BJ fell over laughing at my misfortune and his bad attempt at a joke. "I'm just fuckin witchu, dawg. She ain't comin." I thought about whooping his ass something terrible, but he always played around and I didn't know why I expected anything less of him today. "Hey Q, man, you know I'm just playin' with you, right. But on the real, I got something that I really wanted to tell you."
I glared at him after having calmed my throbbing shin down and finally let a word seethe trough my clenched teeth. "What?"
He solemnly looked at me, took a deep breath, and confessed. "I ain't never told nobody this before, but me and you we cool, right." I nodded, thinking that he had gotten himself into trouble again and wanted me to bail him out again. He continued, "I just wanted to let you know that...I take showers wit my daddy, man." He held a straight face for a couple seconds before he fell over laughing. I wanted to hit him, but I was so caught off guard that I found myself laughing as well.
We both worked for EPD or Expedited Package Delivery. BJ's was my road buddy and had been since he moved from Memphis, TN about two years ago, but his accent was still as distinct as it was the first time we spoke. I had the pleasure of meeting him on his first day at the job, and we'd been ever since.
If you were to see us from a distance, we'd mirrored each other, but up close, we're completely different. We're about the same height, and build, but that's where the similarities end. He's a dark skinned brother. Being in Memphis has given him the worn look of someone who's been in the hood too long: wearing braids all the time, donning gold teeth, a thick beard and all types of jewelry when he's off the job. He's a practical joker by nature, but since he's funny, he's allowed to get away with a lot of things that I'd never be able to.
Me, on the other hand, people call me the token pretty boy. I have more of a caramel complexion, I like my hair cut low, my face neatly trimmed, and now that I've advanced at my job, I wear a dress shirt and khakis when I'm there because looking good makes me feel good. I try to work out as often as I can and I take pride in my appearance. Some people believe its conceit, but usually those are the ones who neglect their own hygiene. I do have my vices though. I have a more serious demeanor, than most and I don't take to overbearing authority all that well.
A few weeks ago, I was promoted to manager, but I only have a semi-management position. Semi-management is just a fancy way of saying that I get to do the some of the courier job duties that I had before, but all of the paperwork that the managers don't want to do, so I'm allowed my own "office".
Hoping to avoid the queen of mean for a few hours, I was happy when we made it out to the truck without running into any trouble. Within five minutes, we were out on the road and heading towards downtown Houston.
*************
By the time we made it back to the EPD building, it had been about 5 hours. BJ jumped out the truck to get some lunch while I walked to my office to begin the day's paperwork. When I arrived, I already had 3 messages on my desk, an annoying boss staring at me and ready to yell my ears off, and it was just after noon.
When I saw her sitting in my chair, I turned to walk away when she caught me. "Q, you come back here and listen to what I have to say God-dammit." She had been fuming all morning about me being late and since she hadn't been able to curse me out earlier, her fury had bubbled over. Since I didn't particularly feel like hearing her shit today, I confessed all my wrong doings and promised to be a good little slave from now on. Content with my obedience, she left my office, and I was able to look over my messages.
My office wasn't what you'd call an office in the traditional sense. It may have consisted of four walls, a desk, and a door, but that's also where the misguiding term of 'office' ended as well. The door was consistently covered in some sort of unconquerable grime, so it always remained open, and I was surrounded by four bare turquoise walls. My desk sat in the middle of the room, and was barely six inches away from being the same sized desk I had in 8th grade. Since I didn't have any college degrees like some of the managers, or even my own nuclear family like the others, I was reduced to letting people come in and draw the occasional stick person on my wall in place of my 'pending' accomplishments. Some of them signed their names to the decorative artwork, but most of them were signed with some sort of dirty joke. I managed to relax in my soft leather chair, one I'd brought from home, which was the only saving grace in this 'office' space.
Three little, yellow post-its decorated the calendar on top of my desk, but I didn't need to see them. Being a master of predictability, I already knew who they were from. I closed my eyes, placed the cards to my forehead in the old Johnny Carson swami fashion, made my predictions.
"I see a mother, a fucker, and a motherfucker." I opened my eyes and examined the little yellow notes. It wasn't in the exact order I'd foreseen, but nevertheless, it was a perfect match. The first message I'd received came from my mother, the second from my fiancée Laela, and the final one was my best friend Andre. I smiled at the thought of me having some sort of ESP for phone messages and picked up the phone and dialed my mother, knowing that if she'd called the job, she probably wasn't happy.
"Hey ma."
"Do I know you?" She asked.
"C'mon ma, stop playing. You know it's me." She always did this when I hadn't called in a while.
"Well, I had a son that sounded a lot like you, but he hasn't called me or his father in a while, so we just assumed he either fell off the earth, into it, or got taken by the rapture. But seeing as he doesn't go to church, and we're still here, it couldn't be the rapture. You're still stuck in S-I-N, sin. Speaking of which, hurry up and get yourself married so I can get me some grandbabies?" She went on and on about other random things, but I had learned a long time ago to just pull the phone away from my ear and answer with the occasional 'Yes ma'am' and 'I understand' whenever she asked a question. "You hear what I'm telling you?!?" She always ended her soliloquy with the same question.
"Yes ma'am." And as always, my timing was perfect.
"Well then, we'll see at church tomorrow night. You need to bring in the New Year right. Are you bringing Laela with you or is she going to her own church?" She asked.
"Damn! " I thought to myself. I had no idea that I had agreed to anything with my pre-rehearsed responses, but before I could answer her question, Leslie Watson, another one of my employees, ran into my office, crouched over, and began huffing and panting like the building was on fire. "Hey ma, one of my employees just ran in, I need to call you back." She told me that she hadn't finished, but as always, I told her I lover her again and stayed on the phone until she hung up. I didn't know why I wanted to be the last to hang up, I just always did it.
As I looked her over, I noticed a few differences in her usually modest appearance. Her blue uniform shirt was hanging halfway off her frame; almost like she'd just got out of bed. Though she wasn't the best at keeping her uniform in check, it'd never been this ruffled before. Her breasts bobbed as she leaned, mostly from all the running she'd been doing in the building, and I watched them like pendulums on a grandfather clock. However disheveled she looked this morning; she was still a stunning woman. I couldn't help but question why'd she stopped in my office instead of getting to work, especially when she'd been way behind schedule.
"Uh, Leslie," I began, "what's with the track star routine? "I'd met Leslie on my first day of the job. She already had six months seniority, but was never a hard worker and that cost her in the form of advancement. When we were introduced about 5 years ago, I was single and hadn't met Laela yet, but the word around the job was that she always had man problems and carried a serious chip on her shoulder in the form of psychological issues. Sometimes when we spoke, or when I accidentally overheard her conversation, it always eluded to "...some man did this so I had to stay on his lawn and scream his name out all night" or "that nigga did that so I had to put sugar in his gas tank". If it was one thing she was good at, it was ruining my erections.
Don't get me wrong, I've never been a player. Well, almost never. I've always felt that players tend to get their lies mixed up and in the end, the lies always caught up with them. I have slept with my share of women, but my father told me that the truth can sometimes be the most natural aphrodisiac and that was one piece of advice he hadn't been wrong in administering. Sometimes I was too honest for my own damn good, and that also has its repercussions.
