Chapter 4 "Face Tearing Incident"

Deli sandwich here, a little slicer action over there. Roast beef, lemon pepper turkey, ham, turkey ham, bologna, olive loaf and all the wonderful meat that somehow still leaves a distinctive odor on my hands despite the little plastic gloves. I wonder what Jaime's hands smell like when she gets off work.

I had some polite conversation with my co-workers. The two I had working with me on this day, Dade and Mona, are by far my favorite people to work with. Mona is an older lady from Kansas. She has the mouth of trucker and the forearms of a wrestler. Dade I would almost consider my friend.

We go out for drinks after work at least once a week, but the talk is usually about work or Dade's pathetic life. I'm using his words. He considers his life an abject failure on all fronts. If there was an award for the pity-party self depreciating monologue, he would receive it.

At least he's good at that. Talking to him often makes me consider my own useless existence. I am probably more usless than he is. He has been divorced and has a beautiful little girl named Cloe who he dotes on. Dade is only 27, and is the most loving father you could ever meet. He got custody of the child when his stripper wife went down the tubes with a cocaine addiction. He talks about it constantly.

I am of the opinion that he has more to live for than I do. I try to tell him this, but it's like speaking to a house cat. The expression of attention is written on the face, but he's still going to claw at your rug. We were in back of the deli, in the prep area washing some of the stainless steel stuff that we use on a daily basis when I was compelled to speak of Jaime. She had been on my mind all day.

"So, I actually talked to Jaime today."

"What's that thing you and your brother say? Ass helmet? Ass hammer?" He wasn't listening. "Choad wheel?"

"Yeah those are all pretty good ones," I said.

"What about spooge spoon?" I laughed at that one. "Or butt rug, I know, how about cunt sock?"

I let out a hearty chuckle. "You've been practicing," I giggled. My brother and I have a game we used to play. It's has to do with making a new insult out of a dirty word, and a rather mundane and pedestrian word, creating a super word. It's quite a popular thing to do now, at least amongst my circle in Denver, but the joke has somewhat run its course with me. I've always been a little more partial to the good old "motherfucker". Although last night I used "choad wheel" on Nelson. "Listen, I talked to Jaime today."

"About what?"

"I just made myself known, you know. I helped her with some stuff in the walk-in this morning."

He turned around and studied me for a second. You could tell Dade was quite a powerful fire-hydrant of a guy when he was a little younger. A few years of a marriage and depression had put on a nice layer of fat, but he still had fierceness left in his eyes. You caught it every now and then. He smirked.

"She'll probably prop you up and shoot you down, she seems like the ball-busting type."

"I don't think so," I pondered for a moment. "There seems to be this softness about her, like she's almost a little shy."

"Did you know she's the bassist in an all female punk band?" This, I did not know at all. "Shy my ass," Dade scoffed.

"Anyway, when I went by her in the prep room this morning, I just lightly touched her waist and she seemed like she was giving me the vibes, man." Dade's thick black eybrows went up and down, almost twitched. He ran his hands through his spikey black hair. I noticed he had a pretty small forehead, and at that, pretty small thick hands too.

"Hmmmm. Well, I guess you ought do something about that. If you want my advise, my friend, stay away from the co-workers. Life is stupid enough without trying to fuck your love life and your work life all in one swell fuckin foop. And she's hot too. I'm sure she knows it, and all hot girls area pain in the ass, just because they're getting naked for you, they feel like they're doing you a favor." He was getting more and more intense. "Take my ex for example..."

"Don't start on her, I'll puke."

"Yeah, how do you think I feel? That little slut robbed me of my early to mid twenties! Now, I'm fucked. Fucking fucked. I should have gone to school and dated college girls and all this other living life kind of shit. Now I don't do dick, and I'm locked into not doing dick for the rest of my life."

"Man, not this shit again," I sighed.

"Look man, I'm just warning you about life's little pitfalls. What am I saying? Life's gigantic chasms, with shit crusted spikes at the bottom."

"Can we get back on topic?" I asked. He took a deep breath. "She's in a band, huh? I'm going to use that. I could show up at one of her shows, or something like that."

"Or you could just ask her out."

"That's always awkward and weird. Hi! I've worked with you for over a year now, and now I must confess my festering love for you. No. That won't do at all. What's her band's name?"

"Boo Boo Kitty Fuck or some shit like that. Cat Power, Kitten, Kitten Shat, Little Kitty Poo Poo. Something like that. Pussy Galore. Pussy Poo Poo."

"Kinky." I mused.

"Yeah. There might be a little something to your little burger babe after all." I was scratching my head pondering the idea of finding her band in the local paper, or internet. (Nelson's card.)

"Look at you. You're all twiterpated. Man, I wish I wasn't so damaged, I could actually feel excitement for you."

"Dade, you are an incredibly morose son of a bitch sometimes."

"Sometimes it's just the way it is. You can't change it. you just have to live it, but I don't really have to be happy about the cards I was fuckin delt in life."

"You know I'm fond of saying that everything in my life is my fault. Be it good or bad, I did it. I am the only constant in my life, hence, fuck all. I mean, you got into a relationship with a stripper, she must have shown signs of mental instability, yet you had a kid, and all this shit happened and now you complain about the cards you were delt? Why don't you think about it as you were holding every card in the deck to begin with? Then you threw away a shit load of cards, and now the hand you're left with isn't so good."

I was sorry I had said that, but sometimes the truth just drips out of my mouth. It's hard to stop. He walked over to me and pulled a huge trashbag out of one of the trash cans, he glowered at me with deep set peircing grey eyes.

"You're an asshole."

"I'm not saying that you can't pick some of those cards up again, man," I tried to smooth it out. He turned away and headed towards the back door with the trash bag.

"You're still an asshole, fucking prick," he mumbled.

I brushed my hands over my face and sighed. I heard him go out the back door. "Lighten up, fucker," I said to no one in particular.

I sat there for a minute or so, thinking that I really had no right to lay it out like that to Dade when I'm the guy with the hole in his chest. I decided I'd go talk to him. We'd have a smoke outside near the dumpsters.

Just then, I heard the most amazing warscream/battlecry I had ever heard. I knew it was Dade. It was a mix of agony and extacy and rage. It pierced the cement and steel walls of King Soopers and reverberated through the warehouse and assaulted my ears with such force that before I knew it I was sprinting past dumbfounded co-workers towards the back door.

When I rounded the dock heading toward the dumpsters, the scene was so surreal that to this day, I often wonder if I actually saw it take place. Our dumpsters have two doors on them, they have the huge floppy plastic ones on the top, and there is a sliding metal door on the front that is about three feet square. Dade had obviously decided to use that sliding door on the front and was presently fighting a large rotweiler that was sticking half in the dumpster. The business end of the rotweiler was firmly attatched to Dade's arm. With a mighty pull the massive dog disappeared into the dumpster with Dade's arm. Dade's head rebounded off the side of the dumpster with a hollow "SPANG!"

I was still hurtling towards the scene and I started to notice Dade's face was covered in blood. He began laughing and swearing maniacally. "FUCK YOU, HA HA! I'LL KILL YOU! SO HELP ME GOD!! YOU FUCK!!" He heaved and did that same battlecry I heard earlier and did like a wrestling move and pulled the mammoth dog completely out of the dumpster. The beast was snarling and shaking Dade's arm about. The rotweiler had almost pulled Dade over when in some feat of wrestling dexterity Dade shot his legs around the dog's torso and flipped it over on it's back!

I had arrived at the scene, but kind of hopped around on the perimeter of the fight as if my presence was going to contain the melee. I remember thinking, "What now?" The carnage of Dade was completely gruesome. Part of his ear was hanging off. It dangled near his shoulder and there was another huge gash in his cheek going up to his forehead. His left arm was mangled and still in the beast's jaws. I started yelling at the dog. I remember saying, "Bad dog!" No shit, huh?

Dade was cursing and gurgling, and laughing. It was quite a fucking scene. Dade was strattling the dog and squeezing with his knees. Then he started hitting it right in the face with his free hand. "Kill that fucker!" I screamed. Every hit, to Dade's credit, was a neutron bomb. It was survival inspired with brute force and deadly accuracy.

The dog let go of Dade's arm. Dade rose both hands over his head and hammer clubbed the dog about the head and chest more times than I could count, all the while screaming and laughing, "I AM THE KILLER! I AM YOUR FUCKING DEMISE!" The dog was shreiking and growling. Dade got up off of his knees and the dog was quick to up end itself, but seemed punch drunk.

It staggered and turned to face me. "Come on you fucking mutt!" I was ready to kick some doggy ass. Before I could even solidify that thought into action, Dade had found a broken 2x4 from one of the pallets at the dock and layed a serious nine iron shot to the dog's head lifting it off the ground and sprawling it into the dumpster.

That was it for the dog.

For good measure, however Dade calmly walked over to the dog's limp body and nudged it with his foot. He dropped the 2x4 and picked up a cinder block next to the dumpster. Again with deadly accuracy and brute force, he administered the coup d' grace.

He turned to look at me. He was a bloody mess. He laughed, but it wasn't the maniacal laughter, it was jovial, almost really light hearted. He said, "Now how was that in anyway MY FAULT?"