It's Not Easy Being Green

“I can’t believe I’m doing this.”

“Shut up.”

“You shut up!  I used to have some fucking dignity.  Never had much else, but I had that.”

“Really?  Where the fuck was your dignity when you were Simonetti’s errand boy?”

“It’s pushing a hundred goddamn degrees in the middle of the night and I’m wearing a fucking Halloween mask while I load stolen shit onto the back of a van for a man—if you can call him that—that would love nothing more than to murder me.  This is rock bottom, man.  I’m telling you the only way to get any lower is to actually rip the boss off and get—I don’t know—drawn and quartered or pulled by horses or fed to orphans as meat substitute in their gruel or whatever nutball bullshit way the boss feels like killing traitors today.”

“So go to fucking Willowwood Cemetery and ask Simonetti for your job back.  They buried him alive so he might still be able to hear you.”

“Fuck you, Mo.  That was inhuman what the boss did to Simonetti.  No one deserves that.”

“Shut up, wouldja?  Jesus Christ, I swear you get dumber every day.  You think if anyone else hears you talking like this they wouldn’t sell your ass out just for a gold star from the boss?  This isn’t the best job we—”

“This is horse shit!  Our line’s never been the easiest, but it’s only getting worse.  Bad enough when the nutjobs started putting on costumes to fight crime or whatever, but once guys on our side of the fence joined in…shit got dark fast.  That’s all I’m sayin’”

“Shut up, Torrance.  You’re always ‘just sayin’’ or ending ten-minute rants with ‘that’s all I’m sayin’’.  It can’t be all you’re sayin’ if you’re saying every goddamn word in the English language.  So just shut the fuck up already.  Boss wants us outta here within the hour.”

Mo goes back to loading the crates and I sweat through my suit for another couple minutes before joining him.  I wonder what the driver’s name is and why he isn’t helping. 

It takes me a minute to ask Mo the sixty-four million dollar question.

“So whadya think of the boss?”

Mo slides another crate onto his pushcart and turns his head toward me.  He got the worst mask of the three.  It looks like it’s got barbed wire writhing out through his eyes and mouth.  Makes me shiver whenever I see it.  I don’t need to see his face to know he’s giving me a look.

“What the fuck d’ya think I think?  He’s a lunatic and a freak, but he pays.”

I wince.  He does this on purpose.  “No, not like that.  He’s a fucking awful boss, I mean…whadya think of him?”

Mo stops loading entirely.  His head twitches left and right a couple times like he’s trying to pretend he’s not paranoid.  I bet Mo thinks the boss is fucking Beetlejuice or something.  Talk about him too much and he’ll appear.  We’ve been talking kinda quiet to keep the driver from overhearing, but apparently that’s still too loud for this conversation because Mo’s even quieter all the sudden.  “I think his body count is higher than my IQ so I try not to give it too much thought.  He can claim whatever the fuck he wants.  Now shut the fuck up, Torrance.”