Coveralls

Limbo: Consecutive Substack Story 1195

It was too cold to sit on the porch with a damn coat on, so for that extra layer of fuck the world Allen Corbes sat on the porch in a white t-shirt he didn’t know he owned.

The cold was a form of pain and gave him something to think about other than wanting something to happen.

Monday he would find out if he was hired at Precision.

Dirk pulled strings.

Allen wanted to work five tens at Precision about as much as he wanted to throw the sewer cover in the air fryer and try to eat it with hoarded packs of diablo taco sauce.

He wanted something else to happen.

Anything else.

Any semi-valid reason to tell Dirk he couldn’t take the job at Precision, though there were three openings for at least twenty applicants and Allen’s only qualification was that Dirk had proverbially ass-licked a supervisor he drove home drunk from a strip club they were coincidentally at.

Allen waited in the cold for something he didn’t want, might not get, and probably couldn’t survive without.

Allen hoped Grimaldi hit the lottery and gave him some cash, or the flash floods predicted for Laurel Township hit Presaton County too and he could file an insurance claim.

He couldn’t make anything happen, or wouldn’t.

He would sit on the porch and freeze, for all he cared.

A kid rode by on a bike, bundled up so it looked like it was hard for him to see. Maybe a truck would round the corner and hit the kid and Allen could give him CPR and get a reward.

Allen smelled smoke.

Maybe he could rescue…no, it was good smelling smoke, that dickhead Mr. Johnston was having a cozy midafternoon fire.

Allen spit, breathing in chilly air through his nostrils.

Mr.Johnston bought fancy wood.

Allen didn’t know what kind of wood it was.

Allen didn’t know how to run the machines they had at Precision, but Dirk said he’d teach him and even run out some parts for him so he would make his number in the early days.

If he got hired, which he didn’t want.

He wanted something to happen in the cold air on a gray day.

Something black and fuzzy moved on his side of the street, hopping the curb.

Lost dog.

Reward.

He’d use part of the reward to buy lottery tickets with Grimaldi.

Not a lost dog.

Something blowing.

A spider.

A Halloween decoration black spider.

It was March Friggin Twenty-Third and a Halloween decoration was blowing down the street.

The wind kicked up and now the spider looked like it was running on its useless, plastic, accordion-fold legs.

A quiver of a smile lifted Allen’s left jaw.

The wind kicked harder and the spider scurried.

Allen’s nipples beneath his white shirt were like sensitive granite.

He noticed there was a logo on the pocket of the t-shirt.

He hated logos.

If he got the job at Precision he would wear red coveralls that said Precision right above his now wind-chafed nipples.

The wind kicked even harder and the spider glided through the air, legs churning as though it was alive.

It hit the little tree in front of Allen’s rental bungalow and seemed to scurry upward, up into the tree like a real, giant spider.

Allen replayed the scene.

A million times a million times the wind couldn’t make that happen again.

He should have taken out his phone and filmed it.

It would have gone viral.

Fake spider comes alive.

If he almost laughed, kids would laugh.

Viral.

But it was too late.

The spider was now just an amorphous blob of plastic pressed against the branch of his tree.

The phone was in his hand in case the spider recovered and did something cool, something viral.

Something.

Anything.

Allen stared at the logo on the pocket.

He stared at his nipples.

The phone in his hand vibrated.

You’re in! Took Herb Black to his favorite boob ballet last night and he assured me you’re one of the three new hires.

You’ll get the email Monday, report to Gate C Tuesday.

Allen Corbes set his phone on the ledge, peeled the white t-shirt off and threw it in the bushes.

He wondered if he could sell all his clothes except his underwear and just wear the red Precision coveralls all the time.

***

Story # 1195 in a row. I hear so often that consistency and showing up are the key. Every day I strive to write something worth reading.

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Thanks in advance. I already have tomorrow’s story percolating in my head.

Photo by me. Somewhere in Hamtramck, Michigan.