Fred twists to his left, and then to his right, until his back cracks. He stretches backwards until it cracks again. The stretch feels good. As oxygen squeezes through his capillaries he can feel a fleeting moment of comfort before misery sets in again. He puts his hands on the steering wheel and rests his forehead against his fingers.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck.”
He whispers it slowly, like a prayer.
“What am I going to tell Jamie? Jesus Christ, what can I do next?”
He speaks softly to himself, dragging the words out. There is more defeat in his voice than anger or desperation. He doesn’t even have the energy for despair.
He sits and listens to the rain as the big drops barrage his truck. It sounds like a legion of fingers tapping sporadically against the cab of his pickup.
The rain used to be a comforting sound. Even made him think of God. That seems like a long time ago. He wishes God would show up now. He has a few choice words for the son of a bitch.
He looks through the windshield, at the glowing sign in front of his truck. In big, boring letters, it reads: Firetti Heating and Ventilation. This was the last shop in town, the place he dreaded asking for work. Tony Firetti had always been a douche-bag, Fred had hoped it wouldn’t come to this. But it had, and Tony had said a variation of what everyone else had said,
“There’s no work right now, buddy. I’d hire you if I could, I just can’t justify firing one of my guys to bring you on. I’ve already had to fire Mike Leary because business has been so slow.”
The memory, only ten minutes old, somehow seems to have happened weeks ago.
“God dammit!” Fred punches the steering wheel. He’s finding a bit of energy for anger after all.
He knows he could do the work of every guy on Tony’s crew in half the time it would take them to do it as a group, and it would be better work, too. 18 years on the job, he knew HVAC backward and forward. And now they’re paying these fucking useless kids to do the work, instead.
Before they’d fired him over at Bottini, he’d had to go in to repair some installs that’d been botched by one of the new kids. He couldn’t believe his eyes. The duct work looked like it’d been done by a blind, hyperactive ten-year-old. He doubted the return vent would even work. It was a fucking hack job.
Yet, that dumb-ass kid still had a job, and Fred was driving around town begging for employment.
He pinched between his eyes and tried to rub the absurdity of it all out of his mind.
trigger fiction. 