Paper Clips and Rubber Bands
We fucked with peoples minutes. Their sacred minutes. Their precious minutes. The minutes they never had to pay for, the minutes they earned, the minutes they were owed. And we fucked with them. We charged them for having them in the first place. We took them from them without them even figuring it out.
Because of titties. Because of round asses. Because they were insecure just enough to pay twenty dollars for two and a half minutes, and 100 dollars for 28 minutes. Because their mothers didn’t love them, because their wives loved someone else, because they realized the minutes they possessed was the only commodity they had, and when they really looked around at the world, they actually didn’t have minutes to spare.
Every day, I took about 1 million of those minutes from people. I was the manager of this particular strip club. And I got good. Even after Rick was fired. Even after Jim disappeared. Even after Andrew and Saul and Federico were hired and tried to kill me. I still stole the most minutes. So I never died. The regionals wouldn’t have it.
To them, it was all about what was in between the paper clips and rubber bands, all the receipts slips and bank deposits in the safe. And since I put the most in it every night, no one would fuck with me.
Because they really wanted to.
I smiled all the way home, or at least to one my homes. One of them where I had a fake wife and a fake like and a fake car and a fake dinner and a fake love. The other to an empty three storey house with a lot of marijuana and bad memories.
Three years it worked like this. And then, with one signature, it was all gone.
The ending in this, and the other story for this week, are pretty intense. I’m pretty sure you’re not writing some horror thriller or anything but what I mean by this is that I keep wondering, well, how DOES the signature change anything? What about the rest of your life, besides those three years? All these things are definitely good jumping points for other stories. Also, is this the same Jim as the other story? Just curious.
Spectacular. To the point, poignant, and relevant.
“One of them where I had a fake wife and a fake like and a fake car and a fake dinner and a fake love” – I like the play of words here. However, is ‘…a fake like’ supposed to be ‘…a fake LIFE’ because that would make more sense. A ‘fake like’ is neat too. But the first thing I thought of was a typo. Also, “…or at least to one my homes” – I’m assuming an ‘of’ between ‘one’ and ‘my’
I like the tension of how this character fucks with everyone…and yet no one would or could ever fuck with him. I sensed some sort of unwarranted longing to be fucked with from the narrator…not sure if this is intentional but that’s besides the point. Neat.
Looking at the concept of time as a commodity is great – maybe play that up a little more?
i like the title of this piece, and i liked it even more when i got to the part where it tied into the story.
i am interested…about this signature. divorce? signing over a soul? hmm? and just in all the characters that you mentioned in this short piece, i am interested in knowing more of the details. especially about all the people who want to kill the main character. talk about dra-ma.
word.