Duane is a mean, angry man. He wakes up every day and wonders what he did to deserve his life. A breakfast of eggs and sausage is gulped down as he grabs his coat and walks out the front door. The new truck squats in the driveway, like a German tank, it is dark and oppressive. It rumbles to life, dirty black smoke coughs from its enormous tailpipes.
Putting the truck in gear, Duane pulls out of the driveway and turns on to the dark highway outside his house. Massive black tires whirring as the giant picks up speed, the large black tires chomp and tear into the snow covered road. The blinking diodes read 5:45 a.m. Duane blinks and looks ahead into the cold morning gloom. His mind is blank, but for the dull red throb of his anger and self loathing that encase his thoughts like a lead lined tourniquet. His anger is compounded by the emasculating feelings of being ridden by those that did not understand him.
Arriving at work, Duane slides out of the truck and closes the door behind him, a dull mechanical thwack that sounds of a casket being shut for the last time. Pulling the door to the factory open, Duane strides in. He is master now. He is king. Those that do not, or will not defer to his authority are dealt with quickly. Whatever emasculating feelings he had are now turned upside down and inside out.
Pacing about the floor taking wide steps, his stride given a grotesquely squat like appearance, as he does his best to instill fear in those he sees as inferior. Everybody is inferior and he commands all. Pride places that well sized chip of pink quivering flesh atop his massive shoulders as his eyes nervously dart back forth looking for weakness and that inkling that somebody may be on to him.
Hiding behind his angry persona has gotten him far, but only so far, and he is confused. Like the ant the ponders the shoe as it squashes the life out of him, only realizing too late that has lost the battle, Duane wonders what he has missed. How long can this go on, he thinks. Gaining composure, he pushes such thought aside and continues his uneasy pacing, grimacing and yelling orders to those that lie in his path of destruction.
The workday over, Duane slides back into the expensive leather seats of his new truck and starts the engine. His blank expressionless face looks out over the imposing hood of the truck. Pulling the truck in gear, the great dark behemoth rolls out and back toward home, bare trees spackled with white snow race by. He must get home, the hour is getting late and there is much work to be done.
The tires crunch and squeak in the bitterly cold snow as Duane pulls up to the dark house. The fresh blanket of snow covers his footsteps from earlier, leaving a crystalline jeweled crust to the surrounding trees and ground. A thin cold wind blows Duane’s thinning hair as he steps out of the truck, one more day gone. Duane wonders what she’ll say today. She’s never happy, but then he still loved her. The bodies hanging in the shed were frozen, so he had time to catch a bite to eat. Maybe she made that lasagna he always loved, but nowadays she wasn’t feeling to well.
The cold breeze picks up and bites to the skin as Duane opens the front door. Duane does not notice the smell, he never has. Death has a smell, the deer carcass rotting on a hot summer day, the eggs the mother robin left to rot, but Duane doesn’t. Throwing his jacket on the recliner he slowly creeps into the kitchen hoping to surprise his beautiful wife. “Hi honey, I’m home!”
Copyright Michael Beechler 2008
