Winter
Josephs
2. Joe Grieve
Joe Grieve
lifted himself off the Jaguar toilet seat and pivoted enough to look down at
the bowl. Even better than he had thought. Yes, there was a prolonged,
continuous exit but gravity sometimes damaged the yield. Not this time. The
Titan Missile had landed!
Mr. Grieve
moved ever so delicately to minimize sound. His older son, Stan, was somewhere
in the house and he knew how perceptive children could be. Like a lot of kids,
Stanley Patterson Grieve had an inordinate interest in personal habits. He also
seemed to have some lurk and listen tendencies.
Joe Grieve
carefully positioned then phone and snapped three quick photos. He would send
all three variations to Dark Secrets. He sent an overhead anterior shot to his
Auld Lang Syne app for analysis and sent the same version to Flushed With
Fortune to discover what prophecies might be gleaned.
Joe turned
off the phone and stealthily tucked it into the left pocket of his Baltimore
Ravens fleece. He silently zipped the pocket shut and pivoted to face the Bay
City toilet paper holder mounted on the wall. He bowed politely to the
dispenser and then used his right hand to measure out exactly one dozen
perforated sheets.
With a
surgeon’s precision Joe separated the strand between the twelfth and thirteenth
square. Swiftly but deliberately he performed a wrinkle-free stack-and-fold. He
squatted a little, bent forward ever so slightly and reached around with his
right hand. He dug deep and paused before excavating. His spirits rose as he viewed
the results. “Immaculate,” he said under his breath.
Joe studied
the output ever so carefully, scanning the white surface for signs of
discoloration. Nothing. No caulk. No paste. No goo. Nada. With a flourish, he
dropped the exam paper into the bowl.
Joe decided
on an insurance read and he repeated the process with another dozen sheets.
This time he went harder and deeper and utilized a twisting motion for good
measure. Clean as a morning snowdrift!
With his
right hand forming a sword mudra, Joe used his left hand to flush the Jaguar.
He elevated his Fruit Of The Loom briefs and Baltimore Ravens sweat pants to
their public position and stepped in front of the vanity. Joe lathered up his
hands with disinfectant soap and pressed his faucet with his left knee.
For a solid
minute, Joe Grieve dutifully scrubbed his digits. He tried to be mindful of the
process but his mind drifted from topic to topic. He lamented the Jaguar
failing to live up to its vaulted reputation. The secret gram-sensitive scale
should have weighed each event and sent the results to his phone but it failed
in that endeavor... He had spent many a weekend trying in vain to troubleshoot
the problem and he was not about to explain to his wife why a Jaguar porcelain
technician was needed to fix a perfectly functioning toilet.
Fortunately,
the Auld Lang Syne app could estimate the weight of each harvest based on size,
buoyancy, consistency, continuity and color. They had laboratory studies to
validate the accuracy. Yes, it would be good to learn each Jaguar user’s
productive volume but for now Joe would content himself with his own readings
using the ALS app.
Joe Grieve
turned off the faucet with his left knee. He flipped his hands with fingers
extended and left them elevated as he approached the paper towel dispenser
mounted next to the vanity mirror. He activated the laser reader and twelve
inches of paper descended. Joe did a tug and pull to cleanly sever the extension
as it rubbed against the piranha-sharp slide cutter.
Joe silently
voiced his prediction before checking the Auld Lang Syne estimate. Joe says 351
grams. Auld Lang Syne says…351!
If only, Joe
mused.
If only.
If only.
If only
there was a game show with big cash prizes where his observational skills and
judgment would be rewarded. A brief moment of lament.
Recently it
seemed that Joe had become almost as proficient at forecasting the Flushed With
Fortune forecast. He silently estimated The Pile Of Sooth’s predictions but
decided to check the results at his work station.
Using a
second twelve inch cut to insulate the door knob; Joe Grieve exited the second
floor bathroom and quietly stepped across the hallway to his office. There, he
sat in a black vinyl swivel chair and pressed the computer power button. As the
unit performed its start up rituals, Joe clenched his phone.
Unsurprisingly,
the POS predicted a day filled with insight, opportunity and good fortune. Joe
overlooked the excess verbiage and trite analogies. He endorsed the magician
card parallel but was unable to make sense of the I Ching, runic and
astrological comparisons. “You don’t need a weather vane to know which way the
wind blows,” Joe said aloud. He could not lose. Not today. Not on Super Sunday.
Joe did a
few cyber swerves and backtracks and landed on the doorstep of a betting site
where point spreads and propositions were displayed. Joe glanced at the screen
and placed a dime on the six point underdogs. Carpe diem.
Ever
conscious of his stealth, Joe silently descended the stairs and made a hairpin
turn to the TV room set off on the left side of the hallway. There he found his
older son, Stan, but was surprised to see his son watching a football game.
Joe was
going to ask why the game had already started but then he remembered that the
upstart league, The Southern Football League, soon to be renamed the Real Beer
Football League, played their championship games immediately before the start
of the Super Bowl. “What’s the score?” Joe asked his ever-analytical son.
“Twenty-one
to nothing,” Stan said methodically. “It just started and it’s over. I just
want to see how many points Mississippi racks up.”
Joe asked
his firstborn a questioned and was astounded by the detailed answer that filled
the father with a mixture of sadness and pride. Not so many years ago, Joe
changed his son’s diaper and now his baby had grown into an oracle.
It was not
just the breadth and depth of his son’s knowledge that impressed Joe Grieve.
Rather, it was Stan’s ability to explain things to his father in a gentle,
paternalistic manner. The son did not flaunt his knowledge. The father asked a
question and his son answered in a manner and tone that Joe found engaging.
Stan knew
the dollar values of TV contracts, franchise fees, player salaries and coaches’
salaries, as well as the rumored net worth of the owners. He discussed the
SFL’s business strategy to start out in Southern states and hoard the better
players before branching out to bigger cities and ever-expanding franchise
fees. With deeper pockets, fewer teams, and the absence of a salary cap, the SFL
was assembling an all-star league and the established league had not taken the
challenge seriously.
Stan spoke
highly of John Joseph, the league’s architect who also owned the charter team,
the Mississippi Christmas Elves. In Stan’s words, Joseph “cheated without
cheating.” He stacked the deck with team owners drawn from the richest people
on Planet Earth. They all had boundless resources, inflated egos and an
unacknowledged ignorance of American football.
“There is
something deceptively simple—or is it deceptively complex?—about American
football.” Stan hesitated so that his father could field the linguistic
question. Unsure as to which phrase was more appropriate, he asked his son,
“What do you mean?”
Stan
provided a salt mine of detail. The two oil barons owned teams that flopped for
different reasons. One micromanaged the coaches, the players, the marketing
team and the concession crew while fending off sexual harassment suits leveled
by the team’s cheerleaders, secretaries and lawyers. The other sheik liked to
watch his team’s games from an island in the Mediterranean where he refused to
take phone calls for weeks at a time.
Meanwhile,
the owner of the Louisiana Leopards, a real estate tycoon named Haruto Uwasa,
hired his son as general manager. Koki Uwasa had attended the University of
Southern California where he saw his first football game and became an instant
devotee. Koki did what most under-informed fans with a gold card would do. He
purchased aged marquee players who ultimately spent a lot of the season in
street clothes.
Joe studied
his darker-haired son as he heaped praise on John Joseph. It was Joe Grieve’s
opinion that most kids liked John Joseph until they went off to college and
learned that they were supposed to hate him. So he asked Stan outright, “What
do you think of John Joseph, the person?”
The father
was taken aback by his son’s bold statements of admiration. This was not what
Joe Grieve wanted to hear. A few weeks ago Joe’s real employer, the anonymous
wizard behind Rely Consulting, the gracious employer who had helped Joe Grieve
purchase a spacious home in rural Maryland and fund the construction of a
second house on the same property, forty acres bordering a depleted coal mine,
a place where he could watch his sons grow and fish and build tree houses, had
asked Joe if he was ready for the biggest job of his life. Then, just two days ago, Joe Grieve had been
formally asked to assassinate John Joseph.
“A little
help.” It was Joe’s wife, Camille, who had entered the kitchen door with nine
year old Christopher. They had returned from Wilt’s Groceries with supplies for
tonight’s Super Bowl gathering. Joe and Stan bounded to their soles and merrily
transported cans of soda, cans of diet soda, amethyst cookies, chocolate chip
cookies, oatmeal cookies, fudge brownies, a Frito-Lay variety pack of 1 oz.
bags, an Utzheimer variety pack of 1 oz. bags of pretzels, potato strings and
chips, a 36 unit pack of Key-Toe 2 oz. mixed nut variety pack, a
survivalist-sized box of Meato-Keto Meat Treats featuring a variety of 36
individually-wrapped Tenderized Jerky and Tenderized Jerky with Cheese packets,
a Rubicon variety pack of 1 oz. market-tested-and-failed chips now offered at a
discounted price, an artificially-sweetened cheesecake with sweetened and
unsweetened aerosol whipped cream and a five pound bag of Rainbow Marshmallows.
The gentle
flow of gemutlichkeit was briefly logjammed by Joe Grieve’s discovery that
Camille had purchased a house brand bathroom tissue in place of his
oft-mandated Premier brand. Camille would defensively explain in a hushed tone
that his stated preference was not stocked at Wilt’s and she was not about to
drive twelve miles to test her luck at Marge’s.
In silence,
Joe helped his wife stack and store the cargo in fridge, on shelf or in
cabinet. He excused himself to the smokehouse in the backyard in the backyard
where he had started a pork roast, a leg of lamb, four Cornish hens and two
ducks in the Vulcan Windowed Smoker. Joe loved the smokehouse because it was
the first structure he had completed with his two sons. More a labor of love
than craftsmanship, it featured a not so level concrete floor, four block
walls, two plexiglass windows, a slanted metal roof and a sheet metal chimney
that leaked rain and failed at all normal chimney functions.
The room was
large enough to host the windowed Vulcan, a discount charcoal grill and two
lawn chairs. Joe had originally planned to keep the propane grill in the
enclosure but unresolved venting issues made him reconsider the wisdom of
storing explosive gas in its designated stall. The propane grill now rested in
a Super Cool Shrink Wrap Moisture Guard Tarp under a large red maple tree.
The door was
propped open and Joe rested on the foldout black and purple lawn chair planted
just inside the entrance. Through the Vulcan window he could see the meats were
cooking nicely. He planned to grill hot dogs and hamburgers and conclude all
cooking duties prior to his in-laws’ arrival so that he would be able to
provide his guests undivided attention.
Outside it
was a cold, drizzly 42 degrees but Joe was warmed with the Vulcan’s cozy
emanations. He took advantage of his respite to perform a review of upcoming
events. He had stashed a couple of rolls of Premier in ready-to-go travel bags
in his bedroom closet. He could route the cheap rolls to other toilets and keep
the Premier in the master bathroom. A lot of stores ran out of select items on
weekends. On Monday, Wilt’s would have the shelves nicely congested.
Then again,
Wilt’s could fall behind with just one or two call-outs. A few Super hangovers
could mean that Premier might not be available until Monday evening or even
Tuesday morning. Might have to drive to the larger and more dependable Marge’s
and stock up. Maybe Marge’s would be the first stop after he dropped off the
kids at school.
Tonight
could be tolerable and it could be a dumpster fire. Camille’s parents would be
their kind and gracious selves. But Camille’s brother, James, and his Brillo
pad wife, Sissy, and their three smart ass daughters were not so easy to
predict.
Everyone
expected James to upgrade his personality after he stopped drinking. No
Camille, your brother is not a dry drunk. Your brother is an asshole.
The girls do
not engage in normal kid banter. Stayce to Paige: “I hope you get raped by a
pack of Negroes.” Who talks like that these days?
Paige to
Maggie: “I hope your kids get cancer.”
Maggie to
Stayce: “Your breath smells like a yeast infection.” How does a nine year old
know what a yeast infection smells like?
The girls
save their most toxic comments for their mother. Why do they hate Sissy so
much? Sure, Sissy is stupid and callous and rude and manipulative and she talks
incessantly but even on a bad day she is easier on the senses than her greasy
haired, ferret-faced husband. It’s not that they are afraid to sass their
father. They constantly remind him that he is an unemployed jailbird loser with
bad teeth and thinning hair but those are just factual assertions. With Sissy,
the insults are more personal.
Got to give
them structure, Joe Grieve reminded himself. The master of ceremonies will keep
the show moving. Yeah.
Joe Grieve’s
attention drifted back to his professional life. He had been asked to
assassinate John Joseph. Never before had he been asked to slay a public
figure. Typically, he was asked to eliminate a shadowy character in someplace
like Juarez or Montreal. Stateside, he usually worked the DC suburbs. None of
his previous assignments were household names and now he was asked to eliminate
one of the most famous people on the planet. Why?
The Super
Bowl went better than Joe thought possible. A little over ten years ago, Joe
had a house built at the bottom of the hill that was specially designed for
large people. One story, reinforced floors, walk-in tub, Nephilim furniture
that could easily accommodate 500 pound loads.
Frank and
Joanne would leave their split-level Georgia home to move into their dream
house downhill from their loving daughter and her lively family. The Pattersons
would discover the wonders of ketosis and each would shed over forty percent of
their body weight, though medical professionals would still consider them
obese. Frank was able to once again drive his rig and things were almost
idyllic. Then James got another DWI, did another stretch in the county jail and
ultimately moved his family to rural Maryland where they would live with his
mother and father. Bye bye idylls.
The horde
arrived an hour before kickoff. The Grieve home had long ago been fitted with Brobdingnagian
accessories and Joe seated Frank and Joanne on the Titanic bison leather
loveseat that directly faced the wallscreen. The girls seated themselves
between and beside the Grieve boys on the brown leather Rephaite wraparound. They
always seemed intrigued by the boys’ new gadgets and interests, no matter how
short the parting.
With
Camille’s devoted and refined kitchendom on display, Joe was able to fully to
engage his audience. The wallscreen was transformed into a board displaying the
numbers 00 to 99. “Mom, as the matriarch, you have first choice. Please pick a
number from double zero to ninety-nine!” Joe instructed in a strong imitation
of Ed McMahon.
“Seventeen!”
she replied innocently and the word “Mom” was written in the square.
“Dad! A
number between double zero and ninety-nine that is not seventeen.”
“Forty-five.”
Sissy was
offered a pick, followed by James, followed by the three girls and finally, the
two boys. “The winner will receive one hundred dollars,” Joe announced to the
assembled. This was met by shrieks and gasps followed by an endless stream of
questions concerning the rules of the game.
As the
national anthem was sung Joe passed around a basket of envelopes. Seven of them
contained blank note cards. One had the word “Tails” written on it, another
“Heads”. Following the ritualistic coin toss on television, Joe barked out
further instructions. “Whoever holds the heads card wins this crisp ten dollar
bill. Ladies and gentlemen, please check your envelopes.”
Christopher
winced a childish noise and accepted the prize from his father. Thus, the stage
was set. In all, Joe would hand out $242 in prizes, more than offset by the
thousand dollar wager he landed when the six point underdogs won outright.
At various
points of interruption the master of ceremonies was able to conduct an informal
focus group on their opinions of John Joseph. Frank mentioned that James Joseph,
John’s father, had opened treatment facilities to treat dangerously obese
people. They located them on Indian reservations and rural areas to stimulate
impoverished communities.
James cut in
immediately. “Old man Joseph spun off reality TV shows about his bullshit that
generated a fortune for his company. And he took a tax write-off for starting
those fat boy clubs. He’s a con artist. The whole family should be thrown in
Leavenworth.”
The room
turned into an ongoing argument interspersed with the occasional touchdown and the
more frequent announcement of a Joe Grieve contest winner. Camille served
homemade potato salad, potato salad and pasta salad to all but Frank and Joanne
who repeatedly confirmed their devotion to the keto lifestyle.
Joe observed
his three nieces repeat everything Stan said but with louder, shriekier voices.
Mostly, James and Frank exchanged opposing
viewpoints and nothing James said or did redeemed him in Joe’s eyes. James was
a ferret-faced stickman from a family of cuddly cumulus clouds. He was so different
in voice and manner and temperament that Joe privately questioned his
mother-in-law’s virtue. Your husband was on the road for how many days at a
time, Mrs. Patterson? Was the mail in that God-forsaken Georgia town delivered
by a ferret-faced stickman, Mrs. Patterson? Were there no four-legged animals
at your disposal, Mrs. Patterson?
James called
the halftime entertainers “a bunch of slurpy faggots” and shouted over their
vocals. For the duration of the evening, James would alternate his professed
expertise of the gridiron with his antipathy for John Joseph. “I hope the whole
Goddamn family dies in a plane crash."
Midway
through the third quarter Joe Grieve reached the conclusion that he would
decline the offer to assassinate John Joseph.
