with his parents. He picked up pennies and accepted clothing from the other night workers. He said he was planning a great comeback, he had a five year plan. Frank said he’d be living in a 4000 square foot house in the suburbs by then. Frank was sure of it.
A CAR YOU DON'T DRIVE,
A HOUSE YOU DON'T LIVE IN, A GIRLFRIEND YOU'VE NEVER KISSED
Joe said he had a black Monte Carlo Super Sport. None of us had seen it and his father drove him to work. Joe said he had a home that he bought out of foreclosure. He said the home was being worked on and that was why he lived with his parents. Joe had been saying this for five years now.
Joe said he was going to marry Elise who worked the paint aisle, and then he would take her to Italy. Italy was the homeland of his ancestors and he had family there who would welcome them. But Elise had reported him to management for harassment and asked to be moved to the other end of the store.
Joe said he had been strangled by the boss at his last job, by a Mexican named Augie, and that very soon he was to receive a large settlement. Despite the litigation he was calling daily to get his old job back in the meat department. Any day now he would have it. Augie and he could work things out. “But what we need ‘round this place here is a union,” Joe said. “So that management will give us some respect.” Respect was worth paying a union, he argued. And Hoffa was a great man.
Joe was short and round and his bald head was smooth and polished. Joe’s hands were soft and very white and stayed that way because he did not like to work. Through the night you heard Joe cackling in the paint aisle and doing broken English impersonations of the Mexican Augie.
Steve liked to get on Joe in the break room. Joe would be telling Victor about how this or that was going to happen for him and Steve, not even looking up from reading the paper, would grunt, “No, it’s not Joe. No. That’ll never happen.” Joe had these sties growing on his eyelids and they seemed to get larger and redder every day. He had had them for months. Joe was always talking about what the doctor was proscribing and Steve says, “Hey Joe, maybe if you washed your hands after you go to the bathroom you wouldn’t have that shit growing on your eyes.”