Accident Prone: A Novel Read online

same speech too, I’ll bet.”

  The two of them giggled.

  “Frank is a great investigator, though. He’s just not the best at orientation. And the job is hardly as glamorous as he made it out to be. Basically you’ll just be typing out reports, doing some filing, that sort of stuff. Oh, what’s this?”

  Gail pointed at the small Tupperware container that Marion set on the table.

  “Just some salmon spread,” Marion admitted. She was guarded, afraid that this white woman would start laughing at her. “You eat it with these Pilot Bread crackers.”

  “I’ve seen those.” Gail said. “Those are the big crackers with the sailor on the box.”

  Marion nodded.

  “So you just spread it on the cracker like tuna fish?”

  “More or less,” Marion answered.

  “Can I try one?”

  Marion hesitated. She worried that this woman, who up until now had been so nice, would hate it, and if that happened Marion would be devastated.

  “Sure,” Marion answered quietly. She took the butter knife and lightly spread the salmon on the cracker, and then slid it across the table.

  “You don’t say much, do you?” Gail asked.

  Marion shook her head.

  “Thank goodness,” Gail said. “I have too many gossips in this office. At least I know you’ll get your work done.

  Marion breathed a sigh of relief, and then shuddered as she thought about her last job at the pharmacy. The store manager, at the pharmacy, had been an abusive bitch. Not only that, but that bitch, had hired all of her friends to work there. Sensing weakness, they had ganged up on her and teased her mercilessly about being so quiet. “Looks like Marion’s giving us the silent treatment,” they’d say to her and then disappear into the back room, leaving her to deal with the customers all day. The customers also hated her because she wasn’t constantly kissing their ass. It was never the ones who came in to pick up their medication either. Those people would usually sheepishly approach the counter with their medicine and say very little. It was always the ones who would come in in the middle of the day that were trouble. One memorable incident was when an old white woman screamed at her for half an hour because the pharmacy didn’t sell round-headed toothpicks, only the flat ones. The pharmacist was a sweet old man but apparently clueless about what went on in his store.

  One day her boss just fired her on the spot. She claimed that Marion had had several complaints from the customers, and stated her general laziness as grounds for dismal. Instead of being angry, Marion felt a rush of relief. This relief was tempered by the fact that her spiteful boss never mailed her her last paycheck. And, Marion sure as hell wasn’t going to go back and ask for it. She never wanted to step foot in that awful place again.

  People always took advantage of her. Marion knew it was because she never spoke up.

  “This is delicious,” Gail said.

  Marion snapped out of her pity party and forced herself to smile. The smile was her standard response when she had no idea what to say.

  “Did you make this?”

  Marion nodded at the question. Then awkwardly she added “My grandfather is a fisherman, and sends me fish.”

  And thank God he did, Marion thought. Her finances were pretty much non-existent at this point, and if it wasn’t for her grandfather shipping a box of jarred salmon to her once a month, she probably would have starved to death a long time ago.

  “Looks like we have a new dish for our potluck,” Gail chirped as she stuffed another cracker in her mouth.

  Is she going to eat my entire lunch? Marion thought in a moment of panic.

  But no, Gail stopped after two.

  “Well,” Gail said, and wiped her hands on a napkin. “Better go crack the whip upstairs.”

  Gail stood up.

  “Take your time eating your lunch, and when you get done I’ll go over what you will be doing here. Sound good?”

  Marion smiled and nodded.

  “Good. Glad to have you aboard.”

  Gail exited and Marion heard her walk up the stairs.

  Marion sat alone enjoying the silence.

  Article II: North to Alaska

  It was too quiet, the Duke thought.

  He didn’t like the quiet. It made him uncomfortable. Not that the Duke would ever admit to such a thing. He needed loud noise and distraction, especially now since he was on a long drive but God damn if the radio wasn’t busted. He had smashed it earlier in a fit of rage. The Duke had no patience for serenity. Serenity was for women. Real men, like the Duke, thrive on chaos—and that's a gospel fact.

  “Three things you will never see Saint John Wayne do,” the Duke said out loud. “You’ll never see him cry. You’ll never see him scared, and you’ll never hear him apologize— cause that’s what it means to be a real man.”

  It was these three things that the Duke lived by. Anyone who didn’t… well some folks just deserved killing don’t they?

  John Wayne was dead, had been for about five years now. But that didn’t mean there still couldn’t be a Duke. For a time, the Duke worried that this country, His Country, really was in danger of becoming weak. That it was going to be brought down by a bunch of self-righteous and entitled Commies. But then Reagan beat that pussy Carter, and Reagan had just beaten that even bigger pussy Mondale a year ago, so we could all rest assured that God was smiling down on America.

  Carter looked like a man who had done a lot of crying in his time, and Mondale looked scared. And, the pair of them were a sorry bunch of assholes.

  Reagan, on the other hand, had the Commies on the run, and that’s how it should be.

  The Duke couldn’t stand Commies, especially those folks who took advantage of the system. The American tax payer shouldn’t have to pay for anyone’s laziness, nor should Joe Citizen have to open up his checkbook every time some whore gets pregnant just so she can collect welfare. No sir. Go back to whatever country you came from asshole, because that’s not how things should work in the US of A.

  Sometimes the Duke wondered if he was the last real American left, now that John Wayne sat next to Jesus on a throne up in heaven.

  He quickly replaced the cap on the vodka bottle and hid the bottle under the seat. He liked vodka the best because it was just straight alcohol without any bullshit. That’s how the Duke led his life: straight with no bullshit.

  Still when the Duke saw the flashing red and blue lights, he thought it best to hide the evidence.

  Now, the Duke was a straight shooter, though sometimes he’d been known to stretch the truth a bit. You had to stretch the truth when it came to cops. Simple truth was a cop won’t believe an honest man. It wasn't in their nature.

  The Duke had no time for cops. They interfered with letting a man do what he needed to do. If a man can’t take of his own problems, then that fella wasn’t much of a man at all, and that’s the God’s honest truth.

  The way the Duke figured it, cops were only there to protect all the scared little pussies in the world. Best thing Reagan could do would be to get rid of all the cops, and let people fend for themselves like God intended. And those who couldn’t fend for themselves, well America would be a better place without them. Yes sir.

  The Duke slowly rolled down his window. You had to do things slowly when cops were around. “It’s probably because they are so slow in the head,” the Duke said out loud. But he would have to watch himself. Cops don’t have much of a sense of humor. Why, you could be the funniest man alive (which the Duke was), and tell the best joke on God’s green earth (which he did), but a cop will stand there and take it dead seriously.

  The cop approached. The Duke cursed low under his breath and popped a breath mint in his mouth. The Duke had hoped the cop was an older fella because the Duke knew how to talk to them. Instead, it was one of them beanos, and a young one at that. The Duke almost shook his head, but then remembered he had to watch himself. Christ Almighty what was this country coming to? Letting pe
ople like that on the force. The beanos worked cheap though, so that was probably it. Some fat cat decided that all the hard-working white folks had to go, and then replaced the entire police force with cheap Mexican equivalents.

  “Sir,” the cop said. “Did you hear me? Your license and registration please.”

  The Duke shook back into reality. He was having one of his spells again.

  “Sorry officer,” the Duke mumbled. He started to look for his license and registration, until he realized he had both items in his hand. The officer eyed him suspiciously as he handed them over.

  “Mister…” the officer began.

  “Duke. Call me Duke, son.” The Duke finished. He was starting to get that old fire again.

  “Right…” the officer said. “Do you know why I pulled you over, sir?”

  “Can’t say I do,” the Duke answered. “Was I going too fast?”

  “You were driving too slow,” came the response.

  “Is that a crime?” The Duke chuckled. Stumped you there, didn’t I, the Duke thought. The cop, devoid of any sense of humor, said nothing.

  “Reckon I was just enjoying some of your fine scenery,” the Duke continued jovially, though, truth be told he had nothing but contempt for this cop. “We don’t have mountains like these back in Dallas. No sir. This here is God’s country, no doubt.”

  The Duke wondered just how much bullshit his new friend would listen too.

  “Have you been drinking, sir?”

  “Hell no!” The Duke said. “I was a drinking man once but swore off the sauce after my wife died. I